Soren’s support bonuses 21 minutes in were calculated using Radiant Dawn support levels. Actual boons would be C: +7 avoid B: +15 avoid, +1 dmg A: +22 avoid, +1 dmg It’s also worth noting that Ike protects Soren from critical hits when they are adjacent, making him one of the better options for dealing with killer weapons.
I'll be real, I find the crit negation supports to be a meme since it requires adjacency and this is super situational (especially with Ike since he's not a unit typically near the frontlines) There aren't many killer weapons in PoR, and the ones that exist are easily dealt with using a tanky unit (like the paladins or wyverns). You're absolutely right about the supports, which means sorens avoid is slightly lower than I gave it credit for. 3/5/8 points isnt huge and probably doesn't impact my overall evaluation, but with a unit who's defensive bulk is as rough as Soren, every point of avoid matters. I'm Pinning your comment to help correct this error, thanks!
That would've been better in RD honestly with how many generic class types get crit bonuses later in the game and how easier it is to build their support there
Sure Soren may not be the best unit, may have a lot of weaknesses, but he's an edgy gay twink so you have to understand why I still use him every single playthrough
@@theghostcreator776 I've gotten some on previous videos about how I'm just a fake gamer who needs to play on the highest difficulty... Which is funny to me because with 3 maddening playthroughs under my belt, I'm fairly confident I've played maddening mode more than most people. I just don't find it fun.
@@DaniDoyle oh fun Yeah i don't like maddening that much it kind of feels like forcing difficulty in a way that just makes the cast feel worse instead of making units feel more unique
Soren is a good unit. Just like Ike, just like Boyd, just like anyone really. The biggest problem with ranking these characters has got to come from the fact of how "professional" Fire Emblem players play these games to begin with. Yes, Titania is a good unit. Everyone knows this. Yes, clearing maps faster grants you more bonus exp. We get this, too. The problem stems from how overvalued pre-promote braindead units are. Yes, Titania can clear the entire early maps by herself. Yes, Titania is insanely powerful and trashes the game. However, all these videos, this one included, just seem to mindlessly give her a hand axe, throw her in the battle, and let her do everything. This is why most of the others units fail. Titania does eat up exp. I'm not saying to completely not use her, but early game, she gets 1 Exp per enemy on hard mode. The most she'll get is one level up when Chapter 8 finally arrives. Letting Titania sit around with no weapon allows her to be an efficient meat-shield, and still allows her time to get those 1 exp points. While actively using the others memebers with get you alot more exp for them. Using all three units on Chapter 1 will get Ike, Boyd, and Oscar to all atleast level 2 and 3 for one of them, whoever gets boss. Not using Titania as an attacker and focusing Boyd and Oscar on Chapter 2 will get them to around Level 6, each. (About) Rhys has more time to heal, as well. More exp for him. Best case, he gets a level. Not using Titania on Chapter 3, nor Shinon, will get Gatrie to around level 10 or 11, depending. Using Ike for almost everything will get him to about 8 or 9. Chapter 4, babying Soren and using Ike and Gatrie to weaken enemies and Soren to kill them will get Soren to around 4 or 5. Rhys to 6, Ike to around 11 or 12, and Gatrie to 11 or 12. Chapter 5, No bonus exp time limits either, using Shinon and Gatrie as a wall for the front, and letting Boyd, Oscar and Ike deal with the left, making sure Boyd and Oscar always get kills, will push them to about level 8. Ike can stay at 12, but might get 13. Soren bounces between the two groups and gets any kills he can, so he'll be about 6 or 7. Gatrie will get about 13 or 14. Titania can kill the boss for the Ashera Icon, if noone else is able to in time, though with some teamwork, Ike or Gatrie can easily get the kill when they and Soren start pushing ahead. Rhys probably won't get a level here. Chapter 6, Ike is a healthy level now, 12, and can't promote for ages, so focus on giving Oscar, Boyd, and Soren kills, this will get each to about 11. Titania can lure enemies out, Ike can weaken when need be. Chapter 7, Titania as a shield, Ike, being good enough, stays behind for Mia. Boyd, Titania, Oscar, and Soren go left to get kills, kill that pesky thief, and get the fire tome. Shinon also shields, Gatrie gets some exp. Ike, Boyd, Oscar, and Soren can all hit about level 13 or 14, here. Titania will still be level 1, Shinon, too. Gatrie might be about 14 or 15. Mia will probably be 7 or 8 (if you want to use her.) Now when you reach Chapter 8, you'lll have Ike, Oscar, Boyd, and Soren all at around 13 or 14. You'll have significantly less Bonus Exp, but that Bonus will be worth losing for 4 good units. Instead of bonus exp dumping into a unit, you now can spread it out evenly, or save it for Marcia. Boyd at level 16 will be able to clear the entire front of the castle with the poleaxe, Oscar and Soren can defend and pick off targets at the right side, Ike with the Regal Sword can defend the left himself with a Vulnerary, then hire Ilyana around the end. Rhys can continue healing, with or without bonus exp. Titania can help Boyd at the front and team up on the boss. Base Titania does 10 x 2 on the boss with steel axe. Boyd at 16 does 23 damage with hammer. Now instead of having all these "Bonus Exp dump" bullsnap for 1 specific character, and a level 2 Titania at most for Chapter 8, you have a still-useful base Titania for Chapter 8, and 5 more great units to help out with the defending. Sure, you have 700 bonus exp instead of 1400, but all the exp that did matter went where it'll actually matter. And bonus exp can't train Weapon level. Soren using all 40 wind tome uses will get him to C rank, by itself. and you forgot to even mention forging. In the footage you showed, Oscar was allowed to have a forge, but not the unit you were showing off...? Soren would have C Wind, which is all he needs for the whole game at Chapter 8, and with a small price of 294 Gold, Soren could have a 1 weight Fire Tome forge. At best, it'd have about 6 might, too. A forged Wind will massively hurt and chip enemies for others to kill, is as strong as Tornado, and helps with the Ravens. A forged Fire can have up to 8 might, trashes beast laguz, and compliments Soren's high Magic stat while also being able to be 1 weight, meaning Soren loses no speed. And giving Soren an Elthunder when he promotes at about Chapter 12 ~ 13, will make training his Thunder rank from D to C easy. With just 20 uses (about 10 ~ 15 attacks), he'll get C rank for Bolting. And getting C rank for Fire will be easy with forged Fire tomes. And he'll have C Wind done as early as Chapter 8, as mentioned before. A level 15 Soren with one rigged level up to get 1 Strength on Chapter 8 would have 20 attack, 13 speed, no speed lost, and be able to one round everyone minus the boss with a forged fire tome. Not only all this, but you'd have a decent leveled Ike, Boyd, and Oscar on top of all this, and be able to still save bonus exp for Mist and Marcia.
@@leaffinite2001 Agreed. XD My passion got the best of me, I suppose. Seeing peeps always just mindlessly use Titania because "She's so good~!" and then proceed to "exp dump" everyone else to test if they're "good" or not has always triggered me.
Something i noticed about PoR bonus experience in my playthrough, you can negate the higher BEXP cost for higher levels by just giving units one bonus experience point at a time. Of course, I can see why most people wouldn't do this because of how much more tedious it is compared to just dumping an entire level's worth of BEXP onto a unit at once, but I do still think it's worth keeping in mind since that can be about 3 extra levels worth, and depending on the level soren is already at, it could even push him to a promotion before chapter 8, and while his promo bonuses arent spectacular or anything, that does still automatically bump his fire and thunder tome rank up to D (allowing him to yoink Ilyana's elthunder tome right away and use it for himself with what will on average be far greater magic), as well as granting him access to staves
I'm aware of this bxp exploit, I don't account for exploits in my analysis (which is also why i didn't talk about thunder forges, even though they are really really fun!)
Path of radiance is so gay coded. The lord is gay coded. We have a furry gay and an edgy skinny gay. Now, we need lesbian coded fire emblem. FE7 lyn mode is counted but it is not mainly focused.
Personally I see Ike as aro/ace and soren and ranulf as straight up gay, the queer coded rep in a game this old that is not only well written but really cute is phenomenal, especially when compared to western media
@@ZigmundSpeller-v8p It's just how I saw and interpreted Ike, I don't disavow or don't think he isn't gay? No idea where the hostility is coming from I'll be honest he can easily be gay and I am fine with it
Eh I don't like how bexp pushes the player to play in a very specific way, it makes maps feel more linear and it just isn't satisfying to use. You just dump it into someone and they're better. I prefer something like three arena uses in Engage on hm at least where there's a bit of tension as to how much exp you'll get and you can't power level anyone
i've done the Super Soren thing twice, early bexp dump and staff grind and everything, and came to the same conclusions as this video. so much of his existence felt like i was doing little chores to facilitate soren's self-improvement, and that this outweighed his actual impact. training a mage instead of Paladin 3 sounds more interesting, but then u remember that this is tellius. i found myself wishing that ike and soren got an instant pent-and-louise-style support (+3 def) to help soren's early combat... but ultimately both of my sorens finished the game with like 9 def, so, lol.
15:40 "Bonus experience is one of the worst mechanics fire emblem has ever implemented" What? It kicked ass. I absolutely loved it. "In general it is ideal to dump large amounts of bonus experience into single units in order to create overpowered demigods that can wreck the rest of the game" .....oh. ya know i never considered using it like that. I always just used Bonus experience to level up lower level units i wanted to use and to keep my army even in strength. But. Yeah if you can just dump it all into one unit without much drawback and trivialize the game with them then it is kinda poorly designed.
I also think the ability to raise training projects without the effort limits unit design. Nino may be a bad unit, but she's much beloved because you have the zero to hero training arc. If FE7 had bonus experience, she wouldn't have that gameplay based journey and instead would have "ok how much bxp do we give her to make her function" which to me is a lot less interesting.
I haven’t finished the video yet, so idk if you’ve touched on it. But I do want to point out another nerf that kinda hits mages in the tellius games. FE9 and 10 changes the original Attack Speed formula. In FE6-8 it is: If Constitution
True. That does hurt them although id argue not much since as you say tome weight is quite low. 3H mages on the other hand... Yeah... Heavy spells AND a harsher formula plus kind of low speed already. Yikes
I actually find Calil to be a really solid B to A tier unit in PoR. She lacks staff access but she has a decent magic stat and I believe she has C rank in all magic types, meaning even if you don't want to train Soren or Ilyana to have C rank in everything, you can still have a dedicated Siege Tome User(TM) I know that's not the point of this video but I just love pointing out how much I like Calil as a unit. I think she's really well-designed. I always end up using her for at least a few chapters in the midgame, particularly the one where you have to yeet the priests, cuz she can thundersnipe the boss lol
Her ranks are even better, B in everything. That said, she still has mage issues (low move, bad weapon types) so I find her performance to be more filler/niches. Seige tomes are the big attraction.
I am not a Soren stan, but I knew I wasn't hallucinating when I had a bad first impression with Soren in FE9. People kept telling me he was good when my Soren ended up being speed screwed and him being made of wet tissue makes it so frustrating to use him.
He also only can support with Ike & Easter Egg badass Stefan, that puts him at a disadvantage to most other units as well. I love using him, though, for Adept progs, physics, siege tomes, and the great animations of the magic tomes in Path of Radiance.
just finished my first PoR run, was waiting to watch this video until i did, and oof. i really tried to give soren a chance, he was the only mage i ever fielded, my first promote, i fed him kills, but around midgame when i started forging and having more mounted units he just stopped being useful. no siege either because i couldn't get him to skill up any tomes; he just wasn't getting access to enemies. even after all my investment he just spent the last half of the game benched as i moved over to mist.
For me FE9 is kind of like FE4 when it comes to discussions like these because the actually good units dwarf everyone else so severely that talking about their utility is kind of a waste of time. Like FE4 though, it's really easy to have any unit you want keep up experience-wise regardless with bexp and Soren has a bunch of free deployments where I always found it was really easy to get him kills, so I basically always use him just because he's fun what with the Ike support and killing enemies before they can attack with vantage and a lucky crit/adept proc.
Considering how much different your views on BEXP are than most people I have seen, how would you change BEXP to be better designed? Most people seem to appreciate it as far as I see it, though they probably may not factor in the fact that you can just funnel everything into one op unit (like Oscar or Titania). But the fact that you can use it to invest in lower-leveled units with little short-term stress, it still feels like something that has merit.
I know you didn't discuss it because it's an exploit, but he is *legitimately* the arguable best unit in the game on specifically Maniac mode due to Thunder crit forges, and is *the* cornerstone of LTC runs. That doesn't necessarily translate to casual gameplay, but I still think it's interesting just how big of a difference it makes, legitimately skyrocketing him up from a low tier to arguably the very top of S, giving Titania some competition. Specifically, because of Maniac's way of inflating enemy HP and numbers, thunder forges end up being one of the only good ways of cleanly ORKOing all the enemies, and once you get the Ch13 Vantage scroll he becomes your best combat unit by virtue of being able to consistently vantage one shot enemies. The other thing this allows for is role compression of Soren as both a Rescue user and a boss killer, which lets you skip chapters using only 1 use of Rescue. The other thing he has over physical boss killers is his resistance, since that lets him shrug off the siege tomes and status staves way more.
If you use glitches i can see it, but I play maniac without glitches these days (though I maintain everyone should try glitched thunder vantage at least once because its HILARIOUS)
I will say however that I don't think role compression matters in PoR, since you get so many deployment slots. I'd rather use the best rescuer (Rhys) the best Seoge tomer (Calil) and the best combat units than settle for a unit who is worse at both roles.
@@DaniDoyle my point was more that it matters with Soren since it saves a Rescue use. You can Shove him to the boss, get the kill, and then Rescue Ike without needing to spend a use on a separate boss killer.
Outside of a 100% growths context, soren does not have the raw stats to be your primary bosskiller at the time you have rescue available. Within a 100% growths context, he's not even the "best" at it, but is simply chosen for self improvement so that he can grow for the necessary rescues. In non 100%/ non rigged LTC Soren doesn't have the bulk or damage output for the role, even putting aside his movement issues.
something that hasnt been touched on if you decide to not bexp soren and train illyana or tormod for their utility upside (shade = being able to position aggresively and tormod not being stuck on low move) alongside soren then they will perform equally. You have soren the longest but lategame he isnt that much stronger combat wise than the other two ... he is replaceable Another Note you get a Siege tome in chapter 16 if you are fast enough which help in 17-4 and onwards ESPECIALLY in Maniac mode. It is not only crucial to have a second siege tome user but soren is the most reliable for this job as bexp is less and he has the highest skill/mag of em all
i gotta disagree on maniac mode, Hard mode is just so easy to play . Like you i played the game alot and i can agree with you that its tedious to siege tank for 5 turn. Maniac give difficulty to the game that is clearly needed . I feel like path of radiance is one of the easiest game in the franchise, maniac mode bring a good set of difficulty that's not making the game extra difficult for nothing (looking at you Awakening Lunatic) But still gives you a challenge. Overall, i probably will never play hard mode again unless i want to transfer unit to radiant dawn
See, I don't find Maniac hard after the early game. Once you get to around chapter 12/13ish it becomes more tedious than difficult (in a similar vein to how i feel about Awakening Lunatic/Lunatic plus). Enemy Spam and especially Status Spam aren't things i find it tricky to handle, they just require taking things slowly, which makes the maps even less fun and more time consuming without adding to the challenge (especially since very few PoR maps have any anti-turtle incentive). PoR hard has its own flavor of issues (the enemies are weaker and your units snowball more easily) so at this point I don't especially find either difficulty super engaging, though if i had to "pick my poison" I'd probably pick hard since I find it less tedious personally.
@@DaniDoyle Most challenging obstacles in fire emblem are easier to deal with upon taking them slowly though. Trying to deal with the siege tome spam whilst also maintaining good pace did make dealing with more interesting for me personally. One does not need to play too slowly if you just dive into and kill the siege tomes with your high move units, while controlling what the siege tomes user left alive will attack. I found that it definitely helps to give the boots to a combat flier when trying to speed up dealing with them. I can’t fully agree about there being no anti turtling incentive, due to the existence of bonus xp, which is usually desirable due to it allowing you to give controlled knight ward levels. These are nice because doubling thresholds can be very tough to reach on maniac mode. However, I can admit that it’s not nearly as effective as an anti turtling incentive as it is in radiant Dawn, as the xp does not cut off sharply after a certain point, like it does in that game. Maniac mode does help with this though, as the bonus xp for clearing a map was removed. If you don’t play at a decent pace, you will get very little bonus xp and will not be able to abuse the knight ward nearly as well. That’s usually been a good incentive for me. I can agree about tedium spiking after a certain point, but not as early as chapter 13/14, more like chapter 18. Chapter 19 and 20 aren’t so bad though. Tedium really takes off with chapter 21 and onward though.
Oh I agree that slowing down makes anything easier, the issue is PoR Maniac doesn't give you a huge reason not to once you hit midgame. Maniac Mode's BXP gains are minimal, especially once you have your squad online, and aside from the treasure in ch16, no side objective is tight enough to rush you, meanwhile sleep staff spam and enemy density all but forces you to slow down (especially since no one is one rounding due to class caps, (unless you use the forge glitch which I don't), so even if you have enough bulk to safely push forward, you get bogged down by enemies blocking your path). While its true you can use BXP to rig more easily or abuse the knight ward, I just haven't found that is a huge dealbreaker (and unless you go very slow, you have some bxp to work with anyway)
I would agree with the fact that chapter 12 to chapter 19-20 are kinda easy, but i really dont believe that the late game is ''easy'' i can think of alot of chapter pass the 20th chapter that are actually hard, like talrega, clash, and the two last map are hard if you dont know how to pilot them, (and these are example, i think there are a few more map that are actually hard) i think what i dislike more about maniac mode is the unnecessary nerf to swordmaster, halbardier and sniper 15%crit , cavalry in this game are so good and yet they nerf the grounded one lmao
I like soren ok but i wouldnt say hes great or anything. I think hes like lugh in fe6, not actually that good, but you get him somewhat early compared to any alternative characters who do similar stuff, making him easier to use. Thats also why i prefer ike to roy, bcuz using ike does make the game easier, but using roy is almost uniformly more tedious and difficult than not using him at all
You forgot about resetting thousands of times to make sure he gets defense on every level up. I don't agree with that Tier List nor Rolf statement. I still enjoy watching someone's opinion.
This is unrelated to the video, but WHY ARE THE GRAPHICS SO BAD. I don't know what i am looking at right now. (this is why GBA emblem is the best, clear defined sprites)
Gamecube was 20 years ago. Believe it or not, these were considered good at the time. I remember my mom walking in on Oscar throwing a javelin and getting upset at how realistic the violence looked LMAO
What do you mean, "bad"? Sure, you can definitely see the technical limitations of the time, but in terms of style, the game aged much better than plenty other games from back then.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Soren’s support bonuses 21 minutes in were calculated using Radiant Dawn support levels. Actual boons would be
C: +7 avoid
B: +15 avoid, +1 dmg
A: +22 avoid, +1 dmg
It’s also worth noting that Ike protects Soren from critical hits when they are adjacent, making him one of the better options for dealing with killer weapons.
I'll be real, I find the crit negation supports to be a meme since it requires adjacency and this is super situational (especially with Ike since he's not a unit typically near the frontlines) There aren't many killer weapons in PoR, and the ones that exist are easily dealt with using a tanky unit (like the paladins or wyverns).
You're absolutely right about the supports, which means sorens avoid is slightly lower than I gave it credit for. 3/5/8 points isnt huge and probably doesn't impact my overall evaluation, but with a unit who's defensive bulk is as rough as Soren, every point of avoid matters. I'm Pinning your comment to help correct this error, thanks!
That would've been better in RD honestly with how many generic class types get crit bonuses later in the game and how easier it is to build their support there
Sure Soren may not be the best unit, may have a lot of weaknesses, but he's an edgy gay twink so you have to understand why I still use him every single playthrough
Fake gaymer, not focusing exclusively on the masochist difficulty mode.
I wish I didn't have a comment correcting my mistake/misinformation, i would totally pin yours as a joke.
Can't wait for genuine comments like this XD
@@theghostcreator776 I've gotten some on previous videos about how I'm just a fake gamer who needs to play on the highest difficulty... Which is funny to me because with 3 maddening playthroughs under my belt, I'm fairly confident I've played maddening mode more than most people. I just don't find it fun.
@@DaniDoyle oh fun
Yeah i don't like maddening that much it kind of feels like forcing difficulty in a way that just makes the cast feel worse instead of making units feel more unique
Instructions unclear. Bonus exped rhys and solo’d chapter 9 with him.
I love him
As a proud Soren stan, this video is based and twink-pilled. He’s an edgy boy and really REALLY needs a hug, atleast in PoR.
him and Ike defo banged though
As if Soren would allow anyone to ever hug him (unless it's Ike with his strong arms).
Running Vantage on him with a 255 crit Thunder tome in the Japanese version of Path Of Radiance is fun.
your looking to close at soren give him some space
Soren is a good unit.
Just like Ike, just like Boyd, just like anyone really. The biggest problem with ranking these characters has got to come from the fact of how "professional" Fire Emblem players play these games to begin with.
Yes, Titania is a good unit. Everyone knows this. Yes, clearing maps faster grants you more bonus exp. We get this, too.
The problem stems from how overvalued pre-promote braindead units are. Yes, Titania can clear the entire early maps by herself. Yes, Titania is insanely powerful and trashes the game. However, all these videos, this one included, just seem to mindlessly give her a hand axe, throw her in the battle, and let her do everything. This is why most of the others units fail.
Titania does eat up exp. I'm not saying to completely not use her, but early game, she gets 1 Exp per enemy on hard mode. The most she'll get is one level up when Chapter 8 finally arrives.
Letting Titania sit around with no weapon allows her to be an efficient meat-shield, and still allows her time to get those 1 exp points. While actively using the others memebers with get you alot more exp for them. Using all three units on Chapter 1 will get Ike, Boyd, and Oscar to all atleast level 2 and 3 for one of them, whoever gets boss.
Not using Titania as an attacker and focusing Boyd and Oscar on Chapter 2 will get them to around Level 6, each. (About) Rhys has more time to heal, as well. More exp for him. Best case, he gets a level.
Not using Titania on Chapter 3, nor Shinon, will get Gatrie to around level 10 or 11, depending. Using Ike for almost everything will get him to about 8 or 9.
Chapter 4, babying Soren and using Ike and Gatrie to weaken enemies and Soren to kill them will get Soren to around 4 or 5. Rhys to 6, Ike to around 11 or 12, and Gatrie to 11 or 12.
Chapter 5, No bonus exp time limits either, using Shinon and Gatrie as a wall for the front, and letting Boyd, Oscar and Ike deal with the left, making sure Boyd and Oscar always get kills, will push them to about level 8. Ike can stay at 12, but might get 13. Soren bounces between the two groups and gets any kills he can, so he'll be about 6 or 7. Gatrie will get about 13 or 14. Titania can kill the boss for the Ashera Icon, if noone else is able to in time, though with some teamwork, Ike or Gatrie can easily get the kill when they and Soren start pushing ahead. Rhys probably won't get a level here.
Chapter 6, Ike is a healthy level now, 12, and can't promote for ages, so focus on giving Oscar, Boyd, and Soren kills, this will get each to about 11. Titania can lure enemies out, Ike can weaken when need be.
Chapter 7, Titania as a shield, Ike, being good enough, stays behind for Mia. Boyd, Titania, Oscar, and Soren go left to get kills, kill that pesky thief, and get the fire tome. Shinon also shields, Gatrie gets some exp. Ike, Boyd, Oscar, and Soren can all hit about level 13 or 14, here. Titania will still be level 1, Shinon, too. Gatrie might be about 14 or 15. Mia will probably be 7 or 8 (if you want to use her.)
Now when you reach Chapter 8, you'lll have Ike, Oscar, Boyd, and Soren all at around 13 or 14. You'll have significantly less Bonus Exp, but that Bonus will be worth losing for 4 good units. Instead of bonus exp dumping into a unit, you now can spread it out evenly, or save it for Marcia. Boyd at level 16 will be able to clear the entire front of the castle with the poleaxe, Oscar and Soren can defend and pick off targets at the right side, Ike with the Regal Sword can defend the left himself with a Vulnerary, then hire Ilyana around the end. Rhys can continue healing, with or without bonus exp. Titania can help Boyd at the front and team up on the boss. Base Titania does 10 x 2 on the boss with steel axe. Boyd at 16 does 23 damage with hammer.
Now instead of having all these "Bonus Exp dump" bullsnap for 1 specific character, and a level 2 Titania at most for Chapter 8, you have a still-useful base Titania for Chapter 8, and 5 more great units to help out with the defending. Sure, you have 700 bonus exp instead of 1400, but all the exp that did matter went where it'll actually matter. And bonus exp can't train Weapon level.
Soren using all 40 wind tome uses will get him to C rank, by itself. and you forgot to even mention forging. In the footage you showed, Oscar was allowed to have a forge, but not the unit you were showing off...? Soren would have C Wind, which is all he needs for the whole game at Chapter 8, and with a small price of 294 Gold, Soren could have a 1 weight Fire Tome forge. At best, it'd have about 6 might, too.
A forged Wind will massively hurt and chip enemies for others to kill, is as strong as Tornado, and helps with the Ravens.
A forged Fire can have up to 8 might, trashes beast laguz, and compliments Soren's high Magic stat while also being able to be 1 weight, meaning Soren loses no speed.
And giving Soren an Elthunder when he promotes at about Chapter 12 ~ 13, will make training his Thunder rank from D to C easy. With just 20 uses (about 10 ~ 15 attacks), he'll get C rank for Bolting. And getting C rank for Fire will be easy with forged Fire tomes. And he'll have C Wind done as early as Chapter 8, as mentioned before.
A level 15 Soren with one rigged level up to get 1 Strength on Chapter 8 would have 20 attack, 13 speed, no speed lost, and be able to one round everyone minus the boss with a forged fire tome. Not only all this, but you'd have a decent leveled Ike, Boyd, and Oscar on top of all this, and be able to still save bonus exp for Mist and Marcia.
Kinda weird to write out basically a walkthrough lol
@@leaffinite2001 Agreed. XD
My passion got the best of me, I suppose. Seeing peeps always just mindlessly use Titania because "She's so good~!" and then proceed to "exp dump" everyone else to test if they're "good" or not has always triggered me.
I'm about to eat and looking for a video and this just uploaded. Came in clutch
Glad to help 😊
Something i noticed about PoR bonus experience in my playthrough, you can negate the higher BEXP cost for higher levels by just giving units one bonus experience point at a time. Of course, I can see why most people wouldn't do this because of how much more tedious it is compared to just dumping an entire level's worth of BEXP onto a unit at once, but I do still think it's worth keeping in mind since that can be about 3 extra levels worth, and depending on the level soren is already at, it could even push him to a promotion before chapter 8, and while his promo bonuses arent spectacular or anything, that does still automatically bump his fire and thunder tome rank up to D (allowing him to yoink Ilyana's elthunder tome right away and use it for himself with what will on average be far greater magic), as well as granting him access to staves
I'm aware of this bxp exploit, I don't account for exploits in my analysis (which is also why i didn't talk about thunder forges, even though they are really really fun!)
Path of radiance is so gay coded. The lord is gay coded. We have a furry gay and an edgy skinny gay. Now, we need lesbian coded fire emblem. FE7 lyn mode is counted but it is not mainly focused.
Lyn x Florina, my OTP
Personally I see Ike as aro/ace and soren and ranulf as straight up gay, the queer coded rep in a game this old that is not only well written but really cute is phenomenal, especially when compared to western media
@@FoxEmblem01Legit nothing about Ike seems ace. He is extremely gay-coded. Reaching at best and gay erasure at worst, worstie ❤
@@ZigmundSpeller-v8p It's just how I saw and interpreted Ike, I don't disavow or don't think he isn't gay? No idea where the hostility is coming from I'll be honest he can easily be gay and I am fine with it
I don’t care how bad of a unit he is, I’m using Ike’s twink lover every playthrough and you cannot stop me.
Nor would I want to :)
Me personally, Soren capped his speed extremely early when I was playing Path of Radiance, so I won't complain
He's ZOOMING!
I would love to see a video detailing why you think bonus Exp is such a bad mechanic, especially since most of the community loves it
Eh I don't like how bexp pushes the player to play in a very specific way, it makes maps feel more linear and it just isn't satisfying to use. You just dump it into someone and they're better. I prefer something like three arena uses in Engage on hm at least where there's a bit of tension as to how much exp you'll get and you can't power level anyone
Thank god someone can look at Soren for me after I've been doing this for YEARS
i've done the Super Soren thing twice, early bexp dump and staff grind and everything, and came to the same conclusions as this video. so much of his existence felt like i was doing little chores to facilitate soren's self-improvement, and that this outweighed his actual impact. training a mage instead of Paladin 3 sounds more interesting, but then u remember that this is tellius. i found myself wishing that ike and soren got an instant pent-and-louise-style support (+3 def) to help soren's early combat... but ultimately both of my sorens finished the game with like 9 def, so, lol.
15:40 "Bonus experience is one of the worst mechanics fire emblem has ever implemented"
What? It kicked ass. I absolutely loved it.
"In general it is ideal to dump large amounts of bonus experience into single units in order to create overpowered demigods that can wreck the rest of the game"
.....oh. ya know i never considered using it like that. I always just used Bonus experience to level up lower level units i wanted to use and to keep my army even in strength. But. Yeah if you can just dump it all into one unit without much drawback and trivialize the game with them then it is kinda poorly designed.
I also think the ability to raise training projects without the effort limits unit design. Nino may be a bad unit, but she's much beloved because you have the zero to hero training arc. If FE7 had bonus experience, she wouldn't have that gameplay based journey and instead would have "ok how much bxp do we give her to make her function" which to me is a lot less interesting.
I haven’t finished the video yet, so idk if you’ve touched on it. But I do want to point out another nerf that kinda hits mages in the tellius games.
FE9 and 10 changes the original Attack Speed formula. In FE6-8 it is:
If Constitution
True. That does hurt them although id argue not much since as you say tome weight is quite low. 3H mages on the other hand... Yeah... Heavy spells AND a harsher formula plus kind of low speed already. Yikes
I actually find Calil to be a really solid B to A tier unit in PoR. She lacks staff access but she has a decent magic stat and I believe she has C rank in all magic types, meaning even if you don't want to train Soren or Ilyana to have C rank in everything, you can still have a dedicated Siege Tome User(TM)
I know that's not the point of this video but I just love pointing out how much I like Calil as a unit. I think she's really well-designed. I always end up using her for at least a few chapters in the midgame, particularly the one where you have to yeet the priests, cuz she can thundersnipe the boss lol
Her ranks are even better, B in everything. That said, she still has mage issues (low move, bad weapon types) so I find her performance to be more filler/niches. Seige tomes are the big attraction.
One thing I was wondering about is why you dislike BEXP so much? Personally I felt it was good and I've never heard anyone talk about it so negatively
I am not a Soren stan, but I knew I wasn't hallucinating when I had a bad first impression with Soren in FE9. People kept telling me he was good when my Soren ended up being speed screwed and him being made of wet tissue makes it so frustrating to use him.
He also only can support with Ike & Easter Egg badass Stefan, that puts him at a disadvantage to most other units as well. I love using him, though, for Adept progs, physics, siege tomes, and the great animations of the magic tomes in Path of Radiance.
Spotted the TMGC plug 👍
I've not seen many people call him good ngl. Still baby him every run because Soren :)
just finished my first PoR run, was waiting to watch this video until i did, and oof. i really tried to give soren a chance, he was the only mage i ever fielded, my first promote, i fed him kills, but around midgame when i started forging and having more mounted units he just stopped being useful. no siege either because i couldn't get him to skill up any tomes; he just wasn't getting access to enemies. even after all my investment he just spent the last half of the game benched as i moved over to mist.
The only good part about maniac mode is that its the only difficulty of PoR that i dont feel bad abusing underflow crits on
For me FE9 is kind of like FE4 when it comes to discussions like these because the actually good units dwarf everyone else so severely that talking about their utility is kind of a waste of time. Like FE4 though, it's really easy to have any unit you want keep up experience-wise regardless with bexp and Soren has a bunch of free deployments where I always found it was really easy to get him kills, so I basically always use him just because he's fun what with the Ike support and killing enemies before they can attack with vantage and a lucky crit/adept proc.
I thought this video was about soren's character XD
Soren hate? During Pride???
Jokes aside, great analysis. Ike deserved better (gameplay wise)
10/10 watched it at 4x speed to finish in time
Considering how much different your views on BEXP are than most people I have seen, how would you change BEXP to be better designed? Most people seem to appreciate it as far as I see it, though they probably may not factor in the fact that you can just funnel everything into one op unit (like Oscar or Titania). But the fact that you can use it to invest in lower-leveled units with little short-term stress, it still feels like something that has merit.
Put a cap on how many times you can level a single unit between chapters
I know you didn't discuss it because it's an exploit, but he is *legitimately* the arguable best unit in the game on specifically Maniac mode due to Thunder crit forges, and is *the* cornerstone of LTC runs. That doesn't necessarily translate to casual gameplay, but I still think it's interesting just how big of a difference it makes, legitimately skyrocketing him up from a low tier to arguably the very top of S, giving Titania some competition.
Specifically, because of Maniac's way of inflating enemy HP and numbers, thunder forges end up being one of the only good ways of cleanly ORKOing all the enemies, and once you get the Ch13 Vantage scroll he becomes your best combat unit by virtue of being able to consistently vantage one shot enemies. The other thing this allows for is role compression of Soren as both a Rescue user and a boss killer, which lets you skip chapters using only 1 use of Rescue. The other thing he has over physical boss killers is his resistance, since that lets him shrug off the siege tomes and status staves way more.
If you use glitches i can see it, but I play maniac without glitches these days (though I maintain everyone should try glitched thunder vantage at least once because its HILARIOUS)
I will say however that I don't think role compression matters in PoR, since you get so many deployment slots. I'd rather use the best rescuer (Rhys) the best Seoge tomer (Calil) and the best combat units than settle for a unit who is worse at both roles.
@@DaniDoyle my point was more that it matters with Soren since it saves a Rescue use. You can Shove him to the boss, get the kill, and then Rescue Ike without needing to spend a use on a separate boss killer.
Outside of a 100% growths context, soren does not have the raw stats to be your primary bosskiller at the time you have rescue available. Within a 100% growths context, he's not even the "best" at it, but is simply chosen for self improvement so that he can grow for the necessary rescues. In non 100%/ non rigged LTC Soren doesn't have the bulk or damage output for the role, even putting aside his movement issues.
@@DaniDoyle yeah but I’m talking about runs with crit forged Thunder, where he procs vantage and one shots most of the enemies.
something that hasnt been touched on if you decide to not bexp soren and train illyana or tormod for their utility upside (shade = being able to position aggresively and tormod not being stuck on low move)
alongside soren then they will perform equally. You have soren the longest but lategame he isnt that much stronger combat wise than the other two ... he is replaceable
Another Note you get a Siege tome in chapter 16 if you are fast enough which help in 17-4 and onwards ESPECIALLY in Maniac mode. It is not only crucial to have a second siege tome user but soren is the most reliable for this job as bexp is less and he has the highest skill/mag of em all
24:40 "The Big Dump" xD
💩
Attack of the magical twink!!!!!
I love ALL Dorkly videos!!!! ❤
i gotta disagree on maniac mode, Hard mode is just so easy to play . Like you i played the game alot and i can agree with you that its tedious to siege tank for 5 turn. Maniac give difficulty to the game that is clearly needed . I feel like path of radiance is one of the easiest game in the franchise, maniac mode bring a good set of difficulty that's not making the game extra difficult for nothing (looking at you Awakening Lunatic) But still gives you a challenge. Overall, i probably will never play hard mode again unless i want to transfer unit to radiant dawn
See, I don't find Maniac hard after the early game. Once you get to around chapter 12/13ish it becomes more tedious than difficult (in a similar vein to how i feel about Awakening Lunatic/Lunatic plus). Enemy Spam and especially Status Spam aren't things i find it tricky to handle, they just require taking things slowly, which makes the maps even less fun and more time consuming without adding to the challenge (especially since very few PoR maps have any anti-turtle incentive). PoR hard has its own flavor of issues (the enemies are weaker and your units snowball more easily) so at this point I don't especially find either difficulty super engaging, though if i had to "pick my poison" I'd probably pick hard since I find it less tedious personally.
@@DaniDoyle Most challenging obstacles in fire emblem are easier to deal with upon taking them slowly though. Trying to deal with the siege tome spam whilst also maintaining good pace did make dealing with more interesting for me personally. One does not need to play too slowly if you just dive into and kill the siege tomes with your high move units, while controlling what the siege tomes user left alive will attack. I found that it definitely helps to give the boots to a combat flier when trying to speed up dealing with them.
I can’t fully agree about there being no anti turtling incentive, due to the existence of bonus xp, which is usually desirable due to it allowing you to give controlled knight ward levels. These are nice because doubling thresholds can be very tough to reach on maniac mode. However, I can admit that it’s not nearly as effective as an anti turtling incentive as it is in radiant Dawn, as the xp does not cut off sharply after a certain point, like it does in that game. Maniac mode does help with this though, as the bonus xp for clearing a map was removed. If you don’t play at a decent pace, you will get very little bonus xp and will not be able to abuse the knight ward nearly as well. That’s usually been a good incentive for me.
I can agree about tedium spiking after a certain point, but not as early as chapter 13/14, more like chapter 18. Chapter 19 and 20 aren’t so bad though. Tedium really takes off with chapter 21 and onward though.
Oh I agree that slowing down makes anything easier, the issue is PoR Maniac doesn't give you a huge reason not to once you hit midgame. Maniac Mode's BXP gains are minimal, especially once you have your squad online, and aside from the treasure in ch16, no side objective is tight enough to rush you, meanwhile sleep staff spam and enemy density all but forces you to slow down (especially since no one is one rounding due to class caps, (unless you use the forge glitch which I don't), so even if you have enough bulk to safely push forward, you get bogged down by enemies blocking your path). While its true you can use BXP to rig more easily or abuse the knight ward, I just haven't found that is a huge dealbreaker (and unless you go very slow, you have some bxp to work with anyway)
I would agree with the fact that chapter 12 to chapter 19-20 are kinda easy, but i really dont believe that the late game is ''easy'' i can think of alot of chapter pass the 20th chapter that are actually hard, like talrega, clash, and the two last map are hard if you dont know how to pilot them, (and these are example, i think there are a few more map that are actually hard) i think what i dislike more about maniac mode is the unnecessary nerf to swordmaster, halbardier and sniper 15%crit , cavalry in this game are so good and yet they nerf the grounded one lmao
I like soren ok but i wouldnt say hes great or anything. I think hes like lugh in fe6, not actually that good, but you get him somewhat early compared to any alternative characters who do similar stuff, making him easier to use. Thats also why i prefer ike to roy, bcuz using ike does make the game easier, but using roy is almost uniformly more tedious and difficult than not using him at all
I guess thats a mid example bcuz i actually like lilina more than lugh, but thats bcuz she looks cooler! Lugh is still easier to use
Not Mia's armpits! 🤦🏽♂️🤷🏽♂️
I guess I'll have something to look forward to in my next playthrough. 😂🤣
Its actually a subreddit r/miasarmpits
I wish i was joking
@DaniDoyle I wish you were joking, as well.
Well, not my proudest fap, but I'll give it a squirt.
For science.
@@DaniDoyle
Oh, my reply isn't showing up.
Weird.
You forgot about resetting thousands of times to make sure he gets defense on every level up.
I don't agree with that Tier List nor Rolf statement.
I still enjoy watching someone's opinion.
This is unrelated to the video, but WHY ARE THE GRAPHICS SO BAD. I don't know what i am looking at right now. (this is why GBA emblem is the best, clear defined sprites)
Gamecube was 20 years ago. Believe it or not, these were considered good at the time. I remember my mom walking in on Oscar throwing a javelin and getting upset at how realistic the violence looked LMAO
@@DaniDoyle I really fw the GameCube aesthetic. ngl.
@@DaniDoyleomg Oscar in real life 😱
What do you mean, "bad"? Sure, you can definitely see the technical limitations of the time, but in terms of style, the game aged much better than plenty other games from back then.
@@corhydrae3238 I mean the spirtes suck and I can't what the classes are of the units I am looking at.