War Clerics? Are they effective?

[Dodge Tanking 101]

Personally, I believe the War Cleric/Monk class is quite a useful class. I turn Lissa into one when I promote her. I promote Maribelle into a Valkyrie however. Tell me, have you ever made her into a War Cleric? Anyway, they get Renewal at level 15 which is pretty good, especially on Cherche. I love War Clerics but are they good gameplay wise? Tell me your thoughts.

[DarthR0xas]

Well they're only the best units in the game, anyone who can be a War Cleric should be one as far as I'm concerned. "Dark Flier is the best class" is nothing more than slander for the great War Cleric

[Interdimensional Observer]

Interesting weapon combo and idea for a class.

Libra works as one, and in the postgame it is arguably better than say Falcoknight due to no Bow weakness. Yet, if one is not willing to Einherjar some Bolt Axe buys, it is lacking for Lissa and Maribelle, and probably Brady too. They start frail and lack Str, going Sage/Valk gives them Tomes for their high Mag to use and given their 1-2 range, they can always use them safely.

A physical unit going War Cleric? Well it is Infantry Axe not-General for females, although for men it'll be worse than Berserker or Warrior offensively. With Recover, Mend and the formula for healing being Magic/2 + base, their trashy Magic stats won't impede healing far too much. Yet their abilities with Physic, Fortify, and Rescue will be restrained however due to poor range.

Renewal is cool, but takes a long time to get. Rally Luck is weak.

[Hawkwing]

They're a class that had to grow on me. Aside from using Libra in situations where I needed a more durable healer, I usually just made Lissa a sage and Maribelle a Valkyrie to take advantage of their high magic stats, and I often kept them off the front lines in hairier situations. However, that changed when I did my first ironman run of Awakening. Maribelle "died", and since durability is important than damage output when you can't reset, I made Lissa a War Cleric for the added defense. To my surprise, there were a lot of attacks she could walk away from, if not outright tank, and the might of axes made her stronger than I thought they would. I also used Libra a lot more than I usually did on that run, and he grew tremendously on me as both a unit and character, to the point that him dying near the end of the game due to an unlucky enemy critical was personally the saddest (non-story/support related) moment in a Fire Emblem game thus far. I also made Lissa a War Cleric in my current Ironman of Awakening on hard mode, once once again I'm surprised that how useful and versatile she is as both a front-line fighter and as a support unit.

As for my overall thoughts, it's a solid class that performs better than one think it would. The defensive bonuses help out a ton, they tend to have enough resistance to be efficient mage-killers, and the might of axes surprisingly enough can make up for clerics/priests often lackluster strength. While not front-line fighters, they can still take a hit that might otherwise kill their more magic-focused alternatives. And once they reach level 15, they get the super-useful skill Renewal, and then you can reclass them if you wish to take advantage of their higher defense and put them in a more combat-focused class.

I would say that the usefulness of War Clerics depends heavily on the difficulty and type of run, though. On a Casual or Resettable run, the most the class does is prevent embarrassment in the former and saves time for the latter. In an ironman run, though, those added points of HP and defense are enough to make the difference between life or death for the unit in question, and it's generally a good idea not to let dedicated healers go down to the grave. Similarly, it's harder for healers to gain levels on normal difficulty if you play smartly, so you're often better off putting them in a magic class so they deal heavy damage to the enemy. Meanwhile, on hard difficulty, the enemy is much stronger, which means that healers can gain level ups much faster and earlier, and having a solid defense is damn near essential for anyone, which is something the War Cleric class provides. The more numerous enemies also means that it's easier to level them up via combat as well, and once they reach level fifteen and get Renewal, you can reclass them into something else if you wish.

Skill-wise, well, Rally Luck is a skill that's really just "there". Not completely useless, as you're not always going to be able to attack or heal on a given turn, but unlike some of the other rally skills, you can't really base a strategy around it, and it comes off as a nice but minimalistic boost at most. As for Renewal, it is an undoubtedly useful skill, but getting to level 15 takes more time than it should. However, you could replace "Renewal" with just about any level 15 skill in that last sentence, so it's not a unique complaint.

[ChickenWings]

They are effective healers sure, but I prefer Falcon Knights and Sages.

Edited October 17, 2018 by ChickenWings

[NobodiePichu]

one of my least favorite classes as it currently stands, renewel's about the only thing its got going for it and even then its not high up on my need to have skills. other then that though, their stats tend to be too middle of the road to make them effective fighters, making them objectively worse then a sage due to low combat utility. honestly a trickster does their job better since well they have middling attack stats as well thats usually the case for thief units and unlike war clerics/monks they have the speed to make up for it and acrobatics is just objectively better as a skill.

that or it might just be me being bitter over the fact that i never found lissa or maribelle very useful personally, low base starting stats and lower growth rates then the majority of your competitors, yeah thats real enticing.

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, NobodiePichu said:

one of my least favorite classes as it currently stands, renewel's about the only thing its got going for it and even then its not high up on my need to have skills. other then that though, their stats tend to be too middle of the road to make them effective fighters, making them objectively worse then a sage due to low combat utility. honestly a trickster does their job better since well they have middling attack stats as well thats usually the case for thief units and unlike war clerics/monks they have the speed to make up for it and acrobatics is just objectively better as a skill.

that or it might just be me being bitter over the fact that i never found lissa or maribelle very useful personally, low base starting stats and lower growth rates then the majority of your competitors, yeah thats real enticing.

I would disagree on Acrobat being better as a skill - sure, the effect is nifty, but very few maps actually have enough terrain to make it worthwhile (the only ones that come to mind off the top of my head are the last two story maps before Grima).

[Shoblongoo]

Its a neat little hybrid class.  Sorta stuck in jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none territory though (as tends to be the common problem with hybrid classes).

Works nice for a unit with the stat spread to function as an all-rounder. 

If you have a DLC grinded post-game unit capped out in every stat with the bulk to renewal-tank + the strength for the brave axe and superior axe + the magic for the bolt axe and staves--well then its a very good role compression class that lets one single unit put in the work of a staffbot, a damage sponge, a melee unit, and a mage. 

For the main game though, i think i generally prefer having individual units that are optimally suited to a specific job or jobs. And having each job done by the units that specialize in it, rather than fielding units that on-their-own try to do everything and wind up being not particularly good at anything. (i.e. i'd rather have a staffbot on a horse. i'd rather have an axe user that specializes in physical stats, and isn't splitting his growth between a fighter and mage spread. If I'm going for the bolt axe build, I'd rather just have a sorcerer or a sage)

Aesthetically--I like it more as a male class than as a female class.

Got no problem with the robes on the male model.

I think the steel-cage dress on the female version looks fucking silly.  
 

Edited October 17, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[NobodiePichu]

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would disagree on Acrobat being better as a skill - sure, the effect is nifty, but very few maps actually have enough terrain to make it worthwhile (the only ones that come to mind off the top of my head are the last two story maps before Grima).

fair enough but i personally value it more then renewel which ive never found to be honestly all that helpful, and in theory i prefer it more anyways since not having to deal with terrain costs is a million times better then a paltry hp gain at the end of turns (the problem being though that awakening doesnt have many maps with large terrain penalties is very true though). neither are anywhere close to the skills i actually put on units mind but between the two i prefer acrobatics.

[Shadow Mir]

1 minute ago, NobodiePichu said:

fair enough but i personally value it more then renewel which ive never found to be honestly all that helpful, and in theory i prefer it more anyways since not having to deal with terrain costs is a million times better then a paltry hp gain at the end of turns (the problem being though that awakening doesnt have many maps with large terrain penalties is very true though). neither are anywhere close to the skills i actually put on units mind but between the two i prefer acrobatics.

Um, you do know Renewal was buffed to heal 30% of max HP in Awakening, don't you?

[NobodiePichu]

19 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Um, you do know Renewal was buffed to heal 30% of max HP in Awakening, don't you?

i still dont find it useful, 30% is still a drop in the bucket especially when i could just use a good healer, or in this case a sage or anna with a heal or mend staff on hand, who would be able to heal more in one go and benefit from it. Or if going solo, just use sol or nosferatu which can heal more in a round of combat then renewl can if the units strong enough which they inevitably have to be in order to solo in the first place.

plus once you get to shit like apothesis its practically useless anyways since the enemies hit so damn hard and soloing the thing is either very stupid or very time consuming.

look, if it wasnt such a chore to get i might be kinder to it, but for a level 15 skill i just dont think its worth it. then again, the skill system in awakening is perhaps one of the things i hate the most about the game mechanically speaking.

[Shadow Mir]

29 minutes ago, NobodiePichu said:

i still dont find it useful, 30% is still a drop in the bucket especially when i could just use a good healer, or in this case a sage or anna with a heal or mend staff on hand, who would be able to heal more in one go and benefit from it. Or if going solo, just use sol or nosferatu which can heal more in a round of combat then renewl can if the units strong enough which they inevitably have to be in order to solo in the first place.

plus once you get to shit like apothesis its practically useless anyways since the enemies hit so damn hard and soloing the thing is either very stupid or very time consuming.

look, if it wasnt such a chore to get i might be kinder to it, but for a level 15 skill i just dont think its worth it. then again, the skill system in awakening is perhaps one of the things i hate the most about the game mechanically speaking.

tbf, I find that Sol fell from grace HARD in this game (and by extension, Fates, except it's even worse there) - imo, a chance to drain only half the damage I deal just ain't good enough to be worth a skill slot, considering that in general, the enemy has to be perfectly healthy for it to do anything. Nosferatu is more viable, but is only usable by specific classes, and barring reclass shenanigans, the units in said classes have issues.

To be fair, the same could be said of Sol and Nosferatu, only even more so since everything has Dragonskin, halving damage, and most enemies have either Pavise+ or Aegis+, further blunting attacks from the wrong end of the spectrum.

Fair enough.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Shadow Mir

[NobodiePichu]

17 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

tbf, I find that Sol fell from grace HARD in this game (and by extension, Fates, except it's even worse there) - imo, a chance to drain only half the damage I deal just ain't good enough to be worth a skill slot, considering that in general, the enemy has to be perfectly healthy for it to do anything. Nosferatu is more viable, but is only usable by specific classes, and barring reclass shenanigans, the units in said classes have issues.

To be fair, the same could be said of Sol and Nosferatu, only even more so since everything has Dragonskin, halving damage, and most enemies have either Pavise+ or Aegis+, further blunting attacks from the wrong end of the spectrum.

Fair enough.

eh fair enough.