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How should weapons be handled?


Køkø
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I'd like to hear opinions on how weapons in FE should be handled. I for one think Fates' weapon system is incredibly balanced, but the nerfs took some time to adjust to. Especially the Javelin and Hand Axe. Does Fates' system make things more complicated or balanced? Should this be standard? 

Also a question for expert players, could any of you tell me if Steel weapons are any good in FE14? I always neglect them.

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The nerf to Javelins and Hand axes (as well as the addition of the Kodachi) was very welcome and I 100% approve.  Bows should be the go to long ranged physical weapon, not hand axes/javelins.  

That said, the way magic is handled in FE13 and 14 isn't to my liking.  Bring back separate magic types (preferably the GBA types of Anima/Light/Dark because I find the Jugdral/Tellius magic triangle a bit silly in comparison) with separate ranks and uses.  Integrate the magic triangle into the physical one like Heroes does, really helps make the magic triangle more relevant.  

Hidden weapons as they are in Fates need a nerf... just make the debuffs last less time than in Fates.  On the other hand, debuffs in Heroes seemed to not last long enough and generally feel much less useful than buffs.  I'd say make the rate of recovery 2 or 3 stats per turn, and keep the inability to stack debuffs with themselves.  

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Personally I liked how Fates handled weapon weight by nerfing everyone's speed when they use heavier weapons. No one's disavantaged. 

None of the weapon weight systems really worked.

  • FE5's build was the best idea though because it was a gainable stat and you could fix the build growth by passing scrolls to your allies.
  • Tellius strength system as buffer was not entirely bad, but screwed mages in FE9 and became pointless after part 2 in FE10 except for long range magic. Dumb in FE11 because mages have no strength growth.
  • Con failed entirely because females and several classes were punished massively. I could remember when Florina with Rex Hasta was doubled by final Lloyd despite having maxed speed. It's stupid and screws the damage output of units who have lower strength growth and cap than the others even more. Funnily FE6 did it best by lowering the weight of tomes. Nosferatu-tanking in 7 and 8 doesn't really work because of the high weight.
Edited by Reimu Hakurei
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17 minutes ago, Glaceon Mage said:

 Bows should be the go to long ranged physical weapon, not hand axes/javelins.  

 

Interesting sentiment. Do you care to explain why you feel this way? They all are indeed long range weapons in real life. Though tomahawks(the way FE depicts them) look pretty heavy, so I can understand that.

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23 minutes ago, Reimu Hakurei said:

Personally I liked how Fates handled weapon weight by nerfing everyone's speed when they use heavier weapons. No one's disavantaged. 

None of the weapon weight systems really worked.

  • FE5's build was the best idea though because it was a gainable stat and you could fix the build growth by passing scrolls to your allies.
  • Tellius strength system as buffer was not entirely bad, but screwed mages in FE9 and became pointless after part 2 in FE10 except for long range magic. Dumb in FE11 because mages have no strength growth.
  • Con failed entirely because females and several classes were punished massively. I could remember when Florina with Rex Hasta was doubled by final Lloyd despite having maxed speed. It's stupid and screws the damage output of units who have lower strength growth and cap than the others even more. Funnily FE6 did it best by lowering the weight of tomes. Nosferatu-tanking in 7 and 8 doesn't really work because of the high weight.

This one was usually balanced out by females(Usually) having higher speed stats than males. The Florina bit is more to do with how bad the con of Pegasus Knights usually was, so I think that was more of a problem with the class rather than the gender of the unit.

I do like the FE5-8 style of handling weapons, though. I just think if they bring it back like 6-8, where it's a fixed stat, that adding in a way to mitigate AS loss through weapon ranks would be a good idea. IE a unit with an S rank in a weapon will be hampered less by the weight of their weapon than a person with E rank.

Also, the idea that heavier weapons just hamper speed at a flat rate does actually disadvantage people. It disadvantages Axers(Again), or Lancers(In Echoes). Since FE5, Axers have been able to deal with the higher weight of their weapons by having the highest constitution stats. They'd be able to keep their lower speed without being punished too much for using heavier weapons. When everybody gets a flat - to their attack speeds, it makes early game even tougher for slow Axers, since they can't use their high constitutions to offset their naturally low speeds. A Steel Sword wielding Myrmidon(Say, Rutger) will ALWAYS have the Speed advantage over a Steel Axe using Fighter(Say, Wade) in this scenario. Whereas the 6-8 way, Wade would only lose 2 AS from his weapon, Rutger loses 3. Granted, Fighters rarely had the chance to not get doubled with con stats, but it made it a bit more balanced than just -3 across the board for Steel weapons.

Similar deal with Echoes. Swords are just better because they are lighter, and Attack isn't quite as crucial as speed after a certain point, since doubling went back to being determined by a difference of one AS.

Edited by Slumber
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9 minutes ago, Køkø said:

Interesting sentiment. Do you care to explain why you feel this way? They all are indeed long range weapons in real life. Though tomahawks(the way FE depicts them) look pretty heavy, so I can understand that.

Because Bows aren't melee weapons.  When the non-nerfed Hand axes/Javelins existed, they were more or less choked out of one of their niches since hand axes and javelins could accomplish similar results except they could counter attack in melee.  Preventing hand axes/javelins from doubling hurts their usefulness and I really appreciated that as an indirect buff to bows.

It's also because a lot of my favorite characters tend to be Archers.

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Fates' system made some weapons good and some bad. For instance:

  • Killer weapons doing x4 on a crit, combined with the lack of durbility makes them ludicrously over-powered.
  • Javelins/Hand axes being unable to doule severly hindered their usefulness, but Spears/Tomahawks were just bad bows. Those weapons were heavy in games with weight to offset their usefulness, but Fates buffed bows by making most other ranged weapons worse.
  • Most. Shurikens are to bows in FE14 as Javelins and such were in previous games.

Other notes:

  • I want my magic triangle back, dammit!
  • I'm not sure how I feel about the implementation of ranged weapons into the triangle, however.
  • I'd prefer a buff to bows being a buff to bows rather than a nerf to other weapons. Keep the 1-something greater than 2 range of bows from SoV.
Edited by thecornerman
Clarification
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11 minutes ago, thecornerman said:

Fates' system made some weapons good and some bad. For instance:

  • Killer weapons doing x4 on a crit, combined with the lack of durbility makes them ludicrously over-powered.
  • Javelins/Hand axes being unable to doule severly hindered their usefulness, but Spears/Tomahawks were just bad bows. Those weapons were heavy in games with weight to offset their usefulness, but Fates buffed bows by making most other ranged weapons worse.
  • Most. Shurikens are to bows in FE14 as Javelins and such were in previous games.

Other notes:

  • I want my magic triangle back, dammit!
  • I'm not sure how I feel about the implementation of ranged weapons into the triangle, however.
  • I'd prefer a buff to bows being a buff to bows rather than a nerf to other weapons. Keep the 1-something greater than 2 range of bows from SoV.

It is true that killer weapons were buffed in Fates. But they took a -10 in avoidance. Meaning that nimble  classes could not reliably dodge enemies.

For bows they mostly got a buff by increasing the might of most bows. And being including of the weapon triangle, so they won't be chippers of enemies health, from previous entries.

.

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19 minutes ago, Jingle Jangle said:

It is true that killer weapons were buffed in Fates. But they took a -10 in avoidance. Meaning that nimble  classes could not reliably dodge enemies.

That's still a massive buff overall. -10 Avoid isn't that much, and not everyone needed to be nimble.

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Here's the way i think weapons should be handled

  • Get rid of weight. I honestly prefer the speed debuff that SoV did, because it was much easier to keep track of.
  • Hand Axes and Javelins should still be able to double.
  • Bows should work the way they did in SoV. That game is the one time where Archers truly felt useful. In any other game, Archers are just worse Mages.
  • Separate Magic types. Preferably the Magic Trinity from the GBA era.

That's all i can think of for now.

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4 hours ago, Slumber said:

This one was usually balanced out by females(Usually) having higher speed stats than males. The Florina bit is more to do with how bad the con of Pegasus Knights usually was, so I think that was more of a problem with the class rather than the gender of the unit.

Yeah, but therefore they have lower strength. Possible double attacks equal the strength issue. Decreasing their attack speed would be just unfair imo.

Thany has awful strength base and low grotwth. With the slim lance she doesn't even tend to do anymore damage later one while with the iron lance she can't double and does like 2-3 damage. Con was really bad for faster and weaker classes. And I don't accept the argument to nerf the mobility of flying units by forcing them to attack with weaker weapon types. It's unfair and dumb.

Edited by Reimu Hakurei
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I'm going to put this all under spoilers because I have a lot to say on the matter:

Spoiler
  • On durability and weight: Both should come back. While the implementation of the latter has always been tricky, it makes weapons individually more unique and adds a cost to using otherwise strictly better weapons. Durability keeps Silvers/Killers/Reavers in check far better than Fates' system.
  • On weight buffering, Part I: For weapons, Constitution. It's the only system that both works and holds a meaningful impact throughout the game. Different classes being burdened by weight to different degrees is perfectly fine, and occasionally prevents Speed from being more of a damage stat than Strength. Con can also work with reclassing if there is a uniform bracket across which personal Con modifiers can deviate.
  • On weight buffering, Part II: For tomes, weapon rank is a more logical deciding factor. For every rank above E, you get 1 "Magic Con" and tome "weights" are based on spell complexity rather than the physical weight. While it does have the "slower classes get screwed" aspect, magic is more flexible in that it penalizes 1~2 range differently than physical weapons.
  • On weight buffering, Part III: Finally, I believe that weapon rank should serve as a secondary buffer in both cases. For every rank above the weapon's minimum, your effective Con increases by 1. Now heavier weapons like Steel become more viable, and you can even create situations like Silver "outweighing" Steel until your rank rises further! While this does create a double whammy for tome users, magic users tend to grow on a different curve than physical fighters anyway.
  • On Javelin nerfs: Keep it. Bows are supposed to be the strong ranged weapon, being unable to double is perfectly fair if it stops enemy phase juggernauting with Javelins and Hand Axes. Maybe you could let them follow-up at 1-range but let their ranged utility stay limited. I agree that the non-doubling penalties were overkill though.
  • On forging: Echoes' system all the way. You get improved weapons but are unable to jack them up to absurd levels, and being able to evolve a weapon into something stronger is a fantastic concept. Also, free name inscription. That has to stay.
  • On Weapon Skills: This is another amazing concept from Echoes and it should totally be kept. It further differentiates weapons and being unable to follow-up is a critical power check that activation skills were missing. Just make it a tool enemies can use and maybe adjust the cost system and we're golden. The possibilities are numerous, and in fact a simple one I thought for Javelin-type weapons is to make them 1-range and give them two skills: a no-cost Art to attack at 2-range and a skill that lets you counterattack at 2-range a la Distant Counter. I also believe activation skills should be handled like Arts.
  • On Bow range: I don't think every bow having 1~3 range is such a great idea. Maybe some could have innate Point-Blank (see weapon skills) for enemy phase but 3-range on every bow will lead to obnoxious zerg rush scenarios. Instead, increment the range additions: 2~3 for Longbows (Archer or infrantry lock), +1 for an Art available as a learnable skill, and +1 as a class trait for the bow specialist. That way Snipers can have their range advantage (up to 5!) and other bow users can boost up their range, but you can better control how powerful it is and how much the enemy can swarm you with it.
  • On Magic classification: While I used to think having separate Anima schools was cool, I like having it be condensed under one tome rank. You can still differentiate the Anima schools and even give them a triangle, but this makes learning less of a hassle. Light and Dark magic can return as options for specific classes that operate like they do in PoR and Awakening/Fates respectively, using the Staff or Tome rank.

Boy that was a mouthful...

Edited by X-Naut
spoiler tagging it to not clutter to page
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13 hours ago, Slumber said:

This one was usually balanced out by females(Usually) having higher speed stats than males. The Florina bit is more to do with how bad the con of Pegasus Knights usually was, so I think that was more of a problem with the class rather than the gender of the unit.

On paper, maybe, but in practice, not so much - when female units have much lower con than male units (See Isadora vs any male Paladin in FE7 for an example), that's a disadvantage no matter which way you slice it, especially since the extra speed probably won't make up for the extra AS loss. Also, the only female units that had anything resembling decent Con were Amelia (after promotion), Gwendolyn, Vaida, Ranger Neimi, Dorothy, Igrene, and Echidna.

13 hours ago, thecornerman said:

Killer weapons doing x4 on a crit, combined with the lack of durbility makes them ludicrously over-powered.

I disagree - I thought they were more-or-less useless because relative to steel, you lose 3-4 points of damage if you don't get lucky (which could potentially be the difference between having another unit able to kill an enemy and said enemy living and running off to get healed) - and that's not to mention the -10 avoid penalty killers carried.

Anyways, I'll post my thoughts later.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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6 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I disagree - I thought they were more-or-less useless because relative to steel, you lose 3-4 points of damage if you don't get lucky (which could potentially be the difference between having another unit able to kill an enemy and said enemy living and running off to get healed) - and that's not to mention the -10 avoid penalty killers carried.

I  think it's less don't get lucky and more get unlucky, their crit rates are still fairly high and they don't weigh you down. Killer weapons in previous games ballanced out a chance for high damage with low durabiliy. In Fates, the chance for even higher damage is balanced by slightly lower stats and an avoid penalty that is irrelevant to tanky characters or too small to mater for agile ones. The only characters that really suffer from Killer weapons are classes that tried to be a middle-ground between speed and defense, but those classes were already not as good.

Edited by thecornerman
Rephrasal and expansion upon a point.
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2 hours ago, thecornerman said:

I  think it's less don't get lucky and more get unlucky, their crit rates are still fairly high and they don't weigh you down. Killer weapons in previous games ballanced out a chance for high damage with low durabiliy. In Fates, the chance for even higher damage is balanced by slightly lower stats and an avoid penalty that is irrelevant to tanky characters or too small to mater for agile ones. The only characters that really suffer from Killer weapons are classes that tried to be a middle-ground between speed and defense, but those classes were already not as good.

Well, either way, it's fairly obvious that killer weapons have seen better days (as in, every other FE game EXCEPT Radiant Dawn, where killers were also lackluster, though this time it was due to enemies having sky high luck stats and a power nerf). In Fates, much like in Radiant Dawn, I generally don't see crit chances high enough to bank on critical hits happening without a skill that is associated with a class that has very low distribution (oh, and by the way, said skill happens to be on a class you don't get any of on the route where you can get killer weapons - except for the Shuriken, which is pretty weak, and a laughably bad weapon).

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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4 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Well, either way, it's fairly obvious that killer weapons have seen better days (as in, every other FE game EXCEPT Radiant Dawn, where killers were also lackluster, though this time it was due to enemies having sky high luck stats and a power nerf). In Fates, much like in Radiant Dawn, I generally don't see crit chances high enough to bank on critical hits happening without a skill that is associated with a class that has very low distribution (oh, and by the way, said skill happens to be on a class you don't get any of on the route where you can get killer weapons - except for the Shuriken, which is pretty weak, and a laughably bad weapon).

Are you talking about Quixotic? Ignoring Corrin, you can and should capture Hitaka in Conquest, or just any random spear fighter. and in Birthright, Scarlet comes with a Killer Axe (and is a good example of the avoid penalty not mattering much), but that's an axe which not many can use without reclassing. Off the top of my head and including promotions, six characters can get axes and not all of them make great use of it.

How the hell did you get the Barbed Shuriken to be bad? Master Ninjas have a passive crit bonus, high skill, and S-rank in Shurikens. I've had Kaze and Asugi strugle with it infrequently, but Saizo and Kagero wreck house with it, and Kaze gets two chances to crit.

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52 minutes ago, thecornerman said:

Are you talking about Quixotic? Ignoring Corrin, you can and should capture Hitaka in Conquest, or just any random spear fighter. and in Birthright, Scarlet comes with a Killer Axe (and is a good example of the avoid penalty not mattering much), but that's an axe which not many can use without reclassing. Off the top of my head and including promotions, six characters can get axes and not all of them make great use of it.

How the hell did you get the Barbed Shuriken to be bad? Master Ninjas have a passive crit bonus, high skill, and S-rank in Shurikens. I've had Kaze and Asugi strugle with it infrequently, but Saizo and Kagero wreck house with it, and Kaze gets two chances to crit.

Nope. It was Death Blow I was referring to, as Oni Savage has rather poor distribution (only Rinkah, Hinata, Hisame, Hayato, Rhajat, and Fuga get it without seal shenanigans - and one of those is Revelation only). Quixotic is pretty lame, really, but that's neither here nor there.

You do realize we're talking about a pathetically weak weapon with only 4 might? That's reason enough for me to not expect much. Also, Master Ninja has a pretty low Strength cap.

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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22 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Nope. It was Death Blow I was referring to, as Oni Savage has rather poor distribution (only Rinkah, Hinata, Hisame, Hayato, Rhajat, and Fuga get it without seal shenanigans - and one of those is Revelation only). Quixotic is pretty lame, really, but that's neither here nor there.

You do realize we're talking about a pathetically weak weapon with only 4 might? That's reason enough for me to not expect much. Also, Master Ninja has a pretty low Strength cap.

In most other cases, I'd agree that 27 is a poor strength cap, but seeing as how Saizo and Kagero (and probably Asugi) have fairly respectable strength cap modifiers and the Master Ninja has a crit boost, the odd crit usually makes up for it in terms of damage.

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2 hours ago, thecornerman said:

In most other cases, I'd agree that 27 is a poor strength cap, but seeing as how Saizo and Kagero (and probably Asugi) have fairly respectable strength cap modifiers and the Master Ninja has a crit boost, the odd crit usually makes up for it in terms of damage.

That's true of Kagero at the very least, but Asugi's dependent on his mother. Also, Master Ninja has a crit boost of... Drumroll please... a measly 5. That ain't enough to be notable. At all.

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23 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

That's true of Kagero at the very least, but Asugi's dependent on his mother. Also, Master Ninja has a crit boost of... Drumroll please... a measly 5. That ain't enough to be notable. At all.

It is in conjunction with a killer weapon, along with their avoid boost of 5, which partially negates the avoid boost.

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28 minutes ago, thecornerman said:

It is in conjunction with a killer weapon, along with their avoid boost of 5, which partially negates the avoid boost.

Still, we're talking about a laughably weak weapon with only 4 Mt and a class with a low Str cap (ties with Kinshi Knight and Adventurer, both of which use more powerful weapons) - high crit isn't worth a damn when your non-crit damage is pathetic (which I'd expect to be the case against anything that isn't a mage).

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
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FE4 has my favorite weapon system. Every unit ends up with their own set of weapons and differentiates each unit further than in most of the games. Not being able to trade weapons around meant you had characters filling niches that aren't easily passed around by simply trading weapons such as armor slayers and reavers in other games.

The weight system from the tellius games should make a return though. Tweaked numbers here and there would help it be more balanced and not be totally forgettable by the end of the game. And to fix the mages strength problem, well, just give them more of a strength growth.

Edited by Tenders
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I'd love for weapon durabily + con and weapon weight to come back (basically the GBA system), but I don't mind its absence that much. The Fates' system was a huge improvement over the systems of FE9~13, though, where weapon weight was irrelevant after a while.

Edited by Nobody
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-Bring back weapon durability. I'm so used it at this point that not having it would be odd.

-Reimplement weapon weight. My prefered system to return with it would be FE16 (Speed - Weight = AS) or FE6-8 (Speed - (Weight - Con) = AS). I get the idea behind swapping Con with Strength in other games, but that meant splitting Strength and Magic back into separate stats rather than have them change depending on the unit, meaning my mage could get a strength increase on level up that won't be very useful.

-GBA Magic System. In many games, I feel like anima magic is shown as the main magic type with light and dark being treated more as side-weapons. In the GBA games, anima, light, and dark each felt like a proper class of magic, creating a good magic version of the three main physical weapons. While there is the anima magic triangle, I never found the need to swap tomes to counter the enemy in Path of Radiance.

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