Child units are "better" than their parents?

[Just call me AL]

I just got into a debate off-site, and one of the claims against what I've said in said debate was that child units are better units than their parents. Which immediately made me think "how?" Someone like Ophelia and Caeldori, I can understand. Their fathers are kinda trashy. Rajaht depends on what route you're on. But Nina? Sophie? Midori? I'm not seeing it. And I've been trying to argue that Nina in particular isn't better than her father. And all of a sudden, I get told that I'm "arguing against general consensus". Even though most of the information I based my own claims on came from here. Is there anything I'm overlooking? Or what?

[shadowofchaos]

The child units' value are largely dependent on when and how they are recruited.

The general consensus I get from this forum is that the child units are *ONLY* good if you have a setup in mind as well as being able to recruit them without them dying to the scaled levels of the enemies (if they carry a child proof if you're that far in the game route).

[Just call me AL]

6 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

The child units' value are largely dependent on when and how they are recruited.

The general consensus I get from this forum is that the child units are *ONLY* good if you have a setup in mind as well as being able to recruit them without them dying to the scaled levels of the enemies (if they carry a child proof if you're that far in the game route).

That's another thing I see wrong with the claim I was arguing against. There's someone who argued that Nina can be recruited as soon as Ch 9 in Conquest, which ain't happening unless you grind on DLC.

Makes me wonder how each child unit would be ranked when ranked alongside their parents.

[Shadow Mir]

Nina, I could see, if only because her father's offensive woes make me want to cry (Kidnap won't help Niles's case much if he's hitting like a wet noodle). Sophie doesn't have the speed worries or impractical personal skill that Silas has. Not too sure on Midori, though. Also, I'd add Percy to the list of child units that outstrip their fathers (though part of that is the fact that Arthur's a really really big liability). That said, I'd agree that being a second generation unit isn't as big an advantage as it was in Awakening.

Edited May 6, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Thinks Their Own Way]

It's situational, with Nina depending on the mother, she can have fantastic magic; if Nyx is her mother it give Nina access to Diviner on Conquest. Or if she has a physical mother, Bow Knight. Nina being a lesser Niles I feel is still pretty damn good. 

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

It does vary parent and child to parent and child.

Midori is definitely inferior to Kaze, and Kana, Corrin. Sophie, Selkie, Dwyer, Forrest and Mitama are all possibly inferior to their fathers. Shiro and Siegbert are good, but have dads who destroy with their personal swords.

Percy, Caeldori, Hisame, and Ophelia outdo their dads for sure. 

Shigure has a mom who is pure utility and can't really be compared. Rhajat, Kiragi, Asugi, Ignatius, Soleil, Nina and Velouria are possibly better, possibly worse, but generally on the better side. 

Regardless of whether the kids are worse than the parents, the ability to late recruit the kids as solid prepromotes makes them very useful.

In the case of Takumi and Kiragi, Takumi owns the earlygame, but tapers off as the game goes on and his average speed becomes an issue (without a Tonic+Speed DS/Darting Blow from Azura). Kiragi is plenty fast and if recruited late enough will be able to use a Silver Yumi off the bat, thus supplanting Takumi.

Nina is a similar situation- if Dad stops being so useful, she can pick up where he left off. Or even work in tandem with him given Pass+Rescue Festal and Shurikenbreaker are so nice. With a magic mom, she can take the Shining Bow while Niles buys a Silver.

Dwyer is kinda the same way, but not quite. He can outdo Jakob in the long term with better growths, but Jakob's early contributions are too massive for Dwyer's late contributions to mitigate.

[Just call me AL]

On 5/6/2017 at 1:10 PM, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Nina, I could see, if only because her father's offensive woes make me want to cry (Kidnap won't help Niles's case much if he's hitting like a wet noodle).

You know, +Str pair-ups exist. Not to mention, Niles has greater availability.

On 5/6/2017 at 5:55 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

It does vary parent and child to parent and child.

Midori is definitely inferior to Kaze, and Kana, Corrin. Sophie, Selkie, Dwyer, Forrest and Mitama are all possibly inferior to their fathers.

I would argue Sophie's inferior due to Silas' availability alone. Dwyer and Forrest are definitely inferior for having to contend with no weapons for a while if recruited early. Mitama, though? I don't know. Considering her Mag being generally higher than her dad's.

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Shiro and Siegbert are good, but have dads who destroy with their personal swords.

They are also hampered by poor availability.

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Percy, Caeldori, Hisame, and Ophelia outdo their dads for sure.

I don't know if a Wyvern mount and Shelter is enough to outweigh availability, though.

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Shigure has a mom who is pure utility and can't really be compared.

And it doesn't help that Azura may be tough to pair. I remember having to go out of my way to do so recently, to say the least.

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Rhajat, Kiragi, Asugi, Ignatius, Soleil, Nina and Velouria are possibly better, possibly worse, but generally on the better side. 

Rhajat, I would argue, is route-dependent. Considering that her dad is basically a Ricken clone, even gameplay-wise on Birthright. (And Ricken wasn't actually a good unit in his own game, due to his low bases at join time.) Said dad, however, is pretty solid on Revelations. The others you mentioned have their dads' availability to contend with.

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Regardless of whether the kids are worse than the parents, the ability to late recruit the kids as solid prepromotes makes them very useful.

That's true.

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In the case of Takumi and Kiragi, Takumi owns the earlygame, but tapers off as the game goes on and his average speed becomes an issue (without a Tonic+Speed DS/Darting Blow from Azura). Kiragi is plenty fast and if recruited late enough will be able to use a Silver Yumi off the bat, thus supplanting Takumi.

That depends on if Kiragi's recruited late at all. And on a side note, just how many Speedwings do you even find in FE14? I can't imagine them being high in contention on BR or CQ. Rev is a different story altogether.

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Nina is a similar situation- if Dad stops being so useful, she can pick up where he left off. Or even work in tandem with him given Pass+Rescue Festal and Shurikenbreaker are so nice. With a magic mom, she can take the Shining Bow while Niles buys a Silver.

But, again, there's availability to consider. I don't know if I'm putting too much weight on that or not,. But if I'm not mistaken, availability does play a factor in how good a unit is considered to be.

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Dwyer is kinda the same way, but not quite. He can outdo Jakob in the long term with better growths, but Jakob's early contributions are too massive for Dwyer's late contributions to mitigate.

Which kinda means that Dwyer isn't able to outdo his dad in the long term. Kinda like when comparing Amelia to Franz, or Nino to Pent or Erk.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Just call me AL

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Dwyer is kinda the same way, but not quite. He can outdo Jakob in the long term with better growths, but Jakob's early contributions are too massive for Dwyer's late contributions to mitigate.

Assuming you're playing as a girl, that is, considering Jakob joins rather late otherwise.

1 hour ago, Just call me AL said:

You know, +Str pair-ups exist. Not to mention, Niles has greater availability.

Maybe, but with pair up being nerfed, I generally felt there was less incentive to pair up. Also, I don't value availability leads that much - they only really mean much if you're doing anything notable with it imo (or if one of the parties joins very late).

1 hour ago, Just call me AL said:

I don't know if a Wyvern mount and Shelter is enough to outweigh availability, though.

I'd probably say it does when Arthur doesn't accomplish anything notable with his extra availability, and worse yet, is an active detriment to the team. 

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That depends on if Kiragi's recruited late at all. And on a side note, just how many Speedwings do you even find in FE14? I can't imagine them being high in contention on BR or CQ. Rev is a different story altogether.

I don't know - the Wiki doesn't show how many Speedwings are in Fates.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Dark Holy Elf]

2 hours ago, Just call me AL said:

I don't know if a Wyvern mount and Shelter is enough to outweigh availability, though.

It's not just those, it's also a personal skill which is super-helpful instead of one which is a liability. Percy allows you to use attack stance and other lower-dodge options with far greater freedom thanks to his +Dodge aura, and that's incredibly powerful.

But yeah if the statement was that "child units are better than their parents" then "Ryoma" should end that argument as a uniform thing.

[LucarioGamer812]

For fates, Ophelia and Caeldori are leagues above their parent, Rhajat, Sophie and Midori depends, though they're good most of the time *Midori in particular has a pretty good skill set up that has made her one of my best units in revelations* Nina I've only recruited on revelations so I can't say about conquest, but she was definitely better then Niles, I made them both bow knights and Niles couldn't do any damage even with good bows, Nina on the other hand could easily do damage with most bows, and though her sword skill was crap, she was able to hold out quite well with her Sol skill. Of the other child units, Velouria was a beast, Selkie was okay, more a mage killer then a beast unit, Hisame was an okay unit, Soleil was also an good unit. From my experience, the other child units are pretty much worse off then their parents due to other viable 1st gen units *Beruka instead of Percy for example* or get outclassed by their father/mother *Shiro vs Ryoma, Kana vs Corrin, Siegbert vs Xander* in short, there is several really good or decent child units, and the rest are outclassed or aren't that great

[Augestein]

Depends on the character. It's not enough to say a blanket "child units are better." As some like Kana are pretty bad, while others like Mitama aren't necessarily better or worse, just different. 

[eclipse]

CONTEXT!

Did you pair Jakob with whoever just for the loot?  Dwyer's probably gonna suck.  Do you want to give Dwyer (relatively) crazy mods for giggles?  He'll end up outdoing his dad because of that.

With the proper planning, most of the kids will do very well.  Midori's gimmick is a pure Luck-based moveset (right down to Miracle), while Hisame can naturally obtain a 100% Rend Heaven activation rate (even if it takes a ton of setup).  Will they outshine their parents?  Maybe, but you'll have to grab 'em early - especially Iggy.

[Raybrand]

A thread I started on how should I re-balance parent and child units.

I avoided child units in fates because it didn't seem to fit in with the story and I thought that it would make me bench the main characters for being weaker than their children.

 

In Awakening I gave the parent units the "All Stats +2" skill when units started reaching max stats, and I had a good experience. Here are some calculations:

Chrom Great Lord (M):        80    54+00+51+52+56+51+49 = 313 (total ignoring hp & mag)
Chrom Great Lord (M):        80    56+00+53+54+58+53+51 = 325 (+2)
Lucina Great Lord (F):       80    50+00+56+59+57+48+51 = 321

Lon’qu Swordmaster:        80    48+00+57+59+55+41+46 = 306
Lon’qu Swordmaster:        80    50+00+59+61+57+43+48 = 318 (+2)
Severa Swordmaster:        80    50+00+60+62+55+42+46 = 315

Vaike Dread Firghter:         80    55+46+51+52+54+49+51 = 358
Vaike Dread Firghter:         80    57+48+53+54+56+51+53 = 372 (+2)
Yarne Dread Firghter:        80    58+46+54+56+54+51+51 = 370

The child units also gain skill inheritance so I think the "All Stats +2" skill evens things out nicely, but not sure how to apply this re-balancing in fates since the +2 skill doesn't exist.

[Shadow Mir]

12 minutes ago, Raybrand said:

A thread I started on how should I re-balance parent and child units.

I avoided child units in fates because it didn't seem to fit in with the story and I thought that it would make me bench the main characters for being weaker than their children.

 

In Awakening I gave the parent units the "All Stats +2" skill when units started reaching max stats, and I had a good experience. Here are some calculations:

Chrom Great Lord (M):        80    54+00+51+52+56+51+49 = 313 (total ignoring hp & mag)
Chrom Great Lord (M):        80    56+00+53+54+58+53+51 = 325 (+2)
Lucina Great Lord (F):       80    50+00+56+59+57+48+51 = 321

Lon’qu Swordmaster:        80    48+00+57+59+55+41+46 = 306
Lon’qu Swordmaster:        80    50+00+59+61+57+43+48 = 318 (+2)
Severa Swordmaster:        80    50+00+60+62+55+42+46 = 315

Vaike Dread Firghter:         80    55+46+51+52+54+49+51 = 358
Vaike Dread Firghter:         80    57+48+53+54+56+51+53 = 372 (+2)
Yarne Dread Firghter:        80    58+46+54+56+54+51+51 = 370

The child units also gain skill inheritance so I think the "All Stats +2" skill evens things out nicely, but not sure how to apply this re-balancing in fates since the +2 skill doesn't exist.

I don't know just what rebalancing is needed when most of the children are considered inferior to their parents (the only ones that are generally agreed to be better than their parents are Ophelia, Caeldori, Percy and possibly Sophie and Velouria).

[Interdimensional Observer]

13 hours ago, Just call me AL said:

Mitama, though? I don't know. Considering her Mag being generally higher than her dad's.

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If Azama gets Hearted into an Apothecary early on BR, he beats her. On Rev. and BR sans an early Heart for Azama, Mitama wins because she will be able to get an offense without having to go through E rank hell mid-late game. On the healing side, well the Fates formula of base+1/3 Magic makes stats almost null and void for healing.

Mind you, if you leave Azama as a Monk, Mitama might never get made because healing is slow to build supports, Monks can't attack, and their Pair Up bonuses are undesirable. Though you only need 6 rounds of Defensive Stance combat to max support gain for a given map, which might be manageable burden.

Other dads suffer from the same issue of being bad combat units who can only build supports as DS backup. Subaki has flight and Hinata can depending on his class can offer Spd, Str+Def, or a little of all three, so both have no problems as DS pals. Odin on the other hand lacks good personal bonuses and needs a Heart Seal for his only good class bonuses. Arthur's bonuses are inferior to Keaton's for the ladies, and he can't make a baby with the men (though Niles and Benny like his bonuses), but he might be able to get hitched before Keaton shows up.

[Raybrand]

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I don't know just what rebalancing is needed when most of the children are considered inferior to their parents (the only ones that are generally agreed to be better than their parents are Ophelia, Caeldori, Percy and possibly Sophie and Velouria).

So in fates how are the children's max stats calculated? because in fates its pretty definitive they outclass their parents but I herd the mechanic was mostly the same, so how how are the children stats calculated?

 

doesn't this snippet of an example parent/child formula from this site prove that the children units will always have better stats than their parents

Character    Str    Mag    Skl    Spd    Lck    Def    Res
Jakob                  2    -2    2    0    -1    0    -1
Azura                  0    0    1    3    0    -3    0
Shigure/Dwyer    3    -1    4    4    0    -2    0

so how can most child units be worse than their parents?

Edited May 7, 2017 by Raybrand

[Just call me AL]

6 hours ago, eclipse said:

CONTEXT!

Did you pair Jakob with whoever just for the loot?  Dwyer's probably gonna suck.  Do you want to give Dwyer (relatively) crazy mods for giggles?  He'll end up outdoing his dad because of that.

With the proper planning, most of the kids will do very well.  Midori's gimmick is a pure Luck-based moveset (right down to Miracle), while Hisame can naturally obtain a 100% Rend Heaven activation rate (even if it takes a ton of setup).  Will they outshine their parents?  Maybe, but you'll have to grab 'em early - especially Iggy.

I'm trying to look at this from an efficient standpoint, though. And, last I recall, mods have little bearing in that.

10 hours ago, LucarioGamer812 said:

For fates, Ophelia and Caeldori are leagues above their parent, Rhajat, Sophie and Midori depends, though they're good most of the time *Midori in particular has a pretty good skill set up that has made her one of my best units in revelations* Nina I've only recruited on revelations so I can't say about conquest, but she was definitely better then Niles, I made them both bow knights and Niles couldn't do any damage even with good bows, Nina on the other hand could easily do damage with most bows, and though her sword skill was crap, she was able to hold out quite well with her Sol skill. Of the other child units, Velouria was a beast, Selkie was okay, more a mage killer then a beast unit, Hisame was an okay unit, Soleil was also an good unit. From my experience, the other child units are pretty much worse off then their parents due to other viable 1st gen units *Beruka instead of Percy for example* or get outclassed by their father/mother *Shiro vs Ryoma, Kana vs Corrin, Siegbert vs Xander* in short, there is several really good or decent child units, and the rest are outclassed or aren't that great

Unfortunately, personal experiences tend to be ignored in discussions of who's better or not. Sorry.

12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's not just those, it's also a personal skill which is super-helpful instead of one which is a liability. Percy allows you to use attack stance and other lower-dodge options with far greater freedom thanks to his +Dodge aura, and that's incredibly powerful.

That makes sense.

12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

But yeah if the statement was that "child units are better than their parents" then "Ryoma" should end that argument as a uniform thing.

One of the guys I was initially arguing against tried to use that fact and outright dismiss it by pretty much saying "Pfft! The sword's the only reason why Ryoma and Xander are better than Shiro and Siegbert respectively. If it weren't for those, the latter two would be better." How does that line of logic even work?

[Shadow Mir]

11 minutes ago, Just call me AL said:

One of the guys I was initially arguing against tried to use that fact and outright dismiss it by pretty much saying "Pfft! The sword's the only reason why Ryoma and Xander are better than Shiro and Siegbert respectively. If it weren't for those, the latter two would be better." How does that line of logic even work?

I dunno, but to be frank, I'd give Shiro the edge for being in a better class. Siegbert, not so much.

[Just call me AL]

15 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Maybe, but with pair up being nerfed, I generally felt there was less incentive to pair up.

The pair-up bonuses still help. And there's some units, like Odin, who are better off being pair-up fodder in the long term.

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Also, I don't value availability leads that much - they only really mean much if you're doing anything notable with it imo (or if one of the parties joins very late).

And I'm pretty sure that someone like Niles and Silas could do pretty notable things from the time they join and onwards. Of course, however, that's only true on Conquest. (And Birthright in Silas' case.)

45 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I dunno, but to be frank, I'd give Shiro the edge for being in a better class.

I don't know if I'd call Spear Fighter "better" than Myrmidon, though. Or Spear Master "better" than Swordmaster, for that matter.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Just call me AL

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Raybrand said:

So in fates how are the children's max stats calculated? because in fates its pretty definitive they outclass their parents but I herd the mechanic was mostly the same, so how how are the children stats calculated?

 

doesn't this snippet of an example parent/child formula from this site prove that the children units will always have better stats than their parents

Character    Str    Mag    Skl    Spd    Lck    Def    Res
Jakob                  2    -2    2    0    -1    0    -1
Azura                  0    0    1    3    0    -3    0
Shigure/Dwyer    3    -1    4    4    0    -2    0

so how can most child units be worse than their parents?

Because some of the parents get benefits that their children don't (See: Corrin, Xander, Ryoma). Also, children only get 3 class trees to start out, unlike in Awakening, where they got all the classes of their parents, with gender-based exceptions. There's also more to a unit than caps.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Dark Holy Elf]

There's also a lot more to what makes a character good than their max stats, which most units will never even reach.

 

1 hour ago, Just call me AL said:

I don't know if I'd call Spear Fighter "better" than Myrmidon, though. Or Spear Master "better" than Swordmaster, for that matter.

Yeah, I'm skeptical too. if we're talking Birthright, I'd probably rank Myrmidon/Swordmaster above Spearfighter/Spearmaster. In contrast to the FE norm, it's swords that have better 1-2 range (you only have 1 Javelin), and Duelist's Blow is a neat skill which comboes well with Swordmaster's evade bonus.

Regardless Raijinto is a unique and valid part of Ryoma and makes him better than Shiro period.

[Just call me AL]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

There's also a lot more to what makes a character good than their max stats, which most units will never even reach.

Exactly the point I was trying to get across when the off-site debate happened. Unfortunately, said point fell on deaf ears.

[SavageVolug]

Sounds to me like someone got their toes stepped on (figuratively speaking). I would say that the child units are ONLY better IF you of course grind with them and have them train in all their available classes which means you will need a fair amount of eternal seals which are really expensive and if one is trying to play the game with as little grinding as possible the children character probably won't turn out to be the best units in the army depending on when you recruit them. As both Awakening and Fates have a rather short amount of chapters considering how many characters you have especially on Revelations. I was really suprised the number of chapters didn't change much in Revelations considering you have quite literally double the cast at your disposal. 

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Just call me AL said:

The pair-up bonuses still help. And there's some units, like Odin, who are better off being pair-up fodder in the long term.

And I'm pretty sure that someone like Niles and Silas could do pretty notable things from the time they join and onwards. Of course, however, that's only true on Conquest. (And Birthright in Silas' case.)

I don't know if I'd call Spear Fighter "better" than Myrmidon, though. Or Spear Master "better" than Swordmaster, for that matter.

Maybe, but honestly, I generally considering fielding the likes of Arthur just for them to be a pair up bot a waste of a unit slot, especially when there are only so many master seals to go around (and I'm prioritizing the ones that are there for the long haul with them). Not helping is that I like attack stance for deleting ninjas without the need to eat a counter, and thus lose stats in the process.

2 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

There's also a lot more to what makes a character good than their max stats, which most units will never even reach.

 

Yeah, I'm skeptical too. if we're talking Birthright, I'd probably rank Myrmidon/Swordmaster above Spearfighter/Spearmaster. In contrast to the FE norm, it's swords that have better 1-2 range (you only have 1 Javelin), and Duelist's Blow is a neat skill which comboes well with Swordmaster's evade bonus.

Regardless Raijinto is a unique and valid part of Ryoma and makes him better than Shiro period.

Personally, I'd much rather have the Seal skills, which are always welcome, over the Samurai class skills, which are mostly unreliable. And I'd only give swords the edge in terms of range if counting Raijinto, which I don't (Wakizashi is pretty much unusable outside of chokepointing). Also, Guard Naginata.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Raybrand]

so child units are only better when it comes to their max potential which because of a limited amount of missions you can only train them so far and train just as few to that extent, also the child units have limited starting classes,and corin, ryoma and xander are the exception due to their unique weapon, is that right?