On the subject of FE7 units, Farina's easily my favorite single unit in the game not counting Hector. Oswin is a close second.

I really, really like a lot of them as characters and most do just fine units, but I've nearly really had those three turn out poorly. I could talk about how much I love that but it's all nostalgia anyway, so I'll just say I'm really looking forward to finally playing Fates.

Kipsate

Netherlands45349 Posts

February 11 2016 07:54 GMT

#44

Is there ever going to be a game where archers/snipers dont suck tho

Ive never had 1 that could demolish stuff.

Laurens

Belgium4542 Posts

February 11 2016 07:58 GMT

#45

Shinon in RD is pretty good. Usually one of my top 5 killers IIRC.

chocorush

694 Posts

February 11 2016 08:05 GMT

#46

Archers don't suck in 14. Only magic, shuriken, and bows double at range, and bows have advantage over shuriken. There are so many ninjas in this game, that they definitely do a lot of work. Bow Knight gets kunai breaker as well which is really strong.

Cricketer12

United States13974 Posts

February 11 2016 08:06 GMT

#47

What do you guys think of the new weapon triangle?

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

February 11 2016 08:11 GMT

#48

Takumi's arguably in the running for best archer in the series.

Effie and Takumi are basically IS pushing Armor Knights and Archers to make them worth using.

arb

Noobville17921 Posts

February 11 2016 08:14 GMT

#49

On February 11 2016 16:54 Kipsate wrote:
Is there ever going to be a game where archers/snipers dont suck tho

Ive never had 1 that could demolish stuff.

i liked rebecca she always turned out good for me, also sue

imbasue

chocorush

694 Posts

February 11 2016 08:16 GMT

#50

It took me a long time to really remember it, but it's an interesting addition.

The accuracy penalties feel more dramatic this time around, so it feels like the weapon triangles actual matter. There are so many calculations in this game now that I've stopped doing them all and don't know all the fine details, but I think the main factor is overall gimped skill growths and slow weapon experience gain.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

February 11 2016 08:17 GMT

#51

On February 11 2016 17:06 Cricketer12 wrote:
What do you guys think of the new weapon triangle?

Unless IS gets rid of weapon rank stat bonuses, the new weapon triangle was a necessity. From FE11 onward, you get additional hit/damage bonuses based on your weapon rank with your attacking weapon. These bonuses apply if you have weapon triangle advantage or parity, but are lost if you have weapon triangle disadvantage.

The problem with this system is that it makes weapon types that exist outside the weapon triangle inordinately advantageous because you lose a lot more for having WTD than you gain for having WTA (and since enemies tend to have lower weapon ranks than the player, it doesn't apply equally to the enemies). As such, having a weapon type like tomes in FE13 that completely ignores the weapon triangle is just better than the weapon triangle weapon types.

Putting all the weapon types into a triangle relationship fixes this issue. Beaststones and Dragonstones exist outside the weapon triangle still, but the fact that they cannot be forged is enough of drawback for them to not be appealing in this regard (plus they're limited largely to units that can't use other weapon types unless reclassed anyway).

On February 11 2016 17:16 chocorush wrote:
The accuracy penalties feel more dramatic this time around, so it feels like the weapon triangles actual matter. There are so many calculations in this game now that I've stopped doing them all and don't know all the fine details, but I think the main factor is overall gimped skill growths and slow weapon experience gain.

I think the stat deflating that IS did was definitely a huge part of this.

When your whole team has speed/skill in the 30s and is getting 10/10/10/10 pair up boosts, +/- 10% from WTA/WTD doesn't mean a whole lot. Deflating stat growths/caps down to that of older series entries and vastly toning down pair up boosts definitely made these smaller numbers more significant.

Kipsate

Netherlands45349 Posts

February 11 2016 08:33 GMT

#52

Dunno, archers and snipers always seems to suffer from the fact that they can't solo/hold chokepoints very well due to the inability to attack melee units, bows are also don't deal enough damage against plate/armored unit, you also don't get weapon advantage. The only two things they are decent at is destroying casters(which you can do with melee units just fine since they have low defense) or aerial units. Aerial units often either have very low def like pegasus so they can be dealt with by melee or extremely weak res so you can deal with them with casters.. I always feel like you need to be considerably ahead of your enemy when you are running an archer/sniper in your lineup.

maybe this is fixed in Fates but that is my experience with archers.

chocorush

694 Posts

February 11 2016 08:52 GMT

#53

In previous games, Javelins and Hand Axes filled in well enough for ranged attack purposes. They're pretty heavily nerfed this time around with - 3 speed and no doubling.

In my experience, the mages you got were kind of bad, so zero was a dominant damage dealer for a good part of the game. Also, ninjas are really annoying to deal with, and bows are the only reliable way to not get screwed by the debuffs.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

February 11 2016 08:53 GMT

#54

Archers are fundamentally a player-phase focused offensive unit. A ton of their problems come from turtling and enemy-phase offense being the dominant strategy in many games in the series. Even when it isn't the dominant strategy, if your personal playstyle favors enemy phase offense, you will have a hard time making archers useful.

For me, the class I never end up using are Armor Knights/Generals. I tend to play heavily around high movement, and having a low Mov unit that is simultaneously too heavy for Pegs to rescue ends up being more of a nuisance than a benefit.

On February 11 2016 17:52 chocorush wrote:
In previous games, Javelins and Hand Axes filled in well enough for ranged attack purposes. They're pretty heavily nerfed this time around with - 3 speed and no doubling.

This fact also gives the magic weapons a unique niche. Since the Levin Sword/Shockstick/Bolt Axe can 1-2 range double, there's a significant payoff to raising a mixed Str/Mag unit (e.g. feeding Spirit Dusts to one of your Falcoknights).

Kipsate

Netherlands45349 Posts

February 11 2016 09:11 GMT

#55

They don't seem to be particularely useful when going offense either, casters are fairly mobile and while they can die to melee attacks are able to atleast retaliate, they have lower defensive stats but neither lower level Archers nor Casters should run alone. Once upgraded it becomes not even a contest, casters are faster(esp when they are Valkyrie's), stronger against more enemies, more versatile(healing, buffs/debuffs). Sorcerers can demolish units like Bow Knights/Snipers can't(although that probably means more that Sorcerer's are broken).

As for armor Knights/generals. I don't tend to use them very often due to the immobility of them so I generally reclass them when I get the chance(if you get fast/mobile units with the def or Knights/generals they become monsters). Early game when you don't have the luxury they are invaluable at holding chokepoints or tanking for the real dpsers though. I don't really get that same idea from archers apart from them ocasionally being able to take out a flying unit.

Laurens

Belgium4542 Posts

February 11 2016 09:16 GMT

#56

Depends a bit on which FE you're playing, no?

Pointing at RD again, I can't think of a caster that could rival Shinon. Tbh Micaiah is probably the only one I used in my playthroughs, and that's because she's forced.

Ilyana has the highest possible availability but she's terrible.

In Awakening, I agree with you.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

February 11 2016 09:20 GMT

#57

There's like 4 archers in the series that I can say that I felt satisfied using, and two of them are from the same game. That goes up to ~6 if you count mounted archers.

Those few were quite useful though, so I'm more convinced it's a problem of general map/game design + most individual archers being shit, not the class itself. And given how pushed a unit Takumi is, I expect to use him and be satisfied.

Kipsate

Netherlands45349 Posts

February 11 2016 09:29 GMT

#58

Is there a thing as the Nomad class in Fates? as much as I disliked archers the mounted Archer felt quite useful to me when I could get my hands on it in Rekka no Ken. High mobility is an automatic plus in my book(hence my love for Pegasus Knights/Wyern Knights and Paladins)

Dismay

United States1180 Posts

February 11 2016 09:30 GMT

#59

I've heard Mozume is really good, but Takumi's obviously going to be better because of his unique weapon. The only Archer I ever really liked using was Shinon, though

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

February 11 2016 09:31 GMT

#60

Mozume is bad, lol. She's like Donnel without any of the payoff that actually made you slog through using Donnel (passing Pegasus to children that don't otherwise have access).

On February 11 2016 18:29 Kipsate wrote:
Is there a thing as the Nomad class in Fates? as much as I disliked archers the mounted Archer felt quite useful to me when I could get my hands on it in Rekka no Ken. High mobility is an automatic plus in my book(hence my love for Pegasus Knights/Wyern Knights and Paladins)

Both archer classes have a mounted promotion option. Outlaws in Conquest promote to Bow Knight (and Outlaw gets Mov+1 like Thieves in Awakening so they have 9 Mov + ranged attack which sounds pretty damn good), and Archers in Birthright promote to Kinshi Knight (basically a Lances+Bows Pegasus promote).