Fire Emblem - Tellius and Archanea invulnerability revisions

[Franstel]

A review of two of the various invulnerability existing within Fire Emblem.

Tellius​

Characters from Tellius do not currently have good justifications for their invulnerability but they might still qualify for it so let's take a look into it.
The invulnerable Tellius characters are the three goddesses and those that are blessed by them.

According to Yune, divine beings aren't affected by the attacks of mortals.

Yune: In their natural state, the attacks of mortal creatures have no effect on divine beings.

FE 10: Part IV Rebirth (3)

With that ability being transmitted to other characters by being blessed by a god and only blessed weapons are able to inflict damage to them.

Ike: Why do my attacks have no effect ?
Black Knight: My armor is blessed by the Goddess. Only weapons that are also blessed can so much as scratch it
Ike: Grr... So common weaponry is useless ? Is that it ?

FE 9: chapter 24

It is stated that any attacks on the Black Knight will be simply deflected.

Sharena: I’m told his armor has been blessed with divine protection that deflects all attacks…

Even magic who normally simply go through armor with even the most sturdy defenses being useless against it, doesn't work against the black knight's blessed armor.

It is also directly stated that all damage are nullified if not inflicted by a blessed weapon.

Nullifies all damage inflicted by weapons not blessed by Yune,

Mantle flavor text

Thus the description of the invulnerability of the three goddessess (Yune/Ashera/Ashunera) will be:

• Invulnerability: Divine beings are unaffected by the attacks of mortals with any attack on them simply being nullified and deflected, even magic which normally go right through physical defense like armor without making any difference cannot harm a god.

As for characters with blessed defense, their description will be:

• Invulnerability and Blessed: X's body/armor (depending on the character) was blessed by a goddess obtaining a similar invulnerabiliy to them and divine beings are unaffected by the attacks of mortals with any attack on them simply being nullified and deflected, even magic which normally go right through physical defense like armor without making any difference cannot harm a god.

Blessed weaponry and the goddesses would gain:

• Blessed and Invulnerability Negation: X has been blessed by a goddess/is a goddess allowing it to cut through gods and beings that were blessed by them even though they normally are normally unaffected by attacks from mortal creatures with them simply being nullified and deflected.

Archanea​

Some divine dragons from archanea are currently invulnerable (Duma, Mila and Mila) it come from the fact, that no matter how many time you hit Duma with a fatal attack, Duma's HP will never drop below 1 with the attacks just not inflicting any damage unless you use an anti-god on him like the Falchion.

It's currently listed as limited invulnerability but it shouldn't qualify:

• Nothing tell us that Duma and his brethren are actually invulnerable rather than just hard to kill.
• It would be weird for Duma to be invulnerable only toward attacks that could kill him so it should make more sense to assume that Duma not suffering lethal damage meant to be taken as immortality rather than invulnerability.
• Anti-god weapons bypass Duma's suposed invulnerability.

So Duma, Naga and Mila should just have type 2 immortality rather than limited invulnerability and immortality type 2. Characters who gain invulnerability negation from damaging those three would also lose it.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Agreed that Duma and Mila do not qualify.

And I am mixed on whether Black Knight's armor or the Goddess' qualify. The description of Mantle that "It nullifies enemy attacks" I suppose sounds like substance for invulnerability. But the rest could be interpreted as simply having durability of his armor is so high; nothing can pierce it save from the blessed weapons being the only thing strong enough happens to be Blessed weapons or each other. Not to mention that in PoR, Laguz nobles such as Tibarn, Naesala, and Giffca as well as Nasir and Ena can damage Ashnard. And while this is noncanon for the main story, Nasir is the one who fights to hold off the Black Knight if the player fails to defeat Black Knight within 5 turns. So unless there is a reason to say all Dragon Laguz are blessed, and that Laguz Kings, Queens, and why ever Giffca qualifies are, that causes me to lean towards it just being a raw AP/Durability upscale rather than Invulnerability hax in play.

I did mention in the general discussion that I think everyone I just mentioned should upscale from Priam though. Ragnell is said to be cracked, chipped, and no longer unbreakable due to losing both the blessings of Ashera and Yune. Which Ragnell at it's prime should be significantly more powerful than that; as would Alondite by default, Ashera's armor and those who are on the levels.

Edit: I actually remembered this, and yeah. I actually now am on the offense about this being invulnerability hax, and by extension the ability to nullify it. I think raw AP/Durability upscaling is really the most logical interpretation. The dividing the weapon/armor blessing amongst an entire army is still an amp that basically causes soldiers who were basically trainees, squires, and recruits to suddenly appear so strong, even Skrimir and Sigrun were shocked by how much of a fight they were able to put up. And this all came from blessings that were just extremely miniscule versions of the blessings Ragnell and Black Knight's armor have.

 

[Franstel]

But the rest could be interpreted as simply having durability of his armor is so high; nothing can pierce it save from the blessed weapons being the only thing strong enough happens to be Blessed weapons or each other. Not to mention that in PoR, Laguz nobles such as Tibarn, Naesala, and Giffca as well as Nasir and Ena can damage Ashnard.

While they can damage Ashnard, that fact is never acknowledged both in game and in the story, nor it is explained and doesn't make much sense in general, The laguz nobles being able to damage Ashnard seem to be just a way to not be softlock should your Ike not be strong enough to kill him.

Especially since in the late game of Radiant Dawn, Yune blessed their claws/talons to allow them to beat Deghinsea/Lehran even though they should be by this theory already strong enough to bypass blessed defenses.

And while this is noncanon for the main story, Nasir is the one who fights to hold off the Black Knight if the player fails to defeat Black Knight within 5 turns. So unless there is a reason to say all Dragon Laguz are blessed, and that Laguz Kings, Queens, and why ever Giffca qualifies are, that causes me to lean towards it just being a raw AP/Durability upscale rather than Invulnerability hax in play.

For Nasir, while he did made the BK fall on the ground, it's not told if the attack is just AP, the knight just simply get up and is about to give Nasir the finishing blow before he realise he cannot move then the castle collapse on them. (BTW that part also doesn't make sense since the collapse normally happen after the knight is beaten and his soldiers use it as a last ressort. So it make no sense for them to use it while their boss is still fighting. Plus like you said that outcome is non canon.)
Plus Ike literally tell Nasir that he can't damage the BK and the latter say that Nasir's blows are not enough.

Edit: I actually remembered this, and yeah. I actually now am on the offense about this being invulnerability hax, and by extension the ability to nullify it. I think raw AP/Durability upscaling is really the most logical interpretation. The dividing the weapon/armor blessing amongst an entire army is still an amp that basically causes soldiers who were basically trainees, squires, and recruits to suddenly appear so strong, even Skrimir and Sigrun were shocked by how much of a fight they were able to put up. And this all came from blessings that were just extremely miniscule versions of the blessings Ragnell and Black Knight's armor have.

I don't see why inferior blessing being just amp would mean that far superior ones cannot be invulnerability and its negation.

Plus if we consider a blessing a just AP/Dura amp that would create very weird scaling chains like:

Base BK dura << Blessed BK dura (No point having a defensive blessing if it's weaker than your regular durability) < Ragnell (Can cut through the BK's blessing) ~ Base BK dura (can take just fine blows from Ragnell)

Plus we have several case of characters enduring or clashing with blessed weapons so they can't be far apart from the rest of the cast AP wise.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I don't see why inferior blessing being just amp would mean that far superior ones cannot be invulnerability and its negation.

Plus if we consider a blessing a just AP/Dura amp that would create very weird scaling chains like:

Base BK dura << Blessed BK dura (No point having a defensive blessing if it's weaker than your regular durability) < Ragnell (Can cut through the BK's blessing) ~ Base BK dura (can take just fine blows from Ragnell)

Plus we have several case of characters enduring or clashing with blessed weapons so they can't be far apart from the rest of the cast AP wise.

While I can sort of agree that it could be both, and the other things could just be game mechanics, though Black Knight losing his Armor's blessing didn't depower him because one he himself is still that strong + he still has the Alondite. But I should note Black Knight "holding back" was actually an overseas mistranslation. In the original Japanese version, it was mentioned the teleportation powder merely teleported a fraction of his power. Meaning what Ike actually defeated was simply a weakened Avatar and not the real Zelgius/Black Knight. And we know that even without Alondite, his raw physical strength was at least equal with Tibarn. Given the statement about "Tibarn used all his might and he didn't even budge."

But I still think we need more input.

 

[Armorchompy]

I didn't properly revise Invulnerability (in the sense that the thread stalled) and as such I'm honestly not sure where we'd even stand on a case such as this, where characters are clearly supernaturally protected in a non-durability way but they lack a clear explanation as to how it works. In my proposed system this would be very clear-cut Invulnerability type 1 (as in it would make characters immune to most non-blessed attacks but not ones far higher than showcased tiers - they can't a tier 3 punch), but with how old the current Invul page is and poorly defined the standards are... I don't know. The power is almost universally badly applied so I can't confidently say what a correct application of it would be. Agnaa would probably argue this doesn't quantify due to a lack of a mechanism (aka means by which blessed armor nullifies attacks), and I'd agree in that I think it's too much to claim this lets them tank 3-A attacks or whatever. But it's something for sure.

I don't think I can get that thread to conclude though so I don't wanna stall this as well. I'd suggest either marking this as "limited Invulnerability" or just "[[Damage Reduction|Damage Negation]]" if you want to avoid the baggage of a very poorly defined P&A while still getting across what it does. But it does seem like a real ability to me. Can you link to characters that would have this? I'd like to list it as a Type 1 example on my sandbox, in case that ever gets approved.

(With that said, I wouldn't use FE spells as evidence of being fully dura-piercing, they still get tanked, they just ignore worn armor. Which admittedly is fair to point out with this being partially about a suit of armor, but still)

 

[Franstel]

I didn't properly revise Invulnerability (in the sense that the thread stalled) and as such I'm honestly not sure where we'd even stand on a case such as this, where characters are clearly supernaturally protected in a non-durability way but they lack a clear explanation as to how it works. In my proposed system this would be very clear-cut Invulnerability type 1 (as in it would make characters immune to most non-blessed attacks but not ones far higher than showcased tiers - they can't a tier 3 punch), but with how old the current Invul page is and poorly defined the standards are... I don't know. The power is almost universally badly applied so I can't confidently say what a correct application of it would be. Agnaa would probably argue this doesn't quantify due to a lack of a mechanism (aka means by which blessed armor nullifies attacks), and I'd agree in that I think it's too much to claim this lets them tank 3-A attacks or whatever. But it's something for sure.

I don't think I can get that thread to conclude though so I don't wanna stall this as well. I'd suggest either marking this as "limited Invulnerability" or just "[[Damage Reduction|Damage Negation]]" if you want to avoid the baggage of a very poorly defined P&A while still getting across what it does. But it does seem like a real ability to me. Can you link to characters that would have this? I'd like to list it as a Type 1 example on my sandbox, in case that ever gets approved.

I'll ideally prefer to wait rather than rush things, so I don't mind putting it on pause for now.

The profiles affected are:

• Ashunera (Original goddess of Tellius)
• Ashera (Goddess of Order, first half of Ashunera)
• Yune (Goddess of Chaos, second half of Ashunera)
• Ashnard (Wear a blessed armor)
• The Black Knight (Wear a blessed armor)
• Lehran (His body is blessed by Ashera)

 

[Armorchompy]

I'll ideally prefer to wait rather than rush things, so I don't mind putting it on pause for now.

I get it but there's decent odds of it just never going through, so I wouldn't wait for that. Do what you want to though.

 

[Armorchompy]

Oh yeah, I should ask. @DarkDragonMedeus since I believe you've read my proposal for the Invulnerability changes, do you agree these people might qualify for Type 1? Because I'd like to list them as examples for the draft, but of course I wanna make sure they'd actually be granted that ability if it goes through.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Oh yeah, I should ask. @DarkDragonMedeus since I believe you've read my proposal for the Invulnerability changes, do you agree these people might qualify for Type 1? Because I'd like to list them as examples for the draft, but of course I wanna make sure they'd actually be granted that ability if it goes through.

First, I think it is worth mentioning I had only just got back from the announcement here, but based on what was mentioned in the Invulnerability thread, sure. But I am worried those plans aren't going through based on how that thread in question is going.

 

[Armorchompy]

First, I think it is worth mentioning I had only just got back from the announcement here, but based on what was mentioned in the Invulnerability thread, sure. But I am worried those plans aren't going through based on how that thread in question is going.

Gotcha. And, I mean, there's presently six agreements and only one disagreement with the page revision itself (seven counting myself). That's good grounds to apply. The name change is what's probably rejected.