Rate the Unit 18: Ivy

[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: Ivy

Class: Wing Tamer (promotes to Lindwurm with unique Class Skill: When attacking with a tome, unit may deal extra damage = half of foe’s Mag. Trigger %=Dex.)

                     Lvl   HP  STR MAG DEX SPD DEF RES LCK BLD

Bases:          17    32    7      17     15     13    12    15    4    7

T. Bases:      17    12    6       9      11       9     6      7    3    2

Growths:      /      55   25     30    25     40   30   35   15   10

 

Personal Skill: During combat with a foe who was also unit’s most recent opponent, grants Hit+20.    

Innate Proficiency: Tome

SP: 1000

 

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:

 

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

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

 

 

Rating: 9

Next unit on Thursday

Edited August 10, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[lenticular]

I found Ivy pretty underwhelming, honestly. Her speed is pretty poor so she's not going to be doubling much without help. (For comparison: at ilevel 40, Lindwurm Ivy has a speed of 24, Sage Anna has 28, and High Priest Pandreo has 29.) And certainly there are ways to bolster her speed but something something contested resources something something opportunity cost. And while her magic stat is good, it's not at the same level as on someone like Citrinne who is more likely to be able to compensate for not doubling by just hitting like a truck.

The Lindwurm class also leaves a bit to be desired. Its class skill is pretty dreadful since she'll often be attacking enemies with no magic stat worth speaking of, so even when it does trigger it won't do much damage. She'd be much better off with Chaos Style instead, for instance. Having the flying typing instead of the mystical typing also means that some of the emblems that are good choices for most magic users just don't work as well on her. Byleth gives her Luín instead of Thyrsus, for example (and Rally Res instead of Rally Magic). Or if she has Celica, she doesn't get the damage bonuses to Echo and Warp Ragnarok.

But with all of that said, she is still a flying magic unit and flying magic units are really good. While she does take investment to make great, she's a worthy target for investmant since there is only one other unit who offer that particular niche. And even if you don't invest in her that much, she's still a competent unit with flier mobility who can zip around throwing out heals and chip damage. Overall, I give her 7/10.

[samthedigital]

10/10; any difficulty really, but I've mostly played Maddening

Ivy is the best unit in the game in my opinion. She has some problems; notably she needs help doubling, she wants an accuracy engrave, and she doesn't get early access to canter. The upsides are obvious though; she has access to the best class in the game because she's a flyer with tomes and staves. Her ability to use almost every staff you'd want is neat, but it's only a secondary thing when the main thing she wants to be doing is attacking into enemies with her huge magic stat. She makes for a fantastic Bonded Shield target partnered with another flier for enemy phase shenanigans, but even if it's just for player phase she's often one of if not the best damage dealer most of the time.

Her join time and investment requirement are the main things that she can be criticized for. I wouldn't exactly disagree with someone who docked a few points for her join time, but I don't really factor it into my ratings all that much. The investment required is not a fair criticism though, at least in my opinion. The resources she wants are contested; she wants some mix of Lyn, Speedwings, Speedtaker/Speed+, etc, but she also makes better use out of it than anyone else because generally speaking hitting resistances is better, and Lindwurm is the best class in the game. This is also a game where almost every single unit is bad without committing some resources to them.

Giving her Lyn does deny someone else the use of a good Astra Storm. I only use this on select maps and situations, so I'm perfectly fine not having it most of the time. Ivy can also fix her speed with some combination of skills and speedwings too, so she's not necessarily tied down to the emblem. I suppose there are some other ways to make use of her, but I find fixing her speed to be the best solution.

The basic set is Lyn!Ivy with Canter/Speed+ and an accuracy engraved bolganone. If she doesn't need one of her skill slots for whatever reason Divine Pulse+ is nice to let her use a different engrave while also letting her use Freeze more consistently. Hit+X works for a better displayed hit, but I'm pretty sure that DP+ is about as good for attack hit for less SP cost. I'm sure that some other stuff could work, but she really doesn't want for anything else honestly.

Edited August 7, 2023 by samthedigital

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Gonna repost my comment from the Citrinne one since it already came up:

Quote

I´ll assume no lvl ups in join chapter to make matters easy for myself:

Available after chapter 7:

1/10 Sage Citrinne:                           26 HP / 2 STR / 17 MAG / 15 DEX / 11 SPD / 5 DEF / 14 RES / 11 LCK / 5 BLD

Available after chapter 11: 

Base Wing Tamer Ivy:                      32 HP / 7 STR / 17 MAG / 15 DEX / 13 SPD / 12 DEF / 15 RES / 4 LCK / 7 BLD

1/17 Lindwurm Ivy:                           34 HP / 8 STR / 19 MAG / 16 DEX / 14 SPD / 14 DEF / 16 RES / 4 LCK / 8 BLD

and add:            HP  STR MAG SKL SPD DEF RES LCK BLD

20/10 Citrinne:  35    4     30    20    17     9     27    18    6

20/17 Ivy        :  45    13    29    21    22    22    27    7    10

[vanguard333]

1st Playthrough, Normal Difficulty.

Ivy is, in my opinion, the best unit in the game (as well as the best-written character in the game, but that's not what this forum topic is about).

Lindwurm is easily the best class in the game: it's durable, it flies, and it has access to tomes and staves. It also has a higher build than other magic classes, meaning it has less problem using heavier tomes; it is the only magic class that can use the nova tome without suffering any loss in speed. It's only real issue is speed, but there are multiple ways to remedy that: namely speedwings and Lyn's skills. For me, I just left the Lyn Emblem on her for the entire game.

Speaking of emblems, she does appear immediately after the player loses the emblems that they had, but it's not much of a hinderance as she comes with an emblem ring that's great for her in the form of Emblem Lyn.

Overall, I would say 10/10.

[Shadow Mir]

Honestly, I found Ivy rather underwhelming. Her poor speed means she has issues doubling anything that's not a general, and she tends to have hit problems too. Emblem Lyn can fix the former, but Lyn and Ivy don't exactly go together like PB&J. In fact, Lyn is laughably ill suited for Ivy. It ends up being a Morton's fork deal; do I keep Lyn on Ivy at the cost of Astra Storm being useless or give it to someone else who can actually make use of Astra Storm, but have to deal with Ivy having speed issues? Ironically, Hortensia, despite being more meant for support, outdoes her in combat as a result.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[samthedigital]

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

I found Ivy pretty underwhelming, honestly. Her speed is pretty poor so she's not going to be doubling much without help.

I'm going to point out that without help every unit not named Seadall kind of sucks. The difference between a Panette without any help and Ike!Panette and Vantage for example is doing basically nothing to OHKOing everything on player phase and soloing entire sections of maps on enemy phase. Ivy can do something similar with Bonded Shield and speed help, but she's not limited to 1 range. Without investment you're not going to get that level of combat from anyone, and there aren't many units that stand out with help either, at least on Maddening.

It's also worth mentioning that Ivy's speed only needs a lot of help in her base class. She gains 4 points of speed as a Mage Knight, and her speed end up being very comparable to the units you mentioned.

 

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

and she tends to have hit problems too.

You can fix that problem with an engrave or a skill.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

In fact, Lyn is laughably ill suited for Ivy.

The caveat here is that this the case for you, but it's definitely not true generally speaking. Astra Storm can be used a grand total of twice per map in the best case scenario unless we're playing at a snail's pace, so unless there's a really important Astra Storm target losing it as a damage option isn't a problem. In return we get incredible 1-2 range combat with an enemy phase to boot when combined with Bonded Shield.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Ironically, Hortensia, despite being more meant for support, outdoes her in combat as a result.

Hortensia can't take any physical damage and does nothing to magical units in her base class, so even if you're actively not using any of your resources on anything Hortensia should still perform worse than Ivy. Ivy might have problems getting crit once in a while, but that's still a lot better than not being able to take a hit whatsoever. With the well giving us thousands of SP though we can afford things like Speedtaker much less Speed+4 or something like that which helps her a lot more than anything we could give to Hortensia to fix combat.

Edited August 7, 2023 by samthedigital

[Barren]

Have a taste of Camilla lite! Time to talk about Ivy. Finally a good unit. Great even. This assuming maddening.

 

Ivy joins you around turn 5 (I think) of chapter 11 along with Kagetsu and Zelkov. Her bases are quite reasonable even for maddening standards. She can take more than a couple of hits and dish them out just as hard. Ivy also comes equipped with Emblem Lyn and gives Alear Emblem Lucina as you lose 6 emblems by the end of chapter 10.

 

Ivy can have speed and accuracy issues if left unchecked. But that is easy enough to address. Speed + x from Lyn is one way. Another is to have her inherit speed taker and feed her kills can then she can start doubling. Her speed stat is good enough to where she can take advantage. Engraved tomes like with Leif, Sigurd or Lucina are all great options.

 

She can also pull off a draconic hex set without needing to speed fix. An accurate thoron tome that can debuff enemies is great for those that need to pick up easy kills. You can even combine that with Celica’s Echo attack and activate debuffs and single minded in the same turn.

Of course because sigurd is gone for a few chapters, she would have to wait a until around chapter 18 to inherit canter. Her biggest weakness is her luck stat. It’s so low and bad that she’s susceptible to critical hits. Now normally there is a way around it and there is. Celica’s engraving gives you 50 dodge which basically immune to crits. But you can also partner her up with Alear in a flying class to use bonded shield if she is using Lucina.

 

Overall, surprise surprise, she gets a 10/10 from me. I can understand why the lower scores and I can assume people are playing this on random growths instead of fixed. And the concept of 10/10 can be skewed towards perfect unit with no flaws whatsoever. Ivy does in fact have flaws but they are easily fixed if invested. Definitely one of the best units in the game. At worst she’s at least above average.

[SumG]

Ivy's a very strong unit even on Maddening, with a couple of very distinct flaws.  This strength comes from a few places.  Her raw stat profile is very good, with a great magic stat, but also surprisingly high defense and HP for a mage.  At her starting level, she has 32 HP and 12 defense.  A mage with a comparable magic stat like Citrinne can only be expected to have 28 HP and 4 defense at the same level.  This allows her the option of actually taking combats without immediately exploding, even on Maddening.  Her luck needs to be patched in order to avoid crits if this is to be a long term strategy, but having the flexibility of a mage which does not need to avoid all enemy phase combats allows her much more utility than almost any other mage in the game.  She also has a personal ability, Single Minded, which is actually useful.  Hit+20 can help on more evasive enemies, and it is not uncommon to want to dance Ivy anyway to get her more attacks to trigger this on the occasion she isn't able to kill an enemy in one go.  She even has respectable build to wield endgame tomes like Bolganone without significant speed penalties.

Second, her unique class is fantastic.  It immediately joins the short list of best magic classes in the history of Fire Emblem, likely sitting just below Awakening Dark Flier and Witch in FE2, both of which had abilities which in retrospect are mistakes from a balance perspective.  There are very few classes in the history of Fire Emblem which give flying mobility while also access to tomes and staves.  The mobility of this class is better than normally, as movement is lower in Engage than in previous games and cavalry classes are much weaker than typically in the franchise, providing generally less mobility to an average unit.  Tomes are of an average strength in Engage, but staves are arguably the strongest in this game that has ever existed in the franchise, another feather for this class.  The class mastery ability, Grasping Void, is at least occasionally helpful, and is what separates the class for Dark Flier in games like Three Houses.  The class is stupidly good, and almost assuredly the strongest class in the game.  Warrior gets more press because anyone can go into it, but if all magic users had access to Lindwurm there would be almost no reason for any mage not to be in that class.

Ivy does have some areas that need to be patched, and this is where I expect the contention will come with her evaluation.  She has low speed, on par with other slowpokes like Citrinne.  Unfortunately, there really isn't an ideal emblem option to help patch the speed of a magic-based unit, and the emblems that do patch speed tend to be very highly contested and have alternate use cases that may be desirable.  Four emblems provide raw speed bonuses on equip: Marth, Lyn, Lucina, and Byleth.  Lyn is in a competition with Corrin as strongest emblem in the game, while Lucina and Byleth are probably numbers 3 and 4 in some order.  Further, Ivy cannot make great use of Lyn's Astra Storm or Call Doubles, Lucina's Bonded Shield, or Byleth's Rally ability (she gets Res instead of Spd or Str) or Heroic Weapons (she gets Luin instead of Thyrsus), which makes it understandable that some would want to prefer to put these powerful emblems on other units.

In my previous Maddening runs, I've done Ivy!Lyn and found that pairing was enough on its own to enable Ivy to reliably double through the rest of the game.  That said, there are many options to patch a unit's speed, and in future playthroughs I would be interested in trying some other potential builds to perhaps free up Lyn for another unit.  Byleth's stat profile is extremely desirable for Ivy, as he patches both her speed and luck while also boosting magic, but this would require having a bad Rally while engaged and having him on a unit you'd rather dance to get more actions instead of doing the dancing themselves.  Marth could be an interesting option as well, as he tends not to be in high demand in the back half of the game, and Ivy would make good use of the Divine Speed ability due to her high damage, even if she would never be able to trigger Break Defenses.  These other builds would likely necessitate the purchase of speed supporting abilities like Speed+X or Speedtaker, but that should not be too much of a concern for Ivy aside from the raw SP cost.  There are very few abilities that really matter for a mage.  When I used Ivy!Lyn, Canter was the obvious first choice, but I was left wanting for what to put in the second slot before settling on the middling Staff Mastery.  Needing to pick a speed ability instead would not mean missing out on another key ability.

So, in conclusion Ivy has a very good stat profile, an amazing unique class, and one or two flaws that do need to be patched.  Her biggest weakness is that the easiest ways to patch her flaws require high value resources that she cannot otherwise maximize.  You other have to commit a high value emblem to her and forgo the other tactical options those emblems can enable or stack a bunch of speed boosting options which limit room for other abilities.  However, these are minor gripes as the payoff for fixing these problems is one of the most reliable and mobile damage dealers in the game that can also wield staves.  She's an easy 9/10, and that might be conservative.

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, samthedigital said:

The caveat here is that this the case for you, but it's definitely not true generally speaking. Astra Storm can be used a grand total of twice per map in the best case scenario unless we're playing at a snail's pace, so unless there's a really important Astra Storm target losing it as a damage option isn't a problem. In return we get incredible 1-2 range combat with an enemy phase to boot when combined with Bonded Shield.

For me, it's a case of "do I want what's best for Ivy" versus "do I want what's best for the team as a whole?"... and I prefer something that is better for the team; in this case, killing annoying shit from extremely long range. Like Entrap. Getting one of my units yoinked deep into enemy territory is a Very Bad Thing.

6 hours ago, samthedigital said:

It's also worth mentioning that Ivy's speed only needs a lot of help in her base class. She gains 4 points of speed as a Mage Knight, and her speed end up being very comparable to the units you mentioned.

In that case, she loses the main thing that makes her unique, namely flight with magic and staves.

6 hours ago, samthedigital said:

Hortensia can't take any physical damage and does nothing to magical units in her base class, so even if you're actively not using any of your resources on anything Hortensia should still perform worse than Ivy. Ivy might have problems getting crit once in a while, but that's still a lot better than not being able to take a hit whatsoever. With the well giving us thousands of SP though we can afford things like Speedtaker much less Speed+4 or something like that which helps her a lot more than anything we could give to Hortensia to fix combat.

I didn't mention Ivy's problem with being crit because I gave her the Celica engraving (I dunno that anyone else really needs it). Her speed and accuracy are more pressing issues. Which begs the question, is there an engraving with both dodge and hit?

[Armchair General]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Which begs the question, is there an engraving with both dodge and hit?

Marth, Byleth, and Alear, unfortunately

[SnowFire]

20/20 Ivy:

47 HP, 14 Str, 31 Mag, 22 Dex, 23 Spd, 23 Def, 29 Res, 8 Lck, 10 Bld, 6 Move
Her end-game build is definitely bulkier than Citrinne, but Bolganone+2 will still weigh her down by 1 Spd point.

--

Ivy's great for all of the reasons already said.  Sage is a decent class and putting a Sage in the sky does cool, broken stuff.  She does have weaknesses - the substandard Hit most notably + losing out on Mystical terrain ignoring - but that just means "give a good accuracy Engrave to Ivy."  Problem mostly solved.  She also runs into crit rates, but she also has first dibs on Goddess Icons if she's being run which aren't closely contested, so there's that.  It does mean that she gets a bit worse in some sort of challenge playthrough that bans both Engraves and the Time Crystal, as the crits / misses are now harder to deal with, but that's not the base game and more a point of trivia.  (And not even something to rule her out then - just means she might be doing more 3-range chipping with Elthunder while Flying, which is STILL a great niche to fill.)

And yes, while Lyn is in high demand, Ivy does cool stuff with her if she gets it.  She's also a good candidate for Speedtaker if you're not giving her Lyn, so that she'll gradually "fix" her suspect speed as the map continues on.  And as already noted, her high Bld genuinely helps make her Speed more workable than it looks, compared to spindly-armed other mages.

No need to go into more about why Ivy's good, but I will say that when you start trying to separate out the top-tier from the merely excellent tier, she is not the single most important character in the game in the sense of "who changes your strategy most if not deployed."  You can, after all, get by with Citrinne on the ground doing something similar to what Ivy does, or various other Sage builds (Lindon, Sage Mauvier, Sage Anna, whatever), just giving up the flying.  And further, nobody in Engage is getting a 10/10, which usually means some sort of design mistake happened here (Echoes Genny, various Radiant Dawn super-characters, etc.). 

So 8/10 feels right for her.  She's a great unit who makes the game easier, but is not a game-changing one like 9s and 10s can be.

[samthedigital]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

In that case, she loses the main thing that makes her unique, namely flight with magic and staves.

This is very true, but I made that point because her floor is roughly on par with those characters (minus the heavy Anna investment) give or take a few points of speed.

33 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

For me, it's a case of "do I want what's best for Ivy" versus "do I want what's best for the team as a whole?"... and I prefer something that is better for the team; in this case, killing annoying shit from extremely long range. Like Entrap. Getting one of my units yoinked deep into enemy territory is a Very Bad Thing.

What's best for the team as a whole is also more of a personal experience thing. The 1-2 range EP nuke can be more valuable than blasting off a long range target every once in a while, and there are always multiple solutions to any given problem. Chapter 20 as you alluded to is one of the situations where I would not give Lyn to Ivy (I'm also not worried about the enemy actually using Entrap though; the chapter is done before he gets the chance to use it), but outside of that I use Astra Storm for cheese purposes and don't really find any long range enemy to be much of a problem.

Lyn isn't even required to make Ivy good though. As others have mentioned she can fix her speed with skills and the like, and SP books aren't nearly as contested as Lyn is. You can assume that we distribute our resources evenly across our team and Lyn can afford Canter and Speedtaker or you subscribe to the idea that we don't penalize units when they make the best use of resources out of anyone and she gets Speedwings and even heavier SP investment. Even without speed investment she's also great with Corrin because of the flying 1-3 range synergy with Dreadful Aura, and I'd imagine that she'd perform well in other utility roles if you really don't want her to do anything better.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I didn't mention Ivy's problem with being crit because I gave her the Celica engraving (I dunno that anyone else really needs it). Her speed and accuracy are more pressing issues. Which begs the question, is there an engraving with both dodge and hit?

I would just deal with the off chance that she gets crit. Realistically she's going to be protected by Bonded Shield when facing multiple enemies. It's rare that I would need her to face a single crit, and rewinds are plentiful in that kind of situation.

1 hour ago, SnowFire said:

You can, after all, get by with Citrinne on the ground doing something similar to what Ivy does, or various other Sage builds (Lindon, Sage Mauvier, Sage Anna, whatever), just giving up the flying.

I'd say that Ivy has more in common with a Levin Sword Griffin Knight than a Sage. Mystical units need a Qi Adept for the 100% Bonded Shield and can't ignore terrain which is at least half of Ivy's utility for me.

[lenticular]

15 hours ago, samthedigital said:

It's also worth mentioning that Ivy's speed only needs a lot of help in her base class. She gains 4 points of speed as a Mage Knight, and her speed end up being very comparable to the units you mentioned.

If you put all three characters into Mage Knight, Ivy ends up notably worse than either Pandreo or Anna. Compared to Pandreo she has: equal magic and hp, -3 dex, -2 speed, -11 res, -11 luck, -2 build, with her only advantages being +7 str and +4 def. Compared to Anna she has equal hp, -6 mag, -4 dex, -2 spd, -3 res, and -13 luck; she still keeps advantages in str (+4) and def (+4) and also has better build than Anna (+2). The extra def is certainly nice, but overall, if I want to have a Mage Knight, then Ivy is not going to be my choice. If Ivy is good (and she is), it's because Lindwurm is good. That means that we do need to deal with that class's weaknesses as well.

(There is an argument that Mage Knight Ivy is better than Mage Knight Anna because Anna requires more babying to get started, of course. But I don't want to get too deep into the weeds here since I only wanted these numbers to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.)

(All numbers taken under the assumption that the characters are promoting into Mage Knight as soon as possible, using a Second Seal at 20 to reset to level 1, and continuing to ilevel 40.)

15 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I'm going to point out that without help every unit not named Seadall kind of sucks. The difference between a Panette without any help and Ike!Panette and Vantage for example is doing basically nothing to OHKOing everything on player phase and soloing entire sections of maps on enemy phase. Ivy can do something similar with Bonded Shield and speed help, but she's not limited to 1 range. Without investment you're not going to get that level of combat from anyone, and there aren't many units that stand out with help either, at least on Maddening.

For sure. But the relevant questions are things like: how much investment does a unit take? How contested are those resources? Is the upside of investment sufficiently stronger than anything else so as to be worth that investment? And those are the points where I think Ivy falls down. Lyn is extremely heavily contested. Speedwings are useful to pretty much anyone. If she's getting these, then I want to get an absolutely amazing unit in return, and I just don't see that with Ivy. A very good unit, sure, but there is a ceiling for just how much a powerful player-phase nuke can do. Being able to reliably one-round enemies is very useful, but not something that's unique to Ivy.

And while I don't doubt you can do some impressive enemy-phase shenanigans with an invested Ivy and bonded shield, that's throwing more resources at her. That's basically adding a second unit + Lucina into what you've invested in her, and with that much investment then it would be a major letdown if she weren't phenomenal.

One thing that I will say, though, in favour of Ivy and against my own arguments, is that I haven't played since the patch that added the Well and (from what I have heard) more easily obtainable skill points. I don't know exactly how that is balanced and how easy it now is to get skill points, but if they are now sufficiently plentiful that they no longer constitute a meaningful cost, then I would agree that that would push Ivy up in my estimation. Probably not enough for me to give her a 10, but maybe an 8 or 9.

[Bartozio]

Maddening difficulty:

Honestly, Ivy is a pretty amazing unit, and not only because she comes to bail you out in chapter 11.

She has high magic, a great personal class and pretty solid bulk and build for a magic unit. While mages like Anna or Citrinne will get weighted down from using stronger tomes, Ivy can pretty easily use them without a second thought. She can also easily take a hit from physical units before killing them on the counter, something most other good mages in this game struggle with. And that's not even talking about her being able to fly and use staves while doing all of this.

Of course, she does come with some issues. Her speed is the main one I think, but I also found giving her speed+5 and cooking a speed meal (or giving her a speed tonic) goes a long way in allowing her to double the enemies with more average speed.

Basically, she needs some help, but most units do and you get more from helping Ivy than you'd get from helping most other units. So I'll give her a 9/10

[samthedigital]

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

If you put all three characters into Mage Knight, Ivy ends up notably worse than either Pandreo or Anna. Compared to Pandreo she has: equal magic and hp, -3 dex, -2 speed, -11 res, -11 luck, -2 build, with her only advantages being +7 str and +4 def. Compared to Anna she has equal hp, -6 mag, -4 dex, -2 spd, -3 res, and -13 luck; she still keeps advantages in str (+4) and def (+4) and also has better build than Anna (+2). The extra def is certainly nice, but overall, if I want to have a Mage Knight, then Ivy is not going to be my choice.

Those numbers don't represent a unit that is notably worse in my opinion. The losses in res and luck look bad on paper, but I'm not using my Mage Knight to fight magic units. The loss in luck is concerning to be sure, but it's also one of the less costly fixes relatively speaking.

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

One thing that I will say, though, in favour of Ivy and against my own arguments, is that I haven't played since the patch that added the Well and (from what I have heard) more easily obtainable skill points. I don't know exactly how that is balanced and how easy it now is to get skill points, but if they are now sufficiently plentiful that they no longer constitute a meaningful cost, then I would agree that that would push Ivy up in my estimation. Probably not enough for me to give her a 10, but maybe an 8 or 9.

You can find some numbers on SP generation from the well here if that helps in your evaluation.

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

Is the upside of investment sufficiently stronger than anything else so as to be worth that investment?

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

And while I don't doubt you can do some impressive enemy-phase shenanigans with an invested Ivy and bonded shield, that's throwing more resources at her. That's basically adding a second unit + Lucina into what you've invested in her, and with that much investment then it would be a major letdown if she weren't phenomenal.

The reason to give those resources to Ivy in particular is because ideally I want a flying target with good 1-2 range. That removes every unit without a magic stat from the pool since there aren't a lot of good 1-2 range options and it's harder to reach benchmarks when hitting defense rather than resistance. I noted the similarity between Griffin Knights and Ivy in my last post, and I do think that they can replicate Ivy's combat to some degree. It's just that I have some reservations about their combat against bulkier enemies given the Levin Sword's lower might and the lower magic stat of the Griffin Knight class. There are also even fewer units that have the staff proficiency to use Warp and Rescue while also being in the class, so at the very least there aren't that many units that can replace her, but the same can be said for any combat unit really.

I don't consider the Bonded Shield user to be a resource for Ivy necessarily. The bulk of my combat units are on wings, and I might need it for them too, so it's more that I want a magic user that fits well with the team composition than having Ivy nuke everything for the sake of it.

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

Lyn is extremely heavily contested. Speedwings are useful to pretty much anyone. If she's getting these, then I want to get an absolutely amazing unit in return, and I just don't see that with Ivy.

The only unit that I can think of with demonstrably better combat is Panette, and she doesn't have 1-2 range. Chloe, a unit that you gave a perfect rating, needs engage attacks and/or heavy investment in contested resources to reach certain benchmarks if she reaches them at all. An Armour Knight in chapter 21 has 65 HP and 15 resistance, and Ivy doesn't need any of that to one round them if memory serves. If you do give her that investment she then can double, and I am pretty sure it lets her one round at least two or three more enemy types depending on her magic and level.  What other units would you invest those resources in to get that kind of result? The best physical units don't need help with speed, and you're matching them at best with another unit with the speed investment. You don't get a magic unit on wings with Pandreo or whatever other magic unit you can think of, and he doesn't really need the help doubling, so again at best another unit doesn't net you unique utility. Griffin Knights don't get sky high magic atk, and I could go on. Ivy really is unique in that sense and the reason I think that she's a good investment target.

Edited August 8, 2023 by samthedigital

[FashionEmblem]

Going into this with a Maddening mindset.

What stands out about Ivy is she is one of only two (three with Zelestia from DLC) fliers with tomes. Ivy does have speed and hit issues, so as a nuker she will need to correct for those, which can be worth if you really want that tome flier. Hortensia has low magic and caps at B rank tomes—she really wants to focus on staff utility not combat. And Zelestia has good speed, but mediocre magic, and I think it ends up being easier to patch low speed than magic. Ivy will want some hit engraves, however.

You can get similar results out of Levin Sword Griffin Knights, but they may have worse staff rank, do not have access to 3 range, and the Levin Sword can be exceeded in might by Bolganone depending on how you want to allocate your forging resources. To be honest, even if you prefer Levin Sword Griffins to Ivy, why not use both? Only Pandreo, Lindon, and Mauvier (and Gregory with DLC) can hit B staves as Griffins, and only really Pandreo (and Gregory) crowd out Ivy since Lindon and Mauvier have worse availability.

I'm not sure why Ivy needing investment for her speed issues automatically yields the assumption that she needs to run Lyn, a heavily contested emblem, specifically. Ivy can also work really well if you inherit Speedtaker from Lyn (requiring only level 5 bond) and run another emblem. I think in an ideal world, an offensive Ivy inherits Speedtaker and Spd +3-5 (or, with DLC, Spd/Dex +3-5) and can equip Sigurd for Canter (+). Even without the well she should be able to accumulate 2000 SP for Speedtaker and Speed +4 rather easily. Sigurd gives her some extra Dex, Def, and Bld, all of which she appreciates. At internal level 39 Ivy has 10 build, so Sigurd's build helps her fully negate the weight penalty for Bolganone and bring down the weight penalty for Nova to just 1. Momentum from Sigurd gives her a little bit of a power boost despite Sigurd giving no magic, and as a flier she has the greatest flexibility to maximize Momentum without engaging. Having the extra point of movement and upgraded Canter + is also nice for a flying mage to hit and run or get maximal range from staves. I find greater use for Astra Storm than Override once Sigurd becomes available again, so I personally prefer going this route. In my playthrough, Ivy was even able to one shot a column of Mage Knights with Ridersbane!Override in the bond paralogue, which exceeded my expectations. Ivy with full Speedtaker and Speed +4 hits 37 speed at internal level 39, which is pretty good, though not enough to double speedier enemies (I think they top out at 44 speed on Maddening). Another option is to run Marth for speed and dexterity, but Marth has bad availability after Ivy's join, the strength does nothing for her, and +strength/+speed is a desirable combination for any physical attacker.

Other options for Ivy are a flying Draconic Hex user that can debuff at three range with electric magic. Either inherit Draconic Hex or run Corrin; the flier dragon vein is mediocre, but flier 3-range Dreadful Aura when engaged is quite powerful—up to the player which they value more. Ivy can also use the flier bonus for extra-range Warp Ragnarok with Celica, though I find Warp Ragnarok to be pretty mediocre once Celica returns—maybe occasionally useful for sniping out a thief combined with an Astra Storm, if it doesn't leave Ivy surrounded by enemies.

With DLC, Ivy can rock Chrom for a speed and dexterity boost similar to Marth, but with better synergy when engaged thanks to +10 magic and magical engage weapons. Similar to Marth, not using Chrom's strength/speed combination is a bit of a shame, and Chrom is really good for taking any bow user into Radiant Bow flier one rounds regardless of their magic stat. Camilla also gives a good speed boost and magical engage weapons, but I'd rather use Soar to get an additional flier. Soren and Veronica work well too, though Soren in particular has a much better user in Veyle. Veronica's Reprisal bonus damage works better on a hybrid attacker, in my opinion, since it can boost both physical and magical damage. For example, Veronica!Warrior!Fogado can hit one round thresholds for Radiant Bow thanks to bonus magic, and use Reprisal to hit like a truck either physically or magically against other enemies.

Edited August 10, 2023 by FashionEmblem

[Shadow Mir]

On 8/7/2023 at 6:59 PM, samthedigital said:

What's best for the team as a whole is also more of a personal experience thing. The 1-2 range EP nuke can be more valuable than blasting off a long range target every once in a while, and there are always multiple solutions to any given problem. Chapter 20 as you alluded to is one of the situations where I would not give Lyn to Ivy (I'm also not worried about the enemy actually using Entrap though; the chapter is done before he gets the chance to use it), but outside of that I use Astra Storm for cheese purposes and don't really find any long range enemy to be much of a problem.

Bold: How? Because the enemy with it is literally in the middle of the map... and Griss goes back to his initial spot at the top of the map after losing a Revival Stone (also, that Entrap is dropped when the enemy with it is defeated). Also, I'd bring up chapter 25, which has two Entrap users set up such that getting tagged by the first brings you right into range of the other... and THAT ONE is in range of the boss, 2 mages, and 2 wyrms. It's crap like that that makes me terminate them with extreme prejudice before they can cause any problems.

On 8/7/2023 at 6:59 PM, samthedigital said:

Lyn isn't even required to make Ivy good though. As others have mentioned she can fix her speed with skills and the like, and SP books aren't nearly as contested as Lyn is. You can assume that we distribute our resources evenly across our team and Lyn can afford Canter and Speedtaker or you subscribe to the idea that we don't penalize units when they make the best use of resources out of anyone and she gets Speedwings and even heavier SP investment. Even without speed investment she's also great with Corrin because of the flying 1-3 range synergy with Dreadful Aura, and I'd imagine that she'd perform well in other utility roles if you really don't want her to do anything better.

Corrin also happens to be one of the best emblems in the game, and ALSO happens to be one that she doesn't use that well (this time it's because of her flying subtype, as she gets the healing dragon vein). Long story short, you're saying Ivy needs a lot of contested resources AND to build around her to be even anywhere near as good as you're saying she is (or rather, that's the impression I'm getting); with that in mind, I'd have to say that if she wasn't absolutely phenomenal with all that, it'd be a massive letdown.

On 8/10/2023 at 12:23 PM, FashionEmblem said:

Ivy can also work really well if you inherit Speedtaker from Lyn (requiring only level 5 bond) and run another emblem.

That requires 2000 SP, and Speedtaker itself requires setup.

On 8/10/2023 at 12:23 PM, FashionEmblem said:

Even without the well she should be able to accumulate 2000 SP for Speedtaker and Speed +4 rather easily.

I wouldn't expect that to happen until near the very end of the game.

[samthedigital]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

How? Because the enemy with it is literally in the middle of the map

I skip the map with rewarp.

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Entrap is dropped when the enemy with it is defeated

As alluded to earlier chapter 20 is one instance where I give Lyn to someone else to make use of Astra Storm, but it's not the only option available. If I don't have enough strength for a one round warp/rescue (if not cheesing) or killing him during the re-warp chain would also work.

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Also, I'd bring up chapter 25, which has two Entrap users set up such that getting tagged by the first brings you right into range of the other.

There's also an Entrap user in chapter 21 if I remember correctly. In both cases we can finish the map before they get the chance to use them even without using fancy cheese.

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I wouldn't expect that to happen until near the very end of the game.

The well exists. It takes about 4-5 chapters to get 2000 SP. In a worst case scenario we get all the SP we need to finish our builds by chapter 21 or so, but realistically it should take less time.

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Corrin also happens to be one of the best emblems in the game, and ALSO happens to be one that she doesn't use that well (this time it's because of her flying subtype, as she gets the healing dragon vein).

As established in the other topic where we talked about Corrin I do not care about the dragon veins. Ivy makes the best use of the engage because of the flying subtype and 1-3 range access. Hortensia can do this too, but there are various reasons why I would want Ivy with Corrin instead. To be sure this is still not making best use of Ivy; it's just something that she's best at because she's a magic flyer.

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Long story short, you're saying Ivy needs a lot of contested resources AND to build around her to be even anywhere near as good as you're saying she is (or rather, that's the impression I'm getting); with that in mind, I'd have to say that if she wasn't absolutely phenomenal with all that, it'd be a massive letdown.

You're copying lenticular's argument almost verbatim, and I already responded to her. The short of it is that my options are limited when it comes to 1-2 range magic nukes. I would not get the same performance if I dumped those resources on literally any other unit, so in a sense it's a massive letdown for everyone else that they can't reach that potential.

Edited August 13, 2023 by samthedigital