Opinions on the beastkin classes?

[Alastor15243]

Now, I don't think it's overly controversial to say that the taguel class in Awakening was abysmal and without question the worst class in the game. Among its many faults were the fact that it was meleelocked, had really only one weapon that was very low might and unforgeable, and no truly impressive skills. Now, the funny thing is, all of these complaints still apply in Fates, and I personally think the kitsune is pretty garbage, but I think the wolfskin is actually pretty great.

The thing about the wolfskins, especially on conquest, is that they're both really powerful and tanky, so their weapons' low might actually doesn't interfere too much with their ability to one-round enemies. But what's more, with the introduction of the new stone, the beastrune, wolfskins now have an ability that is extremely useful with Conquest's smarter AI, especially if you're big on rally and aura manipulation: the ability to dynamically change their defense at will to suit their enemies' attack power. They can make sure enemies won't ignore them due to being too weak by switching between the beastrune and beaststone to soften themselves up and become a juicier target, but they can also toughen themselves up again when facing heavier-hitting foes, granting the player a lot more options on how to calibrate their defense to be just low enough to bait every enemy, especially if, as I said, you have rallies and defensive auras at your disposal.

At least that's my experience with them. What's everyone else's verdict on them?

Edited October 21, 2017 by Alastor15243

[Interdimensional Observer]

Taguel in Awakening- yeah they were the worse- Swordmasters outside the WT without variety in their weapon arsenal.

Wolfskin were good, strong, tanky, with the potential to be doubling fast. The existence of the Beastrune and Beaststone does indeed help them out as you suggest. The skills they get aren't too bad either- better and more plentiful than what the Taguel got.

The Kitsune are supposed to dodgetank- but Fates nerfed this and even a 100 avoid Selkie (I got it to happen once) can face dangerously high hit rates on BR Lunatic for all her fragility. The Kitsune are supposed to soak up magic damage- which is meaningless since they can't counter mages since they lack 2 range. The Kitsune get a skill that doubles the might of their weapons vs. Horses, Pegs, and other Kitsune/Wolfskin- doesn't do enough to let them ORKO any of those foes. The Kitsune look nice, but are terrible units, if still better than Taguel possibly.

[Shadow Mir]

I like both. Whilst Kitsune may lose out, I think there's worse classes in Fates, mainly Berserker. As for the range lock, given the nerf to hand axes, etc., it ain't as bad as it was in prior games. I oft find myself using the Beastrune though.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Ertrick36]

I'd like more that use other weapons.  Whether that's various types of beaststones or outright using a different weapon class like Corrin, I think what it all comes down to is the beastkin are never given enough variety to make them fun or adaptable.

So basically, either have it like Corrin where they have another weapon type at their disposal, or make it like Mystery, where there were different stone types for the manaketes that offered a variety of stat boosts (except don't give people access to the objectively best stones only, like, halfway through the game).  I mean, that's sort of in line with what you're saying about the Wolfskin class anyway, yeah?

[joshcja]

1-1 range lock is still booty garbage.

Kaden is useable because br is a joke. Keaton is pairup bot/10 when reclassed to Be but even then he's not named Arthur so he's bad.

Edited October 21, 2017 by joshcja

[Dark Holy Elf]

19 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Now, I don't think it's overly controversial to say that the taguel class in Awakening was abysmal and without question the worst class in the game.

Eh, Archer is worse. Both aren't good for much aside from hitting weakness on one particular type of enemy, but beast-type opponents are more common than fliers (especially since pegasus knights count as beasts in that game), and 1-range lock, while bad, is better than 2-range lock.

That said Taguel is indeed pretty mediocre. The beasts in this game get a better line of skills and some nice innate class bonuses to stats such as crit avoid, so they're better, but still not amazing. I like where they are well enough now, though; 1-range lock sucks, but they have advantages like their sturdiness and their weapons being free.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Eh, Archer is worse. Both aren't good for much aside from hitting weakness on one particular type of enemy, but beast-type opponents are more common than fliers (especially since pegasus knights count as beasts in that game), and 1-range lock, while bad, is better than 2-range lock.

That said Taguel is indeed pretty mediocre. The beasts in this game get a better line of skills and some nice innate class bonuses to stats such as crit avoid, so they're better, but still not amazing. I like where they are well enough now, though; 1-range lock sucks, but they have advantages like their sturdiness and their weapons being free.

Galeforce made a lot of the issues with snipers rather meaningless in Awakening, and they're top tier in Apotheosis runs and damn-near necessary in galeforceless lunatic+ runs. Unless you're comparing Fates archers to Awakening beastkin or something.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Alastor15243

[Dark Holy Elf]

Nah, I was talking Awakening, just with a focus on the maingame, due to not caring about aftergame stuff. Archer is terrible in the maingame (getting one Galeforce isn't really practical there).

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Nah, I was talking Awakening, just with a focus on the maingame, due to not caring about aftergame stuff. Archer is terrible in the maingame (getting one Galeforce isn't really practical there).

Actually getting galeforce in maingame is really easy, so easy you can (and honestly should) do it on lunatic+. And Chrom, one of the first characters you should get married off to a galegirl, has access to sniper, so boom, there you go, sniper with galeforce. Not saying it's practical to get it on a large group, but it's trivial to get it on at least one pair of children, and that pair's likely to have access to sniper.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm not sure I follow you.

Galeforce is gained at 20/15, which is lategame (maybe mid-late for a unit who gets a ridiculous amount of combat focus, like a Nosferatu-tank Robin, etc.). By the time you have 20/15 units, child units are no longer practical to raise in the maingame since you have little game left. Therefore passing down Galeforce directly to a kid doesn't have much purpose. I'm sure you can, then go to the trouble of raising such a unit and maybe s/he'll be good for like two maps then the game ends, but who cares? By a similar token, Beastbane Panne is going to be useful for one or two maps midgame (especially C12).

If you were referring to Chrom's kids (Lucina etc.) just having access to both Sniper and Galeforce, well... of course they do, but among my list of practical Lucina builds, "give up Falchion and her sword rank to job change to Dark Flier -> get Galeforce -> give up lance/tome rank to job change to Sniper" is very far down the list. Same goes for any first-gen unit.

[Shadow Mir]

18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Actually getting galeforce in maingame is really easy, so easy you can (and honestly should) do it on lunatic+. And Chrom, one of the first characters you should get married off to a galegirl, has access to sniper, so boom, there you go, sniper with galeforce. Not saying it's practical to get it on a large group, but it's trivial to get it on at least one pair of children, and that pair's likely to have access to sniper.

Sorry, but frankly, I agree with DHE - it's just impractical in every sense of the word. Especially if we bring up children, since they don't become relevant until the second half of the game, and ESPECIALLY if one of them has to inherit Galeforce.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Alastor15243]

13 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I'm not sure I follow you.

Galeforce is gained at 20/15, which is lategame (maybe mid-late for a unit who gets a ridiculous amount of combat focus, like a Nosferatu-tank Robin, etc.). By the time you have 20/15 units, child units are no longer practical to raise in the maingame since you have little game left. Therefore passing down Galeforce directly to a kid doesn't have much purpose. I'm sure you can, then go to the trouble of raising such a unit and maybe s/he'll be good for like two maps then the game ends, but who cares? By a similar token, Beastbane Panne is going to be useful for one or two maps midgame (especially C12).

Galeforce isn't a late game skill. This is a game that sees units go through multiple classes before the end of the game. You can get Galeforce on Sumia and/or a female avatar by the time you unlock child paralogues with ridiculous ease, and then you can pass it down to two or more children. Awakening is not a game that punishes you for feeding all of your experience into a small handful of units, it actively rewards you for it by letting you double or even triple your investment by giving you children with stats way beyond their internal level who will be nigh-unstoppable juggernauts by the end of their paralogues, as levels can easily be fed to them because galeforce lets them dive in for quick and dirty kills for the few levels where they're actually fragile.

And again, I'm not saying that archers are the best class in the maingame, far from it, but having access to weapon forging, 3 range, brave weapons and a faire means they're a much better option than taguel for any unit with galeforce, which if you know what your doing is going to be your entire army.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Alastor15243

[Thinks Their Own Way]

The taguel class was a glorified beast killer (the weapon) in class form with skills that are pretty useless elsewhere. Kitsune can be pretty decent magic tanks but the Wolfskin more physical bulk and higher strength I found to be more useful. Velouria is always my go to unit when I play Conquest.

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Galeforce isn't a late game skill. This is a game that sees units go through multiple classes before the end of the game. You can get Galeforce on Sumia and/or a female avatar by the time you unlock child paralogues with ridiculous ease, and then you can pass it down to two or more children. Awakening is not a game that punishes you for feeding all of your experience into a small handful of units, it actively rewards you for it by letting you double or even triple your investment by giving you children with stats way beyond their internal level who will be nigh-unstoppable juggernauts by the end of their paralogues, as levels can easily be fed to them because galeforce lets them dive in for quick and dirty kills for the few levels where they're actually fragile.

And again, I'm not saying that archers are the best class in the maingame, far from it, but having access to weapon forging, 3 range, brave weapons and a faire means they're a much better option than taguel for any unit with galeforce, which if you know what your doing is going to be your entire army.

Yeah, I think we're going to just have to agree to disagree here. I've never gotten anywhere near Level 20/15 by Chapter 13 in Awakening. I think the earliest I ever got someone that level was Chapter 19 on Lunatic, and again, that was with a Nosferatu-tank getting a crazy disproportionate number of kills, not a Dark Flier (this isn't Fates where we can just jump over at Level 15 either; a Second Seal will set you back to L1 Dark Flier with an exp penalty).

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

 

Yeah, I think we're going to just have to agree to disagree here. I've never gotten anywhere near Level 20/15 by Chapter 13 in Awakening. I think the earliest I ever got someone that level was Chapter 19 on Lunatic, and again, that was with a Nosferatu-tank getting a crazy disproportionate number of kills, not a Dark Flier (this isn't Fates where we can just jump over at Level 15 either; a Second Seal will set you back to L1 Dark Flier with an exp penalty).

In lunatic+ I sent my avatar through tactician, mercenary, bow knight for bowbreaker AND dark flier for gale force all by the time chapter 13 ended and I got Lucina. And even with all of that I still had experience left to train up a passable nostank miriel.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Galeforce isn't a late game skill. This is a game that sees units go through multiple classes before the end of the game. You can get Galeforce on Sumia and/or a female avatar by the time you unlock child paralogues with ridiculous ease, and then you can pass it down to two or more children. Awakening is not a game that punishes you for feeding all of your experience into a small handful of units, it actively rewards you for it by letting you double or even triple your investment by giving you children with stats way beyond their internal level who will be nigh-unstoppable juggernauts by the end of their paralogues, as levels can easily be fed to them because galeforce lets them dive in for quick and dirty kills for the few levels where they're actually fragile.

And again, I'm not saying that archers are the best class in the maingame, far from it, but having access to weapon forging, 3 range, brave weapons and a faire means they're a much better option than taguel for any unit with galeforce, which if you know what your doing is going to be your entire army.

Sorry, but I call bullshit on this - almost none of this is very practical. I don't see Sumia doing well in the axe-heavy earlygame, so getting her to 15 Dark Flier by the end of chapter 13 means you're likely promoting her early, hamstringing her growth in the process. Robin might have a better shot, but I have reservations about going to a class that gets WTD against most enemies early on.

Yeah, let's go and ignore the part where you get all of two longbows in game, and braves are not buyable until endgame...

[Alastor15243]

9 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Sorry, but I call bullshit on this - almost none of this is very practical. I don't see Sumia doing well in the axe-heavy earlygame, so getting her to 15 Dark Flier by the end of chapter 13 means you're likely promoting her early, hamstringing her growth in the process. Robin might have a better shot, but I have reservations about going to a class that gets WTD against most enemies early on.

Fine then, if you want to call bullshit, then go to the Awakening lunatic club and ask them if what I'm saying about Sumia and Robin sounds particularly unfeasible, and ask them if there's enough experience to go around to get Sumia and Robin to level 15 dark flier by the time children are available. I assure you they'll say there is.

 

9 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Yeah, let's go and ignore the part where you get all of two longbows in game, and braves are not buyable until endgame...

That's assuming you're not playing with einherjar shops, otherwise none of that's true, and even if we ignore both of those, taguels have the worst attack power in the entire game due to their terrible weapon might and attack power. Literally any other class will be doing more damage than them.

 

Edited October 22, 2017 by Alastor15243

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Kitsune should have fought using their magic stat. It would make them stand out from the other shape shifter class, vindicate Kaden's alternate class of diviner, and also be in line with the myth their based on. 

[Shadow Mir]

23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Fine then, if you want to call bullshit, then go to the Awakening lunatic club and ask them if what I'm saying about Sumia and Robin sounds particularly unfeasible, and ask them if there's enough experience to go around to get Sumia and Robin to level 15 dark flier by the time children are available. I assure you they'll say there is.

 

That's assuming you're not playing with einherjar shops, otherwise none of that's true, and even if we ignore both of those, taguels have the worst attack power in the entire game due to their terrible weapon might and attack power. Literally any other class will be doing more damage than them.

 

Maybe if you're taking the cowardly way and low-manning, but otherwise, no. And how are you going to raise Sumia when she can't take more than one hit??

I do agree that taguels are pretty bad off, but I'm not seeing Galeforce snipers as anything other than extremely impractical for in game purposes.

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Maybe if you're taking the cowardly way and low-manning, but otherwise, no. And how are you going to raise Sumia when she can't take more than one hit??

I do agree that taguels are pretty bad off, but I'm not seeing Galeforce snipers as anything other than extremely impractical for in game purposes.

Alright, if you're going to keep confidently overestimating the difficulty of things you obviously haven't seriously tried, then fine, I won't try to convince you any further, especially when it's barely on topic.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Alastor15243

[joshcja]

Wait. Are people trying to claim that there's not enough exp in awakening to... use the primary cheese strat of awakening?

Cause that's some next level delusion...

[Alastor15243]

11 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Kitsune should have fought using their magic stat. It would make them stand out from the other shape shifter class, vindicate Kaden's alternate class of diviner, and also be in line with the myth their based on. 

Yeah, that would've been cool, although on the other hand that would have made the unfavorable comparison between them and 1-2 range units even more stark. making them meleelocked magic users with nothing but unreliable evasion to give them better defenses would make them just objectively worse mages.

Edited October 22, 2017 by Alastor15243

[wissenschaft]

The beast units are not that great. At least the wolfskin are decently tanky. They can be good active turn killers. The wolfskin have enough strength to make use of their bonus damage vs beasts so they can kill cavilers. Being locked to 1 range does hurt though so they are never ideal tanks nor are they tanky enough once promoted units appear on Lunatic.

Kitsune don't have a role to fulfill since ninjas already make perfect mage killers.

Edited October 22, 2017 by wissenschaft

[Shadow Mir]

13 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Kitsune should have fought using their magic stat. It would make them stand out from the other shape shifter class, vindicate Kaden's alternate class of diviner, and also be in line with the myth their based on. 

That probably would've done nothing but made them even worse off.

[De Geso]

Every wolfskin in Conquest is better as another class (namely, Wyvern Lord, since they should both have something to do with Camilla at all times and it's one of the best classes in the game).

Keaton (who is just bad unless he's riding Camilla's Wyvern) and Velouria also make solid zerkers, but Arthur is just better at it (availability, weapon ranks, the works) though Camilla!Velouria is arguably better in terms of raw stats than Arthur if she joins after chapter 18 (it depends on how your Arthur turned out, and he's usually the GOAT so.)

That said, they're okay, a pretty inoffensive class overall. Certainly better than Kitsune and Taguel, but not having 1-2 range does hurt them a lot (especially in Conquest when good 2 range is a premier commodity). They kill a unit on player phase and sometimes take a few hits on enemy phase, but you have Xander/Effie/Benny for the latter anyway so it's probably not all that necessary.

But they're alright on Normal or Hard, and you can get away with using them on Lunatic if you're just playing it casually.

Edited October 26, 2017 by YouSquiddinMe