What would you want out of a FE5 Echoes?

[Jedi]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

The obvious way to fix the Ced Vs Saias problem is just to make both of them deployable at the same time. There's no real justification as to why Saias just leave the army if Ced joins. Same with Olwen and Illios. How does she in any way affect his decisions? I dont mind a Arran/Samson choice, but the game needs to justify it in some way rather than arbitrarily locking off some units because others exist.

Maybe they should have Saias keep his Leadership stars, it'd be a funny choice at least then, or as you said just give us both of them.

[Jotari]

55 minutes ago, Jedi said:

Maybe they should have Saias keep his Leadership stars, it'd be a funny choice at least then, or as you said just give us both of them.

Well he does have a few leadership stars. Not as many as when he's a boss (which is, frankly, a ridiculous number), but still more than most.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

The obvious way to fix the Ced Vs Saias problem is just to make both of them deployable at the same time. There's no real justification as to why Saias just leave the army if Ced joins. Same with Olwen and Illios. How does she in any way affect his decisions? I dont mind a Arran/Samson choice, but the game needs to justify it in some way rather than arbitrarily locking off some units because others exist.

That would probably work - and to be honest I agree to an extent. Ilios in particular stands out for requiring a certain other character either was not recruited or was killed (that being Olwen), with no other recruitment requiring this (discounting Shadow Dragon); it doesn't help that Olwen comes a good while before Ilios is relevant.

10 hours ago, Slumber said:

Dude, why do you keep doing having this argument? Stop doing this if you haven't played the game. 

This is the second time in a week you've whined about the cast balance and based your argument around Ced and Saias. @Jotari already had this argument with you, but the imbalance for Ced and Saias isn't so crazy that it brings down the whole game. Saias simply coming with Warp and Silence staves does a lot to close the statistical gap between the two.

The fact that you started the post with "Better balance the cast" after the argument you had with @Jotari instead of just saying "Give more of a reason to go for Saias instead of Ced" actually leads me to believe you're doing this to deliberately start more shit. 

For the record, I do agree that there are parts that could be balanced better with the cast. Since it's related to another thread, Eda and Dean is a much more glaring imbalance than Saias and Ced. You get SOMETHING of value for picking Saias. With Eda and Dean, the game just says "Hey, here's a pretty good, pre-promotee flier who gets a good prf weapon and comes with one of the best Crusader Scrolls in the game. Also here's a lower leveled, unpromoted, harder to train version of him that gets nothing unique. Have fun?" That's an actual case of the cast balance in the game being indefensibly bad, even if the game as a whole has much better cast balance than... Possibly any other FE? 

Ronan would be an instant 10/10 as a character if it turned out he was just really into party tricks. 

Well, even if Saias isn't completely invalidated by Ced, I still take issue with the general tendency of female units to have lower Con than male units; sure, they may have better speed, but that doesn't always hold true, whereas male units having better con pretty much is always true. It doesn't help matters that in this game, caps are only 20. That being said, the whole thing about Saias just up and leaving if you get Ced just makes no sense.

[Jotari]

Back on my computer with my prewritten list of Thracia changes.

 

*No Hit % on healing staves. That's an annoying feature that doesn't help anything. While we're at it 0% means 0% and 100% means 100%.

*A timer on status staves, because sleep and berserk are just too broken when they're infinite (maybe leave poison as is though, because it's pretty useless otherwise).

*Double, or even triple, the weapon exp gain for mounted units when unmounted.

*Fog of war lets you see the landscape like in later games.

*Those warp tiles, most noteable in 24x, can't remember if they're anywhere else, are visible if you have a thief within three squares of them, or if you have a unit holding a captured enemy within 3 squares. I still want them to function as traps but having them completely invisible like that is way too cheap.

*Chapter 21 features appearances from Ishtar, the three mage sisters and Faval. Additionally Patty joins the army with Delmud and can recruit Faval. Having him there not only gels well with Holy War canon but also furthers the plot development of Leif feeling inferior because he lacks a holy weapon. This also allows a happy reunion between Briggid and her kids (or perhaps an ironic non reunion as neither recognizes the other) if you decide to save Eyvel.

*Cyas and Ced are both recruitable. I don't see any good narrative or gameplay reason why you have to choose between one or the other.

*Give Cyas a fire tome rank so he could hypothetically actually wield Valflame. If he needs to hack the game Iago style, so be it.

**Make it so Cyas can die if you reduce his HP to 0. It wouldn't massively change the plot and it just kind of irks me that he's the only character in the game that retreats when killed (actually it just kind of irks me that any character can do that in Fire Emblem).

*A magic bow. Mainly so Ronan's particular niche is more usable.

*Supports and base conversations, because Ronan and Lifis fighting alongside one another needs to be explained.

*Giver Armoured Knights a lance rank so Dalsin can use lances in doors from the start. Plus, they jump from one weapon to four which is just weird.

*A Soldier ally who joins Leif during the Manster arc. We need to use Lances in doors and Soldiers are a nice class to have playable.

*Make light magic a thing before end game.

*More cutscenes with Blume. I get that he isn't meant to be Leif's major antagonist since the whole point of Leif's story is that it's bigger than him, but Blume still deserves to have more of a presence in the world than just that really brief scene he appears in.

*Make it so the top left of Route A, and the top right of Route B, are the same location. They're meant to be in plot, and I just sort of like it when things are consistent like that (like the Ostia chapters or Sword of Seal Shrinre chapters in Binding and Blazing Blade).

*Leif gains Staves (and a new sprite!) upon promotion.

*Have capture affect more things. Maybe even negatively affect things, like if you release a boss in one chapter they'll appear in a later one, but if you release certain other characters, it'll lead to other items. Also, for the characters and gaiden obtained via capturing, don't make it so you need to keep the character captured for the entire map. Give out those rewards by releasing them too.

*Units have their own stamina stat complete with a growth rate instead of making it based on HP. Within the first 10 (or 15) turns of a chapter, whenever a unit waits they gain 1 point of Stamina back. After turn 20 (or 25 maybe) they start to lose stamina even when waiting. This would give the player more control over stamina as well as incentive for faster chapter clears.

*Remove the minimum necessary units and inability to reposition units.

**So this is my favorite suggestion that will never actually happen. In order to retain the spirit of Chapter 19 while also allowing repositioning, I'd add a chapter 18x where you control Dorias during his attack on Connacht. The units brought to this chapter are the ones on the run in Chapter 19. Depending on how well you do could affect how difficult Chapter 19 is. Like if you kill one of the bosses in this chapter, they won't show up in the next.

5 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

That would probably work - and to be honest I agree to an extent. Ilios in particular stands out for requiring a certain other character either was not recruited or was killed (that being Olwen), with no other recruitment requiring this (discounting Shadow Dragon); it doesn't help that Olwen comes a good while before Ilios is relevant.

Well, even if Saias isn't completely invalidated by Ced, I still take issue with the general tendency of female units to have lower Con than male units; sure, they may have better speed, but that doesn't always hold true, whereas male units having better con pretty much is always true. It doesn't help matters that in this game, caps are only 20. That being said, the whole thing about Saias just up and leaving if you get Ced just makes no sense.

Thracia has 14 female characters. Less examine them one by one.

Evyel: Super unit in the opening chapters, she can't even be killed. Then eliminated for almost the entire game until the second last chapter depending on certain conditions. You can possibly call that a case of unbalance, but it's more plot over taking gameplay.

Tanya: A better archer than Ronan (who has a niche, but it's one of the hardest niches in the game to use as he has trouble actually killing things).Safy: First staff user in the game and consistently the best until at least the half way point. Has exclusive access to Hammerine. I've outright argued that she's the best unit in the game with Slumber. Of course she's not OP as she's flimsy as all hell, but staff useage is just really critical to Thracia.

Machyua: Just a really solid combat unit. More tanky than Shiva and also gets axes on promotion. Best trait is her early join time which allows her to grow in any way you want thanks to scrolls. I personally dropped her about half way when Mareeta joined, but for the first half of the game she proved herself worth existing with constant deployment.

Lara: One of only two thieves (yes, she's inferior at the job compared to Lifis, but thieves are still worth having, Lifis himself gets obsoleted by Phan) and then the only dancer in the game.

Karin: First flier in the game. Very low build but fantastic speed growths that means she's probably doubling everything. Also has decent magic making her a great candidate for the Thunder Sword. Also comes very early in the game allowing for scrolls to cover her weaknesses.

Nanna: Only mounted healer in the game, comes with a PRF weapon that can damage and heal. Supports Leif.

Selfina: Outright better than her male counterpart, Robert (yes, Thracia has a very balanced cast, but some units are just superior to others). Starts off in a great class with great weapon ranks and supports a tonne of units.

Olwen: Exclusive Dime Thunder access and later greats the Prayer Sword. Weapons so good her stats are basically irrelevant. And unless your training Asvel in Thunder Tomes, she'll probably have exclusive Bolting access.

Maretta: In the running for the best offensive unit in the game. Rivaled only by Othin and Asvel, and surpassed only by Ced and Galzus.

Tina: Staff user = instant win. Also has exclusive access to the Thief and Unlock Staves.

Eda: Inferior to Deen.

Linoan: Only real light magic user throughout the game aside from Homeros. Also comes with a staff rank which is always really useful. Has a plot based promotion which brings her down some what, but still definitely worth having. Her high PPC makes her a particularly good Nosferatu tank.

Misha: Basically a prepromoted Karin. Comes with more movement than Deen and great weapon ranks. Worst thing about her is that you need to have a Sleep sword to recruit her. Probably the most bench worthy female candidate in the game along with Eda, still a useful flier if the others are fatigued or Karin got rng screwed though.

Sara: As Slumber said somewhere else, an Est done right. Low base stats, but massive growths and some extremely useful skills (including Paragon to get her up to speed quickly). Also has staff access including the unique Cia Staff (which let's face it, will only be useful saving Evyel because you should be killing Veld in one turn).

Miranda: An Est done wrong. Potentially great since she has low stats and you probably have all the scrolls by this point, but why bother? Almost everyone else in Thracia is great with less investment.

Amalda: Starts off with decent stats and mounted stave useage. Comes with an extra point in movement. Also retains her leadership stars (unlike someone *cough* Misha *cough*). I brought her to Endgame, doubt I'd do the same for Conomor, her male counter part (in fact, you recruit Conomor and Miranda on the same route, maybe they're intentionally worse than Seluf and Amalda as compensation for those two being on a more difficult route).

So you see, out of every female character in the game, I'd suggest that two of them are rather useless (Eda and Miranda) and of those two, only Eda is actually getting screwed by Con bases and growths. Machyua might run into some trouble, especially if you try to use axes with her, but she's still well worth fielding, if only because deployment slots are generous at the start of the game and fatigue is a thing.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Jotari

[Cysx]

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Cyas and Ced are both recruitable. I don't see any good narrative or gameplay reason why you have to choose between one or the other.

I'd rather they gave a good story reason instead, honestly. Handing the player two Gotohs seems like overkill.

 

[Jotari]

6 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I'd rather they gave a good story reason instead, honestly. Handing the player two Gotohs seems like overkill.

 

Well there's three, including Galzus...

[Cysx]

23 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well there's three, including Galzus...

True...

[Slumber]

7 hours ago, Cysx said:

True...

Honestly, I'm not sure FE5 needs "reasons" for 3 Gotohs. Mostly because most Gotohs are insanely overpowered and don't usually play by the rules of the game, while the FE5 Gotohs are limited by the rules of the game, which EVERYONE else is also restricted by.

Athos' only weakness is his low HP. But he'll have better stats and S ranks in everything while your other Mages won't even come close to his stats and can only S rank one weapon type.

The Laguz kings stay transformed while the rest of your Laguz can't(Except in FE10 where there are a few ways around this), and they'll have stats that absolutely blow the rest out of the water.

Galzus, Ced and Saias are more like a "Karel"-type of Gotoh. If you train up Homer, he'll have better stats than Ced, and if you train up Sara, she'll have comparable stats with waaaaaay better skills, and Ced's only remaining selling point becomes Holsety. He has some other things that are better in movement(Vs Homer. Sara's got a whopping 5 movement stars) and leadership, but Homer gets 5 PCC and Sara has Wrath, so they'll be hitting crits a bit more often. He'll probably have a better staff rank than both, but he's joins at a time when your already established staffers can keep doing what they've been doing. Galzus has 5 movement stars and "Soft Aether", but Orsin has Wrath, better stats, and the almighty Pugi. Mareeta will have comparable stats, the same skills(Depending on the route you go), being a bit weaker in bld, def and HP, but her personal weapon gives her Nihil and can save you from some shitty situations in the last two chapters. Saias gets the short end of the stick of them all, since his biggest selling point is his inventory, which can just be given to your other staffers, but he still has respectable stats and movement/leadership stars.

[Armagon]

23 hours ago, Jotari said:

*Units have their own stamina stat complete with a growth rate instead of making it based on HP. Within the first 10 (or 15) turns of a chapter, whenever a unit waits they gain 1 point of Stamina back. After turn 20 (or 25 maybe) they start to lose stamina even when waiting. This would give the player more control over stamina as well as incentive for faster chapter clears.

Do we really need stamina though? Don't get me wrong, this does sound like a plausible solution but from the little i played of Thracia, the only thing stamina did was annoy me.

I'd take this solution and combine it with SoV's Stamina, that is, fatigue=stat drops as opposed to just taking you out of the game for a chapter.

[Cysx]

54 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Honestly, I'm not sure FE5 needs "reasons" for 3 Gotohs. Mostly because most Gotohs are insanely overpowered and don't usually play by the rules of the game, while the FE5 Gotohs are limited by the rules of the game, which EVERYONE else is also restricted by.

Athos' only weakness is his low HP. But he'll have better stats and S ranks in everything while your other Mages won't even come close to his stats and can only S rank one weapon type.

The Laguz kings stay transformed while the rest of your Laguz can't(Except in FE10 where there are a few ways around this), and they'll have stats that absolutely blow the rest out of the water.

Galzus, Ced and Saias are more like a "Karel"-type of Gotoh. If you train up Homer, he'll have better stats than Ced, and if you train up Sara, she'll have comparable stats with waaaaaay better skills, and Ced's only remaining selling point becomes Holsety. He has some other things that are better in movement(Vs Homer. Sara's got a whopping 5 movement stars) and leadership, but Homer gets 5 PCC and Sara has Wrath, so they'll be hitting crits a bit more often. He'll probably have a better staff rank than both, but he's joins at a time when your already established staffers can keep doing what they've been doing. Galzus has 5 movement stars and "Soft Aether", but Orsin has Wrath, better stats, and the almighty Pugi. Mareeta will have comparable stats, the same skills(Depending on the route you go), being a bit weaker in bld, def and HP, but her personal weapon gives her Nihil and can save you from some shitty situations in the last two chapters. Saias gets the short end of the stick of them all, since his biggest selling point is his inventory, which can just be given to your other staffers, but he still has respectable stats and movement/leadership stars.

To be fair, Homer and especially Sara aren't all that practical to train, plus neither can use wind or resire at base. And Ced has a 30% crit weapon with 16+20 skill, so he's essentially as much as a crit machine as one can be(without wrath), even with a pcc of 3. Sara will have A rank in staves, though, starts at B and promotion makes that A.Mareeta at 20/20 should be past her build problems, but something more realistic like 10/15 fares quite a bit worse, and def and HP are self-explanatory. Othin is awesome but Galzus with a master axe is pretty silly as well, since luna is 100% hit, and, yeah, 5 MS. Saias still gives three times the leadership bonus anyone else can, for the few that can. It's map-wide charisma at his level, essentially; the only staff users that even gives leadership outside of that are Ced and Amalda(which likely won't be at A). So by default he invalidates most of them outside of personal preference, I believe.

But really my reasoning was that giving the player two units that can clear the endgame with ease at once sounded a bit silly, but... yeah, the game already does that, essentially, and at that point, sure, a third one, won't make much of a difference actually.

[Jotari]

17 hours ago, Armagon said:

Do we really need stamina though? Don't get me wrong, this does sound like a plausible solution but from the little i played of Thracia, the only thing stamina did was annoy me.

I'd take this solution and combine it with SoV's Stamina, that is, fatigue=stat drops as opposed to just taking you out of the game for a chapter.

Being able to field units even if they've exceeded their stamina would be really useful for recruiting certain characters (or in Linoan's case, promoting her, but that should probably be removed in general, or replaced with some kind of alternate promotion to a unique class like Lara, with a normal promotion possible too). However, I feel it would completely break stave users if their stats were just lowered. They could be continuously fielded with no down side, even though the stamina system is sort of designed to limit staff users the most (they have low HP and some of the more advance staves consuming more stamina than normal). In general, I don't think the needing characters to recruit other characters is too much of a negative factor for stamina. It's infrequent enough and if player's are smart, they should have a few S Drinks in reserve to combat something exactly like that from happening.

Edited April 22, 2018 by Jotari

[Slumber]

On 4/21/2018 at 3:29 PM, Cysx said:

To be fair, Homer and especially Sara aren't all that practical to train, plus neither can use wind or resire at base. And Ced has a 30% crit weapon with 16+20 skill, so he's essentially as much as a crit machine as one can be(without wrath), even with a pcc of 3. Sara will have A rank in staves, though, starts at B and promotion makes that A.Mareeta at 20/20 should be past her build problems, but something more realistic like 10/15 fares quite a bit worse, and def and HP are self-explanatory. Othin is awesome but Galzus with a master axe is pretty silly as well, since luna is 100% hit, and, yeah, 5 MS. Saias still gives three times the leadership bonus anyone else can, for the few that can. It's map-wide charisma at his level, essentially; the only staff users that even gives leadership outside of that are Ced and Amalda(which likely won't be at A). So by default he invalidates most of them outside of personal preference, I believe.

But really my reasoning was that giving the player two units that can clear the endgame with ease at once sounded a bit silly, but... yeah, the game already does that, essentially, and at that point, sure, a third one, won't make much of a difference actually.

Homer's really pretty easy to train. He can get to promotion within a chapter or so of recruitment, and even at 10/20 he keeps pace with Ced statistically, though obviously he loses his main edge over him in this scenario. His usability is pretty comparable to Mareeta, who joins 3 chapters earlier but at a lower level without Elite. He starts off competently offensive, and his growths+Elite cause a pretty crazy snowball effect. Depending on how you pick your targets, it's not even that unfeasible to get him to 20 on just his Lightning Tome and half of a Fire Tome. Once he gets Wind, it's a pretty quick path to 20 for him.

Sara gets the shorter end of the stick since she's not as offensively capable right out of the game, but she's got crazy staff utility. And with Elite, she should be your main staffer for everything except Warp for a good while. By the time she hits A, there's really not much of a reason to not have her do something on every turn after her recruitment.

Luna+A Master weapon with Galzus is bonkers, but it's still not that much different than a Wrath crit in the late game.

And now the more I think about it and breaking it down like this, the more Saias might be more worthwhile than Ced to some degree. Really depends on if you've trained up Asvel/Linoan/Homer/Sara or multiple of those(And you really should, as they're all really good). If you have, another one that mostly just hits harder isn't as appealing as somebody who gives an extra +6% to hit/evade to everyone on the field.

Anyway, my point with this wasn't to go "Pfft, the Gotohs of this game suck, look at these basic-ass units showing them what's up", it was more to go "The Gotohs of this game aren't that much more broken than a handful of similar units you could train up in their place."

[Cysx]

6 hours ago, Slumber said:

Homer's really pretty easy to train. He can get to promotion within a chapter or so of recruitment, and even at 10/20 he keeps pace with Ced statistically, though obviously he loses his main edge over him in this scenario. His usability is pretty comparable to Mareeta, who joins 3 chapters earlier but at a lower level without Elite. He starts off competently offensive, and his growths+Elite cause a pretty crazy snowball effect. Depending on how you pick your targets, it's not even that unfeasible to get him to 20 on just his Lightning Tome and half of a Fire Tome. Once he gets Wind, it's a pretty quick path to 20 for him.

Sara gets the shorter end of the stick since she's not as offensively capable right out of the game, but she's got crazy staff utility. And with Elite, she should be your main staffer for everything except Warp for a good while. By the time she hits A, there's really not much of a reason to not have her do something on every turn after her recruitment.

Luna+A Master weapon with Galzus is bonkers, but it's still not that much different than a Wrath crit in the late game.

And now the more I think about it and breaking it down like this, the more Saias might be more worthwhile than Ced to some degree. Really depends on if you've trained up Asvel/Linoan/Homer/Sara or multiple of those(And you really should, as they're all really good). If you have, another one that mostly just hits harder isn't as appealing as somebody who gives an extra +6% to hit/evade to everyone on the field.

Anyway, my point with this wasn't to go "Pfft, the Gotohs of this game suck, look at these basic-ass units showing them what's up", it was more to go "The Gotohs of this game aren't that much more broken than a handful of similar units you could train up in their place."

Homer is great once promoted, he's just very unremarkable until then. No personal weapon, no offensive skill, meh accuracy, meh attack speed, E wind, unpromoted movement, bad defenses... It's not exactly hard to train him beyond that, you're right, but there's little incentive to when he'll never really accomplish anything Asvel can't, and that's by the time Homer joins.

Sara's low HP makes grinding her up on staves really impractical too, actually. 5 uses of physic/M up/Sleep and she's fatigued. And I don't see Elite as a reason to use an untrained character over one that's already ready to go; only something to alleviate training hassle. I'd argue she's not any less offensively capable at base, though; at least she has no accuracy issues and can kill on EP what little there is that doesn't OHKO her, as well as having 6 more mag. At least 5 MS means that she can become something special, it's just a bit of a pain.

Indeed, it's not, but wrath is enemy phase only, and with 5 MS, luna, astra, 5 PCC and +1 movement Galzus is significantly better in the player phase department, so if they're even roughly equal on enemy phase, that puts him quite a bit ahead overall.

Training multiple mages is complicated because tomes are harder to come by than other weapon types, and more expensive due to lower durability, at that. Linoan is fine thanks to resire and free promotion, and Asvel is Asvel, but it's harder to argue for these other two I find. That being said, I agree with the sentiment. While Ced is really strong, he might not actually bring much to the party depending on its composition. But similarly, Homer and Sara themselves might not be necessary at all, and Ced at least comes pre-trained with his own prf.

I wouldn't say Gotohs need to be Laguz kings level of broken to make handing three of them to the player at once silly, though : / And I mean, you still gave all three way less credit than they deserve in that original post. Ced having worse stats than Homer when he has a 20 might weapon that boosts his skill and speed by 20 and not exactly poor bases to begin with is another thing I could have brought up, or Sara critting more when she has 0 PCC and a very dicey enemy phase due to bottom tier durability.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Cysx

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/20/2018 at 3:03 PM, Jotari said:

Thracia has 14 female characters. Less examine them one by one.

Evyel: Super unit in the opening chapters, she can't even be killed. Then eliminated for almost the entire game until the second last chapter depending on certain conditions. You can possibly call that a case of unbalance, but it's more plot over taking gameplay.

Tanya: A better archer than Ronan (who has a niche, but it's one of the hardest niches in the game to use as he has trouble actually killing things).Safy: First staff user in the game and consistently the best until at least the half way point. Has exclusive access to Hammerine. I've outright argued that she's the best unit in the game with Slumber. Of course she's not OP as she's flimsy as all hell, but staff useage is just really critical to Thracia.

Machyua: Just a really solid combat unit. More tanky than Shiva and also gets axes on promotion. Best trait is her early join time which allows her to grow in any way you want thanks to scrolls. I personally dropped her about half way when Mareeta joined, but for the first half of the game she proved herself worth existing with constant deployment.

Lara: One of only two thieves (yes, she's inferior at the job compared to Lifis, but thieves are still worth having, Lifis himself gets obsoleted by Phan) and then the only dancer in the game.

Karin: First flier in the game. Very low build but fantastic speed growths that means she's probably doubling everything. Also has decent magic making her a great candidate for the Thunder Sword. Also comes very early in the game allowing for scrolls to cover her weaknesses.

Nanna: Only mounted healer in the game, comes with a PRF weapon that can damage and heal. Supports Leif.

Selfina: Outright better than her male counterpart, Robert (yes, Thracia has a very balanced cast, but some units are just superior to others). Starts off in a great class with great weapon ranks and supports a tonne of units.

Olwen: Exclusive Dime Thunder access and later greats the Prayer Sword. Weapons so good her stats are basically irrelevant. And unless your training Asvel in Thunder Tomes, she'll probably have exclusive Bolting access.

Maretta: In the running for the best offensive unit in the game. Rivaled only by Othin and Asvel, and surpassed only by Ced and Galzus.

Tina: Staff user = instant win. Also has exclusive access to the Thief and Unlock Staves.

Eda: Inferior to Deen.

Linoan: Only real light magic user throughout the game aside from Homeros. Also comes with a staff rank which is always really useful. Has a plot based promotion which brings her down some what, but still definitely worth having. Her high PPC makes her a particularly good Nosferatu tank.

Misha: Basically a prepromoted Karin. Comes with more movement than Deen and great weapon ranks. Worst thing about her is that you need to have a Sleep sword to recruit her. Probably the most bench worthy female candidate in the game along with Eda, still a useful flier if the others are fatigued or Karin got rng screwed though.

Sara: As Slumber said somewhere else, an Est done right. Low base stats, but massive growths and some extremely useful skills (including Paragon to get her up to speed quickly). Also has staff access including the unique Cia Staff (which let's face it, will only be useful saving Evyel because you should be killing Veld in one turn).

Miranda: An Est done wrong. Potentially great since she has low stats and you probably have all the scrolls by this point, but why bother? Almost everyone else in Thracia is great with less investment.

Amalda: Starts off with decent stats and mounted stave useage. Comes with an extra point in movement. Also retains her leadership stars (unlike someone *cough* Misha *cough*). I brought her to Endgame, doubt I'd do the same for Conomor, her male counter part (in fact, you recruit Conomor and Miranda on the same route, maybe they're intentionally worse than Seluf and Amalda as compensation for those two being on a more difficult route).

So you see, out of every female character in the game, I'd suggest that two of them are rather useless (Eda and Miranda) and of those two, only Eda is actually getting screwed by Con bases and growths. Machyua might run into some trouble, especially if you try to use axes with her, but she's still well worth fielding, if only because deployment slots are generous at the start of the game and fatigue is a thing.

Okay, so we exempt the magic users (Sara, Linoan, Tina, Safy; there's also Olwen and Miranda, to a lesser extent) and Lara (eventually). That's 5 units who don't really care about it. Looking at everyone else... Fair enough on Eyvel (who at least had decent con for a female unit in 8). Amalda also has 8. Machua also has 8 after promotion (but she might be better off sticking to lighter axes if she does use them). Everyone else, I'm kinda worried about... also, I'd say your Nosferatu mention for Linoan is misguided when it weighs her down to such an extent it ain't worth it...

Anyway, something else that came to mind... I want IS to take their time; I feel that a lot of Thracia's problems can be traced back to it clearly being a rushed job...

EDIT: Damn. Posted before I was ready...

Edited April 24, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Everyone else, I'm kinda worried about... also, I'd say your Nosferatu mention for Linoan is misguided when it weighs her down to such an extent it ain't worth it...

Except it absolutely is worth it, especially if you give her the Wrath manual.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Except it absolutely is worth it, especially if you give her the Wrath manual.

12 speed loss is unacceptable by my standards. Especially when it means you're as good as dead if you're unlucky enough to whiff, which might happen with Nosferatu having a shaky 65 accuracy.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

12 speed loss is unacceptable by my standards. Especially when it means you're as good as dead if you're unlucky enough to whiff, which might happen with Nosferatu having a shaky 65 accuracy.

Look at Dondon's 0% growths, Linoan is one of the MVPs with Nosferatu. Granted it's mostly against Mages where her magic stat also serves as defense, but when the game throws groups of mages at you, you need some way to combat them. And that's just on 0% growths, she has a fantastic skill growth too. With her combination of growths and absurd promotion bonuses, she'll almost certainly be capping magic, skill, luck and speed. And we're not even talking about at 20/20. She's going to be maxed out as soon as she hits second tier. Hell you could probably even ignore her until her plot based promotion and she'd still end up being really good.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Jotari

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/24/2018 at 8:52 AM, Jotari said:

Look at Dondon's 0% growths, Linoan is one of the MVPs with Nosferatu. Granted it's mostly against Mages where her magic stat also serves as defense, but when the game throws groups of mages at you, you need some way to combat them. And that's just on 0% growths, she has a fantastic skill growth too. With her combination of growths and absurd promotion bonuses, she'll almost certainly be capping magic, skill, luck and speed. And we're not even talking about at 20/20. She's going to be maxed out as soon as she hits second tier. Hell you could probably even ignore her until her plot based promotion and she'd still end up being really good.

Okay, so it's good for defending against mages. Too bad it's too heavy to be used for much else... also, there's no guaranteed hit or miss, meaning that the risk doesn't completely go away (Spoiler alert: Linoan's as good as dead if she whiffs after getting attacked by anything physical). Speaking of... why in the seven hells is Linoan saddled with a plot based promotion???

Edited April 25, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Shrimpica]

33 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

why in the seven hells is Linoan saddled with a plot based promotion???

considering i am running out of Knight Proofs to use, i don't think saddled is the right word here.

I am doing my first Run of T776 atm, and what's more annoying is Leif's Promo... 

I am at ch17a atm and he has been Lvl 20 since ch10 now....

Edited April 25, 2018 by Shrimperor

[Shadow Mir]

9 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

considering i am running out of Knight Proofs to use, i don't think saddled is the right word here.

I am doing my first Run of T776 atm, and what's more annoying is Leif's Promo... 

I am at ch17a atm and he has been Lvl 20 since ch10 now....

The thing is, she doesn't promote via Knight Proof for whatever half-assed reason...

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

The thing is, she doesn't promote via Knight Proof for whatever half-assed reason...

Half-assed isn't the right way to describe it. It's certainly odd (and in a remake I think it should be some kind of alternate promotion rather than a standard mage to sage), but it's not like it would have been difficult to have Linoan promote like everyone else. And it is definitely a boon more than anything else. As Shrimperor points out, it means you don't have to use a promotion item on her. And as far as promotions go, it's crazy good with some of the best stat gains in the series. We're talking +6 magic, +5 speed and skill. In a game where the caps are 20. It's taking her a quarter of the way there. Just look at her average stat growths https://serenesforest.net/thracia-776/characters/average-stats/linoan/ She's capping all her vital stats from level 20 on wards. Which means you can easily use a scrolls to increase her shaky defense without fear of it ruining any of her other stats. Put simply, Linoan, like almost everyone else in Thracia, is an amazing unit if you give her the time of day. The biggest downside of her plot based promotion is that she might not reach level 20 before it since you only have about four chapters to train it before it comes, but like I said earlier, those promotion gains are so amazing, she'd probably still be really good if you didn't train her at all.

[Shadow Mir]

21 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Half-assed isn't the right way to describe it. It's certainly odd (and in a remake I think it should be some kind of alternate promotion rather than a standard mage to sage), but it's not like it would have been difficult to have Linoan promote like everyone else. And it is definitely a boon more than anything else. As Shrimperor points out, it means you don't have to use a promotion item on her. And as far as promotions go, it's crazy good with some of the best stat gains in the series. We're talking +6 magic, +5 speed and skill. In a game where the caps are 20. It's taking her a quarter of the way there. Just look at her average stat growths https://serenesforest.net/thracia-776/characters/average-stats/linoan/ She's capping all her vital stats from level 20 on wards. Which means you can easily use a scrolls to increase her shaky defense without fear of it ruining any of her other stats. Put simply, Linoan, like almost everyone else in Thracia, is an amazing unit if you give her the time of day. The biggest downside of her plot based promotion is that she might not reach level 20 before it since you only have about four chapters to train it before it comes, but like I said earlier, those promotion gains are so amazing, she'd probably still be really good if you didn't train her at all.

I still think it's moronic as all hell because someone who doesn't know about it could miss the chance to promote her. That's one of my biggest gripes about Thracia - requiring excessive reliance on foreknowledge (or a walkthrough) to not get fucked over.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Shrimpica]

15 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I still think it's moronic as all hell because someone who doesn't know about it could miss the chance to promote her. That's one of my biggest gripes about Thracia - requiring excessive reliance on foreknowledge (or a walkthrough) to not get fucked over.

tbh, it's the 90s game design. I am not saying it's good, since there are some stuff the game really should tell you, but that's how the games were back then. (And tbh, i don't find it that cryptic so far. Although i am playing with a minimal Guide. I found FE4 worse in that regard if i am gonna be honest)

Edited April 26, 2018 by Shrimperor

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

tbh, it's the 90s game design. I am not saying it's good, since there are some stuff the game really should tell you, but that's how the games were back then. (And tbh, i don't find it that cryptic so far. Although i am playing with a minimal Guide. I found FE4 worse in that regard if i am gonna be honest)

Oh no, Thracia is so much worse when it comes to blind playing than FE4. You might miss the Hero Axe or Pursuit Ring in that game, and potentially not pair every female character, but the game is still perfectly beatable without them. Thracia will throw things at you that just can't be anticipated and absolutely will force you to reset several chapters.

[Shrimpica]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Thracia will throw things at you that just can't be anticipated and absolutely will force you to reset several chapters.

The only chapter where i felt like that so far was 11x (i am at 17A atm). That one was Total bullshit, especially with how Olwen's survival being completely luck dependant, Same turn Reinforcements of the worst type (spawning right where the player is, unlike all other instances so far), Siege + FOW.

Salem's recrutiment chapter (the one where you get Mareeta) would've been also BS with Sleep + FoW... if someone didn't give me the tip to defeat/capture him first turn, leading to me warping Finn and Parking him somewhere while Mareeta was getting exp on the Throne.

Green units being enemy was also BS, but that have been meme'd so hard in the community, i know about it by now xD