Emperor should have been able to use magic

[Jotari]

I'm playing my first Crimson Flower playthrough and I'm finding that Edelgard kind of sucks as a unit. Granted, I'm playing on Maniac, so most of my units except Byleth (and Jeritza because distant counter is awesome, Hubert is pretty reliable for player phase too) are struggling, but Edelgard in particular seems really bad in her personal class. And the things that provide the biggest challenges in Maniac, the enemies speed and evasion, seem like they'd harrow her on the default difficulty too. Her personal axe has a really cool skill, but unless you have a healthy supply of materials to repair it, it's not likely to see much use. The only thing I can really rely on her to use effectively are Gambits, but that's something she can only do twice a battle. I think they should have just made Emperor be able to use magic. She's basically a mage class already, learning some really, really good skills and her budding talent being Black Magic Crit+20. Plus, she'd make a sweet nod to Alvis who also has the emperor class and uses magic (although if we were going down the reference route I would have sugegsted making her a Lance user to mirror Hardin and shift Dimitri to axes, but that's another discussion). This wouldn't necessarily fix many of her problems (she'd need Wary Fighter to really solve the problem of dying in one hit to everything), but it would make her more interesting at the very least.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Jotari

[CyberNinja]

If you wanted her as a mage, just make her a dark knight. Dimitri is a halberdier and Claude is a Bow Wyvern, the problem isn't that Edelgard isn't overpowered, it's that her class lacks a true niche to call its own. It's supposed to be fortress knight without the magic weakness, instead it's as vulnerable as any knight without the capacity to negate physical attacks. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

Don't know how normal it is, but my Edel had over 20 Magic by the end at level ~40. Sure her Str was nearly double that, but range and Res targeting means spells could have had a use on her.

As is, I never let her stay in Armored Lord/Emperor (Was it necessary for there to be a slight upgrade for the timeskip personal class for every lord? They don't have any time to master their first one as is.) and just made her a Wyvern Rider. On Hard, she doubled and destroyed most things in the midgame, and though she stopped procing Spd later, she was still able with: Combat Arts, Death Blow, and Str +2, to eek out a whole lot of OHKOs or near OHKOs.

[Flere210]

Intsys lives under the delusions that armored characters are fine as they are even if there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that there aren't.

Anyway, i am againist having tailor made classes that take advantage of all the strenght of a given units, because they defeat the entire purpose of a class system. This would not be a problem whit emperor because lolarmor, but in the mind of intsys it would be.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, CyberNinja said:

If you wanted her as a mage, just make her a dark knight. Dimitri is a halberdier and Claude is a Bow Wyvern, the problem isn't that Edelgard isn't overpowered, it's that her class lacks a true niche to call its own. It's supposed to be fortress knight without the magic weakness, instead it's as vulnerable as any knight without the capacity to negate physical attacks. 

A unit that can reliably attack offensively with both physical and magic would be a cool niche though, granted Mortal Savant does exist, but I don't think it's particularly tailored to anyone like simply throwing magic on Emperor would be for Edelgard (actually she might make a rather decent Mortal Savant). Plus, armoured magic users are something people have wanted for quite a while.

11 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Intsys lives under the delusions that armored characters are fine as they are even if there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that there aren't.

Anyway, i am againist having tailor made classes that take advantage of all the strenght of a given units, because they defeat the entire purpose of a class system. This would not be a problem whit emperor because lolarmor, but in the mind of intsys it would be.

Her magical stat can be made use of with a Bolt Axe and that one skill. Actually making use of Luna without making her a dedicated mage would be cool though.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Jotari

[OutcastsofRelix]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

A unit that can reliably attack offensively with both physical and magic would be a cool niche though, granted Mortal Savant does exist, but I don't think it's particularly tailored to anyone like simply throwing magic on Emperor would be for Edelgard (actually she might make a rather decent Mortal Savant). Plus, armoured magic users are something people have wanted for quite a while.

Her magical stat can be made use of with a Bolt Axe and that one skill. Actually making use of Luna without making her a dedicated mage would be cool though.

Or you could make her a Gremory

[Jotari]

33 minutes ago, EdelgardHresvelgTargaryen said:

Or you could make her a Gremory

You seem to be missing the point. My issue is with Emperor, not Edelgard. I want her personal class to be worth something. It's one of the most iconic enemy classes in the series to finally be playable and even has an established basis to also be magic orientated on a unit who already excels at magic, yet it comes out underwhelming.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Jotari

[Flere210]

It come out as underwhelming because 3H went out of the way to punish armors as much as it could, not because it was designed as such. 

Dimitri get a pass just because some people have an halberdier fetish, but i don't think his class offer much compared to a paladin.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Flere210

[lightcosmo]

I wouldn't say it's bad by any means, in my case she jumped from 11 defense to 24 in the armored lord class, and further to 27 or something like that. of course she also had 11 speed at level 40, so needless to say, she was doubled a lot. Also, this game was designed so the player doesn't really get positives, so that's not too surprising, really.

[LoneRecon400]

People often say this, but I never understood why she'd want to use spells when she already has tools such as Lighting Axe and the Bolt Axe.  

Using the Lighting Axe Combat art with a Silver Axe + makes her capable of dealing 21 damage before adding the Resistance scaling damage, which more already damage than her most damaging spell of Hades at 18. And you can use Axefaire, Superme Armored Battalion, and a Magic Staff all to further augment that damage. 

Even if you wanted to used range magic attacks, the Bolt Axe + has three range and 14 Might, more than enough to substitute a spell like Bolganone.

Though, I'd question as to why people would even want to use Emperor on Edelgard in Maddening in the first place. Having a -4 Speed Class Mod for 8 Defense is most certainly not worth it with how hard enemies in Maddening hit. Like a level 36 Emperor Edelgard averages 30 Defense, 17 Speed, and 57 HP at that level. Take a look at how hard enemies in Chapter 16 hit: https://imgur.com/a/FNYZhoR 

Now you can add defense boosting bonuses such as a Silver Shield or a Battalion to increase her Defense, but that still wouldn't be enough to really have acceptable combat when she's losing a third of her life in a single round of combat. 

And the kicker is that Emperor doesn't even show up until Chapter 16, Armored Lord is the class she stuck with and it gives a -3 Class Speed Mod for only +5 Defense. For reference, even Fortress Knight gives a +10 Defense Mod in exchange for -6 Speed while also has a 17 Base Defense. 

Overall, I don't see much use for giving Edelgard's Personal class the option to use Magic when it she already has better tools available to her and Emperor isn't even a very good class to begin with. 

Edited November 19, 2019 by LoneRecon400

[CyberNinja]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

A unit that can reliably attack offensively with both physical and magic would be a cool niche though, granted Mortal Savant does exist, but I don't think it's particularly tailored to anyone like simply throwing magic on Emperor would be for Edelgard (actually she might make a rather decent Mortal Savant). Plus, armoured magic users are something people have wanted for quite a while.

Just because people want something doesn't mean it is good to have. Magic users are basically immune to magic for dying to everything else and knights are theoretically immune to physical attacks for amror weakness. You choice is to either make them a bad mage or bad knight. Furthermore the two play opposite roles since one is meant to tank enemy phase and the other to kill enemies on player phase. Like the halbardier, it doesn't offer anything that hasn't already been supplied with other classes. As others mentioned there would never be a situation where using magic would be preferable to her combat arts or attacking normally.

some classes are better in the hands of AI only. The baron works best as a boss or enemy only type, look at death knight when you give such a class/unit to a player. 

If you really wanted to make such a class then you'd have to redesign the rest to properly accommodate the change. Magic isn't even Edelgard's strength it's a hidden talent to open an alternate path for her aka making her a dark knight/gremory.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

People often say this, but I never understood why she'd want to use spells when she already has tools such as Lighting Axe and the Bolt Axe.  

Using the Lighting Axe Combat art with a Silver Axe + makes her capable of dealing 21 damage before adding the Resistance scaling damage, which more already damage than her most damaging spell of Hades at 18. And you can use Axefaire, Superme Armored Battalion, and a Magic Staff all to further augment that damage. 

Even if you wanted to used range magic attacks, the Bolt Axe + has three range and 14 Might, more than enough to substitute a spell like Bolganone.

Though, I'd question as to why people would even want to use Emperor on Edelgard in Maddening in the first place. Having a -4 Speed Class Mod for 8 Defense is most certainly not worth it with how hard enemies in Maddening hit. Like a level 36 Emperor Edelgard averages 30 Defense, 17 Speed, and 57 HP at that level. Take a look at how hard enemies in Chapter 16 hit: https://imgur.com/a/FNYZhoR 

Now you can add defense boosting bonuses such as a Silver Shield or a Battalion to increase her Defense, but that still wouldn't be enough to really have acceptable combat when she's losing a third of her life in a single round of combat. 

And the kicker is that Emperor doesn't even show up until Chapter 16, Armored Lord is the class she stuck with and it gives a -3 Class Speed Mod for only +5 Defense. For reference, even Fortress Knight gives a +10 Defense Mod in exchange for -6 Speed while also has a 17 Base Defense. 

Overall, I don't see much use for giving Edelgard's Personal class the option to use Magic when it she already has better tools available to her and Emperor isn't even a very good class to begin with. 

Neither of them are Luna though. Durability is also a thing. I think bolt axe and such are still effected by normal weapon accuracy too.

6 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

Just because people want something doesn't mean it is good to have. Magic users are basically immune to magic for dying to everything else and knights are theoretically immune to physical attacks for amror weakness. You choice is to either make them a bad mage or bad knight. Furthermore the two play opposite roles since one is meant to tank enemy phase and the other to kill enemies on player phase. Like the halbardier, it doesn't offer anything that hasn't already been supplied with other classes. As others mentioned there would never be a situation where using magic would be preferable to her combat arts or attacking normally.

some classes are better in the hands of AI only. The baron works best as a boss or enemy only type, look at death knight when you give such a class/unit to a player. 

If you really wanted to make such a class then you'd have to redesign the rest to properly accommodate the change. Magic isn't even Edelgard's strength it's a hidden talent to open an alternate path for her aka making her a dark knight/gremory.

True, but when were in a situation where what's already there is any consider good, wanting something else is natural.

[Dark Holy Elf]

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'm playing my first Crimson Flower playthrough and I'm finding that Edelgard kind of sucks as a unit. Granted, I'm playing on Maniac, so most of my units except Byleth (and Jeritza because distant counter is awesome, Hubert is pretty reliable for player phase too) are struggling, but Edelgard in particular seems really bad in her personal class. And the things that provide the biggest challenges in Maniac, the enemies speed and evasion, seem like they'd harrow her on the default difficulty too. Her personal axe has a really cool skill, but unless you have a healthy supply of materials to repair it, it's not likely to see much use. The only thing I can really rely on her to use effectively are Gambits, but that's something she can only do twice a battle. I think they should have just made Emperor be able to use magic. She's basically a mage class already, learning some really, really good skills and her budding talent being Black Magic Crit+20. Plus, she'd make a sweet nod to Alvis who also has the emperor class and uses magic (although if we were going down the reference route I would have sugegsted making her a Lance user to mirror Hardin and shift Dimitri to axes, but that's another discussion). This wouldn't necessarily fix many of her problems (she'd need Wary Fighter to really solve the problem of dying in one hit to everything), but it would make her more interesting at the very least.

Yeah, Emperor is bad as is, Fortress Knight redux and Fortress Knight is quite possibly the worst Advanced job. Emperor's a little better because 5 move, but still not good. I definitely agree that giving her access to magic would help, though as others note, not as much as it could, because (a) she's weak in faith and has a bad faith list, and faith access is one of the major reasons to be in a magic class as opposed to just swinging a magic weapon around, (b) her Black Magic Crit +20 budding talent is terrible since it only affects two of her four spells, and neither has substantial crit to start with (unlike crit-builds that use killer weapons), (c) she has ways to deal magic damage already with Bolt Axe or Lightning Axe, without neeidng another prowess skill.

Flavour-wise I'd love her using magic. Agreed about it being a cool Arvis reference. (Don't really care about the Hardin reference; Edelgard has a lot of nods to Arvis and not many to Hardin.)

For what it's worth you get all the Agarthium you need to repair Aymr in Chapter 16, though that only applies to the last two story maps of course.

While not perfect, adjutant guards can kinda take the place of Wary Fighter, ensuring that your slow tanky units can't be one-rounded (they guarantee that enemy followup attacks can not kill). This makes defence-tanks less terrible on Maddening than I first assumed they'd be.

[LoneRecon400]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Neither of them are Luna though. Durability is also a thing. I think bolt axe and such are still effected by normal weapon accuracy too.

Luna's might is effectively Enemy's Resistance +1. Considering that Edelgard averages ~16 Resistance by that level, a Lighting Axe using the Sliver Axe+ will do 30 (17 might + 4 Lightning Axe + (16*.3) Resistance Scaling + 5 Axefaire) Damage by itself. That means that even against Mages Luna isn't doing that much damage compared to it.

Durability is admittedly a concern for the Bolt Axe. But the random amounts you get from the Monastery should be enough to tide you over until the Dark Merchant shows up. 

And Magic Weapons / Magic Weapon Artes most certainly use the Magic Hit Formula. Here's some proof: https://imgur.com/a/Hbiwe9x

Edited November 20, 2019 by LoneRecon400

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Yeah, Emperor is bad as is, Fortress Knight redux and Fortress Knight is quite possibly the worst Advanced job. Emperor's a little better because 5 move, but still not good. I definitely agree that giving her access to magic would help, though as others note, not as much as it could, because (a) she's weak in faith and has a bad faith list, and faith access is one of the major reasons to be in a magic class as opposed to just swinging a magic weapon around, (b) her Black Magic Crit +20 budding talent is terrible since it only affects two of her four spells, and neither has substantial crit to start with (unlike crit-builds that use killer weapons), (c) she has ways to deal magic damage already with Bolt Axe or Lightning Axe, without neeidng another prowess skill.

Flavour-wise I'd love her using magic. Agreed about it being a cool Arvis reference. (Don't really care about the Hardin reference; Edelgard has a lot of nods to Arvis and not many to Hardin.)

Basically, all of this. Getting magic would be cool stylistically, and theoretically give her personal class a niche, but it wouldn't do all that much for Edelgard. These classes suck, with Emperor receiving the hilarious honor of actually dropping Edelgard's speed, upon promotion from Armored Lord. What could've been cool? Make them armored classes with actual speed stats, at least on par with Wyverns. She'd still have to deal with shit movement, but at least she'd be competitive in combat, and you've gotta admit that a fast armor is a rarity. ...Outside of Tellius, at least.

[Fire Flower]

The solution is to give all armored classes neutral speed mod and more move. Why even give them like -4 speed and 0-1 move lmao

[Tables]

Emperor definitely needs a few buffs as it is. It's a really bad class for a variety of reasons. Here are three buffs I would give it:

 

1) Magic use. As this thread is about. The class even has a +10% Mag growth! Magic access wouldn't do a whole lot due to the lack of -faire and Edelgard's strength being way better than her magic, but it would give a bit more of a niche, and make her budding talent in Reason not feel totally pointless. Yeah, +10% crit with only two of her spells is still probably not good, but at least actually raising her Reason rank would feel meaningful. She would also gain the ability to use Heal at just D Faith, which is generally worth getting on every mage IMO. This can also be paired with a +3 skill bonus to Reason, of course.

 

2) Weight -5 skill. Fortress Knight has it, Emperor gets Charm instead. What this ends up meaning though is that Fortress Knight is arguably better at combat than Emperor - it has 2 less speed, but weight -5 will mean more AS anyway with almost all axes, in fact even with Iron Axes until you have 30+ strength. It also has 2 extra defence. It feels kind of wrong that not only is Emperor weak, but it's arguably weaker than the Advance Class it's meant to be a supreme version of, an Advanced Class which is also considered one of the worse Advanced Classes too. Of course Emperor does have 1 extra move, which is huge, but still. Honestly, Fortress Knight could do with a buff as well. Adding this to Emperor gives it a bit more oomph, and fits thematically with Edelgard's claim that she feels Armour doesn't really slow her down. It would let you use shields with little/no AS loss, and especially combined with the weight -3/5 personal skills, let you use heavy weaponry without penalty.

 

3) Small increase in base Str (& Mag). Right now ALL armoured classes have a 0 mod to strength and magic, except Great Knight's +1 Str. That doesn't seem right, armoured units typically throughout the series have huge defence and generally pair that with high strength. This is probably a change that could benefit all armoured units, increase the strength stat bonus to about +2-3, which is a fairly substantial increase. Emperor in particular could also get +1-2 magic. Not a huge increase, but enough to make a difference, and at least acknowledge change #1 saying she can use magic.

 

All three of these together, and you'd get a class that is... still not great, but decent at least.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Yeah, Emperor is bad as is, Fortress Knight redux and Fortress Knight is quite possibly the worst Advanced job. Emperor's a little better because 5 move, but still not good. I definitely agree that giving her access to magic would help, though as others note, not as much as it could, because (a) she's weak in faith and has a bad faith list, and faith access is one of the major reasons to be in a magic class as opposed to just swinging a magic weapon around, (b) her Black Magic Crit +20 budding talent is terrible since it only affects two of her four spells, and neither has substantial crit to start with (unlike crit-builds that use killer weapons), (c) she has ways to deal magic damage already with Bolt Axe or Lightning Axe, without neeidng another prowess skill.

Flavour-wise I'd love her using magic. Agreed about it being a cool Arvis reference. (Don't really care about the Hardin reference; Edelgard has a lot of nods to Arvis and not many to Hardin.)

For what it's worth you get all the Agarthium you need to repair Aymr in Chapter 16, though that only applies to the last two story maps of course.

While not perfect, adjutant guards can kinda take the place of Wary Fighter, ensuring that your slow tanky units can't be one-rounded (they guarantee that enemy followup attacks can not kill). This makes defence-tanks less terrible on Maddening than I first assumed they'd be.

This is basically what I was getting at. It would solve few of her problems as a unit, but it was still be a straight up buff and, more than anything, would be cool and fun to use (at least for me). Saying she doesn't need it because she has other means of dealing damage isn't a great argument, because objectively it would increase her usefulness, if only a bit. It doesn't take away anything to give Emperor magic access. Even if it doesn't add a lot, it still adds something and that's something I want.

[Shadow Mir]

On 11/19/2019 at 6:38 AM, Interdimensional Observer said:

(Was it necessary for there to be a slight upgrade for the timeskip personal class for every lord? They don't have any time to master their first one as is.)

To be fair, it isn't like Pomp & Circumstance (the skill obtained by mastering their first post-timeskip class) is that great.

Anyway, I don't see the point of Emperor accessing magic, since the only enemies that magic could feasibly help against are Fortress Knights and Great Knights, which you could just use a Rapier or something against anyhow.

15 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

While not perfect, adjutant guards can kinda take the place of Wary Fighter, ensuring that your slow tanky units can't be one-rounded (they guarantee that enemy followup attacks can not kill). This makes defence-tanks less terrible on Maddening than I first assumed they'd be.

Ehhh, I must ask, just how often do you have a Guard adjutant unit, considering that only seven classes are guard classes, two of which are locked to Edelgard herself, another two of which are male only, and the remainder aren't exactly praised?

Edited November 20, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[De Geso]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

To be fair, it isn't like Pomp & Circumstance (the skill obtained by mastering their first post-timeskip class) is that great.

Anyway, I don't see the point of Emperor accessing magic, since the only enemies that magic could feasibly help against are Fortress Knights and Great Knights, which you could just use a Rapier or something against anyhow.

Ehhh, I must ask, just how often do you have a Guard adjutant unit, considering that only seven classes are guard classes, two of which are locked to Edelgard herself, another two of which are male only, and the remainder aren't exactly praised?

If someone is made a guard adjutant their class doesn't matter beyond being a guard adjutant. It's not a strategy I personally use but it's not uncommon to recruit someone like Cyril, make him an armor (which takes no time at all), and set him to be someone's adjutant permanently.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

Anyway, I don't see the point of Emperor accessing magic, since the only enemies that magic could feasibly help against are Fortress Knights and Great Knights, which you could just use a Rapier or something against anyhow.

 

With that logic, why have mages at all?

[CyberNinja]

39 minutes ago, Jotari said:

With that logic, why have mages at all?

because mages have their own niche with strengths and weaknesses, an Armor mage either fails to carve out a niche or completely eclipses both, ruining class diversity. Its basically bad design from the ground up, decent enemy only boss class though.

[Dark Holy Elf]

8 hours ago, De Geso said:

If someone is made a guard adjutant their class doesn't matter beyond being a guard adjutant. It's not a strategy I personally use but it's not uncommon to recruit someone like Cyril, make him an armor (which takes no time at all), and set him to be someone's adjutant permanently.

Adjutant guard has a far more potent use than adjutant attacker (which unreliably turns non-ORKOs into ORKOs), so I'd generally rather use the former. This was especially true before the recent patch where adjutant attacks were typically stuck at 10% rate. Adjutant heal is okay I guess.

In addition to someone like Cyril, it's easy to switch a benched unit who trained in either brawling or axe to grappler or armour knight. The game rains intermediate seals on you so there's hardly any cost to doing so.

[Jotari]

9 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

because mages have their own niche with strengths and weaknesses, an Armor mage either fails to carve out a niche or completely eclipses both, ruining class diversity. Its basically bad design from the ground up, decent enemy only boss class though.

I don't see why at all. A magic class that invests its defensive points in defense instead of resistance seems like a completely unfulfilled niche. We already have a physical class that promotes res over defense (Pegasus Knight), why not the inverse? The closest we get to that is dark mages, who are a bit bulkier and slower than anima mages in some games, but still go heavier on the res than the defense. Magic classes throughout the series have almost always invariably been glass cannons with only a scant few individual units straying away from that niche.

[Flere210]

8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't see why at all. A magic class that invests its defensive points in defense instead of resistance seems like a completely unfulfilled niche. We already have a physical class that promotes res over defense (Pegasus Knight), why not the inverse? The closest we get to that is dark mages, who are a bit bulkier and slower than anima mages in some games, but still go heavier on the res than the defense. Magic classes throughout the series have almost always invariably been glass cannons with only a scant few individual units straying away from that niche.

This can inly ever make sense if there are way more magical red units. 

Most physical units have more def than res, so an armored mage would be a counter of anything physical whit like 2 niche exceptions that still could not easily kill it and that became neutral matchup if the armored mage can switch to an axe , wich in the average fe means pretty much 90% of any given map. Basically the only way to beat it are mages or hammers.

The comparisson whit pegasus knight don't hold up because mages are an uncommon enemy type and if there was an fe where 80% of the red units are mages, Pegi would indeed be broken there.