The utility of Taguels

[Nym]

Ok first of all, dont get me wrong, I like all shape-shifters in FE (well I guess I would like them if I would have play Por or RD...) but in Awakening, I think the Taguels didn't had the chance to shine unlike others units.

Yes, I said only the Taguels because I think the Manaketes are in a good spot right now for 2 reasons:

1. The Manakete class can still be use as a support ''magical'' unit who can tank some hits and weaken the enemy so your others units can finish them off or the other way around. They long range attack allow them to attack safety and they can still be use as a anti-wyvern when Chrom ,Lucina or a unit with a wyrmslayer are too far away to attack. Also, their only weakness is some swords ( Falchions and Wymslayer). I saw one unit with a wyrmslayer in the main story and for Falchions... Spotpass.

2. In If, Kamui will be able to use dragonstones and this is a HUGE improvement because now one manakete is not a unit to recruit but the main ''Lord''.

Meanwhile, Taguels are melee , cannot tank too many hits, they cannot be a good support unit (I think, I did not try to be honest) and there some units in the main story who had beast killers ( rapiers are here too but like the Falchions... Spotpass.

So I have a question for those who played Por or RD : how did the beast laguzs manage to be more useful (since, they have an ''energy'' meter unlike Taguels who have Beaststones which is their only advantage). More units?, better stats?, a 1-hit skill if I recall correcly ( I'm aware that Panne and Yarne can be reclassed to thief and after assassin to get Lethacy but maybe the ''skill'' is different?), less weapons anti-laguz? I hope in If, the next beast shape-shifters will have improvements too.

Did you use Taguels in your own army or did you left aside to avoid extinction?

Edited May 1, 2015 by Nym

[MCProductions]

Put bluntly, Taguels are an inprovement from a gameplay standpoint but a downgrade from a lore standpoint.

Laguz, unlike Taguels, are often forced, in RD espiecially, and you are often forced to wait around for the transformation gauge to refill.

They share the same weaknesses too, so while they both suck, if I had to pick... LET THERE BE BUNNIE MEN!!!!

[Emperor Hardin]

The Laguz had a lot of strength, and didn't rely on stones. Course the Laguz were far from perfect, but they had more utility then the Taguel.

Also the Laguz are a major focus in the story, while the Taguel have almost no backstory at all.

EDIT: Also they had high movements, and even the Cat Laguz were very durable. Give them a Demiband, or the Half Shift skill, and they'll run across the battlefield.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Emperor Hardin

[Shadow Mir]

Put bluntly, Taguels are an inprovement from a gameplay standpoint but a downgrade from a lore standpoint.

Laguz, unlike Taguels, are often forced, in RD espiecially, and you are often forced to wait around for the transformation gauge to refill.

They share the same weaknesses too, so while they both suck, if I had to pick... LET THERE BE BUNNIE MEN!!!!

Really? I thought they were a downgrade from a gameplay standpoint, given that laguz tend to be powerful whilst transformed, which is more than can be said for Taguel.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Levant Caprice

[Emperor Hardin]

Really? I thought they were a downgrade from a gameplay standpoint, given that laguz tend to be powerful whilst transformed, which is more than can be said for Taguel.

Pretty much this, the Laguz had to wait to transform unless you got the Half shift skill, but when they did transform, they dominated the battlefield with High stats all around. They didn't use up durability either.

[General Horace]

The Laguz were much better, even with their gauges imo. The Taguel's biggest issue lies in their lack of 2 range in a game where it's fantastic, and they lack movement. The Laguz had the same movement as Paladins (in a game where Paladins had 9 move, and the Taguels have as much movement as, promoted foot units.

I think the Taguel would have been much stronger with +2 movement. If Panne's bases and growths hadn't been totally ridiculous it would have been a downright terrible class.

Edited May 1, 2015 by General Horace

[Carmine Sword]

Even with Panne's growth as high as they are, Taguel still ends up being mediocre due to the aforementioned lack of 1-2 range and 6 move. I don't think Panne would be thought of nearly as highly as she is if reclassing didn't exist.

[Jedi]

Even with Panne's growth as high as they are, Taguel still ends up being mediocre due to the aforementioned lack of 1-2 range and 6 move. I don't think Panne would be thought of nearly as highly as she is if reclassing didn't exist.

I agree with this, considering how utterly ridiculous Panne is as a Wyvern.

[Czar_Yoshi]

Put bluntly, Taguels are an inprovement from a gameplay standpoint but a downgrade from a lore standpoint.

Were Laguz actually that bad in Tellius? Because Taguels are pretty much the worst class in the game. Even Villagers can actually wield weapons.

[Ownagepuffs]

Were Laguz actually that bad in Tellius? Because Taguels are pretty much the worst class in the game. Even Villagers can actually wield weapons.

Haha no he's out of his damn mind. Lethe is actually useful early on in PoR and Demi Band Muarim isn't too shabby.

In RD they were made much better but cats got nerfed the new gauge system. The Hawks shit all over everything and Volug is great. Ranulf was forced and was neutral utility at worst (he's still better than most part 3 units) and Skrimir is in the most ridiculous Laguz class. Resolve!Mordecai is sort of a thing, real inefficient though.

Taguels are never good.

[3Comrades]

I have heard this a lot, but I mean, on top of their pretty high growth, especially in speed, I have had to level several of my characters to be even, and while the Taguel are somewhat subpar to Manakate's they are better than a swordmaster for me, although admittedly without the best skills. The extra bonus to all their stats from their stones, seems to more than make up for their lack of weapons. And Manakate's at the same level rarely seem to go twice while Taguel often do and add to the fact they are ridiculously hard to hit when built well. I often reclass them to get better skills, but I do the same with the manakate's and when Yarne has defense skills from his father, he has easily become one of my best units on several occasions, while Panne, due to her growths, is often an easier parent character to use on an equivalent level as compared to other 1st gen characters who often fall far behind. Maxed out and with Beaststone+ they are quite useful, as the stone acts like a 35 use 15 MT weapon, nevermind he can also get armshrift at a 50 luck due to the stone's properties. A never ending 15 weapon? And if you are willing to level up him in other classes or his mother to hand them down, he can get Astra, and Lethiality which will trigger much more often as they have good skill and luck, with decent defense and res, I actually think Taguel are not considered as good as they can be with a little effort put into them.

Edited May 5, 2015 by 3Comrades

[Roflolxp54]

-text-

That depends on the father Yarne has. From what it sounds like, you had Panne marry Gregor or male Robin so Yarne can get Myrmidon and Mercenary skills. Keep in mind that not everybody uses that pairing and that not everybody bothers to use Armsthrift. Also, Taguels lack range and don't have any weapons that allow them to double automatically, a problem shared with the Manaketes in addition to Movement problems (for many units, this can be alleviated with Galeforce, for the case of Yarne, the most he can get besides the mediocre Movement +1 skill and the situational Acrobat is Deliverer, which depends on who he has for his father (ie. Lon'qu, Virion, Robin or Frederick) or if he inherited it from Panne).

Edited May 5, 2015 by Roflolxp54

[Shadow Mir]

I have heard this a lot, but I mean, on top of their pretty high growth, especially in speed, I have had to level several of my characters to be even, and while the Taguel are somewhat subpar to Manakate's they are better than a swordmaster for me, although admittedly without the best skills. The extra bonus to all their stats from their stones, seems to more than make up for their lack of weapons. And Manakate's at the same level rarely seem to go twice while Taguel often do and add to the fact they are ridiculously hard to hit when built well. I often reclass them to get better skills, but I do the same with the manakate's and when Yarne has defense skills from his father, he has easily become one of my best units on several occasions, while Panne, due to her growths, is often an easier parent character to use on an equivalent level as compared to other 1st gen characters who often fall far behind. Maxed out and with Beaststone+ they are quite useful, as the stone acts like a 35 use 15 MT weapon, nevermind he can also get armshrift at a 50 luck due to the stone's properties. A never ending 15 weapon? And if you are willing to level up him in other classes or his mother to hand them down, he can get Astra, and Lethiality which will trigger much more often as they have good skill and luck, with decent defense and res, I actually think Taguel are not considered as good as they can be with a little effort put into them.

The issue is that for the most part, Manaketes are actually a good class, at least ingame, whereas Taguels are kinda lackluster even there. Also, Beaststone+ isn't buyable until chapter 23, not to mention your first one coming in chapter 20. Not to mention, Armsthrift on a Taguel is a waste (it isn't like Beaststone+'s are really worth conserving uses on), and as mentioned before, they're sitting ducks at range. Either way, it's saying something that the characters who start in Taguel want out of it.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Levant Caprice

[Czar_Yoshi]

I have heard this a lot, but I mean, on top of their pretty high growth, especially in speed, I have had to level several of my characters to be even, and while the Taguel are somewhat subpar to Manakate's they are better than a swordmaster for me, although admittedly without the best skills. The extra bonus to all their stats from their stones, seems to more than make up for their lack of weapons. And Manakate's at the same level rarely seem to go twice while Taguel often do and add to the fact they are ridiculously hard to hit when built well. I often reclass them to get better skills, but I do the same with the manakate's and when Yarne has defense skills from his father, he has easily become one of my best units on several occasions, while Panne, due to her growths, is often an easier parent character to use on an equivalent level as compared to other 1st gen characters who often fall far behind. Maxed out and with Beaststone+ they are quite useful, as the stone acts like a 35 use 15 MT weapon, nevermind he can also get armshrift at a 50 luck due to the stone's properties. A never ending 15 weapon? And if you are willing to level up him in other classes or his mother to hand them down, he can get Astra, and Lethiality which will trigger much more often as they have good skill and luck, with decent defense and res, I actually think Taguel are not considered as good as they can be with a little effort put into them.

Don't confuse Panne and Yarne being good units for Taguel being a good class. Their huge growths and mods are personal, not class.

Manaketes don't need to double, they're invincible on everything up to Lunatic+. You shouldn't care if an enemy takes two rounds to defeat if it isn't damaging you in the first place.

A Taguel with all its Beaststone+ boosts has effective caps of 40 Str (but no weapons over 10 mt, compared to the standard 17), 30 Mag, 48 Skl, 48 Spd, 51 Lck, 39 Def, and 32 Res. That's a total of 288. Compare to General's 286- I'm not seeing any supermassive bonuses making up for the lack of ranged weapons, Braves, or even a Faire.

They don't hit ridiculously hard, either. That standard 35+15 Atk you're looking at? Doesn't even scratch the final boss on Lunatic(+), even with a +5 Str mod on Yarne.

Beaststone+ may be effectively 15 mt, but putting it on a class that's tied lowest in Str for any physical, non-utility class with Trickster at 35 still makes it do some of the lowest damage in the game. A capped Taguel with its Beaststone+ is going to be getting outdamaged by a capped Wyvern Lord with an unforged Bronze Lance.

Stones are also actually the least efficient use of AT in the game- compared to the best Tome/Lance/Axe/Sword/Bow, they cost around 10,000 G less a piece. If you care about saving money, use your Armsthrift on units whose best weapons are expensive.

An Astra/Lethality set, assuming 60 Skl (shouldn't be hard to get a Taguel to) has just a 40.5% chance to get one of its skills to activate, by the way. That's really low for a procstack on a high skill class.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[Knusperkeks]

[...] he can get Astra, and Lethiality which will trigger much more often as they have good skill and luck [...]

Luck has zero impact on Astra and Lethality.

[~Silver]

Volug is great.

...hello?!

Edited May 5, 2015 by ~Silver

[Ownagepuffs]

...hello?!

Yes, how may I help you?

Edited May 5, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[~Silver]

Yes, how may I help you?

Volug's Growths

HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luk Def Res

95% 25% 15% 35% 40% 90% 15% 10%

25% and 15% growths in the department's he fights in. This should instantly limit Volug reaching, "Great" status.

Granted, I'm on my first playthrough, yes, (I'm at Part 4) but even I can tell Volug isn't going to cut it.

Yes, he has Wildheart, whoopdie doo, but I'd like to remove it while he can still be useful.

If I recall correctly, he joins at a time where you meet the Liberation Army for the first time, and I remember while yes, Volug could PWN every single unit on that map, there were too many Fire Mages for my liking.

And he lost efficiency even faster than Sothe: he becomes tricky to level during the Dawn Brigade chapters... And it's not like you have a choice, he's forced!

I'm not even going to bother looking at his caps: I like the idea of Volug. A silent servant of his ruler, much like Giffca, and his design... Needs more tail.

But in all seriousness, Volug just hurts to use. Like, it seriously, seriously hurts to use Volug. Get this stank-ass mutt outta my face!

Edited May 5, 2015 by ~Silver

[Ayra]

I've played Radiant Dawn semi-recently and did a female-only playthrough and also a "No-reclass except for same class, minimal pairup, no grinding, female only" hard playthrough of Awakening recently.

In Radiant Dawn, I tried to make use of Lethe and Lyre (cat Laguz). I was seriously hampering myself trying to use them. Extremely low damage, low defense, good speed (but not amazing), stuck at 1 range as well as being completely unreliable. The biggest issue was that before fighting they had to fill out a transformation gauge (which takes them 3 turns without using items), and the gauge goes down every fight. If attacked once or twice during a turn, their gauge went down to under half; you had to either use an item to boost the gauge by 2 (which prevented you from attacking or using an item to heal) or run far away from the frontline. If the gauge runs out during the enemy turn, your unit has their stats cut by 50% so they instantly die against most things. I used Lethe at endgame anyway and she was OK at best despite a lot of favoritism and stat-boost items. Some of the Laguz are game-breaking good, but the closest parallel to the Taguel (the cats) most certainly are not.

Panne in Awakening fared a little bit better than her cat cousins. She has the same problems as them and has lower mobility, but she doesn't have the reliability issue they have. She also at least have bonus damage against Beast type units (which are quite common). However, to be honest there's one single positive traits of the Taguel compared to the other classes: It levels pretty dang fast. The exp gain is a lot higher than promoted units. That's especially true if you reclass back to level 1 Taguel afterward: The exp gain will be enormous, yet the caps are nearly as high as 2nd tier classes.

That's an actually relevant advantage in no-grind runs.

[Ownagepuffs]

Volug's Growths

HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luk Def Res

95% 25% 15% 35% 40% 90% 15% 10%

25% and 15% growths in the department's he fights in. This should instantly limit Volug reaching, "Great" status.

Granted, I'm on my first playthrough, yes, (I'm at Part 4) but even I can tell Volug isn't going to cut it.

Yes, he has Wildheart, whoopdie doo, but I'd like to remove it while he can still be useful.

If I recall correctly, he joins at a time where you meet the Liberation Army for the first time, and I remember while yes, Volug could PWN every single unit on that map, there were too many Fire Mages for my liking.

And he lost efficiency even faster than Sothe: he becomes tricky to level during the Dawn Brigade chapters... And it's not like you have a choice, he's forced!

I'm not even going to bother looking at his caps: I like the idea of Volug. A silent servant of his ruler, much like Giffca, and his design... Needs more tail.

But in all seriousness, Volug just hurts to use. Like, it seriously, seriously hurts to use Volug. Get this stank-ass mutt outta my face!

If growths told the whole story, then things would be different. But they don't. He only needs S strike for part 3. "Bad in part 4" is not a mark against him when he's great in the hardest parts of the game.

There's literally 1 fire mage on the left side of the map in 1-5, which is the only place he needs to be. I can only really respond to this whole post with "get better".

Panne in Awakening fared a little bit better than her cat cousins. She has the same problems as them and has lower mobility, but she doesn't have the reliability issue they have. She also at least have bonus damage against Beast type units (which are quite common). However, to be honest there's one single positive traits of the Taguel compared to the other classes: It levels pretty dang fast. The exp gain is a lot higher than promoted units. That's especially true if you reclass back to level 1 Taguel afterward: The exp gain will be enormous, yet the caps are nearly as high as 2nd tier classes.

That's an actually relevant advantage in no-grind runs.

Panne's fares a lot better than her cat cousins because you can turn her into Haar

Edited May 5, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[~Silver]

I can only really respond to this whole post with "get better".

I'm sorry that I didn't put time into Volug, thus rendering me to a complete Fire Emblem rookie.

[Shadow Mir]

I've played Radiant Dawn semi-recently and did a female-only playthrough and also a "No-reclass except for same class, minimal pairup, no grinding, female only" hard playthrough of Awakening recently.

In Radiant Dawn, I tried to make use of Lethe and Lyre (cat Laguz). I was seriously hampering myself trying to use them. Extremely low damage, low defense, good speed (but not amazing), stuck at 1 range as well as being completely unreliable. The biggest issue was that before fighting they had to fill out a transformation gauge (which takes them 3 turns without using items), and the gauge goes down every fight. If attacked once or twice during a turn, their gauge went down to under half; you had to either use an item to boost the gauge by 2 (which prevented you from attacking or using an item to heal) or run far away from the frontline. If the gauge runs out during the enemy turn, your unit has their stats cut by 50% so they instantly die against most things. I used Lethe at endgame anyway and she was OK at best despite a lot of favoritism and stat-boost items. Some of the Laguz are game-breaking good, but the closest parallel to the Taguel (the cats) most certainly are not.

Panne in Awakening fared a little bit better than her cat cousins. She has the same problems as them and has lower mobility, but she doesn't have the reliability issue they have. She also at least have bonus damage against Beast type units (which are quite common). However, to be honest there's one single positive traits of the Taguel compared to the other classes: It levels pretty dang fast. The exp gain is a lot higher than promoted units. That's especially true if you reclass back to level 1 Taguel afterward: The exp gain will be enormous, yet the caps are nearly as high as 2nd tier classes.

That's an actually relevant advantage in no-grind runs.

Beastbane isn't even a niche for Taguel because - dun dun - Beast Killers exist, and even unforged, they're better against the relevant enemies. Also, Beaststones are pretty crappy for how expensive they are.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Levant Caprice

[Ownagepuffs]

I'm sorry that I didn't put time into Volug, thus rendering me to a complete Fire Emblem rookie.

All is forgiven.

Beastbane isn't even a niche for Taguel because - dun dun - Beast Killers exist, and even unforged, they're better against the relevant enemies. Also, Beaststones are pretty crappy for how expensive they are.

Agreed. At least Dragonstones have innate 1-2 range.

[MCProductions]

Haha no he's out of his damn mind. Lethe is actually useful early on in PoR and Demi Band Muarim isn't too shabby.

In RD they were made much better but cats got nerfed the new gauge system. The Hawks shit all over everything and Volug is great. Ranulf was forced and was neutral utility at worst (he's still better than most part 3 units) and Skrimir is in the most ridiculous Laguz class. Resolve!Mordecai is sort of a thing, real inefficient though.

Taguels are never good.

I apoligize for not specifically mentioning RD in my first post, and I was only comparing them to Beast Tribe Laguz.(Royals not appiled either for clear reasons)

Basically, my opinion of Laguz compared to Taguel is POR Laguz>Taguel>RD Laguz.

Based on personal experience and the OP mess that is Donnel!Yarne

I think they both suck, but I prefer Taguels.

Out of my mind, how did you know I had Aspergers Syndrome?

[Czar_Yoshi]

Again, don't confuse Panne and Yarne being good for Taguel being good. They have great growths and mods and that class does nothing but hold them back.