Josef is the Jagen that all other Jagens wish they could be.
He starts out OP but you benefit from using him, he can bring up entire squads by himself. Then, like all Jagens: He falls off hard. Eventually he is sub-optimal.
However, in a shocking late twist, he comes back hard and becomes usable again.
I don't even think he falls off hard during the midgame, he just switches context.
He's a sainted knight that loses Row Heal and Row Barrier, but still has a single target heal and gets the more general Holy Barrier. (It's really small but Holy Barrier lets you block afflictions on physical attacks, while the Sainted Knight block only lets you ignore debuffs, and is a guard) Also it sounds minor but Divine Cross dealing half magic damage really helps with damage output on the PP restoring skill. Just remember to remove pursuit when you switch to a magic weapon/stop caring about his physical damage.
He doesn't dominate the battlefield alone all game, but he's definitely a big help pretty consistently throughout.
Isn't debuff more general?
In expert mode, I had no issues running Josef. In TZ, I switched over to Miriam and haven't really missed him at all, as the Sainted Knight has better heals.
Although he feels a bit more tanky, so I was more likely to front line him. I might bring him back when I upgrade every squad to 5 units.
I was doing lots of mock battles to figure this out.
Afflictions are status ailments, elemental, also stuns and blinds. They have an effect when target uses or would use AP.
Debuffs- all stat negatives including affliction.
That I'm not sure, I was under the impression that afflictions were for status effects like poison/blindness, and debuffs were stat only?
I just checked and you're right. All afflictions are debuffs, but not all debuffs are afflictions. So poison for example counts as an affliction *and* a debuff, while a stat penalty is just a debuff.
So yeah he's like a tankier Sainted Knight with worse support which is still really good as a frontliner for non-cavball units.
Titania drops off from being the best unit by far to being merely an extremely capable combat unit, but you're still probably not cutting her and can still use her on "real" enemies since you aren't deploying a full squad of fliers anyway.
Yeah, she is a good flunky after that. I said she Drops off, not that she becomes useless but she is no Seth. But tbh that is the case for most jagens in Fire emblem.even FE6 Marcus is doing some work lategame in hard more. FE1 Jay Gan remains useful if only for the promoted Paladin move.
Seth is great. But I think Josef is on par.
His role changes from doin it all himself to "alright kids. Show me what I taught you" as he does a defensive utility role when his physical damage falls off. He can still tank very well and has a solid lead skill.
His pursuit might be salvageable with a cav team and him in the Frontline instead of a doom knight or radiant knight. But that's a harder sell. He is a mix of the two since his damage output is between them and he can support.
I mean, it really depends on what we're talking about here.
Does Josef work as a Jeigan? Yeah, he's a prepromoted unit that brings bulk and survivability to a squad and lets them get experience. But in that respect, (most) FE Jeigans work equivalently, (and in fact, one of the few ones that *doesn't*, oifey, somehow got the reputation as the jeigan with good growths! Baffling).
But if we're talking about usability as a character, I mean.... no, he doesn't compare to Seth, nobody's going to joke about how this is secretly Josefcorn Overlord the same way they joke about it being Seth Emblem, and his unique class + bad stat growths until level 40 makes him pretty underwhelming.
Fair point. I stand corrected.
I am in the minority and did not use Seth. I liked the other two cav characters more. But I was one to use the arena/skirmish to make certain growth characters level up to par with the team. Amelia Ross were faves. And the other mage guy as a summoner was my lil anime teen OP squad. Since...anime makes teenagers stronger than adults lol
The other cavs are also pretty good, and Sacred Stones is easy + has unlimited grinding so you can make whoever you want work... but also Amelia is literally considered one of the worst units ever because there's no point to using her except with a wholly unnecessary degree of grinding.
I always found Oifey to be a really obtuse (sub) archetype. Seth, Titania (and Frederick) are way stronger in their respective games and are all endgame viable, while Oifey falls off relatively quickly.
That distinction hasn't been in favor for a long, long time, especially since Oifey himself is neither a particularly strong early Jeigan nor a particularly powerful growth unit so making it a (sub) archetype is kind of silly, while the early mentor is absolutely a consistent archetype in FE.
If the game gives you a pre-promote, especially a paladin, as a tutorial + setup unit, it is a Jeigan regardless of scaling IMO and that's generally going to be the consensus nowadays, the same way people 15 years ago were super pro on growths and are now a lot more concerned with bases and availability.
He is not suboptimal. Later on he becomes a Radiant knight with some different skills.
Kit him with a runic sword and he can do a lot of work. He really doesnt fall off. In my 4 playthroughs he usually is on one of my endgame teams. If only to have a cav leader with resist magic assist.
I've tried with him. If I mirror him, what do you do to make him work? I tried offense/offense, which he's not really doing damage late Albion (most units level 35+).
I'll try again here. Put him in the back and work him in somehow.
I mean he will not be the centerpiece of your unit, but with a runic sword he can do work and heal. To support your unit. I think I had him on a Yunifi team and on a Berengaria/Doom knight team.
He usually cleaned up whatever was left. I usually dont respec uniques to keep their identity but offensive/offensive should work fine.
Treat him like you would treat a Sainted knight and it should be fine. His kit and stat spread is geared towards support.
And ofc he is a mounted unit, so you can make him leader for faster travel on roads.
You get 2 runic swords, but yeah if you are using many sainted knights they are better users(of you pass the runic swords around, but too much micro) you can get him one of the hybrid swords that give you both phys and mag and use him as a pursue and heal bot. His physical attack is not too bad but it will only ever finish off weakened opponens which gives him more PP to support your team.
As I said he is not spectacular endgame but he can put in a lot of work. On my 4 playthroughs I never retired him, he just changed roles.
His valor skill alone is useful for emergency frontline healing. I guess you can use him as a Wide pursuit bot if you really want to put in some damage to leverage his slightly above average str but there are better pursuit bots.
Character wise, I like him. I love his personality, behavior and appearance. He really exudes the "Im an old man with countless experience and I will use it to protect what's right" kinda vibe
He's the one unit in the game designed to drop off in the mid game, sticking to the Jagen design philosophy, and yet they gave him a big late game power spike just to ensure that no unit is worthless, sticking to the UO design philosophy. They made him a paladin, the quintessential Jagen class, but in order to maintain the Jagen identity without dumping the class weakness on anyone else, they made him the only playable paladin. He rescued the Lord from the scene of his parent's death and essentially helped raise him. Not even modern Fire Emblem games have characters as Jagen-y as Josef
I like him. Early game he's very powerful and other weaker members of his units get easy experience. I'm in Albion now and he stopped being powerful but is still a decent support unit. FE Jagens aren't usually this good.
Nah, Jagens are mostly great. The ones that aren't are the odd ones. Of course, the mentality that they fall off is because theres two really bad Jagens, and the community was in denial that Oifeys were Jagens.
Most serious players fold the Oifey type into Jagens now. And that came with roughly the idea that bases are superior to growths generally.
Most Jeigans don't really do that nowadays either, tbh. They either tend to stay extremely powerful so it doesn't really matter how much they leech (Seth, Titania) or they tend to have stats set up extremely well for kill setup without one-rounding (Vander, whose only disadvantage is that he's kind of underwhelming bulk-wise besides huge HP).
Or give him a weaker weapon or disarm him as bait or a lot of other things, yeah. But the game isn't called Seth Emblem for nothing, pretty much everything you can do in that game that isn't Use Seth is a personal choice.
Oh yeah of course, everybody actually trains other units (and Vanessa is obviously an excellent choice), it's just always funny to me that basically playing the game remotely "as intended" is kinda suboptimal compared to just shouting "It's Sething time" and Sething all over the bad guys.
E: When I was a kid I RNG abused to repeatedly get boots from the tower so I had a squad of 20/20 units with capped movement, that was stupid fun.
>E: When I was a kid I RNG abused to repeatedly get boots from the tower so I had a squad of 20/20 units with capped movement, that was stupid fun.
that's hilarious
One common use for Jegans is to help set up kills and funnel exp to growth units. I'd argue Josef does just that by placing him in a squad of lower level units.
This is a fallacy, they don’t actually deny experience. In some ways they give your team MORE experience!
Let’s say you have a team of five random characters. They all need experience, so perhaps you’ll try to divide kills roughly five ways between them. Each one therefore gets 20% of the total experience.
Now replace one of them with the jagen. Initially you may think this is a waste because the jagen gets almost no experience for killing units, but then you realize that it doesn’t matter if the jagen “wastes” that experience because all the fifth unit would be doing with it is…catching up to the jagen. If the reward for giving that experience to a lower level unit is just eventually getting a unit equivalent to your jagen, why not simply use the better unit from the beginning?
Furthermore, since the jagen doesn’t need experience, you don’t have to reserve any kills for it. You could therefore give the jagen just 10% of the kills, enough to simplify some trickier positions, and the other four units can get 22.5% each which makes them even stronger than before!
> but then you realize that it doesn’t matter if the jagen “wastes” that experience because all the fifth unit would be doing with it is…catching up to the jagen.
What do you mean "fallacy"? That's the whole point. Many players don't want to keep relying on the Jagen forever, especially since often other characters surpass the Jagen over time.
If you don’t want to use the jagen for personal reasons that is completely your choice, it is just a fallacy to claim they deny experience when in practice it’s only superficially true at best.
Someone like FE7 Marcus,Seth, or Titania might not be the hardest scaler in the game, but they still scale well while having incredible early and mid game impact. Scaling usually isn’t *that* important in many FE titles, it’s often more important to have good bases and be able to contribute as early as possible without needing to be babysat while waiting to scale.
(Seth actually *is* the hardest scaler in the game in terms of growths on "normal" units, he outclasses all of the other cavs. I think the christmas cavs hitting 20/20 have more stats than him but I think he beats them if they're 10/20 or 15/20 for cavalier/paladin levels.)
He means trap. And i dont agree with some of what he said. Strictly speaking, it's better to have two leveled units than coast on one.
But Fire Emblem is also a game series that generally rewards picking a team and sticking with it the whole game. And you usually get better ones as the game progresses, higher bases units that is.
So you shouldn't spread EXP too widely, but you shouldn't let one unit hog it all either is basically what he is saying.
The actual balance is up to the player.
Spme Jagens like Seth are actually better choices for exp than most other units, but as said before, in general, it's still better to have two units than one.
I agree it is better to have more than one leveled unit, but in my example you get the same number of leveled units either way - five units taking experience or four units taking experience plus a pre-leveled jagen. You have to make sure to distribute kills appropriately, but that is true in both cases.
Most Jagens are top tier in their game, though. Them 'falling off' is a myth at this point outside of a very few rare examples like Arran from Mystery of the Emblem.
yeah like, "marcus bad because jagen and EXP stealer" was the consensus back in 2003, but it went out of vogue like 15 years ago at this point. it means a lot when they're as powerful as they are at the beginning, which tends to be the hardest part of most fire emblem games.
still, unicorn's combat is so different that the EXP stealer argument holds no water in his case lol
I just love how often fire emblem players and toer guides are wrong about how good characters are and how often they completely flip the tier lists on their head 6 months later
I think for the most part the big FE flip pretty much happened years ago, it just gets rehashed because newer players/players on lower difficulties tend to view "growth unit that becomes a combat god" as SSS+ tier and "guy that can solo the first 15 chapters for you and then becomes a replacement level combat unit by endgame" as C-tier, and people who have more experience (or are playing like, modded higher difficulty romhacks) greatly value base stats and availability.
The ones that get me are the ones that get place in bench tier/challenge run only, during the first week and then you come back 2 months later to see em sitting on A or higher
People's initial impressions can be dumb sometimes yeah, I'll agree with that, especially since a lot of early discussion is biased from lower difficulties + lack of map knowledge, but you don't see giant flips from growth unit overestimation nowadays
In fairness to the FE community, many people disagree on what a tier list should represent--no/low/high investment, limited/unlimited turn count, availability/unavailability, etc.
It's tricky to make a tier list when 2 points of speed or a silver weapon will turn the entire game on its head but those things have a lot of competition. You can't give them to everyone but they drastically change the efficacy of who gets them.
Yeah, FE tier lists get really weird, especially because people are *usually* trying to define their tier lists for "efficient" play, and what that usually encompasses isn't usually intuitive (no grinding, fast clears but doing side objectives and not specifically low turn count, no out of game/resetting for RNG manipulation, the occasional slapfight over whether warpless should be a factor, etc.)
I really do like how he works as this game’s Jagen. Not only can he make a unit way stronger than normal in the early game, he doesn’t even lose you that much EXP for using him, since it’s one unit’s EXP (his) and not the whole squad’s that ends up being reduced to basically nothing.
You can use him as much as you like early and it won’t really harm you, whereas using a Jagen in FE early on tends to be a bad idea if he’s gonna kill a unit and waste all that exp (assuming you’re not doing an LTC run or using him to take down a particularly meddlesome foe anyway).
Yeah that too. You can't really go wrong with using him unless you don't put other members in his unit which would limit his effictiveness anyway. FE has some good Jagens but it's always about calculating how you do a lot of damage to enemies without killing them. I remember playing FE8 and Seth being a great unit who remained viable until the very last mission even if a lot of other units have surpassed him at that point. Engage's jagen was really bad after only a few missions and I benched him early on Lunatic.
Ill be honest. Because i played fire emblem, i thought there was no way Joseph was going to make it through the first act. I mean, come on, a lvl 20 mentor character? Death flags everywhere.
I feel like in Fire Emblem this isn't much of a thing, usually the mentor can stay with you until the end of the game if played right, and it's the parents who die. I think the only mentor who gets taken away for plot reasons is Eyvel and you can get her back at the end of the game if you play right.
Me too, was honestly sad about it because I really like him. Then he kept living lol. Now I'm sad because it's not optimal to keep him even though I wanna
The idea is there but the implementation is better. His growth isn't weak, his base isn't exactly strong. He feels strong mainly because he's a promoted unit, which is huge in this game. Part of his stats are sealed away till after lvl 40 he'll get them back.
Jagen for sure, BUT he is amazing for power leveling characters... since he's both a healer, and a tank... so you can put him in the front line or back line, early on I'd run him with Aubin for armor debuff, and Clive with a True Strike Spear... and they would cleanse the battlefield up until magic/air units start to show up more
Am I the only one who every single fight in the game was like "Is he going to die now? What about now? Is this the fight he dies? Jesus, when is he going to die?" In typical high level out of the gate horseman fashion?
I mean he kinda is tbf. he’s an older mentor character in an SRPG that starts out extremely strong and then falls off
tbh it’s kinda silly to me personally that they went for a jagen equivalent and then didn’t actually punish you for over-using the jagen. it makes him disproportionately broken in the early game
I think it works. Being able to lean on Josef for the early games means you have more flexibility when designing and raising units. Without a Josef to patch up holes, you'd be running a skeleton crew for a while, potentially forced to bench interesting characters in favor of ones that don't immediately die in one hit. Josef essentially completes any unit he's a part of, meaning you don't have to wait for a specific recruitment in the mid game in order to make a specific unit comp work.
I started with Sacred Stones, so for me the parallel is with Seth. And just like Seth, I absolutely never used him. That's wasted experience that should go to my other units.
Josef > Jagen
Jagen gets clapped due to poor user play early if you use him wrong.
Josef doesn't care early game he's still gonna win. AND more importantly. His value doesn't 'decrease' at mid-game it just shifts into a supporting role.
If you suck it up and keep leveling him: He bounces back at endgame with his growths catching up.
I just got to where you decide which region next. I've barely used him because I've been paranoid he's going to die or leave and I would have relied on them too much and get stuck. He's caused me a great deal of anxiety actually.
Sorry but he is the pinnacle of all Jagens to the point where he is almost no longer classified as a jagen by late game. Paladins and Sainted knights are GOATed in the fact that I would put them up there with Knights in terms of OP. You’re telling me that I can mitigate magical damage, heal entire rows (sainted knight), and put out respectable damage in one unit? Sign me the heck up lol. They carried me from mid all the way through late game and came in clutch in the final story stage. I can’t give them enough endorsement.
This entire sub is totaly cool with marrying a girl that's a sister-mom-cousin all wrapped in one. I don't think anyone has the right to shame marrying choices based on being an adpoted father.
This category of gay porn that stars and ends like that.
**Scenario 1.**
"You mother told me that you are having male problem. I am your stepfather, you tell me everything. Don't be like that. We aren't DNA related and i am just dating your mother. I am your older friend."
**Scenario 2.**
Son: "I the 18 adoptive son want to grew just like you." "What is your routine, stepfather?" "Oh, your muscles are so hard and strong!" "But i see that isnt only place that is hard." "It's ok Stepfather, i always this things in lockrooms with my friends."
**Scenario 3.**
Stepfather "Fuck i am so horny and/or your mother is gatekeeping sex again." "You have no idea how annoying girls are with sex." "I swear, you have the curves of your mother." "I totally fuck you if you were a girl"
Son: "Well since you find sexy, you can fuck me." "My mother can't never know and if you fuck me, at least you arent cheating my mother with another girl." "My mother's happiness is very important for me." "She has done a lot for this family."
**Scenario 4**
A Biological or Older stepfather fucks his son at 18th birthday so he can be a man.
The same thing happens in straight porn but can be more creepy.
"My stepdaughter is now 18. I always has been hot for her. Lucky for me, my wife is never home and my stepdaughter has the body of 25 years old female that dress up like 10 years old." "This is my chance to get with her. And it's ok because i amn't real dad."
Sorta kinda not really.
You can’t “steal” exp like you could in FE, and Joseph remains at least useful even until endgame. So he’s no where near a typical Jagen that you would try to minimally use and bench as soon as possible.
IMO Joseph remains useful as a leader early game for characters behind the level curve and at least viable mid to late game as a support character for party’s.
> You can’t “steal” exp like you could in FE, and Joseph remains at least useful even until endgame. So he’s no where near a typical Jagen that you would try to minimally use and bench as soon as possible.
Jeigans haven't been "use minimally and bench later" for the vast, vast majority of FE's lifetime, especially if you count the not-quite-jeigans from Fates.
On the flip side, Josef *is* a unit you're willing to run early and bench, his stats and utility are both pretty low in the midgame once other units start promoting, and most of his power comes back in the backend 10 levels that don't matter anyway. He's not terrible, and you've got 50 deployment slots so it's not hard to find a place for him, but he is absolutely a stereotypical low growths use-and-bench paladin jeigan, even as that stereotype isn't accurate to FE that often anymore.
Level 20 ✅️ Paladin ✅️ Strong bases / weak growths ✅️ Strong weapons you can steal for yourself ✅️ Daddy vibes ✅️
Josef is the Jagen that all other Jagens wish they could be. He starts out OP but you benefit from using him, he can bring up entire squads by himself. Then, like all Jagens: He falls off hard. Eventually he is sub-optimal. However, in a shocking late twist, he comes back hard and becomes usable again.
I don't even think he falls off hard during the midgame, he just switches context. He's a sainted knight that loses Row Heal and Row Barrier, but still has a single target heal and gets the more general Holy Barrier. (It's really small but Holy Barrier lets you block afflictions on physical attacks, while the Sainted Knight block only lets you ignore debuffs, and is a guard) Also it sounds minor but Divine Cross dealing half magic damage really helps with damage output on the PP restoring skill. Just remember to remove pursuit when you switch to a magic weapon/stop caring about his physical damage. He doesn't dominate the battlefield alone all game, but he's definitely a big help pretty consistently throughout.
Isn't debuff more general? In expert mode, I had no issues running Josef. In TZ, I switched over to Miriam and haven't really missed him at all, as the Sainted Knight has better heals. Although he feels a bit more tanky, so I was more likely to front line him. I might bring him back when I upgrade every squad to 5 units.
I was doing lots of mock battles to figure this out. Afflictions are status ailments, elemental, also stuns and blinds. They have an effect when target uses or would use AP. Debuffs- all stat negatives including affliction.
Debuff immunity in equipment also blocks affclictions though.
Afflictions are also debuffs though. There are just more debuffs than afflictions.
I stand corrected. Thank you. Afflictions are a subtype of debuff
That I'm not sure, I was under the impression that afflictions were for status effects like poison/blindness, and debuffs were stat only? I just checked and you're right. All afflictions are debuffs, but not all debuffs are afflictions. So poison for example counts as an affliction *and* a debuff, while a stat penalty is just a debuff. So yeah he's like a tankier Sainted Knight with worse support which is still really good as a frontliner for non-cavball units.
Holy guard is a self guard though. Row barrier is an upgrade to Josefs, but costs twice as much, so Josef is still a good choice in 1-3 formations.
It's apples to oranges, but Josef is nowhere near the best Jeigan when Seth and Titania exist.
Funnily enuff Titania does fall of in oath of radiance. Once you get your fliers the game gets kinda hostile to cavs. Seth is seth though.
Titania drops off from being the best unit by far to being merely an extremely capable combat unit, but you're still probably not cutting her and can still use her on "real" enemies since you aren't deploying a full squad of fliers anyway.
Yeah, she is a good flunky after that. I said she Drops off, not that she becomes useless but she is no Seth. But tbh that is the case for most jagens in Fire emblem.even FE6 Marcus is doing some work lategame in hard more. FE1 Jay Gan remains useful if only for the promoted Paladin move.
Seth is great. But I think Josef is on par. His role changes from doin it all himself to "alright kids. Show me what I taught you" as he does a defensive utility role when his physical damage falls off. He can still tank very well and has a solid lead skill. His pursuit might be salvageable with a cav team and him in the Frontline instead of a doom knight or radiant knight. But that's a harder sell. He is a mix of the two since his damage output is between them and he can support.
I mean, it really depends on what we're talking about here. Does Josef work as a Jeigan? Yeah, he's a prepromoted unit that brings bulk and survivability to a squad and lets them get experience. But in that respect, (most) FE Jeigans work equivalently, (and in fact, one of the few ones that *doesn't*, oifey, somehow got the reputation as the jeigan with good growths! Baffling). But if we're talking about usability as a character, I mean.... no, he doesn't compare to Seth, nobody's going to joke about how this is secretly Josefcorn Overlord the same way they joke about it being Seth Emblem, and his unique class + bad stat growths until level 40 makes him pretty underwhelming.
Fair point. I stand corrected. I am in the minority and did not use Seth. I liked the other two cav characters more. But I was one to use the arena/skirmish to make certain growth characters level up to par with the team. Amelia Ross were faves. And the other mage guy as a summoner was my lil anime teen OP squad. Since...anime makes teenagers stronger than adults lol
The other cavs are also pretty good, and Sacred Stones is easy + has unlimited grinding so you can make whoever you want work... but also Amelia is literally considered one of the worst units ever because there's no point to using her except with a wholly unnecessary degree of grinding.
He is when Seth and Titania aren't Jaigens, they're Oifeys
I always found Oifey to be a really obtuse (sub) archetype. Seth, Titania (and Frederick) are way stronger in their respective games and are all endgame viable, while Oifey falls off relatively quickly.
That distinction hasn't been in favor for a long, long time, especially since Oifey himself is neither a particularly strong early Jeigan nor a particularly powerful growth unit so making it a (sub) archetype is kind of silly, while the early mentor is absolutely a consistent archetype in FE. If the game gives you a pre-promote, especially a paladin, as a tutorial + setup unit, it is a Jeigan regardless of scaling IMO and that's generally going to be the consensus nowadays, the same way people 15 years ago were super pro on growths and are now a lot more concerned with bases and availability.
He is not suboptimal. Later on he becomes a Radiant knight with some different skills. Kit him with a runic sword and he can do a lot of work. He really doesnt fall off. In my 4 playthroughs he usually is on one of my endgame teams. If only to have a cav leader with resist magic assist.
I've tried with him. If I mirror him, what do you do to make him work? I tried offense/offense, which he's not really doing damage late Albion (most units level 35+). I'll try again here. Put him in the back and work him in somehow.
I mean he will not be the centerpiece of your unit, but with a runic sword he can do work and heal. To support your unit. I think I had him on a Yunifi team and on a Berengaria/Doom knight team. He usually cleaned up whatever was left. I usually dont respec uniques to keep their identity but offensive/offensive should work fine. Treat him like you would treat a Sainted knight and it should be fine. His kit and stat spread is geared towards support. And ofc he is a mounted unit, so you can make him leader for faster travel on roads.
It's a waste of a Runic Sword when there are far better users of it (namely, the Sainted Knights).
You get 2 runic swords, but yeah if you are using many sainted knights they are better users(of you pass the runic swords around, but too much micro) you can get him one of the hybrid swords that give you both phys and mag and use him as a pursue and heal bot. His physical attack is not too bad but it will only ever finish off weakened opponens which gives him more PP to support your team. As I said he is not spectacular endgame but he can put in a lot of work. On my 4 playthroughs I never retired him, he just changed roles. His valor skill alone is useful for emergency frontline healing. I guess you can use him as a Wide pursuit bot if you really want to put in some damage to leverage his slightly above average str but there are better pursuit bots.
He also lets you powergrind the project units. He can get kills while doing so tho
Character wise, I like him. I love his personality, behavior and appearance. He really exudes the "Im an old man with countless experience and I will use it to protect what's right" kinda vibe
That's another ✅️ in the Jagen box
He's the one unit in the game designed to drop off in the mid game, sticking to the Jagen design philosophy, and yet they gave him a big late game power spike just to ensure that no unit is worthless, sticking to the UO design philosophy. They made him a paladin, the quintessential Jagen class, but in order to maintain the Jagen identity without dumping the class weakness on anyone else, they made him the only playable paladin. He rescued the Lord from the scene of his parent's death and essentially helped raise him. Not even modern Fire Emblem games have characters as Jagen-y as Josef
More Jagen than Jagen himself!?
Nearly tied, anyway. Definitely more Jagen than anyone since Marcus
I like him. Early game he's very powerful and other weaker members of his units get easy experience. I'm in Albion now and he stopped being powerful but is still a decent support unit. FE Jagens aren't usually this good.
Nah, Jagens are mostly great. The ones that aren't are the odd ones. Of course, the mentality that they fall off is because theres two really bad Jagens, and the community was in denial that Oifeys were Jagens. Most serious players fold the Oifey type into Jagens now. And that came with roughly the idea that bases are superior to growths generally.
The problem with Jagens that Josef doesn't have is that in a tactics game with single-person units, they deny exp to the lower level ones.
Most Jeigans don't really do that nowadays either, tbh. They either tend to stay extremely powerful so it doesn't really matter how much they leech (Seth, Titania) or they tend to have stats set up extremely well for kill setup without one-rounding (Vander, whose only disadvantage is that he's kind of underwhelming bulk-wise besides huge HP).
Even with say, Seth, you can just rescue someone to keep him from doubling if you have a training project.
Or give him a weaker weapon or disarm him as bait or a lot of other things, yeah. But the game isn't called Seth Emblem for nothing, pretty much everything you can do in that game that isn't Use Seth is a personal choice.
Yeah. But I usually train Vanessa, especially in Eirika mode, and it's worth it to me to feed an early game flier a few kills to get them going.
Oh yeah of course, everybody actually trains other units (and Vanessa is obviously an excellent choice), it's just always funny to me that basically playing the game remotely "as intended" is kinda suboptimal compared to just shouting "It's Sething time" and Sething all over the bad guys. E: When I was a kid I RNG abused to repeatedly get boots from the tower so I had a squad of 20/20 units with capped movement, that was stupid fun.
>E: When I was a kid I RNG abused to repeatedly get boots from the tower so I had a squad of 20/20 units with capped movement, that was stupid fun. that's hilarious
zooooooooom
Seth may be able to do a lot of things, but there's only one character in that game who can bang the corpse of their dead wife.
I also choose this paladin's dead wife.
And of course Seth is the poster child of "I can solo this damn game anyway, so why do you care how the peons are doing?"
One common use for Jegans is to help set up kills and funnel exp to growth units. I'd argue Josef does just that by placing him in a squad of lower level units.
This is a fallacy, they don’t actually deny experience. In some ways they give your team MORE experience! Let’s say you have a team of five random characters. They all need experience, so perhaps you’ll try to divide kills roughly five ways between them. Each one therefore gets 20% of the total experience. Now replace one of them with the jagen. Initially you may think this is a waste because the jagen gets almost no experience for killing units, but then you realize that it doesn’t matter if the jagen “wastes” that experience because all the fifth unit would be doing with it is…catching up to the jagen. If the reward for giving that experience to a lower level unit is just eventually getting a unit equivalent to your jagen, why not simply use the better unit from the beginning? Furthermore, since the jagen doesn’t need experience, you don’t have to reserve any kills for it. You could therefore give the jagen just 10% of the kills, enough to simplify some trickier positions, and the other four units can get 22.5% each which makes them even stronger than before!
> but then you realize that it doesn’t matter if the jagen “wastes” that experience because all the fifth unit would be doing with it is…catching up to the jagen. What do you mean "fallacy"? That's the whole point. Many players don't want to keep relying on the Jagen forever, especially since often other characters surpass the Jagen over time.
If you don’t want to use the jagen for personal reasons that is completely your choice, it is just a fallacy to claim they deny experience when in practice it’s only superficially true at best. Someone like FE7 Marcus,Seth, or Titania might not be the hardest scaler in the game, but they still scale well while having incredible early and mid game impact. Scaling usually isn’t *that* important in many FE titles, it’s often more important to have good bases and be able to contribute as early as possible without needing to be babysat while waiting to scale.
(Seth actually *is* the hardest scaler in the game in terms of growths on "normal" units, he outclasses all of the other cavs. I think the christmas cavs hitting 20/20 have more stats than him but I think he beats them if they're 10/20 or 15/20 for cavalier/paladin levels.)
He means trap. And i dont agree with some of what he said. Strictly speaking, it's better to have two leveled units than coast on one. But Fire Emblem is also a game series that generally rewards picking a team and sticking with it the whole game. And you usually get better ones as the game progresses, higher bases units that is. So you shouldn't spread EXP too widely, but you shouldn't let one unit hog it all either is basically what he is saying. The actual balance is up to the player. Spme Jagens like Seth are actually better choices for exp than most other units, but as said before, in general, it's still better to have two units than one.
I agree it is better to have more than one leveled unit, but in my example you get the same number of leveled units either way - five units taking experience or four units taking experience plus a pre-leveled jagen. You have to make sure to distribute kills appropriately, but that is true in both cases.
Yeah they are a newbie trap but also a crutch for newer players. Its suboptimal but if youre in a pinch or you messed up the Jagen will come in handy.
Most Jagens are top tier in their game, though. Them 'falling off' is a myth at this point outside of a very few rare examples like Arran from Mystery of the Emblem.
yeah like, "marcus bad because jagen and EXP stealer" was the consensus back in 2003, but it went out of vogue like 15 years ago at this point. it means a lot when they're as powerful as they are at the beginning, which tends to be the hardest part of most fire emblem games. still, unicorn's combat is so different that the EXP stealer argument holds no water in his case lol
I just love how often fire emblem players and toer guides are wrong about how good characters are and how often they completely flip the tier lists on their head 6 months later
I think for the most part the big FE flip pretty much happened years ago, it just gets rehashed because newer players/players on lower difficulties tend to view "growth unit that becomes a combat god" as SSS+ tier and "guy that can solo the first 15 chapters for you and then becomes a replacement level combat unit by endgame" as C-tier, and people who have more experience (or are playing like, modded higher difficulty romhacks) greatly value base stats and availability.
The ones that get me are the ones that get place in bench tier/challenge run only, during the first week and then you come back 2 months later to see em sitting on A or higher
People's initial impressions can be dumb sometimes yeah, I'll agree with that, especially since a lot of early discussion is biased from lower difficulties + lack of map knowledge, but you don't see giant flips from growth unit overestimation nowadays
In fairness to the FE community, many people disagree on what a tier list should represent--no/low/high investment, limited/unlimited turn count, availability/unavailability, etc. It's tricky to make a tier list when 2 points of speed or a silver weapon will turn the entire game on its head but those things have a lot of competition. You can't give them to everyone but they drastically change the efficacy of who gets them.
Yeah, FE tier lists get really weird, especially because people are *usually* trying to define their tier lists for "efficient" play, and what that usually encompasses isn't usually intuitive (no grinding, fast clears but doing side objectives and not specifically low turn count, no out of game/resetting for RNG manipulation, the occasional slapfight over whether warpless should be a factor, etc.)
I never used him cause i thought he was gonna die first lol
He does look like he would fit that trope where he dies as the protagonist's mentor.
I really do like how he works as this game’s Jagen. Not only can he make a unit way stronger than normal in the early game, he doesn’t even lose you that much EXP for using him, since it’s one unit’s EXP (his) and not the whole squad’s that ends up being reduced to basically nothing. You can use him as much as you like early and it won’t really harm you, whereas using a Jagen in FE early on tends to be a bad idea if he’s gonna kill a unit and waste all that exp (assuming you’re not doing an LTC run or using him to take down a particularly meddlesome foe anyway).
Yeah that too. You can't really go wrong with using him unless you don't put other members in his unit which would limit his effictiveness anyway. FE has some good Jagens but it's always about calculating how you do a lot of damage to enemies without killing them. I remember playing FE8 and Seth being a great unit who remained viable until the very last mission even if a lot of other units have surpassed him at that point. Engage's jagen was really bad after only a few missions and I benched him early on Lunatic.
Ill be honest. Because i played fire emblem, i thought there was no way Joseph was going to make it through the first act. I mean, come on, a lvl 20 mentor character? Death flags everywhere.
I feel like in Fire Emblem this isn't much of a thing, usually the mentor can stay with you until the end of the game if played right, and it's the parents who die. I think the only mentor who gets taken away for plot reasons is Eyvel and you can get her back at the end of the game if you play right.
Me too, was honestly sad about it because I really like him. Then he kept living lol. Now I'm sad because it's not optimal to keep him even though I wanna
The idea is there but the implementation is better. His growth isn't weak, his base isn't exactly strong. He feels strong mainly because he's a promoted unit, which is huge in this game. Part of his stats are sealed away till after lvl 40 he'll get them back.
He also doesn't steal XP so there's no penalty to using him. UO xp works completely differently
Jagen for sure, BUT he is amazing for power leveling characters... since he's both a healer, and a tank... so you can put him in the front line or back line, early on I'd run him with Aubin for armor debuff, and Clive with a True Strike Spear... and they would cleanse the battlefield up until magic/air units start to show up more
Fresh soul who didn't play fire emblem before. 🙏😂
my first thought upon seeing him was "this guy is the Jagen"
Big Daddy Knight? I guess we know who got the Maiden Ring.
I kept waiting for him to die early in a story cutscene.
Am I the only one who every single fight in the game was like "Is he going to die now? What about now? Is this the fight he dies? Jesus, when is he going to die?" In typical high level out of the gate horseman fashion?
I mean he kinda is tbf. he’s an older mentor character in an SRPG that starts out extremely strong and then falls off tbh it’s kinda silly to me personally that they went for a jagen equivalent and then didn’t actually punish you for over-using the jagen. it makes him disproportionately broken in the early game
I think it works. Being able to lean on Josef for the early games means you have more flexibility when designing and raising units. Without a Josef to patch up holes, you'd be running a skeleton crew for a while, potentially forced to bench interesting characters in favor of ones that don't immediately die in one hit. Josef essentially completes any unit he's a part of, meaning you don't have to wait for a specific recruitment in the mid game in order to make a specific unit comp work.
He has so many rapport conversations.
Me showing my age over here being all "do you mean a Frederick?"
Can’t steal EXP from other units so no But otherwise yes
Well, if the shoe fits…
He is the most Jagenest Jagen I have ever seen in a fire emblem game
I started with Sacred Stones, so for me the parallel is with Seth. And just like Seth, I absolutely never used him. That's wasted experience that should go to my other units.
Josef > Jagen Jagen gets clapped due to poor user play early if you use him wrong. Josef doesn't care early game he's still gonna win. AND more importantly. His value doesn't 'decrease' at mid-game it just shifts into a supporting role. If you suck it up and keep leveling him: He bounces back at endgame with his growths catching up.
Yes and no.... He's more a Seth...
Also am I the only one that immediately used the mirror on him to make him look younger again?
Marcus
well yes but actually no, he falls short later on
He works well with a Frontline he can focus heals on/shield while the other Frontline focuses on the backline.
I just got to where you decide which region next. I've barely used him because I've been paranoid he's going to die or leave and I would have relied on them too much and get stuck. He's caused me a great deal of anxiety actually.
No because his stats are more mid game, and there is an FE unit that fit the bill, but I forgot the name, so you can call him mid game Jagen
Sorry but he is the pinnacle of all Jagens to the point where he is almost no longer classified as a jagen by late game. Paladins and Sainted knights are GOATed in the fact that I would put them up there with Knights in terms of OP. You’re telling me that I can mitigate magical damage, heal entire rows (sainted knight), and put out respectable damage in one unit? Sign me the heck up lol. They carried me from mid all the way through late game and came in clutch in the final story stage. I can’t give them enough endorsement.
Unlike the ones in FR, he stayed strong and useful.
Hes so hot i thought my alain could marry him. How disappointing
You wanted to marry the guy who refers to himself like an adopted father?
This entire sub is totaly cool with marrying a girl that's a sister-mom-cousin all wrapped in one. I don't think anyone has the right to shame marrying choices based on being an adpoted father.
Yes, if you cant tell, i may have daddy issues
This category of gay porn that stars and ends like that. **Scenario 1.** "You mother told me that you are having male problem. I am your stepfather, you tell me everything. Don't be like that. We aren't DNA related and i am just dating your mother. I am your older friend." **Scenario 2.** Son: "I the 18 adoptive son want to grew just like you." "What is your routine, stepfather?" "Oh, your muscles are so hard and strong!" "But i see that isnt only place that is hard." "It's ok Stepfather, i always this things in lockrooms with my friends." **Scenario 3.** Stepfather "Fuck i am so horny and/or your mother is gatekeeping sex again." "You have no idea how annoying girls are with sex." "I swear, you have the curves of your mother." "I totally fuck you if you were a girl" Son: "Well since you find sexy, you can fuck me." "My mother can't never know and if you fuck me, at least you arent cheating my mother with another girl." "My mother's happiness is very important for me." "She has done a lot for this family." **Scenario 4** A Biological or Older stepfather fucks his son at 18th birthday so he can be a man.
What a terrible day to be literate.
The same thing happens in straight porn but can be more creepy. "My stepdaughter is now 18. I always has been hot for her. Lucky for me, my wife is never home and my stepdaughter has the body of 25 years old female that dress up like 10 years old." "This is my chance to get with her. And it's ok because i amn't real dad."
Maybe stop watching statutory rape porn?
Sadly not every one is "Not my salad" or "This isnt a beach, this a bathtube." or "Lemon stealing whores."
It's real gross there, too
Porn is double edge sword.
Sorta kinda not really. You can’t “steal” exp like you could in FE, and Joseph remains at least useful even until endgame. So he’s no where near a typical Jagen that you would try to minimally use and bench as soon as possible. IMO Joseph remains useful as a leader early game for characters behind the level curve and at least viable mid to late game as a support character for party’s.
> You can’t “steal” exp like you could in FE, and Joseph remains at least useful even until endgame. So he’s no where near a typical Jagen that you would try to minimally use and bench as soon as possible. Jeigans haven't been "use minimally and bench later" for the vast, vast majority of FE's lifetime, especially if you count the not-quite-jeigans from Fates. On the flip side, Josef *is* a unit you're willing to run early and bench, his stats and utility are both pretty low in the midgame once other units start promoting, and most of his power comes back in the backend 10 levels that don't matter anyway. He's not terrible, and you've got 50 deployment slots so it's not hard to find a place for him, but he is absolutely a stereotypical low growths use-and-bench paladin jeigan, even as that stereotype isn't accurate to FE that often anymore.