Takumi: Birthright's Most Overrated Unit

[@Grimsleeper86]

The best Takumi build requires you ditch Fujin Yumi for Skadi and pair Takumi with Takumi to unlock super Awakening pair up.

[@kyrroti]

It’s a shame that’s Conquest exclusive

[@gallalameblook9911]

You'll need to find a Bold Stance scroll somewhere

[@orvaldurgumundson1809]

@@kyrroti not to mention boss exclusive.

[@luckylucas8596]

@@orvaldurgumundson1809Just capture him and you’ll be good 👍

[@mauricesteel4995]

@@orvaldurgumundson1809 whoosh

[@Bluegh]

I can't believe I forgot to mention this but I also want to add that in late game if you want to activate his personal skill more often you can have him go Mechanist and use replicate to pair up with himself. Since Takumi is always going to be the same level as Takumi, Competitive wouldn't be able to turn itself off.

[@Noahs_Chair]

This Strategy is so effective it's consistently use in the endgame of Conquest.

[@sohn7767]

@@Noahs_ChairI use it all the time

[@MugenCannon97]

Shoutout to Takumi not having fast support growth with Hinoka, his own sister. Dude might act like he hates Corrin, but he clearly has a most disliked sibling, and it aint the feet lizard.

[@KingOfSkill]

Interesting discussion, but I feel like Takumi is being unfairly judged here. I notice that a lot of hardcore Fire Emblem players highly value a character's bases over their growths. They much rather have a character who is strong the moment you get them, with good base stats and strong weapons with high weapon ranks, and Takumi delivers very strongly there. He comes with a legendary weapon so you never really have to invest money into weapons with him, and in Birthright he can just one shot every single Ninja on the map, which is fantastic because Ninjas are extremely infuriating to deal with due to their high speed and lack of counterplay (axes and bows have weapon advantage, but even then it's hard to just reliably hit them), but with Takumi's overwhelming damage output and disgusting hit rate, he'll destroy every Ninja on that map, so immediately he's fantastic. The weapon might of Fujin Yumi being 14 is also a little overlooked when it comes to super effective damage towards flying units. It's always painful when you go for super effective damage and you're just short of one shotting an enemy, but with Fujin Yumi's might, you will never ever have to worry about Takumi being unable to one shot a flying unit. Now to say that he struggles on enemy phase due to still being an archer that is 2 ranged locked, and Ryoma is infinitely better because Ryoma does what Takumi does but much better... well yeah both Ryoma and Xander in Conquest are the best units, that's pretty much in general how this game is set up: the royal family is much stronger than their retainers and other members, with the older royals being the strongest. Ryoma is just objectively the strongest unit in Birthright, nobody else can come close, so by this logic every unit in Birthright is terrible and not worth using because why use them when Ryoma exists. As for Takumi's defensive stats not being good, I mean, he's an archer. Archers are supposed to be frail units that you have to protect. Most mages have terrible defense and okay resistance, you're not supposed to put most mages in the front to take damage, even against other mages, yet most mages are extremely important to have since their high damage from a distance is always valuable. Takumi definitely has the weaknesses of an archer, being vulnerable up close which means he's helpless on enemy phase so you have to protect them, but he most definitely makes up for it on a strong player phase. Most archers in the series are considered garbage because they can't double reliably, nor deal meaningful damage to enemies and finish them off, so all they're good for is small chip damage for your other units for the first 3 chapters and then you bench them. A lot of people hype up Takumi's performance in Birthright for a good reason: you want a threat removed, Takumi will get the job done with his 100% accuracy.

[@levobertus]

these points are all addressed in the video, but just to put your first point into perspective, Takumi at 11/1 in kinshi has -2 hp, -5 str, +5 skl, -6 spd and -3 res. By level 20, he's grown to the same hp, -7 str, +12 skl, -7 spd, +3 def and -1 res. This is still a significant str and spd loss for just a good skill lead. Reina can just forge a brass yumi and have the same damage and similar hitrates just fine and will double way more. Takumi will outgrow her a bit more in his lead stats if he promotes at 20, but this will require significant effort and he still won't catch up with her str and speed, ever. He's just worse than a unit that joins immediately after him and costs nothing.

[@vanilla8956]

Everytime a Fire Emblem fan makes a video with a thumbnail and title like this it's a complete coin flip for if the video will be them picking apart a bunch of support conversations no one's ever seen before about the food in the mess hall, or picking apart that their speed growths are 6.47777% sub optimal for psychopath butt-ripper+ mode.

[@clintwaki6936]

Meta nerds pouring 1000 hours into an engage tier list (every unit is the same)

[@ew275x]

@@clintwaki6936Why yes I love warriors with radiant bows

[@levobertus]

being 4 speed below Saizo (the only stat he's having trouble with) and being underwhelming in BR, the easiest route of the three doesn't mean he's 6.47777% suboptimal, it means he is just not a strong unit. Like at all

[@vanilla8956]

@@levobertus please tell me you're not being serious lmao

[@levobertus]

@@vanilla8956 about Takumi being a shit unit?

[@m.a.dmatt6689]

What's interesting to take note of is that with the Swordmaster class, Takumi get's a unique outfit similar to his fathers outfit, Sumeragi

[@ZzShy]

I feel like something thats lost in hardcore statistical videos like this is the dependability, flexibility, and splashability a character like Takumi has in a game filled with RNG and situations that require you to improvise on the fly. Takumi is one of the best characters in the game at reliably fixing mistakes, he has some of the highest hit rates, solid damage, good movement (due to fujin terrain ability), and requires 0 investment to do this. Hes a fantastic backline crutch that regularly and easily gets you out of sticky and unpredictable situations.

[@roxienatura]

I think this highlights a huge difference between how characters are evaluated between high level vs. casual play. His ability to clean up mistakes is much better at a casual level, but less useful at high level play. The more you get better at planning and preparing for the randomness of the game, the less useful being a post-hoc RNG contingency becomes.

[@levobertus]

You can fix hit rates and make dependable strats without a backline crutch, such as using bronze weapons, adjecency boni, supports, skills and strats that don't depend on hitting everything. Not to mention other units can replicate this. Saizo for example is also good just chilling in his base class and has also really high accuracy. You don't need Takumi for this specifically and should not play around the assumption that you can't miss attacks. If I get the choice between Takumi and a rally/aura bot, I know what to fill my last deployment slot with.

[@ragingstorm_]

@@levobertusyou REALLY hate takumi huh

[@oof776]

As the dude who has Ironmanned Rev like 20+ times it's funny how different Takumi is there compared to BR due to needing a better player phase, but a lot of his shortcomings are also factors there. (Shoutouts to Subaki and Setsuna being better in Rev compared to BR too lmao)

[@oof776]

To add and i forgot, In Rev competitive is also just better due to getting more prepromotes at higher levels and mostly Gunter existing, with his extremely high internal level who despite not giving speed, is still a good backpack for takumi hitting kill benchmarks on his Join Map.

[@Mir-d3k]

Funny you say Setsuna is better in Revelation, because I find that hard to buy when she comes much later, and is still as bad as ever.

[@oof776]

@@Mir-d3k Setsuna is better In Revelations because despite coming later, her rev bases are better and allows her to kill a lot of bulky enemies. The main reason though is that Rev is much more player phase than Birthright, so a unit like setsuna is much better In Rev than in Birthright

[@Mir-d3k]

​@@oof776funny you say that, because she puts all her eggs in the speed basket at the expense of having LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE as dump stats (aka, crippling overspecialization). Also, it just makes her look bad when her biggest competition has long had a head start (which she is anyway because speed is literally all she has going for her).

[@theleftfootedsultan]

@@Mir-d3kIn fairness, at least Rev has a handful of crazy enemy ninjas fast enough that her speed isn’t ten points overkill. BR’s enemies are miserably slow in comparison.

[@pizzahutkidman8806]

I already thought Reina was good, but I thouhgt she had like super slow leveling, but her internal level is only 10 + Promoted? That's even better than I thought, wow.

[@MinoriGaming]

I think Takumi has the same issue as a lot of second archers in Fire Emblem games in that he's set up to outshine your first archer early on. Setsuna's likely to be running on an unforged Iron Yumi when Takumi joins and probably a few points behind in Strength compared to him, which means most players are going to see how heavily he outperforms Setsuna in that early stage of the game and heavily prefer him in combat. This leads to him getting more EXP, widening the gap between him and Setsuna, creating a feedback loop, reinforced by chapter 11 in which Takumi is set up to perform extremely well, with better hitrates than Setsuna. For lots of players, Takumi naturally ends up sucking up a lot of EXP early on and then, by virtue of being relatively overleveled, is going to continue performing. In other words, compared to other characters, it's just very easy for Takumi to take off. Even if his endpoint is less impressive than other units, he takes off a lot faster than his competitors, leaving a very strong impression early on.

[@asmontosborne3111]

I need this kind of videos about every unit in the game

[@clintwaki6936]

Lemme guess, birthright is an enemy spam game; so a unit that can't enemy phase can't be very good. That's why all the ninjas are so good.

[@Takumi_Did_Nothing_Wrong]

Nohrian sc... actually that's fair.

[@rainingrotom]

This is true I was takumi's elixir he drops in conquest chapter 10

[@jonathanlgill]

I wouldn't mind seeing this format for other character discussions!

[@badatlife]

I should also note that the Iron Yumi +2 is 1 might off the Fujin Yumi with the same Hit, so the Fujin Yumi doesn't really do much to set him apart when it comes to combat later in the game.

[@fernandoek]

Takumi never recovered from that illness he took on the first Iago chapter...

[@somedude3820]

Takumi would be good if he were playable in Conquest. The big problem he faces in Birthright is that enemies are not threatening enough to make a combat archer good, whereas in Conquest they are. See how Niles is considered amazing (capture helps too!) and how Shura is considered good because the enemies are threatening enough to where they're a benefit to the team.

[@navelwarfare3247]

Please tell me whatever black magic you use to get Niles into double-digit str before promotion

[@Starwars-Fanboy]

​@@navelwarfare3247 Try marrying him to Mozu for sniper or using the shining bow. Or just use tonics/meals/pair-up.

[@MinoriGaming]

@@navelwarfare3247 Niles has 9 base str and a 45% str growth. What are you on about?

[@navelwarfare3247]

@@MinoriGaming Maybe I have the black magic then lol. Anecdotal as it is, I don't think I've ever had a Niles break 15 str by endgame.

[@quetzal3428]

@@navelwarfare3247if you have problems with Nile's damage, you can marry him with mozu to get archer skills (even help fixes some of the hit rate issues he can have on capturing with certain blow)

[@Brass319]

fun fact: he is also popular with the gays I personally had a lot of fun putting him into ballistician

[@maxlimit9129]

ah yes, exercising the only way to come back after a 5 month hiatus: clickbaiting people into thinking you're doing a takedown of takumi the _character_ then hitting them with a scathing review of takumi the _unit_

[@blackdragoncyrus]

To be fair, I immediately thought they were talking about the unit, since the character aspect of all units in Fates is as shallow as a puddle.

[@RammerHammer]

Takumi is a really interesting unit because on Normal Mode he pretty much solos the game if you give him Point Blank from the End: Lost In The Waves DLC but on Hard or Lunatic he just doesn't have the speed to do anything meaningful on enemy phase and without a defense pair-up he dies so fast. I recently came back to Fates after not playing it for a couple years because I wanted to finally beat all the routes on Lunatic and I did a Birthright Hard Mode run to kinda refresh my memory and my Takumi was ok but nowhere near as strong as some of my other units like Sakura or Saizo. He was completely blown out of the water by the other Sniper on my team Setsuna, she was super strong and had crazy speed by the end of the game.

[@RayBcv1030]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS SAKURA IS AMAZING IN BIRTHRIGHT. Deadass the strongest Hoshidan Royal with the right investment.

[@blackdragoncyrus]

Huge props for the Trails in the Sky music.

[@Stigmaphobia777]

Pretty sure it's 3rd music, too-the objective undeniable best out of the three.

[@blackdragoncyrus]

Yep.

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

If I wanna use a mechanist I’d prefer azama as he is significantly bulkier. Taco meat is good for his relatively low invest to reward but azama is better with high investment imo. Azama’s strength is just so absurd relative to other units at the time and he’s also quite bulky so that if you can get him the speed he needs ( really easy with how many speed pair ups are around and hidden weapons extra speed) and get past the woes of low weapon rank early on he can really take off

[@helpivebeencursedbyawizard]

"takumi is overrated" yeah but ive never seen him with less than 25% listed crit (even on birthright/rev lunatic)

[@littleguystar]

I’m not a huge Fire Emblem Fan but I played the 3DS games and love to see the bizarre math and setups people do in these games. You get a completely different perspective when playing casual vs serious. Too bad for most of Birthright I was able to Dodge Tank everything with most of my units because it’s Birthright, not even Lunatic Classic made it a challenge in most maps for me- though it has been a while since I played.

[@Slenderquil]

This is gonna be an interesting video. Takumi was easily my best unit both times I played br

[@lunasperidot8760]

I feel like im losing my mind watching this video. What the fuck? Sure he gets outclassed by units like corrin and Ryoma, but having a unit that you can point at something and kill it will always be valuable. With him being able to do this with literally 0 favoritism the moment you get him is invaluable. I can't imagine calling him a bottom 10

[@model-ss7386]

Using Takumi to kill anything usually ends up in 1 of 2 situations Situation 1: Have him run into a group of enemies and kill 1 There are 5 enemies left. Now what? Use a Rescue on him so he doesnt waste a turn not killing anything on EP, or send in 5 more units to kill the rest? Situation 2: Point him to a weakened and small group of enemies to clean up. In which case, you prob have like a dozen other choices you could have opted to clean things up Takumi's whole use is to kill one unit really well, but thats not a particularly hard job to do in Birthright. Its not just Ryoma and Corrin, the game even gives you Reina as a better Takumi, and then Saizo, Silas and even Hayato for better return on investments as a combat carry. And if he tries to replicate what they do, he either does a worse job at it and or requires investment anybody else could use too So that already makes him like your _7th_ best combat unit at best, which is a really low position to be in, and prob really redundant to have fielded along with the rest. Sure he takes no investment to kill one thing really well, but if that job's easy to replicate and he has no other utility or active combat roles later on, what makes him better than a utility unit like a healer, backpack or rallier thats useful all game long? If the answer to why use Takumi long term is: "Just bench the other better combat units and use Takumi, he'll still work" Then that kinda defeats the purpose of talking about tier differences in the first place, doesn't it

[@lunasperidot8760]

Not every unit needs to do everything. Literally every archer runs into the problem of not doing anything after they kill their target. And the assumption that this is a good way to play the game is kinda weird as well. Presumably if you're sending takumi into 5 people, he's gonna have some support because that's a dumb thing to do. And If its really such a big deal then don't go sniper? Like, I'm not really versed in the birthright meta but idk.@@model-ss7386

[@RayBcv1030]

@@model-ss7386 If you have point break and give him Vantage + Life and Death, Situation 1 results in him killing more. But yeah, you do make a really good point. I still use him bc he's my favorite Hoshidan character, but he is absolutely the most overrated unit in the game (along with Ryoma)

[@Roysanberry]

Get rid of Setsuna as soon as possible? Inconceivable, I ALWAYS use Setsuna. Nice video tho it's nice seeing you again even if it's just to dunk on Takumi.

[@RayBcv1030]

IDC IF HE ISN'T THE BEST UNIT HE'S STILL MY HUSBAND AND I LOVE HIM. In Takumiquest (takumi conquest mod). Hes amazing. But yeah he does get outshined by Mozu. Hes still fantastic as having archers in conquest as a whole is a fantastic thing to have. Also Takumi is hindered by Hinoka's terrain effect in chapter 24 (probably bc it wasn't programed to have Takumi be apart of that chapter)

[@lagspike7763]

#LeoSweep

[@saggsman]

I’ve read that Replicate has an interesting application for Takumi specifically. That is that competitive would be more active thanks to his clone.

[@saggsman]

Judging from the video it would seem best at least to me in any order of progression, is too promote Takumi any level above 15 to Sniper, marry Setsuna (or Kagero), get him to level 5 Sniper, then Marriage seal him to Mechanist for levels 5 - 11, develop a friendship with Jakob then friendship seal him to Butler until he gets Tomebreaker. Then Heart seal him back to Sniper for Bowfaire. Either keep him as Sniper or swap him back to Mechanist but basically the build would theoretically be Quick Draw, Resistance +2, Gentilhomme, Tomebreaker, and Bowfaire. Or Rinkah (whom I generally hand off to Kaze to give Midori Salvage Blow) thenhe can rock Skill +2, Death Blow, Quick Draw, Certain Blow (or Shove?) and Bowfaire as a Sniper.

[@gzsprout]

As a casual, Takumi wrecked absolute face. I wasnt trying to use him so much, as i didnt like his personality, but he was just so effective.

[@samuelflores2219]

When I use Takumi, I give him Fujii Yumi, Dual Yumi for the reaver, and then the Illusionary Yumi in case he fights tough mages. That is usually enough to keep him staying great in my runs.

[@blankblank6214]

Takumi is just the best bow unit in the game

[@jerry3115]

reina:

[@twigz3214]

I'd disagree there, I enjoy using takumi but in rev archer mozu is generally better (I'd still generally use both though) and in Birthright Reina can be better but I don't think she completely is. Takumi can get peg access with marriage which when he promotes to kinshi (you can stay there for awhile or swap at either 2 or 5 with the skills you got) will add darting blow to him giving him better nuking and let him more easily one round without a pair up. I'd argue he's overall similar, with Reina being better at joining and Takumi being better when invested in. Birthright generally doesn't favor either with more of a focus on enemy phase combat but I'd put both in the upper half. I could see Reina over Takumi if Corrin is made to help her with a good class but otherwise, I wouldn't personally mainly due to the lack of support options she has. A general issue of Birthright discussion though is just saying why not use Ryoma and either a Silas or Corrin made for enemy phase sweeping(or both) and just win. There are probably other units that can do similar, but those are the most prominent. The strongest option is so good it leaves little point for alternatives.

[@mihaimercenarul7467]

reina and mozu are better

[@RayBcv1030]

I'm the biggest Takumi fan and even after modding conquest and putting him in. I still find him to be worse than Mozu and Reina. He's still not a bad unit by any means. Hell. I reclassed him into Samurai to get vantage Astra and life and death and he becomes a MONSTER in the invasion of hoshido as well as birthright. But those two are just so good

[@stickytim64]

The absolute best way to use takumi is to put him in the tank! Tankumi supremacy!

[@YellowNekro]

takumi is my favourite character and always has been a nice unit to me so I will ignore all this video (very good tho)

[@wronghouse5833]

You can cheat competitive by letting Takumi's pair up bot be Felicia or Jakob because of their levelling system, but that is a questionable use of the servants

[@maxechilsemptyspace7184]

Of note: I think Takumi is largely overrated due to royals in general being overrated. Sure there's some really strong units who are royals (i.e. Xander, Camilla, and Ryoma; though I'd personally argue that even Xander and Ryoma are overrated), but apart from them there really isn't a significant power gap between the royals and everyone else

[@rattyxoxo7397]

I think part of the reason the royals as a whole are overrated is because Conquest has so much more content made for it as the ‘better’ game, and I’d argue Conquest’s royals are far stronger on average than the Birthright royals, with Camilla and Xander being both insane, Elise being incredible if put in any class where she can use her absurd magic and speed growths, and Leo being the worst but still being a fantastic low effort bulky Mage who can enemy phase very effectively. Comparatively, Ryoma is insane, and Sakura can be similarly strong as Elise if class changed, but Hinoka and Takumi are just strong units with nothing particularly special about them. People who see Conquest content will then assume that the Birthright royals are of a similar strength, which inflates perception of them, though this could easily just be overanalysis.

[@Nafets-C]

i just got him and dominate those shuriken weilding ninjas

[@Noahs_Chair]

The best way to use Takumi is to insta promote him, pair him up with a funky for maps It doesn't matter much (the early maps + Mozu) to give him Mechanist because it's his best class (Apothecary is better because this mf needs +1 stats from tonics) and then he is not horrible. I think he is more mid than bad, but I always had the impresion that people that put him in S/A had to be playing the game sub optimaly to find an Archer of all things that usefull in Birthroute.

[@mintx1720]

I think this is not really true. The only real good units in BR are Corrin, Ryoma and to a lesser extent Hinoka and the ninjas (forgot who's the better one), One or two of them handle combat pretty well so that you only need units with player phase with minimal training to support them. Takumi seems like the best unit for this role. Well he probably drop off in the end but so does everybody else.

[@zander3312]

Video gets a like for using G's theme

[@wowitsportal5225]

I remember a long time ago I said somewhere that takumi was only better than setsuna because of fujin yumi and the replies turned into a war zone

[@katieg1071]

Holy shit there's more

[@quickpawmaud]

Yeah yeah the footie bowman is bad we get it.

[@aty4991]

Before watching the video, I just want to say Mozu better

[@kopfloserbeginn3879]

Warrior Queen Mozu Soul of gold Heart of platinum

[@todd2.08]

Trails The Third music 💪

[@nodot17]

To be honest I just used setsuna

[@Mir-d3k]

Lemme guess, she sucked. Because honestly, that's all I would expect of Setsuna.

[@SonicTheHedgedawg]

I can't stop hearing his name as “Taco Meat”

[@ungulatemanalpha]

takumi is overrated mostly because the idea of an archer being not the worst character in the game is mindboggling after fire emblem, fire emblem the sacred stones, fire emblem path of radiance, and fire emblem awakening

[@DoggyP00]

Nobody has ever had this opinion

[@Mir-d3k]

Out of those, Path of Radiance is the only game where the worst unit in the game is an archer. Coincidentally, it was the worst game for bows, or close to it. Blazing Blade has Karla, Awakening has Donnel, and Sacred Stones has the trainee units.

[@Mir-d3k]

In one's opinion... Takumi might be overrated, but at least he doesn’t need copious babying to kill enemies, unlike Mozu or Setsuna. He actually starts good, which I like. That said, the overall most overrated unit in one's opinion has a name starting with S and ending with I-L-A-S.