(Thought/Debate) Are the "royals" really viable ?

[Rowlet]

I done a playthrough of each route, and these are my opinions on every Royal child. (Including Hinoka, Elise, etc.)

Ryoma; God-tier unit. Can solo the entire game if you let him with some supporting units.

Xander; Amazing tank with 1-2 Siegfried. With the right support, he is unkillable.

Hinoka; Maybe it is just me, but Hinoka has been very disappointing. I tried using her in my Revelations playthrough because I like her character, but unless I forced a lot of stat items on her, she wasn't doing anything - even with a +7 forged weapon. ;w;

Camilla; When I first used her in Conquest, I hated Camilla. She didn't do anything that my other units couldn't do. But in Revelations, she proved how OP she can be. Chuck her in the middle of the enemy forces and watch her one shot everything in sight.

Takumi; Best archer ever. Enough said.

Leo; Probably the worst Royal child in the game, purely based on how easy it is for him to get RNG screwed and fall behind. Every time I used him, he would start off great then end up being my slowest unit. However, if you take care of him and give him a +Spd support, he is fantastic.

Sakura; I was honestly surprised by how good Sakura turned out to be as a Shrine Maiden. I gave her a Shining Bow and she obliterated everyone in sight, while still being a useful staff user.

Elise; Literally the best mage I have used in Fates so far. Her growths and Exp gains are so good. I benched Leo in Conquest for Elise, since her speed was far better and her magic was on par once I promoted her to a Strategist. Plus she can use staffs effectively too.

[Inference]

To anyone out there laughing at OP, don't lie to yourself: you know you felt the same way when you first started playing Fire Emblem.

Over time, OP, you will have have to realize on your own that there is no real punishment to using the best units in the game from the moment they are available. It's all in your head and everything you were fed about Fire Emblem is a lie. If you want example of what I mean, fire up one of the older games and just cut loose with any of the powerful units they give you from the start. You will win faster and easier, and there will be no obstacle other than yourself to prevent you from doing it.

But in the meantime, do yourself a favor: speak less and read more. Learn how other people play and beat the game. You will learn a lot more through lurking than posting.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Inference

[Thor Odinson]

you know you felt the same way when you first started playing Fire Emblem.

Please I started Seth embleming from day 1 I had the biggest thing for him back in the day, veterans probably remember

always thought it was weird when GameFaqs (didn't know it was lol back then) gave Seth less than anything perfect

I guess nobody gave me shitty advice personally on him, though---which is relevant, I just picked up prepromotes like Seth and Duessel in my first SS run without anyone telling me they're shitty and bad, and they worked fine for me, so I ended up having a positive view of them to start with (SS probably helps--the prepromotes there are pretty fucking great) and a lot of newcomers somehow do end up getting poor advice from some other sites before they have enough experience to come to their own conclusions.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Thor Odinson

[eclipse]

To anyone out there laughing at OP, don't lie to yourself: you know you felt the same way when you first started playing Fire Emblem.

My first FE was FE7. You know who carried the game for me? Pent, Hawkeye, and Wallace.

If they can come in swinging, I'm fine with 'em.

EDIT: Right, topic.

My Conquest playthroughs have been. . .weird, but the only constant on my team was Xander. 1-2 range sword with the ability to absorb all the physical hits was more than enough for me!

. . .dammit, now I want to pair him with Hinoka in Revelations and make the ultimate PP unit.

Edited June 6, 2016 by eclipse

[Thor Odinson]

Speaking of the niichans actually

There was one of my rev runs where Xander was actually quite stat screwed but he still functioned fine because bases + pairup + Siegfried is good enough to make him work. I have had Ryomas who are the same--like before i ended up tossing boosters at him for reasons such as "i just really like looking at ryoma with really high stats it makes me happy" he was still doing really good damage and doubling and not dying. Those 1-2 11 mt swords really put in the work.

actually it was really funny once, and granted this is on normal because to make my ryoma army and skill collect i just ended up speedrunning birthright over and over again to get all the ryomas I want, and i ended up reclassing one of them to Onmyoji and with his nonexistent mag but horse god and the rest of his bases somehow he still ended up functioning??? it was hilarious though, wouldn't recommend but it was memorable

Edited June 6, 2016 by Thor Odinson

[singularity]

Leo is above average as a unit but arguably worst of the royals even with a personal weapon.

his personal weapon is arguably the worst too.

[Renall]

Not that there's tremendous competition for Horse Spirit since Elise is probably ORKOing with Fire and isn't helped all that much by the durability boost, so you can just squint and pretend that's his legendary.

[Ownagepuffs]

A speed support and speedwings and his personal tome is all he needs. He might use Lightning for some wary fighter enemies but other than that he's fine.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I also started with FE7 and used both Marcus and Pent from the start. Granted, I also didn't get bad advice. I was told not to overuse the pre-promotes, not to not use them at all. While I struggled to keep Marcus useful at the end, he was a very useful panic button and softened up enough enemies to give everyone else around him a foothold. Pent came in while Erk was under-performing and so he got rotated in. I also used Karel, but he showed up much later, so his impact wasn't nearly as meaningful.

With regards to Siegfried, even if Xander has doubling issues, it has a lot of other advantages. It doesn't cause a 5 effective Spd loss, can crit and trigger procs. It's also available in a route where the Dawn Armory doesn't even exist.

My experiences with Leo have been a bit mixed, but even in Conquest where he was struggling with stat gains, he was still an 8-Move Heartseeker and ferry, which is a pretty strong amount of utility. In Revelation, he's had much more success with stat gains and was able to hold his own rather quickly, even against the massively inflated bulk of the Lunatic Revelation enemies (maybe even because of it, since the route loves throwing around Berserkers and magic ruins them).

[avengerfive]

The best way to use Xander and Leo is to dump all your speed resources into them. Speedwings, Tonics, pairup, and Milk. On Lunatic my Xander and Leo doubled consistently, without a Rally Speed. The only things they failed to double were Swordmasters and Master Ninjas. Everything else got doubled and destroyed.

[UNLEASH IT]

To anyone out there laughing at OP, don't lie to yourself: you know you felt the same way when you first started playing Fire Emblem.

It was kinda strange for me, in my first playthrough of FE7 I threw prepromotes (mainly Pent, Louise, Harken, Marcus) at everything and didn't even bother to train my main lords, who ended the game at around level 7 unpromoted (eliwood being the exception due to his forced promotion). Then I went on Gamefaqs and a guide told me that all the prepromotes were shit, even though they worked fine for me. But my 9 year old self was swayed and I stopped using prepromotes for like, 5 years. Then I heard about LTC's and wanted to try that out, which made me come back full circle.

[TheCaptain]

If you don't mind using the dlc classes, Xander as a Lodestar pretty much becomes the best unit in the game. It fixes his biggest problem (speed) through the dancing blade and speed taker skills along with a slight increase to speed growth (I think) and doesn't really hurt too much else besides movement. Xander has consistently been my best unit in any run I use him (even better than Ryoma) because as a Lodestar he is tank, fast, and has no penalty 1-2 range. If you aren't using dlc classes, he indeed is just a pretty good tank and is kinda killed by his lower speed, but... yeah.

I've found Leo to be terribly average every time I've used him, usually I'll bring home to the end game but he ends up being one of my weaker units.

Camilla is kinda like Leo in that she feels really average, but is simply better. She will consistently be a solid unit, though you're better off making her a Wyvern Lord IMO, because her magic stat is pretty lackluster.

Ryoma is really good. I'd say he's much better than Paladin Xander but a bit worse than Lodestar Xander. Swordmaster Ryoma and Lodestar Xander serve a similar purpose, except Xander has more def. Ryoma tries to make up for that with good avoid, but that just means some bad RNG will kill him easily. He is still better than pretty much everyone else, especially in Birthright

[FoxyGrandpa]

Leo ended being pretty good for me after I reclassed him into a sorcerer. His performance ended up being like a hybred of both Nyx and Odin. He had enough speed and power to one shot and double enemies, while also having enough bulk to Nostank effectively. Loss of swords didn't really hurt him since he is far more profficient with magic and his lowered defense was offset by Nosfuratu healing.

[Original Alear]

To anyone out there laughing at OP, don't lie to yourself: you know you felt the same way when you first started playing Fire Emblem.

Over time, OP, you will have have to realize on your own that there is no real punishment to using the best units in the game from the moment they are available. It's all in your head and everything you were fed about Fire Emblem is a lie. If you want example of what I mean, fire up one of the older games and just cut loose with any of the powerful units they give you from the start. You will win faster and easier, and there will be no obstacle other than yourself to prevent you from doing it.

But in the meantime, do yourself a favor: speak less and read more. Learn how other people play and beat the game. You will learn a lot more through lurking than posting.

Honestly, when I played FE7, Marcus was probably my best unit my first game. I lost Raven fairly early on. I killed Guy without ever recruiting him, because I watched the intro to the chapter, turned the game off when the chapter started, and then started playing again without remembering that the game hinted that Matthew could recruit him.

I did get influenced into thinking Jeigans and prepromotes weren't that good by others on msg boards when I started playing my second playthrough forward, but my 1st playthrough, Pent, Marcus, Louise and Hawkeye were major VIPs. I did manage to promote Florina, I think Canas, and maybe Lucius?

I also had my lords at high levels but Lyn and Eliwood were pretty shitty.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Togami Byakuga

[DragonFlames]

Did you grind a lot or did you not let the prepromote royals fight until later in the game? I'll give you Leo though, he is mediocre.

I did let them fight and the fact that I can say all of what I did was because I had to start Conquest over several times, because somewhere (usually around chapter 18 or 19), my units ended up too weak to really do anything. Yes, even Xander, Camilla and Leo. Trust me, I've tried. Several times in fact. That's why I stand by what I said.

And I know I made it sound like the royals are bad or something. They aren't, I know that. They just didn't come off as godly and overpowered as everyone said and that made me a little disappointed in them, is all. I don't really think any of them is a bad unit by any stretch.

I also still like (almost) all of them, especially Sakura, Elise, Camilla and Ryoma, all of whom have superb combat ability (even though some units ended up being better stat-wise than the last two. RNG was my friend, I guess) and amazing personal skills.

I do see the advantages of a 1-2 range weapon with doubling and proc capabilites. Its just that that alone kinda didn't justify using Xander over any of the other Paladins/Great Knights for me, especially when Shuriken/Daggers and Peri's personal skill were a thing.

Seriously, once she got the boost and Azura danced for her, there was almost nothing stopping her from killing everything in her path, except her squishiness, which I kind of managed to sort of fix by pairing her up with Laslow. It was crazy (hee-hee, see what I did there? I'll see myself out now...). I believe giving Galeforce to her will maximize Peri's potential. Kill -> Skill -> Dance -> Galeforce -> at least three dead enemies and whatever else comes at her during enemy phase.

I did say that Hana ended up superior to Ryoma, but I also said that I used both of them in my Birthright playthrough and both of them really pulled their weight, because I really like the both of them. It was usually like this: Ryoma started off getting rid of pesky long range units and Hana and the others took care of the rest. I just now realize that I might have used Ryoma wrong.

What I especially liked about the Kodachi was the fact that it couldn't double, believe it or not. It helped get some EXP for weaker units who couldn't kill stuff on their own yet, like the children or Mozu.

With all that being said, I'm sorry if I came off as too negative. I'm usually not that way, or at least I'm trying not to be.

I will give the royals another shot in my Revelations playthrough and maybe then I can finally be enlightened to their god-like capabilities (no sarcasm).

[eclipse]

Xander was the reason why I was able to get past Chapter 17 Conquest on Hard. And he was at base when I dusted him off. He proved his worth and then some, and he was able to tank like a boss with Beruka behind him.

[Thor Odinson]

If Xander and Camilla can't do anything in 18/19 you may have to examine your strategy instead of blaming it on your units. Leo does struggle in C17 if you didn't get Ophelia for the Calamity Gate in her chapter, however--but he was pretty damn useful in my C18 clear even at only a level or two over base. 19 was a Xander solo.

If you've been using Ryoma to only snipe units, yeah, you're not using him at his full power. I did that for some time on purpose to limit him because he's too powerful, but after chapter 23 I said fuck it and just unleashed him on the map and it was satisfying.

Full power Ryoma is just

pair him up with someone, I like Scarlet because +str +def +mov, worked well even without any support bonuses

plop in the middle of somewhere, preferable some strategic location so the rest of your army don't have to face EP too much

end turn

win

Edited June 7, 2016 by Thor Odinson