The Let's Play Archive

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest

by midnight_lasagna

Part 27: My Castle (Chapter 15)


Fine, I'll appease the masses with the smallest glimpse of Charlotte content. I should probably take Gamble off of her if she's going to show up in the arena but crits are funny so I don't want to.




Jakob/Azura A, Jakob/Camilla C, Niles/Leo C, Elise/Azura C.

Jakob would not be saying what he is saying now after playing through all 3 routes of this game. Half the soundtrack has that one song Azura sings woven into it...






Two newcomers to the big stat list. Kaze's not 100% benched yet, but he's not leveled up so he doesn't need to be on the list this time. My units are getting close to promotion level...



Leo
Dark Knight (HS: Troubadour)
A+ Support Classes: Odin (Samurai), Niles (Outlaw), Xander (Cavalier)
Personal Skill: Pragmatic (+3 damage dealt to and -1 damage taken from enemies with less than max HP at the start of combat)
Growths (With Default Class):
HP: 40% (55)
STR: 25% (45)
MAG: 55% (65)
SKL: 35% (40)
SPD: 45% (50)
LCK: 45% (50)
DEF: 30% (45)
RES: 45% (50)

Here's Leo, the second last Nohrian royal... and the worst one, arguably. Althought "worst Nohrian royal" is a statement you should read in the same way you would "poorest billionaire". He's still a great unit. And if you want my controversial opinion, I think he's a better unit than Takumi...

First of all, did you know that Leo's got the exact same growth total as Camilla? They're both tied for the third best growths in Conquest, second only to Mozu and Odin. That's not quite as impressive when you know they've both got a 25% growth in an offensive stat they don't really use, but it's still neat. Statwise Leo's an incredibly powerful and decently bulky magical attacker who's speed kind of hovers around the "could double with a speed-boosting support partner" area. He'll hit incredibly hard with his high magic and 10 might personal tome, and with support from a good partner he'll be able to double a decent amount of enemies. He absolutely blows Odin out the water with his raw damage, and while he won't be as fast as Nyx he'll be much better at doing her job without dying.

Brynhildr might be the worst of the 4 royal weapons, but it's still great in its own right. 10 mt and 80 hit makes it only slightly weaker than Ragnarok (the tome equivalent of a silver weapon), except instead of coming with a bunch of drawbacks it instead boosts Leo's crit avoid and can be used by him at any rank. It also has the fairly situational ability to lower magical damage, but it happens so rarely that it's more of a "nice when it happens" kind of thing instead of anything you should ever rely on. Pragmatic is also fairly underwhelming as far as royal personal skills go, but even if it's a little situational it's still a big boost that's not too hard to activate. It doesn't entirely synergise with Leo's main use as an enemy phase tank, but there will absolutely be situations in which he needs to pick off a weakened enemy.

Dark Knight's not the only class Leo can use. On one hand it does give him a large amount of movement and it is the source of most of his bulk (a reclassed Leo will be quite a bit more fragile), but on the other hand Leo has nearly no use at all for his sword rank - his attack is way worse than his magic and a Levin Sword only has 1 might over Brynhildr while also being too high for his base sword rank to use. There might be situations in which he wants to hit an enemy with a sword to avoid Countermagic or a super high resistance stat, but those will be extremely rare. Sorcerer Leo can Nosferatu tank mostly better than Odin can, trading accuracy for power and speed. He can also A+ support Odin to grab the Samurai class from him to learn Vantage. Strategist Leo trades bulk for speed and power, and trades his mostly useless sword access for staves, something he can make use of even at E rank. It's not a bad option if you need an extra healer but it will tank his bulk significantly, and unlike Sorcerer he can't make up for it with Nosferatu.

Otherwise Leo is kind of like Camilla in that he'll start off OP and slowly get worse as the rest of your units catch up. His bulk will go from "good" to "adequate", and his speed will become more and more of an issue as enemies get faster. But at the end of the day he's a great magical attacker who only needs a fast support partner to do well, and he's a fine replacement for Odin if he's starting to fall off... which he probably is.

Pros
Cons
My Rating: Better than Takumi!!!



Keaton
Wolfskin (HS: Fighter)
A+ Support Classes: Arthur (Fighter), Laslow (Mercenary), Benny (Knight)
Personal Skill: Collector (Luck% chance of picking up 3 minerals or ingredients after moving during the first 7 turns of a map)
Growths (With Default Class):
HP: 60% (80)
STR: 60% (80)
MAG: 0% (0)
SKL: 20% (25)
SPD: 35% (50)
LCK: 30% (35)
DEF: 50% (60)
RES: 25% (25)

Keaton is like the male counterpart of Charlotte, he's an amazing support partner with stupid high HP and strength who passes on the Fighter class. Except while Charlotte's a vicious fighter pretending to be a bimbo, Keaton's a himbo pretending to be a vicious fighter.

I'm not actually sure what the perception of Keaton in the FE community at large is - tier lists tend to place him at or close to bottom tier thanks to his late join time and lack of a mount or 1-2 range, but I don't see him talked about much in more casual playstyles. I have a soft spot for him though, I think he's got good base stats, great growths, and a really fun set of weapons that let him switch up his stats to suit the situation. Also he's a funny dog man!

Combatwise, Keaton hits hard and takes hits well. His strength growth in his default class almost rivals that of Effie. His speed hovers around that area where it can double some things but needs a good support partner or tonics to be at all reliable. Boosting it by equipping a Beaststone helps, but he can't always afford the drop in power or bulk. He's absolutely a great tank, so long as the enemy doesn't have too many magic users or any Beast Killers. He can swap between his stone and his rune depending on whether the situation calls for speed and accuracy or bulk and killing power. The boost to damage that Odd Shaped provides him on odd numbered turns is helpful, but you do need to pay attention to make the most out of it and not accidentally get yourself killed by forgetting that it won't apply on even numbered turns. Despite his late join time he still comes at a good level, so he'll already be a competent fighter without the need to be babied.

There are a few flaws with the Wolfskin class that do put a damper on his usefulness. A complete lack of 1-2 range can be frustrating at times. Hand axes and the like may not be good at this game, but even units that have to rely on them can attack from range at a pinch. Relying on stones to attack also has a few drawbacks, namely that they cannot be forged and that no other class uses them, which means a reclassed Keaton will always be stuck with E rank weapons at first. The weakness to Beast Killers hurts too, although that's something Keaton and any of his descendants will be stuck with even outside of beast classes. The high accuracy of beast weapons and the innate crit evade of Wolfskin's promoted form do somewhat make up for Keaton's poor speed and luck, but he still struggles to deal with enemies with good avoid at times.

Just like Charlotte, Keaton's an amazing support partner. The Wolfskin class provides a good mix of strength and speed on pair-up, and Keaton's personal bonuses provide even more strength and speed along with a little bit of defense. He can even be swapped to Berserker if you want to tailor his boosts more towards strength. The Wolfskin class can't be Partner Sealed into, so his spouse will get the Fighter class instead, something that's arguably more useful anyway. Keaton's great defensive utility isn't as easy to replicate as Charlotte's player phase offensive, but a unit with Keaton permanently glued to their backside is still a perfectly fine alternative to actually using him in combat himself.

Collector is a fun skill, but Keaton's luck is so low that it'll rarely activate, and when it does it's unlikely to give you what you want anyway. Both Fighter classes are decent reclass options for him, and they give him great skills too. He doesn't benefit hugely from any of his A+ support classes, he'll tank better as a wolf than a Knight and Mercenary doesn't give him much of worth that Fighter doesn't already.

Pros
Cons