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Improving underwhelming classes


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There's a lot of Underwhelming classes in this game, the more you look into it, the more classes seem to either lag behind or are never used because they just simply don't have anything to offer. I have a few small ideas on ways that this game can improve it's lesser classes, to make them more interesting and a little more diverse in class choice:

-Beginner classes come with their mastery skill as their class skill, although you can still master a class like Myrmidon to grant you access to equipping speed +2 outside of this specific use. Like Transmute though, you can't have it equipped twice. To make up for this, each class has a small penalty to help balance the classes. -1 Defense for Myrmydon, -1 STR for Soldier, -1 SPD for Fighter, and -1 HP for Monk.

-Mercenary has a slightly improved Skill growth and when you master Mercenary, you gain it as a class skill, but still allows you to equip it elsewhere if you leave the Mercenary.

-Dark Mages, and by extent, Dark Bishops are significantly stronger when it comes to offenses then the standard mage, offering much higher magic growths and skill at the cost of some speed and lots of Charisma.

-Hero has increases to Skill and Defense growths, on top of getting a Sol combat art, which can restore half the damage dealt to increase the survivability of the Hero class.

-Instead of Terrain Resistance, Holy Knight grants Aura as a skill, gifting you the skill like Miasma does for a Dark Mage or Dark Bishop.

-Enlightened one has x2 White magic uses one of it's natural skill slots to help with Byleth's natural proficiency with White Magic.

-Finally, Mortal savant is given a massive increase to it's resistance growth to 15% and base increase of 4, to massively improve it's power against mages.

 

These ideas slightly improve classes to help them aim for their goals better, but there's probably many ways to buff the less used classes. Anyone have any thoughts on how to improve on less useful classes?

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1 hour ago, The Boonsman said:

-Mercenary has a slightly improved Skill growth and when you master Mercenary, you gain it as a class skill, but still allows you to equip it elsewhere if you leave the Mercenary.

Gain what? 

1 hour ago, The Boonsman said:

-Hero has increases to Skill and Defense growths, on top of getting a Sol combat art, which can restore half the damage dealt to increase the survivability of the Hero class.

NGL, Sol would be pretty useless if it was a combat art. I mean, one hit with half the damage drained as HP ain't so impressive when the opponent just gets to smack you right back, more likely than not undoing all the healing Sol just managed.

1 hour ago, The Boonsman said:

-Instead of Terrain Resistance, Holy Knight grants Aura as a skill, gifting you the skill like Miasma does for a Dark Mage or Dark Bishop.

That doesn't fix the main issue Holy Knight has, which is that it does nothing Dark Knight or Gremory doesn't do better.

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24 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Gain what? 

 

Gain Vantage as a Class Skill upon Class Mastery when you are in the Mercenary class itself. This way it's so that every Mercenary in the game doesn't have Vantage when you fight them. It's not huge, but it should make staying in it while waiting for an Advanced class at least somewhat more rewarding.

26 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

NGL, Sol would be pretty useless if it was a combat art. I mean, one hit with half the damage drained as HP ain't so impressive when the opponent just gets to smack you right back, more likely than not undoing all the healing Sol just managed.

Well, the idea for it's stats is -5 Durability, +2 MT, +20 hit, and +10 crit. It's use comes in for crit kills, allowing you to slurp up easy kills if your already injured. Healing 20/30 health off a crit is good, and with Swords with high crit (Killing Edge, Wo Dao, Cursed Ashiya Sword, Sword of Moltra) alongside consistency makes it a not perfect, but still situationally useful combat art. At the very least it can't be any worse then Astra.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

That doesn't fix the main issue Holy Knight has, which is that it does nothing Dark Knight or Gremory doesn't do better.

This is very true, however it fixes one of the main issues of the class itself: only having Nos as a White Magic skill. Having in what my opinion is the better of the higher magic spells should at least not make it truely horrible and just a very niche choice if your fishing for Aura crit builds or something silly like that.

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Oh boy. There's a lot to say about this. Time to spend way more time than I should writing way more than I should on the topic.

Noble and Commoner: These are mostly fine. I'd probably throw a +5% growth to HP onto Commoner to stop Noble just being strictly better, but it's largely inconsequential. You spend 4 levels here and then get out and never look back.

Beginner classes: Again, I mostly don't have a problem with these. They're not very exciting, but they all have their place. Reposition is the best of the combat arts here, which does mean that Soldier has a bit of an advantage over the other non-magic classes, but there are definitely cases where I'd prefer to pick up Str+2 or Spd+2, so Fighter and Myrmidon do still have their place. I don't think I'd like to see the Stat+2 skills as class skills, simply because it's an extra unnecessary layer of abstraction. If anything, just change the classes' stat boosts  to differentiate them a little more.

Intermediate Classes: This is where things really start getting messy. This is typically the "important class masteries" tier, with things like Death Blow, Fiendish Blow, Darting Blow, and Hit +20. This means that classes with bad or mediocre masteries typically don't get much of a look-in here. I will sometimes choose other classes (eg Priest, Cavalier) for what they offer in the moment, but the game doesn't really offer many challenging maps in this tier, so building for the future is normally more important. So the big thing here is upgrading or replacing the mastery skills that need it.

Armored Knight: Armored Blow just isn't very good, and also doesn't really have good synergy with what armour units want to do. If you're building an armour unit, you're probably wanting them to put in work on enemy phase, not player phase. So let's get rid of it. I'm going to propose replacing it with Wary Fighter: "During battles, neither the user nor enemy can perform follow up attacks". This feels like it would probably be a pretty big buff to armour units, but they could certainly use it.

Brawler: Conceptually, I really like Unarmed Combat. The problem is that it completely sucks. Other than using it for the theming/flavour or using it in challenge runs (like the "no items" run I did a while ago), I really can't think of any reason to use it. It gives terrible might and hit, and its ostensible advantage in weight doesn't really exist, given that it's easy to offset the weight of light gauntlets by having any strength to speak of. Maybe, just maybe, it could give a brawling option to a War Master whose inventory was loaded with axes, but I don't actually believe that for a second. The other big problem with Unarmed Combat as a mastery skill is that most of the other classes that might want it (Grappler and War Ascetic) get it anyway. So it's got to go. Let's replace it with Pinpoint Blow: "If unit initiates combat, grants Crit +20 during combat."

Cavalier: I'm honestly not sure if I've ever seen anyone really recommend using Desparation. It seems like it shouldn't be terrible, but the circumstances for it to be useful just don't come up enough. You have to be fast enough to double in the first place, you need to be able to kill the enemy in two hits but not in one hit, and you need to be at  below 50% health. And then if you do pull all of that off, the best upside is that you're able to kill one unit per player phase that you wouldn't be able to. Something that conditional really needs a bigger upside. So instead, I'm going to suggest Trample: "Unless enemy is on a mount, damage +6".

Dark Mage: Dark magic is a mess. I'll cover it separately later.

Lord: This really feels that it only exists for the sake of tradition. It just doesn't make much sense in the context of this game. Res +2 and Subdue are both abilities that are in the wrong game. Res +2 would be better in games with far lower res growths; Subdue would be better in games where you get more underleveled recruits. The only unit in Three Houses who requires any babying at all is Flayn, and even she is easy to level up if you do want to use her. The other big problem is that this is a sword class, only accessable to units who don't really want to use swords. It's a mess. So what to do with it? Well, if I had my druthers, I'd just get rid of it entirely. But let's assume that that isn't an option. First thing I'm going to suggest is changing the certification from C Authority and D+ Swords to C Authority and D+ in Swords, Axes, Lances, or Bows. I'd then also change the wexp bonuses to give boosts to all four of those weapons rather than just swords. Finally, I would change the mastery skill to something related to battalions. This could be something that gave extra gambit uses, but instead I think I'm going to suggest Charismatic Leader: "All stat boosts granted by battalions are multiplied by 1.5".

Mercenary: This one is borderline OK as it is. I'm not really a big fan of Vantage, but it definitely has its advocates and its uses. It's very much a build-around skill, which will be either completely useless or totally indispensable for any given build. I think I would probably keep the class as is, because any buff to Vantage would risk having it be overpowered.

Priest: Another borderline OK class. In this case, the mastery skill is close-to useless, but the extra healing can be nice to have, especially if you're planning for the unit to be a dedicated healer and don't care about picking up Fiendish Blow. A simple small buff could be to have Heal +5 be a mastery skill here as well as a class skill. That's a pretty underwhelming improvement, but the class doesn't need a big buff.

Thief: The biggest problem here isn't the class itself, but the fact that you really don't have much need for a thief. So, I'd suggest three changes here. First, add locktouch as a second mastery skill so you can take that one forward too. Second, make chest keys more expensive so that there's actually a reason to care about having locktouch (bonus consequence: Ashe's personal ability gets better at the same time). Third, make more enemies have stealable items.

Advanced Classes: These are mostly pretty good, with most classes at least having a decent niche. Being able to pick up the appropriate Weaponfaire skill certainly helps out a lot. The bad classes here are generally the ones that offer the same -faire skill as some other class, but don't do other things as well.

Dark Bishop: Dark magic is a mess. I'll cover it separately later.

Hero: I just don't see the benefit of having three Swordfaire classes at Advance tier. Making a different niche for all of them is difficult, and I don't think that "free Vantage!" is a particularly strong selling point. As such, I'd reimagine Hero as being something of a jack of all trades class. I would have it lose Vantage, and instead gain Axefaire and Lancefaire to go along with Swordfaire. The wexp bonuses and certification requirements would also be changed to reflect this new focus. I would give them a new mastery skill: Weapon Master: "Grants Hit/Avo +20 when using a sword against axe users, an axe against lance users, or a lance against sword users."

Swordmaster: This mostly just needs for Astra to be better. Get rid of the penalty to hit, change the durability cost from -9 to -5, and change the damage per hit from 30% to 50%, and we're there. Astra is now a useful delete button, comparable to Hunter's Volley or Fierce Iron Fist. My only concern here is that this would make Swordmaster completely overshadow Assassin, but I think that Assassin would still have a niche thanks to Stealth and no movement penalties. If necessary, Assassin could be given an extra +1 point of movement to compensate.

Warrior: This really needs a mastery combat art, to move it in line with other infantry weapon classes. I wouldn't want to give them a brave art, since that doesn't feel emblematic for axes. Gaining effectiveness against all enemy types has already been taken by War Master's Strike, so that's off the table here as well. Instead, I'm going to give them Stun as a combat art. It would have fairly typical combat art bonuses to hit/damage/crit, but would disallow counter attacks (as with Windsweep) and also paralyse the enemy if it hits, preventing them from acting for one turn. It's still hard to imagine really wanting to use Warrior instead of Wyvern Rider/Lord, but this would at least make it more competitive.

Abyss Classes: I'm actually pretty happy with all of these. The only one I'd change at all is Trickster, which I think needs a small buff. I'd do this by improving Lucky Seven, which I would change to "Each turn, grants +7 to one of the following stats: Str, Mag, Spd, or Crit."

Master Classes: What a motley bunch these are. Some of them are great. Others are some of the hardest to justify classes in the whole game.

Great Knight: This is pretty much going to have problems whatever you do with it. My bandaid fix to make it less bad would be to make it more of a straight upgrade from Fortress Knight rather than a hybrid Fortress Knight/Paladin. So, give it an extra couple of points of Def so it matches Fortress Knight on that front. Then also lower the riding requirement for certification, just to make it a little more accessible.

Holy Knight: Another one that has some pretty severe systemic problems that stop it from ever being good. An offensive white magic class is only ever going to be as good as the game's offensive white magic spells. That said, let's give a go at making this viable without also completely reworking the game's magic system. I'm going to ditch Terrain Resistance to make room for a new skill, Unceasing Light: Triples the number of uses for white magic spells that target enemies. One of the big problems with offensive magic is that it just doesn't have enough charges, and this seaks to remedy that.

Mortal Savant: I actually quite like Mortal Savant, but only in the case of units who have Hexblade or Soulblade. So, the solution here to make the class a bit more widely applicable is to just give it built-in Soulblade. Getting a magical sword combat art is also highly thematic for the class.

Unique Classes: Most of these are pretty good, with only one real stinker.

Armored Lord/Emperor: Yeah, here's the stinker. These classes are little more than a noob trap, honestly. Edelgard in either of these classes is a mediocre unit; Edelgard on a Wyvern is probably the best unit in the game. It's been said many times before by many different people, and I'm going to repeat it here: these classes should have had access to magic. They still wouldn't be nearly as good for Edelgard as Wyvern Lord is, but they'd at least be unique and offer an interesting niche. I would also decrease the class xp required to master both these classes, to compensate for the shorter length of Crimson Flower compared to other routes.

High Lord/Great Lord: These are mostly fine, but as a minor buff, I'd like to see them change from infantry type movement to thief type movement.

Enlightened One: This should have Fistfaire. That's all.

Dark Magic: As previously mentioned, dark magic is a mess. There are approximately a billion different ways it could be changed, and most of them would be an improvement on the current system. Here's one attempt. First off, every character will have two different reason magic lists: a dark magic list and a black magic list. For most classes, they would only have access to their black magic spells; dark magic spells would only be avilable in dark magic classes. The dark magic classes would be Dark Mage, Dark Bishop, Dark Knight, and Gremory. I would also change the gender restrictions here so that Dark Mage and Dark Bishop were open to all, Gremory remained female-exclusive and Dark Knight became male exclusive (if you hate gender-locked classes, as most people seem to, you could easily change it to have all classes available regardless of gender). Dark Seals would be changed such that using one on a character unlocks all the dark magic classes for that character. You would still need to certify for the classes normally through exams, but the exams would take regular exam seals.

In terms of class abilities, the dark magic classes would probably look largely similar to their current incarnations. The big attraction would be that you got to use dark magic spells, which could probably even be tuned up to be slightly more powerful than they are currently. Miasma Δ could be dropped from Dark Mage and Dark Bishop, since they'd no longer be necessary. Dark Bishop would then have space to include Dark Tomefaire. Dark Bishop would also gain a new mastery ability which would allow the use of dark magic spells in regular magic classes. Hubert would also loses his existing personal ability and have it replaced with the same ability, which would mean that he and he alone could carry on using dark magic right from the start of the game.

...and there we go. I did indeed spend way too much time and write way too much on this topic.

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4 hours ago, The Boonsman said:

Well, the idea for it's stats is -5 Durability, +2 MT, +20 hit, and +10 crit. It's use comes in for crit kills, allowing you to slurp up easy kills if your already injured. Healing 20/30 health off a crit is good, and with Swords with high crit (Killing Edge, Wo Dao, Cursed Ashiya Sword, Sword of Moltra) alongside consistency makes it a not perfect, but still situationally useful combat art. At the very least it can't be any worse then Astra.

OR, you could, you know, not get the crit, eat a counter or two, and either end up with even lower health than you started with or even die in retaliation. Yeah, no. This doesn't sound worth it. At all.

4 hours ago, The Boonsman said:

This is very true, however it fixes one of the main issues of the class itself: only having Nos as a White Magic skill. Having in what my opinion is the better of the higher magic spells should at least not make it truely horrible and just a very niche choice if your fishing for Aura crit builds or something silly like that.

Problem is, Aura is pretty lousy as an attack spell, and you still fail to address the real problems - those that ensure Holy Knight is bad. As things are, the only way I can see Holy Knight being worth it is to invent new offensive white magic spells that don't suck ass; as is, the only worthwhile one is Seraphim, which, of course, not everyone gets. As was stated above, an offensive white magic class is only as good as the offensive white magic spells the game has, and most of the offensive white spells in this game stink.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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I was about to post my own class overhaul topic, so I'll just jump in here instead. The thought for designing an overhaul was the fact that the Special classes feel like Master-type classes at the Advanced levels. Growth and stat modifiers are not being considered as part of the changes yet (nor base stats and movement). All classes are considered gender-unlocked apart from wyvern and pegasus being male and female variants.

Beginner Classes: Move Lord down to this tier and make Authority the only requirement. Additionally gives Charm +2 as an ability on mastery. That would allow the lord units to mechanically stand out a bit in the early game without diverting them to swords.

Intermediate Classes: Thematically separate these out into 'movement classes' and 'weapon classes'. The movement classes give the Blow skills on Mastery: Armor gives Armored; Peg/Wyv gives Darting; Cavalier gives Death; then make Troubadour and a pre-Dark flier class to have Warding and Fiendish respectively.
The weapon classes give a similar rag-tag set of bonuses, some of which are stolen from Advanced: Steal/Wrath/Vantage/Unarmed/Hit/Renewal/Miracle. Make Mercenary a Lance class because foot lance units are unloved in the series as a whole. These are weaker or more situational skills, but the classes require less investment to get into.

Advanced Classes: In large part, do a swap with the Master list - push all the single-discipline classes to level 30 and these shall be the more flexible but ultimately weaker classes, to match the Special ones. All the 'movement classes' top out here (you might have noticed I mentioned a weaker Wyvern Rider in the above tier - Lord will now be an Advanced class, but both will be de-tuned a little to match).
For the movement classes: balance them around the Special ones in strength, with each combination of physical/magical and flying/riding represented. Fortress gets Wary Fighter, similar to lenticular's idea. Maybe even make a dumb Faith/Armor class if symmetry's important to you.
For the weapon classes: get rid of all the specialist ones, and have Assassin, Hero, War Master and Mortal Savant joined with one other class. The various weapons are split across the span of these, and each class gets both relevant Faire skills, and a Seal attribute skill on mastery. Gremory can be here too (with balanced stats, as with others), but I'd give it the highest entry requirements because getting both magics to a similar rank by level 20 seems more acheiveable than getting two weapon proficiencies.

Master Classes: All footlocked, I think it would be cool for each weapon to have a specialised Master class: Swordmaster/Warrior/Grappler/Sniper/Warlock/Bishop and a footlance class (Halberdier?). Each get a Mastery skill as the class skill; essentially Faire+Crit skills wrapped up like the Prowess ones are. Also put all the the Breaker skills in here, as well as some relevant extra skill (like Crit +20 for Warrior). Completing the class gives a Defiant skill and the best combat art for the weapon (I think this moves War Master's Strike to Warrior, but we can rename it). I'd maybe balance Astra with the others, it's been a while since I bothered with the Swordmaster class.

Black Magic Classes: Instead of being gender-locked, I'd make it locked to the units that use Black Magic: Edelgard/Lysithea/Hubert/Hapi/Jeritza. It still requires Dark Seal. Death Knight becomes a Special class for these units, but gets Range+1 instead of Counterattack, which moves to the Dark Bishop class.

Unique Classes: As others have mentioned, Edelgard's should get the option to use magic, and Dimitri's should either get a mount or a reduction in terrain penalties. I'd also like to see Byleth get an extra class at the same time the Lords do - give Keen Intuition and on mastery provide a White magic combat art. I've found that Byleth struggles for certifications in NG, so this allows them to keep up a little bit, but the combat art is a bonus for NG+ when White Magic A is a bit more attainable.

Obviously I've skipped over the true work of balancing, which is in the stat distributions, but I was mostly searching for the opportunity to figure out what the classes would have looked like if they were all realeased at the time of Ashen Wolves.

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4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

OR, you could, you know, not get the crit, eat a counter or two, and either end up with even lower health than you started with or even die in retaliation. Yeah, no. This doesn't sound worth it. At all.

Sol sounds like it should have stayed as an skill as opposed to being an combat art. Sure, it was nice in Awakening when it randomly triggers on an enemy; but all it's really doing is softening the damage you take on the counterattack. And I never had an good reason to use Astra...Or any of the combat arts that wasn't Knightkeeler, come to think of it.

 

 

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

As things are, the only way I can see Holy Knight being worth it is to invent new offensive white magic spells that don't suck ass

Or just swap White Tomefaire and Lance Faire with "White Magic Use x4" and a custom passive that improves the amount of health that's healed. Or a passive skill that improves evasion with White Magic

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25 minutes ago, mikalj said:

Beginner Classes: Move Lord down to this tier and make Authority the only requirement. Additionally gives Charm +2 as an ability on mastery. That would allow the lord units to mechanically stand out a bit in the early game without diverting them to swords.

I still don't think this is enough that I'd ever want to touch the class. +2 to mag, def, str, or spd are all better than +2 to res or charm, and giving up on the movement art as well would also not be something I'd want to do.

28 minutes ago, mikalj said:

Intermediate Classes: Thematically separate these out into 'movement classes' and 'weapon classes'. The movement classes give the Blow skills on Mastery: Armor gives Armored; Peg/Wyv gives Darting; Cavalier gives Death; then make Troubadour and a pre-Dark flier class to have Warding and Fiendish respectively.
The weapon classes give a similar rag-tag set of bonuses, some of which are stolen from Advanced: Steal/Wrath/Vantage/Unarmed/Hit/Renewal/Miracle. Make Mercenary a Lance class because foot lance units are unloved in the series as a whole. These are weaker or more situational skills, but the classes require less investment to get into.

I don't really like this, either. Making it so that the mounted classes have all the best skills as well just means that there's no reason to want to go with anything else. At least in the game as it actually stands, there is some sort of tension between "power now" and "power later". If I want to be as strong as possible now, maybe I'd choose to put units into Cavalier or Priest, whereas if I'm more worried about being as strong as possible later on, maybe I'd prefer Brigand and Mage. You are addressing that somewhat by saying that the good classes should be higher investment to get into, but I don't think I'd find that a fun way of balancing them. If the barrier to entry is high enough to function in this regard, it's also high enough to be a disincentive to actually bother with the class at all. Either that, or it would incentivise grinding just to get into all the best classes, and I'm not a fan of grinding.

37 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Or just swap White Tomefaire and Lance Faire with "White Magic Use x4" and a custom passive that improves the amount of health that's healed. Or a passive skill that improves evasion with White Magic

I wouldn't want to give them just straight up Uses x4, because that would also make them the best users of support magic. Getting 4 uses of Warp or 8 uses of Fortify per map seems like way too much to me. That's why, for my proposal, I invented a brand new skill that only increased the uses of offensive White Magic, since that let me go beyond just regular double uses. I stopped at triple uses, since I thought that would be enough, but I wouldn't mind quadruple uses for offensive white magic spells only.

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38 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I don't really like this, either. Making it so that the mounted classes have all the best skills as well just means that there's no reason to want to go with anything else. At least in the game as it actually stands, there is some sort of tension between "power now" and "power later". If I want to be as strong as possible now, maybe I'd choose to put units into Cavalier or Priest, whereas if I'm more worried about being as strong as possible later on, maybe I'd prefer Brigand and Mage. You are addressing that somewhat by saying that the good classes should be higher investment to get into, but I don't think I'd find that a fun way of balancing them. If the barrier to entry is high enough to function in this regard, it's also high enough to be a disincentive to actually bother with the class at all. Either that, or it would incentivise grinding just to get into all the best classes, and I'm not a fan of grinding.

Thanks for the feedback!

I was hoping that in the overall scheme of things, the movement classes would be preferable at the Intermediate and Advanced level, but then eclipsed as combat classes by the time that units were able to get into buffed specialist Master classes. This would be balanced out by the fact that learning an alternative weapon and movement type delays progress in the major weapon that the powerful Master class uses. Certainly either path should be achievable over the course of a campaign, more so than trying to get to Great Knight.

Additionally, would the moving of the Faire skills to the weapon classes (away from the movement classes) give enough of a baseline power vs. delayed skill reward within each tier?

I think beginning with the GBA games mean that I have an aversion to the movement classes being the best combat classes when possible. Clearing every map with Seth and Marcus is the manner of gameplay I only want to do once.

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14 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

NGL, Sol would be pretty useless if it was a combat art. I mean, one hit with half the damage drained as HP ain't so impressive when the opponent just gets to smack you right back, more likely than not undoing all the healing Sol just managed.

Obviously you'd only use Sol when it would get the kill, or against a target who can't counter. The Golden Dagger in Echoes had an art like this, and it was decently useful.

Anyway, as others have said, the Beginner classes don't really need a buff. At most, I'd increase their modifiers slightly (i.e. Monk gets +1 Magic, Fighter gets +1 HP). You're not supposed to stay in them beyond getting the mastery skill.

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

Lord: This really feels that it only exists for the sake of tradition. It just doesn't make much sense in the context of this game. Res +2 and Subdue are both abilities that are in the wrong game. Res +2 would be better in games with far lower res growths; Subdue would be better in games where you get more underleveled recruits. The only unit in Three Houses who requires any babying at all is Flayn, and even she is easy to level up if you do want to use her. The other big problem is that this is a sword class, only accessable to units who don't really want to use swords. It's a mess. So what to do with it? Well, if I had my druthers, I'd just get rid of it entirely. But let's assume that that isn't an option. First thing I'm going to suggest is changing the certification from C Authority and D+ Swords to C Authority and D+ in Swords, Axes, Lances, or Bows. I'd then also change the wexp bonuses to give boosts to all four of those weapons rather than just swords. Finally, I would change the mastery skill to something related to battalions. This could be something that gave extra gambit uses, but instead I think I'm going to suggest Charismatic Leader: "All stat boosts granted by battalions are multiplied by 1.5".

A mastery skill that boosts battalion effect makes perfect sense! At this point, I'd drop the weapon requirement entirely, and just do C Authority. And also let Yuri and mayyybe Teach certify into the class.

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

Abyss Classes: I'm actually pretty happy with all of these. The only one I'd change at all is Trickster, which I think needs a small buff. I'd do this by improving Lucky Seven, which I would change to "Each turn, grants +7 to one of the following stats: Str, Mag, Spd, or Crit."

Personally, I'd bump up Trickster and War Monk to full-count magic uses. It's absurd that Monk (requiring D Reason/Faith) gets twice as many white magic charges as Trickster (demanding B Faith). It's not like these classes would be OP with a tolerable amount of spell charges.

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

High Lord/Great Lord: These are mostly fine, but as a minor buff, I'd like to see them change from infantry type movement to thief type movement.

I hadn't thought of this, but it's good! I would also add Lance Crit +10, as it seems thematically appropriate and fits as a counterpart to Swordmaster and Warrior, but that's just me.

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

Hero: I just don't see the benefit of having three Swordfaire classes at Advance tier. Making a different niche for all of them is difficult, and I don't think that "free Vantage!" is a particularly strong selling point. As such, I'd reimagine Hero as being something of a jack of all trades class. I would have it lose Vantage, and instead gain Axefaire and Lancefaire to go along with Swordfaire. The wexp bonuses and certification requirements would also be changed to reflect this new focus. I would give them a new mastery skill: Weapon Master: "Grants Hit/Avo +20 when using a sword against axe users, an axe against lance users, or a lance against sword users."

I like the proposed mastery skill! That said, I hope this doesn't mean Defiant Strength would be cut in full. It's actually a solid skill for Defiant Vantage/Avoid+Crit builds.

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

Dark Magic: As previously mentioned, dark magic is a mess. There are approximately a billion different ways it could be changed, and most of them would be an improvement on the current system. Here's one attempt. First off, every character will have two different reason magic lists: a dark magic list and a black magic list. For most classes, they would only have access to their black magic spells; dark magic spells would only be avilable in dark magic classes. The dark magic classes would be Dark Mage, Dark Bishop, Dark Knight, and Gremory. I would also change the gender restrictions here so that Dark Mage and Dark Bishop were open to all, Gremory remained female-exclusive and Dark Knight became male exclusive (if you hate gender-locked classes, as most people seem to, you could easily change it to have all classes available regardless of gender). Dark Seals would be changed such that using one on a character unlocks all the dark magic classes for that character. You would still need to certify for the classes normally through exams, but the exams would take regular exam seals.

In terms of class abilities, the dark magic classes would probably look largely similar to their current incarnations. The big attraction would be that you got to use dark magic spells, which could probably even be tuned up to be slightly more powerful than they are currently. Miasma Δ could be dropped from Dark Mage and Dark Bishop, since they'd no longer be necessary. Dark Bishop would then have space to include Dark Tomefaire. Dark Bishop would also gain a new mastery ability which would allow the use of dark magic spells in regular magic classes. Hubert would also loses his existing personal ability and have it replaced with the same ability, which would mean that he and he alone could carry on using dark magic right from the start of the game.

Neat proposal! I like the idea of only needing to burn one Dark Seal to access all the "Dark" classes. I'm not totally sure about parallel spell lists (since Dark magic seems to be used for characterization in the main game), but I don't have another answer that would make Dark Bishop attractive for, say, Lorenz.

10 hours ago, lenticular said:

Armored Knight: Armored Blow just isn't very good, and also doesn't really have good synergy with what armour units want to do. If you're building an armour unit, you're probably wanting them to put in work on enemy phase, not player phase. So let's get rid of it. I'm going to propose replacing it with Wary Fighter: "During battles, neither the user nor enemy can perform follow up attacks". This feels like it would probably be a pretty big buff to armour units, but they could certainly use it.

Brawler: Conceptually, I really like Unarmed Combat. The problem is that it completely sucks. Other than using it for the theming/flavour or using it in challenge runs (like the "no items" run I did a while ago), I really can't think of any reason to use it. It gives terrible might and hit, and its ostensible advantage in weight doesn't really exist, given that it's easy to offset the weight of light gauntlets by having any strength to speak of. Maybe, just maybe, it could give a brawling option to a War Master whose inventory was loaded with axes, but I don't actually believe that for a second. The other big problem with Unarmed Combat as a mastery skill is that most of the other classes that might want it (Grappler and War Ascetic) get it anyway. So it's got to go. Let's replace it with Pinpoint Blow: "If unit initiates combat, grants Crit +20 during combat."

Just here to say I'm on-board for both these masteries! "Pinpoint Blow" for men and "Darting Blow" for women is actually an interesting trade-off.

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

Obviously you'd only use Sol when it would get the kill, or against a target who can't counter.

That just makes it even worse than it already is. Using it in situations where it'd kill, aka against weakened enemies, ensures that it doesn't drain much health. The only things that frequently come up that can't counter are what, archers (since we're assuming it'd be a sword combat art)?

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

The Golden Dagger in Echoes had an art like this, and it was decently useful.

The difference was that it drained 100% of the damage dealt in that game. That's a big difference because it's much easier to have a net gain on health when using it.

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10 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

That just makes it even worse than it already is. Using it in situations where it'd kill, aka against weakened enemies, ensures that it doesn't drain much health. The only things that frequently come up that can't counter are what, archers (since we're assuming it'd be a sword combat art)?

 

As soon as a combat arts is the only correct choice, it stops becoming an interesting option and becomes strictly overpowered. The reason it's 50% is to keep in line with Draining Blow and Nos, to keep that 50% drainage, up to 80% with the right crest activations.

Even if the attack isn't going to kill, it's still gonna do somewhere in the range of 20 damage (if your doing less then 20 damage, odds are the unit your using isn't strong enough to keep up with late game part 1 enemies, nevermind part 2) and 10 Extra HP can help you survive many attacks you otherwise wouldn't.

This skill isn't made with it being the best choice every time, but it has it's uses. It's meant to keep a Hero stocked up on HP and to use that +20 hit to guaretnee kills.

 

14 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:
39 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The Golden Dagger in Echoes had an art like this, and it was decently useful.

The difference was that it drained 100% of the damage dealt in that game.

 

In Echoes, you only realistically did 10 or so damage with the Plentitude Skill when it's relevant in part 2 and in early part 3 if not upgraded. It was strictly for HP restoration because Swordfighters simply could double there against most foes.

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

The difference was that it drained 100% of the damage dealt in that game. That's a big difference because it's much easier to have a net gain on health when using it.

I mean, I'm not opposed to a Sol art that restores 100% of HP dealt. Buff Nosferatu to do the same, so that it doesn't suck so much. ...Or sucks more.

1 hour ago, The Boonsman said:

As soon as a combat arts is the only correct choice, it stops becoming an interesting option and becomes strictly overpowered. The reason it's 50% is to keep in line with Draining Blow and Nos, to keep that 50% drainage, up to 80% with the right crest activations.

Draining Blow and Nosferatu are both really bad in 3H, though. They could use the buff.

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

I mean, I'm not opposed to a Sol art that restores 100% of HP dealt. Buff Nosferatu to do the same, so that it doesn't suck so much. ...Or sucks more.

1 hour ago, The Boonsman said:

 

The only issue is that it's be 130% HP restored if Byleth's, Claude's, or Balthus' Crests activated, leaving them restoring more HP then they did damage with.

 

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

Draining Blow and Nosferatu are both really bad in 3H, though. They could use the buff.

Draining Blow is pretty decent for finishing off enemies at least, but Nosferatu just isn't good unless your Byleth. I agree though they could use a buff.

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5 hours ago, The Boonsman said:

As soon as a combat arts is the only correct choice, it stops becoming an interesting option and becomes strictly overpowered. The reason it's 50% is to keep in line with Draining Blow and Nos, to keep that 50% drainage, up to 80% with the right crest activations.

Even if the attack isn't going to kill, it's still gonna do somewhere in the range of 20 damage (if your doing less then 20 damage, odds are the unit your using isn't strong enough to keep up with late game part 1 enemies, nevermind part 2) and 10 Extra HP can help you survive many attacks you otherwise wouldn't.

This skill isn't made with it being the best choice every time, but it has it's uses. It's meant to keep a Hero stocked up on HP and to use that +20 hit to guaretnee kills.

50% healing doesn't hack it in my book when you start getting into late part 1, let alone part 2, because enemy counters are liable to outdamage the healing unless you're either a mega tank or a dodgetank (which wouldn't get too much value from Sol anyway). Especially on Maddening, where by midgame, you start seeing normal-ass enemies with 30+ attack, especially when they start using silvers. Also, Draining Blow is never brought up in terms of good combat arts, and Nosferatu is a joke in this game.

Which, again, odds are the enemy's counter strips away and then some.

I'd say it fails at that unless you're either a mega tank or a dodgetank, the latter which wouldn't care that much for it.

5 hours ago, The Boonsman said:

In Echoes, you only realistically did 10 or so damage with the Plentitude Skill when it's relevant in part 2 and in early part 3 if not upgraded. It was strictly for HP restoration because Swordfighters simply could double there against most foes.

It was still good then because you often weren't getting smacked back for how much you were getting, if not more. A stark contrast to this game, where that's usually not the case.

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13 hours ago, mikalj said:

I was hoping that in the overall scheme of things, the movement classes would be preferable at the Intermediate and Advanced level, but then eclipsed as combat classes by the time that units were able to get into buffed specialist Master classes. This would be balanced out by the fact that learning an alternative weapon and movement type delays progress in the major weapon that the powerful Master class uses. Certainly either path should be achievable over the course of a campaign, more so than trying to get to Great Knight.

Obviously, the devil's in the details for something like that, and it does depend a lot on exactly how things are balanced. My first instinct, though, is that I don't think something like this would work well. Something that's good from levels 1-30 is probably going to be a lot more desirable than something that lags behind for most of the game but then becomes good eventually.

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

A mastery skill that boosts battalion effect makes perfect sense! At this point, I'd drop the weapon requirement entirely, and just do C Authority. And also let Yuri and mayyybe Teach certify into the class.

Dropping the weapon requirement entirely would be the much more elegant solution, yes. I'm slightly annoyed with myself for not thinking of that. I personally wouldn't want Yuri to have access to the class -- I don't really like it for him thematically; he's a leader but he's not a noble -- but it certainly wouldn't break anything to give it to him or to Byleth, and I can see why others would want that.

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

Personally, I'd bump up Trickster and War Monk to full-count magic uses. It's absurd that Monk (requiring D Reason/Faith) gets twice as many white magic charges as Trickster (demanding B Faith). It's not like these classes would be OP with a tolerable amount of spell charges.

This would be fine. I honestly don't see it making that much difference either way. Neither class is particularly magic-focused and it's very rare for me to even have to think about conserving spell uses with them, even at half-castings. That said, full castings would give a little extra flexibility in how they get used, so I think I agree it would probably be a good thing overall.

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

I hadn't thought of this, but it's good! I would also add Lance Crit +10, as it seems thematically appropriate and fits as a counterpart to Swordmaster and Warrior, but that's just me.

I like this change too. High/Great Lord are classes that are almost there and just need some small buffs to really make them competitive, and a fairly small crit boost would be another nice way of doing it. Definitely thematically appropriate too.

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

I like the proposed mastery skill! That said, I hope this doesn't mean Defiant Strength would be cut in full. It's actually a solid skill for Defiant Vantage/Avoid+Crit builds.

That's a fair point, but I think also difficult to balance around. It's nice for skills like that to exist, but if a class has a niche mastery skill that isn't going to be used in most builds, then that weakens the class overall (cf. Warrior and Wrath). They could just go on classes that are independently good and don't need a strong mastery skill (eg Wyvern Rider) but there are only so many of these classes to go around. Or you could just give Hero two mastery skills, but then it would seem weird and out of place. Or you could just move all of the Defiant and Seal Skills out of Master tier down to Advance tier, give all Advance tier classes an extra mastery, and then just say that Master tier classes don't get mastery skills because they're such a pain to reach anyway. I'm not really sure I completely like any of these solutions. Game design is hard.

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

Neat proposal! I like the idea of only needing to burn one Dark Seal to access all the "Dark" classes. I'm not totally sure about parallel spell lists (since Dark magic seems to be used for characterization in the main game), but I don't have another answer that would make Dark Bishop attractive for, say, Lorenz.

Yeah, that would be a downside. But I think it only really meaningfully impacts Lysithea and Hapi. Technically there's Edelgard and Jeritza as well, but most runs won't ever see them learn their dark magic spells, so I don't think that much is lost there. And for Hubert, I suggested replacing his Personal to allow him to keep the dark edge that he has (and because his existing Personal is less significant and interesting than Lysithea's or Hapi's). When I was thinking about it, I asked myself if Lysithea would still be Lysithea if she had black magic rather than dark magic and I think that yes, she would. At least in terms of characterisation. Maybe she'd lose a touch of nuance, but the core character would still be the same. There also wouldn't be anything stopping Lysithea and Hapi from having the strongest dark magic lists in the game, making them the characters best suited to dark magic classes.

On the subject of a hypothetical combat art version of Sol, I think it would be OK but unremarkable. It certainly wouldn't be on the same power level as something like Hunter's Volley or Swift Strikes, but I can definitely see myself getting some use out of it. I don't think it's a deal-breaker if you're getting hit by a counterattack. If you hit for 30 and heal for 15 and then the enemy counterattacks for 30, then you still have 15 more HP afterwards than you would have done if you'd made a regular attack. That's not always going to be relevant, but it's not hard to think of circumstances where it would be. Certainly it would be better to have it than to have nothing.

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Well I think as a starting point. Give all armored classes +2 movement already. Its been proven that sitting at -1/-2 movement from the other classes cripples their viability over and over again. And its not even realistic that they move slower.
Sure, react slower, especially since the bulky armor would absolutely hinder reflexes and peripheral awareness. (Thus lower speed stat.) That makes sense. But anyone who knows how real armor and muscle building works would know that wearing heavy weights just means you get strong enough over time that they just stop being heavy. (Ergo not an inhibitor for movement.)

This is hardly a be all fix. But I think it certainly make armor knights more appealing as a standard option for a tank. As of now if your using an AK for tanking... You'll have to turtle because they're incredibly slow movement wise. And at that point you can tank with anyone that survives one single round.

Other changes I'd bring up if it wasn't already done. Making Emperor/Armored Lord classes magic using.
And buffing Hero.

So some new changes I'd also like to do.
1. Give Mortal Savant fiendish blow as a class skill in place of Black Tomefaire. And add range +1 black spells.
Reasoning: Fiendish blow is an extra +1 damage over all and it works for dark mages too (if you want Lysithea to be a katana weeb.) It also saves a skill slot if you have FB already. Or allows more dedicated swordies that want a dash of magic to get it without going through mage first. That +1 range is especially nice for allowing those swordies to poke with their more limited list, especially since they mostly get magic to blast armored units that have a bajillion defense anyways. (Felix comes to mind as this would give him 4 range Thorons. Which isn't too bad in my opinion.)
Its technically a nerf if you want to stack tomefaire and FB. But DK/HK is already better for that as is, Gremory also does that better for the most part.

2. Speaking of Holy Knights. They need a big buff so here's what I had in mind.
Replace Terrain Resistance with a new skill I'll be naming "Protection from Evil."
Its description will be
"More likely to be targeted by dark spells. If so. Negate all damage and then buff all stats by +12 for a turn."

Its actual effect is a mix of the taunt/provoke skill (is that a thing in 3H? I don't remember it being one.) that's exclusive to Dark mages. As well as a doubled transmute.
I'd still call transmute better since its more practical and easier to get. (Mastering Dark Flier is probably easier for more character than getting into Holy Knight.)

Admittedly that's pretty niche, but there are maps that can get pretty Dark mage/wizard happy. So it could be an appreciated one. Especially to units that have an easy time getting certified into it. (Even if you only get like 68%. Your only going to be a HK for the maps where its good. So you can brute force it easily enough.)


As for my thoughts on the Sol stuff.

50% healing is generally quite bad in the high damage 3H environment. I'd personally raise everything to 70% (100% on Crest procs.) and buff Nos and Draining blow slightly. Sol itself seems decent to me actually. Especially since its easier to get axes/swords that hit hard compared to Nos (lul) and DB (also lul.)
The former just sucks on everyone. The latter has one good user in Balthus. (Who has the HP, Defense, and Strength, to make self-healing through damage desirable. And to make it even better. He even has a suitable crest!)

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On 1/18/2022 at 10:32 AM, Armchair General said:

Sol sounds like it should have stayed as an skill as opposed to being an combat art. Sure, it was nice in Awakening when it randomly triggers on an enemy; but all it's really doing is softening the damage you take on the counterattack.

 

I believe the reason why IS is very anxious about having Sol skills return was how in Fates. Sol Master Ninjas were one of the the best options for trivializing the game. Since doubling everything+Guard Gauge. Meant even low skill SMN (Sol Master Ninjas) would basically never die. They'd refresh their own HP in time for the next hit between dodges/guard gauges pretty much 100% of the time.

(This isn't quite the case in Awakening because enemies hit harder and duel guard was never guaranteed. And also Awakening had much. Much easier ways to shatter all difficulty then going through the trouble of creating a tanky speed demon with Sol. Nosferatu being the prime and obvious example.)

Edit 1 (Also I know this is semi-off topic. But I think it would be a good thing to bring up while the topic is on Sol. Skill% Sol in 3H sounds like it would be incredibly busted. Not as much as in Fates but I imagine it be pretty easy to create an EP sweeper that literally cannot die. Like literally. The game couldn't generate enough RNG seeds that result in their death.)
(And potentially with less grinding then similar Vantage+Wrath or Quick Riposte+bajillion strength.)
 

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2 hours ago, DoomRPG said:

I believe the reason why IS is very anxious about having Sol skills return was how in Fates. Sol Master Ninjas were one of the the best options for trivializing the game. Since doubling everything+Guard Gauge. Meant even low skill SMN (Sol Master Ninjas) would basically never die. They'd refresh their own HP in time for the next hit between dodges/guard gauges pretty much 100% of the time.

(This isn't quite the case in Awakening because enemies hit harder and duel guard was never guaranteed. And also Awakening had much. Much easier ways to shatter all difficulty then going through the trouble of creating a tanky speed demon with Sol. Nosferatu being the prime and obvious example.)

Edit 1 (Also I know this is semi-off topic. But I think it would be a good thing to bring up while the topic is on Sol. Skill% Sol in 3H sounds like it would be incredibly busted. Not as much as in Fates but I imagine it be pretty easy to create an EP sweeper that literally cannot die. Like literally. The game couldn't generate enough RNG seeds that result in their death.)
(And potentially with less grinding then similar Vantage+Wrath or Quick Riposte+bajillion strength.)

I disagree with all of this. Sol Master Ninjas need to continuously get lucky, because Sol can just, you know, not activate when you need it. There's also the flaw of Sol needing the enemy to be healthy when it procs for it to be anything resembling useful.

I'd say Sol in 3H would be win-more at best, because enemies hit too hard for someone to stay alive while relying on Sol. Even more so on Maddening, where enemies hit like Mack trucks to the extent that Sol would need to activate pretty much all the time to keep you healthy, and even that wouldn't be a guarantee.

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26 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I disagree with all of this. Sol Master Ninjas need to continuously get lucky, because Sol can just, you know, not activate when you need it.

I'd say Sol in 3H would be win-more at best, because enemies hit too hard for someone to stay alive while relying on Sol. Even more so on Maddening, where enemies hit like Mack trucks to the extent that Sol would need to activate pretty much all the time to keep you healthy, and even that wouldn't be a guarantee.

If Sol was Skill/2 you'd be right. You'd need luck as even the most skilled Sol Master Ninjas would cap at around 10-20%. And before then? Forget about it.
But Sol is Skill%. And by midgame. Sol Master Ninja candidates can easily be walking with 25+ Skill. 30~ if Pair up boosts it.

With Guard gauge and enough speed to double. SMN negate every other attack. And also have two separate chances to proc Sol in every single round of combat. If your SMN is bulky enough to withstand two rounds of combat. Its near 100% they will activate Sol enough times to survive EP at least once. If they don't have full hp by the end, just use a concoction and end turn. The enemy should be dead by next player phase. If your SMN can survive three attacks (admittedly difficult unless your using a tankier SMN. Or have +defense pair up.) The odds of dying from lack of Sol is astronomically low. Less than 1% because roll the dice enough and your odds of healing with Sol reach 99.99999 (repeating)%.
In a dream scenario where you survive four rounds. (Admittedly extremely unlikely without set up. Like Lily poise+Def boosters on the tankier SMN) I'm pretty sure there isn't an RNG seed where you don't activate Sol. Unless your skill is like. 5.

Admittedly some SMN are much less capable and less desirable for the job. Kaze is a good example since his STR, HP, and DEF tend to be rather low. Other candidates will get more mileage.

As for Sol in 3H. You know how high Dex can get right? Dex% Sol in 3H could easily reach 30% per attack. Give Sol to any number of speedy characters (who also tend to have high Dex.) and watch as they become more likely to activate Sol then they are not too. Sol+Quick Riposte tank builds (admittedly more for NG or late game.) with 40~ Dex would only need to survive 2 rounds (Not half as hard as you make it out to be tbh.) before enemy quantity becomes irrelevant. Their odds of dying from lack of sol healing would reach below 1%.

Like even in XCOM. 99.999999% repeating would be considered rather reliable of a strategy.

Things like Counter. Pavise+ Luna+ etc. Prevented Sol cheese from functioning on Lunatic+. But if you wanted to I'm pretty sure its rather trivial to make a functioning Sol build on lower difficulties with Duel Guard+ and S support. All you need is somebody who can tank.

(Oh. And Inevitable end can also beet SMN. Your best bet is Shuriken breaker if you want to EP them. Or even better. Nuke on player phase. Admittedly that's also a hassle due to map design.)

Edit 1: Added "On lower difficulties."

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23 minutes ago, DoomRPG said:

If Sol was Skill/2 you'd be right. You'd need luck as even the most skilled Sol Master Ninjas would cap at around 10-20%. And before then? Forget about it.
But Sol is Skill%. And by midgame. Sol Master Ninja candidates can easily be walking with 25+ Skill. 30~ if Pair up boosts it.

With Guard gauge and enough speed to double. SMN negate every other attack. And also have two separate chances to proc Sol in every single round of combat. If your SMN is bulky enough to withstand two rounds of combat. Its near 100% they will activate Sol enough times to survive EP at least once. If they don't have full hp by the end, just use a concoction and end turn. The enemy should be dead by next player phase. If your SMN can survive three attacks (admittedly difficult unless your using a tankier SMN. Or have +defense pair up.) The odds of dying from lack of Sol is astronomically low. Less than 1% because roll the dice enough and your odds of healing with Sol reach 99.99999 (repeating)%.
In a dream scenario where you survive four rounds. (Admittedly extremely unlikely without set up. Like Lily poise+Def boosters on the tankier SMN) I'm pretty sure there isn't an RNG seed where you don't activate Sol. Unless your skill is like. 5.

Admittedly some SMN are much less capable and less desirable for the job. Kaze is a good example since his STR, HP, and DEF tend to be rather low. Other candidates will get more mileage.

As for Sol in 3H. You know how high Dex can get right? Dex% Sol in 3H could easily reach 30% per attack. Give Sol to any number of speedy characters (who also tend to have high Dex.) and watch as they become more likely to activate Sol then they are not too. Sol+Quick Riposte tank builds (admittedly more for NG or late game.) with 40~ Dex would only need to survive 2 rounds (Not half as hard as you make it out to be tbh.) before enemy quantity becomes irrelevant. Their odds of dying from lack of sol healing would reach below 1%.

Like even in XCOM. 99.999999% repeating would be considered rather reliable of a strategy.

Things like Counter. Pavise+ Luna+ etc. Prevented Sol cheese from functioning on Lunatic+. But if you wanted to I'm pretty sure its rather trivial to make a functioning Sol build on lower difficulties with Duel Guard+ and S support. All you need is somebody who can tank.

(Oh. And Inevitable end can also beet SMN. Your best bet is Shuriken breaker if you want to EP them. Or even better.  THatNuke on player phase. Admittedly that's also a hassle due to map design.)

Edit 1: Added "On lower difficulties."

Still, I think Sol Master Ninjas are overrated to holy hell and back, simply because Sol itself isn't that good. I don't know about you, but I am not comfortable relying on something that has slightly more than a 1/3 chance of working at best, much less needing it consistently. That's not what I'd call reliable. At all. Simply put, I'm much better off relying on an actual tank for enemy phase than someone who things can quickly go south for it the RNG doesn't cooperate, which describes Sol Master Ninjas to a T.

RE: 3H, you seriously think that draining 15 or so HP is enough to keep you alive when enemies regularly hit for twice that much (which is definitely the case later on in Maddening)?? Not to mention that enemy speed is inflated to the point where unless you're a speed demon, you might as well forget about doubling, as you're more likely getting doubled. Unless you're talking about armored units, but in that case Sol would be nigh useless.

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Just now, Shadow Mir said:

Still, I think Sol Master Ninjas are overrated to holy hell and back, simply because Sol itself isn't that good. I don't know about you, but I am not comfortable relying on something that has slightly more than a 1/3 chance of working at best, much less needing it consistently. That's not what I'd call reliable. At all. Simply put, I'm much better off relying on an actual tank for enemy phase than someone who things can quickly go south for it the RNG doesn't cooperate, which describes Sol Master Ninjas to a T.

If your SMN only survives a single hit. Then yes. Sol may very well not save you.

If they survive two hits. Then even while on the lower end of skill. Say 20%. Sol actually has an activation chance of around 43%. Still not perfect. but then you have guard gauge and are guaranteed to survive the third round. Assuming your doubling. Then your supposed "20%" Sol is over 50%.

That's well over 1/3, but I agree. Its not reliable enough.

What happens if you survive three hits? Again with only 20 skill (Which is on the low end for... I think every MSN candidate.)

Your reaching 2/3 at that point. If you manage to reach four hits (Admittedly difficult, but hardly impossible.) And get your second guard gauge? Your reaching 90+% You'll get Sol at least once!

Five hits is nigh impossible but if you reached that benchmark. Your Sol Master ninja. With a mere 20% sol activation rate. Is effectively immortal as their chance to not activate Sol is like. 5%.



And 20% is not the cap. Sol is Skill%. Not Skill/2%
Late game SMN can easily reach 30% per hit. and by midgame they should be over twenty skill.

Imagining Dex% Sol Dimitri with Retribution just seems like another way to do Battalion V+W except it does less damage. (Yes. Guard gauge isn't in 3H... But avoid tanking is much easier and terrain more favorable. If enemies have a 20-30% chance to even HIT Dimitri. Then his ability to actually survive hits can be reduced significantly and still reach practically guaranteed Sol.)

SMN and Dex% Sol in 3H is not about reaching 100% activation rates. Its about surviving long enough to make it so the odds MUST roll in your favor through the laws of probability. And in both Fates and 3H. That is plenty possible, even on the hardest difficulties.

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28 minutes ago, DoomRPG said:

If your SMN only survives a single hit. Then yes. Sol may very well not save you.

If they survive two hits. Then even while on the lower end of skill. Say 20%. Sol actually has an activation chance of around 43%. Still not perfect. but then you have guard gauge and are guaranteed to survive the third round. Assuming your doubling. Then your supposed "20%" Sol is over 50%.

That's well over 1/3, but I agree. Its not reliable enough.

What happens if you survive three hits? Again with only 20 skill (Which is on the low end for... I think every MSN candidate.)

Your reaching 2/3 at that point. If you manage to reach four hits (Admittedly difficult, but hardly impossible.) And get your second guard gauge? Your reaching 90+% You'll get Sol at least once!

Five hits is nigh impossible but if you reached that benchmark. Your Sol Master ninja. With a mere 20% sol activation rate. Is effectively immortal as their chance to not activate Sol is like. 5%.



And 20% is not the cap. Sol is Skill%. Not Skill/2%
Late game SMN can easily reach 30% per hit. and by midgame they should be over twenty skill.

Imagining Dex% Sol Dimitri with Retribution just seems like another way to do Battalion V+W except it does less damage. (Yes. Guard gauge isn't in 3H... But avoid tanking is much easier and terrain more favorable. If enemies have a 20-30% chance to even HIT Dimitri. Then his ability to actually survive hits can be reduced significantly and still reach practically guaranteed Sol.)

SMN and Dex% Sol in 3H is not about reaching 100% activation rates. Its about surviving long enough to make it so the odds MUST roll in your favor through the laws of probability. And in both Fates and 3H. That is plenty possible, even on the hardest difficulties.

The thing is, Fates is much less friendly to evade-reliant units, like ninjas. Also, you're still actively relying on luck to save your bacon, which is just tempting fate. That's not good odds, no matter which way you slice it, and I'd rather rely on something that's actually consistent because my standards for reliability aren't so generous that Sol counts as reliable, especially since if the enemy isn't healthy when it kicks in, it's useless.

RE:3H, I can only see Sol being worthwhile if you're using a dodgetank... in which case you're already in good shape without it. Ergo, Sol isn't actually helping when it requires a working dodgetank chassis for it to be useful (most other ability combinations with it have too many holes for it to be consistent).

Edited by Shadow Mir
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27 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The thing is, Fates is much less friendly to evade-reliant units, like ninjas. Also, you're still actively relying on luck to save your bacon, which is just tempting fate. That's not good odds, no matter which way you slice it, and I'd rather rely on something that's actually consistent because my standards for reliability aren't so generous that Sol counts as reliable, especially since if the enemy isn't healthy when it kicks in, it's useless.

RE:3H, I can only see Sol being worthwhile if you're using a dodgetank... in which case you're already in good shape without it. Ergo, Sol isn't actually helping when it requires a working dodgetank chassis for it to be useful (most other ability combinations with it have too many holes for it to be consistent).


Going to focus on your dodgetanking comment.

Unlike Fates, which requires you to go above and beyond to drop enemy hit rates to sub 30%. And then not even be reliable anyway due to its hybrid RNG. 3H uses 2-RN and the good chunk of maps have some level of terrain to offer evade boosts.

In other words. You don't need a full dodge tank build to drop enemy hit rates to zero. You can have them reach 20% then have Sol at 30% and ta-dah your odds of death are so astronomically low. The game's RNG generator can't create a seed where your unit dies. Especially if they survive 2-3 rounds of combat. They may get hit. But Sol will activate to put them out of a danger zone sooner rather than later.

Of course. Unless you set Sol's activation rate to very low extents. Like Dex/2% (Which is much worse then Dex%)

If your asking for 1 sol chance. Then yes. I agree. It is not consistent unless your activation rate is approaching 95+% in single RN. Or 85% chance in double RN.

But that's not what Sol builds are about. Sol builds in Fates, and more importantly. In theoretical 3H. Are about giving yourself as many re-rolls until Sol becomes guaranteed. Creating a cycle where Sol "refills" your re-rolls for proccing Sol. Creating a self-perpeuting loop where your units cannot die before the enemies.

Sure. They'll rarely come out on full HP. But if the enemy dies first. That's irrelevant.

Anyhow this has gone off topic long enough. Let's move back  to other points. I'm surprised you haven't railed against my suggestion for HK and MS for example.

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2 hours ago, DoomRPG said:

f your SMN only survives a single hit. Then yes. Sol may very well not save you.

If they survive two hits. Then even while on the lower end of skill. Say 20%. Sol actually has an activation chance of around 43%. Still not perfect. but then you have guard gauge and are guaranteed to survive the third round. Assuming your doubling. Then your supposed "20%" Sol is over 50%.

The problem with this analysis is that activating Sol at least once does not suddenly erase all previous damage you've taken. If, for sake of easy numbers, you are doubling for 20 damage per swing, and both you and your enemies have 40 HP (which means this build is already pretty darn optimized because you're managing to one-round enemies with shuriken), then each Sol activation only restores 10 HP. If you're taking around 20 damage (say 18 for a high 3HKO), you need two of them to erase one hit. That's definitely nowhere near immortal. The build also suffers when you can't double (lots of things you can't double in Conquest, between Wary Fighter and super-fast enemy ninjas/swordmasters) or against really high def/evade (especially since you're probably paired up so can't benefit from attack stance accuracy).

Sol is still a decent ability but I wouldn't call it broken. If I'm dying in a small number of hits then I don't like to count on it, and if I'm dying in a lot of hits then I'll probably survive with or without Sol... there's a sweet spot where Sol improves performance appreciably but there's a cost to getting it (seals and/or not working on shuriken rank while picking it up).

As 3H lacks dual guard and is more player phase focused in general, I don't think %-based Sol would be super-strong in 3H. In fact we don't need to theorycraft this, there are two characters who essentially have a Sol variant without needing a skill slot (albeit a bit weaker, 30% damage dealt instead of 50%... but on the other hand they're two of the hardest-hitting characters in the cast) and I've not generally seen that ability described as overpowered.

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