Analysis of Armoured Units being added to Heroes

[Icelerate]

At launch, we had 5 armoured units (Draug, Hector Sheena, Gwendolyn and Effie). That is 3 females and 2 males despite male armours being far more in number. The waifu bias is real. 

In 2017, Zephiel, Amelia, Arden and Black Knight were added. Amelia is a girl, Arden is a popular meme and BK and Zephiel are popular FE villains so these were all safe picks. 

So by the end of 2017, we had 9 non seasonal armoured units. 

In 2017, we also got winter armour units, Chrom, Robin, Lissa and Tharja as well as H!Jacob and H!Henry. So we got 6 seasonal armours and only 4 regular armours, so there is already a bias for fake armours over actual armours in 2017. 

Thus the total number of armoured units at the end of 2017 is 15. 6 of them are seasonal and 9 of them are real, so far so good. 

In 2018, we got Zelgius, Hardin, L!Hector, B!Hector, M!Grima and Surtr as canonical armoured units. While the status of M!Grima is questionable, I think it makes sense. That's 6 new canon armours which seems like an improvement until you see that Zelgius is an alt, both Hectors are alts and Surtr is an OC. The reason why I'm lukewarm of being happy with these aforementioned units representing canonical armours is because it doesn't help us represent the existing armours within the span of all the FE games.  

In 2018, we also got LA!Lyn, LA!Hector,  LA!Eliwood, L!Tiki, H!Myrrh, H!Kagero, H!Niles, H!Dorcas, B!Ephraim, W!Fae, W!Ephraim, W!Eirika, W!Cecilia as non canonical armours. That means we got 13 non canonical armours. Yikes!

In total, by the end of 2018, we have 34 armours in total. Of those 34, 19 are non canonical armours and 15 are canonical armours so the number of non canonical armours has surpassed canonical armours. 

As of April 20, 2019, we got Duma, Idoun and Caineghis as canonical armoured units. We got V!Ike, V!Greil, P!Lucas, P!Flora and P!Felicia as non canonical armoured units. 

Thus, so far in 2019, we got 3 canon armours and 5 non canon armours. 

This brings us up to a total of 42 armours. 18 canonical and 24 non canon. As for the 18 canonical armours, we got an OC (Surtr), 3 alts (Zelgius, L!Hector and B!Hector) and 4 questionable choices (Duma, M!Grima, Idoun and Caineghis). So the pure canon armour representation in this game is just 9 characters. 

Why is this a problem? 

Well we have 24 canon traditional playable armours yet to be added, not counting beasts/dragons, along with a bunch of NPCs, most of the NPCs are probably too niche and obscure to add, so I'm not expecting them. So if it takes over two years for IS just to add 10 armoured units (the launch 5, Zephiel, Amelia, Black Knight, Arden and Hardin), at this rate, it'll take another 5 years to add them all. But since traditional armoured characters are being replaced by legitimate beast/dragon choices along with alts, we'll be lucky if IS adds even two new traditional armoured characters in the game per year, because in 2017, we got 4 (Zephiel, Amelia, Arden, Black Knight) while in 2018, we only got Hardin. If IS adds two new traditional armoured units per year, it'll take 6 whole years just to get 12 of those 24 canonical armours in the game. This doesn't even include the Three Houses armoured units which will also have to be added. 

Is the game even going to last 6 years? Will Tauroneo ever be added to the game? 

Edited April 22, 2019 by Icelerate

[Von Ithipathachai]

34 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

it'll take 6 whole years just to get 12 of those 24 canonical armours in the game.

I'm not even sure if we can expect that many of those to make it in at all.  Of them, I can only see Roger, Oswin, and Gatrie having decent chances of making it in, maybe Meg and Tauroneo too.  Actually, I'd say Meg is a pretty reasonable pick for a new canon playable Armor character because (1) she's sort of a meme character, though not Arden-tier, and (2) she's female.  I can easily see Meg going from bad in her original game to very good in Heroes, not unlike Amelia.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I am certainly not happy about how IS has snubbed canon Armors in the many ways they have.

Yet by the same token, I'm not surprised. Most canon Armors are boorish old layabouts or young men who'll age into those in three years' time. Some (though not all) of them are good characters, but depth of character is rarely the determinant for who does and doesn't get in. It's often outward appearances, and here they severely lack.

They are not female in a male-oriented fanbase in a genre of game- the gatcha, where the cetaceans are often single men wanting to own pixels. Nor do they look badass like the Black Knight, nor do they have meme power like Arden. Hardin and Zephiel got in primarily due to being primary villains I would say; if they were anything less than primary, they wouldn't stand a chance.

[Fabulously Olivier]

In regards to this, I can't say I'm too disappointed by that. If they add Gilliam, I'm good. Aside from him, armoe knights tend to be my least favorite class with my least favorite character designs.

 

I'm more frustrated with the slow rate of canon characters and the excessive rate of non canon ones in general. It's a sorry state of things because most of their non-canon character designs just... fucking suck.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Etheus

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I'm really quite puzzled at these statistics because I think the odds of seeing armor units added to heroes should theoretically be high. Even if they're washboards in terms of personality or butt ugly, they're at least armor units in a fire emblem game where that is not only viable but almost meta dominant. Unquestionably so if they're an armor dragon, but most of these have to stretch the canon a bit as far as what an "armor unit" is. Even the launch day armor units still maintain mid to high tier slots, and they haven't even gotten personal weapons like most of the launch day roster has. They've just been indirectly buffed by the inclusion of armor march and many _____ fighter skills. I feel like the question of "is Valbar popular enough for Heroes" feels like a moot point when he'll make serious money without even trying. Having all these armor units be alts and/or seasonal units just feels like overkill on baiting whales.

I dunno. I used to think we wouldn't see any canonical nomads/horsemen in Heroes but Sue eventually happened. We not only got beast units but within a few short months we're suddenly running out of beast units to add from the series. And 2019 is a net increase in new, non-alt characters over the previous year so there's hope.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Glennstavos

[Fire Emblem Fan]

I think Brom has a chance to piggyback off Meg or Heather, Tauroneo has a chance to piggyback off Jill, and Gatrie off Shinon. Roger, Lorenz, and Horace could come on Archanea banners, Roger for meme power and the other two for importance/popularity. Oswin and Gilliam might have a chance due to importance on Oswin's part, and SS not having a big cast on Gilliam's. Hannibal could MAYBE sneak in, and Douglas could piggyback off Perceval or Larum, and Benny off the eventual Charlotte. I can't see the others making it in, though.

That's still only 12 canonical armored units, only half of the missing characters.

[Anacybele]

I don't see why Tauroneo and Gatrie at least shouldn't get in. They have notable connections to major Tellius characters, some of which are already in the game. Tauroneo was good friends with Greil when he was still Gawain, for example. Gatrie is a member of the Greil Mercs, all of whom have great reasons to be in.

As for other canon armors, I can't really say since either I hardly bothered with them in their respective games (which would be pretty much any non-Tellius armor), or they don't seem to have enough popularity/appeal.

[Xenomata]

I think your numbers are a little off there. Kellam's been in since day 0, what do ya mean waifus bias even at launch?

...

...okay bad jokes aside, I think it should be mentioned as well that the last true Armor unit we received, that is the last non-alt and non-Heroes OC who is an Armor unit in their original game, is Arden, though to be fair Hardin would also technically count, though I'm reading that his Emperor class was only affected by Armor slaying weaponry in Genealogy of the Holy war, which means he isn't considered an Armor in New Mystery... so I'm not sure how to handle that.

REGARDLESS, the last armor unit we received who was playable in their original game, and treating Zelgius as a Black Knight alt, is ARDEN. He's not even summonable, which means the last summonable canon Armor unit (if she can be considered canon) is Amelia.

So to put it in brief...

~The last canon armor we got was Surtr, who is a Heroes OC.

~The last canon armor we got who can be considered an Armor unit, or at least a Knight/General derivative, is Hardin.

~The last canon Knight/General we got was Arden.

~The last canon Knight/General we got who is part of the normal summoning pool is Amelia.

This is, of course, working under the assumption that Grima, Duma, Idunn, and Caineghis are not true Armor units, as the former 3 are final bosses who do not move (or at least don't seem to like to), while the latter wasn't anything like an Armor unit in his original game.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Xenomata

[Sunwoo]

The way I see it, I think armored units in general have two main issues.

1) They look like thwomps. And yes, for as much as I hate the fact that this is a valid reason, they're not going to stand out in a cast of 30, 40+ characters if they look visually uninteresting or even unattractive. I also find armor units to just look aesthetically displeasing in general. Their armor just looks really ... not good, with whatever the hell was going on in Awakening being my least favorite. This might not be as much of an issue in itself, but ...

2) The class itself is hit-or-miss in mainstream FE. Armors in the mainline FE games are typically characterized by low move, bad speed, and being too heavy to be carted around. Even if you like a specific armor knight, it could be really difficult having them keep up with the rest of your army, which might lead to some people just disliking the class as a whole. Personally, I only found armor knights in Radiant Dawn to be useful, and even then I never wanted to use them after I got more units to fill up my empty slots.

Armors are much better units in Heroes, yes, but I think the above two issues has made the characters who start off as armor knights not very popular overall, which affects how soon (or if at all) they get into the game. Perhaps if the armor units themselves and the general armor design was more akin to what we see from Etrian Odyssey's armor analogues (protector, hoplite, fortress, dragoon) they'd be a bit more popular based on design alone, but armor knight as a class in mainline FE is still very eh.

We should still get some actual canon armor knights, though. Bors is still Wendy's brother, Tauroneo is an awesome character, Gatrie is still part of the Greil Mercenaries, and Oswin is still cool. As well as the others I didn't mention specifically.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 minute ago, Xenomata said:

...okay bad jokes aside, I think it should be mentioned as well that the last true Armor unit we received, that is the last non-alt and non-Heroes OC who is an Armor unit in their original game, is Arden, though to be fair Hardin would also technically count, though I'm reading that his Emperor class was only affected by Armor slaying weaponry in Genealogy of the Holy war, which means he isn't considered an Armor in New Mystery... so I'm not sure how to handle that.

 

He looks pretty much like a General, but they just got rid of the weakness, as they later did with Zephiel's King class, to make him more intimidating as a foe. Or so I think, Hardin did have all capped stats barring HP (2 short of the cap) in FE3, which suggests he was supposed to be scary.

Arvis doesn't have the weakness because Nihil bestowed Crit immunity in Genealogy, and the effective bonus is a guaranteed critical hit in FE4. Although Zeus the Runesword Emperor of the Arena is weak to Armorslayer, and so are most Baron bosses and non-bosses, since they lack Nihil.

The Black Knight on the other hand lost his immune-to-all-but-Ragnell blessing in RD and didn't for some strange reason get the Nullify skill, the result being Hammers hammer him real easy. Hardin and Zephiel avoided this.

 

Also, I realize I kinda miscounted with the 24 by including Fado while not including Murdock or Bryce, so it's more 23 playables. 

[Florete]

2 hours ago, Icelerate said:

In 2018, we also got LA!Lyn, LA!Hector, L!Tiki, H!Myrrh, H!Kagero, H!Niles, H!Dorcas, B!Ephraim, W!Fae, W!Ephraim, W!Eirika, W!Cecilia as non canonical armours. That means we got 12 non canonical armours. Yikes!

You missed LA!Eliwood.

1 hour ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Actually, I'd say Meg is a pretty reasonable pick for a new canon playable Armor character because (1) she's sort of a meme character, though not Arden-tier, and (2) she's female.

I can definitely picture Meg getting prettied up for a Heroes debut.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 minute ago, Sunwoo said:

1) They look like thwomps.

*Euagh!* Or- however you pronounce their constipated grunt.

And ya know, Barth's haircut reminds me of their spike things actually.

 

9 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Perhaps if the armor units themselves and the general armor design was more akin to what we see from Etrian Odyssey's armor analogues (protector, hoplite, fortress, dragoon) they'd be a bit more popular based on design alone, but armor knight as a class in mainline FE is still very eh.

Protectors/Hoplites/Fortresses/Dragoons are so newbie friendly, and still useful to the pro on certain teams. Line Guard, Party Shield, the elemental Walls- all damage mitigation techniques FE Armors could only dream of.

I do think the Tellius Armors look good at least (ignoring the Gundam-like armor being less than realistic), but still EO certainly isn't bad on nice looking armor units:

Spoiler

I'm not counting Imperials, even though they are head to toe in armor, due to being all about offense and not defense. Nor those hideous Yggdroids.

Though to be fair, EO isn't quite so concerned with the veneer of realism. And it's a wholly different genre of game from FE. Not to mention half of its heavily armored, like all EO classes, are women, all of whom are, despite design sexism in other classes, as equally armored as their male counterparts. 

Although giving early modern flintlocks/portable cannons to Armor units in FE would be really awesome. FE4 Chapter 10 Julius approaches? Pfffff! Hannibal, prepare the Buster Cannon!

 

6 minutes ago, Florete said:

I can definitely picture Meg getting prettied up for a Heroes debut.

You know the saying- the gatcha takes off 30-100 pounds.

[Fabulously Olivier]

31 minutes ago, Florete said:

You missed LA!Eliwood.

I can definitely picture Meg getting prettied up for a Heroes debut.

That would literally be putting makeup on a pig.

[Tybrosion]

5 minutes ago, Etheus said:

That would literally be putting makeup on a pig.

Yeah and besides, it'd be much funnier if they get Soeda Ippei to draw her. 

[Von Ithipathachai]

8 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

You know the saying- the gatcha takes off 30-100 pounds.

B-but not looking like a supermodel is part of Meg's entire charm...  For me, at least.

[Anacybele]

51 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

Personally, I only found armor knights in Radiant Dawn to be useful

I agree, and this is why I never used armors outside of Tellius. I used Gatrie and Tauroneo in PoR even though armors were kinda eh there, but I liked both of them. And in RD, they were actually good, even though Tauroneo's availability was crap. Gatrie was really good, mainly because he was crazy fast for an armor. Brom was okay, but he got outshined by Gatrie being so useful. Meg is the only one that sucked, due to her poor join time and poor bases/starting level.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Anacybele

[Sunwoo]

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

*Euagh!* Or- however you pronounce their constipated grunt.

And ya know, Barth's haircut reminds me of their spike things actually.

 

Protectors/Hoplites/Fortresses/Dragoons are so newbie friendly, and still useful to the pro on certain teams. Line Guard, Party Shield, the elemental Walls- all damage mitigation techniques FE Armors could only dream of.

I do think the Tellius Armors look good at least (ignoring the Gundam-like armor being less than realistic), but still EO certainly isn't bad on nice looking armor units:

I'm not counting Imperials, even though they are head to toe in armor, due to being all about offense and not defense. Nor those hideous Yggdroids.

Though to be fair, EO isn't quite so concerned with the veneer of realism. And it's a wholly different genre of game from FE. Not to mention half of its heavily armored, like all EO classes, are women, all of whom are, despite design sexism in other classes, as equally armored as their male counterparts. 

Although giving early modern flintlocks/portable cannons to Armor units in FE would be really awesome. FE4 Chapter 10 Julius approaches? Pfffff! Hannibal, prepare the Buster Cannon!

Tellius's armor knights look all right, I do agree with that. But they're the only ones I find tolerable. Draug and Sheena's Heroes designs are really nice, though, but I question what is going on with Gwendolyn's ... everything.

You're right that EO and FE are two very different beasts, but considering that some of the recent FE armored knights have been doing stupid things like battle panties (where the fuck are Effie's pants, game) I don't think the armored EO class design would be too unfitting as long as it was standard among all the knights for a given country. The armored classes for EO are at least a bit more standardized amongst the dudes and the gals, and it's mainly the fanservice-looking classes that are ... well, less equal.

[Rezzy]

What's even crazier is that we haven't had a single 3-4* armor unit added to the summoning pool since launch.  We've got the same 4 units that we had then: Draug, Effie, Gwendolyn, Sheena.

 

EDIT: Funny you made this thread, because I was just trying to think who the last "Canon" armor would have been who wasn't an alt, seasonal, or OC.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Rezzy

[NekoKnight]

5 hours ago, Tybrosion said:

Yeah and besides, it'd be much funnier if they get Soeda Ippei to draw her. 

You act like Ippei's style is exclusively fugly men. The women he draws are actually quite pretty.

[Kempfnna]

The sad part is armour seasonals are basically the norm now. Kagero, Lukas, Flora and Felicia have absolutely no reason to be armours, they just are.

[Tybrosion]

11 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

You act like Ippei's style is exclusively fugly men. The women he draws are actually quite pretty.

Thanks, but I already knew that. I just found that idea a bit amusing. I wasn't trying to shit talk Ippei or his work in any way with my previous comments if that's the idea you got.

[Humanoid]

I want him to do a mainline FE game.

[Jave]

All of these "Ugly Meg" comments really hurt my heart. Meg is so cute and adorable that I really hope they don't alter her looks for her FEH debut.

If there is one Tellius character I'm hoping gets drawn by Kita Senri so that their design stays intact, it's her.

[Rezzy]

I wouldn't call Meg ugly, she's plump, but not hideous or anything.  She looks like what I would expect Brom's daughter to look like.

[Anacybele]

Yeah, I think Meg is rather cute for a plump girl too! And it isn't easy to look good while being overweight imo. For me, being overweight, especially VERY overweight, is a big turnoff.