Jump to content

Why Lyn is a bad unit?


Harvey
 Share

Recommended Posts

I don't get the bashing of Lyn. Her growths aren't half bad and is typical of a Myrmidon class and even then, Afa drops can fix her somewhat low strength growth. Her Mani Katti will ensure that she will crit as often as she can. Then she has some fast supports which benefit others besides just herself and on top of that, she has 2 range weapons upon promotion..a class that Swordmasters wish they can get access to.

I'm not going to argue about her character as personality of the character is entirely subjective though I will say that she has some best supports in the entire game like Wallace X Lyn for example.

It also doesn't help that she also gets more levels of training that Eliwood and Hector don't get even though they don't need it that much. So why is she considered the worst all things considered in terms of hard mode, ranked runs and on just normal playthroughs?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 74
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Late promotion, poor strength, and defensive values, sword locked in a game that focuses hard on 1-2 range. Her promotion giving bows doesn't do her many favors either. As well as being a foot unit on-top of all that.

The Mani Katti is a good weapon and she can be a good player turn nuke on cavaliers. She's alright overall when doing Lyn mode but most people don't do Lyn mode so she starts at a low base level with fairly meh bases.

You can take solace in that she's top tier in Warriors though. Along with her Brave variant in Heroes being top tier.

Edited by Jedi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always been an advocate of Lyn being not as bad as people say, but it's kind of context-dependent. You really need to play Lyn mode first for her, because she really is bad when you go straight into Eliwood/Hector mode. I also see her as being not very newbie-friendly because she's reliant on dodging and proper placement more than others, so less-experienced players may have more trouble with her. But she's consistently been among my best units and was great help in all my ranked runs.

 

7 minutes ago, Jedi said:

Late promotion, poor strength, and defensive values, sword locked in a game that focuses hard on 1-2 range. Her promotion giving bows doesn't do her many favors either. As well as being a foot unit on-top of all that.

The Mani Katti is a good weapon and she can be a good player turn nuke on cavaliers. She's alright overall when doing Lyn mode but most people don't do Lyn mode so she starts at a low base level with fairly meh bases.

You can take solace in that she's top tier in Warriors though. Along with her Brave variant in Heroes being top tier.

  • The first Heaven Seal isn't very late, especially for players who level units to 20 before promotion.
  • Bows are only bad as a solo weapon. As a secondary, they're good. (Seriously, Bows as a secondary are crazy underrated)
  • Her Str is average, not poor, and a quick Florina support is easy help.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mostly agree with Jedi, with some slightly differences in opinion.

27 minutes ago, Florete said:

I've always been an advocate of Lyn being not as bad as people say, but it's kind of context-dependent. You really need to play Lyn mode first for her, because she really is bad when you go straight into Eliwood/Hector mode. I also see her as being not very newbie-friendly because she's reliant on dodging and proper placement more than others, so less-experienced players may have more trouble with her. But she's consistently been among my best units and was great help in all my ranked runs.

  • The first Heaven Seal isn't very late, especially for players who level units to 20 before promotion.
  • Bows are only bad as a solo weapon. As a secondary, they're good. (Seriously, Bows as a secondary are crazy underrated)
  • Her Str is average, not poor, and a quick Florina support is easy help.

Yeah, Lyn can be fairly decent when she has 5-10 levels on her, especially if you elect to give her the Angelic Robe or the Energy Ring (the only other candidate is Florina anyways IMO).

It's not very late relative to other Lord promotions, but chances are that more experienced players will have several promotions beforehand (you also get several prepromotes before then).  Additionally, if you're playing on Hector Mode and using Eliwood, he benefits far more from promotion than Lyn does, pushing her promotion back even further; she does benefit more from promotion than Eliwood Mode!Hector, though.  Agreed WRT bows and her strength.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Florete said:

I've always been an advocate of Lyn being not as bad as people say, but it's kind of context-dependent. You really need to play Lyn mode first for her, because she really is bad when you go straight into Eliwood/Hector mode. I also see her as being not very newbie-friendly because she's reliant on dodging and proper placement more than others, so less-experienced players may have more trouble with her. But she's consistently been among my best units and was great help in all my ranked runs.

If you're going to do a ranked run, she helps easily due to the fact that she gives you the white gem assuming you know how to deal with the funds rank in her story. Also, considering that you can skip the cutscenes and hard mode on Lyn's tale isn't that hard, It just helps to increase the replay value. I mean sure, you're not going to get anyone promoted there except either Sain/Kent but you can certainly get the upper hand training those units who need an extra level of grinding.

I will agree that her bases are somewhat shaky at start but its not like its hard to get her to good. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, Mister IceTeaPeach said:

Umm... the title is quite the news to me.

Sure, she's not great in HHM because she joins underleveled, but even then still usable. 
 

Some people consider her to be thrash, others consider her as average. When I mentioned that she's one of the best units, I got backlashed for that so yeah I'm as confused as you are.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

She's just very okay.  Now take this in context because when I play fe7, I always play Lyn mode to get levels for her and Florina and one of the cavs and I often times throw one or both of the statboosters at her whenever I'm playing Fe7 for fun and I always use all 3 of the Lords because I always use every lord lot in all Fe games because I'm strange.  But in any run where you don't do Lyn mode and you want to use optimal units Lyn will always be locked out of your group.  Lyn comes underleveled and with poor bases, she has no 1-2 range in a game with weak enemies and she is forced into a late promotion.  Along with that if you're playing Hector mode, you probably want to give the Heaven seal to Eliwood because he gets a horse and access to javelins.  She just doesn't contribute that much to a group that is mostly dominated by 4 cavs a couple of flyers and a valkyrie, unless you bend over backwards to make her useful, which I do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Florete said:

Bows are only bad as a solo weapon. As a secondary, they're good. (Seriously, Bows as a secondary are crazy underrated)

Bows aren't really terrible, and they have their uses on Warriors etc., since it bypasses the triangle with fairly good Hit. But in the GBA era, when both your weapon options are locked to either 1 or 2 range and with no 1-2 option (Warriors at least get Hand Axe), your unit probably has relatively limited options in Enemy Phase based games.

2 hours ago, Harvey said:

Afa drops can fix her somewhat low strength growth

Those come way too late to make much of a difference, honestly.

 

Personally I don't think Lyn is trash, and I've used her on all my FE7 runs and liked her. I agree with the sentiment that she's stuck as being just okay with no 1-2 access and low bulk, which means she is mostly a Player Phase unit who can occasionally dodge tank certain enemy formations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

She is aggresively average; until her Mani Katti breaks which makes her borderline unuseable later.

For one Lyn has really bad durability and faces a lot of triangle disadvantage; She will not be able to take more than 2 hits in HHM any given time which gets worse once Wyvern are introduced (exception is that defend chapter before Living Legend which has Reaver weapons). In Bern she will run into the risk of getting killed in one hit by Steel Lance Wyvern, unless any sort of investment is used to patch that up. Even then she simply has not the stats to kill them reliably.

It doesn't help that in terms of foot-locked sword units there are 2 main competitions; Guy and Raven. Both have HHM bonuses to improve their bulk and the latter gets even Hand Axes which make him very useable throughout the game.
Speaking of promotions, Blade Lord is easily the worst class that requires a Heaven's Seal. Bows might seem good against these Wyverns but she sacrifices her EP. She becomes a Nomad Trooper without the horse and her Weapon Ranks need to be build up for the use of Brave Bows or even Killer Bows. That's utter garbage and not worth the investment.
If one only looks at endgame potential, even Eliwood ends up more favorably than Lyn.

The only real thing that makes Lyn useable is the Mani Katti and Lyn Mode to compensate her awful start in HHM. However, she is not worth the Robe investment and her growths tend to leave her vulnerable to 2HKO's. However, she has the utility to nuke away Cavaliers which can't be said about the majority of the earlygame cast. However this is a short-lived victory since only the chapter after and the Dragon's Gate have a great presence of Cavalier units to make this truly useful.

So yes, Lyn is pretty bad. I don't think that Eliwood is better than her since that one needs his butt dragged around the entire game but she isn't a stellar unit.

Edited by Talandar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don’t think Lyn is good at all. Her offensive stats aren’t very good unless facing a frail unit or an axe user. She might be able to ORKO cavaliers but she’ll usually face Weapon triangle disadvantage, same with Armors except she probably won’t ORKO. Her strength base is very low at 4, and her growth isn’t good enough to make up for it in my experience. Her defensive abilities are laughable unless she’s facing axe users, and even then she wants to be in a forest to make it more reliable. Her speed is often overkill, once you get onto the dread isle enemy units grow at a snails pace, and sometimes get worse (start using steel weapons). Her weapon choices are bad, any physical unit without lances or axes will face a suboptimal enemy phase, as it is preferable to take out as many units on enemy phase as possible (Even if you do some sort of formation with blockers, that requires the blockers to have stronger defenses than Lyn, and most units you can use it on are frail anyways so they go down fairly easily. Which means more often than not using a formation like that would be the same if Lyn wan’t there.

Admittedly I prefer not playing LHM or ranked, but Sain Kent and Florina are far better choices for investment than Lyn in LHM, just because they are in better classes. I just find that Lyn isn’t very good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Bows aren't really terrible, and they have their uses on Warriors etc., since it bypasses the triangle with fairly good Hit. But in the GBA era, when both your weapon options are locked to either 1 or 2 range and with no 1-2 option (Warriors at least get Hand Axe), your unit probably has relatively limited options in Enemy Phase based games.

Bows are terrible SPECIFICALLY in FE7 for the same reason Eliwood's rapier is terrible imo because of the 2x efm, its one of few games where Bows are actually terrible beyond the standard Archer flaw syndrome and 'other characters are better' syndrome

 

3 hours ago, Harvey said:

Some people consider her to be thrash, others consider her as average. When I mentioned that she's one of the best units, I got backlashed for that so yeah I'm as confused as you are.

 

She's bad in a sense that amongst unit in FE7 she had one of the lower ends of potential due to Sword lord with no other weapon until promo where she gets no EP option and pretty meh base.  She's the second best Lord of the game overall(Eliwood would be better than Lyn at 14 Speed and promotion) but thats not saying much because Lyn is on of the bottom 5 Lord in the entire series

 

 

In HHM its particularly somewhat annoying to use her effectively because the unit slot is fucking dumb\

 

 

Mind overall Lyn isn't really as bad as say Nino/Karla/Bartre. She have Lyn Mode to get a shit tons of stuff done before the game even begin, and even if you want to superbuff Florina and Sain, Lyn would still have a decent amount of growth during the mode to make her competent enough comes the main campaign. Even without that Mani Katti is pretty good

 

No Lyn Mode Lyn is pretty bad though. Guy is already pushing it for unit that is only good for combat, and Lyn is arguably worse in every way so i don't see her being all that good

Edited by JSND Alter Dragon Boner
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Lyn is an okay short-term unit on Eliwood/Hector Mode, but nothing particularly special in the long haul. To echo the sentiment of others:

Pros:

  1. The Mani Katti is durable and powerful personal weapon
  2. Lyn Mode means she can come well leveled (say 10 at most) with a potential Ring and or Robe dumped on her (but Florina likes them more)
  3. She's fast and can dodgetank well under the right circumstances

Cons:

  1. She's fragile- 16 HP and 2 Def at base is bad.
  2. Low Con means anything heavier than Iron bites into her Speed (-5 AS from a Steel Sword).
  3. Low Str, combined with weak swords andthe lack of 1-2 range bites into her offensive potential.
  4. After Lyn Mode, axes aren't quite as prevalent, lances become more common and Lyn faces frequent WTD.
  5. To dodgetank, Lyn needs the enemy to be mostly axers and or dodgy terrain and or supports, and she can't equip anything heavy, or counter ranged hits.
  6. Her competition all finds ways of outdoing her on promotion: Rath gets what Lyn gets and a horse, Guy gets +15 critical, Raven gets axes.
  7. For Hard Mode, unit slot restrictions really limit who you can bring, and two of the above chars get stat boosts.
  8. To talk Funds rank, the Heaven Seal is double the value of a normal promotion item.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Most people don't do Lyn Mode" is news to me. It's part of the game, is quick and easy, is helpful for ranked runs, etc. There's little reason not do it. I'd imagine Lyn is probably quite bad without it, but I'm not really interested in discussing that.

With, she's decent enough? Early on she hits weakness on two enemy types and actually has enough speed to double, something a lot of your army (outside Matthew, Guy, and Marcus) up to that point struggle with. Her being weighed down by steel feels like a disingenous comment, since she has the Mani Katti which is basically weightless steel with +20 crit, so whenever she needs iron's speed with steel's power, she has it. She is fragile, though, and lacks 1-2 (and while I'm less enamoured with 1-2 range than some it's still a notable loss).

Later on her speed becomes less important for doubling, but more important for dodging, which she is one of the better units at doing. Lancereaver becoming storebought (so she can reduce lance-users to 0 hit) and Light Brand appearing help her out too. She doesn't get a horse though and her 1-2 range is weaker/limited, so I don't think she's ever amazing, but she's solid enough. On ranked she's a bit of a Funds drain outside her free Mani Katti, since she wants a 20k promotion item, and a lancereaver or two.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Harvey said:

Some people consider her to be thrash, others consider her as average. When I mentioned that she's one of the best units, I got backlashed for that so yeah I'm as confused as you are.

It depends on the mode.
I don't deny that she has a hard time in HHM due joining late with rather low level (idr which level), but overall she's still a good PP unit. 
As for comparison Eirika in Ephraim's route isn't so much different. When she returns in chapter 14 her attack power and defense aren't great either unless you could bring her to level >15 before the end of chapter 8.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

With, she's decent enough? Early on she hits weakness on two enemy types and actually has enough speed to double, something a lot of your army (outside Matthew, Guy, and Marcus) up to that point struggle with. Her being weighed down by steel feels like a disingenous comment, since she has the Mani Katti which is basically weightless steel with +20 crit, so whenever she needs iron's speed with steel's power, she has it. She is fragile, though, and lacks 1-2 (and while I'm less enamoured with 1-2 range than some it's still a notable loss).

Later on her speed becomes less important for doubling, but more important for dodging, which she is one of the better units at doing. Lancereaver becoming storebought (so she can reduce lance-users to 0 hit) and Light Brand appearing help her out too. She doesn't get a horse though and her 1-2 range is weaker/limited, so I don't think she's ever amazing, but she's solid enough. On ranked she's a bit of a Funds drain outside her free Mani Katti, since she wants a 20k promotion item, and a lancereaver or two.

True enough on the Steel Sword thing, the Mani Katti has 45 uses, which is plentiful on a full sized team so as long as you're not indiscriminately spamming it. The Hammerne doesn't have much competition either.

1-2 range I think is more a later game concern, since you need durability and high attack power (enough to ORKO or near it) to make it valuable. Outside of Marcus, this won't be true of anyone for a while. Hence I think she's fairly good in the short term, possibly better than Guy since the MK is Lyn's alone and has more uses than the KE (though you can buy those in a Secret Shop fairly early). Lyn's ability to double at the start > Eliwood's lack thereof and better durability.

FFO and Battle Prep are the only chapters selling Reavers- but they exist and you can stockpile them in the former. They only have 15 uses apiece, but they would make her evasive against lancers admittedly. Of course FFO is probably around the time 1-2 range is becoming kinda dominant and Lyn's peak performance is past. But of course she isn't useless at this point, just relatively less useful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Judging the lords is weird in this game because you have to consider: Did you do Lyn mode? Are you playing Eliwood mode or Hector mode?

If the answer is no to playing Lyn mode, then she isn't all that great. If the answer is yes, then i can see her being middle of the road... the problem with that is that I feel like Sain, Kent, and Florina are more deserving of trying to level up.

I still feel like Eliwood and Hector have their share of problems.

I think Eliwood's base class sucks and gets a great one upon promotion. While Hector's is kind of meh the whole time.

I am not certain Eliwood is worth training up since he doesn't promote till late. And Hector is helpful to start with and might be fine overall, but his low movement is going to be a bit of a hinderance...

Compare this to someone like Marcus who has great stats that can carry him through most of the game. Or (especially if you do Lyn mode) Sain and Kent who have great avaliability and base class.

Honestly, I feel like you could argue Lyn is better than Guy or Raven or Karla, but it doesn't really make her better than other units you get along the way which is unfortunately a problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, SatsumaFSoysoy said:

Bows aren't really terrible, and they have their uses on Warriors etc., since it bypasses the triangle with fairly good Hit. But in the GBA era, when both your weapon options are locked to either 1 or 2 range and with no 1-2 option (Warriors at least get Hand Axe), your unit probably has relatively limited options in Enemy Phase based games.

I mean, maybe it's how I play, but I've never found it to be an issue. Lyn gets her ranged combat, and if I need her to have her swords up for enemy phase (depending on positioning, you don't always), I just trade one to the top of her inventory. As long as you do the player phase right, you basically control the enemy phase, too.

5 hours ago, JSND Alter Dragon Boner said:

Bows are terrible SPECIFICALLY in FE7 for the same reason Eliwood's rapier is terrible imo because of the 2x efm, its one of few games where Bows are actually terrible beyond the standard Archer flaw syndrome and 'other characters are better' syndrome

With FE7's weak enemies and Lyn having access to Steel Bows immediately on promotion, she's killing all fliers regardless. And effective damage isn't the only value in Bows.

How is the Rapier terrible? It's almost has strong as Steel without the spd loss, gets extra hit and crit, and has effective damage against two unit types. Eliwood himself isn't that great but the Rapier is certainly a good weapon when compared to other swords early in the game and is arguably only beaten once he can use killer and silver.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

"Most people don't do Lyn Mode" is news to me. It's part of the game, is quick and easy, is helpful for ranked runs, etc. There's little reason not do it. I'd imagine Lyn is probably quite bad without it, but I'm not really interested in discussing that.

Don't know why you would be surprised by that. People hate having to do tutorials for something they already know how to do. I'm annoyed that every time I start a new file of Pokemon I have to learn something that anyone who watched the anime would know how to do. I couldn't even read when I played my first game, and I knew how to use pokeballs.

People aren't willing to go through such a slog for some extra levels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lyn when jumping straight into Hard Mode is pretty tough to get going in a ranked run.

Lyn with the aid of Lyn mode is good. Lyn is the best candidate for both the Angelic Robe and Energy Ring you pick up in those ten chapters.

Why is it that so many people make bold statements about Lyn mode units without specifying whether they include Lyn Mode or not? It's two different discussions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

She might not be the worst, but she does have a fair share of problems:

  1. Being sword-locked most of the time. While in the beginning, it might not be a bad thing considering how most early game enemies are mostly axe users in Lyn mode, she then struggles later on considering how most of the enemies wield lances, causing Lyn to struggle later on. (I mean, most of the lords have that problem as well though, so counting Lyn out would be deemed as unfair.) It also leads to another problem...
  2. Lyn isn't particularly an effective dodge-tank as people might emphasise, while in certain circumstances it might work, it requires enemies to wield axes and because of the weapon triangle disadvantage as enemies would wield more lances, later on, she will end up struggling.
  3. While I don't find her strength to be a particular problem, but her low defense growth is particularly troublesome and with the reasons above, this is also another issue.
  4. I don't find her promotion very helpful either, as there isn't much of a reason to use bows when magic is a better-ranked weapon against foes.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, RedRob said:

Don't know why you would be surprised by that. People hate having to do tutorials for something they already know how to do. I

If you were forced to play Lyn Normal Mode again I'd understand. Lyn Hard Mode isn't a tutorial, though; just normal FE maps which happen to be on the easy side of things.

There's something really weird about starting a game at "Chapter 11", I feel, too, but that one might be just me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, RedRob said:

Don't know why you would be surprised by that. People hate having to do tutorials for something they already know how to do. I'm annoyed that every time I start a new file of Pokemon I have to learn something that anyone who watched the anime would know how to do. I couldn't even read when I played my first game, and I knew how to use pokeballs.

People aren't willing to go through such a slog for some extra levels.

Lyn Hard Mode is a thing, and isn't a tutorial. And you can even do stuff like promote Sain or Kent instead of Wallace, giving you a second, early Paladin that can outdo Marcus, depending on their level at promotion.

I ALWAYS do it, because you get three stat bonus items, a free promotion, and a bunch of EXP for units who would later join underleveled in Eliwood or Hector mode.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

Am I the only person who has ever given Lyn a Lancereaver? With one of those she's an insanely good lategame unit!

I never considered that.  I don't suppose it would hurt to try giving her one if I'm not planning on using any of the potential Swordmasters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...