Rebalancing FE9?

[shadykid]

i'm decently sure that a max str ike can exactly kill the BK in the time allotted with no skill procs

well to be fair you can whiff a 97% hit at some point

but yes this is the case

[NinjaMonkey]

Not having 1 range combat is a big problem. There is absolutely no way to make an archer good unless you give them a 2nd weapon type or give bows 1-2 range.

Which is why Shinon is considered "High Tier" in Radiant Dawn, despite his apparent 1-range lock (seeing as Crossbows aren't really considered to be all that good)

[Hawk King]

Radient Dawn is not Path of Radience.

[Snowy_One]

Radiant Dawn was a lot more favorable to Archers/snipers on the whole than PoR was as well. Even then, though, they were still pretty clearly the worst class. Shinon was just good enough that it didn't matter.

The big problem is that, even for casual players, lacking 1-range is a distinct downside since that means you need to be careful where you place them. While not taking counters is also awesome, considering that literally every other unit has the ability to heal, strong defenses, and/or good evade on your team, taking a counter isn't so bad. That negates the advantage of player-phase combat (no need to chip or avoid counters) and leaves them with a crippling enemy phase weakness.

[shadykid]

Which is why Shinon is considered "High Tier" in Radiant Dawn, despite his apparent 1-range lock (seeing as Crossbows aren't really considered to be all that good)

Shinon is good despite that flaw, if he was a Paladin with those stats he'd kick Titania right out of top tier (that improved speed)

[Rah]

Shinon and Rolf are beasts in Radiant dawn because their stat caps and growths are off the chart. 36 Strength! 34 Speed! 2-3 Range!

People misuse archers, imho. I always have archers move up and attack first so that my 1 range attackers can go back to the frontlines and finish people off. Archers are always in the back. In RD in helps that they can use crossbows (I switch to crossbows when going into enemy phase). Which is why it would be so nice to re-equip after taking an action. This would really only help in RD though since PoR has no crossbows. Archers should seriously use knives and knives should be better.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Rah

[dondon151]

people don't "misuse" archers. FE games are generally designed to make archers trash. please don't conflate the two.

[Snowy_One]

You're both right. Archers low tier ranking comes from the focus on the enemy phase most tier lists (not just LTC) have. Since archers enemy phase is basically non-existent, they get ranked lower. However, in casual play, this is something easily compensated for meaning archers get to fight on 'fair' grounds a bit more often. However, even with that, Rolf joins very underleveled and Shinon's absence torpedo's their utility even if they were, say, paladins. Astrid at least gets Paragon to help her out.

[Rah]

lol, conflate. Archers are not designed to be trash that is ridiculous. It is your opinion that they are trash. In casual play archers play fine.

[Espinosa]

We can take it a step further and say Wendy is fine in casual play because we're not in a rush to defeat an enemy.

[Irysa]

That's a bit too far. At least archers have accurate chip, typically have an easy time in the arena (first turn advantage vs other low def 2 range units), and 3x mt vs fliers is pretty useful in quite a few games. Wendy has zero advantages besides being a pink armor.

When dondon says the games are "designed to make archers suck" he's not only talking about the whole enemy phase shit, they consistently show up with some of the worst bases in the series in almost every game without particularly good growth spreads, skills, or any real particular benefits. You would not believe what buffing the bases of some of those archers just a bit does to help make them better but IS seems hellbent on shoving Gordon's in every single game they make...

They get obsoleted by mages for their role in most of the games too, as both classes are frail and need to be protected, but the mage consistently outputs higher damage due to hitting res, with similar high accuracy, yet mages also get utility via staves and even have specialised magic to deal with different enemy types, including the fliers the archers are supposed to niche. Not even counting that mages can fight at 1 range...or that other units can use 1-2 weaponry, or even just use bows and be tradeswapped back to an appropriate weapon.

It's a complete fallacy to claim that casual play somehow makes archers better. Basically every map in every FE game has more enemies on it than you have playable characters, and guess what, those enemies will move to attack you whether you're a "casual" player or not. If you use an archer to kill enemies -enemies who are commonly grouped together- the inability to counter on enemy phase means that you either need to kill all the other enemies in range with different units, or you need to bail the archer out and position them safely, or else they will beeline the non countering target. Even a casual player could understand that if the latter happens, it's simply just a bad idea, it's poor strategy, you risk for no gain. To make the archer worthwhile, their chip actually needs to be important (ie, enemy offence is such that you cannot risk taking a counterattack and thus the target must be weakened safely), and their offence needs to not be mediocre (which basically every archer in the series suffers from to a great degree).

Edited October 31, 2013 by Irysa

[Espinosa]

Generally poor accuracy is not even a problem in many of the existing FE titles. What I'm saying is that the idea is not yet complete if we all agree that units' progression on the battlefield, assisted by rescuing, shoving and whatnot, has no meaning, but one-round KOing and taking hits well remains topical. Let's field 3 healers and take it slowly; I want to train Wendy.

Enemy phase exactly IS the archers' bane (iirc this is also the name of a passive FFTactics skill but nvm). Low base level and stats can be overcome by training, good promotion bonuses and so forth. Sasha can be turned into a queen of TRS in efficiency play, so can Lute in FE8 (unfairly sandbagged in previous tier lists to look like the worst unit ever not counting the trainees). If we look like an archer in a relatively easy game, say, Neimi in FE8, we'll find that her growths eventually do make her pretty good and she can be mounted (this is not really a rarity for bow users though) but lack of 1-range counter make training her while maintaining low turn counts next to impossible, even if the experience is barely contested (like in females only where a lot of male figures are absent).

Magic is not always specialised (it is in FE: PoR, but those Mt numbers are low for the most part unless we talk forges and siege tomes), hardly so, but bows do strike the same flying enemies in just about all the games. If you take a game like FE6, Lilina's staff access is not such a huge advantage when she never gets out of E staves. It's true that utility is better than no utility (when staves vs no staves are concerned) and I can't argue with that, but archers offer Longbow utility, in FE6 get pretty rad weapons early (and in FE4 as well).

[Irysa]

Generally poor accuracy is not even a problem in many of the existing FE titles. What I'm saying is that the idea is not yet complete if we all agree that units' progression on the battlefield, assisted by rescuing, shoving and whatnot, has no meaning, but one-round KOing and taking hits well remains topical. Let's field 3 healers and take it slowly; I want to train Wendy.

You are specifically comparing Wendy to archers. That means Wendy's particular problems have to be looked at when using the comparison of raising her. The arena is a great source of exp for bow users, and she does not have an easy time in it at all. She is actually killed by enemy units rather easily due to the fact she is doubled by many enemies and doesn't even have a significant defence or hp buffer to make up for it. Taking it slowly with 3 healers or not, you need to actually feed her kills with other units weakening, and by doing it you will have accuracy problems because of the nature of FE6 that may result in her being counterkilled if she misses (with shitty skill), or sacrificing accuracy to keep her safer with 2 range. Taking it slowly is a god damn understatement when you consider her. Even trying to feed her kills in the first place can be problematic, because on NM many units simply ORKO, and on HM it's difficult to get her to safely take kills.

Enemy phase exactly IS the archers' bane (iirc this is also the name of a passive FFTactics skill but nvm). Low base level and stats can be overcome by training, good promotion bonuses and so forth. Sasha can be turned into a queen of TRS in efficiency play, so can Lute in FE8 (unfairly sandbagged in previous tier lists to look like the worst unit ever not counting the trainees). If we look like an archer in a relatively easy game, say, Neimi in FE8, we'll find that her growths eventually do make her pretty good and she can be mounted (this is not really a rarity for bow users though) but lack of 1-range counter make training her while maintaining low turn counts next to impossible, even if the experience is barely contested (like in females only where a lot of male figures are absent).

Having poor base stats can be overcome by training but the point was that they actually suck when you get them and that is most certainly a choice by the developer. Early archers are consistently bad in almost every FE game, that is not some coincedence. I wasn't trying to say that enemy phase wasn't a problem, it's simply that it's far from being the ONLY problem. Training an archer, whilst obviously still hindered by lack of EP, becomes far easier when they can naturally do a lot of damage and ORKO by themselves without help. Even if you feed every kill on the early maps to most of your average chump archers, their bases and growths are unlikely to let them fufill that task without being 5+ levels ahead of everyone else, whilst your cavaliers are likely to be able to do it from base...

One of the reasons Neimi does not suck phenomenally in casual play is actually because she IS capable of doing just that in FE8, because enemies are so weak and she has an explosive offensive support with Colm.

Magic is not always specialised (it is in FE: PoR, but those Mt numbers are low for the most part unless we talk forges and siege tomes), hardly so, but bows do strike the same flying enemies in just about all the games. If you take a game like FE6, Lilina's staff access is not such a huge advantage when she never gets out of E staves. It's true that utility is better than no utility (when staves vs no staves are concerned) and I can't argue with that, but archers offer Longbow utility, in FE6 get pretty rad weapons early (and in FE4 as well).

Mages do not even need to be using specialised magic to be outputting higher damage than average compared to archers in most games due to crappy enemy resistance throughout. Bows are not limited to simply archers, bows as a weapontype are not fundamentally flawed, it is the class of being a foot bow locked unit with crap stats and "average" growths that is flawed. Cherrypicked counterexamples are not really the best comparison, and FE6 is one of the few games where bow locked units are actually quite useful.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Irysa

[The Void]

lol, conflate. Archers are not designed to be trash that is ridiculous. It is your opinion that they are trash. In casual play archers play fine.

So why should I use bother using Rolf that much if I can win quick enough without going out of my way to baby him?

How are archers "fine" in "casual play"? What's stopping somebody playing "casually" from benching Rolf and going around chucking Titania at people?

Edited October 31, 2013 by The Void

[Snowy_One]

So why should I use bother using Rolf that much if I can win quick enough without going out of my way to baby him?

How are archers "fine" in "casual play"? What's stopping somebody playing "casually" from benching Rolf and going around chucking Titania at people?

In casual play there isn't a drive to complete turns or anything. As a result archer's main weakness can be compensated for. I'm perfectly willing, and fully agree, to acknowledge that this doesn't make up for them HAVING that weakness in the first place.

Irysa nailed it pretty solidly though. Archers tend to join underpowered and end up simply underwhelming in all categories. Though their defense isn't *quite* as bad as a sages, they are certainly far too frail, and lacking counters doesn't help.

[dondon151]

lol, conflate. Archers are not designed to be trash that is ridiculous. It is your opinion that they are trash. In casual play archers play fine.

when you decide to reinforce your assertion with facts, then we can have a real argument. otherwise, don't get me started. there are FE games where archers are good on the whole and there are FE games where they are trash. this game is one of the latter.

[The Void]

In casual play there isn't a drive to complete turns or anything. As a result archer's main weakness can be compensated for.

And I'd want to do that playing "casually" because?

Pretty sure playing casually won't stop somebody from noticing that Archers/Snipers won't be attacking as much as Fighters/Warriors, Mymidon/Swordsmaster, etc. and at least Rolf doesn't really have good base stats for somebody who can't counterattack if attacked close enough and does most of his damage on the player phase. And thus he gets benched.

there are FE games where archers are good on the whole

What FE games are those?

Not trying to start a flamewar only wondering.

Edited November 1, 2013 by The Void

[dondon151]

FE6 and FE12.

[The Void]

Aren't Wolt and Dorothy not good units?

[Snowy_One]

Pretty sure playing casually won't stop somebody from noticing that Archers/Snipers won't be attacking as much as Fighters/Warriors, Mymidon/Swordsmaster, etc. and at least Rolf doesn't really have good base stats for somebody who can't counterattack if attacked close enough and does most of his damage on the player phase. And thus he gets benched.

I said it could be compensated for, not that it didn't exist. And yes, Rolf's bases suck, which is why I suggested increasing them by 2 in each category waaaay back.

[Rainbow Skittles]

Aren't Wolt and Dorothy not good units?

that's by way of their bases.

People like Klein and Igrene and better, and even then early archers are a big help in Ch7.

[dondon151]

klein and igrene are solid units (whom you'd actually want to deploy sometimes, unlike louise in FE7, who exists solely to give pent his support bonuses), shin is in the top echelon of units, and wolt and dorothy are useful in a handful of earlygame maps. sue is like a worse shin, but basically, if you don't use shin, sue can fill in the for same roles.

[shadykid]

klein and igrene are solid units (whom you'd actually want to deploy sometimes, unlike louise in FE7, who exists solely to give pent his support bonuses), shin is in the top echelon of units, and wolt and dorothy are useful in a handful of earlygame maps. sue is like a worse shin, but basically, if you don't use shin, sue can fill in the for same roles.

but is Horace?

[Snowy_One]

Seeing a tier-list with these changes would be interesting, if only because it would be so radically different than the normal 'default' list as well as people going 'Wait. That's right. In this game X happens instead of Y.'

Anyways, a few more changes.

1) Sol activation changed to 1/2 SKL. Mentioned before, but this will help bring paladins more in line with the normal people.

2) Increased number of enemies with high defense/health. The main 'issue' is with this is that a lot of enemies can be killed with 'average' strength. That's fine too. The problem is that there are only a few enemies which need a critical hit or high MT/magic to kill making the whole point of classes like the Warrior and Swordsmaster redundant.

3) Idea: 'Retrain scroll' that lets a character unequip a skill and turn it into a scroll for other units to use so long as they have gained less than five levels. The main 'point' to this is more to give characters who won't be deployed yet have a useful/good skill not waste said skill. Maybe there will be limits so that certain OP'ed skills won't be taken, but the general concept is sound.

4) Increasing siege-tome use counts. This isn't really a 'balance' check than a utility check. With more uses the utility of mages can be further emphasized, especially since siege-toming is, really, their one 'unique' thing over other 2-range units (except for Rhys's purge). This is just allowing it to be more pronounced.

5) Elincia's STR growth increased by 50%. Elincia will never be a powerful melee fighter. With only two chapters of deployment she just doesn't have the time. Even ignoring that her STR cap is a mere 20. At most she's a slightly-below-average fighter made competent by her unique sword who is inferior to Mist in every way besides the fact that she can fly. Boosting her growth not only lets her at least fight if people dump Bexp on her, but at least gives her something Mist can't do (without supports at least) which is be a half-way decent melee fighter. Even if we started her at 20/10 though she'd probably need a sizable BEXP dump to catch up to the rest though.

6) Rhys can use light magic from the start as well as higher SPD and DEF growths. A simple change and it won't really affect too much (he still can't double and his healing will always be useful, but it helps him eek out a more unique placing from Mist. The growths help him out a bit more too since Rhys currently blows compared to the mages who can do largely the same things as him (except wield physic staves at first) but can also be at least glass cannons. Rhys is just glass.