Are Dread Fighter/Bride classes really that good?

[Elieson]

DFs just seem overhyped to me, and Brides, I thought were only valued for their Rally Love. Am I missing something here?

[Junkhead]

Brides were good because because of Rally Love? I thought that skill was pretty average, by post-game. The other Rallies and/or Tonic outclasses it. I think they have pretty good caps, Lances + Staves...then I remember that Peggies have that too and Lancefaire. But, the class isn't great.

I don't think Dread Fighters are amazing, unless we talk about the badass outfit, swords, axes AND magic. That's...pretty badass. Class caps are cool, though not much to brag about. Aggressor is probably one of it's best selling points, even though it only works when you initiate an attack.

[Duke of Dozel]

How do you outclass a rally that gives you +2 in all stats including +1 movement?

To the point, the classes are great, and are sometimes needed to excel certain units. (Frederick is too slow everywhere else)

But all in all, the skills are the real attraction.

[The Geek]

And then you realize that Rallies can stack. Make a F!Robin or get F!Morgan and turn either of them into a Bride. Rally Love + Rally Spectrum = Mov +1 All Stats +7.

>:D

[Duke of Dozel]

Just have any female avatar/SpotPass/DLC character turn bride and be a rallybot. You'll need them if you want to play Lunatic with ease.

[Raftina]

1. Diferent rallies stack with each other.

2. When a character uses ralky, she uses all equipped ralky skills at the same time. This is known as a rally bot.

[Ninian]

Throw in Gradivus and you'll see just how strong a lover can be.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Agg and Rally Heart are great, but you don't have to be a DF/Bride to use them.

Things are never rendered obsolete by other things that stack with them (other rallies and tonics).

As for Bride's strengths, they primarily lie in its pairup boosts: mainly, it's a physical unit with both Aegis and Pavise weapons that gives +Mag/Spd.

[Elieson]

Looking at caps though, Bride/Lover has a class Str cap of 40 (which I guess works for a Lance class, and only beats Dark Flier and Falcoknight in terms of raw numbers). It's kind of an in-between from Cavalier-Pegasus in terms of Str/Def <-> Spd/Skl. Not like the most shockingly devastating of classes.

[ILoveLucy]

Dread Fighters are really good, they're pretty similar to heroes stat-wise and weaponry wise. However, they get to use tomes, any male has access, and they give aggressor. Aggressor is a pretty great skill, it's a reliable +10 damage on your turn! Brides are pretty good too, staff access makes them automatically good imo. Rescue breaks this game pretty hard.

Edited May 13, 2014 by ILoveLucy

[Psych]

Dread Fighters are good, and they have great skills if you don't get other good ones like Sol or Armsthrift or something. Bride does leave some to be desired but I like it for people like Noire or Cynthia who have a weird physical/magical split and can use all the weapons.

[Duke of Dozel]

In general, Dread Fighters are Heroes with worse skill and better RES, who can wield tomes. They aren't recommended if you want to go magical, but they have a decent magic cap that could benefit you if you love to use Ingis.

Same goes with Bride. They won't excel at damage unless a proc is used, such as Ingis or Luna. Great if you want to have female units supporting their magical husbands, or Male Avatar. They are also the only lance wielding class with no weapon damage bonuses, aside from Villager.

[ILoveLucy]

In general, Dread Fighters are Heroes with worse skill and better RES, who can wield tomes. They aren't recommended if you want to go magical, but they have a decent magic cap that could benefit you if you love to use Ingis.

Same goes with Bride. They won't excel at damage unless a proc is used, such as Ingis or Luna. Great if you want to have female units supporting their magical husbands, or Male Avatar. They are also the only lance wielding class with no weapon damage bonuses, aside from Villager.

Magic is broken in this game, I think everyone wants to go Magic.

[Shadow Mir]

Magic is broken in this game, I think everyone wants to go Magic.

The big issue with that: Most males that aren't Owain, Henry, Male Avatar or Male Morgan have lopsided stat distribution offense wise that they can only attack physically or magically. Ergo, I see nothing to be gained by trying to make, say, Chrom use magic, given that unless you're using oodles of Spirit Dust, his Mag ain't gettin' nowhere fast.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Growths aren't relevant to minmaxing.

Magic is broken in this game, I think everyone wants to go Magic.

Physical has a better dedicated support than magical (Zerker vs Sage) because Zerker boosts Spd instead of Skl and doesn't waste any support points on less useful stats. Brave Axe Zerker also has 11 more base Atk than Celica's Sage- if the foe's Def and Res are equal, that's 20 more damage on the first four swings in Apo. Physical can also target Pavise or Aegis, while magic is locked to Aegis. Furthermore, there are only 3 magical fathers. Magic is good, but not good enough to force, say, Yarne to become a Sage.

[Loki Laufeyson]

Dread Fighter is really nice for its skills and procs. Aggressor is neato. Like someone said upthread, DF helps make certain units really something. Like Libra and Frederick.

Bride is nice as a support/utility unit. People tend to forget Bond is a pretty neato skill which is like the Blessing skill from Tellius. Only it works in a radius of three spaces. Notbad.gif

[Czar_Yoshi]

Bond also doesn't stack with itself and doesn't work in the back, making its applications slightly more limited than you would think.

[MelonGx]

Magical & Physical:

For average output, magical > physical.

Apo SR Def >= Res enemies have an average 9.15 difference between Def and Res.

According to this, Sage (46+9=55) > Sorc (44+9=53) > Dark Flier (42+9=51) > Berserker (50) = General (50) = Dark Knight (41+9=50) > Warrior (48) = Great Knight (48) > Dread Fighter (38+9=47) > Wyvern Lord (46).

For maximum Dual Strike output, physical > magical.

RLM @ support Sage (Mag.66, the entire highest Mag unit) are never able to 4-hit KO Apo enemies with the highest Res (Sorcerer, Berserker, Anna).

But VGM @ support Berserker (Str.71, the entire highest Str unit) can 4-hit KO Apo enemies with the highest Def (Sniper, Berserker).

Edited May 14, 2014 by MelonGx

[Czar_Yoshi]

Factor weapon mts into your numbers and it becomes a good deal evener, Celica's is only 11 mt but Braves with WRB are 17-18 mt.

[Raftina]

Apo SR Def >= Res enemies have an average 9.15 difference between Def and Res

Never use the mean for small samples of natural numbers. Use the median.

You also omitted the part about how your mean was derived from omitting low (def-res) values. (1)

Edited May 14, 2014 by Raftina

[MelonGx]

Never use the mean for small samples of natural numbers. Use the median.

You also omitted the part about how your mean was derived from omitting low (def-res) values. (1)

Seems that I have calculated something wrong with either 9.15 or 9.594. But anyway, this is just a qualitative analysis.

For the 33 Res>Def units, physical does have advantage. So we don't need to talk about them except only the enemies who cannot be 6HKOed by magical but available by physical - which is what I mentioned coming after.

And yeah, I made another mistake on this thread's response. In The Pairing Thread I've already considered about CG & Braves' MT but I didn't do that here.

So, physical classes has 17-11=6 weapon MT advantage than magical classes. Then it is:

Berserker (50+6=56) = General (50+6=56) > Sage (46+9=55) > Warrior (48+6=54) = Great Knight (48+6=54) > Sorc (44+9=53) > Wyvern Lord (46+6=52) > Dark Flier (42+9=51) > Dark Knight (41+9=50) > Hero (42+6=48) = Paladin (42+6=48) > Dread Fighter (38+9=47) = Sniper (41+6=47) > Assassin (40+6=46).

Edited May 15, 2014 by MelonGx

[PacoHeavyFire]

I think bride is a nice class for the skills, and also as a nice balanced final class for Sumia, at least I like it

[Dragonslayer9x]

The advantage of the Bride is in the pair up bonuses (mag, spd, lck, res) and weapon flexibility. It allows a primarily physical character (say Vaike!Nah for example) to support a magical one and choose to attack versus pavise or aegis at a moments notice. And as an added bonus they can use staves (which honestly can add it's own list of flexibility). Rally Heart is great for rally bots and Bond has some niche uses (although 10 hp a turn isn't really worth using, but can help you on action economy at times).

The advantage of the Dread Fighter is different, it is very close to being a grandmaster (slight edge in str/res while weaker in mag/def) but any male can enter the class. It is better at supporting a physical class but can be used to support a magical class as well and like the bride can choose to attack pavise or aegis at a moments notice. The dread fighter excels at fighting enemy mages with it's naturally high res stat and +10 res skill. But more importantly Aggressor is a skill that you will be hard pressed to not use on every single male attacking character you have. Next to limit breaker, aggressor is almost an auto include and I wish I could pass it down to female children (it makes me le sad).

[PuffPuff]

The big issue with that: Most males that aren't Owain, Henry, Male Avatar or Male Morgan have lopsided stat distribution offense wise that they can only attack physically or magically. Ergo, I see nothing to be gained by trying to make, say, Chrom use magic, given that unless you're using oodles of Spirit Dust, his Mag ain't gettin' nowhere fast.

It's possible, but it takes a really long time (post-game) to cap his Mag stat.

------

Also...they are good for one thing...EXP gains go higher than any other class in the game and can level another 10 additional times. Dreadfighter makes Hero complete obsolte for addition to being able to use tomes. Plus, that Aggressor which only males could ever get. Bride doesn't ever go good on Mag users like Maribelle, but Rally Heart can stack on to different ones and can give a boosts to every stat by +2. The Bride is more of a fanservice class more than anything else. The Dreadfighter class is without a doubt the best in the game for it's good Speed and Res offerings.

[Czar_Yoshi]

The Dreadfighter class is without a doubt the best in the game for it's good Speed and Res offerings.

...

DF has 41 Spd. That's nowhere near fast enough to be noteworthy. Res doesn't matter postgame, and if it did DF is beaten by Sorc and Valkyrie.

It's also down 6 Skl from Hero, so I'd hardly say it wins there. DFs also have the lowest Mag of any Tome using class in the game (bar Mage/Dark Mage), and even have lower Mag than Monks/Brides, which can't use Tomes. So yeah, it's not the best class in the game by most measures.