Kaze vs Jakob, who is the best unit?

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Arthur is fine as long as he isn't RNG-screwed in any way. At least his downs are workable without any pair up abuse. He can do well by himself with heling items and tonics, like most frontline units. But skills-wise he's not comparable to Jakob. Still more useful than Kaze for earlygame contributions and can be a good backpack if he falls off.

Not really - his nonexistent crit evade will ALWAYS be a problem. About the only thing you got right is that he’s a good backpack.

15 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

For comparisons, I thought of ninjas in BR/Rev (especially BR since in Rev not many units are even viable at all without grinding or DLC scrolls), and Peri in CQ since she joins basically at the same time as Kaze but after preparation menu, which is annoying but workable. Weaken an ennemy enough for her to kill it, equip her javelin, shelter the unit who traded the javelin, now she has her personal + elbow room activated for +7 str/mag, +4 skl/spd, hell she can even hit for 18 with the bolt naginata if you use visit points rewards. 20 str/7 magic isn't something you just ignore when it can be set for EP on a level 10 unit without any level up. With bolt naginata she can maybe double with 17 spd, 2x 18 magic damage hurts a lot, and that's with 0 base magic. Better than anything Kaze can hope for at this stage of the game since he hits on the physical side and his personal skill could as well not exist for what it's worth, just like ninja's pair up bonus, why did it have to be 3 spd 1 skl instead of 4 spd...IS please... Keaton gives the same amount of spd as a ninja, on top of 3 strength, FFS...yeah, I see some people seem to really like Kaze for some unexplicable reason, I think it's fanboyism or fangirlism, because I don't see how I'm getting anything from him unless I dedicate 3 damage ressources to him just to make him usable, not talking of long term use, this was including a pair up bot since he won't survive a single axe/bow hit with some aids skill like Quick draw that's present in both ch8 and 12 without guard stance (well he could maybe stay alive if not for the ennemies going in attack stance 24/7 all the damn game, because ennemies dealing 80% of your squishies'HP in 1 hit wasn't enough, they had to also let them attack with a pal so they could ORKO you without ever having to double).

Re: Peri, that depends on her connecting in the first place, and she isn’t that accurate. And since it’s a javelin, she only gets one try, which means no boost for her if she whiffs. Anyway, I would imagine the likes of Mozu, who you seem to worship, are just as easily killed as you say Kaze is. So why the double standard?

[SSJDennis]

For Shuriken ? Kaze. Total ? Jakob.

Jakob first turns in a great Paladin. Later on he can use Shelter, or turn into a Pegasus to keep his lance rank and re-use his staff rank. Dwyer (flying healer) and Shigure  (wyvern) also like these parents.

[mangasdeouf]

On 6/18/2020 at 7:31 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Not really - his nonexistent crit evade will ALWAYS be a problem. About the only thing you got right is that he’s a good backpack.

Re: Peri, that depends on her connecting in the first place, and she isn’t that accurate. And since it’s a javelin, she only gets one try, which means no boost for her if she whiffs. Anyway, I would imagine the likes of Mozu, who you seem to worship, are just as easily killed as you say Kaze is. So why the double standard?

Bronze fixes almost all of Arthur's crit problem, and if he's the one to crit with a weapon allowing it, then he doesn't take a hit at all. Bronze also fixes his hit rate and is forgeable.

Peri can last hit on PP with any weapon and get her personal going for EP and you can even dance for her. With Laslow's rally command and her passive she's got 18 speed, with Kaze backpack she's got 21 (or 20 without command). It's high enough to double a whole lot of ennemies at base. If she get a Keaton backpack now her offense get +3/+6 if she's doubling.

Mozu is more durable after like 6 level ups from level 1 than half of your available units. She tanks more than the glass canons, than the squishies, and soon she can tank about as well as Silas without VoF. Unlike Silas though, she has enough speed to double once she get going, which takes no more than 40-50% of her paralogue. I did't use her much lately, because she puts many CQ and even BR units to shame after just that and playing normally one or two chapters as if she was any other filler unit, and then she starts really outshining many especially in a class with high strength.Archer works, as well as spear fighter, wyvern, fighter, cavalier...offensive skills are a nice bonus to have. She IS screwable, but so is about anyone seeig how the ennemies scale into mid/late game.

This is no Path of Radiance hard mode where there are like 3 difficult chapters in a 27 chapters game, most of the reason why I dislike PoR is simply the fact that the pace is a slug, the visuals are inferior to GBA, the animations are uggly and I get to play who I like after half of the game is done, and Serenes Forest being an awful 5 maps with some swamp and no shop no BEXP (although the game isn't any kind of challenge even without BEXP, just give your robe to Ike and your dragonshield/energy drop to Titania and you've successfully completed the game, GGWP no other unit is required, and finally you can't control Laguz shifts like in Radiant Dawn which means they're definitely useless for a certain number of turns except for meatshielding).

So yeah, units who can grow well are good in Fates, since the further you go into the game, the more you want to skip awful maps (if that's what Serenes calls good map design, then I'll have to tell you my opinion is close to the opposite, the maps are annoying, but not even half as annoying as the f*ing puzzle game with ennemy formations, skills, dual attack braindead spamming, paired up ennemies most of your units can't double or get doubled by with broken attack numbers, sudden difficulty jumps like when generals show up with a jump of 10 def/HP compared with knights, etc., I just hate Fates' level design and the only reason I'm attracted to the game is good 1-2 swords+skill builds, the sheer pleasure to build units in theorycraft and see them on the battlefield is what draws me in, otherwise I much prefer Sacred Stones with diverse and funny map/level design, in normal for fun or in hard without Seth abuse and without Franz, Vanessa barely gaining 3 level ups in 5 chapters cuz her offense and defense both suck and she can't hold a steel lance to make up for it, deals chip damage even to monsters and dies in 1.4 axe hit in axeland, I don't see how she's so praised in LTC when the only thing she does well is ferrybot and village collect, probably for the same reason as RD Jill, which is dump all your stat boosters in this unit, because it flies...at least Vanessa can double without a steel weapon, Jill doesn't even have this luxury and BEXP in RD is non existant before 1-6-2 is completed, hell Jill has one thing over Vanessa, canto after attacking and growing some defense in the very long run, sorry 2 things, she doesn't die in 1 arrow in the whole game).

On topic, what does Kaze do that no one else can do (maybe can do better than him?)? If you give me an acceptable answer, he'll bump one or 2 tiers in my personal tier list, but as far as it goes for me, Setsuna is better than him, similar stat spread after she starts growing, but she has more strength, yumis with 9 base MT on iron, 13 with +2 iron, quick draw in her base class, doubles as much as Kaze after a few level ups, can ORKO ninjas with a little help (tonic and maybe attack/guard stance, better than Kaze needing Rinkah fixed to him for the whole game to do anything and using 4 MT iron weapons that only have eight MT after +2 forge, steel forge locked to 1 before chapter 13/14, while steel yumi deals almost the same damage as a silver weapon without any forge and yumis give 2 res for free to make up for archer's lack of it), and due to +2 iron yumi having 1 less MT than Fujin Yumi, quick draw giving Setsuna 17 attack with +2 iron and her own strength added to that (8 at base, which means if she gains 0 point of strength she has 25 damage as a level 10 archer), you can guess what comes, Setsuna beats both Kaze and Takumi, the oh so praised ones. And please don't give me a LOLaccuracy, because once she promotes she can't miss anymore.

As for mage bait, archers have 2 range, mages have 2 range, now you can guess that you can draw a mage with an archer placed at the limit of it's range. Kinshi also gives Setsuna/Takumi flight and base res, rendering Fujin Yumi perfectly obsolete, forged weapons get bonus hit/crit after a certain point, and Setsuna doubling with a forged steel yumi...is insane. 16 MT +2, 20 MT if you ever get to +4, and if one goes completely out of his way or abuses salvage blow and arena, 24 MT when +6. It's a whole 48 damage when one doubles, 56 with Quick draw, 72 with Setsuna's base attack. Anything not called General or Great knight will really suffer.

OFC this is ideal set up, but even normal set up still beats anything Kaze can ever reach without a +4 dedicated strength backpack. And then we're not speaking of Kaze, but Kaze+Rinkah, and it's 2 units, not one. Same for conquest with Mozu instead of Setsuna, only Mozu trade some res for more def, and she's still got a decent res growth, and bows have 10% more hit than Yumis in exchange for only 1 point of damage (which is seriously busted). Even if Mozu isn't an archer, you can reclass anyone who can support with her into archer and abuse bows. Kaze joins at chapter 12 (11 is finished when he joins), so he's not doing it before mid game, and he starts bouncing of ennemy def long before he can hope to get the class unless you play many DLC/MyCastle battles.

As for dread fighter, try doing it with any early joiner and they all blow Kaze out of sight. Because they're not screwed by their base stats like he is, because they're not doomed by their stat caps like he is. And because some of them even increase the strength cap of everyone. Or def.

[Shadow Mir]

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Bronze fixes almost all of Arthur's crit problem, and if he's the one to crit with a weapon allowing it, then he doesn't take a hit at all. Bronze also fixes his hit rate and is forgeable.

And it’s only a temporary solution at best. Eventually, enemies will have high enough crit rates that he’ll be facing crit chances even with bronze. Then what? By the way, this is especially true if he is promoted to Berserker, as the innate crit evade penalty Berserkers have combines with his personal's crit evade drop to cancel out the 10 crit evade a bronze would grant.

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Peri can last hit on PP with any weapon and get her personal going for EP and you can even dance for her. With Laslow's rally command and her passive she's got 18 speed, with Kaze backpack she's got 21 (or 20 without command). It's high enough to double a whole lot of ennemies at base. If she get a Keaton backpack now her offense get +3/+6 if she's doubling.

If she kills whatever she’s attacking, that is.

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Mozu is more durable after like 6 level ups from level 1 than half of your available units. She tanks more than the glass canons, than the squishies, and soon she can tank about as well as Silas without VoF. Unlike Silas though, she has enough speed to double once she get going, which takes no more than 40-50% of her paralogue. I did't use her much lately, because she puts many CQ and even BR units to shame after just that and playing normally one or two chapters as if she was any other filler unit, and then she starts really outshining many especially in a class with high strength.Archer works, as well as spear fighter, wyvern, fighter, cavalier...offensive skills are a nice bonus to have. She IS screwable, but so is about anyone seeig how the ennemies scale into mid/late game.

That’s bull. All she does is make the hardest part of the game harder because her bases are crap.

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

This is no Path of Radiance hard mode where there are like 3 difficult chapters in a 27 chapters game, most of the reason why I dislike PoR is simply the fact that the pace is a slug, the visuals are inferior to GBA, the animations are uggly and I get to play who I like after half of the game is done, and Serenes Forest being an awful 5 maps with some swamp and no shop no BEXP (although the game isn't any kind of challenge even without BEXP, just give your robe to Ike and your dragonshield/energy drop to Titania and you've successfully completed the game, GGWP no other unit is required, and finally you can't control Laguz shifts like in Radiant Dawn which means they're definitely useless for a certain number of turns except for meatshielding).

What does Path of Radiance have to do with this game? Nothing.

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

So yeah, units who can grow well are good in Fates, since the further you go into the game, the more you want to skip awful maps (if that's what Serenes calls good map design, then I'll have to tell you my opinion is close to the opposite, the maps are annoying, but not even half as annoying as the f*ing puzzle game with ennemy formations, skills, dual attack braindead spamming, paired up ennemies most of your units can't double or get doubled by with broken attack numbers, sudden difficulty jumps like when generals show up with a jump of 10 def/HP compared with knights, etc., I just hate Fates' level design and the only reason I'm attracted to the game is good 1-2 swords+skill builds, the sheer pleasure to build units in theorycraft and see them on the battlefield is what draws me in, otherwise I much prefer Sacred Stones with diverse and funny map/level design, in normal for fun or in hard without Seth abuse and without Franz, Vanessa barely gaining 3 level ups in 5 chapters cuz her offense and defense both suck and she can't hold a steel lance to make up for it, deals chip damage even to monsters and dies in 1.4 axe hit in axeland, I don't see how she's so praised in LTC when the only thing she does well is ferrybot and village collect, probably for the same reason as RD Jill, which is dump all your stat boosters in this unit, because it flies...at least Vanessa can double without a steel weapon, Jill doesn't even have this luxury and BEXP in RD is non existant before 1-6-2 is completed, hell Jill has one thing over Vanessa, canto after attacking and growing some defense in the very long run, sorry 2 things, she doesn't die in 1 arrow in the whole game).

At the same time, you put too much emphasis on growths, as most of these games have been beaten with 0% growths. Including Fates. Also, what does map design have to do with the topic?

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

On topic, what does Kaze do that no one else can do (maybe can do better than him?)? If you give me an acceptable answer, he'll bump one or 2 tiers in my personal tier list, but as far as it goes for me, Setsuna is better than him, similar stat spread after she starts growing, but she has more strength, yumis with 9 base MT on iron, 13 with +2 iron, quick draw in her base class, doubles as much as Kaze after a few level ups, can ORKO ninjas with a little help (tonic and maybe attack/guard stance, better than Kaze needing Rinkah fixed to him for the whole game to do anything and using 4 MT iron weapons that only have eight MT after +2 forge, steel forge locked to 1 before chapter 13/14, while steel yumi deals almost the same damage as a silver weapon without any forge and yumis give 2 res for free to make up for archer's lack of it), and due to +2 iron yumi having 1 less MT than Fujin Yumi, quick draw giving Setsuna 17 attack with +2 iron and her own strength added to that (8 at base, which means if she gains 0 point of strength she has 25 damage as a level 10 archer), you can guess what comes, Setsuna beats both Kaze and Takumi, the oh so praised ones. And please don't give me a LOLaccuracy, because once she promotes she can't miss anymore.

Tank mages. Also, Setsuna is not better than he is - she has good speed, but that’s meaningless when you are lacking almost everywhere else. Including accuracy.

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

As for mage bait, archers have 2 range, mages have 2 range, now you can guess that you can draw a mage with an archer placed at the limit of it's range. Kinshi also gives Setsuna/Takumi flight and base res, rendering Fujin Yumi perfectly obsolete, forged weapons get bonus hit/crit after a certain point, and Setsuna doubling with a forged steel yumi...is insane. 16 MT +2, 20 MT if you ever get to +4, and if one goes completely out of his way or abuses salvage blow and arena, 24 MT when +6. It's a whole 48 damage when one doubles, 56 with Quick draw, 72 with Setsuna's base attack. Anything not called General or Great knight will really suffer.

Archers also have a weapon disadvantage, meaning they’re more likely to miss their counters (if they can even counter, that is, as archers are helpless in melee range). And it ain’t like Setsuna or Takumi will be shrugging off mages anyway, even as a Kinshi. Not to mention the fact that due to the forge system being what it is, you would need to do some serious grinding to have a +4 weapon, let alone a +6. Not that Salvage Blow, which is unreliable, would help with that since it only gives iron weapons and requires you to initiate AND kill whatever you’re attacking.

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

OFC this is ideal set up, but even normal set up still beats anything Kaze can ever reach without a +4 dedicated strength backpack. And then we're not speaking of Kaze, but Kaze+Rinkah, and it's 2 units, not one. Same for conquest with Mozu instead of Setsuna, only Mozu trade some res for more def, and she's still got a decent res growth, and bows have 10% more hit than Yumis in exchange for only 1 point of damage (which is seriously busted). Even if Mozu isn't an archer, you can reclass anyone who can support with her into archer and abuse bows. Kaze joins at chapter 12 (11 is finished when he joins), so he's not doing it before mid game, and he starts bouncing of ennemy def long before he can hope to get the class unless you play many DLC/MyCastle battles.

An “ideal set up” that has no chance of being relevant without a ton of grinding, that is. Also, reclassing someone else into archer means they have to deal with E bows.

16 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

As for dread fighter, try doing it with any early joiner and they all blow Kaze out of sight. Because they're not screwed by their base stats like he is, because they're not doomed by their stat caps like he is. And because some of them even increase the strength cap of everyone. Or def.

Except almost none of those early joiners have ranks in shurikens. Also, I consider "all" to be a flagrant exaggeration. Unless you really think that Dread Fighter Orochi or Nyx would be better than Kaze...

Edited June 22, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[mangasdeouf]

13 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

And it’s only a temporary solution at best. Eventually, enemies will have high enough crit rates that he’ll be facing crit chances even with bronze. Then what? By the way, this is especially true if he is promoted to Berserker, as the innate crit evade penalty Berserkers have combines with his personal's crit evade drop to cancel out the 10 crit evade a bronze would grant.

If she kills whatever she’s attacking, that is.

That’s bull. All she does is make the hardest part of the game harder because her bases are crap.

What does Path of Radiance have to do with this game? Nothing.

At the same time, you put too much emphasis on growths, as most of these games have been beaten with 0% growths. Including Fates. Also, what does map design have to do with the topic?

Tank mages. Also, Setsuna is not better than he is - she has good speed, but that’s meaningless when you are lacking almost everywhere else. Including accuracy.

Archers also have a weapon disadvantage, meaning they’re more likely to miss their counters (if they can even counter, that is, as archers are helpless in melee range). And it ain’t like Setsuna or Takumi will be shrugging off mages anyway, even as a Kinshi. Not to mention the fact that due to the forge system being what it is, you would need to do some serious grinding to have a +4 weapon, let alone a +6. Not that Salvage Blow, which is unreliable, would help with that since it only gives iron weapons and requires you to initiate AND kill whatever you’re attacking.

An “ideal set up” that has no chance of being relevant without a ton of grinding, that is. Also, reclassing someone else into archer means they have to deal with E bows.

Except almost none of those early joiners have ranks in shurikens. Also, I consider "all" to be a flagrant exaggeration. Unless you really think that Dread Fighter Orochi or Nyx would be better than Kaze...

Are we really doing that AGAIN?

Bronze give +10 crit avoid, as a berserker it negates all of Arthur's negative crit avoid, but why would you use it on a berserker is beyond me: as a fighter, though, Arthur has good strength, axes hit hard and he has a good skill growth. Once he can hit you can give him better weapons, maybe even gamble. And Arthur's best class is cavalier, because if he looses some speed (1 point + 5% growth), at least it gives him a luck growth, access to visit points naginatas, elbow room, shelter, and his son can inherit elbow room or shelter instead of a skill he has natural access to. Also, once you've gotten Percy, you have 2 options: either you use both in tandem, each one buffing the other/weakening the ennemies, or you can just bench Arthur if you don't like him. It's not like you have to use Arthur and Effie in tandem to get the earliest Percy, so you can put Effie on Arthur's back for him to have 1 def less than her at base, 3 or 4 base speed over her and 6 or 7 HP, so that even if he takes a crit (a 1% chance crit), he won't die that easily, and as opposed to Effie, Arthur doesn't fall to 0 (even -1 if that was allowed like in Genealogy of the Holy War) when he's under seal speed.

Unless we play a different game, most units without a DLC class don't ORKO much at all before long (except Niles with mages and a fast AND powerful Corrin vs onis, hint Corrin is often one but rarely both fast and powerful without a dedicated backpack, which means you waste an unit slot just to have one unit perform well). It's the same as Radiant Dawn, most units take a long while to even get to the point where they can function by themselves and ORKO. That's the main reason why Camilla is so high up: she's almost the only one who can ORKO most unpromoted ennemies from the get go. Peri with her personal is comparble offense-wise to...to? She has nearly the same offensive stats as no Darting blow Reina, and she has 9 or 10 levels left before promotion, + promotion bonuses, + insane strength, passable skill, good speed (at least she can easily outclass Silas unless he's already 20/1 AND speed blessed), her personal is only icing on the cake. What you're telling us is that you'd rather have an unit not kill and not do anything meaningful rather than having a second Camilla in training. Same as cavalier Arthur, she can grab the visit points naginatas, and she can use guard naginata AT BASE, bumping her defensive stats higher than Silas, her res becoming better than Silas' with VoF. All this while retaining a better speed than him for the whole game, ensuring she can grow into a good ORKO unit in a few levels.

Her bases are crap, Odin's base are crap, Nyx's bases are crap, half the cast is crap at base, only half the cast starts 5-10 levels higher and has much less time to grow than she has and gains much less exp than she does. Now can we end this please? You don't like growth units, I think it's clear, and I won't go into a 3 pages argument over that. All I say is she's one of the few units who only require some exp to bench 60% of the cast if not more as an ORKO machine while not being a glass cannon. How many units can do that? Not many without using like 10 different ressources just to enable them. Mozu only asks for a little exp at the point in the game where you've got mostly crappy offensive units, where Effie can't OHKO anything yet and before some good level ups and get doubled by half the Hoshidan generics until her speed growth finally wants to be nice. Mozu has 1 or 2 speed over Effie with a 5 level disadvantage, at the same level she has about a 5 points lead, and it only gets wider as she gains levels because her growth is higher than Effie's.

I was comparing PoR's piss easy difficulty to Fates. In PoR, anyone can be a killing machine with little investment just because BEXP is stupid OP and ennemies have 0-3 speed for the first 7 chapters of the game with a few exceptions. Fates is quite the opposite with decently fast ennemies, pair up and attack stance spamming, all the bullshit level design/gameplay design IS put to work.

Map/level design has to do with the topic, because a unit like Kaze suffers from this, while Jakob is one of the units who helps you defeat it. The differences are: damage output, skills, utility, worth of a heart seal on said unit, room for improvement. If Kaze needs a forge, a pair up and tonics to kill anything tankier than a mage, then his combat prowess is bad, and his utility is very limited, the only things he can do that Jakob can't are lockpicking and poison strike. Jakob hits hard enough if reclassed that poison strike is unnecessary for him and poison strike doesn't kill. Jakob asks for 1 ressource, everything else is just overwhelmingly OP on him. Kaze asks for several ressources and even then he's outdone by several units. Because he can't facetank except mages, because his damage is through the ground, because he joins just before ch 12 starts with a base level comparable to my most used units in the middle of ch 9 (2.5 chapters earlier, 3 bosses earlier, 2 if you don't count Takumi because he's not a guaranteed kill). Anyone you've used can beat Kaze with ease, and Niles is all you need to kill mages, has more movement, more utility, 1-2 bow not long after Kaze is recruited, can get 9 movement with a 1-2 bow, hits much harder with a bow (magical or physical) than Kaze with any shuriken...the list goes on.

Setsuna beats Kaze because her offense even with a mediocre strength is 50% more than Kaze and that's with an iron yumi. She also starts with 8 strength at level 3, while he starts with 5 or 6 strength, D shurikens, and only has 5% growth over her in their base class. Setsuna gains quick draw and suddenly she deals 2x more damage than Kaze on a physical ennemy, meaning that if she fails to double, she hits as hard as Kaze if not harder due to def being applied once instead of 2, while if she doubles she kills unless it's a knight/great knight or an ubber ennemy. She can miss 1 of 2 attacks and still outdamage Kaze. If you give Kaze a tonic or pair up, you must give the same treatment to Setsuna, in this case she owns him even more. Also archers are much better attack stance bots than a weak ninja who struggles dealing damage by himself, which means that the damage penalty for being an attack stance bot relegates him to dealing around 0 damage. And shuriken don't deal 3x damage on the most mobile, fast and annoying ennemy type: pegasi/falcons/kinshis, Niles has been sniping them in ch10 one and a half chapter before Kaze even joins. Kaze can barely deal 5-6 damage to a wyvern if he's not 10 levels ahead, and they have close to 30 HP as soon as the boat map in BR. Sniper gives 10 hit, 10 crit vs 5 everything that master ninja half-assed gives, and Kaze should go mechanist instead for actual base strength, def, HP and movement. And bows to save his non existent damage with shuriken.

Archers have 2 range, mages have 2 range, bows have good hit, snipers make up for yumi accuracy, when you draw an ennemy you put your unit at the good range position with the weapon that allows the best performance. Archers can draw and counter mages. End of argument. To kill a mage, Takumi needs 1 hit, Setsuna somewhere between 1 and 2 depending on her strength and the weapon she uses. Kaze needs 2 full hits, no pair up/tonic can change that.

E bows aren't a problem though: 7 MT is the power of a steel shuriken, but also the power of a bronze yumi, and a bronze bow has 6 but 10 more hit than the bronze yumi. Bronze bows deal 18 damage to flyers, bronze yumis deal 21, steel shuriken deal 7. I don't see how E bows could be worse than C shuriken. Shuriken are annoying in the hands of ennemies, they're absolute garbage in the hands of anyone not called Saizo/Kagero or dread fighter (but DF is bullshit in itself and makes any physical unit OP because of base stats). +1 bronze yumi has 9 MT, 27 against flyers, bronze bow +1 has 8 MT, 24 against flyers. I could go on but you should have already understood my point by now.

Do you really think that I'm including magic units in that? also I could even include them, since when they reach C rank they can use flame shuriken/Felicia's plate and outdamage Kaze, which is kind of ridiculous and helps my point. He's outdone by a magic unit with a little investment in his best class, so...

I think now we can close this topic, it's going nowhere and no one has been able to convince me and other people who understand how Jakob and Kaze work that Kaze is better than Jakob, and Jakob supporters and myself have proved how not only Jakob, but most units in the game can beat Kaze at his own role or a close one, and some of them can even do more things than Kaze.

If we want to use skill buying as an argument, there are 20x more skills buyable everywhere for Jakob than for Kaze, so even abusing a busted element of the game still favors Jakob and it's much easier to find a Jakob with several damage or support skills than to find something else than poison strike, lethality or golembane for Kaze. Even being so popular, Kaze still lacks skill builds in MyCastle environment.

[samthedigital]

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Unless we play a different game, most units without a DLC class don't ORKO much at all before long (except Niles with mages and a fast AND powerful Corrin vs onis, hint Corrin is often one but rarely both fast and powerful without a dedicated backpack, which means you waste an unit slot just to have one unit perform well).

Backpacks are not a waste of a unit slot if that's what you're trying to imply. Having one unit perform 'well' is better than having two units performing 'alright' if the difference is being able to perform on enemy phase.

Quote

You don't like growth units, I think it's clear, and I won't go into a 3 pages argument over that.

...

It's the same as Radiant Dawn, most units take a long while to even get to the point where they can function by themselves and ORKO.

...

probably for the same reason as RD Jill, which is dump all your stat boosters in this unit, because it flies...at least Vanessa can double without a steel weapon, Jill doesn't even have this luxury and BEXP in RD is non existant before 1-6-2 is completed, hell Jill has one thing over Vanessa, canto after attacking and growing some defense in the very long run, sorry 2 things, she doesn't die in 1 arrow in the whole game).

It was difficult to get a good quote for the last part because your sentence went on for a lot longer than it should have. In any case, growths do matter, but everything else matters too. A unit with a poor start due to bad bases has to make up for this somehow to become a good unit. Jill isn't a perfect example, but she'll do in this instance. She does not start with great bases compared to some units, but investing in her pays off in a big way. She can solo a handful of chapters (3-6, 3-12, and she can do a lot of work in some of the endgame chapters) where no other unit can. It's just that often units with really poor bases are not as lucky as Jill. In Fates there aren't any units that have awful bases that clear chapters much more efficiently than units with good bases do. It doesn't help that those units generally have growths that help them keep up for the entire game too.

Quote

On topic, what does Kaze do that no one else can do (maybe can do better than him?)? If you give me an acceptable answer, he'll bump one or 2 tiers in my personal tier list

I've talked about this before, but why does it matter if Kaze does something worse than another unit? I've explained it before, but maybe an example could work. Suppose we got another unit almost exactly like Camilla (we're going to assume that they join at the same time too) except their defense was one point higher at base. Would you then put Camilla 2 tiers below because there's another unit that's strictly better than her?

Edited June 22, 2020 by samthedigital

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Are we really doing that AGAIN?

Bronze give +10 crit avoid, as a berserker it negates all of Arthur's negative crit avoid, but why would you use it on a berserker is beyond me: as a fighter, though, Arthur has good strength, axes hit hard and he has a good skill growth. Once he can hit you can give him better weapons, maybe even gamble. And Arthur's best class is cavalier, because if he looses some speed (1 point + 5% growth), at least it gives him a luck growth, access to visit points naginatas, elbow room, shelter, and his son can inherit elbow room or shelter instead of a skill he has natural access to. Also, once you've gotten Percy, you have 2 options: either you use both in tandem, each one buffing the other/weakening the ennemies, or you can just bench Arthur if you don't like him. It's not like you have to use Arthur and Effie in tandem to get the earliest Percy, so you can put Effie on Arthur's back for him to have 1 def less than her at base, 3 or 4 base speed over her and 6 or 7 HP, so that even if he takes a crit (a 1% chance crit), he won't die that easily, and as opposed to Effie, Arthur doesn't fall to 0 (even -1 if that was allowed like in Genealogy of the Holy War) when he's under seal speed.

Why in the name of Arceus would I use Arthur that long? Also, high growths don't mean much when you cannot be relied on to kill enemies and thus level up. He ties with Effie and Silas in terms of offense when they're all using iron weapons, but since he needs bronze, he winds up worse off in practice. Mentioning Percy assumes that I'm generous enough to use him long enough for him to S support someone. All this being said, the only thing Arthur is good for is being a backpack.

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Unless we play a different game, most units without a DLC class don't ORKO much at all before long (except Niles with mages and a fast AND powerful Corrin vs onis, hint Corrin is often one but rarely both fast and powerful without a dedicated backpack, which means you waste an unit slot just to have one unit perform well). It's the same as Radiant Dawn, most units take a long while to even get to the point where they can function by themselves and ORKO. That's the main reason why Camilla is so high up: she's almost the only one who can ORKO most unpromoted ennemies from the get go. Peri with her personal is comparble offense-wise to...to? She has nearly the same offensive stats as no Darting blow Reina, and she has 9 or 10 levels left before promotion, + promotion bonuses, + insane strength, passable skill, good speed (at least she can easily outclass Silas unless he's already 20/1 AND speed blessed), her personal is only icing on the cake. What you're telling us is that you'd rather have an unit not kill and not do anything meaningful rather than having a second Camilla in training. Same as cavalier Arthur, she can grab the visit points naginatas, and she can use guard naginata AT BASE, bumping her defensive stats higher than Silas, her res becoming better than Silas' with VoF. All this while retaining a better speed than him for the whole game, ensuring she can grow into a good ORKO unit in a few levels.

*honest but hysterical laughter* Do you earnestly think Mozu is comparable to Camilla? Because this is comparing a turkey to a peacock.

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Her bases are crap, Odin's base are crap, Nyx's bases are crap, half the cast is crap at base, only half the cast starts 5-10 levels higher and has much less time to grow than she has and gains much less exp than she does. Now can we end this please? You don't like growth units, I think it's clear, and I won't go into a 3 pages argument over that. All I say is she's one of the few units who only require some exp to bench 60% of the cast if not more as an ORKO machine while not being a glass cannon. How many units can do that? Not many without using like 10 different ressources just to enable them. Mozu only asks for a little exp at the point in the game where you've got mostly crappy offensive units, where Effie can't OHKO anything yet and before some good level ups and get doubled by half the Hoshidan generics until her speed growth finally wants to be nice. Mozu has 1 or 2 speed over Effie with a 5 level disadvantage, at the same level she has about a 5 points lead, and it only gets wider as she gains levels because her growth is higher than Effie's.

Could you please not put words in my mouth? Anyway, @samthedigital stated it above, but while growths are important, so is everything else. If a unit has a bad start for whatever reason, they need something to make up for that to be a good unit. Like Astrid in Path of Radiance, for example. She starts at level 1, but has Paragon to catch up quickly. Fates doesn't have units with awful bases that manage to be good investments anyway.

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

I was comparing PoR's piss easy difficulty to Fates. In PoR, anyone can be a killing machine with little investment just because BEXP is stupid OP and ennemies have 0-3 speed for the first 7 chapters of the game with a few exceptions. Fates is quite the opposite with decently fast ennemies, pair up and attack stance spamming, all the bullshit level design/gameplay design IS put to work.

Doesn't change the fact that Path of Radiance has nothing to do with Fates.

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Map/level design has to do with the topic, because a unit like Kaze suffers from this, while Jakob is one of the units who helps you defeat it. The differences are: damage output, skills, utility, worth of a heart seal on said unit, room for improvement. If Kaze needs a forge, a pair up and tonics to kill anything tankier than a mage, then his combat prowess is bad, and his utility is very limited, the only things he can do that Jakob can't are lockpicking and poison strike. Jakob hits hard enough if reclassed that poison strike is unnecessary for him and poison strike doesn't kill. Jakob asks for 1 ressource, everything else is just overwhelmingly OP on him. Kaze asks for several ressources and even then he's outdone by several units. Because he can't facetank except mages, because his damage is through the ground, because he joins just before ch 12 starts with a base level comparable to my most used units in the middle of ch 9 (2.5 chapters earlier, 3 bosses earlier, 2 if you don't count Takumi because he's not a guaranteed kill). Anyone you've used can beat Kaze with ease, and Niles is all you need to kill mages, has more movement, more utility, 1-2 bow not long after Kaze is recruited, can get 9 movement with a 1-2 bow, hits much harder with a bow (magical or physical) than Kaze with any shuriken...the list goes on.

Far as I'm concerned, it is immaterial. If you want to talk about units that suffer from map design, I'd look at Arden or Wendy.

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Setsuna beats Kaze because her offense even with a mediocre strength is 50% more than Kaze and that's with an iron yumi. She also starts with 8 strength at level 3, while he starts with 5 or 6 strength, D shurikens, and only has 5% growth over her in their base class. Setsuna gains quick draw and suddenly she deals 2x more damage than Kaze on a physical ennemy, meaning that if she fails to double, she hits as hard as Kaze if not harder due to def being applied once instead of 2, while if she doubles she kills unless it's a knight/great knight or an ubber ennemy. She can miss 1 of 2 attacks and still outdamage Kaze. If you give Kaze a tonic or pair up, you must give the same treatment to Setsuna, in this case she owns him even more. Also archers are much better attack stance bots than a weak ninja who struggles dealing damage by himself, which means that the damage penalty for being an attack stance bot relegates him to dealing around 0 damage. And shuriken don't deal 3x damage on the most mobile, fast and annoying ennemy type: pegasi/falcons/kinshis, Niles has been sniping them in ch10 one and a half chapter before Kaze even joins. Kaze can barely deal 5-6 damage to a wyvern if he's not 10 levels ahead, and they have close to 30 HP as soon as the boat map in BR. Sniper gives 10 hit, 10 crit vs 5 everything that master ninja half-assed gives, and Kaze should go mechanist instead for actual base strength, def, HP and movement. And bows to save his non existent damage with shuriken.

False. She has poor bases and growths nearly everywhere, which is NOT a good thing. Fun fact; she loses to Kaze across the board in the important stats in terms of growths. So why the hell would I use her over Kaze, knowing Takumi comes not long after??? And no shit Sherlock, Kaze is going to struggle to damage a wyvern with shuriken; he's facing WTD. In any instance, if I have to babysit Setsuna all the way to Sniper before she can pull her weight, doesn't that only prove she sucks?

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Archers have 2 range, mages have 2 range, bows have good hit, snipers make up for yumi accuracy, when you draw an ennemy you put your unit at the good range position with the weapon that allows the best performance. Archers can draw and counter mages. End of argument. To kill a mage, Takumi needs 1 hit, Setsuna somewhere between 1 and 2 depending on her strength and the weapon she uses. Kaze needs 2 full hits, no pair up/tonic can change that.

And once again, they have WTD. How hard you can hit means fuck all if you don't hit. Also, fun fact: most yumi have 70 hit or less. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in going against the weapon triangle. Unless you have a crapload of skill, I wouldn't be surprised to see a mage survive an archer because the archer whiffed. Besides, odds are Takumi or Setsuna would not be coming out unscathed, as they have crap resistance. So why would I have them engage mages instead of Kaze, who, last I checked, is in a class tailor-made to wreck mages?

 

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

E bows aren't a problem though: 7 MT is the power of a steel shuriken, but also the power of a bronze yumi, and a bronze bow has 6 but 10 more hit than the bronze yumi. Bronze bows deal 18 damage to flyers, bronze yumis deal 21, steel shuriken deal 7. I don't see how E bows could be worse than C shuriken. Shuriken are annoying in the hands of ennemies, they're absolute garbage in the hands of anyone not called Saizo/Kagero or dread fighter (but DF is bullshit in itself and makes any physical unit OP because of base stats). +1 bronze yumi has 9 MT, 27 against flyers, bronze bow +1 has 8 MT, 24 against flyers. I could go on but you should have already understood my point by now.

Because this game frequently throws all-flier maps at you, right? Oh wait, no it doesn't.

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Do you really think that I'm including magic units in that? also I could even include them, since when they reach C rank they can use flame shuriken/Felicia's plate and outdamage Kaze, which is kind of ridiculous and helps my point. He's outdone by a magic unit with a little investment in his best class, so...

So you ate your own words. Which pretty much goes to show your point doesn't have a leg to stand on.

8 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

If we want to use skill buying as an argument, there are 20x more skills buyable everywhere for Jakob than for Kaze, so even abusing a busted element of the game still favors Jakob and it's much easier to find a Jakob with several damage or support skills than to find something else than poison strike, lethality or golembane for Kaze. Even being so popular, Kaze still lacks skill builds in MyCastle environment.

Most discussions don't assume skill buying for reasons I would hope are obvious.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

I said Jakob, on the assumption you start with F!Corrin. He can heal, debuff, deal damage, and provide Corrin a welcome stat boost. He's a top-tier unit on any route. That said, Kaze isn't as bad as you let on - he's ideal for handling Mages (1~2 range, WTA, high res), has high speed, offers extra movement and speed through pair-up, and can debuff. He's probably better than M!Corrin's Jakob, if only for reasons of availability. And shurikens are a good weapon type, so you can honestly use both units.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Typo

[Mars of Aritia]

poison strike > no poison strike for knife units.

if you are going C route (and R route too I guess) kaze should solo most of chapter 4 & 5 as MU should be overleved at this point & rinka will not be used after the split. Gives him a nice head start when he rejoins. (B route saizo & kagero are better)

and did everyone forget he can go mechanist instead of master ninja? bows are OP in this game and make up for his low strength and help with flier spam later, golembane helps a bit with the extremely annoying golems and by the time you get replicate the game likes making you split up your army. having debuffs, poison & spy shuriken for both sides is very helpful.

 

[tacticsfan999]

Note: I'm not a master at this game so these are my perspectives amenable to change and enlightenment.

Jakob is way more explosive early-mid game while Kaze has pretty good late game potential and is decent (but not great) right away. Still, Kaze can be made ridiculously powerful if you want. Elise = -5 Dmg. Haitaka = -4 Dmg. Beruka = +4~5 Def / guard. Tonic = +2 Def. Mess Hall = potentially +1 Def or so. Dracoshield (he's a reasonable choice for it) = +2 Def. Then add in +2 Speed (tonic) so he doubles virtually everything. Add in +2 Strength tonic for +4 damage and the +5 HP if you really need it. Forge him a +1 or +2 steel dagger. Do you see what I mean? Now the investments here have been: using Elise and Haitaka (not really an investment), Dracoshield (really this is optional though + it's a good use of it), tonics (pretty cheap especially for the return), mess hall (virtually free), a Beruka partner (except this is possibly the best choice for both units involved), +1~2 steel forge (4000~8000 gold), and a master seal later. So basically just the forge for a ninja that can 1-2 tank hordes of enemy units with basically no weaknesses. And they'll debuff everything if not kill half of it. So you can see that Kaze is crazy good. He's great for Beruka too. There's also the investment of deploying Beruka/Kaze (2 slots) but they're pretty great.

Jakob, on the other hand, is a powerhouse. Use +mag dragon Corrin and marry her with Jakob. Jakob goes paladin immediately, then malig knight, then wyvern lord once he has trample. The investment here is a heart seal and two partner seals, which is a lot, except he arguably makes the best use of those resources for how strong he is at base + how much he benefits. He has some issues with late game stats but he makes up for it with how much he helps by being a top tier unit for over half the game. I assume late game he's just sort of middling as a unit, like a player phase nuke. I could be wrong about that. You also get Dwyer and Kana with trample (if you want them). Another investment is going +mag dragon Corrin and marrying her to Paladin. How bad of an investment is this? Jakob is a great guard stance partner for Corrin, so he has a lot of use in that way. +Mag Dragon Corrin is actually one of the best so ultimately when you consider everything the investment involved is the first heart seal and the first two partner seals. Jakob himself costs a deployment slot which is well worth it. Admittedly these are hefty investments but Jakob makes such good use of them that it's a pretty good idea.

Which one is better? Neither in my opinion. They're incomparable without further details about what constitutes better. They don't really share the same role and there's nothing stopping a player from using both of them.

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by tacticsfan999