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What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?


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3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I honestly didn't like it. I think a lot of people remember it fondly, but I never found it very impactful.

Well I know it isnt implemented right, but it could be.

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-Ferdinand's personal ability isn't good. In general, abilities that become a non-factor the moment the user takes damage (or gets HP on a level up) are hard to justify calling good.

-Seteth, despite looking like he'd be amazing, isn't that great. I would honestly chalk this up to the way Three Houses is designed, though; he comes at the end of part 1, and thus well behind your other units that you'd been working with from the word go, as well as recruited units. 

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13 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

-Ferdinand's personal ability isn't good. In general, abilities that become a non-factor the moment the user takes damage (or gets HP on a level up) are hard to justify calling good.

The solution there is to not take damage.

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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

-Ferdinand's personal ability isn't good. In general, abilities that become a non-factor the moment the user takes damage (or gets HP on a level up) are hard to justify calling good.

Disagree, because

  1. You're guaranteed to have the ability in effect before you take damage, as well as every time you heal.
  2. Because one of the abilities it comes with is +15 evade, it means that if built as a dodgetank, he is highly likely to keep the boost
  3. The typical 3H team includes multiple people who have super-long-range Physic (there are two natural users on Ferdinand's native route), so even if he does take damage (or gains HP from a level), it's easy to heal him. Additionally, regen effects (Dorothea's personal early, various equips including Spear of Assal late) are plentiful in this game.

Even if you only had the effect half the time, which is unequestionably an underestimate of what actually happens in practice, a personal skill which is "+7.5 hit, +7.5 evade" would already qualify as "good" in my opinion. Since dodge-tanking is so viable in this game, anything which boosts evasion further is very potent (e.g. the Evasion Ring is unquestionably a good accessory). And accuracy isn't bad to have either.

But for what it's worth I largely agree with you on Seteth. He's decent, but joining late really sucks, because of missing out on repositional skills and intermediate masteries.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

In fairness, while I found Dimitri's similar ability really useful, even if you reach 100% dodgetanking, you still have to contend with it deactivating on HP level ups.

Yeah, contend with, but it's not like it's hard to toss a heal or give him and auto item. Worst case scenario is he levels up from counter killing an enemy at the very start of enemy phase. It's not like getting a HP level up means he can't use the effect for the rest of the map. Giving him renewal is also an option, though it's a bit of a pain to grind him through Priest or Bishop (forget which one of the two renewal is with). That's something I have done, but only for New Game+ shenanigans. For a legitimate build it's not even really needed. Just making Ferdinand go Wyvern lord and already you're adding Alert Stance, Flying Avoid+10 and a prowess skill onto his dodge build tank to complement his personal skill. Toss an Evasion Ring and that's already ~50% avoid from extra stuff alone (and assuming regular Alert Stance and not even Alert Stance+ which takes longer to get, but with Alert Stance+ you're looking at almost 70 avoid).

Edited by Jotari
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On 12/25/2021 at 12:15 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Disagree, because

  1. You're guaranteed to have the ability in effect before you take damage, as well as every time you heal.
  2. Because one of the abilities it comes with is +15 evade, it means that if built as a dodgetank, he is highly likely to keep the boost
  3. The typical 3H team includes multiple people who have super-long-range Physic (there are two natural users on Ferdinand's native route), so even if he does take damage (or gains HP from a level), it's easy to heal him. Additionally, regen effects (Dorothea's personal early, various equips including Spear of Assal late) are plentiful in this game.

Even if you only had the effect half the time, which is unequestionably an underestimate of what actually happens in practice, a personal skill which is "+7.5 hit, +7.5 evade" would already qualify as "good" in my opinion. Since dodge-tanking is so viable in this game, anything which boosts evasion further is very potent (e.g. the Evasion Ring is unquestionably a good accessory). And accuracy isn't bad to have either.

Regardless, I consider it a con that Ferdinand requires micromanaging his health for him to be at his best when pretty much anyone else doesn't need that. While his personal might help with dodgetanking, doesn't the fact that he needs micromanaging his health to keep it active make him worse off than someone like Ingrid, who doesn't require HP micromanaging for optimal performance?

Bolded: It's only an underestimate of what happens in practice is your playstyle revolves around Ferdinand staying at full health 24/7. Which is very specific and restricting (it's not like the Spear of Assal is for him and him alone)...

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30 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Regardless, I consider it a con that Ferdinand requires micromanaging his health for him to be at his best when pretty much anyone else doesn't need that. While his personal might help with dodgetanking, doesn't the fact that he needs micromanaging his health to keep it active make him worse off than someone like Ingrid, who doesn't require HP micromanaging for optimal performance?

Bolded: It's only an underestimate of what happens in practice is your playstyle revolves around Ferdinand staying at full health 24/7. Which is very specific and restricting (it's not like the Spear of Assal is for him and him alone)...

Or you could just micromanage his health. It's not that difficult to ensure characters are fully healed. Even without a full HP skill you'll want to be micromanaging to ensure all your characters are at full health anyway as it increases their survivability and grants EXP to healers (and an abundance of auto healing items even takes any thinking out of it). Unless you're specifically building a vantage wrath build of course.

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Regardless, I consider it a con that Ferdinand requires micromanaging his health for him to be at his best when pretty much anyone else doesn't need that. While his personal might help with dodgetanking, doesn't the fact that he needs micromanaging his health to keep it active make him worse off than someone like Ingrid, who doesn't require HP micromanaging for optimal performance?

Bolded: It's only an underestimate of what happens in practice is your playstyle revolves around Ferdinand staying at full health 24/7. Which is very specific and restricting (it's not like the Spear of Assal is for him and him alone)...

Full health 24/7 would be +15 evade/hit. I used 50%, and claimed it's an underestimate, because in my experience it is incredibly easy to benefit from the personal more than 50% of the time (if less than 100%).

I absolutely agree that health micromanagement is a negative, which is why I'm not acting like he has his personal active 100% of the time (unlike certain Bernadetta fans I've met). However, something which is active a significant proportion of the time is still a lot better than nothing (e.g. it's certainly better than Ingrid's personal, which grants only 5 hit, and only to gambits). When it is active, it's a large advantage he has over other units (Ingrid*, etc.). When it's not... oh well? At that point he becomes like other units. You talk as if his personal actively makes him worse below full health; it doesn't.

*note: not trying to pick on Ingrid too much, I just brought her up because you did. I agree that Ingrid has legitimate advantages of her own over Ferdinand, and that you can debate which unit is better as a result. But Ferdinand clearly has the better personal skill.

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On 12/28/2021 at 2:31 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Full health 24/7 would be +15 evade/hit. I used 50%, and claimed it's an underestimate, because in my experience it is incredibly easy to benefit from the personal more than 50% of the time (if less than 100%).

I absolutely agree that health micromanagement is a negative, which is why I'm not acting like he has his personal active 100% of the time (unlike certain Bernadetta fans I've met). However, something which is active a significant proportion of the time is still a lot better than nothing (e.g. it's certainly better than Ingrid's personal, which grants only 5 hit, and only to gambits). When it is active, it's a large advantage he has over other units (Ingrid*, etc.). When it's not... oh well? At that point he becomes like other units. You talk as if his personal actively makes him worse below full health; it doesn't.

*note: not trying to pick on Ingrid too much, I just brought her up because you did. I agree that Ingrid has legitimate advantages of her own over Ferdinand, and that you can debate which unit is better as a result. But Ferdinand clearly has the better personal skill.

Yes. Indeed, Ferdinand has his own advantages as a unit (and this ain't the topic for debating whether he or Ingrid is better), but going back to his personal... sure, I can agree that it's better than Ingrid's (which also boosts gambit might), but that says more about how insignificant a boost to something that I can only use twice a map at most is than anything else (and that definitely does not make it worth considering good, especially when he's likely being used as a melee unit, in which case it's likely not staying active for very long short of lucky dodges). That said, my opinion of it is low partially because it's Subaki's personal renamed - and I consider Subaki's personal hot garbage.

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To be honest I'd say Subaki had a pretty good, but not great, personal skill. There's a number of things at work here, though:

  • Subaki himself is not very good, compared to Ferdinand, as he has poor strength/speed, and his above average bulk isn't really good enough to be a dedicated tank. This inevitably impacts your perception of anything else he has.
  • Subaki isn't easily able to become an effective dodgetank. There just aren't as many ways to stack evasion in Fates as in 3H, and on top of that Subaki's not that well set up to do so. You can reclass him to swordmaster but he'll have an E in swords (which directly impacts evade rate with WTA) and in general will be far less effective than Ryoma, who gets a flat +10 evade of his own (Raijinto) with no strings attached.
  • A flat accuracy boost is also IMO less valuable in Fates than 3H, because of gambits, which tend to have lower base hit than most Fates weaponry.
  • Fates personal skills are, on average, a bit stronger than those in 3H. Subaki's personal skill is decent, but it's not as good as those of Hinoka/Sakura/Ryoma, for a few obvious candidates.

When you consider all that, it's not hard to see why you've probably encountered considerably more praise for Ferdinand's personal skill than Subaki's, even though they're nominally the same.

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5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That said, my opinion of it is low partially because it's Subaki's personal renamed - and I consider Subaki's personal hot garbage.

 

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

To be honest I'd say Subaki had a pretty good, but not great, personal skill. There's a number of things at work here, though:

  • Subaki himself is not very good, compared to Ferdinand, as he has poor strength/speed, and his above average bulk isn't really good enough to be a dedicated tank. This inevitably impacts your perception of anything else he has.
  • Subaki isn't easily able to become an effective dodgetank. There just aren't as many ways to stack evasion in Fates as in 3H, and on top of that Subaki's not that well set up to do so. You can reclass him to swordmaster but he'll have an E in swords (which directly impacts evade rate with WTA) and in general will be far less effective than Ryoma, who gets a flat +10 evade of his own (Raijinto) with no strings attached.
  • A flat accuracy boost is also IMO less valuable in Fates than 3H, because of gambits, which tend to have lower base hit than most Fates weaponry.
  • Fates personal skills are, on average, a bit stronger than those in 3H. Subaki's personal skill is decent, but it's not as good as those of Hinoka/Sakura/Ryoma, for a few obvious candidates.

When you consider all that, it's not hard to see why you've probably encountered considerably more praise for Ferdinand's personal skill than Subaki's, even though they're nominally the same.

I also kind of wanna add on that the gameplay mechanics between Fates and 3H are drastically different, so despite Subaki and Ferdinand having the same exact personal skill, they receive completely different results in each of their home games.

As mentioned, avoid-stacking/dodge-tanking is much more effective in 3H than it is in Fates. But more importantly, the difference between the RNG systems in either game plays a huge role in that.

Fates has a weird RNG system where low hit rates would hit more often compared to 3H's 2RNG system, which is more forgiving and allows for lower hit rates to hit less frequently. I'm terrible with numbers so I can't do any proper calculations, but Subaki seeing a 20% hit chance would be more threatening for him in Fates than Ferdinand seeing a 20% hit chance in 3H. I think this is the sole reason why Subaki's personal is lacking in comparison to others' since dodge-tanking is significantly less effective in Fates, but Ferdinand's personal is much more useful since avoid is so important in 3H.

Subaki has access to Duelist's Blow, so he technically can avoid-stack, but he and the rest of the Fates cast--who are condemned to its funky RNG system--are usually better off tanking hits than dodging them because you never know if that 20% hit chance will hit. And thankfully, Subaki has a decent-enough defense stat to make up for that.

To be fair, Subaki's isn't really bottom-of-the-barrel in terms of personal skills--far from it, actually. It actually comes in handy at times. If we wanna talk trash personal skills, Keaton and Raphael's personals come to mind tbh lol

Edited by LJ_Tenma
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I like the ranking system in FE7, and I like how it rewards you with bonuses to every unit's Critical Evade (and some units' Accuracy and Avoid). It could use some work (particularly in the Survival and Hector-exclusive chapters), but the absence of a ranking system in FE8 is a big reason why I don't like it as much as FE7.

I like having a unit whose only job is to keep track of the supplies (i.e., Merlinus in FE6 and 7). I figure that must be an unpopular opinion, since FE6 and 7 are the only games to feature such a unit.

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3 hours ago, Paper Jam said:

I like having a unit whose only job is to keep track of the supplies (i.e., Merlinus in FE6 and 7). I figure that must be an unpopular opinion, since FE6 and 7 are the only games to feature such a unit.

I like that too, actually. I don't want to lose access to the convoy entirely during maps like in the Tellius games, but it feels unfair to have one unit who basically has an infinite inventory. It's also more immersive; I can believe that a guy in a tent is storing all this stuff, but where is Eirika keeping it?

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6 hours ago, Paper Jam said:

I like having a unit whose only job is to keep track of the supplies (i.e., Merlinus in FE6 and 7). I figure that must be an unpopular opinion, since FE6 and 7 are the only games to feature such a unit.

It's  not designated as a unit, but the first game in the series did have a tent in your starting position that acted as a convoy. Basically FE7 Merlinus only it never promotes to be able to move. As far as a feature goes, I'm with you that it's interesting and worth doing.

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3 hours ago, Florete said:

I like that too, actually. I don't want to lose access to the convoy entirely during maps like in the Tellius games, but it feels unfair to have one unit who basically has an infinite inventory. It's also more immersive; I can believe that a guy in a tent is storing all this stuff, but where is Eirika keeping it?

I agree with this, with the caveat that I don't think either implementation of Merlinus has been particularly fun.

For his first 19 appearances in FE7, Merlinus couldn't move. This led to situations where on a few maps, the game would spawn reinforcements near his position, potentially making him retreat. This is extremely annoying because you'd either have to leave one or two units back to defend him (potentially completely wasting their time if no such reinforcements exist) or accept that he would die sometimes.

FE6 (and lategame FE7) avoids this problem by allowing him to move, but spending time moving him each turn kinda feels like a waste of my time since he can't actually do anything.

Finally, I'll mention that I really dislike the maps in FE7 where Merlinus is absent (or has retreated) so I have to constantly juggle inventory to avoid discarding things should enemies drop items. To me this is not an enjoyable type of gameplay at all. I much preferred how FE6 still let you send things to convoy (flavour-wise, there'd be plenty of time to pick up extra treasure when the battle ends).

So I like the flavour of Merlinus quite well, I've just never been particularly happy with the actual gameplay of the implementation.

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18 hours ago, Paper Jam said:

I like the ranking system in FE7, and I like how it rewards you with bonuses to every unit's Critical Evade (and some units' Accuracy and Avoid). It could use some work (particularly in the Survival and Hector-exclusive chapters), but the absence of a ranking system in FE8 is a big reason why I don't like it as much as FE7.

I miss ranked runs. It was nice to have an extra challenge run baked into the game for you already.

 

18 hours ago, Paper Jam said:

 

I like having a unit whose only job is to keep track of the supplies (i.e., Merlinus in FE6 and 7). I figure that must be an unpopular opinion, since FE6 and 7 are the only games to feature such a unit.

Yeah, the unit that can repeatedly die and gives access to the supply was such an interesting unit, and another thing I miss.

I don't think either of these are that unpopular, but I could be a bit biased...

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22 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I agree with this, with the caveat that I don't think either implementation of Merlinus has been particularly fun.

For his first 19 appearances in FE7, Merlinus couldn't move. This led to situations where on a few maps, the game would spawn reinforcements near his position, potentially making him retreat. This is extremely annoying because you'd either have to leave one or two units back to defend him (potentially completely wasting their time if no such reinforcements exist) or accept that he would die sometimes.

FE6 (and lategame FE7) avoids this problem by allowing him to move, but spending time moving him each turn kinda feels like a waste of my time since he can't actually do anything.

Finally, I'll mention that I really dislike the maps in FE7 where Merlinus is absent (or has retreated) so I have to constantly juggle inventory to avoid discarding things should enemies drop items. To me this is not an enjoyable type of gameplay at all. I much preferred how FE6 still let you send things to convoy (flavour-wise, there'd be plenty of time to pick up extra treasure when the battle ends).

So I like the flavour of Merlinus quite well, I've just never been particularly happy with the actual gameplay of the implementation.

Lundgren's small time, the true antagonist of Lyn's tale is "You have too many items. Select one to discard."

I've been thinking if they bring back dedicated thieves then your thief could have FE7 Merlinus style deployment, possibly with a small monetary price to be thematic. Maybe wrap the mid-map convoy utility into them as well?

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Its my first unpopular opinion of the year

I find myself prefering the original version of Black Knight's loss over the one that the western version got. The whole 'my spirit arrived, but my body did't' or something does sound incredibly stupid, but warp power being to blame did't come out of nowhere. POR already mentioned that warp powder is a dangerous tool and RD Lekain mentions that the warp staff takes care of all those nasty side effects like feeling drained. So BK not being at the top of his game thanks to warp powder is perfectly acceptable for me.

I suppose the new reason does fit his character...but I never cared much for that aspect of his character. I felt it robbed BK of his mystique and just made him come across as some really vain killer. I did't care much for the 'warrior spirit' part of him, especially not when his most defining kill was purely to stroke his own ego. 

Edited by Sasori
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4 hours ago, Sasori said:

The whole 'my spirit arrived, but my body didn't' or something does sound incredibly stupid

This is definitely my take on it. It's a stupid explanation which isn't backed up by anything else in the game, and there's no hint of it in the dialog at the time. It also contradicts the in-game interface where the Chapter 27 Zelgius fight has the exact same stats as his previous appearances... which is consistent if he was holding back a bit all three times, but makes no sense if only the Chapter 27 fight should be weakened due to malfunctioning warp powder.

The explanation in the localization is consistent with the personality we see in both games. It's not as if the "obsessed with a duel with Greil at his full strength" wasn't already in the game. It's fine to not like that aspect of the character but it was always there:

image.png.ae487afa18fac4254fa875360afaa6d5.png

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Sure the Warp Powder thing has some set up, but a stupid plot point is still a stupid plot point even if it's set up in advance. The Black Knight holding back is a simple and decent explanation, and it works particularly well in light of the fact that Ike actually does only reveal Greil cut his tendons just before the fight. We have a motive for it. Course I'm not sure why they decided they even needed an explanation when they could have just made the playable Ena variation of the fight canon.

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Personally, I'd have prefered if they'd just let the Black Knight stay dead and come up with a version of Radiant Dawn's story that didn't have the character at all. He had an arc in Path of Radiance, it was finished, it was a satisfying ending, and bringing him back didn't really add anything. And while they were at it, they should have let Oliver and Renning stay dead as well. Having so many retcons just made it seem as if the story hadn't been properly thought through and that they didn't really care about the world they were creating.

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1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Personally, I'd have prefered if they'd just let the Black Knight stay dead and come up with a version of Radiant Dawn's story that didn't have the character at all. He had an arc in Path of Radiance, it was finished, it was a satisfying ending, and bringing him back didn't really add anything. And while they were at it, they should have let Oliver and Renning stay dead as well. Having so many retcons just made it seem as if the story hadn't been properly thought through and that they didn't really care about the world they were creating.

I wouldn't say he had an arc in Path of Radiance. He was more just a hurdle for Ike's arc than any real character of his own. We don't ever get any explanation for his motivations as to why he's serving Ashnard. They do intentionally make it a mystery and if he just never showed up in the sequel or was never mentioned then it would leave him as a weird sort of character in Path of Radiance whose doing the things he does for...reasons. That being said, it actually wouldn't be too difficult to write him out of Radiant Dawn. Most truly plot crucial actions he takes he does so as Zelgius in Part 3.

As far as the other revivals go, Oliver was obviously done for the sake of humor. So if one doesn't find his whole schitck funny then it's obviously not going to work. For Renning it is a bit more narratively dubious. I feel like that was an idea they had in Path of Radiance that they really wanted to fire off in Radiant Dawn, but had no idea how. Shoving him into Part 4 along with Izuka really brings down the act as a whole as it feels so blatantly like they're wrapping up loose ends that they just couldn't address elsewhere. This already exists to some extent with the senators being revived (despite Lehran hating them) and the blood pact and stuff, but Izuka and Renning showing up just kind of begs belief (and it also brings Elincia's crown kind of into question since Renning was the one both raised and publicly expected to be the next king, which I thought they actually addressed but I've never seen it looking thought he script). Renning was probably a case where it's best to just let an old idea you set up die rather than forcing some way to execute it. On the other hand people don't seem that pushed by Renning's survival and we got a decent gold knight out of it, so eh.

At least Radiant Dawn didn't bring back literally every major villain of the previous game. Imagine if Ashnard, Petrine and Shiharam came back too and Sanaki became evil, then you'd have Mystery of the Emblem.

Edited by Jotari
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