Importance of flight

[Espinosa]

Clearly being a mounted unit with access to Galeforce/Deliverer is good enough to use a character longterm, but I'm wondering if flight itself is as valuable as it has traditionally been in most FE games.

By that I mainly mean things like, is terrain plentiful? Are bow users easy to keep away from your fliers (thanks to pair-up for example; I still have only a vague idea how that works in practice until I get my hands on the game), and does having Iote's Shield on just one flier solve the issue of bow weakness for good? Since I imagine a player would be tempted to use both Cordelia and Sumia, with an optimal reclassed Dark Flier MU, maybe Cherche or reclassed Panne, maybe more. Also looks like ballistae are absent in this one but I could be wrong. And even with Iote's Shield, it makes a huge difference when you get it. In FE6 you can steal one just as an overpowered flier has joined your party while in FE8 you're about done with the game when you obtain it in the desert chapter. How long does one wait in Awakening?

Oh, and do Barbarian and Berserker retain their traditional terrain-related characteristics?

[Icon of Sin]

There's a bunch of various terrain indeed. Rivers, forests, deserts and even heights are around fairly often, though again there's also a few maps that are indoors or in plains with little terrain variation whatsoever. Then there's enemy archers and wind mages but I suppose those are easy to beat.

There's no Iote Shield until you get the DLC, but if you do I suppose you can slap it on just about anything with hollow leathery flaps sprouting out of their favorite animal. Until then the next best things would be Bowslayer, Tomeslayer or Aegis, but those involve going to level 15 on some class you might not want to stick around long for.

Berserkers walk on mountains and water. I think Barbarians can walk on mountains but don't quote me on it. I suppose you can have some fun shenanigans with Acrobat Berserker!Vaike if you're into that.

Edited March 13, 2013 by Doga Blockovich

[PKLucas531]

There are some chapters where terrain is a big deal, like Ch 24 being almost entirely forest aside from the edges that's a pain for foot units, and Ch 25 having you go either left or right to reach the boss when you could just fly over the mountains in the center(chaining with Galeforce and such) With Galeforce you can basically ignore the structure of any map if you're a flier, how fast you'll get it is another thing.

Iote's Shield would technically be available after beating Chapter 4, but assuming no-grind you wouldn't be able to beat that DLC to grab it right away. The DLC isn't out in America yet so I can't vouch for enemy stats in it, but being in the 3rd or 4th set of DLC I don't think units coming out of Ch 4 could do it. An upside is you can grab as many Iote's Shields as you want provided you can beat the DLC as many times as you want Shields(you get the skill scroll every time you beat it)

Bow weakness is basically nothing if you pair up with someone who can survive the enemies wherever you're going to land. You can max-move the flier then switch to the bulkier unit, and even attack all in one action.

[Othin]

Lyn's DLC is like end of story mode material, at least on Lunatic. Haven't tried it ingame on other difficulties, but I wouldn't think it would change too much?

Bows are incredibly deadly, especially on higher difficulties where you'll see forged Silver Bows everywhere with 50+ Mt against fliers. But the Pair system means fliers can hide behind other units, especially if Galeforce is involved, so with a bit of creativity, you can work around things.

[PKL]

Flight is pretty awesome as usual. You get enough statboosters that you can just stuff your flier with a bunch of them and have them stomp the game. Galeforce and Deliverer are amazing for LTC. As for weaknesses, I don't find them that big of an issue on Hard Mode because of all the defensive boosters + tonics and pair ups. Obviously, you dont want to expose them to more than 1 bow though. Griffon Panne in my experience, doesn't fear bows as much Sumia does but fears Rexcalibur a lot more than Sumia. Forged stuff is extremely dangerous but can be worked around.

[MajorMajora]

I don't find flight that useful. It really isn't worth dealing with weaknesses in my mind. I have found few instances where I had a mounted unit and wished I had a flier, and most of my gameovers are from one of my fliers dying on an enemy phase due to how generally frail they are (especially dargons).

[Redwall]

Forged bows/Wind magic only really become a threat in the last third or so of the campaign, so it's not really a dealbreaker to use fliers, who obviously can pay off big time with Galeforce and simply being able to move over otherwise untraversable [sic?] terrain. However, from poring over others' draft logs, it seems like in Hard mode (and possibly Lunatic, I dunno) it is not difficult to play around these things with flying units.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Flying is pretty viable. Its nice to have a team of fliers. Peeps already mentioned that on higher difficulties, bow/wind weakness is something to keep an eye on. Dual Guard happens but isnt failsafe. Bowbreaker will help deal with that however. Some maps (like Gerome's, Noire's, and Morgan's paralogues and some story chapters are kind of a pain in the butt without a couple of fliers. Galeforce rocks and so does Deliverer. (dat +1 to move when paired!) So if you are down with LTC steamrolling, building your team with lots of fliers isnt a bad idea.

[Comet]

You could also put acrobat on a paladin to avoid the bonus damage against bows. But, acrobat can't go through water.

[Melonhead]

(dat +1 to move when paired!)

+2 If i'm not mistaken.

I've found flight to be not that important, normally just one of the Pegasus Knights work pretty well. I don't even use Cherche that much, except for hammering Generals earlier in the game.

[PKL]

I don't find flight that useful. It really isn't worth dealing with weaknesses in my mind. I have found few instances where I had a mounted unit and wished I had a flier, and most of my gameovers are from one of my fliers dying on an enemy phase due to how generally frail they are (especially dargons).

The fliers (barring Sumia) are far from frail in this game...

[Honestly Vitali]

I'm holding out for Iote's Shield (and a certain flier we don't have yet) to even consider using fliers. There's too many bows, especially forged Silver Bows.

Even with Pair Up and Galeforce, which can work, I just find myself super paranoid about them (Urgh, those terrible memories of Dark Flier My Unit, Olivia, and Lucina... Shudder...). And fliers who don't have Galeforce...

I liked Cherche, and I tried to use her, but I just could take the bow damage. Her hiding behind people made her never come out, and she couldn't get enough experience -- and I normally like babying units (I love it, actually, I always have a unit to baby... Normally the weak Mage, like Ricken or Tormod). But she just fell far far behind, and it wasn't worth getting her back up.

Well, she's happy being Virion's wife, at least. They're so cute!

I dunno. I normally love fliers. This game I just can't use them, for some reason.

[Samias]

Water isn't really a big deal for most of the maps except Noire's joining chapter, which is practically impossible without someone who can fly because of the way the map is split up. I found that a mount with Acrobat just as easily scaled mountains, though it's extra broken if you somehow have Deliverer or Galeforce which would have more than likely required inheritance on a child or grinding. For chapter 25 it was especially effective just because you could blow through the mountain and still keep the huge evasion bonus... But having some class that can ignore terrain is pretty much a big deal for many maps.

Otherwise keeping a flier alive around forged wind tomes and arrows is by making good use of pair up, taking out the dangerous enemies first, and then switching back. Sumia and Cordelia don't sweat wind very much, but arrows are a big deal, while the wyverns are more or less the other way around. Bowbreaker alieviates the stress of bows without Iote's Shield, which I found was useful for the kids to inherit from Virion.

[BlueLeafeon]

I personally find that fliers aren't worth all the trouble. They're great early-game, but later on they become pretty much useless, since you can't really use them all that much without fear of them being shot down in a single hit, either by arrows (PK's) or air magic (wyverns) Their sucky defense and resistance (respectively) makes it all the more hard. Oh, and those low hit percentages? They mean nothing when it's an arrow to a flier. They'll hit even if it's a 20-30% chance of hitting. >>

...That's just my experience with them, anyway.

Edited March 14, 2013 by MagicLeafy