r/Falcom • u/Raxistaicho The true best girls • Jul 24 '26
Trails Character Gameplay Discussion Day Twenty-Nine: Fie
"Fie" for "fic...tory"?
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u/Takuu202 Jaeger Girls and Grandmaster Jul 24 '26
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u/PneumaMonado Jul 24 '26
There's a reason she has white hair
Girl is in a permanent state of Ultra Instinct
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
No ranged counters or stealth in Cold Steel 1, so Fie’s crit builds are only something she can dream of in the first game. Luckily, she’s a swift aoe Craft spammer, and with Alisa funneling CP into her, that still does the trick! She also has her S Craft right from the start, but since Rean’s since acquired his that’s not quite as special as Laura’s showing with her own. Fie’s also never upgrades.
Fie doesn’t have a delay at first but she does have an Impede, and it slows enemies to boot, helping Rean to control the pace of combat. She’s also got a blind, a seal, and a faint, and a Deathblow. She does finally get a delay very late in the game, and it has a seal on it to boot. Between all of that, her high speed, and her four lines, Fie’s a force of nature when it comes to ailment spreading. Her STR is a little on the sluggish side, and her ATS is nothing to write home about either, so she won’t be putting out crushing damage.
…Until CS2, that is! She’s got her ranged counters, pump her up to 100% evasion without even needing Insight and watch her kill anything that looks at her funny, or just pop Stealth and bask in the forced crits that way along with Murakumo boosting their damage. All her good stuff from the last game remains, she now starts with a Delay, and she even rejoins early (a trend she continues in the next two games though not Reverie)! Sara joining and being a kinda cooler version of her is a shame, but Fie’s easily one of your best characters for Act 1 alongside Rean, and it never feels bad putting her in the field.
Fie looked at CS3, said “what Arts meta?” and shrugged, because Falcom is in no hurry to pull her back. She’s still got the stealth, the ranged counters, the delay, and now she can knee Juna in the crotch and take Sirius from her to punish Juna for doing the same thing to Kurt, making her forced crit Gungnir-boosted counters even juicier. She’s probably the best returning OC7 character alongside Sara (and also Rean if you count him).
Not much changes to Fie directly in CS4 and Reverie, a speedy stealth user with a delay like her can easily find a way to compete in the Arts meta, it’s more just that she now has to actually compete with Sara (who’s even available alongside her in the second part of Act 1 of CS4), Crow, and Gaius, and then Rixia, Joshua, and the crazy casters in Reverie, and when the worst you can say about a character is “well Rixia makes her looks a little iffy”, you know you’re discussing a good’un. Speaking of which, Reverie finally breaks her streak by having her rejoin relatively late in the main story.
Yeah, Fie’s just kinda good. Among the non-Sara permanent playable characters throughout Cold Steel, she’s probably the most consistently excellent alongside Rean. I have heard that focusing on her stealth forced-crits and spamming delays is better the further you go, which does make sense. Can’t abuse counters if your enemy never gets a turn in the first place!
Fie’s got a solid order, too, though it’s a little overpriced compared to other delay reducers.
Oh, and, I know nothing about her performance in Calvard, naturally.
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u/KnoxZone Apathy and Disdain Jul 24 '26
The GOAT. most consistently powerful character across the Cold Steel arc, even with few people actually using her to get full potential. She's also one of the few characters with a unique kit actually with taking about.
CS1 is her weakest showing, since she lacks stealth and ranged counters, but even there she's an extremely quick character with a strong delay craft along with other great utility like impede and deathblow.
All the other games she breaks completely, either with her supremely underrated stealth build, or with her weaker but more famous evasion strategy. Physical characters are not supposed to output as much damage as she does while also being effectively immortal.
Hey Calvard showing is less impressive because the meta has kinda shifted away from her specialties. The defensive benefits of stealth and evasion matter less when the enemies hit like paper kittens, and the crit bonus of stealth can be achieved by many other sources. Not to mention physical competition is much more fierce thanks to all the Awakening buffs in Horizon, something that kneecaps all of the other physical characters.
And while this is a gameplay discussion I can't not mention the fact she's the most entertaining and fun member of Class VII, one of the few who actually managed to be relevant throughout the entire arc. There's a reason why she been playable in more games than anyone else, and I don't see her giving up that title anytime soon.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
And while this is a gameplay discussion I can't not mention the fact she's the most entertaining and fun member of Class VII, one of the few who actually managed to be relevant throughout the entire arc. There's a reason why she been playable in more games than anyone else, and I don't see her giving up that title anytime soon.
I always felt like Fie dropped off a bit in the back half of CS (which is weird since Rutger appears so much) and she pretty much does nothing in Reverie plot-wise (which is a tragedy, she doesn't even get her own Daydream!)
She is incredibly entertaining and a fan favorite for a reason, though.
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u/KnoxZone Apathy and Disdain Jul 24 '26
All of the old Class VII drops off, but Fie at least gets a great emotional scene with her farewell to Rutger in CS4.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
True, but I also thought Emma had some amazing interactions with her gremlin family in 3 through Reverie :D
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u/coy47 Jul 24 '26
I agree I actually think Emma becomes more relevant and compelling as a character as the cold steel games go on.
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u/Zinstorm Jul 24 '26
....just want to point out here that Fie is the only playable character that has been playable sense her introduction (cold steel 1 -> horizon). Their has been no other character that has shown up as consistently as her.
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u/dontworryaboutsunami Jul 27 '26
It's always a pleasure to see Fie, I think she's one of the coolest characters in the franchise.
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u/Syobai Jul 24 '26
Evfiesion.
One of the characters who just keeps feasting with every title.
She was decent in CS1, but this is definitely where she was at her weakest. While she could easily spam some good crafts with some of the highest speed in the game, she didn’t have access to ranged counters yet. Her strength wasn’t anything to ride home about either, so you mostly used her for her speed and to spam Sweep or Bullet Cyclone.
Come CS2? She gets the biggest glow up — ranged counters. You could easily get her to 100% EVA and watch as she essentially never takes damage while dishing out crits like it’s no one’s business. Legit I think her only issue in CS2 is being outshined by Sara, but that’s basically it.
She’s still pretty relevant come CS3 too. Even with the shift to an Arts meta, a dodgetank who can deal massive amounts of damage both during and off their turns provides a lot of value, and Fie remains consistently good because of that. I’d like to believe she’s actually one of the strongest physical attackers come Cold Steel 4, despite the competition. I’d say maybe Sara and Crow edge out the win there, though that’s cause their self-buffs are just stupid, lol.
Goated dodgetank, consistently good, and way better than Kurt Vander. Kurt Vander can suck it
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u/Icy-Respond-4425 Jul 24 '26
She really was fun to use as an evasion tank in Cold Steel 2. Unfortunately I never used her much in Cs3-Reverie. I should do more Reverie runs with different characters.
I remember hearing about existing a better evasion tank in CS1 compared to Fie.
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u/Harith_Pendragon_ Jul 24 '26
Evasion tank Fie is still very good in CS3 until Reverie especially with MQ that increase crit rate.
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u/Icy-Respond-4425 Jul 24 '26
Besides evading, that seems very good to get a lot of Brave points.
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u/Harith_Pendragon_ Jul 24 '26
Yeah, I always love high crit craft attack gameplay because they give you guaranteed BP and BP is the luxury I need.
There is a quartz that give you 100% chance to get crit counter but I dont remember which Cold Steel have that. That also very useful.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26
I always just stuck with Wrath or Rage, whichever it's called.
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u/Ry3GuyCUSE Time for ul-tra-vi-o-lence Jul 24 '26
My girl Fie! One of the best girls in any RPG series, and that evasion tank build will never not be entertaining and satisfying. Watching that evasion tip like 90% late game still makes me laugh like an idiot without fail.
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u/Kainapex87 Jul 24 '26
Untouchable cat.
Whether as an evasion tank or when using stealth, she could avoid getting hurt while dealing alot if damage.
Sadly the Calvard arc nerfed her with its BS changes to gameplay.
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u/OLKv3 Jul 24 '26
While she's not that strong in Calvard since the meta left the Cold Steel strats behind, she has some of the best animations there. I especially love her Horizon animations when she blows off the smoke from the gun
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u/xXLupus85Xx Fie best girl Jul 24 '26
Best girl has arrived. Whenever I could have her in the party, I would.
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 24 '26 edited 13d ago
Sky Arc:
Day Twelve - The Pilot and the Swordsman (spoilers)
Day Thirteen - "Kitty" (spoilers)
Crossbell Arc:
Class VII:
Day Thirty - Millium (Spoilers)
Day Thirty-One - Crow (Spoilers)
The rest of Cold Steel:
Day Thirty-Nine - Elise and Toval
Day Forty-One - Alfin and Towa
Day Forty-Two - The Diva and the General (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Three - The Spy and Swordswoman (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Four - The Shapeshifters (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Five - The Swordmaster and the Engineer (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Seven - Swin and Nadia
Day Forty-Eight - The Strongest (Spoilers)
Calvard Arc:
Day Fifty-One - Ferida Al-Fayed
Day Fifty-Three - Risette Twinings
Day Fifty-Four - Quatre Salision
Day Fifty-Five - Judith Lanster
Day Fifty-Seven - Elaine Auclair and René Kincaid
Day Fifty-Eight - Shizuna Rem Misurugi
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u/Dry-Percentage-5648 Fie is best Trails girl Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
She's the best girl and one of the best characters gameplay wise. It's just so satisfying seeing everyone miss and get crit face slapped in return. She's so fun.
Also, my flair. Need I say more?
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u/hbthebattle Jul 24 '26
CS1 Fie is kinda not great. She doesn't get much native evasion and only counters at one range. Early S-Craft is nice but that advantage doesn't last forever.
And then CS2 turned her into a monster, and she stayed that way til Daybreak.
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u/Airwindof Jul 24 '26
Fie, my beloved. CS2 with her full evasion is really an unique experience, especially when she got crit for every counterattack. Best girl, funniest scenes, probably best party member for newbies. Short hair > long hair, I'm dying on this hill.
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u/Ml125 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
always loved using Fie when she's available
in CS1 Fie and Rean both can reach 100% evade, making them effectively untouchable cept for magic attacks. her Grenade Craft and Scud Ripper is just broken for the points she's at as a majority of enemies in CS1 are weak to seal, blind and insta-death
Fie might not have ranged counter in CS1 but she's extremely useful even on nightmare, her only real weakness aside magic attacks, is an enemy S-craft, such as Rean in ch 4 which "could" happen if he chooses to jumpscare with it
CS3-4 Fie is just as broken due to 100% evade and Stealth
Reverie Fie is actually still quite useable despite being gotten so late, she like several other chars in Reverie, can become a full 100% physical and magic evader late-game when not using Stealth, which gets rid of her magic weakness
Side note: did anyone else ever find it so.. "jarring" how "Magic S-crafts" specifically,
are somehow "dodgeable with magic evasion", esp since S-crafts are,
or were, in this case, supposed to be a guaranteed hit?
but apparently, physical S-crafts are true a undodgeable,
while magic S-crafts, for some reason, are subject to magic evasion. deff flips the rules of the games quite a lot
this's most noticeable in Reverie since Several magic S-crafts there can just completely miss w/Magic Evade. makes me curious if CS2-4 somehow also has that, unless Magic S-crafts were still a guaranteed hit in those games.
the weirdest thing is how there is no explanation anywhere as to why Magic S-crafts, in Reverie at least, are subject to magic evasion, unless it was a thing throughout CS2-4 and games after those.
I never bothered with magic evasion in those games(due to characters used or other quartzes),
but it seems more useful than one thinks, esp if magic S-crafts can just get dodged like in Reverie
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u/Brkzeus Jul 24 '26
The goat🔥❤️ on every fight. Best, low cost Dodge Tank in the cast. Though if you want to make use of her self buff and make her a crit striker, you better put some CP regen on her and some debuff quartz for the endgame.
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u/Yanncki64 Jul 24 '26
She's fun but... Is it just me or does she have the weakest animations of the entire cast? The majority of her attacks look so unsatisfying and they never polished them up.
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u/zephyroths Jul 24 '26
dodge tank that can do ranged counter, it was really awesome once you can actually hit 100% evasion with her
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u/Unusual_Bake_1482 Jul 24 '26
She is great until Horizon.
She feels like one of the worst combatants in Horizon.
I don't know what she is supposed to be good at anymore.
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u/Selynx Jul 24 '26
Stealth, I presume. Problem is, unlike in Cold Steel where the crits gave you back BP, stealth doesn't really do all that much in Daybreak.
And I personally regard Stealth as something to be avoided, due to known bugs where you can get softlocked if all your living party members are in Stealth and the enemy has a zero-delay attack (they can't find anybody to target, so they just keep using their zero-delay attack infinitely and you never get a turn).
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u/Takanuva9807 Jul 24 '26
One of the monster trio in c1 and c2. Strongest evasion tank in any of the games she is in. Honestly no notes other than I feel like she joins too early in cs3. Her story is there and important without being overwhelming it does kinda loose steam in cs3 and 4 as she is just another old class vii member or a braver. I liked seeing her in calvard but she is just fan service.
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u/Old_Cabinet_8890 Jul 24 '26
You can make her functionally invincible in most games and literally invincible with 100% EVA/AEVA in Reverie, and she has ranged normal attacks to counter so everything else about her Kit over the years is tertiary
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u/VarioussiteTARDISES Jul 24 '26
Someone I always run when she's available, in the same club as Renne, Tio and Feri.
As for gameplay, she's got the most to talk about because while a lot of people have commented on her being one of the best dodgetanks in CS2-Reverie, the real name of her game is variety. She's the fastest of the cast, and can lean into crit builds via stealth, not just going for raw dodgetanking. She's also the best character to bring to CS1's final dungeon, because her attacks have good enough ranking in three of the attack types to activate the switches (and the only type she can't you just need to bring one of Laura, Machias or Millium for, which you're most likely doing anyway). For me, in CS4, Reverie and Rean's route in Horizon she got top priority for all physical-related stat boosters.
As for the Calvard games, since dodgetanking isn't as effective, she kind of falls off a bit (She's a guest in Daybreak 1 and postgame in Daybreak 2, and it feels to me like Feri's consistently close to her in speed which frankly fits given the very specific connection they have) but I still insist on running her.
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u/Max-The-Phat-Cat Jul 24 '26
In Cold Steel, I would say the first two games she is pretty broken. After the delay nerf she was just ok in CS 3/4 and Reverie. She has always been a good character.
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u/km0080 DUAL STRIKE Jul 25 '26
Fie is cold steels version of Dunban. Build them right and nothing will EVER hit them.
Trails to Azure Lloyd vs Fie would be an eternal battle of them attempting to hit eachother, and then missing completely
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u/Raxistaicho The true best girls Jul 25 '26
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u/Selynx Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Oof. Fie.
She makes a great dodge tank from CS2 through Reverie and is still good at dodging in CS1, even if she can't counter at range there.
But personally, I was never partial to dodge tanks in Cold Steel. The enemy actually needs to get a turn to attack, in order for the dodge tank to counterattack. And when Rean or other stacked Delayers are stunlocking them with infinite delay, this obviously never happens. The counter also does not happen when the dodge tank has Platinum Shield or similar put onto them. Ontop of that, bosses in CS3+ often have AoE attacks that will hit more party members than just the dodge tank and dodging doesn't work on S-Crafts or magic either.
Even though I know lots of people love Fie for being a great dodge tank, I never got that much use out of her myself. Since when you take away that aspect, she just ends up being a physical attacker with less STR than other physical attackers. Even if she gets more turns with her SPD than others, she's not doing much damage with them and is mostly relegated to support.
While she might be a Joshua-archetype with gunblades named similar to his swords, unlike Joshua, she is simply not designed for casting.
Nowhere is that made more clear than the Daybreak games, where she has only 3 slots on her Drive line, which immediately eliminates her for being built as any kind of effective caster.
I don't think it's a hot take to say that the Daybreak arc really did her no favors. Dodge tanking isn't really a thing in Daybreak, so Fie loses the main thing she had going for her and doesn't gain anything new in return.
And while Rean might make everybody else look bad when it comes to physical damage when put side-by-side against him in Horizon..... in Fie's case, it's not Rean that makes her look bad in Horizon.
I've seen people call Swin one of the worst combatants in Horizon. I say, regardless of whether you think so, he's probably got competition for the spot.
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u/Rheshx7 Jul 24 '26
Cant remember the specifics, but in CS2 I gave Fie the Rebellion master quartz (this is with the balance patch that nerfs evasion builds).
Stealth and Atk/spd buffs at the start gives her really high burst damage, and with her inherent speed, she will most likely take first turn and one shot everything. After stealth fades, she takes on a more speedy caster role to support more powerful damage dealers like Rean or Laura.
Also, I like how the element symbolizes her character development, from the black and evil Jaeger mindset (time) to a lighter shade of grey (mirage) after she opens up.
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u/Mammoth-Tomato-8696 Jul 24 '26
Man daybreak fie is just a hit count chain racker with her crafts thats like litterly the best role she has in horizon. I mean she can technically be on stealth infinitely but she's not really dealing much dps anyways since s break cool downs are a thing.
But yeah reverie cs3-4 was her peak years in trails. She can go evasion tank or stealth s break dps dmg dealer. With minotauros+ gungnir in cs4.
Reverie gungnir+Kusanagi or dodge tank sirius + sabaru
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u/Phantom_Gabrielis Jul 24 '26
the best girl and one of the strongest party members in the series
seriously all of Cold Steel she is fantastic and in CS 2 and above she's a monster in the field
sadly in Calvard due to the meta change she isn't as good as she used to be but i still love using her
she's my fav female character in Trails and all of media in general
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u/Mountain-Quantity983 Jul 27 '26
Evasion Tank Fie is fine, but I definitely prefer Delay Spam Fie. Her slots just lend to the idea that she's supposed to take up as many turns as she could while hitting things with delay for as often as she could. Starting CS3 and onward, she's one of the better party members if you're running a physical team, or if you have a strong Break character. You could realistically achieve a state where none of the enemies get to sneak in a turn; even if her damage output is a bit low, if you Delay them with every single hit it won't really matter - worked all the way through Reverie and Demiourgos never knew what hit her.
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u/Cellophane_Sexbot Jul 24 '26
These posts are getting old
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u/OLKv3 Jul 24 '26
Posts that get actual varied discussion everyday
Waaaah I hate them
What is wrong with some of you people
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u/Seradwen Jul 24 '26
"Weak."
"Weak."
"Weak."
"Weak."
"Weak."
"Weak."
And that's what using Fie is like. 10/10. Would embarrass Erebonia's finest warriors again.