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So what really IS the deal with Fiona?


Amiratasiru
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I'm gonna attempt to keep this short. I just played through Radiant Dawn for the first time in about 5 years and I used Fiona all the way to the end (along with a bunch of characters considered shit like Ilyana, Meg & Leonardo) and though I don't have a picture of it, she capped every one of her stats. The only thing that held her back was that I didn't remember the blessed weapons section and she had nothing to bless save a Silver Greatlance. I didn't really have to do any hardcore baby-sitting other than a little bit of grinding in 1-E until her unforged iron lance broke. I know, it was normal mode, but is she really as bad as people consider her? In general, even from the start I didn't have much problem training her. It was just a matter of giving a single shot on an enemy and canto after it or whittle an enemy down to 4-5 HP to finish it off.

I know Silver/Gold Knights have average caps, but a lot of characters don't even cap all their stats so it essentially balances out. Between her Sol and regen skills, she never needed to be healed, even in the final chapter and she could easily ORK the spirits. I even used practically all of the Knight classes save for Kieran and Oscar. They didn't square up to Fiona. I'm not starting up a tier discussion, I'd just like to know if it's just that I got lucky? Bear in mind she was one of the characters I hardly used BEXP on as well.

Edited by Rhayader
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It was just a matter of giving a single shot on an enemy and canto after it or whittle an enemy down to 4-5 HP to finish it off.

This sounds like pretty extensive TLC to me ;) I suppose that's the reason why the opinions about underleveled units (not only Fiona) differs so much - spending 20+ turns just pouring XP into one character isn't everyone's cup of tea.

But it's true that Fiona will be actually good if you manage to get her off the ground. Her growths are pretty good (although all-capped stats aren't that unusual in RD thanks to the way BEXP work) and I think her capped speed even hits some benchmark for the fight against Ashera that Oscar's doesn't (something like 'double auras with help of a dragon' or so).

But thing is, a trained Fiona isn't anything special, either. She doesn't really make the endgame considerably easier, so from an 'efficient' perspective, the time invested into her doesn't have that big payoff after all. When 4-E arrives, the player should have a good collection of overpowered endgame units, so one more doesn't matter that much. I suppose it's nice to have an additional strong unit in the DB chapters of part 3, but then again - does Fiona really do that much better than any other unit that got the same treatment as she did in part 1?

Edited by ping
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Fiona has good growths... it's just she joins at a time the enemies will wreck her... in HM at least.

Her bases are also not good at all for her level. (8 strength at level 9 is garbage)

In EM it's no problem to train her because of doubled experience.

In NM she needs starting help in form of a forged lance at least.

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Fiona on paper is a good unit. It's just that 90% of the maps she can go to absolutely wreck her horse based movement. She's also less available than other units are who need a similar amount of time to grow, so if you invest in her you are acknowledging you are NOT investing in a character who will need to be deployed in Fiona's absence. You have 7 chapters of which Fiona needs to grow into a tier 3 units from a tier 1. Comparatively, a unit like Edward could have 15. In part 1-E, Fiona is entering an indoor map that has a significant shortcut only open to infantry units or fliers, which means she has to take the long way while also taking an indoor movement penalty. In 3-6, Fiona cannot enter the swamp, limiting her movement to about a quarter of the map. In 3-12, the mountain terrain slows her down so she can't use the full extent of her movement. In 3-13 she FINALLY gets her first chance to fight unhindered. Then in part 4 you can pick the route most advantageous to her, which is a toss up between following Elincia or following Ike (following Micaiah to the desert is a bad idea).

Meanwhile, a popular 1st tier unit like Jill gets 1 extra chapter to train, starts several levels higher than Fiona a chapter earlier, has better offensive statistics so she can secure her own kills, and her flight overcomes all the aforementioned obstacles the DBs face in their chapters. So even though people know she takes time to raise, the payoff is worth the price.

There isn't anything wrong with Fiona's stats once she gets rolling, but she takes so long to actually make it to the frontlines where her class is supposed to be. So when people say she's not worth the trouble outside in Easy mode, they are thinking about turn counts and efficiency. Fiona doesn't do anything faster than anyone else, so she's only there to raise out of favouritism.

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This sounds like pretty extensive TLC to me ;) I suppose that's the reason why the opinions about underleveled units (not only Fiona) differs so much - spending 20+ turns just pouring XP into one character isn't everyone's cup of tea.

But it's true that Fiona will be actually good if you manage to get her off the ground. Her growths are pretty good (although all-capped stats aren't that unusual in RD thanks to the way BEXP work) and I think her capped speed even hits some benchmark for the fight against Ashera that Oscar's doesn't (something like 'double auras with help of a dragon' or so).

But thing is, a trained Fiona isn't anything special, either. She doesn't really make the endgame considerably easier, so from an 'efficient' perspective, the time invested into her doesn't have that big payoff after all. When 4-E arrives, the player should have a good collection of overpowered endgame units, so one more doesn't matter that much. I suppose it's nice to have an additional strong unit in the DB chapters of part 3, but then again - does Fiona really do that much better than any other unit that got the same treatment as she did in part 1?

Yeah I agree that she isn't overpowered, but she did make Ashera easier (I didn't use any Royal Laguz so I needed every little thing I could get), she can easily ORK the spirits in that chapter which I felt was important to do. Plus Ashera's huge aoe didn't even do damage to her cause she'd heal 20 hp every turn.

I might try both Oscar & Fiona in HM to see who's more useful in the end. Both being a spear user makes for a good comparison. I will be honest that I tend to use all the shittiest characters out of pure fascination for how they get their reputation (I used Lyre, Astrid and Volug all the way up to 4-5, also Meg, Ilyana and Leonardo were a part of my endgame team who all contributed a helluva lot to beating Ashera). I dunno, I personally enjoy using underleveled characters because it's more enjoyable to see them turn into something awesome by the end of the game, which is what happened with Fiona, being the only character to cap all of her stats.

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I might try both Oscar & Fiona in HM

That's crazy. I like it.

I would recommend that you try to get her up to tier 2 by the end of part 1. (Buy Bronze Lances and beat up priests for however many turns it takes). Transformed Laguz give very good exp, so if you set up a wall in the starting area and give her the lion's share of kills, she should be close to tier 3 by the end of the chapter. That way, they should be around the same level going into part 4.

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  • 1 month later...

I've used Fiona and gotten her to Silver Knight, so yes she is a solid unit and should not be overlooked. That said, her base stats could have been better when you consider her level, and the stats of the enemies at that point in the game. The same goes for a few other units I've made into solid units though like Meg. ANY unit can be a good unit if one is willing to put enough time and attention to them.

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for me the problem is that there's only enough exp for the dawn brigade to train so many characters.  most if not only a few of them hit tier 2 in part 1, and then that gives them only 3 chapters in part 3 to hit tier 3.  i guess there's part 4, but then they're competing with all the other units in the game for experience.  i think experimenting with using fiona is a neat idea, but i just can't see it being worth it when it's not like everyone can be used equally in one playthrough

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I've used her with all the other worst ranked units in this game, and I have to admit she was fantastic (alongside with Astrid).

However the only way how to train her properly is to baby her in part 1. With her bases she'll get doubled and onerounded by 50% of the opponents. She needs a forged lance but nothing more in the beginning. She needs a speed point so badly to get out of double territory by the enemy, tbh she needs at least three points. In 1-8 she's busted and in 1-F the enemies have 15-16 speed in normal, so she needs at least 13 speed at the end of part 1. Before part 3 she should classchange to get paragon. With this skill she gains tons of levels. Her growthrates are really good and she'll cover pretty much each stat.  She has earth, so Nolan, Volug, Zihark will make her become a dodgetank. Female silver knights have a speed cap unlike the males which allows them to double the auras - really nice. The caps are pretty meh otherwise, especially defense (even seraphs have a higher defense cap). Tbf it doesn't really matter because her speed and luck are so good that she should dodge the most anyways.

Little side anecdote: Fiona was the very first unit who was able to dodge Deghinsea with an A Support with Astrid.

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To begin with, IS balanced unit base stats in accordance to FE9. But towards the end of development, they scaled everything up to support the Tier 3 power fantasy.

But they forgot to do this with Fiona and/or her base class.

This is my head-canon

 

In all seriousness though, the map data files show Fiona as a level 1-3 unit around her join time (as to what the developers at one point were testing with). Seems like IS effed up and bumped up her base level for some reason, without any changes to her bases. It's highly probable that her awfulness is a compete mistake. My guess was that she was intentionally made to be a true Est, but someone dun goofed.

Edited by DLuna
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i can see that.  one big difference between meg and fiona is that the former is pretty much a punchline to a joke from brom and zihark's support, and the latter is supposed to be the offspring of one of the legendary daein riders (kind of like ike!).  not to mention the earth affinity, imbue+rescue, and the really good endgame potential female silver knights have.   to some extent they had to have intended for her to be good. 

 

Edited by Radiant head
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She definitely should have been playable in Chapters 6 and 8. I have no idea why they even keep her as an allied unit in the former when she basically has a recruit conversation with Micaiah. If dismounting was a thing it would also help her a good deal.

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Fiona is just....like, her potential is pretty great and i consider her the best of the Silver Knights in terms of sheer output and what she looks like at the end of my runs (compared to the others). But like...shes got this problem. And its a really big problem. By the time she joins, shes a bit low level and her bases are really bad. The maps in which she is useable are penalizing her for her mount. She doesnt have enough chapters to grow before the end of Part 1. There are ways outside of dumping BEXP (although i dont recommend that due to the only three stats at a time proc thing) on her, its still a real issue and you must go out of your way to use her and train her. Because of this, people dont find her worth it. And despite being one of my favorite characters in all of Tellius, i understand this. I dont always use her either because of the effort. She needs resources. A Secret Book early on cuz her skill stat is pants. Paragon later on to play catch up. A forge most likely, possibly an Energy Drop, etc. The pay off is ok because of her set up, but yeah its a lot of effort. 

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12 hours ago, Radiant head said:

what's the best way to train her?  boss abuse 1-7 and 1-e? 

the boss in 1-7 is indeed made to be abused by her. Plus a nice forged lance. Then enough giving her enough kills in 1-e to promote.

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I've never used fiona.  There was one time I tried to, but.... she got killed by everything.  Granted, This was years ago, but still.  I really want to use tormod and make him usable.  

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tormod is easy to train, because that mansion chapter is swamped and ike's team is perfect at feeding him kills (using weaker weapons).  you can also abuse oliver and the bishops. use paragon obviously.

not sure if he can hit 34 as with rexflame. if so this would actually be worth it.  one downside is that you should probably keep celerity on him, which means it can't be used by anyone else for all that time tormod is gone.  

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Tormod can get tons of levels in 4-4 (even without paragon). However you habe to make sure to keep him safe which isn't so easy because tons of enemies appear from everywhere.

His speed cap is 32, and it's pretty much the first stat he caps. That means he'll double the auras for sure with the speedboost of rexflame. He has more issues to cap magic.

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I tried using her once on easy, and I had to make her grind on a priest while wielding an iron lance forged to have as low might and high weight as possible to get her trained. It's appalling how godawful her bases are. 

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Fun fact: Fiona's base level is the same as Nolan's. Except she has -4 HP and Str, -3 Skl and -1 Def. Her only leads are 6 Mag and 3 Res. That would be an atrocious loss if Fiona joined at the same time as Nolan, but, she doesn't. She joins what is practically an eon later. 

Even if you upped her to ~level 15 and adjusted her stats accordingly, she would still be plagued by the fact that most of the maps are she can fight in are hostile or ambivalent towards her mounted status.

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Fiona and Tormod are in the club of "characters most screwed over by Radiant Dawn's sometimes-questionable availability." I remember that Final Extreme video on her shows that she's actually got pretty good tank stats, and not too bad damage stats. Her growths are on the whole pretty good too, so by all means it looks like she was meant to be one of the better characters in the game, and that IS intended us to try and use her. But in practice...

Not to mention, the fact that she's, you know, Lanvega's daughter is never made relevant at all. Lanvega himself is kind of tossed to the wayside, to the point that we literally never even see his face, despite his having been one of Daein's Four Riders alongside Tauroneo who has a decently big role in Part I of RD, and Gawain, who only gained plot relevance after his death.

So much wasted potential. :dry:

Edited by Extrasolar
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  • 3 weeks later...

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