A Look at Jagens
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
- 00:00 - Intro
01:54 - Jagen
05:08 - Seth
09:00 - Vander
12:19 - Oifey
14:20 - Conclusion and EXP Theft
Jagen's are one of the most omnipresent archetypes in Fire Emblem, and they've gone through a bunch of iterations! I look at a few of my favorites how they're designed differently, and how they perform in their games!
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Gonna just pin a comment addressing this because I've seen a few comments about it.
You should always play in the way you find fun and use the units you think are fun! I addressed the exp stealing argument because it's usually presented as a reason Jagen's are bad to use, and I disagree with that! But obviously, you don't have to use Jagens if you don't like them lol.
If you're not using a Jagen because you don't think they are fun, keep doing that!
To add to the exp stealing argument; using a Jagen can sometimes in practice actually "save" exp, because it's one unit you never have to feed exp to. In that sense, trainees are the worst exp thieves, because they need the biggest slice of the limited exp pool to become competent (still fine to use them obvs).
I like to strip them of their weapons and use them as a hit sponge while my other units pick off the baddies. Enemies usually focus on the Jagen since they're defenseless, making it slightly safer for the others to level up a bit easier. Also nice for healers to get some extra exp in if you're willing to spare the staves
Another note on exp thieves - in games where exp is scaled based on level, you generally get more by killing bosses with your Jagen. In early FE8 for example, Seth will get a full level for killing the boss - the equivalent of 100 normal goons. If Franz kills them, he'll get the equivalent of ~3 normal goons.
I amb a persón ho thinks that jageans are bad becose it makes it alowts obligatory that you feed exp to your weklings and then when you have ben atched to you jagen it berty you in some game sit isnat the jaignes falt like imagne we are in Fier emblem 1 and you use jagen to kill evertying a pleyer ho uses jagen will be at a desatbenteg becose the otginal jegen fals of and ther aren't any replecemnts i am on the minorty that thiks that using an army on ninos sophias or donals isnat fun i doen't like using them and makeing my hole army that week in conetsn isan't fun at all ant hta you get punish it is bad like i thinki in moust fier emble games the beingien is the harder part (especialy i eseter defileutys) due to carcter havin at low levels barly any perosnal satats compert to the enmys if you coem a unite in the rly game ho isnet jagen in the lower dificultys they are a lot cluse tho the enemy than buy the end
@@shuazi8803this. I love using jagens like this lmao, especially as a blockade in 1-tile wide hallways where I can bottleneck the enemy and use the jagen as a shield to get exp for archers because I like over leveling archers
Clearly Sigurd is the worst jagen. He falls off so fast halfway through the game he isn't even playable. Could you believe it?
I dunno man, I think Quan’s a worse Jagen personally. Man falls off hard after chapter 3.
Clearly Jeralt is worse jagen
He's a green unit
@@nodot17You know he's bad when the most optimal way to handle him in the chapter he dies is to have a warper warp him in an unaccesible tile so he can't get out and charges in to the enemies
Gunter is the worst of the lot. By chapter four he literally falls off.
@@Kleowi Gunter fell off.... but he got better
No of course I don't fall off
Your forged ridersbane, sir
Did someone lose their grandpa?
Can I pick my favorite Jagen based on their quotes? Because my favorite Jagens would be Frederick telling enemies to "Pick a god and pray" and Seth asking a series of questions ending in "Why do you conceal a blade within your doublet?"
Frederick is best boi
If Orson just had a sheathed blade that he wore on his belt, he probably wouldn't be called out.
Seth is the best Seth because he's very Seth.
But actually I really like how Sothe works as a Jagen, because he can change weapons to control when he gets kills, and can provide thief and hidden item utility even if you want to go nuts with training Dawn Brigade scrubs.
Yeah the early game of RD is actually my favorite part, and Sothe being fun to use is a big part of that!
Sothe has this nice balance of not being strong enough to absolutely murder everything with every weapon but still strong enough to kick ass wenn needed.
Seth just pretty much murks everything that isn't on a tree by three which makes a good unit but a bad Jagen. :D
Similar with Sigurd who is his own Jagen.
I somehow can't see Frederick as a Jagen. The other units catch up very quickly to him, so he doesn't stand out for too long and you usually just second seal him into a base class as soon as you can anyway.
15:15 You forgot the third and most critical reason: nearly every game has some NPC that tells you "Hey! [Jagen Unit] will steal EXP from your other units! *Don't overrely on them!*" Thus, many people will misinterpret that advice as "Don't use [Jagen Unit], period."
I remember playing por for the first time and.going "ok titania is rly good, her growths probably suck." She then got a full stat level up and i realized what a monster IS made
Back in the day I had truly internalized the "don't use your Jagen" advice. My first game was PoR and I relied a lot on Titania, to the point that when I got to the BK fight, my Ike was super untrained and he got SMEARED. So I looked up advice online, started a new game, did not so much as LOOK at Titania, and I ended up playing the other games in that same way for a long time. It took a WHILE for me to truly have my mind changed.
RD was a very special hell bc I would Not use volug, I would Not use nailah, I would Not use sothe, I would Not use tauroneo, I would Not use BK, etc etc. it was pretty intense
Mines wasn't jagen related but I just really didn't like calvary at all so I didn't use it when I was younger eventually I did use them took forever tho xD
I used Seth so much in my first Sacred Stones run and he got stat screwed by the RNG and I ended up softlocking myself and needing to restart because I didn't have enough characters who could hang in the last couple chapters. This really soured me on prepromotes so much and for such a long time I had wanted to make ROM Hacks just to unpromote them.
It is unfortunate that PoR was your first game, since the BK vs Ike fight is pretty infamous for just being unfair and terrible and ended up influencing you to not use some of the most helpful units that FE provides.
I wonder what engage would've been like if vander's growths were not just good but absolutely bonkers? turning him into a jagen early-game, and a trainee unit late-game once he can actually gain exp
That's an interesting idea. I feel like he might be pretty decent? Like maybe you could slide him into a staffing role for exp or give him parthia in the mid game so he can catch up
@actuallizard although they'd have to be pretty phenomenal ngl with how stingy engage often is with exp
I think a Jagen like that would be well suited to a game that brings back 3rd tier classes. That way even though they start promoted they still have that big payoff to work towards once they transition into a trainee unit.
Growths alone would need to be like literally 100%, the problem I see mentioned most often with Engage unit balancing is that later units like Kagetsu just have better bases on top of growths which invalidate their early game counterparts, and Vander's bases are downright horrendous for a level 15 unit.
Vander AU where he gets Karel growths
I remember there was some FE1 playthrough where the guy just used Jagen as much as possible, and gave him all the stat boosters. It worked far better than I'd have expected.
That's not too surprising. Fe 1 is really easy and stat boosters are absurd. Power ring gives 4 str and the speed ring gives 6 spd for example.
Even without Statboosters Jagen’s bases are good enough to last him for 2/3 of the game with how bad the enemies are in FE1.
Marcus in FE6 will always be my favorite Jagen; he is absolutely essential in the first few chapters, a key player in Chapters 4-9, and fades into the sunset as better options become recruitable. He does just enough damage to severely weaken enemies so that your lower level units can get kills, but his growths are so bad that going all-in on him is typically not a great idea (especially on hard mode).
FE6 is interesting cuz it gives you multiple Jagens. It gives you an old washed up Jagen early game, then a slightly better one midgame, and finally one that lasts up until the endgame.
I really like how Sothe is designed. He's the most reliable unit in the Dawn Brigade, prior to part 3, and when part 3 comes around he can go nuts with his effectiveness against beast laguz, but at the same time he isn't overkill like Seth and Titania and can actually die, due to bad placement. Also, the fact that he's forced in the Endgame and still can contribute with the Baselard and Peshkatz is a cherry on the top.
'jagens that don't fall off' are called oifeys for the same reason that 'growth units you get somewhat late into the game' are called Ests: because people who played Fire Emblem 7 worked backwards and applied principles that were only true in that game to previous games in the series haphazardly and named them after units from older games to pretend that the pattern was there the whole time. 'est' as an archetype consists pretty much entirely of nino, but people on gamefaqs in the 2000s didn't want to pretend they only had experience with the only game released in english.
lol yeah lot of stuff from that time just calcifies in the brain
I'd say that pre-Shadow Dragon Est also qualifies as a true example of this barely existent archetype. Underleveled with poor bases, but has absurd growths.
People trying to pass off units like Jesse or Miranda as "Ests" and not just horribly underleveled late joiners is dumb. The worst is when people use it to describe Zeiss (underleveled and has insane bases for said level, but his growths aren't anything special) or Sophia (literally worse stats than Raigh at 20/20)
Glancing at the wiki, apparently we have a modern version of this with people who started with Awakening-onwards trying to retroactively make a "Kliff" archetype for all of those Aptitude units like Donnel and Cyril, but also including Kliff and Ross for completely arbitrary reasons.
@@DSaC_ Poor sophia it feels like she was born to be hated
Including Ross is kind of insane when his growths are actually on the lower end of FE8 growths@@DSaC_
this isn't true
Oifey stand out in the fact that his growths and stats are actually comparable to those of a growth unit from Gen 1 (like say Finn), he isn't amazing, but the fact that his growths aren't bad is quite fascinating considering his role, and how most of the Jagens (except the FE 7-9+13 bunch) have very intentionally below average growths in any context.
Also, yeah, Oifey is an unit that stand out a lot more when you're in a super scuffed run, or one where you're using a lot of Substitutes... the fact that Oifey is effectively a promoted growth unit in a sea of jokes (and Shannan), makes Oifey's position quite the curious one, Oifey will eventually fall off, specially if your run has good inheritance; but the fact he's an unit you could actually depend on for quite a while is interesting to see.
BTW, I find a bit funny that Oifey's skill combination basically turns him into a "normal" Fire Emblem unit, having both Follow Up and Critical xD.
Honestly, the way both Lizard and you talk about it makes it seem like Oifey is less a traditional Jeigan and more of a Failsafe
As in, if you truly messed up your preparation for Gen 2, then you have someone who will at least be Good Enough.
I think Oifey gained the reputation he has because he was the first jagen type unit that even had somewhat decent growths. The only other units before him were Jagen himself and Aran from FE3, both of which had pretty terrible growths. Plus the fact that he can do that consistent damage with an occasional crit in the game where many units (especially if you didn't plan well) just straight up can't double. His damage could be better than most of what you have even if his stats start to fall behind.
Corrin's Dragonstone is my favorite Jagen. Really like how Fates/3H tried out having no true "Jagen" at the start, and at least from a 'feel' perspective, it's nice to not have a unit that feels like it's sucking XP away, but is still very strong.
The Jagen cycle:
New FE player - Jagens are amazing! They kill everything and never die!
Experienced FE player - Jagens are awful! They steal experience and then fall off!
Veteran FE player - Jagens are amazing! They kill everything and never die!
Although I'm not sure if this is true now, as I find it rare to find anyone these days who actually uses the "exp steal" argument unironically.
I acknowledge Jagens as (usually) amazing units, and that's why I tend to not use them for too long. Seth is boring.
I'll make a point in Titania's favor in that she can also make use of the Knight Ward, bumping her speed growth to an amazing 85%. Sure, you could also use that on Oscar or Kieran too, but the fact you don't have to put investment to promote Titania and still have early access to a Paladin who can use spears and axes is a huge benefit.
I think the only Jagen I actively avoid using is Seth. He's just too damn good! If I could bench the entire team, give Seth 4 Javelins and an elixir at the start of the game. He'd solo 70% of the game, no problem. He's functionally as strong as a self-insert romhack character... only he came packaged in the base game!
Titania is a monster but at least I don't feel dirty for using her and Fredrick is downright NECESSARY on Lunatic and Lunatic+ awakening.
FE6 Marcus will always be the coolest Jagen. Essential, but doesn’t necessarily overstay his welcome.
Great video!
“Pick a god and pray.” quickly became a meme in my friend group when Awakening came out. Frederick is great.
Guess next we'll get a summary of the dancers and see how adding weapons to them made them better or worse in later games.
The azura dance spam for early game was pretty fun to make her end game ready for lunatic difficulties.
Engage with the dance was pretty fun to use in mid turn set ups and so on
"Later games" * sad Phina noises *
Aww man I love Jagens. My favorite is probably Titania PoR. I like it when they come with good base but can keep up until the end of the game. I love Seth but I think he was just too powerful, borderline Gotoh tier that you get early in the game. Titania felt more balanced where she's your best unit and might stay as a Top 5 unit by the end. I also felt like it was a steady progress going down the list. She did not feel like she dropped off quickly at any point in the game.
Yeah Seth is definitely a little too much! I like a strong Jagen, but it feels like Seth can just roll over every chapter lmao
Excited for Unicorn Overlord to come out and then you can talk about that game's Jagen, Josef. At least in the demo he is a straight up monster, and while he doesn't get any experience at all, the squad system in this game allows you to use him to feed exp to weaker units as you can put them directly into his squad. It's a very unique take on a Jagen, as he shares exp by one rounding enemies rather than thieving it, and I think it's quite neat that UO is elaborating on fire emblem archetypes.
My other favorite thing about UO so far is that you unlock more army slots as the game goes on, at about the same rate that you acquire new units. Before the last chapter of the demo, I even had a couple extra slots to spend on mercenary recruitments, which allowed me to interact with that system and use a couple classes that were not available to my story characters. I paired them up with Josef for the final chapter and had a blast with him, and then I needed to withdraw a few squads and assemble a dedicated squad just for killing the demo's final boss which included Josef, all in the middle of the fight.
The other thing about UO is that level, while it matters, does not matter as much as it would in other tactical RPGs. A double offense soldier merc at level 2 will have a higher attack power than Khloe at level 9, and while this does come at the cost of defense, a well-constructed unit can still make use of the Soldier provided it is well-protected.
@@bigtimetimmyjim6486 The mercenary system is certainly strange. I honestly don't even think it's fair to compare named characters to mercenaries, because every merc should be better if you know what you're doing with it.
@@deathspade42 There is actually a consumable item (idealist's handmirror) that allows you to alter named character "traits" (e.g. Offensive, Defensive, Keen, All-Rounder, etc) to allow your named units to be tuned as if they were mercenaries, just so mercs do not have to be exclusively the "better" option if you enjoy playing with the story characters.
However, these items are rare and expensive (30000G for the first one I found)
Love your videos overall, but this might be your best so far. Great arguments, pacing, and examples.
Gunter is my favorite Jagen (if you consider him one) just bc of how well he transitions from a good combat unit to a stellar support unit. He wrecks dudes for the first couple chapters you have him. He'll do pretty well for a bit in Revelation, and then in both Rev and CQ can easily become a good lunge bot and a stellar backpack for Corrin especially, but even in general with how nice Wyvern bonuses can be. He's ALWAYS got some kind of use no matter what part of the game it is
In my opinion, without logbooking or a serious amount of effort, Gunter in rev serves no purpose aside from sponging exp. "But Forsooth, JJ! Have thine eyes truly never seen he is your first recruit past the Branch of Fate, and thine only pre-promote?" You may be asking in less flowerly text.
Yes, and yes. However, even with a no-grind Azura and a stat screwed, badly build Corrin; the safest way to beat the early chapters on higher difficulty is just walking Corrin into things and singing with Azura. Technically gunter serves as a stat bag for dual guard, until you realise the only unit who actually cares is Azura, who should never be seeing frontline combat with all the chokepoints on the map. Unless you're aiming to LTC he has no value in any early game chapters outside of putting him behind other units for pair-up or dual strike shenenigans. His starting bases are awful, his growths are worse, and since it's not conquest you cannot even build supports with him, which is already insanely annoying considering in conquest he's corrinsexual so the lack of supports literally spoils the game
He's also always mid and his job can be done by anyone
Gunter certainly fell indeed.
Let's be honest if Seth was not wounded by valter he would have joined as a 20/20 with all Green stats. They had to give this guy a crippling injury for him to not be op, and you can still solo the game
Yeah, the "Jagen worries" are so prevalent, you see the same discussion in Unicorn Overlord about Joseph. Despite the fact that Joseph doesn`t steal XP since XP are awarded to each squad member individually, people still make the argument that he takes a slot away, despite the fact that you propably will have some weaker units or freshly recruited generics that are a bit behind and appreciate the additional XP they can gain from fighting stronger enemies with Joseph being able to carry them.
I only played the demo so far, but having played Soul Nomad And The World Eaters back on Ps2 I immediately recognized the potential of just stacking weak units up with my strongest guy to force feed them exp.
I still think he should be benched on your first real battle because 1. he actually steals a slot lol
2. the battle is actually interesting without him instead of being braindeadly ez.
also you can give his equipment to the main lord so he will become extremely strong instead while being a growth unit.
@@darkgrundi9543Define, "first real battle". The one after Aubin? Cause on Expert Mode Aubin is incredibly hard to break without Josephs help. Same with battles with a bunch of archers and watch towers. There Joseph is incredibly helpful to gain the valor points needed to provoke archers out of their safe positions.
@@darkgrundi9543 you could also bring Josef and bench lex who can't tank shit on his early levels and then pair him up with Josef later to catch up for the exp he lost. Unicorn Overlord doesn't really have a strict deploy competition since you can freely change your field members on the bases if they are too injured or are too slow to keep up with the high movement units
so i think one character that fits into the jagen archetype better than possibly even jagen, is Sothe from radiant dawn, the only things holding him back from the title is that he doesn't join in chapter 1 right off the bat and he isnt a paladin.
But he is a a super powerhouse unit that can solo the majority of part one, doesn't get a lot of exp at this time, is prepromoted, is the main "guardian" of the lord, BUT then he reaches part 3 and falls off the face of the earth combat wise, but rather than having that horseback utility, instead he becomes a laguz slayer with theif utility.
I’ve always seen a good Jagen as someone who could save you from a mistake earlier on but can still be lost if you play horribly an unfair or unseen event that happens before your party can survive atleast a mistake. I like it when they are still useable late game but not the best top 10 is reasonable
I'm really glad you acknowledge that Seth's speed growth is shaky, because that was the main thing that actually did make him fall off for me going into the lategame - he simply no longer doubled any unit with a decent speed stat, even when equipped with a light weapon. Together with his strength and defense also not going up all that much, that really lowered my evaluation of him and even contributed to him falling off in the biggest way he could, in that he was taken out near the end of the chapter where Syrene joins and I didn't bother resetting (or loading my several-turns-earlier save state).
Also, one interesting thing you didn't mention is Thracia 776 having no fewer than three Jagens, each of whom play very differently from each other, and one of whom only technically falls off due to straight-up not being available for most of the game.
I think it's proof how well designed Fire Emblem is with the amount of psychology added to the discourse of the game by simply making one of the starting units much more powerful than the others.
Honestly except in a few cases I think the jagens are always good because they're a guaranteed paladin. Having someone who can do rescue duty is a plus. Plus in a lot of games you could just disarm them and use them as stone walls
A conspiracy theory I made up a long time ago as to why Seth is so good to being borderline broken in FE8 is because some dev saw the discourse happening around FE7 Marcus saying how bad and shit people viewed him back in the day. So to satisfy everyone with the release of FE8 they somehow thought it would be a good idea to make them better! Thus Seth was created and here we are still praising him to this day.
Will never forget you Frederick ❤
I think it's worth noting that Vander is the only early-game unit who can use the free S-Rank Axe from the well. It's not the _greatest_ weapon, but he does have virtually uncontested access to it
I have played Awakening a lot, and I second that Frederick is really important in those first few chapters in Hard and up. If you plan for pair-up usage, you can turn a soft unit into one that can survive long enough to kill things just by keeping Fred at their side. I have at times passed Frederick around among a few characters as they attack to make them all tougher on the player phase, and if he joint attacks, he might flatten a unit that character wasn't quite able to kill, but the character you are training still gets the juicy EXP gain. For a long time, I was a "don't use the Jeigan" guy, too, but as I have challenged myself more with these games, I have come to really value them for what they are.
Juat found your channel.
Fe is my favorite series yet i dont know everything and havent beat or played wvery game
I think "Oifaye" as a term revolves pretty heavily around growths and the sort of slower pace a lot of people used to play back then. As an old boomer from a bygone era I can tell you that promoting before 20 was borderline unthinkable to most people back in the day. Oifaye himself gaining an average of 2.8 stats per level compared to a lot of Gen 2 units being in the 3.8~ range is not that bad compared to a lot of characters people call Jeigans. He starts with solid bases and he's more likely than not to cap skill and other relevant stats are not far behind. Going in release order through the series it isn't until young Marcus that any character in this role really compares growth wise. And if we're looking at the notion of an "experience thief" growths can be very important to this perspective, again especially if you play at a slower pace.
Or to put this another way:
Jeigan 0.4 or 0.43
Arann 0.63
Oifaye 2.8
Dagda 0.96
Eyvel 1.16
Old Marcus 1.85 (and it's disproportionately in HP)
It's true that average growths vary a bit from game to game but not by so much that the 2.8 isn't obviously and clearly not like the others.
There is of course a lot more to whether or not a character falls off than growths, but in the old slower perspective that is more focused on growths it makes sense that he would have his own named archetype in a fandom that really likes naming archetypes after characters.
I think it's more that people wanted to sound smarter when they realized that the Jagens from FE7-9 were actually decent units, if not good units. There was a time on GameFAQs where people would obsessively correct you between Jagen and Oifey despite Oifey quite literally being a subcategory of the Jagen archetype. While growth rates obviously had an effect on the reasoning, it was more based on how fast the Jagen started to fall off. Once people start seeing the ball rolling, pack mentality starts to take over and everyone wants to join in, like when people protest for no reason.
My favorite jaegan? The dragon stone.
It's funny I now only realize Seth got his name from the fact two of the first ever mounts in series were Cain and Abel
My favourite Jagen has and probably always will be Marcus from Fe 6, dude carries your scrubs ass all the way until Melady and Perceval take the torch from him, as well as Lance/Alen, depending on whom became the better Cav.
Has complete weapon triangle with effectiveness against cavs and armors, high movement for rescue chains, and stats that are just enough for early Fe6. And depending on Level up luck he can stick even a bit onto midgame. Love the dude.
Hope you're having a good day
You got a link to that bright bold sandstorm remix? Can't find it anywhere.
My favourite Jagen is the Lightning Sword in Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. Seeing Faye becoming my main DPS was glorious.
Thank you for covering this topic with some degree of nuance. People love to make blanket statements and it bothers me, Seth and Arran are a perfect example of the broad range between them.
Seth remains powerful right until the endgame provided you don't completely ignore him, meanwhile Arran is replaced with a strictly better Paladin by Chapter 4.
I'd go so far as to say Seth is a failure of a Jagen on the whole, he's too strong and simply can't NOT one round enemies so he can't even feed your weaker units.
I mean, as a Jagen yeah, he doesn't fullfil his purpose that well since he just kills everything. Which can be good, but it's annoying when trying to train weaker units. But his balance regarding how powerful he is in the story, in my opinion, is spot on. Like, he was the guy that king Fado entrusted to guard his daughter. _Alone_. Against no other than the Grado army, which is supposedly the strongest in Magvel. And he survived a fightwith Valter, the guy that has the cursed spear he stole from Duessel. Seth is stupid strong in the story and i think it makes sense that it is reflected through gameplay by being stupid strong in stats as well. Like, even Cormag respects him almost as much as he does his brother, although obviously without the love.
@@emanuelseibert3790 "I thought to catch a little bird in my net, and it seems instead I've snared a hawk." Tirado upon realizing Seth came into his trap along with Eirika. Everyone knows who Seth is, and even the people of Grado revere him almost as much as they do Duessel, and those fools LOVE Duessel.
@@TotallyCluelessGamer Oh, i didn't know that dialogue existed. I'll try to see it next time i play. It is really cool. And also goes to show just how fucking cool Seth is. If his extremely confident but not arrogant personality didn't already prove it.
Just an idea for a potential future video. Should you train your lords? If so which ones and why?
Expectation: Jagen and Wendell will fall off in H5 Shadow Dragon
Reality: Flying Jagen and Swordmaster Wendell go brrrr
But seriously, jagens are fun units to use. I remember my first fe7 run seeing that Marcus was just...way too powerful so I benched him because he was just breaking the game before I got to the dread isle. I took him back out during the denning map and...he still was cleaning house. Meanwhile Seth and Duessel in my first fe8 run were 🔥🔥🔥
I've seen impressive things utilized with CQ Gunther and most recently Celica Vander in the earlygame lol.
I keep my Jagen's around for the first 10 or so chapters just to have them quickly nuke a problem if i get sloppy and put one of my other units into danger. It varies from game to game though.
I do think if they gave Vander an A rank weapon like the Silver Axe wouldn't have made him broken and if you have the expansion you can give him a Silver Axe early anyways. Interestingly, he's the only character with access to A rank in the early game giving him slightly more lastability if you do have access to the higher rank weapons.
i usually use Titania as a meat shield for choke points or something and thats it. in my play throughs, my units usually eclipse her by the time she starts getting meaningful XP from kills, so i dont see a point of adding her in, but i think next time i play im going to make the effort
I’m a bit partial to the Gotoh’s, myself :P but FE6 Marcus is my favorite; the mentor on a horse is a great idea and Marcus embodies it well for two generations
I’m surprised you didn’t have anything to say about Jacob/Felicia in Fates. They aren’t traditional Jagens but they occupy a similar role in the army and they’re fairly interesting units to discuss.
I really wish jeralt was a jagen in three houses. Having a bulky unit for the early maps on maddening would be so helpful.
Yes, they do. End of video.
Jokes aside. Imo, the jeigan concept is one of the most interesting elements in the entire franchise. You have this really good earlygame nuke that is just great, is mobile, is great, has better stats than your other units, and is just great. But as the game progresses, that unit starts to get overtaken by other units. The degree, to which they are getting overtaken depends on the unit, but even the almighty Seth starts to face come competition at the highest level with Franz being able to hit speed benchmarks that Seth usually doesn't hit (and with "benchmarks" I mean "is able to double Fomortiis", lmao). Creates this interesting concept of a tradeoff where using the jeigan makes the critical earlygame easier (where most of your units are scrubs), but holding the jeigan back gives the other units more opportunities to grow and turn into even bigger statballs than your jeigan could ever be.
I want to add something interesting about FE5 giving you two jeigans
Eyvel despite being so powerful and having plot armor helps a lot with those bosses with +10 defense bonus of gates and thrones that no other character at that point can defeat, but at the time when you lose her at chapter 5 you already got a unit capable of defeating those bosses
With Dagdar is that he joins with around 10 in his stats that at first can't look so good but taking in consideration that in thracia all caps are 20 he have half of the caps and this game throws you tons of unpromoted units even in the late game and while his growths are awful this is also the game with scrolls, he having A in axes can instantly use silver, killer and even master axes without griniding weapon ranks
What's important about Dagdar is that he trivialize a lot of the captures once he gets his brave axe (Sorry Halvan lol). Thracia's stats being what they are (funny that the stats growth scrolls are in the game they matter the least in) does help him but I don't think he would get as much respect if the game didn't have capture.
My favorite Jagen is the lightning sword in SOV
I felt it did more for me in actual gaiden then SOV
Something about the XP argument that I haven't seen addressed is that you can think of enemies as being somewhere on a line from obstacles to resources, depending on how challenging they are to deal with. When enemies are impeding your ability to win the map, I think using Jagens to make sure you have a good chance of completing objectives makes a lot of sense. But there are an awful lot of maps in the series that just aren't that hard. So if you aren't playing for turn count, those enemies are more like XP piñatas than actual problems, so it's basically a question of who you want to show favoritism towards. And Jagens, by virtue of already being good units, aren't great favoritism targets-Seth isn't going to end up stronger by getting to level 20 slightly earlier. You could also think of using them early as "favoring" faster play over army development.
Does "jagen" also apply in other tactical rpg? I assume Milanor also counts as a jagen since he got alot of advatages and his stats are high in the early phase of the game.
Does Haar count as a Jeigan for Radiant Dawn part 2 and 3? He'd be my favorite if he counts.
I remember firt time i played FE and had a level up with Jagen on HP strength skill and speed. I don't think it'll ever happen again
Another point to the "stealing exp" I wanna bring up is that in the grand scheme the exp the early chapters provide are merely miniscule specks of dust and individual level ups seldom that impactful that missing out on one or two levels on a few units will neither impede their performance early on nor lag behind in levels later.
I like actual Jagen since Shadow Dragon's prologue lets him sacrifice as a decoy of someone decades younger.
Favorite one is Sothe though because he isn't final class and slides into his unit's role rather than straight up being worse than same unit types you train and become better
Common lizard W
Regarding Frederick specifically, it always feels like the intention was that he´d basically fall in line when other units reach lvl 10-15, I like setting him up with Cherche, and by the time you recruit her, frederick is basically as strong or even slightly weaker than some of your other units, and feels more like a stahl that has promoted on lvl 10 into great knight, but his growths are still good enough that he doesnt really fall behind, and I think this is mostly due to his class, if he were a paladin, we might have another seth situation at our hands, literally, because the only thing that bogs fred down is his low speed and res
"A unit being in your army for a bit, doing a job, then getting benched, isn't a BAD thing." I've had this mentality recently, and Engage I feel really encourages it. With how nearly every unit works both as a temporary filler AND long-term investment (even Jean and Anna can contribute at base with staff utility and chain attacks respectively, I will never stop bringing up how I once brought an untrained Anna to Maddening Chapters 10 and 11 just for utility and I was able to protect her just fine) Etie for example WILL kill a few crucial fliers for you in the early chapters, her getting benched later won't take away from that. Clanne is your only practical answer to Chapter 3's boss on Maddening, where Marth's Rapier doesn't work. People like Diamant and Lapis can put in work in Brodia even if not brought all the way. And so on.
(Of course, in my last run Clanne decided he didn't want the bench and proceeded to become one of the most RNG-blessed units I've ever had, forcing himself onto my endgame party, but my point stands)
Question: So a Jagen is normally a character you get early in the game that comes prepromoted with good stats at the time. Would Catherine or Shamir fit that description as both of them come early in the game especially catherine and are both advanced with swordmaster and sniper respectively. I say this as while strong neither are so strong that they can not get replaced easy. Catherine has a relic with a good crest but lacks the speed of units like petra or felix that allow them to double and for shamir she lacks the combat arts, especially ones like encloser, point blank volley, etc, that would make her strong and instead gives her only one special one with heavy draw and while Hunters volley does help with speed and her 55 base stat luck and high strength gives her a one turn kill that has a high chance to crit it is nothing special that would overwhelm the other units like point blank volley does.
Shamir and Catherine joins a bit later than when Jagens usually joins. By the time Shamir and Catherine can join you your other units are fine on their own and don't really need babysitting. Shamir is still one of the best archers even at endgame so she is actually harder to replace if you've been making use of her early game.
My problem with Seth was never that he wasn't good at what he did, even in late game, but rather that the other units you're getting early in Sacred Stones are people who really kind of need a bunch of exp in the early maps or they won't survive the later ones. Chapter 1 is easy enough for Erika to solo, and if she does then chapter 2 is also straightforward, but if you let Seth contribute in chapter 1 then you can't survive ch2 without leaning on him, which in turn leaves Erika unprepared for ch3, and so forth. And Vanessa, Ross, Colm, Lute, etc. are all units that you're going to want in the late game, but who will never make it there if they don't get enough kills in the first few chapters. Seth feels less like a helping hand and more like a trap when you get to a hard map and realize that your force-deployed lord is still going to get one-shotted by anybody who can reach her.
My opinion on Frederick is pretty much the opposite though. Awakening gives you more than enough exp for everyone and the way the reclassing system works leaves less difference between pre-promotes and units that start at square one, so there isn't really any long term disadvantage to using him... and on higher difficulties he will definitely save all your lives a dozen times over.
Also, PICK A GOD AND PRAY!!!
I'm curious what your, or anyone's, take on the idea of Jakob and Felicia as the Fates Jeigans is? Because I always saw them as the Jeigans of that game despite having a really different role, being set up to debuff and support with staves while being pre-promotes.
They're more like normal units that just happen to be promoted, for the way their exp ans levels work. They "fall off" just as fast as any uninvested regular unit once we get the heavy hitter royals.
They're cool! And it's nice they use all the new Fates mechanics to help early
I'd say that Jakob is more useful between the two servants. Being able to be immediately reclassed into a Paladin backpack for Corrin early on is something I saw a lot of from Fates videos.
Even if you don't do that, it varies by the route you choose as well. Having a healer for Chapter 12 of Conquest when you lose access to Elise is very helpful. They also have access to daggers to debuff the opponents. Dropping an enemies defense or resistance by 3 could land you a KO. Plus, staff access gives them more uses than a normal Jagen who is stuck to being a mediocre melee locked unit.
If you reclass Jacob into a Paladin he definitely does feel very Jeigan-y
Titania from PoR is my favourite Jaegan. I like her because she is cool, I still user her for the endgame, and I don't think that I can survive the first few chapters without using her.
*Titania, my beloved.*
Titania is the only one I like and used till the end of the game. I usually only use 'jagens' for like 2 or 3 battles at most and only as tanks (I remove their weapons usually)
"Exp thieving" is not a thing because the amount of exp a unit gets depends on their level relative to the opponent's level. So even if your low level unit misses out on killing a bunch of enemies, they will make up for that by getting more exp on the next enemies they kill.
My honest strategy with jeagans (largely as a result of Sothe and Titania being my intro to the archetype) is to give them minimal use until my lower level units match their starting level. This strat is probably also a result of me starting with RD and POR and wanting to spread exp evenly so everyone is about the same level on any given map. Of course the tellius games are unique for their auto-classup system, so using the entire cast for the whole game is more viable there than it is in games like fe7 where promotion items are limited. Still working on breaking myself out of this habit on those limited resourse games.
Sadge Titania and Frederick didnt make it to the list but a honorable mention, for my experience titania IS a jagens for quite a long time very good to help you get some units going early game
People justifying their suboptimal play: unpromoted characters have higher growths, so they're better long term than Jagens and prepromotes who steal exp and fall off later.
Younger me justifying my anti-optimal play: I have to train everyone equally so they're all the same level, and anyone who's at level 20 can't be used cuz they steal exp. Also, I have to arena grind with save states until everyone's level 20, then never use them again so that I can train my other untrained characters.
My younger self apparently loved doing equal-level challenge runs without knowing FE challenge runs were a thing.
I think the Engage DLC changed how good Vander can be.
With the DLC Hector ring, if you reclass him as a general, he can more or less block entire passageways with his insurmountable defense. I know a lot of other units can do that with Hector, but because Vander has such a high base HP, he can outlast quite a few of them if you go and get that ring early on.
Also, one other note I want to mention is the training area actually gives decent XP to Vander, and since your other units are generally sponging enough XP to be good, I would just run Vander through the training hall every chance I got.
Honestly, the reason most Jagens fall off eventually is not because of "Growth units catching up and eventually surpassing them"(Oifey is the only one I can think of that could be put on that category), but rather either because "You get a bunch of strong prepromotes on mid-late game that makes the Jagen obsolete", or "The map/enemy design of that game is not favorable to that particular Jagen".
This is why I really like FE7 Marcus. He compares similarly to your other Paladins during the endgame, and it's a game where movement is king.
Isadora remains consistently meh, but Marcus maintains tankiness that your other Paladins sacrifice for killing power. With a javelin, he's a monster against mages. He can hold most fronts, even if he can't one-round everyone.
Seth is my favorite Jagen for 1 primary reason... and a terrible secondary reason. Primary reason, you always remember your first unit of any type. Seth being my first "Jagen," well, I actually call all of the "good" Jagens Seths because, oh yeah, he was my first and then it was either Marcus or Jagen himself that showed me what a "Jagen" is. So, I call all those who can scale (or have to scale *looks at Sothe*) into the Endgame and keep up with your other powerhouses Seths and I honestly only learned about Oifey... while learning more about the "Jagen" archetype units. Oh and the crappy second reason? And this is why Titania is like my second favorite "Jagen," red hair. I love redheads in terms of character traits. I just do. Like flaming red hair is awesome to me. DKW, but I just love seeing them. *shrug*
Jagen is the best Jagen. Because he’s Jagen
One type of Unit who can be mistaken as a Jagen despite for being available later are traitors due of their massive stats like Orson tried to scam you by hogging the Exp away from Ephraim, Forde and Kyle, and as for Black Knight from Radiant dawn despite that he would betray you later on you have no choice but to use him or Miccaiah will get one shot by the hidden enemies “I forgot which chapter was it but its the one when Black Knight becomes playable for the first time”
Something else of note is that most of the games have mechanics in place to help underleveled units catch up. For example, it's common for the EXP formula to be balanced such that a lower level unit fighting a higher level one will yield greater amounts of EXP than if the units were more evenly matched. So even if a Jagen "steals" exp from a unit in chapter 1 and causes them to miss a level up, they'll just end up gaining more EXP from the now comparatively higher level enemies in chapter 2 and will quickly catch up.
BXP from the Tellius games is another example of this, where lower level units enjoy a more favorable BXP --> EXP exchange rate. So you can use Titania or Sothe to quickly blast through a map for max BXP, and then use some of it to help out any units that might be falling behind. Even keeping mid/late game training projects in mind, there's still more than enough BXP to go around.
Seth is fun because he is probably the main thing solidifying Sacred Stones as a good first FE game, like it was literally my first and it was nice to have Seth as a reliable unit to fall back on in almost all occasions, and it's not like Sacred Stones is really that hard anyway that Seth single-handedly ruins the game or anything
Only thing I'd say is that his ass should not be considered a Jagen when he has literally Top 6 total growths out of every unit in the entire game, only beat out by the main lords, the dancer, the manakete, and the literal last creature campaign unit
Frederick is the man
I don't know if this is a "hot take" or whatever we calling it, but I find a good chunk of jagens(especially fire emblem 7-9 jagens) to not be well design, not because there bad, in fact there too good. Like to me a good design jadgen should be a unti that should be "panic button" for a making a mistake or helping take down a strong unit, however units like Seth just become the best unit
this is why fe6 marcus is the best jagen in the series
I usually just let seth laze around in the mid/backline to run in and oneshot a guy if i mess up lmao. But yeah being able to solo easily hes way too strong
@@lightbrand_ Pretty much. Most times he drops off after Arcadia, but I'm pretty sure you can push him to Ilia since non mercenary/promoted units weigh themselves down a lot (especially the pegasi and ballista users).
Titania is one of my fav fe character designs I'm glad she doesn't fall off
So I have two things.
1. How would you Rank Jacob and Felicia? Or Gunter, who technically has good growths, but really bad join times?
And 2. My favorite Jagen is Frederick, but not because he actually does any fighting. He makes an exceptionally good pairup for early game Chrom, and a massive boon for late game girls who need some help to build up their potential. For actually fighting, Gunter actually. He can provide a very niche coverage of offenses, and if you're willing to spare some speedwings and res boosters, he can handedly use Silver weapons even as his offenses tank.
Sothe as a jagan has the funniest drop in performance i have ever seen part 1 he is cracked but like most of the dawn brigade falls of heavy in part 3 even with investment
He falls off so much he's still able to ORKO enemies 🤔🤔🤔🤔
FE6 Marcus will always be the best Jagen in the series since he has a clearly defined role in the first half, able to pick up the Axe-using slack that your Axe bros can't usually reach while chipping down tougher enemies enough for Roy, the Christmas Cavs, Shanna, etc. can use to make themselves stronger. I prefer to play FE6 on Normal mode so I usually have Marcus rescue Bors for Chapter 1 since Bors is useless on that map and it keeps Marcus from ORKOing the Fighters that all of my weak sword users would like to kill for the EXP. Yes, he'll become obsolete once you hit the Etruria arc and start getting the midgame monsters that are Miledy and Perceval, but until then he's incredibly useful without ever feeling overpowered in the same way Seth feels in FE8.
Next time I play FE6 normal mode I’m gonna try that Bors rescue strategy to prevent Marcus from doubling, I love that
@@pksprite6401 Dondon151 showed off this strat in his FE6 Draft Race demonstration and I think it’s a great tip for general play.
@@cartooncritic7045 indeed, I think that’s genius. Just shows how versatile Marcus in FE6 truly is, as well.
in a month someone tell me if anything funny happens with the jagen in unicorn overlord
Marcus also solo.
I love Seth. Sacred Stones was my first FE game, and I abused the hell out of Seth. He carried me comfortably for the entire game, and then died to Fomortiis at the end, softening him up enough for Myrrh to finish the job.
FE7 Marcus for me. He's easily strong enough to be endgame viable, but not so dominant that he trivializes the game. He also arguably makes the best use of most of the stat boosters.
Path of Radiance has so many units that could be considered Jagens. While Titania is the Jagen, there's also Shinon and Gatrie before they nope out being able to dominate the few chapters they're in and Lethe and Mordecai as all the Laguz units are bonkers through the whole game. The worst part about Shinon and Gatrie is that they actually are exp thieves, as when you get them back later, their levels and stats are different from when they left. For example, on my current playthrough, I lucked out and Gatrie got a speed level on 5 of 7 levels at the beginning, so he was around doubling everything. When I recruited him back, he was a level lower than he left and only had 5 speed. Dude fricken slacked off after he left.
What about Sothe?
Would anyone consider 3H Gilbert a Jagen?
Eh, he's closer to the undefined "11th Hour" unit, a promote obtained towards the 2/3rd mark to fill in for any lost units. They don't have an archetype as their character and class can vary widely, but they tend towards being experienced soldiers of either the main or an ally nation, good stats for their class so they can be slotted in easily but too high a level for much more growing to go so they end up more of a spot filler (3H lets you reset levels by reclassing so not so much so). They basically exist to give you a lift if you have lost too many units or if you got ruined by RNG on levels, but aren't worth deploying if not.
Hi Lizard!
You do have a point about not using every character throughout the game. Jagen is an exp. hog only if he is stealing kills from a unit you want to use throughout the game.
The very first time i played fire emblem, it was fe8 and my friend who introduced me to the game literally yelled at me for "wasting" Seth's silver lance on some grunt in the early game, and for a while i thought that it was really bad to use Seth or something.
I've really come around on Jeigans. I prefer to play casually and optimize more for exp and endgame potential on training projects than for speed so I don't like to overuse them, but i now make plenty of use out of my Jeigans. Whether that's only using them to set up kills, as an emergency delete button, or just to clean up part of a map to make a chapter easier, i use them a lot now.
Jagens are a resource that should be managed correctly