If you could buff certain characters, how would you do it?

[Silly]

To be honest, most of the unit imbalances are largely due to classes being very imbalanced. Any unit balance i would ideally like to see tied to a class overhaul as well.

Working on class balance would likely improve the viability of many "less good" units. For example, a big downside of Alois is that he joins in a subpar class and it is probably too late to get him to a better one. If warrior were better and wyvern worse, that would already go a long way to making him comparatively more viable.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, timon said:

I mean you just got screwed, he obviously should be able to tank hits with much more effectivness than Hilda and Leonie, even if doubled.

If yours doesn't you just got RNG screwed, it happens, no need to keep the anti-Raphael campaign going... Don't get me wrong he's not exactly a good unit, but he does tank well.

And axes are really not that bad, in a game where hitrate is NEVER an issue, and with weight being fairly irrelevant to him (he's not doubling anyways) the sheer power of axes is perfect for Raphael.

Except he cannot. What does this tell you about him? 

A. He sucks worse than Little Mac's recovery

B. His stats prevent him from fulfilling his role

C. He's cripplingly overspecialized

D. All of the above

Simply put, he'd need to have a metric ton more defense than those other characters I mentioned to be tanking well in the face of the constant double attacks he ends up on the receiving end of. 

4 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

I'm not sure what difficulty we're talking here, but for me Axes having accuracy issues was really only a problem in the early game.  It didn't take long for Prowess Abilities to kick in and patch those up.

I'm playing on Hard, of course. And I tend to find axes inferior to something else nine times out of ten.

2 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

If you go with his canon class grappler, he has enough strength growth to keep his damage within range of others even factoring in the low might of gauntlets, forged training gauntlets have 10 crit and grapplers fierce iron fist allows for three hits of boosted crit turning him into the cheapest killer weapon class user experience n the game. So even if he has a slightly lower might he has three chances at a decent rate to crit and I did have him crit almost every combat encounter initiated on player phase. His bloated hp plays into the gauntlet combat art healing focus which allow him to heal half his hp total~30 pt heal and he'll rarely take that much damage thanks to his bloated defense rating.

i didn't do so but Since his weapons are natural braves he benefits most from strength stat boosters and his health loves defense stat boosters and health boosters, if anyone were soft enough to need these more they probably shouldn't be on the front lines anyway.

 

endgame golden deer he was one rounding any enemy and taking no damage except from mages.sometime he had a natural quad attack but fierce iron fist was better for getting crits. You can certify him in speedier classes or tankier classes to fix weaknesses but grappler seems to work best for him.

If I have to endure his sucking up to advanced classes, that's a Texas-sized red flag right there, and you know it. For fuck's sake, this is the same Raphael I find to struggle to do his job in the freaking earlygame. What does that tell you about his probability of seeing continued use??? Anyway, baking on crits is not a good strategy, at least for a while since your crit rates are gonna be too low to warrant banking on. I've all but dropped the guy in my current Golden Deer run (I just cleared chapter 7, and I felt that Ingrid, whom I was lucky enough to recruit right beforehand, was a MASSIVE improvement over Raphael); the only reason I'm going to have to endure him any longer than that is because of a paralogue that requires him (and Ignatz, but I've gotten some use out of Ignatz).

Edited August 24, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Von Ithipathachai]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'm playing on Hard, of course. And I tend to find axes inferior to something else nine times out of ten.

I see.  I'm playing on Normal, so chances are the Axe hit rates I'm seeing are much better than yours.

[CyberNinja]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Except he cannot. What does this tell you about him? 

A. He sucks worse than Little Mac's recovery

B. His stats prevent him from fulfilling his role

C. He's cripplingly overspecialized

D. All of the above

Simply put, he'd need to have a metric ton more defense than those other characters I mentioned to be tanking well in the face of the constant double attacks he ends up on the receiving end of. 

I'm playing on Hard, of course. And I tend to find axes inferior to something else nine times out of ten.

If I have to endure his sucking up to advanced classes, that's a Texas-sized red flag right there, and you know it. For fuck's sake, this is the same Raphael I find to struggle to do his job in the freaking earlygame. What does that tell you about his probability of seeing continued use??? Anyway, baking on crits is not a good strategy, at least for a while since your crit rates are gonna be too low to warrant banking on.

Advanced classes, something everyone ends on. Most of them aren't all that op or even good. He specifically works well in an otherwise unnotable class.

[Vince777]

I thought gauntlets were excellent so I'm quite puzzled so many had the opposite experience.

 

[Von Ithipathachai]

2 minutes ago, Vince777 said:

I thought gauntlets were excellent so I'm quite puzzled so many had the opposite experience.

I've been discussing this with some other people on Discord.  Apparently they can be pretty inconsistent in how good they are.

[CyberNinja]

5 minutes ago, Vince777 said:

I thought gauntlets were excellent so I'm quite puzzled so many had the opposite experience.

 

They're better the higher the natural strength of the character but. Ecause they add almost no might of their own they rapidly fall to uselessness or godliness compared to how they compare to the oponants defense

[Vince777]

On player phase, they are generally the one weapon type that guarantees a KO without taking a hit back. 

 

[Flere210]

The big thing of gauntlets is that they double dip on any boost. Death blow, faire and even things like food or plants. My war master dedue can kill eveything whit big overkill margins, but is prety much an optimized for that purpose. Just a litle less stranght and he would not ORKO anything.

Basically is the classic multihit situation. If you can stack attack boost they become godly because the boost is applied multiple times, otherwise the will hit for 2 damage a lot of times. 

Edited August 24, 2019 by Flere210

[Hyper L]

Gauntlets were supposed to be a weapon for Slow Brutes, but then the Fast Brutes (Felix) sweep in and start quading so they're better with them anyway.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by Hyper L

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Vince777 said:

I thought gauntlets were excellent so I'm quite puzzled so many had the opposite experience.

 

The problem with gauntlets is that they have very little might (the strongest gauntlets have only 4 might - less than an iron sword). This results in them being highly dependent on the strength stat of the user. And it also makes them bad for Enemy Phase. Making matters worse, they're range-locked. On top of this, they cannot be used by mounted units.

[Humanoid]

Gauntlets seem great to have as your second weapon skill to complement whatever primary melee weapon you've gone for. The problem though is that bows are so good that the second weapon skill for non-archers almost invariably ends up being bows. If Javelins and Hand Axes were better, I'd feel a lot more comfortable picking up gauntlets on more units.

[Shadow Mir]

14 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Gauntlets seem great to have as your second weapon skill to complement whatever primary melee weapon you've gone for. The problem though is that bows are so good that the second weapon skill for non-archers almost invariably ends up being bows. If Javelins and Hand Axes were better, I'd feel a lot more comfortable picking up gauntlets on more units.

The other problem is that they're unusable by mounted units. Not to mention there only being three foot classes in the Master tier, of which two are gender locked (and the one that's female exclusive cannot use gauntlets).

[Silly]

Gauntlets would be better if player phase combat was harder. But their niche of being "good" player phase weapons isn't a very exciting one, given that past the first few chapters other weapons have good enough player phase combat to kill enemies reliably as well, while also having better enemy phase combat.

If the game was harder then it's possible that they'd be better, but it's questionable given the other point that was brought up, which is that none of the "best" classes are particularly interested in using gauntlets (given that most of the best classes are mounted).

Edited August 24, 2019 by Silly

[magnetic_cactus]

5 hours ago, Silly said:

To be honest, most of the unit imbalances are largely due to classes being very imbalanced. Any unit balance i would ideally like to see tied to a class overhaul as well.

Working on class balance would likely improve the viability of many "less good" units. For example, a big downside of Alois is that he joins in a subpar class and it is probably too late to get him to a better one. If warrior were better and wyvern worse, that would already go a long way to making him comparatively more viable.

Pretty much this. Compatibility with Wyvern Lord (and its predecessor axe and flying based classes), Falcon Knight (ditto), and to a lesser extent Bow Knight and a handful of other classes makes a huge difference when it comes to team optimization through unit selection. It's unfortunate that in a game with so much class flexibility devs apparently didn't do quite enough playtesting; if classes were more tightly unit-locked (for example, only two units could become Wyvern Lords) we'd see a bit more build and team diversity, I'm sure, and more units would have a niche, but since they are not, class balance is that much more critical...

Edited August 24, 2019 by magnetic_cactus

[leesangstar10]

Gauntlets also get easily out classed by brave weapons. Gauntlets are lighter so it allows quading, but quading is such a over kill. Brave usually kills in one round

[paladin21]

23 hours ago, Flere210 said:

Cyril get a 10% growth boost pretty mich everywhere because Est.

 

He gets a 20% through his personal skill.

23 hours ago, NobodiePichu said:

allow the player to chose blyeths proficiency and unlock all classes from gender restrictions. if the aim of the system is a high degree of versatility then dont put in arbitrary restrictions that dont make much sense.

Unlike Daraen/Robin and Corrin, Byleth has a fixed personality that's reflected in his competences. He is a mercenary (sword and brawl, like Felix and Catherine), with leadership skills (Authority) and an inmate talent (Faith) from the influence of Sothis from within.

He shouldn't have strong points in all competences. If something, having him getting budding talents in all competences (except Swords and Authority, in which he'd excel naturally) but only being able to unlock only two of them would help customizing him while not breaking the game.

-------

However, like many other people have said before, before addressing characters, classes should be checked. For example, raise base movement from intermediate and advanced/master classes (5 and 6, respectively) and just adjust the bonuses: armor (-1), flying (+1), cavalry (+2), magic (-1), dismounted flying (-1). That'd be a boost for advanced infantry, since they'd reach 6mov and flyers wouldn't be so eager to dismount to avoid arrows. Or make dismounting a full action unless a skill is equipped. On top of that, less strength for falcos and less speed for wyverns. Those units are too broken, great bases AND great growths AND mobility AND weapon freedom... That's too much. They need nerfing (like the bow knight).

A unit type shouldn't own the game. It steals all the fun.

[Silly]

Just a first pass of class balance that I'd be interested in seeing.

Beginner:

Bows moved off of fighter (maybe to soldier, which has a dex boost). The fighter class is pretty overloaded atm, with so many classes wanting to go through it due to three proficiencies.

Intermediate:

Rebalance class mastery so that every choice here gets a good class mastery (rather than having Brigand + Pegasus + Mage + Archer be clearly the best choices here). At the very least, move Darting Blow off of Pegasus. There is no reason that one of the best classes in this tier should also have one of the best masteries.

Master:

If advanced classes are meant to be fine terminal classes, make master classes have signficant tradeoffs instead of being strictly better (such as Warrior < War Master). Alternatively, if people are expected to end in a master class, make sure that advanced classes have reasonable upgrade paths  that don't force you to do something weird (for example, Paladin -> ???).

Fliers:

Should probably cap at 7 move (one less than mounted units) instead of 8. I'd like to see the innate Avoid +10 go as well, as it is very unnecessary. Wyverns need to be a lot slower (maybe even have a negative speed modifier).

Archers:

Close Counter should probably be nerfed. I'd like for bows to not be able to double at 1 range (except Mini Bow), but some other nerf would be fine. Regardless, these should not be the best 1-2 range option in the game.

Foot units:

Normal advanced tier classes (such as Swordmaster and Warrior) should have 6 move across the board. Mages in advanced tier and Fortress Knight should have 5 move instead of 4.

Potentially add a footlocked lance class as well for higher tiers, as I'm surprised that this doesn't exist.

[Von Ithipathachai]

22 minutes ago, Silly said:

Bows moved off of Fighter (maybe to soldier, which has a dex boost).

I like this idea.  It actually has a bit of precedence from Thracia 776, where Archers (not to be confused with the Bow Fighter class used by the player in their stead) are basically just Bow-wielding Soldiers.

3 minutes ago, Silly said:

Potentially add a footlocked lance class as well for higher tiers, as I'm surprised that this doesn't exist.

They probably axed further Lance infantry (tee hee) in favor of Brawl infantry.  Tellius-style Soldiers (including Fates's Spear Fighters) tend to have very well-balanced stat spreads, almost excessively so.  It would be difficult to look at Halberdiers/Sentinels as anything other than worse Cavaliers/Paladins, except perhaps for better Speed.

Something I would also do is increase Cavaliers and Pegasus Knights' Riding/Flying recommendations from D to C.  If mounted classes are going to just end up better than non-mounted ones, then these mounted classes should be appropriately harder to get into.  They could also have their C Rank Lance recommendations changed to a C in any of Swords, Lances, or Axes.  I feel this method of handling acceptable proficiencies (seen only on Fighters and Monks) was sorely underused.