ITT I rank the characters

[-Cynthia-]

I find it a lot harder to raise Kieran/Geoffrey, since they're good units... when you have fewer units to actually choose from. You have, like, 7 guys to choose from in 2-3 and 3-9, and one of them doesn't even count because lolastrid. Winning when your competition is that little is weak. Basically, the storyline forces you to choose Kieran/Geoffrey, moreso than Tormod/Muarim/Vika.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Basically you're punishing Kieran/Geoffrey for having worse competition, whereas Tormod/Vika/Muarim are actually taking slot away from characters and have decent units to compare to (hi Nailah/BK). Basically your whole premise around rating units like Boyd comes from the fact that Boyd has a lot of good competition and thus is "average". It's weird, you're kind of punishing forced units while tier lists do the exact opposite.

I don't really want to get into a huge debate about about Jill right now, though I do consider her above average Part 1(saying she's 1HKOd is iffy since like unit can do that). But I guess if you agree with the italicized paragraph, Cain/Giffca at an 8 is reasonable I guess.

Edited July 29, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Progenitus]

This doesn't make any sense to me. Basically you're punishing Kieran/Geoffrey for having worse competition, whereas Tormod/Vika/Muarim are actually taking slot away from characters and have decent units to compare to (hi Nailah/BK).

You didn't even read my passage, did you?

I'm saying that being among the best when you have very little teammates is worth less than being among the best when you have a lot more teammates. The fewer teammates you have, the more you're forced to use certain units regardless of their actual performance.

Say that you are only given 1 unit in the entire chapter. That unit would have infinite positive utility because he's the only unit who can beat the chapter. But that is really, really silly to give that unit so much credit, because the game is forcing us to use him whether we want to or not. It's like making Ike auto-top tier because he's the only one who can kill BK/Ashera.

Tier lists/rankings/etc. are about who helps out in beating the game, sure, but they should also act like a guide to tell you who you should add to the team (top tiers add the most to the team, bottom tiers the least, etc). When you're forced to use certain units because the storyline dictates it and gives you very few units to work with in the first place, there's no real recommendation to use them.

It doesn't help taht Kieran/Geoffrey aren't THAT much better than the other CRKs. Mak, for example, has almost the same durability as Kieran/Geoffrey.

Basically your whole premise around rating units like Boyd comes from the fact that Boyd has a lot of good competition and thus is "average".

Yes? Why wouldn't it?

[dondon151]

I'm saying that being among the best when you have very little teammates is worth less than being among the best when you have a lot more teammates. The fewer teammates you have, the more you're forced to use certain units regardless of their actual performance.

So? This doesn't change the fact that they perform better than other units.

[Progenitus]

It would help if you read the entire post and not only the first paragraph.

[dondon151]

I did, and I felt it would take up too much room to quote your whole post and post two sentences in response.

A tier list doesn't tell you who to add to your team. A tier list tells you who's useful. The FE6 tier list doesn't tell me to add Marcus to my team even though he's like in upper mid. The FEDS tier list doesn't tell me to add any number of utility characters to my team because a number of them suck in the long run.

[Progenitus]

I was talking about stuff like this

Say that you are only given 1 unit in the entire chapter. That unit would have infinite positive utility because he's the only unit who can beat the chapter. But that is really, really silly to give that unit so much credit, because the game is forcing us to use him whether we want to or not. It's like making Ike auto-top tier because he's the only one who can kill BK/Ashera.

Please actually respond to my post this time and not take it out of context.

Edited July 29, 2009 by smash fanatic

[Narga_Rocks]

Tier lists are supposed to reflect real play reasonably accurately, and thus I don't see why human error should be disregarded. It happens, and so it needs to be accounted for. Overlooking something that's clearly an aspect of the game is willful ignorance.

But then shouldn't the same apply to herons? I know we already punish rafiel a bit for 4-1's fog of war and falcon knights, but I mean what if you hit end turn before setting up Leanne's wall? Suddenly Leanne is dying on us because she is ORKOd by everything in part 4 while untransformed (I think transformed, too, in part 4) and everything in 2-E except mages and probably 2-2 as well (again, except mages). Or in 4-3 you didn't notice that mage/dragonmaster that has more than the 2 move other enemies have and so you left a hole thinking Leanne would be fine. If you screw up even a bit, she's dead. How can a unit get a 9 when the slightest mistake gets her killed?

This is why I disagree with looking too much at human error, because I very much agree with Leanne getting that high a score.

This example could also go with Reyson or Rafiel in other areas, or Rhys or Mist or Micaiah at times or Laura for all of part 1. Rhys should be lower than Mist not because he might get killed, but because we have to pigeonhole ourselves into a tactic to avoid him getting killed, whereas Mist gives us a little more leeway. Of course, the non-herons in that list aren't getting 9s, but I think 6.5 to 7.5 is too high for a unit that gets killed if we screw up if we want to actually account for the possibility of us screwing up.

Heck, even Janaff/Ulki could get hit by the crossbow wielders in 3-7 and 4-P and probably some other chapters if we miscount the effect of rivers and thickets or thought a crossbow user wouldn't move when he does. We don't care about that too much because we can avoid it rather easily most of the time. Same deal with Elincia, since an 8 is also too high for a unit that gets OHKOd if we screw up. And she doesn't even have the decent hope of dodging like Ulki/Janaff would, or the possibility of reaching 2HKO status from a crossbow with either a dracoshield or a seraph robe.

The point is, you can't just think about human error for characters you want to bring down and not consider it for ones you don't.

Tier lists/rankings/etc. are about who helps out in beating the game, sure, but they should also act like a guide to tell you who you should add to the team (top tiers add the most to the team, bottom tiers the least, etc). When you're forced to use certain units because the storyline dictates it and gives you very few units to work with in the first place, there's no real recommendation to use them.

Um, it's more about who helps you beat the game. If you actually raise Jill, she'll do a better job in 4-E than Haar, except in 4-E-3, but Haar is higher than her because he helps you throughout the game. If you just look at a tier list and take the top 10 units or so, you start bringing Volug to endgame and trying to use Sothe in endgame as a good fighter and probably some other interesting ideas, too. And what dondon said about bringing other interesting units to endgame in other games.

The fact that Geoffrey is very important to beating some chapters means he helps you beat the game. A tier list isn't about telling people who to use, it is about attempting to rate the overall performance of units in how much they help you beat the game efficiently. The player must then figure out on his/her own when they are supposed to drop people who have served their purpose.

[Progenitus]

So narga responds to the last paragraph and ignores the first two.

And people like fox wonder why I accuse others of not being able to read.

[Florete]

So narga responds to the last paragraph and ignores the first two.

And people like fox wonder why I accuse others of not being able to read.

People don't have to pick your post apart piece by piece to make a reply.

[Progenitus]

Except my post is supposed to be read with all three paragraphs in mind, not taking each paragraph separately and then countering them like that, since that's taking them out of context.

[Jaybee]

Except my post is supposed to be read with all three paragraphs in mind, not taking each paragraph separately and then countering them like that, since that's taking them out of context.

I can see why people put you on Ignore.

You've been in fucking debates, people counter bits by bits. Paragraphs are used to SEPERATE DIFFERENT POINTS. People might agree with something, so they don't respond to it, or they might find it pointless to respond when you've said it so many times and you don't get the point of the person's arguement, or don't acknowledge it.

Fuck, I'm sigging that as well.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Joshybear25

[Narga_Rocks]

So narga responds to the last paragraph and ignores the first two.

And people like fox wonder why I accuse others of not being able to read.

you mean this:

I'm saying that being among the best when you have very little teammates is worth less than being among the best when you have a lot more teammates. The fewer teammates you have, the more you're forced to use certain units regardless of their actual performance.

Say that you are only given 1 unit in the entire chapter. That unit would have infinite positive utility because he's the only unit who can beat the chapter. But that is really, really silly to give that unit so much credit, because the game is forcing us to use him whether we want to or not. It's like making Ike auto-top tier because he's the only one who can kill BK/Ashera.

I didn't care about it. I don't see how it's relevant to why I disagree with you on what a tier list is for. You weren't even talking to me when you said it all, so I saw something that interested me and responded. Where's the rule that says I have to respond to stuff I couldn't care less about?

I don't particularly care if you think that a unit would get infinite positive utility under some scenario and belief system so you reject it for being a silly notion. I disagree, but I don't see any value in commenting on it or saying how I disagree. And if you want to think Geoffrey should get less credit for being of paramount importance for two chapters than I think he should get, go ahead. I'm choosing not to disagree with you on it. You might in fact notice, if you read my post carefully enough, that I never said you should rate Geoffrey higher. I'm not even saying your topic should put more value on what actually helps us beat the game faster. You can make your rating system however you want. Geoffrey was an example of a unit that helps beat the game but isn't so great later on. It has nothing to do with you arguing with someone else about Geoffrey's placement. I could've easily used Leanne, who's inferior to the other herons in 4-E but we don't care about that, or Nealuchi, who helps a lot in 2-P with getting experience for Marcia to actually be more useful in the rest of part 2, and who himself is also pretty good at helping clear out 2-2 but isn't so great once 4-P rolls around. Or a fair amount of other units who deserve to be dropped once their most useful times is played out. I was talking about the tier list, not your rankings.

See where I said:

If you just look at a tier list and take the top 10 units or so...

A tier list isn't about telling people who to use

You might notice I wasn't talking about your rating topic set up with your varying rules.

I'm not ignoring the first two because I'm trying to avoid some awesome statement you made in them that refutes whatever I'm trying to say. I'm ignoring them because they don't matter to what I'm trying to say.

(Time to be annoying)

By the way, the "first two" paragraphs would actually include this one:

You didn't even read my passage, did you?

Where you were talking to Cynthia. See, I can pay very close attention to detail. Why is it relevant that I'm ignoring a post directed at someone else? Should I respond to it? Should I say:

Oh, I'm pretty sure Cynthia did in fact read it.

What's the point of that?

Heck, depending on our definition of paragraph, the first two might actually be your quote of cynthia's post followed by your accusation at her.

Of course I'm going to ignore the thing you quoted Cynthia saying when I'm responding to you, and the accusation you made at her.

[dondon151]

I was talking about stuff like this

Say that you are only given 1 unit in the entire chapter. That unit would have infinite positive utility because he's the only unit who can beat the chapter. But that is really, really silly to give that unit so much credit, because the game is forcing us to use him whether we want to or not. It's like making Ike auto-top tier because he's the only one who can kill BK/Ashera.

Please actually respond to my post this time and not take it out of context.

I think you're just trying to cop out of a response since you don't want to counter whatever I said, because your quoted paragraph does not in any way counter either of my previous posts.

That said, I find it extremely ironic that you're telling us that your post was supposed to be responded to in whole yet you cull one paragraph of your post for me to respond to.

Finally, let me counter your final, apparently unaddressed paragraph. Only so much utility can be assigned to a given chapter or action, so the notion of infinite positive utility is absurd. We must also make a distinction between performance and mechanics (i.e. seizing, defeating, recruiting) that we choose to ignore when tiering certain characters.

Take another hypothetical scenario. A FE game is 16 chapters long. The first 12 chapters must be soloed by the main character, and the last 4 maps introduce a plethora of other units that vastly outclass the main character, making him the worst unit on the map. Now, does it seem fair to ignore his 12 chapters of solo performance when performing an analysis on utility? If you agree that it doesn't seem fair, then you agree that units should get credit for performance on maps in which PC flexibility is low.

Edited July 29, 2009 by dondon151

[Narga_Rocks]

Oh, and how come you can take something out of context but I can't focus on the only paragraph that actually matters to what I want to talk about?

I was going to ignore what you did with one of my earlier posts, but now I won't. Hypocrites are annoying.

Here is what you quoted from me:

I'm kind of wondering really if calling something negative utility is just semantics.

This is what actually I said:

I'm kind of wondering really if calling something negative utility is just semantics. At least, among units with equal availability. If you stick your 0 line at the bottom to make everything positive, it isn't much different than if you stick it half way up (the middle unit's goodness, or whatever) and call everything underneath negative.

You said:

Negative utility is when not fielding the unit and giving the resources/kills/etc. to other units is superior to fielding the unit to "help" out with beating the chapter but consuming those resources/etc. This is assuming that, as a member of the team, the unit is getting the same number of kills as everyone else on the team (for example, if the GMs were fielding 7 units, Ike would get 1/7th the kills, Haar would get 1/7th the kills, etc.)

What you said had nothing to do with the point I was driving at. Not only that, but you are whining about me ignoring paragraphs that have nothing to do with what I'm trying to say. And I quoted your paragraph in its entirety. You can't even do that for others. You cut a sentence out of a paragraph and take it completely out of context. And before you say that you had 6 paragraphs under the one I quoted this time, well, none of those have anything to do with the point I was driving at either.

What I'm saying is, utility is a relative thing. We are defining a 0 line somewhere, and among units with equal availability (I was unclear here a bit, because I meant if they were in the exact same chapters, but it should be obvious based on the context) it doesn't really matter where we put the 0 line. I could stick the 0 line at the top unit, say that only the top unit has 0 utility, and everyone under it is negative. The question then becomes, who is less negative than others? The best units are the units with the smallest negative. Or we put it at the bottom unit. Everyone better than the worst has positive utility. Then we need to see who accumulates the most utility.

So we try to stick our 0 line at a reasonable place and that helps us to compare these units with units that are available in other sections but not in this one. But if we screw up our 0 line, then a unit that is helping us a fair bit for 20 chapters is suddenly not as good as a unit that helps a lot in 1, which is stupid because one unit was helping us beat 20 chapters more efficiently and the other helped with 1. In reality, to counteract how well that unit with 20 chapters of availability did over the course of the game, that one unit would basically have to have an AoE that nuked the entire screen of enemies and ended the chapter instantly on turn 1. And it still might not be enough to counteract what that other unit did for us over 20 chapters. But if you place your 0 line where you are putting it sometimes, then that unit with one chapter of availability can be like Lehran, and really not do much more than what Micaiah is doing with fortify anyway. Mia + Tibarn (both w/ parity, duh) can combine to ORKO corner auras, and if you vigor them on turn 2 then 3 corner auras are dead in 2 turns. So his assistance on corner tiles doesn't mean much, especially since it means other weapons might not have been blessed. His optimal use is basically healing, since he'll get one attack on turn 2 and another unit has to give up their turn to allow that to happen anyway.

Your negative utility comments had nothing to do with my comments about negative utility simply being a matter of where we set the bar. In an example where we have, say, 11 units and 7 slots, your comments rely on us setting the bar just under the 7th best unit. At that point, the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th best units get negative utility, the 7th might get neutral or positive, and everyone else gets positive. I could easily set my bar at the 11th unit and say the top 7 are better because their positive utility is more than the other 4 guys. I don't have to give the other 4 guys negative utility just to know that they aren't as good as the top 7. I'm smart enough to know that a 100 is better than a 60, for example. I don't need to see a '-' sign to know a unit isn't as good as another.

Can I go back to not really caring about this topic and just commenting when I see something interesting? Please? Or do I have to give a comment to all the uninteresting things you say just so I am worthy to comment on the interesting stuff?

Edited July 29, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Vykan12]

But then shouldn't the same apply to herons?

Of course. Who here has beaten FE10 without Leanne getting killed by a purge bishop in 4-P and 4-3, for example? Or in 3-11, it's possible to trigger Leanne's appearance without any way of protecting her, which leads to a pretty much guaranteed death.

At any rate, I think you're interpreting a dead character as gone forever as opposed to the additional possibility of just losing turns to a reset. I suppose that could mean Leanne could've wasted 10 turns or something, but it's not like even good units don't die occasionally. There's 2 horseslayer units in FOW maps that have a good chance of killing Titania if we let her roam freely in 3-P and 4-1. You might place a unit in a situation where they face a 0.1% chance of dying and it happens anyway. As you mentioned, crossbows are instant KOs on most of your flying units.

The point is, you can't just think about human error for characters you want to bring down and not consider it for ones you don't.

Why would anyone do that? Human error affects every character, not just ones with bad durability. The difference is, if Ike gets “accidentally” attacked, he’ll kill the enemy with ease rather than getting killed.

[Rodykitty]

I feel that having better avoid (well, extreme avoid enough to where dodging is consistent) and enough durability already accounts for human error. Technically you could have a character that gets 1RKO'd never die, but then that character doesn't have anywhere near as many options as a character that gets 10RKO'd, and human error could be seen as a player choosing an option the character simply doesn't have.

The reason Merric rose to top because of Curate is because having better durability gave him some more options. Now he can survive a player mistake more easily, and can even be used with risk, requiring less walling.

The difference is, if Ike gets accidentally attacked, hell kill the enemy with ease rather than getting killed.

Ike accidentally the chapter.

The whole thing.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Chainey

[Interceptor]

The problem is no player is an infallible robot. On HM you have to count spaces for enemy ranges, and you're bound to make an arithmetic error somewhere along the way, even if you double check frequently. Then you could've accidentally pressed end turn (certainly happened to me on far too many occasions) or didn't account for an enemy in FOW (eg/ a longbow dude standing just outside of your vision), or forgot about the meteor tome user in 1-E that ORKOes Micaiah, or a million other things that can only be avoided if you're painfully meticulous.

The only reasonable scenario here is the Fog of War, because it's not actually possible to have perfect knowledge of enemy locations at all times.

Tier lists are supposed to reflect real play reasonably accurately, and thus I don't see why human error should be disregarded. It happens, and so it needs to be accounted for. Overlooking something that's clearly an aspect of the game is willful ignorance.

I gave an actual, for-reals reasons for assuming that the tier player is a tactical genius, and that reason is that it saves us from having to measure how absent-minded and/or stupid that the playstyle of this phantom player is. There is absolutely no room for smash-style arguments such as "well what if you End Turn with Laura in range of something that can kill her?", and instead we can discuss the difficulty of protecting Laura from that scenario in the first place and factor in her durability-as-negative that way. Note I already dealt with your objection about how we measure something like durability in such a scenario, and it was a retort that you naturally ignored because it was devastating to your case. So, I say it again, and this time with more scorn.

You asserted something without supporting it at all, and then followed it with a non sequitur. You may as well have said that "tier lists are supposed to measure how many bunches of bananas can fit in a milk carton, and therefore I don't see why we should give Ike a bronze sword". It's incoherent.

I agree. This came up in a discussion of FE9 Devdan, where it was claimed that Devdan could be given the KW for every levelup because whoever is currently holding would in trading range and we could calculate Devdan's exact EXP gain so that he would only get as he went up a level. While this is theoretically true, it's pretty clumsy in practice.

You are also wrong. This Devdan situation is easily protrayed as needlessly adding compleixity to your movements and reducing your tactical options. There is no guarantee that the KW-holder would be in trading range, due to a variety of possible circumstances (and keeping them together intentionally might inhibit efficiency). Trading itself requires specific placement if you still want to make an attack, non-optimal placement could mean giving up a Player Phase. Calculating EXP gain is easy and is a non-issue. You have unlimited time to make decisions, and in many cases it's sufficient to estimate anyway. On the other hand, holding Devdan back so that he doesn't get a level-up when you don't want him do (such as on Enemy Phase) might constrain you further.

Just because someone is assumed to be a tactical genius, does not mean that units do magic things that they are not otherwise capable of. The laws of game mechanics must still be obeyed. Devdan getting KW on 100% of his level-ups is absolutely going to inhibit your movements, there is no getting around it. You could, however, successfully argue that he has KW on XX% of his level-ups, due to taking advantage of no-risk situations in combat, as well as BEXP'ed levels in base.

That is the difference between your objection, and reality.

EDIT: tl;dr version for the both of you:

Calculating the strategic opportunity cost of things like walling, keeping fragile units out of range, etc: DIFFICULT TO BE PRECISE, BUT POSSIBLE TO ESTIMATE.

Calculating how many random mistakes happen when the Tier Player plays: GOOD LUCK EVER AGREEING WITH SOMEONE ON HOW RETARDED THE TIER PLAYER IS, SINCE EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT BLIND SPOTS.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Interceptor

[Narga_Rocks]

GOOD LUCK EVER AGREEING WITH SOMEONE ON HOW RETARDED THE TIER PLAYER IS, SINCE EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT BLIND SPOTS.

Yep. Mine appear to be different from Vykan's anyway. I got Meg killed in 1-6-1 because there was 1 pegasus knight alive and it never occurred to me it might get all the way to where the rest of my units were in one movement. I've done other things too, but:

Of course. Who here has beaten FE10 without Leanne getting killed by a purge bishop in 4-P and 4-3, for example?

*Raises hand*

I have her near the bridge with my other units that are drawing paladins and the purge bishop on the north can't move far enough, and the purge bishop in the east gets surrounded at 1 range (he's too far from the bridge) and gives me his purge tome the following turn. He's actually very nice about it. I think he likes Sothe or something.

In 4-3, I kill the guy on turn ~3 thanks to Leanne in fact, since otherwise my flier wouldn't be able to go down, kill it, and get back to safety in one turn. I think it took shoving Leanne, but I'm not really using Nealuchi or my last slot character in that chapter anyway.

Or in 3-11, it's possible to trigger Leanne's appearance without any way of protecting her, which leads to a pretty much guaranteed death.

But she can move. And there's a pitfall to her left that enemies can't chase her over. All you have to do is kill the enemy in the way and she can fly to the left and get out of dodge. Since you'll have plenty of fliers and a brand new heron, they can fly over, attack, and Leanne can vigor them so they can run away if they aren't strong enough to survive the enemy phase over there. You can even use two fliers if one isn't strong enough to make the kill. Then, since she just vigored a flier, if for some reason I forgot precisely where she shows up and she only has enough move to be next to the pitfall rather than 2 squares away from it, one of those fliers can pick her up.

The point is we have to do this to keep her alive (limiting our tactical options), not that if we screw up she'll die and we have to reset.

At any rate, I think you're interpreting a dead character as gone forever as opposed to the additional possibility of just losing turns to a reset. I suppose that could mean Leanne could've wasted 10 turns or something, but it's not like even good units don't die occasionally. There's 2 horseslayer units in FOW maps that have a good chance of killing Titania if we let her roam freely in 3-P and 4-1. You might place a unit in a situation where they face a 0.1% chance of dying and it happens anyway. As you mentioned, crossbows are instant KOs on most of your flying units.

I'm just thinking of having to reset. I didn't play for almost a week after getting Meg killed in 1-6-1 on HM. It was irritating. And since the whole thing about human error was brought up as a way to punish units with poor durability that should never be attacked anyway by more than the limiting of our tactical options, then the point is that those hawks and herons at 9s are causing us to reset from human error just as much as Ilyana/Soren/Rhys/whoever, if not more than them. If we punish the low tiers further for the number of resets caused, then I don't see how we don't punish the high tiers even more, since they will likely cause more resets since they will be in range of screw ups more often. Herons have to get somewhat close to vigor, sometimes. Hawks have to get close to have an enemy phase.

Why would anyone do that? Human error affects every character, not just ones with bad durability. The difference is, if Ike gets “accidentally” attacked, he’ll kill the enemy with ease rather than getting killed.

Ike isn't a problem, but I never brought him up. Just other characters with the potential to get themselves killed. Take Aran in 1-4 for example. He can get himself killed and it isn't a matter of human error. Well, sticking a guy who can get crit-blicked in the path of enemies likely already is human error, but I mean that if you are going to put him in the path of enemies then there is no tactical set up in which he won't have the potential of causing a reset.

Which brings me back to:

Calculating the strategic opportunity cost of things like walling, keeping fragile units out of range, etc: DIFFICULT TO BE PRECISE, BUT POSSIBLE TO ESTIMATE.

Calculating how many random mistakes happen when the Tier Player plays: GOOD LUCK EVER AGREEING WITH SOMEONE ON HOW RETARDED THE TIER PLAYER IS, SINCE EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT BLIND SPOTS.

I can argue that I am retarded enough to cause a reset 1 out of 50 maps with weak units. That's 2%. Aran faces a 1% chance of getting blicked from tigers in 1-4, and there are enough of them he'll likely be attacked by more than 4 if you try to actually use him. 4 1% chances to die turns out to be: 3.94%. Aran faces a bigger chance to die in 1-4 than Ilyana/Leo/Laura/Micaiah because his level of crit-blickedness is higher than my level of retardedness. ie: He's got a greater chance to die than the others, since I'm only rarely stupid enough to leave them in a position in which they can get attacked. Therefore, Aran's durability is the worst. It takes someone being retarted 1 out of 25 maps or more frequently to actually give them a bigger chance of dying than Aran. So how are we ever going to agree with the level of retardness of the player enough so that we can figure out who is more durable in 1-4?

[Rodykitty]

Simply assume that utility is always the goal for a character. Yes, technically a character always out of the way is infinite durability, but then the character is doing nothing to help other characters or even help himself get to the point where he doesn't have to always be out of the way.

Player stupidity is really an imaginary problem. This is mostly about character strengths, and not player strengths.

[sirdangolot5]

(I think even Micaiah with max stats and resolve wouldn't be able to take on 1-9 without help from BK)

Lol I've done it. Well, except for Jarod.

[charmander6000]

But Jerod doesn't move and only has one range.

[sirdangolot5]

In other news, holy fuck, what a meta-argument.

Seriously, maybe shorter posts or an IRC would take some of the stress out of this.

Edited July 30, 2009 by sirdangolot5

[Vykan12]

There is absolutely no room for smash-style arguments such as "well what if you End Turn with Laura in range of something that can kill her?", and instead we can discuss the difficulty of protecting Laura from that scenario in the first place and factor in her durability-as-negative that way.

You still can’t overlook that Laura might die despite the precautions we take to protect her.

Calculating how many random mistakes happen when the Tier Player plays: GOOD LUCK EVER AGREEING WITH SOMEONE ON HOW RETARDED THE TIER PLAYER IS, SINCE EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT BLIND SPOTS.

It’s not something you calculate, it’s just something you account for.

Let's say we compare a levelled Rhys to a levelled Mist. Both would be getting the same level of protection, but Mist would still be far more forgiving towards mistakes due to being 2RKOed instead of 1RKOed.

[dondon151]

Let's say we compare a levelled Rhys to a levelled Mist. Both would be getting the same level of protection, but Mist would still be far more forgiving towards mistakes due to being 2RKOed instead of 1RKOed.

I thought this was already accounted for by the implications that their durability has. If Mist can survive a round of combat, the player can put her in positions to exercise her staff utility where Rhys can't. This circumvents the "what if the player is a dumbass" argument altogether.

[Vykan12]

There wouldn't be much point in having her heal someone if you know it's going to get herself injured. That's trading one wound for another.