Most broken class in the series

[AnonymousSpeed]

47 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

"Infinity Stone"

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Despite his massive utility, Seth does fall off eventually. Myrrh won't. She could storm maps with impunity with only the occasional bow to put in any thought.

If we talk about this much more I'm going to have to make a hack for it....though I think for the purpose of class discussion it would need to be Paladin Seth vs Manakete Seth.

I'm gonna press X to doubt that, to be honest. Seth doesn't really fall off, and I don't see a unit locked to one range being a lot better than him. I'm not looking at averages or anything, but I imagine she'd fall off as least as hard as Seth does. A lot better in the early game than she is in the late game, but never better than Seth at the same point.

Do make a hack though, maybe Mekkah will play that one too. You should replace the first textbox with "Mekkah is a Simp" and see what he says.

Edited July 27, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

45 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

That's a great point you just had. Unfortunately, I have drawn you as the Soyjak, so your argument is invalid.

The hardest choices require the strongest wills, after all!

47 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'm gonna press X to doubt that, to be honest. Seth doesn't really fall off, and I don't see a unit locked to one range being a lot better than him. I'm not looking at averages or anything, but I imagine she'd fall off as least as hard as Seth does. A lot better in the early game than she is in the late game, but never better than Seth at the same point.

Do make a hack though, maybe Mekkah will play that one too. You should replace the first textbox with "Mekkah is a Simp" and see what he says.

I actually think Myrrh would be worst in the midgame. The lategame has a lot more monsters that she can burn right through.

Anyway, it would be a fun experiment. I'm skeptical that a "ball of stats" would offer the same utility as Seth. Given that stats aren't really his problem, at least not until like halfway through the game (and even then, only kind of a problem).

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I'm gonna press X to doubt that, to be honest. Seth doesn't really fall off, and I don't see a unit locked to one range being a lot better than him. I'm not looking at averages or anything, but I imagine she'd fall off as least as hard as Seth does. A lot better in the early game than she is in the late game, but never better than Seth at the same point.

Do make a hack though, maybe Mekkah will play that one too. You should replace the first textbox with "Mekkah is a Simp" and see what he says.

Myrrh wouldn't fall off, like, objectively. Because as is you get her at end game already and she's still useful for end game. More useful that Seth. I know Seth has memetic amazingness, and his bases do carry him to end game. But he doesn't excel at end game even with his great growths. There units who are better than him at 20/20.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Myrrh wouldn't fall off, like, objectively. Because as is you get her at end game already and she's still useful for end game. More useful that Seth. I know Seth has memetic amazingness, and his bases do carry him to end game. But he doesn't excel at end game even with his great growths. There units who are better than him at 20/20.

Yeah, and they all have 1-2 range. 20/20 is a long way away, even in a solo run.

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I actually think Myrrh would be worst in the midgame. The lategame has a lot more monsters that she can burn right through.

Anyway, it would be a fun experiment. I'm skeptical that a "ball of stats" would offer the same utility as Seth. Given that stats aren't really his problem, at least not until like halfway through the game (and even then, only kind of a problem).

Oh yeah, good point. Monsters in the late-game tend to be locked at one range or magical, if I recall correctly.

[Jotari]

57 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, and they all have 1-2 range. 20/20 is a long way away, even in a solo run.

Oh yeah, good point. Monsters in the late-game tend to be locked at one range or magical, if I recall correctly.

Is 1-2 range super critical in Sacred Stones? Because it's the one game with somewhat easy access to rune swords, which have just as much accuracy as lances and heal. And I always give one to Eirika yet I never end up making use of it. It's not just the monsters, I think a lot of enemies in general attack at one range. Mogalls are the main exceptions.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Jotari

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

17 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Is 1-2 range super critical in Sacred Stones? Because it's the one game with somewhat easy access to rune swords, which have just as much accuracy as lances and heal. And I always give one to Eirika yet I never end up making use of it. It's not just the monsters, I think a lot of enemies in general attack at one range. Mogalls are the main exceptions.

Gorgons, Necrodragons, and Bow Wights can all attack at range as well. As can, say, Javelin Deathgoyles and Hand Axe Tarvos. I don't recall how many of those there are, though.

Like, there's a solid case that Myrrh-from-early-on would beat vanilla Seth purely in lategame performance. But with lower move, no ranged attacks, and no ability to Rescue-carry Eirika (or Ephraim) in Sieze maps, she's not enabling as quick clears in the early- and mid-game as Seth does. Even if her raw combat numbers are better, she can't necessarily accomplish as much with them.

[Whisky]

I agree that even if Myrrh has better combat than Seth, he has better utility and is more versatile and has higher Move. She does fly which is nice, but I think he beats her out overall. Her advantage is supposedly combat, but this is Seth we're talking about. It's no meme that he can literally solo the game. His combat is obviously amazing too. Myrrh is strong and has some advantages, but other units clearly have their own advantages that Myrhh doesn't. 1-2 range definitely nice to have in Sacred Stones, even if I don't think it's as much of a requirement as it is in FE7, it's still a clear advantage to have it versus not having it.

Seth has some combat advantages over Myrrh too. He’s faster than her and has access to more variety of weapons including Brave weapons. Against strong monsters he could use one of the legendary weapons so she isn’t definitively better than him against monsters. When with the right weapon he can be just as good.

Also, does it matter if Myrrh is stronger than Seth in the late game? I think he’d be stronger in the early game, so does that balance their combat out overall or do you consider the late game more important than the early game?

Also, Myrrh is pretty strong. But what about other Manaketes like Fa? Like I said, Fa is decent but she isn't super strong, certainly no match for Percival or Miledy. And Manaketes aren't in a lot of FE games. In the Tellius games, do Dragon Laguz count?

Edited July 28, 2022 by Whisky

[LoneRecon400]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Myrrh wouldn't fall off, like, objectively. Because as is you get her at end game already and she's still useful for end game. More useful that Seth. I know Seth has memetic amazingness, and his bases do carry him to end game. But he doesn't excel at end game even with his great growths. There units who are better than him at 20/20.

How does Seth not excel at the end game? FE8 Monsters are some of the weakest endgame enemies in the series, while you have access to weapons that match or even surpass fe4 holy weapons damage against them.  

And what units out preform at 20/20 out outperform Seth on Average? Like the guy has better averages than even the recruits at 10/20/20. The 2-3 units that even do surpass him stat wise only do so marginally as well. 

There is no way Seth is ever falling off in effectiveness in a game with enemies as weak such as Sacred Stones. I don't see how you could make the argument that Myrrh is better than him  when all she has is extreme overkill for 25-50 battles against extremely weak enemies.

Edited July 28, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Is 1-2 range super critical in Sacred Stones? Because it's the one game with somewhat easy access to rune swords, which have just as much accuracy as lances and heal. And I always give one to Eirika yet I never end up making use of it. It's not just the monsters, I think a lot of enemies in general attack at one range. Mogalls are the main exceptions.

Yeah, I'd say so. Sacred Stones is a game full of crappy enemies that try to swarm you, and enough of them have magic or bows or javelins that you're going to want 1-2 range access. It boosts survival by reduce the ranged attacks you take, clears a path for weaker teammates like Eirika, and is a lot less tedious than attacking all those enemies one at a time. Though I'd not that Runesword is still 1-2 range, is only easily accessible with tower abuse, and is still not available to Myrrh.

I mean, let's be a peacemaker here. Myrrh would absolutely slaughter, say, Ross if she replaced him and had an infinite durability dragonstone. Although even the phrase "infinite durability dragonstone" applying to an early-game unit betrays how ridiculously overpowered that would be, to the point where only comparisons to Seth can make it look bad.

[Whisky]

Also, if you only playthrough the story chapters and not the creature campaign then Sacred Stones is one of the shortest FE games. Without grinding or extreme favoritism, most units aren’t going to reach 20/20, and it take Seth less investment than anyone else to reach max level because he starts higher level.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, I'd say so. Sacred Stones is a game full of crappy enemies that try to swarm you, and enough of them have magic or bows or javelins that you're going to want 1-2 range access. It boosts survival by reduce the ranged attacks you take, clears a path for weaker teammates like Eirika, and is a lot less tedious than attacking all those enemies one at a time. Though I'd not that Runesword is still 1-2 range, is only easily accessible with tower abuse, and is still not available to Myrrh.

I mean, let's be a peacemaker here. Myrrh would absolutely slaughter, say, Ross if she replaced him and had an infinite durability dragonstone. Although even the phrase "infinite durability dragonstone" applying to an early-game unit betrays how ridiculously overpowered that would be, to the point where only comparisons to Seth can make it look bad.

Well why do Rune Swords suck then? Is it purely just my boarder instinct not wanting to spend uses of a 15 use weapon?

[Eltosian Kadath]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Myrrh wouldn't fall off, like, objectively. Because as is you get her at end game already and she's still useful for end game.

The thing about Manaketes is, they tend to get carried by their late game performance, with a fairly meh performance for the rest of the game. In fact, I think I will break it down a bit by game

Now I don't have the experience to talk about Manaketes in 1&3, but I have heard they are fairly good in those so I can see them in the running for best  class in those entries.

FE6 is the next entry with a Manakete with Fa, whose best use before endgame is as a status staff sponge. Once she is in the endgame, her effective damage carries her the same way Roy's does, into making her a beast on that last stretch, but before that, she isn't great.

FE8 is what has drawn a lot of attention, and again, her effective damage shutting down all the late game monsters is staggering, and half the maps she is available for she dominates because of it. On the other maps, she is no where near as dominating.

FE9: The only noteworthy thing about either of Ena or Nasir is that they can damage Ashnard. Outside of requiring Ena if the player has a trash Ike, I don't anyone has bothered much with either of them, as they tend to be kinda mediocre for where you get them. I like dragons, and even tried to use Ena on my FE9 Ironman, but found her rather underwhelming to use. Even in that one niche Ena has, you need to have saved a lot of VERY useful skills, and stat boosters for Ena to pull off the Ashnard kill...

FE10: The ones in this game are most remembered for the positional buffs they can give, and digital ink has been split on them being under-rated because of those buffing capabilities before. I can see the arguement, but it is hard to really say how useful that is outside the last fight in the game (which always becomes the focus of that discussion)

FE11: The most notable thing about the manaketes in this game, is that suiciding them into Medeus is the best way to deal with H5 version of that fight thanks to their effective damage. This game is particularly effective damage focused, and Manaketes only get that benefit with the very lategame maps...

FE12: They are generally kinda bad. The best thing you can do with them is expend a warp use to buy a Mage Dragon Stone to trivialize mages, which is nice but not available on the highest difficulties, and definitely not enough to put them in contention for best class...

FE13: Manakests aren't one of the things that break this game, at any point, they aren't even in contention for what I would call a good class in that game...

FE14: The Manakete class is probably in contension here, as it is exclusive to the Avatar, and the Avatar's children. How much that is down to Corncob and their choldren being great, and how much of that is the class is certainly up for debate.

 

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well why do Rune Swords suck then? Is it purely just my boarder instinct not wanting to spend uses of a 15 use weapon?

Because magic swords use half of the wielders Strength when calculating damage in Sacred Stones...

From the main-site's Sacred Stones Calculation page.

Quote

Light Brand (indirect) Runesword

= (Strength / 2) + [(Weapon might + Weapon triangle bonus) x Effective bonus] + Support bonus

 

[Jotari]

15 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The thing about Manaketes is, they tend to get carried by their late game performance, with a fairly meh performance for the rest of the game. In fact, I think I will break it down a bit by game

Now I don't have the experience to talk about Manaketes in 1&3, but I have heard they are fairly good in those so I can see them in the running for best  class in those entries.

FE6 is the next entry with a Manakete with Fa, whose best use before endgame is as a status staff sponge. Once she is in the endgame, her effective damage carries her the same way Roy's does, into making her a beast on that last stretch, but before that, she isn't great.

FE8 is what has drawn a lot of attention, and again, her effective damage shutting down all the late game monsters is staggering, and half the maps she is available for she dominates because of it. On the other maps, she is no where near as dominating.

FE9: The only noteworthy thing about either of Ena or Nasir is that they can damage Ashnard. Outside of requiring Ena if the player has a trash Ike, I don't anyone has bothered much with either of them, as they tend to be kinda mediocre for where you get them. I like dragons, and even tried to use Ena on my FE9 Ironman, but found her rather underwhelming to use. Even in that one niche Ena has, you need to have saved a lot of VERY useful skills, and stat boosters for Ena to pull off the Ashnard kill...

FE10: The ones in this game are most remembered for the positional buffs they can give, and digital ink has been split on them being under-rated because of those buffing capabilities before. I can see the arguement, but it is hard to really say how useful that is outside the last fight in the game (which always becomes the focus of that discussion)

FE11: The most notable thing about the manaketes in this game, is that suiciding them into Medeus is the best way to deal with H5 version of that fight thanks to their effective damage. This game is particularly effective damage focused, and Manaketes only get that benefit with the very lategame maps...

FE12: They are generally kinda bad. The best thing you can do with them is expend a warp use to buy a Mage Dragon Stone to trivialize mages, which is nice but not available on the highest difficulties, and definitely not enough to put them in contention for best class...

FE13: Manakests aren't one of the things that break this game, at any point, they aren't even in contention for what I would call a good class in that game...

FE14: The Manakete class is probably in contension here, as it is exclusive to the Avatar, and the Avatar's children. How much that is down to Corncob and their choldren being great, and how much of that is the class is certainly up for debate.

 

Because magic swords use half of the wielders Strength when calculating damage in Sacred Stones...

From the main-site's Sacred Stones Calculation page.

 

Oh yeah. Forgot it dealt magic damage. That'd explain it.

[DaveCozy]

On 7/26/2022 at 1:40 PM, Shadow Mir said:

I find it hard to agree considering the three games I mentioned have them being rather unimpressive. Compare to Cavaliers and Paladins, of which I can only think of two games where they were underwhelming (3H and Radiant Dawn, both of which took away one of their strengths).

I haven't played genealogy tbh. Though I don't remember them being that bad in Awakening either; they did get a bit gimped in stats but for main campaign (at least for Awakening) they were still a fine class to have. I think what really hurt them moreso in Awakening was the enemy density of bow wielding units, specially for DLC maps. But it depends if you count those too. (I'm drawing a blank on BB, been a while since I played it)

Cavaliers and Paladins have a pretty good track record too though. Agree that RD nerfed them a lot in general, although I don't think they were underwhelming in 3H either. Loss of speed growth isn't a huge dealbreaker for me in that game due to how some of the lance combat arts can OHKO.

Edited July 28, 2022 by DaveCozy

[ping]

On 7/27/2022 at 1:32 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

The one people might think of for that is Eda, and she probably is considered low tier, mainly because she is recruited at the same time as her brother Dean. Sure you can train Eda to become a good unit (I did on my Thracia ironman...), but you have the high-tier Dean is right there, who can do everything a trained Eda can (probably better if you can get his personal weapon, which is admittedly difficult to get), but immediately.

Yeah, that sounds about right. She's not that great because there's another fk-you dragon rider who's even better.

[Shadow Mir]

On 7/27/2022 at 3:52 AM, Jotari said:

To add to the availability point...manaketes. you usually get one a game, but they're absolute beast of units designed to be better than everyone else (or they're Bantu, but even he's godly in NES Shadow Dragon). But you get them late and you usually only get one. So their availability is a balancing factor (as is weapon usage, usually).

On the subject of manaketes, I'd say they were at their best in Awakening, which did away with the weapon use limitation (also, they got 1-2 range). The DS games, on the other hand, were their nadir, largely because besides being range locked, they also lost durability on their weapons after combat even if they couldn't counter.

On 7/28/2022 at 12:49 AM, Jotari said:

Well why do Rune Swords suck then? Is it purely just my boarder instinct not wanting to spend uses of a 15 use weapon?

Besides the aforementioned damage formula, they also need A swords. For what it's worth, the Light Brand does full damage at 1 range. If it worked like that weapon did, the Runesword might have actually been a respectable weapon. Also of note, disregarding random fights, you don't get one until chapter 19, at which point endgame is right around the corner.

On 7/27/2022 at 12:37 PM, Whisky said:

Mediocre maybe, but outright bad? That seems extreme. Stats don’t directly correlate from level in FE games so even if a unit is under leveled that doesn’t mean they aren’t strong.

Zeiss for example starts with nearly capped Str and high Def, and Heath has pretty decent stats too. They can level up quickly since they’re low level and can promote shortly after joining. Zeiss has some issues with Skl and Spd, but I definitely don’t think he’s bad. Just not as good as your better units. He’s still a lot stronger than a lot of weaker units in that game and he still has flying utility. I was quite impressed with him in one of my Ironman runs where I got my best units killed, he ended up as one my best units, and it didn’t require a particularly high amount of investment for him to get there.

Heath in particular I think most people consider pretty good. He joins roughly half way through the game which is still plenty of time to train him and make use of him. If you skip Lyn mode then Florina starts low level is arguably not worth training so Heath becomes a good candidate for an Elysian Whip.

I think Heath is generally considered pretty good and Zeiss somewhere around mid.

Might be extreme, but hey, by the time Zeiss is relevant, I don't have the patience to coddle underleveled units, to say nothing of how questionable a choice it would be to bench someone else I've been training in favor of an underleveled unit, especially when said unit really is not worth the trouble. Heath has it better due to not coming egregiously late like Zeiss did, but by that point, Florina and Fiora have long had a head start, and Farina is relatively easy to get going in her joining chapter (also, on HHM, she's more rewarding in the long run because Cog of Destiny pretty much abandons physical fighters in favor of magic users).

Edited July 30, 2022 by Shadow Mir

[Dark Holy Elf]

37 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Besides the aforementioned damage formula, they also need A swords. For what it's worth, the Light Brand does full damage at 1 range. If it worked like that weapon did, the Runesword might have actually been a respectable weapon. Also of note, disregarding random fights, you don't get one until chapter 19, at which point endgame is right around the corner.

 

You can abuse the tower RNG to reliably get as many runeswords as you want as soon as the tower opens. The fact that it halves strength is offset by its greater mt than hand axes/javelins and the fact that most enemies have lower res than def. That said, the A rank requirement is definitely a negative (as is, of course that you need to grind to get them, even if it's easier than you might expect). I only bothered when I did a Colm solo (and I imagine an Eirika or Joshua solo would do similarly).

[AnonymousSpeed]

15 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

You can abuse the tower [to make Amelia good]

 

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

On the subject of manaketes, I'd say they were at their best in Awakening, which did away with the weapon use limitation (also, they got 1-2 range). The DS games, on the other hand, were their nadir, largely because besides being range locked, they also lost durability on their weapons after combat even if they couldn't counter.

Besides the aforementioned damage formula, they also need A swords. For what it's worth, the Light Brand does full damage at 1 range. If it worked like that weapon did, the Runesword might have actually been a respectable weapon. Also of note, disregarding random fights, you don't get one until chapter 19, at which point endgame is right around the corner.

Might be extreme, but hey, by the time Zeiss is relevant, I don't have the patience to coddle underleveled units, to say nothing of how questionable a choice it would be to bench someone else I've been training in favor of an underleveled unit, especially when said unit really is not worth the trouble. Heath has it better due to not coming egregiously late like Zeiss did, but by that point, Florina and Fiora have long had a head start, and Farina is relatively easy to get going in her joining chapter (also, on HHM, she's more rewarding in the long run because Cog of Destiny pretty much abandons physical fighters in favor of magic users).

Durability is not an issue in Shadow Dragon so long as you have the Star Sphere. Conveniently obtained in the same chapter as Tiki.

[Whisky]

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Might be extreme, but hey, by the time Zeiss is relevant, I don't have the patience to coddle underleveled units, to say nothing of how questionable a choice it would be to bench someone else I've been training in favor of an underleveled unit, especially when said unit really is not worth the trouble. Heath has it better due to not coming egregiously late like Zeiss did, but by that point, Florina and Fiora have long had a head start, and Farina is relatively easy to get going in her joining chapter (also, on HHM, she's more rewarding in the long run because Cog of Destiny pretty much abandons physical fighters in favor of magic users).

That’s fair. I understand not wanting to train underleveled units late in the game. I don’t actually think it’s worth using Zeiss most of the time either, with better units being available, and like you said probably already trained up. Although as far as underleveled units go, I’d say he’s a pretty decent one. Starting with nearly maxed Str and good Def, and flying utility is always nice. You can get 3 Elysian Whips so if you aren’t already using every other flyer then you should already have an extra for him. I don’t think he takes a lot of investment to get up to par compared to a lot of other underleveled units. Subpar, yes. But bad, I don’t think so.

For Heath, if you skip Lyn mode, I actually think Florina is questionable if she’s worth using or not as she starts out at a low level and pretty weak. Farina only exists on Hector modes so if you’re playing on Eliwood mode, there might be extra incentive to use Heath if you want another flyer. He doesn’t get HM bonuses then but the enemies are also weaker so he should still perform fine.