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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ค. 2024
- Other videos used as footage:
Toffee's FE8 100% growths LTC (Ephraim route):
• Fire Emblem: The Sacre...
Marcus/Merlinus support recorded by Xenomic:
• Fire Emblem: Blazing S...
A big thanks to ArcherBias and Vivian Aladren for script feedback.
No this isn't going to replace my main content of romhack LTCs, this is just a nice change of pace. - เกม
So what you're saying is that FE7 is better than FE8 because of Merlinus
The Lords in 8 are Merlinus who can fight though 🤔
@@ThatGuyThai Merlinus in 6/7 is one of the most interesting things about the GBA era games, especially in 7 where they showed just HOW MUCH they learned from 6. Making the Convoy separate from the Lord is such a powerful decision and really changes a lot of high end dynamics and strategies. The fact that Merlinus CAN'T fight is what makes him cool, provides unique and dynamic strategies and stories, like the rush of interceptingt he reinforcing cavs on the Raven map, and brings the Lords down to a different role as they can't just, consumable tank nearly the same way. Could you imagine how much more of beast-meme Hector could be if he an infinite supply of consumables?
Saying a Lord is just a Merlinus who can fight is kinda like saying you shouldn't bring a dancer because you could just bring another 'real' unit. Sure he doesn't do as much, but, he's a tradebot who doesn't take a deploy slot.
@@zswords never said he wasn't good lol but the Lords are him if he could fight. The better equivalent would be a dancer who could also fight, rather than just a dancer.
@@ThatGuyThai Glad to see my point went over your head and that you only looked at the least important part of my analysis. Yes, units that can do more are better than units can do less.
This is can be bad for the game and poor game design that leads to a worse overall experience for everyone involved, because why bother seriously caring about any other units when you can just throw Seth or Chrobin at everything and call it a day.
Heck, why not make it so every unit can dance and has access to the convoy?
This is why Merlinus is 'better' than Supply Lords, and why OG pacifist dancers were 'better' than modern Battle Dancer: They're worse units, which makes for a better game as you have to apply them more tactfully. I put airquotes around the 'better's in this paragraph because many aspects of Good and Better are subjective, and sometimes yeah, it's nice to have a beatstick to solve your problems with.
@@zswords your point is redundant because no one was making any arguments otherwise lmao. Yeah I like Merlinus in 6 and 7 as well. I like that my Lords in 8 have convoy too. It's been vastly overlooked and underrated as a tactical option the units provide.
The utility Merlinus gives your units is nice but there are so many more tactful line options when your Merlinus unit can also duel and doesn't take a deployment slot.
Move > Supply > Trade > Supply > Attack / Canto, on a force deploy with mounted promotions pretty good. If they're gonna give it to me for free, I'll use it. If they only offer it through Merlinus, I might use it while deployment slots offer the luxury.
Merlinus is nowhere near as good as a dancer though.
Metaslave Elitists when you suggest that Cavs are not the only good units in the game
people really don't rate the Jobbers properly. not every guy is gonna be endgame juggernaut fodder, sometimes you just need a guy who's good enough and capable of being anywhere to plug a gap, and that's fine
solid vid op
This is a problem with gaming communities as a whole and that admittedly, the Fire Emblem fandom is actually handling better than other communities.
"Your character isn't top tier? = unusable garbage"
Ignore that maybe you get it early, you'll need it for something in particular or it's good at doing that in particular, etc.
It's ok for games to have mid stuff. Especially a game like Fire Emblem where you can permanently miss something or, dear lord, someONE
@@nicocchi the fire emblem community does not at all handle it "better" than any other community. the fire emblem community is utterly focused on Ultimate Utility as your unit progresses into endgame, has been for the last twelve years, and shows little evidence of slowing down.
@@nicocchi i think that Fire Emblem handles it better that the pokemon community for example.
never understood the low ratings oswin usually gets. i dont think theres a single person in history that has played fe7 without heavily relying on oswin early game
I'm the exception... I relied heavily on Marcus and Hector instead
"low movement bad" gorilla brain activates
I do really appreciate highlighting what can be frustrating when trying to talk to people who learned "cav good knight bad" 6 years ago and are unwilling to look at the deeper context of what those units can actually do with the time they have, and this is a great example of that. I don't fully agree with every point made (mainly the comparisons to what high level fe8 play is like) but the broader point is something I definitely think needs to be addressed in the community.
I mean Cav is a good class, knight is a bad class is relatively true, even as someone who prefers playing ironman > LTC. However units are more than just their class and Oswin for example combines bases, little combat unit competition at his jointime and map objectives where his low move isn't a significant hindrance.
@@4ny3ody congratulations on making the exact same point while trying to correct it
@@Mantis472 I was agreeing just adding detail that you left out.
Good video. It speaks to a lot of the reasons I'm not as personally interested in unit viability discussions (not even as a diss to the inherent idea of them because knowing how good a unit is for clearing a game will always be useful ofc) as other discussions on these games because I find oftentimes they stop at how good the tools you have are and don't really get into what those tools say about the game's design, its narrative, that character specifically, etc. It's easy to point and laugh at say Roy's performance (an infamously easy piece of bait for "casual elitists," especially when comparing him to FE9 Ike) but not as easy to talk about how that ties into stuff like FE6's map design or his character arc (and also FE9 Ike's, for that matter) of being unexpectedly thrust into a role he was not prepared for.
I mean, I think saying Fe6 did a satisfying character arc is giving it too much credit. The story is fine and solid but I wouldn't say Roy is a character the game even manage to make me invested in.
@@Noahs_Chair" satisfying character arc "
90% of the game is literally Roy, Merlinus and Guinevere talking about stuff that progress the plot and that's it, Roy never goes into any arc or changes as a character
Heck, everything about what people say about Roy's " character growth " is supports lol
@@mysmallnoman I meant I don't care for Roy as a character supports included. Main Story Roy doesn't even qualify as a character.
Oh my god wendy's bases
Unlike Wendy he joins much earlier, has much better growths, has better weapons type ( for his game ), and has maps of free xp for himself
@@mysmallnomanshe still sucks doe
This video only briefly commented on it, but counting the amount of time a unit is around to help, does change your perspective on how good/useful a unit is.
Obviously, if they're the best unit in that chapter that cannot be replaced at all things are more than a bit different but the subtle emphasis on "good maps" adds a lot to how you think about contributions.
Tl;dr my man lowen (and oswin)
my man lowen
Having experienced the 2011 fandom, and the seeming obligation to post 'PEMN' any time someone talks about their Nino popping off, just to signal to everyone that you read efficiency tier lists and definitely don't get your ideas from late-2000s Gamefaqs guides, this was kind of cathartic to watch.
I'm getting some war PTSD flashbacks from just recalling that era, dear god lmao
To be fair, the fact you remembered so much persons saying "PEMN" was maybe because the opposite was true, a lot of persons were saying she was just the best. And I saw a lot of these kind of persons. Also some hillarious "If she's not good, you don't know how to play her", arrogance was on all side of this discussion. And in my opinion (probably biaised, I remember myself saying sometimes that it's not because you have A good Nino that Nino IS good), I feel "PEMN" more respectful of the personal experience than "If you don't agree, you don't know how to play". Why? Because while saying it means nothing, you don't actually saying that you played badly. It means to not focus on a run when one character turned right to say if she's that good or not. But "You don't know how to play"... It's a direct offensive of the game style of the player.
Maybe I'm just Naive here but I really don't see, myself, the problem saying "Personnal Experience Means Nothing" when someone claim that a unit who need a lot of baby-sitting to have a possibility to be good to be "the best". But today, I prefer to say "If that's the kind of unit for you, good, enjoy it! It won't always be the case consistently but when it is the case, enjoy!"
Short term unit investment feels like something this group of people never seems to take into account, most likely because as you said before, they play what I call Theory Emblem instead of doing a standard run, while Personal Experience Means Nothing in the context of theoretical discussion, it(Theory Emblem) goes out the window the moment that top tier unit fails to hit their averages or gets crit in an ironman, Plans can often fall apart at the first sign of combat and this isn't quite thought about enough. Nice video.
Me who is playing sacred stone plus fully prepared to go hard on seth only for him to randomly die to a horseslayer in the first fog of war map changing the direction of the entire playthrough.
This is one of the only videos I have seen that analyzes units by their purpose instead of stats (the only other one I can remember right now is dondon's draft picks explained) and its fucking amazing and I wish there was more of it
The more you start thinking like that the less you want to take place in unit discussion.
I'm really glad to have helped proofread some of the script for this video!
On the whole, I think game sense is just a super powerful thing, and casual elitism generally doesn't come with the game sense you need to make properly informed decisions. I think the HHM pegasi point is my personal favorite, as it's really easy to say "Wow, look at these enemies with poor damage and speed and defense" and write them off... until you actually play HHM Birds of a Feather/Noble Lady/Pirate Ship/Dread Isle. They're not strong, fast, or bulky, but they're accurate, mobile, and well-placed.
Honestly the funniest part of casual elitism is when players get rocked by something they've written off and STILL don't realize that maybe they just aren't respecting the game enough. Like, wow, yeah, those pegasi are really wimpy. Especially when they're killing your Canas/Lucius/Florina/Priscilla/Guy/Raven/etc.
The Pegasus Knights are my favorite point in all of this discussion. They're usually dismissed for having weak AS and defenses, but Casual Elitists usually would be the type of players to throw their juggernauts in range of like 5 pegasi because pegasi bad, but they all have Steel Lances, 4 of them delete themselves onto said juggernaut, and the juggernaut dies to the 5th one because they didn't take into consideration the pegasi were accurate and all had strong weapons. Usually serves as a wake up call lol.
The way I heard it, back in the old days of StarCraft, when people would get on the forums and question every build order made by the pros and assert that certain units or plays were just "always better" or the like, the answer would be that these commenters were "playing TheoryCraft, not StarCraft." I'm not sure if that's the sole origin of the term, but it couldn't be a better fit for the way the broader FE community talks about "Efficiency" and quotes Oifey bot instead of actually playing the game. There's a reason I removed Oifey Bot from my discord.
On the FE7 isn't FE8 point, and Marcus is not Seth, ALSO hard agree. I did a Seth solo pretty effortlessly of FE8 outside of the Gorgon Egg map, which took a few resets. For FE7, I had to actively start RNG abusing on Marcus solo, ended up doing far more full map clears on seize maps bc of rear reinforcements threatening force-deployed lords on maps like Dragon's Gate, and by the endgame he needed the body ring to use heavier weapons to keep up in speed, which meant he then couldn't carry Hector and I ended up soft-locking myself on Cog of Destiny.
Anyway someone left this video in my discord and I figured I'd give it a watch. Great points, solid agree with a ton of what you said. This coming from someone on the near tail-opposite side of the video space, where I almost SOLELY talk about design elements in the main series and barely touch on Romhacks or LTC. I know that my old tier lists suck, my older mindset was mainly informed by other videos, and I ended up parroting a lot more than bringing unique insights to the table on the more talked-about games. Hence over the past year I've taken a lot more effort to go against that grain.
I don't hate LTCs or "Efficiency" in FE. I hate casual elitists who ruin conversations.
Glad you liked the video! And I'm quite proud of my regular content as well, so I hope you stick around.
Yeah ofc @@lowresu you've earned my like and subscribe
I'm not an LTC player, and I usually end up gravitating away from armor knights in most games because they struggle to keep pace with the army. But I end up using Oswin for a lot of the game every time I play FE7.
I think FE7 really plays to an armor knight's strengths. For the first half of the game especially, there are a lot of maps where it's pretty useful to block a point and not move too much. And it's not even something I consciously think about. I just look at the map and Oswin is just naturally the right man for the job.
I think the main idea with tier lists is how good is the character in general. I just recently did an Echoes playthrough and consider Celica to be one of the best lords in the handheld era of FE and I got blasted by people saying “frail foot-locked lord bad” despite her being one of the only characters in the game with options to attack both physical defense and res, instant access to the convoy, healing, and your literal only answer to the necrodragons early on in the game with seraphim. I think its annoying to hear people who dont play the game enough telling you the unit you owe a lot of your success to is bad bc one niche player can use one niche strategy that cheeses the game, while a casual player like myself trying the hardest difficulty for the first time experiences the game differently.
When I played fe7 HHM for the first time, Oswin carried me through the early game bc I could split the load between him and other units, he helped level weaker units and drew in annoying high mobility units so my foot-locked units would be in striking distance on player phase. But optimizing elitist players say “armor knight bad” so he gets shit on all the time when he is in fact really good bc a casual like me could use him the way I saw effective and he did the job better than anyone else. Pretending he doesnt exist after I get the really strong units is stupid, so I totally agree with this sentiment
To be fair, armor knights in general tend to have a history of being either really good or relly bad, Oswin being one of the good ones. It's sometimes hard to find their right usage unless they either have a specific niche (triangle Armor attack is hella fun to pull off in FE6, but otherwise gimmicky and hard to pull off), or their stats are really good like Oswin here. I guess it could be said the same about almost every other unit that get's trash talked by the elitist branch of the comunnity.
@yompigebhart7282 The one way I think of Oswin and what makes him stand out a lot more from other Armor Knights in the series is that Oswin very much feels like a "mini Jagen" for Hector's little crew. And while he is less mobile then Marcus the actual Jagen he has the combat stats to fulfill a somewhat similar role of weakening units or just being a bastion to hold back a chokepoint or reinforcement barrage.
@@astralguardian5930 Good analogy, it's a very common yet true way Oswin can contribute early and even far into the midgame reliably.
Ngl, when I tried doing numeric tiering a few years back, it really becomes apparent when certain units are truly "bait" units like you described when you have to actually evaluate these units on a map by map basis.
My favorite new term for this is the "Theoretical Player." People who spend more time talking about the games rather than actually playing them, so they don't have the proper understanding that more experienced people who replay the vanilla games and/or do challenge runs would have.
This video really speaks to how a more experienced player is able to deeply understand and analyze even a single unit like Lowen, as opposed to the surface level understanding a Theoretical Player would have. In this case, "Lowen good because high move, Oswin bad because low move."
On the topic of FE8, probably worth mentioning that FE8 Sethless exists as a category precisely because Seth is so dominant (and it's a cool category!). But FE7 Marcusless is never really on the table for LTCs or other challenge runs.
Anyone feel like making a Marcusless-run new world record? The title is free...painful, but free
@@yompigebhart7282 I feel like doing that… for Binding Blade!
@@JakoWako Gods bless this fool, for he is about to enbark on a lengendary journey to surpass us mere mortals... wait you said 6? Cut the cameras
True discussing FE8 gameplay is so boring because it just revolves all around Seth.
There's a lot of issues. It seems like more people play these games like one time only and try to play the "expert". Even FE8, which is an easy game just like the rest of the gba games, they don't exactly have super intense ramp ups on higher difficulty, and often all your characters in the gba era games grow much better on average than older titles. You get players throwing around terms like "opportunity cost" incorrectly, vaguely saying "efficiency" as if the word alone explains anything about unit usage, and a lacking understanding that ltc style "efficiency" is just much more an inconsistent mess the more "efficient" they tend to be, because more than half the time people are just synonymously using it to describe vaguely rushing things. The faster you go, the less consistent anything in a game rolling random improvements on units will go.
Let alone the fact that most of these "efficiency" players like to talk about how quickly they play, as if efficient play isn't build on either having so much former playtime you know of tactics that trivialize encounters without consequence (playing casually with high game knowledge), or spending significantly long amounts of time outside of the game planning out moves and decisions (literal ltcing). You really do end up with the worst of both worlds getting people that "plan" extensively, and then play like an ape without any real observation of how things are going in a playthrough and no one actually testing things out (which would take multiple playthroughs considering FE is designed to be inconsistent and players are expected to change lanes when things are not going in favor of what they expect). Efficient shouldn't be the way people talk about things, pace, long term consistency, short term stability, resource expenditure, ease of use and adaptability should all be the points people predicate their points on, not just seeing explanations they like or dislike and saying "very efficient/not efficient" as if it means anything.
Toffee mentioned hype.
A lot of my hatred for things comes from playing the games so much I know inside and out every aspect, it creates weird situations where you say stuff like "yeah this unit effectively does nothing after/before event X." Like Raven and Pent for example, Pent does nothing until after the "commercial break" but lowen does nothing after it.
Clerics often fall into this trap, where they have 0 utility until the warp and or rescue staff show up but you bring them along anyway and get annoyed at keeping them alive while you put grunts in front of enemies to take damage.
Yep. This is precisely why I used to (and still do to this day) avoid these topics when I used to frequent places like Serenes Forest forums back in to 2010s. It's even the reason why I ignore tier list videos, too. They're breeding grounds that encourages narrow-minded ideas about unit viability. For a game like Fire Emblem, which allows flexibility to play the game however you want (with a plethora of tools and options at your disposal), I find the debates largely pointless at the end of the day.
These discussions have value in high level, efficiency gameplay, but your average player will usually not abide by the same rules as the smaller percentage who knows the games inside and out enough to know what the best possible run looks like. And it's usually the ones with the most knowledge of a game that are humble enough to not push their own playstyle as the golden standard.
I love watching runs from people like Dondon because I learn new stuff and strats that I can apply to my own unique experience. And it's a fun environment to be in because I'm quietly learning from fellow vets who aren't being overbearing with their experience. Meanwhile, I have to avoid everywhere else on the internet so that the experience isn't ruined by all the toxicity.
Glad to see a vanilla-related video without any foul energy behind it. Very good watch!
Great video that i agree a lot. I really dislike the type of people that go Mount = great despite ignoring everything else.
I remember seeing once someone rate Fe6 Juno like Higher than someone like Dieck or Lot just because "Flier utility". Yeah she can fly, she also only has 2 to 5 maps of doing it 3 where theres no terrain to fly over and 2 where she gets shot down if carrying virtually anyone in several no fly zones.
It's just clear they have never actually used her but just heard a random LTC tier list and parroted it as fact.
I once saw someone try to argue that flier utility makes Juno better than PERCEVAL.
I think one think people underlook is the short-term usefulness of characters. Like if the unit is force deployed. there isnt really too much of a reason NOT to use them for that chapter. even if you arent going to use them long term
Availability is a big annoyance for me personally; I get why it's so important but it isn't the be all, end all people make it out to be. I think Devdan is better than Mia in FE9 for example and lots of people bring that point up, when there's so much more to the picture than that.
It's really fun talking about unit viability but the specific vocal minority you mentioned gets waaaaaay too annoying about it!
Availability matters, but you actually have to be contributing something of value during that availability. Mia's around longer than Devdan is, but she's not really doing anything. Devdan, at the bare minimum, probably gets deployed during the long Serenes chapter because you get a lot of deployment slots and his bases are solid enough for that point of the game. So while he has less availability, in practice his number of good maps is higher.
Oswin's bases are excellent for early HHM and his stat spread even helps him hold his own in messy chapters like Four-Fanged Assault (Linus)
As an avid Fe7 lover, thank you for making this video. Having real voices and different perspectives in community discussions is great for the Fe community.
(I initially had more to say but i think this is the main point I wanted to make. Awesome video!)
I'm not an LTCer but I like to think myself fairly seasoned at "hardcasualing", and this video speaks to me greatly. Averages are only a metric of measuring a character in a vacuum - for example, Erk gets dumped on because Pent is literally better, but the asset Erk brings is you have him a lot sooner than Pent and thus he has the potential to be better overall? And he lacks Lucius's exceptionally low bulk and is much more flexible to build up than Canas (who is stuck with Flux until you can get him beefy enough to hold his ground with Nosferatu), and thats discounting that all of them are suspect to RNG too (and you have Erk 2 whole chapters longer than Canas and Lucius too at that). So despite lacking Pent's general reliability, Canas' special tomes, or Lucius's robust magic/res and strong staff level on promo, Erk still brings a lot to the table! But the Elitist Casual can't see that, they can only see the numbers.
As for myself, I rate Oswin higher than Lowen but that's because I like to use my cavalry as less of a spearhead and more of a player phase support and have them keep pace with Hector and Oswin who hold the lines on EP :) but i've always been an armor knight apologist hehe.
I like to use my cavalry as crisis reaction units. I let the infantry set the pace of my advance, and use cavalry to cover flanks from which enemies might approach unopposed, or to rush to places where Plan A went horribly wrong and help is needed immediately. As such, I gravitate towards Sain, who with some investment will generally develop into someone who can just delete an enemy unit on player phase, and while his defenses aren't the best, has a pile of HP that lets him survive the enemy turn and then retreat once his job is done.
What is your opionion on Erk in lyn mode? I heard that lucius gets close to Canas' level due to better availability, which I disagree with, because it is in way less chapters than Erk and on those chapters Lucius has more competition than Erk, so if anything, while Lyn mode makes Lucius slightly better, it helps Erk way more than Lucius
@@xaropevic7918 Lyn mode can benefit or hurt Erk equally due to his average all rounder growths, if he gets RNG screwed he’ll be worse off than if you skipped Lyns Story but if he gets blessed he can be much better. I don’t think Lyns Story affects Erk as dramatically as the Christmas Cavs because by nature of being a mage his damage output is high because enemy resistance is generally low and he should be avoiding direct combat either way. Fwiw I generally prefer Canas and Lucius over Erk but that’s my personal play style lol
As a very casual enjoyer i love Bosswin. A friend of mine once said: "Give hima Vulneray, 2 Javelins and he is gonna CHOKE. THAT. POINT!"
He is a cool dude and great Support for Dorcas after he got his A Rank with Bartre, which together with Bartre&Canas B complets the frontline breakthrough sqaud. Dont mess with the boys
Knowing what I know now of how you think about these games I feel like I've tortured you with my weird spreadsheets...
I recognize that screen layout. I miss nadnap. Hope he's doing well. With dondon resurrected from the dead maybe he's next
I do talk to him from time to time. His youtube days are behind him but he's doing just fine.
@@lowresu well that's good to hear
I love Radiant Dawn. Meg exemplifies this point quite a bit. The chapter where you fight Laguz, she can tank a few hits and can guard choke points and healers. Units you want to train (I like Edward for example) van finish any laguz she manages to hit
''get all their opinions from liek 2 years old Mekkah videos''
So basically 80% of this community, right ?
This is such a good video. Easiest sub I’ve had in a long time
Fantastic discussion video, definitely a nice watch. I think it could've used some bgm, but given the intent and form of the video it's not a big deal. Would love to see more stuff like this
I really like Oswin, I almost feel like he's the true Jeigan of FE7.
Marcus never really falls off, even after other characters surpass him in combat, he can still help out due to being able use silvers, having 8 movement, rescue dropping, etc. Not to mention that enemy quality is low in FE7 so he remains viable for a long time.
Oswin starts off amazing and is basically unkillable for a good 10 chapters. His movement sucks, but there are plenty of opportunities for him to get a ton of XP without moving much (ch 13x, ch15-17. On ch18 Pirate ship, a promoted Oswin makes the right and bottom sides of the map into a complete joke. On ch20 Dragon's Gate he can choke any point by himself, and ch22 he can hold the center if you give him a pure water/barrier staff.
After that though, he starts to drop off as he's no longer able to double most enemies, and more powerful magic users start appearing. Sure he's good on Crazed Beast, but the enemies on that map are so pathetic anyone can deal with them.
He's a total liability on Cog of Destiny where most of the magic users are a serious threat. By then though, you've got plenty of powerful characters to finish the game with, so he's not needed anymore.
I deployed him for the last time on my HHM iron man on Sands of Time because I thought he'd be helpful holding off the generals, but he got slept and murdered by the druids. RIP to a real one.
Excellent video all around!
I come at questions like the Oswin vs Lowen debate from the angle of a simple casual player who appreciates the "art" of LTC from afar. Seeing the nuances of these different player mindsets explained from the lens of an LTCer with consideration for the average player is super refreshing.
The Oswin/Lowen debate, and many others, are questions of the player's objectives moreso than the game's objectives for the average player, I think. The way I like to put it is that Oswin's tierlist placement tends not to be "hindered by" the game's objectives, and Lowen's placement isn't necessarily "helped by" the game's objectives, at least not drastically. It's a tiny (though still surely present) difference that's frankly fully negligible to the average player, but a difference nonetheless that could fairly lend creedence to Lowen being just a bit better.
All that aside, the polite and well-reasoned callouts to how tiresome it is to talk to people who endlessly spout "horse good armor bad in all circumstances" and similar old arguments brings me perhaps just a bit more smug enjoyment than it should have. A little nuance goes a long way, and little good ever comes from building a mindset off of electing to figuratively die on a particular hill.
tl;dr we should start touching grass and not plains tiles. Wonderful video homie 💖
-Shoutout to General Oswin for being able to rescue/drop promoted Hector, while Paladin Lowen can't pick up promoted Hector.-
This was an incredible video. Thank you for detailing your point so well.
This was a fantastic meta analysis of the whole oswin vs Lowen effect. It’s also interesting from hearing from the ltc perspective and for sure lowen would be better in that regards.
I think both are great units that can fit different play styles, but usually cavs are unmatched in combat and utility in GBA FE.
One criticism I do have is that, albeit ltcers have a different perspective, we shouldnt really ONLY rate a units utility/rating based on that alone. Everybody does have different playstyle and will value different things. I think it comes down to what the intended goal to accomplish is.
Beat the game in less turns? Complete all side objectives?
Rout every map? It really depends on what players want to do and I don’t feel any one is better than the other, meaning that there’s obviously variation in what people will think is good or not.
This is not to say you’re doing that, you made the perfect defense for this ltc case. I’m just saying it’s something that I think adds substance to unit analysis discussion. Basically, context matters.
High move isn't just good for ltcs though. A character with good movement is super flexible, and cavs have just as good, if not better stats than most other classes. Thing about the GBA era is that the only things that make classes unique is their weapons, move, and in the case of mounted units having canto/high aid. Sure there are stats that tend to get associated with classes, but it's not a law when it comes to the class like what I listed. Even if you have a different playstyle, it doesn't change how good move, canto, and high aid is. While playstyle can effect your perspective on a unit, it really wouldn't move most units very far in their viability.
@@truezephyr4431 while I do think that GBA cavs have just enough stats and a ton of advantages over a plethora of units, I still think that playstyle does indeed influence unit viability and I’ll give you a classic example.
When I Ironman fe7, I always knight crest oswin first as opposed to lowen. He just reaches better stat thresholds for maps like badon, kinship bond and the dread isle so I don’t have to worry too much about survivability. However, when I do a regular playthrough, I always crest lowen instead. I’m the same person, with the same set of values, so obviously the only thing that has changed was my playstyle choice.
Outside of gba this happens more often too. Something like maniac PoR comes to mind, in which generals have the unique niche of talking 0 damage from groups of reinforcements that are super bulky. Some people field them just to hold off sections instead of wiping those waves out. When I did my Ironman, I didn’t use a general, only cavs and I succeeded. In hindsight, had I had a general, I would’ve had an easier time with some maps that I otherwise struggled a bit to complete. I had a different playstyles then most people I see do PoR maniac, I still would rate generals highly even though I didn’t use one.
@@fireembros1165 I do want to reiterate that I wasn't saying it had no effect, but little effect. When I say little effect, I mean as far as making or breaking that deployment slot. In your example, it sounds to me like you're still using Lowen and Oswin in both playstyles, but one gets an earlier knight crest. It changed, but not much...both are still here. But even so, it sounds like you're trying to take a safer route, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's overall the best way to do it. Oswin may hit those bigger thresholds, but Lowen will get high enough to be able to fight those enemies AND then have higher move to get into another position, or he can rescue another unit to make use of his 8 move to save them if needed. You're playing Oswin to his strengths, but not Lowen. He can make ironmans safer in more ways than just standing in the way.
A similar idea can be applied to your use of general in PoR. Titania can also take 0 damage from a wave of enemies. And thanks to canto, she can do other things on her way over there such as doing a rescue drop or poking a different enemy on the way. Once she's cleaned it up, she can return to the group faster. Even if you were to use a different Paladin that is taking more than 0 damage, they can vuln, reposition, kite weakened enemies to feed other units, etc. Again, at the end of the day, you can do it that way because you don't have to think as much...but that doesn't make it better. In a strategy game, availability and flexibility are going to win when we assume a player is using all units in question to the most of their potential.
@@truezephyr4431 Titania can not take 0 damage from waves of reinforcements on maniac mode. Especially at endgame. She cannot do what the generals can do. It’s solely due to the general cap of defense allowing minimal damage over multiple rounds of combats, unfortunately, the cavs cannot reach that threshold. Also her averages are around 18 def at 20, whereas general can almost always hit the 30.
And while I do agree about the lowen argument, slot deployments are SO competitive in HHM that most of the times if I have an option between oswin and lowen, I’ll chose oswin, meaning, even if inadvertently, he will have less value due to snowballing less.
I do agree that the good units don’t stop being good, but I will say there is some significant variance dependent on playstyle.
Say I never get the 2nd knight crest? Then lowen never promotes, and it’s very pheasible to miss it.
@@fireembros1165 Oh oops, my bad. I glossed over it being maniac. That's an important point. Lol. In which case I would still stand on my second use of a paladin there, but you would have to make more precise movements, and I feel in most cases you could, but she is most likely better off staying in the group. Also yeah, if you miss the second knight crest, one of them is getting benched, and that could totally happen. But, that's not fault of the unit, so I don't know if I like considering it too heavily when talking about viability.
As someone who isn't interested in speedruns or LTC's, but mostly does ironmans recreationally, I find Oswin a pretty fantastic unit. You can solo entire maps with him even when rng-screwed, and that's not true for vast majority of units in the game.
Lol I've been playing this game casually since it came out, with my most recent run a few months ago on NSO (annoying I have to beat it a couple times just to get back to Hector Hard Mode, but it's been fun).
Gotta say, I've never found the appeal of LTC runs, and I can't stand promoting units who aren't level 20. I don't think I've ever seen Marcus (or Seth) go beyond level 2 in my life. I literally don't care one drop about tier lists, other than to laugh at people arguing about them.
Everyone have fun in your own way!
I like how I associate Fe11 Jagen with Dondon more than Jagen at this point. Like I'll play DS FE and be like oh sweet dondon151 is in this game.
so what you saying is is that because ulki fe10 has a base speed of 18 untransformed he is better than seth fire emblem (only 12 base speed (yuck)) because fe10 is fe8
excellent video, i'd love more like this
Glad I'm not the only one who's bothered by that type of player. I started calling them "faux elitists" myself semi-recently, and this was a really good dissection of the problem with that kind of mindset, where it stems from, the telltale signs, and why it's a problem. Also kinda symptomatic of why I really tend to not care about unit viability discussion at all, there's a certain point at which it just gets repetitive and seems like a dick-measuring contest more than anything. For someone who's beaten every FE game on the highest difficulty and who has several friends who've done the same, we all feel kinda the same way about that stuff. It matters more for hyper-specific playstyles and scenarios that the average player probably won't even necessarily think about. Some things are gonna be better than others depending on the Fire Emblem game, and understanding it in theory from doomscrolling on r/fireemblem or whatever isn't gonna make you better at applying it in practice.
I've never done a LTC run in my life, but I think they're pretty awesome. I wanna add onto the thing you said about how LTCers are more likely to talk about the one contribution a mid-tier unit makes because this is genuinely the coolest part of LTCs to me. I have an LTCer friend (Juan776, who uploads on YT, though it's been a while) who I've heard plenty of anecdotes from about some random shitter unit doing something crucial for his run or in some cases having beef with a unit for something we never think about (like Guy having 5 con and thus being unable to carry Priscilla lol). For how formulaic unit debates always make every game seem, LTCs never fail to surprise me by using some random unit for an efficient purpose I never would've expected them to fulfill. Meanwhile, I'm sure we all have our fair share of crazy stories from when we weren't nearly as good at Fire Emblem as we are now and the funny units or builds we used, experiences that are unlikely to be replicated. Casual elitists have the most joyless mindset imo because they siphon all the player expression and fun out of playing and discussing the games compared to both the highest and lowest levels of skill.
I like this video a lot. Thanks for making it. Before I make my comment, I should also include that when I make tier judgments, I, too, am also skipping Lyn's story and do not have it in mind when considering characters' tiers. That being said, let's talk.
Personally, I do have Oswin in the C-tier because he's what I want and expect in a unit - solid contribution, but not game-defining or game-breaking. It might just be that I have more units in lower tiers than other people, but I kind of see C tier as the gathering of units where I definitely want to use in my playthroughs but aren't exactly 'special' overall. As a frame of reference, Lowen, who, disclaimer, is my favorite unit in the game and therefore should be extra biased for, is someone I would have actually closer to B-tier than A (i.e., he floats in the space between them to me, having some arguments for A, but more for B; I can see him being placed in either).
Lowen is really, really good. He's got great availability utility like you mentioned to rearrange inventories and canto back/forth, he can rescue people, has a good class and is granted an early promotion item. He can be amazing beyond imagination. But that's assuming he's used well; maybe the player knows how to manipulate the RNG string to get him the right levels or dodges, etc, or they cater to him by feeding him kills, stat boosters, or specific weapons. Typically, in my experience, he's usually just good enough if casually played around, or possibly even lacking because it's easy to see how he might disappoint people with his stats (he can have a difficult time meeting benchmarks, especially in casual playthroughs, or in runs where the RNG string is scrambled so people can't memorize their way through chapters).
However, his biggest flaw, to me, is that deploy slots run real tight - you get other units who can fulfill the same obligations and even different ones. This isn't to say that he can't be used, but maybe, there are other people who are better. For example, Isadora eventually joins the fray and I find myself often using her as the main secondary Paladin, with Lowen often being pushed down to the tertiary horseman. Depending on the playthrough, it feels like I can't bring myself to deploy Lowen because maybe I feel the need to deploy another Pegasus sister instead, if I need someone whose main job is to rescue-drop, or maybe I find myself wanting more combat in a unit like Harken or Hawkeye. In a way, this kind of puts a bit of a damper on his availability because he's not always going to be fielded; if Oswin is subject to falloff, so is Lowen, albeit the latter's is less drastic.
That being said, I think overall, it's inarguable that Lowen _can_ (and should) do more than Oswin. But that alone isn't enough to necessarily make Lowen as far from Oswin as people might believe. Players have to also remember that Lowen can't actually do Oswin's job in the early game, at least not in HHM. The point that you made, which I also have weighted in the past, is how to consider the weight of his contribution, which is the first thing any player, new or old, can tell about him because it's immediate. He is the tankiest member of the squad that isn't Marcus in the early game and can do things others can't - so if he isn't there, is there even a midgame (and beyond) to reach? I can see this as a case to move Oswin up into B tier because he's granted some uniqueness, at least for a time (ten chapters is nothing to sneeze at) and that could warrant him being better than the C-tier range.
Something that I thought about while writing this is the fact that I never consider promoting Oswin. I think the last time I even tried to promote Oswin, it was in 2005. Yet he is still relevant, and useful in his niche. Lowen is raised with the express purpose of fielding a second Paladin as soon as possible, and so, it should be noted that Oswin doesn't even need that extra resource. Granted, Lowen's only other competition would be Sain or Kent, but like you brought up, they can have the second Crest, however far down the line it seems. The point is, it makes it clear to the player that Lowen ought to be funneled experience; in a way, Lowen is saved by his class, little competition for the promo item, and the fact that it comes so early. Oswin is good in spite of his class; if he had these same stats but was a cavalier or possibly anything other than a knight, I assume most people would call it an improvement over the 4 movement.
This was fun to think about - hope you make more videos in the future.
Everything you said about lowen also applies to oswin except that they have different classes, you didn't provide any valid arguments as to why lowen is B tier or why " he can be amazing beyond imagination!! " Other than " in my experience he can be great!! "
@@mysmallnoman I think you need to read a bit more carefully. I made several points why I think Lowen has an argument to be dropped from A to B. I did not overtly state that "these are the reasons Lowen is in B-tier" in exact words, but I have reasons for believing that Lowen can be argued against being in A. When I say Lowen can be amazing beyond imagination, it is under the assumption, like I said, that the user knows how to maximize Lowen. He has the potential to be good. In my experience, he has been. But not everyone recognizes that potential. Why should they? After all, what conditions are we working under? An LTC frame of reference? A new player's? A speedrun's? A ranked run's?
Outside of someone who knows exactly what they're doing, which is a very small number of people, Lowen can be prone to very poor use, given that his base stats are acceptable and growths merely tolerable; Oswin, on the other hand, is pretty friendly toward newer and casual play simply because he has high numbers. Yes, he has limited movement, but a brick wall that moves four squares is better for newer players than a cavalier they cannot maximize. And if the player is experienced, then they know how and when to use Oswin and when to stop, just like with Lowen. I generalize my own experiences with Lowen to advocate that I think he is good and should be used, yes, but that he has his limits and needs. He isn't instantly amazing like Marcus. The whole point is to stress that Lowen is a unit of potential, not a unit of guarantees. I also didn't think I needed to point out that the Paladin class is one of, if not already, the best in the game, which is what makes him, as I think, "amazing beyond imagination" when optimized.
Additionally, everything that I said about Lowen does _not_ apply to Oswin and vice versa. It wouldn't be the same if you just swapped their classes. As I mentioned, Lowen is carried by his class. Oswin is held down by his. Oswin can't do some things Lowen can because he doesn't have a horse. He struggles largely because of that. However, the things Lowen can't do in the early aren't because he's not a knight; he can't mimic Oswin because he doesn't have the same stats.
Lowen is not that strong early game, and _cannot_ handle the same tanking duties that Oswin can in the early game, nor does he have the strength to dish out as much damage. He will eventually end up okay at combat at best unless rigged; meanwhile, consider that Oswin has enough skill to have decent hit rate on enemy axe users, provided they aren't covered by terrain, and makes for a great guard to choke points, be a rearguard, or just help wall (Ch 12, 15, 17, 19 come to mind). And while combat isn't the be-all end-all, it matters some; why Oswin earns a bit more points for it is because he is good at it in a period where few of your units are even tolerable at it. Lowen being not the greatest at this point hampers him a bit; if he was good at combat by this point, there wouldn't even be a debate, he'd be strictly A-tier.
As the game progresses, while Lowen's class still allows him to be useful from time to time, which is more than Oswin can say, with how restrictive deploy slots are, like I mentioned, there are other units who can fulfill his spot. Being able to possibly pull Lowen off the bench later than Oswin makes him, in the long run, better. But by how much? Enough to put a whole tier between them? Of that, I'm not certain; they both make solid contributions, and as I don't believe there's justifiable reason to put Oswin in A-tier, the implication is that it makes sense then to mark Lowen closer to B-tier.
If you're going to reply to my comment saying I've made no case or arguments, at least make some yourself.
@@Inscribed " in my experience, he at least is "
As someone that's gotten into watching draft races in the past few years, the idea that Oswin is kind of "average" is absurd to me.
I soloed the final (pre final boss) map with oswin
Very engaging video
Oswins bulk has always been kinda overkill for me. Its better than Hectors for sure but not enough to really matter all that much imo. Maybe in the very early chapters but Hector usually catches up pretty fast. I still agree he's a good unit though.
I think Seth being able to more easily solo maps is also just a testament of how easier of a game fe8 is compared to fe7. You mentioned Seth is better than Marcus as a unit, I would agree with this in a vacuum but I think I would still rather have Marcus in FE7 than Seth in FE8. Sacred stones would definitely be much more difficult without Seth but still pretty manageable. Blazing blade without Marcus would be kind of a nightmare.
For me it would be like comparing Ryoma from Birthright to Rutger in Binding blade. In a vacuum Ryoma is a better unit but Id still rather have Rutger in fe6 over Ryoma in birthright any day. At that point it becomes a matter of perspective really. Do you value Seth more because of how easy it is for him to solo maps in a game where enemies are already weak and more manageable to deal with? Or do you value a unit like Marcus that can tank and kill enemy units that need to be teamed up on by your weaker units in order to actually take them down?
Ok so I'm conveniently in the process of working through HHM myself. I loved this video so I wanted to share my perspective on the mode and my personal experience with the game overall.
For my first attempt I decided to do an Ironman. I was pretty confident after breezing through Eliwood hard mode and I did NOT respect the difficulty jump. My confidence went completely out the window by Ch. 12. By the Merlinus paralogue I had basically been reduced to 5 units, and after an incident where I attempted to train Erk and got massively rng screwed I decided that I should just lose the run, take a step back and really attempt to analyze the maps and take the game seriously.
For my 2nd run (my current) I decided to forgo doing an Ironman to just get a feel for the difficulty. I played Lyn mode to train up Sain because I felt like he was probably capable of doing Lowens job but would use the exp better once he joined. When I did Eliwood HM, my Lowen grew poorly and even after a promotion, my 16/1 Lowen was well below average and so I entered HHM with a very poor opinion of him. I'm currently on Ch. 27 and I cannot stress enough just how useful Lowen was. There were numerous times when I felt like I didn't have the necessary tools to deal with problems and Lowen would almost always be the solution. I also severely underrated Oswin. I didn't promote, used him until Port of Badon (17x), then dropped him permanently.
Personally I think FE7's reputation as an easy game is a massive contributor to the difficulty of HHM. There were numerous moments where I had to stop and do a double take on the design of the difficulty because yes, this mode is genuinely difficult for first timers, even for me who had played FE7 at least 6 times over the years. That said, I'm still having fun. I've made tons of mistakes but I'm still getting by and my tactics ranking are decent. FE7 is surprisingly nuanced and complex, and it doesn't become apparent until HHM properly kicks your teeth in once or twice.
It is nuanced and complex, which is why I'm always so annoyed when people boil it down to "lol enemies suck game is easy". Theres a lot more thought put into it than that!
@@genericusernamethingI think that's a huge reason for why FE7 has had so much staying power over these last 2 decades. You could probably have extensive knowledge of the meta and still learn something new each run.
Hard agree with a lot of this, a lot of "casual elitists" fall into the problem of citing general talking points about what's good or bad in these games, without looking at the specific context of whichever game or unit is being discussed. Lowen/Oswin is a perfect example, it's easy to say "cavs good armors bad, therefore Lowen good Oswin bad" but doing that flat out ignores what the player actually wants to do in each map of a given game.
A similar example also exists in Conquest (the FE game I'm most familiar with) when it comes to Beruka. Similarly to Lowen, she joins alongside the best unit in the game but is unpromoted and with worse stats, and they both have mounts. A lot of people say Beruka is bad because "Camilla is just better in every way and is the best unit in the game, and Beruka's strength and speed aren't very good". But as someone who's played the game a lot I can assure that Beruka is, in fact, pretty good. Turns out starting as a flier and having good bulk and pair-up bonuses makes a unit good, who knew?
In general, I feel like the biggest problem with a lot of unit discussion a lot of the time is the tendency to try and boil everything down to simple statements like "X is the best unit in the game so who cares about using anyone else". When in the case of units like Marcus and Camilla, the truth is so much more complex than a casual elitist would ever have you believe.
Oswin is good because he has good combat. Lowen has less good combat, but if you promote him, he has similar combat to Oswin (actually a bit better) and 8 mov. both are good units. Use them. Simple as.
I love this analysis and is how I normally feel about
1. People who dunk on this game
2. People who are TH-cam shills.
I have played this game a lot recently and while I don’t do any particular challenge run. It is very easy to find out how Oswin and Lowen are great because of their defensive prowess and Lowen because of the versatility his defense brings. Granted, by chapter 20+ he wasn’t killing anything even as a promoted by lvl 17 Paladin, but he was easily one of the most versatile traders and resistant units in the army. Once Heath came around I valued Heath more, and then added Farina at that. But chapter 11 to 20-ish without that trio of units the game would have been a lot more miserable. Same thing with those who dunk on Eliwood and while he is not great, his accuracy and the kills he can get early on with rapier are very clutch for your weaker units.
Casual elitism doesn’t even need LTC-ing to understand it (ok to a certain extent) they just need to stop being online
This video wasn't at all what I expected at a glance. For a little bit, I was worried that I might fit under the label of casual elitism since I definitely do watch Mekkah and absorb a lot of what he says, but I think I am a little less paranoid about it now. I know that I shouldn't go around telling people how to play Fire Emblem, I'm just not knowledgeable enough for that, so thank you for reassuring me about myself even though that's not what the video set out to do. I'm sorry if this was a bit of a bother to read, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
Soul
Imagine if Nintendo kept making FE games with gba graphics. Would be awesome
Oswin is probably one of the better Armor Knight out there. I'd say he's the best in the whole GBA trilogy.
Lowen is probably the strongest if you manage to max him out. But in just a normal play through kent and sain are better since they’re better combat wise
I think a problem with fe unit discussion is that people don't value units that are good for a little while to plug in a gap and then fall off, most people think you should use a unit the whole game or something when a unit being useful for 3 to 5 maps is still good even if you replace them afterwards. I think FE fans should star tackling maps one at a time like people in other strategy games do instead of only thinking about the endgame viability imo.
This is a problem everywhere unfortunately. In Unicorn Overlord a lot of people rate the Jaigen as a bad unit because he's near-unusable by the midgame... even though the early game is brutally difficult without him.
Great job! I don’t really hang around the gba ds community much so I’m kinda shocked that some people would wash away oswins contributions like that, I think jobs where someone is just being a flunky, has dominance over combat for even a few maps or hell, chipping a wall! Should all be considered with what a unit does on a tier list,
I’m honestly still just shocked I thought it was pretty agreed upon that oswin was good just from his early game contributions
What are your thoughts on Hana from birthright i think shes an interesting unit because shes never ever unusable (ive had an exception where she was nearly unusable but it was extremely fun) but shes also never extremely busted (pls let me know if shes secretely god tier)
I guess this is off topic but
the Talons Alight defense chapter example is actually another point in Marcus' favor, because you can bait the boss Sealen into attacking with his longbow on the first turn,
and then have base speed Marcus double Sealen and nearly one round him.
from there you can choose to defeat Sealen at any moment to completely end reinforcements spawns for the rest of the chapter if you didn't care about missing EXP
I think LTC guides that rely on rigging RNG are kinda cheating and don't represent a real playthrough
only real time speedruns are a valid form of testing out a unit in my opinion.
Oswin is hella handsome with his strong jawline and gangster stare. Sorry Lowen, in this household, we prefer beefy men
I have been going through the Manga rebalance of FE7 on hector hard mode. And yeah Oswin came in clutch on several occasions in the early game and several units I would have actively avoided using I found a legit use for even if it was just one or two maps. Those small contributions are all it takes to save another unit or the run
Of course Oswin is good, this game is a chokepoiny extravaganza!
So from what I gather, is that, FE7 is better because you can play with Canas
8:37 what's an ETC??
I'll admit to being guilty of this, I haven't actually played FE7 in a long time but I do refer to the dondon 0% LTCs a lot in unit discussion. That being said I at least cite examples from the LTCs when making my arguments so I try to avoid talking completely out of my ass. I also avoid unit discussion on games I haven't personally played such as DS Emblem and Fates, though I do try and take in some periphery knowledge. For 3H maddening discussion on GameFAQs, I remember an incident where a user was kinda infamous for giving out extremely dubious advice all the time. Then they came out and admitted to not having actually played maddening mode at one point, and suddenly everything made sense. Studying the maddening meta and actually experiencing it are 2 entirely different things, and that obviously applies to other games hardest difficulty modes as well.
I've never actually played Hector Hard Mode (or even Eliwood Hard Mode) but I plan to later this year. But also never really used Lowen in either story Normal Mode. Always use Oswin, but I don't bench him, and actually give him the first Knight Crest.
Also I never skip Lyn Mode so I always have Kent and Sain trained, and one of them promoted in Lyn Mode. Usually Kent for story reasons, even though I know Sain is a better unit. The Caelin Knight Commander should be the Paladin, not the Sub Commander. It would be weird if the 2nd in command character was a promoted class but the first in command wasn't.
In any case this video was good food for thought for when I do eventually get to EHM and HHM in a few months. Right now I'm playing Three Houses on Maddening leading the Blue Lions. But that's a totally different conversation.
The funny part about this is that there's another layer of elitism, the people on the fire emblem reddit discord who wholeheartedly claim Lowen is completely shit and worthless
10:01 jumpscared by myself
I myself cheesed Hector mode ch15 but that was more because I don't like fe7 that much and didn't want to give it much thought, but I think your point about side objectives being missed holds up. Good video! 👍
5:48 or FE7 isn't the Marcus show and friends in the same way FE8 is the Seth show and friends.
All the units are useable if given proper investment.
I give the boots to Oswin. Fight me.
did you wear a tie while recording
From my experience, a Lyn mode trained cav + wallace's knights crest makes the game almost too easy. from the moment they join they can take on just as much combat as Marcus, if not more. But yeah, Lyn mode completely derails the already rocky conversation
I agree as well with the video as a whole. Many people see a units class or whatnot and make a judgement based off that alone, without really analyzing them and what they can actually provide.
I don't know how anyone could compare fe7 to fe8 and get them conflated. You only have to play them once to realize the obvious differences lol.
not everyone is gonna be at endgame. and you SHOULD use your pre promote . when will people learn.
well made video man!!
Nah i will feed kills for my armor knight instead, even if said armor knight is Arden in fire emblem 4.
...too bad arden can't be on endgame :(
@@CoqueiroLendario Arden and Sigurd must be the same tier unit cuz they both fall off at the same time
@@lsrrr3857 I've been always saying this and people say i have "favoritism"
Oswin is a good unit. But I still feel like the broad advice "cav good; knight bad" is useful. Knights were generally terrible when this language became pervasive. Terrible in fe6, fe8, and fe9. Good for half of fe7. Of course, the advice is very broad and you need to actually look at each unit within each game
Eh Gatrie in FE9 is useful lol, literally oswin 2.0 since he can shove
@@mysmallnoman he's good for a few chapters early, then usable but trash compared to better units. Oswin is way better than fe9 Gatrie. Fe9 is one of the games you will bave the most success if you only think "cav=good." Cavs and fliers are way overpowered in that game
@@fangiscool1 lol the same thing can be said about FE7, the only difference is cavs and fliers don't have super canto
As someone who has played FE7, Lowen is very much less useful than Oswin, especially when you do Lyn mode before Hector/Eliwood, you get to have 2 cavaliers who are probably more higher level than Lowen. Also, Oswin is such a tank in battle, where Lowen dies real fast in my playthroughs
If the three houses engage discussions have thought me anything it's that fire emblem discussions are often filled with stubborn dumb arguments they probably didn't even come up with themselves and they say those arguments in the most toxic way they can think of
" engage has bad story and Characters and are cringe"
" 3H story bad!! Edelgard bad!! "
" FE7 has bad plot!! "
@@mysmallnoman to be fair most people arguing about edelgard are three houses fans, that said those discussions are still super toxic not to mention how many people miss the point of edelgard being a morally grey character and similar to the engage 3h discussion the community sorta forces you to pick a side to mindlessly follow, because eithed edelgard is an inredeemable demon or a perfectly pure saint just like how you have to either think engage is trash and three houses perfect or vice versa when both games have their shining moments as well as their own problems
@@pandabanaan9208 great comment
bawlsh
Lowen always turns average or crap whenever I play
Same, but it is expected with so many 30% growths.
The Casual Elitists Won... I mean Lost...
Oswin better in Ironman, Lowen better at LTC. Oswin's got better growths, better bases, closer to promotion, better weapon rank. However, Lowen gets more mov.
Lower better than Kent and Sain? Say that to my level 20->2 Paladin Sain who I got after pressing end turn for 5 hours without speed up as he sat unequipped on a fort dodging/getting attacked by 2 enemies for 1 exp a turn. Smug face imagine not having a second Paladin by Noble Lady, unplayable probably.
Seriously though, I’d probably have more appreciation for Lowen and this discussion as a whole if I enjoyed FE7 more. I’ve probably only beaten it all the way through 5 or 6 times, which isn’t a lot to gain the kind of experience you need for such a niche discussion.
Those are some interesting facts, but you opinions are automatically discarded because I always use oswin and bring him along throughout the entire game. Also Lowen sucks because I once got a lvl 20/10 Lowen with 9 strength.
The 2 year old Mekkah Videos part hurt my feelings💀, but imo Lowen Sucks cause he died in my playthrough
Bosswin
Sooo the fire emblem community its toxic? Who would guess. Seth its everyone's friends its like Tom in myspace. Also YES OSWIN its a good unit, actually the one of the phew generals in the entire franchise that actually do a good job.
I came in expecting to dislike this video, since most complaints of elitism I have seen boil down to "I hate LTCs, I hate anime haters, Fates is Good, Elitists are mean and killed my family", but you actually tackled an entirely different subset of people than I imagined. Perhaps for that reason, the video should have said "casual elitism" instead, but as clickbait it works very well so I dunno.
I do appreciate you making this video, first of all getting over the armchair "Expert" who never plays the games and always does hypothetical runs in their head of how the game actually runs is cathartic to me. They are very annoying, especially because these aren't experts, they just heard a youtuber say something once and never cared to think more on it.
I also appreciate the praise you gave FE7's gameplay. I despise how reductive people get about this game when it has a solid amount of side objectives and things to make it more difficult. Most of them treat Marcus as a huge oversight that made the game too easy, when it's actually intentional. He's strong but not too strong on purpose, and there are myriads of objectives so you can divide your forces up, and you can choose which objective Marcus will go to.
Great video!
P.D: Something that comes to mind: Elitists would be able to tell you how to make Rebecca useful, but a Casual Elitist would just go "lol Marcus rescues bartre and weakens everything", which is far from helpful.
Doesn't have a horse, 0/10.
JK, as a casual player I love armor knights.
Lowen is trash cos he’s lowen end of debate
Ltc and efficiency have taken over unit discussion, ignoring the fact that these are not "normal" playthroughs of the game. On a normal playthrough you'll slow down to feed kills to your project units, you probably won't have your turns planned out or specific setups and benchmarks memorized, you'll wait until next chapter to promote cuz that unit is at 97 exp. Rating units on "optimal" play ignores the reality that people will very rarely play optimally resulting in more turns to both move around and train units as well as ease of use being a more significant metric. Imo Oswin is overrated because normally you'll train up someone who can fill his role and Lowen is underrated cuz he has time to get ahead of the level curve and have good combat for most if not all that's left of the game.
Tldr: we need to stop rating units based on how they can be used and start rating them on how they're actually used in a normal playthrough.
Also it ignores other types of non-standard play like Draft and Iron Man which really takes other things into account as well. Like Drafts are not common but Iron Man is.
5:53 oh god no not another one of these
Scalded my fingies on this lava-hot take
1) The funny part is, oswin is better than lowen because with his bases and high weapon rank he contributes more, lowen has low bases and even his growths suck
" But but!! Lowen has a horse and his class is better!! " He also has better movement stat!!
Having a good class doesn't make a unit great by default, you STILL need good stats and weapon ranks to actually contribute to the army, which lowen lacks in both
As movement matters so little in FE7 because not only the game has so many defense maps, it also has small map design and so many maps don't punish you for having low mov because of how they're designed, many maps are not only small but offer little vast space and tight area that you're sitting down in one area fighting enemies, nvm the rain, snow and the water maps lol, there's very few maps where having 8 mov actually changes anything
Also many of your arguments about seth vs marcus are wrong
" Marcus is slower " Marcus is also in a a game where enemies are super slow and also massively weighed down by their weapons making them even slower than they already are, you also can just give him speedwings
You using ch13x which is like one single map shows how little thought went into making this comparison
" Frailer " they have the same bulk lol, and again FE7 enemies are weak and you can give him a drcao shield
" He doesn't gain levels as fast " what are you smoking ? Both FE7 HHM and FE8 have the exact same xp formula lol, and both of Marcus and Seth ORKO enemies at base ?
" His level ups tend to be worse " 0% growths runs exist and both Marcus and seth still do a fantastic job with thier base stats and weapon ranks
Not only did you use one bad example of how you can't solo most FE7 maps by using a freaking defense map as point, but your Merlinus argument is also dumb because in that scenario with DD151 it's a 0% growths run, which means Merlinus isn't actually the dodge tank he is, and thus you actually need to protect him lol
The example of whereabouts unknown doesn't also change the fact that you're literally still soloing 95% of the map with Marcus
Also lol Heath has much better def stat than Lowen at base
" An average lowen is going to beat them in everything "
>Shows lvl 7 lowen vs lvl 4-5 sain and kent, instead of having them at same level
I think I made my position on Lowen very clear in the video, so I'm not going to respond to the first part of your comment, but I did put a lot of thought into my Marcus vs Seth comparison, so allow me to expand on it:
Marcus is obviously slower than Seth, as evidenced by the fact that in one chapter alone (13x) Marcus fails to double AT LEAST 8 enemies (with enemy stat rolls this will be more like 10 or 11), while Seth only fails to double 11 enemies throughout the first 9 chapters (11 is the maximum here). I only used one chapter in this example because I only needed one, it should be obvious to anyone that if I used a second chapter then Marcus would fail to double even more enemies. FE7 enemies are actually faster than FE8 enemies early on, it's only around New Resolve (ch21) that enemies become slow as they switch from iron to steel weapons. The first speedwing in HHM is in Pale Flower of Darkness (ch27), so help is not on the way.
The bulk difference is smaller, I will grant you, but before the dracoshield it's *very* noticeable and Seth's HP and defense growths are also far far better (My essay assumed a growths run as that's what most people play, 0% growths is irrelevant).
The EXP gain comparison comes from the fact that before the routesplit, FE8 actually does change the EXP formula, giving you an EXP bonus. This is most noticeable in bosskills, where Seth is getting 100 EXP from most earlygame bosses while Marcus gets about 40.
0% growths is irrelevant to this discussion. If I was assuming 0% growths I would not have brought up that Seth has way better growths.
The ch15 example shows that even when soloing a map is *possible*, it's usually a bad idea. So even if Marcus was fully capable of soloing maps, you should still deploy other units because these maps are full of side objectives. Dodgetank Merlinus is a bad strategy, so I didn't bring it up. Letting enemies harass your convoy for free without a way to get rid of them is just obviously bad.
There's no doubt Marcus is an amazing unit, he just requires a little more support than Seth does.
Heath has comparable *defense* to Lowen, but Lowen has better HP and resistance, as well as weapon triangle control. That said, Heath was an example of someone who could *replace* Lowen after he's fallen off, so I'm not that interested in comparing the two.
Last point about Lowen vs Sain and Kent, that comparison was meant to show that those two join *underleveled*, so obviously I wouldn't put them on the same level as Lowen. When you skip Lyn mode they join at levels 4 and 5, while it's pretty easy to have at least a level 7 Lowen by that chapter.
@@lowresu >still has the same dumb arguments
@@lowresu if you actually checked the HHM enemies stats you'd see that very few enemies have over 7 AS which Marcus can easily double even after ch13x, also the claim that enemies switch to steel weapons around ch21 is wrong because again check the enemies data many enemies already have some steel weapons before that
Next time do your research
Dodgetank Merlinus isn't a bad strategy later on because his avoid gets so absurd ( 84% at lvl 1 promoted ) that by placing him on a terrain ( 94-104% ) enemies can't touch him, and it's not like in FE8 you can just solo it with Seth because guess what, that game also side objectives in many maps lol, just because in ch15 it's a defense map with side objectives
Also I'm not saying that you should let enemies harass Merlinus, I'm saying when he's leveled up enough later it doesn't matter if they attack him or not, especially since he sit on a terrain
Heath has base 11 def while lowen has 7, that's not " comparable " lol
Also lol you're not getting lowen to lvl 7 even with the 5 maps before ch16 with his base 7 str/spd and 30% growth in both ( can't double shit and hits like a noodle and won't grow enough in these stats either ) unless you go out of your way to give him kills and not killing 80% of enemies with Marcus, you can get him to lvl 4-5 maximum which is the same level sain and kent have
And before you say : " um DD151 managed to get lowen to lvl 8 in ch16 even in ltc 0% growths!! " DD151 managed to do that because he went out of his way to give him kills because he wanted him promoted by ch17 to use him in ch17x
@@mysmallnomanLearn how to talk to people, you sound like a smug POS who probably doesn't act like this offline because you would probably get beat or shot.
Disengage from the internet, touch grass, be better
Oh wow it’s a discussion about elitism again. This subject hasn’t really been relevant in YEARS atp. Like, I can’t recall seeing a supposed ”elitist” in the wild since maybe around the time Echoes released. I feel like this subject has become a complete dead horse nowadays.
Maybe you haven't, but this video was actually inspired by an argument with a user in a Discord server that happened just a month or two ago (that I happened to witness).
Perhaps your eyes have just adjusted to the darkness my friend
@@theghostcreator776 Don't think so but thank you Bane😂
@@mikewazowski7024 I mean others are experiencing it firsthand. You're either aware it's happening and trying to gaslight people in which case, fuck you. Or you've grown used to how people treat each other here or perhaps even are an elitist yourself.
Nah it still exists but it has died down if you are focusing on Three Houses or Engage but yeah wondering in a Fe7, Fe8 or Echoes discussion and it can get messy
Modern Fire Emblem games... are TRASH
Oh god FE8 is impossible to be talked about in a FE community i'm in. There is these two guys who, whenever ANY other unit is being discussed they just come in and talk about how Seth is better and thus makes this unit obsolete.
And I tried, oh I tried several times to say things like "Yeah Seth is better, anyways, this unit can this and that" and then they start talking about LTC and how you only need Seth and people who can support Seth and help him go places.
And to top it all off both have incredibly spotty in games and are, I presume, just parroting things from SF.
I had to bring up actual numbers and averages to prove some things to them and its just incredibly draining.
I too brought up the point of "Do you actually play the game?" several times when I defended Lowen as my pick in a PMU a guy was doing. And wouldn't you know it, Lowen ended up being incredibly useful because Marcus couldn't do everything lol.
Like, I get that Fire Emblem games are pretty easy overall despite it's reputation as hard games and that makes being an "expert" about it all the more appealing. But come on man at least play the damn things.
I'm imagining those guys trying the Randomizer run I just got. Seth got rando'd to Valkyrie, but his only available weapon until Lute showed up with a Divine? Lightning, which would be fine, except Lightning got the Eclipse effect (always halves HP and can't double).
I spent four chapters with Seth being almost entirely unable to actually kill anything.
He's still GOOD, an absolute godsend in fact, especially in Chapter 1 which was *mean* this run. The rest of the team appreciates all the easy kills he sets up. But there's no way in hell he's soloing the entire game this time.
bawlsh