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Are there any games or situations where growth units are better than base-high or prepromote units?


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On 6/15/2021 at 11:39 AM, vanguard333 said:

Minerva in Shadow Dragon: I find her character interesting (as interesting as a character in Shadow Dragon can get), but, while she isn't anywhere close to the worst promoted unit in Shadow Dragon, the game isn't really friendly to using promoted units in my experience.

We all know that, generally speaking, pre-promotes with their high base stats are generally more recommended than growth units, due to the guarrantees they have in the stats (at least in the short term), weapon levels, or even just their weapons/skills and getting their jobs done. But are there games (or even parts of games or even comparing certain units appearing around the same time) where it's the other way around? Bascially wanted to ask this question after reading the above.

Edited by henrymidfields
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Heroes is one of those games where, really, the meat of the content is geared around everyone being max-level. As a little nod to the main series, a few Jagen-style 'Veteran' units have slightly stronger stats at level 1 and weaker at max level, and 'Recruits' vice-versa. And level 1 content is a complete irrelevance.

It's been a long time since they've actually used the Veteran modifier, but I think they still use Recruits from time to time to give some units a little boost.

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Shadow Dragon I'd wager. Shiida is well regarded as the best unit in the game, though mostly because of the Wingspear, but in general she does have quite good growths. Wolf and Sedgar too are highly regarded for their ridiculously high growths. Meanwhile no one really raves about late game units or prepromotes like Lorenz or Arran. Most of the best units in the game are the ones obtained in the first ten chapters. Even Tiki, one of the dedicated killers of Medeus, while gained late, has pretty low bases and takes a few levels of careful use before she becomes a juggernaut.

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1 hour ago, squirrelhero said:

Three Houses is all growth units basically. Unless you opt to not use your house, Solo Byleth/Lord, and late recruit everyone else.

Even when using units from other houses, the object is always to recruit them fast rather than leave them to autolevel. As gaining the desired class masteries is a large part of the game. And that's also precisely why late game units with statistically impressive bases, like Seteth, still aren't considered that great.

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1 hour ago, squirrelhero said:

Three Houses is all growth units basically. Unless you opt to not use your house, Solo Byleth/Lord, and late recruit everyone else.

Three Houses only has two units who can reasonably be considered prepromos (Catherine and Shamir) and they are certainly both good. But yeah it doesn't have the same dichotomy of growths vs bases as some other games.

In general I don't think it's possible for units with good bases to truly be bad. At worst they will be useful for a while, then you will bench them - Shadow Dragon's Jagen or New Mystery's Arran for instance. How good units with bad bases and good growths are varies a lot by the game, how bad the bases are, and how good the potential is / how hard it is to replicate with other units.

On reflection I think Shadow Dragon comes the closest to the growth units being better, though... when I instinctively think of good units, I think of ones who join at or below party level in that game (Caeda, Cain, Abel, etc.), something that isn't true for most others. Even New Mystery has Sirius and Palla who join above party level and are truly excellent. SD's "bases over growths" unit top out at merely "useful, but not the best", like Jagen and Wendell, at least IMO.

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15 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Three Houses only has two units who can reasonably be considered prepromos (Catherine and Shamir) and they are certainly both good. But yeah it doesn't have the same dichotomy of growths vs bases as some other games.

You mean prepromotes in the get them promoted in the early game, right? Because Seteth and Gilbert would absolutely be prepromotes too if it;s just a unit that comes with a promoted class and basis.

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I'm gonna say Awakening. Since the optimal way to play is to just funnel EXP into a handful of units. So their bases matter somewhat, but higher growths mean they reach "bulldozing" potential sooner. Robin dominates due to their growths (and skills, and class set), rather than to bases.

That said, it's not infinite. Donnel has the best growths in the game (accounting for Aptitude), and he's still a trash unit, owing to awful bases and a limited class set. And Frederick is useful early on (as the game's "Jagen"), even if he doesn't "keep up" quite so easily.

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32 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I'm gonna say Awakening. Since the optimal way to play is to just funnel EXP into a handful of units. So their bases matter somewhat, but higher growths mean they reach "bulldozing" potential sooner. Robin dominates due to their growths (and skills, and class set), rather than to bases.

That said, it's not infinite. Donnel has the best growths in the game (accounting for Aptitude), and he's still a trash unit, owing to awful bases and a limited class set. And Frederick is useful early on (as the game's "Jagen"), even if he doesn't "keep up" quite so easily.

Can't the underlined apply to other games as well?

Anyway, I agree that Shadow Dragon is probably the biggest example of a game where growth units are better.

2 hours ago, squirrelhero said:

Three Houses is all growth units basically. Unless you opt to not use your house, Solo Byleth/Lord, and late recruit everyone else.

I'd have to agree that would not be optimal in terms of recruitment strategy. It's why the likes of Gilbert cannot compare well against most other units you've trained up to that point.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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I have to say, getting a notification that someone quoted me in a topic I had never heard of was a weird experience.

Also, I've never heard the idea that pre-promotes are generally better than growth units. I always figured that it's more complicated than that and that it's more down to how viable each individual unit is, so I never really considered "pre-promotes vs growth units".

To answer your question, Shadow Dragon is definitely a game that largely favours growth units over pre-promotes. The only two pre-promotes that I ever see anyone recommend are Wolf and Sedgar due to their extremely high growths. The units I usually see recommended the most are ones like Caeda, Ogma, Barst, etc.: units with high growths.

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So far I think the thread has covered most of them. Heroes is without any debate. Awakening is very clearly geared towards growth units, with Fredrick being the only prepromote anyone would even think about, and the Robin family snowballing that game takes center stage. Three houses is in a very similar boat, there are notable prepromotes like Catherine, but growing up the students takes center stage. Shadow Dragon is less clear than the others so far, with Wendell, Jagen, and Minerva as solid early game prepromotes (note Wolf and Sedgar are clearly growth units despite being "prepromoted"), but there are a lot of big names in that game which are growth units.

Time to suggest a few that are on the fence for me, but if Shadwo Dragon makes the cut then they might as well.

First Binding Blade, a lot of the biggest names of that game are growth units (I mean if Ceade is carrying Shadow Dragon into this sphere, why can't Rutger carry Binding Blade into it), and the early prepromotes fall off early, although whenever one falls off they give you a new one that can take their place. Things are also muddied by the quality of units being spread out, with plenty of good and terrible growth and prepromote units spread amongst the cast.

New Mystery has an entire tier dedicated to barely usable prepromotes that come with some free silver weapons. Again the big names of that game are a bit of a mix between prepromotes and growth units, making which takes prominence unclear.

 

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4 hours ago, Jotari said:

You mean prepromotes in the get them promoted in the early game, right? Because Seteth and Gilbert would absolutely be prepromotes too if it;s just a unit that comes with a promoted class and basis.

Yeah.

You're right that technically any unit who is promoted is a "prepromo" but I find in practice I mostly use the term to refer to someone who is promoted before most other units. Such units stand out because they have a "too good" class for the time, high bases for the time, or save you a valuable resource (e.g. Echidna is not necessarily your first Hero, but using her as opposed to early-promoted Dieck/Oujay saves you a Hero Crest which is limited that early). By contrast units who join when any reasonable player would be using entirely promoted units doesn't stand out in this way so there isn't really a need for the special label.

Or, to illustrate my point, using the literal definition of prepromo, you start Parts 2 and 3 of Radiant Dawn using entirely prepromos. At that point I kinda feel the term has lost its useful meaning. But language is arbitrary so I'm not gonna object to people defining the term differently, as long as it's clear what we mean. (It usually is, from context.)

20 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Awakening is very clearly geared towards growth units, with Fredrick being the only prepromote anyone would even think about, and the Robin family snowballing that game takes center stage

While they're obviously not Robin or Frederick good, I do like the other prepromos in Awakening, particularly Libra and Anna who offer very competent staff use (and in Anna's case, thief utility and even combat with Levin Sword) compared to Maribelle and Lissa. YMMV.

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7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

In general I don't think it's possible for units with good bases to truly be bad. At worst they will be useful for a while, then you will bench them - Shadow Dragon's Jagen or New Mystery's Arran for instance. How good units with bad bases and good growths are varies a lot by the game, how bad the bases are, and how good the potential is / how hard it is to replicate with other units.

On reflection I think Shadow Dragon comes the closest to the growth units being better, though... when I instinctively think of good units, I think of ones who join at or below party level in that game (Caeda, Cain, Abel, etc.), something that isn't true for most others. Even New Mystery has Sirius and Palla who join above party level and are truly excellent. SD's "bases over growths" unit top out at merely "useful, but not the best", like Jagen and Wendell, at least IMO.

I feel like counting New Mystery Palla as a pre-promote isn't really accurate. She's more like Nolan given she starts stronger than the rest of the party but still within the general level curve, while also having growths on par with everyone else. I'd also say that New Mystery favors growth units more than you give it credit for. First, the offensive growths in that game are ridiculously high. Second, deployment limits are so small and you get so many good units early (Kris, 7th Platoon, Catria, Palla, Linde, Caeda) that there isn't a need for pre-promotes to fill out the ranks. Sirius and Minerva are the only ones I think are truly worth using, and Minerva is mostly because you need her for the endgame.

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Shadow Dragon, a growths game? Odd to hear that said. Growths I though were on the decline in that game, compared to the GBA-Tellius era before it. Are we sure it's "growth units are great", instead of "IS failed to improve prepromote stats to account for above-20 stat caps"? Isn't the -perhaps oversimplifying- SD meta "Warp + Forged Effective Weapons using characters"?

After SD, things have definitely become slanted in favor of growths, barring SoV you could say- where class matters most. Sirius can grow well and has to level to stay usable, how much does he really count as a prepromote, and how much is he but a growth unit with fewer levels to benefit from? On as low as Hard or even Normal, how long can Sirius seriously suffice on bases alone?

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39 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Shadow Dragon, a growths game? Odd to hear that said. Growths I though were on the decline in that game, compared to the GBA-Tellius era before it. Are we sure it's "growth units are great", instead of "IS failed to improve prepromote stats to account for above-20 stat caps"? Isn't the -perhaps oversimplifying- SD meta "Warp + Forged Effective Weapons using characters"?

I think GBA-Tellius era has prepromotes at some of their strongest. Especially Radiant Dawn, where even properly trained growth units struggle to meat the bases of late game prepromotes. People have made a decent case for Binding Blade, but Blazing Blade has some really great prepromotes and Sacred Stones gives us the ultimate growth units in the form of the trainees, which most players consider useless in any practical application. Meanwhile it gives you a prepromote from literally the first chapter who comes with end game bases. So yeah, GBA-Tellius, Binding Blade's weird balance aside, I think that's were prepromotes were at their most effective.

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I think GBA-Tellius era has prepromotes at some of their strongest. Especially Radiant Dawn, where even properly trained growth units struggle to meat the bases of late game prepromotes. People have made a decent case for Binding Blade, but Blazing Blade has some really great prepromotes and Sacred Stones gives us the ultimate growth units in the form of the trainees, which most players consider useless in any practical application. Meanwhile it gives you a prepromote from literally the first chapter who comes with end game bases. So yeah, GBA-Tellius, Binding Blade's weird balance aside, I think that's were prepromotes were at their most effective.

What I meant was total growths, not growth units vs. base units. Although, Cain in Cavalier has 280 in SD, which actually is comparable to Alan and Kent (290 each) and Franz (295), so maybe it is solely growth deflation relative to Tellius.

The point I was trying to make, is that it is strange to me to think of SD as a game of growths, when the +1s didn't chime so often on level up that it felt like high growths.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Can't the underlined apply to other games as well?

Yes, but Awakening especially makes it easy to pump a lot of levels into your growth units (i.e. infinite leveling via seals, Robin's Veteran skill), while also offering some of the highest growth rates in the series.

9 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

To answer your question, Shadow Dragon is definitely a game that largely favours growth units over pre-promotes. The only two pre-promotes that I ever see anyone recommend are Wolf and Sedgar due to their extremely high growths. The units I usually see recommended the most are ones like Caeda, Ogma, Barst, etc.: units with high growths.

I think the discussion is hampered by viewing "prepromotes" and "growth units" as antonyms. They're not. Wolf and Sedgar, while prepromotes, are also growth units. Similarly, FE12 Palla is not a prepromote, but she is a bases unit. Also re: Shadow Dragon, people are weirdly sleeping on Wendell. You know, the guy who shows up with 14 Speed, D Staff support, and the ability to use Excalibur from chapter 5?

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think GBA-Tellius era has prepromotes at some of their strongest. Especially Radiant Dawn, where even properly trained growth units struggle to meat the bases of late game prepromotes.

IIlyana's failure to meat expectations means she'll be going to bed hungry again.

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6 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Yes, but Awakening especially makes it easy to pump a lot of levels into your growth units (i.e. infinite leveling via seals, Robin's Veteran skill), while also offering some of the highest growth rates in the series.

The exp formula is also rather kind to higher leveled units than most games.

Quote

IIlyana's failure to meat expectations means she'll be going to bed hungry again.

That's the mistake you noticed, but what you migh have missed is that I actually meant to say Path of Radiance XD Not Radiant Dawn.

6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

What I meant was total growths, not growth units vs. base units. Although, Cain in Cavalier has 280 in SD, which actually is comparable to Alan and Kent (290 each) and Franz (295), so maybe it is solely growth deflation relative to Tellius.

The point I was trying to make, is that it is strange to me to think of SD as a game of growths, when the +1s didn't chime so often on level up that it felt like high growths.

Well that's where one has to account for stat inflation. A point of strength is worth more in Shadow Dragon than in Sacred Stones or Path of Radiance. So while a unit might not get strength ups as often, units who consistently do are getting more value with each level up than units in games with higher growths. For the record this is how Shadow Dragon's average stats measure up to the GBA-Tellius games.

Game HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
ShadowDragon 43.96271186 19.25408163 13.57 19.16864407 19.47372881 15.61610169 13.88135593 5.876440678

 

Game HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
BindingBlade 47.90241935 21.64021739 23 20.2983871 20.74758065 17.84596774 14.75983871 12.38032258
BlazingBlade 47.39659091 23.03787879 22.675 21.86931818 23.22840909 18.94545455 15.5125 15.45454545
SacredStones 48.56538462 23.34363636 24.23409091 22.10897436 23.03846154 19.97564103 15.71410256 16.20064103
PathOfRadiance 49.10903846 23.34529412 13.28888889 25.32307692 24.49134615 17.59923077 20.15365385 17.04
RadiantDawn 57.95 32.24642857 19.10616438 35.10273973 33.74931507 29.88972603 28.56027397 27.87739726

So Shadow Dragon's stat averages are lower than these other games, but consequently, because they are lower, that means all the times those growth units get those extra level ups, they are worth more. Theoretically this also means units with higher bases are immediately more useful, and this is true, Jagen is basically mandatory in higher difficulty levels, but it also means they'll fall off quicker as growth rates are not so low as to be static.

Edited by Jotari
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13 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I think the discussion is hampered by viewing "prepromotes" and "growth units" as antonyms. They're not. Wolf and Sedgar, while prepromotes, are also growth units. Similarly, FE12 Palla is not a prepromote, but she is a bases unit.

I agree; pre-promoted units are not inherently base units; that's one reason I mentioned that the only two pre-promotes I ever see anyone recommend are the two with absurdly high growths.

Palla is probably one of the few bases units I have seen people recommend.

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Wait, Do people even use pre-promoted units???

Aside from few expections such as Sothe from RD, Royal siblings from fates, etc. Unless they are trying something or some sort challenge, I can not see why people would use pre-promoted units over growth rates units.

Edited by Naoshi
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36 minutes ago, Naoshi said:

Wait, Do people even use pre-promoted units???

Aside from few expections such as Sothe from RD, Royal siblings from fates, etc. Unless they are trying something or some sort challenge, I can not see why people would use pre-promoted units over growth rates units.

Because in most games, especially the older ones, they are far superior.

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44 minutes ago, Naoshi said:

Wait, Do people even use pre-promoted units???

Aside from few expections such as Sothe from RD, Royal siblings from fates, etc. Unless they are trying something or some sort challenge, I can not see why people would use pre-promoted units over growth rates units.

Because they're still capable even if they don't compare to growth units (though most of the time they do). Case in point: Sacred Stones. The trainee units scream "growth units", but don't really surpass others of their class despite the extra levels. Comparing Paladin Amelia to Seth, for example, the former ends up with better luck and speed, but that's about it (and I'd think the extra speed is superfluous when most enemies weigh themselves down to the point where you don't need to be a speed demon to double them).

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I guess I just play very different from others, since I consider pre-promoted units either useful at beginning or unnecessary or trash.

And I don't agree about Amelia. She one of the best units, the three kids always end carrying through the game.

Edited by Naoshi
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