Office Hours - Thieves

[@antonykun9940]

I love that the garbage thief corner (Low Combat and Low Utility) is just the Archanea Thieves because they were made weak because they can open chests and doors in a game where Marth with a door key is basically a thief

[@MythrilZenith]

@@antonykun9940 seriously considered putting Marth on this graph but that opened up others like Ashe, Orochi or locktouch class changes and so I decided the line was drawn at Thief base class.

[@miraclePoints]

7:25 "I would love to see someone actually level Lara to level 80" Excelblem did this in his Thracia ironman, because of course he would, it's one of the most Excelblem strats possible

[@cyndit9054]

I believe Excelblem's Lara turned out amazing, but she ended up getting berserked in a late chapter, so he either had to kill her or she got herself killed (if I'm remembering correctly)

[@BigBoyFargo]

In Berwick Saga, thieves get experience for unlocking chests and doors, and the two you get have very different growth paths. The first you get can promote into a mounted class for way more overall utility and the other is more focused on using the Mug skill to take non droppable items from enemies they kill.

[@ResurgentRaven]

Gotta love my boi Sothe essentially being the best multi use thief in the series.

[@windmage0168]

These videos help me a lot when designing characters for the TTRPG system based on Fire Emblem that me and my friends play. Thank you very much!

[@MythrilZenith]

Always glad to hear I'm helping out other game designers and the like!

[@17Master]

IS Thief design over the years - Ancient Era Thieves - "There is no utility." Middle Era Thieves - "Nooooooo, we need to give them unique resource acquisition in addition to some manner of combat prowess! But not so much of either that the game feels as though it mandates deploying the Thief." Modern Era Thieves - "There is no utility."

[@yesbloomsan4290]

thief/covert utility in engage. rally speed, 20-range astra storm, fog vision.

[@michael_betts]

21:05 Sothe actually has MUCH higher growth rates on random growth than fixed growth. That chart is fixed growth sothe. Blossom random growth sothe has 17.3% more hp growth, 18.63888% more strength, 7.88% more magic and so on. random growth blossom sothe at 20 on average has 36 hp, 20 str, 4.6 mag, 20 skl, 20 spd, 20.2 luck, 15 defence and 9.7 res, Which is better stats than base Sothe in Radiant Dawn. I've done a 20/20 random Sothe transfer before and It's still probably not worth it, but that chart is very misleading. edit: also If you are focused on transferring It gives you a place to dump def and res boosters that wont cap other transfer units.

[@MythrilZenith]

Fair enough. I know that in order to calculate Blossom they did some sort of behind-the-scenes math, and that math got directly scraped and put onto Serenes Forest, whose charts I used for the data to create my graph. Because Blossom is basically a re-roll for any stat that does not proc for every level up, its mathematical bonus can be calculated and applied to fixed data, though once again because it's random growths your results may vary.

[@michael_betts]

@@MythrilZenith I never liked that serenesforest used fixed-growth sothe for that chart and didn't state it anywhere. Considering they have seperate charts for different promotion trees in some games I don't know why they dont have a fixed growth and random growth chart. It's also really weird that blossom in-game doesn't do the same boost on the two modes, but that's a different discussion.

[@TwoHeadedMeerkat]

Perne being so low on combat is absolutely a crime. Highest Follow-up critical coefficient in the game alongside units like Mareeta, Fergus, and Homer, high base stats compared to the other thieves in the game, and the highest amount of movement stars alongside Tina and freaking _Galzus._ Even if you take the Kingmaker away from him, he's still a fantastic combat unit to complement his thief utility in a game where thieves are arguably at their strongest. And you put him at the same level as Chad. You also left Shura out, which is a shame, since I find he's significantly better than Niles aside from his join-time and even though he lacks Capture. Joins with high enough Bow Level to use the Killer Bow he joins with, and joins just before a map FILLED with Ninjas that Adventurers will have a field day with. He doesn't get supportive options, but has a significantly better Heart Seal option in Ninja compared to Niles' Dark Mage, and as a result, can slide pretty easily into Mechanist to keep both his default Bow rank, while also gaining the ability to use Shuriken, which are one of, if not the best weapon type in Fates

[@MythrilZenith]

@@TwoHeadedMeerkat to be honest it's been a long time since I played Thracia so I didn't remember his PCC. And as for Shura, yeah just totally forgot to include him when making the list. My bad.

[@TwoHeadedMeerkat]

@@MythrilZenith Understandable. I consider Perne to be one of -- if not the best -- unit in his game. Manipulates all the weird Thracia mechanics better than anyone else

[@dragonarrow5525]

Yeah I'd say Perne should be at Anna's level. Like Anna he's no combat god but he's very strong at base with heaps of utility thrown in. I don't think he goes any higher than that though because Perne is very strong *for a thief* while everyone above Anna is strong in combat regardless of their thief utility (which is good for them considering most of them don't have much of it).

[@Venomdrad]

Perne has good combat for a thief, yes. But remember he’s in Thracia and joins halfway thru the game. It’s not that hard to make good combat units in Thracia. Perne has more important things to do. He is utility first, hence his appropriate placement. He’d only be above the GBA thieves for combat, if we moved his position.

[@TwoHeadedMeerkat]

@@Venomdrad If looking _solely_ at thief utility, then yes. You'd be right. He does have more things to be doing. But what matters here is that he _can_ do both, and he's good at both. You could have him go steal the staff off a priest to his right, or fight the enemy unit to his left, and he'd likely do both just as easily; which is great for him, since again, he has five movement stars meaning he very likely CAN do both. Perne joins relatively late, yeah, and that gives Lifis some actual utility being the only early thief who can actually steal items, before he hides from his childhood bully on the bench for the rest of the playthrough. He's strong for a thief, but considering he's in Thracia where anyone barring Shannam can reach their caps very easily and he has the innate advantage of his movement stars and PCC, being "strong for a thief," translates to being a strong unit in general. If he didn't have the thief utility and was just a Myrmidon or something, I'd argue he'd still be a solid combat unit, if a little oddly low on raw stats compared to other prepromotes designed for combat. Certainly doesn't hurt that he has a mutual bond-support with Lara, who's a must-have on teams anyway due to her own dancer utility.

[@SleepyDeino]

38:30 you can't reclass into a promoted class till 21 from engage thief, but base classes are available at every level doing my mage yunaka run rn, where i used my first second seal on her

[@willbill6942]

I agree for the most part with the placings, but I do think you're underrating thieves a lot for Engage. They do have poison utility, which is good for the tougher enemies on Maddening Mode, plus I think the 0 hit issue is pretty overblown. You can usually get to a comfortable single digit hit and not have to worry about getting them killed or enemies not attacking them.

[@ignoos]

Very good video but no way Awakening Anna so low on the utility chart that a mistake she came with an healing staff and can boost any ally speed she paired up with what else could ask for utility wise.

[@AlexT7916]

I find it funny you ranked the Fates Ninja the exact opposite way of how strong they are in game, Kaze is the one available the earliest and the speediest one but eventually he falls behind in killing power, Oboro is the one with the highest strenght, being able to deal monstrous amounts of damage if you are able to patch up her kinda shaky speed and Saizo is just a monster of a unit who can attack both defenses really well thanks to the flame shuriken, has among the highest growths in the game (mostly because he has good growths in both Str & Mag, I think it's 55/45) and being comparable at similar levels, if not outright stronger

[@deltatkg5380]

I think you forgot to talk about legault when talking about gba thieves. Also shura isn't even on the graph. People sacrifice him for the boots so much they forget he's a thief, huh.

[@mysmallnoman]

The idea that julian and Rikard aren't useful because Marth exists is kinda dumb because Marth also has to seize and visit villages, by using him instead of the thieves you'd be going super slow

[@wingofshu]

"problem" with the utlity side is i often see the arbument "hurr durr just give seth the chest keys" so my answer is literly 0 generic chest keys and just enough generic door keys on said map to get to boss and let a thief class have enough stats to operate(which most do honestly, they just dont do 9001 damage and one shot stuff) option 2 is combat support, basicly engage and keeping daggers as enage has them inbetween just wont work as stated above if you have chest keys avable and "medeoger" thives you just hear "give chest key to over leveld carry" I constly hear "oh theres enough chest keys in that game, just drop the thief, they useless

[@manologamerss5801]

You're forgetting about stealables. ESPECIALLY Thracian stealables. It's also funny of you to mention Seth, there's both stat boosters and even IIRC a promotion item that you entirely miss if you just give Seth chest keys and don't use Colm. Not to mention desert items...

[@boserboser6870]

Making chest keys expensive single use shop items is a decent solution. Means theives arnt litterally so essential that you cant let them die but justify the deploy 3 use keys are more than eneugh to raid most treasure rooms. But 1 use means youd need to dedicate 3 item slots to them. Abd if their 700~1000gp per key that adds up as a pretty hefty gold cost that thieves are saving you over a game.

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL MythrilZenith videos!!!! ❤

[@66Rokers]

I take issue with how you put Dew higher in combat than Patty. Dew starts with a garbage 3 Strength and an Iron sword (9 might total) with no Combat skills aside from sol. No Pursuit, Accost or Adept. Dew can do some barebones chip damage in chapter 1 to get exp and money but can't do anything in chapter 2, there's no axe enemies for him to safely poke (1 base defence moment) and it's unlikely he'll see any combat until Mackily if you're racing to get the bargain band. He'll die to most things for all of chapter 3 until he gets a wind sword near the end, magic damage lets him do a little bit of work but you're going to need to baby him hard to get him to promote him, and by chapter 4 is it really worth it by then? You could give him the light brand to give him range until he gets the wind sword. All Magic swords are C rank in FE4, but it's personal preference. Patty can start with a magic sword with the right father and can bring some nice combat skills too, She starts off in a bit of a bad spot surrounded by mages that will kill her with a fart, but she will always have better offensive stats than Dew. She also has the sleep sword which can do some pretty funny things in the arena in addition to having her dad's skills helping her with combat, Patty will pretty much always turn out better than Dew unless you pair Brigid with Claud. As you said it's all about optimisation, but just like with every child unit in FE4 they will always have greater potential than the Gen 1 units. Except Coirpre. Like what are you meant to do with him his substitute is unironically better.

[@DoTtA1123]

perne has 5 pcc. his combat is way better than those gba thieves. edit: i actually have quite a few disagreements in how you asses the kaga thieves especially in fe4 and 5. Take dew for example a unit who is damn near essential for any type of ranked run. lower in utility than fe9 theif and heather? no way. he should be at the tippity top. also, you have daisy only a peg lower at combat than patty. im not sure you've ever used daisy, but shes quite possibly one of the worst combatants in fe history. her bases and growths in offensive categories are awful. patty on the other hand, can actually bit quite alright at base if she has the right father, and can snowball way easier.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@DoTtA1123 Even when I try to escape the issues with tier list format I accidentally fumble myself into other toxic comments. I admit that generalization and inexperience flavored this graph but I also am not making assumptions like ranked runs or highest difficulty. If you want to make your own graph that's more correct then please be my guest.

[@DoTtA1123]

@@MythrilZenith I can promise you im not being toxic. idk maybe you are used to others being toxic but im simply leaving a comment on where I disagree with some of the subjective ordering of this list. If I made my own list, I wouldn't be more "correct" but I would be okay with seeing the reasoning of why people disagree with me. because thats sort of the whole point in stuff like this.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@DoTtA1123 Fair enough. I'm just used to getting floods of one-off comments that just attack me and complain about unit placements that i probably just assumed you were doing the same. Apologies for the assumptive reaction.

[@VieiraFi]

​@@MythrilZenithI don't think this person in particular was attacking you.

[@sedgoddddd]

Cover more Kaga Saga!

[@dragonarrow5525]

I don't quite get the "just use marth" argument against archanaea thieves. Is there not value in spending a deployment slot or two to free marth of some of his duties? You only go as fast or slow as marth does and freeing him up to make other kinds of progress in the map (whether it be combat, villages, seizing, etc) has to be at least about as good as your worst combat unit could have contributed instead right? I guess a major aspect of this is which game's marth you're talking about and more often than not marth will probably be worse than your worst combat unit.

[@BrawlSnorlax]

umm how about putting Curcles aroud who you are talking about for people who are bad with names?

[@roseyrock2068]

I know they are all supposed to be all in around the same spot here but the idea that kaze has the same combat prowess as Saizo is a laughable suggestion. Also id like to think that Gauis has a higher potential combat contribution than the gba theifs who either cannot promote or have lackluster combat stats at best

[@MythrilZenith]

@@roseyrock2068 yeah I wasn't going to comment on the specific differences of the ninjas because that's not fresh enough on my mind to speak to. Also Gaius was previously higher in an early version of the chart, but someone in my discord campaigned very hard for me to drop his combat rating lower before it was finalized.

[@roseyrock2068]

@@MythrilZenith I'll have to join the discord and see what this person said about Gaius and why they are so deeply misguided

[@Starwars-Fanboy]

I think Astol and Legualt have some legitimate combat contributions and should be higher than Gaius. For the rest of the GBA theives I'd agree though. Not that I think Gaius himself is good, but he can take advantage of awakenings busted mechanics. He's still a low tier in his respective game.