How good is FE 4?

[Gradivus.]

I'm more inclined to agree with eclipse - even if FE4 doesn't have as many useless units, that doesn't make its unit balance better, especially with fixed weapon ranks, Holy Blood, and the godawful weapon balance that plagues it.

FE4's broken options are on a totally different side of the spectrum than FE12's useless units, so I don't think they're comparable like that. Fixed weapon ranks also don't really ruin the weapon system, they're mechanically identical to a system with personalized caps (and that's not a huge factor because there's no unit off the top of my head that can't use the silver/brave tier weapons they need) where everyone gets their max rank at base.

Edited October 12, 2016 by Gradivus.

[Jave]

I know one of them is Chapter 2 but I can't piece which the other one is. 9 or 10?

The Yied Desert map, which is 7, I think? You have to send some units to seize Yied through that mountain while others go south and wait. You can fight some battles with Leif/Nanna/Finn but most of your army is stuck doing nothing for several turns. Then there's the backtracking to recruit Leen, which is annoying if Seliph is still unpromoted.

9 and 10 have their annoying backtracking as well, but at least Seliph should be mounted by then.

[General Horace]

I'm more inclined to agree with eclipse - even if FE4 doesn't have as many useless units, that doesn't make its unit balance better, especially with fixed weapon ranks, Holy Blood, and the godawful weapon balance that plagues it.

haven't you not even played past the first couple maps of fe4?

I'm not doubting that mounted units are better, they certainly are, but it's really not worse than any other game. In fact, in some chapters, it's better, because you can position your units in a way that your unmounted unit will be sigificantly closer to the action than your mounted dudes who just took a castle. Several maps (Prologue, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 9, Chapter 10 and endgame) are all very easy to use unmounted units even if you're fullmoving your lord every turn. Other games your unmounted units are left in the dust and the chapter ends before they can do anything.

You can also totally ignore some units (Ayra, Jamka, Holyn, Levin, Ayra's kids, Shanan, Faval, Sety) entirely and field them with just arena exp and they'll still be able to do things. If you ignore Dieck for several maps in FE6, he's not gonna be very useful in ~7 maps or so. Holy Blood is no different than Ryoma having Rajinto or Xander having Siegfried, strong units storywise are meant to be strong in the game too.

Holy weapons are very strong in FE4, but they're almost always extremely overkill. In 90% of scenerios things that Sety kills with Holsety could be killed by someone like Arthur with Elthunder.

Edited October 12, 2016 by General Horace

[eclipse]

the unit balance is also nowhere near as bad as FE12's, and set weapon levels help balance the classes (unfourtunately Holy Blood usually nullifies this though). When you think about bad/useless units in FE4, you think of Ardan, Tiltyu and Hannibal, while you could name nearly half the cast in FE12.

I find Noish amusing, and Alec needs some duct tape on his mouth. However, I think those two are mediocre at best. Sure, they can keep up with Sigurd, but they won't turn into anything amazing.

What skills are god awful?

What's the point of Charge, besides making Awareness relevant?

---

Oh, right, forgot about Sylvia. Don't like her as a character, but I like her as a unit. Kinda miss having FE4-style dancing, all the time!

[Shin]

What's the point of Charge, besides making Awareness relevant?

Charge isn't affected by Awareness.

FE4 has some very powerful units, but even Ardan and friends can get some use. It's not like they're completely incapable of fighting. A lot of the units you get in FE12 are just so bad that they can't function unless you pump a ridiculous amount of resources into them. FE4 only really has Hannibal as a deadweight, everyone else can at least contribute even if they're not the star off the show.

[BillNyeTheBlackGuy]

I like how some people keep saying a lot of FE12 units are bad. Maybe they are bad in harder modes, but the game clearly wasn't balanced for those modes in mind. I had no problem using the so called "low tier" units in normal and hard mode. The game isn't even fun beyond hard mode. Mangs for example got so frustrated at Maniac mode that he vow to never play FE12 again because of the stupid crap it threw at you. Lunatic is even worse.

Big Shield. Nihil is also fairly unhelpful in general and critical is meh. But even then they're no detriment.

Critical is one of the best offensive skills in the game. Has the same activation as Astra, and it pretty much 1HKOs most enemies in the game. I'm not sure how it's meh.

Edited October 12, 2016 by BillNyeTheBlackGuy

[Shadow Mir]

FE4 has some very powerful units, but even Ardan and friends can get some use. It's not like they're completely incapable of fighting. A lot of the units you get in FE12 are just so bad that they can't function unless you pump a ridiculous amount of resources into them. FE4 only really has Hannibal as a deadweight, everyone else can at least contribute even if they're not the star off the show.

...

Okay, what difficulty are you assuming? Lunatic? Because I'd assume that whichever FE12 units you're talking about would be perfectly serviceable on lower difficulties (and easier to work with than the likes of Arden and Corple, at that).

[General Horace]

the entire latter half of fe12 have similar stats to Sirius with worse weapon ranks and join 10-20 chapters later. they aren't good units. If you actually make Ardan fight, he does fine, his stats are fine for gen 1 enemies. At the very least he helps out a little bit in the prologue and gets you a nice item for free for absolutely no cost. If you make the awful FE12 prepremotes fight, they suck at it, and if you dump loads of statbooster into them, it's a heavy cost for an average unit. Corple can sit in base and warp people or go out and use physic on people, he's not entirely useless because he uses staves. The only useless FE4 unit is Hannibal.

Edited October 12, 2016 by General Horace

[Refa]

I'd say that he can guard the castle at least but Shanan does a better job of even that. #FeelsBadMan

Seriously, though, I'm sure Hannibal can like chip at the Axe Knights in the final chapter or shoot arrows at wyverns or something. Definitely the worst unit in the game, but I dunno, still can do something.

[Irysa]

FE12 prepromotes open doors or bait ballista/seige tomes pretty well!

[Rend Keaven]

I've beaten the game last month, it was really worth it and it's one of my 3 favourites in the series. It's not perfect however:

Firstly, the game is comically dubbed "Horse Emblem" because of how unmounted units are treated horribly in the game, thanks to the huge maps and how the game uses Arden as a joke for this.

As far as game play goes, it's very solid and IMO there is only one chapter that I consider horribly designed (chapter 7). Just be aware that there are some dated mechanics as FE 1-5 was when the series were being very experimental at the time. First of all, you cannot trade between units and the only way to give weapons to each other is by having unit A sell the item to a pawnbroker and then have unit B buy it for doubled what unit A sold it for. Secondly, each unit has there own wallet/purse, they can hold a total of 50000 gold, so I would recommend making low level units or healers visit villages so they can get easy money without having to go through the arena.

[Shadow Mir]

the entire latter half of fe12 have similar stats to Sirius with worse weapon ranks and join 10-20 chapters later. they aren't good units. If you actually make Ardan fight, he does fine, his stats are fine for gen 1 enemies. At the very least he helps out a little bit in the prologue and gets you a nice item for free for absolutely no cost. If you make the awful FE12 prepremotes fight, they suck at it, and if you dump loads of statbooster into them, it's a heavy cost for an average unit. Corple can sit in base and warp people or go out and use physic on people, he's not entirely useless because he uses staves. The only useless FE4 unit is Hannibal.

I ask again, are you assuming Lunatic? Because I'd imagine they wouldn't be that bad on Normal or Hard. And going back to Corple, I've seen my fair share of complaints about healers being slow to level. Why in the seven hells would I want to bother with Corple, who joins late and at level 1, when by that time, Lana and Nanna would likely be promoted, or at least close to it? Because FE4 allows deploying everyone (which I don't exactly like, btw)? That ain't good enough a reason for me to overlook those two factors, by my standards. Hell, as much as I think Wendy's the worst unit in the series, her join time made more sense, even if it screwed her over.

Edited October 12, 2016 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Gradivus.]

I ask again, are you assuming Lunatic? Because I'd imagine they wouldn't be that bad on Normal or Hard.

Regardless of what mode you're on, I don't think you'd find more of a reason to use the free silvers in FE12 than units like Corple, even if the latter won't serve much beyond filler roles (as in 2nd/3rd staffbot that can use the odd warp, physic, restore or w/e staff you want).

[General Horace]

I ask again, are you assuming Lunatic? Because I'd imagine they wouldn't be that bad on Normal or Hard. And going back to Corple, I've seen my fair share of complaints about healers being slow to level. Why in the seven hells would I want to bother with Corple, who joins late and at level 1, when by that time, Lana and Nanna would likely be promoted, or at least close to it? Because FE4 allows deploying everyone (which I don't exactly like, btw)? That ain't good enough a reason for me to overlook those two factors, by my standards. Hell, as much as I think Wendy's the worst unit in the series, her join time made more sense, even if it screwed her over.

FE4 staves give an insane amount of exp if you actually care about training corple, and it really doesn't matter if you promote him or not because his combat isn't going to be good (barring Levin!Corple) and he doesn't gain movement, so he can continue using physic or whatever for no cost.

and like gradivus said, even on H1, a good majority of FE12's cast is flat out bad. The bad combat units have an opportunity cost, since you're pumping exp into units that fight poorly, while Corple can easily take a spare staff and free up another staff user with actual offence like Tinny or Sety and do their job just as well with no investment.

What's more, there's no deployment in FE4, everyone is fielded, so using Corple doens't mean not using Lana, while using someone like Roshea (or any second half unit more or less) means you're using him instead of someone better than him.

Edited October 13, 2016 by General Horace

[BillNyeTheBlackGuy]

and like gradivus said, even on H1, a good majority of FE12's cast is flat out bad.

Maybe characters after Robert, Belf, and Leiden aren't that useful (although IMO Abel is underrated, even in FE3) . I had no problem using most of the characters before that in hard mode, and that's more than half the cast.

Funny how I'm actually a bit off topic here; I find many of the cast of FE12 underrated, but I think Corple is actually a pretty good character since I think he does hit job well. Yeah, he has 5 movement, but no other unpromoted unit starts with an A rank in staffs, so I see no reason why he shouldn't fortify spam (besides money, but that's really no issue when you have a Patty or Daisy).

Edited October 13, 2016 by BillNyeTheBlackGuy

[Darros]

Late to the party with these responses but the thread is still on the first page so w/e:

What's the point of Charge, besides making Awareness relevant?

Bow users! Both Midayle and Jamka have it, and Lester and Faval like to inherit it. Though outside of bows it's significantly less useful and borders on dangerous.

The Yied Desert map, which is 7, I think? You have to send some units to seize Yied through that mountain while others go south and wait. You can fight some battles with Leif/Nanna/Finn but most of your army is stuck doing nothing for several turns. Then there's the backtracking to recruit Leen, which is annoying if Seliph is still unpromoted.

Right, I always forget about that one. Tbh I pass the Leg Ring to Celice more often than not, but that part is still really annoying. Fee/Femina can be really helpful in that part if you send her south. If you send her west she usually can't sustain herself ((Haven't tested this with Claude as a father, the extra res may be of use)).