Nino: The Gold Standard for Late-Joining Units

[@SP_Sour]

"When you think of Fire Emblem units, who comes to mind?" Me: Probably the one in the title of the video in front of my face

[@MythrilZenith]

Yeah, probably a poor choice to keep that weird soft intro in retrospect.

[@miraclePoints]

3:41 Ways FE7 Encourages Training Nino from a Mechanical Perspective: 3. Ranked runs demand large amounts of EXP gain for the Experience rank, so a unit that gains EXP quickly becomes a valuable asset

[@Venomdrad]

Yup, Nino is a great example of a late joiner that you would want to train up thanks to her stat growths, class, and story scenes. I do want to give a shout-out to the FE rom-hack Vision Quest and its take on a late-game growth unit: Sigrid. Sigrid joins late in a Part 4 FOW chapter as a lvl 5 monk. Her bases are bad for this point and training her can be a pain, but she has excellent growth rates that get even better if you give her the growth boosting potion. On top of that she has: * Paragon skill, she levels up quick. * A personal light tome with a brave effect that has 50 uses. Light tomes also have reduced weight in this hack btw. She can safely attack promoted enemies from range and get huge xp after other units soften the enemy up first. * Promoting to bishop in this game will get her instant B-rank staves so she can use most staves right away. * Prior story scenes with an impactful event that happens just before you get her. She became an easy slot in my team after that, which means a lot considering how many units you get in VQ. Her personality is also quite likable.

[@JonoabboFE]

Not only can she use magic, but she will also take pictures to prove that she cleaned her family restaurant! Good video! Definitely true how she has a lot character building for a regular unit.

[@selicyoats]

Very glad to see you discuss the story aspect of training Nino, it often gets overlooked but it's probably the most important thing to note for why people use Nino.

[@hadoukenfighter]

A trained nino is a worse pent but pent is a god so that isn’t a bad thing, she ain’t karla lol. I haven’t used her in ages but nino is well designed enough to like

[@QueenAleenaFan]

Counterpoint: the worse mechanically a unit is the more I want to win with them

[@noukan42]

One thing people usually forget is that the intended "challenge run" is ranked. Nino is significnatly better in ranked because she gain a lot of exp and level up quick. You have to run subpar units anyway to get that rank. And obviously, once you leveled her anyway, you may as well keep using her if she grew well. Personally i find exp rank to be an inelegant way of keeping low levels unit relevants. But it work.

[@dragonarrow5525]

I don't know much about GBA ranked but from what I've seen of it, it seems like you rarely get to use the payoff for your training projects so a unit like Nino I think would feel bad in a different way. She's not hard to train at least comparatively since you actually are bringing weak units that can help her out but by the end of it she will probably end up as one of many units you've trained but can't use afterwords because you need to bench them for another training project. I've been playing Genealogy ranked and it has been quite a bit better in that regard because you can deploy your entire army every map and you are expected to promote everyone, but it still has the problem of some promoted units not getting to do much because staff grinding is way too easy. I was able to promote Tailtiu (Nino but you learn about the abuse afterwords) by the end of chapter 4 and now my reward for that is 10 levels of sitting at the home castle using warp over and over while the units that can't use staves get to actually do combat because that's their only source of xp.

[@watercrystals9744]

i don't know if i'd call ranked the intended challenge run tbh it seems more like a tack on similar to fe6 hard mode and was more of an after thought than something the developers consciously considered balancing around the player, considering all of the hector exclusive maps have a turn clear requirement of a big fat 0, meaning you always incur a penalty to your tactics rank for something completely outside of your control by comparison, i think a vanilla HHM playthrough is the clear intended challenge run as there are specific gameplay decisions that were made to directly alter the gameplay experience of the player like cog having the entire map replaced with valkyries and druids

[@noukan42]

@@watercrystals9744 and HHM as even more significant blunders, such as not having given hard mode bonuses to two units that are force deployed in a lot of maps and borderline useless. I don't think Intsys ever playtested the hardest difficulty. Not even once.

[@Sebastian-ib2ww]

Nino is a character who I liked right away, I never really put much tought about it, since other mages were doing a pretty good job, but something besides her design wanted me to make her strong...maybe it was her story

[@hollowfox213]

Nino will always be one of my favorite characters in Fire Emblem, I use her on every playthrough I do of Blazing Blade. I also like that the chapter right after she joins gives plenty of easy enemies to set up for her to kill, right out of the gate. Since the tiles are straight lines, it means you can park someone in front of Nino to take damage, while she attacks from behind them, completely safe.

[@serious6515]

I'd also point to Elincia as an Est-type with similar levels of buildup, but I think she falls flat gameplay-wise. Technically her A staves makes her one of the better units of the archetype, but ultimately ending up as just a staffbot misses the charm of an Est for me. My absolute favorite though has to be Delthea. Good bases, fantastic growths, levels like crazy, act 4 gives you plenty of Barons to bully with Aura, plenty of toys around Fear Mountain, cool spell list, extremely funny combat post-promotion if you feel like mailing over a Ladyblade for shits and giggles (not quite as practical as a Mage Ring, but still). Just an absolute blast to use and the game makes it very easy to do so.

[@MythrilZenith]

Yeah there are a couple of examples, Elincia being a particularly interesting one as it's basically turning the escort-quest non-combatant INTO a unit in a surprise twist, which is a pretty fun concept. Execution a bit rough, mostly because both being a true game-over condition AND attacking on defense locked to 1-range with a rather low base mt weapon in a game defined by bulky enemies means she's basically never seeing combat, but there *is* something there, especially since she's arguably a more "true" Est being a pegasus knight and capable of doing a Pegasus Triangle Attack.

[@watercrystals9744]

elincia's not an est, her growths are pretty much on par if not worse than most fe9 units with her only standout stat being her high growth in magic lol even calling delthea one is a stretch since her bases are unironically better than other act 3 units who join you that clearly aren't ests like luthier lol like besides nino and est herself, none of the other characters people love to claim as ests really fit the actual established archetype set by est

[@MaddMoke]

Ursula bolting Nino was my first experience with her during my blind normal playthrough. Having a bolting boss in fog who focuses on Nino first is just rude. But just casually using her was fun. So I get it

[@MythrilZenith]

In Eliwood mode Ursula is in the fog by Jaffar and doesn't move, so you must have been playing Hector mode. Either way though if you were moving Nino towards Jaffar to recruit him then she may have ended up in Ursula's range.

[@Justic_]

Never thought of Hortensia as an Est, I mean, yeah she's the last unpromoted unit to join your army at a point when you've been receiving pre-promotes for a while, but she joins at Level 19 and with passable stats, especially considering her main-occupation as Healer. I'd honestly just say Engage doesn't have a real "Est", unless you choose to recruit Jean or Anna super late. Not like that's impossible either since Awakening, similarly laden with classic FE-archetypes, also doesn't really have an "Est", unless you maybe count the child-units as such. As for the story-reasons to raise Nino, I definitely think those play a decent role, although shes also by far not the only Est-archetype with story-relevance that gives people a reason to raise her. Like, Est herself appears a decent bit before you recruit her and has being one of Minervas Whitewings as well as Catria and Pallas sister going for her, and her sisters generally stand out as quite good units, so Est comes in with a lot of promise for the future, and you kinda want to see her on par with her sisters. The same goes for her appearence in Valentia, although there she doesn't join that much later than her sisters and Delthea on Alms route comes a ot closer to that role of "Est". In her case her being an enemy first probably boosts her perception both story-wise and actually gameplay-wise, since Delthea already starts out with nuking potential and the player will be on the receiving end of it at first, her problem as an Est also isn't to get kills most of the time, but to not get picked off by other enemies afterwards during enemy phase. FE4 has Tailtiu, although the story-reasons to train her might only be appearent to most on a 2nd playthough... but also she comes with Wrath as an extremely strong unique skill that makes training her worthwhile, not to mention that the way arena works makes training her a lot easier... and then Gen 2s Est Coirpre probably won't be able to make use of it in his joining chapter because he'll have to get through 19 levels of healing first. Well, at least he has his bit of story-relevance... Then in FE5 I'd consider Sara the resident Est, since she appears regardless of route, although Miranda has Est-traits as well, both of them are quite story-relecant either way, although Sara has the greater purpose of using the Kia Staff to depetrify Eyvel and others later on. And so on.

[@MythrilZenith]

Hortensia is not a gameplay Est, but the point of bringing her into comparison was with how much story presence she got prior to recruitment. Est herself only appears once in gameplay before her recruitment (in the chapter where Minerva leaves turn 2) and in zero speaking roles in both Archanea and Valentia. Sara and Miranda are a bit more mixed as Sara has FAR more gameplay and story relevance than Miranda and is not locked behind an optional route, plus you get her one chapter after Miranda. Neither are really flagged in the story before their joining chapter but Sara definitely has the gameplay relevance on her side.

[@keltonschleyer6367]

Never heard the argument of prior narrative investment; well done. L'Arachel is indeed a great example. Was also fun finally getting to use Basilio/Flavia (Awakening) and Athos. Do you think chapter prologue introductions also endear oneself to the character? Rutger/Clarine, Joshua, and Gerik/Tethys/Innes (Eirika's route) all come to mind.

[@MythrilZenith]

I think chapter introductions have that potential, but can often drop the ball entirely (see most units in Engage).

[@IgnoramusWithoutNumbers]

Hello, My Name's NINOOOOO!

[@MythrilZenith]

I'll do my best!

[@FriendlyDoctorGuy]

Now that is a callback, that's like one scene from one episode of Hell's Kitchen

[@BigMhatty]

I'll always take the high-growth late game project over those pre-promotes that won't get a str/mag over 15. All these "savvy" FE experts allergic to work or something.

[@neongrey333]

nino is cool and she should get a hug

[@sauce4279]

This is your 776th video. Neat!

[@armorbearer9702]

So in order for an Est to be useful, the Est should be able to hit reliably and do decent damage to certain enemy units(knights and other low res units for mages). Mage Ests (usually) are the best because they have the bonus of dealing damage from range 2.

[@MythrilZenith]

In a traditional Fire Emblem situation, yes. There are some unique features that change the situation, like forged weapons allowing them to hit accurately and sometimes even 1-shot enemies thus bypassing the need to have enemies be weakened altogether, but that's the core gameplay takeaway that I've found.

[@pholleenphorrest1063]

LETS GO WE LOVE NINO POSTING

[@bvd_vlvd]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO LIKE BAD UNITS BECAUSE IT TAKES LONGER TO BEAT THE GAME WITH THEM!!!!!1!!!!11111!!1!

[@EthanKironus8067]

Seriously, while I support the Nino posting why didn't you do a Thracia video for your 776th?! The joke's right there! Anyone else upset that Legault doesn't even get a unique conversation/event if he visits the house where Nino and Jaffar are in 4-Fanged Offense? I legit went out of my way for that because I thought I'd get something out of it.

[@MythrilZenith]

Yeah Legault being one of the 4 fangs at one point but NOT having any connection is an odd miss. And I honestly don't have anything more to say about Thracia right now unfortunately, but maybe I can hide/delete videos to make a future one #776 :P

[@morevrai]

I could never put my finger as to why I wanted to max out nino as a kid(I had no idea what supports were I thought they were random at the time) and it’s bc her lore is soo good and having her k word Sonia is so satisfying

[@jemolk8945]

Came in thinking I'd disagree, but... yeah, this is completely true. I would point out that Nino uses arguably the worst magic type for FE7 endgame (just due to how poorly anima magic outside of Forblaze matches up against Nergal and the Fire Dragon), which can make the end of the game irritatingly anticlimactic for a character that you put so much time into training, but outside of that, she's a pretty awesome character.

[@MythrilZenith]

Anima is great for normal enemies but the specific nature of the final bosses does put her at a disadvantage as a bosskiller. Glad that you appreciated the video though!

[@wouterW24]

A mechanical nudge I'm surprised you didn't mention is that Nino gets force deployed on night of farewells, which was very rare at the time and even for first timers that green locked glow stuck at the top in the unit selection oozes importance. The map is also a chokepoint fest so especially new players will advance slowly or outright get stuck so Nino is easy to baby or player might start doing it as a byproduct of it being the most interesting thing they can do in a otherwise annoying map.

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL MythrilZenith videos!!!! ❤

[@MorphBall1]

Lilina could count, though she isn't a late-join. But I think she takes a similar role as Nino where her story-relevance (or rather semi main character status) makes her more popular than she would be otherwise despite being a weak mage for that point of the game.

[@DarkAuraLord]

Nino Gaming

[@LunarBoo]

I love Nino

[@goodgamer1419]

Erm what about the best late joining unit, john emblem

[@MythrilZenith]

I loved the part where he said "It's Emblem Time" and then Fired over everything.

[@lsrrr3857]

Got her killed for a KZbin video joke. Who did that? Baby!

[@MythrilZenith]

I didn't mean to, but she dodged and got doubled in my lords only run so I had to include that clip everywhere it's relevant.

[@thetiger39]

The problem with Est type characters is that the game is not extreme enough to make them using when fully trained. A fully trained Nino is barely that much better than a fully leveled Pent, not to mention that Pent literally has A rank staves. Nino's growths aren't even better than the lords who get special privilages in the growths department. My idea of an Est is to take Nino but jack up the growths to be like I do not know perhaps 500% split across 8 stats. Give her a unique promotion, say a flying mage with caps that are very reachable and and yet, obscenely high. Don'tt forget to givenher access to the entire magic triangle + high rank staves and you get your very big reward for training up latecomer Nino. All in all, lztecomers wth low level bases offer the following gamplaywise: - Low baees, loe level, joins when the game only has 5 chapters left - Someone eho loves watch the Exp bar gow very fast - Someone who loves watching the level up screen ding all over the place - An Est should be tedious to train, difficuot but the reward iscan OP unit who is OP in every direction. End of story.

[@MythrilZenith]

I feel like if you're creating a world in which an Est is so heavily rewarded then you're just creating a new problem. Not every unit can be the best unit, or even have an aspect of themselves that outshines others. And they don't need to. Sometimes bad units can be bad, and it's fun for some people to make bad units work. It would be cool if every once in a while you got an Est that mops the floor with other units if invested into, but if that was the only way Ests worked then that would in many ways just make every other late-joining unit inferior to the Est. Sometimes having a unit that's usable but not incredible is still just as valid, and just as fun, as having a unit with a big payoff. And heck, who's to say you need to use Pent and not Nino? Use both. Use Erk too, it doesn't matter. Your story is your own, you aren't being required to use only one unit of a class or only use the best options, or even strictly punished for not doing so

[@thetiger39]

@@MythrilZenith Who says that my version of an ideal est is even a good unit. You seem to forget the stinky start that they have to go through (as in getting one shot and not doubling constantly at base) and ltc and efficiency players would not even bother using her.

[@jemolk8945]

Honestly, I think it would be payoff enough if you just gave her high enough growths to get noticeably better than average stats when trained. Someone like Sophia, who is actually a massive pain to train, could reasonably be given growths that let her reliably cap everything by 20/20, but honestly, you should probably pick between that _or_ a unique promotion and merely quite good growths even for someone that has possibly the worst start in the entire series. What you're suggesting would, I think, be game breaking, even with the late join time and rough start. And Nino doesn't have _that_ rough a start.

[@noukan42]

@@MythrilZenith quite honestly, if a proper est got infinite stats and 15 mivement on promotion, they would still be ranked mid tier at best due to low aviability and half of it being spent on the training arc. The payoff avsolutely need to be THAT good. The pokemon equivalent of an Est are dratini and the other pseudo legendaries, and they work as intended.

[@Augestein]

There's nothing really vague about the "Est" archetype. It's a unit that joins later in the game with above average bases that are lower than your army in general but they have really great growths. Also, the 3rd reason to use Nino, is that she's one of the best units for salvaging your EXP rank if you actually are doing a ranked run. Because you get the most bang for your buck with her attacking. I do agree that a lot of the love for Nino is based on the narrative though. And a lot of people back in the day liked to give her the Afa Drops so that way they could bank on her growths even more.

[@MythrilZenith]

A year ago I would agree with you that Est isn't that vague but nowadays I've seen SO many posts and videos arguing about who is and who isn't an Est, about how late you have to join or how low level you have to be or how good your growths need to be or even what class you have to be to be an Est. It's a term that in theory means something simple, but as soon as you try to draw lines around it it gets really awkward.

[@Augestein]

@@MythrilZenith I think it's more that the series as it has gone on has played around more with the stereotypes and archetypes and stepped out of them more frequently. Sort of like how there was the "Jagen" and "Oifey" types to talk about pre-promotes, but then people in hindsight realized that Jagen was *still* super good in the original version of Fire Emblem 1 on the account that he could use Silver Lances at base, has 10 move, and promotion caps remain the same as unpromoted. And the reality is that there never should have been a "Jagen" and "Oifey" type. The only thing there should have been is a "Jagen" in the sense of an early pre-promoted unit that joins you-- people kept adding on to it and made it a bit convoluted IMO. Or how Fates Nohr actually doesn't have a pair of christmas knights but Hoshido does with the ninja bros. And it's done pretty slick in the fact that ninjas inherit cavs if their partner is a ninja. I think the bigger issue is that a lot of times Fire Emblem fans overcomplicate things to the point that things get really muddled when it should just be a simple concept at heart.

[@JJSquirtle]

blame the fe wiki for making it a debate in the first place

[@SP_Sour]

@@Augestein On the subject of "Christmas knights" in Nohr, I do think Felicia and Flora were meant to be a sort of counterpart to the archetype. Their colors are cyan and pink (complementary colors to red and green), they're siblings, they start at the same class (Maid), and you even have a serious one and a sillier one. Only problem is you don't actually get them at the same time, in fact it's possible (even probable) you'll _miss_ Flora. I guess this is kind of tangential but maybe it's a good example of how they play with those archetypes sometimes.

[@Augestein]

@@SP_Sour Maybe. Maids / Butlers are one of the first classes you get as well. I really hate how they did Flora so dirty. Never letting her get the expanded support list that everyone else has, being locked behind a bizarre requirement to get her, and the fact that she joins so late. Yeah, you can see it a lot later in the series, and I love that.

[@prrrromotiongiven1075]

Who the hell considers Tormod an Est?

[@MythrilZenith]

A lot of people, surprisingly. Est is a SUPER broad category. Plus it's an easier comparison to Nino considering they're both low-level mages, even if Tormod has several more chapters to see use in.

[@RobotGuy405]

erm, ackshually, athos is the best est cause you can raise his stats with stat boosters, smh

[@theking5116]

engage has some really damn ugly character designs