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Is Marcus a good unit in FE7?


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Do you think Marcus is a good unit?  

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  1. 1. Is Marcus good?

    • Yes
      96
    • No
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Yeah, but is it really that bad to position your units appropriately after you've cleared the map and then just skip turns? With a few exceptions, you need 40 turns per support rank at most, and you can easily grind all the supports you want at the same time. And unlike arena abuse, there's no risk attached to it. It's just a question of less than 5 minutes of button pressing and you have all the support points you need (and maybe another 5 minutes so that you can get the B support right at the start of the next chapter ^^).

Sure, it's way less convenient than in, say, PoR, but it's not an unreasonable amount of effort, either.

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As far as I am concerned, there is no reason to use Marcus early because he steals exp from others and later he get outshined by Sain (or Lowen). In matter of fact if you really want have paladin early in game you can just groom and promote Sain in Lyn mode (I promoted him on lv,17 last playthrough with Wallace crest, just to see how much he breakes the game.)

Edited by Tenzen12
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11 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

As far as I am concerned, there is no reason to use Marcus early because he steals exp from others and later he get outshined by Sain (or Lowen). In matter of fact if you really want have paladin early in game you can just groom and promote Sain in Lyn mode (I promoted him on lv,17 last playthrough with Wallace crest, just to see how much he breakes the game.)

Prepromotes stealing experience argument in 2017... 

We've gone back in time 14 years folks. Also Lowen isn't that great, his offensive parameters are very low bar for a cavalier eventhough his bases are solid, and Sain while having good offense and that aforementioned Hard Mode Lyn exploit does make him really good, he still isn't on Marcus's level of being instantly just usable for the entire game. Sain however also has hit issues at times.

Pretty much all the cavs & paladins of FE7 are good units at least though, well maybe except Isadora.

Edited by Jedi
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Yes he is not as good initially, but it doesn't matter as their opponents ends dead all the same. Difference is really just cosmetic.And later... not so much.

Edited by Tenzen12
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1 hour ago, Tenzen12 said:

As far as I am concerned, there is no reason to use Marcus early because he steals exp from others and later he get outshined by Sain (or Lowen). In matter of fact if you really want have paladin early in game you can just groom and promote Sain in Lyn mode (I promoted him on lv,17 last playthrough with Wallace crest, just to see how much he breakes the game.)

To actually go into this argument a bit, how is Marcus stealing exp (and if he is, why would a prepromoted Sain not do this)?

You generally only use him to deal with things that are difficult to handle for your other units, or to speed things up. If you plan to use him later on in tha game, it means you're not using some other unit at that point, which means that unit doesn't need to be trained up. Thus, planning to use Marcus later on in the game actually saves up exp for your other units in a way (since you need to distribute exp over less units).

1 hour ago, Tenzen12 said:

Yes he is not as good initially, but it doesn't matter as their opponents ends dead all the same. Difference is really just cosmetic.And later... not so much.

Uhm, Marcus is actually a lot better then Sain (or any other cavelier for that matter) early on. Like, Marcus can deal with a large area on his own without a problem, where Sain would need a healer and possibly some more help to do a similar thing.

On the other hand, while Marcus ends up worse then a well trained up Sain, he doesn't require nearly as much investment and still delivers good results. I mean sure he's not good a boss killing, but there's better options then Sain for that anyway (and if you're using Marcus instead of Sain, there is more exp to pour into that boss killer as well).

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1 hour ago, Tenzen12 said:

As far as I am concerned, there is no reason to use Marcus early because he steals exp from others and later he get outshined by Sain (or Lowen). In matter of fact if you really want have paladin early in game you can just groom and promote Sain in Lyn mode (I promoted him on lv,17 last playthrough with Wallace crest, just to see how much he breakes the game.)

You shouldn't think about using Marcus as stealing experience, in fact it's quite the opposite he actually increases your experience. Think about it like this, I'll use Sain as an example, Sain needs to be around level 13 to match Marcus in Strength and Speed and he starts at level 4 in Eliwood/Hector's mode meaning that he needs 900 experience to be at the same level as Marcus is with 0 experience in terms of killing enemies, so by using Marcus your team actually has more experience as whole. Keep in mind that this is only comparing their Strength and Speed, Marcus has the lead in pretty much every other stat compared to level 13 Sain so it would be fair to say that Sain actually needs much more experience than 9 levels to be as good as Marcus with 0 experience.

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Thing is you need play Lyn mode for some content...

31 minutes ago, Bartozio said:

To actually go into this argument a bit, how is Marcus stealing exp (and if he is, why would a prepromoted Sain not do this)?

You generally only use him to deal with things that are difficult to handle for your other units, or to speed things up. If you plan to use him later on in tha game, it means you're not using some other unit at that point, which means that unit doesn't need to be trained up. Thus, planning to use Marcus later on in the game actually saves up exp for your other units in a way (since you need to distribute exp over less units).

Uhm, Marcus is actually a lot better then Sain (or any other cavelier for that matter) early on. Like, Marcus can deal with a large area on his own without a problem, where Sain would need a healer and possibly some more help to do a similar thing.

On the other hand, while Marcus ends up worse then a well trained up Sain, he doesn't require nearly as much investment and still delivers good results. I mean sure he's not good a boss killing, but there's better options then Sain for that anyway (and if you're using Marcus instead of Sain, there is more exp to pour into that boss killer as well).

Early enemies can't do thing against Paladin, though. 

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1 minute ago, Tenzen12 said:

Thing is you need play Lyn mode for some content...

Early enemies can't do thing against Paladin, though. 

Your point being? If you were talking about a promoted Sain in Lyn mode, then I guess he would be a bit better then Marcus.

But that would mean you'd have leveled him quite a bit in Lyn mode, while he only becomes a bit better then Marcus. The point still is that Marcus does not need any investment to still be close to as good as Sain after a lot of investment.

Also, you could just use two prepromoted paladins, because why not?

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RE: Supports argument from earlier

I mean this is FE7, you have tons of end turn time in defence maps or various turn floors thanks to dumb recruitments. I think it is pretty reasonable to assume a bunch of C and B supports for chars in play as long as those characters have reason to be near each other and have high base/grow fast. It's like staff rank, it's not very hard to raise if you put your mind to it, even at efficiency pace.

Edited by Irysa
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2 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

Because there is only one Rex Hasta and better options for swordies and axes.

FE7 has the worst ultimate weapons because you only get them during the very final battle. Unless you're talking Link Arena- what are you going to do with the Rex Hasta? The dragon can be taken out much easier and faster with Athos and Forblaze/Aureola/Luna. And Nergal is cake if you're not OHKO'ed by him. At least Naga had broken bonuses and was the easiest way of destroying Julius- the S ranks of FE7 have not even that.

 

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3 hours ago, Bartozio said:

Your point being? If you were talking about a promoted Sain in Lyn mode, then I guess he would be a bit better then Marcus.

But that would mean you'd have leveled him quite a bit in Lyn mode, while he only becomes a bit better then Marcus. The point still is that Marcus does not need any investment to still be close to as good as Sain after a lot of investment.

Even with Lyn's Story considered, Marcus is still better than Sain due to the former's greater availability.

2 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

Because there is only one Rex Hasta and better options for swordies and axes.

Except Fire Emblem in general has poor class balancing, and FE7 is no exception. Using an FE's ultimate weapon is a poor reason to decide to use only one of a certain class. Especially since your team is strengthened by having more than one of a certain class such as Paladin on your team.

 

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

FE7 has the worst ultimate weapons because you only get them during the very final battle. Unless you're talking Link Arena- what are you going to do with the Rex Hasta? The dragon can be taken out much easier and faster with Athos and Forblaze/Aureola/Luna. And Nergal is cake if you're not OHKO'ed by him. At least Naga had broken bonuses and was the easiest way of destroying Julius- the S ranks of FE7 have not even that.

Besides a berserked Hel-using Druid, or cherry-tapping with Tyrfing.

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Just now, Just call me AL said:

Besides a berserked Hel-using Druid, or cherry-tapping with Tyrfing.

I concede the latter- I knew of it (but it won't be as obvious to a new player as Julia). The former requires a Berserk Sword proc or dead/unmarried Silvia, plus a rigged hit on Julius- exactly how easy is that? 

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7 hours ago, Just call me AL said:

Even with Lyn's Story considered, Marcus is still better than Sain due to the former's greater availability.

Except Fire Emblem in general has poor class balancing, and FE7 is no exception. Using an FE's ultimate weapon is a poor reason to decide to use only one of a certain class. Especially since your team is strengthened by having more than one of a certain class such as Paladin on your team.

In the end it boils down to fact, game is not that difficult so having uber character early is necessary, especially if is not end game material. Having two paladins make particular difference either (sometime when I decide use pegasus rider as end game unit, I ditch cavaliers class altogether). Having access to whole triangle is nice and dandy but trying make use of it means just wasting limited character inventory. For mounted unit you get Eliwood whether you want it or not and Rath is still better than either Marcus or Sain.

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2 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

For mounted unit you get Eliwood whether you want it or not and Rath is still better than either Marcus or Sain.

Except Eliwood doesn't promote until very late in the game, and Rath is a bow user that comes in underleveled.

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Your point? As I said early game is easy  so you don't need Marcus much less TWO paladins. Better level up characters that will be endgame useful.  Marcus he can murder units easy and is somehow above average mid game. I don't find that appealing argument. 

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8 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

In the end it boils down to fact, game is not that difficult so having uber character early is necessary, especially if is not end game material.

Which is a fault of the game's design, not a disadvantage towards a unit such as Marcus. The earlygame not requiring Marcus doesn't cheapen his contributions. In fact, it arguably strengthens them because it means that he can last longer than some of the other units in the series that are like him.

Not to mention, on HHM, Marcus' presence proves to be a benefit in itself even if only due to how limited your deployment slots are on that difficulty.

@bolded: The most common enemy AS rating that you'll see around then is 11 AS. Surely THAT should tell you something about how strong lategame enemies, including those in the endgame, tend to be. Marcus might not be your strongest unit by the time endgame rolls around, but unusable during then he is not. And in the context of unit ratings a strong start and a not-so-hot finish means more than something like a weak start but a great finish. And that's because of what contributions each unit can do in between.

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Having two paladins make particular difference either

I feel like you meant to include "don't" or "won't" before the word "particular". Which just isn't true. Great stats on top of weapon triangle control, rescuing utility, and high movement, makes plenty of difference for the team's overall performance.

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(sometime when I decide use pegasus rider as end game unit, I ditch cavaliers class altogether).

Why, though? Why actively gimp yourself for the sake of other units when something like a Paladin is among the last things to consider when choosing who to bench at certain points in the game?

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Having access to whole triangle is nice and dandy but trying make use of it means just wasting limited character inventory.

How? Especially when the weapon triangle exists?

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For mounted unit you get Eliwood whether you want it or not and Rath is still better than either Marcus or Sain.

Except Eliwood is neither guaranteed or an optimal choice to promote on the grounds that he's mediocre all-game. Rath, on the other hand, is an archer whose only significant advantages are his horse and his weapon ranks. And need I remind you that Archers have a poor rate of leveling up due to a lack of enemy phase? There's no way that Rath would be "better" than Marcus or Sain because of it.

8 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

Better level up characters that will be endgame useful.  

Like Nino? Whose own contributions amount to a net loss instead of a net gain? The endgame is not so difficult that only the highest stats on your units would make a significant difference.

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Marcus he can murder units easy and is somehow above average mid game. I don't find that appealing argument. 

You left out "and is decent for endgame." The fact that he can murder units easy is above average for midgame (there's no "somehow" about it), and decent for endgame is precisely part of what makes Marcus the best unit in FE7.

Also, could I recommend Mekkah's Fire Emblem Pitfalls video series to you? I ask because I feel like they contain relevant information pertaining to a topic such as this.

12 hours ago, Florete said:

It's actually valid (to an extent) if talking about ranked.

But I don't think anyone was, so...

I would certainly say that even with Marcus used on ranked, there's still enough EXP to get 5 stars on your ranks. Considering that the amount of EXP needed to 5 star the EXP rank amounts to 10 levels per character.

Edited by Just call me AL
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How it doesn't cheapen his contribution? Unit that can be used whole game is obviously better than one that can't be used whole game. That you don't even need use it just makes it more obvious. Well, I already said everything needed. You can have last word if you it helps you.

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The list of units that can be used for the whole game (or rather whole Eliwood/Hector mode) is rather short - 8 (Eli) or 10 (Hec) units are recruited in the first two chapters. Your team building choices are very limited early on in every FE game, which makes strong early units generally more valuable than lategame bloomers. Sure, Sain is a good deal better than Marcus in the very late game, but at that point, you have a much longer list of (potentially) good highly mobile units. Basically, losing Marcus in chapter 11 or 12 (how?!) would have a much bigger impact on the game in total than losing Sain whenever, simply because the performance gap between Marcus and the 2nd best unit in the earlygame is much bigger than the lead any other unit may have at any other point of the game.

Edited by ping
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2 hours ago, Tenzen12 said:

How it doesn't cheapen his contribution? Unit that can be used whole game is obviously better than one that can't be used whole game. That you don't even need use it just makes it more obvious. 

Well, there's the fact that Marcus CAN be used the whole game; a fact that you conveniently ignored. Plus, there's also this.

8 minutes ago, ping said:

The list of units that can be used for the whole game (or rather whole Eliwood/Hector mode) is rather short - 8 (Eli) or 10 (Hec) units are recruited in the first two chapters. Your team building choices are very limited early on in every FE game, which makes strong early units generally more valuable than lategame bloomers. Sure, Sain is a good deal better than Marcus in the very late game, but at that point, you have a much longer list of (potentially) good highly mobile units. Basically, losing Marcus in chapter 11 or 12 (how?!) would have a much bigger impact on the game in total than losing Sain whenever, simply because the performance gap between Marcus and the 2nd best unit in the earlygame is much bigger than the lead any other unit may have at any other point of the game.

This pretty much covers the basic jist of why Marcus is so good.

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3 hours ago, Just call me AL said:

I would certainly say that even with Marcus used on ranked, there's still enough EXP to get 5 stars on your ranks. Considering that the amount of EXP needed to 5 star the EXP rank amounts to 10 levels per character.

Oh, certainly. It's just that when the actual amount of gained experience is actually a factor, "experience stealing" can be a legitimate issue. And Marcus is still among the best in ranked, just not the best.

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Marcus is okay, I just don't end up using him so much because I feel that Sain and Kent would make better paladins in the long run.

Jeigans are usually only good when the rest of the units suck hard (at least in the beginning), like in FE6 Hard Mode. It is just that when you other units tend to hold for themselves where they usually suck.

And then there is FE8 and 9, where pretty much any unit would be serviceable.

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Marcus have the most broken class of FE7, and perfect availability. The fact he's actually not bad being mostly a bonus

Still, I don't buy the fact he's the best thing since slice bread. You can't just rely on him and expect to win all tne fight, and overusing him can end up being detrimental
He isn't Seth.
He isn't even Pent, who beat all oppositions as soon as he appears.
He is (really) good, but, unless you're a veteran player, he isn't the best unit ever, just a good one.

Just a question.
Is he actually in competition with the other paladins in efficient/ranked gameplay, is he really in competition with the other paladins ? Isn't it actually better to just use all of them ?

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On 8/21/2017 at 8:35 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think Serenes currently errs a bit on the side of overrating jeigans (Marcus is worse in Light than other top-tier units are in their worst chapters) but he's still obviously extremely good. He's in a good class and is more or less the best unit in your army for the first third of the game, minimum.

...thats overstating it a bit...

Hector and Oswin come into their own pretty damn early.


 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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