How could Laguz (and other strike units) work?

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Silver-Haired Maiden said:

Personally though I would make Kurth and Dheg colorless to make them more special xD 

I wouldn't mind this either, as long as they do something about the fact that colorless units naturally have lower bulk than other units since black dragons are known for their defensive prowess and siege-engine-tier lasers.

Maybe have Mantle give them weapon triangle advantage against everything?

[Othin]

4 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Why is there a need to keep the number of characters in each strike color even with each other?

If anything, I'd prefer the groupings to make sense more than to keep the colors even, and even if we want to keep the colors even, I'd rather that the color as a whole (not just strikes) be even instead of just the color of strikes being even.

In that case, it makes plenty of sense to put the biggest group (beasts) as green, which is the smallest of the colors, and the smallest group (dragons) as red, which is the largest of the colors.

There isn't a need. You're the one who said there were too many beast types, I'm saying it's not a problem.

Green can still get the most beasts. As I said, it's an uneven split. And different types may get different numbers anyway.

Dragons do have fewer characters than combat birds, but they do have more noteworthy characters. If bird and dragon laguz both get added, I'm not convinced the birds will outnumber the dragons.

12 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

There are 5 dragon Laguz: Gareth (red), Ena (pink), Nasir (white), Kurthnaga (black), and Dheginhansea (black).

I see no reason to shoehorn them into the colors evenly when a more sensible way to organize them exists (all 5 red).

There are three types of dragon laguz. Despite her appearance and parentage, Ena's class is "Red Dragon".

16 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The sensible way is to use the Tellius magic weaknesses to split Laguz. It is, in fact, the only canonical way to place them into Heroes's weapon triangle.

And since we have a system already there to make use of and not-so-coincidentally fits the pattern from the original material, what reason is there to not use it?

By that reasoning, Jill and Haar should use red axes so they'll be weak to thunder magic.

I already reiterated my biggest reason not to use that system.

18 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

As for people complaining about how putting each tribe into one color would be boring, how is it that you can stomach the fact that every sword in the game is red? What is it about swords (all weak to lances) that makes it make sense to all be one color, but for claws and fangs (all weak to fire) to be split among three?

Swords are a weapon, one of three relatively interchangeable kinds. Beasts are an entire category of character with seven distinct sub-types.

In Fates, tomes all had the same weapon triangle functionality as swords. Do you think all tomes should have been red? Do you think it's wrong that in this game, Odin's thunder magic gets weapon triangle disadvantage against Arthur and Beruka's axes, when the opposite was true in Fates?

23 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I've literally seen no argument against using the Tellius magic effectiveness other than "it's boring and unimaginative", and certainly no compelling argument with gameplay mechanics, gameplay design, or lore to back it up.

You have absolutely seen a gameplay mechanics argument. Does "Tellius fire spells have the effective-against-beasts property, Heroes fire spells introduced so far do not" ring a bell?

[Icelerate]

There was some laguz theory crafting by JDraks and his idea was pretty interesting. 

[Landmaster]

I expect them to just be Colorless or just separate each type of Beast into Blue, Green, and Red.

[Ice Dragon]

27 minutes ago, Othin said:

By that reasoning, Jill and Haar should use red axes so they'll be weak to thunder magic.

27 minutes ago, Othin said:

Swords are a weapon, one of three relatively interchangeable kinds. Beasts are an entire category of character with seven distinct sub-types.

In Fates, tomes all had the same weapon triangle functionality as swords. Do you think all tomes should have been red? Do you think it's wrong that in this game, Odin's thunder magic gets weapon triangle disadvantage against Arthur and Beruka's axes, when the opposite was true in Fates?

No, because (1) red axes simply don't exist and (2) the standard weapon triangle is more pervasive in the series, and therefore takes precedence over a one-game deal. Almost every game has the sword-lance-axe weapon triangle, therefore giving it the most clout and a standard that doesn't bend to other mechanics.

The dragon knights of Tellius, while weak to bows, thunder magic, and/or wind magic depending on the game, are still flying axe users and therefore conform to the categorization as such. The traits of dragon knights that are unique to Tellius are justifiably lost as a quirk of the two games.

When non-Mamkute shapeshifters are concerned, Tellius has the largest quantity of them and was the first to implement them and therefore sets the standard for them. Their most notable affinity to other weapons, and, in fact, their only affinity to other weapon types in their entireties was their weakness to one specific type of magic. That defines their interaction with other weapons, allowing them to seamlessly fit into Heroes's agglutinative weapon triangle.

While the dragon knights of Tellius are exceptions to the broader series-wide dragon knight class, the non-Mamkute shapeshifters of Tellius are the archetype of the weapon type, not just a cog in the broader machine.

 

The same argument can be brought against the Fates-exclusive additional weapon triangle effects. It deviates from the norm of the series rather than set or adhere to a standard.

 

But I'm sure you know all of this already and you're just bringing up these exceptions because you have no better argument to present.

 

27 minutes ago, Othin said:

You have absolutely seen a gameplay mechanics argument. Does "Tellius fire spells have the effective-against-beasts property, Heroes fire spells introduced so far do not" ring a bell?

Does "Falchion didn't have effective damage against colorless breath until the colorless breath weapon type was actually implemented" ring a bell?

Furthermore, if beast Laguz are, in fact, implemented as green units, that effectiveness will be innate and will have been a property of Heroes fire tomes from the very beginning: the fact that red tomes are effective against green units.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Arcphoenix]

14 hours ago, Mercakete said:

(I never played Fates, so I don't know what their beasts are generally like in combat.)

Kitsunes- Higher res and speed

Wolfskins- Higher attack and def iirc.

Both shared a weakness to anti-calvary weapons, and the Tellius magic effectiveness wasn't a thing in those games. 

If beaststones do get colored/efffectiveness based on the Tellius system, I feel the Fates and Awakening beasts make more sense staying colorless

 

15 hours ago, Humanoid said:

If they ended up as various colours, then I think that'd be a sure sign that grey units should be abolished altogether and all existing units redistributed into the RGB triangle.

No thanks, lol. Also staves. Staves currently are the only purely colorless weapon now

Edited September 5, 2018 by Arcphoenix

[a bear]

Imagine limiting a new class units by color in order to honor a long-dead second weapon triangle.

Nevermind that FEH already (mostly) ditched wind magic effectiveness against fliers. Also Naesala has wind powers, but fuck it, make him blue because.

[Johann]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

As for people complaining about how putting each tribe into one color would be boring, how is it that you can stomach the fact that every sword in the game is red? What is it about swords (all weak to lances) that makes it make sense to all be one color, but for claws and fangs (all weak to fire) to be split among three?

All of the Laguz characters from a single country are of the same type. That'd mean if you wanted to run Ranulf, Lethe, Mordecai, and Lyra, you're stuck using all the same color. That's pretty lame. Not to mention, by forcing all beasts to be green, they'd be not only making them weak to fire tomes, but also to dark tomes, swords, red dragons, etc just so they can adhere to a dated weakness system that doesn't translate well between Tellius games and FEH. That dragons get to be split across all colors should be enough to say that Laguz should as well.

[Ice Dragon]

22 minutes ago, Johann said:

All of the Laguz characters from a single country are of the same type.

Oh noes. If I wanted to run Tiki, Tiki, Mar-mar, and Bantu, I'd be stuck running a team of all reds. Or Marth, Roy, Ike, and Lyn. What ever will I do.

 

20 minutes ago, Johann said:

Not to mention, by forcing all beasts to be green, they'd be not only making them weak to fire tomes, but also to dark tomes, swords, red dragons, etc just so they can adhere to a dated weakness system that doesn't translate well between Tellius games and FEH.

No one complains that swords are weak to thunder magic, light magic, blue dragons, blue bows, and blue daggers despite only being weak to lances in most games.

Beasts being weak to swords, dark magic, red dragons, red bows, and red daggers despite only being weak to fire magic in their source material is nothing ground-breaking or out of the ordinary in Heroes.

 

26 minutes ago, Johann said:

That dragons get to be split across all colors should be enough to say that Laguz should as well.

Dragons have different elemental affinities, which justifies them being spread across colors. Laguz also have different elemental affinities, and it would make equal sense for them to align to those, as well.

[Othin]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

No, because (1) red axes simply don't exist and (2) the standard weapon triangle is more pervasive in the series, and therefore takes precedence over a one-game deal. Almost every game has the sword-lance-axe weapon triangle, therefore giving it the most clout and a standard that doesn't bend to other mechanics.

The dragon knights of Tellius, while weak to bows, thunder magic, and/or wind magic depending on the game, are still flying axe users and therefore conform to the categorization as such. The traits of dragon knights that are unique to Tellius are justifiably lost as a quirk of the two games.

When non-Mamkute shapeshifters are concerned, Tellius has the largest quantity of them and was the first to implement them and therefore sets the standard for them. Their most notable affinity to other weapons, and, in fact, their only affinity to other weapon types in their entireties was their weakness to one specific type of magic. That defines their interaction with other weapons, allowing them to seamlessly fit into Heroes's agglutinative weapon triangle.

While the dragon knights of Tellius are exceptions to the broader series-wide dragon knight class, the non-Mamkute shapeshifters of Tellius are the archetype of the weapon type, not just a cog in the broader machine.

 

The same argument can be brought against the Fates-exclusive additional weapon triangle effects. It deviates from the norm of the series rather than set or adhere to a standard.

 

But I'm sure you know all of this already and you're just bringing up these exceptions because you have no better argument to present.

I actually hadn't thought about it in quite those norm vs exception terms before. But I don't think Heroes upholds norms enough to substantiate the distinctions you're claiming. The normal FE triangle relationships are:

• Swords > Axes > Lances > Swords
• Dark > (Fire > Wind > Thunder > Fire) > Light > Dark
• Bows, staffs, and shifters/breaths/strikes are neutral
• Daggers are... also neutral? Even with only appearing in two games, FE10 has a more normal implementation than FE14.

Heroes breaks from those in a lot of ways. The melee and magic triangles get fused rather than ignoring each other, and breaths get integrated. Fire magic beats axes, ice dragons beat swords, divine dragons beat thunder magic. Magic also now has different relations: Wind > Thunder/Light > Fire/Dark > Wind. Wind/Thunder/Fire and Wind/Light/Dark relate the same way as they used to, but now, fire is neutral to dark while being weak to light, and thunder is neutral to light while beating dark.

And even those aren't absolute. Naga is a green light spell, and Thunderhead is a green thunder spell. Both of them beat other light and thunder magic, while losing to fire and dark magic. Naga even has WTD against Loptous. Loptous ends up working around that with its own effect, of course, which has other interesting implications.

The point I'm making with all this is the same point I was illustrating with those examples: Heroes is its own game, with its own rules. Characters don't always interact with other effects in the same way they do in their source game, and those changes don't always put them in accordance with usual standards for the series as a whole, either. But what does happen is that sometimes there are callbacks to past mechanics on specific skills. Loptous is a prime example, putting the Julius vs Julia interaction sort of back together in its own way. Ragnarok is another one, calling back to the HP costs of FE2 spells. It doesn't really work the same way, and the other FE2 mages don't get spells like that, but it's another nice little nod.

Right from the start, Heroes established its own way of dealing with dragons, one with absolutely no precedent from the rest of the series. Split them up into three colors with symmetrical functionality based on what kind of dragon they are, and integrate them into the rest of the weapon triangle. All I'm proposing is to do the same thing with beasts.

Your proposal is to split the laguz into three colors with asymmetrical functionality based on what kind of laguz they are, I guess. I'm not sure how you plan to handle 3DS beasts. Did you give a plan for them?

What you do say here is that Tellius introduced the first non-dragon shifters and has the largest number of them, therefore it gets to set the standard for them. But if you take a look at the CYL results, you'll find that Tellius does not at all have the majority of popular and recognized non-dragon shifters. The ones there's really a lot of clamor for are the 3DS ones, and like it or not, IS will follow that clamor.

Everyone always seems to talk about the shifter situation as if laguz are the center of it. They aren't. If non-dragon shifters ever get implemented, I'm pretty confident that whatever that implementation is, the first playable ones will be 3DS beasts. And in addition to chronology, they're the ones IS will most care about implementing in a way that feels appropriate to their original games. And in the 3DS games, beasts and dragons are counterparts, implemented in approximately the same way.

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Does "Falchion didn't have effective damage against colorless breath until the colorless breath weapon type was actually implemented" ring a bell?

Furthermore, if beast Laguz are, in fact, implemented as green units, that effectiveness will be innate and will have been a property of Heroes fire tomes from the very beginning: the fact that red tomes are effective against green units.

That seems more relevant to a different one of my arguments, but sure. Falchion could be updated further to say "effective against red breath, blue breath, green breath, colorless breath, and red strike". But I think we still get elegance problems there.

If beast units are implemented as green units, fire and dark tomes will have the property of dealing increased damage to beast units and taking reduced damage from them. It's kind of similar, but as a comparison to an effective bonus, it feels a bit sloppy to me.

There are alternatives. A fire tome could be introduced with an "effective against beasts" effect. One or more beast weapons could have a "red tomes are effective against unit" effect. That's the sort of way Heroes has been handling callbacks so far, like with Loptous. I think Heroes will continue to keep implementing things in accordance with its own rule system, and that's what I think it should do.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Othin

[Tree]

24 minutes ago, Johann said:

That'd mean if you wanted to run Ranulf, Lethe, Mordecai, and Lyra, you're stuck using all the same color.

That's true, but that's not a new issue. There are a lot of axe wielders that I would like to use simultaneously (and sword users as well), but that doesn't allow for a balanced team.

I think Ice Dragon's design is the most faithful way to implement it. As was mentioned, it also somewhat helps fix the current pool's color imbalance by adding more green and fewer red. Works nicely for inheritance too.

However, after seeing the direction they took with splitting out bows and daggers to separate colors, I would guess that they will implement it like that. The dragons would be rolled into the current type, and new types created for beasts and birds respectively. This works fine for inheritance, and also allows more color variety (for seasonals and potential original characters).

I would be OK with either, but I would not want generic strike weapons. (It's unlikely they would do that anyway as that doesn't give them as much design freedom or headroom for new characters.)

I've read that some think they will use the odd and even mechanic on the weapon which seems reasonable to me. Perhaps they could even increase the movement of beast types every other turn (although that might be difficult to keep track of).

[Ice Dragon]

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

The melee and magic triangles get fused rather than ignoring each other, and breaths get integrated.

All the more reason to fuse the Laguz magic affinities into the same color system.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

Naga is a green light spell

Naga is green because it ties in with divine dragons being green.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

Thunderhead is a green thunder spell.

Thunderhead is very definitely a wind tome based on its animation. If the two flashes of lightning at the beginning were enough to qualify it as a thunder spell, then Naglfar must be seriously more thunderous with its three flashes of lightning.

The word "thunderhead" itself refers to the cumulonimbus clouds that produce heavy storms, not directly to any thunder or lightning.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

Naga even has WTD against Loptous.

Naga having effective damage and weapon triangle disadvantage against Loptous actually puts both of them on even ground with each other (both have a 1.2× multiplier against the other), which is actually similar to Jugdral's light and dark magic, which are neutral to each other.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

Right from the start, Heroes established its own way of dealing with dragons, one with absolutely no precedent from the rest of the series. Split them up into three colors with symmetrical functionality based on what kind of dragon they are, and integrate them into the rest of the weapon triangle. All I'm proposing is to do the same thing with beasts.

Actually, as I already mentioned, Heroes took Mystery of the Emblem's dragon system and turned it into a triangle, which is remarkably similar to what the GBA games did to Jugdral's magic system.

Jugdral had light and dark neutral to each other and at advantage against anima. The GBA games changed that to light with advantage against dark with advantage against anima.

Mystery had fire and ice dragons effective against each other and divine dragons effective against both. Heroes changed that to divine with advantage against ice with advantage against fire, with the other dragons slotted in where they fit based on color (thunder and water with blue, for example).

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

I'm not sure how you plan to handle 3DS beasts. Did you give a plan for them?

They use claws and fangs. They fall under green strikes.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

What you do say here is that Tellius introduced the first non-dragon shifters and has the largest number of them, therefore it gets to set the standard for them. But if you take a look at the CYL results, you'll find that Tellius does not at all have the majority of popular and recognized non-dragon shifters. The ones there's really a lot of clamor for are the 3DS ones, and like it or not, IS will follow that clamor.

The popularity of the newer shapeshifters doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't use the same system that Tellius does. The dragons in Heroes are based loosely off of the system they had for dragons in Mystery, but most newer players wouldn't notice that, either.

Because Tellius set the groundwork for shapeshifters and has the most robust systems regarding them, it makes sense to utilize that to make a system that can be inclusive of the other shapeshifters. It doesn't make sense to go the other way, designing a system that ignores Tellius altogether and later try to fit them in.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

And in the 3DS games, beasts and dragons are counterparts, implemented in approximately the same way.

Beasts and dragons in Tellius are implemented in exactly the same way.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

Falchion could be updated further to say "effective against red breath, blue breath, green breath, colorless breath, and red strike". But I think we still get elegance problems there.

There's no need. Falchion's description is already elegant with "Effective against dragon foes." Even if additional clarity is necessary in the case it becomes effective against Laguz dragons, it could still be updated to "Effective against dragon and red strike foes" without losing its elegance.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

If beast units are implemented as green units, fire and dark tomes will have the property of dealing increased damage to beast units and taking reduced damage from them. It's kind of similar, but as a comparison to an effective bonus, it feels a bit sloppy to me.

I would prefer not to use effective damage at all because effective damage is extremely powerful and potentially stifling in Heroes. Red tomes taking reduced damage from green strikes would not be anything at all extraordinary.

One does not need to perfectly copy the source system. Now, that would be lazy and sloppy. It is best to adapt the system to best fit the new environment. After all, effective damage in Heroes is 1.5× Atk, not 2× Mt like in most other games.

 

42 minutes ago, Othin said:

That's the sort of way Heroes has been handling callbacks so far, like with Loptous.

Actually, Loptous is the only case of that so far, so it's hardly a template for other cases.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Johann]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Oh noes. If I wanted to run Tiki, Tiki, Mar-mar, and Bantu, I'd be stuck running a team of all reds. Or Marth, Roy, Ike, and Lyn. What ever will I do.

Come on dude, you know that's not even the same thing (not to mention there's plenty of alts of different colors). This would be forcing a lack of diversity just to stick to a minor feature that hasn't really held through the series anyway. I mean shit, Panne or the shapeshifters from Fates aren't weak to fire, but if they tie all beast units to green then it shoehorns all of those characters into the same color.

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

No one complains that swords are weak to thunder magic, light magic, blue dragons, blue bows, and blue daggers despite only being weak to lances in most games.

Beasts being weak to swords, dark magic, red dragons, red bows, and red daggers despite only being weak to fire magic in their source material is nothing ground-breaking or out of the ordinary in Heroes.

Dragons have different elemental affinities, which justifies them being spread across colors. Laguz also have different elemental affinities, and it would make equal sense for them to align to those, as well.

It's not that any of it makes sense or is out of the ordinary, like I don't give a shit that lances are weak to wind or whatever. Swords being weak to blue Laguz is far more flexible design than sword being weak to Ravens and Hawks. Basing the color scheme of an entire group of characters is arbitrary when all they have to do is invent a single multi-colored weapon type and apply it to movement types as necessary.

I should add that I have no intention of convincing you otherwise, but I'll never be fan of this concept of yours because I think it's garbage.

9 minutes ago, Tree said:

That's true, but that's not a new issue. There are a lot of axe wielders that I would like to use simultaneously (and sword users as well), but that doesn't allow for a balanced team.

I think Ice Dragon's design is the most faithful way to implement it. As was mentioned, it also somewhat helps fix the current pool's color imbalance by adding more green and fewer red. Works nicely for inheritance too.

Yeah, but it's a diverse pool of axe users. It doesn't help so much to add more greens if they're all the same unit type. Consider how many fliers are already blue, as well.

Being faithful to an old design has its limits and forcing a dated mechanic into a whole new system isn't necessary. That several characters' FEH debuts has them with weapon types they can't normally use is an indicator that they wouldn't feel obliged to adhere to old mechanics. That a flying character like Caeda is a good tank against wind magic shows that the rules aren't so rigid.

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

Guys the question is how could they work.

In this case we need to look at the most logical way to implement these characters because that's likely what IS will go with. A way that makes them what they are while still working logically in Heroes without having to fundamentally change how it plays.

@Ice Dragon maybe either giving them monumental defense or a new skill?

[Ice Dragon]

7 minutes ago, Johann said:

Come on dude, you know that's not even the same thing (not to mention there's plenty of alts of different colors). This would be forcing a lack of diversity just to stick to a minor feature that hasn't really held through the series anyway. I mean shit, Panne or the shapeshifters from Fates aren't weak to fire, but if they tie all beast units to green then it shoehorns all of those characters into the same color.

I'm sorry, but I really want to run my Sword Lord Emblem. How is that any different from wanting to run Beast Emblem or Bird Emblem or Takumi Emblem?

Edited September 5, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Othin]

6 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

All the more reason to fuse the Laguz magic affinities into the same color system.

It's reason to integrate the laguz into the color system. I don't see any more reason here to use the magic affinities as a basis for it.

7 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Naga is green because it ties in with divine dragons being green.

Yes, and the result is a green light spell that beats thunder and other light magic while losing to dark magic.

8 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Thunderhead is very definitely a wind tome based on its animation. If the two flashes of lightning at the beginning were enough to qualify it as a thunder spell, then Naglfar must be seriously more thunderous with its three flashes of lightning.

The word "thunderhead" itself refers to the cumulonimbus clouds that produce heavy storms, not directly to any thunder or lightning.

Huh, that's neat. Okay, no green thunder.

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Naga having effective damage and weapon triangle disadvantage against Loptous actually puts both of them on even ground with each other (both have a 1.2× multiplier against the other), which is actually similar to Jugdral's light and dark magic, which are neutral to each other.

Indeed.

11 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Actually, as I already mentioned, Heroes took Mystery of the Emblem's dragon system and turned it into a triangle, which is remarkably similar to what the GBA games did to Jugdral's magic system.

Jugdral had light and dark neutral to each other and at advantage against anima. The GBA games changed that to light with advantage against dark with advantage against anima.

Mystery had fire and ice dragons effective against each other and divine dragons effective against both. Heroes changed that to divine with advantage against ice with advantage against fire, with the other dragons slotted in where they fit based on color (thunder and water with blue, for example).

Okay, some precedent.

13 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

They use claws and fangs. They fall under green strikes.

Alright. Bear in mind that this would make it difficult to have multiple of them on one banner. This would slow down the implementation, making it impossible to use their associations to release a group all at once and immediately have access to weapon inheritance. If they have the option of weapon inheritance, which I'm fairly ambivalent on myself, but you've advocated it.

I think it's a safe bet that if laguz were not in the equation, the 3DS beasts would be split among the colors, like dragons: taguels in one color, kitsune in another, wolfskin in the third. Do you agree?

20 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The popularity of the newer shapeshifters doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't use the same system that Tellius does. The dragons in Heroes are based loosely off of the system they had for dragons in Mystery, but most newer players wouldn't notice that, either.

Because Tellius set the groundwork for shapeshifters and has the most robust systems regarding them, it makes sense to utilize that to make a system that can be inclusive of the other shapeshifters. It doesn't make sense to go the other way, designing a system that ignores Tellius altogether and later try to fit them in.

Tellius's system has little to offer that fits nicely into Heroes. Meanwhile, the system I proposed for 3DS beasts would fit beast laguz just fine.

Combat birds wouldn't be quite so simple, but it's workable. If the only ones we get are Tibarn, Naesala, and Vika, they could each get a color. Inefficient, but that kind of "efficiency" is clearly not a priority. And if strikes are uninheritable, they wouldn't even need their own weapon type.

27 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Beasts and dragons in Tellius are implemented in exactly the same way.

I think you're using "exactly" in the same sense as I used "approximately".

28 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

There's no need. Falchion's description is already elegant with "Effective against dragon foes." Even if additional clarity is necessary in the case it becomes effective against Laguz dragons, it could still be updated to "Effective against dragon and red strike foes" without losing its elegance.

I don't mean the text, I mean the weapon icons.

I guess giving dragon laguz weapons some sort of "counts as a dragon" text in the description could avoid the need, though.

30 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I would prefer not to use effective damage at all because effective damage is extremely powerful and potentially stifling in Heroes. Red tomes taking reduced damage from green strikes would not be anything at all extraordinary.

One does not need to perfectly copy the source system. Now, that would be lazy and sloppy. It is best to adapt the system to best fit the new environment. After all, effective damage in Heroes is 1.5× Atk, not 2× Mt like in most other games.

That's the other half of it. With the weapon triangle being ordinary enough that its unintended consequences aren't noteworthy, the intended effect isn't noteworthy either, meaning a lack of clearly sending the message this is all about in the first place.

This is why my preferred method is the single anti-beast fire tome. Clear message, effective when used but not stifling.

33 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Actually, Loptous is the only case of that so far, so it's hardly a template for other cases.

Of using effective damage for it? Sure. But I'd consider stuff like Ragnarok and Double Lion to be closely enough related examples.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Except with the single exception of female Kana, all of the colored breaths, bows, and daggers have made some semblance of sense relative to the tome colors.

I don't really see any way of assigning multiple colors to a single tribe without it either being completely arbitrary or having colors determined by the type of animal they transform into (but there are too many types of beasts and not enough types of birds if you make herons colorless).

 

• Red breath is fire dragons (you can't convince me Tiki is not a fire dragon until she uses her Book 2 divine dragon sprite).
• Blue breath is ice, water, and thunder dragons (my hypothesis is that Nowi had her color determined after they chose her default weapon).
• Green breath is "high" dragons, which matches with Naga's and Divine Naga's color. Plus female Kana, who is the only one that doesn't work.
• Red strike is Laguz dragons.

I don't see anything wrong with this split.

Tiki is the only Red Breath user. Red symbolizes swords, fire and dark magic. Tki in her base game was a divine dragon that uses light elemental breath, or perhaps ice, but not fire and definitely not dark. She even uses the exact same weapons as Nowi in Awakening and sure enough both units come with Lightning breath, yet they are separate colours. Tiki can use Fire Stones, but nothing I know of has ever referenced her as a fire dragon

Green symbolizes Axes and air magic. Myrrh in her own game breaths fire and even her weapon in Heroes is called Great Flame. Fa is in the same both as Tiki in that she uses light based breath, although her one does look a bit more flame based than Tiki's yet she's not even in the fire category. Male Grima is also a green unit despite him using a darkness based. If Green is High dragons like you suggest, then Tiki absolutely should be here too. As Naga's daughter she's a much bigger deal than the likes of Fae, Myrrh or Kana.

Blue dragons seem to fit in to your definition of ice, water or lightning, except Corrin who is a water dragon, but uses dark breath as her default weapon for some reason (which I honestly find confusing, couldn't they have left that for like Medeus or Idoun or someone?).

TL:DR, you're criteria of green being "high" dragons is pretty baseless and Tiki is no more a Fire Dragon than anyone else. For you're categorization to work, Tiki would have to swap with Fae and Myrrh. I legit think the primary thing that determined Dragon colours was the colours they actually wear for the most part. Tiki wears red outfits, so she seemed natural as a red unit. Myrrh has greenish wings, so green was good for her. Fae and Nowi lack central colours but their shading more resembles green and blue than anything else. It's not perfect 1:1 as they weren't all designed to be colour coded, but it makes about as much sense as anything else (we all know the real reason was for gameplay balance given the two Kana's with identical histories and designs are two separate colours).

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Naga is green because it ties in with divine dragons being green.

There are ten divine dragons in the series (including Gotoh, Xane and Nagi), of those ten, three of them are in heroes, Grima, Tiki and Fae, of those two, one is a Green Dragon, another (who is also Naga's Daughter) is a Red Dragon, three times over and the last is split between Green and Colourless despite being the same character. So how is green in anyway associated with Divine Dragons? Do you think Duma would have to be a green unit if he got in the game? Because I could see him fitting much better as a red unit due to his themeing (plus he'd probably be armoured and we wouldn't want to double up on green armoured breath units when we can branch out into other colours). You're categorizing of breaths seems not only baseless, but also restrictvie in what it allows us to have. I guess that's also the main problem people have with making all the laguz green. Caineghis just for example, would feel very natural as a red unit.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Jotari

[Arcphoenix]

If the races do get color locked, I feel that'd be a bit of missed potential, at least from my experience with the 3DS games where each race has certain class characteristics. Kitsunes having high res and speed while Wolfskins have higher defense and attack for example. I'd rather there be a bit more even distribution if IS decides to color units. Just so there's enough "stat diversity" within each color while still remaining true to the original characters

Edited September 5, 2018 by Arcphoenix

[Ice Dragon]

44 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Tiki is the only Red Breath user. Red symbolizes swords, fire and dark magic. Tki in her base game was a divine dragon that uses light elemental breath, or perhaps ice, but not fire and definitely not dark. She even uses the exact same weapons as Nowi in Awakening and sure enough both units come with Lightning breath, yet they are separate colours. Tiki can use Fire Stones, but nothing I know of has ever referenced her as a fire dragon

Tiki uses the Book 1 Divine Dragon sprite as her battle sprite, which is a recolor of the Fire Dragon sprite. My hypothesis about some of the dragons is that their default weapons were what determined what color they ended up being, and Tiki starts with Flametongue+, which screams Fire Dragon, not Divine Dragon.

In fact, the Book 1 Divine Dragon used Ice Breath as its weapon, which completely wipes out any reason to believe that the original Tiki we got on release was intended to be in her Divine Dragon form.

 

44 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Green symbolizes Axes and air magic. Myrrh in her own game breaths fire and even her weapon in Heroes is called Great Flame. Fa is in the same both as Tiki in that she uses light based breath, although her one does look a bit more flame based than Tiki's yet she's not even in the fire category. Male Grima is also a green unit despite him using a darkness based. If Green is High dragons like you suggest, then Tiki absolutely should be here too. As Naga's daughter she's a much bigger deal than the likes of Fae, Myrrh or Kana.

Green also symbolizes Naga's power, and Grima is known from Echoes to have Divine Dragon blood within him.

As mentioned above, Tiki is clearly envisioned to transform into a Fire Dragon in the original release of Heroes and the fact that she is taking on the form of a Fire Dragon and not the form of a Divine Dragon qualifies her to be red, not green. If Tiki originally took the form of her Book 2 Divine Dragon self with Mist Breath in tow, she'd likely have been green instead.

 

44 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Caineghis just for example, would feel very natural as a red unit.

Ike should be a blue unit because he has blue hair and his sword glows with blue flames.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Ice Dragon

[Jotari]

28 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Tiki uses the Book 1 Divine Dragon sprite as her battle sprite, which is a recolor of the Fire Dragon sprite. My hypothesis about some of the dragons is that their default weapons were what determined what color they ended up being, and Tiki starts with Flametongue+, which screams Fire Dragon, not Divine Dragon.

In fact, the Book 1 Divine Dragon used Ice Breath as its weapon, which completely wipes out any reason to believe that the original Tiki we got on release was intended to be in her Divine Dragon form.

 

Green also symbolizes Naga's power, and Grima is known from Echoes to have Divine Dragon blood within him.

As mentioned above, Tiki is clearly envisioned to transform into a Fire Dragon in the original release of Heroes and the fact that she is taking on the form of a Fire Dragon and not the form of a Divine Dragon qualifies her to be red, not green. If Tiki originally took the form of her Book 2 Divine Dragon self with Mist Breath in tow, she'd likely have been green instead.

Tiki didn't have a reclour of the Fire Dragon sprite in the first game. She had a recolour of the Dragon sprite. The mage dragons also used that sprite too. Only Medeus didn't. But just because she uses the same sprite as the Fire and Mage Dragon, doesn't make her a fire dragon. In Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light, Tiki is still clearly a divine dragon. And yeah, she comes with Flametongue, so does Myrrh, why isn't she a dragon? She even breaths fire and her unique weapon is called Great Flame. Because she's a "high" dragon? No higher than Tiki. In Sacred Stones seems to imply that her title of Great Dragon has been completely mixed up with Morva. But you know what, I'll give it to you. Young Tiki is a Fire Dragon despite clearly being a Divine Dragon and her prf weapon being Fog based and not fire based. I think you're completely wrong, but let's assume you're right. What about adult Tiki? What about Summer Tiki? They're certainly not fire dragons. Adult Tiki has the same class and weapons as Nowi in Awakening and even comes with lightning breath, the same weapon in Heroes. Why is she not a blue dragon? Or a green dragon as she's now Naga's Voice, certainly a qualifier to be described as a "high" dragon, she even becomes Naga in one scenario. It can't be because Young Tiki was a Red unit so now every other incarnation of Tiki must be a red unit as we clearly see Grima and Kana having two different colours in two different incarnations.

28 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Ike should be a blue unit because he has blue hair and his sword glows with blue flames.

If Ike abandoned his sword and inexplicably became a strike unit, then sure, I could see him being a blue strike unit. I'm not saying Caineghis has to be a red unit or even that he should be one (I think they should all be colourless), only that he could be one. If there's a banner released tomorrow where Caineghis is a red u nit, I doubt anyone would call foul and say it doesn't make sense. I think he would naturally work as a red unit, maybe as well as a green unit (because I'm not entirely against your suggestion of dividing based on weakness) and certainly better than a blue unit. What I'm just saying is that your suggestion is only one option, and I think being too hardlined about it could limit the potential.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Jotari

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Tiki didn't have a reclour of the Fire Dragon sprite in the first game. She had a recolour of the Dragon sprite. The mage dragons also used that sprite too. Only Medeus didn't. But just because she uses the same sprite as the Fire and Mage Dragon, doesn't make her a fire dragon. In Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light, Tiki is still clearly a divine dragon.

Her battle sprite in Heroes is obviously based on her battle sprite in Book 1 of Mystery of the Emblem.

 

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And yeah, she comes with Flametongue, so does Myrrh, why isn't she a dragon? She even breaths fire and her unique weapon is called Great Flame. Because she's a "high" dragon? No higher than Tiki. In Sacred Stones seems to imply that her title of Great Dragon has been completely mixed up with Morva. But you know what, I'll give it to you.

Myrrh doesn't come with Flametongue PLUS as her final default weapon.

And while Myrrh herself is no higher than Tiki herself, Myrrh's dragon form in Heroes is higher than Tiki's dragon form because Tiki is "just a Fire Dragon".

 

5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Young Tiki is a Fire Dragon despite clearly being a Divine Dragon and her prf weapon being Fog based and not fire based.

Tiki's color was determined more than a year before she got Breath of Fog as a weapon. Using Breath of Fog as an argument for what color Tiki should have been implemented as on release is wholly invalid.

 

6 minutes ago, Jotari said:

What about adult Tiki?

I can only assume that the developers decided that Tiki should just be red when she's not in her Book 2 Divine Dragon form. If we ever get a Tiki that actually transforms into a Book 2 Divine Dragon, I'm willing to bet she will be green or colorless.

 

8 minutes ago, Jotari said:

What about Summer Tiki?

Uses the exact same dragon sprite as regular Tiki. Vomits fish.

[Arcphoenix]

Hmm. I imagine Herons will be effected by flying buffs, dragon laguz by dragon buffs, and beast/taguel/wolfskin units possibly by a new beast buff skill.

Edited September 5, 2018 by Arcphoenix

[XRay]

3 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Ike should be a blue unit because he has blue hair and his sword glows with blue flames.

Except for Marth!Lucina, all of Lucina's other alts are blue.

[Baldrick]

Dragon laguz are easy to integrate into breaths. Ena/Gareth red, Nasir blue, Kurth/Dheginsea green. Though even if they were put in arbitrary colours, the colour/element correspondence has already been broken by the Grimas, the Kanas and Tiki/Nowi.

Beasts and birds could be colourless melee. I would make their fangs/claws/beaks/whatever prfs, both to get around inheritance issues and allow for variety according to tribe.

[Othin]

I should add that this is something I've felt increasingly strongly about since more variations on old weapon types have started getting added. IS decided that breath, bows, and daggers should all have the option of four different color variations. They want to come up with more and more possible different things to offer us, no matter how silly it may seem. Would such a company really want to give up the opportunity to offer multiple color variations of beasts?

The way I see it, Heroes has six main classes of weapon:

• Melee (RBG)
• Tome (RBG)
• Bow (RBGC)
• Dagger (RBGC)
• Breath (RBGC)
• Staff (C)

Aside from staffs (so far), everything has red/blue/green variation. I think it would be very strange for beasts to not get the same thing.