Unit Design 101 - Clerics

[@hadoukenfighter]

this reminds me how in other games like Shining force, Healers gain heal EXP based on the level of the unit they are healing, so they catch up faster than you'd think.

[@fisherdotogg]

I also always loved that in shining force, clerics can heal themselves and also donk a bitch over the head with their staves. Khris can even get some decent damage off of that early-game

[@ritachikorita6916]

6:20 It was actually Shadow Dragon that introduced reduced EXP gains for higher level staff units, but the loss only 1 point per few levels so it doesn’t change much

[@maltheopia]

Some ideas for some additional earlygame utility staves: - Haste: Grants a unit +2 MOV until the end of their next turn, allows them to ignore terrain slowdown. - Swap: Works like Warp/Rescue, except it exchanges the positions of two allied units. Perfect for getting more utility out of Armor Knights, or getting more use out of Fliers. - Conveyer: Only used in empty squares. Any unit, enemy or ally, that ends their turn on it is moved up to three squares forward in the direction of the Conveyer. - Bridge: Creates a tunnel through difficult/impassable terrain (doors, walls, sea tiles, mountains, etc.) any unit can pass through without penalty. - Shield: Increases a unit's maximum and current HP by some amount, which decreases by 20% every turn. - Overwatch: Grants Vantage to a unit, along with allowing a unit to automatically attack any enemy that enters a square they can attack regardless of if they actually attack the Overwatched unit (Overwatched unit does not get a second round of combat if the enemy attacks them after passing through an Overwatched square). Evil when combined with archers, especially those with Longbows or Ballistas.

[@jk-2053]

Cool! Now give them to the early-game enemy staffers!

[@maltheopia]

@@jk-2053 I mean, that is absolutely a thing that should happen, the problem is that I don’t think Fire Emblem AI less sophisticated than what we see in Engage has a hope of using this extended selection of early game utility staves effectively. Look at how much early game AI staffbots struggle to keep up with the player even in, say, Fates.

[@rekenner]

I've been playing The Morrow's Golden Country, it's the first ROMHack I've played. But it has a low level Rescue staff, Yoink! that has a range of 1-4. Things like that feel like good ways to add utility to Clerics. Utility staves that aren't broken but make the cleric more than a heal bot and show up earlier than you're getting Sages/etc

[@yellowthere3985]

I love the yoink staff, it’s such a simple but fun way to make clerics feel useful outside of healing.

[@ironx98]

they should make a 1-4 range Warp staff called Yeet!

[@SwaxMain4u]

Yeah it really helps make the clerics feel like they are a part of the combat as well as they get to make a few offensive plays every now and then instead of just being passive and reactionary

[@wronghouse5833]

​@@ironx98that sounds funny but you can already imagine how hellish the balancing would need to be, since even 2 range warp let's you go through walls and a lot of shenanigans can happen from there

[@aetherius6221]

TMGC has a really good balance. Consistently good combat without too much rushing, and decent unit feel with skills, but just enough skills for fun without absolute nonsense skill emblem. My only gripe is the % skills becoming command/arts kinda makes enemy phase boring overall. That and certain... design choices.

[@manolito.7zip]

I genuinely believe Tina is the most fun unit in the franchise, high impact and high variability with low immediate risk makes her a ton of fun to use and that's highly part of the non-combat nature of staves.

[@DAHIESTABUNNE]

I know the conceit is that clerics are meant to be utility units with bad stats, but they usually end up being the first units I promote. Lissa, Natasha, Elena from 7 Siblings, they all procced magic and speed on almost every level, so by the time they reached level 11 or 12 when I got my first promotion item, they were ready to nuke everything in the game. That’s probably just coincidence, but it does do its part to bias me towards clerics.

[@mysmallnoman]

None of them have " bad " stats lol, expect low mag but that's it

[@something1558]

Probably the most underappreciated units outside of thracia staffers

[@Devmon52]

I appreciate clerics and troubadours. I wish there was a little more going for clerics because movement from troubadours is so good. Thank you again for uploading another unit design video. I love listening to these videos.

[@nodot17]

Well until a dessert map anyway

[@letsmakeit110]

I really like the implementation of the Holy spell in Berwick Saga. It's a tome that 2 of the 3 clerics get access to, which they always have equipped in addition to their healing staff. What it does is nullify enemy attacks at range 1, but you only have a limited number of uses. So new players don't have to constantly reset to player error, while experienced players can strategically facetank difficult enemies.

[@DrakonLameth]

Healers! In every FE I play (heck, basically every SRPG), at least one gets fielded. If I manage to clear a map damageless, I go "dang, guess I didn't need the healer", but as that never happens, I thank devoting at least one deploy slot to someone with a heal. Later titles, like the 3DS era I'm used to, that moves to combat healers (Warpriest/Warcleric, Sage, Valkyrie, Trickster, anyone in 3H in a class with magic access and minimal investment in Faith...) because of the mentioned "combat plus staff utility", but many of those are "cleric/priest promoted to have combat" because of already having built the staff ranks up.

[@GreatAether58]

Yeah I almost always field at least one healer. There are some very rare exceptions, like Path of Radiance Chapter 12. But that is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

[@thekoifishcoyote8762]

I think of staff users like I think of mages. They're squishy so they need protecting, but you should almost always have one in case you need it.

[@straypaper]

Mages are definitely not an "in case you need it" basis for me. In most of my strategies the mages ARE my main damage dealers and the other units are escorts. Fliers are used to snipe prio targets and then used for rescues, cavs are used to take out squishy archers/mages to break formation, then the footsies are used for escorts to wall the melees from getting to my mage. My mage is the one in charge to mow down bulky targets or capture chokepoints.

[@deadlypandaghost]

Stave users let you attack aggressively knowing you will have enough health to survive a clapback after attacking. They also don't leech any xp. Since combat xp is divided by the number of combatants having non combatants like dancers and dedidcated staffers you end up with net more due to less units splitting it.

[@VillainousHanacha]

7:47 When I played Awakening I actually did do that with Lissa and Maribelle, specifically using Rescue staffs. It was the perfect combination of a staff not requiring a target to heal, their E rank and early availability, the huge amount of EXP they give, and the simple fact that I am really not a fan of the idea of a unit that is completely unable to attack. For reference, even though I'm old enough for GBA Fire Emblem to be a childhood game for me (I was in middle school when The Blazing Blade, aka "Fire Emblem" came out in America) I didn't get into Fire Emblem until Awakening. Back then my one true love for a tactical RPG on the GBA was FF Tactics Advance (and later Tactics A2), both of which I put hundreds of hours into each. In those games class switching has no material cost, only time investment and that was only for the advanced classes. For the base classes you could switch back and forth as much as you wanted. The closest equivalent of Clerics and Monks, the White Mage, still had access to a normal attack command. Was it actually optimal or even useful? No it was not. However it went a long way to make it feel like they weren't totally helpless if cornered. Also this was just the worst case scenario of a unit being a pure White Mage without a second ability list. Due to the way reclassing worked in those games, it was really easy to pop your White Mage into Black Mage really quick to learn offensive spells. All that worked out to mean that healers/utility units in those games were never truly helpless. So when I finally play a Fire Emblem game I quickly learn that staff only units cannot even attack, and while it is something I understand (as I have since put hundreds of hours into Awakening) it is also something I have never truly accepted. So much so that every time I have played Awakening I use my first Master Seals on Lissa and Maribelle, even before Chrom and the Avatar. I understand that staffers that can't attack is a series tradition, that there are game balancing reasons and that people do enjoy it, but I personally find units that can't attack at all distasteful because of the feeling of helplessness. (It also helps that Maribelle is my favorite 1st gen female character along with Olivia, so she gets my favoritism).

[@a-lance-user4265]

i think a good idea of giving staff units stronger staffs is a good idea for making them good, like thracia

[@fordexyzable1597]

Thracia staves are on a whole other level compared to the rest of the series.

[@arvis4prez]

I like clerics because they heal up the best units in the game, the axe fighter, in the early game. But once Wade goes Warrior with big boy stats, it's nice to field the clerics anyway as they can act as cheerleaders and fulfill the in-game role of "They grow up so fast..."

[@kap1618]

This may sound wierd but I want staffers to function more like they do in Heroes or Echoes. Give them an offensive/self healing option in Nosferatu or give status staff a damaging effect.

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL MythrilZenith videos!!!! ❤

[@armorbearer9702]

It would cool if there was a way to give some clerics Paragon in the gba days. I am thinking that you visit a village and an old wise man offers to teach a cleric Paragon. This would give players some incentive to train a cleric and make the process a little less tedious.

[@ThiefofRPGistheWanderingSoul]

Honestly, I think low level Clerics should have access to both their staves and a weaker version of magic like with Light magic for example. Of course, I also think Dancers should be similar with Daggers.

[@deadlypandaghost]

I don't disagree but honestly if you ever have a round where you want to attack with a dancer you have already fucked up.

[@straypaper]

The only reason I ever want my clerics or dancers to attack is because I want to feed them EXP. If dancing or healing actually gives decent EXP I wouldn't want them to touch combat

[@dominicmoisant8393]

Am I the only one who levels up their healers at the arena so they can promote asap, bonus effect of leveling all other units

[@byuugyyimijnuijo]

Yes! I've been waiting for this one

[@ryanprjgamingchannel9437]

Well, to be fair if they didn't exist, you would have to use a lot of vulneraries and need a lot of management and good strategy, sometimes even luck, just to survive and beat a chapter without a unit dying...

[@AaronPICAR]

Natasha is an underrated waifu

[@riolufistofmight]

What about promotion access to Slayer in Fe8. Lute can't get Slayer, for example.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@riolufistofmight didn't want to bog down the already-longest UD101 video going game by game talking about every single unique factor. Would be a good talking point for an Office Hours follow-up though.

[@juicyjuustar121]

Playing the GBA games (my favorites) is always pretty annoying because of the deplorable +10 XP per Heal cast. It really should be doubled if you ask me

[@Laezar1]

The fact the cleric don't compete with other units for xp and lets your units fight more really gives them value, it allows attributing xp more efficiently to the units that need it rather than deploying an extra combat unit that would split the xp I wish there was more like, minor utility staves though. Like, warp is a bit too gamebreaking to give a lot of uses but what about a "shove" staff that can push a unit 1-3 space in one direction? or a switch staff that lets the staff user switch place with another unit in a limited range? you wouldn't use it like warp or rescue cause you don't want your staff user in danger so it could have more uses allowing creativity. Maybe we could also think of staff that works like a trap or a light rune, altering the terrain to your advantage. I also wish staff users and mages were entirely merged to be honest. Because mages aren't that unique in fire emblem to begin with their tomes really work like a javelin with a slightly altered weapon triangle. If you add more staves and then tie in staff usage to magic type you could make it so that light magic is for support effect, dark magic for status effect, anima for utility effect, stuff like that, they would feel more like proper mages (there is the risk of making them broken but I think that would work in a setting like tellius games where you get cavalry with super canto that also have broken stuff going on but very different)

[@animesjogoseseriesclassica8282]

Thraccia made everyone fear the staffs. 😂😂😂

[@espelhodasconstelacoes]

Love your classes bro! God bless ya and Jesus loves ya!

[@animesjogoseseriesclassica8282]

I played the first FE way too late. I was surprise on how little the first staffs healed there, it was almost useless. Warp was totally broken though.