Rate the Unit 19: Kagetsu

[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: Kagetsu

Class: Swordmaster

                     Lvl   HP  STR MAG DEX SPD DEF RES LCK BLD

Bases:          1      35    17    5      22     22   14    10    17    9

T. Bases:      16    14    11    4       13     11    10      7    13    3

Growths:      /      60    30    15    50    50    40    25    40    10

 

Personal Skill: If unit initiates combat, inflicts Avo-10 on foe during combat.

Innate Proficiency: Sword

SP: 1000

 

Support Bonuses:

C    Hit+10, Avoid+5
B    Hit+10, Critical+3, Avoid+5
A    Hit+10, Critical+3, Avoid+5, Dodge+5
S    Hit+10, Critical+6, Avoid+5, Dodge+5

 

Tools and mo stats:

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

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

 

 

Rating: 8.58

Next unit on Monday

Edited August 14, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[samthedigital]

9/10 (assuming Maddening, but difficulty doesn't really change anything for him tbh)

He needs to wait a few chapters for canter and a good class swap. He also isn't able to do a few specialized things as well as some other units, and I find that to be slightly more valuable than what he brings to the table. Otherwise it's not really complicated; he has the best bases for a physical unit relative to join time, and his growths are also fantastic.

I probably couldn't list every single emblem or skill that Kagetsu works well with. The only thing he's lacking is guaranteed crits with a Wrath/Vantage build (using Ike, you can still make it happen in a more limited fashion with Leif), but he makes up for it by being able to double without Lyn. I like pairing him with Roy to meet some doubling thresholds while engaged, but honestly the sky's the limit; he's great with anything that isn't primarily helping magic units and doesn't necessarily need an emblem if there isn't one available. As far as skills go Canter is the obvious choice, and the second one is largely up to preference based on what the player wants him to do.

I've personally tried him as a Wyvern with various emblems on my second Maddening playthrough. I'm pretty sure all I had was Canter and something like str+2 because the well didn't exist and I had no idea what I was doing. He was still fantastic though. On my latest Maddening playthrough he went Hero and got Canter and Dual Assist+. I figured that he would put the Hero class in a better light for me, but it really didn't. He was still great, but the class holds him back a lot as it would with any other unit in my opinion.

[Bartozio]

Assuming maddening difficulty:
I'm giving Kagetsu an 8/10. He would have really liked being able to get a few good skills or proficiencies from the early emblems and he lacks some of the insane tool other characters get, but he does have insane combat stats overall. High enough speed to double without too much help, enough strength to deal good damage and enough bulk to survive a few hits.

He can fill basically any combat role you want him too that isn't magic based, which makes him extremely easy to fit on any team. I do think some other characters shine better if you give them the right builds though, which is why he "only" gets an 8.

[Barren]

I can quiz you! Let’s talk about Kagetsu. This is assuming maddening.

 

Kagetsu joins you along with Ivy and Zelkov and I have to say that his bases for a swordmaster is really damn good. 17 strength along with 22 dex and speed is something that most physical attackers would be jealous of. He doubles basically every enemy on his joining chapter. Even one rounds a few of them as well. Of course he does hit a bit of a snag for chapters 12 and 13 assuming no dlc of course because his reclass options are a bit limited for a while. Of course one could turn him into a sword locked Paladin or a Bow Knight if you like higher move but there are better options. Good things come to those who wait after all.

 

Once you get Ike after beating chapter 13, he really really wants proficiency in axes because this allows him to change to either Wyvern Knight or Hero. Wyvern Knight is one the one hand, is his best class statistically. This gives him flight, a B rank in axes which is great for Tomahawks and Silver Axes. He can still get A rank in swords which really matters more than having an S rank sword. At least until the end of the game which wouldn’t be for a long time at that point. Even though WK will lower his base dex and speed a bit, his growths are so good that he can easily catch up. Plus if he has Ike equipped as an emblem, he can benefit from a number of his abilities in addition to flight. That includes reposition, axe power, resolve and wrath. He would be weak to bows and wind magic so watch out.

 

On the other hand, Hero is also not a bad option. Because he can keep swords but his axe rank will go down to C. But in all fairness, Tomahawk would weigh him down and it might prevent him from doubling at times but a hand axe would not as much. Plus he can still use Hammers and Poleaxes so that is a plus. He should then nab Dual Assist+ from Lucina so he can help chip the enemies with Brave Assist and double up on chain attacks. Chain attacks are some of the best methods for taking down beefier bosses. Plus he would not have to worry about being weak to anything.

Of course regardless of what physical class you give him he’ll turn out great. Canter, Sword Power, Speedtaker, etc are all really good options to pick up as well. He can get speedtaker or even speed + x whenever he wants whereas the other skills he’ll have to wait for.

 

He gets a 9/10 from me. I probably should have given Ivy the same score but she pops off a bit quicker than Kagetsu imo. But the same can be said if the scores were the other way around. Kagetsu certainly earns his spot as one the best physical attackers in the game. Highly recommend you use him.

[SnowFire]

Level 20/5 Swordmaster stats (he's got an internal level of 15, so this is equivalent to 20/20 for non-prepromos):
51 HP, 26 Str, 8 Mag, 37 Dex, 38 Spd, 23 Def, 19 Res, 30 Lck, 11 Bld, 5 Move

For all that leaving him in Swordmaster isn't generally considered wise, he'd rather trade some excess speed from SM for better Strength & bulk from Wyvern.

--

Holy stats, Batman.  Kagetsu is just randomly awesome at everything.  For physical classes that don't care about magic offense, Kagetsu is basically guaranteed to be one of the best options, having good growths & good bases.  He's Engage's Felix / Petra / Leonie equivalent.  His insane accuracy even if he switches out of Swordmaster means he's a good choice for shenanigans with stuff like a Brave Axe, as well.  Agree that Wyvern Sword / Axe is kind of his best default build - gives him a range 2 option in Hand Axes, buffs his Strength, buffs his mobility - but he'll make basically any class work.

It really says something that one of his "downsides" is that he can get too tanky (if going Wyvern) or too dodgy (if staying SM / Hero) for enemies to bother attacking him on Maddening, because they see 0 damage or 0% Hit.  In my Maddening playthrough, Kagetsu was having difficulty attracting the attention of the reinforcements in C14 because he was just too good.  This is a "good problem to have."

While Kagetsu is basically the best option for deploying a Wyvern / Hero / Warrior / Sniper / Paladin / SM / Berserker, he doesn't fundamentally change the game by enabling any "new" strategies that wouldn't work otherwise (aside from, perhaps, the "can still hit with really inaccurate weapons" bit mentioned above).  Kind of like how Awakening Chrom is good but vanilla, while Awakening Nosferatu Sorcerers do something you simply couldn't do before.  And it's not like the game is unbeatable without deploying Kagetsu; the "loss" from leaving him benched isn't THAT extreme.

End result is an 8/10.  He's great, just doesn't have that special brokenness required for a 9 or 10.

--

As a slight DLC comment, if you've attained Emblem Hector or Emblem Camilla from DLC maps, you can switch Kagetsu over to an Axe/Sword Wyvern immediately for C12.  Not that C12 is THAT hard, but it's kinda nice for C13 to have him a flyer there.

Edited August 10, 2023 by SnowFire

[SumG]

Kagetsu is clearly one of the strongest units in the game, immediately becoming one of your most effective offensive weapons the moment you recruit him and staying that way through the end of the game even on Maddening.  He ticks pretty much every box you'd want to tick for a generic frontline unit.  He has insane base stats when he joins, much higher than other units have when they reach an equivalent level.  These stats are also skewed in favor of speed and strength, which are the two most important stats for a frontline offensive unit.  His growth rates are also strong, and are also skewed in favor of strength and speed.  He even has a useful personal ability that helps his hit rate, which isn't necessary in a sword-based class, but very helpful if you move him into a class that uses axes (which is the common advice for using Kagetsu).

So the upside of Kagetsu is that he's a big ball of stats tailor-made to be an offensive weapon.  The downside is that he doesn't bring much unique to the table compared to other units like the royals or the dragons.  He doesn't have a busted unique class like Ivy or Hortensia, and he doesn't have access to a crazy unique ability like Luna or Sand Storm that can be built around.  That isn't to say Kagetsu isn't better than those units (he is), just that the builds you can go into are much more conventional.

In my Maddening runs, I stuck Kagetsu in Hero with Roy and I found it to be OK.  Roy helps out with good offensive stats, Hold Out is nice to help Kagetsu on the frontline stay alive, and his engage can add even more stats to the big stat ball that is Kagetsu.  However, the more I played on Maddening on this build, the more I felt frustrated by being limited to only C axes.  Having his only 1-2 range option on enemy phase be a Hand Axe felt really bad due to their low might, and as such most of the time I wouldn't even bother equipping it unless I knew I was only going to be attacked at 2 range.  In the future, I'd be very interested in trying out a Wyvern build for him, since that gets up to B axes to get access to Tomahawks for enemy phase.

The most effective damage dealing set-up I used with Kagetsu was based on using Killer weapons, though not in a Vantage/Wrath style build.  Whereas Vantage/Wrath builds can get up to 100% crit (most notably with Panette), they can be vulnerable to counterattacks if that crit doesn't kill the enemy.  Given that enemies can be very bulky by endgame that's a very real option, and taking a double counterattack can often be enough to kill those units if caution isn't taken.  Instead, I did as much as was practical to boost his crit rate without Wrath, which often left him with ~70% crit chance by endgame.  The difference is that Kagetsu is fast enough that he will double most enemies in the game, and given two attacks with 70% crit you have less than a 10% chance of not getting at least 1 crit during combat.  One crit is typically enough damage to secure the kill, and it felt reliable enough for my tastes.  In using Hero, I had wanted to use Dual Assist, but in a Wyvern build that is unnecessary and opens up a slot to use Wrath or something else useful.

So in the end I found my Kagetsu builds to be very strong both out of the gate and in the endgame, and I don't even think my builds were the strongest Kagetsu you can get.  He gets a 9.5/10, with the only knock on him is that he doesn't have anything uniquely gamebreaking about him.  It really is just pure, overpowering stats.

[Palasid]

I have only used Kagetsu once. I thought he looked neat when he joined on my first hard-mode playthrough. However, I dropped him because I didn't really want to use a swordmaster at the time. I had Alear (As a General) so I wasn't hurting for a sword unit. All this to say I brought him back on chapter 16. He was wonderful, his damage was lacking because he only ever had the Wo Dao equipped. I eventually dropped him again until endgame when I needed an extra body. Somehow he was one of the top performing units with Kagetsu despite being a MUCH lower level than my other units. Maybe being level 7-8 at the start of endgame.

This man was given little to no love and preformed despite. Always a swordmaster, only Wo Dao and I think Wyrmslayer/Armorslayer in endgame... His worst aspect was a low strength and resistance I think. 8/10, good dude.

 

[Dark Holy Elf]

I was inspired to catch up with all the ratings I've missed. If these ratings are too late to "count" that's fine, but I figure in case they are still being counted, it'd be better to put them all in one place than post a separate rating in each thread. So with apologies for the wall of text:

Boucheron: 4/10. Kinda like Clanne or Etie he's a bit of an earlygame filler unit who is outclassed later. His stat build is overall more impressive than Alfred's IMO, so that's something.

Celine: 5/10. She's a cut above the average "mediocre earlygame" unit because she's stronger than Clanne out of the box and thus will get a few good maps as the Best Celica User. But she's not dramatically better than Clanne, either, so there's only so far I'm willing to hype her.

Chloe: 8/10. Very good unit, the best to join in the first ten chapters. Stat-wise, she's not as good as some of the midgame badass crew, but she makes up for that by having Canter plus class flexibility on them, not to mention just plain being good in the earlygame. She can do both magic builds and physical builds well, though I've only personally really tried the physical ones.

Louis: 7/10. Louis is another very good earlygame unit, but he doesn't age nearly as well as Chloe. Still, his ability to just go almost anywhere he wants (watch out for mages) and not die, while having good killing power, is great; he certainly makes the earlygame much easier. He's pretty clearly better than Vander but worse than Chloe IMO, so that makes the numeric score he'll get pretty clear for me.

Yunaka: 5/10. Yunaka is very solid out of the box, she's gonna have no trouble pushing aside the earlygame filler to earn a spot on the team even if you take Micaiah from her. Knives are cool as it turns out. But her long-term is... not good. Thief is nice early but mediocre later and she's stuck in it until Level 21, and her stats are surprisingly worse than you'd expect (below average speed...).

Alcryst: 5/10. Mostly replaces Etie (though she does have slightly better str) but will ultimately face the same problems as many other part 1 units, i.e. is outclassed by the midgame units. Still, both Chapter 7 and 8 feature plentiful fliers he can destroy with little investment, and he's workable later in a few roles if you really want.

Citrinne: 6/10. Early promoted Citrinne has crazy good combat as a Mage Knight, honestly; she doubles things for quite a while and watch out if she does. Takes increasingly heavy investment to keep doubling things later, and isn't as good as Ivy or Pandreo overall, but a good magic stat goes a long way to making certain builds work.

Lapis: 5/10. This is mostly theorycraft, I've barely used Lapis. But she has shockingly good stats for a part 1 unit: respectable strength and good speed, so she can do well in physical roles. She's a bit crowded out by Chloe (in a better class with less effort) and the midgame crew, and it's hard sell for me to give a high score for a part 1 unit who basically requires two seals to get rolling.

Diamant: 5/10. I saw some hype for him in another thread when the game came out and I was pretty confused. I don't think he's bad; in fact he's quite good for few chapters if you promote him early so he isn't stuck with his swordlock. But the stats don't really feel like they cut it on Maddening; kinda like Celine he's too balanced for the thresholds that mode requires. If you're not using many part 1 units long-term though he can take a Master Seal and put in great work in Chapter 9-11 at least, but that's not a very big window.

Amber: 6/10. I think? Another unit I've barely used, but that strength stat is pretty monstrous. Kinda like Lapis in that you NEED to invest in him fast or he's hitting the bench, but he probably has more upside than Lapis does, since really only Panette does his role better, and there are worse things than running two Panettes. "Really high strength and okay otherwise" can work really well with certain builds in this game, such as Vantage/Wrath or stacking speed via Lyn to have super offence.

Jade: 3/10. Vaguely tolerable as filler, probably better than Amber or Lapis if you're not investing in any of them for Chapter 10-11. But overall her stats just aren't very good. When I used her I just made her a Griffin Knight who healed and had just enough strength to kill squishier enemies but frankly anyone can do that, and there's nothing to recommend Jade specifically aside from a barely noticeable focus on res.

At this point we transition into the better units!

Ivy: 9/10. I decided early that I'd give out no 10's for Engage, and went back and forth as to whether Ivy would get an 8 or a 9. IMO, she's clearly the second best unit in Engage (Seadall's #1). Her downside is that, depending on what you want from her, you need to fix various problems. Hit and luck, fortunately, are pretty easy to fix via a variety of engraves. Speed's a bit harder, but the results are impressive if you do. But however much or little you invest in that, she's still got great magic, B staves, and flight, in a game where both magic and staves are very good. I found her utterly game-breaking with Corrin and I've read she's equally game-breaking with speed investment.

Kagetsu: 8/10. Kagetsu's almost the opposite of Ivy, as far as good units go. Whereas Ivy is all about unique class advantages (flying + magic + staves), Kagetsu just has good stats and nothing else. Swordmaster's mediocrity means he's actually not that great in Chapter 12-13, but after that, watch out. The stats are basically best in show all-around. The only complaint is that, since speed is easier to fix than strength/magic in this game, that he might prefer to be really good at the latter rather than the former. But that just means he can use less-demanded emblems like Roy and still dominate. He doesn't really do anything unique and if you swap him out for another good (but not as good) physical statstick you probably won't notice, but yeah, he good.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I was inspired to catch up with all the ratings I've missed. If these ratings are too late to "count" that's fine, but I figure in case they are still being counted, it'd be better to put them all in one place than post a separate rating in each thread. So with apologies for the wall of text:

I do update the beginning post and was thinking of doing the unthinkable and necro it when done, but I don´t include ratings given after the day the next unit is posted.