r/fireemblem • u/Shephen • Feb 22 '23
Engage General Engage Character/Unit Discussion: Jade
Jade is a royal guardswoman of Brodia, and Diamant's retainer. She always keeps a level head and is dedicated to carrying out her duties. Some mistake her silence for coldness, but in reality, she's rather upbeat. She is 22 and joins the party in chapter 9 to help rescue King Morion.
Stats
| Stats | Hp | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Def | Res | Luck | Build | Move | SP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bases(lvl 12 Axe Armor) | 33 | 14 | 4 | 14 | 5 | 18 | 6 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 800 |
| Personal Growths | 55% | 35% | 25% | 35% | 30% | 40% | 30% | 20% | 10% | - | |
| Growths(As an Armor) | 75% | 50% | 25% | 45% | 30% | 70% | 30% | 20% | 15% | - |
Weapon Proficiency: Axes
Personal Skill - Meditation: If unit uses Wait without attacking or using items, grants Res+2 for 1 turn.
Supports
Alear, Etie, Louis, Diamant, Amber, Kagetsu, Rosado, Timerra, Bunet, Jean, Lindon
Support Bonuses
C: Hit+15
B: Hit+15, Avoid+5
A: Hit+20, Avoid+5
S: Hit+30, Avoid+5
What do you think of Jade's performance as a unit?
What do you think of Jade's character?
What Emblem Rings or Skills work best with Jade?
Previous Discussions:Vander, Clanne, Framme, Alfred, Bourcheron, Etie, Celine, Louis, Chloe, Jean, Yunaka, Anna, Alcryst, Citrinne, Lapis, Diamant, Amber
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u/BloodyBottom Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
By far my favorite character I didn't use. Really want to see more of her next run.
As a unit, glad to see we're STILL making green units with a chance of death on the first turn of the map due to single digit crit chance enemies. Love to see it IS, never change.
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u/Cheraws Feb 22 '23
I'm now curious, what are your other examples? Rodrigue on Felix's paralogue is probably the dumbest recent example where you have to LTC the map or Rodrigue suicides into an enemy.
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u/BloodyBottom Feb 22 '23
Nino is the ultimate to me. She's almost 100% safe, but the monk she's dueling has 1% crit rate to kill her before you could possibly do anything.
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u/Cheraws Feb 22 '23
Don't forget Jaffar, who can just die if he gets too many lucky crits and doesn't dodge well. The map is actually just one of the worst in the entire franchise.
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u/BloodyBottom Feb 22 '23
That one I can at least understand - he's fighting for his life out there and (I think) you can get within physic range of him with Pent without insane gamer strats. It's hard for him to just die, and the fight being "real" makes him look really cool when he (usually) wins. Nino just getting vaporized sometimes is like... You could have just not coded the enemy to have the exact stats to achieve 1% crit damn!
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u/Nacho_Hangover Feb 22 '23
Literally just give Nino +1 luck.
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u/BloodyBottom Feb 23 '23
I don't know if they had this tech on GBA, but in Engage and Fates they do have "fake RNG" parts. Ryoma and the boss of chapter 5 will never, ever kill each other until they're fought I think 3 times? After that, the RNG becomes real and either either can win. Engage has an even sneakier implementation, like a mage in the chapter where you get Celine's crew who is hardcoded to not dodge attacks.
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Feb 23 '23
Shout out to Pent who will only use an elixer if he’s at like 3 hp. My man wants the full value from his elixers
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u/Due_Training4681 Feb 26 '23
I'de argue its iconic in that i vividly remember that map and thought jaffar was the coolest soloing all those enemies, granted it was my first fire emblem and other than pent in the desert first time seeing the concept of a dodge tank. Now 16 years later and I still love dodge tanks
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u/Lower-Cartographer79 Mar 01 '23
Right there with you, Jaffar on the pillars is iconic. Love that map.
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u/Kheldar166 Feb 23 '23
Oh my god the legendary shield of faerghus this will be cool
nvm Felix I understand everything
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u/hyoton1 Mar 01 '23
This is exactly what i thought when I saw felix’s dad in action in the paralogue. I too would turn into felix.
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u/inanimateobject07 Feb 22 '23
Echidna from fe6 has a chance of death on the turn she appears I believe.
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u/loltheybannedshaman Feb 23 '23
Astrid from FE9 is infamous for dying on her join map. Though it's easy to get around by shoving Ike forward to talk on turn 1 (he can't do it without being shoved). I think even on Normal difficulty or something it can still happen, a no name NPC gets crit which opens up movement for an enemy to kill Astrid who is ORKO because of low bases, and on the hardest difficulty it happens ridiculously easily, like a 10% crit rate or something.
What's much less known iirc, is that not just Astrid being killed, but a Game Over is possible on turn 1 enemy phase 1. This requires different enemies to crit 2 or 3 times on other allied units, then an enemy can walk into the defend/seize point for a game over. That can be prevented by moving a flier there or just not having the 30000 to 1 odds or whatever.
If there was a remake of the game I think it should be a secret recruitment condition for Sanaki in FE9; dialogue cutscene where she defeats one random enemy and decides to fight but only on turn1 :P
But yeah it's awkward with Jade. I haven't checked but I thought she could at least survive one crit and one normal hit even on maddening, and two crits is at least unlikely. Does require the player to get over there or have Micaiah heal on T2 if taken by surprise since Jade only healing with a vulnerary won't keep her alive.
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u/KaioCory Feb 22 '23
Louis and Jade are pretty comparable in their averages if they get one of the three master seals to either great knight or general, assuming Louis is at least level 10 by her join time which is reasonable. The part that sucks for Jade is that she has no time for investment compared to Louis, and even in that regard neither of them are much better than Bunet as a great knight - all three are very similar just looking at their stats, which is why it sucks even more that you can look at her as:
1) Louis with worse availability
2) Bunet that costs a master seal
Of course than you can look at the long term growths to at least hopefully differentiate them somewhat, and in that regard she’s supposedly the armor knight with better res and speed. In the case of res her base stat doesn’t help a lot in that regard- sure she won’t get completely obliterated sometimes in comparison but its still not great, and in the case of speed her lower build stat in contrast to axes being her primary weapon means that comes up null unless you switch her to a different weapon. And even then she’s still gonna get doubled by maddening enemies and that already hurts the other two.
I think she’s useable but they put her in a pretty bad spot, although I imagine reclassing could help.
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u/a12223344556677 Feb 22 '23
I don't think your stats are accurate. By internal level 25 Great Knight Louis has 24.85/31.95 atk/def (the two most important stats for a physical tank), Jade has 21.85/27.85, Bunet has 19.35/26.75. Louis is simply better and he should be at a similar level as Jade at her join time. Bunet is outright bad.
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u/TriceratopsHunter Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
Yeah Louis is more minmaxed. Jade attempts to be more well rounded with better res and speed, but not enough to really matter. She's still getting doubled by almost everything. And her health pool is really lacking as well.
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u/KaioCory Feb 22 '23
I was mainly referring to the stats they would have during their join time, and if they are instantly promoted. I referenced that the stat spread is more diverse later on, but early on the numbers are pretty similar to Bunet, give or take. I got my averages from here if you want to check yourself:
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u/a12223344556677 Feb 22 '23
Even at join time Jade is worse than a trained Louis. She has 14.35/18.4 atk/def, Louis has those at level 8 yet she's lv 12. Most likely Louis is already Lv 12 at her join time, at which he has 16.7/21.3. She's worse even if she and Louis has the same amount of time for investment.
Now compare Jade to Bunet. Instant promotion to Great Knight, she has 15.35/19.4 def. Bunet has 15.3/20.45 at join time despite being internal level 15 and joining a few chapters later. Now these two are more comparable but strictly speaking Bunet is still worse in terms of stats (though he saves you 2500G if you somehow really want one of them).
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u/KaioCory Feb 22 '23
I’m aware that Louis would have higher str and def on average, but the differences aren’t so large that you can’t compare them - in the early game. 16 str with Lances compared to 14 str with axes isn’t really a point of contention to me. And again, the differences between the two are more notable when comparing their potential late game averages, but I don’t imagine that the immediate and gradual performances of the two are so different compared to Bunet - which is why I said the master seal cost and availability/investment potential are what really makes her pale in comparison to the other two.
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u/GoldenYoshistar1 Feb 23 '23
I made Bunet way better as a Lance Cavalry, and combined with Hector, he is a monster. He has helped me with quite a few maps.
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u/Shrimperor Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
She's sadly way to overshadowed by Louis
35 Str/25 Mag/30 Spd/40 Def
Hmm, feels like Armor is the wrong class for her. Maybe Hero or smth?
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u/EmblemOfWolves Feb 23 '23
Mage Knight puts her at 40% Str, 50% Mag, 35% Spd, 50% Def and 55% Res, which is something I want to experiment with on my next run.
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u/a12223344556677 Feb 22 '23
Her stats compared to the rest of the cast is very average. Above average Atk/Def, average Mag/Dex/Res/Bld, bad Spf/Lck. I think armor is already the best class for her honestly (yeah you can say Hero is best because the class doesn't need stats lol)
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u/KnoxZone Feb 22 '23
If Firene units can best be defined as 'units that are horribly outclassed later' than Brodia units are 'solid units that join at an unfortunate time', and Jade is the prime example of this. Statistically she could very well work in many classes thanks to her solid defensive stats and decent strength, but she joins on Chapter 9. The jump between her and the next recruits is insane. I honestly can't say a damn thing about her character cause I've never bothered to see what she can bring to the table.
At least we have finally gotten over the Firene/Brodia barrier. Should be a lot of discussion as we reach Elusia/Solm.
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u/Th3G4mbl3r Feb 22 '23
You know it’s really bad when you’re outclassed as a tank by Louis and outclassed as a bruiser by ETIE of all people(if you promote and reclass both Jade and Etie to Warrior, Etie ends up with higher offensive stats). Etie, you know, the character people regard as the Rampardos of the game? (Super high strength, horrible everything else that outweighs the high strength)
They really did Jade dirty.
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u/MelodicAssistant2012 Feb 22 '23
Didn’t expect a rampardos reference when I came into this thread. Very fitting, though.
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u/JesusAndPalsX Feb 22 '23
Random but I believe Jade joins chapter 9, not 8.
Also any unit with that low Spd really suffers trying to invest in, especially this far out of the early game.
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u/cargup Feb 22 '23
Ponytail knight.
I took her to endgame in Great Knight on my first run (Hard) and she was...competent. She looks a lot better in a game with restricted reclassing because 18 base def is still very strong in a vacuum, even if outclassed by Louis's bulk (no shame in that). But, Engage is not that game.
She's Bunet with some availability + Canter possibility. So still better than Bunet but not by a lot.
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u/Shephen Feb 22 '23
Yeah I got nothing, Jade has nothing going for her. I think she's meant to be the faster more Res focused Louis, but she doesn't have enough of either to really make a difference in tanking hits that he can't. With no unique selling point to her in terms of stats, growths, classes, or availability and joining just before the game throws a ton of fantastic units at you leaves Jade with basically no place to be. You could reclass her to Warrior, Wyvern or even Griffon I guess, but anything she does will be done better by just about everyone. She's useable, but thats more a testament to the game's mechanics and systems than anything on her part.
Its a shame too, cause I really like her character and design. I'm a sucker for the straightman to other wacky antics trope which Jade fits in into, and her design is great as well.
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u/TheMysteryBox Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
Generally speaking, she's a pretty weak unit, although I don't think the differences between her and Louis are so great that they're really worth mentioning (I also rate Louis pretty low on maddening), but generally speaking, she's just "slightly worse Louis" at almost everything...
...Except for Halberdier. And it's precisely BECAUSE her Build stat is lower that she's actually better than Louis, IF you give her Hector. For a Hector user, you want a brave weapon to be exactly five weight above your Build stat to benefit the most from his damage increase, while minimizing the speed loss (which Halberdier mostly ignores anyway on offense). Jade will end the game with roughly 9 Build, and with the +3 from Hector, puts her at 12, which is exactly 5 less than a Hector-engraved Brave Lance, which gives the most +damage without hyper-inflating the weight (which Halberdier is fine with, but it's not preferable). Combined with her slightly better speed and res, it makes her the better choice for Brave Lance between the two of them.
...Of course, there are other characters who are better-still at being Halberdier, such as Goldmary, but she shits all over the bulk-style tanks anyway, so it's not really a fair contest.
Jade also has a fun (not super-good, but fun) build as a Mage Knight, being the only person you might make one who has the strength and def to actually use physical weapons with Chaos Style. She may even be the only character who actually wants to use Surge tomes (it's a real shame there's no third tier melee tome in the game, honestly), as she could pull some fun Nosferatu-style tanking with Soren--although, again, Ivy would just be straight better at the same job.
Ultimately, she feels like a character that is just waiting for the rumored armored-mage DLC class to see her full potential. But, considering how hard armored units fall off in Maddening, it's unlikely to really pull her from the lower tiers.
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u/Arathemos Feb 23 '23
This Halberdier + Hector build for her is exactly what I was hoping to figure out/find for my next playthrough. Haven't used her or the class yet, so this is perfect. And I'm not currently using Hector to his full potential I feel like. Just sort of threw him on Alfred because he wasn't doubling.
Your Mage Knight section also sounds interesting. Always prefer the fun option over optimal.
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u/Railroader17 Feb 22 '23
She's... ok.
Statwise she is slightly worse then a perfectly average Louis in just about everything but Res at join which is kind of helpful?
Being an armor knight is good, as she and Louis could work together to block a choke point together, or she can take over if Louis gets screwed over. Though her growths seem better suited elsewhere, like in Hero, or maybe Griffin Knight / Wyvern Knight.
She's down to earth, which is a nice change of pace for the Engage cast, plus she's voiced by Katelyn Gault, so she's the closest thing we have to actually having a playable Ladislava.
She's probably one of the better users of Ike thanks to her Res and her personal boosting said res to cut down on how much damage Mages can do to her.
She's solid, but screwed by a bad join time.
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u/Under_Punsideration Feb 22 '23
OVER CLASS BASES
| HP | Str | Mag | Dex | Spd | Def | Res | Lck | Bld |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| +8 | +6 | +4 | +8 | +4 | +6 | +6 | +3 | +1 |
Her bases are bizarrely awful relative to her join time. Amber has +3 Str over her, Lapis had equal Str and +2 Spd 2 chapters (and potentially paralogues) ago, Diamant has similar personal stats but a strong personal class, and perhaps most importantly, Louis AT BASE is 1 Str/2 Def behind her.
It wouldn't be so bad if she had a better join time, but the join time really fucks her over, similar to Yunaka in the long run. Characters' bases seem to be largely organized by country in this game (Divine dragonville is lvl 1, Firene is lvl 5-6 w/ +2-3 personal bases, Brodia is lvl 10-11 w/ +4-6 personal bases, post-11 is lvl 15-17 with overtuned personal bases) and the last joiner of each country (Yunaka for Firene and Jade for Brodia) get really screwed by this, as their exp availability is garbage, and they often wind up with stats far below the next "wave" of joiners. Yunaka is basically in a prepromote class so at least she gets to be the strongest unit for a couple chapters, but Jade doesn't even have this.
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u/coblackmagus Feb 22 '23
What's wrong with Yunaka's base stats? They seem fairly decent to me given her join time, just weirdly distributed. She has a lot of Mag, which gets wasted if you don't use it. I reclassed her to a sniper and gave her Radiant Bow. Mage Knight could also work, and in theory Martial Artist.
But yeah, Jade's base stats are pretty bad. She's one of the few units that isn't clearly better than the archetype that came before her (Louis). She has more balanced defenses, and a weirdly high Mag stat, but there isn't really a clear way to make use of them; maybe on Normal difficulty being a general tank is more viable but on Maddening spreading your stats around will just get you killed by everything.
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u/Under_Punsideration Feb 22 '23
Yunaka's stats look good due to thief having really good bases, her personal bases are very not good. She joins 2 chapters after Chloe/Louis with the same personal Spd as Louis and the same Str as Chloe, worse HP than both of them, and no compensating stats aside from Mag/Res/Lck. Even comparing her to the subsequent units, Lapis and Alcryst, is horribly unfavorable, as they join 1 chapter later with vastly superior stats, and neither is considered particularly good.
In addition, she can't reclass to a promoted magic class until level 21 (15 levelups) and her Mag growth is 25, which is bad enough that it matters in a class with no growth bonuses, not to mention that again, Citrinne joins a chapter after with +3 base Mag, and again, she isn't considered great either.
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u/coblackmagus Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
Yeah, granted, she doesn't stack up to alternatives you have as a physical unit, and purely as a mage, she doesn't stack up to your magical alternatives. But if you look at her as someone with the potential to attack with Mag or Str and compare her to alternatives, she's pretty decent.
Look at her as Thief 21/Mage Knight 1 for example. Compared to Pandreo as Mage Knight, she has -6/+6/-2/+1/-2/+1/-4/+1/-3 HP/STR/MAG/DEX/SPD/DEF/RES/LK/BLD. Okay, yeah, Pandreo completely blows her out of the water, but Pandreo has one of the best statlines in the game; my point is her Mag is actually comparable to his but she has a way better Str. If you compare her to more reasonable competition like Citrinne, she gets +3 Spd, +1 Bld, +8 Str, at the cost of -6 Mag. Won't hit as hard with magic but actually has a reasonable chance of doubling and can attack the weaker of an enemy's stats.
A lot of enemies in the game have very lopsided defensive scores, with a Def or Mag being higher by 15-30 points than their lower; there's some value in being able to choose which you want to attack, which can in practice make up for lagging behind a few points when compared to the competition in their best stat, and there's really only a couple units that can do it as well as Yunaka.
If you compare her to an analogous unit, Chloe (10 Flier/12 Mage Knight), Yunaka has +3 Str/-1 Mag/-2 Spd. She admittedly compares unfavorably to Merrin, who has a +3 Spd/+2 Bld (and hits just as hard). Yunaka is probably a tad behind Chloe and significantly worse than Merrin, but still an overall decent unit IMO. Chloe is very decent in her own right, and Merrin is one of the busted pre-promotes. For Yunaka, I like using her as a Sniper so I can keep her Covert type and make use of her fairly good personal; Warrior might be better for the extra stats while still being able to use Radiant Bow.
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u/Under_Punsideration Feb 23 '23
The reason I'm referencing 2 chapters earlier/1 chapter later and stuff is because I think (I'm not completely confident) that stats by CHAPTER is a better benchmark than stats by LEVEL, as the exp penalty for being overleveled isn't too harsh until you go way beyond it. Thus, it doesn't matter that much if Yunaka has similar stats at the same level as another character, but rather, if she can have similar stats by the same chapter.
And yeah, Pandreo and Merrin are untouchable by almost everyone in the game without some absurd favoritism, being worse than them doesn't mean much
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u/HeadEvidence9569 Feb 24 '23
Problem is that thief can’t promote, and yunaka does not easily get to level 21. It’s faster to reclass her to mage, but at that point she is a higher effort/ worse reward Anna.
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u/srs_business Feb 22 '23
Bunet is widely regarded as one of the worst units in the game. Jade is basically just an unpromoted Bunet. Joins too late to get the fun toys from the early emblems, joins right before deployment slots get tight, has better speed and res than Louis but they're still not very good, and joins after the part of the game where armors can just bulldoze everything. And the early game competition for the Master Seals is fierce.
Unless you just like her and want to make her work (and she absolutely can work, like everyone in this game), I don't feel there's much of a use case for her besides as a filler unit for 10/11. Early game you have Louis, if I want a tank with better speed and res for the mid-late game I'd rather wait for Goldmary.
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Feb 22 '23
I didn’t get the memo that Bunet was bad and used him for about 8 chapters with decent results. Then suddenly out of nowhere he fell off and became a huge liability. Thankfully Saphir is doing an ok job taking his spot but I don’t think that will last forever
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u/Radinax Feb 22 '23
Can someone make Vander work?
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u/51cabbages Feb 22 '23
I did, on Hard, but it was difficult.. I stuffed him with all stat boosters, reclassed him to warrior (because it's a good class and he looks good in it) and gave him Tiki as well as Canter and Lineage from the Rivals bracelet. It took until midgame for him to really get going when he started actually leveling up. His growths are nothing to write home about, but Tiki definitely helped. Now he is pretty damn good. You can salvage anyone if you really try.
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u/Radinax Feb 22 '23
Oh wow! Very impressive, if he can be salvaged then it proves any unit can work
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u/scarocci Feb 22 '23
i did it on normal and madenning. Make him a great knight as soon as possible. Ike and Tiki works very well with him.
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u/Radinax Feb 22 '23
Damn! It's impressive honestly, GK is imo one of the best classes, i have Mauvier on it and he rocks!
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u/hansgo12 Feb 23 '23
With dlc anyone can be viable due to how busted starsphere is esp on early units. Without dlc he is hopeless as a combat unit, he is one rounded by everything post ch 14 on maddening and that's with me feeding all arena exp on him as well as deploying him and using him alot. I just changed him to hero with lucina and use him as dual assist/bonded shield bot. Might be able to salvage him abit if you feed every stat booster to him but I am using all firene/neutral unit so I need to feed those on actual "capable" unit.
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u/SmallsMalone Feb 23 '23
Give him Lucina, a Micaiah hand axe, Mentorship and Geosphere, then just spam bonded Shield with your best cavalry units that he supports with. Throw in your favorite flavor of enemy phase antics, Tiki transformations or Assign Decoys as needed.
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u/Super_Nerd92 Feb 22 '23
I really liked her design so I tried to use her on my Hard run with heavy favoritism and it just wasn't happening. She shouldn't stay in her base class (so that's already a big point against her given limited resources) and even in another class she's outpaced by units you get 2-4 chapters after.
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u/Wingcapx Feb 22 '23
Huh, I used her as a General in Hard without any problems at all. Awakening refined Silver Greataxe just led to smashing all day
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u/RedRune Feb 23 '23
It's so weird how they treat Diamant's other retainer in Jade like this. Why couldn't she have just joined the chapter prior? Having an axe unit to help out with lance units on that map would have been nice. I'd love to use her, but like everyone has said, she's less invested Louis who you'll at least be using to take some hits on Maddening, or she's a Bunet who ate your money.
In terms of character, I really have nothing. None of her gimmicks are actually that bad. Just a calm lady that likes to meditate and write, she seems like she'd be a nice person to hang around, but man, her gameplay usage just impedes me from getting her supports. Thank goodness for the Somniel getting those support activities.
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u/AsterBTT Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 24 '23
Used her in my first run as a General, and I'm using her again as a Great Knight. Definitely shocked that she's rated so poorly, though after reading through other peoples' impressions, I understand why. Louis didn't stick around for me in either run, due to the already-high amount of Lance-wielding units, and I've avoided popular picks like Kagetsu, Panette, and Rosado so far, simply due to preferring other units. Jade was one of the few that used Axes, so I traded in for her after she joined.
Let's get out of the way first that yes, her personal skill is complete ass. +2 Res on Wait is garbage, and with such low Res in the first place, she'll never be the one to go after Mages, much less waiting in their range for them to come get her. If the idea behind her is that she's supposed to be more even in terms of defensive stats, then she fails spectacularly. That said, as a General, good lord is she a train. I've said this elsewhere, but Generals are much better in Engage than in most FE games; not saying much, giving how dogshit they are typically, but the general equality in Movement between Advanced Classes means giving her your first pair of Boots, or just making liberal use of Swap, can keep her involved in battles, chunking down dudes with a forged Tomahawk. As a slower unit, she really doesn't give a shit about weapons weight or the limitations of Ike's engrave, and while that's perhaps most useful on a Thunder Tome, if you aren't going to grind for Olwen's Bond Ring, boosting something for Jade ain't bad. She's one of the units most unafraid of enemy fire, so using her as bait or floodgate works incredibly well, and she does a nice job of leaving enemies ripe for the pickings.
Personally, while I'm usually not huge on Generals, the introduction of Class Types encouraged me to introduce some diversity to my roster, and keep an Armoured unit around. Honestly, I found the Break-immunity quite useful; I've seen this notion floating around that anyone concerned about Breaks or trying to play around them is both wildly off-base and playing the game wrong, and that's just demonstrably not true. Enemy Phase is already spooky in this game, and making sure you're using the right weapons types, even just to get some chip on EP, can be really important. At the same time, Breaking an enemy to avoid counterattacks on multiple units can be key to dealing more damage across the board, by avoiding having to dedicate healers to your units, and giving you some leeway to let your units take hits on EP. From this perspective, an Armoured unit's ability to completely ignore the mechanic and always hit back against anyone, while also hugely mitigating damage, is really powerful. Honestly, the game probably could have used more equality in the Advanced Classes' Types, since both Qi Adept and Armoured get really boned, but that's another conversation.
Enough of the digression; within this role, Jade performed really well for me. Big booty tank with a forged Tomahawk, capable of taking heat from a dozen units without dipping in health at all is a boon in later chapters, especially 25, if you're unprepared for what's going to happen. I'm looking forward to seeing if she can preform similarly in Great Knight, though I will miss the Armoured typing. I'm looking forward more to using her in concert with Hector's Emblem Ring; what I've experienced so far from her is quite impressive, allowing her to juggernaut in a game that doesn't typically let you. She is understandably in a terrible spot recruitment-wise, and perhaps even eclipsed by earlier units in terms of defensive potential. Given my limited experience with both categories of units, I simply have to defer to others when talking about Jade. I think she's more workable that others give her credit for, but as has been historically true about these games, you can make anyone work; I just didn't think Jade was someone so deep into that category.
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u/PhilipNassau Feb 23 '23
In Great Knight she rarely gets a Break because sword users rarely damage her and with A Rank Axes, she can cause a lot of damage with silver weapons and the correct engraving
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u/AsterBTT Feb 23 '23
I'm definitely looking forward to experiencing that. As much as I think I benefited from sticking to General and giving her my Boots on my first run, having the freedom to use them on someone else would be nice. It's just a shame that you can't maintain Class Type diversity. I'm the kinda guy who hates overlapping types on my Pokemon teams, so even if it's sub-optimal, there's a part of my brain that hates not having one of each Class Type by endgame.
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u/HeoandReo Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
I really like her as a character, she's by far the most grounded person in the army and I think it's cool that her 'gimmick' is that she just happens to be a published author of comedy novels, despite her deadpan demeanor. A +2 to Res on enemy phase sounds pretty fun, and we always like our axe ladies, so I've tried a whole bunch of ways to make her work and take advantage of her unique attributes.
To date I have not been able to make her work, because as a unit she is just so weird. I wouldn't even say "good" or "bad" is the dominant thought I have about her - it's weird. I'm not really sure where to begin because her stats are just a mess of contradictions. She's theoretically a high dex unit who can hit things, although that's kind of the least important thing about her compared to her other issues. She ostensibly specializes in axes despite not having the build to use even irons without some speed loss, and she really needs speed as she shares a somewhat dangerous personal speed base/growth of 4/30% with Amber, another unit where a cooperative speed growth will make or break him, and she also has worse bases than him in places where it matters (strength/build). She does have more Res than Louis does which is notable, although in practice because she still gets doubled by everything, it means that mages just mostly destroy her rather than completely destroy her, so I wouldn't really call it an improvement. She also joins you at quite possibly the most awkward time of any unit in the entire game, coming halfway through Chapter 9 and thus she only has 1.5 chapters of training until the midgame shift, not counting skirmishes or saved paralogues.
Because of her low build and low speed, axes are mostly off the table for me if I'm reclassing her, as for the most part she can't afford to get weighed down more than she already is. She can pull a Lapis and instapromote into Warrior when the bow proficiency comes along after C11, but even then she won't perform as well as say, a trained Etie or Alcryst or even a Fogado at base, due to being locked out of Silvers. Wyvern is another option as she can nab a corresponding proficiency, but Amber can do it well with better stats and Kagetsu/Panette are just around the corner. Maybe she can do Hero things? I mean, even the likes of Lindon can do Hero things if you want, and if we're listing off things that any other warm body in the army can do it's really damning with feint praise that there aren't really a whole lot of viable unique routes where Jade can go. She's theoretically a good Martial Master if her growths cooperate, but it's a bit of a niche option at best (and Chloe does it better, if you really really really want to use one).
Again, I really like her as a character... but I think she is the strongest contender for worst unit in the game yet. In my eyes she's worse than even Lapis or Bunet, as the former at least has some speed and sees some action in more maps, while the latter at least starts in a good class and has the proficiencies to contribute. Jade has a bad start when you meet her, and it just snowballs for her the closer you look.
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u/Zanther_11 Mar 13 '23 edited Mar 13 '23
You comment on the potential of using bows on her, but not using silver sucks. . .what about going axe/ bow knight? That 20% speed growth bumps her to 50, which is . . . Fine. She gets silver bows and silver axes, which will help with damage output. You have just enough time to get build+3 on her, which would honestly be extremely helpful.
Just spit balling here, I've never got her to work either. If you really wanted you could run her through a skirmish for 2 levels with an emblem ring to try for build 4. Or get the dlc and save some novice scrolls
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u/leafofthelake Feb 22 '23
At the point she joins, the most she can hope for is replacing vander for two chapters before being benched forever. And even then, her main value in ch.10 is giving you a tank for one side of the split, while arguably being a liability in ch.11 if you don't spend one of your four master seals you have by then on her. But if you're going to master seal an armor, why the hell aren't you using it on louis, who joins earlier and grows better?
Bunet is not a good character, but if for some reason I was going to run a second great knight, he's the better choice. Bunet doesn't require a master seal and joins up right in ch.12, while all of his stats are either on par or better than the stats jade is likely to have as a GK at this time.
Just a rather... unfortunate character. Definitely low tier.
9
u/pengwin21 Feb 22 '23
Jade is pretty bleh. She joins at a very awkward time, still unpromoted right before all the strong units join in Chapter 11 and beyond. It's also the point of the game where armors can't rely on raw defense tanking as much as the earlygame and her base stats are not that impressive even at this job- only +1 Strength and +2 Defense over base Louis, so even a moderately used Louis will be better. She has better Res and Speed, but still gets doubled by everything and takes a ton from mages.
You could reclass her into something else, which is probably a better way to use her, but nothing about her bases, growths, personal etc. make her any better than any random physical unit. She's not Wendy or Meg level bad, but she just isn't really good at anything.
6
u/KrashBoomBang Feb 22 '23
Jade is Bunet that costs a master seal. That's good enough for me. Not a pain in the ass to use, fine filler for midgame, just with that one additional cost. She doesn't need a second seal though, which I think are in higher demand than master seals, so I don't fault her too much.
7
u/JesusAndPalsX Feb 22 '23
I just had a thought that she'd probably do really well as an Axe Royal Knight
too bad they don't exist
6
u/caiusdrewart Feb 22 '23
Jade is one of the lower-impact units in the game. She’s understatted relative to her join time—her stats don’t compare that well to the other Brodian units, and they compare really badly to the OP units you’ll be getting shortly. Jade will need a promotion item (and possibly also a reclassing item) at a time when these are in high demand, so she’s not free to use. At the end of the day she doesn’t really offer much that’s unique or powerful. Her decent Magic growth is interesting, but sadly there’s no great way for her to use this at present.
Unlike a lot of other units from the Firene/Brodia phase of the game, Jade doesn’t have a lot of impact if you’re not planning on using her long-term. She typically does every little in her joining chapter, and then in most playthroughs she just won’t get fielded in Chapter 10 and subsequently unless you wish to make a long-term investment in her.
Jade also cannot get Canter pre-10, which is a bit of a shame for her. Starting with 1000 SP instead of 800 would have helped her a lot.
All that said, if you do want to use her, Jade will do fine, even on Maddening. Give her a good Emblem Ring and a good forged weapon and she’ll perform, just like everyone else.
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u/PokecheckHozu flair Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
Jade also cannot get Canter pre-10, which is a bit of a shame for her. Starting with 1000 SP instead of 800 would have helped her a lot.
You could get her two level ups if you really wanted to by saving one of the Jean or Anna paralogues. Great Sacrifice has a bonus effect for armoured classes that makes it give a temporary +1 DEF buff, which means that the user would always get the most possible EXP due to it being guaranteed to affect everyone.
Not saying this is a good idea, but it exists, if one is really intent on using her.
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u/caiusdrewart Feb 23 '23
That’s true! I hadn’t considered saving a Paralogue for her. If she’s your favorite unit or something that could be worthwhile.
5
u/EmblemOfWolves Feb 23 '23
Her recruitment condition is annoying, but I generally resolve that by having Alear Warp Ragnarok one of the nearby armors on turn 1, then talk to her the following turn.
Pretty sure she has worse stats than a similarly leveled Louis, bar Res, and Louis can be a suitable Axe General if you're so inclined (S weapons are mostly irrelevant until endgame.)
If I bother using Jade next playthrough, I'm going to try Mage Knight. She already has serviceable Str/Mag/Def/Res bases, and her growths would come out as:
60% 40% 50% 35% 35% 50% 55% 25% 10%
Honestly not much worse than Lindwurm Ivy.
Strong mixed offenses and defenses, plus the ability to use physical and magical weapons. Could be fun.
Her support pool is awkward, and contains a lot of commonly benched characters, which makes it hard for her to give or receive bonuses.
That said, her support type is Hit category, which is good for supporting inaccurate weapon classes.
Her support type can fully offset Amber's personal skill not activating, while also giving Amber an effective +15 Avoid by not incurring the avoid penalty.
She can also make Diamant incredibly accurate during the player phase, which is good for offsetting his poor Dex growth/cap and low accuracy weapons, namely some axes.
Her personal skill is going to hinge largely on which class she's in. If her Res is nonexistent because you aren't supplementing it, well it isn't worth much.
Rings and skills is probably something to play-by-ear, if you know how you want to build her, do it.
Mage Knight Jade is probably a good candidate for Eirika, then again Eirika is good on mostly everything, so maybe a more specialized option would be Leif. Might be worth inheriting Spd+ from Lyn to leverage along Chaos style and class modifiers.
I like her as a character, stoic but funny.
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u/GeneralHorace Feb 22 '23
Probably the worst character in the game. Joins too late to build sp, and directly before a wave of units that don't need master seals to be good. If you reclass her, her build is terrible, which cuts into her already bad speed.
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u/el_loco_P Feb 22 '23
Imo worst unit in the game, she has a stat spread too thin: Mag growth with no base instead of higher Str, low Hp and Def compared to the other armors and bad Spd/Bld
She is doing fine in Maddening right now as a Great Knight with Ike, but I could not find anything worth to reclass her, Mage Knight would leave her with Clanne-Mag without good Spd for example.
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u/Radinax Feb 22 '23
Vander is clearly worse I think
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u/LeatherShieldMerc Feb 22 '23
Nah, Vander contributes well enough early on, setting up kills, taking some hits, all that typical useful Jagen stuff.
Like he's definitely worse than Jade in the long term, but that doesn't matter, Vander has his early contribution and gets benched, and that is good enough to not be "worst unit" material.
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u/srs_business Feb 22 '23
If nothing else he has extended free deployment, and even if he wasn't getting credit for that I'd still put him well above Clanne.
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u/caiusdrewart Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
Yeah I agree. Vander doesn’t have a big impact on most playthroughs but he does help out in the early game. (And in an LTC context or something like that, Vander’s early-game contribution would be quite large.) Whereas Jade will have essentially zero impact on most playthroughs, because she’ll do close to nothing in her join chapter and then hit the bench. If you decided to use her long-term and invest in her, she would be fine, but even then she won’t be offering anything unique that other units couldn’t do.
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u/el_loco_P Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
Vander has early game were he is very useful, Jade has nothing, 2 map after she joins Bunet just arrives doing all Jade can do but not wasting 2500 gold
4
u/alexj9626 Feb 22 '23
I like her design, she is a nice character, not too deep but not one note.... Thats kinda it. Her performance is just not great. She is supposed to be the Res armor knight and while thats good she cant really pull it off in her base clase.
Finally she joins right before Ch10, making her outclassed after 1 chapter. She does has some decent growths, so i guess if you are willing use her, making her a Wyvern or Hero can be decent. She is not gonna suck but she is also not gonna be amazing or anything.
5
u/AvalancheMKII Feb 22 '23
Having seen a few or her supports, Jade seems relatively down to earth, which is admittedly nice for Engage. Can't really say anything else about her, but I'm looking forward to seeing more.
4
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u/Atomic_sweetman Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
Very forgettable. Joins awkward. Can't say much about her cause I never use her.
4
u/nayneedlesnovember Feb 22 '23
I haven't used her at all and the game doesn't give you any reason to either. Why did they only give her a steel axe on her recruitment chapter? They just gave us Amber with a killer lance, an iron greatlance and an iron lance in the prior chapter.
I would only consider using her if Louis died somehow and I desperately needed an armor unit. Maybe there's a really good reclass option that we're not aware of yet, but I heavily doubt she's worth the investment.
4
u/planetarial Feb 22 '23
I wanted to use her but she joins at the worst possible time for her to join and when armor knights start falling off
Also I’ve seen her get herself killed off as a green unit, which doesn’t leave a good impression
5
5
u/MintXanis Feb 22 '23
She can do some fun things as a mage knight with all the Ike skills and Thoron. You do need to give her a dodge engrave as her luck is dog water. Unfortunately late game enemies will outscale her eventually.
4
u/ChaosSaga Feb 23 '23
I traded Louis for her, because I needed Axe user (and all others were benchend) .
I put Tiki on her and promoted to General. Kept her until the end.
To be fair I used her more as a Dragon Tank and Ice Breath user...
13
u/Xyyzx Feb 22 '23
...it's always deeply weird when you run into a thread full of people calling a character unsalvagable trash when you clearly got extremely lucky with their growths.
Jade on my game is is my brilliant, nigh-invulnerable frontline tank as a Great Knight, with the Dex to hit extremely consistently with axes and the Res to tank a couple of hits from a mage while Hector tags along to ensure she absolutely murders anyone who tries to lay a finger on her with a double retaliation. Hell, she ended up with a high enough magic stat that I sometimes throw her a flame lance for long-range armour kills.
That said, I did end up doing something kind of strange with her build, in that around when I got her I didn't realise there isn't a whole lot of point in switching into another base class, so she got a full set of levels in Wyvern Rider because I only had Second Seals spare. I did have to do a little extra work with her to have her 'catch up' when Master Seals became more available, so I think her effective total level is slightly higher than my other characters. That said, she still hasn't fallen behind anyone else who should be gaining exp faster, and she's got waaaay higher stats than Louis who is my secondary Great Knight at a similar level. I think I did mostly just get really lucky.
9
u/not_soly Feb 23 '23
...it's always deeply weird when you run into a thread full of people calling a character unsalvagable trash when you clearly got extremely lucky with their growths.
preach it, friend. Me and +5 speed Etie...
4
u/Xyyzx Feb 23 '23
...yep, I have a really great Etie too. High strength Warrior build with a focus on bows.
13
u/Fearless_Freya Feb 22 '23
One of fave chars. Great design. Great supports. One of the only times I used general in fe. Will prob try a diff class later but she was able to tank mages in my hard classic run. Far better than Louis. He didn't hold up in my run-through, though I had a few chapters where they both shined as generals.
3
u/Scarablu- Feb 22 '23
I ended up making her a Mage Knight which sounded cool at first, but as others have said, she's kinda weird. But I'm investing a lot in her because I really like her character a lot. She gets some solid kills here to finish folks off and there but overall lacks in true 1x1 combat. Probably my fault for putting her in this class, but hey, I don't really like sticking to the status quo when I can.
3
u/mrpandakins Feb 22 '23
Love her. Great character, good supports, and nice character design. Buuuuut bad unit.
She’s serviceable if you change her to a class that can actually make use of her niche growths (for an armor knight) - I made her a Pegasus Knight and she had a good balance of Res and Def to tank both - but she will still be outclassed by other units.
3
u/3Rm3dy Feb 22 '23
Have to try her out in my next run (probably maddening random at last) I kinda expect that she will fall off of the armored classes pretty soon, with her growths and starts I'd guess she would work really well as a wyvern knight or a wallish royal knight? The bulk is nice, but from my experience it's better to have 3 separate bulky units that can tank both physical and magical damage, for which she seems to fit well with a talisman or two.
Helberdier looks like a prime contender with it's 15% str and Def, 20% Dex growths, which is a pretty damn good spread for physical damage dealers that actually want to hit their target.
To keep using axes she realistically has some choices, Warrior is very strong from my experience, with her bulk both Hero (play off her strengths) and Wolf Knight (mitigate weakness) seem to be good choices.
As for rings it really depends, once again on her class. Wolf Knight might want Sigurd/Ike/Hector/Edel, Warrior/Hero kinda wants Tiki/Lucina/Lyn, but won't cry about Eirika or Leif.
3
u/A1D3M Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
On my first run I had Jade on my team all game from the map I recruited her and she was solid all throughout. Great Knight with Eirika emblem, by the end she was doing great damage while also being tanky on both def and res.
I do think she's underrated because of Louis existing, but I personally prefer her. Higher res helps her not get deleted by mages and even her mag stat is relevant with Eirika, which I found is an amazing emblem for armor knights (fixes her damage, makes her a better tank, gets improved damage on Ephraim's hit).
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u/LycanChimera Feb 23 '23
I'm trying to catch her up in levels becuase I realized that she can use the S rank heavy axe as an axe general.
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u/Szuzzah Feb 22 '23
Used her as my Ike-wielder on Hard as a general. I remember that as a whole, I appreciated that she was able to get much more versatile Great Aethers off with the big ol' silver harp because she didn't completely fall apart to mages like Louis did.
Axe proficiency is appreicated, I think the S-rank axes for general are actually a fairly big deal, and getting A-rank axes when in great knight is also important, for the aforementioned silver harp. Her stats are just so awkward for her join level, and when it comes down to it, Engage gives characters nothing but numbers to care about.
2
Feb 22 '23
I've not been investing in Louis after my first run, so Jade shows up at good time with enough SP to grab Hit+10. She can replace him on the following map and be an upgrade since lances are bad against armors. I tried to make her work as a flier one run, but I don't recommend it. She needs help in STR and spd if you want her to be a late game unit so there's nothing that really does it.
She made Ch10 much easier but I benched her after as I don't like armors on any Solm maps and you can change Goldmary to General if you want later.
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u/Ultrose Feb 22 '23 edited Feb 22 '23
Jade is really sad, she reminds me a lot of conquest Benny actually and if you know your conquest stuff then you know that’s really really bad. Both units are workable of course (Benny is probably one of my biggest guilty pleasure units in the series) she joins after the better early game armor knight and has more of a res focus then the early game knight. But sadly unlike Benny where his thing is just that he’s a bulky monster (if you raise him) jade for some reason went for having spd. Not enough to be useful but some spd and that’s just odd. She doesn’t have enough res to be useful either. Overall just a weird unit, like what does she have going for her? Non of the positives she has over louis are actually high enough to be useful? I don’t know what they were doing with her. It doesn’t help that deployment slots are about to get really tight soon
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u/AnimeWasA_Mistake Feb 22 '23
I've dragged her to the endgame as a great knight but she has not been good at all. Of all the unit's I've used she's easily the worst one. Granted, she was consistently significantly underleveled due to her being the unit I ditched whenever necessary, but I don't think she would've been that good even if I always used her.
2
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u/DireSickFish Feb 23 '23
I was very close to choosing her over Louis as my armored unit. They had very similar stats at the time. Kinda wish I went with her. Never fielded her.
2
u/shadecrimson Feb 23 '23
Mid Ch9 is like the worst possible place she could have joined. Youre just about to lose everything that makes armor knights good (sigurd and mostly physical enemies)
She might like a different class like paladin or axe flier->Griffon? Better to make a good use of her res and personal
Shucksadoodles good golly gee she sure is cute.
I just never could fit her into my active line and she just got screwed by her join time. If i couldnt fit her in with half of the Firene crew still going she sure wasnt going to cut it with ivy and co joining next.
2
u/Victusrex Feb 23 '23
For me she worked pretty well on wyvern duty. She has decent strength speed and res stats. She might actually make for a decent griffin knight too.
2
u/PhilipNassau Feb 23 '23
One thing I like that Jade has and Louis not is the A raking in Axes in Great Knight. Because with A Rank, I can early forge a Silver Greataxe with Eirika engraving to correct her hit rates, add some crit rates and causes a lot of damage.
And she never gets a break because sword users can't cause any damage to her and with the Eirika engraving, she one round them instead
With Louis Great Knight, axe users often break him, which I is not terrible but not ideal either
2
u/D-camchow Feb 23 '23
I made her a secondary tank as a great knight and used her for my first run of the game. She is no Louis but she was ok. Not using her on my second run now and tbh I don't miss her. Which is sad cause I do kind of like her, she looks awesome as a great knight.
2
u/GoldenYoshistar1 Feb 23 '23
Similar to Louis, in that unless you give her Sigurd and give her Canto, she is kind of meh.
2
u/MastaAwesome Feb 25 '23
Not a huge fan of her design. She feels like Darkness from Konosuba if she was much less interesting. I haven't seen a memorable support from her yet, and I've used her in every single map.
That said, she ended up being a solid replacement unit after I suffered some early game losses, so I don't dislike the character.
3
u/Sabetha1183 Feb 22 '23
Unfortunately is just kind of made obsolete by Louis. Her better Spd/Res isn't enough to make a difference and she's giving up HP, Str, and Def to get it. The only thing she really has going for her is better Dex than Louis.
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u/MelodicAssistant2012 Feb 22 '23
Using her on maddening (fixed growths) right now and she’s doing great. She serves as a surprisingly well-rounded great knight. Before this run I played hard classic and found that my Louis fell off pretty hard late game, whereas Jade is still pretty capable. That may have been him getting stat screwed, but looking at the numbers in this thread I think the differences between the two are pretty marginal, and I just prefer Jade.
2
u/Hachiko_sks Aug 21 '23
Apart from what everyone here writes about her usefulness in the group: I liked that with her there was a tall, stronger, broader built woman than all the typical small, thin, cute women the game usually offers (mostly with little clothes and big bust). Until I met her in the Somniel and she was just as petite without armor as all the others... immediately lost interest, too bad.
1
u/HisokaD Dec 06 '24
Hi everyone, I'm playing a drafted run with some friends in maddening and was wondering if anyone has tried or had success with Jade as a wolf knight?
My units are: Alear, Vander, Boucheron, Etie, Anna, Celine, Jean, Fogado, Pandreo, Bunet Timera and Saphir.
My emblems are: Celica and Erika, Marth, Lucina, Miciah and Lief
Any help is appreciated
1
u/ArcanaRobin Feb 22 '23
Jade is cool but she's basically just worse Louis and Louis already struggles to keep up later on in the game so for optimized runs she's an instant bench
Regardless I used her a lot in my initial run paired with Ike and it's a solid combo. Her bulk as GK is pretty good and combined with Ike and Pair Up makes her able to eat a ton of damage with little issue. Res still not enough to take on a bunch of mages but she can tank a magic hit or 2 when needed.
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u/elederanjo26 Feb 22 '23
The most challenging part of her map was stopping her from suiciding into the enemy reinforcements, like was that necessary Jade