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Why do people love Halberdiers/Soldiers/Spear Fighters so much?


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11 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

One other nitpicky thing that I will add is that it is other polearms that Fire Emblem classify as lances that were commonly used by infantry, lances were mounted weapons.

True. When Fire Emblem says lances, it really means "spears" or "polearms". Although, English infantry in the early half of the Hundred Year's War did use shortened lances as a battlefield weapon. 

Speaking of polearms though, the Medieval Period had a wide variety of pole weapons that would be cool to see in Fire Emblem, including: billhooks, halberds (to my knowledge, they've only appeared in SoV, and poleaxes are not the same thing), partisans and war scythes. These were all two-handed spears, so they were only used by infantry, but when was the last tine an FE character actually used a two-handed melee weapon with both hands?

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On 5/14/2019 at 3:56 PM, BLSoldier said:

Replace "lance" with "sword" and you can say the same about myrmidons/swordmasters. (in before someone brings up the class critical bonus)

Or, better yet, Merc/Hero. I think Gregor (because he's so slow) is the only not great unit of that class that doesn't join stupidly late (and Gregor does just fairly late).

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On 15.5.2019 at 12:19 AM, Roland said:

Well, I like them because their the only infantry unit that wields a lance. Swords has Mercenaries and Myrmidons, and Axes have Fighters and Pirates, but the Solider is the only infantry lance unit. Besides, not many FE games have them as playable units. I'd love for another lord to wield a lance again like Ephriham, and Claude looks to be that.

No, Dimitri. Claude uses Bows

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On 15.5.2019 at 1:00 AM, Dragoncat said:

Why did I not realize this before? It makes total sense.

Also, if you were a hunter, you could become an archer easily. Not everyone lived on a farm with cows and pigs etc to kill for meat, so I figure a lot of archers for the military started out shooting wild animals to feed themselves and their family. You could buy from the local farmer yeah, but if you could kill your own meat you probably did that more often.

This is also not entirely correct. It's not just that it "equates to their normal jobs", the motions were just far easier. Besides, hunting wasn't really all that widespread because the forest (and the animals in it) belonged to nobility and commoners wer forbidden from hunting (some of them still did though)

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On 2019-05-19 at 6:10 AM, MrMinus said:

This is also not entirely correct. It's not just that it "equates to their normal jobs", the motions were just far easier. Besides, hunting wasn't really all that widespread because the forest (and the animals in it) belonged to nobility and commoners wer forbidden from hunting (some of them still did though)

Exactly. Work translating into warfare did happen, but not with hunting. In fact, it was agriculture.

A significant number of different types of polearms in Medieval Europe were in fact adapted from farming tools. This not only reduced cost, but it meant that the levied peasant farmers knew how to use them. 

If you're curious, the list includes the following: the flail, the war scythe, and the bill (billhook). 

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On 5/21/2019 at 1:33 PM, vanguard333 said:

If you're curious, the list includes the following: the flail, the war scythe, and the bill (billhook). 

I was curious about how the flail would have been used.

Turns out that it's used to beat the grains off the harvest. Turns out they were also used to beat ears in outside of war. :P

As for me, the idea of playing these units made me curious, even if the most obvious route was hacks. Spear Fighters were neat enough if a bit unmatched (like Samurai with Myrmidons). Then Nephenee happened in PoR and she just tore up. Sure, she's probably not as good on Maniac, but I'll see just how she works with RD. If I ever finish at this rate.

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I would like to negate the question, but topic title does not give me a chance. 

Nephenee is the first character of this class. She looks pretty gorgeous and is quite decent in FE9. With wrath and vantage she is fun to use against physical enemies in enemy phase. Her design is cool although I am not a fan of her personality. Her base conversation with Heather in 2-1 of makes her become a hick. Sure, farmers do not tend to be the most intellectual social circle, but it goes too far with her.

That said the soldier class is pretty much only Nephenee since she is known for being a crit-machine by having class crit boost and wrath in FE10. But it does not change the fact that she is a foot unit, so outclassed by all lance cavaliers and especially fliers. 

I do not like to use the term overrated, but many people tend to overrate her perfomance. Without transfer boosts she is garbage in 2-1. Nephenee is the "lance wielding Mia", but the main difference is that Mia needs less investment and trueblades are still a better class than sentinels. And at the end Tanith, Marcia and even Fiona bring a similar damage output to the table with having higher movement range.

Edited by Rosalina
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For many reasons:

* Halberdier completes the trinity of infantry classes that specialize in a weapon and have a critical bonus, being a perfect companion to Berserker and Swordmaster.

* In multiplayer matches in the DS remake and Awakenings, it becomes apparent that every Lance class has a weakness whether it be bows, Hammers or Ridersbane.

* Their status as an all around unit with a defensive unit is a good niche.

* Dismounting in games like Thracia 776 makes the absence of soldiers very notable as the player army has no access to lances during the indoor chapters.

* Generals sometimes get unfairly nerfed and are too hard to use even for people who like them, like in Awakening, making the absence of Halberdiers notable.

Overall the absence of Soldiers/Halberdiers makes some sense in some games with small class rosters like the DS remakes. Other games like Awakening which included stuff like Taguel and Gryphons, yet excluded Halberdiers, have little excuse for their absence.

On 5/18/2019 at 11:47 PM, deuxhero said:

Or, better yet, Merc/Hero. I think Gregor (because he's so slow) is the only not great unit of that class that doesn't join stupidly late (and Gregor does just fairly late).

Mercenary and Myrmidon really shouldn't exist alongside each other I feel, particularly if branch promotions are a thing. FE4-FE5 and FE9-FE10 had the right idea of merging the two base classes.

On 5/15/2019 at 7:57 AM, vanguard333 said:

True. When Fire Emblem says lances, it really means "spears" or "polearms". Although, English infantry in the early half of the Hundred Year's War did use shortened lances as a battlefield weapon. 

Speaking of polearms though, the Medieval Period had a wide variety of pole weapons that would be cool to see in Fire Emblem, including: billhooks, halberds (to my knowledge, they've only appeared in SoV, and poleaxes are not the same thing), partisans and war scythes. These were all two-handed spears, so they were only used by infantry, but when was the last tine an FE character actually used a two-handed melee weapon with both hands?

Fire Emblem's spiritual successor Berwick Saga had Halberds as a weapon(distinct from poleaxes which are never called Halberds in Japan), as well as pikes which could only be used dismounted. The game also had two subtypes to spears, lances(specifically the giant jousting type) that were only usable when mounted and pitchforks/tridents.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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41 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Fire Emblem's spiritual successor Berwick Saga had Halberds as a weapon (distinct from poleaxes which are never called Halberds in Japan), as well as pikes which could only be used dismounted. The game also had two subtypes to spears, lances(specifically the giant jousting type) that were only usable when mounted and pitchforks/tridents.

Huh; interesting. Funny enough; minus the pitchforks (as I don't know if anyone ever used them in battle; in fact, I doubt it, as four prongs just divides the pressure across multiple points) that's exactly how I would divide spears if making a Fire Emblem game: lances as cavalry-only, and pikes as infantry-only. 

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12 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

EDIT: I don't know why it got posted twice; someone please tell me how to delete the second one. 

Just report your other post and a mod can take care of it.

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17 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Huh; interesting. Funny enough; minus the pitchforks (as I don't know if anyone ever used them in battle; in fact, I doubt it, as four prongs just divides the pressure across multiple points) that's exactly how I would divide spears if making a Fire Emblem game: lances as cavalry-only, and pikes as infantry-only. 

Pikes aren't an sub weapon type, so much as a single type of spear. They are a very good spear that is good for killing horses, though.

Pitchforks/Tridents are mostly used by the renegade farmer class which is frequently used by bandits. They are usually aren't that good, but some are good at crippling or deal elemental damage. One playable character, a Lance Knight, can use it.

Spears all deal a little bit extra damage based on how many many squares(hexes here) a unit moved before attacking. All Playable and almost unplayable Spear classes can equip horses, yes, even soldier.

Jousting Lances deal massive amount of extra damage based on movement, which is the whole point of using them as they wouldn't deal that much damage without that bonus. They are very good.

3 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Thanks.

Don't worry, they''ll know it was an accident.

Edited by Emperor Hardin
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35 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Pikes aren't an sub weapon type, so much as a single type of spear. They are a very good spear that is good for killing horses, though.

Oh; I didn't mean as a sub-weapon type; I meant as a single type of spear. Sorry if that was unclear. 

Oh; so pikes in that game are good against cavalry? Nice. …Although, in the age of pike-and-shot, the pikes weren't primarily for killing the horses, but for stopping them. It was the shot (as in the Arquebus) that then killed the horses. Scottish Schiltron was somewhat anti-cavalry, but it relied on choke-points and being aggressive at the right moments. For example, at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, they waited for the English to be nearly across the bridge, and then the Scots charged with their two-handed spears; taking advantage of the chokepoint caused by the bridge. 

 

40 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Pitchforks/Tridents are mostly used by the renegade farmer class which is frequently used by bandits. They are usually aren't that good, but some are good at crippling or deal elemental damage. One playable character, a Lance Knight, can use it.

Ah; that makes sense. If they want a polearm that is something of a farmer's weapon, a war scythe (picture in the spoiler tag below) would probably have been a better pick. 

Spoiler

Image result for war scytheImage result for war scythe

 

41 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Jousting Lances deal massive amount of extra damage based on movement, which is the whole point of using them as they wouldn't deal that much damage without that bonus. They are very good.

Yeah; that makes a lot of sense. The whole point of cavalry was to charge; they were never meant to be standing still. In fact, it was really bad if cavalry got stuck in dense melees; their role was to get in, do damage, and get out. The whole point of the lance was to maximize the impact caused by said charge. 

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The person who accidentally double-posted has since been banned. ?

System's in a weird state right now, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few more glitches show up.  Do let me know if such things happen again~!

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Just now, eclipse said:

The person who accidentally double-posted has since been banned. ?

System's in a weird state right now, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few more glitches show up.  Do let me know if such things happen again~!

Thanks. Though I dislike being banned over an accident, especially since it makes making all these posts really weird. ?

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3 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Oh; I didn't mean as a sub-weapon type; I meant as a single type of spear. Sorry if that was unclear. 

Oh; so pikes in that game are good against cavalry? Nice. …Although, in the age of pike-and-shot, the pikes weren't primarily for killing the horses, but for stopping them. It was the shot (as in the Arquebus) that then killed the horses. Scottish Schiltron was somewhat anti-cavalry, but it relied on choke-points and being aggressive at the right moments. For example, at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, they waited for the English to be nearly across the bridge, and then the Scots charged with their two-handed spears; taking advantage of the chokepoint caused by the bridge. 

 

Ah; that makes sense. If they want a polearm that is something of a farmer's weapon, a war scythe (picture in the spoiler tag below) would probably have been a better pick. 

  Hide contents

Image result for war scytheImage result for war scythe

 

Yeah; that makes a lot of sense. The whole point of cavalry was to charge; they were never meant to be standing still. In fact, it was really bad if cavalry got stuck in dense melees; their role was to get in, do damage, and get out. The whole point of the lance was to maximize the impact caused by said charge. 

No problem, it was my bad.

War Scythes would be really cool actually!

I know Lances can't counter and I think double attack. Their animation is really cool it depicts the mounted unit just charging through the target. The playable classes that use them are Lance Paladin and Duke Knight. Lance paladin promotes from Spear Knight and Duke Knight is the most powerful mounted class available to the player. On the enemy side, Black Paladins can also use lances.

Should also be noted most of the traditional FE lances are under the spears category in Berwick Saga.

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On 5/19/2019 at 7:47 AM, deuxhero said:

Or, better yet, Merc/Hero. I think Gregor (because he's so slow) is the only not great unit of that class that doesn't join stupidly late (and Gregor does just fairly late).

Joining in Chapter 11 of a ~30 chapter game is "fairly late"?

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Spearguys are popular because they're basically the Fire Emblem equivalent to these guys:

 

71JWlKCBFQL._SX425_.jpg

 

People love a good underdog, especially if they're iconic yet simple.

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On 5/30/2019 at 9:38 PM, NinjaMonkey said:

Joining in Chapter 11 of a ~30 chapter game is "fairly late"?

Over a third of the way through? That's about when Fir and Sin join in 6, Amelia joins in 8 and Zihark, Kieran, Nephenee and Jill join in 9. Nobody says those units have particularly early join dates.

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Oof, didn't know people did lol. I like Ephraim and Shiro, but that's about it. But is there really a vast amount of people that like them? I was never given the impression they were liked more than any other unit type.

Edited by SSbardock84
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On 5/27/2019 at 11:11 PM, Emperor Hardin said:

War Scythes would be really cool actually!

Thanks. yeah; it would justify lance users making cutting motions in their attacks (I admit that that doesn't happen in the majority of FE games; I'm just saying it would justify it when it does happen). 

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4 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Thanks. yeah; it would justify lance users making cutting motions in their attacks (I admit that that doesn't happen in the majority of FE games; I'm just saying it would justify it when it does happen). 

That's mainly done in the 3DS games, most other games don't have them do that.

Though there are several cutting polearms in the Tellius games, including the Wishblade which would count as a halberd.

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1 hour ago, Emperor Hardin said:

That's mainly done in the 3DS games, most other games don't have them do that.

Though there are several cutting polearms in the Tellius games, including the Wishblade which would count as a halberd.

That was my joke; I even said as much (though I admit I didn't specify that it was mainly the 3DS games; thanks for pointing that out).

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2 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

That was my joke; I even said as much (though I admit I didn't specify that it was mainly the 3DS games; thanks for pointing that out).

I think besides the 3DS titles, the only games to have slashing/whacking lance animations are: 

* Berwick Saga: One of the dismounted Spear/Lance Knight animations.

* Radiant Dawn: One of the Halberdier attack animations is a Jumping slash.

To be fair, using even ordinary spears to occasionally whack and slash is indeed something Spear/Sojutsu experts do, though its of course not as effective as stabbing except in special scenarios.

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On 6/1/2019 at 3:39 AM, deuxhero said:

Over a third of the way through? That's about when Fir and Sin join in 6, Amelia joins in 8 and Zihark, Kieran, Nephenee and Jill join in 9. Nobody says those units have particularly early join dates.

Well it's before the halfway point, so yeah, I would say that they join early.

Quote

Nobody says those units have particularly early join dates.

Such as who, exactly?

Edited by NinjaMonkey
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