God tier characters, both routes

[gayserbeam]

Kagerou comes with a usable stats and level, and her strength and speed growths are sweet. You get her for chapter 11 and by chapter 13 she had 26 STR and 29 SPD. Not to mention the Ninja class' high resistance and access to the best weapon type in the game. Made me completely forget about...

...the loss of my true love suzukaze

Edited June 29, 2015 by gayserbeam

[goodperson707]

Having watched some Lunatic Nohr gameplay:

-Effie is very good early on and stays useful, but she can't tank forever. When enemies gang up on her, she can go down pretty fast. That no-doubling General skill doesn't go well with her stats too.

-Zero can get screwed in strength, and he is physically squishy, but he has mage-killing potential, and one-shotting pegasi always comes handy, plus ballistas and Lockpick utility. His personal skill is a bit iffy, due to enemies not being the powerhouses of Lunatic Awakening.

-Elise is great in her support role, but she requires a lot of attention. She may get one-shotted easily. Her personal skill, albeit good, requires her to be close to the frontlines to be useful, which is a bit risky.

And, of course, the three royal prepromotes seem to be the best units on this side:

-Camilla joins pretty early, she has good bases, some of the best growths in the game, flying utility, she can hit Res with unnerfed 1-2 range (mediocre Mag, a couple of boosters wouldn't hurt, Nyx won't need them and Odin is... weird). The skills she learns seem really good too. The only problem is trying to not sponge too much XP at first, although in Lunatic you are pretty much forced to use her often. Feeding her early boss kills should be cost-efficient, like in past FEs, I think. Her personal skill is good, makes a nice combination with Kamui's personal.

-Leo is very similar to Camilla, but without flying, and a Prf weapon. He joins a bit later but has amazing growths. His personal skills is good too, makes a great combination with Xander, or alternatively, he can make it work after Camilla Deadly Breathes a clump of enemies. He learns Lifetaker too.

-Xander is a mobile tank, and his Prf weapon is fantastic. His personal skill is one of the best in my opinion, and as I said, he makes a good team with Leo. My only fear is that he may get Spd screwed, and I wonder if later when more powerful weapons and forging come into play, he may lose a bit of the edge that Siegfried gives him, as it is relatively weak (11 Mt).

But as I said, these are just observations from watching streams, so I'm sure I missed some things.

Couldn't you just un equip the general no doubling skill?

[Self-Keeping Secret]

Are there any standout OP units? I intend to do Nohr Lunatic/Classic blind because I hate myself and want a challenge. In Awakening, once the ball got rolling I could steamroll the competition with a select few units like Nowi and Kellam and dont want that be the case here with units like Xander.

[CatskillEagle]

I've only seen parts of Nohr route but what I noticed is that Marx seems to be a very strong unit.

Marx/Xander has an insane Luck growth (60% growth), which I think contributes to his critical hit rates. On Maurice's Nohr stream, apparently he was a total Crit-monster. Bonus: he and Leon have complementary skills (Marx does extra damage and has extra hit when the enemy has full HP, and Leon does extra damage/has extra hit). However, he does have a speed issue (35% growth), so I AM hoping for a couple of stat-boosters---how do they work in this game?--to buff his speed. Hopefully Siegfried gets an upgrade as well.

Regardless, he seemed very viable throughout Maurice's run and was consistently one of the best units.

On Hoshido, Kazahana/Hana seemed to have a very OP personal skill. I would definitely use her.

[Self-Keeping Secret]

I've only seen parts of Nohr route but what I noticed is that Marx seems to be a very strong unit.

Marx/Xander has an insane Luck growth (60% growth), which I think contributes to his critical hit rates. On Maurice's Nohr stream, apparently he was a total Crit-monster. Bonus: he and Leon have complementary skills (Marx does extra damage and has extra hit when the enemy has full HP, and Leon does extra damage/has extra hit). However, he does have a speed issue (35% growth), so I AM hoping for a couple of stat-boosters---how do they work in this game?--to buff his speed. Hopefully Siegfried gets an upgrade as well.

Regardless, he seemed very viable throughout Maurice's run and was consistently one of the best units.

On Hoshido, Kazahana/Hana seemed to have a very OP personal skill. I would definitely use her.

To be fair, Maurice was playing on Normal, which is a far cry from Lunatic, probably. He may not be as OP as I think. Its just his good growths and Seigfreid that are leading me to think otherwise.

[gayserbeam]

Joker can probably be called OP. He has the best weapon type, great starting stats, can heal from the onset, is available right from the start, and will have no trouble leveling up because he can fight and heal. He's so hot good that he made my female playthrough leagues easier than the male one.

[Othin]

Joker can probably be called OP. He has the best weapon type, great starting stats, can heal from the onset, is available right from the start, and will have no trouble leveling up because he can fight and heal. He's so hot good that he made my female playthrough leagues easier than the male one.

I've found that he stays plenty able to survive, heal, and sometimes chip at things, but it seems that even with plenty of use he eventually loses the ability to deal much damage or take on large numbers of enemies, at least on Hard. What difficulty were you playing?

[Mango Giamatti]

For anyone playing Hoshido, how is Crimson? Based off of her class, bases, and growths, she seems like she would be amazing. On the surface, it seems like her only downsides are lack of support options (which Kamui can fill), and low-ish HP (but that let's her activate her personal skill more often).

[CatskillEagle]

A little off topic, but can anyone point me in the direction of an explanation as to how stat boosters work in Fates? I heard they were quite different this time.

[cuervo_1398]

While she's most certainly not both route specific (we're not sure if she can even be recruited in the third route) Flora is incredibly strong.

On top of being one of the 3 class units, her personal skill is extremely powerful, effectively being a counter that works against anything (including magic) and a -3 SKL/-3 SPD debuff to enemies in one.

She's effective on her own, but married to a Kamui with the right classes, she'd be a monster.

Do you know how to recruit her in the Nohr path?

[nordopolica]

I've found that he stays plenty able to survive, heal, and sometimes chip at things, but it seems that even with plenty of use he eventually loses the ability to deal much damage or take on large numbers of enemies, at least on Hard. What difficulty were you playing?

Yeah on my normal run Joker maintained a good spot on my team, but on hard, even though he was still good particularly against magic units, he can struggle to hold his own against high-defense/high-strength units. The 1-2 range however is a great bonus and the debuffs are crazy useful in mid-game hard mode.

[Shengar]

because it is not an archetype or anything for fire emblem to have an axe wielder with higher speed (and other stats) than str.... Wait a minute...

Plus muscles doesn't equal high strength/hp growth.

Rinka's muscle is her abs, so that mean her muscle is for defense.

[gayserbeam]

I've found that he stays plenty able to survive, heal, and sometimes chip at things, but it seems that even with plenty of use he eventually loses the ability to deal much damage or take on large numbers of enemies, at least on Hard. What difficulty were you playing?

I play on Hoshido's Hard, but I perhaps got a little lucky with his strength growths. I'll admit he was too squishy to place in the middle of a hoard of enemies, but really nobody in my party ever could except for maybe Oboro. Except for the late game, everyone in Hoshido is squishy.

[Shengar]

No one commented on Asama yet? I've seen his growth and he looks amazing.

[gayserbeam]

No one commented on Asama yet? I've seen his growth and he looks amazing.

Probably because by the time he shows up you already have Felicia/Joker and Sakura for healing, so he's easy to overlook. Sakura will probably be a level or two higher by then, too. And since Sakura can Dragon's Vein and is adorable, he fades into obscurity.

[goodperson707]

Rinka's muscle is her abs, so that mean her muscle is for defense.

Well i guess that is kinda true and rinkah's def is tied for her second best growth, and her best one with her class growths added on but Rinkah still has arm muscles,and my point is that we have had muscular characters with low strength growths before and even when they have decent strength sometimes they get beat by utter sticks. Edited June 29, 2015 by goodperson707

[Othin]

It's hard to be god tier just by being really great at healing.

This is a good example of why growths are a distraction and make no sense to compare directly.

[RidellCrimea]

I've only seen parts of Nohr route but what I noticed is that Marx seems to be a very strong unit.

Marx/Xander has an insane Luck growth (60% growth), which I think contributes to his critical hit rates. On Maurice's Nohr stream, apparently he was a total Crit-monster. Bonus: he and Leon have complementary skills (Marx does extra damage and has extra hit when the enemy has full HP, and Leon does extra damage/has extra hit). However, he does have a speed issue (35% growth), so I AM hoping for a couple of stat-boosters---how do they work in this game?--to buff his speed. Hopefully Siegfried gets an upgrade as well.

But isn't that only his base growth rates? Serenesforest says a character's full growth rates = [base growth rates] + [class growth rates]. If that's the case then Marx actually has 45% speed growth (Paladin 10% speed growth taken into account).

[Luninareph]

Probably because by the time he shows up you already have Felicia/Joker and Sakura for healing, so he's easy to overlook. Sakura will probably be a level or two higher by then, too. And since Sakura can Dragon's Vein and is adorable, he fades into obscurity.

Not for anybody who deploys no fewer than 5 staff-users on the field at all times, like a sensible person! :D

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

Gunter is the best

From a difficulty perspective, it's actually not wrong lol.

[Thor Odinson]

Except Rinka is like, one of the buffest female characters in the entire series, can you really blame people for being let down by her absymal HP/Str?

I'd have been less annoyed if it was only one of the two stats that wasn't very good. If it's just bad HP but good Str, she still has her great defense to fall back on (although rip if faced with mages) and she can actually damage well. If it's bad Str but good HP, then she leans towards a low damage pure tank build (also see: many League of Legends tanks), and that would be fine too, since she would then specialize in damage absorbtion rather than damage dealing. Being bad at both puts her in a very awkward place statisticstically. At the moment her HP doesn't synergize with her defense well enough to really properly tank, but her damage levels are not quite high enough either. That's the problem.

That being said I'm going to experiment with a build that's very expensive (takes 3 parallel seals), but potentially able to turn her into a wrecking machine via the use of passing Fighter to her (getting both fighter skills, Sol, and Axefaire should help her and should also synergise with Ogre Strike) through a male MU marriage (alt: A+ Charlotte on route 3). She's my fav and I'm going to see her to the end.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[Beddict]

-Effie is very good early on and stays useful, but she can't tank forever. When enemies gang up on her, she can go down pretty fast. That no-doubling General skill doesn't go well with her stats too.

Effie seems like she'd go really well if she nabs an A+ support with Charlotte/S Support with Arthur so she can reclass to Fighter. Her naturally high Strength, Skill and Speed growths would shine in Berserker or Hero.

[Thedeathby2]

Except Rinka is like, one of the buffest female characters in the entire series, can you really blame people for being let down by her absymal HP/Str?

I'd have been less annoyed if it was only one of the two stats that wasn't very good. If it's just bad HP but good Str, she still has her great defense to fall back on (although rip if faced with mages) and she can actually damage well. If it's bad Str but good HP, then she leans towards a low damage pure tank build (also see: many League of Legends tanks), and that would be fine too, since she would then specialize in damage absorbtion rather than damage dealing. Being bad at both puts her in a very awkward place statisticstically. At the moment her HP doesn't synergize with her defense well enough to really properly tank, but her damage levels are not quite high enough either. That's the problem.

That being said I'm going to experiment with a build that's very expensive (takes 3 parallel seals), but potentially able to turn her into a wrecking machine via the use of passing Fighter to her (getting both fighter skills, Sol, and Axefaire should help her and should also synergise with Ogre Strike) through a male MU marriage (alt: A+ Charlotte on route 3). She's my fav and I'm going to see her to the end.

What makes me so angry is that she has like no good growths in anything, and Charlotte who seems like Rinkah's rival is leagues better than Rinkah in hp and strength. Seriously, at least give Rinkah a 60% str growth if anything. Also have you seen her arms? She's way buffer than many people say she is. Anyways what are we supposed to do about Hinata? His 35% spd growth makes him one of the worst characters in the game and due to Ryoma almost breaking the game as much as Seth, it's like IS just added Hinata at like the last second. Of course the Hoshido route IS easier than the nohr so you don't need so many stat level ups but still it sucks that IS made so many early game characters almost unusable unless reclassed.

[Titamon]

I can't believe that thong wearing twig Charlotte has more Hp/Str than Rinkah.

[Thor Odinson]

No hate to Charlotte. I'm not happy with the way she's designed, but it's not the matter she has more (her character is actually pretty crazy strong) but rather just Rinka's amount is inadequate to being a solid unit. One thing I heard that Nohr route stats are overall higher beccause it is legit harder, so keep that in mind.

What makes me so angry is that she has like no good growths in anything, and Charlotte who seems like Rinkah's rival is leagues better than Rinkah in hp and strength. Seriously, at least give Rinkah a 60% str growth if anything. Also have you seen her arms? She's way buffer than many people say she is. Anyways what are we supposed to do about Hinata? His 35% spd growth makes him one of the worst characters in the game and due to Ryoma almost breaking the game as much as Seth, it's like IS just added Hinata at like the last second. Of course the Hoshido route IS easier than the nohr so you don't need so many stat level ups but still it sucks that IS made so many early game characters almost unusable unless reclassed.

Yeah, Hinata and Tsubaki's growths both hurt. Those were not good idea growths for those classes.

Benoit's 10% speed is not pretty to look at either, but at least it suits his class and if you manage to get him to general he won't have to worry about speed ever again, at the very least.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Thor Odinson