Fire Emblem with the worst balance?

[Espinosa]

I would expect Gonzalez to grow obsolete really quickly if instapromoted due to how slow he'll be levelling (and in this game's efficiency it's generally hard to level up when you're not the one with dibs on the bosskills). His offensive growths are Dart-level ridiculous so it's not a bad idea to level him up on Echidna's route before he promotes in semi-slowplay; then he'll be doubling stuff with overkill offence and crazy crit.

[Irysa]

I don't really see how you'd get obsoleted with 19/12/13 (assuming most common rolls + promotion gain) offensive stats. Give him a speedwing and he is pretty much set to ORKO every single lance enemy in the game if he can hit. Leveling him up when he has 5 levels to get to a promotiom when he's sitting on like 80 base hit, which goes down into like 60 or worse on axers (don't even bring up mercs, archers or magic users), and has barely any lance enemies to fight seems pretty silly, especially when he is only a few points from capping his str anyway.

I guess chapter 13 could be a pretty decent time for him to get some levels in, but you have to be careful there of the axereaver cavaliers too.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Irysa

[Vykan_12]

How is Radiant Dawn not dominating this poll?

As much as I love the game, its balance is laughable. Consider in part 1 the further you get, the more you acquire characters that obsolete your current cast, with the later characters like Tauroneo, Muarim and Nailah being especially ridiculous. Then you have these weird, inexplicable difficulty spikes like 1-8 bandits being as durable as armors and 1-E leadership murdering your hitrates. The difficulty between parts is all over the place, perfectly viable units get extremely shafted by their availability, generals become inexplicably fast (Gatrie, anyone?), the sage class gets inexplicably shafted, stat caps don't make any sense, bonus exp, forging and support mechanics are all broken (cap ramming, forged hand axes, 45 avo supports), growth rate distributions in general make no sense (eg/ Leo), and most importantly high level characters like Titania & Shinon (ie the closest thing you have to a "pre-promote") don't have any real down-side, which discourages you from using more growth-oriented units like Rolf, Boyd, Oscar, etc. And somehow this is only grazing the surface.

[Hawk King]

^ I totally feel you. I cant bring myself to play FE 10 a 2nd time because of its terrible balance. And I played casually on NM...

Even with an extremely slow pace of play I couldnt raise several units no matter how much I babied them. Fiona for example, A mount with 2 free skills? Awesome! I got her to 99 exp in the base and gave her a forged Lance only to find that a Mym/Merc? on her join map could 3HKO her while she 3HKO'ed back with her forge. And her movement is lowered by 2! I sucked it up, babied her through and even boss abused to get her several battle save abused LVs only to find out she takes a personal day on the next map WTF? Then her next map is 1-E and her movement is lowered by 2 again... with ledges she cant hop. Bexp and baby her some more cause she is still weak. 3-6 comes around. I promote her and start the fight. She cant go in the fucking water!? This is when I gave up on her.

At least in other games babying can make any unit good. FE 10 just constantly gives you a middle finger.

[Shadow Mir]

How is Radiant Dawn not dominating this poll?

As much as I love the game, its balance is laughable. Consider in part 1 the further you get, the more you acquire characters that obsolete your current cast, with the later characters like Tauroneo, Muarim and Nailah being especially ridiculous. Then you have these weird, inexplicable difficulty spikes like 1-8 bandits being as durable as armors and 1-E leadership murdering your hitrates. The difficulty between parts is all over the place, perfectly viable units get extremely shafted by their availability, generals become inexplicably fast (Gatrie, anyone?), the sage class gets inexplicably shafted, stat caps don't make any sense, bonus exp, forging and support mechanics are all broken (cap ramming, forged hand axes, 45 avo supports), growth rate distributions in general make no sense (eg/ Leo), and most importantly high level characters like Titania & Shinon (ie the closest thing you have to a "pre-promote") don't have any real down-side, which discourages you from using more growth-oriented units like Rolf, Boyd, Oscar, etc. And somehow this is only grazing the surface.

Because Genealogy of the Holy War manages to be even worse on the balance scale, primarily thanks to absolutely ridiculous holy weapons? And that's not even the half of it.

[Hawk King]

^ Does it have characters that are completely untrainable join 1 Chp before characters that are LITERALLY INVINCIBLE?

AFAIK FE 4 doesn't contain untrainable or invincible units.

[Shadow Mir]

^ Does it have characters that are completely untrainable join 1 Chp before characters that are LITERALLY INVINCIBLE?

AFAIK FE 4 doesn't contain untrainable or invincible units.

No, but even without those, it still manages to have a huge discrepancy between units thanks to holy weapons and Pursuit.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Levant Fortner

[General Horace]

the late joiners thing is actually fairly important. in terms of turncount, i actually think that FE6 0% will be most competitive with vanilla FE6, whereas for example, my FE8 0% turncount gets destroyed in vanilla FE8 in large part due to warp users with huge mag.

honestly im sure if you redid it you could improve quite a bit on it if you redid it, you did 8 turn 5 and some of the post route split chapters seem kind of high as well, and you should be able to get Saleh to warp instead of relying on Moulder to do it anyway. With growths will probably still crush it, but FE8 doesn't have a Percival or Niime.

and wrt to fe4 and pursuit, Cuan, Ethlin, Lex, Levin, and Sylvia are all very good units that don't have pursuit in the first gen, and others like Noish, Claude and Dew aren't that bad either. A majority of them are better than some units with pursuit like Midir, Alec and Azel.

Edited October 22, 2013 by General Horace

[Shadow Mir]

and wrt to fe4 and pursuit, Cuan, Ethlin, Lex, Levin, and Sylvia are all very good units that don't have pursuit in the first gen, and others like Noish, Claude and Dew aren't that bad either. A majority of them are better than some units with pursuit like Midir, Alec and Azel.

I guess I'll take your word for it.

[dondon151]

That's fair, and you get the Brave Axe really early in FE6 as well. I've used Geese to decent success in FE6 because he has good weapon rank and has an acceptable skill stat + the massiver zerker crit bonus, AND always comes in at level 10.

ugh the brave axe makes me want to choke someone. the only circumstance in which i would be willing to use it is to break down walls. or on gonzales, but he sucks.

the brave bow, on the other hand, is like 70% of the reason why the snipers and NTs in FE6 are good.

[Shadow Mir]

That's fair, and you get the Brave Axe really early in FE6 as well. I've used Geese to decent success in FE6 because he has good weapon rank and has an acceptable skill stat + the massiver zerker crit bonus, AND always comes in at level 10.

I'd have to agree with dondon here - even discounting my hoarding tendencies, I'm generally hard pressed to find a reason to use any reason to use the brave axe besides walls because that hit is just ugh.

[Espinosa]

Armads and Killer Axe are the only good axes in terms of accuracy I guess. And irons too I suppose.

[Refa]

Hand Axes are super effective against soldiers!

[-Cynthia-]

FE10's weird availability often ends up balancing units to some extent. Units like Muarim, the BK, or Nailah are not as dominating overall because they only exist for a few chapters. It also gives units like Brom some use when normally they wouldn't have much.

FE9 probably isn't voted much because the game lacks "bad" units for the most part.

[Tamanoir]

honestly im sure if you redid it you could improve quite a bit on it if you redid it, you did 8 turn 5 and some of the post route split chapters seem kind of high as well, and you should be able to get Saleh to warp instead of relying on Moulder to do it anyway. With growths will probably still crush it, but FE8 doesn't have a Percival or Niime.

and wrt to fe4 and pursuit, Cuan, Ethlin, Lex, Levin, and Sylvia are all very good units that don't have pursuit in the first gen, and others like Noish, Claude and Dew aren't that bad either. A majority of them are better than some units with pursuit like Midir, Alec and Azel.

Cuan is mounted and have a Holy Weapon (and Continue). Levin have a holy weapon and Continue/Critical.

They have great advantage that compensate pursuit. Even Lex haave Brave Axe and Elite.

They have all a option to hit twice, and twio of them have weampons that OHKO most ennemies anyway

Noish is a lesser example, but Critical/Duel kinda mitigate is lack of pursuit. Noish and Alec are pretty equivalent all thing considered.

I'd say Alec is slightly more usefull earlier, and when Noish gains the stats to use his stats effectively, he'll surpass it.

Ethlin is mounted and a healer, and Sylvia is a dancer.

They aren't supposed to figh anything because they are utility units.

Claude is int the same bag.

Dew gain Pursuit once promoted, and then become a fearsome fighter, but have utility before at least.

Obvioulsy Cuan and Levin are amazing because Pursuit is the ONLY thing they missed to be OP.

And it's a fallacy to bring Utility units in a Pursuit argument. They aren't supposed to fight. if you makes a dancer fight on the front, you're doing something wrong...

Ethlin and Sylvia could have 1 in every stats, and O% in every growths, they would still be used because of their amazing advantage (a healer that can reach the persons she have to heal at tiime, and a character that makes 4 units move again).

Pursuit isn't the only factor, but it's one of the most important with Holy Weapons and movement.

Edited October 22, 2013 by shyteddie

[Baldrick]

They did mostly alright with pursuit, if Sigurd had lacked it and Arden had it that would have been just about perfect. I think movement and canto was the worst, it's simply too great of an advantage.

[General Banzai]

They did mostly alright with pursuit, if Sigurd had lacked it and Arden had it that would have been just about perfect. I think movement and canto was the worst, it's simply too great of an advantage.

arden does have it

thus, arden = best

[Irysa]

ugh the brave axe makes me want to choke someone. the only circumstance in which i would be willing to use it is to break down walls. or on gonzales, but he sucks.

the brave bow, on the other hand, is like 70% of the reason why the snipers and NTs in FE6 are good.

Eh, the hitrate is about as poor as a handaxe or javelin, and I get veritable use out of them in FE6 even with accuracy problems. I think Geese sits on like 90 hit with a Brave Axe with a level or two and promotion, which is definitely "workable" (though the real question is why would you use Geese/why is the map not over because of Miledy and Percy anyway). In my current run I think Dieck will make it to B axes so he could put it to good use with only 2 AS loss and 20 + skill as of right now (Echidna can use it but eats such a huge AS penalty its really only worth it if you can't ORKO with a doubling steel sword or w/e)

Edited October 23, 2013 by Irysa

[dondon151]

Eh, the hitrate is about as poor as a handaxe or javelin, and I get veritable use out of them in FE6 even with accuracy problems.

that's odd, i don't think i've used a handaxe on a paladin since chapter 9!

90 base hit with the brave axe is really terrible. you're in the 60s against most enemies and the brave axe is heavy enough that it pushes a lot of units (even those with high con) below doubling thresholds. a killer axe is better defensively, it often gives you the same number of attacks as a brave axe, it has 10 higher hit, slightly more MT, and depending on how much hit you have, the chance of getting 4 equivalent hits with both weapons is pretty similar.

aside from walls, the prerequisite to the brave axe being useful is like, having a based deke or something. either that, or pray that you don't miss and get bodied on the counter.

[Irysa]

that's odd, i don't think i've used a handaxe on a paladin since chapter 9!

You used a bunch of Javelins though which have 55 base hit which is equal. Even the steel lance also has 55 base hit and causes AS penalties (although not as severe admittedly).

I'm not denying the Killer Axe is a statistically better weapon ( Killers in FE6 in general are all round amazing and easy to stock up on ) but on paper, if you don't double the enemy normally (which is an issue for a bunch of candidates with it) then it's not the worst thing in the world. The hitrates are poor but as I said its in the same general area of potency of a Javelin so it's worth trying to use for the benefits it provides when you have a potential user. Of course the latter is basically the "real" problem with the weapon, there's no good users of it aside from a Hero with good skill and axe rank, and the one you get for free has awful con that prevents 4x from ever happening, so as you say, it leaves Deke (who doesn't get time to shine normally).

Edited October 23, 2013 by Irysa

[PKL]

Holy shit...I remember hit being terrible in FE6. But 55 hit lmao.

[dondon151]

You used a bunch of Javelins though which have 55 base hit which is equal. Even the steel lance also has 55 base hit and causes AS penalties (although not as severe admittedly).

i don't actually use javelins that much, either. i don't think i used a javelin once between chapters 11 and 15 inclusive. and where i do use a javelin, there usually isn't a better alternative.

it's easier to use the killer axe when you access the information in the RN string. for a critical to happen, only 3 numbers are important. for 2x, 3x, 4x attack, you need to get 4, 6, or 8 numbers to work in your favor, your own misses shift the number of RNs used in combat, and the hit rate is lower too.

[Irysa]

Zealot used a steel axe in 13, MIledy used a javelin in 14. I can't really remember anything else. The amount of RNs needed is a fair point though, but if you aren't accessing the string or trying to manipulate it then you over double the amount of chances to get a string in your favor (and you attack twice before the enemy gets to move). I think this goes back to mostly what Espinosa said WRT high risk/high damage without relying on a crit, which is exactly what the brave axe offers. Again, I can't dispute that the Killer Axe is a better weapon...I just am not convinced that it's in any worse a position than many other weapon types in comparison to killers in FE6, which are kind of all round amazing in that game.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Irysa

[Refa]

I thought the Brave Bow was like way better than the Killer Bow. I don't know if FE6 even has a Brave Sword, but Killer Lance and Brave Lance is probably a closer comparison? Maybe?

[Irysa]

When I said "other weapon types" I don't mean other brave weapons, I just mean weapon choices in FE6 in general. <_<