Mechanic Design 101 - Magic
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- čas přidán 23. 02. 2024
- This week is a primer on Magic, the necessary information we NEED to cover before we can talk specifically about mages. It's a bit more dense than my usual Unit Design 101 lessons, but it's necessary to get this out of the way first so our actual discussion of mages won't get bogged down by having to explain how magic works in every game.
Why Tellius is the WORST for Mages: • Why Tellius is the WOR...
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Great video! I want to expand on your mention of Light Magic in the FE6~8 Era.
In FE6, monks didn't exist, and the basic Lightning/Divine tomes for bishops hadn't been made heavy nor crit focused like in the next two games. They weigh 1 and 3 respectively, but they have worse accuracy than Anima tomes!
In FE7/8, the 'low might and heavy' Light tomes you recall came into effect, but they are, if nothing else, very accurate weapons. The video still rings true on calling Light Magic inferior to Anima, they're more expensive and the high weight of divine is a real problem for characters like Lucius and Artur.
Leaving another comment to talk about how strong Magic is in Engage:
Having completed a couple maddening playthroughs, the video was incorrect to say that def and res are relatively similar. The average enemy has notably less res than def, and lategame armors have extreme differences of around 30. Even accounting for more typical units, a mage carry can reliably one-round basically any enemy at 1-2 range without needing crits, and you don't need expensive skill inheritance to make your build work -- get a bolganone, dump on your spirit dusts, add speedtaker and you have a unit that can obliterate entire maps. A friend of mine did an impressive maddening LTC with Citrinne.
The fragility of mages is far less of a problem in Engage and sometimes a BENEFIT as you can abuse bonded shield to cover for them, drawing enemies to uselessly strike at the low defense mage for 0 damage while getting one-rounded in return at 1-2 range regardless of enemy type.
yeah, i was going to say - most enemies in engage have similar magical benchmarks because the high res units have awful hp compared to the massive hp pools of the high def enemies, so if a magical unit can kill one unit, the odds that they can kill every unit on the map is much higher than if they were a physical attacker.
Yeah, you can get something like a 2 times 40 DMG
Great video! 🥰
One detail regarding FE17 Engage: whilst overall, Def stats are comparable to Res stats in that game, units with high Def tend to also have high HP, whilst units with high Res tend to have low HP.
As a result, it's easier to one-round an enemy with high Res than an enemy with high Def. Thus, Mag benchmarks to reliably defeat enemies are lower (and not higher) than Str benchmarks.
I like having the different magic types on style alone. But I do want to talk about the Magic triangle and how the magic types stacked up.
FE4: I actually don't have much to say here despite being this game being the origin. Wind was flat out better than Thunder and especially Fire, magic triangle bonuses aside. Gen 1 Chapter 4 had several enemy wind mages that shook up things at least. Light was rare but generally strong, almost never seen used by the enemy. Dark was enemy-only but hit hard. Hope we get a dark tome user in a future remake. Fire magic loses here due to just being heavier than other types with no advantages to show for it.
FE5: The magic trinity was less lopsided against fire, but wind was still the best of those 3. Light had few tomes but was strong. You finally get a dark mage and there are lots of tomes with special effects... that either don't apply to enemies, or you can't obtain. Dark tomes are also quite heavy. Dark magic loses here, at least on the player side.
FE6: Most tomes had low weight compared to other games even the dark tomes. Anima was good all-around, had the most practitioners, and had Aircalibur for anti-flyer utility. Anima users didn't take advantage of the triangle bonuses as much due to Bishops having higher res anyways. Light magic was about as strong as Anima, less accurate, had few tomes, and only Bishops could use it. Still somewhat useful as protection against Dark magic users thanks to magic triangle advantage and the high res of bishops. The legendary light tome Aureola bonuses (+5 RES) reflected this. Dark magic had the weird effects and high damage tomes. Sending dark mages against anima users had some practical use, thanks to Dark tomes hitting harder and sages having less res than other magic users. Light magic loses here.
FE7: Most of what I said in FE6 applies here with some changes. All magic tomes are heavier, especially light tomes for some reason. Light is now the most accurate and has a crit-bonus but has low might. Monks provide more opportunities for light magic combat. Anima lost Aircalibur, but is still good all around. Dark gets a busted tome in Luna. Light loses here.
FE8: Mostly same deal as FE7 except now some promoted classes can use more than 1 magic type, giving some versatility. Wanna see a Druid use the legendary anima tome Excalibur? You could try it! Light magic got an indirect buff thanks to the bishop's slayer skill tripling might against monsters and the preference of monsters using dark magic. Don't have much to say on Anima but Excalibur is awesome. Luna got nerfed and the Glenphir dark tome has no effective bonus against monsters... so dark magic loses here but not lopsidedly.
FE9: They brought back the FE4 triangle of magic! Wind is accurate and light but pathetically weak. Thunder is strongest and heaviest with some crit bonus. Fire is the middle ground. Light is the worst, heavy and weak and doesn't interact with the other types. No dark magic. Light loses here.
FE10: They combined the Elemental trinity (let's call it anima) with the GBA Light/Dark trinity interactions. So now the "anima" types beat light, light beats dark, and dark beats "anima". Among the anima types, Thunder got nerfed. Wtf were they thinking giving it low might, now it's the weakest. Anima still is better off than light, combat wise. Light has low weight but is shafted thanks to low might and the rarity of enemy dark magic users, compared to the high amount of anima users. Dark could win out here on high might alone... if it wasn't 2nd playthrough exclusive and locked behind 2 late game units. Lots of light magic enemies too. I would say Thunder magic is the worst since at least Michaiah has the Thani bomb.
Great video, i enjoyed your breakdowns being clear and concise with how different magic is game to game.
3Houses magic "mechanic" leans towards chip damage with Thoron, caduceus and Thyrsus.
On top of that there's a noticeable difference at higher ranks where magic gets +1range while other weapons get crit +10.
And I guess poison strike being locked to a master class sorcerer, I think, kinda implies that.
Then again, that utility is questionable when crit build hunter's volley is a thing that can one round enemies.
Can't wait for the Unit 101 for magic
One thing that's a really big deal throughout the series is that high resistance enemies tend to have low HP, meaning that they can usually still be taken out by mages with a little more effort than usual unless their resistance is INSANELY high. I personally think mages need to be made less squishy, and armor knights and other high defense units need less HP
Armor knights dont usually have a lot of hp in the first place, the damage issues some mages have is usually a direct result of low base stats. Also buffing mages bulk kind of defeats the purpose of their main weakness and doesn't address much about weaker mages.
@@sagegang6957 i mean, they dont have the HP of fighters or berserkers, but i still feel that giving armors lower HP and higher defense will make their strengths and weaknesses more interesting and honestly more balanced. i find that in most games, physical units can handle fighting armor knights just fine, and that seems weird. armor knights also need better combat just in general to make up for their weaknesses, but thats an entirely separate issue.
A detail but i like the idea of giving pegasi in general HIGH hp and high res, but lower def so they can be true anti mage tanks while still being able to survive some physical hits. Could also do stuff like giving some spcific bow users a bit higher res to be on par, nd ofc bishops balkyries and sages should have good res too. These are valid points for both enemy and player team btw
Let's go!
Magic isn't a mechanic, nor does it have mechanics, but apart from some clumsy language the content here is good.