FE4 Balance is fucked. My mission was to unfuck it. Here are the proposed balance changes, listed by category.

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This was the single most difficult thing to manage during the development of this project. Weapon balance is at it's worst in this game, with it's 
weightless swords and unusably heavy axes... but attempting to disrupt the balance can cause some unintended difficulty spikes. At first, I gave hit
buffs to axes, but that wound up making the bandits pouring out of Genoa near the final castle a nightmare to choke. I found the solution was simply
to reduce the weight without altering anything else, but -6 weight makes a difference in the earlygame. With that out of the way, here are the specifcs:

Standard swords (Iron, Steel, Silver) have been made heavier, at 5 weight (up from 3).
Blades follow suit, with 8 weight rather than 6. They also had a rank alteration, so C-Sword users can use Iron Blades at base.
The rest of the swords have +2 weight, with the exception of the Thief Sword, Slim Sword, Shield Sword, and Barrier Sword.

The Miracle Sword and each status sword got a 10 hit buff for reliability's sake. The former is important for training Lachesis in the arena, 
while the latter tend to be painfully inconsistent, so these changes should help in theory.

In contrast to Swords, Lances were untouched, with the exception of the Horseslayer and Gae Bolg. I reduced the Horseslayer's abysmal weight to 12,
and increased it's might to 12. The Gae Bolg, despite being a holy weapon, somehow has worse hit (70) than the standard iron lance (80). 
I added ten hit, and this will be a recurring theme with the other holy weapons the player can use. Gungnir is still 70.

Axes were a nightmare to balance. How strong do you make a weapon that is used almost exclusively in the first chapters of each generation, and then
never shows up again? The answer was simply to reduce the weight of the weapon type from a uniform 18 to a reasonable 12. The end product is a lance
that trades 10 hit for 2 might. Not too shabby. Oh, and since the Brave Axe's weight was already 12 beforehand, I gave it a further nerf to 10 here.
Handaxes function identically to Javelins in this hack. 60 Hit, 12 might.

[Helswath][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
THIS THING BY ITSELF DESERVES IT'S OWN SECTION. Genealogy contains a list of every item the player can get during the game. There are about 250-ish slots
but you'll never be able to same item an infinite number of times. It isn't just what items you get, but each particular instance OF an item. 
For example, there are two instances of a Wingclipper in the player's items; one in a village in chapter 3, and the other in Hannibal's starting inventory.
You cannot obtain items like the enemy exclusive weaponry without first losing access to something you had in the base game.
I didn't understand the specifics of this item system until I had already reached chapter 10 in playtesting, and encountered the Helswath on numerous
occasions (a result of replacing one of the six iron swords with it). I decided to cut the second wingclipper, as it's a fairly innocuous item, and 
Hannibal's starting inventory doesn't even have it in this hack.

In order to get the Helswath, you must kill the epilogue miniboss, Fisher, with either Johan or Johalvier. Due to holy weapons being impossible to sell,
if someone besides these two defeats the boss, it will be permanently stuck in that character's inventory for the rest of the game.
The obvious solution to ensure you get it on the right character is to seize Edda with Seliph, return him to the base castle, then if they aren't already
in range, warp whichever axe brother you picked to Edda and move north to solo the oncoming army. It's by no means an elegant solution, I'd love to find
a way to make holy weapons for sale, but it works for the time being.
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Bows received very slight changes. Shockingly, the primary three all have the same medicore 70 hit as axes. I gave the silver bow 80 so that doesn't feel
as... infidelic when compared to the Killer Bow. 
Meanwhile, the Yewfelle got some colossal buffs that were almost completely unnecessary! I'd say the game is more fun for them...
30 Power
80 Accuracy (up from 70)
10 Weight (down from 13)
+15 Strength (up from 10)
+15 Speed (up from 10)
Grants Renewal
...but that's completely subjective.

Tomes, whoo boy. I'll just list the new stats of each one here:

Fire - 10 Power, 90 Accuracy, 6 Weight
Elfire - 15 Power, 80 Accuracy, 6 Weight
Bolganone - 20 Power, 70 Accuracy, 6 Weight

Thunder - 8 Power, 90 Accuracy, 4 Weight
Elthunder - 14 Power, 80 Accuracy, 4 Weight
Thorron - 18 Power, 70 Accuracy, 4 Weight

Wind - 7 Power, 100 Accuracy, 2 Weight
Elwind - 13 Power, 90 Accuracy, 2 Weight
Tornado - 16 Power, 80 Accuracy, 2 Weight

super basic and uninteresting balance, but it works.
Nosferatu and Aura have had their abysmal weight reduced to 6 and 7 respectively (originally they were 12 and 20, why?)
Dark tomes are unchanged.

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Big shit first. This'll blow your knick-knacks off.

base infantry have 7 Movement.
base cavalry have 8 movement.
promoted infantry have 8 movement.
promoted cavalry have 9 movement.
Thieves are a special case and get 8/9 like cavalry.
Enemy only classes remain unaltered as to not make certain sections of the game needlessly frustrating.
(Edit: apparently I gave Bishops 7 movement and Julius has 8? shit. wish I changed that before making the final patch.)


I didn't do a very good job keeping track of these changes, so if you see something not mentioned here and ask yourself, "Why?", my answer is that even I
don't know! I'll start by explaining how stats work in Genealogy, they're quite odd:
A character can only gain 15 points in a particular stat. Unless a character's class has a base stat of 15, that stat cannot reach the maximum of 30. 
Due to the fact that bases and caps are fundamentally tied together, altering these in a non game-breaking way proves highly frustrating.

Master Knights have a base 12 in Magic and Resistance, to make their statline more uniform with what a class touted as being the best at everything
should be. This changes shockingly little as your master knights prefer to attack physically, and the only two master knight enemies in the game attack
physically too. I nerfed the base resistance of Brian and Scorpius to make them about the same as the base game.

Mage Knights have a base 8 strength to make using swords more worthwhile. There was actually an instance in chapter 10 where a mage knight on the bridge
leading up to Arvis had one more strength than magic, so he opted to hit me with a slim sword. I've never seen that happen before.

Great Knights have base 12 defense now. 27 defense Lex is now officially possible!

Dragon Masters have base 8 resistance. This was done solely to buff Altena.

Heroes have been stuck in the shadow of Swordmasters for the longest time, and since giving them axes is out of the picture as for right now
(the game freezes if they try to attack with a handaxe), I opted to give them 9 base defense, up from 7.

Generals in this game are an absolute embarassment. They have putrid base stats across the board, and worst yet, they cannot even reach 30 DEF! 
A GENERAL. CANNOT REACH. THE DEFENSE CAP. This was one of the first things I rectified in this hack, giving them the highest base defense in the game, 
at 15. They also gained 1 point of skill, 2 points of resistance, and A-Rank in all 4 physical weapon types, so now they can actually pose a threat.
If you're worried about Boldo and the other agustrian general bosses, don't; I nerfed their levels to make Pavise less likely to proc.


Warriors are similarly japed- they have lower attack caps than a number of physical classes, including Swordmaster and Sniper.
At last, they have 15 strength. Johalvier is officially the only playable character who can reach 30 strength. 
I also gave them +2 defense, cuz why not?

Mage Fighters are one of the most underpowered classes in the game. They needed buffs across the board to be comparable to Sages.
This meant +5 STR, +3 MAG, and +2 SPD. Nothing else to be said.

High Priests have been buffed to base 15 RES, making them the best magic tanks in the game. They also have B light rank. 
(but there aren't any B light tomes...)
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ARDEN. Man, is he terrible. He's so far behind the power curve, it's a wonder he even has 5 MOV in the base game. 
All infantry have had their movement buffed, so those changes won't be brought up unless they're relevant, but Arden benefited from that the most, by far.
Even then, he's still terrible. His damage output is laughable, and he can't hit the broad side of a barn. This called for drastic measures.
First, he gained +3 skill, and his Iron Sword was replaced with an Iron Blade. Then, a bombshell; Vantage was replaced with Wrath. 
With this one change, Arden goes from a liability, to a commodity. He's the only male character who can pass Wrath down to his children, and if knocked
into Wrath range during the Prologue, he can oneshot Barbarians from full health. It's a much better fit for him than Vantage, I have no clue why they
didn't give him it. Here are his growths:

HP 90% Strength 50% Magic 5% Skill 20% Speed 20% Luck 10% Defense 40% Resistance 5%

The utmost minor difference, but if you're feeling statscrewed, keep in mind this is the same growth total (240) as Alec and Noish.

FINN. Remember the weight reduction on axes, and how I said it'd impact the Prologue? Finn gets the absolute worst of it. He can't consistently double
enemies any more, and he's at risk of being three-shot by any of em. I gave him +2 Speed as a consolation prize. I feel so bad for him.

AZEL. +1 defense was given to him as consolation for the prologue becoming much less nice to him. Gained 20% Strength to facilitate sword usage 
upon promotion, though the rest of his growths remain unchanged... sorta. I actually... gave him minor Bragi blood. Hear me out.
In chapter 4, if Aideen is paired with Azel, they can talk and Aideen will receive the Rescue staff, one of the most crucial items in the game for the 
mobility bonus it grants. Due to Aideen's children not having the base staff rank to use Rescue, they won't inherit it, and it won't be avaliable until
the vendor in chapter 10 starts selling it. If Azel has minor Bragi blood however, his children will receive the needed staff rank to use Rescue, and this
issue will be accounted for. So that's the justification. Any instance in which I change someone's holy blood will have said character's growths altered to
match their original values. 
EX: Azel has a 40% magic growth, but 30% of that actually comes from his minor Fjalar blood; giving him minor Bragi would increase his overall growth to 50%,
so to avoid that, I reduce his personal magic growth to 0%. 


CLAUDE. He now has a light tome in his starting inventory.

ETHLYN. She has a 20% magic growth and 10% resistance growth! Yippee!

LACHESIS. She also has a 20% magic growth.

AYRA. Starts with an Iron Sword instead of an Iron Blade. Not much of a change.

ERINYS. We're dwelling into just pure favoritism at this point. 
HP 50% Strength 30% Magic 15% Skill 20% Speed 30% Luck 20% Defense 30% Resistance 15%
Erinyous.gif

TAILTYU. In contention with Arden for the title of "worst gen 1 character". Her base level is just too low for someone joining towards the end of GEN 1.
I buffed it to 10, and gave her stats based on the averages of that level. Also her children's inheritence was swapped; Arthur gets Tailtyu's items, while
Tinni gets whatever her father's items were.

JOHAN/JOHALVIER. Both received major Nal blood so they can use Helswath in endgame (growths were retuned to match their original values obviously). 
They also got a major boon in the Pursuit skill, making them the only axe users capable of doubling at base. Lastly, the former gained +2 Skill, while the
latter gained +2 Speed.

CORPEL/SHARLOW. LEVEL 1?? IN CHAPTER 9!? RIDICULOUS. Their levels were raised to 15, with the base stats to match.

TINNI. Being able to inherit Valkyria or Forsetti is huge for her. Considering Valkyria gets outright wasted since Arthur can never use it, I am in awe that
they didn't do this from the get go, or at least give Arthur a staff rank for it.

HANNIBAL. The game's single worst character. He needed buffs across the board. Firstly, his new base stats, which gear him towards being a magic wall.
60 HP
20 STR
17 SKL
19 SPD
7 LUCK
28 DEF
15 RES

His growths were completely reworked. A unique distinction.
HP 100% Strength 50% Magic 0% Skill 30% Speed 10% Luck 95% Defense 30% Resistance 30%

His skills leave something to be desired too. I decided on giving him Pursuit instead of Adept, and Renewal as a little bonus.

Lastly, I changed his starting inventory to have a Silver Blade and a Handaxe.

ALTENA. She is very hard to improve because she has no unique stats of her own. They're based on her parents averages. The most I could do for her 
resistance problem was improve the base resistance of Dragon Masters, and give her mother a better resistance growth.
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- Handaxe Barbarians in the Prologue have been reduced from Level 10 to Level 5.
- The Thunder Mage outside Lubeck castle is in range to potentially kill Byron on Turn 1, before Sigurd can talk to him. Said mages were severely nerfed.
- The armies pouring out of Ulster in an attempt to capture Leonster were nerfed.
- The Yied mercenaries were reduced to level 10.

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That's it. Thank you for reading.














