I Find That Felica is Better Than Jakob

[eclipse]

Which makes me wonder what we are trying to point out here.

With a little bit of reading and creative thinking, you'll figure it out. Like below:

She will not be on the frontlines in the EP. On PP she will move to what WAS the frontlines, as they will then become the backline of the next turn. it's not hard.

Great for a turtling strategy, not-so-great for just about every other one. So again, unless you're willing to pay attention to how other people play, which means a -20 Avoid is a Very Bad Thing, keep it to yourself.

[Augestein]

With a little bit of reading and creative thinking, you'll figure it out. Like below:

A bit condescending much? I'm asking what point he wants to make. If we've acknowledged that Jakob is better, why bother mentioning a strategy that caters to a very specific strategy Especially when your response is:

Great for a turtling strategy, not-so-great for just about every other one. So again, unless you're willing to pay attention to how other people play, which means a -20 Avoid is a Very Bad Thing, keep it to yourself.

Which is basically telling him "stop talking."

Which again leads me to ask which makes me wonder what we are trying to point out here.

That Felicia is usable? Well that's obvious.

[Alastor15243]

Personally I agree that the avoid penalty of the flame shuriken doesn't matter, if only because I would never put a unit in a position where I'm relying on their avoid to save them. If your strategy doesn't work if you get moderately unlucky RNs, it's not a very good strategy.

But if you're looking for a glass cannon player phase attacker there are sooooo many better options than Felicia.

[eclipse]

A bit condescending much? I'm asking what point he wants to make. If we've acknowledged that Jakob is better, why bother mentioning a strategy that caters to a very specific strategy Especially when your response is:

Which is basically telling him "stop talking."

Which again leads me to ask which makes me wonder what we are trying to point out here.

That Felicia is usable? Well that's obvious.

The first part of the reply was for you. The second wasn't.

EDIT:

Personally I agree that the avoid penalty of the flame shuriken doesn't matter, if only because I would never put a unit in a position where I'm relying on their avoid to save them. If your strategy doesn't work if you get moderately unlucky RNs, it's not a very good strategy.

But if you're looking for a glass cannon player phase attacker there are sooooo many better options than Felicia.

My units need to be able to dodge/absorb a hit or two (including Azura), and that's not negotiable.

Edited December 28, 2016 by eggclipse

[Augestein]

The first part of the reply was for you. The second wasn't.

My point still stands. I know what the topic is about. However, that's already been shown. That was still rude. Extremely.

@Everyone else

The FS avoid does matter because it has a rather nasty penalty. Plain and simple. A hit that would be 60% suddenly becomes 80% when using the FS. That's pretty significant. Whether your playstyle can cover up that weakness doesn't matter. When you hit an argument about playstyle, there's not much more to discuss on the account that how much weight that negative has is a matter of opinion. Simply having the ability to not have to worry about healing someone on the next phase allows for a more aggressive playstyle. On the account that you can spend less time healing unless you are extremely unlucky.

My units need to be able to dodge/absorb a hit or two (including Azura), and that's not negotiable.

Considering that both can be OHKOed by enemies at moments, going for dodge with them is a horrible idea. Felicia probably isn't going to be in range by virtue that even if she didn't have the FS equipped, she'd still be in a bad position if an enemy looked at her.

Either way, I'm out. Topic has flown way off the deep end. It's seemingly no longer about Jakob v Felicia.

[guedesbrawl]

My point is simple: the avoid penalty from Flame Shuriken as well as any other magical weapon outside of Levin sword on people with Duelist's Blow/Breakers for high accuracy weapons simply does not matter for almost the entire cast in Fates. Why?

Because this is not like the previous Fire Emblems. In the gBa games, Tellius games or even Awakening if you saw an enemy with something like 63% hit rate you could feasibly ignore the possibility that they would hit you. In Fates it is dangerous to do so until they get around the 30% hit threshold, which you only really achieve with Duelist's Blow or Breakers. Eneemies in CQ are accurate enough that you will rarely be reaching these levels of avoid without some skill building.

There is effectively no difference between 60% and 80% in this game if you are thinking of "maybe its safe to leave this unit exposed to things that kill her on hit during EP". Neither are safe enough to be relied on, and the non-Corrin units who can come the closest to becoming dodgetanks

Felicia is an even more egregious case, because her DEF+HP is pathetic. She is not to be used against physical enemies if they can hit you back, because that "hit you back" means "they kill her on counter strike". Even if you give her a hacked Flame Shuriken that has no -20AVO she will not hit reliable avoid rates against non-magical enemies. Which means you are forced to only use her to hit people who can't strike back, or to deliver killing blows (well, she tends to take a hit from magical weapons reasonably well for her HP, so there is that too.)

The one point where it does hurt her as a unit is CQ26 because of Heartseeker and freeze staves, as you are forced to think a little in regards to positioning instead of just throwing her at them and letting her dodgetank everything with no deeper strategies involved because her safe dodge percentages can suddenly be raised by more than 40%. Felicia has good rEs but her HP and the sheer MT of some of those Sorcs makes her a two hit wonder.

It just so happens that outside of those magic units, the others still have really, really low hit rates on Felicia even with Flame Shuriken.

In CQ there are only two units that are hurt by that avoid penalty: Niles... but Shining Bow on Adventurer!Niles gives too many advantages for that to really hinder the player. (I suppose it helps that Shining Bow is rather useless against most of the things niles would want to Dodgetank due to WTA...); and Odin, who can stack WTA and Duelist's Blow for some really high avoid on Axes and Bows. when reclassed to Samurai, that is.

In BR that award go to Subaki, who can do avoid stacking in both phases and might prefer to go for it instead of Bolt Naginata.

REV makes Hana suffer as well since she can, theoretically, start using a Levin Sword.

[Dark Holy Elf]

On the one hand, the avoid penalty from magic weapons does matter, especially on someone with a -breaker skill. I don't really care that it turns 60 hit into 80 hit since I'll be assuming 60 hit lands anyway (more on this in a moment), but I do care that it turns 10 hit into 30 hit. The Flame Shuriken makes it harder for Felicia to completely laugh off mages.

On the other hand, the reason turning 60 hit into 80 hit isn't a big deal especially for Felicia is due to Live to Serve. Normally the big advantage of facing 60 hit over 80 hit is that there's a higher chance you won't need to heal this unit. In the case of Felicia, she heals herself automatically when she heals someone else, so it's not really that big a deal.

[Guardian]

On the other hand, the reason turning 60 hit into 80 hit isn't a big deal especially for Felicia is due to Live to Serve. Normally the big advantage of facing 60 hit over 80 hit is that there's a higher chance you won't need to heal this unit. In the case of Felicia, she heals herself automatically when she heals someone else, so it's not really that big a deal.

But if an enemy can do major damage or Felicia get targeted by multiple enemies, would it really be a good idea to risk her taking too much damage? Sure, if the enemy is magic-based, then it would not be as bad, but I just don't see the risk too rewarding.

You could just give Felicia her "personal weapon" as it is magic based, and only gives -10 Avoid, lowering the risk of being hit by half, and still doing somewhat good damage.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm not going to risk Felicia taking damage from 60% hits that will kill her if they all hit, so it's moot. Again, the difference between 60 hit and 80 hit on anyone is kind of eh, but on Felicia is worth almost nothing.

Felicia's Plate is (a) not a reliable thing to have like all the goofy named weapons, and (b) is significantly worse: -5 might, -2 Speed compared to Flame Shuriken, which also means the avoid boost is only +7 anyway. (Though it does also have +10 hit.)

[Brand_Of_The_Exalt]

The Flame Shuriken makes it harder for Felicia to completely laugh off mages.

Huh, maybe you should not attack mages with a Flame Shuriken...

I agree that relying on a single weapon is not a good thing however. But the fact that it is a 2-ranged weapon makes it less bad.

TBH I don't really like any of the Maids/Butlers the game gives you.

[guedesbrawl]

On the one hand, the avoid penalty from magic weapons does matter, especially on someone with a -breaker skill. I don't really care that it turns 60 hit into 80 hit since I'll be assuming 60 hit lands anyway (more on this in a moment), but I do care that it turns 10 hit into 30 hit. The Flame Shuriken makes it harder for Felicia to completely laugh off mages.

This is only a issue in CQ26+, really. Mages still don't do enough damage on Felicia before that for one to really care that ONE got a lucky shot in, for the most part. You can still get screwed by that if you ar eplanning on defending against Bolt stuff, I suppose.

And by the point this becomes an issues, enemies have found ways of screwing with your dodgetanking via skills and staves.

Huh, maybe you should not attack mages with a Flame Shuriken...

I agree that relying on a single weapon is not a good thing however. But the fact that it is a 2-ranged weapon makes it less bad.

TBH I don't really like any of the Maids/Butlers the game gives you.

Then Felicia does not attack at all, given that she lacks the STR to scratch enemy mages with any physical shuriken.

[Brand_Of_The_Exalt]

Then Felicia does not attack at all, given that she lacks the STR to scratch enemy mages with any physical shuriken.

Yes. It might work early-game thanks to Flame Shuriken's high might and Felicia's bases but she'll end up doing quite low damage against them (even Oni Chieftain because of their high HP). I'm quite surprised that CQ endgame Onmiojys' Res is only 24. And even so, she'll do something like 10 x2 (if you gave her a Spd bonus or got slightly lucky with her Spd) damage. And she'll take 20 damage if she does not avoid. You better attack them with someone else...

Edited December 28, 2016 by Brand_Of_The_Exalt

[guedesbrawl]

Yes. It might work early-game thanks to Flame Shuriken's high might and Felicia's bases but she'll end up doing quite low damage against them (even Oni Chieftain because of their high HP). I'm quite surprised that CQ endgame Onmiojys' Res is only 24. And even so, she'll do something like 10 x2 (if you gave her a Spd bonus or got slightly lucky with her Spd) damage. And she'll take 20 damage if she does not avoid. You better attack them with someone else...

Felicia will be stuck healing in that map.

good for Elise who will be free to DV/kill

[SalShich10N]

As an individual unit, Felicia trumps over Jakob by a long shot. She has better damage, better speed and better staves. It's when you consider the unit as a support unit for the Avatar and for that shelter gimmick on Azura that Jakob wins, but that's mostly LTC stuff.

[Dark Sage]

As an individual unit, Felicia trumps over Jakob by a long shot. She has better damage, better speed and better staves. It's when you consider the unit as a support unit for the Avatar and for that shelter gimmick on Azura that Jakob wins, but that's mostly LTC stuff.

See this is funny because Jakob destroys Felicia in virtually all these categories and because of how poorly magic scales with healing, her healing advantage over him is miniscule.

Jakob can go Paladin and turn the entire early game into a joke and still continue to dominate all the way into lategame. Felicia's combat sucks massive dick unless she goes Dark Knight or Malig Knight and before then is nothing more than a pair up bot for Corrin (seriously, her combat is so bad early on).

[SalShich10N]

See this is funny because Jakob destroys Felicia in virtually all these categories and because of how poorly magic scales with healing, her healing advantage over him is miniscule.

Jakob can go Paladin and turn the entire early game into a joke and still continue to dominate all the way into lategame. Felicia's combat sucks massive dick unless she goes Dark Knight or Malig Knight and before then is nothing more than a pair up bot for Corrin (seriously, her combat is so bad early on).

I didn't mean exactly healing. Her magic + skill summatory is as good, if not better than Flora's and definitely better than Jakob for the better part of the game until his skill makes up for his low mag. This means her Freeze staff, Draw Staff, Silence, and even Hexing are more accurate. I feel her combat early on is great, mostly because I do get a Felicia's plate from Battle rewards and for the most part she can become your best mage from the moment she gets the Flame Shuriken until around the endgame chapters. She can still be an amazing decoy for mages with Tomefair, even if she's not killing them, just having someone who can take magical damage is very useful specially when Kaze is elsewhere. Reclassing Jakob early on means you lose on a staffer too. In late game, Felicia's Freeze staves and physics are very useful, she can also work to get the S rank in staves, which means you can revive someone in the Endgame if things go sour. Other than movement, I don't find Paladin Jakob being that much better than Silas, meanwhile I can't think of a replacement for earlygame Felicia when in Revelations and Birthright Sakura sucks hard, you want Azama not staffing, and in Conquest I don't know about you but I want both Elise and Felicia. Mostly because I promote Elise at level 10 at around chapter 9-11.

[Emerson]

I didn't mean exactly healing. Her magic + skill summatory is as good, if not better than Flora's and definitely better than Jakob for the better part of the game until his skill makes up for his low mag.

Birthright Sakura sucks hard.

In Maid/Butler, Flora and Felicia both have 90% Mag & Skl combined, while Jakob has 80% combined. So not that large of a gap.

They also only start out 1 Mag+Skl from eachother anyways.

So while yes, Felicia is technically better for Damage and Status Staves, Jakobs ability to not, I dunno, immediately die the moment something brushes his shoulder is kinda appreciated when Status Staves have set low ranges. HP is also generally low in this game, meaning to don't have to heal more than 10-20 for most of the game, and you can heal more by the time you need to.

Also... since when has Sakura been bad?

Edited December 30, 2016 by Emerson

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

In my first and only Birthright and Revelations playthrough first tier Sakura capped speed, luck and defense. I used her as wall and dodgetank.

If someone says Elise sucks hard, then I could understand it a bit more. She died in my both Conquest runs because she was oneshotted. She had Micaiah- and Laura-syndrom... and really I don't like squishy healers.

Thankfully Felicia also exists who does her job as healer not worse. Tomebreaker is so good.

Can't say much about Jakob except his magic is lower than's Felcia's and so a worse healer. He's probably better with physical knives. Never really used him in combat.

As for the fire shuriken I don't see any other contender aside of Felicia.

Note: I usually don't reclass.

[Emerson]

Thankfully Felicia also exists who does her job as healer not worse. Tomebreaker is so good.

Can't say much about Jakob except his magic is lower than's Felcia's and so a worse healer. He's probably better with physical knives. Never really used him in combat.

The reason it doesn't matter much is that you're not typically healing more than 15-20 HP per character, and the Sun Festal already heals 14 with 0 Magic, and the Mend heals 20 with 0 Magic.

So at minimum, Jakob can heal pretty much everyone from around 50-75%, especially since HP growths are pretty low in Fates. While Felicia, can heal more, his bulk and ability to actually do damage for the entirety of the game rather than the last 60% of it, plus being able to use things like the Hunter's Knife and Sting Shuriken effectively is pretty great. And he can debuff with the Caltrop or Pebble and not have worry about being killed immediately.

I've only reclassed Jakob once, and it was to Great Knight. I didn't like it outside of amazing defensive MU support, as he wasn't really able to take hits. I may try Paladin in the future, but for now, I like him a lot as a Butler.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Emerson

[SalShich10N]

In Maid/Butler, Flora and Felicia both have 90% Mag & Skl combined, while Jakob has 80% combined. So not that large of a gap.

They also only start out 1 Mag+Skl from eachother anyways.

So while yes, Felicia is technically better for Damage and Status Staves, Jakobs ability to not, I dunno, immediately die the moment something brushes his shoulder is kinda appreciated when Status Staves have set low ranges. HP is also generally low in this game, meaning to don't have to heal more than 10-20 for most of the game, and you can heal more by the time you need to.

Also... since when has Sakura been bad?

Rank E i staves, D in revelations but still has to deal with the fact that she's 5 move when Felicia/Jakob is 6-8 move in staves. She also starts at level 1 which means she takes way to long to promote if you want to promote her early. This means you need to sit down and grind her to get more mileage out of her and when she actually promotes she's not all that great. Essentially she's a drag when Felicia is ready and willing from the bloody prologue.

If someone says Elise sucks hard, then I could understand it a bit more. She died in my both Conquest runs because she was oneshotted. She had Micaiah- and Laura-syndrom... and really I don't like squishy healers.

That's kind of a spacing problem when protecting the healer, which something personal. For instance, I personally don't care if the healer is squishy or not, since my healers don't usually get hit without me actually setting them up as bait (with enough speed and full HP they usually survive one hit from the weaker enemies). Elise has massive advantage by being on a horse and having base magic and speed high enough with growths so damn ridiculous that you can promote her at level 10 and have her be a potent mage for the early game, and a good cherry popper in the endgame, plus she gets Rally Res and Inspiration faster. I've had a 10/15 Elise kill Gooron in Conquest chapter 27 (with attack stance).

The reason it doesn't matter much is that you're not typically healing more than 15-20 HP per character, and the Sun Festal already heals 14 with 0 Magic, and the Mend heals 20 with 0 Magic.

So at minimum, Jakob can heal pretty much everyone from around 50-75%, especially since HP growths are pretty low in Fates. While Felicia, can heal more, his bulk and ability to actually do damage for the entirety of the game rather than the last 60% of it, plus being able to use things like the Hunter's Knife and Sting Shuriken effectively is pretty great. And he can debuff with the Caltrop or Pebble and not have worry about being killed immediately.

I've only reclassed Jakob once, and it was to Great Knight. I didn't like it outside of amazing defensive MU support, as he wasn't really able to take hits. I may try Paladin in the future, but for now, I like him a lot as a Butler.

You can still luck on a Felicia's plate early on or get it through rewards, so it's not exactly hard to get her doing magical damage early on and chapter 12 is not exactly late into the game, it's more like 30% into the game not counting children paralogues and the prologue maps you can skip. If you're attacking from range 1-2 it's easy to avoid damage, unless you expose her on the enemy turn to more than one enemy she's in no real danger. The only real things that are a threat to her offense would be Ninjas, handaxes, javelins, short swords and trying attacking bows from rage for whatever reason, and all of those can actually be safe if you carefully use attack stance. It's a matter of picking your fights.

[DragonFlames]

Yeah, Felicias Plate beats Flame Shuriken in every way, since you can actually get crits and skills, including Sol, if you reclass her once after getting Tomebreaker. And if you take the time to reclass your units as early as possible by buying Heart Seals from other people's castles, which you will have to do if you want your early reclasses, then you can take the time and get your My Castle Point rewards from previous files and get a freakin' Felicias Plate for free. Jakob, Mozu, and Camilla are the prime candidates for a reclass, you get all of them before Chapter 11. Remember, you can only get ONE Heart Seal in your shop until Chapter 13, I think, so it's either roflstomping Jakob, who will be useless later (as in, past Chapter 11, since you've got Camilla, and especially so on Kitsune hell, where you don't want to bring units on horseback. You just don't.) or lolbroken Bowzu, who trashes the entire game almost by herself (by herself if you give her Point Blank and make her a Sniper), especially if paired with vanilla Corrin (because of the additional strength, skill and speed Nohr Prince(ss) and Nohr Noble gives) or Kaze (because of the ridiculous amount of speed)...

And yes, Haitaka drops a second one, but Chapter 9 is about the point Paladin!Jakob becomes a useless EXP sponge, EXP which would be better spent on units like Corrin, Effie, Silas, Bowzu and Niles or Anna, if you have her (and maybe Nyx, if you want to use her).

My point is: Felicia is better early on, because you have the efficiency advantage (as in, it costs less to make Felicia actually good). And she actually stays good until later on, much unlike Jakob, who will be rotting away as an eternal Corrin-pair up bot (a job he admittedly does better than Felicia, because of the high avoid bonus he provides, especially if you take the time to gather some -breakers from your logbook) or her sister, whose stats (i.e. Speed) are too low to really be of use to your troops by the time you get her.

Edited December 30, 2016 by DragonFlames

[Radiant head]

where do you get felicia's plate? never seen it before

[Shadow Mir]

where do you get felicia's plate? never seen it before

It's a random pickup. Other than that, it's a battle reward.

[Emerson]

I think at this point it really depends on how you play.

I want my healers to heal. That's it. Jakob appeals to me over Felicia because of his bulk, as I don't really use either for combat. Silas/Effie/MU/Mozu can take care of that. I also like his bulk since it can help him keep people in the front lines alive and well without worry of 1 small misplay leading to his death. Mend also already heals 20 HP at base, so his amount of healing isn't an issue. I also rarely use Status Staves, although that may change. Either way, their consistency with them is purely up you your own RNG, as their Mag+Skl is pretty close.

Although, for the record, I don't actually use either of them beyond their early game healing. Once I need to open a slot for another unit I want to use, they're often the first out, with the only exception being Gunter in Revelations.

Rank E i staves, D in revelations but still has to deal with the fact that she's 5 move when Felicia/Jakob is 6-8 move in staves. She also starts at level 1 which means she takes way to long to promote if you want to promote her early. This means you need to sit down and grind her to get more mileage out of her and when she actually promotes she's not all that great. Essentially she's a drag when Felicia is ready and willing from the bloody prologue.

Sakura has some amazing growths though, meaning being at level 1 will end up paying off if she's used. Plus, she's only available on the routes with the Festals available, so she shouldn't have to worry about being attacked.

I don't really get that low movement complaint. BR and Rev don't have the open maps early game like CQ does, so Sakura doesn't have to be going from place to place as much as Elise/Jakob/Felicia do in CQ. In conjunction with her Personal Skill, she does extremely well in the midlines supporting everyone, and no one really has high movement anyways, so she keeps up with everyone.

I guess I also never promote early, but I don't mind her sticking as a healer until around Ch 14-15, as she's bulk enough to take a hit, and her Rally at least gives her something to do when there's no healing. She pretty much turns into a wall of death once you promote her anyways.

[Radiant head]

It's a random pickup. Other than that, it's a battle reward.

well that's annoying.

would love to be able to give everyone the weapons with their names attached to them, preferably forged

Edited December 30, 2016 by Radiant head