Rate the Unit 30: Goldmary

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Guidelines:

2.1.) mention the diffculty on which you rate the unit 

2.2.) what classes your unit went through, what skills they had and so on; don´t consider obviously suboptimal builds.

2.3.) no DLC rings, no non-unit DLC bonuses

2.4.) no grinding in skirmishes

2.5.) no rng abuse (no resetting for bond rings)

2.6.) cooking is allowed

2.7.) ratings to be given in the format X/10

2.8.) if it isn´t mentioned above, it´s fair game

2.9.) no "Kagetsu exists and obsoletes Lapis, 0/10", explain your rating

 

Unit: Goldmary

Class: Hero

                     Lvl   HP    STR   MAG   DEX   SPD     DEF    RES   LCK   BLD

Bases:          3     40      17       2        18      20        20       12      13      9

T. Bases:      20   17       9        2        10       11         15       10      10      2

Growths:      /      65      30       5       25       25        55       25     25      5

 

Personal Skill: If foe is male, inflicts Hit-20 on that foe during combat.

Innate Proficiency: Lance

SP: 1800

 

Support Bonuses:

C    Hit+10, Dodge+5
B    Hit+15, Dodge+5
A    Hit+15, Dodge+10
S    Hit+15, Dodge+20

 

Tools and mo stats:

Average Stats - Fire Emblem: Engage (FE17) (triangleattack.com)

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

 

Rating: 6.29

Next unit on Thursday

Edited September 21 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[samthedigital]

6.5/10

She's a decent filler wyvern in a pinch with her starting SP, and she works well as a Bonded Shield bot with her bulk and personal. The obvious comparison is to Rosado since they join at the same time and are both physical units. Goldmary's offensive stats are a little better (+2str and -1speed), but Rosado eventually passes her combat with his growths. His defenses are much worse though, and she will always keep a significant lead there. There are also a lot of other units with better combat stats when she joins too (Kagetsu, Merrin, Panette, and a trained Amber to name a few), so it's tough to see her getting a damage emblem without some favoritism. She is also two levels away from Brave Assist for whatever that's worth. I'm giving her the slight nod over Rosado because she doesn't need to rely on growths to be effective and she can put the bulk she has to some use.

[link16hit]

7.5/10
+20 avoid to male unit? pretty good, but...
she's not really good at offense OR double compared to other character, her str/skl/spd grw is terrible for a hero. But you can save her. Switch to Great Knight or General and get a whooping 80% def growth. physical enemies will do low dmg to her because of her insane defense.
Leaf ring is good on her because some enemies will attack at distance, and get +4 build to wear heavy weapon.
Put a Silver Great lance, vantage + wrath and watch her destroy physical enemies easily. You can also use her to chokepoint.
Halberdier is a good alternative, but never tried

[Dark Holy Elf]

Missed Rosado. He's probably a 4/10, just kinda iffy bases and even if you want to run him as wyvern he really wants a reclass. Now, to be fair, lots of people want a reclass, but for someone marginal like him (joining after a lot of people with better combat) it does hurt a bit.

6/10 for Goldmary, could maybe be argued slightly higher. She's generally okay (str/spd are kinda average) but has two notable advantages. One, Hero is pretty cool, and she gets Brave Assist almost immediately, no seals required. The other is that she's probably the most durable unit in the game, both due to her free +20 avoid against most enemies and her game-best defence. Of course anyone can be durable with Ike, so there's only so far I'm willing to hype this, but I still have good memories of my first run where I didn't notice an Entrap chain in Chapter 25 and Goldmary just tanked/dodged everything Maddening could throw at her, that was fun. She works well with lower-demanded emblems like Marth or Roy to raise her offence, since her durability won't need help.

[samthedigital]

18 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

She works well with lower-demanded emblems like Marth or Roy to raise her offence, since her durability won't need help.

The only real point of contention I have is with Roy being in low demand since he gives physical units 1-2 range and more raw damage than anything else provided they can already double.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, samthedigital said:

She is also two levels away from Brave Assist for whatever that's worth.

 

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

she gets Brave Assist almost immediately, no seals required

While we're here, I might as well ask... just how useful is Brave Assist, really??? Because the full HP requirement is aggravating, no thanks to the fact that an HP level up is enough to disable it. This applies to Chain Guard, too, for that matter. If this sounds familiar, that's because it most likely is; I had complained about the same thing for Ferdinand's personal skill in 3H discussion.

Edited September 19 by Shadow Mir

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

While we're here, I might as well ask... just how useful is Brave Assist, really??? Because the full HP requirement is aggravating, no thanks to the fact that an HP level up is enough to disable it. This applies to Chain Guard, too, for that matter. If this sounds familiar, that's because it most likely is; I had complained about the same thing for Ferdinand's personal skill in 3H discussion.

I can't comment on Three Houses, but I don't have any issues keeping my Brave Assist unit at full HP. I don't find Hero to be a good combat class generally speaking though, so I find myself using them as a Dual Assist+ bot that doesn't see much combat if I care to use one at all. Note that I don't really like this strategy much and only use it when I'm forced to use an underperforming unit. I've heard of people using a full Hero team with Dual Assist+, but that is probably more of a meme than anything else. At least it has that going for it I guess; a lot of the class skills in Engage are even more conditional and do much less.

[Alogeo]

Goldmary Is worse than Rosado on their join chapter (due ho Eirika), but better after that. She Is a cheap unit witch can provide a good support dmg as Hero with brave assist + dual assist +. Even on maddening She does her job just fine. As a General/great knight i think She does a little too low dmg. 

My rate Is 6/10.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Because the full HP requirement is aggravating, no thanks to the fact that an HP level up is enough to disable it. This applies to Chain Guard, too, for that matter. If this sounds familiar, that's because it most likely is; I had complained about the same thing for Ferdinand's personal skill in 3H discussion.

It is easy since She dont need to fight: you can use her to break a enemy if you want her to attack. In case She got DMG on enemy phase you can just use an heal item with her and reposition.

Chain guard make you lose HP so It is different.

For what It matter there Is also deidre ring that solve the problem of HP level up. (Witch Is to be avoided by the topic rules, buy It exist in case you got It)

We are not in three house topic so i will avoid expression my opinion on Ferdinand skill.

But now let me ask you a question: 

What Is your rating on goldmary following the topic rating system? I am honestly interested, since you never seems to give one in the unit discussion.

[Barren]

On 9/18/2023 at 11:23 PM, Shadow Mir said:

 

While we're here, I might as well ask... just how useful is Brave Assist, really??? Because the full HP requirement is aggravating, no thanks to the fact that an HP level up is enough to disable it. This applies to Chain Guard, too, for that matter. If this sounds familiar, that's because it most likely is; I had complained about the same thing for Ferdinand's personal skill in 3H discussion.

I don’t know about you but there is always a way to make it work and it honestly works quite well. Having a healer near by in case your brave assist user gets hit to bring them back to full HP is generally one way to mitigate the issue. And plus chain attack strategies while yes, you do have to be committed to them, does work really well if you want to play fast as well as know how to set up the formation to begin with.

 

I mean if it’s not your style to set up chain attacks that’s fine, but I wouldn’t dismiss the value of chain attacks whatsoever. Plus no offense but you’re making it sound like it’s easier said than done rather than the other way around. Not trying to pick a fight with you for the record, it’s just my take on your take.

 

Now onto Goldmary. This for me is assuming hard as I don’t have enough experience on maddening to give her a proper rating but here goes.

 

Goldmary joins you along with Rosado turn 1 of chapter 16. While the chapter was more or less made for Rosado because he flies and has Erika for damage fixing, Goldmary isn’t as lucky. She does start off as a hero and as others noted, she’s only 2 levels away from learning Brave Assist which allows a unit to chain attack twice as long as you’re at full HP. Your mileage might vary but I find it to be really useful because it’s my kind of play style personally.

 

That said, her having an innate lance rank means that silver lances and spears are on the table for her. If you keep her as Hero, she is only 200 SP away from inheriting Dual Assist + which is really nice for chain attack strategies. Her durability is surprisingly high for a Hero thanks to her high defense growth. You could augment that by giving her speed + x from Lyn and then Roy as an emblem for sword power and hold out. 
 

If you want to switch her class, people have often brought up great knight with the same weapon proficiency. I suppose it’s fine but she would be weak to ridersbane and armor slayers so keep that in mind.

 

Overall she’s a 6/10 unit for me. Like some of the other cast, she’s perfectly usable and can be a solid offensive support unit. 

Edited September 20 by Barren
Typo

[SumG]

Goldmary's solid, though in a bit of an odd position.  She has decent stats and growths, particularly in terms of defensive stats, though they are not the best suited to her default class on Maddening.  On Maddening, her speed just doesn't quite cut it, which in turn means she wants to move into a class like Warrior where she can get more strength help or a tanking class like Great Knight or General.  Unfortunately, other units in the game are better suited to doing the Warrior DPS plan, which doesn't get Goldmary a great role there.  And while tanking classes can be done, those units have their utility decline as the game goes on and you are able to get the full builds of your party members online.  By the time you get Goldmary, you might only need a pure tank role for a few more chapters until before they become more of a niche instead of a necessity.  Her personal ability should be good, but I've been less impressed with it in practice than I thought I would be, as a tanking role doesn't get much benefit from it (since they aren't dodging anything anyway).

So my big takeaway is that Goldmary's late recruitment really hurts her utility.  She a perfectly fine unit, but by the time you recruit her you'll probably have someone just as good, if not better, than her in whatever role you would use her in.  If she showed up in Chapter 10 with proportionally similar stats, she'd be a unit that gets a bit more attention, but as it is I'd just give a very replaceable 5/10.

[samthedigital]

38 minutes ago, SumG said:

On Maddening, her speed just doesn't quite cut it

You mentioned this as a criticism for Rosado as well, but it's not that difficult for most units to hit doubling thresholds. 28-33 speed is enough to double most enemies outside of Wolf Knights and Swordmasters up until chapter 24, and she can get there fairly comfortably provided she's using Lucina. Speed+X and a meal/tonic alone are enough to reach some benchmarks, and even the fastest units need those to secure doubles provided they don't have an emblem. A speed instruct is also an option, and while Goldmary is not going to my intended target for this she can piggyback off of a unit that uses the speed to better effect.

[SumG]

49 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

28-33 speed is enough to double most enemies outside of Wolf Knights and Swordmasters up until chapter 24, and she can get there fairly comfortably provided she's using Lucina. Speed+X and a meal/tonic alone are enough to reach some benchmarks, and even the fastest units need those to secure doubles provided they don't have an emblem. A speed instruct is also an option, and while Goldmary is not going to my intended target for this she can piggyback off of a unit that uses the speed to better effect.

To me, it's a question of how many resources are required to reach those doubling thresholds that influences how much I care about speed.  Because you're absolutely right that with enough resources applied you can even reach doubling thresholds with slow units like Amber or Citrinne.  But the question is how many resources to you need to commit in order to do that?  Speed+ abilities are something that can be relied on, certainly, as anyone can buy them.  Meals are semi-reliable, though I don't know how much I would want to count on them for making a big difference.  And I'll freely admit that I probably undervalue Speed potions, as I typically do not use them, so maybe that's a blind spot for me.  But there are a limited number of speed boosting emblems, and because of that those resources are in high demand, and that's before even considering their other benefits.  It's fine to say that she could equip Lucina, but so could many other units, and there are far stronger things to due with Lucina than to have her provide an admittedly desirable speed boost to a middling speed unit.  And I've already covered my distaste for speed instructs in most play.  I'll cede that they may sense in an LTC context, but otherwise I don't want to use a covert unit in the first place (since I'm not wild about the combat effectiveness of those classes), and I'm further not wild about putting a great support emblem on a footlocked, 5-movement unit.

But these conversations are supposed to discount these considerations.  It's much better for a unit to have enough speed that they only need one or two speed boosts to reach doubling thresholds instead of four or five.  If you're going to use a unit that needs a whole bunch of speed help, then there needs to be significant payoff in order to justify it.  Ivy, Citrinne, and Amber are all slow units, but they justify their speed investment because they have such tremendous offensive potential due to their high attack stats.  But Goldmary doesn't have that type of attacking ability.  So even if you make the above average speed investment on Goldmary, what are you getting out of it?  In my mind, not enough.

Let's just do a quick comparison between Merrin, a very good unit, and Goldmary, an OK unit.  Compare Goldmary's stats at join (IL 19) to an IL 19 Merrin who switched to hero.  At those levels, Merrin has an extra 3 speed, 1 strength, and 1 build, not to mention a whole bunch of dex and the ability to use magic weapons if she chose due to actually having a magic stat.  Goldmary gets a 5 more defense and basically nothing else.  And arguably that isn't even Merrin's best class!  There's just a big gap between Goldmary and the best units in the game statwise, and she doesn't offer enough unique traits to make up the difference.

[samthedigital]

5 hours ago, SumG said:

It's fine to say that she could equip Lucina, but so could many other units, and there are far stronger things to due with Lucina than to have her provide an admittedly desirable speed boost to a middling speed unit.

Goldmary does quite a lot with Lucina. She has high defenses and can boost her avoid; if you're looking to abuse Bonded Shield those are the two most desirable attributes to get the AI to target the right unit.

5 hours ago, SumG said:

And I've already covered my distaste for speed instructs in most play.  I'll cede that they may sense in an LTC context, but otherwise I don't want to use a covert unit in the first place (since I'm not wild about the combat effectiveness of those classes), and I'm further not wild about putting a great support emblem on a footlocked, 5-movement unit.

I don't play LTC either, but I've made good use of the speed and dragon Instructs in my playthroughs. As long as I can reach one round thresholds against most enemies I can spam Bonded Shield and have enemies attack into my Bonded Shield target. Reaching those thresholds will require some kind of Instruct on Maddening. I haven't crunched numbers for units that already have high speed, so maybe it's possible to get there with them, but it's certainly cheaper to buy speed+x, and speed is a more generally desirable stat than strength or magic individually. Using my latest playthrough as an example I needed the speed Instruct to get Citrinne to double the Wolf Knights on chapter 19; that allowed her to one round just about everything on the map on enemy phase.

edit:

I want to quickly note that LTCs and maximum efficiency playthroughs make heavy use of warp. It doesn't give them the time to train a lot or use enemy phase strategies; Goldmary is more useful for her bases than anything else. Not that I'm trying to nitpick your rating or anything; I don't really have a problem with that.

5 hours ago, SumG said:

But these conversations are supposed to discount these considerations.  It's much better for a unit to have enough speed that they only need one or two speed boosts to reach doubling thresholds instead of four or five.  If you're going to use a unit that needs a whole bunch of speed help, then there needs to be significant payoff in order to justify it.  Ivy, Citrinne, and Amber are all slow units, but they justify their speed investment because they have such tremendous offensive potential due to their high attack stats.  But Goldmary doesn't have that type of attacking ability.  So even if you make the above average speed investment on Goldmary, what are you getting out of it?  In my mind, not enough.

Funnily enough if we're using Lucina!Goldmary it's more for the benefit of Ivy and Citrinne than for Goldmary for reasons listed above. It does let her double the 22 speed enemies on chapter 17 and lets her continue to double with the 28-33 speed benchmark listed in my last post throughout the game, but Goldmary probably is probably going to be attacking as a second option as a Wyvern or not at all if we go the Martial Master route.

5 hours ago, SumG said:

Let's just do a quick comparison between Merrin, a very good unit, and Goldmary, an OK unit.  Compare Goldmary's stats at join (IL 19) to an IL 19 Merrin who switched to hero.  At those levels, Merrin has an extra 3 speed, 1 strength, and 1 build, not to mention a whole bunch of dex and the ability to use magic weapons if she chose due to actually having a magic stat.  Goldmary gets a 5 more defense and basically nothing else.  And arguably that isn't even Merrin's best class!  There's just a big gap between Goldmary and the best units in the game statwise, and she doesn't offer enough unique traits to make up the difference.

I agree that Merrin is better than Goldmary, but that doesn't mean that Goldmary can't double on her own, and Goldmary might find a place on the team depending on how many part 1 units we choose to invest in. She can also be a reposition/SP bot or whatever, but within a few chapters after she joins there's likely going to be an emblem for her, and her utility is going to be dictated by which one she gets to some degree.

Edited September 19 by samthedigital

[SnowFire]

20/3 Hero Goldmary:

55 HP, 26 Str, 3 Mag, 25 Dex, 28 Spd, 30 Def, 19 Res, 21 Lck, 10 Bld, 5 Move

10 Build is the same as Rosado, but as a Sword / Lance Hero by default, it is a lot more tolerable.

--

Goldmary is a weird unit to rate - she's something like the best second banana the game has to offer.  She's not a great carry, but if you just want a low-investment slot filled, she (and Lindon if you need staffers, sure) are probably the best the game has to offer.  Since Hero's speciality is chain attacks, she doesn't need a drop of XP to still offer Javelin-powered Brave Chain attacks, which is proportionately stronger vs. Maddening enemy bulk.  Excellent natural tankiness, with the right combination of Speed and Defense, means she can get to the front lines and survive.  (Lategame, I definitely prefer having at least some speed on tanks rather than earlygame Louis-style raw-Def tanking.)  Oddly enough, she isn't actually a huge fan of Ike since that wastes her evasion passive, but having a second tanky unit is just fine - agree she makes a solid Roy user.  If you leave her in Hero, then investing the Bond Fragments to get Dual Assist+ at L18 is a good investment for longer-range double chain attacks, if not 100% reliable ones.  Since the game showers you with Bond Fragments, this isn't really as much of an investment as it should be.

While I don't agree with samthedigital that Bonded Shield strategies should be assumed by default (lots of ways to cook Engage, it's just one), it is certainly a strong strategy, and if you want to do it, then Qi Adept Goldmary is maybe your best option?  As noted, you want a tanky unit there to guide the AI to hit the Bonded Shield target.  Sends her own damage into the toilet forever, but can be worth it if the enemies all skewered themselves on a Bonded Shied'd Citrinne or Panette or the like.

I'm inclined to be a bit nice and offer a 7/10.  Late join time means she only goes so high, and she's certainly replaceable, but a high floor and at least some interesting things to do at her ceiling speak well for her.

[Shadow Mir]

17 hours ago, Alogeo said:

But now let me ask you a question: 

What Is your rating on goldmary following the topic rating system? I am honestly interested, since you never seems to give one in the unit discussion.

I tend to abstain from giving ratings because I've only played the game to completion once. Of course, this is gonna be another one of those times. 

17 hours ago, Alogeo said:

It is easy since She dont need to fight: you can use her to break a enemy if you want her to attack. In case She got DMG on enemy phase you can just use an heal item with her and reposition.

Chain guard make you lose HP so It is different.

For what It matter there Is also deidre ring that solve the problem of HP level up. (Witch Is to be avoided by the topic rules, buy It exist in case you got It)

If I'm using her, I'm probably not using her just for chain attacks. Chain Guard costs HP, but regardless, the problem of HP level ups disabling it extends to them too.

[samthedigital]

33 minutes ago, SnowFire said:

While I don't agree with samthedigital that Bonded Shield strategies should be assumed by default (lots of ways to cook Engage, it's just one), it is certainly a strong strategy, and if you want to do it, then Qi Adept Goldmary is maybe your best option?

We might not actually disagree in this instance. I'm not trying to suggest that Goldmary is the only option for this or even that we should always assume a Bonded Shield strategy. My greater point is that we shouldn't have a heavy focus on opportunity cost if we're not concerned with "high efficiency" gameplay; outside of that specific playstyle it doesn't really matter much. As you said there are a lot of ways to cook Engage. I will acknowledge that some emblems are in higher demand than others, but I don't think that this should mean that Goldmary never gets resources to help her improve her speed just because another unit might do it better.

Wyvern is the other option by the way, but it depends on whether you want Ivy as your carry or not. I like that a little more than being forced into Martial Master, but there's merit to both classes. I'll give Enchanter a quick nod too even if it's not a part of the ratings.

[SumG]

4 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I agree that Merrin is better than Goldmary, but that doesn't mean that Goldmary can't double on her own, and Goldmary might find a place on the team depending on how many part 1 units we choose to invest in. She can also be a reposition/SP bot or whatever, but within a few chapters after she joins there's likely going to be an emblem for her, and her utility is going to be dictated by which one she gets to some degree.

But you're leaving out one really important thing: her speed growth.  She maybe able to get some doubles when she joins (though not as many as a number of other units), but her struggles are only going to increase as she moves through the game compared to other units.  She only has 25% speed growth, tied for the lowest in the game, compared to growths of 40-55% for units that are considered moderate to high speed.  And while I understand that minor differences in growth rates can be ignored as they make little difference even over a large number of levels, by the end of the game we're probably talking about an extra 3-6 speed you have to make up compared to when she joins.  And that's not 3-6 speed to get her to doubling, it's an extra 3-6 speed on top of the speed deficit she is already facing.  When she joins she, needs a good chunk of help in order to double.  By the end of the game, she will need all of the help in order to.  And the payoff is just not worth it, as Goldmary just has average offensive stats.

I'll certainly cede that there is some benefit to having the type of stats where she can just immediately slot in to your lineup if something has gone badly, either you've lost a unit in an ironman or a build you were trying just didn't work out.  But in a run where you know what you're doing, I just don't see enough benefit to get excited.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, SumG said:

though not as many as a number of other units

There are two enemies in chapter 17 with 28 AS and one with 25 AS. Goldmary probably isn't doubling those, but she doubles everything else on the map provided she hits 26 speed. It does get a little tougher by the next chapter; she probably needs Lucina or some other Emblem to help, but she isn't having too many problems there either. She will have problems doubling in chapters 19 and 20; those maps are littered with fast enemies that even the fastest units need a lot of help doubling; growths will only do so much against enemies with 30 speed.

 

1 hour ago, SumG said:

  And while I understand that minor differences in growth rates can be ignored as they make little difference even over a large number of levels, by the end of the game we're probably talking about an extra 3-6 speed you have to make up compared to when she joins.

I would say that 2-3 speed is more accurate when she joins unless you're doing all of your paralogues as soon as they're available. She's probably not doubling much in chapter 19 or 20 because it's filled with fast enemies, but past that she can reach ~32+ speed which is certainly enough to double a decent amount. The faster units can probably double more by this point, but the problem is that by this point everyone has an emblem, and we'd have to determine what everyone is getting which makes it difficult to come up with concrete numbers for anything.

1 hour ago, SumG said:

But in a run where you know what you're doing, I just don't see enough benefit to get excited.

Even if you know what you're doing you might not play the exact same way every time. Goldmary becomes more valuable relative to how few units we choose to give resources to in part 1. There are certainly a handful of units that are better than her there with investment, but it's also not a bad idea to focus on one unit to snowball for later instead of using every unit just to make a unit like Goldmary redundant.

I also want to again note the Covert/Dragon Instruct and the Bonded Shield strategy. They do give her the ability to double more even if you might not like those strategies. Granted I have no idea about your opinions on Bonded Shield; you won't find that many units that are appreciably better than her in that role unless you specifically want Alear for their passive instead, and that will naturally create different complications.

Edited September 20 by samthedigital

[SumG]

7 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

I also want to again note the Covert/Dragon Instruct and the Bonded Shield strategy. They do give her the ability to double more even if you might not like those strategies. Granted I have no idea about your opinions on Bonded Shield; you won't find that many units that are appreciably better than her in that role unless you specifically want Alear for their passive instead, and that will naturally create different complications.

Bonded Shield is certainly very strong, but I would think the ideal is that your Lucina holder would effective function as a dodgetank, not an actual tank.  The main reason being that you want enemies to attack the people Lucina is shielding, not the Lucina emblem holder, and if you get the Lucina user's avoid high enough enemies will not attack them.  That way, your Bonded Shield targets get to do great damage on the counterattack, instead of the Lucina holder doing a largely unimpressive counterattack.  If the Lucina user is a dodgetank, then you can largely ignore concerns about enemy ranges; if you're using a tank then you'll have skirt to the extreme of enemy ranges to ensure the Lucina holder doesn't get attacked to much.

And FYI, the reason Alear is often touted as a great Lucina holder is not because of their personal ability (though it is certainly a nice benefit for Bonded Shield).  The main reason they are suggested as such is because the Lucina Holder gets free use of Dual Support, which can massively boost avoid dependent on support level with adjacent units.  Most units in the game only get supports with 10 or so other units, of which you might only be using a handful of in any given run.  Alear gets supports with every character in the game, so they get massive avoid bonus from any Bonded Shield target they are adjacent to.  It's pretty easy to boost Alear to 190 avoid or more, particularly if using the Micaiah engrave, which means basically no enemy will ever attack them (which is exactly what you want from your Bonded Shield user).

[samthedigital]

30 minutes ago, SumG said:

Bonded Shield is certainly very strong, but I would think the ideal is that your Lucina holder would effective function as a dodgetank, not an actual tank.  The main reason being that you want enemies to attack the people Lucina is shielding, not the Lucina emblem holder, and if you get the Lucina user's avoid high enough enemies will not attack them.  That way, your Bonded Shield targets get to do great damage on the counterattack, instead of the Lucina holder doing a largely unimpressive counterattack.  If the Lucina user is a dodgetank, then you can largely ignore concerns about enemy ranges; if you're using a tank then you'll have skirt to the extreme of enemy ranges to ensure the Lucina holder doesn't get attacked to much.

I noted her personal earlier; I don't know how many enemies are male off the top of my head, but it certainly can be effective. The defenses do help though depending on whether the unit is one rounding enemies or not and if they're only able to target the Bonded Shield user, etc.

30 minutes ago, SumG said:

And FYI, the reason Alear is often touted as a great Lucina holder is not because of their personal ability (though it is certainly a nice benefit for Bonded Shield).

I am not sure what the general consensus is, but it's the other way around for me. Getting the AI to target the right unit isn't prohibitively difficult.

edit: I also don't make use of 4 unit Bonded Shield circles. I want to ensure that my carry is getting the kills, so it helps that Alear can support any carry I want, but it's only 15? more avoid.

Edited September 20 by samthedigital

[Alogeo]

18 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

If I'm using her, I'm probably not using her just for chain attacks. Chain Guard costs HP, but regardless, the problem of HP level ups disabling it extends to them too.

In that case i would not use her as a Hero.

The Hero brave assist + dual assist+ Is a cheap and effective support build in maddening because the enemy bulk Is high.

[SnowFire]

18 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I tend to abstain from giving ratings because I've only played the game to completion once. Of course, this is gonna be another one of those times. 

If I'm using her, I'm probably not using her just for chain attacks. Chain Guard costs HP, but regardless, the problem of HP level ups disabling it extends to them too.

I'll keep this brief because I strongly disagreed with you on the Ferdinand case too, but...  think of it this way.  Brave Assist (or Confidence) aren't like the Devil Axe, where the fail state is terrible.  If they turn off sometimes...  whatever.  Imagine they were worded something like "X% of the time, at start of turn, you get [bonus]." (i.e. you know in advance whether you have the bonus or not).  Let's say one player has Brave Assist turn on 90% of the time, and another player has it on only 50% of the time.  Well...  even a 50% rate of Brave Assist is still a good class passive, by Engage standards.  And because you know if it's available, you can set up to attack bosses or major tanks like Corrupted Wyrms when it's ready. The 50% rate is obviously worse, but it doesn't make the skill useless, even for players / teams that have trouble setting it up.  You can take advantage of it when it's available and shrug when it's not.

As a note, worrying about level-ups is less relevant for Heroes because Brave Assist only matters on player phase, giving the player a lot of flexibility.  i.e. worst comes to absolute worst, just move Goldmary in close to the enemy you want to chain attack and pass turn - no XP gained.  More important for if she would eat a counterattack then fear of an HP level-up on a kill, of course.

[Shadow Mir]

10 hours ago, Alogeo said:

In that case i would not use her as a Hero.

The Hero brave assist + dual assist+ Is a cheap and effective support build in maddening because the enemy bulk Is high.

Cheap ain't a word I'd use to describe a build that needs 2000 SP and a boatload of bond fragments... effective, I could agree on, but... is it effective enough to justify the maintenance it needs? That is where it falls apart imho.

9 hours ago, SnowFire said:

I'll keep this brief because I strongly disagreed with you on the Ferdinand case too, but...  think of it this way.  Brave Assist (or Confidence) aren't like the Devil Axe, where the fail state is terrible.  If they turn off sometimes...  whatever.  Imagine they were worded something like "X% of the time, at start of turn, you get [bonus]." (i.e. you know in advance whether you have the bonus or not).  Let's say one player has Brave Assist turn on 90% of the time, and another player has it on only 50% of the time.  Well...  even a 50% rate of Brave Assist is still a good class passive, by Engage standards.  And because you know if it's available, you can set up to attack bosses or major tanks like Corrupted Wyrms when it's ready. The 50% rate is obviously worse, but it doesn't make the skill useless, even for players / teams that have trouble setting it up.  You can take advantage of it when it's available and shrug when it's not.

As a note, worrying about level-ups is less relevant for Heroes because Brave Assist only matters on player phase, giving the player a lot of flexibility.  i.e. worst comes to absolute worst, just move Goldmary in close to the enemy you want to chain attack and pass turn - no XP gained.  More important for if she would eat a counterattack then fear of an HP level-up on a kill, of course.

I wouldn't go so far as to compare it to pre-3H Devil Axe (or for that matter, Devil Sword). Those were innately risky because the worst-case scenario was really awful. What I'm complaining about is the fact that these need a lot of maintenance. And with how much they need, I'd expect them to be absolutely amazing when active, but... that just is *not* what happens. It especially stands out here in Engage because there's at least three effects that make full HP mandatory. For that matter... No one sees Subaki's personal as good, and yet Ferdinand's Confidence gets a lot of praise despite it literally being the same as Subaki's... what the fuck is up with this *blatant* double standard???

Edited September 21 by Shadow Mir

[SnowFire]

Sure.  So just...  don't maintain it, then.  That's what I was getting at with the hypothetical 50% trigger, you don't need it up constantly for it to pay off.  Or hell, say the uptime is only 25%.  Even if we're being really lackadaisical about staying at full health, Brave Assist is competing with stuff like Berserker's ability to smash foes two tiles (...  that you didn't already kill with a Smash weapon...?) or Swordmaster's Run Through (that lets you put your SM even more in danger at the end of their move...?) that are just useless.

Of course, if the uptime is truly bad enough, then Warrior starts getting hype as having an actually useful passive, but point is, even unreliable Brave Assist is still one of the better class passive skills.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Requiring full HP is not an onerous requirement (certainly less onerous than requiring low HP, but people can and do make that work without too much difficulty), but honestly Snowfire's response is better than anything I would have formulated.

Hero is generally considered pretty good. If you disagree then sure, knock the class down a bit and that might knock Goldmary down a point because she loses one possible build, but it's still very valid to shift her to other classes like Great Knight (if maxing her defence), Warrior, or Wyvern, so it's not a huge loss for the purpose of this thread.

On 9/18/2023 at 8:10 PM, samthedigital said:

The only real point of contention I have is with Roy being in low demand since he gives physical units 1-2 range and more raw damage than anything else provided they can already double.

It's been some time so correct me if I'm wrong, but in virtually every ranking of the emblems I've seen (both on Serenes and elsewhere), Roy is in the bottom half, and he's commonly in the bottom third (along with Marth, Celica, and Leif). Roy is still good, it's just that many other emblems are even better. So in relative terms I would consider Roy to be one of the less-demanded emblems.