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Master of Arms is so underrated


Volke29
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So I've been playing Conquest for a good bit lately and I initially gave avatar Ebon Wing for Galeforce (and man, was I bummed when I realized that I couldn't pass it on to children). Anyway, I was searching for his next class and Master of Arms was an option. Did a bit of searching and most people weren't fans of it, but if there's one thing I've learned about FE, it's that the overall popular opinion on characters and skills isn't always accurate.*

To be clear, I wasted a three (!!!!) Arm Scrolls on my avatar after promoting him to MoA. At the same time, I've been playing FE for a long time so I like to mix things up, so I was personally fine with that. 

That said, Galeforce + Relief + Duelist Blow + access to swords, axes and lances is just A+. Duelist Blow is such an incredible skill. Far too often enemy hit rate is like 20% or less. Sometimes it is 0. With Galeforce, I am often on my own, and Relief works A+ with this as I'm away from my team, but not too far away. I'm pretty excited to get Life or Death (deal +10, but receive +10 if hit) to see how that works with all this, but I'm guessing the low percentage of enemies actually even hitting me, and the already high amount of damage I'm dishing out, that it won't be as big of a problem as it seems.

Anyone have thoughts? Just want to discuss this class, which seems to get little love.  

Edited by Volke29
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because you can get all that and also a horse if you go for great knight and plan properly. to be clear, i dont hate the class but it doesnt do enough to promote itself as a better or even equal option to the great knight. also doesnt help that the swordmaster just has better skills in general, swordfairs +7 is almost as much as life or deaths boost and you dont suffer the penalty for it and astra well not the best sword skill is still a sword skill which is generally more appealing.

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It's a great class in Conquest, actually. There's a brief period (specifically chapters 18, 19 and 20) where there are consecutive lots of Kitsune/Pegasus/Generals/Horses and Odin and Kaze are really good units to switch over to MoA and give an Arms Scroll to, instantly giving them access to the Beastkiller, Armorslayer or Hammer.

Kaze fares particularly well with a Defense pairup like Effie or Camilla and Odin likes a Speed pairing like Selena, Niles or Outlaw!Nyx and then they both wreck shit. It's a good time for them to learn the Samurai tree and they both value Life or Death in Master Ninja and Sorceror, respectively. Odin really likes it because it boosts his Nosferatu quite a lot and he can ORKO a lot of stuff with Lightning (it's a whopping +20 effective damage with Lightning) and Kaze doubles everything and has reliable 2-range and then can learn Shurikenfaire on top of that. +30 damage per battle is nothing to scoff at.

With judicious use of Paralogues you can easily get them to level 15 in time for the last 5-6 chapters. If you like, you can recruit Midori around this time and have Kaze pass down Life or Death. Then Midori can switch over to Master Ninja to learn Shurikenfaire and basically becomes Kaze 2.0.

Neither Kaze or Odin should finish up using swords in my opinion so they don't really make great users of Swordfaire. I can appreciate that Great Knight might be a better option for other characters, though.

So yeah, it's a great pivot class. The base HP/Def is high enough to patch up potential bulk issues and base Speed is not terrible. I don't really think it's the best class to finish in as most characters have better options but again, a good class to put someone in for a few chapters so that you've got a reliable Beastkiller/Hammer/Armorslayer user.

Edited by Agro
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myqyZnL.jpg

My Master of 'Boros can easily crush any man or woman in the arena and make hacker losers eat tears.  Even with those bedroom eyes alone, she is easily able to make Anankos pee his pants.

But really though, I actually like some of the less popular Hoshidan classes.  I prefer the more balanced stats of the Master of Arms to the high speed and strength focus of the Swordmaster.  And there are some issues I have with the Great Knight that aren't present or quite as prominent with MoA.  I'll be petty and list female aesthetics as one thing I like in MoA more than with the Great Knight (I just hate the stupid battle panties all mounted female Nohrians have).

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I don't really care for it - the Samurai class line has definitely seen better days. Also... 

Quote

I'm pretty excited to get Life or Death (deal +10, but receive +10 if hit) to see how that works with all this, but I'm guessing the low percentage of enemies actually even hitting me, and the already high amount of damage I'm dishing out, that it won't be as big of a problem as it seems.

Life and Death is good... in Heroes, that is; it's an utter shitstain in this game. Adding 10 more damage to what you take when you're already far from a bastion of durability, which many a Hoshidan is guilty of, is about as smart as robbing a police station. Especially since evade is unreliable in this game.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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48 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

myqyZnL.jpg

My Master of 'Boros can easily crush any man or woman in the arena and make hacker losers eat tears.  Even with those bedroom eyes alone, she is easily able to make Anankos pee his pants.

I laughed way too hard at this.

Anyways, on topic, I only ever tried Master of Arms on Mozu since she promotes to it. While it's probable she'd make a better Sniper or Kinshi Knight, I don't actually feel the need for either of those Classes no matter my Route - I have Takumi, Kiragi, and even Reina, who I enjoy using, on non-Conquest runs, and I don't really use Archers in Conquest outside of using Niles to Capture every single Shrine Maiden in Hoshido because SHUT UP. Because of this, any time I have specific plans for my Ebon Wing, Dread Scroll, or Exalt's Brand, Mozu makes the long trek to Mastering all manner of Arms or occasionally piggybacks her husband's Class with the Partner Seal(I don't recommend Sorcerer Mozu btw). I'll also definitely echo our 'Boro lover's commentary on the aesthetic superiority of the Master of Arms compared to the Great Knight, a Class that has always looked way too bulky for my tastes anyways even before bringing up the suspicious lack of pants or the fact that sideboob trumps panty shot every time.

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The E ranks are what kills the class, if you aren't willing to expend the Arms Scrolls or grind, getting past Bronze to D and C ranks is an annoying chore. Not exactly helping the class is its poor pair of skills, Seal Strength is not very useful, and Life or Death, while very good on certain units, takes much too long to get. 

The Great Knight existing in Nohr is something of another issue as well as pointed out. Since animations slow things down, I generally play with them off, so if the females are pantsless, I don't ever see it.

Of the units who naturally can go Master of Arms without a reclass, you Hana, who is already glass and WTC more benefits the enemy phase I think. Hinata, who isn't actually a bad choice for the class. And Mozu, who isn't as fragile as Hana, but can naturally go Archer instead for a safe killer offense. Hisame is dependent on his mother for his potential, but you might as well make him an MoA if you ever recruit him late (and BR Paralogues barring Shiro are a cinch), since then he can have auto D or even C Clubs and Naginatas, which overcomes that E rank Naraku issue.

And then you have the one character who actually starts as one- Fuga. Fuga is amazing, since despite nonexistent growths, his bases are incredible, and his B/C/C weapon ranks allow him to utilize lots of your spare weapons and instant flexibility when reclassing. Just give him a Defensive Stance pal or a Rally to buff whichever of his great balanced stats you want to be pushed into the excellent zone. His only issue is being available on Revelation only.

The Master of Arms has one other notable trait, its very balanced pair up boosts. +2 Str/Skl/Spd/Def, a little of a lot, which isn't bad, even if typically you're only looking for a big buff to one or two stats when you use pair up.

 

While it is, I wouldn't say underrated, more just forgotten, Master of Arms isn't the worst of this which Hoshido has. Merchant has funky skills and very few potential natives. Both of the Oni options are severely handicapped being so rare and only having Rinkah as their natural member. Of the two, Blacksmith is certainly the more obscure and worthless. Other than giving Lancebreaker, it is just a misshapen ingot of a Hero, junk that not even the enemy uses outside of a few rare fights.

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2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Life or Death, while very good on certain units, takes much too long to get and is much too risky in general.

Fix'd that for ya.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Master of Arms hasn't ever really done anything for my itself. Full WTA is great, but the superior movement and Luna from Great Knight sort of make it a better option in my opinion. Another issue for it is that for Hana and Hinata, the only units who would naturally promote into it, they most likely prefer Swordmaster. Hana may enjoy the minor defensive upgrade from MoA, but it's not going to fix her horrible defenses, plus it lowers her avoid comparatively to Swordmaster. Plus, Swordmaster already gives an extremely good defensive skill in Astra, so I see little point for Hana to go MoA
As for Hinata, I really do see the argument here for him going it. It gives him a good buff to his bulk, something he does use very well, along with other weapon types, namely Lances for Guard Naginata, and generally being able to consistently have WTA, helping reduce damage he takes. But Swordmaster can keep his speed away from the terrible levels it can reach in MoA, along with Astra, a still very good defensive option. 
They could both reclass from Swordmaster after getting Astra though. On a personal level, it's just not how I play Fates. But otherwise, it seems like it could work.

I'm feeling like typing a lot today so I'll go through other people who have it naturally:
Kaze: The above mention of him seemed interesting, although situational. Ninja is such a good class though that I can't see him staying like that throughout many chapters.
Subaki: MoA actually doesn't do too bad on him. He's already stupid slow and defensive, it seems like a good fit, as normally he's either Lancelocked or in Kinshi. I'm still an advocate for Spear Master Subaki, but MoA definitely seems good on him. (That said, this is BR and classes can reeeeally be whatever the heck you want)
Saizo: Ehhh, Saizo really likes being in Ninja. He already has 2/3 colors once promoted to either class, so I don't really see the reason to give him all 3 and less speed.
Ryoma: He's already going to be using Raijinto exclusively, there's no real point to swapping to it.
Odin: Again with the above statements on this, MoA seems like a good temporary pick once again, as if you're using him in the first place he's likely to either be dipping in to it for LnD during the late game or being Samurai via an early game Heart Seal. MoA vs Swordmaster does seem like a tricky choice for him, Although Swordmaster for Astra then back to MoA seems good since he'd likely prefer the higher defense.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Life and Death is good... in Heroes, that is; it's an utter shitstain in this game. Adding 10 more damage to what you take when you're already far from a bastion of durability, which many a Hoshidan is guilty of, is about as smart as robbing a police station. Especially since evade is unreliable in this game.

Luckily for it, it pairs extremely well with Vantage, which just so happens to be in the same class line. Astra can help too offensively and defensively, but it's obviously unreliable, as all proc skills are.

On a slightly different topic, LnD/Vantage Ophelia will always be a mainstay for me. Excalibur runs through everything with those in effect, and the lowered defenses don't even matter at that point when you OHKO everything anyways.

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1 hour ago, Emerson said:

Luckily for it, it pairs extremely well with Vantage, which just so happens to be in the same class line. Astra can help too offensively and defensively, but it's obviously unreliable, as all proc skills are.

Because there's nothing wrong with actively relying on luck in Murphy's Law: The Game, is there??? Oh wait. There is. It's that you're actively relying on luck in Murphy's Law: The Game.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Life on Death Vantage is actually stupidly overpowered on Jakob. Can be set up somewhere during CH 10 and after that point theres a good deal of maps where you can just do Guard Gauge Vantage cycle

 

In particular the infamous Ninja Cave become "lets put Jakob here and let him murder his way through everything" because nothing is able to get past through the set up

 

Same can be said for Kitsune shitshow, but Kitsune shitshow have always been a joke map that screams "Use Xander properly you idiot"

Edited by JSND Alter Dragon Boner
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12 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

While it is, I wouldn't say underrated, more just forgotten, Master of Arms isn't the worst of this which Hoshido has. Merchant has funky skills and very few potential natives. Both of the Oni options are severely handicapped being so rare and only having Rinkah as their natural member. Of the two, Blacksmith is certainly the more obscure and worthless. Other than giving Lancebreaker, it is just a misshapen ingot of a Hero, junk that not even the enemy uses outside of a few rare fights.

I would say Oni Chieftain is as bad if not worse - it's a shit caster unless you reclass one of the units who use magic into it, in which case they're probably a lost cause with clubs. Not to mention the fact that the base class is physically oriented bases and growths wise, which doesn't help matters. And unlike Blacksmith, I wouldn't even consider skills a good excuse to give it so much as a cursory glance. Which could be said of the Oni Savage class tree as a whole, really. Suffice to say I think Unintelligent Systems really was off their game here...

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Weapon Master itself I like quite a bit, and is my preferred class between Swordmaster to Weapon Master. Better str and def boost, wields three weapons which is really appreciated. There are a few things I don't like though, axe and lance animations are the same as sword which doesn't make any sense, I'm not paticularly fond of the skills learned and I would have liked it if characters had a unique desing when going into this class instead of just using the generic design. This can be said of other class lines as well but it still bears mentioning. That aside I do like the Weapon Master class and would not mind seeing it's return someday.

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MoA gives LaD+Vantage  (and some nice ribbons) so 4 levels in this are mandatory for anyone who has access to it. As a dip it's superchocolatydeliciousS+ rank on any high output 1-2 ending class.

As a finishing class it's infantry with no Srank. Pass

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19 hours ago, Volke29 said:

To be clear, I wasted a three (!!!!) Arm Scrolls on my avatar after promoting him to MoA. At the same time, I've been playing FE for a long time so I like to mix things up, so I was personally fine with that. 

I think you hit on the problem of the class right here.

Arms Scrolls are a relatively rare and valuable resource, needing to give three of them to one build pretty much means you're patching up a mediocre build. Which is fine, you can mix things up and do what you like, but it doesn't make the class good.

MoA really, really should have taken a page from Shadow Dragon (not too often I'll say this!) and had a base weapon rank that isn't E. As is, the "Master" part of their name feels like a joke, due to the base E ranks.

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2 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

MoA really, really should have taken a page from Shadow Dragon (not too often I'll say this!) and had a base weapon rank that isn't E. As is, the "Master" part of their name feels like a joke, due to the base E ranks.

I'm feeling Shadow Dragon/New Mystery is precisely why E ranks always start as E for Awakening and Fates. Having one auto D on dual weapon classes, and an auto C for monoclasses, combined with such free reclassing made training a variety of different units, as opposed to handful of good characters, really unnecessary.

Of course, I do think the seal-free reclassing was the greater issue here (as was the junk quality of some characters), if Sirius had to consume an item to go Sniper even if he kept the C Bows, it'd be significant curtailment on making him one, whilst not outright crippling his short-intermediate term abilities as a Sniper. And Kris, Palla and Catria would be really restrained I would think.

Fates, and particularly Awakening with its level 10 minimum to reclass requirement, due to the seals, could have kept the D/C starting ranks no problem, IS just didn't see this. Although for Fates, it might be a problem, since most good weapons are no higher than C-ranked there.

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For characters who don't have access to something like Great Knight, then yeah it's a very good class. But as was said before, the lack of luna and movement (even if its slightly better) sort of makes it outclassed by said class. However, on its own its fine.

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6 hours ago, Jerry Kuma said:

For characters who don't have access to something like Great Knight, then yeah it's a very good class. But as was said before, the lack of luna and movement (even if its slightly better) sort of makes it outclassed by said class. However, on its own its fine.

Master or Arms allows players to use A ranked swords; Great Knight does not. Duelist Blow, from my experience, means you will almost never get hit when starting an attack. And fwiw, for all the love Luna gets, I find it very meh. I'd argue a Killing Edge + high Skill character is better.  

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2 hours ago, Volke29 said:

Master or Arms allows players to use A ranked swords; Great Knight does not. Duelist Blow, from my experience, means you will almost never get hit when starting an attack. And fwiw, for all the love Luna gets, I find it very meh. I'd argue a Killing Edge + high Skill character is better.  

Is A swords really worth fawning over when all you get for it is the turbonerfed braves and the Venge weapons, which might be hard to make use of when your defense isn't that great? I think it isn't. And Duelist's Blow is not worth jizzing your pants over - this isn't GBA. Also, Killing Edges are hot garbage, as are killer weapons in general.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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3 hours ago, Volke29 said:

And fwiw, for all the love Luna gets, I find it very meh. I'd argue a Killing Edge + high Skill character is better.  

Luna has the following advantages:

  1. It can't be negated the way Crit can be via Luck.
  2. It is better against high Def/Res enemies.
  3. It can activate more often with any weapon than Crits with any weapon.

You do have a point though. If we imagine 30 Def/Res is as high as it goes on most enemies, and this is being generous (WLs and Gens can go 35-40 on the Def side), then you need to deal only 8 or more damage at base for a crit to outdamage Luna. If we assume 15 damage at base, well Luna is adding +15, while a Crit is doing double that at +30. This isn't factoring in Killers having a 4x boost in Fates, so it'll be +45 damage, and you need only deal 6 damage at base to outdamage Luna.

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5 hours ago, Volke29 said:

Master or Arms allows players to use A ranked swords; Great Knight does not. Duelist Blow, from my experience, means you will almost never get hit when starting an attack. And fwiw, for all the love Luna gets, I find it very meh. I'd argue a Killing Edge + high Skill character is better.  

Never knew that about Master of Arms, guess that its only slightly less desirable than Great Knight. Also yeah, I also find Luna to be over hyped considering that you never really need it to ORKO an enemy considering how strong Great Knights are already.  Its only really "necessary" in a few situations the more I think of it.

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I'll echo a lot of the people in here and say Vantage and Life and Death are cool skills to pick up but in a vacuum Master of Farms is just sort of a melee-based infantry class without much to make it stand out... which makes the class itself underwhelming.

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22 hours ago, Jerry Kuma said:

Never knew that about Master of Arms, guess that its only slightly less desirable than Great Knight. Also yeah, I also find Luna to be over hyped considering that you never really need it to ORKO an enemy considering how strong Great Knights are already.


Note that the majority praise Master of Arms mostly because of the Samurai skills and not because of those from MoA itself. A Villager » Master of Arms (like Mozu and her children) might be stronger, sturdier and defter unit because of Aptitude, but the lack of Duelist Blow and Vantage makes them play a different role. Say, a sturdier unit may prefer not to use Life or Death in some battles, precisely because they can take more phases; while a squishy unit will always prefer Life or Death, since they only attack on Player Phase anyway. In that sense, a Great Knight is more like a Villager » MoA.

I have used Sophie and Velouria as Master of Arms as their final classes, and they played more like Heroes than Great Knights. And since I have only played Conquest, I prefer them with Sol and Axe Breaker than with Seal Strength and Life or Death.

Edited by starburst
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On 11/8/2018 at 3:34 PM, joshcja said:

MoA gives LaD+Vantage  (and some nice ribbons) so 4 levels in this are mandatory for anyone who has access to it. As a dip it's superchocolatydeliciousS+ rank on any high output 1-2 ending class.


I agree with you, but my problem has always been timing those level-ups.
In Conquest Hard, my units reach L15 around Chapter 23, and since Ch 22 and 24 are easier, I use them to level-up units in 'alien' classes and grab skills. Well, the thing is that making Ophelia gain at least three level-ups in a completely different class, with no weapon ranks or Strength to back it up is tricky. Specially when Elise is trying to kill units with a blunt bronze dagger on the same map. :P

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