What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

These enemies are only differentiated from the generic mook, as you call them, by an imagined abilty to lead enemy units, one we probably don´t see all that often - the only example I can think of the top of my head, is Gras army in SD prologue IV led by Jiol? The primary reason they are something, in that they have a portrait, as opposed to the generic mook, I´d wager, is effort on the game devs side.

Genealogy integrates this highly. Enemies move in squads with a boss enemy (sometimes not even a named portrait character) leading in front. And this isn't just plot integration fluff, there's a tangible impact on gameplay due to how leadership stars work. You need to choose between defeating the boss first to make killing the minions easier or killing the minions first to make killing the boss easier (usually its the former, with some help from a holy weapon).

[Dark Holy Elf]

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

All of this applies to wildly different degrees - can you name TH chapter 4s boss, as disingenious as this question is? 

If your point is "there are some bosses who don't have names", then... sure, I'd consider said bosses to be relatively less important and therefore less worthy of being memorable foes gameplaywise.

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Why should they present something? Where does this idea come from? Just because Kaga did it? 

I don't particularly care what Kaga did; I've actually only played one game that is truly his (plus various remakes of course).

In my opinion, if an enemy has (a) some story presence, even if modest, and (b) a unique name and (c) plays unique music, the game is signalling to me that this is supposed to be an important or climactic encounter, at least within the map. When I fight Wagner in Binding Blade Chapter 6, for instance, I know who he is: he's the guy who welcomed Roy and co. in while preparing to sell them out, the guy who is the entire reason the Chapter 6 battle takes place at all. Therefore fighting him is an important moment, within the story of that chapter. So even though Binding Blade's boss design isn't the best (leaning heavily on evasion over and over), I appreciate that I have to be careful with how I approach him since he has a lot of evasion and two-shots my magically frailer PCs. If Wagner died just as easily as Generic Mage #3 that'd be anti-climactic, in my opinion.

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Yet using an effective weapon to defeat an important enemy lies at the heart of Fire Emblem - it started with the Falchion and it hasn´t really stopped since, has it.

See, Medeus is balanced around his weakness to the Falchion (at least in Shadow Dragon, I haven't played the NES game). He still presents a competent fight even with it; all the weakness does is ensure Marth is one of the more important units for facing him. I've got no problem with that. As I said, nulling weakness effects is not the only way to accomplish competent boss design. If Medeus just died to one swing of the Falchion (e.g. because it had 30 base might or something) then yeah that'd be disappointing.

And I can turn things around and say bosses nulling weaknesses is also an old Fire Emblem tradition at this point. In particular, the vast majority of plot-important flying bosses in the series nullify their weakness to bows (Michalis, Travant, Arion, Narcian, Valter, Shiharam, Hinoka, Ladislava, Claude, Zephia).

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Furthermore saving uses on an effective weapon to specifically use it to remove a dangerous foe is a strategic choice - the Winged Spear being probably the greatest example of this.

I suspect we have different definitions of strategic. Which is fine, to be clear.

I will say that I can barely remember all those poor Shadow Dragon bosses I fed to the Winged Spear. I don't consider this a good thing. If a boss is (a) immobile, and (b) trivially killed in one combat, that's not very satisfying or rewarding, in my opinion.

[Shadow Mir]

Most of the S rank classes in Fates are not that good. Now, maybe it's because of Engage, but I don't really see the appeal of them; does S rank really make up for being weapon locked...? I am leaning towards "No" in most cases, with Spear Master being one of the exceptions, because the alternative is Basara. Speaking of...

Basara sucks. Some people argue it's better than Onmyoji, but I have a hard time buying that, to say the least.

[LoneRecon400]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Most of the S rank classes in Fates are not that good. Now, maybe it's because of Engage, but I don't really see the appeal of them; does S rank really make up for being weapon locked...? I am leaning towards "No" in most cases, with Spear Master being one of the exceptions, because the alternative is Basara. Speaking of...

Basara sucks. Some people argue it's better than Onmyoji, but I have a hard time buying that, to say the least.

Even if you didn't like Berserkers,

Master Ninja, Spear Master, Sorcerer, Maid/Butler, and Sniper are all decent classes. Really it's just Nine Tails and Swordmaster that's not great outside of Ryoma.

I dont see how you could make the argument Onmyoji is better than Basara. +2 magic and e ranked staves aren't worth having over +4 Def and HP, especially in Birthright.

Edited March 30, 2023 by LoneRecon400

[Metal Flash]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Basara sucks. Some people argue it's better than Onmyoji, but I have a hard time buying that, to say the least.

Now I`m curious to know where those people got that idea from.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Metal Flash

[Dark Holy Elf]

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Most of the S rank classes in Fates are not that good. Now, maybe it's because of Engage...

This comment confuses me because the S rank classes in Fates are largely good and useful and have unique niches over other classes (see LoneRecon's post... and if anything I think they underrate Swordmaster), while the S rank classes in Engage are largely pretty poor. In Engage, Swordmaster is inferior to Hero/Griffin, Berserker is inferior to Warrior, Sniper is inferior to Warrior/Bow Knight, Thief is inferior to Wolf Knight.

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I dont see how you could make the argument Onmyoji is better than Basara. +2 magic and e ranked staves aren't worth having over +4 Def and HP, especially in Birthright.

Because Basara only makes you mediocre. At least E staves are good for something; on the other hand, lances are liable to be a meme on someone who doesn't have the strength to make them work - which is likely if you were coming from Diviner in the first place. Its skills are not very good either; Rend Heaven is effective if and only if you're using physical vs physical or magic vs magic, and useless otherwise, and Quixotic is just bad. The only instance I can see it being helpful is if you were like Gonzales or something, ergo, your hit rates were always shaky. How many units in Fates actually have such severe hit problems that Quixotic would actually be a boon to them...?

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Sniper is inferior to Warrior/Bow Knight

Warrior, I could agree on, but Bow Knight, not so much. Aside from the fact that Bow Knight's class skill is absolutely lame, I'd consider a Sniper one of the best options for Lyn, mainly for actually being able to have 20 range and some actual oomph with Astra Storm before bond level 15.

11 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Master Ninja, Spear Master, Sorcerer, Maid/Butler, and Sniper are all decent classes. Really it's just Nine Tails and Swordmaster that's not great outside of Ryoma.

Personally, I never really found Sniper or Master Ninja appealing. The former is competing with Kinshi Knight, and even ignoring my issues with all the ninjas in Fates underperforming regularly to the point where I end up benching them, I'm not sure that Master Ninja is THAT much better than Mechanist...

Edited March 30, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[LoneRecon400]

37 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Because Basara only makes you mediocre and its skills are not very good either.

Personally, I never really found Sniper or Master Ninja appealing. The former is competing with Kinshi Knight, and even ignoring my issues with all the ninjas in Fates underperforming regularly to the point where I end up benching them, I'm not sure that Master Ninja is THAT much better than Mechanist...

You shouldn't look at them as hybrid units, you should look at them as bulky mages. They have the same base classs defense of Spear Master, which can be pretty good considering how enemy phase heavy birth right is

Also Quixotic is good. Getting 100% Hit rates for -30 avoid is never a bad thing with how unreliable dodgetanking is in Fates. Only thing bad about it is how late it is.

Sniper has the benefit giving certain blow which can be nice aganist dodgy enemies if nothing else. A free +10 to Hit is also never bad. 

Master ninjas are great at dispatching hard enemies that are toigh for others to dispatch. They can take put enemy Sorcerers, Onmoyji, Kitsune, and other ninjas. Combined with great pair up bonuses and lock touch, there's is no way you should be benching them.

Edited March 30, 2023 by LoneRecon400

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

You shouldn't look at them as hybrid units, you should look at them as bulky mages. They have the same base classs defense of Spear Master, which can be pretty good considering how enemy phase heavy birth right is

That's an extremely superficial outlook on it... I only see a Master of None that gives up something useful in favor of something that... isn't. Also, if they were coming from Diviner, I wouldn't exactly see Basara making them durable.

3 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Also Quixotic is good. Getting 100% Hit rates for -30 avoid is never a bad thing with how unreliable dodgetanking is in Fates. Only thing bad about it is how late it is.

Again, superficial. If I was already close to 100% hit, then it gives the enemy a huge boon while I get nothing. Which is why I said it only really works if my unit wasn't anywhere near 100% hit without it.

3 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Master ninjas are great at dispatching hard enemies that are toigh for others to dispatch. They can take put enemy Sorcerers, Onmoyji, Kitsune, and other ninjas. Combined with great pair up bonuses and lock touch, there's is no way you should be benching them.

Bold: You try working with a Kaze that had only 8 strength after 11 level ups in Lunatic (for the record, Kaze has 7 base strength). Or for that matter, putting up with underperforming ninjas. I don't have the patience for that shit.

If they were performing to the extent they are being hyped up to be, I'd actually appreciate what they bring to the table. But I have yet to be impressed by ninjas, so I am left looking elsewhere for outs to those unit types you mentioned, which the game isn't exactly stingy with.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Warrior, I could agree on, but Bow Knight, not so much. Aside from the fact that Bow Knight's class skill is absolutely lame, I'd consider a Sniper one of the best options for Lyn, mainly for actually being able to have 20 range and some actual oomph with Astra Storm before bond level 15.

It' not like you're using Engage!Sniper for its class skill either (situational Crit+10 is obviously inferior to the permanent Hit/Crit+10 of Fates Sniper). I'll grant that Sniper is specifically better for Lyn, but there are loads of good ways to use Lyn. If you don't have that specific emblem in mind (or another one which benefits from the covert tag), then Bow Knight has a second weapon, +1 move, and +2 speed in exchange for -1 Str; that's very clearly a winning trade.

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It' not like you're using Engage!Sniper for its class skill either (situational Crit+10 is obviously inferior to the permanent Hit/Crit+10 of Fates Sniper). I'll grant that Sniper is specifically better for Lyn, but there are loads of good ways to use Lyn. If you don't have that specific emblem in mind (or another one which benefits from the covert tag), then Bow Knight has a second weapon, +1 move, and +2 speed in exchange for -1 Str; that's very clearly a winning trade.

There are other good ways to make use of Lyn, but there aren't other good ways to make Astra Storm great. And removing annoying shit from up to 20 squares away is too good to pass up imho.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

There are other good ways to make use of Lyn, but there aren't other good ways to make Astra Storm great. And removing annoying shit from up to 20 squares away is too good to pass up imho.

Of course there's other ways to make Astra Storm great. Give it to a high strength unit and massacre enemies instead of dealing enough damage just shy of killing. 

[Alastor15243]

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Of course there's other ways to make Astra Storm great. Give it to a high strength unit and massacre enemies instead of dealing enough damage just shy of killing. 

I dunno, Etie hasn't had any trouble hitting 1-shot benchmarks for thieves and annoying staff users in my draft.

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Of course there's other ways to make Astra Storm great. Give it to a high strength unit and massacre enemies instead of dealing enough damage just shy of killing. 

Iono about that, Etie has been able to one-shot most of what I really needed gone with it.

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 3/30/2023 at 7:05 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Sniper is inferior to Warrior/Bow Knight, Thief is inferior to Wolf Knight.

You don't seem to appreciate the power of the Covert class type...

 

On 3/30/2023 at 11:39 AM, Shadow Mir said:

The former is competing with Kinshi Knight,

While Kinshi Knight certainly have a place thanks to flight utility, Kinshi Knights stats are so much worse than Sniper that I find Sniper wins out if I get to chose between the two most of the time. Fun fact Kinshi Knight is tied as the promoted class with the lowest base strength that is capable of using a physical weapon.

 

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Of course there's other ways to make Astra Storm great. Give it to a high strength unit and massacre enemies instead of dealing enough damage just shy of killing. 

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I dunno, Etie hasn't had any trouble hitting 1-shot benchmarks for thieves and annoying staff users in my draft.

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Iono about that, Etie has been able to one-shot most of what I really needed gone with it.

The thing is Etie is a high strength unit, that is her big thing statwise. Jotari was a bit hasty in implying high strength units can't be snipers, as Etie combines the best of both worlds, and is probably the best Astra Storm user at base.

 

[samthedigital]

On 3/30/2023 at 7:33 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

It' not like you're using Engage!Sniper for its class skill either (situational Crit+10 is obviously inferior to the permanent Hit/Crit+10 of Fates Sniper). I'll grant that Sniper is specifically better for Lyn, but there are loads of good ways to use Lyn. If you don't have that specific emblem in mind (or another one which benefits from the covert tag), then Bow Knight has a second weapon, +1 move, and +2 speed in exchange for -1 Str; that's very clearly a winning trade.

This is probably what is closest to my line of thinking. Lyn with a covert unit is really good situationally, but even then drawing aggro might be what's important rather than killing the enemy specifically, so damage doesn't always matter. If I don't have a specific use case for Astra Storm I'd rather give Lyn to a unit that can take better advantage of the stat buffs; Thieves have poor bases and Snipers are bow locked.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You don't seem to appreciate the power of the Covert class type...

 

While Kinshi Knight certainly have a place thanks to flight utility, Kinshi Knights stats are so much worse than Sniper that I find Sniper wins out if I get to chose between the two most of the time. Fun fact Kinshi Knight is tied as the promoted class with the lowest base strength that is capable of using a physical weapon.

 

The thing is Etie is a high strength unit, that is her big thing statwise. Jotari was a bit hasty in implying high strength units can't be snipers, as Etie combines the best of both worlds, and is probably the best Astra Storm user at base.

 

I wasn't implying you can't have a high strength unit that is also a sniper. My point was that astra storm on a high strength unit will be fantasticn even without being a covert unit. Sure, the extra range is great. It's absurd overkill though. Hugely fun, but not vital. 10 range is already really good. Mir said a sniper is the only way to make Astra Storm great and that's not true, Astra Storm will always be great, will it be better on a covert unit? Sure, but it's still going to be fantastic so long as the unit has the strength to use it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

5 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You don't seem to appreciate the power of the Covert class type...

Sniper(/Tireur D'elite) seems pretty poorly positioned to take advantage of the Covert class type, since it has no 1-2 range weapon to counter with (and very weak/limited 1 range). Thief I'll grant is the usual way to use it. That said, my experience on Maddening is that Covert's bonus could often be overkill even for them, and I definitely found myself preferring the better move, better stats, and second weapon of Wolf Knight.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I wasn't implying you can't have a high strength unit that is also a sniper. My point was that astra storm on a high strength unit will be fantasticn even without being a covert unit. Sure, the extra range is great. It's absurd overkill though. Hugely fun, but not vital. 10 range is already really good. Mir said a sniper is the only way to make Astra Storm great and that's not true, Astra Storm will always be great, will it be better on a covert unit? Sure, but it's still going to be fantastic so long as the unit has the strength to use it.

That's a good point, though in my case, Etie ended up with Lyn as the only other unit with high strength is Panette. And despite her higher strength, Panette wouldn't be able to do some of the stuff that Etie could, largely because she'd have to use a weaker bow than a Silver until bond level 15. Which is gated behind a paralogue that's a pain on maddening.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Not entirely sure if this is the right place, but Karla and Priscilla are basically the same character, or at least very similar ones. The character arcs for both of them revolve around them trying to find their brother. The circumstances are different between them, of course, but it's the same basic story. The one big difference is that Priscilla is more, uh...ahem, "attracted" to her brother. Personally, I actually kinda find Karla a more interesting character.

[Jotari]

52 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Not entirely sure if this is the right place, but Karla and Priscilla are basically the same character, or at least very similar ones. The character arcs for both of them revolve around them trying to find their brother. The circumstances are different between them, of course, but it's the same basic story. The one big difference is that Priscilla is more, uh...ahem, "attracted" to her brother. Personally, I actually kinda find Karla a more interesting character.

There's also a pretty significant difference in that you actually get Priscilla near the start of the game and she's a decent unit actually worth fielding, while Karla is somewhat difficult to recruit, can't fight and requires gluing her to a support partner in order to have any hope of seeing her supports in the three chapters left in the game. Karla might be the more interesting character, but she's utterly screwed by the game as a unit which is going to bury a lot of her characterization.

Edited April 15, 2023 by Jotari

[Fire Emblem Fan]

21 minutes ago, Jotari said:

There's also a pretty significant difference in that you actually get Priscilla near the start of the game and she's a decent unit actually worth fielding, while Karla is somewhat difficult to recruit, can't fight and requires gluing her to a support partner in order to have any hope of seeing her supports in the three chapters left in the game. Karla might be the more interesting character, but she's utterly screwed by the game as a unit which is going to bury a lot of her characterization.

That's why I was speaking purely about character with no gameplay.

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

That's why I was speaking purely about character with no gameplay.

Yeah, but my overall point is that the two are intertwined. When supports are your leading form of characterization, then how much characterization a character gets is going to be directly tied to how many supports you can view, which is directly tied to how much you can use them.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, but my overall point is that the two are intertwined. When supports are your leading form of characterization, then how much characterization a character gets is going to be directly tied to how many supports you can view, which is directly tied to how much you can use them.

Unless of course you have the internet and can just look up the supports, so you can make character comparisons like this without taking any kind of gameplay into consideration at all. 😛

[Samz707]

I'm kinda unimpressed with Byleth in Hopes?

I'm only on Chapter 7 but I've experienced the big intro thing and done the first "rematch" with Byleth.

Hopes Byleth frankly comes off as a mary sue and their absurd opness feels completely at odds with Houses Byleth.

They instantly defeat several named characters in a silly way to establish them as "strong" (or more just makes them look weak, after all Kostas nearly killed Byleth in Houses) and in both of the proper fights, the game handles them poorly.

The first fight will get interrupted by a cutscene if you survive long enough, this already makes it look like Byleth isn't actually that strong and more that the game is willing to cheat to make them "look" strong in a superficial way.

In their second fight, you literally get a reward for forcing Byleth to retreat by depleting their HP, yet the game will then promptly act like Shez couldn't defeat Byleth in a cutscene afterwards, even though I literally just did and the game rewarded me for it.

I know the Death Knight in Houses gets a bad rep but at least there, the game never acted like "Oh there is no way Byleth could ever defeat them!" while you were literally holding the rewards you just got for kicking their ass.

Byleth comes off as not that strong but they have the writers to clumsily rewrite any situation to make them look good, they so far are honestly worse than Houses Byleth with how much of this weird Avatar Worship they get by the story.  (Since yeah they're not technically the player avatar anymore but they're blatantly getting dumb special treatment, more so than Houses which already skirted the line at times.)