Juggernauting: Making a Functionally Invincible Unit | Fire Emblem
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- Опубликовано: 23 май 2024
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There's an actual Fire Emblem course in a college rn. Excelblem is dropping lectures before the class starts.
Unfortunately excel wasn’t cited as extra courses unlike mekkah, ghast and actuallizard
this is the recording of his classes, for the people that can't attend
"Diversity, diversity, oversexualisation!"
And about a year in you get a basic rundown on map design.
@@KopperNeoman what?
@@KopperNeoman bro is yapping some nonsense
Otherwise known as: Playing Awakening normally
Can confirm. Had the father/daughter duo Warrior Donnel and Wyvern Lord Kjelle basically solo hard mode. Everyone else I mostly just trained to keep things interesting
@@MasterOphSky Even when I try to use other characters, I always give up halfway through because the ambush reinforcements just come in and one-round my healers or Olivia, and I'm the kind of player who wants to keep everyone alive. I think I only managed a "spread out" run once, and even then there was probably an overpowered Robin that soloed half the army, not because they couldn't take the over half, but because I wanted to feed kills to the scrubs.
My first time ever playing fire emblem was awakening and I somehow made Stahl into an unkillable tank that was only damaged by the strongest magic
I'm challenging myself with level cap
@@J.R.UnboundHey, check out this neat map where you recruit a mage, he starts decent but you can make him an absolute beast.
Wow thanks Fire Emblem Awaken-
Also here's 10 melee units that spawn near him
1:50 "Lack of crucial secondary objectives that are time-based or need multiple units"
This is the most important aspect of good level design imo. Not just because it prevents juggernaughting, but because it allows multiple variants of victory, making different campaigns unique and encouraging replayability.
Typical juggernaut:(shows sorcerer robin) makes sense
Sorcerers in Awakening were broken with the Nosferatu tome.
Should’ve showed General Amelia instead
"FE6/7/8: Buy Javelins"
I'm dead. XD
Having played a lot of 7 and 8, he's not wrong.
In my first ever Fire Emblem game, (Path of Radiance), I used Titania as a juggernaut character. She got ambush-spawned by the Black Knight.
Exact same thing happened to me
It is VERY easy to juggernaut in SoV if you have the pitchforks (which were free). Lukas and especially Valbar, when reclassed into mercenaries, keep their def from soldier/knight but now also get speed, better atk, and eventually dread fighter's halved magic damage. They take no damage (the minimum 1 damage per hit can be easily healed off by Physic or the blessed sword's regen), double everything, and are capable of soloing literally everything on their respective routes until Duma (Lukas might need a *little* help, but Valbar is a god among men). Postgame is trickier since the Thabes dragons ignore def/res, but by that point the insane speed from dread fighter (or yasha if you have access to it) just lets them dodge everything so it doesn't even matter.
Even without your natural dreadfighters can enjoy the perks of dread looping to cap stats anyway if you truly want to grind enough. Personally though for the maingame that isn't needed and given how strong hunter's volley and the killer bow are, while not juggernaughting you got many strong options for a kill everything and take next to no damage unit by midgame.
Leon really knows how to pick 'em!
I mean... Pitchforks falls firmly into "OP DLC, separate category" type stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy they added them so that we can off-class chars for giggles, but they also render balance discussions moot because you create a stat monster trivially.
You can juggernaut fine in SoV without 'em. Alm in particular is a very solid tank just in his native classes. The one big anti-juggernaut mechanic in the game is Nuibaba's HP-1, which requires Dread Fighters or Hexlock Shield to approach safely. But other than that, a super-Alm (or super-Saber, etc.) can get pretty invincible to all but a rare slice of enemy.
@@Snow_Fire_Flameyou could also just juggernaut by giving any character a dracoshield like actually anyone. Juggernauting via equipment is fun when just a certain item is just broken or just absurdly strong relative to when it can be acquired ( for example of a case where it falls off take the battlion you get when you do dedue’s paralogue. Early on you can create a juggernaut by taking a fast frail offensive unit let’s say Constance cuz I just did it in my run master armor knight give them that battlion and then just hard carry through balthus paralogue which is a strong contender for hardest map in the game the week it shows up or at least hard carry one side anyway
Thing is the time you take to do loops to make a character Juggernaut you could have already beaten the game. Realistically you are not doing loops till the last part and there is likely little reason to do it more then once
Awakening Vantage Vengance my beloved
Conquest lunatic was so fun man. Game actively gets you to juggernaut the the first like 20ish chapters because enemy stats are so high and then slaps you with infinite stat debuffs. Never want to see it again in another fe but what a game lol.
absolutely, damn it's a hard game xwx
I’d add health bars as an anti-juggernaut mechanic. As they, by definition, negate the ability to get one shot in a single combat. So fighting the boss will either take multiple turns for a juggernaut unit, or multiple units in a single turn.
Multiple health bars have become increasingly common lately
True, and phases of battle. But ultimately, if the unit is strong enough, they will win anyway
As someone who enjoys Juggernauting, I can say that it's much more satisfying to do it in games that are harder, or on hard difficulties. Conquest, Engage, Three Houses Maddening and Radiant Dawn are the most fun games to Juggernaut for me, because they force the player to not rely on just one unit, meaning you still need to deploy other units to contribute. Honestly, in a lot of games, even if you invest all stat-boosters and resources into a single unit, your other units that you choose to use will still be able to keep up and become strong too in relation to the enemy, because there's usually enough EXP for everyone (especially if you like killing every last enemy on a map). The only time I couldn't beat a juggernaut run was on my first try, on Conquest Hard mode. That was the last time I relied on a single unit without deploying anyone else. In most modern FE games, there's always value in using a full squad, even when juggernauting.
In a sense, a juggernaut becomes more like a queen piece in chess. It is stronger than any other piece you have on the board, but it is in combination with all other pieces that you achieve victory. Of course, any good player will know to make full use of such a strong strong piece to the best of their ability, to deal with situations other pieces couldn't, which can often result in your elite unit relieving a lot of pressure for your other units in the army to accomplish other objectives on the map, such as saving villages, fighting other enemies, etc... For example, here's Conquest Chapter 10 for example. The game gives you Camilla, which pretty much destroys everything on the map (with the exception of Takumi). She can hold all the enemies coming from the center on her own with very little support, allowing you to focus everyone else in the army to hold the other side lanes.
Besides that, it is satisfying to build a unit to the point where they absolutely style on strong enemies like they're nothing - and this is especially true for games like Engage, Conquest and Three Houses. Radiant Dawn's more rudimentary skill system is sufficiently satisfying too. Preparation can be a lot of fun, and preparation is half the battle.
For easier games, I find it pointless to juggernaut, personally. Enemies are already so weak, that I take no satisfaction in making a single unit super strong, especially in a game like Sacred Stones, where your entire army may as well be made up of juggernauts at some point. So yeah, I'd say I'm pretty happy with modern FE attempting to restrict juggernauting, because that only makes it even more fun to try juggernauting and test the limits of that one strong unit of your choice, especially when it still incentivizes you to use a full army.
On a side note, for Radiant Dawn in specific, building a juggernaut sometimes means you'll have to face them in battle at some point, due to the multiple armies; and that can make for an interesting scare, depending on the unit built. And it can be kinda fun to plan how to defeat your own juggernaut.
I'm loving these dissections of Fire Emblem.
IMO, anti juggernauting mechanics are the biggest reason FE12 is such a challenging game. You simply don’t get many systems to interact with as the player to buff yourself and the enemies always have essentially just as big of numbers as you from Lunatic up.
You have reclassing, forging and rainbow potion lol, also stat boosters
@@mysmallnoman you do, but it’s fairly limited and in the grand scheme of FE those aren’t that much. Also late enough in the game, your options for viable classes drops off sharply and money can be tight.
@@illialidur8244 you have 77 RP and it's not like you're using them on every unit, only the ones that benefit the most
There are many classes that are great late game, very few are actually bad
The game is extremely generous with money and dropped items from enemies, so you always also have stuff to sell
@@mysmallnoman I’m aware, but my initial statement is still correct that you have relatively little compared to other games.
Saying you can sell things for money is not a counter argument
Its crazy because you get Kris and Palla...but then you realize they can't be everywhere at once and the AI prioritizes dealing damage over not taking counters and they tend to aggro in groups.
I have never used this strategy in any Fire Emblem game so it's interesting how often I see it in videos. I came to Fire Emblem from a Pokemon background so building a full team was always on my mind.
it is also the most optimal strategy in pokémon games for the most part too. just pick one resonably stated mon with resonable covrage and but literaly every point of exp into it and you steamroll. it is mostly the entire reason why people doing challanges level cap
I think pokemon is also highly prone to juggernauting, though. You have a lot of people beating the games with just the starter.
Same, I love building as many strong and varied units as possible, especially the weakest like Nino, Sophia, Amelia. People will rollface a game with a single character and be like "this game is too easy and no fun". *surprised Pikachu face*
Juggernauting has always been very good in Pokemon though, just look at any speedrun of them and it usually centers around catching one powerhouse mon early then bulldozing the rest of the game with them.
Hell, Nuzlockes specifically need to include a rule that prevents you from juggernauting (level cap) to make it an actual challenge.
I came to Fire Emblem through looking for other strategy games that were kind of like Xcom enemy within. In which having a full team equally at their best was optimal over a single unit trying to steamroll (for me at least).
Did I just watch a powerpoint presentation on juggernauting?
In some games it feels like you actively have to work arround it to avoid juggernauting. I'm mostly thinking of Awakening and 3 Houses. Those games are fun character builders but if you ever go a bit too far in one direction you have a Juggernaut doing the whole map. I like the fact a Juggernaut can happen but as you said it's better if it actively feels like a reward and not something you stumbled upon and when the game still punches back despite your powerful Jugg. I feel like Engage did that pretty well
3H has the monster to interfere with juggernauts but it also has obscene stat and level caps.
I mean 3 Houses Maddening is basically just asking you to make a few juggernauts, because the game is nigh unplayable otherwise
@@aprinnyonbreak1290FE3H doesn't lend itself to juggernauting at all. Early part one is too early for a juggernaut to be built. Late part one is too easy for a juggernaut to have a point, part two starts late enough you can build all your units into low investment unstoppable death machines making a juggernaut obsolete.
Shaymaz said in his 7 hour Pokemon ORAS review that it wasn't that the game was too easy but that the game was far too willing to hand over the tools to break the game into being too easy. I think that applies here.
Well it's more a systematic flaw of Fire Emblem. It's not like you get a free juggernaut that can mega evolve in chapter 8 lol.
I think this video demonstrates enough anti-juggernaut measures that proves they absolutely do NOT want to give you those tools, but that it's just hard to balance fun factor with strategy.
Mmm
I... slightly agree with that?
ORAS is about has hard as the original in terms of what the game throws at you, but is unfathomably easier because while your opposition is basically unchanged, basically everything the player has access to has been massively buffed since gen 3.
Mighteyena is the perfect microcosm of this. In gen 3, Mightyena is pretty awful. It has bad SPA, but is a Dark type. It has good attack, but no good physical moves. It's Intimidate on a stick in the most minimal sense.
As of ORAS, it is a fantastic pokemon, with super good attack to use STABs off of, and tons of versatile coverage.
Didn't see it mentioned in the video or the comments, so I wanted to add that sol ninjas are very good at juggernauting in Conquest. The key to making them work so well is the defensive pair up gauge. They have enough speed to double most enemies to make it fill faster, while avoiding being doubled thus avoiding extra damage. This leads to them blocking every third attack with the guard gauge during enemy phase, give or take since the guard gauge goes up by one every time your character attacks and every time they are attacked. Along with this, sol has a skill% chance to activate and heal half the damage dealt every time your ninja attacks. If their skill is 20, they have a one in five chance of healing whenever they attack. Since they're doubling, it can be a lot. Ninjas also attack with one to two range, which means they counter most attack types, helping them kill more and helping them fill their guard gauge. Finally, ninjas have a decently high chance of just straight up dodging. Usually when you run the odds, a sol ninja with a moderate amount of effort put into them has a very good chance of surviving enemy mobs. A lot of times people look at sol ninjas and think their strength will be an issue, and it can be, but you can usually work around it well enough. You can use units with naturally high strength, forge weapons/use tonics, and maybe best of all, use the hunter knife. There's a lot of enemies toward the end of the game weak to it.
Silas is an example of a pretty good sol ninja. He has good strength, can naturally switch to hero to learn sol, and he can get ninja from a kaze friendship pretty quickly. Soleil is another example. Her dad can both pass down sol and a ninja reclass. Sol is literally in her name for gods sake.
I think sol ninjas are probably an example of a fun juggernaut, at least for one playthrough, since it takes some decent knowledge of mechanics, skills, and deliberate unit building.
This is a strategy that's been talked about a lot on forums and such, but I highly recommend watching Zoran's videos on sol ninjas. He breaks it down and explains it very well.
I would say compared to some other strategy rpgs, juggernauting isn't as much of a thing in fire emblem, largely due to the fact that many have pretty reachable stat caps and that you can't free grind in a lot of them. A lot of more customization heavy sprgs pretty much WANT you to juggernaut; making your juggernaut is part of the experience.
Yeah, stuff like Final fantasy tactics, Disgaea, etc come from companies that have RPG backgrounds so it makes sense that the moniker "JRPG on a grid" gets applied to a ton of SRPGs. Fire Emblem is one of the few that has a strategy background due to intelligent systems already working on Famicom Wars before hand.
It's why I can't really think of much if any SRPG that has a larger focus on their level design with things like side objectives, recruitable units, turtling disincentives, etc.
SRW intensifies
Very good explanation and overview of juggernauting’s problems/solutions. Although one minor nitpick: FE10 Vantage+Wrath isn’t very good because FE10 nerfed Vantage by making it a Speed%-based activation.
As for Shadows of Valentia/FE15 juggernauting, it is a problem because you can dump all your money/well boosts into Leon/whichever Alm villager becomes an Archer to juggernaut hard. The Killer Bow is an extremely busted weapon, moreso when Snipers have actually good stats to make use of. Fatigue exists but also may as well not exist due to how easy it is to work around.
I think SOV is okay because while you can juggernaut with the bow class line it isn't available at the start and doesn't dominate every part of the game
Alm part 1 is dominated by duel Levin sword Mercs and part 3 is more carried by Clive or another lance user running around with a horse slayer.
Part 4 Alm is more a Dreas fighter/Bow Knight mix and even then Bow Knights maik use is being player phase nukes or fighting other bow knights
Celica in Part 2 is dominated more by hyper carry mage and then it becomes Leon time to shine in part 3
I'm surprised to not hear about Poison strike/Grisly wounds/Savage blow in this video. To my knowledge is only present in Fates and to some part in 3h. Those skills can really screws you over in conquest if you dont play around them. Great presentation btw!
I'd be surprised to hear about them because of how low impact they have on it. They don't do anything that makes juggernauting bad, it's not like fatigue in other games.
@@coldeed if "Juggernauting" is by definition turning your brain of by putting all recourses into one unkillable character then mechanics that make the juggernaut killabe again should be a valid way to counter the strategy. I absolutely think it makes the strategy less plausible and by proxy game harder to figure out. Also you can just say 776, that's the only game with fatigue I belive.
They aren't as relevant because you can beat them by juggernauting even harder. They only trigger if the enemy survives the combat, so if you stack enough damage on a 1-2 range unit, the skills don't exist. Seal defense and similar skills work the same.
@@stinkoman20X6 This point is fair and I love the game mechanic because of it. However even If this is the chase not many units can have accurate 1-2 range combat especially against ninjas. And if you are making a juggernaut child in conquest you are by default using other units too do so.
I think those fall under the umbrella of True Damage discussed around 7:15
The closest thing to an absolute Juggernaut I ever got was Claude in TH Maddening when the difficulty released. Full Vantage+Wrath and other BS while never lacking range. He had 100% crit by the end of the game, and even with the build incomplete it was him that let me beat Reunion at Dawn.
Honestly, it's pretty fun to theorycraft a Juggernaut. "How can I make something unbreakable against all challenges ?" Once you've made him though, game loses its interest.
I think "flawed" Juggernauts, like Louis (Unbeatable in Physical, but dies to a single mage), are pretty interesting units to use since if you strategize well and clear the nearby mages, he can block a massive army. Very satisfying reward for good planning ahead.
Using Nephenee as a hyper carry and becoming motivated to make an entire video essay about it, as is natural.
Personally i think the biggest problem is that countering absokutely break the action economy in a way that just should not happen in a turn based game. Maximing your number of actions is always the meta and if the condition to be so is as simple as "be attacked while holding a 1-2 range weapon" then it is almost impossible to fix it.
Workarounds will never work as well as just hitting the hearth of the issue by limiting counters.
"But then it would be boring to fight hordes of red units". Good thing that throwing hordes at the player is usually bad game design. Mayne with limited counters they would also design less, but more threatening, mobs.
It's amazing how the debut of vantage/wrath simply did not work. It's like kaga knew all along...
Interestingly, the fe4 debut let them stack, but the 4 units capable of using it weren’t very strong anyway: Lex!Arthur, Lex!Tine, Arden!Arthur, and Arden!Tine. All four do not have a very potent magic growth and struggle actually one shotting. Lewyn!Arthur ends up being better because he ends up being a Dodge/Wrath user, by having insane avoid to dodge the attack, then respond with a 100 damage crit.
Then immediately in Thracia, where there are many units who could Vantage/Wrath, both skills are made more powerful but do not work together. Amazing.
Honestly best example of anti-juggernauting is in Berwick Saga. Not only do you have low growths and caps (e.g you can only be at MOST +3 stats from your average for that level), you also have each unit having a very unique niche and being unable to counter every unit's range (e.g. melee units cannot counter bows no matter what, but can counter crossbows).
Pair that with maps that require many multiple objectives that need to be accomplished quickly and far apart (think if Genealogy had all objectives for a map happen at once), and it's extremely hard to juggernaut at all in that game.
There certainly are times you will juggernaut (e.g. tank holding down a chokepoint in a defensive map, magic user vantage killing a squad of heavy knights) but it's only a situational strategy and requires you to deploy the right unit with the right equipment to do it.
One mechanic that comes to mind that is near universal (I think except for FE1, and maybe 2.) is the exp curve.
The steeper the curve, the harder it is to over-level a unit, and the more viable it is to invest in a well balanced team of units.
It's proven insufficient in most of the series. But it really is a good system.
Thank you for providing excellent analysis as always. I appreciate that there is more content to be had that isn't stream clips basically. You have fantastic clarity which makes this easy to listen along to
As someone who plays video games with an academic / study 📚 mindset, I really appreciate how you formatted and power pointed this like a lecture
Awakening was a game designed to make a team of juggernauts and the players still chose to go Robin tank because it was the far easier option.
I think instead of outright killing juggernauts there should be more map based design and objectives that force lose cons and resource choices to force a dependence on your force size. FE5 and 6 do seem to experiment with unit viability in different directions with 5 making them more reliable because of stamina forcing roster swaps and 6 forcing players stats to be lower than the other games making it a real risk to do the “kill everything” playstyle.
At its core I think the game series needs a better focus on opportunity cost along with hard modes having longer term drawbacks from early roster and map play choices.
Juggernauting is all fun and games until you get attacked by various directions from strong reinforcements.
I’m loving Excelblem’s Perun era
Can we please discuss hidden information? This being stuff the player has no way of knowing on their first playthrough without outside information. Stuff like growth rates, class abilities and even the tilted hit % rate which varies from game-to-game.
Without clairvoyance, there's no way to know if what you're doing will pay off, with a good team. People tend to hate Fog of War for obvious reasons but when you think about it, how much of the game is just "Diet Fog of War"?
The fact growths are hidden is actually crazy
@@aetherius6221 I know right! In a game with a lot of units and only so much EXP to go around, if you choose wrong and end up pseudo-soft locking yourself because your army doesn't have the stats needed.
@@pickyphysicsstudent201 growths are also super important to juggernauting considering how unbelievably powerful defense is
SOV can be juggernaughted on both routes pretty well due to two things: dread fighters (and looping) and hunters volley. Dread fighters are really really good and can easily end up being placed somewhere and killing everything. They still need a bit of help because even if they take no damage they will take 1 damage at least. Furthermore for endgame you have to use alm in a solo section so he has to be trained and even more so to make the final boss beatable because the alternative of using nosferatu isn't really gonna work well.
That said with overworld and dungeon grinding its not an issue to have alm keep up, or if you want to go overboard exploit dread looping to have your dreadfighters be even more broken.
I appreciate a good nuke, but since it’s a tactics game I want to use the tactical side of my brain. Thus, I much prefer a unit that can kill ANYTHING than a unit that can kill EVERYTHING, or in other words, an enemy deleter. The best parts of any Fire Emblem map are when one of your squads and an enemy squad are facing off, and you have to figure out how to kill x amount of enemies with x amount of attacks. Being able to trade one for one is satisfying, trading one for seven is boring.
3:26 Enchanter Alear with Sword Avo and Rivals Emblem is... definitely an interesting example of a dodgetank for a game like Engage. lol
Also, Engage is actually super easy to juggernaut once you know how. Lucina and Corrin make it very easy to make Juggernauts that can omnitank everything!
An amazingly thorough take on a super interesting topic!
I think the counter to juggernauting I would like to see more of is distributing a good amount of chapters with multiple objectives throughout the game. That way, you're incentivized to invest your resources into more units. It also makes for more interesting maps imo. Another good measure seems to be to find a reasonable balance of stat caps that vary between classes, so that different units can specialize and find their utility. Maybe not on FE12 Lunatic standards though...
Love the video, very informative on a niche topic. Would you be able to put some music on the next presentation? Something light and quiet, will add a creative flair to the video and make it more engaging. Just a thought.
I love these little analysis videos of yours. I really think you could spread out these ideas to even more SRPGs than just Fire Emblem, from games like the Disgaea games, to FF Tactics, Banner Saga, to Yggda Union and such and that would be neat.
I remember an interesting discussion in mekkah's fire emblem fates conquest tier list in where he and Zoran where talking about how certain units can trivial the game but require a very large amount of resources to do that and were trying to question on how that factors into a unit's viability
Both Creators are full of shit
since you were talking about SoV:
It's... weird. The game can definitely be beaten just by soloing with Alm or Celica. Armour Knights have extremely high Defence which makes them survive pretty much everything. And especially with DLC (with the oblogatory grining DLC + an entire tier of DLC classes for every class line plus theoretical infinite grinding through Dread Looping), it is definitely possible to make the game trivial.
The game DOES try to counter that though:
- Almost nobody has a functional Resistance stat. This is actually pretty important because SoV has an above average amount of mages, and Witches can just teleport anywhere on the map, meaning that you aren't REALLY safe from them.
- You can't take 0 damage. Damage is always at least 1, which in theory limits your survivability.
- EXP gain slows down dramatically after level 10. This is probably the biggest one.
Additionally, most powerful tools are combat arts and spells, which consume HP and are player phase only (mages only counter with their most basic spell).
However, it should be noted that you can increase Res with items like the Dracoshield (which you can get early on through some cheese), and the minimum 1 damage doesn't do much when you will only see so much combat on enemy phase and a lot of items have in-built self healing. SoV makes some slight attempts, but overall I'd say it doesn't really try to stop you from just soloing.
Also 60 avoid graves
I love these kinds of videos.
I love ALL Excelblem videos!!!! ❤
Something like thracia's endgame map objective would be nice to see more of too. You need at least 7 units and the final map of the game requires many good combat units and staffers which means even if you technically only need 7 units in reality you need a lot more than that and the game only gives you so a few good combat units(Ced who can is interchangeable with a staffer and Galzus who you need a another unit to get)/staffers(Saisa interchangeable with Ced and Almalda who doesn't have a high enough staff rank for the important staffs and needs you to go a specific chapter route to get a character to recruit them with) for end game.
Great takes as always
Honestly, for as scuffed the mechanics were in Thracia, I feel most of the systems in place to prevent juggernauting were good ideas that should be revisited. The only people that bitch about Fatigue are people that actually try to juggernaut Thracia, and there's still ways to get around the occasional fatigue limit, so there's nothing wrong with it. Maybe a bit unfriendly to first time players that don't know what to expect and when they need certain units, but I think it's a small price to pay (and again, S Drinks exist). Lower stat caps of earlier titles definitely should make a return, because there is a limit to how much juggernauting can happen naturally if the delta between the max and what the game throws at you is small to begin with. Minimum deployment, I can understand because it feels slightly artificial, but I think if the story justifies it, it can also make sense. But the more natural way of doing this is to make maps that incentivize a higher deployment count to achieve all objectives.
In the same vein as breaking up your army, Radiant Dawn also forcibly does this by switching perspectives every act and also splitting up your entire army in Act 4, but I think a lot of people hated it, so I guess it's a little controversial.
I do agree that finding ways to trivialize the game can be fun on its own, but it should require some level of effort to pull off. Finding ways to exploit the system is fun. Making a system that funnels you into a juggernauting position is not fun.
I love Thracia, but it's hard to deny that a lot of my interest in it is based in being a rare Fire Emblem title that forces you to build a complete army and not just use one unit to solo everything.
The juggernaut I kinda used is Rutger dodgemaxxing and Javelins my beloved. Of course Nosferatu Robin but I also have other units as well for that in Awakening cause it's easy to build OP units in that game. Also I just really want to used as much of the characters as I can. As others mentioned I like multiple hp bars as an anit-juggernaut as well and of course the maps design and mechanics is the way to go to counter. Great video as always!
You can juggernaut the base game of valentia if you do an obscure method of getting an early game dracoshield which gives like +12 def and res. The only downside is enemies always do a minimum of 1 damage. The post game really keeps you from juggernauting because of how powerful the enemies are.
i'm so glad to see more slide show videos, love being a student at FEU
Funny enough, the hacking community (feuniverse) could be abbreviated as FEU as well
Very good video
I think the only game where I consistently wanted to fill all my deployment slots is FE12 Lunatic. One combat unit simply does not cut it with how much damage everything does, how accurate the enemies and how bad healing is. This fact made me also really value the horseman class (I used Ryan and Draug). Having a mobile unit that can attack for good damage without being counterattacked was very nice. Another thing I could not get enough of was staff users. I often deployed up to five of them plus a dancer just to give them more actions.
10:46 This sentence bugs me. I rarely play on the highest available difficulty, not because “the gameplay doesn’t really matter” to me, but because I generally find the highest difficulty options too frustrating to be fun, in large part because I enjoy using squad tactics and really don’t like juggernauting.
My perspective is that, by having more relaxed challenges, lower difficulties lend themselves well to devising your own strategies as opposed to deploying whatever the community has identified as the “optimal” strategy. And to me, that’s a more fulfilling and less stressful gameplay experience.
In the tactics game I'm developing, a tester ended up calling it boring because in one mission all of his units died but Skjold, the tankiest character, could take attacks continuously and never lose, even if she got hit with poison or bleeding effects (both of which cannot lower HP below 1) which means the rest of the battle was spent just throwing her in the middle of groups of enemies and attacking nonstop.
All it took was changing the damage formula so that any attack always does a minimum of 1 damage to shift the dynamic and make it so that even if you build a character to be ultra tanky, they will eventually lose by attrition. You can use them to divert a lot of attacks for a while, but eventually you will have to heal or support them to some degree.
Having a Yunaka juggernaut in Engage just feels sooo good (dodging with some trees/fog)
I recently did a Bernadetta solo run of Silver Snow. I more or less played the intended way through the other routes, so juggernauting was actually a fun change of pace. Forced me to pay more attention to skills.
It is also possible to defeat Rhea solo (on Hardened, at least), it just takes some good dodging and a lot of high-durability weapons.
My favourite use for this strategy is having Juggernaut unit taking on side objectives (chests etc.) on the side of the map while the rest goes for main objective. Ideal unit for it is a flier, high crit+evasion sword user or any lockpicking class. There are also units with personal abilities or stats encourging doing this sort of strategy e.g Yuri in Fe TH, Rutger in Fe 6
e.g in my recent FE TH VW route playthrough I had Trickster Yuri going for chests or enemy artillery. I think he only got hit thrice witihin ~10 maps since start of Part 2, all of those hits came from from "Commanders" in VW's final chapter
mind you it was 3rd route on ng+ normal
Although it's hard (depending on the game) to make self reliable Juggernaut. It's inevitable that your Jugg wile eventually get hit and he might not be in range of your healers and if your jugg is a flier then that's limits what he can take on.
Return of Perun Emblem. Thank you.
Funnily enough I had several types of juggernauts at once in my so far only Maddening Engage run: dodgetanks Zelestia and Chloe with Enchanter boosted Levin Swords (+20 avo), Physical Tank Rafal with 1-2 counter and self healing thanks to Marth's emblem effect and Soren!Veyle. The game did become fairly easy and straightforward even in endgame, so much so I fully routed Ch. 25 lmao
Excelblem study guide for the midterms LETS GOOOOO
This entre video is a scuffed fire emblem version of a Perun video. Love it! Next we'll be hearing about the defense economics of Pelgia's bottomless supply of Nosferatu tomes...
During the run of FE7 (Normal mode mind you) I did a little while ago, things got to the point where during preparation for each map the first thing I would do was check to see if anything could damage Oswin. The answer was usually 'no'. That's just how I like to play games like this though. As boring and one-dimensional a playstyle as it may be, I personally find it fun and rewarding. When I played through Engage for the first time I pretty much did the same thing again only this time the question was 'Can anything _hit_ Alear?' No, no it could not.
They should raise HP and lower Defense for knights.
If you would take 0 damage from an attack you dont get attacked in FEs where foes are smart.
I remember when i first played three houses
at that point my fe experience was a borrowed copy of awakening where i didnt get very far, think the farthest i was there was "dont speak her name" but i had experience with the disgaea games
in disgaea juggernauting isnt just a strategy, its outright encouraged due to its high number nature and the kill or be killed approach if you are anyway further then the main story, which for disgaea games is the tutorial.
because of this my fire emblem three houses team was 8 units tops. at all times. not because of an deployment limit but because i had what i wanted.
byleth for sword, leonie for lance, hilda for axe, claude cause mandatory and bow, lysethea and marianne for black and white magic. i then later recruited mercedes and annette cause i liked their character design, and then turned annette into my dancer cause i had too many mages on the board, which wasnt a good decision but it worked.
It wasnt a full juggernaut, but because of the reduced army size mixed with three houses free weapon ranks i had 8 units that i could send out to wherever and they got the job done, of course, some units like hilda and lysethea were better then others.
my real first experience with juggernauts came with either engage or awakening, i dont remember when i played awakening proper
i played fates too but there the game literally hands you good units for free enough to replicate my three houses run
for awakening, well i like mages i knew nos was good and you can see the rest. somewhere during the valm arc i stopped deploying anybody simply cause it became a chore to do so because robin already snowballed, not with chrom but in general. so crobin then just swept the rest.
as for engage, louis and pannette. i played on normal first and on maddening later and in both louis and pannette were the like 2 units i trusted to get shit done. of course on normal more units get stuff done but those two were just the best. louis defense made him on normal even physically immune to the final boss, who they luckily gave magic attacks to, and van wrath ond a strong physical unit is a mistake in general and on pannette even more. to the point that on the boat shipping map she just killed left boat by herself.
while it feels nice when you have the resource management or foresight to create a jugganaut the chapters get pretty boring once you have one. akin to overgrinding in other rpgs because you found the afk farm spot in ff12 for example.
So what you're saying is... Having multiple juggernauts is the most optimal for max strategy and entertainment.
Calling Juggernauting a symptom instead of the problem is very accurate.
In Birthright, I didnt start out juggernauting, but around chapter 20+, the slew of rout maps with a morbillion enemies just had me go "fuck it. Ryoma, kill everything."
Meta Gaming for strategy games always takes the piss out of them.
Juggernauting effectively relies on either resetting for your juggernaut or knowing exactly where they will need assistance.
Will also say that you cannot juggernaut in FE10, because of the armies changing periodically throughout the game, and because of the tower at the end. You can have one juggernaut per part, really, but they still won't be present for every single map. And no matter which units you pick, no one can juggernaut their way through Ashera. Honestly it feels like a game where they chose to appeal to the juggernauting sensibility though, because it lets you have a ton of units that all have juggernauting potential, if it weren't for the game's mechanics and structure.
Map design also helps, Ike's maps should in theory be the easiest to juggernaut but maps often prevent it by requiring you to be in multiple places even for main objectives so even though you can depend on a strong unit for combat. Also enemy stats are high enough in general that you will run into caps and not be OP.
Personally I enjoy Juggernaut mechanics. I enjoy deconstructing the tools the game gives you and reconstructing it into success on maps. It often makes the fights tremendously easy, no argument, but especially in games where you have to work to develop a unit it is often fun and cathartic to have the work pay off. Basically where many see 'boring' and 'lacking in strategy' I see 'cathartic payoff' and 'worked hard now to guarantee my outcome.' I find this especially enjoyable when I apply the basic idea to characters I like rather than just characters suited for it as while the prep doesn't often change, it does make me enjoy watching my niche favorite stomp around or save plot moments and rare items by just being able to confidently move into enemy zones of control.
It definitely does make it into more of an RPG than a strategy game (unless the game has lots of distant objectives your juggernaut cant reach, lol), but IMO preparation is a strategy, it's just a slow one that bores most people and that games have a hard time balancing around. haha
Luna tome is technically a True damage tome that really scale with your MAG
the funniest thing about citrinne is that she can just vantage sweep the game at base, even on maddening, and is probably the most reliable vantage sweeper in the game. it’s how i beat engage maddening blindly on release
We still on the perun grindset
More powerpointblem? Dope!
Juggernauting is awesome in fe, makes me feel like a god, also at this point its gonna be called powerpointblem
I agree with Excelblem. Unfun but sometimes necessary.
I just beaten conquest lunatic for the first time some time ago, and I must say, as much as I love conquest, the game fun just dies at chapter 20 onwards. It is ridiculously stacked against the player and juggernauting was my only way of achieving victory.
Nearly every mage was handled by Sol Ninja Camilla (avatar with S support as backpack)
And every physical enemy handled by Sol Hero Xander
(Charlotte with S support as backpack as expected)
I still maintained my troops relevant (Benny, for example achieved max promoted level) but all the heavy lifting and difficult parts were cleared by juggernauting, regardless of the game attempts of stopping it,like letting Camilla solo more than half the wind chapter, soloing ryoma rather than doing the chapter, soloing iago chapter with Xander and skipping all fights with rescue in the final level
2:27 you do need to build units for the egg map, just trying to beat it with seth will result in lots of hatching gorgons and it becomes very rng
11:53 that’s just not true for FE6, at least on hard mode. Player units are too weak to enemy phase hordes of enemies like the other GBA games.
Percival and Miledy are like the only units that can and even with the shield Miledy has to worry about magic.
That and late maps kind of force you to be in multiple areas
I'm having the most fun in an FE game when I'm winning, so making a juggernaut character is essential to my game
The best defense against jugernauting is defend maps or clear in X turns maps
The trick to beating Engage Maddening is just to build a team of different Juggernauts. Vantage Ike Rafal with a max forged Crit engraved tomahawk is comically powerful. You just send him into a crowded room, hear him yell “THE MIGHT OF A FELL DRAGON” 70 times on the same enemy phase, and the room is suddenly empty.
Just keep inevitable death to every fe game on the hardest difficulty
Radiant Dawn prevents juggernauting by switching up what army you play as too often for you to have just one strong unit.
But it also has juggernauting: the map, where you only have the Black Knight and Micaiah, and BK is supposed to do all of the work.
I ended up making my Alear invincible by keeping her a Divine Dragon, maxing her stats, pairing her with Corrin, giving her a Killing Edge +5 with a Fates engraving, and an inherited Dexterity +5 skill which ends up with a 83 HP, 176 Hit, 91 Crit monster that murders everything and can win maps by doing nothing. If I try a higher difficulty run I don't know how reliable that strategy will be, but when playing skirmishes in the postgame to unlock supports she's a "set it and forget it" with the ability to use every Dragon Vein as needed for your huddled-up allies.
If you can't juggernaut with 1 unit, just juggernaut with a group of units! That's an obvious and effective way to play FE, but it also leads to an interesting challenge.
What if you play by doing the opposite and evenly distributing EXP, like by only deploying the lowest level unit? That's how I played as a kid, and I think others seeking a challenge can have fun with such anti-optimal strategies. And in case you come up with the strat of killing off your weaker units to allow your strongest units to be deployed every map, effectively allowing you to play the game normally by killing off your benched units, then if the n-th lowest level unit dies, the n-th highest level unit also dies (or is considered dead), and if your Lord is considered dead by this method, it's game over. That and/or make it a point system where you earn a point for every surviving unit, discouraging intentional deaths by making it a competition.
Inevitable end and staff savant are scary as they anti juggernaut but put it in a way that u die instantly
I don't think it's even possible to get Seth killed early game if you're playing half competently unless you're going blind and get jumpscared by the halberd fighter in chapter 6 while he has a lance equipped.
Dang this video made me realize I play Fire Emblem to juggernaut. No wonder Engage wasn't as fun as Three Houses for me.
Ok, maybe the lack of good story and characters in Engage might've had something to do with it too
Juggernaut Gen Amelia is the best way to have fun in fe8
That moment when the final boss can hit anyone but your schoolgirl in a mecha suit keeps avoiding it as you slowly try to kill him
My favorite juggernaut is Donnnel 🗣️
I maxed Aran in maniac RD part one except for luck…. He still got trashed by Laguz lmfao
Engage handles juggernauting best. You can build a juggernaut in that game, but you have to work for it
I only resorted to juggernauting in Fire Emblem Awakening because I found myself pretty bored playing the game and I wanted it to end faster.
I kind of did that with Byleth in 3H Maddening but I eventually trained a bunch of my units so they can help along (Edelgard is BOOSTED)
Insert corrin nos tanking every enemy or hepto takin no dmg
Fire emblem 6 hard mode kinda makes juggernauting hard because hit rates on javalins and handaxes are ass. Also enemies hurt like hell, even Miledy can't just sit in a group of enemies and get out unscathed. 7 and 8 though, yeah Seth and Marcus going to go burr
Sages can become your juggernaut in FE6 hard mode for the later portion of the game. They have access to accurate magic that hits on enemies weaker resistance, and the low hitrates also applies to the enemies, making them very dodgy once they get going. The difference is that you don't get a sage for free, you need to train them.
@@FiboSai eh? This only applies to lugh, lilina doesn't have the speed to dodge tank. A 20/20 lugh will have on average 68 avoid, and enemies in the endgame very often have over 100 hit, and given late-game wyvern spam, some of those are bound to hit eventually. There are often also manaketes that have over 150 hit, and nearly one-shot even a very trained lugh. You'd be better served just getting a general to cap defense, with some supporting staff units and other characters.
At 7:20 you didn't mention GBA Luna or Eclipse.
alm and celica kinda just juggernaut on their own regardless of how you play lol
they’re blatantly better than everyone else in your army so it’s kinda hard not to
It's like beating a pokemon game by only ever using one pokémon. Sure, it's the speedrun-efficient route, but if you're gonna ignore every type/stat matchup because you outstat everything by so much, why are you even playing pokémon?
because steamrolling everything with my level 100 electric cat is fun
Joking aside, one main difference is that XP in FE is a resource in of itself. In most cases, such as 3H, there are only so many maps you can clean out before you are forced to progress. If you want to go for XP instead of other things like trying to recruit for paralogues, you sure can, but then you would miss out on all the XP and other rewards for that.
A lot of the FE games are completely linear, though. Those ones will have built in limits to mapcount. Some things will always be easier in some games than in others, though.
looks like Perun's videos
Well i never had that issue of juggernaugting in most od the fe games.
3 houses is probably thet closest thing to doing this as the gameplay is bland and i can raise my warp heal and rescue units indirectly while byleth gets all the exp. So technically i got a juggernaut while also having side units that can throw hands.
Awakening with Robin i can get morgan and niore giving two more op kids and later game units like favia and bastilio can work fine if i need them. Anna worked well as a dodge tank too and donnel is very good as i get glass lances to make him solo his map before he promotes. Lissa being the only healer early on makes her busted when she becomes a sage for my playthroughs which is why i wish maribelle that those levels
Sacred stones luckily i like using Ross and the healers to get heal mages. It's a strong base team even without seth getting every hit
Fates yeah never did one juggernaut run as the units can't really solo. Azura at most needs to be able to defend herself so yhe early dance spam is worth it.
Engage i do the opposite and not level alear so yunaka can solo the dlc rings early on sinxe level scalers are garbage
Awakening is the clear choice for this concept due to Robin having booster EXP and the game itself is heavily enemy phase game.
@@TheRaidantDX yeah but robin still needs to get built up. Seth and sigurd start out much strong on base and are the jagens new players would typically use anyways especially sigurd who's both. Poor chrom is side lined in his own game
@@ivanbluecool Sigurd isn't a Jagen. he's a lord.
You forgot another reason why juggernauting in fates revelations is a good thing : less time spent with the gimmicks of these maps.
Common FE5 W