Rate the Unit 14: Lapis

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Guidelines:

2.1.) mention the diffculty on which you rate the unit 

2.2.) what classes your unit went through, what skills they had and so on; don´t consider obviously suboptimal builds.

2.3.) no DLC rings, no non-unit DLC bonuses

2.4.) no grinding in skirmishes

2.5.) no rng abuse (no resetting for bond rings)

2.6.) cooking is allowed

2.7.) ratings to be given in the format X/10

2.8.) if it isn´t mentioned above, it´s fair game

2.9.) no "Kagetsu exists and obsoletes Lapis, 0/10", explain your rating

 

Unit: Lapis

Class: Sword Fighter

                     Lvl   HP    STR   MAG   DEX   SPD    LCK   DEF    RES     BLD

Bases:          10     26     11       2       12       14        7        7        6        5

T. Bases:      10      6       6        2         5       6        5        4        4        0

Growths:      /        55     25      20     35      55      25      35      30       5

 

Personal Skill:  If there is an ally within 1 space, grants Hit/Avo+10 at a cost of Crit-10 to unit.

Innate Proficiency: Sword

SP: 500

 

Support Bonuses:

C    Hit+10, Dodge+5
B    Hit+15, Dodge+5
A    Hit+15, Dodge+10
S    Hit+15, Dodge+20

 

Tools and mo stats:

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

Average Stats - Fire Emblem: Engage (FE17) (triangleattack.com)

 

Rating: 5.8

Next unit on Thursday

Edited July 27, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[Barren]

Now we talk about Lapis. This is assuming Maddening mode but will mention Hard on occasion.

 

Lapis joins you turn 1 of chapter 7 like Alcryst and Citrine. She’s a sword fighter with good stats but unfortunately her first impression isn’t the best. But it is better than Alfred imo. 11 strength and 14 speed are good traits to have as she can double but not ORKO physically weaker/slower enemies. She is level 10 though so she can promote immediately if one wants to.

 

The easy way for her is to promote to Swordmaster which basically increases her already good speed stat along with strength and res. Her other option if you’re willing to unlock a lance proficiency from Sigurd early on is Hero. Hero imo is a better fit for Lapis because Brave Assist is one of the best ways to quick chip at enemies’ HP with chain attacks. You can also wait for Axe proficiency as well once you get Leif. He does also offer Lance early on as well.

Also to a tangent on swordmasters really quick: I really do like Swordmasters. From a design and play style point of view anyways. They are functionally head hunters that doubles and sometimes ORKO weaker enemies. But they are generally underwhelming throughout the series aside from FE6’s Rutger and FE14’s Ryoma (but he has Raijinto so it’s a joke really). You could argue that Kagetsu is a good Swordmaster with his crazy starting base stats (more on him later please refrain), as well as Stefan from FE9 but being sword locked is mostly unfavorable.

In fairness to the Swordmaster class, Run Through can be a interesting skill to experiment with if you are trying to help set up chain attacks. It also synergies with Canter and the Halberdier’s Pincer Attack. Plus Run Through essentially gives Swordmaster 2 more spaces to move while attacking. So more position purposes it can be used effectively. At least IS is trying something different with them.

They are fast, frequently double and often score crits with Killing Edges of the like but their strength tends to be a let down from time to time. Fortunately in Engage, you can address the issue with Strength + x or even Sword Power from Emblem Roy. And Lapis definitely could use these buffs before the end of chapter 10. Another thing that can help out Lapis is build. Her build is bad. Not irredeemable but like Citrine she has issues. Build + x can help her wield heavier weapons that would otherwise weigh her down like steel weapons and javelins/hand axes.

 

If Lapis is a chain attack bot that can also fight, she can do well. She has served me well personally so far and this is considered to be pretty low to mid investment considering that you’ll also want her to unlock dual assist + later on. That’s assuming you’re keeping her as a back up unit. She can also go Wyvern Knight if you’re willing to use a second seal onto her. Then you would probably want to give a raw offensive build rather than a dual assist build.

 

I would give her a 6/10. Obviously outclassed but not unusable by any stretch of the imagination. 500 starting SP might seem like not a lot to work with at first, but with help from the well in addition to the FEH bonus item set she can be a sleeper candidate as one of the better ones to invest into. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Barren

[SumG]

I found Lapis to be one of the characters that is most hurt when moving up in difficulty from Hard to Maddening.  On my first playthrough on Hard, I found that a Wyvern Lapis was a good damage contributor and reliable party include.  On my first Maddening playthrough, the same build was unable to do good damage with lighter weapons like swords and too weighed down by heavier weapons like axes to avoid speed issues.  These are many of the same issues that Chloe has going to Maddening, but she's has the extra utility of having an OK magic stat which allows her to use a Levin Sword reasonably well and perform back-up healing duties, which provides an endgame niche for her.  Unfortunately, Lapis does not even get this utility.

On Hard, she can be a good unit to fill in the back part of your active line-up, where being 'worse Kagetsu' is still a pretty darn good 7/10.  On Maddening, the enemy stat inflation really does her in, leaving her with few enemies she can attack safely and do good damage to for a ranking of 4/10.

[lenticular]

There are several units who do largely the same sort of thing as Lapis but do it better. She's not only "worse Kagetsu"; she's also "worse Chloé" and "worse Merrin". But I've just named three very strong units and being worse than them is no bad thing. I ran her as a Wolf Knight on my (unfinished) Maddening run, and she was one of my top performers. Notably, daggers are light enough that they completely eliminate any concerns about her weak build. And the Brodia characters are the lowest effort reclasses in the game, since they arrive ready to promote and before chapter 11. I think she's good enough to deserve a solid 7/10.

[Unsight]

Lapis is a Brodian character that you can use pretty much as soon as you get her.  She has the advantage all Brodians get in that their competition for slots amounts to Firene + starters.  Unless you're very attached to many of your friends from Firene, you're going to want to deploy Lapis.  If you get a couple levels on her in her join map then she can begin doubling slower enemies as early as the next map.

Lapis has four final classes that are popular:

• Swordmaster
• Hero
• Wyvern Knight
• Wolf Knight

Swordmaster is fine on Normal but in Maddening you end up being fairly squishy.  Even with a forged, engraved killer sword, you'll still have issues with getting kills and you're going to take hits and Lapis doesn't like taking hits.  Roy's Sword Power can fix this somewhat and you can end up swinging something like 40+ vs defenses in the 30 range but this isn't enough for a kill even on a crit and you're going to lose over half your HP if you get hit once.  Griffon Knight ends up in the exact same situation.  You're flying now but you're still having issues killing the enemy and you're still taking hits that you can't afford to take.

Hero is fine on Normal, Hard, and Maddening.  You're not using Lapis for her combat prowess but as a Chain Attack, Brave Assist, and Dual Assist bot.  This is a perfectly fine way to use her but I don't like it for two reasons.  The first reason is that anyone can do this.  Unless you're committing to a team of backup units which is surprisingly viable then you have better options for this.  It makes good use of Lapis' passive but that's about all.  Later on in the campaign, units like Goldmary join who do it better than Lapis ever could.  The second reason is that Lapis has supports with a lot of characters you probably won't be using.  You lose a lot of value when half of Lapis' support list is sitting on the bench.

Wyvern Knight is very popular among a crowd of players who really want everyone to be a Wyvern Knight.  This will give her over 10 points of Strength which are very welcome however it will also tank her speed into territory where some enemies are doubling her.  With low build and medium speed, you're relying an awful lot on Air Raid to simply avoid being doubled let alone double enemies yourself.  This can work on Normal and Hard but you're going to run into big problems in Maddening.

Wolf Knight is her final build and the one I'm a fan of.  Daggers are low weight weapons so Lapis' build doesn't cause problems.  Lapis can get up to ~40 attack with forged silver daggers late game letting her chip and poison the bulky enemies with 30+ defense while still maintaining enough speed to double them.  1~2 range lets her poke at a lot of enemies that she would otherwise get mauled by.  You can give her Lucina Emblem to make her a pretend hero while being able to exploit Bonded Shield strategies.  Granted, there are other units that can do Bonded Shield shenanigans but if you're taking Lapis to the lategame on Maddening then you're already making sacrifices to keep her viable.

Maddening Rating:  5/10

Lapis is useful when you get her.  She can fill a role in your army until you have someone better to replace her with.  She has a lot of build options on Normal, fewer on Hard, and fewer still on Maddening.  With enough investment, you can take her to the end of the game in any difficulty.  Be very careful where you position her because while Lapis has several talents surviving 2 hits is not one of them.

[samthedigital]

7/10 for Maddening

I've talked about Lapis enough for a lifetime, but here are some quick points:

1. She does really well with heavy early investment, but a lot of the resources she wants are heavily contested. (Energy Drops, Second Seals, etc)

2. Her personal just makes it harder for her to crit sometimes. She doesn't really have the con to wield heavy weapons without making sacrifices, so relying on killer weapons is sometimes the best way to net her one rounds.

3. Her 1/2 range options are limited until she gets Roy after chapter 19. He actually fixes quite a few of her issues, but it does mean that she's not very flexible when building a team.

4. There are a lot of decent physical attackers, and emblems are more of the reason that they shine than the units themselves. Lapis doesn't have a magic stat, and she doesn't really stand out that much amongst the huge pool of units we have outside of that speed stat.

 

All that being said if I'm using some magic Chloe build and have a Second Seal to spare (Wyvern) she can do really well over the course of a playthrough. There are probably more effective ways to use the resources to be sure, but it's not that big of a deal. Low investment Lapis is really average and probably wants to go into a mounted class eventually anyway.