What is your unpopular Fire Emblem opinion?

[Hanes]

6 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I wouldn't say the "somehow" is warranted there lol, Gilbert is really well written. I'd go as far as to call him one of the best written characters in Three Houses, in fact.

Seet, the thing about him is, he's not as easy to like or as husbandable as the rest, and a lot more focus is put on his flaws and inner turmoil than the average student. Not only that, he hurt Very Cute Anime (Your) Girl Annette through his mistakes, which earned him the ire of many, even though that's the whole point, the game doesn't try to excuse it even though he very much didn't do it out of malice and Annette herself just wants her dad back.

So he ended up getting a lot of bile thrown his way by people who were certain the solution to his crippling depression and survivor's guilt derived from a society obssessed with the concept of chivalry was as simple as "stop throwing a pity party and talk to your daughter."

The people proudly proclaiming how they had Annette murder him were my favorites. Yes, my favorite way to treat my favorite characters: Make them fail at their ultimate goal and ruin their lives.

...Personally, I think he needed a beard. Is that an unpopular opinion? I can't imagine it would be, I mean

Look at that, he actually looks a hundred times better. People wouldn't hate him as much if that's what he looked like. Surely.

Fantastically said. I never even knew about that lol.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Gilbert is well-written but he's also in this weird space where he feels like a bit of a playable villain. He tears his family apart due to his own vanity, then acts as a feeble yes-man to Dimitri during his darkest moments. I absolutely buy someone would behave the way he does and it's a great criticism of the failures of the Farghus honour culture (and smiilar cultures that have existed in our world). Basically his character does wonderful work for the setting. But it's not surprising players don't want to get behind someone so unsympathetic. Pure villains tend to be good at chewing scenery, so we can love to cheer against them. Gilbert... doesn't even give you that, he's a nothing antagonist during his brief appearances in Crimson Flower, Scarlet Blaze, and Golden Wildfire.

So even though I appreciate the writing surrounding him overall, it's the least surprising thing in the world that he's basically the least liked playable character from Three Houses.

On 6/22/2023 at 5:49 PM, Jotari said:

Agarthans need to exist because Part 1 exists too. It would be a lot more difficult to justify a playable Edelgard and an antagonist Edelgard if for the entirety of part 1 you're using Edelgard to kill loyal Edelgard soldiers for chapters on end. Part 1 needs some kind of threat to make maps out of. Of course evil mole people wasn't the only option. They could have spun out the Lonato and Miklan plot lines into bigger events for White Clouds.

 

Not only that, the Agarthans are basically necessary as the architects of the Tragedy of Duscur, the Big Terrible Event that happens before the game starts. I suppose you could excise them by making that entirely the work of power-hungry nobles in Western Faerghus (similarly, you'd also have to make a different political faction, presumably Duke Aegir, responsible for Lysithea and Edelgard's backstories), but that's essentially just trading one Morally Reprehensible Faction for another.

I definitely don't think it's fair to say they only exist to keep other players' hands clean. I think the actual reason they exist is that similar factions have existed in... most other Fire Emblem games.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

That's true too. Luckily, he and the other characters who didn't enjoy the limelight as much in Three Houses got their chance to shine in the spin-off, Three Hop-- oh wait, nevermind it was about the students again and half the faculty got less.

I will never forgive them

At least his rocking brother Baron Dominic got a decent amount of focus in Three Hopes...even if he still didn't get a face.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Recently got a youtube reply saying that in all FE strategic discussions/tier lists etc there's an unspoken rule that everybody assumes the player is going for a deathless run. Because "a deathless run shows greater skill and optimization than a run where units die". I can understand this approach in the context of a challenge run where that's part of the point (like, say, discussing Ranked runs of FE7. Your rank drops if a recruited ally dies), but they insisted the platonic ideal of good Fire Emblem play in every context is going for every recruitment, side objective, and most importantly having no deaths. So I'll pose the question here, does this unspoken rule exist?

Beyond the Iron Man-unfriendly nature of this position, I just got out of Shadow Dragon H5 and sacrificing a bad unit to save somebody I care about was a clutch strategy. I let Gordin body block for Merric against Chapter 10's fliers, knowing that he would be targeted and killed. It wasn't my first choice at the start of the player phase, but it was a good spot for him to get his own shot in while protecting a better unit. Is that sort of move banned among great players? I think fighting the urge to quit and accept the consequences speaks to a good player compared to someone that resets and turtles harder. Besides, It's just a level 3 Gordin, well past his life expectancy. 

[Etrurian emperor]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Gilbert is well-written but he's also in this weird space where he feels like a bit of a playable villain. He tears his family apart due to his own vanity, then acts as a feeble yes-man to Dimitri during his darkest moments.

To Gilbert's credit I think he also takes on the role of de facto leader when Dimitri is extremely unsuited for the role. He defers to his prince as he ''should'' when Dimitri puts his foot down but there are also cases were Gilbert takes charge as best as he can under the handicap dimitri imposes on the team.

Quote

At least his rocking brother Baron Dominic got a decent amount of focus in Three Hopes...even if he still didn't get a face.

Its weird since he seems to be a much more well rounded character than Sylvain's dad who does get his own character model.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Etrurian emperor

[Saint Rubenio]

19 hours ago, Sbuscoz said:

True, but thinking about how a deadbeat father became one of my favourite characters is still kinda funny lmao

Ah yeah, I get that haha. I find myself surprised at my favorites too, sometimes.

13 hours ago, Hanes said:

Fantastically said. I never even knew about that lol.

Fun fact: I'm pretty sure that's the most positive talk I've done about Three Houses in years. It's a neat change of pace.

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

At least his rocking brother Baron Dominic got a decent amount of focus in Three Hopes...even if he still didn't get a face.

Oh, I remember him. He tried to kill Annette and Gilbert for reasons I forget and then I killed him.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Saint Rubenio

[Dark Holy Elf]

6 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I can understand this approach in the context of a challenge run where that's part of the point (like, say, discussing Ranked runs of FE7. Your rank drops if a recruited ally dies), but they insisted the platonic ideal of good Fire Emblem play in every context is going for every recruitment, side objective, and most importantly having no deaths. So I'll pose the question here, does this unspoken rule exist?

If we're talking about the platonic ideal of Fire Emblem playthroughs (in so far as such a thing can exist), then yes, I'd say one where nobody dies is preferable. And that would include talking about general strategies for approaching maps: a strategy which keeps everyone alive is superior to one which sacrifices units. That said, I'd also consider not resetting as preferable to resetting, so there may come times when accepting a death is the best play in the moment. I would consider your action in the situation you described to be a good one, personally.

[Etrurian emperor]

57 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh, I remember him. He tried to kill Annette and Gilbert for reasons I forget and then I killed him.

Well, more like imprison rather than kill them, and in return they don't end up killing him either. 

[Saint Rubenio]

Just now, Etrurian emperor said:

Well, more like imprison rather than kill them, and in return they don't end up killing him either. 

I'd completely forgotten the details lol. I only played that chapter once, all the way back at the game's release. Thanks for the refresher.

[Etrurian emperor]

Given it has a reputation as being controversial I'd say thinking Golden Wildfire to be the best route is an unpopular opinion. For added points I'd add that its not even close. Its just that much above the other routes.

Part of it is a process of elimination. Azure Gleam and Crimson Blaze has problems that Golden Wildfire doesn't have. Azure Gleam has a jarring shift in antagonist that replaces everything interesting about the setting with the least interesting subject of the setting. Crimson Blaze meanwhile feels a bit disjointed with Edelgard hopping from one half of the map to the next without really settling any of the conflict, and the ending is a little bit silly. 

Golden Wildfire has the firmer grasp of the setting that Azure Gleam apparently didn't have, and its more cohesive than Crimson Blaze. Each little arc of the route is framed as a military campaign with a very coherent rythem. Rather than hop from one side of the map to another you primarily defend the Alliance lands or invade the lands explicitly close to the Alliance borders. It adds some tactical touches that Edelgard speedrunning the Fodlan map has less of.

The Alliance is also the nation that benefits the most from their own route because last time they didn't get one. They had to share with the Church. This time around there was much more room to expand on the Alliance, and they did that very well. They even used the opportunity for the surprising reveal that a character like count Gloucester, a figure only barely less vile than Bernie's dad is very nuanced guy, or even an outright benevolent one. 

Not that the route is without flaws. Shahid is about as interesting and threatening as your average Slitherer but since he only has two stages this is less problematic. 

Claude and Edelgard making an alliance has been criticized but I'm not sure why. Claude and Edelgard were always more logical partners than Claude and Rhea. And while Edelgard isn't entirely trustworthy Claude having beaten her before and becoming King of Almyra are suitable enough guarantees of keeping her in line. Claude being more shady also adds some spice to him that he lacked in Three Houses. Him being the only unconditionally likable lord from that game made him easy to route for, but also ensured he lacked the interesting traits of Dimitri and Edelgard. 

Edited June 24, 2023 by Etrurian emperor

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

11 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

they insisted the platonic ideal of good Fire Emblem play in every context is going for every recruitment, side objective, and most importantly having no deaths. So I'll pose the question here, does this unspoken rule exist?

I would say... that there are a lot of different metrics to what constitutes "good play". From an LTC perspective, if sacrificing a certain unit saves a turn in one chapter - without costing a turn in a later chapter - then I would call such a maneuver "good play". Conversely, if I'm going for a "full recruitment deathless Ironman", then such a move would be an unspeakably bad play.

But there are a lot of questions in-between: like, should I send Dew to get the Wind Sword at Bragi Tower? It means I'm burning through more turns than necessary (which probably won't be made up for later), but it also gets me a really strong weapon, which may improve my performance against certain foes for the rest of the game. So, good play, or bad? I don't think there's a discrete answer to that - at least, not one that can be separated from my own motivation for playing the game. It's all subjective, really.

11 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I let Gordin body block for Merric against Chapter 10's fliers, knowing that he would be targeted and killed.

...Is what I'd say if you hadn't killed off Gaggles. Terrible, atrocious, irredeemable play. May you never know the peace of Father Sky and Mother Earth!

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Given it has a reputation as being controversial I'd say thinking Golden Wildfire to be the best route is an unpopular opinion. For added points I'd add that its not even close. Its just that much above the other routes.

Yeah I think Golden Wildfire is probably the best-written Hopes route objectively. I agree with most of your comments (and also wish Shahid was better, but oh well).

Some people were surprised by Gloucester but I really wasn't? Like... he's basically older, more experienced Lorenz. Where do you think Lorenz got his kinda-admirable-but-also-insufferable ideology, about how nobles need to protect commoners, from? I think he clicks pretty well with what we know of the characters and setting, and also brings a useful old-guard perspective to Alliance politics which was missing in the first game.

And yeah, complaining about who Claude makes an alliance with. Claude his goals and priorities related to keeping the Alliance intact and ultimately opening up Fodlan and he's quite willing to take various different paths to get there, depending on what opportunities present themselves... and he's certainly not above the use of force when he's in a position to use it. Claude was always a character who was fun to watch the bits of pieces of him we got, but Golden Wildfire is finally a route which feels really centred around him (since VW exists in that weird space where it had to share all of its map content with another route) and it's great.

[Florete]

16 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Recently got a youtube reply saying that in all FE strategic discussions/tier lists etc there's an unspoken rule that everybody assumes the player is going for a deathless run. Because "a deathless run shows greater skill and optimization than a run where units die". I can understand this approach in the context of a challenge run where that's part of the point (like, say, discussing Ranked runs of FE7. Your rank drops if a recruited ally dies), but they insisted the platonic ideal of good Fire Emblem play in every context is going for every recruitment, side objective, and most importantly having no deaths. So I'll pose the question here, does this unspoken rule exist?

Beyond the Iron Man-unfriendly nature of this position, I just got out of Shadow Dragon H5 and sacrificing a bad unit to save somebody I care about was a clutch strategy. I let Gordin body block for Merric against Chapter 10's fliers, knowing that he would be targeted and killed. It wasn't my first choice at the start of the player phase, but it was a good spot for him to get his own shot in while protecting a better unit. Is that sort of move banned among great players? I think fighting the urge to quit and accept the consequences speaks to a good player compared to someone that resets and turtles harder. Besides, It's just a level 3 Gordin, well past his life expectancy. 

I wouldn't say it's an unspoken rule, but it's a factor that doesn't come into play often due to the nature of things. A tier list is a compilation of 1v1 comparisons, and in a 1v1 comparison, you assume each of these two units doesn't die for a variety of reasons. Whether or not any other unit dies typically isn't relevant, because the good units who are naturally assumed to be in play are good in part because they're not likely to die, and the bad units who are more likely to die are assumed not to be in play because being bad at living typically comes alongside being bad at killing.

Also, I think most people who play FE either play casual mode, or just naturally play in such a way as to keep units alive as much as possible, so tier lists reflect that assumption. However, while it's pretty rare, I have seen strategic discussions that brought up possible unit death.

I wouldn't say your Gordin sacrifice is 'banned,' but I don't know where it would be relevant. You wouldn't use it when discussing Gordin's value throughout the game, and to my knowledge he's not considered strong enough that the loss of him would be likely to force the player to make a significant change to their general team structure.

[Jotari]

20 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Recently got a youtube reply saying that in all FE strategic discussions/tier lists etc there's an unspoken rule that everybody assumes the player is going for a deathless run. Because "a deathless run shows greater skill and optimization than a run where units die". I can understand this approach in the context of a challenge run where that's part of the point (like, say, discussing Ranked runs of FE7. Your rank drops if a recruited ally dies), but they insisted the platonic ideal of good Fire Emblem play in every context is going for every recruitment, side objective, and most importantly having no deaths. So I'll pose the question here, does this unspoken rule exist?

Beyond the Iron Man-unfriendly nature of this position, I just got out of Shadow Dragon H5 and sacrificing a bad unit to save somebody I care about was a clutch strategy. I let Gordin body block for Merric against Chapter 10's fliers, knowing that he would be targeted and killed. It wasn't my first choice at the start of the player phase, but it was a good spot for him to get his own shot in while protecting a better unit. Is that sort of move banned among great players? I think fighting the urge to quit and accept the consequences speaks to a good player compared to someone that resets and turtles harder. Besides, It's just a level 3 Gordin, well past his life expectancy. 

It's definitely not a universal rule. LTC players will absolutely kill some units to clear a map more quickly. But generally I think yeah, even when you're doing an iron man pretty much all players want to avoid having units die. Consider a situation like Pelleas joining mid map in 4-2 of Radiant Dawn. Very few players are going to look at this low level unit they don't intend to train and conclude "the most optimal use of this unit is to use them as a meat shield because they are weak and I already have my end game team". I wouldn't go so far as the YouTube commenter and suggest that to do so is worse playing, just that psychologically most players will not sacrifice superfluous forced deployed units as meat shields unless they specifically are going for an LTC or possibly a draft. Most players will either move a Pelleas type unit to safety or at least have him attack with some attempts to protect and keep him alive for that chapter.

Course in Shadow Dragon specifically you're encouraged to kill off your army and in Thracia you can only get one character if another character is arbitrarily dead. Other games have captured or generic units you can use that players will be more willing to sacrifice. And some people play casual where sacrificing units only has the cost of not using them for the rest of the map. So ultimately there is something of a case by case nature to the idea.

8 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Claude and Edelgard making an alliance has been criticized but I'm not sure why. Claude and Edelgard were always more logical partners than Claude and Rhea. And while Edelgard isn't entirely trustworthy Claude having beaten her before and becoming King of Almyra are suitable enough guarantees of keeping her in line. Claude being more shady also adds some spice to him that he lacked in Three Houses. Him being the only unconditionally likable lord from that game made him easy to route for, but also ensured he lacked the interesting traits of Dimitri and Edelgard. 

I haven't seen anyone criticize the Claude Edelgard alliance. Is about concept or execution? Because if it's about mere concept then I'd say Claude got more criticism for not allying with Edelgard at any point in Three Houses, given we are told but never shown that he is a schemer and that the Alliance is clearly the Wu in the Three Kingdoms parallel. But if it's about the execution of the alliance in Three Hopes then I can see how it came come across as a little forced. It boils down to "Claude doesn't like Rhea" without any real explanation as to why. It just kind of hopes the church has built enough bad will from Three Houses for the player to just go along with it. Which brings up questions as to why he didn't do anything like that in Three Houses. And in the context when he has just been defending his country tooth and nail from Edelgard it does come across as a bit baseless.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

On 6/21/2023 at 5:53 AM, Punished Dayni said:

As someone who has benched the actual units for them, I can get that few of them are stand out better than actual units outside of niche stuff like Rallyman and that hit rates can be shakier without supports available, but I'll use them regardless. The bribery is also an annoyance admittedly, but it's not something that's given me much grief.

I'd make the point that my incompetence is why I haven't cleared Lunatic up to now with them. Well that and First Blood not working on them, not even the bosses, doesn't seem like it shouldn't be useable on them, but alas.

It's not just that, it's that Niles falls off HARD. It's like, sure, the 4-Rally Master of Arms is great to capture, but does it justify making things harder for myself by dragging Niles along when odds are he's clearly outlived his usefulness...??? I think not, especially since this is very late in the game, where I cannot settle for anything less than my best. Then there's Kumagera. On paper, he's a good capture... BUT, the game drops Xander, who can do pretty much anything he can do and do it better, on me for the low, low price of FREE (unlike Kumagera needing Niles the Weakling to finish him off and a prison set up)! And to add insult to injury, this is in the first chapter where he can actually be used, thanks to the one right after the one he's the boss in being the one where you can only use Corrin and Azura. I could go on and on, but this should get the point across well enough.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Punished Dayni]

11 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

It's not just that, it's that Niles falls off HARD.

I find the absolutism on display around some of the units to be a bit much, broadly speaking. This being Fates, a game where often enough you can push right past thresholds with enough statting. Not to mention I've never had him be terrible in any playthough I've used him. Sure, take this run, he's not got 30+ Str, but he's working with bows most of the time that's not a major problem. His hit's not the best, but in context of this run he's not the worst offender by a long shot and he's sitting pretty solidly on that one.

Niles not being insanely powerful is true, but to pretend he can't be used ever, sometimes even with little effort on my part would be untrue.

12 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

BUT, the game drops Xander, who can do pretty much anything he can do and do it better, on me for the low, low price of FREE

It also drops Justice is an Illusion on me for free. To put it another way, I'm not a player who's ever been used to ironmanning. But during said run, I ended up having Xander in the party and he ended up dying right at the end. At this point, I'd gone through enough resets to convince even me to just cut my losses, it was only Xander anyway.

I'm not playing this thing optimally.

21 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I think not, especially since this is very late in the game, where I cannot settle for anything less than my best.

 Again:

Quote

I'm not playing this thing optimally.

I know others have done it before too, this is just my choice to go for. I'm pretty sure I'd still be banging my head against a wall on Hinoka's chapter with the best possible units.

23 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

And to add insult to injury, this is in the first chapter where he can actually be used, thanks to the one right after the one he's the boss in being the one where you can only use Corrin and Azura.

Kumagera has a more useful role on Kitsune Hell thanks to not being on a horse and havng powerful attacks on player phase in particular while also being able to do some of the walling in that map, assuming you didn't go Wyvern Lord Xander which is not a cheap consideration at that point. Ninja Hell also sees Kumagera with less shaky hit, admittedly on player phase for the most part but he can provide similar cover to Xander. A shame he doesn't have a reclass where he could get more skills that mattered, but that's something to accept here.

All that being said, Xander is probably objectively the better unit. On that metric alone I should use him over Kumagera. Or a sufficiently reclassed Laslow over Rallyman. Or Kaze over a Master Ninja that happened to get Move +1. Or Camilla over pretty much every single unit I'm using instead. This is not the metric I apply to this run.

[Shadow Mir]

18 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

I find the absolutism on display around some of the units to be a bit much, broadly speaking. This being Fates, a game where often enough you can push right past thresholds with enough statting. Not to mention I've never had him be terrible in any playthough I've used him. Sure, take this run, he's not got 30+ Str, but he's working with bows most of the time that's not a major problem. His hit's not the best, but in context of this run he's not the worst offender by a long shot and he's sitting pretty solidly on that one.

Niles not being insanely powerful is true, but to pretend he can't be used ever, sometimes even with little effort on my part would be untrue.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for the FE equivalent of Arceus. However, I find specialists being too specialized to be a recipe for disaster. Is it really a good idea for me  to put up with Niles when I need to do X, Y, and Z for him to be able to work when there are alternatives that can do the things he can do better, and without the extra qualifiers??? I am not convinced it is. Also, I've become disillusioned on speed specialized units (a group Niles happens to be part of!) because the same thing tends to be the case with them; even if speed in the best stat in the game, excellent speed only means so much when you have trouble killing, well, ANYTHING (well, Niles has no issue with shooting down fliers, but that's more intrinsic to bows as a weapon type). Considering that he must defeat enemies to capture them... yeah, it oughta be obvious that if Niles has trouble killing, making him stay relevant will be like pulling teeth... and I don't consider it worth it when there are other units that can do his job more efficiently. Yeah... He's not unusable, but he requires more to stay relevant than, and offers less than, most other units. I don't think he's one of the bottom of the barrel as far as Conquest is concerned, admittedly, but my issues with him ensure that he only sees use long enough to get me Nina before he gets a one-way trip to the bench.

18 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

It also drops Justice is an Illusion on me for free. To put it another way, I'm not a player who's ever been used to ironmanning. But during said run, I ended up having Xander in the party and he ended up dying right at the end. At this point, I'd gone through enough resets to convince even me to just cut my losses, it was only Xander anyway.

I'm not playing this thing optimally.

Neither am I. But to be honest, Xander would be hard, if not impossible, to replace, as no one else has his entire package in one unit; at best, you can only get portions of it from other units (to say nothing of the fact that how good these games are at giving replacements is questionable).

18 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Kumagera has a more useful role on Kitsune Hell thanks to not being on a horse and havng powerful attacks on player phase in particular while also being able to do some of the walling in that map, assuming you didn't go Wyvern Lord Xander which is not a cheap consideration at that point. Ninja Hell also sees Kumagera with less shaky hit, admittedly on player phase for the most part but he can provide similar cover to Xander. A shame he doesn't have a reclass where he could get more skills that mattered, but that's something to accept here.

And requires someone who hits like a wet noodle to defeat him to get (he has lower resistance, sure, but Niles has shit for magic as well, so...). Also, I've generally had little problems with Kitsune Lair despite having a lot of mounted units; honestly, the only hard part is the octet of enemies in the middle (admittedly though, I only played on Hard).

Edited June 26, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Eltosian Kadath]

On 6/24/2023 at 12:46 AM, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Recently got a youtube reply saying that in all FE strategic discussions/tier lists etc there's an unspoken rule that everybody assumes the player is going for a deathless run. Because "a deathless run shows greater skill and optimization than a run where units die". I can understand this approach in the context of a challenge run where that's part of the point (like, say, discussing Ranked runs of FE7. Your rank drops if a recruited ally dies), but they insisted the platonic ideal of good Fire Emblem play in every context is going for every recruitment, side objective, and most importantly having no deaths. So I'll pose the question here, does this unspoken rule exist?

I don't think it is an unspoken rule per se, but I do think it is indirectly implied by tier lists that have a rule about ignoring the difficulty/cost of recruiting units. Ignoring the recruitment difficulty/cost only seems justified if recruiting everyone is simply a part of the run, and I do think keeping everyone alive is an unspoken rule for runs that recruit everyone simply for the sake of recruiting everyone. Although like @Florete said, I think death isn't something that comes up much in tier lists...

 

[Punished Dayni]

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Also, I've generally had little problems with Kitsune Lair despite having a lot of mounted units; honestly, the only hard part is the octet of enemies in the middle (admittedly though, I only played on Hard).

Haitaka does better from experience on defeating them, but the group you mention of course is the worst for having half be unattackable on PP at all times.

8 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for the FE equivalent of Arceus. However, I find specialists being too specialized to be a recipe for disaster. Is it really a good idea for me  to put up with Niles when I need to do X, Y, and Z for him to be able to work when there are alternatives that can do the things he can do better, and without the extra qualifiers??? I am not convinced it is. Also, I've become disillusioned on speed specialized units (a group Niles happens to be part of!) because the same thing tends to be the case with them; even if speed in the best stat in the game, excellent speed only means so much when you have trouble killing, well, ANYTHING (well, Niles has no issue with shooting down fliers, but that's more intrinsic to bows as a weapon type). Considering that he must defeat enemies to capture them... yeah, it oughta be obvious that if Niles has trouble killing, making him stay relevant will be like pulling teeth... and I don't consider it worth it when there are other units that can do his job more efficiently. Yeah... He's not unusable, but he requires more to stay relevant than, and offers less than, most other units. I don't think he's one of the bottom of the barrel as far as Conquest is concerned, admittedly, but my issues with him ensure that he only sees use long enough to get me Nina before he gets a one-way trip to the bench.

Working on that stuff hasn't been much of an issue for me personally, but then again in the context of this sort of run he's not going to be in endgame anyways and is only around this long to do this. His high speed makes using stuff like Steel bows more viable against some of the more bulky enemies, which can be useful in getting experience funneled into others or finishing off an enemy where Iron wouldn't. And besides, that X, Y and Z is mostly giving attack boosts through forges (and if I were actually spending money on extras in this playthrough this would be the case, but I hadn't up to this point) and pairup as needed, far from a harsh investment. That being said, how much of this sort of stuff is too much?

Course, the Niles I had on Hard was better than the one on Lunatic, but besides the point

9 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

And requires someone who hits like a wet noodle to defeat him to get (he has lower resistance, sure, but Niles has shit for magic as well, so...).

Never been an issue personally, but then again going for magic has it's own risks as I have learned to my horror (Mostly for Corrin. Definitely for Corrin)

[Shadow Mir]

On 6/26/2023 at 7:05 AM, Punished Dayni said:

Never been an issue personally, but then again going for magic has it's own risks as I have learned to my horror (Mostly for Corrin. Definitely for Corrin)

Oh, I know all about that. Not because it happened to me personally, but because someone I was watching on Youtube got a game over from Countermagic (well, partly, as Kumagera's counterattack finished him off). Which I am thinking happened to you as well, judging from your comment. They later game overed due to Counter.

On 6/26/2023 at 7:05 AM, Punished Dayni said:

Haitaka does better from experience on defeating them, but the group you mention of course is the worst for having half be unattackable on PP at all times.

That's only part of the problem. The real issue is that some of them have Life and Death on them. Which makes them tricky to engage safely.

On 6/26/2023 at 7:05 AM, Punished Dayni said:

Working on that stuff hasn't been much of an issue for me personally, but then again in the context of this sort of run he's not going to be in endgame anyways and is only around this long to do this. His high speed makes using stuff like Steel bows more viable against some of the more bulky enemies, which can be useful in getting experience funneled into others or finishing off an enemy where Iron wouldn't. And besides, that X, Y and Z is mostly giving attack boosts through forges (and if I were actually spending money on extras in this playthrough this would be the case, but I hadn't up to this point) and pairup as needed, far from a harsh investment. That being said, how much of this sort of stuff is too much?

This is just me, but I find that others eventually can do the same thing without needing to suffer through his weaknesses. Also, aside from forging being able to improve anyone, the way it's designed in this game is just bad. It's very telling that Engage's forging system did something similar, but greatly simplified it by reducing the ores in the game to only three and having them usable for all weapon types.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[Hrothgar777]

The English dub for Engage is not of inferior quality to the Japanese dub.

There. I said it.

What's more, the theme song feels like it was first composed in English and then awkwardly translated into Japanese.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Hrothgar777

[Alastor15243]

24 minutes ago, Hrothgar777 said:

What's more, the theme song feels like it was first composed in English and then awkwardly translated into Japanese.

Helps that it's one of the precious few english language songs in FE canon that doesn't mess with syllable emphasis like an amateur.

[Punished Dayni]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

That's only part of the problem. The real issue is that some of them have Life and Death on them. Which makes them tricky to engage safely.

Oh yeah, no point walling those, but EP is a bitch for them by design.

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Oh, I know all about that. Not because it happened to me personally, but because someone I was watching on Youtube got a game over from Countermagic (well, partly, as Kumagera's counterattack finished him off). Which I am thinking happened to you as well, judging from your comment.

I have suffered that yes.

Never let it be said that Skill Emblem is immune to people missing the stuff that gets them killed.

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Also, aside from forging being able to improve anyone, the way it's designed in this game is just bad. It's very telling that Engage's forging system did something similar, but greatly simplified it by reducing the ores in the game to only three and having them usable for all weapon types.

Frankly, it's the merges that makes Fates forging a pain. The resources? Tolerable imo, but trying to merge beyond +1 for anything that isn't Iron or Bronze takes too much effort and even +3 (and thus ever upgrading the Smithy) usually isn't worth it anyways, considering +4 Mt is plenty most of the time.

Engage's on the other hand feels like the amount you can forge is less so because of the expense to forge higher levels usually was more, at least it felt like the first time.

[Florete]

6 hours ago, Hrothgar777 said:

The English dub for Engage is not of inferior quality to the Japanese dub.

There. I said it.

What's more, the theme song feels like it was first composed in English and then awkwardly translated into Japanese.

Probably not actually unpopular, weebs just love to let people know how much they love the Japanese language and despise English dubbing.

[Shadow Mir]

On 6/30/2023 at 2:42 PM, Punished Dayni said:

Frankly, it's the merges that makes Fates forging a pain. The resources? Tolerable imo, but trying to merge beyond +1 for anything that isn't Iron or Bronze takes too much effort and even +3 (and thus ever upgrading the Smithy) usually isn't worth it anyways, considering +4 Mt is plenty most of the time.

Both of them combined kill it for me. Also, when I see Fates runs on Youtube, I see a good chunk of players end up giving themselves all the resources - something I consider highly telling. It feels like one of Fates's most egregious missteps.