Weapon rank, how much should it matter?

[ChibiToastExplosion]

Would it be feasible to have WTA mage ignore res for those at a disadvatange?

Or halve it at least.

[Magical Glace]

If they can make the physical triangle relevant, I see zero reason to not be able to do the same with magic triangle.

Making the physical:mages ratio more even and including something like "armor mages" would be a good start.

Though for what it's worth, I find magic vs magic WTA/D very relevant in Heroes as with all WTA/D in that game, so that's a start.  Once they add more flying/armor mages (Arvis when) it'll become more so.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Glaceon Mage

[Jotari]

I find that in a lot of games gaining weapon ranks is either too slow to the extent that its annoying (especially if you try to rank up all weapons a unit can use), or too fast to the extent that its useless. For a while now I've been throwing around some ideas as to how you can make leveling the weapon rank a more focused affair. It goes something like this.

 

Wexp + Weapon Bonus (with special E level training weapons that grant 5 bonus but have low hit/might)

Wexp + 1 ! If you hit

Wexp + 1 ! If you kill the enemy

Wexp + 2 ! If you have weapon triangle advantage

Wexp + Weapon Bonus ! If you break the weapon.

Wexp*2 ! if Discipline is equipped (with it being a skill you can equip to most of your army easily, though not all at the same time)

 

With these very small changes it would make training your weapon rank something you actually think about and actively focus on doing, rather than something that inadvertently happens because the only way to increase it is basic attacking.

[Harvey]

Ok...so I might be new in this still and I don't know if its accurate to ask. Some of the games require an S rank weapon and for some reason, your units can't get to an s rank once its capped to A rank I think...I'm not so sure about this because there was one time that I ranked up Leo's spell books to A and yet I couldn't get him to use the one that Iago used so what happened there?

 

[ping]

Some games have class-specific weapon rank caps with Fates being especially stingy with the S rank. Unless I'm forgetting something, there is only one class for each weapon type that can reach an S rank (like swordmasters, spear masters, ninjas...). I can't remember how Awakening handled things, but Radiant Dawn has a similar where every character can only reach an SS rank in one specific weapon type (with the exception of Ike and Micaiah), like for example Gatrie the Lance Marshall who caps out at A swords, S axes and SS lances.

In Leo's case, you'd have to reclass him into a Sorcerer who are the only class that can reach S tomes. The Dark Knight caps out at B swords and A tomes.

[Magical Glace]

9 hours ago, ping said:

Some games have class-specific weapon rank caps with Fates being especially stingy with the S rank. Unless I'm forgetting something, there is only one class for each weapon type that can reach an S rank (like swordmasters, spear masters, ninjas...). I can't remember how Awakening handled things, but Radiant Dawn has a similar where every character can only reach an SS rank in one specific weapon type (with the exception of Ike and Micaiah), like for example Gatrie the Lance Marshall who caps out at A swords, S axes and SS lances.

In Leo's case, you'd have to reclass him into a Sorcerer who are the only class that can reach S tomes. The Dark Knight caps out at B swords and A tomes.

Saints in FE10 could SS Light and staves as well, If I remember correctly.

 

[Shadow Mir]

29 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

Saints in FE10 could SS Light and staves as well, If I remember correctly.

 

Yep - Evil Emperor Zurg holds the SS rank light tome.

[ping]

Ah, thanks for catching that. Too bad that there's still no point in the game where a real (tier 3) saint is worth fielding. :D

[Folt]

The current Weapon Rank system is the best right now. I'd also say that if we're keeping the "weapons have penalties the more powerful they are (except exclusive weapons)" in exchange for being infinite-use, then the weapon rank bonuses must be kept or the whole weapon rank system should be done away with altogether.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

17 minutes ago, Folt said:

The current Weapon Rank system is the best right now. I'd also say that if we're keeping the "weapons have penalties the more powerful they are (except exclusive weapons)" in exchange for being infinite-use, then the weapon rank bonuses must be kept or the whole weapon rank system should be done away with altogether.

This is another good point, because silver weapons and brave weapons used to be balanced by having lower uses, and requiring high weapon ranks. Now that they're balanced against iron weapons like everything else, it begs the question why would you need a rank higher than D. In Fates' case C was the magic rank from what I remember, since that's where the situational weapons came in to play. Magic weapons that targeted Res, armor and horse slayers, as well as the killing weapons. You didn't benefit much from B and A rank choices.

[bethany81707]

Honestly, as someone with little experience in 3DS but a lot on GBA (and halfway-decent on Tellius, although I haven't played personally), I'd rather the Weapon Rank served as a way to mitigate weight. Pegasus Knights had low con, so they couldn't wield an Iron Lance without being weighed down- even if they had S Rank and could tote around a Rex Hasta or a Vidofnir.

Perhaps tie the weapon rank and the weight systems together such that using a heavy weapon would be unwise (imagine someone as lanky as Mist waving a Silver Blade around), but as they grow stronger in weapon rank, they can actually carry that weapon and use it to the best of its ability.

[Jotari]

13 minutes ago, phineas81707 said:

Honestly, as someone with little experience in 3DS but a lot on GBA (and halfway-decent on Tellius, although I haven't played personally), I'd rather the Weapon Rank served as a way to mitigate weight. Pegasus Knights had low con, so they couldn't wield an Iron Lance without being weighed down- even if they had S Rank and could tote around a Rex Hasta or a Vidofnir.

Perhaps tie the weapon rank and the weight systems together such that using a heavy weapon would be unwise (imagine someone as lanky as Mist waving a Silver Blade around), but as they grow stronger in weapon rank, they can actually carry that weapon and use it to the best of its ability.

I don't think it would work well negating weapon weight outright. No matter how skilled you are a small person will not be able to wield a great sword as comfortably as a big person. But if it was used in conjunction with Con then that would be pretty cool. Like D rank offsets it by 1 more point, C by 2 etc.

[bethany81707]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't think it would work well negating weapon weight outright. No matter how skilled you are a small person will not be able to wield a great sword as comfortably as a big person. But if it was used in conjunction with Con then that would be pretty cool. Like D rank offsets it by 1 more point, C by 2 etc.

That was honestly my first idea for it. My slight bias for pegasi is the only reason I consider anything greater.

[Tamanoir]

On ‎20‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 1:00 AM, DLuna said:

Or that dark magic should have discontinued because it was almost always weak pre-FE13 (or the units themselves were all weak/undertuned outside of like, Niime).

No wait, you're getting it backwards there. Dark Magic always was really strong. Most of the time, it's what makes its users worthwile most of the time.

It's too rare to be relevant in the other games.

Niime is only good because she have access to high rank staves and Nosferatu (who doesn't weighs a freaking ton in Binding Blade) who helps her survives (she would die to a breeze otherwise.); and the magic to makes her tons relevant.

Dark magic was made freaking heavy (like all the other magics...) in the other GBA games, but Blazing Sword!Luna still is the absolute Boss Killer. (and helps making ennemy shaman being somewhat relevant though chip damages).

Funnily enough, the only reason light magic have any kind of relevance in Sacred Stones (despite being pretty awfull) is because of its WTA against all the ennemies. (Anima have WTD and so is generally worse...)

As for Weapon ranks... As long as dismounting either isn't a thing or doesn't keeps you for using the same weapons, I'm fine with how it is now... Thracia made you basically unable to have Lance WTA indoors, and that was a bad thing (Xavier with E in Lance is stupid dammit.)

[X-Naut]

20 hours ago, phineas81707 said:

Honestly, as someone with little experience in 3DS but a lot on GBA (and halfway-decent on Tellius, although I haven't played personally), I'd rather the Weapon Rank served as a way to mitigate weight. Pegasus Knights had low con, so they couldn't wield an Iron Lance without being weighed down- even if they had S Rank and could tote around a Rex Hasta or a Vidofnir.

Perhaps tie the weapon rank and the weight systems together such that using a heavy weapon would be unwise (imagine someone as lanky as Mist waving a Silver Blade around), but as they grow stronger in weapon rank, they can actually carry that weapon and use it to the best of its ability.

Yeeeeesssssss this is an idea I've had recently: every rank above the weapon's base rank reduces the burden by 1.