Why are Res growths always so low, most of the time?

[Corrobin]

I mean, I just don't understand why.

[X-Naut]

Possibly because Mages tend to have low Magic at base and their growths used to be low; but with Magic increasing under the higher growth standards it's becoming more of an artifact.

In some settings it's explained that magical ability (including resistance) is a quality you're born with, which either means a blood-borne talent or an acquired talent built up by mages over multiple generations.

[deskita]

I guess most people in fire emblem are excessively flammable. (Queue fire jokes)

But I guess it's because mages tend to be less common enemies and therefore having lower res makes them more dangerous and makes those that do have res more valuable.

[Captain Karnage]

probably to emphasize how strong magic overall is by keeping units weak to it

[indigoasis]

Like @deskita said, mages and other magic users are often rarer enemies. Not only that, but you'll be dealing with mostly physically oriented enemies most of the time. If you take a look at the NES games, resistance growth is absolute 0. In Echoes, they retained that for the most part, but most characters got a negligible boost to their res growth since Gaiden. But there are plenty of characters with a respectable base res, and plenty of items geared towards defending against magic in general (talismans, pure waters, etc.).

[Dandy Druid]

Most characters are male, and "chauvinism is highly flammable" /s.

Res Growths don't need to be high, since magic type enemies tend to be rarer. I like it like that, because it shows that not anyone can pick up a tome and become a mage and also forces the player to strategize more on how to defeat the enemy.

[Maritisa]

Res exists to be low.

It's so mages are actually strong, because if you took that away magic isn't intrinsically better than, say, a handaxe, other than in weight.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Res growth being low feels like a historical holdover from the games where it didn't grow at all. Notably, in some of the more recent games, it's actually not especially low. Since FE7, most new non-remakes in the series have Def and Res growths be pretty similar (I think FE9 is the game that has them furthest apart, and even there the gap between average Def and Res is just a few points at endgame). That said, Def and Res are typically lower stats in general, since you want Atk to overcome them by more and more as the game goes on, so that damage will continue to rise as max HP increases.

4 minutes ago, Maritisa said:

Res exists to be low.

It's so mages are actually strong, because if you took that away magic isn't intrinsically better than, say, a handaxe, other than in weight.

Magic usually has a large advantage in hit and/or atk over Hand Axes, so it's useful even in games where enemy def and res are similar. Additionally, some enemies have vastly more Def than Res and vice versa, and since you usually have more physical units than magic, that gives the magic ones a niche: targeting low-res enemies like dracoknights.

 

[MyBoyHector]

4 hours ago, deskita said:

I guess most people in fire emblem are excessively flammable. (Queue fire jokes)

But I guess it's because mages tend to be less common enemies and therefore having lower res makes them more dangerous and makes those that do have res more valuable.

Queue fire jokes you say.... Alvis BBQ House, now with more Holy Crusader Steak cuts!

Other then previously mentioned reasons, there also Ward staves and Pure Waters, which give you temp Res, which your suppose to utilize against harder magical opponents, or throw the local Pegasus knight in their general direction since most enemy mages are as slow as snails.

[Dwlr]

To ameliorate Mages who tend to have low defenses when the majority of the game is focused around Str instead of magic, a unit with paper thin defenses is naturally at a disadvantage so the low Res stat on most unit turns mages into the glass cannon archetype so they can actually be useful. 

[edgelordweeaboo]

i mean irl if you're wearing armor, what's gonna hurt more? getting hit by a sword while wearing armor or being struck by lightning/hit by a massive fireball/getting hit by whatever the fuck dark magic is?

[MyBoyHector]

1 hour ago, edgelordweeaboo said:

i mean irl if you're wearing armor, what's gonna hurt more? getting hit by a sword while wearing armor or being struck by lightning/hit by a massive fireball/getting hit by whatever the fuck dark magic is?

One would assume Dark magic would be something akin of Acid/Flesh Eating Virus type of harm, that or a Shadow that would physically cut you up like a knife through melted butter.

[Griffinlwgameplayer]

Resistance is generally low because most of the party is composed of beefy people with weapons instead of slightly frail mages, sages, and priests. Also because generally most basic magic tomes are actually quite weak. in every game after Thracia, Wind has had a Mt stat of 4 or below. Iron swords, generally considered the most basic swords of them all have a Mt rating of 5 or 6 in most modern Fire Emblem games, which is two higher than Wind's highest My in the modern games, and one higher than Fire's modern Mt stat. Most of the damage from magical spells come from the unit's innate magic, the tome is actually barely part of the equation. Of course there are exceptions, mainly dealing with higher power tomes but that's just another reason not to mess with high rank mages.

Basically the low resistance is to offset the fact that magic isn't very strong at base levels

[Re: The weirdo.]

On 21/04/2018 at 4:40 AM, MyBoyHector said:

One would assume Dark magic would be something akin of Acid/Flesh Eating Virus type of harm, that or a Shadow that would physically cut you up like a knife through melted butter.

I imagine that dark magic stretches your flesh out to do harm.

Like, really hard stretching.

Pretty gross interpretation, but also pretty cool.