I have a minor rant about Sword classes

[Garlyle]

Ok, when it coms to Fire Emblem, I ... Love ... Swordmasters. Good old times when in Judgral they had all those crazy skills like Astra, Sol and Luna with a skill% triggering change, yet still very satisfying. GBA titles came with high dodge chances and more crit chances instead, especially in Binding Blade. A very simple class with very simple requirements: good Str and Spd with some decent Luck and Dex, considering that swords never had big accuracy issues. When it comes to swords, there are a couple of options to take your units, but only one Master class: Mortal Savant. For that reason I'm also thinking about Advanced as endgame classes for them as well: including Hero, Swordmaster and Assassin.

Bases: When it comes to bases, the advanced classes share the same stats: 30 Hp, 17 Str, 8 Mag, 12 Dex, 14 Spd, 10 Lck, 12 Def, 8 Res. The only difference is: Swordmaster and Hero has only 5 move, while Assassin has 6 - already in the favor of Assassin. Mortal Savant bases are better as 17 Mag, 14 Dex, 16 Spd, 12 Lck, 14 Def and 12 Res - but if you don't have those stats by Lv30, you already failed as a sword unit. Still, it has a 6 move as well, so I'd say by stats Assassin and Mortal Savant are best just because of the 6 Move. 1 point for Assassin and Mortal Savant

Growths: This is very important, considering how much you need to train all your units up, no clear Jagen for you this time around. I already mentioned which stats I find relevant for these classes, so I'll just check on their offense. Hero has 10% Str and 10% Spd bonus (total: 20%), Swordmaster has 10% Str and 20% Spd bonus (total: 30%), Assassin has 20% Dex and 20% Spd bonus (total: 40%), while Mortal Savant has 10% Str, 10% Mag, -10% Spd and 10% Luck (total: 20%). That negative spd bonus really hurts Mortal Savant in my eyes, Spd is still relevant in endgame you know - there are still 10 levels you can gain. 1 point for Assassin

Skills: They all come with Swordfaire, all 4 of them. Hero gets Vantage, but you can already unlock that skill just by mastering Mercenary, another class sword users would often take early on. Defiant Str, I don't think Defiant skills are relevant, as I don't want to see my units below 25% health. Swordmaster gets Sword Crit +10, which is nice, and Astra which is... it really hurts to say, but useless. It costs 9 Durability, has -10 hit rate, and triggers 5 hits with 30% Mt. The scenarios to make it useful is next to nothing. Cost is very high, it gives you chance to miss, and if you missed 2 out of the 5 hits, you just lost 8 durability for nothing. The 30% Mt is also very damaging, even a 50% would be more reasonable - such a high cost for only 150% possible total damage is not that amazing. In comparison Wrath cost 3 durability, gives 5 Mt and 10% Hit bonus, and anyone can learn it - already better than Astra.

Moving on, Mortal Savant also gets Black Tomefaire and Warding Blow. Going for Warding is also situational, it only gives you the bonuses when you are attacking and only relevant against magic users. Black Tomefaire basically helps Savant being a more niche class, using cheap magic instead of wasting sword durability. And then there's Assassin which has Locktouch, Stealth, Ltehality and Assassinate. Already a bigger selection of skills to offer, and I don't really see why one would complain about any of those. Assassinate gives for 5 durability 15% Hit and avoid, and the chance to kill the enemy instantly. How is this balanced compared to other skills? Instant kills usually very costy or very difficult to pull off in games like this. 1 point for Assassin

Final note: Hero is male class only, so you can't make your own Echidna in Three Houses. -1 point for Hero

• Hero: -1 point
• Swordmaster: 0 point
• Mortal Savant: 1 point
• Assassin: 3 points

I feel like the game just wants me to turn all my sword users to Assassins, while leaving Mortal Savant there as a niche alternative. Feels unfair to me.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Garlyle

[magnetic_cactus]

One thing I don't believe you mentioned were the stat bonuses/maluses, which are separate from base stats. 

• Hero: 3 HP,  2 Str, 2 Spd, 1 Lck, 1 Def.
• Swordmaster: 1 HP, 2 Str, 1 Dex, 4 Spd, 1 Def.
• Assassin: 3 Dex, 5 Spd, 1 Lck.
• Mortal Savant: 1 HP, 1 Str, 2 Mag, 1 Dex, 1 Spd, 2 Def, 2 Res. 

I think in at least the above regard, Hero and Swordmaster are not so bad, probably being at least on par with Assassin and clearly superior to Mortal Savant. That said, I think all of the sword classes you listed need a buff, not just Hero and Swordmaster, especially when you consider we don't really have sword Master Class equivalents (Mortal Savant is more of an alternate class). Here's some quick thoughts that'd it'd be great to see, although I'm sure we'll never see them since a balance patch is almost certainly never happening:

• Hero: +2 bonus HP, +2 bonus Str, +3 bonus Def, +5 HP growth, +5 Def growth, +5 Res growth, add ability Sol (Passive: Dex% chance to heal for half damage dealt).
• Swordmaster: +4 bonus Str, +1 bonus Dex, +1 bonus Def, +5 Str growth, improve Astra to 5*0.5 at -5 Durability.
• Assassin: +2 bonus Str, +1 bonus Dex, change Stealth to Magekiller (Passive: Hit/Avo +20 when using any weapon vs. tomes).
• Mortal Savant: +2 bonus Mag, +10 Spd growth. 

Because Hero, Swordmaster and Assassin are Advanced, not Master, Classes, I don't think increasing their move further is appropriate. I think, to address the move inequities between infantry and cavalry/fliers, the better approach would be to reduce the 8 move mounted and flying units to 7 move and remove Canto entirely from flying units (and nerf their Spd growths by 10 while we're at it). I also think if we see the above buffs, Fortress Knight deserves some love as well. 

Anyway, as it stands, I do agree that Assassin is probably the best Swordfaire class, provided you have decent base Str growth on the character in question and/or had good Str levels on the way up. It and Mortal Savant are both perfectly viable endgame classes (although, of course, inferior to something like a Wyvern Lord). Swordmaster is hamstrung by its poor movement, but it's still situationally powerful on certain small maps, and incredibly strong in the mid-game (at least insofar as it comes attached to Catherine). Hero is probably a "nope," especially since Vantage is just not needed, even on Hard, and if you REALLY want it, you can lift it from Mercenary in the Intermediate Classes on the way up.

Edited August 27, 2019 by magnetic_cactus

[charcoalswift]

I say Swordmaster is the best

It can help grow STR for units like Ingrid before promoting to Falcon Knight

No reason for Mortal Savant due to 10% speed growth penalty and lack of specialization.

Assassin can get STR screwed, that happened to Petra.

Hero is a mixed unit between sword and axe, I rather focus on 1 weapon type

Sword units eg. Felix don't have high MAG and a good spell list anyway. Mortal Savant is aesthetics

Edited August 27, 2019 by charcoalswift

[Cysx]

I don't think 20% Dex is better than 10% Str. Even the game acknowledges the Dex is unimportant this time around, by making its rally +8(which is always very telling). None of these sword classes have accuracy issues either, and one point of dex is only worth 0.5 crit, meaning from level 20 to 40, Assassin will get +4 Dex aka +2% crit. I'd much, much rather have +2 strength, and as a result, I'd say growth is a win for Swordmaster, actually.

Assassinate cannot be evaluated without an accurate idea of what its rate is, but it'd have to be really good to be worth taking the chance, and that's only when you have no other option to ORKO/OHKO an enemy. Yes Astra is bad, but it seems quite hasty to declare Assassinate better; as for Lethality, it's dex/4, it's an incredibly awful rate and takes a skill slot. I'd still give it to Assassin because stealth is really cool though, and locktouch is nice to have.

Finally, bases don't matter nearly as much as mods, and to its credit, SM has pretty decent ones as said above. Assassin wins here as well because of +1 move, but SM is a fairly close second.

In a nutshell yeah, things are pretty bad, but if you want to feel better, find someone who cares for Fortress Knight and discuss it with them for half an hour, I think that'll help.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Cysx

[Garlyle]

Thanks for pointing out the stat changes, I completely ignored that one in my post while it is an important aspect. In that regard Assassin and Swordmaster are in the lead, while Hero is fine for what it tries to be, and Mortal Savant being the slow but versatile version of all of them. Str +2 and Spd +4 does make Swordmaster look as a better class, it is a small insurance to give your unit a boost if they are somehow got screwed in Str. On the other hand Assassin has +1 Spd and +1 Move instead of Str, which is also not a bad decision. Those extra point they have in Dex also look better than +1 Hp and +1 Def on Swordmaster, although it's questionable which one would be the winner.

That makes the overall picture somewhat better, I think Assassin still wins when it comes to skills. Astra is still high cost for little reward.

[timon]

The lone fact that Assassins ignore Mov penalties and have 1 more Mov makes them superior.

MS is a waste of time, garbage class with garbage stats. Every single character in the game has better options, and you are better off either going physical or magical.

Swordmaster is nice when you start to get into Advanced classes, but it falls off pretty quickly.

I've never used a single Hero, which just shows how useful it is.

That said it's definitely bizarre (as the whole class system is), sword is present a lot up until advanced, even too much I'd say. Myrmidon, Thief, Mercenary, Hero, Swordmaster, Assassin. To add to this there's also Lord and there are Archers (?), Cavaliers, Paladins and Pegasi which all have proficiency.

And then it dies off completely by endgame. And there's not a single sword focused character outside of Felix and Catherine (+ Byleth I guess), Petra pushes Wyvern more than Thief tbh, and I don't recall any other.

Definitely one of the biggest mysteries of this game's class system, and it's weird because in the past I've always hated how FE pushes swords (even now I have my problem with the, again, sword bias of the avatar).

To sum it up, I only ever use Assassins, the others are a bit of a waste unless you're Catherine or you really dig Felix's outfit (which is fair).

Honestly the whole problem is just the weird Master tier, it shouldn't exist. Just bring down the mounted mages + Great Knight and call it a day in advanced. Everything else is useless, Falcon, Wyverns, WMs and Gremories are just straight upgrades that don't add anything except power. BowKnight has no place when you could give a bow to a Paladin, which would let Snipers stay as the bow specialists (and not be outclassed by the stupidly OP BK). MS is worse than most advanced classes so might as well put it there.

[Garlyle]

4 minutes ago, timon said:

And then it dies off completely by endgame. And there's not a single sword focused character outside of Felix and Catherine (+ Byleth I guess), Petra pushes Wyvern more than Thief tbh, and I don't recall any other.

Petra is a potential Wyvern Rider, but her speed also allows her to be an excellent Swordmaster. Mine joined as a Thief, but I quickly switched her out of that class, and Swordmaster was my first goal with her. Did put her into Mortal Savant in my first playthrough, and while I had fun using it, it's not the best option for her. Swordmaster Petra does worth the investment though.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Swordmaster's only real problem is 5 mov. Yeah, Astra sucks, but swords have no shortage of good combat arts (especially if you're Byleth and have Windsweep).

 

I view it as a really good option for Byleth in particular because it plays to his strengths and opens up his skill list for a lot of flexibility. He could easily use the Swordmaster's low requirements to max out his Authority (and perhaps Riding for Movement +1).

 

With both swordfaire and sword crit +10 covered by the class, he has room to slot Sword Prowess, Authority Prowess, Offensive Tactics, Steal or Defensive Tactics, and Mov +1. This Byleth would have a lot of general utility and high combat performance. 

Edited August 27, 2019 by Etheus

[Light Strategist]

3 hours ago, magnetic_cactus said:

Hero and Swordmaster, especially when you consider we don't really have sword Master Class equivalents

Bring back Vanguard and Trueblade!

No? Just me? Alrighty then...

At any rate, I typically find that classes that specialize in multiple weapon types to them can play radically differently depending on how much time and effort you invest into the use of those weapons. For example: on Awakening, I find that it's rare to see an Assassin using a Bow but it understandably can prove to be incredibly useful. Experimenting with things you don't normally try can lead to some unexpected and interesting finds.

[daisy jane]

5 hours ago, charcoalswift said:

I say Swordmaster is the best

It can help grow STR for units like Ingrid before promoting to Falcon Knight

No reason for Mortal Savant due to 10% speed growth penalty and lack of specialization.

Assassin can get STR screwed, that happened to Petra.

Hero is a mixed unit between sword and axe, I rather focus on 1 weapon type

Sword units eg. Felix don't have high MAG and a good spell list anyway. Mortal Savant is aesthetics

interesting. I've been doing brigand. (because of deathblow and some strength) but i never thought of doing sword-master. i'll try that next time!

[TrueNoble]

Fortunately you're not stuck to just one sword class on any sword main unit, as the game permits you to strategically reclass from map-to-map.

Using Felix as an example, how I look at this during unit selection is: 

Assassin isn't the sturdiest pick for a front line class, and the mechanics behind Stealth can sometimes be counter-intuitive for such a role, so there's alternatives in Swordmaster (which I would take with Axebreaker for axe unit heavy maps) or Hero (with Lancebreaker and Axebreaker for more general purpose use) to serve as the infantry's front line. Mortal Savant is there as a strictly niche option for being able to deal higher mixed damage than otherwise just slapping a Levin Sword unto any of the other sword classes.

[Nio]

Assassin is only better on movement, which depending on how you see it, it could be the most important attribute. Swordmaster is "better" overall, but the lack of movement hurts.

Saying that Assassins are better or have "1 point" over Swordmaster for 20% Dex growth is just not true. It is way better to have 10% Str growth, even more when the best sword users really like that (Petra, Felix, etc). You dont need the 20% Dex when you have Swrd Crit +10.

Locktouch is not that great in this game when you can buy/get keys like is nothing and even use the convoy mid battle. It is good to have tho, but you are better sending a flyer to a chest than your 6 mov assassin. Lethality and Assassinate are completely useless and should never be used (same with Astra to be fair). Then you have Sword Crit +10 and again, the best Sword users love that skill, cause they have high crit chance, it can also snowball with rings, high crit swords, etc, so again, in this aspect, Swordmasters are better with little debate IMO.

Finally, base stats are not even a thing to look for them. Class bonuses on the other hand, Assassins have +3 Dex and +5 speed, the latter being great and Dex being not worth at all compared to +2 str, +1 dex (and +10 swrd crit which cover this anyway) and +4 speed. I fail to see how the Assassin bonuses are better than the swordmaster.

Overall, Swordmasters are better, but the +6 movement and the "i dont care about terrain" for the Assassins is just so good that it might be worth over Swordmasters.

[freewaffles]

Mortal Savant is a meme.  Of the list of characters with either Sword or Reason Proficiency: 

1. Byleth has Enlightened One which is better across the board
2. Dorothea, Lysinthea, and Maryanne want to use their spell lists, not Levin Swords, don't have the bulk to be using Blutgang or Soulblade effectively, and shouldn't be anywhere near physical weapons.  
3. Edelgard should focus training on Flying since her exclusive class is bad, and can use a Bolt Axe+ and Lightning Axe Combat Art for magic damage where needed.
4. Ferdinand, Felix, Sylvain, and Claude all have better options as physical classes and low magic growths.  Like Edelgard, they can all use a magic weapon for the rare times they need it.
5. Ingrid can fly starting at Level 10 and shouldn't ever come back to the ground.
6. Ignantz is just bad.

I wish they had made Hero a gender-neutral Master Class with Swordfaire/Axefaire/Sol.  Would love to go: Merc (Vantage) -> Warrior (Wrath) -> Hero (Sol) and never die.

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by freewaffles

[wissenschaft]

In a game with stride and a dancer, the different between 5 and 6 move is not a big deal. I think Swordmaster is superior. That +10 innate crit is a big deal. 10% extra growth doesn't equal 1 extra stat per 10 levels. Growths are not reliable like that. The greater the growth rate the less likely you'll get stat screwed in the long run. Astra is terribly inefficient but is really only for crit fishing when you can't double an enemy.

I too dismissed Mortal Savant at first but I think now its more of an underrated class. People like Petra and Felix if raised as Swordmasters are going to have excessive speed by level 30. The negative to speed growth(which still leaves them with a decent speed growth rate) is nothing compared to the added flexibility of better levin sword abuse and black magic casting.

Edited August 27, 2019 by wissenschaft

[PPPPPPP270]

This game needs a few more master classes. I don't like the idea of master classes being sidegrades despite classes like war master wyvern lord falcon knight and bow knights existing and are straight up upgrades to previous classes. 

At first I thought master classes were locked because each character might have their own unique list of classes and maybe even unique classes outside of the house leaders and Byleth. Some master classes probably needs buffs in class growths or adjust the movement of advanced classes. Though I would like to see some new master classes or maybe a few more lower tier classes in DLC.

Ideas for potential classes:

gold knight (upgrade to paladin that can ignore movement penalties and has a base movement of 9 )

Seraph knight ( a magic based flier class. Though could be too OP with this much mobility)

Trickster (A bow focused utility class that has +1 bow range and bowfaire but has the unique magic spell thief which can allow you to steal items or open chests at a certain range )

Dark pontifex (a pure offensive mage class that also boasts great authority giving gambits extra range and uses on gambits and boost gambit damage even more)

 

[magnetic_cactus]

1 hour ago, freewaffles said:

Mortal Savant is a meme.  Of the list of characters with either Sword or Reason Proficiency: 

1. Byleth has Enlightened One which is better across the board
2. Dorothea, Lysinthea, and Maryanne want to use their spell lists, not Levin Swords, don't have the bulk to be using Blutgang or Soulblade effectively, and shouldn't be anywhere near physical weapons.  
3. Edelgard should focus training on Flying since her exclusive class is bad, and can use a Bolt Axe+ and Lightning Axe Combat Art for magic damage where needed.
4. Ferdinand, Felix, Sylvain, and Claude all have better options as physical classes and low magic growths.  Like Edelgard, they can all use a magic weapon for the rare times they need it.
5. Ingrid can fly starting at Level 10 and shouldn't ever come back to the ground.
6. Ignantz is just bad.

I wish they had made Hero a gender-neutral Master Class with Swordfaire/Axefaire/Sol.  Would love to go: Merc (Vantage) -> Warrior (Wrath) -> Hero (Sol) and never die.

 

FWIW, I believe Mortal Savant technically out damages Gremory for a Marianne and Dorothea when it comes to spell damage because Black Tomefaire offsets the the higher Mag bonus Gremories get. It's pretty minimal (+2 I think) but it's there. You also gain +1 move and Swordfaire for Hexblade/Soulblade-boosted Rapiers against cavalry or crit-"casting" Wo Dao+/Cursed Ashikaya Sword+ or whatever, I guess, although obviously all of this comes at the expense of somewhat weaker growth rates, needing to cross-level Sword, and loss of x2 casts. I'm not saying Mortal Savant is a great class, because it it isn't, but it's probably a little bit better than literally pure meme, at least on paper. I'd never run it on a Lys, but I could see a Dorothea or Marianne MS for shits and giggles not being a total self-gimp.

[ApocaLips]

1 hour ago, freewaffles said:

I wish they had made Hero a gender-neutral Master Class with Swordfaire/Axefaire/Sol.  Would love to go: Merc (Vantage) -> Warrior (Wrath) -> Hero (Sol) and never die.

 

There’s a clear design push to move away from proc abilities like sol, luna, aether. Look at the difference in the skill lists between this game and fe13, especially the difference in how Astra works. 

If they did put sol in this game, it would be a combat art (and therefore would be a mastery class skill, perhaps limited to hero a la hunters volley and Astra) and probably would recover much less than 50% of the damage dealt. 

Edited August 27, 2019 by ApocaLips

[Koko585]

I have to agree that the sword classes are in a really weird spot in this game. 5-move swordmaster why? It seems like assassin is the best choice in most cases, with the others being fairly niche. Would love to see an echoes dreadfighter as a masterclass, that would have been something worth pursing.

I would like to point out there is a silver-lining to your class progression ending in an advanced class (particularly assassin, +1 to that class again). The requirements to get into the advance classes aren't super high, so once you get certified you can redirect goals/tutoring to pick up some nice skills.

I'll use Assassin Felix as an example:

At only B swords and C bows (technically lower if you don't care about the 100%), the requirements to certify are really easy to hit in a timely fashion. Since Felix has a strength in both areas, he will easily meet the criteria before 20 as long as you aren't doing anything weird. Once he has passes the exam, further ranks in these areas aren't super important, meaning that you can now swap his goals without any real consequence. He can now do authority and heavy armor, picking up weight -3 and access to stronger battalions. These directly effect his combat parameters and make him even better at killing stuff, especially when he gets access to some of the late-game battalions.

He may have a weakness in authority, but you now have the rest of the game to work on it since he doesn't need anything else. He also wont really need any tutoring unless you just want to speed things along, so he frees you up to focus on making other units stronger since he's already fine.

[charcoalswift]

6 hours ago, daisy jane said:

interesting. I've been doing brigand. (because of deathblow and some strength) but i never thought of doing sword-master. i'll try that next time!

Brigand is better than Mercenary if you want Death Blow

Mercenary gets Vantage but that isn't useful on its own unless you have Desperation too

Btw Swordmaster is an Advanced class while Brigand is just Intermediate so I thought you may mistaken the former for Mercenary

[daisy jane]

3 minutes ago, charcoalswift said:

Brigand is better than Mercenary if you want Death Blow

Mercenary gets Vantage but that isn't useful on its own unless you have Desperation too

Btw Swordmaster is an Advanced class while Brigand is just Intermediate so I thought you may mistaken the former for Mercenary

i have seen a lot of "swordmaster" Ingrids in my exchange programme. 
usually i just do. the sloowwwww grind to C in axe (if i don't like her growths), let her do some levels there, and wht not. but then by the end game my girl is always okay (so i don't know why i bother w/the brigand) lol

[charcoalswift]

2 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

i have seen a lot of "swordmaster" Ingrids in my exchange programme. 
usually i just do. the sloowwwww grind to C in axe (if i don't like her growths), let her do some levels there, and wht not. but then by the end game my girl is always okay (so i don't know why i bother w/the brigand) lol

Yup it's to fix her STR, also Swordmaster helps prepare her Falcon Knight which require sword proficiency

Mine is now lvl 29, she can promote to FK soon

3 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

usually i just do. the sloowwwww grind to C in axe (if i don't like her growths), let her do some levels there, and wht not. but then by the end game my girl is always okay (so i don't know why i bother w/the brigand) lol

I chose to make Ingrid a mercenary because I was planning right from the start that I want her to go Mercenary > Pegasus Knight > Swordmaster > Falcon Knight

Axes don't benefit her so I did not make her Brigand although tempted for Death Blow. I tend to use Ingrid as an enemy phaser due to Avoid Stance and Sword/Axebreaker so DB isn't that useful for me

[daisy jane]

1 minute ago, charcoalswift said:

Yup it's to fix her STR, also Swordmaster helps prepare her Falcon Knight which require sword proficiency

Mine is now lvl 29, she can promote to FK soon

I chose to make Ingrid a mercenary because I was planning right from the start that I want her to go Mercenary > Pegasus Knight > Swordmaster > Falcon Knight

Axes don't benefit her so I did not make her Brigand although tempted for Death Blow. I tend to use Ingrid as an enemy phaser due to Avoid Stance and Sword/Axebreaker so DB isn't that useful for me

 

I know a lot of people who did a Wyvern Lord Ingrid (that was interesting LOL)

my next playthrough i might do this. thanks for the idea/thoughts!

[charcoalswift]

7 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

I know a lot of people who did a Wyvern Lord Ingrid (that was interesting LOL)

That works too but I prefer Swords due to better hit and I already have 4 other Wyverns lol

9 minutes ago, daisy jane said:

my next playthrough i might do this. thanks for the idea/thoughts!

Glad to help 🙂

[freewaffles]

24 minutes ago, charcoalswift said:

Mercenary gets Vantage but that isn't useful on its own unless you have Desperation too

Is it confirmed that Vantage allows Desperation to trigger in enemy phase?  I haven't tried it.

[charcoalswift]

2 minutes ago, freewaffles said:

Is it confirmed that Vantage allows Desperation to trigger in enemy phase?  I haven't tried it.

No, there is another ability called Quick Riposte for that

Hey Vantage works better with QR but too bad it's Warmaster and male-only

I doubt anyone will be doing class mastery on master classes until very lategame or endgame