Best Weapon Usage?

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, 0 Def Cleric said:

You only take a hit of 20 hit per tile past your normal range, so with normal range being 1 and 2, Bernadetta would only be losing 60 hit when firing from 5 tiles away. That adds up with the ~170 max hit given giving her 90 displayed hit. With true hit, that is extremely reliable, and even without, it's well worth the 5 durability. Of course, we'd need to calculate max hit properly here, but given correct max hit, their calculations would be accurate. 

Do we even know if true hit is a thing here??? Because I've seen nothing about it. I'll note that I was factoring in Bowrange+ abilities.

44 minutes ago, ra2bk said:

Bingo. Not sure why he's arguing so hard against actual evidence when he seemingly hasn't tried it. There are a million ways to boost Hit in this game. I forgot the accuracy ring in my list, too, that's another +10.

Edit- Looked it up for fun. Lvl 44 Bernie. I forgot I even took off +20 to hit in favor of +10 to bow crit, because I wasn't having any trouble with accuracy.

Iron Bow+ 95, Dex 41 (34 natural, 3 bow knight, +4 dex riding ability), Accuracy Ring +10, Bow Prowess 5 +15, Empire Snipers lvl 5 +10 is 171 to hit without supports (which often add +10-30 hit) or the +20 ability. Theoretically above 200 hit.

I equipped the accuracy ring pretty early on, iron bow+ is early, bow prowess 2 or 3 still gets you +8-10 hit, empire snipers is 'C' level authority, but you can actually get more +5 more hit from D level Serios/Empire/Alliance Archers. Enemies have much less speed/avoid early on as well. So not just a late-game situation.

My problem with this is... Why in the seven hells would I give Bernadetta a hit boosting battalion, or the accuracy ring????? Because it doesn't really help her any - if her hit is supposed to be among the best in the game, why give her more??? That doesn't sound like good strategizing, from where I'm standing.

[Peck]

55 minutes ago, Silly said:

A lot of this requires you to intentionally slow down, which is not really a good thing when much of the metrics that the community tends to judge performance by involve at least relatively efficient clears. 

For example, softening up enemies for other units to kill when you could just have killed them outright is only really optimal if your other units weren't doing anything anyways. If they could have been doing something else productive, then you should just take the kill and have your other units do something else useful. Grinding class skills is also assumed not to happen, because grinding is not a thing that we generally take into account when rating things, given that with enough grinding everything becomes good enough to trivialize the game. Ranged weapons like Hand Axes and Javelins are specifically bad because if you use them on player phase you will often miss out on a kill, which is really bad.

I was not aware that there is a meta, community agreed upon metric for performance and quality based around, If I understand, clearing the maps in the lowest amount of turns possible. Seeing as there is no in game reward for this self imposed win condition, or difficulty that requires this level of efficiency, it seems to me completely arbitrary how one approaches any stage. Some battles have limitations such as 25 turns, or a thief who will escape with a missable item, but none of these, at least on hard difficulty have required play using maximum speed/efficiency in order to achieve. Maybe lunatic difficulty or dlc maps will require an intense degree of min/maxing to complete?

Given the current state of the game I don’t personally get anything out of minimizing turns taken so my current goal on any single map or playthrough is experiencing as much content as possible which requires using a variety of units and strategies and building a lot of support to experience all the paralogues, see all the weapons, spells, animations, etc. 

 

[0 Def Cleric]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Do we even know if true hit is a thing here??? Because I've seen nothing about it. I'll note that I was factoring in Bowrange+ abilities.

Bowrange+ doesn't combine with combat arts. You still get 2-3 range with Curved Shot and 3-5 with Deadeye, no matter what. 

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

My problem with this is... Why in the seven hells would I give Bernadetta a hit boosting battalion, or the accuracy ring????? Because it doesn't really help her any - if her hit is supposed to be among the best in the game, why give her more??? That doesn't sound like good strategizing, from where I'm standing.

Probably because hit isn't usually an issue in this game except for mages, and they'll prefer magic boosting battalions anyway? Take away the accuracy ring and she's still sitting at around 150 hit (without the ridiculously easy to get hit +20). Even if you take away the hit boosting battalion, it's 140 hit. That's gonna give her (and I'm being generous to you here with enemy avoidance) around 70 displayed hit, with absolutely no investment whatsoever, at 5 range. With minimal investment (i.e. a battalion that no one else who struggles with accuracy wants anyway, thanks to it being tailored for physical classes) she hits 80. With a ring that she'll prefer to your mages who want either the Caduceus Staff or the Staff of Thyrsus, to help them not die rather than hit a situationally dodgy enemy or two, she'll hit 90 hit. Even 70 hit is ridiculous for being able to shoot from five whole spaces away, and the fact that without taking away from anyone else's investment she'll get 90 hit is utterly insane. 

I understand that you have a phobia of misses due to Conquest trauma or whatever, but please. 

[ra2bk]

23 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

My problem with this is... Why in the seven hells would I give Bernadetta a hit boosting battalion, or the accuracy ring????? Because it doesn't really help her any - if her hit is supposed to be among the best in the game, why give her more??? That doesn't sound like good strategizing, from where I'm standing.

Because you can hit from a mile away. You're arguing her hit was too low to hit from 5 away, and then asking why you would add hit. You've answered your own question. In the ring's case, hitting from deep is more valuable than +2 speed or crit +5 and there are better users of march and she shouldn't be taking damage so you don't need evade. She doesn't need any of the gems since her skill path is straight-forward.

The battalions obviously do more than just add to hit, that's just a nice side effect. Many add a ranged gambit, which is always nice for ganging up on monsters and keeping your squishy ranged unit out of the fray. 

Edited August 14, 2019 by ra2bk

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, 0 Def Cleric said:

Bowrange+ doesn't combine with combat arts. You still get 2-3 range with Curved Shot and 3-5 with Deadeye, no matter what. 

Oh. I thought it did. Nice to know. This means that Deadeye might not be as unusable as I had feared.

1 hour ago, ra2bk said:

Because you can hit from a mile away. You're arguing her hit was too low to hit from 5 away, and then asking why you would add hit. You've answered your own question. In the ring's case, hitting from deep is more valuable than +2 speed or crit +5 and there are better users of march and she shouldn't be taking damage so you don't need evade. She doesn't need any of the gems since her skill path is straight-forward.

The battalions obviously do more than just add to hit, that's just a nice side effect. Many add a ranged gambit, which is always nice for ganging up on monsters and keeping your squishy ranged unit out of the fray. 

That was because I had assumed that the Bowrange+ skills worked with combat arts and were not limited to normal attacks. Frankly, though, I'd think that the Accuracy Ring would be better used on someone who has trouble hitting.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Silly]

3 hours ago, Peck said:

I was not aware that there is a meta, community agreed upon metric for performance and quality based around, If I understand, clearing the maps in the lowest amount of turns possible. Seeing as there is no in game reward for this self imposed win condition, or difficulty that requires this level of efficiency, it seems to me completely arbitrary how one approaches any stage. Some battles have limitations such as 25 turns, or a thief who will escape with a missable item, but none of these, at least on hard difficulty have required play using maximum speed/efficiency in order to achieve. Maybe lunatic difficulty or dlc maps will require an intense degree of min/maxing to complete?

Given the current state of the game I don’t personally get anything out of minimizing turns taken so my current goal on any single map or playthrough is experiencing as much content as possible which requires using a variety of units and strategies and building a lot of support to experience all the paralogues, see all the weapons, spells, animations, etc. 

 

There is no wrong way to play Fire Emblem. If you like using all Armored Knights in your playthrough of FE6 even though Armored Knights are commonly accepted as garbage in that game, then by all means go ahead and play that way. We've all done stupid stuff before for fun (gotta get the triple armor triangle attack, amirite?) So far there has been no game that is nearly difficult enough to force you to play a specific way in order to beat it. However, if you want to have some sort of common ground for creating discussion or ranking things, then you need to establish some terms that make a degree of sense.

The first general principle is usually no grinding. Evaluating whether unit X or unit Y is better is pretty pointless if you assume grinding, because with grinding involved every unit ends up dominant compared to the enemy, to the point where they all function pretty much identically as a giant ball of stats. Clearly, this is probably not a good way of ranking things.

The second that is commonly accepted is assuming players are playing with at least moderate efficiency. Now this is a high contentious term, since moderate efficiency means slightly different things to different people, but most people agree on roughly what it is. It does not mean LTCing maps, but it does generally mean that you do not intentionally hamper yourself if you are comfortable with playing at a faster pace. 

This second factor is relevant because given unlimited turns, the large majority of units can kill enemies and accomplish map objectives. Why does it matter that my Armor Knight takes ten turns to cross the map to get to these enemies if I have unlimited turns? I'll just take more time to walk there. Why does it matter that my unit takes three rounds to kill an enemy instead of one if I have unlimited turns? I'll just take more time to kill this enemy before moving on. Why does it matter if my unit can only survive two attacks instead of five? I'll just go slower and fight less enemies at once, and stop and heal between every battle. Clearly, you can tell that there is again not much difference between units if you don't put at least some degree of importance on efficiency.

The third is generally assuming units are "average". Fire Emblem is a very RNG driven game, so on one playthrough you may get a unit that is blessed with amazing level ups and one that is cursed with poor ones. Players comparing their own subjective experiences here will be unable to find common ground, since my unit X could look completely different statistically than your unit X. Thus, we usually assume average level ups. For example, if unit X has a 50% strength growth, we mostly look at scenarios where unit X gains 1 strength every two levels. This gives a common ground to stand on, since we can be sure that when we talk about unit X we're actually talking about the same unit and not two completely different characters wearing the same face.

These factors are generally the most common ones in unit evaluation, because not only do they take away a lot of the subjectiveness towards evaluations, there is also the fact of the matter that units that are generally considered good using the above metrics will usually end up good regardless of whether you follow the above metrics or not. A unit that is good on a no grind playthrough will also be good in a playthrough with grinding, because they will only be more powerful. But a unit that is only good with grinding may fall off and no longer perform well if you decide to play faster and avoid grinding. Likewise, a unit that is more mobile, is able to fight more enemies per round, and kill them quicker is generally considered superior to one without those qualities, even if you don't play as fast as possible. The strong unit can always slow themselves down to match your pace, but the unit that is only good when you're playing slowly and taking 30 turns to clear most maps might not scale well as you get more comfortable with the game and are able to clear maps more quickly.

If you want to play Fire Emblem in a different way, you are by all means entitled to do so. It's a single player game and nobody can control your experience but yourself. But in terms of discussion, claiming that grinding through games is an optimal method is probably not conducive to any sort of accurate ranking.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Silly

[Silly]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Oh. I thought it did. Nice to know. This means that Deadeye might not be as unusable as I had feared.

That was because I had assumed that the Bowrange+ skills worked with combat arts and were not limited to normal attacks. Frankly, though, I'd think that the Accuracy Ring would be better used on someone who has trouble hitting.

I am positive that Bowrange+ affects combat arts. Curved Shot on an archer lets you hit 4 tiles away. 

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

In regards to what was said about magic weapons: they have something of a niche on high-magic fliers. Like, Pegasus Knight Flayn can use the Levin Sword to pretty good effect (Darting Blow largely compensates for its high weight). Obviously magical spells are stronger and more reliable, and I agree with those who say there's no reason to use magic weapons on magic-wielders (I've basically never come close to running out of spell uses). But they have a niche (along with magical combat arts, like Frozen Lance) on Fliers, or (early-to-midgame) on Cavs/Pallys with high Magic, since they're your highest-move option for magical offense.

[Humanoid]

The suboptimal nature of slower units and careful strategies is an unfortunate result of there being no injury or indeed any loss of efficacy for taking damage, as long as you don't get reduced to zero. Indeed it's sometimes beneficial, for things like Desperation or Bernadetta's personal skill. No point softening up an enemy with my armoured unit that takes zero damage from retaliation when there's no real consequence to my cavaliers or pegasi being hit for half their hitpoints. Killing a boss by eating their counter and surviving with 1hp remaining? That's good play with this system.

I wonder how FE would play out if it had an XCOM-like injury system, where your priority would then to take the least amount of damage possible. Or taking it even further, the Red Fog system where your stats are reduced by damage taken. Is it worth saving that villager when the consequence would be that my best flier would be knocked out for a month?

[Jayvee94]

20 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

In regards to what was said about magic weapons: they have something of a niche on high-magic fliers. Like, Pegasus Knight Flayn can use the Levin Sword to pretty good effect (Darting Blow largely compensates for its high weight). Obviously magical spells are stronger and more reliable, and I agree with those who say there's no reason to use magic weapons on magic-wielders (I've basically never come close to running out of spell uses). But they have a niche (along with magical combat arts, like Frozen Lance) on Fliers, or (early-to-midgame) on Cavs/Pallys with high Magic, since they're your highest-move option for magical offense.

The way I see Crusher (Annette's) and Blutgang (Marianne's) (both magic weapons) is that you've probably gonna use them exclusively for their Combat Arts.

[DragonFlames]

18 hours ago, timon said:

I made great use of the scythe, as my Sylvain was too slow to double anyways so he just needed raw power, and at that point IIRC Silver is not yet easily available. Also Paladins are quite a good class imo, so I wouldn't rule out high Lance level (and there are some really, really good lances in the game).

They also have crazy durability which makes for good combart art spam.

Last but not least, if you give it to a Dark Knight it's basically a cosplay.

 

18 hours ago, Flere210 said:

Mostly style point, but they come out earlier than silver.

Good points on all accounts.
Especially about the DK cosplay. I made Lorenz a Dark Knight in my current Golden Deer run, so I should probably hand him one of these.
As for the availability of Silver weapons, I had not thought of that (but both of you are right), because due to New Game+ carrying over available shop items, I had totally forgotten that Silver weapons aren't available from the get-go.

Another semi-related question: how much mileage does everyone get out of combat arts? Personally, I tend to use the bow ones the most to extend attack range and not eat counters from monsters, mages and other archers or to snipe weakened targets. In other instances, I personally find it much more beneficial to be able to attack twice (or four times, in the case of Gauntlets), as double-attacking usually yields higher damage than a single combat art (and doubling is 2 for 2 in terms of durability use, while the stronger combat arts eat away 3 or more with only one hit).

[Spectrum]

I mainly use forged iron/silver weapons. I have been using Wo Dao+ a lot; very light, high crit rate. Zoltan weapons and Hero Relics are very helpful, but I don't use them that much because of their durability.

[ra2bk]

45 minutes ago, Spectrum said:

I mainly use forged iron/silver weapons. I have been using Wo Dao+ a lot; very light, high crit rate. Zoltan weapons and Hero Relics are very helpful, but I don't use them that much because of their durability.

Yes I forged a Wo Dao+ pretty early relative to other available weapons and use that as my default equipped weapon for baiting with my dodgetanks..Only drawback is a bit annoying to repair.

Edited August 14, 2019 by ra2bk

[Burklight]

6 minutes ago, ra2bk said:

Yes I forged a Wo Dao+ pretty early relative to other available weapons and use that as my default equipped weapon for baiting with my dodgetanks..Only drawback is a bit annoying to repair.

Use the Rapier+. You're trading some crit for effective damage and the fact that repairs are basically free.

[ra2bk]

6 minutes ago, Burklight said:

Use the Rapier+. You're trading some crit for effective damage and the fact that repairs are basically free.

Somehow I didn't get a Rapier until much, much later in my playthrough.

[Burklight]

2 minutes ago, ra2bk said:

Somehow I didn't get a Rapier until much, much later in my playthrough.

So from my playthroughs, I think there's only two. One from killing a thief in Claude's post time skip paralogue, and the first from a thief in the Manuela and Hanneman paralogue.

[ra2bk]

13 minutes ago, Burklight said:

So from my playthroughs, I think there's only two. One from killing a thief in Claude's post time skip paralogue, and the first from a thief in the Manuela and Hanneman paralogue.

Now that I think about it, it's also possible the first one was equipped to a unit I lost in the time skip.

[Lightcosmo]

The Cursed Sword to get Felix to 100 critical was fun, and it doesn't cost that much.

36 minutes ago, Burklight said:

Use the Rapier+. You're trading some crit for effective damage and the fact that repairs are basically free.

Also this, the Rapier is a pretty nice weapon for it's ease of use and all around usefulness, and it has decent uses.

[Spectrum]

8 hours ago, Burklight said:

Use the Rapier+. You're trading some crit for effective damage and the fact that repairs are basically free.

Oh yeah totally forgot about the Rapier. It's great too.