domingo, 17 de julio de 2016

Gaming Ideas: How would a Light Sage/Priestess Class be in Fire Emblem Fates?

Hi Ladies and gentlemen! This article will be different from other things I have already published. This time I want to explain some ideas I though about Fire Emblem Fates after thinking one day 

"How could be Micaiah if she was a Amiibo/DLC Character in Fates?"


Micaiah Cipher Official Art by 40hara


The first thing I want to talk about is a little comparison between the other magic and the Amiibo classes.

1.- How exactly are balanced the other classes?



First step is to determine the class's caps and growths (this include Staff Classes too)


The highest Magic Cap


Tome-Based Classes

Witch (36) > Sorcerer (35) > Onmyoji/Grandmaster (33) > Dark Flier (32) > Dark Knight/Nohr Noble (31) > Basara/Malig Knight (30) > Oni Chieftain (28)

Staff-Based Classes

Strategist (33) > Adventurer/Butler/Maid (31) > Great Master (30) > Hoshido Noble (28) > Falcon Knight (27)

Other Amiibo Classes

Lodestar (26) > Vanguard/Great Lord (25)


The highest overall Cap (without HP)


215+
Lodestar (222) > Basara (219) > Great Master/Priestress (218) > Falcon Knight/Great Lord (216) >

215-210
Butler/Maid (215) > Dark Knight/Hoshido Noble/Grandmaster (213) > Dark Flier (212) > Nohr Noble (211) >

210-
Oni Chieftain/Vanguard (209) > Strategist (207) > Witch/Adventurer (205) > Onmyoji (204) > Sorcerer/Malig Knight (203)

The highest overall growths


90: 
- Basara (Extremely balanced, focused in HP/Lck)
- Lodestar (DLC, Focused extremely on Skl/Lck)

85: 
- Nohr Noble (Lord Class, Hybrid, Focused on HP/Mag/Spd/Res) 
- Great Master (Extremely Balanced, focused on Str/Lck) 
- Priestress (Magical Hybrid, Focused on Spd/Lck/Res)
- Falcon Knight (Hybrid without Def/HP, Focused on Spd/Lck/Res)
- Hoshido Noble (Lord Class, Focused on HP/Str/Def)

80: 
- Chieftain (Hybrid without skill, extremely focused on Str/Def)
- Dark Knight (Hybrid focused on HP/Str/Def), 
- Dark Flier (DLC, Hybrid, focused on Mag/Spd/Lck/Res) 
- Great Lord (Balanced without magic, focused on HP/Str/Lck)
- Grandmaster (DLC, Hybrid without Lck, focused on Str/Mag/Skl/Res)

75: 
- Butler/Maid (Balanced without HP, focused on Skl/Spd) 
- Vanguard (DLC, extremely focused on HP/Str/Def)

70:  
- Witch (Extremely focused in Mag/Spd, minor focus Res, has low luck)

65: 
- Strategist (Focused on Mag/Spd/Res/Lck, specially the latter) 
- Malig Knight (Focused on Str/Mag/Res, lacks luck)
Adventurer (Magical Hybrid, Focused on Mag/Spd/Res, lacks luck)

60: 
- Onmyoji (Focused in Mag/Skl/Spd/Res, lacks luck)
- Sorcerer (Extremely Focused in Mag/Res, minor focus in Def, lacks luck)

Links to the data's source: http://serenesforest.net/fire-emblem-fates/

Conclusion: The class that are extremely focused on Mag, Spd and/or Def (at least two of them) combo have low Total Growth and Total Caps (the exceptions to this rule are Nohr Noble, Dark Flier, Dark Knight and Grandmaster). 

The class that have high growths usually are luck-based (and some times also the skill-based) classes and some hybrids for their lack of focused-caps/growths (but with some exceptions)

Probably this balance is because Magic Damage is almost always better that Physical Damages, and give them a good speed and defense increase even more these classes Juggernaut's power, creating a intense unbalance in the classes.

Luck and skill are usually considered as the least important stats in a character (specially luck, that is only wanted to prevent lucky critical hits from enemies without Killer Weapons and 10-15 is usually enough). Skill is a stat that it's usefulness relies heavily on the enemies to face.

Fun fact: Lodestar and Basara are only behind General (95) the classes with the biggest total growhts.

Micaiah Light Priestess fanart by Tenmal/Tenmaru


2.- Defining Light Sage/Priestess Stats.


Now is time to adapt the class stats based on her RD!Light Priestess's Stats.

Light Sage/Priestess Caps


The Class in the original game has this caps.

HP STR MAG SKL SPD LCK DEF RES
50 22 40 35 33 40 23 40

(SS Tome Rank / SS Staff Rank)

This doesn't sound extremely different from the Fates style of Caps. We can begin trying something similar like what happened with the Great Lord's Caps. 


What I'm exactly talking about? Great Lord (the female/Lucina version) has these caps in Awakening:


HP STR MAG SKL SPD LCK DEF RES
80 40 30 42 44 45 40 40


In Fire Emblem Fates the Great Lord has these caps.


HP STR MAG SKL SPD LCK DEF RES
60 30 25 32 34 35 29 31

Have you noticed it? The caps (with the exception of magic/HP) are (almost) exactly 10 points lower than it was in the original game. And in the magic/HP's case the cap was adapted to the usual non-magic user Caps in the game.

With this already explained I'll put some examples of how could be the caps adapted to Fates's Standards.

Str/Def adapted to the lowest cap possible (25) and the rest of the stats reduced 5 points:

HPSTRMAGSKLSPDLCKDEFRES
5025353028352535

Total Caps (without HP): 212

These caps are overall high for the usual magician's standars. But there a little but important detail about this. Outside of Magic this class doesn't excel in any actually extremely useful stat (Str/Spd/Def).

But Light Sage/Priestess would still be a valuable unit in battle with its extremely great healing abilities and be able to resist a lot of magical punishment.

Additionally, the HP cap would be as the witch's: 50 (like in Radiant Dawn, and would still be the lowest HP Cap from the Amiibo Classes anyway).

Light Sage/Priestess Bases


The next step is to define the Class's Bases, with the caps already defined this a lot easier.

The Strength and Defense are the minimal possible (between promoted classes), Light Sage/Priestess would have (like Strategist) 0 Strenght and 2 Defense Base.

The Magic and Speed caps are similar to the Sorcerer's Caps. So, I see Light Sage/Priestess sharing the base stats: (9 and 6 respectly)

The Skill, Luck and Resistence caps are exactly as the Falcon Knight's Caps. So, it is extremely probable that its base stats are shared (6, 5 and 9 respectly)

And the HP base can fit the same logic applied to the HP Cap (shared with the Witch class: 17 base stat.). 

HP STR MAG SKL SPD LCK DEF RES
17 0 9 6 6 5 2 9



Light Sage/Priestess Growths


The third step is to define the class growths, and this is actually really easy: Give it high growths (20%) in the stats where the class is focused (Mag/Lck/Res) and give it minor growths (5%) growths in Skill and Speed to fill 70 total growth.


HPSTRMAGSKLSPDLCKDEFRES
00205520020


The class is complete stat-wise. 



HP STR MAG SKL SPD LCK DEF RES Total
Bases 17 0 9 6 6 5 2 9 54
Growth 0 0 20 5 5 20 0 20 70
Caps 50 25 35 30 28 35 25 35 262


Possible Light Sage/Priestess Skills


And finally, after defining the Class's Stats. It's time for the last step: The Skills.

Micaiah in her original game has two skills that are heavily related with her and her class: Sacrifice (her personal skill) and Corona (Light Priestess's Master Skill)

This already give us two options to work. The next option is take a skill related to the Micaiah's Traits. One example would be her foresight ability. In fact, I think would be a good idea give to the class a skill that it's name is actually "Foresight" that would work in the enemy's turn.

Finally, Micaiah would share the Marth's and Ike's "taker" skill. In her case the "Magictaker".

Order for the possible skills:

Level 1: 
Sacrifice: The character can heal status effects and can share HP with one adjacent unit.

Level 10:
Foresight: In the Enemy's Turn, Avoid + 15.

Level 25
Corona: Skill 0.5% chance to performe a hit that active Sol and Luna at the same time.

Level 35:
Magictaker: When user defeats the enemy, Magic +2 (up to 10) (does not overlap with other Taker skills and expires after the chapter)

Note: I know, the Corona version in this article actually works like the RD!Flare. But personally, I found this style of ability more appealing.

Note 2: These are just examples, if you think there are better ideas for skill you can always share it in the comment box.


- Troykv (The Dawn's Historian and Micaiah4Smash Main Admin)