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Going around the long way is supposed to be laborious. It's offered as a crutch and the price for taking the easy route is tedium. Better to cut over the bridge with Marth. Chapter can be cleared in under fifteen turns.

Mystery Ch.3 isn't so bad. Lots of players make the mistake of baiting Matthis south which makes things harder, when he should be baited north by Palla. If you're willing to forego the silver axe it's beatable in a reasonable number of turns.

I'd say Lowen still has a case, albeit a weaker one. Hard Mode earlygame is tough and he's one of four earlygame units with competent defenses. His experience competition is low, high movement and kills more easily than most available options (admittedly Marcus will be eating into a lot of potential exp). He'll be a higher level than Sain/Kent and ready to use the Whereabouts Unknown crest, which is nice since 17x-20 is a stretch where tanking is really helpful. It's closer, but Lowen contributes during a more difficult section of the game with less competition. By the time Sain/Kent start rolling on offense players get flooded with strong prepromotes. With no Lyn Mode I'll take Lowen on all difficulties.

He's not bad. He's a mount. If you aren't prepping a Lynadin, Lowen has a case for best cavalier in the game. Superior availability, sturdy, and his offense doesn't fall too far behind until post-promotion. Blazing Sword enemies are pitiful (especially on normal modes) so he'll kill things fine. If you are playing Lyn's Mode, Lowen is worse but still worth using.

I confess I didn't know this. I assumed support growth occurred at the end of every enemy phase. That last bit makes sense though, considering defense maps add a turn, indicating there's a hidden player phase going on. How would you all recommend I factor this into the data? Some maps have several adjacent deployment tiles, some have a few, some have none. edit: For now I'll leave a note in the opening post. I'll look over the deployment tiles later and figure out when, if ever, adjacent support points are worth considering over strategic benefits.

Chapter 12 There isn't much to say about these earlygame maps considering their low enemy density and difficulty, but a few things to note here. First, I picked up some extra vulneraries. Because my healers will be seeing little use until endgame, I need some way to heal, even with ENM's weak enemy units. I will likely pick up more once I recruit Merlinus. Also purchased an extra iron sword and iron axe. Second, combat continues to be the most difficult rank to five-star. I fed Marcus some kills to bump up my W/B percentage to 44%. I've never had to focus on combat in a ranked run before, so this is a refreshing change. Third, I took ruadath's advice and burned some rapier (and wolf beil) uses. While I suspect there will be better hammerne options, such as the spear or brave weapons, I have funds to spare so I'm keeping my options open. Rather than use an emulation program, I'm going to tabulate my totals by hand. I enjoy pen-and-paper strategy gameplay, even if it's a little tedious.

Per-use cost of weapons/items

If this is true, I'm happy to adjust the data. Won't take long.

ruadath is focusing on LHM+HHM (check out his playthrough topic here, which also goes over the goals of this challenge), so I'll be attempting individual campaigns. First run will be through Eliwood Normal Mode. There's not much to Ch.11. The most difficult rank was combat, funny enough, which I wasn't paying attention to and almost failed. I am posting this first update to get some feedback and ask some questions: What do people think of the format? Does the 10,000G count towards starting funds, or towards acquired funds? How would others recommend I keep track of weapon uses? These matter for per-chapter funds totals. Right now I'm taking note every time I use a weapon, which is cumbersome. Chapter 11

So long as you're willing to invest in an SP headphone jack, playing GBA titles on their original hardware is preferable. You get the convenience of portability, the games look better with native resolution, and it's easier to multitask. Small screen size isn't detrimental since the games are designed with it in mind. Emulation's speedup and save-state functions are useful for some runs, but otherwise I think going original is the definitive way to play.

This is true, and this is where things become hazy. Ranked runs are flexible and accommodate multiple playstyles. Your hypothetical numbers of 80% deployment / 50% adjacency could be 50% / 100% or 75% / 75%. Calculating how many turns remain in excess of a support's requirements provides a general sense of how much attention needs to go into building that pairing. These numbers are then evaluated differently depending on preference. A player who concentrates on building supports quickly might agree with the more liberal standard, whereas a player who concentrates on optimal movement might agree with the more conservative standard. My aim with this analysis was to demonstrate how Blazing Sword's support system allows for many pairing possibilities in ranked play. A majority of support options are feasible with 100+ turns to spare. Whether various pairings are worth investment can be debated.

And this is a reasonable conversation to have. I expect the matter goes both ways: some "viable" supports will prove impractical in many playthroughs, while some "non-viable" supports can be made to work. I reject the charge of pendantry though! I gave two definitions of viable (one I prefer and one that's more conservative) to avoid this.

Rebecca has a surprisingly good support list despite being such a poor unit. All fire/wind supports (Lowen, Dart, Wil, Sain, and I suppose Nino) grant her full attack / hit / crit bonuses, and most of her partners are recruited early into the campaign. No +1 supports either. Character-wise I'd give the nod to Lowen. Learning more about Rebecca's past is nice, but Rebecca/Lowen is genuinely entertaining.

As mentioned in my closing section, the GBA system's modest support bonuses are an issue. Because supports typically require significant investment, the bonuses should be appropriately rewarding. They are not and this is a flaw. This argument is distinct from the claim that few Blazing Sword supports are viable. I'm unsure if Sain/Rebecca would be worth building up. Could be. Rebecca needs all the help she can get and her C- and B-supports with Sain have reasonable requirements. Because ranked play does not reward movement as much as LTC play, Mov disparity is less of a problem, and rescue/drop support positioning is always an option. I've tried to steer clear of these subjective evaluations and focus on the numbers.

The aim of this thread is to figure out which support lines in Blazing Sword are feasible during ranked play. I am of the opinion that the GBA support system complements ranked play, as it creates an interesting choice between optimal positioning and support positioning in a mode where turns are valuable assets. If only a small number of supports are feasible in ranked play, however, then this theoretical strength is practically worthless. Step one is data collection. Assumptions: Eliwood Hard Mode Linus' version of Four Fanged Offense Kenneth's version of Pale Flower of Darkness all gaiden chapters visited player hits the exact five-star turn requirements for every chapter That final assumption can create misleading results, since turns can be stockpiled and late recruits can "catch up" on growing supports. Because of how complicated this would make things for such little reward, I am going to pretend that players follow ranking tables to the letter. Turn total is 346. Adjustments have been made for Wallace (-11 turns), Karla and Farina (-18 turns), and Ninian (-51 turns). I have not adjusted for final turns (where support points are not gained) nor first turns (where adjacent deployments gain support points). The spoiler tag below contains raw data formatted in the following way: [Character] ([turns available to support partner 1], [turns available to support partner 2]) [partner 1] ([turns required to reach C], [turns required to reach B], [turns required to reach A if applicable]) I've done a few things to save myself some time. First, support lines are not double-counted. Second, I did not factor in mid-chapter deployments. So while Eliwood is listed as having 338 turns to support with Hector, in reality he has 335. ----- Step two is organizing support options. Below I have classified options based on the number of turns left over after subtracting what is required to achieve the support. For example, if Eliwood and Fiora need 100 turns to reach an A-support and have 200 total turns to work with, they will be listed in the section titled "100-149." I have also distinguished C/B/A supports (C supports are italicized and A supports are bolded for visibility), and if no letter follows a support option, it is because all three supports are included within that bracket. So Eliwood/Hector refers to Eliwood/Hector C, Eliwood/Hector B, and Eliwood/Hector A. 200+ 150-199 100-149 50-99 0-49 n/a ----- Step three is defining our terms. impossible: a support cannot be obtained within the confines of ranked play feasible: a support can be obtained while focusing intently on building that support option viable: a support can be obtained with some focus on building that support option and with moderate room to spare trivial: a support can be obtained with minimal focus on building that support option and with copious room to spare Viable and trivial supports are the ones most relevant to ranked play. These definitions are fuzzy and the lines between them are debatable, but it's a starting point. Impossible supports are those inside the "n/a" bracket. Feasible supports are those inside the "0-49" and "50-99" brackets. Viable supports are those inside the "100-149" and "150-199" brackets. Trivial supports are those inside the "200+" bracket. ----- Step four is drawing conclusions. There are 104 total A-support pairings and 114 total B- and C-support pairings. This gives us 332 total support options. 23 A-supports are trivial; an additional 25 A-supports are viable. (29 more are feasible.) 35 B-supports are trivial; an additional 23 B-supports are viable. (28 more are feasible.) 45 C-supports are trivial; an additional 30 C-supports are viable. (26 more are feasible.) 103/332, or ~31%, are trivial an additional 78/332, or ~23%, are viable 83/332, or 25%, are feasible In other words, ~55% of total support options are viable in ranked play (and ~80% are possible). ~47% of A-rank pairings are viable in ranked play (and ~74% are possible). Let me anticipate an objection: what if my standards for viability are too generous? Fine. Let's restrict "viability" to only the top two brackets. This would leave us with: A -> 23 trivial / 14 viable B -> 35 trivial / 13 viable C -> 45 trivial / 10 viable This conservative estimate slightly reduces the two numbers above, down to ~42% and ~36%. ----- And that's the analysis. I hope others found this information helpful. I often hear Fire Emblem players complain about the GBA support system, quipping that the only worthwhile supports (from a strategic perspective) in Blazing Sword are options like Florina/Lyn and Eliwood/Hector. I believe this analysis demonstrates otherwise. Even a conservative estimate illustrates that a healthy number of total and A-rank options are viable in ranked play. That's not to excuse the system of its faults, since support bonuses are modest and many support lines just take too long. But, at least in the case of Blazing Sword, its weaknesses are overblown.

Shame about having to start over. This is a great challenge run idea. I've just finished up a no-arena ranked EHM playthrough. This prevents one-dimensional, LTC-type strategies. Lots of fun and significantly more involved than vanilla ranked, but I couldn't help but feel ranked play can be pushed further. Max star runs strike me as the final step. I think I'll join you and give this challenge a shot, but some questions first: 1. Which chapters are impossible to S-rank? I'm aware of 7x and all Hector-exclusive maps, but are there others? 2. Where is the second star in Lyn Mode lost? 3. How exactly are funds calculated on a per-map basis? Example: I start a chapter with 50K assets. The five-star requirements for this map are 5K. I collect 5K in new assets but invest 1K assets in weapon use. Will I still be rewarded with max stars? 4. Related to the above, do per-map funds requirements follow the totals formula? So you just need 80% of funds on a given chapter to five-star? 5. Do you have max star totals for HHM and the other campaigns? If not, I'll probably calculate them myself. I like this challenge run for many reasons. For one, it's not arbitrary. No-arena runs are arbitrary, but tactician stars are recorded by the game. For two, it naturally restricts cheese strategies like LTC. For three, it requires visiting all gaiden maps. For four, it makes combat a relevant rank, which is a miracle as far as I'm concerned. Having said that, I feel a "mixed" LHM/HHM run is arbitrary. The game does not keep track of cumulative totals. So I'll leave that goal to you and focus on individual campaigns, probably starting with HNM. I'm also a bit skeptical that RN abuse is necessary, and if it is necessary I'd wager that's the case in only a handful of places.

Specifically how wagers determine enemy statistics and type. It also appears that who attacks first in a given round is random.

Right. Step one is acknowledging the viral tumblr post made a couple of inaccuracies. Step two is acknowledging there are legitimate grievances with the Soleil/Kamui support line that don't stem from misinformation. Having spoken with several gay users in our community, I can tell you they're angry at having their frustrations hand-waived. They're tired of being painted as whiners and complainers who didn't read the supports. They did. They still find it tasteless. They have good reasons for finding it tasteless. Since posting her thoughts, Andrea-Ritsu has become the victim of death threats, homophobic and transphobic slurs, and general harassment. This is beyond unacceptable. It's a disgrace. We're better than this. I encourage everyone to pump the brakes on misguided damage control. Don't look to "debunk." Look to open up conversation. Take the time to ask people why they find this support line offensive. You'll find that misinformation and agenda-pushing has very little to do with this.

The argument is simple: if your moral paralysis argument holds, all teleological morality is bunk. Most professional philosophers are teleologists anyway. This is because they believe justified knowledge, rather than certain knowledge, about the future is sufficient for taking sound moral action. All this requires is granting basic moral truths, such as saving a life being better in a vacuum than not saving a life. You deny this. There is no vacuum! And since you deny this, no productive conversation can be had. There is no shared point of departure.

Why is this a bad thing? Seems like a noble, selfless attitude.

I can't say whether we agree because I'm unsure what exactly Chiki is arguing. Hopefully he chimes in to explain. By "natural evils" I mean evils brought about by natural events- disease, natural disasters, etc. Contrast with "human evils," evils brought about by human action- murder, rape, etc.

But quoting links is your specialty. Why deviate from your bread-and-butter? No one argued this wasn't a problem for utilitarianism. I said exactly the same thing many posts ago: that your paralysis argument can be applied to most any teleological ethos.

You asserted this, yes. You didn't justify it. You have philosophy friends. Ask them if this radically skeptic attitude leads to productive moral dialogue. They will agree with me.

You can enjoy whatever you want. There are a ton of revelations many people find massively disappointing, even disturbing. Please don't treat those people as "entitled whiners." And desert maps are not "supposed" to be barren. Most desert maps are interesting. Even the desert maps in Awakening have a lot going on compared to Fates' iteration.

If you're not going to grant the common-sense claim that saving a life is more ethical than not in a vacuum, we won't reach any productive conclusions. Proximate consequentialism is to my knowledge a small minority view (and suffers from apparent arbitrariness). Your paralysis problem applies to the vast majority of consequentialists, who would share my feelings that denying the most basic moral truths makes ethical dialogue impossible.