Fire Emblem Fates: Laying the groundwork

[Dark Holy Elf]

Might as well start this up! I played on Conquest, so for now all thoughts are based on that route, but some of it will generalise to Birthright reasonably well. (The specifics on equipment and character classes will be different, of course.)

Some interp stuff to discuss:

Classes and class changing

At base it's kinda like Awakening. Unpromoted PCs use Master Seals to promote, and there are (usually) two choices. Additionally, everyone has access to a second class branch, in addition to the one they start on. (They can get access to more, but it requires supports, and is presumably not DL legal.) A Heart Seal can be used to change classes. Unlike in Awakening, changing classes does not do anything to change or lower your level. If Elise uses a Heart Seal as a Level 15 Troubadour, she can become a Level 15 Wyvern Rider.

Skills are gained at 1 and 10 on unpromoted classes, then 5 and 15 on promoted ones. If you gain a level in a class for which you don't yet have the skills (due to reclassing), you gain the lowest-level skill you don't yet have. This includes skills from prerequisite classes.

What's legal, here? One option is to just allow unpromoted people to promote, and promoted folks are stuck in whatever class they're in. That's closer to how past FEs did it, but deprives the prepromos of a valuable choice which unpromoted characters get.

Another, which I favour a bit more, is to allow everyone to use one Seal. For unpromoted types this will always be a Master Seal, for prepromos it will be a Heart Seal. I'm not sure what should be seen as legal for reclassing. Only the other class on their primary class tree? (e.g. Great Knight/Paladin) Any class they have access to? Some of the prepromos really won't want this option anyway.

Still another option is to assign characters a budget and let them buy as many seals as they want, but take it out of their equipment budget. Since everyone has access to only 2-3 class branches, this does keep things rather unique.

There's also a question of if PCs are locked into a class, or if they can choose fight-to-fight.


Levels

Stat topic level will be 20/15, because it's by far the nicest. (I also finiished around there.) Reasons to make it this are that 15 promoted is when each class gains its final skill, so going lower means we miss out on those. Going higher means a few characters ram their level cap, which isn't terribly fair to them.

Special cases:
-Jakob and Felicia gain levels as if they are 20 levels lower than displayed, and cap at 40. Thus, their DL level is 35.
-Gunther gains levels as if he is 15 levels lower than displayed, and caps at 30. Thus, his DL level is 30.
-Camilla (and, from what I've read, Reina) gain levels as if she is 5 levels lower than displayed. Thus, her DL level is 20.
-Leo gains levels as if he is 2 levels lower than displayed. Thus, his DL level is 17.
-Corrin has Nobility, which boosts her Exp by 20%. Unless she is higher-levelled than the enemy (not too likely by the end, as enemy levels spike up quickly late), this works out to roughly gaining levels as if  she were two levels lower, thus her DL level is 17.

Exp is heavilly curved in this game compared to previous FEs, and nobody joins too close to Endgame, so it's reasonable to take everyone else at the same level. Staff/dance exp is also very uncompetitive late, so no hyping that as a reason to take healers higher-levelled.

If someone wants to argue any of this feel free.


Equipment

Nothing breaks! But in Conquest at least, there's a reasonably tight budget. There's a total of about 125k gold in the maingame, and the party size is 16. Dividing one number by the other leaves about 7800 gold per PC, and we're probably burning 2k of that on a Seal. This number can be quibbled in various ways: you may miss some of these chests/rewards, but there's also more to be had from various optional Paralogues (which primarily depends on which kids you get and which ones you feel like doing). You may spend money on vairous non-DL stuff (healing items, tonics, staves/rods in general), you may splurge on core PCs while disadvantaging filler. etc.

Still, 6000 gold per PC (or perhaps 8000 - the number of seals used * 2000) is a pretty round number and I think it works pretty well as an equipment budget for each PC.


Forging

You mine gems of one type at a decent clip (2-4 per day), and can trade 5 of that type for 1 of another. There are six types in all, one for each weapon class. Once you have one of each, you can use the arena (refreshes every 6 hours or battle) to turn 1 gem into 2 or even 4 (or 8?) depending on your arena level. It's easy enough to get an ample gem supply for forging, the real limiter is money. To forge a +1 weapon, you need two of that weapon. To forge a +2 weapon, you need four. To forge a +3 weapon, you need eight. This rapidly gets expensive.


Legal weapons

In general, Bronze, Iron, Steel, and Silver can be bought in infinite numbers. Bronze boosts crit evade by 10, but can not crit, and costs 500. Iron is straightforward, and costs 1000. Steel reduces your effective speed for offensive doubling purposes by 3, and costs 2000. Silver is the best in the DL, despite being kinda iffy in-game: it costs 4000 and has tremendous power, but the downside is you lose 2 Str and Skl (Mag for tomes) every time you use one in combat, and this stacks.

An army of silver-wielders is not something I find terribly tempting in-game, but it will be the best option for many PCs, and I don't see any reason to find it illegal. It also rewards higher weapon ranks since most other weapons which do so aren't DL-legal.

Most other weapons can be bought in finite number. For instance, there is only one of each Brave weapon buyable, and 2 of each Killer. For the number of potential users, this doesn't strike me as legal. The exceptions:

-You can buy 10 each of Javelins and Hand Axes, which is more than enough for one each for any reasonable team, but may make forging them questionable. (Certainly +2 would be illegal). They cost 1800.
-You can buy two Levin Swords (cost 3300), range 1-2 swords which deal magic damage, and the only sword-user with high magic is Corrin. Thus, one is probably legal for her.
-Similarly, the Bolt Axe and Shining Bow also cost 3300 and deal magical 1-2 range damage for axe-users and bow-users, and you can buy two. It's hard to imagine more than two PCs wanting these (Camilla and MK Beruka miiight want the axe since Trample gives them decent enough Mag, for Niles and Shura it's the only 1-2 bow)
-Another bow option is the Mini Bow, again there are two, and two first-gen archers. It's a range-1 only physcial bow, and costs 2400.
-Nosferatu is back, nerfed but still useful in a duel. It costs 4000, and there are only two. By my views, there are three legal dark users: Odin, Nyx, and Leo... but you can argue it's unlikely you'll deploy all three as Sorcerers. Not sure.

I'm not sure if these will all be useful.

Even if you stick the PCs with the budget, the question becomes, what if they want to change? You could force them not to, you could let them change everything between fights, or you could have a default and make any changes only by the gold earned by selling things they don't need for the fight. I'm not sure myself.


Class choices

Tentative ideas I have, based on "one seal per character". This changes under different views, of course. Along with each class is the quick reason I went with each decision. Some may need a second look!

(spoilers, it's a PC list, don't read if you don't want to know it)

Corrin - Nohr Noble. Has access to Dragonstones, only unquestionably legal class, since you choose the second.
Felicia - Maid, only knife class. If not allowed Flame Shuriken, though, is probably better off with Strategist despite tome rank woes.
Jakob - Butler, only knife class
Elise - Strategist, tomes
Silas - Great Knight, better overall stats since move doesn't matter
Arthur - Berserker, speed + Axefaire
Effie - General, better stats and Wary Fighter
Mozu - Master of Arms, better caps
Odin - Sorcerer, Nosferatu + better mag/speed
Niles - Adventurer, Lucky Seven
Azura - Falcon Knight, best stats/caps. Songstress is unique but not DL-useful at all...
Nyx - Sorcerer, Nosferatu + better mag/speed
Camilla - Wyvern Lord after getting Trample, better stats/speed cap
Beruka - Malig Knight, Trample is probably worth the worse stats otherwise... unsure
Selena - Hero, Hand Axe access
Kaze - Master Ninja, better speed cap and Shurikenfaire
Laslow - Hero, Hand Axe access
Peri - Great Knight, better overall stats since move doesn't matter
Benny - General, better stats and Wary Fighter
Charlotte - Berserker, speed + Axefaire
Leo - Sorcerer, Nosferatu + best overall stats
Keaton - Wolfssegner, only legal option
Gunter - Totally unsure. He has access to Cav/Merc/Wyvern for branches. Malig Knight for Trample?
Xander - Great Knight for the same reason as the other Cavs, he's being wrecked by mages anyway
Shura - Bow Knight because it has better stats than Lucky Seven and he still has Lucky Seven
Flora - Maid, only knife class
Izana - Onmyoji, only tome class

These could use a second set of eyes to look 'em over.


I already have some average stat calcs mostly done, so I can post the early version soon if people are intereted. Still a lot more leg-work for the stat topic as a whole, though. There's also other new stuff to talk about, like debuffs.

[SnowFire]

Personally, I'd be in favor of saying "no Heart Seals" period (sorry Azura!), but I don't think allowing Heart Seals is totally crazy, so.  I'm not a huge fan of the "budget of money" interp solely due to annoyance in keeping track of legal weaponry.

Equipment: If "army of Silver users" is a problem, then allowing Forging goes a long way to preventing that.  A Silver Sword costs 4000 gold, 4x Iron Swords also cost 4000 gold.  An Iron Sword +2 is 10 Pwr & 92 Hit vs. a Silver Sword's 12 Mt & 90 Hit.  This would make the Iron Sword pretty much equivalent for long-term damage output since the user isn't eating the Str penalty.  If the target is 6000 gold spent total, Javelin / Hand Axe (Kodachi / Throwing Club for Birthright PCs) are 1800 gold, so give 'em Iron +2 & a ranged option.  Note this means that PCs that want a Levin Sword or the like will have to settle for an Iron Sword +1.  This is also a bit weird for characters proficient in 2+ weapon types, e.g. Paladins...  6000 gold is not enough for both a Silver Lance & a Silver Sword, nor an Iron Lance +2 & an Iron Sword +2.  Make them fall back to Iron +1, which would reward mono-weapon focus in a weird way? 

Note that I'd also allow path-choice so all the both-path characters (Felicia, Jakob, Kaze, Silas, etc.) get a bit of a boost in that they can pick from either the Dusk Armory -or- the Dawn Armory.  Think I brought this up earlier, but that'd make Flame Shuriken more solidly legal for Felicia, which would be nice.  I assume this will be one big stat topic, right, not a separate Conquest & Birthright one? 

There's one other bit of weirdness....  Scarlet is path-locked to Birthright but uses weaponry from the "wrong" side.  I guess I'd see both Dawn & Dusk Armories as legal for her, though she's an exceptional case.  (This applies to Conquest Kaze & Birthright Silas and the like of course, too, but they already have choice of either armory.)

Leo Nosferatu hype requires a Seal, so I'd think that it wouldn't be a big deal to allow Nos for the other Sorcerers.

I'm less sure about GK hype over Paladin for Silas / Peri / (Heart-Xander).  Speed is still kinda the god-stat in the DL (well, maybe not by Dhyer/Pyro views, I suppose).  I'd think that many duelers would happily throw away many stats for even a point of Speed.  But up to you.  (There's pulling an Awakening and just listing both upgrade options & using the average of both for the general cast average, of course.)

Debuffs totally gonna be a headache in the DL, since each Shuriken/Dagger seems to have its own special debuff stats!  Alas.

EDIT: Also, while I'm at it, I'd be in favor of neutral boon/bane Corrin for averages, at least.  And probably for actual voting although I know people will disagree!  No idea on what the 'best' Boon/Bane is for the DL for those that vote that way, though, it'd probably depend on whether his tome backup is reasonable, or if it sucks and thus can be tanked further without penalty.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Re Heart Seals:

Let's use the Leo example, it's a good one. It's every bit as easy for Leo to get to Sorc as it is for Odin/Nyx to get there (easier, in fact). Heart Seals and Master Seals cost the same amount of money. I don't really see why they get a choice between Dark Knight and Sorc, but he doesn't. If you claim it's because "well Leo is a Dark Knight in canon", you should be aware that there are canon promotions for every character if you play the opposite route (which I did consider holding them to, but I figured people wouldn't go for that). Not letting Leo use a seal here is handing him an unearned disadvantage, and if you're doing that you should probably compensate him in some way, like giving him a higher budget / better forge or something.


Re the two routes:

Conquest/Birthright are rather separate games, right down to different DL-legal equipment, and I would probably rather they have two separate stat topics for them. (They can be in the same topic, of course, but I'd use different averages and keep them separate.) Kaze uses daggers in one and shuriken on the other, Corrin has different classes on each route, etc. Scarlet may join with an axe or something, but if she wants to buy anything else it has to be through the Dawn Armoury.

(Revelation is DLC only so I probably would be leery about it anyway. Apparently it only has one unique PC so whatever.)

Flame Shuriken is kiinda sketchy just because it's possible the other butlers/maids might want the +2 speed for all that I agree Felicia has a solid claim to it, and I would probably allow it too. At worst she gets it in Birthright, where it's similar to the Levin Sword.

[SnowFire]

Heart Seals: Oh sure, no argument that in-game it's easy.  Just seems a thing the DL doesn't normally do, right?  Olivia was stuck in Dancer, Donnel is stuck in Villager, FE11/FE12 PCs don't get to visit other classes, etc.  Obviously it's "less bad" as far as ruining uniqueness in Fates than it is in Shadow Dragon / New Mystery, both of which give half the classes accessible to your gender to each character, but still seems like something that isn't done due to misty DL-authenticity issues.  And I'm more okay with canon choices that are literally right there pre-picked for you when they're PCs, as opposed to PCs that give you an explicit choice (even if there's a canon answer to pick).

Re Routes: Yeah, no big deal.  I'd just see Fates as one combined game with a huge path split.  No objection if other people vote differently, it just seems weird if there ends up being a big point of variance on the average of some particular stat.  With any luck that won't happen and the stat averages will be similar between both, but if, say, the speed average ends up higher in Birthright PCs, then Conquest Kaze ends up "faster" but only equipped with Daggers & a Steel Shuriken.  Maybe that's Working As Intended of course.

EDIT: Mentioned this in chat, but a few other points...
* Huh, the Silver advantage is actually notably bigger for Axes.  Oh well.  I can see just arbitrarily forcing characters into Iron +2s anyway but I guess Silver hype is real.  Also extra-annoying for characters like Paladins since 2 Silvers + a ranged weapon totally busts their budget.
* Just sheerly on flavor reasons, I think I'd be okay with characters wielding weapons named after them, even if they're otherwise DL-illegal - Effie's Lance, Beruka's Axe, etc.
* While I agree that in general, Nohr characters should use the Dusk Armory & Hoshidan characters the Dawn Armory, this is still Mostly A Flavor Thing IMHO.  Spotpass/Streetpass visits basically guarantee you can buy from the "other side" armory whenever you want, it's just the limited amount items you can't buy in practice (e.g. no Kodachi hype).  So it's not a big deal for even Conquest Kaze to equip Shurikens if you want in-game.
* Birthright players: Is Birthright similarly skimpy on cash?  If you get more $$$ in Birthright, I'd definitely be more okay with allowing larger budgets in Conquest too for the sake of avoiding weird splits.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Also extra-annoying for characters like Paladins since 2 Silvers + a ranged weapon totally busts their budget.

There's no reason to give someone a higher budget just because they have two weapon types, either in-game or in the DL. Certainly when I equipped weapons of "backup" weapon types they were almost always cheaper: Bronze, Bronze+1 or basic Iron, etc., because you don't use your backup weapon types enough to justify spending huge money on them. (Pretty much just when you're going for WTA, and WTA matters less in the DL imo... though your interps may vary.)

Though yeah you could set the budget, at, say, 7k, to make it easier for people to afford one of those backup weapons if you liked. (so e.g. Peri could have a Silver Lance, Iron Sword, and Javelin). The exact number isn't too important to me (you brought up that we might want to set it so that Conquest/Birthright use the same one, in particular), but I think consistency is.

I will spoil things and say that Conquest!Kaze is one of the fastest FE PCs ever and +2 speed isn't worth an interp fight for him. Could matter for the servants a bit more. Personally I don't think going online to buy things from others' castles is legal, but no big.

I'll start out with Neutral Corrin, and then will discuss theorycraft for those who want to vote on an "optimum' build, since until we start compiling numbers, e.g. on average enemy def/res, it will be impossible to tell. I'll certainly list neutral Corrin as an option, though.

[hinode]

(Revelation is DLC only so I probably would be leery about it anyway. Apparently it only has one unique PC so whatever.)

It's on-cart for people like me who shelled out for the special edition (and available right from the start, too), but considering how limited those are that doesn't change your point much. Also apparantly a bunch of people join unusably late in Revelations which would screw up DL levels compared to Conquest/Birthright.

At a glance Hoshido/Nohr weaponry doesn't seem like a big difference DL-wise, but I'm still strongly inclined not to allow it because it makes a huge difference in-game for Nohr difficulty, bigger than anything you can get online except for a handful of uberskills. Grabbing a bunch of 1-2 range healing rods in a Conquest file almost feels like cheating to me. To a lesser extent, so does getting easy access to Horse Spirits (tome with +3 skill/speed/defense/resistance and no drawbacks except for lowish might) without having to marry off Odin. Neither of these is DL relevant at all admittedly, but they are so gamechanging (unlike getting a few raider weapons from messing around with other peoples' castles a bit) that they really make me shun the whole concept in-game, which bleeds over to DL feelings for me.

[Nephrite]

Is there something different about Heart Seals (besides them not resetting someone's level) that doesn't break the "uniqueness rule" that got Second Seals banned from Awakening?

[Dark Holy Elf]

-Well, for the most part, characters have even fewer class trees this time, so they're getting more unique relatively.

-Additionally, most of the proposed Heart Seal use is to within the other class on the same "class tree", so it doesn't break uniqueness at all. The exceptions are Azura -> Sky Knight and possibly Gunter. I can see a case to force everyone to stay on their primary class tree, certainly. (This also avoids rewarding Gunter for having three class trees when in-game this is to make up for his awful support situation where he only has access to two supports for getting additional classes.)

-Also, one thing to keep in mind is that some of the "uniqueness" discussion about Second Seals in Awakening was due to the fact that many people who would want them would want them early (because hitting A weapon rank in Awakening was crucial for Brave), and they weren't storebought until after Chapter 16, so nobody had a unique claim to the early ones.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Can now confirm that yeah, Birthright certainly does offer more money.

I am starting to favour the following set of interps, though this isn't set in stone yet:

-Budget is now 9999. Why 9999? Well, apart from being an aestheticaly appealing number, it is designed such that, after spending 2000 on a seal (as all unpromoted PCs will want to), it puts Iron+3 and Silver+1 just out of reach. I consider this a good thing, because Iron+3 is kind of a pain to make and legal Silver+1 would exacerbate the effect of overrated Silver weaponry and is something I've never even considered making in-game. You might have some of these in-game, but they certainly aren't the type of thing you outfit your whole team with. Finally, by limiting things to Iron+2 and base Silver, that leaves more money open for utitilty options such as secondary weapons and javelins/etc., which should assuage Snowfire's concerns on that front.

-Seal use eats into that budget. I'm starting to favour unlimited use, which is mostly useful for PCs like Beruka, who would want to grow as a Maligknight until Trample and then switch to Wyvern Lord for better stats. (Though, I realise she'd still be able to afford Silver + Hand Axe this way, so all she loses from the Heart Seal budget hit is access to a backup lance or iron/bronze axe for chipping... you can debate if that's an adequate penalty.)

-I am now leaning against allowing Heart Seals to transition outside of the PC's primary class tree, as per my comments in the previous post. The main PCs who this hurts are Gunter (who, again, deserves to be punished because he's actually in a really bad situation for class-changing/supports in-game) and Azura (which I'm okay with because honestly most players will keep her as a Sonstress anyway. Also means hey if she's nommed for a team match she actually has her definining in-game ability. And hey, as a Sonstress she can afford an Iron+3 or Silver+1, that's something, right?). I will absolutely still allow them for switching to the other promoted class within a primary class tree. A character's primary class tree is a big unique thing about them in this game, in particular it is (normally) what they pass to other units via A+ and S supports, and as always Leo does not deserve to be punished for being in a strictly better position class-wise than Odin or Nyx in-game.

[SnowFire]

FWIW, the issue with Second Seals in Awakening is really more down to cast uniqueness than weapon ranks to me.  Even if the only good switching options are to classes where you've already leveled an appropriate weapon (e.g. Olivia goes Swordmaster...  Sully & Stahl too, probably...  ), I suspect it'd still pay off, and make the stat averages a mess.  In fact, with a 20/20 level assumption, that would even allow characters to pull a 20/15/5 with same number of levels and sneak the L5 skill of the "other" class, arguably.  Meh.

For Beruka...   well as said above I'm not a fan of Heart Seal use in general, but with a 20/15 level assumption, this means that Beruka is in Malig Knight for almost the entire game post-promotion, then switches to Wyvern Lord at L15 and never even gains a level in it?  Seems kinda sketch.  (For Camilla, at least, she'll actually have some time in Wyvern Lord if she switches at L15 and can get the skills from both trees.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Well there are two problems with the Sully/Stahl example:
-A 20/15/1 unit gains Exp as if they are Level 18 promoted, so it's not a stretch to say that they'd fail to get the needed 4 levels, especially if we quibble the endgame level and say it's actually 20/18 or 20/19 or something. I don't think you'd get much sympathy for such borderline cases. (see also Beruka, below)
-You're proposing giving them two seals, which is expensive! (The Awakening money curve was lower than Fates', but seals actually cost more.) How would you punish them for this or compensate other characters? One thought is that a seal costs similarly to a brave weapon, so if you want a last-minute push from one, better be prepared to give up the other... suddenly I don't think swordmaster is very appealing!
-Finally, Swordmaster is outside their primary class tree, relevant to current discussion (although the lack of Partner Seal mechanics means that primary class tree isn't as relatively important in Awakening).

For Olivia, keep in mind that the stat topic was made before we learned that Level 30 Dancers can Second Seal into promoted classes. If it had been made after, I think there'd have been more of an argument, for all that I'm too lazy to go back and change things, also fuck Olivia/Donnel in the DL anyway.

Fair enough on the Beruka case. I can see judging against that because it's a ridiculous step up, from 20/14 Maligknight to 20/15 Wyvern Lord with Trample, and frowning at a build which is optimised for such a last-second spike is fine by me. She might still want to go Malig to L5 for Savage Blow, then Wyvern Lord the rest of the way, if permitted, but that may or may not be worth the cost.

[hinode]

Some scattered thoughts on Conquest, having reached chapter 24 right now:

*Haven't done any numerical calculations on this, but I would definately give everyone a bigger DL budget than 125k/16=7800, since in practice most people are going to deploy a handful of pure utility units (Songstress Azura, pair-up bots, staffbots, etc.) who aren't going to be seeing combat except in an emergy situation. Staves and some seals do cost money, but then you also have a bunch of starting equipment and enemy drops that are free in-game that aren't accounted for in that 125k figure.

*Definately would not allow class changing to anything off a primary class tree for a mixture of flavor and gameplay reasons, albeit mostly the former. Allowing them at all makes DL interps more convoluted which I'm not thrilled with in general, but it does avoid penalizing prepromotes in a game/route (Conquest) where the strong prepromotes (especially Xander and Camilla) felt better off than usual in FE for me.

*Also for anyone who does allow classing changing off the primary tree, note that Xander and Leo's prf weapons are so good that they are arguably better off spending all their budget on Heart Seals to pick up extra skills instead of buying backup weapons. Obviously this won't be an issue if they only have one option to change into.

*Incidentally, what chapter did people hit L20 for unpromoted units in? Personally I got Corrin there in C15 but everyone else was still unpromoted by C18. At that point, I stared at the full map of promoted enemies and opted to just promote all my L18/19 units a few levels early save Elise. I suspect this is just personal experience/small sample size, but in the off chance my experience was fairly universal I'd actually be open to shaving off a level or two worth of stats off most of the cast to make the prepromotes look a bit better DL-wise (some prepromos are already level capped by the initial estimate, so just boosting prepromote levels more won't work quite as well here).

*What weapon rank do people consider okay for secondary weapon types in the DL? From personal experience D is a no-brainer and C seems pretty safe for non-Great Knight/Master at Arms classes, but I'm not sure about B. Also made little effort to use GK Effie's secondary weapon types on my current run, so not sure how well the triple-weapon classes can raise up two secondary weapon types at once.

*Felicia only wants Maid over Strategist if you allow her the Flame Shuriken, which you didn't mention in the original post, just a reply later on in the topic which I missed at first glance. Might be worth an edit to the OP to mention.

*AFAIK everyone with enough magic to make Levin Sword/Bolt Axe even semi-viable as a DL option also gets Tomes as a secondary weapon type, and without Swordfaire/Axefaire in play Thunder +2 is close enough in performance that those two mage weapons aren't worth worrying about for legality. The gap is even closer if you allow B Tomes for Corrin/Camilla/etc. I guess the axe would have different weapon triangle properties than magic but that's pretty niche for DL purposes, especially for those of use who make WTA asymmetric in the DL. Bolt Naginata might be a bigger issue on Birthright if there are multiple Falcon Knights with enough magic to make it worthwhile.

*There's absolutely nothing resembling a canon parentage to make any of the kids remotely stat topic-viable, but I wonder if they should be a factor for DL weapon legality consideration. Ophelia would throw in another Dark Mage with a claim to the already shaky Nosferatu, while Nina would add a third claim for Mini Bow/Shining Bow. Not sure how seriously I'd consider this myself, but Nosferatu's already on kinda shaky grounds if you allow Leo to reclass to Sorceror.

[Dark Holy Elf]

*Haven't done any numerical calculations on this, but I would definately give everyone a bigger DL budget than 125k/16=7800, since in practice most people are going to deploy a handful of pure utility units (Songstress Azura, pair-up bots, staffbots, etc.) who aren't going to be seeing combat except in an emergy situation. Staves and some seals do cost money, but then you also have a bunch of starting equipment and enemy drops that are free in-game that aren't accounted for in that 125k figure.

I agree which is part of why I revised the figure upwards. I'm a bit reluctant to up it much further, however.

*Also for anyone who does allow classing changing off the primary tree, note that Xander and Leo's prf weapons are so good that they are arguably better off spending all their budget on Heart Seals to pick up extra skills instead of buying backup weapons. Obviously this won't be an issue if they only have one option to change into.

Interesting thought experiment.

-Xander's problem is that if you don't see him going past 15, then he can't really get L15 skills and use them too effectively. At best it's a Beruka situation where he grabs one L15 skill (Trample or Swordbreaker) then seals away. Additionally I wouldn't let him switch to Maligknight at all I don't think, E ranks in both weapon types = no thanks. He can, granted, get Str+2 this way. None of Wyvern's other skills are DL useful.
-Leo would be able to snag Res+2 and Tomebreaker, potentially, along with Seal Magic, before ending up in Sorcerer, using two seals, and yeah this would be a good route for him. Again, though, Tomebreaker requires he be in a class with no tome rank = no thanks, which would just leave Res+2.
-Ryoma's non-primary have no sword rank.  Sky Knight's skill tree really isn't that great anyway DL-wise, assuming Darting Blow ends up as overkill for him. It might not, I guess...
-Takumi's non-primary classes have no bow rank. If allowed... uh, Rend Heaven's kinda cool, stacks with Quixotic too but that faces the L15 problem again.
-The main beneficiary is certainly Corrin, if allowed a choice of class tree. But yeah I'm not inclined to go there.

Honestly, with my views I doubt this will amount to much.

*Incidentally, what chapter did people hit L20 for unpromoted units in? Personally I got Corrin there in C15 but everyone else was still unpromoted by C18. At that point, I stared at the full map of promoted enemies and opted to just promote all my L18/19 units a few levels early save Elise. I suspect this is just personal experience/small sample size, but in the off chance my experience was fairly universal I'd actually be open to shaving off a level or two worth of stats off most of the cast to make the prepromotes look a bit better DL-wise (some prepromos are already level capped by the initial estimate, so just boosting prepromote levels more won't work quite as well here).

I got everyone to 20 (though my experience otherwise mirrors yours mostly, I did my promotions in C17 and C18 generally) but it's certainly reasonable to promote everyone at, say, 18, and finish at 18/16 instead, for instance. Kotaro's map is one I think people often need some help with...

*What weapon rank do people consider okay for secondary weapon types in the DL? From personal experience D is a no-brainer and C seems pretty safe for non-Great Knight/Master at Arms classes, but I'm not sure about B. Also made little effort to use GK Effie's secondary weapon types on my current run, so not sure how well the triple-weapon classes can raise up two secondary weapon types at once.

I'd say C. B feels like it's pushing it, I didn't get Elise anywhere close (to the point where even trading some of her staff use for tome use wouldn't have done it). I'm fine with A primary / C for post-promotion weapons as a rule, barring classes with three. Not going to hype S for anyone.


-Bolt Axe, at least, is quite a bit stronger than Thunder+2, not to mention cheaper (though it does have an Avo penalty). But I think it's only worth the investment DL-wise if you force Camilla to stay in Maligknight (where her Mag+Trample would make it okay).

-I'm kinda inclined to allow Nosferatu on the grounds of "really, what are the odds you use 3+ sorcerers", same with the Shining Bow. (Though in fairness I did have three archers on my own team at one point.) At the very least it feels a bit cruel to the archers if you ban both the Shining Bow and Mini Bow. Also it's Nosferatu, it does something very different and makes the cast more interesting, so I admit to being more inclined to allow it for that reason. The lack of ability to proc Vengeance with it combined with its low power means that it's going to be very not-broken anyway, just a nice quirk.

[hinode]

I'd say C. B feels like it's pushing it, I didn't get Elise anywhere close (to the point where even trading some of her staff use for tome use wouldn't have done it). I'm fine with A primary / C for post-promotion weapons as a rule, barring classes with three. Not going to hype S for anyone.

S ranks are limited to one class per weapon IIRC, mostly the mono-weapon ones like Swordmaster and Berserker. My SM Corrin looks like she's on track to hit S rank by the end of the game, I'd imagine that the likes of Ryoma can get it easily for the minor stat boost since they aren't bothering with a secondary weapon type.

Incidentally, I just checked the Hoshido cast data, and Oboro's the only one with Spear Fighter as her primary class tree in gen 1. This gives her a possible claim to the S-rank naginata, though as a counterargument it's not exactly hard to get freaking Ryoma married to produce the game's only other default Spear Fighter.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Weapon exp table, although the exact mechanics of what boosts weapon rank isn't documented. Might be 2 for normal combat and 1 for a dual strike. It certainly isn't more than 2 per combat.

E->D: 20
D->C: 30
C->B: 45
B->A: 65
A->S: 90

Ciato's file didn't feature Ryoma hitting S and I dunno if mine's on track to either despite me using him a lot, but we'll see. I'd be pretty okay with it as a minor boon to Ryoma since he starts with a B (before anyone else in my army had a B) and he's good at gaining WExp (1-2 range counters and non-fail durability!), plus I'm more willing to make small judgement calls for PCs who are that good in-game.

EDIT: Finished my Birthright file. Ryoma did indeed not his S, and in fact only he and Hinoka even hit A, despite my doing seven paralogues...

Not giving it to Arthur/Charlotte/Oboro though (and certainly not Takumi or Setsuna if they even end up going Sniper). While I hit A with various people, almost nobody hit it with lots of time to spare before the game ended, and the WExp gap from A to S is positively huge.

[SnowFire]

Money: FWIW, I agree with both hinode & Elf.  Money isn't THAT bad in-game, but a lot of that is thanks to characters with Prf. weapons, at least if you choose to deploy them...  they make *everybody else* better by freeing up money for weapon upgrades for 'em.  Yet they're the characters who benefit least from upping the budget.  Seems kinda unfair, and plus, with the crazy way DL scaling works, letting everybody have better weapons doesn't really help them anyway.  So yeah, maybe more cash, but forbid spending more than 4K on a single weapon?  6K is tied up in Seal & a primary weapon...  8K is Seal, primary weapon, & ranged backup...  10K is Seal/Primary/Ranged/Crappy Backup, & 12K is Seal / 2x Primary options / Ranged.  I guess it depends on if you see the slowly lowering stats as an interesting quirk of Silver, or something best not thought about too hard...  the 12K means that everybody can buy Silver + (pick one of Iron +2 or Steel +1) so they always have a not-too-bad option for stally / heal-locky fights, the 10K means they at least get Iron +1 or Steel as their backup.

Kids: Well, at least Fates kids don't have the titanic split between "taken at endgame w/ no grinding" vs. "assume grinding or the aftergame" that Awakening kids have!  I'd suggest the same interp for kids in Fates as I would for kids in Awakening though: Just assume that F-Corrin is really getting it on and is everybody's mother.  Kana is M-Corrin x F-Corrin I guess.  Anyway, while this is fair to the kids-vs.-each-other, I dunno if it's fair to the adults, and since Fates has approximately a gazillion adults anyway, I dunno if it's worth the effort in creating an optional with kids stat average too.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, Snowfire's quite right on the kids, they are certainly more rankable/stat topic-able this time, for what that's worth.

In particular, the current stats of the parents no longer matter much (they add something like at most 10% to the child's natural stats), so their stats tend to end up pretty similar whenever they're recruited. And of course they'll also join up to speed level-wise, so the issue there isn't too large either.

If I were to take their stats, I'd probably (a) treat the skill inhereted from the non-fixed parent as illegal [not unique, duh], (b) give them growths which are based on the average of all characters... similar to Snowfire's idea of using Corrin, except Corrin is somewhat above average growth-wise. I'd have to look at bases to see what is fair there.

But yeah this is something to do after getting the first gen, I think.

[Dark Holy Elf]

While I'm at it, another issue: Dragonstones and Beaststones.

There is one Dragonstone+ in the game, one Beaststone+, and on Birthright, one Beastrune (there are two in Conquest). There are in each case two users (one first gen and one second, the latter being the child of the former of course).

On the one hand, the odds of you using both users is certainly significant. Especially if you're using the child, that implies that you're already used the parent. Also, these items can't be forged and have no non-DL-legal option such as Brave or Killer which other weapon types have, so they don't really deserve judgement calls.

On the other hand I can see it being a bit weird to "punish" Keaton and Kaden for the existence of their kids, and since all their weaponry is found in the game, using the beastpeople has no gold cost beyond a seal, which is a perk they have in-game. But... on the whole I'm more convinced by the arguments laid out against allowing them. Although in the Birthright case, I might allow one of the Beastrune or Beaststone+... probably Beastrune for consistency with Conquest, plus you get it much earlier. Thoughts?


EDIT: And a related note: both Corrin and the beastpeople have very different base stats depending on their choice of weapon (Yato vs Dragonstone, Beaststone vs Beastrune, and also the + versions if those end up allowed). I imagine I'll probably try to figure out the better one for the majority of cases and use that one in the averages, but it is a bit of a weird situation. (In Awakening, by comparison, the taguel/manaketes always just had a simple "best" option, so this wasn't an issue.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ran a bunch of numbers.

Flame Shuriken not looking so legal for Felicia on Conquest more. Jakob and Flora both want it too. While it's a damage hit for them (-4 in Jakob's case, -1 in Flora's), being able to hit the second defence is cool, not losing str with every combat is cool (and note that Flame Shuriken actually outdamages Iron Dagger +2 on Flora), and +2 speed certainly matters.

This shouldn't be an issue on Birthright because there are, I believe, three in the game there (one enemy drop + two in shops). Still, on Conquest, Felicia probably wants to go Strategist.

[Random Consonant]

To be honest I'm against factoring kids in in any way, shape, or form (optional variable characters that can only "fairly" measured by using a set of numbers that doesn't actually exist in game, yeah no), and if they are factored in somehow then I'd certainly see Nosferatu/Mini Bow/Shining Bow as no more legal than the nonstandard Beast/Dragonstones.  But excluding them from averages but accounting for them for the sake of equipment legality is just gross.

[hinode]

Back on the topic of weapon ranks, I just remembered that I used an Arms Scroll on Corrin to up her tomes rank on stage 15 so that she could equip a Sheep Spirit I had lying around, which also inflated her sword rank as a side effect. She only hit S rank as a swordmaster on stage 27 so I'm guessing she wouldn't manage without that.

I'll see how far Ryoma can get on my just-started Birthright file, guessing Hana and Oboro aren't going to come close to an S rank though.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Okay, next round of class choices. Again, I'd love it it people looked this over.


Corrin: Hoshido Noble, obviously.
Felicia: Maid. Flame Shuriken is now legal, so let's get this build out here.
Jakob: Still a butler, shuriken are better on this route...
Kaze: Still a Master Ninja due to Spd cap and Shurikenfaire.
Rinkah: Oni Chieftain... I think. It has better skills due to a big crit boost and Counter, which despite a nerf is still pretty broken. And her magic isn't... completely worthless, too bad about no Bolt Axe though.
Azura: Songstress again.
Sakura: Priestess has better speed and durability and gets amazing 30% regen... but Onmyoji lets her counter and run a far better offence. This one is tough but I'm leaning Onmyoji.
Hana: Swordmaster, evade and speed and Swordfaire. Other weapon types don't even offer 1-2 over katanas on Hoshido... though Seal Strength might be nice for buying her a turn, but eh probably just offsets the evade.
Subaki: Falcon Knight. Kinshi Knight's skills are team-oriented and bows for weakness-hitting isn't really something that translates, Falcon has better stats.
Orochi: Basara does take hits considerably better... but Onmyoji has Tomefaire. So probably Onmyoji.
Saizo: Well caps aren't an issue in the same way for Saizo as it is for Kaze, but base speed certainly is. 4 points! Shurikenfaire! We're not overcoming that.
Silas: Great Knight.
Mozu: Master of Arms.
Hinoka: Falcon Knight, see Subaki.
Azama: Unlike Sakura, Azama has higher Str than Mag, and his physical class at least counters melee, so Great Master and its regen starts to look awfully appealing.
Setsuna: The power advantage by going Sniper is colossal due to Bowfaire... about 9 points. And better non-res stats in general. It's worth giving up melee counters. Kinshi's advantages don't translate...
Hayato: His Str is less of a lost cause than Orochi's but still probably Onmyoji.
Oboro: Spear Master. Pick the class with -faire, every time. Seal Speed is great too.
Hinata: Swordmaster. -faire. Hinata probably needs all the speed he can get...
Takumi: Sniper, see Setsuna.
Kagero: Master Ninja, see Kaze and Saizo.
Reina: Falcon Knight, see Subaki and Hinoka.
Kaden: Nine-Tails is his only choice.
Ryoma: Swordmaster, Swordfaire and this man is built on dodge-tanking.
Scarlet: I'm... not certain. Beruka wanted Malig Knight because she needed the damage help from its skills, Scarlet should have good damage so she may not want to trade away other stats, Naginatas, and Swordbreaker. Leaning Wyvern Lord slightly, but this one's close... and in fact with all the -faire skills running around her damage may be worse than I expect based on in-game, which could push her towards Malig.
Izana: Still Onmyoji in an easy choice.
Shura: Now without any magical weapons at all, Bow Knight's pretty obvious.
Yukimura: Mechanist. I don't really want to hype Merchant's pay2win skill, whereas Yukimura gives us a chance to see Replicate now that Mechanist isn't competing with a -faire skill, and that should be fun.

[hinode]

Haven't had a close look at most of the new Hoshido classes yet, but glancing through the class skills page I'd agree with you on all counts. I'd kinda like to see how the alternate classes for Sakura/Azama/maybe the Diviners stack up at DL levels, though they should stick to the defaults exclusively when calculating averages.

Minor thought, but Ryoma probably wants to make a one level detour into Master of Arms to pick up Seal Defense if you let him. Strictly in terms of cost it's worth buying two seals even if he has to sacrifice all his backup weapons (which amounts to what, a 1 MT improvement in his finisher w/ Silver Katana?), but this is a level of build complexity that I'm not fond of in the DL, so I'm leaning no even though I came up with the idea.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Birthright PCs have been added.

Since this is the thread where I muse about weapon legality I wanted to talk about the Bolt Naginata. I allowed it by default but it is on somewhat shakier grounds than the other magical weapons, because a lot of people kinda want it. There is no other 1-2 lance in Birthright and a lot of PCs have lances only, and hence would kinda like the Bolt Naginata even though many do only ~5 damage with it. I dunno, use your judgement on that one.

I should probably add the Flame Shuriken for a few more people too for that matter (Jakob, Saizo at minimum). I'll do that later. Probably.

[SnowFire]

How many Bolt Naginatas can you buy total?  3 or so?  I wouldn't mind giving it only to the top 3 damage dealers with one.  Maybe even further lock it down and say only "lance primary" types can use it (e.g. throw it out for Masters of Arms and the like), but that seems to hardly matter with Mozu's terrible Mag anyway.

Checking, that seems like it'd be Azama (10), Hinoka (7), & Subaki (5).  If there's a 4th Bolt Naginata in a chest or whatever, then I guess Reina would get it.  The niche use for a tiny amount of free damage shouldn't impact everyone else too badly (maybe AZURA?!  weird things happen in Low Light).  I mean...  I suspect I'd probably let 'em do it anyway, but the case is a bit weaker for lances where there's a lot more competition between lance-users than, say, shurikens/daggers in Conquest, where the pool of potential users was quite small.