On units like Donnel, Nino, Est, etc.

[The Void]

Okay, so units like those characters haven't really been handled that well through the series. Be it that enough have growths so high that they'll be capping or close to capping before promotion, enemies being weak enough that other characters having lower growths doesn't really cancel out their higher bases, etc.

Now, do any of you have suggestions for how to handle these characters?

[Espinosa]

Ross did it best I think. Good jointime, somewhat decent utility as Pirate/Berserker (if you are able to promote by chapter 12 that is, which I suppose you should).

An idea I expressed in another topic that would make the Est more appealing is make their growths customizable, e.g. every level-up you get to pick 3-4 stats you wish to invest a point into, which makes the Est tolerable after a couple of level-ups, competent after a dozen or so, and fairly unique as far as training units goes.

Of course, the archetype is a non-issue entirely for people who opt for the "full grind" style which has been brought up to consideration a lot lately.

[ZemZem]

FE7 RR Nino is the best.

And Est in FE11 and FE12 RRs would be great, as well.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Invader ZM

[NinjaMonkey]

How is Donnel an Est, exactly?

As far as I know, in order to qualify as being an Est, you need to fulfil three criteria:

1) Join near the end of the game

2) Be massively underleveled

3) Have very good growths

Now Donnel fulfils requirements 2) and 3), but he can be gotten right near the beginning of the game, thus not fulfilling requirement 1).

[shadykid]

FE7 RR Nino is the best.

And Est in FE11 and FE12 RRs would be great, as well.

what is this, when does RR ever factor into character discussion

[ZemZem]

what is this, when does RR ever factor into character discussion

Since I said so.

In all seriousness, I agree with Espinosa about Ross.

[Da Bear]

How is Donnel an Est, exactly?

As far as I know, in order to qualify as being an Est, you need to fulfil three criteria:

1) Join near the end of the game

2) Be massively underleveled

3) Have very good growths

Now Donnel fulfils requirements 2) and 3), but he can be gotten right near the beginning of the game, thus not fulfilling requirement 1).

I wouldn't say "massively underleveled" is a good way of describing Donnel. "Terrible bases" sounds more accurate

[arvilino]

Okay, so units like those characters haven't really been handled that well through the series. Be it that enough have growths so high that they'll be capping or close to capping before promotion, enemies being weak enough that other characters having lower growths doesn't really cancel out their higher bases, etc.

Now, do any of you have suggestions for how to handle these characters?

They could just give them unique and completely ridiculous promotion bonuses(Donnel could almost be like that since reclass is pretty much a promotion for him, though they could have increased his personal bases and decrease the villager bases by the same amount) and lower growths so they only have to reach level 10 and then get a significant boost there and then.

[Refa]

They could make them join earlier, with a similar spread of stats to everyone else.

[LunaSaint]

Ross does it well; I actually enjoy using the guy. Kids in Awakening have done it fairly well in my pair-upless runs, though they tend to be a bit too good.

I think if Nowai were a little speedier, she'd do it quite nicely. I need to play with her more.

[General Horace]

ross isn't an est

his growths aren't very good, like compare to someone like garcia

Ross:   70/50/35/30/40/25/20
Garcia: 80/60/40/20/40/25/15

He's just a trainee and has more levels to work with

although rereading the thread it wasn't really implied that he was but I typed that out and im not deleting it

I think units like the ones above would benefit from unique skills (what if Veteran was a Villager skill?) or a PRF of some kind to actually give the player some incentive to use them (like if Est had a wing spear or something, although there are loads of riderbanes at that point, but you know what I mean)

Edited July 23, 2013 by General Horace

[LunaSaint]

Yeah, Ross growths are probably why I like him. Comes with the illusion of work training him profiting you, but doesn't actually break the game at higher levels (any more than anyone else at least).

[Nobody]

Ross does it well; I actually enjoy using the guy. Kids in Awakening have done it fairly well in my pair-upless runs, though they tend to be a bit too good.

I think if Nowai were a little speedier, she'd do it quite nicely. I need to play with her more.

Nowi is a great unit even lacking speed. In normal/hard she has no trouble at all, even if too slow in the beginning and in lunatic she one of the best units, but you have to baby her a little (as you have to baby everyone else but frederick).

Her bases might look terrible, but the dragonstone increases them a lot, and when she joins you, she'll most likely be one of the units with the most def.

And if you are using the wireless features, you can give her the renown speedwing and even buy one dragonstone+ from tiki to make her very broken.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Nobody

[Agro]

there isn't any better way to do it

[Hawk King]

The "Est Archtype" doesnt even exist and I hate when people talk about it.

Est's growths aren't even that high, Catria's are as good if not better.

Nino's total growths are only about 20% higher than Erk's growths (which are among the lowest), and are lower than the Lords. Nino just has really high bases for her LV.

The FE8 trainees have among the lowest total growths in their game. Only some of the prepromotes are lower.

Donnel comes after fucking Chapter 4, and has high growths because of a skill.

The only FE character who meets the requirements that are associated with the "Est Archtype" is FE6 Karel.

[Nobody]

The only FE character who meets the requirements that are associated with the "Est Archtype" is FE6 Karel.

No he doesn't. Joining at level 19 of a promoted class is definitely not being underleved.

And to be fair, FE2 Est fits every aspect of the archetype. Her growths are similar to the growths of other fire emblem games, even though most gaiden units have beyond terrible growths

Edited July 23, 2013 by Nobody

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

The "Est Archtype" doesnt even exist and I hate when people talk about it.

Est's growths aren't even that high, Catria's are as good if not better.

Nino's total growths are only about 20% higher than Erk's growths (which are among the lowest), and are lower than the Lords. Nino just has really high bases for her LV.

The FE8 trainees have among the lowest total growths in their game. Only some of the prepromotes are lower.

Donnel comes after fucking Chapter 4, and has high growths because of a skill.

The only FE character who meets the requirements that are associated with the "Est Archtype" is FE6 Karel.

Actually, in a vacuum, Est's growth is better than Catria because she has 70% STR growth

Although Est and Catria has lower growth than Tiki >_>

[Darros]

I actually think Ests are fine as they are. They're created specifically for people who grind, and some players out there actually enjoy that sort of thing. Seeing your chumps turn into great fighters is fun, or something like that.

[Tables]

The "Est Archtype" doesnt even exist and I hate when people talk about it.

Est's growths aren't even that high, Catria's are as good if not better.

Nino's total growths are only about 20% higher than Erk's growths (which are among the lowest), and are lower than the Lords. Nino just has really high bases for her LV.

The FE8 trainees have among the lowest total growths in their game. Only some of the prepromotes are lower.

Donnel comes after fucking Chapter 4, and has high growths because of a skill.

The only FE character who meets the requirements that are associated with the "Est Archtype" is FE6 Karel.

The points in bold are not really true at all.

Nino's growths total are the 5th highest in the game - behind only Merlinus, Ninian/Nils, Lyn and Hector. So exclude Merlinus and Ninian/Nils, it's 3rd highest, which is pretty impressive. And if you weight towards important stats (I have a spreadsheet I released in the Awakening section to do this for you), Nino's growths are considered - a weighting of 3 x spd, def, str/mag, 2 x res, 1.5 x hp, skl, 1 x luk - at least mostly agreeable in terms of importance I hope you feel - Nino jumps to 3rd behind only Hector and Merlinus.

Donnel, even without aptitude, has some of the best base growths - 4th highest behind Donnel w/aptitude (lol), Tiki and Nowi (some kids could also beat him mind). Weighted roughly the same way as above he ends up behind only Panne, o well. And all of this is mostly irrelevant because he DOES have the skill anyway, boosting his already great growths even higher.

[Vorena]

I think the arc type exists, but not as heavily as you might think. These late game units are going to have good growths and in turn into decent units like the other ones you got earlier in the game if you can get them up to par. The arc type is not going to include some sort of late super unit that will be better than all the rest if time is put into them. They just catch-up and are not useless compared to say all the units you got in FE11/FE12 which come late and stay useless.

To deal with said late game units, low level, but decent/good growths is make their growths stupid in combination with base stats. I think est from FE1/3 is a pretty good example. 70% across str, skl, speed, and lck is pretty good. Now, lets change her other ones to 80% growth for HP, 40% for def and 30% for resistance and you have your Est arch type everyone dreams of. Or at the very least give these characters high bases and decent growths like Palla FE3 2nd book base stats and a low level. The general idea is it would be a struggle to get them levels, but its easy to get levels due to the enemy difference in stats. The growths tack on quickly and after say like 10 levels they start looking like a great unit. Keep using them and they are gods by the last couple chapters.

That would be my fix to them.

[Othin]

The key is guaranteed payoff: some way that you will get something substantial and concrete from them that you wouldn't get without them. Traditional growth characters rely on gaining stats a bit faster while also having a way harder time fighting to hope that they'll somehow gain enough levels to eventually catch up and match the other characters at their own game. That's a recipe for disappointments.

It takes something special to pull them out of the "always catching up" rut. Special classes and abilities can do that. Few people complained like this about Lachesis or Leaf in FE4: training them may not be effective for all playstyles, but rather than seeming pointless, they had a clear point to training them when feasible.

Now, you can't just toss Master Knights into every game. But some special class, weapon, or skill doesn't seem like too much to ask for characters like these.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Othin

[Anouleth]

Okay, so units like those characters haven't really been handled that well through the series. Be it that enough have growths so high that they'll be capping or close to capping before promotion, enemies being weak enough that other characters having lower growths doesn't really cancel out their higher bases, etc.

Now, do any of you have suggestions for how to handle these characters?

It's a bad archetype. It should be removed, like their mirror-image, the Jeigan.

[Espinosa]

The "Est Archtype" doesnt even exist and I hate when people talk about it.

Est's growths aren't even that high, Catria's are as good if not better.

Nino's total growths are only about 20% higher than Erk's growths (which are among the lowest), and are lower than the Lords. Nino just has really high bases for her LV.

The FE8 trainees have among the lowest total growths in their game. Only some of the prepromotes are lower.

Donnel comes after fucking Chapter 4, and has high growths because of a skill.

The only FE character who meets the requirements that are associated with the "Est Archtype" is FE6 Karel.

Est is just a character who's noticeably weaker than the current cast with potential to grow. "Low level", "late join time" and "great growths" are some of the features people attach, but really it's all about their relation to the rest of your team.

[Baldrick]

I hate when people try to define archetypes as "you must have x, y and z". You may as well base archetypes on hair colour and number of letters in their name, for all the good it will do. Instead, look at how a unit performs.

Est archetypes have very seldomly been done properly. Unless you give them unique utility, they need to have significantly higher growths (think Wolf/Sedgar and Karel at the times those units join, but underlevelled instead of overlevelled) in order to get a sufficient return on your investment before they cap-ram or stats become overkill. Casual players rarely have any rigorous character discussion or tiering, so balancing units according to casual play isn't important.

I for one think the day a game that comes without a Jeigan or Est archetype will be a sad day for the franchise. Having a grizzled veteran or a young prodigy have a performance curve that actually reflect their role is one of the things I love about FE, and if they go, it's only a matter of time until the units have all the personality and stat differentiation of generics in FE11.

[XeKr]

Donnel is fine for this archetype. I would argue he is the archetype done mostly right. His combat is quite impressive (relative to the non-Veteran characters) if investment is put in and there's plenty of time to do so. If there was no grinding/postgame in this particular game, or his caps/class set were better (doesn't really matter imo, but people seem to think so), and Donnel was a cute loli, I'd imagine he'd be much more popular among the general fanbase.

The archetype is inevitably bad for efficient play since the very defining parameters (which typically include low bases, high growths) are mostly antithetical to fast and reliable clears. You're "supposed" to take turns to train them. And ain't nobody got time for that. >_>

I'm not sure what is meant by "fixing" them as they can work well in their niche. But for Ests to be genuinely impressive, they'd have to be specifically designed that way such as having exceptionally high move/flying or something (say if Donnel was the only character who could get Galeforce as a level 10 Villager).

Edited July 23, 2013 by XeKr