Whisky

Sounds like the navy should have played a much more prominent role in the Archanea games for sure, as well as a few others. But (again depending on the game in question) most of the chapters take place inland, so even if the nations have a powerful navy, you wouldn’t necessarily see it. Like in Binding Blade, we’re fighting Bern inside the continent for the most part. Pretty much the only chapters where a navy would play any role are the Western Isle chapters, and maybe Chapter 4 since you can see the sea to the south there? It’s a good point to bring up that it might not make much sense for land locked nations to become powerful though. Maybe there are ways to explain that with fantasy elements like land locked nations becoming powerful through magic or Wyverns, or something? The games rarely explain much about economics and resources and stuff.

I don’t know, Wyvern Riders are the most dangerous enemies in FE6, and lore wise Bern is the most powerful nation on the continent, at least party due to them. It depends on the game and situation, but a in a lot of cases this could be explained by most wars in Fire Emblem games taking place inland, away from large bodies of water.

This doesn’t seem physically possible

I agree with you. That’s something I’ve always liked about Fire Emblem, and also that Fire Emblem’s scale is much smaller than most RPGs which makes each single point of a stat worth a lot more, or at least potentially worth a lot more depending on the scenario. In most RPGs character can often reach stats in the hundreds, HP easily several hundreds if not even thousands. Gaining a few points of stats can often have negligible effects. In FE 50 HP is a lot and 20 of any other stat is a lot. The scale is so much smaller. Depending on the scenario, gaining a single point of a stat can have much bigger effects. I think the smaller scale also makes things easier to understand. I agree that I like when the scales for players and enemies are closer. In the Chrono Trigger example, one could try to argue that that character is stronger when you fight him, but it’s his HP that is higher while damage output is actually lower so that doesn’t seem to make sense either. I understand developers wanting to make boss battles feel epic, they need to last a little while and the boss needs to feel tough to take down. Your own characters can’t be able to survive that long unless healing is a lot weaker and rarer than it usually is or else there wouldn’t be any challenge. In FE, bosses can often be beaten very quickly if you know what you’re doing which can potentially feel anti climatic, but I think this actually works well in FE. Bosses are still a serious threat that you have to be careful with because of permadeath, and because while they can die quickly, so can your own characters. Death as a whole sort of has more weight to it in FE, both for your characters and the enemies. Well, there are some cases when defeated bosses retreat instead of dying, but that’s a different issue.

Oof that’s a big loss. There are ways to recover from losses like that though, you’ll just have to use other units, maybe some units that you don’t normally use in a non-Ironman. That’s one of the things I like about Ironmans is that they force you to adapt your strategies. That and every enemy engagement has a lot more weight to it so you really have to be careful with your moves. Ironman runs can be pretty fun. I had a similar experience with losing several units at once a bit later in the game. Chapter 14 of Ephraim’s route can be scary. I was trying to move forward quickly to recruit Rennac. One of my units got berserked. Artur with a Restore Staff got crit killed by a Myrmidon with a Killing Edge, the Berserked unit killed someone else before getting themself killed while everyone else ran for their lives. It was mortifying. Oh, and I didn’t recruit Rennac.

That’s probably true. I know Axereavers are good, but is it an issue that they’re expensive and have only 15 uses each? Also, when are they first buyable? I was thinking it was later. Wait, Valkyries gain bonus Exp but Mage Knights don’t? Do Valkyries also gain bonus Exp in FE7? In that case, Priscilla is actually nerfed in this version, because she normally gets that bonus Exp and Anima magic.

No unit would nerfed directly, but there would be units are nerfed indirectly, like the Lords who don’t gain anything versus other units who get better. How does this work for Great Knights? One of their biggest advantages over Paladins is being able to use Axes, but Paladins already use Axes in FE7. Should we also remove Axes from Paladins for this discussion? If so, Cavaliers and Paladins actually might be nerfed directly then. Let’s look at all of them: Eliwood - No change. Marcus - He’d be nerfed by losing Axes. He’d still be really good, but Axes are nice to have. Lowen - Probably wants to stick with Paladin, but he would be lacking in power without Axes. The extra power and Spd from Great Knight could be tempting. Definitely nerfed overall. Rebecca - Ranger would be a huge upgrade for her. She’d gain Move, Canto and Rescue utility, and Swords so she isn’t 2 range locked. She’d still lack 1-2 range and it probably isn’t worth training her up from a low level Archer, but this would probably be one of the biggest buffs. Dorcas - Hero would give him an extra 2 Spd, which is honestly a huge buff. Bartre - Same as above. Hector - No change. Oswin - Great Knight would be nice for the extra Move and utility. His Spd would be lower but I think it’d be worth it. Matthew - Basically no change. His promotion item isn’t available until very late in the game and either way you’re better off just selling it. Serra - The extra Move and utility from Valkyrie would be a nice buff. Guy - He could become an Assassin, which gives him some utility, fog vision, lockpicking, digging in the desert for items. But his combat would be slightly worse than normal. It doesn’t hurt to have the option of course. Erk - Same as Serra, getting a horse is a nice buff. Priscilla - She could choose between Anima or Light magic but Anima is better anyway so basically no change. Lyn - No change. Sain - Axes are always nice but Sain has plenty of Str anyway, so he would prefer Paladin. Losing Axes would be a nerf though. Kent - Losing Axes nerfs him. Probably still better to stick with Paladin though. Florina - Wyvern Knight would give +3 Con which would be nice. Falcón Knight has better HP, Def, and Swords. Only E Swords though. Wyvern probably would be better overall. Wil - Same as Rebecca. He’d still start out weak and never have good 1-2 range, but Ranger would be a huge buff for him. Raven - Ranger has more Move and utility, but Bows aren’t much of a bonus compared to Hand Axes. Lucius - Sage would give him Anima which is better than Light, but he’d have a lower Staff rank. Bishop bumps up to C Staves and his offensive stats are high enough to get by with Light Magic so I think he should stick with Bishop. Canas - I guess Druid would give him Anima now which would actually be pretty cool. Canas would be pretty effective with Thunder. Being able to summon phantoms would probably be cooler though. So either way is a buff. Dart - Berserker is better so basically no change. Fiora - Same as Florina. The extra Con from Wyvern would be a nice buff, but she might be worse against Axe enemies. Legault - Same as Matthew. Ninian/Nils - No change. Isadora - She’d lose Axes which is a nerf. Her Con is really low but she’s still fast enough to double with Iron Axes and weapon triangle control is nice. Heath - Knight would give him +3 Spd but he’d lose durability, 1 Str, and Swords, so he’d probably be worse against Axe enemies. I honestly don’t know what is more important for him between the Spd or the other stats. +3 Spd is a lot but most enemies in FE7 are slow anyway so it might not be important. Rath - No change. Hawkeye - No change. Wallace - No change if you skip LM, but with LM he could promote to Great Knight which would be a nice buff. Geitz - No change Farina - Same as other Pegasus Knights. Knight would give her a nice boost to Con. Pent - He could use Light magic now I guess, but it wouldn’t really matter. Louise - No change, except that she was stupid for choosing Sniper over Ranger. Nino - She could get a horse which is always nice but she’d still be underleveled as always. Karel, Harken, Jaffar, vaida, Renault - No change.

Well I wouldn’t consider him as good as Lugh even if he was free. Compared to Lilina, I think they just fill in different roles. He doesn’t need any experience investment and doesn’t have a weak start like she does. He’s an okay filler unit if you’re willing to spend the money on him. I think Lilina needs more commitment to getting trained up to become good, and she does have a bit of a rough start early on. She’ll always be frailer than him too. Which one is better I think might depend on the player. Although I definitely understand not considering him worth his cost.

That’s fair. It seems a bit difficult to me to compare cost versus performance. Like if we assume that Hugh is the better unit than Lilina if you get him but is arguably not worth the cost than who is better overall? Well depends on the player and the circumstances I guess. I feel like cost and performance are kind of different discussions. Like Geitz in FE7 is great if you get him, but is he worth training up all three Lords to pretty high level to get? Probably not. So is he a great unit or not? I don’t know, it’s complicated.

I think Summoner is generally considered better than Druid. The utility of summoning Phantoms trumps a small advantage in combat, especially for two units that aren’t very good in combat anyway. Phantoms can be very useful for baiting enemies. Because they are so weak, enemies tend to target them over other units. I think putting a Phantom in range of Bolting pretty much guarantees that that Phantom will be targeted over your other units, because even if they’re pretty fragile, Phantoms are always more fragile with only 1 HP. So they’re great for baiting enemies and pulling aggro off of your other Allies.

I actually don’t think Garret is that bad. He’s not great, but I don’t think he’s bad either. I think there are quite a few units I’d put below him. Other than Spd, his Hard Mode stats are actually pretty good he doesn’t double much, but fast enemies are hard to double by most units anyway, and I don’t think doubling is a necessity to being good in Binding Blade like it is in many other FE games. 1RKOs are harder for most units to achieve in general. With a 30% Crit bonus, Garret is always more likely to get a Crit in one hit than another unit would be with two attacks. I don’t think k it’s bad to have a roughly 50/50 chance of 1RKOing an enemy. There are a lot of Lance enemies in this game, and Garret does pretty decently well against them. I consider him a pretty decent filler unit. He has a tiny amount of utility with Cliff and Water Walking, and best of all, he requires basically no investment. It is a shame that he starts with a low weapon rank, but Killer Axes and maybe Swordreavers are probably the best weapons for him in most situations anyway (and Hand Axes sometimes). Also I think I’d put Raigh above Lilina, and maybe even Hugh. If you immediately promote Hugh, he is kind of decent with minimal investment. Lilina starts at level 1 with low base stats.

Like others have said, pretty much any unit can be strong if given a lot of investment, but what makes most bad units bad is that they start weaker and need more investment to become strong. Klein is good. He’s a solid pre-promote who joins for free and can immediately contribute in useful ways with no investment. I consider it a huge strength for a unit to be useful without any investment. He starts with A rank Bows allowing him to shoot down Wyverns (one of the most dangerous enemy types) with a Silver Bow or Brave Bow. Igrene mostly has better stats but Klein has a higher Bow rank and joins earlier, making him particularly useful on a few chapters before Igrene joins. He also needs less investment to reach S rank Bows. Overall I consider Klein better. Wolt starts really weak and needs a ton of investment to become as strong as Klein. 20/6 is a lot of investment. And a trained up Wolt basically just becomes able to do what Klein can do for free without any investment. Between Klein and Igrene who both join for free and don’t need any investment there isn’t really any payoff to training up Wolt. Overall I agree with him being one of the worst units in this game. Yeah I agree with Ping that Fir, Elen, Lott, and Roy don’t deserve to be on the list. Especially Elen, how is she in anyway bad? I might add Cath as well. She’s an extra Thief which is useful if one or both of your Thieves die. She is a pure support unit so her low stats and poor combat don’t affect her usefulness, and there are a lot less units that can replicate her uses than a weak combat unit that is weaker in combat than most other units in the game.

I think that regardless of the main map objective, bonus objectives from Path of Radiance are a good way to supplement them. It can combine multiple objectives together that way.

The one where you recruit Dozla and L’Arachel? That’s not a hard chapter, but most non-fog chapters aren’t hard in this game either. Being forced to act on limited information is always scarier though and if Assassin’s increased vision can help to mitigate that, even if only slightly, then that’s nice. It’s not like Swordmaster’s +15% Crit makes much of a difference in the non-fog chapters. Like Dark Holy Elf said, a 15% difference means that most of the times a Swordmaster gets a Crit, the Assassin would also get a Crit, and most of the time an Assassin wouldn’t get a Crit, neither would the Swordmaster. And even if the Swordmaster would roll just good enough to make the difference, there’s no way to know that and plan for that ahead of time so ultimately you can’t rely on it and have to use them both the same anyway. Vigarde’s map on Ephraim’s route can be challenging, mainly due to the Druids with Berserk. Swordmaster doesn’t help there. Assassin might actually be more helpful there too by being able to open the chests and doors.

The easiest way to kill Manakete’s is with the divine weapons like Durandal. Magic can work against them as well since they have much lower Res than Def. Also keep in mind that in some chapters it’s easier to just avoid fighting them. You can also use status staves on them like Sleep or Berserk.

I agree with Ping though I voted for ‘Kill Boss’ instead of ‘Seize’. They’re pretty similar objectives and both allow for a lot of variety in how you, the player, choose to approach them. I think ‘Kill Boss’ allows for a bit more variety. I like a lot of the ‘Kill Boss’ objectives in Three Houses, and I think the desert chapter in Sacred Stones really would have benefitted from being a ‘Kill Boss’ objective instead of ‘Rout’. The goal would be to kill both bosses. Speaking of ‘Rout’, I also agree with Ping that ‘Rout’ is a terrible objective.

I agree. I think it’s super disappointing. Fire Emblem games are often good about matching character strengths in lore and gameplay. They don’t always get this right with some characters but Marisa has to be one of the worst examples. She should start much higher level, maybe as a pre-promote. Or she could join much earlier. Or as a last resort, just don’t hype up how strong she is. Say that she’s inexperienced but has potential. At least they wouldn’t be lying to us that way. Like even though Nino is a terrible unit, I don’t mind as much because they don’t try to tell us that she’s really strong.

To be fair, I’d say if you’re using Marisa at all you’re playing incredibly sub-optimally. Joshua is significantly better though and I’m kind of being swayed by your fog vision argument, specifically for an early promotion, as I too find the fog chapters to be some of the hardest.

Correction to above, I meant to say: Elfire gives +2*. Sorry for any confusion. Yeah that would help. It’s so strange seeing them in pretty bulky looking armor but having the same Def as Paladin. So it becomes sort of like ‘bases vs growths’? I don’t really know how much of a difference the increased Exp makes. How much more do they actually get. I’ve always just seen Assassin as the class you pick if you want give them some utility with lock picking and stuff. Silencer is way too unreliable to be useful unfortunately.

Yeah that’s everything. +1 Str promo bonus +1 Mt over Javelin +1 WTA against Lances. Against other weapon types it would still be +2 so that’s nice too. Also also, it is strange that Great Knights have more Spd than Paladins, and it’s also strange that they don’t have more Def.

Being mainly designated to a support role anyway and having a high Staff rank either way means the difference is pretty negligible. Although something I didn’t mention is that if he is being mainly designated to a support role then he may be unlikely to reach S rank Anima, especially before reaching S rank in Staves. Another small advantage Bishop might have over Sage is that Shine gives +2 WepExp while Fire and Thunder only give +1. Elfire gives +2 but can’t be purchased until Ch15 (found on SerenesForest page). That might give Bishop the chance to catch up on weapon rank and maybe even get ahead. That also means they can’t benefit from Elfire’s higher Mt until later. I’m not sure if Elfire’s are available before this or not though. If they are I suppose it wouldn’t be in bulk like Shine’s. Also Bishop’s gain more Exp than Sage’s? I don’t know how to factor that in or how big of a difference that makes? Also yeah, Hand Axe with up to +3 more Atk is probably the best point Great Knight has going for it.

Alright. So thinking it over I actually think that Bishop is the better choice for Artur but I think Sage might be better for Moulder, and I don’t think Sage is far behind for Artur either plus it looks cooler so I’d still go with Sage. I don’t think I’ll bother going over the differences in Atk between Sage and Bishop as we all agree that Sage is better against humans due to Anima being better than Light, while Bishop is better against monsters (*) due to Slayer. Probably both classes will end up performing the same in most scenarios anyway because: It’s true that most enemies in Sacred Stones are pretty weak. Which should mean that Sage is able to 1RKO many monsters even without Slayer. And if it doesn’t then that means that Bishop would struggle even more to 1RKO humans right, since Bishop is overall weaker? Unless monsters are significantly stronger than humans? So Sage would seem to have the more consistent combat performance. Artur does get a bump up to C Staves from Bishop and that alone could arguably make it better than Sage. He also will have higher Light rank than Anima even if he goes with Sage. Moulder on the other hand will only have D Light while he will have C Anima from promoting to Sage. Bishop does give him a higher Staff rank bonus, but I don’t think he needs it. I think his Staff rank will be high enough as a Sage. It might be even be a little too high as a Bishop, if you don’t want to S rank Staves. The most monster heavy maps are late in the game. Phantom Ship is an exception and can be challenging so a Bishop might be nice to have there, but for the late game monster maps, Slayer isn’t the only way to get effective damage against monsters. Excalibur always deals effective damage against monsters even without Slayer, and is better than any Light magic, even Ivaldi (you also get it before Ivaldi). Moulder should be able to 1RKO weak monsters with Thunder or Elfire anyway, and when you’re up against something really strong, Excalibur is better to have than Slayer. Moulder actually gains AS from Excalibur despite its weight. Of course Moulder’s primary role is probably as a support healer, not a combat unit in which case there really isn’t much of a difference between either Sage or Bishop anyway.

Great Knight really probably isn’t worth losing 2 Movement for. And you’re right, it’s even arguably better to just not promote and keep the 7 Move as a Cavalier. On top of less Move, Great Knight’s lose Rescue/Drop utility. Higher Con means less Aid so they can’t Rescue as many units and it also means they themselves are harder to Rescue. To showcase this, Great Knights cannot Rescue other Great Knights. Paladins being able to Rescue/Drop other Paladins is very nice utility. That being said while it probably isn’t worth it, I do think that Great Knight’s do have some nice advantages that sometimes seem to get overlooked. I have often noticed situations where Paladins fail to 1RKO an enemy by only a few stats. Great Knights can, at least on occasion, perform much better than Paladins in combat. They not only get +1 Str and Spd, but also higher Con and Axes. Against Sword enemies, Paladins will usually use what, Iron Lances? Great Knights can use Steel Lances with no AS loss to have a total of +4 Atk and +1 AS. If Paladins do use Steel Lances for the higher Atk the. great Knights still have +1 Atk and now have +3 AS. There are quite a lot of Lance enemies in the game, from Cavaliers and Armor Knights to Wyvern Riders and Gargoyles. Against Lances enemies, Paladins will again use mostly Iron Lances, yeah? A Great Knight with an Iron Axe would have +3 Atk and +1 AS, not to mention greater Hit, Def, and Avo. If the Paladin uses a Steel Lance to catch up in Atk, the Great Knight can either do the same, or use a Steel Axe and still have more AS. They can also have +2 Atk (+3 against Lance enemies) at 1-2 range by using a Hand Axe, which can easily make the difference of 1RKOing or not. Javelins are not powerful weapons so Paladins can struggle to 1RKO with them. These disadvantages don’t matter as much if the Paladin uses better weapons like Killer or Silver, but those are obviously rarer and generally not available as early, and the Great Knight can maintain these advantages still if they raise their Axe rank enough. 1 point of Str and Spd might not seem like much, but Great Knights can sometimes have +3-4 Atk/AS by using the right weapons, especially against Lance enemies. I think this difference in combat performance is not negligible. I’ll comment on Sage vs Bishop at a later date.

Yeah same. I disagree with a few of your picks but I’m most confused and curious about why you picked Stefen? Maybe I missed something about him and he does really bad things? My perspective of him was that he was a pretty good guy.

I think most choices actually have very little difference between them, and that difference is usually one just being better than the other for the most part. That said I do think there are a few that are pretty balanced. Gerik has already been mentioned as has Natasha and I agree on both of those. I also think Sage vs Bishop is pretty balanced for both Artur and Moulder, though both classes offer different advantages between the two. Oh that’s interesting. I never thought of that. That’s definitely something to consider. Edit: Also I actually think Great Knight might be a slightly under rated option for Cavaliers. It’s probably not worth losing 2 Movement for, and the higher Con can be a bad thing for Rescue/Dropping, but an additional +1 Str with more potential Atk from Axes, and an additional +1 Spd with more potential AS (or Atk) from higher Con can noticeably improve combat performance.