Awakening's Rightful King and Fate's Hoshidan Unity

[FailWood]

Is the skill activation increase these skills give a flat 10% (41% becomes 51%), or are they a 1.1% multiplier (41% becomes 45%)?

[Baron the Shining Blade]

Flat 10%. For instance, an Inigo with Rightful King, Armsthrift, and unmodified capped luck (45) will proc Armsthrift 100% of the time. (Armsthrift proc rate: [Luck x2]%. 90 +10 = 100)

[Ertrick36]

Flat 10% boost.

I have no tangible proof, but whenever I stack Hoshidan Unity with Quixotic on a unit that also has Lethality, it seems over a quarter of strikes proc Lethality, so I think through testing it's legitimately a flat 10% boost.

Try to think about it from a balancing perspective.  They're skills that're basically reserved for a small selection of characters (Chrom, Corrin, and their children), and you get them only at level 15 in a promoted class.  Stat-wise, the vast majority of skills that this would affect in both games are calculated by a percentage based directly on mere skill; the skill stat has an absolute maximum cap (meaning the highest possible any character can achieve) of 55 in Awakening (not considering Limit Breaker) and 43 in Fates.  So respectively that'd be a +5 and +4 mod to activation rates, which is... not much for late game battles where all the battle stats are stupidly high.  And realistically if you're playing the game as intended (mostly thinking of Fates in this respect), your units will only have skill in the 20's or 30's, so you'd more likely expect them to get a measly +2 or +3 to their activation rates with the multiplication calculation.  It'd make a lot more sense from a developer's perspective for the boost to just be a flat +10 boost instead of a multiplier - you want endgame skills to be powerful.

[Jotari]

A boost of 10% of the existing rate would be pretty terrible for a skill that already struggles to justify its existence.

[FailWood]

52 minutes ago, Jotari said:

A boost of 10% of the existing rate would be pretty terrible for a skill that already struggles to justify its existence.

Yeah, I can't figure out a build for Chrom that makes good use of it.  These days, I get him Dual Guard+ from Great Knight, then reclass him to Paladin to have him as a backpack unit.  Would like to beat the hidden route of Apotheosis one day.

[Ertrick36]

9 hours ago, FailWood said:

Yeah, I can't figure out a build for Chrom that makes good use of it.  These days, I get him Dual Guard+ from Great Knight, then reclass him to Paladin to have him as a backpack unit.  Would like to beat the hidden route of Apotheosis one day.

He can only get Aegis, Aether, and Luna.  Though Aether alone is a pretty good skill for it since the extra 10% helps offset the halving part of the Aether activation chance calculation - with Rightful King, you can get an otherwise impossible 30%+ activation rate for Aether.  You don't always have to stack a bunch of activation skills to make Rightful King/Hoshidan Unity worthwhile.

Though it would be cool if he could get Lethality.  But Awakening has enough broken stuff in it without the main character being able to one-shot enemies one in every 4-5 weapon strikes.  Yeah sure, that's only a consideration if you grind considerably, but still.

[FailWood]

33 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

Though it would be cool if he could get Lethality.  But Awakening has enough broken stuff in it without the main character being able to one-shot enemies one in every 4-5 weapon strikes.  Yeah sure, that's only a consideration if you grind considerably, but still.

What would you say is the best thing about him as a unit, or what your preferred setup with him is?  I mentioned using him as a backpack unit, but I'm not sure how much him having a 15 Might Sword with 10 Crit built in that never breaks which also doubles as infinite Concoctions (for him only) compares to all the other broken things you can do with others in Awakening.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

He can only get Aegis, Aether, and Luna.  Though Aether alone is a pretty good skill for it since the extra 10% helps offset the halving part of the Aether activation chance calculation - with Rightful King, you can get an otherwise impossible 30%+ activation rate for Aether.  You don't always have to stack a bunch of activation skills to make Rightful King/Hoshidan Unity worthwhile.

Though it would be cool if he could get Lethality.  But Awakening has enough broken stuff in it without the main character being able to one-shot enemies one in every 4-5 weapon strikes.  Yeah sure, that's only a consideration if you grind considerably, but still.

He can't get Lethality, but you can combo Lethality+Rightful King with some DLC units, Marth, Ephraim and maybe some others.

[Ertrick36]

3 hours ago, FailWood said:

What would you say is the best thing about him as a unit, or what your preferred setup with him is?  I mentioned using him as a backpack unit, but I'm not sure how much him having a 15 Might Sword with 10 Crit built in that never breaks which also doubles as infinite Concoctions (for him only) compares to all the other broken things you can do with others in Awakening.

For one, he's one of the handful of lords you get, and lord skills are fairly good, especially if you're the type to keep teams in relatively compact formations with the lord.  Dual Strike+ and Dual Guard+ work regardless of whether he's the lead or support unit, so as long as he's in a pair-up as either unit those skills will work.  If he's paired up with his spouse, and his spouse is also really powerful (specifically having high defense/resistance), then Dual Strike and Dual Guard will proc very frequently.  So in general making him a Paladin isn't that bad of an idea.  I'd say the other skills that would be useful for him would be Aether and Rightful King because Aether is powerful if it procs once every 4-6 strikes, and Aegis to cover his weakness against magic and long-range weapons.

I'd say only consider making him a Great Lord if you want him to be able to use rapiers.  Rapiers are fairly good for acting as both a cav and knight slayer, but in late-game you'll have access to plenty of weapons that can fulfill one of those roles and likely other lords (particularly Lucina), and high movement is probably a bigger boon than weapons that deal two types of effectiveness damage.

Whatever you do, however, I do recommend he stays as a sword-wielding class.  Even the weakened Falchion is good for killing wyvern-mounted foes, and those are among the most troublesome of foes to take down (along with dark fliers, as those are basically mages that can move wherever the hell they want).  While it's basically an endgame/post-game consideration, the final Falchion he acquires is stronger than an unforged silver sword and Lucina's Parallel Falchion (though Lucina has more varied potential as a unit), and the fact that it never breaks means it's one helluva weapon.

Backpack him if you will, but I think he's better as a lead unit unless your avatar is his spouse.  You won't get to take advantage of Aether or Rightful King if he's being backpacked.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

He can't get Lethality, but you can combo Lethality+Rightful King with some DLC units, Marth, Ephraim and maybe some others.

Yeah, I was mostly just talking about Chrom in particular.  If Chrom marries Robin, Sully, or Olivia, Lucina will gain access to the assassin class, and in particular Chrom x Olivia produces Inigo (I almost typed "Laslow" instead, lmao, I've played too much Fates) with Rightful King, so he too can get the combo since by default he can become an assassin through the myrmidon class.

I left DLC out of the consideration because not everyone will have access to the DLC.  Also because I think even if the characters in the base game don't have access to every single class like the DLC characters do, I think the base game characters are better because they can benefit from supports, which not only produce children but also provide really good stat boosts and are one of the primary reasons pair-up is so busted in this game.

[FailWood]

22 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

For one, he's one of the handful of lords you get, and lord skills are fairly good, especially if you're the type to keep teams in relatively compact formations with the lord.  Dual Strike+ and Dual Guard+ work regardless of whether he's the lead or support unit, so as long as he's in a pair-up as either unit those skills will work.  If he's paired up with his spouse, and his spouse is also really powerful (specifically having high defense/resistance), then Dual Strike and Dual Guard will proc very frequently.  So in general making him a Paladin isn't that bad of an idea.  I'd say the other skills that would be useful for him would be Aether and Rightful King because Aether is powerful if it procs once every 4-6 strikes, and Aegis to cover his weakness against magic and long-range weapons.

I'd say only consider making him a Great Lord if you want him to be able to use rapiers.  Rapiers are fairly good for acting as both a cav and knight slayer, but in late-game you'll have access to plenty of weapons that can fulfill one of those roles and likely other lords (particularly Lucina), and high movement is probably a bigger boon than weapons that deal two types of effectiveness damage.

Whatever you do, however, I do recommend he stays as a sword-wielding class.  Even the weakened Falchion is good for killing wyvern-mounted foes, and those are among the most troublesome of foes to take down (along with dark fliers, as those are basically mages that can move wherever the hell they want).  While it's basically an endgame/post-game consideration, the final Falchion he acquires is stronger than an unforged silver sword and Lucina's Parallel Falchion (though Lucina has more varied potential as a unit), and the fact that it never breaks means it's one helluva weapon.

Backpack him if you will, but I think he's better as a lead unit unless your avatar is his spouse.  You won't get to take advantage of Aether or Rightful King if he's being backpacked.

Gotcha.  ...Truth be told, I've played over 1,200 hours of Awakening, so I mainly wanted to hear another player's take on him since most people usually say "Lucina's better" and skip talking about him.  Aside from things like character stat modifiers and each their reclass options (other then Robin), everything during all that time was self-taught.  So thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Ertrick36]

2 minutes ago, FailWood said:

Gotcha.  ...Truth be told, I've played over 1,200 hours of Awakening, so I mainly wanted to hear another player's take on him since most people usually say "Lucina's better" and skip talking about him.  Aside from things like character stat modifiers and each their reclass options (other then Robin), everything during all that time was self-taught.  So thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Lucina can be better in a lot of ways (she can also just end up a carbon copy of Chrom if you somehow manage to get him to marry the village maiden instead of one of the actual playable units), but I figure you're gonna be forced to use him every chapter so may as well make the best of him instead of tossing him to the side.  There are some cases in Fire Emblem games where you might want to leave the main lord on the sidelines, but Chrom's not a halfway terrible unit so it isn't like you have to twist your arm to make good use of him.