How many Galeforces (and nothing else.) Would it take for an Armor Knight to be as good as an equal stat flier?

[DoomRPG]

Now I understand that this question might seem silly. But what inspired this is my run of BE maddening Ironman+Limited pulse+Canon classes. (I didn't ban pulse outright. But I made it illegal to move past a unit's death. Which is how it should be anyways but a topic for another time.)

Of course the unit most effected by this decision was Edelgard. Given her canon class is basically armor knight but slightly less horrible.

In that run there was only two times Edelgard's Aymr was used at all. (Since y'know. I wasn't grinding sand worms for a bunch of material.) One of which was the final boss.
For every other map (Barring bridge where I misplaced Dancer and had Edel Raging storm basically save the run.) I was able to defeat the enemy 99% of the time before Edelgard ever arrived.
So. I think as an interesting thought experiment.

Assuming equal stats with the noted exception of movement. How many galeforce activations would be required before the Armor knight is just as useful? I'm personally leaning its either

3-4 galeforces per turn. Or
7-9 In one go. (But after that be worthless.)

Admittedly this doesn't really help armor knights actually see combat. But I think that so many potential turns could help their mobility across open plains and EXP by drastic fashion

Maybe I overcorrected with the sheer amount of galeforces. But I think in general making Extra Turns an innate advantage of armored units is a good balancing mechanic.

(Again a bit off topic. But I know people would argue that an extra turn doesn't make thematic sense for a big armored goliath. To which I'd argue that the bigger something is, the more power it has to move itself. See bears and elephants. The speed stat was always closer to reaction/reflexes than pure footrace speed. Also unstoppable forces and immovable objects are technically the same thing. Why not an unstoppable galeforce and an Immovable Knight?)

[lenticular]

It depends on the map. In a very cramped map, with high enemy density, indoors with lots of internal walls that fliers can't go past, and a defend objective? Only one. And it wouldn't even be close. The armor knight with galeforce would be way better there. In a large outdoor map filled with rivers, with much lower enemy density, an objective like seize, arrive or kill boss, and a tight turn limit? Pretty much infinite. There's no number of galeforce uses that could make the armour knight good there. So, overall, it would depend on the specific game and the relative prevalence of levels where it was good and levels where it was bad.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Depends a lot on specifics, as mentioned. In addition to ones already mentioned, there are issues like "exactly what is the move differential between the flier and the armour", "does the flier have canto", and "how many repositioning abilities [Reposition, Warp, etc.] to help the armour get started", for a few.

I think that, broadly, in most Fire Emblems, I would value a once-per-turn Galeforce effect on low move more than a flier, but possibly not by much. The thing is that with Galeforce, you often end up with a fair bit of total move, since you get two moves. You just need to have an enemy you can reach with your first move.

[♠Soul♠]

I'd like to see a flier have nearly as much durability as a General, and even then, they'd still suffer against Bows (a fairly common weapon type).

[DoomRPG]

4 minutes ago, ♠Soul♠ said:

I'd like to see a flier have nearly as much durability as a General, and even then, they'd still suffer against Bows (a fairly common weapon type).

Completely off topic here, but this quote reminds me of my Panne in my current Awakening playthrough (first and blind.)
Like I'm 99% sure she's just mega blessed or some shit. But she can actually withstand several bow attacks unless its a warrior with silver. Snipers don't have enough strength to dent her fluffy thighs of steel. (They average around 15-18 against 60+ HP) (assuming they survive to shoot cuz she's a wyvern lord.)

Presumably that's basically Haar too actually. But my RD first playthrough died in Crimea because I can't force myself to not use Astrid.

Must. Use. POR. Waifu. AAAAAAUGH.

*ahem*
Back to topic

I'd say I honestly forgotten about how context really impacts importance in this. Ien and DHE are both right that dependent on circumstance it can really determine effectiveness.
 

[♠Soul♠]

1 hour ago, DoomRPG said:

Completely off topic here, but this quote reminds me of my Panne in my current Awakening playthrough (first and blind.)
Like I'm 99% sure she's just mega blessed or some shit. But she can actually withstand several bow attacks unless its a warrior with silver. Snipers don't have enough strength to dent her fluffy thighs of steel. (They average around 15-18 against 60+ HP) (assuming they survive to shoot cuz she's a wyvern lord.)

The grand majority of the time it isn't going to happen. Panne is a super outlier that is insane in any class she changes into. Even if she had way less Def, she still has an insane amount of Avo to dodge them.

Quote

Presumably that's basically Haar too actually. But my RD first playthrough died in Crimea because I can't force myself to not use Astrid.

FE10 is the only game where Wyverns completely broke that rule, they don't even have bow effectiveness (changed it for Thunder, which is less common). They're virtually flying Generals in that game, and the female version ridiculously outclass pegasus in everything that isn't Res.

Edited December 29, 2021 by ♠Soul♠

[Ertrick36]

I think five usable galeforces per turn is the minimum amount to make their drawbacks worthwhile.

You have to take into consideration several things with them:

• First of all, obviously lower movement, though how low varies from game to game
• Secondly, the fact that flier units can are almost always able to traverse over all terrain types, while armored units tend to get severely bogged down in any non-plains tiles
• Thirdly, due to lower movement they are substantially less likely to be able to even reach an enemy to be able to proc galeforce
• Fourthly, they have weakness to armor-slaying weapons - fliers do have their weakness against bows, but that is mitigated to a degree by the fact that archers can't attack in melee range, thus a flier can attack one without concern for retaliation, while armor units typically use melee weapons and most armor-slaying weapons are melee-range so the armor unit always has to risk potential counterattack from an enemy wielding weaponry that can easily kill them
• And lastly, once again due to their limited movement, they won't be able to acquire experience at the same rate as a flier without deliberate planning

Is it excessive?  Maybe.  But armor knights being good has often been the exception, not the rule, and a rare exception, at that.  I want to particularly emphasize the part about terrain costs.  In the worst case scenario, the armor knight will be incapable of moving across a terrain type that even bog standard infantry could move at least one space through.  And often the lowest non-standard terrain cost still has the armor knight expending all their movement to move just one space.  Fliers, meanwhile, can always move 7-8 spaces, no matter what; the only exception is terrain that nobody can cross, such as walls.

I still wonder if even five is enough to make them worthwhile.  They just suck.  The problem is they're a largely defensive class in a type of game where you always want to be moving and attacking.  Fire Emblem almost never gives you an incentive to invest in defensive units, even in chapters that supposedly are all about defense.  In the case of an enemy assault force that outnumbers you, such as Chapter 10 in Conquest, you want mobile units that can easily ORKO enemies, rather than tough, static units.  Mobility is simply more important than toughness.  Of course, having a degree of survivability is important, but lack of mobility is too much of a trade-off.

[lenticular]

16 hours ago, DoomRPG said:

3-4 galeforces per turn.

6 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

I think five usable galeforces per turn is the minimum amount to make their drawbacks worthwhile.

Thinking about this some more, the big problem with giving so many galeforce uses to a single character is that it would completely distort the way that the game is played.

I'm generally less down on armour classes than a lot of people are. I don't think they're particularly good or anything, but I also don't think that they're completely trash. But, for the sake of the argument, let's assume that they are currently completely garbage. It might then be the case that if you gave four or five uses of galeforce per turn to a knight or general, that they might become decently balanced, but only if people carried on playing the game in more or less the same way that they do now. In that case, the armour classes might lag behind everyone else and not get into combat very often but when they did see combat they'd make it really count.

However, people wouldn't carry on playing in the same way. If you give players an ability that is extremely powerful but only situationally, then they will do everything they can to make sure that the situation comes up as often as possible. Let's consider the situation where you only have one armor knight. The first thing that you do is make sure that you give them Boots or a Movement Ring or whatever other tool the game has available to up their movement rate. This will typically be enough to let them keep up with other infantry units, but for good measure, I'm also going to permanently assign my dancer to my armour unit, to make absolutely certain they aren't going to fall behind. And yes, giving up Boots and a Dancer to make this work is a big sacrifice, but getting a unit who can make 5 or 6 attacks per turn is an even bigger reward.

Or even worse, what if I have multiple armour knights? Well, then I'm going to have my army advance much more slowly, keep everyone together, but be able to completely obliterate anyone who gets near me because I have multiple units who can attack 5 or 6 times per turn. Would I miss out on some secondary objectives by playing this way? Sure. I also wouldn't care because there's no reward that any of these objectives could give me that could be better than the multiple attacks that I already have. And in this case, not only would the ability have completely warped the game, but it would have warped it into something considerably less fun (at least for me; I don't find turtling and ignoring secondary objectives to be a fun way to play).

[Shadow Mir]

It would depend a lot on context, as well as map size. In a game like Holy War, with its giant maps? Forget it. It ain't happenin'.

16 hours ago, DoomRPG said:

Completely off topic here, but this quote reminds me of my Panne in my current Awakening playthrough (first and blind.)
Like I'm 99% sure she's just mega blessed or some shit. But she can actually withstand several bow attacks unless its a warrior with silver. Snipers don't have enough strength to dent her fluffy thighs of steel. (They average around 15-18 against 60+ HP) (assuming they survive to shoot cuz she's a wyvern lord.)

What difficulty? Because harder difficulties give enemies forged weapons later on (you can tell that a weapon is forged because its text will be blue). Also of note, while forged player weapons in Awakening are limited to 8 improvements max, forged enemy weapons AREN'T.

[DoomRPG]

 

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

What difficulty? Because harder difficulties give enemies forged weapons later on (you can tell that a weapon is forged because its text will be blue). Also of note, while forged player weapons in Awakening are limited to 8 improvements max, forged enemy weapons AREN'T.

Its my first run so hard.
Going for Lunatic when I don't even know a single map seemed a bit silly.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 12/28/2021 at 6:13 PM, lenticular said:

It depends on the map. In a very cramped map, with high enemy density, indoors with lots of internal walls that fliers can't go past, and a defend objective? Only one. And it wouldn't even be close. The armor knight with galeforce would be way better there. In a large outdoor map filled with rivers, with much lower enemy density, an objective like seize, arrive or kill boss, and a tight turn limit? Pretty much infinite. There's no number of galeforce uses that could make the armour knight good there. So, overall, it would depend on the specific game and the relative prevalence of levels where it was good and levels where it was bad.

I agree with the first part. But the second (bolded) part? Infinite Galeforces would allow the Armorknight to reach, and kill, the boss on Turn 1. Assuming they always have an enemy to attack (and get the Galeforce, a la Aymr), and are defensive enough that their own survival is never in doubt. Unless you're referring to an enemy density so low that the Armor can't reach them (which can be solved, say, via Stride in 3H).

Personally, I see 1 Galeforce per turn, if actualizable from any attack, as being at least as valuable as the power of flight. Being able to kill two foes in one turn... or finish off a foe who survives one round of combat... or attack a foe, then self-heal... or attack a foe, then rescue an ally... it just opens up your options so much. The "actualizable from any attack" means my Armor could throw a Javelin, miss, and still get this hypothetical Galeforce (if ranged or miss activation isn't possible, then it may be slightly worse than flight). Still, this is before even getting into some of (non-3H) fliers' flaws, like being bow-weak or not benefitting from terrain. Armors getting one "free attack" in every turn would be strong; getting in multiples would, in most contexts, become broken.

[lenticular]

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

I agree with the first part. But the second (bolded) part? Infinite Galeforces would allow the Armorknight to reach, and kill, the boss on Turn 1. Assuming they always have an enemy to attack (and get the Galeforce, a la Aymr), and are defensive enough that their own survival is never in doubt. Unless you're referring to an enemy density so low that the Armor can't reach them (which can be solved, say, via Stride in 3H).

Yeah, I was imagining a map with low enough enemy density that the Armor unit couldn't just daisychain from one to the next (and that it was in a game without tools like Stride to overcome the problem). I don't know how likely that is to come up in actual real play, but it's definitely easy enough to conceive of a hypothetical map where no amount of galeforce could make the Armour unit viable.

Actually, thinking about it, here's a concrete example. No amount of Galeforces could make me prefer to have an Armour than a Flier in the Part 2 Prologue of Radiant Dawn. Trying to complete that chapter with Armours would be... let's say "messy". And OK, that's a bit of a silly example, but it is illustrative of my basic point that context is everything.

[Shadow Mir]

On 12/29/2021 at 11:37 AM, DoomRPG said:

ts my first run so hard.
Going for Lunatic when I don't even know a single map seemed a bit silly.

Okay. Well, you're going to want to keep in mind what I said about enemies and forged weapons, as they start using them late in the game.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

14 hours ago, lenticular said:

Actually, thinking about it, here's a concrete example. No amount of Galeforces could make me prefer to have an Armour than a Flier in the Part 2 Prologue of Radiant Dawn. Trying to complete that chapter with Armours would be... let's say "messy". And OK, that's a bit of a silly example, but it is illustrative of my basic point that context is everything.

The problem there is, since that map is set in the sky, the Armor knight would fall right back down to the ground. Sorry, Brom.

But I get your point in general. Although, I have to wonder - with a "Galeforce knight" and Leanne, that's as many as three attacks (followed by self-healing) in one turn. That's tempting, at least in cases where it's possible to reach the enemy in the first place. "Better than flying movement range and Canto", probably not in the context of the map.

[lenticular]

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

The problem there is, since that map is set in the sky, the Armor knight would fall right back down to the ground. Sorry, Brom.

But I get your point in general. Although, I have to wonder - with a "Galeforce knight" and Leanne, that's as many as three attacks (followed by self-healing) in one turn. That's tempting, at least in cases where it's possible to reach the enemy in the first place. "Better than flying movement range and Canto", probably not in the context of the map.

"Teeeell Meeeeg Iiii loooove heeeer!" *splat*

Like I said, messy. Poor Brom.

And even if you ignore the unfortunate effects of gravity, he'd still be useless since the terrain on that map is all either sky or clouds, which non-fliers can't even cross. So he'd be stuck in one place, unmoving, useless, and deperately trying not to think about gravity.