As much as i hate to admit it, i agree with this notion. That said, i feel it's more a problem with Gacha in general; The longer a gacha game lives, the more "out there" and versatile units have to become in order for them to be "worth" pulling for in case you don't care for the character. The longer a game lives, the higher the stats, the more effects they have, and the more meta-defining they become. I see this as a problem with Gacha itself, rather than Fire Emblem Heroes alone.
I agree, I believe though that other games are much better at handling powercreep. I've pretty muched moved to Azur Lane over FEH and even though the day 1 characters have been powercrept, I can still use them in boss fights and get satisfaction out of using them. Sure, some game modes may make it harder to use them but in general as long as their skills are maxed and they're levelled I can still kick ass. FEH has definitely not handled powercreep well, just upping the ante with more and more in such a short time period rather than making the powercreep more incremental
At least they can release units with unique effects that aren't too broken to bring more diversity to the game. Some examples would be: - Dagr and Nott with Path Finder. - Duo!Lif and his 50% reduction of damage reduction (spurn, Flayn, etc). - Bridal Catria's movement orders buff and triangle attack effect (she's my favorite example as she's very strong in both AR offense and defense just because of that last one). - Yuri with his incredible movement options while being infantry. - Legendary and Fallen Edelgard's extra action. F!Eddie didn't need so many effects tho. - B! Marianne's pseudo dance with incredible player phase. - The new drive effects of Nifl (damage reduction), Muspel (extra damage) and L!Byleth (NFU). And many others. L!Sigurd and his Holy Knight Aura is fucking stupid tho. It would be fine if it was 3CD, if he didn't have slaying on his prf or if it didn't add so much damage.
I think my biggest problem with the game right now is that older units literally cannot match any of these newer units. You flashed Petrine on the screen when you mentioned investments and I totally agree, she use to be really unique, but the foes that are common in AA are just too broken, and that beast effectiveness is just not enough. There is also the fact that IS has limited skill options for F2P players to an unhealthy degree. They have not fully demoted most solos, bonds are still rare for whatever reason, QR is still 5 star only, and we keep getting the same types of units as demotes, as in Axe units who are usually infantry. Like Shamir for example is literally just Ninja Hana with slightly more bulk but now she scores. Also now we are just getting skills that are straight upgrades to stuff like DC, which is really tough to swallow since one of the things that held dc back was the lack of stats, but now they just get those stats. Also I have been having tons of feathers lately because I simply cannot build anything, why would I build a crappy 3-4 star to +10 when I know they will not do me any good. They should do 3 things if they want the game to survive. First is upgrade 3-4 star skills, let them have stuff like duel threaten, catches, solos, brazens, and other skills in order to make it feel like we have more options to use since right now its still better to use something like fury desp since we have so few skill options, oh and keep the original skills as well. Next would be to change it so all 5 star unlocked skills are now 4 star available, since why exactly would I 5 star a Hana for Lnd when I could just wait for a Sothe? And last is to put a halt on this meta explosion we are in right now. It feels like every banner introduced a unit that fundamentally changed the meta, which is not a good thing. I get its to push people to summon for every new unit, but it is getting to a point where I do not feel like summoning anymore since the unit I go for will be powercrept in at most 2 months.
I can definitely agree with the notion that it isn’t necessarily Fjorm that is the issue but the way things are going with skills upon skills being slapped onto FEH, but the beauty of FEH for me is that I don’t need these units to succeed ever and I can stick with what I have. I use a Xander in my Astra season as a carry alongside other units and I can clear most matches just fine, and while there are teams I have in the back to just shut my mind off, I don’t think it comes to be a problem in terms of what you can pull off. These units are weaker but that’s what makes it really satisfying and in my mind, worth all the investment I put into that unit.
I totally agree. I use Hana to galeforce sweep on all 5 of my light teams, permanent VoH resident and I've only ever miss d T39 once because of too much loft loss on defense. I do think that when the meta becomes over-centralized like it has over the last year that gameplay becomes stale and boring, like Sigurd-Nott lines that had zero AI complexity and save skills that don't require any AI knowledge to keep your support units alive. But none of the powercreep has made me drop units from my roster. Actually, I like more support options like D!Peony, B!Catria on offense, and W!Bernie (again on offense) because they enable the units I choose to play the game with. People chasing the meta are just going to get burned, especially with how fast and hard it came this year, although I feel like I$ has finally let off the throttle some. Like, Fjorm debuted when we had save skills and B!Catria on a DSH banner, and the Catria ball is a clear counter to her, so I feel like she's not nearly as impactful now as she could have been while everyone was sleeping on Catria but before she got a rerun.
The problem is that they aren't making fun, new and interesting game modes anymore. Heroes journey is just boring so it doesn't count. Last time we got was PoL but it rerolling the same units you said no to is dumb and IS hasn't updated that game mode to be less tedious in a long time. Last time they did that was by getting rid of save skills on the enemy team which was a while ago.
The problem is that people despise the game modes that require any kind of strategy. This fuels interest in braindead units like F!Edel, and gets in the way of players who actually enjoy these modes when anyone can just isolate your dancers and tank with ridiculously overpowered units or units that automatically save your support units from being attacked and can't be lunged into traps. That's why we have modes like lost lore and phalanx. Even resonant battles got turned into easy mode.
It would've been cool if we had a Hall of Forms gamemode that we could access at all times where you get 4 random units in the game to play with. And for every few floors you beat, you get rewards.
As it stands i have 3 game modes that I Like, and 3 that I like the idea of on paper. Grand conquest (I love grand conquest), hall of forms, and strangely enough pawns of loki are my favorites. I like the idea of Arena assault, aether raids, and summoner duels but the power creep really shows its ugly head in these modes the most.
It kind of sucks for old players who have invested insane amounts of resources into units that are no longer really viable anymore and dont have the ability to redo those maps and get those resources again. The only way for us to really keep up these days is to spend money on these overpowered legendary/mythic units than can literally kill you in one hit regardless of stats and skills because of how they build the characters now.. When a non merged legendary can 1 shot my +10 Nowi, it fucks me right off.
As a whale from 2017->2019, I think the game has been in decline for years. I still play, but I've gone dolphin tier and I enjoy the game a lot more, as I'm not struggling to fight the current high end meta. The level of Powercreep has allowed IS to keep the game highly profitable, but at the end of the day, it does feel like its unit stats vs enemy stats and less of a strategy now. With the announcement of DL closing sometime this year, I'm reassessing FEH. Right now, it looks like they still have all the same problems that they had when I stopped spending back in 2019. -Power Creep (even with refines and dragon flowers units can't compete with the current arena units, I think this is what even has had whales start to lose interest in the game) -Units that just break the game (I always thought that Surtr in 2018 started this trend) -Lack of interesting modes (all of the newer modes seem to always be pvp based, the summoner ranked duels are absolute garbage) -Story seems to be lacking soul (I think the only time that I enjoyed any story based content was the Temptest Trial Mini with Beserker Hector, this TT story made me think that FEH was starting to break the stereotype of "bad gacha stories") -I assume that units that are released are based on their popularity in chose your legends each year, this might explain why some units will likely never get a release. -The game feels very aged by all standards, in 2019 with the release of Three Houses, I was reminded of what FEH lacked compared to a mainline Fire Emblem game. Although we're getting Three Hopes this summer, its a "warriors"-style game, which is a disappointment compared to classic Fire Emblem gameplay. It will give FEH more unit banners, but I would be very surprised if FEH got any new maps or games modes from it. To not complain entirely, here are my thoughts on what the game could do to improve drastically. -Make Dragon flowers much more easy to obtain or lower the cost to increase stats. Also the units in the current book should not be able to get any dragon flowers. -Allow main story OCs like Alphonse, Sharena, and Anna to equip skills that other units have access to similar to the summoner in Mjolner's Strike for all modes without the use of skill inheritance. -Make the Summoner a unit that can be upgraded (dragon flowers) and used in all modes. -Let us use refining stones or devine dew to upgrade skills from level 3 to level 4 -Make a mode that isn't pvp, maybe it could be co-op (similar to summoner duels), except fighting a big enemy that might drop something worthwhile. -This is sort of inspired from DL. Unlike FEH, DL didn't require +10 merges, but for their dragons you needed unbinds to reach the max level. To circumvent the need to summon 5 copies of a dragon to max unbind, they sold dragon stones good for 1 unbind. I think FEH should sell something similar to "dragon stones" that would give a merge to a unit. This could even be a monthly reward for F2P players, but having access to that in the shop might help bolster sales like I imagine Forma souls do. I think FEH unfortunately also suffers what most gachas suffer from, a fatigue and massive powercreep. I want the game to get better, but I've grown very pessimistic towards it in the last few years. Tbh, I think Nintendo is looking to get out of the mobile market, after the success of the Nintendo Switch. My pessimism has gotten worse with DL's announcement, because I see how far FEH has fallen in sales. I think that FEH will still reach 1 billion in total sales this year, but the game only made 5 million USD last month (May 2022), which feels like a failure with golden week always giving FEH massive spikes in sales for the past. I really hope the game improves, after all this time I still play it daily.
I agree, but also for the people who use older units have a sense of pride when taking out meta units. When my Klein took out A!Fjorm I popped the hell off.
Maybe a hot take, but I don't think armors should have been allowed ncd. Sweep effects were fine as counterplay to saves and they didn't really need the buff in that way. As for regressing meta, yeah I can see that.
i totally agree, i think it makes a ton of good Null-C units basically meaningless now and makes armors overly powerful. i think there was probably a tasteful way to do it by only putting it on an armor who was a little awkward to use for it, but Fjorm is VERY MUCH not that
I wish I could say "Just use your favorites! They will be good enough with alot of premium skills!!" but sadly that just doesn't cut it anymore especially for gen 1 and even some gen 2 units :( Even though I would much rather use my faves instead of the "unit of the month" but with the outdated stats, prf/refines and the overall investment for some units to just do "okayish" in todays meta is too much compared to today units that almost always come with a full set out the box
This happens in all the games with a little competitive perspective, like in pokemon you cant use your favorites and all become in a genetic nightmare or more recently meta change (just to start), the frustration happens when you spend a lot of effort in some units who dont aged well (and if you use money is worst) so maybe we need to be more carefully in this department. I agree a little. but we have some gen 1-2 units really usefull even in this days: Caeda, Cecilia, Chrom, Corrin (M), Eliwood, Fae, Hector, Kagero, Lucina, Magic is everything, Cordelia, Arden...etc
Well i think many of the older units are getting re-refines eventually. While the new refines (of you have invested in the unit) have been really good (julius, kaze, linus, m morgan, brave alm, every legendary refine...) for making them good in their niche. Julius is a really good "red micaiah" with near save support he can tank most ranged units, he lacks only cav effectiveness and a guaranteed follow up, but when your weapon grants you 11 atk, def and res +dragon wall, you can live just on qr and res debuffs stacking
I think what really hurts is when your favorite character gets a refine which is supposed to be an update to get them up to the strength of the current meta and it does nothing for them. So you don't even have a hope that they will be strong enough to use in the future.
@@DisastrousCake leif, flora and Ishtar are the units im disappointed. There refines are good (except leif) but there's something missing. Like leif's refine isn't good like you need your foes to be 100% and its just spd/def+4
I'd say the power-creep was healthy for the game up until 2020 but 2021 was where the game started going downhill. Even early 2020 was pretty good. The degeneracy started with Brave Hector refine and simply got worse afterwards.
There are two things I don't like in FEH meta at the moment: 1. The Powercreep is too high 2. The characters are not unique The first one is self-explanatory. What I mean with the second is that most of the unique things are locked to legendaries and mythics and even that must not be the case. Example: L'Micaiah. Maiden's Solace even though it's just Sacrifice but with Harsh Command+ (and nobody really use it) is "unique" but I feel like it's just there to update Sacrifice, Prescience is DR but we have her own self who has it at base in her tome. Overall Maiden's Solace helps her to be unique. Now an another example but at least in my eyes he is unique: L'Claude. Fallen Star gives him something others don't have and that is the "Fallen Star" buff. That alone allows him to be unique. Thats with the legendaries. But Feh is more than legendaries: Sesonals and New Heroes are a important as well but the only once in the time the heroes are unique. Yuri for example is very unique and falls in to a similar category to L'Lucina. People could argure that L'Lucy gets outclassed by Chrom but in my eyes it's not really the case. Imo Lucy gives you more mobility than Chrom while Chrom has more output compaired to Lucy. Yuri falls between both but has not the self dance which is good. Overall I want to see more unique like B'Ike, Yuri, L'Lucy, etc. but at the same time not much powercreep like Fjorm.
oh no... people actually think yuri is ok??? There are a handful of character I say was a mistake. L sigurd, F edelgard, A fjorm, are some. Yuri is right with them. Or do you actually think its fine to randomly give an infantry unit movement like a horse and canto and a switch skill unique to him and access to lethality? He's just as silly
@@cloudunderweather9554 What I mean is he unlike other units is unique. We never gotten a 3 space Swap until his introduction. Of course he is broken (tbh. he is one of the stupidest unit ever introduced in Feh) but he at least is unique.
To me I felt the game started to regress when they gave these brand new units almost unbeatable assets, and then sold us the solutions. Fallen Edelgard has Guard, Damage Reduction, Self Galeforce, Distant Counter, Wary Fighter, Cooldown acceleration, Cooldown -1, and could move like and Infantry unit. They put that all on one unit so she could one round more than half the cast without trying, they’re solution? Make us summon Legendary Byleth, who has beast effective special, and null-follow in his weapon. He himself is a great unit, but they literally made a problem to sell us a solution, but the thing is, Fallen Edel, in my opinion, should not have been that much of a problem. There should have been no reason that a normal unit we can summon should be a boss battle every time they’re fought, which IS also realized so we got units like Brave Eirika who has Null Follow-Up, Armor effectiveness, Damage Reduction, and Special Healing or Brave Marianne with Null Follow-Up and 80% damage reduction. It’s basically just a “who can stack the most skills on themselves to counter the other one with stacked skills in their base weapons”. I feel like it really started with Brave Edelgard being able to have 80% damage reduction, infantry movement, auto follow up, warp, and special cool -1. It we had to come up with so much just to counter her. Now it’s getting to absurd because older units are getting great refines, but they’re still not enough to catch up to all thing Fallen Edelgard and Ascended Fjorm can do.
100% true. Even last year, when they released OG Mareeta and we thought how broken she was, they sold us the solution to her in the form of Tsubasa not even a month later. Tsubasa literally has everything in her kit to check Mareeta out of the box-- dumb speed to bypass Close Call, flier mobility to catch Mareeta on many of the Arena maps at the time, Chill Speed that would always hit Mareeta due to being the fastest at the time, etc... Having armor/calvary effectiveness and the ability to follow-up before counterattacks were just icing on the cake for Tsubasa. It's such a shame they keep using this marketing tactic. It's effective, but it makes me wonder when more people will see through it and what IT will do then.
Honestly brave Eirika is a boss battle in her own right. Fedel was annoying, but at least they gave out a free counter to her in Ash. BEirika never got a free counter, or any consistent counter until Brave Dimitri finally got his refine. Even brave Tiki can't kill BEirika. But let's not forget the very first boss battle character we ever had, Surtr, who truly had no counter when he released. Though I completely agree that Feh got worse after Fedel released. I actually quit the game for a while after she released.
oh noes, I missed the premiere :( very cool video with a lot of effort. It's kinda funny, as I don't have Fjorm myself and had no issues YET beating her on defenses, I actually didn't even notice so far that anything changed xD It saddens me to see the route they are currently taking, cause I think that game has still tons of potential. If only skills AND ESPECIALLY WEAPONS could still be locked to have 1 or 2 effects most, there have been really cool gimmicks this year as well like Trace skills and Lethal smoke which show exactly how to add new opportunities without breaking the game
your defense is gross sir xdxd but was fun to see how to win. And i agree with you in the skills department, my favorites skills this year are the Yuri thing, the new healers support skills and canto/move gimmick in general, with Marianne special, so im still enjoy this s**t
Damage reduction skills that checks Def and Atk will be really nice for so many Units with different stat distribution. Even if they are lock with a unit type like Cav or Fliers. Better versions of Quick Riposte, Reverse skills or Weapons and so many other things that already the mainline of games did.
Without saves skill armor was a death weight in a lot of team composition, now you can run 1 unit to do hit and run and comeback to the safe range with a canto unit and repo/swap, or you can go all in with galeforce and run 1 far save who dont have distant counter just to cover the team if you left 1 unit alive. Im 1 year old player, but a lot of people say me since 4 year some people complain about the "powercreep" in the game and they still comeback, so maybe Levin just dont have fun anymore with the game, but he have fair points on this.
I felt this way long ago when 3H heroes started coming out and they keep on pushing and milking their 3 stars. Every time they release Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude, they would push the power creed border more. Like, look at F!Edelgard that has to be the most toxic hero ever. This is just like when Hector was their shining money milker where they give him new variants but each time power boosts him.
As a F2P player I totally agree that the game is less about strategy and the weapon triangle and is now about only acquiring the newest meta unit. I mean, it's how they keep people in this spiral. I could never let my hard earned dollars go to such a predatory system. I still do ok, but yeah, I just have to accept I won't be able to KO a +10 meta unit.
I agree with everything you've said; when she was first announced, summer Caeda and her everything-effectiveness weapon legitimately had me wanting to quit. What's the point of the weapon triangle now? What's the point of the speed stat if units with brave effects can attack twice on enemy phase anyway? What's the point of any new unit that doesn't have NFU, damage reduction, or canto? It just shoehorns everyone into using the same busted units and the same busted skills if they want to win PvP. I guess it's inevitable since every game has to have an evolving meta, but as someone who's been dead-set on using a +10 Niles since launch, I just miss the days where we built +10 Wryses for laughs and the biggest concerns we had were dealing with Hector's distant counter.
I loved hearing your thoughts on this and I'd love to see more scripted content like this on so many different facets of gaming- feh and non-feh alike!
I have anxiety over investing in units. I will draw for fodder for the units I wanna build, but I almost always not end up building them MAYBE until the last minute, then at that point they have little to no relevancy when it comes to competitive modes and end up having not a lot of things to use them on at all. In my mind it's always "oh this fodder is rare I should save it until I absolutely need it" and time passes by and boom they're no longer relevant. In theory, the current situation should give me the mindset of I should just build units so I can cherish them while I can, but no, now I have even more anxiety over building them. 'Cause like, I'll build them and spend a lot of resources only for them to end up as dead weight a bit later. My mind will just tell me that I've wasted so much resources. This anxiety goes so far that I can't even invest in my faves. I drew for Dragon Wall fodder specifically for MKana (a fave) and I STILL haven't foddered off Muspell on him because of anxiety. A lot of the units I like are outdated units (MKana, Tana, Chrom, Raven, Odin, MCorrin) and even though I've invested in some of them... they're just not even gonna be able to compete with the newer units we get even if unmerged. And I'm a low spender I can't always get the new toys. We don't nearly get enough inheritable weapons to update our old units, and even then new ones with prfs will almost always be better. So yeah, investment anxiety.
Are you me? Lol, I'm really bad at hoarding skills into irrelevancy, but to add to it, the rate of powercreep lately has been insane, and if anything, I feel even more hesitant to invest into anything, because stronger units show up nonstop!
i have the EXACT same problem, i hang onto fodder waiting for ~the perfect unit~ to give it to, and the skills end up being totally outdated and irrelevant before i ever find their home. that said, i DO get a good amount of enjoyment out of finding success with really cheap/simple builds, at least!
Regarding investment choices, specifically in favorite units, i think its still 100% worth even if they aren't exactly meta. Favorite units are the whole reason why I still enjoy playing the game after all. Yeah they might not function as well in the tier 39 meta game, but its still fun to just have them invested in knowing well you love that character and put effort in making them as strong as possible. Is it worth the swipe? Probably not. But investing in game resources? Definitely. Sometimes even as much as a screenshot of a completed build brings me so much joy and happiness that i could stare at it for hours admiring my work XD
This is also a reason why I feel like feh wont exactly die out even after the AR or arena meta goes to absolute s***. People play the game cuz we like fire emblem, and the collection aspect of the game still exists beyond competitive PvP. This is just my opinion though hahaha
it's the whales who drive the vast majority of revenue for this game. if the whales stop feeling like competitive play is worth it, the game will start to make less money and thus will eventually shut down. unfortunately, people who spend small amounts of money to +10 their favorites once in a while aren't enough to keep this game afloat.
@@promisemeonething hmm you drive a good point there. And yeah when you think about it, the more popular banners and high selling banners for IS are in fact banners with meta units or meta skills to be inherited huh...
This is definitely not a solution, but I would like to see a new skill slot added to 2017 units. It would make them all more viable and give them the potential to keep up with the meta. I'll call it the "E" slot for extra slot. I would restrict it to non tier 4 A,B and C skills. It would make units like Ryoma very good, but it would at least put most of the other year 1 units in the same ball park as new units. Maybe this would add to the breakdown of the game, but It would make your past investments in these old units feel more meaningful. BUT, the idea of A refined Reinhardt with trace and Lull and db 4 is bad so nvm forget everything I said.
Very well spoken! It's clear a lot of prep went into this video, and it came out very polished. It's not a topic that's a lot of fun to talk about, but I do think it's important to address. I used to be very easily enticed to summon for whatever new, shiny unit was just released, but I find myself skipping on more banners now. Now that I have an AR core that works the majority of the time, I'd rather use a few ladders every week when it doesn't work than try keep up with the latest and greatest units every few months. I do feel like certain game modes have been more affected than others. It could totally just be my lack of creativity, but I find it hard to set up a good defense in AR. Arena is so restrictive with which units score well that once you're able to beat one team, you can probably beat most of the rest of them. I still really enjoy Abyssal maps for new legendary and mythic units. They are of course easier with the more "meta" units, but I've found I'm still able to use my favorite units with enough strategy. I've also found that the shifting meta has brought new life for some older units. As a devout Owain fan, Odin became one of my most used powerhouses, especially after his refine. When lull skills were first released and became popular, his utility drastically decreased. But it seems there are so many more useful skills for the B slot for infantry (the holy trinity of damage reduction, NFU, NCD as mentioned) and flying/cav units (trace skills) that bladetomes are actually viable in many cases again. All that being said, I do feel like I have been a contributor to problem as a F!Edelgard user. Of course I don't mind all of the effects stacked within her build, but I remember wanting to build her as soon as I saw her on the trailer before I analyzed her skills and weapon. Now that I have a group of units that I like that are able to carry me, I don't really see summoning units just because they're the new and improved meta on the block.
As many have already noted here, updating old units to match the power of new ones seems to be a focus of FEH. The fact that Linus got a re-refine suggests VERY positive things to me as a relatively new player. IS seems dedicated to creating relatively even power dynamics that, sure, tilt in favor of new units, but nothing to the point that old units are irrelevant. In my mind, A!Fjorm is a clear step back from the terrifying potential of F!Edelgard. As much as I love Edelgard as a character, I felt a clear degradation of the meta when the fallen version was released. I think this is due to the fact that F!Edel is a stat ball with a ridiculous number of effects baked into a 25% HP condition. Nearly everyone would simply put her on defense (or offense, or arena, or arena assault, or PoL, or Brigades, or...you get the point) and watch her destroy max invested older units with ease. Then, IS and the player base fixed it. B!Alm got a remix that makes him a fantastic unit as well as a strong F!Edel counter, Fatal Smoke saw a boost in utility and older cavline staples began to be seriously threatening with it, and many niche counters emerged such that F!Edelgard, while still extremely strong, is nothing like the universal cover-all that I feared she would be. That brings me to A!Fjorm. While she does have a long list of effects, she seems nothing like the unbreakable, zero weaknesses monster F!Edel used to be. So, as far as I'm concerned, I think A!Fjorm is a step in the right direction. While I certainly agree that if IS chooses the route of higher numbers and less tactics, we will be in a very bad place. I simply don't see that as the direction they are headed. Tactics is, and hopefully always will be, the heart of Fire Emblem as a franchise, and I don't see IS throwing that away for any amount of money any time soon. I've played several gacha games in the past, and this one is easily the best for keeping the meta vibrant with both new and old units. If you've made it this far: thanks for the read! I apologize for the length, but I felt such a measured and well-written video deserved longer response. I suppose only time will tell if FEH is on its last legs, but I sincerely hope it has many years to go.
Agreed. Hardly anyone was prepared for F!Edelgard when she dropped. A!Fjorm was preceded by a seasonal rerun banner that contained one of her best counters, Bridal Catria, and the competitive meta already runs duel Lif on AR-D. If anything, cav lines in dark season will be forced to run more melee units which I think is a good thing.
Linus did not get a rerefine he didn’t have his own prf in the first place he was given Ravens Basilikos and it already had a weapon refine at the time the weapon was never his
@@richpichu1272 True, but in a way it is the closest thing to a re-refine we get. A better example is when newer versions of main lord characters get refines, sometimes their older versions gain the new weapon, like we just saw with Ephraim gaining Legendary Ephraim's weapon when it was refined. It's to bad Raven didn't gain the same axe.
@@jonunciate7018 weapon evolution existed before L!Ephraim got his refine he already got it, it’s been discontinued because base eliwood ruined it for everyone
The funny thing was that even after I got lucky in summoning A!Fjorm on her banner, her playstyle did not seem to appeal to me all that much since I already got used to player phase strats, as well as ranged tank + Near Save armor as my main omni-tank strat. Not to say that I am not open to adapting to new team comps, yet I saw that most veteran players already have answers to A!Fjorm in AR-O and she would be much better off as a defense unit I feel. My Bridal Catria defense had no trouble taking out A!Fjorm barring the ones of the highest investment, so I could only win so many matches. Still, I do agree that a meta revolving around a few problematic units or cards would be unhealthy for the state of any game in general. A!Fjorm's inclusion was only just a cog to the regressive path, since the next Ascendant Unit could either save the game, or poison it further. Either way, I feel highly anticipated to see how the meta shifts later on in the next few weeks and the following month.
I would say that you’re closer to the “losing your golly gosh darn mind” side of the spectrum. 😂 I’ve been practicing a LOT with Fjorm for her upcoming bonus season next week, and she has been doing just strictly worse than my H!Ilyana as far as a Far Save unit is concerned. I think Fjorm is strong. I think Fallen Edelgard is strong. I don’t think either of these units “break the game” or signal regressive game design. There have been “raid boss” units in FEH for most of the game’s existence (see: Surtr). But the meta shifts and adapts and changes. People have started re-examining previously underutilized skills like Pulse Smoke and Pulse Tie (RIP me), and I think that’s a healthy thing for the meta. I put out a State of the Game video earlier this year where I talked about the need for the meta to stabilize (L!Sigurd, Nótt, and B!Catria were all released far too close together), but I think we had a pretty considerable lull since then in terms of the shifting meta. For me, shaking up the meta is something fun and exciting and challenging. But I also understand if that can be frustrating. I do not, however, think it signals the death of the game by any means.
Agreed. There have been many times where far save Bector has been the superior choice for me. A!Fjorm is really good, but she is so dependent on her special that a lot can go wrong and she can get overwhelmed. She's also unfortunately an axe unit. I literally see her do 0 damage to Duel Lif, outside of what her special adds.
Gotta agree. This coming Liight/Dark season is prolly A! Fjorm’s worst season because Triandra is the bonus mythic this week if your using her on offense. Defense is a totally different story. She’s good on stall teams but if you watch Marbelsoda’s video on the most oppressive stall team there are niche counter pick units that can break through. Even tho B!Eirika is better at Galeforce teams she actually breaks close save skills and damage reduction with her base kit so it’s easy to overlook that IS made that her niche even if she holds a disadvantage against green armors.
@@justmikoto9880 or you could just bring windsweep Kempf. Then safely finish with your favorite armor slayer. Armor stall teams are easy. A!Fjorm is the bonus unit right now so that might mitigate the Triandra issues... a bit. Really wish I had Mila.
Yeah, I see where you coming from in this, even though this is my first Gacha. I never thought about the 9 components that make a character great for the meta until you brought it up. And coming from the days when dragons were the best units, it feels so off that now, returning to an era where I don't know what is even going on anymore kinda hurts.
I still enjoy FEH, as well as many new units who are coming out, and quite a number of the modes. But I can see where you're coming from. I think the powercreep, the increased skill access, and the game of numbers all stem from IS's choice to try and grab the attention of the competitive crowd. I'm fine with people forming a meta game out of this, but they've been changing the rules of it so much and introducing so many counterpick units (I love Pirate Hinoka and Ninja Female Corrin, but I'm convinced they are what they are because of Brave Hector) that it's like they want you to play the game the way they want you too. From Day 1, I've always invested into units I want to use, and I plan to keep it that way.
Interesting how you broke down "what makes a good unit in FeH" with those 9 skills. Not every unit is going to be good, and there will be units that are unique because they're ridiculous with what they can do. I find it funny that if a unit comes out that isn't 'broken', like L! Fae, no one wants them. But the second a superpower unit comes out (F!Edelgard) everyone loves, hates, complains about and wants it... Personally, I think Ascendant Fjorm won't be a benchmark of power due her being this 'special' busted unit. We've had this happen before with pretty much every Mythic and arguably every Legendary unit too. They get used for a while then fall off, and as you mentioned, they're not impossible to defeat. Most of these jarring units that come out come out and are replaced, and to be fair, they have been coming up with ways for older units to match today's standards with refines and remixes.
I 100% agree with what was said in this video. I love fjorm and ascendant fjorm and her design and I love using her. However, the moment I saw all the affects she had, everything you just said was pretty much confirmed to be happening in my eyes. My concern actually started all the way back with L!sigurd tbh. But yeah honestly feh is on a dangerous path at this point
Yep, I've seen this happen before. Brave Frontier was a fine example of this. Amazing game with unique mechanics and interesting story and characters but powercreep reached a point of no return. While early on every unit had one or two abilities or something unique going for it, eventually newer units had like 20 different abilities and the numbers kept getting bigger and bigger. Started with 5* characters but eventually introduced 6*, 7* and 8*, each with new better abilities and higher stats. You either had the shiny newest units or you would not be able to clear content. It was very gradual but noticeable. It's sad that I'm seeing FEH follow the same path.
Honestly you hit the nail right on the head. My issue with the game was not powercreep since that had been present for a long time and I eventually came to terms with it. The issue was when they released broken overpowered units which I dub "Powerleap" units and they did it 3 times in the span of 2 months this year with L!Sigurd, F!Edelgard and Nott, two of which were sparkable. F!Edelgard being the worst of them all because it felt like she was a business decision so they could sell units that are supposed to hard counter her for those who were not interested. At the time, it felt like you had to summon for her if you wanted to deal with her, and if you had her, she required almost no thought to use, if her counters were not there, just send her in and they will die. Again just like you I want to enjoy the game while it lasts, but the longer it goes on, the more disconnect I have with the meta, I barely do AR anymore and I only really do Arena for orbs so I could summon for favorites and get feathers to merge them up.
since the beginning of feh i thought that all that matters is pulling for stuff you like. the reason i don't like other gatchas is for one because the "combat" is just have unit -> unit go big number -> win and i think that what fire emblem does with reasonable numbers, where you can comprehend what it means to do 10 to 15 damage instead of 3418255 to 4103382, is miles ahead other gatchas and that uniqueness will probably keep it alive by virtue of being the gatcha that is not like the other. in matter of over stacked units i think fallen edelguard is the only absolute design mistke. she is so stupendiously stacked that i couldn't beat a maxed invested f!edelguard in arena if she never attacks or counterattacks. all other units like sigurd, catria, duo líf or fjorm have counter play. sigurd is aggressive turn 1 but loses to save balms and fence, catria makes it extremely hard to approach the team but loses to bolt tower, líf beats damage reduction but can't beat any form of strong mage and struggles against nufu and fjorm needs to be faster than the opponent or she doesn't get the kill and guard is also super problematic.
Two things I would want: More support units that offer one of "the nine" skills. Like L!Byleth and B!Lucina. And for new crazy units to have more conditions to their numerous effects (although the text box would a nightmare). Possible examples: F!Edelgard only gets some of her in combat effects from being transformed but gets all of them while solo. Or Fjorm only gets null-c if her special is ready.
What I noticed over all these years is that IS barely added depth, if any, and istead stacked complexity to no end to the point where Aether Raid battles had like 5000 gimmicks you'd have to look out for instead of playing core Fire Emblem. Hence why I stopped trying to rank high because the game isn't rewarding enough compared to what it demands from the player in my opinion. Also wanna say thanks. It doesn't really matter if everyone agrees with 100% of your points or not, I absolutely love when people stand up and voice their criticism for a game they actually really love. As such, your video is super appreciated and of great value for the community. Cause it's videos like these that make games better. Cheers, Levin!
Great video! I definitely agree with your main points. The homogenization of units is definitely a worrying sign, but personally the sign that alarmed me the most was Legendary Sigurd and Pathfinder. The fact they began to powercreep movement was a sign to me that they had completely ran out of design space for new characters and were struggling to think of new ideas. We will have to see if Intelligent Systems is able to find a fix to this problem before the game devolves further and every unit becomes how many power effects they can have.
This 100%. While I do think that Fjorm is toxic, it's the movement power creep and shenanigans on top of everything else that just kill it for me. Danger Area is a nearly useless feature anymore. I just don't understand how units move anymore. AR just really became un-fun for me this year after Sigurd and Pathfinder.
i am very curious what the next trend in powercreep will be - it doesn't feel like there's much further to go after the kind of movement shenanigans they've introduced; maybe with the coming of book 6 they'll either do something really tasteful or really horrifying lol
My first gacha game was also KHuX, and I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed going on after school ended and doing raids with my friends. I remember first getting Pooh & Piglet and setting it as my share medal so my friends could use it, it was so good as a general buff medal. But as the game progressed and I got older, I eventually stopped caring. In order to clear the new stuff, you had to have the newest medals, which would soon get power crept in a month or two (if even that). My old medals could no longer be used because they would do negligible damage against the new enemies/raid bosses with 10 million HP. Once upon a time, I wanted the HD Aqua medal because she was so powerful when the game first launched. Yet good luck getting decent mileage out of her around the time KHUX ended. Just... Im getting kind of depressed thinking about the state of the game when it ended. And now I'm starting to feel the same way about FEH. I used to play the game almost religiously, but now I just log in for the free orbs and log out. I'll do free summons, and that's about it. It's kind of sad but the prowercreep is real, and I can't be bothered to keep up with the current meta. So now, I just resolve myself to summoning for heroes that I like their character/artwork. Other than that, I've pretty much moved on from FEH :/
haha and this is why I quit FEH back in December 2020. Save skills drew the final straw for me, and thank god it did. Because I would lose my sanity dealing with all these new powercrept skills/units
As soon as you mentioned KHUx i violently flinched from the bad memories of the introductions to 7* medals and the PVP gamemode that was basically a whale playground...I agree that FEH has to chill with the lightspeed powercreep, because my favorite unit in all of Fire Emblem (and my 2nd fave as well) aren't in the game yet, and I'd be very sad if I couldn't at least +10 either of them before the game died haha. I pray they add Garcia or Gregor soon so I can at least have fun before the game shuts down
Really well done video Levin. I hope somehow someone at IS watches this, this is so well made 🙏 Also they'll just release a Reinhardt style red unit with slaying, anti guard, armor effectiveness in 3 months
I'm slightly conflicted about AFjorm. I loved the save meta and thought that sweep skills were a more than enough counter. I had my NCD tanks to assist my saviors on certain maps and I was ok with it. However, IS kept releasing more and more dps units with busted stats or effects to the point were my NCD units besides Micaiah couldn't keep up, so I stopped using them. So when AFjorm came, I didn't really care about her NCD. The meta was no longer a paper-rock-scisors game, but who had the most stats+effects. AFjorm fit right into it.
Absolutely love the video, and I agree with a lot of the points but I see things a little different on the endgame, I do think weapon powercreeps is a huge issue in the game at the moment, and L!Marth refina is a testament that something is very wrong in the way that things are being handled, seriously, that unit is stupid now, I do think Ascended heroes are a really big powercreep, and sadly we don't have the gift of foresight in this game to see how IS intends stabilize the game, because right now we are in a very similar position as where we were at the beginning of this year in a lot of competitive modes, Offense is incredibly powerful, and almost impossible to account for more than 70% of what every offensive hero offers, but what worries me the most is how hard is to keep favorite units relevant, there are some heroes that definitively age better than others but right now some old heroes I would love to use are literally collecting dust, which is my biggest concern at the moment.
My first gacha was also the KH one! Seeing that Illustrated Kaori EX (I think that was the name) brought back a whole wave of memories. I instantly saw where you were going with this.
Some good points in the video you've brought up. I think if the game does begin dying, it will be when we get rained upon with free orbs to the point where no one will want to buy them.
I quit this game sometime in 2020. I didn't really spend much - just tried to be as efficient as possible with resources. But I found it really hard to stay in tier 21 arena by the sheer fact that the skill totals and merges for legendary units were just so difficult to get with the limited orbs. Aether raids became harder and harder too. I was pretty sad that I fell out of top 1000 and never found my way back. The biggest problem though was investments didn't have much staying power. Mordecai was a really good f2p unit to use in arena because the red sword meta was pretty common. Then IS released a bunch of ridiculous mages - even red mages - that just completely invalidated Mordecai entirely. What I would have said was a Tier 2 arena character became unusable very shortly after. I remember there was Duo Byleth, Lysithea, and a bunch of others. I remember I had a +6 Legendary Marth that was pretty bad too, and I didn't even want him to begin with - the gacha just kept giving me copies of him over and over instead of the units I actually wanted. Anyway, I don't regret leaving the game. When I want to play Fire Emblem, I just play the actual games. Much less stressful and I never feel that rotten pit in my stomach. PS: That Fjorm unit looks stupidly broken.
I remember I got screwed at the first ever Plumeria banner and dropped the game competitively entirely. I still play in a more casual manner, I don't even touch aether raids, so I haven't trully seen what the meta is currently. I do wish however that eventually IS makes a patch regulating all heroes to give them a regular statline alongside regulating stats, and not what's going on now that's basically getting to the 200's in overal BST and every new weapon gives +5 to everything, and a null effect or a DC effect or a slaying effect or everything merged together. It's never going to happen tho, ever, but one can dream
I do half agree with this vid, I generally do not like seeing the units who are getting like 8 effects. Its far too many and definitely ruins a lot of old investments. However, I do think there is one effect that you left out that is significant (and that Fjorm does not have) and that's effectiveness neutralization. I think the reason B!Hector has survived as long as he has in the meta game is because of how strong that effect is. Units like brave miciah that should be one shotting him fail to kill completely. Having an effective against opens weaknesses and has allowed units like brave Erika, miciah, chrom, etc to remain incredibly effective at chipping tanks. So I feel like it should be included in your "9 effects" list (of course infantry naturally all come with it)
I really hope it doesn't end 😭 I've spent too much time in this game and it would fr be sad but honestly I agree with you. When I saw the whole ascended asset thing get added it felt rlly off to me
I have to say, I don't really agree with any major conclusions you reached. Feh is far too profitable to shutter it's windows anytime soon, and all it will take to inject new interest is another inevitable FE mainline game. "Dead Game" has been a meme take since at least 2018. Second, Fjorm's timing was super awkward. Literally B!Catria and both ranges of save skills were on banner simultaneously, and the Catria Save ball takes the legs out from under Fjorm before she got a chance to run. I can agree that powercreep was rampant since basically December last year, but I feel like that's been tempered in the last few months, and Fjorm is not at all the death knell you're making her out to be. Ironically, I view ascendant florets as a way to patch up old, long-time invested units. They're going to be on a tighter drip that dragonflowers (which I think should also be used on favorites one intends to use no matter what), and that's completely fine by me. I also think it's a hilariously bad take that Save Skills were interesting in any way. Just another cheat skill for players to skip learning about AI movement and keep their support units safe without any thought or worry about getting lunged into traps or sniped. The AR-O equivalent of mindless Sigurd-Nott lines. I can at least understand why so many players gravitated towards those defense maps, because I$ nerfed just about every F2P or budget defense archetype into the ground. Just easier to summon for a few premium units to slap on defense and call it a day. Imo, Isolation was far more detrimental to the AR meta than even save skills, because that shut down creative development of defense maps.
I certainly see a lot of truth to this take and it’s certainly a possible path that we are heading towards a bad path. However seeing fjorm brought me to the conclusion they were getting ready to counter far save meta soon. Near save due to being less relevant overall and less powerful is probably not a target for this. Similar to how dr meta was made irrelevant by certain units such as duo lif, I think they will release a number of units within the next few months that deal with far save decisively. All you really need to shut it down is a Brave ranged armor slaying effect which certainly sounds broken but isn’t impossible. Feh always likes to go with the *release broken or meta defining thing- then release counter, so I am sure they have some sorta counter in mind. There is always the possibility for them to expand the meta with new effects as well. Another thing I’d like to point out is her big weaknesses. Besides being weak to brave attacks- she also lacks in fire power(against certain match ups), is the worst tanking color and a generalist. Whenever such a unit is a generalist trying to do everything it leaves the door open for being overwhelmed by fire power
A good thing about AFjorm is that she was in a sparkeable banner, unlike previous cancer such as Savior/Sigurd/Catria shenanigans, so is at least fair that such a powerful unit was easily accessible, similar to Fedelgard, and just like her I won't be surprised IS might release easy but expensive counters in the future. But this also shows that investing into the meta(primarily gambling into seasonal and legendary banners for a new toy) as F2P or dolphin is a downhill slope.
This video aged well. Welcome ascended mareeta to the team 😂 Edit I watch people play feh but I have put the game down. After last yr I realized no matter what I like using there will be something that completely forces you to build a team to counter. It got even worse when IS bluntly just solve that problem by dumping out a more OP or unit to counter said unit. Like what's the purpose of planning my teams if I can just run the game with F!Edel last yr when she was a problem then daddy Sigurd then the ninja brrs right past you haha
I agree that this game's powercreep is overblown but this is the product of a game who's main appeal is summoning. How else would people be tempted to summon on new banners. So the issue is both ways. Players are encouraging these decisions since IS keeps stats on all new banner summons. IMO, to get out of this predicament, IS needs to implement a new way to play the game and interact with your barracks that make summoning not the be all and end all (I know, a tough task for a gotcha game). You did a great job with the script and I would love to see a part 2 where u devise some ways IS can overcome these obstacles.
I think the biggest problem isn't necessarily the pinnacle of strength and the stacking of skills - I think it's the lack of ability of anything else to keep up. The power ceiling hasn't changed much, but, the power floor has gone astronomically higher. You showed Brunnya, Fallen Celica, and Petrine at various points; to me, those three epitomize what the current meta shifts have done for the worst. All three of them used to be unique, strong, and generally solid; however, with the meta building around Saves, you're either a strong enough unit to tank units that break Saves (Which do exist, but, it's nearly impossible to build a non-PRF unit into someone that can tank Brave Eirika or Ophelia, and even most PRFs can't handle it), or a strong enough unit to break Saves. If you can't do either of those things, you're of every little value. Fallen Celica, Brunnya, etc used to be brilliant generalists that you could use in nearly all situations with intelligent play and investment. They had weaknesses, but, they had sufficient strength to handle most situations if played well. However, the insane stat allocations of Saves meant the offensive units required to break them - like Duo Lif and Brave Eirika - so completely outclass the capabilities of any of them that they're of no real value. I agree that Saves by themselves weren't actually too strong, and added some nice variety away from the overly centralized infantry metagame. But, units with over-stacked PRFs like Duo Lif and Brave Hector, in combination with stuff like Bride Catria with Saves as a shield, it just shut down the ability to build your favourite units to be effective almost completely. Fjorm is another step in that direction, but, Flash honestly wasn't a threat or an answer against a sufficiently strong Save (Speaking as someone that routinely would tank entire AR-D teams while Flashed and take, like, maybe 10 damage total). I don't think Fjorm by herself is a huge problem, she's strong but far from unmanageable, but, I do think the PRF powercreep leaving everything else in the dust is an issue that the game really needs to address. For a game with >700 characters, there's maybe only 20 that are actually important, and possibly another 50 that can be made to work with heavy investment. That really kinda sucks.
I must agree with you. In my case it is choice of either using my favs like Selena or Cordelia and struggle to do anything or you just using the recent "best unit". I think there is one more problem (well there are a lot of problems, but I want to mention this one): The F2P skills pool is nearly stagnant while 5* exclusive skills keep getting more, and more crazy. In current meta something like Swift Sparrow 3, Death Blow 4, bond lvl 4 skills and even Distant and Close Counter should be available via 3 and 4* summon units. In the end at 5* rarity there are Unity skils, and even better versions of counters! But DC is rare, CC is nearly impossible to get, and even if I manage to summon someone with good skills to give to your +10 favorite unit I think: Ok, but what if next banner will bring some new powercreep and my just invested unit will land in barracks because it will be not relevant?
I flinched a bit when I heard you talking about Khux. I used to play that and MSF. One shut down and the other is also kinda on that track. Once the Iso-8 whatever nonsense became a rumor I left back in 2019-2020 shortly after getting Phoenix. Glad I did. I’ve noticed the same thing happening in feh and it makes me sad. Stopped spending as well and glad I did, actually.
I pretty much stopped spending after the valentines banner last year with save skills and D!Lif... It became pretty clear it was taking a bad turn at that point and was becoming less like a fire emblem game and more like a high chase.
I kinda disagree with your take on A!Fjorm. There are already a ton of counters to her being run in vault of heaven before she was already released, especially dual Lif, and Bridal Catria who was the "bait" banner just before A!Fjorm. I think her release was far more appropriate than F!Edelgard. I like that she shifts the meta away from cav lines a bit, or will at least require people to run more melee units. However, I do fear for the health of the game, more because they are going to run out of fire emblem characters...
@@ghostin3274 that part I agree with, for now. It's a new item, and if they start introducing FTP ways to get more in the future I'll be less annoyed. Judging by FEH's history it isn't uncommon for them to give us good free stuff on big event like anniversary or new years. But until then, they'll milk the whales.
frustrating that sometimes the game just feels like i have to use something they're selling to me to beat something they're selling to me. sucks going into something like AR or arena and realizing a unit i fully invested into is actively my worst unit on the field and is borderline useless in most scenarios.
I like a!fjorm, is funny seen how 5 ranged units hits her and die, maybe that stops people to use full ranged defense, and now this new mode in colesseum is like a breath to the game for people bored
It feels like sense the announcement of Book IV everything has been slowly regressing. Prior IV, Book III cultivated Aether Raids, introduced Mythic units, introduced Beast Units, and attempted to give other games more attention. Book II introduced legendary heroes, weapon refinery, and generally improved the game in every way mechanically. What did Book IV give us? The first damage reduction B skill on a unit with Null Follow Up, a Dancer Mythic that outclassed every dancer in FEH (Other than LAzura), and a Unit that had DC along with Slaying. The ONLY thing Book IV sought to introduced was a new meta and powercreep, which while exciting in its own way, should not be acceptable for what the two years prior introduced. Book V, so far has followed in suit and simply changing the meta is getting old. Feh needs something new like Aether raids that is similarly as fun and can establish it's own meta. No one cares about special events because they aren't constant. Feh needs a new constant
Recently i become a galeforce enjoyer so im beyond of the frustration XD but this always happen in games with a long shoot, like in TCG, is scary aproach to YuGiOh now, so i agree with this but im the kind of player with a lot of resilent, and i love to surpass this walls with planning, and if you are F2P is more difficult but no impossible. People if you see Catria in defense just dont use Save ball with Fjorn, you have more options like galeforce, hit and run, or semi-tank strategy, i have a perfect defense week xd. When i started in feh (like 1 year ago) i always used hit and run with a lot of succes then save and pathfinder happens, that was a slap in the face and force me to do more than 1 team and strategies. Yes maybe is just my case but now i have a lot of fun just to plannig the best way to make a smooth clean in AR.
I agree with the powercreep for the most part, but I'm not hating the addition of fjorm. She forces a lot of people from using cav lines ESPECIALLY in dark season. Now people actually have to restrategize and use more than just 2 distance cavalries. Even with her addition I haven't had any trouble sleeping her. A unit that can hit twice or even close range units can sleep her with ease. I'm currently using a no merge Duo Catria to take her out.
Well the good thing is power creep doesn't only work for new units old units can also be good thru refines but the divide dew needed for that is a bit hard to obtain without feh pass.
From my point of view, most of the powercreep problems stem from the fact that most of the meta shifts since the CYL4 banner have been AGAINST the player and in favor of Defense teams. The units in the last dancer banner don't have the use in AR-O that something cool like Galeforce Azura would have, and instead we got 3 Mov Ranged Dancer that enables Duo's Hindrance and dancer traps and a Dancer that dodges the most common source of Isolation. Also, Odd Recovery was introduced, to further deprive Offense teams from Isolation. Then Nott, L!Sigurd, and F!Edelgard happened, again, giving disgusting tools to Defense teams and taking options away from the Offense teams. Ascendant Fjorm and Safety Fence are merely additions to give Offense teams a way to attempt to counter the non-sense that the most disgusting and try-hard Defense teams have, including Turn 1 initiations using stuff like Flash and Sweeps to shut down the Save units the Defense team basically forces most players to use. IS wouldn't have been forced to progressively add more and more skills to individual units if they had properly nerfed cavalry teams in AR-D. Maybe do something like adding Defense tiles in all the tiles of the sixth row not currently taken by terrain, so that those tiles can't be filled with obstacles that encase the Offense team and leaves it at the mercy of the Defense team's ranged cavs. It's been years since AR was introduced and in that time there has been NOTHING that disuades people from using ranged cavalry units on their Defense teams. Other AR-D archtypes (like IP teams) have fallen off, but cavalry teams remain as the go-to option for the Lift-starved fellas who want to win as many AR-D matches as possible.
I'm just glad Luthier made it in. I had fun with FEH, but the power creep makes it too tedious for me. Plus, I feel like I'm drifting away from the JRPG genre nowadays.
I remember I plus ten'd my kaze a year ago, and I was excited to use him in literally everything because he was my favorite character. I took a hiatus because of school and other reasons and now I can barely keep up with the meta. At this point I'm just playing to get characters I like and might just delete the game for good soon.
One thing to add is how IS is literally throwing meta defining units and skills, and then within months throwing out their counters. Meta-defining units of old (bike, taco, b!Lyn), lasted way longer than the common meta units of today (f!edel barely exist, a!fjorm invalidated any far save unit, d!lif is falling off, lynja isn't as common, the list goes on). IS will release a unit and then immediately release their counter the next month. Ik it's a meme that every banner is bait, but this year, literally every banner has been a bait for the next, and it's getting old.
IS has been adding problems and then selling us solutions to said problem since the beginning of FEH. Take Reinhardt for example a cav unit who has a brave weapon and can attack anything within 5 spaces and is available at 3stars so it was really easy to +10 him. His counter was Aversa and her ability to shut down horse emblem teams. But the one problem IS introduced to FEH that till this day I hate with every fiber of my being was Dazzling staff. A skill that makes it so that no one is allowed to counterattack when a staff unit attacks. The fact there are people who want to see combat focused staff refines makes me sick to my stomach.
I disagree with the notion that the "rock-paper-scissors" aspect from the game is dying with the introduction of units like A!Fjorm. The "rock-paper-scissors" aspect is still there, but it no longer only applies to individual units, but to team compositions. You have Offense archtypes like hit-and-run, "Galeforce" (or in general, aggressive teams with multiple actions), and omni-tanking, and you have Defense archtypes like Turn 1 initiation, Stall, and "making both initiating and tanking difficult". There's different match-ups between these archtypes, and generally you have the option to counterpick to the favorable match-up. However, you can swing the match-up in your favor by adding certain support skills to the units in your composition. And what IS has been doing is releasing stuff like that. You'd think that stuff like "Catria ball", "Save Ball", "Lynjaforce", are new team archtypes defined by the units that make them more effective at reaching their goal, but in reality those are just the flavor of the year for the fundamental team composition archtypes, which are defined by the team's game plan towards winning. If the opposite team relies too much on individual units to get a win, you can just add a pre-existing skill to your team to swing the match-up in your favor. For example, Turn 1 Aggression defense teams lose to Save omni-tanking unless they bring stuff like Flash, Sweeps, WoM traps, etc. NCD Armor unit A!Fjorm was sold to counter those teams because they're a common sight in AR and because most people generally like omni-tanking in AR-O. But these Offense "Fjorm balls" can be beaten by adding B!Alm with Pulse Smoke or an Odd Pulse Tie user to your Turn 1 Aggression team. Defense "Fjorm balls" have similar counters. Other example: A Defense team that now everyone wants to build because "OMG, this is broken, I need to have it in my AR-D" are Catria balls, which is just a modern flavor for teams that seek to make both initiation and tanking difficult. Initiation is made difficult by adding Save units supported by lots of Drive skills on their teammates, and tanking is made difficult by Triangle Attack. But the team can collapse if the Offense team constrains the intended movement of the defense units using something like Gatekeeper (blocking the Orders warps) or breaking obstacles to bait the units with the longest range away from their Triangle Attack teammates, or simply bringing a tank-buster with enough support to bust the Save unit (even if it's something disgusting like "Orchestra man" B!Hector). What is the take away here? You still have to counterpick against the different Defense archtypes, and like before, you have to add skills to your team to counter the flavor that most people are adding to their teams. Before that 7th-slot and Recovery skills, it was enough to just bring Isolation to counter Dancers. Now, it's A!Fjorm what counters the current flavor of disgusting AR-D cavalry teams. In the past, you brought Pulse Smoke to have your omni-tank deal with pre-charge Specials. Now, pre-charge Specials are barely a concern, but there's still teams that want to make tanking difficult by adding B!Catria. Against those, you bring Detailed Report or some other way to break the "Catria ball" appart and blocking Triangle Attack. When Catria ball falls out of style and gets replaced by a new flavor of teams that disuade tanking, that new flavor will be countered by a specific combination of skills, rather than a unit that "does everything" or attempts to do so.
this is a really interesting comment to me because i agree with what you're saying, but i don't feel like it's necessarily in opposition to what i was trying to say in the video - the sort of rock-paper-scissors macro-strategy you're talking about has always been part of the game, but i feel like there's a micro-level strategy version that is getting phased out. the power level of viable units these days is so strong that when you have the correct counter to a given archetype, you kinda just win - whereas a year or two ago it felt much more like even when i had a suitable counter to something, i still had to fill in a lot of gaps because it wasn't as clean. and also that these days, the 'counters' are almost always specific units (b!alm, gatekeeper, etc) rather than more general things (a null c user, a galeforce team, etc). maybe that's more specific to my experience, but i do feel like the game is simplifying in a way where the actual moment-to-moment strategy is less important because we're being sold things that win the map for us on the team selection screen. that's at least the trend i've been noticing in the past few months, and only time will tell how that continues to develop or where it ends up. anyway, i appreciate the comment and you engaging with my ideas!
@@LevinSety Yup, the macro-level match-ups between different team archtypes has always been present. And I do agree with the feeling that specific units can currently counter certain team archtypes: For example, A!Fjorm countering first turn aggression AR-D teams and B!Alm countering Armor balls. But that's more because they have the specific set of skills that counter the "flavor" of those teams that people are currently using. A!Fjorm's kit destroys cavalry that slap stuff like Windsweep and Dazzling Staff, and can also be built and/or supported to not be affected by damage reduction (from Summer Mia), Miracle (from H!Leif), and Guard (both the skill and the status); so the defense team is left with a few options to avoid losing to her (such as adding brave weapons or Bridal Catria, Odd Pulse Tie, a close-range Pulse Smoke user, or make that their units eventually chip down A!Fjorm to 0 HP). Similarly, B!Alm counters save balls because no Armored unit can't prevent his Windsweep effect, unless the Near Save unit is speed-stacked enough. Also, another reason why it feels like battles nowadays can be decided at the moment you deploy is because battles are now decided on the first few turns, due to the new AR mechanics. So, if you know the enemy team will be engaging you at the start of the match, the right decision is to bring units who start out with a good match-up against the flavors of the moment that enemy slaps into the units that comprise their team. Despite this, you still have to think on how to reach the Aether Resources without killing the remaining enemy units too early nor having one your units killed instead, and this is not a process that can be done thoughtlessly. I think that stuff like A!Fjorm countering current-day Turn 1 aggression AR-D teams is just a way to bring back the meta to the simpler days before the non-sense that was added shortly after the new AR mechanics (like Nott, L!Sigurd, the common Duo's Hindrance enablers, Save skills, etc.). Before that, AR-D teams could lose to B!Ike or B!Hector unless thet deliberately tried to get around them. Now we have a similar situation, except that now the unit you have to actively try to not auto-lose to is A!Fjorm. Yes, A!Fjorm by default has a specific set of skills (some of which only she has access to), whereas B!Ike and B!Hector need to choose what they want to have, but A!Fjorm's kit is what it took to produce a meta swing in favor of the player. And the important thing is that A!Fjorm's kit is just a counter to the current flavor of the Turn 1 aggro teams that litter AR (meaning those skills may not remain relevant or optimal once people switch to using a different flavor). It just happens to have some of the effects that you list in your video as to "what a unit wants to be good". But that is an arbitrary list of effects that happen to counter the kits of different sets of enemies, and it's not something that is built from first principles or derived from an in-game skill tree that says "if you gather all these effects, you auto-win" or "you NEED to gather all these effects to win". A different list of "what makes a unit good" can have stuff like Brave effect, Impenetrable Dark effect, auto-dance or multiple actions per turn, the effect that negates Special manipulation, true damage or AoE damage, Hardy bearing effect, 3 movement + Canto, in-combat debuffs, effective damage against many unit types, or whatever (some of these effects also happen to counter the kits of different sets of enemies or are desireable for certain playstyles). Naturally, if you stack enough effects from whatever arbitrary list, you'll end up having a unit that can deal with a lot of stuff in many situations.
This is exactly what happened to Ninja blazing. You had to think about the placement of your units in order to get out of the range of your enemy's attack. Then gree introduced units with the ability to hit you no matter where you are on a map which took all strategy out of the game and killed it.
I think the game has gotten to the point where powercreep has gotten too far. When they're specific units can only counter specific units. That type of game style is very boring. Where a game has devolved from strategic gameplay to mindless nonesense.
If you think about it, the modern emphasis on horses and armor is just the return of the late 2017/2018 meta where horse emblem and ward armor balls were super good. I'd definitely say there's regression in that regard.
Keeping up in the meta in this game just isn't worth it. I just pull for units I like, but it means that AR and my weekly Arena runs are typically super annoying. Some weeks it's a struggle not to get demoted out of Arena Tier 18... Many of the new 5* heroes are just super overtuned. A!Fjorm isn't even the biggest problem to me, meanwhile F!Edelgard and Far Save B!Hector are the bane of my existence. The f2p build options are just super limited and you can hardly run units you like or have overall utility because you always need to bring dedicated counters to the meta... And it's not like the game has much going on outside of the PvP modes since all the others are just super stale repetitive grinds.
Also it seems to me that the powercreep is not even spread evenly among weapon and movement types (RIP defensive Horse Units when was the last time they got a new skill)
I enjoy FEH and the whole fire emblem games in general but my only problem in FEH is definitely that after you finish the main story quest and ect there's really nothing else much to do in the game
My issue with the skill stacking is the blatant push into yet another armor meta/cav meta. Armors will literally get every armor skill besides the follow up and cav will be able to break through every defense.
Lethality You may have some legit concerns about it but ultimate I doubt the game is simply ganna die just because the meta keep changing. Besides dispite it all it still fun to play with your favorite unit in the game but i guess the only reason I'm saying this is because I have yet to spend a single dollar on feh and still enjoy playing with the units I get in the game regardless of how good or bad they are... the meta don't really matter to someone who don't bother being competitive and is just playing the game because they love feh for what it is.
Save skills were fine on paper but then you realize things like Flayn and Bector exists and all the funny drive stacking to fill out any weaknesses makes them in execution a fucking mess that turns all strategy into a single choice.
yeah, while i do appreciate that they made a bunch more units usable in some way, i think they were NOT well tested. if they only worked within 1 space, or only if there were 2 or fewer units in range to save, or something like that, i think they'd still be super strong and vastly more interesting in practice
![Why Engage Is The BEST Fire Emblem (Maybe) [Spoiler-Free Review]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A8NrwOUFu88/mqdefault.jpg)
Me coming back to this video after the release of Duo Fjorm.
As much as i hate to admit it, i agree with this notion. That said, i feel it's more a problem with Gacha in general; The longer a gacha game lives, the more "out there" and versatile units have to become in order for them to be "worth" pulling for in case you don't care for the character. The longer a game lives, the higher the stats, the more effects they have, and the more meta-defining they become. I see this as a problem with Gacha itself, rather than Fire Emblem Heroes alone.
I agree, I believe though that other games are much better at handling powercreep. I've pretty muched moved to Azur Lane over FEH and even though the day 1 characters have been powercrept, I can still use them in boss fights and get satisfaction out of using them. Sure, some game modes may make it harder to use them but in general as long as their skills are maxed and they're levelled I can still kick ass. FEH has definitely not handled powercreep well, just upping the ante with more and more in such a short time period rather than making the powercreep more incremental
@@shinano9159 That much, i can agree with. FEH doesn't handle it well, but i will argue that it was inevitable and inherent to gacha as a whole.
At least they can release units with unique effects that aren't too broken to bring more diversity to the game. Some examples would be:
- Dagr and Nott with Path Finder.
- Duo!Lif and his 50% reduction of damage reduction (spurn, Flayn, etc).
- Bridal Catria's movement orders buff and triangle attack effect (she's my favorite example as she's very strong in both AR offense and defense just because of that last one).
- Yuri with his incredible movement options while being infantry.
- Legendary and Fallen Edelgard's extra action. F!Eddie didn't need so many effects tho.
- B! Marianne's pseudo dance with incredible player phase.
- The new drive effects of Nifl (damage reduction), Muspel (extra damage) and L!Byleth (NFU).
And many others.
L!Sigurd and his Holy Knight Aura is fucking stupid tho. It would be fine if it was 3CD, if he didn't have slaying on his prf or if it didn't add so much damage.
Very well put
@@azure8696 Thanks
I think my biggest problem with the game right now is that older units literally cannot match any of these newer units. You flashed Petrine on the screen when you mentioned investments and I totally agree, she use to be really unique, but the foes that are common in AA are just too broken, and that beast effectiveness is just not enough. There is also the fact that IS has limited skill options for F2P players to an unhealthy degree. They have not fully demoted most solos, bonds are still rare for whatever reason, QR is still 5 star only, and we keep getting the same types of units as demotes, as in Axe units who are usually infantry. Like Shamir for example is literally just Ninja Hana with slightly more bulk but now she scores. Also now we are just getting skills that are straight upgrades to stuff like DC, which is really tough to swallow since one of the things that held dc back was the lack of stats, but now they just get those stats. Also I have been having tons of feathers lately because I simply cannot build anything, why would I build a crappy 3-4 star to +10 when I know they will not do me any good.
They should do 3 things if they want the game to survive. First is upgrade 3-4 star skills, let them have stuff like duel threaten, catches, solos, brazens, and other skills in order to make it feel like we have more options to use since right now its still better to use something like fury desp since we have so few skill options, oh and keep the original skills as well. Next would be to change it so all 5 star unlocked skills are now 4 star available, since why exactly would I 5 star a Hana for Lnd when I could just wait for a Sothe? And last is to put a halt on this meta explosion we are in right now. It feels like every banner introduced a unit that fundamentally changed the meta, which is not a good thing. I get its to push people to summon for every new unit, but it is getting to a point where I do not feel like summoning anymore since the unit I go for will be powercrept in at most 2 months.
so true
I can definitely agree with the notion that it isn’t necessarily Fjorm that is the issue but the way things are going with skills upon skills being slapped onto FEH, but the beauty of FEH for me is that I don’t need these units to succeed ever and I can stick with what I have. I use a Xander in my Astra season as a carry alongside other units and I can clear most matches just fine, and while there are teams I have in the back to just shut my mind off, I don’t think it comes to be a problem in terms of what you can pull off. These units are weaker but that’s what makes it really satisfying and in my mind, worth all the investment I put into that unit.
I use a max invested Soren, and enjoy that my strategic mind is what actually wins for me
You make into tier 38 or 39 vault of heaven?
I totally agree. I use Hana to galeforce sweep on all 5 of my light teams, permanent VoH resident and I've only ever miss d T39 once because of too much loft loss on defense.
I do think that when the meta becomes over-centralized like it has over the last year that gameplay becomes stale and boring, like Sigurd-Nott lines that had zero AI complexity and save skills that don't require any AI knowledge to keep your support units alive. But none of the powercreep has made me drop units from my roster. Actually, I like more support options like D!Peony, B!Catria on offense, and W!Bernie (again on offense) because they enable the units I choose to play the game with.
People chasing the meta are just going to get burned, especially with how fast and hard it came this year, although I feel like I$ has finally let off the throttle some. Like, Fjorm debuted when we had save skills and B!Catria on a DSH banner, and the Catria ball is a clear counter to her, so I feel like she's not nearly as impactful now as she could have been while everyone was sleeping on Catria but before she got a rerun.
Honestly these issues were what made me switch from FEH to Dragalia Lost tbh.
F for us Losties
The problem is that they aren't making fun, new and interesting game modes anymore. Heroes journey is just boring so it doesn't count. Last time we got was PoL but it rerolling the same units you said no to is dumb and IS hasn't updated that game mode to be less tedious in a long time. Last time they did that was by getting rid of save skills on the enemy team which was a while ago.
Agree! We need some modes like arena or AR which people can enjoy
The problem is that people despise the game modes that require any kind of strategy. This fuels interest in braindead units like F!Edel, and gets in the way of players who actually enjoy these modes when anyone can just isolate your dancers and tank with ridiculously overpowered units or units that automatically save your support units from being attacked and can't be lunged into traps. That's why we have modes like lost lore and phalanx. Even resonant battles got turned into easy mode.
It would've been cool if we had a Hall of Forms gamemode that we could access at all times where you get 4 random units in the game to play with. And for every few floors you beat, you get rewards.
this aged poorly after PvP was added! :)
As it stands i have 3 game modes that I Like, and 3 that I like the idea of on paper. Grand conquest (I love grand conquest), hall of forms, and strangely enough pawns of loki are my favorites. I like the idea of Arena assault, aether raids, and summoner duels but the power creep really shows its ugly head in these modes the most.
It kind of sucks for old players who have invested insane amounts of resources into units that are no longer really viable anymore and dont have the ability to redo those maps and get those resources again. The only way for us to really keep up these days is to spend money on these overpowered legendary/mythic units than can literally kill you in one hit regardless of stats and skills because of how they build the characters now.. When a non merged legendary can 1 shot my +10 Nowi, it fucks me right off.
I miss 2017 feh, the game is on a bullshit level p2w nowadays
As a whale from 2017->2019, I think the game has been in decline for years. I still play, but I've gone dolphin tier and I enjoy the game a lot more, as I'm not struggling to fight the current high end meta. The level of Powercreep has allowed IS to keep the game highly profitable, but at the end of the day, it does feel like its unit stats vs enemy stats and less of a strategy now.
With the announcement of DL closing sometime this year, I'm reassessing FEH. Right now, it looks like they still have all the same problems that they had when I stopped spending back in 2019.
-Power Creep (even with refines and dragon flowers units can't compete with the current arena units, I think this is what even has had whales start to lose interest in the game)
-Units that just break the game (I always thought that Surtr in 2018 started this trend)
-Lack of interesting modes (all of the newer modes seem to always be pvp based, the summoner ranked duels are absolute garbage)
-Story seems to be lacking soul (I think the only time that I enjoyed any story based content was the Temptest Trial Mini with Beserker Hector, this TT story made me think that FEH was starting to break the stereotype of "bad gacha stories")
-I assume that units that are released are based on their popularity in chose your legends each year, this might explain why some units will likely never get a release.
-The game feels very aged by all standards, in 2019 with the release of Three Houses, I was reminded of what FEH lacked compared to a mainline Fire Emblem game. Although we're getting Three Hopes this summer, its a "warriors"-style game, which is a disappointment compared to classic Fire Emblem gameplay. It will give FEH more unit banners, but I would be very surprised if FEH got any new maps or games modes from it.
To not complain entirely, here are my thoughts on what the game could do to improve drastically.
-Make Dragon flowers much more easy to obtain or lower the cost to increase stats. Also the units in the current book should not be able to get any dragon flowers.
-Allow main story OCs like Alphonse, Sharena, and Anna to equip skills that other units have access to similar to the summoner in Mjolner's Strike for all modes without the use of skill inheritance.
-Make the Summoner a unit that can be upgraded (dragon flowers) and used in all modes.
-Let us use refining stones or devine dew to upgrade skills from level 3 to level 4
-Make a mode that isn't pvp, maybe it could be co-op (similar to summoner duels), except fighting a big enemy that might drop something worthwhile.
-This is sort of inspired from DL. Unlike FEH, DL didn't require +10 merges, but for their dragons you needed unbinds to reach the max level. To circumvent the need to summon 5 copies of a dragon to max unbind, they sold dragon stones good for 1 unbind. I think FEH should sell something similar to "dragon stones" that would give a merge to a unit. This could even be a monthly reward for F2P players, but having access to that in the shop might help bolster sales like I imagine Forma souls do.
I think FEH unfortunately also suffers what most gachas suffer from, a fatigue and massive powercreep. I want the game to get better, but I've grown very pessimistic towards it in the last few years. Tbh, I think Nintendo is looking to get out of the mobile market, after the success of the Nintendo Switch. My pessimism has gotten worse with DL's announcement, because I see how far FEH has fallen in sales. I think that FEH will still reach 1 billion in total sales this year, but the game only made 5 million USD last month (May 2022), which feels like a failure with golden week always giving FEH massive spikes in sales for the past. I really hope the game improves, after all this time I still play it daily.
I agree, but also for the people who use older units have a sense of pride when taking out meta units. When my Klein took out A!Fjorm I popped the hell off.
Maybe a hot take, but I don't think armors should have been allowed ncd. Sweep effects were fine as counterplay to saves and they didn't really need the buff in that way. As for regressing meta, yeah I can see that.
i totally agree, i think it makes a ton of good Null-C units basically meaningless now and makes armors overly powerful. i think there was probably a tasteful way to do it by only putting it on an armor who was a little awkward to use for it, but Fjorm is VERY MUCH not that
I wish I could say "Just use your favorites! They will be good enough with alot of premium skills!!" but sadly that just doesn't cut it anymore especially for gen 1 and even some gen 2 units :( Even though I would much rather use my faves instead of the "unit of the month" but with the outdated stats, prf/refines and the overall investment for some units to just do "okayish" in todays meta is too much compared to today units that almost always come with a full set out the box
I can't used my fav Mercedes in the current meta 😔 because she got powercreep so hard.
This happens in all the games with a little competitive perspective, like in pokemon you cant use your favorites and all become in a genetic nightmare or more recently meta change (just to start), the frustration happens when you spend a lot of effort in some units who dont aged well (and if you use money is worst) so maybe we need to be more carefully in this department. I agree a little. but we have some gen 1-2 units really usefull even in this days: Caeda, Cecilia, Chrom, Corrin (M), Eliwood, Fae, Hector, Kagero, Lucina, Magic is everything, Cordelia, Arden...etc
Well i think many of the older units are getting re-refines eventually. While the new refines (of you have invested in the unit) have been really good (julius, kaze, linus, m morgan, brave alm, every legendary refine...) for making them good in their niche.
Julius is a really good "red micaiah" with near save support he can tank most ranged units, he lacks only cav effectiveness and a guaranteed follow up, but when your weapon grants you 11 atk, def and res +dragon wall, you can live just on qr and res debuffs stacking
I think what really hurts is when your favorite character gets a refine which is supposed to be an update to get them up to the strength of the current meta and it does nothing for them. So you don't even have a hope that they will be strong enough to use in the future.
@@DisastrousCake leif, flora and Ishtar are the units im disappointed. There refines are good (except leif) but there's something missing. Like leif's refine isn't good like you need your foes to be 100% and its just spd/def+4
I'd say the power-creep was healthy for the game up until 2020 but 2021 was where the game started going downhill. Even early 2020 was pretty good. The degeneracy started with Brave Hector refine and simply got worse afterwards.
There are two things I don't like in FEH meta at the moment:
1. The Powercreep is too high
2. The characters are not unique
The first one is self-explanatory. What I mean with the second is that most of the unique things are locked to legendaries and mythics and even that must not be the case.
Example: L'Micaiah. Maiden's Solace even though it's just Sacrifice but with Harsh Command+ (and nobody really use it) is "unique" but I feel like it's just there to update Sacrifice, Prescience is DR but we have her own self who has it at base in her tome. Overall Maiden's Solace helps her to be unique.
Now an another example but at least in my eyes he is unique: L'Claude. Fallen Star gives him something others don't have and that is the "Fallen Star" buff. That alone allows him to be unique.
Thats with the legendaries. But Feh is more than legendaries: Sesonals and New Heroes are a important as well but the only once in the time the heroes are unique. Yuri for example is very unique and falls in to a similar category to L'Lucina. People could argure that L'Lucy gets outclassed by Chrom but in my eyes it's not really the case. Imo Lucy gives you more mobility than Chrom while Chrom has more output compaired to Lucy. Yuri falls between both but has not the self dance which is good.
Overall I want to see more unique like B'Ike, Yuri, L'Lucy, etc. but at the same time not much powercreep like Fjorm.
oh no... people actually think yuri is ok??? There are a handful of character I say was a mistake. L sigurd, F edelgard, A fjorm, are some. Yuri is right with them. Or do you actually think its fine to randomly give an infantry unit movement like a horse and canto and a switch skill unique to him and access to lethality? He's just as silly
@@cloudunderweather9554 What I mean is he unlike other units is unique. We never gotten a 3 space Swap until his introduction. Of course he is broken (tbh. he is one of the stupidest unit ever introduced in Feh) but he at least is unique.
To me I felt the game started to regress when they gave these brand new units almost unbeatable assets, and then sold us the solutions. Fallen Edelgard has Guard, Damage Reduction, Self Galeforce, Distant Counter, Wary Fighter, Cooldown acceleration, Cooldown -1, and could move like and Infantry unit. They put that all on one unit so she could one round more than half the cast without trying, they’re solution? Make us summon Legendary Byleth, who has beast effective special, and null-follow in his weapon. He himself is a great unit, but they literally made a problem to sell us a solution, but the thing is, Fallen Edel, in my opinion, should not have been that much of a problem. There should have been no reason that a normal unit we can summon should be a boss battle every time they’re fought, which IS also realized so we got units like Brave Eirika who has Null Follow-Up, Armor effectiveness, Damage Reduction, and Special Healing or Brave Marianne with Null Follow-Up and 80% damage reduction. It’s basically just a “who can stack the most skills on themselves to counter the other one with stacked skills in their base weapons”. I feel like it really started with Brave Edelgard being able to have 80% damage reduction, infantry movement, auto follow up, warp, and special cool -1. It we had to come up with so much just to counter her. Now it’s getting to absurd because older units are getting great refines, but they’re still not enough to catch up to all thing Fallen Edelgard and Ascended Fjorm can do.
100% true. Even last year, when they released OG Mareeta and we thought how broken she was, they sold us the solution to her in the form of Tsubasa not even a month later. Tsubasa literally has everything in her kit to check Mareeta out of the box-- dumb speed to bypass Close Call, flier mobility to catch Mareeta on many of the Arena maps at the time, Chill Speed that would always hit Mareeta due to being the fastest at the time, etc... Having armor/calvary effectiveness and the ability to follow-up before counterattacks were just icing on the cake for Tsubasa.
It's such a shame they keep using this marketing tactic. It's effective, but it makes me wonder when more people will see through it and what IT will do then.
Honestly brave Eirika is a boss battle in her own right. Fedel was annoying, but at least they gave out a free counter to her in Ash. BEirika never got a free counter, or any consistent counter until Brave Dimitri finally got his refine. Even brave Tiki can't kill BEirika. But let's not forget the very first boss battle character we ever had, Surtr, who truly had no counter when he released. Though I completely agree that Feh got worse after Fedel released. I actually quit the game for a while after she released.
oh noes, I missed the premiere :( very cool video with a lot of effort. It's kinda funny, as I don't have Fjorm myself and had no issues YET beating her on defenses, I actually didn't even notice so far that anything changed xD It saddens me to see the route they are currently taking, cause I think that game has still tons of potential. If only skills AND ESPECIALLY WEAPONS could still be locked to have 1 or 2 effects most, there have been really cool gimmicks this year as well like Trace skills and Lethal smoke which show exactly how to add new opportunities without breaking the game
your defense is gross sir xdxd but was fun to see how to win. And i agree with you in the skills department, my favorites skills this year are the Yuri thing, the new healers support skills and canto/move gimmick in general, with Marianne special, so im still enjoy this s**t
Damage reduction skills that checks Def and Atk will be really nice for so many Units with different stat distribution. Even if they are lock with a unit type like Cav or Fliers. Better versions of Quick Riposte, Reverse skills or Weapons and so many other things that already the mainline of games did.
I just want to add that Save skills are really good and they work so well due to being armor only. Allows a lots of new and fun team compositions.
Without saves skill armor was a death weight in a lot of team composition, now you can run 1 unit to do hit and run and comeback to the safe range with a canto unit and repo/swap, or you can go all in with galeforce and run 1 far save who dont have distant counter just to cover the team if you left 1 unit alive. Im 1 year old player, but a lot of people say me since 4 year some people complain about the "powercreep" in the game and they still comeback, so maybe Levin just dont have fun anymore with the game, but he have fair points on this.
Fatal smoke was a mistake though
I felt this way long ago when 3H heroes started coming out and they keep on pushing and milking their 3 stars. Every time they release Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude, they would push the power creed border more. Like, look at F!Edelgard that has to be the most toxic hero ever. This is just like when Hector was their shining money milker where they give him new variants but each time power boosts him.
As a F2P player I totally agree that the game is less about strategy and the weapon triangle and is now about only acquiring the newest meta unit. I mean, it's how they keep people in this spiral. I could never let my hard earned dollars go to such a predatory system. I still do ok, but yeah, I just have to accept I won't be able to KO a +10 meta unit.
I agree with everything you've said; when she was first announced, summer Caeda and her everything-effectiveness weapon legitimately had me wanting to quit. What's the point of the weapon triangle now? What's the point of the speed stat if units with brave effects can attack twice on enemy phase anyway? What's the point of any new unit that doesn't have NFU, damage reduction, or canto? It just shoehorns everyone into using the same busted units and the same busted skills if they want to win PvP. I guess it's inevitable since every game has to have an evolving meta, but as someone who's been dead-set on using a +10 Niles since launch, I just miss the days where we built +10 Wryses for laughs and the biggest concerns we had were dealing with Hector's distant counter.
I loved hearing your thoughts on this and I'd love to see more scripted content like this on so many different facets of gaming- feh and non-feh alike!
One of my first gachas. I don’t regret dropping it after year 1
I have anxiety over investing in units. I will draw for fodder for the units I wanna build, but I almost always not end up building them MAYBE until the last minute, then at that point they have little to no relevancy when it comes to competitive modes and end up having not a lot of things to use them on at all. In my mind it's always "oh this fodder is rare I should save it until I absolutely need it" and time passes by and boom they're no longer relevant.
In theory, the current situation should give me the mindset of I should just build units so I can cherish them while I can, but no, now I have even more anxiety over building them. 'Cause like, I'll build them and spend a lot of resources only for them to end up as dead weight a bit later. My mind will just tell me that I've wasted so much resources. This anxiety goes so far that I can't even invest in my faves. I drew for Dragon Wall fodder specifically for MKana (a fave) and I STILL haven't foddered off Muspell on him because of anxiety.
A lot of the units I like are outdated units (MKana, Tana, Chrom, Raven, Odin, MCorrin) and even though I've invested in some of them... they're just not even gonna be able to compete with the newer units we get even if unmerged. And I'm a low spender I can't always get the new toys. We don't nearly get enough inheritable weapons to update our old units, and even then new ones with prfs will almost always be better. So yeah, investment anxiety.
Are you me? Lol, I'm really bad at hoarding skills into irrelevancy, but to add to it, the rate of powercreep lately has been insane, and if anything, I feel even more hesitant to invest into anything, because stronger units show up nonstop!
i have the EXACT same problem, i hang onto fodder waiting for ~the perfect unit~ to give it to, and the skills end up being totally outdated and irrelevant before i ever find their home. that said, i DO get a good amount of enjoyment out of finding success with really cheap/simple builds, at least!
Regarding investment choices, specifically in favorite units, i think its still 100% worth even if they aren't exactly meta. Favorite units are the whole reason why I still enjoy playing the game after all. Yeah they might not function as well in the tier 39 meta game, but its still fun to just have them invested in knowing well you love that character and put effort in making them as strong as possible.
Is it worth the swipe? Probably not. But investing in game resources? Definitely. Sometimes even as much as a screenshot of a completed build brings me so much joy and happiness that i could stare at it for hours admiring my work XD
This is also a reason why I feel like feh wont exactly die out even after the AR or arena meta goes to absolute s***. People play the game cuz we like fire emblem, and the collection aspect of the game still exists beyond competitive PvP. This is just my opinion though hahaha
it's the whales who drive the vast majority of revenue for this game. if the whales stop feeling like competitive play is worth it, the game will start to make less money and thus will eventually shut down. unfortunately, people who spend small amounts of money to +10 their favorites once in a while aren't enough to keep this game afloat.
@@promisemeonething hmm you drive a good point there. And yeah when you think about it, the more popular banners and high selling banners for IS are in fact banners with meta units or meta skills to be inherited huh...
Joke's on you! New units don't do EVERYTHING anymore.
They do even more, somehow.
This is definitely not a solution, but I would like to see a new skill slot added to 2017 units. It would make them all more viable and give them the potential to keep up with the meta. I'll call it the "E" slot for extra slot. I would restrict it to non tier 4 A,B and C skills. It would make units like Ryoma very good, but it would at least put most of the other year 1 units in the same ball park as new units. Maybe this would add to the breakdown of the game, but It would make your past investments in these old units feel more meaningful. BUT, the idea of A refined Reinhardt with trace and Lull and db 4 is bad so nvm forget everything I said.
Very well spoken! It's clear a lot of prep went into this video, and it came out very polished. It's not a topic that's a lot of fun to talk about, but I do think it's important to address. I used to be very easily enticed to summon for whatever new, shiny unit was just released, but I find myself skipping on more banners now. Now that I have an AR core that works the majority of the time, I'd rather use a few ladders every week when it doesn't work than try keep up with the latest and greatest units every few months.
I do feel like certain game modes have been more affected than others. It could totally just be my lack of creativity, but I find it hard to set up a good defense in AR. Arena is so restrictive with which units score well that once you're able to beat one team, you can probably beat most of the rest of them. I still really enjoy Abyssal maps for new legendary and mythic units. They are of course easier with the more "meta" units, but I've found I'm still able to use my favorite units with enough strategy.
I've also found that the shifting meta has brought new life for some older units. As a devout Owain fan, Odin became one of my most used powerhouses, especially after his refine. When lull skills were first released and became popular, his utility drastically decreased. But it seems there are so many more useful skills for the B slot for infantry (the holy trinity of damage reduction, NFU, NCD as mentioned) and flying/cav units (trace skills) that bladetomes are actually viable in many cases again.
All that being said, I do feel like I have been a contributor to problem as a F!Edelgard user. Of course I don't mind all of the effects stacked within her build, but I remember wanting to build her as soon as I saw her on the trailer before I analyzed her skills and weapon. Now that I have a group of units that I like that are able to carry me, I don't really see summoning units just because they're the new and improved meta on the block.
I’m really ready to have this conversation, I really am.
That power creep before dieing is exactly what happened with dragalia lost
As many have already noted here, updating old units to match the power of new ones seems to be a focus of FEH. The fact that Linus got a re-refine suggests VERY positive things to me as a relatively new player. IS seems dedicated to creating relatively even power dynamics that, sure, tilt in favor of new units, but nothing to the point that old units are irrelevant.
In my mind, A!Fjorm is a clear step back from the terrifying potential of F!Edelgard. As much as I love Edelgard as a character, I felt a clear degradation of the meta when the fallen version was released. I think this is due to the fact that F!Edel is a stat ball with a ridiculous number of effects baked into a 25% HP condition. Nearly everyone would simply put her on defense (or offense, or arena, or arena assault, or PoL, or Brigades, or...you get the point) and watch her destroy max invested older units with ease.
Then, IS and the player base fixed it. B!Alm got a remix that makes him a fantastic unit as well as a strong F!Edel counter, Fatal Smoke saw a boost in utility and older cavline staples began to be seriously threatening with it, and many niche counters emerged such that F!Edelgard, while still extremely strong, is nothing like the universal cover-all that I feared she would be. That brings me to A!Fjorm. While she does have a long list of effects, she seems nothing like the unbreakable, zero weaknesses monster F!Edel used to be. So, as far as I'm concerned, I think A!Fjorm is a step in the right direction.
While I certainly agree that if IS chooses the route of higher numbers and less tactics, we will be in a very bad place. I simply don't see that as the direction they are headed. Tactics is, and hopefully always will be, the heart of Fire Emblem as a franchise, and I don't see IS throwing that away for any amount of money any time soon. I've played several gacha games in the past, and this one is easily the best for keeping the meta vibrant with both new and old units.
If you've made it this far: thanks for the read! I apologize for the length, but I felt such a measured and well-written video deserved longer response. I suppose only time will tell if FEH is on its last legs, but I sincerely hope it has many years to go.
Agreed. Hardly anyone was prepared for F!Edelgard when she dropped. A!Fjorm was preceded by a seasonal rerun banner that contained one of her best counters, Bridal Catria, and the competitive meta already runs duel Lif on AR-D. If anything, cav lines in dark season will be forced to run more melee units which I think is a good thing.
Linus did not get a rerefine he didn’t have his own prf in the first place he was given Ravens Basilikos and it already had a weapon refine at the time the weapon was never his
@@richpichu1272 True, but in a way it is the closest thing to a re-refine we get. A better example is when newer versions of main lord characters get refines, sometimes their older versions gain the new weapon, like we just saw with Ephraim gaining Legendary Ephraim's weapon when it was refined. It's to bad Raven didn't gain the same axe.
@@jonunciate7018 weapon evolution existed before L!Ephraim got his refine he already got it, it’s been discontinued because base eliwood ruined it for everyone
yo can't wait for this
So true bestie
The funny thing was that even after I got lucky in summoning A!Fjorm on her banner, her playstyle did not seem to appeal to me all that much since I already got used to player phase strats, as well as ranged tank + Near Save armor as my main omni-tank strat. Not to say that I am not open to adapting to new team comps, yet I saw that most veteran players already have answers to A!Fjorm in AR-O and she would be much better off as a defense unit I feel. My Bridal Catria defense had no trouble taking out A!Fjorm barring the ones of the highest investment, so I could only win so many matches. Still, I do agree that a meta revolving around a few problematic units or cards would be unhealthy for the state of any game in general.
A!Fjorm's inclusion was only just a cog to the regressive path, since the next Ascendant Unit could either save the game, or poison it further. Either way, I feel highly anticipated to see how the meta shifts later on in the next few weeks and the following month.
I don't really know what to say except that I appreciate how well thought out and well said this video is!
I would say that you’re closer to the “losing your golly gosh darn mind” side of the spectrum. 😂 I’ve been practicing a LOT with Fjorm for her upcoming bonus season next week, and she has been doing just strictly worse than my H!Ilyana as far as a Far Save unit is concerned. I think Fjorm is strong. I think Fallen Edelgard is strong. I don’t think either of these units “break the game” or signal regressive game design. There have been “raid boss” units in FEH for most of the game’s existence (see: Surtr). But the meta shifts and adapts and changes. People have started re-examining previously underutilized skills like Pulse Smoke and Pulse Tie (RIP me), and I think that’s a healthy thing for the meta. I put out a State of the Game video earlier this year where I talked about the need for the meta to stabilize (L!Sigurd, Nótt, and B!Catria were all released far too close together), but I think we had a pretty considerable lull since then in terms of the shifting meta. For me, shaking up the meta is something fun and exciting and challenging. But I also understand if that can be frustrating. I do not, however, think it signals the death of the game by any means.
Agreed. There have been many times where far save Bector has been the superior choice for me. A!Fjorm is really good, but she is so dependent on her special that a lot can go wrong and she can get overwhelmed. She's also unfortunately an axe unit. I literally see her do 0 damage to Duel Lif, outside of what her special adds.
Gotta agree. This coming Liight/Dark season is prolly A! Fjorm’s worst season because Triandra is the bonus mythic this week if your using her on offense. Defense is a totally different story. She’s good on stall teams but if you watch Marbelsoda’s video on the most oppressive stall team there are niche counter pick units that can break through. Even tho B!Eirika is better at Galeforce teams she actually breaks close save skills and damage reduction with her base kit so it’s easy to overlook that IS made that her niche even if she holds a disadvantage against green armors.
@@justmikoto9880 or you could just bring windsweep Kempf. Then safely finish with your favorite armor slayer. Armor stall teams are easy. A!Fjorm is the bonus unit right now so that might mitigate the Triandra issues... a bit. Really wish I had Mila.
I definitely agree with this take. The developers aren’t stupid, they keep using the make meta then counter meta pattern and we always fall for it
Yeah, I see where you coming from in this, even though this is my first Gacha. I never thought about the 9 components that make a character great for the meta until you brought it up. And coming from the days when dragons were the best units, it feels so off that now, returning to an era where I don't know what is even going on anymore kinda hurts.
7:00 You did not mentioned Effeteness like against Cavalry or Dragons to name a few.
I still enjoy FEH, as well as many new units who are coming out, and quite a number of the modes. But I can see where you're coming from. I think the powercreep, the increased skill access, and the game of numbers all stem from IS's choice to try and grab the attention of the competitive crowd. I'm fine with people forming a meta game out of this, but they've been changing the rules of it so much and introducing so many counterpick units (I love Pirate Hinoka and Ninja Female Corrin, but I'm convinced they are what they are because of Brave Hector) that it's like they want you to play the game the way they want you too. From Day 1, I've always invested into units I want to use, and I plan to keep it that way.
Interesting how you broke down "what makes a good unit in FeH" with those 9 skills.
Not every unit is going to be good, and there will be units that are unique because they're ridiculous with what they can do. I find it funny that if a unit comes out that isn't 'broken', like L! Fae, no one wants them. But the second a superpower unit comes out (F!Edelgard) everyone loves, hates, complains about and wants it...
Personally, I think Ascendant Fjorm won't be a benchmark of power due her being this 'special' busted unit. We've had this happen before with pretty much every Mythic and arguably every Legendary unit too. They get used for a while then fall off, and as you mentioned, they're not impossible to defeat. Most of these jarring units that come out come out and are replaced, and to be fair, they have been coming up with ways for older units to match today's standards with refines and remixes.
“The game itself may be nearing its final chapters.” Don’t count on it anytime soon. The game currently is making WAY too much to just shut down.
I 100% agree with what was said in this video. I love fjorm and ascendant fjorm and her design and I love using her. However, the moment I saw all the affects she had, everything you just said was pretty much confirmed to be happening in my eyes. My concern actually started all the way back with L!sigurd tbh. But yeah honestly feh is on a dangerous path at this point
Yep, I've seen this happen before. Brave Frontier was a fine example of this. Amazing game with unique mechanics and interesting story and characters but powercreep reached a point of no return. While early on every unit had one or two abilities or something unique going for it, eventually newer units had like 20 different abilities and the numbers kept getting bigger and bigger. Started with 5* characters but eventually introduced 6*, 7* and 8*, each with new better abilities and higher stats. You either had the shiny newest units or you would not be able to clear content. It was very gradual but noticeable. It's sad that I'm seeing FEH follow the same path.
Honestly you hit the nail right on the head. My issue with the game was not powercreep since that had been present for a long time and I eventually came to terms with it. The issue was when they released broken overpowered units which I dub "Powerleap" units and they did it 3 times in the span of 2 months this year with L!Sigurd, F!Edelgard and Nott, two of which were sparkable. F!Edelgard being the worst of them all because it felt like she was a business decision so they could sell units that are supposed to hard counter her for those who were not interested. At the time, it felt like you had to summon for her if you wanted to deal with her, and if you had her, she required almost no thought to use, if her counters were not there, just send her in and they will die. Again just like you I want to enjoy the game while it lasts, but the longer it goes on, the more disconnect I have with the meta, I barely do AR anymore and I only really do Arena for orbs so I could summon for favorites and get feathers to merge them up.
You know you fucked up your game's balancing when almost the entirety of the new meta revolves around taking out a single character.
since the beginning of feh i thought that all that matters is pulling for stuff you like. the reason i don't like other gatchas is for one because the "combat" is just have unit -> unit go big number -> win and i think that what fire emblem does with reasonable numbers, where you can comprehend what it means to do 10 to 15 damage instead of 3418255 to 4103382, is miles ahead other gatchas and that uniqueness will probably keep it alive by virtue of being the gatcha that is not like the other.
in matter of over stacked units i think fallen edelguard is the only absolute design mistke. she is so stupendiously stacked that i couldn't beat a maxed invested f!edelguard in arena if she never attacks or counterattacks. all other units like sigurd, catria, duo líf or fjorm have counter play. sigurd is aggressive turn 1 but loses to save balms and fence, catria makes it extremely hard to approach the team but loses to bolt tower, líf beats damage reduction but can't beat any form of strong mage and struggles against nufu and fjorm needs to be faster than the opponent or she doesn't get the kill and guard is also super problematic.
Two things I would want:
More support units that offer one of "the nine" skills. Like L!Byleth and B!Lucina.
And for new crazy units to have more conditions to their numerous effects (although the text box would a nightmare). Possible examples: F!Edelgard only gets some of her in combat effects from being transformed but gets all of them while solo. Or Fjorm only gets null-c if her special is ready.
What I noticed over all these years is that IS barely added depth, if any, and istead stacked complexity to no end to the point where Aether Raid battles had like 5000 gimmicks you'd have to look out for instead of playing core Fire Emblem. Hence why I stopped trying to rank high because the game isn't rewarding enough compared to what it demands from the player in my opinion.
Also wanna say thanks. It doesn't really matter if everyone agrees with 100% of your points or not, I absolutely love when people stand up and voice their criticism for a game they actually really love. As such, your video is super appreciated and of great value for the community. Cause it's videos like these that make games better. Cheers, Levin!
Great video! I definitely agree with your main points. The homogenization of units is definitely a worrying sign, but personally the sign that alarmed me the most was Legendary Sigurd and Pathfinder. The fact they began to powercreep movement was a sign to me that they had completely ran out of design space for new characters and were struggling to think of new ideas. We will have to see if Intelligent Systems is able to find a fix to this problem before the game devolves further and every unit becomes how many power effects they can have.
This 100%. While I do think that Fjorm is toxic, it's the movement power creep and shenanigans on top of everything else that just kill it for me. Danger Area is a nearly useless feature anymore. I just don't understand how units move anymore. AR just really became un-fun for me this year after Sigurd and Pathfinder.
i am very curious what the next trend in powercreep will be - it doesn't feel like there's much further to go after the kind of movement shenanigans they've introduced; maybe with the coming of book 6 they'll either do something really tasteful or really horrifying lol
My first gacha game was also KHuX, and I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed going on after school ended and doing raids with my friends. I remember first getting Pooh & Piglet and setting it as my share medal so my friends could use it, it was so good as a general buff medal. But as the game progressed and I got older, I eventually stopped caring. In order to clear the new stuff, you had to have the newest medals, which would soon get power crept in a month or two (if even that). My old medals could no longer be used because they would do negligible damage against the new enemies/raid bosses with 10 million HP. Once upon a time, I wanted the HD Aqua medal because she was so powerful when the game first launched. Yet good luck getting decent mileage out of her around the time KHUX ended. Just... Im getting kind of depressed thinking about the state of the game when it ended.
And now I'm starting to feel the same way about FEH. I used to play the game almost religiously, but now I just log in for the free orbs and log out. I'll do free summons, and that's about it. It's kind of sad but the prowercreep is real, and I can't be bothered to keep up with the current meta. So now, I just resolve myself to summoning for heroes that I like their character/artwork. Other than that, I've pretty much moved on from FEH :/
haha and this is why I quit FEH back in December 2020. Save skills drew the final straw for me, and thank god it did. Because I would lose my sanity dealing with all these new powercrept skills/units
As soon as you mentioned KHUx i violently flinched from the bad memories of the introductions to 7* medals and the PVP gamemode that was basically a whale playground...I agree that FEH has to chill with the lightspeed powercreep, because my favorite unit in all of Fire Emblem (and my 2nd fave as well) aren't in the game yet, and I'd be very sad if I couldn't at least +10 either of them before the game died haha. I pray they add Garcia or Gregor soon so I can at least have fun before the game shuts down
Really well done video Levin. I hope somehow someone at IS watches this, this is so well made 🙏
Also they'll just release a Reinhardt style red unit with slaying, anti guard, armor effectiveness in 3 months
I'm slightly conflicted about AFjorm. I loved the save meta and thought that sweep skills were a more than enough counter. I had my NCD tanks to assist my saviors on certain maps and I was ok with it. However, IS kept releasing more and more dps units with busted stats or effects to the point were my NCD units besides Micaiah couldn't keep up, so I stopped using them. So when AFjorm came, I didn't really care about her NCD. The meta was no longer a paper-rock-scisors game, but who had the most stats+effects. AFjorm fit right into it.
Absolutely love the video, and I agree with a lot of the points but I see things a little different on the endgame, I do think weapon powercreeps is a huge issue in the game at the moment, and L!Marth refina is a testament that something is very wrong in the way that things are being handled, seriously, that unit is stupid now, I do think Ascended heroes are a really big powercreep, and sadly we don't have the gift of foresight in this game to see how IS intends stabilize the game, because right now we are in a very similar position as where we were at the beginning of this year in a lot of competitive modes, Offense is incredibly powerful, and almost impossible to account for more than 70% of what every offensive hero offers, but what worries me the most is how hard is to keep favorite units relevant, there are some heroes that definitively age better than others but right now some old heroes I would love to use are literally collecting dust, which is my biggest concern at the moment.
My first gacha was also the KH one! Seeing that Illustrated Kaori EX (I think that was the name) brought back a whole wave of memories. I instantly saw where you were going with this.
Some good points in the video you've brought up. I think if the game does begin dying, it will be when we get rained upon with free orbs to the point where no one will want to buy them.
I quit this game sometime in 2020. I didn't really spend much - just tried to be as efficient as possible with resources. But I found it really hard to stay in tier 21 arena by the sheer fact that the skill totals and merges for legendary units were just so difficult to get with the limited orbs. Aether raids became harder and harder too. I was pretty sad that I fell out of top 1000 and never found my way back.
The biggest problem though was investments didn't have much staying power. Mordecai was a really good f2p unit to use in arena because the red sword meta was pretty common. Then IS released a bunch of ridiculous mages - even red mages - that just completely invalidated Mordecai entirely. What I would have said was a Tier 2 arena character became unusable very shortly after. I remember there was Duo Byleth, Lysithea, and a bunch of others.
I remember I had a +6 Legendary Marth that was pretty bad too, and I didn't even want him to begin with - the gacha just kept giving me copies of him over and over instead of the units I actually wanted.
Anyway, I don't regret leaving the game. When I want to play Fire Emblem, I just play the actual games. Much less stressful and I never feel that rotten pit in my stomach.
PS: That Fjorm unit looks stupidly broken.
I remember I got screwed at the first ever Plumeria banner and dropped the game competitively entirely.
I still play in a more casual manner, I don't even touch aether raids, so I haven't trully seen what the meta is currently.
I do wish however that eventually IS makes a patch regulating all heroes to give them a regular statline alongside regulating stats, and not what's going on now that's basically getting to the 200's in overal BST and every new weapon gives +5 to everything, and a null effect or a DC effect or a slaying effect or everything merged together. It's never going to happen tho, ever, but one can dream
I do half agree with this vid, I generally do not like seeing the units who are getting like 8 effects. Its far too many and definitely ruins a lot of old investments.
However, I do think there is one effect that you left out that is significant (and that Fjorm does not have) and that's effectiveness neutralization. I think the reason B!Hector has survived as long as he has in the meta game is because of how strong that effect is. Units like brave miciah that should be one shotting him fail to kill completely. Having an effective against opens weaknesses and has allowed units like brave Erika, miciah, chrom, etc to remain incredibly effective at chipping tanks. So I feel like it should be included in your "9 effects" list (of course infantry naturally all come with it)
I really hope it doesn't end 😭 I've spent too much time in this game and it would fr be sad but honestly I agree with you. When I saw the whole ascended asset thing get added it felt rlly off to me
Fallen Edelgard and the new Ascended Asset things are really starting to get to me.
I have to say, I don't really agree with any major conclusions you reached.
Feh is far too profitable to shutter it's windows anytime soon, and all it will take to inject new interest is another inevitable FE mainline game. "Dead Game" has been a meme take since at least 2018.
Second, Fjorm's timing was super awkward. Literally B!Catria and both ranges of save skills were on banner simultaneously, and the Catria Save ball takes the legs out from under Fjorm before she got a chance to run.
I can agree that powercreep was rampant since basically December last year, but I feel like that's been tempered in the last few months, and Fjorm is not at all the death knell you're making her out to be.
Ironically, I view ascendant florets as a way to patch up old, long-time invested units. They're going to be on a tighter drip that dragonflowers (which I think should also be used on favorites one intends to use no matter what), and that's completely fine by me.
I also think it's a hilariously bad take that Save Skills were interesting in any way. Just another cheat skill for players to skip learning about AI movement and keep their support units safe without any thought or worry about getting lunged into traps or sniped. The AR-O equivalent of mindless Sigurd-Nott lines. I can at least understand why so many players gravitated towards those defense maps, because I$ nerfed just about every F2P or budget defense archetype into the ground. Just easier to summon for a few premium units to slap on defense and call it a day. Imo, Isolation was far more detrimental to the AR meta than even save skills, because that shut down creative development of defense maps.
I certainly see a lot of truth to this take and it’s certainly a possible path that we are heading towards a bad path. However seeing fjorm brought me to the conclusion they were getting ready to counter far save meta soon. Near save due to being less relevant overall and less powerful is probably not a target for this. Similar to how dr meta was made irrelevant by certain units such as duo lif, I think they will release a number of units within the next few months that deal with far save decisively. All you really need to shut it down is a Brave ranged armor slaying effect which certainly sounds broken but isn’t impossible. Feh always likes to go with the *release broken or meta defining thing- then release counter, so I am sure they have some sorta counter in mind. There is always the possibility for them to expand the meta with new effects as well. Another thing I’d like to point out is her big weaknesses. Besides being weak to brave attacks- she also lacks in fire power(against certain match ups), is the worst tanking color and a generalist. Whenever such a unit is a generalist trying to do everything it leaves the door open for being overwhelmed by fire power
Wait 2:15 there was a mobile game about KH? WTF
A good thing about AFjorm is that she was in a sparkeable banner, unlike previous cancer such as Savior/Sigurd/Catria shenanigans, so is at least fair that such a powerful unit was easily accessible, similar to Fedelgard, and just like her I won't be surprised IS might release easy but expensive counters in the future.
But this also shows that investing into the meta(primarily gambling into seasonal and legendary banners for a new toy) as F2P or dolphin is a downhill slope.
Your unit: Is disgustingly OP.
Random weak-ass generic enemy who can't do shit: H e l l o .
This video aged well. Welcome ascended mareeta to the team 😂
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I watch people play feh but I have put the game down. After last yr I realized no matter what I like using there will be something that completely forces you to build a team to counter. It got even worse when IS bluntly just solve that problem by dumping out a more OP or unit to counter said unit. Like what's the purpose of planning my teams if I can just run the game with F!Edel last yr when she was a problem then daddy Sigurd then the ninja brrs right past you haha
I'll happy if have another Fire emblem moblie game suchlike Langrisser mobile (large map,different unit,free skill set up)
I agree that this game's powercreep is overblown but this is the product of a game who's main appeal is summoning. How else would people be tempted to summon on new banners. So the issue is both ways. Players are encouraging these decisions since IS keeps stats on all new banner summons. IMO, to get out of this predicament, IS needs to implement a new way to play the game and interact with your barracks that make summoning not the be all and end all (I know, a tough task for a gotcha game).
You did a great job with the script and I would love to see a part 2 where u devise some ways IS can overcome these obstacles.
I think the biggest problem isn't necessarily the pinnacle of strength and the stacking of skills - I think it's the lack of ability of anything else to keep up. The power ceiling hasn't changed much, but, the power floor has gone astronomically higher.
You showed Brunnya, Fallen Celica, and Petrine at various points; to me, those three epitomize what the current meta shifts have done for the worst. All three of them used to be unique, strong, and generally solid; however, with the meta building around Saves, you're either a strong enough unit to tank units that break Saves (Which do exist, but, it's nearly impossible to build a non-PRF unit into someone that can tank Brave Eirika or Ophelia, and even most PRFs can't handle it), or a strong enough unit to break Saves. If you can't do either of those things, you're of every little value.
Fallen Celica, Brunnya, etc used to be brilliant generalists that you could use in nearly all situations with intelligent play and investment. They had weaknesses, but, they had sufficient strength to handle most situations if played well. However, the insane stat allocations of Saves meant the offensive units required to break them - like Duo Lif and Brave Eirika - so completely outclass the capabilities of any of them that they're of no real value.
I agree that Saves by themselves weren't actually too strong, and added some nice variety away from the overly centralized infantry metagame. But, units with over-stacked PRFs like Duo Lif and Brave Hector, in combination with stuff like Bride Catria with Saves as a shield, it just shut down the ability to build your favourite units to be effective almost completely. Fjorm is another step in that direction, but, Flash honestly wasn't a threat or an answer against a sufficiently strong Save (Speaking as someone that routinely would tank entire AR-D teams while Flashed and take, like, maybe 10 damage total).
I don't think Fjorm by herself is a huge problem, she's strong but far from unmanageable, but, I do think the PRF powercreep leaving everything else in the dust is an issue that the game really needs to address. For a game with >700 characters, there's maybe only 20 that are actually important, and possibly another 50 that can be made to work with heavy investment. That really kinda sucks.
I must agree with you.
In my case it is choice of either using my favs like Selena or Cordelia and struggle to do anything or you just using the recent "best unit".
I think there is one more problem (well there are a lot of problems, but I want to mention this one):
The F2P skills pool is nearly stagnant while 5* exclusive skills keep getting more, and more crazy. In current meta something like Swift Sparrow 3, Death Blow 4, bond lvl 4 skills and even Distant and Close Counter should be available via 3 and 4* summon units. In the end at 5* rarity there are Unity skils, and even better versions of counters! But DC is rare, CC is nearly impossible to get, and even if I manage to summon someone with good skills to give to your +10 favorite unit I think: Ok, but what if next banner will bring some new powercreep and my just invested unit will land in barracks because it will be not relevant?
I flinched a bit when I heard you talking about Khux. I used to play that and MSF. One shut down and the other is also kinda on that track. Once the Iso-8 whatever nonsense became a rumor I left back in 2019-2020 shortly after getting Phoenix. Glad I did. I’ve noticed the same thing happening in feh and it makes me sad. Stopped spending as well and glad I did, actually.
I pretty much stopped spending after the valentines banner last year with save skills and D!Lif...
It became pretty clear it was taking a bad turn at that point and was becoming less like a fire emblem game and more like a high chase.
I have units who get +43 Atk. Literally nothing survives that.
I am just chilling here watching me boy Ced get power creeped to oblivion, and Lewyn having to carry everyone. It's pain
I kinda disagree with your take on A!Fjorm. There are already a ton of counters to her being run in vault of heaven before she was already released, especially dual Lif, and Bridal Catria who was the "bait" banner just before A!Fjorm. I think her release was far more appropriate than F!Edelgard. I like that she shifts the meta away from cav lines a bit, or will at least require people to run more melee units. However, I do fear for the health of the game, more because they are going to run out of fire emblem characters...
I still don’t like the idea of being enticed to pull ascended units just to get a star flower to boost any of your units.
@@ghostin3274 that part I agree with, for now. It's a new item, and if they start introducing FTP ways to get more in the future I'll be less annoyed. Judging by FEH's history it isn't uncommon for them to give us good free stuff on big event like anniversary or new years. But until then, they'll milk the whales.
frustrating that sometimes the game just feels like i have to use something they're selling to me to beat something they're selling to me. sucks going into something like AR or arena and realizing a unit i fully invested into is actively my worst unit on the field and is borderline useless in most scenarios.
I like a!fjorm, is funny seen how 5 ranged units hits her and die, maybe that stops people to use full ranged defense, and now this new mode in colesseum is like a breath to the game for people bored
The fact that Posion Strike does more damage to A!Fjorm than Actually Attacks from ranged units is very sad.
It feels like sense the announcement of Book IV everything has been slowly regressing. Prior IV, Book III cultivated Aether Raids, introduced Mythic units, introduced Beast Units, and attempted to give other games more attention. Book II introduced legendary heroes, weapon refinery, and generally improved the game in every way mechanically. What did Book IV give us? The first damage reduction B skill on a unit with Null Follow Up, a Dancer Mythic that outclassed every dancer in FEH (Other than LAzura), and a Unit that had DC along with Slaying. The ONLY thing Book IV sought to introduced was a new meta and powercreep, which while exciting in its own way, should not be acceptable for what the two years prior introduced. Book V, so far has followed in suit and simply changing the meta is getting old. Feh needs something new like Aether raids that is similarly as fun and can establish it's own meta. No one cares about special events because they aren't constant. Feh needs a new constant
Recently i become a galeforce enjoyer so im beyond of the frustration XD but this always happen in games with a long shoot, like in TCG, is scary aproach to YuGiOh now, so i agree with this but im the kind of player with a lot of resilent, and i love to surpass this walls with planning, and if you are F2P is more difficult but no impossible. People if you see Catria in defense just dont use Save ball with Fjorn, you have more options like galeforce, hit and run, or semi-tank strategy, i have a perfect defense week xd. When i started in feh (like 1 year ago) i always used hit and run with a lot of succes then save and pathfinder happens, that was a slap in the face and force me to do more than 1 team and strategies. Yes maybe is just my case but now i have a lot of fun just to plannig the best way to make a smooth clean in AR.
Damn, man. You did a great job with that video. That was well researched and well said. I look forward to more scripted content.
I agree with the powercreep for the most part, but I'm not hating the addition of fjorm. She forces a lot of people from using cav lines ESPECIALLY in dark season. Now people actually have to restrategize and use more than just 2 distance cavalries.
Even with her addition I haven't had any trouble sleeping her. A unit that can hit twice or even close range units can sleep her with ease. I'm currently using a no merge Duo Catria to take her out.
Well the good thing is power creep doesn't only work for new units old units can also be good thru refines but the divide dew needed for that is a bit hard to obtain without feh pass.
From my point of view, most of the powercreep problems stem from the fact that most of the meta shifts since the CYL4 banner have been AGAINST the player and in favor of Defense teams. The units in the last dancer banner don't have the use in AR-O that something cool like Galeforce Azura would have, and instead we got 3 Mov Ranged Dancer that enables Duo's Hindrance and dancer traps and a Dancer that dodges the most common source of Isolation. Also, Odd Recovery was introduced, to further deprive Offense teams from Isolation. Then Nott, L!Sigurd, and F!Edelgard happened, again, giving disgusting tools to Defense teams and taking options away from the Offense teams.
Ascendant Fjorm and Safety Fence are merely additions to give Offense teams a way to attempt to counter the non-sense that the most disgusting and try-hard Defense teams have, including Turn 1 initiations using stuff like Flash and Sweeps to shut down the Save units the Defense team basically forces most players to use. IS wouldn't have been forced to progressively add more and more skills to individual units if they had properly nerfed cavalry teams in AR-D. Maybe do something like adding Defense tiles in all the tiles of the sixth row not currently taken by terrain, so that those tiles can't be filled with obstacles that encase the Offense team and leaves it at the mercy of the Defense team's ranged cavs. It's been years since AR was introduced and in that time there has been NOTHING that disuades people from using ranged cavalry units on their Defense teams. Other AR-D archtypes (like IP teams) have fallen off, but cavalry teams remain as the go-to option for the Lift-starved fellas who want to win as many AR-D matches as possible.
I'm just glad Luthier made it in.
I had fun with FEH, but the power creep makes it too tedious for me. Plus, I feel like I'm drifting away from the JRPG genre nowadays.
Plus there's the Gimmick of the Day: The one for a while was Canto before Medeus, before that it was Save skills.
Edelgard started it!
I remember I plus ten'd my kaze a year ago, and I was excited to use him in literally everything because he was my favorite character.
I took a hiatus because of school and other reasons and now I can barely keep up with the meta. At this point I'm just playing to get characters I like and might just delete the game for good soon.
One thing to add is how IS is literally throwing meta defining units and skills, and then within months throwing out their counters. Meta-defining units of old (bike, taco, b!Lyn), lasted way longer than the common meta units of today (f!edel barely exist, a!fjorm invalidated any far save unit, d!lif is falling off, lynja isn't as common, the list goes on). IS will release a unit and then immediately release their counter the next month. Ik it's a meme that every banner is bait, but this year, literally every banner has been a bait for the next, and it's getting old.
IS has been adding problems and then selling us solutions to said problem since the beginning of FEH.
Take Reinhardt for example a cav unit who has a brave weapon and can attack anything within 5 spaces and is available at 3stars so it was really easy to +10 him. His counter was Aversa and her ability to shut down horse emblem teams.
But the one problem IS introduced to FEH that till this day I hate with every fiber of my being was Dazzling staff. A skill that makes it so that no one is allowed to counterattack when a staff unit attacks. The fact there are people who want to see combat focused staff refines makes me sick to my stomach.
Coop isn't a thing in this 😞😓😩
I disagree with the notion that the "rock-paper-scissors" aspect from the game is dying with the introduction of units like A!Fjorm. The "rock-paper-scissors" aspect is still there, but it no longer only applies to individual units, but to team compositions. You have Offense archtypes like hit-and-run, "Galeforce" (or in general, aggressive teams with multiple actions), and omni-tanking, and you have Defense archtypes like Turn 1 initiation, Stall, and "making both initiating and tanking difficult". There's different match-ups between these archtypes, and generally you have the option to counterpick to the favorable match-up. However, you can swing the match-up in your favor by adding certain support skills to the units in your composition. And what IS has been doing is releasing stuff like that. You'd think that stuff like "Catria ball", "Save Ball", "Lynjaforce", are new team archtypes defined by the units that make them more effective at reaching their goal, but in reality those are just the flavor of the year for the fundamental team composition archtypes, which are defined by the team's game plan towards winning.
If the opposite team relies too much on individual units to get a win, you can just add a pre-existing skill to your team to swing the match-up in your favor. For example, Turn 1 Aggression defense teams lose to Save omni-tanking unless they bring stuff like Flash, Sweeps, WoM traps, etc. NCD Armor unit A!Fjorm was sold to counter those teams because they're a common sight in AR and because most people generally like omni-tanking in AR-O. But these Offense "Fjorm balls" can be beaten by adding B!Alm with Pulse Smoke or an Odd Pulse Tie user to your Turn 1 Aggression team. Defense "Fjorm balls" have similar counters. Other example: A Defense team that now everyone wants to build because "OMG, this is broken, I need to have it in my AR-D" are Catria balls, which is just a modern flavor for teams that seek to make both initiation and tanking difficult. Initiation is made difficult by adding Save units supported by lots of Drive skills on their teammates, and tanking is made difficult by Triangle Attack. But the team can collapse if the Offense team constrains the intended movement of the defense units using something like Gatekeeper (blocking the Orders warps) or breaking obstacles to bait the units with the longest range away from their Triangle Attack teammates, or simply bringing a tank-buster with enough support to bust the Save unit (even if it's something disgusting like "Orchestra man" B!Hector).
What is the take away here? You still have to counterpick against the different Defense archtypes, and like before, you have to add skills to your team to counter the flavor that most people are adding to their teams. Before that 7th-slot and Recovery skills, it was enough to just bring Isolation to counter Dancers. Now, it's A!Fjorm what counters the current flavor of disgusting AR-D cavalry teams. In the past, you brought Pulse Smoke to have your omni-tank deal with pre-charge Specials. Now, pre-charge Specials are barely a concern, but there's still teams that want to make tanking difficult by adding B!Catria. Against those, you bring Detailed Report or some other way to break the "Catria ball" appart and blocking Triangle Attack. When Catria ball falls out of style and gets replaced by a new flavor of teams that disuade tanking, that new flavor will be countered by a specific combination of skills, rather than a unit that "does everything" or attempts to do so.
This comment for president.
this is a really interesting comment to me because i agree with what you're saying, but i don't feel like it's necessarily in opposition to what i was trying to say in the video - the sort of rock-paper-scissors macro-strategy you're talking about has always been part of the game, but i feel like there's a micro-level strategy version that is getting phased out. the power level of viable units these days is so strong that when you have the correct counter to a given archetype, you kinda just win - whereas a year or two ago it felt much more like even when i had a suitable counter to something, i still had to fill in a lot of gaps because it wasn't as clean. and also that these days, the 'counters' are almost always specific units (b!alm, gatekeeper, etc) rather than more general things (a null c user, a galeforce team, etc). maybe that's more specific to my experience, but i do feel like the game is simplifying in a way where the actual moment-to-moment strategy is less important because we're being sold things that win the map for us on the team selection screen. that's at least the trend i've been noticing in the past few months, and only time will tell how that continues to develop or where it ends up. anyway, i appreciate the comment and you engaging with my ideas!
@@LevinSety Yup, the macro-level match-ups between different team archtypes has always been present. And I do agree with the feeling that specific units can currently counter certain team archtypes: For example, A!Fjorm countering first turn aggression AR-D teams and B!Alm countering Armor balls. But that's more because they have the specific set of skills that counter the "flavor" of those teams that people are currently using. A!Fjorm's kit destroys cavalry that slap stuff like Windsweep and Dazzling Staff, and can also be built and/or supported to not be affected by damage reduction (from Summer Mia), Miracle (from H!Leif), and Guard (both the skill and the status); so the defense team is left with a few options to avoid losing to her (such as adding brave weapons or Bridal Catria, Odd Pulse Tie, a close-range Pulse Smoke user, or make that their units eventually chip down A!Fjorm to 0 HP). Similarly, B!Alm counters save balls because no Armored unit can't prevent his Windsweep effect, unless the Near Save unit is speed-stacked enough. Also, another reason why it feels like battles nowadays can be decided at the moment you deploy is because battles are now decided on the first few turns, due to the new AR mechanics. So, if you know the enemy team will be engaging you at the start of the match, the right decision is to bring units who start out with a good match-up against the flavors of the moment that enemy slaps into the units that comprise their team. Despite this, you still have to think on how to reach the Aether Resources without killing the remaining enemy units too early nor having one your units killed instead, and this is not a process that can be done thoughtlessly.
I think that stuff like A!Fjorm countering current-day Turn 1 aggression AR-D teams is just a way to bring back the meta to the simpler days before the non-sense that was added shortly after the new AR mechanics (like Nott, L!Sigurd, the common Duo's Hindrance enablers, Save skills, etc.). Before that, AR-D teams could lose to B!Ike or B!Hector unless thet deliberately tried to get around them. Now we have a similar situation, except that now the unit you have to actively try to not auto-lose to is A!Fjorm. Yes, A!Fjorm by default has a specific set of skills (some of which only she has access to), whereas B!Ike and B!Hector need to choose what they want to have, but A!Fjorm's kit is what it took to produce a meta swing in favor of the player. And the important thing is that A!Fjorm's kit is just a counter to the current flavor of the Turn 1 aggro teams that litter AR (meaning those skills may not remain relevant or optimal once people switch to using a different flavor). It just happens to have some of the effects that you list in your video as to "what a unit wants to be good". But that is an arbitrary list of effects that happen to counter the kits of different sets of enemies, and it's not something that is built from first principles or derived from an in-game skill tree that says "if you gather all these effects, you auto-win" or "you NEED to gather all these effects to win". A different list of "what makes a unit good" can have stuff like Brave effect, Impenetrable Dark effect, auto-dance or multiple actions per turn, the effect that negates Special manipulation, true damage or AoE damage, Hardy bearing effect, 3 movement + Canto, in-combat debuffs, effective damage against many unit types, or whatever (some of these effects also happen to counter the kits of different sets of enemies or are desireable for certain playstyles). Naturally, if you stack enough effects from whatever arbitrary list, you'll end up having a unit that can deal with a lot of stuff in many situations.
This is exactly what happened to Ninja blazing. You had to think about the placement of your units in order to get out of the range of your enemy's attack. Then gree introduced units with the ability to hit you no matter where you are on a map which took all strategy out of the game and killed it.
What a bummer, it's a shame that we are definitely not getting any balance patches ever
Is IS are doing Weapon Re Refinds or make a new currency to put any five skills on a preferred weapon like slaying or Extra stats to name a few.
I think the game has gotten to the point where powercreep has gotten too far. When they're specific units can only counter specific units. That type of game style is very boring. Where a game has devolved from strategic gameplay to mindless nonesense.
If you think about it, the modern emphasis on horses and armor is just the return of the late 2017/2018 meta where horse emblem and ward armor balls were super good.
I'd definitely say there's regression in that regard.
Keeping up in the meta in this game just isn't worth it. I just pull for units I like, but it means that AR and my weekly Arena runs are typically super annoying. Some weeks it's a struggle not to get demoted out of Arena Tier 18...
Many of the new 5* heroes are just super overtuned. A!Fjorm isn't even the biggest problem to me, meanwhile F!Edelgard and Far Save B!Hector are the bane of my existence. The f2p build options are just super limited and you can hardly run units you like or have overall utility because you always need to bring dedicated counters to the meta...
And it's not like the game has much going on outside of the PvP modes since all the others are just super stale repetitive grinds.
Well spoken. I would just be happy if they introduced new units with cool art and voice lines instead of advancing the powercreep...
Also it seems to me that the powercreep is not even spread evenly among weapon and movement types (RIP defensive Horse Units when was the last time they got a new skill)
@@adventurepotato8631 well tanky cavs have gotten def/res menace/ Atk/def menace and distance stance but those are available to others
I enjoy FEH and the whole fire emblem games in general but my only problem in FEH is definitely that after you finish the main story quest and ect there's really nothing else much to do in the game
My issue with the skill stacking is the blatant push into yet another armor meta/cav meta. Armors will literally get every armor skill besides the follow up and cav will be able to break through every defense.
Lethality
You may have some legit concerns about it but ultimate I doubt the game is simply ganna die just because the meta keep changing.
Besides dispite it all it still fun to play with your favorite unit in the game but i guess the only reason I'm saying this is because I have yet to spend a single dollar on feh and still enjoy playing with the units I get in the game regardless of how good or bad they are... the meta don't really matter to someone who don't bother being competitive and is just playing the game because they love feh for what it is.
Save skills were fine on paper but then you realize things like Flayn and Bector exists and all the funny drive stacking to fill out any weaknesses makes them in execution a fucking mess that turns all strategy into a single choice.
yeah, while i do appreciate that they made a bunch more units usable in some way, i think they were NOT well tested. if they only worked within 1 space, or only if there were 2 or fewer units in range to save, or something like that, i think they'd still be super strong and vastly more interesting in practice