What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Dancers have their strength because they are a second copy of your best unit and no extra training effort on your part. Which actually makes them rather comparable to Xane, in a funny way.

Dancers aren´t a second copy of your best unit (Indeed, the floor is made out of floor), they have neither the durability and most likely not the movement either, considering FEs best units are either on horse back or a flier. Granted, I don´t know how often FE has posed the problem of pushing through the enemy line, without being able to clean up the enemy remains, which would make dealing with your backline an issue, but considering the problems people have with CQ endgame and "sacrificing" units at the last chapter, or the seeming prevalence of recommending warp cheese for Medeus, I´d assume that such would not be welcomed.

Xane on the other hand, is a massive gigachad for lowering himself to the level of the superior stat having humans and gitting gud with the press of a single button.

 

And then, even if you could take 20 Haars into Asheras tower or whatever gets taken in there, a Dancer would probably still have more value than some of those Haars, because one of these Haars may want another turn to leverage his mobility, but I don´t know the point at which a Haar would lose value.

[SnowFire]

6 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

The whole Dancer > Everyone is just a leftover from Efficiency Afficiandos and LTC Planners, a dancer is never better than the best unit available to the player, regardless of whether or not that´s staff shenanigans or giving "High Stat Unit TM" another turn to 1RKO an enemy. Worse to boot, if you have to baby them, because dancing does not for HP growth make, apparently, although they oughta be fit as fuck.

Disagree entirely, Dancers rule in casual play.  Even casuals sometimes need to get a move on fast.  Take stuff like chasing after retreating thieves with a Starstone you need for the good ending in FE12 on the map Phina/Feena joins on. Being able to get extra actions is absolutely huge in making that chase more sane.  Or something like Felix's Paralogue in Three Houses, where even casuals probably want to kill the boss on turn 2 so that they're not babying Rodrigue, and a Dancer really helps.

The point more usually discussed is that your "best" unit can vary turn by turn.  This is where Dancers are *better* in casual play.  An LTC'er might be having a single badass unit take all the XP in some FEs on enemy phase, but if you're building a team (or in a game with harshly scaled XP) casually, then your Dancer gives an extra turn to your archer vs. flyers, to the lowbie you're trying to train up vs. scrubs, to your Staff user when you need healing / support, etc.

Most importantly, your HP score isn't necessarily how fit you are - dancers rarely wear much if any armor!  (Okay, that doesn't explain Vaike / Charlotte, but still...)

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Dancers aren´t a second copy of your best unit (Indeed, the floor is made out of floor), they have neither the durability and most likely not the movement either, considering FEs best units are either on horse back or a flier. Granted, I don´t know how often FE has posed the problem of pushing through the enemy line, without being able to clean up the enemy remains, which would make dealing with your backline an issue, but considering the problems people have with CQ endgame and "sacrificing" units at the last chapter, or the seeming prevalence of recommending warp cheese for Medeus, I´d assume that such would not be welcomed.

Xane on the other hand, is a massive gigachad for lowering himself to the level of the superior stat having humans and gitting gud with the press of a single button.

 

And then, even if you could take 20 Haars into Asheras tower or whatever gets taken in there, a Dancer would probably still have more value than some of those Haars, because one of these Haars may want another turn to leverage his mobility, but I don´t know the point at which a Haar would lose value.

I wasn't really trying to be literal in saying that. Xane is a more literal take on it, and there's definitely a significant difference between the two units, but there is a funny comparison there in utility. In truth Dancers are a variable second copy of your best unit, your second best unit, your third best unit, your staff bot and your experimental project. Not all at one, but on a turn by turn basis.

As for all those Haars, if we're talking *4 refereching Radiant Dawn Herons, then yeah, absolutely. But if it's a 1:1 referesh then you probably are better off with another Haar. A dancer can help one Haar move to a place he couldn't otherwise before, but a whole extra Haar means you have a lot more distance for power projection. That extra Haar can already be where you would have had to move the other Haar to.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

On 6/27/2024 at 4:09 PM, SnowFire said:

Disagree entirely, Dancers rule in casual play.  Even casuals sometimes need to get a move on fast.  Take stuff like chasing after retreating thieves with a Starstone you need for the good ending in FE12 on the map Phina/Feena joins on. Being able to get extra actions is absolutely huge in making that chase more sane.  Or something like Felix's Paralogue in Three Houses, where even casuals probably want to kill the boss on turn 2 so that they're not babying Rodrigue, and a Dancer really helps.

Ok? All i meant, if poorly worded for that, is that the opinion Dancer > Everyone else is a remnant of poorly reflected efficiency speak and thoughtlessly regurgitated LTC opinions. Whether that´s true or not *shrug* it IS an opinions thread.

I made no judgement on the usefullness of Dancers.

[SnowFire]

Ah.  I read that as "Dancers are good in LTCs but suck casually" which, well, see above.  (Although I will agree that for games like Awakening where a casual player may not have memorized reinforcement timings, they get worse.)

[Florete]

I've said this one in one or two other places, but I don't think I've dropped it here.

Three Houses' OST isn't good. It has a few bangers, but has multiple tracks that are mediocre and overplayed (I can't fucking stand Fodlan Winds or Tearing Through Heaven anymore), and has one of the worst tracks I've ever heard in a video game (Shambhala), so bad I actually muted it when I played the chapter. A few good tracks don't make for a good OST when so much of the time spent in the game I'm listening to mediocrity. Or worse.

[Jotari]

37 minutes ago, Florete said:

I've said this one in one or two other places, but I don't think I've dropped it here.

Three Houses' OST isn't good. It has a few bangers, but has multiple tracks that are mediocre and overplayed (I can't fucking stand Fodlan Winds or Tearing Through Heaven anymore), and has one of the worst tracks I've ever heard in a video game (Shambhala), so bad I actually muted it when I played the chapter. A few good tracks don't make for a good OST when so much of the time spent in the game I'm listening to mediocrity. Or worse.

Alright, you've prompted the question out of me.

https://forums.serenesforest.net/topic/104555-which-game-has-the-best-soundtrack/

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

We ought to have more consumables that adds additional HP regardless of exisiting Max HP, proactively rather than vulneraries/elixirs that are only used when you need your healers offence or don´t have a physic staff yet.

It´d also be better for the AI, since their item usage never amounts to more than "run maximum distance from the enemy and chug a vuln"... and still be in range and a 1HKO for any competent flier (stares at SoV).

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

We ought to have more consumables that adds additional HP regardless of exisiting Max HP, proactively rather than vulneraries/elixirs that are only used when you need your healers offence or don´t have a physic staff yet.

It´d also be better for the AI, since their item usage never amounts to more than "run maximum distance from the enemy and chug a vuln"... and still be in range and a 1HKO for any competent flier (stares at SoV).

We kind of have that with HP tonics. Though usually you just chug them before battle.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

We kind of have that with HP tonics. Though usually you just chug them before battle.

I´m aware thus the "more" in the statement.

And HP Tonics can´t be used by enemies... at least, I´m not aware of any enemies with said items. Oh yeah, staves with such an effect would be cool too.

[Jotari]

46 minutes ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

I´m aware thus the "more" in the statement.

And HP Tonics can´t be used by enemies... at least, I´m not aware of any enemies with said items. Oh yeah, staves with such an effect would be cool too.

I'm not sure being used by the enemies would really provide that big an issue. To begin, enemies using healing items at all is rare enough as is, but for the second, enemies suffer from a lot of the same things player units suffer from with healing items. Namely that they take a turn to use and, unless it's an elixir, they don't just heal enough. This would remain true for extending beyond max HP. Even if elixirs were plentiful on enemies and gave +10HP, for a large portion of the game that won't make a difference, as the number of turns you'll take to kill the enemy will probably be the same. Unless these enemies are chugging full healing items in the early game. Enemy unit quality just tends to be weak enough that you'll be killing them relatively easy anyway. The only place where it will make things noticeably more difficult is with bosses. But, they've kind of already stumbled into that idea using the orb system in Three Houses and, particularly, Engage. Enemies auto heal when killed. Them needing to use an item to do so might provide some challenge where you have to secure the kill on player phase without leaving them low enough to heal, but, again, any extra HP they get would probably be a bit superfluous.

Rather than restoring HP above the cap, I think it'd be better if vulneraries worked like strength or defense tonics, where they also increase another stat for a turn or two. That would give them more cause to be used. Of course it still doesn't get around the biggest issue for them, which is the inverse of what make dancers good, using up a turn to self heal is usually just not worth it compared to what a combat unit can do in that turn, and stocking a vulnerary is not worth the competition for weapons and other items a unit might want to have. A large part of this could be remedied if universally units could apply vulneraries to allied units, so you can use units that aren't contributing to killin things in a given turn as healing duty. That, however, would step on the toes of traditional staff bots. That might actually be a good thing though, as Engage really put forth staff bots as able to do a lot more than healing thanks to the dual guard and obstruct staffs, among others. So, much like combat not solely being the domain of one class, perhaps healing shouldn't solely be the domain of only staff bots and anyone should be able to perform comparatively lesser or more resource selective healing methods.

And, of course, mandatory acknowledgement of Fates' Apothecary class, whose ideas of heal item boosting and not consuming a unit's turn probably would have worked great if the only default Apothecary wasn't made of wet paper tissue and would never have any cause to heal herself.

Edited July 7 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

39 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And, of course, mandatory acknowledgement of Fates' Apothecary class, whose ideas of heal item boosting and not consuming a unit's turn probably would have worked great if the only default Apothecary wasn't made of wet paper tissue and would never have any cause to heal herself.

Apothecary, like Oni Savage, is a terribly underutilized class in Fates. Burning an early Heart Seal on Azama to let his awesome physical growths roar is a serious investment, given so many like an early Heart Seal.

If Quick Salve were hypothetically a buyable skill, available by the Fates midgame, how much would you be willing to pay to learn it? 1000, 2000, 3000 Gold? On someone of at least moderate bulk, it'd probably be pretty good, a free (well, an item slot and 100 gold per use) 10HP healing every turn you want it. Potent Potion for another +5 healing would be great for much of the game too, as filling all five skill slots won't happen for a long time in Fates, probably.

...If Apothecary had room for a third skill, which it didn't, one that'd let it use healing items on an adjacent ally would've been perfectly synergetic. -Fire Emblem hasn't ever played around with a consumable-item oriented class, the way (J)RPGs like Final Fantasy has.

Edited July 7 by Interdimensional Observer

[Acacia Sgt]

Feels they were experimenting further with Engage's Enchanter. Convoy access, having items grant additional effects, granting bonuses to weapons...

Edited July 7 by Acacia Sgt

[Etrurian emperor]

Not exactly an unpopular opinion but a topic that I never really heard brought up yet. 

Ingrid's House Galathea makes no sense. They broke away from house Daphnell due to a dispute and stole the relic from the Alliance to the Kingdom. Except house Galathea seems to have been completely swindled in that particular deal. Ingrid's House is repeatedly mentioned to be dirt poor with its relic and crests the only thing they have going for them. This in contrast to house Daphnel which until they lost their relic was one of the five great houses in the alliance and is never mentioned as being stuck in poverty. 

House Galathea gave the Kingdom a new relic and in return they got squat. It makes one wonder why they ever accepted such a deal to begin with. 

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Not exactly an unpopular opinion but a topic that I never really heard brought up yet. 

Ingrid's House Galathea makes no sense. They broke away from house Daphnell due to a dispute and stole the relic from the Alliance to the Kingdom. Except house Galathea seems to have been completely swindled in that particular deal. Ingrid's House is repeatedly mentioned to be dirt poor with its relic and crests the only thing they have going for them. This in contrast to house Daphnel which until they lost their relic was one of the five great houses in the alliance and is never mentioned as being stuck in poverty. 

House Galathea gave the Kingdom a new relic and in return they got squat. It makes one wonder why they ever accepted such a deal to begin with. 

There could be a number of reasons why that might be. It is a fun idea though to have the relic move to a different house so the house with the name of the elite lacks the elite's weapon (and if the game were better strictured this could have played into Edelgard's point about crests). Do they specify that the relic was literally stolen? Because it could have been straight up unintentional, say if a member of house Daphenal married into the minor house if Galatea and then the crest just consistently manifested there and not in the main branch of house Daphenal for generations with house Galatea consistently petitioning for the weapon back with Daphanel finally giving in. Alternately, the original member of house Galatea who sold the alliance out got considerably wealthy from it, but the wealth was squandered over the years. My Fodlan history isn't encyclopedic, but I think it has been like a hundred and fifty years since Galatea came to get the relic, plenty of time to just naturally decline. Or, alternatively alternatively, it just plain was a bad deal, but the Daphenal member that made the deal was desperate enough to get away from their family to make it.

Edited July 9 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

Because I'm too lazy to make a new thread asking this... To anyone who actually has been in the community, what is the consensus on the worst lord in the series?? Is it still Roy??

[Eltosian Kadath]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Because I'm too lazy to make a new thread asking this... To anyone who actually has been in the community, what is the consensus on the worst lord in the series?? Is it still Roy??

Roy would probably be the most consistent pick, but hearing someone suggest Lyn or SD Marth wouldn't surprise me either, and a dark horse pick of Micaiah wouldn't be out of the question.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Because I'm too lazy to make a new thread asking this... To anyone who actually has been in the community, what is the consensus on the worst lord in the series?? Is it still Roy??

All the lords in the most recent games have been very solid units. People criticize Alear, but really it's easy to build a really strong and competent Alear in Engage since your Emblem builds are far more important than stat lines. All other recent lords have been either broken or medium serviceable.

5 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Roy would probably be the most consistent pick, but hearing someone suggest Lyn or SD Marth wouldn't surprise me either, and a dark horse pick of Micaiah wouldn't be out of the question.

 Micaiah is better than Roy by virtue alone that she has staves. She's also far easier to level thanks to sacrifice, and while you are risking a game over putting her anywhere near combat, she can still deal decent damage with Thani.

SD Marth is honestly really hard to rate because the game pushes you to outright never use him for combat. He's always going to be too busy going to villages or, to a slightly lesser extent, chests. And that's a niche and a roll and it's pretty damn vital and centralizing to the game, so it's pretty subjective to say "he sucks because he's busy doing this" or "he's great because he can do this". In either case, even on hard five, I don't feel like it's as difficult to keep him alive compares to Roy/Lyn/Micaiah who can all suddenly cause a game over from a stray bolting or ballista shot. And if you really want Marth to contribute to combat then he can, even untrained. Since Shadow Dragon is all about that forged effective weapon damage. Rapier might not be as much if a meme as Wingspear but it can still absolutely kill things with a few points from a forge.

Lyn is the closest to Roy in gameplay, unsurprising given the same engine, but she still has some distinct advantages over him. Most noticeably that you don't actually have to deploy her for most chapters. But also if you use her in Lyn mode then she will get enough stats to contribute well for quite a while in Hector or Eliwood mode. Her promotion, if you actually want to use her, also comes much earlier than Roy's and gives her bow access which is quite a boon.

So, yeah, I would say Roy is still in first place as a uniquely bad Lord. But he's also not quite as bad as people make out either. He can certainly contribute, take hits and double enemies. He also uses swords in a game where swords are probably the best weapon type and his promotion gains are pretty huge and the Binding Blade is a tonne of fun to use giving him both range, super high might and defensive boosts. He's just dragged down phenomenally by his very poor and very long middle game when you've just his level cap and he's just not promoting or getting stronger while everyone around him enemy and ally alike are. He just needs to be written off as basically useless all the way from when you first see Zephiel, up until you fight Zephiel.

[Eltosian Kadath]

Oh what the heck, this is the unpopular opinion thread, so it is time to come to Roy's defense here.

One solid argument for Roy not being the worst lord is that there is a part of his game where he is legitimately good, or at the very least decent. Of all the games to be a sword-locked unit with stats geared towards skill and speed, FE6 is the one you want to be in. His value falls off a cliff once your units are allowed to promote, and even more so once enemies require benchmarks above the unpromoted caps (let alone actual stats) to easily deal with, but there are a fair number of early to mid game chapters where if I had the choice of deploying Roy on the merits of him as a unit (as opposed to for some event or recruitment), I would. I know for a fact that is more than I can say about Lyn. I honestly have no idea how many maps I would deploy SD Marth like that (so much of his use is Marth required events), and while I think there are a fair number of maps I would deploy Micaiah if given the option (Thani and staff utility have their uses), but her frailty would make me think far more about deploying her.

 

37 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Micaiah is better than Roy by virtue alone that she has staves. She's also far easier to level thanks to sacrifice, and while you are risking a game over putting her anywhere near combat, she can still deal decent damage with Thani.

I did call her a dark horse pick for a reason, but the argument I see for her being the worst is at its core her frailty. A lord's death causing a game over makes frailty a liability, and she is most consistently the frailest physically (with no claims of avoid-tanking to mitigate it), and with a vast majority of units dealing physical damage that is a massive issue. The effective damage of Thani, and staff utility are useful, but I could see people that consider the ease with which she can cause a gameover too high a drawback.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Not an unpopular opinion, more like one no one ever though of (and why would they, kek):

Frailty isn´t a category to a player who resets and neither are gameovers. 

Boom, just like that Nyx got better... if she had a hitrate, lmao.

 

Edit: Actually, Robin is the worst Lord, because they make everyone else look bad. Well, except my Main Man Freddy.

Edited July 17 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[samthedigital]

I've seem arguments for Roy>FE9 Ike. It's really not that crazy if we consider that Ike's only real advantage over Roy is negligible depending on context. My vote would go to Lyn though if we're not counting Lyn mode as I would basically never use her for her merits as a combat unit. I also mostly agree with Eltosian Kadath's assessment of Roy.

49 minutes ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Actually, Robin is the worst Lord, because they make everyone else look bad. Well, except my Main Man Freddy.

Have you not seen some of the recent arguments for Vaike>Robin?

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

Frailty isn´t a category to a player who resets and neither are gameovers.

I'm not sure exactly what you're actually saying her. But if it's that frailty is irrelevant to players who reset then I'd still disagree. As I still value the time I spend playing the game and the fewer resets I need to make the better.

51 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

I've seem arguments for Roy>FE9 Ike. It's really not that crazy if we consider that Ike's only real advantage over Roy is negligible depending on context. My vote would go to Lyn though if we're not counting Lyn mode as I would basically never use her for her merits as a combat unit. I also mostly agree with Eltosian Kadath's assessment of Roy.

What is Ike's only real advantage over Roy? That he promotes at a more reasonable time? I'd say that is still a pretty big advantage as not only does it give him more levels to grow, but it also gives him more skill capacity and the ability to use Aether (for the based people who aren't cheesing the game with Wrath Resolve). And, all in all, while PoR!Ike is one of the more mid lords who doesn't dominate the game, he does still seem to be able to take a hit and get in there a bit better than Roy. Of course Path of Radiance is a far, far, far easier game than Binding Blade. So that's probably more down to the enemy quality than any strength or weakness on Ike or Roy.

Oh, wait, no. Scratch all that. I just remembered Ike has an Earth Affinity and can reach A Rank with Oscar about a third of the way into the game. That's way better than anything Roy is packing.

[samthedigital]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

What is Ike's only real advantage over Roy?

I was referring to Ike's durability. In a context where we're rushing the game with 1-2 range mounted combat units Ike isn't going to be able to leverage any of the other advantages he has, and his durability will only matter in maps where we are forced to backpack him to reach an objective.

Edited July 17 by samthedigital

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I was referring to Ike's durability. In a context where we're rushing the game with 1-2 range mounted combat units Ike isn't going to be able to leverage any of the other advantages he has, and his durability will only matter in maps where we are forced to backpack him to reach an objective.

Honestly there's so little time left in the game that even if Ragnell had only 20 uses it wouldn't make a huge difference. Probably the only reason it has infinite durability is because Ike is mandatory against Black Knight and Ashnard who you have to cut away at for a slightly unreasonable amount of time.

[samthedigital]

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Honestly there's so little time left in the game that even if Ragnell had only 20 uses it wouldn't make a huge difference. Probably the only reason it has infinite durability is because Ike is mandatory against Black Knight and Ashnard who you have to cut away at for a slightly unreasonable amount of time.

I'll admit that I'm a little confused. I'm referring to Ike being able to take a few hits before dying and not his weapon durability. I'm not saying that he doesn't have some other things over Roy, but some of it depends on playstyle. Cross game comparisons are often tricky if both units are actually useful too; I don't really have any strong feelings about the two personally even if people have made that particular argument.