Bias, Truth, & Ike.

[@kingdyste5289]

The one thing I really wish they did do with Ike in PoR is let him get axes upon promotion. Does it fix all his issues? No, he's still footlocked in a game where cavs and fliers dominate, and he promotes at a point where it's likely most units you wanted to use alongside him already have promoted. Does it give him some more potential usage? I'd argue yes, letting him have higher Mt weapons and 1-2 range before Ragnell at least saves him from the issues of being swordlocked. But most importantly it makes sense in-character: Ike's basically the Mercenary class as a main character, and Greil's Hero class is literally just Ike's Lord class with added Axe proficiency. Why wouldn't he want to use a weapon his father used too? And really, the story reason I feel has place in biases here; part of Ike's journey is to be stronger, and the game does try and nudge you towards improving Ike's abilities throughout the game through the narrative. When people are making tier lists and stuff like that, they aren't really going to be looking at the story reasons they encourage you to make Ike stronger, but if you're playing the game for the first time, then you're going to want to follow that narrative most likely. Hell, a lot of people still do even after that first playthrough because it fits with his journey; I know I do.

[@OrpheusMC]

I found this really fascinating. I think in addition to bias, awareness of your playstyle and how you approach the game also helps clarify unit discussion. It’s why I never really try to make my own cases for how strong units are. Cause I dislike the hardest modes of almost all the games, play just Hard usually and I will always sacrifice efficiency for safety cause that’s just the way my brain defaults. I know that’s not the case for most players lol.

[@MythrilZenith]

There really shouldn't be as much negative stigma about playing FE games on difficulties that aren't the hardest modes in the community. Sure, some games are more fun and engaging on their hardest modes, but I enjoyed Awakening on Hard as a relaxing game mode that was challenging enough to not turn my brain off but not demanding of perfection like Lunatic.

[@boredomkiller99]

The other thing is....most fire emblem hardest modes are kind of designed like crap Fe6 hard is unplayed tested and creates an incredibly warped experience that only works because the effed up and gave certain units hard mise bonuses due to an oversight. Fe 9 Manic is legit misery Fe 10 decided to remove WT and seeing enemy ranges bexause WTF not. Fe 11 makes only your weapon rank matter Fe 13 Lunatic basically forces you to juggernaut with one super unit or use dlc When you get down to it only like Blazing sword , Sacred Stones, Engage and some versions of Fates do the hardest modes that aren't somehoe completely flawed at the jump

[@jemolk8945]

@@boredomkiller99 I beg to differ with regard to Blazing Sword -- that game's hard modes slash deployment slots into the freaking ground. That is also a terrible way to increase difficulty.

[@neongrey333]

@@MythrilZenith yeah like... i tend to prefer playing on whatever difficulty the designers were thinking of you playing when they made the game. and sometimes there's no way to know but stuff like the gba games where you have to _unlock_ harder difficulties than normal is enough circumstantial evidence to me for normal. I feel like some of the more recent ones (awakening+ mostly) you're looking at hard if for no other reason than because you don't even have to be awake for normal. if it does require perfection, that tells me that _they didn't design for this to be the way most people will play._ sure, they exist as a test of skill and beating them does say something about your skill but man i don't want that pain in the ass in my life most of the time. honestly i don't much care for difficulty settings at all in general; they just make for dick-measuring contests and you always know that one of them got the most attention from the dev team. At least some games tell you what the modifications specifically are from a baseline but yeesh.

[@wouterW24]

⁠@@boredomkiller99isn't fe6 normal still harder then fe8 hard overall, a game that still gets a lot of attention even with Seth breaking it in half because a lot of units are viable and it's exactly it's moderate design that makes it fun to play. The bugged early game is also infamously harsh while the normal version is a much more moderate start(while still being meaty chapters in enemy count and size compared to fe8 earlygame). It feels like it should get more consideration for fe6's overall identity and to a lesser extent unit discussion.

[@michael_betts]

I don't look at unit quality for Ike or mist. I use them because I want to defeat the black knight, and that's about it. If your believe defeating the black knight is a goal in the game that should be beaten, Ike is the only unit who can do that goal, and so training is essential.

[@MaddMoke]

As Soren (Kierkegaard) once said: Ike can only be understood after a playthrough. But must be fielded forwards. You have him like it or not. Might as well use him when needed and give him a few boosts to make the chapters easier to bear. A few levels and stat boosters might just help me get to the end of the game. But I also like him so I like watching him bonk occasional enemies with his sword before endgame

[@MythrilZenith]

@@MaddMoke No joke I've been meaning to reread the Kierkegaard philosophy books I had for a class in college that I definitely didn't appreciate then as much as I do now. You just reminded me of that.

[@MaddMoke]

@@MythrilZenith *bows*

[@lughemblem]

The truth definitely lies somewhere in the middle here. Ike is a mid unit. He is mildy competant at combat, but has a hard time getting to it and those that can get to it usually have better combat than him. Either extreme opinion baffles me. There is someone in the community who also says Ike is as bad as or worse than Roy (can't remember which) and that always felt off to me. Maybe if PoR wasn't one of the 2 easiest games in the series, I could see that. A game's difficulty can wildly affect how units are tiered.

[@T____W____7777]

Yeah this is pretty much it. Ike is an ok unit that can be good sometimes and bad other times.Some stuff is similar to Roy, but the game is totally different so you can’t compare the two too much. He’s forces deployed and PoR isn’t a difficult game, but people love to give their over the top opinions online. So, the truth is going to be somewhere in the middle of it all.

[@boredomkiller99]

Honestly Fe6 stans have being trying to have Roy beat the being terrible accusations for awhile when Roy is truly a miserable unit that seems to have misunderstand the design of characters like Leif and Marth who are rarely your strongest unit but due to how the games are designed end up being super relevant while Roy's claim to fame is he can use rapier on chapter 4.....

[@variksigurdsson1447]

Ive been taking issue with the assumption of highest difficulty for years, especially the comically high ones like in FE12 or Awakening. I also support getting that video

[@Xertaron.]

That's the natural result of listening too much to people with extreme opinions. I, for one, never cared about efficiency and all I look at when evaluating a unit is how good they are when I get them and how good they get when trained, without giving them any resources like stat boosters, as well as how difficult the training arc is, and if they have any unique or fun aspects to them. I don't consider Marcia or Jill top tier because they make the game "efficient". If you don't care about turn count and don't feed them bonus exp, then Marcia is complete garbage in combat, while Jill is just ok. In a casual playthrough where you just want to play the game, they're far from the best option. Ike is fine, you don't have to worry about him dying unless you overexpose him, he can be a competent combat unit and his promotion comes at a perfect time - if you're using him moderately he'll hit lvl 20 in ch17. That being said, in terms of efficiency, he doesn't offer much - he's a 5 move unit that isn't particularly good at anything. And in a game with super canto that is akin to death sentence. So to answer the question - yes, Ike can be the best and the worst at the same time. It all depends on who you ask and what they value in a unit.

[@Devmon52]

I think one of my favourite things about Fire Emblem, which has led to contribution of extreme opinions on both sides of units, is growth rates. I love their random, but weighted, nature because they take a unit in a game and give them general expectations. There is room for a unit to be both awful and good depending on the rolls, leading towards telling more unique stories across playthroughs. This makes each playthrough a little different and gives every player a variation on their unit's story. It can also influence bias as lucky or unlucky runs can skew perspective on average performances of units. I appreciate the philosophical considerations in topic videos like this.

[@MythrilZenith]

Yeah, I think a lot of people try to approach Fire Emblem as if it's some scientifically "solved" game and just assuming the growths will roll close to their averages. Statistically speaking there aren't NEARLY enough level-ups in a single run of Fire Emblem for the law of averages to take effect. It's interesting to talk about to a point, but shouldn't actually be prescriptive of play patterns.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

It's how Stahl ended up being my favorite unit in Awakening. In my first playthrough, I was ready to like Sully, but she kept falling again and again, while Stahl got blessed. That also pairs perfectly with his normal guy "gimmick" (which felt less gimmicky, making him more reliable, and help the emergent underdog narrative)

[@Devmon52]

@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 I love to hear it! It's wonderful when units that might be underwhelming perform so much better. I'm glad your Stahl was great for you!

[@Laezar1]

The difficulty assumption is a bit frustrating. Especially considering a lot of the game unit evaluation operates on hitting certain thresholds and those change with difficulty. There is this idea that "if it works in hard mode then it'll work in any difficulty" but a unit that struggles to double in hard mode could have no issue in normal mode making a mediocre unit suddenly valued very highly. And there is also a bit of condescension towards players like "but the game is easy if you don't play in hard mode so why would you want advice for easier difficulty?" but it's from players that are already experienced enough to not struggle in higher difficulty and it's also a bit strange that "tier list" are geared towards expert play when those that need it the most are those that are new to the game and are more likely to play in lower difficulty.

[@MythrilZenith]

Good points! The FE community tends to be highly cloistered around itself particularly in its grand assumptions of difficulty that when you step back for two seconds it actually becomes easy to see why so many people have such wildly different opinions about units.

[@ashleythompson801]

Well there's a fundamental issue in that last part, you're assuming tier lists are for sharing helpful information and giving people who need it advice when in fact their purpose is either farming clicks (for content creators) or being used as a weapon in internet arguments so you can feel smugly superior to anyone who disagrees with you (for everyone else).

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

There is also the note of hard mode bonuses and the value of certain units being inherently tied to enemy stats. The biggest case of this is Rutger from FE6, in my opinion. Medium Rutger is... honestly pretty mediocre. The value of being able to kill bosses has gone down, Rutger is worse by every meaningful metric, and in some areas Rutger is frankly unimpressive. Despite his overwhelming performance on Hard, I would honestly struggle to put him in the top half of units in FE6 on medium

[@letsmakeit110]

if every unit can solo the game, then the tier list would just be everyone equally in S, which is unhelpful. So if you want to make a tier list, you have to stress test the units somehow. The community hive mind uses turn counts, hence their aversion to grinding. Personally I prefer withholding resources. Who can fulfill objectives when you don't spend money on them? Don't give them stat boosters?

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@letsmakeit110 Resource consumption is usually one of the more important metrics for me. Good units can operate with only minimal resources, in the form of basic weapons, maybe a promotion item, and kills they can take for themselves. The low cost, to decent/good return makes them usually net neutral in terms of resource tax, give or take a little. Occasionally I'll consider a more resource hungry unit Good, if either the resources they want are very low competition, or else they give spectacular returns on specific, reasonably valuable resources. What makes a Good unit a Good unit is NOT that they have the unique power to kill everything, it's that they can do this with very little deliberate investment. The best units actively generate resources for others, like dancers, jagens or other units that excel in setting up kills for other units, or units that can just kinda sit there and make everyone else better. They can recieve next to nothing, and still contribute to other units. By not using one of these units, you actually have fewer resources to distribute to other units, especially those that are Okay or worse. Notably for Great units, they do NOT have to have much in the way of longevity. A unit that's doing this for like, 3, 4 maps, before becoming an otherwise lower performance unit can still be treated as a great unit, since it doesn't cost anything to not use them afterwards. Sometimes I'll even separate the two. Three Houses Catherine is like, the poster child of this quirk. Okay units require investment to function. They're almost always going to operate at a net negative, but the return on what they need isn't bad, and that's what the game is all about. These are the standard for units. They'll put in honest work if you invest in them, but will never really be runaway successes unless something weird happens. Bad units need disproportionate, or specific, high value or competition resources to be on the level of okay. Bad units suck up resources that could be used to make other okay or bad units good, and often require specific, odd playstyles to facilitate their use, especially in the realm of kill setups. In the worst cases, they're an active detriment to your performance, because the resources they need to come online slows your overall momentum, even if your actual units don't often notice this reduced performance individually. Terrible units require almost constant resource investment over the course of the game to function, and become taxes on the overall rest of the army to function. These units begin to actively make better units worse, because the things they need to achieve being decent are things that could otherwise be much more flexible or situational boons to whoever needs it, and need regular support from the rest of your army to function. Abysmal units... cannot function. There are no resources short of RNG abuse or other things that tow the line of "cheating" in your single player, children's video game, that can make this unit Good. Resources invested in them are resources wasted, plain and simple. Doesn't mean it can't be fun to optimize them anyways, but almost always will decimate the opportunities of any other unit that is okay or worse. The assumption of the way I look at it, is that the units are all performing about the same from the perspective of the evaluation. The Bad unit IS killing everything, soloing entire sides of maps and blending boss-tier enemies. The difference between the Bad unit and the Good unit is that the Bad unit has eaten a bunch of stat boosters, has had kills set up for them for the entire game, and considers a legendary weapon their personal property, while the Good unit is doing it with Iron Lances or Handaxes, has probably never had a single kill deliberately set up for them since the game started, they just got told to go that way and they killed some things, and maybe got a surplus stat booster for an off stat because nobody else really needed it, and it was rotting in the convoy. Not every unit performs by killing things, of course, but this logic more or less holds up to units of all types. There are floors and cielings to particular unit types, it's pretty hard for a staff unit to ever fall to Bad or lower, for example, but, for the most part, it's pretty stable, in my time thinking about it. Probably the only place this gets weird are units like Athos, who is a Great unit by my reckoning, because of the massive, game warping presence he has in the endgame, which is such that it actually gives him value before he's even recruited, as he reduces the value of certain performance thresholds of other units, thereby freeing resources up for more immediate use. You don't need to invest in a unit like Raven who might be able to fight the Fire Dragon and other bosses of the chapter, because Athos can just do it, meaning certain other resource taxes are lowered. Athos is, in part, what lets you coast off of Marcus, then Pent for the rest of the game, for example, because whatever hypothetical lategame shortcomings might occur from not training a unit enough are corrected for by Athos. But, that kinda stops being about a unit, and more about the specific qualities of the game at that point. I just can't see ways to justify the way Athos or like, Giffca don't have an impact on overall demands on the army at what might otherwise be the moment where how big the numbers you have are might actually matter, and nobody really cares where these kinds of units go anyways so it's probably not a big deal. If that makes sense. It probably doesn't. I'm tired.

[@spring8099]

God I wish the fe community actually listens to the difficulty talk, whenever it comes

[@MythrilZenith]

No shot but I'll scream into the aether either way.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

Now, that discussion reminds me of FE7!Marcus, a unit everyone us wrong about. FE7 is my first game, and Ive played through it a lot throughout the years. I started when the discourse was around Marcus, the awful Exp Thief, ans I saw the discussion turning to him bring the equal of Seth, the second coming of Sigurd, a God amongst men able to solo the entire game without breaking a sweat. My personal experience is that when I tried to use him exclusively once and felt forced to restart the entire game, because he alone couldn't handle everything the game was throwing at me. (My opinion is that he's actually closer to Oyfey. A great secondary/tertiary Paladin, but you should be wary of training other units to compensate for his weaknesses.)

[@MythrilZenith]

Honestly, yeah. I tried a Marcus Solo without rigging level-ups, and while his combat was still fine up to Cog of Destiny the map design was just so clearly fatal to true unit solos that I softlocked my save file.

[@boredomkiller99]

Yeah while Marcus is really good Marcus solo is a ****ing terrible idea that requires a very strict gameplay route and giving him all boosters and ignoring certain objectives. Marcus is not Seth, Marcus boss killing becomes mediocre to just plain blah as the game goes on and certain enemy types give him a lot of issues. Marcus is good because of how he relates to the game and cast. Early on he can either be your delete button when things get hairy and someone misses a vital hit, you can weigh him down with rescue to weaken enemies to feed to growth units, he can handle himself so he can go for side objectives or handle things while your units do other things and he is a 8 move mounted unit so he is able to rescue and canto so he can do rescue chains or transport foot units. All for zero investment. However Marcus has flaws, his speed stat+growth will cause him issues with doubling faster enemies, he will start to match up poorly against bosses who he can't not only not double but also still start getting doubled by. However even in the second half he still has mounted utility and can fight fodder just fine and by the point he has issues with combat you have your growth units hitting their stride and new recruits like Hawkeye,Pent and Harken who are generally the units handling combat needs He is a nice low invested slot in but even though he is put in the top of the top tier, their is vital context as his strength and role varies wildly throughout the game and Marcus starts giving the weight to other characters as the game goes on In general I wonder the importance of a best character because Awakening is really the only game that naturally becomes a true one man show

[@rekenner]

People love to talk up Roy's promotion, tho I find him to be bad after promo even if you gave him favoritism. And yet, Ike gets a very similar prf and promo bonus set and higher availability for his power spikes. So, idk. Community prescription of Ike is weird

[@MythrilZenith]

@@rekenner Roy post promotion performance really is solely "Promotion + Binding Blade" and its attack limit of 20 hampers him too. He is a dragon delete button, for sure, but against everything else he's merely competent at best. Not unusable, but never gonna compete with the rest of your army post-ch21 where they are not only promoted but near capped.

[@NoMoreCrumbs]

Roy is truly awful. Bases and growths that would be poor even in FE8, but in a much, much harder game. Dude is a backpack for nearly the entire game

[@joeyjose727]

I’d be interested in a video about the assumption of difficulty like you mentioned!

[@MythrilZenith]

I'm gonna have to brace for impact with how much of the FE community house I'll be bringing down with that.

[@juicyjuustar121]

3:42 "Heck, I could make another entire video about the difficulty assumption and how it's poisoning Fire Emblem discourse" I would be super interested in hearing your take on this, cuz I've personally hated the assumption that all tier lists must be based around the hardest difficulty available and found it to be very useless for a majority of players

[@MythrilZenith]

Sounds like you're not alone on that, will definitely be on the list of things to cover!

[@PeevedLatias]

This is of course my own take, but it's not meant to be. Tier lists are not recommendation guides, but a medium for discussion. Assume for an instant it's for a lower difficulty. Okay. Which? What about the speed at which the game is played? How much do you care about reliability? It still doesn't really help. A character guide may be more what you're after. It's just that a lot of people making guides think that harder difficulties are more interesting to tier. For instance, if both units are able to one round everything and are effectively immortal, you are effectively just tiering by availability.

[@juicyjuustar121]

@@PeevedLatias that's a fair take. I personally think tier lists SHOULD be able to have use as guides (and a lot of people who make tier lists speak about them as if they are), and it's not so much that I think a lower difficulty should be the standard as much as it is that I think there shouldn't BE a standard, and every list should just specify what the playstyle they're ranking by is. the unfortunate thing is that most people who make good tier lists are well, good at the game, and thus probably don't have experience with the lower difficulties to make tier lists based on them

[@goodgamer1419]

I think a good amount of ikes popularity is that he is significantly better than most other lords of his time. There wasnt a better lord in english games (excluding radiant dawn ike) till like crom

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

This is also true and worth remembering. For most western fans of the series, your prior Lord selection consisted of Eliwood, Lyn, Hector, Erika, and Ephraim, and Ike is DEFINITELY closer to Hector and Ephraim than he is to Erika, Ephraim, or Lyn. Ike CAN fight, and CAN contribute to lategame combat with his assortment of perks, even with only a reasonable and fair amount of investment. He's rather mediocre as a unit, but as a Lord, is definitely closer to one of the "good ones", for the group he hangs out with. And then nor helping was Miciah, a Lord so whatever that not even the game she's in wants you to care about her as much as Ike.

[@SonicTheHedgedawg]

This was good, but it feels like it's opening the door for future videos about the discourse around unit vision discussion.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

An interesting aspect that I think is uniquely applicable to Ike, is Super Smash Bros. A few characters over the years have gotten a big part of their modern charictatization through their appearance in Smash, and Ike is an odd case where this occured with a character in the middle of their popularity, rather than being the only characterization of the character in a decade or more. Not even Intelligent Systems is immune to this; Roy as presented in Engage shares less with the peaceful, almost pacifistic Roy, who is clearly in over his head with an idealistic outlook on human nature, as presented in FE6, than it does with the aggressive, fiery hothead warrior prince presented in Smash. Ike has gotten infected by his presentation in Smash pretty harshly. The idea that Ike is powerful is almost assuredly bleed from Smash. The idea that Ike is a burly, patient engine of destruction is from Smash. The idea that Ike is a calm, patient, mature, almost Guts-like figure is from Smash. Ike is a "heavy" character in the minds of many, despite his actual, on-paper performance being more close to the standard mediocre Lord than a wrecking ball like Sigurd.

[@armorbearer9702]

You reminded me of something I learned from competitive Pokémon. When the competitive scene first comes out, offensive strategies are favored. As the metagame develops, defensive strategies are developed. I imagine something similar happening for Fire Emblem. Newcomers probably favor whoever destroys the enemy the fastest at first. On later runs, they probably experiment a little or think more long term on what units to train.

[@ElutPesto]

Ike is not the best unit in his game or even remotely close, but also generalizing statements like "he doesnt have 1-2 range for most of the game=unit bad" is kind of disingenuous too So many enemy types in FE9 dont get one-rounded by handaxes anyway and there is a lot of value in using strong 1-range weapons even on units that have 1-2 range options because of the high bulk of everything Even IF you deploy Marcia/Jill/Kieran etc and only give them 1-2 range weapons, at the start of player phase there is usually going to be a couple of enemies nearby that are weak, so Ike in that way as a guaranteed unit in your army still serves as part of the "cleanup crew" so that the aforementioned units are able to move forward quicker to repeat the process And Ike's 1-range combat is perfectly serviceable anyways. He never feels like a nuisance or a liability like some other lords do, and its pretty obvious that FE9 wants you to at least keep him competitive to some extent and its not hard to do either TLDR: Ike is fine

[@EZog58]

Big YES to this. I'm on Ch 25 of my first Maniac run, having beaten Normal/Hard 20+ times in my life. Enemy bulk around Ch 18 gets so high that Hand Axes and Javs just don't cut it anymore. There is no point in having 1 to 2 range unless you can either clean well or at least kill some of the enemies on enemy phase. Forged slims, thunder tomes, and whatever Silver weapons you have are your best options for most units, but with the forging cap per chapter, you will be very limited on those weapons. Most player's aren't using any other good sword units in their army, with Stefan being a good filler most of the time. Aether Ike may be inconsistent, but he will have almost exclusive access to Laguzslayer, Killing Edge, Brave Sword, 2 Silver Blades, and a bunch of other very good weapons, and with supports, he'll have reliable enough avoid. Ike will actually kill things if trained, which is a tough benchmark in Maniac. He's not top tier, but he's useful enough throughout. And then he gets Ragnell, of course, and it's GG from there.

[@jemolk8945]

The reason I play Fire Emblem is that, even at its easiest, it always requires thought. The endpoint of efficiency discourse as it currently stands, I think, is an attempt to make that no longer true. It is my opinion that what is being done is people fighting the game and the way it wants to be played -- by which I do not mean ironman, or anything of the sort, but rather reacting to unpredictable outcomes and reasoning through your options as information about your particular run reveals itself. This, incidentally, is why ambush spawns are not, in fact, bad design. They serve the same purpose that randomness does -- you do not know the outcomes of all actions ahead of time, only probabilities and best guesses. They prevent you from attempting to overrely on a single juggernaut that you throw into the midst of a pile of enemies, even if you do the math ahead of time. They force you to _think,_ to use all your units as best you can, and to consider which probabilities you are most comfortable risking things on. What's this got to do with Ike? Well, the major criticism of Ike is his lack of 1-2 range, and lack of a mount. The thing is, while those are useful, they are by no means of such overwhelming importance as to define a unit's value. You can make every bonus exp time limit with foot units and an extreme focus on player phase, and the strategies involved are not notably convoluted -- but they do require thought and on-the-fly adaptation, rather than trying to force your way through the game with an overleveled Titania and a forged Hand Axe. Ike grows quickly and becomes very strong, but starts off somewhat slow and lacks 1-2 range. That should inform _how_ you use him, not _whether_ you use him. Instead, some people are only interested in seeing whether a character can be shoehorned into the most thoughtless way of playing the game. That's not to say bad units don't exist, or that any unit can always be used well -- for another few examples from Path of Radiance, Bastian and Lucia are incredible disappointments. Their primary damage stats just aren't high enough to be reliable even on normal mode. Lucia regularly fails to secure kills even with a silver sword, and Bastian is similarly difficult to use, with the added "bonus" of Corrosion, which will never usefully break an enemy's weapon, but will sometimes cause them to drop it for your use in notably worse condition. Binding Blade Sophia, meanwhile, is an obvious example for a badly designed growth unit, since she starts so far behind that she needs to get lucky with her only ever slightly above average growths even to catch up. The problem is that certain entire roles in your roster are written off as worthless due to an overfocus on a single strategy that is assumed to be the best -- maximum speed at the expense of everything else. It isn't the most fun way to play the game, and it isn't even the most effective! Everything else gets called boringly slow, or worse, grinding, but it's certainly not grinding, and if you find the moment-to-moment gameplay of actually playing the map to be agonizingly boring, why are you even playing the game at all?! Sometimes it seems like people are so hyperfocused on reaching the finish line as fast as possible that they forget to actually appreciate everything that happens along the way. How on earth is _that,_ in any sense, optimal? Optimized to most efficiently reach a particular goal, yes, but is that actually the goal we _want_ to aim at? Are we _trying_ to just move past the game as quickly as possible, as though the act of playing it were a chore and the only joy to be found in it was only arrived at by reaching the point where we no longer "need" to? I'd say the FE community is optimizing for all the wrong things, and completely failing to realize it by not even considering the fact that all optimization is toward a particular goal at the expense of other, conflicting goals, rather than some generalized, nebulous "perfection." Sorry, that was more rant than argument. It's just something that's been frustrating me about FE discourse for a while, and I'm afraid I may have let my annoyance show more than anyone on the receiving end would really deserve.

[@MythrilZenith]

Nah, that's totally fine. "Efficiency" discourse has become self-consuming to the point that it's wrapped up a significant portion of the FE community in a blind self-assumption that its end goals are desirable, even if players like myself find little to no interest in said "efficiency." If it's a necessary strategy to beat the hardest mode of a game, like Lunatic Awakening or New Mystery, then fine, I'll bite. But if it's just turning an otherwise-engaging game into a total snoozefest, then sorry but I'm interested in actually playing the game, not just "beating" it. Totally with you on that one.

[@rhombusx]

I find that not just difficulty assumptions but ANY assumptions at all create biased arguments. All the nuances of "optimal" playthroughs already assume pre-knowledge of just about all units, all chapters, all skills, all items, and all XP sources. Is a 10th playthrough, or a 1st playthrough with a thorough guide/walkthrough a more "valid" playthrough than a first blind run through a game? I certainly don't think so. As for the Ike debate specifically, I think "best" and "worst" are pretty rough to quantify. However, he does get an objectively really good weapon and a really good personal skill, he's in every chapter of the game, and has solid bases. Saying he's the "best" might be a tough argument, but I think it's abundantly clear that he's not the worst. If the argument is just he's the worst because him dying causes an instant game over, that's simply a game mechanic that can't really be held against him just as him being the only unit that can capture and hence progress the game isn't an argument for him.

[@grauenritter9220]

he also gets a massive, massive buff in RD

[@MythrilZenith]

@@grauenritter9220 buffed so hard his unit model GETS buff!

[@grauenritter9220]

@@MythrilZenith buffed so hard that Japan thought he was too apelike

[@flintlocke1344]

PLEASE make that video about the difficulty assumption and how it’s poisoning Fire Emblem discourse

[@jierdareisa4313]

Long story short: to avoid misunderstandings, one should make clear the specific subset of conditions under which they evaluate something. E.g. "I'm playing on Hard and trying to minimise turn count" ; "I'm playing on Normal and I'm trying to beat the game as easily as possible, but without excessive grinding". Edit: And one should also take into account the random nature of level-ups, which makes average stats a pretty bad indicator of what to expect of a unit.

[@melindavang564]

I just love FE9 discussions in general xD. In my opinion, I think most players have a positive bias/opinion on Ike as a unit due to how he grows in the story. He is not of noble birth, like the lords before him, and his naivete of the world around him makes the experience of learning alongside him more relatable. Story and character bias aside, another reason for his positive bias is probably due to the difficulty that was available in the west, the most difficult being hard. A one-time or fist-time playthrough on hard or lower, most players will automatically try to level him up without even thinking about it. He will more than likely end up being one of the units you make sure doesn't fall behind, therefore he will never be bad or underperforming. This coupled with that fact that once Ike gets 1-2 range, Ike will have either been, at worse, a good unit, able to keep up in levels and stats, to now a high tier/god-like unit able to now fight anything and everything. It is only through multiple playthroughs, where the player experiments and learns more of the game, or especially playthroughs on mania difficulty, which was only accessible to the japan version of FE9, that I think players really see how mid of a unit Ike is. FE9 is a game i revisit every so years just because I really love the game. Most of the time when I revisit the game, I actually try to avoid playing mania because of how much more optimally I have to try to play and how much more RNG can screw up a unit or a run. When you have other units you feel need prioritization, like the cavs and fliers, Ike, while still important, doesn't have as much of a presence on the battlefield. Even his aether skill, while easily the best occult skill in FE9, on mania, isnt as appealing as the wrath resolve combo due to how setting it up to have it active when you need it too vs a skill that is going to be RNG based. I've played the game enough where the death of units dont bother me and if a run ends, it ends. Mania, while I do visit the difficulty from time to time again, isnt as fun to me so most of the time i revisit FE9 on hard or normal. Love all things FE9 related, so awesome video!

[@MorphBall1]

"Ike is a microcosm for all of human experience" Never thought I would hear such a sentence.

[@Venomdrad]

Ike is not a bad lord at all in POR. He has a good stat spread and 1-2 range legendary sword. He does his job fine and you want to train him so he beat the Black Knight. It’s just that the tier lists rate mounted units very highly in POR, due to super canto, well rounded stats, and high mov. Good infantry units are overshadowed as a result.

[@Xcross15]

After 50ish playthroughs of POR, I gotta say one thing, the chapter 1 Seraph Robe Belongs to Ike. Nothing cinches the early game and leads to Ike Snowballing regardless of difficulty. Otherwise, I tend to save stat boosters for the mid-late game to fix the lows or improve the highs of a chosen group of units for a playthrough. I have never had Ike cap less then 4 stats by the end of a playthrough and never needed any stat boosters other than the seraph robe to get him going. I don't think he is bad at all, but I think that we get to see a non-noble main character grow and learn really helps ground us in the story and connect to him.

[@flintlocke1344]

Commenting again to share my experience with Ike I’m partway through my first FE9 run. I generally prefer to actually use my Lords, and I knew Ike and Mist would be my only available units to fight the black knight, so I made a concentrated effort to train them up. My Ike was spectacularly Str-screwed for his first several levels, not proccing Str until around Lv6-8 if I remember correctly. I found it frustrating but also sort of funny, and compensated with an energy drop and soft-resetting some BEXP levels to ensure some Str increases. He had a very rough start, but he can absolutely get stuff done.

[@FireEmbros]

Im not gonna lie. When I initially clicked on this video, I expected something a little bit different. I do agree that bias does enter into unit analysis, but I wish you had delved more into the why this is the case. I don’t think you can forgo talking about the higher difficulties, particularly maniac mode, when talking about FE9. Sure, not everybody has access to it, but it is important to at least acknowledge, as we’ve very much noted that units value tend to drastically decrease or increase depending on the difficulty, either by product or HM bonuses, or better weapon ranks, or just being more reliable in general. Ike is the epitome of this, where some people only playing HM can see him being equivalent to useless, but on maniac he greatly simplifies and is a great addition to the endgame finale. Now I’m not one to justify a units performance due to 1 or 2 chapters, but PoR Ike holds up significantly even against the majority of enemies during the game. People put a lot of stock into the 1-2 range thing, but not realizing that, for the majority of PoR, unless you’re heavily forging the 1-2 range weapon, and even then on maniac mode, you most likely will not 1 round with it, meaning it’s better to let a 2 range hit I , and consistently do more damage with a 1 range on the rest of the incoming, particularly with most narrow corridor maps that occur in PoR chapters from 18 to 23 ish. I do like the idea behind the video and it’s a great vid, I just wish more about Ike and what his impact in the game had been correlated to the interpretation of the units value, even if only on HM and below.

[@17Master]

Difficulty assumption is not poisonING discourse. It has fully poisonED discourse.

[@NekoNikkiNyan]

Im commenting so the algorithm doesnt kill the video

[@DunYappin]

Great video. I go back and forth with these ideas about other characters namely Colm, Neimi and Amelia from FE8 who I am biased towards though many consider them to be some of the worst characters. Your point about who Ike is reverberated with me because my Ike was terrible and underleveled so I never got the hype. My experience with Ike was similar to my experience with every lord before echoes: Alm which is to say I use them because they're mandatory not because I have a fondness for their playstyle or stats. I wonder how much that obligation shapes our perception of characters and for example a character like Roy if not necessary would be considered a better or worse character?

[@MythrilZenith]

I feel like the obligatory deployment of characters is more of an extremifying factor than any specific positive or negative. People who like the unit will appreciate that they're "free" to deploy, while people who don't like the unit will feel extra bad about being "stuck with" them.

[@fordexyzable1597]

Best or worst unit doesn't matter because he is my favorite unit!

[@MythrilZenith]

@@fordexyzable1597 honestly one of my favorites as well. I just can't help my first game bias.

[@neongrey333]

my take on ike: he's probably fine

[@MajinMattPlays]

While I'm sure this isn't in any way related to my comment on the Lords video, hilarious to see this so soon afterwards. Will update comment after watching vid.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@MajinMattPlays No joke it actually was your comment that inspired the initial thought that led to this video. You never know where inspiration will strike from!

[@MajinMattPlays]

@@MythrilZenith Well I'm glad, cause this video did a fantastic job and it felt like I wrote the damn script the whole way through. It's nice to see someone call out the scummy idea of Optimization focus in the community.

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL MythrilZenith videos!!!! ❤

[@slashspade]

I always wonder how much perception of characters would change if we collectively started using th jp releases with english patches for games that have 2x eff in the global releases. The rapier (or equivilant) would change some units and their usefluness DRASTICALLY, or so i would imagine...

[@hadoukenfighter]

I'm honestly shocked by people's relucance to not give the main character some favortism, like they are the main character, if they die you lose, you might as well pepper them up a bit. Also just the assumption of "yeah your playing this game on the highest difficulty level right?" which is again not what Kaga had in mind when he made fire emblem, as it didn't even have a difficulty option until the second game.

[@MythrilZenith]

And "difficulty" option in the second game is more of a cheat code than anything else as it's not menu-selectable and instead was just a hidden code input ala "Konami Code" style to double exp gain. FE6 is the first FE game to have what we would consider "traditional" difficulty options, and even then they were still locked behind a Normal playthrough.

[@blankblank6214]

Ike is only good if you beat the black knight otherwise he is bad

[@evieeevee]

Ike is good actually cause he’s gay and not racist and he looks fucking awesome and I like his character.

[@thewindysage1538]

Pwnage incarnate

[@Kakashi10ist]

Video actually starts at 3:20

[@MythrilZenith]

Man you'd think I would have to get a sponsored ad deal before getting "skip the intro" comments.

[@liegemkw]

Bro the whole point of the video was to unpack the bias surrounding Ike, and the first 3 minutes set that up

[@Kakashi10ist]

@@liegemkw I dont see it, but lets agree to disagree. :)

[@Kakashi10ist]

@@MythrilZenith Your reply is a funny reply, but I wish you actually get sponsored and get some money from a gaming company or anime company.

[@IgnoramusWithoutNumbers]

4:58 I used to do that as a kid

[@MythrilZenith]

@@IgnoramusWithoutNumbers perfectly valid play patterns lol

[@IgnoramusWithoutNumbers]

Ike is artificially good in his first game, regardless of how he grows in a playthrough, as he is one of a few units capable of defeating the final boss, as stated in the video. In his sequel, it is without a doubt that he a good unit, though ultimately his stats are irrelevant, as he is required to beat the final boss, again. This makes him the most important unit in both of his games, I don't think any other lord is needed, other than their presence, to beat their respective games. And that's why I think people like Ike compared to other lords, because you aren't allowed to have a bad Ike, while you can have a bad lord in the other games. Though I could be wrong.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@IgnoramusWithoutNumbers *Technically* Ike can still be incapable of fighting Ashnard, and the Black Knight fight is fully optional, but you get Ena and your choice of reinforcement in the endgame who can damage final phase Ashnard.

[@TwoHeadedMeerkat]

Ike is moreso just the most unreliable of Lords when it comes to stat-growths. He can either be as weak as someone like Roy and not double a single enemy or dodge an attack to save his life, or he can be dominating swathes of enemies with Ragnell in the endgame. With my personal experience of him, I'm leaning toward the former; especially since he is relying on Aether most of the time to secure kills. As I said on a previous post, this man is the Erk of Fire Emblem Lords, and has an odd tendency to be either fantastic or supremely mediocre depending on the whims of fate. And unlike a game like Binding Blade, you _do_ have other early-game units who are actually viable long-term, meaning Ike can't just soak up all the EXP

[@MythrilZenith]

@@TwoHeadedMeerkat The assumption being that you need to give him all the exp in early game to make him viable? Or that somehow by training Ike you can't also train Oscar, Boyd, Keiran and someone else with map exp AND save bonus exp for Marcia or Jill? Ike definitely is prone to weird fluctuations bc of growths but I think that's more visible purely because he has forced fight moments in the late game that no other lord truly has. If you're talking about doubling and dodging you have to remember this is PoR, weapons have high base accuracy and weight is basically never a factor for the enemy. If your Ike isn't doubling, then chances are very few of your other units are doubling either, or your Ike is already so far behind the level or growth curve that it'll take a miracle or massive bexp dump to bring him up to speed. Or you're assuming Maniac mode in which case I can't help you there buddy, you chose that fate.

[@TwoHeadedMeerkat]

@@MythrilZenith What? What gave you that idea? Of course it's not what I'm saying. Even in playthroughs where I chose not to use _any_ of the other early-game Greil units and focus exclusively on Ike, he still ended up underperforming by the end, especially before his promotion. I won't argue he has his flaws more visible due to those fights, but even as far as the other Lords in the series go, I'd still rank him low on overall contribution. He's more-or-less a mercenary who can't promote to get Hand Axe access -- something that would have helped immensely, since axes are arguably at their strongest in PoR, and there are no traditional Mercenaries or Heroes in Tellius. And I don't just mean my entire army was struggling to kill things, I mean Ike specifically. If you can't double an enemy, I at least expect you to deal enough damage to kill a chipped one -- something Ike could never do for me on either front. He's locked to swords and infantry movement, but doesn't have the destructive capabilities that someone like Stefan would have. He's a lord, I know he's a game over condition before he's a warrior. Besides, it's not like it's my fault if he _does_ end up underleveled, since he has a story-based promotion -- one that comes after the rest of your army is likely not leaving enemies chipped enough to feed him kills. Hell, even Roy at least had an incentive to push him forward since every Binding Blade map was Seize -- Ike's just another unit and not even a very good one. And no, I'm not talking about Maniac mode. I just mean in general, besides maybe the easiest difficult where these things don't matter as much

[@jemolk8945]

@@TwoHeadedMeerkat The thing is, the whims of fate are not remotely difficult to counteract in PoR. Bonus experience levels can be rigged extremely trivially by simply saving beforehand, and while it can be a royal pain to use that to ensure a unit is blessed (like getting an early strength level for Soren so he isn't weighed down by Wind), it's pretty trivial to use to ensure they're not screwed. And your Ike would have to be pretty screwed to be unable to double anything, or unable to one-round while doubling, past around chapter 7.

[@brendantw]

ok but like is he good or nah

[@James-lw9ih]

Lol boyd died turn 2

[@MythrilZenith]

@@James-lw9ih live Ironman footage from last year, boi was suffering from success hard and I didn't think to heal him with Rhys bc Rhys would have taken a hit.

[@nlsnator3802]

Hell of a shitpost

[@nstar674]

My take is that since lords are force deployed, they are always worth using resources on to make good, even if they will never be your best unit.

[@Kakashi10ist]

Ike its the best lord in all of fire emblem. Promotes properly a little half way, his sword gives him a1-2 range, his stats are just , Not royalty meaning that its not a blood thing and and story you can see how he matures during the game and how he goes from someone that needs help to be the helping hand. I dont see pitfalls in him.