What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Shadow Mir]

12 hours 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.)

I cannot agree with just about all of this - I did not find magic anywhere near as good as you're advertising it as, even in Conquest. It's not like we're talking about Awakening here, where magic ruled the roost because most enemy units had shit for resistance. Far more often than not, I found that mages got outperformed by physical units in Fates. It doesn't help that the strongest tome (without any particularly nasty negative effects that might discourage its use) is only 8 might unless your name is Leo. Nor does it that enemy resistance is higher than in most other games. Magic being in the weapon triangle makes matters even worse. Second, I don't find axes that good - Camilla aside, most of the users are bad or outclassed. What's more, I don't see why you think the lack of ranged options for swords is relevant when throwing weapons in general got neutered.

Edited November 26, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[DragonFlames]

19 hours ago, Strullemia said:

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.  

----

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.

You're correct. I have not played on Maddening difficulty yet. The jury's still out on whether I'll play that mode at all, considering all that I've heard about it from people who have.
Everything I said is also based off of personal experience.
And again: I'm not saying Lysithea is bad, far from it. I just didn't feel like she was that much better than the other available Mages such as Annette, Dorothea or even Flayn in my playthroughs so far. Though nothing will change my opinion that she's easily among the top 3 characters in the game with the best S-support to boot.

19 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

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.

Exactly.
Edelgard can use any other Axe to great effect (going back to forged Silvers on this one) and Annette is better off spamming her Wind magic, anyway.

[Shadow Mir]

On 11/25/2019 at 2:32 PM, DragonFlames said:

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.

Indeed. Which makes me think that Gremory, despite being locked to females and not having a horse, is superior to both because I only need two skill proficiencies as opposed to three. It doesn't help matters (for Dark and Holy Knight) that Gremory's magic modifier undoes the damage boost given by their respective -faires (again, Holy Knight has it worse because White Tomefaire only boosts four spells, all except one of which are not very good. Not helping matters is the fact that most characters only get one offensive white magic - that being Nosferatu, of which the Three Houses incarnation is honestly one of the worst).

I'm not sure if this is unpopular, but...

The Golden Deer has the weakest initial roster of the three houses - only four units aside from Claude are useful, and those four units are all female. The other three include two of the worst units in the game.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

On 11/26/2019 at 3:32 AM, DragonFlames said:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Throwing your two mages into the stable and leaving them there for the entire game will net them pretty decent riding ranks. You don't need to get to A, just getting high enough to have a decent percentage at promotion is enough. And getting them up to C in lances isn't all that difficult. The first few ranks in everything fly by.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Throwing your two mages into the stable and leaving them there for the entire game will net them pretty decent riding ranks. You don't need to get to A, just getting high enough to have a decent percentage at promotion is enough. And getting them up to C in lances isn't all that difficult. The first few ranks in everything fly by.

I dunno about you, but I honestly think having your mages qualify for Dark Knight (I'm not even gonna talk about Holy Knight) is the path of most resistance, and the payoff is rather meager for the extra effort for reasons already mentioned. And you might as well forget about having Dorothea and Flayn qualify for it, as they're weak in Riding. Mercedes and Lysithea are both weak in Lances, which doesn't help their case for Dark Knight.

[DragonFlames]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Indeed. Which makes me think that Gremory, despite being locked to females and not having a horse, is superior to both because I only need two skill proficiencies as opposed to three. It doesn't help matters (for Dark and Holy Knight) that Gremory's magic modifier undoes the damage boost given by their respective -faires (again, Holy Knight has it worse because White Tomefaire only boosts four spells, all except one of which are not very good. Not helping matters is the fact that most characters only get one offensive white magic - that being Nosferatu, of which the Three Houses incarnation is honestly one of the worst).

Agreed.

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'm not sure if this is unpopular, but...

The Golden Deer has the weakest initial roster of the three houses - only four units aside from Claude are useful, and those four units are all female. The other three include two of the worst units in the game.

I both agree and disagree with this. I agree that the only really useful units in the Golden Deer are the four ladies, and in my first GD playthrough, I definitely had the most troubles with them (not to mention that the ratio for characters I like and dislike is dangerously weighted in "dislike"'s favor - I can't stand Lorenz and Ignatz and I don't care much for Raphael. Leonie would be cool if she could just shut the hell up about Jeralt for two god damned seconds, and while Claude is cool and all, I hate fake people irl and he embodies their traits pretty well) , but from my personal experience right now, I'd say the Black Eagles are much worse, unit-wise.

I'm currently playing Black Eagles again (for the third time now, because I want to see the supports with the new character) and this is the picture that has arisen for me:
Edelgard sucks if she refuses to level speed, which she does for me for the second time now. My first Crimson Flower run ended with her at a whopping 16 Speed, meaning she got doubled by EVERYTHING after the time skip hit.
Hubert is a mixed bag. I don't know what to make of him, honestly. From what I've gathered, he seems inferior to Lysithea in every conceivable way with the exception of him actually being able to be a Dark Mage. His additional problem is that you have to go out of your way to ignore him if you don't want to play Crimson Flower.
Ferdinand holds the title of one of the worst units in the game for me. He's weak, he's slow, and he's frail.
Caspar. You know what's hilarious? When you're still at base Speed 13 levels later. That's Caspar for me in my current run. The only times I've seen his Speed actually go up was during promotion and class bonuses.
Linhardt. A.k.a. the worst healer in the game, because his Magic stat is a failure. And unlike Marianne or Mercedes, who are at least decently fast, he's as slow as a snail, too, so if he ever mistakenly ends up in enemy range, that's a Divine Pulse use right there. F*** this guy.
Bernadetta is good from what I've seen of her, but very unreliable in her growth rates. If the RNG is unkind, boy does she ever suck. At the moment, she just refuses to level Strength and Speed and the effects of that are as you'd expect.
Petra is great. Unless her Strength growth fails her. Which it does for me right now.
Dorothea... has Speed issues. Which is a common theme in this game as a whole, I've noticed. You can count the few actually fast units on one hand.

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Throwing your two mages into the stable and leaving them there for the entire game will net them pretty decent riding ranks. You don't need to get to A, just getting high enough to have a decent percentage at promotion is enough. And getting them up to C in lances isn't all that difficult. The first few ranks in everything fly by.

Adding on to what Shadow Mir said, I'd rather put two characters into the stables that I want to make Paladins or Bow Knights, because I can get infinitely more mileage out of those two than a Holy or Dark Knight. And this is coming from someone who usually dislikes horse-mounted units.

[Shadow Mir]

52 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

I'm currently playing Black Eagles again (for the third time now, because I want to see the supports with the new character) and this is the picture that has arisen for me:
Edelgard sucks if she refuses to level speed, which she does for me for the second time now. My first Crimson Flower run ended with her at a whopping 16 Speed, meaning she got doubled by EVERYTHING after the time skip hit.
Hubert is a mixed bag. I don't know what to make of him, honestly. From what I've gathered, he seems inferior to Lysithea in every conceivable way with the exception of him actually being able to be a Dark Mage. His additional problem is that you have to go out of your way to ignore him if you don't want to play Crimson Flower.
Ferdinand holds the title of one of the worst units in the game for me. He's weak, he's slow, and he's frail.
Caspar. You know what's hilarious? When you're still at base Speed 13 levels later. That's Caspar for me in my current run. The only times I've seen his Speed actually go up was during promotion and class bonuses.
Linhardt. A.k.a. the worst healer in the game, because his Magic stat is a failure. And unlike Marianne or Mercedes, who are at least decently fast, he's as slow as a snail, too, so if he ever mistakenly ends up in enemy range, that's a Divine Pulse use right there. F*** this guy.
Bernadetta is good from what I've seen of her, but very unreliable in her growth rates. If the RNG is unkind, boy does she ever suck. At the moment, she just refuses to level Strength and Speed and the effects of that are as you'd expect.
Petra is great. Unless her Strength growth fails her. Which it does for me right now.
Dorothea... has Speed issues. Which is a common theme in this game as a whole, I've noticed. You can count the few actually fast units on one hand.

Oof. I cannot really judge for myself how they are yet, because I'm still on my first run. I DO know, however, that Raphael is as slow as a snail on depressants, and not nearly bulky enough to make up for it (unless you're an armored knight or something, constant enemy doubles WILL take their toll on you). His strengths don't help his case (the heaviest weapon type and the weapon type that only has 4 might on its strongest weapons? Ugh). Also, the new character only has two supports - Byleth and Mercedes.

[Jotari]

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I dunno about you, but I honestly think having your mages qualify for Dark Knight (I'm not even gonna talk about Holy Knight) is the path of most resistance, and the payoff is rather meager for the extra effort for reasons already mentioned. And you might as well forget about having Dorothea and Flayn qualify for it, as they're weak in Riding. Mercedes and Lysithea are both weak in Lances, which doesn't help their case for Dark Knight.

It doesn't help their case, but it also doesn't hinder it massively. A C in lances is not that difficult to get at all with just a bit if focus. At least if you at the start of the game that you'll need it at the end. Playing blind (where as far as I remember they don't tell you the requirements until someone hits level 30) and suddenly trying to get to C in lances with someone who's weak in them will be a desperate struggle. Greomorie will still probably be a better and easier accessed option for most female users, but for males getting Dark Knight is fully possible if you know where you're going from the outset. Unless the unit in question has some really useful white magic (like Linehardt's warp) I'd probably go black Knight than a lower tier class.

7 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

Agreed.

I both agree and disagree with this. I agree that the only really useful units in the Golden Deer are the four ladies, and in my first GD playthrough, I definitely had the most troubles with them (not to mention that the ratio for characters I like and dislike is dangerously weighted in "dislike"'s favor - I can't stand Lorenz and Ignatz and I don't care much for Raphael. Leonie would be cool if she could just shut the hell up about Jeralt for two god damned seconds, and while Claude is cool and all, I hate fake people irl and he embodies their traits pretty well) , but from my personal experience right now, I'd say the Black Eagles are much worse, unit-wise.

I'm currently playing Black Eagles again (for the third time now, because I want to see the supports with the new character) and this is the picture that has arisen for me:
Edelgard sucks if she refuses to level speed, which she does for me for the second time now. My first Crimson Flower run ended with her at a whopping 16 Speed, meaning she got doubled by EVERYTHING after the time skip hit.
Hubert is a mixed bag. I don't know what to make of him, honestly. From what I've gathered, he seems inferior to Lysithea in every conceivable way with the exception of him actually being able to be a Dark Mage. His additional problem is that you have to go out of your way to ignore him if you don't want to play Crimson Flower.
Ferdinand holds the title of one of the worst units in the game for me. He's weak, he's slow, and he's frail.
Caspar. You know what's hilarious? When you're still at base Speed 13 levels later. That's Caspar for me in my current run. The only times I've seen his Speed actually go up was during promotion and class bonuses.
Linhardt. A.k.a. the worst healer in the game, because his Magic stat is a failure. And unlike Marianne or Mercedes, who are at least decently fast, he's as slow as a snail, too, so if he ever mistakenly ends up in enemy range, that's a Divine Pulse use right there. F*** this guy.
Bernadetta is good from what I've seen of her, but very unreliable in her growth rates. If the RNG is unkind, boy does she ever suck. At the moment, she just refuses to level Strength and Speed and the effects of that are as you'd expect.
Petra is great. Unless her Strength growth fails her. Which it does for me right now.
Dorothea... has Speed issues. Which is a common theme in this game as a whole, I've noticed. You can count the few actually fast units on one hand.

Adding on to what Shadow Mir said, I'd rather put two characters into the stables that I want to make Paladins or Bow Knights, because I can get infinitely more mileage out of those two than a Holy or Dark Knight. And this is coming from someone who usually dislikes horse-mounted units.

An archer going for now knight only really needs to worry about horse riding. You can just make that their focus for most of the game. Lances will be acquired easily and your bow rank should be at least B or B+ by the time you're ready to promote just by exclusive use of it. If you're trying to make someone who is not a dedicated archer a bow knight, then you're probably going to make them a cavalry or paladin early on anyway.

I'm not trying to claim Black Knight is the easiest class in the game to get, but if you know you want it (and that extra movement is a good reason to want it), you can do it without too much trouble and without messing up the rest of your army. The game gives plenty of ways to focus on different things. You just have to prepare from the outset. Which was one of the most annoying things on my initial playthrough when I was hitting level 30 and nothing could promote, but became one of my most enjoyable aspects of the game on subsequent playthroughs.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

40 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It doesn't help their case, but it also doesn't hinder it massively. A C in lances is not that difficult to get at all with just a bit if focus. At least if you at the start of the game that you'll need it at the end. Playing blind (where as far as I remember they don't tell you the requirements until someone hits level 30) and suddenly trying to get to C in lances with someone who's weak in them will be a desperate struggle. Greomorie will still probably be a better and easier accessed option for most female users, but for males getting Dark Knight is fully possible if you know where you're going from the outset. Unless the unit in question has some really useful white magic (like Linehardt's warp) I'd probably go black Knight than a lower tier class.

As far as I'm concerned, marginally stronger spells (relative to Gremory) don't even come close to justifying the investment in Riding and Lances. Male mages have a better case for Dark Knight, but the only male units suited to being mages are either exclusive to one route (Hubert), far from good units (Lorenz, Hanneman) or are better off staying in a lower tier class for some reason (Linhardt).

Edited November 28, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Black Eagles is easily the worst party although I definitely rank Edelgard higher than Dimitri because she can easier oneshot things, even in maddening. Both are slow, but Edelgard will be affected through the entire game because of her terrible personal promotions. 

As for the other BE students everyone aside of Petra has a better replacement. 

Linhardt has warp at least which is rare. 

Ferdinand might be the best paladin, but I never made him become one. He is my dancer right now and does his job very well. 

[Shadow Mir]

45 minutes ago, Zemuria said:

Black Eagles is easily the worst party although I definitely rank Edelgard higher than Dimitri because she can easier oneshot things, even in maddening. Both are slow, but Edelgard will be affected through the entire game because of her terrible personal promotions. 

As for the other BE students everyone aside of Petra has a better replacement. 

Linhardt has warp at least which is rare. 

Ferdinand might be the best paladin, but I never made him become one. He is my dancer right now and does his job very well. 

Like I said, I can't really judge, but I still find this a hard sell, considering that Lorenz finds himself in the shadow of units not just within his own house, but from the other houses as well, and Raphael is just terrible all around (I have a very hard time seeing him as better than Caspar... or anyone else, really). Ignatz is only slightly better (and I wouldn't see him as a better option than Bernie, to be frank).

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Raphael with gauntlets is a good PP unit. 

 

The weakest characters still can become a dancer at least, so they are not quite useless. I think Caspar and Lorenz are good potential dancers. I wanted to make Lorenz become a dancer in my GD run, but unfortunately he did not have the required charm. 

 

Still in my BE run of the BE I only use Edelgard, Petra, Ferdinand and Linhardt. Everyone else was benched or died. 

Edited November 28, 2019 by Zemuria

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Zemuria said:

Raphael with gauntlets is a good PP unit. 

 

The weakest characters still can become a dancer at least, so they are not quite useless. I think Caspar and Lorenz are good potential dancers. I wanted to make Lorenz become a dancer in my GD run, but unfortunately he did not have the required charm. 

 

Still in my BE run of the BE I only use Edelgard, Petra, Ferdinand and Linhardt. Everyone else was benched or died. 

Which is not very meaningful in a series where Enemy Phase tends to be more important, now is it?

Unfortunately, some of the worst units also have charm stats bad enough to ensure that any dreams of White Heron Cup glory stay just that. Like Lorenz, for example. Though judging from your admission, I'm sure you ended up finding that out the hard way.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

As far as I'm concerned, marginally stronger spells (relative to Gremory) don't even come close to justifying the investment in Riding and Lances. Male mages have a better case for Dark Knight, but the only male units suited to being mages are either exclusive to one route (Hubert), far from good units (Lorenz, Hanneman) or are better off staying in a lower tier class for some reason (Linhardt).

Well that's your prerogative, no one's forcing you to use Dark Knights. But they are a viable and useful option if you know what you're doing.

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which is not very meaningful in a series where Enemy Phase tends to be more important, now is it?

Unfortunately, some of the worst units also have charm stats bad enough to ensure that any dreams of White Heron Cup glory stay just that. Like Lorenz, for example. Though judging from your admission, I'm sure you ended up finding that out the hard way.

I find Three Houses to be one of the more player focused games in the series. A lot of enemies with longer range attacks that can't be easily countered, no real swarms of weaker enemies, giant bosses that have devastating attacks that can be disabled or baited to a single unit, encloser shutting off enemy phase attacks and brave weapons working like in Heroes where they're only player phase focused. A lot of the design seems to be to promote player phase compared to earlier entries in the series.

[samthedigital]

Quote

I find Three Houses to be one of the more player focused games in the series. A lot of enemies with longer range attacks that can't be easily countered, no real swarms of weaker enemies, giant bosses that have devastating attacks that can be disabled or baited to a single unit, encloser shutting off enemy phase attacks and brave weapons working like in Heroes where they're only player phase focused. A lot of the design seems to be to promote player phase compared to earlier entries in the series.

If you're playing on Maddening this is largely going to be true. Otherwise the enemies aren't really threatening enough most of the time.

Quote

Well that's your prerogative, no one's forcing you to use Dark Knights. But they are a viable and useful option if you know what you're doing.

It's also important to note that 3 Houses can promote many different kinds of viable builds and playstyles. The older games are a lot more simple in that way; turn counts mattered more, and a unit didn't change a whole lot from where they started to where they ended up.

[X-Naut]

Gimme a game where FE12 Drill Grounds level-ups are the norm. I'll gladly sacrifice seeing 5+ stat levels if it means I'm not seeing 1-point duds.

[Garlyle]

10 hours ago, Zemuria said:

Raphael with gauntlets is a good PP unit. 

 

The weakest characters still can become a dancer at least, so they are not quite useless. I think Caspar and Lorenz are good potential dancers. I wanted to make Lorenz become a dancer in my GD run, but unfortunately he did not have the required charm. 

 

Still in my BE run of the BE I only use Edelgard, Petra, Ferdinand and Linhardt. Everyone else was benched or died. 

Hey, that's the Raphael from my first playthrough. Though he ended being the tank of the squad. To be fair, the only unit I'd recruit from BE is Petra, Lions and Deers have better options.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which is not very meaningful in a series where Enemy Phase tends to be more important, now is it?

Three Houses is rather a player phase game, at least in maddening, because you want to get rid / prevent reinforcements asap.

Sure, there are maps to turtle, but they are in the minority.

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well that's your prerogative, no one's forcing you to use Dark Knights. But they are a viable and useful option if you know what you're doing.

I'm not saying they're not viable. I'm saying they require far too much investment for the payoff - I'm not impressed when the extra investment is "rewarded" with a measly 2 more damage than mages would've had in Gremory.

2 hours ago, Zemuria said:

Three Houses is rather a player phase game, at least in maddening, because you want to get rid / prevent reinforcements asap.

Sure, there are maps to turtle, but they are in the minority.

Even so, Raphael sucks much harder than Little Mac's recovery due to crippling overspecialization. Or the Dedede vs. Mega Man matchup in Smash (which is VERY heavily in the favour of the latter). I'd have a much better time against Zero Suit Samus as The Boss than trying to make Raphael into a usable unit, too (and that spirit fight, in case you don't know, is hard as hell, so put that into your pipe and smoke it).

2 hours ago, Garlyle said:

Hey, that's the Raphael from my first playthrough. Though he ended being the tank of the squad. To be fair, the only unit I'd recruit from BE is Petra, Lions and Deers have better options.

I think you're selling the Eagles short - I'd much rather have Bernadetta than Ashe or Ignatz (she's the only unit that gets Encloser besides Claude, whereas Ignatz's Ward Arrow is significantly less useful, especially since the most threatening mages tend to be immune to silence anyhow, and Waning Shot is good, but not as an A rank skill when Petra gets it far earlier), and Dorothea's the best shot you have of having a long range spell, considering the only other units that can learn one of them have issues (Hanneman is slow and outclassed by the other mages, to say nothing of needing A+ to get Meteor, Manuela has a weakness in Reason, as does Anna, who is DLC, and Hilda leans heavily towards being a physical unit). Also, I'd consider Caspar worth recruiting if you're leading the Lions since he's needed for Mercedes's paralogue. Raphael has nothing going for him that'd make me consider recruiting him in the event I didn't start with the Golden Deer, and even there his usefulness is very, VERY limited.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

34 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

I'm not saying they're not viable. I'm saying they require far too much investment for the payoff - I'm not impressed when the extra investment is "rewarded" with a measly 2 more damage than mages would've had in Gremory.

Well my argument is that the investment is minor if you plan things right. If you know what class you want for all your units, it's not unreasonable at all to have them all able to hit each threshold by promotion time, unless you want to make every single unit a cavalry/flier (which I actually did the latter of with only minor set backs in my most recent playthrough). The investment for Dark Knight is no bigger than the investment for Gremory. It just requires more careful planning. It's more difficult to get to, but not so difficult that focusing on it causes other units, or even that particular unit, to suffer.

[Shadow Mir]

28 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well my argument is that the investment is minor if you plan things right. If you know what class you want for all your units, it's not unreasonable at all to have them all able to hit each threshold by promotion time, unless you want to make every single unit a cavalry/flier (which I actually did the latter of with only minor set backs in my most recent playthrough). The investment for Dark Knight is no bigger than the investment for Gremory. It just requires more careful planning. It's more difficult to get to, but not so difficult that focusing on it causes other units, or even that particular unit, to suffer.

Investing in reason, faith (most mages would want these), riding, lances (needed for Dark Knight), and authority (for battalions) sounds like you're spreading yourself thin. Yeah, no. Calling investment that would encompass 5 proficiencies "minor" is a gross oversimplification, and you know it.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Garlyle]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I think you're selling the Eagles short - I'd much rather have Bernadetta than Ashe or Ignatz (she's the only unit that gets Encloser besides Claude, whereas Ignatz's Ward Arrow is significantly less useful, especially since the most threatening mages tend to be immune to silence anyhow, and Waning Shot is good, but not as an A rank skill when Petra gets it far earlier), and Dorothea's the best shot you have of having a long range spell, considering the only other units that can learn one of them have issues (Hanneman is slow and outclassed by the other mages, to say nothing of needing A+ to get Meteor, Manuela has a weakness in Reason, as does Anna, who is DLC, and Hilda leans heavily towards being a physical unit). Also, I'd consider Caspar worth recruiting if you're leading the Lions since he's needed for Mercedes's paralogue. Raphael has nothing going for him that'd make me consider recruiting him in the event I didn't start with the Golden Deer, and even there his usefulness is very, VERY limited.

Bernadetta is cute, but I prefer Ignatz as a unit instead - not just Ward Arrow, but overall his skillset is more useful for me - that extra accuracy helps him to target enemies very well even 4 tiles away, and rally skills are also not something to look over. Break Shot is also helpful to lower enemy defenses, so he's a lot of stuff packed into one for me.

Also we discussed pretty much a hundred times at this point that you want to use anyone but Raphael.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Garlyle said:

Bernadetta is cute, but I prefer Ignatz as a unit instead - not just Ward Arrow, but overall his skillset is more useful for me - that extra accuracy helps him to target enemies very well even 4 tiles away, and rally skills are also not something to look over. Break Shot is also helpful to lower enemy defenses, so he's a lot of stuff packed into one for me.

Also we discussed pretty much a hundred times at this point that you want to use anyone but Raphael.

Rallies are nice, but I'd rather just recruit Annette for that, because she has both Strength and Speed (sure, Ignatz can get Rally Strength as well... but at S authority. Like that's gonna happen before the game is over). Being accurate is nice, but it ain't much help when you're barely scratching whatever you're attacking unless it has wings. Anyway, my point is that you're not giving the Eagles enough credit.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[vanguard333]

On 11/27/2019 at 2:45 PM, DragonFlames said:

I'm currently playing Black Eagles again (for the third time now, because I want to see the supports with the new character) and this is the picture that has arisen for me:

Edelgard sucks if she refuses to level speed, which she does for me for the second time now. My first Crimson Flower run ended with her at a whopping 16 Speed, meaning she got doubled by EVERYTHING after the time skip hit.
Hubert is a mixed bag. I don't know what to make of him, honestly. From what I've gathered, he seems inferior to Lysithea in every conceivable way with the exception of him actually being able to be a Dark Mage. His additional problem is that you have to go out of your way to ignore him if you don't want to play Crimson Flower.
Ferdinand holds the title of one of the worst units in the game for me. He's weak, he's slow, and he's frail.
Caspar. You know what's hilarious? When you're still at base Speed 13 levels later. That's Caspar for me in my current run. The only times I've seen his Speed actually go up was during promotion and class bonuses.
Linhardt. A.k.a. the worst healer in the game, because his Magic stat is a failure. And unlike Marianne or Mercedes, who are at least decently fast, he's as slow as a snail, too, so if he ever mistakenly ends up in enemy range, that's a Divine Pulse use right there. F*** this guy.
Bernadetta is good from what I've seen of her, but very unreliable in her growth rates. If the RNG is unkind, boy does she ever suck. At the moment, she just refuses to level Strength and Speed and the effects of that are as you'd expect.
Petra is great. Unless her Strength growth fails her. Which it does for me right now.
Dorothea... has Speed issues. Which is a common theme in this game as a whole, I've noticed. You can count the few actually fast units on one hand.

I'm only on my first playthrough of the game, let alone Crimson Flower, so I can't make a full judgement. But This has not been my experience at all:

Edelgard has levelled speed a lot for me. 

Hubert is pretty good from what I've seen. One thing that helps him early on compared to Lysithea is that he learns at least two 1-3 range spells, unlike Lysithea who doesn't learn any. 

Ferdinand Is one of my best units. He's strong, he's fast, and he has the highest defence of all my Crimson Flower units. He was my tank for most of part 1. 

Caspar For me, Caspar's speed is fine; not bad, not great. It's his defence that's the real issue; even with his high HP, he can't last too many fights without needing to be healed. 

Linhardt What do you mean his magic stat is a failure? His magic stat has been really good for me. His speed is not good, but I'd hardly call him slow as a snail. Then again, I mainly use him as a healer and as the guy with the battalion that doubles movement. 

Bernadetta Only one playthrough, so I can't say anything about her and RNG. I recruited Ashe and both of them right now are snipers. Ashe has higher strength, but Bernadetta has higher speed. I agree her strength is an issue. 

Petra I agree is great. Her strength has not failed on my playthrough. 

Dorothea …Is an offensive beast. She hasn't had any speed issues I've noticed; double-attacking even when using heavier spells.

[Ottservia]

You know what. I'm just gonna go out and say it. Fates is a much better story than SoV by a laaaaarge margin. Fates's story just has so much more nuance to it than what it seems like. It stumbles a bit here or there(chapter 15 of conquest I'm looking at you) yeah but the story is actually pretty good all things considered. Also I don't get the claim that Corrin is a mary sue cause they're not at all at least by my metric. Sure the story revolves around but that's kind of the idea behind the story. I dunno just playing through the game again and I just can't see a lot of the criticisms people have with this story. I can certainly see some of them but most of the really don't hold much weight either because:

1. that's the fucking point so of what the story was trying to get you to feel

2. It just flat out doesn't make any sense if you paid any attention

Edited November 28, 2019 by Ottservia