A Deep Dive into the History of Trainee Units (In Fire Emblem)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2023
- / danidoyle
Trainees are some of the most popular units in Fire Emblem, but they also are often among the worst. I want to take a look at the various trainee (or trainee adjacent) units and see what works and what doesn't so I can identify the formula for a good trainee.
If you are interested in the history of (and problems with) Ests, @akirasou made a video here: • The Problem with Ests:...
Thanks to @casualjacob776 for allowing me to use his footage. - เกม
Jean doesn't suffer from having late second seals, he suffers from being bri'ish
Xenophobic comments are great! I just love seeing them in every video where a british person exists.
UK>US.
@@saintekweena795 Do you have even the slightest idea how low that bar is
@@hisen3.146be serious now
xenophobia is when british jokes lol@@hisen3.146
A trainee being the first unit you get of a certain class could probably be interesting. We need a FE with a trainee flier or something
FE7x has both!
Still cant believe such an old and well crafted project has so many of the things FEGBA fans ask for, but nobody seems to bring up.
@@Khrene tbf, is has a bunch of trainees so they aren't really trainees (like Gaiden/Echoes)
Is it still being developed or is it finished? FEXNA was going to be huge and then stuff just died of I think
@@marcoasturias8520 not really, it's missing the trainee part, like, being tier 0 or needing to be reclassed
@@Khrenefe7x certainly is a thing that exists, that's for sure. It feels really incomplete and I have a lot of issues with it BUT it does have a lot of cool ideas that end up working surprisingly well. Probably my favorite version of a between-maps training arena.
Amelia was supposed to be a trainee flier according to FE8's beta. And had Tana's role as princess of Frelia, which would've shaken up character dynamics a lot.
Trying to find the logic in gutting the growth rates of a unit who is given Aptitude hurts my brain cells.
For Cyril I'm not really sure why they did it, maybe they thought "oh well we also gave him some really good combat arts he might be too good if we gave him too good growths," but if you add in Proficiency he still has *slightly* better growths overall than average. Not enough to make him standout, since he doesn't have the highest growths in any particular stat. Certain units will have higher stats in any single stat than him but Cyril will still eclipse them in stat totals most of the time.
For Jean it's because his gimmick is meant less to be a zero-to-hero character and more the most customizable unit. He basically let's you min-max whatever class you put him in, so long as you're willing to put the work in and give up your first Second Seal to make him into whatever you're looking for
I actually really appreciate Jean starting out as a healer so he doesn't steal exp from anyone else (and chain guard is actually nice)
It's worth throwing out there that you *can* recruit Kliff and Faye into Celica's route if you really want to, at least in Shadows of Valentia. They even have unique lines!
Yes ... It's actually pretty cool...Look forward to that in a future video 😉
Fun Fact: You can. Do it with Kliff in Gaiden too, I believe (Faye didn't exist yet)
@@baxterbruce9827 you can ignore all of the villagers in Gaiden if you want. Gray normally stands between Alm and the village exit, but if you save and reload he moves out of the way.
@@yeasstt Sigma lone wolf Alm leaves on his adventure alone (he was too socially awkward to tell his friends he was leaving)
Atlas fulfills the trainee experience perfectly, actually. He checks off all two boxes:
-Objectively not worth using in the slightest over any other options you have at the time.
-Makes you smile when he finally kills a single enemy without dying.
I will not stand for Atlas hate. Extremely high attack with a killer bow is mental especially when archer opportunities are limited.
@@MagikarpPower I love Atlas actually. Though I just turned him into a Dread Fighter and grinded a ton until all his stats were capped. I just think he's really funny.
Tbh, I think Anna in Engage is a good unit. There aren't many early units in Engage you really wanna keep around for the entire run. She's the best candidate for Micaiah since everyone else can handle combat and get exp that way. And her magic and speed are great so she doesn't really need any strength or speed fixing (the two major things units need in Engage)
On average for magic is actually surprisingly mid until IL 35ish, and so she doesn't really stand up to the multiple strong magic users you get for free (since you have to spend at least one seal on her and two if you want her to be in a class other than warrior)
The only issue I have with Anna based on the build I have for her is that she gets KO'ed very easily, because I made her into a sage with the Celica emblem ring and refined nova tome+5, a lot of people but very fragile.
@@DaniDoylebut most of the other magic units are way slower, she also make money in game where in maddening depending if you use dlc or not its kind of tight, she is a good trainee
To me, the payoff for training Ross is not the river walk in chapter 7, but the ocean walking on the phantom ship map. Being able to delete the gargoyle boss from spawning makes that map considerably easier in an iron man setting, and while you could use one of your fliers to do that job too Ross will generally fare well enough against the low level gargoyles on his own which frees up your fliers to be routing the other parts of the map
Ross can also promote into Pirate right around the map where you get Amelia, so he can really help with that one as well.
The main pushback against this is that, well, water walking is practically worthless in Sacred Stones. Chapter 9 on Eirika's side is the only map where it might come in handy, and even then, Ross is not the type of unit that I would be confident in sending out alone, being slow with low defenses, which ensures he isn't gonna last when he has no backup. This isn't any better, and it requires wasting my fliers' turns to boot.
Concering Cryil, he's actully the game's green cav. He shares a innate brave combat art with ferdinand, slyvain and leonie who he also shares lance and riding boons for easy paladin access. Also the other three have use red or orange in there colour pallets as well, allowing Cyril to the other half the christmas cav pair.
Thats funny but i think its a pretty big stretch. 3h just doesn't have xmas cavaliers and that's ok
'Horsey war' made me actually LOL
Jean is my personal favourite Trainee, due to him being a healer and Qi Adept. Not only does this make him easy to train, it ensures he's still useful for healing and Chain Guard utility during his "training arc". (He's the only Chain Guarder besides Framme or a reclassed Alear until Chapter 14, which is a useful niche) Due to how Engage fixes weapon ranks by class, he can use most utility staves at base too. And the dopamine of seeing him level and gain crazy stats does a great job of teaching players how good utility staves are in Engage, especially as you get an Obstruct staff close to when he joins. In fact, I actually think he's more useful during his "training arc" than when he's ready for combat.
Ive used both Dozla and Ross and I really cant see how Ross would be considered a worse version of Dozla. In my experience, and I've played fe8 more times than I can count on both hands, Dozla is generally just slower than Ross and leaves enemies alive on enemy phase barring a crit, while Ross can pretty reliably take out hordes of enemies with nothing but a hand axe and a forest tile. Could just be confirmation bias though since I did have to put effort into Ross while Dozla just shows up with his stats, idk
Agreed 100%. I can't think of a single time where I've put investment into Ross and had him be worse than Dozla. That being said, of all of my FE8 runs, if Ross gets a couple bad levels before T1 I just bench him for Garcia. Dozla always kinda just felt like a not-so-great late game grounded axe user if you managed to let both of them die, which honestly is a shame because I like his personality the most of the three lmao.
I agree. Same goes for Amelia with me. She was always suuuper speedy and had good might. She always managed to smash everything around. And what I love about the FE8 trainees is the option to promote them in their trainee class 😂 I loved it. That was a lot of fun and they turned pretty good. Nothing I would do every run through, but every now and then
Because ross with investment is better than dozla with zero investment but if u need axe user with zero investment and use early xp to train frans or joshua dozla is better. Its all about your playstyle
That's because Ross has a chance at good/lucky growths while Dozla is Pre Promoted, so what you see is what you get. But he's like Duessel (Duessel is better tbh but), good units needing little to no investment whatsoever. Since I always train Amelia for bias reasons, I don't bother with Ross and Dozla is fine.
However I have trained Ross and did get good growths. With a Hand Axe and good speed+skill growths, he just wipes boards with doubling and dodge tanking or just straight up tanking. Unless you're unlucky, he always becomes better than Dozla, with less Constitution (not too bad tho.)
ewan's shaman promotion was always interesting to me. is there any other units in the series that loses their main weapon to switch into another upon promotion?
Donnel switches out from using Lances to using Swords/Axes when you "promote" him out of villager. But that counts as re-classing instead of promoting, and the "promotion" stat gains Donnel gets by doing so is just him no longer being bogged down by Villager's god-awful bases. Villager in Awakening is just a really weird class in general...
Another point that makes CQ!Mozu even better: although heart seals ARE a pretty sparse resource in the earlygame, there are actually very few units who benefit from them.
You get two before Chapter 10, and there are really only 4 units who benefit from it at this point in the game:
Jakob who can become a pretty reliable standard Jagen as Paladin or Great Knight, but as you get better at the earlygame this reclass becomes wholly unecessary;
Corrin, who with certain builds wants to reclass pretty early, but can almost always afford to still wait a bit, and in Prince(ss) will still pull a lot of weight in ch.10;
Elise, who makes a surprisingly great wyvern rider in the early game and most of the mid-late game, Zoran swears by this reclass;
and Mozu, who is a legitimately great unit through the whole game once she's in the archer class line, and even with zero investment will be able to contribute at maximum capability in ch. 10.
So of those 4 prime candidates for the early two heart seals, I actually think Mozu is easily the most deserving of one of them. It's a valuable resource that's in competition, but the competition isn't so large as people might think. Mozu gets my vote for best trainee unit, as she strikes an extremely nice balance between "legitimately good unit" and "train up this loser into a competent fighter."
And her design isn't intentionally goofy like having a pot on her head or being british.
It's worth noting that the early heart seals aren't only being competed over by people who want them early they're all being competed over by the mid-game squad, as you won't have infinite seals until chapter 22. There are a lot of characters who want heart seals that join in the mid game (xander, shura, laslow etc)and saving early seals for them is often a good thing.
@@DaniDoyle Definitely also true. My point is not to say that Mozu should get a heart seal every playthrough, but rather, if anyone chooses to use Mozu, she should get one of the early seals no problem, and doesn't feel bad about it.
It's just a big contrast to other trainee/earlygame units who compete over limited promotion/reclass options. Still not entirely free, but she's in a lot better of a spot than like, Amelia.
I like to think that PoR Sothe is a very interesting trainee because his personal skill basically makes all of PoR his training arc if you want to make him better in RD with transfer bonuses.
Trainee where the reward is that they turn into a spider
The best units in Fire Emblem, not just trainees, are ones that offer a niche that stands out or a feel that no one else can offer. Good Trainee design is having something to stand out or offer something others cannot do.
Even if people find them to be bad units, they at least can stand out with something they offer than no one else can do even for a limited time.
In the case of Ross I do appreciate he can go the water walking route to help him out earlier in the game as a pirate. For Jean I like that he is a second healer with chainguard and his unique growths with a personal skill makes a lot of funny creative builds possible from doubling class growths.
For even Ests like Nino, she at least offers giant magic damage for training her and having a feel of zero to hero if you try to use her. This is when Units are well designed.
The bad ones would be in my eyes someone like Cyril where sure he adds 20%, but it's not super significant to stand out from the others who would go the Bow/Axe routes. Or some of the FE1/3/11 replacement units, they just don't feel unique or interesting as units.
Cyril's Niche is access two two kill tools (Vengeance and PBV) while most units only have access to one (or zero)
I just hate that Aptitude is his personal skill rather than just a normal equippable skill.
It’s technically the worst personal skill in the game because it could have just been added to his growths by default, it fucks with his auto levels, and it deprives him of an actual Personal skill like Paragon
I think Cyril could have been cool if he worked similar to Jean but with the benefits of being a three houses unit, especially if instead of having set weapon strengths he made use of the budding talents system. Like he could of been the only unit to have multiple ones, having no inherent strengths with any weapon type but if you trained him in one he would be rewarded with a combat art or in reason and faith’s case a new spell/skill.
This video ruled. I didn’t realize it until now but Mozu is definitely my favorite of these kinds of units. Sniper Mozu slaps even if in my experience her strength leaves something to be desired, none of these other units (from the games I’ve played) ever really hit the peak she usually reaches for me.
i think most of the problem is permadeath. Its entirely possible to raise a single unit the whole playthrough and then get them killed in the previous chapter. The testers have to allow for this possibility without softlocking you, so they have to make every chapter possible with only the required units at base. So if Jagen can already beat the chapter what does a trained growth unit do? Beat the chapter...more? That's not a compelling enough reason to use them.
Donnel as a hero maxes strength, skill, speed and luck after only 1 second seal.
Donnel ends up being crazy good at combat in Awakening. Huge ball of stats as Hero.
I also used him a lot in Heroes because he was one of the best infantry mixed tanks from the early days (like, practically Oboro good). One of my favorites in Heroes for sure.
I don't even like second seals in Engage (aside from reclassing Vander to Royal Knight), and when leaving Jean in Martial Master he just feels like another Framme (which isn't bad, don't get me wrong, i love Framme; just saying he doesn't feel all that special). I get the feeling sometimes that Engage suffers from universal class access: since every unit can use every class, every class has to be balanced for every unit; and since there doesn't tend to be much variance in growths (in many cases you're looking at differences of like 1-2 stat points over 20 level ups), reclassing doesn't really make that much of a noticeable difference for a unit's stats.
Point being, Jean doesn't really get to take advantage of doubling class growths to become insane versions of different classes because all the classes feel so samey to begin with.
Trainees are weird. They get a lot of hate, they risk being incredibly offputting if they're *too* useless, but when done right (see: passable enough to be usable) they add a much-needed texture to Fire Emblem, making the game fun while not making it significantly harder.
The fun of strategy games for many people comes from executing short-, medium- and long-term goals. In Fire Emblem, long-term goal is to beat the game, medium-term goals range from beating a chapter to getting a unit to promotion. Short-term goals are leveling up a unit, feeding them a kill, etc.
Trainees, when done right, add more opportunity for short- and medium-term goals with enjoyable payoff, adding more texture to maps than just "beat the map" or sometimes "get the bonus objectives."
Examples of well-made trainee-esque units IMO are the FE8 trainees, Leif, Lilina Engage Anna & Jean, FE9 Rolf, and arguably Cyril and Mozu, units that might not be the best but aren't so inviable that they are prohibitively difficult to train.
Poorly-made trainees are, by comparison, incredibly difficult to train to the point of being effectively unfeasible, particularly on high difficulties, and their payoff rarely feels worthwhile. Donnel on Lunatic, FE6 Wendy and Sophia are prime examples of this - they're just so bad that they aren't fun to use, and require so much effort that they are *effectively* inviable, even if you can technically still use them and level them up.
Trainees are rarely going to be considered the best units in their game, but the fun of leveling up a unit whose exp bar fills up so fast is often the dopamine I need to get me through the often-slow early maps.
Honestly I don't think lunatic Donnel is that much more annoying than lower difficulties, I usually just level him up on the archers in his joining chapter anyway because they can't fight back. And he joins early and actually has good growths unlike a lot of trainees. I don't think he is a good unit, I just don't think he is that much worse on lunatic. I definitely wouldn't put him in the same basket as Sophia, who straight up won't even be good if you do subject yourself to the utter torture of levelling her (trust me I know from experience). Wendy is also an absolute dog of a unit, especially when she joins in the same chapter as the armour knight with the duke nukem hair who straight up just has better stats than her forever IIRC
This video was really interesting, I love your deep dives!
Of all the trainees I’ve played around with, Jean has definitely been a really nice one. Being a healer at start makes growth relatively easy. And for Engage particularly, getting growth and levels with the DLC rings can make him a monster
Even on my first playthrough without DLC rings I made him a martial priest and he could kill enemies with his bare hands AND quad. And this was Chapter 17 when enemies get particularly tough
And considering I’m doing a meme run with Engage (just Alear, Kagetsu the husband, Clanne Framme Jean and Anna) I think Jean is going to be a very good unit in the long run as he can have more balanced stats that are still on par with the others
Personally always went merc for donnel, his growths there makes him strong and fast, plus armsthrift works well with his growths in not using any weapon durability.
Yeah, I always just went Merc then Hero with him. With his 80% Luck + 20% from Aptitude means he always gains Luck stat on level up, and while his Luck Cap is 48 all he needs to make it so his weapons never break is a support partner who provides at least 2 Luck. Then Donnel can really benefit from forged weapons, a Forged Hand Axe or Short Axe being all he needs for 1-2 option. And then whatever assortment of Swords you might want on him: be it Eirika's Blade/Brave Sword (for quads), Alm's Sword (for massive power), any other you could want.
@@astralguardian5930 my thoughts exactly. Not only that, but he can also give his child Aptitude as an inherit skill too. So both him and his child can wreck havoc with insane growths.
@samuelflores2219 Sometimes though Aptitude may not pass if you got other skills, which can be disappointing. But another thing is if he has a female child unit he can pass on Pegasus Knight class if I remember right, so possibly more Galeforce chances and Aptitude to boot.
Smh, after all that about saying that you don't get stats on level, what do I spot during footage not from Jacob?? GROWTHS
I stole that footage from Jerma.
@@DaniDoyle ah my bad, gamer card credit restored, have a nice day
Tearring saga mentioned
Good video 👍
I'm so stoked you're using Colin's theme for this video lmao.
Aw hella naw you did not just slander the Earth Sword like that.
I mean its terrible on Lachesis but its good on other units. Earth Sword Tailtiu is the best(or second best, if you want to roll the dice with Lewyn) Reptor killer for example. Promoted+Magic ring she will always kill Reptor with a Wrath crit and a regular hit, and since Earth Sword ignores Pavise its fairly reliable.
Goofy lookin cavalier Atlas not even being salvaged by the angel ring
Great video! Excited to watch Akira's too
Someone not hating on Cyril for once... I never understood why so many claimed he was the worst unit when he kept one shotting enemies so consistently throughout all my playthroughs.
The Colin music in the background is very fitting, I love it.
What I learned especially with considering ROM hacks when discussing trainees is that when I was a child I was gaslighting myself with a false sense of "this unit is worth it cause I worked for them. "
And now I'm aware that they're rather mid. I still find myself using some because they are often very fun designed as characters. Yes give me the farmer with a pot as a helmet, or the poor victorian era British child that screams "why me" when hit for over half hp. It's funny. And romhacks tend to make them memes also, bringing some comedy in the suffering of a very average or worse unit. This isn't to justify anything, they still ought to work on more unique boons for them. Such as unique skill which their class typically lacks. Or straight up unique classes. or even unique personal weapons that carry or are received into late game. Maybe a trainee that levels up performance with their mothers frying pan every 5 levels, eventually getting 1-2 range and just making the pugi axe again.
So one thing I think was glossed over for Donnel is as a parent. You don't need him but with his Growths and Skills he can be very good as a father, and you need to use him for that anyway, even if only for monster geinding supports. By that point you're using him already, might as well invest, unlike say, Amelia, who you just don't want to use so why invest unless you're ignoring effectiveness completely.
tbf i agree....trainees just being "hey i on paper have better growths but just cuz i do doesnt mean im gonna be better than everyone else im theoretically competing with" units is already a meh concept and they just need MORE or something UNIQUE to stand out - either go "full out" growths where they its just 100/100/100/100 in each stat or make them superior rally bots/staff users/games gimmick being catered to them or smth else
3:56 "Resistance comes to mind as something that is never going to get raised by class bases"
This is true in Echoes, but not in Gaiden. Dread Fighters in Gaiden get a ridiculous 15 res at base, which, given no one really has a res growth in Gaiden seems likely to always give a myrmidon a res boost at promotion. SoV dread fighters only get 6 res, which is an enormous nerf.
I love Donnel, he is my boy. I will always jump through the hoops to make him a bow knight. No matter what anyone says
Based behavior tbh. Keep loving bucket boy 💜
What about mareeta in thracia? She does have uniqueness with sword arts and recruiting galzus, although good combat isn’t worth as much as A staves in Thracia…
mareeta rocks, mine had like ten movement by the end with the dainn scroll. she could pretty much solo entire maps. imagine fe4 ayra with paladin movement. no canto and low magic is rough tho :(
Hope you're having a good day
Honestly I think Jean is the best trainee we've ever had, seeing as he provides immediate utility with his innate staff access, and dying is cringe, even if the healer's stats are atrocious
IDK, i think archer from mozu or the immediate kill power of Cyril is better (although cyril doesn't play like an actual trainee). If we count TRS, Narron is probably the best "true" trainee
I'd be on the side that wouldn't call Atlus a trainee. He can contribute right away with promotion bonuses and his base HP and Atk. He's more like a mid game replacement unit in case the player has a lot of unit deaths.
If any character is the trainee unit in SoV I think it would be Python. His base Skl and Spd are so low that it makes him hard to train but his class is good and his speed growth is very high so you get a reward for doing it.
I somehow always find myself using (and often loving) these growth units
Mozu and Cyril in particular are some of my favourite ever FE characters
Would you count Nowi as a “Trainee”? She starts of weak but ends up carrying the army at the end game
Donnel's real strength is his incredible Luck growth, which allows him to 100% the trigger on Armsthrift and never actually spend any weapon uses while wielding the most precious and fragile blades. Also it amuses me to see him wearing high tier fancy full plate from the neck down, and a pot on his head.
The three trainees in Sacred Stones I like primarily because they can go into (and be decent at) classes which I would otherwise have no use for:
Amelia as a paladin is just a slightly weaker version of your other... five? paladin options, but Amelia as a general? Your only other general option is Gilliam, and Amelia will easily double his speed and luck, on top of significantly higher skill. That makes her an actually viable tank, instead of watching the old man stumble around getting doubled by everything, critted repeatedly, and missing all his counters.
Likewise, Ross has the unique role of being an axe specialist who is actually worth using, in a game where the only two other axe wielders (barring people you promoted into great knight or hero for some reason) both suck. You say he's an inferior Dozla, but I'm looking at his averages and Berserker Ross has -5.25 HP, but +4.5 str, +1.8 skl, +2.5 spd, *+17.1 lck*, +1.05 def, and +0.65 res. That looks to me like significant boosts across the board, especially in the things most important to a berserker. Make Ross a Warrior instead, compare to dear old dad, and he does end up with slightly lower skill, but that's balanced against a much higher speed, luck, defense, and resistance. I cannot figure out how you could conclude that Ross is a worse axe fighter than the other options, unless you insist on promoting him early and throwing away ten whole levelups (while allowing Garcia to max out)
And Ewan is the only dark magic wielder who isn't Knoll.
Honestly, without Bexp mist kinda makes a valid trainee unit with a cool pros/cons split. FE9 has units auto promote when they level up at level 20, but has a finite amount of master seals (I believe 4 in the whole game, for a trivia question Dani).
She is in a fully unique role as your only mounted staff user until you get Elincia towards the end of the game, but she doesn’t fill that role in her base class. This puts you in a tough spot where you have to decide if you want to compromise on stats like magic and hp/defenses on your mounted healer in exchange for getting that utility earlier.
It’s really powerful and underwhelming at the same time, since on paper with her growths a full level 20 Mist can not only provide staff utility but even aid with killing, more than likely your best Sonic Sword user in the game, which gives her a niche to attack on res (kinda trash in Tellius tbh) and effective damage against fliers with a weapon that, unlike the wind tomes, has a might stat!
Whether this is worth it and how far the player wants to take this is up to them, which is neat!
And one of those few master seals is from a chest in chapter 21 lmfao
What's the FE6 romhack at 9:28?
No redundancy by KrashBoomBang
@@DaniDoyle Thanks a lot, it looked interesting
This thumbnail is so good that I already watched this video but i clicked on it again cuz the thumbnail is too funny
Colin's theme is incredibly fitting for this topic 😂
Glad you agree 😂
“Rachessis” gods that pronunciation hurts my soul
the video has a focus on unit viability on the context of optimised play, in wich I agree with all the points. but, i find this to be the least interesting way in wich one can look at these units.
Moslty because it treats their merit as a negative. It´s almost never worth it to train those units, even more so for veteran players, that most likelly already know how to best level a unit and have a grasp on the bench marks for the stats . But, the act of training the unit itselft is the most important aspect of it, even more than the pay off. Because it is one of the ways the game makes the player make interesting choices.
when a player, especially a more casual one, decides to train one of these units, they add a new layers of tought and interaction to the game systems and maps. Now they have incentives to play the game in a different ways and make different choices on how to approach the maps. And while this 'effort' is rightly considered wastefull to a faster and more optimized run. To an average player just going through the game, it´s a fully self imposed challenge that ceates cool moments,
I think that a much more interesting way to judge these units, focusing in how they interact with maps of the game, and in how they offer interesting decisions to be made in those games.
And I believe it´s this aspect that makes those units popular, when you focus mostly on the pay-off and stats, you leave to the side what makes using them memorable. Those units were simply not designed to be good( but they can be), or to fit in a optimized, fast strat. they were designed to be interesting problems for the player to solve, and an eventual reward.
So when a lot of people tak about how great donnel is for example, it´s mostly because the game was made more interesting by using him on all levels. wich is kinda lost when you are in your 3rt+ playthrough and already know most of the best ways to clear the game fast
I used Jean a lot and if tou combo bis ability to other growth/exp buffing abilities (StarSphere, Lineage, etc) he gets to absurd ammount of stats really quickly. Definetly the most well-rounded unit i have and mostly kills everything very easily on Maddening. That being said, hes not THAT much stronger, simply because its really rare for you to NEED that high of a ceiling in any unit.
The thing is, Engages late game difficulty (as well as 3H) rarely comes from enemy stats, usually it comes from abilities, map design, etc. So having super high stats (specially offensive), while good, might not be worth the effort, since most other units will still kill enemies without aptitude
Engages second seal issue is really jarring. Especially since they not only give you two trainees that want them, but most early game units are already in bad/awkward classes. Why they make you wait so long for them is beyond me.
That being said, ive trained pandreo and anna on my current run and the idea that its a competition is bizarre. Mages are great and having another one is nice. And since you get so mamy amazing midgame units in engage while so many early game units are meh, i dont think its much of a chore to train anna. Jean is harder to train without Miciaiah, but just refining and engraving his arts is useful. By chapter 8 he wasnt that high a level and the extra mag he got has made him an insane levin sword paladin for me. Ig what I'm saying is that most of the time, even on maddening, youre not lacking in chances to get or give experience to units. So why are people handwringing so much about potential lost exp? Engage in particular has so many powerful ranged options/break that makes it easy to setup killing blows for just about anyone. And the emblem rings let you patch stats up as well.
I think one of thr bigger issues you noted is that often the payoff isnt worth it. Half these units arent even good. Even if they joined at an appropriate level, the way theyre setup makes them bad. Oh well. Fun video.
I always find it interesting that Ross; Amelia own or always get a bad rep, when in fact all the trainee units were always the best units in all of my play throughs - which were a lot. The outshined ALWAYS everyone! Those three plus Artur & Natasha basically were the carrier of my runs. Especially later in the game.
The fact that they all maxed out so many stats without any booster needed were not achievable by other units 🤷🏼♂️
So... my FE8 playthroughs include beating Lagdou (It's in the game and actually gives you completion stats)
From this angle, Ross outperforms both Garcia and Dozla. Garcia is a closer match, but his average speed is kind of crippling
Ross's average speed is also pretty awful. With an equal amount of experience, Garcia will have more speed until they level cap (since this will allow ross to catch up). Even in lagdou, capping isn't common.
Wait wait wait. Anna in Engage is the best magic user BY FAR. She can easily solo run whole chapters basically. She just needs to be a mage.
i feel like sov atlas is being underrated here. because his personal stats really don't matter much he can adopt any of his available classes to patch various weak areas (most notably merc fixing his speed while retaining his naturally high attack), or he can class into archer for technically optimal killer bow abuse, since he has higher attack than any other archer barring pitchforks.
but he does have one option that's particularly unique, and that's mage. might seem odd to pick up yet another mage on celica route, but his attack and spell list make a really convincing argument for it. sagittae at mage 8 gives him incredibly powerful and safe damage to set up kills or finish off weakened units, but more importantly rescue at sage 4 makes him one of only two units recruitable on celica route with a movement spell, the other being faye who typically isn't worth recruiting on celica route. atlas might not have mucb in terms of a training arc but he does provide a lot of different versions of unique utility that other units can't easily replicate, and i think that's pretty cool
While movement tools are typically strong, I find that SoV Rescue is actually pretty middling. The "all route" nature of SoV already limits the potential for "skipping" using warp, but Rescue is further held back by being on a low movement unit...If Sage Atlas can reach a spot, your primary combat units likely can as well (as the effective range of Snipers and Falcos is far more than sages). Now, you can rescue boost someone to add a few tiles of movement to their turn, but the opportunities for this are quite limited in Valentia (due to the aforementioned route centric nature), and Rescue is further held back by coming late on the units who learn it. Sage 4 is a pretty tall ask for a tool that I find underwhelming at the best of times.
@@DaniDoyle true enough, but i find that even a middling movement spell like rescue is better than not having one for maps like the swamps in act 4, and with atlas's naturally high attack he'll have a lot more range with the spell than other users. i don't think getting him to level 4 promoted is a terribly tall order either, by the time you get him there probably isn't anyone else who's a terribly high priority for experience and it's fairly easy to feed him kills with relative safety especially after he picks up sagittae. even without rescue sagittae coming off of his attack stat is also a pretty valuable tool to bring to the table
Couple things:
1. Please pronounce Ephraim’s name correctly he’s done enough to deserve it
2. The complete lack of mention of Mozu passing archer to her husband makes me sad as a Sniper Niles purist
3. Ross actually kinda cooks with his massive luck stat against Vigarde and Valter because nobody else can really hit enough luck to avoid crit from them and even if some units can live a Valter crit I don’t think there’s any that can eat a pierce crit.
The trainee utility comment with fe4 and to a lesser extent conquest mozu is interesting to me because the most interesting things in fire emblem come from de-emphasizing combat. Master Knights kick ass in combat but are just as if not more useful purely for their utility. Thracia is a perfect example with its abundance of great combat units and opportunities for utility shenanigans, but even fe4 makes the player make choices in how to efficiently manage resources and tackle side objectives because you can always throw the horse out to kill real good for the combat
I played awakening after 3H. My Donnel became mvp, because I reclassed everyone else with the 3H mindset, ie get to advanced classes asap. Donnel's villager status forced me to reclass him more often, so he's the only character I used Awakening's "reset levels for maximum stat growth" exploit.
Conquest Mozu is best Mozu. Chapter 10 SERIOUSLY benefits from two archers, even if just two man both ballistas. And she only has early competition as an archer in the form of Niles, however - the two have entirely different promoted classes, and Niles' high res easily makes it so the two land in different niches. Mozu in Rev and Birthright is mehhh. I played Rev and benched her as soon as I got Takumi, which is like, what, two chapters after you get Mozu? Takumi just shows her off way too much cuz the Fujin Yumi's super good.
Nice to see some praise for my girl Lilina! People seriously sleep on the fe6 anima mages. Who cares about Apocalypse when Aircalibur go brrr? Both Lilina and Lugh remain amazing throughout the entire game. Chapter 21 without a dedicated Aircalibur wyvern dodge tank is hellish to me. You don't even need Forblaze. They just kill.
In Sacred Stones I didn't bother with any of the trainees. I didn't even recruit Amelia. Your video puts it great - the investment is huge, but the payoff is just another unit, but worse, so why even bother.
My worst experience with this wasn't even a trainee. It's when I tried to use Erk in fe7. It's a tale as old as time. Just... just use Canas instead. Don't bother.
In FE4 I’d say coirpre is a trainee unit. He comes at level 1 when no one should be level 1 at that point and upon promotion he gains forsetti if his dad is lewyn. I think he’s the only holy weapon user who has to unlock their holy weapon through promotion which is pretty cool imo
He joins super late so I consider him an est, as stated in the video, trainees join early, ests join late. Akira talks about Coirpre in their est video which is linked in the description if you are curious about Ests/Coirpre
@@DaniDoyle great recommendation I’ll go check it out :D
I still like them, particularly Mist, Mozu, and Donnel. And Sacred Stones is easy enough that having underpowered units made sense a lot of the time.
I killed the king of dragons with mist in radiant dawn. Shes so fun 💜
I tend to level grind and arena abuse my trainees until they end up becoming my best units. Donnel was a freakin tank by endgame
I'm pretty sure that every game with trainee except Conquest has a method to grind EXP for the trainees.
True!
I do not care about the chapter 7 riverwalk
The chapter 9 walk down, however? I like that, as I find Vanessa and our new recruit Tana very not good against mr pirate in the middle, while ross can deal with him decently easily, even on the run I had where ross was slower than dozla as a berserker on join
I think Ross on average has 1 less speed than Dozla
If you promote him at level 10 that is, I don't know how it looks if you promote later
10:27 Chastolth might be the most cursed thing I've seen recently
15:40 why are we talking about 10,1? We're talking about training units. What's the point of training a unit if you don't reach 20,20 or 10,20,20. Even in the context of "the moment they promote" you should still be considering grinding your units to 10,20,1 and consider that vs a 20,1 of any other paladin.
IMO: I think they should also be considered in their Super Trainee classes rather than one of the routes, but that's more personal preference. But for Amelia specifically that makes her effectively the only Halberdier in the GBA games, which is the best class.
10/20/20 is a threshold units will not reach within the course of the campaign.
@@DaniDoyle why not? Getting all your units as strong as they can is like the whole point of playing
Because there isn't enough experience without restoring to massive amounts of grinding (in games where that is even possible, which isn't all of them), and in addition to grinding being unfun (to me), if we grind everyone to 20/20 then there isn't really a point in comparing units, as everyone at 20/20 becomes nigh immortal, one rounds all enemies, etc etc.
DONNEL MY BELOVED
Next week's video: Was I WRONG about Donnel Fire Emblem???
Under the idea that Cyril is maybe a trainee through tutoring time more than anything, could Flayn be a trainee? She comes with Nosferatu as her only attacking spell and poor speed (get doubled by enemies with steel weapons idiot), and it's pretty hard to get her reason up to a decent spell list and level up the stats enough for the big ol' battle of the Eagle and Lion, maybe playing into the idea of needing that budding talent training to be a competent magic attacker. Not to mention there's only a magic lance in one (1!) of the three routes she's in but only in the last fight of the game (I am so mad about that by the way I just want an Arrow of Indra in Azure Moon) so her poor strength isn't gonna make her decent skill experience in lances useful.
or am i reading into this/rules lawyering too much
Flaynn is near the level your team is when she joins so i wouldn't call her a trainee
I wanted Sean, and now I can never have him.
:(
One thing I think would be a really cool feature for a trainee like Anna could get convoy access as her personal skill. She's a merchant. Thematically appropriate, and unique utility.
I really thought Anna and Jean in Engage were going to be good at first due to the extremely easy training arc. But when I started doing serious analysis, I was disappointed.
I still think they're better than most, but the payoff is unfortunately, underwhelming.
Jean has the problem of being stuck with Marital Monk growth rates for too long. His potential is legit high, and at endgame, he's a contender for best unit in whatever class he chooses, but it takes too long to get there. It takes him around the end of Solm before he manages to become an average unit.
Anna has an issue with strong competition in the magic department.
Both of them have an issue with Build holding them back for a lot of their options. You can get by with poor build with exceptional speed, but neither of their speeds don't hit that level.
Looking at Anna in more detail, Pandreo is just the indisputable best magic unit. It takes Anna until end game to catch up. But she doesn't even really outclass Lindon.
Bolganone has +5 Mt vs. Elfire, and is cheaper to forge. So it really benefits units that are capable of using it with minimal slowdown.
As level 30 sages, here's what Pandreo, Anna, and Lindon look like:
HP Bld Str Mag Dex Spd Def Res Lck
Pandreo: 42 11 6 26 25 24 10 33 17
Lindon: 43 11 10 23 23 22 14 26 10
Anna: 38 7 7 30 26 22 9 28 19
Add on a 11 Wt 16 Mt Bolganone, (7 Wt 11 Mt Elfire option also shown for Anna)
Attack Speed
Pandreo: 42 24
Lindon: 39 22
Anna (B): 46 17
Anna (E): 41 21
Lindon and Pandreo also have the perk of A rank staffs (Anna has B.) Fortify in particular can fill the engage meter really fast while also providing good support.
Defensively, Lindon has +5 HP and +5 Def vs. Anna, Pandreo has +5, -1. Nobody is tanky, and Lindon is crit vulnerable due to that luck stat. But that's a 10 point difference between attacks that can 1 round Anna vs. Lindon, with Pandreo falling halfway in between. There are a bunch of enemies that 1 shot Anna but not Pandreo or Lindon.
75% of the way through the game, an invested super growth unit should blow a backup unit out of the water. Yet Anna doesn't. Despite her impressive speed growth rate, old man Lindon still outspeeds her, even when he's got a heavy Tome and she's got a light one. If Anna resorts to the light tome, she nearly catches up in speed, but sacrifices almost her entire power advantage.
Anna fares a bit better as a mage knight due to the higher speed and build. With Elfire, she'd hit 38 Attack, 25 speed, while Lindon with Bolganone is 36 attack, 25 speed. Anna would also have the option of Bolganone with 43 attack, 21 speed. So, she does outclass Lindon as a Mage Knight if invested in at this point in the game. But she really should just be better. And it's pathetic that she isn't.
The thing that Anna has over Pandreo (and Pandreo is a great unit, don't get me wrong) is supports. Anna gets Zelkov and Framme, both of which make great Lucina bonded shield users. This means Anna bonded shield is very effective, because you want the evasion boost from a support bonus on the shield user. Pandreo doesn't pair up with anyone like that. Lindon has the same issue, unless you want to go to the effort of training up Jean to just get a bonded-shield bot.
In fact with bonded shield, even Anna's "fragility" becomes an asset because enemies will preferentially attack her, and with her speed (as MK, always make her MK) she can't be doubled so she's usually 100% safe.
As a pre-Ch 11 unit, Anna also has early canter access, but YMMV on how valuable that is. (I personally like it a lot.)
If you want Convoy on Anna use the Enchanter class. It gets that at level 5 as other class skills.
Anna's Stats on Enchanter at max stats are
Hp: 53
Bld: 11
Str: 25
Mag: 26
Dex: 44
Spd: 40
Def: 18
Res: 21
Lck: 43
If you let her inherit Tiki's HP/Lck +10 and Byleth's +12 it makes her
Hp: 63
Lck: 63
In which her Lck can only go to 63 at max
She just needs a reliable way to one shot enemy's
For Birthright and Revelations, why use any other archer but Mozu though? She can become the most cracked in a short timeframe, and hang with the greats by endgame, sooo...
Bows and archer skills are much worse in BR since the game is very enemy phase focused
What was that weird fe6 gameplay that had units like.. merged together?
Fe6 No Redundancy Edition
@@DaniDoyle thanks so much. I'll have to look into it
feuniverse.us/t/fe6-no-redundancy-edition/12138
replied with a link to download now that I'm at my computer instead of phone. hopefully you can see the link (sometimes youtube deletes comments with links in a n effort to fight spam)
@@DaniDoyle Thanks so much! It was really cool of you to share the link. I look forward to my playthrough
Leif also has the benefit of promoting quickly. FE4 vomits so many enemies in your face that babysitting Leif with a healer makes his promotion fairly easy to get to barring 1RN being mean that day.
I'm not sure if I agree with the fundamental premise here. A trainee unit that makes the game moderately harder in the short term in return for only a mild payoff is IMO, actually fine. Because I think the payoff for the player isn't the unit you get at the end, but actually having a "project" at all. Like, assuming the experience of training the trainee isn't pure suffering, having such an unit adds a bit of structure and interest to your game's early levels, which might otherwise be relatively dull. It could be fun to hobble yourself a bit.
In turn, making sure the final levels still have some challenge is an okay thing to want. Though I agree giving the units something unique at the end is nice. (No mention of Engage Anna's gold farming skill?)
The reason I didn't bring up Anna's gold farming skill is irrelevant. Her base luck is incredibly low and she has to use at least one master seal to function, possibly some second seals if you're going to center out of fighter, meaning that she loses you a good deal of gold, and generally will not be profitable until very close to the end of the game
@@DaniDoyle In my experience she can make go into profit quite fast if you give her Byleth. I guess it depends on how many master/second seals you intend to use, I usually find I have more than enough (also note that you can delay Warrior -> MK for a number of chapters, because the result is just swapping a point or so of magic for speed), and it's not like you can sell them.
You have to purchase all but two second seals so the fact that you can't sell them is irrelevant you're still spending money on them (and in fact why would you sell them after Purchasing them?) By the time by lift shows up you're out of the area in the game where your gold is a limited resource, as the song Gold dump is enough that you really don't need Anna's bullion to supplement your funds
@@DaniDoyle I really meant master seals more than second seals. In terms of second seal use, well, her main competition (Pandreo, and most of the better units in the game) also require a second seal as well so it's about equal whether you want to use her or some other character. The Well DLC changes things, imo, to the point where there isn't really any point in the game where money stops being useful - you can always buy silver weapons to toss in the well to gamble for skill points or stat boosters.
If you do choose to use Anna then, her personal skill equates to around 20-40k gold in the late game which can buy a significant number of high level skills on your other characters (via the well), get you extra staves, stat boosters etc etc. It does take time to pay off (but these *are* trainees we are talking about), but it's not irrelevant imo.
Ross isn't a worse version of either his dad or Dozla. He will almost always have better stats than both(unless your rng is bs).
If his only pay off is combat then sure he caps his stats more than both and he literally has better spd Def and res than his dad.
That's just not true. On average, ross will have lower stats than both Garcia and Dozla at the same level. He has a slight speed lead over dozla, but not enough to double important enemies. Ross's growths are just very mediocre
True but So are Garcia's. Also I dunno about you but whenever I train Ross and promote him to either fighter or pirate he always has everything (except hp) higher than his dad and after promoting everything higher than dozla(except Def which would at most 1 point lower). Also Ross training is worth it bc for me Garcia is always trash. I mean sure I agree that water walking isn't anything special but he's still very strong.
Haven't deep dived into SS in a while but, but as far as I remember, while statistically speaking berserker Ross is pretty much just worse Dozla (worse in everything except strength and luck IIRC), hero Ross is alright relative to Garcia. At 10/1 on average he will have a fairly large lead in strength (4 or 5 I think), and like half a point less speed. Obviously with the investment required to reach this point, and the fact that Garcia joins in the same chapter, Garcia is the better unit.
That being said, I don't think the speed is very significant because both of them are generally relegated to only being able to double slower enemies anyway. I'm not sure how Ross's strength lead effects 2 hit KO benchmarks but in a vacuum it is large. So I don't necessarily agree that Ross is a worse version of Garcia even if you invest in him (which you shouldn't, ideally).
The real problem is that Ross can literally get blue balled into uselessness by RNG while Garcia is more or less fine with just promotion stats (and Dozla is pretty much completely safe). And while that applies to every growth (more like GROSS) unit, the absolute state of FE8 Trainee bases makes them especially vulnerable IMO. Because if your Ross misses a couple of levels in strength, then he genuinely is just shit Dozla/Garcia. The chances of him being worse in every stat isn't even that low, which is why I think
With all that being said, I think that Pirate > Berserker is a much better promotion as his only competition for the Ocean Seal is Colm, who isn't a combat unit. So it is more or less a 'free' promotion.
I also think its worth noting that he gets 2(or was it 3?) 'free' chapters where he is a forced deploy, and at base gains like 30xp or something just from attacking an enemy. So even if you just use him to set up kills for units like Vanessa, he will still gain levels if he is attacking every turn. So I don't think the XP cost of raising him is particularly debilitating.
I think he's one of the better executed trainees (though I wish you got Ewan in chapter 2 instead, that would be sick).
On average, ross has lower speed and strength than Garcia, both as a pirate and a fighter.
@@DaniDoyle Ross has a 50% growth in strength and 5 base, so with the 9 levels in Journeyman he will gain 4.5 average + 2 from promotion, putting him at 11 at level 1 fighter/pirate vs Garcia's 8 at base. Even on 0% growths he only has 1 less strength than Garcia.
Even though Garcia has a higher growth, Ross will still be a few points ahead both at 10 fighter/pirate and 10 hero/berserker.
He will on typically have 1 less speed which can cause him to miss certain doubling thresholds that Garcia can reach.
Ameilia is a female in a series where female generals and Paladins are rare
I really like her cavalier sprite too!
mozu was a fun unit to nuke things with
a bow BANG BANG BANG
Honestly I really do not like Donnel in Awakening. He's a growth centric unit in a game with already really inflated growths. And much like a lot of early Awakening units, he suffers from really bad bases. Along with that, there's no real benefit to getting Donnel through the training arc. Sure, statistically he could be better than Vaike (or on par with Gregor if you choose to go Merc) but with Awakening enemy quality being the way it is in higher difficulties, and Donnel not really having anything unique to him, I can't really see training him as anything other than a meme. It doesn't help that most of the enemies on his join map can one shot him, meaning that trapping an archer is your best bet for getting him a level up to keep him. I really enjoyed Mozu in Fates because her access to bows and Hoshidan classes in Conquest made her feel a lot more distinct from the others in the roster. Mozu's bases are still pretty low but her join map has really low threat enemies that are basically just there to give her XP.
Trying to imply that Donny isn't easily one of the top units in Awakening is an insane take and absolutely tanks your credibility.
I'm not implying anything. I'm plainly stating that in my opinion Donnel is the 3rd worst unit in the game, and I have a higher opinion of him than most other players. The zero to hero is fun and satisfying, but the payoff simply isn't enough to justify the effort beyond fun factor.
@@DaniDoyle Well, there goes the rest of your credibility.
I will never stop making Amelia a general, sorry.
Honestly, such based behavior 💜
Isn't 3 houses units mostly trainee? Only the faculty members are not trainee. Also Cyril is good only slightly bad in silver snow but still can be saved with some statbooster.
what about a trainee that the reward is a free good unit? lmao
Tbh, the problem of trainees is most of them turns out to be another unit you have for free, or they are so easy o train in a certain roll, that they don't feel like a trainee, but another good unit
In the end, Ruby best trainee, she is consuming my money to use her lmao
Ruby is such an interesting approach to a trainee!
Kind of a shame that some of the few female armor knights are super weak or amount to joke charcters. I used Wendy on my first fe6 run just cuz i thought she was cool. Meg is just kind of embarassing since I dont think she could survive, if not barely, in any combat round of her joining chapter. I dont know how usable Sheema is in FE3 since I didnt think it was a good idea to have a training project that late in the game on my 1st playthrough lol. Im glad we eventually got Effie even Im not a big Fates fan.
Really Three Houses is just such a wonky game that typical class archetypes don't really fit at all.
Honestly I find Lilina to be a joke unit, in the same vein as Gwendolyn or Sophia. Lilina is definitely better than these two, but I think she has a similar thing going on.
She joins in chapter 8, and the condition for reaching chapter 8X is keeping her alive; she feels weak, designed to make it so doing this is somewhat of a challenge. It’s a similar vibe to Sophia and her gaiden chapter.
You mentioned how Ogier shows up with worse stats than base Dieck right when Dieck loses steam, but Lilina is in this exact same situation, joining with worse stats than base Lugh right when Lugh is losing steam.
I’d honestly say Ogier is the better unit; he joins easy to train, but has an actual speed stat with plenty of room to grow, can use swords in the Western Isles chapters, and could be trained into a viable candidate for the second Hero Crest, which appears somewhat soon. Lilina, on the other hand has nonexistent speed and bulk, with little potential to grow in these areas, and will be stuck unpromoted until at earliest chapter 14X, where she still is probably still a horrible candidate for that Guiding Ring. Not like she turns out all that great when trained or promoted. All the magic in the world doesn’t mean much when you have no speed.
Ogiers growths are actually remarkably close to dieck. At 15/1 he has one more speed than dieck. At 20/20 (a level so high you are unlikely to reach it)he has 4 more speed than Dieck. Hes basically the same unit as dieck but misses the good early game.
@@DaniDoyle I was comparing Ogier’s speed to Lilina’s; base 9 is so much more manageable than base 4. Was comparing Ogier to Lilina cause in the vid you seemed to imply that Lilina was more competent than him.
I do think she's more competent than him, access to the Fire Tome and an instant Roy support is very strong in a game where hit issues are consistent, and while she is unlikely to double her magic stat tends to end up high and hitting on Resistance will usually do more damage than hitting on defense. I think that offering something unique rather than just being a second version of the unit who isn't really good anymore anyway is definitely more valuable
@@DaniDoyle no way. First of all, all the fire tome hype and mages in general are less needed going into this next stretch of the game, where like 70% of units use axes, and you can hit them all just fine with swords, the other accurate weapon type (hey, Ogier!). Like I said, if Lugh is lowkey starting to lose his deployment value at this arc of the game, what on earth is Lilina even doing?
Instant Roy support is nice, but tbh his supports are better spent elsewhere. Roy gets much more mileage out of support-botting Alen/Lance/Shanna/possibly Marcus in the early game, where he can keep up on the relatively smaller maps, and where the extra damage is sorely needed. It’s overly restrictive to Roy to have to keep multiple support slots open for something so unnecessary. If you want to use Lilina, the Roy support is the way to go, but it’s just not the best use of Roy’s talents. Even if you do use the Roy support, training Lilina is still super awkward. Still slow as shit and now you need to make sure that the lord is standing close by.
Once she’s at level 10, you have an infantry mage with, like, 7 speed, low enough to get one rounded by so much. She has absolutely zero argument for the first guiding ring, and little argument for the second compared to her contemporaries, setting aside the fact that this means dragging this 5 move glass “cannon” through increasingly large and complex maps.
Training her is a waste of time (promotion item woes and shit stats besides magic), and she’s not very good immediately after she joins. She’s offering something somewhat unique, but that doesn’t make it worthwhile. Ogier having an enemy phase, an infinitely better argument for promotion, and a bit better long and short term prospects make him a better unit in my book.
Finally, I feel like you’re overemphasizing the whole “Ogier being a worse version of a unit who is no longer good thing” when Lilina is basically in the same boat. And even so, I’d confidently take Dieck over Lugh by this point.
Man, I just gotta say that I dislike the aesthetics and direction of Engage. Someone here might be able to tell me, is it worth playing if you don't like those two things? How much does the game hinge on it? I just prefer the swords and sorcery direction of the previous games. The magic mech stuff and weird art style just don't do it for me.
I really liked the gameplay
Absolutely no hate to people that like trainees but it’s so lame like I have never enjoyed growth units let alone trainees please just give us units with Kagetsus stats
Embrace 0% growths
Something something *water walk* blah blah blah *Ross* yada yada
Nice video btw
angry face emoji
Personally, I find Azelle from genealogy to be a decent trainee, for similar reasons to both lilina and rayquaza fe4 [I am not spelling her name]
he is the only prologue character [sans arden] who doesn't have a horse, and has pretty decent promotion bonuses, all things considered [+3 magic, +4 defence, +4 move is a big one]
I personally don't think of him as a trainee since he joins at the same level as everyone else but not having a horse is definitely tragic 😭
@@DaniDoyle
Midir is at level 2
Alec is at level 2
Noish is at level 3
Arden is at level 3
Lex is at level 4
Quan is at level 4, and is promoted
Sigurd is at level 5, and is also promoted
I do not think that a one level difference between several of the starting members puts azel below the expected level of your army. Finn and Ethlyn are also level 1. By that same logic Rebecca would be considered a trainee because she is level one where everyone else ch11 is level 2.
great video, very informative.
however, child soldiers in my war simulator game are funny, therefore your arguments are invalid
Jean slander, you won't survive the night
+2 HP on Atlas?! How
He has the Angel Ring equipped. In gaiden, the angel ring turns your level ups into +2 for every stat you roll
@@casualjacob776 I forgot the Angel Ring existed, thanks
@flint8291 no worries! I had it on him to (attempt to) salvage him
@@casualjacob776 I see.
Surprised Anna isnt being treated well considering her gold ability is pretty valuable in the Engage item/well/forge economy
Granted Im not the biggest fan of her either
The sad thing about Anna's personal ability is her luck stat is actually quite low meaning she is not going to generate gold especially often. You combine that with the fact that she requires at least one seal (master seal) to be functional, and two (second seal to mage knight/sage) if you want her doing something other than using the radiant bow (which almost anyone can do) she's actually a lot less profitable than you would think, after all that's a 5000 gold hole she has to crawl out of, with a single digit proc skill that only works on kills
I guess the extra money she provides isn't really all that impactful, tbh. As someone who has never used her yet on maddening and also doesn't use the well, i've never had struggles with gold that kept me from getting the resources i needed. I mean, even without Anna you can still easily get Brodia to donation lv4 before even leaving Brodia, which sets you up for all the forging materials you should need for the rest of the game (and no other nation really needs more than lv2). And even after dumping all that money into Brodia immediately, you get enough afterward to play with comfortably.