Viability of S-rank Legendary Weapons in Fire Emblem Fates

[@mccanna7526]

I actually found the waterwheel to be somewhat useful. It raises 5 def/res like the guard naginata, and it’s might is high enough that you can 2 shot even with your strength halved. Makes for pretty good tanking

[@gabrielclamens3151]

it also protects you from critical hits

[@funninoriginal6054]

Someone actually posted a comment similar to yours, even arguing that the +20 Crit/Avo could make a very good dodgetank. Great minds think alike i suppose

[@olorin6494]

The hagakure blades as well in fact halving strength is good because it lowers the odds of killing too many enemies and getting chipped to death. The good thing about waterwheel over guard naginata is that it doesn’t drop your avoid so you’ll retain more chance to fully evade attacks

[@PokeGus1]

I only ever managed to use the Waterwheel (of the S-ranks). Halving the strength roughly brought Oboro down to the same overall Might as guard naginata w/o the halving, so half the time it was basically as good and half the time it was ~14 (or whatever) Mt higher, so I agree it was great! Not to mention it looked super cool

[@quinnlee-miller9792]

Half strength effie sad noises

[@KoopaKoot]

I really disliked the penalties on most of the b rank weapons. I understand it was a way to stop end turn strats, but when you are getting weakened by enemies as well, it just feels excessive.

[@astralguardian5930]

Yeah, Silver Weapons are supposed to be these expensive and powerful tools. But in Fates they were neutered so much. To the point where Steel Weapons are better because while slightly weaker they only a -3 speed penalty and also Forging Steel Weapons just makes basically better Silver Weapons with only a -3 Spd Penalty instead of lowering Str/Skl per combat done.

[@ebongatseabong202]

@@astralguardian5930 on rally bots such as shigure, silver weapons can be nice every once in a while when you’d like to attack an enemy with them instead of rally

[@ResurgentRaven]

I wish they had the same limiter as skills like the taker skills (max stat buff/debuff of 10, etc.)

[@madwaltz9812]

I actually like the design of the Silver weapons, but the way they are, they're just not worth buying when you have the option of using your gold to forge Steel or Iron weapons instead. And I'm not sure about Birthright or Revelations, but at least in Conquest, the only way to get Silver weapons is to buy them. If you found Silver weapons in chests or something, imo they'd be fairly useful, though it'd still be a toss-up whether you're better off selling them for forge money. I've done a few forgeless runs of Conquest, and I sometimes buy Silver weapons in that setting, the Silver Bow especially I find to be fairly useful. Like what Excel was saying about the legendary weapons being good for dual strikes, Silver weapons don't get the debuff when dual striking. So if you are trying to clear a group of pegasus knights on player phase, being able to set up dual strikes with a Silver Bow can make that a lot easier. But even without forges, Silver weapons still cost too much money to justify, much of the time.

[@leifster7762]

I honestly really don’t like how weapons work as a whole in fates

[@zer0vision891]

Bifrost is really just a meme. Like mentioned, the player doesn't get it until nearly the end of the game. But not only that, it isn't like Valkyrie or Aum where you can revive any dead unit: it's only the most recent unit that died in the current map, meaning you can't revive Camilla, Xander, Silas, etc if they died a few chapters ago. And if you have someone die that you don't want to revive after the person you do want to revive, you're SOL. Technically, this can be useful for a suicide mission in Ch. 27 or Endgame, but neither battle on Conquest or Revelation typically use or need suicide tactics, as any suicidal tactic usually leads to the battle ending within a couple turns. I only think it could be useful for aggro'ing or distracting certain groups or enemies, but again none of the battles where you have Bifrost will really need this tactic. TL,DR: Bifrost bad

[@Kryptnyt]

I think Bifrost is also banned in PVP, so there goes any advantage you could get from that.

[@EZog58]

This on top of the fact that Maid/Butler just isn't as useful as other staff classes.

[@zer0vision891]

@@EZog58 yup. Onmyoji and Strategist both don’t have to invest their stat line into Str, and Strategist has 8 Mov. For physical offense, Mechanist has more movement and higher stats, while Master Ninja is just busted. Great Master and Priestess are wack tho.

[@athath2010]

Spoilers for the plot of Fates (if anyone cares): It'd be neat if the Bifrost worked across chapter barriers, allowing a player who receives no deaths after Scarlet's plot-mandated death in Rev (or Kaze's plot-mandated death in that other route if you didn't have him build strong enough supports) to bring her back. Something something earn your golden ending. The ability to revive people without a time limit on the revival would have pretty big worldbuilding implications, though, and you'd have to work out what'd happen if your last death was someone from before the chapter split (do people actually die before the route split? I forget). And you'd also be opening up a few plot holes with regards to other plot-mandated deaths, like Lilith's.

[@zer0vision891]

@@athath2010 On classic mode, deaths within the pre-Branch will matter for the pre-branch stage of the game, but not post-branch. For example, Felicia dying in Ch. 2 locks her out of Ch. 3, but she will return in Ch. 6 regardless. It’s an interesting idea for it to reach a true golden ending, like with Scarlet or Lilith, but revival magic is basically not a thing lore wise afaik. In fact, most games that incorporate revival always have something sinister about it (spoilers for 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, and 16): Lewyn actually being Forseti; the Deadlords being your dead units in Thracia; Morphs being puppets; Monica being brainless; the Risen in general; and the Umbral Beast.

[@garretschinkel2740]

Chakram and Excalibur are the only ones I really use. Chakram goes on Master ninjas, which have high avoid, so the defence drop isn’t that bad. Excalibur goes on Sorcerers, which already have bad defence, so losing a bit more isn’t too bad

[@dolphinbanana3053]

Witches can also use Excalibur which is who I use mine with

[@waldoc2829]

AND Bifrost, tho that's not really a weapon per se.

[@waldoc2829]

AND Bifrost, tho that's not really a weapon per se.

[@dolphinbanana3053]

@@waldoc2829 It's more trouble than it's worth part of the time but it helps a lot

[@LFPman]

Sometimes I like Takumi using Pursuer for fun, it’s obvious that the Fujn Yumi is his go to, but it’s nice to change it up a bit y’know?

[@wevegottrouble5891]

Being able to +6 an Iron Sword to be a strictly better Silver Sword took the purpose away from the power = risk

[@theghostcreator776]

It takes it away once they're forged, that's 248,000 gold just for one sword! It's a significant investment for a single forged weapon so in practice this argument only means that it's taken away once you make a significant investment which I'd say is good design

[@paz8723]

Thats too high of an investment for Lunatic Difficulty, especially in a game where Personal weapons are as absurd as Raijinto and Siegfried.

[@annarenfold438]

Realistically, I doubt most players (for example, Conquest fans) would wanna go spend a quarter of a milion gold for one sword when they can spend a fraction and forge multiple +2 or +3 bronze/iron tier weapons and still have comparable if not stronger weapons than the default silver ones.

[@raymoo8504]

captured units only have max weapon rank on lunatic, which means lower difficulty playthroughs will have an even harder time getting units who can use them without grinding for weapon rank, not that you would ever need to or want to

[@sliceofpi2768]

They were pretty good on wifi. Obviously wifi battles are dead, but the ability to ohko certain beefier units online was extremely valuable. This isn't mentioning the ability to forge them using hacks, which was completely busted.

[@DrunkedOwly]

Wifi battles were ever alive?

[@sliceofpi2768]

@@DrunkedOwly yes, Phoenixmaster's online wifi battles was a great series that shows what it was like back in the day. I really enjoyed it

[@Zwei-II]

I got to play wifi battles relatively late but the matchmaking wasn't dead even 2-3 years after the release of the game then again it was plague with hacked units with absurbly high stats

[@thestargazer679]

me and a handful of my friends still play them together for the hell of it, whenever we do were some of the only people online in North America, if not the only ones online in NA period

[@cupie2255]

Too bad infantry units weren't viable on wifi without warp/rescue abuse. I wonder if fire emblem PvP could work if they added some sort of objective that rewarded you for placing yourself in danger first, and of course some damage adjustments.

[@Samsonsamurai]

For me, it makes sense that these specialized classes get to S rank, as they are experts in that wep type. But I also get why it is annoying

[@sebaschan-uwu]

Yeah I think its generally a good idea but strategist/valkyries not having s staff rank? That's just criminal. Especially since troubadours' main purpose is to heal while maids' main purpose to is be a jack of all trades

[@lazarusmekhane439]

I love how the Nohrian Royalty, the most powerful characters in Conquest, cannot use any legendary weapons provided in Conquest without changing base classes. Yet Nyx and Odin, the two greatest glass cannons, are allowed to use one. Also, the Excalibur's bonus damage to flying units is comical, to say the least. Seen as though I'm fairly certain there is not a single flying unit in the endgame.

[@sohn7767]

Odin is anything but a glass canon lol. But I get the point

[@rngsomeone1003]

There are Malig Knights in CQ endgame. Also, there are flier reinforcements in Rev Endgame. That being said, Pursuer produces even higher damage values due to having twice the might before tripling.

[@iranoutofideasforausernam1703]

Actually, Elise starts as a Troubadour and can promote into a Maid, which lets her use Bifrost! Which in and of itself is crippling her so she can use a useless item!

[@deathstar6998]

Odin is not a glass cannon so no.

[@marcoasturias8520]

There are some Malig Knights in Evil Takumi´s chapter. Pretty sure Zoran used Excalibur to great effect in one of his videos.

[@ChrilIo]

To further add to the melee debuff mitigation: The Replicate skill allows you to completely negate the debuff, as the debuff-removal from the clone's follow-up triggers after the real unit gets the debuff. So you'll never even see the debuff, unless the main attack kills before the clone can follow-up

[@marcoasturias8520]

I feel like I really need to test this.

[@TwoHeadedMeerkat]

With the strength-halving effect, it seems as though some of them were meant to be boss-killers, but as you said, there's so few chapters left, it's likely your team is already fully-built and you're beyond the point that you'll NEED a dedicated boss-killer. It's just too severe a downside for such a redundant upside.

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

The only good S rank weapon is the Waterwheel IMO because it's the ultimate tank weapon, with high crit avoid and +5 defense and res. Problem is, The only unit that can use it without reclassing (Oboro) Already has good defense and luck, so the Crit avoid does not matter and while extra defense/res is nice, is it really worth being a Sitting duck just to tank better? The Excalibur is the only other S rank weapon that is worth considering, since It is really strong and allows almost any sorcerer to double at the cost of Getting 1 shot. but you are right, you get these weapons so late into the game, and the next best thing (A brave/ Special Weapon) Probably has better uses and you could always just forge 4 Iron weapons for a much more versatile weapon.

[@matthijscalje4143]

It's such a shame the str halving weapons are so shit. The ones that reduce Def and res are fine, but you still need like 2 arms scrolls, even on units like takumi

[@Eddiegames9]

I really love the idea of Fates' no durability system where each of the different levels of weapons have their own strengths and functions so which weapons you carry in reserve actually matters instead of just strongest and a range one, unfortunately in practice, Bronze, Silver, and Legendary weapons are significantly outclassed by all the others.

[@marcoasturias8520]

Bronze weapons are the best

[@wouterW24]

They do seem to be designed with grinded out units in mind. But overall most higher tier weapons are too focused on weird downsides. It's probably for the best that they dropped it(or Echoes doesn't bother to make high end stuff bad). Even with how annoying the gems are to grind, forging is a bit dominant as well. Especially since the game is shaky enough with balance anyway that it's strange the S tier classes don't get a chance to truly dominate with these elusive weapons. Especially the might halving feels really forced.

[@JuanCarlos-lp4ug]

one thing not mentioned is that hagakure blade is the only sword beside sunrise katana that give +20 avoid. Couple this with the fact that sword masters are supposed to have high evasion already and the weapon + a pair up make a unit almost untouchable. In rev as soon as I got the blade I used an arms scroll on kana, paired her up with corrin, and watched her dodge tank everything also using the hoshidan unity + sol AND the hex skill that lowers stats by 4 for any enemies that lived due to the halved strength. Untouchable really

[@riseandbucket]

I hate the no durability system in Fates because it makes so many weapons that are good in other games simply a hassle to use. The biggest offender to me are the Silver Weapons. No downside in other games, but not being able to break is obviously OP in Fates so they MUST lower your strength after each use.

[@CarbonMalite]

If they balance around the different weapon types more I think the concept could work. For example, if swords give speed, then steel weapons shouldn't reduce speed like the other steel weapons would. stuff like that. I think that's a more immersive way of doing it than just slapping penalties on everything.

[@Videokirby]

I used to like the no-durability system when I just got into the series, since I had a bad case of "X is too good to use" and even now I like many of the effects. That being said, they made Silver weapons far too garbage. Stacking debuffs on key stats, really? If it were up to me, I would have made Silver's Might halved (perhaps -10 Avo with +10 on PF too) on enemy-phase instead, giving it the role of PF nuke with a really weak EF.

[@athath2010]

A better implementation of silver weapons, IMO, would be just lowering the might of the weapon instead of the strength of the wielder on each use, with the might automatically returning to its normal value at the end of each chapter. 'Course, the problem with this design for silver weapons is that you're kind of incentivized to fill your inventory with silver weapons and just cycle through them. Maybe returning a silver weapon to its normal might stat between chapters could cost a fee? Heck, you could even cut out the middle man and instead make silver weapons directly drain funds from your coffers every time they're used, with their stats decreasing drastically if you have no more money left to give them.

[@riqua27]

I like the no durability in Fates. It actually make cool distinction on a lot of different weapon. For example in older FE games. There is no reason to use bronze weapon other than to increase your weapon rank. In Fates however bronze are very useful cause it give crit avoid. Now Silver weapon does have it used actually. Some are niche used. But it's still pretty useful overall. 1. Dual strike Option. Since silver penalty didn't apply if you are just a pair up partner. 2. Mixed attacker option. Some unit like Leo for Example can actually utilize it's okayish str stat to one shot mages. Since a lot of mages have high res and low def. Leo can take advantage of that using Silver weapon. And Leo doesn't care with Str drop cause he will be using magic most of the time. 3. Boss kill option. This is the most obvious one. You used it to boss kill some bosses. And since you're going to seize the throne after boss kill. The stat drop is basically didn't matter. I think they did balance the weapon systems in Fates really well. Cause honestly compare Fates weapon balance to thing like shadow dragon where the meta is forge ridersbane. Or POR where the meta is forge hand axe. The fact that they make all weapon usable is fantastic game design.

[@pesky2119]

I like it, especially with silver swords though that's mostly because as a comp mons player you start to like moves with drawbacks, as it indirectly add more layers to the game your playing for both sides

[@magatsu212]

I'm rewatching this video after modding my copy of Fates, where the nerfs of weapons like silver weapons and s rank weapons are removed. This change felt like a blessing

[@TheEeveeKing]

The only useful ones in my experience is the Waterwheel, the Charkram, the Excalibur, and the Pursuer. Waterwheel's offensive might is not to be underestimated, it's +20% Crit avoid and +5 to Defense and Res make any Spear Master who uses it unable to really take anything meaningful in terms of damage. Sure, it doesn't do a ton of damage on the second attack but you can plan around it. In Rev it automatically makes Oboro prime-time Berserker bait because they just cannot crit her with her absurd Crit Avoid in lategame Rev. Chakram and Pursuer are the same: Give yourself and your enemy +5 AS when initiating combat, alongside defensive decreases. This makes things a little Spicer against enemies but if you can guaranteed double without halving stats, this makes Master Ninjas and Snipers extremely dangerous. Excalibur is the same as Chakram and Pursuer but instead you add 25% crit chance and effectiveness against Fliers. It utterly destroys everything and in the right hands can make one of the most insane glass cannon builds in the entire game. It's absurd.

[@hennyzhi2261]

This is generally why I prefer the old system of having weapon durability scale lower the more powerful a weapon is (rather than have more penalties with the benefit of endless durability). The problem of hording is something that is partially caused by that and conditioned over time in response, but I think just having a Fire Emblem that is generous with the ways you can gain resources like in the Telius ones goes a long way to resolving that issue. You get so much gold in Fe9 it almost becomes a meta-game to use as much of it as possible as you get it to forge weapons since you can only make one per chapter clear. And then couple it with the bonus exp for clearing the maps expediently and it's easier to bridge the gap between units that are already strong (Titania, Ike, Shinon etc.) with units that with some investment can hit benchmarks to become strong (Boyd, Oscar, Keiran etc.). It would just help if you could actually get those legendary weapons sooner though in that game, or even have the cut ones that never made it, but I think it was as close to perfect as you could be with making all the weapons seem usable with few exceptions.

[@kylepessell1350]

In games where legendary weapons tend to actually be significantly less durable than a common Iron Sword, it heavily breaks my immersion.

[@GrugGangGrugGang]

@@kylepessell1350 They get brittle in their old age. That's the only way the Binding Blade makes any sense.

[@Naglfar94]

I know this comment is 2 years old but it is possible to do an even better in between I feel like FE4 did the weapon durability thing just right while the weapons were not infinite use they had the perfect usage of 50 before they broke and on top of that you could repair them in the castle shops the legendary weapons included albeit way more expensive. I feel like FE4 did the whole thing best. but I do love infinite weapon durability too I mean look some of the in-game enemies get to enjoy none breaking weapons but the player can't? So I also enjoyed the no break thing too but if we are gonna have weapons break I think FE4 handled it perfectly.

[@hennyzhi2261]

@@Naglfar94 I can definitely appreciate both and Fe4 was great cause it incentivized challenging play where your not only feeding kills to people for exp but for potential gold if I'm remembering right (and only the few thiefs pre and post timeskip can steal to circumvent that). That gold then fed in to repairs and other things which was a seamless system that was fair and even encouraged some level of commitment be it a inheritance or passive gains in crit for a large kill count on a specific weapon. In terms of just saying "yeah, go play ball - no limits" the best I've seen is the finale to FE10. Here's all these challenging enemies, but your blessed 10 or so chosen units can have a weapon that slaps the entire time.

[@tiarabite]

I used an aurgelmr crit to be able to defeat Garon in conquest endgame in 1 turn(useful to 1 turn that map especially so that I don't have to waste too many time if I mess up endgame), so that's another good use of S rank weapons. You don't have to worry about the downside's on defeat boss type objectives.

[@ckrow123]

Tbf excalibur and pursuer are really good

[@jariu9612]

Sniper!Mozu is also an absolute power unit (FAtes in general does really well for them tbqh), so you may actually have more Snipers than Takumi.

[@ChillstoneBlakeBlast]

Takumi's Fujin Yumi is all he really needs, so you are only talking about Setsuna being good with Pursuer, but she's not as She already hits decently hard....

[@rudolflc1684]

@@ChillstoneBlakeBlast Pursuer isn't redondant with Fujin Yumi as it has more might and +5 bonus to double tho

[@ckrow123]

@@ChillstoneBlakeBlast not like there are other units that go into one of the best classes in the game, takumi wants the +5 speed sometimes to double speedy enemies, setsuna hits kinda hard but in revelation and birthright she wants the extra power, mozu never needs it, effie wants +5 speed and most units want the extra speed so they can 1 round more reliably without pair up and even with ot bc rev stat inflation is huge

[@JoJo-zc3xm]

Oh man that ending sounded kinda sad 😔

[@Sigledriceman]

The Pursuer can allow takumi to one round in the final maps in the which is quite useful in lunatic. Saizo is also on the bubble of doubling in revelation so the chakram is somewhat useful for him.

[@AmirysMewen]

Bifrost being very late game does make sense though as it is a revival item and you’ll actually get use for it if a unit dies in the chapters it’s available in like the Aum staff in FE1 and 3

[@tatsuyasuou3368]

I got the pinwheel in birthright and didn’t even use it. Why? Cause I had forged a plus 5 silver bow already. Forge op.

[@no64256]

At least their not the Silver Blade from FE7. That shit has a weight of 13 compared to the Silver Sword's 8, it has 60 hit compared to the S.S.' 80, less durability, the same weapon rank requirement of an *A* in swords, and it only does *ONE* more damage

[@Kodiak_P]

I remember being so disappointed in the S rank weapons that I did some comparisons between some of them and forged Iron weapons. The main one that I remember is that a +7 Iron sword was about on par with the S-rank Sword, a few points lower in might but you also get plus 3 defense and no down side.

[@SasukeUchiha-pr5zs]

That's the Nohrian blade. Iron swords don't give defense.

[@marcoasturias8520]

A +7 iron sword costs 64k gold... That´s as much as what you get in a playthrough...

[@Kodiak_P]

@@SasukeUchiha-pr5zs Yeah sorry, I mix the two up all the time.

[@annarenfold438]

The thing is, and specially so in Conquest, you are NEVER going to save money to forge just one sword. Ever. There's seals, staves and tonics you'll want. It's better to have 3-4 well equipped units than to juggernaut with one, only for them to be chipped away by ninjas or zerks with the girsly wounds procs every time they do 0 dmg to you.

[@altonlipford1077]

Excalibur is pretty good when using vantage life and death sorcerers, but you’ve gotta equip it after dropping below half health cause of the def penalty

[@lagspike7763]

Don’t disrespect the pursuer bro that shit goes hard

[@jordaneats7566]

Only one that's really useful is Bifrost. You have a maid/butler at the start of the game with Felicia/Jakob so they can already start staff training (if you decide to keep them in their base class), and being able to revive a unit is helpful for YOLO strats.

[@redlinkAS]

Yeah but Jakob paladin...

[@crusq8223]

thanks again excel for saving me another trip to the serenesforest fates page

[@paladinslash4721]

Jeez, and here I thought FE6 and 3H weapons only having 20 uses was annoying.

[@thepaladinninjask5154]

And that's why, to this day, I still lean towards iron weapons. There is no downside to them aside from a generally lower damage output but that is quickly overshadowed by their reliability.

[@xertiio]

bronze/iron are the best, there are literally no downsides when you get forges on them

[@Majima_Nowhere]

I trend this way in almost every fire emblem. Iron during low levels when you're slow and have no money, steel and silver for mid/late game when you need more damage and you're trying to level, back to iron for the end game because your units are so powerful it doesn't matter what they use.

[@kindsteel5]

I missed Bifrost on both my conquest and rev run. also I only got the weapons that were dropped by bosses, except aughlamir.

[@C20521]

Just to defend some of these: -The waterwheel is the best out of the S ranks that halve strenght after combat due to being a better guard naginata for spearmasters. -Chakram has very good debuffs and might and master ninjas are kinda squishy anyways. -Excalibur is decent, like ninjas, sorcerers are also squishy but dont mind the loss of tankiness, it also allows them to fight pegasus if the are in range. -Pursuer is good but since Takumi exists it feels outclassed by the Fujin yumi in comparison, same deal with Ryoma and his Raijinto when comparing it with the S rank katana. -The aurglemir is straight up garbage.

[@maagic2031]

Idk how anyone could call Auglemir bad. One turn you have the strongest weapon in the game and then the turn after that you have a Bronze weapon, but on the strongest class in the game. If you have an S rank Berserk, they'll probably still be able to pick up kills with the nerfed version and then one shot with the regular one.

[@C20521]

@@maagic2031 the thing is that they could get much more by using a killer axe or a great club instead without having the downsides, sure its stats are good but the negative effect is too much for a berserker

[@LFPman]

When Fates was my starting game to Fire Emblem (probably a bad choice), I found the strength/ magic halving debuffs and the Silver weapons, Rabbit Spirit and Ragnarok debuffs annoying as my logic was, “Upgraded weapon rank, comes with the reward of access to stronger weapons with no catches to them”. Then I noticed more weapons with catches that annoyed me. Wakizashi, Spear and Tomahawk are 2 ranged only and even Spy’s Shuriken for being 3 ranged only. I’ll let Spy’s Yumi slide as the Point Blank skill combats the 3 range only, but that then means purchasing DLC. Logically, these weapons have silly range limits that I found very tedious. But eventually, I grew to accept these weapons - just not like them - for how they can be strategically used and even when an enemy has them. A unit with Spy’s Shuriken/ Yumi with the Lunge skill is pretty cool… if you’re willing to sacrifice that unit which the enemy is not afraid to, I digress. Then there’s melee weapons with magic based damage, bronze weapons (including Fire, Rat Spirit) and 1 - 2 range weapons such as Kodachi, Javelin and Hand Axe and Nosferatu. All these weapons lack triggering critical hits, nor offensive skills which can be an annoyance that as well I have learned to accept. It’s a shame that Sorcerers or units with Shadowgift can’t use the Vengeance Nosferatu combo that Awakening could. But then I found them even more annoying that Three Houses allowed Training weapons, Fire, Nosferatu, Javelins, Hand Axes and Levin Swords etc could trigger a critical just like any other weapon in the game and High rank weapons like Silver Weapons wouldn’t give me a Str/ Mag -2 and Dex -2 pot combat penalty. To the main issue, i’ve found the A rank weapons a weird bunch. You have Brave Swords, Lances and Axes with no penalty debuff after combat, but then the S rank weapons such as Hagakure Blade, Waterwheel and Aurgelmir do in the case of halving strength. Then the A rank Crescent Bow, Soldier’s Knife, Ginnungagap, Snake Spirit and Dragon Spirit DO suffer a debuff penalty after combat and the S rank Pursuer, Chakram and Excalibur do not. I am not factoring buffs like Waterhweel’s +5 Def and Res into account. I’m mainly stating their post combat debuffs. These are all just weird weapons to me. Although, I have found them interesting as their halving debuff wares off after combat happens again - and thankfully - regardless of whose phase it is. Like I said, Fates was my first game. I never realised weapons had some catches like weight in other Fire Emblem titles or knowing forging iron weapons can do just as well. But hey, that concludes my TED Talk. If you have anything to point out, please feel free to reply. Appreciate you reading this

[@seththetactician6712]

Honestly I found the chakram to be pretty useful in my birthright playthroughs. I usually end up using a high investment Kaze. Sometimes I grind him up as a mechanist for more strength and also replicate, then reclass him to master ninja for the chakram. Having 2 very strong and dodgy units that can debuff a ton is pretty good. His res is so high that the lowered stats isn't too impactful and his defense is shaky anyways so I'd say it's worth it. I'm pretty sure saizo is better in general but I usually don't get as lucky with him and there's less merit in grinding him as a mechanist since he needs the extra speed more meaning no replicate (though I could reclass him for one level and switch back I guess). Weirdly enough I usually don't end up using kagero long term. I started playing birthright randomized semi recently but I don't have any good ninjas yet aside from a mechanist Felicia who joined as a capped strength apothecary in place of kagero but she can't use the chakram like that

[@zenronez1158]

Please do more analysis videos it sustains my soul The S rank weapons are almost mainly for style points also why do they appear in whack i could if they were relics of nohr or hoshido but not the hoshido s rank weapons are in nohr ? The nohr S rank are wield by actual characters with a portrait which makes sense they might be nohrs sacred weapons But why do they appear in valla of the sudden aside from dead samurai ghost wielding two katanas Excalibur is the only one I use since its the only wind tome and ophelia makes great use of it odin is too busy criting nothing with a forged named killer tome with a 50 crit rate and most of the time he dosent crit 5000 for a S rank weapon I feel like they should be worth more for being quote on quote S rank The actual S rank it self is useful for weapon triangle advantage mainly hit rate and more damage dealt

[@Noahs_Chair]

Kinda late but Excalibur in especific is very usefull for Vantage Sorcerer since Vantage esencially remove it's only downside with High Might, accuracy and a fuck flyers effect. The only enemy you don't want to use this is Takumi himself.

[@kaelanm.6322]

Dates got done so dirty. I would love to see a remake where they patch it up because it was my first fire emblem game and I do love the characters but with all the flaws it's hard to overlook

[@maltheopia]

This is another reason why Dark Deity is so flawed despite being clearly designed as a reaction to what it sees as flaws in Fire Emblem's game design. They wanted to provide infinite-use weapons but didn't just want you to go all-in on one of them like what happens in most sRPGs that have upgrades. So they gated upgrades by story and giving them diminishing returns for money spent. Fair enough, but they fucked up the math so badly that going all-in on one weapon is still the optimal strategy. Not surprising for a game that uses the Fire Emblem engine but also makes one-manning with stats well into the double-digits the optimal strategy. Fates chose not to grapple with that solution Dark Deity later got wrong, instead, it went with something much stupider. Hence this video.

[@robinthebird6421]

When I trained up the Sorcerer Main Character, I find her being able to easily body Possessed Takumi with Rexcalibur really helpful.

[@honestjoe9417]

I never used excalibur nor bifrost in my recent conquest replay, aurgulmir was good for 1 shooting. In my birthright I used none, because I made takumi a ballistician and rajinto existed

[@Posby95]

My favorite would be Pursuer. It doesn't really feel like it has any downsides in practice.

[@TWM_Cell]

I truly just believe they made them ass because of the PVP mode. If you could get these op weapons with no drawbacks along with the amazing units used in PVP you could literally be unstoppable.

[@marcoasturias8520]

For how much the weapons de buff you, they should have at least 1-2 range, all of them

[@SasukeUchiha-pr5zs]

No, that is brain dead strategy. If you want that play other Fire Emblems where the entire game is a hand axe/javelin fest.

[@marcoasturias8520]

@@SasukeUchiha-pr5zs I mean, context is everything. At least in CQ, you get them defeating enemies at the antepenultimate obligatory chapter, and I feel any help at beating "Night breaks through" is welcomed, also the last invasion... Also, what´s left of the game is pretty unorthodox for FE standars, I doubt sitting with a hit might weapon will be of any help, is not like we see vantage Ophelia using Ginnungagap often

[@ninjakirby777]

Excalibur on Witch Ophelia was pretty good for me.

[@chaincat33]

the value of legendary weapons kinda just boils down to their value as one-use nukes. They deal a lot of damage and then just shut your character down completely for the most part or leave them extremely vulnerable. This means their primary usecase is literally just, hit the final boss with them *once*

[@mysmallnoman]

The chakram is useful for its debuffing capabilities, The Hagakure blade is useful for Ryoma on SOME instances where you need +3 more dmg and +15% hit, the waterwheel is useful in Rev for spearmaster!Hinoka especially since she joins with B rank

[@twigz3214]

The Hagakure blade is +7 damage since the +4 strength from Raijinto gives you the +4 strength when it's in your inventory, you don't have to be holding it. Overall it's still rare to use it since 1-2 range is great but if you need to nuke something it's an option.

[@marcoasturias8520]

@@twigz3214 Rajinto being broken even when you dont use it, lol

[@noiseisgold3n42]

It's nice that IS decided to make sure S rank weapons were garbage in FE Engage too.

[@opalyasu7159]

It would be so much better if there were two classes (one for each route and weapon type) that could use the s rank. Example: both sorcerers and onmyojis could use Excalibur and an S rank scroll, Oni Chieftains and Berserkers could use S rank clubs/axes, etc

[@hadoukenfighter]

people who claim fates had good weapon balance be like "yo this video doesn't exist"

[@jaredkhan8743]

I’m glad engage fixed this issue. The S rank weapons r actually not F tier garbage lmao

[@MinoriGaming]

sadly they share the issue of being really damn out of the way to get. Most of them are chapters 23 and 24, and the game ends in chapter 26. And as for the donation legendaries, it's really hard to justify 90k G for a single legendary. Better than Fates, but still not amazing.

[@leaffinite2001]

I found the class-specific S rank thing annoying in Engage too. Its just annoying.

[@surehit2496]

Oh yes, I use them... to buy better weapons

[@yuumijungle548]

its been a while since i played this, all i remember is that brave weapons were the absolute best xD also like he explained in the video the weapons that ryoma and the other dude come with are from memory the best weapons in the game anyway, the are super strong and have 1-2 range and let you double, because of this i think my favorite strat was to pair my unit or whatever worked best with them and cleared every level exclusively with those, since they kill everything on enemy turn and your weapon wont break

[@MugenCannon97]

TBH I kinda disagree on a fair few points, since most people just don't *get* how to play Fates regarding its weapon system, and the legendary weapons are a great filter for that. Forging as a system in Fates, and thereby forging Iron weapons is a pretty bad counterargument to using stronger weapons. Forging requires more and more copies of a weapon to actually perform, and while it *looks* cheap to forget lots of Iron weapons together, the overall cost is really high when tallied together. Not to mention, all of the messing around in castles online, or trading at the blacksmith for resources. +1, or maybe +2, is all you need, since anything above that is genuinely a hassle, and a timesink that could be spent just learning to use weapons with downsides and getting better at playing the game, and spending said time beating said game instead of fucking around in menus. Despite no crits or skills, Bronze has a great utility with some boosts to hit and avoid overall, which makes them oddly clutch, and helps units with low hit but good Attack, like Effie or Arthur, contribute to the team. The Steel weapons have an interesting Bell Curve effect, where the fastest characters in the game don't give a shit, because they're too fast to be stopped by anything, save the fastest enemy units. The slowest in the game don't care either, because they get doubled by everything anyway, or use Wary Fighter. Beyond that, everything in the middle has to situationally use them tactically against slower enemies. Silver Weapons are good forging candidates, since the money you spend on that +5 Iron weapon could be spent on a +1 Silver weapon that's quick and easy to do, and has about as much Might. The Attack/Skill debuff is worked around by learning that Silver weapons are not for juggernauts, but suited to when you need to hit harder, and can either be contrasted by the higher weapon might, or you learn to use other weapons in the cooldown period, like a Tomahawk for some ranged chip damage, or a Steel weapon. Similarly, Silver weapons are perfect on utility units. Not every turn is spent fighting 20 guys at once. Sometimes, when your unit isnt clapping cheeks, they're healing, helping in a Dual Strike (the debuff doesn't apply itself if you are the partner), backpacking as a Pair Up partner, or using mobility of a mounted unit to move another around, or opening chests and doors. That's a good way to cool down from the debuff, and accomplish something with your time. Brave Weapons and the melee Legendary weapons exist to melt a specific target, usually functioning as boss and miniboss killing weapons. As stated in the video, their penalty doesn't apply in Dual Strike, which turns the user into a gnarly backup fighter, and even then, an easy way to get rid of the penalty, is to use a ranged weapon, attack a bow unit up close with something else, or set up a kill for the Attack-halved unit by chipping down another enemy, usually with a dagger, and have them use another weapon to pick up a kill on a weakened enemy, cleansing the Attack penalty. Similarly, the ranged Legendaries are best played against enemies who can't counter, since their defensive debuffs don't matter if the enemy forgot their Spear today. Learning the Fates weapon system, both in terms of efficiency and interplay, makes the game more fun, tbh, and it's a shame it falls victim to a lot of generalisations due to being a different take to the more standard and dull but safe approach of past series' weapon systems. As for availability tho, it is a huge shame more classes can't use them, though I guess the power exclusivity is the appeal to be locked to one weapon type and footlocked. Their main purpose is either for castle battles, pvp, the DLC content, or to give the player some extra firepower against the final two chapters of the game, with effectively a weapon to burst down the final boss all at once, or to delete some extra-annoying cronies in the way. It's risk and reward, and I personally have fun with that, while I know most players would rather avoid risk in favour of safer methods, like grinding and excessive forging. Bifrost fuckin sucks tho

[@risersin7957]

Facts.

[@maagic2031]

THANK YOU someone gets it

[@JoeSmith-db4rq]

I feel like the best use-case for the high mt weapons are boss killing to meet a threshold? Don’t care about halving your strength if this attack ends the chapter…

[@GIR177]

Excalibur is pretty good honestly. On glass cannon sorcerers with Vantage + Life & Death, taking 5 extra damage isn't going to matter much since you're gonna be going first and one-shotting things below half health. Aurgelmir's debuff is pretty harsh but at least it's a toggle, unlike the silver and brave weapon which keep stacking them. I like giving it to Gazak because I usually have no one else that can use it.

[@angrybread478]

I think the S rank weapons would be most useful in the online arena that no one uses anymore

[@PatCatzz]

I never asked why fates S rank weapons were bad. I just knew it and completely ignored them, even when I was a complete child.

[@RushStudios101]

Fates weapon ranks could be an entire video topic in and of itself. The amount of units that join with poor ranks combined with the generally slow rank growth makes high-rank weapons almost useless in a non-grinding playthrough. I don't think I've ever reached endgame with any units having S rank, and most units aren't even at A rank by then.

[@lpfan4491]

The moment when the only good S-rank weapons can't even be obtained because the stupid things are enemy only.

[@nighthero7]

Yeah, hacking in a no downside 1-2 range weapon really makes it clear the game is only balanced by sheer atrocious weapons/forced grinding. I gave Takumi the Skadi with point blank & vantage, he was basically unkillable.

[@houraisheperd9721]

I used the Waterwheel precisely once and it was to kill the final boss on the first turn. Oboro was my MVP.

[@auraguard0212]

I heard someone say that only the Bronze/min-Rank weapons are worth using, since they have no downsides.

[@chrisf.9595]

I hate how overbalanced everything was in Fates. One would think it's because of pvp, but even then there are ludicrously broken options

[@DJJD789]

I used the Hagakure Blade with Ryoma cuz dual wield animation and since it was Ryoma he killed everything anyway.

[@ethank6452]

Excalibur? More like Excaliblem.

[@submittedreadable4596]

I've never seen or heard anyone who has used Bitfrost in a serious strategy or a means to remedy to a mistake.

[@keltonschleyer6367]

Swordmasters: Am I viable yet? ...my poor boys 😭

[@chesspwn7457]

It's funny to see this, like the devs must have thought that these weapons were so good that they had to be on bad classes in addition to the self nerds they give for using. Aka, the reward for using the infantry one weapon class is to be able to use the best gear. But when it's actually a bad thing instead of a boon it makes it a double negative

[@valeriob36]

2:29 *Hot Curry-Blade*

[@0ctopusComp1etely]

I completely forgot that S Rank weapons were even in these games. I thought it capped out at A Rank lol

[@theghostcreator776]

Iron weapon ascension is the only life for me

[@fluffydemon1]

I remember getting waterwheel and then not using it at all because no one could use it 😭

[@bigarcana5553]

They're so bad that Heroes has not looked at any of them

[@bhizzle64]

I personally find them to be better than their reputation would tell you. The might on the melee weapons really isn’t something you can replicate with forges. For example, taking the hagakure blade’s 18 might, a +7 iron katana(the max you can go) only has 17 might and costs 128,000 gold to make. Something you also didn’t highlight is that each of the melee weapons have an additional bonus outside of high might. Aurgelmir grants 15 crit, Waterwheel gives +5 def/res, and Hagakure blade gives 20 avoid. The waterwheel bonuses can be very nice in particular, especially in rev where you get it on chapter 20. The ranged legendary weapons have less raw might advantage compared to the melee weapons, but they also get the speed bonus which is generally not able to be replicated by other weapons. As for the downsides. You have to consider that even though the strength is being halved, you still benefit from the insanely high might of the legendary weapons. Assuming 30 str at that point, you are only losing 15 raw attack power while still gaining at least that much from the weapon. The alternate between one super turn and one still good but average turn. There’s also another way to bypass the downside you didn’t mention. Dual strikes don’t trigger the downside on the supporting weapon even if they clear it, thus you can have them equipped on the dual strike unit for some easy powerful damage. They certainly aren’t universally good, but I find they are a lot better than their reputation would have you believe.

[@TeamHeropon]

I didn't like how Weapon Levels and Legendary Weapons were handled in Fates. It felt so satisfying in FE6 where I train up Deke, got his Sword Level to A rank, promote him after getting the Legendary Sword and suddenly I had this OP character that can basically one shot anything and I had plenty of time to level up his Axe. Honestly I think Weapon Levels should play a bigger part in the series, like even at a D rank you can still use a C rank weapon, like a Steel Sword for example, but you cannot make any follow up attacks. Basically trading in that extra hit for power. Which in some regards means you can avoid taking damage from counter attacks or weakening enemy units to train and level up other units.

[@onadaTotihotiH]

If they ever rerelease Fates for w/e reason, would be nice to see these made not so…awful

[@AzureGreatheart]

I like this game overall, but my goodness, I have a complaint for every positive point I have. The biggest problem with S-rank weapons is that the balancing on weapons is completely @+%&ed as a whole, and nearly anything stronger than an iron weapon will arbitrarily come with potentially crippling side effects. It is certainly an experience to play the Before Awakening DLC and watch Fredrick’s stats gradually get debuffed to basically nothing. The especially stupid thing here is that as this video shows, the stupid balancing decisions aren’t even consistent; the ranged S-rank weapons have a much more reasonable debuff than the melee ones, and the personal legendary weapons the game just gives you are better than basically everything else aside from things that have been forged.

[@tymemaster]

Honestly I think they put too much emphasis on weapons having penalties' like I had a hard time on one specific conquest map because I over leveled not knowing the folly of how conquest worked even though the weapons don't break it feel mostly like the system was overly complicated trying to coarse correct for how easy awakening was

[@proudherouser4069]

I use S rank weapons when I'm able to, but it is a shame that they put so much effort into giving them drawbacks considering how difficult it is to reach the requirements to wield them. Silver weapons suffer from this as well, and although I do understand the necessity of drawbacks in Fates, I wish the debuff was -1 instead of -2 per use.

[@chackbro1]

TLDR: Give the most legendary stuff to the least legendary people

[@eugene9211]

All of the S rank classes are amongst the best in the game, receiving massive bonuses to crit, and in the sword masters case to avoid as well, alongside some of the best growths. the penalty to taking a sniper over a bow knight is trivial, in that the sniper only loses 2 movement, and can get over this weakness entirely by just pairing with any mounted unit in the game, and in exchange gets a big bonus to strength, crit, skill, survivability, and higher accuracy due to the fact that weapon ranks increase accuracy in fates. You're probably right about S rank weapons though. They're garbage.

[@sohn7767]

Yup as long as they have a mounted partner, the movement is negligible

[@samu1414]

Maid is a garbage class by late game, the stats are awkward and by Hard or Lunatic they won't be able to keep up offensively, you'd be much better off with them being strategists, Beserkers are dicey units at best and I wouldn't seriously recommend them, especially on Lunatic. Spear Masters aren't that great but honestly Waterwheel is really good, but until they get that they honestly suck compared to other units. The rest are pretty good though, again like you said though it's more of an availability issue here now

[@eugene9211]

@@samu1414 Spearmaster Hinoka can solo the entirety of birthright though, and Oboro has good offensive capability while retaining bulk and survivability. Swordmaster can similarly solo alot of rev and is consistently just good, due to the bulk to survive a stray hit or two, good dodge, and excellent damage which allows them to one round most targets. All master class units can one round basically anything, and their only weakness as compared to fliers is mobility, which isnt as big of a deal as you would think. They still have 6 movement, which is usually more than enough to attack whoever they want. And theyre just stronger than their mounted counterparts. Maids and master ninjas are the only two that are weaker than their mounted counterparts, and thats only due to inferior skills and stat spread. In most cases Im still right.

[@samu1414]

Soloing Birthright isn't impressive at all, and Ryoma solo's rev because of his broken weapon. Snipers are still underwhelming compared to Kinshin Knights who have much more flexibility and speed to work with, Spear Masters are good but Falcon Knights are still generally much better, Swordmaster doesn't even have a direct class to compare to but I will admit are pretty good with their access to broken tools like Vantage, but generally the classes are still underwhelming. Why would you want a Beserker when you can have a Wyvern Lord who tanks hits, flys and has an additional weapon, Great Knights have more movement and defense then Spear Master's as well as two other weapon classes, they surely aren't the worst classes but they aren't that great comparitively

[@eugene9211]

@@samu1414 Do you even hear yourself speaking? Lategame Spearmaster Hinoka is vastly more powerful than her pegasus knight counterpart. In most playthroughs, her stat total is over 20 higher than Corrin and Ryomas, with few points put into magic and other unnecessary stats. In the endgame that difference rises to 40. Whereas normally the difference is between 5 in the early game and 10 for Falcon Knights Hinoka, and she gets sent halfway to deaths door by anything that grazes her while being barely able to harm any of her does. Further, falcon knights can barely fight anything. I mean seriously. They're just about the weakest class in the game when it comes to direct combat. They have weak growths, a really shitty stave proficiency which does practically nothing unless you invest several turns grinding it up or an arms scroll, and their one advantage, the ability to fly and 2 more movement than spearmasters, aren't that good in fates. Beyond some small utility in certain maps, the spearmasters +30 to crit is generally vastly better alongside superior stats. Lategame falcon knights can't compete with birthright enemies. Snipers kill kinshi knights. Kinshi knights have mediocre damage, snipers delete anything they hit from existence due to better strength, identical speed, access to bowfaire in the lategame, and better bulk. Berserker can delete anything it hits from existence, but is worse than Wyvern Riders because of their bad skill stat and mediocre survivability. There's no denying it, Wyvern Riders just have better rounded stat spreads. Master Ninja arguably beats mechanist up until the late game due to better overall stats and the mechanists superior movement serving no real purpose. I mean, if you position a master Ninja right you'll never even need the movement bonuses, and beyond that he's just better.

[@HereticYoshi]

When you say "Generics get free weapon ranks", does that apply on any difficulty? I know on Lunatic, enemies always have the maximum allowed weapon rank

[@gabrielbitencourt1879]

On my last conquest run (hard mode) camilla was a berserker and could use the legendary axe but i decided to just sell it anyway because her forged iron axe and the brave axe were much more easier to use and reliable and 5000 gold was too good to pass on to maintain such a mediocre weapon

[@DaydreamsAllDay]

Skee skee, legendary weapons free money baby

[@Apollyon47]

i want a weapon that can break......

[@SilentVinyl]

They really are just 5k gold

[@SweaterPuppys]

The whole buff/debuff thing was a big factor in why fates was a joke, every game you got rewarded with legendary/silver weapons and they were fair barring some exceptions..

[@Jotari]

Even though they suck, I still want to see some characters use them in Heroes. I'm almost surprised they gave Hans Aurgelmer they seem so reluctant to acknowledge the existence of Fates's S Ranked weapons.

[@Darcrest]

I honestly believe that removing weapon durability was the worst change in fates. Like how do you make silver weapons worse than iron bro

[@marcoasturias8520]

Steel weapons used to be the bad weapons when durability existed, wonky balancing has always been a thing

[@ResurgentRaven]

Waterwheel and Pursuer are the only ones I use. Killer Axe and Great Club eclipse Aurgelmir, I usually use a forged Sunrise Katana on my Swordmasters (Parasol or Umbrella for range cause imo Kodachi sucks when you can't activate skills off of it), I don't use magic all that much (being honest here, most of the mages in Fates honestly just suck, and most of it stems from how lackluster their tomes are), Chakram takes forever to master, and BÏfrost might as well be the most useless staff as even the joke staves are better than it. Waterwheel grants advantages and despite the damage reducer, doesn't really matter since it turns on and off, whereas silver weapons continuously debuff and you have to wait for them to neutralize. Plus, it gives +20 dodge, so no more crits. Pursuer is a risky weapon, but most archers are glass cannons anyway, so Kiragi, Mozu, Takumi, etc. have an effective damage dealer. I've seen a max strength Kiragi from Hana and Takumi reach 80 base power. That's a lot of damage.

[@Fibah]

Every time someone tries to pronounce Bifröst i die a little inside haha

[@just-mees]

I just hate the fact that weapons are designed like tf2 weapons in this game. I do like that it encourages you to build characters with specific weapons, but the silver and s rank weapons just feel wrong.

[@12Metatron]

i like the staff. i think i used the tome before. the rest no

[@absoul112]

I think it’s kind of cool only certain classes get S rank weapons. Yeah it can be annoying if you prefer to use the classes that don’t, but it’s a give and take that I’d argue usually leans in favor of the other classes.

[@SethJV]

I never realized how dumb Fates was on so many topics.

[@z4e7ajij5]

Forged + a bhskillion weapons are better anyways