What makes an "Est", an "Est"?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Good day, folks of the Forest.

This thread is inspired by some of the discussion that took place on the Sacred Stones subforum. However, the talk diverged significantly from the original intent of the topic at hand, so I thought it would make sense to spin if off into its own topic. Basically, the question is, which units qualify for the "Est" archetype?

The Archetype, of course, is named after Est, a Pegasus Knight who has appeared in at least five mainline Fire Emblem titles. In her first appearance in FE1, she isn't recruited until chapter 18 (out of 25). She shows up as a level 5 Pegasus Knight, at a point when most of your units are of a much higher level, or else promoted. Her bases aren't too impressive, although her Speed and Weapon Level start out pretty solid, at least. Where she stands out, however, is in terms of growths: at 410% across eight stats, she has some of the highest growths in the game. This includes 70% in four areas (Strength, Skill, Speed, and Luck), with her only poor growths being in Defense (20%) and Resistance (0%).

Est reappears in Gaiden, joining Celica's army after she conquers Grieth's Citadel in Act III. She comes as a level 3 Pegasus Knight, with decent starting Speed and Resistance, but rather lackluster bases otherwise. However, her growths are again some of the best in the game, even if they're lower than they were last time. This trend continues in Mystery of the Emblem - her Book 1 appearance is roughly synonymous with her FE1 appearance, but in Book 2, she joins from chapter 15 (out of 24). She still comes underleveled, with low-to-moderate bases and high growths. Her next mainline appearance doesn't come until Shadow Dragon, the remake of FE1, and things have certainly changed. Her bases are similar to what they were before, but her growths are lower, with a total of 285% (this is notably lower than her sister Catria's own total, of 320%). Then, in New Mystery, a remake of FE3 Book 2, she shows up in chapter 15 (which is the 19th out of 30 chapters, including the paralogues but excluding the prologue). Here, her growths are boosted to be broadly comparable to how they were in the first couple Archanea games. Est's most recent mainline appearance is in Echoes, where she appears at the same point as before, and her growth total is boosted somewhat relative to the original FE2 (to 283%).

Through all of these appearances, and particularly the first three (Japanese-exclusive) ones, the name "Est" came to transcend the character. It came to refer to an "archetype", a template by which units in other games could be understood. Broadly speaking, an "Est" is a unit who joins fairly late into the game, with a relatively low level and/or bases for her join time, but the chance to make up for it via high growth rates over lots of levels. A widely-recognized example of an "Est" is Nino, a playable mage in FE7. She joins as a level 5 Mage, in "Battle Before Dawn", which is chapter 28 of Hector Hard Mode, and the 23rd out of 31 chapters in HHM). Her growth total of 330% is one of the best in the game, and it's higher than that of the other Mages, Erk and Pent. But her bases are quite poor, mostly within (or barely above) single-digits.

When it comes to other games, however, there's a lot of debate over who constitutes an "Est", and who does not. In Genealogy, Tailtiu joins late within the first generation and low-leveled, but her growths aren't particularly compelling, and she has a lot of problems that stick with her no matter how many levels she gets (no horse, no Pursuit). In FE6, Sophia comes at a low level with low bases, and higher growths (280%) than her same-class comrades. But she joins in the chapter 14 (the 16th out of 31 total), so roughly halfway assuming the "good end", and notably before Fae (chapter 15, 18th out of 31), who joins with much higher growths (600% total, albeit over fewer levels). In Radiant Dawn, Pelleas joins with just 3 chapters left to go (one of which is the Tower, admittedly), as a level 12 tier-2 when most of your units will be tier-3 or comparable, but with much higher bases than "Est"s in any other game, and with a growth total (335%) that's respectable, but not standout for RD.

So, what makes an "Est"? Is Tailtiu one? How about Sophia, or Pelleas? Delthea, Coirpre, Charlot, PoR-Tormod, Kurthnaga, Fae, Ewan, L'Arachel, Myrrh, Rev-Nyx, SS-Cyril? What's the most important factor: low base level and stats, high growth rates, or late jointime? Is there some other factor that should be considered? Is it possible for a game to have multiple Ests? I'd be curious to know what people think. To be honest, I'm starting to question whether anyone aside from Nino and Est are even "Est"s... and to be honest, I'm not even sure about SD-Est. Looking forward to the comments!

[Dark Holy Elf]

I was thinking about this during the previous thread, and the more I think about it, the more I don't consider growth rates to be terribly important to any archetype. How can they be, when the player can't even see them without a guide? You can argue that if they're so high/low as to be obvious (e.g. Jagen or certain manaketes) that this might count, but Ests never are - they have ordinary growth rates, just tend to be on the high end. We're a bunch of Fire Emblem nerds here, so we tend to assume the player has access to guides, but it seems strange to me to take archetypes which should be immensely obvious to any player (the Jagen is an early-joining prepromo who is often a Paladin, the Christmas Cavaliers are a red/green cavalier duo, etc.) and tie one to something which needs a guide to prove. Because without one, you'll never convince me that any given player will be able to tell the difference between a 330 growth total and a 280 one reliably.

I think if a future Fire Emblem decides to play a joke and made a late-joining underlevelled PC with an awful growth total, that I would still consider them an Est, just a particularly bad one. Especially if they're obviously making fun of the archetype otherwise by making them a young pegasus knight or mage.

For me, the most important aspect of an Est is joining very weak for the time, due to their low level. To me that's the aspect of an Est which is immediately obvious to anyone. They're almost always young, too. And I wouldn't consider manaketes to be Ests, broadly, as they have their own unusual set of rules to play by... their archetype is established by Tiki, not Est.

With that in mind:

FE4: Tailtiu is possible. She joins at Level 3 in the second half of Part 1. FE4 feels so different structurally that I don't think of her as one immediately. She does also have unusually little promise, as mentioned... is that important? I don't know. Another candidate is Coirpre (or his replacement). Special shout-out to if he ends up with Forseti - then he truly feels like the "level him up for big payoff!" that Ests supposedly promise. A staff-using Est is a bit odd, though, because Ests are arguably meant to be hard to level, and staff users by nature are not.

FE6: Sophia gets my vote. As I mentioned in the other thread I don't consider "second half of the game" to be an essential requirement, and she's possibly second half anyway. That said, she does face a bit of competition from Zeiss. I don't think Zeiss is quite as low-levelled relatively, but he's close enough to introduce competition, and arguably an Est partly defined by a lack of competition for the role, since they are supposed to stand out level-wise.

FE7: Nino, obviously. In her case nobody is even close; the previous unpromoted character joined 4-7 chapters earlier depending on gaidens/routes, and was higher-levelled anyway.

FE8: Ewan. Litigated this in the other thread; I don't think Myrrh qualifies, and L'Arachel both joins earlier AND at a higher level than Ewan.

FE9: Tormod has a lower base level than the previous Mage you got, who was already underlevelled, 7+ maps previous, but with Celerity he has clear potential.

FE10: It's Tormod again! Pelleas is Level 12 in the first map of Part 4? Tormod, unless you somehow got him 7 levels in Part 1, joins at an even lower level, one map later. And if you aren't on NG+ then Tormod doesn't have anyone joining even close to his level since Part 2. Well... except arguably Vika, but laguz are weird.

FE Fates Revelation: Nyx, Setsuna, and Odin are the three lowest-levelled characters at their respective points. Since they're so comparable to each other (and not that dissimilar to several others, such as Niles, Azama, Effie, Arthur, etc.), none stands out, so none feels that Est-like to me.

Three Houses: Absolutely not anyone. I suppose SS Cyril comes closest, but he still joins at Level 21.

[lenticular]

I generally don't find most FE archetypes particularly useful. Admittedly, that may partly because I've never played any of the Japan exclusive titles, and I get the impression that they were more prevalent there. But looking at the internationally-released titles only, I just don't find them particularly useful. Sure, some units share some common traits, but they also typically have a lot of differences. Calling someone "an Est" over-empasises the similarities while minimising the differences.

For instance, Est herself is also a member of the Whitewings, which is both a reason not to deploy her (you have other pegasus knights) and a reason to deploy her (using all three gives you triangle attack). Triangle attack also gives you an option for more easily training her than if you were working on base stats alone. On the other hand, training up low-level characters is considerably easier in any game that offers infinite skirmish battles for grinding. It's not at all challenging to get any low level unit up to speed in Sacred Stones, Shadows of Valentia, or wherever. Similarly, the Tellius games offer bonus exp, which, once again, completely changes the way the player relates to low level units. And then there's the difference between low-level melee units and low-level ranged units (especially magic units). The latter are often easier to level, since you can have them safely chip for exp rather than needing to set them up to get the kill every time they attack.

So, do units like Ewan and Tormod have some things in common with Est? Sure. But they both play very differently to her. I think that archetypes are only useful if you can say to someone who has played one game but not the other "treat this unit just like that one" or "this unit works like that one". I have a friend who has played Sacred Stones but not Path of Radiance. I've told him that PoR has a unit called Titania who is a lot like Seth, and I think that that's enough for him to have a good idea of what Titania is like. On the other hand, if you found someone who had only played Shadow Dragon (or any of Est's other games) that some other unit was a lot like Est then I think that they'd get the wrong idea. There are some other units that have a few similarities with Est, but nobody who is broadly comparable in many different aspects.

I think that the fact that we're even having a conversation about what makes "an Est" shows that classifying units this way isn't a useful communication tool. If, every time you refer to someone as "an Est", you have to follow up by clarifying what you mean, then you may as well just skip the original classification and go straight to the definition.

[ZeManaphy]

To me, its simply units who starts off with poor stats, but if you take time and raise them, they are godly good. 

 

Or put it in non-FE example, Riolu in DPPt is an absolute pain to raise from Lv. 1, but if you do manage raise it, you get an absolutely outstanding mixed attacker in Lucario. Togepi in Platinum is also a nightmare to raise, but when fully evolved, Togekiss is a great Pokemon: Its Great offensively and Defensively, has a godly ability, amazing movepool, and a special attack to back it up. 

They are essentially the speed runner's worst units, but a casual player's best units. 

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by ZeManaphy

[Dark Holy Elf]

8 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

To me, its simply units who starts off with poor stats, but if you take time and raise them, they are godly good. 

 

As a curiosity: how good does someone have to end up to be an Est in your eyes? Nino is usually considered one, but I wouldn't call her endgame performance "godly good"... in fact, due to Excalibur being less decisive in the final chapter than Luna or Aureola, she's arguably still outclassed by several other mages even then. Is there anyone you think would be an Est except that their endgame performance isn't good enough?

And would you consider Donnel an Est? If only poor starting stats are a requirement he could be considered one, but I generally don't, because he's only modestly underlevelled and quite early.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

I generally don't find most FE archetypes particularly useful.

For the record I agree, with the exception of the term Jeigan/Jagen which is useful to the point where I've used it (and seen it used) outside Fire Emblem - it describes a useful concept of a unit who is initially far ahead of the competition but won't remain that way (though they may remain pretty useful).

Est is honestly probably the one I find second most useful though not nearly as much so for the reasons you've stated; we clearly don't all agree what the term actually means, so it's obviously not that great as a descriptor. I'm just here because I like nerding over this sort of thing anyway. (This should surprise nobody by now.)

Many other FE "archetypes" (like "Bord and Cord") are things I've barely ever seen used on Serenes, let alone anywhere else.

[AnonymousSpeed]

>does LABEL apply?

Ah yes, the question which overrides all else in modern society.

My method is to make sure you actually define the term before trying to figure out what counts as one. I would then ignore any criteria which are not included in the definition, and only count those units which meet all the criteria. Attempting to debate who counts as an Est without knowing what even makes something an Est renders the whole endeavor pointless and un-resolvable. I would also advise against attempting to reverse-engineer the term from a list of units which are "supposed" to be Ests.

I would consider an Est to have:

• Late join time
• Relatively low joining level
• High growths

Which would exclude units like Ewan and Sophia, who join in the middle of the game with fairly mediocre growth rates.

[ZeManaphy]

7 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

As a curiosity: how good does someone have to end up to be an Est in your eyes? Nino is usually considered one, but I wouldn't call her endgame performance "godly good"... in fact, due to Excalibur being less decisive in the final chapter than Luna or Aureola, she's arguably still outclassed by several other mages even then. Is there anyone you think would be an Est except that their endgame performance isn't good enough?

And would you consider Donnel an Est? If only poor starting stats are a requirement he could be considered one, but I generally don't, because he's only modestly underlevelled and quite early.

From my experience, Delthea is an " est " character, and she was my  best unit in Echoes all the way to the end game. Mozu is also arguably an Est as well, but she's never been super good late game in my experience, so she's more like a Jagen to me. Its subjective, but I guess my expectations is that they have to be one of the best units, and the growths, spells, classes,  and weapons in the end after being a weakling. Or to put in Pokemon Standards, Dratini to Dragonite, Togepi to Togekiss, and Feebas to Milotic.

Edited March 18, 2022 by ZeManaphy

[lenticular]

18 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

For the record I agree, with the exception of the term Jeigan/Jagen which is useful to the point where I've used it (and seen it used) outside Fire Emblem - it describes a useful concept of a unit who is initially far ahead of the competition but won't remain that way (though they may remain pretty useful).

I agree that "Jagen" is the least useless of the archetypes, but even here, I think it's a bit too fuzzy to be truly useful. Do units that stay good forever (eg Seth) count, or do they need to be badly eclipsed in the end? Do we only include paladins, or can units of other classes (eg Sothe) also count? Do the base stats and/or weapon rank have to be significantly higher than average, or do any early pre-promotes count? And so on and so forth. Some people might have loose definitions that would see units like Jacob, Catherine and Mycen as Jagens. Others would restrict it so far that units like Titania and Seth aren't included. I would agree that I mostly understand what people mean when they use the term, but only mostly.

Another archetype that I think is at least somewhat useful is the "Camus". Again, it's not perfect and has some fuzziness and ambiguity, but I also mostly understand what people mean when they use it.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

31 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

From my experience, Delthea is an " est " character, and she was my  best unit in Echoes all the way to the end game. Mozu is also arguably an Est as well, but she's never been super good late game in my experience, so she's more like a Jagen to me. Its subjective, but I guess my expectations is that they have to be one of the best units, and the growths, spells, classes,  and weapons in the end after being a weakling. Or to put in Pokemon Standards, Dratini to Dragonite, Togepi to Togekiss, and Feebas to Milotic.

Uh. That's not how Jagens work. They're supposed to join higher in most stats than all your other units. A unit who "starts weak and ends up bad" isn't a Jagen. Maybe we can call them "Rebecca"s?

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think if a future Fire Emblem decides to play a joke and made a late-joining underlevelled PC with an awful growth total, that I would still consider them an Est, just a particularly bad one. Especially if they're obviously making fun of the archetype otherwise by making them a young pegasus knight or mage.

Kaga did it already, and his name is Shannam. Or Miranda, but she's actually closer to a conventional Est. Just not a very good one.

35 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I would consider an Est to have:

• Late join time
• Relatively low joining level
• High growths

Which would exclude units like Ewan and Sophia, who join in the middle of the game with fairly mediocre growth rates.

I think this is all reasonable. But I wonder: should "join time" be measured in absolute terms, or relative? Like, Ewan shows up midgame, but he's also one of the last units to join your army. Similar case for SS-Cyril, or the scrubs in Revelation.

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Three Houses: Absolutely not anyone. I suppose SS Cyril comes closest, but he still joins at Level 21.

This is more a consequence of the 3H levelling system than anything else. The game isn't programmed to give you a lower-level Cyril at that point. Conversely, if I pick up Catherine or Shamir early, they'll join at a similar level to my other units, but in Advanced tier. So can I consider them Jagens, or nah?

2 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Another archetype that I think is at least somewhat useful is the "Camus". Again, it's not perfect and has some fuzziness and ambiguity, but I also mostly understand what people mean when they use it.

Camus debates are interesting, but they usually boil down to "narrative function", moreso than "gameplay function". In that sense, they're more akin to the "Malledus Archetype" than to more conventional ones.

[AnonymousSpeed]

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

I think this is all reasonable. But I wonder: should "join time" be measured in absolute terms, or relative? Like, Ewan shows up midgame, but he's also one of the last units to join your army. Similar case for SS-Cyril, or the scrubs in Revelation.

Well, in some sense it's all "relative", since the 20th chapter of Sacred Stones is a later in the game than the 20th chapter of FE6 or FE7. However, I would go with "absolute" in this case, roughly the last third or quarter of the game. I like to err strongly to one side, so I lean more towards the last quarter.

15 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Some people might have loose definitions that would see units like Jacob, Catherine and Mycen as Jagens. Others would restrict it so far that units like Titania and Seth aren't included.

Another archetype that I think is at least somewhat useful is the "Camus". Again, it's not perfect and has some fuzziness and ambiguity, but I also mostly understand what people mean when they use it.

It's funny that the term "Oifey" has all but vanished from the fandom.

"Camus" is a funny one because, much like Zero, they tend to be character you know the author wants you to like. This is the most surefire way to make them insufferable. I do like Galle though.

Edited March 18, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[Dark Holy Elf]

24 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I agree that "Jagen" is the least useless of the archetypes, but even here, I think it's a bit too fuzzy to be truly useful. Do units that stay good forever (eg Seth) count, or do they need to be badly eclipsed in the end? Do we only include paladins, or can units of other classes (eg Sothe) also count? Do the base stats and/or weapon rank have to be significantly higher than average, or do any early pre-promotes count? And so on and so forth. Some people might have loose definitions that would see units like Jacob, Catherine and Mycen as Jagens. Others would restrict it so far that units like Titania and Seth aren't included. I would agree that I mostly understand what people mean when they use the term, but only mostly.

 

Well, if someone says "I'm playing this [random game of almost any genre where you use multiple characters, e.g. most RPGs], and this character Steve is a Jagen", I know what they mean, and I think most people here would too. It doesn't mean he's a paladin, because other game may not have have paladins. It may or may not mean he eventually becomes badly eclipsed, because that's not consistent for jegians within Fire Emblem... and being "badly" eclipsed is rather subjective. What it unquestionably means is it's a unit who starts very powerful, and relatively falls off. I feel like everyone would agree on that.

Obviously the specifics of the definition vary, and yeah there will be characters who ambiguously belong/don't (for all that any definition that excludes Seth/Titania is one I would personally find incredibly narrow), but I think we at least agree on the broad idea.

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

This is more a consequence of the 3H levelling system than anything else. The game isn't programmed to give you a lower-level Cyril at that point. Conversely, if I pick up Catherine or Shamir early, they'll join at a similar level to my other units, but in Advanced tier. So can I consider them Jagens, or nah?

 

 

Interesting question! I suppose I'm discovering that actual, displayed level is important to my conception of Ests, but less so for jagens, since while I would not consider Cyril an Est, I would at least consider an argument that Catherine and to a lesser extent Shamir is one. Is this because Est is strictly a FE term for me, whereas Jagen is one I've seen used for other games, even ones that don't use level differences? Possible.

For the record I've described Catherine as "the closest thing 3H has to a Jagen", so that suggests I don't actually consider her one, but that it's in a grey area.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Dark Holy Elf

[ping]

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I would consider an Est to have:

• Late join time
• Relatively low joining level
• High growths

This is my idea of an Est as well, although I would be willing to accept "has some unique positive quality when raised" as an alternative third point, with PoR!Tormod and his Celerity skill as an example. Speaking of PoR, Elincia, despite being promoted, might also fit, since she monopolises the "flying staff user" role in both Tellius games and joins (or, in RD, rejoins) at a fairly low level compared to the rest of your team.

Basically, if I'm told that XYZ is "an Est-like character", I expect to get something out of raising them that distinguishes them from a character in the same or a similar class that joined 10 chapters earlier. Nino does have better averages than Erk (Lucius out-MAGs her, but that's partially couteracted by Light magic's lower power), as little as it does for her actual usefulness, so I would call her an Est. In BinBla, Sophia' averages are overall slightly worse than Raigh's outside of her Res, so I would find the "Est" label misleading. Similarly for Zeiss vs Milady, or Wendy vs Bors, although Wendy joins quite early, anyway.

 

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Is the Est archetype even something that´s still worth having around, considering there´s now 16 different games that tend to function sometimes even wildly different, with some sharing similarities cuz they are a remake on top of having different levels of reception overall?

Calling them late joining folks with meagre stats and good growths or w/e it is they bring with them, "late growth units" seems to encapsulate their being pretty well. From my 1/3 of the games played standpoint anyway. Sure it doesn´t roll of the tongue that easily.

Then again, I don´t see the need for these defintions in the first place. Using a units name with an apt description would probably work much better than giving a vague "Yeah, that´s an Est"

And SD Est is a free Ridersbane.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

On 3/18/2022 at 12:12 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

"Camus" is a funny one because, much like Zero, they tend to be character you know the author wants you to like. This is the most surefire way to make them insufferable. I do like Galle though.

My favorite Camus is Hetzel, because the game seems to go out of its way to make sure I dislike him. But I can't stay mad at him, even if I have to kill him to advance in the Tower.

On 3/17/2022 at 8:25 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I was thinking about this during the previous thread, and the more I think about it, the more I don't consider growth rates to be terribly important to any archetype. How can they be, when the player can't even see them without a guide?

Anyone who's a big enough nerd to be arguing about archetypes is also a big enough nerd to look up growth rates.

On 3/17/2022 at 8:25 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Another candidate is Coirpre (or his replacement). Special shout-out to if he ends up with Forseti - then he truly feels like the "level him up for big payoff!" that Ests supposedly promise. A staff-using Est is a bit odd, though, because Ests are arguably meant to be hard to level, and staff users by nature are not.

Is Coirpre/Charlot easy to level? On the one hand, being staffbots mean they never have to worry about combat in the outside world. On the other hand, thdy also can't Arena, which cuts into their access to EXP and Gold alike.

And this is before considering that, in many games, staff users are hard to level by their nature. GBAFE, Tellius, and Archanea are all quite stingey when it comes to EXP from using staves. Thankfully, Genealogy bucks this trend. Hell, Charlot or Lex!Coirpre can ride a Mend Staff alone to their promotion. For non-Paragon variants of Coirpre, however, getting the necessary EXP from staff use is much more tedious. So he may be forced to gobble up some of the green units in Chapter 10 to reach promotion. Which, with 5 move, is something of a chore.

On 3/18/2022 at 3:03 AM, pong said:

This is my idea of an Est as well, although I would be willing to accept "has some unique positive quality when raised" as an alternative third point, with PoR!Tormod and his Celerity skill as an example. Speaking of PoR, Elincia, despite being promoted, might also fit, since she monopolises the "flying staff user" role in both Tellius games and joins (or, in RD, rejoins) at a fairly low level compared to the rest of your team.

RD!Elincia is no Est. Even assuming she didn't level at all in Part II, being a level 1 3rd-tier unit is pretty standard for IV-2. Of beorc units who could be in the Hawk Army, I would only expect Titania, Haar, Shinon, and possibly Gatrie to be at a higher level.

PoR!Elincia, there's more of a case for. Especially with how bad her starting stats are, in spite of her joining in a "promoted" class.

On 3/18/2022 at 12:25 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Interesting question! I suppose I'm discovering that actual, displayed level is important to my conception of Ests, but less so for jagens, since while I would not consider Cyril an Est, I would at least consider an argument that Catherine and to a lesser extent Shamir is one. Is this because Est is strictly a FE term for me, whereas Jagen is one I've seen used for other games, even ones that don't use level differences? Possible.

That's a fair point. Conversely, I would personally consider AM/VW-Cyril to be something of a "Donnel" archetype. Even though he doesn't join at a lower level than the other students, he joins quite early in a lower-tier class, with poor bases but good growths.

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

Anyone who's a big enough nerd to be arguing about archetypes is also a big enough nerd to look up growth rates.

 

This suggests that terms only have meaning to big nerds, which if so, makes them not very useful. I'm (obviously) a big Fire Emblem nerd, but I also talk to many FE players who aren't, and archetypes are only useful to me if I can use them in more general discussion.

But beyond that it was more of a general observation. Even nerds tend to overrate the effect of growth rates, despite them being hard to know without actively looking them up. I'm a big FE nerd myself and I couldn't have told you if Sophia's growths were "good" (e.g. 300 total) or "mediocre" (e.g. 240 total) or somewhere in between, until the recent conversation, because knowing exactly what they are isn't that important to understanding Sophia's function. I knew they weren't "outstanding" (e.g. 450) or "terrible" (e.g. 150), and that's it. So if I'm not a big enough nerd to tell if she's an Est or not, this definition is suddenly only useful to a very small pool of players indeed.

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

Is Coirpre/Charlot easy to level? On the one hand, being staffbots mean they never have to worry about combat in the outside world. On the other hand, thdy also can't Arena, which cuts into their access to EXP and Gold alike.

And this is before considering that, in many games, staff users are hard to level by their nature. GBAFE, Tellius, and Archanea are all quite stingey when it comes to EXP from using staves.

Staff users are typically easy to level because they don't need to come into contact with enemies, and also don't need allied units to perform special favours (i.e. chipping an enemy to near death) for them. They can just run around the backlines, healing folks every time they take damage, or even just level up and gain HP. In many games they can also spam staves like Torch or Barrier. It may take a while, but particularly if the player goes at a slow pace even a relatively unskilled player will have no difficulty levelling them.

The arena in FE4 is an interesting point, of course - in other FE games, the arena is dangerous, but not FE4's (at least not lethally), which is a boon to levelling up weaker combat units, and a source of exp which staff users can't take advantage of. As you note, though, this is somewhat offset by staff exp in FE4 not being that stingy.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

45 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

This suggests that terms only have meaning to big nerds, which if so, makes them not very useful. I'm (obviously) a big Fire Emblem nerd, but I also talk to many FE players who aren't, and archetypes are only useful to me if I can use them in more general discussion.

I would generally agree with the first half of the bolded sentence, with mixed feelings on the second half. Like, I could tell my friends who started with Awakening that "Frederick is a Jagen" and, in the process, convey precisely zero functional knowledge. I'd have to explain what a "Jagen" is, rendering the archetype moniker as a useless middleman. 

I don't think archetypes are intended for "FE n00bs", or even more casual fans. Rather, I interpret them as a lens by which more dedicated fans might view units, in a way that enables comparisons across the series. Even games set in different realms often have the same development team behind them, who repeat certain paradigms in how units and characters are constructed. It's interesting to try to spot the similarities, and to speculate in what the developers were thinking. So I think archetypes have a certain kind of utility, but not in the sense that we may initially imagine.

55 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Staff users are typically easy to level because they don't need to come into contact with enemies, and also don't need allied units to perform special favours (i.e. chipping an enemy to near death) for them. They can just run around the backlines, healing folks every time they take damage, or even just level up and gain HP. In many games they can also spam staves like Torch or Barrier. It may take a while, but particularly if the player goes at a slow pace even a relatively unskilled player will have no difficulty levelling them.

It depends on what we mean by "easy". To staff users' benefit, they don't have to compete with combat units for EXP. Their function is more specialized, giving them one chance to gain EXP per turn.

Note that I specify "one" - that's the negative side. Staffbots have no enemy phase, so they can't gain EXP more than once per turn (Dancer support aside). Plus, they can't secure boss kills for extra experience. 

Speaking anecdotally, I find staff users among the trickier units to train in (some) FE games. Serra, Priscilla, Natasha, and L'Arachel are all serious struggles to even get to level 10, much less level 20. Laura, likewise, is unlikely to get much further than level 10 in RD Part I, even assuming you deploy her every map. Leveling them is less important than leveling combat units, but it's not a process I would generally consider "easy".

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

This suggests that terms only have meaning to big nerds, which if so, makes them not very useful.

Why would a term that's only useful to big nerds not be useful? We're all big nerds here, we use weird terms all the time.

[lenticular]

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

I would generally agree with the first half of the bolded sentence, with mixed feelings on the second half. Like, I could tell my friends who started with Awakening that "Frederick is a Jagen" and, in the process, convey precisely zero functional knowledge. I'd have to explain what a "Jagen" is, rendering the archetype moniker as a useless middleman. 

Just because they don't know the name of the archetype doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know the archetype itself. If you were trying to explain Sacred Stones to them and said that "Seth is the Frederick of this game", then they would probably understand that. I have a friend who went the other way around. He played Sacred Stones as a kid, then picked up Awakening in the past couple of years, and described Frederick as being "a Seth". Similarly, I think that most people here would know what I meant if I said that Mozu is the Donnel in Fates. But is "Donnel" really the name of that archetype? The Fandom wiki refers to it as the "Kliff" archetype, which I don't think I've ever seen anywhere else. Maybe it's just the "villager" archetype?

In a lot of ways, I think that these more informal archetypes that are constructed on-the-fly are more useful than the more formal and well established ones. The more units that you try to fit into a single archetype, the thinner and more stretched that archetype becomes, as there are fewer and fewer defining characteristics that are shared across all members. With on-the-fly archetyping, you only ever really need to compare two units, which can lead to better and closer comparisons. Mozu is "a Donnel" more than she is "a Kliff"; Frederick is "a Seth" more than he is "a Jagen"; and so on and so forth.

[Shadow Mir]

9 minutes ago, lenticular said:

In a lot of ways, I think that these more informal archetypes that are constructed on-the-fly are more useful than the more formal and well established ones. The more units that you try to fit into a single archetype, the thinner and more stretched that archetype becomes, as there are fewer and fewer defining characteristics that are shared across all members. With on-the-fly archetyping, you only ever really need to compare two units, which can lead to better and closer comparisons. Mozu is "a Donnel" more than she is "a Kliff"; Frederick is "a Seth" more than he is "a Jagen"; and so on and so forth.

Speaking of, I honestly think most archetypes have been vanishing into ether as of late. Only Jagen, Cain and Abel seem to still be in use these days.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Just because they don't know the name of the archetype doesn't necessarily mean that they don't know the archetype itself. If you were trying to explain Sacred Stones to them and said that "Seth is the Frederick of this game", then they would probably understand that. I have a friend who went the other way around. He played Sacred Stones as a kid, then picked up Awakening in the past couple of years, and described Frederick as being "a Seth".

That's true, but that's sort of "skipping a step", isn't it? Saying "Frederick is like Seth", or even "Frederick is a Seth", doesn't explicitly invoke the Jagen archetype. Rather, it's a direct comparison between two instances of that archetype. Which bolsters my notion that, when explaining units to newcomers or casual fans, "archetype name" is little more than a middle-man. Archetypes can be useful explainers, but more implicitly than explicitly.

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Similarly, I think that most people here would know what I meant if I said that Mozu is the Donnel in Fates. But is "Donnel" really the name of that archetype? The Fandom wiki refers to it as the "Kliff" archetype, which I don't think I've ever seen anywhere else. Maybe it's just the "villager" archetype?

Well, should the archetype be named after its first canonical instance, or its most famous incarnation? I agree that FE2-Kliff and Donnel share an archetype, to which (I would assert) Ross, Mozu, and AM/VW-Cyril also belong. Who should it be named for? Kliff, the first instance? Ross, the first internationally-known instance? Or Donnel, the one from the most successful game? If "archetype name" is a middle-man, does it even matter which one we name it after?

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

In a lot of ways, I think that these more informal archetypes that are constructed on-the-fly are more useful than the more formal and well established ones. The more units that you try to fit into a single archetype, the thinner and more stretched that archetype becomes, as there are fewer and fewer defining characteristics that are shared across all members. With on-the-fly archetyping, you only ever really need to compare two units, which can lead to better and closer comparisons. Mozu is "a Donnel" more than she is "a Kliff"; Frederick is "a Seth" more than he is "a Jagen"; and so on and so forth.

...Huh. Basically what I suggested just now, but worded less pretentiously. Seems we're on the same page.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Speaking of, I honestly think most archetypes have been vanishing into ether as of late. Only Jagen, Cain and Abel seem to still be in use these days.

There's an argument that Fates doesn't have a Cain and Abel (people say Saizo/Kaze, but they're not Cavaliers, so it's an edge case IMO) or a Jagen (outside of earlygame/Rev-Gunter). And does Three Houses have an instance of either archetype?

[Shadow Mir]

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

There's an argument that Fates doesn't have a Cain and Abel (people say Saizo/Kaze, but they're not Cavaliers, so it's an edge case IMO) or a Jagen (outside of earlygame/Rev-Gunter). And does Three Houses have an instance of either archetype?

That's a fair argument, I suppose. And no, 3H doesn't have any of those. Though to be frank, I'd be surprised if it had any real archetypes with its structure.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

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

It depends on what we mean by "easy". To staff users' benefit, they don't have to compete with combat units for EXP. Their function is more specialized, giving them one chance to gain EXP per turn.

Note that I specify "one" - that's the negative side. Staffbots have no enemy phase, so they can't gain EXP more than once per turn (Dancer support aside). Plus, they can't secure boss kills for extra experience. 

Speaking anecdotally, I find staff users among the trickier units to train in (some) FE games. Serra, Priscilla, Natasha, and L'Arachel are all serious struggles to even get to level 10, much less level 20. Laura, likewise, is unlikely to get much further than level 10 in RD Part I, even assuming you deploy her every map. Leveling them is less important than leveling combat units, but it's not a process I would generally consider "easy".

Yeah, I suspect we have different definitions of what's easy/hard to level. All the units you've cited are ones that I had no trouble getting to Level 10 even when I was far worse at Fire Emblem than I am now. They may level slower than other units, but they're gonna get there (and in the particular case of Serra/Priscilla, they get there long before you get Pent). By comparison, getting levels safely to someone like Sophia or Donnel is something I often feel like I need to warp my playstyle to accomplish, and there's usually some tension to it - what if I miss? Do I have a plan to sweep in and protect this unit afterward? etc.

I suspect that if you polled people, you'd find that the GBA staff users are actually very commonly used/promoted units.

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

It depends on what we mean by "easy". To staff users' benefit, they don't have to compete with combat units for EXP. Their function is more specialized, giving them one chance to gain EXP per turn.

Note that I specify "one" - that's the negative side. Staffbots have no enemy phase, so they can't gain EXP more than once per turn (Dancer support aside). Plus, they can't secure boss kills for extra experience. 

Speaking anecdotally, I find staff users among the trickier units to train in (some) FE games. Serra, Priscilla, Natasha, and L'Arachel are all serious struggles to even get to level 10, much less level 20. Laura, likewise, is unlikely to get much further than level 10 in RD Part I, even assuming you deploy her every map. Leveling them is less important than leveling combat units, but it's not a process I would generally consider "easy".

I'd say this reveals that the name of the archetype isn't that important. I'm old enough to remember when the most common name for a highly underlevelled unit was not "Est", but "Nino", due to FE7 being the starting game for much of the English fanbase in the fandom 15+ years ago. Fans easily see parallels between Marcus, Seth, Titania, and Frederick, so naturally draw those comparisons.

Even in this thread I see "Cain and Abel" and honestly I never use that one, and find it sounds strange to my ears (probably because I think of the biblical reference first). I prefer "red/green cavaliers" or "Christmas cavaliers" since that more effectively communicates why they stand out. And I've never heard of a "Kliff" before... IMO that one is basically invalidated by the fact that Kliff himself doesn't particularly belong to it in the remake, or at least not in a way that stands out from the other Ram villagers.

[lenticular]

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

There's an argument that Fates doesn't have a Cain and Abel (people say Saizo/Kaze, but they're not Cavaliers, so it's an edge case IMO) or a Jagen (outside of earlygame/Rev-Gunter). And does Three Houses have an instance of either archetype?

I've seen the claim that Sylvain and Ingrid are the Cain and Abel of Three Houses, though I think that's a stretch. Though no more so than Saizo and Kaze. And honestly, it's not an archetype that I find useful in the first place.

I've also seen arguments for Jacob/Felicia and Catherine & Shamir as their games' respective Jagens, though, again, this stretches the archetype beyond the point where I would consider it useful.

[SnowFire]

Fates has a very clear Jagen analog!  He's just killed off three chapters in.  (Okay, before maybe returning later after he's no longer really a Jagen in one route, and returning sooner but having a very dopey plotline in another.  Gonna have to say that Birthright did this plotline right for Garon/Hans's betrayal to Actually Have Meaning.)

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I've seen the claim that Sylvain and Ingrid are the Cain and Abel of Three Houses, though I think that's a stretch. Though no more so than Saizo and Kaze. And honestly, it's not an archetype that I find useful in the first place.

This is a high-level idea that my brain just isn't ready to handle.

I'd say it's definitely a bigger stretch. Saizo and Kaze have the same class with red and green hair, respectively. Sylvain and Ingrid can have the same class (as can any two units in 3H), with red and blonde hair. We've seen blonde Cains before (i.e. Naoise, Forde), but Abels tend to have brown-to-green hair. Likewise, we've seen female Cains (i.e. Cecille, Sully), but not female Abels.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'd say this reveals that the name of the archetype isn't that important. I'm old enough to remember when the most common name for a highly underlevelled unit was not "Est", but "Nino", due to FE7 being the starting game for much of the English fanbase in the fandom 15+ years ago. Fans easily see parallels between Marcus, Seth, Titania, and Frederick, so naturally draw those comparisons.

Interesting insight. That's one thing I was wondering - did longtime fans immediately recognize Nino as an "Est"? Or was the archetype not standardized until well after the first international release? The history of archetypes, not in the sense of "design paradigms", but rather "fan perceptions", is a prospect I wish I were more familiar with.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Even in this thread I see "Cain and Abel" and honestly I never use that one, and find it sounds strange to my ears (probably because I think of the biblical reference first). I prefer "red/green cavaliers" or "Christmas cavaliers" since that more effectively communicates why they stand out. And I've never heard of a "Kliff" before... IMO that one is basically invalidated by the fact that Kliff himself doesn't particularly belong to it in the remake, or at least not in a way that stands out from the other Ram villagers.

When it comes to archetype names, I think I'm "lucky" in that my first game was Shadow Dragon. So the first Jagen, Cain, Abel, Nyna, Camus, and Est I met were... Jagen, Cain, Abel, Nyna, Camus, and Est, respectively.

As for the Kliff point, this is an important consideration. A unit can satisfy one archetype in one appearance, yet not in another appearance. Jagen, for instance, functions as a Jagen (duh) in FE1 and its remakes, but three years later, he's fulfilling the Malledus archetype instead. The phrase "Arran is a Jagen" probably makes no sense to someone who has only played FE12.