Ranking each game by Class: Brigand/Pirate/Berserker

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 3/22/2023 at 12:25 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Especially when they bring nothing to the table that other units don't - something I consider a death sentence for their viability when they're already downright detrimental to use.

They have the best attack stance potential, and your only access to the potent Strength rally before chapter 23's rally man.

 

On 3/22/2023 at 12:25 PM, Shadow Mir said:

 

RE: Xander, by the time he comes along, there's much better things for the team than to blow a deployment slot on Charlotte over someone who is actually useful.

The funny thing is I tend to drop Xander for the same logic, as he effectively takes two slots, and a trained Charlotte is more useful than him anyway, as the guy plays like a worse Benny without a tremendous amount of extra speed dumped onto him.

 

On 3/22/2023 at 12:25 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Also, where would you consider Oni Savage and its promotions to fit in this?

My instincts are saying around the C-B tier. Most of what they end up being is a defensive unit, which is nice for the fragile crew you tend to have in Birthright, but even there they tend to be your second most defensive unit thanks to the massive buffs on the guard naginata.

 

On 3/24/2023 at 5:22 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

I used the class minimally in the DS games, though my memories of the class aren't nearly as positive as yours... checking things, they have +1 str, but -5 spd on Hero, the same str/spd as Paladin (which has +3 move in that game), -1 spd on Warrior, and are just worse than Dracoknight. They look pretty mediocre unless I'm forgetting something.

Berserkers got a noticeable buff between SD and New Mystery, changing over to +3 str and -2 spd on Hero, but a higher speed growth and cap as well (which can matter here as Berserker's cap is high enough to avoid being doubled by some late game enemies unlike Hero), and have +2 spd on Warriors as well.

 

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/25/2023 at 2:52 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Why is it any worse than being axe-locked in SD? Fates has the Dual Club, so at least one Berserker on your team will have an answer to enemy sword-users, unlike SD Berserkers.

Fates also has more ways to boost low hit, between support bonuses, attack stance, and certain skills. (I believe Shadow Dragon has invisible support bonuses too, but most characters only support two or three other PCs in the entire game, unlike in Fates.)

Easy. Avoid numbers are lower (and once again, forging exists). Also, look at it this way; even with WTA, I generally cannot rely on my own swordies to consistently dodge axes in SD. Case in point: Gomer and Hyman are a serious pain in the arse to kill in harder difficulties of SD because they have hand axes. On paper, Ogma can do well against them, as he has WTA... but in practice, they hit him for most of his health if they connect, and even with the steel sword, what he does to them just gets healed off come enemy phase. This, of course, ignores that a huge majority of the enemy lineup in SD is lance units, meaning that whatever problem berserkers might have hitting enemy swordies ain't gonna come up very often in practice (FYI, the big reason why the Wing Spear breaks that game in half is that you see a shitload of cavalry and armored units). Last I checked, Fates's enemy lineup ain't nearly as lopsided.

On the Dual Club: There is only one in Conquest, and I'd honestly rather rely on lance users to counter reds.

On supports: While Fates PCs support more units, the mechanics are different, as you MUST be adjacent to the supported unit to benefit (there's pair up too, but that discards whatever bonuses you would have gotten otherwise for 5 dodge).

On 3/25/2023 at 2:52 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Correct. Let's look at the numbers again.

Bold numbers are wins for berserker, italics are wins for wyvern:

• Berserker vs. Dracoknight, Shadow Dragon: 1 Str, 4 def, 3 res, 3 move vs. 4 HP, 10 crit
• Berserker vs. Wyvern Lord, Fates: 5 def, 4 res, 2 move, 5 crit-eva vs. 5 HP, 4 str, 3 spd, 20 crit

As you can see Fates Berserker has far bigger wins than its SD counterpart (SD Berserker actually loses strength, while tying speed!), winning every stat by larger margins. The move gap, while always a win for Wyvern, is a smaller one in Fates.

Again, if you're worried about critical evade, we can just equip bronze instead of iron, and even with that power sacrifice, Fates!Berserker still outdamages Fates!Wyvern (and by proxy, outdamages SD!Berserker as well). It'll also up their relative accuracy (bronze axe = iron lance for hit, before axes' better rank bonuses), which is relevant to the section below.

In SD, Berserker and Dracoknight are in completely different class sets, so the point is moot. Regardless, you might be okay with having a berserker meme it up with bronze, but I do not. Especially when it's possible to get other units to rival Berserker's raw power without the risk, considering I might as well be running another Arthur (and it's not exactly a secret that my opinion of him is that he's lower than dirt, so of course I ain't okay with turning anyone else into another Arthur)...

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The funny thing is I tend to drop Xander for the same logic, as he effectively takes two slots, and a trained Charlotte is more useful than him anyway, as the guy plays like a worse Benny without a tremendous amount of extra speed dumped onto him.

Because it's not like he's virtually immune to crits (something I consider big when Fates, Conquest especially, has a ton of that out there) and has a powerful personal sword, right? Oh wait, he does have that stuff. Also, I see him as a more mobile Benny. Not that I have anything against Benny. On the other hand, all Charlotte gives me is offense, and not even reliable offense at that, unless she's reclassed.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

My instincts are saying around the C-B tier. Most of what they end up being is a defensive unit, which is nice for the fragile crew you tend to have in Birthright, but even there they tend to be your second most defensive unit thanks to the massive buffs on the guard naginata.

In theory, I'd agree, but then I think about the poor distribution, and how Rinkah's only really useful as an earlygame tank, and... I just ain't sure running one is worth it. I can only think "What the hell?", because I just don't like this. If you're going to have a rare class, at least design the unit(s) in it such that I can actually see the appeal of that class... which Fates' devs failed *MISERABLY* with as far as Oni is concerned.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

They have the best attack stance potential, and your only access to the potent Strength rally before chapter 23's rally man.

That ain't enough to redeem them in my book; sure, they have higher crit than other classes, but this isn't the game to bank on crits anyways. In particular, I don't really find myself going out of my way to get a lot of rally skills on units.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

27 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

This, of course, ignores that a huge majority of the enemy lineup in SD is lance units, meaning that whatever problem berserkers might have hitting enemy swordies ain't gonna come up very often in practice (FYI, the big reason why the Wing Spear breaks that game in half is that you see a shitload of cavalry and armored units). Last I checked, Fates's enemy lineup ain't nearly as lopsided.

On the Dual Club: There is only one in Conquest, and I'd honestly rather rely on lance users to counter reds.

On supports: While Fates PCs support more units, the mechanics are different, as you MUST be adjacent to the supported unit to benefit (there's pair up too, but that discards whatever bonuses you would have gotten otherwise for 5 dodge).

Not sure why you're bringing up how SD sword-users don't wall enemy axe-users. They certainly reduce them to middling hit rates, it's just that "unreliable" hit rates for the enemy aren't "reliable" dodge rates for you, and the latter is what you care about. That said, my strong memory is that player axes have pretty shaky hit rates against everything that isn't a slow lance-user or ballistician in that game. Maybe I didn't use supports enough.

Yes, there's only one Dual Club in Conquest, which is only relevant if we have multiple Berserkers (and even then, they can trade it, or go after different enemies). It still means that Fates Berserkers get WTA more often than SD ones, since there are more swords+tomes+lances+knives in Fates than there are lances in SD (I don't buy that a majority of SD enemies use lances; a plurality, sure. But if you have numbers, feel free to prove me wrong). By the way, the Winged Spear carving up enemy lance-users devalues player axes, because you already have a counter to those units.

It's true that you have to be adjacent, but so it goes. Incidentally, that reminds me that you always have +10 hit while in attack stance, even before any support bonuses.

27 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Regardless, you might be okay with having a berserker meme it up with bronze, but I do not. Especially when it's possible to get other units to rival Berserker's raw power without the risk

If you consider bronze to be a "meme" in Fates, then either you have a unique definition of meme, or you're overlooking a great tool that virtually any other experienced Conquest player praises as an option. Bronze in Fates is extremely useful. Highest hit of any weapon type, cheapest to forge, raises your critical evade, and even the disabling of player-side crits/procs can be useful to make enemy phase strategies more reliable. I feel particularly sorry for anyone who tries to beat the kitsune map without bronze.

And I keep harping on this, but only because you keep insisting on ignoring it: Berserker with Bronze has equal/greater damage to other classes with Iron. So do you, or do you not, think other classes with Iron are too weak? Because if not, you shouldn't consider Berserkers with Bronze weak, either.

Which classes rival Berserker's power without the risk? The only classes even close on Strength are General and Great Knight, which lose speed by big margins. Of those, General has -1 Str and -6 Spd, along with lower move (this is the only class that can actually outdamage Bronze Axe Berserker using an Iron Axe, but hopefully you agree the other disadvantages are significant). Great Knight has -2 Str and -3 Spd, along with admittedly higher move. Hero, which is a baseline competent infantry class in that game, has -4 str and -1 spd. Berserker is legitimately good at what it does.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Dark Holy Elf

[Eltosian Kadath]

45 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Because it's not like he's virtually immune to crits (something I consider big when Fates, Conquest especially, has a ton of that out there)

It is A LOT easier to add crit avoid than it is to add speed to a unit.

 

46 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

and has a powerful personal sword, right?

And the most powerful thing about it is that its physical 1-2 range that lets you double, which Xander doesn't have the speed to use, and +4 defense, which half the reason he acts like Benny

 

46 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Also, I see him as a more mobile Benny.

And Fate's pairup-switch-transfer-seperate system lets your units use the mobility of their allies very easily.

 

46 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

On the other hand, all Charlotte gives me is offense, and not even reliable offense at that, unless she's reclassed.

The best offense, which allies can use in their attacks thanks to how attack stance works.

[Shadow Mir]

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

By the way, the Winged Spear carving up enemy lance-users devalues player axes, because you already have a counter to those units.

Fair point, but that's exclusive to one unit, whereas something like a hammer or ridersbane can be traded around as necessary. Of course, it being that good is why I agree with @Jotari's sentiment that were if not for the Wing Spear's existence, axes might have rivaled lances as far as SD goes. That said, I'd say that Fates axes are devalued by bows being green weapons as well (also, honestly, Camilla and Scarlet are the only good axe units Fates has to offer).

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If you consider bronze to be a "meme" in Fates, then either you have a unique definition of meme, or you're overlooking a great tool that virtually any other experienced Conquest player praises as an option. Bronze in Fates is extremely useful. Highest hit of any weapon type, cheapest to forge, raises your critical evade, and even the disabling of player-side crits/procs can be useful to make enemy phase strategies more reliable. I feel particularly sorry for anyone who tries to beat the kitsune map without bronze.

Bold: I've done that before, so the joke's on you.

The rest: It's cheap to forge... but thanks to Fates's forge system being absolute shit thanks to the need for different ores for each weapon type, it's generally more headache than I care to put myself through (to put things into perspective, I use steels as general-use weapons in the midgame and the lategame; if I was to replace all that with bronze, I'd need to go to +3 at least to have them rival steel level might. Considering that by midgame, I am fielding over a dozen units, that is a *MASSIVE* inconvenience, and whatever good points bronze might have going for it don't even come close to justifying that; in particular, bronze daggers have crummy debuffs, which ain't a good thing when part of why shuriken and daggers are useful is debuffing enemies). Also, personally, I find growing my units to be part of the fun of these games, which includes getting to use stronger weapons as the game goes on (admittedly, though, Fates screwed that up with the fact that high rank weapons tend to have such big drawbacks that they're rarely, if ever, worth using). That said, some of my biggest gripes about the game is the crap that "just use bronze bro" doesn't solve. Like lategame Takumi and Ryoma being a total shitfest of RNG. Or the wind chapter.

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Which classes rival Berserker's power without the risk? The only classes even close on Strength are General and Great Knight, which lose speed by big margins. Of those, General has -1 Str and -6 Spd, along with lower move (this is the only class that can actually outdamage Bronze Axe Berserker using an Iron Axe, but hopefully you agree the other disadvantages are significant). Great Knight has -2 Str and -3 Spd, along with admittedly higher move. Hero, which is a baseline competent infantry class in that game, has -4 str and -1 spd. Berserker is legitimately good at what it does.

Power ain't everything. And power is pretty much all Berserker has to offer. That doesn't cut it when I generally want a unit that I can use for more than just hitting for big numbers, which is all Berserker is good at. Ergo, overspecialization is bad, and Berserker is the embodiment of crippling overspecizliation. Anyway, yes, General and Great Knight have close to Berserker's strength, and - get this - they don't go all in on offense. Don't get me wrong, good strength and speed are nice, but they ain't "I'm willing to ignore everything else" important in my book... 

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The best offense, which allies can use in their attacks thanks to how attack stance works.

All the offense in the world means fuck all when you cannot connect reliably. I've spelled this out in both this thread and the Fighter/Warrior thread, but it's why my opinion of foot axes is generally low to the point where the good ones excel in spite of their class and not because of it. That being said, I gotta give Engage credit for making Warrior actually be a good class, with special mention to it also being the one game where it's better than Berserker.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

And Fate's pairup-switch-transfer-seperate system lets your units use the mobility of their allies very easily.

Fair enough. I use that myself.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It is A LOT easier to add crit avoid than it is to add speed to a unit.

The cost is not exactly trivial, in my book. I would say the same for shoring up speed.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

And the most powerful thing about it is that its physical 1-2 range that lets you double, which Xander doesn't have the speed to use, and +4 defense, which half the reason he acts like Benny

You act like that's a bad thing. Compared to being an underleveled glass cannon, it ain't.

[Dark Holy Elf]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The rest: It's cheap to forge... but thanks to Fates's forge system being absolute shit thanks to the need for different ores for each weapon type, it's generally more headache than I care to put myself through (to put things into perspective, I use steels as general-use weapons in the midgame and the lategame; if I was to replace all that with bronze, I'd need to go to +3 at least to have them rival steel level might. Considering that by midgame, I am fielding over a dozen units, that is a *MASSIVE* inconvenience, and whatever good points bronze might have going for it don't even come close to justifying that; in particular, bronze daggers have crummy debuffs, which ain't a good thing when part of why shuriken and daggers are useful is debuffing enemies). Also, personally, I find growing my units to be part of the fun of these games, which includes getting to use stronger weapons as the game goes on (admittedly, though, Fates screwed that up with the fact that high rank weapons tend to have such big drawbacks that they're rarely, if ever, worth using). That said, some of my biggest gripes about the game is the crap that "just use bronze bro" doesn't solve. Like lategame Takumi and Ryoma being a total shitfest of RNG. Or the wind chapter.

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Steel has 15 less hit and 3 less speed than bronze. Once you have enough ore, bronze+2 costs the same as steel+0 and only has 2 less might (and the hit gap is now +17). I won't call steel useless, because sometimes I want as much power as possible, but bronze is pretty obviously useful. You have the inventory slots to use both!

You can like what you like but steel isn't actually "better" than bronze. Fates isn't the game for you if you wanted high rank weapons to be "better", because they're not. They're just different. I do think bronze/iron/steel are all reasonably balanced against each other, silver sucks though.

Neither Takumi nor Ryoma are RNG if you know what you're doing. My usual solution for Takumi is to use Xander, because Siegfried has crit evade (combined with Xander's high luck and Pair Up, this will null Takumi's crit) and enough HP/Def to soak a Rend Heaven/Vengeance proc. There are a variety of other strategies, though, including ones involving Dual Guard. Ryoma I've never failed to have people who can fight him without fearing RNG (that is, they can take a hit from Astra if needed). If for some reason you lack one you can always keep the damage-quartering floor on, but I've never had to.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Power ain't everything. And power is pretty much all Berserker has to offer.

Power and speed, anyway (as well as crit but I don't value that highly myself). But yes, if you don't value those, you won't value Berserker... in this or any other game, because that's what the class typically offers. Personally I do value them. *shrug*

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Steel has 15 less hit and 3 less speed than bronze. Once you have enough ore, bronze+2 costs the same as steel+0 and only has 2 less might (and the hit gap is now +17). I won't call steel useless, because sometimes I want as much power as possible, but bronze is pretty obviously useful. You have the inventory slots to use both!

You can like what you like but steel isn't actually "better" than bronze. Fates isn't the game for you if you wanted high rank weapons to be "better", because they're not. They're just different. I do think bronze/iron/steel are all reasonably balanced against each other, silver sucks though.

Mir has expressed a belief in the past that ore, effectively,  doesn't exist in Fates. He thinks its a bizarrely rare resource when it's kind of just not.

[Dark Holy Elf]

30 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Mir has expressed a belief in the past that ore, effectively,  doesn't exist in Fates. He thinks its a bizarrely rare resource when it's kind of just not.

What's funny is that when I discuss the game elsewhere, I'm considered a bit weird for never just going to other castles and using them as an ore source. And despite this, I still get enough form just the ore fountain + arena to make copies to outfit my entire team with multiple +1 and +2 equips. Past around the game's halfway point I always find that money is the limiter on my inventory, not ore.

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

What's funny is that when I discuss the game elsewhere, I'm considered a bit weird for never just going to other castles and using them as an ore source. And despite this, I still get enough form just the ore fountain + arena to make copies to outfit my entire team with multiple +1 and +2 equips. Past around the game's halfway point I always find that money is the limiter on my inventory, not ore.

Same. I rarely if ever go to other people's castle for ore. The arena and trading provides more than enough compared to the money cost.

[Shadow Mir]

14 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Ryoma I've never failed to have people who can fight him without fearing RNG (that is, they can take a hit from Astra if needed). If for some reason you lack one you can always keep the damage-quartering floor on, but I've never had to.

Speaking of, that's part of why I find that chapter to be poorly designed. The other part of it is that if you go for the Dragon Vein to get rid of it, you instead turn it into a game of Russian Roulette where Ryoma will likely instagib you if you're unlucky, making all that hard work you went through be for absolutely nothing. What the fuck kind of "reward" is that?!!?

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Mir has expressed a belief in the past that ore, effectively,  doesn't exist in Fates. He thinks its a bizarrely rare resource when it's kind of just not.

More like, I hate the fact that Fates's ore system makes things needlessly complicated with it comes to forging, and see it as something that actively hurts the game. Having ore come along once per 4 fights or needing to wait one real time day to get more was a good idea, said no one ever.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Speaking of, that's part of why I find that chapter to be poorly designed. The other part of it is that if you go for the Dragon Vein to get rid of it, you instead turn it into a game of Russian Roulette where Ryoma will likely instagib you if you're unlucky, making all that hard work you went through be for absolutely nothing. What the fuck kind of "reward" is that?!!?

More like, I hate the fact that Fates's ore system makes things needlessly complicated with it comes to forging, and see it as something that actively hurts the game. Having ore come along once per 4 fights or needing to wait one real time day to get more was a good idea, said no one ever.

Never need to wait for it if you play well.

[Dark Holy Elf]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

The other part of it is that if you go for the Dragon Vein to get rid of it, you instead turn it into a game of Russian Roulette where Ryoma will likely instagib you if you're unlucky, making all that hard work you went through be for absolutely nothing. What the fuck kind of "reward" is that?!!?

I feel like you fought a version of Ryoma who had +10 to all stats compared to one I faced. I had no problem finding people who reliably survived Astra, as I mentioned, so there was no Russian Roulette involved. If you had nobody, maybe you should sit down and think about what you could have done to reliably survive him instead of whining about it?

All of the following help: weapon triangle advantage (via lance, knife, or dual club), Rally Defence, Defence/HP Tonics, debuffs (Draconic Hex etc.) especially before turning the floor off, pair up (Dual Guard is guaranteed to stop one hit of Astra).

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

More like, I hate the fact that Fates's ore system makes things needlessly complicated with it comes to forging, and see it as something that actively hurts the game. Having ore come along once per 4 fights or needing to wait one real time day to get more was a good idea, said no one ever.

The arena exists.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Dark Holy Elf

[LoneRecon400]

Fun fact, you can make a chapter 25 Ryoma deal only 1 damage to a base Gunter and have hik three round him with a Brass Naginata, which with shelter dancing means you can make a base Gunter defeat Ryoma in one turn. As for how:

Ryoma in that chapter has 54 Atk, 86 Avoid, and 55 HP / 23 Def.

Base Gunther has 20 Def. By giving him a Wyvern Corrin Pair up, that's 25 with supportive. Rally Defense boosts that 29, and by using aura skills such as Lilly's poise, Rose's Thorns, Inspiration, and Demoiselle, that boosts it to 37 def. 

Add on a tonic and meal boosts it to 41 def. Using a brass naginata effectively increases it to 47 Def when considering weapon triangle. Finally, add on 3x Draco Shield and that'll total 53 Def.

In terms of attack, Gunther has a base 17 strength. The pair up give him 22 Attack, while the Aura skills give him effectively 28 Attack. Elbow room, WTA, and Brass Naginata give him 36 Attack.

Adding meals and tonic boost that to 40, while a steel shuriken debuffs effectively totals that to 42 Attack, enough to three round ryoma.

In terms of hit, Gunther has a base of 136 Hit with Corrin. Adding on WTA, 2x adjacency bonus, and Heart Seeker equals 179 Hit. Adding on tonics and special dance, that's 189 Hit.

Ryoma would have no chance to crit thanks +15 dodge from a bronze weapon and Pair up, so the only way he'd have a chance would be procing Rend Heaven 3 times in a row. And you could just heal him inbetween rounds, so there would be zero chance of death.

If a base Gunther can do it, there should have no problems having someone like Xander or Camilla take him down on a playthrough with growths.

To tie it back to the topic, Berserkers would actually be really useful aganist Ryoma with S Axes and the Dual Club, as that'd means they deal and take +4 / -8 damage from WTA him on top of getting +40 Hit and Avoid. Being able to one shot sword master with a dual club both in and out of Attack stance is pretty good niche I dont see being pulled up often in that chapter.

Edited March 28, 2023 by LoneRecon400

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I feel like you fought a version of Ryoma who had +10 to all stats compared to one I faced. I had no problem finding people who reliably survived Astra, as I mentioned, so there was no Russian Roulette involved. If you had nobody, maybe you should sit down and think about what you could have done to reliably survive him instead of whining about it?

All of the following help: weapon triangle advantage (via lance, knife, or dual club), Rally Defence, Defence/HP Tonics, debuffs (Draconic Hex etc.) especially before turning the floor off, pair up (Dual Guard is guaranteed to stop one hit of Astra).

Spoiler Alert: Astra is not the only problem here... he also has Rend Heaven on Lunatic, and 22 crit, which will take some doing to completely negate (at least unless your name is Xander). Anyway, I only see that Dragon Vein as a trap.

4 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

To tie it back to the topic, Berserkers would actually be really useful aganist Ryoma with S Axes and the Dual Club, as that'd means they deal and take +4 / -8 damage from WTA him on top of getting +40 Hit and Avoid. Being able to one shot sword master with a dual club both in and out of Attack stance is pretty good niche I dont see being pulled up often in that chapter.

Bold: Prolly because Ryoma himself is the only mandatory part of the map; you don't even have to engage anyone else.

The thing is, S rank is something you pretty much have to go out of your way to get.

4 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Elbow room, WTA, and Brass Naginata give him 36 Attack.

Erm, isn't Elbow Room negated in that room? Elbow Room needs a space with no terrain effects, according to the game.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[LoneRecon400]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Spoiler Alert: Astra is not the only problem here... he also has Rend Heaven on Lunatic, and 22 crit, which will take some doing to completely negate (at least unless your name is Xander). Anyway, I only see that Dragon Vein as a trap.

Bold: Prolly because Ryoma himself is the only mandatory part of the map; you don't even have to engage anyone else.

The thing is, S rank is something you pretty much have to go out of your way to get.

Erm, isn't Elbow Room negated in that room? Elbow Room needs a space with no terrain effects, according to the game.

Units get +15 dodge from using a bronze weapon and Pair up. That's more than enough to negate his crit on on most units. Rend Heaven is dangerous, but it's easy enough to avoid being one shot.

Admittedly forgot about -Avoid tiles, but it's easy enough to squeeze out 3 damage. You could reclass him to Wyvern for Str +2 and Trample, use rally strength, or just use a +1 Bronze Lance. Point is that fighting Ryoma is not heavily dependent on the RNG.

It's worth feeding an Arms scroll to make a unit reach S rank. +2 Attack with Weapon Triangle as well as +10 Hit makes a difference. It's not like there's that many other uses for them.

[samthedigital]

On 3/24/2023 at 1:48 PM, Shadow Mir said:

Those are problematic too (and in the case of Gonzales in particular, needing a Hero Crest doesn't help). And because of those, I think it's easy to find better choices for my unit slots than an unreliable axe user.

There isn't any strong competition for the second hero crest other than just selling it, and Gonzales is an example of a unit that actually appreciates the levels before promoting. He might not see play during a completely optimized run, but that's also true of a lot of otherwise good units too.

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/30/2023 at 12:16 AM, samthedigital said:

There isn't any strong competition for the second hero crest other than just selling it, and Gonzales is an example of a unit that actually appreciates the levels before promoting. He might not see play during a completely optimized run, but that's also true of a lot of otherwise good units too.

Even so, I'd honestly say that Gonzales getting the second Hero Crest is a harder sell than either of Dieck, Fir, or even Oujay, largely because they're all better than him.

On 3/28/2023 at 5:51 PM, LoneRecon400 said:

It's worth feeding an Arms scroll to make a unit reach S rank. +2 Attack with Weapon Triangle as well as +10 Hit makes a difference. It's not like there's that many other uses for them.

Which would be nice were if not for - as I said in the unpopular opinion thread - many of the S rank classes being rather underwhelming imho, Master Ninja especially. Doesn't help that Fates's S rank weapons are all pretty damn bad, which fuels the sentiment that I'm not missing out on much.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[samthedigital]

32 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Even so, I'd honestly say that Gonzales getting the second Hero Crest is a harder sell than either of Dieck, Fir, or even Oujay, largely because they're all better than him.

Oujay aside I don't disagree that there are better options, but I wouldn't strongly consider the opportunity cost here. Fir is the only one that should be performing primary objectives later on, and there's redundancy if Rutger gets the first Hero Crest, so none of the options are saving us a lot of time unless Dieck gets promoted first instead.

[Jotari]

Better options doesn't mean bad. Unless you're talking in an LTC context wherein you're just using Rutger to rig crits and racing to the throne, other characters being better than a character doesn't make another character bad. You can choose to use them even if better alternatives exist and they can still accomplish the job they are meant to.