It was the Best of Weapons, It was the Worst of Weapons Part 3

So I’m grouping Fire Emblems 7, 8, 9 & 10 together because they all have the same best weapon types and the reasons why are the same. So with that out of the way let’s begin.

Fire Emblems 7 - 10 

Best Weapon Type: Axes


By this point in time Kaga was long gone and it seemed like the new guy in charge must have really liked axes. So why are they now considered to be good? 

1 - 2 Range Weapons Got Gud: Hand Axes are significantly better in these games which means that axe users have the benefits of attacking at distance while also being able to defend themselves at melee range. In the Tellius games you can even create forged Hand Axes that have all the positives of regular hand axes without any of their downsides.

2. Their accuracy issues are no longer a problem, but their higher might still remains: One property that axes retain is that they have higher might on average than their lance or sword counterparts. The big change here is that axes aren’t as inaccurate as they were in the past.

One major reason for this is that enemies in these four games are predominantly lance users so wielding an axe means that you get weapon triangle control over a lot of them. That’s an extra + 10 / + 15 accuracy right there.

Enemies in Fire Emblems 7 - 9 are notorious for being easy to kill. One of the reasons why they’re easy in this case is that they weigh themselves down to the point where hitting them isn’t difficult to do anymore.

3. Axes stopped weighing their wielders down:
In the first four Fire Emblem games the Attack Speed formula was basically “Speed - Weapon Weight”. This basically meant that if you wanted to double attack you needed a high Speed stat and a weapon with low weight. This formula screwed axes over since they would always weigh a lot. Then came Fire Emblem 5 which decided to change that to:

Speed – (weapon Weight – Build, 0 if negative)

This means that weapons can still have higher weight without flushing their wielder’s Attack Speed down the toilet. Then the Tellius games switched “Con” to “Strength” which further reduced the relevance of weapon weight to everyone except for magic users. While this one doesn’t automatically make axes good on its own (FE 5 & 6 say hi) it does play a role in making them more viable weapons. Then you combine reasons # 1 & 2 and suddenly its not so surprising that axes don’t suck anymore. One more thing to note: Axes also have more variety in these games than they did in the previous entries which gives axes users more tools to deal with specific problems.

Worst Weapon Types for FE 7, 8 & 10: Bows
While axes got a huge upgrade bows basically remained the same. Bows have always been restricted to 2 range in Fire Emblem but the difference was that in the past Hand Axes weren’t good weapons. They either had crappy accuracy or their weapon weight mattered more. In these games that’s no longer the case. Hand Axes (and javelins) have the same range as the average bow, but they also have the extra perk of being able to defend their wielders at close range, which is something a bow cannot do. At least bows can still deal effective damage against fliers right? Well that’s not a big deal anymore because all the enemies suck so the extra damage is superfluous. 

Radiant Dawn also adds insult to injury by having a significant portion of the game be the "Rout" objective. The reason why this matters is because "Rout" heavy games tend to benefit powerhouse units who can wipe out huge enemy armies during the Enemy Phase. Since archers can't counterattack 1 range enemies on the Enemy Phase that means that there's a significant portion of the game where they simply cease to exist. 

Worst Weapon Type for Path of Radiance: Knives
While bows contain all the same problems in Path of Radiance as they do in the previous games the big difference here is that knives suck even more. There are three knives in Path of Radiance. Just three. The strongest knife in Path of Radiance has only a measly 8 might, which is on par with a Steel Sword. None of the knives in Path of Radiance have range and for some strange reason you cannot forge them. Why do knives exist in Path of Radiance again?