Units that are good in spite of their class

[Benice]

The Soldiers/Halberdiers in RD: All of them can end up quite good despite the Sentinel' horrible caps. Seriously, why does IS always make infantry Lance units terrible?

[AnonymousSpeed]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which does jack shit to save him being being a pile of trash. Also, promoting him over Rutger or Deke is a flat-out losing trade. Not to mention the low experience gain will prevent him from improving quickly. Even when promoted at 20/1, his accuracy is already dicey; how do you think he does when promoted early? Hint: He's even worse off.

TL;DR Promoting him early is not a good defense, nor is it a good idea.

You can say that Gonzales sucks all you want, but assertions without numbers make Ping's arguments for him more compelling than your arguments against.

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

You can say that Gonzales sucks all you want, but assertions without numbers make Ping's arguments for him more compelling than your arguments against.

What a coincidence. His arguments aren't very compelling, from where I'm standing. How can Gonzales be good when he can't hit the broad side of a barn (a big problem when if you can't hit, you can't kill enemies and level up), he's too big to be rescued after promotion, which is also a big problem with FE6's giant maps, and he's locked to axes in a game where axe accuracy is hot garbage? His already flimsy case isn't helped by the fact that Hero Crests are highly contested. That sounds a hell of a lot more like Gonzales is a bad unit BECAUSE of his class, not a good unit in spite of it. Of course, maybe I set a high bar when talking about units, and Gonzales, being an underleveled (on one route at least) foot axe with serious problems, doesn't even come close to clearing it.

[shanni20]

CBA to read through this entire thread to see if people have already said him, but... Stefan

 

stefan's bases are endgame viable and he's a terrific bosskiller despite being one of the worst classes in PoR

[ping]

50 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

How can Gonzales be good when he can't hit the broad side of a barn

Elphin-route Gonzo, insta-promoted, has about the same intrinsic accuracy (12-13 Skl, 6 Lck --> 27-29 acc) as Allen at 15/1 (11-12 Skl, 8-9 Lck --> 26-28 acc). Don't underestimate the power of +5 Skl on promotion.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

axe accuracy is hot garbage?

The lategame (chapters 21 and 23 in particular) has a lot of lance users on the enemy's side and against those, axes do not have an accuracy disadvatage compared to swords and lances. Gonzo is bad in the first couple chapters after he joins, but starting in chapter 13, the number of lance-using enemies is large enough for him to make an impact. Just don't take him to Sacae.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Hero Crests are highly contested

Nah. Rutger calls dibs on the first one (unless you like spending 10 turns wearing down Henning), but none of the remaining Hero Crest users are pivotal units when the second Crest arrives. Deke's still OK, but not the lifesaver that he was in the earlygame; Fir's fun to use but it's not exactly necessary to train; Wade, Lott, Geese and Ogier are all mediocre at best.

Gonzo's got problems, in particular his versatility, but he still has plenty opportunity to shine. Hardly a top tier unit because he's less consistently useful compared to cavs/palas or flyers, but effective if used correctly.

[Shadow Mir]

5 hours ago, ping said:

Elphin-route Gonzo, insta-promoted, has about the same intrinsic accuracy (12-13 Skl, 6 Lck --> 27-29 acc) as Allen at 15/1 (11-12 Skl, 8-9 Lck --> 26-28 acc). Don't underestimate the power of +5 Skl on promotion.

The lategame (chapters 21 and 23 in particular) has a lot of lance users on the enemy's side and against those, axes do not have an accuracy disadvatage compared to swords and lances. Gonzo is bad in the first couple chapters after he joins, but starting in chapter 13, the number of lance-using enemies is large enough for him to make an impact. Just don't take him to Sacae.

Nah. Rutger calls dibs on the first one (unless you like spending 10 turns wearing down Henning), but none of the remaining Hero Crest users are pivotal units when the second Crest arrives. Deke's still OK, but not the lifesaver that he was in the earlygame; Fir's fun to use but it's not exactly necessary to train; Wade, Lott, Geese and Ogier are all mediocre at best.

Gonzo's got problems, in particular his versatility, but he still has plenty opportunity to shine. Hardly a top tier unit because he's less consistently useful compared to cavs/palas or flyers, but effective if used correctly.

Except now you have to live with him improving slower, leading to him being even more unreliable lategame (because you keep mentioning chapter 21 as though that single-handedly redeems him), and him being too big to transport. This also ignores that Gonzales is locked to axes (and thus out of luck), while Alan has swords and lances as well in case I don't like his hit rates with axes. I also think his claim to a Hero Crest is shaky, but more on that later. What's more, the Elphin route chapters are harder than the Larum route chapters. Worse yet, talking the Elphin route means missing out on the first shop that sells Killer Axes. So I must ask you - is it really worth it??? Personally, I say HELL NO.

What about before then...??? Because those are only two chapters. And once again, I don't see two chapters of glory as nearly enough to absolve him of the fact that he's too fucking unreliable.

I think his claim to a Hero Crest is weaker than that of Deke, let alone Fir or Oujay, given they have it good on the isles as sword users in axe country, making it easy for them to actually kill shit (and catch up in the case of the latter two). And I would imagine double dipping on Swordmasters or having a Swordmaster and a Hero is ten billion percent better than having a VERY unreliable Berserker.

And I say you're downplaying, and even going so far as to outright ignore, his crippling weaknesses. I mean, I'll admit I make a habit of bashing axe infantry, but Gonzales deserves it.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Emperor Hardin]

Jamke the Bow Fighter(Archer) is very effective in Genealogy of the Holy war due to his critical bow combined with his pursuit, charge and continue skills enabling him to make sure a target is dead when he attacks it during the player phase.

Perhaps bad class is overkill, but Boyd the fighter/warrior is probably one of the best units in Path of Radiance due to excellent availability, skills and stats in a game otherwise dominated by mounted units.

@Shadow Mir

Can we not make this another thread for arguing over axe infantry and FE4/FE11?

[ping]

Speaking of PoR (and I agree with Stefan and Boyd): Ike's Hero class is practically a Swordmaster with slightly better caps (+2 Str > +2 Skl/Spd), as it still combines the two most horrible fates that a PoR character can face - swordlock and no mount. And while Ike certainly suffers from those two, he's an OK unit thanks to earlygame utility and pretty good stats once he promotes. Not phantastic, but significantly better than Mia and Zihark.

[Von Ithipathachai]

4 hours ago, ping said:

Speaking of PoR (and I agree with Stefan and Boyd): Ike's Hero class is practically a Swordmaster with slightly better caps (+2 Str > +2 Skl/Spd), as it still combines the two most horrible fates that a PoR character can face - swordlock and no mount. And while Ike certainly suffers from those two, he's an OK unit thanks to earlygame utility and pretty good stats once he promotes. Not phantastic, but significantly better than Mia and Zihark.

Funny.  I simultaneously got a stat-screwed Ike and a stat-blessed Mia when I played Path of Radiance.  I still dropped her for Stefan, though.

[samthedigital]

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What's more, the Elphin route chapters are harder than the Larum route chapters.

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I think his claim to a Hero Crest is weaker than that of Deke, let alone Fir or Oujay, given they have it good on the isles as sword users in axe country, making it easy for them to actually kill shit (and catch up in the case of the latter two).

Honestly these are not very good points. As ping said the second Hero Crest is not that important, so having a 'weaker claim' to the promotion item means nothing; we don't lose much of anything by promoting Gonzales. The difficulty of B route also doesn't matter. B route being 'harder' than A route is also not even an argument, and it does not mean that we should exclusively play on A route or disregard B route Gonzales for whatever reason.

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Except now you have to live with him improving slower

Growths are not as important as immediate stat gains in FE6. Gonzales would get like 2 points of skill by waiting and he'd be even worse than he already is for far longer.

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he's too big to be rescued after promotion

This is really all you need to show that Gonzales isn't a good unit. He isn't useful against that many enemy types to be sure, but that's not nearly as important as the fact that Gonzales probably can't ever reach anything significant.

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Speaking of PoR (and I agree with Stefan and Boyd)

Stefan is good in MM, but both units are not good in Hard Mode. Ike is the only unmounted unit that's worth anything because he's the main lord and needs to reach objectives. Otherwise it's basically impossible to be good in PoR without good movement (mages being the exception when ranged magic is important).