How good or bad are axes in FE6...

[TempestStorm]

Geese and Alan average the same skill at 20/20 (21). If Alan can be considered good with axes, why not Geese, who makes up for axelock and lack of a horse with ridiculous crit?

Hell Geese averages MORE skill than even HM Percy (20 hm, 16 nm)

If you're gonna just go "Axe users suck", I suggest trying all of them first. I know most people pass on Geese for Gonzalez, and Geese has what I'm starting to call Serra syndrome, but he's becoming my go-to axe user for runs.

I will admit axe users need unholy rigging to hit enemies on a throne, but 60+% if the cast does

[ping]

I don't know if the crit is as strong as weapon triangle control and Allen's EXP lead. IMO, Geese kinda lacks a niche, at least in HM. Cavs/Paladins are way better during the actual fight. Rutger (and even Fir) are the better boss killers because they have access to way superior effective weaponry. They might lack a anti-Cav sword (lol Rapier), but the Armorslayer is so much better than the Hammer and you only face two Paladin bosses (and at least one of them sucks) anyway.

So yeah, it's not wrong to say that characters with axes as their primary weapon are worse as a whole. Both Lances (Milady) and Swords (Rutger) have at least one amazing representative, while the strongest axe users are either decent or hilariously strong and inaccurate. Although HM/Lalum route-Gonzo at 20/1 has only 1.35 less skill than Geese and completely eclipses him otherwise, so I have a hard time calling them even roughly equal.

Axes are OK as long as a unit isn't axelocked. Promoted Alance, Percival, Marcus, Zealot and Echidna are enough to do the job and use an axe whenever it's useful. Axelock really sucks though.

I can't say anything about FE4 and 5, but other than that - yeah, pretty much this.

I don't like axes in this game for the reasons Glace mentioned, among others (those being that it takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R to get the units that'd actually have the Skill to hit with axes to a decent rank, as they need to promote to use them, and generally only being good against lance users).

The Hand Axe is an E rank weapon in this game, so actively training their axe rank isn't that important, anyway. I'm definitely not suggesting grinding any E-rank to Killers or even Silvers. ;) Although Killers are only C-rank, so that might actually be a thing in the endgame, but I wouldn't actively put effort into making that happen.

[Yojinbo]

I may not have given FE5 axes enough credit. Pugi / Hero Axe / Dagdar / Othin is probably as good or better than FE6 axe usage after all.

FE4 axes are still terrible though. Lex is not that good and the other units that can use Axes are the Master Knights Lachesis and Leaf who have far better options than the Hero Axe [which is the only good axe in FE4 anyway]. At best you can get 50 kills on the Hero Axe on the way somehow and have Johan used it. Still very sub-par options for axe usage, certainly worse than FE6's.

Geese and Alan average the same skill at 20/20 (21). If Alan can be considered good with axes, why not Geese, who makes up for axelock and lack of a horse with ridiculous crit?

Because Alan is not forced to use Axes but has access to two better weapon types.

[Even if both units were axelocked Alan has his support with Lance that boosts his accuracy and he sits on a horse so he'd likely be the better axe user still].

[Augestein]

Axes are less accurate in FE6 than the other GBA titles, no doubt. But I think the issue is more that the axe users that don't have much access to other weapon types have lower bases and skill growth combos than other units. To put this into perspective, Marcus at level 1 has 14 skill. Garret has 13 at level 1. There are units like Echidna that can use axes perfectly fine for instance. It's just most of them have more to OFFER outside of simply axes. The buffs axes got for accuracy put the axe users in a safer attack range than before.

[TempestStorm]

I may not have given FE5 axes enough credit. Pugi / Hero Axe / Dagdar / Othin is probably as good or better than FE6 axe usage after all.

FE4 axes are still terrible though. Lex is not that good and the other units that can use Axes are the Master Knights Lachesis and Leaf who have far better options than the Hero Axe [which is the only good axe in FE4 anyway]. At best you can get 50 kills on the Hero Axe on the way somehow and have Johan used it. Still very sub-par options for axe usage, certainly worse than FE6's.

Because Alan is not forced to use Axes but has access to two better weapon types.

[Even if both units were axelocked Alan has his support with Lance that boosts his accuracy and he sits on a horse so he'd likely be the better axe user still].

So basically "Alan is a better axe user because he's not forced to use them". That kinda defeats arguing against the point I was making because if he's not using them, he's not an axe user.

As for the Gonz HM argument, that's a completely different beast where axe users will almost solely be filler. Rutger, Alan, Lance, Miledy, Zeiss, Lugh, Dieck, Percy, possibly Thany/Tate/Lilina/Fir/Shin will be eating up the exp. Marcus, Zealot, Echidna, Igrene, Klein are the fillers. Also going "He has hm bonuses so he's better" is not quite what I'd consider as a valid argument unless it was specifically for hm, so consider yourself lucky I even entertained that.

Sorry if any of it came off as rude, or if I misunderstood. I just hate throwing hm into a debate that originally wasn't using it as a calling point. I only pulled Percy hm to make a point because apparently he's a better axe user than the guy that has a better hit rate

[ping]

So basically "Alan is a better axe user because he's not forced to use them". That kinda defeats arguing against the point I was making because if he's not using them, he's not an axe user.

He might be the better axe user because he has a EXP lead. He's a better unit in general because he isn't restricted to one weapon type, because he is mounted and because he has some fast-ish supports with other good (Lance) or forced (Roy) characters available. Geese has the higher base weapon rank though, so I suppose if we just look at their combat when using axes, he might still be better than Alance.

Just being the best at using axes is about as much as an achievement as having the highest Def stat in the game. It's nice and other units would improve if they were given the same Def stat, but Barth is still vastly inferior to all the units that are better in every other way. Now Geese isn't as atrocious as Barth, of course, but the argument still applies to him, too.

[Also, if Allen was axelocked, he would have an appropriate axe rank by the time Geese is recruited. So Yojinbo isn't wrong with his PS either.]