Aethereal

This sounds like a bigger issue with the difficulty of the game itself, or with you not playing at a difficulty you can handle(Which is fine, I'm just saying). If there were ever a time in which I felt vulneraries were a sufficient replacement for healers, it was in games/difficulties where I wasn't pressured. In FE9 for example, I scarcely needed to heal, but that was because of how easy the NA hard mode is, not because healers were necessarily bad. I think it's pretty fair to say that for healers to be useful, difficulty has to be high enough that you have damage spread out enough, and still have a big incentive to use your other units' player phase on something besides a vulnerary.

i've kind of got two ways I play; one blind and casually, just for the hell of it. Always play my first playthroughs this way, and I do this a lot when I just want a game to play leisurely. Distraction during finals week, long week with the family, while watching something. When I'm looking to challenge myself, I research the way other people have played through things, and spend a considerable amount of time mapping out my movements. This has mostly come in the form of researching the ranked runs for FE4, and FE7, (Cog can bite me.) although I still try to do them as blind as possible. My roommates and I will get competitive with these kinds of runs, and that's my usual motivation for them. As far as time spent on these kinds of runs, yeah, I spend a ton of time. Probably too much, but I think it's fun. Maybe I'm the only one who goes back and forth between basically no research and tons of it though. >.>

Predicting success at the next level in football seems difficult. Still, can't be a bad thing to be ranked high.

Is Kline a big prospect? I used to live down the street from him.

If people started saying "playing like idiot casuals", I'm sure you'd take offense. Choice of words is important, since, y'know, words are the only form of communication on this forum. It's not nitpicking to think you're being insulting when you use a term that is only ever used to insult.

I have a question. Are we supposed to be factoring in availability with these rankings? It's starting to seem more and more like we aren't, but I wasn't clear on that before.

I really like her, one of the better units in the game, but her availability sucks. 7/10

It's not annoying, actually, it's just true. And no one goes on about it unless people make ridiculous claims to the contrary.

Fucking Cog. Doing this chapter with underleveled units while trying to get the EXP requirements for the chapter pissed me off more than any other fucking map, with like, the exception of Chapter 8 in FE6. Fuck Cog.

Agreed completely. And to be honest, this thread isn't even asking you to be an expert. Just to, y'know, try to make some sense and stay on topic. Anyways. I've always thought that once Fiora shows up, Florina is fairly redundant. Fiora's "poor" availability hurts, especially a pair of awesome chapters for Flo. But, her bases are much better than Florina, and I don't honestly see Florina getting a ton of training when she ferries so much. Not to mention it seems like a wasted effort, when Fiora is basically Flo 2.0. Of course, it's really easy to give Florina levels in LHM, so I guess that point's pretty moot. All that said, I would probably still give Flo a 9, and I know Fiora's not quite as good as her, especially when factoring in 16 and 17x (I think those are the right chapters) so 8/10.

No, you don't. Unfortunately, your comparison is disingenuous. A lot of ranking systems (A really good example would be MVPs in sports, or iirc Times magazine's top 100 guitarists list) that are meant to simply show the quality of the thing being ranked only give votes to a select few that are experts on the subject. They're not even holding it to that standard, they're just asking people to be logical, and talk about the units themselves as opposed to what you like and don't like. All that said, I know that you're gonna dismiss this all with a one sentence answer that dances around everything I said because I've tried to be reasonable with you like 10 times, and every single time you just act like no one's said anything and don't actually respond to any counter points, or present any points of your own except "That's wrong!" or some terrible analogy.

How dare people want informed logical opinions on a unit's worth when trying to rate the unit's worth?!

6/10 for me. Guy's got a 6 from me, and I find several moments throughout the game where Canas is useful, at least as many as Guy.

Good boss killer, accurate, strong, and fast 1-2 range, and the person not named Hector most likely to get ferried to combat. All that said, mounted units in this game are so plentiful and good, it obviously hurts him. 8/10

I don't think it's so much changing to an "anime style" or "new school anime" as it is a sense of change from simple character designs that feels, if nothing else, more like the series we've all grown to love and less like every other JRPG in the world. I actually find these characters frustrating too, but I know a lot of people like fanservice. That said, I think the bigger problem, for me is this: Even ridiculous character designs were outliers. FE13, with the little that's been released about characters has: A Paladin in what looks like a mech suit, a character that probably goes through a bottle of hair gel a day and has ridiculously over exaggerated and generic anime facial expressions, and the chick with a thousand buttons. All that said, I'm still trying to catch up on the entire conversation. Sorry if this is an interruption, or has already been adressed.

It's not even a problem with Gonzo. I mean, promote the dude at 10/1 and you get 13 skill, which is passable for that time. It's just hit on axes is so drastically terrible in FE6, and the two-rolls system makes every point of hit in the 50-70 range worth so much more than just the 2% you'd expect it to be worth. It makes units overloaded with skill really awesome, kinda a perfect scenario for Echidna, and a completely terrible one for Gonz.

1. Wil at 5/- or 6/- is mediocre, at best. And while you CAN give him that exp, there's not enough exp in LHM by itself to get Lyn, Kent, Florina, and Sain to a point that I would rather level Wil than any of them. 2.There are 2 pegasi in C16 that Wil gets a good shot at killing, and that's about it there. While it's nice simply because no one else can do it, this isn't some major contribution. It's 2 enemies. 3.C17 is a Marcus/cavalier stomp. Wil isn't keeping up, so outside of Turn 1 EP and Turn 2 PP, I don't see a ton of uses for him. He definitely isn't getting ferried. 4.I don't think I'd find Wil useful on C18, considering he's probably rocking a beastly 1 or 2 res and low 20s on HP. That said, maybe he's not horrible here. Maybe. 5. That just about any one can deal with. 6. Are you suggesting Wil is anywhere near 20/3(When he reaches Geitz' base STR) by Chapter 24? You don't get a ton of EXP (or usefulness in general) by being a low move unit who does moderate chip, is frail, doesn't ORKO unless fed undeserved kills, and cannot counter in a game with high move units with durability who can counter at 1-2 range and ORKO a ton of enemies that way. You just don't. I'm a big archer fan, but FE7 is like, the worst game ever to be one. There's no bright spot for Wil, he's a lot of work for mediocre payoff at best.

I don't wanna start any arguments, but they'll never be at roughly equal levels. Raven's EP will catapult his levels compared to Wil's PP only exp gain. That kinda statement's a little disingenuous.

2/10. The 2 is because he can be mediocre if you feed him levels in LHM that you probably need to slow down for and take away from Kent/Lyn/Florina/Sain. A big and terrible if, but it's possible for him to not be your worst unit if you do it!

"I did ask him(Zelgius) to seize the medallion and hand it over to King Ashnard. The goddess was to be freed...and all living creatures destroyed" <---Sephiran said that. Sephiran was trying to give Ashnard the medallion, in order to have Ashnard free the goddess and have all living creatures destroyed. Your point about him not having this plan until after PoR is false; Sephiran's attempt to free Ashera and bring Tellius judgement happened before RD, or at least before Zelgius kills Greil. It's right there in front of you, dude. Everything in the above quote is irrelevant or wrong. Everything in bold is either false, or happens because Sephiran pushes Ashnard whichever way Sephiran wants. Edit: Italics part of the quote is false. I don't want to dig through to find more specific quotes, as this should suffice. Ashnard Yes, I tried to get her to free the dark god from the medallion,

Absolutely dominates when promoted in LHM and fed the kills there. Which is probably in your best interest. Not as great in an S-Rank run, because of the lack of an early promo, but still awesome. 9.5 for my money, it'd probably be a 10 if he didn't miss the first six chapters.

Just want to address this. From SF's script of 4-E(4) Sephiran: Sir Ike, I'm afraid your father's death was an unfortunate result of Zelgius's own personal agenda. I did not order Sir Gawain killed. However, I must admit that I did ask him to seize the medallion and hand it over to King Ashnard. The goddess was to be freed...and all living creatures destroyed.

I feel she falls behind pretty easily, and can be replaced by Fiora or Farina once they show up. Obviously flying is OP, and she's probably still solid at base for a long long time. 8/10

This might've been a better idea tbh, but I didn't feel a big need to get any one from the right side over to the left. Anyways, I just finished it, and had Fiora deal with Ursula after Marcus took out the Mercs around her, both with a pure water/barrier boost. Slight change from your idea. Halberd!Raven handled Maxime, which let Kent reach Jaffar before he could suicide into the 15~ enemies in the bottom room. Gotta love that NPC AI.

Yeah, it's hard mode. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Very much. My Sain got speed screwed and I never promoted him because of it. Raven seems to be my only real option, just stinks because I've been using him to kill Ursula. I've been thinking about forcing a Luna crit, but I hate crap like that.