Does anyone use heroes?

[anikom15]

You know, I've had this game since it came out, and I literally just realized hero is a class. I guess I just glossed over it, and it being male-exclusive doesn't help things. It seems like a pointless class to me, included for its history but not really filling any niche, and none of the characters stand out to me as fitting the class, except maybe Cyril.... Am I wrong? Care to share your experiences with the hero class?

[whase]

The hero class is not very useful, but it looks cool, and I guess it helps if you want to teach axes to a male character that usually uses swords. Its use is very limited and generally not an interesting option. Which makes it perfect in a 1 class only challenge.

One use I've heard of is an enemy phase build, since hero has vantage built in an enemy phase build leaves you one additional skill slot. (Though Warrior and then war master still sounds better.)

Male Byleth seems to fit the class best, imo. Though swordmaster or assassin is still better.

[Laozing]

Every game that had it until three houses. Defiant str is worthless in Fire emblem heroes and it's worthless in three houses. Also, growth rates wise it's pointless when there is swordmaster, assassin class. Which is a shame as hero class is usually my 2nd favorite class behind swordmaster.

[LoneStar]

In my first playthrough I made Byleth a Hero before he got Enlightened One. And I thought it would be a cool side class for my Dancer Ferdinand in CF. Otherwise it's not that great of a class unless you want to Vantage Wrath stuff, which I did once with Alois on Ferdinand a Lysithea's paralogue on maddening. Its a shame that its a cool looking class imo, but isn't that great. Strange that my favorite classes in this game design-wise Hero and Holy Knight aren't typically optimal.

[DragonFlames]

I like how the class looks aesthetically, especially on Male Byleth, and I did make it my go-to class for him in some of my playthroughs because of that. I also prefer it over Enlightened One purely due to the aesthetics of it and I rarely train Byleth in Magic, anyway.

Though I will admit, there is nothing about the class that really stands out otherwise. It does have innate Swordfaire and Vantage (which makes mastering Mercenary practically obsolete), but the latter is practically useless to me anyway, since I never want to be that low on HP. Swordfaire is nice, but you can get that from Swordmaster and Assassin, too. And I'd argue those two classes have better innate skills than Vantage, as well.
One thing it has going for it, which might provide an advantage over the other two direct alternatives (Swordmaster and Assassin, namely), is the ease in which you can acquire it early: C+/B-rank Swords isn't exactly hard to reach and plenty of characters can tutor you in Axes (off the top of my head, there's Seteth, Gilbert, and Alois, all of whom have a high innate Axe rank, so you get those bonus points from them longer), so that D+/C-rank requirement isn't exactly a tough nut to crack, either. This might be nice if you want to take advantage of boosted growth rates or stats.

Edited April 21, 2020 by DragonFlames

[BergelomeuSantos]

Hero is on a odd position.

It has almost no vantage (hah) over the other Advanced Swordy Classes (Swordmaster and Assassin), as the stat bonuses in comparation to Swordmaster is..Hp and Lck (I pulled this out of my mind, so it might be wrong) and Assassin outclasses it at Dex/Spd. Not only that, but the units who would like to be at the class (Byleth, Ferdinand, Caspar, Felix and maybe Ignatz) (and yes, I do think Caspar would like to be at this class because training Swords on the early game is better if you just want to go for a Speedy Caspar) already have way better options. The only uses I can see for the class is the built-in Vantage and being somewhat easy to get into (and also looking pretty damn good).

[Gregster101]

The Hero class is probably at it's lowest point in the series with this game, particularly there isn't really any character who's best suited to the Hero class. Not helping is that the one advantage Heroes typically have over Swordmasters in most games, that being able to use axes for 1-2 range combat with hand axes, is made moot by the fact that every class can use almost every physical weapon in this game. As such, there's never really a reason to have anyone go Hero in this game.

[paladin21]

I used to have one or two in my teams... until 3H. The hero looks great, but is lacking something. I wish I could use the outfit in other classes as well. Since it always used to have shields, having some skill that increased shield protection would have been interesting, since it would have been the defensive swordsman.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Gregster101 said:

The Hero class is probably at it's lowest point in the series with this game, particularly there isn't really any character who's best suited to the Hero class. Not helping is that the one advantage Heroes typically have over Swordmasters in most games, that being able to use axes for 1-2 range combat with hand axes, is made moot by the fact that every class can use almost every physical weapon in this game. As such, there's never really a reason to have anyone go Hero in this game.

I agree with this - I find it hard to consider using it over Assassin, much less Swordmaster. Making matters worse for Hero is that it's male exclusive, while the other two are unisex.

[haarhaarhaar]

I guess there's no harm in bulky physical units classing into it in the absence of anything better being available. Like if you're approaching the time skip or wanna train axe after doing Merc or something. But it's only marginally better than brigand anyway in terms of growths - from a battle mechanics perspective at least, I'd never plan a character build with it. I don't think Defiant Strength is worth it, even putting aside the fact that I don't like using low-HP builds - if you do use them, the fliers are the only ones who have defiant skills worth using in Maddening.

With that being said, I wonder how a physical unit that mastered Warrior would play with Hero (inbuilt Swordfaire/Vantage, running three Sword skills, Wrath, and then whatever you like). I'm still not sure it's a better crit build than a properly kitted sword master/assassin or a brawl-based WM, but if you're really desperate to use Hero late-game that might work.

[Alistair]

For reference, these are all the stat modifiers and growth rates of the advanced sword infantry classes:

Spoiler

Hero: HP +3, STR +2, SPD +2, LCK +1, DEF +1, MOV +1; HP +30%, STR +10%, SPD +10%, RES -5%, CHM +5%

Swordmaster: HP +1, STR +2, DEX +1, SPD +4, DEF +1, MOV +1; HP +25%, STR +10%, SPD +20%, RES -5%, CHM +5%

Assassin: DEX +3; SPD +5, LCK +1, MOV +2; HP +20%, DEX +20%, SPD +20%

Overall, the only statistical advantage Heroes have over the other two classes is higher HP. At that point, yeah, Hero doesn't do anything that other classes don't do better, outside of enemy phasing with in-built Vantage. But then, enemy phasing in Three Houses is less reliable, between enemy stat inflation and gambits. 

The one argument I don't get for it being bad though is it being male exclusive. Other classes like Pegasus Knight and War Master are widely considered some of the best in the game, and they're also gender locked. Hero is bad because it doesn't have good class/mastery skills or stats, not because it's inaccessible; as opposed to say Grappler, where people like Catherine or Bylass would potentially want it.  

[anikom15]

On 4/21/2020 at 1:15 PM, Shadow Mir said:

I agree with this - I find it hard to consider using it over Assassin, much less Swordmaster. Making matters worse for Hero is that it's male exclusive, while the other two are unisex.

Do you prefer assassins over swordmasters? I didn't have much success with swordmasters in SS, although I figured Catherine was just screwed up because of how late you get her in that route. My assassins did their job (Anna and Ignatz). They weren't particularly good at killing things, but I didn't need them for that. I just needed them to dodge and get chests while backup comes to finish them off. Meanwhile Catherine wasn't good at killing or dodging, so I had her adjutant Shamir for the rest of the game.

Byleth was a swordmaster for like ten minutes before getting the special class, so I didn't really get a good sense of his performance. He was pretty clutch in CS though.

[Gregster101]

2 minutes ago, anikom15 said:

Do you prefer assassins over swordmasters? I didn't have much success with swordmasters in SS, although I figured Catherine was just screwed up because of how late you get her in that route. My assassins did their job (Anna and Ignatz). They weren't particularly good at killing things, but I didn't need them for that. I just needed them to dodge and get chests while backup comes to finish them off. Meanwhile Catherine wasn't good at killing or dodging, so I had her adjutant Shamir for the rest of the game.

Byleth was a swordmaster for like ten minutes before getting the special class, so I didn't really get a good sense of his performance. He was pretty clutch in CS though.

Catherine is much worse in SS than in the other routes because of her much later join time.

[Edelgard Von Hresvelg]

Only in cindered shadows for Dimitri

 

Otherwise, never. Hero is absolutely worthless compared to Wyvern Rider and Warrior

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 4/21/2020 at 10:33 PM, Alistair said:

The one argument I don't get for it being bad though is it being male exclusive. Other classes like Pegasus Knight and War Master are widely considered some of the best in the game, and they're also gender locked. Hero is bad because it doesn't have good class/mastery skills or stats, not because it's inaccessible; as opposed to say Grappler, where people like Catherine or Bylass would potentially want it.  

Yeah, that's like calling Barbarossa a bad class because it's exclusive to Claude, haha. The fact that Hero is gender-locked sucks, but reflects badly upon the game design, moreso than the class itself.

As for Hero, it's generally inferior to Assassin, owing to worse movement. Its one potential use is in Defiant builds - it can combine innate Vantage with skills like Defiant Strength, Wrath, and Defiant Crit for an enemy-phase Retribution build. And swords have quite a few high hit and/or crit options. Unfortunately, getting these skills require class masteries in Warrior and Wyvern Lord, making such a build more practical for NG+. Plus, this can work with any other class, but using equippable Vantage from Mercenary mastery.

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/21/2020 at 9:33 PM, Alistair said:

The one argument I don't get for it being bad though is it being male exclusive. Other classes like Pegasus Knight and War Master are widely considered some of the best in the game, and they're also gender locked. Hero is bad because it doesn't have good class/mastery skills or stats, not because it's inaccessible; as opposed to say Grappler, where people like Catherine or Bylass would potentially want it.  

Gender lock is not my main issue with Hero (like I said, my main problem is that I'd be better served going to Assassin or Swordmaster instead, as both have better abilities to go with Swordfaire). But it certainly doesn't help its case.

 

[Marlowe]

I tried Balthus as a hero for a while, originally hoping for a Vantage-Wrath build, but it wasn't working out very well so I switched him back to become a War Monk.

My theory is that Hero was created primarily as an enemy class. Vantage was added to it to make an orthogonal challenge to the extreme speed of Assassins and the crit bonus of (admittedly uncommon) swordmasters. Then they decided to make it player available because people would probably riot otherwise.

I think the biggest problem people have with genderlocking Hero is that at least one unit who seems very inclined towards it is a girl (Petra). And in general, that hamstrings its usefulness; that everyone who might be a good Hero is either better in another class (even without Wyvern Lords in the equation) or is a girl.