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Good Growths per Class


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Hello everyone. I'm a relative newbie to the franchise, being versed in much of it's lore and having several games. But one thing I have issue with is figuring out what stats and growth rates are good for what classes.

I would like some help figuring out what constitutes "good growths" for various classes in the series because as it is, any time I read growths of characters online, they just look like numbers to me.

If this topic is redundant, please let me know. Thanks for helping.

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What constitutes a good growth depends on the game- Awakening's definition of good is an ocean of difference from what's good in Gaiden.

You also have to consider base stats. Feena has an amazing 60% Strength growth, but a base of 1~2.

Things are complicated, that I shall confess. The easiest thing to do is look at one stat growth for everyone in a given game, and see what numbers pop up a lot to eyeball an average. Once you know what average looks like, you can figure out what good and bad are. Factor in bases (average speed growth + low base = bad, average speed growth + high base = good), and then you can see who is going to excel in what stats and whatnot.

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Thanks for the help. So each game has a different benchmark for "good" vs "crap"?

Another thing I was asking for help was "which stats are most important to recurring classes?" Things like Strength not being worth much to a mage is obvious, but would I benefit from more skill or strength growth for Archers, just as an example?

Any ideas would be nice, I'm building a checklist to refer back to once I go through some of the older games.

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1 hour ago, High King Xander said:

Thanks for the help. So each game has a different benchmark for "good" vs "crap"?

Another thing I was asking for help was "which stats are most important to recurring classes?" Things like Strength not being worth much to a mage is obvious, but would I benefit from more skill or strength growth for Archers, just as an example?

Any ideas would be nice, I'm building a checklist to refer back to once I go through some of the older games.

In FE9-12 strength is important for all classes, even mages. In those games attack speed = speed – (Weapon Weight – Strength, take as 0 if negative). In other words, Strength directly staves off attack speed penalties of using heavier weapons, which is what Con did in the GBA era. Starting with Awakening, attack speed simply became your speed stat, and weapons no longer have weight. On the serenesforest main site, visit each game's Calculations page to find how they decide attack speed, and the other derived stats. It should give you the most comprehensive idea of what stats do for you.

Sword users tend to have a lot of it regardless, but I find skill pretty benign for them, only notable for giving a slight boost to their crit rate. Swords are the most accurate weapon type, boasting natural hit rates of 90-100 before the user's skill is factored. And enemies have woefully low speed and nonexistant luck resulting in next to no avoidance. There's also the True Hit system present in FE6-13 so your swordies should never miss anything unless the enemy is standing on a throne. Secret books are best given to axe users who wield the least accurate weapon type and generally have low skill stat. In 3DS era, weapon hit rates have been balanced a tiny bit while enemies are given MUCH more speed and luck, enabling them to dodge more attacks, but swordies are still expected to never miss because myrmidons and similar classes have too much damned skill naturally.

And all classes benefit from speed. It's the best stat for sure in every game. Doubling and not getting doubled means so much for combat, and a unit's speed and speed growth dictates a lot of discussion with regard to their viability. It's also the primary stat for calculating your avoid rate. Some characters are so speedy they can "dodge tank" and not worry about being surrounded by enemies, rendering their defensive stats less vital.

Edited by Gustavos
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Awakening has non-HP and Move (HP and Move are always the exceptions) stat caps which go up to 45 barring personal adjustments and temporary boosts. Fates drops this value to 35. FE10 puts it at 40 for 3rd tier classes, but some Laguz royals have stat caps of up to 50. For FEs 4, 6-9, and 11-12, stat caps go up to 30 (well Luck can hit 40 in FE9, but nobody can get there). In FEs 1, 3, and 5, 20 is the universal stat cap. Gaiden sets the max to 40 for all stats, but with incredibly low growths, you need massive grinding to get to even 30.

All stats matter, to wholly lack in any is bad, and to have a gigaton of any is good, though some matter more than others.

Archers tend to have high Skill as a class characteristic, but given Skill doesn't actually increase their damage, it's probably their third most important stat, after Strength and Speed.

As long as they have enough HP and Defense to survive one or two enemy hits, fragile units like Mages and Archers shouldn't be worrying about those stats too much. A good player should try to keep them from getting hit in the first place, though in practice they might once in a while. You should mostly be concerned about their Strength (Magic for mages) and Speed. If you are concerned about fragile units dying, give them your Angelic/Seraph Robes, that +7 HP is much more likely to save them than an extra 2 Defense. Give your Dragon/Dracoshields to units with average defense or better.

Speed is a key stat in most games for most classes. It increases your offense significantly via double attacking, and by helping you avoid getting doubled and dodging, Speed is powerful defensively too.

Good Speed + good Strength/Magic + high HP + average Defense + Skill that isn't awful works well in most games. 

Luck is fine at around 10 for FEs 6-9, though dodgy units like more. I say 10 because barring Killer weapons or classes with innate critical bonuses, 10 Luck can mitigate the critical provided by 20 enemy Skill.

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Generally speaking, there's no such thing as good growths or stats for a specific class. Speed, Strength/Magic and Defense (in that order) are key stats for all units, no matter what class they're in - being fast enough to double literally doubles the damage output of a unit, while being doubled halves their durability. Str/Mag and Def are still more important than Skl and Lck because one more point of damage tends to be more impactful than 2% difference in hitrates, and since Fire Emblem tends to run on differences, not ratios, the difference between 20 and 21 is still as impactful as the difference between 0 and 1. I did not mention Resistance, because although it technically works just like defense against magic, enemy mages are usually a lot more scarce than physical units.

The part where the unit class might be important are caps: an armor knight with myrm-like speed will hit his speed cap sooner rather than later, making his high speed growth completely worthless. But even then, in most games, caps aren't relevant until the very endgame, so the myrm knight could still outclass a more classical knight for most of the game.

Most importantly, when comparing characters, do not look at their growth rates, and the average stats at the same level are still rather misleading. Your whole army will never be even remotely close in character levels, even if you actively try to train up your underleveled units (which will almost always make the game harder as a whole). The best example of that are probably the "classical" Jeigan characters (Jagen himself, Arran in FE3/12, Marcus in FE6) that have absolutely terrible growth rates and base stats for their level - but since they're the only promoted unit you're starting with, they're still your best unit in the earlygame by far and often almost required to get though the first chapters on higher difficulties.

On the other side of the spectrum, units with low base levels tend to be less valuable than their average stats suggest. Nino in FE7 for example has pretty impressive base stats for a Lv.5 mage, but since she has to compete with promoted units when she joins your party, Erk (if trained) and especially Pent still completely eclipse her thanks to her huge leads in XP and weapon ranks.

--

So, in short: When new units join, look how they fare against the enemy. The game does show you attack power and accuracy of a unit with their equipped weapon, so even without looking up all the formulas the game uses, you can just subtract the enemies' avoid and defense (and vice versa) to get a general idea. If a unit does great right now, you can almost use it and just drop it later if it can't keep up with the enemies' stat growths. If they're doing okay or okay-ish but have good growth rates, they're probably good investments, but if they're struggling to even scratch the enemy or die to one or two hits, it's basically always more trouble than it's worth to train them, no matter how great the growth rates are. It can still be doable and even fun (I personally tend to use at least on of these in my playthroughs because I like to hear the stat proc sound :D ), but if you're having trouble beating the game anyway, it's probably better to stay clear.

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