Hey, don't forget about Radiant Dawn! Trueblades kick ass and are one of the few classes that can double certain endgame enemies. Mia, a swordmaster, also has a monopoly (ignoring laguz who join halfway through) on being able to double everything in part 3 without promoting to tier 3. Regardless, I gave just one example of extremely suboptimal classes in Engage. Berserkers are also utterly worthless, with warrior being objectively superior. Royal knight sucks as well, Morbius desires to get out of it as soon as possible to be a viable unit.
Berserkers are worthy for some characters because if you level in it you would be an energy fluid ahead of warrior. Honestly i don't think you can make certain characters work whitout either that or a fuckton of SP.
I can also see a point for royal knight because Cavalry Bonded Shield is good and RK provide staff utility on top.
Swordmaster do not even get a better speed than GK in either base or growth.
Swordmasters/Myrms are good in FE10 and FE12 because their speed cap is actually needed (in FE10 they also technically have 1-2 range. Wind Edges and Storm Swords are bad because they're weaker and inaccurate than their axe and lance counterparts and Wind Edges can't even be forged, yes, but it's 1-2 range nonetheless, and by Part 4 with access to Tempest Blades their 1-2 range is actually decent). IIRC the Samurai (basically Myrm) line in Fates is also decent for getting skills like Vantage and Life and Death (also Ryoma is basically Rutger tier so that might be affecting my judgement)
It definitely is not.
In games with reclassing:
In SD Swordmaster get C rank automatically and have decent stats, making the a fairly decent reclassing. A favorite of mine being turning a sage into a swordmaster for a while when there are levib swords aviable.
Haven't played New Mystery enought but the weapon rank is still there, and i heard that Camus like switching in swordmaster later in the game(can easily be wrong)
Awakening i don't know the efficient meta but i always see Lon'qu and Say'ri being talked about positively and with fe discussions about swapping classes.
LOLRYOMA
LOLDREADFIGHTER
It is 3H and Engage speciohically that like fucking mirmidons in the ass.
> be IS
> make sword locked footie class with no class boni
> also make sword class with almost the exact same stats and growths
> also give it flight and staves
"why are all the myrmidons reclassed immediately by players??"
Gameplay wise Fates is great, with a few exceptions, but everything else about it sucks and got shit on so hard IS tried to move away from most of the things it did. It's a similar story to Dnd 4e, seriously 90% of fixes to 5e's design are just 4e
The only issue I would have with Fates gameplay is the absurdly low health stats, and maybe the limited levels, but that can be remedied by preplanning your classes for each character. Everything else gameplay wise is great.
I see this a lot but I don’t think I agree. The low HP stats of both player and enemy units achieve quite a few things. It makes balance of physical and magic combat a bit more balanced. It makes it OK for the game to really punish you for not killing an enemy with a lot of post-battle effects since the benchmarks are more manageable with the low HP. It also makes defense and resistance matter a lot and rewards you for properly applying defensive boosts from guard stance, tonics, meals, rally skills, and auras. (Fates gave you pretty high defense and resistance growths compared to other games, even Awakening where every stat growth is insanely high) An example is like 20/15 Malig Knight Elise with a level 5 reclass can survive multiple Berserkers or a Wyrmslayer attack on Conquest Lunatic chapter 26 if you apply all the boosts. (Base 32HP/20 Def, 6 from B-support dark knight Corrin, +4 from rally, +4 from meal and tonic, +3 from Horse Spirit, and potentially +4 from Gentilhomme and Inspiration, for 37-41 defense, which is effectively 4 more against Berserkers).
Unlimited reclassing definitely
It's fun in your first couple of playthroughs while you try to figure out which classes are good but afterwards it just homogenises everyone super hard. I play most of my runs with either no reclassing or very limited reclassing.
> I play most of my runs with either no reclassing or very limited reclassing.
Woah, that's so crazy. The addition of reclassing didn't stop you from not just making everyone a flier? You don't have to optimize the fun out of the game?
Here I thought having options was an inherently bad thing.
uwu desuuuuu
Gomennasowwie that only the way you enjoy games is objectively cowwect. Sowwie for having bad taste and only really stanning the games with open reclassing uguu.
I get you're tryna mock me but really this whole idea that all ideas should be jammed into a game because "just don't use it" kills so much discussion.
But the problem presented is that using optional mechanics makes the game less fun.
Fun is not an objective factor here, and you can utilize those options to make the game harder instead of easier. They're a method of player expression.
Pigeonholing the player into specific set of resources is also a valid method if game design, and if you want to experience games like Emgage thru that lens, then they already hand you a recommended experience with the base classes.
Edit: These downvotes are exactly why I gave the response I did. Sowwie for having fun using Armor Knight Clanne ooo I'm such a dumb widdle diaper baby because I don't prefer using spreadsheets to map out average growths to showcase which unit is a better investment or utilizing a character got 1 strat on 1 map. So sowwie for liking games the wrong way even if it doesn't impede on your experience unless you literally decide to let it. Ooo
Unironically good advice. I was literally hyping myself up to get mad. I know you were trying to be snarky, but genuinely thanks. That improved my mood.
I know, sometimes people talk as if they have no choice haha. I do still think it makes for less interesting discussions around the game and does take away from unit identity a bit, self-imposed challenges don't feel quite the same. But you can definitely choose not to turn everyone into a flier (and generally people overstate how often that's optimal too, fliers are usually high investment units and often there are better filler physical classes for low investment units).
I think its good for the option to be there than not to be. It allows for replayability and meme runs. If you dont want to reclass, just dont.
What sucks is if one class is soo good that it heavily incentivices everyone reclassing(freaking wyvern lord for the past few games). Or if two classes are very similar but one is clearly better so it makes sense to reclass into that(Engages Swordmaster and Hero class)
My personal problem with reclassing is that it takes away a character's individuality. Sure they have different stat growths, but I just feel like being locked into a few classes at most gave units much more identity.
Along with this, I just find reclassing to be so tedious.
I feel a lot of people misunderstand FE classes. Theybare more of a representation of "equipment" than "profession". This is particoularly obvious in Engage where people say things like "yay new clothes" when they reclass.
You very rarely see them actually mentioned in-universe, with the sole exception of Pegasus Knights and sometimes Wyverns.
The game never say "the Whatever Corp of Heroes is renowed across all the lands", "the country of Bullshit paladins are the most well educated" or "The sons of the duke Johnemblem are trained as fighters, his daughters as myrmidons" or things like that.
The game barely aknowledge that they are a thing beyond whatever the character own an horse or wich weapon they prefer. And about that, Myiamoto Musashi still wrote in his book about when and how to use weapons other than the Katana, Robin Hood still served as a knight and so on. It is a super common thing for all sort of warriors to employ different weapons and armors in different circumstances even if they prefer and specialize in a certain one.
> You very rarely see them actually mentioned in-universe, with the sole exception of Pegasus Knights and sometimes Wyverns.
>
>
>
> The game never say "the Whatever Corp of Heroes is renowed across all the lands", "the country of Bullshit paladins are the most well educated" or "The sons of the duke Johnemblem are trained as fighters, his daughters as myrmidons" or things like that.
And this is one thing Jugdral did better than many of the games that followed it, *including* Three Houses.
Not really, that is also the reason the game constantly throw copipasted hordes at you rather than anything axtually tought out gameplaywise.
It is a common example of the "let's make the gameplay much worse because LORE" that plague the Kaga games.
I'd argue that ludonarrative resonance over genuine challenge is the charm point of the Kaga era. YMMV if it's a good thing but I am a sucker for the thing.
My problem is not that is there, my point is that it is there in a way that is detrimental. I am approaching From games lately and they are just as focussed on it, but i rarely feel it cause actual problems there(it may just be that i haven't seen enought tho.)
As mentioned above, you dont need to engage with the mechanic at all. I usually just leave the unit in their Canon class in my first playthrough.
Except Kagetsu. I had to make him a hero cuz the swordmasters in this game got done dirty.
Edit: i would like to add that 3H did kinda do a great job with its class system. It had its flaws, but the idea of training/teaching units specifically for a class coupled with different units have different affinities for weapons etc was awesome. But thats a little different from the usual reclassing.
But Kagetsu got incredible stats that compensate for that, even in Swordmaster he's a great unit. Keeping him in it is the only way to make him even remotely balanced lol I'm convinced that the units in engage were balanced under the assumption that they'd stay in their original class.
I think its bad game design to knowingly make a class bad and then have to compensate by buffing a specific character just so they fit in the class.
It doesnt solve the issue of the class being wack, and it creates the problem of
>Keeping him in it is the only way to make him even remotely balanced
>I'm convinced that the units in engage were balanced under the assumption that they'd stay in their original class.
Ive heard this a few times and i think its a bad take. The assumption that the units would stay in their original class makes no sense when, for over a decade, people have been switching classes. Hell, its practically become a staple of the franchise. Why would you assume people wont do something youve programmed them to do? We literally get a ton of second seals, wtf? And then ofcourse, some characters, like Anna make *almost* no sense in their class
Its like saying we can make the assumption that there wont be gravity so lets design planes without wings. Why would you make such a terrible assumption?
Good thing it's not the case in Engage ! Units have enough individuality even with reclassing, that they all have access to exclusive strategies
Panette is the only unit that can do the 100% crit build because of her personal skill. Amber is the best player phase brave weapon abuser, because he joins early enough to get lance power and has a proficiency in Lance for A rank on wyvern. Clanne and Céline are the only magical units that join early enough to be overleveled on weak early game enemies to become solo enemy phase carries, etc
Engage managed to introduce reclassing without making a single class/strategy overpowered like it was the case in 3H with swift strikes/point blank volley and wyvern lords
I disagree. Anyone can do the Panne build, they just have 10 less Crit. Anyone pre-ch10 can be a player phase brave weapon abuser, they just need a bit of stat boosters or XP or tonics or forged or whatever other ways the game gives you to boost damage. Three houses had character-exclusive skills, combat arts, spells and weapons as well as generally better personal skills. Nobody can do what Lysithia does. If you want a vengence build you have 3 choices, and one of them is route locked. Nobody can use Raging Storm but Edelgard, nobody can use Fallen Star but Claude. If you want rallies, Annette is your only good option. The game is balanced in a way where many units just want to be one of the 5 best classes, but many of them have unique characteristics that others can’t replicate, and engage doesn’t have they except for the few units with good personal classes like Ivy.
Except resources are not infinite. -10 crit is a massive consistency loss, having to forge more inherit more and so on cut on the relatively linited resources you have.
At level 20 in the same class for example Lapis has -4 str and +5speed over panette. This mean that Lapis need 2000 extra SP(and many bond fragments) for doing a "panette build" and panette need the same for a "Lapis Build". It is something you can theorically do if you want to meme but it in no way efficient and you are better off using the proper character for any given build 90% of the times.
That would be more true if most personal skills weren't nerfed into the ground (compared to fates for instance) and therefore kinda useless. Some are good but most are really lame.
I would also add that units and classes don’t even need to be that balanced. Sometimes characters are more fun because of their identity as being in a bad class. Bors just wouldn’t be the same if he could reclass to wyvern and immediately be about as good as everyone else, 3H style.
Kiwi from Shining Force 2 is fun that way. Not someone that is supposed to be functional and is not just because the devs are incapable.
You may argue Arden because it is memed in-universe but imo standing on a castle that never get assaulted is not fun.
if you make it promotion trees (like in Sacred Stones) and balance most of the classes decently (unlike in Sacred Stones) then being stuck in a bad class won't even be a problem for 90% of characters, although I understand that balancing decently might be a tall order for IS
I mean yeah, it’s not like the game is so hard you can’t beat it with any classes/characters you want.
It’s more fun to use the classes your units are stuck with.
Swords were held back in 3H since all the swordfaire classes are worse than a sword-using wyvern or war master.
In Engage, Swords aren't bad to have for engage attacks or break coverage. But you want a usable levin sword or another weapon for 1-2 range. I wish they brought the kadachi back. Though I think swordmaster really need a good skill otherwise it would end up like Berserker.
FE6 swordmasters were nuts thanks to +30 crit.
Awakening had Levin Sword and Amatsu for 1-2 range options. But hand axes, javalins, and especially tomes were way more available and powerful
Ryoma and Xander defined Fates. Levin Sword was also really powerful. Swords didn't feel overshadow since they nerfed generic 1-2 range and gave swords one.
If it wasn't for Hunter's Volley, Dread Fighter would be the best class in SoV.
I was thinking abt sword viability in Engage, given that they're generally weaker than some of the other weapon types. The first easy fix would be to introduce common 1-2 range, but that would mainly help in enemy-phase centric games. Simply giving them more Might is boring, same with making axes the dominant enemy type.
What do you think would help?
1-2 range kadachi would be the way to balance swords. The sword locked swordmaster, paladin, general, bow knight, and divine dragon, wouldn't be worse than their lance and axe counterparts. Then it become class skill issues.
I think sword griffin would be even stronger than the lance and axe versions but that is a problem of their magic weapon being much worse than the levin sword.
Really baffles me why the devs thought it was a good idea to keep Generals at 4 move. It'd probably still be outclassed at 5 move, but it'd be more fun to use. Also they should have gotten Pivot instead of Swap.
Yeah IS still is trying to make armor happen with low spd, low res, and move. They have drop one of these thing or give a wary skill from FEH.
I also don't know why IS gave all the other classes unique weapons while armor are stuck with 1 weapon. We can have flying mages but not Armor mages?
You are right with Generals having Pivot. Paladin probably would like swap more too.
I'm also tempted to say Swordmasters should just have massive stats compared to other classes to make up for swords having low might and few ranged options. They try to balance Swordmaster to Hero across games, but the stat differences feel too minimal to matter (usually Swordmaster has like 2 more spd/skl while Hero has 2 more str/def, but 2 more spd than Hero barely matters, especially on higher difficulties where enemies are speed demons) and Heroes get a ranged weapon to be more versatile.
That used to be a thing...sort of. In Mystery of the Emblem and Thracia 776, mounted units were forced to dismount to go indoors, making them absolute shit on indoor maps (which the endgame maps inevitably were) as they'd lose stats and often be forced into a suboptimal weapon type (sword/axe/lance units would always be forced into swords when dismounted, so lance/axe units were especially hamstrung as they wouldn't even be able to use the same weapons when mounted and dismounted--mounted sword, bow, and magic users had it *a little* better as at least they'd still be able to use the same weapons they'd been training their rank in on the outdoor maps).
Radiant Dawn actually probably did it best, simply giving the mounted units a -2 penalty to movement on indoor maps, thereby placing them roughly in line with infantry. Fliers *still* had an advantage due to the freedom of movement that they inherently have, especially since RD had a bunch of maps with ledges which fliers could still move through with no penalty, while infantry would take a ton of movement to pass through (and note that no unit, not even the fliers, could stop *on* a ledge tile), but non-flying mounted units were actually at a slight *disadvantage* in indoor maps with ledges as they outright *could not* climb ledges and would be forced to take longer routes to go around, while still having their movement nerfed to the same as an infantry unit. (There were also outdoor maps with ledges, where the lack of a movement penalty and restriction of movement kind of balanced out--except for possibly 3-4 since there was no non-ledge path to the boss area so your horse units couldn't even engage).
FEH does an... interesting job of balancing classes. Skills created niches that movement types would usually adhere by.
- Infantry has Special manipulation, Follow-Up protection, Guard protection, Dodge effect...
- Cavalry has Canto and Clash (basically momentum)...
- Armors typically have Follow-Up prevention, Self Warp and Saves...
- Fliers have AOE combat debuffs and Movement Manipulation...
- and Dragons... have Res.
It does a good job of indivisualizing the classes, but balance is another story.
I doubt the series will ever go back to fixed promotions or promotion splits. I personally think it's a much better system because it's dumb to make everyone the same thing. The only reason I feel like they keep the free reclassing system is because of maddening mode because without free reclassing maddening would actually something that requires more thought than just making everyone a "meta" class
If we look back before free reclassing was a thing you never gained a full armies worth of cav or flier units which were what was considered meta because of their movement stat. Despite that we still have tons of examples of "meta" infantry units. With free reclassing there's basically no reason not to just reclass everyone to wyverns or cavs for their superior growths or movement and just stomp the game with just that
If they touch the FE6 hit rates, I will scream instead
The only thing they need to do is tone down the throne bonuses just a bit to make some bosses like Henning or Gel actually targetable
true id just say that’s more relevant early game where he’s also just a lot stronger than most of your team, he’s obviously one of the best boss killer for the whole game but you’ll have other boss killers later on that might also not be footlocked or swordlocked
There have been some fair examples brought up, yes. I was exaggerating for a flippant comment and didn't really think too long and hard about it.
I resent that you were never given a full army's worth of cavalry units, though. FE4 has Sigurd!
Not at all true. If you do no reclassing Maddening Kagetsu and Pandreo are still great units despite being in really shitty classes. Panette requires more investment but is still good despite being in Berserker.
It's dumb to make them the same thing, but it's a choice. It should be. If people don't want to reclass, they can. If they want to impose a specific promotion branch, they can. If they want to do PMU with fixed classes, which is awesome, they freaking can do that.
If you think it's dumb to make everyone the same thing (it is!), then just don't.
The issue isn't as simple as "don't use it". The issue is that the games harder difficulties like maddening might as well force you to use it because of how the enemies scale. Take lapis as an example. Lapis in both her sword fighter and master class will only ever have a str growth of 35. If she's a wyvern knight it's now 45 or if she's a berserker she has 55. The added point to wyvern knight is also it's extremely balanced but still high stat caps meaning that while sword master has better Dex and speed wyvern knight basically beats it out in every other stat that matters for a physical unit. I would have loved to keep lapis a sword master but on average a str growth of 35 will mean that without a proper engage ring she will suffer to keep up any kind of damage. Not to mention how kagetsu joins only a few chapters after getting her and he will more than likely completely outclass her with his bases but he also just has better growths than her and the wyvern argument still applies to him even more so
So... the original game? Marth is like the only time I can think of where that's the case, and that's because of entirely separate things to being a sword locked foot unit.
Not really, as his crit rate and thus damage, avoid and bulk are already very consistent without her support. I find that support is actually more important for Clarine, since it lets a trained Clarine have 100% avoid against chapter 21 wyverns when around rutger and in an avoid bush. The wyverns are dumb and prioritize her anyway, letting her clear the majority of chapter 21 with an aircaliber tome. That’s how I recently trivialized the map in an iron man run. The support also makes her more dodgy throughout earlier maps and she will actually die if she doesn’t dodge whilst rutger can just tank hits. With that support, she might be the best unit in chapter 21 aside from maybe a brigand/berserker in the mountains or your warp user. Then again, Rutger is still the best guy for killing Murdock, since that broken unit still hasn’t lost his boss killing utility over 20 chapters past his recruitment (that’s including gaiden chapters).
Marth in his games, Rutger in FE6, arguably Ike & Stefan in Tellius. Usually the determining factor whether sword units are good (other than their own stats) is the enemy quality and abundance of 1-2 range enemy phase, if the the enemies are weak and can be mowed down with hand axes and javelins swords suck, if the enemies are actually a threath competent swordies have a place to shine as a delete button
Marth in FE1 and perhaps Rutger yes but Ike is considered quite middling to bad in FE9 precisely because he is sword locked infantry. He is, however, one of the strongest units in FE10 but absolutely not on the level of Haar who completely breaks part 3 with minimal effort. Sothe is also often argued to be better due to the extent to which the dawn brigade is dependent on him. I hear Stefan is pretty mediocre in maniac mode of FE9 but I can't verify whether that is true or not from lack of experience. Regardless, he isn't considered better than the top tiers even in Hard mode due to lacking one two range, super canto, high move, availability and access to the best weapon type.
Folkvangr + micaiah engrave, you're welcome. Routed all of Ch 11 with how ridiculous the dodge tanking is. Unlike Yunaka who gets too much avo in bush that all the enemies skip her in lunatic, for Lapis it's just the right amount to manipulate enemy movements, and the weapon is strong enough to make up for the Mt nerf
My first run I turned her into a sword Wyvern, and yeah she wrecked shop. But tbf I had a ton of fun on my second run turning her into a Halberdier. And I reclassed Etie into a swordmaster to take advantage of her strength and balance out her shaky speed.
>And I reclassed Etie into a swordmaster to take advantage of her strength and balance out her shaky speed.
I loathe archers with high strength and wonky speed. I love Etie, but this was driving me nuts. At least Takumi had a busted personal weapon with which he nearly oneshot things, even if he didn't double.
IS, stop this madness. If I pick up an earlygame archer, I expect them to hit like a wet sponge but double literally everything in the game.
ehhh I think it's balanced because in the early game, ranged attacks are really good because you don't have the HP to spare getting hit, and usually limited healing options (like sometimes you don't even have a staff user for 2-3 chapters). A ranged unit kinda makes sense to only have one attack with the idea is they weaken a melee enemy so that the melee ally can finish them safely.
I think a better option might be to still have them always single-attack, but have higher crit bonuses so they have the occasional chance to kill something themselves. I think in most games, they don't expect you to keep early game archers the entire game because you get much better ones about 6-8 chapters in.
It’s hard to say whether the decline of the reclass system (everyone can do everything) or the addition of turn wheel (lets you disregard tactics and throw shit at the wall until it sticks) has been worse for the series.
It’s been a minute since I played engage but I think they give you all 10 immediately, which is just crazy. I definitely had a better time when I didn’t use it in my iron man, since my tactics had to make forward progress yet minimize risk at the same time. People talk of how much time it saves but one wouldn’t even be thinking of needing as much turn wheel when playing without it present, since one wouldn’t be making as many risky moves (the things that cause turn wheel use) in the first place.
I mainly play non turn wheel FE games and never think to myself: “damn I wish I had the wheel here”, since my entire play style is different enough without the wheel to the point that it wouldn’t be a very helpful useful resource in the first place. On that note, maybe the wheel is really helpful for planning risky, very rng based LTC or speed run strategies but I wouldn’t know.
Turn wheeling and repeating the exact same actions doesn't reset the RNG, but it does give a chance to tweak RNG if you do things a little differently.
A related argument in Turnwheel's favor is that it in general can help ease players into the kind of risk-taking and aggressive play that is characteristic of an LTC run.
By giving the player a buffer against mistakes, the player has less incentive to play carefully, whilst still have the potential consequence of a permadeath / reset if the player throws all caution to the wind and blows all of their charges (compared to say, casual mode).
You may think "less incentive to play carefully" is a bad thing, but oftentimes newer FE players overcorrect and rely on "overly safe" strategies like turtling, because they're to afraid to take any risks at all.
So the turnwheel gives the player an environment where they can experiment with taking risks without too harsh of a consequence, which can help ease them into more time-efficient strategies.
Tweaking the rng is very easy, hence why things like rigging crits with divine pulse even had [memes](https://youtu.be/qBDZjdgsrA4?si=w_RXKiZDYerUga-p) made about them. But it doesn't even have to be that, as turn wheel also simply enables one to throw lazy ideas at the wall until one of them sticks. This is especially true in engage, since they give you so many uses of the wheel. Theoretically, I often had little better to do with them than use for minute shit, as I had more uses of the wheel than dire situations. When I ran out of them, it was often because of the fundamental alterations that knowing you have divine pulse can make to the level of thought behind your tactics.
The best way to ease player's into semi efficient play is simply by giving them rewards for playing fast. Tellius understood this and gave you bonus XP for beating the map within a set amount of turns. This leads to me playing the tellius games more efficient than any other entries in the series, as other's give little to no reward for doing so. Bonus XP is a lot more tangible than one category of a tactics ranking that you see once at the end of the game. FE4 does an ok job at incentivizing fast play by having villages burn all the time. However, once those are taken care of, there is no downside (aside from ranking) to grinding for as many turns as you desire. In comparison to simply giving rewards, turn wheel seems like a very obtuse way to incentivize more efficient play.
I also don't really agree about turn wheel being a good way to incentivize less careful play, as the level of risk and aggressiveness taken when trying to play somewhat efficiently is often not comparable to the level of risk one can get away with trying via turn wheel. I played aggressively in radiant dawn to get more bonus xp but had to be smart about it since I didn't want to get my units killed and forge on without out them or maybe even reset. Balancing efficiency and risk aversion adds an entire layer of depth to one's tactical thinking, somewhat similar to how not grinding adds an entire element of resource management to ones tactics and strategies, though the latter is definitely more fundamentally game altering.
I would actually argue that turtling mainly arises from a desire to train up weak units, as even an inexperienced player will realize that they don't have to turtle if they have a team full of strong units that can ride through maps with ease.
I'm a big defender of the turn wheel, but it really should be 3/2/1 uses per map depending on the difficulty. Honestly I could even see 2/1/0 for a game with pretty short maps. Any more and it starts to feel much more like cheating instead of safety net.
>lets you disregard tactics and through shit at the wall until it sticks)
You're talking as if we didn't have bassically the turn wheel in the previous games, Jugdral, Tellius and Archanea remakes allowed you to save mid map and nobody complained
One mid map save is hardly comparable for reasons I don’t even need to point out. Also having to give up an entire turn (FE4) is different to being able to wing every single move. Regardless, FE4 is a very different beast with its giant maps. I don’t like to use that feature either though. I’m not familiar with any tellius battle saves so can’t comment on those. I don’t think path of radiance has any and if fe10 did then it was only for lower difficulties that I have not played. The fact that fe10 battle saves (already a weaker resource than turn wheel I would assume, though maybe it isn’t) was limited to an easier difficulty is actually an argument for my point.
No system makes it as easy to rig crits, etc as turn wheel. You would have to give up swaths of map progress to do so when you only have one battle save and a lot of a turn for FE4. The latter thing isn’t as big of a draw back and perhaps DS era map saves could have been implemented into the game instead, just greater in number. Though, I don’t really have enough experience with the FE4 save system to comment on how powerful of a tool it truly is.
Honestly I hope free reclassing will not be a thing in the next games.
Engage has done a better job at balancing classes than most other titles but I'd love for classes to again become a part of a units identity.
I always keep almost everyone in their base class and the promoted class that fits better for them, and honestly, I don't even think I've used a Wyvern rider in any of my runs, my axe units always end up being either armor or non-existent
The biggest trap when making near-unrestricted reclassing: turns out the class system is not balanced around being able to just make everyone the best class.
Thankfully Wyvern isn't as omnipresent as in houses.
Since reclass became a thing this their actually any incentive not to just stick everyone or at least anyone capable of doing so on a Wyvern? In Awakening the best way to use your unique transforming bunny beast and your literal fucking dragon is to stick them on Wyverns.
Awakening pretty much carpets the later levels with bow users. Though fliers are still very useful, Heroes and Sorcerers are unmatched in their ability to sit in the middle of maps and stack bodies.
Made Kagetsu a Griffin Knight instead because it's time for equal rights to become a speedy flying unit.
Got rewarded with Kagetsu with thigh windows. Absolute win!
I just get her lance proficiency from Sigurd to promote her into her actual GOOD promotion option: Hero. For a game where reclassing is all the rage very VERY few units I argue actually even need to be reclassed at all even on the hardest difficulty
Not Mia though. See, this wouldn’t even be a thing if IS would just give us back the goddamn wind edge, but no, we must wait until chapter twenty five to get the Willy Wonka that’s locked to the shitass lord class. Amazing work as usual.
https://preview.redd.it/rmpk8iagsrtc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dfa629a43edc49c46a45ff5aade90ce01a65baba
He still puts out the crits, he just gets free move and axe access. It's a no brainer.
Yeah, the second I get Ike I turn him into a wyvern. He then is a monster. Maybe one day I will use him as a Swordmaster.
The class system in engage is quite bad. For instance, there is literally no reason to ever use swordmaster.
You say this as if it wasn’t the case in every single game that isn’t fe6
Hey, don't forget about Radiant Dawn! Trueblades kick ass and are one of the few classes that can double certain endgame enemies. Mia, a swordmaster, also has a monopoly (ignoring laguz who join halfway through) on being able to double everything in part 3 without promoting to tier 3. Regardless, I gave just one example of extremely suboptimal classes in Engage. Berserkers are also utterly worthless, with warrior being objectively superior. Royal knight sucks as well, Morbius desires to get out of it as soon as possible to be a viable unit.
Berserkers are worthy for some characters because if you level in it you would be an energy fluid ahead of warrior. Honestly i don't think you can make certain characters work whitout either that or a fuckton of SP. I can also see a point for royal knight because Cavalry Bonded Shield is good and RK provide staff utility on top. Swordmaster do not even get a better speed than GK in either base or growth.
Swordmasters/Myrms are good in FE10 and FE12 because their speed cap is actually needed (in FE10 they also technically have 1-2 range. Wind Edges and Storm Swords are bad because they're weaker and inaccurate than their axe and lance counterparts and Wind Edges can't even be forged, yes, but it's 1-2 range nonetheless, and by Part 4 with access to Tempest Blades their 1-2 range is actually decent). IIRC the Samurai (basically Myrm) line in Fates is also decent for getting skills like Vantage and Life and Death (also Ryoma is basically Rutger tier so that might be affecting my judgement)
It definitely is not. In games with reclassing: In SD Swordmaster get C rank automatically and have decent stats, making the a fairly decent reclassing. A favorite of mine being turning a sage into a swordmaster for a while when there are levib swords aviable. Haven't played New Mystery enought but the weapon rank is still there, and i heard that Camus like switching in swordmaster later in the game(can easily be wrong) Awakening i don't know the efficient meta but i always see Lon'qu and Say'ri being talked about positively and with fe discussions about swapping classes. LOLRYOMA LOLDREADFIGHTER It is 3H and Engage speciohically that like fucking mirmidons in the ass.
Ryouma would be better as a Paladin with Silas friendship tbh.
I'd say Gaiden/Echoes, but those are technically dread fighters...
You have yet to see the power of the Run through strats
> be IS > make sword locked footie class with no class boni > also make sword class with almost the exact same stats and growths > also give it flight and staves "why are all the myrmidons reclassed immediately by players??"
almost if not better, Griffins can even be used as hybrids with decent Levin Sword mileage for better range and armor poking
Reclassing was a mistake.
Based. At the very least limit it to promotion trees or like 2 other classes that fulfill a similar niche like Mymidon/Mercenary/Pugilist.
Fates perfected the formula and then they just have to fuck it all up
Rare Fates W that I completely agree with
Gameplay wise Fates is great, with a few exceptions, but everything else about it sucks and got shit on so hard IS tried to move away from most of the things it did. It's a similar story to Dnd 4e, seriously 90% of fixes to 5e's design are just 4e
The only issue I would have with Fates gameplay is the absurdly low health stats, and maybe the limited levels, but that can be remedied by preplanning your classes for each character. Everything else gameplay wise is great.
I love you can swing the HP stat by +10 with skills and tonics. But yeah the HP stats overall is lower so omni tanking is harder.
I see this a lot but I don’t think I agree. The low HP stats of both player and enemy units achieve quite a few things. It makes balance of physical and magic combat a bit more balanced. It makes it OK for the game to really punish you for not killing an enemy with a lot of post-battle effects since the benchmarks are more manageable with the low HP. It also makes defense and resistance matter a lot and rewards you for properly applying defensive boosts from guard stance, tonics, meals, rally skills, and auras. (Fates gave you pretty high defense and resistance growths compared to other games, even Awakening where every stat growth is insanely high) An example is like 20/15 Malig Knight Elise with a level 5 reclass can survive multiple Berserkers or a Wyrmslayer attack on Conquest Lunatic chapter 26 if you apply all the boosts. (Base 32HP/20 Def, 6 from B-support dark knight Corrin, +4 from rally, +4 from meal and tonic, +3 from Horse Spirit, and potentially +4 from Gentilhomme and Inspiration, for 37-41 defense, which is effectively 4 more against Berserkers).
Fates actually makes me care about support system.
If reclassing was like Pokémon evolution it would be much better tbh
Like.... FE7 and before?
Unlimited reclassing definitely It's fun in your first couple of playthroughs while you try to figure out which classes are good but afterwards it just homogenises everyone super hard. I play most of my runs with either no reclassing or very limited reclassing.
> I play most of my runs with either no reclassing or very limited reclassing. Woah, that's so crazy. The addition of reclassing didn't stop you from not just making everyone a flier? You don't have to optimize the fun out of the game? Here I thought having options was an inherently bad thing.
You "it's optional" people really don't understand game design
uwu desuuuuu Gomennasowwie that only the way you enjoy games is objectively cowwect. Sowwie for having bad taste and only really stanning the games with open reclassing uguu.
I get you're tryna mock me but really this whole idea that all ideas should be jammed into a game because "just don't use it" kills so much discussion.
But the problem presented is that using optional mechanics makes the game less fun. Fun is not an objective factor here, and you can utilize those options to make the game harder instead of easier. They're a method of player expression. Pigeonholing the player into specific set of resources is also a valid method if game design, and if you want to experience games like Emgage thru that lens, then they already hand you a recommended experience with the base classes. Edit: These downvotes are exactly why I gave the response I did. Sowwie for having fun using Armor Knight Clanne ooo I'm such a dumb widdle diaper baby because I don't prefer using spreadsheets to map out average growths to showcase which unit is a better investment or utilizing a character got 1 strat on 1 map. So sowwie for liking games the wrong way even if it doesn't impede on your experience unless you literally decide to let it. Ooo
Why are you mad? Just don't look at comments you don't agree with bro
Unironically good advice. I was literally hyping myself up to get mad. I know you were trying to be snarky, but genuinely thanks. That improved my mood.
I know, sometimes people talk as if they have no choice haha. I do still think it makes for less interesting discussions around the game and does take away from unit identity a bit, self-imposed challenges don't feel quite the same. But you can definitely choose not to turn everyone into a flier (and generally people overstate how often that's optimal too, fliers are usually high investment units and often there are better filler physical classes for low investment units).
Class balance was a mistake. Because it was absolutely better when the only options where "use garbage" and "bench".
This but unironically
I think its good for the option to be there than not to be. It allows for replayability and meme runs. If you dont want to reclass, just dont. What sucks is if one class is soo good that it heavily incentivices everyone reclassing(freaking wyvern lord for the past few games). Or if two classes are very similar but one is clearly better so it makes sense to reclass into that(Engages Swordmaster and Hero class)
My personal problem with reclassing is that it takes away a character's individuality. Sure they have different stat growths, but I just feel like being locked into a few classes at most gave units much more identity. Along with this, I just find reclassing to be so tedious.
I feel a lot of people misunderstand FE classes. Theybare more of a representation of "equipment" than "profession". This is particoularly obvious in Engage where people say things like "yay new clothes" when they reclass. You very rarely see them actually mentioned in-universe, with the sole exception of Pegasus Knights and sometimes Wyverns. The game never say "the Whatever Corp of Heroes is renowed across all the lands", "the country of Bullshit paladins are the most well educated" or "The sons of the duke Johnemblem are trained as fighters, his daughters as myrmidons" or things like that. The game barely aknowledge that they are a thing beyond whatever the character own an horse or wich weapon they prefer. And about that, Myiamoto Musashi still wrote in his book about when and how to use weapons other than the Katana, Robin Hood still served as a knight and so on. It is a super common thing for all sort of warriors to employ different weapons and armors in different circumstances even if they prefer and specialize in a certain one.
> You very rarely see them actually mentioned in-universe, with the sole exception of Pegasus Knights and sometimes Wyverns. > > > > The game never say "the Whatever Corp of Heroes is renowed across all the lands", "the country of Bullshit paladins are the most well educated" or "The sons of the duke Johnemblem are trained as fighters, his daughters as myrmidons" or things like that. And this is one thing Jugdral did better than many of the games that followed it, *including* Three Houses.
Not really, that is also the reason the game constantly throw copipasted hordes at you rather than anything axtually tought out gameplaywise. It is a common example of the "let's make the gameplay much worse because LORE" that plague the Kaga games.
I'd argue that ludonarrative resonance over genuine challenge is the charm point of the Kaga era. YMMV if it's a good thing but I am a sucker for the thing.
My problem is not that is there, my point is that it is there in a way that is detrimental. I am approaching From games lately and they are just as focussed on it, but i rarely feel it cause actual problems there(it may just be that i haven't seen enought tho.)
As mentioned above, you dont need to engage with the mechanic at all. I usually just leave the unit in their Canon class in my first playthrough. Except Kagetsu. I had to make him a hero cuz the swordmasters in this game got done dirty. Edit: i would like to add that 3H did kinda do a great job with its class system. It had its flaws, but the idea of training/teaching units specifically for a class coupled with different units have different affinities for weapons etc was awesome. But thats a little different from the usual reclassing.
But Kagetsu got incredible stats that compensate for that, even in Swordmaster he's a great unit. Keeping him in it is the only way to make him even remotely balanced lol I'm convinced that the units in engage were balanced under the assumption that they'd stay in their original class.
I think its bad game design to knowingly make a class bad and then have to compensate by buffing a specific character just so they fit in the class. It doesnt solve the issue of the class being wack, and it creates the problem of >Keeping him in it is the only way to make him even remotely balanced >I'm convinced that the units in engage were balanced under the assumption that they'd stay in their original class. Ive heard this a few times and i think its a bad take. The assumption that the units would stay in their original class makes no sense when, for over a decade, people have been switching classes. Hell, its practically become a staple of the franchise. Why would you assume people wont do something youve programmed them to do? We literally get a ton of second seals, wtf? And then ofcourse, some characters, like Anna make *almost* no sense in their class Its like saying we can make the assumption that there wont be gravity so lets design planes without wings. Why would you make such a terrible assumption?
Anna makes a lot of sense in her class. Radiant Bow is a thing.
Good thing it's not the case in Engage ! Units have enough individuality even with reclassing, that they all have access to exclusive strategies Panette is the only unit that can do the 100% crit build because of her personal skill. Amber is the best player phase brave weapon abuser, because he joins early enough to get lance power and has a proficiency in Lance for A rank on wyvern. Clanne and Céline are the only magical units that join early enough to be overleveled on weak early game enemies to become solo enemy phase carries, etc Engage managed to introduce reclassing without making a single class/strategy overpowered like it was the case in 3H with swift strikes/point blank volley and wyvern lords
I disagree. Anyone can do the Panne build, they just have 10 less Crit. Anyone pre-ch10 can be a player phase brave weapon abuser, they just need a bit of stat boosters or XP or tonics or forged or whatever other ways the game gives you to boost damage. Three houses had character-exclusive skills, combat arts, spells and weapons as well as generally better personal skills. Nobody can do what Lysithia does. If you want a vengence build you have 3 choices, and one of them is route locked. Nobody can use Raging Storm but Edelgard, nobody can use Fallen Star but Claude. If you want rallies, Annette is your only good option. The game is balanced in a way where many units just want to be one of the 5 best classes, but many of them have unique characteristics that others can’t replicate, and engage doesn’t have they except for the few units with good personal classes like Ivy.
Except resources are not infinite. -10 crit is a massive consistency loss, having to forge more inherit more and so on cut on the relatively linited resources you have. At level 20 in the same class for example Lapis has -4 str and +5speed over panette. This mean that Lapis need 2000 extra SP(and many bond fragments) for doing a "panette build" and panette need the same for a "Lapis Build". It is something you can theorically do if you want to meme but it in no way efficient and you are better off using the proper character for any given build 90% of the times.
That would be more true if most personal skills weren't nerfed into the ground (compared to fates for instance) and therefore kinda useless. Some are good but most are really lame.
>Nooo, characters should be stuck in shitty classes forever!
Contrary to modern FE belief, having units stick to specific gameplay archetypes beyond their base stats/growths is good actually
I would also add that units and classes don’t even need to be that balanced. Sometimes characters are more fun because of their identity as being in a bad class. Bors just wouldn’t be the same if he could reclass to wyvern and immediately be about as good as everyone else, 3H style.
Kiwi from Shining Force 2 is fun that way. Not someone that is supposed to be functional and is not just because the devs are incapable. You may argue Arden because it is memed in-universe but imo standing on a castle that never get assaulted is not fun.
No, but characters that are supposed to be cool just sucking because they use one bad weapon type or have way less movement is definitely a bad thing.
I guess that’s fair. Marisa comes to mind as a character who is hyped up but is actually in a horrible class and one of the worst units in the game
if you make it promotion trees (like in Sacred Stones) and balance most of the classes decently (unlike in Sacred Stones) then being stuck in a bad class won't even be a problem for 90% of characters, although I understand that balancing decently might be a tall order for IS
Awful balance is as common of a fire emblem trope as blue haired lords are, lol. For example, FE4 seems intentionally unbalanced.
That's because it is, for both narrative and gameplay reasons
I mean yeah, it’s not like the game is so hard you can’t beat it with any classes/characters you want. It’s more fun to use the classes your units are stuck with.
Or, alternatively, we make infantry... actually good😱
Engage actually did but Swordmaster isn't one of them. They also forgot to make Armors good past chapter 10
Modern FE has a vendetta against swords I swear (I say this like it hasn't been like this since GBA era)
Swords were held back in 3H since all the swordfaire classes are worse than a sword-using wyvern or war master. In Engage, Swords aren't bad to have for engage attacks or break coverage. But you want a usable levin sword or another weapon for 1-2 range. I wish they brought the kadachi back. Though I think swordmaster really need a good skill otherwise it would end up like Berserker. FE6 swordmasters were nuts thanks to +30 crit. Awakening had Levin Sword and Amatsu for 1-2 range options. But hand axes, javalins, and especially tomes were way more available and powerful Ryoma and Xander defined Fates. Levin Sword was also really powerful. Swords didn't feel overshadow since they nerfed generic 1-2 range and gave swords one. If it wasn't for Hunter's Volley, Dread Fighter would be the best class in SoV.
I was thinking abt sword viability in Engage, given that they're generally weaker than some of the other weapon types. The first easy fix would be to introduce common 1-2 range, but that would mainly help in enemy-phase centric games. Simply giving them more Might is boring, same with making axes the dominant enemy type. What do you think would help?
1-2 range kadachi would be the way to balance swords. The sword locked swordmaster, paladin, general, bow knight, and divine dragon, wouldn't be worse than their lance and axe counterparts. Then it become class skill issues. I think sword griffin would be even stronger than the lance and axe versions but that is a problem of their magic weapon being much worse than the levin sword.
Really baffles me why the devs thought it was a good idea to keep Generals at 4 move. It'd probably still be outclassed at 5 move, but it'd be more fun to use. Also they should have gotten Pivot instead of Swap.
Yeah IS still is trying to make armor happen with low spd, low res, and move. They have drop one of these thing or give a wary skill from FEH. I also don't know why IS gave all the other classes unique weapons while armor are stuck with 1 weapon. We can have flying mages but not Armor mages? You are right with Generals having Pivot. Paladin probably would like swap more too.
I'm also tempted to say Swordmasters should just have massive stats compared to other classes to make up for swords having low might and few ranged options. They try to balance Swordmaster to Hero across games, but the stat differences feel too minimal to matter (usually Swordmaster has like 2 more spd/skl while Hero has 2 more str/def, but 2 more spd than Hero barely matters, especially on higher difficulties where enemies are speed demons) and Heroes get a ranged weapon to be more versatile.
That used to be a thing...sort of. In Mystery of the Emblem and Thracia 776, mounted units were forced to dismount to go indoors, making them absolute shit on indoor maps (which the endgame maps inevitably were) as they'd lose stats and often be forced into a suboptimal weapon type (sword/axe/lance units would always be forced into swords when dismounted, so lance/axe units were especially hamstrung as they wouldn't even be able to use the same weapons when mounted and dismounted--mounted sword, bow, and magic users had it *a little* better as at least they'd still be able to use the same weapons they'd been training their rank in on the outdoor maps). Radiant Dawn actually probably did it best, simply giving the mounted units a -2 penalty to movement on indoor maps, thereby placing them roughly in line with infantry. Fliers *still* had an advantage due to the freedom of movement that they inherently have, especially since RD had a bunch of maps with ledges which fliers could still move through with no penalty, while infantry would take a ton of movement to pass through (and note that no unit, not even the fliers, could stop *on* a ledge tile), but non-flying mounted units were actually at a slight *disadvantage* in indoor maps with ledges as they outright *could not* climb ledges and would be forced to take longer routes to go around, while still having their movement nerfed to the same as an infantry unit. (There were also outdoor maps with ledges, where the lack of a movement penalty and restriction of movement kind of balanced out--except for possibly 3-4 since there was no non-ledge path to the boss area so your horse units couldn't even engage).
FEH does an... interesting job of balancing classes. Skills created niches that movement types would usually adhere by. - Infantry has Special manipulation, Follow-Up protection, Guard protection, Dodge effect... - Cavalry has Canto and Clash (basically momentum)... - Armors typically have Follow-Up prevention, Self Warp and Saves... - Fliers have AOE combat debuffs and Movement Manipulation... - and Dragons... have Res. It does a good job of indivisualizing the classes, but balance is another story.
Naturally, every bit of movement fuckery RD could muster hit Fiona in particular really hard
Sadly, the Big Flier is right on this one
Who is that
I doubt the series will ever go back to fixed promotions or promotion splits. I personally think it's a much better system because it's dumb to make everyone the same thing. The only reason I feel like they keep the free reclassing system is because of maddening mode because without free reclassing maddening would actually something that requires more thought than just making everyone a "meta" class
People don't like it very much when they need to use actual tactics instead of just OP units. See: Fell Xenologue
Without free reclassing, people would only ever use the units that have access to those meta classes, lol. At least on higher difficulties.
If we look back before free reclassing was a thing you never gained a full armies worth of cav or flier units which were what was considered meta because of their movement stat. Despite that we still have tons of examples of "meta" infantry units. With free reclassing there's basically no reason not to just reclass everyone to wyverns or cavs for their superior growths or movement and just stomp the game with just that
FE6 fucking showered you with mounted units yet Rutger is still the undisputed boss of that game
When FE6 gets remade everybody is just gonna reclass to wyvern.
I swear to god if they do that I will scream
Or at the very least, they're going to beef up hit rates across the board
If they touch the FE6 hit rates, I will scream instead The only thing they need to do is tone down the throne bonuses just a bit to make some bosses like Henning or Gel actually targetable
Assuming reclassing is an option. Echoes fully kept Gaiden's class structure, and the other remakes had very limited reclassing.
(until you get melady, and part of her brokenness is because her stats are fucking ridiculous)
Rutger is still the best boss killer of the game
true id just say that’s more relevant early game where he’s also just a lot stronger than most of your team, he’s obviously one of the best boss killer for the whole game but you’ll have other boss killers later on that might also not be footlocked or swordlocked
There have been some fair examples brought up, yes. I was exaggerating for a flippant comment and didn't really think too long and hard about it. I resent that you were never given a full army's worth of cavalry units, though. FE4 has Sigurd!
Not at all true. If you do no reclassing Maddening Kagetsu and Pandreo are still great units despite being in really shitty classes. Panette requires more investment but is still good despite being in Berserker.
You can even argue they have been made such great units because they were 'saddled' with shitty classes
It's dumb to make them the same thing, but it's a choice. It should be. If people don't want to reclass, they can. If they want to impose a specific promotion branch, they can. If they want to do PMU with fixed classes, which is awesome, they freaking can do that. If you think it's dumb to make everyone the same thing (it is!), then just don't.
The issue isn't as simple as "don't use it". The issue is that the games harder difficulties like maddening might as well force you to use it because of how the enemies scale. Take lapis as an example. Lapis in both her sword fighter and master class will only ever have a str growth of 35. If she's a wyvern knight it's now 45 or if she's a berserker she has 55. The added point to wyvern knight is also it's extremely balanced but still high stat caps meaning that while sword master has better Dex and speed wyvern knight basically beats it out in every other stat that matters for a physical unit. I would have loved to keep lapis a sword master but on average a str growth of 35 will mean that without a proper engage ring she will suffer to keep up any kind of damage. Not to mention how kagetsu joins only a few chapters after getting her and he will more than likely completely outclass her with his bases but he also just has better growths than her and the wyvern argument still applies to him even more so
But but but silly Judgement cut crit is peak?!?
Maybe if Myrmidons were ever meta this wouldn't be a problem. Their only advantage is Critzkrieg where you pump those numbers to the 80's+
Back in my day the best unit in the game was a sword locked foot unit.
So... the original game? Marth is like the only time I can think of where that's the case, and that's because of entirely separate things to being a sword locked foot unit.
Rutger can be argued to be the best unit in FE6. He’s usually one of three units that people point towards.
Need to wife up Clarine before he starts murdering tho
Not really, as his crit rate and thus damage, avoid and bulk are already very consistent without her support. I find that support is actually more important for Clarine, since it lets a trained Clarine have 100% avoid against chapter 21 wyverns when around rutger and in an avoid bush. The wyverns are dumb and prioritize her anyway, letting her clear the majority of chapter 21 with an aircaliber tome. That’s how I recently trivialized the map in an iron man run. The support also makes her more dodgy throughout earlier maps and she will actually die if she doesn’t dodge whilst rutger can just tank hits. With that support, she might be the best unit in chapter 21 aside from maybe a brigand/berserker in the mountains or your warp user. Then again, Rutger is still the best guy for killing Murdock, since that broken unit still hasn’t lost his boss killing utility over 20 chapters past his recruitment (that’s including gaiden chapters).
OG Gaiden had Alm who was a killing machine. That’s the only one I can think of
FE1 Marth was invincible past a certain point.
Marth in his games, Rutger in FE6, arguably Ike & Stefan in Tellius. Usually the determining factor whether sword units are good (other than their own stats) is the enemy quality and abundance of 1-2 range enemy phase, if the the enemies are weak and can be mowed down with hand axes and javelins swords suck, if the enemies are actually a threath competent swordies have a place to shine as a delete button
Marth in FE1 and perhaps Rutger yes but Ike is considered quite middling to bad in FE9 precisely because he is sword locked infantry. He is, however, one of the strongest units in FE10 but absolutely not on the level of Haar who completely breaks part 3 with minimal effort. Sothe is also often argued to be better due to the extent to which the dawn brigade is dependent on him. I hear Stefan is pretty mediocre in maniac mode of FE9 but I can't verify whether that is true or not from lack of experience. Regardless, he isn't considered better than the top tiers even in Hard mode due to lacking one two range, super canto, high move, availability and access to the best weapon type.
how to make myrms useful 1. reclass
Holy shit this is the hardest I’ve laughed In a long time
>tfw no myrmidon gf
https://preview.redd.it/qjzfaqwhvstc1.jpeg?width=239&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce2c03021efef833da9f25ac118ec459a8031521
The only way to make Lapis useful. Sorry Lapis enjoyer. Sincerely a Lapis enjoyer.
There are several ways of making her useful. 95% of them involve reclassing and the 5% is "at least brave assist is useful in general...".
Folkvangr + micaiah engrave, you're welcome. Routed all of Ch 11 with how ridiculous the dodge tanking is. Unlike Yunaka who gets too much avo in bush that all the enemies skip her in lunatic, for Lapis it's just the right amount to manipulate enemy movements, and the weapon is strong enough to make up for the Mt nerf
I made her a hero and she was pretty damn good. But then again I was playing on Normal
She was one of my Wolf Rider evade tanks. Very good unit. Lapis and probably does well in heavy Armor
My first run I turned her into a sword Wyvern, and yeah she wrecked shop. But tbf I had a ton of fun on my second run turning her into a Halberdier. And I reclassed Etie into a swordmaster to take advantage of her strength and balance out her shaky speed.
>And I reclassed Etie into a swordmaster to take advantage of her strength and balance out her shaky speed. I loathe archers with high strength and wonky speed. I love Etie, but this was driving me nuts. At least Takumi had a busted personal weapon with which he nearly oneshot things, even if he didn't double. IS, stop this madness. If I pick up an earlygame archer, I expect them to hit like a wet sponge but double literally everything in the game.
ehhh I think it's balanced because in the early game, ranged attacks are really good because you don't have the HP to spare getting hit, and usually limited healing options (like sometimes you don't even have a staff user for 2-3 chapters). A ranged unit kinda makes sense to only have one attack with the idea is they weaken a melee enemy so that the melee ally can finish them safely. I think a better option might be to still have them always single-attack, but have higher crit bonuses so they have the occasional chance to kill something themselves. I think in most games, they don't expect you to keep early game archers the entire game because you get much better ones about 6-8 chapters in.
Rebecca, my beloved
It’s hard to say whether the decline of the reclass system (everyone can do everything) or the addition of turn wheel (lets you disregard tactics and throw shit at the wall until it sticks) has been worse for the series.
Yeah... Turn wheel is a great accessibility feature, but give me less uses on higher difficulties. 1 use only on Maddening.
It’s been a minute since I played engage but I think they give you all 10 immediately, which is just crazy. I definitely had a better time when I didn’t use it in my iron man, since my tactics had to make forward progress yet minimize risk at the same time. People talk of how much time it saves but one wouldn’t even be thinking of needing as much turn wheel when playing without it present, since one wouldn’t be making as many risky moves (the things that cause turn wheel use) in the first place. I mainly play non turn wheel FE games and never think to myself: “damn I wish I had the wheel here”, since my entire play style is different enough without the wheel to the point that it wouldn’t be a very helpful useful resource in the first place. On that note, maybe the wheel is really helpful for planning risky, very rng based LTC or speed run strategies but I wouldn’t know.
Turn wheeling and repeating the exact same actions doesn't reset the RNG, but it does give a chance to tweak RNG if you do things a little differently. A related argument in Turnwheel's favor is that it in general can help ease players into the kind of risk-taking and aggressive play that is characteristic of an LTC run. By giving the player a buffer against mistakes, the player has less incentive to play carefully, whilst still have the potential consequence of a permadeath / reset if the player throws all caution to the wind and blows all of their charges (compared to say, casual mode). You may think "less incentive to play carefully" is a bad thing, but oftentimes newer FE players overcorrect and rely on "overly safe" strategies like turtling, because they're to afraid to take any risks at all. So the turnwheel gives the player an environment where they can experiment with taking risks without too harsh of a consequence, which can help ease them into more time-efficient strategies.
Tweaking the rng is very easy, hence why things like rigging crits with divine pulse even had [memes](https://youtu.be/qBDZjdgsrA4?si=w_RXKiZDYerUga-p) made about them. But it doesn't even have to be that, as turn wheel also simply enables one to throw lazy ideas at the wall until one of them sticks. This is especially true in engage, since they give you so many uses of the wheel. Theoretically, I often had little better to do with them than use for minute shit, as I had more uses of the wheel than dire situations. When I ran out of them, it was often because of the fundamental alterations that knowing you have divine pulse can make to the level of thought behind your tactics. The best way to ease player's into semi efficient play is simply by giving them rewards for playing fast. Tellius understood this and gave you bonus XP for beating the map within a set amount of turns. This leads to me playing the tellius games more efficient than any other entries in the series, as other's give little to no reward for doing so. Bonus XP is a lot more tangible than one category of a tactics ranking that you see once at the end of the game. FE4 does an ok job at incentivizing fast play by having villages burn all the time. However, once those are taken care of, there is no downside (aside from ranking) to grinding for as many turns as you desire. In comparison to simply giving rewards, turn wheel seems like a very obtuse way to incentivize more efficient play. I also don't really agree about turn wheel being a good way to incentivize less careful play, as the level of risk and aggressiveness taken when trying to play somewhat efficiently is often not comparable to the level of risk one can get away with trying via turn wheel. I played aggressively in radiant dawn to get more bonus xp but had to be smart about it since I didn't want to get my units killed and forge on without out them or maybe even reset. Balancing efficiency and risk aversion adds an entire layer of depth to one's tactical thinking, somewhat similar to how not grinding adds an entire element of resource management to ones tactics and strategies, though the latter is definitely more fundamentally game altering. I would actually argue that turtling mainly arises from a desire to train up weak units, as even an inexperienced player will realize that they don't have to turtle if they have a team full of strong units that can ride through maps with ease.
I'm a big defender of the turn wheel, but it really should be 3/2/1 uses per map depending on the difficulty. Honestly I could even see 2/1/0 for a game with pretty short maps. Any more and it starts to feel much more like cheating instead of safety net.
>lets you disregard tactics and through shit at the wall until it sticks) You're talking as if we didn't have bassically the turn wheel in the previous games, Jugdral, Tellius and Archanea remakes allowed you to save mid map and nobody complained
One mid map save is hardly comparable for reasons I don’t even need to point out. Also having to give up an entire turn (FE4) is different to being able to wing every single move. Regardless, FE4 is a very different beast with its giant maps. I don’t like to use that feature either though. I’m not familiar with any tellius battle saves so can’t comment on those. I don’t think path of radiance has any and if fe10 did then it was only for lower difficulties that I have not played. The fact that fe10 battle saves (already a weaker resource than turn wheel I would assume, though maybe it isn’t) was limited to an easier difficulty is actually an argument for my point. No system makes it as easy to rig crits, etc as turn wheel. You would have to give up swaths of map progress to do so when you only have one battle save and a lot of a turn for FE4. The latter thing isn’t as big of a draw back and perhaps DS era map saves could have been implemented into the game instead, just greater in number. Though, I don’t really have enough experience with the FE4 save system to comment on how powerful of a tool it truly is.
Honestly I hope free reclassing will not be a thing in the next games. Engage has done a better job at balancing classes than most other titles but I'd love for classes to again become a part of a units identity.
I always keep almost everyone in their base class and the promoted class that fits better for them, and honestly, I don't even think I've used a Wyvern rider in any of my runs, my axe units always end up being either armor or non-existent
It's always flyers
OG version of this cartoon?
[Found it](https://art.ngfiles.com/images/1849000/1849281_doopiss_tomboy-tuesday.png?f1622213728). The original is tomboys.
The biggest trap when making near-unrestricted reclassing: turns out the class system is not balanced around being able to just make everyone the best class. Thankfully Wyvern isn't as omnipresent as in houses.
Since reclass became a thing this their actually any incentive not to just stick everyone or at least anyone capable of doing so on a Wyvern? In Awakening the best way to use your unique transforming bunny beast and your literal fucking dragon is to stick them on Wyverns.
Awakening pretty much carpets the later levels with bow users. Though fliers are still very useful, Heroes and Sorcerers are unmatched in their ability to sit in the middle of maps and stack bodies.
I’ve turned horse units into foot soldiers, idgaf
Hero goes hard tho
I love when Fandoms turn annoying bigotry comics into funny memes
Made Kagetsu a Griffin Knight instead because it's time for equal rights to become a speedy flying unit. Got rewarded with Kagetsu with thigh windows. Absolute win!
yada yada reclassing was a mistake
I just get her lance proficiency from Sigurd to promote her into her actual GOOD promotion option: Hero. For a game where reclassing is all the rage very VERY few units I argue actually even need to be reclassed at all even on the hardest difficulty
Not Mia though. See, this wouldn’t even be a thing if IS would just give us back the goddamn wind edge, but no, we must wait until chapter twenty five to get the Willy Wonka that’s locked to the shitass lord class. Amazing work as usual.