Rate the Unit 20: Zelkov

[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: Zelkov

Class: Thief

                     Lvl   HP  STR MAG DEX SPD DEF RES LCK BLD

Bases:          17    35    15    3      19    19     14     5      7     9    

T. Bases:      17    13    10    3       9      9       8     3      5     5

Growths:      /      65    35    15    40    35    35    15    25    10

 

 

Personal Skill: If foe initiates combat, inflicts Hit-10 on that foe during combat.

Innate Proficiency: Knife

SP: 1000

 

Support Bonuses:

C    Hit+15
B    Hit+15, Avoid+5
A    Hit+20, Avoid+5
S    Hit+30, Avoid+5

 

Tools and mo stats:

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

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

 

Rating: 5.375

Next unit on Thursday

Edited August 17, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[Harvey]

Playing on Normal mode. 

Man..what did they do with thieves in this game? They no longer have their niche of stealing items, anyone can pretty much open chests and break doors and on top of that, you don't even get a lot of chapters that have fog of war where thieves give more visibility.

Only niche is that daggers exist and they work with Zelkov but then there is wolf knight class that does better. Decent replacement for Yunaka I guess..but that's not saying much.

His stats are shaky which is expected for a thief. He can't promote and he can only reclass which will take a while for him to do. I've not reclassed him but only briefly used him as a thief.

3/10 as a thief only.

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Harvey

[samthedigital]

5.5/10; assumes Maddening as he can probably dodge tank or something on a lower difficulty more reliably and would be a little better.

Once reclassed Zelkov is a good unit because he's a physical unit with strong bases. He's pretty close to Kagetsu minus the luck and a point here or there in other stats from what I remember, and everyone speaks highly of him.  I have talked about a few different physical builds in previous threads, and I don't really want to go over them again in detail here. In short though he can use any emblem not named Celica or Micaiah to some degree of success, and he'll want Canter and whatever other skill helps him deal damage or support the team.

If I'm being honest Zelkov is part of a really boring subset of units; there isn't a lot to say for them besides "good bases for physical attacking good unit". The only thing that really separates him from everyone else is that he starts in the Thief class; his personal isn't useful, his magic, res, and luck aren't good, and there isn't anything else to distinguish him from the myriad of units we get around this time.

I'd bump my rating for Zelkov if not for the Thief class. He has to gain 4 levels in the class to swap to something better. The two good things about the class are the covert tag and dagger access. Any covert unit can aggro a boss with Astra Storm to get them to move without any investment, and daggers have good mt and 1-2 range. On the other hand the class has low bases and 5 move, so it really struggles to deal meaningful damage and lags behind more mobile units which compounds the issue. I find training Zelkov to be something of a chore, and the game hands out a lot of units that fit the same mold within the next few chapters that are either already in a good class or just need to wait.

edit: I should quickly mention that some early units also require a little bit of babying or effort, but they have early access to canter which makes up a lot of the difference.

Edited August 14, 2023 by samthedigital

[SumG]

I tried using Zelkov once in Maddening.  I kept him in thief, and in retrospect that was a mistake.  The class doesn't have great bases for the endgame, and his damage really falls off rapidly.  I've heard others claim that he has innately good stats to change into another physical class.  I have not tried that, but I find myself a bit skeptical about how good this is.  If all you're bringing to the table is your stats, you're going to be competing with a bunch of other units that have even better stats, often paired with great abilities.  The problem with Zelkov's stats is that while they are all around good they don't stand out anywhere, which makes it hard to assign him a role that another unit wouldn't do better.

He has a good personal ability, which can help facilitate a dodgetank build.  However a dodgetank build can only take you so far given the way the AI prioritizes targets.  Maybe he has better damage output in other classes that I have not tried.

The other big issue is that he joins immediately before the midgame deployment slot pinch, at the same time as a number of very strong new units.  In Chapter 11, he's able to immediately contribute and will likely be better than any unit that hasn't been shown favoritism, so that's nice.  But Chapter 12 only has 8 deployment slots.  When you take Alear, Ivy, Kagetsu, a healer, and whatever units you showed favoritism to in the first half of the game, you rapidly run out of room for Zelkov.  Chapter 13 is no better, since it still only has 8 deployment slots and now Pandreo and Fogado are competing as well.  By the time you reach Chapter 14 and perhaps have deployment slots available for him, his bases which seemed so high when he joined are no longer particularly impressive, particularly against promoted enemies when he has to fight in an unpromoted class like Thief.  So even getting him to Level 21 to Second Seal into a different class is a struggle, and the benefit you derive from doing it is not much different from any other unit you might use.

I'm happy to be proven wrong on this.  Perhaps if you struggle through to Level 21 and get him into a promoted class he can really impress.  But for me at the end of the day I was left with a very meh feeling.  He's a 5/10, fine if you have to use him, but many other units are better at the roles you would typically expect to find on a team than what he does.

[Barren]

So now we get to *talk* about Zelkov. This is *assuming* hard mode. Will make mention of *maddening* however.

 

Zelkov has good bases when he joins you along with Ivy and Kagetsu. As a thief he does contribute when he joins. Also being able to double enemies with reliable 1-2 range daggers like Yunaka can. He is a much higher level compared to Yunaka so he requires less babying compared to her. But it’s not all good news for Zelkov as others have pointed out that his low res and luck can work against him.

 

Eventually thieves start to fall off late into hard. Sooner on maddening as daggers will start to look less impressive. Unless of course you forge his steel dagger to a silver dagger and upgrade that further to like +2 then his damage output can actually be useful for the entire mid game. What supports this idea is that he has an impressive 9 build. Technically wasted on the thief class but there is an upside too it as Silver Daggers doesn’t weigh him down like it would for Yunaka. *Not Quite* is a good ability for him to abuse so he could be a EP dodge tank.

 

While Yunaka could explore magic class options once she reaches level 21,  Zelkov would rather go physical. You could make him a Wolf Knight if like to keep daggers. Hobble can be a good ability when combined with canter. More on them when we get to Merrin. Wyvern Knight, Hero, even Warrior are good fits for him if you wish to take him further.

I think he’s a 6.5/10. He can be useful for sure during the mid game. Late game he’s questionable and probably should leave on the bench if you don’t plan on taking him out of the thief class.

 

[Bartozio]

I'm assuming Maddening difficulty for this rating. Note that I've never used Zelkov more than at best a few chapters, so this might not be too accurate.

Honestly, Zelkov is kind of in a weird spot to rate. His stats are really good when he joins, but around the time he joins you get 8 other units with similarly good stats in quick succesion. I'm not gonna talk too much about how good all of those other units are, since they'll be rated later anyway, but suffice to say he has quite a bit of competition.

That makes his weaknesses stand out all the more. The thief class just isn't all that impressive at that point in the game, and he needs to gain 4 level ups before he can leave it. That might not sound like much, but considering he's very well leveled for his join time, he'll struggle to gain more than say one level per chapter at a time where deployment slots are very competitive.

And even if he does make it out of thief, his growth rates aren't even that particularly impressive. He'll probably still make for a decent unit, but only getting a decent unit after requiring some favoritism isn't a good look.

So I'm giving him a 4/10.

[SnowFire]

Lvl. 40 Thief Zelkov:

51 HP, 25 Str, 6 Mag, 33 Dex, 31 Spd, 26 Def, 10 Res, 13 Lck, 11 Bld, 5 Move

Magic / Resistance / Luck are just trash compared to Yunaka, but he's better at fighting otherwise.
--

First off, if you dislike Thief, you can make Zelkov into Competent Physical Unit Number Whatever.  Not as good as Kagetsu, but whatever, certainly comparable or a little better than class-changed Amber / Lapis / etc.  Guarantees a certain baseline competence, although his passive suggests going for a dodgier-unit (alas, Marth has left the party and won't be coming back for awhile).

That said, I think Thief may be getting a little TOO much heat.  No, it doesn't really hold up long-term, but forged Daggers are strong, there's not a ton of classes that sport the Covert tag, and Covert synergizes well with Zelkov's passive.  You can give him Corrin and ensure he's always chilling in Fog for enemy phase if need be (or have him near a Dragon with Corrin & a spare turn, of course), or you can just make sure he's always heading into the brush.  Yeah, yeah, you can't always guarantee that Zelkov can find Cover for the Covert bonus AND do a relevant player-phase action, but oh well, it's still strong when it works and when the map cooperates.  Really, Zelkov has one of the best passives in the game; most personal skills are pretty nerfed compared to 3H, but an evade boost is always appreciated.

I'm torn between 6 and 7.  Maybe I'll regret this (certainly going against the grain so far), but I'm gonna go with 7/10.  You can leave Zelkov on the bench and that'll be cool, so he isn't required, but I feel like if you're just looking for another person to knock skulls, him having a really good personal skill puts him a step above the sea of 6s of the Diamants & Ambers of the world.

Edited August 15, 2023 by SnowFire

[samthedigital]

4 hours ago, SnowFire said:

First off, if you dislike Thief, you can make Zelkov into Competent Physical Unit Number Whatever.  Not as good as Kagetsu, but whatever, certainly comparable or a little better than class-changed Amber / Lapis / etc.

If it weren't for the fact that he's stuck in the class for 4 levels I would agree with you for the most part. He has that and late access to pre chapter 10 skills working against him, and if he had even just one of them I'd hold him in much higher regard; I just don't have much use for a Thief and would relegate Zelkov to self improvement until he can swap classes.

4 hours ago, SnowFire said:

That said, I think Thief may be getting a little TOO much heat.

I don't think so, but that's also because I don't value any of the things you listed much besides being able to use daggers. The covert tag is useful for cheese in a few situations, and that's it for me. In all of those instances I could use a base level Etie and there wouldn't be any difference between her and Zelkov, so while I do value the utility it's nothing that I can't get elsewhere.

4 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Yeah, yeah, you can't always guarantee that Zelkov can find Cover for the Covert bonus AND do a relevant player-phase action, but oh well, it's still strong when it works and when the map cooperates. 

I don't find this to be particularly strong. Bonded Shield effectively does the same thing, but it's a lot more flexible. The maps also aren't that kind to Zelkov either depending on playstyle. Chapter 12 requires a bunch of fliers to get through quickly as does chapter 14. Chapter 16 is also the first one where we get Corrin to be able to pull off the strategy consistently, but unfortunately it's also a chapter where grounded units are inhibited by water. To be fair he can probably swap classes by this point, and we get Canter by the next chapter, so regardless of my opinion on the strategy Zelkov can do a lot more at around this time.

Edited August 16, 2023 by samthedigital

[lenticular]

As a thief, I think he's worse than Yunaka. The best way to build thief, as far as I'm concerned, is to make use of the Covert type to build a terrain-reliant dodge tank, either with Corrin's fog veins or by making use of existing terrain features. If you're doing that, one of the obvious weaknesses is Mystic units who can just completely bypass your terrain bonus, which is why I prefer Yunaka for that build.

And if you class change out of thief, he doesn't have that much to recommend him above other units. He joins too late to get credit for helping out in the early game and for picking up skills from the early emblems, and he just doesn't stack up that well against the other units who are joining at around the same time as him.

He's still perfectly competent, either as a thief or changed to another strong physical class, but doesn't really stand out from the crowd. 6/10.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Zelkov is an on-paper solid PC who struggles to find a niche. His stats are pretty good though not as good as Kagetsu or Merrin. He just misses the cutoff for part 1 skills, so he may well lose to your most favoured units coming out of that, too. He's stuck in a slightly awkward class for a few maps, although his stats are good enough to make it work and I certainly have a lot more respect for thief than I do for swordmaster. His personal skill gives him +10 avoid and that's very cool, but his average speed and subpar luck do cut into this lead... still, he's good at it.

He's a hard unit to rate. Obviously, he completely outclasses various part 1 units you will bench, but not as good as various other part 2 units who join around the same time. If you stick him on the team he'll do well, but arguably in an "optimum" playthrough you might conceivably only deploy him for one map (Chapter 14, with its large limit). I'll go with 6/10 but I could be argued.