In Defense of Hybrid Units

[FashionEmblem]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd find bows much better than javelins and hand axes because the latter two are heavier, weaker, and less accurate than an iron bow, not to mention they can't replicate bows' anti-flier utility. Also, there's no way I can find the investment into reason or faith for physical units just to get access to the base magic stat of Warlock or Bishop to be even remotely worth it, as it doesn't help me at all due to the fact that whatever I'd use magic weapons for, mages can do better; therefore, your ideology makes even less sense than the Song of Storms paradox. It doesn't help that magic weapons lose durability even on missed attacks (which is also true of spells, but spells have higher accuracy, and reason prowess ranks boost hit primarily; as a result, mages are reliable in a way that magic weapon users wish they could be).

So, I never disputed that bows are better alternatives, just that I personally don't like equipping bows on everyone. I made it through Maddening several times without widely distributing bows, which means the alternatives for range are good enough, but that doesn't affect whether bows are still better.

"Ideology" implies I'm spreading some pretty strong ideas and strongly seeking conformity with them. My statements at the top:

On 5/21/2021 at 12:40 AM, FashionEmblem said:

the consensus opinion that it's more efficient to invest in specialized units is not something I disagree with. It often takes a lot of investment to pull off a good hybrid build and Fire Emblem generally favors specialized units that require less input or have a higher/more certain payoff for the same input.

don't particularly qualify me as an ideologue. I also already agreed with your earlier points about the gimmicky nature of hybrids, which we mutually acknowledged:

On 5/22/2021 at 12:28 PM, Shadow Mir said:

On 5/21/2021 at 4:50 PM, FashionEmblem said:

I am happy to agree to disagree. If I may be so bold as to summarize your points, I believe you consider hybrid units to be outclassed high-investment gimmicks. I do not disagree with that assessment, but do think you can overcome the investment hurdle thanks to the game's features (particularly NG+) and I just find the outclassed gimmicks to be fun. Also, even though an individual hybrid build may sacrifice power for utility, you also build an entire team and might be planning to build in that power elsewhere in your deployment slots to justify the sacrifice. My Dark Knight Sylvain was a worse killer than Wyvern Lord Seteth and a significantly worse healer than Gremory Mercedes, but it was nice filling a single deployment slot with someone who could alternate between both roles as dictated by the tempo of battle.

That's precisely it. I find this to be a needless extravagance and a massive waste of time and investment that I could have spent investing in stuff that was actually worth investing in. And for what? For my physical units to do nothing that my dedicated mages couldn't already do? I'd be better going all in on physical with someone like Byleth than having them try to fulfill some half-assed magic knight role terribly.

So, you don't have to agree with me here and I am not trying to push an ideology onto you. You highly value the investment it takes to get these builds off the ground, making them not a worthwhile pursuit. And, for the most part, that investment makes it difficult to achieve them outside of NG+, which is something I have also acknowledged since starting this thread,

Regarding how "sensical" my argument may be, I think the pros and cons have been laid out already about the general points, and at this point it's a matter of evaluating the net benefit. However, that does not mean there is a solitary acceptable "sensical" conclusion since any evaluation will be affected by your underlying value judgements. I mentioned it already, and I would not have made this thread otherwise, but even if they are considered "gimmicks" or "extravagant" I enjoy these builds, so I do value them despite the investment hurdle. You are, of course, welcome to disagree.

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Looking at end-of-game stats doesn't tell the whole story, needless to say. Also, I'd say Annette's reliability drops like a rock the moment she ditches her spells for axes due to the fact that the Bolt Axe and Crusher (which I see quite a bit of Wyvern Annette hype center around) are -30/-40 hit relative to her spells. That heavily reeks of the putrid stench of "losing trade", especially since most flying battalions don't give magic attack.

While it is true that the stat destination does not equate to the journey, for that to be relevant to her hit stat there would have to be a point when Annette discretely shoots up in Dexterity/Luck while the other characters don't experience a similar increase in Dexterity. If that moment happens later in the game, then there is a gap where her hit stats are notably shakier before eventually catching up. However, assuming similar class progressions serves as an experimental control, as it fixes class growths and stat boosts, reducing the chance of such a divergence after everyone is on a Wyvern. One could occur if Annette got a Dexterity/Luck base stat boost with the Wyvern Lord promotion at level 30 which other characters miss out on, but the Wyvern Lord has rather low base Dexterity and Luck which Annette will, on average, exceed before level 20, let alone level 30. The other possibility is just RNG one may experience, but I was just talking about average stats here.

And yes, Annette gives up accuracy in exchange for power when going from spells to axes. That's pretty much the nature of the game; more power comes at the expense of accuracy in general. I'll consider her strongest spell, Excalibur which has 11 MT, relative to Bolt Axe 14 MT and Crusher 18 MT. For this section I will assume Dark Flier Annette vs. Wyvern Annette, so both attacks are supported by a class -faire and both units enjoy flier mobility and similar battalion access. At 100 hit, Excalibur does have 40 more hit relative to these axes, and the power differential isn't very high for Bolt Axe, but sizeable for Crusher. However, there are ways to mix up this trade-off. I can use the Smash combat art with the Bolt Axe or Crusher, with the resulting hit differential reduced to 20, and the MT differential increased by 3, both in favor of the axes, though now I'm stuck attacking in melee. I can use the Dust combat art with Crusher, resulting in no change to hit, but now a staggering 20 additional MT on Crusher.

There are also a couple of things I can do that boost hit on both attacks but are more valuable in patching up the weaker hit of axes than getting overkill accuracy on her spells: Hit +20 and Accuracy Ring (+10 hit), which together close/almost close the accuracy gap with her spells. Hit +20 is a bit of a diversion into D+ Bows with a bow bane, but if you highly value hit, then the reward seems worth it. And before countering that the same accuracy is achieved by spells without the investment in bows, consider that you can have both the power of axes alongside hit comparable to spells. It's also worth noting that while the Accuracy Ring can be applied to Annette's black magic as easily as axes, she also likes having Caduceus/Thyrsus equipped for range and can't do both simultaneously. Meanwhile, the Bolt Axe+ is always 1–3 range. Moreover, even though Excalibur has a small power differential with the Bolt Axe, you can only use it 4 times per map. After that you're stuck using spells that are generally much weaker. Abraxas might be an option that has 90 hit and is stronger at 14 MT matching the Bolt Axe, but there's an implicit 5 MT differential due to generally lacking a class -faire and if you don't equip Faith Prowess alongside Reason Prowess, the hit advantage drops from +30 to +10 relative to an equipped Axe Prowess. You can, of course, get access to more of Excalibur with Warlock and Gremory, but then you are sacrificing a lot of mobility for the privilege. Annette also has a lot of utility as a rally bot, and she really appreciates as much mobility as she can get for that.

Finally, if you really value accuracy, then I don't think I'm going to convince you otherwise because Annette has a very accurate spell list and axes are inherently inaccurate. I already explicitly laid out my risk tolerance, which is that anything above 70% displayed hit is generally worth taking a swing. 70% is quite low for a game with perma-death, but it's really the Divine Pulse feature that encourages that level of gambling. Beyond that, I will usually value more power. With Annette, in particular, I find her black magic power underwhelming beyond 4 uses of Excalibur, so I would rather get more spammable power from axes. I prefer a KO at 70+% accuracy from Wyvern Annette than consistent chip damage from a mage Annette.

Edited May 29, 2021 by FashionEmblem

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/29/2021 at 9:57 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

None of the skills need to go past A, though, which is a big deal. I frequently make builds that include S rank skills (Black Range+1, Bow Crit+10, etc.), which is pretty much equivalent to getting two A ranks by itself. Some players even manage to get Weaponfaire2 in no-grind runs, which is pretty close to 3 A ranks!

Additionally, depending on your available training opportunities, Dark Knight Sylvain is easily a build which can afford to shortchange certain skills. Getting Ragnarok is nice, but not necessary, and without it you can stop your Reason training at C/C+ or so. Seraphim is nice, but not necessary (and you'll likely build to it naturally if you use Physic often). And if you're playing on Crimson Flower, which is the route most starved for training, this build is an excellent candidate for the C-rank Supreme Armoured Corps allowing you to shortchange his Authority.

Past that, all I can say is that the proof is in the pudding: I've done this build multiple times on Maddening and I never felt like I needed to starve my other units or train Sylvain every week to pull it off, and I don't even do non-quest aux fights.

The thing is, I generally am rather jaded when it comes to mixed builds, because in practice, they are more likely to end up being a Master of None, at which point I question their use. Which begs the question, why in the seven hells should I consider Dark Knight Sylvain an improvement??? Because it ain't one, far as I'm concerned. That being said, I have no issue with incorporating S rank skills in builds... for mages, that is (10 crit for a specific weapon type is hardly worth calling a reward).

On 5/29/2021 at 2:04 PM, FashionEmblem said:

So, I never disputed that bows are better alternatives, just that I personally don't like equipping bows on everyone. I made it through Maddening several times without widely distributing bows, which means the alternatives for range are good enough, but that doesn't affect whether bows are still better.

"Ideology" implies I'm spreading some pretty strong ideas and strongly seeking conformity with them. My statements at the top:

On 5/20/2021 at 11:40 PM, FashionEmblem said:

the consensus opinion that it's more efficient to invest in specialized units is not something I disagree with. It often takes a lot of investment to pull off a good hybrid build and Fire Emblem generally favors specialized units that require less input or have a higher/more certain payoff for the same input.

don't particularly qualify me as an ideologue. I also already agreed with your earlier points about the gimmicky nature of hybrids, which we mutually acknowledged:

On 5/22/2021 at 11:28 AM, Shadow Mir said:

On 5/21/2021 at 3:50 PM, FashionEmblem said:

I am happy to agree to disagree. If I may be so bold as to summarize your points, I believe you consider hybrid units to be outclassed high-investment gimmicks. I do not disagree with that assessment, but do think you can overcome the investment hurdle thanks to the game's features (particularly NG+) and I just find the outclassed gimmicks to be fun. Also, even though an individual hybrid build may sacrifice power for utility, you also build an entire team and might be planning to build in that power elsewhere in your deployment slots to justify the sacrifice. My Dark Knight Sylvain was a worse killer than Wyvern Lord Seteth and a significantly worse healer than Gremory Mercedes, but it was nice filling a single deployment slot with someone who could alternate between both roles as dictated by the tempo of battle.

That's precisely it. I find this to be a needless extravagance and a massive waste of time and investment that I could have spent investing in stuff that was actually worth investing in. And for what? For my physical units to do nothing that my dedicated mages couldn't already do? I'd be better going all in on physical with someone like Byleth than having them try to fulfill some half-assed magic knight role terribly.

So, you don't have to agree with me here and I am not trying to push an ideology onto you. You highly value the investment it takes to get these builds off the ground, making them not a worthwhile pursuit. And, for the most part, that investment makes it difficult to achieve them outside of NG+, which is something I have also acknowledged since starting this thread,

Regarding how "sensical" my argument may be, I think the pros and cons have been laid out already about the general points, and at this point it's a matter of evaluating the net benefit. However, that does not mean there is a solitary acceptable "sensical" conclusion since any evaluation will be affected by your underlying value judgements. I mentioned it already, and I would not have made this thread otherwise, but even if they are considered "gimmicks" or "extravagant" I enjoy these builds, so I do value them despite the investment hurdle. You are, of course, welcome to disagree.

OK, so my wording was not the best, but that was the first word I could come up with to describe your point of view, though I see now it didn't quite fit. Maybe "perspective" would've fit better.

On 5/29/2021 at 2:04 PM, FashionEmblem said:

While it is true that the stat destination does not equate to the journey, for that to be relevant to her hit stat there would have to be a point when Annette discretely shoots up in Dexterity/Luck while the other characters don't experience a similar increase in Dexterity. If that moment happens later in the game, then there is a gap where her hit stats are notably shakier before eventually catching up. However, assuming similar class progressions serves as an experimental control, as it fixes class growths and stat boosts, reducing the chance of such a divergence after everyone is on a Wyvern. One could occur if Annette got a Dexterity/Luck base stat boost with the Wyvern Lord promotion at level 30 which other characters miss out on, but the Wyvern Lord has rather low base Dexterity and Luck which Annette will, on average, exceed before level 20, let alone level 30. The other possibility is just RNG one may experience, but I was just talking about average stats here.

And yes, Annette gives up accuracy in exchange for power when going from spells to axes. That's pretty much the nature of the game; more power comes at the expense of accuracy in general. I'll consider her strongest spell, Excalibur which has 11 MT, relative to Bolt Axe 14 MT and Crusher 18 MT. For this section I will assume Dark Flier Annette vs. Wyvern Annette, so both attacks are supported by a class -faire and both units enjoy flier mobility and similar battalion access. At 100 hit, Excalibur does have 40 more hit relative to these axes, and the power differential isn't very high for Bolt Axe, but sizeable for Crusher. However, there are ways to mix up this trade-off. I can use the Smash combat art with the Bolt Axe or Crusher, with the resulting hit differential reduced to 20, and the MT differential increased by 3, both in favor of the axes, though now I'm stuck attacking in melee. I can use the Dust combat art with Crusher, resulting in no change to hit, but now a staggering 20 additional MT on Crusher.

There are also a couple of things I can do that boost hit on both attacks but are more valuable in patching up the weaker hit of axes than getting overkill accuracy on her spells: Hit +20 and Accuracy Ring (+10 hit), which together close/almost close the accuracy gap with her spells. Hit +20 is a bit of a diversion into D+ Bows with a bow bane, but if you highly value hit, then the reward seems worth it. And before countering that the same accuracy is achieved by spells without the investment in bows, consider that you can have both the power of axes alongside hit comparable to spells. It's also worth noting that while the Accuracy Ring can be applied to Annette's black magic as easily as axes, she also likes having Caduceus/Thyrsus equipped for range and can't do both simultaneously. Meanwhile, the Bolt Axe+ is always 1–3 range. Moreover, even though Excalibur has a small power differential with the Bolt Axe, you can only use it 4 times per map. After that you're stuck using spells that are generally much weaker. Abraxas might be an option that has 90 hit and is stronger at 14 MT matching the Bolt Axe, but there's an implicit 5 MT differential due to generally lacking a class -faire and if you don't equip Faith Prowess alongside Reason Prowess, the hit advantage drops from +30 to +10 relative to an equipped Axe Prowess. You can, of course, get access to more of Excalibur with Warlock and Gremory, but then you are sacrificing a lot of mobility for the privilege. Annette also has a lot of utility as a rally bot, and she really appreciates as much mobility as she can get for that.

Finally, if you really value accuracy, then I don't think I'm going to convince you otherwise because Annette has a very accurate spell list and axes are inherently inaccurate. I already explicitly laid out my risk tolerance, which is that anything above 70% displayed hit is generally worth taking a swing. 70% is quite low for a game with perma-death, but it's really the Divine Pulse feature that encourages that level of gambling. Beyond that, I will usually value more power. With Annette, in particular, I find her black magic power underwhelming beyond 4 uses of Excalibur, so I would rather get more spammable power from axes. I prefer a KO at 70+% accuracy from Wyvern Annette than consistent chip damage from a mage Annette.

The way I see it, the quality of the build is not enough to justify the extra hoops I have to jump through. The accuracy is not unfixable, yes, but honestly, I'd consider a mage Annette that can actually use a magic attack boosting battalion with no issue ten billion percent more practical than using Wyvern Annette and having to make hard choices on the battalion front (it helps that as a mage, she doesn't need to rely on weapons that are expensive to repair, which both the Crusher [2500 gold] and Bolt Axe [2440 gold for forged, counting the Arcane Crystals' cost] are). Anyway, even with Divine Pulse, I'd consider 70% around the threshold where I'd best have a back up plan before committing, and would likely abstain altogether if there was a chance where I'd lose my unit if things went wrong (something that wouldn't exactly be unlikely if she's using the Crusher, thanks to it being a heavy melee locked weapon and her having low strength and defense - two things that don't mix). RE: rallies, I'm of the mind that that're at their most useful around the earlygame, due to everyone having 4 move. Long story short, Wyvern Annette requires too much sacrifices and isn't good enough to justify those sacrifices imho.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The thing is, I generally am rather jaded when it comes to mixed builds, because in practice, they are more likely to end up being a Master of None, at which point I question their use. Which begs the question, why in the seven hells should I consider Dark Knight Sylvain an improvement??? Because it ain't one, far as I'm concerned. That being said, I have no issue with incorporating S rank skills in builds... for mages, that is (10 crit for a specific weapon type is hardly worth calling a reward).

10 crit is mostly useful if your build is all about crit, e.g. Bow Crit +10 on a Sniper with Hunter's Volley, Killer Bow, Fraldarius Soldiers, Critical Ring. If you're not optimizing for crit then yeah obviously it's trash.

Dark Knight Sylvain is obviously a sidegrade compared to Paladin (the easiest direct comparison) but it does offer quite a lot of perks. How valuable those are depend on the team, but I've always been quite happy with the results. *shrug*

[Barren]

Honestly, it really all comes down to if you're willing to measure the procs and cons of a hybrid unit. For me on my blue lions maddening run right now, I already am trying Yuri as a Mortal Savant since his speed growth is still quite high, Yes the -10% is a hinderance for sure due the fact that he was a Swordmaster for me for a while. But his reason spell list at least compliments his high speed growth since wind magic is very light in terms of weight. His reason list is exactly the same as Annette's and his magic growth isn't as high as hers, but he's way faster so he could still reliably double warriors, snipers, and paladins with those spells and still do a nice chunk of damage thanks to black tomefaire. The one thing that is troubling me is that his speed dropped from 38 to 35 but his magic, defense, res and luck went up by a point or two in return. I do have speed boosters to help compensate but it is for sure a tough sacrifice. As an offbeat option I'm going to try to give him weight -3 since he'll be waving around a levin sword+ and subtracting the equipment weight could indirectly increase his attack speed when using a sword or tome.

Is it the best class for him? Probably not, Assassin or Sniper pending on how train him are far better options since even early on you muscle through his axe bane to get death blow and maybe even snag hit +20 just so he's accurate and hits hard. He has a boon in authority so this obviously increases the flexibility of his options. I'm even trying out Holy Knight Bernadetta for Physic and Rescue. Again, not her best class by any stretch but this can carve out a niche she posses. Her being able to heal from afar and help bring allies back to safety is a unique combo. She'll need stat boosters for her magic but she can still use vengeance if need be too. Wyvern Lord Annette is no different from any of those off beat options since you're more focused on her axe boon rather than her reason boon. I guess my reasoning for WL Annette is that Lightning Axe with Axefaire hits way harder than any of her spells. Maybe Excalibur is good but it's only really effective against fliers and there is no way she's doubling wyvern riders or falcon knights at all. Plus falcon knights are quite resilient to magic too. Yuri may have similar issues with his spell kit like Annette but he should still be able to at least double wyvern riders with Excalibur or using a levin sword with axebreaker equipped since he's way faster.

[Shadow Mir]

On 5/31/2021 at 10:25 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Dark Knight Sylvain is obviously a sidegrade compared to Paladin (the easiest direct comparison) but it does offer quite a lot of perks. How valuable those are depend on the team, but I've always been quite happy with the results. *shrug*

The thing is, unless you seriously neglected to invest in mages and healers, odds are whatever ones you had would make him look like a fucking joke the moment he tries to do anything magical. So I don't see the value - or the point - when the effort to get there far outstrips Dark Knight Sylvain's utility.=/

Edited June 2, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The thing is, unless you seriously neglected to invest in mages and healers, odds are whatever ones you had would make him look like a fucking joke the moment he tries to do anything magical. So I don't see the value - or the point - when the effort to get there far outstrips Dark Knight Sylvain's utility.=/

Sylvain's magic stat is more than good enough for Physic, which has incredible range even off the Warlock/Dark Knight minimum and healing almost ignores your magic stat.

Sylvain's magic stat is more than good enough for Seraphim, which has the utility of breaking monster barriers from long range (the Blessed Bow can do this too, but there's only one of those).

Otherwise, of course other mages will deal more magic damage than him. That's a given. But Sylvain will likely outdamage many of them with his physical game - Swift Strikes with either Lance of Ruin or Spear of Assal still puts in darn good work even when not fully optimized. Sylvain will also be faster and more durable than pretty much any other mage even if he's not making use of Black Magic Avo+20.

And once again I'm not sure why you think this is a particularly high-effort build.