Why are natures so serious business?

[Sayyyaka]

9 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Its not as simple as that, but I completely understand where you're coming from lol

I mean, I think nothing of someone simply saying they don't care about this stuff, that's OK.  But I see these "why do you care so much???" comments everywhere when it comes to more competitive games, if you can even call FEH that anyway.

Some people just want the best and like trying their best.  I want my favourite characters to be at their best.  That's all.

Edited May 5, 2017 by Sayyyaka

[shadowofchaos]

2 minutes ago, Sayyyaka said:

I mean, I think nothing of someone simply saying they don't care about this stuff, that's OK.  But I see these "why do you care so much???" comments everywhere when it comes to more competitive games, if you can even call FEH that anyway.

Some people just want the best and like trying their best.  I want my favourite characters to be at their best.  That's all.

There's the part where obsessing about having the best or not at all when the person isn't competitive is the part that is addressed by this topic.

[Tarilaan]

Personally, I mostly just track natures so I know which character to actually train when there are duplicates. It doesn't necessarily matter if they're the best, but I'd like to be able to choose the one most likely to succeed when the option presents itself. Doesn't mean I'm not going to use suboptimal units when I only have the one. (Looking at you, -DEF Hector)

I also tend to prefer using well-rounded units, so given the choice, I'll actually train Neutrals first. There've actually been times where I couldn't follow an Mkv. guide for a GHB, because I threw out my free Donnels early in the game's life, and the one I was trying to use took too much damage because of -DEF

Edited May 5, 2017 by Tarilaan

[Rezzy]

I'm not sure if you'd consider me competitive, but I've scored in the top 10K almost every week, and usually get around 4800 points for the season.  My teams have had bad natures, and I've had to work around them.  If most of my units weren't -Atk, it would probably be easier for me, but I'm still able to overcome it most of the time, but I've had plenty of times were the enemy was left with 1-2HP and it cost me a Deathless run.

My luck with Pulling -Atk 5*s has become legendary.  At this point I've just prided myself on being able to succeed despite my curse.

28 minutes ago, Arcanite said:

Nothing is more disappointing than a -Spd IV though XD

It sounds like someone wants some -Atk units.

[Sayyyaka]

21 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

There's the part where obsessing about having the best or not at all when the person isn't competitive is the part that is addressed by this topic.

If you don't care about it, you don't care about it.  The system wasn't put in place for you.

[shadowofchaos]

5 minutes ago, Sayyyaka said:

If you don't care about it, you don't care about it.  The system wasn't put in place for you.

I'm not even sure what this comment is supposed to do?

What is it supposed to address and contribute to the topic?

Are you just annoyed at "why do you care so much"? Mentality? Are you venting in the topic?

Since the topic has a reason for existing: Looking for the underlying motivations for people to care about natures, and how each person evaluates units. One thing has been made clear: The general consensus is that nature does not immediately dismiss a unit as trash.

 

The thing is, with this system is that there are people who don't even know the system enough to utilize natures blame their failures to rank in the arena via the natures of their units. @Rezzy above is an example that you don't *NEED* natures to be optimal in order to reap feather rewards.

Edited May 5, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[DLNarshen]

It's mostly in my head.  It's the same when I play through Pokemon games -- I will often recapture Pokemon I want to train until I get one with a non-detrimental nature, even though I know full well that even that Quiet Archen is perfectly serviceable for ingame purposes.  While FEH is not as extreme as Pokemon in this case, knowing that I could possibly roll a better version of the same unit makes me extremely hesitant to invest resources into characters that have poor natures.  I will never use 20k feathers to promote, say, a -Atk Effie.

That being said, I'll train up any unique 5* I pull regardless how "bad" their nature is.   

[Arcanite]

8 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

My luck with Pulling -Atk 5*s has become legendary.  At this point I've just prided myself on being able to succeed despite my curse.

You deserve worship commendation for your efforts! 

14 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

It sounds like someone wants some -Atk units.

Please my master, I only want to gain your favor!

21 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I'm not sure if you'd consider me competitive, but I've scored in the top 10K almost every week, and usually get around 4800 points for the season.

Geez louise.

#TheLuxuriesOfSpendingMoneyOnTheGameAndGettingAll8FocusCharactersSoNowYouCanLiterallyMakeAnyTypeOfTeamCompAndGetMadScoreRegardlessOfBeingMinusAttack

[SakuraFish]

Natures don't really matter for me since one usually can make even the most detrimental natures work. of course I'm happy when I see one of my pulls has a good nature, but even if the nature is bad, I'm still grateful for even pulling said Unit. Being full f2p, I have to take what I get, and dismissing them because of a bad Boon/bane is just... not right for me. besides, most of my units suck in this depart, -Atk+Spd Hector, -Atk+Res Alm, -Atk+Def Cordelia, -Atk+Def Lucy, +Res-Def Eldigan, +Def-Spd Ninian, -Atk+Def Y.Tiki being a few examples of that. And yet all of these Units have carried me alot, ever since the beginning of the game. Way before I even knew what natures were. I also rank either barely top 5k or top 10k in the Arena every season, reaching usually points between 4780 and 4800. The only time I ever chose to keep a Unit based on Nature was when I was lucky enough to pull 2 Titania, so of course I kept the better one.
I can unterstand when people sort out units based on their natures if they have the resources for it, but I see it as a luxury I simply cannot afford. And it's not really needed to do decent anyway. being able to strategize well and properly utilizing the resources one is given is far more important in my opinion.

[Sayyyaka]

29 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

I'm not even sure what this comment is supposed to do?

What is it supposed to address and contribute to the topic?

Are you just annoyed at "why do you care so much"? Mentality? Are you venting in the topic?

Since the topic has a reason for existing: Looking for the underlying motivations for people to care about natures, and how each person evaluates units. One thing has been made clear: The general consensus is that nature does not immediately dismiss a unit as trash.

 

The thing is, with this system is that there are people who don't even know the system enough to utilize natures blame their failures to rank in the arena via the natures of their units. @Rezzy above is an example that you don't *NEED* natures to be optimal in order to reap feather rewards.

I probably got the wrong idea from the thread, but there are many reasons for caring about IVs that I'm sure you can come up with yourself.  No, they are not the end all be all or whatever to what units are useful are not.  There's a certain pleasure in using neutral units because I don't have to worry about it, my 5* Cecilia and Sophia were neutral 2*s.  But getting a -ATK or -SPD 5* is very disheartening. At launch I had a 4* Roy that was -SPD, no I was not going to use him, I fed him to Cecilia later and I decided to wait until I got a better one, which I did a few weeks ago.  +SPD, and I will definitely be 5*ing him soon.  Why exactly is being picky bad?

[Ace Pelleas]

Actually,I want IV rerolling to be implement purely because of the limited edition characters,because if you missed the event U R never gonna pull them again,if they don't return,but it's still uncertain...

[shadowofchaos]

1 hour ago, Sayyyaka said:

Why exactly is being picky bad?

It's not the inherent act of being picky that is bad. It's the combination of other factors regarding 5 stars and the person's attitude.

It's pretty much inexperience in gacha games.

Natures are a single factor in unit evaluation. When people are picky with their natures *AND* don't know how to evaluate their units properly, including looking at themselves to see if they're the reason why they're not making it high in the arena, it doesn't really work.

You *CAN* get into the 4.8k range without ever having optimal natures. And theoretically, the natures don't affect how stats are with opponent selection, so strategy can theoretically compensate there.

[eclipse]

9 hours ago, Arcanite said:

I'm going to use my Marth instead of my Ryoma because there is a sudden resurgence of Manaketes in the arena and Ryoma's distant counter is useless

Anywho, this is "Why natures are serious business" and not "Why should I send a unit home", so I'm going to leave it at that

I never looked up Virion's stats before you said this

  Reveal hidden contents

 

>Defiant Res

>13 Res at 5 star neutral

I mean, at least he has 46 health at neutral too but geez, when Neutral attack 5 star Male Robin with T-Adept does 43 damage, I don't really see how +7 res is gonna help you with 3 HP left......

 

 

Virion becomes quite a bit better with skill inheritance.  He can get a better proc, A skill, and C skill.

'sides, he's not Est - THAT'S someone whose B skill mystifies me to no end.

4 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Bad natures do leave a sour taste in my mouth, and definitely affects my experience with a unit. My Bunny Lucina is +Atk -Spd, and those 3 points of Speed mattered so much that my personal opinion of her was low until some discussion with others, even though without the -Spd she's really really solid. But since I don't whale, I still have to use these guys; my first Azura was +Def -Spd (one of the worst possible), but she's one of my favs and she's still useful for me, so I went with it.

Also, if a 4* I pull has a bad nature, no way I'm gonna upgrade it. My +Atk -Spd Effie earned those 20k feathers.

Hi, -Atk Bunny Lucina checking in.  I'm determined to make her work, somehow.

---

The attitude I notice in gacha games (besides this one) is "am I fucked if I don't get X/Y/Z?".  I have yet to find a situation where the answer is "yes, and you'll never be able to advance further".  Will the statistical difference between +Spd/-Spd/+Atk/-Atk matter that much?  Perhaps, if your team is a OHKO-or-die one.  There's a flip side to this coin - if you want to make someone work, you can - even if it means the other three members of your team are dedicated to making that one unit work.

Source: That Bunny Lucina I mentioned earlier - she's going the -blade route to cancel out her low MT.

[Djing]

Natures are not important until you get your first few perfect units. Then you have to get good natures to justify replacing your existing team.

[!Skydiver]

As said before, if you have nothing better it makes no sense to bench a good unit due to their natures.
But sometimes an extra point in speed or attack will dictate how the game goes. Some units are just annoying and not being able to ORKO and have to come with a super good strategy can be funny at times, but when you have to do this everytime it starts to upset. Due to skill inheritance, it's not relevant as before as most of the time "bad" natures just lock some units as being good instead of awesome.
A good example is Lilina ( this applies to Sanaki as they have the same base attack), the only thing she does really well is wall green mages and one shot things.
Let's take blade tome+, death blow build, +atk seal and hone attack buff. If she's +ATK, any variant of Hector will be one-shot (Even +res +3hp seal) and  +res fury 3 Lucina suffers the same fate, +RES Julia gets 1HKO too. If -ATK she wouldn't be able to Oneshot Lucina,Julia,+RES Ike and if Hector is +res/hp +3HP seal, Lilina dies. Of course, you could slap Triangle adept and Swordbreaker and call it a day but then, you would lose the chance to 1RKO Reinhardt in Player's Phase and overall do a good damage to most blue units.
Lilina -ATK can be "good", but Lilina +ATK can be awesome!

[Roflolxp54]

12 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

So, as you say: Replacing the hero you already trained unless it gives a huge improvement really don't have that much of an impact.

Especially since you have to SP train them all over again if you had SI on the good unit you had.

If the replacement hero is actually the same character with only better Boons/Banes, it's not a complete loss due to the updated Merge Allies mechanics. Sure, unspent SP is lost forever but the receiving hero gets all of the source copy's learned skills learned automatically, including those that came from SI or, if the receiving hero is at a lower rarity than the source copy, from a higher rarity. Of course, if the source copy hasn't learned all of the available skills yet, the receiving hero still has to farm and spend SP to learn them.

Most of the time, natures wouldn't matter too much but in situations like high-ranking Arena (which is basically whale territory), Grand Hero Battles (if you have crap luck and are not a whale), or Lunatic story maps (have crap luck and are not a whale), a few stat points can mean the difference between clearing a map without any deaths and either clearing a map with at least 1 death, changing the map clearing strat, or not clearing the map at all.

For example, I have a lv. 40 4* +Atk/-Def Cecilia. This means that her Def caps at 17. Meanwhile, a lv. 40 3* neutral Cecilia has a Def cap of 19. In Xander's Lunatic GHB map, the lancer fails to ORKO the 3* neutral Cecilia without needing any defensive buffs. However, for the 4* +Atk/-Def Cecilia, she requires a Def buff; otherwise, she gets ORKO'd from full health by the lancer.

And of course, there's character favoritism: many FE players want the absolute best out of their favorite waifus and husbandos characters. I have to work with a +HP/-Spd Lyn (after rerolling for her several times which took several hours as an iOS user since I couldn't learn how to use the NOX emulator to reroll quickly) but I've gotten her to work in Arena even before I finally got her some inherited skills (Reciprocal Aid and Drag Back from a pulled Donnel). Plus, I can always farm SP on her to grab loads of different inherited skills (she has 3.9K SP) before merging her into a Lyn with a better Boon/Bane combo (ie. +Atk/-HP, +Atk/-Res, +Def/-HP, or neutral).

Edited May 6, 2017 by Roflolxp54

[Tarilaan]

Thinking on it, it makes a lot of sense and is probably for the best that Str/Mag were merged for this game. Not only are they superfluous when you can only use one kind of weapon, but if they were both here, the natures thing would end up even more like pokemon, where your best natures are penalizing a stat you don't use anyway - i.e. +Str/-Mag for a physical attacker, that sort of deal. The way they have it, every stat matters, so you always gain/lose something of value with the natures. (Well, unless you're Reinhardt or Frederick with a speed bane for example >.>)

Edited May 6, 2017 by Tarilaan

[Evat]

Even if you're F2P you have no reason to keep a 5* -Atk Jacob when his Renewal 3 could be more useful on another unit.  After a certain point it's even worse than trying to level up a dancer.  I can't stress enough how useless he is in battle, if you have him on your team that's just a spot that a decent 4* could be filling.  A -Atk Merric isn't much better off with 37 Attack at level 40.  When they're that bad and there are countless better options can you blame anyone for calling them useless?

I will agree though that the majority of whining about IVs is unnecessary since my +HP/-Atk Sanaki and +Spd/-Atk Soren were key in getting me into the 4700 range for the first time this season.

[Xaos Steel Wing]

Yes, they do matter a lot... sometimes.

Speed might be the most important one. Having a +Speed of a character might be necessary or helpful of some builds. On the other hand, a -Speed nature can ruin a character. The Speed nature can be the difference between doubling a ton of others and being a killing machine and getting doubled a lot and being a liability.

For example... I made my Soren into a fast doubling mage. If he was -Speed, I couldn't do this. My +Atk is great for such a build. The way I use him would change entirely.

With other natures... it depends. Attack is important too, it can be the difference between one-shotting or one-rounding certain enemy characters and not being able to, and that makes a HUGE difference.

For some characters, certain negative defensive stats can also mean the difference between surviving and getting one-rounded by certain commonly encountered enemies.

So yes, it CAN make a difference.

Another difference is that my Takumi and Jeorge can one-shot Ninos that are not +HP or +Def.

Or for Seliph... -Spd, neutral, and +Spd can completely change how you build him. -Spd and Neutral are really slow and get doubled by the majority of units. They might be suited to a Brave sword user since his speed is awful anyway. But +Speed Seliph can have a skill to boost his 30 speed with say Life and Death or Fury and now he goes from "doubled everytime" territory to a character that is in the middle; won't get doubled much but won't double often either.

I once even had a run get a death on my last win simply because an enemy had a +Def Linde with a buff; if she had any other nature than +Def or +HP I would have completed that arena deathless.

That being said, lots of characters won't suffer too much from a suboptimal nature.

19 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

F2P people who do this that I've seen sound pretty spoiled.

Oh come on.

In the end, as f2p I have to make do with what I get, but certain natures can make or break certain characters. A lot of natures are in between and don't have a huge effect, but some do. Certain natures of certain characters can have a major effect on the character's performance.

If caring about maximizing your performance is "spoiled"... I'll take it.

19 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

The difference is how many arena crests you spend getting a 7 deathless run.

That is true, having better nature characters largely improves the ease of getting 7 deathless wins. Which means less crests and possible even orbs spent in the arena. Therefore better utilizing a limited resource (as f2p). So it might not improve your score, but it improves the way in which you utilize your resource efficiency.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Xaos Steel Wing

[Kaden]

I hate -Atk. That is all. I don't give a damn whatever I get, especially if they're the only unit I have who I'll just end up using anyway since what choice do I have? Use Titania or don't use Titania? Hmm, I wonder which is the better option?

Some stuff are meh like, yeah, Barst isn't going to be able to take as much damage if he's -Def, or I don't care like who really cares about healers and their boon/bane, or can be good e.g. I like that my 4* Sully is +Def, -Res. Is it optimal? Do I know? Nope.

-Atk, however, is the worst. I don't care if the character still has high attack, it's -Atk and that crap can go rot in hell. Other banes are fine, but -Atk has ruined units for me because it's frustrating when they're not doing enough damage or sometimes even getting out-damaged despite having WTA. Seriously!? Thankfully, summoning means I get a chance of another one who doesn't have -Atk. I'll use them, I'll get annoyed, and I'll hope another schmuck shows up without -Atk.

I just check boons and banes to know this is what my unit is so I can at least predict or figure something like being more careful about units with -Res or -HP or knowing someone with +HP can take hits more, etc. That being said, it does bring the min-max side of me that ruins pretty much every single game when it comes up. Keeping it in control so I don't ruin this game. 

Min-maxing is just how some people play. Games like Demon's/Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, Final Fantasy, Stardew Valley, and I'd bet there are people who min-max Animal Crossing and, I don't know, Barbie games. Are Barbie games even still developed? Anyway, I digress. It can be insane as their primary goal is victory and if that means only caring about what's the best and throwing out everything else, then so be it. I would not be surprised if there was someone playing this game who hates every single character or even thing about Fire Emblem, but perhaps the gameplay and because of this, just wants the highest possible score in arena. That's all they care about. For some, this is pathetically sad. For others, eh, it's their game, let them suf- I mean, enjoy it however they want.

Edit: Regarding the first statement, personally, I use any and all characters in this game. You're new? Cool, you're getting used. You have -Atk, great... Still getting used. I hated your guts in whatever FE game I played? Still getting used. So, yeah, no real choice since they're getting used. At the very least, I can get their default skills and merge them with another version later on.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Kaden

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

This is why you guys need to subscribe to the #PathOfF2P #ThePowerOfHeroBattle and #NeutralIVForEverybody and run my Cecilia Gunter Ursula godsquad

 

 

Hides my +Speed Julia, +Speed Eliwood and +Speed Roy

Edited May 6, 2017 by JSND

[salinea]

8 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

It's not the inherent act of being picky that is bad. It's the combination of other factors regarding 5 stars and the person's attitude.

It's pretty much inexperience in gacha games.

Natures are a single factor in unit evaluation. When people are picky with their natures *AND* don't know how to evaluate their units properly, including looking at themselves to see if they're the reason why they're not making it high in the arena, it doesn't really work.

Is that really problem beyond that one specific person who's always looking for excuses for why things don't work out for them?

[DehNutCase]

The thing about natures.... you can pretend that every unit is 33 different units instead. Cordelia, for example, could be 40/35/35/22/25 and 36/35/35/22/25 and 43/35/35/22/25 and 40/38/35/22/22 and 40/35/38/22/29 etc. etc.

A Linde with +3 spd and a Linde with -3 spd are two very different units. Oh, sure, the second Linde is still good because of her spread, since her neutral stats are ridiculous, but saying '35/33' offenses are fucking amazing isn't exactly news. Not every bloody unit has the luck of better than 35/35 offenses at neutral. For the ones that are merely borderline, IVs matter.

Seriously, every time you say 'natures don't matter' I hear, 'I have a fucking Linde\Cordelia\Lucina who are so good that the worst possible bane still leaves them with better offenses than 90% of units.'

 

Edit: Just try -Atk Setsuna or -Spd Est, both of which are 'passable' but borderline offensive units at neutral. And then try the +Atk or +Spd versions.

Edited May 6, 2017 by DehNutCase

[shadowofchaos]

5 hours ago, salinea said:

Is that really problem beyond that one specific person who's always looking for excuses for why things don't work out for them?

It's not only them. It's the notion that natures are just as important as in competitive Pokemon and such within discussions of evaluation of units, even in casual contexts.

4 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Seriously, every time you say 'natures don't matter' I hear, 'I have a fucking Linde\Cordelia\Lucina who are so good that the worst possible bane still leaves them with better offenses than 90% of units.'

How much of your total playtime is spent in the Arena? How much of the game is inherently multiplayer for you, specifically?

The "natures don't matter" is inherently as important as you value the arena.

For the general playerbase of Heroes, a 4.4k point value is attainable with 4 level 40 three stars. Mkv has proven this.

Which is way more than enough to get 2500 feathers per week. This is why they separated the points rewards from the ranking rewards. So that those that aren't in the upper tiers of the playerbase don't get screwed from absolute lack of feathers.

4 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

Edit: Just try -Atk Setsuna or -Spd Est, both of which are 'passable' but borderline offensive units at neutral. And then try the +Atk or +Spd versions.

I'd still get the same score I'd get in the arena if I get 7 deathless?

Essentially this:

13 hours ago, eclipse said:

The attitude I notice in gacha games (besides this one) is "am I fucked if I don't get X/Y/Z?".  I have yet to find a situation where the answer is "yes, and you'll never be able to advance further".

Edited May 6, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

3 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

For the general playerbase of Heroes, a 4.4k point value is attainable with 4 level 40 three stars. Mkv has proven this.

I'd still get the same score I'd get in the arena if I get 7 deathless?

Essentially this:

I really don't think it's fair to use "general playerbase" and "Mkv" in the same sentence to evaluate what the former should be capable of. It's like saying that just because a bunch of us here can do high-man Lunatic+ or finish Lunatic Conquest's Endgame without the Rescue quick kill that everyone should be able to do it. Yes, it's possible, objectively speaking, but the general playerbase isn't necessarily going to have the skill.

You'd still potentially get the same score yes, but the difficulty of that unit may go up. If a particular bane goes completely contrary to a unit's base spread and kit, then they may not be able to perform their role. Player skill and SI can make up for it, but the ironic thing is that doing this kind of compensation tends to require a minmaxer's mindset.

So, while I do agree that the way the game is, if someone pushes themselves to the height of their skills, few things should be completely impossible, even if having subpar units makes things a lot rougher. However, this is a very big assumption to make about general playerbase, because this mindset arguably approaches a competitive one, which much of said populace is not going to take.