Jotari's Three Tier Branching Class Tree (now with Engage classes)

[Jotari]

27 minutes ago, Bhoop said:

Are you actually planning on implementing all of this in GBA? I

Nope. At least not right now. It's something thare merely exists for the sake of itself.

[Bhoop]

56 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Nope. At least not right now. It's something thare merely exists for the sake of itself.

Ok. (Brain ticks...)

[Reck]

All this class tree is awesome! but... where is bards?

Really really amazing job!

[NeoMasterZX]

This is a hell of a thing. But judging by the main large image, shouldn't it be a "Class Web" rather than a "tree"? Though, naming semantics aside, how could such a large number of classes be properly balanced? There'd almost certainly be one that winds up being miles better than any other class, at least, maybe in each group. And as far as individual classes go, while I'm not saying you have to change it, it's always bothered me when a non protagonist class has "Lord" in the name, but as I said, that's just me. Don't worry about changing that if you don't want to, naming stuff is hard, I've experienced that first hand myself.

[Re: The weirdo.]

yo @Jotari when i looked down at the bottom right, and saw promoted roy, subtitled *WERE DRAGON* i actually fucking choked.

pay up, insurance is watching

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, NeoMasterZX said:

This is a hell of a thing. But judging by the main large image, shouldn't it be a "Class Web" rather than a "tree"? Though, naming semantics aside, how could such a large number of classes be properly balanced? There'd almost certainly be one that winds up being miles better than any other class, at least, maybe in each group. And as far as individual classes go, while I'm not saying you have to change it, it's always bothered me when a non protagonist class has "Lord" in the name, but as I said, that's just me. Don't worry about changing that if you don't want to, naming stuff is hard, I've experienced that first hand myself.

I have made several attempts to balance things other than pure weapon and movement types. Namely by assigning mastery skills and growth rates to the classes (link). I think my biggest concern for balance is between Black Knight and Sentinel. On the whole, mono weapon users are get to be stronger and have extra class skills, but I kind of want the Black Knight class's hat to be very high caps and growths, which leaves Sentinel as kind of inferior. So far I've given them pretty similar growths with Sentinel focusing on speed and skill over pure strength, but I'm still not sure I'm happy, I also don't want to remove mono weapon users entirely. Sentinel does have one movement point over Black Knight and no weakness to armourslayers, so maybe it's not too bad. There's inevitably going to be some classes that are better than others, even when we have only two promotion options that happens (Sniper vs Bow Knight in Sacred Stones is a pretty bad example) but for what is possible, I think I've done a pretty good job.

8 hours ago, (s)ad touch said:

yo @Jotari when i looked down at the bottom right, and saw promoted roy, subtitled *WERE DRAGON* i actually fucking choked.

pay up, insurance is watching

Jotari or anyone representing Jotari is completely unliable for any injuries that may be contracted while appreciating the amazingness of Jotari's Branching Class Tree. Jotari recommends grounding your expectations by replaying The Sacred Stones.

9 hours ago, Reck said:

All this class tree is awesome! but... where is bards?

Really really amazing job!

I gave you seven dancers man, there's no need for bards. Although, now that I think about it, I could have them use magic as a reference to Levin. And then a mounted pegasus promotion to reference Shigure. That would just leave four tier 3 spots that need differentiating from the others. They could provide different buffs while refershing as opposed to the Dancers changing up how things are refreshed and now I need to stop!

 

Edited July 3, 2018 by Jotari

[Jotari]

Here's a simplified version of the tree where Tier 1 units only have two promotion options.

[Jotari]

Made a slight edit to stop Mage being able to promote to Arch Sage from two different tier 2 classes. Now Wizards promote to Thamatugys, which means they've also swapped out light magic for dark magic. Looking at the word's origin, it's meant to describe miracles brought about by distinctly non religious means, so dark magic works I think. Although now oddly dark magic is more prevalent than light magic on the tree.

I also added a poll to see if I should use some of the Echoes Overclass names instead of my current ones. If anyone has any other suggestions for names or anything else then I'm all ears (I've always thought Thamatugy is a bit unwieldly as names go talking of that class).

Edited January 3, 2019 by Jotari

[Athicus]

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

Made a slight edit to stop Mage being able to promote to Arch Sage from two different tier 2 classes. Now Wizards promote to Thamatugys, which means they've also swapped out light magic for dark magic. Looking at the word's origin, it's meant to describe miracles brought about by distinctly non religious means, so dark magic works I think. Although now oddly dark magic is more prevalent than light magic on the tree.

I also added a poll to see if I should use some of the Echoes Overclass names instead of my current ones. If anyone has any other suggestions for names or anything else then I'm all ears (I've always thought Thamatugy is a bit unwieldly as names go talking of that class).

As it happens I did think of a few alternative names as I was looking over this. Keep in mind these are all down to personal preference, though.

Firstly I’d swap Mage Fighter out for Spellblade, since the word Fighter is mostly associated with axes throughout the series and I’d say Spellblade gives a clearer picture of the tools that class can utilise.

Then there’s Hide Hunter which I think could either be Poacher or Predator, depending on the feel you want for it. Poacher allows it to be more of a bandit style class that can show up often in enemy groups late game, while Predator gives more of a Ranger-y feel.

As for Thaumaturge, I do agree that it something isn’t quite right with it. “Arcanist” did pop into my mind but I’m not sure if it would be distinctly better, especially since there are other classes it would be more appropriate for.

[Jotari]

On 1/4/2019 at 3:24 PM, Athicus said:

As it happens I did think of a few alternative names as I was looking over this. Keep in mind these are all down to personal preference, though.

Firstly I’d swap Mage Fighter out for Spellblade, since the word Fighter is mostly associated with axes throughout the series and I’d say Spellblade gives a clearer picture of the tools that class can utilise.

Then there’s Hide Hunter which I think could either be Poacher or Predator, depending on the feel you want for it. Poacher allows it to be more of a bandit style class that can show up often in enemy groups late game, while Predator gives more of a Ranger-y feel.

As for Thaumaturge, I do agree that it something isn’t quite right with it. “Arcanist” did pop into my mind but I’m not sure if it would be distinctly better, especially since there are other classes it would be more appropriate for.

Mage Fighter actually is a class in the series already, taken from Genealogy of the Holy War, and Hide Hunter is a class from Tear Ring Saga. If either of them ever gets a remake I'd probably change the name to the localized one (course I'm highly doubtful Tear Ring Saga will ever get a remake so I might just go Poacher on that one). Arcanist actually seems very fitting now that I've decided to swap out light magic for dark and Thamuturgy, although now I've run into a different problem where I don't think the represented sprite would really fit the name even though the class does.

EDIT: Follow up, I changed Thamaturge to Arcanist and also managed to edit the sprite. Some of my best work yet I think

Also shuffled some of the fliers around so it's possible to get a Dragonlord with a decent sword rank. This knocked off two classes from the total number on the tree.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Jotari

[Jotari]

Took the polls into account and changed Dark Flier to Harrier. The other Shadows of Valentia overclass names don't seem to be as popular as my original ones. I also shuffled up the Mounted section a bit, born from a desire to have Great Knight available with a semi decent Sword Rank. This gave rise to the Conqueror class from Awakening making a return. It has Axes (because Whalhart), Bows and Swords (because of Alm). It's nice to work in more classes from the series rather than using my own. Although this does now mean Dark Knights get lances instead of Swords which I'm not completely happy with. I think that's all the editing I'll do on the tree until Three Houses is released and give me more stuff to work with.

[Sythion]

Just wanted to say, I love this!

[Jotari]

36 minutes ago, Sythion said:

Just wanted to say, I love this!

Me too! Thanks for the appreciation. I'm currently working on implementing Three Houses Gauntlets. I've mostly worked out out a new branch, my only hesitation being that i really want a "Griel" class that uses Swords-Gauntlets and can promote to either Vanguard or Black Knight. My only issue is that mercenary needs to promote into it which means axing one of its current three promotions, all of which seem necessary.

[Jotari]

So here is my new updated tree, now with Three Houses classes included. Of the most noteable thing introduced in Three Houses for the purpose of this is of course Gauntlets as a weapon type. This necessitated a whole new branch to the tree and had a very big knock on effect to Mercenary and Fighter lines. I brought back Smith from Fates to be an Axe/Gauntlet user (found it weird how Smith and Hero had the exact same weapon combination in Fates). Throwing this option on Fighter meant Fighters can no longer promote to battle clerics at tier 2, though they can promote into a tier 3 version via Smith.

Perhaps the most fun introduction here is a new second tier class called Greil which uses Swords/Gauntlets. Ike punches and kicks in Smash Bros. and Geril's rough style of swordsmanship looks like it would allow for gauntlet use. The Black Knight also pushes people around a lot witht he shove animation in Path of Radiance. The Greil class can promote to either Vanguard or Black Knight. Which means there's finally a route to Black Knight that can be sword focused from tier 1, something I always considered a weakness of the class. Swapping the names of Warmaster and Vanguard would be more appropriate (given Warmaster uses gauntlets in Three Houses, and Alm, another protagonist of the 'Hero' class like Ike uses bows), but I'm kind of attached to my little Tellius reference. Ike and Zelguis are the two potential paths people learning the way of Greil can thread down.

Most of Fates's classes are just renamed versions of older classes. The open weapon system meant there were few readily identifiable new classes. Hence outside of Gauntlets, the only other class I really wanted to implement was Barbarossa. This provides an alternative to Kinshi as a flying bow user that's a bit more resilant to physical attacks. It required a bit of restructuring, but wasn't much of a problem to implement.

Edited November 30, 2019 by Jotari

[Jotari]

Someone's working on making better custom sprites for the classes on the tree, which is nice as mine are not great! Check it out here.

https://forums.serenesforest.net/index.php?/topic/93115-dans-sprites-feedback-appreciated/

[Garlicbread621]

Do you plan on implementing this in a project of your own or just making this some kind of community asset?

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Garlicbread621 said:

Do you plan on implementing this in a project of your own or just making this some kind of community asset?

No, there is no express purpose designed for it, it's done purely for the enjoyment of doing it. Community asset seems like it's giving it too much proprs, if anyone wants to use it for their own project they're absolutely welcome to, but I didn't make it actually expecting anyone to. Such a game that it would fit into would either need to be quite long or have a very rapidly growing exp curve. Maybe some day I might make a game with it, but the next fan game I do plan to make I have no intention of using it for.

[Garlicbread621]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

No, there is no express purpose designed for it, it's done purely for the enjoyment of doing it. Community asset seems like it's giving it too much proprs, if anyone wants to use it for their own project they're absolutely welcome to, but I didn't make it actually expecting anyone to. Such a game that it would fit into would either need to be quite long or have a very rapidly growing exp curve. Maybe some day I might make a game with it, but the next fan game I do plan to make I have no intention of using it for.

Oh okay. yeah i was wondering what kind of monstrous project could feature all these classes . lol

Sacred Stones was my first FE so I'm kind of a sucker for branches. This was very fun to look through, good job!

[Jotari]

Just now, Garlicbread621 said:

Oh okay. yeah i was wondering what kind of monstrous project could feature all these classes . lol

Sacred Stones was my first FE so I'm kind of a sucker for branches. This was very fun to look through, good job!

Thanks. I'm horribly proud of it myself, so the validation from others is always very much appreciated.

[Jotari]

Been quite a while since I updated my class tree. But with another game out there's more opportunity to encapsulate the series as a whole. So I've added the Qi Adept staff punching classes. This means clerics no longer promote to War Clerics, instead, only Fighters do, which is a bit odd, but it's unavoidable, unless I separate Troubadour out and make it a tier 1 class.

Wolf Knight has also been added, but it's a much simpler fix, merely being another option for Assassin where previously I had had an original class called Guerrilla.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Been quite a while since I updated my class tree. But with another game out there's more opportunity to encapsulate the series as a whole. So I've added the Qi Adept staff punching classes. This means clerics no longer promote to War Clerics, instead, only Fighters do, which is a bit odd, but it's unavoidable, unless I separate Troubadour out and make it a tier 1 class.

Wolf Knight has also been added, but it's a much simpler fix, merely being another option for Assassin where previously I had had an original class called Guerrilla.

Loathe as I am to see this behemoth ooze further beyond its shabby containment... yeah, Troubadour as it's own first-tier class would make sense. I noticed that there don't appear to be any hybrid cavalry, outside of the landlocked "Master Knight" class. Seems like a stream of untapped potential for the Troubadour. I.e. start with just Staves, then have one promotion with Anima, another with Swords, and a third with some other support option (like Rallies or Convoy).

A more "out there" option would be to make Falcon Knight a potential Troubadour promotion. Maybe her horse gains wings? That would integrate the flying classes into the bigger mess... which may or may not be desirable.

[Jotari]

9 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Loathe as I am to see this behemoth ooze further beyond its shabby containment... yeah, Troubadour as it's own first-tier class would make sense. I noticed that there don't appear to be any hybrid cavalry, outside of the landlocked "Master Knight" class. Seems like a stream of untapped potential for the Troubadour. I.e. start with just Staves, then have one promotion with Anima, another with Swords, and a third with some other support option (like Rallies or Convoy).

A more "out there" option would be to make Falcon Knight a potential Troubadour promotion. Maybe her horse gains wings? That would integrate the flying classes into the bigger mess... which may or may not be desirable.

There's actually a few hybrid cavalry strewen about the place. Troubadour does exist as a tier 2 class and can promote to the Valkyrie class, a sword, tome stave class as a throw back to Mist. Soldiers and Monks can also eventually promote to Crusader,  a light lance cavalry class. Cavalry and druids can also promote to Death Knight, an axe, lance, dark magic cavalry class.

One possible way of constraining the whole project a bit might be to eliminate Light and Dark magic as separate weapon types, as, aside from Heroes (where even there it's more nebulous), it does feel like the series has move away from that dichotomy quite a few years ago.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

There's actually a few hybrid cavalry strewen about the place. Troubadour does exist as a tier 2 class and can promote to the Valkyrie class, a sword, tome stave class as a throw back to Mist. Soldiers and Monks can also eventually promote to Crusader,  a light lance cavalry class. Cavalry and druids can also promote to Death Knight, an axe, lance, dark magic cavalry class.

Oh, I guess I missed those. I knew (tier 2) Troubadour existed already, but thought its promotions got Dark and Light. My proposal would be to revert Troubadour to tier 1, then go from there. Or if you want "Staff + Anima Tier-2 Troubadour" to persist, you could call the tier 1 version "Rod Knight", as in Fates.

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

One possible way of constraining the whole project a bit might be to eliminate Light and Dark magic as separate weapon types, as, aside from Heroes (where even there it's more nebulous), it does feel like the series has move away from that dichotomy quite a few years ago.

So there'd be Swords, Lances, Axes, Bows, Crossbows, Knives, Shurikens, Gauntlets, and... one kind of offensive magic? I mean, it's up to you, but I wouldn't be a big fan of that degree of asymmetry. Plus, I think there's a lot of "flavor" that comes from each class of Magic. You get pious Light Mages, nerdy Anima Mages, and edgey Dark Mages. Trying to capture them all in one would, I worry, collapse the class variety into something more generic.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Oh, I guess I missed those. I knew (tier 2) Troubadour existed already, but thought its promotions got Dark and Light. My proposal would be to revert Troubadour to tier 1, then go from there. Or if you want "Staff + Anima Tier-2 Troubadour" to persist, you could call the tier 1 version "Rod Knight", as in Fates.

There is precedent for Troubadour promoting into Battle Cleric too, so it needn't increase the overall number of classes that much.

6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

So there'd be Swords, Lances, Axes, Bows, Crossbows, Knives, Shurikens, Gauntlets, and... one kind of offensive magic? I mean, it's up to you, but I wouldn't be a big fan of that degree of asymmetry. Plus, I think there's a lot of "flavor" that comes from each class of Magic. You get pious Light Mages, nerdy Anima Mages, and edgey Dark Mages. Trying to capture them all in one would, I worry, collapse the class variety into something more generic.

That could still be achieved without the weapon ranks though, and to some extent they have done that with the likes of Nyx and Tharja. Though I guess Fateswakenings did have Dark Magic still just as a class skill instead of a weapon type. But, that's kind of fine, no? Just like there are two sword infantry, Mercenary and Myrmidon, with Myrmidon sometimes getting exclusive weapons (Wao Dao, Shamashir), there can be two or three mage classes of monk, mage, druid that follow the visual aesthetics and archetypes but using the same weapon ranks of tomes. It's not a path I'm dead set on, but it's something I'll give some thought too.

Edit: Though I guess if my argument is monks and dark mages without dark and light magic, it doesn't meet the initial aim of constraining the tree anyway. So it'd be about the same complexity without the variety.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Jotari

[Andem1]

Which classes are genderlocked? (If there are genderlocks, which I assume there are)