side bee

to be totally tbh honest here, if i could cast a vote itd prolly be in ur favor as well, i was kinda out of my depth since im not super knowlegeable on fe 6 like i am with fe 8 or even 7, but it was fun all the same

ok so this is the last post, its gonna basically just be the dry bit up front where i summarize my points and where i take issue with yours, but then, after the dry bit, im gonna goof off a bit. but first a thanks to you, for a fun match, you had a lot of tricky arguments. id love to do this again with you, mr speed. point the first, armads. i made it, although i may not have made its significance quite clear. while percy is a solid competitor for maltet and/or durandal, its possible a player may prefer to give these weapons to alan, or lance, or dieck, or whoever. and while there is a lot of competition for maltet and durandal, there is very little competition for armads, so while percy is a great competitor for these weapons, he can also opt out of competition altogether. this frees up the players options quite a bit. the issue of the knight crest is interesting, as you did mention that sophia had basically the same thing going for her. indeed, i think its sophias only real saving grace that this is a special, free item that a lot of units want pretty badly is only available through her, and we hear a similar story with percival and the knight crest. the difference of course being that theres a good reason to actually use percival beyond the knight crest being obtained as his bases are excellent, his growths, for a midgame prepromote are pretty good, and he has really good weapon ranks. but the point with the knight crest is that it gives another unit permanent stat buffs, more move, and better weapon ranks, and the free one percy gives you can only be given to you by percy. finally, the point of availability. niime misses one of the worst chapters in the game, chapter 14. in chapter 14, no one is allowed to move anywhere, ever, and theres fog of war. torch+warp can make this map at least somewhat tolerable. her availability makes it so she loses out on many difficult, important chapters such as 14, and since percival can, at most, have 7 or 8 chapters on her, where hes a good choice for anything you may need him to do, really highlights his overall worth as a unit. thats kinda sketchy, since saul has been around in more vital, difficult chapters throughout the game. alan has too, but hes not especially spectacular in the early game, and only really gets good if you promote him. percy just starts that good and stays that way. sauls statistical trouble in the earlygame isnt a huge deal because hes a staffbot, and stats are basically meaningless to him anyway until he promotes, but alan is a combat unit who is okay in the early game. less likely to die than lance, but not any more likely to double. alan isnt bad, hes just not as useful as saul or percy when the latter two join compared to how useful alan is when he joins. true, but any other staffbot can still use these staves from a very safe distance, and theyve been able to for longer. binding blades early game is way harder than its late game, so being able to berserk or sleep or whatever xyz status you wanna inflict on an enemy for longer is a big deal. while her combat isnt awful, niime is not going to be "taking out enemies" anytime soon. shes maybe quick enough to not get doubled, but almost certainly not quick enough to double, herself. nosferatu, to my memory isnt exactly the most accurate thing in the world either, so if she misses shes prolly dead. not in a really significant way. i understand we arent assuming ltc here, just efficient play, but even so, an informed, careful player really doesnt need that much margin of error, especially as player units in the late game can generally take care of themselves, and an informed player is gonna be pretty well aware of enemy ranges, not enough to map them out, but at least to where they could count it out. and an informed player is capable of using saul for some calculated risks. and theyve been able to do this with saul all game long. maybe not much warping time, but again, binding blades difficulty is very frontloaded. warp is handy to have, but its not as likely to save a life as sleep, or cut through enemy lines like berserk. these staves are super helpful for the early game, and if marcus somehow gets murked, those are your best bets. even with marcus around, those staves are really good, and niime misses out on them for so so long. sorry about the weird, inconsistent quoting shit, im using my trackpad rn since i have no clue where the hell my mouse went. but now? now its goof time. well, mr speed, i hope this lives up to your high expectations. thank you, im just happy to have made a human connection over the internet today with a stranger over the internet whose own name indicates namelessness. ok well two of those are named after animals, so theyre furries, and gone based on moral principle. bartre died in my fe7 playthrough, so hes dead to me forever. im pretty sure garret is the guy from final fantasy 7 so idk what hes doing here, and oujay is named after a sportscaster who murdered his wife so, again, moral principle. which means he horseshoes around into being broken beyond belief. checkmate you sure did lemme fix that rq "Since Chapter 14 is a desert chapter which sucks for Paladins" wait no i know you said no mercy but this is almost cruel! i have a family, please, i cant get mutilated in this way! you cant just break a man like what you did in the previous quote and then quote bubsy and expect forgiveness. despite his stauts as a classic platformer mascot, it just aint so easy. seriously though, this was great. godspeed, anonymousspeed. godspeed.

man, i wouldnt have if u didnt say u were disappointed by its underutilization -------------------------------------------- youre right, i just didnt count gaiden chapters bc i kinda saw them as side missions and therefore not worth counting, but if you wanna count gaiden chapters, im gonna ask you count them for percy as well. counting gaiden chapters, percy has 8 over niime, even if you go illia. percy joins 13, is available 14, 14x, 15, 16, 16x, 17, 18 and then niime joins in 19. if we dont count percys joining chapter, with the argument that he joins like halfway through and you do have to do some work for him, thats still 7 chapters, which is like an extra fifth of the game. percy is around literally twice as long as niime, by your count. im almost offended you would compare my mans to wolt. yeah, wolt sucks, so his availability doesnt mean anything. this is why i didnt bother mentioning a list of units who can use apocalypse, incidentally, bc theres only 2 to my memory and one of those is sophia, so theres really only 1. basically the reason percys availability is good is bc hes good. i agree that, were he a bad unit, his availability would not be that helpful, but we can both agree that percy is significantly better and more useful than wolt. i dont really think thats an argument anybody would take with me. why would you wait until chapter 15 to recruit percival rather than 13? it isnt that much harder to get him in 13 than in 15, plus it gives you that shiny, shiny knights crest earlier. ill admit its a pain, but getting to have an extra paladin a couple chapters early, i figure, is worth the hassle. im gonna go ahead and let most of this slide, but its not fair to start comparing units based on attractiveness! percy, no matter how handsome he may or may not be, is gonna get fucking slaughtered! if you google stone cold fox right now, its just niime all the way down! have some mercy, please! the reason its valued is bc its a consistent increase. tbh there was a part of me that thought to mention thea, but i thought that was maybe pushing my luck too far. damn you marcus makin me look a fool! worst unit. worst unit in the series. exp sponge. but cant they? lets have a look-see at saul. lets say you decide to use saul, and you promote him immediately upon reaching level 10 with the guiding ring found in chapter 8. if he then reaches level 10 bishop by the time niime shows up, he should have roughly 19 speed(15 levels x.45 growth rate=6.75+2 promo bonus=8.75+10 base=18.75, round up to 19 since fire emblem dont fuck with decimals), 31 hp(15 levels x.6 growth rate=9+3 promo bonus=11+20 base=31), and 6 defense(15 levels x.15 growth=2.25+2 promo bonus=4.25+2 base=6.25 and since decimals are for communists round down to 6). even by these pretty loose parameters, it looks like saul is out-bulking our lovely lil prune, with some potential growth to spare. and honestly, i think 15 levels across 18 chapters is pretty fair. though, i will confess she beats his magic by a landslide, saul is still outpacing her everywhere else, so if we really want to take a warper halfway across the map and across enemy lines, should we not bring the one who wont collapse if breathed on a little too h its useful to have the option of wta available at all times, but even disregarding that, lets ask ourselves a question; what are we gonna do with armads? it wouldnt do to just let a perfectly good s rank weapon go to waste, right? we cant just disrespect hector by letting his weapon rust on a shelf somewhere. but who should claim it? i think percy is the most deserving heir. out of a list of all potential axe users in game, we can quickly strike off a number of them; marcus, while borderline necessary in the early game, does fall off before his potential ability to use armads at all would be helpful, alan, lance, dieck, trec, and noah are all capable of wielding axes, but its only upon promotion and they start with e rank axes, so good luck with that, and wade and lot are questionable units even when first recruited. then theres three. gonzales, zelot, and the man of the hour, percival. im not about to go into a full character analysis of these three, but suffice it to say, gonzales is out for lack of utility and combat options, and while zelot could do it, he only comes with d axes, which means he does have to go out of his way to use steel axes until he can finally wield killer axes, and thats a massive pain in the ass to do. but percival doesnt need to wait to use killer axes, he just can. though, they can both use hammers at base. percys competition for armads, when you really get down to it, is pretty sparse. hes only really got one competitor, similarly to niime. technically theres 2 other shaman/druids, but one of them is sophia, who youre only gonna use if youre really suffering from waifu disease. but even then, sophia is not "derail the war effort so she can be even slightly useful" cute, shes "see a few times in art class, and ask out only for the date to be bad since youre both really nervous and awkward about the whole thing so no real conversation starts up but you consider still trying anyway until you see her sketchbook has homestuck fanart in it at which point you wisely get the hell out of dodge" cute. raigh has his uses on the other hand, and similarly to zelot, does have some advantages to using over niime. here we actually get to see one of percys greatest draws; the knights crest. percy provides your army with not 1 shiny new paladin, but 2. and this is something only percival can provide, as early as chapter 13. perhaps the most unique bonus either of these give you is an extra promotion, so while percys being-a-paladin advantage doesnt hold too terribly long for himself, he can give another unit a being-a-paladin advantage, something which niime cant quite match, keeping in mind that a promo is like using several statboosters all at once, so percy, at the bare minimum, gives a cavalier a permanent advantage throughout the rest of the game. now, im feeling kinda cute, i feel like i kinda wanna throw out a super "quirky xD" argument, just kinda to see what happens. lets conjure up a hypothetical playthrough in which we decide that we will use neither of these units. they are both benched, immediately. their only use, therefore, is what they give us in terms of weapons, items, etc. niime gives us two dark tomes and two staves. one of these staves is heal, so i dont really think we should even bother counting it, and if we did all wed get is an obsolete staff, physic, which is the best thing she gives you, and the dark tomes are only applicable to 2 other characters, one of whom is sophia, who i think ive taken more than enough pot shots at for one night, and raigh. not useless, but not nearly as useful as percys stuff. even if you only recruit him in chapter 13, he still gives you a silver lance, a super useful weapon for a number of important units, and a knights crest, which i just explained the use of. but if you wait for chapter 15, he also gives you a silver sword on top of those other things, which is also useful to a number of extremely helpful units. in terms of looking for a sugar parent, percy comes out on top.

percival is regarded very highly in binding blade. he is, at various points, called narcian's best general, a knight among knights, and the future of etruria incarnate. these titles are not given to him for no reason, however. as a character and as a unit, percival is a beacon of strength and dependability. most of percivals supports discuss his competence or the admiration he is awarded or his stoic demeanor. while many of percivals supports are good, the two id like to specifically draw attention to are klein and dorothys. in percivals supports with klein, we get a glimpse into the type of man percival was prior to the war, prior to etrurias collapse. percival begins by asking klein if klein is comfortable within roys army, then follows by explaining that he cant be fully comfortable within roys ranks, as a knight of etruria. although he never outright says it, he feels he is contributing to the destruction of his home nation by joining up with roy and pals. then, klein asks about percivals favorite foods and whether theyve changed, since the cooks of roys army had expressed confusion and concern over what to feed percival, since he remains absolutely expressionless no matter what he eats. percival explains that his favorite foods have not, in fact, changed. klein then gets to reminiscing on their past, which prompts percival to declare his loyalty to etruria, and to explain that he intends to cut everyone he cant trust to be absolutely loyal to his nation out of his life and dedicate his every waking moment to the reconstruction of etruria, which klein then talks percy down from, reminiscing further on their shared past, where klein could look up to percy as an older brother, and telling percy that he wants to help rebuild etruria with percy, but he wants to do so laughing, and cheerfully. percy takes this into serious consideration. this helps to humanize percival as someone who was not always the stern, stoic general the player would get to see him as otherwise. if it werent for kleins unique past with percy, we likely would have never even heard a small detail like percival having favorite foods or anybody knowing what they are in the first place, as this is a degree of frivolity percival would probably not have tolerated from anybody else. in his dorothy supports, dorothy almost shoots him right away. immediately, percival makes clear to her that its not a big deal, mishaps like this happen all the time. he even takes some of the blame himself, which he probably means in 100% earnest, but its still a nice thing to do. in their next meeting, percival approaches dorothy as she trains, praising her for training and giving her pointers on how to improve her form, specifically mentioning the fact that she tends to get nervous when she shoots, and percival explains to her that she is perfectly safe. she asks if she is of use to him, which he affirms. at long last, dorothy is able to let her fear and inhibition go, and perform on the battlefield. these supports show a more observant, empathetic side to percival that we dont get to see that often. percival goes out of his way to observe and give guidance to all of his subordinates, and he knows how to tell if theyre getting nervous, he knows exactly how to soothe these fears, and he frequently goes out of his way to do so. percival is a strong, dependable man throughout most of his supports, but this is among my favorites because it shows a kinder, softer side to this otherwise relatively cold, stoic person. but hes just as dependable as a unit as he is a man, and much like his supports, his utility in battle is better than niime(you like that transition? smooth as af) all of her 4 chapters? she would have to be beyond perfect to make up for that. and she isnt. shes a good unit, not that good though. she isnt even an option in 80% of the game, not counting gaiden chapters, which just make her availability worse, per capita. -range which is largely unnecessary -keep that bit about not being able to wield the saints staff at base in mind a minute -for 4 chapters, and its not uncontested -any healer can make use of physic range to not get themselves killed whilst also keeping your relatively bulky frontline units from getting their own dumb asses murked. this is, i would argue, less an advantage for her to have, and more that she would be entirely useless if she didnt have it, since units have been showing up with a weapon ranks since, like, chapter 13. and many, many units youve obtained before niime can pretty easily obtain a or even s weapon ranks by the time she turns up. she is a great warp user while shes around, but shes around for basically no time at all, and other staffbots have been using warp way longer. she has a few tiles over other warp users, but other warp users can reasonably have 6 chapters on her to be use warp. shes a good warp user, but the best? no. those are robes which other units really want though, so there is still an element of investment which percy doesnt have, since all of his bases, especially in hard mode, are really good, and he has a rank in swords and lances right away, and his c rank in axes is enough to wield killer axes, which is all he needs to punch a hole in any lance user he may need to fight. but, he also has plenty of time to s rank either swords or lances, and its really not difficult for him to do so. niime doesnt have such time to s rank either dark magic or staves, meaning she may never get to use the saints staff, which, in the hands of a unit who can use it, completely trivializes niimes magic base. not for niime if you decide to put the seraph robe to literally anybody else. and considering her primary draw is a staffbot, why would you bother? she evidently has enough magic range that you can keep her out of harms way, so why bother wasting this item on a unit who shouldnt see combat anyway? well, thats ignoring brave weapons, which are a death sentence for niime, and not uncommon in the late game. though this will slow your army down significantly. at least two other units need to use their turns to move niime to where you want her to be, though this often leaves all three units in direct jeopardy, and basically wastes three unit moves which could be better spent doing anything other than unnecessarily yeeting niime into harms way. basically, youre wasting time with this strat, not saving it. my man percy shows up with great combat, good utility, and weapon levels five chapters before niime. he gets to be useful through more of the game, roughly 20% more, and niime just cant really keep up. he comes with weapon triangle control, recuedropping in gba games is stupid good, and niime has utility already sufficiently covered by several units whove been around since before the route split. so heres the kicker. you have this exactly backwards. niimes selling point is more "unique to her?" mi hermano, any staff user in the game can hypothetically use warp. you want an "and even niime" list? ill give you a couple. list of units to give seraph robe; shanna, juno, alan, lance, rutger, and even niime. everybody else here is more deserving since theyre all more likely to see bloodshed, and could stand to gain from a bit more bulk. list of units who can ferry units across the map; alan, lance, percy himself, shanna, thea, juno, zeiss, milady, any potential staff user, especially clarine, or even niime. everybody else here is better simply because they can do it longer. even if you wanna argue about gaps percy and the cavs cant cross, thats still a pretty hefty list of units holding the ability to move boss killers quickly. list of units who can effectively staffbot; elen, saul, clarine, yodel, or even niime. the only one of these who doesnt have a significantly better amount of availability than niime is yodel, who joins one chapter after and requires absolutely no investment to use literally any staff in the game. the thing about all of the units in the "and even niime" lists is that they all have significant advantages they can hold over her head. not so for the "and even percival" list. yes, every unit in your "and even percival" list does have better availability, but percival has something over them; excellent bases and weapon ranks at no cost to the player. why is it significant with percy but not niime? im gonna sound like a broken record, but it really is all about availability. when niime shows up, you dont have to have tried super hard to invest in any other staff user for them to get to use warp, which they get more use out of anyway, seeing as niime only gets it for four or five chapters, one of which is a rout chapter which shes basically useless for anyway. but when percival joins, promo items are still at a premium, and are still extremely precious commodities. percival not needing to take one, as opposed to miledy or alan or lance means he doesnt have anyone to compete with, and he just gets to have everything you could possibly want him to have. back to my telling you that you have uniqueness exactly backwards, let me explain. a staffbot neednt be compared to the enemy. a staffbot, even just using heal, is likely to heal more damage than any given unit will take in a turn anyway. that extra tile or two niime gets over her competition? basically accounted for by the high movement of the rest of roys army in the end game. most boss killers(rutger notwithstanding) dont really care about being a square farther away, since they can use 1-2 range weapons should the need arise. a frontline unit like percy who lives and dies in his combat performance, their being competitive is way more important, and percival really carries through. staffbots are easily replaced; a frontline powerhouse is not so. sorry it took a while to respond. my schedule likes to be erratic and exhausting simultaneously. but it is now midnight, so i am gonna go to sleep now. good luck, im looking forward to playing this game more.

if you have a ps3, persona 5 is also on that

joker from persona 5

sure, sounds good. you want opening statement, @AnonymousSpeed?

anytime my mans! this is what these forums are for! have fun

i dunno that id recomend you change her class at all actually, since warp is such a useful spell. if you really want to though, mage wouldnt be too bad. or you could just push her further into cleric, since her stats will get stupid good. but for a limited resource like pitchforks, i would say you should save them for a unit that needs them.

i find it really funny that you say this, actually, since i felt like my tone tended to cross over into the unnecessarily sarcastic and mean at times, which i felt bad for. but youve been super nice this whole time, and i really enjoyed this argument. you offered up a lot of really strong arguments which were tricky to combat. i would love to debate more with you in the future! and, i wasnt really planning on it, but if you want a character/ story analysis, then dammit, ill give you one. gives me a reason to gush over my favorite sacred stones character anyway, so id be more than happy to oblige. lute is a young girl who joins as a mage in chapter four, alongside her childhood friend, artur. she is characterized as extremely arrogant and intelligent right away, almost immediately declaring herself a prodigy, joining eirikas group for the sake of researching the monsters which plague the continent. her support conversations generally reveal a similar persona, plus a tendency towards bizarre behaviors, see flooding arturs room with spiders to help him with his arachnaphobia, actually trying to take the wings from vanessas pegasus when vanessa convinces lute that pegasus wings are an aphrodisiac, etc. despite her arrogance and understanding of her situation(i.e. war, as seen in her ross b support where she calls talking not "strategically valuable"), lute is shown to have a goofy, darkly comical side to her, such as the aforementioned artur incident, but also in her b support with vanessa where she jokes about attacking vanessas pegasus. but one of my favorite things about her is her death quote, which reads simply "but i dont want to die..." the way this bounces off her normally comical behavior, as well as its contrast with other, more melodramatic death quotes in the series, makes it all the more heartbreaking to me. this is my favorite death quote in the series, and the simple reason is that i feel it really puts into perspective the fact that lute is still very young, late teens at the oldest, and the tragedy of losing life at such a young age. but maybe thats just me. once more, i would like to reiterate that ive had fun, i think a lot of your arguments were super strong, id love to do this again, and i hope i havent come off as too sarcastic, especially since i think youve been really nice. that in mind, i present my final statements. the difference between def and res in the early game does make the higher might of tomes less noticeable, but that gap, like the speed gap, only grows. i will be touching on a lot of these points later on, but the number one thing i wanted to point out was "if garcia ever combats in 1 range," since the tradeoff from axes to tomes is striking on the lower defensive stat, and getting the option of going 1 or 2 range and not having to worry about giving up might. precisely! garcia never outpaces lute to the point where lute will be able to outpace garcia. they dont start worlds apart, their combat is just about even, and lute gets a horse in the midgame, where garcia can never have one. lute can wield staves, starting with mend and being able to heal 34 health to just about any unit on the frontline considering her above average movement. before promotion, garcia doesnt really outpace lute, if he does at all. after promo, however, lute flies ahead in terms of utility, so even if her combat is for some reason not good enough, she can make herself useful in other ways. it doesnt, at least not to the point where it makes up for how clumsy axes are. firstly, lute gets similar promo bonuses. a +2 to both defenses and to her attack stat is nothing to sneeze at, though she doesnt really need to wall(more foreshadowing, ooh). the point i was making about the warp staff, which, in retrospect was a little unclear, wasnt necessarily that lute is an excellent warp user, just that she can be a warp user at all, but garcia will never be. its something lute potentially has going for her that garcia can never have. canto, while not on the level of tellius or, god forbid, fe4, is still powerful, and more useful than just the drop command. the point that its in question between a level 1 unit and a level 4 unit who joins 2 chapters earlier is a point in lutes. it is, but the point isnt the garcia/amelia comparison, its the extreme power of s rank weapons. i am in no way saying that amelia is anywhere near garcia, never fear, but the point is that even the worst unit in the game can even wield these weapons to an efficient capacity. it may as well have been any lance wielder out of a hat+ vidofnir. franz, gilliam, vanessa, tana, syrene, etc. lets talk briefly about them since they do matter a little. the reason 2 speed isnt a deal at all in comparison to garcia is because lutes speed growth is so absurdly better than garcias. ive done the math, lute should have about 13 speed levels on average by the end of the game(9 to get to level 10+20 to max her promo level=29x.45=13.05) where garcia, even if you feed him those sweet, sweet midgame levels to the point where he gets an even number of levels will, get roughly 6 speed levels(9 to level 13+20 to max promo level=29x.2=5.8). considering their even bases, this accounts for a 7 speed difference, which means that garcia has to be wielding garm and lute has to be weighed down by 2 in order for their speed to break even. lute defo benefits from those midgame levels more, since, if she isnt promoted yet, she gets a mount and staves, but if she is promoted, she still gets obscenely high speed, letting her wield some really strong, heavy tomes and still having her options open to change her tome of choice if need be. this is basically what ive been building to this whole time. a rundown of why mages dont care about defensive stats. first of all, defensive stats are often mage dump stats. an extra point of defense doesnt often help a mages performance, all told, since they really are just meant to deal damage on player phase, and def or res just is not a means to that end. moreover, a mage doesnt have to worry about defenses for a very specific reason that you just mentioned; they have perpetual 1-2 range. this increases their survival chances more than any defense number because they can just decide to not get countered all game, except for the odd enemy wielding a 1-2 range weapon themselves, but these enemies often have low res anyway, so it makes more sense to use a mage to attack. supports in the gba games arent super good, since theyre slow in general, but especially if you wanna do the seth/garcia support all youre doing is slowing yourself down, since seth cant extend as far if you want him to get those sweet, delicious support points, since garcias early game movement is so much slower than seths. yes, they do get minor bonuses to a bunch of stuff, but at the expense of efficiency for your army. contrasted with lute, whose artur support builds fast, gives her evade, crit evade, accuracy, and a bit of attack. its better than seth/garcia since neither unit in artur/lute has to slow down to match pace with the other, and its just a faster support on its own. with that, i submit my final argument, and await the judges with bated breath. well done, canned caineghis. well done.

a lock which i will wear with pride. i thought i should lead with this so it is understood that i will be assuming mage knight lute from here on. this is true, but then, neither is garcias attack lead. in the early game, enemies actually have just enough defense more than they have res to where lute and garcias effective might against them is basically the same. this is one instance where high con is actually more useful than speed, although thats only because lute and garcia start with the same base speed, and lute is weighed down by fire. but the difference is her speed, and the might of tomes, will grow a hell of a lot faster than garcias con, which only grows on promo, and the might of handaxes, which never changes. yeah, i did forget about the hatchet, although for the sake of completeness i should mention that garcia isnt actually weighed down by the handaxe, all the hatchet really does is let garcia strike at 1-2 range using a weapon that isnt so clumsy. on the one hand, this would seem to feed the con point. on quite another, it feeds into garcias greatest achilles heel; his speed. early game it works fine, although a big red flag should be thrown up that his base speed matches that of a level one unit's base speed; this level one's, in fact. lute and garcia start off tied in speed, but if we compare 10/1 stats, assuming promo occurs right away, lute has had 9 levels to grow in speed, and is sitting pretty at just about 12 speed, where garcia gets 6 levels, will on average have roughly 8 speed before promo, and, since he will remain slow post promo. and that gap will only get wider and wider between these two, since lutes speed growth is more than double garcias. thats bad, and more than makes up for her slightly lower attack stat, since she can always wield a lighter tome and lose less speed, but garcia cant wield a lighter axe and suddenly gain speed, the system just dont work that way. and 4 speed is a huge deal, since that is exactly enough to double in sacred stones. easier ways to combat poor speed being read as speedwings, those are a far cry from the uncontested quality of hero crests. many, many units want those speedwings more than garcia, lute included. many units like lute can easily double provided the small boost a single speedwing provides, where garcia just cant see quite as much use from it. yes and no. in terms of raw stats, yeah lute is generally going to stay 2 points behind garcia, so in a sense, she is. but tomes are just better weapons than axes, on aggregate. this is due to all of them being 1-2 range, attacking the generally weaker res stats of enemies, and never having to choose between damage dealing and 1-2 range, where axes dont always get these luxuries. on top of this, axes are generally less accurate than tomes. that really puts a damper on garcias combat. yeah looking back at it, that part does kind of distract from the point. but theres still a point to be made there; lutes promo benefits your whole army, garcias promo really only benefits garcia. lutes promo gives her canto, it gives her the ability to wield the warp staff, it lets her heal. granted, the warp staff requires some degree of investment into lute, but no amount of investment into garcia will ever let him use any staff, let alone warp, and no amount of dropping will ever quite reach that same level of efficiency that lute enjoys as a result of her prospective warp access. i will cede the point about the hero crest though, but i would be remiss to not once more point out the chapter 5 guiding ring, which shows up 5 chapters before the first hero crest, so lute can promote before garcia even has his promo item in his inventory. garcias combat is not really gonna outclass lutes by any signifcant margin, if it does at all. she will very easily double more often than garcia, the hatchet, as previously stated, doesnt actually make garcia faster, and the +5 speed from garm should not be super necessary. s-rank weapons are kinda weird to talk about though, since anyone who can wield them can kick the tar out of any endgame terror, generally one-rounding the enemy no matter who they are. even amelia can be good with vidofnir in her hands. but lets quickly go over why lute being weighed down isnt a huge deal. excalibur is 13 weight, lutes con is 6, and the 5 unnecessary speed essentially serves as a con buff. (6+5)-13=-2. she loses out on 2 speed for an 18 might, 1-2 range weapon that is effective against basically everything in the last few chapters. i dont think thats too bad at all, and thanks to her horse it actually probably makes her the best contender for excalibur as well. also, capped stats arent super relevant, since a 30 attack stat will never be even approaching necessary, but again assuming instant 10/1 promo, garcia actually on average ends up stopping just shy of 25 attack at 10/20. not that any of that matters, since capped stats arent going to come in until the end game, when s rank weapons are everywhere and terrors get one rounded by everyone anyway. i mean, kinda? slightly worse defenses for a unit whose role is dps isnt a major problem, plus the mount gives her so many unique advantages over light magic i dont even really think its close, but maybe thats just me. this is true, but since her combat performance is just about as good as garcias out of the box, and her promo item comes earlier, and the bonuses are as good as they are, i dont think her taking it is unjust or a poor investment, even on efficiency playthroughs.

ive been looking forward to this. thank you for the opportunity. lets go. being locked to physical weapons on its own is generally worse than magical weapons, due to enemies consistently having low res, just like allies. on top of this, garcia does get hand axes right out, and 7 might is respectable in the early game, but 7 might falls off pretty quick. that being his only 1-2 range option hurts garcia, since lute gets to develop her 1-2 range options throughout the game and garcia is stuck having to decide between power and 1-2 range, a debate lute never need trifle herself with. since they have relatively similar speed throughout the game, lute can generally choose if she wants the higher speed of fire or the greater power of elfire. up next is a lot of numbers, and the bases and growths are right, and im not pedantic enough to check your math, so well use these numbers. with these numbers can come a lot of confusion. after all, there are a lot of them. so we should narrow it down to the stats that really count; speed(second best stat in the game) and attack(super necessary for these two considering their roles as damage dealers). in this regard, garcia pulls ahead of lute in attack, always beating her by a point or two, but he loses out on speed, the more relevant one. the reason speed is more relevant than attack is that it functions as both an offensive stat, allowing a unit to wield heavier weapons and still double, as well as keeping the unit from being doubled themselves. its nice to see all the numbers, but hardly relevant. all of this would be true, if garcia had a horse. but alack! alay! he remains footlocked all game. rescuedropping is absolutely vital to an efficient playthrough, but it does little to nothing if theres more rescuing going on than dropping. the thing about garcia being footlocked is that he can only ever really rescue, since he lacks canto and cant move after rescuing. the only units with less movement than garcia are armor units, who rarely see the light of day in efficient play anyways. his high con/aid is actually to his detriment, since its harder for him to be rescuedropped, which is where infantry comes in in the grand scheme of rescuedropping strats. lute, on the other hand, with her tiny con can be picked up by even the likes of eirika, which makes it leagues easier for her to be rescuedropped. rescuedropping is used to add movement to otherwise sluggish characters, but garcia simply cant provide extra move for any unit worth your time to use, making his high con a curse. lute can even rescue better than garcia, but well get there. well, lets get a head count of playable magic users in the game and then we will address why lute deserves it. outside of the fact that she is superior, after all. first magic user you get is moulder, then artur and lute, then natasha, then l'arachel, then ewan and saleh, then knoll. so lets whittle this list down to the ones who want and/or deserve a guiding ring. saleh is a sage, and is literally incapable of using it, so hes gone. ewan is a trainee, so if you even want to pretend youre playing efficiently, youre gonna bench him immediately, since hes more of a threat to your turn count than over half the enemies. next, were getting into some almost arguable units, but it whittles down the list real fast, since moulder, natasha, and l'arachel all dont need or want the guiding ring for the same reason; theyre staffbots. they shouldnt see enough combat to need the bonuses that come with a promotion. next is knoll, who doesnt really need it, since the first guiding ring you get in chapter 5, and theres no real reason to sit on it for 9 or 10 chapters before you get knoll. finally, it comes down to artur or lute. the reason lute should get the first one over artur is simple; she gets more useful material upon promotion. artur gets the slayer skill upon his optimal promo; a skill which is nigh invaluable in the late game. but, since these two could reasonably be promoted in the early to mid game, it basically just gives him weapon rank. lute, on the other hand, gets quite a bit. to put the less important part first, she gets d staves. a nice addition to her utility, but nothing spectacular. what is spectacular is the mount she gets. this bumps her move up to 7, and her aid skyrockets from 2 to 14. this is actually higher than garcias aid as a hero, though not as a warrior. regardless, if garcia is good at rescuing, imagine how good lute is with the same job while also being able to put canto to use for rescuedropping. this puts lutes utility so far above garcia, since garcia is incapable of rescuedropping effectively ever. hes ok at the dropping part, but as far as the rescue part goes? virtually useless. and hes not even the best for dropping, since any mounted unit, mage knight lute included, will have to slow down to let him drop the rescued unit. lutes promo is significantly better because it gives her several new options and several new ways to be useful, where garcia has to rely on combat the whole time, which, due to his disappointing speed, is generally subpar.

i think you should go with garcia, since they are both relatively comparable. the standards set by mekkah work for me. you want first statement?

i didnt have anything specifically in mind, but id be cool to defend lute, if u wanted to go for a different mid-tier unit

have people test read the names you choose. a name, especially of a main character, should be quick and easy to read. a player/reader/whatever they are thats consuming content you made, should not have to stutter or sound out a name because its difficult. they should not have to think that hard about how to say it. note that this does not mean they have to pronounce it correctly, but that they should mispronounce it in 100% confidence that their pronunciation is correct. an example of a name thats easy to read but hard to pronounce would be caeda. nowadays, i expect most people know her name is pronounced see-da, but in the early days of the fandom, many called her cay-da. the reason this is ok is because the people who called her cay-da didnt need to stutter or ask how to say her name. an example of a bad name in fire emblem, if one is aiming at an english speaking audience, is kjelle. im aware its a norwegian name, i know how to say it, but i had to look it up. most of my friends still say it wrong, because most english speakers are probably going to be unfamiliar with the name, and most native speakers are going to look at that combination of 'kj' and have no idea what the hell to make of it, and the answer doesnt really make sense to an english speaker. the reason kjelle is bad is because it will catch a player off guard, and theyll have no idea how to say it, and theyll get pulled out of the experience. my advice would be for you to get test readers and have them read some sample dialogue in which character names are used. if more than one or two readers stutter or ask how a name is meant to be pronounced, or they take more than 5 seconds to get a name, change it. even just a little. cut the name off at the syllable just before the reader has trouble. change how its spelled so the pronunciationis more clear. or just replace the name wholesale. but, it should take no time at all to read a name for the first time, and to get some pronunciation down.

i dont really get why so many people like caspar, though to be honest i dont really know what it is about him that i despise. just everytime i see his face it makes me angry and i wanna punch him.

well, in any other game it would be huge, giving him 1-2 range. it is not, however, so big here, since archers have way wider range than that. that means boey only get to counter enemy mages with his extra range, which is kinda pointless, since their res is higher anyway. he does get to hit on the pirates lower res, though. which is nice, i guess. but i believe youre underestimating celicas enemy phase. even against most of these pirates on enemy phase, celica still deals like 14 damage, thanks to her speed. this isnt one rounding, but it is really good chip damage so someone like boey, whose combat is generally underwhelming, can get some of that good shit, that kill exp, baby. even still, i think youre overestimating enemy phase. boeys almost one rounding thanks to enemy phase utility is celicas almost one rounding on player phase, but she doesnt need to be counterattacked. if boeys main use is to fight and almost kill on enemy phase, i fail to see how thats better than celica fighting and almost killing on player phase, especially as, again, she still deals 14 damage on enemy phase if she counters, which is certainly enough to clean up the pirates. i would also like to point out that celicas base defensive stats are almost all equal to boeys at base, so if you feel comfortable letting enemies beat the hell out of boey, you should have just as much confidence in celica, whose chance of one rounding most early game enemies is just as good as boeys. which is to say bad, since they both rely on level ups to one round anything on their own. boeys enemy phase utility is not better than celicas, since not killing pirates by 2 and not killing them by 12 wont make a difference to most of your party at this point, since pirates have little babby res stats. either way, other members of your party can sweep them up easily. either way, its not a kill. sagittae is just not that good a spell, its too slow, too costly and effectively does too little. boey combined with speed ring could one round enemies? then so can celica, whats stopping a player from using the speed ring on a character using a faster, less costly spell which deals more damage pound for pound anyway? do you think boey does better with a weaker, slower attack, and less overall offensive presence? i will cede the point that she has generally worse act 3 performance, but she at least does decently anywhere but the pirate citadel. my big complaint with her in act 3 is that she cant promote til its over, which is super obnoxious. an enemy phase which is not better in any super relevant manner, increased by a relatively negligible number, and requiring an item to do what almost every other mage can do pretty easily. hes good for drawing enemy aggro. consider the mercenaries along celicas route. nasty bastards. a lot of them cause trouble, because they have upwards of 9 attack and 10 speed, some having as much as 13 attack and 12 speed(i will clarify, for the sake of integrity, that no unit in the early game has both). valbar, with his 12 defense, can stand against these guys all day, and his armor knight movement isnt too bad, since noone else is promoted, and movement for base level classes is low. i dont think anybody handles these guys as well on enemy phase as valbar does. nomah doing boeys job is unimpressive, for reasons i detailed in my celica v boey college entry essay(sorry about how wordy this has been, btw. i tried to break it up so its not miserable to read).

im going blue lions, so im planning to take marianne, for sure, bc animal lover is prolly gonna synergize well with sylvain and also i find her attractive. i may also take dorothea, bc songstress will also synergize well with sylvain, even if he doesnt get a bonus from every girl nearby by virtue of ladies man, songstress will pick up the slack. plus, if gambits are strengthened by nearby allied units, which i feel like ive heard somewhere but i dunno if its true, then ingrids lady knight will synergize well with sylvains having a fuking harem ladies man ability. if more than two units allowed, i may take ferdinand, also for christmas cavs between him and sylvain. can you tell who my favorite character is so far

please god, let it be geneaology. i want to be able to play it, since my emulator is a big slut and wont play it playing a rom would be piracy and piracy is bad and illegal, and i def wouldnt steal a car

there are a few other points i disagree with, but these are the ones i oppose vehemently to. boey should not be in celicas place, and celica shouldnt be in boeys. these two units do have pretty comparable base stats, with celica leading in skill and speed by three each, and boey leading in luck and hp by one and two respectively, which makes this the one argument i can think of where growths are more important than bases in terms of stats. and it isnt even really close. celicas attack and speed growths outpace boeys, so that commanding speed lead just widens, and it isnt long before celicas damage output per hit overshadows boey as well. you said yourself boey comes close to one rounding pirates, but close to one rounding means little to nothing. however, a unit is more than just their stats and in these areas celica also tends to beat boey. the most important thing to a mage in this game is their spell list, since not all mages learn the same spells. celicas spells and learn times are all significantly better than boeys, most notably seraphim, which is what really sets her ahead in the long run. in celicas route, once the low res units(which celica handles better than boey anyway) are through with at the end of act three, and act four begins, a player should look for two things on celicas route; firstly, the ability to take on mages, and secondly, anti-terror capabilities. the sword you cited as a handicap for celica earlier does help her a little bit with the mages, who tend to have higher res than def, but you should have at least one dread fighter by now, so neither of these units really need to worry much. what they do need to worry about are terrors, and celicas access to seraphim immediately sets her above boey in this regard. also, nomah has no business being above valbar. valbar at least has some use early game as a meatshield while your squishy, squishy army hides and fights pirates from afar, even if he doesnt do it as well as saber or kamui, but nomah does nothing. his combat is pitiful, and he has no anti-terror spells either, so he basically ends up in a similar boat to boey, but boey had time to grow, and some use in the early chapters. nomah is just diving headlong into celicas extremely terror heavy lategame with no way to deal with terrors and no real utility to bring to the table.

anyone wanna do fe 15? im also down for fe 8

At best, she's kind of mediocre. Her almost pitiful strength base makes her combat pretty poor, even if you can count on her rarely being doubled thanks to her speed. I've seen a lot of talk of dodge tanking, and while that works in theory, it is rarely consistent enough to rely on in practice, especially considering her poor durability. The issue of her durability is even worse, because at least with other characters, their death generally doesn't instantly give you a game over, so you don't have to start the chapter over. she is swordlocked for the entire game, which is never a good sign. Swords may not as bad to be locked to here as they normally are, but that isn't saying very much. Hell, even Lyn has access to multiple weapons post promotion(not that bows help Lyn very much, nor would they be super useful to Eirika). She promotes super late, and is generally just going to be a nuisance until she promotes, with little practical usage, and then once she promotes she's not that much better off. She does get a mount though, which is always nice. On her own, she does have a few notable issues, but it's worse when you take into account the characters around her. I don't feel the need to talk about Seth past saying his name, Franz, while not necessarily spectacular is better instantly upon arrival with his mount, alongside his significantly better stat build, and the list of units like this goes on. All Eirika really has going for her is the rapier early game, and Sieglinde late game, but even Sieglinde doesn't really matter that much, since anyone able to wield an s rank weapon can one round most terrors. So while she isn't the worst character, that doesn't mean she's good.