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

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, Geenoble said:

Edelgard also doesn’t have spectacular bulk, it is good in Emperor, but will almost be nowhere near as good as the ‘tanky units’ Like Raph or Alois.

I don't know about Alois, but I was unimpressed by Raphael on hard mode. I found his glaring weaknesses *cough everything but HP, defense and strength, but especially speed hack* to end up making him a liability that I couldn't depend on for jack nor shit. So there's no way in the seven hells I can expect him to be anything other than a liability on Maddening, where he's always getting doubled, and as a result, cannot imagine having to drag his useless tail along until level 30.

Edited January 17, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[darkblade2814]

4 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't know about Alois, but I was unimpressed by Raphael on hard mode. I found his glaring weaknesses *cough everything but HP, defense and strength, but especially speed hack* to end up making him a liability that I couldn't depend on for jack nor shit. So there's no way in the seven hells I can expect him to be anything other than a liability on Maddening, where he's always getting doubled, and as a result, cannot imagine having to drag his useless tail along until level 30.

if emperor could use magic it would be better, we don't have armored mages since FE 5

[Shadow Mir]

4 minutes ago, darkblade2814 said:

if emperor could use magic it would be better, we don't have armored mages since FE 5

I seriously doubt that - making it a half-assed hybrid class wouldn't help one iota.

[darkblade2814]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

I seriously doubt that - making it a half-assed hybrid class wouldn't help one iota.

It's an ideia to better use Edelgard preferencies, after all, she does have a budding talent for reason, and she is good in Dark Magic

[Flere210]

Bolt Axe is still her best spell by virtue  of being 1-3 range whit 14 might and just 5 accuracy less than hades. Is it worth to get to A Reason just for 4 more damage(assuming emperor get dark tomefaire, otherwise is -1) twice per battle, only at 1-2 and saving a few arcane crystals?

[Shadow Mir]

18 minutes ago, darkblade2814 said:

It's an ideia to better use Edelgard preferencies, after all, she does have a budding talent for reason, and she is good in Dark Magic

Unfortunately, it doesn't amount to much as it only affects two of her spells. As a result, I don't think it'd be worth it.

[darkblade2814]

20 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Bolt Axe is still her best spell by virtue  of being 1-3 range whit 14 might and just 5 accuracy less than hades. Is it worth to get to A Reason just for 4 more damage(assuming emperor get dark tomefaire, otherwise is -1) twice per battle, only at 1-2 and saving a few arcane crystals?

she does gest dark tomefare with an S ou S+ rank (I don't remerber witch one)

[Shadow Mir]

Just now, darkblade2814 said:

she does gest dark tomefare with an S ou S+ rank (I don't remerber witch one)

She gets it at S+. Not that it's gonna happen.

[Sid Starkiller]

22 minutes ago, darkblade2814 said:

she does gest dark tomefare with an S ou S+ rank (I don't remerber witch one)

You still have to equip it. He was proposing a hypothetical where Emperor would have it innately.

And while you're right that just tacking on the ability to use magic and nothing else wouldn't really improve it, the class could be tailored to make it work well. It's not a question of "would IS do it" to me, I'm just talking theorycrafting. Not sure if it should be branched into a separate thread, though.

Edited January 17, 2020 by Sid Starkiller

[Flere210]

But it does not work whit how Edelgard list relate to Blot Axe+. The spells offer little for a lot of investment. If she had the utility dark spells maybe, if she had insane magic to make use of luna maybe, but then we are talking about a completely different character, not a class.

[Azure loves his Half Elves]

I would definitely be more interested in Armored Lord and Emperor if she was able to use magic. Since she doesn’t, I may try making her a Warrior on hard and give her some boots to better her movement.

Overall, Warrior makes her play style most similar to how she would most likely be played in Part 1: a capable frontline unit with not the best speed, but enough.

[Sbuscoz]

I used them and will use them again when I replay CF in the future, basically because I always try to use canon classes, but her performance was mediocre.

She was always doubled, didn't have that high of a defense and began the final battle with only 35 str, though I don't know if that's because of her class of because of my bad luck, as she was still the character with highest str and def (31) at lvl 40.

Still, she was crucial in the final map, where she, with Manuela as adjutant, somehow kept at bay a golem and a couple of mages by herself.

[Geenoble]

18 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't know about Alois, but I was unimpressed by Raphael on hard mode. I found his glaring weaknesses *cough everything but HP, defense and strength, but especially speed hack* to end up making him a liability that I couldn't depend on for jack nor shit. So there's no way in the seven hells I can expect him to be anything other than a liability on Maddening, where he's always getting doubled, and as a result, cannot imagine having to drag his useless tail along until level 30.

Raph has a pretty hard early game since in comparison to the other units in that role, unlike Dedue he lacks the higher base Def and the prf ability of +4 allowing him to take no damage as early as chapter 2, and Alois has no early game since he joins late with super good stats. Getting doubled sucks but getting doubled with high defence isnt nearly as big a deal as getting doubled with no defence. He is definitely the worst of the three units i mentioned here though, with Dedue being the best imo. 

 

18 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I seriously doubt that - making it a half-assed hybrid class wouldn't help one iota

I agree to this. Edelgard doesn’t even have an amazing magic stat anyway, and rather than Magic the class could use something useful like giving it more speed to make it more balanced, or buffing it’s Hp, Def and Str further to make it sit on that slow tanky role rather than it being a kind of inbetween.

[Glennstavos]

Round 7 is Lifetaker, which was first suggested by @Shadow Mir. Here is the strawpoll link. And here are some notes:

• Lifetaker is the class mastery skill from dark bishop. 
  • To certify as a dark bishop, one must be a male unit who has also certified as a dark mage, so in total the class requires two dark seals to unlock
• Lifetaker restores health equal to 50% of the damage of a killing blow. The skill doesn't mention it, but it will only activate on player phase.
  • As far as I know, the healing is similar to Crest of Flames and Crest of Riegan in that the game only factors in the amount of HP the opponent loses, not necessarily how much you're dealing with that last hit. For example, if an opponent has 6 health remaining and your attack does 30 damage, you would heal 3 HP instead of 15. 
    • So Lifetaker will heal considerably more if you can nail an opponent's current/remaining HP in one hit, rather than doubling. Access to nuke spells or high Mt/magic combat arts would be ideal for a lifetaker user.
• While healing options are certainly plentiful in Three Houses, Lifetaker is the only source of healing that allows a unit to heal and attack within the same action. Healing Focus and Elixers force you to choose between the two, while healing magic takes up the turn of one of your mages.
  • Well I guess the Draining Blow brawling combat art also lets you do both in a single attack, but only Byleth and Raphael can learn that.
• Since the ability requires a killing blow, it has surprisingly poor synergy with poison strike lol

[Jotari]

Nope. If I'm interested in survivability then I'll just equipped Renewal. It's useful in other games where enemy quality isn't as high so you can reliably keep activating it, but here, too risky and not enough reward. I didn't even know it had been nerfed so considerably. In Awakening it flat out restores 50% of your max hp. Restoring 50% of your killing blow, that's useually going to be nothing.

[Glennstavos]

I voted yes because I did unlock and use it for Lorenz and enjoyed it lol. That was only in my first playthrough (Verdant Wind, Hard/Classic), but honestly I'd consider it again for maddening. It suited Lorenz well because unlike the typical mage, he actually has the bulk to take hits on enemy phase and as such takes a lot of damage. And he's also got nuke spells and frozen lance for doing a lot of damage in a single strike, so the healing amount was often comparably good, especially to a player not yet aware of the potent meta of Bishop + healing staff for 35 HP heals and physics. At most though, Life taker is me giving up an ability slot so that my healer(s) can top off anybody else or maybe fight something. Perhaps one could say I "gain another healer" on such turns. But since not all turns are like that, it's a pretty low stakes value proposition. But I've already talked enough about mages and their low opportunity cost on equippable skills throughout most of the game.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Glennstavos

[Shadow Mir]

Unsurprisingly, as I'm the one who brought it up, I say no. The availability issues are one thing, as it's locked behind a class that requires two Dark Seals and is for male units only. Second, it got nerfed. It only heals half of the HP the enemy had at the time the killing blow was dealt (as opposed to Awakening and Fates, where it healed half your max HP). Which, unless you get lucky with a critical hit (and almost none of the male mages get high crit spells), probably won't be much. And in Maddening especially, it's too much risk for too little reward.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm pretty skeptical.

Lifetaker is gained from a mage class, I can't imagine any physical unit wants to give up a bunch of levels in Wyvern/Paladin/Sniper to get it. So it's really only good for mages, and mages already have Nosferatu, which has exactly the same effect except it also works on non-killing blows! (Snacking on armours with Nosferatu is good fun.) Now yes, Nosferatu's mt/wt leave much to be desired, so sometimes Ragnarok/doubled Fire/etc. will kill when Nosferatu wouldn't, but those times are not enough for me to justify grabbing the skill. Hubert is probably the only character I'd consider getting it with; Lysithea can't get it and every other mage gives up Black Tomefaire by going Dark Bishop over Warlock.

[Shadow Mir]

I nominate the Aura Knuckles. Largely because I think this point...

On 1/16/2020 at 7:36 PM, Glennstavos said:

I think we do need to be careful about weapons as a topic, since inventory space is pretty lenient in my experience, so I find it pretty easy to say "yeah I'm okay with this sitting in my inventory for the day I finally use it once or twice".

...is bull. I mean, hey, if I did agree, I wouldn't have nominated the Bolt Axe and Crusher in the first place.

Edited January 19, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I said yes to Lifetaker. It's weaker than before, and sure, it doesn't synergize with Poison Strike (although they're arguably complementary, since you'll always activate one or the other). But getting HP back off of a kill can ge breat for setting up your mage to potentially take a hit on the next enemy phase. Plus, it can work with other weapon types, especially relevant if you choose to reclass your Dark Bishop or bring them up to Dark Knight. While Nosferatu is easily accessible, it's generally weak and inaccurate in this game (especially if you don't have "Faith Lv. X" equipped). And it can be nice to leave your resident Physicist to aid other units in need.

Dark Bishop is inferior to Warlock for everyone not named Hubert, sure. But it actually has a decent kit to its name. Innate Fiendish Blow is nice on anyone who didn't get Mage mastery, and Heartseeker is a good skill in its own right (although again, not super synergistic with the usual function of a mage). Plus, Dark Seals, while rare, are effectively "free" - there's nobody competing for them, and you're probably not making more than one Dark Mage in a given playthrough. With good planning, you can easily get two of them by the completion of the Remire map.

[Vitezen]

Lifetaker is good for your male mages. It's certainly worth a try.

[Glennstavos]

39 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I nominate the Aura Knuckles. Largely because I think this point...

...is bull. I mean, hey, if I did agree, I wouldn't have nominated the Bolt Axe and Crusher in the first place.

Aura knuckles huh? Ha, I don't know if I can sell that. They're a candidate for worst weapon in the game I think. Especially since mounted units and (for some reason) mages can't equip knuckles like they could any other weapon. A rank requirement is also very stingy compared to other magical weapons requiring C. Only your dedicated brawlers will consider them. I gave them a shot on Felix and Byleth due to their passible magic stats, but never had I encountered an opponent I could outdamage the physical knuckles. As for armor knights, the kill was never gotten with two shots of aura. So if I'm taking a counterattack anyway, may as well stick to the quad kill on steel+. The only appeal I see in doing aura knuckles is showing people "see? not all magic weapons are good". And even that talking point loses nuance when aura knuckles is the only one that doesn't have 2 range or 3 range. If it DID have range, I think they'd have good viability on that alone. I'd also love to see our brawlers lobbing hadokens at people.

But alright, if we want to do weapons, we can try weapons. Bolt Axe may be an interesting round. As I recall, my bolt axing eventually devolved me to using it at 1 range with Smash. It's accuracy is a real issue. Crusher's round might become overwhelmed by the broader question of "how do you guys build Annette?" but as long as people are reminded it's not a weapon unique to her we may be able to keep people from voting yes or no on Annette's combat viability which is what I hope to avoid. I also threw the longbow into the OP's list since I didn't think anybody was talking about it. If you think "oh boy my curved shot can reach even farther with the longbow!" you're in for a rude awakening. I also think you can't fire 2 range combat arts at 3 range with the longbow (though admittedly I don't recall testing), and the only good bow combat arts that aren't 3 range are point blank volley (locked at 1 range regardless) and Encloser (only learnable with Claude and Bernadetta). Still though it would bring up the interesting question of whether longbow can replace 3 range combat arts for any character. For instance Cyril as anything other than a sniper, who's combat art list typically consists of point blank volley, vengeance/lance jab, and reposition.

[Flere210]

Aura knuckles should not be judged now because they will be much better whit the DLC war monk. 

[Shadow Mir]

32 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Aura knuckles should not be judged now because they will be much better whit the DLC war monk. 

I seriously doubt that. They're still A rank, they're still range-locked, and they're still going to have issues seeing use because the only units that have an easy time getting to A brawling have much lower magic growths than strength growths.

[Flere210]

9 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I seriously doubt that. They're still A rank, they're still range-locked, and they're still going to have issues seeing use because the only units that have an easy time getting to A brawling have much lower magic growths than strength growths.

Balthus?