ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- A lot of people find Clive very mediocre, or even bad. Some even call him worse than Mathilda. Let's discuss how this came to be, and why he's much better than a lot of people think he is.
Editing and Visual Design by Eecaruz: / eecaruz
Patreon: / mekkah
Twitter: / mekkkkah
Subscribe: www.youtube.co...
Discord: / discord
Design by Ryn: / ryntai / spo.ink/ryntube
Music:
Synthwave 80s by AlexiAction
Bamboo Island From Skyward Sword [Synthwave] by Helynt
Pokémon Sun and Moon - Vast Poni Canyon (Remix) by GlitchxCity feat. CG5
Hyrule Field [Synthwave] by Helynt
Pokémon Sun and Moon - Hau'oli City Nights by Dj Cutman & GlitchxCity
80s Synthwave by AlexiAction
Lugia's Song Remix (2021) by GlitchxCity
Battle with Gladion (Electro House Remix) by VGR
Pokémon Mystery Gift Theme Remix by GlitchxCity
Pokémon X and Y Boutique Theme Remix by GlitchxCity
Tarrey Town [Synthwave] by Helynt
The Cantor bit is from Bismix's sketch about SoV:
• “I tried playing Fire ...
Trained Mathilda footage by poledoo:
/ poledoo
Zofia Castle map rip by fireemblemwod.com
Valentia world map from serenesforest.net
Fun fact: if Mathilda dies before you can save her Clive will yell at Alm and call him a failure
I love this game for addressing dead units like this and the battle end screen.
Lots of fun
@@marcoasturias8520 when python dies and forsyth tells python to get up makes me really sad
@@SoupWizard776 I am Ferdinand Avon Cryer
@@SoupWizard776 you can literally hear his smile drop
This was a very good episode, I like that you deconstructed a lot of the exaggerated weaknesses of Clive. While he may not be a broken unit, he’s overall a solid unit that does his job throughout the game.
He's not an out-of-the-box, all-purpose turbodestroyer; but he IS an effective, low-investment answer to an extremely common enemy type.
Exactly. Matilda is a very effective mage-killer, but she needs some time to catch up to Clive(assuming you've used him) in every other area except speed. Considering she joins way later, it means the time you do invest with her is time you could have been investing more in Clive(though TBH you should just be using both because they're both really damn good).
@@dmoogle2006 any unit can be good if you dump resorces into them, it's mostly just a question on if you want that unit to be clive. personally i don't bother because someone else can probably use the speed and is a character i actually like
@@Yinlock470 While that's true, generally that statement applies to much _heavier_ amounts of investment; multiple boosters, massive amounts of exp (particularly, exp that could have more easily been given to someone better for the task), etc.
Clive is basically in Go Mode for a long time with one level and one added speed, it's not that much. From there, he's your best cav eater, and serving that purpose alone will get him to Gold Knight for another big boost very naturally (although the fountains expedite that process at a convenient point).
Of course, if sheer personal preference demands you don't use him, that is and always will be your own business, but practically speaking, he is a very sound and minimal investment compared to the other options to fill his role.
@@glowstickofdestiny1290 That's fair. Really I try to sound strategic but my character choices mostly boil down to "do I like them" and "am I holding an irrational grudge against them from the last time I trained them and they turned out horribly"
@@dmoogle2006 or the villagers can solo almost everything. But I suppose most units compare poorly to the villagers
My opinion on Clive was sealed when Delthea mocked Mathilda in her support with Clair. Clive is good
The thing I always find interesting about SoV in the context of unit comparisons is how many slots you have open for most maps. The whole "are they worth the deployment slot over other units?" question rarely applies here. Clive's low investment to be useful doesn't mean that you can't use Matilda (as long as you manage your resources well). And when Zeke comes along? Well, you can field all three if you want to, even if one has fallen behind the others. For these three especially, their high mobility helps keep them useful. I find this kind of refreshing for Fire Emblem honestly.
16:38 I have literally never had a unit die to a teleporting witch, and I believe this is the reason why. I honestly had assumed that Witches were programmed to go after high Res units or units likely to survive, but it was just high Res Falcoknights and especially Dread Fighters were my preferred solo units on maps with Witches.
5:09 The problem with the floor is that it is made of floor. Well, I can't argue with that.
Clive is probably one of the more underrated units in SoV. He has a lot of opportunity usage that other units lack when he is available. With base stats, he is close enough to crucial target numbers that you can make up for them with a couple of fountains. He and Python were the hard carries of Alm Act 3 in my playthrough.
YMMV if you're not aiming for quick clears, but the fact that he enables those quick clears to begin with makes a difference. It's the same idea with having two Villagers promo to Mage, while the third goes Merc in Act 1. Late game, physical units will tend to trump magic ones, but physical units suffer through Act 1 due to poor bases and lack of significant damage sources. On the other hand, having two Fire users plus the Lightning Sword makes it so that you can burn through Act 1 efficiently.
That doesn't mean that physical Villagers or Mathilda should be overlooked. They technically end up having a better return on investment. But the investment cost is high, whereas you have fountains to guarantee that you can pretty much meet all target numbers with Mage Gray, Mage Tobin, and Clive even if they were to be RNG-screwed.
I will say even outside of "playing quickly" Clive is just very solid. Like all the things that make him good in a quick clear (flexible, high bulk, Ridersbane) exist in a slower playthrough.
@@Mekkkah yeah I've always found Clive decent in all my playthroughs and I'm by no means an ltcer lol
The editing in this video is insane
thank you!! 😊
Four Kings shows how good Clive is.
In it, you get Locritus, a Wyvern Rider with the same stats and growths as Clive, with a Prf that destroys enemy fliers.
He's great. Play Four Kings.
I'll admit, I was one of those people who said that Mathilda was much better than Clive, though I have since realized that Clive isn't nearly as bad as I thought he was
clive is one of my favorite pitchfork candidates. Covers a lot of his weaknesses while improving his already solid strengths
It saddens me that after the end of the eshop many people will never be able to experience this feature
thats what the hshop is for 😈
what would you pitchfork him to? dread fighter?
@@MagikarpPower dread loop to archer. Archer is the most powerful class in the game. High crit rates with high range and eventual high movement is hard to beat.
@@pokemaniac0075 That's just Kliff. You can do that with Kliff and it'll be better since he'll have high res, which actually *does* matter for this since your bow knight enemy phases arcanists.
I dread fighter Clive then put him through cavalier again
See also : Base over Growth
"[Matilda] takes almost no resources, and can still be useful"
"[Clive] is past his peak [in the last stages of the game... He is far from the MVP..."
I feel like those two statements kind of sum up Clive's problems (though he's hardly alone in this). Yes, he performs well in an LTC, with a combination of his availability, promotion bases, well-timed SPD boosts, and well-timed forges... But even then, he still falls off eventually.
That, and SoV is one of those games that rewards snowballing AND has extremely powerful lords... Enough so that you honestly don't need a large team. Alm & Celica have the bases, growths, weapon choices, and spells to get by mostly on their own... Plus the ability to swap gear and healing items in and out. That's not even getting into Pitchfork shenanigans with Lukas & Valbar.
So if you're like me, you're not really going to use *anyone* that isn't either investment-free, or a blast hit in Acts 5-6. Of course, that applies for most of the game's cast, so I can still see your argument-that he still performs better than a lot of the other scrubs.
I’ve never considered Clive to be terrible whether I’ve used a pitchfork or not on him. Although, he certainly is a popular candidate to use a pitchfork to boost him however you please.
You highlighted exactly the reasons Clive gets a ton of bad impressions from other players gameplay-wise. It was very insightful to learn the ways Clive can be a bit of a sleeper unit when you have good knowledge of the ways to make him better throughout the game.
I also think Mathilda is very amazing and there’s no reason why not use both of them (they also provide good support bonuses too) and even alongside Zeke late game.
It was also interesting to learn a small quirk about the witches when using the turnwheel (even though I’ve never used it once outside of activating it for the achievement).
A very unexpected Waifu video, but it’s one I appreciated watching a lot.
I was literally thinking about this series a couple days ago so glad to see its still going
"Bad first impression" is right on the money. While I have kept Clive around before (to good results!) I distinctly remember dismissing him for Mathilda on my first SoV playthrough because he kept missing. But, I did the same with Hector on my first run in his game (he missed like 4 times in a row), so I'm certainly not the best jusge of first impressions.
One thing I still stand by after many playthroughs though, is that the Cavalier tree as a whole just feels underwhelming to me in SoV and that directly reflects badly on my opinion of Clive and Mathilda. Sure, they have decent move, but Peg Knights are generally better utility and Mercs eventually also get as much speed and are far more evasive throughout. Not to mention archers, who don't move as much but can attack from huge range in this game. I know comparing classes goes beyond judging a single unit, but cavaliers just feel bad in SoV.
This episode is SO good. The editing is top notch as well
Great video. I'll definitely give Clive another chance when I replay SoV one day. As mentioned in the end, the meta knowledge is definitely key to unlock his potential, which I lacked in my first playthrough, and he ended up too slow to be significant despite trying to use him. I look forward to more WAIFU videos in the future.
The editing on this video is actually nuts, please treat your editor well.
The editing on this video is top tier lmao
This video is kinda old but it's high quality and I like talking about this so I don't care
I never used Clive really I mainly felt like he served more as a filler unit since I wasn't a very big fan of his character, felt sort of generic especially since my focus was really high on my magic units and chipping people down with nosferatu and avo terrain, even when I was using him I felt worried about exposing him since he was somewhat underleveled from underuse especially when I got access to Mathilda (who I gave my horseslayer since that and Rhombia my brain assigned as her signature weapon for whatever reason) but overall he has never been a bad unit to me just below average since I never used him
Again very good video I like listening to these analysis :)
Is this always how WAIFU was edited? This is everything, thank you editor!
Jesus Fuck the editing is amazing
love the thumbnail lmao hes so cute
my idea " hes awesome but his wife is cooler cause you can classchange her into a pegasus knight and be broken"
Why does a video about why Clive is good ended up actually lessening my opinion on Clive?
Like, really, I don't want to be a hater, especially when I actually like Clive. I used Clive (with Mathilda and Zeke).
But it somehow demonstrated how unimportant Clive actually is.
An early game Paladin is great, and that's what Clive is. But any generic Paladin would do the work just as good. Clive himself doesn't bring anything. Actually is lack of Res, while not as relevant, is still an issue. That's what the video demonstrated.
The whole video is about how, yes he's bad, but we can fix him, and that's really not what I expected here.
It's weird, honestly.
I'm seriously sorry, because it was clearly a lot of work both on Mekkah and on the editor, and it's really well done.
I mean yeah, but it's not like you get a generic paladin.
@@kentknightofcaelin4537 yea you literally can, you have 3 villagers who can do that
He says if you have money to spare right after naming thicc moulder. Ooooh boy if only you knew
Damn haven't really watched your vids in a while, this shit is good af
Most of my experience with Clive (and this game) is in ironman runs where backtracking at all is banned, so I'm very used to Clive's promotion being delayed until the Sylvan Shrine. In those cases, he still had utility, but that one point of speed tended to make a huge difference, and because of the exp drop off at higher levels, Matilda tended to just be more reliable, as he'd never be much higher level.
This obviously changes the pacing of the game significantly from the norm though, plus it eliminates turnwheel, so it makes sense itd be a different experience
For what it's worth, I started a new run of Echoes recently, and I figured I'd follow your advice and give Clive an early level to promote into Paladin and then a Speed fountain afterwards. I even fed him an unreasonable number of kills, at great effort, so he WOULD be level 6 by the time I recruited mathilda.
his total stat leads over mathilda were 5 hp (not nothing, but not really relevant given how insane terrain is in this game), 3 str (totally nullified by the fact that he couldn't double enemies with the ridersbane that mathilda could), and ONE point of defense. and that was a clive who had a significant str lead over his averages!
Mathilda had huge advantages in speed, skill, luck and res at base and was already capable of doubling and killing every mounted enemy on the next map with the ridersbane, while clive couldn't double the enemy paladins and would have been doubled by the boss. the part where she also gets more xp per combat and kill than him, and has significantly better growths, just rubs it in.
The extremely marginal defensive advantage Clive has in the map immediately after Mathilda's recruitment can be easily solved by parking her on the forest that's in range of a whole bunch of the cavaliers on the left, where she will dodge most of them, be almost guaranteed to hit, and can trivially kill them thanks to the ridersbane. if you do get unlucky and take too many hits, faye can safely top her off with physic.
i should've spent all those resources on clair instead.
Ooooooor........you can just give her a def boost via the def springs in Deliverance hideout and a fruit of life ( which you can get as early as after getting Silque, just activate the quest before you play 1-1 )
Lvl 4 Clive ( he wouldn't be lvl 6 lol, UNLESS you went out of your way to give him every kill ) has literally only +2 hp +1 def over base Mathilda and with the fruit of life and a single def boost she matches him lol
@@mysmallnoman if you promote clive before zofia gate it's easy to have clive at level 5 or 6 at the end of the mathilda map
@@AinaFuyuko and how would you do that without returning to the dungeon for grinding ? How are you going to promote him before 1-E ?
1) you can activate the " kill 20 brigands challenge " before you even start 1-1, meaning after rescuing Silque you can return to the villager and get the reward, meaning that there's 0 reason to return to that dungeon after rescuing Silque
2) in the 2nd dungeon before 1-E, you can only recruit Clive in the end, meaning after you recruit him, you've already went thru the dungeon and looted what's there, there's no reason to not immediately evacuate
So no, Clive will start 1-E as a lvl 6 cavalier unless if you grinded
@@mysmallnoman you can also explore the 2nd dungeon after you got clive (and forsyth), avoiding the 2 zombies on the path to clive is pretty easy, if you want to avoid them
the clive vs mathilda comparison in the vid was made with their average stats in mind, which are actually closer than your blessed clive. there i address every one of these problems, and why they're not that big a deal. also it looks like you forgot to forge the ridersbane to 3* which lets clive OHKO the cavs. (mine 2hkos but doubles cause he got a bit speed blessed)
Cool video. Now do it for Gaiden
Ha what a coincidence I just started the game 2 days ago then this video came out, I my first impression of Clive was bitter at first but you definitely changed my mind here! Thanks Mekkah :)
the EDITING IS SO GOOD. and good video
Also seeing Clermit referenced in this video, when I know the person who started it, is pretty wild.
"If you wait to promote clive to gold knight before you get Mathilda they are the same" ..Isn't that a PITFALL
Clive is a chad because he recognized that Alm was the savior and was willing to step to the side for the greater good.
Yeah my memory of this game was wanting to use Matilda but ending up using Clive more since he was so much better at fighting melees. Then Zeke became the main man and Clive felt pretty bad once endgame rolled around
God it feels so cathartic to hear you say this. I've never understood why people liked Mathilda as a unit, she never really worked with me and I don't think I was ever even able to level her up enough to promote her to gold knight
She's fast and she has amazing Res. Since Res realistically never ever grows, that makes her statistically superior (since Gold Knight will solve all of her bulk issue).
Now, that video partially showed why it's not as much of an issue as it looks like, but that's easy to see how impressive her first impression is.
I think my Clive was ok, but I don't really remember. Definitely wasn't one of my best units, and I don't think I used him in the post-game. This was an incredible video, though. Definitely the best WAIFU you've put out.
I don't have much experience with postgame, but Clive doesn't really seem like h'ed be particularly good there.
Impressive argument, however Mathilda with a Rhomphaia.
I don't think a Rhomphaia is very affordable considering the current inflation.
In terms of Matilda VS Clive (which only really matters for dungeons and post-game), Matilda fulfills a niche that Alms army lacks.
Matilda is pretty much the opposite of what SoV cavaliers are. She has lower Hp, Str, and Def than what you’d expect from a cavalier, but higher Spd and Res. That Spd helps separate herself for a while, but the Res is the true appeal. Alms army lacks good Res characters, and Matilda fulfills that niche. Her Atk can be solved with the handful of lances you get, and the Blessed Lance is a perfect weapon to help deal with terrors.
Clives issue is more of the fact that his main appeal is his movement, which is also limited by the trees in certain maps. Apart from movement, other classes can outclass Clive in the damage department. Hell, you may consider giving weapons like the Ridersbane to Clair, who isn’t move restricted by trees, to take care of enemies. Basically, the areas where Clive excels at is either done better by someone else, or is too specific to get full use out of in every stage.
This isn’t saying Clive is useless, because he’s still a good unit, but Matilda is a just a character that fulfills roles that Alms army lacks. Honestly IMO I don’t find Cavaliers in SoV very useful compared to other games. They’re very underwhelming to me, but what I’ve never done is use a Pitchfork on Clive to make him something else. Has anybody used one on him, and found him better or worse than being a Cavalier?
Clive or Mathilda? Why not both?
yeah
It wasn't until my second or third Echoes playthrough that I realize how good Clive can be. Mathilda simply doesn't have the physical bulk you wish she had to withstand a lot of enemies in Act 3 and onwards.
Hey Mekkah! Thx for this video! Finally some love for Clive! I actually think he's very good. There is one more way to use Clive, and is very simple: Dracoshield. If you have patience and defeat Desaix in Zofia's Gate and get his Dracoshield, Clive is one of the best, if not the best option to use it right away. If your Clive is slow, or if you want a unit wich can take hits and can be mobile, then Clive is your man. As Mekkah said, Clive tends to be strong and bulky, so with Dracoshield Clive gains tons of DEF and RES at cost of his SPD, but he will be still capable of one shoting enemies or at least 2 round them, plus, he gets healed by Dracoshield, making him even more durable. Since Clive will be slowed down by Draco Shield, you can give him STR boosters to make him even more stronger, or give HP boosters to make him more bulky, or you can do both... And by doing that you can spare SPD boosters to other unit you like. Overall, i agree with everything Mekkah said about Clive. Clive is very good and deserve more respect than "Bench him when you recruit Mathilda".
i love these drawings!
please make a WAIFU of marty from FE 5
Personally I think every video should have the "MEKKAH" opening, but maybe with only a jingle and not as flashy for basic Gameplay vidoes.
As a Clive pessimist and someone that generally does not look further than the map I am on, this does shine a new light on Clive for me that I did not see before. Also god-like editing and artwork make this video so nice to watcha and listen to, fantastic job! I have an interesting idea, that I have played myself a couple of times, for SoV. Is there a way I could send that to you through email or something?
Thanks! I have a gmail account on my channel page you can e-mail if you don't wanna post it in public for whatever reason!
1 2 3 4 5
Five named Clive
here's an idea. You have not done a FE4 WAIFU. So why not what I consider the Most Underrated unit in FE History Midir
He did Lewyn, actually. Plus he's already covered Midir in Pitfalls #4.
Ok I love Clive as a character but out of every single playthrough I do Clive almost always gets outperformed for me
Try some of the things in this video - namely promoting Clive in act 1 and giving him 1 speed. It may change your opinion of him!
I like cantors because they are unique.
Pitchfork is OP especially for Clive
Dread fighter go brrrr
Completely unrelated but Falcon Knight Mathilda is bonkers.
I’ve always liked Clive, I knew not to put him near any weird purple people with books so I never really saw him faultier and just let him go to town with ridersbane, sure witches keep him up at night but nothing else does so if no witch then I no need to bitch. Maybe Clive isn’t the best unit on alms side by a long shot but until endgame I never had a good reason to not let Clive dash ahead and commit animal cruelty. I give Clive a 7/10
I just used both Clive and Mathilda lol
Can you do a waifu on Luthier. I honestly think he is one of these "bad" units that are actually pretty good if non of your villagers are mages and only delthea.
idk I don't think Luthier is very good. Admittedly he's one of the few Echoes units I've never used all the way through but his speed and durability are so underwhelming. He joins right when mage utility drops off a cliff basically. Excalibur is very good against armor knights but because he's so frail he can't ever be exposed to more than 1-2 enemies.
So how to make clive useable, immediately getting to early promote, give a speed boost, and take all the gold forging his weapon early and he needs that be using that weapon and then later give more speed boosts. Like that's a lot for him to be pretty good and anyone you do that to will look good. I agree that Clive has usefulness, he was in my dungeon party my last play through, but he only shined for you because you put in a lot of work to make him work while needing a specific weapon. If you don't early promote and get him snowballing early with the upgraded weapon and speed boosts then he's mediocre like everyone says. He did his job being a tanky and strong unit, but not the soloer of armies you made him
Waifu Nowi when?
I THOUGHT THIS SERIES DIED WHATTTTTTTTTTTT
I'd guess what it is is that Clive's poor first impression leads to players prioritizing resources on other units over him, leading to him continuing to feel mediocre without the speed fountain and promoing late, leading to continued prioritization of other units, resulting in a Clive that's probably only between level 2-4 Paladin when Mathilda joins. Since Mathilda will be doubling enemy horses and a neglected Clive probably won't be, that exp difference probably gets overcome in the map with the bajillion horses, and from that point, Mathilda is strictly better.
TL;DR Clive's poor first impression probably leads to him actively performing worse for most players, to the point that Mathilda will be better for them.
that tracks. i was absolutely baffled by the assumption that clive would be a level 6 paladin by the time mathilda joins. in my experience, he's lucky to have gained any levels in paladin by then.
I don't know if i would agree that clive has a poor first impression. His best maps are arguably his first two and it's a slow slide from there
@@gameboyn64 He honestly works well on all the maps he's available in during Act 3 outside of Desaix's Fortress.
As long as there's enemy Cavs, he's useful. His lower Res isn't exactly an issue either if you don't put him in range of Arcanists during EP (because duh), attack Arcanists that aren't in forest tiles (easy to do by manipulating their movement). He's also capable in killing Arcanists and Witches during player phase due to his redeemable Spd.
Tbf prioritizing the villagers over Clive Is probably better. Though the villagers are somewhat overpowered
@@ultimaterecoil1136 That really depends on the Villagers and the classes they are. Honestly, the only villager that can somewhat do Clive's role with little investment would be Soldier Tobin due to the capability of wielding the Ridersbane whilst having the Spd base and bulk from the class. But of course, that requires the assistance of Silque's Warp to quickly get him where he needs to be compared to Clive who doesn't.
Also, Clive doesn't even need a lot of investment at all to contribute heavily. Only one level on Act 1 to promotion, and then a single Spd fountain will get him through Zofia's Gate in Act 1 and all of Act 3 besides Desaix's Fortress. Depending on his Growths, by Act 4 he could either be relegated to a weaker lance to make way for Zeke wielding the Ridersbane, or vice-versa if Clive was blessed.
Man the editor is killing in this video, good work 👏
thank you!! :D
The ridersbane is truly the best unit in all of sov
Mathilda better watch out with how much I’ve been staring at Clive’s magnificent bowl cut these last few months 😏
Clive is probably the unit with the worst "unit feel" ever. It's like the perfect storm of mediocrity.
For starters, he is ill fitted for SoV. Valentía is a land of crits. Enemies never get luck so any points in crit feel massive in this game, similarly, many units are left in awkward luck values where they are left with a couple crit per encounter. And while most enemies are bulky enough to take on 2.5 the damage you deal, they are not capable of take 3 times it. Likewise a bulky ish unit like Clive can be eroded easily by these little errors in the matrix, limiting his defensive utility.
Literally every time you showed Clive "safely" taking on a witch, I had to hold my sphincter, they had an average of 4% crit on Clive, hitting for fatal damage. Might not be doubling, but he is still dying.
Can be fixed, with the Mila statue, just forfeit your weapon, so, no; phyton gives him 3 dodge same as A rank Matilda, of which, I guess no one ever figures and maybe looks up in FEWOD, like this. Just doesn't feel good on crits.
Now then, I've never seen mounts as useful in this game.
There's never any side objectives, no canto nor any form of rescue and the reposition is borderline crippling. You are getting a weakness for something trivial. Movement is only useful when you have somewhere to go. So the only good places to go are defensive terrain tiles, of which mounts get terrible movement penalties. In a nutshell, the merc line feels a lot swifter in terms of reaching safe positions to dodge tank.
After all of that, there's another annoying quirk the cavs have and it's their class stats. Overall, not amusing and this shows when promoting. SoV already has depressing promo bonuses, since they work on class minimum stats (like fe16) but cavs are just bad at stats. To make matters worse, Clive's growths fall in line with the class growths, so he is often obtaining just hp upon promoting. This might be a hot take, but cavs by themselves don't feel good in the game.
Then, compared to Matilda, she is just a much more fun unit to play with. High luck so no crit, paired with good speed and skill to double, avoid and crit, lower level and higher growths so she will rack up power fast.
Funnily enough you mention Clive having an edge over Matilda in the cav chapter, and, that's like her training arc. She can easily eat the cavs while sitting on tree and waiting. She will eventually need healing but physic exists, so no issues there. She can tie levels with Clive easily there, by that point, the difference in defense is negligible, hp is the only difference and she gets a huge rubber banding for her low joining base hp. She ends up the better cav, all the advantages Clive had can very easily dissappear in a single Matilda level up. Even after investing a lot on him.
Oddly enough, if he was worse, he would be a lot more fun. It's just fun to train scrubs and he isn't, he just fills the slot. He isn't double critting like a merc, taking a hundred hits like an armor knight, nor smiting things like a mage. He is just there.
Clive is the perfect WAIFU candidate as a unit who just needs a little help in one or two areas before becoming great, but without those benefits the unit gets dunked on. Mathilda is impressive out of the box and is easier to use in general but her lacking physical durability isn't fixed until promotion, making her much more of a complement of Clive than a replacement.
I love Echoes for many reasons, but one big one is because it's one of the few FE games wherein the distinction between physical and magical bulk is incredibly meaningful.
Alot of people say "Just bench him once you get Mathilda" funny thing is, in reality Clive is actually better then her until her strong growths kick in atleast. So he actually does outperform her for atleast the entirety of part 3. His impressive bases and level lead easily carry him for quite some time.
And even then, benching him entirely is a waste. Since the support bonuses he gives Mathilda are extremely useful later on.
wait, how ? When i recruited mathilda, outside of hp her bases were either equal or hilarious superior to clive's and their growths made the difference even more uglier
@@scarocci7333 Clive's stats at level 5 will typically not have better speed and skill, but he'll likely have better strength, defence, and hp by a significant amount. The problem is that those small number differences result in big differences in reality because you are often facing a lot of enemies every turn.
And then the stats where she does have a significant lead, especially speed, are kind of irrelevant for Clive. You don't want either Clive or Mathilda fighting a dread fighter, you want your own dread fighter doing it, but those are one of the only enemy classes that Clive struggles with.
@@scarocci7333 Your ignoring the fact that Clive is most likely around a level 5-6 paladin before Mathilda joins. He has a MASSIVE lead in terms of reaching gold knight class
On top of having a higher raw attack and defense stat. Which are far more valuable in act 3, since magic units don't really start showing up super frequently until act 4
@@Yarharsuperpirate depending on if you actually use him or not. I usually use him to chip off health since he isn’t fast enough to one round most units for me.
@@DiskCord There's a strat where you keep one use speed fountain from the first shrine for after Clive is recruited, and gets a single level/promoted. The result is that he will be able to double cavs for a while using the ridersbane, and thus soak up a lot of exp.
If you don't do this though, Mathilda will likely show up and do just about everything he does, but better.
the bride edit on clive is great
If you're playing a limited grind playthrough (only fight each dungeon encounter once) and trying to limit reinforcement spawns, it can actually be really hard to get clive to hit gold knight by the end of act 3 without extreme favoritism. Clive kind of struggles in 3 of the 7 maps in act 3. Hell, to get clive to lv 6 by the time you reach the end of desaix's fortress is pretty hard. He has to average about 150exp per map to do this. The first is the mage forest where he struggles, the third has 3 enemies, and in the fourth he is most likely going to be killing zombies. Also if i remember correctly, isn't it hard to make a killer bow as well as forging the ridersbane? Unless the plan is to trade over a killer bow from celica.
It's literally hard to even get him at lvl 4 bt the time Mathilda joins
And im the next map, if Mathilda killed everyone on the left side ( where she can at base btw ) she can gain 5 levels
Assuming you promote Clive before 1-E, he has 5 maps to do this, not 4. This can be done even under your limited grind rules by recruiting him before fighting the deliverance HQ encounters. He can easily solo the left side of 3-1, and in arcanist forest he does not struggle nearly as much as you claim assuming he's finishing off enemies chipped by Python. A typical strategy would involve villager merc baiting multiple arcs a turn in the middle, python baiting from the left and approaching to bait mire later, clive supporting python by finishing off enemies as Python moves forward, and your flunkies helping finish off people left alive by the merc. Even if you did not want Clive to finish off Python's arcanists, he could finish off the ones in the middle.
3-3 only has 3 enemies, but two of those are high leveled and give good exp.
Regardless, even hitting level 6 is unneeded, level 5 is more than enough to reach gold knight by the end of act 3.
@@PeevedLatias " assuming "
@@PeevedLatias first of all the deliverance hq typically doesn't give a whole lot of exp. Clive can probably get the 1 lv up if he gets at least one kill per encounter. At the same time though, there other units with pressing exp concerns as well such as faye and silque reaching warp and physic. Thresholds i saw you reach by doing the thief shrine 5 times. I wouldn't say clive easily solos the left side of 3-1. I saw in your 0% run that clive took a few turns to get the job done with paladin bases. Ive done the same thing but faster with a slightly trained clair however its slightly rng as she has to dodge one of the 4 cavs or get 2hp and 1def. In the arcanist forest, i saw how clive killed one spoon fed arcanist and chipped a second in your run. Lots of work. 3-3 has 3 enemies worth a lot of exp, the character that gets the exp for the kill is receiving favoritism. I would say that reaching at least lv 6 after desaix is important for promoting by the end of act 3. For example in your 0% run, clive was only lv 4 after desaix so in the next map you feed him 10 kills including a boss kill and proceeded to give him 3 exp fountain lvs so he could promote to gold knight.
Clive has always been my waifu.
Looking at paladin bases made me realise how screwed my Clive was. 2 att, 1 speed and defense gained in all his levels as a paladin. When I replay echoes I'll definitely give him another shot
Did you give him another shot?
I usually use Mila's turnwheel if I get only one or two stats, and let that unit sit out until the next map :P it helps me not get screwed by level ups (why must you forsake me Kliff)
YAY, A NEW WAIFU VIDEO. I love Clive and am excited to see the series back.
You know, access to a broken weapon on its own is definitely a boon that shouldn't be ignored, I agree Mekkah, you are correct, and logically, your next waifu candidate has to be
Marty
God, the editing in your videos have gotten so good. Credit to everyone working on them
Mekkah is finally embracing the Clive simpage, welcome aboard comrade
On top of being a much better unit than people think, Clive is also an absolute gigachad of a character
I do not trust those who dislike Clive or find him "boring"
This is such a banger series. I really enjoy the chill yet passionate feels from these vids.
Talks about how using turnwheel because of unreliability is a bad argument
Continues to say you can turnwheel whenever Clive gets crit (which can happen 2/3 times in a playthrough, if not more often)
Wow, I didn't know Clive was seen as bad unit for some people I found him reliable throughout the whole game.
Thanks mate!
The problem with floor is that it's made of Floor. This is the high quality content I come for.
SoV is the only game where I can say "I hate the floor"
My waifu is here
I've played through Echoes only two times in total, but in both Clive served the similar purpose of basically being a mobile tank. The thing about my playstyle is that I like investing into units that can turn out good just from Experience, and Alm's army has a lot of these. Alm himself, Claire, Python, Kliff, Mathilda, Delthea. So I saw no good reasons to give Clive the good weapons, the stat boosters, etc. It felt like I was giving a mediocre unit a chance to be just as good as others that could get there just from feeding them experience.
At the end of the day, though, Echoes lets you deploy ALL of your units in overworld story battles. It'd be silly not to use Clive anyway. But will I invest into him to make him good? Take him into lategame dungeon battles? Into the Thabes Labyrinth? Nah. I don't think so.
The good weapons on Alm's route is basically the Ridersbane and the Killer Bow (Preferably and Reasonably being 2).
The Ridersbane is one of the best, because a majority of enemies in Alm's route are Cavalry. Because there's mostly Cavalry foes, a unit with Physical bulk is who you're looking for to equip it. Thus the best candidates for the weapon is Clive, Soldier Tobin, Forsyth, and Zeke. Mostly because of their physical bulk and redeemable base Speed stats to make them reliable in doubling whilst providing very little investment in getting more quick and reliable kills.
You mention investment, but in regards to knowing what's efficient is by looking at the cost-effectiveness of a decision. Clive only requires one level before the end of Act 1 to reach Promotion, and one Speed from a fountain to reach an important threshold. That's very little investment for a lot of returns.
You mention post-game... Tbf, you have to reach there first.
25:31 man I sure hate it when the ridersbane user's *horse* kicks me for effective damage
So... er... Long post ahead. I've not written it yet but, yeah. Fortunately this video is now over a week old so this will never gain any traction, and since my goal isn't to publicly fight you or anything, it's for the better. I do hope you read it though, obviously. Anyway.
I usually agree with the vast majority of your points, and even when I don't, your stance is generally well justified. This is something I greatly respect, and thus... this video felt off. I actually replayed (most of) Echoes to refresh myself on things and making sure I wasn't just remembering everything wrong (and some of it I did remember wrong, for the record), hence why I'm only making this post now.
I will not dispute that Clive is a good, underrated unit, and a good candidate for a Waifu episode. The argumentation itself is what I have problems with. I'll just mostly skip what we agree about; it exists though, of course.
Early investment in Clive :
You... kinda openly suggested grinding right there. I wouldn't even say that's necessary either (getting him to Paladin before Zofia Gate notwithstanding, as I don't think that's generally happening), with two quests in Zofia Castle encouraging you to engage with non-story battles. I won't be the one to tell people to just ignore meaningful content.
I have considerably more of a problem with the Spd fountain charge. Now it's just one charge, yes, but between mage villagers really wanting several, it being a great way of liberally fixing up any unit that gets speed screwed early on, and also something that no one ever seems to bring up, which is that Celica's entire team has access to it at the end of Act 2 allowing very effective juggernauting when combined with her own fountains (+6 Spd Killer Bow Leon is a trip, for example), I think it's decently safe to say no one can really claim a charge of this thing. It is true that Clive is far from the "wrong" choice however, IF he's going to be your Ridersbane guy. which brings us to...
Villager Cavaliers vs Clive :
Okay so, I'm not going to make the argument that Gray or Tobin are especially worth using as Cavaliers over Clive. This can be debated, but just like you, I'm only going to speak of Kliff, since he's fairly obviously the best candidate.
1 : "Kliff requires more investment(paraphrasing)." I don't think his growth taking place as he's one of the main assets on your team qualifies as investment at all. Every single map from Thieves' Shrine up until the Deliverance HQ greatly favors high movement and above average defense. Even once the lightning sword has happened and he's clearly outclassed in combat, he can still enjoy the advantage of fighting two turns before everyone else in a Warp-less environment.
2 : "Kliff and Clive are comparable stat-wise at this point" Okay so your averages seem to assume gaining stat points through any other means than levelling up should reset pre-built decimals and I don't think that's accurate, but that's minor, moving on; Kliff has one pretty big advantage here, which is that he's extremely unlikely to hit averages on all his stats. Some will be better or worse. But the way Echoes promotion work and how it overrides the bad ones, means that low base-high growth units will in most cases be better than their averages post promotion, which is obviously not something Clive gets to take advantage of as a fresh Paladin(ironically this is relevant for Zeke vs Clive however, which may be why your Clive was better). For instance, my own Kliff on this playthrough got Spd screwed, but Def blessed. The resulting Paladin was the one you showcased, except with 3 more Def, making the choice between him and Clive a no-brainer.
Most importantly, Kliff's Spd, Lck and Res advantages are not to be understated. The speed resources Clive needs to keep up, Kliff doesn't need, and they can go to mages or archers so they can enemy phase with the Killer Bow. More Luck means better Crit and Magic Avoid too, though yeah, trash crits matter way less here, for sure. Most importantly though, the magic users Clive has to constantly plan around throughout Act 3, Kliff can just engage with everything else.
3 : "Villagers are better off as other classes such as Mercenary". So I completely agree that every villager "composition" should have at least one Mercenary. Heck, one may argue for two, though the second one will struggle to keep up without the lightning sword to carry his earlygame. But I don't with the statement as a whole.
Now why should Kliff not be that mercenary ? Well because it's like the one class he's not particularly better at than the other two(Mage Tobin being another debatable exception). Making Kliff a cavalier instead of the other two gives you a better cavalier, when making him a mercenary just gives you another mercenary. This is somewhat true of Archer as well. And out of his other good choices, it's hard to debate that cavalier is the most useful, as as you've demonstrated yourself throughout this video, it's an amazing class in Act 3 and most of 4.
Now when it comes to the Ridersbane, aka what this is all about really, I get your argument that Clive always exists and can always make great use of it. But beyond his annoying dislike of magic users, the important part is, it's a great idea to make Kliff a cavalier even if he never gets to use the thing at all. And from there, he's its best user, so why shouldn't he get it? Furthermore, it's fine not to use Clive, because a team of Kliff, Mathilda and Zeke is generally all the Gold Knight-ing you'll need. And if to the question "Can Clive be better than Mathilda if he gets the Ridersbane" I do think you provided a pretty solid answer, a Clive without the Ridersbane will usually fare much worse.
He's also a pretty bad longterm pick for Act 6, though best not get into that I suppose.
Basically Cavalier Kliff existing is probably the biggest argument against making Clive as good as he can be, and beyond my above disagreements, I mostly think he should have had a... different place in the video.
Witches :
That one's gonna be short but I do have to bring it up, even though as you said, Witches don't have as big a presence as people seem to think. After some testing, I can't see where your statement that Witches will always walk instead of teleporting if you turnwheel a teleport came from. It's not a thing, and unless I got RNGed hard, it doesn't seem to lower the odds even. I've tried with rewinding to the start of the enemy turn and before the witch's action, neither were failsafes. It's still a good way of changing their action into a more favorable one, but this was still a weirdly specific piece of misinformation.
As for the other part, while it is true that Clive can be protected from them if he's not isolated, him being isolated ahead of the team is like, his entire thing. Again not a huge deal, I just didn't really like these arguments.
Clive vs Mathilda :
As said above I think you provided a decent case and this was definitely something that warranted addressing. Namely, Clive's level lead giving him earlier Gold Knight access is a real advantage, even though I think that exp fountain might be best used elsewhere. Couple things I did want to say though:
- Clive may be around for longer, but he's only great in two out of those five maps (one of the two barely being a map at all), and pretty bad on two others. If you rush to Desaix's fortress to cut down on cavalry reinforcements instead of going to the Forest village, you should also only face one, which lowers the level difference since those are basically free level ups for a Ridersbane user.
- Mathilda can also OHKO with the Ridersbane if you forge it to 3 stars, which you can do right then and there, and will do eventually, so why not ? Also, Clive's OHKOing with the 2 stars version is not all that reliable.
- Mathilda can definitely hold her own just fine on that map you showcased. She can only take three hits from the Iron lance wielding Cavaliers, but those are the minority. The others she can take 11 hits from at base level.
... okay I think that's all actually. Now I understand (and enjoy !) the concept of these videos, and do agree that Clive deserves more credit and spotlight than he gets. I just don't think the facts were always there on this one.
Thanks for reading if you have, and have a nice day either way. Looking forward to the next video.
>You... kinda openly suggested grinding right there. I wouldn't even say that's necessary either (getting him to Paladin before Zofia Gate notwithstanding, as I don't think that's generally happening), with two quests in Zofia Castle encouraging you to engage with non-story battles. I won't be the one to tell people to just ignore meaningful content.
I justified this in the vid. If you're using anyone who isn't ready to promote yet, you either grind them to promotion here, or you have to backtrack later, and then fight more optional battles. This method takes less time, and gives less EXP. Clive doesn't even need kills.
>I have considerably more of a problem with the Spd fountain charge. Now it's just one charge, yes, but between mage villagers really wanting several, it being a great way of liberally fixing up any unit that gets speed screwed early on, and also something that no one ever seems to bring up, which is that Celica's entire team has access to it at the end of Act 2 allowing very effective juggernauting when combined with her own fountains (+6 Spd Killer Bow Leon is a trip, for example), I think it's decently safe to say no one can really claim a charge of this thing. It is true that Clive is far from the "wrong" choice however, IF he's going to be your Ridersbane guy. which brings us to...
Celica route chars is fine to bring up, though when Leon gains access to it you also get a Peg Cheese, or you can save the priory fountains for him if you're not using them on your mages. Anyway, only one charge, and I didn't even assume Clive had it throughout the game - I used his average stats instead. Except vs the initial batch of cavs, where like I said in the vid, he doesn't need it either, but then he needs some healing support.
>Villager Cavaliers vs Clive :
Well, it's true you can train a villager to cav, and it's the same amount of exp as training a villager to anything. But the difference is, if you train a villager cav, you generally just get another Clive (with some higher growths), while they can also become mage or merc which you don't have a similar replacement for. Kliff in particular is absolutely broken as a merc. Also, there's the funny Mage Gray option, where you sandbag his EXP gain in order to give more EXP to your other units, but still get a lot of early magic utility. But I didn't bring that up in the vid cause it's very tangential. I won't go into the detailed Clive vs village cav comparisons due to lack of time rn and I just don't think it's worth it.
>Witches :
That one's gonna be short but I do have to bring it up, even though as you said, Witches don't have as big a presence as people seem to think. After some testing, I can't see where your statement that Witches will always walk instead of teleporting if you turnwheel a teleport came from. It's not a thing, and unless I got RNGed hard, it doesn't seem to lower the odds even. I've tried with rewinding to the start of the enemy turn and before the witch's action, neither were failsafes. It's still a good way of changing their action into a more favorable one, but this was still a weirdly specific piece of misinformation.
It always worked for me is all I can say, and I heard it through a bunch of more experienced Echoes players. I'll try it again when I'm replaying this game.
>As for the other part, while it is true that Clive can be protected from them if he's not isolated, him being isolated ahead of the team is like, his entire thing. Again not a huge deal, I just didn't really like these arguments.
Since witches are rare, you could just not isolate him when the witches are present - should the turnwheel trick not work for you, that is. Or have one friend with him and they can kill a witch together if they do attack him.
>Mathilda can also OHKO with the Ridersbane if you forge it to 3 stars, which you can do right then and there, and will do eventually, so why not ?
Because if they're both ORKOing then Mathilda is less efficient at it. Either way, my comparison of GK Clive vs Mathilda already assumes Mathilda gets two levels. :shrug:
Anyway if you wanna discuss this more feel free to hmu on Discord, I'm always down for some old fashioned character debaeting
W.A.I.F.U. makes its return! Clive wasn't the unit I was expecting the most, but he's in an odd position due to his fame in-story, but his performance in-game does leave something to be desired. Of course, interesting maneuver...
I am currently playing echoes and saved mathilda yesterday, both have the same level and same class, both have a steel Lance. But mathilda has MUCH higher stats, i don't remember the exact stats, but it's an almost 20 points difference in the total stats.
YEEEEEES! I recently played a Blitzkreig run of SoV with my little sister, it was her first FE game. I benched Clive in my other playthroughs because I didn't give him enough attention and Mathilda was just better. However, in my run with my sister, I dedicated myself to using Clive and giving him a chance. He turned out GREAT! I even gave him the Gradivus since I made the Rhomphaia for Mathilda (it's broken on her, I stand where I stand). I normally use Zeke or Mycen in endgame, but Clive was way stronger than both of them. Not as strong as my Mathilda, but I have a new appreciation for Clive as a unit
I'm glad she liked it! Rhomphaia is a pretty big waste of resources though. You can get that same amount of damage from a forged steel or silver lance and you don't have to sacrifice the cavalier bonus damage or the gold coins.
@@seejayxd2505 I had enough resources for everything I needed before entering the waterfall map in Act 4 (3 forged steel lances, 2 forged killer bows, 1 forged silver sword). I was very particular on how I spent my money and my turns. I ended up overpreparing and had 2 gold coins to spare, so I made a +2 Rhomphaia cause my sister and I thought it'd be funny. Not efficient but it was worth its weight in hilarity xD
@@TheKingOfDorksss absolutely my man. It's not a hard game at all and fun is the priority at the end of the day.
@TheKingOfDorksss how did you get 2 killer bows in alm's route
@@leargamma4912 I just sent over one of the killer bows I forged on Celica's route before she's locked in the tower, and I forged the other one on Alm's side from the steel bow.
Another way is to also upgrade the iron bow you get into a killer bow, but that takes more resources than just sending over a bow you won't have access to for a while from Celica's side
On the topic of needing meta knowledge to get the most out of him, this can be a real detriment to how a lot of people view him especially when they use fountains for favoritism on other units. I for example like giving Faye stat boosts just because it's funny to me to see a cleric doubling enemies even though she probably has better things to be doing as a cleric and all with physic, rescue and eventually anew. Not to mention until she's a saint she'll have a shaky 60 hit rate. As a result Clive kind of gets left without what he needs when I play like that.
I'm honestly surprised a lot of people aren't rocking with Clive. Act 3 has the best atmosphere and vibe to it. I love the flat grassland battle fields with a horde of cavaliers charging in and Clive impaling them with a ridersbane is just so awesome. To me Clive was the best combat unit I had in act 3 and he left a great impression. Even after I got Mathilda and gave her the ridersbane and babied her to catch up with the rest Clive was still super strong with the steel lance. I didn't even have a RNG blessed Clive he just was great at killing what he needed to. You Clive haters are tripping
So basically, if you grind to promote Clive before Act 1 endgame, then give him a speed well, then let him use the Ridersbane instead of any of your other units, he ends up being comparable to base Mathilda in the critical stats (while being significantly worse in the "not critical but REALLY nice to have" stats), and then if you give him further limited resources he ends up better for a brief period before potentially getting outclassed by base Zeke anyway.
Is it really that surprising that most people, who aren't going to do all of that, end up underwhelmed by Clive? If you're not playing in a way that makes him snowball his level advantage will probably be minimal by the time you get Mathilda so the earlier promo doesn't happen, and if he's not snowballing then even though he's around for longer, he probably wasn't doing anything that important in that time, so the availability difference barely matters. Also Mathilda actually has good growths in a game where most units don't, and if nothing else, that's satisfying.
The point isn't to tell people they're playing the game wrong by not using Clive or whoever else in XYZ way. It's to clear up common misconceptions that are held as popular, unsubstantiated opinions. I'd wager a lot of people probably won't find Jill to be that impressive in RD because it isn't obvious to a newcomer that she is the most optimal candidate in the Dawn Brigade to be fed all of the available resources, but if you tell an experienced RD player that Jill is an underwhelming character because she necessitates resources to reach peak performance , people are going to give you very confused looks.
Clive is in a similar boat. If you choose not to play to his strengths so that he excels during the period of the game where he's at his best, then of course he's going to give people a poor impression, and that's fine. The intent isn't to convince people that Clive is some top tier hidden dark horse that everyone is missing out on, it's to clear up misconceptions about a character people think is very mediocre, by showing off their strengths that aren't so apparent upon one's first glance.
@@watercrystals974499% of play throughs will not do the above steps that make him decent, so he is in fact mediocre
Jill ends up being your best unit if you invest a lot, Clive doesn’t, not comparable
The production here is absolutely fantastic; beautiful, educational, and great video as always Mekkah and co.
I think that the reason why Clive is considered a poor unit is because very few players play for efficency and instead grind up their units to easily crush most of the challenges in the game. As such, Clive having more mediocre growths makes him look meh in comparison to a fully trained up villager cavalier and Mathilda or Zeke. However, once you start playing faster and focus on saving turns you start to realise how valuable Clive's physical bulk is, his ability to reach enemies quickly without warp, not needing to be trained up while suffering from bad combat like villager cav does, being an excellent user of the ridersbane and having good availability. It's just that the strategies that make units like Clive, Leon, Cecilia and others thrive aren't well known and most players preffer to play at a much slower pace than people that spend their time making LTC tier lists and fall into pitfalls like overrating growths or benching him for Mathilda. And due to these reasons Clive just feels meh to most players, despite him being pretty useful overall.
I would argue that "efficiency" is not the most correct meter for SoV compared to any other game in the series brcause SoV has something no other game has. An actual, non-DLC postgame.
Most tier lists in other games give a lot of importance to the "hardest content" wich 99% of the time is post game. Can a classic LTC team with the strat you mentioned even cope with thades inflation? Can they do that whitout the crouch of DLC items and overclasses?
@@noukan42 I haven't seen anybody really discuss the Echoes postgame seriously
@@vanjagalovic3621 wich is like the only RPG comunuty that does not do that. If there is a postgame it's usually taken in high considerstion and i am arguing that FE should not be an exception because any other RPG can be played for fast clears as well.
@@noukan42 yes, absolutely. Efficient play involves dread-looping bow knights from merc, and with a couple of those even thabes labyrinth becomes an absolute joke.
The main reason people don't talk about post game in echoes is because echoes post game is kind of sort of completely terrible so no one plays it.
Clive gets screwed by UNIT FEEL. That's also the reason people prefer Mathilda imo.
nice ridiculously high effort vid, I can tell this was trickier than normal
You can actually get a +3 Ridersbane as soon as you reach the Forest Village. If you have Celica finish up her side of Act 3 first, she can use a peddler to send Alm the Rion Shield from the Desert Stronghold. Alm can then give the shield to Lord Rion in Zofia Castle and receive a Pegasus Cheese, which can then be given to the cheese lover right next to him for an Exotic Spice. The Exotic Spice can be sold to the blacksmith for three Gold Marks, which is enough to forge the Ridersbane to its maximum level. This does mean you'll have to suffer through Celica's maps first, but it's worth it, since it allows Clive to double every single Act 3 Cavalier if he has just two extra points of Speed above his base, which he can reliably receive from his Paladin promotion and a drink from the fountain in the Thieves' Shrine. With the extra weight of the +2 Ridersbane, Clive would have to get a lucky level or two if he wanted to double the faster Cavaliers, and most people would prefer not leaving this kind of thing up to RNG if they could help it.
after doing a no recruit run on classic hard, i've learned to respect Clive as a very good unit if you actually train him up
Ok step up in production quality
Holy shit this video was amazingly edited, kuddos!