Fire Emblem's attempts at balancing

[@CardboardBlueMage]

Three Houses fliers are even funnier considering they felt the Cavalier line needed (pointless) stat growth penalties, and yet every flier class buffs STR/DEF or SPD growths. Not to mention you can easily drop your arrow weakness after flying over terrain, by temporarily dismounting in a bush to stack avoid. All of the advantages of flying with none of the downsides.

[@BigGnome]

Surprised you didn't talk about Awakening pair up and the Fates changes since that's the most obvious example of a balancing change

[@5Points]

I was more so going for overall series mechanics while pair up only appeared in two games.

[@rontheauraknight9606]

@@5Points I’d say it appears in 3 games since Adjundants are similar to the pair up mechanic

[@nexo42069]

@@rontheauraknight9606 I'd agree with that since in three hopes it's literally the same mechanic

[@lagspike7763]

Fates pair up isn’t a balancing change it’s a lifestyle

[@Sh1ranu1]

@@rontheauraknight9606 adjutants are not pair ups because I can’t orbital drop my Knights by having them hitch a ride with pegasi

[@kongk4]

>"Has IS ever buffed a weak mechanic?" While this wasn't exactly weak by itself but... healing... after the first game. You couldn't gain EXP in the first game from healing, so healers have to tank hits in order to gain EXP.

[@JReds-bw9kg]

probably support building from fe6 to 7, where it's drastically faster

[@villageguardnpc7238]

Not to mention you could MISS healing, so there's that.

[@kongk4]

@@villageguardnpc7238 Oh my God, I forgot about that! Early FE is cursed AF.

[@villageguardnpc7238]

@@kongk4 The first time I tried healing in Thracia, I had a 99% chance to heal and missed my very first heal on that playthrough.

[@TechnoFall42]

@@villageguardnpc7238 There's no 99% hit chance with staves. It's base 60% + 4*Skill. Once a staff unit hits 10 skill they can not miss at all, since the hit cap doesn't apply.

[@Xetetic]

It's hard to put into words but it's interesting to see how balancing techniques diverged once Kaga left to make Not-Fire Emblem, where IntSys clearly tried/struggled to go for balanced game design whereas Kaga was just like, "I'm going to put in all the wacky stuff I can think of while still presenting a challenge lmao"

[@5Points]

Maybe I'll see what you mean if I ever get past chapter 3 of not fire emblem

[@huntersmith1413]

@@5Points Theres a spell that prevents counterattacks, even on the enemy phase. Put that on a mage and give that mage vantage (which always activates on the enemy phase) and you have a unit that can only be hurt by long range attacks. Also, just look up Narron , hes not broken at all :) . (He has paragon, arguably the best promotion in the game, is mounted in a game with full canto, and weapon rank is for weapons overall so dismounting doesnt hurt him that much). He joins at the end of chapter 2.

[@huntersmith1413]

@@5Points Oh and Narron also gets lethality if you promote him before level 12.

[@medoagamer9497]

While I personally really don't like the Kaga games (fe4 especially) I will admit how Kaga designs his games is something I'll always appreciate in it's own way

[@airtempest8945]

I think the endgame of VS II is actually a great display of how to make a map that flows well without trying to overcomplicate the challenge. It's last few maps all have soft or hard timers on them for parts that promote moving quickly, and special events that promote not just soloing the maps. Combine that with wacky weapons that will obliterate you if you're not ready but are easy to trivialize otherwise, and it's really fun. Well, except for the invincible warper in 24. She's just obnoxious.

[@misterpayah7723]

There's also that one thing where they inexplicably removed flyer vulnerability in Radiant Dawn for the already busted wyverns, making them fast flying armour knights with no weakness. Like what were they thinking?!

[@wolftamerwolfcorp7465]

However they did make wyverns weak to thunder iirc… like that mattered.

[@emberhermin52]

"Lol, lmao" they were thinking

[@Posby95]

How about we make wyverns even better? Yeah, sounds like a good idea!

[@unstablepc5913]

Honestly, Fire Emblem 3 Houses would be fun if your 6 minute segments of dragging a flyer across the map to boop a boss in 1 turn were not interrupted by 3 hour long monastery sessions.

[@5Points]

And loading screens

[@naiRISE766]

I did monasteryless no optional battle(including paralogues) run once. Now it's my main way of playing Three Houses. It's so much fun and a run is so short, a regular run from my experience is like 30 hrs+ but that run was like 22 hrs and all of them were the main chapters. Would recommend

[@naiRISE766]

@Thélos Sensei I played on maddening new game. The first few chapters were really easy because it's just regular three houses maddening which by this point I probably have like 20 runs of and with how much it forces you to do monastery. I managed to min max support and recruit Bernadetta(during the week I'm forced to do monastery) on GD and Sylvain from being female Byleth then struggls a bit mid game and late game was hard but doable(I run into money problem the first time since I've played three houses at some point too because the church stop giving you 5000g every month after timeskip and my main source of income now comes from 1000g from group task and breaking monster to sell umbral steels) since I take time grinding on a priest with renewal skill healing themselves for class mastery on some chapters.(Very slow since I can't grab double class mastery from the saint statue but did got knowledge gem from holy tomb)

[@quijassajiuq900]

Loading screen has tilt controls tho

[@quijassajiuq900]

@Thélos Sensei Missing out on the best part of the GAME

[@hylianfelldragon1308]

I always saw Pegasus Knights as Fire Emblem's waifu class, because it (along with other flyer classes) has been consistently op throughout the whole series and the fact that there's only 1 mainline game in the whole series that has male Pegasus Knights.

[@abiisrubbish8710]

Something I find funny is that in fe4, swords are objectively the best and most unique weapon type. And over the years the attempt to buff the other weapon types lead to swords being the worst thing in three houses. Also so glad this video got reccomended I'm a subscribe now

[@pluubooruu]

Axes would be worse if it weren't for Wyvern Lords though.

[@Posby95]

Axes are better than swords from FE7 onwards even when wyvern lords aren't using them.

[@pluubooruu]

@@Posby95 I should've specified and corrected - I meant specifically 3 Houses and it's not just wyvern lord but the classes in general. Axes are horribly inaccurate in 3H, but almost all swordclass are decent at best and Mortal Savant at worst.

[@eugene9211]

@@pluubooruu All axe classes have good growths in important stats, and they have weapon arts that override their weaknesses. Smash being the most obvious example. Axes also give access to a greater number of classes than any other weapon, providing access to the warrior line, the knight line, and the wyvern line. Lances in comparison only get one class until you reach master rank. All master rank lance classes are more reliant on magic than they are strength, excluding great knight, which again is accessible to axe units as well. This also means that lance units get access to a smaller number of learnable skills than axe units, and that they'll be stuck in the paladin class for most of the latter half of the game. This is honestly Dimitri's greatest problem as a lord, because despite his amazing stats he can really only go down one class route and thus is extremely limited in the skills that he can learn. Pegasus Knights should've been uni-gender.

[@leargamma4912]

​@eugene9211 pegesus knights being unisex would interfere with the lore and one of the few interesting bits of world building the series has. Oh, wait. They already fucked that up in fates. Great job, IS.

[@aronimacaroni2982]

It’s still insane to me that 3h devs really nerfed a number of classes and then looked at fliers and said “looks good to me!” and gave them all physical weapon access. I love buffs more then nerfs but even that I feel like was too far and really just made 3h meta lame imo

[@Kono_Dio-Da]

It's even crazier with the Chalice of Beginning, since it removes their only weakness, being arrows

[@RealityMasterRogue]

They also removed triangle making access to every weapon worthless Plus they nerfed defiants

[@insertjokeh3r3]

you can't just throw lief near the exit point and win in thracia. cause if he leaves everyone you brought along and didn't escape gets captured and you lose them for most of the game.

[@Manavine]

the only fe game where warp was somewhat balanced only somewhat because it still cheeses everything else- also fe5

[@huntersmith1413]

Pretty much every hard map after warp is available is a seize map.

[@5Points]

The footage I used for that chapter was the route split map where you can just drop Lief off by the church and win instantly

[@DuelingShade]

They did buff archers in Fe6, if indirectly, by making javelins and handaxes inaccurate as heck, making enemy fliers terrifying, and putting enemies with siege tomes in inaccessible rooms exactly 3 spaces away from any space you can occupy without using a warp staff so they can only be killed by the longbow.

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

A quick note about FE9 Warp. There is code in the game and it's fully functional without animations along with various weapons. I believe that Warp was planned for FE9 but they just could not figure out where to place it, so they decided to not use it. In FE10, the Staff did not appear at all but there was the Rewarp Staff that was Enemy exclusive. I think Warp was scrapped in Tellius because of Lore reasons and not much for actual balancing

[@lpfan4491]

Makes sense. Since it would be hilariously edgy-dumb if the Black Knight only used the harmful warppowder because he either couldn't find a few staffusers willing to cooperate with his teleportation-shenanagans or simply didn't bother trying.

[@destructiondragon360]

While Wyvern Riders were incredibly strong in the GBA games, and Pegasus Knights still had Rescue Dropping utility, the fact is that in terms of combat, the GBA Pegasus Knights are uh... well, 6 and 7 had this funny little idea of giving their pegs 4 con, so that was. not fun.

[@5Points]

In Stones you could at least transfer them over to wyverns but idr if that increases con

[@MagnusZero]

Pegasus exclusively receives +4 Con for switching to Wyvern, so yeah, that fixed most of their con problems. But Vanessa and Tana were so fast on average that it didn't really matter all that much.

[@CarDaMax1770]

@@MagnusZero Holy shit dude I never would have expected to see the master of Megaman games having a talk about balance and game mechanics in Fire Emblem of all things.

[@huntersmith1413]

Yeah but its not hard to feed Shanna kills in fe6 and you get her promo item super early, so theres very little reason to not promote her ASAP after which she becomes very combat viable flier with weapon triangle control.

[@raharii12345]

Cons is a good way to balance a unit that so flexible in mobility that having one weakness without adding more weakness to them

[@AsianRailgun]

Not only are warp, fliers, bows, vantage/wrath, avo tanking and various mechanics absolutely broken in Three Houses, they are nearly a necessity if you want to beat Maddening without going insane.

[@thomaswood8405]

I mean that kinda makes it good design right? A difficulty mode that's catered to the best tools the game has available. The real problem is the lack of option between hard and maddening, or in my opinion hard just not being hard enough. Hard is very easy for anyone used to the series, but maddening is truly something only for the most seasoned of players.

[@zembyron7306]

They are definitely not, just people who are really bad who can't use more than 2 braincells who actually believes that. Just use your brain and you don't have to resort to any bullshit like that. I do like that those things exist so that people who are bad at strategy games can feel good when they use them to beat the highest difficulty and feel good about their accomplishment and let people who actually want a decent challenge play without those things.

[@garyconstanza3120]

@@thomaswood8405 I don't see how forcing the player to use one or two kinds of playstyle if they want to win without getting frustrated while making everything else a worse option, in a game that encourages players to customize units however they see fit, as good design.

[@thomaswood8405]

@@garyconstanza3120 It's impossible for all options to be equal. Some strats will be superior to others, and demanding players use objectively better strats is the definition of difficulty. A difficulty in which juggernauting fortress knight Manuela is a viable strategy is not difficult. If that level of difficulty isn't to one's taste, then that player is free to select a lower difficulty, although personally I think the difference between Hard and Maddening is too much. There is no shame in playing at a difficulty more suited to your own abilities.

[@Legacy0901]

That was my biggest problem with 3H maddening. You can get away with a lot of creative strategies for the early and midgame, but you HAVE to rely heavily on avo tanking in the lategame. 10+ range artillery that just shreds dedicated tanks, absurd stat inflation, same turn spawns, and constantly layered hybrid damage make so many strategies completely invalid

[@83cuicui]

Fliers have one drawback in Fe 3H you can't use the good batallion if you make your whole team fliers .. But that litterally it i can't fathom how they shit in cav with growth but let flier be broken

[@emberhermin52]

I think you should have mentioned that in PoR cavaliers only get 1 weapon type until they promote as opposed to starting out with 2 which may have been another balance attempt

[@Vayatir]

Just a note on Wrath/Vantage: it did work prior to 3H. It worked in FE4 if you paired Tailtiu and Lex to pass both skills to Arthur and Tine. It also worked in PoR if you gave the Vantage manual to Nephenee or the Wrath manual to Mia. But it was certainly more limited than literally everybody being able to exploit it like in 3H.

[@5Points]

I suppose the drawback of that is that the pairing is absolutely horrendous. I was more so referencing Thracia where if you used the vantage manual on Osian his wrath skill is deactivated unless the enemy misses first.

[@bloo6264]

@@5Points the pairing of lex/tailtiu isn't actually that bad, both arthur and tine get vantage/wrath, excellent bulk and paragon. wrath makes up for their shitass magic stat and they can actually sweep entire enemy groups. also fe4 enemies have like 0 res and magic in that game isnt bad tbh.

[@5Points]

@@bloo6264 Damn that sounds fun actually I'll have to try that

[@DuelingShade]

@@5Points Or how the Beo Sword gives both

[@wannabecinnabon]

@@bloo6264 tinni’s magic isnt even all that bad. 22% growth is not ideal but she gets a LOT on promotion, so she generally won’t have issues wiping dudes with elthunder or elwind arthur’s magic is a much bigger concern but keep in mind that fe4 thoron has 20 might. mage knight has base 10 magic, so at minimum he’s dealing 60 magical damage once he promotes. with a magic ring that becomes 70, and the magic ring is not super contested in FE4 so giving him it is almost always reasonable. he also gets to promotion very quickly by just moving straight downwards and repeatedly shooting dannan with wind while the rest of your army actually does the map. he doesn’t actually hit 20 before seliph gets there but he gets so many levels he can easily promote in chapter 7 after the arena and maybe a couple stray kills here and there.

[@TriforceZard]

Three Houses was my first Fire Emblem game. I picked Blue Lions and recruited Lysithea because I liked her character design. Despite this being my first Fire Emblem she quickly became a one shot machine. Then timeskip happened and now I had a second one shot machine with an eyepatch.

[@5Points]

13 move KARIN gang where you at? ❗ ❗

[@uncreativerandomness1239]

What's interesting about Gaiden Bows is that unlike Echoes and 3H, they actually manage to be balanced by virtue of two things. Lackluster accuracy and awful availability. There are only 2 bows per route and one of each is in Act 4. Without a proper bow, archers are stuck at 1-3 range with even worse hit, meaning that promoting the villagers to archer is actually a bad idea since Python exists and Alm can make use of the second bow once he promotes in Act 4. Echoes meanwhile introduces the Killer Bow! A weapon with a max range of 1-5, high crit, absurd hit even by the standards of other weapons and, as a cherry on top, a brave combat art. Game Balance at its finest.

[@VeXJL]

I'd say Nosferatu's pretty balanced in Fates (specifically CQ). The shaky hit makes it generally unreliable and its inability to perform follow-up attacks impairs a lot of its killing power. At times, it's probably better to just use a forged Fire instead since it can double to reach one-round thresholds while having good hit rates. It's a far cry from being the best weapon in Fates.

[@Alexeiyeah]

Well, the balance on Pegasus units is, generally, they being kind of weak, having low defense and low attack, both of which hamper their offensive use a bit. The wyverns are just broken af.

[@insertjokeh3r3]

Wind magic is also effective vs fliers and if they ride a wyvern in the telius games they're instead weak to lightning i think.

[@emberhermin52]

Going next to an archer so that particular one can't counterattack you isn't going to protect you when there's a bunch of them everywhere

[@shansheenly]

Another thing that holds fliers back in fe4 is that they dont get road bonuses so their movement ends up being worse than cavaliers Also while it's moreso due to the types of enemies you have to face in lategame, Altena isn't too great despite her holy weapon so this ends up being like the only fe game where the wyverns arent super centralizing

[@ShadowChozo]

Altena has it even worse in the following chapter due to all the dark mages, archers and status staves going around.

[@CappnRob]

Fliers in 4 are some of the best tho. They don’t get road bonuses because they don’t need it, they literally go over all terrain. In both generations your peg knight is essential for reaching villages fast and supporting far off isolated characters like Brigid in G1 or Leif in G2. As for Altenna she’s not a dominate force like dragon riders are in other games no but her low resistance is hardly a unique flaw in the game, those dark mages are a high risk danger to 90% of your army and her ability to at least fly over trees and mountains to one shot them with her obscene attack power and canto away afterwards is invaluable. The sleep staffs are a pain but again it’s not a unique to Altenna pain and Restore can be used at 10 range and by Leif when promoted so waking people up isn’t that much of a hassle either.

[@mysmallnoman]

@@CappnRob THANK YOU

[@huntersmith1413]

@@CappnRob The low res problem is actually unique to altena. Seliph, Ares, and Leif all have great res. Seliph and Ares due to weapons, seliph also has a 30% growth due to minor naga, and Leif's master knight has a base res of 7 as opposed to Altena's 0

[@CappnRob]

@@huntersmith1413 seliph and ares are your exceptions along with whoever you pair Claude with and maybe Sylvia if you pair them separate. Ayras kids, Lachesis kids, Aideens kids, Tiltyus kids, they all have low res, and even ones who can eek out a little bit still don’t have enough to be staff immune on average without a res ring. Not to mention many dark mages also carry Hel which doesn’t give a damn how much res you have.

[@DSaC_]

I'd like to mention Miracle, which went from being hilariously broken in 4, to quite amazing in 5, to being a meme skill in every other appearance.

[@ItsTorrent]

My favorite OP mechanic: Avatars, especially Kris

[@okagaca]

Fire emblem deserves more videos like this, good stuff

[@5Points]

Thank you

[@rollbustah]

Funny thing is, I think 3H actually did a lot to rein in Cavs and make sure they were balanced. Yet they completely left fliers alone... hopefully 3H made them realize "hey wait a minute, it's not just Cavs that have been broken for 20 years..."

[@cross7679]

the thumbnail of this video is glorious

[@AkashianRecords]

The interesting thing is that core gameplay (mainly older games, but they changed this before Awakening) is that they give you tons of swords to counter brigands and struggle against the royal army. I'm pretty sure that design was intentional, so I don't think I have much to say on that

[@absoul112]

13:00 Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's only Thracia where Wrath + Vantage doesn't work.

[@5Points]

That is correct

[@pksprite6401]

Excellent vid

[@nathanieldowd550]

I was sure you were gonna mention Luna as a contrast for things that IS took several games to nerf. They introduced it in FE7, saw Athos and Canas 1RKOing the Fire Dragon, then took a baseball bat to its' legs in time for FE8 lol.

[@excalibur2772]

Bows on fliers definitely can't counterattack at any range, and I would say that maddening definitely one of the most fun fe experiences for me especially since I'm sure I saw another video of yours complaining about how "unfair" Azure Moon's last map is. I would definitely say maddening makes for a decently fun challenge that isn't too hard or too easy and having the the unique skills in each class makes creating a team a lot more fun, besides the fact that you're better off sticking to one weapon type anyway in 3h, mages and fliers can't uses fist weapons.

[@browserjunior4707]

Insane how in 3H you can have infinite warps with Hapi cause of her crest but then you have characters like Ferdinand and Seteth who’s crests do absolutely nothing for them

[@amazegamer6428]

What are you talking about, they both get swift strikes giving their crest two chances to activate. Seteth can fairly reliably attack for free.

[@browserjunior4707]

@@amazegamer6428 No one is using Swift Strikes for the Crest activation. Yes it happens twice but you also can just kill them with the same combat Art, making the crest useless. And even if you can’t kill, which is unlikely considering both are probably in their best class since the requirement for A would also be the time you’d promote to a master class, you’d then have to bank on a 10% Chance to happen with Ferdie and a 50% chance with Seteth (who again would just kill outright).

[@noishhater9138]

@@browserjunior4707 bro that's a meta strat, seems you're the only one not in the loop

[@browserjunior4707]

@@noishhater9138 It’s the first time I heard of it, and even then wouldn’t Seteth be the only one to make the most of it? I don’t see how Ferdinand would be able to do it consistently and not Seteth. I really only see it useful for monster bosses anyways

[@antiradiationsnowy1536]

@@browserjunior4707 Proc rates for the crest of Cichol are 50% and 30% for major and minor crests respectivelly, so Ferdinand still has a fair chance. When using swift strikes I calculate that he has a 51 % chance of activating it just once. I still prefer characters with damage crests though

[@Fefedefefessle]

Love that one of the busted mechanics is just that Seth exists.

[@MasterKnightDH]

12:04 Barts, you left me as a broken child, but now, you...are a Warrior!

[@scrapyarddragon]

lets not forget that in three houses, mounted units can casually dismount and remount at will to avoid those pesky 'weaknesses'.

[@KorotasGeckoGamingCorner]

The real biggest weakness of fliers in 3H is not being able to use Gauntlets without dismounting

[@salvadorreyessanchez9827]

yeah I don't like that in three houses units lose they identity because you can turn them into any class you want but I still think three houses is a very good fire emblem game.

[@CaptainAstronaut]

Great Video!!

[@Vexy93]

Even games that take inspiration from fire emblem are unbalanced. In Fire Emblem Three Hopes, you can spend money to level up your unit. This is broken, except it's limited by not allowing you to level up your units higher than your higher level unit. This kinda helps units you rarely use to keep up with the unit you use the most. Then comes Lysithea, she gains extra XP from being a Genious and can equip the Experience Gem, giving her extra experience. If you use her as your main unit, you can have your "higher level unit" very high level and thus level up a lot also the secondary units

[@UltimateLink1]

Paying to level up has been a standard feature in Musou games for a very long time

[@Vexy93]

@@UltimateLink1 yeah but did musou games had a unit that gains extra xp and that can equip an item to further increase the xp gain?

[@leaffinite2001]

Honestly if you just only use one character you can still be high enough level for everything with money

[@lpfan4491]

Three Hopes is a big turd in regards to contentbalance, it honestly feels like the least well thought out nintendo warriors-game thus far and that says a lot because Ryoma exists in FEW and trivializes most of the game.

[@jvts8916]

The Iote/Delphi/Aurora shield was already an incredibly good item for negating the extra damage bows deal against fliers. But the main thing kind of balancing it is that it was extremely rare. But Three Houses decided Wyvern Lords' amazing growths and ability to bypass all terrain weren't desirable enough, so if you reach S+ flying with any unit, they learn a skill that does the Aurora shield's job. At this point, you have basically won the game, the only way to lose is by ignoring the final maps' gimmicks excluding Crimson Flower's. If you think S+ mastery is probably going to take you almost the entire game... It is, but Three Houses' New Game+ allows you to exchange renown to raise your mastery, so once you reach S+ with one character, you can have them reach it much earlier in later playthroughs.

[@richardwilliams937]

What’s more important is that even on maddening three houses doesn’t really challenge the player with effective weapons, meaning the only constant is enemy archers, which can just be ignored by dismounting. So there’s little to no point in even having those null shields or skills equipped.

[@jesfest]

Makes sense why pegasus riders are so strong. In chess, if the lord is the king, the riders are queens. This is most easily demonstrated by their movement, and well, Sheeda and Mars. The problem is they also kept the "any pawn can be a potential queen" part of chess for 3h.

[@lpfan4491]

Meanwhile in FE6: The king is a scrub until he promotes at the end and the queen is recruited like 7 chapters late(She was originally designed to join in chapter 1, that is why her bases are atrocious) and a little magegirl.

[@ebongatseabong202]

I’d say nosferatu is pretty balanced in fates imo, it’s pretty easy to make anything look busted when it’s on a capped level 20 unit, the presence of ninjas, seal skills, and weapon triangle as well as most mages having iffy stats makes a pretty reliable but not overpowered tool, not to mention the fact that’s it’s unobtainable in birthright

[@ebongatseabong202]

also because it can’t double or activate skills/crits you’ll never be able to clear out large swathes of enemy units without extensive preparation and investment

[@5Points]

I didn't get into it in much detail in the vid but you don't need extensive preparation if you have the right mage. Sure Nyx stinks and Odin is questionable but in my lunatic playthrough I heart sealed her over to sage right away. In the chapter 11 she could get each enemy in each room down to like 1 hp since no doubling, which easily let everyone else get exp. Then in the Chev chapter she just solo'd the whole right side without "extensive preparation or investment". Yeah flier Camilla is excellent but nosferatu Camilla actually carries all the way up until the fox chapter where it gets a bit trickier but still pretty good.

[@ebongatseabong202]

@@5Points that sounds really fun I’ll have to try that for myself sometime! and I was mostly talking about late game

[@mysmallnoman]

Balanced by how bad it is lol

[@huntersmith1413]

Youre forgetting how many support skills there are in fates as well as forging. Excelblem swept through lunatic conquest by using his corrin to oneshot enemies with nosferatu. Sure this requires extensive preparation, but this is also on lunatic. On hard, its probably really easy.

[@xenocross6597]

The Ogier joke hurt me on a personal level

[@randomguy6680]

While I do not know if it was balancing, the weight system and the weapon triangle changed. Also, the (powerfull) rescue mecanic turned into pair-up which turned into 3H's adjutant system.

[@CorrellLeo]

I feel personally that the best general attitude is “Fuck balancing” because you get shit like Fates making any non Iron weapon more trouble than it is worth, and when a game give you lots of tools to work with (3H notwithstanding) it can be an interesting way to play a game because they give you challenges based off the tools that they give you. While in Path of Radiance, both mounted unit types are obscenely good, the map objectives and the distinct unit placement and variety (I feel) makes playing PoR more interesting, regardless of it being very easy. The interesting map objectives, the map designs, what have you. I hope that we get more of that in the next FE. It’s creative, and I feel mostly is enjoyable.

[@lpfan4491]

It is still strange to think that Silver Weapons in Fates are basically the worst weapons in the game. Every other type of weapon has some sort of purpose, but completely negating your attack-stat if you make actual use of it is just way too big of a penalty to ever be worth it.

[@matthewlabodin3981]

The only remote attempt at balance in Three Houses is the fact that magic is mainly restricted to the mage and priest class lines, which both have abysmal movement. The exceptions are Holy and Dark Knights, Byleth's unique class, Mortal Savants, Dancers, and for some reason, all of the DLC classes.

[@tomasgarcia7499]

Wrath and Vantage Balthus helped a lot for the mid game when I did Silver Snow Maddening. He was a monster with that set up and his personal ability too.

[@invaderzz]

Very epic video my friend

[@ussgordoncaptain]

12:20 bows in SOV suck until the Killer bow, mostly because they have -15 accuracy compared to a normal weapon. However the Killer bow is a digusting 9 might 90 hit 30 crit weapon that beats every other weapon in the game and, a unit with 20% defense growth 1 base res and 4% res growth, a 25% speed growth and 35% attack growth the best unit in the game. He's such a terrible unit that the main strategy is to build the entire rest of the army to prevent him from dying. Training Genny (physic) Mae (so she learns the recover spell) and Deen (So he can block enemy dread fighters) just because leon is the only unit in the entire army with 1-5 range.

[@luthierisbestboy8177]

You forgot Gaiden items. Dracoshield - Grants an extra 13 defense and resistance. Magic shield/Hexlock shield - Decreases enemy magic hit rates to 10%. Blessed shield - Grants 13 extra defense when fighting against Terrors. Angel ring - Doubles level up gains (get 2 points in that stat when you level up) and get 40 fixed luck Prayer ring - Works like FE4 Wrath. You get guaranteed crit when your HP is 50% or lower. Mage ring - Black magic spells have up to 5 RANGE! (5-range Ragnarok or Excalibur, anyone?) Speed ring - By far the most busted item in the game. You have 40 fixed speed AND get 5 extra movement! Mathilda can be Sigurd before Sigurd existed, all while having great offense. Lukas can now use his physical bulk effectively because of him with 9 mov, where he's basically a Gold Knight. Luthier can have a 39 AS Excalibur all while being able to actually reach combat. And Bow Knights will have SO MUCH MORE RANGE AND MOVEMENT it's like dealing with a movable ballista that actually BENEFITS you. Too bad Echoes nerfed most of these items...

[@falchion776]

It's all Barst baby!

[@TheSaival]

hey thats a nice channel you got there keep it up man

[@megakoopa2361]

I do find it funny that a lot of the more broken mechanics that were introduced in kaga games like cavs and fliers dominating the game, and archers being underpowered was essentially remedied in Berwick Saga, and the only really bad class is Armor Knight, and even then, that only applies to player knights.

[@Direblade11]

5 Point is a brand of joints in Canada :^) They sell a variety pack

[@Corncake1337]

Great video. Some of the best FE content

[@leifster7762]

Honestly it wouldn’t be the Fire Emblem I love if it didn’t have messed up balancing. It’s fun

[@mk-ultraviolence1760]

I feel one of problems with FE balance when it comes to classes is the developers don't regard classes and by extension the movement said classes get as something that factors into how good or bad a unit actually is.

[@andrebryant3312]

A shame you haven't played Berwick Saga (yet.) What they do with cavs their would've been interesting to talk about in this video.

[@ghostfalcon6609]

Good thing I'm a casual player and barely play optimaly. My playstyle usually involves using one of each advanced/master class and have them go from beginner -> intermediate -> advanced/master class in that order. Also to spice things up, I roll for which class each characters get, I could have Great Knight Petra and just go with that

[@dalesabandal9113]

Im surprised their mobile game isnt on here. That game hasn't been balanced in nearly 4 years.

[@gregosa9807]

My favourite overpowered fire Emblem character is Ares from Genealogy -130% hp and 90% strength when you factor in holy blood bonuses. -Base stats sorta similar to Sigurd. -Is on a horse in the game with crazy long maps. The true horse emblem. -Has pursuit to double, adept for 4 possible strikes, vantage with deal with 1 range enemies and his "demon sword" is imbued with critical. -the sword itself has 20 skill so you will rarely miss and crit constantly. it has +10 resistance meaning you can tank magic very well especially dark magic which becomes more common in second gen. When he promotes to paladin he gets + 5 resistance which comes in handy. The added bonus is you can deal with siege tome and sleep staff spammers in the final two chapters. - funds work differently in Genealogy as everybody has there own purse if not married. Giving the dude a thief ring is typically recommended so he can use the "demon sword" more frequently. Not too many drawbacks for this guy. Broken just like Seliph and Leif if you early promote him with paragon ring.

[@darktamer1089]

fe3h fliers also learn alert stance which depedning on what you did could make a 150-200 avoid god, or for even more min-maxing sacrifice some dodge for vantage and wrath and make a near impossible to kill god.

[@lordturtle5968]

I will contribute to the algorithm

[@AdeptArcanist]

Honestly, I think the big issue with flyers is that there’s not really a good way to nerf them *enough* to fix their issues without just making them not as fun to use anymore? Like, the way they interact with the game is just so inherently powerful that short of putting 12 ballistas on every map or making them slower than armor knights, there’s gonna be *something* a flyer can trivialize.

[@lobsterp3821]

I guess the best way to nerf fliers is to just buff other classes. Like, why not make canto a base-mechanic that every unit possesses, so that infantry-units can better keep up the pace with mounted units and are more flexible to use

[@lpfan4491]

Yeah, there is a direct issue with the way Fliers just exist. Cavs have the issue of terrain sometimes messing with them, while the big downside fliers have is that they can't gain any terrain bonusses, which is...less of an issue.(Also, that downside just does not exist in Three Houses because lmao, dismount.)

[@N_Moli]

... Oh God, I just rememered ledge climbing.

[@zilaroth]

FE3H just needed a difficulty between Hard and Maddening. It was my first FE game and I could immediately tell from the very start that hard was going to be too easy but clearing Maddening was just a complete slog. More of a test of patience than actual strategy at many points.

[@sebastianodepietri6411]

Surprised you didn't mention how in fe4, fe9 and fe10 (although it counts slightly less because of the terrain disadvantages that I suppose don't really let Cavalry units see the core of combat) canto is even more broken because it allows you to change to another weapon, it means you can use a brave or silver weapon for example to handle a particularly strong enemy and then switch to a 1-2 range weapon to fight other enemies.

[@Posby95]

You can't change weapon in Tellius after attacking.

[@sebastianodepietri6411]

@@Posby95 ah, I heard you could, I guess I was fed fake news or something.

[@GawainSSB]

Always a fun discussion. FE games have never been balanced but they've also never been all that difficult so it balances out in my opinion because the whole point to me is using the units you want to do, which you can reasonably do in pretty much any game. So they at least succeed at that. I've never cared much for low turn count and all that

[@misterbadguy7325]

I suspect that paladins got axes in Binding Blade because they were determined to fit in as many pre-GBA classes as possible, and so used it as an alternative to how FE4 and FE5 had a cavalry class for every weapon type along with paladin. So now Paladin, Ranger, Duke Knight, and Great Knight are the same thing.

[@woopslap]

as someone who only played advance wars, this shits wild

[@otakamerd1220]

I hope someday they just release the final FE game where you're surrounded by those teleporter witches and gargoyle spamming lads from Echoes

[@pluubooruu]

In 3 houses they added new OP stuff too. Specifically fierce iron first of the grappler. Ah for the dlc, Valkyries are nutty as well. Tbh though, vantage & wrath isn't a safe enough option, it's better to use player turns then rely on ai turns RNG... but that just might be me (getting crit on 3% chance all the time 😭) Edit: speaking of low chance crits. I got critted at 1% last night. Good thing it was against one of my tankier characters.

[@shadowdoesstuffanduploadsi3999]

6:07 I swear I've heard that song somewhere...

[@MexiPika123]

The way you pronounced Silas' name made me die ngl

[@Firguy]

Giving Swordmasters and Berserkers a natural +30 crit bonus made Binding Blade extremely fun.

[@yujiro424]

Haar was the man.

[@RaisedThird]

There’s also infinite grinding that you can do in 3H, obviously grinding is always up to the player and so you can’t really grind 100 maps and thencomplain that the game is easy when you are very overleveled, but most FE games straight up have limited exp to prevent you from being too ahead.

[@AtomTomZeitalter]

Thats only on easy, unless you're doing the calendar glitch.

[@Xertaron.]

Everyone seems to always forget about armor knight. IS in particular. In FE4 they are a meme. In FE5 they're still pretty bad. In GBA they're part of AAA club (archer, assasin, armor knight) aka the worst classes in these games. In Telius they're worse wyvern knights. In Shadow Dragon/New Mystery they're a gimmick outside of Wolf/Sedgar cheesing some chapters in Shadow Dragon with capped defense. In Awakening they finally have some use, due to their high defense incrasing their likelyhood of dual guard, they grant a lot of bonus defense to their pairup partner and pavise lets them survive multiple rounds of combat. So that's at least something they can do even if it's invalidated by Robin killing everything with Vengance/Vantage/Nosferatu (but that can be said about every strategy in Awakening). In Gaiden/SoV they aren't half bad, thanks to their defense being comperable to attack of physical units. They still get rekt by mages, and held back by their low movement but they actually succeed in what they're suppose to do - tank physical hits. Granted, wyvern knights (which usually outclass them as physical tanks) aren't in this game, but it's a start. Which is crazy to think about - they did it right once, but then forgot about it in later games and didn't repeat that success untill remaking the very game that got it right... Now i haven't played Fates/3H yet so i can't comment on how they perform there, but i hope they weren't made a joke again.

[@carlosx8603]

I'll save you the time for 3H, it's Warp+Wyvern Emblem the game.

[@kobyma2]

It's funny how the gacha of all things found one way to make armors work. Too bad it worked a little bit too well.

[@wolftamerwolfcorp7465]

Fates they have their uses but more importantly they have effie. In 3 houses the picture is not a pretty one but it doesn’t matter because the map was already warp skipped anyways.

[@freetoplayking7362]

11:44 shadow dragon's ballasticians... I rest my case

[@calamitoso0066]

What about the heavy units?

[@Manavine]

nahnah, don't skip the lack of balance in the beginning of 3h maddening as well, where it's basically a giant fucking steep as hell cliff in terms of difficulty then falls into the ground difficulty wise the moment you recover.

[@SilentVinyl]

Flieremblem my favourite turnbased rpg

[@SB-ex8nt]

I'm willing to go a little easy on 3H. Most people never recognized how easy the game was to break, and time/thought was still needed to be put into it for those who did.

[@ferintown6628]

I like to look at the progression of bows Gaiden they’re very good I think I haven’t played judgral FE6 they’re good because it’s a player phase game and they have good hit I think Fe7 they suck Fe8 they sick Fe9 they suck unless you are a paladin Fe10 I’m pretty sure they’re ok FE11 idk I think they’re good? Fe12 idk Fe13 they’re the worst they’ve ever been Fe14 they’re awesome now Fe15 uhhhhh that’s a little silly FE16 how about we remove the only weakness of bows and make them very high range

[@vanjagalovic3621]

Gaiden bows suck. 1-5 range doesn't make up for low might and low accuracy in a game where terrain gives huge avoid bonuses. FE10 they suck for the most part. They are alright in FE4 if you're mounted, but are mostly meh in FE5. They mostly suck in FE10. They're the best weapon type in FE12 and good in FE11.

[@peste4592]

in fe12 l would say that they are really good

[@revivalfromruins]

Well, Kaga hasn't been involved in the series since 5, unless you want to do some super cool Berwick Kaga balance analysis...

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

And then you have armors.

[@nexo42069]

Remember that time fire emblem did something with online vs

[@quijassajiuq900]

If Fe4 had a normal Fire Emblem warp staff and not Return Staff 2, foot locks might actually find their place in a play through, maybe make me actually like the video game A game as large as Fe4 would have benefited from that so much

[@rugvedkulkarni1593]

Playing Blue Lions on New game Madden really showed how unbalanced three houses is. The most difficult chapter by far was the first chapter after the time skip, I nearly got soft locked in that. But then almost every other chapter after that was warp skipped using the wrath and vantage Dimitri build. Thankfully though, the final chapter of that route did give me a decent challenge even with Dimitri. So I left having a good impression. Still, it's hilarious that the most challenging enemy with face was not the Empire but some random bandits.

[@runefaustblack]

11:35 Oh my God that pun xDDDD

[@crushingon]

The subject of magic in Fates had a very interesting interaction when it comes to blanace. The two most broken tomes coming from Awakening both made a return, Nosferatu and Celica's gale (rebranded as Lightning), and both are still super absurd. Not only that, Hoshido introduced us to Horse Spirit which significantly boosts all stats. The way Fates balanced magic this time around, however was by making magic specialists themselves statistically mediocre Nyx starts out with mediocre stats, has pitiful buffs, and has hit rate issues, her bulk is atrocious, the skill Hex is more risky than Anthema in the prior game. Odin has a very low starting level, mediocre overall growth and even if trained he's outclassed by Leo who comes Pre-trained. Even if Leo is good, the classes themselves are held back by giving relatively low base stats compared to other classes. And you can totally see why as giving any of the mages a magic class with good stats, such as Dark Falcon or Witch, makes them explode in potential. This was an interesting way Fates balanced characters and classes in the game. By giving good characters (such as Camilla) mediocre classes (such as Malign Knight) .

[@er7776]

You told a lot of truths but cmon. Malig knight is arguably the best class in the game. Camilla, Elise and Corrin can be absolute monsters in those classes with the right setup

[@crushingon]

@@er7776 you think? I always figured it was a medicore wyvern lord and a mediocre sorcerer, almost as slow as a general while not being that good at either beyond flying. In my experience reclassing Camilla into Wyvern Lord gave her a bunch of stats, more options with lances, Rally Defense, which were way better than being a bad mage with not nearly enough resistance to properly contest against mages. Not to mention Bolt Axe being innacurate. For Corrin I've always been more a fan of the Levin Sword Paladin with Elbow Room + Defender for the "everthingFaire" experience. I figured its more pragmatic to preserve the sword rank than poking around with other weapons and instead give that attention to other units. I personally went for the level 10 strategist Elise at chapter 8~9 so she gets to be a powerhouse asap. Still I'll admit it has been a few years since I last did Conquest Lunatic.

[@er7776]

@@crushingon I used to think the same about it but the way conquest works makes it just a really powerful class. Okay this is a long one but here we go: So first of all a mediocre wyvern lord and sorcerer in 1 is pretty powerful if you really think about it. You can hurt enemies physically and with magic and control the weapon triangle for days. This is especially useful because axes, lances and shuriken units are some of the most tedious in the game while you hold advantage over them. Being able to double with a 1-2 range magic is very strong when you consider that javelins and handaxes(spd nerf and no double) are heavily nerfed in fates. Tomes and scrolls have arguably the best weapons while a lot of physical weapons kinda suck(most units prefer forged iron weapons lol). There are plenty of tomes which help malig knights with their speed which is average(5% growths compared to wyvern lord 10% and general 0%). Lightning(brave tome), horse spirit(+3 spd,skl,def,red) and disrobing gale(+3 speed ok damage). Ofcourse they can also use nosferatu which combined with trample(+5 dmg vs non mounts) makes them really survivable units. Yeah camilla should def reclass to wyvern lord at some point because it is her best endgame class but for a majority of the play through malig knight should be her class of choice. Heart seals are in high demand and you only get 4 till chapter 20. Camilla is pretty overkill for her first 8 chapters, so the extra strength over utility is unnecessary. Camilla also gets trample and savage blow.These are amazing skills worth getting. Also about the bolt axe accuracy, it really isnt an issue. Accuracy in fates is very easy to manipulate with supports, forging, dual strikes, weapon triangle and heartseeker. Even so the fun part is that the enemies you will use bolt axe against have usually horrible avoid. Fire emblem loves making tanky defense units super bad at avoiding stuff. Okay so about Corrin. Corrin has easily the most availably in the game and can grind weapon ranks pretty easily in chapter 15 because there is nobody else to use(azura and gunther don't need it). Your idea of paladin corrin does sound fun but a malig knight +mag boon corrin is even more insane. He can abuse bolt axe and magic making him a lot more flexable for the reasons i stated earlier(op tomes and scrolls). Also corrin will actually have a good magic stat compared to Camilla which is okay. Making him even more OP in using the malig knight class. There are also 4 spirit dusts available without paralogues and Corrin pretty deservingly should get a few of those because he makes the best use of those resources , only facing competition from Leo. Getting Elise to level 10 as a troubadour is pretty much impossible before chapter 10 without heavy turn wasting and it is expensive. After which she becomes a magic unit with and mount which is pretty strong yeah. strategist gets rally res which sucks and inspiration which is good but you get it at levelstrategist

[@crushingon]

@@er7776 perhaps we found different solutions to our problems. I don't recall Ninjas being that annoying since the solution I found was to simply use Attack Stance against high speed low defense enemies and instead "one shot" them through two different attacks at higher accuracy and overwhelming ninjas and foxed in numbers rather than in power. Also it's not hard to create a small pocket for Elise to spam her and Felicia's few heal staff until shes level 10~14 in chapter 8 or Mozu's Paralogue since in the latter the boss cannot double attack or even crit. You have plenty of time and if you turn animations off it costs only a few minutes for an inmense boost in immediate power. I may try it next run, however I still feel odd about the idea of reclassing Corrin into an axe based class. I feel it's trying to improve on an alterady good unit with a very marginal increase in power while creating a few problems that you need to fix for no real reason. Levin Sword Paladin is likely just as good, you can access Cavalier with a lot less setup and far less sacrifices. The Levin Sword on Nohr Noble alone as it is is pretty busted, Paladin is merely seeking a higher movement value and stronger damage compared to Corrin's unpromoted base class after chapter 10.

[@er7776]

@@crushingon about Elise. It isnt hard to get her to level 10 as troubadour but it is basically just wasting time. You can make Azura a level 35 songstress in chapter 5 and it will transfer over to all your playthroughs because it is before branch of fate but i don't consider her more viable because of that. It is a bit more of an extreme example I know but i consider it the same as boss abusing, which doesnt have a place in discussing unit and class viability imo(ofcourse do whatever you want it is a singleplayer game). If you don't do that boss abuse heal strat she likely wont ever hit level 10 before chapter 10 and will likely be a complete liability on that chapter with her squishy defenses. I think Corrin becoming a malig knight is worth the extra effort. The reward is being able to fly which is extremely useful in conquest when you consider there are a lot of chapters that benefit from it(chapters 20-24 pretty notably).The other reward is being able to use tomes which he is unable in paladin. On top of that Corrin has a naturally better magic growth and caps(which he likely will hit) in malig knight compared to paladin. Also you can still use nohr noble levin sword Corrin when going for a malig knight build if you want draconic hex. Weapon ranks are also pretty irrelevant imo because you have chapter 15 for Corrin alone and he can level his tome rank after becoming nohr noble so he will never have E tomes and E axes in malig knight. I consider leveling Elise to level 10 as troubadour before chapter 10 a lot more time consuming than leveling Corrin his weapon ranks when he has so many opportunities and time to do so.

[@Fafuncho]

you forgot about something about fire emblem 3 houses flyers... they are not broken because they have any weapon, they are broken because not even arrows hit them, bitch my ingrid (crimson flower run) went solo against the final boss, got ganked by some mages and she was hit ONCE, ONLY ONCE that took like 10% of her hp

[@graycecollins2085]

In my firt playthrough of FE1 remake I literally promote Barst because I think his name is somehow funny

[@wannabecinnabon]

“wrath and vantage combo which explicitly didnt work in previous games” you mean FE5 only. That is the only game where that combo does not work, because both of those skills were at their absolute strongest forms in that game. Kind of amazed you never tried it in FE9, for example.

[@wannabecinnabon]

also why the hell are you pointing at Karin as some sort of busted unit when she has negative strength and spends her first few chapters acting as fergus’s support bot anyways. she’s cool for utility outside but this is the game with a neverending supply of infinite range warp staves. plus Deen does everything she does while also being an incredibly good fighter. its true that most growths dont matter too much in thracia bc you have the scrolls to juice mfers up but you get the strength scroll so freaking late that characters having strength issues as big as karin’s actually matter

[@nocabgamedesign4832]

8:14 "Flyers have one key differences tho: They can completely ignore terrain" It's amazing how powerful movement is in tactical games. It's so valuable that the two most mobile unit types show up in this list: Mounted and Flying, with flying being the clear winner. I wonder what about the movement affordance that makes it so powerful. Clearly using canto to escape back to safety is important. But the flyers transcend that and allow a player to fully skip a level if the player wanted to. And as you outlined so well, finding an effective way to nerf movement based content is quite challenging. 🤔 Anyway great video! I always love seeing how games and genres evolve over time.

[@aleisterleopold6229]

The main problem is that they don't make any dangerous and somewhat bulky archers that can counterattack at 1 range

[@lpfan4491]

The funny part is that generals were infact bow users in the past. The problem about that is that it both wasn't used to full effect and the fact that it was in the same gameplay where the main-Pegknight had a personal weapon designed to counter armored units.