Today’s daily Fire Emblem Engage content includes Kagetsu’s profile and, at long last, some details about the game’s Class Change system!
Kagetsu (VA: Takehito Koyasu) is a royal knight from Elusia, and Ivy’s retainer. Has a cheerful, energetic and friendly personality. Because he was born in a secluded realm, he has an exotic tone of voice.
For the record, “secluded realm” is a term that appeared in FE Fates, previously translated as “Deeprealms.” Right now, I’ve no reason to believe there’s any connection between the two, so I’ve left it vague for now. It literally just means an extremely isolated place.
A battle scene:
This is a night time Solmese map.
Kagetsu is a Level 1 Swordmaster with a Wo Dao (B rank), Steel Blade, Iron Blade, Killing Edge and Armorslayer. Allies include Timerra (lance, synced with Ike), Merrin (dagger, wolf rider), Panette (axe), I think Ivy (tome/staff), maybe Alfred (lance cavalry) and a cut off axe cavalry.
During battle, Kagetsu’s skill “Sheer Brilliance!” triggers. He then pulls off a very cool looking critical hit on the Corrupted axe wielder.
A conversation between Kagetsu and Ivy:
Kagetsu: Omm! Omm nom nom nom omm!
Kagetsu: I’ve got it, I’ve got it! Lady Ivy, I betcha fried chicken’s on the menu tonight!
Ivy: …I see.
Kagetsu: That’s a lame response. I take it Lady Ivy ain’t a fan of fried food.
Ivy: That’s not true… I’m fine with it.
Kagetsu: In that case, what’s with the dodgy look on ya face?
Ivy: …Kagetsu, your premonitions are astoundingly accurate, aren’t they?
Ivy: Though you can only predict trivial matters, thus far all of your predictions have been correct without fail.
Kagetsu: Ain’t that the truth! Thank ya kindly for the praise!
Ivy: No… The point is, your ability is strange and creepy…
Kagetsu: Ya joking…!?
Now onto class-changing, beginning with Master Seals:
Using a Master Seal, you can class change allies who are Level 10 or above into an Advanced class. By becoming an Advanced class, the unit’s stats will increase and they may be able to wield more weapons.
Pretty straightforward stuff. You can upgrade to a better class by using a Master Seal at Level 10 or above. It seems most classes cap at Level 20, although Thief and Dancer can surpass this.
The promoted version of Framme’s Monk class is Master Monk. Might change for the English release.
As I suspected, promoted classes gain a new skill at Level 5. In this case, Qi Expansion, which appears to spread out the healing when the user is healed. After learning this skill, I’m guessing you can freely swap it in the class skill slot.
The class list is also very interesting. Unsurprisingly, Sword Fighter can go to Swordmaster. But there are two Hero classes, where the secondary weapon differs: Axe or Lance. This is somewhat similar to the General and Paladin classes having different primary weapons, eg. Axe for Vander, Sword for Lapis.
Also, Lance Fighters are indeed playable (and not just for enemies/NPCs), for those doubtful!
Second Seals make a return:
Using a Second Seal, you can class change allies into a different class of the same (or lower) class tier.
Second Seals appear to work exactly like in FE Awakening. This explains Vander appearing as an Axe Fighter in Marth’s overview.
Vander can use a Second Seal to change from a Paladin into an Axe Fighter, Berserker, Axe Armor, (Axe) General or Axe Knight. Sword Fighter is also in his list, but greyed out.
The Berserker’s Level 5 skill is Smash+, which knocks foes back 2 squares instead of 1. You can trigger Smash by initiating with a Blade, Greatlance or Poleax series weapon.
Vander also seems to have the Paladin’s Level 5 skill, which I translated as “Step In” in Roy’s overview (it was in Lapis’s menu commands).
For those curious, the stat bars in the Level Up/Class Change screen can go up to 99. I measured it by stretching the existing stat bars.
However, if you’re worried about stat inflation, I don’t believe the actual stat caps will be anywhere near 99.
@ACC_FlovEr on Twitter reminded me that we’ve seen capped Def and Res before. In Byleth’s overview, there’s somebody in a Mystical class with 43 capped Res. Also, Panette and Timerra have 20 and 22 capped Def respectively in the Berserker class. (This also seems to confirm characters have slightly different caps.)
Finally, some info on Talents:
To change to a different class, you must have certain weapon Talents. Some Talents that you have at the start are Natural Talents; these will boost the weapon proficiency in classes that use them. Talents you don’t have can be inherited from Emblems, so you can be any class you wish.
The Talent system is vaguely similar to the Skill Level system in Three Houses. However, instead of requiring specific skill rank(s), like Sword A to become X class, you just need Sword.
The above example shows Louis, who currently only has a Lance Talent. This means he can only access classes that only require a Lance Talent: Lance Fighter, (Lance) General and Lance Knight. I’m assuming he’s a Lance Armor right now.
After getting a Dagger Talent, presumably he can become a Thief and any other hypothetical class that requires a Dagger and/or Lance Talent.
Some potentially bad news: Louis does not seem to get access to Lance Pegasus/Flier, despite it being a Lance-only class, so that could be a female-exclusive class. In fact, if you compare Framme and Vander’s scroll bars, Vander’s bar is bigger (just barely), implying his class list is slightly smaller.
This raises some questions about Wyvern Knight and Griffin Knight though–both promoted Flier classes. Will these also be gender-locked? (For those wondering, Wyvern Knight wields Lance and Axe, so it wouldn’t appear in Vander’s class list.)
Before I forget, Natural Talent is quite interesting too. It seems to be indicated by a green weapon icon, in the Usable Talents window. I think characters may only have one Natural Talent. So far, this only applies to Framme, who has a Natural Talent in Body Arts, not Staff.
From what I can tell, Natural Talent raises the applicable weapon rank by one level. This is noticeable with the (Lance) Hero class, which has Sword A and Lance C in Framme’s footage, but Sword A and Lance B in Louis’s screenshot (Lance Talent).
Another thing: I didn’t realise until now, but it looks like characters (or rather classes) have fixed weapon ranks, akin to Genealogy. In other words, if you start at Sword B, you’ll remain at Sword B, unless you change class. This could be a way of balancing weapon usage on a per class basis. Like Heroes won’t be swinging around A or S rank Lances/Axes.
Finally, with the revelation that you can inherit weapon Talents from Emblems, it begs the question: which Emblems will pass down which weapons?
Since roughly half the Emblems are sword wielders, there’s plenty of candidates for passing down a Sword Talent. Lance, I suppose there’s Sigurd since he wields a Ridersbane; perhaps Eirika if she’s borrowing Ephraim’s help. Axe, there’s Ike since he’s carrying a Hammer and Leif also has a Killer Axe.
For Bows, Lyn is probably the obvious choice; perhaps Lucina if they’re borrowing inspiration from FE Heroes again. Staff, I guess Micaiah, since she’s known for healing. Dagger and Body Arts are the tough ones. Ninja Corrin exists though and Byleth can punch things, plus Enlightened One has increased proficiency with Gauntlets.
It’s also possible that there’s overlap too. Heck, maybe Leif can pass down everything except Dagger and Body Arts, like a true Master Knight!
