Archer Tier List - Unit Design 101 Follow-Up & Discussion
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ม.ค. 2024
- Experimental video, testing a new microphone, and wanting to talk more about Archers after the initial run of Unit Design 101 went so well! Sit back and listen to the somewhat-coherent thoughts of me rambling unscripted about the various archers in the series.
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Believe it or not, Jamke and sometimes Asaello actually have a use. With a broken iron bow, they can go into the arena at 1hp, lose, and burn exactly 1 RN and keep repeating that if you need to rig something for someone else (crit/skill proc, dodge, level-up). This is better than Arden, who because of Vantage only burns exactly 2 RN each time.
That being said, if your best use cases includes dying in the arena, and it's because you do that job better than Arden, it's time to reconsider your role in the army...
Hey, as I've grown fond of saying, it's a thankless job but someone's gotta do it.
@@MythrilZenith Huh. I could say the same about tank characters in games.
I am fairly sure jamke is a great father for several gen 2 units so i would call him useful on that alone.
@@noukan42he does not pass down Pursuit so he kind of isn’t that great of a father
For what it's worth, Neimi doesn't compete for a promotion item. The early promotion combined with her fast Colm Support make her a pretty nutty filler unit for a good chunk of the game.
This is an important thing I feel gets glossed over in a lot of unit viability discussions.
Most units are talked about as if their promotion is assumed, when realistically, many are bottlenecked by availability of their promotion item. This tends to only be brought up for Armors and Dart specifically, when realistically it applies to everyone, assuming their promotion item isn't readily available and dumped into your inventory ASAP. Paladin Franz is great... assuming you get Paladin Franz, and not Paladin Kyle.
Neimi has no question about this. If you use her, she WILL promote, and will do so with no lost promotion of anyone else.
Neimi is also a unit that, I find, is prone to what I call Mia syndrome; that is, the unit usually underperforms, but if they get even a little lucky in a few stats early on, they immediately begin to snowball, and the Colm support is great for initial momentum for kicking this off.
Difference is, Mia is garbage in pot and godly in Rd due to how Rd works as she is the only unit other than ike that will reliably double and kill if you give her adept, all Mia needs in Rd is to cap skl and SPD and she can Bexp her str. Neimi is an archer which only has player phase and no 1-2 range only 2 range so leveling her is more of a chore rather than using a unit with good 1-2 range and a decejt enemy phase@@aprinnyonbreak1290
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 aslo she gets sword and honse if going nomad trooper....and I'm not exactly a full horse emblem player
@@wingofshuah yes, a full h o n s e
Genuinely she isn't a bad unit. She has arguably bottom 3 base power but really good availability, a promo item very simple to get with no competition, really solid growths, a decent promo class with solid promo gains, and one of 5 potential bow users that doesn't need to take a worse class like most other options to get there.
Iirc it should reasonably only take 21~ kills to promote her and under ideal circumstances can be achieved in roughly 10 turns.
In the game she is in she definitely isn't one of your best options, but all her problems are front-loaded and isn't such a terrible investment that it's meme worthy. She will become a much more versatile and useful jobber, and it honestly doesn't take much to see that happen rather consistently and she performs rather well with a rushed promo.
She's kinda like the inverse Garcia where he starts really strong but ages poorly and resources feel like a waste of you toss them his way. She should more often than not be effective with just a promotion. The bigger question is if you want to promote her.
Can confirm that FE7 japanese release has 3x effectiveness
Using niles allows you to capture a falcon knight with pass which allows you to do the rescue staff cheese on the final chapter.
Honestly I'd move Leon (and maybe Python too) to the top. He's so good in those swamp maps thanks to his absurd range and guaranteed doubles, and I don't even want to think of Celica's route without Leon.
This is Virion disrespect and it will not stand. That man not only provides a str def backpack on lunatic+ for Freddie but he also joins with a whole elixir which is unironically more valuable than all of Stahl’s measly existence (not to mention bows are goated on luna+)
Just wait until we get Christmas Cavs Stahl will get his due reckoning lol
And planned obsolescence isn't bad. Sometimes it just IS. Mostly archer things, occasional Jagen things.
Stahl is way better than Virion.
Virion is certainly underrated, and his early chip is great combined with his Fred support and potential to early promote to Bow Knight for those sick bonuses+ rally skill is fantastic.
But Stahl is just a good unit. Ignore the haters online. Cav is a fantastic pairup, as it gives Str/Def and Spd all at the same time. Sure, it's not loads of each stat, but even base Stahl at C support will give 3 Str, 3 Def and 2 Spd, which works very well with a unit like Panne who just needs a small edge in each stat to start doubling and surviving mulitple hits on lunatic.
Outside of his pairup, he even has solid potential as a main carry. He has both Kellam and Sully as solid early support partners- Kellam gives a huge +6 to defence at C support, and that means that Stahl can get tanky enough to be legit 5HKoed in ch5 by enemy axe users, as he's going to be wielding a sword too. Sure, with Kellam he won't double anything, but he's basically invincible with him on. Sully is just there if you get speed screwed, you can take a little less def to patch up your speed.
Then, he gets cav promotion bonuses which are utterly ludicrous in awakening. Great Kniht gives 7 HP and Def. SEVEN DEF ON PROMO. WHAT. Post promo, there's a significant number of enemies who genuinely cannot damage Stahl even on LM, and as long as he has a speed pair and tonic (such as Cordelia or Panne) to get away with GKs low speed, he can double a reasonable number of enemies.
From there he can straight up steamroll the entire game, with only some consistency issues as you get into the very late game. I wouldn't call him the bestest unit ever, because his c2 and c3 are mediocre, as is his endgame. But aside from that, he's a very solid unit. He does get worse on lunatic+ as he very much relies on his Def to be tanky, but aside from that on all other difficulties he's really underrated and is much more useful than Virion.
@@Hiiyapow I'll trust the awakening player but I still think that virion is just that guy tbh
Archer usefulness across the series consistently scales inversely with the difficulty of the games (except when their mechanics are greatly changed, like in Gaiden/Echoes and 3H).
Easy game = bad archers. Hard game = archers super helpful.
@@Hiiyapow I'm doing a hard mode run rn, and paired Stahl with a Wyvern-Panne just cause I couldn't think of anyone else to pair to her, and they are tearing through maps together, almost as strong as Robin or Chrom.
One thing I like about Niles is how non-commital he is. If he grows well you can keep him, if he doesn't you can go into Shura (who is always really good) and still get his daughter who uses the magic bow which is broken in Conq
She may not be the best archer of all time by a long shot but when I played Blazing Blade as a kid (not Hard mode though, I think) I really loved Rebecca for her sprite and conversations and being the naive youngling that I was felt like uncontested damage from afar was quite great. I was also always too scared that the ranged regular weapons would end up missing due to their lower hit rates.
As a result I ended up feeding her a lot which in return made her quite a passable unit. That's not to say that Rebecca is good (or decent, or slightly below average), of course, but given the right circumstances (and normal difficulty) she can still be an enjoyable unit to keep around.
That's part of the reason to love Fire Emblem - for the most part, it doesn't matter if a unit is bad or not. If you like them, you can make them work, and you can have a great time.
When I played Path of Radiance as a teen when it came out, I just remember training Rolfe all game cus I always loved archers and wanted to see if I could make him good, I remember him becoming one of my aces towards the end of the game as he’d almost always crit kill any enemy. Laughing at seeing him as not good at all here.
Path of Radiance is one of those games where you get the resources to turn even really questionable units into powerhouses. That, at least arguably, should put a floor on how bad units are in it. Been playing it since release myself, and I love it so much. ...That said, every time I train Rolf (which, admittedly, I do regularly), I have to slow down dramatically for at least a few maps to accommodate leveling him. He gets some really easy exp on the boat map, at least.
37:55 BYLETH JUMPSCARE
FE3 B2 Gordin is legitimately super good. Sniper is unironically one of the best classes during the mid game because of all the 1-2 range enemies and enemy fliers and occasional water, and Gordin pretty easily makes it to sniper before that all starts. I know Jeorge exists, but you know what’s better than 1 Sniper? 2 Snipers. Putting him with like FE11 Gordin doesn’t do him justice.
Very fair. With how these tiers are set up it's hard to really differentiate them. I'll consider that more closely for any future tier list follow ups that I do.
I personally find Ryan to be better than Gordin long term so I typically use him more.
How does Castor compare to Gordon in FE3 book 2? Castor seems to have better base stats, wildly better growths, and can promote into Bow Knight instead of Sniper. Plus Castor can do all the 2 range stuff as well.
I’m not like, super accustomed with the meta of FE3 book 2, but I played it and was very pleased with Castor.
@@pksprite6401Its just that Gordin is available earlier with good chapters to use his bow and you can invest into him to get to level 10 for promotion sooner than Castor on an efficency playthrough.
>1-2 range enemies
>Sniper is goo against them
Do you even hear yourself lol
Also enemy fliers midgame only exist for 2 maps, and you can just fly over water with much better units
He's not good lol
Enjoyed the video.
You asked for comments regarding the microphone, so I want to comment on that before getting to my comment itself-
At least in this video the Volume is significantly lower than in your videos with the other mic. I ended up turning my volume to max (from my normal 70%, which is about right for most videos, though some do need more) and boosted it with an add on tool I have to 200% volume- so I personally think increasing the volume to match the older videos would be a good idea (I assume this would work just fine without much quality loss in your video editing tool of choice, or probably recording tool as well).
Beyond that, the quality sounds great!
Archers are such an interesting unit type to me (even if they are usually not all that good, bows get that neuron activation out of me)-
and the categories you used provide a useful feel.
I also now know a bit about the archers in the FE games that I haven't played yet *taking notes*
I'm only a casual player, so some of the things I write below may not actually reflect how these units work but here's some thoughts I have on these units:
- Niles:
Yeah, Niles really is a good unit. And in addition to the things you mentioned here, I feel like Niles amazing Res growth (in his base class & adventurer) also makes him one of the best units to tank mages in conquest! He may have weapon triangle disadvantage against them with his bow, but in exchange he can deal physical damage to them, which is usually their weaker defensive stat- and his high speed helps him a lot with hitting them too (if he doubles hitting at least once)
- Virion:
I always forget how physically "frail" Virion is. Awakening was my first* FE game (*actually second, but it got me into FE) and whenever I played the game he got plenty of DEF lvl ups in his original class (and occasionally being paired with freddy in the early game, thanks to them supporting) he always turned out pretty well as a result (bc even if he couldn't retaliate, he just wouldn't take (much) damage. In a way this RNG scewed my perception of what Archers should be in FE games, like I always assume them to be physically bulkier than they are, because they aren't supposed to be pseudo-tanks.
- GBA Archers:
Looking at this list, they pretty much reflect how I feel about them. I like to invest in at least 1 of them anyway bc bow go brr (except for FE6 because there's a lot of cooler bow users)
Whenever that FE4 remake hits (gonna assume it won't get skipped for some reason) I'm looking forward to using good archers again!
Yeah that's something I noticed with this mic. I'm gonna basically need to separate channel it and boost in post whenever I record with it because it was with its gain and settings volume both at max, pointed directly at me about a foot away from my face. Any more and I start getting the lip-smacks and popping that I REALLY want to avoid.
This is a great video on archers. Also yous saying "thank you lucina" after byleth says here's something to believe in is so funny to me.
Edit: I think the sniper skill in engage is +10 crit if you are not facing counterattack, you were thinking of the bow knight class skill because that gives +30 avoid if you don't move
Also mic audio good
I’m such a fan of Mid Fire Emblem Archers.
Il say about midir and jamke that while yes jamke has amazing combat, fe4 is a very enemy phase focused game which makes it so that he really dosnt do much. Even compared to midir, midir can at least do gpod chip and run off, and with the killer bow just kinda becomes good, whilst jamke dosnt get to see combat because either hes too far away or he cant counter. Id argue ayra and jamke are similar with having both god combat but low move (in fe4) but since ayra can counter, i find using her is alot more usefull than jamke who may delete one enemy sometimes, but cannot contribute otherwise. At least this is my experience as a person who played fe4 for years
NOT THE ETIE ALCRYST DISCOURSE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA SAVE THE CHILDREN!
No one shall be spared sacrifice at the altar of the archer!
Etie clears ❤
Revelation Niles would be around Setsuna, he joins even later, only slightly less under-leveled, he can't do much in his joining chapter other than try to chip enemies and not die (same as Setsuna chapter before) and he joins in is the last map of the main story with capturable enemies, so... yeah. He has propably even higher gap in viability between Rev and his main route than Hinoka, which is saying something.
i think the situation with the really customizable units in 3h/engage (and to a lesser extent 4/awakening/fates kids) is super interesting yeah, if only because IMO it creates like three broad categories of consideration that can be applied to a unit, that is:
- how good the unit is with zero significant investment (ie you can expect the unit to gain some levels via use and you provide them with weapons but not much else)
- how good the unit is when provided with everything they need to be their best (ie for engage you provide the unit's personal optimal emblem(s), you correct all needed stat deficiences, all that stuff)
- how good the unit is _on a team where other units will be provided optimal conditions first_ (eg, someone else is wearing their preferred emblem(s) but you'll provide the bond fragments to allow desired inheritances, you'll give them an emblem but not necessarily one uniquely suited to them; limited promotion items go elsewhere first. That is, you intend to use the character for a significant amount of time but they're mostly being fed leftovers after you've decided on units you're going to optimize, ie _some_ resource expenditure)
all of which is to say that i think in large part it changes the nature of the considerations from individual unit performance to a _resource allocation question_ and a team composition exercise and that is super interesting to me!!! Obviously no unit ever exists in a vacuum but solving the problem of who _should_ be optimized, who should receive some investment, and which units should be simply left as-is to fill a needed role on the team is a really cool one to me
it is also kinda neat when you part it out too, like to be vaguely on topic and discuss archers, in the zero-investment consideration, Etie is superior to Alcryst and it's not even a little bit close just because of those early maps. With maximal investment similarly, as you say, Alcryst also wins. But the third case, that's some very fun territory to decide on; both Alcryst and Etie have some midgame use cases but you definitely don't want both and Fogado's coming relatively soon so who wins out? The fact that DLC aside you don't get a way to permanently add speed to a unit until after Lyn but you get Roy and two energy drops before that comes up (thus probably edging Alcryst ahead of Etie since 500sp will give him str+2 or you could just give him one of the two energy drops you already have by the time he joins, but if you add DLC to the mix, Chrom is not a very high-demand emblem so Etie can even just take the sync bonus that's two free speed at bond level 2), etc, etc, you probably know the considerations better than I do
it's just so interesting is all!!!!!!!!! team and whole-game optimization is just really neat
thank you for coming to my ted talk i guess
Wil is viable all-game if you consider Lyn Mode its own game. 😏
Against all odds, my Wil was an absolute unit by the end of my FE7 playthrough and was only getting out-paced in kills by Hector.
Fun fact. FE11 Gordin is the only unit I let die without feeling bad.
I was aware FE1 was designed with the idea that your early units are designed to be good, keeping them is your reward for playing well and that later units are just back ups to replace them if you get someone killed.
So I tried so, so hard to use Gordin, and he just sucked so hard I eventually had him die and just continued.
I revived him in the final chapter but eh
He can be a decent cav if you don't suck at using him early. He will end up being slow but has pretty solid strength and defense growth iirc so he has a niche as a mobile tank.
He usually turns out alright as an archer. The bigger issue is he can be rather inconsistent and if your trying to make him work your essentially trying to abuse reclassing. You kinda need some luck for some early speed/strength levels, or your trying to compensate too hard. He just has a high chance to falloff, but if your abusing the system sometimes he ends up having some value being solid enough to frontline. One or two poor levels can nail his coffin and that's just really common.
@@coldeed "if you try to abuse the system" you can kind of make anyone a god though
@@velvetbutterfly Not everyone. Gordon with abuse is pretty much maybe alright?
Like alright as in "better" then the bad coyotes men. And even that's kinda debatable. I've had funny times swapping from Archer and cav to train him which got him some ok bulk then threw him into myrm where he felt like a bootleg merc.
I'd put Alcryst in Planned Obsolescence, I think. If you don't train Etie, there's a lot for him to do as an archer when he joins (plenty of enemy fliers and plenty of deployment slots). And flier effective damage remains really potent without too much investment until you start running into Wyverns and Griffins, which is 5ish chapters after he joins (and you still see unpromoted fliers at that point). You do get Fogado as an out of the box bow user toward the end of this time, but there are enough enemy fliers that he doesn't just obsolete Alcryst. At some point you're likely to have a Warrior or two with Bow access even if you don't train any Snipers or Bow Knights/Fogado, but when exactly that will happen is hard to say.
Do fighters next! Woodcutters or soldiers?
More recently saying speed is harder to fix than damage in Engage or that a character "needs Lyn" has become a bit of an outdated viewpoint. All ways to fix/increase damage are at a minimum 2 times more expensive in SP than inheriting speed, and doubling thresholds on most axe and lance units are easy to meet on Maddening with just Speed+5 and a tonic.
To be fair, that just cements Etie in the exact location you placed her.
Takunmi is teh archre of all time
Id say fe12 Ryan and Gordin need to go up one, maybe two, tiers.
Ryan and Gordin start as the only units who can use the steel bow at base. On harder difficulties, you will be using a forged steel bow to one shot wyverns up until the end of Anri's way.
Along this journey, your two early archers will be one shotting promoted units very frequently, gaining a lot of levels in a game with cracked growth rates. Ryan has particularly great strength and defense growth. You first few master seals will go to Kris and your pegs, but after that, I'd argue Ryan is a great next option
Maybe I’ve just been missing out but I have almost never found a use for Leonardo other than killing the pegasus knights in part three which he can do at base with his prf. Besides that he’s nothing more than a small amount of chip damage which should put him no higher than fe11 Gordin in my opinion (assuming these are all on the highest difficulty)
I think it's just the fact that the part 3 maps aren't early game maps. Leonardo remains relevant later in the game, which is arguably an artifact of Radiant Dawn's structure, although it is post-promotion if you want to use a crossbow on him.
Could someone tell me what song is playing in the background at 19:22?
It's a remix of "Don't Speak Her Name" that was made as part of Lo-Fire Emblem 3.
@@MythrilZenith thanks so much! it's been like an earworm gnawing at me for the past two weeks
Neimi isn't even worth deploying the chapter after she joins. She might be a bit better than Ross at that point, but he's definitely the more worthwhile training project if you're doing that. And he's the only one she has a case for being better than. And you have to leave two units on the bench. Furthermore, in her join chapter she basically contributes nothing other than recruiting Colm. I'd put her in "not even good early" for sure.
My illogical, unprompted, and illadvized devotion to Setsuna has not waned
I think Leonardo belongs in mid. You can replace him with the npcs for that ballista, they’re more accurate too.
He doesn’t kill enemy fliers at base like some of the archers in the tier below him.
Base level Leonardo kills enemy fliers in part 3. Lugnasadh good. Or promote him and use a crossbow. And 3-13 is the least relevant map, the ballista isn't what makes him useful.
Alcryst is actually pretty damn good in Maddening with the set growth rates, at least I thought so. He hit pretty damn hard and I had to bank on Luna more than I cared to admit.
The extra might on bows and flier affectiveness made him always have a slot on my team. Especially when enemies were downright fucking dangerous and not taking damage was important.
Highly customizable compared to most of the other archers. I used the silver bow +5 with the forge that was just straight up might. He was a beacon of light for me.
Hate his fucking character though, I much prefer Fogado
Noire is forgotten... She is a child unit that's pretty mid in my opinion though, but certainly better than Virion.
I know the argument against... arguing for the sake of Engage units exists for the same reason that Three Houses unit viability discussion is a mixed bag. But still I feel as though Alcryst is criminally low in this list. I feel good about Etie's placement, as she's very similar to your other earlygame archers (especially in higher difficulties) in that she takes out fliers and does chip damage, but requires substantial investment beyond that point. Alcryst is more unique, however, in that he's the only unit in the game with Luna access in his unique promoted class. For that reason alone, Alcryst really has a lot more going for him than other characters who might want to take on the archer role. Obviously Lyn is the best emblem for him to use because Lyn's Engage Skill can proc Luna on each hit. But even in cases where you decide you'd rather pair Lyn with another unit, he still has a number of viable Emblems to use, such as Marth! Even Bond Rings in the case of Bond Ring Claude can work for him. Can you make other, better archers in Engage? Maybe. Do they require way more investment than Alcryst to get working? Absolutely. Out of the box I'd say Alcryst is not a unit who needs tons of investment to contribute, but as soon as he gets Luna, he can absolutely become vital to shredding tanks and fliers, especially on higher difficulties with more inflated stats. While I originally used him on my team exclusively to do *Just Earlygame Archer Things* ™, after promotion he became a mainstay in my army no matter what. He's just that busted.
Alcryst is too unreliable for me to call good. Yes Luna does a lot but that requires him to proc it, and if he doesn't he struggles to do anything. I wouldnt say Etie requires a lot of investment since all she needs is to be leveled to 10 and then get into Warrior, after that just inherit Speed taker eventually and she is easily endgame viable.
@@hanzou1238 I love using Etie as a Warrior as well but it's hard to deny that getting her into that build requires both a Master Seal and a Second Seal, which is hard to justify in the earlygame over others who need those items to get into their desired class, such as Anna. Meanwhile, Alcryst can just stay in his base class and do great as a dedicated pure bow unit until you feel comfortable enough to promote him. Throughout all of my Engage playthroughs, Alcryst has generally come out on top when it comes to doubling and taking down threats at 2 range, while Etie having more Strength and Skill but lower Speed made her optimal for Longbow use. I like using them both, though!
@@StairFacts I would give them to Etie over Anna anyway considering how bad Anna is. Alcryst on average will only have 2 more Speed than a trained Etie while she will have around 15 more strength. Alcryst can't one round fliers in endgame without Luna procs, while Etie with a small speed increase can reliably kill most enemies making her way better for endgame and therefore better on a tier list.
@@StairFactsAnna doesn’t need a second seal to become a warrior, I believe she has free access to that with a master seal.
@@sparkleprizm199 Anna's stat growths heavily favor her landing in a magic-based class rather than staying as a Warrior, even if you want to use magic-based weapons in that class. She's got a 15% Str growth and a 50% Mag growth, which is also the highest magic growth in the game besides Gregory from the DLC. Usually I see the preferred class for her being High Priest because of that, as well as the boost to her Luck growth and the high caps in Luck so she can make the best use of her personal skill and generate gold for your army.
I like Fates.
Setsuna has never felt useful past like, chapter 10?
People like her, she's a cute character. Not a great unit.
I think she's okay for a stat-stick or way to pass on skills, but I don't see much reason to use her for her
Where are Ashe, Ignatz, Leonie, Shamir, and Bernadetta?
He mentioned in like the first minute he's not counting Three Houses units that can become anything and then Shamir is a Sniper which is disqualified
units in fates and engage can become anything too tho
@@alpha_c. they start as predefined classes though and have limited options within a single playthrough.
3H you start as a general trainee class and can immediately use any weapon you want and promote them as anything you want. You can have a Myrmidon, Dark Mage, Wyvern Lord.
It's the same reason Gaiden Villagers aren't counted but to an extreme.
Etie has frankly looking at stats the 2nd worst growth Total and is borh slow and low HP/Def, amber can easly get bow profencies and litery out stat etie as a bow user, warrior or sniper, alkrest luna is a whole nother can of worms bur he has better spd at least
Amber only has 2 more strength than Etie while she has 4 more speed by endgame. Also both as Warrior are player phase units so her bulk is never really an issue.
I would argue Jamke is "good payoff" in a different sense.
He may take a while to get to the fight, but if you get him to the battle he performs outstandingly well. Thus you have a good payoff for slowing down to let him join
People use vanessa? She has like 0 str and gets like -3 speed on iorn lances, tana atleast has a bit more str
She usually ends up becoming great at combat, and if all else fails she can still ferry Eirika around the map.
5 strength vs 7 strength with an 8 chapter distance. Wow.
FE3 B2 Gordin should be waaaay higher on this tier list, all the way up to the Solid All Game tier imo. Definitely a top 10 unit in the game.
Gordin basically has a monopoly on all the exp for the earlygame thieves and dracoknights. For chapter 1, there are up to 5 thieves that can spawn in the cave, which should amount to about 250 exp. All the earlygame cavaliers are useless past chapter 5, Draug hardly does anything past chapter 3, and you should only train one of the two archers with Gordin being the better option due to his high starting level. This means that Gordin has basically no competition for earlygame exp, and can easily level up to level 7 on the first chapter. Then for chapter 2, your archers are critical if you want to kill the dracoknights with any kind of reliability, so Gordin gets even more uncontested exp for chapters 2 and 3. This all means that he can easily reach level 10 by chapter 3, and even if he somehow doesn't he can do self improvement in the later chapters so that he can promote by chapter 7.
Sniper is one of the best classes in FE3 B2 for a number of reasons. First of all, I strongly disagree with the notion that bows are useless past the earlygame. You will be using bows all game. Earlygame dracoknights are super difficult to kill without bows, bows are good for not taking a counterattack as this is a player phase based game (will get to that later), you'll want bows to take down the wyverns in the midgame and lategame, and all dragons have 1-2 range, making snipers your best candidates for enemy phase combat.
Snipers have really good movement in this game. 7 move is very good for indoor maps, and they can waterwalk, which is relevant for a few maps. Both of these mean that they can still keep up with dracoknights in outdoor maps. Two range is also good because they can reach enemies that no one else can (like the swarm bishops in chapters 6 and 10).
Promotion basically fixes all of the problems Gordin had as an archer. A large speed boost of +5 fixes his doubling issues, raising wpn lvl to 10 guarantees that he can use silver bows, and he gets the +2 move of course. Growths don't matter a lot as he can ORKO basically everything he needs to with his base stats and promotion gains.
Enemy phase combat isn't really that good in this game. All 1-2 range options are terrible in some way unless your name is Tiki. Javelins have 20 weight, meaning your AS is always 0, Levin sword neglects strength, so it's weak against anything with resistance, which is... basically every relevant 1-2 range enemy, magic is locked to low 6 move units who can't waterwalk, so magic users hardly face any combat, and the Gradivus is basically useless because of how late you get it (Endgame 1 is basically warping Marth to the seize point, and Endgame 2 is indoors). For how much rep bows get for being bad on enemy phase, they're actually your best bet of have any meaningful combat on enemy phase in this game. Like I said before, dragons have 1-2 range, so you can use a sniper to attack them on enemy phase, and then a dracoknight could finish it of without having to dismount and use a wyrmslayer. If it's a 12 move flying wyvern, then snipers will just outright murder them.
Furthermore, there are strong enemies throughout the entire game that will kill even your most durable units in 2-3 hits. There are the earlygame dracoknights, a lot of the bosses can deal pretty good damage, chapter 8 generals deal a lot of damage with their silver lances and 11 strength, mages in chapters 9 and 10 can do some decent damage because resistance is almost nonexistent in this game (and more dracoknights), all the dragons from chapters 11-14 do anywhere from 16-20 damage and neglect defense unless you're Bantu, there are also the devil axe barbarians in the midgame, chapter 16 heroes are difficult to deal with unless you have heroes of your own (like Navarre or Ogma), chapter 17 has more dracoknights, chapter 18 has generals again, chapter 20 enemies are super difficult to deal with very high stats, there's Hardin himself with all capped stats, dragons appear again in the two endgame chapters, and finally, barbarians have 47 HP, 18 strength, and 18 defense in the final chapter, making them impossible to ORKO without a crit or ladyblade. Another thing worth noting is that HP is general is pretty terrible in this game. Most units will just barely break 30 HP by the lategame, and no way in hell are you reaching over 40 HP without extreme favoritism or arena abusing, meaning all dragons will 2HKO you units. As I said before, not taking a counterattack is valuable in this game, and even if Gordin can't ORKO dragons, he can allow a dracoknight to finish it off without needing to dismount for a turn. I see many people say that enemies are super weak, and I just could not disagree more.
TL;DR: Gordin is super good in this game because, he's super easy to train, there are many strong flying enemy units throughout the entire game, Sniper is a very good class with high indoor movement and good terrain data, and bows are a very good for enemy phase combat against dragons as most 1-2 range options are garbage.
What a load of crap and tons of mis information
Also Gordon doesn't even ohko all these fliers as you need Ryan also to kill them, so he's not even special in that regard
@@mysmallnoman First of all, can you actually point out what the "misinformation" instead of making blanket statements without making any arguments?
Second, Gordin has no trouble killing dracoknights or wyverns once he promotes, so I'm gonna assume you meant the earlygame. I never said Gordon was capable of OHKOing dracoknights in chapters 2 and 3, and I never discredited Ryan's contributions either. Both are crucial to the earlygame, but Gordin is much easier to train, which is why he is often preferred as a long term unit in efficient play.
@@Falkion2040 everything you said about the enemies quality and the bulk of the player units is crap
@@mysmallnoman Mind elaborating...? It's hard to explain myself if all you're gonna do is call my arguments crap without backing anything you say up.
Nevertheless, I'm gonna try steelmanning what you say as much as I can. I'm just gonna assume you think I'm saying that all the enemies are strong, similar to the higher difficulties of DSFE, but again, I really don't know what you're talking about unless you elaborate on your claims. I never said anything about all the enemies in the game were strong. I said that there were enough enemies scattered throughout the game threatening enough that you can't just through an overpowered unit into a group of enemies and expect to be fine (I listed most, of the examples in my first comment). If you still don't agree, there's a page on Serenes Forest with all the enemy data and their stats. I was essentially refuting the argument that FE3 is a simple enemy phase based game where you just throw Palla or Catria into a large group of enemies (with the exception of a couple of chapters).
About player bulk, like I said before, HP is terrible across the board. Most units have low base HP compared to most games in the series (it hovers around 20 for most of the earlygame units, 25 for midgame, and late 20s for lategame). Additionally, aside from Minerva and like every unit who becomes obsolete by the midgame, most units have mediocre defense bases, and defense growths in general are terrible. There are only 5 units with a 30% defense growth (Julian, Sirius, Ogma, Arlen, and Roshea) while everyone else has either a 20% or 10% defense growth. All of this is further compounded by the fact that units in general struggle to level up compared to other games due to very low enemy density. As mentioned before, this results in most units struggling to break 30 HP by the lategame and 40 HP being nearly impossible without grinding or favoritism.
These two factors result in player units being able to get 2-3 shot throughout the entire game.
@@Falkion2040 most units have the same Hp base and growth as most FE units lol you can compare them yourself
Same for defense, most units in FE also don't have good defense growth unless you're a knight
( Also lol bringing up growths in the game with growth shards )
And yes FE3 is a heavy enemy phase game where you can throw palla at enemies, just because you can't do it in some maps doesn't mean the game isn't enemy phase focused
Leonardo above Etie HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....
Where are these rabid Engage fans? All the chatter I’ve seen around Engage is just people saying it was a disappointment compared to Three Houses.
They disappeared during the Summer of 2023 but it was a rough time for all involved
“he’ll either be mid or have good payoff” no tf he won’t don’t do alcryst like that😭 alcryst has to be one of the best archers on the list he has an insane exclusive skill that makes him a monster and better archer compared to etie. crazy disrespect on alcryst