Why does adaptive damage only affect ranged units?

[Jotari]

I get the logic behind adaptive damage. Most dragons throughout the series have attacked using physical stats, but in some games they ignored defense. So given that they wanted melee magic users, making dragons...melee magic users but still letting them deal physical damage under certain conditions makes sense. Heroes was also developed at the same time as Echoes, where dragons have long range breath attacks that ignore defense and close range physical attacks that deal physical damage. Still makes sense. However, what doesn't make sense to me is that dragon adaptive damage only works when fighting ranged units. Dragons have mostly been 1 range fighters throughout the series. Some final bosses aside, Tellius, Awakening and Echoes are the only games to give them two range (and we haven't even seen any Dragon Laguz yet). So why are they better when fighting ranged enemies? Have they ever had some kind of effectiveness against ranged units in any of the games. Not that I can think of. The logic of them using a different attack method like in Echoes doesn't make sense either, unless they have some kind of spike shooting gun they can't use up close. Or is it meant to be less about them fighting at range and more about them being more apt at fighting someone who can't fight back when attacking a ranged unit who can't fight back? I just can't see any lore reason dragons could deal adaptive damage at range, but not close up. The reverse would make sense, but not the way they did it.

Of course maybe it was just made completely independently of any lore logic and just to balance the game by nerfing ranged units...yeah that's probably it, but what do you think when it comes to the lore?

[Ice Dragon]

The adaptive damage effect on breath weapons in Heroes is clearly meant to be a balance measure against ranged units for two reasons:

1. At the time it was implemented, ranged units were extremely powerful due to effectively having a mobility advantage over melee units and having access to strong weapons at a time when most units did not have high enough defensive skills to effectively mitigate them.
2. Ranged units have a higher proportion of units with higher Res than Def, which was previously one of the largest barriers for breath weapons to overcome. Melee units with higher Res than Def were rare at the time, so even if adaptive damage were added for melee opponents, it really wouldn't have made a huge difference.

You can see a similar effect on Hel Scythe, which targets always targets Res against melee units, bows, and daggers and always targets Def against tomes and staves.

 

In terms of lore, I see adaptive damage's existence itself as the "lore" half of the mechanic and the restriction to ranged units as the "gameplay" half of the mechanic.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[Landmaster]

Never really thought of any lore behind it, I just thought it was meant to nerf ranged units

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Ranged units aren't wearing very much armor. Just clothes. Armor isn't as flammable as your underclothes. So I guess there's a lore answer when the adaptive damage is fire-based. Doesn't answer why they're resistant to fire based magic though...

Now I'm just thinking how badly these Fire Emblem characters need a hair cut. It's a serious fire hazard. If I was set on fire, I could strip my clothes and be fine. Linde is a goner.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Humanoid]

43 minutes ago, Landmaster said:

Never really thought of any lore behind it, I just thought it was meant to nerf ranged units

It could also be the inverse, where they want to implement adaptive damage in general for lore reasons, but realise that applying it to everyone would be really unfair on high-res melee units who are already super niche as it is. I mean, their job would be either as an enemy phase mage counter which requires significant investment (DC), or as a player phase killer of dragons and close-counter mages. Given CC mages are hardly a common threat, if dragons got adaptive damage against them, then the main reason for these high-res units existing for the majority of players is pretty much gone.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Humanoid

[Nowi's Husband]

I assume it's just for gameplay reasons, most melee's have more defense than res anyway.  That's why the adaptive damage that includes melee's is on physical damage users, Felicia and Sorcery Blade, they want to hit the lower res stat.  They really don't care too much about the lore a lot of the time, like why does Hector have DC but not Zephiel, Berkut, or Walhardt?  

Edited April 6, 2019 by Nowi's Husband

[Kruggov]

9 hours ago, Nowi's Husband said:

I assume it's just for gameplay reasons, most melee's have more defense than res anyway.  That's why the adaptive damage that includes melee's is on physical damage users, Felicia and Sorcery Blade, they want to hit the lower res stat.  They really don't care too much about the lore a lot of the time, like why does Hector have DC but not Zephiel, Berkut, or Walhardt?  

Felicia's also fits the lore reasons, given that Felicia's Plate in FE14 was a magic weapon.

[Hilda]

13 hours ago, Landmaster said:

Never really thought of any lore behind it, I just thought it was meant to nerf ranged units

It was a bit too much of a nerf. It should have been a B-Slot skill, just like ranged units need sometimes to quip now a B-Skill to deal with dragons and not built into Breaths.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Hilda said:

It was a bit too much of a nerf. It should have been a B-Slot skill, just like ranged units need sometimes to quip now a B-Skill to deal with dragons and not built into Breaths.

Making it a B slot skill and only allowing certain weapons have it innately might have been more interesting.

[Ice Dragon]

8 hours ago, Hilda said:

It was a bit too much of a nerf. It should have been a B-Slot skill, just like ranged units need sometimes to quip now a B-Skill to deal with dragons and not built into Breaths.

Making it a passive skill would have made the effect useless because the majority of dragons want Quick Riposte in that slot. And even if you make the argument that we got a Quick Riposte Sacred Seal soon afterwards, you can only use it on one unit at a time.

Furthermore, tomes already had a soft counter to breath weapons called "nuking them to high earth orbit", even more so now that field buffs are easier to get than ever before. Bows still have Firesweep, staves still have Dazzling Staff, and daggers now have Cloud Maiougi and Splashy Bucket. Colored bows and daggers also have the ability to better shrug off counterattacks from breaths of the correct color.

Edited April 7, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[bottlegnomes]

^Plus whatever Eir's skill is (too lazy to look up the name).

[Ice Dragon]

15 minutes ago, bottlegnomes said:

^Plus whatever Eir's skill is (too lazy to look up the name).

The point was that Mystic Boost wasn't actually necessary (except on weaker units) because all of those options already existed.

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Making it a passive skill would have made the effect useless because the majority of dragons want Quick Riposte in that slot. And even if you make the argument that we got a Quick Riposte Sacred Seal soon afterwards, you can only use it on one unit at a time.

Furthermore, tomes already had a soft counter to breath weapons called "nuking them to high earth orbit", even more so now that field buffs are easier to get than ever before. Bows still have Firesweep, staves still have Dazzling Staff, and daggers now have Cloud Maiougi and Splashy Bucket. Colored bows and daggers also have the ability to better shrug off counterattacks from breaths of the correct color.

I'd like it as a choice if it at least provided an alternative to lightning breath from the inheritable pool if breath weapons (adaptive damage would no doubt be worse than distant counter but at least it'd provide some sort of competition).

[Ice Dragon]

Just now, Jotari said:

I'd like it as a choice if it at least provided an alternative to lightning breath from the inheritable pool if breath weapons (adaptive damage would no doubt be worse than distant counter but at least it'd provide some sort of competition).

Distant Counter is strong enough that adaptive damage would simply not be competition at all.

Water Breath is the only breath weapon that could compete with Lightning Breath if Lightning Breath did not have adaptive damage. However, Water Breath is still hindered by the fact that it needs Distant Counter, which is still a relatively rare skill, to compete and that Lightning Breath has the A slot open for Steady Breath or Warding Breath, both of which can make up for the loss of adaptive damage.