Eliwood is what happens when put Marth in a game where everyone can do the things that would usually be unique to him (strong supports, visiting villages)
@@boredomkiller99 Yeah its kinda funny. The legendary weapons given specifically for the final boss all suck at their ONE JOB. So your best final boss killer is Athos, or just a luna tome Canas if you trained him. Hector is honestly the only lord in FE7 who is consistently good
@@boredomkiller99 That only happens if Eliwood is underused. Eliwwod should 20/15 by then which gives him enough SPD to not be doubled by either Nergal or Fire Dragon.
@@ethanwebster3764because their stats are god awful but being dragon type gives them some of the best affects from emblems. For example being able to use every dragon vein. Also their personal is pretty much their best usage early on to just be a damage aura.
@@ethanwebster3764 alear personal skill give adyacent allies damage reduction and boost damage, and be a dragon type unit give him access to the best effects from supports ring, like Lucina Guard, Byleth boost or Corrin terrains
Personally, I really like Micaiah in Radiant Dawn. She offers mostly utility, and I think it fits her character quite well, considering she is shown to be a self-sacrificing person fighting for a greater cause. The game even gives her a unique ability called "Sacrifice", which feels like good story-gameplay-integration. My only problem with her is that some maps make her frustrating and seem like a liability (looking at you, 1-9).
part 1 micaiah is really cool and fun, and she gets off to a good start in part 3 by gaining staff utility, but she really suffers from only having three maps in part 3 (and one of them locks her in jail away from the enemies), which really prevents her from keeping up with the exp curve.
As much as i LOVE micaiah in Radiant Dawn, she isnt really what i'd call a fun lord, especially in hard mode. although i do find her staff botting in part 3 makes her alot more interesting.
I feel like she might be a bit more fun if she had a buff to her hp or defence, since a lot of what makes her frustrating when that's an issue with her is that she really does die to a stiff breeze on nearly every map she has.
She also still has late game utility because her Mag will always be through the roof even when she isn't getting exp and Thani will still consistently oneshot almost every armor or cav in the game Simply do not put her in the line of fire it's not that hard
@@Pwrplus5 it might just be because i play on hard mode, but i find she's usually JUST SHORT of one shotting the generals in the tower with thani, and i think we can all agree, she aint doubling anything. So i usually just relegate her to staff botting. using arms scrolls to get to that SS staff rank. oh and i bless a purge for her of course. She's pretty nutty in the dragon map of the tower if you give her a blessed purge tome and the dragonfoe skill. They are actually slow enough for her to double and kill.
One of the things I liked about Erika in FE8 is that she felt like she was described as in the story: She's not a seasoned warrior or a naturally gifted fighter. She's above average in her swordplay, but she was never meant to be a front line fighter. HOWEVER - Multiple characters in the story make vows to kill her or at least cause her harm. And DAMN is it satisfying when you can get Erika to a place where she delivers their killing blow. It's one of those "unit feel" situations where yes, Erika is not a "good" unit by measures we can all agree on. But the satisfaction of your Erika, especially one where you didn't do any grinding, just struttin on up to Valter and obliterating him, one of the most satisfying FE experiences ever. And its all thanks to the dialogue and circumstances that surround it. Eliwood strikes a similar tone, but there's something about it that just feels slightly less...impactful. I think it's because Hector always feels like the true "lead" of FE7 despite it focusing on Eliwood's family. Wheras in FE8 despite them being twins, Erika always felt more like the "lord" than Ephraigm.
I like Micaiah. She starts as a more niche unit, being your best caster for a while and having a rapier tome (Thani) that actually feels like a rapier is supposed to, decimating cavs and armors. Then she transitions to a support lord in acts 3&4 as her role shifts in the story. Honestly, a much better and more interesting unit/character than people give her credit for.
I really like Corrin as a lord because of how they play so fully into what I consider the best part of Fates - the support system and how it affects reclassing. There’s virtually nothing Corrin cannot do with all the classes they can get skills from with their unlimited friendship classes, or what Corrin’s spouse can do with a Partner Seal into Corrin’s talent (as well as the bonuses from Supportive when in attack/guard stance), however to truly unlock their potential you must plan to get those supports. Some units in Fates basically come pre-built (especially the prepromoted Royals) which virtually nothing required to carry them through the rest of the game, so I really like having a force-deployed unit that has all this potential, and essentially demands the player to use it with how meh Nohr Prince(ss) and it’s promotions are. There’s so much fun stuff to do with Corrin, and (unlike Byleth or Alear) it’s most all stuff only they can do. Some of my favourite things I’ve done with Corrin include a Trample Bowfaire Malefic Aura Shining Bow Priestess using Camilla, Mozu and Nyx friendship in Conquest, or giving Oni Savage to Felicia in Birthright to make a Oni Chieftain with Tomebreaker, Axebreaker and Lancebreaker very early who can make up for her poor strength with Oni Chieftain + Supportive and effective weaponry like the Hammer or Pike Ruin Club. They accentuate Fates as so replayable just because there’s so much possible with them if you engage with the support system.
God corrin was a monster in my playthrough. I paired her with her son and gave her all the best status boosters/skill proccers alongside the skill to use your partner's abilities then gave her child aegis, pavise, astra, ignis, and the lord's special attack. It was disgusting and i loved it.
my corrin currently is using the ike class from the dlc and strengthtaker + brave sword + dragon fang + aether + draconic hex goes crazy. i don’t even have to pair corrin with anyone and because each brave hit has a chance to proc aether, sometimes it procs for all 4 hits and you’re basically taking out anything because nothing can survive 8 hits (on top of crit procs).
Yes I adore Alear’s versatility! Divine Dragon is actually a very balanced class besides its low Magic stat, which does make arts feel useless BUT it’s still cool. Alear can support or be a combat unit, it’s so satisfying using Divinely Inspiring or a Byleth intstruct
@@caosisaac oh I’ll have to try that, it seems like only Chrom or Eirika can save Alear’s bad arts damage 😭 and Silver Spirit Art isn’t as exciting as Flashing Fist Art or Divine Fist Art
@@joeyjose727 to be fair you only get the +10 boost when bonded, so i combined that with the +5 mag/res bonus soren gives. That gives alear a total mag of 40 at cap rather than 25. I use that with the breaker skill that gives you a bonus attack if you break and alear just wrecks house with both sword and artes. Up to 5 attacks from alear and robin alone if you break an enemy.
Try pairing Alear with Veronica sometime. Reprisal pairs extremely well with Arts since each hit gets the bonus damage, so even relatively small amounts of damage translate into huge increases in attack power. Veronica also gives Mag +5, which is nice for Arts and Levin Sword (not to mention Veronica's two very strong Engage Weapons), and since Alear is naturally very fast anyway, you can fairly consistently double without any major Spd support. Plus, Dragon still gives some great type bonuses to Veronica's skills, so it has a ton of utility too.
Yeah, I started feeling like "If 3Houses took inspiration from Genealogy of the Holy War, then Engage took inspiration from Thracia 776" (Both came out next to each other, One is Overhyped sometimes, good game, but I'm not a fan of something being treated as "It will cure cancer and save your marriage" hyped that they overlook or try to PAINT the flaws as POSITIVES! While the other is a "broken Base" game where people can't decide their feelings on them! But the Thracia 776 part I'm going with is the FUN of finding ways to utilize the systems to their fullest if not BREAK THE GAME! Plus with how Dragon Child/Divine Dragon Alear works, they are similar to Leif in his own game where he's a decent attacker, but his greatest strength is just how much he BOOSTS his allies making them BETTER!) I enjoyed three House and still do, but I love Engage more for FEELING like the Fire Emblem games of old (a feeling I last had playing Fates: Conquest!) not that I'm saying 3H isn't a Fire Emblem game. But it and Genealogy felt like an INTERESTING spin-off that is Fire Emblem (like how Bravely Default is for Final Fantasy 5 fans!) but not how ALOT of the mechanics of Fire Emblem AFTER Thracia 776 took from EVOLVING off of Thracia 776 concepts and improving them then Genealogy till 3Houses! (Still do feel we need a BALANCE between Blacksmith, Durability and Unbreakable weapons! 3Houses and Engage feels like we're getting CLOSE to the answer hopefully!) I found sans the Heavy Magical focused Emblems (Soren and Celica, Not Veronica, USE to think so, till I saw how Fell Fogado and Diamant in the Xenologue utilized her and found my own Diamant and Fogado in their Personal Tier 2 classes were MONSTERS with her, especially with Reprisal since Cupido Fogado is relying on Vantage, Wrath and his Class Skill when preparing Counter Attacks so Reprisal makes him a Monster! And Diamant also benefits! Berserker Panette was SCARY with Veronica though LOL) that Alear did WONDERS with any Emblem GIVEN to them, fits being the GUARDIAN of them all. Though I found I locked Marth back on them after getting him back (just felt right) and Veyle was great at being given the MAGICAL Rings because she is ALSO a Dragon Battle Style in her Personal Class! Then the Fell Twins gave MORE units that had the elusive Dragon Battle Style! (I tend to recruit them in Chapter 14, before or AFTER and keep one or BOTH of them because I feel having THREE Dragons feels right story wise! I never take Alear or any of the Royals, Veyle and the Fell Twins out of their Personal Class! Well with the Twins, I randomly each run pick ONE who will stay a Fell Child and the OTHER will switch to the BETTER version of their Class! Found Nel does well as Fell Child, but the Class Skill isn't very SPECIAL even ON maps with bosses using Emblems/Dark Emblems" compared to Rafal who is a FREAKING ENGAGE BATTERY So I usually make her a Lance Mage Knight or Halberdier! Rafal is a MONSTER as a Berserker or Warrior as he is in Fell Child. It's funny how with the Twins, You have THREE Dragons using the Weapon Triangle as the Twins PERSONAL weapons despite being useable by ANYONE who can use A rank of that Weapon Type are a damn good Lance/Axe respectedlyl!
Ah, yes. My favorite breakfast cereal. Lucky Marths. Another thing I think really affects the Lord is the rest of army's early aptitude, particularly any mounted units. If your Cavaliers and Paladin just have the best combat from the start along with superior mobility, it makes it harder to justify the Lord getting going, even if they have/can grow into reasonable combat. Ike for example suffers in this regard, while I think Alear benefits. With the ongoing trend of the main Lord being a pseudo insert for the player, I find it unlikely we'll return to the era of "Unfortunate Unit" Lords, thankfully.
Sure Alfred isn’t the best combat unit but Chloe is quite strong and Louis can functionally serve like a cav when you need to with Sigurd for early game. Allear’s combat is quite bad (honestly only framme has worse combat early if you don’t just keep Marth on allear) and if you messed up and got yourself in a tough spot you’d be actively discouraged from using allear to get kills since making good use of their personal makes the most effectual turns. Their combat doesn’t get much better when trained especially in their personal class either. They can maybe be salvageable in a strength class like sword wyvern but they won’t be good. For reference people generally consider Louis “bad” late game but halberdier Louis is at least 3 times more potent in combat then allear in wyvern. If Louis when he’s “fallen off” makes allear look bad actually good units like kagetsu make him look like a joke combat wise. Best to not put too much effort into training him and just do corrin things. I’d say allear is a poor example of a lord benefiting from the early units around cuz allear just doesn’t Chloe and Louis are far too good in comparison. Alm would be an example of such imo. Alm is just innately solid at combat in echos at the beginning and starts as your best unit. Lukas is good in the short term as well but obviously people generally don’t like armors. The rest of your squad is villagers that are absolute zeros except for gray which he’s like a solid 3/10 at the start but they are customizable so you can use them however you want. Alm looks very good in comparison to the unpromoted villagers. And your early recruits aren’t exactly stellar stats wise even if they still have obvious utility from their classes like Clive being perfectly fine if you just give him rider’s bane and a single speed boost.
Robin and Kris are effectively lords that aren't force deployed. Lucina is a lord in name only (her class). Other notable examples are: Micaiah - what if your lord was (effectively) a cleric? Corrin - can be used as a jagen early on with dragonstone and switched to a stat backpack if he/she doesn't get good level ups.
@@paulman34340 Most of my corrins have been, especially in runs where I want to use other units with them (in part because I play rev and the promotion for c9 is super important so I usually promote at 15) but even 15/20 +str corrins sometimes can't do anankos - they're crazy but can be stat screwed.
@@meisterschwert Guess I got lucky then, well with my main lords anyway in each FE I've played and multiple Runs. I get at LEAST one RNG Screw with other units AT LEAST once (Like my current Revelations Run, Promoted Kagero to Master Ninja as soon as I could and her SPD suffered that she's getting doubled, worse thing is when I went to Serenes Forest and saw she had HIGH FUCKING SPD GROWTH! Guess that will teach me idiotically promoting early (I normally never do that and wait for Level 20, Engage kind of made me get into that mindset as I played a Maddening Run just before my Revelations run! Only character I waited to promote was Alear and that's cause I'm an old school Traditionalist, in that I refuse to promote the Lord till I feel there's a STORY reason for it, like Corrin will NOT promote till they get ALL Yato upgrades in Birthright and Conquest and the Alpha Upgrade in Revelations! I did start back in the GBA era on the Early years of Classic Fire Emblem AKA Blazing Sword like the rest of us AMERICANS! So I feel it's just right to do, plus as I said, I never see my Lords get RNG screwed, only time was my second run of Blazing Sword and that was Lyn having such LOW STR growths that I didn't pay too much attention to as she was doing decent enough damage and landing Crits that she couldn't damage the FUCKING FIRE DRAGON AT ALL as in 0 DAMAGE with everything! That actually was my FIRST RNG screw ever and would you believe me if I said my first Azure Moon run ever, Dimitri had more MAG then STR, and I never put him in a Magic Class EVER! Yet still was a monster slaughtering and laughing at the Weight system because his STR was still MONSTROUS that he suffered 0 WEIGHT without using said skill from Armor skill! Felix was faster then him, yet no WT drop meant he was faster then anything NOT an ASSASSINS, FALCON KNIGHTS AND SWORDMASTERS, who were the only ones avoiding getting follow up attacked/doubled by him! But Maddening or Hard, all my Alear needed was a Maxed Forged with Marth engraved Liberation and maybe a Wo-Dao and he/she was solid, like Alear with the Yato, and maybe the Nohrian Sword till the Yato got it's first upgrade! Then it was Yato and Dragonstone and later Tome. By the way the rare RNG Screws I mentioned RARELY hurt me, even my Kagero is usually KILLING before she gets killed herself! It's on DEFENSE where I have to worry as her HP also got SCREWED, had to reset at Revelations CH25 RIGHT at the end cause a Sniper killed her in one hit, never saw it coming as I used her to BAIT the Sniper unknowing he could kill her! Man PRE-Rewind FE make me love and HATE the old days where it didn't exist, love cause I'm at my top game, but hate because I AUTO Reset the moment a unit dies as I have an EVERYONE LIVES mentality! Might as well be my LORD died with how I auto reset as a reflex, hence loving Rewind, but ONLY rewind with limited use! As I might as well not play the game at all since I can't lose at that point!)
@@meisterschwert Good thing I never really promote my Lords unless for Story Reasons (I'm Traditional LOL, Well not too traditional that I wait till LATE Game like what happened to poor Roy in Binding Blade LOL! Thank God Ike got a GOOD time to promote and they removed that limit COMPLETELY to let US choose when!) that make sense! Like in Conquest and Birthright, right around when you get the first Yato upgrade (No grinding, I don't do that so much, I usually have my Lords near or at Level 20 really sooner, even when I'm using them to WEAKEN enemies for allies to take down) or the second (and might as well FINAL till endgame) upgrade (when Xander/Ryoma join) as I feel storywise it makes sense! Revelations is when the Rainbow Sage upgrades the Yato to it's Alpha Form (Depends on the Coin Toss on WHICH Noble I make Corrin, Hoshido or Nohr, I mean that literally I flip a coin each playthrough of Revelations LOL) I do the same in 3 Houses (Keep the Three Lords in Classes that make sense for them till Part 2 where they are stuck in their Personal Class during Story and Paralogue battles till their FINAL Personal 2nd Class is unlocked, then their in that till the End! Byleth is in Enlighted One for the same reason) and Engage (I tend to promote Alear to Divine Dragon around or AFTER Hortensia joins/Chapter 14, Storywise it feels RIGHT to me that Alear promotes as that's in the story they FINALLY in their heart ACCEPT being the Divine Dragon! Hell I promote BEFORE that Battle Starts in Preparations! On Maddening, I'll do it AFTER Chapter 11 as that ALSO feels like a moment where Alear would embrace TRULY being the Divine Dragon instead of their mother's "TEMP" as you can TELL I'm a MASSIVE ROLE PLAYER LOL) Never got RNG Screwed with ANY LORD sans Dimitri, but that's mostly his MAG was HIGHER then his STR for some odd reason, not that it crippled him and it only happened in my first Azure Moon run, never again though LOL) I do feel LATE promotions was dumb, especially on the WORST treated on this Roy! IT made better sense to be Great Lord AFTER beating Narcian as at that point, he's the ONLY Noble with a FIGHTING Army force against Bern. Not when he gets the Binding Blade which makes little sense to me getting it so LATE like the Falchion of old LOL. Royals in Engage I tend to promote them the moment their STORY ARC ends (When you reach the chapters you LEAVE their Kingdom's story wise) Never suffered an RNG screw other then Kagero in my first Revelations run because I promoted her at Level 10 to Master Ninja! Imagine my shock her SPD Growth is PRETTY HIGH, yet it was her LOWEST next to HP that I was forced to reset the Chapter 25 battle cause I VERY MUCH underestimated a Sniper attacking her who got a 100% on her that did 10 HP more then her current FULLY HEALED MAX! And I promoted her early cause I wanted to TEST something (I usually WAITED till 20 to promote my units, Sakura/Elise normally STILL end up good when promoted at 10 so they can start working on their attack weapon rank early! And helps I got Certain Blow for both of them in a previous run to deal with their MIDDLING Skill! But they can end up good if I promote them at Level 20 if not BETTER, I just miss out on higher Weapon ranks sometimes, not that Elise isn't killing with Disrobing Gale, Sakura is screwed as a Priestess because she REALLY wants to be using the Shining Bow which is a C rank, though she usually has DECENT ! It's like TRAINING Mist to use the Wind Sword ALL OVER AGAIN...MAN I wish they'd re-release POR already!)
Personally I really like Corrin from a gameplay perspective for their customization as a unit. You can get very creative with whatever you want Corrin to be, which works in their favor with how the reclassing system works. Maybe it's my bias towards having customizable avatars doing the talking here, but I like units like Corrin and Kris where the kind of unit you want is up to you. I can understand why they stuck with having the same archetype for lords for the most part, but I still reminisce the times where we weren't restricted to being proficient in strength and swords and could be whatever kind of unit we want to be.
I always found it funny how Robin is technically not force-deployed on most maps... and yet they're so good as a unit they might as well be. It's VERY rare to see someone not use Robin. As far as favourite Lord implementations...I'm going to go for a bit of an obscure (?) pick and say Awakening Chrom is very interesting. His growths are solid and his combat picks up pretty quick, and has has Cavalier as a reclass if you don't like the foot movement, but what's really interesting is his Falchion, which is statted similarly to an Iron Sword but has infinite uses. This provides great combat utility for the earlygame but then it falls off... or does it?? The cool thing is, Falcion has Dragon effectiveness, which INCLUDES WYERNS. Not only do you fight a LOT of Wyvern Riders in the Plegia arc, including some nasty reinforcements like Chapters 5 and 10, they're also an axe class now so Falchion gets WTA. This makes Chrom a situational but very effective combat unit for the first third of the game. Chrom doesn't get his Falchion upgraded until very late, but he makes up for that slightly by another interesting aspect: being the first Lord up until that point who promotes like a normal unit, with a Master Seal. The player having full control over the timing of his promotion is an aspect I don't see talked about enough. (I guess Awakening is such an easy game to break that individual unit design doesn't matter much?) An example of modern Lord design I'm not fond of is the house leaders and Byleth in 3H. They fall way too hard into the "just a normal unit except force deployed and really, really good" category that they're just... sorta boring to me? Barely anyone uses their unique Lord class option. They do get unique classes post-timeskip and a really overpowered skill, but with some exceptions I don't find a unit being defined by ONE SKILL very fun, because then it's like their stats don't matter. On top of that they also gain exp faster and in Byleth's case, give that boost to adjacent units too. I feel Ike lands in the middle of the chart for most of PoR and then becomes a Juggernaut in the last two maps because Ragnell. Roy also mildly falls into Juggernaut with the Binding Blade. This style of Lord is pretty limited to just those two though, and all because of strong legendary weapons. (Wille Glanz is pretty good but by the time you get it you've had plenty of time to make Alear good in other ways) Wow, I've been playing Shadow Dragon and I fully agree with you on Marth's chest utility. The only time I used Marth to open chests was in the Tiki map because they're all on the way to the throne anyway.
I’ve always liked Sigurd and Seliph’s differences as lords. Sigurd is a powerhouse, but the sheer number of enemies and their movement formation requires you to use other units so that you don’t get overwhelmed. He’s like a Jagen that you actually want to give experience. Seliph does have his issues with being footlocked until promotion, but his less impressive stat spread is made up for by inherited weapons. It makes sense character wise as Seliph is the inexperienced son of Sigurd who’s more aware and has better allies to back him up. (Larcei, Ulster, and Lana completely outclass anything Alec, Noish, or Arden could do)
- Roy , Ike , Leif , the twins , Celica and Alm : “Our promotion is thru the story” - Lucina , Chrom , Alear , Corrin and Seliph : “Oh we promote whenever we want” - Sigurd : “You guys need promotion to be good”? - Marth : …………..
Tbh an issue I have with (some) of the lords is how they have to wait for a story promotion. I mean it makes sense why they do it. If the lord wasn't used much or is rng screwed they get to make sure the lord has at least something. And giving the lord a promotion often happens for a reason in the story. So it makes sense. But it still bothers me that if i get a lord to level 20. They are just stuck like that, until the story says it's time. Especially when most other units can promote just fine. (Tbh this is mainly a me problem. They are forced deployed so I end up usually getting them to lv. 20 as quickly as possible, because I dont like promoting units below lv 20 and I get worried otherwise that thed wont reach that level)
I like the idea of story-based promotions but I wish they came sooner. Some lords promote really frustratingly late. I kinda like what they did in 3H where Byleth has a unique promoted class, but they can still promote to other classes, so they aren't stuck in their base class until the special class unlocks.
The problem with the story promotions is that for some reason Intsys loves to wait until _right_ at the butt-end of the story to give them out. Like, if you want to see what a good story-based promotion looks like? Play basically _any_ Super Robot Wars game. Mecha anime in general is full of examples of a protagonist upgrading to a newer and more powerful version of their mech. The difference is that these upgrades typically take place around the halfway point of the story, where the stakes get raised and the initial robot they were using starts to fall short of their enemies. The key is spending enough time to establish the protagonist not being strong enough for the escalating threats, but not dwelling on that beat for so long that the protag starts to feel like dead weight.
I think most people share your sentiment. I haven’t had to deal with that because mainly have just played Awakening forward where there hasn’t been a late game promotion and all of the Lords promote like any other unit besides SoV Alm who doesn’t promote until late game like Gaiden Alm. I’ve only had to deal with it when I played Path of Radiance where Ike is already capped out while all of the units around him are already promoted but it isn’t as late as some others I know since his is right after Daybreak which is a perfect time to promote him and some of your other units probably just promoted as well. I know the Blazing Sword lords bascially don’t promote until the very end but haven’t dealt with that and glad they have just done the basic promote for all of the lords granted it would be good to see a story based promotion as long as it isn’t until the end
@@actuallizard Early concepts for FE6 show that Roy was planned to become King of the Western Isles in that arc, which, while I'm... mixed on that idea from a story standpoint (foreigner coming to another territory, solving all their problems and the locals making him their leader...), it would've likely moved his story promotion MUCH father forward, might've shaken things up.
@@actuallizard I personally found Eirika and Ephraim to have that perfect sweet spot timeframe for their time locked promotion. Its immediately after the path convergeance chapter at jehanna. Which is typically around when they are hitting level 18 give or take if you've been actively using them. So their promotion hits right about when they'll be hitting level cap. And it even lets you delay the promotion if you want to wait for them to hit 20
I'd like to see another magic lord. Roin and Celica are the only ones that have been made and it feels thematic for the team's leader / strategist tobe physically frail but still powerful
Primarily for how much they could go off on the combat animations, I’d want a Lord whose whole thing is hand to hand combat. No real reasons other than the aforementioned, and how funny it would be to have the main character throwing hands in a world of monsters and magic.
I don't know about the harder difficulties, but I've always loved Eliwood. Big fe7 fan here, and I find it fun to keep him alive so he can stack damage on everybody, assuming I get something like that one Eliwood from last year with 17 Strength and 8 Skill. I prioritize fun over efficiency most of the time in videogames. And Eliwood falls into that catagory
Alear and the ring type bonuses are really cool and interesting in my opinion. Making the dragon type so OP makes Alear always useful even if her swordplay isn't much to write home about. A different interesting little quirk is with Byleth, where it's really difficult to get them in a flying class on your first playthrough because of the opportunities for training you have (it is possible, but you'd have to be minmaxing very well) so it gives NG+ that bonus option where you can play Byleth as a flying unit.
Maybe for Male Byleth it’s difficult to get Wyvern, but Pegasus on Female Byleth only needs E+ Flying to gamble the certification, while the C lances is far more approachable due to actually being able to use them in combat to earn experience. That’s only 2 slots for Faculty Training needed, which is fairly easy to fit in.
I had no trouble putting Byleth in a Cavalry class, is it that hard to get him into a flying class? Also, F Byleth goes straight into the Pegasus knight classes in speed runs, so that definitely doesn't apply for her
When I first played Engage I immediately second classed Alear into another class outside of their standard class. However, on my second playthrough I kept them at Divine Dragon and was actually pretty impressed at how good they were for gray weapon breaking utility with arts, making them my go to knife and mage killer.
I like Ike's design in Radiant Dawn. He's a good support option because of his affinity and leadership stars, has good stats ad combat out of the box, gains his personal sword much earlier and with little investment doubles and kills entire squads of enemies. While if you want him to adapt a role similar to Titania, his army's Jagen, you can just switch to a weaker sword to soften up the enemy forces. He's fun and easy to use
i think leif's promotion being awful pairs up well with his arc showing that he still has a lot to learn and room to grown considering the next map is literally his biggest failure i think it was done with the idea that the player must have some scrolls now so in the last streach you give leif a bunch of scrolls and have him grow gameplaywise and storywise
Yeah his promo sucks save for the high exp gain which when paired with scrolls let him hit all the important caps pretty easily. Like his bonus is not stats or weapon but more growth which is great for his character
@@boredomkiller99 exactly it reflects how the defeat ulster did not make him stronger but rather hit him with hard truth and making him really srat to learn
I think low-lows are mostly there for the johnny players who want to do something cool even if it's not good. All 3 (you forgot Lyn) are crit machines and dodge tanks.
Eirika love, gotta love that in turn. Maybe I got lucky with her but I felt she held her own for me even without the Tower of Valni whenever I play FE8, though that might change next time. In any case, I really like this series of class breakdowns, it's interesting seeing how Lords have changed over the years. My favorite is when their role aligns with their narrative one, like Leif.
I suppose Micaiah would fall under "Just Another Unit" since she only has a grand total of two seize maps while she's the lord and she doesn't really satisfy objectives otherwise. She isn't needed for any recruitment until, uh, 4-3. But she has very interesting and unique utility otherwise between Sacrifice, Thani, Purge, and staves, as well as having very good accuracy (and at range!). And supporting Sothe. (If only she got authority stars, too!)
Miccaiah is a shifting role unit really. In part 1 she is basically your main offensive mage. Then when she returns in part 3 and 4 the enemies have jumped up so much in level that she can no longer put up much of a fight, but her story promotion means she can now be your primary healer instead. In either case, she is more of an escort lord in that she is force deployed on most maps she is present and super vulnerable.
My favorite types of Lords are competent fighters but don't need for all objectives. This fits better when you want to see the Lord fighting and leading the charge with their army.
Been playing Binding Blade and Shadow Dragon after not playing FE for a few years. Definitely been a fan of the Lord who has utility rather than a juggernaught like Sigurd. Though I am a bit of a fan of the lord's who get a power boost after being weak for a while. Training Seliph into Sigurd 2.0 is kinda fun
Roy is my favorite designed lord. It works well with his character and the story. A kid would fall out of his depth in a war. He’s like the king in a chess game.
I think a big thing that makes/breaks a lord for me is if their gameplay and story line up. Eliwood is supposed to be decently competent and capable, not as capable as Hector who fights what he can and has Matthew for what he can’t, but physical weakness makes him feel like a chump. At least Erika being weak enhances the narrative integration where her weakness serves in showing she values other traits more, contrasts her to Ephraim who does value those things, and even gives good reason for Lyon to be insecure, as the player can feel how weak Erika is so hearing Lyon got bested by her in combat really makes him look weak and sympathetic. Meanwhile Ephraim’s no apparent combat weakness establishes lacking physical strength isn’t his struggle.
Alear is such an interesting unit. They start off as by far the best support unit that has somewhat lacking combat. They are however excellent users of most rings making them significantly more flexible than anyone in the cast. Then at the end, they get the engage+ ability which is kind of cracked allowing alear to feel absurdly powerful for the finale while allowing alear to become an insane support unit at the same time.
Not capping, I saw Alear’s design in Engage’s announcement trailer and fell in love because of their hair; red and blue have been my favorites since forever. Engage then became my first and favorite FE and Alear is my favorite character in the series. Since then, I’ve also played 3H, 3Hopes, Fates, Awakening. I cared very little about the series before that (I’m a Smash player, so ofc I didn’t. -Put Alear and Shez in Smash 6.- )
Big fan of Lords in unusual classes. Micaiah stands out in this respect, being a cross between a light mage and a cleric. She has a nicely defined role in parts 1 and 3 I find where she is often able to blast either a knight or cav with Thani while your more resilient troops move forward to take out the rest of the foes. Her extremely polarised growths also make her one of the best positioned units to take advantage of RD's BEXP system, as she will often cap MAG and RES very quickly, perhaps also HP with the early Seraph Robe, allowing you to fill her up on DEF and SPD with BEXP quite easily. Training Micaiah to take out Ike with a Purge shot is extremely satisfying and it's a shame the game doesn't really do much to ackowledge your work in making that possible. Maybe one day we will get more cool lords in weird classes like Troubadour, Thief, or Dancer.
I genuinely thought ike was intended to be unbeatable my first playthrough. Unless you plan ahead for the fact you are going to have to fight him at some point he will just one shot any unit he fights.
Reese from Berwick Saga is fun. Has a universal +10 hit support and 3 broken prfs, balanced against low stats. So you can use him to juggernaut tough enemies a few times but eventually his weapons will wear out and he'll have to take a supporting role. He's also mounted which means he can keep up with whatever pace you set for yourself. The fortune skill is just a good idea for a lord to have in general not too overpowered but cuts down on the frustration a lot. I guess the objectives are about average. He does some seizing, 3-4 character recruits which are either using the talk command or just ending turn next to that unit, and a few side tasks throughout the game.
I like Byleth because I can build them however I wish - except as Mages or Dancers cause, 1: Byleth cant learn any useful magics unlike certain members of the cast, and 2: They cant become a dancer unless they have a gambit that allows refreshing
I'm partial to Micaiah and honestly Byleth for being excellent representation for the style the games they're in design units; the former being specific for each niche, the latter for any possible niche with most characters having multiple great options as well.
Actually playing FE7 and I have to admit despite just being Eliwood Normal Mode, I had to give him an Energy Ring and a Draco Shield immediately to do enough damage and survive more than one hit at least until Serra rejoins and that was kinda mind boggling, also that he as the main lord was not really that capable of in solidly killing bosses on his early maps, which you would usually expect from your main lord. He becomes a little bit better after baby-ing him a bit and give him level-ups (completely focused on him, Rebecca and Hector (and a little bit Matthew, but I already gave him a lot in the Lyn chapters, so well) on his early maps more or less until we got reunited with the Caelin troops), then he was about alright and kinda can keep up with the other units I chose to keep/use/level up.
Eliwood for me, either becomes deadweight, or a combat god every playthrough with no middle ground. His bases and growths are rather underwhelming. But there is potential in there to snowball him hard through the mid game if he gets some good level ups early on. His real problem is his absurdly late promotion. Most people typically give the first lord seal to Hector. But doing so will make Eliwood and Lyn stuck at level cap for so long if you were using them.
not an official fe game, but i really like rae (roy+fae) from fe6 no redundancy. they have really good stats when trained and a stupid good prf in the form of the ice stone (infinite durability 10 mt 100 hit +5 def and res), but late promotion and no good 1-2 range weapons keeps them from being too busted during the late game (at least before you get the divineblade)
Having the spicy take of gimme more lords with a focused promote path - divorcing a character from their class abilities like recent FE games have done and making them able to just do anything makes for more bland characters. Byleth being a mage or a swordsman or a wyvern knight or… is bad because they wind up being none of these things in the story. There’s less interaction between the mechanics of the game and the characterization.
I'd say Ephriam is a lot better than PoR Ike personally, I find PoR Ike kinda lacks a purpose for a while since he's a 6 mov sword locked unit post promo in a game where all the top tier units are cavs and fliers. When he promotes I wouldn't say he's a great foot unit either compared to Soren or even to Stefan who will have far better stats than Ike for a long time and isn't considered great since he is also 6 mov and sword locked. Ephriam is far more of a one-man army anyway while Ike doesn't one round nearly as reliably and lacks 1-2 range until the last 2 maps of the game. While Ephriam likely isn't a large part of a ltc or extremely efficient play either I think that's more because while Titania is top tier Seth would have 1-2 empty tiers between him and alternatives.
@twigz3214 Ephraim is less important even on casual playthroughs. First off not only is he not around for literally most of the first 8 chapters of the game but by the time he joins he not only is competing with Seth but also any units you raised including Franz and Vanessa and you get Dussel like two chapters in if you choose him as the MC. Heck even Gerik upstages Ephraim since he can promote at base Add that Ephraim at no point is required save for a couple of recruitments and he honestly kind of lacks impact despite his good stats. Inversely Ike while is a foot locked and sword locked unit is the most important character to beating the game, particularly on hard where you either need Ike or Nasir/Ena to beat Ashard's first form While Titana is quite strong she will eventually run into road blocks on 1RK enemies due to much better enemy quality and the map design of POR generally makes it harder or less rewarding to just ram one unit through so it isn't hard to get Ike exp without going out of the way Add in bexp and the lack of early promotion for most units and also lack of incentives due to how good growths are and Ike promotion being tied to story progression is less of an issue Ike in general has a pretty positive curve of usefulness where he gets better and more useful as the game goes till he is the most important unit in your army. Even if you don't want Ike to be your wrath+resolve user for the Ashnard fight Ike can still use Aether instead which is still quite good including for general late game sustain. I would actually Argue that while Ephraim is better in a vacuum when you look at the context and what he is a competing against he is a good unit in a sea of great forced to wait till the last quarter of the game to promote and his main advantages are no competition for a promotional item or legendary weapon which is good but overall not the most impactful
@paladinslash4721 PoR Ike is straight up worse than Roy. They have the exact same problems generally speaking. Ike feels better because he promos earlier and por is, on the whole, an easier game with weaker enemies, but a real argument can be made that, because PoR is so easy, Roy actually is more valuable relative to his unbalanced cast. There's really no point in PoR you're banking on Ike outside of the final few maps, and even then juggernauts like Jill or Titania exist. Roy has many of the same problems of footlocked in a mount game, mediocre stats, sword lock, etc, but Binding Blade's enemies are hard enough to where Roy actually is fairly consistently needed early on.
@@boredomkiller99you forgot his prf weapon. Ephraim can literaly kill any cav or armoured unit in one touch, making him very easy to level up. And the he gets a legendary prf. Not only he has very good growths but his prf weapon is way way stronger than Eirika's rapier.
I remember when Engage screenshots leaked online and everyone was like "oh it can't be real that dual colored character is so ugly it doesn't look like it can come from a real FE game" And it was real
In Eirika’s and Eliwood’s defense, they both exist in easy games so it doesn’t matter that much that they’re not great at combat. That aside, I’m not a fan of the escort mission.
I think Eirika being a "weak" lord is perfect story integration as she is a pacifist that learned esgrima from her brother, so it wouldn't make sense to have a strong lord actually lol
While I loved 3 houses and Byleth as a unit, they were probably the most boring lord I've played as. Like, soaring around as a Wyvern Master or crit fishing as a Warrior was fun, but Byleth had no say in what happened. They just agreed with whatever house lord you had wanted to do.
Not too sure on my fave FE Lord in the way thats being described here but I do have Lords I dislike, either because they're too weak and they end up becoming a liability on the battlefield. And I'm in agreement on Eirika, Eirika is my favourite female Lord so I can't be talking crap about her. 😂
One element I would include in this discussion is the age of the games. And the ways that the series has viewed lords in general I feel has changed. Lords at least since the 3DS era all tend to be on the very powerful side. Most of your other units in conquest aren’t going to stack up with Xander and Camilla, and I think IS now wants these units to be your most powerful units. Being central to the story. That said, you had mentioned not loving the way that Sigurd dominates FE4. Where he has the most move, and can just stomp over all the bosses in ways every other unit would get cooked. This is not what the series is like in modern times at all. And the later games have a priority of making every game feel balanced. This is another reason why I have felt fairly strongly for at least 2 years now that the FE4 remake just isn’t happening. Despite how much downvotes I get on Reddit for saying that. The gameplay of FE4 is wholly unique in that it is so much the story of Sigurd going and obliterating everything in his specific path. That newer players wouldnt like the lack of choice in characters to use in combat. It’s just not what modern players are looking for, or how IS has trained us to think of lords within the past 20 years
You know they could just like... Change those things on a remake right? Like, they changed Marth from being the best unit ever in FE1 to being a liability in FE11, they can just do that again, well, hopefully not that drastically of a change of course, but they can literally change everything they want on a remake for the sake of appealing to their more modern audiences, just like how they'll undoubtedly add a reverse turn mechanic to it considering how that's now a norm for the series.
I prefer lords who are strong and useful in combat, but don't comically juggernaut the game under normal play conditions ie don't feet the lord all the stat boosters/forges/etc.
To be honest, I thought it was going to be about the designs of the characters, not how they actually play. So I was confused as hell when you said Alear was your favorite because... Let's be real, objectively, Alear has a pretty bad design (much like all of Engage's characters).
His long sleeves still question my intelligence. But at least it's not Female Byleth design. Good god I really don't like her design based on her role in-game.
“Fire emblem is a series” fuck dude youre actually so right
"Fire Emblem is."
What a mood.
“Fire Emblem”
Same
"fire"
Fr fr 🔥🔥🔥🔥
“ “
Truly a quote of all time
bro that's so deep
Eliwood is what happens when put Marth in a game where everyone can do the things that would usually be unique to him (strong supports, visiting villages)
Also when your legendary final boss killing weapons suck and weighs so much you will possibly get doubled and 1RK
@@boredomkiller99 Yeah its kinda funny. The legendary weapons given specifically for the final boss all suck at their ONE JOB. So your best final boss killer is Athos, or just a luna tome Canas if you trained him.
Hector is honestly the only lord in FE7 who is consistently good
@@Yarharsuperpirateor luna tome athos
@@boredomkiller99 That only happens if Eliwood is underused. Eliwwod should 20/15 by then which gives him enough SPD to not be doubled by either Nergal or Fire Dragon.
he's the only lord who can marry ninian
I like support/utility lords like Leif, Micaiah and Alear. Makes them feel more unique than just being another combat unit.
How is Alear a utility unit?
@@ethanwebster3764because their stats are god awful but being dragon type gives them some of the best affects from emblems. For example being able to use every dragon vein. Also their personal is pretty much their best usage early on to just be a damage aura.
@@ethanwebster3764 alear personal skill give adyacent allies damage reduction and boost damage, and be a dragon type unit give him access to the best effects from supports ring, like Lucina Guard, Byleth boost or Corrin terrains
It also contributes to a good ludonarrative where they're a leader and not just another soldier.
Personally, I really like Micaiah in Radiant Dawn. She offers mostly utility, and I think it fits her character quite well, considering she is shown to be a self-sacrificing person fighting for a greater cause. The game even gives her a unique ability called "Sacrifice", which feels like good story-gameplay-integration. My only problem with her is that some maps make her frustrating and seem like a liability (looking at you, 1-9).
part 1 micaiah is really cool and fun, and she gets off to a good start in part 3 by gaining staff utility, but she really suffers from only having three maps in part 3 (and one of them locks her in jail away from the enemies), which really prevents her from keeping up with the exp curve.
As much as i LOVE micaiah in Radiant Dawn, she isnt really what i'd call a fun lord, especially in hard mode. although i do find her staff botting in part 3 makes her alot more interesting.
I feel like she might be a bit more fun if she had a buff to her hp or defence, since a lot of what makes her frustrating when that's an issue with her is that she really does die to a stiff breeze on nearly every map she has.
She also still has late game utility because her Mag will always be through the roof even when she isn't getting exp and Thani will still consistently oneshot almost every armor or cav in the game
Simply do not put her in the line of fire it's not that hard
@@Pwrplus5 it might just be because i play on hard mode, but i find she's usually JUST SHORT of one shotting the generals in the tower with thani, and i think we can all agree, she aint doubling anything. So i usually just relegate her to staff botting. using arms scrolls to get to that SS staff rank. oh and i bless a purge for her of course.
She's pretty nutty in the dragon map of the tower if you give her a blessed purge tome and the dragonfoe skill. They are actually slow enough for her to double and kill.
One of the things I liked about Erika in FE8 is that she felt like she was described as in the story: She's not a seasoned warrior or a naturally gifted fighter. She's above average in her swordplay, but she was never meant to be a front line fighter. HOWEVER - Multiple characters in the story make vows to kill her or at least cause her harm. And DAMN is it satisfying when you can get Erika to a place where she delivers their killing blow. It's one of those "unit feel" situations where yes, Erika is not a "good" unit by measures we can all agree on. But the satisfaction of your Erika, especially one where you didn't do any grinding, just struttin on up to Valter and obliterating him, one of the most satisfying FE experiences ever. And its all thanks to the dialogue and circumstances that surround it. Eliwood strikes a similar tone, but there's something about it that just feels slightly less...impactful. I think it's because Hector always feels like the true "lead" of FE7 despite it focusing on Eliwood's family. Wheras in FE8 despite them being twins, Erika always felt more like the "lord" than Ephraigm.
I like using Lyn cuz her crit animations are soooooo satisfying
I like Micaiah. She starts as a more niche unit, being your best caster for a while and having a rapier tome (Thani) that actually feels like a rapier is supposed to, decimating cavs and armors. Then she transitions to a support lord in acts 3&4 as her role shifts in the story. Honestly, a much better and more interesting unit/character than people give her credit for.
I really like Corrin as a lord because of how they play so fully into what I consider the best part of Fates - the support system and how it affects reclassing. There’s virtually nothing Corrin cannot do with all the classes they can get skills from with their unlimited friendship classes, or what Corrin’s spouse can do with a Partner Seal into Corrin’s talent (as well as the bonuses from Supportive when in attack/guard stance), however to truly unlock their potential you must plan to get those supports. Some units in Fates basically come pre-built (especially the prepromoted Royals) which virtually nothing required to carry them through the rest of the game, so I really like having a force-deployed unit that has all this potential, and essentially demands the player to use it with how meh Nohr Prince(ss) and it’s promotions are. There’s so much fun stuff to do with Corrin, and (unlike Byleth or Alear) it’s most all stuff only they can do. Some of my favourite things I’ve done with Corrin include a Trample Bowfaire Malefic Aura Shining Bow Priestess using Camilla, Mozu and Nyx friendship in Conquest, or giving Oni Savage to Felicia in Birthright to make a Oni Chieftain with Tomebreaker, Axebreaker and Lancebreaker very early who can make up for her poor strength with Oni Chieftain + Supportive and effective weaponry like the Hammer or Pike Ruin Club. They accentuate Fates as so replayable just because there’s so much possible with them if you engage with the support system.
God corrin was a monster in my playthrough. I paired her with her son and gave her all the best status boosters/skill proccers alongside the skill to use your partner's abilities then gave her child aegis, pavise, astra, ignis, and the lord's special attack. It was disgusting and i loved it.
Nyheheheheeh he said ENGAGE
my corrin currently is using the ike class from the dlc and strengthtaker + brave sword + dragon fang + aether + draconic hex goes crazy. i don’t even have to pair corrin with anyone and because each brave hit has a chance to proc aether, sometimes it procs for all 4 hits and you’re basically taking out anything because nothing can survive 8 hits (on top of crit procs).
Yes I adore Alear’s versatility! Divine Dragon is actually a very balanced class besides its low Magic stat, which does make arts feel useless BUT it’s still cool. Alear can support or be a combat unit, it’s so satisfying using Divinely Inspiring or a Byleth intstruct
I love pairing alear with chrom/robin to help boost their magic stat and give them that bonus attack. Their ultimate also looks sick as hell.
@@caosisaac oh I’ll have to try that, it seems like only Chrom or Eirika can save Alear’s bad arts damage 😭 and Silver Spirit Art isn’t as exciting as Flashing Fist Art or Divine Fist Art
@@joeyjose727 to be fair you only get the +10 boost when bonded, so i combined that with the +5 mag/res bonus soren gives. That gives alear a total mag of 40 at cap rather than 25. I use that with the breaker skill that gives you a bonus attack if you break and alear just wrecks house with both sword and artes. Up to 5 attacks from alear and robin alone if you break an enemy.
Try pairing Alear with Veronica sometime. Reprisal pairs extremely well with Arts since each hit gets the bonus damage, so even relatively small amounts of damage translate into huge increases in attack power. Veronica also gives Mag +5, which is nice for Arts and Levin Sword (not to mention Veronica's two very strong Engage Weapons), and since Alear is naturally very fast anyway, you can fairly consistently double without any major Spd support. Plus, Dragon still gives some great type bonuses to Veronica's skills, so it has a ton of utility too.
Yeah, I started feeling like "If 3Houses took inspiration from Genealogy of the Holy War, then Engage took inspiration from Thracia 776" (Both came out next to each other, One is Overhyped sometimes, good game, but I'm not a fan of something being treated as "It will cure cancer and save your marriage" hyped that they overlook or try to PAINT the flaws as POSITIVES! While the other is a "broken Base" game where people can't decide their feelings on them! But the Thracia 776 part I'm going with is the FUN of finding ways to utilize the systems to their fullest if not BREAK THE GAME! Plus with how Dragon Child/Divine Dragon Alear works, they are similar to Leif in his own game where he's a decent attacker, but his greatest strength is just how much he BOOSTS his allies making them BETTER!) I enjoyed three House and still do, but I love Engage more for FEELING like the Fire Emblem games of old (a feeling I last had playing Fates: Conquest!) not that I'm saying 3H isn't a Fire Emblem game. But it and Genealogy felt like an INTERESTING spin-off that is Fire Emblem (like how Bravely Default is for Final Fantasy 5 fans!) but not how ALOT of the mechanics of Fire Emblem AFTER Thracia 776 took from EVOLVING off of Thracia 776 concepts and improving them then Genealogy till 3Houses! (Still do feel we need a BALANCE between Blacksmith, Durability and Unbreakable weapons! 3Houses and Engage feels like we're getting CLOSE to the answer hopefully!)
I found sans the Heavy Magical focused Emblems (Soren and Celica, Not Veronica, USE to think so, till I saw how Fell Fogado and Diamant in the Xenologue utilized her and found my own Diamant and Fogado in their Personal Tier 2 classes were MONSTERS with her, especially with Reprisal since Cupido Fogado is relying on Vantage, Wrath and his Class Skill when preparing Counter Attacks so Reprisal makes him a Monster! And Diamant also benefits! Berserker Panette was SCARY with Veronica though LOL) that Alear did WONDERS with any Emblem GIVEN to them, fits being the GUARDIAN of them all. Though I found I locked Marth back on them after getting him back (just felt right) and Veyle was great at being given the MAGICAL Rings because she is ALSO a Dragon Battle Style in her Personal Class! Then the Fell Twins gave MORE units that had the elusive Dragon Battle Style! (I tend to recruit them in Chapter 14, before or AFTER and keep one or BOTH of them because I feel having THREE Dragons feels right story wise! I never take Alear or any of the Royals, Veyle and the Fell Twins out of their Personal Class! Well with the Twins, I randomly each run pick ONE who will stay a Fell Child and the OTHER will switch to the BETTER version of their Class! Found Nel does well as Fell Child, but the Class Skill isn't very SPECIAL even ON maps with bosses using Emblems/Dark Emblems" compared to Rafal who is a FREAKING ENGAGE BATTERY So I usually make her a Lance Mage Knight or Halberdier! Rafal is a MONSTER as a Berserker or Warrior as he is in Fell Child. It's funny how with the Twins, You have THREE Dragons using the Weapon Triangle as the Twins PERSONAL weapons despite being useable by ANYONE who can use A rank of that Weapon Type are a damn good Lance/Axe respectedlyl!
Ah, yes. My favorite breakfast cereal. Lucky Marths.
Another thing I think really affects the Lord is the rest of army's early aptitude, particularly any mounted units. If your Cavaliers and Paladin just have the best combat from the start along with superior mobility, it makes it harder to justify the Lord getting going, even if they have/can grow into reasonable combat. Ike for example suffers in this regard, while I think Alear benefits.
With the ongoing trend of the main Lord being a pseudo insert for the player, I find it unlikely we'll return to the era of "Unfortunate Unit" Lords, thankfully.
Sure Alfred isn’t the best combat unit but Chloe is quite strong and Louis can functionally serve like a cav when you need to with Sigurd for early game. Allear’s combat is quite bad (honestly only framme has worse combat early if you don’t just keep Marth on allear) and if you messed up and got yourself in a tough spot you’d be actively discouraged from using allear to get kills since making good use of their personal makes the most effectual turns. Their combat doesn’t get much better when trained especially in their personal class either. They can maybe be salvageable in a strength class like sword wyvern but they won’t be good. For reference people generally consider Louis “bad” late game but halberdier Louis is at least 3 times more potent in combat then allear in wyvern. If Louis when he’s “fallen off” makes allear look bad actually good units like kagetsu make him look like a joke combat wise. Best to not put too much effort into training him and just do corrin things. I’d say allear is a poor example of a lord benefiting from the early units around cuz allear just doesn’t Chloe and Louis are far too good in comparison. Alm would be an example of such imo. Alm is just innately solid at combat in echos at the beginning and starts as your best unit. Lukas is good in the short term as well but obviously people generally don’t like armors. The rest of your squad is villagers that are absolute zeros except for gray which he’s like a solid 3/10 at the start but they are customizable so you can use them however you want. Alm looks very good in comparison to the unpromoted villagers. And your early recruits aren’t exactly stellar stats wise even if they still have obvious utility from their classes like Clive being perfectly fine if you just give him rider’s bane and a single speed boost.
Robin and Kris are effectively lords that aren't force deployed. Lucina is a lord in name only (her class).
Other notable examples are:
Micaiah - what if your lord was (effectively) a cleric?
Corrin - can be used as a jagen early on with dragonstone and switched to a stat backpack if he/she doesn't get good level ups.
Found it near impossible for my Corrin to get Stat Screwed, even with the not so optimal Boon/Bane choice
@@paulman34340 Most of my corrins have been, especially in runs where I want to use other units with them (in part because I play rev and the promotion for c9 is super important so I usually promote at 15) but even 15/20 +str corrins sometimes can't do anankos - they're crazy but can be stat screwed.
@@meisterschwert Guess I got lucky then, well with my main lords anyway in each FE I've played and multiple Runs. I get at LEAST one RNG Screw with other units AT LEAST once (Like my current Revelations Run, Promoted Kagero to Master Ninja as soon as I could and her SPD suffered that she's getting doubled, worse thing is when I went to Serenes Forest and saw she had HIGH FUCKING SPD GROWTH! Guess that will teach me idiotically promoting early (I normally never do that and wait for Level 20, Engage kind of made me get into that mindset as I played a Maddening Run just before my Revelations run! Only character I waited to promote was Alear and that's cause I'm an old school Traditionalist, in that I refuse to promote the Lord till I feel there's a STORY reason for it, like Corrin will NOT promote till they get ALL Yato upgrades in Birthright and Conquest and the Alpha Upgrade in Revelations! I did start back in the GBA era on the Early years of Classic Fire Emblem AKA Blazing Sword like the rest of us AMERICANS! So I feel it's just right to do, plus as I said, I never see my Lords get RNG screwed, only time was my second run of Blazing Sword and that was Lyn having such LOW STR growths that I didn't pay too much attention to as she was doing decent enough damage and landing Crits that she couldn't damage the FUCKING FIRE DRAGON AT ALL as in 0 DAMAGE with everything! That actually was my FIRST RNG screw ever and would you believe me if I said my first Azure Moon run ever, Dimitri had more MAG then STR, and I never put him in a Magic Class EVER! Yet still was a monster slaughtering and laughing at the Weight system because his STR was still MONSTROUS that he suffered 0 WEIGHT without using said skill from Armor skill! Felix was faster then him, yet no WT drop meant he was faster then anything NOT an ASSASSINS, FALCON KNIGHTS AND SWORDMASTERS, who were the only ones avoiding getting follow up attacked/doubled by him! But Maddening or Hard, all my Alear needed was a Maxed Forged with Marth engraved Liberation and maybe a Wo-Dao and he/she was solid, like Alear with the Yato, and maybe the Nohrian Sword till the Yato got it's first upgrade! Then it was Yato and Dragonstone and later Tome. By the way the rare RNG Screws I mentioned RARELY hurt me, even my Kagero is usually KILLING before she gets killed herself! It's on DEFENSE where I have to worry as her HP also got SCREWED, had to reset at Revelations CH25 RIGHT at the end cause a Sniper killed her in one hit, never saw it coming as I used her to BAIT the Sniper unknowing he could kill her! Man PRE-Rewind FE make me love and HATE the old days where it didn't exist, love cause I'm at my top game, but hate because I AUTO Reset the moment a unit dies as I have an EVERYONE LIVES mentality! Might as well be my LORD died with how I auto reset as a reflex, hence loving Rewind, but ONLY rewind with limited use! As I might as well not play the game at all since I can't lose at that point!)
@@paulman34340 Corrin isn't that likely to stat screw but if you promote before 19-20 it can be pretty bad lmao
@@meisterschwert Good thing I never really promote my Lords unless for Story Reasons (I'm Traditional LOL, Well not too traditional that I wait till LATE Game like what happened to poor Roy in Binding Blade LOL! Thank God Ike got a GOOD time to promote and they removed that limit COMPLETELY to let US choose when!) that make sense! Like in Conquest and Birthright, right around when you get the first Yato upgrade (No grinding, I don't do that so much, I usually have my Lords near or at Level 20 really sooner, even when I'm using them to WEAKEN enemies for allies to take down) or the second (and might as well FINAL till endgame) upgrade (when Xander/Ryoma join) as I feel storywise it makes sense! Revelations is when the Rainbow Sage upgrades the Yato to it's Alpha Form (Depends on the Coin Toss on WHICH Noble I make Corrin, Hoshido or Nohr, I mean that literally I flip a coin each playthrough of Revelations LOL)
I do the same in 3 Houses (Keep the Three Lords in Classes that make sense for them till Part 2 where they are stuck in their Personal Class during Story and Paralogue battles till their FINAL Personal 2nd Class is unlocked, then their in that till the End! Byleth is in Enlighted One for the same reason) and Engage (I tend to promote Alear to Divine Dragon around or AFTER Hortensia joins/Chapter 14, Storywise it feels RIGHT to me that Alear promotes as that's in the story they FINALLY in their heart ACCEPT being the Divine Dragon! Hell I promote BEFORE that Battle Starts in Preparations! On Maddening, I'll do it AFTER Chapter 11 as that ALSO feels like a moment where Alear would embrace TRULY being the Divine Dragon instead of their mother's "TEMP" as you can TELL I'm a MASSIVE ROLE PLAYER LOL)
Never got RNG Screwed with ANY LORD sans Dimitri, but that's mostly his MAG was HIGHER then his STR for some odd reason, not that it crippled him and it only happened in my first Azure Moon run, never again though LOL) I do feel LATE promotions was dumb, especially on the WORST treated on this Roy! IT made better sense to be Great Lord AFTER beating Narcian as at that point, he's the ONLY Noble with a FIGHTING Army force against Bern. Not when he gets the Binding Blade which makes little sense to me getting it so LATE like the Falchion of old LOL. Royals in Engage I tend to promote them the moment their STORY ARC ends (When you reach the chapters you LEAVE their Kingdom's story wise) Never suffered an RNG screw other then Kagero in my first Revelations run because I promoted her at Level 10 to Master Ninja! Imagine my shock her SPD Growth is PRETTY HIGH, yet it was her LOWEST next to HP that I was forced to reset the Chapter 25 battle cause I VERY MUCH underestimated a Sniper attacking her who got a 100% on her that did 10 HP more then her current FULLY HEALED MAX! And I promoted her early cause I wanted to TEST something (I usually WAITED till 20 to promote my units, Sakura/Elise normally STILL end up good when promoted at 10 so they can start working on their attack weapon rank early! And helps I got Certain Blow for both of them in a previous run to deal with their MIDDLING Skill! But they can end up good if I promote them at Level 20 if not BETTER, I just miss out on higher Weapon ranks sometimes, not that Elise isn't killing with Disrobing Gale, Sakura is screwed as a Priestess because she REALLY wants to be using the Shining Bow which is a C rank, though she usually has DECENT ! It's like TRAINING Mist to use the Wind Sword ALL OVER AGAIN...MAN I wish they'd re-release POR already!)
Personally I really like Corrin from a gameplay perspective for their customization as a unit. You can get very creative with whatever you want Corrin to be, which works in their favor with how the reclassing system works. Maybe it's my bias towards having customizable avatars doing the talking here, but I like units like Corrin and Kris where the kind of unit you want is up to you. I can understand why they stuck with having the same archetype for lords for the most part, but I still reminisce the times where we weren't restricted to being proficient in strength and swords and could be whatever kind of unit we want to be.
The only issue Corrin has is always taking effective damage from Wyrmslayers and Dragon Spirit, regardless of their class.
Dragon weakness is pretty niche from my experience. Like, try naming off the top of your head chapters where enemies carry dragon-effective weaponry.
@@Kaleforce Conquest Chapter 26. Birthright Chapter 24. There's also an enemy in Revelation Chapter 22 with a Dragon Spirit.
I always found it funny how Robin is technically not force-deployed on most maps... and yet they're so good as a unit they might as well be. It's VERY rare to see someone not use Robin.
As far as favourite Lord implementations...I'm going to go for a bit of an obscure (?) pick and say Awakening Chrom is very interesting. His growths are solid and his combat picks up pretty quick, and has has Cavalier as a reclass if you don't like the foot movement, but what's really interesting is his Falchion, which is statted similarly to an Iron Sword but has infinite uses. This provides great combat utility for the earlygame but then it falls off... or does it?? The cool thing is, Falcion has Dragon effectiveness, which INCLUDES WYERNS. Not only do you fight a LOT of Wyvern Riders in the Plegia arc, including some nasty reinforcements like Chapters 5 and 10, they're also an axe class now so Falchion gets WTA. This makes Chrom a situational but very effective combat unit for the first third of the game.
Chrom doesn't get his Falchion upgraded until very late, but he makes up for that slightly by another interesting aspect: being the first Lord up until that point who promotes like a normal unit, with a Master Seal. The player having full control over the timing of his promotion is an aspect I don't see talked about enough. (I guess Awakening is such an easy game to break that individual unit design doesn't matter much?)
An example of modern Lord design I'm not fond of is the house leaders and Byleth in 3H. They fall way too hard into the "just a normal unit except force deployed and really, really good" category that they're just... sorta boring to me? Barely anyone uses their unique Lord class option. They do get unique classes post-timeskip and a really overpowered skill, but with some exceptions I don't find a unit being defined by ONE SKILL very fun, because then it's like their stats don't matter. On top of that they also gain exp faster and in Byleth's case, give that boost to adjacent units too.
I feel Ike lands in the middle of the chart for most of PoR and then becomes a Juggernaut in the last two maps because Ragnell. Roy also mildly falls into Juggernaut with the Binding Blade. This style of Lord is pretty limited to just those two though, and all because of strong legendary weapons. (Wille Glanz is pretty good but by the time you get it you've had plenty of time to make Alear good in other ways)
Wow, I've been playing Shadow Dragon and I fully agree with you on Marth's chest utility. The only time I used Marth to open chests was in the Tiki map because they're all on the way to the throne anyway.
I’ve always liked Sigurd and Seliph’s differences as lords. Sigurd is a powerhouse, but the sheer number of enemies and their movement formation requires you to use other units so that you don’t get overwhelmed. He’s like a Jagen that you actually want to give experience. Seliph does have his issues with being footlocked until promotion, but his less impressive stat spread is made up for by inherited weapons. It makes sense character wise as Seliph is the inexperienced son of Sigurd who’s more aware and has better allies to back him up. (Larcei, Ulster, and Lana completely outclass anything Alec, Noish, or Arden could do)
- Roy , Ike , Leif , the twins , Celica and Alm : “Our promotion is thru the story”
- Lucina , Chrom , Alear , Corrin and Seliph : “Oh we promote whenever we want”
- Sigurd : “You guys need promotion to be good”?
- Marth : …………..
This. It feels good to use the main pov characters while still needing to incorporate an army around them. Wish we had more games like Sigurd's TT^TT
Larcei is foot locked tho. She's not entirely better than Gen 1 horse units.
I love all the variety of uniqueness the lords provide it makes playing fe fun
Tbh an issue I have with (some) of the lords is how they have to wait for a story promotion. I mean it makes sense why they do it. If the lord wasn't used much or is rng screwed they get to make sure the lord has at least something.
And giving the lord a promotion often happens for a reason in the story. So it makes sense.
But it still bothers me that if i get a lord to level 20. They are just stuck like that, until the story says it's time. Especially when most other units can promote just fine.
(Tbh this is mainly a me problem. They are forced deployed so I end up usually getting them to lv. 20 as quickly as possible, because I dont like promoting units below lv 20 and I get worried otherwise that thed wont reach that level)
I like the idea of story-based promotions but I wish they came sooner. Some lords promote really frustratingly late.
I kinda like what they did in 3H where Byleth has a unique promoted class, but they can still promote to other classes, so they aren't stuck in their base class until the special class unlocks.
The problem with the story promotions is that for some reason Intsys loves to wait until _right_ at the butt-end of the story to give them out.
Like, if you want to see what a good story-based promotion looks like? Play basically _any_ Super Robot Wars game. Mecha anime in general is full of examples of a protagonist upgrading to a newer and more powerful version of their mech. The difference is that these upgrades typically take place around the halfway point of the story, where the stakes get raised and the initial robot they were using starts to fall short of their enemies. The key is spending enough time to establish the protagonist not being strong enough for the escalating threats, but not dwelling on that beat for so long that the protag starts to feel like dead weight.
I think most people share your sentiment. I haven’t had to deal with that because mainly have just played Awakening forward where there hasn’t been a late game promotion and all of the Lords promote like any other unit besides SoV Alm who doesn’t promote until late game like Gaiden Alm.
I’ve only had to deal with it when I played Path of Radiance where Ike is already capped out while all of the units around him are already promoted but it isn’t as late as some others I know since his is right after Daybreak which is a perfect time to promote him and some of your other units probably just promoted as well. I know the Blazing Sword lords bascially don’t promote until the very end but haven’t dealt with that and glad they have just done the basic promote for all of the lords granted it would be good to see a story based promotion as long as it isn’t until the end
@@actuallizard Early concepts for FE6 show that Roy was planned to become King of the Western Isles in that arc, which, while I'm... mixed on that idea from a story standpoint (foreigner coming to another territory, solving all their problems and the locals making him their leader...), it would've likely moved his story promotion MUCH father forward, might've shaken things up.
@@actuallizard I personally found Eirika and Ephraim to have that perfect sweet spot timeframe for their time locked promotion. Its immediately after the path convergeance chapter at jehanna. Which is typically around when they are hitting level 18 give or take if you've been actively using them. So their promotion hits right about when they'll be hitting level cap.
And it even lets you delay the promotion if you want to wait for them to hit 20
I'd like to see another magic lord. Roin and Celica are the only ones that have been made and it feels thematic for the team's leader / strategist tobe physically frail but still powerful
Tfw Micaiah is so bad people forget her existence.
Also Byleth. Their personal class can use magic
There is also Micaiah but yeah she does not make an good impression as an magic unit and as an person
Primarily for how much they could go off on the combat animations, I’d want a Lord whose whole thing is hand to hand combat. No real reasons other than the aforementioned, and how funny it would be to have the main character throwing hands in a world of monsters and magic.
@@_-Bane-_Main the closest we got was Byleth using gauntlets.
I don't know about the harder difficulties, but I've always loved Eliwood. Big fe7 fan here, and I find it fun to keep him alive so he can stack damage on everybody, assuming I get something like that one Eliwood from last year with 17 Strength and 8 Skill. I prioritize fun over efficiency most of the time in videogames. And Eliwood falls into that catagory
Alear and the ring type bonuses are really cool and interesting in my opinion. Making the dragon type so OP makes Alear always useful even if her swordplay isn't much to write home about.
A different interesting little quirk is with Byleth, where it's really difficult to get them in a flying class on your first playthrough because of the opportunities for training you have (it is possible, but you'd have to be minmaxing very well) so it gives NG+ that bonus option where you can play Byleth as a flying unit.
Maybe for Male Byleth it’s difficult to get Wyvern, but Pegasus on Female Byleth only needs E+ Flying to gamble the certification, while the C lances is far more approachable due to actually being able to use them in combat to earn experience. That’s only 2 slots for Faculty Training needed, which is fairly easy to fit in.
I had no trouble putting Byleth in a Cavalry class, is it that hard to get him into a flying class?
Also, F Byleth goes straight into the Pegasus knight classes in speed runs, so that definitely doesn't apply for her
When I first played Engage I immediately second classed Alear into another class outside of their standard class. However, on my second playthrough I kept them at Divine Dragon and was actually pretty impressed at how good they were for gray weapon breaking utility with arts, making them my go to knife and mage killer.
15:40 I thought it said that Est's lv was SEX for a second 😭
I like Ike's design in Radiant Dawn. He's a good support option because of his affinity and leadership stars, has good stats ad combat out of the box, gains his personal sword much earlier and with little investment doubles and kills entire squads of enemies. While if you want him to adapt a role similar to Titania, his army's Jagen, you can just switch to a weaker sword to soften up the enemy forces. He's fun and easy to use
Am I the only one that likes alear’s hair 😢
Same i think Alear(f) is a great design
Toothpaste-chan and Pepsi-kun
@@brendantwLMAO they who hold the Cress of Flames
I like there hair I think it’s cool
@@KuberDuber The explanation is decent but I can't get over how they look like a disciple of Pepsi Man
i think leif's promotion being awful pairs up well with his arc showing that he still has a lot to learn and room to grown considering the next map is literally his biggest failure i think it was done with the idea that the player must have some scrolls now so in the last streach you give leif a bunch of scrolls and have him grow gameplaywise and storywise
Yeah his promo sucks save for the high exp gain which when paired with scrolls let him hit all the important caps pretty easily. Like his bonus is not stats or weapon but more growth which is great for his character
@@boredomkiller99 exactly it reflects how the defeat ulster did not make him stronger but rather hit him with hard truth and making him really srat to learn
I think low-lows are mostly there for the johnny players who want to do something cool even if it's not good. All 3 (you forgot Lyn) are crit machines and dodge tanks.
when's dancer lord
no azura doesn't count
@@nodot17 or a thief lord
@@ninjakirby777 Marth in FE11 is basically a glorified thief tbh, all he does on castle maps boils down to open chest and seize throne
Eirika love, gotta love that in turn. Maybe I got lucky with her but I felt she held her own for me even without the Tower of Valni whenever I play FE8, though that might change next time. In any case, I really like this series of class breakdowns, it's interesting seeing how Lords have changed over the years. My favorite is when their role aligns with their narrative one, like Leif.
can't believe he din't bring up the greatest Lord, Edelgard.
I suppose Micaiah would fall under "Just Another Unit" since she only has a grand total of two seize maps while she's the lord and she doesn't really satisfy objectives otherwise. She isn't needed for any recruitment until, uh, 4-3.
But she has very interesting and unique utility otherwise between Sacrifice, Thani, Purge, and staves, as well as having very good accuracy (and at range!). And supporting Sothe. (If only she got authority stars, too!)
Miccaiah is a shifting role unit really. In part 1 she is basically your main offensive mage. Then when she returns in part 3 and 4 the enemies have jumped up so much in level that she can no longer put up much of a fight, but her story promotion means she can now be your primary healer instead. In either case, she is more of an escort lord in that she is force deployed on most maps she is present and super vulnerable.
My favorite types of Lords are competent fighters but don't need for all objectives. This fits better when you want to see the Lord fighting and leading the charge with their army.
So basically Hector?
Been playing Binding Blade and Shadow Dragon after not playing FE for a few years. Definitely been a fan of the Lord who has utility rather than a juggernaught like Sigurd. Though I am a bit of a fan of the lord's who get a power boost after being weak for a while. Training Seliph into Sigurd 2.0 is kinda fun
Roy is my favorite designed lord. It works well with his character and the story. A kid would fall out of his depth in a war. He’s like the king in a chess game.
I think a big thing that makes/breaks a lord for me is if their gameplay and story line up. Eliwood is supposed to be decently competent and capable, not as capable as Hector who fights what he can and has Matthew for what he can’t, but physical weakness makes him feel like a chump.
At least Erika being weak enhances the narrative integration where her weakness serves in showing she values other traits more, contrasts her to Ephraim who does value those things, and even gives good reason for Lyon to be insecure, as the player can feel how weak Erika is so hearing Lyon got bested by her in combat really makes him look weak and sympathetic. Meanwhile Ephraim’s no apparent combat weakness establishes lacking physical strength isn’t his struggle.
0:37 - Looks at Thracia 776 and laughs.
Alear is such an interesting unit. They start off as by far the best support unit that has somewhat lacking combat. They are however excellent users of most rings making them significantly more flexible than anyone in the cast. Then at the end, they get the engage+ ability which is kind of cracked allowing alear to feel absurdly powerful for the finale while allowing alear to become an insane support unit at the same time.
Not capping, I saw Alear’s design in Engage’s announcement trailer and fell in love because of their hair; red and blue have been my favorites since forever. Engage then became my first and favorite FE and Alear is my favorite character in the series. Since then, I’ve also played 3H, 3Hopes, Fates, Awakening. I cared very little about the series before that (I’m a Smash player, so ofc I didn’t. -Put Alear and Shez in Smash 6.- )
lmao no
Big fan of Lords in unusual classes. Micaiah stands out in this respect, being a cross between a light mage and a cleric. She has a nicely defined role in parts 1 and 3 I find where she is often able to blast either a knight or cav with Thani while your more resilient troops move forward to take out the rest of the foes. Her extremely polarised growths also make her one of the best positioned units to take advantage of RD's BEXP system, as she will often cap MAG and RES very quickly, perhaps also HP with the early Seraph Robe, allowing you to fill her up on DEF and SPD with BEXP quite easily. Training Micaiah to take out Ike with a Purge shot is extremely satisfying and it's a shame the game doesn't really do much to ackowledge your work in making that possible. Maybe one day we will get more cool lords in weird classes like Troubadour, Thief, or Dancer.
I genuinely thought ike was intended to be unbeatable my first playthrough. Unless you plan ahead for the fact you are going to have to fight him at some point he will just one shot any unit he fights.
I want more support oriented lords. Give me a dancer-lord.
Ephraim is my boy of choice, he loves hitting low% crits and he's the closest thing FE8 has to a Hector (god I wish FE8 had a Hector)
Reese from Berwick Saga is fun. Has a universal +10 hit support and 3 broken prfs, balanced against low stats. So you can use him to juggernaut tough enemies a few times but eventually his weapons will wear out and he'll have to take a supporting role. He's also mounted which means he can keep up with whatever pace you set for yourself.
The fortune skill is just a good idea for a lord to have in general not too overpowered but cuts down on the frustration a lot.
I guess the objectives are about average. He does some seizing, 3-4 character recruits which are either using the talk command or just ending turn next to that unit, and a few side tasks throughout the game.
It’s lizard time let’s go 🕺
I love ALL ActualLizard videos!!!! ❤
Hey lizard, recently subscribed. I love your content!!
I like Byleth because I can build them however I wish - except as Mages or Dancers cause, 1: Byleth cant learn any useful magics unlike certain members of the cast, and 2: They cant become a dancer unless they have a gambit that allows refreshing
I'm partial to Micaiah and honestly Byleth for being excellent representation for the style the games they're in design units; the former being specific for each niche, the latter for any possible niche with most characters having multiple great options as well.
Actually playing FE7 and I have to admit despite just being Eliwood Normal Mode, I had to give him an Energy Ring and a Draco Shield immediately to do enough damage and survive more than one hit at least until Serra rejoins and that was kinda mind boggling, also that he as the main lord was not really that capable of in solidly killing bosses on his early maps, which you would usually expect from your main lord. He becomes a little bit better after baby-ing him a bit and give him level-ups (completely focused on him, Rebecca and Hector (and a little bit Matthew, but I already gave him a lot in the Lyn chapters, so well) on his early maps more or less until we got reunited with the Caelin troops), then he was about alright and kinda can keep up with the other units I chose to keep/use/level up.
This video was bussin. Thanks
It took me an embarassing amount of tine to realise that Effie's name sounds like FE
Eliwood for me, either becomes deadweight, or a combat god every playthrough with no middle ground.
His bases and growths are rather underwhelming. But there is potential in there to snowball him hard through the mid game if he gets some good level ups early on. His real problem is his absurdly late promotion. Most people typically give the first lord seal to Hector. But doing so will make Eliwood and Lyn stuck at level cap for so long if you were using them.
not an official fe game, but i really like rae (roy+fae) from fe6 no redundancy. they have really good stats when trained and a stupid good prf in the form of the ice stone (infinite durability 10 mt 100 hit +5 def and res), but late promotion and no good 1-2 range weapons keeps them from being too busted during the late game (at least before you get the divineblade)
Having the spicy take of gimme more lords with a focused promote path - divorcing a character from their class abilities like recent FE games have done and making them able to just do anything makes for more bland characters. Byleth being a mage or a swordsman or a wyvern knight or… is bad because they wind up being none of these things in the story. There’s less interaction between the mechanics of the game and the characterization.
Ephriam and PoR Ike are what I consider the litmus test if a lord is good.
I'd say Ephriam is a lot better than PoR Ike personally, I find PoR Ike kinda lacks a purpose for a while since he's a 6 mov sword locked unit post promo in a game where all the top tier units are cavs and fliers. When he promotes I wouldn't say he's a great foot unit either compared to Soren or even to Stefan who will have far better stats than Ike for a long time and isn't considered great since he is also 6 mov and sword locked.
Ephriam is far more of a one-man army anyway while Ike doesn't one round nearly as reliably and lacks 1-2 range until the last 2 maps of the game. While Ephriam likely isn't a large part of a ltc or extremely efficient play either I think that's more because while Titania is top tier Seth would have 1-2 empty tiers between him and alternatives.
@twigz3214 Ephraim is less important even on casual playthroughs.
First off not only is he not around for literally most of the first 8 chapters of the game but by the time he joins he not only is competing with Seth but also any units you raised including Franz and Vanessa and you get Dussel like two chapters in if you choose him as the MC. Heck even Gerik upstages Ephraim since he can promote at base
Add that Ephraim at no point is required save for a couple of recruitments and he honestly kind of lacks impact despite his good stats.
Inversely Ike while is a foot locked and sword locked unit is the most important character to beating the game, particularly on hard where you either need Ike or Nasir/Ena to beat Ashard's first form
While Titana is quite strong she will eventually run into road blocks on 1RK enemies due to much better enemy quality and the map design of POR generally makes it harder or less rewarding to just ram one unit through so it isn't hard to get Ike exp without going out of the way
Add in bexp and the lack of early promotion for most units and also lack of incentives due to how good growths are and Ike promotion being tied to story progression is less of an issue
Ike in general has a pretty positive curve of usefulness where he gets better and more useful as the game goes till he is the most important unit in your army.
Even if you don't want Ike to be your wrath+resolve user for the Ashnard fight Ike can still use Aether instead which is still quite good including for general late game sustain.
I would actually Argue that while Ephraim is better in a vacuum when you look at the context and what he is a competing against he is a good unit in a sea of great forced to wait till the last quarter of the game to promote and his main advantages are no competition for a promotional item or legendary weapon which is good but overall not the most impactful
@paladinslash4721 PoR Ike is straight up worse than Roy.
They have the exact same problems generally speaking. Ike feels better because he promos earlier and por is, on the whole, an easier game with weaker enemies, but a real argument can be made that, because PoR is so easy, Roy actually is more valuable relative to his unbalanced cast. There's really no point in PoR you're banking on Ike outside of the final few maps, and even then juggernauts like Jill or Titania exist.
Roy has many of the same problems of footlocked in a mount game, mediocre stats, sword lock, etc, but Binding Blade's enemies are hard enough to where Roy actually is fairly consistently needed early on.
@@boredomkiller99you forgot his prf weapon. Ephraim can literaly kill any cav or armoured unit in one touch, making him very easy to level up.
And the he gets a legendary prf.
Not only he has very good growths but his prf weapon is way way stronger than Eirika's rapier.
Hi Lizard!
I remember when Engage screenshots leaked online and everyone was like "oh it can't be real that dual colored character is so ugly it doesn't look like it can come from a real FE game"
And it was real
Marth marth, marth marth martha. Marth marth marth. Marth.
"I dont like it when the forced-to-use unit" is like the most powerful
*stares at Jeanne in Jeanne D'arc
Yeahhh....😅
i wish we get more tanky lords.
In Eirika’s and Eliwood’s defense, they both exist in easy games so it doesn’t matter that much that they’re not great at combat.
That aside, I’m not a fan of the escort mission.
Alear and Corrin are so dang similar
Meanwhile, Hector: The Monster Lord. Enemies run in fear at the mention of his name.
Cleric lord when IS?
It's call Micaiah
@@perr0263 you got me there. I’ve not played the Tellius games so she escaped my memory 😔
I think Eirika being a "weak" lord is perfect story integration as she is a pacifist that learned esgrima from her brother, so it wouldn't make sense to have a strong lord actually lol
While I loved 3 houses and Byleth as a unit, they were probably the most boring lord I've played as. Like, soaring around as a Wyvern Master or crit fishing as a Warrior was fun, but Byleth had no say in what happened. They just agreed with whatever house lord you had wanted to do.
Not too sure on my fave FE Lord in the way thats being described here but I do have Lords I dislike, either because they're too weak and they end up becoming a liability on the battlefield.
And I'm in agreement on Eirika, Eirika is my favourite female Lord so I can't be talking crap about her. 😂
One element I would include in this discussion is the age of the games. And the ways that the series has viewed lords in general I feel has changed.
Lords at least since the 3DS era all tend to be on the very powerful side. Most of your other units in conquest aren’t going to stack up with Xander and Camilla, and I think IS now wants these units to be your most powerful units. Being central to the story.
That said, you had mentioned not loving the way that Sigurd dominates FE4. Where he has the most move, and can just stomp over all the bosses in ways every other unit would get cooked. This is not what the series is like in modern times at all. And the later games have a priority of making every game feel balanced.
This is another reason why I have felt fairly strongly for at least 2 years now that the FE4 remake just isn’t happening. Despite how much downvotes I get on Reddit for saying that. The gameplay of FE4 is wholly unique in that it is so much the story of Sigurd going and obliterating everything in his specific path. That newer players wouldnt like the lack of choice in characters to use in combat. It’s just not what modern players are looking for, or how IS has trained us to think of lords within the past 20 years
You know they could just like... Change those things on a remake right?
Like, they changed Marth from being the best unit ever in FE1 to being a liability in FE11, they can just do that again, well, hopefully not that drastically of a change of course, but they can literally change everything they want on a remake for the sake of appealing to their more modern audiences, just like how they'll undoubtedly add a reverse turn mechanic to it considering how that's now a norm for the series.
But Eligood is my favourite character 😢
I prefer lords who are strong and useful in combat, but don't comically juggernaut the game under normal play conditions ie don't feet the lord all the stat boosters/forges/etc.
I wish theyrr just cheerleaders, cuz actual lords are
I think Lyn is the lord that is the worst in everything, i know she is not forced deploy but when she is, she doesn't provide anything
Is Joe Biden a Jagen?
He's not a Hunt imo
Don't lump in Pepsi von Colgate in with the REAL protagonists in the series.
To be honest, I thought it was going to be about the designs of the characters, not how they actually play. So I was confused as hell when you said Alear was your favorite because...
Let's be real, objectively, Alear has a pretty bad design (much like all of Engage's characters).
The latest one is literally just V-tuber. Such an ugly design.
Im sorry ive just gotta block this channel or something the lisp is too much in every video
I like male Byleths design 😊
Really? I think he looks so generic
Visually, my favorite protagonist design is male Shez.
His long sleeves still question my intelligence. But at least it's not Female Byleth design. Good god I really don't like her design based on her role in-game.
@@ninjakirby777 maybe so bro, but I like simple designs. Especially for male characters.
@@_-Bane-_Main yep him too 👍🏻