Hi! I had a LOT of fun with this one. its always fun to deep dive into Fire Emblem mechanics and talking about them. Hope you found this video interesting. Please don't forget to leave a like and comment down below your thought on the video/the trinity of magic. Your interactions help this video get recommended to others! And if you haven't yet, please subscribe and support the channel that way too!

@elpopman2055

6 ай бұрын

I Missed Light Magic Overpowering dark magic, and Regular Magic Overpowering light magic and Dark Magic Overpowering Regular Magic.. Trivia: According Telluis Recollection Water Magic and Dark Magic Was Forbidden to Be Studied due Religious connections to Ashruna Flooding The World...Water Magic Represented Ashruna Miraculous power and Dark Magic being forbidden Because Of How Yune was Slandered and Labeled A Dark God. So originally there was five types of magic In Telluis Series. Light, Dark, Water, Fire, Wind, and Thunder. It would be nice Add New Type Of Magic Being Water Magic as Lost Art being Rediscovered and appreciated When Ashruna appear 1200 Years laterTo Stop War in Telluis

@colorpg152

6 ай бұрын

terrible, force spell lists were a terrible idea

I like triangles, but more importantly I just like having multiple kinds of magic. With only one class of tomes, all mages feel kinda same-y, both aesthetically and in gameplay. The classic trio of "light magic for healers, anima magic for offensive mages, and dark magic for only one or two special dark mages per game" just feels really good. Half the reason the 3DS games have such underwhelming mages is because they all just do the same thing, and tossing a random axe proficiency to a healer doesn't do much to mitigate that.

@scottrauch1261

6 ай бұрын

Said better then i could. Thank you.

@KeDe1606

6 ай бұрын

Problem is that having a „magic triangle“ just… doesn’t really work? In a gameplay sense? I mean, you kinda said it yourself. The distribution of these different types of mages is just way out of wack. For the players, you get a whole bunch of regular mages, a couple of priests (who mostly just act as a staff bot and nothing else), and like… two dark mages, if you’re lucky. In some games, dark mages are locked to enemy units only, locked behind DLC, or locked behind some optional promotion item. And for the enemies, the early- to mid-game consists of only regular mages, with dark mages being reserved to bosses or the occasional „tough, optional enemy“ (until the late-game where they take the spot of the mage unit), and offensive priests… pretty much don’t exist outside of like one single boss encounter. Having an advantage triangle here just… doesn’t work. Like, at all, unless you completely rework the entire game and it’s lore. The reason why the regular weapon triangle works is because there’s a general balance between sword, lance and axe units. Sure, the first one or two chapters mainly consist of axe units, but it doesn’t take long to find your first soldier or myrmidon. I think Fates unequivocally did the ranged weapon triangle the best. There is no runner-up. That’s the only time where the concept kinda worked Edit: oh yeah, there actually is a second place. Forgot that Engage also had a „ranged“ triangle. Though it is weird that the third part‘s filled in by CQC, and not knives (even though that game does have knives). Maybe it’s a distribution thing? Or they just didn’t want Thieves to get completely shut down by a single unit type

@BeefinOut

6 ай бұрын

@@KeDe1606 I don't think the situation you described is an issue tbh. Plain old anima mages make up the bulk of magic users since that's the "default" one. Light magic is intentionally weak since it's mostly for utility and not damage, so it's okay that it's disadvantaged to the most common magic type. The dark mage class is rare, tbh it's the only non-personal class in the franchise that really tries to stick out as something special and powerful, so it makes sense that it would have an advantage over the most common mage type. And to round it off, light beats dark, which is strong flavor, but in practice, it means that, in the very rare instance your god-fearing cleric fights against a dark mage, they have a slight edge, though not a big one, given their innate difference in power level. The magic triangle was never meant to be an even split like the weapon triangle, and imo the unbalanced nature of it is an upside.

@KeDe1606

6 ай бұрын

@@BeefinOutbut, like, don’t you see how what you just described ruins the entire concept of a magic triangle? If the distribution of Light, Dark and Anima isn’t even remotely balanced, to the point where you can count the number of both the enemy dark mages AND offensive light mages on ONE SINGLE HAND, then we‘d just get another Tellius situation where Light magic is actually worthless outside of literally one encounter, and… Dark Mages… actually do not exist. Imagine if that is how the regular triangle worked. Like, that the entire game was just filled with only enemy axe units, a literal handful of lance units and a grand total of three sword units. Wouldn’t you think that that might be just a bit bad? That’s why I said that you‘d need to rework even the lore to have a magic triangle work. You‘d need to somehow justify dark mages existing in non-endgame chapters, and you‘d need to justify the sheer existence of light magic in early chapters, because need I remind you that that’s the literal only magic type locked behind a goddamn promotion? And that promoted enemies only start appearing regularly in the last third of a given game? Conceptually speaking, I think a magic triangle is kinda neat. But it just does not work without completely reworking it in some way

@KeDe1606

6 ай бұрын

@@BeefinOutand then there are also the more miscellaneous issues that Ghast mentions in this video, like the inherent imbalance between the three types of magic, the non-existent stat differences between Mages, Dark Mages and Priests (they all have high magic and resistance. Dark Mages tend to be a bit slower, but that’s it) and so on. Again, without a major rework, it just doesn’t work

The real root of the issue is that all mages get built basically the same, if we had a few more mages (or mage classes) that traded some resistance for better defense or something it would help a lot I've been hoping for a Mage Armor for years because we've never really gotten one, and not one at all in Modern Fire Emblem

@mauricioalvarezpino1818

6 ай бұрын

The closest thing we have to a mage armor is a Cipher exclusive character that is shown using magic in 1 card, his name is Valjean and he's awesome btw.

@TARDISES

6 ай бұрын

I'm thinking something akin to a magical counterpart to the likes of Swordmaster could shake things up - a high-speed magic class that has low res in exchange, something you'll want to use other mages against because they have the res to not take too much damage from being doubled, while can still put on the hurt themselves despite only getting one swing in.

@gicrueldad9520

5 ай бұрын

What was the game that had decent HP and Defenses on Dark Mages?. Cannot remember but they can totally work. I think it actually has been done this way already, but what I would like is: Dark Mages: Decent HP and Defense and the highest Magic, Magical equivalent of Axes. Light Mages: High Speed, Luck and Res, equivalent of Swords. Anima Mages: In-between, equivalent of Lances. With each unit having their own capabilities too, which may be more important than ever if something like Engage classes become the standard in the future (Classic gameplay can get a higher variety of units too, is just that it refuses to make Physical units with high Res besides Pegasus and Magical units tanky).

@baxterbruce9827

5 ай бұрын

@@gicrueldad9520 They tried doing this in the GBA games, but the differences were way more downplayed than with sword/axe/lance classes, which is what I propose and honestly think we need to try doing more

@lsrrr3857

5 ай бұрын

Like if you look at PoR Soren ilyana and tormod, who are wind mage, thunder mage and fire mage respectively, they are essentially just mages in the end.

Slight correction at 0:55: Light doesn’t have an advantage over Dark in Jugdrel. They both have advantages over the Anima triangle, but outside of Naga piercing through Loptus’s damage reduction they are equal in terms of the weapon triangle.

I think it’s worth noting that engage also had its tomes function with more diversity than other games. There’s separate progressions for each of the three elements, but rather than a weapon triangle effect that only comes into play for other mages, each magic type has unique stats and effects. Fire is your standard tomes, wind is weaker but lighter and effective against flying opponents, and thunder is now 1-3 range but can’t follow up. We even added a new element with the surge tomes that are guaranteed to hit but are only 1 range. Each of these types has their use cases and weaknesses and it makes magic have more depth without bloating the cast of mages with mostly redundant units. I think having some specific tomes with special effects be locked to certain classes/units like with dark mages in awakening/fates/three houses can be interesting. But slightly different damaging spells shouldn’t be the only thing separating magic classes if we want to have them.

@AkameGaKillfan777

6 ай бұрын

That's almost exactly the same as Awakening and 3 Houses

@joelsasmad

6 ай бұрын

​@@AkameGaKillfan777I didn't see Surge tomes in Three Houses and weight wasn't even a thing in Awakening.

@bhizzle64

6 ай бұрын

@@AkameGaKillfan777Awakening did start the trend, but the only type of tome that was meaningfully different was wind with the flying effectiveness. Thunder and fire were both basically the same. Three houses does have some more elements of the differing spells. But given that each character has their own set spell list, you don’t have the same freedom of choice in the system that engage has. A lot of the basic damaging spells of different elements are also pretty similar. I single out engage because it was the first game in my opinion to really commit to having every single magic tome/spell feel unique in practice.

@TARDISES

6 ай бұрын

One other nuance I can say about Surge is that while the traditional elements have three tiers (standard, El- and Bolganone/Thoron/Excalibur), Surge only has two - Surge and Elsurge. Nova, the S-Rank tome, does use similar visual effects, but it works significantly differently as instead of being a guaranteed-hit range-1 tome, Nova is a brave tome with standard 1-2 range.

@caliburnleaf9323

6 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, just like every other game that wind is effective against fliers, its base MT is too low to matter, and is objectively worse than just using fire magic if the enemy is grounded. I don't know what they were thinking when they made the A rank Excalibur 10 MT/80 Hit/5 Crit/9 WT, when we already have a C rank Elfire with 11 MT/90 Hit/0 Crit/7 WT. And Elfire is cheaper to forge! The surge tomes were cool in concept, but magic users rarely have hit rate issues to begin with (especially with most of them being mystic type), so surge magic mostly just ends up being a niche earlygame option to do a little extra damage. In the end, you really just have fire and thunder magic.

A great example of diversifying magic roles is Kaga's Berwick Saga. Fire deals excellent single damage, lightning has longer range and wind strikes twice (4x if you have the Pallas Regina). It was a lot of fun and made me want to always have a spell of each type handy in a given battle!

@GIR177

Ай бұрын

Once again proving that anything cool you think Fire Emblem should've done, Tearring Saga and Berwick Saga already did it first.

Personally, I think magic's issue is that it doesn't have the effectiveness vs each other that physical weapons have. Since caster resistance is always going to be insanely high, a triangle won't mean much since you're going to just increase hit rates of tiny amounts of chip. In order for Magic Triangle to matter, we need more variety in caster resistance, which means more caster classes. Armor, Cav, and Flier casters should be included and tomes need versions with effectiveness vs these so your triangle would actually matter (using wind vs a pegasus caster as an example), but also the base damage on tomes needs to be sufficient enough that the Weapon Effectiveness actually helps compared to another weapon. Also missing are tomes with Target Physical. We often have magical versions of the standard weapons (bolt axe, levin sword, flame lance, etc), but we do not have the opposite. A defense targeting tome could also help caster vs caster fights (on top of a magic triangle). But otherwise I am also not sold on a magic triangle assuming they continue with the versions previously made (small might/hit adjustments) given how low impact it generally is.

@aprinnyonbreak1290

6 ай бұрын

Mmmm An anima spell like "hurl stone", and a dark magic spell that just does physical damage because why not could work like this. Agree on more variety on magic classes. Mage armors and mage cavs would be a nice mix up

@MrGksarathy

6 ай бұрын

I mean, FEH is already doing the magical attack hitting physical defense thing already, so it's not out of the question. Additionally, I totally agree with most of your assessment, except I still want a triangle anyway just because it makes sense for magical elements to interact with each other.

@QizLizWiz

6 ай бұрын

Iirc, Three Hopes of all things actually did have a physical tome, but that game has different gameplay

I've always wondered why it was a struggle to balance the Trinity of Magic , But then when you said it's because all mages are built similar, It made mw wonder if there was a way to add even more Mage classes that are actually build around having different growths and bases. Then you hit me with the , "Just make Magic Unique for each character" and yeah I like that too

@baxterbruce9827

6 ай бұрын

Hot take: Mages feel so samey because they're intentionally built too similarly, I'm not sure we've EVER had an armored mage class and have wanted one for years

@danny18894

6 ай бұрын

@@baxterbruce9827 the Baron Class from Genealogy was kind of a Physical Tanky Mage , Also in the Rom Hack Fire Emblem Three Legacies (A.K.A. Three Houses 2) there was an Anima tome that targeted Defense which was a very useful tool in the Mage vs Mage combat

@baxterbruce9827

6 ай бұрын

@@danny18894 The issue with counting Baron for this is that: A. It rarely has magic, other appearances have it as a much more standard armor B. It can use almost every weapon in the game in the one time it CAN use magic, so it doesn't really feel like a "Mage Armor" so much as an "Everything armor"

@GMOPsyche

6 ай бұрын

I feel like they tried to make mages different but no one ever notices it in practice, like how some games have dark mages being more phisically defensive. Though I guess people tend to connect the dark mages' bulk to nosferatu more than stats...

@Castersvarog

6 ай бұрын

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@GMOPsyche Tbf, Dark mages do have higher defense on average, but in practice it’s so negligible compared ti other Mages that it won’t matter all that much. If the difference was more noticeable like other classes then it would matter and by proxy the magic triangle could matter more to.

I’m glad to have found your channel; I’m a bit of a Fire Emblem “noob,” only having played Three Houses, Engage, the start of Fates Birthright twice, and recently starting Awakening, so it’s cool to see more of the history of the series through your videos. You’re also just really good at what you’re doing, I’m never bored throughout the video and you make things really clear. So thanks, and keep doing what you’re doing!

@Direblade11

5 ай бұрын

The GBA games are super easy to access on your phone/PC by using an emulator with ROM downloads. 8 is my favourite, and I recommend playing them in order of 8->7->6

I kinda like having magic user classes feel a bit different if you want to break apart the elements. a wind mage should be dodgy and speedy, fire should have more attack, thunder more accurate and higher crit chances or something like that. Light magic has very high res and dark magic high def. Something that helps differentiate the magic styles. now obviously that’s if they are going for the older separate the elements sort of thing which I don’t mind either way

I wish the new games could give us the magic triangle back. Same with easy access magic sword axe lance weapons too. Engage was this close to perfection with that if the bolt axe was available in base which make me sad it wasn't. Could have been cool to see Anna use the bolt axe for a hint to people to change her class.

My take on whether we need a magic triangle is most likely a TBD case. For example, in the GBA games, having a magic triangle was feasible. But then for something like Three Houses, such a triangle may not be ideal considering all units have different spells except for heal and nosferatu. So whether a magic triangle is ideal depends on the game. For remakes of the GBA games, it could be possible to bring the magic triangle back if the available weapon types stay the same (although I would probably make bows more feasible).

@neog8029

6 ай бұрын

I like the idea of the magic triangle being in a game with learned spells like 3H. It'd help keep both mages as well as the magic different and unique. Maybe one character has better Anima spells to nuje and not much else while another unit has more basic spells of every type for versatility.

Poor Clanne. Ghast just forgot about him...

I will say it . Tellius had the bestagic triangle . All tomes were effective against something, and they feel natural . I don't know if it's weird or not but having a class for each element feels normal . But I do think they should have differences in stat distribution to make them all feel different. I'm one of people that want the Trinity of magic back in the game

@aureliodeprimus8018

4 ай бұрын

Yeah, the game definitely would need classes, like Spell Blades or MageBreakers.

@reik019

4 ай бұрын

@@aureliodeprimus8018 Something like the Dreadfighters on Gaiden/SoV? like Swordmasters, slightly less fast (but fast enough to double mages) with very high Resistance

@aureliodeprimus8018

4 ай бұрын

@@reik019 Yeah, propably. Thanks for reminding.

We need to fuse the triangles and make them hexagons. They are the bestagons.

Really do wish we could have the Magic Triangle Back. There’s not a lot of Light-Attacking Magic and it would be a nice change of pace compared to just having the elements and some Dark Magic. It was anotha fun cog in the Combat machine that also made Support units (Healers and Priests) something else to work with given the tended to have at least half-decent Magic stats.

Magic in Engage is super balanced between all of the unique classes. Innate weapon proficiency also helps with supplementing fringe choices. Sage gives you access to S rank tomes, and B rank staves(A with innate proficiency), but has the lowest spd cap of magic users, and no spd growths which helps balance out units like Hortensia with good spd and low magic growths, or specializing units like Gregory into nukes. Mage Knight gives you access to breaking without engaging, as well as more movement, but you do not get access to S rank tomes. You can also get access to Brave weapons with innate prof. High Priest is the best non-prf class healer with S rank in staves, but will have neutered combat prowess without innate prof. in Arts or Tomes, but with a similarly low spd cap. The prf classes of Celine, Ivy, Hortensia, and Zelestia also specialize them even further. Vidame has great mixed offensive caps with the high spd, but awful Dex caps meaning you'll need to supplement her hit and Dex with emblems and engraves. Hortensia has low magic growth, but her other offensive stats are great with nice caps in her class as well, but she only has access to B rank tomes restricting her from using Thoron. Ivy's class suffers from a low Dex cap like Celine's, but has S rank tomes and better movement. Zelestia is the most balanced of all of them with good mixed offenses, midling dex and spd caps, and very good mixed bulk. She's basically the Kimahri(jack of all trades) of the magic users that benefits from support in any direction you take her whether it's nuking, outspeeding, supporting, or tanking. This doesn't get into the fringe cases like Mauvier, Chloe, and Jean which have very good cases for going into magical/mixed classes like Mage Knight, or with proper support, Martial Master. Griffon Knight is one of the premium classes, and is great on virtually everyone, but these 3 make great use of their growths in that class, and in Mauvier and Chloe's case, their innate prof. as well. Engaging, and emblem stat bonuses also supplement the weaknesses of these classes very nicely. Putting Marth on Gregory gives him better avoid, combined with his personal skill to supplement his lack of spd, while also giving him a follow up hit while engaged. Camilla gives a spd bonus from the emblem, but also has the +5 Spd/Res skill making it good on sages, especially if they have decent Str growths/bases to use her Axe. Celica can make up for the weakness of slow mages with Echo while synergizing with backup units, and Resonance can set you up to take advantage of Veronica's Reprisal for better nuking. Micaiah makes up for low bulk mages by giving them Nosferatu, but also gives access to staves. She can also help set up Reprisal or Wrath with Sacrifice quite easily leading to strong nukes as well. Engage balanced the magic classes nicely, and streamlined character's unique niches while allowing enough freedom to experiment. The engage system also helps supplement weaknesses or further invest into strenghts to create more diversity within the cast. I've spent the most time in the game trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the magic classes, who's going to get which ring, and who should go into mixed offensive clases. I think the weapon triangle would further complicate, and unnecessarily restrict strategies, and usually means certain characters, classes, or types of magic are always going to be worse than others. It's why people avoid sword locked classes, or don't use generalist classes. Too far in one direction, or having too little direction without any way of mitigating the downsides means you can't be creative with your strategies.

I think both the waepon triangle, magic trinity and anima triangle should remain as staples, never leaving

Videos that delve deep into the mechanics are always great. This was great content, props

@Faerghast

6 ай бұрын

Thanks Alfred!!

I remember playing Radiant Dawn for the first time and I was kinda baffled when I realized that wind tomes didn't effect Haar much (of course I played FE7 shortly prior so there's that). I do agree the way magic is handled in more recent titles is more interesting. It gives more options and feels like if I pick a more niche option, I'm not just picking them because of a design preference but because they at least do something different even if they may not be the better unit from a previous playthrough.

Something I kinda wish was the development of more varied magic/staff statlines. Awakening and Fates did this fairly well, with dedicated mages/healers with actually respectable physical bulk in the form of Dark Mages, Priestess/Great Masters, and Butlers. While they weren’t armor knight levels of tanks, they had an interesting niche where you can place them on the front lines more often without fear of death. They were fun to use. I really want an armored magic user in future games. Engage’s mage cannoneers were fun, but imagine a mage with high defense.

@aureliodeprimus8018

4 ай бұрын

Yeah, in my first Awakening playthrough Tharja ended up marrying Kellam, because a Sorcerer with Vengeance and Nosferatu makes for a surprisingly great soaking tank.

9:27 sorry for pointing out this small detail but I am a nerd for tellius there's actually 5 dark mages. 1 in 3-3 1 in 3-E depending on stuff in 3-13 2 in 4-1 And 1 in 4-5 All of which Micaiah never fights

I personally love the magic triangles from tellius, gave each magic some advantages and disadvantages and had a neat idea

I think the magic triangle from the gba games should be the only one and should be revived and not be dead.

The luna stats on screen for FE7 and 8 don't match up with the dialog. Crit was never 45. FE7 it was 20. FE8 it dropped to 10. It didn't lose all of its crit. Also, in Radiant Dawn... yeah. Micaiah was technically at magic triangle disadvantage against enemy mages. But she had ludicrously high resistance, taking little to no damage, and light magic was accurate enough that being down on the weapon triangle was irrelevant. As far a what I'd like to see, I don't like magic as an "always neutral" option like in Awakening. But as something that almost always has 1-2 range, it's a bit awkward making it play nice with physical weapons. In Fates for example, magic's advantage against bows and disadvantage against lances is somewhat irrelevant when you can just attack and not get counterattacked. I like what the GBA games did with Anima being basic and Dark having interesting utility options. Light was bad though. I think bringing the Light/Anima/Dark system in again would be good, but we can give Anima bonus damage options (Like Radiant Dawn) Dark offensive utility, and light defensive utility, but less power. Dark can get Flux (hits lower of Def/Res), Luna, Miasma (poison), and a strict 3 range tome. Light magic can get Light (accuracy drop on hit) Surge (1 range, built in vantage) Nosferatu, and Aura (inverts def/res) Largely just brainstorming here. This seems kind of gimmicky, and would require some work to balance properly. But magic triangle advantage negating the extra effects of the opposing magic I think would be good.

Great vid! I’ve been thinking about FE magic and combat systems for a long time and this was a great coverage of that

In my romhack, I made it so Light magic was well...lightweight, plus crit and gives various buffs in case of the higher grade tomes. I Avatar'd anima and it has the most tomes: 3 for Fire and Thunder, 2 apiece for Wind and Ice, for a total of 10. Dark is also now the debuff magic, with only Flux not having some sorta debuff/additional harmful effect. New tomes were added to both Light and Dark so that they're both 7 apiece. Light has Holy Armor, which is basically Munio from TLP's son. And then basically Valentia Seraphim, which grants FE8 Bishop! Slayer to anybody wielding it. Dark greets in Spectre, which weakens Atk by 4(not Magic nor Strength), and Tartatus which puts a Sleep status on its victim.

"Fimbulvetr" is the winter that's the prelude to Ragnarok.

Sometimes while I'm working on other things I play your videos on repeat in the background without sound, just to boost that sweet sweet algorithm in your favor (I don't know if it does anything)

I also just liked what Valentia did. With started with a simple Cain/Abel pair but with Magic

Interesting video. Love the discussion.

If the magic triangle came back It would make sense if the disadvantaged user had their resistance reduced by an amount when fighting along with extra magic done against them so that way it would be strategic to field certain mages At least it would be nice if they did that in radiant dawn remake

I feel like I've always leaned in favor of the magic triangle but never sat down and thought about why. This was a good chance to, especially after analyzing your closing statements. The main use of the weapon triangle is to reinforce class identity and unit use cases, and I think it's fair to say that FE7 actually does this very well with the magic triangle. Anima magic is war magic, magic for the sake of battling soldiers, the most commonly seen and first introduced in use by a mercenary. They do a lot of damage because armor doesn't help against it. This consistency is ruined by dark mages, a mostly enemy class who beat them in the triangle and have high resistance. Dark magic is magic for the sake of magic and thus all-consuming, always threatening big damage. Light magic is the one defensive counter to this. Lucius is introduced on the same map as the Black Fang as the answer to the shaman (much like Deirdre is introduced on the same map as Sandima as his counter, although she does it through her staff). But monks are not fighters, they have the least HP, Mag, and Def of the mage classes and are only good to counter evil. Athos bringing Aureola to the final chapter helps reinforce this, with it (and not Forblaze) effective against Nergal, and the +5 Res and triangle adding up. (Of course Luna is just better offensively, and beats light users too, but it was nerfed for a reason) Now it's still very flawed execution-wise, pegasus knights have many more use cases than light mages and beat shamans just as well. FE8 adds Slayer and monster magic to help bishops feel useful more often, and they do, but monsters are underwhelming in general and bishops' low survivability doesn't work well against their horde tactics. Dark magic as a mostly enemy powerful class that beats anima mages, and light magic as a rare unit that is chosen to counter them, is cool though.

Really cool video! Loved the personal spell list that Three Houses had. I just wish more classes were capable of wielding magic in that game so I could experiment with it more without going full blown "you're a mage now." But that might be a personal thing, I love spellsword archetypes.

Didnt realize Nergal's spell was called ereshkigal for so many years until after playing FGO lolz

I miss the magic triangle. I propose an amplified triangle (stronger bonuses/penalties) for magic. And more diverse stat spreads for magic users would help too.

I honestly like how they did it in Engage, with almost all range weapons having an all answer with Martial Monks but needing to close the gaps.

as you said in the end of the review the weapon triangle function as a magnifier to the classes that use then, if magic classes are not built more uniquely like phisical classes having a weapon triangle is mostly pointless or heavily mitigated at least

Based on the idea of the Three Houses spell lists, and also the mentions you gave to how the inherent mages in Engage have their own unique roles, I wonder if something Nintendo should consider trying out for at least one game would be to make every character have some sort of unique role. It would probably be difficult depending on the cast size, but there could definitely be a way to make each character unique instead of having like 4 horse riding lance users, 3 mages, 2 healers, etc etc etc. Maybe something like each character has a unique combination of weapon types they can use, or if they're not unique, some sort of mount or armor combination makes them unique. Heavy armor flier that can use bows and staves. Make it happen

Actually in Radiant Dawn, there were 7 possible enemies that could use dark magic. This being the one Druid in chapter 3-3, the two Druids in chapter 3-8 that start next to Septimus, a total of three Druids in chapter 4-1 (two of the begin in the chapter, and another is a reinforcement spawn.) And of course, lastly is our baby girl Izuka.

I like the triangle with two lines off of it model from Genealogy.

I agree that there isn't a point to a magic triangle given that magical units can have such a similar spread of stats. However I would like there to be some sort of triangle where magic is strong against and weak against something. At least in perspective of Engage, instead of Arts just being the only thing that breaks daggers, bows, and tomes I would have liked to see some sort of triangle where Tome is strong against Bow but weak against Daggers and so forth. Kind of like Fates but keep the triangles separate from one another.

I love Gaiden, Echoes, and Three Houses' take on magic! We only get so few of them anyway. They've earned their days in the sun.

Honestly, I don't particularly feel one way or the other about attempting "Magic Triangle", however I'd seriously advise them to consider copying Final Fantasy XIII's setup and tweaking it a little as a tester format. Because they have very little idea what they are doing with their triangles, and In theory you'd end up with enough unique class variations doing that. For the fun of it, I put an off the top of my head idea for the concept. Sabatour (Traditionally a "Witch/Assassin") - Status Elements (e.g Poison, Blind, Petrify, Slow, Hex/Charm, etc) leaning into Mag, Dex and Spd. Dark Warrior (Traditionally a "Dark Knight/Mage") - Combat Dark Magics (e.g Ultima, Life Steal, Venom Strike, etc) leaning into Str, Mag and Def. -Filling in Dark Medic/Healer (Traditionally a part of "White/Light Mage") - Healing Magic (e.g Heal, Revive, Rescue, Regen, Purify, etc.) leaning into Mag, Res, Spd. Battle Priest/Priestess/Monk (Traditionally a of "White/Light Mage") - Combat Light Magic (e.g Holy, Light Ray/Beam, Smite [vs. Undead/Monsters], etc.)leaning into Str, Def, Res. -Filling in Light Mimic (Traditionally a "Blue Mage") - copies monster abilities. leaning into Def, Res and Dex. Commando (For want of a better name) - Non-Elemental Magic/Boosting Magic (e.g Strength up, Ruin [see FFXIII for reference], Warp/Swap, etc.) leaning into Str, Mag, and Cha. -Filling in Neutral With Elemental Magic being learnable by all, and Fire (generally) being the default starter spell. As the old saying goes "It's easier to start a fire, than to stop one".

If I could choose how the Trinity could return, I'd use the Three Houses weapon level system, but each time black magic levels up, the player will be given the option to increase thunder magic, fire magic, wind magic, or dark magic by 1 rank, which will start at E rank in the beginning, but will be limited to how you invest the levels by stopping the options when you hit A+ in Black Magic, leading to each run being different, with the magic ranks chosen being determinate on how the magic user can be utilized.

Yeah, the magic weapon triangle has never been as effective as the physical one. However, I do really like the way they implemented effective damage against the laguz units (and by extension some beorc units) in Tellius, in addition to adding a physical weapon variation for each anima magic type. If they remade either PoR or RD, I think that they should keep the thunder effectiveness on wyvern riders, maybe add the bow effectiveness back, and give cavaliers and paladins a weakness to fire. The last would add a nice level of strategy for returning players by giving them a new mechanic to work around, especially with the number of mounted allies and fire-wielding enemy mages there are.

I think the other point you have to make is that enemies are mages only very rarely. So the whole idea of mage vs mage combat just rarely if ever comes into play. Having a magic triangle practically doesn't matter.

@0:11 You said Fimblevetr correctly, and then you just threw it away lol

@Faerghast

6 ай бұрын

I don't have the confidence

@Flamelance_Accendo

6 ай бұрын

@@Faerghast hahaha it's no problem, I enjoyed the video.

Triangles were cool at first but there is no need for them. Ultimately you use the right tool for the right circumstance and in most cases the weapon triangle barely matters. Overpowered units/classes/abilities/weapons are what dictates what is good more than triangling an enemy for some slight hit/avo/MT advantage. Break in Engage is neat though, I think that is the system they should use moving forward. It is enough to justify caring about it (sometimes) and not so much that it is obnoxious to deal with because you now have an unfixable 50 hit rate due to triangle disadvantage.

This is something I legitimately miss.

in shining force, spells could multi target, and unlike balistae in fates, multi kill. your casts were limited by your mana, but it really did make them feel like powerful, valuable, nuclear weapons, when raised long enough to bear fruit.

I'm fine with anima, light, and dark just being Tomes. It serves as the offensive variant to stave. But I do like the idea of a second weapon triangle consisting of fists/arts, bows, and knives/hidden weapons

The thing bout the trinity of magic, is that while the things you say are true, the trinity of magic is still, well, cool. I like the flavor it adds, I like it when mages specialize in certain types of magic and I hope that when remakes roll around (come on, Jugdral remakes, come to papa) they polish the trinity further. I think that, giving different types of magic different properties, making the magic triangle matter by making it more impactful (maybe giving it weapon effectiveness beyond regular triangle advantage) and proliferating their users across the enemy army so that it actually comes into play once or twice could really help the trinity come into its own

Tre trinity of magic must make a return because adds variety to the amount of magic classes we have. I was not going to use both Erk and Pent but I will train Lucius and Canas. Also more magic classes means more mage enemies to make resistance more valuable. I know mix classes are a thing from FE13, 14, 3 Houses and Engage but they tend to be bad on the highest difficulty or focus only on one weapon so that's not really a good fix to that issue.

@baxterbruce9827

6 ай бұрын

We need a little more variety in mage classes in general, I've been suggesting an armored mage class for years because we've never had one, imagine a brick wall in heavy armor with high Defense and Resistance (Probably average HP to keep it SOMEWHAT "Balanced" even though low movement is punishment enough) flinging fireballs in a choke point to keep away attackers

great video

I'd argue while it doesn't need to return as a trinity, I also think with a elemental resistances (blade,impact,pierce,fire,cold and arcane) system it could make all magic useful because of the weaknesses some enemies could have that simply doesn't depend on their weapon but their classes. Magic users then would not have to target enemies with the weaker tome but enemies weak to the form of damage your mages can exploit, elusive units would take more damage from blades, so the fast and accurate wind tome would be a good fit (it's literally slashing gust of winds don't tell me it wouldn't to blade damage)

@annanz0118

6 ай бұрын

I agree. Have Ice magic effective against fire and fire magic good against grass spells or something. You could have a whole load of different elemental spells.

fe 4 and 5, light and dark are neutral against each other but beat anime magic

I kind of dumped a ton of thoughts in a reply in another comment but I want to put some of them here in the main thread. I think that the triangle could work but it would need more diversity. Using dark magic should feel significantly different than anima. It could do stat debuffs like knives from conquest but maybe not work on light magic tome users or certain unit types like paladins or falco knights. Light magic could “bless” the user/allies with stat buffs as they are used but be cancelled out against anima users. Anima could provide unique unit based effects - wind against flyers, thunder against dragons and armors, and fire against mounted and beasts. Ice, the rarer anima, could do a movement debuff. Against dark tome users the user’s resistance is harshly debuffed. I think if they want to keep magic users to have similar stats they need to diversify the way magic works so it doesn’t feel like every magic user is just an anti physical glass cannon.

Magic doesn't need Triangles (Heck, nothing REALLY does), but rather, Mages need more class variety. Physical classes have Fighters, Mercenaries, Armor Knights, Pegasus Knights, Cavaliers, etc. Where most of the time magic boils down to "Physjcally Squishy Mage", "Mage on Horse" and "Mage but Purple"

I still would really like to see another good try at what the Tellius games did. Not necessarily the triangle system but with having different mages for different magic types and having those specialize in fighting different enemies. In a game like Awakening I'm usually only running two mages, one normal and one dark, and that's generous, it all feels like kinda the exact same stuff. If there were actual good reasons to use different magic types you'd have to think more carefully about what types of mages you train

I remember when I was trying to come up with ideas for an FE Fan game. I couldn't make it. Thinking of games I want to make is something I like doing. I hatted they dropped light magic and I started with everything betting two elements and losing two elmaments with Light, Electric, Fire, Ice, and Darkness with Wind being neutral. But I kept mixing myself up with the odd number and added Sprites. I got carried away with my Triangles, I had the weapons, the rouge triangle, the magic star and they formed a separate triangle. I even had an Anaimal triangle before I realized I was being silly.

I think if we had to get another triangle, it would be fun if they leaned into the inherent expectations and roles of each magic type like… Light magic is lighter and more accurate, but also weaker. In return though it grants buffs to the unit and nearby allies, like, say, a +3 to def or res after combat, or maybe some passive healing. Make the white magic classes have higher res but lower defense. Maybe have a promotion to a flying white mage be possible. Dark Magic would be powerful but also heavy. It also would inflict debuffs on enemies, such as stat drops or maybe a freeze or poison effect. Dark magic users have higher defense but lower res. Maybe have an armored variant available? Their lower res wouldn’t completely make them useless against mages because they’d have an advantage against anima, and light has lower might. Then lastly, anima mages are kind of a middle of the road in strength accuracy and weight. Some tomes have extra effects, some don’t. Classes that use anima would tend to have more balanced defense and res. What could maybe make this more interesting too is if secondary effects are shut down if the enemy has the magic advantage over you. So like, you won’t get debuffed from dark magic if you use light against them. Something like that maybe, I dunno.

On paper I like what PoR tried to do. The idea of each race being weak to an element is an interesting idea that made it stand out from weapons. I think if it wasn't for Laguz Killers then it could have been a fun dynamic between melee, magic, and beast that could be similar to the typical Myrmidon/Fighter/Armour triangle. While I don't know if I could argue it'd be better than the Switch era of magic, I believe they had the right idea, they just had to refine it

Things I wanna see in nee Fe games Early dancer. Fates got it right. Magic healers engage almost got it right. Fates amiboo system so we can get true units an engage almost had it with the Veronica system Magic triangle to make the slots useful. Levin sword bolt axe whatever the lance is called be a weapon we can get semi early. Fixed vs expanding enemy levels. Engage made me mad at how you could train and they only get stronger than you. Waste of time. Break system be like 3 houses. If not unbreakable be like engage with awakening forge system. More one shot classes they were cool

@AkameGaKillfan777

6 ай бұрын

Magic lances have to be one of the most inconsistent weapons in the series

When are u going to finish ur fe7 romhack bro??

One of the issues with the weapon magic triangle is one I see in RPGs quite a lot: Mixing special effects of an element with type effectiveness creates a muddy system with winners and losers. I noticed this first in the Mother series, where in Earthbound/Mother 2 and Mother 3 the "Freeze" type psionics (spells) were usually the best ones to use in any situation because of the properties of the others. Fire type psionics were defined by their area of effect capabilities, but they also deal significantly less damage than Freeze spells (often less than half the damage), whereas Thunder psionics were defined by having multiple hits of random targetting (that can also hit an empty space) that hit very hard. Freeze spells are not only defined by their high single target damage, but also universally have a 20% chance to inflict Frozen on an enemy, which will take away one of their turns. The problem with this is that in a game where you are often fighting multiple targets even in boss battles, completely eliminating an enemy is most effective even if you are targetting the three enemies required to make Fire damage efficient. On top of this, Freeze can just take an enemy's turn away! There are enemies that are weak to Fire, but they literally take more damage from Freeze psionics because resistance usually reduces damage by 30-50%, but Freeze psionics are more than twice as potent as Fire ones. This meant that Fire psionics have generally been pretty bad, Freeze is the best and against machine enemies you use Thunder and pray your attacks hit.

As far as how classes relate to the magic triangle, I’d argue that modeling light after swords, anima after lances, and dark after axes could work. With this, light magic would be accurate and lightweight at the cost of stopping power, anima magic would be balanced across all three of these aspects, and dark magic would sacrifice accuracy and a low weight in exchange for a greater damage output. As far as the strengths of these magic categories go, it would be similar to their strengths in the GBA games. With the strengths of these magic types, the magic classes could be built, such as a light mage having stats akin a myrmidon.

I'd want a triangle like Fates where all the weapons are in the triangle, but have other magic types and actually have some stat variety for mages. I'd want Swords, Anima, and Gauntlets that beat Axes, Light, and Bows that beat Lances, Dark, and Knives

I wonder, if at all, this mystery is why we don't have the Jugdral or Tellius remakes yet. Insane thought, but I'll throw it out there lol

Wait, is light magic really strong against dark magic in FE4 and FE5? As I check the wiki and serenes forest page, they seem to be neutral against each other

With Fates, there were more high resistance physical classes (peg knight, ninja, even outlaws iirc) so it would be nice to have more variation on mage classes, like a standard Armor, Myrmidon, Fighter situation, without overpowering Magic against physical units

I feel a similar issue exists with the Weapon Triangle, at least in the Warriors games. There is a lot of classes which are weak to Axe but have Magic which gives them an advantage against them as they lack Magic Defense. This in turn created major issues where you just send AI to kill effective targets while you manually handle "dangerous" targets and destroy them instantly while the AI would struggle. This effectively made Armored Knights worthless as they were only useful defensively by the AI as manual control runs the risk of an enemy AI using magic on you in real combat. As cool as a Triangle is, it only works in a perfectly balanced world or else some traits become preferable.

Out of all Magic Triangles, Valflame has the best triangle. Okay for real I like the magic triangle, but it basically works in the exact same way as the weapon triangle. Maybe the bonuses should be raised and be unique. Like maybe Dark magic takes significantly less damage from anima, light or thunder getting a much higher critical hit bonus, wind granting more hit/avoid or something like that. Make magic having the advantage mean something bigger than… +2 damage and +10 hit

The Trinity of magic is great and we desperately need it.

I liked the magic triangle in Sacred Stones, at least in concept, because Anima was treated as the 'normal' magic used by the majority of both allied and enemy casters, and then Light was worse at dealing with normal humans but superior against monsters and cultists to fit its concept as a holy thing, and dark magic... well okay it was supposed to be this scary thing that's more powerful than normal magic and specifically screws up traditional elemental mages, but in practice it usually had like a 15% chance to hit. So the implementation leaves much to be desired, but the initial concept was solid. 3H seems like it *almost* had a secondary triangle. The normal weapon triangle effects were mostly removed but there's a skill you get at B rank proficiency in each, giving +20 hit and avoid when in the traditional matchups (which is rarely used because it takes up one of your limited equip slots for a very situational benefit). And there's a second set of three skills like that, which would have meant Fists beat Magic, Magic beats Bows, Bows beat Fists... except that two of them are locked behind the master ranks of the Warlock and Grappler classes, and the third is just sitting unimplemented in the code. So I'm pretty sure the idea was scrapped maybe a third of the way through development, but it might have been cool at some point.

Nice video

Personally I like the magic triangle. Though I don't think that is important enough to even matter

Honestly, I think the magic trinity is usually a good thing since it adds more flavor to different mages. Playing through Awakening and having both your staff user and magic attacker promote into a sage is boring, and don't get me started on dark magic being just a subset of tomes. It's also good for reclass heavy games since there's more room to play around with different magic classes.

The magic trinity is the same as certain classes being available in certain games, they work for the game they are in but as a gimmick that awards the player for taking advantage of for more strategic choices.

I love the Trinity of Magic mechanic especially in FE4/FE5 but I would make some adjustments (this example is for FE4 only) : Keep the Anima triangle the same but give Fire more hit/avoid against Wind - even though it should counter it, it's not really doing much. If we compare the 2 triangles (in terms of weight), we can say that Fire is basically Axe, Thunder is Lance and Wind is Sword. So basically : Make Fire hit the hardest and have the highest accuracy but still weight a lot AND have a stronger bonus against Wind (for example have +30 avoid/hit advantage instead of the usual 20) - this way Wind can still double but Fire will have more chance to hit and be a painful option to fight. Thunder should remain almost the same except when fighting Wind - it should have less penalty since Wind is almost always guaranteed to double so Wind against Thunder should have only +10 hit/avoid. For example : Fire : Mt 9 - Hit 90 - Wt 12 Thunder : Mt 8 - Hit 85 - Wt 6 Wind : Mt 7 - Hit 80 - Wt 2 ---------- Elfire : Mt 15 - Hit 80 - Wt 13 Elthunder : Mt 13 - Hit 75 - Wt 6 Elwind : Mt 11 - Hit 70 - Wt 2 ---------- Bolganone : Mt 20 - Hit 75 - Wt 13 Thoron : Mt 18 - Hit 70 - Wt 6 Tornado : Mt 16 - Hit 65 - Wt 2 1) Wind is nerfed overall against all units (not just magic) but still making it very easy to double with even against swords. 2) Thunder is a little weaker overall, but can still double most of the units and can now contest Wind more easily. 3) Fire is a little buffed across the board, can almost never double (except against Axe and some Lance users) and is the only one that can easily fight Wind. Siege spells and Holy weapons can remain the same. Light - Dark - Anima triangle should remain the same : 1) Not many units use Light/Dark tomes so it's ok - their tomes also have unique effects as well. 2) Units that use Light tomes are generally squishy to physical damage, more than Anima users. 3) Units that use Dark tomes are very slow and will almost never double since the tomes are heavy. And regarding the weapon triangle Swords should remain the same. All Axe wt needs to be lowered by at least 5 (except Brave Axe) All Lance wt needs to be lowered by at least 3 (except Slim Lance) I never liked the 3DS non-mechanic and unit related/NO TOME in three houses. I have to look up which units have great spells and I don't like looking things up to play the game. My 1st Byleth was a mage because I felt like playing it... but he doesn't have anything special as I recall and I couldn't teach him anything new or give him a tome.

I saw the title for this and was quite sure you were going to be upset about something inherent to grid squares lol

I think what could be really interesting to make a magic triangle actually viable, is if you were to make the magic classes themselves different from eachother. Like perhaps, Anima were more stat-like myrmidons being glass canons, or dark mages being slow but units to take down like Generals. I think the classes themselves being different would make the triangle actually viable, but when all are the same... whats the point to it.

pretty good video

I always thought the magic triangles were fun to play with. In radiant dawn it was kind of silly with the additional because of the very few dark users. Idk tho - I always find it fun (:

Well presented argument. I used to think the magic triangle was just fine, with no strong thoughts about it, but based on how it’s used within mage vs mage match ups, they’re all so similar stat wise that it sort of takes the dynamic strategy out of it and you’re left with a more narrow selection of optimal choices. The magic system in 3H was really cool. I like the system having a number of uses per battle as well.

I’d definitely like to see it go more in the way of 3 houses, but more open to be used outside of mage classes. Let’s say…you learn some spells as you level, but despite your unit having a certain skill level in whatever type of magic, A rank in dark for example, the class they’re in may limit them to only using up to C rank dark magic. The same idea could potentially apply to weapons as well, again, if they’re more like 3 houses where the w. triangle was just done away with. Obviously this way would make it to where everyone/almost everyone would have access to some magic no matter what, and how that affects the entire system would need to be carefully crafted. Oh, and mage classes could have default spells they can use regardless of character knowledge. A priest can always use healing magic even if that specific character never learns any on their own, for example. Anyway, I’m just rambling at this point, so….🤷🏻‍♂️

I... never knew wyverns werent fliers in the tellius games. I've been playing with my hand tied behind my back for my whole life.

Late to this discussion but since I’m playing through Fire Emblem on the Switch expansion pass, magic feels very different in there. Erk was an early solo carry and Canas definitely has my attention with his high skill and damage output but I’m still in the early chapters to make a final decision. I did enjoy the idea Fates tried by merging projectile weapons on top of the weapon triangle but only because it was easy to remember the effectiveness of each of them, in the long run I think hidden weapons are the best support weapons for debuffing enemies but they’re just the physical counterparts of tomes/scrolls. The dark mages in Fates have it arguably better and worse by having higher skill growth but only 1 exclusive dark tome, a worse version of Nosferatu from Awakening. I’m also on board with keeping magic and mages their own identities, maybe we can get something from 3H where characters have their own spell level ups and have room to branch out and learn newer or better spells (like Claud learning Forsetti or even Tornado if you use Wind enough times). Additionally, I feel like if we’re given another game like 3H, I would absolutely love to have an accessory that allows units outside of the mage classes to use spells. I wouldn’t know how that would turn out but I’m still slightly upset about teaching Ignatz reason only to swap out of the mage class into an assassin.

I dont think magic needs triangles but it would be nice to have a proper weakness system for it so it actually has strategic uses outside more damage for less accuracy. Like instead of heavy armored units being damaged by all magic make it lightning that tears through them because they are covered in metal by dealing alot of damage, have wind magic trip up speed units like thieves + swordmasters by lowering their speed stat when hit and deal extra damaage to fliers, have fire be good against cavalry units because it spooks the horses, and light should be longer range but deal little damage but lowers the accuracy of archers, and dark magic should be mage killing magic because it curses and keep the ailements they deal.

I think magic don't need a triangle. Instead, it should focus on diversify it's effect. My idea is like this: -There are 6 elements that is Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Light, Dark -Each element will have their iron, steel, silver, and legendary counter part with different focus on stats. -Each element will have a stats debuff tome for a certain stats. The debuff tome just need to land a hit and the victim will have a -5 to their stats and the effect will wear off each turn. -Each element will have effective damage against a certain type of unit. -We should introduce a rally staff which buff some stats depend on the elemental rank with E mean +1, A mean +5, and S mean +7. Caster can have different elemental ranks and grant all of them at the same time. -Each element will have a special tome which have an interesting property. And here is how I think the element identity should be: -Fire: Their regular tome focus on having high might. They will be effective against horse unit, and beast like monster. Their debuff tome is Melt which lower defense. When using rally staff, fire rank grant extra attack power. Their special tome is Meteor which is a siege tome. -Lightning: Lightning focus on having high crit. They are effective against armor. Their debuff tome is Paralyze which lower attack power. Rally staff will grant skill. And special tome grant Luna skill when equip. -Wind: Focus on having light weight but low might. They are effective against Pegasus, or feathered monster but not wyvern or dragon. Rally staff will grant speed and debuff tome lower resistance. And special tome will double attack like brave weapon. -Ice: Focus on having high hit rate. They are effective against dragon and wyvern. Rally staff will grant defense and debuff tome will lower speed. Special tome have range of 3 and will debuff enemy movement by 5 for a turn which is useful on a moving boss or to snare some fast unit. -Light: Have good crit and a bit light weight but low hit rate and power. They are effective against undead and demon. Rally staff grant luck and debuff tome lower skill. Special tome prevent enemy from counter attack the user on user's phase but grant no exp if not score a kill (to prevent exp abuse). -Dark: Have good power and hit rate but heavy and low crit. They are effective against foot unit but not armored foot unit. Rally staff grant resistance and debuff tome lower luck. Special tome is Nosferatu. P/s: I read other people comment and found out that making mage class with different type of defense could be a good idea when making each element effective against a certain type of defense as mentioned.

I thought dark = axe . low hit rate high powr. But you need to make light a sword high accuracy low power, That leaves anima as a lance which kinda feel weird. Maybe magic need different weapon triangle bonus. Like doubling/halving their speed if they have weapon advantage. Or halving their damage.

You didnt mention the weird thing with thunder magic in radiant dawn. For some reason, it has both the lowest might AND the lowest accuracy, with a slightly higher crit rate, so it was pretty much strictly the worst magic type.

It's kinda sad considering that going by their stat lines, Dark Magic tomes were basically the Axes of magic, Light were the Sword line, and Anima was the Lance line. And yet, they couldn't differentiate magic users like they did with weapons users.

And idea i had for this problem was just... adding more types of magic, and making mages/spells more differentiated. Anima mages are the strongest magic wise, light mages are res tanks, dark mages have the best defense. Anima is powerful, plentiful, and balanced. Light is very accurte and have positive effects on your party and the user. Dark has the most might, but is also the most weight. It also debuffs the enemy. I also think adding a new type entirely would be neat. Maybe like nature magic? Or a special type that every spell caster can use???

alternate title "Do IS need to adopt a new Triangle Strategy?"

I honestly liked Radiant Dawn's magic triangle, but I think Light and Dark should have just been removed from the triangle. My favorite thing was the varying effectiveness bonusses they had, made it fun to do proper preparations with your spell types and be rewarded. If light and dark were better implemented I would have enjoyed them having unique effects too like giving back Dark it's quirky debuffs and Light could perhaps light up dark areas/fog of war.

I don't think I've ever seen Micaiah struggle in mage v mage. We're talking about a character with 80% magic growth and 90% resistance growth. She's practically immune to magic attacks assuming you're keeping her caught up in levels

Don’t know about that but society definitely does not need fire emblem anymore (or ever did) Yeah I’m a fire emblem fan

Part of the problem is the lack of reasoning for why one type of thing is strong/weak against another thing.

Fire Emblem doesn't need Hit/Might variance for magic in my humble opinion, however having magic split by different types is absolutely a must instead of lumping them all into one unified category. Engage *suffered* with its tome diversity because of this (barely any reason to use the Surge series or Wind tomes, only 2-3 levels of each type). Let the different schools of magic actually "specialize" in things (Ex: Fire Magic focuses on Debuffs, Wind focuses on boosted range, Thunder Magic focuses on status ailments and chain damage, etc.) and give them a suitable pool to draw from instead of only like... 5 per type. By upping the number of weapon types available, it lets hybrid classes feel more unique and lets the designers dole out access to only a portion of the total magic types in the game per class instead of a unified category with 25 different weapons in it (like Awakening has), thereby limiting the focus of that class based on what magic they actually have access to. More importantly though, magic needs to actually *do things* other than damage - it's *magic*! Give it wilder effects, wilder ranges (beyond Siege magic), etc.! Physical weapons should be the more "consistent", "uniform" pool of weapons, not magic. MAP-based Engage Attacks (a la Camilla's) would be great to use as a basis for other types of magic tomes/attacks as well. There is so much sandbox room to play with that the series simply *doesn't*, and it's painful to watch it continuously waste its potential in that regard. Plus, with how Engage changed up the Triangle mechanics, if anything, Tomes should have had a two-way Break with Arts when engaging at Range. If a "Triangle" is mandatory, it's fine for that to exist, but I think Tomes and Magic are perfectly fine outside of the typical besting of other combat types.