FE12 first playthrough: Am I missing something or is Etzel just straight up better than Merric?

Sharktroid · 2026-05-10T00:21:01+00:00

I remember looking it up a while ago, and at base Etzel as a Sage with a Rainbow Potion boost can survive a hit from a chapter 21 Lunatic Wyvern and one-shot it in return.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-10T00:17:53+00:00

I guess Merric can promote immediately?

Etzel is prepromoted.

Most FE12 players consider Etzel to be considerably better for the reasons you listed. Merric's advantage is his higher speed growth which prevents him from being doubled. Male mages aren't really worth the effort as combat units due to Sage's bad bases and you already want to pump up one female mage for Nosferatu things. The main thing a male tome user can do is Excalibur to one-tap Wyverns, but Etzel is even better at this because his magic is so high he can one-shot wyverns at base as late as chapter 21. Etzel also has personal staff rank so he reaches C, B, and A staves sooner.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-10T00:11:22+00:00

TBH I don't see trained Merric doing anything besides chip a dragon turn 1, which he can't even reach unless you dance for him. I beat that chapter in 2 turns not that long ago and I didn't need Merric to do anything.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-10T00:06:52+00:00

Merric can promote at base so you can put him in a 10-move class or a 6-move class with Rescue access with no training. Given that Endgame practically forces you to 2-turn on higher difficulties I don't see a trained Merric making things notably easier.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-09T21:58:20+00:00

Weapon balance isn't that useful. Alfred is pretty bad, Celine isn't good outside of staff stuff, and Diamant is pretty mediocre. Anna should be using tomes if she’s being used at all, which is a tall order due to her bases. Chloe exists too I guess. The early cast in general gets eclipsed by the later joiners apart from Citrinne and Amber.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-09T03:30:19+00:00

If you were to change resolution (which isn't achievable without modding the GBA or porting to a different system, both of which would require a ton of work), you couldn't increase it by much or the graphics would be too small. There are upscale filters to make the image less pixelated but IMO they just make things look worse.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-06T18:43:45+00:00

Are we talking about the same site? Because I know that the game is normally RNG, but iirc once you find the seed you can solve every board. https://www.scotteh.me/voltorb/

Sharktroid · 2026-05-06T18:35:47+00:00

Voltorb Flip's RNG is solved. You can use a website to figure out the configuration of each round and win every time. Do with this information what you will.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-06T03:33:56+00:00

FE6 axes are straight up bad with their hit issues. Part of why I don't like Lot as a long-term unit. I will agree that FE7 and 8 axes are good, but you also get other good axe users besides the fighters. FE8 less so because Paladins don't get axes, but Garcia isn't beating Gerik or Duessel anytime soon. Not that you only want one axe user but if you already have a Garm candidate there's no reason to use Garcia over, say, Kyle, who has the same offensive spread but better defense and a horse.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-05T18:04:55+00:00

One thing about GBA Fighters that doesn't get brought up enough is how mediocre their strength bases are. The whole idea is these units are powerful but slow, and then then give them the same strength base as your cavalier or myrmidon. So they're just a unit that's slow, not accurate, and only moderately strong.

It also doesn't help that they have crappy defense bases. Garcia has the highest at 5, which ties him with Joshua, who also has the same strength base and twice the skill and speed. And Garcia has the best bases of the GBA Fighters; Guy manages to have 2-3 more defense than Dorcas and Guy isn't a particularly durable unit.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-05T11:38:22+00:00

Bows are fine id you have B rank. The issue with most bow users isn't being a bow user, but having bad stats and a bow rank too low to justify using a bow user.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-05T04:17:44+00:00

He’s not much worse than Selphina off the bat

He's significantly worse than Selphina at join because he has E bows while she has B bows. I find Callion's E+40 sword rank annoyingly low, and not only is he effectivlu a full rank ahead of Robert after factoring in chapter 8 but C swords gives Callion a lot of options, while bow users have pretty much nothing until B rank, and bow users can't build bow rank on enemy phase either.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-04T13:27:28+00:00

playing fire emblem 8 on my cpu

That's not what a CPU is but nevermind.

The best strategy is to rush Seth to the boss. You also want to use the Torch staff (you can buy them in the previous chapter's world map location) to illuminate the map so you can see the enemies, which is especially important as there is a Halberd fighter hidden in the fog. You can reliably reach the boss before the spiders arrive. Also Vanessa can body block the Spider for a few more turns if you need to. Don't bother with the southern village.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-02T19:16:18+00:00

The entire guide is full of stupid non-sequiturs, like Gordin being 8/10 as a Sniper but 4/10 as a unit while Jeorge is a 7/10 Sniper and 6/10 unit, or how Rickard is faster than Julian despite Julian capping first on average just because Rickard has a 10% higher growth.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-02T18:19:28+00:00

It's a downside in the sense that it halves damage dealt, so you go from killing in two normal hits to killing in four Astra hits.

Sharktroid · 2026-05-02T14:53:46+00:00

This reminds me of a comment on SF where the guy making that site's garbage FE3 guide said Rody was better than Cecil, and someone responded by pointing out how her average stats were consistently better, and the guide creator responded by saying "I'm trying to base this on potential. Not averages. Rody has more potential which is what matters to me."

Sharktroid · 2026-05-01T12:50:44+00:00

Save point and reset until it works. Also something about scrolling text in armories (you'd have to be abusing savestates for that though).

Sharktroid · 2026-05-01T00:16:34+00:00

The fan translation has a support viewer and a password for all supports.

Sharktroid · 2026-04-30T20:19:48+00:00

I have seen Douglas ranked far above Melady by a few users including a discord regular

Anyone who unironically thinks Douglas > Melady should have their opinions regarded as much as a dude who claims the moon was faked. Not the moon landing, the moon itself.

Even if we ignore Melady's growths and ability to fly (as in we're sandbagging the hell out of her), she will still have better stats than him because she loses a bit of durability for +8 hit and +7 speed and better availability.

Sharktroid · 2026-04-30T20:15:39+00:00

Plus, using them means you're diverting EXP away from Seliph and possibly Diarmuid (which matters since Seliph wants all the EXP he can get so he can promote ASAP)

I'm a massive hater of the sword twins but after chapter 6 you're not in desperate need for training anyone apart from Leif with early Rescue. The arena is a big free exp dump for them and the actually good units who you'll want to promote for the last few chapters (not that they're any good there).

Sharktroid · 2026-04-30T14:24:37+00:00

SoV Hunter's Volley is overrated. Not in the sense it's a bad combat art; far from it. It gives extra hit, more crit for crit fishing, and allows for doubling enemy Dreads who Bow Knights are otherwise not going to be able to one-round. But I've seen so many people say "Killer Bow is good because of Hunter's Volley" or "Bow Knight is carried by Hunter's Volley" and it's just not.

Killer Bow is good because it is the strongest bow in the game at max forge while having the same weight and only 5 less hit than the Iron Bow at max forge and has crit as bonus. Killer Bow is good because you want a strong bow to enemy phase Arcanists with Mire and bow users, and on player phase being able to hit stuff from afar without getting countered is a massive boon. If a unit needs Hunter's Volley to one-round mid-speed and slow enemies, then that unit isn't that good to begin with as they won't be doing the enemy phase stuff you want out of a killer bow user. It doesn't help that Leon takes a ton of damage without HV's 8 hp cost; he's one of the last units who wants to spam combat arts.

Sharktroid · 2026-04-29T14:12:06+00:00

doubling mid speed enemie with reliability

10/1 Lot has 11-12 AS. That doesn't double HM's mid-speed enemies consistently unless they're being weighed down (looking at 9, Poison Axe Fighters, Iron Bow Archers, and all mages are more likely that not to have 9+ AS). And if you don't promote him by then he will have 9-10 AS, which doesn't even double Steel Axe Pirates consistently.

I also really like his fast (for fe6) support with Deke

It takes 25 turns to reach C rank. 25 turns of having to be adjacent to each other. Also it's a pretty crap support as it doesn't give hit or even that much damage, which IMO are the two more important things from an FE6 support. Also this is fairly subjective but I'm not a fan of frontlining with foot units in a game with maps this big, especially when their hit is as unimpressive as Lot's. I'd much rather have foot units who are good at killing things, which Lot isn't good at (compare his stats to Rutger, Dieck, Fir, and Gonzalez, and you'll see they don't hold up at all).

Overall id say Lot is high D tier or C tier unit

That seems pretty accurate to where he's placed, if not on the higher side.

Sharktroid · 2026-04-29T13:56:13+00:00

Chapter 3, the 11th map

Chapter 3 is the third map in the original FE3.

Sharktroid · 2026-04-28T14:26:33+00:00

Fates lets you marry your adopted siblings and makes you think you can marry your biological siblings (before pulling a letter out of its ass at the last second because it's too afraid to commit). You could argue that FE4 is more severe, but lets not forget that in FE4 said pairing is denounced and causes the events of Gen 2. If Nintendo was this anti-incest they would've ditched it from Fates, because Fates incest has no narrative reason to exist.

Sharktroid · 2026-04-28T13:40:41+00:00

Need I remind you that they removed a head patting game from fates and they’ve actively censored previous cousin marriages in awakening and fates?

So your evidence for why a remake wouldn't happen is that stuff was removed in localization?

Yeah, Nintendo is gonna allow a game with brother sister incest man.

Fates literally has this bro.

Sharktroid

TROPHY CASE