E-rank tomes aren't crippling, but they aren't noteworthy either, which was my main point. Forged Fire still has underwhelming base damage, and even if she can ORKO low Res enemies (which any mage can do), she's still falling short on bulkier units and doesn't even have an EP OR fantastic support options to back it up. Also, you're missing the point; nobody implied you should make her a Dark Mage because that would lower her movement and take away her staff access, which is just about the dumbest thing you can possibly do on Conquest.
I brought that up because I kept seeing her staff access as something coming at an expense for using her more actively as a mage. I don't think that's true at all. You don't need to be healing every round. You
certainly don't need to be Freezing everything every round, or even every map. You take advantage of all of the positional advantage that Elise gives you and while she's there, she blows shit up.
Staves are set up so that the user gains experience once per turn at most. Combat units can gain significantly more EXP, especially when the EP or boss units are taken into account. There is absolutely no conceivable way that Elise is promoting early unless you're staff grinding, which shoots a huge hole in the "Elise is a great mage" argument, when said mage doesn't even exist for a huge chunk of the game. Healing is also variable, so there are some cases where you won't gain much EXP on her if you don't need to heal.
You shouldn't toss around 'no conceivable way', dude. Elise is one of two healers you get for a very long time, and by far the most efficient at it. I didn't 'staff grind' at all, and again, she promoted second around the start of Chapter 17. You get her early enough and you get enough opportunities with her for that to happen. This is also ignoring that staves
do give out differing degrees of XP, and Freeze or Entrap give out
tons of it.
Also, if Nyx can't hit the broadside of a barn, then what about Elise? Her skill growth is similarly terrible but she doesn't even have the luxury of having Heartseeker. Of course, Nyx generally shouldn't be attacking enemies at point blank either, but at least she has access to instant Forged Lightning which lets her 2HKO enemies before they can even counter attack.
It's constantly a question of curve. Think of it like this. Forget about the fact that Nyx lags behind Elise in the Skill department in spite of the fact she starts five levels higher. Consider it like this. Nyx
needs to use that 5 skill immediately. And constantly deal with it, because she has no other route for progression. That's disproportionately bad stacked up against the speed of early Samurai and Oni Savages. Elise has
reasonable skill, not the stuff you can expect tons of critical hits out of, but
reasonable, by the time you hit 20/1 where you worry about that first.
Investing in Nyx absolutely makes her good. "Good" in the sense that can she can kill most enemies in one round at a range when trained up which is pretty much all I need her to do as a Mage. She's very flawed and she simply isn't a character I would personally use in combat (especially when her support is like +1 move, +6 Speed and +3 which is way too good too pass up), but she isn't worthless either.
You misunderstood me. I didn't say investing in Nyx to make her good isn't impossible or whatever, I specifically addressed your point that you need a similar level of favouritism or investment to make Elise as good or better than Nyx. You're playing
really weird if you're at some point where you aren't just inherently investing in Elise because she fills such an immediate and essential role. Hitting things with magic with Elise when she's already jacked up on tons of magic and speed isn't close to the same thing as dealing with Nyx's rare combination of flimsy bulk and awful hitrate.
Elise's main issue as a combat unit is that she simply does not exist as a Mage for a good chunk of conquest, spends a significant amount of time in E/D rank hell, which lowers the amount of contributions she can make as a Mage AND her pair up options are ass on top of that. That's why I have her pegged as inferior to Leo/Odin/Nyx, who all can make use out of great tomes like Forged Lightning, Mjolnir and Horse Spirit (with the latter 2 of course functioning as decent mages after a boost).
My point continues to be that Elise's magic growth is so utterly nutty, that E/D rank hell isn't even close to being as bad as you're making it sound. I don't think 'existing as a Mage' is actually that important when she's still gaining the most relevant stats for a mage in any Fire Emblem game at a longer timescale, and a more consistent and less risky rate.
That's a false claim. Early game has Fighters and Armors who are absolutely fucked by Magic, and most of the early bosses (besides like Hinoka) have shit resistance. If anything, using an optimized Corrin has shown me how destructive Magic can be. It's only held back by its lackluster users, but you eventually get Leo and Ophelia who rock at magic, and you can make Odin and Nyx function with the help of supports/tonics.
I mean, I don't know what's so false about it. Everything I said there lines up pretty closely to what I... said there. Magic is as good as the people using it in Conquest and as good as the circumstances they're in (how dominant high res counters like Ninjas or Pegasus Knights are). If you aren't building Mag!Corrin, you don't get anyone who's good at magic until Leo joins (he has the misfortune of joining in a chapter with tons of Pegasus Knights, though) and Elise follows him a few chapters later. Conquest gives you basically no reason to bother with any other mages in the game (when non-Dragonstone magic isn't
actually the most reliable way of killing things) unless you're making a conscious decision that you really want to use Odin or whatever. I wouldn't actually blame you fwiw, but I wouldn't raise my eyebrow if you were soft-resetting a lot.
Tomes are literally the life blood of mages. They're the reason why Ophelia is a crit Goddess, the reason why Leo can consistently erase enemies with Forged Lightning/Brynhilda, the reason why Odin and Nyx have any worth in combat since they can sort of the do the above, but are worse at it. Elise spends a significant portion of the game being unable to do any of these things, which is why she isn't a noteworthy mage.
I don't agree. Magic isn't
only good because of the unique properties of tomes. Magic is good because it attacks a soft spot in the defenses of many enemies. You can get by on E-rank tomes because resistance doesn't scale up as the game progresses quite like defense does, and Elise moves into the class fully able to compensate.
Sorry, but Leo not being a magic nuke is complete and utter bullshit. Leo easily caps Speed and Magic and I could consistently get his speed high enough with support to double most enemies, which basically meant quadruple Lightning tome (or an incredibly hard hitting 2 hit with Brynhilda, which hits like a truck because since his magic is overkill). Who cares if his personal tome's ability sucks ass, its unpenalized 1-2 range with high base damage, which is amazing on its own. Elise is never hitting as hard as Leo, period.
First up, I didn't say Leo couldn't be a magic nuke. I don't really wanna be accused of saying something I didn't. I said that Elise has more numbers on her side. The long and short of it is that Elise doubles more, needs less help to do it, and on average will cap magic way sooner and a fair bit higher. As a mage, not as a hybrid like the Dark Knight is, you can't ask for anything more. You can't throw her into exactly the same situations as you could Leo, but that's been a separate discussion in my mind. Again, 'never' is strong language.
Nyx takes noticeable investment to be good as a mage. Elise takes little investment to be acceptable as a mage and she simply does not exist as one until she promotes (which is a long time without staff grinding). That's the crux of my argument.
I agree with most of this. My point is that the transition is much healthier for Elise, and her raw stats are good enough that spending a bit with basic tomes isn't actually a big deal. As soon as she's 'acceptable' as a mage, she's naturally on the path of being good at it, and then great.
What? Dark Knight Leo has 8 move, access to all the best tomes (instant access to Lightning), Lifetaker, Heartseeker, (which mitigates his sketchy skill growth), very good pair-up options and an actual enemy phase. Exactly what about him is gimmicky? As I said earlier, Elise isn't there to blow people up. She's there to Freeze, to heal, to rescue without being attached to a high move unit due to her own high move. I don't need her to blow her up because I can't count on her offense being anything better than "average", especially when she doesn't have the pair up options OR tome rank to be a threat for most of the game.
I misspoke. I didn't mean to suggest that Leo has gimmicks (besides his irrelevant weapon skill), I wanted to make a point of how good Elise is on paper and how that extends to her application.
As I mentioned above, you are making this an either/or situation. Elise can do all of those things. She's still likely your best staff user and she'll hit A rank very reasonably. She can
also blow stuff up. She has the craziest magic growth in the game, amazing speed, and high resistance. It's wasteful not to take advantage of those things. Especially in Conquest, when you just don't get
enough consistently good magic users, especially if you omit Ophelia. Elise comes into the fray at a time where the game starts to cool off on units like ninjas or Pegasus Riders (and gives you other tools to mitigate their impact on your strategy anyways) and you won't need to catch her up or deal with patching her stats up because she moves into tomes around a good time for magic.
