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Magic in Fates is pretty nice overall (Hoshido has a lot of cool spells). The problem is the Mage classes and most of the native Mage users aren't great.

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I think the solution to armour units in Fire Emblem is not so much buffing the knights (though that could help), but improving map design in ways that make them situationally more viable than cavalry and flying units. Here's just a few ideas I have in mind for such a system:

  • Cavalry units and fliers either get their movement cut or are forced to dismount in indoor maps. Maybe cavalry get the movement cut while fliers are forced to dismount.  
  • Stakes that can be placed on the map. They hurt and stop any cavalry unit that moves to that tile, whereas they just impede (but don't stop) the movement of infantry units. 
  • More "Defend for [x] turns" maps. 
  • Ladders that make it possible for infantry to scale walls, but cavalry can't unless they dismount. 
  • Areas that fliers can't access. 

 

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16 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I think the solution to armour units in Fire Emblem is not so much buffing the knights (though that could help), but improving map design in ways that make them situationally more viable than cavalry and flying units. Here's just a few ideas I have in mind for such a system:

  • Cavalry units and fliers either get their movement cut or are forced to dismount in indoor maps. Maybe cavalry get the movement cut while fliers are forced to dismount.  
  • Stakes that can be placed on the map. They hurt and stop any cavalry unit that moves to that tile, whereas they just impede (but don't stop) the movement of infantry units. 
  • More "Defend for [x] turns" maps. 
  • Ladders that make it possible for infantry to scale walls, but cavalry can't unless they dismount. 
  • Areas that fliers can't access. 

 

Defend maps arguably boost cavalry and fliers as they're just kill boss with a time limit. 

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18 hours ago, Troykv said:

Magic in Fates is pretty nice overall (Hoshido has a lot of cool spells). The problem is the Mage classes and most of the native Mage users aren't great.

You do realize the second point kind of undercuts the first point, right?

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1 hour ago, Fire Brand said:

Defend maps arguably boost cavalry and fliers as they're just kill boss with a time limit. 

Defend maps should have an enemy to strong to be defeated either by numbers or by power. Defend maps are the best place to have an early appearence of one of the obligatory elite generals. Good luck beating a boss whit twice the stats if your jeigan and a relic.

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1 hour ago, Fire Brand said:

Defend maps arguably boost cavalry and fliers as they're just kill boss with a time limit. 

I was referring to defend maps where defeating the boss has no bearing on completing the chapter.

 

15 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Defend maps should have an enemy too strong to be defeated either by numbers or by power. Defend maps are the best place to have an early appearance of one of the obligatory elite generals. Good luck beating a boss whit twice the stats if your jeigan and a relic.

This would be a great idea. That would definitely make an antagonist scary and effective: they send an army to take the place your army's in, all you can hope to do is buy time, and none of your units can hope to beat them; only keep them from killing your units. 

Going back to cavalry and fliers, another interesting idea might be having certain maps that, due to the altitude, effectively ground flying units as it's above their flight ceiling. Places like a tall mountain path and stuff like that. 

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More stuff, mostly pertaining Three Houses as that is the game I'm playing a lot recently. Though I have no idea how unpopular some of these are:

  • Assassin is the best sword infantry class in the game. That speed is insane. Plus, Lethality can be hilarious if it kicks in. It's also one of the best looking classes, particularly the female one I really like. You also have bows to fall back on if you want ranged options. But with that said...
  • Ranged weapons aren't as important in Three Houses as they are in other games. Ranged enemies will usually outrange you, anyway, by virtue of being Archers or possessing 1-3 range spells (if they're not spamming some kind of siege weapon at you). Not to mention Hand Axes and Javelins are pretty weak for the most part.
  • One more on the range stuff that isn't specifically aimed at Three Houses: I'd argue that people place too much importance on that in other games, too. 1-2 range enemies aren't THAT common that units locked to 1 range or 1 range weapons suddenly become unusable garbage. Sure, it's nice to at least have the option, but still.
  • Mages got the short end of the stick in Three Houses. Like... the really, REALLY short end. If you thought Fates was bad, ho boy are you in for a treat here...
    To elaborate on this a bit: it's not that I consider Mages terrible in this game. It's just that physical units are so much better than magic users in this one that the comparison alone feels like comparing a small fish to a blue whale.
  • Somewhat related to the above: I love Lysithea as a character. She has a great design, a heartbreaking backstory and a heartwarming S-support with Byleth.
    BUT - and this is acknowleding her ability to one-shot most things in the second half of the game - her status as the best Mage in the game, let alone the best unit in the game is something I don't really believe in.
    For one thing, her high speed doesn't mean much, because Dark Magic is heavy. Dark Magic is also very inaccurate, so seeing her miss is something you'll just have to deal with, especially against those pesky lategame Swordmasters and Assassins. Then, the problem is that she learns ONLY Dark Magic but has no access to Dark Mage or Dark Bishop, as Hubert does. The innate Black Magic-boosting skills of Mage and Warlock are thus utterly wasted on her and she can't participate in Black Magic tournaments on top of that. She's also surprisingly prone to RNG-screwage, but that's personal experience speaking. In short, about the only thing she has over other Mages like Annette or Dorothea is the fact that she can one-shot the Death Knight with early Dark Spikes. Though I hear this becomes impossible once taking Maddening into consideration. She does reap the full benefits from Thyrsus, in that she gets automatic Pavise and Aegis due to possessing the Gloucester crest, but I don't know how much that benefits her, because I suspect she'd still die to a stiff breeze.
    I still absolutely enjoy using her, despite everything. Because I can't deny that 70+ damage in one hit without combat arts or crits is pretty freaking amazing.
  • On that same note, I legit do not understand why people call Annette a bad Mage. Like, what's so bad about the lightest, most accurate spells in the game, let alone a spell to counter fliers on top of a magic growth that isn't too much below Lysithea's, allowing her to kill even lategame stuff with a basic Wind spell?
  • With everything said, I'd say Lysithea, Annette and Dorothea are about equal to each other when it comes to benefits vs. drawbacks in using each of them. Lysithea has the raw power, Dorothea has the range (with Thoron and Meteor) and Annette has the accuracy and agility (her spells don't weigh her down a lot, so her semi-low speed growth isn't too much of an issue). All three of them can reliably dispatch many enemies.
  • While I'm not a fan of Axes myself, the combat art "Smash" makes them one of the best earlygame weapons. "Natural" axe users such as Edelgard, Dedue and Hilda become downright monsters when they use it and it crits frequently, too.
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30 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

More stuff, mostly pertaining Three Houses as that is the game I'm playing a lot recently. Though I have no idea how unpopular some of these are:

  • Assassin is the best sword infantry class in the game. That speed is insane. Plus, Lethality can be hilarious if it kicks in. It's also one of the best looking classes, particularly the female one I really like. You also have bows to fall back on if you want ranged options. But with that said...
  • Ranged weapons aren't as important in Three Houses as they are in other games. Ranged enemies will usually outrange you, anyway, by virtue of being Archers or possessing 1-3 range spells (if they're not spamming some kind of siege weapon at you). Not to mention Hand Axes and Javelins are pretty weak for the most part.
  • One more on the range stuff that isn't specifically aimed at Three Houses: I'd argue that people place too much importance on that in other games, too. 1-2 range enemies aren't THAT common that units locked to 1 range or 1 range weapons suddenly become unusable garbage. Sure, it's nice to at least have the option, but still.
  • Mages got the short end of the stick in Three Houses. Like... the really, REALLY short end. If you thought Fates was bad, ho boy are you in for a treat here...
    To elaborate on this a bit: it's not that I consider Mages terrible in this game. It's just that physical units are so much better than magic users in this one that the comparison alone feels like comparing a small fish to a blue whale.
  • Somewhat related to the above: I love Lysithea as a character. She has a great design, a heartbreaking backstory and a heartwarming S-support with Byleth.
    BUT - and this is acknowleding her ability to one-shot most things in the second half of the game - her status as the best Mage in the game, let alone the best unit in the game is something I don't really believe in.
    For one thing, her high speed doesn't mean much, because Dark Magic is heavy. Dark Magic is also very inaccurate, so seeing her miss is something you'll just have to deal with, especially against those pesky lategame Swordmasters and Assassins. Then, the problem is that she learns ONLY Dark Magic but has no access to Dark Mage or Dark Bishop, as Hubert does. The innate Black Magic-boosting skills of Mage and Warlock are thus utterly wasted on her and she can't participate in Black Magic tournaments on top of that. She's also surprisingly prone to RNG-screwage, but that's personal experience speaking. In short, about the only thing she has over other Mages like Annette or Dorothea is the fact that she can one-shot the Death Knight with early Dark Spikes. Though I hear this becomes impossible once taking Maddening into consideration. She does reap the full benefits from Thyrsus, in that she gets automatic Pavise and Aegis due to possessing the Gloucester crest, but I don't know how much that benefits her, because I suspect she'd still die to a stiff breeze.
    I still absolutely enjoy using her, despite everything. Because I can't deny that 70+ damage in one hit without combat arts or crits is pretty freaking amazing.
  • On that same note, I legit do not understand why people call Annette a bad Mage. Like, what's so bad about the lightest, most accurate spells in the game, let alone a spell to counter fliers on top of a magic growth that isn't too much below Lysithea's, allowing her to kill even lategame stuff with a basic Wind spell?
  • With everything said, I'd say Lysithea, Annette and Dorothea are about equal to each other when it comes to benefits vs. drawbacks in using each of them. Lysithea has the raw power, Dorothea has the range (with Thoron and Meteor) and Annette has the accuracy and agility (her spells don't weigh her down a lot, so her semi-low speed growth isn't too much of an issue). All three of them can reliably dispatch many enemies.
  • While I'm not a fan of Axes myself, the combat art "Smash" makes them one of the best earlygame weapons. "Natural" axe users such as Edelgard, Dedue and Hilda become downright monsters when they use it and it crits frequently, too.

Curious to see what other people think of this. Because I don't find that to be the case at all. My experience with mages is that they hit hard and, more importantly, really damn reliably since enemy avoid isn't taken into account. They're better killers than most of my physical units tend to be and have the extra versatility of some kind of healing or support magic. Even their weak defenses isn't a massive draw back as they can commonly attack from outside the enemy's range, especially when you have range boosting staves. Their only real weakness for most of the game is their low movement, but again the range+ staves and eventually a horse on final level tends to nuter even that.

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2 hours ago, DragonFlames said:
  • Mages got the short end of the stick in Three Houses. Like... the really, REALLY short end. If you thought Fates was bad, ho boy are you in for a treat here...
    To elaborate on this a bit: it's not that I consider Mages terrible in this game. It's just that physical units are so much better than magic users in this one that the comparison alone feels like comparing a small fish to a blue whale.

Personally, I thought they were much better than in Fates - Fates' mages were just that damn bad. Between Nyx, who is a magical Gonzales, Orochi, who struggles to double fucking armors, Hayato, who has problems hitting and comes underleveled (on Birthright; to be fair, he is better in Revelation because he comes in at level 9 or something), Rhajat, who ALSO can't hit the broad side of a barn if her life depended on it, and Odin, who is a crapshoot (not to mention utterly screwed on Revelation)... yeah. That ain't much better than in Radiant freaking Dawn, where mages were at their lowest point for various reasons

2 hours ago, DragonFlames said:
  • Somewhat related to the above: I love Lysithea as a character. She has a great design, a heartbreaking backstory and a heartwarming S-support with Byleth.
    BUT - and this is acknowleding her ability to one-shot most things in the second half of the game - her status as the best Mage in the game, let alone the best unit in the game is something I don't really believe in.
    For one thing, her high speed doesn't mean much, because Dark Magic is heavy. Dark Magic is also very inaccurate, so seeing her miss is something you'll just have to deal with, especially against those pesky lategame Swordmasters and Assassins. Then, the problem is that she learns ONLY Dark Magic but has no access to Dark Mage or Dark Bishop, as Hubert does. The innate Black Magic-boosting skills of Mage and Warlock are thus utterly wasted on her and she can't participate in Black Magic tournaments on top of that. She's also surprisingly prone to RNG-screwage, but that's personal experience speaking. In short, about the only thing she has over other Mages like Annette or Dorothea is the fact that she can one-shot the Death Knight with early Dark Spikes. Though I hear this becomes impossible once taking Maddening into consideration. She does reap the full benefits from Thyrsus, in that she gets automatic Pavise and Aegis due to possessing the Gloucester crest, but I don't know how much that benefits her, because I suspect she'd still die to a stiff breeze.
    I still absolutely enjoy using her, despite everything. Because I can't deny that 70+ damage in one hit without combat arts or crits is pretty freaking amazing.

Personally, I think she's overrated to holy hell and back. For one, her accuracy suffers because she uses dark magic. Second, Warlock doesn't do anything for her at all. Third, Thyrsus is usable by anyone; if it were limited to units with a Crest of Gloucester, MAYBE she'd have an argument for it, but as is, people treating it as though it's for her only annoy me to no end. Fourth, her spell list isn't nearly as impressive as others would try to make you think. 

2 hours ago, DragonFlames said:
  • On that same note, I legit do not understand why people call Annette a bad Mage. Like, what's so bad about the lightest, most accurate spells in the game, let alone a spell to counter fliers on top of a magic growth that isn't too much below Lysithea's, allowing her to kill even lategame stuff with a basic Wind spell?

Speaking of Annette, I don't see why Wyvern Lord Annette is treated as anything other than the half-assed gimmick it is - relying on weapons with 60 base accuracy is a very, very, VERY shitty position to be in. Especially when one of those is limited to one route because the other unit needed is exclusive to said route. I do agree that she's underrated, though.

2 hours ago, DragonFlames said:
  • While I'm not a fan of Axes myself, the combat art "Smash" makes them one of the best earlygame weapons. "Natural" axe users such as Edelgard, Dedue and Hilda become downright monsters when they use it and it crits frequently, too.

Personally, I'm not sure - I found swords better for earlygame, and in general. Weight is a thing once again, and unlike in Shadow Dragon and the Tellius games, you won't be getting to the point where it's a non-issue so easily, if at all.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Curious to see what other people think of this. Because I don't find that to be the case at all. My experience with mages is that they hit hard and, more importantly, really damn reliably since enemy avoid isn't taken into account. They're better killers than most of my physical units tend to be and have the extra versatility of some kind of healing or support magic. Even their weak defenses isn't a massive draw back as they can commonly attack from outside the enemy's range, especially when you have range boosting staves. Their only real weakness for most of the game is their low movement, but again the range+ staves and eventually a horse on final level tends to nuter even that.

I've only played CF and GD once each, and I haven't looked to see what spells everyone learns, but mages are pretty good to me. Lysithea on my first run turned out probably somewhat Mag and Spd blessed. Although nobody on CF was quite like her, taming my experience with mages.

  • Ignoring terrain is great for more consistent accuracy. And magic avoid is usually lower than physical avoid.
  • The staffs (and select spells) for an extra point of range or two makes them able to safely pick at things from afar with the enemy unable to do anything about it.
  • You're free to use the most powerful and useful magics, because all their uses replenish after every fight. But the per-battle limit keeps this balanced. Once you get out of Commoner/Noble though, unless you attempt serious enemy phasing with a mage, you won't run out of common spell uses.
  • Barring an enemy with unusually high Res, which actually excludes Peg Knights here, a mage can easily rip off half an enemy's HP or so in a single hit. 
  • All magic using classes can use both Reason and Faith, so everyone magical can carry a chip or spot heal besides their primary magical function, a minor but appreciated touch.
  • The absence of Combat Arts isn't a big deal, other than no guaranteed consecutive attack spell, since magic already has some variety in its functions.

Besides the per-battle spell limits and their usual fragility, mages are kept in check by spell AS loss being unpreventable. Given mages can deal a hefty blow per strike, this is not a bad measure for balancing them, for even when they have good Spd, doubling everything isn't that easy.

Movement is the fourth and last issue, it is indeed annoying, and I haven't raised up a Dark or Holy Knight yet.

I've heard magical physical weapons are better than actual spells, something about, I think:

  • Magic weapons can have their AS loss mitigated.
  • Magic weapons used with certain Combat Arts make them better for damage than spells.
  • Repairing weapons makes durability a manageable matter for magic weapons.
  • Possible(?) functionality of magic staffs with magic weapons.

But, I've barely touched the magic weapons myself.

And overall, mages are in a good place in 3H. My first instinct was to call them amazing, but with a cooler head they're closer to plain old good for me now. And good is still good.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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18 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

mages are kept in check by spell AS loss being unpreventable.

That's false. I've been able to have some mages (read: Annette and the fish loving girl [Flayn]) use spells without losing AS.

18 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Movement is the fourth and last issue, it is indeed annoying, and I haven't raised up a Dark or Holy Knight yet.

Holy Knight is pretty terrible - compared to Bishop, you lose doubled white magic uses and extra healing on white magic spells, and you don't get anything of note to make up for it (that's right, I'm saying even the horse doesn't make up for losing doubled white magic uses). Dark Knight is better, but unfortunately, I'd say the extra effort needed to qualify for Dark Knight isn't really well compensated.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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IntSys should go back to text only, personally irks me having to hear a characters voice, eliminates the opportunity to create a voice for a character on ones own. if you can relate to this please tell me: there is such thing as tonal tropes. you've heard VA's make an inflection or read a sentence and it sounds either unnatural or bothersome. Idk, i think if they were to have subtitles and an option to mute voice volume that would be enough for me.

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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Personally, I thought they were much better than in Fates - Fates' mages were just that damn bad. Between Nyx, who is a magical Gonzales, Orochi, who struggles to double fucking armors, Hayato, who has problems hitting and comes underleveled (on Birthright; to be fair, he is better in Revelation because he comes in at level 9 or something), Rhajat, who ALSO can't hit the broad side of a barn if her life depended on it, and Odin, who is a crapshoot (not to mention utterly screwed on Revelation)... yeah. That ain't much better than in Radiant freaking Dawn, where mages were at their lowest point for various reasons

Three Houses Mages are better than Fates Mages by a landslide, I agree with you on that one.
One point about Hayato though: even in Revelation, his Magic stat is so effing low that he struggles to do good damage. And he still struggles hitting things on top of that.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Personally, I think she's overrated to holy hell and back. For one, her accuracy suffers because she uses dark magic. Second, Warlock doesn't do anything for her at all. Third, Thyrsus is usable by anyone; if it were limited to units with a Crest of Gloucester, MAYBE she'd have an argument for it, but as is, people treating it as though it's for her only annoy me to no end. Fourth, her spell list isn't nearly as impressive as others would try to make you think.

As I said, I like Lysithea, but I can't deny these points (being basically an abridged version of what I wrote, anyway).
I guess the whole thing about Thyrsus and the Gloucester Crest is that she gets the automatic Pavise/Aegis thingy from it, which no one else but Lorenz has going for them. And Lorenz is... just terrible. Both as a character and as a unit.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Speaking of Annette, I don't see why Wyvern Lord Annette is treated as anything other than the half-assed gimmick it is - relying on weapons with 60 base accuracy is a very, very, VERY shitty position to be in. Especially when one of those is limited to one route because the other unit needed is exclusive to said route. I do agree that she's underrated, though.

3-range Bolt Axe or something, wasn't it? I tried it out in one playthrough to see what it was like, but I vastly prefer her as a Warlock or Gremory. At least she can hit stuff, even if her Movement is kind of low.
Though honestly? The high movement doesn't matter too much when you spend half the map dismounted anyway, because Azure Moon is Siege Weapon Spam - The Game.
Sure, her Relic is a magic axe, too, but it's not like she'd be unable to use it if she's not on a Wyvern. In fact, I'd say it's better if she's in a magic using class when using it, because her Magic stat will be higher.

As for the Relics themselves, however: I think I already said this sometime, somewhere, but the Relics in general feel utterly worthless in this game due to how expensive it is to repair them. The materials are exceedingly rare AND it costs you a lot of money during a part of the game where money can become a problem. AND none of the Relics are that much stronger than a forged Silver weapon, which 1) are really easy to acquire (you get some of 'em for free in the tournaments, ffs) and 2) are much cheaper to repair, both from a materials and monetary standpoint, and 3) have more uses, making the things even more superfluous. When it comes to what you have to invest vs. what you get out of said investment, forged Silver weapons win against Relics by a wide, wide margin.
... This is the son of an accountant talking again. My apologies.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That's false. I've been able to have some mages (read: Annette and the fish loving girl [Flayn]) use spells without losing AS.

This is exactly why I struggle to see Annette and Flayn as anything but at least decent units offensively. They're just about the only Magic users who don't lose AS due to wind magic being so light.

Not to mention that Annette was one of my best units in both my Blue Lions playthroughs.

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Holy Knight is pretty terrible - compared to Bishop, you lose doubled white magic uses and extra healing on white magic spells, and you don't get anything of note to make up for it (that's right, I'm saying even the horse doesn't make up for losing doubled white magic uses). Dark Knight is better, but unfortunately, I'd say the extra effort needed to qualify for Dark Knight isn't really well compensated.

Yeah, raising Lance and Riding (especially Riding) on Magic users who would prefer to get as high as possible in Reason and/or Faith isn't worth it, usually. Not to mention that raising Riding to A rank takes a hell of a long time, so long in fact that you'll have barely any game left by the time you finally have your Dark/Holy Knight, ESPECIALLY if you kept them as infantry Mages previously (adding to that is the fact that most natural Mages aren't strong in Riding, meaning it'll take even longer). I tried out both Dark and Holy Knight and I always preferred their previous tiers (Warlock/Dark Bishop and Bishop, respectively) over these two.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Curious to see what other people think of this. Because I don't find that to be the case at all. My experience with mages is that they hit hard and, more importantly, really damn reliably since enemy avoid isn't taken into account. They're better killers than most of my physical units tend to be and have the extra versatility of some kind of healing or support magic. Even their weak defenses isn't a massive draw back as they can commonly attack from outside the enemy's range, especially when you have range boosting staves. Their only real weakness for most of the game is their low movement, but again the range+ staves and eventually a horse on final level tends to nuter even that.

In every playthrough I had so far, I used both Magic users and physical attackers and both did their job really well. I just felt like the physical units were much better than the magical ones overall. That was basically my point I was trying to make.

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I mentioned finding the Blue Lion ending the least happy ending considering the creepy mole people remain undefeated and undiscovered there. 

But now I think about it Faerghus on the whole seems the most flawed kingdom by a significant margin. For a nation about knights and chivalry they seem suspiciously shady, close minded and cowardly. 

Out of all the nations Faerghus seems the most dedicated to crest based discrimination. Its never been presented as that big a deal in the Alliance and in the Empire many of the most important posts are monopolized by families without Crests. In Faerghus it seems more normal to be robbed of your inheritance if you don't have a crest.

Aside from Crest based discrimination there's also a very bloody racial discrimination in Faerghus. 

For such a knightly nation the nobles are very willing to become Imperial toadies or puppets of the Slitherers. In the Alliance even the pro empire houses keep themselves neutral to some degree but the Kingdom lords just roll out the red carpet when Edelgard comes for them. 

When the nobles in the Alliance don't like House Riegan they start bickering a lot. When the Imperial nobles don't like the emperor they turn him into a puppet. When the Kingdom nobles don't like the king they go to the king and all his loved ones and then they kill em all. 

 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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4 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

More stuff, mostly pertaining Three Houses as that is the game I'm playing a lot recently. Though I have no idea how unpopular some of these are:

  • Mages got the short end of the stick in Three Houses. Like... the really, REALLY short end. If you thought Fates was bad, ho boy are you in for a treat here...
    To elaborate on this a bit: it's not that I consider Mages terrible in this game. It's just that physical units are so much better than magic users in this one that the comparison alone feels like comparing a small fish to a blue whale.
  • Somewhat related to the above: I love Lysithea as a character. She has a great design, a heartbreaking backstory and a heartwarming S-support with Byleth.
    BUT - and this is acknowleding her ability to one-shot most things in the second half of the game - her status as the best Mage in the game, let alone the best unit in the game is something I don't really believe in.
    For one thing, her high speed doesn't mean much, because Dark Magic is heavy. Dark Magic is also very inaccurate, so seeing her miss is something you'll just have to deal with, especially against those pesky lategame Swordmasters and Assassins. Then, the problem is that she learns ONLY Dark Magic but has no access to Dark Mage or Dark Bishop, as Hubert does. The innate Black Magic-boosting skills of Mage and Warlock are thus utterly wasted on her and she can't participate in Black Magic tournaments on top of that. She's also surprisingly prone to RNG-screwage, but that's personal experience speaking. In short, about the only thing she has over other Mages like Annette or Dorothea is the fact that she can one-shot the Death Knight with early Dark Spikes. Though I hear this becomes impossible once taking Maddening into consideration. She does reap the full benefits from Thyrsus, in that she gets automatic Pavise and Aegis due to possessing the Gloucester crest, but I don't know how much that benefits her, because I suspect she'd still die to a stiff breeze.
    I still absolutely enjoy using her, despite everything. Because I can't deny that 70+ damage in one hit without combat arts or crits is pretty freaking amazing.
  • On that same note, I legit do not understand why people call Annette a bad Mage. Like, what's so bad about the lightest, most accurate spells in the game, let alone a spell to counter fliers on top of a magic growth that isn't too much below Lysithea's, allowing her to kill even lategame stuff with a basic Wind spell?
  • With everything said, I'd say Lysithea, Annette and Dorothea are about equal to each other when it comes to benefits vs. drawbacks in using each of them. Lysithea has the raw power, Dorothea has the range (with Thoron and Meteor) and Annette has the accuracy and agility (her spells don't weigh her down a lot, so her semi-low speed growth isn't too much of an issue). All three of them can reliably dispatch many enemies.

At this point you haven't played on Maddening, have you? There are some mages that are really good there like Hubert and Lysithea. 3H unlike most other FE games is more a player phase game than an enemy phase game and Lysithea shines as PP unit. Give her Thyrus, train both her reason and faith (for that sweet warp spell) and she'll become an invaluable unit to your team that becomes so strong that she does more damage against Falcon Knights than your resident Bow Knight. Now you could say that anyone can use the Thyrus relic but she's arguably one of the best users. She also has really good growths which helps her grow in the long run. In my experience (we don't have stat sheets for 3H units yet) Lysithea's growths help her doubling and avoid getting doubled on hard while still hitting hard. On maddening I think I vaguely remember her doubling a few times but because the enemy has a ton of speed that didn't last long but she still manages to avoid getting doubled, which is still really good if you know what you're doing.  

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Of course a lot of what I just said is based on personal experience. I'm curious to see when we'll get statsheets that show the average stats of units. That way we can compare those to the enemy units. Then things could become a lot clearer.

 

2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I mentioned finding the Blue Lion ending the least happy ending considering the creepy mole people remain undefeated and undiscovered there. 

But now I think about it Faerghus on the whole seems the most flawed kingdom by a significant margin. For a nation about knights and chivalry they seem suspiciously shady, close minded and cowardly. 

Out of all the nations Faerghus seems the most dedicated to crest based discrimination. Its never been presented as that big a deal in the Alliance and in the Empire many of the most important posts are monopolized by families without Crests. In Faerghus it seems more normal to be robbed of your inheritance if you don't have a crest.

Aside from Crest based discrimination there's also a very bloody racial discrimination in Faerghus. 

For such a knightly nation the nobles are very willing to become Imperial toadies or puppets of the Slitherers. In the Alliance even the pro empire houses keep themselves neutral to some degree but the Kingdom lords just roll out the red carpet when Edelgard comes for them. 

When the nobles in the Alliance don't like House Riegan they start bickering a lot. When the Imperial nobles don't like the emperor they turn him into a puppet. When the Kingdom nobles don't like the king they go to the king and all his loved ones and then they kill em all. 

 

I actually think that the part about Faerghus is done on purpose. The writers went out of their way to make the "knightly" kingdom a lot more questionable than other similar places in FE.

Just look at the way they handled the tragedy of duscur. When Lambert, one of the most honorable characters in the game Lambert is dying his first reaction is to tell his son to take revenge for him. Then there's also Dedeu's paralogue which is all kinds of messed up and wrong.

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1 hour ago, DragonFlames said:

3-range Bolt Axe or something, wasn't it? I tried it out in one playthrough to see what it was like, but I vastly prefer her as a Warlock or Gremory. At least she can hit stuff, even if her Movement is kind of low.
Though honestly? The high movement doesn't matter too much when you spend half the map dismounted anyway, because Azure Moon is Siege Weapon Spam - The Game.
Sure, her Relic is a magic axe, too, but it's not like she'd be unable to use it if she's not on a Wyvern. In fact, I'd say it's better if she's in a magic using class when using it, because her Magic stat will be higher.

As for the Relics themselves, however: I think I already said this sometime, somewhere, but the Relics in general feel utterly worthless in this game due to how expensive it is to repair them. The materials are exceedingly rare AND it costs you a lot of money during a part of the game where money can become a problem. AND none of the Relics are that much stronger than a forged Silver weapon, which 1) are really easy to acquire (you get some of 'em for free in the tournaments, ffs) and 2) are much cheaper to repair, both from a materials and monetary standpoint, and 3) have more uses, making the things even more superfluous. When it comes to what you have to invest vs. what you get out of said investment, forged Silver weapons win against Relics by a wide, wide margin.
... This is the son of an accountant talking again. My apologies.

Speaking of Relics, Edelgard has it even worse - her relic needs Agarthium to repair, which is only obtainable from Giant Crawlers and Titanuses, both of which are rare (far as I know, the former only appears in the desert, which you don't visit outside of Claude's paralogue). And I'm not sure it's worth using because it has really shaky accuracy. RE: the Crusher: I'd say it's not worth using because odds are Annette would get killed if she didn't kill whatever she tried to attack with it, which is all too likely between it likely dropping her AS to the point where she gets doubled and its shitty accuracy.

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4 hours ago, phriendlybear said:

IntSys should go back to text only, personally irks me having to hear a characters voice, eliminates the opportunity to create a voice for a character on ones own. if you can relate to this please tell me: there is such thing as tonal tropes. you've heard VA's make an inflection or read a sentence and it sounds either unnatural or bothersome. Idk, i think if they were to have subtitles and an option to mute voice volume that would be enough for me.

I honestly liked the system of Awakening and Fates and don't get why people hated it. It lets you know what people sound like and lets you voice some choice, well-acted quotes, while leaving the rest in text form. Hiring voice actors to say every line is really only worth it if you're certain you've got a really good cast with damn good voice direction, otherwise it's much, much better to leave it to the reader's imagination, where every line will sound natural and bad acting doesn't exist. Echoes managed to pull it off. Three Houses, however, failed to impress me in that regard. A lot of great voice actors, but the material they were given to work with and the instructions they were given were... subpar. At least in the localization. I wouldn't know how the Japanese version did. But it left me feeling that the full voice acting was a net negative on the game, making a lot of dialogue awkward and making cutscenes take longer than they had to since lines take less time to read than to hear.

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3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I mentioned finding the Blue Lion ending the least happy ending considering the creepy mole people remain undefeated and undiscovered there. 

But now I think about it Faerghus on the whole seems the most flawed kingdom by a significant margin. For a nation about knights and chivalry they seem suspiciously shady, close minded and cowardly. 

Out of all the nations Faerghus seems the most dedicated to crest based discrimination. Its never been presented as that big a deal in the Alliance and in the Empire many of the most important posts are monopolized by families without Crests. In Faerghus it seems more normal to be robbed of your inheritance if you don't have a crest.

While I don't disagree with Faerghus having a lot of problems, I think part of it is that they get more focus than the other nations so we just know more about them than the Empire or Alliance.

The Alliance seems to have a power balance more independent of crests. In the Empire, the imperial family, and the families that hold the posts of Prime Minister and Minister of Domestic Affairs have crest bearers as their heirs. I can't remember if Caspar's brother (ie the family that inherits the position of Minister of Military Affairs) is said to have a crest, but judging by Edelgard's scathing criticism of the man, it seems he's not inheriting his position for his merits. Discounting the Vestra family, which may not have a crest, it seems more of the highest positions are held by crest bearing lineages. That we haven't seen someone robbed of their inheritance like Sylvain's brother, may just be a matter of coincidence or the Empire being out of focus. Also, as we can see with Hanneman and Mercedes, the hunger for crests has caused great suffering for many in the Empire as well.

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Aside from Crest based discrimination there's also a very bloody racial discrimination in Faerghus. 

While they're not genocidal, the Empire made Brigid a vassal state and kept their royal heir as a hostage. The Alliance also has tensions with the Almyrans, with at least some of them, like Hilda for example, having racist opinions about them.

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

For such a knightly nation the nobles are very willing to become Imperial toadies or puppets of the Slitherers. In the Alliance even the pro empire houses keep themselves neutral to some degree but the Kingdom lords just roll out the red carpet when Edelgard comes for them. 

When the nobles in the Alliance don't like House Riegan they start bickering a lot. When the Imperial nobles don't like the emperor they turn him into a puppet. When the Kingdom nobles don't like the king they go to the king and all his loved ones and then they kill em all. 

My understanding of the story was that Faeghus has been fighting a losing battle with the Empire for 5 years in part because the Empire doesn't have to focus on the mostly neutral Alliance. Some Kingdom lords surrendered out of fear for their lives but it's probably the case that many were simply defeated during that 5 year period. By the time we see them, the people who opposed Edelgard in the western territories of Faerghus are either dead or have surrendered. As for being puppets of the Slitherers, it's not like anyone knows about that (it's not something even the player knows for certain in AM). Cornelia's actions undoubtedly led to the quicker subjugation/surrender of the Kingdom, so it's perhaps unfair to pin their capitulation solely on the character of Kingdom houses. In regards to the Alliance and "rolling out the red carpet", the Alliance folds after two chapters. That's pretty much the Empire walking right into the capital because most Alliance lords don't even attempt to stop Edelgard. Even in AM, the Alliance gets absorbed by the Kingdom because apparently they suck so badly at self governance that they willingly hand over the reins of the country. 

Don't forget what the Empire nobles did or allowed to happen to all of the imperial heirs besides Edelgard. I'd say that's pretty fucked up. As for the alliance, they didn't try to assassinate lord Riegan but they have their own power-plays which lead to the deaths of innocents, like the fate of Raphael's family.   

In summary, I think all of the nations got some pretty big problems but we don't get as much focus on the Empire and Alliance.

Edited by NekoKnight
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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I honestly liked the system of Awakening and Fates and don't get why people hated it. It lets you know what people sound like and lets you voice some choice, well-acted quotes, while leaving the rest in text form. Hiring voice actors to say every line is really only worth it if you're certain you've got a really good cast with damn good voice direction, otherwise it's much, much better to leave it to the reader's imagination, where every line will sound natural and bad acting doesn't exist. Echoes managed to pull it off. Three Houses, however, failed to impress me in that regard. A lot of great voice actors, but the material they were given to work with and the instructions they were given were... subpar. At least in the localization. I wouldn't know how the Japanese version did. But it left me feeling that the full voice acting was a net negative on the game, making a lot of dialogue awkward and making cutscenes take longer than they had to since lines take less time to read than to hear.

I mean personally when it comes to voice over work on a game for me. It’s either you go big or you go home. I’m not saying everything needs to be fully voiced. Things like supports(well to a degree) and Monastery dialogue can work just fine with just the little voice quips but story cutscenes and A/S supports should be fully voiced cause otherwise you might as well not have any voice acting at all. Cause at that point it just feels like a waste. Though I do agree, people sort of “overrate” voice acting in a way. Like the voice acting makes the script better than it actually is cause honestly if you removed the voice acting from 3H and SoV, I doubt a lot of people would praise the writing as much as they do(well this more so applies to SoV cause 3H has a decent story if only held back by a somewhat lackluster localization and script)

On the topic of 3H’s voice acting. I actually found it to be pretty good. We have Patrick Seitz in the director’s chair again(He was also the one to direct awakening’s English dub) and I think he did a pretty great job of bringing out the best in each performance for the script he was given. 

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3 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

On the topic of 3H’s voice acting. I actually found it to be pretty good. We have Patrick Seitz in the director’s chair again(He was also the one to direct awakening’s English dub) and I think he did a pretty great job of bringing out the best in each performance for the script he was given. 

For the script he was given, I suppose, aside from the extremely suspect choice to not give Petra an accent, if that was his decision.

Whoever wrote the script though, needs some lessons on how to give each character their own voice. You can't just have Claude occasionally say "hey there, Teach" and assume the job of making him seem laid back and irreverent is done. His "As the embodiment of distrust" line in the prologue is almost painful to listen to because the writer failed to mind his choice of words.

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6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Whoever wrote the script though, needs some lessons on how to give each character their own voice. You can't just have Claude occasionally say "hey there, Teach" and assume the job of making him seem laid back and irreverent is done. His "As the embodiment of distrust" line in the prologue is almost painful to listen to because the writer failed to mind his choice of words.

Agreed treehouse just needs to get a better localization team for Fire Emblem cause honestly the script for both fates and 3H pale in comparison to SoV or awakening(localized by 8-4) cause a lot of lines can feel dull or uninspired a lot of the time. It just lacks charm. It’s a lot less noticeable in 3H than fates because of the voice acting but it’s still definitely there and something treehouse needs to get better at. Like I can forgive it in heroes because they’re on a bit of a time crunch but still.

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On 11/21/2019 at 2:33 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

Magic > Shuriken/Dagger > Axe = Lance = Bow = Sword?

  • I fail to see a significant difference amongst Sword/Lance/Axe, and Bows aren't so bad in this game since enemy phase is nerfed and they've access to a measure of 1-2 range. Therefore I consider them equal.

In Conquest, Magic is easily the most powerful weapon. The game is heavily (even exclusively in numerous instances) Player-Phase based, and Magic deals the greatest damage output. Few enemies possess higher Resistance than Defence, and those who do are frail anyway.

On a basically Player-Phase-exclusive game, damage output rules, and after Magic come Bows and Axes. Moreover, the majority of enemies wield Blue Weapons and are weak against Bows and Axes. Berserker and Sniper deal the greatest physical damage, and delete enemies at will.

Then come Lances/ Daggers and finally Swords. The latter has lower might and only a bit more accuracy, and does not even offer a physical ranged option.

The thing about Daggers is that they have low might and their natural users have low Strength. Sure, one could build a +Strength Ninja Corrinette, or Sol Master Ninjas Silas and Xander-Siegfried; but these builds were already powerful before wielding Daggers and reach offensive thresholds that the natural Dagger-users never do.


 

Quote

Magic in Fates is pretty nice overall (Hoshido has a lot of cool spells). The problem is the Mage classes and most of the native Mage users aren't great.

Yes, Nyx sucks, but Ophelia and Odin always reach the offensive thresholds to carry the entire campaign (Hard and Lunatic.) Oh!, and Elise wipes anything with Fire and Blood. And I am talking about vanilla builds with no re-classing, no DLC, no pre-promotes, no “backpacks”, using only ten units. With re-classing, your two main spell casters have native access to Vantage + Vengeance + Life or Death, the most broken innate combination ever.

Sure, most people field more units and use royals, and thus may not depend on the damage output of certain units. Fair enough. Conversely, it is precisely because I play with less units and more restrictions that I can sincerely tell you that Ophelia and Odin always meet their offensive thresholds and are the core of my Player Phases. If they did not deliver, I would simply be stuck in multiple instances. (I just finished yet another camping over the weekend, by the way.)

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19 minutes ago, starburst said:

In Conquest, Magic is easily the most powerful weapon. The game is heavily (even exclusively in numerous instances) Player-Phase based, and Magic deals the greatest damage output. Few enemies possess higher Resistance than Defence, and those who do are frail anyway.

On a basically Player-Phase-exclusive game, damage output rules, and after Magic come Bows and Axes. Moreover, the majority of enemies wield Blue Weapons and are weak against Bows and Axes. Berserker and Sniper deal the greatest physical damage, and delete enemies at will.

Then come Lances/ Daggers and finally Swords. The latter has lower might and only a bit more accuracy, and does not even offer a physical ranged option.

The thing about Daggers is that they have low might and their natural users have low Strength. Sure, one could build a +Strength Ninja Corrinette, or Sol Master Ninjas Silas and Xander-Siegfried; but these builds were already powerful before wielding Daggers and reach offensive thresholds that the natural Dagger-users never do.


 

Yes, Nyx sucks, but Ophelia and Odin always reach the offensive thresholds to carry the entire campaign (Hard and Lunatic.) Oh!, and Elise wipes anything with Fire and Blood. And I am talking about vanilla builds with no re-classing, no DLC, no pre-promotes, no “backpacks”, using only ten units. With re-classing, your two main spell casters have native access to Vantage + Vengeance + Life or Death, the most broken innate combination ever.

Sure, most people field more units and use royals, and thus may not depend on the damage output of certain units. Fair enough. Conversely, it is precisely because I play with less units and more restrictions that I can sincerely tell you that Ophelia and Odin always meet their offensive thresholds and are the core of my Player Phases. If they did not deliver, I would simply be stuck in multiple instances. (I just finished yet another camping over the weekend, by the way.)

Plus, even when we're talking about enemy phase, tomes are still pretty much the go-to weapon unless your name is Xander or Ryoma. Tomes are usable on classes with much better defensive stats than anything daggers are available on.

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9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Plus, even when we're talking about enemy phase, tomes are still pretty much the go-to weapon unless your name is Xander or Ryoma. Tomes are usable on classes with much better defensive stats than anything daggers are available on.

A +Magic Noble Cornflakes wielding a tome with a Sorcerer or “Family” pair-up tanks the entire eastern section of the roof in Chapter 23 (before Oboro’s gang arrives.) She is also the most active of the two “tanks” holding the lines in the lower room of Chapter 26.

Simpler examples are that Odin can tank Onis indefinitely in Ch 10, while a Servant would not hold two of them. Or that Odin goes the full Walking Dead against the Apothecary reinforcements in Ch 12, while a trained Kaze could never do it. Or that Odin/ Ophelia can tank the Knights and Taco Meat on the eastern bridge of Ch 13. Or…

At offence, Lightning is a safe bet against the General Twins in Ch 18, and against Stoneborns in Ch 21. (Note that, with only ten units, one-hitting the Rocks is a necessity to move forward, otherwise they would kill the frailer units or the caster themselves.)

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12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Whoever wrote the script though, needs some lessons on how to give each character their own voice. You can't just have Claude occasionally say "hey there, Teach" and assume the job of making him seem laid back and irreverent is done. His "As the embodiment of distrust" line in the prologue is almost painful to listen to because the writer failed to mind his choice of words.

I'd say plenty of characters have their own way of speaking. Not exactly a speech pattern but at least certain habits they often fall into. 

Cyril has a very noticeable childish speech. He kinda speaks as a kid trying to act cool by addressing ''you'' as ''ya'' and or pronounching words that are supposed to end with ''ng'' with just an ''n''. Rather than saying ''You're making it real hard for me'' he'd say ''Ya makin' it real hard for me'' 

I notice Hanneman often begins a phrase with ''ah''. ''Ah, my apologies. That was rather presumptuous'' while often ending propositions with an ''eh''. ''I was good friends with your father you know. Perhaps this is fate, eh?'' 

Claude too does a little more than just ''Hey There Teach''. Its most noteworthy with Lysithea ''She gets eeeeengry if you call her a kid!''  ''Might run in to those ghooooosts you so mu-haha-ch. 

I can't exactly put my finger on it but Edelgard has a pretty peculiar way of speaking and whenever I hear the Flame Emperor talk I hear it too. Making them share that speech was probably pretty dumb. 

 

Quote

On the topic of 3H’s voice acting. I actually found it to be pretty good. We have Patrick Seitz in the director’s chair again(He was also the one to direct awakening’s English dub) and I think he did a pretty great job of bringing out the best in each performance for the script he was given. 

Most of the cast make it a point to mention Seitz is very pleasant to work with. From what little I've seen he kinda comes across as a big teddybear despite often playing sinister roles. I believe he and Lyn's voice actress direct Heroes too. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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