FE14 Fire Emblem If Character Spotlight ~ Week #02: Kazahana

[HappyHawlucha]

OK, Week 2 has come, and with it, another character to discuss in great detail. You may have noticed that from now on, the following week's character will be decided via a poll, and it will stay that way from now on. Anyway, this week we will coincidentally be analysing Sakura-sama's other subordinate, the tomboyish Samurai, Kazahana(or Hana). Kazahana is the first Samurai you are given on the Hoshido route, and she is the loyal subordinate of your little sister Sakura, being childhood friends with her, while Kazahana and Tsubaki(her partner) often bicker about small matters, such as who is the most loyal guard to Sakura. OK, enough talk, let's get to gameplay...

CLASS OPTIONS:

Base:

Samurai > Trueblade /OR/ Weapons Master

Parallel Seal:

Priestess > War Priestess /OR/ Exorcist Mage

Marriage Seal:

Jakob- Rod Knight > Maid /OR/ Strategist

Kaze/Saizou- Ninja > Elite Ninja /OR/ Puppeteer

Tsubaki/Ryouma- Pegasus Warrior > Falcon Warrior /OR/ Golden Kite Warrior

Silas- Cavalier > Paladin /OR/ Great Knight

Asama- Herb Merchant > Great Merchant /OR/ Puppeteer

Tsukuyomi/Nishiki- Spellcaster > Exorcist Mage /OR/ Basara

Hinata- Oni > Blacksmith /OR/ Shura

Takumi- Bowman > Holy Bowman /OR/ Golden Kite Warrior

*Touma Route ONLY*

Lazward- Mercenary > Brave Hero /OR/ Bow Knight

Flannel- Fighter > Berserker /OR/ Brave Hero

Buddy Seal:

Felicia- Rod Knight > Maid /OR/ Strategist

Sakura- Pegasus Warrior > Falcon Warrior /OR/ Golden Kite Warrior

Setsuna- Bowman > Holy Bowman /OR/ Golden Kite Warrior

*Touma Route ONLY*

Effie- Knight > General /OR/ Great Knight

Skill Lists for these classes:

http://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/hoshidan-classes/class-skills/

http://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/nohrian-classes/class-skills/

Personal Skill:

Tomboy: When user triggers the battle and defeats an enemy, enemies adjacent to the user have their HP reduced by 20%

BASE GROWTH RATES:

HP- 25%

Strength- 55%

Magic- 10%

Skill- 45%

Speed- 55%

Luck- 25%

Defence- 20%

Resistance- 30%

BASE CAP MODIFIERS:

Strength- 1

Magic- /

Skill- 1

Speed- 2

Luck- -1

Defence- -3

Resistance- 1

*Support Options are all people he can Marriage or Buddy Seal with, feel free to post about any of his supports and discuss them.*

Edited October 24, 2015 by HappyHawlucha

[Shephen]

Dang it. Had my Hinata write up all ready go. In the meantime while I do a write up on Hana as a unit, I will say she has the worst TrueBlade coat. Hinata's purple coat, Ryoma's lobster armor and even Odin's yellow coat are all cooler than her pink coat.

[HappyHawlucha]

Dang it. Had my Hinata write up all ready go. In the meantime while I do a write up on Hana as a unit, I will say she has the worst TrueBlade coat. Hinata's purple coat, Ryoma's lobster armor and even Odin's yellow coat are all cooler than her pink coat.

Ikr, Hinata was ahead by like 6 votes at one point, I'll defo include him in next week's poll... Tbh Kazahana's coat ain't my favourite, how's her gear as a Weapon Master?

[Shephen]

I'm pretty sure she has the default weapon master coat like everyone but Fuuga. Granted she should never be a weapon master unless the player really wants LoD since it's among one of the worst classes in the game.

[HappyHawlucha]

I'm pretty sure she has the default weapon master coat like everyone but Fuuga. Granted she should never be a weapon master unless the player really wants LoD since it's among one of the worst classes in the game.

Aw, really? I was looking forward to my physical illuminati...

[Shephen]

Alright let's talk about Hana.

So first things first she is female myrmidon so RIP durability. She is I believe the frailest front line combat unit in Hoshido so she will need to rely on dodge tanking, be given constant durability stat boosters/tonics, aura, and staff bots to not be a liability in battle. Fortunately for her most of these are somewhat mitigated easily. As a samurai she gets Flowing Strike to make her more reliable on PP and Trueblades get a +10 avoid passive. You get a seraph robe in chapter 7 and she is a good candidate for it(Probably third best behind Hinoka and Kaze). Sakura has both the aura and staffs to help Hana if the player so desires. Now unlike most of female myrmidons of the past, Hana actually has some pretty amazing offensive growths with high str/skl/spd. Swordlocks got a buff since a majority of 1-2 range RIPd in Fates but swords now have Kodachies(while bad like Javelins and Hand Axes, it at least gives swords the option now.) Trueblade also has the best offensive skills to compound her offensive growths. Her personal is pretty meh and probably won't see any use in most playthroughs.

Performance wise in Hoshido Lunatic she is alright. Her start is pretty mediocre since her bases are meh and she needs a couple points of speed to start doubling non-armor enemies. Her dodging isn't very good in the early game so she will need the constant staff bot like I was talking about earlier. Also the exp scramble is going on so she will need to justify taking exp from others to get self-sufficient and delaying them from becoming self-sufficient. Mid to late game is where she is at her best. Since her offensive growths are really high it will be pretty easy for her to ORKO starting in the mid game and she will have built up enough speed and luck where dodge tanking is more reliable. She holds up fairly alright during the Ryoma stomp unlike some units. Once she gets ahead offensive wise it is pretty easy for her to stay ahead without constant exp feeding. Late game is a mixed bag for her. On the one hand the Ryoma stomp is coming to an end and everyone else needs to start pulling more weight so Hana will be more useful. But if you haven't been giving her the durability boosters earlier in the game she has a very real chance of getting flat out OHKOd by the Generals and Great Knights. Also if Hana gets caught with a Reverse Katana against a Beserker she's basically done no matter what. However her player phase offense will probably be the third/fourth best on your team(behind Ryoma, Kamui and Hammer time Crimson.) So Hana has a pretty good return on investment. In comparison to her fellow Samurai Hinata(not comparing to Ryoma since that isn't fair to anyone really) she has substantially less durability and needs a lot more investment, but she has superior offenses and better return on investment. She is a solid unit and I would probably put her around the middle of the pact in terms of royal retainers.

Eugenics/Reclassing wise, she doesn't need anything. Samura/Trueblade is just to good for her build. You could get Line of Death if you're feeling pretty ballsy. Priest doesn't do anything for her really and you have Sakura/Servant/Asama already as staff bots so she doesn't do anything special. She lacks the bulk to do anything else really. Her pair up bonuses are really good for units on the slower side of things like Silas and Takumi. Mother wise she will be good for just about everyone other than like Yomi's kid. Passing down Flowing strike or Astra with her str growth is a pretty great thing for the kids.

Now in the context of IK Lunatic she is pretty useless. She joins with 2 less str for whatever reason and now the enemies are way better than they were in Hoshido. Joining for Ch9 doesn't help either and she will probably tink on nearly everything there without RInka/Gunter boosts. Her durability issues can't be solved as easily since the enemies are more accurate and hit way harder. Exp is very important in IK since you need to do a pretty hard commitment to most units for them to be relevant and she doesn't really offer much as a reward for being trained since overkill combat is handled pretty well by the Royals and she doesn't have any utilities like Debuffs/Flight/Staves/Rallies like some other units. Only thing she really has to offer is her pair up bonuses to the likes of Takumi. She does have Mozume's paralog to grind some exp and weapon rank to catch up sorta to not be useless in the coming chapters. Access to the ch10 stat boosters can also help her out if you give them to her. The only new options for her in IK are Laz and Flannel both of who would like her speed boosts a lot and Laz would like the samurai class. If only Laz was any good in IK... I guess also going a Fighter!Hero for HP+5, Round House and Sol would be good for her if she married Flannel. She isn't the bottom of the barrel of what IK has to offer though(which is pretty sad for the state of IK) and if you make the hard commitment to her over other units she will turn out alright probably.

And the most important thing to discuss is that Hana has the worst Trueblade outfit. #Purplecoat4life

Edited October 24, 2015 by Shephen

[Xenomata]

Opinions of a player who can't play the game until the American Release in 2016

As a note, could you start listing the personal skills of each unit as well? There may be some people who don't remember them off the top of their head.

Hana seems to fill the role of the typical early-game Myrmidon, having the growths and stat caps to match similar units in the past, but missing the Killing Edge weapon to match them properly. As should be obvious, her Skill and Speed will usually be going up at each level up, but her Strength is notable for having really good personal growths as well. Her defensive ability is atrocious though. Unless you rig the level ups to obtain defensive ability, Hana will be a glass cannon.

I find it funny how Hana starts out weaker in IK as opposed to Hoshido, though this is only in STR and SKL, the stats that should be guaranteed to be going up each level up, so it should all be good if you do choose to use her.

Out of her base classes, she already has ready access to Swordfaire and Line of Death, so her status as a Glass Cannon is further emphasized. Astra is a great attack skill to place on her thanks to all the power she will be able to stack on with little effort, and Flowing Strike makes her much harder to hit, though it is a skill that some people could look at and say "why would I want that?". So assuming we are leaving the tomboy in Trueblade, we just need to fill the last few skills, which is where the magic of Buddy and Marriage Seals comes in.

If we wish to emphasize on Hana's physical ability, then Jakob and Felicia should not be mingled with, as she has very little to get from Rod Knight, unless you feel the need to give her Demoiselle and Battle Command for supporting nearby units. Servant's Joy, TomeBreaker, Resistance +2, they don't mean anything to the sword-slugging Hana.

Setsuna's/Takumi's Bowman offers very little, except for the Bowman class itself, but you should be just fine with the bowmen you already have by default. Though Holy Bowman does make a good alternative for end-class since it already packs the necessary weaponfaire, Hana won't be able to counterattack a number of units without possessing the Short Bow, which why would you have one on Hoshido without buying them from Nohr My-Castles. Ergo, her status as a Glass Cannon could potentially cripple her as a Holy Bowman, but she can still do good in this class if you can get around the fact.

Pegasus Warrior and Falcon Warrior offer literally nothing to Hana. Mirror Strike, while it does make Hana slightly more resiliant to magical damage, only works on the player turn and does nothing to help her physical ability. Eastern Heart recovers less HP than Renewal, which Hana can already get naturally. Swallow Strike may be useful for helping to initiate double strikes, but that doesn't say much when pretty much every other skill has little use...

Golden Kite Warrior on both Bowman and Pegasus Warrior means very little. Sun God is a support skill that you may not want on Hana, and Sun God is situational at best, completely useless at worst. Though these skills do get special mention for their higher availability than all of Hana's other skills thanks to Golden kite being on multiple classes class branches.

Effie's Knight classline in IK is questionable. This class really only offers two skills: Luna to skill proc (if that still exists) and Diamond Strike to negate the damage taken effects of Line of Death. Defensive Formation is completely wasted on Hana the freaking Trueblade, and Pavise isn't exactly consistant enough to warrant being the skill you place on Hana. What these classes DO offer though are much better defensive growths.

If anything, give Hana the husband of Silas to not only give her the Luna and Defender skills, as well as the same defensive growths as some of the Knight classline, AND a pretty nifty class to end in if Trueblade isn't desired, but ALSO give Sophie a pretty cool mother that gives Myrmidon and great offensive growths.

Let's talk about Tomboy for a second, which acts as Snake Venom and similar skills, but only activates if Hana kills an enemy. Do you see this as a useful skill for such a Glass Cannon as Hana?

[Shadow Mir]

I'm pretty sure she has the default weapon master coat like everyone but Fuuga. Granted she should never be a weapon master unless the player really wants LoD since it's among one of the worst classes in the game.

Erm, what's so bad about Weapon Master?

[Shephen]

Erm, what's so bad about Weapon Master?

Worse stats than the Trueblade, no crit/avoid passives, and worse skills than Trueblade. E Axes and Lances is pretty terrible and doesn't really do much for them without an arms scroll. Its also generally inferior to Great Knight. Just never a real reason to go Weapon Master for anyone. Maybe Hisame would be good as a weapon Master since he can get auto leveled weapon ranks, but even then Trueblade is still better.

[Shadow Mir]

Worse stats than the Trueblade, no crit/avoid passives, and worse skills than Trueblade. E Axes and Lances is pretty terrible and doesn't really do much for them without an arms scroll. Its also generally inferior to Great Knight. Just never a real reason to go Weapon Master for anyone. Maybe Hisame would be good as a weapon Master since he can get auto leveled weapon ranks, but even then Trueblade is still better.

Okay then. Also, are the passive bonuses from being a Trueblade, etc. really that big a deal? Because I'm just not really sold on that.

[Shephen]

Okay then. Also, are the passive bonuses from being a Trueblade, etc. really that big a deal? Because I'm just not really sold on that.

10% is nothing to scoff at. For a unit like Hana she can't take many hits, 10% avoid lets her get hit less and either die less or require less healing freeing up your healers. For a wall like Hinata the extra crit lets him break through standoffs and keeps his offense pretty good. The passives are what I would say pushes Ryoma completely off the deep end since with the Rajin Katana, Trueblade passives, and a pair up boost he has +25 crit and +20 avoid which is just insane.

[lysander]

That and for Hana in particular something like Weapon Master or Blacksmith, which has its own costs, still wouldn't be enough to salvage durability. Haven't done the exact math on it, but just eyeballing it neither class would by itself be likely to save her from ORKOs over trueblade so it's not like they'd be saving you a robe or anything else either. So you'd be losing the actually meaningful Trueblade advantages to gain advantages that are of questionable use (weapon types you have no reason to use, more bulk that still isn't enough).

In a vacuum it's not a bad class, it's just I don't think there are many units made for it and with the way FE:F does weapons one of its advantages is inherently weaker than it would've been in past games.

[Shadow Mir]

10% is nothing to scoff at. For a unit like Hana she can't take many hits, 10% avoid lets her get hit less and either die less or require less healing freeing up your healers. For a wall like Hinata the extra crit lets him break through standoffs and keeps his offense pretty good. The passives are what I would say pushes Ryoma completely off the deep end since with the Rajin Katana, Trueblade passives, and a pair up boost he has +25 crit and +20 avoid which is just insane.

That and for Hana in particular something like Weapon Master or Blacksmith, which has its own costs, still wouldn't be enough to salvage durability. Haven't done the exact math on it, but just eyeballing it neither class would by itself be likely to save her from ORKOs over trueblade so it's not like they'd be saving you a robe or anything else either. So you'd be losing the actually meaningful Trueblade advantages to gain advantages that are of questionable use (weapon types you have no reason to use, more bulk that still isn't enough).

In a vacuum it's not a bad class, it's just I don't think there are many units made for it and with the way FE:F does weapons one of its advantages is inherently weaker than it would've been in past games.

I suppose both of you have a point. That said, I'm still suspicious since Myrms tend to get hyped to hell and back every new FE game, and more often than not, they fail to live up to the hype.

[FireRuby14]

Asama doesn't pass Herb Merchant since Priestess is her secondary class, she receives nothing new from him.

[Ownagepuffs]

Love Hana. She's good at her one job: combat. Her early game is middling, but her mid and endgame are strong. In IK she's around during a free exp chapter and during a free statbooster/free exp chapter so she can work if you invest in her. It's between her and Tsubaki for early game exp since Kaze is way too weak and Saizou is on his way.

Character wise, she's just a training tomboy. Though I find her devotion to Sakura really endearing and her rivalry with Tsubaki is cool.

[Jayvee94]

Asama doesn't pass Herb Merchant since Priestess is her secondary class, she receives nothing new from him.

I second this

[lysander]

I suppose both of you have a point. That said, I'm still suspicious since Myrms tend to get hyped to hell and back every new FE game, and more often than not, they fail to live up to the hype.

While true, those were in games where either inherently dumb/broken hand-axes and javelins existed or in games where you could rescue-chain or other dumb gimmick your way to victory using certain skills or mounts. Or in games where both were true. I imagine the latter will be true for some maps, but never the former making it like a FE7 where somebody modded the hand-axes/javelins to have absurd weight and less power while removing all PC instances of short-spears, short-axes, tomahawks, etc.

[Dark Paladin X]

You might need to make a correction. Marrying Hana to Asama grants her nothing since Hana's secondary is already a Priestess. Unfortunately, she isn't able to marry or buddy someone who has access to the Great Merchant class across from marrying the male Avatar with a Herb Merchant class secondary (because I find the Extravagence and Line of Death skill combo to be OP)

But if you ask me, Hana is fine as a Trueblade, but she can also be viable as an Elite Ninja. The advantage of Hana as a Elite Ninja over a Trueblade is that she can attack from a distance and Hidden Weapons already have a +2 Speed modifier, which synergizes well with Hana's naturally high speed growth.

Anyways, if you manage to max Hana's stats via EXP DLC map, here are my recommended skills for Trueblade and Elite Ninja/Maid builds

Trueblade:

Swordfaire

Line of Death

Astra

Flowing Strike

Renewal

Elite Ninja/Maid:

Kunaifaire (if you marry her to Kaze or Saizou)

Line of Death

Flowing Strike

Prescient Victory

Astra

[Ownagepuffs]

Oh yeah, I've had thoughts on Ninja Hana. But then she's basically Kagerou with a worse Shuriken rank. She can just stick to Trueblade. It jives with her growths and bases.

[Dark Paladin X]

Oh yeah, I've had thoughts on Ninja Hana. But then she's basically Kagerou with a worse Shuriken rank. She can just stick to Trueblade. It jives with her growths and bases.

Elite Ninjas can get S rank Shuriken regardless of who the character is.

[Ryo]

Elite Ninjas can get S rank Shuriken regardless of who the character is.

She'll start with E-rank. But if you're talking about post-game build, then yeah, it doesn't really matter.

Edited October 26, 2015 by Ryo

[Ownagepuffs]

Worst base* Shuriken rank. Can't all just start with S weapon Ranks can we.

[CompteSecours]

that 55% str growth is awesome

[Duke of Dozel]

The problem with reclassing to ninja or any shuriken class is that E rank only gives you access to the pathetic bronze shuriken/kunai, with weak debuff, and the joke weapons. It's difficult to use debuffers that don't have ranks because of this. Reclassing her to one would make her difficult to be very useful, considering you're stuck with her for a while until you get Hinata or Ryoma. Even then you'll have Saizou and Kaze right out the gate, ready to debuff everyone. Just stick to a hard hitting class when using her.