Lakche, what's so great about her?

[TheEnd]

True. The difference between Lakche and Skasaher, before class change, may lie in two things, basically:

1) Weapons (Lakche gets Ayra's weapons, while Skasaher gets his father's - which will, probably, be different. Lakche has a nice chance of inheriting an almost berserked hero sword);

2) RNG may turn one slightly better than the other, for a moment.


In fact, frequently Skasaher gets a bit more luck than Lakche, btw. About 5-7 points more, in my last games.

Guest-Leaf said:

Shanan maxed everything for me.

Everything.

You mean, 27 STR, 15 MGC, 30 SKL, 30 SPD, 30 LUCK, 22 DEF, 18 MDEF?

Let me tell you one thing, kid. That's UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE in the regular game. Three options:

1) An obvious mistake;
2) An outright lie;
3) Hacking.

After all, Shannan CAN'T get 30 luck! His starting luck is 10, at level 12, with a 20% growth!

While he might not max it some stats sometimes, he get close to doing it. If Lakche has a secret the can give her 100 + dodge and have 40 skl like Shannan and Sety, then please tell me

I've never seen him max anything but speed and skill.

Sety has a class of his own. He's devastating even without Holsety. Now try using Shannan with his old Steel Claymore, or even with a hero sword. Compare him to his cousins, then.

Don't forget, they get more personal skills than just ryuuseiken.


Note: I don't dislike Shannan. I just think his Balmunk would be in better hands if with Lakche or her brother.

[North2]

Skasaha and Lakche are about the same before class change, but as I said before Skasaha is still inferior so he's still below Lakche.

Jeigan, Delmud will frequently leave survivors. Pit him up against a bunch of spear users and he'll kill about 60% of the enemies. If you do endless amounts of bossleveling then sure, anyone can kill anything. You can't see the difference until there's actually some difficulty in killing the enemies, otherwise meteor hit is just overkill and it's a waste of a skill.

Maybe you can see it better this way. Give Delmud the iron sword and give Lakche an iron sword. What's the result? In 50% of battles she'll activate meteor hit once and do 3 times the damage, killing most enemies. In 12% of battles she'll activate twice and do more, killing most bosses with an iron sword. In the 38% chance that nothing activates at all, Lakche will still dodge more and activate advancing more often. What will Delmud do? Attack twice with an iron sword and kill nothing.

Now upgrade their weapons to a hero sword. Now Delmud will kill mostly anything, although he'll still frequently leave survivors. Lakche does so much damage that she can kill the enemy 3 times, and she'll at the very least leave less survivors than Delmud. This is what's needed to be classified as 'godly'. Just killing the enemy isn't enough. You need to be able to completely annihilate them on a regular basis, that's what holy weapons do. You don't see the Mistoltin barely killing the enemy like Delmud will. You see it critical on the enemy and do so much damage that it can kill the enemy 4 times, while still being able to attack again and possibly yet again.

Edit: Skasaha with a hero sword can still be considered godly. But that's Skasaha with a hero sword. Lakche can be godly with a silver sword. There will be some point where Lakche can be godly but Skasaha can't, which depends on how much higher level than the enemy you are and what weapon you're using. You can see their true values easier if you equip them with the weakest weapons possible, except for holy weapon wielders whose personal weapons can be considered as their own stat and damage bonus.

[Iris]

Skasaha won't necessarily be as good as Lakche. For everyone who's been holding them up as equal so far: Don't forget that there will be stat growth differences depending on how you do the pairings. Skasaha gets his father's growth rates, plus half of Ayra's; Lakche gets Ayra's rates plus half of her father's. Lakche will always be at least as good as Ayra, but depending on the pairings, Skasaha won't necessarily be as effective.

[ESPerion]

North2 said:

It depends on the mood of my play through and whether Holin is her father or not, but if I was playing seriously I would also not give Lakche the hero sword. I basically want the lower level people to always get the experience, so my hero sword usually ends up in the hands of Delmud =P. If not, it would go on Skasaha. Hero swords are more effective when people with high strength uses it. The extra damage from having higher strength gets counted 2 times.

Moonlight hit is a bad example...if moonlight activates, there is no way a silver claymore is going to outdamage the hero sword for the same reason of having higher strength. The armor negation gets counted twice, so if the enemy had 15 armor, the hero sword will do 30 extra damage while the silver claymore only does 15.



Lakche with a hero sword is just as good as a holy weapon user for many situations, which is also the reason why she's so good.

you are the one who is wrong there. IF Continue is activated, the sword hits twice. now, hero sword always hits twice, but negates the skill Continue. so a silver claymore with continue is like a 20dmg hero sword. granted, continue doesn't always kick in, but we're talking possibility here. so YES swordmasters with silver claymore are dangerous. especially with swordskill(s).

[North2]

I have no idea what you're talking about. When moonlight activates on a hero sword, it negates armor for both hits. So if it activates on a silver claymore, it only counts for 1 hit and has a possibility of activating continue, and then an even smaller possibility of activating moonlight. This is 30% of 50% of 30%, assuming 30 skill and 30 speed.

This gives you a grand total of 4.5% chance of activating moonlight hit both times with continue, while the hero sword has 30% straight up from activating moonlight hit just once.

[ESPerion]

nope, i witnessed it myself. Moonlight is activated first, and then Continue kicks in, with the effect of Moonlite as well. consider a hero sword as a "always continue" weapon.

(why? i made a savestate to check it (at the time) and equipped a silver claymore vs. hero sword. both weapon hit twice with moonlight hit effect, and the damage done was (12+str)x2 vs. (20+str)x2. which made me come to a conclusion that hero weapons are actually "always continue" weapons.)

[Seti]

Lakche is equal to Skasahar in everything except a few things....

One is that Skasahar promotes to Forest Knight while Lakche promotes to Swordmaster.
The Forest Knight class Skasahar speed and skill max at 27 while the Swordmaster class maxes at 30 in speed and skill.
Higher skill means skills frequently activate more plus a higher critical rate and also more hits to increase the chance.
Also Lakche gets Continue while Skasahar doesn't which means that she also has an extra skill which can mean alot in the long term and overall. Bringing Delmud into it doesn't help either since Delmud's strength maxes at a craptacular 23 while Skasahar and Lakche max at 27.

Trying to compare pre-promoted class is silly since it doesn't reflect what they're truly capable of since pre-promoted classes are meant to be more or less the same as each other.

[Seti]

ESPerion said:

nope, i witnessed it myself. Moonlight is activated first, and then Continue kicks in, with the effect of Moonlite as well. consider a hero sword as a "always continue" weapon.

(why? i made a savestate to check it (at the time) and equipped a silver claymore vs. hero sword. both weapon hit twice with moonlight hit effect, and the damage done was (12+str)x2 vs. (20+str)x2. which made me come to a conclusion that hero weapons are actually "always continue" weapons.)

Hero weapons have always been 'always' 2 hits regardless of situation.... just take FE6/7 for example even when you only have 1 use left it still does 2 hits.

[NoBaka]

*cracks his knuckles* Booooooooooooooooooyyy~

You gonna die. ;]

I don't even need to rant about Lakche's abilities and stats, everyone else already did it for me.

Have you SEEN her? She's a fucking GODDESS. Woo, I know. Real strong argument there, NoBaka. But I don't even NEED to make a strong argument. Your hypothesis and even OPINION have been beaten into the floor.

Lakche, unless you never use her, is one of the most powerful characters available, including the Crusaders.

Bah. And Shannan? He BITES. His stats are awful. And his growth is laughable. Even with the Balmunk, he comes out to be mediocre. Lakche with a Steel Claymore is FAR superior.


Oh yes. *pounds the infidel for daring to question the awe-inspiring goodness that is Lakche*

[North2]

k...I don't remember the last time I saw moonlight hit activate with continue so I'll take your word, but even then it's still far from doing more damage than the hero sword on the average. Your possibility just went up to 15%, but there's more. Taking into account the skill of pursuit, it'll still do less damage than a hero sword unless the enemy has 16+armor (assuming 20 strength), because the hero sword will get an extra hit in. If continue gets activated on the first attack AND the pursuit attack (I dunno if it's possible, I may have seen it but it could have just been duel), THEN it'll finally do more damage than a hero sword. This is a 7.5% chance total.

Edit: The 7.5% chance is the chance of the thing actually happening with the silver claymore. Comparing it with the 30% chance that the hero sword has of activating moonlight hit, there's a 15% chance of the silver claymore doing more damage than the hero sword.

Wait, there's more. The 15% chance is only assuming moonlight activates once on the hero sword and once on the silver claymore. There's also another 30% chance for both weapons that it'll activate continue.

So the final stats: the silver claymore has a 3.825% chance to do tons more damage (moonlight activates twice on claymore only), 1.35% chance of doing considerably more damage (both activates moonlight twice), 3.825% chance of doing less damage than the hero sword (moonlight activates twice on hero sword only), and then 6% chance of doing slightly more damage (moonlight activates once for both).

This still doesn't take into account hit rate, where the hero sword has +100% hit rate and silver claymore has +60% hit rate. This varies a lot depending on the enemy but moonlight hit never misses anyways, so it'll only matter in the case of moonlight hit only activating once (in favor of the hero sword).

Edit2: Edited the %s on the chances of moonlight hit activating twice...there may still be something wrong but I dun really care anymore. The hero sword will still do more damage.

[Gunlord100]

I, personally, don't think Lakche is overated. I do think she's a Goddess...on the same level as gods such as Sety, or Ares (Yes, I do prefer Ares, because the name of the Greek God of War actually *works* for the character, given what an unstoppable force he is on the battlefield. At least Ares works better for the user of the Mistortin than Mars works for the somewhat lackluster protagonist of Fire Emblem 3!). In all fairness, this does come with qualifiers, as I have only seen Lakche with Deu, Lex, and Holin as her father, and all three times, she kicked major ass, far exceeding her mother. Now,if I may elaborate on the conditions which I have found produce the most unstoppable Lakche, why she can *usually,* though not 100% of the time be considered a Goddess, and also why the same applies to almost everyone else in the army with the exception of characters whose lineage you have no control over, such as Ares and Finn and Altena.

First off, allow me to not my most important point--who is or is not a "God" in your army may very well hinge upon which first-generation characters they derive their extraction from. Yes, due to the stat growth system, Lakche will always be at least as good as Ayra. However, Ayra, as good as she was in the first generation, was not a goddess in and of herself--it is the .5 stat boost her husband, inferior in fighting skills as he may well be, if he happens to be Lex or Holin or Deu, confers upon her children that brings them their vaunted status of being FE4's greatest sword masters. I am quite sure that if her husband turned out to be Azel, Lakche would be a competent fighter, and Sukasaha would turn out to be, if you would forgive the colloquialism, suck-tacular.

Now, to compare Lakche and Sukasaha:
To be blunt, regardless of who her father is, Lakche will *always* exceed Sukasaha, by the simple virtue that the Fire Emblem Sword Master is an inherently over-powered class. That stat caps Sukasaha labors under make him hopelessly inferior to his younger sister, and not only that, but the Sword Master's continuation skill gives it a slight edge over the Forest, which does not have that delightful ability.

Now, to continue, even if Lakche and Sukasaha share an excellent father, such as Lex, Lakche will still be marginally better than her brother. Note the "marginally." If I may, I would give all the participants of this debate a serving of my favorite dish--cold, hard, objective evidence, rather than biased opinion or emotional appeal.

Lakche's statistics during one playthrough of my game:

Father: Lex
Lvl: 30 Sword Mistress
Hp: 68/68
Str: 27
Mgc: 6
Skl: 30
Spd: 28
Luk: 16
Def: 22
Res 3:

Skills: Continuation, Advancing, Alertness, Moon Hit, Pinch Strike, Elite

Sukasaha’s stats with the same playthrough:

Father: Lex
Lvl: 21 Forest
Hp: 58/58
Str: 26
Mgc: 5
Skl: 27
Spd: 25
Luk: 10
Def: 20
Res 3:

Skills: Same as Lakche, minus Continuation.

Now, let’s compare the two when Deu is their father, shall we?

Lakche: Father, Deu:
Lvl: 30 Sword Mistress
HP: 56
Str: 27
Mgc: 3
Skl: 30
Spd: 30
Luk: 14
Def: 17
Res: 3

Sukasaha: Father, Deu:
Lvl 21 Forest
HP: 44
Str: 27
Mgc: 7
Skl: 27
Spd: 26
Luk: 20
Def: 18
Res: 6

Now, a more thorough examination of what these statistics mean. From the first example I gave, Lakche was slightly better than Sukasaha to a slight extent, although I would estimate their statistics would be closer if I got Sukasaha up to Lakche’s level. Still, the stat caps strike again—Sukasaha just can’t equal a Sword Mistress’ speed and skill. In the second playthrough, however…Sukasaha shows signs of being conceivably better than Lakche! He is 9 levels below her, yet exceeds her in Magic (irrelevant for a fighter, of course ) Luck, Defense, and Resistance! Had the 9 level difference been corrected, I think it is possible that Sukasaha’s greater Luck and Defense might have made up for his class’ low stat caps! His HP is slightly lower, of course, but with the 9 level difference being corrected for, I could see him having only a 3-5 HP difference with his sister. Of course, to get more specific estimates on all of this, please go to Mr. Wallace—not only is he a far smarter and better guy all around than I, but quite frankly, he’s the undisputed master of the technical aspects of FE. He’s your go-to guy if you want to gain a better understanding as to how the RNG works and what the growth rates for these characters are.

Now, allow me to expand upon how else Lakche can be better than Sukasaha, as well as a “goddess” all around. It is largely a matter of convenience—Lakche inherits her mother’s equipment, so in many cases, depending on how you play, this ends up making Lakche the far more efficent character to use. If you give Ayra the Leg Ring, Knight Ring, and Hero Sword during the first generation, she will pass these on to Lakche, making Lakche effectively as good as a mounted unit, minus the weakness to Knight Killers as a bonus! Not only that, but if you managed to get the Hero Sword up to 50 kills in the first half of the game, it gains the Berserk property, which means that with her stratospheric skill, Lakche will not only Moonlight Hit often, but also berserk as she’s doing it! Also, depending on their father, Sukasaha may or may not get useless equipment—Lex uses axes, so he passes on nothing of value to his son aside from his excellent skills and growth rates, but Holin could conceivably give his son some nifty parting gifts if you sell Ayra’s Hero Sword and Lachesis’ Knight Ring to him, as well as allowing him to attain the Leg Ring. In any case, however, even if both children gained equal equipment and stat growth, Lakche would still turn out to be slightly better, due to the virtue of her class’ Continuation skill and higher stat caps.

Now, for fun, let’s compare her with Shannan…

Shanan:
Lv. 22 Sword Master
Str: 21
Mgc: 0
Skl: 30+10 = 40
Spd: 23 + 20 =43
Luk: 13
Def: 21
Res: 5.

Now, let’s have another serving of my oft-mentioned favorite dish and compare the two characters logically. To be blunt, Shanan is at least comparable to Lakche. Although his speed is a tad low, he has 8 levels to clear that up, and the +20 speed boost makes it an irrelevant point anyway. His strength is pretty low, but since the Balmunk has an attack power of 30, it doesn’t matter much either. Now, some of you might be saying, “Oh, but without the Balmunk, he’d suck! Lakche could totally take him out if they were both equipped with Iron Claymores! Lakche should get the Balmunk, not him!” And to this, I say, you’re quite correct. On the basis of their stats alone, extracting the effects usable weapons have on their battle fitness, Lakche could defeat her uncle, although given the fact that with Ryuuseiken, Continuation, and Advancing Shanan’s at least as good as Ayra, he could put up a stiff fight. However, recall that I asked you to compare the two characters logically. The point is not whether Lakche should have the Balmunk or not, the point is that she doesn’t and Shanan does. Therefore, objectively speaking, Shanan really is the better fighter, thanks to his speed and skill advantage over Lakche. Perhaps Lakche would be a better fighter if the situations were different, but rationally, we must look at the situation as it is presented to us in-game, and the situation is quite bluntly that even if Lakche’s father is Holin, she still can’t use the Balmunk—that’s Shannan’s property. However, in all fairness, with a 50-kill Hero Sword, Lakche could likely give Shannan a reasonably severe beating for his trouble.


Now, as to some other reasons why Lakche holds such appeal towards the members of this community…well, as much as an apparently soulless android like me may not seem to understand or adhere to these rationales, I will concede there are a plethora of patently non-rational, illogical reasons people might like Lakche that are far beyond the pale of her merits as a fighting unit. Allow me to enlighten the confused upon what these might be (and know that I too, am a rather foolish and confused specimen, so you should probably take everything I say with a grain of salt ^^;; )

1: Her personality: I cannot read Japanese, and neither can many members of this community. However, many others do have some modicum of profiency in that exotic language, such as the most venerable Ms. Kyuusei, Ms. Iris, Ms. Summerwolf, and a few others whose names escape me at the moment. However, judging from what I’ve heard, Lakche seems to have a reasonably attractive persona, and she does have a few amusing conversations, especially with Johan, so that might be one reason people hold such affinity towards her.

[Gunlord100]

(had to cut this into two posts because it went over 10,00 characters )

2: The novelty of an empowered, “ass-kicking” female: I am likely reading a bit too far into the lines here, so I would most humbly entreat anyone offended by the following thesis to forgive my most horrendous ignorance, insolence, and impudence, but I would like to postulate one conceivable reason for Lakche’s popularity: The simple fact that she is a highly empowered, dangerous, and effective female unit on the battlefield. As I’ve demonstrated above, Lakche can definitely be one of the best characters in your army, and depending on who her father is, she might be one of the most powerful Sword Masters in Fire Emblem History. I believe that might be a source of delight for many of this board’s feminists—perhaps our members of the fairer sex are quite gleeful at seeing one of their own eradicate an entire platoon of faceless, axe-weilding goons singlehandedly. Indeed, I believe Mr. Wallace stated a very long time ago how he usually favored female units over male ones, although regrettably, I do believe the thread in which that point was debated has long since been deleted ;_; In any case, the appeal of Lakche extends far beyond females who’d like a little representation for their gender—as the most esteemed Mr. Nobaka demonstrates, Lakche is quite a hit among males as well. In her artwork, she’s decently good-looking, and there’s the simple fact that many guys consider a girl who can take care of herself as well as Lakche can (although perhaps annhilating entire armies may be a bit more than “taking care of herself” ) to be highly attractive. I guess, in summation, one of the most compelling, albeit illogical reasons, to like Lakche is that, to use a colloquialism yet again, chicks who kick ass are simply cool beyond imagination.

[North2]

I'll read over that more thoroughly later...just scanned through for now. I totally agree with the later parts =). Quoting myself:

Wanna know what I think is the best thing about Lakche? She just looks badass. I always liked the personality, and Lakche with a berserked hero sword is the most kick-ass looking thing that Fire Emblem has to offer. You can just feel the pain when she unleashes a flurry of 10 attacks while jumping and warping all over the place like a ninja on crack. For me personally, it's as simple as that.

[Iris]

Ninja on crack. I like that.

Because, as we all know, ninjas are mammals, and the purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

Lakche is a badass fighter, but I honestly don't have a strong opinion either way on her personality. Yeah, she's cool. *shrug* But I find a lot of other characters more interesting as far as their contribution to the plot goes.

[NoBaka]

Oi Gunny.

You forgot to say she's cute. <3