Unit Design 101 Thieves

[@something1558]

Shoutout to FE9 Sothe for having a personal that incentives you to train him when he doesn't even get a promo but Volke does.

[@MarcusXD100]

And is most of the time would ruin fe10 sothe unless you get perfect level ups all the time

[@MythrilZenith]

@@MarcusXD100 I did the math to test, and it's kind of wild. No-Transfers Sothe is better in every stat except Spd, Skl and Luck by at least 2 points. Luck he's down about 1 point, and Spd and Skl he caps on average. This is after considering the mathematical average of Blossom, which rolls each stat twice if the first roll doesn't get an increase. You can definitely create a better Sothe than base RD with rigging and stat boosters but you're not likely to, and it won't be *that* much better unless you get REALLY blessed in Luck, defense and resistance because base RD Sothe is already so close to the PoR unpromoted caps in everything else.

[@Xertaron.]

I hate how thieves kept getting less and less utility over time. They could've given them extra exp for unlocking doors and opening chests, introduce extra levels of lock difficulty that could either require more advanced tools or thief with higher lock picking skill, which in some chapters could open new paths only available if you have a skilled thief. Or ability to gain extra gold/items for visiting houses/villages, scouting utility that warns you about reinforcements/gives extra info about the enemy in fog of war. Literally anything other than turning them into yet another combat unit...

[@wingofshu]

I hear you but the vocal fan base only seems to care about having 8 move, 1-2 range and flying, heck a thiefs "value" is based on not ability to use lock pick or steal but even deduct points if keys are cheap or even uncommon or the fan base goes as far as making up value of stealables and chest loot The 2 options are remove keys from all fes or as they did make another combat class, and realistically both at least get the class more attention

[@rekenner]

​​​@@wingofshuno, the people you're referring to don't only care about those forms of utility, those are the only forms of utility most FE games actually encourages you to care about if you're not extrinsically motivated to, eg, rout every map, get every item, recruit everyone, use weak units, etc.

[@Xertaron.]

@@wingofshu ​ That vocal fan base seeks the most optimal strategies, which inevitably lead to optimizing the fun out of the game. Diminishing the value of thieves isn't done in malice, it's a side product of thieves never being worth it in the long run, because everything they do can easily be circumvented through other means. And if the game does nothing to discourage spamming 1-2 range fliers, who's at fault here? The players or the developers? 8 move is great because most chapters have flat terrain with no movement penalties, 1-2 range wasn't nerfed until Fates and the only thing that fliers have to be weary of are bows, which can be easily played around - there's no opportunity cost for spamming them. FE1, 3, Thracia and Radiant Dawn are the only games that made any effort in discouraging overusing them. Removing keys entirely isn't a good idea, a better option would be to make them only last until the end of the chapter - keys aren't universal and only fit certain locks so it makes no sense why you can stack them in the convoy for use in future chapters, completely invalidating any need for thieves. Make some optional chests/doors have no existing keys, so they can only be unlocked by thieves. Done. As long as unlocking them is worth it, the vocal fan base will use thieves. Making them more combat focused doesn't solve anything, it just makes them blend together with dozen other combat classes. FE already has very few utility classes, the last thing it needs is turning them into even more combat classes.

[@flippyflapperson872]

Radiant Dawn Sothe is one of the coolest units the series has produced design wise imo. Pre-promote jeigan thief that still keeps marginal utility even after he falls off through picking up treasure, sniping with beastkillers, and opening chests/stealing. Has a weak weapon class but is surprisingly tanky at base, so he can get everything into kill-range for your weaker units with a 1-2 range knife, or you can just give him a stronger dagger and have him ORKO everything if need be.

[@MarcusXD100]

Yeah and funny enough is most of the time the best user of the baselard (telliys's ultimate dagger)most of the time

[@MaddMoke]

I think Fates Ninjas were my favorite implementation and if their combat power was nerfed slightly while still doling out debuffs and poison strikes there could be a happy medium there. But even if not, the Hoshido army having a uniquely strong fighting unit that wasnt just a recreation of paladins was a good change up imo. FE would really benefit with more class variety. Also Haiya Papaya

[@notanobviouschoice]

The problem is that they really did everything they could to nerf ninja in combat without compromising its identity as a class (fast, accurate, mage killer). Master ninja has bad str/def/hp - being lower than most base combat classes in those regards. Sadly, being able to stack large amounts of str/def in fates meant that anybody with even a hint of str/def was spectacular in the class. The best combat ninja aren’t the speedsters like Kaze/Kagero it’s the bulky units like Saizo and Silas. Fab class but it gets broken by the game it was a part of. Ninja would have been a great promo for Engage as there’s not as much of a meta of easy damage stacking in Engage. You get bits and pieces of it but it’s all 2 damage at best, whilst in fates you can get great damage just by class changing a couple times.

[@MajinMattPlays]

Thief is a class that struggles to stand on its feet in the direction Modern Fire Emblem has gone in. In older games, Thieves were only ever deployed or of any genuine value when they were necessary to steal or open important things. This lead to Thieves being more Map-Based than any other class, as you trade a deployment slot for the ability to get what the map offers. Fire Emblem has moved into a direction of wanting every unit to be able to be deployed every map, which damages the idea of Thieves being functionally a map gimmick. For once, my time as a designer has only reinforced my idea that Thieves have a lot of problems, but, in my upcoming campaign I'm playtesting some adjustments that I may as well share since I think it's fun to discuss. So I'm stealing somewhat from Berwick Saga and its daggers. In Berwick, Daggers deal damage equal to their Might, and then add on a random amount of your STR. The notable part here is that this damage cannot be reduced. So, I'm going to be trying a somewhat similar concept, of setting Daggers to deal a Minimum damage equal to their Might, and having them with a small amount of base crit, but a higher Crit Damage bonus than other weapons. Overall, I think Thieves need a lot of re-evaluation. I also think in the modern age of FE, they need to promote. Assassin is a pretty iconic Fire Emblem class at this point, and I think I speak for everyone when I say it wouldn't harm anything to let Thieves promote. I think what they could do for Thieves in the future is potentially lean into the idea of them being Difficult Terrain specialists, not hindered by terrain your other high movement units struggle with, and utilizing its defensive bonuses to become incredibly effective within it. Tough to balance but IS was never going to balance these games super well anyway.

[@GMOPsyche]

I feel like the need to make any unit good because "it could be someone's favorite" has really hurt IntSys' ability to balance their games, and thieves slowly becoming more combat centered instead of just being the weak utility unit of the army feels like the biggest example.

[@jemolk8945]

Arguably the best version of thieves I've seen is from the hack Souls of the Forest. There are plenty of valuable stealables and quite a few locked doors and chests. There are map icon indicators for enemies with stealable/droppable items, so you can tell at a glance, and thieves gain experience based on the value of items they steal. That last bit is enormous -- you sometimes will want to steal a Master Seal that's droppable anyway, just because it'll give your thief a full level. They can end up being capable combat units as well, but the utility and experience from that utility is strong enough that you will often want to prioritize that instead.

[@17Master]

The funny (read: tragic) thing is the tools to fulfill the ideal Thief fantasy are almost all here, just scattered across the series and never brought together in one go. The only thing missing is getting meaningful experience for doing Thief things.

[@lapsis6582]

i liked how engage handled knives, if chests and doors were more prevalent and thief locked it'd be nice, also i feel like having some kind of promotion wouldve been nice

[@Venomdrad]

Thieves are one of the more unique classes in FE. As a general rule, they are a utility class but have the capability being usable in combat. They usually have good skill and speed but low strength and defense. They could be dodge-tanks at least. Later games have reduced their utility but try to improve their combat in some way. I am of the mindset that if there is a lack of stealable items or chests to open, then thieves better be good in combat to make it worth deploying them. If there are good items to steal, I'm deploying a thief regardless of their combat prowess. In earlier games in the series specifically the Kaga Era, thieves were mainly focused on their lockpicking and stealing (if applicable) utility. Even when they had good growths and/or a promotion, they weren't really going to do that much in combat. The thief fighter/rouge promotion was just a better thief, no new weapons or combat skills of note. FE6 kept the utility-focused thieves. If there is a FE6 remake, can we get a Rogue promotion or even Assassin? It would be so cool for the FE6 thieves. Speaking of assassins, FE7 had it as a new promotion option for thieves. Stat-wise, it mostly just boosted their speed and skill to swordmaster levels. They had good but not amazing crit-chance, so swordmasters could still compete. Lethality was the main draw. Having the ability to one-hit kill enemies was awesome and made up somewhat for their low strength. They lost the ability to steal but could still pick locks. FE7 had Jaffar as a good late-game showcase for what an assassin could do in combat. In FE8, thieves had a fairly balanced choice: promote to rogue and become a better utility unit or go assassin for the better combat and one-hit kill chance. Myrmidons had 2 good options between swordmaster (higher crit chance for 3x damage) or assassin (one-hit kill chance). Now FE9 thieves had knives which were really bad in that game and was basically a nerf. Even more so now that lethality went by skill instead of crit chance, which in FE7-FE8 you could raise up by using killing edges. FE9 does not have that option. FE10 on the other hand, buffed up knives and had Sothe as your jeigen of sorts. A thief jeigen was definitely a novel concept but it worked well enough. In Part 1 he was tanky for that point and was still fast. He remained a good combat unit in Part 3, albeit more of a glass cannon there. I don't have much to say on thieves in Awakening, aside from one class option. They kept the swordmaster/assassin promotions options for myrms and assassins got bows. There is a new thief promotion: trickster. The trickster was an odd mix of a speedy sword combat unit had thief utility but also had the option to heal with staves and use magic swords effectively. Due to the mixed stat spread, only a few characters were actually good in that class, such as Anna. 3H brought back this class and kept the hybrid stat spread. Now Fates had the probably the best take on combat focused thieves while keeping some of their utility. On the Hoshido side, we had ninjas who were a bit too good. They had reliable physical 1-2 range in a game where the other weapons got nerfed in that regard. They could that debuff enemy stats and could lower enemy HP regardless of their actual strength thru the poison strike skill. They were also great mage-killers due to high speed and res stats on most ninjas. Mechanists had extra mov and broken replicate skill to have literally 2nd copy of that unit. Master ninjas were just better ninjas with the addition of swords and stat buffs. On the Nohr side, outlaws combined bow usage and thief utility into one class and also gave them a good resistance stat to fight mages. Adventures were basically tricksters that traded swords for bows. In the 3DS games, Locktouch was a skill that was fully transferable to other classes. This meant that you could in theory have an armor knight on lockpicking duty if they had thief as a class-change option. Weird but funny option.

[@flight_knight_]

Thief is the chill guy class

[@armorbearer9702]

I am fine with thieves gaining more combat utility. My only concern is that they have the ability to take on different foes than myrmidons. In some games, thieves and myrmidons do the same function. Of course, myrmidons do the job a bit better usually.

[@kaihaemmerle2773]

I honestly like the idea of thieves being able to be either more combat-oriented or support-oriented as they grow, being able to help in combat and take extra enemies out or use staves and other stuff to help heal and buff allies and nerf enemies. I think the best example of this is Awakening’s thieves promoting into the Assassin or Trickster. I think Fate’s Master Ninja and Adventurer also fall in line with this despite being from two different classes.

[@Devmon52]

I love classes with unique utility and the thief class (and genres of thief) have been fun ways to expand map design and considerations. Treasure-taking is a given, but it would be wonderful if future Fire Emblem games incorporate more routes and paths that are unlocked by thieves. Engage made thieves dodgy juggernauts with poison utility, but I have always preferred the interaction with the environment itself. There will always be different flavours of combat units, but finding units that interact with map choices creates more interesting choices for me. Out of all the variants of thief, I think my favourite is the Outlaw which provides an interesting set of interactions between two-range bows, potential healing and magic-bow use, and also potential mounted combat.

[@katiethefandomgirl4412]

I'm gonna be honest I kind of like how they're trying to make thieves more viable with combat, in my humble opinion in earlier games like the GBA games thieves... weren't really that great. You get to unlock doors and chests with ease, sure, but if the unit can't defend themselves then they're better off only being deployed in maps where you know you want them to do their lockpicking thing. While I still very much have the mentality that thieves should remain their utility, I say the approach on making them have some sort of a combat role as well is pretty welcoming.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@katiethefandomgirl4412 I do agree that GBA thieves were in general a bit *too* weak, but I don't mind having some units they are deliberately weaker than others. The bigger issue comes in how much combat they need to see to level up to the point where they can continue to do their job of stealing valuables, whilst at the same time being so weak.

[@Starwars-Fanboy]

Astol and Legault can actually contribute to combat for a few maps after they join. Jaffar is very strong too

[@guesticon1194]

Hm, don't know how your experience went, but in mine, both Matthew and Legault always turned out to be pretty useful. Not to mention that they're good at dodging most attacks.

[@4fives992]

Imo, Fire Emblem Vision Quest implemented thieves best. The only consistent source of gold is from stealable gems and Elixirs so choosing not to field a thief every chapter results in you going broke. Once you get a second thief the the stealables get strewn throughout the map so I found myself deploying two thieves per map, on rare occasions I was tempted to deploy three. Enemy thieves were used as anti-turtling measures also cemented the need to bring at least one thief since chest keys were not super common. Thieves also get steal+ when they reach level 5 promoted allowing you to steal unequipped weapons.

[@grauenritter9220]

Or be shadow dragon and give Marth a master key.

[@jordanrogers9296]

As somebody who is making a romhack with a Thief Lord (that uses Axes), making Chest Keys less common while still giving the player enough worthwhile things to steal with and the Outlaw you get early on is proving to be something that requires careful consideration.

[@HorizonEdge]

I'm replaying FE7 and it's just sad how replaceable the thieves are. They just feel like walking keys and torches. I do like the modern direction they've gone with thieves, making them more combat focused debuffers. However they're now in the opposite camp where they're just too strong. Having 1-2 range with good damage that debuffs the target is too much, it's telling when every thief in Engage is at least high tier, and you can, if not encouraged to, deploy multiple thieves every map. Maybe if they made knives 2 range only to cement the 'hit and run' idea and to give them a weakness of some kind

[@Mir-d3k]

Funny you say that, because in general I found Yunaka to fall off HARD later on, and I'm not sure Zelkov can stay relevant as a Thief either... Also, despite they supposedly being replaceable, I kept finding reasons to want one of Matthew or Legault. I will say this though; it's kinda bull that their promotion item is in the same chapter that you get Jaffar, whom eclipses both of them.

[@charsage1036]

Unless they go absolutely crazy with theives in one of next game thracia theives will always be my favorite type of theives stealing the only tome or weapon a enemy has will always be funny to me.

[@Yarharsuperpirate]

Also if I recall right, a trained thief could steal the final boss Veld's tome under the right circumstances. Which is hilarious

[@charsage1036]

@@Yarharsuperpirate not with a theif persay but if I remember correctly abusing magic tiles and a pure or m up staff you can steal it with theif staff similar to the loptyr fang.

[@thewindysage1538]

Thracia /tellius stealing needs to come back imo It opened up a new way to gear up your army as enemies tend to have easier access to more alluring weaponry like silver or killer weapons It was more or less balanced by the whole "only if con is greater than item" thing and that same avenue can easily be the stopgap again, just make stealble warp superheavy so you need to really invest in your theif for it

[@MajinMattPlays]

There's a joke to be made about Thracia PFP here. Though I think the big issue posed by Thracia stealing is, if you are capable of investing into your Thieves enough to steal really powerful items consistently without level up RNG being the main deciding factor, then that nullifies those boosters and bonuses from being used on other units for anyone who wants to maximize their resources. Since the average player won't be focused on Optimal play, but on using their resources well, it becomes a bit too cut and dry what the best option is.

[@thewindysage1538]

@@MajinMattPlays you could male it go by strength like in tellius and have the thieves not growth strength that well You could also make this stealable items increasibly harder to get by putting them in enemies that are well guarded and at the end of a chapter so you need to properly plan heists or risk losing units In terms of it being centralising for resources ,it can depend on the rewards given out and how exp is allocated,maybe give thiefs slower exp rates so you are actively crippling your level curve in exchange for nice items making it so you can feasibly say that it might not be worth it

[@MajinMattPlays]

@@thewindysage1538 That's all entirely fair. I like the idea of this kind of Stealing being basically a reward for struggling to train a fairly weak unit, and tying it to STR does that pretty well. Another thought that comes to mind is maybe their Weapon stealing is limited in some way by their Weapon Rank, encouraging consistent usage rather than just power leveling wherever possible. I will add that I completely forgot Tellius had stealable weapons, somehow.

[@justinjamesmdlc]

Great video and very informative. I didn’t know FE4 thieves could freely give the gold they obtained. TIL. One note I have specifically with 3H, Stealth is pretty amazing in manipulating aggro. The most common use case is allowing a unit to apply support while deep within what would normally be dangerous enemy range.

[@juicyjuustar121]

I always love when thieves are good at combat. It's not very balanced at all but I love it, it's such a cool class

[@compsognathus3106]

I think Matthew is probably the series peak at balancing a thief. FE7 has tons of super valuable, though not strictly necessary, treasures and stealables that only Matthew can get. He's pretty awful at combat but you'll still want to use him because his speed is good but not great enough at base to steal everything so he does need some levels. My only real change I would make for him (and frankly thieves as a whole) is more experience from stealing and getting experience from using a lockpick. In lieu of that you could give him better strength so getting experience via combat isn't so painful. Being a squishy sword infantry means he'll never be a combat carry regardless of damage dealing. I don't like how more recent games have abandoned the utility of thieves. Engage is particularly egregious as it just makes the thief class feel useless once the party starts promoting and the thieves' half-promoted bases stop carrying them.

[@melvincolesmith9068]

damn then the peak was really low then, considering Julian exists and he has a str growth if you wanna use him for combat, if not you can use him for chests out of the throne's way.

[@compsognathus3106]

@melvincolesmith9068 Julian's issue is that without stealables and the existence of Marth, he doesn't exclusively get you anything. He makes things faster sure, but if Julian and Rickard immediately died, you could still get all the items. Also while Julian can get swole, his strength doesn't actually matter to his thief use. He doesn't need stats for that. If Matthew dies you genuinely lose out on a ton of stuff before Legault shows up. There are a bunch of gems, promo items and stat boosters that you just don't get without him. It won't end your run but it absolutely has a profoundly negative impact on it. And because his speed stat needs to proc a few times to steal everything, you are highly incentized to use him to get at least a few levels under his belt. Unlike Julian who could do his role with 0% growths.

[@thefinalskarm1754]

I like when the red lady yoinked my enemies lifespan

[@kap1618]

Thieves need the same buff healers got in awakening. A single heal gave 25 exp, so 4 heals per level, but different staffs give more exp. Apply a similar principle but make stealing more useful.

[@ghable23]

That's not the amount of experience on higher difficulties. You get 12 or so for heal. I still found awakening and Shadow dragon easy games to heal spam.

[@garthmarenghi9040]

I quite like the design of FE10 Sothe, who serves as your Jeigan for some of the early maps. His combat falls off by the mid-late game, and I wish those later maps had more side objectives/chests for him, since a force deployed thief could always fall back on their utility. Sadly FE10's Act 3 mostly involves his army trying to stay alive rather than risk pushing forward for chests.

[@dracoshield2344]

Fire Emblem thieves are my spirit animal Matthew, Giaus and Zelkov my beloved

[@Greideren]

Stealing and opening locks is good utility but not enough to make a unit "good" just because they can do that, especially when any unit with a key can do the same things. Thieves need something else to be worth using often enough so as to not be 10 levels behind the rest of your units. The staff utility in Awakening/Fates could work wonders since you have a staff user that can do thieving stuff whenever needed, so they're staff bots but slightly more useful. Not bad at all. Niles and the capture mechanic from Fates is another good example. Good enough combat so as to not be useless and the ability to "recruit" certain enemies into your army is pretty neat. This way you can obtain a unit with unique skills, a staff bot that can be double as bait so as to not lose one of your named units or a mini boss with a portrait that almost no one will actually use, lol. And then there's the Ninjas with their debuffs and post combat damage. That can be useful for weakening particularly difficult enemies (mainy bosses), more so in higher difficulties. Tho I think they should've been weaker with some added utility. They're Ninjas so it would've made a lot of sense for them to use smoke bombs to reduce the avo/hit of enemies around the target they attacked; either as a weapon or a learned skill. They could've also had a skill to "dissapear" after combat so that the foes cant attack them. The Kitsunes could do it but literal Ninjas can't? That's kinda silly. With it they could've had more utility by going deeper into enemy range while being safe or by acting as a choke point of sorts to hinder the enemy's movement. There's probably more ways they could be used, like having 2 actions per turn to either weaken more enemies or to safely hit and run. That should be balanced if their combat isn't that good but have the extra post combat utility of Ninjas.

[@jierdareisa4313]

I love ALL MythrilZenith videos!!!! ❤

[@naotoueda2838]

"non-combat utility is only as good as the map design allows" also includes games besides map design. I rarely uses thieves in Archanea because: 1: Marth can open chests 2:Door key is cheap and player has much money 3:You can kill the thieves and get all the treasures as drop items(except FE1). GBA and Tellius games only drops one item instead.

[@weepingdalek2568]

Slight Correction, anyone can open chests in Engage but Thieves can open doors whereas everyone else needs to break doors down

[@MythrilZenith]

I completely forgot there were even enough doors in Engage to bother with thieves. Is that something they have more of on the DLC maps? Or is that in like, one random chapter in the early game and then never again?

[@weepingdalek2568]

@@MythrilZenith I can think of like, three chapters that have doors off the top of my head But also doors can just be broken down

[@felikatze]

Lack of promotion is for sure one of the biggest kneecaps for thieves, as it denies them promo bonuses that other units get to patch up shaky stats, and basically means they're guaranteed to be left behind even if they get to muck around as like, a lv15 unpromoted unit (unlikely). The most egregious example (outside of por sothe) are imo Yunaka and Zelkov. I love Yunaka, I tried to use her a LOT, but thief having no native promotion and being treated as a "special" class that you can only class change out of at Level 20 seriously hindered my usage of her, especially when Wolf Knight exists as a primary dagger unit...? Why isn't Wolf Knight a promotion of thief...? I know that's a byproduct of Engage's Class = Weapon Rank system (which i still vastly prefer over Fates' "Class based caps but you still have to grind, sucker" system and Bronze Weapon Hell), so Thieves are supposed to be exclusive in that they have access to S-Rank daggers, but A-rank daggers (like Wolf Knight has) is just perfectly servicable for the whole game, especially with the opportunities present via forging/engraving, that it's simply not a worthy tradeoff for denying Yunaka and Zelkov access to promoted classes for twice as long as every other unit. Esp since Thieves can't steal, anybody can open chests willy nilly, and the poison effect is explained incredibly badly by the game itself (I didn't know what exactly it did for my entire first playthrough, and still got by just fine.) Great vid 👍

[@ignoos]

Maybe i'm wrong but thief to me was Yuri who act more like a second lord instead of a thief but he fall of near the end of game compared to Byleth or the lords.

[@MythrilZenith]

@@ignoos i mostly used Petra as the icon because on enemy teams she auto-promotes to Assassin, and is the only character to do so.

[@enny7377]

Another video on thieves just came out a few days ago

[@MythrilZenith]

@@enny7377 A lovely coincidence! I've gotten to the point where I don't even pay attention to the majority of other FE KZbin channels' content so as to not parrot other ideas blindly in my own work.