Azama: Fire Emblem's Best Bad Unit



Azama will always be pretty good no matter what you choose to do with him thanks to his incredible stats, but that doesn’t mean …

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40 thoughts on “Azama: Fire Emblem's Best Bad Unit”

  1. Azama's an interesting character, as he's essentially Birthright's analogue to CQ Mozu, proving that High Investment doesn't automatically mean Bad. However, investment options in BR are extremely limited, making him a pain to train no matter what you do with him. If you don't want to spend a heart seal on him, it takes at minimum 5 chapters for him to get access to a different class-line, leaving you stuck with using him as a 3rd healer until you want to promote him.
    If you want to reclass him, you have him in a yumi-locked class for ch8-9, losing his desert-walking in ch8, & he's stuck with weak res and at WTD against the swarms of mages in ch9. While he's an arguably better bow unit than Takumi later on, Takumi doesn't require a heart seal to have, and isn't doubled by the ch10 ninjas (L11 averages)(admittedly very easy to fix)
    Early promotion solves most of his problems, but even then, that only puts him on par with your good physical units in early/mid game (L1 GM promoted @L10 Azama is about equal to a L14 Oboro w/ Nohr Enmity active). Early promo also kills off his lategame, leaving him to compete with the incredible midgame pre-promotes Birthright throws at you

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  2. I’ve never liked Azama as a character, but I must admit he’s a lot of fun as a unit and Mitama is great. I’m generally in favor of reclassing as a mechanic and he’s an excellent example of a unit that makes it fun and feels unique because, not in spite of reclassing.

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  3. Not having watched the video yet, i have to say. I have used azama quite a few times and never have i been dissapointed, i have experimented with many classes for him and while he isn't always a main carry unit, he is always really good!

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  4. So I've been watching these for a while and just kind of wonder if I've been playing Fates wrong this entire time

    Is the Fates meta like rewarding preplanning (perhaps even to a higher degree than 3H due to the lower reclassing flexibility) and using every Seal you get access to to stack as many skills onto your team with the intent for the "final" skill pickup be in their forever class to be efficient about it?

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  5. Rev Azama is even more tragic than BR Azama. If he joined at a reasonable time then he could realistically be top 15 units in the game because of how awful the early heart seal options are but bro is just lacking

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  6. I know you don't count these classes but I like putting Azama in Dark Falcon with a magic pair up like Orochi because then he does great magic damage and fixes Orochi's speed when she needs to fight making them a pretty good pair, plus Mitama ends up amazing with Orochi as a mother.

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  7. I like using the first Heart Seal on him to make the Kagero/Azama +6 Str Mitama pair easier to build support; he farms that Flier map better than most other units and likes Kagero's pairups a lot. I've had him turn out great and poorly but at minimum any Birthright player should try giving him the first Heart Seal in at least one playthrough to see how it pans out.

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  8. I started talking about this with another comment, but I think that Azama is the Birthright unit that makes the best case for marrying Corrin for access to the Nohr exclusive classes, particularly Fighter, Wyvern, and Cav. To start, Azama marries F!Corrin, so you still get Jakob in the early game instead of Felicia, which is a huge boon over marrying M!Corrin to a female unit. Next, the Nohrian classes further enhance Azama's natural bulk, a rarity in the Hoshidan classes. Now I want to highlight the 3 class lists that I think Azama would excel in the most. First is Cavalier: to be honest, almost every unit would like access to Cavalier, and Azama is no different; Elbow Room and Shelter are great skills, Cav has decent growths across the board except for magic, and it has access to lances as an unpromoted class, so Azama would still get decent experience from the Sword Cavs and Wolfskin if he manages to get C lances. Next is Wyvern: I'll also keep this one short: Lunge is a great movement skill that almost no one in Birthright has access too (off the top of my head I think its exactly Scarlet, Corrin, and Corrin's spouse), Wyvern's unique promotion branch offers both Rally Defense and Savage Blow depending which role you want Azama to play; a defensive rally bot to help the bulk problem prevalent in Birthright or to low the HP of groups of bulky enemies to ensure the KO. Personally I think the rally bot option is the better option because Birthright isn't as player phase focused as Conquest. And last is my personal pick for Azama's best class, Fighter. The skills from Fighter itself aren't the greatest, HP +5 is nice to have but doesn't really matter that much, and Gamble can often hurt as much as it helps. What Fighter really brings to Azama are it's promotions, Hero and Berserker. Hero is a great class all around, excellent growths, and Sol, and because this is Birthright, Hero'll have access to the kodatchi, a great 1-2 range option that leverages his higher strength stat, as opposed to Great Master which fights for the 1 javelin or the Bolt Naginata that uses his lower magic stat. But Berserker is my pick for Azama's best overall class. Berserker's growths really enhance Azama's strength, speed, and HP (his best stats). Best the reason I choose Berserker over all other classes is for its skills: Rally Strength and Axefaire. Like other faire skills, a flat +5 damage is great no matter who the unit is, but because of Azama's potential for a high speed stat, he potentially turns that +5 to a +10. But in truth the real reason I value Berserker!Azama so highly is because of Rally Strength. Rally Strength is a phenomenal skill that'll help all your physical units reach KO benchmarks on certain enemies they may not have reached before. And if you really want to be crazy and don't mind the extra investment, you could also get his A+ support with Subaki for access to Rally Speed, turning him into one of the better rally bots you'll have access to in Birthright. But unlike other rally bot contenders like Shigure, Azama would actually have the bulk to survive if placed on the frontline, meaning he could rally on player phase and still act as an enemy phase tank with access to a decent 1-2 range weapon (Throwing Club). I know that marrying Corrin can make any unit worth using, but I think Azama makes the best case for marrying Corrin to access the otherwise unavailable Nohrian classes.

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  9. Staff users are actually really easy to grind. Go to Mokushu with the staff user holding a bunch of bloom festals and a strong unit. Go to the bottom where there's a choke point and spikes and put the strong unit on spikes. Unequip the strong unit's weapon and let them sit there taking spike damage every turn and the staff user can heal spam to level 20 with ease!

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  10. My favorite way to run Azama is 15/5 Great Master -> Mechanist/Butler/Falcon Knight

    Mechanist being the best of the 3 combat wise, Falcon being the best support, and Butler being a really good mixture of the two

    Im a huge fan of Butler Azama as a carry. Renewal + Live to Serve lets him stay topped off almost always while also healing another carry with festals

    Its not too hard to get 15/5, its a bit costly using sun festals every turn, but generally BR gives you enough where you never need to buy them even when having Azama chew through them

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  11. You don’t really need a full level 20 promo on azama for his late game stats to be good as a mechanist. 15 is usually where I promote him after instantly handing him a heart seal and brass Yumi the moment he is recruited. Also if you really want to train him as long as he gains one strength ( he’s gonna gain one strength with that growth let’s be honest if he levels ) with a subaki pair up he can one round the stationary armor knights in the following map. Subaki defensive pair up usually leaves them in a situation where one of them can one round any enemy on that map if you’ve been using subaki. It’s a good map for him to start working on training him

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  12. i like having azama's bulk on my teams plus i like promoting sakura to mage classess as soon as possible so she can start murdering so i often use azama as my main healer it's pretty fun having a bulky healer

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  13. I'm curious how he compares to other units if we allow to break the no online/dlc/path bonus rule, because you basically get 2 dread scrolls just for having all routes and he gets to switch to a decently bulky, high str physical class with shuriken and also get promo boni immediately, which just makes him insane immediately. You can also dip into Mechanist easily since you get to keep shuriken rank and pick up quick salve. He also gets a ton of PP damage if you want to use him for boss kills from spendthrift and aggressor. Literally all the problems immediately disappear and he just becomes amazing with minimal investment.

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  14. I really like Azama's personality (nihilistic monk). Unfortunately all of the class routes involve some sort of compromise. He's definitely a character to use a Dread Scroll on, if you're willing to dip into class bonuses. I know it's taboo to say, but Azama really loves it, and he's in an otherwise unfortunate situation.

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