Dark Holy Elf
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28 minutes ago, Florete said:
The Pact Ring boss is much closer than other paralogue bosses, but I wouldn't say he's "in your range." No one can reach him with their natural move (or if they can, just barely)
First off, to be clear, I agree with you that (a) lying about the objective is inherently bad design and (b) it's weird to punish players for completing objectives more quickly. It's possible you're right that you're intended to "chase" the boss for all that I find the very idea a bit weird; if you're not able to reach the boss turn 1 and you let him move, you won't be any closer on turn 2! (Well, your mounted units and Sigurd-user will be slightly closer, but that's it.) At least assuming he moves as far as he can; I certainly never gave him the opportunity to find out. Dreadful Aura OP.
Having said that: Mage Knights, Bow Knights, and Ivy/Hortensia/Fogado (if in their default classes) can reach with natural move, and of course your Sigurd-user will be able to reach as well. Seadall can get another in range, and Byleth can enable several more. Getting at least six units who can average half the boss's HP each (especially if the first lands Draconic Hex) is not especially tough; certainly no staves are required. Compared to the shenanigans needed to one-turn most other bosses in the game this is far more simple; basically all it takes is thoughtful positioning of your units on turn 1. I think it would be inarguably the easiest paralogue if the listed victory condition were true, which is odd since it's the final one.
4 hours ago, samthedigital said:Depending on the paralogue and your definition of in the back, sure, but a handful of bosses can be baited to approaching on the first turn without using staves (and in two cases without relying on Astra Storm from what I remember), and they all have exactly the same objective, so it's still fair to assume that the objective isn't a lie.
Even if we assume that the objective is a lie the game still spawns a lot of enemy reinforcements that the player may or may not be able to deal with even if they can deal with the initial enemies; it's impossible to tell without any prior knowledge.
The pact ring paralogue boss starts 9 squares away from your nearest four units. I don't recall any other bosses being anywhere near the same ballpark (Marth, for instance, is 16 squares away for the nearest unit, 18 squares from the next closest, and there's a locked door in the middle too). I think there's a very obvious difference here. I agree with your second paragraph, though.
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1000 SP is definitely a lot for Str+2/Mag+2. That's the same as Canter and I would consider Canter far more useful. I don't understand why Str+2/Mag+2 cost 1000 when Speed+2 is only 300.
F is probably going too far but I would not rank those skills very highly. They're probably somewhat better now that SP is more available but still not great.
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56 minutes ago, samthedigital said:
You don't need to do staff shenanigans in a lot of cases; baiting the boss to start moving is enough. If the incentive you're referring to is gold and experience that's the same as every other kill boss map. That's not compelling enough to me if I can avoid having to deal with a surprise near the end of the chapter.
Of course you can bait the boss, but the point is they're somewhere in the back. To a certain extent, other enemies will be on your way to the boss (the only major exception is the Marth paralogue, which has a significant chunk of the map not between you and the boss, but there are four treasure chests in the out-of-the-way area) . You don't have to defeat all enemies, of course, and you can certainly avoid a fair number of them depending on your strategy, but they're still something you have to consider.
Pact Ring boss is sitting in your range in turn 1, no staff use needed, with many other enemies further away from you. Those enemies are completely meaningless aside from sources of exp if the victory condition is truthful. I don't find the situation comparable.
1 hour ago, lenticular said:I think that there can be quite a difference between knowing (or suspecting) that something is going to happen and knowing what is going to happen. Without knowing the details, it's hard to guess what you need to do to avoid falling into the unspecified trap. For instance: do you need to go fast, or do you need to play cautiously? In this case, Ithe risk was in going too fast and being overextended when the victory condition changed. But hypothetically, it could have been the case that something bad happens at the end of every turn, and it was being too cautious that would land you in hot water.
Agreed. Though there are ways to play which take into account both possibilities; in my case I froze the boss in place while going around killing other enemies, so hopefully I was ready to either kill the boss quickly if loads of reinforcements showed up, but also I was thinning out enemies in case killing the boss did not end the map. I just think the situation is such that you should at least suspect some sort of trap there. Of course, I'm also arguing for rewinds in general, and I agree in this case that the option of rewinding here is good because while I do think there are reasons to suspect a trap, I don't think you should be punished by resetting the map if you don't.
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7 hours ago, samthedigital said:
Most of the paralogues can be trivialized because the win condition is to kill the boss. I think that it's fair to assume that the last one is similar to the rest.
In all other paralogues the boss starts toward the furthest end of the map from your starting point, the game encouraging you to engage with most of the rest of the map before beating the boss (or in Marth's case, there being treasure as a reward for doing so). Yes, you can use shenanigans involving Entrap/Warp/etc. to skip parts of the map, but that's still a form of effort.
In the Pact Ring paralogue the boss starts in your range turn 1, with a whole bunch of enemies scattered around the edges of the map which would not be relevant if the listed win condition were true. That certainly made me extremely suspicious. It's not impossible that such a map might exist (Dwyer's or Midori's paralogues in Fates did something similar), so I can see not being suspicious, I suppose. Maybe I'd have fallen for it if not for Chapter 22, I dunno.
5 hours ago, Galap said:Yeah, I think that a good compromise that would work well would be if you could only rewind to the start of the current turn. That way you can fix misclics or simple processing errors, but strategically you still need to do things the first time.
As long as it's the start of the previous turn, too, I suppose that'd be fair. I've definitely had to rewind just due to flat-up not noticing a certain enemy (or that I walked into Entrap range, or something).
I think the most important thing is that (a) the game respects my time. I don't want to redo an entire map especially if the maps are gonna be long, as Engage's often are, and (b) that the game maintains a correct level of tension for decisions mattering. It's a pretty tough balance to strike, and on the whole I think it's better to err on the side of not having the player redo a map, so I understand how we ended up with more, unrestricted rewinds.
2 hours ago, Jotari said:One thing I don't like about Engages fog of war is that you can't actively move beyond your sight range.
Yeah, definitely agree, especially because it becomes yet another way enemies aren't affected by fog that you are. The absolute worst I ran into was in Chapter 20, at one point I had a a unit I wanted to move from one lit area to another, but there was one (1) dark tile in the way, so they couldn't.
I like your idea for fog in stages. Maybe even add some hazy red in further in the distance to show where enemies are, particularly if they move (since you'd be able to hear them, then).
2 hours ago, Jotari said:Rather than just having it be a binary on or off, I think letting you choose how many rewinds you want to have as a file setting. I could do with a few rewinds for when I inevitably make some mistakes, but giving me 10 whole chances to redo things just puts me in bad habits.
Agreed - just give us the options about numbers.
Though I will say I'm always skeptical about the idea that rewinds create bad habits. I'm watching a friend who is bad at strategy RPGs play through the series, and it's clear they're learning more from rewinds than they did from loading battle saves and/or the times they forgot to make one and restarted the map. Rewinding makes you think directly about what caused the unit death as you take steps to avoid that happening again, in a way that restarting the map or soldering on don't.
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52 minutes ago, lenticular said:
I think there are definitely a few spots which dump nasty surprises on you that can potentially lead to situations where you lose but it isn't realistically your fault. The change to the victory condition in the final paralogue springs to mind, as do the wyverns in fog of war in the chapter where you get Ike and Timera. But this is hardly something that's new to the series in Engage or since Shadowvs of Valentia. Pretty much every game in the series has these moments. I can certainly see the argument that Three Houses leans on time rewind too much and has way more nasty surprises than other games, but I don't think that Engage does.
Yeah fog is kinda inherently unfair. For what it's worth I don't think Engage tended to be as ridiculous with fog unfairness as numerous previous Fire Emblems (certainly including 3H, where the common Archer can attack from outside your base sight range), thanks to numerous well-placed torches giving you strong indications of what's coming (like even those wyverns you mentioned are visible flying through the torchlit areas, so you have some idea they're coming, though obviously you may not know where one is at a given time and still need to rewind once you learn the hard way - I certainly did).
Also fair on the changed victory conditions. For what it's worth I think the final paralogue is actually pretty fair about it, first because you have to suspect the victory condition is a lie because (a) you've probably already seen one previous map that lied and (b) the map would be ridiculously trivial if the listed win condition were true. But perhaps more significantly, the game will actually start a new player phase when you reach victory condition #1 (a decision I approve of).
That said I thought Chapter 22's victory condition lie was much crueller (no player phase restart on that one) and I definitely got burned by that pretty badly myself. And certainly I see no particularly good reason for either game to lie about its win condition. It would not be hard to say "Do X, then rout the enemy".
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Hmm, if we're separating Warrior and Berserker (which appears to be the case), then I definitely think War Master counts as a Berserker, not a Warrior. War Master doesn't have any sort of bow requirement/proficiency, which is a hallmark of the Warrior class, and does have a crit boost, which is frequently associated with Berserkers. Additionally, the fact that War Master is genderlocked and 3H Warrior isn't further suggests that the game thinks of them as different classlines, and I agree.
I'll give my own ranking later.
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On 3/10/2023 at 1:08 AM, DefyingFates said:
I imagine Lunar Brace+ is still off-limits though, huh? I think I'm still in the FEH/ 3H mindset of "every fight needs to be a ORKO"; Lunar Brace doesn't seem enough to do that for me so I guess I never valued it that highly.
I wouldn't say that mindset fits with 3H at all! 3H is a game you can easily take apart with long-range 2HKOs. (Not to say ORKOs aren't also good in that game, but they're definitely not the only way to play.)
That said Lunar Brace is definitely a skill that can help you toward ORKOs. Never inherited it (obviously) but on Eirika herself it has pretty obvious applications especially with attacks which hit lots of times, like brave weapon quads, in terms of netting ORKOs. In principle, inheriting it lets you stack it with an emblem which gives stronger offensive boosts than Eirika does (e.g. Roy, Marth) making ORKOs even more attainable.
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5 hours ago, Galap said:
I know it's probably here to stay, but I really wish they would get rid of the time crystal. I mostly didn't use it, essentially only for misclicks, but I think what it does to the game is fundamentally bad, since I can tell that they're designing the game around you using the time crystal.
I honestly feel it should stay just for misclicks alone. When I was younger I had time to redo parts of a map because I made a stupid misclick-type error or didn't notice something obvious. Now I don't, so rewinds are a big deal to me.
I definitely agree that e.g. 3H Maddening seemed designed around rewinds (between ambush spawns and some crazy reinforcements in certain paralogues), but with Engage I'm honestly less sure? The game seems pretty fair and I imagine you could reasonably play it without rewinds in most circumstances. There are a few exceptions, like the reinforcement by the Chapter 14 boss is unfair if you trigger it near the end of the player phase.
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Yeah, I also ended up getting Canter+ on quite a few people, and that was without the well of course. Depending on the unit's second skill, it may be one that does not cost much (Reposition for an extreme example) and hence there's nothing else to spend SP on, or it may be that I judge the SP and bond fragments spent on Canter+ to be a better use of resources than the alternative (e.g. Canter -> Canter+ seems like a better deal than Speed+4 -> Speed+5 to me). Obviously some builds may have other things to spend SP on and I definitely think it's fine to stop at Canter.
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3 hours ago, DaveCozy said:
Seadall is probably the only unit I would recommend inheriting Canter(+)
Really? I found Canter(+) an amazing skill on lots of units. At minimum, having it on a few people is extremely useful for optimum use of Goddess Dance.
1 hour ago, Skyteppelin said:I'm surprised to see roy so low cause imo he is really amazing and basically turns spd sword demons like Lapis and Kagetsu into fulll EP killers thanks to all the extra str they get and the sealed sword being a physical 1-2 range wep for them that is also decently strong. Which also makes it really nice cause it frees up lyn for other units to use for a emblem that no one is nearly as strong with. Honestly just the fact that its basically lyn but the other way around makes me want to rate him much higher. Also hold out is super nice on maddening for avoid tanks cause it means even if you get unlucky they still make it out fine.
Id also rate Marth higher if only cause aside from maybe sigurd he is the best early game emblem he frees up a lot of strategy's and still is fine later in the game once you get him back.Sigurd's much better IMO (move is, as always, the best stat, but on top of that he gives a whole bunch of power via Momentum). I actually thought Marth was one of the weakest earlygame emblems myself, but maybe that's because I kept him on Alear who I found pretty unimpressive early.
Roy's solid but I definitely don't think he's nearly as good as Lyn. Thanks to Speedtaker Lyn just gives far more speed than Roy gives strength (and speed is a more universally useful stat IMO). That said I think you're right about him on dodgetanks.
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7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:
Honestly, the only fog map I see anyone - and I do mean anyone - talk about regarding Sacred Stones is Phantom Ship.
Last Hope. It's easily the hardest lategame map IMO, and I've certainly seen it talked about.
Chapter 6 is also the hardest earlygame map by a ways, I'd say, but it's also before you can promote Joshua making this moot.
In general I'd consider fog maps just tougher relatively, especially if you don't have all enemy placements memorized or look them up.
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The tables are probably sorted in the game's internal order. I agree that adding sorting features similar to what Wikipedia does would be helpful, but I'm not sure how difficult that is to implement.
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Do we know yet how much, specifically, extra SP you can get?
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Some things I forgot about:
Donations: Please no, they're terrible. One thing I enjoy about Fire Emblem is managing your fixed amount of money well: what staves/weapons/forges do you want to buy? That's cool. Donations are "please dump this large amount of money down a well for nebulous benefit" which completely messes with this economy. Either the money spent on donations is a waste, or it has a long-term benefit which is completely opaque to the player, and just rewards memorizing which donations are "worth it". Both are bad design.
While we're on the subject of economies, if we're going to have buyable fashion (which I approve of), they should not cost resources that are actually useful for gameplay. I basically never bought any fashion items because I wanted all that iron/steel/silver for forging. If purely aesthetic items are going to have a cost, they should cost a resource which can only be spent on them (e.g. cotton/silk/etc.). This is also the only type of new resource I'd support at this point; there are definitely getting to be too many otherwise.
Smash weapons: I really like the idea of some weapons having last strike. It's both an interesting balancer for certain weapons, and also lets you plan around certain enemies: that berserker can't threaten my mage if they one-round first. I'm not massively in love with the smash weapons that currently exist in the game, though, particularly with how some of them can become "just use this for engage attacks". I don't really love high-power weapons which can't followup as a general design decision - I prefer that tag being saved for ranged weapons like Fates Hand Axe (etc.) or Engage Thunder.
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Proc skills are per hit/target.
Timerra's Sandstorm can actually one-shot enemies with Great Aether, since her Def*1.5 with Ike is so high. Alcryst I think would probably be a better fit for Lyn/Marth since Luna won't allow one-shots normally, but it might push Lodestar Rush or Astra Storm over the edge and the probability of that happening is quite high.
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29 minutes ago, lenticular said:
For me, I don't want to see Emblems again. They were fun as a one-time gimmick, but that's all. I do like the limited use super moves that are Engage Attacks, though. They were an improvement on Three Houses' Gambits, and I hope that IS continue to build on the idea. I don't want to see most aspects of the Somniel making a return, though. No mini-games next time, please, and definitely no gacha mechanics. I also hope that they completely rework the system of classes, promotion, and reclassing; I think that the one they have in Engage is the least fun in a long time. Achievements are not a bad idea in theory, but the way they were implemented didn't work for me.
I basically second all of this. Limited-use special attacks are fun. The class system... yeah is a mess. It feels like an awkward transition out of the Awakening/Fates system. Second Seal to reset your level is silly. I hate how internal level is this important stat which is completely invisible. Please just use the FE4/3H system where level is properly displayed and is not reset by reclassing. Even the way old games do it is so unintuitive to new players: "No, Marcus might be Level 1, but the game means Level 21..."
Big fan of every class having its own special property; this led to the most balanced set of classes FE has had in a long time. Break... it's okay? I think it was pretty interesting and I wouldn't mind it returning in some form, but I don't like it being the only effect of weapon triangle, and I especially don't like how it means the weapon triangle becomes player-phase-only. It's really weird to me that e.g. swords don't beat axes on enemy phase at all. Even just allowing break to occur on enemy phase (which would make you sword-users immune to smashing axes, for instance, and let lance-user avoid being doubled by swordmasters if they hit with the counter) would at least address some of my concern, although you'd have to be careful of the interaction with Vantage.
Engraving is pretty cool, I wouldn't mind seeing that again. Customizing weapons and shoring up weaknesses is a lot of fun. Might need to watch out for the +evasion effects next time, those were probably overtuned and would definitely be overtuned if we go back to 2RN.
Speaking of which I generally prefer 2RN and hope we go back to that.
I hope Fixed Mode returns as an option. I like it, it's good. Random can be fun but I like seeing how characters "should" turn out, no reason to not provide players with an option.
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It's worth mentioning that despite their nerfs, paladins are still a very good class in RD. Oscar is rated higher than Nephenee by most tier lists / unit rankings I've seen despite Nephenee having similar-to-better stats and caps, because +2 move outdoors (which is still the vast majority of maps, with the surprising inclusion of the tower) and canter are amazing perks. I'd still rank RD paladin above the GBA games as a pure class just because yes, canter is that good, for all that you could make a case for FE8 being higher mostly built around "well y'see Seth is a paladin...".
That said obviously PoR's paladins are even better.
1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:As to your question, that's because Canter was at its absolute peak in Holy War; you could change your equipped weapons after attacking in that game - something that literally no other game with post-attack Canter allowed.
That's a cool piece of trivia and I'd actually forgotten about it. That said, I hope you agree that the gap between FE4-canter and PoR/RD/3H canter (i.e. the free weapon switch) isn't nearly as significant as the gap between canter in those games and GBA. Being able to move wherever you want after any action is huge for tactical play, both aggressive (you can keep moving forward) and defensive.
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7 hours ago, DaveCozy said:
Ivy S -> A; the more I use Ivy, the less I'm impressed by her honestly. She is prone to randomly blowing up to enemy crits, due to her low Dodge, and her speed is pretty suspect without help. None of these things are impossible to fix, and mind you she's still incredibly useful as a flying mage / staff user too. But I feel she is more A than S due to these issues.
As someone on the other end of how impressed they were by Ivy... It's pretty easy to fix Ivy's dodge as needed. Speed... depends what you want her to do, but it's incredibly easy to get her to the point where she doubles slow but bulky enemies that the rest of the team may have trouble one-rounding, like berserkers and great knights. If you're willing to dump speedwings and/or Lyn onto her she can double way more, but again, depends what you want her to do. But to me it seems almost unthinkable that an "optimum" team wouldn't make use of her, which sounds like S to me.
I also definitely think she belongs a tier above Pandreo, whose lack of flight can't really be "fixed" in the same way... you can make him a Griffin Knight but then he loses magic to Lindwurm Ivy by 9 (which is gonna cost a lot of ORKOs), and doesn't have 3 range.
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12 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:
I'd say Binding Blade is more favorable to mounts than either Blazing Blade or Sacred Stones all because it has bigger maps than the other two. Big maps are inherently favorable to mounted units.
I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment. Heroes has the smallest maps in the series, obviously, and also obviously the relative balance of the classes has changed with various updates, but there was certainly a point where cavalry were incredibly dominant, to the point where new terrain (trenches) was introduced to nerf them. +1 move on small maps can be incredibly decisive.
Also strongly agree with @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate. Path of Radiance is far more Mount Emblem than Binding Blade is. Several factors contribute:
- Combat canter is incredibly good, and the games where mounted units have that innately will naturally favour mounted units more than games that don't
- Pretty much every mounted unit in PoR has very good stats, typically outclassing an infantry unit with a similar role even before mobility is considered.
- The Knight Ward means every cavalry unit has effectively unscrewable speed. (And while we're mostly discussing cavalry, it's worth mentioning that weakness-hitting being only 2x mt in that game mean fliers are relatively unconcerned with their weakness compared to most.)
- Every mounted unit in PoR can use 1-2 range after promotion. In a game where 1-2 combat is very good. The better ones can use it immediately.
- Broadly speaking, PoR has relatively weak mages, swordmasters, armours, and (especially) snipers compared to other games in the series. In other words, aside from Boyd, the quality of infantry units is very thin in that game. There's nobody as good as Rutger.
I'd honestly put PoR even above Holy War as far as Horse Emblem goes, but that one's debatable. Binding can't compare.
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9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:
Being broken sucks - when I generally want to damage whatever I lure in on Enemy Phase, having the enemy get free damage not just in that combat (unless the attacker happened to be using a smash weapon, which forces them to attack last if they initiate) but for the next attacker to attack that unit is no bueno.
If your goal is to counter, then choose a weapon which won't get you broken. Knives and tomes almost never get broken (I can count on one hand the number of times I got broken by an enemy fist-user in Maddening, since most enemies equipped with fists are staff-users first and foremost), and most promoted classes have two weapons to avoid break (the main exceptions are largely not popular classes, except halberdier, which is not an enemy phase class).
Again, to be clear, I think armour knight (the unpromoted class) is solid. In the earlygame most classes only have one weapon, and there's only one knife user until the very tail end of part 1, so being broken is more of a concern. Once you're fielding a promoted team, though, General's niche of unbreakability just falls off hard, because there are lots of other ways to avoid being broken and everyone has +1 move on General.
5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:On Engage and mounted units: It's hard to say for sure since the game is so new, but most of the better classes I see mentioned in Engage are foot classes, with the only mounted contender being Wyvern Knight.
Wyvern Knight, Griffin Knight, Wolf Knight, Mage Knight, and the personal classes of Ivy/Hortensia are all getting plenty of positive attention. I've definitely seen some fans of Great Knight, too.
I do agree that Engage does a better job of balancing infantry classes against their mounted competition than previous games, though, since there are certainly several good infantry classes too.
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On 2/8/2023 at 12:07 AM, Imuabicus said:
I cannot think of any single good reason to give enemies with cracked stats a skill that completely obsoletes a form of dealing with them - effective damage. Especially when effective weaponry is so bad, the only time I´ve dealt significant damage to enemies was armors who aren´t even close to getting 1rko-ed with it, making magic a naturally superior option - for the little armor pipsqueak in 17 the singular way of dealing damage. Ridersbane the uniquely balanced weapon, which allows you to make a small doink sound for 1/3 damage and get doubled in retaliation. Muy bien.
I'm mixed about this. Honestly, in many games, I'd approve of Veteran+ or similar skills, because weakness-hitting weapons are incredibly overtuned in some Fire Emblem games. Any idiot with a Silver Bow can one-shot fliers, anyone with a Poleaxe can wreck cavaliers? That's arguably fine for mooks, but not bosses. Killing a pegasus knight boss with a single crossbow shot is idiocy and I don't want to see that again. Optimally bosses need to present distinct challenges and you probably should not be able to easily kill them one in one combat (I'm not saying it should be impossible, but it should feel impressive when you manage it... Jeritza on Maddening is about as tough to kill with weakness-hitting damage as a boss should be, IMO). So in many games I'd approve of such skills.
But it's arguably unnecessary in Engage specifically, because (a) weakness-hitting weapons aren't tuned as strongly as many other FEs, unless you invest a lot of resources into forging them, and (b) bosses have multiple healthbars so one-shotting them alone does not prevent a poatentially interesting fight; you have to do it 1-3 more times.
Personally I'd probably have given Zephia a Winged Shield-type ability since she's a major opponent and meant to be intimdiating, and Radiant Bow is one of the few weakness-hitting weapons which does reach silly numbers, but I'm not sure how many other bosses need it. Mauvier and Marni would not be terribly affected.
I do approve of all bosses being immune to break. Break would just let you walk over them.
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3 hours ago, Whisky said:
I don’t know how much of a difference Assassin’s exp bonus makes. Even a few extra levels for Assassin wouldn’t make a huge difference. Joshua pretty much doubles everything regardless and Spd is his highest growth so that’d be the biggest difference. Assassin needs a few extra levels to catch up to Swordmaster in Str and few more levels to get ahead. So Swordmaster is stronger right after promoting and Assassin is stronger late game, but either way it’s a small difference. A few extra levels would give him extra HP and stuff too, but I’d need to see examples of where that actually matters. A few more HP doesn’t usually make a huge difference.
To be fair, +1 str isn't a big difference either. It is entirely conceivable to never face an enemy where that one point matters, especially since after just a few kills there's a chance that gap is gone.
- Immediately upon promotion, Swordmaster has +2 HP, +1 Str, -1 Res, and +1 Con.
- Once the level gap is 5, Assassin has +2 HP, +0.75 Str, +2.75 Skl, +2.75 Spd (+1.75 with heavy swords), +1.5 Luck, +1 Def, and +2 Res. The evade gap deserves note at +7.
I don't think either of these gaps are super massive, but I think it's fair to say that considering the above, if one of these classes looks better, it's Assassin. To me, what cements the win is Assassin having improved fog vision (arguably Sacred Stones's hardest maps are fog maps) and lockpicks. The more combat Joshua sees, the faster he gains levels and thus builds up a modest stat lead as an Assassin. But the less combat Joshua sees, the less important the stat differences are and the more important the fog vision and lockpicking become relatively. So Assassin would seem to come out ahead whatever your long-term plans for Joshua are.
Ignoring that "don't promote Joshua" arguably comes out ahead of both. -
In the past Serenes has calculations pages for these sorts of things. I see one is already on the Engage page, but it hasn't been built yet. I imagine one is coming soon. For now:
Healing staves are Base value + Mag/2 for healing, as noted.
Staff accuracy appears to be = Staff base hit + Mag + Dex. I haven't investigated how target stats lower this but I'm certain Res is a factor. It'd probably be pretty easy to figure out though.
Hit for non-staff attacks = Weapon hit + Dex * 2 + Luck + other bonuses (e.g. skills, supports)
Evade for non-staff attacks = Attack Speed * 2 + Luck + other bonuses + terrain (as mentioned, covert doubles terrain evade bonuses)
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Alear's build is on the low end. They have 0 personal base and 5% personal growth, so the only characters who have less build are the ones who also start at 0 base at a higher level (Lapis and Citrinne are the most significant) or have 0% personal growth (there are just three: Framme, Hortensia, and a certain lategame PC).
I'd favour lances as such, though you could get away with axes if you really wanted.
Emblem Inheritable Skill Tier List now that SP is easier to get?
in Fire Emblem: Engage
Posted
Doors in 14 and 25, as well as Marth's paralogue (though the enemy will open that one for you if you wait a little). Possibly others, but yeah, extremely little.