Conquest tiering and unit/strategy discussion is something I can listen to endlessly. I seriously still don't know how IS managed to make such an interestingly well-balanced game and cast, and have to assume it was mostly luck.
I think it’s a mixture of luck *and* some really smart design choices. The level xp curve, the enemy skills that take % off of health, the enemy AI not attacking units it can’t damage, having brave effects only work on your own phase, this stuff is just smart, and really encourages using a lot of your units instead of just a few juggernauts But then you have all the wild stuff. S and A+ supports giving classes, damage stacking, the random monastery stuff that gives boosts, it gives you a lot of freedom within the system they crafted
THIS much granularity in such a strategy game can't be luck, maybe some decisions played into each other unintentionally but by and large... This is intentional
Hi, Mekkah! Don’t know if you remember me, but I was the one that left miles long comments on your latest CQ Lunatic LP, and now I’ve binged my way through the first two videos of this amazing tierlist. I only started playing FE Fates in 2022, so I wasn’t around for live discussions of unit viability, but I did read a lot of Serene’s Forest threads/Reddit posts of the time. It’s honestly shocking how much the top placements never change - everybody and their mother could see that Camilla, Azura and Corrin are best units in Fates - but you start to see notable changes as early as bottom S tier/high A tier. The thought of not only lumping Silas and Paladin!Jakob on the same boat, but saying Silas outpaces him in relevant areas, was unfathomable at the time. It’s a testament to how much staying power the gameplay of Fates has, as it can be discussed in fresh new ways even in 2024. Speaking of fresh, I’m not sure when we will get to ODIN DARK, but I hope Joshcja gets mentioned there - he dared to speak up for Odin’s viability as a Nostank back in the days where he was placed below Nyx of all units in pretty much any tierlist available. He had a lot of out of the box ideas that have now become more widely acceptable. Hell, Zoran himself has mentioned him in his 0% Chapter 8 run. I do hope his ideas get brought up and discussed at some point, because they’re novel even for today’s standarts. His “Arthur can have stats on par with Camilla by chapter 10” comment lives rent free in my head. Anyway, this is all to say that I’m LOVING this new tierlist. I think it’s very cohesive with excellent points to be made about how versatile these S and A tier units can be. I have played 1368 hours of Fates, around 1200 of these on Lunatic across all routes, so you can see how much I love this game and any discussions of it lol. May this series last long! I can’t wait for Odin, Selena, Shura, Gunter and the child units in particular.
Another thing in Wyvern Elise's favor is you get Azura pretty early and her personal, while not a ton of healing, is frequently just enough that you don't need to use a vulnerary or a staff. And another point in Silas' favor is how CQ early game is structured. Since the prologue chapters are so good at funneling XP to Corrin, they can be level 9 or 10 by the end of the Branch of Fate with decent xp routing. So when Silas and Elise's entourage show up, you really don't want to give Corrin XP, instead having Corrin serve as the Jagen to Arthur, Effie, and Silas, setting up kills with the dragonstone, blocking off enemies and tanking hits, and giving powerful dual strikes and supportive. And then Chapter 15 lets you get away with that very Jagenesque Corrin style of play because they get to power level in there, getting caught up with the rest of your army and promoting. You get almost 10 chapters to build supports for the early game units you want to continue using long term because Corrin gets a chapter all to themselves to catch up. The cost of stuff like setting up Silas's class change and getting some of the child paralogues setup is fairly low. You have almost 10 chapters and some paralogues and an invasion to build up your supports.
Silas and Elise have been staples of my Conquest army since launch and as time passed I've only found more and more uses for them, and they're so fun to play with. For my money Silas is the best Cavalier in the whole series.
really looking forward to the child unit discussion because i'm not really aware of anything you can do with them, except for ophelia, and i'm sure theres some crazy stuff.
Hey Mekkah, you probably don't remember me but I was the guy constantly hyping up Silas in the comments during your Revelations playthrough. Good to see you are finally seeing how cool he really is
I think double javelin/hand axe formations with two relatively tanky units is a great way to move through chapter 17. Some combination of Silas/camilla/Effie/Peri/xander in attack stance can tank and ko all the formations of ninjas/samurai on enemy phase. Paladins do fall off somewhat after that point, but they're still perfectly workable. Intrinsic 8 movement and good mixed bulk is still valuable to have, but it's true their offense is more limited and needs more planning. Edit: Silas x Azura is an off-meta but effective option, and I'm really glad Zoran brought it up. Though I used Kinshi rather than Falcon Knight. The advantage is that Darting Blow does make a substantial difference for him (and the higher base speed is another positive) and even gives something to pass to Sophie. The Kinshi route does get the utility of bows and eventually will get Amaratsu for passive healing support. Falcon Knight does give Rally Speed, which is very good even if Silas isn't necessarily the one I would be using it with.
I hope Mekkahs commentary over the next recordings (if there is any) is not just dead space, the lack of experience and knowledge of fates does kind of peep out a lot.
Tbf he did say early promote into strategist is also really good. Or maid if female corrin so no Felicia for skill. And that she still really good. But I do think a bit more about strategist Elise would of been good to hear. Conquest in general sounds hard to accurately rank units or give full scope just by how we hear about these characters being talked about
It’s more that Elise is capable of being a very strong combat unit in the Wyvern/Malig build in addition to being a great support unit through her staff classes should you build her either way that puts her so high.
Voice audio is too low in this video, try to get the audio level in any video somewhat close to 0db before exporting please 🙏 your friends does speak quietly but audio is definitely adjustable