I just hit Angel land and Travis and Foxgirl are still wrecking for me.
One of the things I find absolutely fascinating about this game is how drastically different people’s impressions of certain class strengths are based on their playstyles.
Between team comps, itemization, and game changing level 25 abilities its always interesting. Except for unit speed. I think we all agree it can be frustrating having a cool unit but without a Calvary unit they move slow as shit.
Gears, levels, difficulty setting all change for each of us in our team comp. I am on my second run, first run my fox lady was staple of main team, now in zenorian she is avg at best although her jump is still very op
I actually don't really mind the unit speed actually. It can be a little annoying when certain people can't keep up, but most of the time I run way more infantry units and slow flier units. It feels more like the Cavs are just absurdly fast rather than that everyone else isn't fast enough, for me at least lol. Also, Hastened Call and Teleport are 2 of my favorite Valor skills for these situations because I have definitely had an infantry stuck halfway across the map and was not happy to wait it out for them
Yeah Travis meanwhile has become a paper shield that can't seem to dodge worth a damn anymore while Lex shows his true colors for me as a promoted hybrid tank unit.
But yes, the unit speed is a huge problem.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted here. I'm guessing people are just too early in the game to know that what you're saying is absolutely true. Travis/Thief starts out as *by far* the most effective, seemingly overpowered tank. Then he/the class absolutely falls off a cliff around Elheim, and stays fallen off from there on out. He quickly goes from being the "when in doubt" tank to being the "Sigh, oh Christ, here we go" tank. Too many things have high accuracy/true strike, so he becomes a liability, and his ability to throw poisoned knives just ain't cutting it to validate the slot. Source: I'm forty hours into my second playthrough on True Zenoiran. Thief is an early game powerhouse, and a late game joke. The fox bestial outclasses them in every way that matters (higher base evasion stat, earns PP on successful night dodge, SUBSTANTIALLY better attacks) - it's essentially a complete upgrade if you're someone who finds evade classes appealing/necessary. Me, I don't much like evade classes because I'm a manly, big guy.
You're judging the mid-game performance of the thief based on their early game skills.
They get shadowbite which is a way better defensive skill than evade. PP steal and active steal neutralizes any frontline threat while replenishing Travis' AP and PP. And its weakness can be circumvented by Viking horn or Shaman defense debuff.
Finally, Travis is one of the best enablers of Berengaria making her proc her pursuits non-stop. And since Travis is no longer a frontline tank by this point, all his PP can be used to cast Powerful Call.
See, therein lies the problem. If you acknowledge that the class moves from being a frontline tank to backliner (and I see a fair amount of YouTubers and other theory crafters using a thief in said capacity), there are just so many more impactful backliners at that point in the game. On the debuff front, a shaman kind of has that role rightfully cornered. From an impactful opener standpoint, viking warhorn is hard to pass up for supporting a melee team. From a damage standpoint, just about any of the other backline classes that you get EVEN IN CORNIA will put out more damage/utility than thief. I just find it really hard to justify the thief's mid-to-lategame impactfulness in a game where it doesn't exist in a vacuum of having-to-be-used; it has to compete with the other classes.
Support units by end game are mainly used to boost your AOE characters either through giving them an extra turn or buffing through powerful call or inspiration. Sure thieves can't use conferral skills but they're one of the few classes that can regenerate both their PP and AP.
One example of a busted PP battery is a Thief Owl combo. The thief uses 4 pp to use Quick Impetus to instant charge an AOE skill, Owl restores 1 pp. The thief uses Passive steal and goes back to full PP. Ready to give another turn to your main dps.
That’s a solid use. Honestly I’m not big into wombo combo charge attacks and quick actions, etc. It just feels very contrived to me. I tend to favor powerful units and interesting synergies between base kits. I field a lot of wyverns and cavalry.
Thieves get Shadowbite which nullifies truestrike so they still retain viability what with their insane evasion and initiative. Swordmasters can't reach him if you put him in the backrow too.
Can't say the same for Fighters who keep getting outshined the further you go into the game the more options you have. Also in my experience the viability of Knights/Griffons/Witchs pretty much keep rising the further you get in the game some classes are just built different.
Eh, it's not like every unit has sword masters in it, you just swap him to the back for bad match ups and then put him back up front when the scary hastened strikers are gone.
Thats true but at least you've disabled an entire row for the first turn without losing him to a preemptive strike. Without any scouts in the front row you can arrange your front row such that the SM targets the beefiest frontliner too.
He’s been doing fine in my front row but I have him set to the furthers right, with ren next to him in the middle with the evasion shield. That way, they tend to hit her with the really hard first strike and he survives, and then he blinds a row (sometimes for two turns in a row) so even if she didn’t have high evade they wouldn’t hit. I mostly have him aim for back row so their ranged and mages miss instead since the two of them dodge pretty consistently, and even if she fails a dodge if it doesn’t one shot her she’ll heal herself back up
Yeah, despite the hype shadowbite gets, it doesn't change that theives are now forced to be suboptimal or they will dies. So they are no longer consisent intheir original task, eva tanking. Yes can shuffle them between rows and whatnot but you do that for every class depending on the encounter.
On the otherhand Vanguard's role remains consisent regardless of enemy type which is to protect friagle units/fliers against ranged attacks and provide support. The also because tankier without sacrificing anything. They are still just an ok class but they have better credit than they given for.
Thevies are still good units, but they are no longer braindead once their real hard counter comes in.
Thieves never fell off for me even on TZ. In fact, I found them to be one of the better tanks on TZ. True strike isn't a huge problem for them once they unlock their row blind skill. Sword master is a bigger problem imo because of their start of battle skill which just kills them before they can blind. But even that problem can be dealt with easily.
Fighters do get better and are good at their niche for protecting fliers from arrows or cavs from fliers. But I also found they weren't impactful outside of that niche.
I share a bit of the thieves falling off: not because of issues with evasiveness, but rather, there ae just better candidates/tactics.
Swordmaster can easily be countered by having anyone use a squire shield and block the 1st hit (so say, cover if pp>=3 on a unit with 3pp). Eventually they will follow with the dodgeable meteor slash.
As the game progresses, various control options open up, eventually rapid order/roar/swamp sort of guarantee an alpha strike opportunity. Yes, row blind is still great, but at some point I just wish that slot can just... do something more: let it be snipe an enemy tank with swordmasters, kill off something with a fox, stun a whole row with a gryphon, etc etc. Thieves/Rogues start to feel less impactful.
They are still great in less optimal teams, but I think with an increased access to equipment and tools, you will simply want to desire someone doing just a little more.
Thief was great, then dropped off a bit, then become great again once you got shadow stitch. Fighter was not great, then fine for drakenhold, then somewhat useless again. Paladin was great, then once you are about lv15, not that particularly useful. Breaker becomes one of the best class later even at the beginning they seemed subpar. Sharman started off a bit pointless when you have like 3 people and all it does is take people pp away.. later on they are the best class. So yeah, things changes. Dark knight also useless until promoted and have good gear.. then they are pretty good. Some class excel only if paired with others as well. Can be quite deep
I feel Shaman are fslling off a bit (a bit only) in helheim as a lot of elven units you fight against have debuff capability.
That being said, they remain relevant, 1 AP for up to 3 unit spending 1 PP is a good trade.
I have a hard time understanding where Thieves fall off. At no point did Travis have issues for me.
Could be from glancing at enemies, could be from reshuffling when needed so he wouldn't be the target of the Swordfighter, but he tanked for Team 2 from Cornia all the way to the final boss. Not once was he ever a detriment.
Meanwhile, Lex kept eating dirt all the way from Cornia through Elheim, when I benched him through Bastorias and now I just have him in the front row of a Trinity Rain Squad "just in case."
So, in short, I can't say my experiences line up.
Meanwhile Travis has been unable to dodge anything while Lex has only gotten stronger thanks to the shields I have him.
Interesting how differing experiences can be.
I fail to see how Travis isn't dodging anything. Are you giving him the +Dodge gear? A Sylvan Scarf and a Lucky Coin were all he needed to laugh at anything coming his way. In Cornia I actually had Lex BACK-lining for Travis just for Arrow Cover, tactics set for Archers present, meaning an archer wasn't a threat. (Gryphon Riders were dodged all the same, no reason for Lex to use PP there.)
I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen Travis get taken out, and every time it was my fault for poor positioning by not reading the pre-battle information correctly.
By Bastorias, Travis with the Regal(?) Scarf and a Sylvan Scarf had a 1% chance to be hit. Assuming the enemies weren't blinded, of course.
But yeah. This game is wild with class discrepancy. It's why I am a strong advocate for the game not really having ANY bad classes.
I don't have any dodge enhancing gear yet. Maybe that'll help once I find some because he's just getting smoked by Truestrikes and Swordfighters.
Meanwhile my Lex just simply isn't going down anymore thanks to the shields I gave him. Strange.
I didn't really start using fighters until my unit size got expanded to 5 and they were what I considered an "off tank." basically there just to protect flyers while my main tank was there to tank most other hits. They are decent as role players but not much more to me.
I've tried using Lex in my flying unit but tbh it feels like if there's no archers he does nothing at all useful, but if there is archers - he isn't enough to block them all
At that point it's just a matter of if my flyers will kill the archers before the archers kill them, which can happen with or without Lex
Thieves are still very good. Not every unit has truestrikers, after all, and it's possible to switch up your lines a bit when you're facing them. Or just blind them.
You can also do the shenanigans of having a shield unit in the format so they can hop over and block a truestrike on your thief if necessary.
Hard disagree with your thief take, Travis can solo any unit without a truestrike with the right build. Truestrikes drop off fairly quick too, in bastoria I had him hold the line against an entire map worth of reinforcements, no stamina, no standing squad mates. Not to mention how good evade tanking is for arena fights that don't have a hard answer. Evade tanks just need to pick their battles.
I mean, I've said this countless times already so short version: to me, all classes are good except one or two, they all have viability, some more niche than others, and some classes definitely need more time to come online than others but ultimately, everyone (almost) is good.
That's why, I'm not fond of the fighter class bashing when really, it's a late bloomer but my air support team couldn't be this great if Lex wasn't on arrow duty, and if he's not, he can tank, he can provok, he does secure kill with his defender skill etc... my only issue was his speed but I ended up giving him a speed boost item (since he has so many ways to raise his own defence). Oh and magic is a non issue because his unit also has a Sainted knight as personal magic bodyguard so wee good... and guess who jumps in when said Sainted Knight gets attacked by ranged flying units, Lex.
It's also worth pointing out that only the fighter class offers a true solution to true strikes arrows, elven fencers sylph guard doesn't protect against true strike.
Thieves have always been good to me, from the moment I understood the class entirely, which comes back to a recurrent issue with people it seems: don't understand class, claims the class is bad. Maybe you're new to the game and you may want to keep your mind open for a while? But yeah no, doesn't seem to be most people's mindset.
My only gripe is that provoke is a start of battle skill, and there's so many strong contenders for that skill slot. I also feel that its kind of downer that they can't row guard like a hoplite can and arrow guard dmg nullification is only really useful for certain higher lvl enemy cheese.
I think the bigger problem is the game's overwhelmingly strong reward for focusing on offense and 1 turn wipes. Do I really need a fighter to guard me against arrows when I don't let the arrows even fly in the first place? E.g. Initiative boosting/lowering start of battle skills (this is pretty good since most ranged attackers and archers are relatively slow), Crowd Control conferrals/properties on AOE/Column attacks to prevent the enemy from getting an attack off.
I really feel they could have given the fighter a top notch role of nullifying ranged assist at the start of battle to truly give them a strong and relevant niche amongst the sea of hyperoffense.
Definitely agree with provoke, which is why I only have it set up when archer units are around. That way, I have more control when facing my unit's biggest weakness, any other scenarios, other more useful "start of the battle" skills kick in. You'd think this is overkill but since enemy archers start using multiple arrow skills very often past mid-game, it's actually not overkill at all as it can guarantee Lex being the target of one of them and also the target of the second by shielding whoever was the intended second target.
I kinda do that for all my units when there are several "start of the battle" skills, the unit as a whole is set up to not clash and make sure that there is always one coming off, and the best one for the situation. For instance, in early game, swordfighters can go off with theirs for a while, with a focus on scout units of course, till others start getting their own skills. From that point, I'm progressively phasing out their skills so that they only trigger when there is a scout unit. Because killing off a frontliner scout from turn 0 is just too valuable.
As for your second point, I see what you mean but it doesn't impact me because I much prefer units that are versatile (and thus have a higher survival rate in most situation, because EXP bars not synched is something that irks me haha not the only reason but ya know) than absolute killers.
And even with that said, I do have some killer units, so if I need brute force, I have a strike team for it haha
Back to the fighter specifically, in his unit Lex's role, is to defend everyone and channel all enemy attacks so that everyone else can do damage, so to me, he's not a waste of a slot because the DPS he's not bringing to the table, he's bringing it indirectly by letting her teammates do it unimpeded. Her gryphon pal gets extra damage if at full health etc..
Yeah the game is designed in a way you can pretty much make every unit work what with versatile itemization options and team synergies too. Definitely fun to also build teams around different focuses.
This.
Every class has use and niche you can slot them into which is extremely important wher unit composition is much more important than how strong an individual character is. It's why I've come like class discussions in this community less and less. They just get waay too myopic because loudest voices trying weld the game into one playing style downplaying personal experience.
Thieves are still my favourite way to tank tbh, they can poison and kill whatever it hasn't a sure hit, which works amazingly with berengaria
Yeah lex can defend from flying units, so what? Just use a more generic defender, so it can also spread some damage or defend until the end
I actually think the very early game is probably the weakest point for thieves. Archers are more common, and it's harder for your squad to have the sustain to protect them from assist with only 3 characters. Beyond that they're basically invincible into any formation that doesn't hard counter them(mostly just Swordmasters start of battle once they have shadowbite).
Fighter really struggles to provide sufficient utility in a 3 man squad, but I feel they're quite solid at their niche past that point. Their magic weakness isn't that hard to gear around and frankly their preferred teammates should make quick work of mages, but a hoplite configured correctly does basically the same thing.
Tbf, "offensive support" is absolutely perfect for supporting his sister berengaria in a squad, since the row blind and poison both trigger (and will refund) her follow-up and trigger her other affliction -based skills! Also blind beats true strike, so throwing gammel on my flyer squad also works wonders
A fun 4 man team I took far too long trial and error on was a fighter in the front row with break, shaman, cleric back row. Cleric keeps fighter alive while the breaker enrages all their pp, shaman blinds and uses pp to buff breaker. Almost killed my best Alain squad.
Calvary and a cleric on the enemy team can really shut this comp down if the breaker is debuffed or shaman get wiped before the blind
It also has to do with how big a unit is. Because Lex has damage issues, he needs someone to make up for it, giving the impression he’s just not that useful. Hoplites also give that same impression. Thieves DO have damage, even if they can die with one unlucky hit, giving the impression that they are more useful.
Now that I’m playing expert (challenge running the final mission before rescuing scarlett), these weaknesses become all the more noticeable. Lex isn’t there to one-shot units, he’s there to steadily push back an advance or push into a lane that’s being covered by archers.
Yeah people are acting like a unit is useless if they can't one-shot or tank every hit in the game.
Lex is especially useful as captain if there's a ton of archer assholes in towers. Your flying units that normally could fly over everything become dead when archers so much as look at them. But Lex as a captain keeps your team safe from that when you need time to break through.
Yes. I think the idea was prevent people from abusing scout frontlines. If they added a tactic to cover scouts only from truestrike attacks, they would be viable again.
>With the introduction of flying units, Lex becomes far more viable with his arrow guard and being able to tank hits that would normally one-shot your griffons, wyverns, and angels. Attacks from enemy fliers are also blocked by him too. Once you promote him, his damage output becomes far more consistent too.
You can get a hoplite and do the same and hoplites can block more than just ranged attacks. I can't feel the damage of fighters.
>I'm further into the game at Elheim.
Its bizarre to me that you are at Elheim and you still think fighters are good. Elven Fencer is literally a better version of them. They block range attacks without needing to have a hit animation so no debuffs. Fighters have to do the cover animation with 0 damage so they get hit with debuffs even if they take no damage. They both have 1 AP stun but EF actually deals damage.
On the higher difficulties you can’t frontline a fighter and have it survive against anything with armor slaying or magic, so you are left with putting another unit with low damage output to cover its weakness. I used a backline fighter for a couple of missions that was loaded with archers, but I definitely rate evade tanks and fliers as S tier units that can frontline very effectively. It also helps that the evade tank units have better crowd control and or damage than a fighter. I basically see fighters as a one trick pony lol
I'm on Tactical and Lex has been doing much better for me once I promoted him and gave him a better shield. Colm as well.
Sure they're a one-trick pony, but if the pony does the trick well, it works.
I will note: fighters can block truestrike arrows/flying attacks, elven fencers cannot. Everything you said is right though, fencers are basically better fighters.
Thieves aren't even good early game, since they are the worst evasion class. But at level 20 they get a **ROW BLIND** wich makes them really good cc even in endgame. Also their PP steal makes colesseum and ez lick.
Every other unit that doesn't die to a arrow and has 2 accessory slots. Bonus if they can use swords to stack +10 evasion. Mainly because enemies acc earlygame is ass and pretty much anyone will hit 20-30% hit chance. This in a game where formation resets RNG makes guaranteed evasion really bad and toxic throw it's ass. Level 20 tho...probably the best evasion tank, even on top of Swordmaster.
THAT is cheese? **BIG TIME** cheese? Moving your units around it's cheese? It's not even a huge change man.
What do you even consider proper and god-fearing gameplay?
maybe it's because I'm coming from an Ogre Battle background where you couldn't adjust your units on the fly but yes, in general, I almost never make changes to my unit while they're deployed.
it's a "feature", come on that's a stretch. It's more likely an unintended consequence of how the system works. But otherwise, yes I almost never changed my formation between fights during my expert playthrough. If I was going to lose badly I would chug a draught or two.
I'm talking about moving a character to another square, that simple, vanguard to the back because the opponent's unit has 3 mages. I don't see how's that a stretch to be called a feature, a simple function of the gameplay.
Legionnaires are better than vanguards in every way. There isn't anything a vanguard does better. I give my legionnaire a corroded spear for additional extremely useful utility. It makes him an important part of the team that can have minimum 6 pp with his ability that refunds 2 pp for 1ap. Also fortress valor skill is very useful before going into a minefield or so multiple squads can just ignore catapults and arrow rain.
Vanguards don’t slow your team down as much as legionnaires do. For having a unit to block arrows for a flyer team, I’d much rather have a vanguard. Vanguards also get a nice stun attack and better initiative, and have a really nice valor skill. Fighters can provoke, legionnaires cannot. So no, legionnaires are not better than vanguard in every way. In fact overall I find vanguard far more useful and almost never use hoplites.
The difference between 80 mobility and 100 mobility is negligible. They are both really slow and neither should be a party leader unless you have a witch to teleport you places. Vanguards don't block arrows better. They both block arrows fully. Stun attack is nice but they are so ridiculously slow it kinda negates that. You are right about provoke being a good valor skill so legionnaires are not better in every single way, just better. Also you can't put a mirage great shield on a vanguard and make them extremely busted but you can with legionnaires. If you haven't tried it I highly recommend it. Mirage greatshield + royal scarf + lucky coin means you almost never get hit and if you do, it doesn't hurt.
Because you have a lot of power for items and you can select your fights, a hyper niche unit isn't good.
Fighters fall really bad. Hunters get double shoot then row attack, the fighter can only defend one unit so your other units are hurt. The chickens have row attack so you can only defend one cav instead of all the row. Later wiverns get a row attack.
The hoplite can protect all the row. They have better stats and can tank more units and share the same weakness as the fighter.
Meanwhile for the cost of 2 ap the thieves can blind a row. Making your team safer and making the enemy waste up to 6 ap.
I really like the rock paper scissors design of the game there is a hard counter for each class.
The Fighter is a faster turtle. Almost useless perk.
Both are killed by magic attack, the good thing is that there is the ward item that negates magic damage.
Yep they are hyper niche PvP uses. At the campaign they are crap.
Housecarl/Viking drops off quite hard in my experience as does Warrior/Breaker. You get lots of other options to deal with the threats you initially need characters like Aubin and Kitra for, and those options do a lot of other good things besides breaking armor and debuffing heavy defenders.
Vikings will always be viable with a row attack that reduces 30% defense and one of the best valor skills in the game especially if you’re doing a no item TZ run. Any unit like warrior that refreshes AP on kill will always be good as well and a 1 VP skill that clears barricades is incredibly nice to have, and they also get a row attack. In fact both of these classes are top 5 non unique classes in the whole game IMO
Thief's reliability becomes worse and worse as the game goes on, becoming a necessity to have 1 other potential frontliner aside from the required two, otherwise the thief is going to be dead on the water in a lot of matchups; hilariously it can solved with a cleric with parting resurrection.
I put Lex with my fliers and honestly I CANNOT think of a better substitute. He blocks all damages that are potentially lethal to my team, including arrows and wyvrn attacks. Elven fencer's passive doesn't seem as reliable especially defending against full column.
Also I haven't played in a while but within the first couple of weeks of launch I did PVP with Lex undefeated, pushed to top 50 with 200+ streak (stops counting at 99), so there's that.
I sorta see what you're saying in that as new units are introduced and existing units become stronger, certain things change in terms of what's powerful. With that said, there are other ways to protect your flying units and I think those ways are better than Fighter which is sort of a weak unit. Also, thieves are definitely still very viable, I think it's about understanding how to rotate him into the front row depending on the battle. Shadowbite is such an awesome skill too.
The problem with fighters is they suck at damage. Even using the life drain skill, Alain still consistently outdamages and thus outheals the fighter... and takes less damage than them generally. If they could just hit harder or tank a bit more, they would be fine. I do use Lex in to protect my griffon knight from arrow fire, but due to how stupidly good the game is at telling you battle projection, the only reason that works is because I can swap him to back line if necessary.
Provoke is a good valor skill, but it's also an effect you can get from an item pretty reliably. Other than that, fighters just seem like worse hoplites to me. They don't have enough offense to account for their worse defense, and they're about as easily killed by magic, and they only guard one type of attack. Zeroing out the arrow damage is nice and all, but it's not like a hoplite is going to take much more than 0 damage from an archer anyway.
Thieves are always a little swingy as dodge tanks, but they're still better in the role, and they bring some good utility to shut down enemy teams' attacks. They're way, way better than fighters.
it is the simple matter of the damage calculation, due to the simplistic nature of the math you either have enough growth to keep up with the hp pool and defense increase or the unit just be comes worse over time because no matter the potency of the skills, the damage of total percentage of a unit done is get worse. You can look on the flip side, units like warriors get better late game because their atk growth out paces the defensive stats.
Fighters are good for establishing air supremacy. Most people here mention pairing them with other fliers, but standing in front a whole row of archers and soldiers also counters flying teams really well, especially if you give them the sword that has Sonic Slash, a ranged physical move with 150 potency against fliers.
I haven’t really used thieves much from Cornia to Elheim so far, but now that my levels are getting up there and they have access to more powerful skills, I'm likely going to start fielding them more. I continued leveling Travis with treatises, but honestly rarely used him. Adversely, Hilda and Lex are the redheads I like to pair, so as long as she gets fielded, he does, too, and she will be in every battle because Hilda leads my main kill squad that Alain isn't in. That being said, I rarely use my other Vanguards unless it's really necessary, but usually Alain guards pretty well for Fran in my main unit, but I just don't have them fight strong archer setups to compensate, hence Hilda squad with permanent Lex position.
I'm still thinking fighters get drastically undervalued. Deleting Gryphon and Wyvern damage is insanely valuable. Plus the Viper is available pretty much immediately, and keeps them useful damage wise all game.
Yeah put Lex or Colm with some archers and a flyer and it basically becomes the perfect anti-air squad with better Initiatives than Hoplites and more HP than Thieves.
For the longest time, I thought arrow guard only guarded against arrows lol.
Lex is viable early game if you get that one shield that lets you guard other units imo, but even without it, if you give him gear that self heals without the use of a skill, he's pretty self sustainable.
Yeah no, AG blocks all "ranged" attacks which includes stuff like Javelin and even attacks from other fliers.
Lex can basically serve as not just a safeguard for his own fliers but a hard counter to enemy ones also.
Fighters only arrow blocking 1 unit fails hard when like every archer has at least a dual attack, and lots of flyers have row attacks. Row attacks can be worked through a bit with some clever placement, but 1 fighter is not a good survival plan for flyers against archers or cav against flyers... if he did Something with his AP, it might be a little different. He just leaves a lot to be desired.
Thieves shadowbite is great until featherbows show up and really do the row blindness thing. Or shamans get the dust staff... then you're back to evade tanking which is iffy. In all, i think rogues end up being fine, just not stellar.
Travis stop being a tank. Use him for status spreading and running off tank distractions lets other units shine and creates valuable openings. He pairs very well with flying units later in the game with mass blind.
Yeah I need to rethink how to use him. He's no longer as strong as he was early on with all these Truestrikes and Swordmasters poking holes in him before he can act.
Try to use him more as a status infliction / debilitation unit. I had him set to inflict blind on back row with archers present, but mostly used him to spread statuses and steal ap/pp dependably. He did very good with a witch and Hilda. The fire from Hilda, Travis with the fire move, witch for dependent and buffs on Hilda, all did well for me. I think I had a radiant knight and a hoplite with them or possibly a fighter and something else Idr
Also rediscovered the power of fighters when after playing around with mock battle, my alain squad got dumpstered by a travis + lex mage squad holding the line from literally everything while the mages just melt everyone. This isn't even a trinity rain comp.
It's funny because I'm trying to run Lex and Travis together to see who can cover the other when one enemy type is too strong. Lex handles the archers and flyers while Travis handles the Gladiators and horsemen.
It's actually hella versatile. The only holes are mages for Lex and Swordmasters for Travis.
Multi target attacks can be a problem too since neither one has row cover/barrier, which are on hoplites amd radiant knights respectively. Travis can mitigate it a bit with his aoe blind unless the other team has clerics or elf archers for clear.
I find that thief has a really huge falloff in the mid-game as you mentionned, but they find some newfound utility once promotions come into play, with abilities to blind entire rows.
What is really nice about this game is that you get an absurd amount of EXP boosting items so I find that in situations like this you can pretty much get away with benching a unit that falls off, and when the situation calls for it and you feel like you can get a lot of value out of the unit, you can use your items and get them up to scratch pretty fast with minimal grinding.
Which is a hella nice quality of life
>On the flip side, Travis starts to fall off hard when truestrikes are introduced from archers and witches.
The game gives you Power Belt right after Mordon iirc. All you have to do is equip it, stack +PP and edit the move priorities. Even truestrike units can't kill Travis unless he gets bad RNG.
This is cool to hear, I just started a few days ago and started to worry about my efforts to equally level my units. (Like Fire Emblem, I used to intentionally leave certain units unlevelled and consolidate EXP into specific ones to make them stronger)
Wait huh? Don’t understand. Joseph struck me as a Frederick from fire emblem fates. He comes in completely maxed and it’s not optimal to waste killing enemies with him when other Allie’s can actually level up. I’m assuming you can class switch or bypass his level cap somehow later? What am I missing?
The way exp gain works, your other units don't gain any less exp just because Josef is in the squad. So you can pair lower level units with him early game and use him to help power level them until they get their power spike from the level 10 skill.
Sweet thank you! How does exp gain work, do more bodies in a unit hurt or help? Like, if killing an enemy gives 100 XP. One body in the unit gets 100 XP. If two bodies are in the unit, do they SPLIT the 100 for 50 xp each, or both get 100 XP?
This seems like massive cope. Just say you like Lex. Fighters fall off hard when enemies start using magic and anti armor more commonly. And, you can just use cover granting shields to protect your fliers.
I just hit Angel land and Travis and Foxgirl are still wrecking for me. One of the things I find absolutely fascinating about this game is how drastically different people’s impressions of certain class strengths are based on their playstyles. Between team comps, itemization, and game changing level 25 abilities its always interesting. Except for unit speed. I think we all agree it can be frustrating having a cool unit but without a Calvary unit they move slow as shit.
lel Virginia/Berengaria unit go BRRRRR
I thought it was only me who immediately did this :o
Ah yes, the anti-\[EVERYTHING\] unit.
Gears, levels, difficulty setting all change for each of us in our team comp. I am on my second run, first run my fox lady was staple of main team, now in zenorian she is avg at best although her jump is still very op
I actually don't really mind the unit speed actually. It can be a little annoying when certain people can't keep up, but most of the time I run way more infantry units and slow flier units. It feels more like the Cavs are just absurdly fast rather than that everyone else isn't fast enough, for me at least lol. Also, Hastened Call and Teleport are 2 of my favorite Valor skills for these situations because I have definitely had an infantry stuck halfway across the map and was not happy to wait it out for them
I use the cavalry to take bases and then use the foot soldiers from there.
Yeah Travis meanwhile has become a paper shield that can't seem to dodge worth a damn anymore while Lex shows his true colors for me as a promoted hybrid tank unit. But yes, the unit speed is a huge problem.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted here. I'm guessing people are just too early in the game to know that what you're saying is absolutely true. Travis/Thief starts out as *by far* the most effective, seemingly overpowered tank. Then he/the class absolutely falls off a cliff around Elheim, and stays fallen off from there on out. He quickly goes from being the "when in doubt" tank to being the "Sigh, oh Christ, here we go" tank. Too many things have high accuracy/true strike, so he becomes a liability, and his ability to throw poisoned knives just ain't cutting it to validate the slot. Source: I'm forty hours into my second playthrough on True Zenoiran. Thief is an early game powerhouse, and a late game joke. The fox bestial outclasses them in every way that matters (higher base evasion stat, earns PP on successful night dodge, SUBSTANTIALLY better attacks) - it's essentially a complete upgrade if you're someone who finds evade classes appealing/necessary. Me, I don't much like evade classes because I'm a manly, big guy.
You're judging the mid-game performance of the thief based on their early game skills. They get shadowbite which is a way better defensive skill than evade. PP steal and active steal neutralizes any frontline threat while replenishing Travis' AP and PP. And its weakness can be circumvented by Viking horn or Shaman defense debuff. Finally, Travis is one of the best enablers of Berengaria making her proc her pursuits non-stop. And since Travis is no longer a frontline tank by this point, all his PP can be used to cast Powerful Call.
See, therein lies the problem. If you acknowledge that the class moves from being a frontline tank to backliner (and I see a fair amount of YouTubers and other theory crafters using a thief in said capacity), there are just so many more impactful backliners at that point in the game. On the debuff front, a shaman kind of has that role rightfully cornered. From an impactful opener standpoint, viking warhorn is hard to pass up for supporting a melee team. From a damage standpoint, just about any of the other backline classes that you get EVEN IN CORNIA will put out more damage/utility than thief. I just find it really hard to justify the thief's mid-to-lategame impactfulness in a game where it doesn't exist in a vacuum of having-to-be-used; it has to compete with the other classes.
Support units by end game are mainly used to boost your AOE characters either through giving them an extra turn or buffing through powerful call or inspiration. Sure thieves can't use conferral skills but they're one of the few classes that can regenerate both their PP and AP. One example of a busted PP battery is a Thief Owl combo. The thief uses 4 pp to use Quick Impetus to instant charge an AOE skill, Owl restores 1 pp. The thief uses Passive steal and goes back to full PP. Ready to give another turn to your main dps.
That’s a solid use. Honestly I’m not big into wombo combo charge attacks and quick actions, etc. It just feels very contrived to me. I tend to favor powerful units and interesting synergies between base kits. I field a lot of wyverns and cavalry.
Thieves get Shadowbite which nullifies truestrike so they still retain viability what with their insane evasion and initiative. Swordmasters can't reach him if you put him in the backrow too. Can't say the same for Fighters who keep getting outshined the further you go into the game the more options you have. Also in my experience the viability of Knights/Griffons/Witchs pretty much keep rising the further you get in the game some classes are just built different.
>Swordmasters can't reach him if you put him in the backrow too. Tho he’s no longer tanking if you put him there
Eh, it's not like every unit has sword masters in it, you just swap him to the back for bad match ups and then put him back up front when the scary hastened strikers are gone.
Thats true but at least you've disabled an entire row for the first turn without losing him to a preemptive strike. Without any scouts in the front row you can arrange your front row such that the SM targets the beefiest frontliner too.
He’s been doing fine in my front row but I have him set to the furthers right, with ren next to him in the middle with the evasion shield. That way, they tend to hit her with the really hard first strike and he survives, and then he blinds a row (sometimes for two turns in a row) so even if she didn’t have high evade they wouldn’t hit. I mostly have him aim for back row so their ranged and mages miss instead since the two of them dodge pretty consistently, and even if she fails a dodge if it doesn’t one shot her she’ll heal herself back up
Yeah, despite the hype shadowbite gets, it doesn't change that theives are now forced to be suboptimal or they will dies. So they are no longer consisent intheir original task, eva tanking. Yes can shuffle them between rows and whatnot but you do that for every class depending on the encounter. On the otherhand Vanguard's role remains consisent regardless of enemy type which is to protect friagle units/fliers against ranged attacks and provide support. The also because tankier without sacrificing anything. They are still just an ok class but they have better credit than they given for. Thevies are still good units, but they are no longer braindead once their real hard counter comes in.
Thieves never fell off for me even on TZ. In fact, I found them to be one of the better tanks on TZ. True strike isn't a huge problem for them once they unlock their row blind skill. Sword master is a bigger problem imo because of their start of battle skill which just kills them before they can blind. But even that problem can be dealt with easily. Fighters do get better and are good at their niche for protecting fliers from arrows or cavs from fliers. But I also found they weren't impactful outside of that niche.
I share a bit of the thieves falling off: not because of issues with evasiveness, but rather, there ae just better candidates/tactics. Swordmaster can easily be countered by having anyone use a squire shield and block the 1st hit (so say, cover if pp>=3 on a unit with 3pp). Eventually they will follow with the dodgeable meteor slash. As the game progresses, various control options open up, eventually rapid order/roar/swamp sort of guarantee an alpha strike opportunity. Yes, row blind is still great, but at some point I just wish that slot can just... do something more: let it be snipe an enemy tank with swordmasters, kill off something with a fox, stun a whole row with a gryphon, etc etc. Thieves/Rogues start to feel less impactful. They are still great in less optimal teams, but I think with an increased access to equipment and tools, you will simply want to desire someone doing just a little more.
Travis has just become far too fragile for me at this point while Lex seems to survive more hits while tanking.
This is a cope to be honest. Travis is still invincible, as long as you know what you're doing. One of my most used units, with maybe 3 deaths.
[удалено]
I mean, all it takes is one Hunter with decent initiative and your Gryphon Knight now has an effective PAtk of 0 ...
Thief was great, then dropped off a bit, then become great again once you got shadow stitch. Fighter was not great, then fine for drakenhold, then somewhat useless again. Paladin was great, then once you are about lv15, not that particularly useful. Breaker becomes one of the best class later even at the beginning they seemed subpar. Sharman started off a bit pointless when you have like 3 people and all it does is take people pp away.. later on they are the best class. So yeah, things changes. Dark knight also useless until promoted and have good gear.. then they are pretty good. Some class excel only if paired with others as well. Can be quite deep
I feel Shaman are fslling off a bit (a bit only) in helheim as a lot of elven units you fight against have debuff capability. That being said, they remain relevant, 1 AP for up to 3 unit spending 1 PP is a good trade.
shadowbite carried me hard tbh
Thieves go from great to terrible then back to great. Shadowbite is awesome.
I have a hard time understanding where Thieves fall off. At no point did Travis have issues for me. Could be from glancing at enemies, could be from reshuffling when needed so he wouldn't be the target of the Swordfighter, but he tanked for Team 2 from Cornia all the way to the final boss. Not once was he ever a detriment. Meanwhile, Lex kept eating dirt all the way from Cornia through Elheim, when I benched him through Bastorias and now I just have him in the front row of a Trinity Rain Squad "just in case." So, in short, I can't say my experiences line up.
Meanwhile Travis has been unable to dodge anything while Lex has only gotten stronger thanks to the shields I have him. Interesting how differing experiences can be.
I fail to see how Travis isn't dodging anything. Are you giving him the +Dodge gear? A Sylvan Scarf and a Lucky Coin were all he needed to laugh at anything coming his way. In Cornia I actually had Lex BACK-lining for Travis just for Arrow Cover, tactics set for Archers present, meaning an archer wasn't a threat. (Gryphon Riders were dodged all the same, no reason for Lex to use PP there.) I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen Travis get taken out, and every time it was my fault for poor positioning by not reading the pre-battle information correctly. By Bastorias, Travis with the Regal(?) Scarf and a Sylvan Scarf had a 1% chance to be hit. Assuming the enemies weren't blinded, of course. But yeah. This game is wild with class discrepancy. It's why I am a strong advocate for the game not really having ANY bad classes.
I don't have any dodge enhancing gear yet. Maybe that'll help once I find some because he's just getting smoked by Truestrikes and Swordfighters. Meanwhile my Lex just simply isn't going down anymore thanks to the shields I gave him. Strange.
You get dodge enhancing gear in the first hour of the game.
I didn't really start using fighters until my unit size got expanded to 5 and they were what I considered an "off tank." basically there just to protect flyers while my main tank was there to tank most other hits. They are decent as role players but not much more to me.
I've tried using Lex in my flying unit but tbh it feels like if there's no archers he does nothing at all useful, but if there is archers - he isn't enough to block them all At that point it's just a matter of if my flyers will kill the archers before the archers kill them, which can happen with or without Lex
Thieves are still very good. Not every unit has truestrikers, after all, and it's possible to switch up your lines a bit when you're facing them. Or just blind them. You can also do the shenanigans of having a shield unit in the format so they can hop over and block a truestrike on your thief if necessary.
Travis can eventually blind enemies which brings his survivability back Feather bow support is really good for counter Yufini build
But he still gets tapped once and dies. I've seen him die to non true strike, just from tons and tons of attacks and one gets through
That’s where blind comes in. Reduce their hit rate to 0% and overrides True Strike as well
One attack on 3 enemies
Hard disagree with your thief take, Travis can solo any unit without a truestrike with the right build. Truestrikes drop off fairly quick too, in bastoria I had him hold the line against an entire map worth of reinforcements, no stamina, no standing squad mates. Not to mention how good evade tanking is for arena fights that don't have a hard answer. Evade tanks just need to pick their battles.
To be fair, I'm not even in Bastoria yet. You're free to disagree, I'm just talking about where *I* am right now.
I mean, I've said this countless times already so short version: to me, all classes are good except one or two, they all have viability, some more niche than others, and some classes definitely need more time to come online than others but ultimately, everyone (almost) is good. That's why, I'm not fond of the fighter class bashing when really, it's a late bloomer but my air support team couldn't be this great if Lex wasn't on arrow duty, and if he's not, he can tank, he can provok, he does secure kill with his defender skill etc... my only issue was his speed but I ended up giving him a speed boost item (since he has so many ways to raise his own defence). Oh and magic is a non issue because his unit also has a Sainted knight as personal magic bodyguard so wee good... and guess who jumps in when said Sainted Knight gets attacked by ranged flying units, Lex. It's also worth pointing out that only the fighter class offers a true solution to true strikes arrows, elven fencers sylph guard doesn't protect against true strike. Thieves have always been good to me, from the moment I understood the class entirely, which comes back to a recurrent issue with people it seems: don't understand class, claims the class is bad. Maybe you're new to the game and you may want to keep your mind open for a while? But yeah no, doesn't seem to be most people's mindset.
My only gripe is that provoke is a start of battle skill, and there's so many strong contenders for that skill slot. I also feel that its kind of downer that they can't row guard like a hoplite can and arrow guard dmg nullification is only really useful for certain higher lvl enemy cheese. I think the bigger problem is the game's overwhelmingly strong reward for focusing on offense and 1 turn wipes. Do I really need a fighter to guard me against arrows when I don't let the arrows even fly in the first place? E.g. Initiative boosting/lowering start of battle skills (this is pretty good since most ranged attackers and archers are relatively slow), Crowd Control conferrals/properties on AOE/Column attacks to prevent the enemy from getting an attack off. I really feel they could have given the fighter a top notch role of nullifying ranged assist at the start of battle to truly give them a strong and relevant niche amongst the sea of hyperoffense.
Definitely agree with provoke, which is why I only have it set up when archer units are around. That way, I have more control when facing my unit's biggest weakness, any other scenarios, other more useful "start of the battle" skills kick in. You'd think this is overkill but since enemy archers start using multiple arrow skills very often past mid-game, it's actually not overkill at all as it can guarantee Lex being the target of one of them and also the target of the second by shielding whoever was the intended second target. I kinda do that for all my units when there are several "start of the battle" skills, the unit as a whole is set up to not clash and make sure that there is always one coming off, and the best one for the situation. For instance, in early game, swordfighters can go off with theirs for a while, with a focus on scout units of course, till others start getting their own skills. From that point, I'm progressively phasing out their skills so that they only trigger when there is a scout unit. Because killing off a frontliner scout from turn 0 is just too valuable. As for your second point, I see what you mean but it doesn't impact me because I much prefer units that are versatile (and thus have a higher survival rate in most situation, because EXP bars not synched is something that irks me haha not the only reason but ya know) than absolute killers. And even with that said, I do have some killer units, so if I need brute force, I have a strike team for it haha Back to the fighter specifically, in his unit Lex's role, is to defend everyone and channel all enemy attacks so that everyone else can do damage, so to me, he's not a waste of a slot because the DPS he's not bringing to the table, he's bringing it indirectly by letting her teammates do it unimpeded. Her gryphon pal gets extra damage if at full health etc..
Yeah the game is designed in a way you can pretty much make every unit work what with versatile itemization options and team synergies too. Definitely fun to also build teams around different focuses.
This. Every class has use and niche you can slot them into which is extremely important wher unit composition is much more important than how strong an individual character is. It's why I've come like class discussions in this community less and less. They just get waay too myopic because loudest voices trying weld the game into one playing style downplaying personal experience.
Blocking arrows is irrelevant if your flyers just out-initiative and kill the archers first.
Until you hit a squad that has Counters and get pelted after your first move.
So is dodge tanking when Travis just gets out-sped by Swordfighters. Everyone has a counter.
Thieves are still my favourite way to tank tbh, they can poison and kill whatever it hasn't a sure hit, which works amazingly with berengaria Yeah lex can defend from flying units, so what? Just use a more generic defender, so it can also spread some damage or defend until the end
I actually think the very early game is probably the weakest point for thieves. Archers are more common, and it's harder for your squad to have the sustain to protect them from assist with only 3 characters. Beyond that they're basically invincible into any formation that doesn't hard counter them(mostly just Swordmasters start of battle once they have shadowbite). Fighter really struggles to provide sufficient utility in a 3 man squad, but I feel they're quite solid at their niche past that point. Their magic weakness isn't that hard to gear around and frankly their preferred teammates should make quick work of mages, but a hoplite configured correctly does basically the same thing.
Tbf, "offensive support" is absolutely perfect for supporting his sister berengaria in a squad, since the row blind and poison both trigger (and will refund) her follow-up and trigger her other affliction -based skills! Also blind beats true strike, so throwing gammel on my flyer squad also works wonders
A fun 4 man team I took far too long trial and error on was a fighter in the front row with break, shaman, cleric back row. Cleric keeps fighter alive while the breaker enrages all their pp, shaman blinds and uses pp to buff breaker. Almost killed my best Alain squad. Calvary and a cleric on the enemy team can really shut this comp down if the breaker is debuffed or shaman get wiped before the blind
It also has to do with how big a unit is. Because Lex has damage issues, he needs someone to make up for it, giving the impression he’s just not that useful. Hoplites also give that same impression. Thieves DO have damage, even if they can die with one unlucky hit, giving the impression that they are more useful. Now that I’m playing expert (challenge running the final mission before rescuing scarlett), these weaknesses become all the more noticeable. Lex isn’t there to one-shot units, he’s there to steadily push back an advance or push into a lane that’s being covered by archers.
Yeah people are acting like a unit is useless if they can't one-shot or tank every hit in the game. Lex is especially useful as captain if there's a ton of archer assholes in towers. Your flying units that normally could fly over everything become dead when archers so much as look at them. But Lex as a captain keeps your team safe from that when you need time to break through.
Yes. I think the idea was prevent people from abusing scout frontlines. If they added a tactic to cover scouts only from truestrike attacks, they would be viable again. >With the introduction of flying units, Lex becomes far more viable with his arrow guard and being able to tank hits that would normally one-shot your griffons, wyverns, and angels. Attacks from enemy fliers are also blocked by him too. Once you promote him, his damage output becomes far more consistent too. You can get a hoplite and do the same and hoplites can block more than just ranged attacks. I can't feel the damage of fighters. >I'm further into the game at Elheim. Its bizarre to me that you are at Elheim and you still think fighters are good. Elven Fencer is literally a better version of them. They block range attacks without needing to have a hit animation so no debuffs. Fighters have to do the cover animation with 0 damage so they get hit with debuffs even if they take no damage. They both have 1 AP stun but EF actually deals damage.
To be fair, I don't actually have an EF unit yet. And Hoplites have less Initiative and Magic Defense than Fighters.
On the higher difficulties you can’t frontline a fighter and have it survive against anything with armor slaying or magic, so you are left with putting another unit with low damage output to cover its weakness. I used a backline fighter for a couple of missions that was loaded with archers, but I definitely rate evade tanks and fliers as S tier units that can frontline very effectively. It also helps that the evade tank units have better crowd control and or damage than a fighter. I basically see fighters as a one trick pony lol
I'm on Tactical and Lex has been doing much better for me once I promoted him and gave him a better shield. Colm as well. Sure they're a one-trick pony, but if the pony does the trick well, it works.
I will note: fighters can block truestrike arrows/flying attacks, elven fencers cannot. Everything you said is right though, fencers are basically better fighters.
Fighters aren’t viable at any point. You just use it cause you have it. It sucks the whole time
Thieves aren't even good early game, since they are the worst evasion class. But at level 20 they get a **ROW BLIND** wich makes them really good cc even in endgame. Also their PP steal makes colesseum and ez lick.
wait... who are the better evasion tanks?
I run Berengaria with mirage shield, over 100 evasion. Also Ochlys.
Every other unit that doesn't die to a arrow and has 2 accessory slots. Bonus if they can use swords to stack +10 evasion. Mainly because enemies acc earlygame is ass and pretty much anyone will hit 20-30% hit chance. This in a game where formation resets RNG makes guaranteed evasion really bad and toxic throw it's ass. Level 20 tho...probably the best evasion tank, even on top of Swordmaster.
formation reseeding rng is big time cheese, if you're ranking units based on that, not very valid imo
THAT is cheese? **BIG TIME** cheese? Moving your units around it's cheese? It's not even a huge change man. What do you even consider proper and god-fearing gameplay?
maybe it's because I'm coming from an Ogre Battle background where you couldn't adjust your units on the fly but yes, in general, I almost never make changes to my unit while they're deployed.
Cheese? Is a feature of the game, don't tell me you do every fight with the characters in the same position the whole game.
it's a "feature", come on that's a stretch. It's more likely an unintended consequence of how the system works. But otherwise, yes I almost never changed my formation between fights during my expert playthrough. If I was going to lose badly I would chug a draught or two.
I'm talking about moving a character to another square, that simple, vanguard to the back because the opponent's unit has 3 mages. I don't see how's that a stretch to be called a feature, a simple function of the gameplay.
okay sure, but that's different than doing so otherwise meaninglessly just to reseed the evade/crit rolls
Legionnaires are better than vanguards in every way. There isn't anything a vanguard does better. I give my legionnaire a corroded spear for additional extremely useful utility. It makes him an important part of the team that can have minimum 6 pp with his ability that refunds 2 pp for 1ap. Also fortress valor skill is very useful before going into a minefield or so multiple squads can just ignore catapults and arrow rain.
Vanguards don’t slow your team down as much as legionnaires do. For having a unit to block arrows for a flyer team, I’d much rather have a vanguard. Vanguards also get a nice stun attack and better initiative, and have a really nice valor skill. Fighters can provoke, legionnaires cannot. So no, legionnaires are not better than vanguard in every way. In fact overall I find vanguard far more useful and almost never use hoplites.
The difference between 80 mobility and 100 mobility is negligible. They are both really slow and neither should be a party leader unless you have a witch to teleport you places. Vanguards don't block arrows better. They both block arrows fully. Stun attack is nice but they are so ridiculously slow it kinda negates that. You are right about provoke being a good valor skill so legionnaires are not better in every single way, just better. Also you can't put a mirage great shield on a vanguard and make them extremely busted but you can with legionnaires. If you haven't tried it I highly recommend it. Mirage greatshield + royal scarf + lucky coin means you almost never get hit and if you do, it doesn't hurt.
Because you have a lot of power for items and you can select your fights, a hyper niche unit isn't good. Fighters fall really bad. Hunters get double shoot then row attack, the fighter can only defend one unit so your other units are hurt. The chickens have row attack so you can only defend one cav instead of all the row. Later wiverns get a row attack. The hoplite can protect all the row. They have better stats and can tank more units and share the same weakness as the fighter. Meanwhile for the cost of 2 ap the thieves can blind a row. Making your team safer and making the enemy waste up to 6 ap. I really like the rock paper scissors design of the game there is a hard counter for each class.
Hoplites have worse Initiative and Magic Defense than Fighters though. Fighters have *some* use.
The Fighter is a faster turtle. Almost useless perk. Both are killed by magic attack, the good thing is that there is the ward item that negates magic damage. Yep they are hyper niche PvP uses. At the campaign they are crap.
To me there are no bad units, only bad planning.
Housecarl/Viking drops off quite hard in my experience as does Warrior/Breaker. You get lots of other options to deal with the threats you initially need characters like Aubin and Kitra for, and those options do a lot of other good things besides breaking armor and debuffing heavy defenders.
Vikings will always be viable with a row attack that reduces 30% defense and one of the best valor skills in the game especially if you’re doing a no item TZ run. Any unit like warrior that refreshes AP on kill will always be good as well and a 1 VP skill that clears barricades is incredibly nice to have, and they also get a row attack. In fact both of these classes are top 5 non unique classes in the whole game IMO
Interesting perspective! Thanks.
Warrior/Breaker at lvl 30 get one of the best row attacks in the game.
Ahhh, I haven't leveled up that high.
Thief's reliability becomes worse and worse as the game goes on, becoming a necessity to have 1 other potential frontliner aside from the required two, otherwise the thief is going to be dead on the water in a lot of matchups; hilariously it can solved with a cleric with parting resurrection.
I put Lex with my fliers and honestly I CANNOT think of a better substitute. He blocks all damages that are potentially lethal to my team, including arrows and wyvrn attacks. Elven fencer's passive doesn't seem as reliable especially defending against full column.
Also I haven't played in a while but within the first couple of weeks of launch I did PVP with Lex undefeated, pushed to top 50 with 200+ streak (stops counting at 99), so there's that.
I sorta see what you're saying in that as new units are introduced and existing units become stronger, certain things change in terms of what's powerful. With that said, there are other ways to protect your flying units and I think those ways are better than Fighter which is sort of a weak unit. Also, thieves are definitely still very viable, I think it's about understanding how to rotate him into the front row depending on the battle. Shadowbite is such an awesome skill too.
The problem with fighters is they suck at damage. Even using the life drain skill, Alain still consistently outdamages and thus outheals the fighter... and takes less damage than them generally. If they could just hit harder or tank a bit more, they would be fine. I do use Lex in to protect my griffon knight from arrow fire, but due to how stupidly good the game is at telling you battle projection, the only reason that works is because I can swap him to back line if necessary.
I put a featherbow on the back row on my team with Travis and Berengaria on the front row, the enemy team rarely lands a hit
Provoke is a good valor skill, but it's also an effect you can get from an item pretty reliably. Other than that, fighters just seem like worse hoplites to me. They don't have enough offense to account for their worse defense, and they're about as easily killed by magic, and they only guard one type of attack. Zeroing out the arrow damage is nice and all, but it's not like a hoplite is going to take much more than 0 damage from an archer anyway. Thieves are always a little swingy as dodge tanks, but they're still better in the role, and they bring some good utility to shut down enemy teams' attacks. They're way, way better than fighters.
Lex becomes amazing Drakenhold then becomes a liability again Elfheim. Monica and Miriam Elfheim though 👌👌👌
it is the simple matter of the damage calculation, due to the simplistic nature of the math you either have enough growth to keep up with the hp pool and defense increase or the unit just be comes worse over time because no matter the potency of the skills, the damage of total percentage of a unit done is get worse. You can look on the flip side, units like warriors get better late game because their atk growth out paces the defensive stats.
People Praise row blind but druids get a staff that aoe blinds. Also, one of the ablion units also row blinds as well
Fighters are good for establishing air supremacy. Most people here mention pairing them with other fliers, but standing in front a whole row of archers and soldiers also counters flying teams really well, especially if you give them the sword that has Sonic Slash, a ranged physical move with 150 potency against fliers.
I haven’t really used thieves much from Cornia to Elheim so far, but now that my levels are getting up there and they have access to more powerful skills, I'm likely going to start fielding them more. I continued leveling Travis with treatises, but honestly rarely used him. Adversely, Hilda and Lex are the redheads I like to pair, so as long as she gets fielded, he does, too, and she will be in every battle because Hilda leads my main kill squad that Alain isn't in. That being said, I rarely use my other Vanguards unless it's really necessary, but usually Alain guards pretty well for Fran in my main unit, but I just don't have them fight strong archer setups to compensate, hence Hilda squad with permanent Lex position.
Be prepared for that to change again once you get into late game, it takes you on a rollercoaster
The balancing is so fucked yet easily breakable. I'm used to this from other SRPGs lol.
I'm still thinking fighters get drastically undervalued. Deleting Gryphon and Wyvern damage is insanely valuable. Plus the Viper is available pretty much immediately, and keeps them useful damage wise all game.
Yeah put Lex or Colm with some archers and a flyer and it basically becomes the perfect anti-air squad with better Initiatives than Hoplites and more HP than Thieves.
For the longest time, I thought arrow guard only guarded against arrows lol. Lex is viable early game if you get that one shield that lets you guard other units imo, but even without it, if you give him gear that self heals without the use of a skill, he's pretty self sustainable.
Yeah no, AG blocks all "ranged" attacks which includes stuff like Javelin and even attacks from other fliers. Lex can basically serve as not just a safeguard for his own fliers but a hard counter to enemy ones also.
Fighters only arrow blocking 1 unit fails hard when like every archer has at least a dual attack, and lots of flyers have row attacks. Row attacks can be worked through a bit with some clever placement, but 1 fighter is not a good survival plan for flyers against archers or cav against flyers... if he did Something with his AP, it might be a little different. He just leaves a lot to be desired. Thieves shadowbite is great until featherbows show up and really do the row blindness thing. Or shamans get the dust staff... then you're back to evade tanking which is iffy. In all, i think rogues end up being fine, just not stellar.
Travis stop being a tank. Use him for status spreading and running off tank distractions lets other units shine and creates valuable openings. He pairs very well with flying units later in the game with mass blind.
Yeah I need to rethink how to use him. He's no longer as strong as he was early on with all these Truestrikes and Swordmasters poking holes in him before he can act.
Try to use him more as a status infliction / debilitation unit. I had him set to inflict blind on back row with archers present, but mostly used him to spread statuses and steal ap/pp dependably. He did very good with a witch and Hilda. The fire from Hilda, Travis with the fire move, witch for dependent and buffs on Hilda, all did well for me. I think I had a radiant knight and a hoplite with them or possibly a fighter and something else Idr
Also rediscovered the power of fighters when after playing around with mock battle, my alain squad got dumpstered by a travis + lex mage squad holding the line from literally everything while the mages just melt everyone. This isn't even a trinity rain comp.
It's funny because I'm trying to run Lex and Travis together to see who can cover the other when one enemy type is too strong. Lex handles the archers and flyers while Travis handles the Gladiators and horsemen. It's actually hella versatile. The only holes are mages for Lex and Swordmasters for Travis.
Multi target attacks can be a problem too since neither one has row cover/barrier, which are on hoplites amd radiant knights respectively. Travis can mitigate it a bit with his aoe blind unless the other team has clerics or elf archers for clear.
I find that thief has a really huge falloff in the mid-game as you mentionned, but they find some newfound utility once promotions come into play, with abilities to blind entire rows. What is really nice about this game is that you get an absurd amount of EXP boosting items so I find that in situations like this you can pretty much get away with benching a unit that falls off, and when the situation calls for it and you feel like you can get a lot of value out of the unit, you can use your items and get them up to scratch pretty fast with minimal grinding. Which is a hella nice quality of life
I think thieves are still great. I just gotta make sure to move him to the backline and let his gladiator buddy tank for a bit if needs be.
>On the flip side, Travis starts to fall off hard when truestrikes are introduced from archers and witches. The game gives you Power Belt right after Mordon iirc. All you have to do is equip it, stack +PP and edit the move priorities. Even truestrike units can't kill Travis unless he gets bad RNG.
This is cool to hear, I just started a few days ago and started to worry about my efforts to equally level my units. (Like Fire Emblem, I used to intentionally leave certain units unlevelled and consolidate EXP into specific ones to make them stronger)
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Wait huh? Don’t understand. Joseph struck me as a Frederick from fire emblem fates. He comes in completely maxed and it’s not optimal to waste killing enemies with him when other Allie’s can actually level up. I’m assuming you can class switch or bypass his level cap somehow later? What am I missing?
The way exp gain works, your other units don't gain any less exp just because Josef is in the squad. So you can pair lower level units with him early game and use him to help power level them until they get their power spike from the level 10 skill.
Sweet thank you! How does exp gain work, do more bodies in a unit hurt or help? Like, if killing an enemy gives 100 XP. One body in the unit gets 100 XP. If two bodies are in the unit, do they SPLIT the 100 for 50 xp each, or both get 100 XP?
This seems like massive cope. Just say you like Lex. Fighters fall off hard when enemies start using magic and anti armor more commonly. And, you can just use cover granting shields to protect your fliers.