Should Jagens be gone for the next FE game?

[Harvey]

Ok so there is this very thing that FE always tends to have that is really pointless which are Jagens. You know the story, good for the first few chapters but then useless in the end.

So the discussion here is should Jagens really be gone and have balanced units infavor of those weak units?

Let me put it bluntly, I hardly use them simply because normally, character wise they are boring and are always stealing valuable EXP....something that you'd want other units to get.

I don't get their point of existence honestly. Its not like they give advice that is useful both story and battle wise and they still want to fight despite their old age? I'm surprised that they are still alive while fighting..that kind of combat should have exhaust them to death if you ask me...:P

The only somewhat of a Jagen unit that I liked using is Marcus but that's just about it.

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by Harvey

[General Horace]

Most Jeigans are among the best units in their respective games.  Rev!Gunter and maybe FE3!Arran are the only ones that are mediocre to bad units, which units like Seth and FE9!Titania are among the strongest units in the series.

[Jedi]

Yeah, most Jeigans are actually ridiculously good, even FE6 Marcus can last to like ch 14 in HM and he plays a huge role in the hardest part of the game. 

[sirmola]

I take issue with the argument that "good for the first few chapters and bad afterward"="useless" Often, the first few chapters are the hardest part of a fire emblem game, especialy on lunatic mode or higher in the newer games. do YOU want to try a no fredrick run of awakening lunatic, because i sure don't. This applies to both noobs (who need the help while they get used to the game), and LTC/efficency players, who get a LOT of millage out of those initial stats. Also, many people have pointed out that many jaigens are quite usable latter. (fe1 jaigen, fe4 oyfay, fe5 finn, fe7 marcus, fe8 seth, fe 9 titania, fe10 sothe, fe13 fredrick, fe14 felicia/jacob.) so that's 9/14 games that have a jaigen that's at least usable. And that's not even counting how much dondon and other 0% growths runners love them.

Edited March 29, 2017 by sirmola

[Hawk King]

I thought we, as a community, were over the old wives tale that Jeigans are bad.

They range from good to great. Bad Jeigans are an outlier, Not the rule.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I don't consider each prepromoted unit in the earlygame as a Jagen. Only prepromoted units with great weapon ranks, decent bases but awful growths like Jagen, Marcus or Gunter count as a Jagen archetype for me. Units with great growths like Seth or Titania or even Oifey don't count for me.
The Jagen archetype exists to make early game easier. Also they don't eat too much exp. if you use them properly. Most prepromoted units except for Titania and Seth can't oneround everyone. They rather exist to weak the enemy so much that anyone else can finish them off. FE6 Marcus is a good example.
 

Quote

Let me put it bluntly, I hardly use them simply because normally, character wise they are boring and are always stealing valuable EXP....something that you'd want other units to get.

explanation, please!

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by Magillanica Lou Mayvin

[Jotari]

I don't think Fire Emblem's actually had any Jagens for a good fourteen or fifteen years now (remakes aside). Oh wait, I suppose Gunter is a pretty true to form Jagen. But for the most part Jagens have been decent or beyond decent characters if you actually keep them around and train them.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Jotari

[sirmola]

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't think Fire Emblem's actually had any Jagens for a good fourteen or fifteen years now (remakes aside).

That raises another point. Is a good jaigen even a jaigen? some people believe that, by defenition, a jaigen that has decent enough growths to still be usable latter is not a jaigen, but instead an oyfay or some other archtype. By that defenition, the question "should fire emblem have another jaigen" is mostly academic because the odds of having one (as opposed to an oyfay or something) are really low. Granted, that is mostly definitianal quibling, but still...

Edited March 29, 2017 by sirmola

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Quote

the question "should fire emblem have another jaigen"

pretty much this

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Jagens are great. Who else could point Marth's blade in the right direction? Draug? Get out of here with that Shadow Dragon trash.

And yeah, I think we do need them. Jagens are the only way we can get older characters into these stories about children slaying gods and saving the universe. They've got nowhere to grow and nothing to lose.

[Etria]

7 minutes ago, Gustavos said:

And yeah, I think we do need them. Jagens are the only way we can get older characters into these stories about children slaying gods and saving the universe. They've got nowhere to grow and nothing to lose.

Fucking agreed. I need at least one old dude/dudette in the sea of barely-adults. Besides, Marcus has that typical grumpy-strict-but-actually-really-caring-for-his-charges personality going on that's just my weakness. Gunter also has that, but Marcus has two games and more supports.

[goodperson707]

I'll ignore the style of play angle (though my general thought in regards to Jagens is that the answer is somewhere in the middle though the whole thing I feel is too thorny for me and has way too much info for me to remember accurately or get read up on) and what even constitutes a Jagen (I'll be going broad) for my comment. (I'm sure that's covered pretty throughly anyway)

Frankly I don't really see it, and honestly this is far too general. I don't even know for sure which characters your're even referring to. (Old age and a character removed might narrow it down, but then it does that a little too well since from what I can tell that shrinks your sample size to 2 and is basically the original, and the newest one who is hardly typical) Plus generic they're boring is not going to win you any friends. (Especially when there's confusion on to who your referring) That last bit about tactical advice I'm pretty sure is untrue (and maybe even the exact opposite as in that's one or more of their roles) as well, but I'm too tired to be looking though scripts right now. To me looking though all the games they actually cover a pretty decent range of ideas and concepts. 

[Iridium]

I personally feel as though the use of Jagens adds a unique element of strategy to the game by creating something that you may need to rely on but will voluntarily not want to overuse. In harder games in particular, these characters can play a crucial role that smooths out difficulty by assisting players during the game's most difficult segments with the opportunity cost of an experience sacrifice.

Jagens are fine. It is the Oifey who needs to end; characters like Seth and Titania are far better than they ought to be and remove the most important element of tactics behind the Jagen.

[Harvey]

57 minutes ago, sirmola said:

I take issue with the argument that "good for the first few chapters and bad afterward"="useless" Often, the first few chapters are the hardest part of a fire emblem game, especialy on lunatic mode or higher in the newer games. do YOU want to try a no fredrick run of awakening lunatic, because i sure don't. This applies to both noobs (who need the help while they get used to the game), and LTC/efficency players, who get a LOT of millage out of those initial stats. Also, many people have pointed out that many jaigens are quite usable latter. (fe1 jaigen, fe4 oyfay, fe5 finn, fe7 marcus, fe8 seth, fe 9 titania, fe10 sothe, fe13 fredrick, fe14 felicia/jacob.) so that's 9/14 games that have a jaigen that's at least usable. And that's not even counting how much dondon and other 0% growths runners love them.

Depends on what game you're playing. For FE7, Marcus is hardly needed since Hector and Eliwood can easily beat the first few chapters even without them doing solo.

Also, I don't get it. What does the first few chapters being easier have anything to do with not using Jagens? Yeah I get that for harder modes, they are reliable but we're talking about units that are more useful than just stealing EXP to those that need it within those chapters. Does Gunter really need to even exist in Fates? Because his role itself is lame besides Revelation which altered his stats to some extreme...

Ok so I'm aware that FE hasn't done Jagens for a long time until Fates...which is why I'm wondering if such characters are needed. Seeing them old and fighting is a bit depressing..just retire already.

And for the record, Frederick is NOT a jagen since he has really good growths and base stats. We're talking about only the ones who have poor growths but good base stats...should we get units that have them both instead?

 

[Refa]

Jeigans don't steal EXP.  Mekkah made a good video talking about this, actually (in addition to some other points).

 

[AlexArtsHere]

As long as they're interesting characters, I don't mind. Hearing Frederick's Crit quotes in early game Awakening was bloody glorious. Yeah, he wasn't that good late game, but hey, his supports and dialogue are nice too.

[Tetragrammaton]

They should add more Jagen, not more Jeigan. Please!!

Spoiler

or a Jeigan Lord, like Sigurd

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by hanhnn

[henrymidfields]

2 hours ago, Iridium said:

I personally feel as though the use of Jagens adds a unique element of strategy to the game by creating something that you may need to rely on but will voluntarily not want to overuse. In harder games in particular, these characters can play a crucial role that smooths out difficulty by assisting players during the game's most difficult segments with the opportunity cost of an experience sacrifice.

Jagens are fine. It is the Oifey who needs to end; characters like Seth and Titania are far better than they ought to be and remove the most important element of tactics behind the Jagen.

Totally agree. I certainly needed Marcus and the original Jeigan for FE6 and FE11 respectively, at least for the first several chapters - and as said above, they double as providing a different aspect in early-game tactics and serving as emergency relief units. On the other hand, while I can't say for Titania, Seth in Sacred Stones seems just redundant when SS is pretty much Awakening GBA version in terms of difficulty. Ditto with Ryoma in Birthright, but that's another story.

[bethany81707]

When I ventured into my own Fire Emblem story that actually had a Jeigan, she was actually a Bow Paladin- she can still take out enemies if needed (and since she's promoted, I think she's got access to a melee weapon) without having to sit in the middle of weak enemies you wanted to feed to someone else armed.

Bow Jeigans might make for an interesting way to help those less skilled with keeping a Jeigan in check. And hey, if you need that Jeigan storming the enemy, she's still got axes.

[Flee Fleet!]

Jagens are useful in trying to go through early game, especially in the harder modes.

I myself never use them (except for Seth), but if I actually ever tried to play any FE game on hard mode, I would seriously need them just to keep my other units alive.

 

 

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

Bow Jeigans might make for an interesting way to help those less skilled with keeping a Jeigan in check. And hey, if you need that Jeigan storming the enemy, she's still got axes.

Reina.

She's the closest thing that isn't Felikob which BR has for a Jagen. So glassy she can scarcely solo maps, but remains a viable, if not ideal, player phase unit to the very end of the game.

Also, let us hereby abolish this Oifaye nonsense! The inventor of the term Oifaye meant to salvage the reputation of some Jagens, but it is pretty clear now that on SF at least we do not need such a term. We have embraced Jagen-ism, we have turned a pejorative catchall into a phrase of highest esteem!

[De Geso]

14 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Reina.

She's the closest thing that isn't Felikob which BR has for a Jagen. So glassy she can scarcely solo maps, but remains a viable, if not ideal, player phase unit to the very end of the game.

Also, let us hereby abolish this Oifaye nonsense! The inventor of the term Oifaye meant to salvage the reputation of some Jagens, but it is pretty clear now that on SF at least we do not need such a term. We have embraced Jagen-ism, we have turned a pejorative catchall into a phrase of highest esteem!

No, there is a clear distinction between a Jagen and an Oifey. 

They're both useful in the early game, especially on higher difficulties, but Jagens do usually fall off pretty hard in casual/non-LTC/non-challenge runs. Their lack of growth keeps their base stats from keeping up in runs where you're letting your growth units grow.

Oifeys, especially ones like Seth, can make it to the endgame and still be incredibly good, sometimes the best units in your army. Their high growths allow them to not only keep up with your growth units, as often they maintain their position as the strongest unit in your team. (There are exceptions - Frederick is only your best unit for a little in Awakening because Robin is broken). 

It's an important difference for discussing units as calling someone a Jagen means something much different than calling them an Oifey. 

Also, not every prepromote is a Jagen or Oifey. Felicia and Jakob don't count since they can level to 40 (they are prepromoted but their bases aren't Jagen-y). If you recruit them past the first couple of chapters they aren't a Jagen/Oifey either. 

On-topic: I like Jagens more than Oifeys, so I hope they do another Gunter (stat-wise). Their age and wisdom can do a lot for supports and character development as well as guidance in the story.

Edited March 29, 2017 by YouSquiddinMe

[CR_astrum]

I believe so, they should be there if you need them but shouldn't become useless later on. Like a semi-oifey.

[Refa]

1 hour ago, YouSquiddinMe said:

No, there is a clear distinction between a Jagen and an Oifey. 

It's a meaningless distinction that's subjective.  Prepromote who joins early is something that everyone can get (a Jeigan).  What is considered making it to endgame and still being incredibly good anyways (I've used FE6 Marcus and FE11 Jeigan until endgame and they've been some of my best units in those runs, and some of the earlier Jeigans can be used for the whole game due to statboosters being incredibly OP)?  Oifaye himself is actually one of the worst Jeigans, because not only does he not carry the team early on but he only performs above average by the end of the game.  Unnecessary at best, detrimental to discussion at worst when people are like "OH NO THAT'S NOT A JEIGAN IT'S AN OIFAYE".

Edited March 29, 2017 by Refa

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I'd like to add to my previous comment that I prefer to see the "Oifey archetype" returning, an unit who has decent enough growths to be usable till the end (unless you can buy infinite status items).
Alternative add an unit with awful growths who will vanish soon for plot reason (like Orson).