CyberNinja's Class Revamp thoughts

[CyberNinja]

 

My thoughts on revamping the classes to make some more useful or able to actually do their presumed roles. Note that anything not mentioned within this post is considered to be unchanged unless stated otherwise in following posts. If I receive good feedback then I will try to keep this post edited to accommodate new information.

 

Proficiency or the return of Class weapon restrictions:

To ensure that classes maintain some form of identity, there will be a return to the class weapon system with certain caveats: As per the standard game, the classes will have certain weapons that they increase in skill faster than normal, these will also be the only weapons they can use. The commoner/noble class will be considered proficient in all weapons but will not learn them any faster than normal, the commoner/noble is not considered proficient in magic.

Next comes the Student proficiency: Students that have a strength in a weapon type will be able to use that weapon even if they are not able to do so in the class they are currently in. This means that characters such as Felix and Edelgard would be able to use magic in their canon classes even though these classes don't allow it. Most standard mages would be able to use both faith and reason magic but non standard mages classed as a mage or priest would be limited only to that type of magic. This will add to the character of individual units such as Cyril, who will honestly feel like a Wyvern Archer rather than your slightly crappier Wyvern Lord #8. The classes will now have more of an identity and so will your students.

 

Unique classes:

Spoiler

 

Wyvern Master/Barbarossa

Canto changed to Pass, yea that means claude's personal skill is going to need to be changed too. No I'm not giving him canto.

 

Beginner Classes:

Spoiler

 

Soldier

Proficiency: Added Bow

Suggested: Added Bow D

Fighter:

Proficiency: Removed Bow

Suggested: Removed Bow D

 

Intermediate Classes:

Spoiler

 

Mercenary:

Suggested: Sword C OR Axe B

Abilities: Added Vantage

Mercenary was the odd class out in this case, lacking any abilities to set it apart. All it really had was its advertised speed and strength growths, well thief is also speedy and speed is overpowered, so what else are you offering? Mercenary now has an inbuilt vantage to help give it more of a defined role. It wants to be a vanguard type of unit, a midpoint between your player phase and enemy phase units. Good speed to avoid being doubled or even double, strength to secure the kill. Stays alive by killing the enemy before they kill him, strong vs melee, weak vs ranged.

Thief:

Suggested: Sword C OR Bow C

Mastery: Steal changed to Seal Speed

Part of a movement to make the early game more cooperative among your units would be to give many of the classes seal skills so that you can prep the enemy up for a devastating double in this case. Now some people like steal, others feel that there really isn't much worth stealing, 

Armored Knight:

Suggested: Axe C OR Lance B; and Heavy Armor D

Abilities: Added Provoke

Mastery: Armored Blow changed to Armored Stance

Cavalier:

Suggested: Lance C OR Sword B; and Riding D

Brigand:

Suggested: Axe C or Brawling B

Mastery: Deathblow changed to Seal defense

Brigand can now destroy enemy defense to allow his thief buddy to deal a fatal blow or the thief can drop the speed of the enemy to allow the Brigand a fatal double. This plays into the cooperative early game.

Brawler:

Mastery: Unarmed combat changed to Darting Blow

Mage:

Proficiency: Removed Faith

Abilities: Removed Fire

Dark Mage:

Proficiency: Removed Faith

Mastery: Poison Strike changed to Heartseeker

Poisonstrike was given to the assassin and I figured I could pull a thief and just award the player the Class Skill Heartseeker for mastering the class. lets them keep use of the skill if they move on to Dark knight or maybe they only dipped into the class for the skill to give their warrior or knight, Either way an aura of avo -20 is useful both for solo and cooperative work.

Priest:

Proficiency: Removed Reason

Abilities: Removed Heal

 

Advanced Classes:

Spoiler

Pegasus Knight:

Moved to Advanced Classes, bases/growths changed to advanced standard.

Suggested: Flying C OR Riding B; Lance B

Abilities: Added Lancefaire; Canto changed to Pass, removed Avoid +10

Hero:

Abilities: Added Keen Intuition

Was trying to find ways to make this unit stand out, either it or swordmaster had to be moved to a different tier as they both held the niche of "strong but fast." Swordmaster won out there (or lost) Since I gave mercenary vantage and having vantage as a class skill was already weird when mercenary gave it out for mastery. Hero needed soemthing more, they still had no real way to counter ranged, more so with my new proficiency rules. Luckily the enemy only skill Keen intuition exists. The creators thought it was a good idea to give intermediate class pegasus knight avoid +10 and this is only another 10 avoid (+20 total) and only good for ranged attacks, perfect. Should assist hero in playing their role, dueling down anyone who attacks them in melee before they can be killed, and now they laugh at attacks they can't counter. Hopefully its enough for you to reconsider this class, as an ally or an enemy barreling down upon you.

Assassin:

Mastery: Lethality changed to Poison Strike

continuing the move away of % based abilities, lethality has been slithered and instead the dark mage skill poison strike has been given to Assassins. Personally I feel it thematically fits more than were it originally found itself, also allows your lower strength archers a new option in non-NG+ gameplay.

Fortress Knight:

Abilities: Added Provoke

Mastery: Pavise changed to Combat Art: Pavise; Added Provoke

Too a degree I honestly think I'd be better off keeping Provoke as a class skill only, However since I've tried to make Great Knight more of a proper finish for both the Cav and Armored lines, this is the best I have to work with, if you want to keep your great knight keeping, Provoke is going to take up a personal skill slot.

Paladin:

Mastery: Aegis changed to Combat Art: Aegis

Wyvern Rider:

Suggested: Axe or Lance B, Flying C

Abilities: Canto changed to Pass

Mastery: Seal Defense changed to Death Blow

Part of the changes I'd implement would be for mounted classes or at least flying classes to be very good on the offense but rather terrible on enemy phase. Thus they gain unparalleled move, having both the highest move and not being effected by terrain or even enemy units. However wherever you place them is also where they will stay.

Sniper:

Abilities: Bow Range +1 changed to Bow Range +2

There really needs to be a reason to stay i this class over bow knight, so while they're reenacting the mongols, this class will remain outside of counter range and making use of their class mastery guaranteed doubles to bring some consistent kills. Probably still see more use an as class, but at least it'll be a moderately more threatening one.

Dark Bishop:

Proficiency: Removed Faith

Abilities: Removed Miasma, Fiendish Blow; Added Dark Magic uses x2, Dark Tomefaire

Now its a proper dark magic specialist rather than a strange Frankenstein of abilities it would have had anyway if it hadn't classed into this class. I haven't talked about bases and growths but these would all be geared towards dark mages playing in a way distinctive of normal mages. Suffice to say, they'll be rather aggressive.

Mastery Classes:

Spoiler

 

Swordmaster:

Moved to Mastery, bases and growths accounted for.

Abilities: Swordfaire, Swordcrit +20, Sword avoid +20

Mortal Savant:

Mastery: Warding Blow changed to Immaculate Strike

Great Knight:

Riding Or Armor A; Lance B+, Axe B+

Still a pain to get into, but more manageable since you only need one of the movement types to get into it. Still holds a preference for knights as they get proficiency for both weapon types but that's ok since its meant to be an option for that class to have real mobility. Knight path will be able to double down on their strength with Pavise, while Cav line covers a weakness with Aegis, you somehow get both, you can tank to the occasion.

Bow knight:

Abilities: Bow range +2 changed to Bow range +1

tried to make this more of a choice than it was previously, doubt it changed much, canto is a hell of a drug. Bow knights lose some of their ridiculous range but still keep that canto cheese.

Dark Knight:

Suggested: Holy Knight Certification and Reason A OR Dark Bishop Certification

Uses a Dark Seal

can't imagine this was a popular choice, well don't worry your'll class into the Holy knight and you wont have lost anything for the majority of your black magic users. If you really want this class you're either Hubert and easily classed in since you payed the premium of three dark seals or you read my spell list section and really wanted those three dark magic spells. That's really the gist of it, I originally intended this to be a straight upgrade of Dark Bishop to continue the path but decided to revert it mostly back to its original form, besides the added class spells.

Holy Knight:

Proficient: Sword, Reason, Faith, and Riding

Suggested: Reason C, Faith B+, Riding A

Abilities: Canto, Black Tomefaire, White Tomefaire

This class was modified with Marianne in mind, playing to her sword, faith and riding strengths; although it prefers reason and faith. It plays pretty much as previous except terrain resistance is given way to Black tomefaire so that the class has a balance of both Reason and Faith based damage. Since Dark Knight was popular but most didn't really make use of the dark magic bonus damage, this was to replace it as the standard mounted mage, it was also redesigned to better fit the combat faith user that it was presumed to be. Ultimately its the classic troubadour, having healing and offense all in a mounted bundle.

Combat Arts and Abilities modified:

Spoiler

Astra: Durability cost changed to 5

Basically doesn't cost you anymore than hitting a single enemy 5 times would, only you get those 5 chances to proc a crit. Yea I know crits aren't rated highly around here so its 1.5x damage for one more durability than Swift Strikes. So situational rather than strictly bad, maybe.

Armored Blow to Armored Stance

Armored Knights really aren't as good at killing enemies in one turn and even if they were you aren't generally expected to take much damage in doing so or really be countered at all. That the armored knight that scored a kill is likely to be doubled to death on enemy phase only exasperates the issue. So this solves that idea, making it a stance ability like Alert Stance or Dedue's personal. +6 Defense when unit uses the wait command, decent self buff even good when combined with the provoke skill.

Warding Blow changed to Warded Stance

Not in use by a class as of this edit, maybe useful as a hidden talent (Ferdinand) Since I'll likely put many of the seal skills for early classes.

Lifetaker: If on player phase, the unit scores a kill: Restore health to 100%.

Fist fighters already can restore half of their HP no questions asked as an option, restoring 30% of damage dealt, limited by how much health the enemy had left, is pretty meh. So to make dark mages rather distinct from others, they get a full heal when they score a kill on player phase, pretty decent given they want to be adjacent to enemies to score a kill.

New Combat Arts and Abilities:

Spoiler

 

Aegis: Might - hit - Crit - range - dur cost -

Usable by (mounted cavalry) units only. Reduces bow/magic damage to user by half for the enemy phase.

Pavise: Might - hit - Crit - range - dur cost -

Usable by (armored) units only. Reduces Sword/lance/axe/brawling damage to user by half for enemy phase.

A major part of this change was to continue the movement of the creators to a more expected outcome vs random outcome. Thus the move for these abilities to become arts, push to half damage from certain attacks, expected result. there should likely be an implemented limit to the amount of attacks this can happen with like it was in shadows of Valentia but I didn't follow that game and don't really know how useful it was in that form. Pavise was limited to Armored units only so that they maintain their role as enemy phase bait and Aegis was changed as well due to the fact its simply the other half of the original Great shield ability. Incidentally Aegis being limited to Cavalry and Pavise to armored can also be seen as a stealth buff to Great Knight, which has access to both.

To be clear, the item version of these abilities is unaffected by the change here,if you were wondering.

Provoke: Sets unit to top priority for enemies (enemies will target this unit first) Essentially coded as the opposite of Stealth.

Basically Shinnon's skill from POR and RD, figured the primary problem with Armored Knights is that the only enemies that will attack them are those they don't want to be attacked by, so why not give them a skill that bumps them up in target priority? Keep them in range and maybe you can use your new armored stance Knight to bait the Death Knight while your dead-on-her-feet Bernie preps her Vengeance?

Immaculate Strike: Calculate attk based on the higher of Mag or Str.

Apparently a variation of the above ability exists in Fire Emblem Heroes, I wasn't aware of it by came across the idea when I noticed that Rhea would target the lower of your units defense or resistance with her attack regardless of the type of damage she was doing in her immaculate form one. I figured it was both a good fix for Mortal Savants but also too strong in that form. Thus the plan was instead allow say a Mortal Savant Lysithea to use her magic stat to calculate her damage with an Iron sword, but she would still be testing against the fortress knight's defense. This would allow the mortal savant the flexibility a hybrid class is supposed to have. I've mentioned it in another thread, but this is how I originally conceptualized it. In hindsight what should probably be done is that it should add half the other stat to your attack, acting as a 100% activation rate Ignis, that way Dimitri doesn't stumble into being the #1 mage in the game.

 

 

New Rule: Class spell lists:

Or why would I bother keeping my spell slingers in a spell class? Spell lists have been discussed multiple times in various threads, when I brought up the idea it seemed to be favored as a solution to the fact that many physical units were kinda boring in magic classes or never really benefited. There was also the matter that with the above changes, there was little reason for many magic users to stay in a magic using class (barring class abilities) when they could become OP flyers. This was made as a hopeful fix to that.

 

Spoiler

 

Monk

None

Huh, what? Why no abilities? Because this class is simply designed for allowing (early on) the use of both of one's personal faith and Reason skills before they specialize. Originally I intended all classes without magic proficiency using magic thanks to a student's proficiency to have only half of their uses. While that is still on the table, my thought was that perhaps it would be good to cut down most of the spell lists of the physical units to just a few powerful unique ones, in other words almost everyone would lose the Nosferatu/heal and Fire line of spells.

Mage:

Fire (Innate), Bolganone (C+), Ragnarok (B+)

I actually struggled a lot with putting together the spell lists, the reason being that trying to fit a spell list that works for everyone was basically impossible even when I limited it only the magic users. Then came the matter that some spells considered "ultimate" became much less so when everyone got it so eventually I came to the idea of just giving each class a "spell lore" list. Thus since mage loves giving you fire, they got the fire lore list, generally considered the weaker more boring set of spells in three houses. Perhaps the early Ragnarok might be worth staying in the class a bit longer?

Warlock:

Wind (Innate), Cutting Gale (A), Excalibur (A+)

Once I formed the limit around spell lores rather than trying to please everyone, it became a lot easier. The wind line of spells are quick but generally weak, however with the boost from Black Tomefaire and their higher ability to double, it's going to feel like a massive power spike from the Mage's fire spells. If you rushed into the class you're only going to benefit from the innate spell and your personal spells but you're likely to rapidly get the other spells and finally something to save your mage from all those pegasus reinforcements, maybe.

Priest:

Heal (Innate), Recover (C+), Ward (B+)

It was actually pretty hard to come up with a proper spell list for the faith line, more so than the mages. If the reason list was too expansive, the faith list was simply to barren. The spells could be described as either too good to be anything but a personal spell or some form of hot garbage. for the priest I focused them around following your units closely and buffing their healing beyond their magic. Thus the standard heal and recover when you really need to save a unit, anything else seemed too powerful for this class level. Ward was around if you wanted to stick in this class.

Bishop:

Aura (Innate), Restore (A), Physic (A+)

Separating Faith and Reason from being available to all magic classes had its side effects, namely that healers once again couldn't really defend themselves. Thus the Bishop gained Aura as an innate ability, not the most impressive faith spell but its better than nothing (especially if Nosferatu is removed form ubiquitous availability) I thought about giving Bishops fortify but figured that should remain an ability for the "super healers" and thus that limited me to either silence or restore, open to changing the ability here, Finally came the final spell, Bishop already became the end point for male healers and honestly mastery classes work better for the most part as alternatives rather than direct upgrades (but I guess even I'm indecisive on that). Physic was given so that bishops were able to maintain their usefulness even without the mobility that the late game favors, it was also one of the few skills not too powerful to give.

Holy Knight:

Seraphim (Innate), Aura (A), Abraxas (A+)

Why yes, this was the easiest spell list to create, how did you know? Holy knights are designed to be the "combat faith" unit, cool idea if anyone actually had some combat faith spells. Sp you may have noticed I expanded the idea into more of the troubadour the class seems to be based on. You got the class buffing your black magic and faith dmg soells, you get some counter play against beasts, your crit fishing Aura, and Abraxas for bashing through an opponent's defense. The class was also modified to fit the role the Dark knight had since that classes' spell list necessitated it getting locked behind a Dark Seal...

Dark Mage:

Reason: Miasma (Innate), Mire (C), Banshee (B)

Another easy one, I only had two (three if we include Edelgard) spell lists to base this on, since early game is still boradly involved in team work I decided it would be best if Dark mages held their niche as the debuffer of mages. Thus they get to mess with enemy move and defense, I thought about giving over swarm but loooking at the other spell lists for the dark mage line, I figure Lys deserved something to remain her own.

Dark Bishop:

Miasma (Innate), Dark Spikes (A), Hades (A+)

Once we hit the mid to late game, the debuffs of the early dark mage kinda feel a lot less useful when you just expect a dead unit on player phase. So the Dark Bishop line provides! You get some counterplay with Dark spikes, and Hades for when you really need to bash down someone's defense, thanks to magic uses and tomefaire, these feel even more powerful and scary. This also ensures that the dark bishop feels more than a crappy warlock. you still get Miasma as in innate due to inertia I guess. Hubert gets to maintain his unique feel by remaining the only one to get Death, part of it is because he's such and edgy boi he deserves a little something, the other reason being the dark mage abilities (heartseeker) and spell stats suggest the dark mage should be struggling to hit enemies unless they're getting up close. This way Lys and Hubert remain unique as the speedy and snipey crity Dark mages respectively while everyone else plays the frontline dark mage they're supposed to be.

Dark Knight:

Miasma (Innate), Luna (A), Hades (A+)

So I imagine I made a lot of people unhappy with my previous changes to the Dark knight, however hopefully you can see why it had to be done now. While the Dark Bishop is meant to be the dark mage specialist, having more uses in addition to the boosted damage; the Spell list for the Dark Knight was made with Hybrid students in mind. The first students I thought of were Lorenz and Hubert and I originally built the ability list with them in mind, that it would boost both lances and dark magic. However I quickly realized that I'd made a class that would honestly only be good for Hubert, so I reverted the abilities. That left with with a Holy knight with dark magic instead of white magic, good enough I suppose but I couldn't just let everyone have access to dark magic, the game was clear that it deserved some degree of exclusivity. So I realize I'm justifying the changes to the class rather than to the spell list. The spells were chosen with units that likely have lower average magic in mind. Luna lets them smash through the res of units and hades bloats their offense, these two strong abilities are placed on a very mobile class giving it a large threat range. That and this becomes the one Dark mage Class the Lys and Edelgard can class into, i might as well buff the spells they actually use.

Gremory:

Thunder (Innate), Thoron (A), Bolting (S),

So that weird rambling rant out of the way. Gremory, female exclusive, based off enemy versions and their abilities, basically designed to get the most out of minimum use spells or be walking artillery. Originally was going to be the latter, however with the great enlightenment I had with attaching a "spell lore" as a list, the spells for Gremorys became a lot more coherent. so they became walking artillary and tied to a Lore of spells, lightning! So the Gremory became the one class that I was willing to give a "too strong to be a class spell" spell. If you get into this class early, then double down on reason you'll not only be smiting people form minimally three spaces away, you'll be wiping out people from halfway across the map. Pretty nice for infantry.

Mortal Savant

Blizzard (Innate), Sagittae (B), Fimbulvetr (A+)

Once all the other spell lists got taken care of, what was left was this class, I figured a nice thematic use of the wintery line of spells was in order, so the spell flinging swordmaster variant gets the killer variant of magic, go figure right? The other option for them was going to be the thunder line sans bolting but I got stuck on the idea of Gremorys as artillery and so this is what we have.

Enlightened One:

Recover (Innate), Aura (B), Ragnarok (B)

Most players are going to look at Byleth's stats, their strengths, and they're going to think "of course I'll make him a physical unit!" then wonder why the game gave you a hybrid class halfway through the game. So this spell list is designed to help out a bit, Recovery as an innate to ensure good healing despite lower magic, keeps the unit a frontline one as well, Aura is the reward for those curious about the faith line, get it earlier too so long as you stick in the class. you get Ragnarok earlier too so most players don't stop when they get a big fat nothing on Reason B.

So there's more I'd like to add, edits to be made in the class section (which you may notice seems like I did nothing as of this posting) but I'm reaching the point of feeling like this is going to disappear if I don't post it soon and I'd rather not lose all the work done. I'll likely be making edits while you read this like placing the "blow" skills in the advanced class section and moving the "seal" skills in the intermediate section, so that both are where they're more relevant (well, so the seal skills become more relevant). The idea long term being so that the early game skills encourage class cooperation while the mid to late skills enable the inevitable move to independence of your units.

Anyway I just decided to post this before I lost all motivation again, figured I do so since it seems like someone else was planning on doing so, I'd rather have my thoughts out before I get accused of just copying everyone else. No I don't think this is perfect, but I'm too busy currently and I keep putting off finishing this. Truth is the best balance to this game would be adding more skills, combat arts, and spells that are actually different rather than a variation of the same skills. Guess you could find basically everything you need in heroes, or even just fates/awakening.

Edited November 3, 2019 by CyberNinja