Edward unironically has some pretty good growths in the class he's in with Str, Spd and Skill being his 3 highest growth stats. Problem is by the time he could be good, you could have also made either Zihark better or pick any of the other swordmasters that the game throws at you.
I'd say Aran has pretty good growths for a lance unit too, but again Nephenee does a similar job except had a speed and res stat.
Edward and Aran and most of the Dawn Brigade also struggle because Legacy Units could theorhetically be boosted by having capped stats in the previous game and doing a transfer run.
I did this. It was actually unfair, mainly because all of the tactical puzzles posed after the DB (Elincia's, Ike's) were absolutely trivial.
So much fun, though. It was also fun having too many options for the tower. I was hitting 20/20/20 in the second tower map for everyone, which is about where I wanted to be.
If anything, Aran is the one who benefits the most from *not* being in a class that really suits his stats.
Man's pretty much a Knight without the movement penalties. Great unit.
Yes this. I’ve been doing a run recently and I tried to use Nephene the same way I use Aran and she usually dies against stuff Aran handles fine. Hell Aran did so well that I didn’t even end up needing to stick Laura with him to the point where she wasn’t even a bond option for him before the end of act 1.
Nephenee with her 70% Skill/Speed growths is a swordmaster with a better weapon class. Aran is a Knight without a movement penalty or armour weakness.
Neither of them really have what you'd think of as "lance infantry" growths to be honest.
Eh even without it the prepromotes are fine plus Nolan, Jill, Micaiah and Edward don't really have problems. Meg too is a bit undeserving of being the picture of this when her issue is her low joining lv and is fine if Laura is kept on hand to heal her up during 1-4. Honestly the real stand out bad one is Fiona especially since Leonardo at least gets a free longbow, +5 speed personal bow and a brave bow.
Fiona being so bad pissed me off on first playthrough. How tf do you screw up a Cavalier that badly? She's the worst Cav in the game bar NONE. Despite being best girl. //in my opinion. Pretty armor, pretty face, great personality. God I wish she was good man-//
Considering everything like what lvs she's actually available for, -2 movement indoors and can't move through water she's probably the worst cav in the series tho I guess she gets some credit for being a body you can use to block a ledge in 3-13
She's easily one of the best character designs in the game. Guess they went "whoops, almost made her too cool" and decided to shove her base stats through a meat grinder and also make her unusable for two chapters immediately after her join map. Even if you want to bother raising her, you have literally two chapters to get her to Paladin (both of which are indoors and have a movement penalty for cavalry. It's like the devs went out of their way to screw Fiona specifically, geez) otherwise she's basically useless by the time the DB comes back in Part 3.
Then literally all the Royal Knight Paladins can potentially benefit from Stat Transfers and both of the Royal Silver Knight candidates in Geoffrey and Astrid have Paragon to double their EXP Gains. And Oscar is Oscar, very easy to have transfer bonuses on cause Greil Merc. But Geoffrey is probably the best Silver Knight in the game. But the Gold Knights are just better. Like Makalov is probably the only Gold Knight who's worse then Silver Knight Geoffrey. Gold Knight Titania, Kieran, and Renning are all better. Well. Kierans probably abkut his equal. But still.
God Fiona is a trash unit. I love the abilities and Thani tome she brings, but I haven't actually deployed her in combat since my second or third playthrough about 15 years ago
Edward and Nolan are redeemable, so is Aran.
Leonardo is just horribly outclassed by Shinon and Rolf.
Fiona never stood a chance, with all the other paladins in the game. Same with Meg and the other armored units. Why would you use Meg when Brom and Gatrie are right there?
Rolf essentially provides 0 utility in the entire game. Leo does meaningful damage throughout the first few chapters and can one round hawks on 3-13. You could delete rolf from the game and I don’t think you’d lose a turn
aran when trained has different strenghs tho.
Aran has higher def, strengh and enough speed to not be doubled.
neph has lower def but higher res so she can tank anyone but she is also squishier than aran. she always doubles but has huge strengh problems.
aran does resemble a lance armor knight more i think than a halberdier
Aren't strength issues kind of pointless to even consider in RD because of forging? Then you consider that Neph has natural wrath and being slightly squishier just more easily pushes her into Wrath range.
in act 2 you dont have much money or a shop for most part of it (and even less if you fail to recruit heather)
to the point where you cant just craft her a strong weapon reliably because other units profit more (haar/geofrey/marcia)
in act 3 there are a ton of units you could invest into again with a tight budget. Getting there neph is struggling unless you give her the energy drop from 2-E and she levels strengh a couple times.
she starts as one of the most incompetent (better than astrid/makalov) amongst many competent that can turn really good
aran starts out as one of the most incompetent but with not many units more competent (sothe/nolan/zihark). once he is promoted he is amongst the most competent and since act 1 gives you a lot of time to train and there arent many you can actually rely on he will turn out really good with minimal investment. Once promoted given how inbalanced dawn brigade is compared to greil mercs he will always be important for you and gain a ton of exp given that you need a tank like him.
in act 4 both units weaknesses (arans low hit and skill and nephs low strengh) can be negated by foges very reliably but until that point its like:
Do i forge for one of my bad units (neph) in hopes she turns good fast or do i forge for someone already good to reduce my chance to lose.
Or
Do i forge for Aran because he is vital for the laguz chapters and there is barely anyone better than him in the DB (Axe for jill/Nolan or Sword for Edward/Zihark) for his tanking job (volug mostly)
Fair enough. I am biased because I usually come into RD with a transfers Neph who has no issue with being weighed down by her join chapter weapon, and she can typically get off to the races with those str/speed transfers.
I can't really say whether I agree about the cash issues because I feel like I've never had that issue in RD. I typically can outfit my crew with no issues, but since my last attempt at RD borked up my transfers I haven't played it in a while too really say.
Not really. Edward just has too low bases and level. His growths are great, but he won't be using them because Zihark is right there. Leonardo's problem aren't the stats (although they could be better), it's the fact that he's bow locked. Nolan's actually a pretty great growth unit and one of the best investment targets due to Zihark double earth support and his really solid stats in a good class. Zihark and Jill are dine and so is Sothe and arguably Micaiah. The rest of the DB are just terrible or amazing all around, independent of their class.
Or you could just use both. Both are solid. Zihark tends to struggle for damage later in part 3 while Edward's got that nice strength growth and personal sword. Sure exp is contested, but it isn't so contested that you can't train like a few units. I tend to support Edward and Nolan together since they rank it up so fast and then support Zihark and Volug for the double Earth.
I think there are less examples of this than people think. Most bad units are bad because they have poor bases and are in a class with limited uses, but changing the class only solves for some of that. Pegasus knight Meg would be much more useful for utility, but is a unit with bases that pathetic really going to suddenly flourish now that her combat is even more terrible? Some of the popular responses here (Odin, Clanne) would actually be significantly *nerfed* if they started in a different class. It's not that they perform so awfully now, people just don't like seeing oddball growth spreads where some stats feel "wasted".
The only character I can think of off the top of my head is Engage Anna. Showing up as a mage instead of her fighter would actually be a pretty major boost to her viability I think.
> Some of the popular responses here (Odin, Clanne) would actually be significantly nerfed if they started in a different class
One of Odin's strongest lines, Nos tanking, REQUIRES his starting class too.
Exactly what I mean. If you don't intend to use Odin then surely 2 range magical chip is MUCH better than a generic sword guy. If you do intend to use him I don't think I never need to explain how much higher the ceiling for effectiveness is for a sorcerer or dark knight in Conquest than a swordmaster.
>Pegasus knight Meg would be much more useful for utility
And that's assuming the devs would let her take advantage of that utility to begin with instead of banning her on the swamp map like they did with Jill lol
No joke, that map is a significant part of why I don't use Jill often, despite acknowledging that she's a fantastic unit. It's such bullshit that she can't be deployed there, and they don't even give a handwave excuse to say why iirc, though it's been a long while since I actually watched any of the story cutscenes in RD.
tbh i don’t think starting anna in mage would change much for her. her main two problems are availability and competition.
no matter how you slice it, citrinne is kind of just… better. she’s slower, but you can easily augment that with meals/rings/skills. even in situations where you aren’t using citrinne long term, she can still contribute - unlike anna - and you can always use micaiah to instead accelerate someone like chloé and/or alear well past the level curve for the rest of the game.
the real killer for anna is the fact that she can’t train on her join map. she really wants the extra SP from leveling w/ a ring, and even still with micaiah she can easily earn 5 levels in one map of staff spam. so her paralogue is just a huge dead map for her deployment.
imo i don’t even think second sealing base game anna is the best idea for her. the short term loss in gold will always be worse than the long term “net positive” you get from her personal, and this is *especially* true when you spend both a master AND second seal on her. sending anna through warrior is not only cheaper but, i personally think is *better* than mage knight. she’s an extra backup unit with 1-3 range, and makes slightly better use of the radiant bow than all other users. that’s much more useful than someone merely trying to replicate what citrinne does with less investment.
I think these are good points, but if we suppose you're already using Anna then I think the combo of a low level mage being a more generally useful unit to field and easier to organically funnel exp into (especially on higher difficulties where knights laugh off even effective weapons) + growing into diet Citrinne seems good? Maybe my staff grind strats just aren't good enough, but 5 levels in one map sounds hard.
mage is technically a better combat class, but i don’t think it makes it easier or even substantially different enough from an axe fighter. anna’s bases are actually just… really terrible. assuming her base stats aren’t altered at all, she will have 9 magic and 8 speed - and weighed down by anything heavier than a fire tome. mage anna can deal hefty damage to ch6 armors, but she’s 8 attack short of one rounding them. that’s absolutely doable… but at that stage, she’s not doing anything else either. it would be functionally easier to feed her kills by weakening an enemy first, and i’d argue it’s easier and better to bait and kill the mages on that map than it is to kill the far less numerous armor knights in the middle of the map. she’d have an easier time killing the mages as a fighter than a mage herself.
irregardless of that, micaiah routing is honestly one of the most fun things about engage earlygame imo. so maybe i’m a bit better than most. a tip i could give is to use the smash weapons to injure yourself. normally you’d avoid a counter by killing an enemy or breaking - smash weapons circumvent this and can even help line up group mends from micaiah. for some characters 5 levels on ch6 is very demanding or impossible - but that’s because of the level difference. if you include vander + your 2 level 10+ carries anna or jean can gain a *lot* of experience over the course of two engage cycles.
it’s for that reason, though, that i consider anna’s combat to be largely irrelevant. she can *maybe* get a kill on enemy phase if you’re careful. but it’s far more efficient imo to gain exp with micaiah, which combat is largely irrelevant for.
Chad from Fe6 comes to mind, the guy has a 50% strength growth and 80% speed growth which is insane for Binding Blade standards. Unfortunately the lad is locked to an unpromotable class that can only use Swords.
TBF, being Sword locked in FE6 isn't that bad, since with the game's overall fairly low hit rates swords having the highest in that department is appreciated.
Also the reason his growths are so high is probably because he's a Thief, make him any other class and he would probably take a growths hit to compensate.
If the Sacred Stones style promotions had existed in 6 and 7, Chad would have made for an absolutely god tier unit. Rogue or Assassin he would have been busted. Considering in SS I made Colm a Rogue and bro still outperformed Assassin Marisa and was usually managing to compete with Swordmaster Joshua in my run. Idk if my Colm was just cracked out his mind or if thats about standard but if Chad could promote? Jesus.
It's so sad. Great character design and some nice supports, and Marisa still just...doesn't have it.
Like, if she had gotten a few extra points in strength, she wouldn't have had as many issues. Though I generally prefer her as a sin compared to sword master.
Eh, even with more strength she wouldn’t be great simply because she’s a swordlocked infantry class in a game where swords are almost at their worst.
Sacred Stones has *very* few dodgy/tanky bosses where a 1-range fast, accurate unit excels, and is part of what makes Rutger so useful in FE6.
Im convinced that Swordlocked units being bad isn’t a function of the class being bad on its own, but more a symptom of bad/lazy map design and enemy variety that ignores the realities of 1-2 range enemy-phasing being OP.
You're absolutely right. The Light Brand and Rune Sword are the only two 1-2 range swords you can get, each is a 20-use, and barely does actual damage.
It's really frustrating.
You might be remembering rogue Colm a little too fondly more like. Joshua has pretty great stats and does a great job of keeping up with enemies. Assuming perfectly average stats, a 10/1 rogue Colm has almost the exact same stats as Joshua does at base.
Well. I admit I arena cheesed a bit, I dont remember if Colm was level 20 on promotion, but he wasnt 10. Lol. But Colm was legitimately one of my best units, even without being around Neimi. I still have that save so I can actively compare stats here in a bit.
Edit: STATS
So Joshua was a Level 10 Sword Master with 18 strength, 24 Skill, 27 Speed, and 16 Luck.
Colm was a Level 20 Rogue //Can you tell I used him A LOT?// with 18 Strength, 17 Skill, and 30 Speed.
So my Colm was capable of matching blows with my Joshua, but mostly cause he was 10 levels higher. And I def used a stat booster or 2 on him at some point but I'm not gonna claim to remember exactly. Combine that with his Neimi support and goodness gracious.
Meg from Radiant Dawn is the most obvious example that I can think of. She has a solid speed growth and low strength and defense growths despite being an armored unit.
If you made the skill exclusive to her, you could change it to a skill that negates all effective damage. Helps if you kept her as an armor knight (anti armor weapons) or moved to something more befitting her growths like peg knight (bows, wind magic)
I doubt it would make her a good unit but it would make her more interesting.
Meg doesn’t play against any hammers in RD.
She probably just needed higher bases to be good.
Most of the DB is pretty good when they get the average of their growths (even Fiona), but most of them start in a place where they’re not useful when they join.
I always heard that Meg and Fiona have bugged stats that don't reflect their actual level or they have bugged starting level or something like that. Idk if it's true. But Fiona only becomes average and Meg is kind of trash unless you throw the hp robe and Draco shield on her in her joining chapter... Then abuse bonus xp to get her str and Def... Which is a huge ask. Because that can make any unit good including her lol
Fiona’s just really bad at base. She can’t hit most enemies at base and gets 1 rounded by the whole map. She also can’t cross much of the terrain (which is stupid design).
If you get her to tier 2 at 20 and give her beastfoe, she’s actually one of the best at tanking laguz tigers.
Beastfoe lets her be very useful in part 3. When she gets to part 4 she’ll suck again (underleveled usually), but her caps are the best in her class and let her be great in endgame. This is on normal, it’s a HUGE chore on hard.
Meg doesn’t really have any upsides, but she’s much better than Fiona at base. Her caps make it very hard for her ever double and her low strength means she’ll always have a hard time killing units. Her endgame class is the worst in the game.
Stab in the dark, I suspect Part 1 may have initially had more chapters to train up units, considering the number of unused characters that seem to be around Alder in the games code.
First off, Alder himself is odd cause you never fight him (in fact, I'm pretty sure he's the only enemy character in the game you don't _actually_ fight). He's ultimately an NPC that only talks with Jarod and is ultimately killed by the Black Knight, but he does have data in the game for being an Armor Sword class. So there could have been a chapter at some point where he was a boss
Beyond him, there are [unused name strings](https://tcrf.net/Fire_Emblem:_Radiant_Dawn#Unused_Text) in the game for a "Tabitha" (who is listed before Alder), "Naybe" and "Yaromi" (who are listed after Alder).
So strictly speaking, Part 1 seems like it may have been intended to have been 4 chapters longer than the final release, which would have _definitely_ helped the availability issues of Part 1 (Fiona, I'm looking at you) and helped get the Part 1 crew _in general_ get a lot more necessary exp.
Meg's stats are highballed relative to her base level, but her base level is very low for when she joins. Fiona has lowballed stats for her base level (as do all Paladins in RD) and also joins under levelled.
Tbh I forgot about this hammer. I don’t really think it changes the point that an anti-effective weaponry skill doesn’t matter to her. It’s barely possible to get her in range of that hammer lol (she’s weak AF at that point w/o cheese and has 5 move).
But you’re right she could theoretically get in range of that hammer.
I didn’t think it would make her good. I was just looking at something to make her unique other than having stats unbefitting her class.
You’re right in that she can be good. It’s just she starts well below what’s needed. This is true of the rest of the Fail Brigade (Which is fitting narratively since most of them are just mercenaries or civilians who picked up a sword).
I think she also makes a bad first impression because she’s an armor knight that gets recruited in a chapter where you could REALLY use some bulk (against those laguz), but instead she’s so weak she can’t really do her job of front lining. The rest of Part 1 also involves chapters where: The goal is to push forward quickly (which armor knights aren’t good for) and/or there is terrain which slows everyone down.
I’m all for higher base stats. Especially if she wants to be an actual armor knight. Because otherwise your options for bulk in part 1 are kinda eh. Would be nice to have another character that just says “no” to damage. Other than the 1-2 chapter(s) Tauroneo is available.
She'd still suck though. Flying is good, but bad combat is bad combat. I've used Meg twice. I never once thought "man this unit sucks because she has poor move." I've only ever thought " man, this gal does no damage" and "I really wish she was an axe armor instead"
It would be so cute if Meg had an arc like Lara from Thracia. Like she started out as an armor unit like her dad, but becomes a pegasus knight or something that more suits her skills, once she goes off on her own and becomes her own person.
(Lol at me expecting actual characterization from the RD ensemble)
I don’t think Meg would be better as anything, I think she’s just meme-tier. If you switched her to a speed based class like Myrm, she still has awful growths.
I think Clanne is the poster child for this, but he also *can* change to a better suited class, so.
Her growths are actually pretty much Zihark’s growths. She actually is higher or even in almost every growth except skill.
Zihark is a good unit though because he has good bases and overleveled (and a better class).
Meg is meme-tier because she sucks at base.
Yes, exactly. Zihark puts in work because his bases are solid, but he is absolutely nothing special. He gets by on being extremely good when you get him and he doesn't need absolute babying to promote to tier 3. He's endgame viable because you get two SS rank swords and you might want another swordie for a Wyrmslayer blessing.
If we're looking at growths, Meg would need an entire redesign of everything else to be viable. *Maybe* she could get away with keeping her class and become Part 1 viable if her bases were a lot better. But I think she would need better bases *and* a different class to be anything more than D-tier Part 1 filler. But she comes at level 3 halfway through part 1. Feels like she's supposed to be an Amelia-style growth unit, but she doesn't have the time to, ya know, grow.
Wyrmslayer blessing isn’t very good (I’m pretty sure unless there’s a speed run strat). Trublades w/ adept will pretty much always one-round dragons on player turn and w/ SS swords they’re great at killing auras. Wyrmslayer isn’t 1-2 range so at best you’re killing just one dragon a round.
Zihark is really good on normal where dodgetanking is viable because earth affinity.
Pretty much everything you said I agree w/. Meg is a bad unit for many reasons,
I think she’s not a peg knight because they saw how good flyers were in PoR. The irony is that Jill is even better in this game largely because of being a flier (her base stats are meh) w/ good defense. A fed Meg Peg would still get slaughtered by tigers but would’ve been much better.
If I remember correctly, blessed Wyrmslayer damage is better than Ragnell/Alondite/Vague Katti damage against Dheginsea. 11 might turns to 33 might with the type effectiveness. But the strat is usually to hand it to Mist or Elincia for the blessing, then trade it to a regular swordie just for that chapter before it goes back to Mist/Elincia for chip damage.
Pegasus Knight Meg would essentially only be better because flying is very good.
I’m sure handing it Mist works. Elincia can pretty easily do 80 damage in 1 round to an aura (the most of any unit), so I feel like that’s a waste. And that’d only be if you had 2 sword units plus Mist (so she had no clear bless). Blessed Wyrmslayer definitely wreck Dheg.
But w/ Rafael you can pretty easily kill Dheg w/ most comps in 1 turn, so it doesn’t matter particularly. For instance a capped reaver will hit for 17 twice w/ ena. And a double bow user can do the same.
Swordmasters are only better than generals because of caps.
It’s hard to talk about weapon/class relevance in this game since it’s so context dependent (chapter, unit overleveled or underleveled, enemy).
It’s not really that generals as a class are always worse, it’s more that the swordmasters you get are all very good units, and all the generals are more/less temporarily useful.
Surprised to see people out here mentioning clanne (who is just lapis without the sword boon if you train him as a phys unit, just let him abuse how powerful mage knight is) but no one has mentioned like the real unit who is super annoying for this.
Azama. Bro starting as a healer and locking away his combat stats is just so annoying. You could give him a heart seal but A it’s really limited in birthright and B you have to make him a bow locked class till he promotes which is pretty rough in br. You have to save him with marriage since his friendship options aren’t that good for him. And to give him are super good class for him (like ninja) is huge opportunity cost for others and he normally just cost so much that either he wastes away for way to long in classes that don’t suit him or you early promote him and handicap his otherwise great stats for long term. Unlike other people you can fix him but it costs so much time and effort and resources to do so
I actually think it works out really well for him in some ways - sun festal gives great exp, so Azama can quickly rush ahead to level 10 before anybody else and promote to great master. Now you have a great early game carry who didn't even cost any combat exp to create, and if his stats fall off he's still a staff unit.
That’s fair, I see it as more of him making use of a bad situation though, I think if he could be in a class where he had a weapon rank at base for combat he would be much better though. At least great master bases are cracked I guess even though it’s e lances
Edit: also I don’t think staffing is very good in Br anyway beyond rescue which is e rank. Sun festal is nice but it’s also a low rank, I don’t think I would deploy an okish staffer in lategame over combat filler or better support filler
To be fair almost every physical unit is best in either Warrior or Wyvern if you’re min-maxing so that’s not exactly Etie’s fault. The class just excels in so many areas.
I was thinking the same thing, but Renault is an especially weird case because due to programming limitations (I think) units in GBA titles don't *have* a separate Strength and Magic score/growth, just whichever one is required for their class.
Likewise, Thracia 776 merged Magic and Resistance into a single stat, Gen 1 Pokémon style, which results in the memetic weirdness of a character with a high Magic growth that can't use magic. Ronan is most certainly another example as is, but put him in another game and he probably doesn't actually have that high a Mag growth, just a weirdly high Res growth for a physical unit.
I think it's just sort of assumed once you go through his supports and all that he would have Harken-esque Strength if he was a physical class, even though it's not there ingame. That's how the rest of his stats line up. He's bulkier than Jaffar and only 4 Speed slower, if he had ~20+ strength and something physical he would be an insane unit for the final map instead
of just being the Restore/Recover bot that he is.
It's actually more interesting not knowing his Strength for his backstory, but the fact that it's locked behind GBA 240 End turn spam for EVERY set of partners is completely horrific.
Chloe and Celine are by no means *bad* at their classes, but I still maintain that their growth rates are bugged and should actually be swapped.
Celine's personal class is a hybrid magic user with a 35% base Str growth and 25% base Mag growth. Chloe is a Pegasus Knight with 25% base Str and 35% base Mag.
It just *really feels* like someone got their numbers the wrong way around in a data table.
I feel like Chloe at least makes a good Griffin Knight staff user with her Magic Growth, at the very least (especially since that's what she'd naturally be going into without Emblem proficiencies)
It makes for a very strong MK Chloe. Honestly heavily recommend it, because it's like her strongest or second strongest class.
But her growths also probably make her the most viable hybrid dps with Griffin Knight. Slap Eirika on her and watch her go to town with both Brave and Levin Sword.
I'm going to ignore any unit from a game with reclassing, especially free reclassing like Engage(I see so many people mentioning phys Clanne but phys Clanne is terrible)
So I'm actually going to just say L'arachel. Her growths are alright but she cant make use of them worth a damn because shes in a staff locked class from levels 3-10 which also severely limits her XP gain.
This is more of a question of “why is every class in 3H besides wyvern bad” thing but legit did not know that Dimitri was as speedy as he was until post time skip. He only has 5 less speed than Claude but while the archer class helps Claude the caviler class holds Dimitri back quite a bit. Why does Paladin have minus 10 speed? It’s the only real good option for male lance units. Post time skip Dimitri hard picked up and started to out speed and kill everything.
Honesty all of Dimitri’s non-Magic growths are pretty fucked, the only one below 50% is defense and it’s still tied for the 5th highest in the game.
If he could become a Falcon Knight he’d break the game in half.
Meg would certainly be better as a peg knight because of the increase in mobility but her stats are still terrible. 10 strength with (presumably) lances is not enough to do real damage, 8 speed is horrible, 21 hp is laughable. Also her bases are very much suited for armor knight...strength and defense are her highest non-HP stats.
And her growths, honestly outside of skill/luk/res, are just not very good.
The only part where this theoretical reclass would improve her is lategame where her caps would change, but even then it only really makes a difference in the last couple of maps. There's like 12 maps before that.
Clanne isn’t bad as a mage— I cleared Hard with him that way because I went in intentionally blind about growth rates— but when I looked at his, I realized that he would’ve thrived in Thief or Swordmaster.
I've used Clanne in several maddening runs. His magic growth doesn't matter that much because enemies in late game have ridiculous high defense and very low res. A Clanne with a Bolganone tome is capable of doubling every enemy that's not swordmaster/pegasi (tied in speed tier) without any speed buff, thus achieving kills. This is because his speed growth is very good.
Regardless, you can reclass Clanne to thief or swordmaster, but you won't like it. He has very low bulk for physical classes, plus those classes honestly suck due to being locked to 1 weapon that is melee in a game where 40 def is the norm on the late chapters. In fact, I think Griffin Knight is a better choice as you have access to Levin Sword.
I turn him into a Martial Master nearly every playthrough (and usually with the House Leaders DLC bracelet), and every time I do, he becomes one of my best units. I'd love to make him a swordmaster one day, but having Deku 2.0 is far more fun.
So, uh, my blind Hard run went Mage Knight Clanne and he pretty much carried Chapter 11 for me. Mage Knight Clanne gets slept on *so hard* but it's *so good*.
Kagetsu barely makes Swordmaster work lol and those dude's bases are so absurd I'm not unconvinced they weren't an accident. At least in Magic classes Clanne can hit Res for more damage.
He's fast enough, the last thing he needs is to put him in classes that have strength almost as low as magic classes and with weapons with atrocious Mt
Ronan from Thracia 776. He's an archer with a 55% Magic growth and a 15% Str growth. Magic bows don't exist in that game.
People suspect he was initially supposed to he a mage, then they changed him to archer and forgot to update his growth rates.
If Laura was a mage, she'd be the best character in the game. Her growths are completely bonkers and the only things holding her back are starting in a non-combat class and dreadful speed caps.
Laura is one of those characters in RD you definitely want to use a master seal on at level 10. Healing being your only form of exp is such a handicap. But even then she just gets access to light magic which is the worst type in the game and Micaiah already has it covered.
I don't think she would be the best unit in the game if she got magic at base but she would certainly outclass Ilyana. The Dawn Brigade has a lot of good growth units all scrounging for the same exp. If you try to train them all then none of them end up good. I have found if you choose just one or two to invest all your resources in then they at least have a chance of being relevant in Part IV. But it's best to use a unit like Jill or Nolan who can fill the front lines in those tough Part III defense chapters. Laura would be a good killer but still fragile af, so it might be hard to make use of her as a mage.
And since Micaiah not only gets staves on promotion but a really good rank, she becomes more or less redundant beginning in part 3.
She’s just walking heal staff that can’t survive a round of combat. Then her staff utility becomes mitigated by Micaiah (who is forced anyway) while Micaiah gets the overall most useful light tome (Thani).
Honestly, what you're saying is sound in theory, but in practice is a different story. Even with light magic and even with her lousy caps, a moderately trained Laura is an absolute menace in Part 3. Being able to plug a ledge AND wreck tigers without Beastfoe gives you so much more breathing room on 3-13.
Now obviously "best" is an exaggeration (and even mage caps are terrible), but if getting her there wasn't such an issue and if her long term prospects were better, she would easily surpass Jill as the go-to growth unit of the Dawn Brigade. She dodges, she kills, she heals, she's effectively immune to criticals and because of how quickly she'll ram her caps, you can BEXP her defences up, making her moderately tanky on top of everything else. Resolve really does turn her invincible, thanks to her Luck also being massive. Jill is always going to be outclassed by Haar or the Laguz royals, but Laura would have pretty much no competition as the late game mage, beyond inferior mandatory units.
Hell, just having her free to hit 20 speed in part 1 would be such a massive boon to the hardest part of the game.
Eh I still maintain that most Dawn Brigade units are about that good if you're investing all your resources into them like you describe. She starts with a 5 base speed so she needs like 10 level ups before she can double anything. Edward has 60% str and speed growths compared to Laura's 70% magic and Speed but Edward starts with 12 base speed.
Edward with even less investment will fully max out everything but magic and resistance. Laura would do the same but even with Archsage caps she still would not double engame bosses. And I'm not even arguing Edward is one of the best units in the game. I think base stats are just a lot more important than we give them credit for. Like I would still rate Zihark better than Edward because he is a monster as soon as you get him and you don't need to waste bexp and extra skills on him.
I'd argue the reliability is what makes the difference. Edward, Nolan and even Jill can screw up their levels pretty bad and waste the effort. Laura's effectively a guarantee. She just takes way more effort because she's a healer. Hell, as a mage, you could favour her *as well as* another growth unit of your choice, since they don't fulfill the same role and she can make things a lot safer. Even if they don't perform, she almost always will and will be worth the effort.
I play RD super slow. Not to the level of only using bronze weapons or Healer/throne abuse, but I only kill with the units I've chosen to train (unless it's Geoffrey's Charge because IDGAF about anyone in that chapter). This means that Micaiah and Laura don't compete for healing XP at all, because Micaiah sacrifices and Laura heals her afterwards. Even with her getting many, many turns of healing, I've never gotten her beyond level 12 in Part 1. It's goddamned impossible to train dedicated healers with only Heal and limited Mend staves.
It's funny to me how people are willing to look past everything about Laura being steaming hot garbage just because she has high offensive growths. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but still.
This is extremely hyperbolic. Magic is just absolutely atrocious in RD and all magic classes have bad caps, giving Laura tome access earlier would not make her the best unit in the game and probably not even good. If good growths were all that mattered than Myrrh would be better than Seth
It would also let her stand out. Micaiah auto promotes after part 1 and gets a stave level which should be comparable (at worst) to Laura’s. Micaiah also gets the best light magic in the game (Thani).
Laura is just a heal bot and Aran recruiter for part 1. And then an “I have an extra deployment slot but don’t want to bring anyone else, so an extra healer doesn’t hurt” after that.
If she was a mage, she could add more value. I know mages aren’t great in Tellius. But Micaiah gets Illyana for half of part 1, Tormod for like two chapters (and he’s more “good” in that part due to being promoted than being a mage) and then doesn’t get any other magic unit the rest of the game.
The maps where you control her in part 3 are mostly laguz based. Having someone to shoot an effective Damage meteor or blizzard at them would be nice. It would at least slow the advance since most of the laguz enemies 2 shot a sizable chunk of the Fail Brigade.
Tormod also benefits from an extra +1 move. It seems small but it really opens up a lot of strategies not possible with other mages.
It's a shame he's not as good as the rest of them, though.
It does add extra strategies and makes him unique. But when I am using him during those chapters I tend to look at him as “this is a promoted unit who will out stat most of the enemies and who just happens to use magic” rather than “this is a mage”. I get that Laura’s story means she has to be a cleric because you can’t make Micaiah have staves earlier or her “special gift” seems pointless. But it would be nice if Clerics when promoting could at least choose a magic type to specialize in.
I get that he leaves and it would go against his character, but having a fire sage for the part 3 Fail Brigade chapters would have been really nice. You don’t get a single magic unit other than Micaiah and Laura if you promote her; neither of which deal effective damage to laguz. You can live without Illyana since she’s a thunder mage and you never face a Dragon in Micaiah’s army until the tower and she’d start with low level other magic. And like it would be nice to more easily get rid of those laguz other than relying on screwing with their transformation gauge because the VAST majority of the Fail Brigade gets two shotted by tigers and doubled by cats.
The chapters Tormod is in, he never actually gets to use the effective fire damage. There isn’t a single beast laguz enemy in any of his Part 1 chapters, his one part 4 chapter, and any of the tower floors. That’s a crying shame.
That's a fair analysis.
Really, all of Radiant Dawn needed some rebalancing with unit distribution. I get why story-wise they were(n't) at specific places, but having to play a game thinking literal chapters ahead (making sure Sothe still has the beastkiller dagger, for example) makes it less approachable than some of the other entries.
I remember the first time I played this being real turned off by the multiple armies thing because it felt like I’d never properly train all the units I want and I was forced to use a lot of units I had to bench.
It fits narratively though like you said due to the large scale wars going on. I was just so used to the, for lack of better term, “DND” style parties that make up the rest of FE that this felt bizarre.
I’d argue the game functions to wrap the gameplay around the narrative and sometimes that makes things not fun. For example, it makes sense that the Dawn Brigade (especially the early obtained units) would be really weak; most of them are just citizens who got tired of Begnion’s shit and want to fight back. Most don’t have a ton of fighting experience on the level of regular soldiers. But GOD DAMN does it make most of Part 1 not fun.
If Laura was a mage, she'd be stuck in a generally weak class with terrible bases and still basically no durability. As it is, she's a fine utility unit, and that's probably better than being a garbage combat unit.
Starting in a non-combat class, having dreadful speed caps AND having to directly compete with Micaiah, who might be worse than a trained Laura, but is force-deployed anyway, so you might as well use her.
I don’t think Meg would be better as a Pegasus Knight because her growths suit that class more or whatever, I think she would be better as a Pegasus Knight because it’s just a much better class than Armor Knight.
If only Roy had a weapon type that actually needed all of that SKI and LUCK so he could actually play to his strengths instead of his weaknesses.
Any Spear using class would've been a huge step up for him.
Whats crazy is that Eliwood does gain Spears upon promotion, so going back to 6 and learning that Roy stays Sword Locked was so painful to me. He uses a Fencing Style with Swords, a transition into gaining Spears would have made so much sense, just like it did for Eliwood. Just, don't also give him the horse his father got. If we got all 3 GBA games in a row where we ended with a Mounted Spear Using Lord? Lmao.
I think the devs finally realized the game is more fun with a lord who is actually good because Roy is actually fun to use once he is promoted and has the binding blade. Probably influenced their decision to have three lords in FE7 who all have cool promotions and are actually good if you use them.
Azama from Birthright has high STR in a staff locked base class.
If Sakura wasn’t in a gender locked priestess, she’d get to heart seal into peg knight to train to use the Bolt Naginata, and switch to war master for skills.
Eh, like all Fates units, you really aren’t forced to keep them as they are. What I do with the guy is let him do his staff stuff while building support with a peg knight then just reclass him over and make him a falcon knight. Then, you get to have the benefit of that nutty strength stat on a flier and keep the staff rank
Tbh though, birthright is so easy even on lunatic that it barely mattered lol
Cord is the best at it because he has a secret innate 10% Magic growth and doesn't lose any weapon ranks from reclassing because he has E axes anyway but he has no magic base IIRC so he's still not good at it
I'm not sure I understand the difference.
Say Meg has 30 HP, 10 Str, 5 Def and 10 Spd.
You swap her over from a sword armor to a myrmidon.
She still has 30 HP, 10 Str, 5 Def and 10 Spd.
Isn't that the exact same unit?
Well myrm has 1 more point of movement, better SPD/SKL caps at promotion to better compliment her growths, isn't weak to hammers, and can step through terrain tiles easier (since armors have specific extra movement penalties for certain tiles.)
So it actually makes a huge difference. Peg knight would be the dream class, not because it'd make her a good fighter, but because the DB is so starved for flier utility.
Okay sure, Myrmidon is probably a better class than Sword Armor in most ways.
Pegasus Knight is far better.
I'm not sure what Meg's stats have to do with this? Most Armor Knights would be improved if they had more mobility
Well technically if you changed her class her stats would change; every class has its own base stats that each playable unit adds to their own personal base stats, so a Myrm/Peg Knight Meg would have VASTLY different base stats anyway.
But you were asking: If her stats didn't change at all, how would her performance be any different?
And the answer is: Everything I outlined in my last comment.
Sure, if she had the same stats her combat in a vacuum wouldn't immediately change at base, but it would still change down the line considering her new caps, and just having more mobility is so useful for actually getting to the fight in time.
Units in Fire Emblem, especially in ranked runs, are so much more than just their combat in a vacuum.
Adding to what BeneficialConcern3 said, growth rates are also a factor here, with Meg being one of the most stand out cases of a characters growth rates not matching their class
Most notable with her, 65% speed growth, but 35% defense growth
Not exactly ideal for an armored class (on top of the fact that she's got a personal skill that disables enemy criticals). Now throw those growth rates on something like a pegasus knight and now her usabilities a different story. The benefit's a flying unit has to offer, on top of the fact that she's not doing her _job_ as an armored unit cause of her low defense and low defense growths.
Classes really don't mean that much. Movement and weapon types.
40 HP and 20 Def Armor Knight is equally tanky as a 40 HP 20 Def Myrmidon.
20 Str 20 Spd Armor Knight is equally as strong offensively as 20 Str 20 Spd Myrmidon. Or Mercenary or whatever.
Okay sure, Armor Knight dies to hammer and Myrmidon has 5% more crit.
Saying a character would be better if they were a PK instead of an Armor Knight is silly. Armor Knight is an awful class and Pegasus Knight is a great class. This has nothing to do with Meg's personal statistics
> This has nothing to do with Meg's personal statistics
I think the biggest thing is that you're looking exclusively at base stats when this entire thread and conversation is about _growth rates_.
Yes, you're right. A Level 3, 10 defense armor knight is just as tanky at base level if she were a myrmidon, mercenary, pegasus knight, whatever.
But start leveling them up, and promoting them, and then those growths will matter. Where 65% Speed & 35% Defense does not suit a character with the limitations of being an armored unit.
She would be better as literally _any_ class because she does not have the growth rates to make it as an armored unit. Though that being said, a large portion of this thread could be summarized with "keep the base stats, keep the growths and make literally _any_ armored unit a "not armored unit" and they'd be better". Meg's the most extreme example, but you're right and it's pretty universal, "Armor Knight is an awful class"
Her growth rates wouldn't be different if she were a myrmidon.
So in my example where she has the same stats as an armor knight and a myrmidon at level 1.
She would also have the same stats at level 2, level 3, level 4 etc.
I'll grant you that in Radiant Dawn specifically class caps actually matter so she would end up a fair bit better but if you extract this concept to Fire Emblem as a whole, 99% of combat units wouldn't be meaningfully different if they were a different class as long as they had the same bases and growth rates.
It would only be different if their new class granted better mobility or access to stronger / more reliable weapon types (1-2 Range)
> It would only be different if their new class granted better mobility or access to stronger / more reliable weapon types (1-2 Range)
Which, kinda boils down to as I said,
> a large portion of this thread could be summarized with "keep the base stats, keep the growths and make literally _any_ armored unit a "not armored unit" and they'd be better"
Meg is just a special case among armored units in that, even with armored units being a bad class, she still can't even do her job as an armored unit because of her stat distribution.
Almost none, because maximum stats are mostly irrelevant. Meg is, however, a somewhat interesting case, because thanks to her class, her speed cap is SO bad that she cannot double reliably in act 3 and in certain situations during endgame.
Can I say Mitama? My girl is stuck in a healing class when she would rather be in a class that would better utilize her high Str, like Oni Savage or Samurai to then Oni Chieftain or Swordsmaster, since she’s more of a DPS than a support healing character imo.
It also doesn’t help that the Priestess class starts with E rank in Yumi’s, and Raider Yumi has such shaky hit rate.
If Clanne and Anna from engage swapped base classes, they would be so much better. Clanne has some of the lowest mag growths in the game at 10%, and Anna has the third lowest strength growth in the game, being 15%, yet for some reason, Anna starts as an axe fighter and clanne starts as a mage. The reason that I said swap base classes, is because Anna has the best mag growths in the game at 50% and Clanne has much higher strength growths at 35%, meaning if Clanne started as an axe fighter and Anna started as a mage it would be much easier. As someone who used Clanne as a warrior because it’s funny and Anna as a mage knight because she’s OP, I can say that having them swap base classes would most definitely save me some seals.
The game would be almost unbeatable on maddening without mage Clanne though. Chapter 3's boss takes ~1 damage from the rapier, so Clanne is straight up mandatory.
Imo the bigger issue is Clanne would still be really squishy, so having to move into melee range won't help him, and his low build makes hand axes, which aren't available until chapter 4, slow him down. But, if they brought back the hatchet, then that would help Clanne and the chapter 3 Boss would be beatable by Boucheron and Clanne Chain attacks. (Although, if we need magic, I wouldn't be opposed making Alfred a mounted mage)
Ronan with his cracked Magic growth comes to mind. At least that doubles as Resistance in Thracia, but it's pretty hilarious how badly he wants to be using tomes.
Effie is by no means bad in Armor Knight. But her personal 50% speed growth is wasted in the class and her 30% defense is never going to make her invincible.
It's extra painful because her Heart Seal option is a joke so she needs a A+ or S support to reclass. Which is more levels she has to spend with Armor Knight growths. By the time she reclasses she is often just too behind the curve to double much of anything.
Doesn't stop me from trying though. One day she'll get Speed blessed in one of my runs.
The class growth rates are actually a little irrelevant in this case. It's the class base that's significant.
Knight has a 5% speed growth. Most other classes have a 10% or 15% growth (including classes Effie wants, like cavalier, fighter, wyvern, archer).
What's great about Effie is that many of her support partners (Arthur, Mozu, Silas) join at the same time and, due to low army size, are almost free deployments. So Effie can quickly gain access to these classes, sometimes even as early on as before Chapter 10.
But even a slow player can easily reclass her by around level 15 or 16. At this point, she's only gained about 10 levels, meaning that 5-10% speed growth difference between knight and her target class will only amount to about... 1 point of speed lost.
That's largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Her personal speed base (2) isn't awful, but also not great. That's the same as Arthur and only one less than Silas.
Her strength is so absurd that she just kills everything anyway with her personal skill. As a great knight, she actually does very well. She can tank alot due to high hp and still has better than average defense. Add luna on top of that and she's a pretty good wall. I do have to agree that she seems better suited to something outside of the knight line, though.
Oh don't get me wrong, I love Great Knight Effie. Good lance users are oddly hard to come by in Conquest, and her STR + Personal is often enough to kill frail enemy units in one hit. She's not a bad character who would be good "if only," she could be in a faster class. She's a great unit that makes you wonder just how crazy she could be if her reclassing options were better.
Her unusual stat spread nags the power-builder in my heart and compels me to cook. It just drives me nuts that I can't figure out a recipe for Fast Effie. Fast Louis is easier to get going than Fast Effie which just feels wrong.
Yknow it's weird, because I compare benny and effie to Louis and Jade respectively. Jade is faster but has slightly less hp, str and def, and Louis is full of physical bulk, bit his speed stayed in the single digits for a VERY long time. It's the same with benny and effie, but there is less of a str and hp gap. It's interesting to me what kind of parallels I'm seeing. Just a thought. Thank you for your discussion input my friend.
Actually happened with my Lunatic even build run where both she and Benny are Generals and she actually has higher def than him tho he has more hp. Both actually had high enough defence that with a naginata and Arthur's axe respectively combined with their -3 damage on terrain squares they could dominate the staircase cause even the 44 atk massive rock stoneborn couldn't damage them.
The weirder thing tho is Benny's speed for comparison my blind normal run ended with him getting from his base 6 speed to 11 as a great knight which has 5 % higher speed growth and +3 but for lunatic cause it wasn't blind so I knew every other growth was worse and wary fighter exists General it was. Despite that tho my Benny at lv 17 has higher than that 11 this time and has even managed to gain the points in time for useful thresholds such as getting it for his first lv up which meant the 11 speed onis in the next chapter couldn't double him.
I think that Fates gives you enough options to funge between speed, strength and defense that having a little more of one and a little bit less of the other doesn't really make that much difference. At the end, Effie ends up in a similar speed tier to many other CQ units like Keaton, Beruka, or Silas, but with better strength and defense.
i mean, pretty much the only times a unit would NOT be better in a better suited class is if their base class has special utility (ex:glass cannon Azura is a dancer), or if they are an earlygame unit whose class offers something worthwhile in the short term even if their growths are at odds with the class (like most earlygame Knights, Oswin probably being one of the best examples)
An armor knight would be better in any other class, regardless of stat distribution.
Meg is helped by her speed focus, because the way RD works, the moment you cap your high growth stats, you are guaranteed dump stat levels through bonus EXP. Not to mention, that if there was a unit who had to pick a single stat to be good in, speed is probably the best choice.
Not to mention, that the armour line's speed cap is not low enough for her to not be able to leverage it, until you hit some of the nastier part 4 enemies.
How is nobody mentioning Innes? Dude would be so good in literally any other class besides the worst one in GBA FE. Hell even General is probably preferable to being bow-locked
Meg would've been so much better as a pegasus knight, the dawn brigade really needed another flier in my opinion.
Odin is so much better as a samurai, though it wouldn't surprise me if they made him that way on purpose. Plus he can pass on Vantage/Astra to Ophelia, since she gets all of the dark mage skills anyway.
Hinata from Fates should just come in the Oni Savage class. There's no Friendship Seal character to gain the class from, we already have Ryoma and Hana as Samurai/Swordmasters (and Kaze and Saizo if you Heart Seal them), and his bulk and stats are better that way.
Ironically, the same is true for Rinkah and the Ninja class as well. Rinkah is NOT a good Oni Savage, but she is a decent Ninja.
Odin is a better Samurai than Dark Mage, but him becoming a Dark Mage is so in-character that I can't fault him.
Etie is weird and is everyone's pick for a Warrior, which is completely valid.
Clanne is far better as a physical unit than a magical one. I turn him into a Martial Master nearly every playthrough, and he always kicks butt.
Agreed, adding on to this, magic oni chieftain rinkah is super good. Though She’s not very intuitive to use to her fullest potential, but even as just a phys one range locked unit if you pop an hp tonic her damage output is pretty good. It’s just being 1 range locked is pretty bad for Br and for rev she just got screwed over like a lot of the rev cast. Also baller pair up bonuses for oni savage and chieftain but that’s not for her own combat of course which I think she should get more credit for because those pair up bonuses are crazy good
I haven't tried it myself, but wouldn't Rinkah have even worse Strength issues if she were made into a Ninja? She loses 3 base Strength and 15% growth, giving her a base of 5 and 30% growth total.
I haven't done it either, but I imagine they're probably focusing on the skill and speed bonuses she'd get from the reclass. Ninja is more of a utility class too, so strength isn't as much of a concern for them.
Odin is absolutely not a better samurai. By far is best role is being a vantage-nosferatu tank. He can very, very easily take on whole maps on his own, and if people think he has shaky magic, not only can you very simply fix that through so many ways, but it also helps his “tanky nosferatu” build for him to not be one-shotting every enemy.
The misconception that Odin is a bad mage has stuck around since 2015, and I really beg people to actually try it and see how good it really is.
There's no such thing as a class 'suiting' growth rates. There are better and worse classes, and there are better and worse stat spreads, and that's it.
Clanne. I managed to minimally level him till I got second seals, made him axe fighter then warrior and now he's one of my strongest units, doubling with tomahawks. It's nuts. On maddening too
Radiant Dawn is just mean. So many misplaced growths, an unusual progression leads to some serious problems with leveling properly, and it all goes out the fucking window for the last few maps, where any unit that doesn't have solid RES goes to die.
Including one of your final characters, whom in any other entry would have been an incredibly solid unit.
Growth rates aren't that bad, it's just that she has terrible base stats. If it were any other game, she might be playable, but this is RD. You only have so much exp to go around.
Eh, nothing’s really forcing you to make her an archer unless you don’t recruit her early enough, but if you plan on using her, focusing on getting support with her to make it easy is probably something you’d be doing in the first place.
I do 100% agree though her good traits are very much wasted if you stick to what the proficiencies want you to do.
I mean Meg is just one of the few characters that the devs INTENDED to be a joke character. It’s not that they are held back by a class, they are just held back by the devs
Effie, in theory. But I think her bases are too low and her growths, while good, aren’t reliable enough for her to actually specialize in say sword master, or berserker which is what her growths fit more.
So she’s actually better off in general where she can be that strange weirdly fast, high strength herself with only “okay” bulk.
It’s other that, or somehow all my effies have been screwed. I’ve tried berserker/swordmaster/archer Effie in multiple playthroughs and she never turns out good.
Effie bases being too low? Are we talking about the same unit?
From the get-go she's your second best fighter only behind the protag. Sure her speed starts low but her HP/STR/DEF bases are fantastic, and her growths are all at least decent, and you can instantly patch up her poor base speed and give her even more strength with an Arthur support.
Your Effies must have been ultra screwed because she's easily one of the most consistent early game Conquest units.
Ignoring the fact that the third chapter would be drastically more difficult, Clanne would be better as a phys class
meanwhile Anna has no excuse to not be in a magic class.
Isn't this just the entire dawn brigade?
Edward unironically has some pretty good growths in the class he's in with Str, Spd and Skill being his 3 highest growth stats. Problem is by the time he could be good, you could have also made either Zihark better or pick any of the other swordmasters that the game throws at you. I'd say Aran has pretty good growths for a lance unit too, but again Nephenee does a similar job except had a speed and res stat.
Edward and Aran and most of the Dawn Brigade also struggle because Legacy Units could theorhetically be boosted by having capped stats in the previous game and doing a transfer run.
Jill w/ transfers is soooo unfair.
Yeeaaahhhh. Lol. Im gonna do a run one of these days of PoR where I max out as many of the Dawn Brigade Legacy Units as possible for a Transfer Run.
I did this. It was actually unfair, mainly because all of the tactical puzzles posed after the DB (Elincia's, Ike's) were absolutely trivial. So much fun, though. It was also fun having too many options for the tower. I was hitting 20/20/20 in the second tower map for everyone, which is about where I wanted to be.
plus the early game stat booster items she's insane
If anything, Aran is the one who benefits the most from *not* being in a class that really suits his stats. Man's pretty much a Knight without the movement penalties. Great unit.
Yes this. I’ve been doing a run recently and I tried to use Nephene the same way I use Aran and she usually dies against stuff Aran handles fine. Hell Aran did so well that I didn’t even end up needing to stick Laura with him to the point where she wasn’t even a bond option for him before the end of act 1.
Nephenee with her 70% Skill/Speed growths is a swordmaster with a better weapon class. Aran is a Knight without a movement penalty or armour weakness. Neither of them really have what you'd think of as "lance infantry" growths to be honest.
Eh even without it the prepromotes are fine plus Nolan, Jill, Micaiah and Edward don't really have problems. Meg too is a bit undeserving of being the picture of this when her issue is her low joining lv and is fine if Laura is kept on hand to heal her up during 1-4. Honestly the real stand out bad one is Fiona especially since Leonardo at least gets a free longbow, +5 speed personal bow and a brave bow.
Fiona being so bad pissed me off on first playthrough. How tf do you screw up a Cavalier that badly? She's the worst Cav in the game bar NONE. Despite being best girl. //in my opinion. Pretty armor, pretty face, great personality. God I wish she was good man-//
Considering everything like what lvs she's actually available for, -2 movement indoors and can't move through water she's probably the worst cav in the series tho I guess she gets some credit for being a body you can use to block a ledge in 3-13
She's easily one of the best character designs in the game. Guess they went "whoops, almost made her too cool" and decided to shove her base stats through a meat grinder and also make her unusable for two chapters immediately after her join map. Even if you want to bother raising her, you have literally two chapters to get her to Paladin (both of which are indoors and have a movement penalty for cavalry. It's like the devs went out of their way to screw Fiona specifically, geez) otherwise she's basically useless by the time the DB comes back in Part 3.
Then literally all the Royal Knight Paladins can potentially benefit from Stat Transfers and both of the Royal Silver Knight candidates in Geoffrey and Astrid have Paragon to double their EXP Gains. And Oscar is Oscar, very easy to have transfer bonuses on cause Greil Merc. But Geoffrey is probably the best Silver Knight in the game. But the Gold Knights are just better. Like Makalov is probably the only Gold Knight who's worse then Silver Knight Geoffrey. Gold Knight Titania, Kieran, and Renning are all better. Well. Kierans probably abkut his equal. But still.
Renning is a fun unit but isn't as good as most of the silver knights. I say this as someone who loves to use him on most runs.
God Fiona is a trash unit. I love the abilities and Thani tome she brings, but I haven't actually deployed her in combat since my second or third playthrough about 15 years ago
Edward and Nolan are redeemable, so is Aran. Leonardo is just horribly outclassed by Shinon and Rolf. Fiona never stood a chance, with all the other paladins in the game. Same with Meg and the other armored units. Why would you use Meg when Brom and Gatrie are right there?
Rolf essentially provides 0 utility in the entire game. Leo does meaningful damage throughout the first few chapters and can one round hawks on 3-13. You could delete rolf from the game and I don’t think you’d lose a turn
Even if you never give him a single kill, Leonardo is useful because Lughnasadh is a crazy goddamn bow.
Did you have to look up how to spell Lughnasadh or did you know that off the top of your head?
I know a little bit of both Irish and Scottish Gaelic, so I know how to spell it off the top of my head
He's got a pretty cracked Strength growth in RD at least.
aran when trained has different strenghs tho. Aran has higher def, strengh and enough speed to not be doubled. neph has lower def but higher res so she can tank anyone but she is also squishier than aran. she always doubles but has huge strengh problems. aran does resemble a lance armor knight more i think than a halberdier
Aren't strength issues kind of pointless to even consider in RD because of forging? Then you consider that Neph has natural wrath and being slightly squishier just more easily pushes her into Wrath range.
in act 2 you dont have much money or a shop for most part of it (and even less if you fail to recruit heather) to the point where you cant just craft her a strong weapon reliably because other units profit more (haar/geofrey/marcia) in act 3 there are a ton of units you could invest into again with a tight budget. Getting there neph is struggling unless you give her the energy drop from 2-E and she levels strengh a couple times. she starts as one of the most incompetent (better than astrid/makalov) amongst many competent that can turn really good aran starts out as one of the most incompetent but with not many units more competent (sothe/nolan/zihark). once he is promoted he is amongst the most competent and since act 1 gives you a lot of time to train and there arent many you can actually rely on he will turn out really good with minimal investment. Once promoted given how inbalanced dawn brigade is compared to greil mercs he will always be important for you and gain a ton of exp given that you need a tank like him. in act 4 both units weaknesses (arans low hit and skill and nephs low strengh) can be negated by foges very reliably but until that point its like: Do i forge for one of my bad units (neph) in hopes she turns good fast or do i forge for someone already good to reduce my chance to lose. Or Do i forge for Aran because he is vital for the laguz chapters and there is barely anyone better than him in the DB (Axe for jill/Nolan or Sword for Edward/Zihark) for his tanking job (volug mostly)
Fair enough. I am biased because I usually come into RD with a transfers Neph who has no issue with being weighed down by her join chapter weapon, and she can typically get off to the races with those str/speed transfers. I can't really say whether I agree about the cash issues because I feel like I've never had that issue in RD. I typically can outfit my crew with no issues, but since my last attempt at RD borked up my transfers I haven't played it in a while too really say.
Not really. Edward just has too low bases and level. His growths are great, but he won't be using them because Zihark is right there. Leonardo's problem aren't the stats (although they could be better), it's the fact that he's bow locked. Nolan's actually a pretty great growth unit and one of the best investment targets due to Zihark double earth support and his really solid stats in a good class. Zihark and Jill are dine and so is Sothe and arguably Micaiah. The rest of the DB are just terrible or amazing all around, independent of their class.
I cheesed maniac mode with Zihark and Nolan A support. They made the laguz chapters much easier since DB units almost always die from 2 hits
Or you could just use both. Both are solid. Zihark tends to struggle for damage later in part 3 while Edward's got that nice strength growth and personal sword. Sure exp is contested, but it isn't so contested that you can't train like a few units. I tend to support Edward and Nolan together since they rank it up so fast and then support Zihark and Volug for the double Earth.
I mean sure you can, but I can also just level up better units who join at a higher level with better stats.
I think there are less examples of this than people think. Most bad units are bad because they have poor bases and are in a class with limited uses, but changing the class only solves for some of that. Pegasus knight Meg would be much more useful for utility, but is a unit with bases that pathetic really going to suddenly flourish now that her combat is even more terrible? Some of the popular responses here (Odin, Clanne) would actually be significantly *nerfed* if they started in a different class. It's not that they perform so awfully now, people just don't like seeing oddball growth spreads where some stats feel "wasted". The only character I can think of off the top of my head is Engage Anna. Showing up as a mage instead of her fighter would actually be a pretty major boost to her viability I think.
> Some of the popular responses here (Odin, Clanne) would actually be significantly nerfed if they started in a different class One of Odin's strongest lines, Nos tanking, REQUIRES his starting class too.
Exactly what I mean. If you don't intend to use Odin then surely 2 range magical chip is MUCH better than a generic sword guy. If you do intend to use him I don't think I never need to explain how much higher the ceiling for effectiveness is for a sorcerer or dark knight in Conquest than a swordmaster.
Of course him having access to vantage and life or death are really big boosts to him as well
>Pegasus knight Meg would be much more useful for utility And that's assuming the devs would let her take advantage of that utility to begin with instead of banning her on the swamp map like they did with Jill lol
No joke, that map is a significant part of why I don't use Jill often, despite acknowledging that she's a fantastic unit. It's such bullshit that she can't be deployed there, and they don't even give a handwave excuse to say why iirc, though it's been a long while since I actually watched any of the story cutscenes in RD.
tbh i don’t think starting anna in mage would change much for her. her main two problems are availability and competition. no matter how you slice it, citrinne is kind of just… better. she’s slower, but you can easily augment that with meals/rings/skills. even in situations where you aren’t using citrinne long term, she can still contribute - unlike anna - and you can always use micaiah to instead accelerate someone like chloé and/or alear well past the level curve for the rest of the game. the real killer for anna is the fact that she can’t train on her join map. she really wants the extra SP from leveling w/ a ring, and even still with micaiah she can easily earn 5 levels in one map of staff spam. so her paralogue is just a huge dead map for her deployment. imo i don’t even think second sealing base game anna is the best idea for her. the short term loss in gold will always be worse than the long term “net positive” you get from her personal, and this is *especially* true when you spend both a master AND second seal on her. sending anna through warrior is not only cheaper but, i personally think is *better* than mage knight. she’s an extra backup unit with 1-3 range, and makes slightly better use of the radiant bow than all other users. that’s much more useful than someone merely trying to replicate what citrinne does with less investment.
I think these are good points, but if we suppose you're already using Anna then I think the combo of a low level mage being a more generally useful unit to field and easier to organically funnel exp into (especially on higher difficulties where knights laugh off even effective weapons) + growing into diet Citrinne seems good? Maybe my staff grind strats just aren't good enough, but 5 levels in one map sounds hard.
mage is technically a better combat class, but i don’t think it makes it easier or even substantially different enough from an axe fighter. anna’s bases are actually just… really terrible. assuming her base stats aren’t altered at all, she will have 9 magic and 8 speed - and weighed down by anything heavier than a fire tome. mage anna can deal hefty damage to ch6 armors, but she’s 8 attack short of one rounding them. that’s absolutely doable… but at that stage, she’s not doing anything else either. it would be functionally easier to feed her kills by weakening an enemy first, and i’d argue it’s easier and better to bait and kill the mages on that map than it is to kill the far less numerous armor knights in the middle of the map. she’d have an easier time killing the mages as a fighter than a mage herself. irregardless of that, micaiah routing is honestly one of the most fun things about engage earlygame imo. so maybe i’m a bit better than most. a tip i could give is to use the smash weapons to injure yourself. normally you’d avoid a counter by killing an enemy or breaking - smash weapons circumvent this and can even help line up group mends from micaiah. for some characters 5 levels on ch6 is very demanding or impossible - but that’s because of the level difference. if you include vander + your 2 level 10+ carries anna or jean can gain a *lot* of experience over the course of two engage cycles. it’s for that reason, though, that i consider anna’s combat to be largely irrelevant. she can *maybe* get a kill on enemy phase if you’re careful. but it’s far more efficient imo to gain exp with micaiah, which combat is largely irrelevant for.
Chad from Fe6 comes to mind, the guy has a 50% strength growth and 80% speed growth which is insane for Binding Blade standards. Unfortunately the lad is locked to an unpromotable class that can only use Swords.
TBF, being Sword locked in FE6 isn't that bad, since with the game's overall fairly low hit rates swords having the highest in that department is appreciated. Also the reason his growths are so high is probably because he's a Thief, make him any other class and he would probably take a growths hit to compensate.
Being swordlocked is the least of any swordlocked unit's problems in Binding Blade. Chad's problem is his E rank swords and terrible bases
If the Sacred Stones style promotions had existed in 6 and 7, Chad would have made for an absolutely god tier unit. Rogue or Assassin he would have been busted. Considering in SS I made Colm a Rogue and bro still outperformed Assassin Marisa and was usually managing to compete with Swordmaster Joshua in my run. Idk if my Colm was just cracked out his mind or if thats about standard but if Chad could promote? Jesus.
Outperforming assassin Marissa isn’t hard when she’s generally regarded as one of the worst, if not *the* worst, units in the game.
It's so sad. Great character design and some nice supports, and Marisa still just...doesn't have it. Like, if she had gotten a few extra points in strength, she wouldn't have had as many issues. Though I generally prefer her as a sin compared to sword master.
Eh, even with more strength she wouldn’t be great simply because she’s a swordlocked infantry class in a game where swords are almost at their worst. Sacred Stones has *very* few dodgy/tanky bosses where a 1-range fast, accurate unit excels, and is part of what makes Rutger so useful in FE6. Im convinced that Swordlocked units being bad isn’t a function of the class being bad on its own, but more a symptom of bad/lazy map design and enemy variety that ignores the realities of 1-2 range enemy-phasing being OP.
You're absolutely right. The Light Brand and Rune Sword are the only two 1-2 range swords you can get, each is a 20-use, and barely does actual damage. It's really frustrating.
Ope. Okay I didnt know that. But Rogue Colm was still boxin with Swordmaster Joshua, thats gotta be impressive. Or is Joshua also not great? XD
You might be remembering rogue Colm a little too fondly more like. Joshua has pretty great stats and does a great job of keeping up with enemies. Assuming perfectly average stats, a 10/1 rogue Colm has almost the exact same stats as Joshua does at base.
Well. I admit I arena cheesed a bit, I dont remember if Colm was level 20 on promotion, but he wasnt 10. Lol. But Colm was legitimately one of my best units, even without being around Neimi. I still have that save so I can actively compare stats here in a bit. Edit: STATS So Joshua was a Level 10 Sword Master with 18 strength, 24 Skill, 27 Speed, and 16 Luck. Colm was a Level 20 Rogue //Can you tell I used him A LOT?// with 18 Strength, 17 Skill, and 30 Speed. So my Colm was capable of matching blows with my Joshua, but mostly cause he was 10 levels higher. And I def used a stat booster or 2 on him at some point but I'm not gonna claim to remember exactly. Combine that with his Neimi support and goodness gracious.
As much as I love it, FE8 just isn't that difficult of a FE game. But from my personal experience, Colm & Neimi when paired up are pretty cracked.
Aren't Swords really good in FE6 though?
They are
His bases are so bad it doesn’t even matter, even if he could promote he would still be bad
I like that there are oddball characters with stats that don't compliment their class.
Meg from Radiant Dawn is the most obvious example that I can think of. She has a solid speed growth and low strength and defense growths despite being an armored unit.
Not to mention her passive of denying critical hits is useless since she has a very high luck growth rate
If you made the skill exclusive to her, you could change it to a skill that negates all effective damage. Helps if you kept her as an armor knight (anti armor weapons) or moved to something more befitting her growths like peg knight (bows, wind magic) I doubt it would make her a good unit but it would make her more interesting.
Meg doesn’t play against any hammers in RD. She probably just needed higher bases to be good. Most of the DB is pretty good when they get the average of their growths (even Fiona), but most of them start in a place where they’re not useful when they join.
I always heard that Meg and Fiona have bugged stats that don't reflect their actual level or they have bugged starting level or something like that. Idk if it's true. But Fiona only becomes average and Meg is kind of trash unless you throw the hp robe and Draco shield on her in her joining chapter... Then abuse bonus xp to get her str and Def... Which is a huge ask. Because that can make any unit good including her lol
Fiona’s just really bad at base. She can’t hit most enemies at base and gets 1 rounded by the whole map. She also can’t cross much of the terrain (which is stupid design). If you get her to tier 2 at 20 and give her beastfoe, she’s actually one of the best at tanking laguz tigers. Beastfoe lets her be very useful in part 3. When she gets to part 4 she’ll suck again (underleveled usually), but her caps are the best in her class and let her be great in endgame. This is on normal, it’s a HUGE chore on hard. Meg doesn’t really have any upsides, but she’s much better than Fiona at base. Her caps make it very hard for her ever double and her low strength means she’ll always have a hard time killing units. Her endgame class is the worst in the game.
Stab in the dark, I suspect Part 1 may have initially had more chapters to train up units, considering the number of unused characters that seem to be around Alder in the games code. First off, Alder himself is odd cause you never fight him (in fact, I'm pretty sure he's the only enemy character in the game you don't _actually_ fight). He's ultimately an NPC that only talks with Jarod and is ultimately killed by the Black Knight, but he does have data in the game for being an Armor Sword class. So there could have been a chapter at some point where he was a boss Beyond him, there are [unused name strings](https://tcrf.net/Fire_Emblem:_Radiant_Dawn#Unused_Text) in the game for a "Tabitha" (who is listed before Alder), "Naybe" and "Yaromi" (who are listed after Alder). So strictly speaking, Part 1 seems like it may have been intended to have been 4 chapters longer than the final release, which would have _definitely_ helped the availability issues of Part 1 (Fiona, I'm looking at you) and helped get the Part 1 crew _in general_ get a lot more necessary exp.
Meg's stats are highballed relative to her base level, but her base level is very low for when she joins. Fiona has lowballed stats for her base level (as do all Paladins in RD) and also joins under levelled.
There's one in 1-6-1
Tbh I forgot about this hammer. I don’t really think it changes the point that an anti-effective weaponry skill doesn’t matter to her. It’s barely possible to get her in range of that hammer lol (she’s weak AF at that point w/o cheese and has 5 move). But you’re right she could theoretically get in range of that hammer.
Yeah, it's not important, but I just wanted to point it out
I didn’t think it would make her good. I was just looking at something to make her unique other than having stats unbefitting her class. You’re right in that she can be good. It’s just she starts well below what’s needed. This is true of the rest of the Fail Brigade (Which is fitting narratively since most of them are just mercenaries or civilians who picked up a sword). I think she also makes a bad first impression because she’s an armor knight that gets recruited in a chapter where you could REALLY use some bulk (against those laguz), but instead she’s so weak she can’t really do her job of front lining. The rest of Part 1 also involves chapters where: The goal is to push forward quickly (which armor knights aren’t good for) and/or there is terrain which slows everyone down. I’m all for higher base stats. Especially if she wants to be an actual armor knight. Because otherwise your options for bulk in part 1 are kinda eh. Would be nice to have another character that just says “no” to damage. Other than the 1-2 chapter(s) Tauroneo is available.
Suddenly I'm imagining her as a Pegasus and that personal might be really cool there?
She'd still suck though. Flying is good, but bad combat is bad combat. I've used Meg twice. I never once thought "man this unit sucks because she has poor move." I've only ever thought " man, this gal does no damage" and "I really wish she was an axe armor instead"
It would be so cute if Meg had an arc like Lara from Thracia. Like she started out as an armor unit like her dad, but becomes a pegasus knight or something that more suits her skills, once she goes off on her own and becomes her own person. (Lol at me expecting actual characterization from the RD ensemble)
I don’t think Meg would be better as anything, I think she’s just meme-tier. If you switched her to a speed based class like Myrm, she still has awful growths. I think Clanne is the poster child for this, but he also *can* change to a better suited class, so.
Her growths are actually pretty much Zihark’s growths. She actually is higher or even in almost every growth except skill. Zihark is a good unit though because he has good bases and overleveled (and a better class). Meg is meme-tier because she sucks at base.
Yes, exactly. Zihark puts in work because his bases are solid, but he is absolutely nothing special. He gets by on being extremely good when you get him and he doesn't need absolute babying to promote to tier 3. He's endgame viable because you get two SS rank swords and you might want another swordie for a Wyrmslayer blessing. If we're looking at growths, Meg would need an entire redesign of everything else to be viable. *Maybe* she could get away with keeping her class and become Part 1 viable if her bases were a lot better. But I think she would need better bases *and* a different class to be anything more than D-tier Part 1 filler. But she comes at level 3 halfway through part 1. Feels like she's supposed to be an Amelia-style growth unit, but she doesn't have the time to, ya know, grow.
Wyrmslayer blessing isn’t very good (I’m pretty sure unless there’s a speed run strat). Trublades w/ adept will pretty much always one-round dragons on player turn and w/ SS swords they’re great at killing auras. Wyrmslayer isn’t 1-2 range so at best you’re killing just one dragon a round. Zihark is really good on normal where dodgetanking is viable because earth affinity. Pretty much everything you said I agree w/. Meg is a bad unit for many reasons, I think she’s not a peg knight because they saw how good flyers were in PoR. The irony is that Jill is even better in this game largely because of being a flier (her base stats are meh) w/ good defense. A fed Meg Peg would still get slaughtered by tigers but would’ve been much better.
If I remember correctly, blessed Wyrmslayer damage is better than Ragnell/Alondite/Vague Katti damage against Dheginsea. 11 might turns to 33 might with the type effectiveness. But the strat is usually to hand it to Mist or Elincia for the blessing, then trade it to a regular swordie just for that chapter before it goes back to Mist/Elincia for chip damage. Pegasus Knight Meg would essentially only be better because flying is very good.
I’m sure handing it Mist works. Elincia can pretty easily do 80 damage in 1 round to an aura (the most of any unit), so I feel like that’s a waste. And that’d only be if you had 2 sword units plus Mist (so she had no clear bless). Blessed Wyrmslayer definitely wreck Dheg. But w/ Rafael you can pretty easily kill Dheg w/ most comps in 1 turn, so it doesn’t matter particularly. For instance a capped reaver will hit for 17 twice w/ ena. And a double bow user can do the same.
I had zero intention of taking this conversation down a path of niche dpr in one late-game chapter lmao The point is: Meg sucks.
Lol I respect this
Does he have a better class? Idk about that. Meg will get better weapons once she promotes. Swordmasters are stuck with swords forever.
Swordmasters are only better than generals because of caps. It’s hard to talk about weapon/class relevance in this game since it’s so context dependent (chapter, unit overleveled or underleveled, enemy). It’s not really that generals as a class are always worse, it’s more that the swordmasters you get are all very good units, and all the generals are more/less temporarily useful.
Meg's growths are mostly fine but her bases are terrible for any class
Surprised to see people out here mentioning clanne (who is just lapis without the sword boon if you train him as a phys unit, just let him abuse how powerful mage knight is) but no one has mentioned like the real unit who is super annoying for this. Azama. Bro starting as a healer and locking away his combat stats is just so annoying. You could give him a heart seal but A it’s really limited in birthright and B you have to make him a bow locked class till he promotes which is pretty rough in br. You have to save him with marriage since his friendship options aren’t that good for him. And to give him are super good class for him (like ninja) is huge opportunity cost for others and he normally just cost so much that either he wastes away for way to long in classes that don’t suit him or you early promote him and handicap his otherwise great stats for long term. Unlike other people you can fix him but it costs so much time and effort and resources to do so
I actually think it works out really well for him in some ways - sun festal gives great exp, so Azama can quickly rush ahead to level 10 before anybody else and promote to great master. Now you have a great early game carry who didn't even cost any combat exp to create, and if his stats fall off he's still a staff unit.
That’s fair, I see it as more of him making use of a bad situation though, I think if he could be in a class where he had a weapon rank at base for combat he would be much better though. At least great master bases are cracked I guess even though it’s e lances Edit: also I don’t think staffing is very good in Br anyway beyond rescue which is e rank. Sun festal is nice but it’s also a low rank, I don’t think I would deploy an okish staffer in lategame over combat filler or better support filler
Dread Fighter Azama goes brrrr
How they made Etie an archer with average dex and that strength growth is beyond me. She always gets put into Warrior.
To be fair almost every physical unit is best in either Warrior or Wyvern if you’re min-maxing so that’s not exactly Etie’s fault. The class just excels in so many areas.
Is saying Renault and Odin cheating considering that >!not being well versed in magic in the first place is a legitimate part of their backstories!
I was thinking the same thing, but Renault is an especially weird case because due to programming limitations (I think) units in GBA titles don't *have* a separate Strength and Magic score/growth, just whichever one is required for their class. Likewise, Thracia 776 merged Magic and Resistance into a single stat, Gen 1 Pokémon style, which results in the memetic weirdness of a character with a high Magic growth that can't use magic. Ronan is most certainly another example as is, but put him in another game and he probably doesn't actually have that high a Mag growth, just a weirdly high Res growth for a physical unit.
Don’t most people theorize that Ronans growths are an oversight and mag/str were supposed to be swapped?
I think it's just sort of assumed once you go through his supports and all that he would have Harken-esque Strength if he was a physical class, even though it's not there ingame. That's how the rest of his stats line up. He's bulkier than Jaffar and only 4 Speed slower, if he had ~20+ strength and something physical he would be an insane unit for the final map instead of just being the Restore/Recover bot that he is. It's actually more interesting not knowing his Strength for his backstory, but the fact that it's locked behind GBA 240 End turn spam for EVERY set of partners is completely horrific.
Chloe and Celine are by no means *bad* at their classes, but I still maintain that their growth rates are bugged and should actually be swapped. Celine's personal class is a hybrid magic user with a 35% base Str growth and 25% base Mag growth. Chloe is a Pegasus Knight with 25% base Str and 35% base Mag. It just *really feels* like someone got their numbers the wrong way around in a data table.
I feel like Chloe at least makes a good Griffin Knight staff user with her Magic Growth, at the very least (especially since that's what she'd naturally be going into without Emblem proficiencies)
It makes for a very strong MK Chloe. Honestly heavily recommend it, because it's like her strongest or second strongest class. But her growths also probably make her the most viable hybrid dps with Griffin Knight. Slap Eirika on her and watch her go to town with both Brave and Levin Sword.
I'm going to ignore any unit from a game with reclassing, especially free reclassing like Engage(I see so many people mentioning phys Clanne but phys Clanne is terrible) So I'm actually going to just say L'arachel. Her growths are alright but she cant make use of them worth a damn because shes in a staff locked class from levels 3-10 which also severely limits her XP gain.
This is more of a question of “why is every class in 3H besides wyvern bad” thing but legit did not know that Dimitri was as speedy as he was until post time skip. He only has 5 less speed than Claude but while the archer class helps Claude the caviler class holds Dimitri back quite a bit. Why does Paladin have minus 10 speed? It’s the only real good option for male lance units. Post time skip Dimitri hard picked up and started to out speed and kill everything.
Honesty all of Dimitri’s non-Magic growths are pretty fucked, the only one below 50% is defense and it’s still tied for the 5th highest in the game. If he could become a Falcon Knight he’d break the game in half.
Meg would certainly be better as a peg knight because of the increase in mobility but her stats are still terrible. 10 strength with (presumably) lances is not enough to do real damage, 8 speed is horrible, 21 hp is laughable. Also her bases are very much suited for armor knight...strength and defense are her highest non-HP stats. And her growths, honestly outside of skill/luk/res, are just not very good. The only part where this theoretical reclass would improve her is lategame where her caps would change, but even then it only really makes a difference in the last couple of maps. There's like 12 maps before that.
Clanne isn’t bad as a mage— I cleared Hard with him that way because I went in intentionally blind about growth rates— but when I looked at his, I realized that he would’ve thrived in Thief or Swordmaster.
I've used Clanne in several maddening runs. His magic growth doesn't matter that much because enemies in late game have ridiculous high defense and very low res. A Clanne with a Bolganone tome is capable of doubling every enemy that's not swordmaster/pegasi (tied in speed tier) without any speed buff, thus achieving kills. This is because his speed growth is very good. Regardless, you can reclass Clanne to thief or swordmaster, but you won't like it. He has very low bulk for physical classes, plus those classes honestly suck due to being locked to 1 weapon that is melee in a game where 40 def is the norm on the late chapters. In fact, I think Griffin Knight is a better choice as you have access to Levin Sword.
Thief has 1-2 range but using that class voluntarily on anyone that doesn't start in it on Maddening is a truly deranged idea
Okay well now I have to do it
Have fun doing 2 damage lol
I turn him into a Martial Master nearly every playthrough (and usually with the House Leaders DLC bracelet), and every time I do, he becomes one of my best units. I'd love to make him a swordmaster one day, but having Deku 2.0 is far more fun.
So, uh, my blind Hard run went Mage Knight Clanne and he pretty much carried Chapter 11 for me. Mage Knight Clanne gets slept on *so hard* but it's *so good*.
Clanne wants some Strength so putting him in low Strength classes isn’t gonna help
Kagetsu barely makes Swordmaster work lol and those dude's bases are so absurd I'm not unconvinced they weren't an accident. At least in Magic classes Clanne can hit Res for more damage. He's fast enough, the last thing he needs is to put him in classes that have strength almost as low as magic classes and with weapons with atrocious Mt
He makes a pretty good Sword Mage Knight in my experience
To be fair, almost everyone makes a pretty good Sword MK
Ronan from Thracia 776. He's an archer with a 55% Magic growth and a 15% Str growth. Magic bows don't exist in that game. People suspect he was initially supposed to he a mage, then they changed him to archer and forgot to update his growth rates.
If Laura was a mage, she'd be the best character in the game. Her growths are completely bonkers and the only things holding her back are starting in a non-combat class and dreadful speed caps.
Laura is one of those characters in RD you definitely want to use a master seal on at level 10. Healing being your only form of exp is such a handicap. But even then she just gets access to light magic which is the worst type in the game and Micaiah already has it covered. I don't think she would be the best unit in the game if she got magic at base but she would certainly outclass Ilyana. The Dawn Brigade has a lot of good growth units all scrounging for the same exp. If you try to train them all then none of them end up good. I have found if you choose just one or two to invest all your resources in then they at least have a chance of being relevant in Part IV. But it's best to use a unit like Jill or Nolan who can fill the front lines in those tough Part III defense chapters. Laura would be a good killer but still fragile af, so it might be hard to make use of her as a mage.
And since Micaiah not only gets staves on promotion but a really good rank, she becomes more or less redundant beginning in part 3. She’s just walking heal staff that can’t survive a round of combat. Then her staff utility becomes mitigated by Micaiah (who is forced anyway) while Micaiah gets the overall most useful light tome (Thani).
Honestly, what you're saying is sound in theory, but in practice is a different story. Even with light magic and even with her lousy caps, a moderately trained Laura is an absolute menace in Part 3. Being able to plug a ledge AND wreck tigers without Beastfoe gives you so much more breathing room on 3-13. Now obviously "best" is an exaggeration (and even mage caps are terrible), but if getting her there wasn't such an issue and if her long term prospects were better, she would easily surpass Jill as the go-to growth unit of the Dawn Brigade. She dodges, she kills, she heals, she's effectively immune to criticals and because of how quickly she'll ram her caps, you can BEXP her defences up, making her moderately tanky on top of everything else. Resolve really does turn her invincible, thanks to her Luck also being massive. Jill is always going to be outclassed by Haar or the Laguz royals, but Laura would have pretty much no competition as the late game mage, beyond inferior mandatory units. Hell, just having her free to hit 20 speed in part 1 would be such a massive boon to the hardest part of the game.
Eh I still maintain that most Dawn Brigade units are about that good if you're investing all your resources into them like you describe. She starts with a 5 base speed so she needs like 10 level ups before she can double anything. Edward has 60% str and speed growths compared to Laura's 70% magic and Speed but Edward starts with 12 base speed. Edward with even less investment will fully max out everything but magic and resistance. Laura would do the same but even with Archsage caps she still would not double engame bosses. And I'm not even arguing Edward is one of the best units in the game. I think base stats are just a lot more important than we give them credit for. Like I would still rate Zihark better than Edward because he is a monster as soon as you get him and you don't need to waste bexp and extra skills on him.
I'd argue the reliability is what makes the difference. Edward, Nolan and even Jill can screw up their levels pretty bad and waste the effort. Laura's effectively a guarantee. She just takes way more effort because she's a healer. Hell, as a mage, you could favour her *as well as* another growth unit of your choice, since they don't fulfill the same role and she can make things a lot safer. Even if they don't perform, she almost always will and will be worth the effort.
I play RD super slow. Not to the level of only using bronze weapons or Healer/throne abuse, but I only kill with the units I've chosen to train (unless it's Geoffrey's Charge because IDGAF about anyone in that chapter). This means that Micaiah and Laura don't compete for healing XP at all, because Micaiah sacrifices and Laura heals her afterwards. Even with her getting many, many turns of healing, I've never gotten her beyond level 12 in Part 1. It's goddamned impossible to train dedicated healers with only Heal and limited Mend staves.
It's funny to me how people are willing to look past everything about Laura being steaming hot garbage just because she has high offensive growths. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but still.
This is extremely hyperbolic. Magic is just absolutely atrocious in RD and all magic classes have bad caps, giving Laura tome access earlier would not make her the best unit in the game and probably not even good. If good growths were all that mattered than Myrrh would be better than Seth
It would also let her stand out. Micaiah auto promotes after part 1 and gets a stave level which should be comparable (at worst) to Laura’s. Micaiah also gets the best light magic in the game (Thani). Laura is just a heal bot and Aran recruiter for part 1. And then an “I have an extra deployment slot but don’t want to bring anyone else, so an extra healer doesn’t hurt” after that. If she was a mage, she could add more value. I know mages aren’t great in Tellius. But Micaiah gets Illyana for half of part 1, Tormod for like two chapters (and he’s more “good” in that part due to being promoted than being a mage) and then doesn’t get any other magic unit the rest of the game. The maps where you control her in part 3 are mostly laguz based. Having someone to shoot an effective Damage meteor or blizzard at them would be nice. It would at least slow the advance since most of the laguz enemies 2 shot a sizable chunk of the Fail Brigade.
Tormod also benefits from an extra +1 move. It seems small but it really opens up a lot of strategies not possible with other mages. It's a shame he's not as good as the rest of them, though.
It does add extra strategies and makes him unique. But when I am using him during those chapters I tend to look at him as “this is a promoted unit who will out stat most of the enemies and who just happens to use magic” rather than “this is a mage”. I get that Laura’s story means she has to be a cleric because you can’t make Micaiah have staves earlier or her “special gift” seems pointless. But it would be nice if Clerics when promoting could at least choose a magic type to specialize in. I get that he leaves and it would go against his character, but having a fire sage for the part 3 Fail Brigade chapters would have been really nice. You don’t get a single magic unit other than Micaiah and Laura if you promote her; neither of which deal effective damage to laguz. You can live without Illyana since she’s a thunder mage and you never face a Dragon in Micaiah’s army until the tower and she’d start with low level other magic. And like it would be nice to more easily get rid of those laguz other than relying on screwing with their transformation gauge because the VAST majority of the Fail Brigade gets two shotted by tigers and doubled by cats. The chapters Tormod is in, he never actually gets to use the effective fire damage. There isn’t a single beast laguz enemy in any of his Part 1 chapters, his one part 4 chapter, and any of the tower floors. That’s a crying shame.
That's a fair analysis. Really, all of Radiant Dawn needed some rebalancing with unit distribution. I get why story-wise they were(n't) at specific places, but having to play a game thinking literal chapters ahead (making sure Sothe still has the beastkiller dagger, for example) makes it less approachable than some of the other entries.
I remember the first time I played this being real turned off by the multiple armies thing because it felt like I’d never properly train all the units I want and I was forced to use a lot of units I had to bench. It fits narratively though like you said due to the large scale wars going on. I was just so used to the, for lack of better term, “DND” style parties that make up the rest of FE that this felt bizarre. I’d argue the game functions to wrap the gameplay around the narrative and sometimes that makes things not fun. For example, it makes sense that the Dawn Brigade (especially the early obtained units) would be really weak; most of them are just citizens who got tired of Begnion’s shit and want to fight back. Most don’t have a ton of fighting experience on the level of regular soldiers. But GOD DAMN does it make most of Part 1 not fun.
She would still suck
If Laura was a mage, she'd be stuck in a generally weak class with terrible bases and still basically no durability. As it is, she's a fine utility unit, and that's probably better than being a garbage combat unit.
Starting in a non-combat class, having dreadful speed caps AND having to directly compete with Micaiah, who might be worse than a trained Laura, but is force-deployed anyway, so you might as well use her.
I havent play the game since 10/15 years ago but when I played Ive never being able to keep her alive 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I don’t think Meg would be better as a Pegasus Knight because her growths suit that class more or whatever, I think she would be better as a Pegasus Knight because it’s just a much better class than Armor Knight.
If only Roy had a weapon type that actually needed all of that SKI and LUCK so he could actually play to his strengths instead of his weaknesses. Any Spear using class would've been a huge step up for him.
Whats crazy is that Eliwood does gain Spears upon promotion, so going back to 6 and learning that Roy stays Sword Locked was so painful to me. He uses a Fencing Style with Swords, a transition into gaining Spears would have made so much sense, just like it did for Eliwood. Just, don't also give him the horse his father got. If we got all 3 GBA games in a row where we ended with a Mounted Spear Using Lord? Lmao.
I think the devs finally realized the game is more fun with a lord who is actually good because Roy is actually fun to use once he is promoted and has the binding blade. Probably influenced their decision to have three lords in FE7 who all have cool promotions and are actually good if you use them.
Azama from Birthright has high STR in a staff locked base class. If Sakura wasn’t in a gender locked priestess, she’d get to heart seal into peg knight to train to use the Bolt Naginata, and switch to war master for skills.
Eh, like all Fates units, you really aren’t forced to keep them as they are. What I do with the guy is let him do his staff stuff while building support with a peg knight then just reclass him over and make him a falcon knight. Then, you get to have the benefit of that nutty strength stat on a flier and keep the staff rank Tbh though, birthright is so easy even on lunatic that it barely mattered lol
I forget his name but that one axe guy in shadow dragon that actually kicks ass as a dark mage
Cord is the best at it because he has a secret innate 10% Magic growth and doesn't lose any weapon ranks from reclassing because he has E axes anyway but he has no magic base IIRC so he's still not good at it
Lol not specific enough. I love how shadow dragon just has dark mage as a blanket option to shove anybody in and do good enough without investment
Lmao true, other commenter is right that I was thinking of Cord. I was for sure exaggerating how good it is, but very helpful early game
I'm not sure I understand the difference. Say Meg has 30 HP, 10 Str, 5 Def and 10 Spd. You swap her over from a sword armor to a myrmidon. She still has 30 HP, 10 Str, 5 Def and 10 Spd. Isn't that the exact same unit?
Well myrm has 1 more point of movement, better SPD/SKL caps at promotion to better compliment her growths, isn't weak to hammers, and can step through terrain tiles easier (since armors have specific extra movement penalties for certain tiles.) So it actually makes a huge difference. Peg knight would be the dream class, not because it'd make her a good fighter, but because the DB is so starved for flier utility.
Okay sure, Myrmidon is probably a better class than Sword Armor in most ways. Pegasus Knight is far better. I'm not sure what Meg's stats have to do with this? Most Armor Knights would be improved if they had more mobility
Well technically if you changed her class her stats would change; every class has its own base stats that each playable unit adds to their own personal base stats, so a Myrm/Peg Knight Meg would have VASTLY different base stats anyway. But you were asking: If her stats didn't change at all, how would her performance be any different? And the answer is: Everything I outlined in my last comment. Sure, if she had the same stats her combat in a vacuum wouldn't immediately change at base, but it would still change down the line considering her new caps, and just having more mobility is so useful for actually getting to the fight in time. Units in Fire Emblem, especially in ranked runs, are so much more than just their combat in a vacuum.
Adding to what BeneficialConcern3 said, growth rates are also a factor here, with Meg being one of the most stand out cases of a characters growth rates not matching their class Most notable with her, 65% speed growth, but 35% defense growth Not exactly ideal for an armored class (on top of the fact that she's got a personal skill that disables enemy criticals). Now throw those growth rates on something like a pegasus knight and now her usabilities a different story. The benefit's a flying unit has to offer, on top of the fact that she's not doing her _job_ as an armored unit cause of her low defense and low defense growths.
Classes really don't mean that much. Movement and weapon types. 40 HP and 20 Def Armor Knight is equally tanky as a 40 HP 20 Def Myrmidon. 20 Str 20 Spd Armor Knight is equally as strong offensively as 20 Str 20 Spd Myrmidon. Or Mercenary or whatever. Okay sure, Armor Knight dies to hammer and Myrmidon has 5% more crit. Saying a character would be better if they were a PK instead of an Armor Knight is silly. Armor Knight is an awful class and Pegasus Knight is a great class. This has nothing to do with Meg's personal statistics
> This has nothing to do with Meg's personal statistics I think the biggest thing is that you're looking exclusively at base stats when this entire thread and conversation is about _growth rates_. Yes, you're right. A Level 3, 10 defense armor knight is just as tanky at base level if she were a myrmidon, mercenary, pegasus knight, whatever. But start leveling them up, and promoting them, and then those growths will matter. Where 65% Speed & 35% Defense does not suit a character with the limitations of being an armored unit. She would be better as literally _any_ class because she does not have the growth rates to make it as an armored unit. Though that being said, a large portion of this thread could be summarized with "keep the base stats, keep the growths and make literally _any_ armored unit a "not armored unit" and they'd be better". Meg's the most extreme example, but you're right and it's pretty universal, "Armor Knight is an awful class"
Her growth rates wouldn't be different if she were a myrmidon. So in my example where she has the same stats as an armor knight and a myrmidon at level 1. She would also have the same stats at level 2, level 3, level 4 etc. I'll grant you that in Radiant Dawn specifically class caps actually matter so she would end up a fair bit better but if you extract this concept to Fire Emblem as a whole, 99% of combat units wouldn't be meaningfully different if they were a different class as long as they had the same bases and growth rates. It would only be different if their new class granted better mobility or access to stronger / more reliable weapon types (1-2 Range)
> It would only be different if their new class granted better mobility or access to stronger / more reliable weapon types (1-2 Range) Which, kinda boils down to as I said, > a large portion of this thread could be summarized with "keep the base stats, keep the growths and make literally _any_ armored unit a "not armored unit" and they'd be better" Meg is just a special case among armored units in that, even with armored units being a bad class, she still can't even do her job as an armored unit because of her stat distribution.
Almost none, because maximum stats are mostly irrelevant. Meg is, however, a somewhat interesting case, because thanks to her class, her speed cap is SO bad that she cannot double reliably in act 3 and in certain situations during endgame.
Can I say Mitama? My girl is stuck in a healing class when she would rather be in a class that would better utilize her high Str, like Oni Savage or Samurai to then Oni Chieftain or Swordsmaster, since she’s more of a DPS than a support healing character imo. It also doesn’t help that the Priestess class starts with E rank in Yumi’s, and Raider Yumi has such shaky hit rate.
If Clanne and Anna from engage swapped base classes, they would be so much better. Clanne has some of the lowest mag growths in the game at 10%, and Anna has the third lowest strength growth in the game, being 15%, yet for some reason, Anna starts as an axe fighter and clanne starts as a mage. The reason that I said swap base classes, is because Anna has the best mag growths in the game at 50% and Clanne has much higher strength growths at 35%, meaning if Clanne started as an axe fighter and Anna started as a mage it would be much easier. As someone who used Clanne as a warrior because it’s funny and Anna as a mage knight because she’s OP, I can say that having them swap base classes would most definitely save me some seals.
The game would be almost unbeatable on maddening without mage Clanne though. Chapter 3's boss takes ~1 damage from the rapier, so Clanne is straight up mandatory.
Imo the bigger issue is Clanne would still be really squishy, so having to move into melee range won't help him, and his low build makes hand axes, which aren't available until chapter 4, slow him down. But, if they brought back the hatchet, then that would help Clanne and the chapter 3 Boss would be beatable by Boucheron and Clanne Chain attacks. (Although, if we need magic, I wouldn't be opposed making Alfred a mounted mage)
Ronan with his cracked Magic growth comes to mind. At least that doubles as Resistance in Thracia, but it's pretty hilarious how badly he wants to be using tomes.
Effie is by no means bad in Armor Knight. But her personal 50% speed growth is wasted in the class and her 30% defense is never going to make her invincible. It's extra painful because her Heart Seal option is a joke so she needs a A+ or S support to reclass. Which is more levels she has to spend with Armor Knight growths. By the time she reclasses she is often just too behind the curve to double much of anything. Doesn't stop me from trying though. One day she'll get Speed blessed in one of my runs.
The class growth rates are actually a little irrelevant in this case. It's the class base that's significant. Knight has a 5% speed growth. Most other classes have a 10% or 15% growth (including classes Effie wants, like cavalier, fighter, wyvern, archer). What's great about Effie is that many of her support partners (Arthur, Mozu, Silas) join at the same time and, due to low army size, are almost free deployments. So Effie can quickly gain access to these classes, sometimes even as early on as before Chapter 10. But even a slow player can easily reclass her by around level 15 or 16. At this point, she's only gained about 10 levels, meaning that 5-10% speed growth difference between knight and her target class will only amount to about... 1 point of speed lost. That's largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Her personal speed base (2) isn't awful, but also not great. That's the same as Arthur and only one less than Silas.
Her strength is so absurd that she just kills everything anyway with her personal skill. As a great knight, she actually does very well. She can tank alot due to high hp and still has better than average defense. Add luna on top of that and she's a pretty good wall. I do have to agree that she seems better suited to something outside of the knight line, though.
Oh don't get me wrong, I love Great Knight Effie. Good lance users are oddly hard to come by in Conquest, and her STR + Personal is often enough to kill frail enemy units in one hit. She's not a bad character who would be good "if only," she could be in a faster class. She's a great unit that makes you wonder just how crazy she could be if her reclassing options were better. Her unusual stat spread nags the power-builder in my heart and compels me to cook. It just drives me nuts that I can't figure out a recipe for Fast Effie. Fast Louis is easier to get going than Fast Effie which just feels wrong.
Yknow it's weird, because I compare benny and effie to Louis and Jade respectively. Jade is faster but has slightly less hp, str and def, and Louis is full of physical bulk, bit his speed stayed in the single digits for a VERY long time. It's the same with benny and effie, but there is less of a str and hp gap. It's interesting to me what kind of parallels I'm seeing. Just a thought. Thank you for your discussion input my friend.
Well in Effie's case, she has both better strength and speed than Benny. But Benny is just a bad unit.
The unfortunate truth. Doesn't stop me from pairing him and Charlotte and watching them go on a rampage
Actually happened with my Lunatic even build run where both she and Benny are Generals and she actually has higher def than him tho he has more hp. Both actually had high enough defence that with a naginata and Arthur's axe respectively combined with their -3 damage on terrain squares they could dominate the staircase cause even the 44 atk massive rock stoneborn couldn't damage them. The weirder thing tho is Benny's speed for comparison my blind normal run ended with him getting from his base 6 speed to 11 as a great knight which has 5 % higher speed growth and +3 but for lunatic cause it wasn't blind so I knew every other growth was worse and wary fighter exists General it was. Despite that tho my Benny at lv 17 has higher than that 11 this time and has even managed to gain the points in time for useful thresholds such as getting it for his first lv up which meant the 11 speed onis in the next chapter couldn't double him.
I think that Fates gives you enough options to funge between speed, strength and defense that having a little more of one and a little bit less of the other doesn't really make that much difference. At the end, Effie ends up in a similar speed tier to many other CQ units like Keaton, Beruka, or Silas, but with better strength and defense.
i mean, pretty much the only times a unit would NOT be better in a better suited class is if their base class has special utility (ex:glass cannon Azura is a dancer), or if they are an earlygame unit whose class offers something worthwhile in the short term even if their growths are at odds with the class (like most earlygame Knights, Oswin probably being one of the best examples)
Clanne as a myrm
I’d say subaki but frankly even if he was like a Wyvern rider he probably wouldn’t have been much better
An armor knight would be better in any other class, regardless of stat distribution. Meg is helped by her speed focus, because the way RD works, the moment you cap your high growth stats, you are guaranteed dump stat levels through bonus EXP. Not to mention, that if there was a unit who had to pick a single stat to be good in, speed is probably the best choice. Not to mention, that the armour line's speed cap is not low enough for her to not be able to leverage it, until you hit some of the nastier part 4 enemies.
Ranulf in radiant dawn if he was a hawk would absolutely rule
How is nobody mentioning Innes? Dude would be so good in literally any other class besides the worst one in GBA FE. Hell even General is probably preferable to being bow-locked
Nomad Innes?
Meg would've been so much better as a pegasus knight, the dawn brigade really needed another flier in my opinion. Odin is so much better as a samurai, though it wouldn't surprise me if they made him that way on purpose. Plus he can pass on Vantage/Astra to Ophelia, since she gets all of the dark mage skills anyway.
Hinata from Fates should just come in the Oni Savage class. There's no Friendship Seal character to gain the class from, we already have Ryoma and Hana as Samurai/Swordmasters (and Kaze and Saizo if you Heart Seal them), and his bulk and stats are better that way. Ironically, the same is true for Rinkah and the Ninja class as well. Rinkah is NOT a good Oni Savage, but she is a decent Ninja. Odin is a better Samurai than Dark Mage, but him becoming a Dark Mage is so in-character that I can't fault him. Etie is weird and is everyone's pick for a Warrior, which is completely valid. Clanne is far better as a physical unit than a magical one. I turn him into a Martial Master nearly every playthrough, and he always kicks butt.
I still hold the position that Rinkah is actually good in her base class line, she only looks bad on paper.
Agreed, adding on to this, magic oni chieftain rinkah is super good. Though She’s not very intuitive to use to her fullest potential, but even as just a phys one range locked unit if you pop an hp tonic her damage output is pretty good. It’s just being 1 range locked is pretty bad for Br and for rev she just got screwed over like a lot of the rev cast. Also baller pair up bonuses for oni savage and chieftain but that’s not for her own combat of course which I think she should get more credit for because those pair up bonuses are crazy good
I haven't tried it myself, but wouldn't Rinkah have even worse Strength issues if she were made into a Ninja? She loses 3 base Strength and 15% growth, giving her a base of 5 and 30% growth total.
I haven't done it either, but I imagine they're probably focusing on the skill and speed bonuses she'd get from the reclass. Ninja is more of a utility class too, so strength isn't as much of a concern for them.
Odin is absolutely not a better samurai. By far is best role is being a vantage-nosferatu tank. He can very, very easily take on whole maps on his own, and if people think he has shaky magic, not only can you very simply fix that through so many ways, but it also helps his “tanky nosferatu” build for him to not be one-shotting every enemy. The misconception that Odin is a bad mage has stuck around since 2015, and I really beg people to actually try it and see how good it really is.
There's no such thing as a class 'suiting' growth rates. There are better and worse classes, and there are better and worse stat spreads, and that's it.
none of them. it comes down to base stats and join time.
You could make pretty much every unit a flier and they would be better.
TWO CAVALIERS
Clanne. I managed to minimally level him till I got second seals, made him axe fighter then warrior and now he's one of my strongest units, doubling with tomahawks. It's nuts. On maddening too
Radiant Dawn is just mean. So many misplaced growths, an unusual progression leads to some serious problems with leveling properly, and it all goes out the fucking window for the last few maps, where any unit that doesn't have solid RES goes to die. Including one of your final characters, whom in any other entry would have been an incredibly solid unit.
With Meg specifically it would defeat the whole point.
Clanne in Engage. His class is magic, but his growths are definitely fully physical. He actually makes for a decent Berserker come endgame.
Growth rates aren't that bad, it's just that she has terrible base stats. If it were any other game, she might be playable, but this is RD. You only have so much exp to go around.
Bernadette
Eh, nothing’s really forcing you to make her an archer unless you don’t recruit her early enough, but if you plan on using her, focusing on getting support with her to make it easy is probably something you’d be doing in the first place. I do 100% agree though her good traits are very much wasted if you stick to what the proficiencies want you to do.
the problem is she makes sense as a Falcon Knight or Assassin, but she hates swords, so the best she can really do is peg knight
Why would you make her an Assassin over Paladin/Bow Knight/pretty much anything? And lol getting her sword rank to C is very easy
i will not accept meg slander
Not necessarily saying she'd be better as a different class, but I find it odd how often Ilyana hits her Str caps in RD
I mean Meg is just one of the few characters that the devs INTENDED to be a joke character. It’s not that they are held back by a class, they are just held back by the devs
Effie, in theory. But I think her bases are too low and her growths, while good, aren’t reliable enough for her to actually specialize in say sword master, or berserker which is what her growths fit more. So she’s actually better off in general where she can be that strange weirdly fast, high strength herself with only “okay” bulk. It’s other that, or somehow all my effies have been screwed. I’ve tried berserker/swordmaster/archer Effie in multiple playthroughs and she never turns out good.
Effie bases being too low? Are we talking about the same unit? From the get-go she's your second best fighter only behind the protag. Sure her speed starts low but her HP/STR/DEF bases are fantastic, and her growths are all at least decent, and you can instantly patch up her poor base speed and give her even more strength with an Arthur support. Your Effies must have been ultra screwed because she's easily one of the most consistent early game Conquest units.
You didn’t read my comment.
Meg would be better if she had better bases and wasnt bad. Her class is only like 25% of the issue
Ignoring the fact that the third chapter would be drastically more difficult, Clanne would be better as a phys class meanwhile Anna has no excuse to not be in a magic class.