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The Trade off for not designing games around Perma Death is harder end games


Jotari
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2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

No. Just no. I don't like the aspect of cheapening the climactic experience with an escort mission.

How, exactly, does this "cheapen the climactic experience"? I would argue it enhances the threat posed by the final boss - you're face-to-face with an entity that you're incapable of harming, outside of this one legendary technique. And I think there's a lot more strategy involved than "warp someone OP to the final boss and defeat them in a single round". Also, I wouldn't call it an "escort mission" - either you'd be able to directly control the character who has the legendary power, or else they would be totally stationary. So it'd be somewhat like a "defend the throne" map, except you'd need to be wary of enemies with ranged attacks (the final boss wouldn't be able to directly harm Miss McGuffin, but their underlings would).

3 hours ago, Bylift said:

I love it. Your move, IS!

image.jpeg.5a66b2c50a0ccbacef9142be6ca7c7b6.jpeg

You've spoiled it! The magical NPC is actually a shark with a frickin' laser beam on its frickin' head!

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

What if the only way to defeat the final boss is for the main Lord, or a Very Important NPC, to execute a "10-turn spell"? None of your other attacks can damage the final boss (although you can still hurt their underlings), so you have to protect the Lord/NPC from the onslaught for 10 turns. Hence triggering the final cutscene, wherein the boss is defeated by a big-ass laser.

Well that could potentially work. But is the boss still on the map and just invincible? Because I think if you were to do such a thing you'd want the enemy to be a boss so powerful you just couldn't conceivably fight them with conventional mechanics, like Grima's dragon form.

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2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well that could potentially work. But is the boss still on the map and just invincible? Because I think if you were to do such a thing you'd want the enemy to be a boss so powerful you just couldn't conceivably fight them with conventional mechanics, like Grima's dragon form.

I'm rolling a bunch of crazy ideas around. "The boss is on the field but does AoE attacks!" "The boss controls several bodies all around the stage!" "The boss is actually the portals that the enemies are coming through!" "You're fighting on top of the boss, a la Grima!" "You're fighting on the ground, directly underneath said boss!" So I'm not sure what shape this would take, exactly.

I do think there's potential for interesting AoE attacks, so long as they're telegraphed to the player. One simplistic way is to do a checkerboard map, and make it so the "white tiles" are under attack one turn, and the "black tiles" the next. Or leave it as only a handful of tiles, but make the attack more devastating - rather than just taking damage, the tile itself is removed from play, becoming uninhabitable and untraversable. So you're scrambling to survive as the area available to you keeps shrinking. Maybe have the tiles glow, or be shadowed, a turn before disappearing.

This is something I'd like the series to do more of - dynamic map design. We've gotten snags and interactable doors and bridges, while Fates went the furthest with the Dragon's Vein mechanics. But I think there's a lot that's unexplored here - from cosmic-level final bosses who can just remove parts of the map from play, to mundane and humorous cases, like a Gardener class that can plant Forest tiles.

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24 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well that could potentially work. But is the boss still on the map and just invincible? Because I think if you were to do such a thing you'd want the enemy to be a boss so powerful you just couldn't conceivably fight them with conventional mechanics, like Grima's dragon form.

Could just be protected by dark magic like Gharnef. Just in this case the counter to that magic takes more time.

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9 hours ago, Jotari said:

But the advantage of a final boss is a narrative conclusion to the story that merges with gameplay.

ye but the gameplay sucks so

y'know

don't do that

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

This is something I'd like the series to do more of - dynamic map design. We've gotten snags and interactable doors and bridges, while Fates went the furthest with the Dragon's Vein mechanics. But I think there's a lot that's unexplored here - from cosmic-level final bosses who can just remove parts of the map from play, to mundane and humorous cases, like a Gardener class that can plant Forest tiles.

People always be forgetting the Forblaze chapter in FE6.

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5 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

People always be forgetting the Forblaze chapter in FE6.

The Water Temple, right? In Nabata, apparently.

Wait... so then FE7 created another water temple, with the same gimmick, but in Bern instead? Just... why? They could've used the existing Water Temple for "Genesis", and it would've made perfect sense. Then given "Night of Farewells" something different. 

18 minutes ago, Rukathesoldier said:

Could just be protected by dark magic like Gharnef. Just in this case the counter to that magic takes more time.

I like that. Or something like the effect from the Book of Loptyr, in Genealogy, where it halves the Attack power of all enemies. And only the Book of Naga (read: legendary super-laser), wielded by Julia (read: enigmatic girl with magical blood who always makes it to the final chapter), can break this effect. Julius can technically be beaten otherwise, but... it's a chore.

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

The boss is on the field but does AoE attacks!

The Takumi approach. That one boss from an Ike game also throw AoEs around, no? Because if every turn is an AoE that sounds just about no fun. 

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

You're fighting on top of the boss, a la Grima!

The boss rolls over! You died :(

 

The final map of a FE should be a volcano, in which to throw units so that enemies grow weaker and other characters can unlock their happy ending. Maximum story x gameplay integration.  And that way even bench warmers can contribute.

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2 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

The Takumi approach. That one boss from an Ike game also throw AoEs around, no? Because if every turn is an AoE that sounds just about no fun. 

Oh, don't worry. She'll also target Gareth and one-round him.

Anyway, I see the main challenge with Ashera as taking out the Auras. Which can counter you and heal at the end of each turn. It makes the map feel more puzzle-like.

2 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

The boss rolls over! You died :(

Joke's on Grima - he's so big, his gravity keeps everyone firmly rooted onto his back.

2 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

The final map of a FE should be a volcano, in which to throw units so that enemies grow weaker and other characters can unlock their happy ending. Maximum story x gameplay integration.  And that way even bench warmers can contribute.

This is kind of like III-E in Radiant Dawn, where you can intentionally sacrifice some of your own units to end the chapter faster.

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

How, exactly, does this "cheapen the climactic experience"? I would argue it enhances the threat posed by the final boss - you're face-to-face with an entity that you're incapable of harming, outside of this one legendary technique. And I think there's a lot more strategy involved than "warp someone OP to the final boss and defeat them in a single round". Also, I wouldn't call it an "escort mission" - either you'd be able to directly control the character who has the legendary power, or else they would be totally stationary. So it'd be somewhat like a "defend the throne" map, except you'd need to be wary of enemies with ranged attacks (the final boss wouldn't be able to directly harm Miss McGuffin, but their underlings would).

Story wise, you'd probably get accused of ass-pulling. Gameplay wise, it breaks the immersion. I mean, there are instances where it could work, but I highly doubt these games are one of them.

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On 4/8/2022 at 2:56 PM, Jotari said:

So much ado is made about how modern Fire Emblem games are steadily less and less designed around perma death, which I think is true. The games are no longer expecting you to lose units. However, since that shift gradually began to happen, I think I have to say that end games have gotten better balanced. Because, let's face it, the end game was always piss easy in old Fire Emblem games. Getting through the first half of the game was always much more difficult than the second half, because you either reset whenever an enemy died and thus build super units, or you're good enough at the game to play iron man and only let a few characters die, and thus build super powerful units. But now, as the developers have shifted to the idea that the player will be using all of the army all of the time with powerful units, the end games have gotten more tailored towards realistic player expectations (with the exception of a few isolated, particularly obnoxious chapters and Awakening's Lunatic+ which is just silly).

Or maybe I'm wrong and off my rocker. What do you think? Have the ending handful of chapters been more challenging than earlier games in the series?

I'm not sure I would agree that the ending part of every older game (though this could mean a lot of things) is easy, though I do think that during the period around fe7-10 the series was much easier than most games before or after those. While I'm aware that Genealogy is known for having an easy 2nd half, and I'd generally agree with that, I do think the difficulty does actually curve in the final two chapters in which the game actually uses the full extent of the game mechanics to challenge you, which I feel I can't say is true for fe7-10. The start of chapter 10 as well as many of the things chapter 11 throws at you, such as the falcoknights and deadlords at the end, do not feel to me like something you would see in fe7-10 as these points actually feel to an extent like you need to use status staves or some pretty precise positioning, such as in the miletos castle portion of chapter 10, in order to avoid something bad happening. 

The final chapters of fe5 definitely can be a struggle even if you have OP units at the end, and I've seen people before have issues with it.

fe3 is not particularly difficult but I still feel as if the game gets more difficult as it goes along, and your units can die much more easily than fe7-10 units even if they're already pretty strong.

Excluding the final 2 chapters of fe6... which I honestly think you won't miss much if you don't experience them, I do think the game has a solid difficulty curve, with chapters 21-23 feeling like they expect more of you than previous parts of the game.

In comparison, I think much of fe7-10 can be solved by "throw jagen at the enemies" or "throw highly invested unit at enemies with 5 javelins/hand axes in their inventory," I know that this is not as true for higher difficulties of these games, but I think when it comes down to it, this is how you solve a lot of these things in these games, even if it's more difficult to do at higher difficulties, it's still going to be the most optimal thing, and there's not much else you'll need because utility classes like staff users and thieves aren't incredibly important in these games (furthermore, staff healing is almost completely invalidated in fe10 because you get healing items that basically never run out and heal a lot). This ultimately kind of reduces the help mages can offer if Marcus is better at 1-2 range than them and also the other roles that mages can fill (such as how useful they can be with staves in fe4-5 or to do more damage because lower enemy res) are either diminished in their usefulness or completely gone, reducing the amount of strategizing you have to work with if there's such a huge power difference between the best and worst classes in the game.

After fe11, I think a pretty large design philosophy occurred in the series for whatever reason, I think fe11 and later games seem like they expect more from you while also having standard difficulty curves (I know that awakening is supposedly easy but honestly I'm not sure I would say normal classic awakening is easier than normal fe7).

I do think that, while newer games might be harder later on because they're not designed around permadeath like some previous ones, I'm not sure this is the exact reason that they're more difficult because I think these kind of difficulty curves are also seen in games that are designed around permadeath. I would probably say that I think the difficulty curves of fe11-16 are just better designed than the ones of fe7-10, but of course, that's only my opinion. It's possible I'm overlooking things in my analysis here with certain things, but I don't think this topic has an objectively correct answer anyway.

 

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1 hour ago, MuteMousou said:

Excluding the final 2 chapters of fe6... which I honestly think you won't miss much if you don't experience them, I do think the game has a solid difficulty curve, with chapters 21-23 feeling like they expect more of you than previous parts of the game.

The last few chapters of Binding Blade can be challenging, I like Murdock's chapter in particular. But don't forget how ridiculous punishing the early game of Binding blade is. Zealot's debut chapter is far harder than anything else in the game.

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I thought the endgame chapter for FE6 was intentionally made easy for story reasons. Idenn wasn't really the instigator as much as she was Zephyr and Jahn's pawn. Chapter 23 to endgame is more a glorified denouement than an actual part of Roy's adventure showcasing the downfall of Bern.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if the real climax was 1-2 chapters behind for a change, and the final chapter was more low-key. Not all wars end on a high, and I get to see how the enemy disintegrates before their surrender.

Or even a bad ending where the enemy wins instead. Heck, I'd like to see a reverse 3H where no matter who you side with, your side loses because of you bringing the worst in others. Whether it's hurbis, indecision or cowardice, or barbarism in war.

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1 hour ago, henrymidfields said:

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if the real climax was 1-2 chapters behind for a change, and the final chapter was more low-key. Not all wars end on a high, and I get to see how the enemy disintegrates before their surrender.

I agree with this. I'd rather have to deal with an awkward ''execute the king when all his army is dead'' scenario than an awkward stat check against a single powerful enemy with inflated stats. 

As long as the story supports this, I'm happy with it, especially if the king was arrogant throughout the story. It could definitely be a memorable end, even if the gameplay is super easy. 

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1 hour ago, henrymidfields said:

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if the real climax was 1-2 chapters behind for a change, and the final chapter was more low-key. Not all wars end on a high, and I get to see how the enemy disintegrates before their surrender.

I think VW of 3H kind of does this, since the major conflict of the story is resolved 2 chapters before the end then the rest is some kind of weird stuff that wasn't really significant to most of the story. To an extent I think you could say this is also true for fe9 since you defeat the main rival of the protagonist 2 chapters before the game actually ends, the part after kind of being less integral to the development of Ike.

However, I'm not sure I think this kind of change would make the most sense gameplay-wise, it's more interesting to have each chapter be progressively more difficult than the last, even if realistically that wouldn't make the most sense in an actual war. The enemy withering away doesn't necessarily mean the final confrontation will be easier than the previous ones either, If they know they have no other choice they might use/do certain things they hadn't considered before.

Edited by MuteMousou
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14 hours ago, Jotari said:

The last few chapters of Binding Blade can be challenging, I like Murdock's chapter in particular. But don't forget how ridiculous punishing the early game of Binding blade is. Zealot's debut chapter is far harder than anything else in the game.

That depends on the difficulty, I guess. I feel like on normal mode the early game isn't that rough aside from maybe chapter 7. Though I've only played through the game one time and haven't done hard mode.

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On 4/15/2022 at 7:34 PM, Alastor15243 said:

By contrast, I definitely agree with 3. It's 1 and 2 that I think are rather foggy. I hold pretty strong to the idea that when you have a truly hard game, it makes devs and playtesters more acutely aware of what deaths they did and didn't deserve. But the level of evidence that games were designed with permadeath in mind has been fluctuating. You've got Fates, the single most ironman-friendly set of games in the entire series, and before it you had New Mystery and its love affair with save tiles and tiny bite-size maps, and after it you had SoV and Three Houses with their irresponsibly unfettered mastery of space and time.

No offense, but honestly... Insisting that Fates is the most ironman-friendly set of games in the series is rather bold, and hard to take seriously, coming from one who went 0 for 3 in his log.

On 4/9/2022 at 3:27 PM, Jotari said:

Okay, good job Mir. You made a really informative and well developed post that I didn't see coming at all. You fully understood what I was saying, gave it fair consideration and then argued against its meris using facts and logic that wasn't in any way completely predictable for you. You can pat yourself on the pack now.

Let me ask this, then; what would make you consider a boss poorly designed? Like I stated earlier, by my standards, bosses that are overtly tedious are poorly designed (e.g. Hyman and Gomer; this being said, there is a strategy to easily kill the former, but it's really luck-based. Anyway, these really stand out because objectives in SD heal 20% HP, as opposed to only 10% from prior games - and it's not a good feeling when your best unit only barely outpaces the boss's healing), as well as bosses that are overly luck-based (like Henning for example). But I REALLY despise bosses that are so blatantly overpowered that most units cannot do anything to them without risking dying (Medeus is guilty of this in the highest difficulties of both DS games); there are ways to make bosses threatening, yes, but when you go too far, you only get the SRPG equivalent of an SNK Boss instead.

16 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

In comparison, I think much of fe7-10 can be solved by "throw jagen at the enemies" or "throw highly invested unit at enemies with 5 javelins/hand axes in their inventory," I know that this is not as true for higher difficulties of these games, but I think when it comes down to it, this is how you solve a lot of these things in these games, even if it's more difficult to do at higher difficulties, it's still going to be the most optimal thing, and there's not much else you'll need because utility classes like staff users and thieves aren't incredibly important in these games (furthermore, staff healing is almost completely invalidated in fe10 because you get healing items that basically never run out and heal a lot). This ultimately kind of reduces the help mages can offer if Marcus is better at 1-2 range than them and also the other roles that mages can fill (such as how useful they can be with staves in fe4-5 or to do more damage because lower enemy res) are either diminished in their usefulness or completely gone, reducing the amount of strategizing you have to work with if there's such a huge power difference between the best and worst classes in the game.

I would say this is not as true in 10 as in the other three - sure, you have the laguz royals, who are really really overpowered, but one, they have very poor availability, even by Radiant Dawn's standards, and second, they're range-locked, meaning they won't have the most productive of enemy phases. Anyway, the real problem mages had in RD is that not only are most of them slow and their weapons weak, enemy units have high resistance - even generals, which historically mages were the bane of. It doesn't help matters that short of bargains, you can't buy high level tomes until part 4, which means they are stuck relying mainly on El- tomes for most of the game (other than the Daein army, which gets to buy Shine in their part 3 chapters - though that's of questionable worth given that Thani is stronger, and odds are Laura won't be anywhere near A light, if she is even promoted); for comparison, steel heavy weapons are first buyable in the endgame of part 1 - which is far, FAR earlier. And then there's the fact that long-range magic was nerfed from PoR - Blizzard wasn't affected that much, but Meteor lost 3 might, Purge had its power halved, and Bolting, aside from being really really awkward to obtain, isn't even half as strong as it was in Path of Radiance.

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

I would say this is not as true in 10 as in the other three - sure, you have the laguz royals, who are really really overpowered, but one, they have very poor availability, even by Radiant Dawn's standards, and second, they're range-locked, meaning they won't have the most productive of enemy phases. 

I think the game is overall more difficult  compared to the previous 3, and you probably can't be quite as braindead because enemies tend to hit harder. However, in parts before the tower, you have sothe-- who is basically invincible for all of part 1 aside from maybe the final chapter, then you get haar--who is basically invincible if you bexp him aside from some absurd situation where he runs into 3 thunder mages or something. Maybe it's not completely dumb, but a lot of the game can definitely be solved by just "use haar" or "use sothe," though this isn't as easy on hard. This is also on top of the fact that you can forge 1-2 ranged weapons in this game and make them even better, so even if haar couldn't kill some enemies by just spamming normal hand axes at them, just forge a hand axe and now it doesn't matter L O L.

Like at least previous games limited 1-2 range physical by having relatively bad stats, letting you forge them to further remove their inherent weaknesses that were already diminished from the weaknesses they had in fe6 and earlier is just hilarious, it's like the game is begging you to play it as thoughtlessly as possible. (I also think that in the Japanese version you can't forge ranged weapons? not sure though I do know the forge system is vastly different in that version.)

But yes, the res thing is a big issue for mages in fe10, I honestly don't understand why they did this because it's not like mages in the 4 previous games were that amazing anyway. I'm really glad the DS and 3DS games made mages more like how they are in the Kaga games.

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5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

No offense, but honestly... Insisting that Fates is the most ironman-friendly set of games in the series is rather bold, and hard to take seriously, coming from one who went 0 for 3 in his log.

And 3 for 3 on his first blind runs of the games on hard.

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On 4/22/2022 at 12:55 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Joke's on Grima - he's so big, his gravity keeps everyone firmly rooted onto his back.

Hm. How strong would Grima Gravity have to be to accomplish that and wouldn´t it then also affects whatever is underneath him?

 

Though what is a boss in FE? The one big stronk enemy cuddling up on his throne protected by randomly weak/strong enemies or was it the maps all along? TH has the most boss-esque bosses with their multi tile size I daresay, but they are just a blob of stats in a corner of the map waiting to be killed and once you are up in their face it gets quite boorish. On the one hand they need stats to make them non-laughable, on the other hand you can´t also give them stats so high no unit can engage them else we are back at Medeus - and I don´t remember any of my mages evere being able to attack a TH endgame boss other than for the killing blow. And that just results in increasing bosses’ survivability, like the dragon in SoV or all the barrier and HP bars in TH and the all-around shitty Dragonskin skills.

I think maps like CQ chapter 25* is an ok concept for designing final maps and an endgame boss: either beat the boss directly, which requires preparation (well, prior knowledge) or beat the map and then beat the boss with whatever you got from beating the map. Ofc, the map itself then needs to be properly thought out. 

*not entirely as cranked up to 11 as the Lunatic version though, those requirements are too specific imo

 

On the other hand, presuming we make mistakes etc and our units die left and right - would older Fe´s be all that easier than modern FE? As in take any GBA FE remove all S/A tier list units and then look at difficulty again. Would that change the impression that they are easier?

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3 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Though what is a boss in FE? The one big stronk enemy cuddling up on his throne protected by randomly weak/strong enemies or was it the maps all along? TH has the most boss-esque bosses with their multi tile size I daresay, but they are just a blob of stats in a corner of the map waiting to be killed and once you are up in their face it gets quite boorish. On the one hand they need stats to make them non-laughable, on the other hand you can´t also give them stats so high no unit can engage them else we are back at Medeus - and I don´t remember any of my mages evere being able to attack a TH endgame boss other than for the killing blow. And that just results in increasing bosses’ survivability, like the dragon in SoV or all the barrier and HP bars in TH and the all-around shitty Dragonskin skills.

With monster bosses, I think there's an interesting puzzle involved: how do I shatter their armor without endangering my own units? Do I go for the full break ASAP, or take advantage of the stun period to get in an attack that they could normally counter?

I don't think survivability skills are necessarily a bad thing. Being able to tear through a whole HP bar in one round of combat from a Killer Knuckles War Master feels... kinda cheap. I don't like "random activation" skills live FE4 Pavise, but the ones you can plan around just add to the challenge.

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15 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

But yes, the res thing is a big issue for mages in fe10, I honestly don't understand why they did this because it's not like mages in the 4 previous games were that amazing anyway. I'm really glad the DS and 3DS games made mages more like how they are in the Kaga games.

Fates mages were not exactly great, with Ophelia being the sole exception. Heck, I'd honestly say most non-Ophelia mages in Fates are as bad or worse than RD mages.

15 hours ago, MuteMousou said:

Like at least previous games limited 1-2 range physical by having relatively bad stats, letting you forge them to further remove their inherent weaknesses that were already diminished from the weaknesses they had in fe6 and earlier is just hilarious, it's like the game is begging you to play it as thoughtlessly as possible. (I also think that in the Japanese version you can't forge ranged weapons? not sure though I do know the forge system is vastly different in that version.)

Aside from knives, which suck ass, you can't forge throwing weapons for most of the game.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Fates mages were not exactly great, with Ophelia being the sole exception. Heck, I'd honestly say most non-Ophelia mages in Fates are as bad or worse than RD mages.

They're not really comparable. Fates' Mages aren't 1 Mov behind all other physical infantry classes. Plus, the Magic systems are totally different: Fates Mages can use stat-boosting spirits, the high-crit Mjolnir, or the brave Lightning. RD Mages don't have these options, really, but they do get effective damage against laguz and flying enemies.

Anyway, Rev!Hayato and Leon good.

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

They're not really comparable. Fates' Mages aren't 1 Mov behind all other physical infantry classes. Plus, the Magic systems are totally different: Fates Mages can use stat-boosting spirits, the high-crit Mjolnir, or the brave Lightning. RD Mages don't have these options, really, but they do get effective damage against laguz and flying enemies.

Anyway, Rev!Hayato and Leon good.

Sure, they aren't stuck with lower move than most other classes, but when the stat lines of most mages are lacking for one reason or another... it's painfully obvious that nearly all mages in Fates are nowhere near the level of Awakening mages, let alone mages in most other Fire Emblem games. Also, Mjolnil (I know that's not how it's spelled, but let's just say there's a reason why I intentionally misspelled it) is almost never worth it - lackluster power and not enough crit to make the gamble worth taking = not worth it (this applies to killer weapons as a whole in Fates, by the way). Far more often than not, I'd rather do several points more damage than have a boosted crit rate, but do much less damage if the crit doesn't trigger. Also of note, Fates mages have to deal with a class that's tailor-made to make them cry, with high resistance and weapon advantage. Spirits having stat boosts is nice, but most of them only contribute minor stat boosts to the cause, like +1 skill.

Bold: The only Leon I know in these games is an archer from Shadows of Valentia, but you knew that.

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

Sure, they aren't stuck with lower move than most other classes, but when the stat lines of most mages are lacking for one reason or another... it's painfully obvious that mages in Fates are nowhere near the level of Awakening mages, let alone mages in most other Fire Emblem games. Also, Mjolnil (I know that's not how it's spelled, but let's just say there's a reason why I intentionally misspelled it) is almost never worth it - lackluster power and not enough crit to make the gamble worth taking = not worth it (this applies to killer weapons as a whole in Fates, by the way). Far more often than not, I'd rather do several points more damage than have a boosted crit rate, but do much less damage if the crit doesn't trigger. Also of note, Fates mages have to deal with a class that's tailor-made to make them cry, with high resistance and weapon advantage. Spirits having stat boosts is nice, but most of them only contribute minor stat boosts to the cause, like +1 skill.

Bold: The only Leon I know in these games is an archer from Shadows of Valentia, but I think you knew that.

Well Leo was Leon in Japanese, and Leon was Leo in Japanese, so this all gets quite confusing.

Anyway, going for the crit is "worth it" when it can free up another unit to go for another target. Like, suppose that whichever attack Odin uses, then Selena can comfortably come in for the kill. Whether it's a Mjolnir-crit, a Mjolnir non-crit, or a Ragnarok hit. In that case, there's not much point in going with the higher-damage attack. Obviously, if a "Mjonir-hit plus Iron Sword-hit" isn't enough to secure the kill, but "Ragnarok-hit plus Iron Sword-hit" is, then going for Ragnarok is the more secure play. But if Odin does get the crit, then Selena is freed up to go for another enemy, or perhaps pair up with Beruka to improve her stats.

Yeah, Ninjas suck for Mages that much is true.. but have you met our Lord and Savior, Calamity Gate? As for stat boosts, I see little appreciate for a Horse Spirit, of course spirit! +3 to four different combat stats is no mean feat. Most of the scrolls are little-different from traditional tomes, I will grant, but there are a select few whose considerable boosts do wonders for their potential users.

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

Anyway, going for the crit is "worth it" when it can free up another unit to go for another target. Like, suppose that whichever attack Odin uses, then Selena can comfortably come in for the kill. Whether it's a Mjolnir-crit, a Mjolnir non-crit, or a Ragnarok hit. In that case, there's not much point in going with the higher-damage attack. Obviously, if a "Mjonir-hit plus Iron Sword-hit" isn't enough to secure the kill, but "Ragnarok-hit plus Iron Sword-hit" is, then going for Ragnarok is the more secure play. But if Odin does get the crit, then Selena is freed up to go for another enemy, or perhaps pair up with Beruka to improve her stats.

Yeah, Ninjas suck for Mages that much is true.. but have you met our Lord and Savior, Calamity Gate? As for stat boosts, I see little appreciate for a Horse Spirit, of course spirit! +3 to four different combat stats is no mean feat. Most of the scrolls are little-different from traditional tomes, I will grant, but there are a select few whose considerable boosts do wonders for their potential users.

The problem is, far more often than not, I find it better to attack with something stronger because it is more likely to allow someone else to take that target out. For example, in this case, Mjolnir is -6 might relative to Ragnarok (Ragnarok also has that stat drop on use effect, but let's pretend that ain't relevant). That's significant.

Sure, Calamity Gate reverses the weapon triangle, but that's only going to be helpful if the user is good to begin with, which most Fates mages are not (also, I generally find it better to use physical units against ninjas because they have lower defence than resistance). Also, my appreciation for Horse Spirit only goes so far when you consider it has a measly 4 might.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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