In (sort of) defence of Dark Mage and Dark Bishop

[lenticular]

[Brought over from another thread to avoid derailing.]

It's a fairly commonly-held view that Dark Mages and Dark Bishops in Three Houses are awful. I don't really disagree with this view, but I still want to defend them at least a little bit.

First off, let's compare Mage and Dark Mage. They have identical base stats and almost identical growth rates (with Mage being marginally better thanks to an extra 5% growth in Charm). In terms of their class stat boosts, they are very similar, with Dark Mage having 1 more point of magic but Mage having one more point of res. Overall, this is pretty close, but I'd say that Dark Mage has the advantage. 1 point of magic is worth more to me than 1 point of res and a 5% higher charm growth.

Now let's look at their class skills. Mage gets an extra ten castings of Fire whereas Dark Mage gets an extra ten castings of Miasma Δ. I consider these to be roughly equivalent. Sometimes the lower weight and increased accuracy of Fire is better; sometimes the extra might of Miasma Δ is better. The better choice mostly depends on an individual unit's inate spell list. For a unit like Linhardt who has both Fire and Wind already, I'd definitely favour Miasma Δ; for Hubert who already has Miasma Δ, I'd probably prefer Fire. Either way, it's a fairly marginal difference. However, Dark Mage also gets a second skill, whereas Mage does not. That skill, Heartseeker, offers some pretty neat utility. It's not something that comes up all the time,  but can be relevant from time to time and is definitely better than nothing. Again, it's pretty close but Dark Mage is better.

If all you care about is "what class gives my unit the best performance right now this second?" then you will generally be better choosing Dark Mage in most cases.

Of course, this ignores one of the big reasons why people take the Mage class to begin with: its class mastery skill. Fiendish Blow is just a good skill. And what's more, Intermediate tier is usually one of the easier stretches of the game so you typically have plenty of space to focus on building for later rather than on what is good in the moment. (This is similar to why most people tend to recommend sending units through Brigand and not Cavalier, despite Cavalier having +2 move and Canto.) I don't dispute this.

However, even considering this, I still think there are circumstances where Dark Mage is a reasonable choice. First is for any unit that isn't built to ORKO. For chip damage, Poison Strike (the mastery on Dark Mage) can often do as much or more than Fiendish Blow. Consider, for instance, Linhardt built for healing and support, but who contributes occasional chip damage when there's nobody for him to heal. Poison Strike is maybe a better choice for him than Fiendish Blow. Or consider Ignatz built for debuffing with Seal Strength and Break Shot. He'll typically do better with Poison Strike than with Death Blow.

The second situation where Fiendish Blow isn't useful is when you don't actually get it. It's often taken for granted that any unit who spends time in Mage is going to master it, but that's probably not true for a lot of players. Not everyone knows that the meta is to use intermediate tier to pick up important mastery skills. Not everyone knows what classes give what skills. Not everyone knows to pick up the bonus to class xp from the Cethleann statue the second that the Saint statues unlock. I know that the first time I played, I didn't pick up very many class mastery skills because I didn't know what I was doing. I suspect that is true for a lot of players.

Then that brings us onto Dark Bishop and comparing it to Warlock. Again, the stats are very similar. Dark Bishop has +1 to magic and dexterity; Warlock has +1 to speed and res and an extra 5% charm growth. The big difference between the two classes is their skills. In theory, both classes have a skill to boost their damage, with Warlocks getting Black Tomefaire and Dark Bishops picking up Fiendish Blow. However, one of the big reasons why Dark Bishop is rarely recommended is that Fiendish Blow doesn't stack. And of course, you already picked up Fiendish Blow by mastering Mage, right? Except that, as I already mentioned, not everyone who plays the game is going to have mastered Mage. And if you haven't mastered Mage then the two skills are fairly comparable, with Fiendish Blow typically being slightly better (+1 damage per hit and works with all magical attacks, not just black tomes, but does nothing on enemy phase.

In terms of other skills, double Black Magic uses is nice but doesn't come up all that often for most units (getting a second use of Meteor for Hanneman is the only case where I'd consider it a major selling point), Miasma Δ is fairly irrelevant by this point, and Heartseeker remains neat but fairly niche.

Overall, for units that haven't mastered Mage, Dark Bishop is at the very least competitive against Warlock.

The sum total of all of this is that for casual or inexperienced players, Dark Mage/Dark Bishop is a solid and fool-proof option, whereas for players who know the game inside and out it still retains a few occasional niche uses. This is... not terrible. Not good, but not terrible. And not, I think, as bad as a lot of people make out.

(Of course, this fails to touch on the other complaints about the entirely unnnecessary gender lock and the way that the classes aren't worth the effort of obtaining dark seals. I have no defence for these things.)

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

The biggest limitation of Dark Mage/Dark Bishop is that it´s gated behind an optional and decreasingly difficult boss. What exp DK gives is more valuable than the seal. And, assuming an inexpierienced player, how are they gonna kill the DK anyway? Even the second encounter can be difficult. And then there´s like 3 dudes who could make use of it in a somewhat optimal, that is, at all useful way (Hubert, Linhardt and Hanneman, dunno about Yuri). I don´t see any reason for Linhardt to be anything but a bishop for maximised heals, regardless of skills.

12 minutes ago, lenticular said:

That skill, Heartseeker, offers some pretty neat utility.

*If you are in range of the enemy. As of advanced classes that cannot be guaranteed, though that depends on playstyle.

15 minutes ago, lenticular said:

The second situation where Fiendish Blow isn't useful is when you don't actually get it.

That also goes for Poison Strike.

16 minutes ago, lenticular said:

It's often taken for granted that any unit who spends time in Mage is going to master it, but that's probably not true for a lot of players. Not everyone knows that the meta is to use intermediate tier to pick up important mastery skills.

There is a meta in TH? Anyway the game has been out for what, 2 years? Unless you are very new to the game I don´t think this really holds up.

 

I´d imagine the kill-potential for Black-Tomefaire + Fiendish Blow is quite a bit higher than Poison Strike + Fiendish Blow. Especially when doubling is possible (22 dmg v 10 + PS). That may be more relevant for Normal and Hard but still.

[Armchair General]

The chip damage doesn't really hold up well when your next fighter is already set up to kill whatever your mage attacked. Sure, it works when you have an mage that's isolated; but at this point, you're probably taking a huge risk. Warlock's Bowbreaker is one of those situational things that I really don't care about. And the main difference between Warlock and Dark Bishop is that the former is suited for the longer levels with more magic uses and the latter is good for killing bosses.

Dark Knight is only good when your character is equally proficient with a lance, as well as magic. But with Seal Resistance coming so late in the game, I never really had much of an use for it on Hard...Because people were already dying from having magic slung at them and there's no such thing as an weak mage during the second half of the game.

Holy Knight's skills are counterproductive and more situational than the Dark Knight's toolkit., especially if you have Renewal from being an Bishop.

 

But Heartseeker is an interesting ability, although I don't really use it on a mage unless his name is Byleth.

Overall, I like Warlock and Gremory because they hardly have any downsides; unlike the mounted healer that gets an improvement to resistance when they're almost dead (and they already have such have Res, anyways), or an offensive class that proves a mild damage boost to someone else.

What happened to stuff like Ignis?

 

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Armchair General

[SnowFire]

Dark Mage & Mage are simply too similar.  They needed different stat profiles or passives.  As a result, the only reason to pick one or the other - even ignoring genderlock & Dark Seals for a moment - is which mastery skill you want.  Poison Strike isn't awful or anything, but Fiendish Blow is just too good, if slightly boring.  Even if you want Poison Strike on your mage - sure, I can see that being okay on Hubert who has a difficult time doubling - you still want Fiendish Blow, too, unless you plan on sitting Hubert in Dark Bishop forever, I guess.

Given the above, Dark Bishop is compromised by their personal skill being Fiendish Blow but nearly everybody having it already.  Alas.  Again, just needed a different stat spread for there be some reason to favor Dark Bishop anyway - maybe they become a power mage with higher Mag growth but worse Spd.  I think the developers didn't want to accidentally create "best" magey classes by mixing up the stat growths too much, but meh, they're all just too similar - make it so some of the mages got more Str & Def, some got more Spd, and some got more Lck & Rst even if the general Magic stat growth is kept constant.  DLC Dark Flier has this a little bit (more Spd, less Mag) but that's basically it.  Dark Bishop isn't even technically bad or anything, just kinda strictly outclassed by Warlock for any Black Magic user, and merely equivalent to Warlock for male Dark Magic users (which is, er, just Hubert pretty much).

Re who can make use of it: I'd argue Ignatz is actually the best user of Poison Strike, so he's the best Dark Mage.  Of course he doesn't care about the class at all, just Ignatz's weak Str and debuffing long-range arrow shots make him an unusually good chipper, and he has a budding Reason talent to get into Dark Mage easily.  In theory, Archer Felix could do a similar trade, but Felix's better Str means he can just kill everything instead.  Ashe & Cyril sport Reason banes, so no go there.  I guess the meme Hanneman archer build could consider it, too?  Except Hanneman's later join time makes catching up on extra class masteries tricky, he'd want to master Archer and Mage and maybe even Monk too before considering Dark Mage.

One final disclaimer: the above assumes Maddening difficulty.  On Hard, the value of Poison Strike sinks, as now you can definitely just murder everything and not bother with chipping.

Edited December 17, 2021 by SnowFire

[Dark Holy Elf]

On Poison Strike:

The problem with Poison Strike is there's no need to make a unit better at chipping in this game than they already are.

It is extremely easy to defeat most non-monster enemies in two attacks in this game. War Masters are often considered the hardest human enemies to one-round, because of their very high speed and ~75 HP by endgame, but they're extremely easy to defeat in two rounds; most vanilla mage builds should manage at least 40 damage (I just watched a file where Dorothea's Saggitae was hitting them for over 50). I suppose the lowest of low-str archers has a little more trouble (assuming they don't have Hunter's Volley), especially if trying to combo with each other, but even your standard Ignatz would probably not have much trouble dealing 2HKO damage if he spent his time getting Death Blow instead of Poison Strike, especially since whoever he is trying to combo with probably does more damage than him.

So that really just leaves monsters as a place where Poison Strike might have some use. I personally can't imagine prioritizing Poison Strike over Death Blow or Hit+20 for physical units just for this, though. For mages, like Linhardt, as mentioned, it's not crazy (since Dark Mage is at least fine to be in for them). Linhardt is hardly ever gonna one-shot enemies, so Poison Strike gives him a bit of added offence against monsters. Of course even on him, the loss of Fiendish Blow will be noticed, as now he's worse at 2HKOing foes if he's attacking second. The other male mages, Hanneman and Hubert, are very capable of dealing OHKO damage midgame, and not getting Fiendish Blow is obviously bad for them. (Also, it must be noted that if Linhardt is so healing-focused that you don't care about his magic damage much, you might just prefer to go Priest for the easier certifiaction and Healing +5).

On "Mage loses most of its advantage if we don't master the class (e.g. because we don't know about mastery skills)""

This statement is true, but frankly at that point the difference between the classes feels incredibly minor. I agree at that point, they're both fine and roughly equivalent. Of course, if we're talking about novice players, I will say that I personally have doubts that many novice players actually get Dark Seals early enough to get to Dark Mage. I certainly felt completely overmatched by Chapter 4 Jerry on first playthrough.

The fact that Dark Seals are required also probably leads to the feeling that Dark Mage is disappointing; you have to accomplish a significantly challenging task to get one in Chapter 4 (or an easier but still significant task in Chapter 6), and your reward is something which is at best a Mage clone, and at worst a notably weaker alternative.

Heartseeker is cool but it being stuck on a 4 move class is pretty limiting. Does help Hubert's Frozen Lance put in good work even if you leave his lance rank at D+ or something like it, though, so there's that.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

7 hours ago, Armchair General said:

Dark Knight is only good when your character is equally proficient with a lance, as well as magic. But with Seal Resistance coming so late in the game, I never really had much of an use for it on Hard...Because people were already dying from having magic slung at them and there's no such thing as an weak mage during the second half of the game.

Here is a list of classes that do more damage with Frozen Lance than Dark Knight:

- Paladin

- Falcon Knight

- Gremory

- Warlock

- Valkyrie

- Dark Bishop

Point is, the benefit of going Dark Knight isn't in lances. It's in mobility. 7 move, with Canto, is excellent for units with spell access. Even a unit who won't pick up a lance in their life, like Lysithea or Hanneman, can appreciate that.

Agreed that Seal Resistance is bad, though.

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The fact that Dark Seals are required also probably leads to the feeling that Dark Mage is disappointing; you have to accomplish a significantly challenging task to get one in Chapter 4 (or an easier but still significant task in Chapter 6), and your reward is something which is at best a Mage clone, and at worst a notably weaker alternative.

IMO Dark Mage/Bishop feels a bit like an "Easter egg" class. Something that the devs originally planned to leave enemy-only, but decided later on to let the player use, too. It'd explain why it's a male-only class - you never fight any female enemy units of this class, so why program in a new model?

That's just my hunch, though.

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Heartseeker is cool but it being stuck on a 4 move class is pretty limiting. Does help Hubert's Frozen Lance put in good work even if you leave his lance rank at D+ or something like it, though, so there's that.

Heartseeker is an excellent skill on precisely the wrong class for it. In a game where Mages suffer in movement, but make up for it in manifold range-boosting options, a skill that only activates against adjacent enemies is hilariously counter-intuitive. But just imagine the skill on something like Fortress Knight or Grappler - it'd be a vast improvement.

7 hours ago, Armchair General said:

What happened to stuff like Ignis?

The unique combat art(s) on the Sword-of-the-Creator add 30% of Teach's Magic stat when calculating damage. That's a similar effect to Ignis, but one you can control when it activates.

9 hours ago, lenticular said:

In terms of other skills, double Black Magic uses is nice but doesn't come up all that often for most units (getting a second use of Meteor for Hanneman is the only case where I'd consider it a major selling point), Miasma Δ is fairly irrelevant by this point, and Heartseeker remains neat but fairly niche.

It's not just Meteor, but also Thoron. Being limited to 4 charges is super-restrictive. So let's see, male units who make sense as a mage and get Thoron... the list starts and ends with Hanneman. But if I fold it just right, we can get off-builds of Ferdinand and Felix too!

[Jotari]

I think I said my piece on the other thread. So instead I'll offer an interesting idea. How would Dark Knight be viewed if it were part of the Dark Mage line? As you needed three seals to get to Dark Knight. I know Mir thinks Dark Knight is ridiculously bad for some reason, but everyone else is of the opinion that it's quite a good class. But if it required that third dark seal how would people feel about it? I think views would be a lot more negative (and it'd kind of suck if it were regulated to males only), even though for advanced play, securing three dark seals isn't the most challenging thing. It would make Holy Knight seem a lot more useful though.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think I said my piece on the other thread. So instead I'll offer an interesting idea. How would Dark Knight be viewed if it were part of the Dark Mage line? As you needed three seals to get to Dark Knight. I know Mir thinks Dark Knight is ridiculously bad for some reason, but everyone else is of the opinion that it's quite a good class. But if it required that third dark seal how would people feel about it? I think views would be a lot more negative (and it'd kind of suck if it were regulated to males only), even though for advanced play, securing three dark seals isn't the most challenging thing. It would make Holy Knight seem a lot more useful though.

It'd make Dark Knight certification tougher, but not in the way you might suspect. Basically, Dark Bishop being a mono-specialist Advanced class really screws things up. Right now, you can go Dark Knight with B Reason, or even C+, provided you've trained Riding and Lances well. But with Dark Bishop, you'll need B+ Reason to stand good odds of certification (B isn't impossible, but it takes good Luck, in two senses of the word). Ergo, you're more restricted in building, and class paths like "Mage -> Paladin -> Dark Knight" become much less practical. 

Also the whole "you need to certify in this prior class to even have a chance at the later class" seems inimical to 3H's "freeclassing" system, but... whatever.

[lenticular]

21 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

That also goes for Poison Strike.

Sure. My point isn't that Dark Mage with Poison Strike is better than Mage without Fiendish Blow. My point is that Dark Mage without Poison Strike is better than Mage without Fiendish Blow.

15 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

This statement is true, but frankly at that point the difference between the classes feels incredibly minor. I agree at that point, they're both fine and roughly equivalent. Of course, if we're talking about novice players, I will say that I personally have doubts that many novice players actually get Dark Seals early enough to get to Dark Mage. I certainly felt completely overmatched by Chapter 4 Jerry on first playthrough.

I don't think it's that unlikely. Remember that a lot of novice and casual players are going to be playing on Normal/Casual, which makes him a whole lot simpler to kill. I know that a friend of mine killed him in the first encounter just by throwing bodies at him and not caring that he killed several of them, because that's just a thing that you can do in Casual mode.

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

Heartseeker is an excellent skill on precisely the wrong class for it. In a game where Mages suffer in movement, but make up for it in manifold range-boosting options, a skill that only activates against adjacent enemies is hilariously counter-intuitive. But just imagine the skill on something like Fortress Knight or Grappler - it'd be a vast improvement.

This is a good point. It's not as terrible on Dark Mage, since almost everyone has bad movement in intermediate tier (although most aren't quite as bad as the magic classes), but it's definitely a problem with Dark Bishop. It might actually be one of those situations where they could have had the same skill as both the class skill and the mastery skill, as they do with Steal and Unarmed Combat.

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

IMO Dark Mage/Bishop feels a bit like an "Easter egg" class. Something that the devs originally planned to leave enemy-only, but decided later on to let the player use, too. It'd explain why it's a male-only class - you never fight any female enemy units of this class, so why program in a new model?

Interesting thought. If that is the case, I wonder if Gremory is the same way. That's also a class that I associate with TWSITD, due to it's real world inspirations and its associations with Cornelia, so that might have been a late addition too. Though, if it is, I wonder why they didn't make it require a Dark Seal. Because that would probably feel equally or more justified than requiring one for Dark Mage.

[Armchair General]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think I said my piece on the other thread. So instead I'll offer an interesting idea. How would Dark Knight be viewed if it were part of the Dark Mage line? As you needed three seals to get to Dark Knight. I know Mir thinks Dark Knight is ridiculously bad for some reason, but everyone else is of the opinion that it's quite a good class. But if it required that third dark seal how would people feel about it? I think views would be a lot more negative (and it'd kind of suck if it were regulated to males only), even though for advanced play, securing three dark seals isn't the most challenging thing. It would make Holy Knight seem a lot more useful though.

Three Houses has already screwed up with the class progression and some their abilities, why make an bad thing worse? Since that is the only real Master Class for men who are into magic; aside from Holy Knight, whose kit revolves around doing most of the stuff that you shouldn't be doing with your healer and the fact that there isn't an cornucopia of offensive faith spells.

You'll have an case if the class came with some powerful exclusive spells; but as it, is you're an guy with an horse mask riding on top of a horse, slinging fire around and cursing them to take more damage from magic...When they're already on the brink of death. 

Between this and how one's swordmanships is rewarded, there really isn't a lot of incentive to stick to the entire branch of the class tree, since all the good stuff is tied to cavalry, going for War Master, or riding an mythical creature. Sure, there's reclassing to get an specific skill or two; but most of them don't feel as great as it sounds, unless you're talking about combining Vantage with Wrath.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

This is a good point. It's not as terrible on Dark Mage, since almost everyone has bad movement in intermediate tier (although most aren't quite as bad as the magic classes), but it's definitely a problem with Dark Bishop. It might actually be one of those situations where they could have had the same skill as both the class skill and the mastery skill, as they do with Steal and Unarmed Combat.

I love the notion of being able to bring Heartseeker into higher-move melee classes, like Paladin or Assassin. In the right hands, it can function similarly to Hit +20, while also occasionally providing a pseudo-buff to allies. At the same time, I wouldn't want to lose Poison Strike as a player option. Maybe make it replace Lifetaker (because, honestly, who uses 3H Lifetaker)?

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

Interesting thought. If that is the case, I wonder if Gremory is the same way. That's also a class that I associate with TWSITD, due to it's real world inspirations and its associations with Cornelia, so that might have been a late addition too. Though, if it is, I wonder why they didn't make it require a Dark Seal. Because that would probably feel equally or more justified than requiring one for Dark Mage.

It's true that we see Cornelia, and a few other Slithers, in the Gremory class. That said, Lamine is also a Gremory, as is Lysithea (as an enemy on CF and AM). The main difference, though, is nobody else is doing what Gremory does. Like, if Gremory took a Dark Seal, and there were an "Archsage" class, without a gender-lock, that required A Reason and A Faith, then it'd be a comparable scenario. As it stands, Warlock and Dark Bishop are unique among Advanced/Special/Master classes, in that they have exactly the same certification requirements as each other. Almost as though Dark Bishop wasn't designed to do anything substantially different from Warlock, and was instead conceived as a version of Warlock, exclusive to certain enemy factions, with a slightly different stylistic flavor. And same for Dark Mage vs. Mage.

[Barren]

Makes me kind of wish that they had upgraded move up to 5 since they could take better advantage of Heartseeker. Like Shanty Pete said, it’s a good ability on the wrong class. I mean Gremory has 5 move why not Dark Bishops? 
 

Dark Flier, Dark Knight and to an extent Gremory are the only class suitable enough for offensive mages to consider at that stage of the game. DF and DK has 7 move and canto which gives them nice advantages compared to Gremory. But Gremory has the 2x of magic so they can have more spell charges (Final Fantasy 1 & 3 references). 
 

Jeritza has a variation of heartseeker like Caspar but as a personal skill. Lifetaker is way too niche for it to be worth mastering (though I have seen Zoran’s play through so I respect the fact that he wanted to show it off). Poison Strike I can see good for those who really can’t  double or that has been magic screwed. Like everyone else, I wish it wasn’t restricted to guys only.

[Ari Chan]

I think because there were very few people that learn Dark Magic in the game (initially we only had three, two are route locked and one of them is much better on a physical class), the Dark Mage/Dark Bishop class line wasn't designed to complement actual Dark Magic users and they tried to make it the generic magic class line by slapping some unique skills on them but they ended up being very underwhelming because the mastery skills are bad: Lifetaker got nerfed into oblivion and Poison Strike is incredibly niche. While Heartseeker is a good class skill, 4 Mov + bad defensive parameter pretty much kills any practical usage for it. Miasma isn't that different from Fire and Black Magic Uses x2 is just so important on most Black-Magic oriented character considering some of the best Black Magic spells (Bolting, Ragnarok, Thoron, Meteor, Excalibur) all have pitifully low usages, same goes for Heal, White Magic Heal +5/10 and White Magic uses x 2. The Dark Seal and Gender requirements are just cherries on top, the line isn't even good on Hubert but if the player wants to take advantage of his Spell List they're kinda forced to go Dark Bishop since he has no alternatives for a Magic advanced class (Lysithea and Hapi at least get Valkyrie or even Dark Flier) and I'd still go Mage over Dark Mage on Hubert since he needs Fiendish Blow for Dark Knight or even Paladin if you want to take advantage of Frozen Lance. 

On 12/17/2021 at 7:25 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

IMO Dark Mage/Bishop feels a bit like an "Easter egg" class. Something that the devs originally planned to leave enemy-only, but decided later on to let the player use, too. It'd explain why it's a male-only class - you never fight any female enemy units of this class, so why program in a new model?

That's just my hunch, though.

I agree with this, Dark Mage/Bishop honestly feel like an afterthought to me.

[Jotari]

33 minutes ago, Ari Chan said:

I think because there were very few people that learn Dark Magic in the game (initially we only had three, two are route locked and one of them is much better on a physical class), the Dark Mage/Dark Bishop class line wasn't designed to complement actual Dark Magic users and they tried to make it the generic magic class line by slapping some unique skills on them but they ended up being very underwhelming because the mastery skills are bad: Lifetaker got nerfed into oblivion and Poison Strike is incredibly niche. While Heartseeker is a good class skill, 4 Mov + bad defensive parameter pretty much kills any practical usage for it. Miasma isn't that different from Fire and Black Magic Uses x2 is just so important on most Black-Magic oriented character considering some of the best Black Magic spells (Bolting, Ragnarok, Thoron, Meteor, Excalibur) all have pitifully low usages, same goes for Heal, White Magic Heal +5/10 and White Magic uses x 2. The Dark Seal and Gender requirements are just cherries on top, the line isn't even good on Hubert but if the player wants to take advantage of his Spell List they're kinda forced to go Dark Bishop since he has no alternatives for a Magic advanced class (Lysithea and Hapi at least get Valkyrie or even Dark Flier) and I'd still go Mage over Dark Mage on Hubert since he needs Fiendish Blow for Dark Knight or even Paladin if you want to take advantage of Frozen Lance. 

I agree with this, Dark Mage/Bishop honestly feel like an afterthought to me.

The whole splitting of black and dark magic is just really weird in general and does indeed feel like some kind of enemy only aesthetic they randomly decided to give to the player. Funtionally theres no difference at all. They have combined weapon ranks and I think even the faire skill combines them. The only thing distinguishing them is that Warlock doesn't grant extra dark magic use (gremory does though).

Looking at your list if dark magic users, Hubert really stands out to me from a narrative perspective. Edelgard, Lysethia and (I think) Hapi are all victims to Agarthan experiments.  So it's a nice nod that they share the same kind of magic. But why is Hubert using Agarthan magic? He has nothing to do with them aside from serving Edelgard who's allied with them. Did he spent a semester studying in Shambala?

[lenticular]

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

I love the notion of being able to bring Heartseeker into higher-move melee classes, like Paladin or Assassin. In the right hands, it can function similarly to Hit +20, while also occasionally providing a pseudo-buff to allies. At the same time, I wouldn't want to lose Poison Strike as a player option. Maybe make it replace Lifetaker (because, honestly, who uses 3H Lifetaker)?

I've used Lifetaker! Admitedly, only while messing about on NG+ Hard, but I have used it. With the power of NG+, it's pretty fun to use on something like a Fortress Knight or a Wyvern Lord. Stick it on a Wyvern Lord and it can happily function completely autonomously, healing itself up from any chip damage it takes. Obviously, this wouldn't be even a little bit viable on NG Maddening.

As for Heartseeker and Poison Strike, here's a wild idea. In the interest of seeing just how far we could push things before they break, what would happen if Dark Mage had both Poison Strike and Heartseeker as class skills and then also had both of those as mastery skills as well? Would that be overpowered? I'm thinking probably not. A class with two mastery skills would be unusual, but their are plenty of classes that have a skill and a combat art for mastery, so I don't think that it's too out there.

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

It's true that we see Cornelia, and a few other Slithers, in the Gremory class. That said, Lamine is also a Gremory, as is Lysithea (as an enemy on CF and AM).

Lamine and Lysithea are both at least Slitherer-adjacent, though. I mean, Hubert isn't a Slitherer either, and he gets the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes when you face him as an enemy.

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

The main difference, though, is nobody else is doing what Gremory does. Like, if Gremory took a Dark Seal, and there were an "Archsage" class, without a gender-lock, that required A Reason and A Faith, then it'd be a comparable scenario. As it stands, Warlock and Dark Bishop are unique among Advanced/Special/Master classes, in that they have exactly the same certification requirements as each other. Almost as though Dark Bishop wasn't designed to do anything substantially different from Warlock, and was instead conceived as a version of Warlock, exclusive to certain enemy factions, with a slightly different stylistic flavor. And same for Dark Mage vs. Mage.

I do see your point, though, and you may well be right. Still, when it comes to speculation about design processes and developer intent, it's likely that we'll never know for certain. It could be that Gremory equally started off as a variant of Warlock, but then evolved from there, whereas Dark Bishop started out in the same place but didn't evolve as much. Who knows, honestly.

7 hours ago, Barren said:

Dark Flier, Dark Knight and to an extent Gremory are the only class suitable enough for offensive mages to consider at that stage of the game. DF and DK has 7 move and canto which gives them nice advantages compared to Gremory.

I think that's an exaggeration. I think that most of the magic classes have a niche and are entirely usable, even in late game Maddening. (The most recent run I did was NG Maddening and had both a Holy Knight and a Mortal Savant in my endgame team, and both were putting in work.) If we're talking only about what's absolutely best then, sure, probably it's those three classes, but that's always the way. Unless the game balance is absolutely perfect (the game balance is never absolutely perfect) then there are always going to be a few options that stand a little way above the others. So I do think it's more useful to think in terms of viability than optimality.

1 hour ago, Ari Chan said:

Black Magic Uses x2 is just so important on most Black-Magic oriented character considering some of the best Black Magic spells (Bolting, Ragnarok, Thoron, Meteor, Excalibur) all have pitifully low usages

This might be a play-style thing, but I find that I seldom run out of spells like Ragnarok and Excalibur, even when I don't have Black Magic Uses x2. I don't often run into many situations where those spells can secure a kill but other spells cannot. They do come up occasionally, but not so often that I feel that I'm hurting for uses. I do agree with Thoron and Meteor, but as First Mate pointed out, for male characters, that largely just means Hanneman.

Speaking of Hanneman, it's a shame that he's the male character who benefits most from double black magic uses, because in some ways, he's also the perfect choice for Dark Bishop. His later join time makes it harder for him to master Intermediate classes, so it's much more likely that he won't have Fiendish Blow already.

[Jotari]

35 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I've used Lifetaker! Admitedly, only while messing about on NG+ Hard, but I have used it. With the power of NG+, it's pretty fun to use on something like a Fortress Knight or a Wyvern Lord. Stick it on a Wyvern Lord and it can happily function completely autonomously, healing itself up from any chip damage it takes. Obviously, this wouldn't be even a little bit viable on NG Maddening.

As for Heartseeker and Poison Strike, here's a wild idea. In the interest of seeing just how far we could push things before they break, what would happen if Dark Mage had both Poison Strike and Heartseeker as class skills and then also had both of those as mastery skills as well? Would that be overpowered? I'm thinking probably not. A class with two mastery skills would be unusual, but their are plenty of classes that have a skill and a combat art for mastery, so I don't think that it's too out there.

Considering you need a special item, I don't think it's be strange at all to provide two skills.

35 minutes ago, lenticular said:

This might be a play-style thing, but I find that I seldom run out of spells like Ragnarok and Excalibur, even when I don't have Black Magic Uses x2. I don't often run into many situations where those spells can secure a kill but other spells cannot. They do come up occasionally, but not so often that I feel that I'm hurting for uses. I do agree with Thoron and Meteor, but as First Mate pointed out, for male characters, that largely just means Hanneman.

I agree. I never feel starved for magic uses, even in the early game when people complain most about it. Let's face it, you're not going to be tanking with mages, they're player phase units. Which means you only need as many spell charges as you have player phase turns plus it minus one or two. Aside from the likes of super low spells like Thoron or Meteor I always find there are enough. Even stuff like Ragnarok I'm not going to need to use more than once per map.

[Barren]

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

I think that's an exaggeration. I think that most of the magic classes have a niche and are entirely usable, even in late game Maddening. (The most recent run I did was NG Maddening and had both a Holy Knight and a Mortal Savant in my endgame team, and both were putting in work.) If we're talking only about what's absolutely best then, sure, probably it's those three classes, but that's always the way. Unless the game balance is absolutely perfect (the game balance is never absolutely perfect) then there are always going to be a few options that stand a little way above the others. So I do think it's more useful to think in terms of viability than optimality.

That's a fair point. I mean of course those 3 are good choices but if you are able to make the argument that MS and HK can fill some kind of role for you then more power to you. I am doing the same thing ironically. I am curious though who you used as a MS and HK.

I am currently using Mortal Savant Lysithea on my Crimson Flower maddening run out of curiosity, and I must admit I am impressed with her damage output with a forged Levin Sword. She was rocking at least 55 damage or so since her magic stat is around 40 (I think it's above 40 now since she is level 35). She can certainly make it work. I wanted to like Mortal Savant in the beginning because it's a master class that can use both swordfaire and black tomefaire efficiently. I compared Assassin Felix's stats to Mortal Savant Felix's stats since I was raising his reason magic a little bit. He would lose 4 points of speed and I think 2 points of dex in exchange for spell access, higher strength, defense, res and magic. I'm not sure if losing that 4 speed for Felix (or anyone else for that matter) is worth the trouble.

I have also done Holy Knight Bernadetta. Her role as a rescue/physic bot isn't too shabby but you would have to go out of your way to increase her magic by for example certifying her as a bishop so you can bump her magic stat up to 15. Then her magic growth would bump up from 20% to 30%. It's a bit better but chances are her magic stat would in theory only make it to 18 magic by the time she makes it to level 30 as a holy knight. Though I suppose that's why stat boosters exist. She was useful on a few maps for me when I was doing Azure Moon. Her rescue spell was helpful in bringing my units closer rather than pulling them away from certain death but still, I liked what she brought to the table there. 

If we hope for a future Fire Emblem game that can better balance the class options and class access, I think a first step is to remove gender restrictions on classes. I know I'm not the only one who feels that.

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Barren said:

That's a fair point. I mean of course those 3 are good choices but if you are able to make the argument that MS and HK can fill some kind of role for you then more power to you. I am doing the same thing ironically. I am curious though who you used as a MS and HK.

I had Marianne as Mortal Savant and Byleth as Holy Knight. For Marianne, I honestly think that MS is as good a choice as any. It gives her Swordfaire to use with either Soulblade or a Levin Sword+, but lets her keep her full spell list as well, which means she can switch to Blizzard when she can double with it and is also able to throw out Physic and Silence as needed. It's just a solid build.

Holy Knight Byleth isn't anywhere close to optimal, but I felt like messing around, and it was still good enough to contribute meaningfully. Byleth is one of thew units where "just go Dark Knight instead" doesn't really apply, largely due to them having a harder time than anyone else gaining weapon ranks. They also get more use out of White Tomefaire than most since they get to combine it with White Magic Avoid. It's definitely not great, but it was a reason to use the class to do something that no other class can.

[Barren]

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

I had Marianne as Mortal Savant and Byleth as Holy Knight. For Marianne, I honestly think that MS is as good a choice as any. It gives her Swordfaire to use with either Soulblade or a Levin Sword+, but lets her keep her full spell list as well, which means she can switch to Blizzard when she can double with it and is also able to throw out Physic and Silence as needed. It's just a solid build.

Holy Knight Byleth isn't anywhere close to optimal, but I felt like messing around, and it was still good enough to contribute meaningfully. Byleth is one of thew units where "just go Dark Knight instead" doesn't really apply, largely due to them having a harder time than anyone else gaining weapon ranks. They also get more use out of White Tomefaire than most since they get to combine it with White Magic Avoid. It's definitely not great, but it was a reason to use the class to do something that no other class can.

That’s a fun Byleth build. I mean Byleth can make about any class work considering their starting base stats and growths. Plus with a battalion that offers high avoid and the white magic avoid +20 can be a cool combo along with canto. 
 

Marianne as a Mortal Savant is another solid pick for her for the reasons you mentioned. She has a lot of boons which is admittedly curious but she can certainly venture options outside of her typical bishop role.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Barren

[Ari Chan]

14 hours ago, Jotari said:

The whole splitting of black and dark magic is just really weird in general and does indeed feel like some kind of enemy only aesthetic they randomly decided to give to the player. Funtionally theres no difference at all. They have combined weapon ranks and I think even the faire skill combines them. The only thing distinguishing them is that Warlock doesn't grant extra dark magic use (gremory does though).

The Faire skills doesn't combine which is why Warlock is kind of terrible on Dark Magic users since they benefit nothing from the class skills and only from the stat modifiers, I would also much prefer if they kept Tomefaire instead of unnecessarily splitting Black/Dark/White magics considering there are barely any White offensive spells in the game and you get like 3 main Dark Magic users including DLC. For extra spell usage they could've just made something like Offensive Magic Uses x2 for Combat Magic Classes and Utility Magic Uses x2 for Supportive Magic Classes with Gremory having both since it's supposed to be the master of all Magic types.

I agree that functionally all Combat Spells feel the same, Dark Magic has Luna Λ/Dark Spikes Τ which are unique and some debuffing spells that are not exactly relevant past early-mid game since late game is all about one-shotting enemies on player phase, perhaps making the debuffs scale based on the enemy levels could've made them more useful against bosses or tougher enemies like Titanus. Banshee Θ should've been a high rank siege tome with less Mt and uses to compensate imo, this opens up more ways to utilize the spells like to shutting down a mobile threat from afar (Flying Demonic Beast, Falcon Knights, Wyverns, etc.) for one turn. For Offensive White Magics Nosferatu and Seraphim are unique but the higher rank tomes (Aura and Abraxas) feel really generic considering how rare and difficult they are to get, Koei could've given White Magic some bonus damage (like 1.5x of the spell's Mt)  to Agarthan units similar to how Bishop have the slayer skill in FE8 that give them a niche against a certain type of enemies that you encounter. Black Magics are fine imo, maybe adding a little Spd boost to Wind Magic gives them a unique niche and make them more relevant past early game (Buffs to Abraxas and Wind magic also means Annette's spell lists suck less considering she is the premiere magic user of BL)

14 hours ago, Jotari said:

Looking at your list if dark magic users, Hubert really stands out to me from a narrative perspective. Edelgard, Lysethia and (I think) Hapi are all victims to Agarthan experiments.  So it's a nice nod that they share the same kind of magic. But why is Hubert using Agarthan magic? He has nothing to do with them aside from serving Edelgard who's allied with them. Did he spent a semester studying in Shambala?

Spoiler

Hubert did spend a lot of time studying TWSITD based on his paralogue so it makes sense why he knows how to use their magic, Jeritza learns them as well albeit it's only one spell, also I think Dark Magic is something that can be learned, there are generic Dark Mages in the game not aligned to TWSITD, the Black Merchant in the marketplace is a Dark Mage as well, the church also offers exams for Dark Bishop and Dark Mage, I doubt Rhea would allow that if Dark Magic is something that is strictly related to TWSITD only considering she is aware of their existence.

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by Ari Chan

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

17 hours ago, lenticular said:

Lamine and Lysithea are both at least Slitherer-adjacent, though. I mean, Hubert isn't a Slitherer either, and he gets the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes when you face him as an enemy.

 

For what it's worth, I'm not really of the mind that Dark Mage/Bishop were intended as Slitherer classes, so much as enemy classes in general. The Western Church has a bunch of Dark Mages in their ranks, and while they were influenced by the Slitherers, they weren't part of the Agarthan race themselves. Rather, they seem to be opponents of the Central Church. This is actually most telling in the case of Hubert - in chapter 7 (Gronder I), he shows up in the Mage class (at a point where he's normally playable on BE routes). But in chapter 12 (Defending Garreg Mach), he instead appears as a Dark Mage (at a point where he was unplayable in Silver Snow, the original "intended" route). Perhaps Dark Mage becoming playable was decided around the same time that they decided to create a Crimson Flower route?

4 hours ago, Ari Chan said:

Spoiler

Hubert did spend a lot of time studying TWSITD based on his paralogue so it makes sense why he knows how to use their magic, Jeritza learns them as well albeit it's only one spell, also I think Dark Magic is something that can be learned, there are generic Dark Mages in the game not aligned to TWSITD, the Black Merchant in the marketplace is a Dark Mage as well, the church also offers exams for Dark Bishop and Dark Mage, I doubt Rhea would allow that if Dark Magic is something that is strictly related to TWSITD only considering she is aware of their existence.

 

Ah, but certifying in the classes requires a totally different Seal - one you can't buy at the Church. If we assume the power to reclass is inherent to the particular Seal itself, then it could very well be that going "Dark Mage" or "Dark Bishop" is disfavored by the Church. Also, the Black Merchant shows up post-skip, at which point moral doctrines would play second fiddle to wartime necessities.

18 hours ago, lenticular said:

Spoiler

Hubert did spend a lot of time studying TWSITD based on his paralogue so it makes sense why he knows how to use their magic, Jeritza learns them as well albeit it's only one spell, also I think Dark Magic is something that can be learned, there are generic Dark Mages in the game not aligned to TWSITD, the Black Merchant in the marketplace is a Dark Mage as well, the church also offers exams for Dark Bishop and Dark Mage, I doubt Rhea would allow that if Dark Magic is something that is strictly related to TWSITD only considering she is aware of their existence.

 

Not overpowered, but mechanically awkward. Thus far, no class has (to my knowledge) provided two skills upon mastery. Most offer a skill, some a combat art, and some one of each. With how lackluster most magical class masteries are, it's kind of a shame that none of them provided a "mastery spell". Such as mastering Dark Mage could let the unit use Miasma in other classes, or mastering Bishop giving Fortify to units who don't already have it. Alternatively, make the spells learned unique ones that nobody picks up otherwise, like the class mastery combat arts.

18 hours ago, lenticular said:

I've used Lifetaker! Admitedly, only while messing about on NG+ Hard, but I have used it. With the power of NG+, it's pretty fun to use on something like a Fortress Knight or a Wyvern Lord. Stick it on a Wyvern Lord and it can happily function completely autonomously, healing itself up from any chip damage it takes. Obviously, this wouldn't be even a little bit viable on NG Maddening.

Sounds like fun. I may have to try it out on a future playthrough. Lifetaker seems like one of those skills that's more designed for NG+ anyway.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

 

For what it's worth, I'm not really of the mind that Dark Mage/Bishop were intended as Slitherer classes, so much as enemy classes in general. The Western Church has a bunch of Dark Mages in their ranks, and while they were influenced by the Slitherers, they weren't part of the Agarthan race themselves. Rather, they seem to be opponents of the Central Church. This is actually most telling in the case of Hubert - in chapter 7 (Gronder I), he shows up in the Mage class (at a point where he's normally playable on BE routes). But in chapter 12 (Defending Garreg Mach), he instead appears as a Dark Mage (at a point where he was unplayable in Silver Snow, the original "intended" route). Perhaps Dark Mage becoming playable was decided around the same time that they decided to create a Crimson Flower route?

Ah, but certifying in the classes requires a totally different Seal - one you can't buy at the Church. If we assume the power to reclass is inherent to the particular Seal itself, then it could very well be that going "Dark Mage" or "Dark Bishop" is disfavored by the Church. Also, the Black Merchant shows up post-skip, at which point moral doctrines would play second fiddle to wartime necessities.

 

Not overpowered, but mechanically awkward. Thus far, no class has (to my knowledge) provided two skills upon mastery. Most offer a skill, some a combat art, and some one of each. With how lackluster most magical class masteries are, it's kind of a shame that none of them provided a "mastery spell". Such as mastering Dark Mage could let the unit use Miasma in other classes, or mastering Bishop giving Fortify to units who don't already have it. Alternatively, make the spells learned unique ones that nobody picks up otherwise, like the class mastery combat arts.

Sounds like fun. I may have to try it out on a future playthrough. Lifetaker seems like one of those skills that's more designed for NG+ anyway.

If Dark mage and bishop were once intended to be enemy exclusive then it was probably a good choice to make them playable. People probably would have complained about not being able to access them if the literal playable characters had those classes only as enemies. Especially Grimory Lysethia.

[lenticular]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Not overpowered, but mechanically awkward. Thus far, no class has (to my knowledge) provided two skills upon mastery. Most offer a skill, some a combat art, and some one of each. With how lackluster most magical class masteries are, it's kind of a shame that none of them provided a "mastery spell". Such as mastering Dark Mage could let the unit use Miasma in other classes, or mastering Bishop giving Fortify to units who don't already have it. Alternatively, make the spells learned unique ones that nobody picks up otherwise, like the class mastery combat arts.

Oh, damn, I really love that idea and can't believe I'd never thought of the possibility of mastery spells before. Possibilities for what each class could have, if we're sticking to existing spells:

Spoiler

• Noble/Commoner: Heal
• Monk: Recover
• Mage: Sagitae
• Priest: Physic
• Dark Mage: Swarm Ζ
• Warlock: Bolting
• Bishop: Fortify
• Dark Bishop: Death Γ
• Trickster: Silence
• War Monk/Cleric: Restore
• Dark Flier: Excalibur
• Valkyrie: Thoron
• Dark Knight: Dark Spikes Τ
• Holy Knight: Seraphim
• Mortal Savant: Fimbulvetr
• Gremory: Luna Λ
• Enlightened One: Aura
• Dancer: Warp

(Some of these ideas are pretty terrible but I wanted to include one for every class with magic access. I'm pretty happy with the list overall, though.)

Some of these might step on the toes of characters with strong spell lists, but since we're well into the realms of fantasy game design here, we can do whatever we want without any consequences.

As for completely new and unique spells:

Spoiler

I'm not going to try to come up with one for every class here, but ideas are pretty easy to come by. Dark magic users could get a siege tome (Fenrir?) or a brave tome, or even just a version of Nosferatu that doesn't suck. Holy Knight or Enlightened One could get a Purge spell. Trickster could get Entrap. Mortal Savant could get some sort of self-buffing spell (eg, "Haste: Until the start of your next turn, you have +5 speed, +20 avo, and +20 crit. (1 use per battle)"). Or maybe you could just give it Rewarp instead. Healers could get something that combines healing with condition removal or healing with buffing. Black Mages could get something that does damage and sets the enemy on fire for some extra damage over time. Or something with some AoE splash damage. Or something that effects terrain. Or you could even do spells that reproduce gambit effects but only on a single target.

And I'm now getting ridiculously far into the realm of fantasy game design (and away from the actual topic of this thread, which is what I always end up doing when I make a new thread to stop going off topic) so I will stop now. i like the idea though, and I think it could have worked well.

[SnowFire]

The more plot & setting you make, the more plot & setting you need.  It's like fractal expansion.  Despite being so incredibly huge, the world of 3H is still frustratingly incomplete in parts.  Why are people so blase about monsters when the Gautier Inheritance is portrayed as a big shock?  How are Demonic Beasts controlled by armies (clearly it doesn't seem to require Agarthans to help out)?  Where did Rhea get her Golems?  I think "what's up with Dark Magic" is one of those.  Since nobody boggles at seeing Lysithea or Hubert train at Garreg Mach or use Dark Magic while fighting (don't forget all those battalions!), and they don't seem to know Black Magic, I think we can safely assume that Dark Magic isn't actively scandalous. If Dark Magic is just part of life, how come so many of the Slitherers seem to prefer it?  Why weren't Hubert & especially Lysithea interrogated more after Tomas/Solon's shenanigans - Manuela seems at least vaguely familiar with the magic, so would they know more if this was some Dark Magic curse that never comes up again?  etc.  I think answering some of these questions would help with finding an identity for Dark Magic, but as is, eh, people just use Dark Magic and nobody really cares and we gotta roll with it.

 

On 12/18/2021 at 2:59 AM, Jotari said:

I think I said my piece on the other thread. So instead I'll offer an interesting idea. How would Dark Knight be viewed if it were part of the Dark Mage line? As you needed three seals to get to Dark Knight. I know Mir thinks Dark Knight is ridiculously bad for some reason, but everyone else is of the opinion that it's quite a good class. But if it required that third dark seal how would people feel about it? I think views would be a lot more negative (and it'd kind of suck if it were regulated to males only), even though for advanced play, securing three dark seals isn't the most challenging thing. It would make Holy Knight seem a lot more useful though.

If this change was made, be sure to add some more Dark Seals to the Crimson Flower route - CF misses a Dark Seal due to not fighting DK in C12, so you'd need to perfectly collect all 3 to make Hubert a Dark Knight.  Although at that point just benching Hubert might well make more sense.

I do think an alternate-3H where class progression was a little more locked down would be interesting, but that definitely goes against the philosophy of the game we got.  I think that the first and most important thing is to give Dark Mage & Dark Bishop different identities so that the player even cares about such a special route to begin with.  I do think an alternate option for what we got was to throw the idea of Dark Seals in the trash, make it so the Dark magic crew (Lysithea / Hubert / Hapi) have Dark Mage / Dark Bishop outright replace Mage / Warlock, then vary up the passives / stat profile / etc. substantially more.  (Edelgard gets access to both sides of the magey class tree since she's the only dual-user?)

[Shadow Mir]

On 12/18/2021 at 1:59 AM, Jotari said:

I think I said my piece on the other thread. So instead I'll offer an interesting idea. How would Dark Knight be viewed if it were part of the Dark Mage line? As you needed three seals to get to Dark Knight. I know Mir thinks Dark Knight is ridiculously bad for some reason, but everyone else is of the opinion that it's quite a good class. But if it required that third dark seal how would people feel about it? I think views would be a lot more negative (and it'd kind of suck if it were regulated to males only), even though for advanced play, securing three dark seals isn't the most challenging thing. It would make Holy Knight seem a lot more useful though.

It'd probably be looked at in a more negative light (aside from screwing over male mages even harder than this game already does). Even ignoring the aggravation that stems from the whole bit about "you must have certified for this other class before you can try to certify for this class", it'd make it harder to get into due to Dark Bishop needing A reason for guaranteed certification.

By the way, my aggravation about Dark Knight stems from needing significantly more investment to access for what is ultimately very marginal gain - something that just does NOT sit well with me. Sure, it has the perks of being mounted, but unlike is the case in most FE games, being in a cavalry class isn't all upside in 3H. Then the DLC comes along and adds other mounted mage classes that aren't as much investment to get into (albeit with the caveat that only females can access them)... Dark Knight has a damage edge over those classes, but it just ain't enough to justify the extra effort.

On 12/17/2021 at 9:25 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

IMO Dark Mage/Bishop feels a bit like an "Easter egg" class. Something that the devs originally planned to leave enemy-only, but decided later on to let the player use, too. It'd explain why it's a male-only class - you never fight any female enemy units of this class, so why program in a new model?

That's just my hunch, though.

Thirding this. This kind of stuff aggravates me, to be honest. It's like they learned nothing from FE Fates, where Oni Savage ended up being a massive afterthought.

21 hours ago, Jotari said:

They have combined weapon ranks and I think even the faire skill combines them.

Nope. Dark Tomefaire is a different skill from Black Tomefaire. Warlock, Mortal Savant, and Dark Knight all have Black Tomefaire, but only the latter has Dark Tomefaire.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Shadow Mir