Ranking each game by class: Mages / Sages

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Mages. What's swords without a little sorcery? Do they dominate by way of 1-2 range weaponry? Is targeting Res really all that important? What's the tactical reason for going into battle in a bath robe? Mages have been a relatively static class across all of fire emblem but occasionally one of them adopts a horse on promotion. How you want to count this or that class from whichever game is entirely up to you. Here are our previous discussions:

• Myrmidons / Swordmasters
• Mercenaries / Heroes
• Thieves / Assassins
• Fighter / Warrior
• Brigand / Pirate / Berserkers
• Archers / Snipers
• Nomads / Bow Knights
• Armor Knights / Generals
• Cavaliers / Paladins
• Dancers / Refresh Units
• Pegasus / Falcoknights
• Wyverns
• Lords
• Troubadours / Valkyries
• Dark Mages / Druids
• Clerics / Bishops / infantry healers

And here's my thoughts on mages, sticking to games I've played / replayed since 2017. Hope I don't ruffle too many feathers. I've always seen Mage as a sort of Myrmidon-esque class, historically. Where people insist their pros outweight their cons and don't acknowledge they're the cause of so many resets.

Spoiler

1. FE3 Book 2: Linde’s a contender for most useful unit in the entire game, joining in between her main competition Catria and Palla. Aura can chunk those early game wyverns as hard as Gordin's steel bow, and with more accuracy. She can exclusively use Resire (Nosferatu) which can be pretty consistent with its 90 Hit. The first and second Bishop Ring are both earlier than they were in Book 1, and so is Hammerne if you intend to Nostank frequently. There is extremely little reason to wait on promotion in FE3 (none of your units should feasibly reach level 20/20). In the late game her weapon level should be maxed to use any staff, including the almighty Again Staff which Dances all of your units. It's unlikely that your clerics will be able to use it naturally. In the mid game, Elemental weaknesses play a role in battles against dragons. To one round an ice dragon with Elfire, the only stats you need are 8 speed and at least 21 HP to survive their counterattack. Fire Dragons with Blizzard require 11 Mag, which Linde won't have unless you spared some star shards. Merric is good too. He needs 4 strength ups to one shot a flying dragon with Excalibur. He gets three from promoting, so I guess giving him the first Bishop Ring is an interesting tactical choice. If you know how to exploit Chapter 10 enemy’s AI, that’s a lot of free exp in which he can get part of the way there. What else...there's two desert maps, that's a little unique. There's not very many indoors maps in Book 2, but unmounted classes like the Bishop keep their stats and weapons. Can't think of anything wrong with the remaining two mages beyond Yubello's starting level. Good game for mages!
2. FE6: Just now realizing that, among FE6’s bloated roster, we don’t have a pre-promote sage to match the pre-promoted light and dark mage units we get near the end. So here we only have growth units to talk about. Well I do think Lugh, Hugh, and even Lilina will all reward you for the effort put in. At least compared to so many other FE6 units that can never live up to a later pre-promote. Mages are doing quite well in FE6’s ecosystem. Aircalibur gives them an anti-flier niche. Boss killing is a big deal in FE6, and these units can take pot shots at the boss and get Rescued away before they switch to their 1-2 range option on enemy phase. The biggest nerf is that magic damage no longer ignores terrain bonuses, but it’s offset by anima magic being so accurate to begin with. 95-70 base hit is great. Even Bolting is as accurate as the iron lance in a vacuum. Sure you won’t often benefit from the weapon triangle, but you’ll just as rarely ever be disadvantaged by it. Btw buyable Bolting is an underrated tool. If you can spare the gold for just one or two, you can really abuse chapter 22's design. Also GBA FE at least granted mages movement on par with fellow infantry, so that was nice of them.
3. FE4: Here we have plenty of mages with not a whole lot in common. Lewyn is great. Azel might be the highest maintenance (combat oriented) unit until Tiltyu shows up. Tiltyu is...female, so its hard to ignore her for the sake of getting better units in Gen 2. Gen 2’s mages are not so easy to summarize, with their many variables. Obviously the common issue here is movement. They can't even outrun Arden, and when road tiles are in play the horse units get entire countries apart. Gen 1's early speed and magic rings really help Azel out but I don't recall him pulling ORKOs with any frequency past the prologue. His poor arena performance slows his money acquisition, and all of his potential wives would prefer someone rolling in more cash. Fire Magic is also really bad for no reason and both Gens are slow to make even tier 1 tomes available in shops. The X factor is Forseti - and who gets to use it in Gen 2. A Lewyn fathered Arthur can potentially solo legions of early enemies and he just becomes outrageous after promotion. 
4. FE7: Erk, Nino, Pent. Well isn’t that the broadest spectrum of unit viability? Erk has the greatest availability of the unpromoted magic users (doubly so if you played Lyn mode). But he won’t catch up to Pent. And he certainly won’t have Pent’s A Staff rank. Erk is useable, just lacking in a niche. Nino is infamous. But a surprising lifeline in Ranked runs. FE7’s EXP rank can be very demanding, so players will make good use of any late joining, low leveled units. Cherry picking kills to Nino lets you get ahead of the curve while still enjoying the heavy hitters you worked hard to raise up. This is one funky game to rank, but I can't put it too low when Pent exists to salvage my run.
5. FE3 Book 1: There's a few things different about mages here. First is that they have a magic stat now. Although it's never especially large, it makes them more attractive units to raise up and spend Book 1's (very limited) exp on. And once they promote, being able to use staves is another, free source of exp they didn't have previously. Unfortunately Bishop Rings are still obnoxiously late. Excalibur and Aura can be Hammerned, that's great. They threw in a couple new spells. Don't get excited, Nosferatu is Book 2 only and so are all the newly added Staves. I actually don't know how Blizzard stacks up on the fire dragons of chapter 19 - I wasn't aware of Dragon elemental weaknesses when I played.  But Excalibur and Aura were big lifelines on Knight Filled Sky. I just could not safely damage Michalis with any other unit on the team
6. FE11: Changes to weapon weight disproportionately affected mages, who are the most likely class to not fully mitigate their weapon’s WT stat. Their attacks are also newly affected by terrain, although Shadow Dragon has the wimpiest terrain bonuses in the series. The big edge over previous versions of this game are Master Seals. Promotion items are no longer class specific. Mages and pegasus knights benefit the most from this change, because the earliest they can promote is now Chapter 10, from 19. And FE11 mages really like that early promotion because then they can work on their staff rank. Physic and Warp require 38 Heals. 23 if you reclass to Bishop. Once their staff exp has progressed past C natively they can swap back to Sage for the +2 Str and +1 Mag, but it’s not crucial. I find that Fire is fairly forgeable to offset how bad the rest of the tomes are in this game. +5MT for 3000 gold is pretty reasonable to budget. It gets you into ORKO range on Normal difficulty, and helps with feeding kills to Merric on Hard 5’s bulkier foes. Unfortunately you can't forge the personal tomes. Look at Ceada over there, getting five wings spears a playthrough and being able to forge them up. Merric's dying for a second Excalibur and he only gets it from chapter 24x
7. The Last Promise: It's just Cia and WhatsHisFaceI'veNeverUsed. No pre-promoted Sage in TLP. Cia's a fan favorite, but honestly not spectacular without seraph robe investment. She's level 1 in chapter 7 of Siegfried mode. It's not a difficult map and yet you'll find it's hard to keep her alive at just 16 HP. Pumping her with buyable robes does solve her greatest problem however. And high Speed/Luck makes her a somewhat competent dodge tank that can really exploit 1-2 range as enemies crash into her. She works under these conditions, but that money could have gone to anyone else. 
8. FE9: I’m pretty back and forth on whether FE9's mages are good or bad. Their value goes up the more staff users you allow to die, and whether you have a master seal to spare on them. I would certainly raise at least one on an iron man. As combat units I don’t think they’re very good, at any stage of the game. Tome MT is the lowest it’s ever been in FE9, and that undermines the elemental weaknesses on laguz and flier units. 2 times 2 is just 4 base damage. Magic’s way too expensive to forge as well, but Illyana will appreciate the cheap weight reduction costs. The prepromoted sages are the real travesty, as knife access gives them absolutely nothing. I don't even think they make decent filler for the high deployment maps like most other pre-promotes due to lacking durability. Oh and the Physic situation. FE9 mages get E staves instead of D staves on promotion. But Physic went from B to C rank. But it gets even better. Wexp from staff usage is about 50% higher, so you'll shoot up in ranks relatively quick. Just 24 Heals. 
9. FE8: I’m not a fan of FE8’s magic users that don’t promote to Bishop or Summoner. Even setting aside Ewan, I don’t think Lute is particularly good. Woefully fragile in a game with high enemy density. Mages tend to out damage physical classes by virtue of targeting Res, but I’d offer that FE8’s new enemy varieties dilute the difference when looking at the game as a whole. A zombie with high hp and neither def nor res would be hurt just as much as Lute theoretically swinging a sword. Lute’s main saving grace is her mage knight promotion. A horse in exchange for light magic is a good trade, even if light magic would let her get an edge against monster magic, which is classified as Dark. The Gorgon map is very dangerous for her because Stone gets +15 hit on anyone carrying anima magic. And the Necrodragons of the final maps are likely to kill her outright with their extremely accurate, defense piercing breath attack. Saleh’s not great. Useable, but his only advantage over a raised Lute is having more physical bulk – as much as a level 20/1 Artur which isn’t especially tanky
10. Three Houses: I never found a lot of value in combat magic in Maddening mode and I don’t very well see how their case improves on the lower difficulties. Even if you put them in a setting where they are pulling ORKOs, other classes can boast the same thing with greater mobility and durability. Granted my experience is in a No DLC format, and combat mage classes seem to be the most (only?) transformed arena worth mentioning. The only enemy type they’re uniquely proficient at handling is armor knights, which aren’t much of a threat, generally. The units themselves are never worthless – chip damaging enemies and not falling behind in levels thanks to Heal access. But I always feel I’d get more value in that deployment slot from another Bishop packing Warp, Rescue, or Physic and doesn’t mind carrying gambits like Stride, Retribution, Blessing, etc. Leave combat to the units that don’t constantly need protection.
11. Echoes: Why are Echoes mages better than FE2? Well there’s the usual stuff – 2 RN and supports patch up their hit rates. Growth rates are better. But if it were just things like that then their position against other classes wouldn’t change. They fixed female mages. They promote at level 12, which you could actually reach in normal gameplay. Magic hit rate is newly boosted by their stats. Male Sages got an extra +10 hit skill, but it replaces their 5 HP each turn from the original. Not a great trade when most male mages are already packing excalibur for good accuracy. Trade doesn’t end your turn anymore, so the Mage Ring can get a lot of use from a conga line of mages. None of these are game breaking changes, but I think they add up enough. I would still argue that mages are the worst longterm class of Echoes, but that’s probably down to a lot of my personal biases and playstyles. They’re not thoroughly mediocre. Their Act 1 and 2 performance is great, you just have to accept that it will never be that good afterward.
12. FE2: It’s such a shame that Valentian mages have to be ranked so low when they’re mechanically so interesting. But “fun” doesn’t always translate to “Good”. Excalibur is good. It’s best feature here is the 100 accuracy. In FE2, magic accuracy isn’t affected by Skill. So Excalibur’s hit rate is 100 – Enemy’s AS, and that’s fantastic for FE2 hit rate standards. It’s just a shame that the HP costs make it feel like they are taking counterattacks when they’re not. Mage Villagers are great in Act 1, but speed shrines are fairly necessary to keep their AS high enough to avoid getting doubled by later opponents. Ryuto is basically Stronger Mage Robin without the exp investment. Mage Kliff learns Excalibur two levels sooner than in Echoes but it’s just not soon enough. All Celica route mages are bad past Act 2, because instead of chokepoints to pelt with Thunder, you have open deserts and swamps in which you can move just one space a turn. The Act 4 Mage Ring lets them attack from 5 spaces away with any spell, but only one spell per turn. Trading an item ends your turn. And then there’s the female mages. They promote at level 20, which is another way of saying Mae, Sonya, and Delthea don’t promote at all. The experience gain is so bent against you past level 10 that it will never happen, and the promotion doesn’t provide them with anything you want anyway. 
13. FE1: Magic is at its wimpiest in FE1. Despite every enemy in the game having 0 Res, each spell deals fixed damage. You won’t be one rounding anyone with 5 MT Fire, even if one of those shots crit. Merric’s Excalibur can pull some kills with a crit, and it's a good option for safely punching down armor knight bosses. But it’s 33 uses won’t last forever. Hammerne does not work on it, or Aura. And since Strength and Skill don’t impact a mage’s performance, there’s little justification to feed them exp past level 10. All they want is to promote for Staff utility, and that happens very late. Chapter 19 of 25 is where you can promote your first mage. Once they are promoted however, their high weapon level lets them immediately take on warping and physic duty. Infinite stat boosters shops don't offer them any endgame boost in performance either, because again, stats don't matter.

If I put this into tiers, #1 is A tier. #2-4 is B tier, 5-10 is C tier, the rest are D.

Next week we're tackling Manaketes and Beast units

[Armchair General]

They're almost bordering on being redundant in 3 Houses on account of how poorly they scale. But they're certainly are cheaper to run...In a game that has been giving you an lot of free stuff. But the limited usage isn't exactly an hindrance, most of the time

The ones in SoV are mainly there to fill up the ranks in your dungeon-diving expeditions. I actually liked the hp costs for the spells, partially because it kept my clerics from falling behind and it kind of increased the difficulty. But the spell list is kind of lackluster, tbh.

 

Fates locks them in an very specific role in regards to accuracy. Almost to the point where I had to start using every magical weapons that I had.

With Engage, well it works. Only bad thing about it is that the decision for most of the cast is choosing between mobility, healing, or attack power in the absence of the usual method of collecting skills

 

[SnowFire]

As a note, it might be worth having a separate topic for mixed physical / magic units - your 3H Mortal Savant / Echoes Priestess / Fates Oni Chieftain
 / (Honorary Awakening Trickster & Fates Adventurer, which uses staves but also potentially magic weapons?).  It occurs to me that they don't seem right to stick in this topic but then I think they fall through the cracks.

Anyway...

Very Good: FE6, Engage

Good: FE7, FE11, Fates

Average: FE8, FE9, Echoes

Meh: FE10, FE12, Awakening

--

Enemy Resistance mostly sucks in FE6, with the few exceptions (enemy Bishops, etc.) easily dealt with by the rest of your team.  Result is that Lugh goes on a giant killing spree if you want with his High-Speed acceptable-Magic build never getting punished by Resistance tanks, while also providing handy healing if desired later.  Lilina, while scarier to use due to her fraility, is just fine as well.  Hugh is weird but I'd count his wacky recruitment against him, not the Mage class.

Over in Engage, Sages are really more like "better Bishops" as they muscle High Priest out of their role.  Staves are really good in Engage, and while Griffin Knights and Ivy / Hortensia can handle some of the burden, having a Sage in the backlines is still quite handy, as they can also smash with high-powered magic too.

Erk is fine in FE7, but we all know that this is mostly hyping up the almighty Pent (and Athos if he counts?).  1-2 range for easy chipping, very safe, can do staffing, Pent comes pre-leveled.  Erk is a little dangerous to use early on, though, as he's frail enough to die.

FE11 enemies have trash Resistance (and PCs, for that matter!) as some homage to spells doing fixed damage in FE1.  So Sages can put some real hurt on if you can keep them alive. (Although the higher difficulty levels also feature lovely ninja reinforcements if you're trying to level Linde or something.)

Fates Onmyoji is just a solid class for all the usual reasons.  Note that Horse Spirit really helps salvage Orochi's durability & speed issues, and having powerful ranged chip can really matter vs. some of the scarier enemies.  Probably Sakura's best promotion in Birthright, and fine in Revelations too.  Hayato isn't fantastic, although with the right breeding program he can help make a better Rhajat at least.

FE8 is similar to FE7, but Bishops get a reason to exist in Slayer, and Mage Knight is a valid promotion for some of the mages.  As a result, many units don't really want to go Sage - Ewan probably wants Sorcerer, Artur / Moulder at least consider Bishop, and Lute probably prefers Mage Knight unless you really need the higher caps for Lagdou.  But it's not like Sage is bad if you do make a Sage Lute / Ewan.

FE9 varies a bit by difficulty level.  Keeping Soren / Ilyana alive can be tricky given their frailty, but they do provide the promise of both offense and staves later.  Calill is pretty decent too.  Their value goes up some on Maniac mode, as the tankier enemies mean that their overkill offense (e.g. Soren's Adept) is less "wasted" than on Hard.  (Also for the less cool reason of there being so many $%^& enemies that one of the classic advantages of fighters, availability of better forged weapons, gets worn down on Maniac some, since FE9 wants to really restrict Tome forges for whatever dumb reason.)

Echoes - Hard to judge, assuming this is just Sages and not Priestesses.  In theory, +10 Hit is handy and maybe worth not being able to hit both defenses, especially since Echoes has really good Rings that make the cost of a Priestess equipping a Sword high anyway.  In practice, all the Priestesses tend to be better combat units than the Sages.  Don't get me wrong, Boey is a total usable unit especially if given just a drink or two of the initial Speed fountain, but he's worse than Mae.  Meanwhile Luthier competes with the Lightning Sword on Alm's route and gets swamped quickly by his sister, and Nomah is just a backline healer.

People complain a lot about mages in FE10, and maybe I need to play Hard mode some day (with the enemy ranges hacked back in), but...  while enemy Resistance is definitely higher and their stat caps are annoyingly low, they're still basically usable.  Natural Range 1-2 is just really powerful, and you do get some siege tomes for shenanigans like Meteor. And you need to bring at least a few staffers along anyway, and as already discussed the Bishop/Saint crew isn't great in this game, so why not a Sage?  I'm definitely a fan of Calill, at least.  (But they have the usual FE10 problem of being in a game where they're often competing with pre-leveled super-units, of course).

This might be an abstain on FE12 but I'm ranking them low due to the fact enemies have Resistance scores again compared to FE11, and their own high Res doesn't even help tons since a lot of enemy mages pack Glower which ignores Sage's own good Res.  This is also the game where people recommend switching Sages over to Swordmaster-with-a-Levin Sword if you want to keep up at offense.

Awakening...  well, Sage does get Tomefaire eventually, which can be a handy endgame build option.  But they're competing with Dark Mage / Sorcerer, which is rough.  Their value increases, especially in the early game, by how patient / lucky you are with the Barracks...  Celica's Gale is a dominating, dominating Tome usable right from the start (just C rank to use it, which is nothing!) but you can't just buy it, you're stuck relying on the RNG.  And similar to FE11, Awakening is a game with ninja reinforcements on higher difficulties that are really strong and can end your frail mages like Miriel / Ricken / Laurent easily.  Robin / Morgan are already providing some tome damage from Tactician (or Sorcerer / Dark Flier if you moved Robin over to that) so Sages aren't really that "necessary", either.

[samthedigital]

3 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Celica's Gale is a dominating, dominating Tome usable right from the start (just C rank to use it, which is nothing!) but you can't just buy it, you're stuck relying on the RNG.

It's also a Renown reward. It takes two playthroughs or so to get it if I remember correctly, but I could be off by a bit, and it would depend on a few factors I guess.

3 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Sage does get Tomefaire eventually, which can be a handy endgame build option.

Notably it's a good option for Robin in a solo/carry to help against Grima. It's also great for Miriel so that she can have another source of exp and get Tomefaire relatively early for Laurent. Her Rescue range is noteworthy too; if I remember correctly it ends up being practically map wide eventually.

3 hours ago, SnowFire said:

And similar to FE11, Awakening is a game with ninja reinforcements on higher difficulties that are really strong and can end your frail mages like Miriel / Ricken / Laurent easily.

On Lunatic and lower the path of least resistance is probably just to not field frail units, but it is deterministic, so you could look up or memorize when they spawn. It's almost necessary to do that for Lunatic+ because enemies can spawn with nasty skills and kill bulky units too.

Edited November 18, 2023 by samthedigital

[SnowFire]

Celica's Gale only has 20 uses, and the Brave effect chews through uses fast, so even if you bake in a Renown reward copy for free, being patient / lucky at Barracks drops is still rewarded, unfortunately.  But yes, even just one is very strong for the first half for efficiently killing Wyverns and the like.  (If you're in the postgame, you can consider getting an Armsthrift Sage by a jaunt into Merc, but there's no time early game and your Lck scores aren't high enough to even matter.)

On reinforcements: I'm familiar, yes, but I don't think that helps Sage's case.  "Using frail classes in this game requires you to have a Reinforcements guide open or to have memorized them from the last playthrough" is one of the worst things to say about a class! 

Lunatic+, eh, sort of.  If you're keeping sane on L+ you're doing DLC grinding then Galeforcing to kill the boss ASAP before reinforcements spawn because they're such incredible BS.  So I don't know if I would consider researching the reinforcements as a baked in "you're doing this anyway" deal.

[Shadow Mir]

14 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Fates Onmyoji is just a solid class for all the usual reasons.  Note that Horse Spirit really helps salvage Orochi's durability & speed issues, and having powerful ranged chip can really matter vs. some of the scarier enemies.  Probably Sakura's best promotion in Birthright, and fine in Revelations too.  Hayato isn't fantastic, although with the right breeding program he can help make a better Rhajat at least.

Really? Because I'd say Fates mages were pretty damn bad (maybe even on Radiant Dawn levels)... Orochi has armor level speed (and no, Horse Spirit does not magically make it good), and is *very* squishy (and no, Horse Spirit does not fix that. It's not a miracle worker), Hayato comes underleveled (that said, he gets a big glow up in Revelation), and Rhajat cannot hit the broad side of a barn. I am very hesitant to consider that "good". Oh, and there's Izana as well. He sucks too, being "blessed" with a personal skill that is a fucking sabotage to your side, and coming late on top of that.

 

D tier in Radiant Dawn. Magic is at its nadir in Radiant Dawn. As are mages in general. Mages already had problems in Path of Radiance, but they're even worse off in RD. First off, enemy resistance is rather high; except for certain unit types, enemy resistance isn't that much lower than defense. Second, they are stuck with weak weapons. The might gap between physical weapons and magic is pretty high, not helped by the fact that mages are stuck with El tomes for almost all the game. Making matters worse, long range magic got nerfed. Their weight was severely jacked up, and they're only as effective as second level spells. Blizzard didn't get affected that much, but Meteor, Purge, and especially Bolting got hit pretty badly (Purge got its might halved, and Bolting went from 13 might to only 6!). Then there's the fact that mages generally have low speed. Also, they don't get staves until third tier, at which point they have to worry about the fact that staves are equipped when used.

D tier in Fates. After Awakening, where magic was pretty much at its best, magic got slammed with the nerf bat. Again. And the mage selection, as stated earlier, is really lackluster. It's just hard to justify fielding any of the mages you get, with Revelation Hayato being the only one that is remotely usable. "Only one unit in this class is good, but only on a specific route!" is a VERY damning indictment of a class! Also, it's difficult to warrant picking Onmyoji over the alternative options for Sakura, Azama, OR Mitama. Oh, and Basara sucks really badly, with useless skills and an uninspiring stat spread. On top of this, magic got put in the weapon triangle, meaning it has to worry about WTD, whereas it didn't in Awakening. Did I mention that this game invented a new class and weapon type that makes life hard for mages? Because it did. I know that I couldn't expect mages to be on the level they were in Awakening, but the class sets the bar really damn low here. Oh, and unlike in Awakening,  Tomefaire doesn't do double duty, as the magic boosting effect was nixed. Not that it would have helped, since ranged staves have fixed range.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

On reinforcements: I'm familiar, yes, but I don't think that helps Sage's case.  "Using frail classes in this game requires you to have a Reinforcements guide open or to have memorized them from the last playthrough" is one of the worst things to say about a class! 

It does help some units for the people that do memorize and/or look up the spawns while playing though. I'm not going to argue that it's good game design or anything like that, but it is technically a skill that can be acquired.

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

Lunatic+, eh, sort of.  If you're keeping sane on L+ you're doing DLC grinding then Galeforcing to kill the boss ASAP before reinforcements spawn because they're such incredible BS.  So I don't know if I would consider researching the reinforcements as a baked in "you're doing this anyway" deal.

I would be more inclined to assume no DLC personally, but I also didn't find Lunatic+ to be as bad as advertised, so take that for what it's worth. I used some of the kill boss maps to farm exp for some of the more elaborate kill boss and route maps later on in the game.

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

being patient / lucky at Barracks drops is still rewarded, unfortunately

Yeah, RNG from Anna, event tiles, and Barracks are certainly not one of Awakening's highlights in my opinion.

[Dark Holy Elf]

For the purpose of this thread, I'm defining a mage as an infantry class which uses "anima" magic (meaning magic which includes at least one of fire / lightning / wind, though not necessarilly all) as its primary weapon, or tied for primary with staves. I agree that hybrid classes don't feel like they really belong here, and may slip through the cracks as a result, but since there aren't very many of them, I think that's okay.

1t. Binding Blade: One of the best classes in a vacuum in this game. Fire is super-accurate in a game where this matters, enemy res is terrible in this game, Aircalibur shreds wyverns, Forblaze is gotten reasonably early, staves on promotion, there's a hell of a lot to like here. Its downside is its members: Lugh is good (but not absolutely incredible, he'd love to have a better magic base/growth) and the other two mages in this game have issues. That said, the class is good enough that it manages to make Lilina a decent unit (because goodness knows a Level 1 unit in Chapter 8 would be trash most other classes), so I think that says good things about it.

1t. Engage: I waffled a lot on this vs. Binding Blade; they're basically tied. Sage is certainly a good class; tomes are strong and provide 3-range options, and there are some very nice emblem synergy the class has too (Byleth and Corrin). They can also use pretty much all the staves you want, especially if you have staff proficiency. They aren't quite as good as Mage Knights at combat, but the emblem bonuses and staff access make up for it. Pandreo and Citrinne are examples of good units for whom this has an argument to be their best class. The only knock on it is that Ivy exists and has a flying version.

3. Three Houses: Monk is just the best Beginner class period, since they all have about the same stats but magic is really good! Mage is nice too, they now lose move to infantry but have both white and black magic, and the free Fire is also very handy for folks like Lysithea, Hubert, Dorothea, and Marianne who have less accurate / heavier D rank spells. Warlock... is the weak part of the game for this class line, though how much so depends a bit on DLC. Without it, they're still quite good, since they're largely better than Bishop (+1 magic and Tomefaire > Heal+10 is part of it, but the bigger part is that only a select few units actually want to reach A faith, while every mage wants to reach A reason, preferably S), although the 4 move at this tier does sting (some units, like Hubert and Lorenz, are probably better becoming magic combat art bots in a more mobile class). With DLC, Dark Flier and Valkyrie are good and obviously this devalues Warlock (though it still has the most power and the double uses can matter a lot for siege tomes). Then Gremory comes along and makes a pretty good case for best magical class with its +5 magic mod and double spell uses, while being easy to qualify for. All around they're good just because magic access is very good in 3H; Warp / Physic / Rescue / Fortify / Silence are all very neat, and they have the ability to just strike at crazy ranges which trivializes maps. I've done an all mage run of Maddening; it was only barely harder than a normal game, far easier than my other "theme" runs.

4. Blazing Blade: Compared to Binding, the accuracy niche is largely gone (other things gained hit, bosses are less evasive), Aircalibur and Forblaze are gone, and Monk -> Bishop exists with its C rank staves as competition. The class no longer really stands out, but it's not bad. And it has Pent, who certainly does stand out. Decent class overall.

5. Fates: Diviner/Onmyoji is kinda similar to the GBA class so it slides in around here, although Strategist is better if you can get to it. You can stick it out with them for Tomefaire, though, and Rally Luck + Magic isn't the worst thing for your utility magic class.

6. Sacred Stones: Compared to Blazing Blade, there's even more competition; Mage Knight enters the fray as a promotion for mages in particular. And Saleh's not as good as Pent. Still an okay class.

7. Genealogy: Goodness they're tough to rate here. Being infantry, they're not great at base. Unpromoted is okay enough statwise but not exceptional. Tailtiu is bad, Tinny is also problematic without some pretty specific inheritance. Lewyn is pretty good, Arthur varies from bad to "Lewyn 2.0" (with a promotion which makes him game-breakingly good, but also removes him from the discussion of this class). Ced varies from decent to good. Overall, eh. Not inclined to give too much credit for Forseti, that's really a character-specific thing, and past that they're this low-mobility, low-durability class that sometimes has utility and sometimes doesn't. So pretty mediocre.

8. Awakening: Unfortunately Nosferatu is the dominant magic strat in this game, so everyone prefers Dark Mage to this. Dark Flier and Valkyrie are also just better. I don't think anyone really wants to reclass to Mage/Sage, and the characters who start in it... Miriel's okay but wants to get to Dark Mage, Ricken is somewhat less okay. I don't recall how good Laurent is, but see Miriel for him anyway. That said the class is... all right, in that it doesn't have actively bad move. And if you do end up with Celica's Gale, that's cool I suppose. This lets it beat Tellius mages.

9. Path of Radiance: Mages get a move penalty in this one, which stings. They're also very squishy. I think sometimes people can overestimate in their mind how much squishier mages are than other classes, but in Tellius? It's legit. Soren averages like 10 less def by lategame than even mid-defence physical units like Marcia and Astrid. Other than that, tome might is weak and hard to forge. Siege tomes are a neat little exception, being very strong, but good luck getting enough weapon exp to use more than one. Calill tries to save this class by showing up with competent bases and good weapon ranks, but doesn't have staves... then again, with thier low move, sages aren't very good at using staves in this game anyway.

10. Radiant Dawn: See PoR. Tome might's a little better (and tripling it instead of doubling it helps with their niches), but enemy res is higher, and mages either got hit with big availability issues or got even slower in this game. No staves until third tier, either, and E rank is too little too late, then. Probably their worst outing as a class.

I had good experiences with them in SoV but I only played once and I missed some key tools which probably devalue them some (e.g. Hunter's Volley) so I'll abstain.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Dark Holy Elf

[samthedigital]

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Unfortunately Nosferatu is the dominant magic strat in this game, so everyone prefers Dark Mage to this.

Nosferatu isn't necessarily the reason most units prefer Dark Mage/Sorcerer. It has better class bases/caps, and Hex/Anathema are better skills for combat first units. Units like Robin and Morgan can grab Sol depending on difficulty too, so they can use stronger tomes than Nosferatu or go into Sage temporarily for skills without issue.

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Dark Flier and Valkyrie are also just better.

In a vacuum sure, but they don't have access to the magic Rally or Tomefaire which some units want to have before going to one of those two classes since it double dips with staff range and combat utility.

edit: I read Dark Flier as Falcon Knight initially since my use case for that class is a lot closer to Sage/Valkyrie than DF depending on the unit.

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Miriel's okay but wants to get to Dark Mage, Ricken is somewhat less okay.

If I'm being honest I like Sage a lot more than Dark Mage for Miriel. Instead of being a combat unit she becomes a utility unit that can also kill enemies here and there, and Rescue bots are always in high demand depending on playstyle. It also helps with exp distribution since she isn't competing for combat exp to get skills for her kid; more units get to snowball if Miriel goes Sage.

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I don't recall how good Laurent is, but see Miriel for him anyway.

If he inherits Tomefaire he ends up being a much better version of what his mom could be if she went the Sorcerer route instead both because his stats should be better after the initial training arc and because he will probably have inherited a good second skill. I went with Sol in the one playthrough where I used him which was situationally useful, but in retrospect I would probably have gone with Armsthrift so that he can spam forged tomes with impunity. I'm sure that there are other ways to build him though.

Edited November 18, 2023 by samthedigital

[Shadow Mir]

C tier in PoR. Mages have below average move, which hurts; literally every physical class got increased move (including armors!). Tomes have low might, and it doesn't help that you can only forge basic tomes. Long range tomes are an exception, but good luck actually getting the weapon ranks to use more than one. In addition, the AS formula was changed so that AS loss from weight is mitigated by strength, which most mages have little of, both in bases and growths. This means they're generally going to suffer AS penalties, especially Soren, who has the misfortune of having a 5% growth in it. This pretty much restricts him to wind magic, which is at its worst in this game, thanks to double effectiveness and low might making it barely better than thunder when doing effective damage. Calill tries to put in a good showing for the class, but unfortunately, she got stuck with knives in an intentional nerf thanks to Pent and Saleh eclipsing the unpromoted mages in their respective games.

[Cysx]

17 hours ago, SnowFire said:

And you need to bring at least a few staffers along anyway, and as already discussed the Bishop/Saint crew isn't great in this game, so why not a Sage?

Well that'd be because Sages can't use staves until tier 3 in RD, and start at E. Only Sage with decent staffing is good old Bastian(oh, and Pelleas, but he doesn't qualify really).

... which is ironic, considering PoR.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Cysx

[SnowFire]

Cysx: I was abbreviating things in my head there some, but yes, that sentence had an implicit "bring at least a few staffers to the Tower" in there in my head, just not written on the page.  Whoops!  Anyway, I consider the marginal value of more combat units to start dropping some, and even a low-ranked staffer who also has 1-2 offense has some value.  (And to be clear, RD Sages are still getting a "Below Average" rating here, just I don't consider them hyper-terrible garbage, hence the somewhat defensive tone of "nah it's okay you can use one or two.")

Mir: We'll have to agree to disagree, but you're talking to a local Orochi hyper.  +3 Skl/Spd/Def/Res is truly one of the best D-rank weapons in the series, let alone Fates.  I got good use out of her and found Horse Spirit did help her survive by avoiding key enemy doubles and sometimes even sneaking her own double in if given the right support.  (And most other tome/scroll classes are way worse at it than Diviner / Onmyoji.)

Also, reading Elf's list I realize I forgot to write-up 3H despite thinking about it!  I largely agree, though.  Mage -> Warlock -> Gremory gets a Good ranking, it's very usable. (I dunno if I'd give credit for Monk here as that seems closer to Ewan's Pupil or the like, though.)  Mage has a great mastery skill, Warlock has the 2x uses + Faire which vary in strength by character (very good for Dorothea / Hanneman / Constance that have Meteor / Bolting with few natural uses, less helpful for the Lorenzs / Mercedes without standout spells), and Gremory gets +1 Move and a great class Magic boost.  While the existence of Caduceus and maybe Thrysus is more a credit to any magic-using class than just the Warlock / Gremory line, it does enable crazy range games.

Edited November 19, 2023 by SnowFire

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah to chime in, Orochi is a legitimate unit and her speed is more workable than you might think.

I'm going to take a snapshot of Chapter 23 Birthright, both because it's the map I'm currently up to in my current run but also because it's generally considered one of the harder maps in the game. Let's see how Orochi does:

Orochi, 20/7 Onmyoji, has 29 magic and 13 speed (rounding down 13.55). Let's give her another Onmyoji as a pairup (they're not exactly hard to come by, Izana works at worst, obviously one she supports such as Azama would be better) and a +1 Horse Spirit.

Orochi's Atk: 29 + 2 (Mag+2) + 6 (Horse Spirit) + 1 (B rank... A is possible by now too) + 4 (pairup) + 2 (Magic Tonic) = 44
Orochi's Spd: 13 + 3 (Horse Spirit) + 4 (pairup) + 2 (Speed Tonic) = 22

This doubles and kills the Dark Knights, Great Knights, Sorcerers (surprising but true), and Malig Knights. She's 1 speed away from doubling the Wyvern Lords, 2 away from doubling the Paladins. If you swap her Onmyoji pairup for a Swordmaster, she'll kill the Wyvern Lords, but not the Sorcerers, so it's a matter of what you want there. She'll have a hard time killing the Bow Knights and Strategists unassisted.

This is good! You might say "I'm sure other units can do this too" but it's harder than you think in many cases. Orochi's magic is just so high that most other units can't do the kind of damage she does. I feel pretty confident saying that at least 75% of the cast can't do as well as her here with this level of investment (i.e. not relying on stat boosters, overlevelling, or outside support like rallies and auras).

Orochi's squishy, you say? Well... kinda. Thanks to Horse Spirit her defence/res are pretty good (and her speed is good enough to avoid doubles from anything) so she can take one hit from everything on this map, even with her bad HP. And that's... often all she has to take, because by setting her up to double, she fills up her dual guard gauge fast. If she enters an enemy phase with at least 40% of her dual guard gauge filled (i.e. the minimum if she one-rounded something on the previous player phase), she'll be able to take two enemy attacks. If she enters the enemy phase with the gauge 100% filled, she'll be able to take three. That will be two or three dead enemies on the next player phase, allowing you to press forward. And speaking of the player phase, she'll of course be able to one-round something on that, too.

There's also a number of combinations she can take two hits from anyway, if you do have some sort of aura behind her (Gentilhomme, Inspiration, Sakura). The specifics vary but it's quite possible.

17 hours ago, samthedigital said:

If I'm being honest I like Sage a lot more than Dark Mage for Miriel. Instead of being a combat unit she becomes a utility unit that can also kill enemies here and there, and Rescue bots are always in high demand depending on playstyle. It also helps with exp distribution since she isn't competing for combat exp to get skills for her kid; more units get to snowball if Miriel goes Sage.

That's fair. My own preferences for staff users involve units who start with them (particularly Libra and Anna... the latter even has +1 move) or highly mobile users like Falcon Knights. Sage doesn't really stand out at this niche to me; the extra magic is nice, but I find movement is more important than magic for Rescue, and like Falcons she has to start at E rank for the purpose of non-Rescue staves (why the heck was Rescue E again?). But as you say, Miriel has better killing ability than some other staff users, so I get where you're coming from. I could see sliding Awakening up a spot or two on my list very easily.

8 hours ago, SnowFire said:

(I dunno if I'd give credit for Monk here as that seems closer to Ewan's Pupil or the like, though.)

While it's a bit unusual to see it so early in the game, Monk is the same as Gremory or Sage to me: a class which equally favours attack magic (/tomes) and support magic (/staves), so I figured it belongs here. If you read the definition I used it definitely qualifies. Obviously it's possible to craft a definition that excludes it, too.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Dark Holy Elf

[Cysx]

12 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Cysx: I was abbreviating things in my head there some, but yes, that sentence had an implicit "bring at least a few staffers to the Tower" in there in my head, just not written on the page.  Whoops!  Anyway, I consider the marginal value of more combat units to start dropping some, and even a low-ranked staffer who also has 1-2 offense has some value.  (And to be clear, RD Sages are still getting a "Below Average" rating here, just I don't consider them hyper-terrible garbage, hence the somewhat defensive tone of "nah it's okay you can use one or two.")

I think I'd be a bit harsher, but that's fine. Mostly I really don't think you bring archsages in the tower for staves, in fact you barely need more than one staffer in the tower at all, since you get a free Fortify right before it starts. And now that I've replayed totally remembered that you can't shop at all once you've set foot in there, and how much money you'll be getting from the dozens of now useless weapons you should be selling... yeah, getting Micaiah to S with a bought Arms Scroll (shop sells 5 at that point) is really no problem at all. 

The 5 uses of that Fortify on Micaiah, plus Lehran, that can legit cover the vast majority of your needs without having to deploy additional staffers. If you want one more, Elincia will almost invariably bring more to the party than an Archsage, and your Saints have their own siege tome on top of not needing to pay for staff rank. Really Sages just... aren't very good in the tower, even without the Laguz kings taken into account.

[samthedigital]

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

That's fair. My own preferences for staff users involve units who start with them (particularly Libra and Anna... the latter even has +1 move) or highly mobile users like Falcon Knights. Sage doesn't really stand out at this niche to me; the extra magic is nice, but I find movement is more important than magic for Rescue, and like Falcons she has to start at E rank for the purpose of non-Rescue staves (why the heck was Rescue E again?). But as you say, Miriel has better killing ability than some other staff users, so I get where you're coming from. I could see sliding Awakening up a spot or two on my list very easily.

What units are you using in Falcon Knight for Rescue purposes? Lissa is by far the standout to me, but going through Sage gives her utility rather than swapping to a class where she denies other units combat exp, and her combat is going to stink anyway if she goes into a physical class. The other option is Maribelle, but I generally find Lissa to be superior because Maribelle has two desert maps to contend with close to her joining map. Otherwise units that want to go to DF first come to mind, but it's a different niche. I'm thinking of units like Cordelia or Sumia who still make fantastic Galeforce+Rescue bots, but it takes a while to get that going, and they're not going to have the magic for some of the bigger Rescues.

Quote

she has to start at E rank for the purpose of non-Rescue staves

This isn't such a big deal honestly since Physic isn't really plentiful until later on when Miriel has the staff rank for it, and most staff usage consists of Rescue/Mend/Heal anyway.

Quote

but I find movement is more important than magic for Rescue

I'm not sure whether I agree or not depending on the use case and the unit. In most instances I find that it doesn't make a difference for units with good magic. Miriel for example eventually gets to the point where her Rescue range is effectively map wide even before she swaps to Valk. When she first promotes the worst she'd have to do is pair into someone to grab someone across the map from her starting position, and I can only think of one situation where that was relevant for me. There are some specific situations (mostly one turn boss kills off the top of my head) where having both is important, but generally speaking one of two is enough; Rescue is just ridiculous in Awakening, and the main argument I've seen is that Sage is bad because another class is better. If classes were as open as say Engage I'd be a little more willing to entertain that argument, but even then I'm not fond of it because it pushes discussions to only consider what's best.

Quote

1t. Engage: I waffled a lot on this vs. Binding Blade; they're basically tied. Sage is certainly a good class; tomes are strong and provide 3-range options, and there are some very nice emblem synergy the class has too (Byleth and Corrin). They can also use pretty much all the staves you want, especially if you have staff proficiency. They aren't quite as good as Mage Knights at combat, but the emblem bonuses and staff access make up for it. Pandreo and Citrinne are examples of good units for whom this has an argument to be their best class. The only knock on it is that Ivy exists and has a flying version.

I'll use Engage as a quick example of this. Mage Knight is better at combat; Citrinne in particular appreciates the extra speed from MK, and staff utility is best covered by other units. The Emblem synergy isn't as useful as giving it to other classes. Speed and all stats are far better for the Byleth Instruct, and Corrin appreciates more movement to spam Draconic Hex provided the player is playing quickly enough to make use of Dreadful Aura every turn. I can say that and also agree with most of what you're saying except Sage being anyone's best class.

Edited November 19, 2023 by samthedigital

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Mir: We'll have to agree to disagree, but you're talking to a local Orochi hyper.  +3 Skl/Spd/Def/Res is truly one of the best D-rank weapons in the series, let alone Fates.  I got good use out of her and found Horse Spirit did help her survive by avoiding key enemy doubles and sometimes even sneaking her own double in if given the right support.  (And most other tome/scroll classes are way worse at it than Diviner / Onmyoji.)

Very funny, because I do not remember you hyping Orochi up. *Ever*. Until this thread, that is. And even if I didn't believe Horse Spirit was overrated to Mount Everest and back, needing to have it superglued to her just to make her look serviceable is telling. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for an ubermensch or anything like that, but having only one good stat is NOT the trademark of a good unit when their other stats are mediocre to shit. In fact, that tends to cement a unit as bad. Which describes Orochi to a T. 

6 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Yeah to chime in, Orochi is a legitimate unit and her speed is more workable than you might think.

I'm going to take a snapshot of Chapter 23 Birthright, both because it's the map I'm currently up to in my current run but also because it's generally considered one of the harder maps in the game. Let's see how Orochi does:

Orochi, 20/7 Onmyoji, has 29 magic and 13 speed (rounding down 13.55). Let's give her another Onmyoji as a pairup (they're not exactly hard to come by, Izana works at worst, obviously one she supports such as Azama would be better) and a +1 Horse Spirit.

Orochi's Atk: 29 + 2 (Mag+2) + 6 (Horse Spirit) + 1 (B rank... A is possible by now too) + 4 (pairup) + 2 (Magic Tonic) = 44
Orochi's Spd: 13 + 3 (Horse Spirit) + 4 (pairup) + 2 (Speed Tonic) = 22

This doubles and kills the Dark Knights, Great Knights, Sorcerers (surprising but true), and Malig Knights. She's 1 speed away from doubling the Wyvern Lords, 2 away from doubling the Paladins. If you swap her Onmyoji pairup for a Swordmaster, she'll kill the Wyvern Lords, but not the Sorcerers, so it's a matter of what you want there. She'll have a hard time killing the Bow Knights and Strategists unassisted.

This is good! You might say "I'm sure other units can do this too" but it's harder than you think in many cases. Orochi's magic is just so high that most other units can't do the kind of damage she does. I feel pretty confident saying that at least 75% of the cast can't do as well as her here with this level of investment (i.e. not relying on stat boosters, overlevelling, or outside support like rallies and auras).

Orochi's squishy, you say? Well... kinda. Thanks to Horse Spirit her defence/res are pretty good (and her speed is good enough to avoid doubles from anything) so she can take one hit from everything on this map, even with her bad HP. And that's... often all she has to take, because by setting her up to double, she fills up her dual guard gauge fast. If she enters an enemy phase with at least 40% of her dual guard gauge filled (i.e. the minimum if she one-rounded something on the previous player phase), she'll be able to take two enemy attacks. If she enters the enemy phase with the gauge 100% filled, she'll be able to take three. That will be two or three dead enemies on the next player phase, allowing you to press forward. And speaking of the player phase, she'll of course be able to one-round something on that, too.

There's also a number of combinations she can take two hits from anyway, if you do have some sort of aura behind her (Gentilhomme, Inspiration, Sakura). The specifics vary but it's quite possible.

That is a very, very, *VERY* generous definition of "legit" you have there... all I am getting from this assessment is that Orochi needs a LOT of investment and resources that could have gone to better units, as well as needing to use a specific weapon, to look good. Also, Orochi's high magic ain't enough to redeem her in the face of her statistical weakness... oh, everywhere fucking else.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

That is a very, very, *VERY* generous definition of "legit" you have there... all I am getting from this assessment is that Orochi needs a LOT of investment and resources that could have gone to better units, as well as needing to use a specific weapon, to look good. Also, Orochi's high magic ain't enough to redeem her in the face of her statistical weakness... oh, everywhere fucking else.

The "investment" of a weapon which you get one of for free and can buy more of for 2100 gold, a pairup (which anyone needs to be effective at enemy phase on that map), and a couple tonics? Really?

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

but having only one good stat is NOT the trademark of a good unit

There are certainly good Fire Emblem stats who manage to have only one good stat, and Orochi actually has three (Magic, Skill, Res). But regardless, her magic is so good that you can get away with giving her a weaker weapon which raises her other stats by 3, and the proof is in the pudding: she has enough magic/speed to one-round a large number of enemies at 1-2 range. If you think Orochi sucks, post a build for a unit typically considered mid tier or below (I'll let you choose who) which is more impressive at one-rounding at equal or less investment than the one I posted.

3 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Rescue is just ridiculous in Awakening, and the main argument I've seen is that Sage is bad because another class is better.

I never claimed it was bad? I'm a bit confused by this barrage of multi-quotes. I think the class is fine (I described it as "all right" in my ratings post, and then acknowledged that I might be underrating it a bit in my previous response to you). I just like some other classes better for both tome combat and staff use. If you feel that way about Engage Sage, that's fine. I think Engage Sage is better because it's more competitive with its competition on move (only losing by 1 instead of 2, and getting class advantages so the move's not a total loss) and IMO it's more competitive on combat too (I suspect I value Nosferatu much more highly than you).

[SnowFire]

2 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Very funny, because I do not remember you hyping Orochi up. *Ever*.

I guess you learned something new about me then!  I'm a fan of Orochi.  Not Ryoma-tier or anything, or even Hinoka-tier, but then most characters aren't.  Now you know.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Ah, the Mage and the Sage. Sure, I've got some Thyme to consider these two. I'd throw in some Parsley and Rosemary, too, but unfortunately they're out of Season. Regardless, they're staple classes at this point. So, which kind of flavor do they add to the game? Ranked from foulest to most flavorful:

Spoiler

11. Radiant Dawn. Unsurprisingly, this is the nadir (or is it nardil?) of Mages for the series. Lower movement than physical infantry, check. Low-might tomes that are expensive to forge, check. Mediocre statlines and caps, check. No access to staves until the lategame, check. Weirdly high enemy RES, yes. Ilyana is an EXP Thief, Tormod forgets to level up before Part IV, Calill doesn't have enough time to grow, and Bastian shows up super late. Soren is the only usable one, but only because every member of the Greil Mercenaries is usable, as Part III gives them a long training arc. Effective damage against laguz would be nice... except that there are only 5 chapters where you fight Laguz, and just 2 of them in which you can take advantage of this weakness. Oh, and Tormod's Celerity can (and should) just be swapped around this time.

10. Path of Radiance. Most of the Tellius Mage issues, like weak tomes and lower movement, originated here. But there were further issues - Sages like Calill and Bastian got Knives (useless), rather than Staves (useful). The Mages you promote can gain either, and I'd like to meet the schmuck who gave their Soren a Stiletto rather than a Heal Staff. Still, their stats aren't so bad relative to the game itself, with decent numbers of slow, low-Res enemies whom you could actually damage. And Tormod's Celerity makes him a unique investment unit, in a game with no mounted Mages. Mages bad here, but they could've been worse.

9. Fates. Orochi is slow, and while her Capture skill has its uses, Birthright doesn't offer a ton of appealing enemy captives. Hayato joins kind of late, at least in BR - in Rev, he's actually pretty solid. Izana, if he counts, is a lategame filler with... a skill that weakens nearby allies? Lovely. The biggest problem with magic in Fates, though, is that it's totally disadvantaged against Shurikens (the best weapon type in the game). The one exception is Calamity Gale, which is great... but then you've got to watch out for Bow users. The Diviners and Onmyoji aren't totally useless, but they're definitely not premier among infantry magic users across the series.

8. Awakening. Miriel is pretty "not bad", and Ricken is... uh... certainly a unit. There are a lot of Tomes to pick from, but Mage and Sage aren't necessarily the best users of them. Dark Knight and Dark Flier are more mobile; Tactician gets Veteran; and, Dark Mage gets Nosferatu. Oh, I forgot about Laurent until just now - he's fine, but like his mom, is best reclassed to Dark Mage.

7. Genealogy. And the heroine Fjalar spake, "Woe to the player who assumes her Mage shall promote into Sage! For she shall know only weeping, gnashing of teeth, and no access to the Light tome." They're all over the map here - Azelle (and Arthur) start with terrible movement, but end in a great spot, by promoting to Mage Knight. Lewyn has great combat, then gets Staves upon promotion, but stays infantry forever. Tiltyu (and Tinne, or Linda) gain Staves and Swords (haha) upon promotion, plus Adept and a spot of move, while Amid only gets suffering in life. And Julia... she promotes to Sage, but starts in Shaman, so does she even count? How should I know? In any case, the real strong points here are "Forseti user", "B-rank Staffbots", "Horsey Mages", and "Ced slash Hawke my beloved". Anyway, they all broadly have good-to-great combat, but some limitations that make them challenging to use, even if they all play differently.

6. FE7. So, I used to think that Erk, Lucius, and Canas all had their own respective strengths and weaknesses. You can use any one or multiple of the three, and they'll get a similar job done. But honestly, I'm starting to view Erk as the "weakest link" of the bunch. He's not offering the power or speed of "Jesus H. Macy, he has 10 base Speed?!?" Lucius, nor does he bring the bulk of CANAS BOIS. He has WTA over Light magic, but enemy Monks are trash, so who even cares? And Nino is like Erk, but with a bit higher growths and coming two-thirds of a game later, so have fun! Pent is the one saving grace here - instant access to all Staves and (non-legendary) Anima, great bases, and an instant A-rank with his lovely wife, Louise. Being close to a perfect unit, he comes gracefully late, to avoid trivializing any more of the game than he needs to.

5. Sacred Stones. Lute feels like a perfection of what they were attempting with Erk - a (youthful, purple-haired) earlygame Mage with iffy bases, but great growths, for excellent long-term potential. She suffers WTD against Dark-using enemies (including Monsters), but this time, Sage gives her a one-up, with Light Magic access. Conversely, she can go Mage Knight, and while it only gives 1 extra point of movement, the boost to Con, plus the ability to Rescue-Carry, is pretty welcome. As for Saleh, he's a late-ish-joining Sage with solid bases, but not a ton of room to grow... essentially, a lesser Pent. But hey, an almost perfect unit is still... almost perfect! Ewan... does he even count? If you know what you're doing, you're giving him Dark magic. Anyway, he's bad, but probably more trainable than, say, Nino. Mages and Sages are "pretty good" this time around.

4. Echoes. So, who are the Mages of Echoes? You get Mae and Boey on Celica's route, and possibly Sonya and Nomah later on. Maybe Atlas, if you feel demented in a fun way. As for Alm's side, you don't get Luthier and Delthea until Act III, but any of the Villagers can use it, and it's honestly not terrible on any of them. Kliff is my personal favorite, but I hear Tobin is meta, and Mage Faye is fun when I don't mind shooting myself in the foot by not having a second Cleric. Unfortunately, with no "middle tier", they take a long time to promote - female Mages especially. When they do, they don't gain any movement, but do get Recover - and for Priestesses, Swords. The biggest boon, though, may be the Mage Ring. Essentially a "Thyrsus before Thyrsus", it vastly expands the possible targets for your Mages, and the enemy usually can't counter-attack. I don't think Mages are as good as your Clerics and Saints, but they can still be very useful.

3. Three Houses. Obviously, the class system here is dramatically different from any we've seen elsewhere in the series. "Mage" is pretty much the "default" Intermediate choice for any unit who's going to be doing magical damage. Fiendish Blow is highly desirable for the likes of Lysithea, Constance, and Marianne, turning high-damage spells and magical combat arts into one-shots. Oh, and unlike in most games, Mages can still use the Heal spell. Warlock remains at an unfortunate 4 move, but it has the perfect skill set for a Black (not Dark) Magic user, doubling the charges and giving them the highest-possible power. That's especially desirable for Thoron and siege spells, making this ideal for Dorothea and Hanneman, among others. As for Gremory, I'm counting it, because it feels like the closest thing to a "Sage" in Fodlan. This is usually the preferred endgame class for magical female units who don't really care about their mobility, and just want as many charges of key spells as possible. Oh yeah, and on an ending note - Thyrsus.

2. FE6. In their first post-Kaga game, you could really tell that IS were leaning back on some historical components of the series. Not only is the story a hybrid of FE4 and the Archanea games, but they also decided to take Asbel, put him in a banana costume, and call him "Lugh". He's a legitimately excellent unit, with high power, accuracy, and Speed. Low con? Who cares! They must've ripped some pages out, because Thunder tomes went from 6 Weight (in Erk's time) to 2 Weight. Lilina is a bit more of a nuke, unfortunately joining a bit later, where her frailty is more apparent, but can become something good. Hugh is a "you get what pay for" kind of unit, so if you want to use him, make sure to shell out. No default Sages here, but the Mages are all totally usable. I'd say what "elevates" them is the Aircalibur tome. A high-accuracy, lightweight, broadly buyable, anti-Flier tome in a game most known for its prodigious use of Wyverns. After Bow-users and Berserkers, Aircalibur Mages are your best answer to enemy fliers. 

1. Shadow Dragon. I've doubted myself quite a bit on which game actually has "the best" Mages and Sages. If I were counting "Untitled Leif Game", then I'd put that in first (thanks, Asbel), but I salvaged my sanity by not finishing (and thereby, not counting) it. Anyway, the default Mages and Sages get really cool stuff to their credit. Merric gets instant Excalibur, while Wendell gets that... plus instant Mend... plus weirdly high Speed. Linde is a tactical Aura-nuke and serious investment unit, while Gotoh (wait, should I count him? I didn't count Athos, but Gotoh doesn't have a unique class, he just shares the Sage class) offers some neat support with Fortify and Swarm. Mages still have the usual flaws - physical frailty, low mobility - but when they're useful, they're really useful.

 

Anyway, these are my thoughts on the classes! I don't have the strongest feelings on Mages and Sages, and I don't think there's a huge gap between their "worst" and "best" games. Let me know what you think!

[samthedigital]

50 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think Engage Sage is better because it's more competitive with its competition on move (only losing by 1 instead of 2, and getting class advantages so the move's not a total loss) and IMO it's more competitive on combat too (I suspect I value Nosferatu much more highly than you).

I value Nosferatu just as much as anyone, but I find that people overlook other attributes about the class because Nosferatu exists let alone other classes and strategies that are equally effective in breaking the game. I could share more of my thoughts on Engage Sages if you're interested, but it wasn't really the point of the counter argument.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I never claimed it was bad? I'm a bit confused by this barrage of multi-quotes. I think the class is fine (I described it as "all right" in my ratings post, and then acknowledged that I might be underrating it a bit in my previous response to you). I just like some other classes better for both tome combat and staff use.

Bad is perhaps a strong word, and I wasn't targeting that specifically at you; it's just the general sentiment every unit wants to go into another class instead of Sage because the other class is better instead of talking about the actual merits of the class. It's also just not true because of how experience works as a resource in that game with kids in play. I mentioned Miriel and Lissa; those are two examples of where it can be more valuable to go into Sage to have more strong units to beat the game with. Maribelle also works technically speaking, but she has some other issues; I've already mentioned one of them. Robin wants to go into Sage class too if they're going for a magic based carry job in Lunatic, but Robin and any other Veteran units have the luxury of going into every class they want for skills since they have the stats and skills to make class specific advantages like Nosferatu redundant.

I also want to reiterate something I said in my last post. It's difficult to separate a unit from their class sets. I would absolutely have lower opinion of them as I do with Engage where units can reclass into anything. The only difference is that there still situations where I would level a Sage to 15 in Awakening, but I would never do something comparable in Engage.

[SnowFire]

Sam: Hmm, interesting that you also don't consider DLC grinding.  Tomefaire is a good skill, yes, probably the best thing about Sage, but it's fairly late arriving and not as dominant as some of the other L15 skills you can get (especially on F-Robin, where it's competing with the mighty Galeforce as an X/15 skill, or just a Sorc Robin grabbing Tomebreaker which is also good).  I'd be more willing to hype Sage if we assume some safe DLC grinding to get to the power skills, but it seems just way scarier to safely level a Sage without DLC.  Even on Hard difficulty, enemies can kill Sages very fast; I wanna say enemies generally 2HKO Miriel on Hard and can potentially one-round on Lunatic unless you're overlevelling her or have like a Kellam pair-up or something.

Obviously still has some use as a Rescue / Physic spammer, or just playing it very safe, but per earlier comments, eh, I'll just take a Valkyrie for that role myself for more move.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

Tomefaire is a good skill, yes, probably the best thing about Sage, but it's fairly late arriving and not as dominant as some of the other L15 skills you can get (especially on F-Robin, where it's competing with the mighty Galeforce as an X/15 skill, or just a Sorc Robin grabbing Tomebreaker which is also good).

Tomefaire can be obtained as early as the end of chapter 13 with Rescue spam/grinding (one chapter earlier than buying a Nosferatu tome); you don't even need DLC to do that. It's one of the earlier level 15 skills that non Robin units will get even without that though since Rescue is used a lot in non solo/carry strategies. Robin can pick up multiple level 15 skills, so it's not really a competition, and if they want all the help they can get if they're looking to kill Grima as a magic unit. Sorcerer isn't really a great class choice for killing Grima all things considered.

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

Obviously still has some use as a Rescue / Physic spammer, or just playing it very safe, but per earlier comments, eh, I'll just take a Valkyrie for that role myself for more move.

I can understand the want for playing safe, but assuming that the player knows ambush spawns keeping them safe is a skill; there's no reason that they should die in the same way that a dancer shouldn't be dying even if they're frail. What Valkyrie are you taking though, and how much does that move help you? I've seen it mentioned multiple times in several of these topics, but... There are a list of problems with reclassing units into Troubadour, and reclassing a unit into Valkyrie happens pretty late. That leaves Maribelle, and she has problems in the desert a few chapters after she joins, might not have as good of a Rescue range as Lissa even when factoring in the move*, and she won't pass a great skill to her kid if she stays in that class line. Brady also isn't as good as Laurent from what I remember for what it's worth.

The movement bonus that Valkyrie has is really overstated in my opinion. Movement is king and if everything else is equal I'd go for Valk or Falcon Knight (thought that's without considering skills whatsoever), but oftentimes a Rescue bot is sitting in the back with enough range to grab anyone and the extra movement is just a superfluous stat.

edit:

Quote

Hmm, interesting that you also don't consider DLC grinding.

I mean, not really if I'm being honest. I generally don't consider DLC at all. Grinding is something else entirely, and if I got into it I would be here for a while to be honest lol.

Edited November 20, 2023 by samthedigital

[Cysx]

It's pretty difficult to predict stats or levels in Awakening. In most games you can say "oh, chapter 17, that means promoted level 5 to 10, roughly". But in Awakening ? By chapter 17 units can be anywhere from the end of their first loop through promoted classes to the middle of their third or even fourth(well that's mostly Robin, but I'm pretty sure staff spam can bring anyone there without turtling much). It's very possible for Miriel to ORKO most everything with a Wind tome, tomefaire or not, while taking very low damage during the midgame thus not caring about reinforcements at all, or she can be struggling to make a difference with the best equipment you have to give her.

That being said, past that point caps and enemy uber forges tend to mean you need some form of sustain, or a good team to back you up if you don't. Sage not having the former really is kind of a problem.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Cysx

[samthedigital]

58 minutes ago, Cysx said:

It's pretty difficult to predict stats or levels in Awakening.

If we're talking about predicting levels for other players then I agree, sure, but it is more or less possible to reasonably approximate a unit's levels in your own playthrough. Stats are a little more complicated; it's difficult to predict how exactly a parent that isn't Robin will turn out, but that's just natural in a growths game.

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

That being said, past that point caps and enemy uber forges tend to mean you need some form of sustain, or a good team to back you up if you don't. Sage not having the former really is kind of a problem.

This is the solution to the problem, but as you alluded to it's complicated because it's impossible to have any kind of baseline for comparison unless it's in some specific context. Just using Lunatic as an example I can play a predominantly player phase focused strategy leveling a handful of units without any real form of sustain (probably doable on Lunatic+ depending on your definition of sustain), but I could just solo the game with Fred. The latter is definitely easier, but I'm not sure that a discussion should be focused on how well a class can help solo the game either.

[Cysx]

54 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

If we're talking about predicting levels for other players then I agree, sure, but it is more or less possible to reasonably approximate a unit's levels in your own playthrough.

I guess, but... I'm not sure what that accomplishes for conversation.

54 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

The latter is definitely easier, but I'm not sure that a discussion should be focused on how well a class can help solo the game either.

I shouldn't have used the word team, even for simplicity. Said as much in the past, but it is a bit of chimera to keep a quantity of units worthy of that word competitive in Awaks Lunatic and up. Though children paralogues do help a lot, so it depends if you're optimizing pairings to get as many as possible (I've done it once, that was one long playthrough). Mostly I meant one or two other carries and a few staffers keeping them all alive.

More to the point though, on top of exp being spread thin, it is also very difficult to stop singular units from blowing up out of control. When I think of solos, I generally think of a player making a choice to play the game that way... except when it comes to Awakening, where players have to stop the game from pushing one of their units leagues above the rest, to a point where there's no strategical sense not leaning on them more and more. Then before long, no one else can do combat well but them.

So all I'm saying is, I can sympathize with it being boring to discuss solos, but... the game is kinda tying our hands and all. If you can extract a genuine conversational baseline out of it, more power to you, I sure can't.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Cysx