Board 8 > Gauging interest in a Fire Emblem ranking topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

I want the record to show that I actually did not even realize I was doing FE4 at the top so much until you guys pointed it out

1. Alec/Noish (Genealogy)

Arguably the most underwhelming units you get in the prologue statistically, Alec and Noish look kind of sketchy at first glance. Alec has the all important Pursuit skill along with decent speed, but little else, while Noish has solid strength and defense but his offense is reliant on Critical and Accost, the former based on his low skill stat and the latter unreliable and weird. They can combine to kill the weakest enemies on the map, but they quickly run into foes that require more than just one round from each of them (and the first one they encounter has a Hand Axe, which they can't even counter on enemy phase) and it only seems to get worse from there. Sigurd is dominating everything, Quan and Lex 2HKO everything with better durability, Azel ORKOs the weakest enemies when he gets in range and even Arden at least has some serious durability. Pretty easy to write off this iteration of the red and green cavaliers after seeing how they seem to be constantly disappointing you from one end of the map to the other.

Of course, "from one end of the map to the other" is the operative phrase, because this is the ultimate Horse Emblem game and no one proves that more than Alec and Noish. Even when they're not doing anything special, they're always able to at least be in a position to contribute *something*, and in a game where ORKOing is not always easy and you have to fight swarms of enemies that can require some "wall" formations to tackle effectively, that's actually quite important. I actually consider these two to be the 6th and 7th best first generation units (Alec the superior of the two) and could see the argument to move them up a spot if anything. They're clearly better than any foot unit, that's for sure! Of course, one of the reasons for this is that their reputation for contributing but only minimally is somewhat overstated, as they're a bit better at combat than you might think...

First off, the cavalier class brings with it B swords and C lances, which is actually quite good. They can use magic swords for strong chip damage (Alec in particular due to Pursuit), the brave sword once it comes around, the horseslayer in chapter 3 and even the javelin if need be (though Sigurd/Quan/Finn are usually going to take those for themselves). They can potentially use the slim lance as well for an extra edge over sword users, which is mainly helpful in the arena but does provide a strong and light option for the field as well. Maybe the most overlooked aspect is what they can do in chapter 1. Alec's low offense is partially caused by his wimpy iron sword, but he can buy Sigurd's steel sword (since Sigurd now has Silver) and suddenly that's +8 damage he gained. The iron lance for an extra 2 might over even the steel sword is also an option, as you'll have three of them and can likely spare one for a cavalier. Speed ring Alec can double quite a bit with a lance throughout the game, and even without the ring he doubles axe users, albeit the accuracy can occasionally be shaky. Noish does struggle a bit more here though since he doesn't have as easy an upgrade available.

What can save Noish, of course, is the Pursuit Band. While it is extremely expensive, a bit of help from Dew (combined with his ability to reach villages easily like any mounted unit, including potentially the Bargain Band village, though I'd never recommend that unless he's going to be a father because you want it to be inherited and don't want anyone to have to buy it) can nonetheless get it for him and suddenly he's looking pretty strong. His naturally low speed isn't all that important when swords are so light, meaning he can double many enemy types regardless, and a second opportunity for a critical hit is always nice, albeit still unreliable. Pursuit + brave sword Noish has some lethal offense. Now granted, everyone has great offense with the brave sword and Noish requires the extra cost of the Pursuit Band, but the point is it's an option he has and a very viable one considering he has a horse and will thus get to use the tools you give him a lot. Cool weapons do nothing if they don't even get used because the unit carrying them sees little combat.

And that's really one of the big strengths of these two units. Genealogy gives you a ton of crazy stuff to play with, with rings providing skills and huge stat boosts and some weapons just being bonkers. You can give these things to all kinds of units, but it's clearly better to give them to the mounted units that will actually get to make use of them. Alec and Noish are underwhelming on their own, but given the right tools they nonetheless put in far more work than a lot of units ever could, more than justifying the investment you put into them.

Then once you get them promoted they get a few more options, like the steel and brave lances (though the latter has competition from Erin, and Finn before he leaves), and Alec has a strange little niche of being able to actually ORKO certain enemy types at 2 range with a magic sword and the magic ring (Noish can do it too with the Pursuit Band, but that's getting to be pretty expensive for one unit to afford), which is pretty neat and it's not like the magic ring is in much demand when your only magic attackers either don't get a horse or don't get a horse until they gain 19 levels as a gong show. Promotion bonuses save a lot of units in this game, and if there's one thing a horse does in Genealogy it's give you opportunities to gain experience. And their weapon selection options lets them do decently in the arena as well. They'll rarely clear it outright but they can get fairly far by passing around effective weapons and switching swords/lances as needed. This can let them keep up statistically a little better than you might expect.

Alec and Noish are far from dominant forces. Even at their best they can't measure up to the true powerhouses of the army. But they're around from the very beginning and they're always useful as long as you take a moment to let them be. If you just keep them to their default inventory they'll be underwhelming, but a bit of care on what you give them can make them quite respectable, Alec in particular due to his innate Pursuit. They'll frequently end the generation with more combat and more kills than the vast majority of your army, simply because no matter what the situation is they can always find a way to do *something* that helps you out. This list of underrated units hasn't really had a clear criteria for the order units appear, but the final entry is indeed what I believe to be the most underrated units in the entire series. Often written off as just too weak to matter, Alec and Noish are some of the better units the fir

And with that, yet another list is finished! Once again, thanks to everyone that's been reading along, commenting and trying to guess their way through my random hints. And once again, I'm open to suggestions for any further ideas on what to rank and do write ups on.

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How about Top 10 music tracks in the series?
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That might be interesting. I worry my write ups would get really repetitive though, I'm not good at coming up with much to say about music a lot of the time.

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Top 10 Bosses? Maybe Top 5, if you're having trouble filling ten slots (I expect I would).
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Gheb # 1 or we riot.

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MalcolmMasher posted...

Top 10 Bosses? Maybe Top 5, if you're having trouble filling ten slots (I expect I would).

Hmm, what criteria are you thinking of? Toughest, most "epic", etc?

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Panthera posted...

Hmm, what criteria are you thinking of? Toughest, most "epic", etc?

Favorite, for any reason?
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I suppose I'm thinking of "most interesting", from a gameplay perspective. Like, "at the end of the chapter there's a guy on a throne, hit him until he dies, heal if necessary" is not interesting. Bosses who are mobile and threatening, or who are immobile but total combat monsters, can be interesting. Perhaps even bosses that might not be particularly dangerous on paper, but who present an obstacle because you don't want to (or aren't allowed to) just kill them, and must instead find a way to endure or evade their aggression for a time. Bosses where, when you reach their chapter, you have to stop for a moment and say "Right, this is the chapter with That Boss, what's my plan to deal with them?"

It might be best to disqualify final bosses, who are typically the focus of their chapter by default. Plus "Top Ten Final Bosses" could easily be its own ranking.

I'm just trying to provoke your muse into action, though. If you feel some other metric would be more entertaining, then feel free to use it.
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This sounds pretty interesting actually! Though there might be some "guy on throne" style bosses anyway if I make the list, not entirely sure yet...hmm, I'm going to brainstorm this one for a while and if I have enough material I'll go with it.

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I feel like there would be a lot of Thracia and Blazing Blade. Possibly Genealogy depending on who you would call a boss.

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I actually only have one Thracia boss on my short list right now, though there's another one or two I'm thinking of. A lot of Thracia's noteworthy bosses are unbalanced as hell (the "most unbalanced bosses relative to when you fight them" list I was thinking of but scrapped would definitely have featured Gomez near the top) or are easy to bypass (ie Reinhardt is ludicrously brutal but how many people have ever even bothered to fight him?)

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By the way, reading this topic put me in the mood to play FE again so I acquired an FF6 copy.

And man, it's been a blast to play despite that we can't choose where to deploy the units. The maps and enemies are fun and the bosses are actually challenging.

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You can definitely choose where to deploy units in FE6 <_< Well, once the preps menu shows up at least, which is a bit later than in most games

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Yeah, it was FE5 where you couldn't choose where to deploy people.
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FE6 is great, I think it's my favorite. Hope you have fun playing it, raka.


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Yep, thanks. I'm having a great time so far. The low accuracy is kinda wack though. Thus far my Dieck and Lugh have been blessed by the RNGesus. And I killed Gonzales...oops. It's frustrating not knowing who to bring to recruit people, unless I look up beforehand.

Panthera posted...

You can definitely choose where to deploy units in FE6 <_< Well, once the preps menu shows up at least, which is a bit later than in most games

!!
Oh wow, I just noticed if you go to the Map menu you can move units around lol, silly me. Thanks.

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Raka_Putra posted...

It's frustrating not knowing who to bring to recruit people, unless I look up beforehand.

If there are no other clues, it's usually Lilina. She fills the Caeda role of recruiting all the random mooks.

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Raka_Putra posted...

The low accuracy is kinda wack though

The authentic Binding Blade experience

Wonder if the low enemy speed in FE7 was in part just overcompensation for how silly things got in FE6 when the enemies had good avoid *and* weapon hit rates were low. They weren't even that low compared to some of the early games in many regards, but those games (barring Thracia) didn't have a Constitution equivalent to reduce weapon weight, so everyone lost some avoid from the weapon they were carrying (hence why in Genealogy there are times where the hardest enemy to kill is a defenseless priest, because their lack of weapon gives them better avoid and makes them hard to double)

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"Humans not humans" is such a way to phrase things.

By the way, sorry for kinda hijacking the topic while you're concocting the new ranking.

Kenri posted...

If there are no other clues, it's usually Lilina. She fills the Caeda role of recruiting all the random mooks.

:( Darn, and I don't use her. Oh well.

Panthera posted...

The authentic Binding Blade experience

Yeah, now basically my most useful units are the ones with high hit count.

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Raka_Putra posted...

"Humans not humans" is such a way to phrase things.

By the way, sorry for kinda hijacking the topic while you're concocting the new ranking.

It's no problem at all. Speak of, new ranking should be starting up today or tomorrow.

Based on that phrasing, you must be using the old translation patch (or playing in Japanese maybe? I have no idea what a literal translation would be) rather than the newer one

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Yeah, the first one I found was the older patch (which I noticed since the pegasus knight is called 'Thany').
With this, I've played 6-8, 10, SD, Awakening, and 3H. I'm always wary of Fates since it's apparently not that good and they split it to 3 games so I dunno which one to get. Though Echoes is supposedly good.

Panthera posted...

Speak of, new ranking should be starting up today or tomorrow.

Hype.

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I love Echoes, but it's definitely a hit and miss kind of game. Pretty much everyone agrees it does a great job at presentation, but the rest is debatable, to put it mildly. Fates is...uh...Conquest is really good in terms of gameplay, at least. And Birthright is just bland rather than a conscious assault on your sanity like a certain other path

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Conquest might be my favorite FE game in terms of gameplay. I really liked it my first time through.

Echoes is OK. It was a little unremarkable after going through everything and the middle is a slog. But yes, the presentation - particularly the art, the voice acting, and the music - is excellent.

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I'm just catching up with this topic now, and I think one thing that fails to get mentioned is just how bad the original Jagen was. FE1 growth rates were pretty bad all around, so perhaps this is easier said than done, but it really wouldn't take very long at all for your other units to pass Jagen. Aside from Resistance, because resistance growths are nonexistent in that game but for some reason Paladins are given a resistance stat, Abel can equal him in every stat by level 4 and there's only one stat (skill) that would have to level up all three times. Cain is already his equal in Strength at level 1, and Caeda outspeeds him and has the necessary weapon rank to use his Silver Lance. And if the starting units weren't good enough for you, you need only reach Chapter 5 to get a Level 6 Cavalier who's already 2 points ahead of Jagen in HP, Strength, and Luck, even in Speed, and only 1 behind in Defense and 3 in Skill. Again, at base stats. And Cavaliers were not among the many classes that were unable to promote in FE1 for no good reason, so there you go. Even if you got nothing but empty levels, the promotion bonus alone is enough to make Hardin greater than or equal to Jagen in every stat. Abel, who, again, is one of your starting units, only needs a single point of defense to say the same.

Then just for good measure, halfway through the game they drop another Level 1 Paladin on you whose bases are, you guessed it, equal to or better than Jagen's in every stat.

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Unfortunately FE1 is the one game I haven't played so I can't comment on it really, though I've heard a lot of people saying he's actually decent because enemies apparently don't scale up very much. This is the first time I've ever heard someone say he's that bad, I think.

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Jagen is not bad in FE1 lol, stats are basically unimportant in that game compared to weapon level and statboosters are very strong and caps are very low and enemies are weak
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Good morning, and welcome to the beginning of the "interesting bosses" list! This list will be excluding final bosses, due to them tending to be their own special thing and usually more intricate by default than more "normal" bosses, though exceptions do exist (looking at you, Veld). It will mostly focus on the boss themselves and their own capabilities, but will take into account the surrounding enemies and their role in the map (whether the goal is to kill them, seize, rout the map, etc) when I feel like it's important.

This list will technically contain some mild spoilers but mostly nothing serious, except for one entry that's going to be spoiler texted the whole way because it's a bit of a big deal.

And right off the bat we're going with a hybrid entry that covers multiple enemies, although they do at least come from the same chapter

10. Scarlet, Takumi, Orochi and Reina (Conquest Chapter 13)

After several maps in a row of bosses who may be strong but are at least stationary (and two of whom are optional to fight at all), chapter 13 throws traditional bosses on thrones logic to the wind with no less than four bosses, all of whom move.

Up first you have Takumi on one side and Orochi on the other. Orochi brings a group of fellow magic users with her and carries the Calamity Gate scroll, which inverts the weapon triangle (much like reaver weapons) and Seal Resistance, creating a bit of a dilemma on how to approach her squad. A lance/shuriken user with solid resistance can normally handle them fine, but Orochi herself is pretty much designed to counter that kind of unit, and her minions won't necessarily attack if they can't do enough damage, instead waiting for their leader to tank your resistance first. A few units can still handle the whole group fine, notably Felicia if she's learned Tomebreaker, but it's definitely a bit tricky.

And at the same time, you need to deal with Takumi and his group of highly durable knights. Taking down the knights isn't easy and often requires two units to combine for a kill, leaving you with precious few units to prepare for Takumi, and he's a hard one to block off from attacking entirely thanks to the Fujin Yumi letting him ignore terrain penalties from almost everything and freeing him up to walk on water, which will catch you off guard if you don't realize he can do it. It's pretty rare for a Sniper to be used as a boss, but by making it difficult to keep all your frail units out of range of his powerful attacks they turn him into a serious threat.

And then the rest of the map will focus on Reina and Scarlet's groups. Both are powerful flying units with potent offense and come with friends to make it harder for a unit that can handle them one on one to actually get the chance to do so. Reina has Air Superiority and a bow to fend off your own powerhouse flyer Camilla, while Scarlet is scary as hell to fight on enemy phase thanks to Death Blow and she has Bowbreaker to make it harder to shoot her down, making it more likely you'll have to chip away at her and risk setting off her personal skill that boosts her crit rate at low health. Neither is unbeatable by any stretch of the imagination but both put a lot more pressure on you than your average "come at me bro" boss.

Which pretty much sums up this map as a whole, really.

Up next: An awful lot of elements of that last paragraph rear their heads once again in some form or another

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Hopefully soon to continue

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In fact, we're continuing right now

9. Arion (Genealogy Chapter 9)

I hope you're not tired of dracoknights (or wyvern riders, dragonmasters, wyvern lords, dracoriders...man these classes have had a lot of names)! Because the end of chapter 9 is going to bring four huge groups of them out to play. Three of them wander off to various castles to achieve jack shit because they all suck, but the fourth one that defends your final objective, Thracia castle, is a bit different. Stronger than the others and equipped with some trickier weaponry, notably the Sleep Edge wielders on the outside of the group, the highlight is their leader, Arion, arguably the most dangerous boss in the entire game.

The prince of Thracia comes with Pursuit, allowing him to double (because yes, this requires a skill in Genealogy), Adept to give him a chance to attack again on any given hit, and Nihil to negate critical hits and remove his weakness to arrows. He's also a powerhouse in general, with 70 HP, 26 strength, 21 speed and 27 defense, backed up by a whopping 5 leadership stars for +40 hit/avoid to himself and any allies within three tiles, making for an impressive adversary on its own...and that's before factoring in his weapon! The Gungnir has effectively 40 might and only 5 weight thanks to its +10 speed, and adds 10 defense just for kicks. And then just for kicks he has a Miracle Band, meaning his avoid skyrockets if he's reduced below 11 HP.

With 66 attack, Arion can one shot quite a few of your units, and 2HKOs everyone. 16 AS doubles a fair number of units, and even if you're faster than him the threat of 36% Adept activation looms. You do not ever want to allow him to get an attack off, but he's a 9 move flying unit accompanied by a whole bunch of others that you'll need to cut through to get to him, and his crew starts moving once you get in range of any one of them, so staying out of his range is easier said than done. 37 defense stymies almost all physical attacks, particularly most ranged ones, and combined with Miracle means chipping him down at low health is not an option. And naturally, his Sleep Edge minions can potentially put someone to sleep, leaving them open to annihilation.

Arion absolutely requires you to have a plan in place for how to tackle him the moment he starts moving. Luckily you do have a few options. If you had Arthur or Ced inherit the Forseti tome, they can capitalize on his low resistance by nuking him in two hits. Magic attackers in general can dish out hefty damage to him, so as long as you're wary about putting him into Miracle range you can take him down with a group effort. And even 37 defense and Nihil doesn't stop the Yewfelle from dishing out solid damage, though its accuracy can be pretty dubious. Or, if you're willing to blow one of the most expensive items in the game and can handle getting a staffbot in range while keeping them safe from the other enemies, you can use the Sleep staff to shut him down completely. It's even possible to avoid fighting him entirely if you really plan your dancing (and inherited the Rescue staff, since otherwise it's not available yet)!

It's pretty incredible that this guy is only the boss of the third last chapter. Arion is a monster in almost every way (even his 9 resistance, while a clear weakness, is solid for a physical unit in this game) and poses a massive threat to anyone who approaches him unprepared, but thankfully you can see him a few turns before you get to his range, giving you time to prepare, and you have enough options for dealing with him that you should be able to come up with a fairly reliable way of taking him down. It's a pretty neat deviation from the norm in Genealogy to have the final castle of a chapter be totally empty while the boss instead goes out onto the field to hunt you down, and it works to make for one of the games most memorable boss fights.

Up next: Another boss who, by coincidence I swear, ends up sharing a few qualities with the one we just discussed, though in this case they seem to have passed up one of the most important ones in favour of something that they seem to think benefits them more than it actually does...

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Arion is a great boss for sure. A shame he's not nearly as competent on your side in the final chapter.

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Yeah he just so happens to show up when the only enemies left happen to be some of the relatively few that make him look slow and/or can take hits from him like champs

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I promise this will be the last draco...wyvern...whatever you want to call it...on this list

8. Narcian (Binding Blade Chapter 16)

The evil and not exactly competent Narcian shows us what he's all about by being in a class known for its flying mobility and deciding that the best thing to do is to sit in place on a throne he doesn't even get stat bonuses from (thankfully). Which, to be fair, does sound like the kind of thing he would do.

Narcian is, as you might expect from one of the top leaders of the big scary Bern military (that we seem to spend strangely little time actually fighting), quite the powerhouse, with 20 strength and 22 defense to go with 18 speed, as well as 54 HP and a surprisingly high 13 resistance. He's also noteworthy for being one of the very few prominent wyvern lords in games where they can use swords who actually uses one, coming equipped with the Runesword that gives him 1-2 range and the ability to heal himself, and unlike Awakening and onwards Nosferatu, old school healing attacks like this restore the full amount of damage they deal, making it not the easiest thing in the world to get any damage you inflict to actually stick to the guy.

The other really interesting thing about Narcian is that he also comes with not one but two items you'll want to steal (thankfully, stealing in Binding Blade doesn't require you to be faster than your target). One is a Blue Gem, always nice to have and especially desirable in a game where you want to save up money for the Boots shop, and the other is the Delphi Shield that protects flying units from taking effective damage from bows (and the Aircalibur tome). Naturally, you'll want one of these for you own flying units, especially if you're masochistic enough to go to Sacae, and yoinking it has the added benefit of making Narcian himself vulnerable to arrows, making it easier to kill him.

So to tackle Narcian optimally, you'll need a thief, at least two free inventory spaces to actually hold the items he has (a potential problem on a map with a ton of other treasure to obtain, including two other stealable gems), and then some units to rescue drop you thief to safety before they get massacred on enemy phase, and of course, someone to actually kill the guy. Usually helps to have a way to kill the boss, I find! On a big map with lots of other stuff going on, albeit often just moving through the over-long and empty castle halls, and with some mild pressure in the form of the recruitable Douglas trying his best to suicide into you, it's not always easy to free up the units needed to make it all happen in a reasonable time frame, making for a surprisingly interesting boss for a guy that you'd expect at first glance to just die to a bow user like nothing.

Up next: A well armed guy you don't need to kill, but always will anyway

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It continues

7. Aias (Sacred Stones Chapter 13 Eirika route)

The boss of a defense map is often a bit of an oddity. While there are some that can be killed to end chapters early, hint hint, there are also plenty whose life or death has no impact on completing the chapter. Denning the living meme from FE7, Takumi in Conquest chapter 10, Ike himself in Radiant Dawn's 3-13 (which also has a meme sniper...I must have snipers on the mind today or something) and many others all serve the dubious roles of being "bosses" that you don't even have to bother with if you don't want to. In some cases, there isn't even much of an incentive to fight them! Generally speaking the ones you actually want to fight are the more interesting, naturally.

And that brings us to Aias, a great knight who, much like Narcian, decided that the best way to take advantage of being mounted was to never move, although he does at least benefit from the fort he's standing on. You'll want to kill this guy for two reasons, the first being the Knight Crest he drops, and the second being, of course, that the chapter ends when you do. And this map features a pretty nasty group of reinforcements towards the end, with a ton of enemies backed up by a moving siege tome boss, so you definitely want to get out before that happens. On the other hand, you probably *don't* want to end the map as early as you can, because doing so prevents you from being able to recruit Cormag, who spawns on turn 5 and doesn't enter a square Eirika can reach to talk to until turn 6. So even if you have everything set up to get the boss kill, you might have to hold out against his reinforcements for a time anyway, making things a bit more complicated.

And Aias himself is certainly no pushover. He may be quite slow, but he's also tremendously durable, with 48 HP, 20 defense and 13 resistance, and 19 strength ensures he'll be hitting hard. He's also very well equipped, starting off with a Short Spear in hand but also having a Silver Blade to switch over to against axe users or just for extra damage, and a Swordslayer of all things to annihilate units like Gerik who would otherwise match up well against him. Most of your units struggle to do meaningful damage, but the magic users who can hit his lower resistance stat can't hope to take two hits from his Short Spear, limiting how many rounds of combat they can safely engage him in due to needing to be healed after each one. Axes can handle the Short Spear but will struggle to even land a hit if he switches to the Silver Blade, and the best axe user, Gerik, is both lacking axe rank and gets wrecked by the Swordslayer. You have a Horseslayer, but its effective 21 might is 1 less than his defense + fort bonus, which is good but far from great and has shaky accuracy. It performs much better if he switches to the blade, but then you have to find someone that can bait him into using it on enemy phase.

And that's basically what makes him interesting, his weapon variety. Few units perform well against all of them, with even Seth needing to fight with weapon triangle advantage against his Silver Blade to perform truly well against him. He ends up being a boss that you tend to have to wear down over the course of an entire turn or even two, thinking about which of his weapons he's going to be using on enemy phase at all times to ensure you're not accidentally leaving someone in position to get wrecked (I may or may not have once had Gerik survive the Swordslayer with 1 HP remaining because I forgot to use the brain). If you're smart about it, you can bait him into whatever will benefit you most, for example finding a non-myrmidon/mercenary sword user to bait him over to the Swordslayer, which operates like a reaver weapon, and then getting to use the Horseslayer with double weapon triangle advantage. Because Aias so durable, you end up having to actually engage his gimmick instead of just ignoring it by wrecking him before he can even do anything. For a random dude that exists for one chapter, he's got a surprisingly versatile set up that makes him less straight forward to tackle than most Fire Emblem bosses.

Up next: Another well armed guy you don't need to kill, except this time you probably won't even try...? That's weird...

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It amuses me that, if you let Aias live, he predicts (correctly) that Caellach would have killed him whether he succeeded or failed... and yet, he still showed up. Caellach's got that charisma, yo!
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Panthera posted...

I promise this will be the last draco...wyvern...whatever you want to call it...on this list

8. Narcian (Binding Blade Chapter 16)

The evil and not exactly competent Narcian shows us what he's all about by being in a class known for its flying mobility and deciding that the best thing to do is to sit in place on a throne he doesn't even get stat bonuses from (thankfully). Which, to be fair, does sound like the kind of thing he would do.

Narcian is, as you might expect from one of the top leaders of the big scary Bern military (that we seem to spend strangely little time actually fighting), quite the powerhouse, with 20 strength and 22 defense to go with 18 speed, as well as 54 HP and a surprisingly high 13 resistance. He's also noteworthy for being one of the very few prominent wyvern lords in games where they can use swords who actually uses one, coming equipped with the Runesword that gives him 1-2 range and the ability to heal himself, and unlike Awakening and onwards Nosferatu, old school healing attacks like this restore the full amount of damage they deal, making it not the easiest thing in the world to get any damage you inflict to actually stick to the guy.

The other really interesting thing about Narcian is that he also comes with not one but two items you'll want to steal (thankfully, stealing in Binding Blade doesn't require you to be faster than your target). One is a Blue Gem, always nice to have and especially desirable in a game where you want to save up money for the Boots shop, and the other is the Delphi Shield that protects flying units from taking effective damage from bows (and the Aircalibur tome). Naturally, you'll want one of these for you own flying units, especially if you're masochistic enough to go to Sacae, and yoinking it has the added benefit of making Narcian himself vulnerable to arrows, making it easier to kill him.

So to tackle Narcian optimally, you'll need a thief, at least two free inventory spaces to actually hold the items he has (a potential problem on a map with a ton of other treasure to obtain, including two other stealable gems), and then some units to rescue drop you thief to safety before they get massacred on enemy phase, and of course, someone to actually kill the guy. Usually helps to have a way to kill the boss, I find! On a big map with lots of other stuff going on, albeit often just moving through the over-long and empty castle halls, and with some mild pressure in the form of the recruitable Douglas trying his best to suicide into you, it's not always easy to free up the units needed to make it all happen in a reasonable time frame, making for a surprisingly interesting boss for a guy that you'd expect at first glance to just die to a bow user like nothing.

Up next: A well armed guy you don't need to kill, but always will anyway

Yeah, I just finished this map and boy am I tired.
It's also interesting because the treasures are actually spread out between the left side and right side of the map, so for extra efficacy you'd want to bring two thieves.
My promoted Lugh took him out in one attack by doubling him with an Aircalibur, thankfully. And I just let Chad tank the attack for the first round.

Boy, this map was kind of a headache since I only brought one thief, I didn't have enough money for Hugh and finally decided to off him, and had Rutger play keep-away with Douglas. >_>

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Man, the middle FEs really had an obsession with generals that are an absolute nightmare to recruit. Hannibal, Xavier and Douglas may have the three worst recruitment criteria in the series.

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Mewtwo59 posted...

Man, the middle FEs really had an obsession with generals that are an absolute nightmare to recruit. Hannibal, Xavier and Douglas may have the three worst recruitment criteria in the series.

that's some serious radiant dawn disrespect with stefan, oliver, and lehran.

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xp1337 posted...

that's some serious radiant dawn disrespect with stefan, oliver, and lehran.

Stefan isn't hard to do at all, just obtuse. Hannibal, Xavier, and Douglas aren't just obtuse, they're also difficult to execute as well. The only surprising thing about Oliver's recruitment is that you'd assume he wouldn't be recruitable at all- other than that, he's fairly simple to actually recruit. Lehran, sure, but he's a secret character only recruitable on a second playthrough and only available for one map, so his circumstances are a little different
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Yeah, Oliver is simple if you know how to recruit him. You don't even really need to expose Rafiel either because Oliver recruits himself. Stefan isn't really any worse than in PoR, and might even be a little better since Micaiah doesn't have movement penalties in the sand.

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MalcolmMasher posted...

It amuses me that, if you let Aias live, he predicts (correctly) that Caellach would have killed him whether he succeeded or failed... and yet, he still showed up. Caellach's got that charisma, yo!

It takes some serious dedication to being a generic boss to show up for work even when you know you're dead no matter the outcome.

Raka_Putra posted...

Yeah, I just finished this map and boy am I tired.
It's also interesting because the treasures are actually spread out between the left side and right side of the map, so for extra efficacy you'd want to bring two thieves.
My promoted Lugh took him out in one attack by doubling him with an Aircalibur, thankfully. And I just let Chad tank the attack for the first round.

Boy, this map was kind of a headache since I only brought one thief, I didn't have enough money for Hugh and finally decided to off him, and had Rutger play keep-away with Douglas. >_>

The power of chest keys! Lot easier when you only need one thief because you have keys for the doors/chests on the other side, and also bring a sleep staff to use on Douglas.

Mewtwo59 posted...

Man, the middle FEs really had an obsession with generals that are an absolute nightmare to recruit. Hannibal, Xavier and Douglas may have the three worst recruitment criteria in the series.

Xavier is his own special level of hell. I love how warp skipping the map doesn't recruit him, even though you killed the boss, saved all of his troops and kept all their family members safe and, judging by chapter 20, took all the Freege knights prisoner anyway, meaning there's zero reason for him to not join...but nope, you have to go through the whole process to get him.

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Sorry for the brief hiatus, been engrossed in some other things, and it hasn't helped that this is probably the hardest write up to do because I struggle to put into words why this guy actually amuses me so...

6. Paulus (Thracia 776 Chapter 14)

Paulus first appears in chapter 13, talking briefly to the boss of that map and telling him to not idiotically charge in before their reinforcements show up and get himself killed. Said boss proceeds to idiotically charge in before their reinforcements show up and gets himself killed. Oddly enough, if Paulus himself stopped being so hesitant and just idiotically charged in himself, things would probably be a hell of a lot tougher, given he would be quite the powerful foe to have moving around the map instead of just sitting in a corner doing nothing.

Thracia chapter 14 is a weird one, often held in high regard for being the first true defense map in the series and for feeling like a big, epic battle if you try to run out and fight the swarms of enemies on every front. Unfortunately, it suffers from a slight problem, namely that when designing the map someone forgot to think about what would happen if you actually took the objective of defending to heart and simply defended the central area. By parking an unarmed mounted unit (or 20 constitution foot unit, it just needs to be someone immune to being captured) in each of three choke points just outside ballista range, it's impossible to even lose because the enemies have no way of threatening anyone except the person at the bottom choke point, who can be backed up by charm from Nanna and the Kingmaker sword, plus support bonuses if you know about those, to face negligible hit rates. And you have multiple units that can fulfill these roles even at their base stats, or base stats plus promotion bonus in the case of Finn. And it takes long enough for enemies to get into the city that you can complete every side objective before they do if you want.

Well, except for one, which is getting the Dragon Lance for Dean. It's more trouble than it's worth in general (base level Dean already handles basically every combat task you might ever need him for) but if you do want it (and it *is* a pretty strong weapon and would be great in a game that wasn't this one) you have to get through an iron ballista (rather lethal to Dean, the guy who has to visit the house in the first place), a bolting tome, several killer lance knights and, of course, end up right next to the main boss of the chapter (not to be confused with the mini-boss, Baldack, who moves, sometimes, and is generally capable of being a nuisance depending on how his AI and movement star play out) Paulus. You could just use a warp and a rescue to not care but that's a lot of work for one weapon, plus Dean probably wants to leave the city (and thus the reach of your warpers) to collect the Nosferatu tome in the south east anyway. So it ends up being a fun little challenge, if you want to engage in it.

All this writing and barely anything has even been said about Paulus himself. That's because, well, the most interesting thing about his role in the map is how superfluous he is. He's quite strong, with capped defense and nearly capped strength, a respectable 12 speed and comes well equipped with a Master Axe (basically an inaccurate 1-2 range brave axe) and a Tornado tome (which is just a strong 1-2 range tome that also weighs him down to nothing). His "mere" 18 constitution means you can even capture him if you really want to, although the odds of success won't be very good given how tough he is, not to mention he has Pavise to randomly fuck you over. And he has 4 leadership stars, granting all enemies on the map +12 hit/avoid, which would seem like a good incentive to get rid of him.

But in practice, you almost never bother. For newer players, they get too overwhelmed fighting in the city streets to ever get close to him. People who learn how broken the chapter is can just sit back and be in zero danger, having no reason to even get close to him. This guy shows up a chapter in advance to seemingly be established as important and his dialogue prior to the map itself seems to try to make him seem somewhat sympathetic, but you don't even have any real incentive to engage with him. It's a very weird choice. Oh the fact that you can just turtle to break the map effortlessly was probably not intended, but the infinite reinforcements mean the whole "get bogged down fighting and never reach him" part clearly was. And there's a dick move of ambush spawn Ridersbane wyvern riders (who infamously appear as green units who nonetheless attack you, despite the game having previously used green units to indicate friendly NPCs) late in the map just on the off chance you did send people down there, although they don't always move because this game is full of strange AI that only randomly does things.

On a list full of bosses who are interesting and/or challenging obstacles due to their own strength or their circumstances, Paulus sticks out like a sore thumb as a complete afterthought who has no impact whatsoever on the map. It's so strange that I can't help but find it interesting. And it is kind of fun to try to figure out a way to kill him regardless of how pointless it is. In fact, the potential to have fun by going after him and his crew is why this chapter escaped serious consideration for my bottom ten chapters list. No, I don't know why a guy I don't even care to fight half the time makes that much of a difference, but somehow he does.

Up next: Hopefully a more consistent update schedule! And a very different kind of interesting boss (who is also, technically, optional now that I think about it) who just might have gotten some coverage earlier...

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I have no intro for this entry besides this sentence. Probably because I did kind of talk about it during one of the chapter write ups. Well, I guess I did have more than that one sentence after all.

5. Manfroy (Genealogy Final)

The penultimate boss of Genealogy and one of its main villains, arguably *the* main villain, is pretty oddly positioned, guarding a castle on the other side of the one where the actual final boss lurks. Of course, it makes sense since you have to deal with Manfroy to get access to the tool you're intended to defeat Julius with, though it is possible to beat him anyway. And you have reason to hurry up in trying to take him on. It's a spoiler to go into too much detail, so I'll spoiler tag the explanation and any direct references to what is going on here. Manfroy has mind controlled Julia into attacking Seliph, and you have to kill him before you can free her.

The biggest challenge in taking on Manfroy is that he's not alone. Guarding the path to him are six dark mages wielding Sleep staffs, which have 10 range and are guaranteed to hit anyone whose resistance is lower than the users magic, and Hel tomes, which are 1-2 range weapons with low hit but that reduce your HP to one if they hit you. And they start moving once you get within their range! While it doesn't sound too hard to bait them out (a unit with high enough resistance can get in their sleep range to get them moving early despite not having a target), you have some serious time pressure as alluded to before, which can be quite extreme depending on how long you're willing to waste on trying to bait the AI into a worse position. Few units in Genealogy have good resistance, so only a small part of your army can afford to get into Sleep range, and no one wants to take the risk of a Hel tome unless they're guaranteed to be out of range of everything on enemy phase or can be healed up immediately. On the other hand, you pretty much have to bait them into moving because they block the path off to Manfroy, and it's already hard enough to get units up there safely without having to bring yet another along to kill off a generic and clear the path for the boss killer (AKA Seliph).

And then Manfroy himself doesn't make life any easier on you. If you do try to storm in before his minions start moving, you'll have to deal with his Charm skill and 4 leadership stars giving +40 hit/avoid to the ones closest to him, including the one you need to kill to clear a path. Even a 60 hit tome is scary with that kind of boost. And anyone who strays within ten squares of him will have to face his Fenrir tome, packing enough attack to finish off even some units who have been healed up from 1 HP if they weren't healed by someone with high magic or the Recover staff. And with 150 hit he's not going to miss much. Then when you get close, you have to fight his Jormungand tome, with an extra twenty hit and 6 more might, bringing him up to an impressive 49 attack, the highest of any non-holy weapon user you'll ever have to face. And he has Adept too, of course. And Pursuit but he's too slow to really make much use of it. Seliph with his monstrous +20 resistance Tyrfing can take it just fine of course, but few other units can chance it. And even Seliph can't do it if he's too low on HP, which the gauntlet leading to Manfroy can often make happen if you're not careful.

Surprisingly though, Manfroy's offense, though impressive, is not really his biggest asset. It's actually his durability of all things. This old man has 80 HP, 23 defense and 27 resistance, meaning he's actually the overall bulkiest non-holy weapon assisted enemy in the entire game. And with leadership and the castle bonus bringing him to 90 avoid, he's not even easy to hit either. Even Seliph with a brave sword or Tyrfing (its +10 skill gives it effectively the same hit as the brave sword) caps out at 74 hit on him. You can of course bring Charm units up to help with that, but as mentioned repeatedly it's not always easy to get people up here safely. And even with a power ring and capped strength, Seliph with the Tyrfing can only do 37 damage per hit, or 19 with a brave sword, either of which falls just short of ORKOing. It's likely intentional that Manfroy has exactly enough defense to survive even four brave sword hits from Seliph, and it's quite a change from the past few maps where most castle bosses can be ORKO'd fairly easily by Seliph.

Of course, if you know about mechanics the game doesn't explain, you can have a brave sword with 50+ kills on it (always a good thing to work on getting during a Genealogy playthrough), giving it the potential to get critical hits, which can chew through Manfroy quite quickly, though you still need to worry about accuracy and the lack of a resistance boost means you need to be at much higher HP to do it safely. Ares with his innately giant crit rate on Mistletainn can likewise have a solid chance at killing and can obviously canto away to let Seliph seize (important with those Hel mages still around!), and he has better accuracy thanks to Mistletainn's +20 skill. And you can always chip with a unit that can take two hits if need be, since it only takes 4 damage to set Seliph up for the kill (he almost always will cap strength and a power ring is generally a smart investment on him). So it's not like you're screwed or anything here. You also have a four way dancer, the Rescue staff (on a mounted unit thanks to Leif, no less), the Leg Ring, etc to help with getting people in range. It's definitely doable, just fairly tricky.

Manfroy is fairly "simple" to kill, in that he doesn't require you to bait him out (since he doesn't even move) or trick him to switch weapons (since enemies auto-equip whatever weapon lets them counter in Genealogy) or do anything fancy to make him stay dead, like a certain final boss does, but actually setting it up can be anything but. He's a boss that is defined by the entire situation in which you fight him and the way it doesn't allow you to take your time moreso than by his own, admittedly impressive, capabilities.

Up next: Do you like spoiler tags? Because this entry will be spoiler tagged down to the very name. Especially the name, really. Which probably makes it a little awkward to try and guess...unless you list the game your guess comes from openly but tag the name?

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Hegemon Edelgard?
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Maybe (FE10) Lehran? There are a couple spoilery bosses in Fates, too.

I think I sent Seliph to solo Manfroy because I was used to him being basically unstoppable. As you might imagine, I had to send backup soon after.

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Both Paulus and Manfroy sound intense. The older games kinda sound...uh, less balanced? Or having more obscure, underlaying systems in place. I'm kinda scared to try them out.

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Raka_Putra posted...

Both Paulus and Manfroy sound intense. The older games kinda sound...uh, less balanced? Or having more obscure, underlaying systems in place. I'm kinda scared to try them out.

Manfroy isn't that bad, honestly- Geneology gives you some ridiculous tools by the endgame
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Mystery of the Emblem is actually pretty easy to understand (Gaiden is as well, it's just super archaic), and Genealogy's more obscure mechanics are generally not essential to understand at first, though it has a lot of special events that can be missed, some of which are easy to find out (since the game lists who can talk with who), some of which...aren't (random peninsulas sometimes contain cool items if a specific character goes to them). Thracia is really the big offender of having a lot of stuff the game is clearly balanced around you using being unexplained in the game, which probably contributes to its reputation a lot - it can be very difficult on a blind playthrough, but if you actually know how it works it's pretty easy for the most part (barring chapters 4, 4x and 5, which are tough no matter what).

Less balanced is a good way to put it though. The older games definitely tend to expect you to abuse your strongest options to get by in ways that the later games either don't do (the GBA games) or only do on higher difficulties. On the flip side, they tend to give you really, *really* strong options, such that if you do abuse them you don't have a very hard time - the first five games are overall among the easiest in the series, especially to an experienced player.

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If you're at all interested in the plot of Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn and don't want anything major about it spoiled, I would suggest not reading this one.

4. Sephiran/Lehran (Radiant Dawn 4-E-4)

The boss you can't even reference by either of his names without giving away a lot about the story! Though in fairness, I imagine most people got the sense there was probably something up with him from his first appearance in Path of Radiance, what with him possessing a skill that makes him literally invincible and all.

I'll be sticking to calling him Sephiran since that's what he's referred to as throughout the games by far the most often.

Anyway. Sephiran shows up looking somewhat underwhelming on first glance compared to the bonkers stats of the previous boss, Dheginsea. With only half as much HP, noticeably worse defensive stats, way less attack and his only seeming advantage being extra speed that is partially counter-acted by his tome weighing him down for some reason, leaving him at a mere 2 AS higher than the dragon king, he doesn't exactly look the part of a penultimate boss. Even the free +10 defense he gets from an item in his inventory that brings him up to 35 doesn't exactly impress after the ludicrous 50 defense Dheginsea had. But despite this, Sephiran manages to be much more interesting than the straightforward "your stats must be this high to fight me" approach his predecessor brought to the table.

First off, his seemingly minor 2 AS advantage is actually kind of important, as very few non-laguz classes have a speed cap that can double 32 AS. In fact, it's only Trueblade, Seraph Knight (none of whom are really good units due to availability issues), Whisper (neither of whom are even vaguely functional for combat at this stage), Ike and Volke, and Ike often requires some BEXP abuse to reach that kind of speed on his own. Even the monstrous Caineghis falls short at 34 speed, making for one of the very rare advantages Giffca has over him. Though the other laguz royals can double no problem and you have Nasir's White Pool to give +5 speed to anyone adjacent to him to help out, it nonetheless limits your options for units who can dish out significant damage.

And that's an important point because you can find yourself running low on units to attack with due to the main gimmick Sephiran brings to the table, which is the enemy spirits on the map. Not that they're overly powerful or anything, of course. Their ability to teleport around makes them a nuisance, but they're not too threatening to most units and only some of them move at first, plus the floor is full of wardwood tiles that give you a huge resistance buff, enough to handle their attacks quite comfortably. The actual problem is that the four spirits surrounding Sephiran himself will take otherwise lethal attacks aimed at him, forcing you to kill them off to be able to actually take him on directly. And they respawn every turn. And Sephiran himself heals 40 HP every turn, preventing you from just chipping him down over time.

So actually killing this guy is surprisingly complex, especially if you want to do it quickly (and you do, given that he has some nasty map attacks to throw out). You need to cover a lot of ground to get to him, then cut through all of his protectors (who come on defensive terrain, naturally) and only then can you actually finish him off, and while he's no Dheginsea his durability is still enough to keep that from being a mere formality. And if you try and fail, he can teleport across the map, bringing his guardian spirits with him, forcing you to do it all over again.

He also of course has Corona to potentially nuke anyone who lacks Nihil, but that's pretty much to be expected by this point. Does further limit your options and force you to not commit the people you gave Nihil to attacking spirits without good reason for fear they won't be able to help with Sephiran.

This chapter is generally very short with nothing to do but charge up and take on the boss, but it manages to be pretty interesting due to how tricky the process of setting up the boss kill can be. Sephiran is not exactly my favourite character, but his distinct gimmick in gameplay certainly makes for a cool battle.

Up next: No more spoiler text! A very strange boss with a very strange gimmick (both in gameplay and story) that can be solved with a clever exploitation of something that you could easily argue doesn't even qualify as a game mechanic.

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My first thought was RD Black Knight with the gimmick being that silly map division and the clever exploitation being a Hammer but idk don't feel like that's right.

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