Become a Channel Member :) / @icedcoffeegaming Discord: / discord In this video I break down why Swordmaster is an rough class. #fireemblem #fireemblemengage #feengage
The only game in the series where I can't justify going swordmaster on anybody. Removing the crit bonus from Swordmaster and Berserker was a stupid idea.
@@ACLozMusik hits one of the easier things to fix, its that zerker has low caps all around res/def/spd/dex are all pitiful in exchange for high hp/str/bld. SMs slightly better i nthis regard as far as stat spread but its spd gain is similar to griffin/wolf/bow knight and not very far ahead of many of the other classes too, least zerker has a 10% lead, SM is 5% at best, probably shoulda been 30% so at least like zerker it could be a temp class to spd pad like zerker is to str/bld pad, even if spd is one of the easier stats to patch up
Can't say I agree. I don't bother remove Kagetsu from Swordmaster, because it feels like I'm just wasting a second seal to change an already impressive unit into a slightly more impressive unit.
I think this is more of a problem of locking the cooler class skills behind lord classes or Engage Attacks. For instance, one of the things that Swordmaster was known for besides being a crit machine was Astra, but that’s locked behind Marth’s Engage Attack (albeit renamed but that’s exactly what it is). Imagine how much better some of the classes would be if they had better class skills.
@@crystalqueen9711 honestly, I think they should’ve gotten the hidden 15% crit passive and an actual passive. Halberdier getting Pincer Attack is fine. Swordmaster should’ve gotten Astra. Berserker should’ve gotten Gamble (decreases Accuracy but raises crit rate.)
I think Engage also has the problem where S-rank weapons come really late and also are a bit disappointing (usually they’re smash weapons or high weight, and they have absurd upgrade costs that make them pretty unusable). In other games these would be pretty powerful tools that make the classes stand out more, or compensate for things like lower strength
I mean throw in the fact they did away with durability and include a way to upgrade weapons, it shows really hard that weapon upgrades need some exponential bonuses for higher tier. Almost every freaking weapon gets basically the same value so the scaling cost makes no sense. It’s no wonder I dropped the game even after they included the well but I didn’t bother using it cause no new game plus to make use of it. Give an actual reason to enjoy additions to a game by default, don’t include hand outs as the solution which is more like buying top up bundles in a mobile game but your doing it in a full priced game. Seriously, full priced games with micro transaction level practices need to freaking burn when now it’s a rarity for online games to NOT have console specific online subscription cost unless your playing PC or something. Maybe if that stupid free money and consumables were not locked to subscription online only I might of been less sussie about it, but I think many agree the god damn tower, engage weapon upgrades, SP cost to learn skills you only get 2 slots for and no new game plus to incentive’ize SP farming. DID NOT NEED TO EXIST AT ALL, frik those fire emblem heroes elements. Maybe if classes had 3 inherit slots and 4 with advance classes, and you just used bond fragments, no fking SP then it could feel more favorable. And don’t get me started on how some class changes being a stupid headache if running thru engage ring inherits to gain ‘access’, your fucked when you lose the rings with such inherits midway til the end of the game. Really should of just been getting proficiency for ‘reaching’ 20 in that class and you get a damage bonus based on it then it solely for if you can change into a class and use terrible weapons that get out’performed by cheap to upgrade tier weapons since upgrading anything that started needing ingots that were steel/silver was a waste times 10.
Exactly this. Ice totally ignored the weapon proficency but that's fair since it doesn't really matter at the end in Engage. We needed A and S Rank weapons with better effects, stats and availability to justify specialization
I really hate how they removed the class bonuses, weapon rank boosts and weapon triangle bonuses. Those things were what defined the SM, halberdiers, Berserkers, the single weapon classes. Without them they're literally worse in what they are supposed to be masters than the mix classes.
The weapon rank boosts also hardly matter when royals get S rank plus utility in their special classes besides Timerra who gets to Ike tank by default which is defensive utility. Frankly they needed more time to work on the game systems and streamline the QoL as well as add character to the classes. I can’t remember the last time I felt this underwhelmed reclassing Fire Emblem units. I think the only good changes were chain guarding, monks getting fist mastery, and mage knights being awesome. But that’s literally about 6 class variants out of a few dozen and doesn’t make up for the overall shortcomings.
i think the intented goal with run through was to work with pincer attack, because it garantees to be in the right position to trigger it but if you initiate combat with your swordmaster, why would you need to double with your hallberdier
I do miss the days when having a higher weapon rank actually adds bonus damage to your attack as long as you have the weapon triangle advantage. FE12 did that and it made sense. Like having S rank in swords should allow like +5 attack when using a sword or something with a built in crit like you said. It's just really unfortunate.
@@rhettmitchell I was able to get sword rank S+ with Byleth on a regular maddening play through. Of course I abused the broken/rusted weapon method to gain weapon exp but it works
Swordmaster has pretty much always been pretty mediocre aside from very specific instances like Ryoma because of the absurd bases and Rajinto, or Rutger, because of the abundance of axe ennemies in FE6.
Mia and Edward could get insanely broken in Radiant Dawn, and so could some in the GBA. Felix also was pretty good but not totally broken in 3H. Frankly it’s usually hit or miss and it misses in this game. Kagetsu was good but when a thief outdoes you on your debut stage, you know something is wrong lol.
@@Senshidayo the thing is with Felix and Kagetsu, why would you make them Swordmasters instead of something way better like Wyvern, Griffin (for Kagetsu), Assassin (for Felix), Hero, Paladin etc…
@@mithos789 yeah but jill and especially haar have bad availiablity, but I get your point; there are many many stronger units (cough Laguz Royals cough). But still it shows they can be broken in Radiant Dawn vs mediocre in Engage.
@@CypherXVI Assassins have stealth in 3 houses though which can be used to manipulate AI if you know how to, besides that there isn't really a reason to go into any of the sword advanced classes unless you really don't have another option, this goes for most classes in 3 houses to be fair (priest gives miracle compared to mage's fiendish blow lmao).
I think the intention with most of the land units was to pair them up together…warriors passive is about attacking broken units but with only axes that’s not happening often…but when paired with a Lance/sword hero they have the weapon triangle and hero wants to assist….sword masters run through sets up pincer attack which can be hard to set up otherwise
Swordmasters got shafted,not even a crit boost,if they have something like adept(which could trigger with chain attacks) would be very fun,not the most reliable but something unique.
If the legendary weapons were more accessible and cheaper to upgrade then that could be a factor. But you either have to pay like 90k for them or you get them really late. And then they cost so much to upgrade that it just isn't worth it.
This class was insane on the old Fire Emblems. You basically had like a flat 20% Crit even on Iron Swords. It had massive dodge and crit chance, making it a great boss killer. In this version, it's basically inferior to Hero since you'd rather have the ability to use two weapons over the slightly better speed and meh ability.
Not quite. Swordmaster has all around better bases than Hero except in HP, STR and Build. Hero has Brave Assist, which is the main reason why I would use Hero in the first place. If not for that I would go Swordmaster all the way, because Killer Edge works just fine as a main weapon, while their lance and axe variation are heavier. In fact, that's pretty much what I have Kagetsu do, since I would rather not spend a seal on a already great unit. Killing Edge makes short work of many enemies in the hands of someone with high DEX like him.
in 3H, the indisputable speed of sword master (I know assassin and falcon knight can par them) make them great dodge tank especiall since 3H AI doesn't ignore 0% hit rate like in engage, which make dodge tank in engage alot less attractive in maddening run (they still have usage but not as prelevance as older titles) in 3H, my swordmaster Felix can simply solo 1 route on his own without any support and relax alot of support for other routes (especially those maps with alot of archers, bow knight, and wyvern) and his only requirement is evasion ring and a bush. in Engage, bonded shield strat + other engage ability leads to many more option to enemy phase tank without needing dodge, and even if one need dodge, Corrin thief or bushes just do that much better (and thief is 1-2 range too). I suppose 1 unfortunate thing is timing, swordmaster Marth will be an absolute monster and Marth is not particularly heavily contested but sadly his availability is too narrow (only last few chapters).
It's interesting how distinct Griffin Knights and Wyver are to each other. Even Martial Master feels unique in this game. I personally have never ran a high priest but always saw it as a mage tank of sorts. I just have never tried running a character with the "dodge tank + almost no magic damage" idea and thus have never used High Priest for more than a silly meme / Anna build. But the dodge tanking idea has potential, I just don't know how good it owuld do in practice. But the distinct feel of a class is FE Engage's weakness in my opinion. You can even look at the unit types and see that some unit types were focused on while "Armored" and "Calvary" are like "Oh yeah, this ONE specific class will have a type that'll do THIS!" or in the case of calvary "Oh, you know, let's have them get +1 MOVE." I do like the subtle differences but they really took flavor out of the class differences in this game. I don't use tanks because every class can tank now essentially.
Classes arent the important part, its the emblem buffs. I made a lapis swordmaster who had basically 140 avo. 50%+crit Could not get hit, always killed in 1 turn. She was a god. For whatever reason the destroyed classes, and put all that power in emblems+ engraving. The characters/classes are basically irrelevant. So classes with natural advantages (aka flyers) stand way above the others Edit: i would also add the fact that all the good class skills got stripped and put on royals unique classes or emblem powers. Further ruining classes
The only niche situation I can think of where run through is good, is critting through an enemy, and getting onto an avoid tile. And that is the most situational thing. It works... but you cannot depend on it, especially on maps that don't really allow for that.
This is one of the sad things I noticed about Engage, Swordmaster had nothing standing out for it, which sucks a lot because it was one of my favorite classes in Fates, and Three Houses. In Engage however, it's just well there, even Hero a class that in other FE games had an amazing personal skill in Sol, but wasn't as good as Swordmaster stands out more. They really did this class dirty in this game.
The only reason to use a class like swordmaster is if youre cooking something up with a backup Emblem bonus... To which I'd point out that hero is just about the same but with a better passive and another weapon.... (And I don't even use Hero much myself) Also I know a lot of people point out the combo of Run Through and Pincer attack... But this is identical to just using two strong units to attack a target...
This is what I've noticed like across the entire game when I was trying out a warrior Clanne build, the majority of advanced classes have really awful abilities they learn at level 5. Like bow knights hit+40 seems really good until you read that they have to.. and I quote "NOT MOVE." when entering combat. Like wtf? I'm not reclassing to that I'll just get hit+15 from emblem Sigurd or the trade off skill Lyn has.
It's useful against bosses. If the boss was baited to you, the Bow Knight would have no need to move at all to attack. Very useful against bosses with high avoid like Emblem Lyn.
Swordmaster went from the fastest class, among the most difficult classes to hit, high crit, and overall exciting classes in fire emblem to competing with wyvern knight for speed, no crit, no dodge, and you don’t know what you’re doing if you use it
I don't see any problem with Swordmaster, except in Blazing Blade, because Blade Lord outclasses it in almost everything, except critical boost which is already covered by Lyn supporting Hector for a critical boost. It's basically a choice between the regular Swordmaster and a Swordmaster 1.5.
Reclassing completely broke Fire Emblem. Turns out only a few units got the broken flying classes and even then they had things that held them back. Like Pegasus Knights having bad strength or Wyverns being rare and having middling speed. But thanks to reclass everyone gets to fly and the games aren't balanced for that. Low strength and high speed? Go Wyvern.
How could they when you get them in the very last chapters and cost-wise some B level gear can get as strong with moderate investment? You have to grind from the start to afford to max the few S rank weapons you get that have limited availability to the end game, and even then hardly any classes will need them when engraving can buff the might of any weapon, and that weapon will be lighter weight than the S rank also.
@@Senshidayo what I'm arguing is that I think devs imagined the S rank weapons would be really strong. So because of that, they overvalued how good S rank weapon classes would be and tried to balance their skills/stats. Then because S rank weapons ended up being memes, the S rank weapon classes ended up being gimped (excluding griffon)
I cant speak on this with Authority cause the last modern FE game I finished was Awakening but: Specialist classes like Swordmaster and Halberdier had more identity without all the modern stat and ability creep. Swordsmasters with no mount, high speed, and middling strength are very valuable if theyre the only people doubling the boss. (Guy, Rutger, Lyn, even Joshua and Mia to ca a lesser extent) That is far less valuable if your sword wielding Paladin also doubles the boss with comparable strength. Less so if you have alternate resources like Gambits and Engages to increase your damage output, making Astra and/or bonuses to crit redundant at best. Like why wait for my Swordmaster to catch up so he can MAYBE get a crit, when I can just use two Paladins and get the job done before the SM gets here. Oh wait... They REMOVED the crit bonus?? I dont disagree with that choice, cause I bloody HATE fighting Swordmaster Bosses, but still...
I was plotting out a run before TotK took up my gaming time, was going to use Boucheron on Swordmaster to maximize his speed+dex growths. I ended up realizing that bow knight was just better, it has slightly better growths on the things SM is supposed to be good at, and mounted movement, and bows. Taking crit away from SM and Berserker killed their class identity. They also had tk because of all the other ways of getting crit. I think the solution would have been eother giving them a x4 crit damage multiplier, or having SM add speed to total crit damage, and Berseker to add build to it. That would have let them keep their identity as the crit classes without making them add to crit chance.
I think other than these 2 points overlooked, I agree with you. 1) it's not fair to compare Axe / Lance well weapons to then include Axe / Lance power, but then not include Sword Power (or make any mention of it) in that analysis. I'd argue that Swordmaster NEEDS sword power. 2) To expand on the point a bit more, Swordmaster's identity is speed. It has 49 speed cap with 20% growth, which are matched with Griffin knight. Your demo shows speed+ inherited, and then you're complaining about damage (even on an over leveled unit, it's still not the best example). So you speed fixed an already speedy unit, and the result you see is that it needs damage still. This is a lot like putting hit+ on a thief or sniper, which are already high dex and high hit units, and then saying it lacks damage. Basically, try running damage fixing inheritable skills on the class like Sword Power, or Lunar Brace, and then see how it fares. (I still think it's underwhelming simply because swords other than Levin Sword for magic users or Wille Glanz for Alear are weak, to which Swordmaster like you said is locked in and cannot make use of either of these swords).
Swordmaster only really has 1 niche I can think of, and that’s only after Ch23 when you get access to Georgios Lodestar Rush on characters with Sword Proficiency, which is a fantastic boss killing tool. While Griffin and Paladin also get S Swords, Swordmaster gets 8 hits compared to their 7 as a backup class, and gets the overall power of Georgios to play with over Divine Dragon’s 9 hits with a Silver Blade. From some very questionable maths, I believe 0% Growths Swordmaster Kagetsu with an Ike Engraved Georgios and Bond Rank 14+ is able to one round Ch25 Lumera with Lodestar Rush from full health without needing Draconic Hex, which the other classes mentioned probably can’t do. When not Lodestar-in however, Swordmaster is fine at best and horribly outclassed by a ton of other physical classes at worst.
I think the reason a lot of units lack identity is because in this game its about how you build them with the emblems. You can make a high crit high avoid sword master with using the right emblems and forging the right weapons.
I demand that the Swordmaster class be balanced with the Hero class! S-tier weaponry should be limited to single-weapon infantry or armored classes. Mounted classes and multi-weapon classes should cap weaponry at A-tier.
If they gave swordmaster an “astra assist” skill, which would reduce their chain damage to 3% of the enemy’s max health but it hits 5 times each with the flat 80% so your average chain on swordmaster is usually a bit stronger than other units, and gave berserker’s chain attacks a chance to crit might actually change the outlook on them. Like, do you want to go swordmaster or berserker for the chance to deal extra in a chain attack, or do you go hero for brave assist at full health and warrior for longer range chain attacks and just a strong player phase unit. Heck, we could even toss in halberdier and have pincer attack be changed too so your attacking unit receives a true damage boost or the halberdier can break with their chain if the enemy is pincered between the attacker and halberdier. IS should have leaned in heavier towards giving the the backup units chain attack skills. Biggest missed opportunity.
It'd be cool if Swordmasters had innate 1-2 range on swords to give them their niche They'd still be balanced by being a footlocked class with mediocre strength, but now they can reliably enemy phase with a silver sword or something, which ties into their dodge tank nature
Swordmaster has always been one of the most overrated classes in the franchise but yeah this is just sad. As for classes not feeling all that different from each other I'd blame stat creep throughout the franchise, 1 or 2 point in any different stat was a huge deal when stat caps were 20 in all stats and you weren't likely to even hit those. But in recent games when a character can get 20 in every stat just from leveling up to level 10 these small differences really aren't noticeable unless you're like LTC'ing. I have no idea why they brought back build, that was like the worst mechanic fire emblem had.
Swordmasters were only OP in FE6 when swords were overwhelmingly the best weapon in the game because of how low hitrates are in that game. I wish IS was less stingy with magic 2 range swords and gave sword master better magic stats.
I feel like this video could be 10 seconds long. Sword foot locked with low str, no crit and meh at best class skill without anything else interesting going on.
Run Through synergizes well with Halberdier's Pincer Attack, but when you can just 1-round a unit with another class, it becomes completely irrelevant.
What should be done is that: • Flier classes, mount classes, and hybrid classes can no longer use S-tier weapons. With some exceptions. • Only infantry and armor classes that are locked to one weapon type can use S-tier weapons. • Swordmasters, Berserkers, Halberdiers, Snipers, and Sages now have at least 20% crit bonus and specific combat arts
Swordmaster is kind of in the same boat as the other foot locked "specialists"(zerker/halb/sniper) in that its lost its crit boost, its higher rank means almost nothing since all your good stuff is mostly C rank, and its stat line isnt much better than another class/s with more to offer(griffin in this specific case, similar stat/growth line, has staves/flight utility, though backups tend to have better emblem boosts+chain attacks). Swords arent really all that worse than lances imo, being only 2 mt less, 4 on smash weapons, but also being lighter on wt so less likely to face any AS penalties, swords actually ahead in killer/levin for whatever reason, . Run through is a lackluster class skill and only really has any (personal) use to me when paired with a halb since it lets you more easily slide into a pincer formation whether it be on the current target or nearby one if paired with canter. I think the crit boosts got taken away due to engraves/forging/inherits being a thing, but still think they should have retained some innate +10 or so, heck snipers get it still under specific conditions, but the real issue is just weapon variety sucks, which isnt unique to engage really, as said above most of your good weapons are C rank, with B/A reserved for the brave/silver smash weapon, in swords case there's wo dao but unless you want no AS penalty or need that 90 hit wo dao is just a worse killing edge, really needed some specialist locked weaponry to give the units some kind of merit.
Hero traditionally has 2 weapons and swordmaster/lance master/halbredier 1 weapon in Fire Emblem. Berserkers usually just use axes and warrior traditionally has axes and bows or crossbows. I think they frankly just lacked creativity because they used all old classes from older Fire Emblem besides mage knight and high priest. Fliers and horse units also tend to be op, which makes sense in a war game, but I agree you’d like infantry to have some reason to exist but if I can fly and nuke you or use hit and run tactics, why walk up with a sword?
Noticed other comments mentioning this but real Lapis gaming is berserker till dex cap, warrior till Marth, go to swordmaster, equip Brave Sword or Caladbolg, and Ike Georgios for epic engage attacks and avo monster
I think the one thing I can see Swordmaster being good at is as a pure avoid tank. If you stack avoid and combine it with the class' high speed, you might be able to make it so that enemies have single digit hit rates on that unit. I can see how a Marth or Chrom equipped Swordmaster could potentially be pretty viable. Marth for dodge purposes and Chrom to boost the unit's offensive power. Roy could also be used to increase offensive potency as well as provide Holdout+++ as insurance. Funnily enough Hector might be interesting with Swordmaster because he can boost power as well as provide +20 Crit when activating Storm's Eye. Quick Riposte might actually be more useful on a fast unit like Swordmaster because said unit can avoid being doubled when attacked and still double back against fast enemy units like Griffins, Wyverns, and other Swordmasters.
So, I don't think swordmaster is ever going to be the top dog in any game. But that's not a problem, being just good or even fun to use is enough. Is Engage's SM one of those things? No, and that's the massive issue there Aside from speed which can be overkill, unlike damage, what do I do with it? Many more options are objectively better and doing silly stuff like Levin SM is discouraged because the class has less magic than Great Knight so it's not even fun to use if I want to make a different build. To make this class more fun they could make it so that smash swords like Georgies can function as regular weapons instead, or have swordfaire to use the levin effectively (Which is different than efficiently). Again it wouldn't be top tier, maybe not even "good" by FE regular standards, but it would give me the impression that this class is truly a master of swords instead of being the actual worst sword user in the game. And I could have fun building Ultra Weeb Veyle wielding a massive, cool blade without feeling like I am giving up so much manpower.
I think SwordMasters should have one of the highest crit and avoid in the game but give their counter classes tools to negate the SM's strengths. For example, lance users love to stab as their primary attack method and the SM's can dodge that but during their turn, they can use a sweeping attack that SM's have a very hard time dodging, but the stab move could be a quick action that would give a Lance user first strike even during the enemy turn but balanced by comparatively low accuracy. Maybe also give armored units crit immunity from Swords that don't slay armored classes. I'm just spit balling.
As much as I loved this game initially, the combat & map design feeling much better at first glance, in terms of depth/longevity it falls hard compared to the likes of 3H, or the 3DS opuses. After the initial run, the balance issues become glaring. So many useless classes in there, in the state they're provided. The weapon progression system is poorly done, the footsoldiers are mostly crap outside of warrrior, the snipers are meh too. Paladin is just bad, and the fliers are OP. GRs are all over the place for some
It be interesting if the next fire emblem still has a high level of customization, but not anyone can be anything like in Engage. I would like to see more interesting character passives as well and maybe even have a second adaptive character passive that changes based on what class they are and only that character gets that passive while on that class. Let's say every character is limited to a maximum of 3 options each for base class choice to second seal into (and then the base class branches out into more options, so minimum of 6 or more advanced class options). There will be still customization, but character choice matters more than just what growths the character has, and if you need a certain type of class to have a balanced army composition then you would choose a worse unit by growths because he got the class that you need. Better character passives would help with making the characters stand out more than just their growths as well, to the point of a character can have Vander bad levels of growths, but has an insanely good passive that you got to take them like if initiating combat and does not get counter attacked, then gain an insane +35% crit rate... Now take the limited class choice for each character and unique class passives based on the character, that same unit could have a +2 bow range as a Sniper passive and now suddenly he has insane range with a long bow and killer bow where he will never be counter attacked on player phase and with the killer bow is guaranteed crits and one shotting fools left and right despite having terrible growths. This suddenly makes the game and characters a whole lot more interesting by balancing raw power characters to weak power characters with insane passives, and choosing characters based on their unique possibilities they bring to the table based on what you need with an archer, healer, offensive stave user, hard carry, tank, etc.
Being limited to 1range and footlocked is already rough because it limits options so much, but even when there occasionally is a unit in attack range, being 1range and relying on doubling to kill essentially guarantees that you will take damage every time you enter combat. If this class was crit-oriented (turning speed into crit, for example) or dodge-oriented (although that would still be bad because dodge tanks arent that great) and had better stats, that would be less of an issue and the class might have a niche, but as it stands, its only upside is literally its aesthetic. Because Judgment Cut still rocks.
The only character i used as a sword master was lapis i ended up running her with eirika and a lucina engraved +0 caladbolg and she didnt usually get hit by anything (the main perk of this was that it allowed her to solo sombron) but outside of dodge tanking there really isnt a whole lot of need for swordmaster.....and you have to have a lot of str growth as a personal for the purpose of making up for these horrible offensive growths
The only thing I get from Swordmaster is that it's meant to sync up with Halberdier and allow them a guaranteed way to double up with pincer But that scenario creates problems of it's own because it can lead either unit in an undesirable position on enemy phase.
When you allow everyone to be anything you can't have classes that are good cause then everyone picks them. So all the stats are balanced, and that makes land and solo weapon be worse off.
The sword master is the sword master I don't really care about swordmaster that much. I find it bland it looks cool but for me I would choose other classes over it thats just me
Swordmaster should have had the 30% speed growth, and S rank weapons should be good, and it should have a better ability. Be sweet if it allowed them to turn a sword into a ranged attack somehow
Somewhat agree but that's only a stat based improvement there needs to be more of a gameplay mechanical improvement too like maybe give it the ability to use knives or a bow for utility or apply a unique debuff only it's capable of.
I like to think if a sword master attacks a mounted unit while in cover and that unit has their weapon broken it should apply a debuff that forces them to dismount for 1-2 turns where they lose their speed advantage making them alot less selfish like a dodge tank and more contributing to the army, it would also make sense lore wise because sword masters are supposed to be unmatched with a sword when it comes to skill maybe not in raw might like hero but skill and speed.
@RaidenKaiser if S rank weapons were good, that would help in niche, although it might make sense to take away the A+ from griffen knights, since they rival in speed. Paladins as they are now aren't a big rival, and generals are slow and build different. Why I would like them to have a skill that increases a swords range is because that is one of the biggest flaws of the weapon type. Maybe have it work like Advance, but doesn't give the opponent an opportunity for counter attack, and can be done at any point in the movement.
The problem is they gated wind sword behind emblems and Levin swords operate off of magic. They really need to reintroduce an early game ranged sword option like axes and spears have. But traditionally Fire Emblem has lacked it so it continues to be a weakness. I did like the introduction of the hurricane axe as a magical axe but honestly there is no reason they couldn’t introduce 2 early/late game ranged magic and physical options for each major weapon. Lances and axes already have hand axe, tomahawk, javelin and spear but sword needs everything lol.
Swordmaster was just insanely overpowered in the past. Engage is the most balanced Fire Emblem and the first time Intelligent Systems actually balanced the series instead of going "lol, weapon breaks thereby game is balanced" Some classes they over nerfed, but at the same time we can take a break from swordmaster meta for one game...
@@IcedCoffeeGaming Everything was OP in three houses, that game is the least balanced fire emblem has ever been. I guess if everything is OP, is anything really OP then.... *smug face*
Swordmaster is really not a early-mid game class, S tier sword with no 1-2 range access like hero, low strength grow...etc, but i find this class really shine when it come to dodge tank with Marth. Eg Lapis with 17 levels as hero (starsphere, Avoid +20) and then change to swordmaster when you get Marth back, Brave sword let you double extra hit from Marth's passive, Caladbolg +1, Slayer swords are also good. My lapis now is just unkillable (chapter 23)
The problem is with the whole enemies will never attack you if they can’t damage you thing that you need to be able to survive hits anyway even if they do hit every attack and a ike tank is just gonna be more consistent. Dodging can occasionally supplement some classes natural bulk but you shouldn’t rely fully on it. If you avoid is too high they can’t bait enemies and you shouldn’t throw them into a situation where if they get hit they die. Swordmaster forces you to go all in on avoid and it’s not really worth it especially with the lack of 1/2 range
@@ultimaterecoil1136 I absolutely agree with you. It's the yunaka-corrin problem, swordmaster is not really worth the cost, but not that many classes can be a tank in later chapters (i did a few maddening save files), my team are yunaka-chloe both thief and seadall dual support to handle 1 direction, veyle-soren- madeline general ike 1 direction, and the rest is bonded shield strategy, so the problem is i need an unit who work well with that strat as a team, having a dodge tank who can body block or redirect aggro to damage dealer enemy phase like anna bonded shield...ect. Enemies in maddening focus on the thing it can hit and deal damage, so sword master shine as a high avoid high speed unit with no flyer or armored weakness for my strat😅
Swordmaster can work even in maddening but it's not optimal. It's mediocre without a wrath build on kagetsu and panette (mainly because panette has nuts strength accessibility and kagetsu has stong bases) it can work out better than zerker at least and it's a 1000 times more useful than mage canoneer.
Mage canonner is supposed to be a support, with draconian hex can debuff at longe range, if you stack it rivals ring, becomes THE crowd control unity while on flames, and poison is nice, I guess.
@@guillesamaable I think I'm fine with the damage it should be low for how it's meant to be played as support from a distance but it shouldn't have accuracy so bad that it most enemies have a 30--40% hit rate if you are lucky.
@@RaidenKaiser you do get better crowd control while engaged with Corrin. Might experiment with the three houses emblem. 2 out of 3 is good for the class (poison and flame gambit) I turned Bunet into a mage cannoneer, with draconic hex and more importantly Divine Pulse+. Accuracy penalties based on distance don't matter if your using your luck as accuracy anyway. Just use a luck boosting emblem so you can be as close to 50 luck as possible (where Divine Pulse+ becomes 100% accurate and you can even guarantee hitting through avoid tiles), but having 30 luck is guaranteed 80 accuracy anyway.
The only game in the series where I can't justify going swordmaster on anybody. Removing the crit bonus from Swordmaster and Berserker was a stupid idea.
It really was. They were made to make up being weapon locked by being able to crit like crazy, but they dropped that in favor of terrible passives.
What killed Berserker was the DEX cap. It having the highest STR growth was a decent boon already
@@ACLozMusik valid. Yeah. Low dex cap with the worst accuracy weapons hurt them a lot.
@@ACLozMusik hits one of the easier things to fix, its that zerker has low caps all around res/def/spd/dex are all pitiful in exchange for high hp/str/bld. SMs slightly better i nthis regard as far as stat spread but its spd gain is similar to griffin/wolf/bow knight and not very far ahead of many of the other classes too, least zerker has a 10% lead, SM is 5% at best, probably shoulda been 30% so at least like zerker it could be a temp class to spd pad like zerker is to str/bld pad, even if spd is one of the easier stats to patch up
Can't say I agree. I don't bother remove Kagetsu from Swordmaster, because it feels like I'm just wasting a second seal to change an already impressive unit into a slightly more impressive unit.
Run through should have added crit, since it puts you in danger. Or have it have the override effect for up to 2 enemies or something.
Run Through is an skill that you can choose to use or not use, so if it puts it in danger, that's not a flaw of the class, but a flaw of the player.
I think this is more of a problem of locking the cooler class skills behind lord classes or Engage Attacks. For instance, one of the things that Swordmaster was known for besides being a crit machine was Astra, but that’s locked behind Marth’s Engage Attack (albeit renamed but that’s exactly what it is). Imagine how much better some of the classes would be if they had better class skills.
The solo weapon classes really should've gotten the breaker skill for their own weapon
@@crystalqueen9711 honestly, I think they should’ve gotten the hidden 15% crit passive and an actual passive. Halberdier getting Pincer Attack is fine. Swordmaster should’ve gotten Astra. Berserker should’ve gotten Gamble (decreases Accuracy but raises crit rate.)
I think Engage also has the problem where S-rank weapons come really late and also are a bit disappointing (usually they’re smash weapons or high weight, and they have absurd upgrade costs that make them pretty unusable). In other games these would be pretty powerful tools that make the classes stand out more, or compensate for things like lower strength
I mean throw in the fact they did away with durability and include a way to upgrade weapons, it shows really hard that weapon upgrades need some exponential bonuses for higher tier.
Almost every freaking weapon gets basically the same value so the scaling cost makes no sense.
It’s no wonder I dropped the game even after they included the well but I didn’t bother using it cause no new game plus to make use of it.
Give an actual reason to enjoy additions to a game by default, don’t include hand outs as the solution which is more like buying top up bundles in a mobile game but your doing it in a full priced game.
Seriously, full priced games with micro transaction level practices need to freaking burn when now it’s a rarity for online games to NOT have console specific online subscription cost unless your playing PC or something.
Maybe if that stupid free money and consumables were not locked to subscription online only I might of been less sussie about it, but I think many agree the god damn tower, engage weapon upgrades, SP cost to learn skills you only get 2 slots for and no new game plus to incentive’ize SP farming. DID NOT NEED TO EXIST AT ALL, frik those fire emblem heroes elements.
Maybe if classes had 3 inherit slots and 4 with advance classes, and you just used bond fragments, no fking SP then it could feel more favorable.
And don’t get me started on how some class changes being a stupid headache if running thru engage ring inherits to gain ‘access’, your fucked when you lose the rings with such inherits midway til the end of the game.
Really should of just been getting proficiency for ‘reaching’ 20 in that class and you get a damage bonus based on it then it solely for if you can change into a class and use terrible weapons that get out’performed by cheap to upgrade tier weapons since upgrading anything that started needing ingots that were steel/silver was a waste times 10.
@@BladeSerphthis is good copy pasta fuel. Thank you
Exactly this. Ice totally ignored the weapon proficency but that's fair since it doesn't really matter at the end in Engage. We needed A and S Rank weapons with better effects, stats and availability to justify specialization
Swordmaster feels like it isn't an advanced class sadly.
I really hate how they removed the class bonuses, weapon rank boosts and weapon triangle bonuses. Those things were what defined the SM, halberdiers, Berserkers, the single weapon classes. Without them they're literally worse in what they are supposed to be masters than the mix classes.
The weapon rank boosts also hardly matter when royals get S rank plus utility in their special classes besides Timerra who gets to Ike tank by default which is defensive utility.
Frankly they needed more time to work on the game systems and streamline the QoL as well as add character to the classes. I can’t remember the last time I felt this underwhelmed reclassing Fire Emblem units. I think the only good changes were chain guarding, monks getting fist mastery, and mage knights being awesome. But that’s literally about 6 class variants out of a few dozen and doesn’t make up for the overall shortcomings.
i think the intented goal with run through was to work with pincer attack, because it garantees to be in the right position to trigger it
but if you initiate combat with your swordmaster, why would you need to double with your hallberdier
I mean, it'd maybe be helpful against bosses since they have multiple health bars? Maybe?
Basically that. It's a boss fight boon
Yeah, you're better off using canter, which is great in every situation.
I do miss the days when having a higher weapon rank actually adds bonus damage to your attack as long as you have the weapon triangle advantage. FE12 did that and it made sense. Like having S rank in swords should allow like +5 attack when using a sword or something with a built in crit like you said. It's just really unfortunate.
Yeah and even in 3H when you max out a weapon level, you get the faire skill. That was usually impossible unless it was Lysithea or new game+ though
@@rhettmitchell I was able to get sword rank S+ with Byleth on a regular maddening play through. Of course I abused the broken/rusted weapon method to gain weapon exp but it works
Swordmaster has pretty much always been pretty mediocre aside from very specific instances like Ryoma because of the absurd bases and Rajinto, or Rutger, because of the abundance of axe ennemies in FE6.
Mia and Edward could get insanely broken in Radiant Dawn, and so could some in the GBA. Felix also was pretty good but not totally broken in 3H. Frankly it’s usually hit or miss and it misses in this game. Kagetsu was good but when a thief outdoes you on your debut stage, you know something is wrong lol.
@@Senshidayo the thing is with Felix and Kagetsu, why would you make them Swordmasters instead of something way better like Wyvern, Griffin (for Kagetsu), Assassin (for Felix), Hero, Paladin etc…
@@Senshidayo sure mia and edward could be good. but that is the game with ike,jill,titania and haar.
@@mithos789 yeah but jill and especially haar have bad availiablity, but I get your point; there are many many stronger units (cough Laguz Royals cough). But still it shows they can be broken in Radiant Dawn vs mediocre in Engage.
@@CypherXVI Assassins have stealth in 3 houses though which can be used to manipulate AI if you know how to, besides that there isn't really a reason to go into any of the sword advanced classes unless you really don't have another option, this goes for most classes in 3 houses to be fair (priest gives miracle compared to mage's fiendish blow lmao).
I think the intention with most of the land units was to pair them up together…warriors passive is about attacking broken units but with only axes that’s not happening often…but when paired with a Lance/sword hero they have the weapon triangle and hero wants to assist….sword masters run through sets up pincer attack which can be hard to set up otherwise
Swordmasters got shafted,not even a crit boost,if they have something like adept(which could trigger with chain attacks) would be very fun,not the most reliable but something unique.
If the legendary weapons were more accessible and cheaper to upgrade then that could be a factor. But you either have to pay like 90k for them or you get them really late. And then they cost so much to upgrade that it just isn't worth it.
This class was insane on the old Fire Emblems. You basically had like a flat 20% Crit even on Iron Swords. It had massive dodge and crit chance, making it a great boss killer. In this version, it's basically inferior to Hero since you'd rather have the ability to use two weapons over the slightly better speed and meh ability.
I like to think that's the retribution for the disgrace of a class hero was on three houses.
Swordmasters are only rly any good in fe6 tbf, they have always been outclassed
Not quite. Swordmaster has all around better bases than Hero except in HP, STR and Build. Hero has Brave Assist, which is the main reason why I would use Hero in the first place. If not for that I would go Swordmaster all the way, because Killer Edge works just fine as a main weapon, while their lance and axe variation are heavier.
In fact, that's pretty much what I have Kagetsu do, since I would rather not spend a seal on a already great unit. Killing Edge makes short work of many enemies in the hands of someone with high DEX like him.
Swordmaster’s greatest asset is the drip 😬
Best outfit for Alear imo
Truth
in 3H, the indisputable speed of sword master (I know assassin and falcon knight can par them) make them great dodge tank especiall since 3H AI doesn't ignore 0% hit rate like in engage, which make dodge tank in engage alot less attractive in maddening run (they still have usage but not as prelevance as older titles) in 3H, my swordmaster Felix can simply solo 1 route on his own without any support and relax alot of support for other routes (especially those maps with alot of archers, bow knight, and wyvern) and his only requirement is evasion ring and a bush. in Engage, bonded shield strat + other engage ability leads to many more option to enemy phase tank without needing dodge, and even if one need dodge, Corrin thief or bushes just do that much better (and thief is 1-2 range too). I suppose 1 unfortunate thing is timing, swordmaster Marth will be an absolute monster and Marth is not particularly heavily contested but sadly his availability is too narrow (only last few chapters).
It's interesting how distinct Griffin Knights and Wyver are to each other.
Even Martial Master feels unique in this game.
I personally have never ran a high priest but always saw it as a mage tank of sorts.
I just have never tried running a character with the "dodge tank + almost no magic damage" idea and thus have never used High Priest for more than a silly meme / Anna build.
But the dodge tanking idea has potential, I just don't know how good it owuld do in practice.
But the distinct feel of a class is FE Engage's weakness in my opinion. You can even look at the unit types and see that some unit types were focused on while "Armored" and "Calvary" are like "Oh yeah, this ONE specific class will have a type that'll do THIS!" or in the case of calvary "Oh, you know, let's have them get +1 MOVE."
I do like the subtle differences but they really took flavor out of the class differences in this game. I don't use tanks because every class can tank now essentially.
Classes arent the important part, its the emblem buffs.
I made a lapis swordmaster who had basically 140 avo. 50%+crit
Could not get hit, always killed in 1 turn. She was a god.
For whatever reason the destroyed classes, and put all that power in emblems+ engraving. The characters/classes are basically irrelevant. So classes with natural advantages (aka flyers) stand way above the others
Edit: i would also add the fact that all the good class skills got stripped and put on royals unique classes or emblem powers. Further ruining classes
Fence-alear
The only niche situation I can think of where run through is good, is critting through an enemy, and getting onto an avoid tile. And that is the most situational thing. It works... but you cannot depend on it, especially on maps that don't really allow for that.
This is one of the sad things I noticed about Engage, Swordmaster had nothing standing out for it, which sucks a lot because it was one of my favorite classes in Fates, and Three Houses. In Engage however, it's just well there, even Hero a class that in other FE games had an amazing personal skill in Sol, but wasn't as good as Swordmaster stands out more. They really did this class dirty in this game.
The only reason to use a class like swordmaster is if youre cooking something up with a backup Emblem bonus...
To which I'd point out that hero is just about the same but with a better passive and another weapon.... (And I don't even use Hero much myself)
Also I know a lot of people point out the combo of Run Through and Pincer attack... But this is identical to just using two strong units to attack a target...
And eventually it's just one strong unit because the SM never gets kill exp so he falls behind
This is what I've noticed like across the entire game when I was trying out a warrior Clanne build, the majority of advanced classes have really awful abilities they learn at level 5.
Like bow knights hit+40 seems really good until you read that they have to.. and I quote "NOT MOVE." when entering combat.
Like wtf? I'm not reclassing to that I'll just get hit+15 from emblem Sigurd or the trade off skill Lyn has.
It's useful against bosses. If the boss was baited to you, the Bow Knight would have no need to move at all to attack. Very useful against bosses with high avoid like Emblem Lyn.
Swordmaster went from the fastest class, among the most difficult classes to hit, high crit, and overall exciting classes in fire emblem to competing with wyvern knight for speed, no crit, no dodge, and you don’t know what you’re doing if you use it
Sword Master? More like, Sword AMATEUR
I don't see any problem with Swordmaster, except in Blazing Blade, because Blade Lord outclasses it in almost everything, except critical boost which is already covered by Lyn supporting Hector for a critical boost.
It's basically a choice between the regular Swordmaster and a Swordmaster 1.5.
I wish more enemies are armed with anti-cavalry weapons.
Reclassing completely broke Fire Emblem. Turns out only a few units got the broken flying classes and even then they had things that held them back. Like Pegasus Knights having bad strength or Wyverns being rare and having middling speed. But thanks to reclass everyone gets to fly and the games aren't balanced for that. Low strength and high speed? Go Wyvern.
Do you think they overestimated how useful S rank weapons would be and budgeted too much towards those?
How could they when you get them in the very last chapters and cost-wise some B level gear can get as strong with moderate investment? You have to grind from the start to afford to max the few S rank weapons you get that have limited availability to the end game, and even then hardly any classes will need them when engraving can buff the might of any weapon, and that weapon will be lighter weight than the S rank also.
@@Senshidayo what I'm arguing is that I think devs imagined the S rank weapons would be really strong. So because of that, they overvalued how good S rank weapon classes would be and tried to balance their skills/stats. Then because S rank weapons ended up being memes, the S rank weapon classes ended up being gimped (excluding griffon)
@@FishSandvich yeah I agree with you. I think we were saying the same thing different ways to be honest.
For sure, S rank weps are kind of a meme
I cant speak on this with Authority cause the last modern FE game I finished was Awakening but:
Specialist classes like Swordmaster and Halberdier had more identity without all the modern stat and ability creep.
Swordsmasters with no mount, high speed, and middling strength are very valuable if theyre the only people doubling the boss. (Guy, Rutger, Lyn, even Joshua and Mia to ca a lesser extent)
That is far less valuable if your sword wielding Paladin also doubles the boss with comparable strength.
Less so if you have alternate resources like Gambits and Engages to increase your damage output, making Astra and/or bonuses to crit redundant at best.
Like why wait for my Swordmaster to catch up so he can MAYBE get a crit, when I can just use two Paladins and get the job done before the SM gets here.
Oh wait... They REMOVED the crit bonus??
I dont disagree with that choice, cause I bloody HATE fighting Swordmaster Bosses, but still...
I was plotting out a run before TotK took up my gaming time, was going to use Boucheron on Swordmaster to maximize his speed+dex growths. I ended up realizing that bow knight was just better, it has slightly better growths on the things SM is supposed to be good at, and mounted movement, and bows.
Taking crit away from SM and Berserker killed their class identity. They also had tk because of all the other ways of getting crit. I think the solution would have been eother giving them a x4 crit damage multiplier, or having SM add speed to total crit damage, and Berseker to add build to it. That would have let them keep their identity as the crit classes without making them add to crit chance.
I typically always end up reclassing Lapis and Kagetsu to hero. Its just straight up better in alot of cases over swordmaster in this game.
I think other than these 2 points overlooked, I agree with you.
1) it's not fair to compare Axe / Lance well weapons to then include Axe / Lance power, but then not include Sword Power (or make any mention of it) in that analysis. I'd argue that Swordmaster NEEDS sword power.
2) To expand on the point a bit more, Swordmaster's identity is speed. It has 49 speed cap with 20% growth, which are matched with Griffin knight. Your demo shows speed+ inherited, and then you're complaining about damage (even on an over leveled unit, it's still not the best example). So you speed fixed an already speedy unit, and the result you see is that it needs damage still. This is a lot like putting hit+ on a thief or sniper, which are already high dex and high hit units, and then saying it lacks damage.
Basically, try running damage fixing inheritable skills on the class like Sword Power, or Lunar Brace, and then see how it fares. (I still think it's underwhelming simply because swords other than Levin Sword for magic users or Wille Glanz for Alear are weak, to which Swordmaster like you said is locked in and cannot make use of either of these swords).
Swordmaster only really has 1 niche I can think of, and that’s only after Ch23 when you get access to Georgios Lodestar Rush on characters with Sword Proficiency, which is a fantastic boss killing tool. While Griffin and Paladin also get S Swords, Swordmaster gets 8 hits compared to their 7 as a backup class, and gets the overall power of Georgios to play with over Divine Dragon’s 9 hits with a Silver Blade. From some very questionable maths, I believe 0% Growths Swordmaster Kagetsu with an Ike Engraved Georgios and Bond Rank 14+ is able to one round Ch25 Lumera with Lodestar Rush from full health without needing Draconic Hex, which the other classes mentioned probably can’t do. When not Lodestar-in however, Swordmaster is fine at best and horribly outclassed by a ton of other physical classes at worst.
I think the reason a lot of units lack identity is because in this game its about how you build them with the emblems. You can make a high crit high avoid sword master with using the right emblems and forging the right weapons.
I demand that the Swordmaster class be balanced with the Hero class! S-tier weaponry should be limited to single-weapon infantry or armored classes. Mounted classes and multi-weapon classes should cap weaponry at A-tier.
If they gave swordmaster an “astra assist” skill, which would reduce their chain damage to 3% of the enemy’s max health but it hits 5 times each with the flat 80% so your average chain on swordmaster is usually a bit stronger than other units, and gave berserker’s chain attacks a chance to crit might actually change the outlook on them. Like, do you want to go swordmaster or berserker for the chance to deal extra in a chain attack, or do you go hero for brave assist at full health and warrior for longer range chain attacks and just a strong player phase unit. Heck, we could even toss in halberdier and have pincer attack be changed too so your attacking unit receives a true damage boost or the halberdier can break with their chain if the enemy is pincered between the attacker and halberdier.
IS should have leaned in heavier towards giving the the backup units chain attack skills. Biggest missed opportunity.
It'd be cool if Swordmasters had innate 1-2 range on swords to give them their niche
They'd still be balanced by being a footlocked class with mediocre strength, but now they can reliably enemy phase with a silver sword or something, which ties into their dodge tank nature
Swordmaster has always been one of the most overrated classes in the franchise but yeah this is just sad.
As for classes not feeling all that different from each other I'd blame stat creep throughout the franchise, 1 or 2 point in any different stat was a huge deal when stat caps were 20 in all stats and you weren't likely to even hit those. But in recent games when a character can get 20 in every stat just from leveling up to level 10 these small differences really aren't noticeable unless you're like LTC'ing.
I have no idea why they brought back build, that was like the worst mechanic fire emblem had.
A 1 point of difference in DEX, you might as well do a crit build on a Wyvern then if its that small.
Swordmasters were only OP in FE6 when swords were overwhelmingly the best weapon in the game because of how low hitrates are in that game.
I wish IS was less stingy with magic 2 range swords and gave sword master better magic stats.
It is sad because swordmaster is my favorite class.
Good thing they have s tier weapons so thry can use a weapon slightly better than a silver weapon with 1000% less availability.
If this game had stronger 1-2 range swords I can see swordmasters being more viable but that’s just classic Fire Emblem babey
I feel like this video could be 10 seconds long.
Sword foot locked with low str, no crit and meh at best class skill without anything else interesting going on.
Run Through synergizes well with Halberdier's Pincer Attack, but when you can just 1-round a unit with another class, it becomes completely irrelevant.
What should be done is that:
• Flier classes, mount classes, and hybrid classes can no longer use S-tier weapons. With some exceptions.
• Only infantry and armor classes that are locked to one weapon type can use S-tier weapons.
• Swordmasters, Berserkers, Halberdiers, Snipers, and Sages now have at least 20% crit bonus and specific combat arts
Swordmaster is kind of in the same boat as the other foot locked "specialists"(zerker/halb/sniper) in that its lost its crit boost, its higher rank means almost nothing since all your good stuff is mostly C rank, and its stat line isnt much better than another class/s with more to offer(griffin in this specific case, similar stat/growth line, has staves/flight utility, though backups tend to have better emblem boosts+chain attacks). Swords arent really all that worse than lances imo, being only 2 mt less, 4 on smash weapons, but also being lighter on wt so less likely to face any AS penalties, swords actually ahead in killer/levin for whatever reason, . Run through is a lackluster class skill and only really has any (personal) use to me when paired with a halb since it lets you more easily slide into a pincer formation whether it be on the current target or nearby one if paired with canter.
I think the crit boosts got taken away due to engraves/forging/inherits being a thing, but still think they should have retained some innate +10 or so, heck snipers get it still under specific conditions, but the real issue is just weapon variety sucks, which isnt unique to engage really, as said above most of your good weapons are C rank, with B/A reserved for the brave/silver smash weapon, in swords case there's wo dao but unless you want no AS penalty or need that 90 hit wo dao is just a worse killing edge, really needed some specialist locked weaponry to give the units some kind of merit.
Hero traditionally has 2 weapons and swordmaster/lance master/halbredier 1 weapon in Fire Emblem. Berserkers usually just use axes and warrior traditionally has axes and bows or crossbows.
I think they frankly just lacked creativity because they used all old classes from older Fire Emblem besides mage knight and high priest. Fliers and horse units also tend to be op, which makes sense in a war game, but I agree you’d like infantry to have some reason to exist but if I can fly and nuke you or use hit and run tactics, why walk up with a sword?
Noticed other comments mentioning this but real Lapis gaming is berserker till dex cap, warrior till Marth, go to swordmaster, equip Brave Sword or Caladbolg, and Ike Georgios for epic engage attacks and avo monster
I think the one thing I can see Swordmaster being good at is as a pure avoid tank. If you stack avoid and combine it with the class' high speed, you might be able to make it so that enemies have single digit hit rates on that unit.
I can see how a Marth or Chrom equipped Swordmaster could potentially be pretty viable. Marth for dodge purposes and Chrom to boost the unit's offensive power. Roy could also be used to increase offensive potency as well as provide Holdout+++ as insurance. Funnily enough Hector might be interesting with Swordmaster because he can boost power as well as provide +20 Crit when activating Storm's Eye. Quick Riposte might actually be more useful on a fast unit like Swordmaster because said unit can avoid being doubled when attacked and still double back against fast enemy units like Griffins, Wyverns, and other Swordmasters.
So, I don't think swordmaster is ever going to be the top dog in any game. But that's not a problem, being just good or even fun to use is enough. Is Engage's SM one of those things? No, and that's the massive issue there
Aside from speed which can be overkill, unlike damage, what do I do with it? Many more options are objectively better and doing silly stuff like Levin SM is discouraged because the class has less magic than Great Knight so it's not even fun to use if I want to make a different build.
To make this class more fun they could make it so that smash swords like Georgies can function as regular weapons instead, or have swordfaire to use the levin effectively (Which is different than efficiently). Again it wouldn't be top tier, maybe not even "good" by FE regular standards, but it would give me the impression that this class is truly a master of swords instead of being the actual worst sword user in the game. And I could have fun building Ultra Weeb Veyle wielding a massive, cool blade without feeling like I am giving up so much manpower.
I think SwordMasters should have one of the highest crit and avoid in the game but give their counter classes tools to negate the SM's strengths. For example, lance users love to stab as their primary attack method and the SM's can dodge that but during their turn, they can use a sweeping attack that SM's have a very hard time dodging, but the stab move could be a quick action that would give a Lance user first strike even during the enemy turn but balanced by comparatively low accuracy. Maybe also give armored units crit immunity from Swords that don't slay armored classes. I'm just spit balling.
The only success I really had with SM was Lapis and Yunaka... dodge tanking.
on Hard mode.
The best way to use swordmaster is to mod the game.
As much as I loved this game initially, the combat & map design feeling much better at first glance, in terms of depth/longevity it falls hard compared to the likes of 3H, or the 3DS opuses. After the initial run, the balance issues become glaring. So many useless classes in there, in the state they're provided. The weapon progression system is poorly done, the footsoldiers are mostly crap outside of warrrior, the snipers are meh too. Paladin is just bad, and the fliers are OP. GRs are all over the place for some
I barely use any of the S rank weapons
It be interesting if the next fire emblem still has a high level of customization, but not anyone can be anything like in Engage.
I would like to see more interesting character passives as well and maybe even have a second adaptive character passive that changes based on what class they are and only that character gets that passive while on that class.
Let's say every character is limited to a maximum of 3 options each for base class choice to second seal into (and then the base class branches out into more options, so minimum of 6 or more advanced class options). There will be still customization, but character choice matters more than just what growths the character has, and if you need a certain type of class to have a balanced army composition then you would choose a worse unit by growths because he got the class that you need.
Better character passives would help with making the characters stand out more than just their growths as well, to the point of a character can have Vander bad levels of growths, but has an insanely good passive that you got to take them like if initiating combat and does not get counter attacked, then gain an insane +35% crit rate...
Now take the limited class choice for each character and unique class passives based on the character, that same unit could have a +2 bow range as a Sniper passive and now suddenly he has insane range with a long bow and killer bow where he will never be counter attacked on player phase and with the killer bow is guaranteed crits and one shotting fools left and right despite having terrible growths.
This suddenly makes the game and characters a whole lot more interesting by balancing raw power characters to weak power characters with insane passives, and choosing characters based on their unique possibilities they bring to the table based on what you need with an archer, healer, offensive stave user, hard carry, tank, etc.
Being limited to 1range and footlocked is already rough because it limits options so much, but even when there occasionally is a unit in attack range, being 1range and relying on doubling to kill essentially guarantees that you will take damage every time you enter combat. If this class was crit-oriented (turning speed into crit, for example) or dodge-oriented (although that would still be bad because dodge tanks arent that great) and had better stats, that would be less of an issue and the class might have a niche, but as it stands, its only upside is literally its aesthetic. Because Judgment Cut still rocks.
however the outit is 1000x better than a wyvern, and if im spening half of the game watching alear then... nuff said
The only character i used as a sword master was lapis i ended up running her with eirika and a lucina engraved +0 caladbolg and she didnt usually get hit by anything (the main perk of this was that it allowed her to solo sombron) but outside of dodge tanking there really isnt a whole lot of need for swordmaster.....and you have to have a lot of str growth as a personal for the purpose of making up for these horrible offensive growths
The only thing I get from Swordmaster is that it's meant to sync up with Halberdier and allow them a guaranteed way to double up with pincer
But that scenario creates problems of it's own because it can lead either unit in an undesirable position on enemy phase.
it does have a cool outfit tho
When you allow everyone to be anything you can't have classes that are good cause then everyone picks them. So all the stats are balanced, and that makes land and solo weapon be worse off.
clicked because i thought this was going to be lapis slander and basically already typed 5 pages to defend her. thankfully that isnt the case
The sword master is the sword master I don't really care about swordmaster that much. I find it bland it looks cool but for me I would choose other classes over it thats just me
Its an absolute travesty what they did to Sword Master and Berserker in this game. No crit boost what so ever in a class known to be a crit beast
Swordmaster should have had the 30% speed growth, and S rank weapons should be good, and it should have a better ability. Be sweet if it allowed them to turn a sword into a ranged attack somehow
Somewhat agree but that's only a stat based improvement there needs to be more of a gameplay mechanical improvement too like maybe give it the ability to use knives or a bow for utility or apply a unique debuff only it's capable of.
I like to think if a sword master attacks a mounted unit while in cover and that unit has their weapon broken it should apply a debuff that forces them to dismount for 1-2 turns where they lose their speed advantage making them alot less selfish like a dodge tank and more contributing to the army, it would also make sense lore wise because sword masters are supposed to be unmatched with a sword when it comes to skill maybe not in raw might like hero but skill and speed.
@RaidenKaiser if S rank weapons were good, that would help in niche, although it might make sense to take away the A+ from griffen knights, since they rival in speed. Paladins as they are now aren't a big rival, and generals are slow and build different.
Why I would like them to have a skill that increases a swords range is because that is one of the biggest flaws of the weapon type. Maybe have it work like Advance, but doesn't give the opponent an opportunity for counter attack, and can be done at any point in the movement.
The problem is they gated wind sword behind emblems and Levin swords operate off of magic. They really need to reintroduce an early game ranged sword option like axes and spears have. But traditionally Fire Emblem has lacked it so it continues to be a weakness.
I did like the introduction of the hurricane axe as a magical axe but honestly there is no reason they couldn’t introduce 2 early/late game ranged magic and physical options for each major weapon. Lances and axes already have hand axe, tomahawk, javelin and spear but sword needs everything lol.
Swordmaster was just insanely overpowered in the past.
Engage is the most balanced Fire Emblem and the first time Intelligent Systems actually balanced the series instead of going "lol, weapon breaks thereby game is balanced"
Some classes they over nerfed, but at the same time we can take a break from swordmaster meta for one game...
Well I guess making lots of things straight up broken is a great way to balance the game
They weren't OP in 3 houses
@@IcedCoffeeGaming Everything was OP in three houses, that game is the least balanced fire emblem has ever been.
I guess if everything is OP, is anything really OP then.... *smug face*
Now all you need us a video on Berserker and you've done the weapon triangle with single weapon classes
They just suck in FE:Engage and that's that.
Swordmaster is really not a early-mid game class, S tier sword with no 1-2 range access like hero, low strength grow...etc, but i find this class really shine when it come to dodge tank with Marth. Eg Lapis with 17 levels as hero (starsphere, Avoid +20) and then change to swordmaster when you get Marth back, Brave sword let you double extra hit from Marth's passive, Caladbolg +1, Slayer swords are also good. My lapis now is just unkillable (chapter 23)
Maddening-classic btw 😊
The problem is with the whole enemies will never attack you if they can’t damage you thing that you need to be able to survive hits anyway even if they do hit every attack and a ike tank is just gonna be more consistent. Dodging can occasionally supplement some classes natural bulk but you shouldn’t rely fully on it. If you avoid is too high they can’t bait enemies and you shouldn’t throw them into a situation where if they get hit they die. Swordmaster forces you to go all in on avoid and it’s not really worth it especially with the lack of 1/2 range
@@ultimaterecoil1136 I absolutely agree with you. It's the yunaka-corrin problem, swordmaster is not really worth the cost, but not that many classes can be a tank in later chapters (i did a few maddening save files), my team are yunaka-chloe both thief and seadall dual support to handle 1 direction, veyle-soren- madeline general ike 1 direction, and the rest is bonded shield strategy, so the problem is i need an unit who work well with that strat as a team, having a dodge tank who can body block or redirect aggro to damage dealer enemy phase like anna bonded shield...ect. Enemies in maddening focus on the thing it can hit and deal damage, so sword master shine as a high avoid high speed unit with no flyer or armored weakness for my strat😅
Swordmaster can work even in maddening but it's not optimal. It's mediocre without a wrath build on kagetsu and panette (mainly because panette has nuts strength accessibility and kagetsu has stong bases) it can work out better than zerker at least and it's a 1000 times more useful than mage canoneer.
Mage canonner is supposed to be a support, with draconian hex can debuff at longe range, if you stack it rivals ring, becomes THE crowd control unity while on flames, and poison is nice, I guess.
@@guillesamaable I think I'm fine with the damage it should be low for how it's meant to be played as support from a distance but it shouldn't have accuracy so bad that it most enemies have a 30--40% hit rate if you are lucky.
@@RaidenKaiser you do get better crowd control while engaged with Corrin. Might experiment with the three houses emblem. 2 out of 3 is good for the class (poison and flame gambit)
I turned Bunet into a mage cannoneer, with draconic hex and more importantly Divine Pulse+. Accuracy penalties based on distance don't matter if your using your luck as accuracy anyway.
Just use a luck boosting emblem so you can be as close to 50 luck as possible (where Divine Pulse+ becomes 100% accurate and you can even guarantee hitting through avoid tiles), but having 30 luck is guaranteed 80 accuracy anyway.