It should go.
Wyvern KNIGHTS:
Axes. High STR, SKL and DEF. Decent HP. Bad everything else. Knights that fly.
Basically guaranteed to chip away a lot of hp.
Wyvern RIDERS:
Lances. Absurd SPD, high STR, decent HP and DEF. Rushing units.
You’d fear to fight them on enemy phase.
Both would be terrifying to face for unique reasons.
Those wyvern riders are too OP. They’re good in every relevant stat. Maybe it would be better if they had poor defense to make them stand out from those wyvern knights, who could use more HP to further emphasize their tanky role.
But how would Wyvern Riders promote to Wyvern Knight? You expect people to train a lance rank to then completely ditch it for a base C rank axes?
i like the concept of slow wyvern riders who use axes, sorta making them the opposite of pegs in every way
ofc most games just also make them ok speed/fast but what can you do
They don’t. I feel it was evident I was talking of two base classes. So no Shaman Ew an shenanigans.
They might have a convergent promotion, say good ol’ Wyvern Lord / Paladin
Now tell me how does a player handle both of these 1-2 range threats
For the knight, they’re just like Fate’s wyverns, they’re strong, but not the end of the world. If anything, the low speed make them easy to pick with bows or magic.
The riders are basically flying brigands without crit, so abusing avoid should be viable.
Also, come on, let’s not always think of the worst possible reinforcement with 20 wyverns from each corner of the map!
Their large strength and skill make it so mages (known for being frail) get Tomahawk’d/Spear’d to death with hardly any contest, with bow users having troubles to oneshot derived from their large physical bulk (as snipers are known for everything but being strong), that is, of course, with standard vanilla balance.
so the counter to these tanky, high-mobility bombers is to:
1: be a swordmaster dodgetank (tomahawks/ranged weapons stall them)
2: rely on map design and terrain in order to force turtling
3: same issues as above mentioned except for the lack of doubling, but still supported by sheer damage received/one-shot in retaliation
I dont wanna have 2 different base classes that are flying and wyverns. That seems too cluttery.
The original post is more about “should base class wyvern riders use axes or lances?”
give them axes but like tank their speed, make them essentially flying armor knights statistically but slightly weaker on all fronts
I’d argue for a simple solution. Wyvern Riders start with lances…if they promote to Wyvern Knights they stick with lances-only due to their high speed and Pierce. If they promote to Wyvern Lords, a slower, but tankier class, they get axes to get WT advantage.
As for the original question, I prefer if wyvern riders use axes. Differentiates them more from pegasi and makes them look more brutish.
For me it depends on wether your world percieves Wyvern Riders and Knights with respect or with fear.
If whenever the characters see a Wyvern in enemy lines they should think “oh dear god that beast’s gonna murder us we better prepare”, and Wyverns are treated as a “line breaker” and a juggernaut, I think making them wield axes. It helps with the idea of a powerful foe mauling enemies and destroying their lines of defense. Tellius style.
If you can see a wyvern leading a squad, or being the main force in an army or nation, then lances are a better fit. Respectable, powerful, and they know it. Macedonia style.
I prefer Tellius style because, of course, Radiant Dawn.
I like wyvern rider starting with lances and then branching into axes with wyvern lord promotion, while wyvern knight gets bows, which makes them a pretty unique flying class. I do wyvern lord lance axe sword since they are more of a “flying general” slow strong bulky class and WK get bows since they are more of a faster striker class.
Starting with lance is necessary for this since WK normally doesnt have axe access, and you don’t want to lose a weapom rank on a promo option. (This is an issue for the pupil class going shaman) Plus while it does make mounted classes similar, lances are really the only weapon type that make much sense. I always imagined attacking with a sword or axe from a wyvern is less of a charge and more of crushing the oppenent with the weight of the beast and the weapon strike is more of a follow up.
I already have the alternate promotion for Pegasus Knight have lances and bows. It’s sorta like Fates Kinshi Knight. I will keep Wyvern Knight Lance Only, I think
Axes fit more with the warlike aggressive front liner nature of wyverns, but lances make infinitely more sense considering… well how are you gonna hit an enemy all the way from sitting on top of a wyvern with a short axe? You’d have to lean out and nearly fall off every time. The reach of the lance synergises perfectly with the momentum of flight, and the needed reach and allows for more roughly accurate hits to still connect, while also being safer for the rider. So my vote goes to lances.
But axes are cooler on them and make them stand out more compared to pegasus knights, so i don’t know.
Giving wyverns riders axes also gives them WTA over pegasus knights so like… no.
Are you kidding me? Pegs are already basically the inferior sidegrade. No!!!
(This is entirely me just being biased)
Ahem.
Make pegs good, give them axerevers also falcos get swords, or do fates with kinshi/staff falcos.
Pegs tend to have much better rescue and support while Wyverns are better fighters.
Actually, since pegasus knights are usually female, they suffer from the -5 aid malus, which gives them a worse aid stat than male wyvern riders most of the time (if said wyvern rider is male, female wyvern riders still have worse aid like pegasus knights).
Actually not true, While they do have less aid due to sexism that doesn’t tell the whole story, First Pegs are also generally faster so they lose less speed on rescue as such have better surviveabilty not getting doubled as much,
Second CON they have less as such they have equal or MORE AID anyway,
Here is each GBA Game with the Aid Calcs and a light analysis of the Wyverns performance as Rescuers in comparison.
In FE6
Shanna = 16 Aid peg 15 Aid Falco
Thea = 15 Aid peg 14 Aid Falco
Juno = 13 Aid Falco
Miledy = 10 Aid WR 9 Aid WL
Zeiss = 15 Aid WR 14 Aid WL
Firstly you get both Shanna and Thea very early as such they get full credit for all the flyer rescuing pre Milady and Zeiss’s join.
Overall Pegs out pace Milady and keep up/out pace Zeiss, he joins late unpromoted at the start of the late game/end of mid game, as such while still good is fighting with others for deployment and whips and doesn’t want to be rescuing as he needs exp to reach promo level and keep up with Milady Percival, and other trained units.
He also once promoted is only on par with promoted Thea and would rather do combat with his high strength and good enough speed, it’s not good enough to avoid doubles attacks if rescuing unlike a trained Shanna.
Although Zeiss out performs Juno… almost everyone out performs Juno…
Verdict
Pegs superior rescuers/ utility due to lacking Wyverns and higher or equal Aid.
Also your Wyverns do combat, Pegs can do rescue while your Wyverns do combat.
In FE7
Florina = 16 Aid peg 15 Aid Falco
Fiora = 15 Aid peg 14 Aid Falco
Farina = 15 Aid peg 14 Aid Falco
Heath = 16 Aid WR 15 Aid WL
Vaida = 8 Aid WL
We will Ignore Vaida her rescue is dog water
Interestingly in FE7 Heath is just Zeiss but really good at rescue, he does need a few levels to promote but joins early enough that he’s not really fighting over promotion, he also gets HMBs.
Heath is a really good combat unit if trained and has the same con as Florina letting him rescue promoted Hector even if he is promoted, allowing him to fufill a rescue utility role if untrained, although every peg can do this and if untrained [Only if unpromoted for Farina and Flora], Farina is still better in untrained since she has better bases.
Verdict
Heath is really good at rescue and combat probably the second best rescue [of the fliers] in the game, although there are probably better things you could do with him then ferry Hector [or whoever] all over the place, and Florina does it for longer and doesn’t have any major combat you want her doing. Combat that Heath would rather be doing. but he’s still good and you can have him fly in with someone to do combat together.
FE8
Vanessa = 15 Aid peg 14 Aid Falco 11 Aid WK
Tana = 15 Aid peg 14 Aid Falco 11 Aid WK
Syrene = 13 Aid Falco
Cormag = 14 Aid WR/WK 13 Aid WL
I think this is pretty easy Peg → falco is the best Aid out matches Cormag by one
Although Vanessa does prefer WK for pierce and combat usually becoming a good combat unit, same for everyone else, this leaves Cormag and Syrene as the best rescuer if you do so however Vanessa is generally a peg for a bit untill the first whip shows up in Ch 8, doing most of the rescue for the game, regardless Falco/Peg are still superior for rescuing.
Though usually you aren’t rescuing super high con units as much in FE8 as they tend to kinda suck, good units like Epharim has 8 CON in lord and 10 in Great Lord and Seth has 11 CON allowing any mount to rescue them.
Verdict
The META of Sacred Stones does lead to units going WK though this is not for the need of Rescue it is for better combat. The fact the best units have low enough con to be rescued anyway means that rescue is simply less useful, peg/Falco are still superior for rescue due to the higher aid gained from low CON.
In Closing
Overall Pegs are better at rescue and you get fewer Wyverns and you probably don’t want to waste them doing support jobs when they could delete the map, that combined with the generally lower Aid means that they tend to be worse rescuers, that’s not to say they’re bad, hell some are really good, there are even situations you want them to rescue [such as in Chains or rescuing a partner into an area to delete enemies together], but it’s not the thing you are going to do with them most often.
Pegs on the other hand do have the room to play a support role as they tend to be worse at combat doing clean up or reaching side objectives as they lack the combat prowess of Wyverns, they are also more common and join earlier allowing them to do things Wyverns just can’t, they can get early resources if needed and generally will be at least somewhat trained.