The Binding Blade Revamp: Project Sienna v1.31 [FULL RELEASE IS OUT]

Old Post (Outdated)

What if you wanted to enjoy an FE6 rebalance but found PE’s changes too drastic for your tastes? What if you wanted to enjoy an FE6 rebalance but wished for something more than simply unit changes or slight map changes?

Well this is the hack for you!

Welcome one and all!

This is a post about an FE6 hack that I’ve been working on for quite a while now that I have creatively (and very originally) called Project Sienna.

Now, I know that the topic of rebalances and trying to recreate FE6 is something that has gotten quite a lot of traction recently and people are probably getting tired of it all, but I promise that this is not your ordinary “rebalance” that a lot of you might expect (in all honesty the only reason I tagged this hack as a “rebalance” is so that it can get more attention and its an easy to apply tag). In fact, Project Sienna is a lot more akin to a revamp of the original FE6 experience than a strict rebalance.

Trust me, I’ve seen my fair share at attempts to create FE6 rebalances over these past few months, and while I commend and respect a lot of them for what they’re trying to achieve, none of them have truly touched on the soul of what I would envision an “improved” version of FE6 would actually be like.

Hacks like the godfather of rebalances, Project Ember, or the FE6 remake in the FE8 engine have all solid attempts, but I felt they missed a lot of the core of what made FE6 play and feel like FE6, and in general in my opinion they went a bit overboard in some aspects. Things like the overloaded amount of personal weapons for instance was something I was never a fan of, and the FE6 remake had strange balancing decisions that just made me tilt my head in confusion.

On the other side of the spectrum, some of the FE6 hacks I’ve seen that tried to go the opposite approach either only work well as a good starting point or didn’t do enough to try and change many of the aspects of FE6 that a lot of people had problems with, like annoying map design still being mostly present or most units still being barely usable, or perhaps even the most shocking of all being character nerfs, which I personally despise. I think its a time for a hack that bridges both of these extremes.

Introducing, Project Sienna! An FE6 hack that is more akin to a revamp of the original rather than either a rework or a rebalance. It is a hack that aims to find the best sweetspot it can between too much change or too little change that still plays like FE6 and still feels like FE6 while overall making the experience more enjoyable and streamlined.

Unit wise I adore the minimalist way of unit balancing. The only thing I changed about units are base stats, weapon ranks, and starting inventory.

Here are some of the things this hack will include:

  • Buffs to most player units
  • Increased hitrates (and altered weapon stats)
  • Faster supports
  • Improved map layout and map design
  • Better difficulty curve (easier earlygame, harder lategame)
  • More promotion items
  • Earlier Roy promotion
  • Revamped visuals.

Here are some things however that this hack won’t include:

  • Character nerfs
  • Personal weapons (except for Roy)
  • Growth rate changes
  • Returning characters
  • New classes
  • Original characters
  • Major story changes
  • Altered promotions

As I said at the beginning of this, I want this hack to at its core still feel like FE6. A lot of people probably won’t enjoy it or agree with it and that’s totally fine. You’re entitled to your own opinion. Especially the lack of changes to growth rates, I think a lot of people will dislike how I didn’t change any of them, but I’ll just say that it’s surprising how much you can do with just bases and weapon wranks.

There will also still be clearly better characters than others. I enjoy FE6’s imbalance and I think it not only adds to the charm of the game but also gives a story behind using certain characters or not. Not every unit will be the same power level, but at the very least all units can still be usable instead of just being straight up horrible.

Chapter 1 Cecilia Chapter 15
Saul against Manakete Bors Chapter 1
Dorothy promotion Marcus Steel Blade
Roy Chapter 1 Chapter 8 Closeup
Hugh Chapter 16 Lilina Attack
Lot Attack Roy vs Manakete
Chapter 7 Sage Guiding Ring

Now in any standard post this would usually be the part where I link to the ups patch and tell you guys to apply the patch to a clean japanese rom and hope you enjoy the game but unfortunately that will not be the case today.

As you probably could already tell, this hack is still a WIP. Currently I would say its about 70% done, but Ilia, Route B of the Western Isles, the Gaidens, and Endgame have still yet to be balanced and fully playtested. The hack is still in its alpha stages and is currently being playtested as of this moment. I’m sorry for anyone who got their hopes up but I want to deliver the best gameplay experience of FE6 I can and I won’t release anything to the public without me being fully satisfied in what I’ve got planning.

That being said, I did want to start marketing my hack and I hope this post has ignited your interest and it spreads to more people. This has been a completely solo project and I’m just glad I finally got around to announcing my hack on a public forum. I hope you’ll all be anticipating and excited for when I’ve finally got everything complete and ready to go!

See you all soon and have a great rest of your day.

Shanna Gant Lance boost Ogier Al Sword boost
Roy Binding Blade Dieck Armads

Detailed Unit Changes (as of Alpha v0.25)

Units not listed here have been unchanged. Not a single growth rate has been changed.

Roy:

  • +2 speed
  • Starts with an Iron Sword
  • Promotes at the end of Chapter 16
    New promotion gains into Master Lord: +3 HP, +3 attack, +3 speed, +4 skill, +5 defense and resistance, +2 con

Marcus:

  • Starts with Steel Blade, replaces Iron Sword

Wolt:

  • +2 attack and +2 speed

Bors:

  • +4 hp, +2 skill and +2 speed
  • Starts with an Axereaver

Ellen:

  • +2 magic and +2 def

Wade:

  • +2 attack, +2 skill and +1 speed

Lot:

  • +2 speed and +3 skill

Lugh:

  • +1 magic

Chad:

  • +6 luck

Saul:

  • Starts with an Unlock staff

Dorothy:

  • +4 attack, +3 skill, and +2 speed
  • Starts with an Iron Bow

Sue:

  • +2 attack

Zealot:

  • +2 defense
  • Starts with a Tomohawk, replaces Steel Sword

Treck:

  • +5 hp, +3 defense

Noah:

  • +1 to all stats and +8 resistance
  • Has C rank Swords and Lances

Lilina:

  • +2 hp, +2 magic, +2 speed, and +2 defense
  • Gets C rank Staves upon promotion

Wendy:

  • +2 attack, +4 skill, and +4 speed

Barth:

  • +10 hp, +2 attack, +6 skill, and +2 defense
  • Starts with an Axereaver

Oujay:

  • +1 speed and +6 luck
  • Starts with a Lancereaver

Fir:

  • +1 attack and +1 speed
  • Starts at level 3

Geese:

  • +3 attack and speed and +4 skill

Echidna:

  • +1 attack
  • Starts with Killer Axe, Hand Axe, and Steel Sword, replaces Iron Axe

Bartre:

  • +3 skill and +1 speed

Raigh:

  • Gets Hard Mode Bonuses

Cath:

  • +8 attack, +8 skill and +6 speed

Igrene:

  • Now joins in Chapter 14
  • +2 attack, +2 skill, and +1 speed
  • Has no movement penalty in the desert
  • Starts with a Torch

Sophia:

  • +5 hp, attack, skill, speed, and resistance, +3 luck, and +9 to defense

Cecilia:

  • Now joins in Chapter 15
  • +5 attack, +7 speed, +9 skill, and +3 resistance

Garret:

  • +3 skill and +3 speed

Hugh:

  • Starts as a Sage
  • Starts with D rank Staves
  • Gets Hard Mode Bonuses

Douglas:

  • +3 skill, +3 speed, and +3 defense

Juno:

  • +4 attack and +6 speed
  • Gets B rank Swords

Dayan:

  • +3 attack
  • Gets B rank Swords

Karel:

  • Lowered level down from 19 to 17
Important Weapon Changes (as of Alpha v0.25)

Almost all weapons have been changed to their FE7 weapon stats which means that nearly all weapons have improved hitrates. Magic tome weight is unaffected since FE7 screws them over a lot with their added weapon weight, which is unecessary and not a good change for a hack like this. There are some personal changes to some weapons though:

Steel Blade:

  • +1 might
  • +1 weight

All Poison weapons:

  • +30 hit

All Slim weapons:

  • 60 uses from 30

Gant’s Lance

  • Grants +2 def
  • +10 hit
  • 50 uses

Al Sword

  • Grants +2 skill
  • +4 might and +5 hit
  • 50 uses

Tina Staff

  • Now acts as a Recover staff
  • 30 uses

Divinestone:

  • Unbreakable
  • Gives +8 atk, +8 skill, +12 def, and +16 res
  • Down from +12 atk, +12 skill, +15 def, and +20 res

All Legendary Weapons:

  • 40 uses

Binding Blade

  • Unbreakable
  • -4 might
Playtesting and Balance Breakdown

Notice: Don’t get this progress breakdown wrong, the gameplay has already been altered. I’ve already changed almost every map (again, aside from Ilia) and they are hopefully a lot better. The problem is playtesting and balance are still up in the air, and I can’t finish balancing a map without sufficient enough playtesting. So you could say that I technically could release the hack since all the maps are done, but without enough playtesting I won’t know if these map changes are actually to the betterment of the map or not. My own thoughts on a map and my specific strategy for tackling a map can only go so far.

Chapter 1 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 2 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 3 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 4 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 5 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 6 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 7 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 8 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 8x - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 9 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 10A - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 11A - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 10B - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 11B - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 12 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 12x - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 13 - Incomplete playtesting + Incomplete balancing
Chapter 14 - Incomplete playtesting + Incomplete balancing

Chapter 14x - Incomplete playtesting + Fully balanced

Chapter 15 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 16 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 16x - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 17I - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 18I - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 19I - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 20I - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 17S - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 18S - Incomplete playtesting + Incomplete balancing
Chapter 19S - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 20S - Incomplete playtesting + Incomplete balancing

Chapter 20Ix - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 20Sx - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

Chapter 21 - Incomplete playtesting + Fully balanced

Chapter 21x - Fully playtested + Incomplete balancing

Chapter 22 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Chapter 23 - Fully playtested + Incomplete balancing
Chapter 24 - Fully playtested + Fully balanced
Finale - Fully playtested + Fully balanced

(I’m accepting playtesters btw DM me on Discord if you’re interested. Thank you!)

Project Sienna estimated release date: Within this year

Good day Fire Emblem Universe! I am Deviation, part-time romhacker, full-time college student who over the past 2 years has been working on a personal passion project of mine. This project, for most of the last year, has been a fully solo project. At its conception, it was only me and the Fire Emblem romhacking resources online that were used to make this romhack a possibility. It wasn’t until recently when I got some extra hands on the project, and as a result they have helped me tremendously in all aspects of the hack. Now, at the cusp of the end of the year, it’s finally time to release the full hack, sort of like an early christmas present for ya’ll. I do hope you will enjoy it. Without further ado, welcome one and all to:

PROJECT SIENNA


Elibe Soundtrack Cover Art

Project Sienna is a romhack of the 6th Fire Emblem game in the series, Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. It is the first Fire Emblem game on the Game Boy Advance and its clearly very experimental, as it plays like a soft reboot of FE1 and borrows many elements from it, while also being the game that introduces a lot of elements that many future Fire Emblem games would consider staples. FE6 is one of the most controversial Fire Emblem games, with many people loving the game and many people hating it. You could easily list dozens of points of both sides of the spectrum, but Project Sienna hopes to bridge the gap between the two.

Project Sienna is a hack that aims to change FE6 in a way that makes the overall experience of the game less grating or frustrating while also still trying to maintain the overall feel of FE6, making the experience more streamlined. Sienna is a hack that tries to apply minimal changes when necessary to keep the feel of FE6 intact, aside from some exceptions. Most characters will generally be usable but will still be relatively weaker or stronger than other units, in particular Gwendolyn and Sophia have been given buffs, but they should still be by far your weakest lance units and magic users in the game. Instead, most changes to units I’ve opted to give unique niches where necessary rather than just straight up buffing. The imbalance of FE6 is something I wished to maintain in order to keep the feel of some of the weaker units in the game.

That being said, it is also a hack that still changes up elements when needed for certain maps or gameplay aspects that are annoying to play, in particular for Gaiden chapters, FoW implementation, and FE6’s easy lategame. Certain chapters I deemed needed to have massive overhauls, with some major changes to each map that completely change up the way that they play; I’m referring to the Gaidens mostly. Most of them don’t really offer anything worthwhile outside of their gimmick, and even their gimmicks are usually handled pretty poorly. Definitely expect a fresh experience with each of them than what you normally find in vanilla.

Some chapters only needed some minor changes to make the experience a bit different or to make the gameplay a bit more interactive. Some chapters aren’t really bad persay but suffer from pacing issues, or the FE6 problem of having large chunks of a map completely unused. I hope to remedy this somewhat, though keep in mind that maps that are very much iconic in an FE6 way (Iconic as in very memorable for FE6) I opted not to change too much in that regard as I felt it would no longer be fitting for an FE6 revamp with this particular vision to change them all that much, though I hope that general gameplay changes will still help to improve the experience to those who aren’t really fans of these maps.

To put all that into perspective, here are some of the changes from vanilla FE6:

  • Buffs to most player units
  • Increased hitrates (and altered weapon stats)
  • Faster supports
  • Improved map layout and map design
  • Better difficulty curve (easier earlygame, harder lategame)
  • More promotion items
  • Earlier Roy promotion
  • Revamped visuals

Here are some things that this hack won’t include though:

  • Character nerfs
  • Personal weapons (aside from Roy)
  • Growth rate changes
  • Returning characters
  • New classes
  • Original characters
  • Major story changes
  • Altered promotions

In general, the hack is a mix of both minimalist changes and drastic changes, each applied to parts of the game where they are deemed necessary. I hope that Sienna has been able to strike a good balance between the two.

Also, I understand that the topic of “FE6 but better” or “FE6 rebalances” has been the hot stuff for quite a while now and has been pretty overstated, but I realized that Project Sienna brings its own cards to the table that I think people will enjoy. It’s been an interesting journey of development, and Sienna has a unique mix of balancing that I haven’t seen in other hacks of this category.

So, without further ado, the long awaited Fire Emblem 6 Revamp, Project Sienna, is finally playable!

Click here for the UPS patch!

The current dropbox link includes the UPs patch, a 0% growths patch, as well some additional info you might find helpful. Apply it to a Japanese rom. 0% growths is currently untested but I always meant for it to be a challenge run of the hack, so I challenge you all to try and beat it! Good luck!

Here’s a separate link for the changelog

I really hope you all enjoy playing. Even though the hack has been playtested and finished, criticism is still very much welcome! The hack is still not yet at its prime I think, so there are still some things that could be potentially improved.

Chapter 1 Cecilia
Saul against Manakete Barth Promotion
Bors vs Merc Marcus Steel Blade
Law of Sacae Cutscene Igrene vs Mage
Lilina Attack Noah Promotion
Lot Attack Dayan
Capped Roy Inventory Fir vs Fighter
Igrene Dialogue Roy vs Manakete

Also, credits where credits are due:

Credits
  • I would like to first of all actually thank all of the Fire Emblem 6 romhacks already out there, specifically Project Ember and the FE6 Remake in FE8. Although its true that I like to rag on about aspects of your romhacks that I personally don’t agree with, the reality is that without any of ya’ll I don’t even think I would have had the motivation to even make this project in the first place. In fact, you guys are probably my main source of inspiration, and I always came back to your hacks for ideas or any inspiration I could use. I’d just like to thank you all for your contributions to FE6 romhacking and I am very grateful that you guys made something that is so unique yet so impactful.
  • Another credit goes to Project Ember. I ended up using quite a few of the portraits for my romhack, either as a base or as the portraits themselves. Honestly, I don’t think my hack would even have been able to be released this year without them, so again huge credits go to them. The artists for the hack are super-duper skilled and are awesome at what they do. Besides, I thought to myself that there wasn’t really any need to improve upon perfection, don’t fix what isn’t broken.
  • Credit goes to the FE6 Recolored project, I also used the portraits as either a base or as the portraits themselves.
  • Credit goes to Fire Emblem 8: Sacred War since I took some inspiration for system icons and weapon icons.
  • Credit goes to the entirety of the FE-Repo, I ended up using a lot of its assets for weapon and item icons and graphic editing.
  • Credit goes to @AMH9000 (known as FE Weedle on Discord) who helped me tremendously with code related stuff related to the romhack.
  • Credit goes to @StanH who made the code for changing staff ranges. Really helped me out with the hack.
  • Credit goes to @_jessierose on Discord, one of my playtesters who did some awesome battle animation edits for Roy. She’s awesome and her insight on the hack has been very instrumental.
  • Credit goes to @redrockinreaper on Discord, one of my playtesters who basically became my right-hand man throughout development and really helped me out a ton on the hack. Thank you man, you’ve done so much to help.
  • Credit goes to ALL of my wonderful playtesters who helped make this dream a reality. They basically ended up becoming sort of like a mini development team at some point, they actively gave ideas and fueled the development of the hack in ways I couldn’t even fathom. The hack honestly would not have been finished as timely as it did without them, and I cannot thank them enough.

Here are some important changes you might want to know about the hack that might take you by surprise the first time playing. Most of the major changes / additions to each chapter that aren’t visible at battle preps are hinted at via dialogue changes or via key map details. Some of those changes aren’t hinted at but are made for balance. For those who don’t really care much for that can look through here. Read at your own risk as these do constitute as spoilers. If you don’t want to be spoiled on figuring out the changes for yourself, don’t read it.

Spoilers
  • Chapter 6: Wagner gets off the throne if you get too close.
  • Chapter 9: There is a pirate in the bottom portion of the map that will slowly advance towards the bottom left village.
  • Chapter 12x: Thieves now have an escape route on the stairs visible on the map.
  • Chapter 14: Gaiden turn requirement reduced to 20 turns.
  • Chapter 14 and 14x: Game Over if Igrene dies in either of these chapters.
  • Chapter 16: Reinforcements will appear on the bottom portion of the map after a certain turn.
  • Chapter 16x: Reinforcements will appear on the stairs visible on the map.
  • Chapter 17 (Ilia): The sandbar connects to the middle islands.
  • Chapter 20 (Ilia & Sacae): Gaiden turn requirement reduced from 25 turns down to 20.
  • Chapter 20x (Sacae): The bosses will move off the thrones.
  • Chapter 21: Gaiden turn requirement reduced from 30 turns down to 20.

By the way, here’s a character tier list!

35 Likes

great job on the progress so far @Deviation, im excited to play this one

1 Like

I’m glad I’ve sufficiently given people enough reason to be excited about this. Thank you for the kind words

I like the direction this overhaul is going for, but I have some criticism about the unit balance that are base on the role those characters are suppose to play in Fe6, overbuffing and other small things people complain about.

I will list all the units I have some criticism with and the changes I would make.

Lugh and Sue

I’m going to talk about both of these here because they have the exact same issue. You only buff their offense and while That’s understandable their biggest issue is for the fast characters, they actually aren’t fast. Lugh is slower than Alan in vanilla (and in the current version, Lilina is faster after promotion) and even without comparisons he is extremly borderline in dobling everything he wants to.

Sue has It worse since she share a speed tier with Shin but without any of the upsides. They also have the issue that they dont doble at base what makes using them early really frustrating.

I know this sounds weird, but I would suggest a +5 Speed Buff to both. It seems excesive, but anything they doble before is basically the same, but more reliable and they can actually doble things at base. And their still Low attack keeps them in check.

Staff ranks

More Generally I would give them D Rank staffs on promo, so they can Mend and the way to C isn’t as long and tedious. In general I feel D Rank is still limited enought to force you to not use them as staffers while being usable.

They would still be worse than Normal staffers because of how much later they would get high rank staffs.

Noah

Noah is very problematic for his +1 Omni boost. This seems small but It actually makes him on avarage better than Alance on join and most of the midgame. This is the most important point of their carreer what is problematic since I feel Noah should be a replacement to Alance if they die, not a straight upgrade. Specially when he already has better W.Ranks.

So I would remove the +1 Omni boost. The res boost seems OK, I think It doesn’t need to be that big but I don’t mind It.

Echidna and Bartre

A problem a lot of people more experience with Fe6 find is Echidna Axe Rank.

Because the western prepromotes are basically made to use Armads. A lot of them complain that B Rank is too low and It requires too much W.Exp grind for what should be the easier option.

I think raising It to A would be fair, I also think a similar Buff to Bartre but raising his Bow Rank to C so he can use Killer Bow at base would be apreciated.
Using Bow Bartre was also a grind and him having Bow Rank is one of his trade marks aggaist the other Axe Users. And this really keeps him the same without forcing you to grind Bow Rank for the Ch13 benchmark while still needing a lot of investment for Silver and Muglair.

Klein and Igrene

These have always had the dilema of W.Rank vs Stats but I feel like making Igrene join earlier and have better stats puts the balance too much in her favor.

Also, Klein is usually the one with higher Strength and Igrene the faster one. So I would give Ingrene current buffs to Klein and give Igrene +1 Strength, +2 Skl and +2 Speed.

Sophia

My issue with her is that she is suppose to be a protection mission and making her able to take hit kind of defeata the point of It? I would just remove the Def Buff. All the other offensive buffs are perfectly fine and give her a use as a glass canon.

The last ones are just a small nickpicks that really can be ignore.

I dont think Douglas benefit much from his speed bonus and he would honestly prefer Luck over It to avoid unlucky crits.

Also, Garret Rank is really bad for a prepromote, insta promo Gonzo and Guesse have higher ranks than him. So unless you want to keep this as one of Carrets downsides I would buff It to B. He would be able to use practically the same, but It would make the grind to S faster.

I hope this read was usefull. I really just want to see this project be as good as It can get.

1 Like

A small add on, I don’t think the BB Nerf was neccesary to compensate for infinite durability. You get It when there are only 3 real chapters left and It’s lock to Roy.

Let It be broken.

1 Like

Thanks for the criticism! I was waiting for somebody to post their thoughts about the unit balance ever since I released that information to the public. I have a few words and explanations so buckle up.

Lugh and Sue
One of the things I mentioned about FE6 was the easier earlygame. What I mean is not just an earlygame that is “easier” but specifically an earlygame where units have less hard mode bonuses. What this means is that Lugh and Sue both actually reliably double most of the units on their respective join chapters at base due to the lower hard mode bonuses. It’s actually not a problem to use either of them, and in playtesting they both caught up to the point of getting enough speed to double most units once the hard mode bonuses caught back up to vanilla. That being said, I wouldn’t oppose giving them an extra point of speed or two so that they can truly put the reliable in “reliably double” (specifically Lugh since I do think Lilina is a bit better than him now in the long run, statwise, which is something I didn’t want), I just don’t think +5 speed is all that necessary with the lowered hard mode bonuses.

Staff Ranks
I agree with this, actually. I wanted to keep staff ranks low because it really emphasizes the units that did end up getting higher staff ranks on promo, like Lilina for instance, who joins in a dubious spot on her join chapter and due to her (comparatively) lower speed at base for her chapter is not only more difficult to train than Lugh but also generally worse than him by that point. Lilina getting C rank upon promo means she can use Restore and gives her an edge over him even if she’s more difficult to train and her combat ends up being worse. That being said, the difference between D and C is still quite big and the chapter you get Lilina is also the Chapter you get your first Guiding Ring, so its not like you’re promoting Lugh earlier to raise his staff rank. So yeah, this change is perfectly reasonable.

Noah
I agree with this too. In playtesting I found Allance and Noah to be quite comparable to eachother, at least on average. I also checked their averages and Noah seems to have better short-term potential due to his slightly (like a point or two) higher bases, but Allance being better long-term due to their higher growths on average. That being said, I do think the short-term stat differential, alongside Noah’s Wranks and extra Con outweigh the christmas cavs. I still wish to keep Noah as a weird jack-of-all-trades cav, and him having high res was to contrast Treck with high def; Noah is the magekiller Paladin. So, I’ll probably end up just removing the attack and speed buffs but keeping everything else. That makes Noah a worse combat cav than Allance, and still worse defensively than Treck, but hey atleast he can kill mages and his higher wranks and con should give him a slight niche over the others in that regard.

Echidna and Bartre
Nothing to explain here. I probably won’t raise them to A since it is actually easier to get weapon experience in this rom, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with raising their axe rank.

Klein and Igrene
The weird thing about the Igrene buffs is that I specifically made it so that Igrene had a much better impression of the player. The problem I had with her in Arcadia was that she barely didn’t double the Wyverns on her join Chapter, which I feel would sour a lot of player’s impressions on her whilst playing the game. My script was also flipped because I thought that Klein was always the fast one and Igrene was the slow one until I double checked their bases. That being said I like this change and I think I’ll apply it to my rom to differentiate Klein and Igrene a bit more.

Sophia
Oh ho ho ho ho
You would think that would be the case and looking at it purely from a stat perspective it seems to confirm it, but the world of Sophia works in wondrous ways because the funny thing is Sophia still gets one-round by basically every enemy in her join chapter. She’s still gonna die if you are careless and one round of combat still leads her to death. Not only that but you get Raigh which not only joins earlier but also has strictly better stats than her in every regard. So even though she does have higher defenses, this chapter is still very much a protection mission from her because she still dies from everything.

That being said, lowering her current defense buff by two is still something I can do just to make sure she can’t survive even one hit from the brigand reinforcements on her join chapter.

As for the smaller stuff.

Douglas
Slightly higher speed means he reaches the vital threshold of not getting doubled, which is pretty important in this part of the game methinks. He shouldn’t double but at the very least he doesn’t get doubled.

Garret
Same case with Echidna/Bartre, I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t rase his base rank higher.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my announcement hack! I found what you said very insightful and I’ll definitely apply most of these changes to my hack going forward. Also, the Binding Blade was nerfed because of Idunn. I did the best I could with the Finale itself (I actually think the Chapter is pretty difficult), but with old Binding Blade + Roy’s better overall stats it still ends up making Idunn an easy 2-shot (and I wasn’t stingy on giving her weapon statboosts or increasing her stats). Eh, I dunno I guess we’ll see when more playtesting arises. For now, infinite uses is enough to justify lower might in my eyes and it’ll still be Roy’s best weapon (in short; it’s still very much broke, but a bit less broken. Heck the infinite durability is what makes it broken) unless he wishes to bust out the Wyrmslayer for the Wyverns on the next chapter.

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Man you’ve exemplified exactly what I wanted from an FE6 revamp. Since it looks like others have thrown in their two cents, I’d like to add my thoughts specifically on one topic in terms of the changes, the hit rates. I think that low hit rates, despite their near universal barrage of hatred in the community are vital in the identity of FE6 that ultimately, (in my opinion), make it the best of the 3 gba games.

A buff to hit rates may seem like a general buff to all units, but it actually creates major trickle down problems in weapon and class balance. Buffing hit rates gives diminishing returns for swords and bows than it does for lance and axes. If a sword hits for 80, a lance for 60, and an axe for 40, all the while bows hover around 70, it creates valid risk vs reward and gives accurate chip damage a lot of value.

Thus, 2 range becomes the bigger debate in chipping. FE7’s higher hit rates are the reason why javelins and hand axes are considered the best weapons in gbafe. Why would you use bows at all if these weapons can do the same job, plus 1 range as well? Effective weaponry also becomes much more potent, making them cheese to play with, and frustrating to play against.

Pirates, fighters, and brigands have high hp and defense to compensate the gamble of low axe hit rates. Brigands and pirates have lower defense because of their terrain access, while fighters have the highest defense to give them more flexibility. In addition, Warriors get bow access to deal with that accuracy problem they all share to contrast the hightened gamble of berserker crits.

Wyverns and Pegasus knights have the same weapons, but deal with opposite problems. Wyverns have low skill but decent con, making swords better for reliable damage upon doubling. Pegasus knights have high skill but low con, making swords the option for when lances are too heavy.

Mercenaries and Myrmidons are made for reliability. They reliably hit then dodge axe units while evenly matching with each other and melting against lances. Axes will still kill them if they do land, and they often won’t one round units so they can’t fully dodge tank. They gain crit and axes to deal with the damage problem upon promotion.

Generals while considered the weakest class, often have the best survivability against all physical units, giving their decent skill and access to both javelins and hand axes their most viable usage, necessitating lower speed and movement. Conversely Nomads gain swords in order to give them access to both ranges while not giving them both to highlight their low survivability and high hit rate, speed and dodge.

Paladins have full access to the triangle, making them best against physical classes, only held back by unit stats and low con limiting their axe use. Snipers are made to usually hit everything either twice or very hard. They also do best against magic units since on enemy phase they either die at 2 range or come to 1 range, deal damage, and get cleaned up on player phase.

Magic units in general are also buffed since now they can kill units with low res even faster since their hit rates are secure. Light magic is made for combat utility on healers only, so their high hit rates and low damage are understandable. Anima allows for the most potential damage on physical units and other healers so decent hit rates give them that chance while dodging is still possible for the faster units. Dark magic is very risk reward, primarily made for combating anima users while still dealing major damage to physical units if they hit.

FE6 classes are designed around skill and how each weapon interacts with it. Changing hit rates does a lot to change every class as a whole. I haven’t played the hack myself so I might and would be very happy to be proven wrong. I don’t got your discord handle but I’d love to playtest if you’ll let me.

TL:DR

Higher hit rates buff Wyverns, Sages, Valkyries, Druids, Berserkers, and Paladins.

Higher hit rates shadow nerf Warriors, Snipers, Swordmasters, Falcoknights, Bishops, Generals, Nomad Troopers, and Heroes.

Me want playtest hack sound very fun.

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Fascinating. Honestly I’ve seen talk about the reasons why FE6’s lower hitrates are actually to the game’s charm/benefit, but all I’ve ever heard were snippets here and there. I never got much detailed information, so I’m glad you were able to put the reasons so eloquently and comprehensively.

That being said I have a particular problem with FE6’s lower hitrates because, although it helps make the player’s weapon types more varied and distinct, it also makes the enemy less so. Your player units will still have comparatively higher stats than the enemy most of the time, which means they will be a lot more accurate than the enemy. The game however is now much easier to dodge tank, especially in the early game, which is something that goes against the major philosophy that I want to create with this hack.

I want to create an experience where the player is the one who is proactive. The player is the one initiating action, making decisions, and taking action (most of the time). I recognize that dodge tanking is also a pretty big part of FE6’s identity and is part of most of the fun but atleast in the early game I want the player to mostly play proactively, and dodgetanking is mostly a reactive response to what the enemy is doing. Lowered hitrates will make dodgetanking much more prevalant early on which is something that I wish to avoid.

That being said you make some compelling arguments and I am very interested in seeing how the hack will play using FE6’s base weapon stats. Will it be to the hack’s benefit? I’m not completely sure, but that’s what playtesting will lead us to in the end.

I’m sorry but I don’t think reliability should be a weapon’s selling point. Besides, you can bump these numbers up by 20 and still have it well without making axes feel awful to use bc of 2rn. I believe weapon triangle gives enough reason to use different weapon types and by the time where it stops mattering you have promoted units with multiple weapon types and a set squad anyway. Risk vs reward also really doesn’t work when that’s all a unit has. Unreliability is good in small amounts but in strategy games you need to have some level of reliability and having axes hover in the 40s of hit rates (30s in 2rn) is just not worth it.
With 1-2 range it’s alright to nerf it in a major way with hitrates because you still have the 1 range options that are more accurate yes but force you to face a counterattack, and bows are there for that specific niche.

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I agree. Small hit rate buffs are fine, my point was that they give diminishing returns to swords and bows as opposed to lances and axes. Axe units specifically are designed to be bulkier and able to take more hits than cavaliers or myrmidons and faster than armor knights to compensate this weakness so it leaves you with bulky units that also hit reliably.

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Just wanted to say this sounds awesome. Looking forward to palying this. As far as my two cents on reliablility of weapons, I like the idea IF it takes hit rates to 100 when appropriate (like with triangle advantage and decent skill). That way it is actually reliable. Nothing feels worse than having character die due to missing a 99 hit chance.

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I’ll see when this is done.

This is legitimately everything I wanted out of something like this. I don’t want the hundreds of changes other FE6 attempts add because they’re never faithful to the original. KISS rules never followed lol.

Weighing in though, I never minded the hit rates from FE8, so maybe somewhere in the middle of 6 - 8 might help? There’s a semi-recent balance patch for 6 on YouTube that might have had its own take on remedying hit rates that still kept the identity of 6 in tact.

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Hello one and all! You’ve probably been wondering over these past few weeks where have I been, have their been updates on the hack, how much progress has been made? Don’t worry, I’m here to say that progress on the hack has been great. I’ve got a team of playtesters helping me to iron out the kinks of every map, unit, and chapter, and every step closer the hack gets to completion the more excited I am for the full release.

I just wanted to give you all an update and to remind you guys that the hack isn’t dead or postponed or on hiatus, or anything like that. I also realized that editing the actual post directly is probably not as good as just me responding directly to the foum like this, in order to spark conversation. That being said I’m not going to leave you high and dry, so I’m going to do another pseudo-update on this forum in the form of a little teaser.

Firstly, I’ve done some pretty cool stuff to the various window styles to make them look a lot nicer. Check them out!

Project Sienna and FE6 comparison screenshots

Sienna Blue Window FE6 Blue Window
Sienna Orange,Red Window FE6 Orange,Red Window
Sienna Grey Window FE6 Grey Window
Sienna Green Window FE6 Green Window

These palettes were actually heavily inspired by the GBA color correction shaders that apps like vba-m and mGBA have, which change FE6’s visuals to match how they would look on an actual Gamboy Advance. I actually think that the shaders have a lot of cool colors, and the window colors were some of the best, so I decided to use them as my inspiration for the window colors. In general, FE6 just felt very bright to me and these updated windows should hopefully make choosing anything other than blue not make you want to put shades on for the rest of your life.

But that’s not all. Here’s a teaser for one of the early chapters in the hack. This is to showcase a bit of the earlygame to make you guys understand how I can change even some of the early chapters to make them flow a bit better. Again, I’m holding most of my cards close to my chest as I want you guys to be genuinely surprised and looking forward to playing the new and improved chapters, like you’re experiencing the game for the first time again.

That’s all I have to say and I’m looking forward to when the hack is finished and ready for release. Thank you.

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You mean chapter 15? She always joined in ch 14, the desert map.

Oh ye you right. I completely overlooked that

Though it would be nice to have Cecilia in 14x.

Hello one and all! It’s been a while since my last update. In fact, it’s almost been 4 months since the most recent reply. Honestly, I didn’t expect progress on the hack to take this long, but TL;DR of all of that is mostly due to either lack of time, busy at school and life, becoming an adult, and also a lack of motivation in some areas. That being said I would never forget about this hack, and I’ve come here to make a special announcement!

THE HACK HAS AN OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE!!!

Project Sienna is getting fully released within this year! How exciting is that? I’m so excited to show you all what’s been happening with development and what changes that have been made for the hack. I can barely contain how hyped I am for this and to see what you guys have to say about the hack.

Just to give you guys an idea, the hack is about 90% complete, 90%! It just needs a bit more time and a bit more polishing before the entire thing is ready and can be released to the public. We’re so close, but this is the final stretch. So mark your calendars everyone!

NOVEMBER 30th, 2023
is the date to watch out for! Keep your eyes peeled and open for more updates in these upcoming months.


Another Chapter sneakpeak (Ilia Gaiden!)

I’ll just say to you all, this chapter is definitely going to be a lot more intense than the original. Most people just end up warpskipping this chapter and don’t even bother to play through the map, but I think this map has been improved a lot and I’m excited to see you all play it very soon. The fact that your main squad is only separated into 2 on both sides of the map should give you an idea of how this map might play…

Thank you all for the support and I’ll be seeing you guys very soon.

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Still very excited to see the completion of this project.

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Hello everyone!

Leading up to the release of the game, I’ve decided that I wanted to do some Character Spotlights on some units from the original game and how they compare to the romhack. I want to go over the changes that the units have gone through going into Project Sienna and how those changes, alongside general gameplay, have affected a unit from being either terrible or forgettable into a unit that is very much usable or holds a much more unique and fun niche. Without further ado, let’s start!

CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT: ROY


Of course we’re doing Roy, it should come as no surprise. Roy is a bit of an infamous lord in general. The Smash community perceives Roy as an explosive, in-your-face brawler character who is very strong, very fast, and who yells a lot. The Fire Emblem community however sees Roy as one of the weakest lords in the series, is generally perceived as mostly useless in his base game, and is quite boring as a character. This post will not go into talk about his character, but we will be analyzing his gameplay, his strengths, his very pressing weaknesses, and what changes the rom has made to change the way Roy plays and understanding why that’s important.

WHAT MAKES ROY BAD: THE MYTHS
Fire Emblem 6 Roy is not a good unit for many reasons, I just want to clarify this right out of the gate. That being said, there’s some misconceptions about why he’s bad that I think are a collection of anecdotal data based on the fact that Roy’s shortcomings really make a lot of different parts about him seem worse than they actually are, when in reality they aren’t inherent problems of Roy and moreso things that might make him feel bad that are simply compounded due to his other traits.

“Roy sucks because he has bad growths.”
We’ll first start off with something that I’ve seen many a people say about Roy and his usage as a unit. Many people claim that Roy sucks because his growth rates are below average, heck, some might even call his growth rates bad and point to that as the main reason why he sucks because everybody else simply grows better than him. But hold on, let’s actually take a moment to look at his growths for a moment.

Roy Growth Rates

These growths aren’t bad. In the more important areas like Strength or Speed, you’ll be getting stat points every 2-3 levels on average. And even in the context of the game, compared to other units he’s actually much better off than you think. Let’s compare them to two other units that many people unianimously agree are at the very least good; Allen and Shin.

Allen Growth Rates

Shin Growth Rates

Roy’s is definitely a lot more well-rounded in that regard and is more distributed towards his Skill and Luck, but they are definitely not bad. At most he has a 5% - 10% disparity between even units like Shin, which will most likely only lead to around 3-4 extra stats over the course of 20 levels, or in the case of Allen at most only 2 extra stat points. Even compared to a unit like Dieck, Roy actually looks even better.

Dieck Growth Rates

Roy grows favorably with his growth rates, so its clear that’s not where the problem lies. His apparent low growths is only accentuated due to a different problem that Roy possesses.

“Roy is swordlocked and footlocked. He sucks because he can only use swords.”

Roy death

This has historically probably been the biggest point that a lot of people have mentioned when it comes down to talk about Roy’s viability. People say he sucks because he’s in a class that not only leaves him with 5 move, but also locks him to swords for the entire game.

The thing about this though is; FE6 is a much different Fire Emblem game even compared to the games released on the same game console. FE6 values reliability, chip damage, and speed. Enemy units are much stronger overall, and enemy units are generally more dodgy. This makes accurate damage an important asset, and actually emphasizes more importance to something like Skill and particularly Swords, because Swords have the highest hitrate out of all of the weapon types which makes them the most reliable.

Bows are similar in this regard. In FE6, enemies usually hit so hard that a player unit getting hit gets hit hard enough on the counterattack that healers can’t get them back up to enough health to prevent a 2HKO. That means that reliable and accurate chip that prevents a unit from getting counter attacked are also emphasized. Bows circumvent the counterattack, including tomes.

Roy being able to use Swords is a good thing. In fact, there’s already testament to that fact in the form of Rutger, a unit that many people regard as one of the best units in the game that also uses Swords. Some other examples are units like Dieck, Perceval, and promoted Sue/Shin or Shanna/Thea, which all benefit from having Swords as a reliable way of dealing meaningful damage to some of the strong enemies in the game. Shanna and Thea in particular appreciate Swords as it allows them to deal consistent damage that doesn’t hamper their speed due to Sword’s much lower weight.

Roy being footlocked isn’t a major issue either. Sure, it makes it a bit annoying to get him to the throne since every map is a Seize map, but as mentioned earlier even the best unit in the game is footlocked.

WHY IS ROY SO BAD THEN?: THE REALITY

From what I can tell, there’s really only 2 reasons why Roy is so bad in FE6. These reasons are so massive however that even though there’s only 2 of them, they are such a big deal that they are enough to make Roy one of the worst lords in the series.

Roy has poor bases

Roy Base Stats

Roy’s bases are simply not good enough for the earlygame of FE6. It may come off as a surprise since lords with similar bases and attributes like Marth or Ike have similar bases but are considered much better in their base games, but FE6 earlygame is absolutely brutal. Unless a unit has some defining utility or some unique attribute that can contribute a lot early on, they are most likely dead weight and are probably never going to see combat.

Dieck and Rutger for instance, both Swordies that join later than Roy have high enough bases that they can pull a lot of weight early on. They can actually double almost every enemy unit at base which is vital. Not only that but they have decent enough growths that they can continue to contribute for a whole lot longer.

Roy on the other hand can’t even deal significant damage to the fighters on Chapter 1, and subsequently gets two shot by them.

Roy vs Fighter
Roy struggles to even 3HKO a Fighter

This is what I mean when I say Roy’s other traits compound together with his bad traits. The fact that Roy has only decent growths and is swordlocked only amplifies the fact that his bases suck, because usually when a unit has bad bases they’ve got great growths to make up for it like the aforementioned Marth and Ike, or they’ve got some other utility that makes them a worthwhile unit to use otherwise. Roy doesn’t have great growths though, he’s only got decent growths, which as I said is simply not sufficient enough.

Allen and Lance, which stastically don’t even do that much better than Roy, are so much better because they have the benefit of being in an excellent class while also having decent growths. Their decent growths feel much less “decent” and more “good” because they’ve got the utility to make them worthwhile.

Roy’s bad bases make him a pain to train, even if his growths are decent. He’ll grow for sure, but as units get more bulky and more speedy, Roy struggles to keep up even with the units he starts out with in his army. However, even if you do end up training him and he becomes sort of alright, at the end of the day he’ll go right back to being trash again and that’s because…

Roy promotes extremely late

Roy promotion

Roy in FE6 promotes at the end of either Chapter 21 or Chapter 21x. At that point in the game, if you didn’t get the legendary weapons, there’s only 1 chapter left. If you did that’s only 4 chapters.

This is by far the biggest issue with Roy and why many consider him one of the worst lords in the series. His late promotion means that even if you train him up to acceptable levels, you’ll be stuck with him like that for more than 95% of the game. And even when promoted, Roy isn’t going to be contributing that much. With less than 4 chapters left in the game, Roy’s actual promotion is a lot less impactful since there’s simply not enough chapters where you can level him up more and make use of him.

That is also of course assuming that you choose to level Roy up in the first place, because the process of training him is already a chore, meanwhile his stats while alright are never good enough to contribute much of anything, so he doesn’t even get good when he promotes.

Its this combination of bad bases + late promotion that kills Roy’s viability as a unit, and that’s also due to the fact that Roy’s promotion is dependent on his class. Remember the fact that Roy being swordlocked is not the issue here, the issue here is that his class means that he can’t promote through promotion items and his class makes his bases much worse. If Roy could promote via something like a Heaven Seal, he would be much more usable as you could allow him to grow alongside the rest of your army normally, and he’ll have a lot more room to grow. Let’s give him a different class and he’ll instantly shoot up in viability.

Roy Cav

Roy Nomad

His bases are much better. But aside from even that, he’s got viable utility that makes him good earlygame, and more importantly he can now promote much much earlier with just a promotion item. Giving him an earlier promotion actually fixes half of the issue already, the other half is just his bad starting stats.

His bases also seem a lot worse because of just how strong the earlygame enemies are. On Normal mode, Roy becomes much more competent purely because his bases are actually more than acceptable for the strength of the enemy units, but again, even in Normal mode he isn’t great due to the fact that he promotes so late.

HOW TO MAKE ROY VIABLE
Going over this again, Roy is bad because of 2 reasons:

  1. His bad bases for his join time make him difficult to train and use early on, and unimpressive even when trained. It’s compounded by his class which although isn’t inherently problematic, means he lacks vital utility to make him usable in the earlygame.
  2. His late promotion makes even a trained Roy dead weight on your army, as being stuck nearly capped and unable to gain any more stats means that he’ll quickly get overpowered later on in the game. Upon promotion, he doesn’t even get good, depending on whether you even trained him, and he only has a few chapters in this state before the end of the game.

So how does Roy get better in Project Sienna? Well, we just needed to do some small adjustments.

Roy’s bases:

Sienna Roy Base

Roy getting +2 speed is massive for Roy’s usability. It might not seem like it at first blush, because 9 base speed isn’t even enough to double most of the units in the earlygame, but you also have to keep in mind that Project Sienna earlygame has weaker enemies than FE6. This means that Roy can actually do something like this:

Roy doubling
Roy dealing 9 damage (2x) to the Fighter

Roy doubles nearly all of the Fighters in Chapter 1, and he doubles all of the Archers too. Due to the weaker enemy quality, Roy’s bases are thus much better in this context than in FE6. Roy doubles a lot of enemies in Chapter 1, and he will continue to double a lot of enemies for a quite a few chapters after. You’ll actually be able to get levels on Roy and allow him to get his stats up. This also makes Roy just better straight up and gives him an edge over even units like the Christmas Cavs because he can double right out of the gate. His damage output becomes significant since he can double reliably.

See how that works? With just a bit of tweaking, we made a unit that was nearly useless in the earlygame into an important staple.

However that’s only for the earlygame, how does Roy hold up once the HMB of FE6 get back to normal? Well, he is still quite good until then. A decently trained Roy going into the Western Isles alongside that +2 speed actually allows him to continue doubling for quite a while, long past when the HMB of the game have gone back to normal.

Roy Level 10

At level 15 Roy has about 15 speed on average, so at around Chapter 13 for instance he actually still has enough speed to double most enemy units on that Chapter. At level 20 Roy has about 18 speed on average, so at around Chapter 16, once again he’s got enough speed to double most enemy units. He manages to still hit every important speed benchmark all the way until his promotion. Of course, his strength will fall off for sure, and his stats will be lower due to the fact that he hasn’t promoted yet compared to the rest of his army, but he’ll still be a serviceable unpromoted lord unit up until the route split. Speaking of…

Roy’s earlier promotion:

As you all probably already know, Roy now promotes at the end of Chapter 16 instead of the end of Chapter 21/21x. This is 5 chapters earlier than normal. As I’ve already gone over, Roy should be able to somewhat keep up at this stage of the game unpromoted. His Strength would be lacking and his damage output thus a bit poor, but his stats should be serviceable as he can still double a lot of units and deal some decent damage to them. Once he promotes, he gets new caps and some very respectable promotion gains.

Roy Ch16 promotion

For the observant, you would be able to realize that these promotion gains are actually higher than normal, most notably is that Roy gets an additional point of Strength and Speed. This earlier promotion helps Roy a lot as now these promotion gains make him on par with a lot of your other units at a point in the game where there is still a lot of Chapters left to make use of him. An average Roy should have respectable stats at this time in the game, especially that 21 base Speed that allows him to double a lot of units going to either Ilia or Sacae. Roy does double more in Ilia, but in Sacae he can make use of his Rapier to deal effective damage to the Nomads and Nomad Troopers on that route.

With these promotion gains, he should be atleast on par with your other units in your army. And keep in mind, his growths aren’t bad so he will end up growing pretty well as you level him up. By around Chapter 21, Roy should be close to capping most of his stats as he nears level 20.

Roy capped
Capped Roy that is slightly blessed in Speed

If you might also notice, Roy actually has a higher Speed cap now, 28 up from 25. 28 Speed is actually quite an important benchmark that is vital for the final few chapters (which I won’t say the reason why for spoiler reasons but yeah).

The moment you get the Binding Blade, Roy is most likely going to be the best unit on your army. If Roy was good before the Binding Blade, he’ll instantly shoot up to one of your best units with it. The Binding Blade as his 1-2 range weapon of choice with good Mt and +5 defensive boosts makes Roy a surprisingly tanky unit that doesn’t struggle to deal damage either, he’ll also most likely be your best unit for killing Dragons too.

Other:
Here’s some other reasons as to why Roy might be better as a unit that are a bit more minor but still important to mention.

  • The rapier is not only stronger but deals effective damage to Nomads/Nomad Troopers and Troubadours/Valkyries now.
  • Roy’s promotion gains giving him a lot more defense makes Roy surprisingly very tanky. His defensive growths are actually not bad when compared to other units, so a 20/20 Roy with +5 to both defenses on promotion makes him quite difficult to take down, especially with an Angelic Robe and especially combined with the +5 from the Binding Blade.
  • The overall faster supports indirectly makes Roy a better support unit and able to make use of his supports better for much more of the game.

CONCLUSION
What makes Roy a bad unit in vanilla FE6? His only major problems are his poor bases and his late promotion, his other traits only accentuating them. Project Sienna fixed both of those; his growth rates are untouched and he’s still swordlocked and footlocked, both unpromoted and promoted.

In the earlygame-midgame he is good, doubling most units and dealing some very nice damage to them. The Western Isles is where he is right at home, being able to double the plethora of axe users. Roy begins to dip between Chapters 13 - 16, when most of your army is most likely promoted already. Roy will struggle in the damage output department, even if his Speed is still good for this point in the game. Once he promotes he becomes much better again, and once he gets the Binding Blade he’ll become one of the best.

Overall, Project Sienna actually changes very little about Roy himself. That being said, these little changes are more than enough to make him not only a usable unit, but a good unit. When comparing him to vanilla FE6, it’s a night and day difference, and also goes to show that sometimes, you don’t really need big changes to make a unit viable. Sometimes a few stat points are really all you need.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Character Spotlight. I might do these on more units in the future. Hope you enjoyed and I am eagerly anticipating the final release of Project Sienna. I’ll be seeing you guys very soon.

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