CPU versions of playable characters are limited to 3 charge attacks per moveset.

[Folt]

What the title says: CPU versions of playable characters, including characters who were made playable as DLC, only use three charge attacks from their moveset. Those three attacks are always predetermined by the moveset itself. Incidentally, Owain, Oboro, Niles, and Navarre used 3 charge attacks like every other CPU version of a playable character, as does Darios and the Sorcerer Trio.

The enemies based on the various FE classes are even more limited. 2 charge attacks for the promoted versions and only 1 charge attack for the base version. Like the CPU characters, these charge attacks are predetermined by the moveset itself. Here's some examples of what I mean:

MYRMIDON/THIEF (TEMPLATE CHARACTER: RYOMA)

1. Base: C1
2. Promoted: C1, C5
3. Ryoma/Owain: C1, C3, C5

SOLDIER (TEMPLATE CHARACTER: OBORO)

1. Base: C2
2. Promoted: C2, C3
3. Oboro: C2, C3, C5

ARCHER (TEMPLATE CHARACTER: TAKUMI)

1. Base: C1 (Half charge version)
2. Promoted: C1 (Half charge version), C3
3. Takumi/Sakura/Niles/Anna: C1 (Half charge version), C3, C4

MAGE (TEMPLATE CHARACTER: ROBIN)

1. Base: C1 (Half charge version)
2. Promoted: C1 (Half charge version), C4
3. Robin/Validar/Iago/Gharnef: C1 (Half charge version), C4, C5

In addition, I also believe the CPU versions got a longer, better attack string the higher in power they are. These strings do not always correspond to the string of the playable version (Robin's attack string as a CPU is vastly different from the attack string he uses as a playable character).

One interesting note about this in my opinion: Do you see which charge attack was added from the Mage moveset's promoted version to Robin? Yes, it's the dark nova explosion which among other things explains why his profile says that he specializes in dark magic instead of thunder magic as he actually does and why the Sorcerer trio copies his moveset. This also means that his moveset is ideal to copy to any dark magic-based magic user we're getting (and in hindsight explains why Linde had to get an original moveset given that the CPU mage moveset only includes thunder and dark magic).

Edited February 17, 2018 by Folt

[r_n]

It's pretty funny how they specify the dark magic thing considering he only uses dark magic in 2 attacks: his combo for Ruin and his awakening attack which is more of a grima reference. The rest of his moveset is either Thunder or explicitly every element. He even has rexaura for unknown reasons?! And also his signature tome is Thoron. Linde at least uses light magic in more: her strong attack, her first strong combo, her final strong attack (& arguably thoron, iguess), and all her specails are light magic or roughly equivalent (Aura, Nosferatu, Starlight).

[Arthur97]

17 minutes ago, r_n said:

It's pretty funny how they specify the dark magic thing considering he only uses dark magic in 2 attacks: his combo for Ruin and his awakening attack which is more of a grima reference. The rest of his moveset is either Thunder or explicitly every element. He even has rexaura for unknown reasons?! And also his signature tome is Thoron. Linde at least uses light magic in more: her strong attack, her first strong combo, her final strong attack (& arguably thoron, iguess), and all her specails are light magic or roughly equivalent (Aura, Nosferatu, Starlight).

Indeed. Robin seems like a middle ground between Linde and what Tharja may be. A jack of all trades if you will.

[The Roger The Paladin]

I noticed this quite early on myself. Kind of makes the CPU opponents predictable if you ask me.
My biggest disappointment is how some of the cloning doesn't really fit at all.
Owain's C3 involving lightning because of being based off Ryoma is an obvious example.
Otherwise, if Minerva is a clone of Camilla as I've heard, that fireball in C4 is sure going to be out of place.
 

[NSSKG151]

2 hours ago, Mad-manakete said:

I noticed this quite early on myself. Kind of makes the CPU opponents predictable if you ask me.
My biggest disappointment is how some of the cloning doesn't really fit at all.
Owain's C3 involving lightning because of being based off Ryoma is an obvious example.
Otherwise, if Minerva is a clone of Camilla as I've heard, that fireball in C4 is sure going to be out of place.

I don't think it's too bad for Owain considering the rest of his family in this game (Chrom, Lucina and Lissa) are also using lightning in their attacks and if you really want to stretch things his Odin identity in Fates also has him starting off with a Thunder tome so he is kind of affiliated with lightning anyways outside of being a clone of Ryoma.

[Shadow Mir]

30 minutes ago, Mad-manakete said:

I noticed this quite early on myself. Kind of makes the CPU opponents predictable if you ask me.
My biggest disappointment is how some of the cloning doesn't really fit at all.
Owain's C3 involving lightning because of being based off Ryoma is an obvious example.
Otherwise, if Minerva is a clone of Camilla as I've heard, that fireball in C4 is sure going to be out of place.
 

I wouldn't say Owain using lightning is THAT out of place, considering who his mom is...

[Watchman]

This has been a thing in the Warriors games in general for sometime actually. CPU controlled characters haven't been using full movesets since DW4 and SW1, along with the AI in general becoming more passive.

[Folt]

3 hours ago, r_n said:

It's pretty funny how they specify the dark magic thing considering he only uses dark magic in 2 attacks: his combo for Ruin and his awakening attack which is more of a grima reference. The rest of his moveset is either Thunder or explicitly every element. He even has rexaura for unknown reasons?! And also his signature tome is Thoron. Linde at least uses light magic in more: her strong attack, her first strong combo, her final strong attack (& arguably thoron, iguess), and all her specails are light magic or roughly equivalent (Aura, Nosferatu, Starlight).

Linde's final strong attack is Bolganone: A Fire-based attack. For her regular moveset, she only uses light in her C1 and C2 attacks.

Robin also uses Dark magic in his Critical Hit for the white stun gauge.

For the record, the elements used by Robin and Linde are as follows:

Robin:

• String: Thunder
• C1: Thunder
• C2: Fire
• C3: Wind
• C4: Thunder
• C5: Dark
• C6: Light
• Critical Hit: Dark & Light (White Stun Gauge Finisher), Fire (Yellow Stun Gauge Finisher)
• Warrior Special: Thunder
• Awakening Finisher: Dark
• Dual Special: Fire, Thunder, Wind, and Dark

Linde:

• String: Thunder
• C1: Light
• C2: Light
• C3: Wind
• C4: Ice
• C5: Thunder
• C6: Fire
• Critical Hit: Light
• Warrior Special: Light
• Awakening Finisher: Light
• Dual Special: Light

So its pretty likely that Tharja will have Robin's moveset with the Warrior Special, Awakening Finisher, and Dual Special attacks changed to be casting pure dark magic.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Folt

[Arthur97]

10 minutes ago, Folt said:

Linde's final strong attack is Bolganone: A Fire-based attack. For her regular moveset, she only uses light in her C1 and C2 attacks.

Robin also uses Dark magic in his Critical Hit for the white stun gauge.

For the record, the elements used by Robin and Linde are as follows:

Robin:

• String: Thunder
• C1: Thunder
• C2: Fire
• C3: Wind
• C4: Thunder
• C5: Dark
• C6: Light
• Critical Hit: Dark & Light (White Stun Gauge Finisher), Fire (Yellow Stun Gauge Finisher)
• Warrior Special: Thunder
• Awakening Finisher: Dark
• Dual Special: Fire, Thunder, Wind, and Dark

Linde:

• String: Thunder
• C1: Light
• C2: Light
• C3: Wind
• C4: Ice
• C5: Thunder
• C6: Fire
• Critical Hit: Light
• Warrior Special: Light
• Awakening Finisher: Light
• Dual Special: Light

So its pretty likely that Tharja will have Robin's moveset with the Warrior Special, Awakening Finisher, and Dual Special attacks changed to be casting pure dark magic.

Robin uses light in his yellow gauge finisher too.

Robin's Awakening finisher doesn't look like pure dark magic. There is the orb of light which seems to have streams of the other elements going into it.

[Folt]

16 minutes ago, Arthur97 said:

Robin uses light in his yellow gauge finisher too.

Robin's Awakening finisher doesn't look like pure dark magic. There is the orb of light which seems to have streams of the other elements going into it.

Very well. I posted most of these from memory. It's all the more reason that they'll get changed out for something else for Tharja when she comes though.

EDIT: Elemental Magic used in Leo/Elise's regular attacks (as I've forgot Elise's Special and Awakening attacks) so not to leave them out:

• String: Thunder
• C1: Thunder
• C2: Wind
• C3: Dark
• C4: Fire
• C5: Light
• C6: Thunder
• Critical Hit: Thunder (might have a Dark attack a part of it as well)

Edited February 17, 2018 by Folt

[NSSKG151]

2 hours ago, Folt said:

Very well. I posted most of these from memory. It's all the more reason that they'll get changed out for something else for Tharja when she comes though.

EDIT: Elemental Magic used in Leo/Elise's regular attacks (as I've forgot Elise's Special and Awakening attacks) so not to leave them out:

• String: Thunder
• C1: Thunder
• C2: Wind
• C3: Dark
• C4: Fire
• C5: Light
• C6: Thunder
• Critical Hit: Thunder (might have a Dark attack a part of it as well)

Elise's dual special is her using fire, wind, lightning and light. Her awakening special is her using her staff to cast freeze and then sending a giant heart at her foes. Her regular special I'm not sure since it has her shooting pink lasers but it seems to be dark magic to me.

All of Leo's specials revolve around Brynhildr besides his dual special having him use his iceblade.

But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me to see Tharja using nothing but dark magic, hexes and such during all her specials.

[Folt]

6 hours ago, NSSKG151 said:

Elise's dual special is her using fire, wind, lightning and light. Her awakening special is her using her staff to cast freeze and then sending a giant heart at her foes. Her regular special I'm not sure since it has her shooting pink lasers but it seems to be dark magic to me.

All of Leo's specials revolve around Brynhildr besides his dual special having him use his iceblade.

But yeah, it wouldn't surprise me to see Tharja using nothing but dark magic, hexes and such during all her specials.

Brynhildr I believe is dark elemental, so besides the ice part in his Dual Special, he'd be using dark in all of them then.

Also incidentally, Elise and Leo's used C#s are C2, C4, and C5. Which doesn't surprise me because the other 3 C#s would be kind of unfair to you if they were allowed to use them (Goetia's ridiculous range...).

[r_n]

3 hours ago, Folt said:

Brynhildr I believe is dark elemental, so besides the ice part in his Dual Special, he'd be using dark in all of them then.

Also incidentally, Elise and Leo's used C#s are C2, C4, and C5. Which doesn't surprise me because the other 3 C#s would be kind of unfair to you if they were allowed to use them (Goetia's ridiculous range...).

Brynhildr is probably meant to be dark, like Goetia & elise's dual special, but I want to take this moment to mention the silliest thing Fates did was make dark magic a sub class of magic like awakening did but limit it to Nosferatu and NOTHING ELSE. That doesn't really affect anything this topic brings up, just...it's really goofy.

Anyway I wouldn't necessarily be surprised at Tharja being a Robin clone, arguably she's one of hte more fitting clones considering dark mages actually get access to all magic in the first place and also the whole "stalker" thing, but there's enough different spells (even non-dark) they could throw in if they REALLY wanted to. And linde using thoron in a totally different way from Robin shows they could use similar spells if it came down to it

 

By the way, I expect Tharja to get Nosferatu as her awakening special just like Linde, regardless of her being a clone. It's a spell that changes wildly in its classification depending on the game, so it'd be a cute mirror of each other.

[Folt]

44 minutes ago, r_n said:

Brynhildr is probably meant to be dark, like Goetia & elise's dual special, but I want to take this moment to mention the silliest thing Fates did was make dark magic a sub class of magic like awakening did but limit it to Nosferatu and NOTHING ELSE. That doesn't really affect anything this topic brings up, just...it's really goofy.

Anyway I wouldn't necessarily be surprised at Tharja being a Robin clone, arguably she's one of hte more fitting clones considering dark mages actually get access to all magic in the first place and also the whole "stalker" thing, but there's enough different spells (even non-dark) they could throw in if they REALLY wanted to. And linde using thoron in a totally different way from Robin shows they could use similar spells if it came down to it

 

By the way, I expect Tharja to get Nosferatu as her awakening special just like Linde, regardless of her being a clone. It's a spell that changes wildly in its classification depending on the game, so it'd be a cute mirror of each other.

Dark Mages getting access to all elemental magic in the first place is probably why Tharja will be a clone, yes. (And also because she's a dark mage.)

But yes, I fully expect her to get the dark magic version of Nosferatu in her Awakening Special

[Arthur97]

This might be worth mentioning about Robin, it does actually mention in his fighting style description in game that he uses mixed magic types making the description that he specializes in dark magic even stranger.

[Anomalocaris]

Another odd consequence of this moveset system is that Paladins can use Xander's darkness sword beam (C4, I believe) despite not having Siegfried.

[Folt]

3 minutes ago, Anomalocaris said:

Another odd consequence of this moveset system is that Paladins can use Xander's darkness sword beam (C4, I believe) despite not having Siegfried.

Yeah. If I remember correctly, Cavaliers use C3, and Paladin adds C4 on top of that. I actually kind of like it since this is a Warriors game after all.

[Emperor Hardin]

This sounds similar to how Hyrule Warriors enemies worked.

I wonder why the promoted generics are missing a combo, it'd be easy to give them one?  Perhaps that is why there are so few generic bosses?

Edited February 18, 2018 by Emperor Hardin

[r_n]

15 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

This sounds similar to how Hyrule Warriors enemies worked.

I wonder why the promoted generics are missing a combo, it'd be easy to give them one?  Perhaps that is why there are so few generic bosses?

The intent is to have them be lesser. Characters get more combos than Promoted get more combos than Base. Even if they had 3 combos, Characters would probably have 4 combos. 

[Folt]

26 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

This sounds similar to how Hyrule Warriors enemies worked.

I wonder why the promoted generics are missing a combo, it'd be easy to give them one?  Perhaps that is why there are so few generic bosses?

Basically what r_n said: They're intended to be less powerful and easier to kill versions so promoted enemies get one less combo finishers than characters and base class enemies get one less than promoted enemies again. I also find it interesting how, as you go from base to promoted to character, that the combo given tends to be  bit more advanced and more supernatural than the last in execution. (F.ex. Myrmidons only get C1 which is pretty basic, then the Swordmasters get C5 which is a multi-hit attack, and then Owain and Ryoma get C3 which, while actually earlier in the moveset, makes them look überpowerful compared to the lesser versions.)

Actually, it made me think about something in regards to the Cavaliers again. Cavalier enemies, and particularly the more powerful or notable ones often have a tendency to pack a Javelin in their moveset to make ranged attacks with a projectile which makes them extremely versatile with their high movement. Xander's sword beam, while not a javelin, essentially gives the Paladin a projectile attack which keeps them in spirit to this tendency.

[Emperor Hardin]

26 minutes ago, Folt said:

Basically what r_n said: They're intended to be less powerful and easier to kill versions so promoted enemies get one less combo finishers than characters and base class enemies get one less than promoted enemies again. I also find it interesting how, as you go from base to promoted to character, that the combo given tends to be  bit more advanced and more supernatural than the last in execution. (F.ex. Myrmidons only get C1 which is pretty basic, then the Swordmasters get C5 which is a multi-hit attack, and then Owain and Ryoma get C3 which, while actually earlier in the moveset, makes them look überpowerful compared to the lesser versions.)

Yeah, I get that a bit, but you'd think there'd be tier 2 enemies with full combos to make things more interesting. That way you could have multiple Wyvern Lords with full movesets on map without cloning Camilla.

It'd also make it easier to have boss generics.

[Anomalocaris]

Interestingly, since generic captains' movesets are mostly derived from player character movesets, it means there are partial movesets for Knights and Fighters here but no playable character who properly utilizes them. Lissa's moveset seems very different from the generic axe-user's moveset as far as I can tell.

[Folt]

5 hours ago, Anomalocaris said:

Interestingly, since generic captains' movesets are mostly derived from player character movesets, it means there are partial movesets for Knights and Fighters here but no playable character who properly utilizes them. Lissa's moveset seems very different from the generic axe-user's moveset as far as I can tell.

Actually agreed on this, now that I have a better understanding of the game.

Also, now that I've gotten a better look, the Sorcerer Trio actually doesn't reuse the generic mages' stances; they have their own unique ones (Validar looks like he's always ready to cast a spell, Iago's stance makes him look as if he's posing for something, which reflects how he views himself as greater than he actually is). I'm almost betting that its the same for Darios too.

[The DanMan]

4 hours ago, Folt said:

Actually agreed on this, now that I have a better understanding of the game.

Also, now that I've gotten a better look, the Sorcerer Trio actually doesn't reuse the generic mages' stances; they have their own unique ones (Validar looks like he's always ready to cast a spell, Iago's stance makes him look as if he's posing for something, which reflects how he views himself as greater than he actually is). I'm almost betting that its the same for Darios too.

Darios has an almost Marth-like stance, with a bit of side profile and only one hand on his sword, compared to the twins' holding theirs with both hands.

[Folt]

3 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

Darios has an almost Marth-like stance, with a bit of side profile and only one hand on his sword, compared to the twins' holding theirs with both hands.

That might have been what confused some people to believe that he was going to be cloning Marth's moveset when we still didn't know much about the game.

Come to think of it, Validars stance when seen from the right angle is the same posture as his official art. That explains a lot.