Lmao, this reminds me of when I did a Meme run where I made Flayn a great knight. She had tied DEF with RES. I don't remember the number but it was like 30 something. Kinda good in that regard, but the typical tank issues of being doubled by enough attack making her kinda limited in her use. Oh well.
I really enjoy how thracia handles magic weapons since res and mag being the same stat means that you can use pure waters and ensorcel staves to patch up any weaknesses in attack stats when you want a sword unit to 1-2 range. Nanna with staff and sword access especially feels really good to use.
I think an interesting way to use a hybrid class is to make promotion to that class feel like a major bump in power for a previously lower power character. For example, you can have a unit with good magic start in a physical class(maybe give them a magic weapon with limited uses to show off the unit's potential to the player), then reward the player for training up that unit by letting them take advantage of that magic stat. By the time they promote, they will also likely have enough ranks in their physical weapon to still make use of it.
I think a good way to also allow players to get that feeling is maybe also start them with d rank with the hybrid class that way the player can also see that they don't have to slug it out with the weakest version of the damage type.
With how unit customization seems to be a main stay in the series hybrid class will continue to be an option. I do want to address that there is a difference between a physical main having a magical option and magic main having a physical option. The former is much better than the latter. The reasons are: 1.Most units have a shitty Res but pretty much all units have a minimum level of Def. Units with high Res like the stave users at least have better Def compared to a General's Res; 2. Magic options are usually 1-2 range even at lowest weapon rank while most physical weapons are not. This means that a physical main can just chip at range with shitty magic tomes to train up their tome rank while there's usually no way a magic main want to go in melee with a shitty weapon to train the rank up. Thus we see many physical unit going into a hybrid class, like Basara, Dark Flier or Malig Knight, but a magic unit usually just stay pure magic than venture into hybrid.
@@lsrrr3857 I would tend to agree, except for in games like Path of Radiance, 3 Houses and particularly Engage, the average Resistance of enemies has improved dramatically compared to other games in the series, so it still becomes game dependent. That said, Magical options for physical units will still be almost universally better than the other way around because you are rarely missing a way to deal physical damage - most unit classes can do that - but Magical damage can be a niche unto itself, especially in the early/mid game. Consider the Leather Shield Mercenary in Gaiden/SoV chapter 1. If you don't have a mage you will suffer, so it behooves you to make at least ONE of your villagers a mage, even if in the long run most of them will be "more useful" as a physical unit because their stats and spell lists don't generally hold up into the late game.
I love how robin being a hybrid class actually makes sense he was probably both bred raised and trained as the perfect vassale for grima which why his str and mag are equal his body is literally perfect
@@zeyadgabr8682 In the game that specifically wanted the player to make whatever unit they wanted, having hybrid access in their base class meant that any build could be viable.
@@MythrilZenith yes but let's admit they went a little too far with robin he might just be the best unit we ever got to control in the entire series grandmaster Nosferatu lmao 🤣also his rally was way too op
@@zeyadgabr8682uh. Grandmaster can't use Nosferatu. Only Dark Mages and Sorcerers. That's part of why Tharja is one of the most popular units in Awakening, having innate access to dark magic. Don't know why Sakurai gave Robin Nos in Smash though.
I love that hybrid units recontextualize units in a game. The Cordelia/Mirabelle example is a perfect example of that. The class becomes a consideration from different angles because of this. I do hope that more hybrid units are created and encouraged in future games with more of an emphasis on having both strength and magic at an alternative cost. Lower speed and defenses were mentioned, but I think the Oni Chieftain from Fates lacking a lot of skill growth makes it an interesting concept (especially with the higher defense). I know that War Clerics aren't true hybridized classes, but I still appreciate them so much for having a strength and magic stat that are valuable for different reasons (damage versus utility).
One of the things that can limit hybrid units the most is weapon ranks. Not only do mixed units have a lower offensive stat but they also need to use weaker/worse weapons until they can grind a better rank (if the game even allows it). Someone else was using the magical versions of the nornally physical weapons (Levin sword, Bolt axe, etc) as an example of them being better than most tomes/magics so even mages would like to use them over hybrid units. The problem with that is that you need to grind the weapon rank needed for it, so that takes a lot of utility out of a perfectly fine mage for some extra damage that might not even be necessary. If anything that makes the Bolt axe and similars mostly worth using on units with actually good, mixed stat spreads that would naturally build the weapon rank needed with normal use. Fates is the biggest example of this imo with Niles, Nina, Camilla and Wyvern Rider!Elise if that interests you since if you reclase her early on and give her a forged brass axe, she'll do just fine until she can build the necessary rank for the Bolt axe. This is also where the concept of high MT weapons with big penalties that Fates tried could shine. Instead of making an S rank weapon with a huge penalty that almost no class can even use in the first place why not make them usable by units with a low weapon rank? Maybe only by mixed classes/units. That way they'll be able to use their main stat/rank with no problem and still be able to occasionally use their lesser stat/rank whenever needed without completely crippling their entire combat capacity in a single combat/enemy phase. And they can also be used by stronger mages whenever you need that one powerful hit against a boss or to one shot an enemy unit that would otherwise kill one of your units. Crippling a unit's combat utility would be acceptable in such cases. Also useful for staff users whenever there's no need to use a staff?
usually with hybrid units, alot of the time your going to use the magic side because it going bring more damage for most unit. Interesting in three houses, alot of the times you going to use physical weapon rather then magic given the combat arts and the likes. There also hybrid units having a mixed defense, but some will argue that more of a tank.
I've been conflicted on hybrid units, but my favourite implementation of hybrid split stats is the ignis skill. A fun side note: in engage you can get access to magical physical weapons like the Levin sword, and to compensate for the neccessary classing into a hybrid sword/magic user (such as vidame on celica) the weapons often have a high base might which rewards Celica for having access to swords while still dealing magical damage. Although not perfect, I found it useful to keep Celica relevant for longer in my maddening run. Lastly, I think it would be genuinely interesting to have a Jaegan that uses magic instead of the classic sword/axe cavalier. Give us a sword wielding-mage knight Jaegan. I dare you Intelligent Systems 😂.
I'm personally not a great fan of the current implementation of magic weapons. I feel like they should be a hybrid-in-a-can, giving some magic option to units that have none. Instead, it's usually preferable to equip them on your mages, where they outshine the actual magic spells or tomes. As for giving them to hybrids, it kinda feels like it defeats the purpose of a hybrid to make both their spells and their weapon by magic attacks that target Res. It might be interesting to add enchanted weapons, with low (perhaps even negative) bases, but which add both Strength and Magic. But I don't know how well that would balance.
@@bificommander7472 Magical weapons felt like niche options in games without reclassing, but once you can reclass your mages into non-mage classes the Magic weapons just become the default "use this weapon on this unit in that class" lock in keys, and the resistance of enemies has risen to the degree that trying to use a magic weapon on a physical unit with limited magic is just pointless. And as for "hybrid weapons" that use both str and mag, the Arts in Engage did this, adding half str and half mag to the total.
@bificommander7472 that's pretty fair. I'm concerned that scaling weapons off both stats would end up scaling too hard or scaling to a mediocre split Stat level of problem and not be an improvement over a base weapon. I do agree that tossing a Levin sword on a magic knight simply because it does more magic damage is a bit... Pointless to the strength stat. It utilizes the physical aspect of a sword, but not the actual physical stat at all. I have an idea for magic hybrid weapon balancing: Imagine the Leif engage ring perk Adaptable where the most effective weapon is chosen, but instead you have a sword/axe/lance that the character automatically chooses which way they want to use it based on effective damage. There could be drawbacks such as higher weight requirements, swords can only use the magic stat at 2 range, lances can use magic at 1 range but at lower accuracy, and axes only have 1 range but have a higher base might. This is more a headcannon idea for hybrid weapon implementation however.
This was also extremely relevant in Three Houses. It blew my mind when I looked into what “good” players of 3H do with certain units and (for example) that one of the most viable options for Marianne (if you don’t need dedicated healing from her) is to reclass her to Falcon Knight and just spam Frozen Lance to use her magic stat
I've never really found hybrid classes to work unless we're talking about staff hybrids since staff utility is always useful. A unit is always going to prefer one damage type over another, whether it be because of stats or simply that the game has one side be much stronger than the other (for example, you go into Dark Flier in Awakening to use Nosferatu and never need to equip a lance. Or Engage where even when the Mage Knight is equipping a sword, it's usually a magic damage sword like the Levin Sword anyway and not physical)
I'm kind-of eagerly awaiting the Office Hours on hybrid units, because there's a lot of nuance for hybrids (between cursory "physical with staff" that is Warpriest/cleric or Trickster, the wealth of melee and spelltome that Awakening ushered in, and the like) Also, I'm pretty sure part of why "Physical unit who gets magic access" > "mage unit with physical access" is related to how limited 1-2 range physical is vs 1-2 magic -- Sword doesn't get it very often (and it's normally magic, like Levin or Light), and while lance and axe usually do, it's also not at a fresh-access ranks. (This is one of a few things that Three Houses' weekly instruction stuff actually helps with, outside of "all mages there are hybrid because nothing stops you from equipping any non-brawling weapon on them and using it", because you can train the mage a weekly session or two and get them nudged up enough to grab javs and hand axes...) [final note: sword still needs a regular 1-2 physical, Fates is one of the only titles since GBA brought the series to the west, that has one]
@@MythrilZenith I like how they implement her in Heroes. Imo she’s the closest thing I can find to a Hybrid Wyvern, what say you? I haven’t played many FE’s post PoR
@@MythrilZenith That'd make her even more broken, but honestly I like how her magic is used because, in a very weird way, it can act as a type of support, at least for a while. Camilla will rarely kill anything with a tome, however she'll also rarely fail to deal any damage. But in an odd way that actually works well with Rose's Thorn because it means she can set up a kill for a weaker unit, who can then go fight near her for the damage boost + assist. Once your other units stop requiring kill setups, you can just slap a Bolt Axe on her as well as the Calamity Gate from Ophelia's Paralogue and send her to town lol.
With Hybrid Classes, they really need to fall into 1 of 2 camps if they want to abuse both STR and MAG in equal measure. They either need to lean heavily into Offense and forsake Defensive Stats, or they need to lean heavily into Defenses and have their adaptable damage type serve as a way to help them deal notable damage to more enemies. Hybrids struggle a lot when they're trying to do everything at once, but they need to specialize differently to be able to utilize both stats. However, the alternative way to do Hybrids, is to give them access to powerful secondary options for the attacking stat they're worse in, or treat it more as a utility function to allow them to deal with enemies they may struggle with otherwise. A good example of this would be a sword unit having access to magic, allowing them to alter their matchups by giving them a good matchup into Armors, even if you're probably not using Magic over Swords most of the time. Hybrids are always going to be a bit of an odd class to balance, since they can so easily get out of control. With reclassing being a mainstay, I'm doubtful they'll ever be especially well done going forward, but I'm hopeful that we can get some well done hybrid lords.
Weapon ranks are an even more important than usual for balance with hybrid units imo. You can limit access to weapons instead of stats to keep them from taking roles like siege tome use or effective weapon use from more specialized units.
In a set rank system like Engage, classes that have multiple weapon types often have lower ranks to compensate for their variety. In games where weapon ranks are gained through use, promoting into a hybrid class often gains *access* to the weapon, but not at a high rank (E or D rank, usually). This often serves to reinforce the idea that the unit will most likely use their "primary" weapon type more effectively, but *can* use their secondary type through use. They just won't be able to use as many weapons as another unit who had that second type as their primary.
Wow, I was just discussing Asbel v. Perne in another comment section talking about how Asbel becomes the accursed hybrid unit problem in his grind for staves. I mean this as Hybrid Phys/Mag units can't do both on the same turn so in a game with multiple units why not field both a Physical and Mage unit? To clear it up a bit, we were discussing how Perne and Asnel are the best hybrid unit: Combat/Utility. Perne with Phys Combat and Thief utility while Asbel has Mag Combat and Staff utility. In the end, I was insisting that Perne is better (when rating them on their overall combat and utility, otherwise Asbel has better combat) because Asbel becomes the accursed hybrid flaw of not doing both. Staves requiring player phase to use means that you need to heal on that phase, so someone else has to do combat and level up or injure themselves for Asbel to then skip a turn to heal some minor damage just for staff exp. Perne can steal killing edges at base, and doesn't even plateau like a typical pre-promote because some STR levels can hit some important bench marks for one rounding or BLD levels and make him steal a Iron Lance with 1 BLD level and a Silver Lance with 2 BLD levels. And Perne can grind this WHILE doing either Combat or Utility. Anyway, all this to say that this video comes at a good time and that I hope you discuss Combat/Utility Hybrid as one would Phys/Mag hybird.
Huh, guess not in this vid. Maybe in an office hours one? Cause Hybrid in the sense of Combat/Utility makes for the most busted units which is definitely a topic worth covering. Be it Wyverns or Cavs with Rescue drop, Sages with staves, Thief fighters with stealing more than items, or (kinda) debuffers from Fates (I haven't played Fates but Ninja/Butler looks like it fits this). It definitely makes a huge backbone of what is good throughout the whole of this series.
@@OrlandoAguirre222 Yeah, I mostly was thinking of hybrid attackers, but the interplay between combat and utility is definitely something worth diving into on its own!
To be fair, I think Vidame Celine plays like a mix of Magic knight (Mk) and Sage. Magic Knight is an offensive class. it's more likely too double on player phase with it's Chaos Style and has access to Weapon Power- Sword power notably. Along with Levin Sword, Sword power is one of the strongest abilities in the game. Sage is more of a utility class, despite it's bigger Magic growth. Sage has no inherent speed fixing, and there's no Tome Power. That's not too say Sage can't kill or even double, it just takes more investment. What Sage gets is staff access, I forget if it's A or B rank, which gives Sage healing and utility. Vidame is like a mix of Magic knight and Sage. It lacks the destructive power of both, but has access to Sword Power. Vidame also gets access to staves B rank. Vidame also has a pretty good speed growth(50% is pretty high for a Mystical). Vidame can hit things for physical, which is niche at best, but nice(though to be fair MK can do that too). I'm not saying Vidame Celine is the best, or whatever. I am a little biased, but something like Sage Anna could absolutely replace her. I think Celine Vidame is good, and is completely viable as a support/ cleanup that can kill and tank more than most Sages(particularly Anna).
Vidame is a nice "this class can do a bit of everything" style filler, which sadly falls off in Maddening without serious investment (but then again, the same could be said of almost every unit in Maddening). But in Hard was definitely my go-to filler unit for the few chapters that actually had enough deployment slots for me to bring more than like 4 of my own units on.
@MythrilZenith Fair enough. On Hard she's usually one of my hard carries. I forgot too mention her build issue, which slows her down if you don't engrave her sword. Especially in the beginning. Also thanks for the reply, you make great videos.
I think Fire Emblem's system ought to make balancing Hybrid units fairly straightforward. Check the Def/Res spreads of the enemy units you're placing. If most units have a small difference between the two defenses, then don't nerf the Hybrid's strength and magic growths as much compared to regular Magic or Physical classes. It should not be too hard to get to a situation where your beatsticks are great against priests and okay against paladins but bad against Armor nights, your casters are the other way around, and the hybrid is good against priests and armor knights, but bad against paladins. I'm a big fan of Hybrid or Gish-classes myself, but in most Fire Emblem games they aren't that great unfortunately.
@@bificommander7472 In theory yes, but in practice it's a much more precise calculating of differences. Plus, since you can usually take more than enough units to have some variety, you are rarely strapped for unit deployments enough that you NEED to bring a hybrid instead of a mage. In Final Fantasy 1, with only 4 party members, red mage was a desirable class because you would be getting enough of the healing, damage AND offensive spells to make it work through the early and mid game, even though their late game prowess was weaker than the other classes. In Fire Emblem, even the most limited deployment maps give you like 8 units aside from specific gimmick maps, which if you assume lord, Paladin, healer, Dancer, flier, training project, still gives you at least one flex slot for a mage or the like. And most games end up with a core team closer to 10-12.
I've found almost invariably, hybrid units are just better off using magic. For a few reasons. 1. Magic has consistently strong 1-2 range options. 2. On average, enemies have lower Res than Def. 3. Enemies that do have high Res almost always have low HP, so attacking them with magic is still effective. 4. Many games in the series make magic consistently lighter than physical weapons, which is an issue for a number of users. The only cases I can think of where I was regularly going back and forth between physical and magic attacks were Merrin/Yunaka as wolf knights. Their physical attack was higher, but the Levin Sword was a useful weapon for chipping higher defense enemies without getting hit back to set up a kill for a stronger partner. Access to Daggers have them strong 1-2 range physical options, which helped make their physical side not feel outclassed. And the killing edge was very good against magic units, or attempting to get a full kill instead of just chip when you can afford to take the risk. Sadly, I find it really telling that the only functional example I can think of for a Hybrid unit doesn't feel like it was meant to be a hybrid unit. I think the Wolf Knight works because it doesn't have enough power to consistently 1 round enemies on either end of the spectrum, but can still use either attacking stat to get in chip damage without getting hit back.
A small problem is that many units on an individual case at least tends to fall under •Physical unit with a tome for high def classes •Magic unit just using tomes and the respective magical weapon in said game It would have to be a unit that has fairly above average in both to truly go hybrid. For individual classes maybe have a focus on utility over combat in addition to hybrid stats. For example lets say the Magic themed armor has worse combat stats than either Great Knight or Sage, however it makes up for it with a useful skill like skill% to reduce damage by the respective attacking. A sword/magic class infinitary class that has a the ability to boost luck/skill% trigger effects or Malig Knight knight which can inflict burst damage and poison infliction
"Hybrid units can be pretty middling" and a pic of Celine pops up hurts my heart :( But its true she's mid. If only she had better speed she could be salvaged in engage.
I may have missed it but I’m surprised you didn’t mention how hybrid class effectiveness is greatly tied to the effectiveness of magical weapons as well. High mt weapons like bolt axe, levin sword or magic bow are iconic and can compensate for “lope-sided” units or even straight up bad hybrid units (Rinkah, Cordelia, Wyvern Elise, Sniper Lorenz, MK Clanne), and giving player access to such weaponry reward the players for training/investing units with “hidden” potential in their normally useless “dead” stats. Sometimes hybrid units are also unique in their access to 1-2 magic weapons will be outperforming 1-2 physical weapons due to less drawbacks.
It's a weird situation that I'm not *generally* a fan of but it's true that a lot of hybrid units benefit more from magical weapons than non-hybrids. In part due to magic weapons just having higher might than tomes (a problem imo) and in part because other physical units generally use them less well due to low Magic (an understandable fact). Probably was worth some mention, will definitely follow up in more detail in next week's video
One of my starting chara in my future hack is a hybrid thief, knifes and wind magic, she doesn't deal big damage with either bc low might, but she specializes in dodging anyway, along with thief skills
Oh neat, a relevant video to my still-theoretical hack! I’m assuming GBA mechanics for my hack since I intend to use FE Builder, which means I must assume that Str/Mag are a single stat. Since there are no hybrid classes in the GBA trilogy, I would need to invent my own should I choose to include them. At this time I technically have two hybrids in mind, but they’re both weapon+staff instead of weapon+tome so they’re a bit irrelevant to what you discussed in this video. I think a way I could prevent hybrid classes from becoming too oppressive is to make them a reward; No base classes would be hybrids, and no prepromoted hybrids would be available, so the ability to freely target Def or Res would be the payoff to the process of training and promoting a unit. Actually now that I write it out, exclusive or near-exclusive access to a hybrid class seems like a more exciting way to do an Est-archetype than the ‘big ball of stats’ design that Nino had.
There are tools to implement a Strenght & Mahic split in the GBAFE engine, as I have seen multiple hacks do it, sadly as I am not a havk creator I can't tell you how to do it
@@AlexT7916 Good to know! That being said, I don’t mind Str/Mag being combined and I really like my idea of an Est that gets to go wild exploiting low Def or Res as they please after promotion, so I’ll likely keep them combined whenever I get around to actually building my game
I feel like Jugdral Great Knights or w/e are a huge missed topic. Units like Leif becoming mounted units able to use all weapons but dark magic is really wild and brings about a whole can of worms. Because the stats cap at 20, its not too hard to grind them, and getting weapon ranks thanks to enemy soam and arena are easy, having a maxed out Leif is not an uncommon tactic. This kind of hybrid makes your unit a veritable god, mage seth but better if it was available early on. 4 and 5 also bring up hybrids beyond just str/mag with weird class/weapon hybrids that change the game up quite a bit. Armored archers for example break the conventions of both enemy archers (someone you rush down) but also armors (someone you range). Its one of the few times that using a tome at 1 range might be the optimal play if you dont have a hand effective around to handle so you dont get countered with physical damage. Fates also does stuff like this with (i believe) the first flying archers which can act as both mobility units for transportation and flanking but anti air dog fighting units. This gives them a weird glass cannon feel as non wyvern flyers tend to be on the weaker side defensively so it might be all fun and game until another kinshi knight shows up
This will be interesting because I’m designing a lord that is a hybrid class (heavily inspired by Celica) so I’m interested to hear what you have to say
How do we feel about promoter classes turning someone into a hybrid unit by giving them a strong promotion bonus to the underused stat? (Mage that turns into a class that uses str and magic and then getting like +6 str for example)
@@VG_Yugi This sort of reminds me of the 3 houses bane to boon system where you can help a student understand where a potential strength may lie. I think giving +6 strength to a hybrid unit can thematically work if it is an option that they've been enlightened to. On a balancing gameplay level 6 strength is mildly arbitrary based on what game we're referencing, but in terms of the modern entries into the series, 6 strength doesn't seem unreasonable as a promotion bonus if your character had little to no strength growths before promotion. Just make sure the hybrid class also has sufficient growths to make sure the +6 strength isn't the only strength they will ever get.
The rom hack does smothing kinda like this, with the sword lord gaining like +8 Magic on promotion so he becomes the best magic sword user, and a story relevant unit basically becomes a sage with swo4d access Gotoh
The definition is a bit contradictory - the class has to be able capable of physical and magic attacks, discounting magical weapons, and yet trickster is listed as a hybrid class. Awakening Anna is absolutely a hybrid unit, even though her base class isn't - she's by far the best user of levin sword. Meanwhile, Cordelia and Maribelle are just physical and magical units respectively, as their weaker stat is too low to ever be relevant. Usually, hybrid units are just a few points behind their str or mag focused peers. That hypothetical of unit with 15 in str/mag vs units with 25 in either - I can't think of a single example when that happens aside from maybe Three Houses Anna, because her bases are so comically low that I could see it being the case - but to verify that I would have to use her and so far on my 2nd playthrough I never deployed her outside of her paralogue.
Fair, I looked up Anna's stats and saw that her mag/str were basically the same and something in my brain forgot that Trickster was a sword + staff class, she just has a levin sword by default. And I agree that hybrid units don't *need* to have physical + magical weapon access, since there are examples of physical units with high magic that make good use of magical weapons to be a sort of "hybrid." The specific numbers that I gave in the hybrid example were pulled out of nowhere, I agree, but more to make a demonstrative point than an actual in-game example. There are plenty of times though when you can put the same unit into two different classes - think MaligKnight vs Wyvern Lord - and get an effective +4-5 strength boost, which sure isn't a 10-point swing but I find is often still very meaningful.
@@MythrilZenith Moreover Awakening Anna (and units using magical weapons) avoids the issue of low weapon ranks, since she uses her sword rank for both physical and magical attacks. Yeah, Malig Knight vs Wyvern Lord would be a better comparison as Malig Knight requires the game to be designed in a way where they can take advantage of their hybrid damage. Otherwise, non-magic focused units just handicap themselves by not going Wyvern Lord.
I would say rather not turn base RGP, but rather rpg where you have a team. Imagine a turn base rpg but you only have one character at your disposal once the battle starts(and there's no easy change to your skillset, statline etc.), it would suck to be a min max unit which happens to meet a hard counter. In games like pokemon and FE you can get away because you have your teammate to deal with it.
I think hybridization functions best in speedy units, where it doesn’t require as heavy strength and magic investments to have good combat. I also think there could be creative ways of implementing a hybrid unit that is incentivized to use both weapons outside of targeting the lower of a defensive stat. You could give a low con unit access to a light physical weapons (swords) and heavy tomes (dark magic) and have the player make a decision between higher speed and avoid or targeting a lower defensive stat at 1-2 range.
The strength of hybrid classes is not having both str and mag, but rather having both def and res.
@@ScubaLuigi If that's the case then PoR paladins are the ultimate hybrids lol
Lmao, this reminds me of when I did a Meme run where I made Flayn a great knight. She had tied DEF with RES. I don't remember the number but it was like 30 something. Kinda good in that regard, but the typical tank issues of being doubled by enough attack making her kinda limited in her use. Oh well.
Lol, no
Dark Knight Xander:
I really enjoy how thracia handles magic weapons since res and mag being the same stat means that you can use pure waters and ensorcel staves to patch up any weaknesses in attack stats when you want a sword unit to 1-2 range. Nanna with staff and sword access especially feels really good to use.
I think an interesting way to use a hybrid class is to make promotion to that class feel like a major bump in power for a previously lower power character. For example, you can have a unit with good magic start in a physical class(maybe give them a magic weapon with limited uses to show off the unit's potential to the player), then reward the player for training up that unit by letting them take advantage of that magic stat. By the time they promote, they will also likely have enough ranks in their physical weapon to still make use of it.
I think a good way to also allow players to get that feeling is maybe also start them with d rank with the hybrid class that way the player can also see that they don't have to slug it out with the weakest version of the damage type.
Weapon + Staff is the ultime form of a hybrid class (Trickster, Falcon Knight, War Monk...)
Physical weapon + staff access crops up fairly often, though whether it's better than staff + tome definitely depends on the unit.
They are kind of hybrid class, but they lack a way to deal magical damage inherently. Like Priestess in Birthright
With how unit customization seems to be a main stay in the series hybrid class will continue to be an option. I do want to address that there is a difference between a physical main having a magical option and magic main having a physical option. The former is much better than the latter. The reasons are: 1.Most units have a shitty Res but pretty much all units have a minimum level of Def. Units with high Res like the stave users at least have better Def compared to a General's Res; 2. Magic options are usually 1-2 range even at lowest weapon rank while most physical weapons are not. This means that a physical main can just chip at range with shitty magic tomes to train up their tome rank while there's usually no way a magic main want to go in melee with a shitty weapon to train the rank up. Thus we see many physical unit going into a hybrid class, like Basara, Dark Flier or Malig Knight, but a magic unit usually just stay pure magic than venture into hybrid.
@@lsrrr3857 I would tend to agree, except for in games like Path of Radiance, 3 Houses and particularly Engage, the average Resistance of enemies has improved dramatically compared to other games in the series, so it still becomes game dependent.
That said, Magical options for physical units will still be almost universally better than the other way around because you are rarely missing a way to deal physical damage - most unit classes can do that - but Magical damage can be a niche unto itself, especially in the early/mid game.
Consider the Leather Shield Mercenary in Gaiden/SoV chapter 1. If you don't have a mage you will suffer, so it behooves you to make at least ONE of your villagers a mage, even if in the long run most of them will be "more useful" as a physical unit because their stats and spell lists don't generally hold up into the late game.
I love how robin being a hybrid class actually makes sense he was probably both bred raised and trained as the perfect vassale for grima which why his str and mag are equal his body is literally perfect
@@zeyadgabr8682 In the game that specifically wanted the player to make whatever unit they wanted, having hybrid access in their base class meant that any build could be viable.
@@MythrilZenith yes but let's admit they went a little too far with robin he might just be the best unit we ever got to control in the entire series grandmaster Nosferatu lmao 🤣also his rally was way too op
@@zeyadgabr8682 and then I made Morgan into a manakete for the memes, just so I could literally roast Grima using my dragon daughter.
@@zeyadgabr8682uh. Grandmaster can't use Nosferatu. Only Dark Mages and Sorcerers. That's part of why Tharja is one of the most popular units in Awakening, having innate access to dark magic. Don't know why Sakurai gave Robin Nos in Smash though.
@thecursed_1lordofcats738 wasn't there a skill to allow the use of the tome ?
Sir why did you traumatize me with the image of a perfect hybrid unit seth-
I love that hybrid units recontextualize units in a game. The Cordelia/Mirabelle example is a perfect example of that. The class becomes a consideration from different angles because of this. I do hope that more hybrid units are created and encouraged in future games with more of an emphasis on having both strength and magic at an alternative cost. Lower speed and defenses were mentioned, but I think the Oni Chieftain from Fates lacking a lot of skill growth makes it an interesting concept (especially with the higher defense). I know that War Clerics aren't true hybridized classes, but I still appreciate them so much for having a strength and magic stat that are valuable for different reasons (damage versus utility).
One of the things that can limit hybrid units the most is weapon ranks.
Not only do mixed units have a lower offensive stat but they also need to use weaker/worse weapons until they can grind a better rank (if the game even allows it).
Someone else was using the magical versions of the nornally physical weapons (Levin sword, Bolt axe, etc) as an example of them being better than most tomes/magics so even mages would like to use them over hybrid units. The problem with that is that you need to grind the weapon rank needed for it, so that takes a lot of utility out of a perfectly fine mage for some extra damage that might not even be necessary.
If anything that makes the Bolt axe and similars mostly worth using on units with actually good, mixed stat spreads that would naturally build the weapon rank needed with normal use. Fates is the biggest example of this imo with Niles, Nina, Camilla and Wyvern Rider!Elise if that interests you since if you reclase her early on and give her a forged brass axe, she'll do just fine until she can build the necessary rank for the Bolt axe.
This is also where the concept of high MT weapons with big penalties that Fates tried could shine. Instead of making an S rank weapon with a huge penalty that almost no class can even use in the first place why not make them usable by units with a low weapon rank? Maybe only by mixed classes/units.
That way they'll be able to use their main stat/rank with no problem and still be able to occasionally use their lesser stat/rank whenever needed without completely crippling their entire combat capacity in a single combat/enemy phase.
And they can also be used by stronger mages whenever you need that one powerful hit against a boss or to one shot an enemy unit that would otherwise kill one of your units.
Crippling a unit's combat utility would be acceptable in such cases. Also useful for staff users whenever there's no need to use a staff?
One day I'll get a mage archer.
Preferably in a game without wind magic.
usually with hybrid units, alot of the time your going to use the magic side because it going bring more damage for most unit. Interesting in three houses, alot of the times you going to use physical weapon rather then magic given the combat arts and the likes.
There also hybrid units having a mixed defense, but some will argue that more of a tank.
I've been conflicted on hybrid units, but my favourite implementation of hybrid split stats is the ignis skill.
A fun side note: in engage you can get access to magical physical weapons like the Levin sword, and to compensate for the neccessary classing into a hybrid sword/magic user (such as vidame on celica) the weapons often have a high base might which rewards Celica for having access to swords while still dealing magical damage. Although not perfect, I found it useful to keep Celica relevant for longer in my maddening run.
Lastly, I think it would be genuinely interesting to have a Jaegan that uses magic instead of the classic sword/axe cavalier. Give us a sword wielding-mage knight Jaegan. I dare you Intelligent Systems 😂.
I'm personally not a great fan of the current implementation of magic weapons. I feel like they should be a hybrid-in-a-can, giving some magic option to units that have none. Instead, it's usually preferable to equip them on your mages, where they outshine the actual magic spells or tomes. As for giving them to hybrids, it kinda feels like it defeats the purpose of a hybrid to make both their spells and their weapon by magic attacks that target Res.
It might be interesting to add enchanted weapons, with low (perhaps even negative) bases, but which add both Strength and Magic. But I don't know how well that would balance.
@@bificommander7472 Magical weapons felt like niche options in games without reclassing, but once you can reclass your mages into non-mage classes the Magic weapons just become the default "use this weapon on this unit in that class" lock in keys, and the resistance of enemies has risen to the degree that trying to use a magic weapon on a physical unit with limited magic is just pointless.
And as for "hybrid weapons" that use both str and mag, the Arts in Engage did this, adding half str and half mag to the total.
@bificommander7472 that's pretty fair.
I'm concerned that scaling weapons off both stats would end up scaling too hard or scaling to a mediocre split Stat level of problem and not be an improvement over a base weapon.
I do agree that tossing a Levin sword on a magic knight simply because it does more magic damage is a bit... Pointless to the strength stat. It utilizes the physical aspect of a sword, but not the actual physical stat at all.
I have an idea for magic hybrid weapon balancing: Imagine the Leif engage ring perk Adaptable where the most effective weapon is chosen, but instead you have a sword/axe/lance that the character automatically chooses which way they want to use it based on effective damage. There could be drawbacks such as higher weight requirements, swords can only use the magic stat at 2 range, lances can use magic at 1 range but at lower accuracy, and axes only have 1 range but have a higher base might. This is more a headcannon idea for hybrid weapon implementation however.
This was also extremely relevant in Three Houses. It blew my mind when I looked into what “good” players of 3H do with certain units and (for example) that one of the most viable options for Marianne (if you don’t need dedicated healing from her) is to reclass her to Falcon Knight and just spam Frozen Lance to use her magic stat
I've never really found hybrid classes to work unless we're talking about staff hybrids since staff utility is always useful. A unit is always going to prefer one damage type over another, whether it be because of stats or simply that the game has one side be much stronger than the other (for example, you go into Dark Flier in Awakening to use Nosferatu and never need to equip a lance. Or Engage where even when the Mage Knight is equipping a sword, it's usually a magic damage sword like the Levin Sword anyway and not physical)
I'm kind-of eagerly awaiting the Office Hours on hybrid units, because there's a lot of nuance for hybrids (between cursory "physical with staff" that is Warpriest/cleric or Trickster, the wealth of melee and spelltome that Awakening ushered in, and the like)
Also, I'm pretty sure part of why "Physical unit who gets magic access" > "mage unit with physical access" is related to how limited 1-2 range physical is vs 1-2 magic -- Sword doesn't get it very often (and it's normally magic, like Levin or Light), and while lance and axe usually do, it's also not at a fresh-access ranks. (This is one of a few things that Three Houses' weekly instruction stuff actually helps with, outside of "all mages there are hybrid because nothing stops you from equipping any non-brawling weapon on them and using it", because you can train the mage a weekly session or two and get them nudged up enough to grab javs and hand axes...)
[final note: sword still needs a regular 1-2 physical, Fates is one of the only titles since GBA brought the series to the west, that has one]
You said something about a flying Wyvern Magical class??? Did someone say Camilla?
@@TheBoodercg imagine if her magic in malig was just as strong as her str in malig and tremble!
@@MythrilZenith I like how they implement her in Heroes. Imo she’s the closest thing I can find to a Hybrid Wyvern, what say you? I haven’t played many FE’s post PoR
I see this and raise you Ivy from Engage, who succeeds where Camilla failed. Mostly because Ivy does not try to do both physical and magic.
@@MythrilZenith That'd make her even more broken, but honestly I like how her magic is used because, in a very weird way, it can act as a type of support, at least for a while. Camilla will rarely kill anything with a tome, however she'll also rarely fail to deal any damage. But in an odd way that actually works well with Rose's Thorn because it means she can set up a kill for a weaker unit, who can then go fight near her for the damage boost + assist. Once your other units stop requiring kill setups, you can just slap a Bolt Axe on her as well as the Calamity Gate from Ophelia's Paralogue and send her to town lol.
@@MythrilZenithSay hi to Princess Ivy for me. She succeeds where Camilla flunked.
Hybrid units are useful when you are missing or lost too many mages or warriors till you find a replacement.
With Hybrid Classes, they really need to fall into 1 of 2 camps if they want to abuse both STR and MAG in equal measure. They either need to lean heavily into Offense and forsake Defensive Stats, or they need to lean heavily into Defenses and have their adaptable damage type serve as a way to help them deal notable damage to more enemies. Hybrids struggle a lot when they're trying to do everything at once, but they need to specialize differently to be able to utilize both stats. However, the alternative way to do Hybrids, is to give them access to powerful secondary options for the attacking stat they're worse in, or treat it more as a utility function to allow them to deal with enemies they may struggle with otherwise. A good example of this would be a sword unit having access to magic, allowing them to alter their matchups by giving them a good matchup into Armors, even if you're probably not using Magic over Swords most of the time.
Hybrids are always going to be a bit of an odd class to balance, since they can so easily get out of control. With reclassing being a mainstay, I'm doubtful they'll ever be especially well done going forward, but I'm hopeful that we can get some well done hybrid lords.
Hybrid Seth just reminds me of the main character from Dark Diety.
Weapon ranks are an even more important than usual for balance with hybrid units imo. You can limit access to weapons instead of stats to keep them from taking roles like siege tome use or effective weapon use from more specialized units.
In a set rank system like Engage, classes that have multiple weapon types often have lower ranks to compensate for their variety. In games where weapon ranks are gained through use, promoting into a hybrid class often gains *access* to the weapon, but not at a high rank (E or D rank, usually). This often serves to reinforce the idea that the unit will most likely use their "primary" weapon type more effectively, but *can* use their secondary type through use. They just won't be able to use as many weapons as another unit who had that second type as their primary.
Wow, I was just discussing Asbel v. Perne in another comment section talking about how Asbel becomes the accursed hybrid unit problem in his grind for staves. I mean this as Hybrid Phys/Mag units can't do both on the same turn so in a game with multiple units why not field both a Physical and Mage unit? To clear it up a bit, we were discussing how Perne and Asnel are the best hybrid unit: Combat/Utility. Perne with Phys Combat and Thief utility while Asbel has Mag Combat and Staff utility. In the end, I was insisting that Perne is better (when rating them on their overall combat and utility, otherwise Asbel has better combat) because Asbel becomes the accursed hybrid flaw of not doing both. Staves requiring player phase to use means that you need to heal on that phase, so someone else has to do combat and level up or injure themselves for Asbel to then skip a turn to heal some minor damage just for staff exp. Perne can steal killing edges at base, and doesn't even plateau like a typical pre-promote because some STR levels can hit some important bench marks for one rounding or BLD levels and make him steal a Iron Lance with 1 BLD level and a Silver Lance with 2 BLD levels. And Perne can grind this WHILE doing either Combat or Utility.
Anyway, all this to say that this video comes at a good time and that I hope you discuss Combat/Utility Hybrid as one would Phys/Mag hybird.
Huh, guess not in this vid. Maybe in an office hours one? Cause Hybrid in the sense of Combat/Utility makes for the most busted units which is definitely a topic worth covering. Be it Wyverns or Cavs with Rescue drop, Sages with staves, Thief fighters with stealing more than items, or (kinda) debuffers from Fates (I haven't played Fates but Ninja/Butler looks like it fits this). It definitely makes a huge backbone of what is good throughout the whole of this series.
@@OrlandoAguirre222 Yeah, I mostly was thinking of hybrid attackers, but the interplay between combat and utility is definitely something worth diving into on its own!
To be fair, I think Vidame Celine plays like a mix of Magic knight (Mk) and Sage.
Magic Knight is an offensive class. it's more likely too double on player phase with it's Chaos Style and has access to Weapon Power- Sword power notably. Along with Levin Sword, Sword power is one of the strongest abilities in the game.
Sage is more of a utility class, despite it's bigger Magic growth. Sage has no inherent speed fixing, and there's no Tome Power. That's not too say Sage can't kill or even double, it just takes more investment. What Sage gets is staff access, I forget if it's A or B rank, which gives Sage healing and utility.
Vidame is like a mix of Magic knight and Sage. It lacks the destructive power of both, but has access to Sword Power. Vidame also gets access to staves B rank. Vidame also has a pretty good speed growth(50% is pretty high for a Mystical). Vidame can hit things for physical, which is niche at best, but nice(though to be fair MK can do that too).
I'm not saying Vidame Celine is the best, or whatever. I am a little biased, but something like Sage Anna could absolutely replace her. I think Celine Vidame is good, and is completely viable as a support/ cleanup that can kill and tank more than most Sages(particularly Anna).
Vidame is a nice "this class can do a bit of everything" style filler, which sadly falls off in Maddening without serious investment (but then again, the same could be said of almost every unit in Maddening). But in Hard was definitely my go-to filler unit for the few chapters that actually had enough deployment slots for me to bring more than like 4 of my own units on.
@MythrilZenith Fair enough. On Hard she's usually one of my hard carries. I forgot too mention her build issue, which slows her down if you don't engrave her sword. Especially in the beginning. Also thanks for the reply, you make great videos.
I think Fire Emblem's system ought to make balancing Hybrid units fairly straightforward. Check the Def/Res spreads of the enemy units you're placing. If most units have a small difference between the two defenses, then don't nerf the Hybrid's strength and magic growths as much compared to regular Magic or Physical classes. It should not be too hard to get to a situation where your beatsticks are great against priests and okay against paladins but bad against Armor nights, your casters are the other way around, and the hybrid is good against priests and armor knights, but bad against paladins.
I'm a big fan of Hybrid or Gish-classes myself, but in most Fire Emblem games they aren't that great unfortunately.
@@bificommander7472 In theory yes, but in practice it's a much more precise calculating of differences. Plus, since you can usually take more than enough units to have some variety, you are rarely strapped for unit deployments enough that you NEED to bring a hybrid instead of a mage.
In Final Fantasy 1, with only 4 party members, red mage was a desirable class because you would be getting enough of the healing, damage AND offensive spells to make it work through the early and mid game, even though their late game prowess was weaker than the other classes.
In Fire Emblem, even the most limited deployment maps give you like 8 units aside from specific gimmick maps, which if you assume lord, Paladin, healer, Dancer, flier, training project, still gives you at least one flex slot for a mage or the like. And most games end up with a core team closer to 10-12.
@@MythrilZenith --Certainly helps the red mage that Intelligence didn't actually do anything--
I've found almost invariably, hybrid units are just better off using magic. For a few reasons.
1. Magic has consistently strong 1-2 range options.
2. On average, enemies have lower Res than Def.
3. Enemies that do have high Res almost always have low HP, so attacking them with magic is still effective.
4. Many games in the series make magic consistently lighter than physical weapons, which is an issue for a number of users.
The only cases I can think of where I was regularly going back and forth between physical and magic attacks were Merrin/Yunaka as wolf knights. Their physical attack was higher, but the Levin Sword was a useful weapon for chipping higher defense enemies without getting hit back to set up a kill for a stronger partner.
Access to Daggers have them strong 1-2 range physical options, which helped make their physical side not feel outclassed. And the killing edge was very good against magic units, or attempting to get a full kill instead of just chip when you can afford to take the risk.
Sadly, I find it really telling that the only functional example I can think of for a Hybrid unit doesn't feel like it was meant to be a hybrid unit. I think the Wolf Knight works because it doesn't have enough power to consistently 1 round enemies on either end of the spectrum, but can still use either attacking stat to get in chip damage without getting hit back.
A small problem is that many units on an individual case at least tends to fall under
•Physical unit with a tome for high def classes
•Magic unit just using tomes and the respective magical weapon in said game
It would have to be a unit that has fairly above average in both to truly go hybrid. For individual classes maybe have a focus on utility over combat in addition to hybrid stats. For example lets say the Magic themed armor has worse combat stats than either Great Knight or Sage, however it makes up for it with a useful skill like skill% to reduce damage by the respective attacking. A sword/magic class infinitary class that has a the ability to boost luck/skill% trigger effects or Malig Knight knight which can inflict burst damage and poison infliction
"Hybrid units can be pretty middling" and a pic of Celine pops up hurts my heart :(
But its true she's mid. If only she had better speed she could be salvaged in engage.
I may have missed it but I’m surprised you didn’t mention how hybrid class effectiveness is greatly tied to the effectiveness of magical weapons as well.
High mt weapons like bolt axe, levin sword or magic bow are iconic and can compensate for “lope-sided” units or even straight up bad hybrid units (Rinkah, Cordelia, Wyvern Elise, Sniper Lorenz, MK Clanne), and giving player access to such weaponry reward the players for training/investing units with “hidden” potential in their normally useless “dead” stats. Sometimes hybrid units are also unique in their access to 1-2 magic weapons will be outperforming 1-2 physical weapons due to less drawbacks.
It's a weird situation that I'm not *generally* a fan of but it's true that a lot of hybrid units benefit more from magical weapons than non-hybrids. In part due to magic weapons just having higher might than tomes (a problem imo) and in part because other physical units generally use them less well due to low Magic (an understandable fact).
Probably was worth some mention, will definitely follow up in more detail in next week's video
Shoutout to that OSRS soundtrack ❤
Everyone loves a good Autumn Voyage
One of my starting chara in my future hack is a hybrid thief, knifes and wind magic, she doesn't deal big damage with either bc low might, but she specializes in dodging anyway, along with thief skills
The true hybrid Illyana with a knife
Oh neat, a relevant video to my still-theoretical hack!
I’m assuming GBA mechanics for my hack since I intend to use FE Builder, which means I must assume that Str/Mag are a single stat. Since there are no hybrid classes in the GBA trilogy, I would need to invent my own should I choose to include them. At this time I technically have two hybrids in mind, but they’re both weapon+staff instead of weapon+tome so they’re a bit irrelevant to what you discussed in this video.
I think a way I could prevent hybrid classes from becoming too oppressive is to make them a reward; No base classes would be hybrids, and no prepromoted hybrids would be available, so the ability to freely target Def or Res would be the payoff to the process of training and promoting a unit.
Actually now that I write it out, exclusive or near-exclusive access to a hybrid class seems like a more exciting way to do an Est-archetype than the ‘big ball of stats’ design that Nino had.
There are tools to implement a Strenght & Mahic split in the GBAFE engine, as I have seen multiple hacks do it, sadly as I am not a havk creator I can't tell you how to do it
@@AlexT7916 Good to know! That being said, I don’t mind Str/Mag being combined and I really like my idea of an Est that gets to go wild exploiting low Def or Res as they please after promotion, so I’ll likely keep them combined whenever I get around to actually building my game
I feel like Jugdral Great Knights or w/e are a huge missed topic. Units like Leif becoming mounted units able to use all weapons but dark magic is really wild and brings about a whole can of worms. Because the stats cap at 20, its not too hard to grind them, and getting weapon ranks thanks to enemy soam and arena are easy, having a maxed out Leif is not an uncommon tactic. This kind of hybrid makes your unit a veritable god, mage seth but better if it was available early on.
4 and 5 also bring up hybrids beyond just str/mag with weird class/weapon hybrids that change the game up quite a bit. Armored archers for example break the conventions of both enemy archers (someone you rush down) but also armors (someone you range). Its one of the few times that using a tome at 1 range might be the optimal play if you dont have a hand effective around to handle so you dont get countered with physical damage.
Fates also does stuff like this with (i believe) the first flying archers which can act as both mobility units for transportation and flanking but anti air dog fighting units. This gives them a weird glass cannon feel as non wyvern flyers tend to be on the weaker side defensively so it might be all fun and game until another kinshi knight shows up
This will be interesting because I’m designing a lord that is a hybrid class (heavily inspired by Celica) so I’m interested to hear what you have to say
How do we feel about promoter classes turning someone into a hybrid unit by giving them a strong promotion bonus to the underused stat? (Mage that turns into a class that uses str and magic and then getting like +6 str for example)
@@VG_Yugi This sort of reminds me of the 3 houses bane to boon system where you can help a student understand where a potential strength may lie.
I think giving +6 strength to a hybrid unit can thematically work if it is an option that they've been enlightened to. On a balancing gameplay level 6 strength is mildly arbitrary based on what game we're referencing, but in terms of the modern entries into the series, 6 strength doesn't seem unreasonable as a promotion bonus if your character had little to no strength growths before promotion. Just make sure the hybrid class also has sufficient growths to make sure the +6 strength isn't the only strength they will ever get.
The rom hack does smothing kinda like this, with the sword lord gaining like +8 Magic on promotion so he becomes the best magic sword user, and a story relevant unit basically becomes a sage with swo4d access Gotoh
@ I’m only doing this for like one story relevant unit, but I wasn’t sure if people were against the idea lol
The definition is a bit contradictory - the class has to be able capable of physical and magic attacks, discounting magical weapons, and yet trickster is listed as a hybrid class. Awakening Anna is absolutely a hybrid unit, even though her base class isn't - she's by far the best user of levin sword. Meanwhile, Cordelia and Maribelle are just physical and magical units respectively, as their weaker stat is too low to ever be relevant.
Usually, hybrid units are just a few points behind their str or mag focused peers. That hypothetical of unit with 15 in str/mag vs units with 25 in either - I can't think of a single example when that happens aside from maybe Three Houses Anna, because her bases are so comically low that I could see it being the case - but to verify that I would have to use her and so far on my 2nd playthrough I never deployed her outside of her paralogue.
Fair, I looked up Anna's stats and saw that her mag/str were basically the same and something in my brain forgot that Trickster was a sword + staff class, she just has a levin sword by default.
And I agree that hybrid units don't *need* to have physical + magical weapon access, since there are examples of physical units with high magic that make good use of magical weapons to be a sort of "hybrid."
The specific numbers that I gave in the hybrid example were pulled out of nowhere, I agree, but more to make a demonstrative point than an actual in-game example. There are plenty of times though when you can put the same unit into two different classes - think MaligKnight vs Wyvern Lord - and get an effective +4-5 strength boost, which sure isn't a 10-point swing but I find is often still very meaningful.
@@MythrilZenith Moreover Awakening Anna (and units using magical weapons) avoids the issue of low weapon ranks, since she uses her sword rank for both physical and magical attacks.
Yeah, Malig Knight vs Wyvern Lord would be a better comparison as Malig Knight requires the game to be designed in a way where they can take advantage of their hybrid damage. Otherwise, non-magic focused units just handicap themselves by not going Wyvern Lord.
magic is always better for hybrid class bc the 1-2 range access with less penaltys
I love ALL MythrilZenith videos!!!! ❤
Funny how in turn based RPGs hybrid classes tend to suck,but in action RPGs they're usually the best classes (Dragon's Dogma intensifies)
I would say rather not turn base RGP, but rather rpg where you have a team. Imagine a turn base rpg but you only have one character at your disposal once the battle starts(and there's no easy change to your skillset, statline etc.), it would suck to be a min max unit which happens to meet a hard counter. In games like pokemon and FE you can get away because you have your teammate to deal with it.
I think hybrid weapons are still relevant since their usefulness depends on how good both stats are.
0:37 One weapon does not a true hybrid unit make
Statement approves, Master Yoda this
I think hybridization functions best in speedy units, where it doesn’t require as heavy strength and magic investments to have good combat.
I also think there could be creative ways of implementing a hybrid unit that is incentivized to use both weapons outside of targeting the lower of a defensive stat. You could give a low con unit access to a light physical weapons (swords) and heavy tomes (dark magic) and have the player make a decision between higher speed and avoid or targeting a lower defensive stat at 1-2 range.
give them samurai armor. thats how you make them good.