Whisky

Well the alternative is leaving it how it is or making sacrifices in other areas. I’m not convinced that removing permadeath would improve the story because side characters don’t have much relevance in other games without permadeath either and there are some FE games that have better stories than some games without permadeath. But let’s say that removing permadeath would definitely improve the story and allow more development of side characters; the way I see it, we already have other games without permadeath. Fire Emblem is the Tactical RPG for people that like permadeath, and maybe there are other Tactical RPGs without permadeath for people that prioritize the story telling and want side characters to be more relevant. Good observation. I do like to replay games. It’s an interesting thing to think about. Should a game prioritize making the best experience of the first playthrough or should it prioritize adding replay value? If they have to hurt one to improve the other, is it worth it? There is no right answer here.

If their lines only add to world building and characterization and don’t effect the plot itself much, then what’s stopping these lines from existing with permadeath like with the POR example above? It takes more work, but don’t we want games to have more effort put into them? Sometimes the extra effort is what separates the great from the average. I don’t agree that optional or missable content is less meaningful. It can make things more interesting because each playthrough can be different in subtle ways. You might think that the cutscene you’re viewing is the only one, but then you play a again and see a slightly different one. How does Sacred Stones handle permadeath anyway? There some characters that are pretty important to the story like Joshua, Inness, L’Arachel. Do all of these characters get injured instead of dying or do the cutscenes change?

I don’t understand this one. When do stories ever revolve around dozens of characters anyway? Most stories focus on a few main characters and then have side characters that are less involved in the story. Removing permadeath from FE would make it like other RPGs that already don’t have permadeath. Most RPGs’ stories only revolve around a few main characters and any other characters are just side characters that have limited involvement in the plot. Shining Force doesn’t have permadeath but most of its characters are just side characters like in FE. But then some FE games do involve their side characters more in the story than others. Sacred Stones involves quite a few of its characters in the plot despite having permadeath, probably more so than Shining Force despite that not having permadeath. In FE6, you can meet Lott and Wade’s family in the Western Isles. That’s probably more story relevance than most characters get in Shining Force. But for the most part, characters in FE are part of a small army fighting in a war. What relevance could most characters have in the overall plot? Do you just want more dialogue from them, maybe more paralogues, or other extra things if you still have certain characters alive at certain points? I’m all for involving the side characters in more ways. I’d love for the developers and writers to put in the effort to involve each character in different ways. One of the things I think we should see more is characters being remembered after they die. Sometimes it feels like all of your other characters immediately forget about anyone that dies. but I don’t see how removing permadeath would have much effect on the overall plot of the games.

Oh wow. That's actually a huge improvement. I wasn't expecting that. That scene has always bothered me from the first time I saw it.

Hey, here's my Excel file. I made sure that it is user friendly and I added the drop down lists for Weapons and Combat Arts. Battle Forecast Calculator.xlsx

That’s fair enough. Oh um. I was thinking that each hit of Astra would be a chance for Seteth’s Crest to proc, and that it would only need to proc on any one of those hits to prevent the counter attack completely, but I could be wrong. I’m not sure how it works exactly. - Wait, I don’t think that’s quite right. If Crits multiplied the damage before rounding down then the decimal would be multiplied by 3 and could go over 1 and add an extra point of damage. I could be wrong but I think it rounds the damage down before Crits multiply the damage.

Oh wow, that sounds pretty cool, though a lot of work to collect all of the data on the enemies. I’ll try to send you the file I have after I get off of work. It would be cool to add a drop down bar for different weapons and combat arts in order for easy comparisons between them. - To comment on the above analysis of Astra vs double attacks. Double attacking is almost always better than Astra if you are using the same weapons and if you are able to double, which is of course hard to do on Maddening. Astra can be more effective than a Brave Sword if you use it with a Wo Dao or a CAS but you have to consider that you will be using about half of the weapon’s durability with each use of Astra. The Rapier+ can be pretty good with Astra as well, especially when it’s effective, but even if it’s not, it has a lot more durability than those other options and still has a decent Crit boost and high accuracy. But while Astra can be useful for a Swordmaster, I have to ask, why make the character a Swordmaster in the first place? There is a guaranteed way to always double every enemy with a Killer weapon; Hunter’s Volley. Hunter’s Volley is more effective than Astra in almost every situation and can be used at range and costs less durability. There’s also Fierce Iron Fist and Swift Strikes. Another thing to consider with Astra is that if you use it with Seteth, or to a lesser extent Ferdinand, it will have a pretty high chance to prevent the enemy’s counter attack.

Hilda does well as a Wyvern Lord and she also does pretty well using a Bow, either as a Bow wielding Pegasus Knight/Wyvern Rider or even as a Sniper/Bow Knight. Her personal ability increases the damage of adjacent male allies, so using a Bow allows you to damage an enemy from 2 spaces away, setting up for a male ally to come in for the kill right next to her to benefit from her personal ability. This can be combined with her Budding Talent; Seal Spd, to lower an enemies Spd from a distance setting up for allies to double enemies more easily. If you do this as a Bow wielding Wyvern Rider, you can also combine with it Wyvern Rider’s mastery ability; Seal Def. Also, Canto from Wyvern Rider allows her to kill an enemy and then move into a better position to take advantage of her personal ability. Sniper is good for the range benefits mentioned above along with great killing power from Hunter’s Volley, and Bow Knight would make her a good support unit by combining her personal ability, Seal Spd, and Canto, as well as high range, but she won’t have Seal Def this way. - Another cool thing about Hilda is that she can learn Bolting if you want to try her out in a magic class to take advantage of that. Maybe War Cleric so that she can still be physically strong? Magic attacks can still combine with Seal Spd and attacking from range with magic has the same advantages I already mentioned about Bows.

If I want to do what? I’m just saying that if you give me a scenario that includes Enemy HP, your unit’s damage, Hit and Crit rates I can tell you the exact chance of Astra killing the enemy and compare that to the chance of killing the enemy with other options. I don’t know know how to share the file. Can files be attached on here? If I was going to share the file I’d have to update it to make sure it’s easy to use first. I know how to use it because I made it but it might not be user friendly yet. As for knowing what I’m doing. I just cross multiplied binomial distribution tables for Hit and Crit rates. It’s accurate as long as there aren’t other factors like Crests or something. If you do want me to send you the file, then give me some time to fix it up and make it easy to use and understand and then I’ll send to you. I’d be happy to help however I can, especially since I already put in the work of making the file and don’t want it to go to waste lol. It can’t really be made into a graph because there are too many variables.

Hey, first of all let me just say that this is an interesting topic and I’ll be reading through it all later. Or being able to go out of your way with this characters build. It’s easier for lower investment characters to go out of their way for skills like Death Blow or Hit+20. If you give them the same amount of investment as a higher investment character, then the lower investment character can get extra skills or higher ranks in their primary skills. It just depends on what you want. I don’t have a graph for it but I do have excel file that calculates the chance of Astra killing an enemy compared to other options, if you’re interested. All I need to do is input the enemy’s HP, and your unit’s damage and Hit and Crit rates against them.

Yeah, your damage per Hit is 30% of the damage you would deal with a normal attack, however the damage is rounded down so the total damage is usually less than 150% of a normal hit (excluding Crits). Astra does not add any Crit and actually has a Hit penalty, making it pretty bad overall. Certainly much worse than Hunters Volley before even factoring in the 9 durability cost. and if you can double, then doubling will almost always be more effective than Astra. It can be useful at times for a Swordmaster if you don’t mind using nearly half of a weapon’s durability in some cases, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. Could be fun to use though, that’s a different discussion. I believe the most effective use of Astra is with a Rapier against mounted enemies.

His personal ability only adds 5 damage, which is great early on, but later in the game, you have access to Battalions that add more damage than that in addition to other stats and a Gambit.

Swords aren’t necessary for Felix here. He doesn’t get anything put of Swordmaster if he’s planning on becoming a WarMaster afterwards. It’s needless investment. Any tutoring put into Swords is tutoring that could have been put into getting his Axes/Brawling/Authority higher instead, or given to a different character.

Oh. The word “real” threw me off. Thank you.

Wait, you’re saying that Crits use a 2 RN system in this game? I thought Crits always used 1 RN and Hit was what used 2 RN?

I agree with Shadow Mir, your class progressions seem way too long and have classes that don't seem to fit and seem unnecessary. of course, it depends on what type of build you are going for specifically. You can build any character in many different ways, but no matter which type of build you want, I recommend making the progressions more specialized for specific builds and cutting down on the extra classes. I don't think creating overly general progressions works. Mercenary and Lord are both pretty unnecessary. Mercenary is pretty much only worth it if you are going for a Vantage build. I also don't see the point in trying to be both a Swordmaster and a Bishop. If you want Byleth's magic to more effective as an Enlightened One, then you should master Mage for Fiendish Blow. I really think Wyvern Lord is the best class for Edelgard. I also don't see the point in being both Brigand and Armor Knight and both Warrior and Fortress Knight. I think it's probably better to stick to one path. Armour Knight might be worth certifying for just for the Def boost and training her in Armor can give her the Weight -3 ability, but I wouldn't recommend actually changing into the class and I wouldn't recommend changing into Fortress Knight either. Brigand is good to master for Death Blow. Warrior is also a bad class unless you are creating a Wrath build. I don't understand why you would switch from Cavalier to Mercenary. Mercenary is generally only worth mastering if you are making a Vantage build, but Dimitri learns Battalion Vantage so he doesn't need regular Vantage. Cavalier can be useful for the high Move and Canto, if you are worried about the Spd penalty, I have seen some people recommend making him a Thief for its Spd boost. Brigand and Archer are great choices for Death Blow and Hit+20 respectively. Wyvern Rider is a great class but might be more investment than its worth here, since it requires you to train him in Bows, Axes and Flying. It could be worth because Wyvern Rider is a good class, but alternatively, you could just focus on Bows and make him a Sniper and he will still be able to fly as his personal class without ever needing to invest in training Flying. I'd recommend Mage over Dark Mage for Fiendish Blow, possibly both. Archer is iffy, because Hit+20 is a good skill but he won't be able to use any magic as an Archer so he won't be very good during that time, and it takes a long time to master 3 Intermediate classes. There also isn't any point in making him a Warlock. Just go into Dark Bishop and then Dark Knight. Like I said with Edelgard, I think it's better to commit to one path than trying to run multiple different paths at once like this. Certifying for Armor Knight for the Def boost is one thing but actually changing into the class probably isn't worth it unless you commit to the armored path and make him a Fortress Knight, but if the end goal is War Master then I recommend against making him a Fortress Knight even just for certifying because it takes an unnecessary amount of investment. I also recommend Grappler over Warrior unless you are going for a Wrath build. Lornez is a tricky unit to use. This build is decent for him, but I'd suggest considering taking advantage of his Combat Art, Frozen Lance. Ferdinand mostly relies on Swift Strikes. I'd recommend taking out Fortress Knight and maybe Great Knight. Paladin actually has more Str than Great Knight and more Move. I'd also suggest switching Soldier to Fighter. I don't see the point in Mercenary or Warrior unless you want to do a Vantage/Wrath build, and I don't see the point in Swordmaster at all. I'd suggest just Brigand -> Grappler -> Warmaster, or cut out Warmaster and stay as a Grappler. Same thing, cut out Armor Knight, and Fortress Knight unless you want to commit to the armored path and switch Warrior to Grappler unless you want to make a Wrath build. Cut out Warlock and Dark Bishop. Just go straight to Bishop. Cut out Warrior unless you're doing a Wrath build. This isn't bad. Maybe cut out Assassin unless you want to stay as an Assassin. Not sure what the point is in going out of the way for it by training Swords just to switch to Sniper and Bow Knight afterwards. Cut out Mercenary and Warrior unless doing a Vantage/Wrath build. You don't need to be both Warrior and Grappler. Grappler is better but if you are doing a Wrath build then I think you should just do Warrior -> Warmaster. I don't think Dark Knight is worth it for him, I think Paladin or Wyvern Rider are better for him, but if you want to make a Dark Knight then I guess this kind of build could sort of work. It's a bit strange. Sylvain learns Swift Strikes so I think it best to focus on that. Priest is unnecessary. I recommend going for Gremory or Dark Knight, not both. Seems pretty good. Cut out Warlock. Stay as a Bishop or go Bishop straight to Gremory. Take out Pegasus Knight. Consider Mage for fiendish Blow. Don't make her a Dancer unless you are going to keep her as a dancer to benefit from Dancing and if you want to make her something else then make someone else a Dancer. Consider keeping her as a Bishop instead of switching to Holy Knight, but I don't think Holy Knight is particularly bad like some people do, though Dark Knight is better if you reach high enough Reason to become one. Same thing as above in regards to Dancer. Take out Priest and Warrior. I recommend Dark Knight over Gremory for Annette. I really think Wyvern Lord is Hilda's best class, and I think Pegasus Knight and Wyvern Rider are great classes for her. I recommend taking out Armor Knight, Warrior, and Fortress Knight. I mean, I guess if you really want to make her a Great Knight, you can, but then I still recommend taking out Warrior. Take out Mercenary unless doing a Vantage/Wrath build. Commit to one of the Advance classes. Don't try to do three Advance classes in one path. Take out Cavalier. Looks pretty good. Consider replacing Cavalier with Archer for Hit+20. Take out Paladin. Take out Pegasus Knight. Take out Mercenary unless doing a Vantage/Wrath build. Eh. I don't think Pegasus Knight is worth it for her unless you go for Wyvern Rider or Falcon Knight. Paladin and Bow Knight are iffy. One of her advantages is that she has early access to Hunter's Volley, and she loses that advantage if you take her out of that class. Archer might be worth it for Hit+20 but it's questionable. I recommend taking out Dark Bishop and make him a Dark Knight at the end. Dark Knight is better than Warlock. Take out Mercenary. Not sure if Assassin is worth it. I recommend against Armor Knight and Fortress Knight unless committing to the armored path. Warmaster is good. Armor Knight and Fortress Knight are too much investment and not worth it. Take out Armor Knight. Those are my suggestions. If anyone who knows more than me thinks I said something wrong, then feel free to correct me. It's unreliable. If your unit can't survive without it activating then you shouldn't take that risk. If they can survive with out then it's not needed.

You put a lot of effort into this post. I appreciate the amount of data you had to gather for this.

Good points. There are a lot of translation errors so I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of them. I think the line is that his skill is legendary. Skill with what exactly, I'm not sure. You're right, Bernard does seem to more gentle and he is basically a promoted version of Bauker. Bauker is stronger than other Knights that you've fought so far but he doesn't seem to have anything special about him enough to be called "legendary". He does actually have a higher Skl stat then Bernard if that means anything, but on its own, that's a strange explanation for the line.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That is particularly weird. Araphen is the second biggest territory in Lycia, but Araphen is incapable of defending themselves from some Caelin assailants without Lyn's help? What is Lundgren even trying to accomplish here? Shouldn't he be worried about Araphen retaliating? What are the issues with Bauker? I didn't realize there were any. Bernard says that he's impressed that the heroes defeated Bauker. The pirates might not be part of the Black Fang though, or are they stated to be? They could just be pirates taking advantage of the battle. I thought I was editing the previous post. I didn't mean to double post.

This is not supported. Jahn says something along the lines of war dragons not having emotions and their sole purpose is for war, which doesn't necessarily imply anything but if I had to say which was stronger from that line I would say war dragons. But we do have a reference for a true dragon. Jahn is a true dragon, and he states that he is "a particularly strong dragon". In game, Jahn is stronger than the war dragons that you fight, but not by enough to leave much room for average true dragons to be in between them. If average true dragons were stronger than war dragons, than Jahn could only be considered slightly stronger than an average true dragon, and a true dragon could only be considered slightly stronger than a war dragon. I think the more reasonable assumption is that true dragons and war dragons are about equal. That line was copied from the original Plinkett who is known for his Star Wars Prequal videos. The Plinkett Emblem videos were purposely made in the same format and style of the Plinkett star Wars videos. He still makes a lot of good points and does a pretty good job of explaining a lot of the problems in the game throughout the video. I guess it depends on how much certain stuff bothers you or how much of a writing issue you consider it to be. There are some pretty big flaws. The final boss shouldn't even be able to exist, Nils and Ninian lose their powers the moment they come through the gate. There is a six month period before the game begins (or in between Lyn Mode and Eliwood Mode I guess) when Nergal had all of the resources he needed to summon dragons (which is his primary goal that he is trying to do for the entire game) but he just doesn't for no reason. Everything about Ephidel. Why is he in Lycia? What is he trying to do? What are his goals? The Black Fang (the main antagonist group of the game) is very inconsistent, including things like Pascal being one of the Four Fangs despite being a corrupt noble that the Black Fang was known to kill. The timeline of when Nino and Jaffar join the Black Fang not making sense. Massive battles taking place right in front of Bern's palace and Bern's highly protected Shrine of Seals but no one from Bern ever finds out about these battles, and no one from this game telling Roy anything about the events of this game. The Zephiel assassination plot being retconned from how it was stated to have happened in FE6. A lot of little inconsistencies in almost every other chapter. And of course Nergal making very stupid decisions including not killing his enemies when he apparently easily could. The last time before the final battle that Nergal meets with the heroes, he went there to get Nils, but then he just leaves Nils there for no reason, and also he doesn't kill the heroes. Nergal is shown to be basically all powerful, he can teleport, he can create entire armies of morphs, he can create explosions that could kill the entire group if he wanted to (but he doesn't want to for some reason (even though he has been trying to kill them both before and after this)), he is nearly invincible to legendary weapons (but then isn't later even though he shouldn't be any weaker). The guy can teleport, he could easily accomplish his goals whenever he wants by just teleporting where ever he needs to and he occasionally does teleport right in front of the heroes, proving that he can teleport anywhere at anytime. FE7 is supposedly a game that establishes the characters better than most FE games, but the more you learn about each of the characters, the more inconsistencies you will find with many of them. I don't think any FE game is flawless, but I don't think most other FE games have the number of flaws or (at least for the most part) the severity of flaws. Would I call it "bad" overall? I don't know, I don't really care about overall labels, I'm more interested in pointing out and discussing each individual point, each individual flaw. If we agree on every flaw that the game had, and you conclude that it's still could despite those flaws, then I'm fine with that. I do think that it has more flaws than most FE games though. As far as I know, Binding Blade only has a few flaws, not nearly as many as FE7. Same for Sacred Stones and POR. I am open to and interested in discussing each flaw in FE7 to see if there is a good explanation for them and perhaps they aren't actually flaws, as well as any flaws in FE6 (or 8 ) that you might have noticed that I didn't. The situation surrounding this is actually pretty weird. Nergal was incompetent at restraining Elbert, for him to get out of his bonds and stab Nergal, and no one around was able to stop him from stabbing him. Also even if Nergal couldn't do anything himself, there is no reason that Jaffar and Ephidel couldn't have killed the party. Jaffar leaves in the middle of the cutscene, and Ephidel gets blown up by the dragon even though he can teleport. Nergal takes Ninian and leaves which is fine, but this highlights the fact that Nergal really can do what ever he wants whenever he wants by teleporting anywhere at any time and no one, not even Athos, can do anything to stop him. It's also weird that Ninian agrees to go with him, since if Nergal's plan succeeds, the good guys would have lost. There's a reason they are trying to stop him. This scene has other problems such as Nergal being nigh invincible in this scene but then being vulnerable later, the fact that he's powerful enough to create an explosion powerful enough to kill the entire group including Athos but chooses not to "out of respect for an old friend" even though he was trying to kill the group the whole time before this and continues to try to kill them after this. He also should still have the power to kill everyone including Athos when you fight him later, and he doesn't have an excuse for it then. The biggest problem with this scene is that he specifically came here for Nils but then leaves without Nils. How did he plan to summon dragons without Nils then? These scenes, in addition to having their own problems, highlight that Nergal is basically all powerful, including being able to teleport where ever he wants at anytime and everyone including Athos is powerless to do anything to stop him. He literally teleports right in front of the party multiple times, and they can't do anything against him, but these are the only two times that he does it. He doesn't do nearly as much as he could throughout the game to accomplish his goals, which include killing the heroes. He explicitly says that he wants Eliwood dead at one point but forgets that he wanted him dead later? That's deflection. Just because something is commonly done doesn't make it any better. Other FE games have flaws too, that doesn't make it okay here, and I really think it's at its worst in this game in particular. Nergal is basically shown to be all powerful, being able to teleport anywhere, being nearly invincible, being able to create entire armies of powerful morphs and teleport them inside of Ostia caste, being able to kill the entire party at once including Athos. I don't know enough about Gharnef to defend him but I have seen arguments for why he is done better than Nergal. Zephiel doesn't really give a reason for leaving the battle during Chapter 13, I'm happy to say that this is a flaw in FE6, but I think it's a much smaller flaw for Zephiel (a normal human that can't teleport) to leave here without even encountering Roy, then it is for Nergal to literally teleport in front of the group multiple times and not do anything. Narcian is well established. He is a coward. He doesn't want to risk his life fighting the heroes, who are potentially capable of killing him. He leaves Flaer here to fight them so that he can prepare his defenses at Aquelia. Narcian running away is not a writing flaw, at least not in this chapter. There might be an argument for why he doesn't defeat them earlier like in Chapter 4.

I agree. I really think everything about that Fire Dragon is a giant inconsistency. FE7 has a lot of problems with the plot, I’d recommend watching the Plinkett Emblem critique of it to see what they are. They might not all bother you and you might not consider them all to be big issues, but their are some pretty big problems and a lot of smaller ones. I still enjoy the game but there are plot holes in it.

Oh wow, I might try a soft ironman of this game after this. I’m too scared to do a real Ironman. Personally, this game is harder for me than FE6 is. I beat a true Ironman of that game (didn’t get the secret ending though). I don’t know why this game is so much harder for me (on HHM that is), and using Lyn and Eliwood instead of better units doesn’t help.

I agree with Dark Holy Elf about the Brave Sword being better than +15 Crit. It’s possible that your theory is right. It might have actually worked better if it was the other way around though. That way, you would get rewarded for playing well with a good unit (Harken) and since in your hypothetical situation the slower player has lost units and has an overall weaker team, that player would benefit more from getting the consolation prize (Karel). Karel isn’t terrible, he can definitely benefit someone if they’ve had a lot of deaths and don’t have many good characters but he likely won’t help a player that is already able to play quickly. And if your theory is correct, then the developers didn’t think it through for multiple playthroughs because knowledgeable players will purposely slow down to get the clearly superior character.

I did give the stat boosters in LM to Lyn. I didn’t give the lords the Dragonshield or Angelic Robe from HM though. That could have helped a little. I don’t normally grind but if it’s to get Geitz, I might just do that next time. I’ve Arena grinder on lower difficulties but I haven’t on HHM. Is it riskier on HHM? I wouldn’t use save states for it, that’s cheating, I may as well just increase their levels with Gameshark codes at that point. I definitely used those a lot. The Rapier And Wolf Beil both broke. Lyn still had her Mani Katti and was pretty effective with it. It was a lot harder to get kills for Eliwood once his Rapier broke since he doesn’t double enemies. Oh wow, not a level to spare! And on an Ironman run. Good job. I find it hard to use Eliwood and Lyn because of how limited deployment slots are in HHM, although I guess deploying more units wouldn’t help them get more experience but it makes it harder when you’re deploying such weak units instead of much stronger units with the limited deployment slots. Eliwood and Lyn have really bad bases and it takes a long time for them to get good. It’s too late to utilize the Light Brand once you get it though, because the next chapter is the one that they need to reach the level benchmark for.

I’ve never used Geitz in HHM before so I wanted to get him in this playthrough, but man is it hard to level up the lords that much. They need to average around level 17. That’s pretty high level to get such weak characters like Eliwood and Lyn. The deadline for this came up quicker than I expected and their total levels were only 43. I even leveled up Lyn in LM and have her the Angelic Robe and Energy Ring just to make this easier but I still had a hard time using Eliwood and Lyn. Even with the Angelic Robe, Lyn is still frail and so is Eliwood. You have to be very careful using them, which makes it hard to give them so much exp. I only started this playthrough because I wanted to use Geitz with HM bonuses... In conclusion, Geitz is hard to recruit, and Eliwood and Lyn are really bad.