Ranking each game by class: Thief/Assassin

[Whisky]

Also includes Rogues, Whispers, whatever else is appropriate.

This one is harder. The role of most classes is primarily combat, which make them easier to compare. The primary role of Thieves is utility. Mostly looting chests and stealing, the usefulness of that depends on the item that you can get, which is a fair way to rate them but it does seem a little strange since it has nothing to do with the units themselves, or the class itself. Also they can still contribute in combat as well. They’re generally not good at if, but it is a factor to consider.

You guys can do this one how you want, but I’m going to try to look at all of these variables. Again, the explanation matters more than the order. Let’s see how this goes.

Blazing Sword

Thieves are really nice to have in this game. I’ve played randomizers where I didn’t get any Thieves and I really missed having them. There are a lot of good items that you can only get with a Thief. I don’t think you can buy Chest Keys in this game? It’s not only chests either. There are multiple promotion items that you can Steal, and the Silver Card. Then there’s Jaffar who is actually really strong in combat. He joins late and is Sword locked, but his stats are good, and his Spd exceptional.

Binding Blade

Thieves are pretty nice to have here too. There’s a lot of chests in some maps with some good items in some of them. Chest Keys are buyable, but they’re not cheap. There aren’t as many good items available to Steal, but you can make some extra money off of it. You can Steal regardless of Spd on this game but that doesn’t matter a whole lot since Thieves are fast anyway. I’m pretty sure Matthew and Legault can Steal every useful item at base level anyway. Thieves can’t promote in this game, but honestly promoting Matthew or Legault is just a novelty anyway and isn’t useful to do. Astohl can help out in combat somewhat during the Western Isles. Swords are generally better in this game than in most. His combat isn’t as notable as Jaffar’s in my opinion though. Thieves are also useful for their increased fog vision and for finding useful items in the desert. These are both things they can do in FE7 too I forgot to mention.

Radiant Dawn

Thieves in RD play a very different role than in most games. Sothe acts as this game’s ‘jeigan’ and is really useful for the first half or so of Part 1 and for Part 3. Volke is pretty strong too with solid 1-2 range combat and high Spd, though he joins really late. I don’t remember how useful their utility is here.

Path of Radiance

I’m not as familiar with them in this game compared to the GBA games. I’m sure there are good items for them to get and I don’t think Keys are buyable here? And they can Steal Staves in this game! Combat wise they’re complete garbage though.

Sacred Stones

Thieves are not as important to have here. Chest Keys are buyable and a lot of Chest contain basic items. There are still some good items you can get, though you can obtain those without a Thief. There are some Stealable items such as an Energy Ring in Ch7, but I don’t think there’s very many. It’s also unlikely for Colm to be able to Steal the Fili Shield off of Valter because Valter is fast. Rogues can lock open chests without Lockpicks which can save you some money. Fog vision and desert item hunting are always appreciable. Combat wise the only way to get much out of any of them is to promote Joshua into an Assassin.

Three Houses

They have very little utility in this game. Chest Keys are buyable and are very cheap. I can only think of one item worth stealing in this game. Fog vision would be really nice to have but I’m pretty sure they don’t have it in this game. Fortunately I think their combat is better than in most games, but still not spectacular. Honesty I’d just call it mediocre still. They’re the best Swordfaire class but there are still several other classes that are a lot better in my opinion.

Shadow Dragon

Marth can open chests in this game so Thieves have less of a distinct role. They are still useful at times don’t get me wrong but not as useful as in other games. They also have less utility features. No Stealing, no fog vision, no desert treasure hunting. And their combat is pretty bad too.

-

I’m going to continue to refrain from including Engage for now, but I think I’d put in between SS and 3H. They’re purely a combat class in that game with no utility. I haven’t used Yunaka yet but I’ve heard she’s good for the early game and I’ve heard tales of how good Thief+fog is. Zelkov is pretty good but not great.

So what do you guys think ? How do you handle a utility class like Thief for these topics?

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

Good

Blazing Blade: There's lots of good stuff to steal, and fog vision is extremely useful. Combat-wise thieves are a bit awkward in this game; Matthew gets off to a solid start but falls off, then can't promote. Jaffar is reasonably solid but not exceptional, he's got a swordmaster stat build but can't dodge as well).

Binding Blade: Similar to Blazing Blade (minus any comments specific to Jaffar).

Sacred Stones: So fun story about SS is that a friend who is a big fan of Colm challenged me to solo the game with him, and I did (true solo, no ferries or item carriers). Colm's actually got pretty good combat. I beat this drum a lot but I feel like a lot of people on Serenes just never try to use him as a combat unit (the way you would Joshua or Gerik); if you do you'll notice how fast he gains exp and gets some great speed/evade and competent enough damage/bulk. But I wouldn't say it's great combat either since y'know no 1-2 range (aside from RNG-farming runeblades in the tower which I wouldn't consider much). That said he's less valuable for thiefy reasons than the Blazing/Binding thieves, there's less to steal relatively (a couple stat boosters), buyable Chest Keys, and fewer fog maps (though the ones that exist are pretty tough).

Radiant Dawn: Sothe is very good, just for combat purposes. Heather is not so good, and Volke has terrible availability. Otherwise, there aren't many "thiefy" things for thieves to do in this game (the thieves are pretty talented at missing fog maps i.e. 1-9 and 2-2 and 3-1), but there are some occasional steals or treasures to pick up (particularly the desert), and combined with Sothe's combat that earns RD thieves a decent score.

Decent

Engage: Thieves are the best class for making use of the Covert tag, since knives are far better for enemy phase than bows. That said that's really about the only niche the class has; its stats aren't great (Wolf Knight is just better outside the Covert tag) and there's almost no "thiefy" things for them to do. An average class.

Genealogy: They play a weird and valuable utility role of giving money to people who need it. Incredibly hard to rate so I'm just gonna throw them in the middle. Their combat sucks.

Not so good

Three Houses: Thief is pretty bad, it has a decent speed modifier but Pegasus is just better, so only relevant for male units and only if you aren't getting better skills elsewhere (which realistically is what you're usually doing in Intermedite tier). Assassin is decent thanks to Stealth, but only decent.

Path of Radiance: Their combat is fairly dire and you get quite a lot of chest keys - not enough for every chest but certainly every good one. There's also only one fog map you can actually use thieves on. I still use them for some maps because I like getting every chest, but they're not great. If you told me to play a FE without using a thief, this is the one for sure.

Shadow Dragon/New Mystery: Or this one, but as always I don't remember these games well.

[Scaramuccia]

Engage is a bit hard to judge as due to the AI behaviour difference thief on hard and thief on maddening are two different classes.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1. Radiant Dawn. I'm gonna say it right now - Sothe is the best Thief-type unit in the history of the series. He has great combat (at least in part I), as does Volke once he joins. There's a decent amount of stealables and Chests to crack open. Not only that, but more hidden items than ever before (or since).

2. FE6. Weirdly high for a class that can't promote, right? But this is a game with no enemy droppables, and without the "you must outspeed the opponent to rob them!" prerequisite. 30-use Lockpicks are nice, too. And Chad and Astore aren't even that bad, stat-wise.

3. Fates. I assume we're counting Ninjas as Thieves, yes? If so, they belong quite high - not so much for their utility, but for their combat. Shurikens are just a busted weapon type, and Ninjas have access to more of them than any other class. Plus, they're a particularly threatening class to face in Conquest.

4. Genealogy. People think Thieves suck here, because they only get Gold through combat, and combat endangers their life. These people have never let Dew buy the Light Brand. All of a sudden, not only is he doing more damage, he's also robbing foes from a safe distance. He can pass that Gold along to needy allies, or use them to improve himself - Bargain lets him cheat the economy. Patty varies with who her dad is (Chulainn and Dew are probably the best for her), but offers likewise utility eother way. Finally, a good infantry class in FE4.

5. Awakening. Being a statpack that increases Movement and Speed is good, actually. They also get their own Movement +1, plus options like Pass and Acrobatics. No Stealing this time, but they can still burgle. Gaius is pretty alright, and Anna is great for her jointime.

6. Path of Radiance. Their combat is at rock bottom here, arguably even worse than in FE4. Knives had an inauspicious start in the series. That said, the ability to steal literally any staff is so empowering. Burning money on Mends, or costly Physics? No thanks, I'll just have Sothe show up and bully you. Volke is of course the better one here, with Assassin a big help to him.

7. FE7. Unlike the last ride around in Elibe, there are droppables this time... but still also stealables. They can get you great stuff on the desert map (if Pent doesn't kill everything first), and provide great vision boosts on any fog maps. Matthew and Legault are fine utility, while Jaffar has as good combat as any Swordlock could hope for.

8. Sacred Stones. Thieves can go either Assassin or Rogue here - one with better combat, the other with a utility advantage. In either case, they're nice to have around for maps that warrant them - stealables, chests, fog, etc. Colm and Rennac... neither one is great, but they have their uses.

9. Three Houses. Thief utility ain't much use here, in a game of few stealables and ever-buyable Keys. They also give no useful mastery skills. But! They are more mobile than their other infantry counterparts. Assassin is relatively easy to certify into, has great Speed and movement, and gets to benefit from Stealth. Definitely superior to the Advanced-tier infantry classes we've already examined, even if they're no "Wyvern Lord".

10. Shadow Dragon. Marth can already open Chests with the Fire Emblem. So all they offer that's "unique" is opening doors and bridges. Which you might not even need if you get the Door/Bridge Key. Julian has okay stats, and will forever live in my head for telling Lena "tick, tock, move that frock!".

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I wish there was a resource out there to quickly reference what you can steal and lockpick, chapter by chapter, in fire emblem games. Answering the question of what Fire Emblem game has the greatest quality and quantity of Thief-able items is a tedious task. But I do think it's an important angle, because this is what thieves are here to do. Them becoming good combat units has a lot in common with stressing out about how to make your dancers good combat units. Does the addition of good combat at all meaningfully enhance their role?

The funny thing about Marth, Prince of Thieves is, he has convoy access in FE11 right? So you don't need to load his inventory with door keys, you just have to buy them and make sure they're stashed in the convoy for him to lift later. Furthermore, Julian and Ricardo lack the ability to reclass, so that hampers your ability to make them into decent combat units.

[lenticular]

I've not been contributing to these threads because I haven't really had anything to say (except for a lukewarm defence of Three Houses swordmasters that I never got around to making), but I have been enjoying reading other people's thoughts. And hey, I finally have something to add here.

I think that thieves in Shadow Dragon (DS) are still reasonably useful despite Marth also having chest opening ability. That's because Marth is frequently overloaded. At the very least, he's required for seizing. He's also often needed for visiting villages or recruiting new characters, and it's typically a good idea to make sure he sees some amount of combat too, to keep him decently levelled up. If you make him singly responsible for all chests as well, then he's stretched very thin, and you'll likely end up wasting time having to ferry him from place to place. Having a thief on the team helps prevent that.

3 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Them becoming good combat units has a lot in common with stressing out about how to make your dancers good combat units. Does the addition of good combat at all meaningfully enhance their role?

I think that the big difference here is that dancers can (almost) always dance on every turn, whereas thieves are only using their thieving abilities on a much smaller fraction of turns. For thieves, it's relevant to ask what they're doing on the turns when they aren't thieving, whereas with dancers, there's no question about what they're doing when they aren't dancing because they're always dancing. A thief with great utility and awful combat is still a good unit, but a thief with great utility and good combat is a great unit.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Definitely a bit surprised at thieves getting hype for stealing staves in PoR. That's probably the least useful game for staves in the series (nearly invincible army of dodgetank paladins doesn't need much support, as it turns out), and thieves saving me a tiny bit of money is down there with Ashe's personal for "well that's nice I guess..." given this is the game that nonchalantly drops 70k gold on you at one point. I certainly never deployed a thief just to steal, and probably end up only stealing one or two staves per game. I don't understand rating them above FE7 or FE8 thieves, who have better things to steal (yes, even SS, I'd argue that the C7 Energy Ring is more useful than any PoR steal), better combat, and relevant fog vision.

If Fates ninjas count as thieves then they're easily top-tier, IMO. Their combat is really good, easily better than RD thieves' combat relatively (yes, Sothe has his badass prepromo phase, but Heather and Volke do not), as one of the few ways to get really good 1-2 offence if your name isn't Ryoma. Ninja Corrin is arguably their best build, it's a commonly suggested reclass for Laslow and Soleil, and all three units who start in the class range from good to great. On top of that they're needed for some chests since you can't buy chest keys in that game.

But if anything I'm more inclined to say Outlaw is the more classic thief class, flavour-wise... and while they're still useful (neat pairup bonuses, Move+1, chest opening utility), they're definitely not as good due to the bow lock. Though staves on promotion are nifty.

I also realize I forgot about Awakening thief entirely. It's weird, I've played that game five times but my memory for it just isn't great for these conversations. Um, well, I do remember that Anna is an extremely good unit, and that's in large part due to her starting as a promoted thief... staves and thief utility and good combat (especially with that Levin Sword from Gangrel). I never felt a compelling need to use others but I'm sure you could and they'd be fine. So, a decent class.

[Jotari]

15 hours ago, Whisky said:

Shadow Dragon

 

They are still useful at times don’t get me wrong

I would say they're just plain not. You only have one reason to ever field a thief in Shadow Dragon, and that's deploying Julian to recruit Rickard. And that's only if you just generally want to recruit Rickard (which the game actively discourages you to do with its Gaiden mechanic). You don't even need Julian to open the chests in the Aurelis chapter, as the enemy thieves will inevitably do that for you before you ever have a hope of reaching them with Julian (unless you want to ignore recruiting Rickard and warp Julian to open the chests first purely for the sake of doing it, as if you're willing to use warp, warping a unit to the thieves' escape point is far more practical). Beyond that chapter, Marth can open chests and the game gives you ample keys to open all the doors in the game that require opening. Thieves in Shadow Dragon really have no useful utility at all.

I don't know if I'd call it the objective best game for thieves, but certainly my favourite game for using thieves is Radiant Dawn. For two main reasons. 1)They can steal enemy weapons, which is awesome. 2)The disarm skill exists, meaning you can unequip an enemy's weapon and then steal it. Is this something you can't plan around because it's a proc skill? Yes, absolutely. Is it awesome? Also yes, absolutely/

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

8 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Does the addition of good combat at all meaningfully enhance their role?

In Genealogy, combat is definitely a factor. That's because acquiring Gold is intrinsically linked to getting into combat. Dew doesn't need to do a ton of damage, but he does need to land his hit. Moreover, he needs to either dodge the counterattack, tank it, or avoid a counterattack altogether (i.e. via Light Brand).

And this is without even getting into the Arena. Unpromoted, Dew can typically clear the first couple foes, netting him 2500 Gold. The remaining five enemies grant 15000 Gold total, so if he's not beating those, he's missing out on a lot of Gold. Promoting gives him Pursuit and more weapons (the Brave Sword), so he can clear the Arena, but that won't come until chapter 4 or 5. Patty is a bit more gifted in this regard - with the right father, she can have Pursuit, Luna, or Adept - and she can use the Miracle Sword regardless. And Daisy gets Miracle innately, even if she's never doing more than 1 damage.

So yeah, your Thieves would have better utility (giving Gold) if they had better combat. That said, even with their lackluster combat, they're still providing a valuable service.

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

If you make him singly responsible for all chests as well, then he's stretched very thin, and you'll likely end up wasting time having to ferry him from place to place. Having a thief on the team helps prevent that.

This is fair, and I'll definitely bring Julian to maps with a lot of chests. But there are a lot of maps with no chests or doors. In other games, Thieves are still worth bringing for the stealables, plus fog-of-war utility in maps where it happens. Moreover, while Marth is busy visiting villages, there are very few maps with both a Village and Chests. I can think of the "Gra Castle" map and Pyrathi, but not really many others.

[Whisky]

40 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I would say they're just plain not. You only have one reason to ever field a thief in Shadow Dragon, and that's deploying Julian to recruit Rickard. And that's only if you just generally want to recruit Rickard (which the game actively discourages you to do with its Gaiden mechanic). You don't even need Julian to open the chests in the Aurelis chapter, as the enemy thieves will inevitably do that for you before you ever have a hope of reaching them with Julian (unless you want to ignore recruiting Rickard and warp Julian to open the chests first purely for the sake of doing it, as if you're willing to use warp, warping a unit to the thieves' escape point is far more practical). Beyond that chapter, Marth can open chests and the game gives you ample keys to open all the doors in the game that require opening. Thieves in Shadow Dragon really have no useful utility at all.

Aren’t there a few maps that have chests in opposite directions from the seize point? You did bring him one but said that enemy Thieves loot the chests for you. In the GBA games enemies only drop one item. Do they drop all of the loot in this game?

8 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Them becoming good combat units has a lot in common with stressing out about how to make your dancers good combat units. Does the addition of good combat at all meaningfully enhance their role?

It’s a factor to consider. A Thief that can contribute in combat is better than a Thief that should always avoid combat at all times, assuming their utility is equal. When they have better combat in one game but better utility in another? Well that’s up to you, usually utility would be better but it sounds like their combat is really good in Fates.

[Jotari]

18 minutes ago, Whisky said:

Aren’t there a few maps that have chests in opposite directions from the seize point? You did bring him one but said that enemy Thieves loot the chests for you. In the GBA games enemies only drop one item. Do they drop all of the loot in this game?

It’s a factor to consider. A Thief that can contribute in combat is better than a Thief that should always avoid combat at all times, assuming their utility is equal. When they have better combat in one game but better utility in another? Well that’s up to you, usually utility would be better but it sounds like their combat is really good in Fates.

The main one would be Altea Castle, but I'm not nearly LTC enough to tackle both halves simultaneously, the reinforcement spam in the throne room can get pretty intense. And even then...you really don't need Marth that much since enemy thieves just love opening chests for you in Shadow Dragon.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

I´m assuming Ninja/Master Ninja and Outlaw/Adventurer fall in the category of skulduggery. Bow Knights look like Nomads and Mechanists are... Mechanists.

As for Fates, at least CQ, Outlaws and Ninjas are the only way to get all the chests since the game gives you only... 2? chest keys and they aren´t kept outside the map.

Access to 1-2 range antibeast, antiarmor and a magic variant are good in a game where 1-2- range was nerfed. On top of that you get Locktouch, but also Poison Strike for -20% HP on attack, making it essentially impossible for Ninjas to not deal damage, nevermind that daggers/shurikens have debuffing inbuilt as an effect; at MN we look at Lethality as a lvl 5 meh procc-skill, and at lvl 15 Shurikenfaire for more damage. MN also gets a passive buff of +5 to hit/crit/avo/dodge and swords. Neat.  

As for PUstats, base ninjaline bestows speed and movement.

Probably Fates best class.

 

Outlaw, almost 2 range locked, Locktouch and Mov+1 and as an Adventurer Lucky Seven at 5 (+20Hit/Avoid for 7 turns) and Pass at 15.

Good against fliers, some stave action and otherwise chip damage.

 

 

Regarding the SD Thieves, they can lower bridges, no? That´d be a very minor point in their favor because who the fuck buys bridge keys not knowing when bridges turn up.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Imuabicus

[have-mercydes]

16 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Sacred Stones: So fun story about SS is that a friend who is a big fan of Colm challenged me to solo the game with him, and I did (true solo, no ferries or item carriers). Colm's actually got pretty good combat. I beat this drum a lot but I feel like a lot of people on Serenes just never try to use him as a combat unit (the way you would Joshua or Gerik); if you do you'll notice how fast he gains exp and gets some great speed/evade and competent enough damage/bulk. But I wouldn't say it's great combat either since y'know no 1-2 range (aside from RNG-farming runeblades in the tower which I wouldn't consider much). That said he's less valuable for thiefy reasons than the Blazing/Binding thieves, there's less to steal relatively (a couple stat boosters), buyable Chest Keys, and fewer fog maps (though the ones that exist are pretty tough).

Don't really have alot to say here, but yesss, I love that Colm can become a very competent combat unit. I've seen the beauty of Berserker Ross and I love Berserker Ross, but Assassin Colm has also been amazing to go for. Made me wish FE6 / FE7 theives could be promoted.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Also some notes about Three Houses stealing. Stealing in that game does not grant exp. So if you're thinking you can get some free exp on chapter 7's vulneraries, you'll be disappointed. And you actually have the ability to give your victim accessories and items from your inventory because it opens a Trade menu. I had to do this once to make room in my inventory for the thing that I wanted. I gave Hubert my prayer ring. What a deliciously ironic gift. 

8 hours ago, lenticular said:

I think that the big difference here is that dancers can (almost) always dance on every turn, whereas thieves are only using their thieving abilities on a much smaller fraction of turns. For thieves, it's relevant to ask what they're doing on the turns when they aren't thieving, whereas with dancers, there's no question about what they're doing when they aren't dancing because they're always dancing. A thief with great utility and awful combat is still a good unit, but a thief with great utility and good combat is a great unit.

This is a fair point. I just find that a thief earning kills takes exp away from more deserving units. On top of other potential points like buyable keys, free reclassing to a thief for a chapter, or a Matthew/Legault situation where the better combat unit eventually shows up to relieve the first thief of duty. A dancer's exp from dancing is exclusive to that unit, just like Steal exp is unique to the thief - small as it is. 

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

In Genealogy, combat is definitely a factor. That's because acquiring Gold is intrinsically linked to getting into combat. Dew doesn't need to do a ton of damage, but he does need to land his hit. Moreover, he needs to either dodge the counterattack, tank it, or avoid a counterattack altogether (i.e. via Light Brand).

I don't disbelieve that Dewey is a meta defining unit. One that the developers try to reign in from his first turn by tasking you with surviving a band of murderers that I believe at least one of whom can potentially one shot him. Give Gold is such a potent skill to grant thieves - or any class. Maybe FE4 should have had a Swinger skill that let a unit give gold in the same way. Or a Scarlet A Band.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

And you actually have the ability to give your victim accessories and items from your inventory because it opens a Trade menu.

It does 0.o Have I never tried to steal in Three Houses? Doing it Thracia style is very interesting. I wonder if there's any fun shenanigans you can pull giving enemies specific items. One of my favourite exploits in Thracia is stealing the Lopt sword by giving Raydrik a bow so he unequips it to attack at range.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It does 0.o Have I never tried to steal in Three Houses? Doing it Thracia style is very interesting. I wonder if there's any fun shenanigans you can pull giving enemies specific items. One of my favourite exploits in Thracia is stealing the Lopt sword by giving Raydrik a bow so he unequips it to attack at range.

I reread the logs of that playthrough and it turns out I misremembered what I stole. Hubert had the prayer ring to begin with (which is why it stuck out to me as ironic), and to make room for it I gave him an iron shield from Catherine's inventory. He then equipped it as the trade menu closed - same as if you traded an accessory to a unit that isn't wearing one. I suppose since shields have weight, you could weigh someone's AS and Avoid a little bit to make them easier to kill. But an enemy has to have a stealable item in the first place for the Steal command to appear (on top of you needing to have higher Speed). So if you're ever in a position to take advantage of this and get that kill easier, it would be the play of the century. 

[Whisky]

2 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I reread the logs of that playthrough and it turns out I misremembered what I stole. Hubert had the prayer ring to begin with (which is why it stuck out to me as ironic), and to make room for it I gave him an iron shield from Catherine's inventory. He then equipped it as the trade menu closed - same as if you traded an accessory to a unit that isn't wearing one. I suppose since shields have weight, you could weigh someone's AS and Avoid a little bit to make them easier to kill. But an enemy has to have a stealable item in the first place for the Steal command to appear (on top of you needing to have higher Speed). So if you're ever in a position to take advantage of this and get that kill easier, it would be the play of the century. 

That’s a really interesting strategy 😮

[Eltosian Kadath]

It is another useful graphic for how I feel these roughly align, with a few thoughts below on the games individually. I will note that I feel the tiers are right, but I haven't order them within each tier. Also I am not using exactly the same metric for the tier, as while I have a sense of how they compare to each-other, how they compare to other kinds of classes is a more murky quandary.

A Tier: A good class in this game

Thracia 776:  Thracia is a game where utility is king, and the Thief class is where we first see this. Even being able to simply open doors is critical in this game that people will talk about potentially being softlocked if you don't have enough thieves, door key, and unlock staff uses. That isn't even getting into the way thieves can steal equipped weapons in this game, which can get down right ridiculous with stat blessed thieves, but even at base your thieve can disarm things like mages, and Rapier wielding cavaliers fairly easily. A more subtle use is that with this thieving you can give enemies equipment, the two most famous uses for it are in giving Reidrick a bow to trick him into unequipping his super powered Lopto Sword, and giving the chapter 8 boss a scroll for critical immunity to more safely chip him with your best units (as you need to capture him to unlock 8x). Now Chest keys, and door keys, and capturing enemies for their equipment are all things you can use to mimic their utility, and if this wasn't the case this would be an easy S tier, but that utility is needed so much that I don't think it harms them as much as it does in other games.

Engage:  This one is a bit more difficult to judge, as thieves are mainly combat based in this one, but the use of the covert class to reach impossible to hit avoid levels with poisoning 1-2 range daggers is really useful, and unkillable units are really good. It simply shouldn't be possible for you to get +120 avoid by fogging up some terrain...

 

B Tier:  Utterly essential for a period of time

Blazing Blade: What puts Thieves/Assassins so high in this game is two things, the first is something I ended noticing on an ironman run, that a vast majority of the promotion items in HHM require a thief. You do reach a certain point where Blazing Blade eventually gives you a lot of good prepromotes that can carry your run (although getting there will be difficult without thief utility), but even then one of them is an Assassin, coming almost full circle with how useful the class ends up being in this game. Also I will note that extra fog vision can be kinda useful, as chapter 13x is the only map where FE7's rare ambush spawns might actually screw you with fog to boot, and Battle Before Dawn is another well known dangerous fog map.

Radiant Dawn: An odd one, as Sothe carries a lot of this rank by being kinda vital for part one, although falls off a cliff in value latter into the game. Admittedly Part one tends to be the place you need the most help, and while he is halfway off the cliff by part 3, he is still usable on the part 3 Dawn Brigade maps. I will also highlight that this is one of the rare games that lets thieves steal weapons, but it tends to require a fairly stat blessed thief to get the good stuff, and someone may need to proc the disarm skill on your foe as you can only steal unequipped weapons, although there is some really good stuff available from this (from memory an early Bolting, and one of the rare and powerful Hammers are available only through stealing in this way), and there are a fair number of stat booster available only through theft as well.

Fates:  This is an odd one, as combat, and particularly useful skills tend to be a big part of this, although chest items tend to be rather good as well. I will note that Conquest does give you access to a single use chest key that is only usable on the chapter you get it on both the maps that have a Rescue staff in chest, so it isn't utterly vital for Conquest Lunatic endgame to have this utility, but the goods you get in chests tend to be really good in Fates. I am in the minority opinion of finding Ninjas kinda underwhelming, but you can still use that class to get access to the dangerous, and incredibly powerful Replicate skill. On the Nohrian version we have a bow unit, which is more useful than it sounds thanks to the high might of those weapons, and gives you access to Shuriken breaker (on top of WTA on shuriken with bows), which is a godsend for dealing with chapter 25 on Lunatic.

 

C Tier: A bit of a mixed bag

Genealogy of the Holy War: This is one of the hardest ones to rank, as its value is so dependent upon the level of play. On your average run, you can easily ignore the utility thieves provide, that of passing money, and taking money from foes, but in the highest levels of play that utility ends up utterly vital. Even if you want to get utility out of them on your average run, you start running into the issue that acquiring wealth on a thief tends to be dependent on combat, and thieves are really bad at combat until promotion, and being infantry makes it difficult to get value out of them without a lot of work. I do thing they span from A-B tier in higher end play, and more in the C-D tier on a more average run, and I keep going back and forth whether to put them in B or C tier here.

Awakening: From what I remember they tend to be alright combatwise, not one of the classes that break this game wide open, but still kinda useful, even in the back. Admitted there is no stealing in this game, and there is plenty of loot available without opening chests, and so much good stuff is available from shops that their utility in that regard tends to be a bit underwhelming overall, although converting goods to money to forges is still useful.

Binding Blade: Keys being so readily available, and easy to buy makes using thieves a bit of a hard sell here, but what keeps them out of the lowest tier here is that money can be directly converted to infinite boots (or other stat boosters if you prefer) in the late game, and buying keys are significantly more expensive per use than lockpicks. Their remaining utility is in stealing items, and while most of the items you can steal are minor things like vulneraries, lockpick, the keys that replace them, or the promotion items that arrive from chapters 19 onwards, which is so late that you will never bother to use them, but even then all that can be sold for money. The main exception to this is being able to steal the Delphi shield, which is really useful, and always being able to steal that is what just barely pushed this out of lowest tier here.

Sacred Stones: Again buyable keys really tank their value in this game like in Binding Blade, but this game both has much better stealable items (a fair number of stat boosters), and is one of the games where I most appreciate the extra vision in fog. Chapter 6 is particularly dangerous with cav effective weapons hiding in the fog to kill allies, plus Phantom Ship and chapter 19 are both fog maps that are infamously dangerous if you play them without cheesing them. This is another one that only just barely made its way out of D tier.

 

D Tier: Easily replaceable, and only worth bringing if you have a spare deployment slot lying around.

Shadow Dragon: Buyable door keys, the Fire Emblem opening chest, no stealing, and no reclassing all combine to make thieves easily replaceable, and often kinda bad.

New Mystery of the Embelm: Like Shadow Dragon above, but add the infinte range Thief staff as another thing that renders them kinda redundant, and the less impressive Unlock staff as another alternative to door keys.

Path of Radiance: First off Doors are breakable, even ignoring door keys, second this game tends to give you chest keys on maps with chests, third you tend to get as much money as you need, and the best stuff is what you forge anyway, and you only get to forge once a chapter to limit how much you can spend on them anyway. Their combat being hilariously bad, and your first thief literally takes money from you any time you use them just adds insult to the injury done to the poor guys. I guess you can steal staves and coins, but neither are really that impressive. Less useless than the DS games, but not great.

Three Houses: Easily purchasable chest keys, and combat that is kinda meh, and not great stealable items all combine in a class that is easy to ignore.

 

[SnowFire]

My one small contribution to this will be to defend the honor of Three Houses thieves a tad.  Intermediate classes don't differ very much from each other.  If you A) Are interested in long term sword rank (and thus would like to be training swords slightly more efficiently), B) Uninterested in Vantage, C) Uninterested in magic use or Bowrange +1, then Thief is probably your best option - it's a little faster than Mercenary.  Like most Intermediate physical classes, Thief lives under the shadow of the overly centralizing Brigand, but it's not unreasonable to spend time in both given how cheap Intermediate Seals are if you finish up Death Blow early, and I wouldn't say that the existence of Brigand immediately sends all other physical Intermediate classes into toilet tier - you can still distinguish that Thief is better than weak options like Brawler / Lord / Armored Knight.

Additionally, the time you have Intermediate classes is also when you might be doing some of the early White Clouds paralogues which, especially if you don't delay a month or two, are some of the more challenging White Clouds content where that extra bit of Speed is most potent.  Thief is also a little extra good for Ashe/Catherine's paralogue (Fog of War, not totally trivial if you don't know where the enemies are hiding).  And while stealables vary from not existing to sucking, the one stealable that can be a notable nice boost is stealing the Evasion Ring from Claude in C7 for the Lions or Eagles when you might naturally be deploying a Thief anyway, which enables dodge tank strategies to get rolling a little faster without need for using the Pagan Altar.  (For all that you really want Petra or Yuri or a source of Rally Speed to pull that steal off.)

I think people generally know what to expect of 3H Assassin, Stealth allows some cool plays and it is better than the meme-tier Swordfaire classes, but is competing against some really busted stuff.  Ends up middle-of-the-road, usable and defensible if you like swords.

--

On Shadow Dragon, my memory is misty of that game, but I'd buy the "get a Thief to hurry things up rather than wait for Marth to hike everywhere" only really in the context of stuff like LTCs.  I don't recall a ton of "finish the map by turn XYZ or tons of reinforcements are thrown at you" in SD - there are some huge reinforcement waves but I seem to recall them being more "move into this area" based, so the game doesn't really punish you for waiting for Marth to hike around the map.  And I imagine the existence of Warp Staff already makes SD LTCs speedy enough that attempting to train up Julian seems like asking for trouble, so it's more like a niche for casual LTC, which is something I guess but not worth TOO much hype.

Edited March 26, 2023 by SnowFire

[Shadow Mir]

On 3/24/2023 at 8:15 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Combat-wise thieves are a bit awkward in this game; Matthew gets off to a solid start but falls off, then can't promote.

Not until you get the Fell Contract, which is in a side chapter (and you get Jaffar in said side chapter anyway, so there's a good reason not to bother).

On 3/25/2023 at 9:05 AM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Definitely a bit surprised at thieves getting hype for stealing staves in PoR. That's probably the least useful game for staves in the series (nearly invincible army of dodgetank paladins doesn't need much support, as it turns out), and thieves saving me a tiny bit of money is down there with Ashe's personal for "well that's nice I guess..." given this is the game that nonchalantly drops 70k gold on you at one point. I certainly never deployed a thief just to steal, and probably end up only stealing one or two staves per game. I don't understand rating them above FE7 or FE8 thieves, who have better things to steal (yes, even SS, I'd argue that the C7 Energy Ring is more useful than any PoR steal), better combat, and relevant fog vision.

They can also steal weapons in that game. Same for Radiant Dawn. 

On 3/25/2023 at 10:16 AM, Jotari said:

The main one would be Altea Castle, but I'm not nearly LTC enough to tackle both halves simultaneously, the reinforcement spam in the throne room can get pretty intense. And even then...you really don't need Marth that much since enemy thieves just love opening chests for you in Shadow Dragon.

From what I've seen, they mostly steal only one thing, then book it. Even in something like Altea Castle, where there's like 7 chests in the same spot. Which feels extremely odd relative to the GBA games and Path of Radiance, where they'd steal from more than one chest, and (Binding Blade excepted) you only got back what they most recently took when you killed them. However, this wasn't as big a concern in Path of Radiance, where you could just steal back whatever they took, even if it was a weapon (this could be done in the GBA games as well, but you couldn't steal weapons in those games).

On 3/25/2023 at 12:55 PM, have-mercydes said:

Don't really have alot to say here, but yesss, I love that Colm can become a very competent combat unit. I've seen the beauty of Berserker Ross and I love Berserker Ross, but Assassin Colm has also been amazing to go for. Made me wish FE6 / FE7 theives could be promoted.

Thieves in Blazing Blade actually can be promoted. But whether it's actually worth it to do so is debatable.

Anyway...

Radiant Dawn was where thieves were at their best. Keys (mostly) weren't buyable, and as stated earlier, they could steal weapons if they weren't equipped. Which can lead to some hilarious shenanigans when combined with Disarm (though unfortunately, the fact that you have Heather for this for most of the time you have Disarm might put a damper on this, as you need higher strength than the weapon's weight to steal it). Who needs to buy weapons when I can just get them for free? Also, Sothe is one of your best units in part 1 (fitting, since unlike everyone else you get before, he is a veteran of the prior war). He falls off later on, but that's kinda to be expected, and Sothe himself lampshades in endgame that he feels blatantly out of place. Volke is great this time, but suffers from low availability, only being usable in the chapter right before endgame, and the endgame itself (not helping matters is that Sothe is forced in the endgame). Oh, and they're better at finding hidden items - a concept that while it cropped up in some prior games, this game takes to the extreme, as a good chunk of maps have some hidden stuff - than other units.

The GBA games made them mostly essential, especially Binding Blade with its lack of droppable items. Mostly due to key steals, like stat boosters and promotion items. Enhanced vision in fog of war helps, esp. when they use torches. And some of the fog of war maps in these games suck ASS. Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones have Assassin as a promotion for them, but... in the former, you don't get the item for it until a lategame side chapter, and if you accessed said side chapter, you get Jaffar as a high level Assassin out the box (also, odds are neither Matthew nor Legault are going to outshine him in any meaningful fashion, because again, this comes so late). In the latter, they (read: Colm) need the Ocean Seal instead, and imho, he's the better user of it. Myrmidons also have Assassin access... but it's a letdown.

In Awakening, keys are again something you only get a handful of, and so you're gonna need thieves, or at least Locktouch, to get chests. Anna can pack a punch with a Levin Sword and has staves as well. Gaius... just pales in comparison. Not just to Anna, but to most of your other sword units, for that matter.

Fates... well, I'ma be honest. I do not think as highly of the ninjas as most everyone else does, mostly because every time I've tried to give them a chance, they fail to impress, Kaze especially (which isn't helped by shurikens having low might). On the Nohrian side... well, to be blunt, my opinion of Niles is that he is no better. Excellent speed, but S H I T damage. His daughter Nina is infinitely better than him. All this being said, once again, you cannot buy keys, and also unlike in other games, keys can only be used in the chapter you get them in, and they disappear after it's complete, so they're pretty much necessary.

Three Houses: Well, Thief isn't THAT bad an intermediate class if you're interested in sword use long term (like Byleth!!). Assassin is one of the most mobile infantry classes, with Stealth to boot. It's perfectly usable if you like swords. Trickster... isn't as good, to say the least; it has magic access... but only half magic, and it loses Swordfaire for Lucky Seven, which is a poor trade. Knowing that it's DLC, and that I liked Trickster in Awakening, seeing it be so bad hurts.

Shadow Dragon: Well, the Fire Emblem basically allowing Marth to replicate one of the main utilities of thieves hurts their case... but on the other hand, with Marth being the only unit who can visit villages, and often needing to recruit other characters, they're still useful.

Path of Radiance: Again, they can steal unequipped weapons (and staves, which might be a reason why staves became equippable in RD), though unlike in RD, their combat is pretty laughable because knives suck. Volke gets to promote eventually... though his combat is still pretty bad relative to other units. At least he still can steal stuff.

Engage: Thieves are more combat based here than before. While their covert tag gets them praise for fog strats with Corrin... I generally find other aspects of Corrin's kit to be more useful. 

Edited March 26, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Zapp Branniglenn]

FE4 Question: What happens when Dew Gives gold to somebody who hits the 50000G cap? For instance, if he gave 30000G to someone already holding 30000. Does that extra 10000 stay in Dew's possession, or does it disappear?

Only looking at games I've played since 2017

1. FE4: Thieves are a crucial element to optimal play, but with no stealable items or chests, the value of Dew really comes down to playstyle and priorities. I most often Give Gold to staff users. But I try to also consider casual play, and the whole spectrum inbetween. You can comfortably get through FE4 without ever using the Give Gold command. To Get Gold, Dew has to see combat and he's extremely frail. Otherwise sensible play can be wiped out by him failing to dodge an enemy. 1RN is 1RN after all. I wouldn't be surprised if Dew is the most likely killed unit in FE4. And we only give him (really many FE4 units) a pass due to saving the game every turn. And isn't it kind of annoying that you have to give ALL your gold? Dew's ability to buy anything from the pawnshop for "free" is hampered severely by that specific detail. He needs gold just as often as anyone else. A lot of long term planning goes into how he manages his gold and items, when he does his Arena run, and other choices that great players are forced to make still leave an impact on other units. For instance, he wants the light brand for safer player phase stealing, but Ethlyn and Lachesis can actually fight pretty well with that thing and are in greater need of the EXP to promote. Even "optimal" play comes with necessary costs. 
2. The Last Promise: Assassins maintain the Steal command in this hack. You need 25 speed to steal Lanmark's Iron Rune so that's handy. As far as I can tell, Althares' +15 crit is a personal skill, and not a class skill, so that explains why Shadow doesn't have it. Having just two lockpick users can be a real drag on an iron man run, but these puny units can run around unopposed by siege tomes in most chapters (No sleep or berserk staves either). Stealing vulneraries and elixers can load up your wallet (Gold is extremely valuable at every stage of the game). And I believe your first Delphi Shield is stolen too. Pretty useful members of the team overall.
3. FE8: Important note about chest keys: yes they are buyable, but they're only one use in this game compared to 5 uses in FE6/FE7. And FE8 maps with chests are throwing 4-6 at you at a time, rather than one or two. Choosing not to deploy a thief comes at a greater gold cost per chapter than in most FE games where this option exists. Like many there was probably a time where I would look at Colm as a decent growth unit. But 40% strength growth can still feel like Matthew's 20 when you're starting at just 4 base strength. And even if he is stat blessed to be a more versatile fighter, he's competing with Joshua and even Marisa's stats long term. Anecdotally I also feel like this is the GBA game that throws the most enemies at you that can menace you from 2+ range. Thief vision can't be understated in this game though, as Sacred Stones has the most dangerous Fog of War maps in the series. And I've gone over why I early promote Joshua to Assassin in the Swordmaster thread, particularly in Ephraim route where your first Hero Crest comes before the Phantom Ship - and not in the inventory of Gerik who would otherwise get more use out of his promotion
4. FE7: There's one nerf coming from FE6 to mention, FE7 added a Speed check to determine who you can Steal from. Thankfully Speed is all that Matthew has but it still comes into play. The first guiding ring can be gotten on his base speed. Plus the first Elysian whip if you're playing Eliwood Hard Mode (who plays EHM?). The Silver Card too, though he needs some speed level ups even on Eliwood Normal. Then Legault relieves him of duty in the next chapter. Like any of the GBA FEs, promoting a Thief to Assassin means losing the Steal command so be aware of that.
5. FE9: Probably the only thief on this list that I enjoy using for combat. Feeding him exp keeps him above the stricter Steal thresholds. In general, FE9 enemy stats are above GBA era's, and Volke's strength must be higher than the unequipped weapon as well. There's no getting around Volke's poor weapon type (which is not forgeable), but his stats are pretty high to make up for it (same base strength and speed as Titania with 55 and 65 growths). His story promotion isn't late enough to pose a problem either. On Hard Mode I recall him being at a good damage threshold for setting up kills for other units that need the help like Soren/illyana or Zihark. That's very much the same role I remember from Sothe in FE10. But unlike FE10 Sothe, his bulk is a problem so having him sit on the frontline can turn sour quickly if the dodge and Shade RNG doesn't favor you. No need to fuss over the gold cost of using him, FE9's gold economy is generous, and he can make up for it by stealing items and unequipped weapons. What keeps this rating low is, understandably, Sothe. There's no point to using Sothe, not even for transfer bonuses.
6. Three Houses: Byleth's convoy access can supplant your need to reclass someone to a thief. But I don't think thief is all that bad as a class to be in. In my Maddening experience, Byleth can never certify as a Brigand or Pegasus Knight upon hitting level 10, because tutoring those skill ranks comes at the direct cost of Professor Experience, which means less boons for the rest of your units in the long term. But there are two classes Byleth can immediately become at level 10 - Mercenary and Thief. Thief is the better of the two. The speed boost and growth is more desirable for keeping Byleth out of double range. The thief movement really helps getting around in heavily forrested maps (which are many of the pre-time skip paralogues especially). As for what's worth stealing, it's really just the Evasion Ring in chapter 7 (not available in Golden Deer), and the Iote's Shield from Ladislava in chapter 16 (not available in Crimson Flower). But in both cases, reaching a high enough speed is very difficult. The Evasion ring depends heavily on Seal Speed, Rally Speed, likely both (and you can't use Catherine's high speed stat because she's banned for that map). It's entirely possible that you came into Chapter 7 insufficiently prepared for that steal opportunity and it's the first, most guaranteed evasion ring until chapter 15 in the No DLC meta. I'm not sure I've spoken to anyone that's ever got it.
   1. The Assassin is a serviceable late game class too. Probably the unsung hero of draft or challenge runs that force you to use suboptimal units. The Stealth ability is broken, and lets a lot of frail units sit on the front line unmolested. Three Houses' aggro lines have proven trustworthy in my experience regarding this class. In my gauntlets only run it's the best class for female units because of the movement, stats, and lethality procs.
7. FE6: Thieves can't promote which is a shame since they would make decent dodge tanks. There's still plenty of chests that need thieving, but keeping thieves alive in the late game becomes more and more difficult with all the 70 Base Hit boltings flying at you. A base level Astore gets one shot by them even on Normal mode. Stealing items has no speed check like in later GBA games, but there's very little of value to steal. Until you get to chapter 16. The Delphi Shield may be the best steal in the whole series, but it's the only one you need to know about in this game.
8. FE3 Book 2: Definitely Julian's best performance across five games. His availability is not especially worse than usual yet his base stats got a major glow up, including a weapon level of 6 which is just 1 shy of the Kill sword and Dragon Killer. The Door and Chest Unlock staves exists to curtail his utility but 2 of your 5 chest unlock staff uses are used up in that chapter where you get it due to out of bounds chests. Having 3 left is not a lot to work with and money to buy keys is tighter here than in Book 1.
9. FE1: I think what sets this Julian apart from his multiversal counterparts is that this is the only Archanea game where Marth lacks Convoy access for door keys and also there are no siege tomes to worry about while he's out thieving chests. Keys are buyable, but with no Battle Preps menu and one-way item trading, shuffling around keys and items is a multi-turn affair which can turn deadly as the infinite reinforcements keep piling in. FE1 forces you to deploy up to 16 units on each map, so you may as well have Julian out there dispensing his loot. As for feeding kills, it can seem tempting when you notice he has some of the best stat growths in the game, but don't bother. Julian is the incredibly rare FE1 unit that's thwarted by his WpnLv stat, starting at just 2 and having a growth of 0. Without the Manual stat booster, he's stuck using just iron, steel and the devil sword. And there's only one Manual before you reach the endgame secret shops.
10. FE3 Book 1: Same as above, except they gave him a 40% growth on his weapon level, so he may eventually graduate to using a kill sword like every other unit does. He's worse here however because a few maps have bishops using siege tomes, and now mercenaries get promotion bonuses in order to climb further ahead in stats. You could argue that High Speed units are way better here since the threshold to double is now 5 AS instead of just 1, but  without access to effective weapons or the kill sword, Julian isn't going to hit anybody particularly hard. Also, Marth has Convoy access now to lift spare door keys from.

Edit: Added FE6 and The Last Promise comments

And if I had to put this in a tier list format then uhh...there's a reason why many modern FE Tier Lists have a single Utility Tier separate from the other rankings. And it's often there for the thieves, not the staff users or dancers. Let's say B rank for FE4 to Three Houses, C for the rest. There seriously isn't a big rift in viability regarding these games and I could just as well put them all into one 'B tier'.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Shadow Mir]

22 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Like any of the GBA FEs, promoting a Thief to Assassin means losing the Steal command so be aware of that.

That's only really relevant in that game and Sacred Stones. More so the latter, as by the time you get to promote a thief in Blazing Blade, there's not much of note to steal. Unless you're playing Hector hard mode, that is, where Hector's exclusive chapter has some stat boosters that must be stolen. Considering that said chapter gives you Jaffar... whether promoting a thief is actually worth it is something I'd honestly consider debatable.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

They can also steal weapons in that game. Same for Radiant Dawn. 

Yep, I have "fond" memories of trying to do shenanigans to steal Bolting in RD.

The fact that I didn't mention it has less to do with my knowledge of the fact and more that I can't ever recall weapon stealing being particularly useful. RD Bolting is a fun toy for one map but almost certainly more trouble than it's worth, and otherwise I just don't recall any time an enemy carries a stealable weapon I care about. Maybe you could get Sothe to steal something cool off of Mordecai in 3-6?

[Eltosian Kadath]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Thieves in Blazing Blade actually can be promoted. But whether it's actually worth it to do so is debatable.

I have yet to see someone argue that promoting a thief in Blazing Blade is a good idea...

 

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

The GBA games made them mostly essential, especially Binding Blade with its lack of droppable items. Mostly due to key steals, like stat boosters and promotion items.

I will note that Binding Blade has no stealable stat boosters, and the first promotion item you can steal is in chapter 19 on one route, and 20 on the other...

 

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Jaffar as a high level Assassin out the box (also, odds are neither Matthew nor Legault are going to outshine him in any meaningful fashion, because again, this comes so late).

Its worse than that, as what makes Jaffar good is that he has extremely high personal base for an Assassin of his level as well. To emphasize this Jaffar's base Strength, Skill, Defense, and Resistance are all higher than 20/20 Matthew's Averages in those stats, although Legault's 20/20 averages have slightly higher defense and Resistance, he also has lower Strength and Skill than Jaffar at base.

 

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Path of Radiance: Again, they can steal unequipped weapons

I had actually forgotten about that...Does anyone remember an instance where you can setup a good weapon steal in Path of Radiance?

 

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

FE4 Question: What happens when Dew Gives gold to somebody who hits the 50000G cap? For instance, if he gave 30000G to someone already holding 30000. Does that extra 10000 stay in Dew's possession, or does it disappear?

It stays in his possession, and setting up situation where he can pass more than one unit gold is another of those obnoxiously micromanagey things about using thieves well in FE4.

 

2 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

There's no point to using Sothe, not even for transfer bonuses.

That may be a bit of a misconception, as with Blossom in Random stat mode his averages do end up slightly better than his RD bases. For some reason Serenes Forest main page has his average stats with Blossom for how that skill works in Fixed stat mode for some reason, which has helped perpetuate this misconception.

[Shadow Mir]

58 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I had actually forgotten about that...Does anyone remember an instance where you can setup a good weapon steal in Path of Radiance?

The priest chapter. The boss has a Killer Axe and Killer Bow, but only drops the latter. Also, chapter 27's boss has a Brave Lance, 26 has a Spear on the boss (and a Killer Lance on an enemy General), 28 has a Bolting on the boss, and chapter 11 has a Laguzslayer. There might be other noteworthy steals.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Yep, I have "fond" memories of trying to do shenanigans to steal Bolting in RD.

The fact that I didn't mention it has less to do with my knowledge of the fact and more that I can't ever recall weapon stealing being particularly useful. RD Bolting is a fun toy for one map but almost certainly more trouble than it's worth, and otherwise I just don't recall any time an enemy carries a stealable weapon I care about. Maybe you could get Sothe to steal something cool off of Mordecai in 3-6?

I consider it more of a convenience than anything else, as it means I don't need to buy weapons as much. Though I do agree that RD Bolting, for how much of a pain in the arse it is to get, isn't that good.

58 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Its worse than that, as what makes Jaffar good is that he has extremely high personal base for an Assassin of his level as well. To emphasize this Jaffar's base Strength, Skill, Defense, and Resistance are all higher than 20/20 Matthew's Averages in those stats, although Legault's 20/20 averages have slightly higher defense and Resistance, he also has lower Strength and Skill than Jaffar at base.

Figures.

58 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I have yet to see someone argue that promoting a thief in Blazing Blade is a good idea...

I don't think it's worth it myself, tbh.

58 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I will note that Binding Blade has no stealable stat boosters, and the first promotion item you can steal is in chapter 19 on one route, and 20 on the other...

Well, there are a lot of chests in that game, and chest keys are much more expensive use-for-use than picks are, so they're still important.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Shadow Mir