Useless Reclassing Options

[Vashiane]

The more I've played the game and messed around with the mechanics, the more I realized something.

That some of the characters get reclass options that barely benefit them. At all.

One of the most perplexing examples is Cordelia. Cordelia has a 20% chance of gaining any sort of prowess in magic, and yet one of her reclass options is the Dark Mage/Sorcerer line. And the skills she gains for that class tree are rather useless to her: Cordelia is usually fast enough to dodge most of the attacks coming her way, unless you want the reassurance, so Hex and Anathema are unnecessary. Vengeance also probably won't be used much for its true purpose considering that she'll rarely get hit in the first place, and Tomebreaker is only useful for dealing with Wind mages - and sometimes her resistance will end up high enough to where THEY aren't even a problem.

Sumia's another character with an odd reclass option: the cleric line. Her magic is barely any better, but she has a moderately low chance of activating Miracle, and Healtouch is lovely if you want to make her a Falcon Knight. As a War Cleric, while Lissa is slower, I seriously prefer using her (pairing her with her speed-blessed or brother does her so many favors) and maybe it was a lack of patience on my part, but I most definitely didn't want to slug through 15 levels of War Cleric with her to get Renewal. Lissa I don't mind, Libra I definitely don't mind, Brady I most super definitely don't mind, but Sumia? No point, especially when her husband Paladin!Frederick can clear a room within seconds.

On the other hand, Sumia as a Knight/General/Great Knight is freaking lovely.

Another - now bear with me - is Wyvern Rider Panne. Granted, she makes a great wyvern rider - the problem is you literally have to scan the field the entire time she's out there because she has FOUR exploitable weaknesses in this form. Bows/certain axes, Beast Killers/Beastbane, Wyrmslayers/Wyrmbane, and Wind magic. Holy crap. Unless the map is full of swordsmen, deploying her is almost a pain. Although in all honestly, I'm a glutton for RNG punishment and am reckless as all hell. Needlessly to say, I soft-reset a bit.

Cherche is a glaring example because she has TWO odd reclass options: the Cleric line and the Troubadour line. She's as magical as Cordelia is and both of those are heavily magic-based classes. War Cleric is the only line that may have its benefits, but her resistance is terrible and what class are war clerics most effective at killing? Mages. Her lack of skill with tome or staves makes the Valkyrie class useless save Dual Support+, which almost isn't worth 15 levels of making a good unit into a mediocre, almost terrible one.

Tharja is also extremely useless as an archer. I'll take Archer Chrom in a heartbeat and Virion in a heartbeat and a half over her. And when I say useless, I do mean useless, save for one skill that isn't worth the frustration and is rendered useless towards the end of the game. All that added durability given to her as a Dark Mage? Gone. She doesn't have the defense or a decent enough avoid rate to become an Archer without her dying or being on the brink of death more times than can be countered. This also can't be fixed with the Lifetaker skill - as that requires killing a unit, which she usually won't have the strength to do.

Virion's mage line is rather useless to him as well, although if you give him a sword in the Dark Knight class and let him run amok with that he should do fine if you truly want him to get a hold of Lifetaker, since Slow Burn is weaker than its Wyvern Lord counterpart, which he can get and is better suited for him. There is literally no point making him a Sage - absolutely none - as anything he retains from that class is useful to him later.

So. Those are the most obvious options I can think of at the moment. Discuss?

[1% critted]

Anathema and Hex don't reduce hit rates.

I find Panne dodges everything, and in the wyvern line, she has enough defense to resist 2 or more bow attacks. She gets one shot by rexcalibur though. And wyrmslayers and beast killers, outside of skirmishes and DLC, how often do you see those?

I agree about everything else, Virion as a mage shouldn't exist but I find it odd that you didn't mention Ricken.

Cavalier and archer. srsly

Edited May 22, 2013 by 1% critted

[FeFish]

Tharja is also extremely useless as an archer. I'll take Archer Chrom in a heartbeat and Virion in a heartbeat and a half over her. And when I say useless, I do mean useless, save for one skill that isn't worth the frustration and is rendered useless towards the end of the game. All that added durability given to her as a Dark Mage? Gone. She doesn't have the defense or a decent enough avoid rate to become an Archer without her dying or being on the brink of death more times than can be countered. This also can't be fixed with the Lifetaker skill - as that requires killing a unit, which she usually won't have the strength to do.

She get's Vengeance as an archer that's a bit usefull but she does have fecal matter levels of Str but 2 good skills are Hit+20+Presence+Waste= super death mage

[Renne]

My brain is kinda dead right now (read as: hurting for some/no reason) so I'll just comment on some of the ones you listed...

Well, for Cordelia, I can't really say much since I didn't really bother reclassing her. I usually benched her after I got Severa, though on Hard, I actually benched her as soon as she got Galeforce (for Severa), so I can't say much for her. However, for her magic stat, I admit it is pretty sucky so it is kinda weird to see that she can reclass to it. Wasn't it said somewhere that the reclass options were available depending on the unit's personality/background? Still, even as Dark Flier, her magic stat sucked and I could barely damage crap using her. I ended up sticking with Lances when training her. As for dodging enemies, I don't know for sure, it might also be because of the difficulty mode? I'm guessing around here for the most part, though.

Now for Sumia, I actually found her to be somewhat better with the Magic stat. Maybe the RNG favored my Sumia? Or maybe I'm just biased.Anyway, I also didn't really reclass her outside of Pegasus Knight. I found her to fare a lot better than Cordelia actually, in terms of the dodging and attacks and speed. I guess the RNG Goddess did favored my Sumia more than Cordelia.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand.... I can't really say anything else about the others. I guess I didn't really think much about it either, because I usually did it just because of the skills than anything.

Oh, and Cherche's magic stat stinks majorly. (Or could it just be my game?) I actually endured the whole 15 levels for her as Valkyrie and it was painful. Then I immediately reclassed her after, but yeah. I thought I read about why she has the whole healer route, but I rather not quote something from a fuzzy memory.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Shirley

[Vashiane]

She get's Vengeance as an archer that's a bit usefull but she does have fecal matter levels of Str but 2 good skills are Hit+20+Presence+Waste= super death mage

Vengeance is actually the Level 5 sorcerer skill. Archer grants you Skill +2 and Patience, I believe.

And by the time you get to the point when hitting your target seriously matters, she'll hopefully be good enough to hit in the 90-100% range.

My brain is kinda dead right now (read as: hurting for some/no reason) so I'll just comment on some of the ones you listed...

Well, for Cordelia, I can't really say much since I didn't really bother reclassing her. I usually benched her after I got Severa, though on Hard, I actually benched her as soon as she got Galeforce (for Severa), so I can't say much for her. However, for her magic stat, I admit it is pretty sucky so it is kinda weird to see that she can reclass to it. Wasn't it said somewhere that the reclass options were available depending on the unit's personality/background? Still, even as Dark Flier, her magic stat sucked and I could barely damage crap using her. I ended up sticking with Lances when training her. As for dodging enemies, I don't know for sure, it might also be because of the difficulty mode? I'm guessing around here for the most part, though.

Now for Sumia, I actually found her to be somewhat better with the Magic stat. Maybe the RNG favored my Sumia? Or maybe I'm just biased.Anyway, I also didn't really reclass her outside of Pegasus Knight. I found her to fare a lot better than Cordelia actually, in terms of the dodging and attacks and speed. I guess the RNG Goddess did favored my Sumia more than Cordelia.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand.... I can't really say anything else about the others. I guess I didn't really think much about it either, because I usually did it just because of the skills than anything.

Oh, and Cherche's magic stat stinks majorly. (Or could it just be my game?) I actually endured the whole 15 levels for her as Valkyrie and it was painful. Then I immediately reclassed her after, but yeah. I thought I read about why she has the whole healer route, but I rather not quote something from a fuzzy memory.

You must be lucky then, because I put Sumia through ten levels of Falcon Knight and her healing skills were sincerely inefficient. I'll stick to using the Blonde Brigade for healing (Lissa, Maribelle, Libra - with Brady as an honorary member depending on who his father is).

Out of those three and the Avatar, having any one else heal is rather useless. If one is truly healing paranoid, Miriel, Ricken, and Anna are decent, though nowhere near as good as the other three. Lissa with a Heal staff gives back health in the mid-thirties to forties when leveled enough.

Wait. If the reclass options were based on personality, then that brings up even more questions. ...

Edited May 22, 2013 by Vashiane

[FeFish]

Vengeance is actually the Level 5 sorcerer skill. Archer grants you Skill +2 and Patience, I believe.

And by the time you get to the point when hitting your target seriously matters, she'll hopefully be good enough to hit in the 90-100% range.

Waste has atrocious accuracy like 45 hit or something and she needs it pretty much all of the time because of her crap speed. on the other thing I meant vengeance is good on archers/snipers

[ZemZem]

Cleric!Cherche is friggin' brilliant.

Archer!Chrom is useless. BUT, I guess Bow Knight would be nice for more MOV and he retains swords.

[Djing]

Mage is Virion's only good class option since Wyvern Rider and Archer don't give any good skills. He even gets a cool 50% magic growth with it.

[Vashiane]

Cleric!Cherche is friggin' brilliant.

Archer!Chrom is useless. BUT, I guess Bow Knight would be nice for more MOV and he retains swords.

He's never failed me at all. I think the RNG knows how much I like bows then...

Maybe I've just had terrible luck with Cherche, I don't know. But she's never done well for me in her two reclass options.

Waste has atrocious accuracy like 45 hit or something and she needs it pretty much all of the time because of her crap speed. on the other thing I meant vengeance is good on archers/snipers

Ah, I'm sorry. I thought you had gotten mixed up or something. My mistake. >_<

It sure is. I always make sure Noire gets Vengeance from her mother (usually because said mother is cursed by the RNG to fail for me consistently).

Mage is Virion's only good class option since Wyvern Rider and Archer don't give any good skills. He even gets a cool 50% magic growth with it.

Slow Burn, if you're quick to finish maps, is lovely on anyone, and I personally have no problem breaking a few weapons.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

You need to look outside of the box to figure out why they have these class sets. Maybe outside of Archer because Archer is plain terrible

For example, in min maxing, Cavalier is basically the only reason why Ricken is one of the best. For example, if you removed Cavalier and give Cleric or Dark Mage for Ricken, he would jump from "one of the best" into "good for main game after reclass and thats it"

Cherche's 2 class sets is personality based, but it all worked out well since Gerome gets FIghter out of the deal

2 out of Chrom's non MU wife has Galeforce to help bow usage etc

The way I see it, most of the class actually make sense if you take min maxing and in game into the arguments

Edited May 22, 2013 by JSND

[Renne]

You must be lucky then, because I put Sumia through ten levels of Falcon Knight and her healing skills were sincerely inefficient. I'll stick to using the Blonde Brigade for healing (Lissa, Maribelle, Libra - with Brady as an honorary member depending on who his father is).

Out of those three and the Avatar, having any one else heal is rather useless. If one is truly healing paranoid, Miriel, Ricken, and Anna are decent, though nowhere near as good as the other three. Lissa with a Heal staff gives back health in the mid-thirties to forties when leveled enough.

Wait. If the reclass options were based on personality, then that brings up even more questions. ...

Oh, healing skills... I...never used Sumia as a healer, ahahaha. I stuck her as a Dark Flier because she's superb using lance and tomes for me. As for healers, well, I...actually...used Olivia as my healer on Normal. But of course, you don't really need healers on Normal -- the only time I used Olivia to heal seriously was for FoD chapters and THAT was for the children, not my own units. But still, Sumia might actually do well as a healer for me too if I put her through the Cleric route (for Healtouch).

And well, I think I read about that, but maybe that's for some units? Don't trust me on that statement though. >_>

Cleric!Cherche is friggin' brilliant.

Archer!Chrom is useless. BUT, I guess Bow Knight would be nice for more MOV and he retains swords.

RNG loves your Cherche. Her speed sucks for me too, but I think that's a flaw of all Wyvern Riders. Sadly. And I'm huge on Speed... I mean, all my Avatars have Speed as their Asset.

Edited May 22, 2013 by Shirley

[Psych]

I typically reclass Cherche into Troubadour -> Valk for Dual Support for Gerome and then into Battle Cleric. Her strength makes her axes not suck, but she does have low magic without several boosters, so she's a more fighting oriented version of Lissa. With a good back up husband like Vaike she's great though, but you will either eventually want Healing Heart or a stronger staff like Mend or Recover.

[Vashiane]

You need to look outside of the box to figure out why they have these class sets. Maybe outside of Archer because Archer is plain terrible

For example, in min maxing, Cavalier is basically the only reason why Ricken is one of the best. For example, if you removed Cavalier and give Cleric or Dark Mage for Ricken, he would jump from "one of the best" into "good for main game after reclass and thats it"

Cherche's 2 class sets is personality based, but it all worked out well since Gerome gets FIghter out of the deal

2 out of Chrom's non MU wife has Galeforce to help bow usage etc

The way I see it, most of the class actually make sense if you take min maxing and in game into the arguments

Oh, no, I understand Ricken's class set personality-wise. And I'm not complaining because he does well in those classes. The ones I'm mentioning are the ones that characters have reclass options that you can barely use.

I must be the only person who likes the Archer class. Seriously.

Oh, healing skills... I...never used Sumia as a healer, ahahaha. I stuck her as a Dark Flier because she's superb using lance and tomes for me. As for healers, well, I...actually...used Olivia as my healer on Normal. But of course, you don't really need healers on Normal -- the only time I used Olivia to heal seriously was for FoD chapters and THAT was for the children, not my own units. But still, Sumia might actually do well as a healer for me too if I put her through the Cleric route (for Healtouch).

And well, I think I read about that, but maybe that's for some units? Don't trust me on that statement though. >_>

RNG loves your Cherche. Her speed sucks for me too, but I think that's a flaw of all Wyvern Riders. Sadly. And I'm huge on Speed... I mean, all my Avatars have Speed as their Asset.

Well, I like having healers. Extra healers are perfectly fine for me - even though if I strap a Physic/Cathasis/Fortify on the Blonde Brigade the others aren't exactly necessary.

Seriously? Olivia was your healer? I didn't let her touch anything magical within the slightest. Swordmaster!Olivia for the win.

[Shadow Mir]

Oh, healing skills... I...never used Sumia as a healer, ahahaha. I stuck her as a Dark Flier because she's superb using lance and tomes for me. As for healers, well, I...actually...used Olivia as my healer on Normal. But of course, you don't really need healers on Normal -- the only time I used Olivia to heal seriously was for FoD chapters and THAT was for the children, not my own units. But still, Sumia might actually do well as a healer for me too if I put her through the Cleric route (for Healtouch).

And well, I think I read about that, but maybe that's for some units? Don't trust me on that statement though. >_>

RNG loves your Cherche. Her speed sucks for me too, but I think that's a flaw of all Wyvern Riders. Sadly. And I'm huge on Speed... I mean, all my Avatars have Speed as their Asset.

Hmmm... As for Sumia, I generally felt she was better off as a Falcon Knight.

He's never failed me at all. I think the RNG knows how much I like bows then...

Maybe I've just had terrible luck with Cherche, I don't know. But she's never done well for me in her two reclass options.

Ah, I'm sorry. I thought you had gotten mixed up or something. My mistake. >_<

It sure is. I always make sure Noire gets Vengeance from her mother (usually because said mother is cursed by the RNG to fail for me consistently).

Slow Burn, if you're quick to finish maps, is lovely on anyone, and I personally have no problem breaking a few weapons.

Can't really say on most of these, but I'll probably have Noire inherit Anathema instead of Vengeance because for one, I'm not fond of the concept of Vengeance as far as these games go, and second, what else is there for her to get from Tharja (given that I'm not patient enough to grind to the level 15 skill before recruiting children in general)?

[Vashiane]

Hmmm... As for Sumia, I generally felt she was better off as a Falcon Knight.

Can't really say on most of these, but I'll probably have Noire inherit Anathema instead of Vengeance because for one, I'm not fond of the concept of Vengeance as far as these games go, and second, what else is there for her to get from Tharja (given that I'm not patient enough to grind to the level 15 skill before recruiting children in general)?

Oh yeah, you are pretty opposed to skills like Vengeance and Vantage. ^_^

Well, it's precautionary, really, just in case they DO get hit they have a better chance of finishing their attackers off so I can heal them.

[Shadow Mir]

Oh yeah, you are pretty opposed to skills like Vengeance and Vantage. ^_^

Well, it's precautionary, really, just in case they DO get hit they have a better chance of finishing their attackers off so I can heal them.

Yeah, I think being low enough to have Vengeance add a lot of damage screams "violation of common sense", as far as these games go. And Vantage was honestly more useful in other games where you DIDN'T need to be at half health or less to activate (read: PoR).

[Vashiane]

Yeah, I think being low enough to have Vengeance add a lot of damage screams "violation of common sense", as far as these games go. And Vantage was honestly more useful in other games where you DIDN'T need to be at half health or less to activate (read: PoR).

It kind of does. I mean, once I get a better skill I usually un-equip Vengeance considering how much damage has to be taken for it to be truly worth something.

[Renne]

Well, I like having healers. Extra healers are perfectly fine for me - even though if I strap a Physic/Cathasis/Fortify on the Blonde Brigade the others aren't exactly necessary.

Seriously? Olivia was your healer? I didn't let her touch anything magical within the slightest. Swordmaster!Olivia for the win.

Oh it's fine to have extra healers. I just grinded to the point that even on Hard mode, chapter 15 - 17/18 is easy as crap. As for Olivia being my healer, well, that's also because I kinda ended up not using Maribelle on Normal and then Olivia was a Bride...and I wanted to level ALL her weapon ranks. Since it was Normal mode (and probably using Arms Scrolls too), I didn't really need to heal a lot so her amounts were enough for me. But definitely, Olivia is best for physical. I would NOT use her for like... like... Dark Flier (had to forge the tomes to max might so I can get her to kill level 30 Entombed in EXPonential) past level 15/16. Although I'm...actually leveling her as another spare healer... even though I'm pretty sure I'm good on the healers. Lissa is sufficient as a main healer...

Although I did mention my Sumia being better with her Magic stat (or killing using tomes), Cynthia doesn't seem to fare as well.... even if Henry is her father. >_> Maybe it's just because she's a Falcon Knight right now? but I guess we can't really discuss the children's because those are dependent of their parents.

btw, Donny as a Fighter was pretty damn weird to see. I felt like a pedo. Thank god I reclassed him back to Mercenary for Armsthrift.

[Shadow Mir]

Oh it's fine to have extra healers. I just grinded to the point that even on Hard mode, chapter 15 - 17/18 is easy as crap. As for Olivia being my healer, well, that's also because I kinda ended up not using Maribelle on Normal and then Olivia was a Bride...and I wanted to level ALL her weapon ranks. Since it was Normal mode (and probably using Arms Scrolls too), I didn't really need to heal a lot so her amounts were enough for me. But definitely, Olivia is best for physical. I would NOT use her for like... like... Dark Flier (had to forge the tomes to max might so I can get her to kill level 30 Entombed in EXPonential) past level 15/16. Although I'm...actually leveling her as another spare healer... even though I'm pretty sure I'm good on the healers. Lissa is sufficient as a main healer...

Although I did mention my Sumia being better with her Magic stat (or killing using tomes), Cynthia doesn't seem to fare as well.... even if Henry is her father. >_> Maybe it's just because she's a Falcon Knight right now? but I guess we can't really discuss the children's because those are dependent of their parents.

btw, Donny as a Fighter was pretty damn weird to see. I felt like a pedo. Thank god I reclassed him back to Mercenary for Armsthrift.

I like having extra healers as well.

Well, I like having healers. Extra healers are perfectly fine for me - even though if I strap a Physic/Cathasis/Fortify on the Blonde Brigade the others aren't exactly necessary.

Seriously? Olivia was your healer? I didn't let her touch anything magical within the slightest. Swordmaster!Olivia for the win.

See above - even in games where healers weren't that great (RD), I always had one.

[singularity]

Agree on Cordy being Dark Mage. Could've been Myrmidon instead, and it fits better on her.

[Trickster]

Wait were being sarcastic about Sumia's Great knight class? Considering that she gets Luna, and that her stat caps in both strength and magic suck, she would benefit from them in any of her offensive classes.

[Vashiane]

True, mentioning the kids is a bit hit-or-miss considering that they're dependent on their kids.

I noticed that there's a LOT of females with less-than-desirable class sets, but barely any males. Odd. The only male options I would consider is the initial Fighter class since his defense makes it difficult to use him as a front-line unit, but not impossible, so... Hmm.

Agree on Cordy being Dark Mage. Could've been Myrmidon instead, and it fits better on her.

Well, from a personality perspective, considering how she's good at a range of different things - being a dark mage allows her to wield any tome.

Except, clearly, being a mage.

Wait were being sarcastic about Sumia's Great knight class? Considering that she gets Luna, and that her stat caps in both strength and magic suck, she would benefit from them in any of her offensive classes.

No sarcasm at all! I love my Great Knight Sumia.

[Thor Odinson]

Yeah two of those weaknesses you ascribed to Panne might as well don't exist. Wind magic is the only serious threat, really. She gets tanky fast. Hell, I'd say she was a better unit than my MU on my MaMU run those fucking stats are not joking around

In the rare cases of them existing what do you mean panne can't kill them before they retaliate (other than L+ in the case of Vantage+, just get someone else to deal with this one)

You can see enemy weapons and range for a reason

I mean yes theoretically there's a lot of weaknesses but in practice it's not actually much of a threat

[weso12]

I think the logic behind Cordelia class set is that it is the only combination that allows her to use every weapon type (and dark magic) reflecting her "genius" persona, that and this might be stretch but I have a feeling that the developers knew that the Pegasus Knight, Dark Mage, and Mercenary class trees were the best in the game and decided to mock the player with the fact that if Cordelia could marry Chrom it would be the best pairing for him

From a practical stand point the most useless class tree on a character is mage on Libra sense it only adds one class (He gets Dark Knight from Dark Mage and Sage from Priest) and two crappy skills.

[shadowofchaos]

Agree on Cordy being Dark Mage. Could've been Myrmidon instead, and it fits better on her.

She obviously wants Vengeance on all the girls that could be Chrom's waifu.