How Ballistae Have Changed In Fire Emblem

[@Posby95]

Surprised you didn't mention how ballistae ignore the user's strength in some games, how in Tellius they are oriented in a certain way (preventing them from shooting backwards), and the AoE non-lethal nature they have in Fates.

[@JackG3684]

I think ballistas work well on defence maps. The ballista on chapter 8 of Engage feels useful and fun to use for example.

[@thomasquesada7248]

Same for the conquest ch10 ballista and magic orb

[@thewindysage1538]

I raise chapter 14 of Thracia where they are located in such a way where taking care of them is basically suicide so they create actual zone control

[@ivanbluecool]

Note this isn't a reupload. ActualLizard just used his time wheel to go back and fix the video.

[@actuallizard]

Thank god for divine pulse :D

[@gregster1016]

Shoutouts to TearRing Saga which has Ballisticians that are both tanks like in FE1 AND Ballisticians like you would expect them to be. Even has a Jake lookalike that predates Jake's current design lol

[@BTrainStudio]

I'm a huge fan of this topic since I believe ballista is underutilized in FE. The purpose of ballista to me is that it limits player movements. So it's an obstacle the player must face to proceed to the objective. Thracia is the best version of this but could use some work. I think you can cheese ballista too easily, so the game should use reinforcement to add more pressure to keep going. Ballista mounts was a cool idea but like the video said, it's too weak and require your archer to use it. As a resource, it feels unnecessary when it should make players excited to use it.

[@juicyjuustar121]

FE1 ballistae are insane. They're just like... Armored archers??? Except they don't count as armored for some reason. They're honestly pretty neat, but definitely super janky. I've been playing FE1 as of late as well and it's been a wild experience so far

[@ivanbluecool]

Shadow dragon: it's a strong class to help take out foes from a distance. Use it well. Fates: F it. Dlc class for everyone. F it again. Archers can counter at any distance Engage: magic

[@TerminaFE]

As someone who is not big on DS Shadow Dragon, I have to admit that it's version of the Wooden Cavalry map is a guilty pleasure. While others groan about the overlapping ballista ranges retroactively added, I think people get too intimidated by it. In the SD DS map, the player will have movement tools to rush in and shut down the ballista. They will also have the weaponry needed to kill the ballista. With careful enough movement and a dedicated eye for which units move (which is easy to tell since SD marks stationary enemy movement with a dash instead of a number), it is no less difficult to manage on player phase than a paladin formation for instance. Enemy phasing the map is just not an option, which I find worthwhile as a one off gimmick. Due to high weapon durability, exhausting the enemy ballista ammo is also so slow that it is super discouraging to do so. Other ballista centric maps like the non-Saias route of chapter 17 have the perfect sourspot of just low enough ammo to still be turtle-able, but still a pain to do so. Going in is outright the better option. Even though I like the result of the map, it absolutely feels like an accident. The new design of the Wooden Cavalry map does feel like an accidental convergence of DS Shadow Dragon trying to balance being a faithful remake of FE1 while also bringing in other series mechanics, creating a weird Frankenstein at times. The devs probably settled on FE3 style ballista to give Jake and Beck much needed uniqueness and to enhance other maps first. Then they remembered the FE1 exclusive map that has them near exclusively. It might be a mess, but I would not have it any other way.

[@nlb137]

SD Wooden Cavalry feels like the ballista *earn* that title. Having basically the same strike range as actual cav makes them feel like a formation of enemy cav, as you mentioned.

[@TARDISES]

As I *did* buy that DLC, I can talk about Fates ballisticians for a bit, referring to the FE wiki (and I mean the standalone one here, don't worry) as need be. To start with, it's worth talking about the ballista tile in Fates, as, like every other appearance since the GBA games, some maps can have a ballista on them, that archers can use. Each ballista has a specific might and accuracy, and a range of either 3-7 or 3-8. Where things differ is that they don't just hit one tile, they hit a 3x3 plus-shaped area - regardless of affiliation, friendly fire is a thing for them - centred on the selected tile. They ignore the user's strength, are flyer effective and cannot kill outright. This is where the Ballistician class comes in, a male-locked DLC class (with the female counterpart being Gaiden's Witch class making a comeback as a very strong magic class) - they man what is effectively a one-man tank in terms of design, and have the Cannon command. This command is basically a portable ballista, with some tradeoffs. Their targeting range is only 3-4, but they do use their strength stat, and the might/hit/crit are actually drawn from a bow of choice in the ballistician's inventory, which makes them potentially stronger than on-map ballistae. Still can't kill, but as it's tied to a bow, regular attacks (which take the form of fireballs launched from the turret in battle) or counterattacks can kill. As a special class, it gets four class skills, and those class skills are Survey, which provides a flat +10 hit to the Cannon command, Opportunity Shot, that provides a (skill)% chance of attacking a random enemy in range at the start of a turn, Rifled Barrel, which increases the AoE radius of the Cannon command by 1 (allowing it to hit one tile further away at maximum, and units adjacent to the ballistician at minimum), and Surefooted, which increases movement by 1 (which is significant as their base movement is 4 and cap is 5, so that's 6 if boots are used on one) and also lowers the movement cost of all terrain the ballistician can enter to 1, so they're not slowed down by stuff like forests, for example. The catch is that all those class skills are only usable while actively in the class. I played around with a captured generic moved into the class, and they're gimmicky due to being a mobile ballista, but good at setting up kills for other units (especially enemy units with Miracle because that skill doesn't work at 1 HP anyway) because of the whole "AoE attacks cannot kill, only lower to 1 HP" thing that Fates has going on. And can still get kills on their own if need be because they are still a bow class. If you wanna use one, you're probably gonna have to commit to using several skill slots on just its class skills, as they really make them much better at their job. I do not recall if debuffing skills (so Seal Strength, Draconic Hex or Shura's personal) work with the Cannon command or Ballistas in general, however, so I'm not sure if it's worth running them.

[@noukan42]

Debuff absolutely work. I distinctly remember having found a bow that caused a debuff and having spammed it with my ballistician.

[@TARDISES]

@@noukan42 Then if debuffs, skills included, do apply to the Cannon command, that's a good set of options to build a ballistician around, and arguably even a case to put male Corrin (or male Kana if you have a female Corrin) into the class to apply Draconic Hex at long range.

[@TheGhostInThePhoto]

@@TARDISES​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​⁠​​⁠ Here’s a basic guide as to what does and doesn’t work with the Fates Ballistician (from somebody obsessed enough with them to use more than one at a time), as well as a few extra usage tips. Only one debuff actually works, and it’s the one from Setsuna’s Yumi. It lowers the enemy’s Skill, Defense, and Resistance by 4 on hit. Debuffs from skills do not apply. That won’t stop me from shoving Shura’s ass into the Ballistician class, though. Furthermore, bows and yumi with bonus effectiveness keep that effectiveness when used for the Cannon command. The bows and yumi with this distinction are the Spellbane Yumi’s with effectiveness against tomes, the Hunter’s Bow with effectiveness against Beast units, and the Blessed Bow with effectiveness against Monster units. The Shining Bow also retains its magic damage. The Violin Bow and Harp Yumi don’t give their buffs after using Cannon, though. The Cupid’s Bow also doesn’t get its healing effect when using Cannon, either. The Cannon command doesn’t count as combat, so after battle stat drops (like the ones on Silver weapons) don’t get applied to your Ballistician. Because the Cannon command scales with your unit’s stats, Rally skills do affect the damage and accuracy. Sadly, skills like Inspiration don’t, because, again, the Cannon command doesn’t count as combat. Also because the Cannon command doesn’t count as combat, -faire skills do not apply to it. The upside is that -breaker skills also don’t apply to it. If you use Replicate, Opportunity Shot can actually activate for both the original and the Replica unit. On the same turn, no less. Because of my tendency to use three Ballisticians, all with Replicate, I always got six chances at Opportunity Shot, which often resulted in approaching enemy teams getting crippled before the turn even started. Sometimes I use four, and eight Opportunity Shots is often just excessive. Because Opportunity Shot tends to prioritize enemies that haven’t been hit yet, two Ballisticians that activate Opportunity Shot will almost never hit the same target, unless that’s the only target in range. Except for the lack of an AoE, Opportunity Shot functions exactly like the Cannon command. That means the parts about bonus effectiveness still apply, as do the debuffs from Setsuna’s Yumi. Surefooted does not allow Ballisticians to travel through Water tiles. I’ve seen this claim so many times, but it is complete bullshit. Ballisticians share a movement class with Knights and Generals. Water is not a passable tile for them, nor are Mountains, nor are Wastes. Ballisticians can’t move through those tiles, even with Surefooted. Gonna be honest, finding out that they couldn’t traverse Wastes kinda hurt me. Despite being in the same movement class as Knights and Generals, Ballisticians are not counted as an armored class, and therefore are not vulnerable to Armorslayers and the like. Despite being in a damn tank (well, okay, it’s more like a self-propelled gun), Ballisticians are counted as an unmounted class, so they take more damage from units with the Trample skill. I find this weird because Mechanists are considered a mounted class. This one is barely relevant if you use them right, though, because Ballisticians have nonexistent defensive stats anyway, and should never be allowed to participate in a fair fight. Rifled Barrel is often a complete waste of a skill slot. Yes, the extra range and larger AoE can be nice, but that larger AoE makes it much harder than you’d think to avoid friendly fire. Because you can’t fire with even one part of the AoE outside of your maximum range, a larger AoE means fewer spaces you can directly aim at. Without Rifled Barrel, Ballisticians perform their role much better. This advice goes doubly so with Setsuna’s Yumi, because the stat drop _will_ apply to your own units if you hit them. For Rifled Barrel to be worth it, you need to keep your Ballisticians ahead of your other units, which is _not_ where you should be keeping a squishy ranged unit. Ignore this advice if you’re using units with Awakening+Vantage. Shoot them all you like. Also ignore this advice if you _are_ (for some reason) putting your Ballisticians up front. If friendly fire isn’t a concern, Rifled Barrel works fine. People often recommend Wary Fighter because Ballisticians have a garbage speed stat. While this is fair, I’d recommend just keeping your Ballisticians well defended. Use Replicate instead to get more Opportunity Shots and Cannon uses per turn. Point Blank is a nice filler skill, too, especially on Shura. For some added irony, generic units (specifically ones that are or can reclass to Mechanists for Replicate) make the best Ballisticians. This is because you can buy them from the Unit Logbook, meaning you can shove Boots on them, update them, and boom, 7 move Ballisticians that aren’t slowed by (most) terrain (only real downside is that they’re expensive, but the Ghostly Gold DLC makes that irrelevant because my generic army pays for itself). Most units will have very similar performance as Ballisticians due to the fact that the Cannon command makes any Ballistician immediately useful to some degree. This makes generics better, because most actual units would be better off in other classes. Shoutouts to my favorite two Ballisticians, both former generic Apothecaries. -Kidnapped- Conscripted due to their decent bow ranks and access to Mechanist, they have served me well. Gonna be -kidnapping- conscripting a few more because it turns out that -kidnapping- conscripting them at lower levels gives you better units than doing so at higher levels. Bonus Ballistician Fact: the Ballistician uniform is the most common uniform in the game (as in, used by the most classes). The other classes that use it are the Lancer, Dark Falcon, Troubadour, Strategist, and Bow Knight. Because of this fact, I like doing runs with only units of these classes. If you have any questions regarding the Fates Ballisticians, let me know. I’m reasonably sure I can answer any question about them.

[@fums63]

Surprised you didn’t mention FE4 ballistae, I think that’s one of the most interesting versions

[@General12th]

Hi Lizard! Great analysis! I hope ballistas can be put to better use in future games and hacks.

[@BigKlingy]

6:44 Leif's Paralogue intensifies.

[@Hebleh]

Hi Fates DLC user here; I remember Ballisticians being cool in concept but the fact they couldnt kill when using their special ballista attack always felt like it was pointless to use it. The animations when in regular combat were incredibly satisfying though!

[@arikaaa69]

So they work pretty much exactly like the conquest ballista, except with movement?

[@javoclean960]

Fates Ballisticans are interesting, they are super high strength archers that have a special if I am not mistaken 5 to 7 range attack that while it cannot kill, it is a wonderful tool to weaken enemies in higher difficulties. It literally looks like a little tank and it is very fun to have in your squad imo. It caps bows at B which is annoying but works

[@lolmetaknight]

aaaah now I understand why they wanted generals to be able to use bows in FEDS and New Mystery, it was more like a reference to FE1's shooters

[@elijahlapret1612]

I like in fates you can't use them to kill enemies. Only bring them down to 1 hp and don't run out of uses. The games even give the player some like on conquest chapter 10, a very difficult map. I think they should try for that model more

[@nothingbasic8147]

6:45 *FE Engage Leif paralogue* UHM UHM

[@illusive-mike]

Engage's Mage Cannoneer is weird. On paper, they're balanced due to being extremely unreliable, so they should be as (un)fun as the RNG decides to make them. Freeze on tap isn't that great when gated behind poor accuracy and a separate proc check. And the shots generally have poor damage and can't be forged, so poking and debuffing is all the Cannoneer really can do. But you can't judge how well that would really work in general, because this is Engage and Emblems exist. The cannoneer's range vastly amplifies Corrin's utility by giving the player a lot of control over how they spread Dreadful Aura, allowing them to easily and safely stall groups of enemies. But this utility is completely unique to Engage, and all it really tells us moving forward is "maybe don't let the player reliably and safely freeze 3-5 enemies per action", which is a no-brainer to begin with.

[@Hebleh]

Byleth's Divine Pulse paired with Mage Cannoneer makes it way more reliable. Having a ranged status spammer using Freeze and Break on enemies can be immensely helpful.

[@Yuri_notooserio]

knowing that ballastician were a thing in fe1 made me really hyped about them, too bad they are just tanky (worse?) archer

[@lmaAsian]

14:00 Engage's Mage Cannoneers are a big offender of this. A class with low risk, long range, infinite ammo completely destroys any challenge the game presents and promotes a very safe and boring playstyle. On the other hand, getting clutch kills with Lyn's astra storm and Soren's siege tome feels fun because they are limited use and you actually have to consider if its worth engaging just to use them.

[@illusive-mike]

Playing Maddening with a Cannoneer right now, and my experience is that there is still a strong tie-in with the Emblem economy. At base, the Cannoneer's attacks are weak due to the lack of forging opportunities, have rather poor accuracy, and deal debuffs very unreliably. This limits the Cannoneer's primary utility to either poking the boss to speed up the map or feeding on prime Exp dispensers because those are the only kills they can score. The dynamic breaks once Corrin comes into play. A Cannoneer engaged with Corrin can insert clusters of Dreadful Aura into enemy formations at an extremely safe range, turning Corrin into an "up to 5 attacks negated per action" defensive tool without the downside of exposing its user. However, Cannoneers also have bad Emblem economy due to never doubling and not having the stats to survive being doubled (or attacked at all, really). This can result in unfun situations of Seadall being stuck on cannon pumping duty for either energy or extra effect while Lyn/Lucina/Soren are stuck grinding Emblem energy on the front line. The Cannoneer in Engage doesn't promote playing safe. The combination of their squishiness and their ability to freeze clusters of enemies encourages aggressively diving the enemy positions in a way that can't really be called "turtling". However, Corrin clearly wasn't designed to be used this way and the power of this combo is so oppressive that the more interactive defensive options like Lucina's Bonded Shield, Lyn's duplicates, and everything Ike and Hector do can get overshadowed.

[@fationmuhollari9355]

First af all, very good video! Isn't Dagdar not a good choice against them because of accost? Finally, you should see what the Kaga's Sagas do with ballistae it's very interesting. To be honest I don't see much love from them in the community, but since I got into Berwick and it's mechanics it's so difficult to come back to any fire emblem 😄

[@actuallizard]

Dagdar is ok if you're goal is just to drain the ammo out of a ballista since Accost lets him do it twice as fast. It does make it harder for him if you're trying to take out a ballista more aggressively

[@Duck_Praise]

Beck was my carry on shadow dragon, I remember forging pachyderm making it absolutely annihilate everything (my dumb ass said "what is BIGGER than a pachyderm?" so I named the forged weapon T-Rex lol)

[@mobgabriel1767]

We need more playable ballisticians it sounds awesome to play with

[@aleisterleopold6229]

Flyers should not be able to get into a batista's minimum range in one movement. Calvery should be able to do so instead. Have a benefit for Calvery over flyers

[@Alban_Blade_Memer]

I love batista but only if it's me who get one

[@Juniperjungby]

Love the thumbnail but now it can't be as quirky of triva when I drop it on people :(

[@toniconge7003]

Something I do really dislike about Balistas is knowing if my unit will be able to live a hit from them since the game hides the weapon mt.

[@michaelvisosky743]

Random thought. What if ballistae could *only* target fliers? Perhaps they're specialized anti-air weapons, angled upwards. Hitting an aerial target is as easy as point-and-shoot, but it's not reasonable to aim for grounded targets, since you'd have to somehow calculate where the end of your firing arc is. This could have interesting affect on the metas of various games.

[@Eshyyyyy]

I think the only notable times I've ever actually used a Ballista on a map were in CQ 10 and Engage 8. Which funninly enough in Engage is the tutorial for them anyway. Ballistas are really good at area denial so in a Defense map they make sense to be a tool for the player. For most maps however I think that they're usually just not the most helpful.

[@letsmakeit110]

Berwick Saga makes liberal use of time-sensitive objectives so the enemy ballistas function well. One thing the map designers like to do is have a transporter unit carrying the ballista's ammo. So if you're fast you can take out the civilian transport before they arm the ballista. The ballistae have 3-7 range, so if you get close enough they stop being a threat. But usually this means diving into the rest of the enemies. There's even a recruitable Ballistician. He gets 2 move and he can't attack after moving, but 7 range so sometimes it's worth deploying anyway.

[@Enrique_Gonzalez_]

I always thought FE1 Shooters were confusing. Their high defense and low move made them come across as Armored Archers… in a game where base Archers can already be considered “Armored Archers” compared to the Hunter class.

[@marth64op96]

What about the Ballista’s from Fates? Aren’t they good for some particular reasons or is there a downfall to it?

[@centurosproductions8827]

"Ballistae" >Half of them are actually catapults/trebuchets.

[@Dw7freak]

I think unlimited siege can be way too strong. In the last 3 maps of Radiant Dawn, you get to make one weapon on each character infinite use and hurt the bosses and you can choose the siege tomes with it. While they aren't that strong in Radiant Dawn, their range greatly makes up for it, especially since 4-e-3 gives you only dragons as enemies, so Bolting gets the 3 time effective bonus on all of them, including the boss. There's nothing quite like spamming siege tomes that normally have very few uses.

[@gc6096]

Cool

[@marcoasturias8520]

One funky balistician map is the Garnef map in fe1. In SD, balistician make sense because the map is like a tower with only one narrow entrance where all your units have traverse to reach the top. Balistas make sense because they can attack you down. In fe1, they're normal units with 2 range weapons, so the large corridor is just a featureless move spam segment. Also, no siege tomes in fe1, so yeah, it's literally a nothing segment.

[@ryangallagher9723]

what are you talking about? fe1 chapter 23 doesn't have any ballisticians in any of its three incarnations.

[@aleisterleopold6229]

Siege tomes?

[@MugenCannon97]

>He hasn't played the Fates Ballistician Well, pack it up boys, he hasn't used the funny mobile tank in the funny war game. Video's a bust. Missed the best and silliest one.

[@SapphicSara]

I love fliers, I hate then tings make using fliers worse, so I am anti Ballista.