Unit Design 101 - Dancers

[@EnigmaticMrL]

This might be a personal preference thing, but I think that dancers are good candidates for boots/other movement boosting options. Sure, you could give them to an armor knight to help them catch up with the rest of the group or a high movement unit to allow for some shenanigans, but as you discussed, dancers are so versatile.

[@MythrilZenith]

It's an interesting balancing act. On one hand, a higher move dancer can extend their movement range to other units. On the other hand, an extra-high mobility mounted unit or flier can be incredibly powerful on their own, and the first turn movement boost of a front-position dancer often gets carried better if the unit being danced for has higher movement, as the dancer will be unlikely to catch up. Both are perfectly valid options, it just boils down to playstyle, with give and take. And that's what a good strategy game should reinforce.

[@TLNT2103-zg3sb]

If canto can be equippable to dancers (e.g. TH, Engage), that is probably the ultimate boon for them: Being able to drag themselves out of the edge of danger rather than having to expose them to it just to dance your units.

[@jemolk8945]

@@TLNT2103-zg3sb Also Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, and Genealogy. And in all those cases, I've found that giving them extra movement is a far greater benefit than giving it to someone else. ​ @MythrilZenith If you give your dancer boots, they're much more likely to be able to catch up, and keep catching up.

[@TheRagnarok428]

I enjoyed the versatility of choosing who would be your dancer in three houses. It let you come up with some really unique options, while still not straying from their primary function of dancing. My personal favorite thing to do was to make a super dodgy dancer that could stand on the front lines, dancing without fear of being killed.

[@MythrilZenith]

Sword avoid as a Dancer skill gave the class some interesting potential combat utility, in a game that revolves wholly around building up your units however you want. It works very well in 3H, more than what a traditionally handled Dancer would.

[@FlopQueenie]

Dancer Ferdinand!!

[@something1558]

Another thing you can do is like get someone like Dorothea Meteor as a dancer and have it on at all times so she's essentially a map wide free hit/avo bonus especially good in Black Eagles route

[@FlopQueenie]

@@something1558 and she provides +3 atk for dps manuela

[@SquishyPixelz]

This is an enjoyable video. I'm currently playing as a refresh unit in a Fire Emblem themed DnD campaign and it's been fun planning where my character goes with the other players in combat. The DM has done amazing in ensuring my Bard isn't broken but still has a lot under her belt in combat.

[@TrueYankeeFan]

Okay I've never been much for tabletop RPGs but please tell me what this is and how I can find people to play it with.

[@Devmon52]

I love dancers as a unit. Unit turn refreshing is an extremely powerful mechanic and even just being able to siphon experience into another unit is so good. It is neat to see that there are other utilities available to dancers, but as it has been pointed out several times, an extra turn almost always outweighs those utility options. I would like to see more done with dancers in the future, maybe with more restriction on unit turn refreshment and with more alternative utilities.

[@flintlocke1344]

I wonder if making a multi-target dance tied to a limited-use item a la Ninian & Nils’ rings would work. It would certainly be the ring with the fewest uses, or maybe even the only ring with limited uses. Something to consider for the FE hack I’m slowly plotting out.

[@sophiaisstillagoodunit6626]

I mean, if multi target dancing already got turned into a skill and dance staff is also a thing, its probably something next on the board

[@iamthepkmmaster]

The Herons and the Twins had a good idea, however if the buffs were added onto the refresh instead of just the boost, the extra utility of those boosts would be interesting.

[@armorbearer9702]

(5:43) 10+ Attack! With that kind of boost, I would bring the dancer to every chapter for boss killing. Ninis' Grace looks like it could be useful as well. Set's Litany and Thor's Ire looks a little underwhelming.

[@bongosmcdongos4190]

I wish you had mentioned the ridiculous refreshing staff in fe3 book 2. It has 3 uses and refreshes your entire army. Its great.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@bongosmcdongos4190 I had forgotten that it was army-wide!

[@SnakeManvsArbok]

I think Azura is the single best “combat dancer” in the entire franchise. Feeding Azura some kills early game can benefit you massively with Javelin helping to build Shield Gauge in Pair-Up, Beast Killer being great effective damage utility, Guard Naginata giving a rather notable defense boost, or Blessed Lance’s capacity to effectively give her a free Renewal, if you want an additional safety net for her. Her main asset is still refreshing units, but the various lances she can equip, as well as benefitting massively from having a backpack unit feed her Movement or Defense, can make enemies not necessarily want to aggro her, and thus with that much better of an enemy phase, plus her solid Strength growth allowing her to provide solid chip (especially notable with Attack Stance stuff like Javelin or even Beast Killer if you want some effective damage, but don’t want to have Azura initiate an attack or risk a counterattack)

[@ritachikorita6916]

Exactly, Azura’s stat spread and weapon type make her very useful for pair-up attacks while keeping her direct combat very shaky. She’s never going to tank physical enemies (her res is pretty good) and she lacks the damage or skills to OHKO enemies. Her max lance rank is also only C, making her unable to use the more conventionally powerful lances while still giving her access to some of the more interesting ones.

[@artofthepossible7329]

Azura also has perfect availability in Birthright and Revelations, and you get her 4 chapters into Conquest, which for a dancer unit may as well be perfect availability.

[@jackychen7769]

Cav/pala/flier move and attack, dance, rescue and retreat. Little tricks like these are why I like dancers. Also character design and dance animation bring different every game is pretty cool too.

[@revivalfromruins]

I'm honestly curious as to why they didn't just fix the infinite Dancer loop issue by making Dancers unable to be Danced for until FEH (a game where you could actually field multiple dancers and 3x Dancer + a Carry is a viable composition for certain maps) - it would allow you to do things like have secondary Dancer backups for Ironman players and such.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@revivalfromruins you know, that does sound like a pretty obvious fix. Makes me wonder if there were other reasons for it that we just don't know.

[@fauxparadox]

If youre in a game with canter and also rescue having a dancer refresh a mounted unit who immediately rescues them and canters away is a great strategy idea and useful if you intend for lots of dancing on a map

[@MrWarpPipe]

I heard you like Dancers, so we gave you a dancer to dance your other dancer so they can do another dance. -Engage

[@letsmakeit110]

I prefer games without a dancer. If a dancer exists the player is pressured to use them because they're effectively a second copy of your best unit. But the alternative is getting to use one or more underused units for specific situations. It exacerbates the pokemon problem where the best strategy is usually to juggernaut through the game with one powerful unit rather than splitting the resources on a team of 6 or more. But the game gives you dozens of units to choose from so the optimal playstyle means you miss out on most of the content.

[@nodot17]

Dancin' is what you do Dancin's when I think of you Dancin's what clears my soul Dancin's what makes me whole

[@free2lose927]

Meteor dancer Dorothea in 3 houses was my favorite fire emblem dancer. A lot of dancers I've used felt like they only cared about surviving and what limited non dance support they can give. Meteor Dorothea giving every unit a support bond attack felt unique and really fun 👍

[@Lucaccino17]

I can't really remember dancer stats other than Reyson in PoR, but I did think he made good bait for siege tomes with his high res. They did a good job with his stats where you can a lot of times let him see one round of combat and barely survive, which has helped when I inevitably make the wrong move and someone will die elsewise

[@infantrypulse]

Dancer is the best class in the game, I’ll die on this hill.

[@abdalrhmanrushoud8816]

Enjoy these videos quite a bit. Would love if you could make one about Jagens.

[@MythrilZenith]

Been debating how to treat "archetypes" as opposed to straight unit classes. "Jagens" in particular are worth discussing, even if other archetypes are less notable. I'll definitely do SOME sort of 101-style video on Jagens, but cannot confirm when that will be.

[@blankblank6214]

Minimal combat is always good on a dancer not for the combat itself but because the weapons available often have some level of evasion benefits

[@BrawlSnorlax]

Dancers should be doge tanks with daggers. That way, they are not sitting ducks, and they might even be bait. (Unless there are main characters again.) Also, I would have had the Kinshi knight as Azura's promoted class.

[@platonismisoop2152]

I disagree, the whole point of them is that they provide invaluable utility but you have to be aware of positioning to use them effectively. If they can dodge tank then they basically have no real weaknesses and you lose that element that makes them such compelling units in the first place.

[@TLNT2103-zg3sb]

Do you mean the daggers pre-fates, where they didn't do any debuffing and thus would remai horribly weak, or post-fates, to act more effectively as bait? On the note of Azura: I'd argue the Kinshi Knight class is cool on its own and thus shouldn't be restricted, but it would be neat to get Azura on a unique class that combined Kinshi with Songstress, to make her a flying dancer in a similar manner to the Tellius herons. No weapon rank upgrades though, unfortunately, to avoid defeating the purpose of being a dancer.

[@BrawlSnorlax]

@@TLNT2103-zg3sb Post-fates. Okay, that works, too. I'm not good at naming classics; the best I have is Premadona.

[@luckluca8982]

I would like to give a shoutout to my favorite kind of dancer: The sing for 900 turns in chapter 5 Azura, because she has too good of growths to everything except Hp and defence, reclass her with a heart seal and kill chapter 10 Takumi. One of my favorite and "reliable" crack units in Fire Emblem!

[@MythrilZenith]

This is another reason why giving dancers combat potential is risky - if you make it ACTUALLY viable combat then a player can just spend infinite turns grinding them to max level with no meaningful cost. At least staff units need to replace their staves after awhile, and can't heal undamaged units.

[@absoul112]

I’d love to see the FE7 rings make a return in some form. I think a neat way if it’s not on a dancer is if they made another support class.

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL MythrilZenith videos!!!! ❤

[@Xertaron.]

FE11 missed big time by not giving Maria a prf Anew staff. She joins around the time when dancers usually join and she's unavailable for 99% of FE12 so she wouldn't compete with Phina. Something unique to let her stand out from being just a worse Lena that joins much later. Then again, that's a common problem in FE11. As for dancers in general, I wish they could either promote or get additional effects to their dance with levels. Like, unpromoted dancer can only dance a single unit, while promoted one can conditionally dance four (Reyson kinda does that with his transformation) + some other effects that could be based on level, support level, class etc.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@Xertaron. that would have been cool. It always felt weird to me to get Maria in chapter 9 and then just... never have a reason to ever use her. In every version of FE1, she just feels like an unlock condition to recruit Minerva more than an actual unit herself.

[@Victor-pv4jl]

My tanky Azura that fights anyone with her lance , and not afraid of mages at all

[@noukan42]

I agree with those that dislike dancers tbh. They exacerbate most of the existing problems with the system. Giving them dogshit stats just isn't the best way to balance them in my opinion. Most games balance this kind of things by having them cost a lot of MP, have long cooldown or dtuff like that. Wich imo is a lot better.

[@MythrilZenith]

So in other words, something like how the Anew spell in SoV was handled (massive 24hp cost, reflecting a significant investment of resources for every use)?

[@noukan42]

@@MythrilZenith exactly that

[@thekoifishcoyote8762]

Two dancers are only a problem if they're multi dancers since dancers themselves are otherwise useless to dance for.

[@MajinMattPlays]

For me, Dancers have never been a particularly enjoyable feature of Fire Emblem, beyond the characters themselves. While powerful and versatile, I don't enjoy how they function and in many cases centralize the gameplay around them. However, I think they are an interesting and useful tool to have around. Personally, I prefer having more limited Dancing within each map, for example in my major campaign, I enjoy seeing how the Anew staff's 3 Uses per map get used, much more than the turn to turn usage of the Dancer. Though generally, I rarely if ever miss a Dancer if they aren't around, only ever missing the designs and character slots that get left behind.