Jump to content

Ilyana considered bad?


Recommended Posts

9 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If anything I think Rexbolt is the flashy accessory you can show off without much strategic value. Sure, it can do some damage to Dheginsea, but not really impressive damage, because it's only 36 might, and Ilyana can't double (nor can it benefit from Ena, and Dheg is fought before Nasir joins). You can get around ~30 damage out of it vs Dheginsea. Contrast, say, a Wyrmslayer in the hands of someone with 34 or more speed, which can easily do more than that: around ~40 with even typical SM/falconknight strength (more with a speed-blessed Ike). To say nothing of base Caineghis who can do 42 out of the box. Even if you want to talk only about ranged damage, Shinon and Rolf can outperform Rexbolt pretty easily.

The one I consider more meaningful than this is Rexflame, because +3 speed lets you (a) double spirits, making it one of the few reliable ways to take down ones on Cover, and (b) double Ashera's auras with Nasir's help, making it one of the most effective weapons against corner auras. As well as being a general boon against other Endgame enemies in that ~30 speed range like halberdiers, warriors, and snipers.

Hmmm. I didn't know that about Rexflame. Thanks for teaching me something new.

9 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

How? Magic users have horrible Str growths in PoR, making them weighed down by even the lightest tomes, unlike in RD, where they have decent-ish Str growths.

A lot of enemies have decent Resistance stats (especially on harder difficulties) coupled with the fact that all of the mages/sages are only fast enough to double but not dodge reliably. And although their STR bases/growths are better, the might of their tomes got nerfed. Plus, due to this game's structure of switching armies, it's hard to consistently train your units. I mean, they're all great units because there's not many of them and they can have access to powerful Rex spells, but...

  • Ilyana's main problem is her magic specialty: thunder, and thunder is arguably the weakest of the 3 magics in this game due to its low accuracy and the fact that we don't encounter dragon laguz that much. Her greatest boon is her availability, but her inclusion is awkward- in Part 1, she's too high leveled to give experience to when it should be used for the others, and in Part 3 she's way behind the others.
  • Tormod's problem is that his availability is awful. Plus, he doesn't have many levels where he faces beast laguz, so his specialty magic (fire) is only used against beorc most of the time.
  • Calill's availability is also an issue. Plus, she's competing with Tormod and Sanaki for the Rexflame tome, and the those two are more popular. IMO, Calill's popularity suffers from the "Mature Woman" syndrome in FE: where an older female character is often ignored despite having a well done characterization and would probably be more liked if she was younger. I.E. Calill, Tethys, Isadora, Misha, and Reina. But that's a discussion for another time.
  • Soren seems to suffer the least amount of problems, as he has no competition for high level wind tomes and his speed is the best of the bunch. Wind magic doesn't hit hard but thankfully he has Adept. I can't think of any big weaknesses on him rn, unless someone quotes me and tells me what it is.
  • Sanaki- has the worst availability of any of the mages/sages, and has competition.
  • Micaiah- very fragile in the early game, and light magic only does chip damage after a certain point. You're pretty much relying on Thani throughout the entire game.
  • Pelleas- Has worst accuracy than thunder and bad availability 
  • Any bishop- they get light magic, and are stuck with the light spell... they aren't killing something on their own anytime soon.

TLDR; They either have bad availability, inaccurate magic, weak magic, or a combination of some of these factors.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

 

  • Soren seems to suffer the least amount of problems, as he has no competition for high level wind tomes and his speed is the best of the bunch. Wind magic doesn't hit hard but thankfully he has Adept. I can't think of any big weaknesses on him rn, unless someone quotes me and tells me what it is.

Soren’s problem is his bad speed and speed cap. While his speed may be the best of the bunch, it’s still really bad because he won’t double anything at base, and by the time he hits his tier two speed cap it’ll be too slow to double, even if he got speed on his first five levels. He actually needs to promote to double anything, and he faces strong competition for promotion like Haar, who’s just an amazing unit, Mia, who has decent stats and can actually double, Gatrie, who has the exact same problem Soren has, Boyd, who has the potential for amazing combat due to Warrior’s caps, Shinon, who has decent stats all around, and probably some other units I’m forgetting. Point being that there is a lot of competition for promotion, and he’s probably not your number one choice, especially considering his poor Endgame. Adept is nice but unreliable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

She's interchangeable with Soren... in Easy/JP!Normal where she can actually gain sufficient EXP in part 1 to more-or-less be on even terms (without any real detriment to the DB post part 1). Much like PoR their performance won't differ much from there. Soren still has the superior stat spread and skill (Adept), but they'll mostly function the same.

The problem in harder modes is that EXP suddenly becomes a lot stricter which hurts units who don't get the luxury of already being pre-levelled from base. IS didn't account for this enough so units like Ilyana get the short end of the stick in terms of how her avaliability/scaling works. If she stayed with the DB, then she'd likely be better. 

Magic type is largely irrelevant. It's the difference of 1-2 MT and 5-10% hit when all is said and done. Which is the difference between a couple points of MAG and 2-4 SKL. The base stats of units are more important. Yeah, it makes a small difference, and it's not like Ilyana has extra MAG to make up for it, but it's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Magic triangle is largely irrelevant as well. The effectiveness type can be somewhat relevant though, and that's in favour of thunder for what that's worth (Arguably, I mean, the game doesn't leave many opportunities for any of this effectiveness to be relevant; it's a toss up between Ilyana in 4-F-3 and Calill in 4-5, and that's not even exclusive to those units technically. Otherwise, there almost zero opportunity for magic effectiveness outside of the odd Falcoknight/Draco or something).

Either way, Soren isn't exactly a stellar unit himself, so that doesn't leave Ilyana in a very good spot.

Edited by Dunal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Calill is faster than Soren even before considering Rexflame (so's Tormod if you somehow get him caught up). Soren's main claim to use is he has a lot of availability and isn't significantly underlevelled at any point; he's rarely great (though if you give him the 3-3 Master Crown he's quite badass for a while), but he's satisfactory enough that he can make reasonable contributions, and he can do so for a long time. There's no reason to bring him to Endgame unless you like him (mind, I do <.<).

20 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

At the same time, I wouldn't really consider blessing a wyrmslayer that good an idea, since it's pretty much useless afterwards, and this is assuming I have any extra sword users, which I tend not to because screw Trueblades (aside from the obligatory Ragnell, Alondite, Tempest Blades, and Amiti all get blessings). Also, it's a 1-range weapon, meaning you're forced to risk being annihilated by Ire (and IIRC the only cover squares at 1 range leave you open to getting attacked by Nasir or Gareth). I do agree that Rexflame is useful from a strategic viewpoint, though.

It's true that blessing Wyrmslayer is only useful for Dheginsea... but to be honest, Rexbolt is little different; I'd rather bless a siege tome otherwise (Meteor has only 4 less might than Rexbolt, and is great for sniping; Bolting is also a great dragon-slayer if you snag it, though that's tricky whichever one you try to get). Whether or not I bless a wyrmslayer has a lot to do with what other weapons and units I'm bringing in. Sometimes I'll bring along Titania + another axe user, and the other axe user can bless Urvan while she blesses a Wyrmslayer. If I'm actually using Mist, who won't be used for combat, the best thing she can do is bless a Wyrmslayer then hand it to a better swordsman. Regardless, I only bring up the Wyrmslayer as a comparison to Rexbolt as a weapon blessed specifically to combat Dheginsea.

(I rarely bless Alondite or a Tempest Blade incidentally; against bosses the higher hit/might of Vague Katti seems preferable. Those weapons are most useful at countering dragons and spirits, but you don't need a blessing for that... especially Alondite which already has infinite uses.)

You're only risking annihilation by Ire if you forget about Nihil. Before E-3 and E-4 you should always give Nihil to whichever units you're planning on having fight the boss. Melee units don't generally need Cover to survive a hit from Dheginsea. Even the most fragile ones like Trueblades can typically survive 75 atk with Kurth's help at worst.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's true that blessing Wyrmslayer is only useful for Dheginsea... but to be honest, Rexbolt is little different; I'd rather bless a siege tome otherwise (Meteor has only 4 less might than Rexbolt, and is great for sniping; Bolting is also a great dragon-slayer if you snag it, though that's tricky whichever one you try to get). Whether or not I bless a wyrmslayer has a lot to do with what other weapons and units I'm bringing in. Sometimes I'll bring along Titania + another axe user, and the other axe user can bless Urvan while she blesses a Wyrmslayer. If I'm actually using Mist, who won't be used for combat, the best thing she can do is bless a Wyrmslayer then hand it to a better swordsman. Regardless, I only bring up the Wyrmslayer as a comparison to Rexbolt as a weapon blessed specifically to combat Dheginsea.

(I rarely bless Alondite or a Tempest Blade incidentally; against bosses the higher hit/might of Vague Katti seems preferable. Those weapons are most useful at countering dragons and spirits, but you don't need a blessing for that... especially Alondite which already has infinite uses.)

You're only risking annihilation by Ire if you forget about Nihil. Before E-3 and E-4 you should always give Nihil to whichever units you're planning on having fight the boss. Melee units don't generally need Cover to survive a hit from Dheginsea. Even the most fragile ones like Trueblades can typically survive 75 atk with Kurth's help at worst.

Blessing long-range magic honestly comes off to me as little more than a novelty. And I honestly feel like I get more mileage out of using it to get rid of troublesome enemies, which by the point you can bless weapons, there's not very much of.

You have a point, but at that point, anything without range might as well have an innate Provoke on them. That can be a huge inconvenience.

As for Dheginsea, I'm a better safe than sorry person. Also, female Trueblades would need a defense boost to avoid dying in one hit (their 50/25 HP/Def doesn't let them survive).

Edited by Levant Mir Celestia
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Blessing long-range magic honestly comes off to me as little more than a novelty. And I honestly feel like I get more mileage out of using it to get rid of troublesome enemies, which by the point you can bless weapons, there's not very much of.

You have a point, but at that point, anything without range might as well have an innate Provoke on them. That can be a huge inconvenience.

As for Dheginsea, I'm a better safe than sorry person. Also, female Trueblades would need a defense boost to avoid dying in one hit (their 50/25 HP/Def doesn't let them survive).

Long-range magic is capable of either almost ORKOing or actually ORKOing Red Dragons without provoking a counter, depending on the stats/tome involved and difficulty mode. Hardly a novelty, it is in fact one of the best uses for magic in the last three maps. It can also ORKO Thunder Spirits who have only 28 speed, provided your user has 32. It's almost always what I bless for Sanaki, and in fact I'm not really sure why you'd bless anything else unless she somehow has the str/spd to double auras with Rexflame. Cymbeline lets her perform marginally better against the auras but has far less use overall (she won't be fighting Dheg and can not fight Sephiran).

I'm not sure what "better safe than sorry" means here? You have Nihil, use it. No risk involved.

Female Trueblades can tank Dheg just fine with Kurth's help, who offers +5 def/res and is effectively invincible in that fight. Certainly a safer strategy than standing beside Gareth or Nasir unless you're confident you're killing Dheg this turn.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Long-range magic is capable of either almost ORKOing or actually ORKOing Red Dragons without provoking a counter, depending on the stats/tome involved and difficulty mode. Hardly a novelty, it is in fact one of the best uses for magic in the last three maps. It can also ORKO Thunder Spirits who have only 28 speed, provided your user has 32. It's almost always what I bless for Sanaki, and in fact I'm not really sure why you'd bless anything else unless she somehow has the str/spd to double auras with Rexflame. Cymbeline lets her perform marginally better against the auras but has far less use overall (she won't be fighting Dheg and can not fight Sephiran).

I'm not sure what "better safe than sorry" means here? You have Nihil, use it. No risk involved.

Female Trueblades can tank Dheg just fine with Kurth's help, who offers +5 def/res and is effectively invincible in that fight. Certainly a safer strategy than standing beside Gareth or Nasir unless you're confident you're killing Dheg this turn.

Sounds to me like you're blessing long-range magic just for one specific chapter... not unlike would be the case with a Wyrmslayer (Thunder Spirits, and spirits in general, are more of an annoyance than a real threat unless you're using someone who has trash for magic resistance and is 1 range locked). That's what I mean by novelty. It's flashy, but the strategic merit is rather limited.

Sure, Nihil exists, but my attack options are limited either way.

Assuming they have 71 durability beforehand, sure. Admittedly, capping relevant stats is pretty trivial, so yeah.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

IMO, Calill's popularity suffers from the "Mature Woman" syndrome in FE: where an older female character is often ignored despite having a well done characterization and would probably be more liked if she was younger.

Yes, so very much yes! Calill doesn’t even have a Cipher card, for crying out loud. All that personality goes to waste.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/4/2018 at 4:36 AM, Dandy Druid said:

Calill's availability is also an issue. Plus, she's competing with Tormod and Sanaki for the Rexflame tome, and the those two are more popular. IMO, Calill's popularity suffers from the "Mature Woman" syndrome in FE: where an older female character is often ignored despite having a well done characterization and would probably be more liked if she was younger. I.E. Calill, Tethys, Isadora, Misha, and Reina. But that's a discussion for another time.

Or is it?

Calill does have a good design and a confident, at introduction boasting, personality. Like Haar, I think more of her goodness comes outside of Supports actually, although not as badly non-Support slanted as Haar.

Analyzing her 3 Support choices: 

We have Geoffrey, which is the worst because it isn't about her really after the initial flirtation, it's about her playing his psychologist for his Elincia issues. The Nephenee is better and reveals a little something about Calill herself. The Tormod is outright great, partly because she humbles herself here while still being wise and confident through it. Overall, her Supports are odd, since her introduction with Ike and nothing in RD either suggests at what is the essence of the Supports- Calill as a great teacher/psychologist.

The one Support she doesn't get is one with Largo, strange because we hardly know the relationship between the two and yet they get married at PoR's end. 

Fortunately, RD fills in on the Largo relationship front somewhat, and she even gets a 3-F convo with Tauroneo for her husband's sake. RD does Calill well with all the Base Conversations she appears in, she remains just as confident, social, and is now a wife and mother too without these overriding her other aspects.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's funny but also tragic at the same time that Calill's personality was buffed in FE10 while her usage heavily nerfed. 
She became from an boastful and arrogant young lady to a very kind and caring adoptive mum.
However gameplaywise she became from a great prepromoted sage to a mediocre sage with poor availibility.

Even if Sanaki wasn't forced for the endgame, she'd have a real hard time to reach an appropirate level for the endgame.
At the beginning of part 4 she reaches normally reach Pelleas's Level at best unless you do pargaon-shenigans with her in 3-11 and 3-F.

Also Calill and Ilyana are the only characters I dislike personalitywise in FE9, but both are good units (usually used Ilyana). 
In FE10 I don't mind them, in Ilyana's case you really don't get to know much about her, but both are only mediocre units. 
Decent fillers when you can bring them, nothing more.


 

Quote
  • Ilyana's main problem is her magic specialty: thunder, and thunder is arguably the weakest of the 3 magics in this game due to its low accuracy and the fact that we don't encounter dragon laguz that much. Her greatest boon is her availability, but her inclusion is awkward- in Part 1, she's too high leveled to give experience to when it should be used for the others, and in Part 3 she's way behind the others.
    It only applies in HM. Tbf even in HM you can bring her to a level tied with Soren, however this would be at cost of the DB members who need exp. way more than her.
  • Soren seems to suffer the least amount of problems, as he has no competition for high level wind tomes and his speed is the best of the bunch. Wind magic doesn't hit hard but thankfully he has Adept. I can't think of any big weaknesses on him rn, unless someone quotes me and tells me what it is.
    Ilyana will have the same speed as base Soren, only 5% lower speed growth. Soren without transfers in speed can double absolutely nothing in all difficulties. Adept is a nice skill but it works on speed instead of skill, and his speed isn't his best stat for sure. As for default skill definitely better than Ilyana's shade.
  • Sanaki- has the worst availability of any of the mages/sages, and has competition.
    Yeah, but she's forced. That's the reason why there's no real need to train to Tormod and Calill. Also even if her bases are abysmal partially, she still comes with a mastery skill. She needs a bit investment for sure, but it's normally worth it. At least worth to let her hit 31 speed to double the auras.

 

Edited by 豊聡耳 神子
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ilyana has really nice bases to start the game but tumbles off a cliff the moment Tormod shows up, who does everything Ilyana does but better as exp collected by them might as well be thrown into a furnace, but their offered utility is too high to pass up early on. From there, Ilyana's most useful task becomes ferrying money items to the Greil Mercenaries. Thunder magic, and especially Thunder Archsage as a class, is just bad. Her growths are too spread out, her important caps too low, and while her availability is one of the highest, moving to the OP team is really what kills her. She's workable in an Easy mode run where 45 HP/24 def/30 speed isn't a death sentence and bonus exp flows freely, but favouring her so much just to be below-average on Ike's team absolutely murders the rest of the Dawn Brigade's growth in harder modes.

Although it takes effort, training Calill is a lot of fun and pays out even if Sanaki *is* forced, considering they can share the best S-rank tome in the game and you can then bless a siege tome to help from across the map and do some trade chains to make the most of their tools. Calill gets a chunk of part 2 and 3 to train up and part 2's BEXP is not that in demand considering how most of those units will up and disappear for a large chunk of time. Given attention, Calill is almost also guaranteed to cap her speed and have the strength to not be weighed down by her tome, even if she has a lesser magic cap to Sanaki, while Sanaki will need to be somewhat blessed in her level ups to actually not be weighed down by Rexflame.

Tormod's availability really is just too low to meaningfully train him as his exp gain is terrible until his return in P4, although it's possible to go back to base on that chapter to give him Paragon and commit to a training montage ASAP. Still doesn't feel worth it as his mag growth is kinda bad. He's still super valuable in part 1 at least, as 20 MT 1-2 range and 20 speed is very high for this point of the game. The chances Ilyana has surpassed this in 5 chapters is extremely thin.

Soren is ok, and if he keeps Adept then he might get some lucky doubles. I like to promote him ASAP because his wind sage caps are so low but his bases are already relatively high, and having an extra staff user on board is extremely useful when Rhys is way too fragile and Mist can only be in so many places at once. With a bit of effort, you can get his fire rank to C which allows him to use the Meteor siege tomes, and his magic cap is the same as Sanaki's. Considering his Dark affinity while Sanaki has Light, chances are he actually does hit as hard/harder than Sanaki, and chances are neither character is capable of doubling the fastest auras in endgame unless Sanaki has been particularly blessed in her speed and strength growths.

Pelleas has two free Fenrir tomes usable immediately, so even though his SS rank tome sucks, he can contribute with siege tomes from the back with zero training put into him. I wouldn't bring him to the tower as Balberith is pretty junky compared to every other SS weapon, but I wouldn't call dark magic useless for that reason alone. He's worse than Ilyana from the perspective of notable contributions throughout the game but his late game has more going for it to be honest.

Sanaki's chip with Cymbeline is immense but her crappy strength really does suck. Siege tomes are one of the mage's biggest assets in the game considering their nerfed movement, so being so weighed down by them is problematic. She doesn't even have the arm strength to carry Rexflame effectively without standing next to Ena or Gareth. She's hardly the worst unit in the game, but having her and Sothe be forced in the endgame and contend with such a low starting point on their stats through part 4 is kinda like getting sand kicked in your face.

I do find it strange that IS saw fit to nerf magic this hard when it wasn't even particularly OP in POR. None of the mages are anywhere near being a top tier unit with their weakened movement and weak speed caps. Thunder went from being the undisputed best type of magic to the worst, excluding dark/light. The saving grace is that having a mage around in endgame is useful to overcome the spirits on cover tiles, and that siege tomes help clean up the multitude of rout maps, so you might as well train at least one extra beyond Sanaki and Micaiah. But having Ilyana's class be significantly worse than all the other mage types is one of the most puzzling things about this game. She gets one point of magic and defense over Calill, but Calill has +5 HP and +2 (and +3 from Rexflame) speed! What kind of a hellish tradeoff is that?! She gets one point of strength and two points of res over Soren, but Soren gets +5 HP, a point of magic and +2 speed. And while Rexbolt does get that effective damage on dragons, that is meaningful for literally one chapter, and outside of easy mode's uber blessing Ilyana cannot survive a regular hit from Dheghinsea without both a cover tile AND Kurthnaga. This game absolutely destroyed Ilyana, taking her from "serviceable if slightly inferior" alllll the way to "good for rigging a few early game crits and that's it".

Edited by Samias
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks to @Aut and @豊聡耳 神子 clearing up my confusion about Soren. So he's slow. Which is weird for a wind mage. I need to replay Tellius.

Also, to the "Final Boss", she isn't too different personality-wise in RD. She's a caring mum alright, but she's still has the HBIC attitude, just not in front of the patrons. When's she is working the bar, she's full on Calill- Sassy, but can serve as a mentor at times.

@Interdimensional Observer Thanks for the short support analyses! It's a shame we didn't see more of her, especially with Largo. You'd think they'd have one together, but looks like IS forgot that the whole reason Largo even came into the army was at Calill's recommendation. Then again, I have a feeling IS just hated Largo and that's the main reason he wasn't playable in RD nor did they invest time in fleshing him out and he's only indirectly characterized by Calill's mention of him. I'm totally with @Vaximillian with the cipher card notion. Such as stylish character should be represented in more platforms!

Although the discussion I was referring to is how older female characters often get the shaft when it comes to popularity, despite having good characterization. Tethys is the biggest example of this, IMO. She is a well rounded character and a solid niche (granted, a dancer's value isn't as high in FE8 as it is in FE4/FE6), but then you have characters like Marisa, who's not really good as a unit nor an intriguing personality, but is immensely more popular. I don't put this gripe on the fandom though, because it's found in everyday life as well (modeling and dating are notorious for this).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

So he's slow. Which is weird for a wind mage. I need to replay Tellius.

 

He's the fastest in PoR, tying with Tormod and being, if not super fast like Lewyn, still fast enough to double a lot of things if kept up to level.

RD is a different story. Soren's Speed growth is 35, the same as Slowcaiah, and Slike (who at least has great Spd base, which is why he doesn't get the same insults hurled at him as 'caiah). His Spd base is 18 on a level 5 Wind Sage, so only the fastest should double him right away I expect, but it still isn't good. Spd caps are 23 and 32 respectively, the latter the same as a Fire Archsage- though they can buff it by 3 with Rexflame, while he is stuck with the laughable +3 Lck from Rexcalibur. Besides Chancellor, which is obviously irrelevant, the fastest any tier 3 magic class is Light Priestess, at 33. So yep, RD is really mean to magic users by making it so they can very rarely ever double; PoR Sages, even though none naturally hit the cap, maxed Spd at a wonderful 28.

 

8 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

Thanks for the short support analyses! It's a shame we didn't see more of her, especially with Largo. You'd think they'd have one together, but looks like IS forgot that the whole reason Largo even came into the army was at Calill's recommendation. Then again, I have a feeling IS just hated Largo and that's the main reason he wasn't playable in RD nor did they invest time in fleshing him out and he's only indirectly characterized by Calill's mention of him. 

I think the issue they thought of was that he would be the only Berserker in the game and they didn't want to invent a class just for him nor a Tier 3 version of it. We still have Boyd and Nolan for infantry axes, and Brom, Jill, and Haar were all turned into Axe primaries to expand the pool of potential Urvan users.

Their absence of a support isn't unnatural by PoR standards. The Three Brothers don't have them with each other, Mist and Ike don't, Marcia and Makalov lack them, Geoffrey and Lucia, Geoffrey and Bastian, Lethe and Mordecai, Tormod and Muarim. All of these instead of a Support, like Largo and Calill, get a +5/10 Crit boost when the two characters stand right next to each other. The logic is that these characters are so close that they don't need to talk it out. And this might work for Marcia and Makalov and Tormod and Muarim, who get at least two Base Conservations together, and for Mist and Ike being main characters, but it hurts Largo and Calill a lot since their time on the screen together is really really brief.

The logic still doesn't make much sense anyhow and Fates was right in adding sibling supports for the royals, since having a pre-developed relationship should add nuance and depth to their interactions. I think the real issue is PoR just didn't have the time or writing resources to include all these supports, there is already this basket of uncooked fish:

Spoiler

Stefan/Tauroneo, Sothe/Volke, Astrid/Tanith, Tanith/Volke, Ranulf/Tauroneo, Lucia/Titania, Marcia/Mia, Mist/Tormod, Mist/Volke, Muarim/Stefan, Nephenee/Mia, Oscar/Astrid, Reyson/Ulki, Kieran/Lethe, Gatrie/Bastian, Geoffrey/Kieran, Geoffrey/Bastian, Haar/Sothe, Haar/Ulki, Ike/Zihark, Janaff/Reyson, Janaff/Sothe, Shinon/Mist, Devdan/Makalov, Elincia/Jill, Elincia/Lucia, Elincia/Muarim, Elincia/Nephenee, Elincia/Tauroneo, Boyd/Devdan, Calill/Shinon, Brom/Geoffrey, Brom/Makalov

FE26: Path of Radiance Reborn, should go back and add all these in and turn the crit boosters into actual supports!

8 hours ago, Dandy Druid said:

Although the discussion I was referring to is how older female characters often get the shaft when it comes to popularity, despite having good characterization. Tethys is the biggest example of this, IMO. She is a well rounded character and a solid niche (granted, a dancer's value isn't as high in FE8 as it is in FE4/FE6), but then you have characters like Marisa, who's not really good as a unit nor an intriguing personality, but is immensely more popular. I don't put this gripe on the fandom though, because it's found in everyday life as well (modeling and dating are notorious for this).

I decided to go back and read over Tethys's Supports, because I before I judge a character, I want to make sure I fully understand them.:

  • Artur- Whoa she's aggressive here! I don't think it's out of character, but at the same time Artur never budges nor does she. She's playful too. An okay support.
  • Gerik- An amazing support between two characters with backstory between them. It says a lot about their pasts, they share the dialogue equally, and they learn from each other. By the way, is the end of the A conversation implying Gerik put his "Steel Blade" to Tethys in the middle of a battle?:blink:
    • This is the only support with a paired ending for Tethys, and I think I can understand why. None of the rest are quite as worthy of one.
  • Ewan- A little brother is jealous of other men being around his big sister and wants to protect her. Cliched, but rarely done in FE. Average to Good.
  • Marisa- Now I'm not a big fan of Marisa myself, although Mia has less depth and is definitely worse, unless you really like her perkiness. This said, the Tethys-Marisa support is actually quite good, Marisa-centric C, Tethys-centric B, and a serious thought provoking A split between the two of them. I think it helps the two have a little backstory together.
  • Rennac- A total dud of a support. It is good to know Tethys has standards when it comes to men, because her job of dancing and being a mercenary exposes her to a lot of horny toads. Still, the support goes absolutely nowhere thanks to Rennac's infatuation. The irony is that having read all of Tethys's supports and all of Rennac's, there was a much better direction this could have gone! Tethys-Artur has Tethys badly seeking out a dance partner, and Rennac-L'Arachel reveals Rennac is a highly trained dancer. Why couldn't they have connected the two and ran with it?
  • Non-Support text: Treats Tethys as a kind female, a beautiful dancer, a sister, with a bit of clairvoyant power.

Final Synopsis: Overall, I think Tethys was well done.

A bit of flirt and likes toying with men, appropriate for a dancer, but she does not degrade herself too far by taking in all their affections or becoming the toy of their passion.

The liking of mystery and the hint of clairvoyance is not unheard of, given Larum and Nils in the past could and did Auguries, and Ninian too was mysterious and could predict things- so FE has built an element of fortune telling into prior refresher units. And exotic dancing, like fortune telling, is something on the margins of polite society, so it fits into a theme. Mercenaries too lay at the margins of society so her being in Gerik's crew makes sense.

Being a mature woman, they're able to give her a splendid, tragic backstory and make her Gerik's equal. And in all but the Rennac support, she occupies a place of seniority in the remaining supports to some degree.

Design-wise, Tethys is modest compared to FE4's dancers, but is a little more showy than Larum, and definitely more showy than Ninian (who is only a Dancer because- she certainly originally wasn't at all into dancing back in the other world). Overall, a tasteful, yet stylish design, if really really red.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I decided to go back and read over Tethys's Supports, because I before I judge a character, I want to make sure I fully understand them.:

  • Artur- Whoa she's aggressive here! I don't think it's out of character, but at the same time Artur never budges nor does she. She's playful too. An okay support.
  • Gerik- An amazing support between two characters with backstory between them. It says a lot about their pasts, they share the dialogue equally, and they learn from each other. By the way, is the end of the A conversation implying Gerik put his "Steel Blade" to Tethys in the middle of a battle?:blink:
    • This is the only support with a paired ending for Tethys, and I think I can understand why. None of the rest are quite as worthy of one.
  • Ewan- A little brother is jealous of other men being around his big sister and wants to protect her. Cliched, but rarely done in FE. Average to Good.
  • Marisa- Now I'm not a big fan of Marisa myself, although Mia has less depth and is definitely worse, unless you really like her perkiness. This said, the Tethys-Marisa support is actually quite good, Marisa-centric C, Tethys-centric B, and a serious thought provoking A split between the two of them. I think it helps the two have a little backstory together.
  • Rennac- A total dud of a support. It is good to know Tethys has standards when it comes to men, because her job of dancing and being a mercenary exposes her to a lot of horny toads. Still, the support goes absolutely nowhere thanks to Rennac's infatuation. The irony is that having read all of Tethys's supports and all of Rennac's, there was a much better direction this could have gone! Tethys-Artur has Tethys badly seeking out a dance partner, and Rennac-L'Arachel reveals Rennac is a highly trained dancer. Why couldn't they have connected the two and ran with it?
  • Non-Support text: Treats Tethys as a kind female, a beautiful dancer, a sister, with a bit of clairvoyant power.

Final Synopsis: Overall, I think Tethys was well done.

A bit of flirt and likes toying with men, appropriate for a dancer, but she does not degrade herself too far by taking in all their affections or becoming the toy of their passion.

The liking of mystery and the hint of clairvoyance is not unheard of, given Larum and Nils in the past could and did Auguries, and Ninian too was mysterious and could predict things- so FE has built an element of fortune telling into prior refresher units. And exotic dancing, like fortune telling, is something on the margins of polite society, so it fits into a theme. Mercenaries too lay at the margins of society so her being in Gerik's crew makes sense.

Being a mature woman, they're able to give her a splendid, tragic backstory and make her Gerik's equal. And in all but the Rennac support, she occupies a place of seniority in the remaining supports to some degree.

Design-wise, Tethys is modest compared to FE4's dancers, but is a little more showy than Larum, and definitely more showy than Ninian (who is only a Dancer because- she certainly originally wasn't at all into dancing back in the other world). Overall, a tasteful, yet stylish design, if really really red.

Ok so Soren is tied for the fastest mage, in a game they're really not that fast in the first place. RD done nerfed mages to hell and back. Ilyana was definitely nerfed as well.

And yes! A Tethys analyses. Such a shame a really great character gets constantly overlooked, just like Calill. Although I will say that although they can be similar, Tethys comes out a bit stronger characterization-wise.

Total shame about Rennac and Tethys though. It could've been so much more. Rennac doesn't have any paired endings and he would've went great with Tethys if they expanded the dancer side of things. I mean, it probably wouldn't be as great as Gerik x Tethys, but it's certainly more avenues for both Rennac and Tethys. It's also quite odd that two characters that had good/entertaining supports ended up being duds with each other. Who whadda thunk.

Also, if the GBA games get remade, the fortune teller aspect would be interesting to expand on. Giving them a spectre card or some sort of buffs/debuffs depending on the card they've picked. Maybe they could just come up with different outfits that allow different buffs, but you can only equip one before battle, no dressphere shenanigans a la FFX-2.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Strength is hardly relevant for magic users in FE10 unless for long range magic or in case of Sanaki. All close range tomes can be used by almost everyone without speed penalty. It's not like in FE9 where Soren hasn't the required base strength to use wind tomes without speed reduction.

Weapon weight only affects Sanaki who still can use (el)light without speed reduction at least. And in endgame she technically needs only one more strength point to use rexflame without penalty by double bloodtide.

 

Also Soren isn't the fastest mage. The fastest mage is technically Laura in terms of speed growth. The only mages with >50% speed growth are Calill, Tormod, Laura and I believe Pelleas.

Ironically Micaiah has the highest speed cap with 33. Though only arc fire sages can double the auras thanks to rexflame's +3 speed boost.

 

Shade does NOT always prevent fatal hits. There's no rule for that, but it doesn't work all the time. Even after 200 playthroughs I haven't could figure out FE10's AI yet.

Edited by 豊聡耳 神子
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...