Augestein

He really doesn't have speed issues though. 6 speed base with 45% growth at level 2 is good (Now Rhys, that's some bad speed). The only characters that really have better are Mia having 13 at level 6 and Soren for having a whopping 8 at level 1. That's the same speed growth as Oscar, and Oscar has only 1 speed more at level 3 than Boyd. If Boyd is shaky and slow, then so is Oscar, a unit that people think of as fast. I think people are just too used to other fighters, because Boyd isn't slow at all. You could also give him the paladin band on second playthroughs and his speed growth would be 50%. Jill is lucky because of the weird E rank steel axes being a thing in PoR. Con doesn't matter in PoR, just having enough strength to use axes... Which all axe users have strength as one of their primary stats.

My connection got fudged up when it reapplied the edit and somehow preserved the old text-- strange phenomenon to be sure. Soren wasn't even initially the jerk in Chapter 8. Lethe was. She came in and started complaining about "humans" and how horrible they were. Soren got mad because she basically wouldn't shut up with her vapid, unnecessary, irrelevant whining. She basically ignored what her king said, and started picking a fight for who knows what reason. It's so bad that even Mordecai calls her out on it afterward. Unfortunately, Ike is so busy basically sucking off every Laguz he sees so this scene doesn't even make a modicum of sense. Soren didn't provoke the Laguz. Lethe provoked Soren. Soren's reaction was a bit uncouth, for certain, but he definitely wasn't the initial aggressor. Except he will pretty much always be head and shoulders above the team. Mia is not getting his strength, speed, or hp over the course of the game. Ever. Innate Vantage might actually mean something for Mia if she actually had the strength to DO something with it-- most of the game it's pretty worthless for Mia or forcing you to leave Mia as the only viable target for enemies that aren't dead (why would you be doing this?). If you're going vantage / Wrath Mia, well, let's just say that Stefan has a lower chance of being hit by a stray critical than Vantage + Wrath has for actually working in your favor (even if you use Swordmaster critical + Killing Edge + Wrath + Vantage, you aren't guaranteed to kill an enemy). Both Vantage and Adept are scrolls you can obtain in the game too. If you hate Astra, you can give him Adept. You don't have to leave it equipped. Facing enemies that 2HKO - 4HKO is objectively worse than worrying about 1-5% critical rates. Sure, you can plan around being 2-4HKOed, but I just see a mediocre unit at that point versus a good unit with a weakness. If Stefan didn't have that low luck and have a chance to take criticals, he'd be unstoppable. Kieran has pretty lousy luck. Jill's isn't too hot (like, a recently promoted Jill has 9 luck the same Stefan would have with icons), Soren, Nephenee's isn't particularly good, Tormod's isn't too good comparatively for when he joins. Like I said, give him the two Ashera Icons if you're that paranoid about it, and after that point his luck is pretty close to other people with not so good luck.

You're missing the point. Stefan's defense lead + his hp means that he literally takes less damage than Mia or equal if he gets hit by a critical. Using your example lets do some math for a second: 15 to 24 damage would mean that they 5-8 points of damage normally. This puts them at 17-20 attack. Mia would be about level 15-16 here, as gaining slightly more than 1 level per chapter is pretty fair for her (she joins chapter 7 with not many enemies to kill and is level 6 just so we can have an idea of how she's gaining levels so honestly, we're kind of being generous here). Mia's defensive stats are : 26 hp and 9 def Stefan defensive stats are : 38 hp and 12 def Mia takes 8 damage from a low end Myrmidon. Mia takes 11 points of damage from a high end Myrmidon. Low end Myrmidons 4HKO her. High end Myrmidons 3HKO her. Stefan takes 15 damage from a critical on the low end. He takes 24 from the high end. He's 3HKOed by this low ends. High end, he'd be 2HKOed. This makes it sound like Stefan is worse until you realize that enemies don't get critical hits every attack. It also ignores the fact that Stefan will kill whatever enemy he attacked or attacks him with his 19 base strength and 25 speed. He's basically never going to not be doubling, while Mia is going to realistically not double her myrmidon. Stefan's is dead. So even if it DID critical him, he's not dead. It also ignores that enemies like Tigers kill Mia in 2 hits, she has terrible strength against anything with lances-- which is all of midgame and quite a bit of endgame, and ignores that Mia's luck at level 15 - 16 is a whopping 2 points higher than his. 5% critical is hardly something to fret over.When it doesn't critical him, it looks more ridiculous for why you'd ignore him because of that. Stefan takes 5 damage from lower end Myrmidion. He takes 8 damage from high end Myrmidon. Low end Myrmidons 8HKO him. High end Myrmidons 5HKO him. 2nd: 5 levels is a lot. Most people beat the game with their characters around 20/1 - 20/8. Fretting over critical hits that low is like fretting over 95% hit chances on enemies. Mia for instance? She needs to be 20/6 to have the same speed as Stefan, and even more ridiculous is that she needs to be 20/15 to have his base strength. 20/13 for hp, and 20/2 to have the same defense as base Stefan. Res takes to 20/7. That's nuts. If giving this guy 2 Ashera Icons so his base luck goes from 5 to 9 means that I can have all that power, I'll happily depart with 2 of the most useless items in the game. This makes it sound like Stefan is worse until you realize that enemies don't get critical hits every attack. It also ignores the fact that Stefan will kill whatever enemy he attacked or attacks him with his 19 base strength and 25 speed. He's basically never going to not be doubling, while Mia is going to realistically not double her myrmidon. Stefan's is dead. So even if it DID critical him, he's not dead. It also ignores that enemies like Tigers kill Mia in 2 hits, she has terrible strength against anything with lances-- which is all of midgame and quite a bit of endgame, and ignores that Mia's luck at level 15 - 16 is a whopping 3 points higher than his. 3% critical is hardly something to fret over.

And his defense is so high comparatively that even if he did get hit by a critical, he'd still take the same or less damage than Mia. He has 3 points of defense higher than her forever, and way more res than her as well as hp. Even getting hit by criticals, he's still more durable than the other swordmasters. Even worse, is that Mia and Zihark's luck isn't THAT much higher. Lastly, by the time you get Stefan, you could easily give him a Ashera Icon. For mages, here's how it goes. Soren and Ilyana are the most easy to use. Ilyana with a speedwing, if you're willing to sacrifice one, is generally better than Soren statwise, especially on a 2nd playthrough where you can give her Shinon's archer band to up her speed growth to 35%. However, Adept is a better skill than Shade overall so I'd still give the win to Soren overall for being a nuke. Tormod is the best statwise, but may be a bit difficult to use if you plan on leveling him up to 20. Although, he's perfect for a master seal and makes a very effective healer. Calill has great stats but cannot heal. Bastian is kind of bad. Any mounted unit is good. The worst one is kind of Geoffrey, but he still stomps all over the game. Haar is a bit slow, but is really sturdy. Both archers are kind of bad with Shinon being even more difficult to use than Rolf. Stefan is by far the best swordmaster with Mia being the worst of all of them for over the course of the game (Lucia joins with slightly better stats than a promoted Mia but is 11 levels higher) but still usable. Although Lucia isn't terribly hot either, and her base skill Parity is kind of terrible (in PoR it is). Rhys versus Mist - Mist has a mount, but Rhys can actually fight worth something in the event that you don't need a heal. His physic staff also will have more range because he has more magic. He'll probably never double unless you get lucky though. To get Mist to be able to fight is pretty worthless as her strength is garbage. Even with magical swords, there aren't enough to be worth investing in this. They are healers through and through. Rhys is only good because of that staff level though for physics. Soren will be able to heal just as well when he promotes. Brom versus Gatire - Brom with a knight ward for a couple of levels is pretty solid and has better stats overall than Gatrie. Gatrie's defense is too overkill, and the wins he has are marginal at best. Tauroneo has resolve which is cool though and a wicked defense + res combo. Too bad about his base speed though. Sothe is only worth using if you're going to transfer over to RD, and even then, it's not THAT useful overall as Sothe is really powerful in RD at the start, and will still falter later on. The only good thing about PoR transferred Sothe is being able to have a luckier Sothe for better dodgetanking in part 3. Also, you can see the series only promotion where you lose stats. So that's always a treat if you're into seeing bizarro things. Volke might charge you, but there's nothing he opens that results in a net loss of money.

Gameplay - If the character is a non-generic class, let us pick out starter weapon and our PRF weapon should follow suit. no BTW, your character uses swords as their special weapon -- which prompts the player to try to get a secondary class that lets them keep their preferred weapon. Or just don't give our character a special weapon at all. - The avatar should follow the same rules as everyone else. If they keep the A+ support system for instance, the Avatar should keep the same system. (S)he should not be allowed to break that rule. No extra reclasses that the other units don't have. None of that. If your avatar gets skills that make them stronger, they should be storyline upgrades, not base gameplay mechanics. - Instead of the Avatar having supports with everyone, it should be based on a combination of your base class, starter weapon, boon, bane, and decisions you make over the course of the game. That way, the avatar, while being able to support with everyone, has a limited pool like everyone else for each specific playthrough. It'd also go a long way to making your character feel more like "you" rather than being a placeholder under the guise of being "the player." - If marriage stays, do not make the numbers lopsided anymore for units to have children with. Storyline - Characters should have their own opinions and not necessarily like the main character. This is a problem with all protagonist from Ike forward. Everyone simply bows to their whims. - Avatar can be the lead, but if they aren't, they need to not be the only competent person in the army.

Need to finish Zesteria first before I feel anything for this. I hope the gameplay is better and the maps are handled better. Zesteria feels really unpolished.

3DS for me. I've never been a fan of Nintendo consoles since the SNES, but I like their handhelds. Plus, I feel like FE is a better handheld game.

Honestly, I felt like RD has a different style of problem than Fates though. It's problem is that it's all over the place, and has serious pacing issues (both gameplay and storywise IMO). RD has a clunky part 1 which kind of makes for a lackluster start from PoR, as it's not really necessary to actually play as Micaiah for any point of the plot to be expanded upon. All it serves really is to try to make you feel "sorry" for Daein, but the plot goes by so fast that it's truly difficult to actually feel *anything* for the characters or situations really. In 10 chapters, Micaiah basically does what Ike did in about a third of the time. I understand that the plot doesn't need to develop as many things, but some of that from PoR served to help develop the characters, situations, and drive the narrative a bit more. Considering that Daein is the country we spend the least amount of time learning about, I feel this is especially bad. Part 2 is interesting, and has decent writing, but is marred by its complete lack of relevance to the main plot-- something that used to be reserved for Gaidens in earlier games so I'm not sure why they changed that idea here (and by that virtue actually makes it quite terrible from a plot perspective). It also serves as a very clunky transition to part 3 where an age old problem is dreaded up to be the motivations for why anything is happening (seriously, didn't Sanaki already apologize on the behalf of her country for this atrocity? Perhaps I need to play the game to remember exactly why, but the reasoning I remember was incredibly flimsy to WAGE WAR over when we've already had the apostle herself make an actual apology and be forgiven for the crimes of her country). It introduces an absolutely idiotic plot device that they try to explain but it only brings up more questions than answers, and part 4 doesn't actually truly resolve the conflicts that occurred earlier outside of simply handwaving them away. It also retroactively makes a silly reason that the Medallion didn't activate in PoR and really lowers the stakes to hilariously low levels when you think about it as well. With Fates, the biggest offenders of the plot can pretty much come down to one thing: Azura/Aqua. The throne is kind of weird, and that should have been better explained-- or not done at all, but it's in my opinion, a plot that's okay that's bogged down with some stupid aspects. The dragonstone she's carrying that just so happens to be useful for Corrin (why does she have this? Can she turn into a dragon too? Could her mother turn into one? The orb she has? Again her. ) I suppose it depends on HOW you look at Fates being bad that makes it more or less offensive to some. Long story short, for me, Fates is a straight shooter story told poorly and Radiant Dawn is a winding path story told poorly. Honestly, it's never really made clear what exactly the blood pact is capable of doing. People that leave Daein are apparently immune to its effects. As seen by Jill and Zihark leaving potentially.

Looks like I'm a weirdo here. I started on FE4. My sister got it for me because she thought I'd be lonely after she left. Incidentally, I'd seen FE in passing, but never really bothered with it.

Sure, and I agree with Neko. Some of them need a bit more thought put into them. Most of them are interesting spins on characters.

I suppose. I just think it's more that people find it painful to actually be playing a stupid and incompetent protagonist in this case.

I was always fond of the idea that he was like Odin / Owain but just crazier.

Because he was wrong and convinced him/herself otherwise? Even the Azura x Corrin supports seem to well... Support that notion. The constant lamenting that Corrin has over his actions are enough to make that readily apparent. I'm not really sure I get this too much. People want lords that aren't perfect, and then we GET lords like Nohr Corrin and Micaiah that aren't perfect, and then people complain that they aren't perfect. Xander was willing to kill Corrin if (s)he lied, people from Hoshido think Corrin is just filth, and the only real supporters of Corrin are directly in his/her army. And for that, I see nothing wrong with that. People keep talking about PCM here, and then Corrin makes a bad decision, sticks with it, and the pain train wreck of Conquests' plot happens. Corrin also fights to protect Nohr as well. Corrin's ramblings literally always sounded like self-reassurance. Like (s)he wasn't even sure if what they did was right. And Corrin does the same thing Micaiah does. Except (s)he doesn't have a stupid subplot going on to make them continue to make decisions. Corrin is just dumb. The only people that really excuse that are Nohrians.

Titania x Ike is horrible for a myriad of reasons. And for the record, I think Sothe x Micaiah is awful too and break it up pretty much every time. She raised him. If she met him when he was like 16 and she was older, that wouldn't be so bad, but she was like his mother.

Probably because the vessel needs to be able to talk. A dead body is long passed talking.

I honestly made her a master of arms on my revelation playthrough by just dealing with villager. You can actually promote from villager this time around.

The difference with Micaiah and Corrin in Conquest though is that Micaiah has an outlet in the fact that it's not actually her will entirely but the bloodpact. Corrin could certainly "stop" at any point, but chooses not to by convincing him/herself that this is the right thing to do. Everything Corrin does is a conscious choice. For that, it IS refreshing, because they didn't cop out by saying that something was forcing Corrin to not only side with Nohr, but continue to side with it afterward. I honestly prefer it because I feel like things actually happen in Conquest. Hoshido is essentially "find Takumi and Ryoma." Once you do, it's pretty much a straight march towards Nohr with nothing particularly interesting happening outside of the traitor subplot-- which is kind of obvious to the traitor. Revelations starts fine, but ends up becoming Corrin just beating down people and then they join him/her. At least Conquest can annoy me rather than simply make me feel apathy. Honestly, I was under the impression that most don't care about growth rates. And this, I do think that FE has honestly stepped in a different direction from the other games. Playing FE4 again, man, I forgot how wildly different the storytelling was in that game.

Variable objectives help in terms of having different goals to win. However, seize / rout aren't bad when done particularly well. For instance, take Chapter 6 of Awakening. It's pretty much a defend chapter that's pretending it's a rout chapter. It's not bad. It has treasure to add extra heat to thin out your units, and in this case, the chokepoints HURT you because you have to spread your army really thin to cover them. Even better is that there's some guy you need to recruit... A unit which is incidentally a thief in an actual map with chests to open. Also, if Emmy dies, you lose. The issue is that most of the time, when objectives are rout or something bland constantly, it's ... Well... The rest of Awakening. :(

Honestly tomes would be the worst possible choice for him storywise. Celica distinctly says in Lilina's supports that she made sure NOT to teach him how to use magic because he lacks the talent for it. If anything, I'd have him pick up lances like his father.

Soren: I really like how pragmatic you were when you were willing to die for your country. Lucia: I have a thing for tacticians... I'm sorry, I'm kidding. Honestly, I would have liked Reyson to get an ending with both bird kings. He has a pretty big backstory with them.

I think those are weak to ice magic is the issue there.

I don't see how it somehow doesn't. She does. There literally isn't enough BEXP to go around .Elincia is 3rd tier. Amiti is 15 might, and the boss has 26 defense. In Hard Mode, there's no WTA, so she just straight up has to fight him. If she doesn't kill him immediately upon going over there, she dies because there's a crossbowman next to the boss. So in order to have her strength reach the amount to kill him, she needs to have + 12 damage to him each attack to kill him (as 11x 4 = 44 and 12 x 4 = 48 which is dead without stun). At base, she's doing 8. Elincia literally needs 4 points of strength minimum to kill this guy. 5550 is the most amount of BEXP you can get in Part 2 up to that point. That's not enough to get a third tier to level up 4 levels, and that's being really generous with assuming there are strengths in that level up every time. Level 1 requires 2100, level 2 requires 2150 so you'll get two levels, have to RNG abuse to ensure that both get strength. And believe me when I say that I used the BEXP forumula for NM, if it was hard, I want to say that all of them are doubled in expense in HM, so Elincia would get exactly 1 level. Normal you might be able to get away with this garbage, but I'd consider 3 stat ups per level STILL relying off of the RNG to proc the BEXP for her. Her growth of 65% is impressive, but means very little with a forced 3 stats anyways. Even worse, the one item you'd want to rig things so you're less likely to need to rely on RNG procs for strength, the energy drop-- is dropped in 2-F. She needs the stun proc unless you're playing on normal. Except in any mode above normal the enemies bull rush you. There's not a single stationary enemy except the boss. And sometimes even they run at you too. And no, you can't DO that with galeforce in an escape map because the escape is never close enough to be made with Galeforce and two moves. And it doesn't work because everyone has to escape on the chapters like this now. Yeah, I think 12 would be a bit more fair. I still don't like them tied to levels like that, but I think it's better at a lower level. Heck, even 10 would be nice to keep in touch with the unpromoted levels. It's weird that it's 10, 5, 15.

Which using your logic means that canto is broken. High move + Canto shaves off several turns in ltc environment. It's arguably the most useful skill for LTCing. Which would realistically be based on poor placement if Leanne didn't come back. Just rescue her with Haar. IIRC there's nothing that would stop you from doing that. Haar should survive perfectly fine. Same story there. It's useful, but I'm not seeing gamebreaking. Not really. Because that 1) Is poor placement of Leanne. You can rescue her. 2) only works for non-rout chapters. 3) You still need a stun proc to realistically defeat him. So it's still luck based. 4) You still miss the dracoshield because you didn't get Heather over there, so it's not like everything was good about it. A skill being good in one environment doesn't mean much. That wouldn't do anything in a Rout chapter for instance. Or how about chapters like Fates where the objective is "escape with all units?" How would that help? It wouldn't. There's enough variance in the map designs to say "no." It's like saying Shurikenbreaker is a broken skill because it makes any map with ninjas easier to handle.

Veteran trivializes the game. Male Robin stomps over Awakening as well and he doesn't get galeforce. He still gets broken setups like VV to take advantage and go to town on the enemy phase-- where most of your killing is done. I ignore the importance of a turn in this case because you'd have to be playing really, REALLY poorly for 1 turn to make any difference outside of a BS ambush spawn you didn't know about. Shove is useful, "good" is relative to the unit. It's worthless on small units. In Fates, it's nice when you have nothing better to do-- I'd personally rather hit someone with a rally though.Reminds me of one of the problems I harped on earlier. Rally Movement is just plain better than Shove in every possible way. You'll never use Shove is you have Rally Movement. Dancing is more broken than Galeforce could ever be. Again, Dancers give someone the same benefit as GF without having to even kill someone. Need to attack a boss twice in a turn? No problem, the dancer has you covered. I fail to see how GF is broken when canto or dancing is not. If Fates Pegs had GF, Subaki, Sakura, Sealed Azura, Hinoka would still be worse than Ryoma. By quite a large margin as well. If Ryoma got GF, it'd be nice, but he wouldn't become any more OP. It makes the skill system feel more like an afterthought rather than something that's clear to be used as a mechanic throughout the game. It's sort of like the coins in PoR. the entirety of their existence just feels like an afterthought. They really don't change much. No one really uses them, and selling them doesn't do enough to really matter. Even if you're not using everyone, I've never gotten more than maybe 2-3 to max level. Considering that you have a team of about 10, it'd be nice if even half of them could reach that. I agree they aren't necessary. No arguments there. I'd say "it lacks common sense" to have a system to fully use it, you must change class. Especially when it's not free. Most people that are playing aren't going to go out of their way to change classes because of the fact that you have to pay for it.

Your pictures remind me of like the old pastel glass paintings combined with a children's cartoon... Not gonna lie, it makes an effect that I can't stop loving.