Understanding Jakob: Fire Emblem's Most Broken Unit

[@Bluegh]

If Jakob is such a good unit why don't they make a Jakob 2....oh wait

[@aaroncallahan119]

Dwyer

[@Zoran501]

The kodachi’s “weak to follow-ups” effect does not affect Avoid. (It does exactly what the description says it does!)

[@greenstat1c]

Yup! Coming from someone who's modded the game, the "weak to follow-up" effect means that when calculating whether or not a unit *gets doubled* they have -3 on their AS, or Attack Speed. Avoid is based off of a unit's Spd, not their AS, so they're completely different factors.

[@biomistflorist658]

lol the way you wrote "it does what it says it does!", make it sound like that is a rare occurrence for FE

[@duetopersonalreasonsaaaaaa]

@Bio Mist Florist I mean...

[@henrioak]

​@biomistflorist658 considering the double roll and hybrid roll in FE, it's pretty common for fire emblem to lie to players haha

[@GIR177]

​@@greenstat1cIt also means there's situations where you can simultaneously get doubled while also doubling your opponent with certain weapons, like the Excalibur tome. Fates truly is a bizarre game.

[@LoudWaffle]

I really love how Fates played with the Jagen archetype, and sad that later games seemingly learned nothing from it. Jakob/Felicia don't have higher stats like most Jagens of that type, but they specialise in weakening enemies (shurikens), supporting allies (healing/auras), and have this super unique trait of being able to get endgame skills very early into the game.

[@ferintown6628]

Fates arguably has 3 different forms of Jagens and none of them are like previous jagens Dragonstone is a jagen, good early game falls off late game, great for setting up kills Felicia and Jakob are pre promotes who can get skills fast And then there’s Gunter in rev. So yeah the 2 forms of Jagens are really cool in this game!

[@cyanclyde8456]

@@ferintown6628 How is the dragonstone a Jagen in any way

[@buttery_gooch6]

⁠​⁠@@cyanclyde8456its a jagen the way vander in engage is, extremely tanky, does the perfect amount of damage to weaken the enemies for other units to kill, and falls off as the game goes on (from either corrin reclassing or just stat fall-off. you could even consider kana as a gotoh depending on when you recruit them due to their emphasis on using a dragonstone (courtesy of their personal skill) basically, in terms of pure stats and gameplay usage, the dragonstone is the jagen of conquest and birthright

[@cyanclyde8456]

@@buttery_gooch6 ,,,you’ve completely lost me with “Kana is a Gotoh”

[@buttery_gooch6]

@@cyanclyde8456 if you recruit kana late game (chapter 23 or later), depending on the route, he'll probably be above the levels of most of your party to properly match the enemy difficulty. if you combine this with his dragonstone (encouraged by his personal) his defensive stats are inflated enough to tank most enemies around this range (granted you dont leave him in the path of a bunch of ninjas). combine this with inherited skills from corrin and his father (or mother if you use male corrin like a weirdo) and he's usually stronger than most of your army. it sounds ridiculous at first, but if you think about it, dragonstone late game kana DOES check the boxes of a Gotoh role. Late game recruit, tanky, inflated stats (in this case, only defensive plus inherited skills).

[@jacklorenz4274]

43:30 unlocked a memory of me trying to make a +7 pebble from the before awakening paralogue. I think I only made it to +5 since I totally underestimated the amount of gems and replays to max it out.

[@inkuii]

On god I tried that too and promptly gave up because of how many pebbles I had to amass

[@SniperYanda]

Cool to see a video on Jakob! Always loved how customizable he was in a unique way, being prepromoted but internally leveling like he's not, while at the same time having +20 to level cap. Neat to be broken in such a unique way instead of dancing, staves, stats, or a personal weapon.

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

When you realize Jakob's Japanese name is Joker, meaning that Jakob is a literal Jack of all unit, master at none, but Accumulates a ton of skills and is one of the best gameplay fathers in Fates

[@lagspike7763]

BALK GODDAMN IT I WAS GONNA MAKE A VIDEO ABOUT AZURA TITLED THIS EXACT SAME THING

[@busharp4707]

Very nice, loving these videos. Excited for Saizo.

[@AudreyII970]

I've been loving this rash of analysis videos recently, and you two have a good rapport. Great stuff! These builds are really fun to see. I did Oboro x Jakob in a recent run, and Oboro!Dwyer was a blast. Making him a GK with lancefaire and using him to obliterate a Mage on player phase never stopped being satisfying lol

[@Moxuko]

Jalob is my fate favorite unit, always keeping him in any of the game and he take out the trash one rounding any foe that try to attack him, feels good seeing a 10% hit chances in almost any matchs, plus as in conquest i use f!corrin, it make a stupidly good dwyer too

[@jarvisc6393]

Jacob is the best unit to solo entire games( 3 paths)

[@DandDgamer]

I always just played Felicia because she's adorable so I never realized how good this guy is 😅

[@somerandomgoblin2583]

one of my favorite characters from fates! im excited to see him being broken down mechanically!

[@extrasouppy]

So glad that you’ve been uploading more! Fates is probably my favourite game in the series, I love your vids :)

[@Xertaron.]

Kodachi, Darting Blow and everything that alters "eff. Spd" doesn't affect speed stat only effective speed (aka follow-up speed), which *only* determines whether a unit can double attack or not. That's why Subaki can double enemies with equal speed thanks to Darting Blow (+5 eff. spd), while Silas with equal speed gets doubled when holding a javelin (-5 eff. spd), but they don't gain or lose any avoid from these effects. You can gain or lose eff. Spd and avoid by gaining or losing speed, but not the other way around.

[@zlwilson21]

Im really excited for the Hinoka episode of this! I’ve mostly played hard/classic but watched and dipped my toes into lunatic a bit. I remember liking Hinoka a lot from the lead up to Fates’ release and during my birthright play through she felt like she never needed any major help to keep up with the army but she also didn’t stand out as much as someone like Camilla does in CQ maybe that’s just because of the more supportive role Falcon Knight takes up, or the fact that I didn’t venture too far into kinshi knight/ try to get her a solid 1-2 range bow (I think she was my bolt naginata user the one time I complete BR)

[@matiastorres2553]

Paladin hinoka (from silas) is veeery good

[@katieg1071]

A TWO HOUR collab between my two favorite extremely underrated Fire Emblem KZbinrs?! Sign me the FUCK UP

[@saggsman]

I really like the fact that him and Azura can give Shigure Wyvern Rider. Gotta love those marriage quirks in fates.

[@MugenCannon97]

Jakob and Takumi's Friendship set might be canon, since oneof Takumi's costumes in FE: Warriors is the Butler class!

[@luxiwayfarer369]

Well, I know what I'll be watching for two hours lol. Kinda wish his personal worked more similarly to Kaze (Felicia and Gunter too, for that matter). Might not be fitting, but would be easier to use. Or at the very least, C-Support with the lead unit

[@emme0731]

Can I just say I love your music choices? Hearing Paradise Killer and Somnium Files music was a treat.

[@deadlyflood]

I will also say that technically Gunter has the same status Jakob and Felicia do! He can very quickly get high levels skills he just has way worse stats than those two. I’d know cause my dumbass has used gunter as a combat unit too many times

[@Raizearche]

Definitely not optimal but Jacob is my go Nohrian Trust partner for my Corrin. Thats moreso for Conquest/Rev where he can marry Effie to get General for Pavise and his natural Aegis to really tank up F!Corrin.

[@brozomicki-sothe307]

When I started playing Fates I didn’t know about Jakob reclass but then I watched Mekkah and the earlygame became much easier

[@MorbidElegy]

You know, I think this video convinced me to try to do some sort of crazy Jakob build.

[@FBIAgentRC-]

The issue is with using jakob for me is I prefer playing male corrin and he’s nowhere as good when he joins for me..

[@vitortakara7090]

for replicate shenanigans things in fates 1:most auras both personal and skill works on both original and replica notable auras, sakura, hinoka, elise, camilla, azura, percy, inspiration, amaterasu, dragon ward and charm(dlc) healing auras only proc from the original unitis instead(azura and amaterasu) 2:when auras are in range of each other they work on both units 3:most buffs. debuffs, health and inventory are shared notable examples getting hit by shurikens nerfs both units getting hit with inspiring song buffs both units getting rallied buffs both units atacking with a strong weapon with 1 unit then equiping a defensive weapon before ending the turn equips the weapon on both units getting hit or healed affects both units both original and replica can rally, rally can hit replica/original buffing both units both units can cast warp(dlc) auras affect only units within aura range(effect does not affect both if one of hen is outside aura range) 4:replicas debonuses replicas cannot sing replicas cannot talk action replicas cannot farm affection and have no support rank and consequently they do not have support bonuses when pairing up both as main and supporting

[@Mir-d3k]

And, most importantly, if one dies, so does the other.

[@cyril7257]

i actually like to play with a felicia jakob switch mod (you get jakob with male corrin) however it makes reaching branch of fate on lunatic very difficult because of a lack of damage reduction

[@purpleecho1714]

Great Knight Jakob has a great earlygame and on my most recent BR run Im having great success using him alongside Hinoka. Planning on turning Hinoka into a Maid thanks to Jakob, and spawning in Dwyer, so gonna get two shelter units out if this which is great. Even if I wasnt doing Maid Hinoka I might like this alot for the easy earlygame and swapping Jakob to Falcon Knight after marriage for flying shelter staves

[@ZombieBacon1337]

Love the Va-11 Hall-A Soundtrack-!!

[@narzonic192]

Clicked out of curiosity, stayed for the music, now convinced to play fates xD

[@Direblade11]

1:11:11 took a minute, but I realized that's the OST for Va-11 Hall A (Vallhalla). If you, dear comment reader, haven’t played it. I highly recommend it. It's a super chill visual novel about working at a quiet bar that's in an interesting world. It doesn't follow the same bad tropes as most visual novels, and is just very interesting. The ending is so powerful that I couldn't bring myself to restart a later time from the emotion of it. Easily in a top 10 list of games, super calm.

[@hapi4714]

I already knew that Jakob is marginally the better unit to use in Conquest and not surprised and a little saddened to know he's still marginally better in Birthright lmao. Felicia has it really rough as a servant compared to him. Also idk if it gets brought up later, but another benefit of Jakob is that you have Dwyer to be his replacement as a healer. If he inherits Inspiration and his wife has Demoiselle, Dwyer basically gets to reduce damage for all allies by -4 and give them +2 for free. He's not too talked about as far as child units go but Dwyer is a really good support unit with the right setup. EDIT; In regards to good chefs for Birthright, while Jakob is the best chef of Birthright, they are alternatives to him like Mozu, Mitama, Caeldori and Dwyer, as well as Azura and Shigure, although their bonuses only give +1 to random stats and not the +2. I also know it's possible for some characters to grant bonuses outside of their standard if they fuck up, but I'm not too familiar with how likely it is for you to get a good bonus from that.

[@jonathanlgill]

I wouldn't say it's "really rough", but her list of class options is more limited. Felicia can get early Tomefaire in Birthright, possibly reclassing into Strategist at that point. She can pick up the same skills Jakob does in Ninja, with the end goal of returning to Maid for Flame Shuriken. If she marries the avatar, early Dark Knight or Malig Knight can be very useful builds for the Birthright meta. She can't damage stack Elbow Room (outside of marriage to Jakob/Silas), but Strong Riposte is almost as good. Jakob has more viable classes, which makes him better, but Felicia isn't far behind.

[@peterh2223]

Holy shit 2nd best 1st servant!

[@BandedMetagrossMeteorMash]

I was gonna watch this but saw the length of the video and had to tap out immediately

[@oof5992]

Another Bad at life Banger.

[@monochromematrix464]

I know it off topic but like the OST selection for this video. Sonic Colors and Melty Blood Type Lumina. Good stuff, good stuff.

[@kirbymastah]

Sick sonic colors music

[@TowelRanger]

Joker (I’m sorry I hate the English name) is one of my all time favorite FE units simply because he was just so useful. I understand many people didn’t like his stats, but his kid Deere always solo’d maps due to Joker’s access to stuff.

[@wronghouse5833]

Doesn't 3DS games only check if the day of the system gets drastically changes, so if you want to change the time to rig mess halls on console you could probably change your time to like 11.58/59PM and wait a bit for the time to go to the next day and then change it within that day appropriately

[@noishfanboy1141]

just realized this vid has kaguyas theme from under night in birth 2 lmao

[@DoTtA1123]

seems to me like hes kept in check by the E rank weapons and the fact that the cavalier skills while good not anything massive. Anything else and he requires a high degree of investment/planning which i wouldnt consider becoming of a 'broken unit'. But ive really only used him in conquest, i guess this isnt as big of an issue in an open map game like birthright.

[@jonathanlgill]

I had a lot of success in Conquest having Jakob reclass to Master of Arms (through samurai-talent Corrin), for midgame Vantage/Life-and-death sweeping. I really enjoy the versatility of Jakob, and a lot of his best skill combinations are with Birthright classes. Is it fair to say you think female Corrin is notably better than male for Birthright?

[@xeratovildan9871]

"Most broken unit" Seth, Kagetsu, Byleth, Harken, Stefan, Haar, Rutger, Perceval, Melady, Ike who are all much better in their respective games than Jakob is in Fates: I get that Jakob is GOOD, but to call him the "most broken unit" in fire emblem when Seth even exists is just blatantly false information. Jakob needs investment to break the game in half, especially on the hardest difficulty, and is likely to fall off by the time you hit end game or potentially even the mid-game due to middling bases and, by Fates standards, bad growths. Yes, he can pass on great skills early.. NO, this does NOT make him some "amazingly broken, godly, giga chad unit." Hell, even if we stick to just Fates, Ryoma, Xander, Corrin, Camilla, and any singular child unit that has even a somewhat optimal pairing have better starts and will only grow to be even better than Jakob with time. If your best utility is granting skills to units that could already be amazing without them regardless, and then immediately falling off a cliff due to mediocre growths and frankly, bad bases, you're not exactly a "broken unit," are you. Dagger utility won't make up for this when he dies to just about any mid to late game enemy that can counter-attack, and you're probably reclassing him for different skills anyway.. which means, E weapon ranks. Meaning you're probably stuck at 1 range, which means you instantly die on counter attack. If a unit is "broken" they should singlehandedly carry a portion of the game, if not the entire game, based on the standards of OTHER broken units. Rutger, Perceval and Melady all hard carry fe6. Seth's mere existence is enough to carry fe8. Harken is insanely overpowered by the time you get him, comes with one of the best weapons in the game, and will likely one round anything you put him up against. Stefan for the point you get him is insanely overpowered. Haar's existence trivializes both games he's in. When Ike starts to snowball, he becomes by far one of your best combat units in both fe9, and fe10. Not to mention he starts off very strong in fe10. Jakob.. can grant skills, and die when you throw him against any enemy with competent stats. Jakob.. can fail to get meaningful stats upon leveling. Jakob.. can get one rounded by just about every single enemy with offensive stats past 15. Early replicate potential does NOT warrant a placement anywhere NEAR the likes of Seth. Early replicate potential doesn't even give him more utility than Ryoma, Xander, Camilla, and Corrin, because it's no good if its on either A. a unit that just dies, or B. a child unit that you had to waste time bringing a middling unit to obtain, instead of training any of the much better units in fates. Ryoma, at base, will double a large chunk of enemies even on the hardest difficulty, and will only further improve. Xander, while having some issues doubling at base, will be much better than any trained jakob at that point regardless, have better weapon ranks, and with similar investment we're giving Jakob CAN grow to a point of doubling and one rounding most enemies. Camilla literally rips the game in half given her strength relative to the enemies around the time you get her. And Corrin, being the corny avatar they are, is VERY difficult to make NOT godlike unless you go out of your way to use gimmick builds and MAKE them bad. TLDR: Jakob is not NEARLY as amazing as he's made out to be. Granting early good skills to child units means nothing if you're bringing what is essentially a liability with those horrid bases and mediocre at best growths. He's not BAD for his time period, but he falls off INSANELY hard, INSANELY fast. If he were "broken," that'd, put plain and simple, would never happen.

[@matiastorres2553]

replicate copy can use rallys and gentilhomme+ inspiration ?

[@Abundy]

Are you gonna do a video about Felicia too at some point?

[@Typical_Tyeus]

So considering that Hero is broken in BR, what's the hypothetical easiest/lowest effort Corrin partner outside of Jakob if I wanted to break Lunatic?

[@Kylesico912x]

If we’re talking hero, pretty sure Silas comes with it at default.

[@darkttt2803]

I would say Saizo would be a good candidate since he has enough bulk to become a good Sol ninja like Silas. Plus, you get him very early on at the end of chapter 7 in Birthright.

[@ADLAA]

jakob is clearly good because i married him but thanks for the thesis of- how is this 2hrs

[@Mikralas]

Kaze sweep :)

[@asmontosborne3111]

What do you mean two hours I love it, but what even is this

[@of5606]

Fates moment Every unit requires a master's thesis to discuss appropriately

[@SweaterPuppys]

he’s not beating seth

[@horsebox5138]

Lol why do you only make videos on birthright and not conquest?

[@thekiss2083]

If you edited these down from "raw podcast" format I would subscribe and watch every single one