Cysx

Honestly, this game seems to have bow and sword wielding clerics, so I'm really not too sure what to expect from there. As said above Griffons are probably back, and we see cavaliers, pegasi and barbarians in cg. Also more conventional sword, lance, bow and magic users in gameplay. All I can say is that it feels like a lot of classes will be missing from Fates. The iron maiden thing makes me think maybe mechanist will be back in some form, and also perhaps ballistitian because advance wars nods? I'd like to see ninjas again normally, but they probably wouldn't fit. Onis would be cool, but them plus barbarians is overkill(assuming those really were barbarians).

Yes, that's a fair point. If I'm correct I kinda wish they go for something else this time around as well.

I'm wondering if the "harsh, irrational world" line might have more weight than I originally thought. Since we get a large-scale battle in the background at this point in the trailer, I initially shrugged it off as a relatively generic line about how war sucks and the church is making everything terrible..., but I'm not so sure anymore. That being said, outside of that iron maiden thing, we saw no signs of monsters or natural catastrophes whatsoever, so it's hard to say for sure. It does seem likely that we're going to oppose the church for potentially the whole game, but the reason might not simply be that they're ruthless. And we could also be running around collecting/destroying the crests in an attempt to restore a lost balance of some kind, not opposing the church directly but ultimately having to fight them anyway. I'm just really hopeful that line actually means something.

That's fair. In my case, it's just complicated really, that's ultimately the reason why I use that term even though it might not be 100% accurate. It's a game I don't really like that I somehow enjoy playing. I don't think much of its characters, but no way I'm letting any of them die on me. I think it's relatively poorly designed but dived deep into its mechanics, learned every formula, went out of my way to optimize every kid, bought apotheosis and struggled to beat it on my already completed lunatic playthrough with no other dlc... I greatly dislike the route they took with supports but still unlocked around 80% of them before I messed up and decided to stop... Anyway, yeah, I don't think peer pressure has much of anything to do with it.

I don't think so. I've played like, 300 hours of this game? More than enough to form my own opinion. There are some things it did well, some very well even, and it's not a bad game at heart. There are also things I legitimately dislike about it, and even though it's one of my most played FE game, I don't think of it as one of my favorites.

It's firmly in the "guilty pleasure" camp for me. I can respect it. I cannot, however, you know, respect it.

I'm wondering if the "magic" action is really related to magic as we know it. Anyway, here's what I could gather: - Fighting enemies with friendly portraits, 2 sides conflict? - Bows have 1-2 range at least(Hilda can counter Byleth's close range attack) - Squads - Durability is back - Roaming - Barracks serve to train weapon skills? - Weapon equipped appears on the minimap - Enemy aggro is visible through links and portraits above enemy squads(can't find the portrait part anymore, might have been me getting confused) - Terrain seems more complex maybe? - New stats, End and Rsl - Combat arts are back from Echoes(?) Edelgard: Female footsie, can use axes and swords Dimitri: Male footsie, can use lances Claude: Male archer Byleth: Male, can use swords, controllable during roaming(avatar?) Female mage Second male archer(visible shortly), priest? ENEMY: Mercedes: Female, can use swords, looks like a sister Hilda: Female archer Unnamed male 1, 2 and 3. Mage, priest(with bows?) and lance user? 4th unnamed character, uses swords, visible on the map(could be a generic)

I can't say I agree, but, to each their own. I mean I can see people having a problem with the violence last time, but in the new one it genuinely felt like a cute moment between one introverted girl and another, pretty assertive one. Nothing more. ... well that's not entirely true. I can see poor Ellie getting her heart broken at some point, be it through having to kill her for some reason, or some form of betrayal. Can't quite put my finger on why; maybe it simply seemed too good to last. --- Anyway, let's see some Fire Emblem, and hopefully I'm not wrong this time.

I mean, we do have two Grimas at this point.

Out of all of them, I'd say Marcus. For being a big part of two games in many ways, including one released in the west. Honorable mentions go to Levin/Ced, Cuan, Lethe, Boyd, Haar/Jill, Tibarn, Julian, Lena, Chris(I know a lot of people don't like this one, but they're still a main character), Vaike, Sumia, Owain, Silas, Rinkah, Caeldori, Garon. While I've been paying a lot of attention to CYL, and played FE4 multiple times, my initial reaction honestly was "who the dunk is that", which kinda killls the primary purpose of a name imo. I think we should wait until these names have been used in anything significant(Heroes being perfectly fine in my book) before treating them as something people will recognize. But hey, could be just me.

I'd advise a Classic-Hard playthrough with a veeeeery casual mindset. Just take the game for what it is, be wary of enemy phase reinforcements and you should be able to enjoy it, because it's no so much that it's an unbalanced experience from a surface level. It's when you dive into its mechanics that it falls apart, in my opinion. Though if you're into theorycrafting for children characters, then there can be a lot of that in this one.

You might not get any other in Conquest, actually. Might have been thinking of Rev were I do believe you're given a bunch.

Indeed, it's the same in Heroes though. And sure, they're imprecise, (well, the lightning isn't) but I'd say their biggest problem is their price. Despite their downsides, the ones that you get for free are probably getting used, because they're that good during player phase. Also, as said before, they build up guard gauge faster, meaning they increase survivability as well. >Anyway, to keep things short, you're wasting your time - and mine - trying to convince me Niles is good, so do us both a favor and bother me about him no more. ... right. Well, I'll stop there altogether then. See you around.

I got some solid mileage out of them personally, especially on EP, but I can't exactly go into details at this point, so moving on. Remember, brave swords have only 6 might. Also, I thought Heroes would at least teach people that brave weapons are broken by design, no matter their might, let alone in a game where they charge 2/5th of your dual guard gauge every time. Why would the forge system not be worth it? Niles has chest and doors utility and good combat if used correctly; of course, the fact that he alone can capture some very useful units looks quite good on his resume. Anna is dlc, Nina is... his daughter, Selena can be a pegasi... I think I've seen you argue about savage blow at some point in the past, so I won't bring it back up, I'm clearly not changing your mind. That being said, you put rally res relatively high on the list yourself, so it seems weird that you'd diss the stat here, especially on an unit that always want to be in the frey like Camilla. She's not a mage killer, but being able to tank magic hits is still quite useful regardless.

I'll disagree on that, then again, with no Malig!Camilla and no (Adventurer!)Niles, it makes sense that one wouldn't get to use them all that often. Still, nearly silver sword might with 1-2 range tends to make up for the lower offensive stats quite nicely, afaic, especially in Fates where 1-2 range otherwise sucks. Also while the mages themselves are meh, early access to brave weaponry at an affordable cost(read: forge potential) is on the other hand pretty great, and rally magic works well in tandem with that. I'd say Niles isn't that bad, since he at least doubles consistently and can make a decent ninja killer, which is pretty useful in Conquest. As for Malig vs Wyvern lord, +1 str, spd and +2 def are hardly worth a seal in my opinion(at the cost of 5 res too). The class growth difference is hardly a big deal as well.

Direct mages are limited yes, but most magical weapons are pretty strong so it can still make a difference on units with decent magic, let alone magic!myunit or Leo; there's also the fact that I don't think anything below rally movement is particularly significant. Strength and speed are on rallyman to be fair, and ferrying + rally speed is a pretty worthwhile investement afaic. And as far as rally def goes, it also requires either a heart seal on Camilla or training Beruka, which is a decent choice largely thanks to flight, but not your greatest option by any means either. It's more readily available but not to such a huge extent. Forgot to point out that rally skill typically gives 2 crit, eh.

Oh, true. Forgot about him. Edited.

I'd love to know that as well. I'm even willing to help if needed. As for crit evade being 1/2 luck, I'd argue that makes the luck boost from rallying actually significant, even if halved. Still not that big a deal, but eh. From best to worst Rally speed: obtainable by Selena in CQ, and very useful in general Rally strength: self explanatory Rally def: same Rally magic Rally spectrum: even at +2 and though I've never gotten that dlc, it affects every stats with twice the range apparently...? Put it that low because it's learned at 20/15 instead of 20/5. Would be the best otherwise. Rally movement: mostly for rally bots, but really good on them Rally res Rally skill Rally luck: I'd argue rally luck is somewhat better compared to rally skill(+6 acc and better proc rate on skills vs +4 acc, eva, crit eva). It's lower because rally skill is more readily available where it matters most. Edit: Oh, that was for Fates btw. Awakening would be largely the same with spectrum at the top, and probably luck above skill.

I think there's a difference between a no dungeons run and a no grinding one. A pretty big one at that. Ignoring options that are out of your way and ones that are in your way is not the same. What you're saying is that in any rpg that has visible enemies that you can avoid, fighting them is grinding. Again, this game has dungeons, we should stop treating it like other Fire Emblem games that don't. What do you mean it's 30? I did account for Excalibur. 10 + 5 - 7 = 8. And the crit bonus is not calculated before you add in resistance, but after. Well, a trained Kliff can reasonably ORKO with an excalibur crit. Or a Sagittae double.

I mispoke, forging on its own is generally fine, it's upgrading that's extremely expensive, but also something you definitely want to do some of for effective weapons and killer bows. That being said, you're probably not making any regalia weapon, so your statement isn't quite correct anyway. Define dungeon grinding. 8x2 damage against enemies with 44 HP doesn't seem all that great to me. He'd need two crits to OHKO, which is generally too much to ask for even with turnwheel abuse.

As far as profit goes, yes, as has been said above, absolutely. I'll be a little less cynical though and just say that if FE16 delivers, which it can if they learned anything from Fates... us FE lovers may bask in the light as well. Hopefully we stay as far from controversy as possible this time around, but, and that's the big problem, if Heroes is anything to go by, things might actually get even worse than before. 'tis all in the hands of IS, as always.

Mages also have the advantage of having no opportunity cost as far as forging goes. Sure effective weapons are amazing, especially on Alm's route, but they're also highly expensive to forge(and one can always use more killer bows), which should not be ignored. Using a mage... is free, always, outside of training. Consistent accuracy is also great, and Sagittae depleting their health doesn't matter much when you should be fortifying every turn past a certain point. As for Excalibur, it wouldn't be so good if not for the turnwheel allowing you to rig crits, making it much more consistent than it would be otherwise. Also, 12/3(4?) isn't hefty really. Male mages have it relatively easy on that front, it's female mages that suffer from requiring high investment. Outside of that, yeah, Luthier behaves largely the same as Mage!Kliff without speed wells, give or take some durability. Though if you're going to use mage!Kliff, he's probably getting at least one well charge because otherwise, there's really not that much of a reason to bother, he's probably the one character in Alm's team that needs it most. As I said earlier in this thread though, it's absolutely one of his worst class options... but then again he's pretty much at least decent at everything.

Yes, that seems to be the general stance on dungeons. My main problem is, it's unrealistic. Having to actively avoid every monster or reset is not something most players will do, and even in terms of exp obtained per turn, those skirmishes tend to have normal chapters beat due to how compact the maps are. Basically it's easy to look at it as grinding, but they don't really qualify unless you go out of your way to fight more. <10 battles a dungeon, especially later on, isn't grinding, and most importantly is probably happening, so there's little point in assuming that it won't when trying to determine exp distribution. Fair point about mage!Kliff though, as said above. Okay, so I wrote this whole thing about specific points and such, but I think I should have been clearer earlier and will spare you what's getting pretty close to plain semantics. So, I agree that there are other candidates for speed, if anything, I think there are many more than you do, apparently, and the reason I went against your examples is because I took them at face value. I'm in complete agreement that enemy phase doubling for archers is very useful, and yes, early GK!Clive sounds like a decent option, though I'd sooner keep the +speed around for Celica's team than give it to Clive if I'm going to wait that long, which I likely won't, but hey. It is true that mages having low mobility is a big problem, but I think their weaknesses are overstated by most people. Because of dungeons being a big part of the game we tend to ignore, and in Alm route's case because warp/rescue. And outside of that, Excalibur(with turnwheel abusing for crits) and especially Sagittae can be very potent at disposing of problematic targets throughout the entire game. So yeah, they're not GKs or Bow knights, but still, it's not as bad as people say, I feel.

Mages are basically at their best in dungeons, so Kliff can get to LV9 earlier, depending on how you play. It depends if you consider not avoiding everything sub-optimal, which is a bit extreme afaic. Edit: That being said, there aren't any dungeons early on in act 3, so your comment was fair. Beyond that, I'm aware, most of my post was meant to correct things I felt L9999 didn't really adress properly. Sure Tobin has better villager combat, that being said neither ORKO, or even 2RKO, so the difference is there but in reality, they still both suck. An early level for Kliff also has a 60% chance of putting him in doubling territory against quite a few targets. I entirely agree with the LTC comment. I spoke of it because I think that's the angle the post I was responding to was taking. Or rather, LTC and efficiency are largely the same that early. I didn't mean that funneling all the points into mage!Kliff was a good idea. I was just correcting a math error. unlike Kliff who with all the spd wells (7 spd, 4 AS) gets doubled and dies. Beyond that, Clive can use the speed but joins five chapters after the wells are available; make that 6 if you get him to 10 in the next chapter. There's a good argument to be made that by that point they should all be spent on units that were already around. Also that's only true for 3-1 cavs. He needs one more still(preferably 2) for 3-5, the big cav chapter... and by that point you have Mathilda. The archer!Tobin one is very specific. That's 4 enemies and were he to crit with the killer bow, his doubling would be wasted. He'll also likely never need speed again once he gets hunter volley. I guess I can agree that one point of speed going to Silque is a decent choice, the archer part specifically being very true. That being said, i'm perfectly aware of how useful warp is, it's just that the exp difference itself(if any, let's be real we're talking about 4HKOing probably just one LV1 brigand at 60% accuracy) isn't all too big. At the end of the day if what little exp she's getting through it matters so much, battling one or two creeps can provide the same result without being game breaking or what you could consider grinding really.

Remember Kliff gets Excalibur down the line as well, which shaves off 2 points from the speed he needs. His main problem early on is getting there, by that point he's generally fine combat-wise. I remember speed ring Nomah being pretty capable thanks to doubling a few annoying targets with Sagittae. No offense, but that's one biased chart if I've ever seen one. - Tobin starts at LV 2. - Both have bad deployment slots early on, so while Kliff's contribution in ltc is reasonably described here, Tobin's really isn't. Realistically neither will get to do much. - Even assuming a 25% growth procs twice in a row for some reason(would take 8 levels on average), 5 AS does not double everything in act 1 but cavs. - Lv 2 mage Kliff with a leather shield has 9 def on average. The 1-4 soldiers have 11 attack. I'm pretty sure he can take them even if he gets doubled. - Well!Kliff's 4 AS means he isn't getting doubled, and Tobin is unlikely to get to the 8 spd necessary to double them in 3 to 4 level ups. - Please sell me on the speed wells going to Silque because I see very little short term advantage to it(in terms of exp gain which I assume is what this is about), and hardly any long term ones either.