Balance Tweaks for Lunatic

[Irysa]

It's not redundant because that's actually useful on a couple of maps in this game. Same deal w/using a Killer Lance against the Master Sword SM in Chapter 11 or maybe using a Dragonpike as a Paladin due to movement requirements. Or maybe it's a freaking draft or something.

Yeah you've got a lot of units who can cover that already, but it's not like anybody thinks its a bad thing that MU gets Lance rank for going Cavalier.

As for the weapon rank thing, I think I forgot to actually write that down from my notes as reasoning lol, thanks for reminding me. Some of these are from like, random musings I've had in the past and I scribbled down some ideas. I think that's where I figured giving him D Swords would be fair in the first place. Wlevel as a stat is very difficult to compare properly to Weapon Rank though, since characters like Matthis and Caeda can use Silvers at base in FE3. I guess in Matthis' case he's definitely getting benched anyway so it really won't hurt to even let him use Silvers Lances, what do you think?

Kinda just had a sponteanous idea (that I wouldn't implement since lol skills in FE12) for a personal skill for Matthis: Dullard - Depletes weapon uses twice as fast. Combine that with access to Silver Lances at base and that'd be pretty funny I think!

Edited December 3, 2015 by Irysa

[Refa]

Fair enough, I'll admit outright that I probably have less experience with FE12 H3 than you do. I guess it's more that it feels like he's contributing less than Luke no matter what you do, but I have no idea how you'd go about fixing that problem.

I think it'd be hilarious if Matthis had base B lances. Maybe if he could like, OHKO mages early on he'd have some niche use. It'd certainly help differentiate him from other tier 1 cavaliers and make him sort of the B tier version of Arran/Sirius (although I guess he'd have some growth potential that Arran lacks).

Clearly his personal skill should be Sororicide (effective damage against Lena). Your skill would probably be better gameplay wise though, although I'd imagine them adding some benefit like +3 attack or just giving him good base stats. Actually, that'd be kind of an interesting skill for a Jeigan to have, thinking about it.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Refa

[dondon151]

rody is pretty garbage compared to luke as-is. it takes 13-14 level ups for him to outspeed luke on average and he'll always lose in both str and durability. i cannot think of a reason to use rody over luke in this game without changes, partially because luke is better for more of the game in important stats, and partially because rody is competing with at least 3 great lance users (catria, palla, sirius) and 1 decent lance user (draug).

also cecille is not very good compared to luke either even with your changes; her durability is significantly worse and it's compounded by her worse prologue availability. if she does not start with D lances then there is basically zero opportunity for her to use lances at all. given the choice between using an iron lance to build lance rank or a lady sword for immediate power, lady sword wins almost all of the time.

one unexplored idea in unit design for this game is to give units base weapon rank in weapons that they can't use in their base class.

Edited December 3, 2015 by dondon151

[General Horace]

Cecil was also significantly better than Luke and Rody in FE3 for what it's worth, she had a really high weapon level there (silvers at base) and she's like the only character in the entire game that actually got nerfed (why?) by 1 strength and 2 defence (and weapon rank), while Luke and Rody got buffed very heavily.

I don't see the problem in giving her like +2 HP/+1str/+1 def on base, along with D Lances (or C Swords), even with these changes her HP/Def growths are still lame compared to Luke's. Her offence and durability are just too shitty to be useful, especially compared to Catria/Palla.

[Irysa]

To the general Rody concerns: you need to present an argument for why Rody has to be as good as Luke (and saying he's garbage compared to Luke is a wild exaggeration). I already said in the OP that the goal was not to achieve perfect balance. As it stands now he has a niche, and he works as a core unit. Why is this current situation so bad? He does not struggle to actually be utilised like some of the other units in this game. I'm giving them buffs because I want them to have SOME relevance even if it's short term. Like, even if Rody's usability as a Lancer is meh, he's probably going Hunter/Pirate for earlygame anyway.

As for Cecille's Lance Rank, a couple of uses of a Lance is not as difficult as you make it out to be, especially when Cecille is not exclusively making her own kills and can be picking up on kills other characters have set up (using Cecille + Catria to get the Thief in C2 f.ex). Additionally, since she's effectively an alterative Falcoknight option (as it stands) she has a lot maps of just sitting around waiting to get an Elysian Whip where she can prioritise getting enough internal Lance Rank to hit C as a Falco. I disagree that she's not useful; she is unarguably worse (again I'll need some kind of general argument as to why this is bad if she's reasonably usable) but with these slight base durability increases she can generally avoid OHKO status (the most serious limitation to using her), and she is undoubtedly pretty strong with the Lady Sword. How is her offence bad, especially considering the Lady Sword? She becomes very comparable with Catria's offensive bases given a few levels.

I think some of you are being a little bit inflexible in considering the fact that Lunatic doesn't have to be tackled with the exact same team composition everytime, nor does every playthrough have to be LTC and any unit not a definite pick over someone else in LTC is bad.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Irysa

[dondon151]

To the general Rody concerns: you need to present an argument for why Rody has to be as good as Luke (and saying he's garbage compared to Luke is a wild exaggeration). I already said in the OP that the goal was not to achieve perfect balance. As it stands now he has a niche, and he works as a core unit.

my entire point was that rody doesn't have a niche. as a unit who gains EXP starting from prologue-3, rody is a worse option than luke or ryan. as an early lance user, rody is a worse option than catria, palla, sirius, caeda, and is comparable to draug. this is the hallmark of not having a niche.

I think some of you are being a little bit inflexible in considering the fact that Lunatic doesn't have to be tackled with the exact same team composition everytime, nor does every playthrough have to be LTC and any unit not a definite pick over someone else in LTC is bad.

i don't understand your logic. general horace and i are suggesting changes that would balance these characters for LTC. if these balancing changes do not break these characters in non-LTC, then what's the problem? isn't this a positive all around?

[Irysa]

my entire point was that rody doesn't have a niche. as a unit who gains EXP starting from prologue-3, rody is a worse option than luke or ryan. as an early lance user, rody is a worse option than catria, palla, sirius, caeda, and is comparable to draug. this is the hallmark of not having a niche.

His niche is having the best growth spread out of all of them and all three of them are long term growth units. His start is the worst, but I don't see that as a big deal because he's probably going Hunter with a Bow Forge early on anyway. You can't just note that Rody's barely losing in durability to Luke (which doesn't matter anyway since they'll both die in the same amount of hits after the Prologue) and ignore the fact he pulls ahead on speed later on which means you're far less likely to need to give him any Speedwings, which frees those up for other potential units. He has some realistic gains on Luke in speed and reliability is worth considering; Luke only has about a 50% chance (using binominal distribution and assuming they only level as Hunters for the sake of simplicity) of getting to 27 AS as a Horseman without any boosters by 15/14, wheras Rody has a 92% chance. That matters.

i don't understand your logic. general horace and i are suggesting changes that would balance these characters for LTC. if these balancing changes do not break these characters in non-LTC, then what's the problem? isn't this a positive all around?

LTC is a tool that reflects the balance of the game, but it is not the by all, end all definition of how the game is balanced. I don't see why it's neccessarily a bad thing for there to be characters who do not preform as well as other characters put under harsh conditions, and simulteanously I do not see why it's neccessarily something these tweaks should aim for. As far as I can extrapolate, you're basically saying "more viable characters in absoloute LTC = good" and then saying "whats the downside to that?" but I don't agree with the premise, you have to convince me as to why making characters more viable for LTC is an important or at least worthwhile goal. I mean, units like Bord and Matthis aren't getting buffs to make them LTC viable, it's to make them have some kind of use in the current game as is.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Irysa

[Aircalipoor]

I always considered Luke and Rody to be equal growthwise. +15% Spd. is amazing, but he also has - 10% in HP and Str.

I agree that Rody has a slightly better growth, because Spd. > everything, but not that much. They are both Cain and Abel archetypes, growth-wise.

Personally, I would give Rody +2 Spd. He is still inferior in Str. and Def.

This would make Cecille obsolete, but I would give her way more Spd. anyways. You need 14-15 Spd to double in the early game, 9 Spd. isn't going to make fast for a while.

[Ema Skye]

I'd consider giving units weapon EXP in weapons their base classes don't get.

As an example, to further set Rody apart, give him some Axe WEXP to make him a better Pirate and Dracoknight down the road. Gives him a better niche role while still improving him as a unit.

Plus this would open up plenty more opportunities to buff units who weren't great to begin with. I get that making everyone viable isn't the point of your project, but it makes things more interesting than *insert base speed buff here*.

Edited December 4, 2015 by squid kid

[dondon151]

I don't see why it's neccessarily a bad thing for there to be characters who do not preform as well as other characters put under harsh conditions,

you don't? then why is it a bad thing for there to be bad characters? why are you even thinking of balancing the game?

how do you justify that your aim to balance characters for casual play is better than my aim to balance characters for LTC and casual play?

Edited December 4, 2015 by dondon151

[Irysa]

It's not bad for there to be bad characters.

However, I think it's bad if the majority of the cast are pretty much unusable (literally, not figuratively) on certain difficulties and have no characteristics whatsoever. That's especially so when one can detract a fairly clear purpose for them being there in the first place. It begs the question of why they're even in the game if they're borderline incapable of doing what they're meant to do. Bord's a decent example - he's clearly supposed to help with the C3 boss, but he can't even really do that in vanilla with any modicum of reliability.

A unit being bad/useless in LTC doesn't mean the character is useless in context of the game at large. A useless character in context of the whole game seems intuitively worse than a useless character in the context of LTC no?

Edited December 5, 2015 by Irysa

[Irysa]

Wrys - No changes. Wrys is meant to be kind of shitty but still potentially useful due to being an early staffer. I can't really think of a way to not make him just get eclipsed by Malicia and Yumina though, and honestly, his Prologue healing already means a lot, and you can turn him into a long term staffer if you really want. I see Wrys as a decidedly weak overall unit but with a small period of significant clutch, who can be used if you want to goof off a bit. As such, he's fine.

Ogma - Increase base Strength and Speed by 1. He's a bit underpowered but still viable thanks to the Sword Rank, and he's one of the only decent Horseman candidates in a run without the unlocked class sets. You can also give him some kills in Prologue. The base stat increases are to maintain the general parity with other units and to make his base speed match his FE3 base, as it's honestly bizzare that so many other characters got base stat buffs whilst Ogma got nerfed.

Castor - Increase base HP, Strength, Skill and Speed by 1. I honestly think he is a little bit underrated, as he does have a relatively nice Bow Rank. His growths are all middle of the road, which works well with the separation I've tried to create between him, Warren, Draug and Ryan.The base stat increases are there to create some parity with Warren.

Sirius - No changes. I really wanted to give him an extra 3 or so base HP but I feel like the somewhat low base HP is kind of meant to be one of his characteristics and weaknesses as an early prepromote.

Yumina - Increase base level by 1, increase base HP by 1. The Malicia nerf goes a long way to helping Yumina, and I was thinking of leaving at that. However a base level increase should make it easier to get her to a promotion, and you will probably need to do that if you're playing at a brisk pace and want to use Fortify in Chapter 14. The HP buff is mostly just to even out the base level increase a little.

Yubello - Increase Magic Growth by 30%, HP growth by 10%. Increase base Magic by 3 (this puts his base at 4 as a Mage). Increase base Skill by 2. Yubello's gimmick in the original FE3 was his sky high Mag growth compared to the alternative Magic users in that game. In FE12 everyone had their Mag growth (and bases!) buffed...except Yubello. This puts him more in line with what he should be like as Mage who can hit the hardest. However, Yubello will still struggle to find uses regardless of this change, given that there are plenty of Spirit Dusts in the game and not so many Speedwings. Ultimately there's no real way to address this problem without just making him significantly better than Merric, unless Merric gets buffed a lot, which then means Etzel and (and maybe Wendell) have to get buffed a lot etc. To try to reduce power creep, I'm leaving at this. At least if you get the Shaver village you can attempt to try to help him catch up on some of the remaining Dracoknights.

Caeda - No changes. Very balanced character overall imo. She has a great niche but isn't centralising in this game.

Barst - Increase base HP by 3, increase Axe Rank to C. The axe rank change is a gigantic buff to Barst as it allows him to immediately contribute vs the Knights in this and the following Chapter, and even potentially secure kills against the Generals in Chapter 8. The HP buff is mostly for the sake of consistency in Cord and Bord's HP increases.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Irysa

[dondon151]

sirius really needs some +luk