Jump to content

Would you use this underachieving thing? (FE TH) Round 23: Recovery Roar


Would you use this weird thing?  

105 members have voted

  1. 1. Round 1: Holy Knight?

    • Yeah, I can imagine a scenario where I make a Holy Knight.
      71
    • No, I can't see an application or justification for Holy Knight over other classes
      34
  2. 2. Round 2: Battalion Renewal?

    • Yeah, I think I could see myself using this.
      9
    • No, I wouldn't waste an ability slot on this source of healing.
      70


Recommended Posts

Yes.   I've used the hexlock shield before and will continue to do so.  It's always in Ingrid's inventory ready to be swapped in when she can't double, it's very useful for tanking bolting uses until their gone.  Especially in blue lions endgame where there's a ton of siege tome users.   Tanking them until all their uses are gone has always been my strategy so the extra res helps.   Sure retribution exists but it doesn't last forever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 489
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Weird, I could swear it was possible to get the Talisman Shield other ways. I'll keep my eyes open on future routes. Anyway, thanks @Glennstavos for humoring me with this one!

Anyway, with 4 and 5 weight, respectively, it's rare that the unit can afford to equip either of these without losing some speed. Even a Fortress Knight, with innate Weight-5 (and equippable Weight-3), is probably carrying a heavy Axe. A physically bulky unit's best bet against mages is, in most cases, staying out of their range. If that's not possible, then dodging, or at least not getting doubled. These shields make both of these things trickier. As for high-res units, those tend to be fliers who don't want to lose any speed (and thereby avoid, especially on Maddening), or dedicated mages/healers who would rather be carrying a staff.

Ultimately, in most cases, losing even a couple points of speed (much less 4/5) isn't worth it for rather unimpressive defensive boosts. And if you really want extra Resistance on your physical bulk monster, there's the Ward spell, which everyone seems to forget exist (granted it's on Ferdinand, Lorenz, Ignatz, Hanneman, Manuela, Gilbert, Constance, and Anna - basically a mix of "physical unit", "DLC unit", and "oh yeah, they exist"). It gives +7 at the time of casting - far more than any shield can offer, with no speed penalty.

It's a no on the Talisman and Hexlock Shields.

6 hours ago, Femboy Advance SP said:

Yes.   I've used the hexlock shield before and will continue to do so.  It's always in Ingrid's inventory ready to be swapped in when she can't double, it's very useful for tanking bolting uses until their gone.  Especially in blue lions endgame where there's a ton of siege tome users.   Tanking them until all their uses are gone has always been my strategy so the extra res helps.   Sure retribution exists but it doesn't last forever.

This is a weird counter-argument. Sure, it doesn't last forever, but it doesn't need to. Most siege mages can be one-rounded, given their physical frailty and rock-bottom AS. So even if Retribution lasted 1 turn (rather than the super-generous 5) it'd be a great tool to take them out. Moreover, killing them ASAP means your low-res units have more options in where they can move. Play however you'd like, of course, it just sounds like your approach winds up wasting turns.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Outside of Maddening is a yes, but on maddening is most likely a no.

On lower difficulties some units have exceding AS that can be traded for defences, and the Hexlock provide a good mixed boost. On maddening, you can rarely afford to lose speed, and in general, minmaxing a stat is more important. 

If you want to facetank enemies you need a lot of prot so you are better off focusing defense on people like Dedue or Raphael. If you somehow get to 50+ whitout a shield then an Hexlock may be an option to round up their defense, but so is using a mixed def battalion instead of a purely defensive one (there are many 5 def 7 res battalions, while most def battalions cap at 7 or 8, with only Duscur getting to 10, and they are BL exclusive). 

Using those on a mage killer is an option, but but mage killers are either mages themselves, meaning they have a lot of good accessories, or people thay cannot afford losing speed. 

I can find some very niche utility but not really enought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/18/2020 at 8:06 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

And if you really want extra Resistance on your physical bulk monster, there's the Ward spell, which everyone seems to forget exist (granted it's on Ferdinand, Lorenz, Ignatz, Hanneman, Manuela, Gilbert, Constance, and Anna - basically a mix of "physical unit", "DLC unit", and "oh yeah, they exist").

And Pure Water. Which is IMO the more practical option considering Ward’s learnbase being saturated with DLC units (Constance, Anna), physical units (Ferdinand, Gilbert, Ignatz), and units that aren’t that good (Lorenz, Hanneman).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/18/2020 at 8:06 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

This is a weird counter-argument. Sure, it doesn't last forever, but it doesn't need to. Most siege mages can be one-rounded, given their physical frailty and rock-bottom AS. So even if Retribution lasted 1 turn (rather than the super-generous 5) it'd be a great tool to take them out. Moreover, killing them ASAP means your low-res units have more options in where they can move. Play however you'd like, of course, it just sounds like your approach winds up wasting turns.

To be fair, outside of the Blue Lions, the only Retribution battalions are A rank. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

To be fair, outside of the Blue Lions, the only Retribution battalions are A rank. 

Certainly, Retribution is hard to access. However, the described scenario was in Blue Lions. And most siege mages appear lategame anyway (across all routes), by which time, you almost certainly have several units with A-rank Authority.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

In my Crimson Flower playthrough, I gave Edelgard both the Hexlock Shield and the shield that removes armour weakness, and I had her alternate between them based on the situation. I found that that actually worked quite well. 

Do you mean the Kadmos Shield? It’s a pity the effective damage negation for armored units is pretty much irrelevant at that point (all it protects against is Dimitri and Catherine’s combat arts; that being said, 3 defense for zero weight is a sweet deal).

EDIT: You know what? I’ll nominate War Monk/Cleric.

Edited by Shadow Mir
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Do you mean the Kadmos Shield? It’s a pity the effective damage negation for armored units is pretty much irrelevant at that point (all it protects against is Dimitri and Catherine’s combat arts; that being said, 3 defense for zero weight is a sweet deal).

Yeah; I mean the Kadmos Shield, and yeah; it is a pity. But 3 defence and zero added weight is a sweet deal.

Incidentally, at that point, I had also gotten Edelgard's Heavy Armor rank to A+ and got weight -5. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/18/2020 at 3:06 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

If that's not possible, then dodging, or at least not getting doubled. These shields make both of these things trickier.

Obligatory "AS doesn't affect magic avoid"! Though even if it did, 1 to 5 points of avoid can only matter so much.

I still have to agree, though. These shields accomplish way too little imo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No.  I guess you could drag these shields around in spare slots or the convoy for Byleth / Mages, but even if you did, it is very rarely worth equipping them, and if you do it can backfire if you forget to unequip it later and mess up your attack speed.

Compare these shields with a Goddess Ring.  The Ring will restore 10% HP every turn, regardless of source, which at mid-game HP levels and beyond will be equivalent to or better than the damage reduction from the shield (4-5 HP a turn).  More importantly, it weighs 0, so no need to stress over whether it changes a doubling equation, and for good measure it throws in +8 Luck.  And Goddess Rings aren't considered particularly high-tier.  I guess the Shields will ever-so-slightly reduce battalion damage?  If they didn't get the unit doubled?  Too minor to care about.  I've dragged out all the Bolting charges of an enemy mage before, and a Goddess Ring is fine for the purpose.

It's a matter of map design as well.  Nests of all enemy mages basically don't exist in 3H.  What enemy mages do exist are all power mages throwing Abraxas and Ragnarok at you; there aren't really any equivalents of FE6 Lugh / FE7 Lucius / enemy Valkyries in FE13 that are speedy but with individually weak hits.  So you're not generally absorbing multiple magic hits in a phase very often.  If there was some 3H map, anywhere, that had something like the map in Fates Conquest with Iago and a room full of Sorcerers that all want to eat you, then sure, toss a Hexlock Shield on a Flayn or Mercedes and send them into the den o' mages, wherein the damage reduction will get to apply a lot of times in a single phase.  But that doesn't exist.

I suppose I'll grant one possible use: against hypothetical extremely badass mage bosses who double you no matter what, these shields might be the difference between life and death, and maybe you forgot to use Pure Water the turn before and are in a hurry.  I can think of exactly one case: Lord of the Lake from Leonie / Linhardt's Paralogue, who activates Quick Riposte on his final lifebar off ludicrous durability.  So, if you had room, you can use these Shields (in addition to a Pure Water?) so that units can survive tearing off some of his health to get him out of QR range.  But eh, that's hyping them as extra Pure Waters that slow you down, which is pretty uninspiring.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Cysx said:

Obligatory "AS doesn't affect magic avoid"! Though even if it did, 1 to 5 points of avoid can only matter so much.

...I love Three Houses, but the use of separate Physical and Magical hit formulas is something I'll never understand. You want magic to avoid terrain bonuses, fine, but changing anything else is too much to remember.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Round 21 is Pavise. Here is the strawpoll link, and here are some notes

  • Pavise can reduce the damage taken by swords, lances, axes, and gauntlets by half.
    • Although the game does not mention it, it will also work for monster attacks at any range and gambits. When it comes to gambits, I can only personally confirm that it worked on 1 range gambits while some sources claim aegis uniquely protects against 2 range gambits.
  • Pavise is the class mastery for Fortress Knight, which is a tad ironic since it has more defense than any other class.
  • The activation rate for Pavise is the same percentage as your dexterity stat. It is one of very few abilities activated by random chance that isn't tied to a crest.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's a no for me, as it would require me to actually spend time in Fortress Knight. At that point in the game, 4 Move is pretty bad, and Pavise is not nearly good enough to justify trudging around in the worst Advanced class in the game. Pavise is too RNG-reliant to count when you need it, and it's entirely useless otherwise. Same with Aegis, but at least Aegis is from a good class. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I do really like Fortress Knight, and think it's actually a good class in the context of Maddening, my reasons for liking it aren't because of Pavise. Pavise as a skill has always been pretty eh. It's one of those Skill that is insanely annoying on the enemy, but too luck based to work well for your units. Fe4 generals suck for this reason. Both ways.

In Three Houses it retains this function of being a pain in the butt the few times it does appear, but having almost no impact. It would be somewhat decent if you could get it in intermediate since it could make a good filler skill for chapters 6-12, but it being in Advanced means you most likely won't get it unless you're a decent way into the timeskip. In terms of the skill itself if you do get it. Not only does it face competition but i would only want to use it on a character with above 35 Dexterity anyway, so if i were to use it i would have Assassin Ignatz or something, and FK Ignatz would probably take less damage than an Assassin Ignatz that procced Pavise.

 

No from me. They should have made Pavise the mastery of Armor Knight and given FK Wary Fighter as a Mastery, while changing QR to only be always double and you still get doubled in return.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Didn't know it protected against monster attacks and gambits. That honestly sounds pretty sweet (even though those things are a bit rate to get attacked by). I think my answer would be yes to Pavise...but no to Fotress Knight which is required to get it. Fortunately Pavise can be obtained by using some relics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unlike Aegis, I think Pavise can be really valuable in this game, but, unless you aux grind, as others have said you need to heavily invest into a class that will ultimately not have as much use for it.

...then again, I don't use FK so maybe I have a wrong impression of how much additional physical protection they want on maddening.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pavise is almost never worth it for me. It's better off on enemies to annoy you. Being random isn't ideal when FE has permadeath, even with the Pulsewheel (and any Pulses used on Pavise procs could be spent on Crits instead). It'd need to activate every 3rd or 4th hit guaranteed instead of randomly to become something in any FE with equippable skills for me to consider it.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm. Thinking on it, Pavise and Aegis are like the only random stills still existing in the system now that offensive procs have been moved to combat arts (and well Lethality I guess). I wonder if Pavise and Aegis could work as combat skills. Use up your turn to have their effects in place for the next round of combat. It could turn some units into really good tanks. Free cost might be a bit much though. Hmm. Perhaps to make shields more useful we could give them durability instead of weight penalties. So their defense boost eventually fades as the enemy hacks them to bits. And defensive combat arts use up shield durability. Just tossing out ideas here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pavise is a great skill but only when it’s part of a Relic, however I assume that we’re talking about the actual equipable skill then my answer is no. In order to get it your units have to spend time in one of the worst classes in the game and like everybody said the people that want to become a FK probably have very high Defense already making Pasive redundant on them.

Edited by Ari Chan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Hmm. Thinking on it, Pavise and Aegis are like the only random stills still existing in the system now that offensive procs have been moved to combat arts (and well Lethality I guess). I wonder if Pavise and Aegis could work as combat skills. Use up your turn to have their effects in place for the next round of combat. It could turn some units into really good tanks. Free cost might be a bit much though. Hmm. Perhaps to make shields more useful we could give them durability instead of weight penalties. So their defense boost eventually fades as the enemy hacks them to bits. And defensive combat arts use up shield durability. Just tossing out ideas here.

I'd just make an MP system or a limit break gauge and remove the durability cost. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...