No Knight access for Gunter?

[AnonymousSpeed]

Without marriage to Corrin with a Knight talent, of course.

I'm just saying that the guy could really use Wary Fighter. His defense is...functional, but it's not amazing, and the fact that he gets doubled all the time makes him pretty frail in practice. He's still a decent support unit in Wyvern Lord, though. Lunge, shelter, rally defense, flight, a good toolkit overall. I just think he'd have gotten a lot more out of Knight than Mercenary. I don't know, maybe Rally Skill is worth more than I'm giving it credit for here? He is a support unit primarily, after all. In that case, Outlaw would've been a better class for him than Mercenary.

[Jotari]

If only he could marry Benny.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

something something Nohrian Trust

shoulda given him Knight instead of Wyvern for procc-overkill

[Shadow Mir]

I'd agree that Knight would be better for him than Mercenary. The merc tree skills are mostly not that great for him, with Sol and Good Fortune in particular just being lackluster period.

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 6/7/2022 at 7:36 AM, Imuabicus said:

shoulda given him Knight instead of Wyvern for procc-overkill

I don't know about that, wyvern is pretty good, and he definitely needs the help.

22 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'd agree that Knight would be better for him than Mercenary. The merc tree skills are mostly not that great for him, with Sol and Good Fortune in particular just being lackluster period.

And Sol is still probably the best proc skill in the game.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

And Sol is still probably the best proc skill in the game.

I hard disagree with that. Nothing worth calling "the best proc skill in the game" should be as conditional as Sol is. Which is to say, it's useless if either:

• It doesn't activate when the opponent's healthy (because Sol only drains half the damage dealt to the tune of how much health the opponent had left)
• The unit with it misses
• It activates in a situation where its user doesn't do much damage

Edited June 9, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I hard disagree with that. Nothing worth calling "the best proc skill in the game" should be as conditional as Sol is. Which is to say, it's useless if either:

• It doesn't activate when the opponent's healthy (because Sol only drains half the damage dealt to the tune of how much health the opponent had left)
• The unit with it misses
• It activates in a situation where its user doesn't do much damage

Which proc skill in Fates would you consider to be better than Sol, then?

[Shadow Mir]

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

Which proc skill in Fates would you consider to be better than Sol, then?

Luna and Astra, easily. Imho, halving my opponent's defense or filling a good chunk of my shield gauge if I'm paired up are both better than an underwhelming life drain effect that pretty much requires the stars to be in perfect alignment to do much of anything noteworthy.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

(it's useless if) The unit with it misses

This is true of literally every offensive action in the game.

59 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Luna and Astra, easily. Imho, halving my opponent's defense or filling a good chunk of my shield gauge if I'm paired up are both better than an underwhelming life drain effect that pretty much requires the stars to be in perfect alignment to do much of anything noteworthy.

I must disagree.

Luna and Astra help a unit defeat enemies, but when do they activate? They're percentage based (not 80% hit with 2RN percentage based, but actually much less likely to activate than not), so you can't rely on them to clear out a room of dangerous foes. This makes them bad for player phase. Luna, like an unnecessary crit, might even mess up your shield gauge or leave a tile open for another enemy to come in and kill you when you otherwise would have been safe. This makes them bad for enemy phase, though Astra is definitely better in that regard, since like you said, it fills up gauge good.

A proc skill should be useful to an enemy phase unit. They see the most combat engagements, and therefore have the most chances to activate them. If a unit is going to be an enemy phase tank, they should either one-round the enemies or survive multiple turns worth of combat. If the former is true, the proc skill isn't helpful because the enemy dies anyway. If the latter is true, the proc skill isn't helpful because you can just heal up and win a war of attrition, finishing everyone off in one or two more enemy phases.

Sol is a lot better for enemy phase units (the units most likely to activate proc skills) for a few reasons. An enemy phase unit can probably take a lot of hits and will be filling up their shield gauge, which means they can last multiple battles if Sol doesn't proc immediately. If you have 20 skill and double the enemies (not unreasonable for a primary combat unit on reaching level 5 hero), you have about a 90% chance of activating Sol at least once in 5 rounds of combat. Sol also helps you rather than hurts enemies. Enemies are far more transient than your units are, so a benefit to yourself (such as healing) can be applied in a lot more situations than a penalty to an enemy can.

Here's an example of how the skill would work well. TL;DR I can't think of any situation where you could reasonably expect Luna to activate where Luna would also be useful, and the same basically applies for Astra and the various other offensive proc skills. I can think of such a situation for Sol, that being frontline enemy phase combat.

Edited June 9, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

5 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I don't know about that, wyvern is pretty good, and he definitely needs the help.

Pavise sounds a bunch better than Aegis.

What help he need when Gunther is "He who supports"? The only real thing you´d miss would be flight PU and I can think of 3 maps in total where that´d be useful, one of which has strong gusts of wind, the second has one big canyon and the 3rd is a set of stairs and the DV is ez with the royals you get.

I guess there is the case for Gunther as a unit and the relative loss of Trample, but that´s a yikes for me. 

Granted maybe they didn´t want to overlap Horse & Armor since that´s -1 class and I´m not currently aware of a unit who has that condition.

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

This is true of literally every offensive action in the game.

That's a fair point, but still. I don't want to be having my enemy phase unit relying on Sol only for them to not hit when they really need to do so to stay alive. If you're paired up, then you might have to deal with hit issues depending on what you're engaging.

15 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I must disagree.

Luna and Astra help a unit defeat enemies, but when do they activate? They're percentage based (not 80% hit with 2RN percentage based, but actually much less likely to activate than not), so you can't rely on them to clear out a room of dangerous foes. This makes them bad for player phase. Luna, like an unnecessary crit, might even mess up your shield gauge or leave a tile open for another enemy to come in and kill you when you otherwise would have been safe. This makes them bad for enemy phase, though Astra is definitely better in that regard, since like you said, it fills up gauge good.

A proc skill should be useful to an enemy phase unit. They see the most combat engagements, and therefore have the most chances to activate them. If a unit is going to be an enemy phase tank, they should either one-round the enemies or survive multiple turns worth of combat. If the former is true, the proc skill isn't helpful because the enemy dies anyway. If the latter is true, the proc skill isn't helpful because you can just heal up and win a war of attrition, finishing everyone off in one or two more enemy phases.

Sol is a lot better for enemy phase units (the units most likely to activate proc skills) for a few reasons. An enemy phase unit can probably take a lot of hits and will be filling up their shield gauge, which means they can last multiple battles if Sol doesn't proc immediately. If you have 20 skill and double the enemies (not unreasonable for a primary combat unit on reaching level 5 hero), you have about a 90% chance of activating Sol at least once in 5 rounds of combat. Sol also helps you rather than hurts enemies. Enemies are far more transient than your units are, so a benefit to yourself (such as healing) can be applied in a lot more situations than a penalty to an enemy can.

Here's an example of how the skill would work well. TL;DR I can't think of any situation where you could reasonably expect Luna to activate where Luna would also be useful, and the same basically applies for Astra and the various other offensive proc skills. I can think of such a situation for Sol, that being frontline enemy phase combat.

The issue here is that one Sol activation doesn't magically make all the damage you've taken go away, especially if the enemy it activated on was already injured, either by someone else or by the unit they're engaging. Sol's usability also suffers if you can't double - a scenario that isn't exactly uncommon in Conquest with the presence of Wary Fighter and the glut of enemy swordmasters and ninjas. Anyways, let me guess, that video has a Sol Master Ninja build, which, to be blunt, is very, VERY overrated. Long story short, if my unit isn't able to take many hits, then I'd not want to rely on Sol, and for someone that CAN, like Xander for example, they are likely going to be fine without it. That doesn't sound like the mark of a useful skill to me, because neither of those make a compelling case for Sol whatsoever, especially when Sol is pretty much useless if it doesn't activate against a healthy enemy. In fact, it makes Sol sound more like a win-more skill AT BEST.

Edited June 9, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

I would put Astra above Sol. Filling the shield gauge is a big advantage. It's part of what makes Ryoma such a beast. He can't dodge every attack, only like 80% of them, for the rest he has the shield gauge.

[AnonymousSpeed]

20 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Pavise sounds a bunch better than Aegis.

Sage.

20 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

What help he need when Gunther is "He who supports"? The only real thing you´d miss would be flight PU and I can think of 3 maps in total where that´d be useful, one of which has strong gusts of wind, the second has one big canyon and the 3rd is a set of stairs and the DV is ez with the royals you get.

Help actually getting to where he can be helpful. 8 move ignoring terrain effects means Gunter has pretty wide coverage with his support skills, and being able to flier skip half of Chapter 23 (among other, sometimes less dramatic fly-skips) is icing on the cake.

20 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Granted maybe they didn´t want to overlap Horse & Armor since that´s -1 class and I´m not currently aware of a unit who has that condition.

Neither am I, actually. This may have to do with how, thanks to how skill learning works in Fates, you would get the tier 1 skills of both base classes. Or maybe they just thought this gave the player the most to work with, since every unit has at least 4 promoted class options.

19 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Anyways, let me guess, that video has a Sol Master Ninja build, which, to be blunt, is very, VERY overrated.

So you didn't watch the video?

19 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The issue here is that one Sol activation doesn't magically make all the damage you've taken go away, especially if the enemy it activated on was already injured, either by someone else or by the unit they're engaging.

There's a weird gambler's fallacy going on here. Sol can activate more than once per enemy phase. It can trigger on a weakened enemy and a healthy enemy. Activating earlier in the phase does not prevent it from activating again later in that phase.

19 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I don't want to be having my enemy phase unit relying on Sol only for them to not hit when they really need to do so to stay alive.

This is fair, but that's why it serves its purpose as an enemy-phase skill. There are sufficiently many chances that it's unlikely for it to not activate a few times.

Besides, if you're engaging a large number of enemies on enemy phase, then chances are they'll be at full health, and therefore you'll have plenty for Sol to steal. He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind and he willing to make a deal.

On 6/9/2022 at 3:26 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Long story short, if my unit isn't able to take many hits, then I'd not want to rely on Sol, and for someone that CAN, like Xander for example, they are likely going to be fine without it.

Enemies in Conquest don't attack if they can't deal damage, so you're going to be worn down eventually. Sol can delay this process significantly. It's certainly better to have an 80% chance to be well above half health than it is to always be at 7 HP or something, needing to heal, and in the process failing to kill an enemy which can deal significant damage to you.

18 hours ago, Jotari said:

I would put Astra above Sol. Filling the shield gauge is a big advantage. It's part of what makes Ryoma such a beast. He can't dodge every attack, only like 80% of them, for the rest he has the shield gauge.

Yeah, but Astra is Skill over 2, and that's also Ryoma.

[Shadow Mir]

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

There's a weird gambler's fallacy going on here. Sol can activate more than once per enemy phase. It can trigger on a weakened enemy and a healthy enemy. Activating earlier in the phase does not prevent it from activating again later in that phase.

And only one of those instances actually has the potential to do anything in terms of keeping you alive. Of course, that does depend on how much damage you do... for example, getting back only 5 HP isn't gonna do much of anything when enemies are going to do much more than that (and if your unit is so tough defense wise they aren't even doing that much, they don't even need Sol, to be honest).

15 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

This is fair, but that's why it serves its purpose as an enemy-phase skill. There are sufficiently many chances that it's unlikely for it to not activate a few times.

Besides, if you're engaging a large number of enemies on enemy phase, then chances are they'll be at full health, and therefore you'll have plenty for Sol to steal. He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind and he willing to make a deal.

Again, that depends on exactly what you're engaging. Generals and speedsters are pretty annoying to deal with in you are trying to rely on Sol for reasons already mentioned.

You must have missed the point where if you're doing a lot of damage, it NEEDS to activate on the first hit, or else it's useless. Also, I could just as easily see it as this - he would've been in an even worse bind if it had not activated.

15 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Enemies in Conquest don't attack if they can't deal damage, so you're going to be worn down eventually. Sol can delay this process significantly. It's certainly better to have an 80% chance to be well above half health than it is to always be at 7 HP or something, needing to heal, and in the process failing to kill an enemy which can deal significant damage to you.

Sol can delay it significantly... if you get lucky and have it activate in the best-case scenario, that is. Also, by the time you get into the lategame, you have 16 units. It ain't like losing one unit's turn to needing to heal is going to be a huge problem... 

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

On 6/11/2022 at 5:30 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Sage.

Hm?

On 6/11/2022 at 5:30 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Help actually getting to where he can be helpful. 8 move ignoring terrain effects means Gunter has pretty wide coverage with his support skills, and being able to flier skip half of Chapter 23 (among other, sometimes less dramatic fly-skips) is icing on the cake.

I meant as a dedicated Corrin backpack, since that is imo his sole purpose - at "worst" you have a GK or Paladin which still makes for amazing PU bonuses in combination with his PS. Diffcult terrain in the lategame is chapter 22, too cramped for Gunther to be on his way without surpervision and the water areas in chapter 24, where Gunther has no business being considering the map is dark and full of flying horses. And for the Great Wall of Pineapple, as far as I´m aware, enemies aren`t aggressive outside of the initial squad to the right and some reinforcements from the left, not exactly putting much pressure on the player to skip quickly and the terrain seems forgiving.

Flying Rally DEF is certainly great, but his ability to use it seems less relevant when considering we have Beruka and Camilla becomes just that tiny bit more outragously good as a WL, gifting a second Rally Def - both of these ladies making for better units than Gunther. Also Haitaka might be among the squad which is potential Rally DEF Nr. 3 and the RALLYMAN exists.

Lunge and Shelter... you get a lotta horses and wyverns in CQ is all I´m sayin.

[AnonymousSpeed]

19 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Hm?

"Sage", as in, "a wise fellow". I am accusing you of speaking wisdom.

19 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

I meant as a dedicated Corrin backpack, since that is imo his sole purpose - at "worst" you have a GK or Paladin which still makes for amazing PU bonuses in combination with his PS.

Lunge and Shelter... you get a lotta horses and wyverns in CQ is all I´m sayin.

I'd disagree. Backpack is nice, but shelter shenanigans can let you get extra dances each turn. And since Beruka and Camilla are actually functional combat units, you may want them actually attacking instead of using Rally Defense. Even as a backpack, an 8-move flying class is a great way to move Corrin around the map if he's a Master Ninja or Nohr Noble or something. It's all support, but not all backpacking.

True, but Xander is the only other character with that combination of classes naturally. They're pretty slick positioning skills, especially on a flying unit.

On 6/11/2022 at 3:28 PM, Shadow Mir said:

And only one of those instances actually has the potential to do anything in terms of keeping you alive.

Yet neither instance is exclusive. You literally lose nothing with random sol procs on weak enemies.

On 6/11/2022 at 3:28 PM, Shadow Mir said:

for example, getting back only 5 HP isn't gonna do much of anything when enemies are going to do much more than that (and if your unit is so tough defense wise they aren't even doing that much, they don't even need Sol, to be honest).

Refer to "Enemies in Conquest don't attack if they can't deal damage".

On 6/11/2022 at 3:28 PM, Shadow Mir said:

You must have missed the point where if you're doing a lot of damage, it NEEDS to activate on the first hit, or else it's useless.

I mean, you could be dealing 50% of the enemy's HP per hit, or one-shotting them, which you would know if you actually watched the video.

On 6/11/2022 at 3:28 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Sol can delay it significantly... if you get lucky and have it activate in the best-case scenario, that is.

Delay it significantly is enough if you kill all the enemies in that amount of time. If you're attacking 10-20 times an enemy phase, it would be astronomically unlucky for you not to proc sold a few times.

On 6/11/2022 at 3:28 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Also, by the time you get into the lategame, you have 16 units. It ain't like losing one unit's turn to needing to heal is going to be a huge problem... 

If only one unit has the bulk to survive a certain formation (which is not unlikely), that could indeed be a huge problem.

Edited June 13, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'd disagree. Backpack is nice, but shelter shenanigans can let you get extra dances each turn. And since Beruka and Camilla are actually functional combat units, you may want them actually attacking instead of using Rally Defense. Even as a backpack, an 8-move flying class is a great way to move Corrin around the map if he's a Master Ninja or Nohr Noble or something. It's all support, but not all backpacking.

Shelter: Silas, reclassed Jacob, reclassed Arthur, Peri, Silas, Gunther, Xander, Sophie, Dwyer, Siegbert & whoever gets mothered by Peri.

Lunge: Elise, Beruka, Camilla, Gunther, Xander, Siegbert, Percy & whoever gets mothered by Beruka/Camilla.

+ Corrin if the appropriate talent is chosen.

Also some convicts if you bother, I guess but that´s kinda                                                                                                                                                                                     out there.

The majority of these units can stand and fend for themselves on top of doing what Gunther can do and some of these child units are not at all difficult to get before Gunther swoops in. They are, as you say, functional combat units, with Gunthers supposed utility but increased survivability. Neither are any of these skills ones you get late into the game - both are lvl 10. 

If you Shelter you don´t Lunge. I´m not sure I understand why Lunge is so good, it´s value looking more determind by breaking up an enemy formation and setting up a good AS - which Gunther won´t.

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

True, but Xander is the only other character with that combination of classes naturally. They're pretty slick positioning skills, especially on a flying unit.

Poor Siegbert.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Imuabicus

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Refer to "Enemies in Conquest don't attack if they can't deal damage".

And once again, I would not rely on Sol when using anyone who dies in a few hits, while anyone who actually has the durability for the frontlines probably doesn't even need it (also, most of the particularly durable characters I can think of are not exactly speedsters, like Xander and Benny). Far as I'm concerned, that does not make a compelling case for Sol being worth a reclass to get, as it makes Sol look more like a win-more skill at best. I'd much rather use a skill that has more general applications than one that only really turns a winning situation into a blowout, the latter of which Sol is in spades.

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Delay it significantly is enough if you kill all the enemies in that amount of time. If you're attacking 10-20 times an enemy phase, it would be astronomically unlucky for you not to proc sold a few times.

If you're facing that many enemies in a single enemy phase, you're probably ludicrously overpowered, at which point Sol is superfluous. And that's putting aside that such a situation is rather rare in Fates to begin with, as well as the fact that Fates is more player phase oriented than most prior games.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Frug]

On 6/8/2022 at 10:16 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Luna and Astra, easily. Imho, halving my opponent's defense or filling a good chunk of my shield gauge if I'm paired up are both better than an underwhelming life drain effect that pretty much requires the stars to be in perfect alignment to do much of anything noteworthy.

Offensive proc skills suffer from an issue where you can’t rely on them every attack, so they are overkill when they do proc.  By the time they are on the table (level 5 promoted for Rend Heaven), enemies might actually threaten some damage, so you shouldn’t waste an attack hoping for a skill activation.  Meanwhile, Sol actually helps a lot with sustain.  

Great Defense is hard to come by, especially in Conquest.  Sol helps magnificently with that, and there are builds/characters that can stack enough Skill to get it consistently without hit rate issues.  Similar setups but with Luna/Astra just yield a unit that kills a lot of things but dies quickly, which is not nearly as exclusive a utility.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Frug

[Frug]

On 6/9/2022 at 1:40 AM, Imuabicus said:

Pavise sounds a bunch better than Aegis.

What help he need when Gunther is "He who supports"? The only real thing you´d miss would be flight PU and I can think of 3 maps in total where that´d be useful, one of which has strong gusts of wind, the second has one big canyon and the 3rd is a set of stairs and the DV is ez with the royals you get.

I guess there is the case for Gunther as a unit and the relative loss of Trample, but that´s a yikes for me. 

Granted maybe they didn´t want to overlap Horse & Armor since that´s -1 class and I´m not currently aware of a unit who has that condition.

You sleep on flight my good sir.  Flight is great pretty much any map with the exception of open fields.  Even for simple maneuvering around forests and deserts flight is a lot better than mounted 7 mov

[Shadow Mir]

9 minutes ago, Frug said:

Offensive proc skills suffer from an issue where you can’t rely on them every attack, so they are overkill when they do proc.  By the time they are on the table (level 5 promoted for Rend Heaven), enemies might actually threaten some damage, so you shouldn’t waste an attack hoping for a skill activation.  Meanwhile, Sol actually helps a lot with sustain.  

Great Defense is hard to come by, especially in Conquest.  Sol helps magnificently with that.  Similar setups but with Luna/Astra just yield a unit that kills a lot of things but dies quickly, which is not nearly as exclusive a utility.

It seems you fail to grasp that Sol isn't that useful for sustain; it ain't gonna make a glass cannon a nigh unkillable juggernaut. Ergo, Sol won't help turn a losing situation into a winning one, but it's good at making an already advantageous situation even better. It's no substitute for actual durability.

[Frug]

4 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

It seems you fail to grasp that Sol isn't that useful for sustain; it ain't gonna make a glass cannon a nigh unkillable juggernaut. Ergo, Sol won't help turn a losing situation into a winning one, but it's good at making an already advantageous situation even better. It's no substitute for actual durability.

It seems you haven’t tried nor seen any Sol setups because they just about do exactly what you are saying they don’t do.  If you haven’t even tried the skill in question why are you arguing against it? 

On 6/8/2022 at 11:16 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Here's an example of how the skill would work well

The video AnonymousSpeed posted shows exactly this with a setup that isn’t even that difficult to pull off.  I was able to achieve something similar in a run that was already up to chapter 15 with not too much hassle, and that was without detailing the rest of my army.  Sol is a great skill.

[Jotari]

Wasn't this thread about Knight access for Gunther or something?...And haven't people learned to just not bother arguing with Mir? No matter how much objective evidence you present its just going to go in circles.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Frug said:

It seems you haven’t tried nor seen any Sol setups because they just about do exactly what you are saying they don’t do.  If you haven’t even tried the skill in question why are you arguing against it? 

The video AnonymousSpeed posted shows exactly this with a setup that isn’t even that difficult to pull off.  I was able to achieve something similar in a run that was already up to chapter 15 with not too much hassle, and that was without detailing the rest of my army.  Sol is a great skill.

Because like I said earlier, I'm not naive enough or stupid enough to just unquestioningly believe what others say. I did that once, and the result? I now have a VERY low opinion of the unit that was hyped up, all for the crime of not living up to the hype. So excuse me for thinking you're lying through your teeth, because I have no reason to believe Sol is even a quarter as good as you say.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Because like I said earlier, I'm not naive enough or stupid enough to just unquestioningly believe what others say. I did that once, and the result? I now have a VERY low opinion of the unit that was hyped up, all for the crime of not living up to the hype. So excuse me for thinking you're lying through your teeth, because I have no reason to believe Sol is even a quarter as good as you say.

What possible profit could they derive from lying through their teeth about a Fire Emblem skill? It's not like anyone is sponsored by Sol Industries.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Jotari