Florete

While I do also think it's kind of crazy that a bonus character most people never knew existed before FEH even if they played her original game is getting this much attention, CYL votes don't directly translate to sales. The FEH devs have much more sales data than we do and if they're giving Karla a second seasonal, which is also a harmonic lead, my conclusion isn't, "Stop pushing her, she's not popular," but instead, "Wow, Karla must have been a surprise sales hit."

(I thought I'd responded to this post already, but I guess not?) Look at it this way: Wolt and Wil don't even have the option of Emblem Lyn to make them stronger. Even if what I got from Etie was mostly Lyn (and I wouldn't say that myself; she was holding up even before I got Lyn), the fact is that Engage gave me the tools to make a Sniper into a total delete button of a unit.

I'm not exactly crossing my fingers, but we still know basically nothing about Tears of the Kingdom. When we were this close to BotW's release, we knew a ton because we'd had gameplay trailers and a full E3 dedicated to the game, but after the recent direct all I could think was, "So I still have no idea what's actually happening in this game." Sure, presumably it will play similar to BotW, but what's going to make it Tears of the Kingdom? What will justify it being a new ($70) game and not BotW DLC? We've gotten hints of stuff, but nothing concrete. Will Zelda be playable? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm just not ready to call it yet.

Breath of the Wild. And I say that as someone who has been playing the series since OoT and has played most of the series. Breath of the Wild was exactly what I wanted from Zelda.

Agreed that you're underrating some of them a lot. You're focusing too much on not having downsides, but the ones without any downsides also tend to have the lowest benefits. Like sure, Beginnings engraving has no negatives, but its benefits are tiny, leaving it as one of the weaker engravings imo. In every case the drawbacks can be worth it for the right benefit. Uhhh no. 50 dodge is overkill most of the time, but a good chunk of units have low Luck and appreciate extra dodge; consider that Steel weapons have 5 natural crit and the +dodge and +luck skills aren't available until a while later when you eventually get Eirika and Byleth. -1 Mt is going to be negligible most of the time considering you're going to use an engraving like this defensively to make sure someone doesn't get hit by crits. When you think about it, +dodge is the closest thing any engraving gives to being a +def/res boost. 1 Mt is often not going to be a big deal, especially if the -1 Wt enables the follow-up. +30 hit is pretty huge for some weapons and +30 avoid is always great. -3 Mt can certainly be a tough pill to swallow and isn't exactly going to be universally useful, but the other boosts do give this one its uses. I've found it incredibly effective on Panette; she has naturally insane Str so the Mt loss means little, she likes crit stacking, and +40 hit is great. I do think Fates engraving is usually better, though, since it provides a lower Mt loss and a higher crit boost. You can also use these on player-phase nukes that don't want to be getting attacked to begin with. Thunder tomes (especially with Dire Thunder), brave weapons, etc.

I'll second this one.

Nothing specific. I just think getting rid of "this character can't be involved in any cutscene because they might be dead" would be helpful. It's not even just the story proper, if you knew characters would be around you could have outside characters be involved in supports and such. The support system as it is in FE only exists because of permadeath, which is unfortunate because strictly 1-on-1 conversations for character development are also quite limiting.

All you're saying is that FE to date doesn't always have the best character writing, not that permadeath won't ever limit how that writing is done. If a character's role can be easily replaced, they're just not a well-integrated character. It doesn't change the argument.

I wouldn't want any balancing that just homogenizes classes; keep what makes them unique, and buff the weak classes in ways that are thematically appropriate. Armored units in most games don't have any real advantages. In theory they're supposed to be bulkier, but it just comes down to stats, and some of them end up just straight up low on defense (Gwendolyn, Meg). The armored unit type only brings disadvantages (except Engage, though it doesn't do much). So what needs to happen is for "armor" to actually be advantageous in some way. Ideas I've had include being immune to non-Bow ranged weapons (Javelin, Hand Axe) or taking less damage from criticals. I also think in general they should be allowed more Res. Like, I get that the idea is that metal armor doesn't protect from magical attacks, but at the same time, why are the blacksmiths of these worlds in which combat magic is prevalent making armor that can't withstand said attacks? The movement will always be a disadvantage, and I think that's fine. For a lot of players it won't be all that impactful anyway, but if you wanted to help them out in some way, you could so indirectly. Make more defend maps, bring back pair up, etc. Archers I think haven't actually been in such a bad position lately. Recent games don't spam players with weak enemies like the 2000s games did and/or nerfed other ranged weapons. Sniper Etie was my MVP in my first Engage run (mostly because of Lyn, but still). If you have fewer, but stronger enemies, archers naturally become more valuable, especially if enough enemy fliers are mixed in. But I do think a good philosophy for them is to make them dedicated player phase nukes, and I also think it'd be cool to give them a niche of being anti-magic by giving them good Res. I wouldn't want all Bows to be 1-2 range, though a couple weak options for it would be fine. I would also throw sword-locked units into this problematic group, since most games don't give them 1-2 range weapons on par with Lances and Axes. And the solution is easy: give them 1-2 range weapons on par with Lances and Axes.

We actually do not have the Redskins anymore specifically because of the offensive nature of it. They're the Commanders now. ...But even if we did, I think there'd be a notable difference between a name that is something you call yourself and a name that refers to a separate group of people. It'd be like having one team name be "The White Guys" while another team name is "The N***ers." As far as I've heard, no one in the country has any similar issue with the Yankees.

Well, one of our professional baseball teams is the New York Yankees, so...

I've been called a liar for a lot of stuff that's true lately. I rather dislike it and would appreciate you not doing it. I know for a fact that multiple Asian countries, including Japan, just use "America." From what I've seen it's usually Europeans who insist that "You're not just 'America'"...though I'm sure it's not all of them. What I don't know is why anyone cares so goddamn much. Go ahead and call us the United Statesians of the United States of America all the time if it really makes you feel better.

Do you unironically realize the irony of asking such a question while calling us "Americans?" Plenty of other countries just call it "America" anyway.

I wanted to like her, but I didn't. The Camilla in the fan-made Camilla in the Concubine Wars YouTube series is legit a better character than the canon Camilla.

That's the main reason I didn't put Byleth in my own S tier. It's an amazing effect, but getting it 1-2 times per map just isn't enough for me to rank him among the best.

Just some quick ideas. Leif's Adaptability could be something you set on player phase how it works. Choose from options like: damage (switches to what deals the most damage), defense (switches to what will let the user take the least damage), avoid (switches to what will reduce foe hit the most), etc. That way the game will (hopefully) prioritize the weapon you actually want to use instead of just going for weapon triangle, which is ironic since the primary use for weapon triangle in this game is player phase only. I know he has Arms Shield, but a lot of units don't get much/anything out of that. Marth's Perceptive should also give the avoid whenever the user has WTA. This gives it value on enemy phase where avoid is usually more valuable. Roy should get Advance+, moving the user 2 spaces, and perhaps also allows for 1 space movement with a ranged attack. Some of Celica's kit really just seems poorly thought out. Holy Stance isn't the kind of skill you want to be getting much use out of at all, especially with Resonance on top of it. Resonance honestly needs to be better as it is; if you don't want to give it more power (which I would, personally), at least give it +hit/crit or something. I think Holy Stance would be better as some sort of riposte skill; perhaps it gives +avoid, maybe 15, and whenever the user dodges they do an extra attack at 50% damage (like Marth's Break Defenses).

If I were ordering them within tiers Sigurd would probably be at the bottom of A. Maybe even the top of B. Override can be pretty nice. By offense I meant that if they can dodge an attack, they can sometimes do pretty good damage back and possibly even kill. I actually completely forgot about the fact that the Lyn user can have them chain attack with her lol. That's a thing, I guess, but my Lyn user rarely needs extra help getting kills. You only get one from C rank (I think) or above. I guess it's plausible that if you just want the leftovers you could be sure to have the chef always make something they're good at it and presumably get a high chance or guarantee of a packed lunch. I always prioritize supports so I've seen some bad meals. Marigold? Do you mean Goldmary? The issue I have with Divine Pulse is that it's basically just extra hit. It's more extra hit the lower the unit's natural hit is, but why not just fix their hit in other, more reliable ways? Though I'm not sure how staff hit is calculated, so depending on how that works I suppose that can be some good value for it...though realistically I don't think you're actually getting guaranteed hits from it, especially if you skip Byleth's paralogue, which leaves you unable to get Divine Pulse+. If Rally was a sync skill instead of an engage skill that would be soooo much better. But as it is one of your engage turns is for Goddess Dance, and with that Goddess Dance turn likely clearing out most/all enemies in the immediate vicinity, I don't tend to find much of an opening for Rally to mean much.

When I rank the Emblems I only consider what you get from them when they're equipped, not what they give through inheritance, since you don't have to actually use them at all to use their inheritance. So Sigurd doesn't get credit for letting everyone get Canter, but he does get credit for granting Canter to the one unit who has him equipped. I also tend to value sync skills over engage skills since you always have access to them. I haven't yet gotten to Maddening nor do I have the DLC, but for now my tiers are as follows (not strictly ordered within tiers): S: Lyn, Corrin A: Sigurd, Byleth, Micaiah B: Ike, Eirika, Lucina, Celica C; Roy, Marth, Leif S tier: Dominant rings with a lot going for them. Lyn turns anyone into a murder machine. Basically whoever equips her ends up being my delete button. Speedtaker + Alacrity is good on almost anyone, but is especially valuable on units with good Str and average Spd. Astra Storm can just snipe problematic enemies from super far and Call Doubles is a surprisingly good defensive (and sometimes even offensive) option. Corrin's Torrential Roar and Draconic Hex turn bosses that might otherwise be hard to hit and damage properly into absolute chumps. Dragon Vein and Dreadful Aura (especially in combination with Torrential Roar) can make whole groups of enemies completely non-threatening. Her Quality Time, while not amazing, is a nice bonus. A tier: Strong rings with some powerful effects. Sigurd grants a lot of movement...and yeah, that's about it. But movement is a pretty big deal and grants whoever equips him a heck of a lot of flexibility. Byleth's Goddess Dance is his one claim to fame, as the rest of his kit is pretty mediocre, but it's powerful enough to rank pretty high. If he had other valuable stuff he'd easily be S tier, but I don't consider something that only gets used 1-2 times per map to be as good as all that Lyn and Corrin do. The irony is that you're actually better off not doing his paralogue so you don't extend the amount of turns engaged with him and can therefore get another Goddess Dance faster, but that also means you don't have access to the higher level skills. Micaiah I'll admit I haven't seen huge value from myself yet, so this is mostly based on how helpful I think she'd be in maddening. B tier: Good rings, but maybe not as good. Ike can let a lot of units super tank...if they also have Pair Up from Corrin or there aren't too many backup enemies around. If the flat damage from chain attacks wasn't a thing he'd easily be a tier up The only time I've ever had someone completely solo a group of enemies is when equipped with Ike...or Corrin, because of Fog. Free Reposition is great utility. Great Aether, used right, can do a ton of damage for a single action. Eirika I have found is pretty good at netting kills for whoever is equipped with her, better than the others in this area because of how Lunar/Eclipse Brace works, and the ability to heal from attacking is also nice. But overall she's just kind of basic, nothing that really stands out. Lucina is the one here I suspect could go up in maddening. I haven't gotten much from Bonded Shield, but Dual Strike/Assist is nice and All For One can make for some great true damage for units who otherwise might have trouble killing enemies. Celica is weird. Warp Ragnarok is probably her best thing, but I find it more limited than I'd like and often doesn't net kills. Echo feels like it should have nice potential but also feels unfortunately limited. Favorite Food is neat, but relies on the RNG of actually getting a packed lunch, and then the unit who wants it also needs to not have full HP already. C; Not terrible but flawed Emblems. Marth's main problem is lack of synergy in his kit; Perceptive grants avoid when initiating, Break Defenses grants an extra attack when breaking, two effects which rarely work together (only with smash weapons...I think?). Unyielding can be nice in a pinch, but it's generally better to avoid ever getting there. He feels like a worse Eirika overall to me. Roy's Hold Out and Advance are kinda nice, but just not that strong on their own. Advance is basically a conditional +1 move while Sigurd grants unconditional +1 move, and Hold Out has the same issue as Unyielding. Blazing Lion is also pretty weak for an engage attack; I find its best value is not the damage but stalling enemies, but there are already other options for this (Dragon Veins, Obstruct staff). Rise Above is just some extra stats. Leif is really bad. I actually think he might belong by himself another tier down. Vantage and Arms Shield have no synergy and the game isn't good at using Adaptability, and since he comes with multiple different weapons it can often be better to just not engage with him at all. His equipped stat boosts are also the worst, with Bld sometimes being straight worthless, and I don't think I've ever seen Quadruple Hit kill an enemy. I'd rather use Bond rings like Olwen S or Claude S over Leif. her*

I think it's no one. It's just a generic "person I cared about" and isn't meant to reference any known character, or at least any currently-known character.

Good Veyle pretending to be bad Veyle is a fine idea itself, but that scene did leave me with a couple questions. Why did she only ask for Zephia's ring and not all of them? Why didn't she also throw the Marth ring, which she already had?

We won't be using DLC, but I think using it is not necessarily a problem since it doesn't break the core "no resets" rule. However, since it does seem pretty powerful, it should probably be limited to some degree to keep the run interesting.

I'll start with the disclaimer that it's your run and you can make your own rules and do whatever you want. But you are asking, so... Yes, I would say that "taints" your run. To me, the primary rule of an iron man run is "no resetting." Every decision is final. I wouldn't limit this to just the maps themselves, I would extend it to everything. Yeah, the gacha element is kind of stupid, but that's totally arbitrary, and getting Dire Thunder as soon as you get Leif is also kind of stupid. The gacha element is a deliberate part of the game and what any one individual thinks of it shouldn't matter. In a few weeks time (hopefully) I'll be doing an iron man draft with some friends and I'm going to make it clear that the "no resetting" rule applies to this as well. Refer to the top of this post again if needed, but that's my opinion on the matter.

Thank Naga it's not Alfonse, but none of these picks really do it for me, tbh. Female avatars getting snubbed as usual.

Blazing Blade's Ch 10 definitely could have worked for Lyn. It's where she fights her own personal final boss and takes back her...kingdom? And afterwards she meets her only remaining living family for the first time.

I played hard/classic. Best: Lyn. Yeah, basically anyone I gave the Lyn ring to was my single best unit. Ivy at first and then Etie later. If I were to pick an individual unit, it would be Etie. Mine must have gotten pretty stat-blessed because she always did well for me, even before I gave her Lyn, despite that everyone seems to think she's bad. She could take out one of the final boss's entire health bars in one round. If I needed something dead I sent her in. She also had my highest kill count in the end. Worst: Celine. Out of everyone I tried using she's the one who just never did much. I ended up dropping her for Pandreo. The worst who was an active part of my team until the final chapter was Chloe, who really fell behind in Str. Most disappointing: Diamant. I used him for a while but he just got crap level after crap level. When I got Saphir she was 3 levels lower than him and winning or tying every stat except Def where Diamant was +4 (but I had used a Dracoshield on him so it was more like +2). I benched him soon after.