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Why Vanessa? Why?


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I first played Sacred Stones last summer, and it was my first time playing a Fire Emblem game on a mode other than Casual. I was told by quite a few people that this was a good choice of game for beginners, as this game was quite easy and somewhat similar to Awakening. Well, if only it was as easy as they said it was, the game actually felt pretty hard. I started playing Blazing Blade a few weeks ago, and frankly I was surprised at how easy the game felt compared to Sacred Stones. For reference, I played both game on Normal, so it's not as if I stepped down in difficulty from FE8 to FE7. I then noticed that, my Pegasus Knights in FE7, were actually killing things early on in the game, something that just didn't happen for me when I played FE8. This then prompted me to go and check my FE8 save file, and this is what I found:

Spoiler

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My Vanessa only has 9 Strength as a Level 2 Falcoknight!!! Now at the time, I never bothered to look up what her growths and bases were, and I never really realized exactly how bad I was getting screwed over, so I just assumed that she was a really bad character. Well, after seeing only 9 Str, and comparing that to my current Florina in FE7 who has 17 Str, I knew something was up. So I decided to check on Vanessa's growths and bases. She has a strength base of 7, and a Strength Growth of 35%, meaning on an average playthrough, at this level, she should have 14-15 Strength. This prompted me to calculate exactly how unlikely it was for me to experience this bad of a strength growth. Well, here's what I got:

(0.35^2)*(0.65^19)*210 = 0.00717 = 0.717%

A 0.717% chance of getting a strength growth this bad.

Now, I recognize that we all experience bad luck, and this is really nothing in the grand scheme of all games of Sacred Stones that have ever been played, but I just thought it was rather interesting. After seeing this, and realizing that this might be why I was struggling so much in my playthrough of Sacred Stones, I think I will replay through the game again after I finish FE7. I did enjoy the game the first time, and I love many of the characters, but I hope that next time around, I won't get this bad of luck.

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15 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

I think you should have dropped Vanessa for Tana the moment you realize Vanessa wasn’t killing things. Plus Tana has higher growth rates than Vanessa when it comes to offense.

I did also use Tana, I used all three pegasus knights, however, I tried super hard to make Vanessa work just because I like Pegasus Knights that much, and I wanted to see her be a good unit for me.

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Now that is some bad luck! The closest things in recent memory I've had are a Seth who, despite a 45 growth, was lagging 3-4 points behind in Speed at level 14, and a Xander who is like 16 but only had two Defense procs.

 

I always try to level Vanessa for a good flier as much as possible during the pre-route split chapters, but I find myself questioning if it is really worth it. For all I try to dump into Vanessa, as well as Franz and a couple others, the green V never gets that much better than a base Tana. Although having more good fliers is always a good thing sure, and for Eirika's route, Cormag doesn't come for a while, who'd otherwise provide an amazing second.

Unfortunately for her, Vanessa on average is strictly inferior to Tana, a few less Str, less HP, less Lck, ties in Def, she wins only in Skill and Res by marginal amounts. I wish this wasn't the case, it rubs off to me as royal favoritism.

At least Vanessa is better than her big sister Syrene, whom I pity, since despite her good growths that make her comparable to the other Pegs and gives her a Res lead, she comes with poor bases for as late as she joins.

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2 hours ago, Callisto said:

She has a strength base of 7, and a Strength Growth of 35%, meaning on an average playthrough, at this level, she should have 14-15 Strength. This prompted me to calculate exactly how unlikely it was for me to experience this bad of a strength growth. Well, here's what I got:

(0.35^2)*(0.65^19)*210 = 0.00717 = 0.717%

A 0.717% chance of getting a strength growth this bad.

Oof, you just reminded me of how badly Oscar got screwed over in my Path of Radiance playthrough. With a Strength growth of 45% and a base of 6, you'd expect him (just in his base class) to have more than 9 Strength by level 15-18. Nope. How'd I get the level up? Bonus experience in the hope I could use him. He was screwed that badly that pretty much everything went up more than his Strength when doing this.

At any rate, I know how you feel. It's the curse of the colour green...

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29 minutes ago, Light Strategist said:

Oof, you just reminded me of how badly Oscar got screwed over in my Path of Radiance playthrough. With a Strength growth of 45% and a base of 6, you'd expect him (just in his base class) to have more than 9 Strength by level 15-18. Nope. How'd I get the level up? Bonus experience in the hope I could use him. He was screwed that badly that pretty much everything went up more than his Strength when doing this.

At any rate, I know how you feel. It's the curse of the colour green...

Reminds me of my Lyn who had 9 str at L20 lol I also remember one time where Guy didn't level strength even once in like 10 levels lol The curse is real lol

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6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I always try to level Vanessa for a good flier as much as possible during the pre-route split chapters, but I find myself questioning if it is really worth it. For all I try to dump into Vanessa, as well as Franz and a couple others, the green V never gets that much better than a base Tana. Although having more good fliers is always a good thing sure, and for Eirika's route, Cormag doesn't come for a while, who'd otherwise provide an amazing second.

Unfortunately for her, Vanessa on average is strictly inferior to Tana, a few less Str, less HP, less Lck, ties in Def, she wins only in Skill and Res by marginal amounts. I wish this wasn't the case, it rubs off to me as royal favoritism.

At least Vanessa is better than her big sister Syrene, whom I pity, since despite her good growths that make her comparable to the other Pegs and gives her a Res lead, she comes with poor bases for as late as she joins.

I think investing in a flier who comes as early as Vanessa is a huge boon, even if Tana's growths are better. 7 more chapters of availability, with many of those chapters having free deployment, in a game that's only 21 chapters long is a massive advantage in a run with no grinding. Tana's only better on paper or if you commit to catching her up in the tower, unless Vanessa's as screwed as the OP's.

Edited by Samias
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to be honest, you probably should have promoted her to the wyvern option wyvern (is it knight or lord i forget) and given her the energy drop, as vanessa is easily the best candidate i can think of for both of those early on. really, the extra con vanessa gets from wyvern promo is nuts. she can even use steel lances without too much penalty. trust, go wyvern next time. i know falcoknights have WAY cooler animations, but wyvern knight is just so much easier to work with.

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I've got a pretty similar experience with Silas. My main issue with him was that he always got speed screwed on all my playthroughs from since the game came out in Japan. I don't think you will be as unlucky as myself, so I think you should give Vanessa another shot. She's in a good class with high movement that joins very early. I tend to use her as well as Tana. And Tana comes out a little better should you choose to train her. Also Wyvern Knight is the route I usually go for since it helps with her damage output. 

Edited by Black Zero
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Vanessa often has low strength for me as well (usually around 9 to 13, sometimes 14). But she usually has the highest speed out of all the fliers for me so I often use her for like, chip damage or rescuing and releasing. 

So despite the often low strength, I don't think she's bad or useless. She's better than Syrene at the very least who doesn't have the greatest bases for a prepromote.

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6 hours ago, Black Zero said:

I've got a pretty similar experience with Silas. My main issue with him was that he always got speed screwed on all my playthroughs from since the game came out in Japan. I don't think you will be as unlucky as myself, so I think you should give Vanessa another shot. She's in a good class with high movement that joins very early. I tend to use her as well as Tana. And Tana comes out a little better should you choose to train her. Also Wyvern Knight is the route I usually go for since it helps with her damage output. 

 

 

6 hours ago, (s)ad touch said:

to be honest, you probably should have promoted her to the wyvern option wyvern (is it knight or lord i forget) and given her the energy drop, as vanessa is easily the best candidate i can think of for both of those early on. really, the extra con vanessa gets from wyvern promo is nuts. she can even use steel lances without too much penalty. trust, go wyvern next time. i know falcoknights have WAY cooler animations, but wyvern knight is just so much easier to work with.

I will definitely use Vanessa again, I love Pegasus Knights too much to just not use them. And noted, maybe I will experience a better Vanessa with the Wyvern Knight route.

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wise choice callisto, wise choice.

seriously, wyvern lord is just THAT much better at combat, give it a go.

oh and she deserves ALL the stat boosters from that segment of the game, including the aforementioned E-drop, D-shield and angel robe.

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