Jump to content

FE9 Tier list v3


Recommended Posts

^Mordecai is not a combatant.

True, unless you grass him or somehow reach turn, what, 5? I was just thinking "Lethe + Mordy = 1 unit", though I didn't say it. When she untransforms, indeed if she untransforms, then Mordy is there to pick up the slack.

I have to say, though, for a non-combatant he's pretty high. Smiting is that important?

Edited by Narga_Rocks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 3.7k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I have to say, though, for a non-combatant he's pretty high. Smiting is that important?

Oh hell yeah.

C10: Mordy saves you from waiting through an entire enemy movement cycle, which is like 5 turns.

C11: Saves a turn

C12: Nothing

C13: Allows for 1st turn Astrid recruitment

C14: Saves a turn

C15: Saves a turn

C16: Saves a turn

C17-1: Facilitates the 2 turn

C17-2: Saves a turn

C17-3: Nothing

C17-4: Saves a turn

C18: ?

C19: Saves a turn

C20: Facilitates a 2-3 turn

C21: ?

C22: Nothing

C23: Saves a turn

C24: Saves a turn

C25: ?

C26: ?

C27: ?

C28: Saves a turn

C29: Saves a turn

Wherever I put a ? mark, he’s either saving a turn or greatly facilitating the strategy for the min. turn count. So, smiting saves us anywhere from 16-21+ turns. Efficiency isn’t all about turn count, though, right? Well, smiting is 100% reliable, the only contingency is whether the smitten unit can hold their end of the bargain.

If anything, Mordecai should be higher than where he currently is. I can’t imagine any form of efficient PT that doesn’t use Mordecai. I mean, for nothing other than a unit slot, he’s giving people like Marcia and Reyson +2 move on turn 1, sometimes +2 on turn 2 as well (such as in C29).

Some things to consider though: If Mordecai’s smite can be replaced by multiple shoves for the same effect, then his contribution is pretty nil. This is rarely the case though, since only laguz (and maybe generals?) can shove Marcia. Also, the more shoves a strategy requires, the less credit Mordecai gets. And, the rescue staff goes a long way towards diminishing smite usefulness in lategame.

Edited by Vykan12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Olivi Grass doesn't exist in FE9. It only exists in FE10. Therefore, Mordecai can't be grassed in this game.

Sorry. I meant stone. I thought someone once said something about stoning mordy in chapter 10 or 11 or something. Not sure when the first stone appears and don't feel like checking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry. I meant stone. I thought someone once said something about stoning mordy in chapter 10 or 11 or something. Not sure when the first stone appears and don't feel like checking.

The first stone just so happens to come in Mordecai's inventory.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can’t vouch for how efficient Merc Raven’s play is, but comparing his log to Gergeshwan’s at the end of C17, he’s behind by 13 turns. However, 3 turns are lost recruiting Jill, 1 lost from an unoptimal strategy in 17-2, and 6 lost stealthing C10. The other places where he loses turns are also a result of unoptimal strategy, not collateral damage from having an underdeveloped team.
Actually it's +5 from Jill (she has to be in Chapter 11 which set me back 2 turns and a +3 in Chapter 12). That on top of 6 (stealth) + 1 (I shouldn't have saved over Day Breaks). Another +1 was due to Makalov, otherwise the numbers match up to Gergeshwan's.
Radiant Dawn
Radiant Dragon* Edited by Mercenary Raven
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vykan, you must learn to make a distinction between "can help in a LTC strategy" and "is necessary for a LTC strategy". Allow me to address your overestimate of Mordecai's necessity in LTC strategies.

C10: Mordy saves you from waiting through an entire enemy movement cycle, which is like 5 turns.

C11: Saves a turn

C12: Nothing

C13: Allows for 1st turn Astrid recruitment

C14: Saves a turn

C15: Saves a turn

C16: Saves a turn

C17-1: Facilitates the 2 turn

C17-2: Saves a turn

C17-3: Nothing

C17-4: Saves a turn

C18: ?

C19: Saves a turn

C20: Facilitates a 2-3 turn

C21: ?

C22: Nothing

C23: Saves a turn

C24: Saves a turn

C25: ?

C26: ?

C27: ?

C28: Saves a turn

C29: Saves a turn

C10: For someone who seems so interested in LTC runs, I find it fastinating that you fail to consider the fastest clear of this chapter, which is a 3-turn non-stealth clear. And while Mordecai with a laguz stone can be a crucial element of this clear, he isn't necessary. A promoted Oscar will also be able to ORKO the tough enemies on the escape square (while Titania escapes with Ike). Plus, the Mordecai-required 5-turn stealth clear of C10 forfeits the ability to recruit Nephenee. Recruiting Nephenee in stealth takes at least 8 turns. FYI, the chapter can be stealth-cleared without Mordecai in 9 turns with all units recruited. Still, this is Mordecai's best chapter. So credit given.

C11: The Mordecai-required 3-turn clear is only relevant if you're on board with removing your opportunity to recruit Jill and Haar and getting the Laguzguard, Wyvern Band, and Brave Axe. It also requires recruiting Marcia and giving her ~1600 Bexp.

C13: Astrid can be protected on turn 1 with any two mounted units, so this isn't particularly important.

C14: Mordecai facilitates a moderately reliable 2-turn clear which sacrifices Makalov and Vantage.

C15: Mordecai is completely unnecessary for a 2-turn clear.

C16: Mordecai isn't required for a 4-turn clear, but he might be necessary to get one of the Full Guard or Dracoshield by turn 4.

C17-1: Mordecai is completely unnecessary for a 2-turn clear. Even without Boots Marcia or Jill

C17-2: The 2-turn clear of C17-2 is absurdly restrictive, but Mordecai is necessary.

C17-4: The 1-turn clear of C17-4 requires perfect deployment preparation and Boots Marcia or Boots Jill. Plus it sacrifices Adept.

C20: A 2-turn clear is completely possible without Mordecai.

C23: A 4-turn clear is completely possible without Mordecai.

C24: Mordecai is not necessary for a 3-turn clear.

C28: Which clear are you referring to? I'm positive that a 3-turn clear does not require Mordecai. I have yet to see a HM 2-turn clear of C28, so I'm not sure about that.

Endgame: I'm fairly confident that Mordecai is not required for a 2-turn clear (mostly, Ike needs to get lucky). Don't forget that we have Lethe, Ranulf, Muarim (probably with Smite), and Ena/Nasir to shove Elincia at this point.

Wherever I put a ? mark, he's either saving a turn or greatly facilitating the strategy for the min. turn count. So, smiting saves us anywhere from 16-21+ turns. Efficiency isn't all about turn count, though, right? Well, smiting is 100% reliable, the only contingency is whether the smitten unit can hold their end of the bargain.

Mordecai is essential to several LTC strategies, many of which have very strict requirements (can't be expected to be fulfilled in even the majority of playthroughs) and sacrifice valuable units or loot. But he is trivially useful. He just moves some mounted unit 2 (or 4) spaces forward. It is the mounted unit that basically solos the chapter that is the big contributer to the clear.

Some things to consider though: If Mordecai's smite can be replaced by multiple shoves for the same effect, then his contribution is pretty nil. This is rarely the case though, since only laguz (and maybe generals?) can shove Marcia. Also, the more shoves a strategy requires, the less credit Mordecai gets. And, the rescue staff goes a long way towards diminishing smite usefulness in lategame.

Don't forget that Muarim can learn Smite in C21's base and can shove everything transformed (and some mounted units untransformed). And then Ranulf joins who can shove mounted units transformed. And then the dragon joins. Meanwhile, Mordecai pales utterly to the far superior utility of Reyson's chanting and the Rescue staff.

Edited by aku chi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mordecai is essential to several LTC strategies, many of which have very strict requirements (can't be expected to be fulfilled in even the majority of playthroughs) and sacrifice valuable units or loot. But he is trivially useful. He just moves some mounted unit 2 (or 4) spaces forward. It is the mounted unit that basically solos the chapter that is the big contributer to the clear.

Therefore Mordecai's role is irreplaceable especially before Chapter 21 where Smiting is unique to him. And there are many chapters where multiple shoves and smites help a lot.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a monster post theorizing Marcia's turn count savings vs the optimal alternative. I tried to be as non-lazy as possible, watching videos, looking at maps and thinking at length to derive conclusions.

Well done. But unfortunately you weren't nearly as creative or dilligent in hypothesizing LTC clears without Marcia.

Note: I'm assuming Jill isn't recruited to avoid all "Jill = Marcia clone" type argumentation.

Um, okay. That's kinda taking away the most optimal alternative to using Marcia in several chapters, but whatever. I'll roll with it.

C11: Without Marcia, the most efficient strategy is to have Titania charge for the arrive square. This costs a turn, possibly 2 if the enemies to the west get too congested.

C12: Without a flier the boss won't even reach your boat until turn 8. Right off the bat Marcia's saving you 5-6 turns.

C13: Using fliers increases tactical flexibility, but doesn't really impact the turn count.

C14: You lose 1 turn by replacing Marcia with a paladin. And, I question the reliability of the Marcia 2 turn to begin with. Let's not throw Marcia an energy drop, a forge, and god knows what else to save 1 turn when opportunity cost is at the forefront of this debate.

C15: Marcia basically has to be used here if you want a single digit turn count. This gives us the option of having an untrained Marcia ferry some powerhouse unit to Muarim. Perhaps 20/-- Ike with a laguzslayer? I think Soren could pull an efficient kill too, for what it's worth.

This is less ideal than Marcia attacking directly since the dropped unit loses their player phase attack. So while Marcia can 2RKO for a 2 turn clear, the dropped unit must 1RKO to do the same. And if said unit fails to 1RKO, we not only lose a turn, but other laguz might die as well, costing us BEXP.

C16: I'd say this is the first chapter where Marcia is completely replaceable. Her only unique benefit here is in being able to get shoved/smited, which might save a turn if she ferries Ike or something.

C17-1: At least 1 turn is lost without Marcia.

C17-2: Unless a non-flier can be smitten through the swamp area, you'll have to make your way around. Even with a 10 move paladin, it takes 5 turns just to reach the arrive square, unless I miscounted. (See map here) So, that's 3 turns saved.

C17-3: Set turn count.

C17-4: I guess Marcia could ferry a unit to kill Oliver. However, this untrained Marcia would lose 3 movement (-1 for no promo, -2 for no boots) so at least 1 turn is lost.

C18: Since this map is mostly indoors, it's plausible that Marcia doesn't really affect the turn count.

C19: Because of Marcia's potential to be shoved/smitten, it's possible to 1 turn this map reliably so long as she can 1RKO Homasa with a 1-2 range weapon. She needs to be 20/8 or higher to double, but at that level she cleanly 1RKOes with a forged javelin.

I'm pretty sure there must be a way to 2 turn with a non-flier without getting attacked by Naesala. If you advance all your units on turn 1, on turn 2 a juiced up 10 move Oscar + Reyson should be able to manage a 1-range attack on Homasa.

C20: Counting squares, it takes 4 turns for a 10 move non-flier to reach the boss. With Reyson, it might take 3 if you're lucky (enemies getting in the way, etc). Having an untrained Marcia ferry someone through the mountains is too dangerous with all those wyverns protecting it.

C21: Non-flier path -> 65 spaces. Flier path -> 51 spaces. That's a minimum of 2 turns saved.

C22: Flying is literally useless here.

C23: While an untrained Marcia can get units past traps, having her charge for the throne must save at least 2 turns.

C24: While the optimal path to the arrive square doesn't require any flying, Marcia still probably saves a turn by shoves/smites. Also, for what it's worth Mist saves a turn by using the rescue staff. Has the rescue staff been discussed at all? You can get 9 uses out of it thanks to the hammerne.

C25: This map is so flier friendly even Haar's getting deployed here. The fact that pallies have their movement gimped makes every flier count even more. I suppose if Haar and Tanith ferried uber units before going into serious combat, you could cover most of the map pretty quickly.

C26: Flying isn't very special here.

C27: Flying is useless here.

C28: Bypassing that forest in the middle of the map saves a lot of time.

C29: Flying doesn't affect the 2 turn strategy.

C11: The 3-turn clear that requires a Marcia infused with ~1600 Bexp forfeits recruiting Jill and Haar. It also forfeits the Laguzguard and Wyvern Band that Jill brings and the Brave Axe that Haar brings. Plus, a more reliable 4-turn clear without Marcia is pretty trivial.

C12: Marcia's big chapter, no doubt. If we've fed her ~1500 Bexp, she can dominate this chapter. She can clear it in 2 turns if we are okay with forfeiting not only Jill, Haar, the Laguzguard, Wyvern Band, and Brave Axe, but also a Seraph Robe and Secret Book. If we want all of those spoils except the Seraph Robe, Super Marcia can still clear the chapter on turn 5, saving us 3 turns.

C13: Yeah.

C14: Not to mention we lose Makalov and Vantage with the 2-turn clear. On the other hand, Marcia is uniquely responsible for recruiting Makalov in 3-turn clear strategies, so that counts for something.

C15: Utterly unimaginative. A Super Duper Soren (20/6 with a Speedwings and Spirit Dust) can ORKO Muarim with a Fire forge on turn 3 (with 100% reliability, too!). An untrained Jill or Marcia can also facilitate a variety of reliable rescue-drop 3-turn clears (dropping a Swordmaster with the Laguz Slayer, for instance). If the dropped unit fails to ORKO Muarim, it's exactly the same as if Marcia fails to ORKO Muarim. Except a Swordmaster with a Laguz Slayer has better accuracy than Marcia with a Laguz Lance. A 3-turn clear also allows us to get more treasures (Guard and the Silver Blade in addition to the Boots and Physic).

C16: Yeah.

C17-1: I think not. I believe that a promoted Astrid or Titania can be shoved by Muarim and Lethe to just get far enough to clear out the northern enemies on turn 2.

C17-2: Tsk, tsk... More imagination desired. Lethe can move through the swamp area at greater speed than the Paladins. A 4-turn clear is trivial, but a 3-turn clear might be possible with enough shoves (from both Muarim and Mordecai) and good deployment preparations. It's certainly possible to 3-turn clear if we give Lethe the Boots, so that is technically the next best alternative (but quite unrealistic)

C17-4: Obviously a 1-turn clear is not possible without a trained flier with the Boots. A 2-turn clear should be possible with an untrained Marcia or Jill dropping off Boyd or Nephenee. Without the fliers at all, a 3-turn clear is probably the best that can be done, but even that might require a Paladin with the Boots or something. This is certainly an important win for the fliers.

At this point, it's worth pointing out that Tanith can do everything that Marcia can, but I'll continue to discuss non-flier clears because it's fun.

C18: I'm not sure. The fliers can pursue untransformed Ravens beyond where the Paladins can, so some number of fliers might be required for the fastest clear (which requires transformed Boots Reyson, BTW).

C19: So can Tanith. At base. Anyway, just about any unit can 2-turn this chapter with Reyson and shovers' help (I did it with Rolf once!). Though we might prefer to wait until turn 3 to secure the Knight Ring.

C20: This is a big win for the fliers. Two fliers with siege support can 2-turn this chapter. Alternately, one trained flier can rescue-drop a tough unit for a 2-turn clear. Moreover, it's possible (but difficult) to get both Smite and Rescue by turn 2. Without any fliers (of which there are 5 now), this chapter will probably take 4 turns.

C21: Certainly, fliers are very helpful here. 2 turns sounds about right with respect to the turns saved by having fliers (5-6 vs 7-8 in most cases). But using even Janaff or Ulki can cut that down by 1, I reckon.

C22: Yeah.

C23: Negatory. This chapter is completely and totally possible to 4-turn without fliers. I did it in a draft. I did have to use transformed Boots Reyson and I used Tanith to plug one or two potholes (which may or may not have been necessary).

C24: Nope. Boots Astrid or Titania can 3-turn clear this chapter with Reyson and shoving help. Even without the Boots, a 4-turn clear is possible with no fliers (it just requires a durable Paladin that ORKOs all of the enemies that might block their way).

C25: Haar is awesome, don't diss him! Anyway, this chapter is rough without fliers, no mistake. But we have 6 at this point (4 of the mounted kick-ass variety), so supposing that we are using none of them is purely academic. In fact, Marcia executing her LTCs in chapters 11 and 12 are probably hurting us because we can't deploy the two most durable fliers (Jill and Haar). Anyway, this chapter is possible to 5-turn clear with 0 fliers, I believe. But it can be at least 3-turned cleared with just a single well-trained flier, so there's that...

C26: Yeah.

C27: Yeah.

C28: Or does it!? I've yet to witness a 2-turn clear of C28 in HM. Please point me to one if it has been done. Meanwhile, I have 3-turned C28 on NM in 3 turns and I have no reason to believe it would be impossible in HM (it would certainly be harder). I used transformed Boots Reyson and the Rescue staff, FYI.

Endgame: The 2-turn clear strategy isn't terribly reliable and it requires a trained Elincia and the Rescue Staff. A flying rescue-dropper could be theoretically valuable in other strategies.

So, yeah. Flying is occasionally necessary and often helpful. But not to the extent you suggest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was fun duking it out with you Aku Chi, but I've spent like 10 straight hours writing enormous posts, so I'm clearly getting derailed from life again. I need to stay away from this place for at least another month.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

C11: The 3-turn clear that requires a Marcia infused with ~1600 Bexp forfeits recruiting Jill and Haar. It also forfeits the Laguzguard and Wyvern Band that Jill brings and the Brave Axe that Haar brings. Plus, a more reliable 4-turn clear without Marcia is pretty trivial.
Who needs the Brave Axe that Haar brings when you won't even have many units using it to begin with? There's Kieran but I don't think he's doing much other than a random kill with it anyway... and the kill probably won't even contribute much of anything to the chapter clear. Laguzguard and Wyvern Band are generally not that deep and many people go without recruiting Jill, after all.

Also, the point was that Marcia only needs that one set of BEXP to be set for the rest of the game. This means that the rest of your units can get whatever BEXP you want.

C12: Marcia's big chapter, no doubt. If we've fed her ~1500 Bexp, she can dominate this chapter. She can clear it in 2 turns if we are okay with forfeiting not only Jill, Haar, the Laguzguard, Wyvern Band, and Brave Axe, but also a Seraph Robe and Secret Book. If we want all of those spoils except the Seraph Robe, Super Marcia can still clear the chapter on turn 5, saving us 3 turns.
The Seraph Robe comes on Turn 6 v_v so recruiting Jill or not the minimum clear will never have a Seraph Robe. You get enough for Marcia and Ike anyway.
C14: Not to mention we lose Makalov and Vantage with the 2-turn clear. On the other hand, Marcia is uniquely responsible for recruiting Makalov in 3-turn clear strategies, so that counts for something.
If Jill isn't recruited all the time, Makalov definitely isn't recruited all the tie. Vantage is only useful if you want a super Nephenee for Chapter 25 clears (but that has this tendency to be unreliable at points simply because it relies on her being at half HP for a while and being able to survive a bunch of attacks...) but other than that I can't see an instance where Vantage makes a big difference in strategy.
C15: Utterly unimaginative. A Super Duper Soren (20/6 with a Speedwings and Spirit Dust) can ORKO Muarim with a Fire forge on turn 3 (with 100% reliability, too!). An untrained Jill or Marcia can also facilitate a variety of reliable rescue-drop 3-turn clears (dropping a Swordmaster with the Laguz Slayer, for instance). If the dropped unit fails to ORKO Muarim, it's exactly the same as if Marcia fails to ORKO Muarim. Except a Swordmaster with a Laguz Slayer has better accuracy than Marcia with a Laguz Lance. A 3-turn clear also allows us to get more treasures (Guard and the Silver Blade in addition to the Boots and Physic).
You're honestly suggesting pumping EXP into a Super Soren or a Super Swordmaster over Marcia? They do literally nothing with the BEXP they receive (and they don't receive enough CEXP) and Marcia does a lot more and allows more strategy flexibility in other chapters. Untrained they are the crux of the rescue drop, I agree, but why is it against Marcia that other units *with about the same resource allocation as Marcia* can ORKO Muarim too? fyi I already gave a strategy for Marcia/Jill to securely 2-turn (Jill w/ Laguzguard, Marcia w/ forged Steel Lance) and if not that then it is possible to give Marcia enough *almost broken* weapons for her to break a weapon on Muarim (one with 2 uses), break two weaker weapons on tigers (a weak weapon with 2 uses, another weak with 1 use, etc they turn up a lot) and then sic the forged Steel Lance on Muarim.
C17-1: I think not. I believe that a promoted Astrid or Titania can be shoved by Muarim and Lethe to just get far enough to clear out the northern enemies on turn 2.
No they can't. They have to go through a bunch of swamp and forest; Marcia still ends up 3-4 spaces short of the group of enemies WITHOUT boots. Titania/Astrid cannot at all do the same thing.
C17-2: Tsk, tsk... More imagination desired. Lethe can move through the swamp area at greater speed than the Paladins. A 4-turn clear is trivial, but a 3-turn clear might be possible with enough shoves (from both Muarim and Mordecai) and good deployment preparations. It's certainly possible to 3-turn clear if we give Lethe the Boots, so that is technically the next best alternative (but quite unrealistic)
Giving Lethe Boots is a much larger opportunity cost than giving them to Marcia... _much_ larger. The general strategy relies on rescue drops for Mordecai and Muarim anyway, but the most efficient clear is done by giving Marcia Boots (hmm) and shoving her to hell and back. Jill can't even do this.
C17-4: Obviously a 1-turn clear is not possible without a trained flier with the Boots. A 2-turn clear should be possible with an untrained Marcia or Jill dropping off Boyd or Nephenee. Without the fliers at all, a 3-turn clear is probably the best that can be done, but even that might require a Paladin with the Boots or something. This is certainly an important win for the fliers.
Oliver can do a _ton_ of damage to Jill, Nephenee, or Boyd. Not exactly a ton, but enough to nullify the chances of a 2HKO iirc. He can't do that to Marcia; Marcia remains the most reliable way to 1-turn 17-4 or even 2-turn simply because of her Resistance stat.
At this point, it's worth pointing out that Tanith can do everything that Marcia can, but I'll continue to discuss non-flier clears because it's fun.
disregarding the opportunity cost of using Tanith with Marcia's hypothetical resource allocation...
C18: I'm not sure. The fliers can pursue untransformed Ravens beyond where the Paladins can, so some number of fliers might be required for the fastest clear (which requires transformed Boots Reyson, BTW).
You keep saying this Reyson clear but clearly it doesn't exist if no one else has heard of it!
C19: So can Tanith. At base. Anyway, just about any unit can 2-turn this chapter with Reyson and shovers' help (I did it with Rolf once!). Though we might prefer to wait until turn 3 to secure the Knight Ring.
Marcia takes no damage from the boss and kills him quite easily in return. Jill has some problems due to Resistance but not many, though Turn 3 still gives you more flexibility when you use Marcia (and Marcia makes great bait for Naesala).
C20: This is a big win for the fliers. Two fliers with siege support can 2-turn this chapter. Alternately, one trained flier can rescue-drop a tough unit for a 2-turn clear. Moreover, it's possible (but difficult) to get both Smite and Rescue by turn 2. Without any fliers (of which there are 5 now), this chapter will probably take 4 turns.
They can't get a 2-turn clear with a Rescue drop. Marcia doesn't cover nearly enough ground on Turn 1 with two Shoves, a Smite, and even Reyson's canto-ing (because you still need to make sure Reyson is safe). Ground units don't do the job any different from fliers though (in regards to killing Shiharam).

It's also not difficult at all to get Smite and Rescue because you have an absolute ton of deployment slots in that chapter, so sending ~2-3 units north and a couple trained Paladins south gets you Rescue and Smite very easily.

C21: Certainly, fliers are very helpful here. 2 turns sounds about right with respect to the turns saved by having fliers (5-6 vs 7-8 in most cases). But using even Janaff or Ulki can cut that down by 1, I reckon.
Bearing in mind, that's a minimum, and the other advantage to a flier is the fact that a flier can go into the water. Going through the land actually attracts Tauroneo's crew so you need to plow through that; and they do cover a chokepoint, which makes it even more of a bitch.
C23: Negatory. This chapter is completely and totally possible to 4-turn without fliers. I did it in a draft. I did have to use transformed Boots Reyson and I used Tanith to plug one or two potholes (which may or may not have been necessary).
What's your strategy here?
C24: Nope. Boots Astrid or Titania can 3-turn clear this chapter with Reyson and shoving help. Even without the Boots, a 4-turn clear is possible with no fliers (it just requires a durable Paladin that ORKOs all of the enemies that might block their way).
Marcia doesn't have to deal with nearly as many units for a 3-turn compared to Astrid and Titania. She can fly over the water without a problem and she can cover a LOT of ground with Boots and good use of Shove/Smite.
C25: Haar is awesome, don't diss him! Anyway, this chapter is rough without fliers, no mistake. But we have 6 at this point (4 of the mounted kick-ass variety), so supposing that we are using none of them is purely academic. In fact, Marcia executing her LTCs in chapters 11 and 12 are probably hurting us because we can't deploy the two most durable fliers (Jill and Haar). Anyway, this chapter is possible to 5-turn clear with 0 fliers, I believe. But it can be at least 3-turned cleared with just a single well-trained flier, so there's that...
None of the fliers can do well in this chapter because Jill can't ORKO everything without multiple hand axes and it's just times like this that you can pump a lot of BEXP into a couple ground units and Rescue drop them...
C28: Or does it!? I've yet to witness a 2-turn clear of C28 in HM. Please point me to one if it has been done. Meanwhile, I have 3-turned C28 on NM in 3 turns and I have no reason to believe it would be impossible in HM (it would certainly be harder). I used transformed Boots Reyson and the Rescue staff, FYI.
I doubt there's a 2-turn strategy without some hyper amounts of shoving... though I think there is some possibility if you give Marcia a Laguzguard. I'm not there yet on my efficiency run though.
Endgame: The 2-turn clear strategy isn't terribly reliable and it requires a trained Elincia and the Rescue Staff. A flying rescue-dropper could be theoretically valuable in other strategies.
2/.375 = 5.3333.... (see dondon's post about FE6 HM Efficiency, because it's just about the same reason why you need to do a bunch of risky strategies in FE6; the alternatives take too many turns.) On top of the fact that you don't necessarily need to train Elincia to pull it off, she can use Rescue at base and you can shove the shit out of everyone.
So, yeah. Flying is occasionally necessary and often helpful. But not to the extent you suggest.
The mounted alternatives are often not as good and give you less flexibility in strategies.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since C28 keeps getting brought up, here's a 2 turn I found:

It's by no means 100% reliable- Untransformed Reyson gets attacked twice and the flier in question gets attacked by 2 dragons. But it is possible.

Endgame: The 2-turn clear strategy isn't terribly reliable and it requires a trained Elincia and the Rescue Staff. A flying rescue-dropper could be theoretically valuable in other strategies.

2/.375 = 5.3333.... (see dondon's post about FE6 HM Efficiency, because it's just about the same reason why you need to do a bunch of risky strategies in FE6; the alternatives take too many turns.) On top of the fact that you don't necessarily need to train Elincia to pull it off, she can use Rescue at base and you can shove the shit out of everyone.

I’m not sure where you’re coming up with this 37.5% value.

I looked through some draft logs and found this:

Endgame (2/147)

Titania gets a max might/hit Silver Axe forge and a level of BEXP. Ike gets the rest of my BEXP.

Calill kills the Sage in the center and then Mist is refreshed so she can Rescue Ike onto his spot. Ike attacks a Dragon so Ashnard's attack will put him in Resolve and Wrath range. On the Enemy Phase, Ike critikills Bryce and Ashnard's first form. Turn 2, Ike uses and Elixir and Berserk Ashnard gets critkilled again when he attacks. Also, Naesala actually got to do something this time.

There’s also

that achieves a 2 turn. I’m going to be using these as reference.

First we must account for Ike’s chances of dying on turn 1. In Leopold’s vid, Ike has 23 hp after the Ashnard hit, and with 103 avo/28 def, the enemies he faces are pulling 0-6 real hit and taking multiple hits to kill him. The only real threats are a dragon, who attacks Elincia instead, and Bryce (16 damage at 49 hit). Basically, his odds of dying are negligible.

On turn 2 I’m going to assume Ashnard attacks Ike before any other enemy, which means a fully healed Ike will survive the hit and go into resolve hp every single time. I guess Ashnard could miss, but he has 84 display hit (95 true).

All that’s left to consider is Ike’s odds of killing Ashnard with wrath + resolve. According to my HM enemy stats, Ashnard has 0 luck while Berserk Ashnard has 10 luck. Max skill Ike has 13 crit, and his crit bonus from Ragnell is cancelled out by Ashnard’s daunt skill. Factoring in wrath, we have:

Display crit on Ashnard: 63 crit

Display crit on Berserk Ashnard: 53 crit

On both forms, Ike only needs to land 1 crit out of 2.

Odds of killing Ashnard: 86.31%

Odds of killing Berserk Ashnard: 77.91%

Cumulatively, the odds of 2 turning are then 0.8631*0.7791 ~= 67%. That’s almost twice as likely as the probability you listed.

Now, if we 3 turn, that gives us 2 turns to handle Berserk Ashnard, which increases the odds of success to ~86%. I’ll assume a 4 turn is 100% reliable.

Using a probability weighted average, our turn count comes out as follows:

2(0.67) + 3(0.33*0.86) + 4*(0.33*0.14) = 1.34 + 0.85 + 0.18 = 2.37 turns.

Again, this is a far cry from the 5.33 turns from the N/P approach. Well, with the new probability of 2 turning it would come out to 2/0.67 ~= 2.99 turns, which is still over-represented.

Edited by Vykan12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mercenary Raven, you really need to work on your reading comprehension. It would save you the time you spend on irrelevancies. The purpose of my last post (as dictated by Vykan) was to explore the best possible clears while using (or training) zero fliers and then to compare those clears with the best possible clears when using Marcia. The goal was to get a clearer understanding of just how necessary fliers are to LTC strategies. The goal was not to endorse LTC runs without using any fliers. That would be silly. I'll respond to a few of your points that aren't irrelevant. At least until I get bored by aimlessness.

Who needs the Brave Axe that Haar brings when you won't even have many units using it to begin with? There's Kieran but I don't think he's doing much other than a random kill with it anyway... and the kill probably won't even contribute much of anything to the chapter clear.

In C25, Boyd can be rescue-dropped at the top and use the Brave Axe to Vantage 2HKO almost all of the enemies. Kieran can almost kill Bertram with the Brave Axe if a Silver Axe forge isn't available. Kieran can ORKO Hafedd with the Brave Axe (a very difficult and valuable feat).

No they can't. They have to go through a bunch of swamp and forest; Marcia still ends up 3-4 spaces short of the group of enemies WITHOUT boots. Titania/Astrid cannot at all do the same thing.

Those enemies move. I'm fairly confident I've heard of a 2-turn of C17-1 using Astrid and no fliers. Astrid might have had the Boots, though. The bigger issue is being able to ORKO the Halberdier at 1-2 range and being able to survive his crit (he has the Killer Lance) along with the other enemies. That's a significant challenge for Marcia, Titania, and Astrid alike. I guess Boots Marcia can whittle down the Halberdier on player phase?

Oliver can do a _ton_ of damage to Jill, Nephenee, or Boyd. Not exactly a ton, but enough to nullify the chances of a 2HKO iirc. He can't do that to Marcia; Marcia remains the most reliable way to 1-turn 17-4 or even 2-turn simply because of her Resistance stat.

Pure Water. Ward. It's not difficult to trivialize Oliver's damage.

You keep saying this Reyson clear but clearly it doesn't exist if no one else has heard of it!

I posted this strategy earlier. But apparently it couldn't possibly work in both NM and HM, according to you!

What's your strategy here?

I have a NM draft turn-by-turn, but apparently that's completely irrelevant according to you.

---

Vykan, isn't that C28 2-turn clear on NM? The enemy layout is considerably different in HM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You've proven your case that the gap between flier and flier-less (or at least Marcia/Jill-less) play isn't as big as I made it out to be. Cool beans.

Even so, I still think Marcia > Oscar. The team that favors Marcia is clearly at an advantage throughout the game compared to Oscar's team, which has the freedom to distribute resources elsewhere. The only thing that would convince me otherwise is the weight of Oscar's earlygame. I honestly have no idea how handicapped you'd be without using Oscar in earlygame, as I've never tried it. I'll venture some educated guesses for the lulz though.

C1: Lose a turn from not being able to rescue-drop Ike.

C2: At least 1 turn lost by not sending Oscar west. Depending on how much ground Titania can cover, could be a big win for Oscar.

C3: Unavailable

C4: Unavailable

C5: Defend map

C6: Another big chapter for Oscar, definitely saves a turn, not sure about two. It's certainly inconvenient that Titania has to rescue and drop Ike at least once.

C7: By not training Oscar, Boyd is going to be that much stronger, probably ORKOing most of the map. Also, Titania deals with 90% of the map. In Gergeshwan's run, the remainder of the units were dealing with the enemies near the starting position, so Oscars' contribution is largely replaceable by more intervention with Soren, Mia, Boyd and Ike. Basically, the turn count isn't affected.

C8: Defend map

C9: If we're not recruiting Marcia, Oscar's probably saving a turn in the rush to the throne. Otherwise we have time to let Titania basically clear out the optimal path to the throne while Marcia ferries Ike there.

C10: Marcia's now a part of the team, and is equally useful in stealth clears.

IMO those aren't big wins, and this is not accounting for the forced low deployment advantage.

I mean, Marcia's C12 and 17-2 alone pretty much even out all of Oscar's earlygame. Even if favoring Marcia is considered effectively worthless from C18 onwards, she has a clear win in my eyes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

C1: Lose a turn from not being able to rescue-drop Ike.

C2: At least 1 turn lost by not sending Oscar west. Depending on how much ground Titania can cover, could be a big win for Oscar.

C3: Unavailable

C4: Unavailable

C5: Defend map

C6: Another big chapter for Oscar, definitely saves a turn, not sure about two. It's certainly inconvenient that Titania has to rescue and drop Ike at least once.

C7: By not training Oscar, Boyd is going to be that much stronger, probably ORKOing most of the map. Also, Titania deals with 90% of the map. In Gergeshwan's run, the remainder of the units were dealing with the enemies near the starting position, so Oscars' contribution is largely replaceable by more intervention with Soren, Mia, Boyd and Ike. Basically, the turn count isn't affected.

C8: Defend map

C9: If we're not recruiting Marcia, Oscar's probably saving a turn in the rush to the throne. Otherwise we have time to let Titania basically clear out the optimal path to the throne while Marcia ferries Ike there.

C10: Marcia's now a part of the team, and is equally useful in stealth clears.

Xander cleared Ch 2 in a draft with only Ike, Boyd, Titania, so it seems like not using Oscar doesn't hurt the turncount.

Ch 6 it depends on how strong Ike is... 5 turns might be doable reliably if he gets the Robe, otherwise 6 turns is more realistic I think (as opposed to 4 with Oscar).

For Ch 9, theoretically you could have a promoted Oscar (I currently have a file at the Ch 8 base, and could BEXP him to promotion... as Ch 8 is a defense map, giving Oscar the chance to take some more kills shouldn't be too difficult)... I'm not sure but that might mean he could save 2 turns here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really aku chi? You're going to harp on my reading comprehension when your points or argument didn't even make any sense to begin with? The stuff you suggest in your post were somewhat stupid given you had a painfully obvious bend to them ("Oh we're forfeiting all this for a lower turn clear.. yea fuck efficiency" is your basic tone when I know you and many others were proponents of "multiple different times of playthroughs") and you suggested doing really stupid shit like getting Soren to 20/6 or having a Swordmaster take care of Muarim with a Laguzslayer or Lethe with Boots... after trying to argue against Marcia in terms of opportunity costs. I'm saying the arguments relative to what you were previously arguing were stupid, not the arguments themselves- after all, every playthrough counts.

Oh, and guess what? An unbuilt flier can't rescue drop as much as you are suggesting. When I was playing Chapter 20, for instance, Jill and Marcia had to take a lot of hits and kill a lot of Wyverns (did anyone else know that Jill has conversations with random Daein soldiers? It was really sad to read... but they definitely could survive most of them) and you can't rescue/drop safely and finish the chapter in 2 turns. Chapter 23 isn't irrelevant; a mounted unit will absolutely fucking blow at getting Ike to Ena within six turns. Going through land, once again, will attract the enemies which prolongs it more than 2 turns; going through the river is the exact opposite. But apparently I'm so bad at reading that you ignore every single legitimate point I make. Grow up.

In C25, Boyd can be rescue-dropped at the top and use the Brave Axe to Vantage 2HKO almost all of the enemies. Kieran can almost kill Bertram with the Brave Axe if a Silver Axe forge isn't available. Kieran can ORKO Hafedd with the Brave Axe (a very difficult and valuable feat).
I don't think Kieran's accuracy is reliable enough and it's also a matter of having him survive the amount of enemies over there. The other problem is that if you're advocating a Boyd Brave Axe strategy (doesn't give him a reliable 2-range and the other problem is that if he wants 2-range he doesn't have enough defense to survive everything up there. Also, Swordmasters will give him trouble; it IS a rout map. Finally, getting him rescue dropped in a decent amount of time is a bitch because of the boss). At any rate, comparing this to Jill and Marcia; they can Brave Lance Hafedd (Marcia can) and doesn't need much to get someone else to finish the kill.
Those enemies move. I'm fairly confident I've heard of a 2-turn of C17-1 using Astrid and no fliers. Astrid might have had the Boots, though. The bigger issue is being able to ORKO the Halberdier at 1-2 range and being able to survive his crit (he has the Killer Lance) along with the other enemies. That's a significant challenge for Marcia, Titania, and Astrid alike. I guess Boots Marcia can whittle down the Halberdier on player phase?
I forget how I did it, but I think you need to make sure Marcia has something like 33 Atk (21 Str + the Spear) in order to ORKO him. A Steel Lance forge also takes care of it, and playing around with a Javelin and finding out when it breaks allows her to actually preserve uses of a Spear so you can kill the other ranged enemies and then off the Halberdier with a Steel Lance. He has 23 Atk which Marcia shrugs off. But I'm not sure I believe the 2-turn clear with Astrid.
Pure Water. Ward. It's not difficult to trivialize Oliver's damage.
That fixes Jill and giving her the ability to kill Oliver. But the only unit that's likely able to use Ward at this point is Rhys and for some reason I doubt he'll be viable enough to bring at this point (especially since you love to milk the fact that 17-3 shouldn't be cleared ASAP). Pure Water wastes a turn at any rate, and using that means you can't use it later against some status Bishops... Marcia existing doesn't need any of these precautions.
I posted this strategy earlier. But apparently it couldn't possibly work in both NM and HM, according to you!

I have a NM draft turn-by-turn, but apparently that's completely irrelevant according to you.

Well of course it is, this tier list isn't NM.

Vykan- someone calculated 37.5% of Ike killing Ashnard... that's where I got it from.

Also, if you're playing fixed mode for Chapter 6- 25 Atk Titania has no problem taking on the boss. You know how she can do this? You need a durable Ike, but on Fixed mode she tends to get 1 EXP per hit... so equip her with a Fighter Band and give her the the Steel Axe (and for good measure a Fighter Band) and she'll actually proc the +2 she needs to kill the boss in one round. I'm actually extremely sure this makes a 4-turn likely without Oscar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whoa, chill out Merc Raven.

The other problem is that if you're advocating a Boyd Brave Axe strategy (doesn't give him a reliable 2-range and the other problem is that if he wants 2-range he doesn't have enough defense to survive everything up there. Also, Swordmasters will give him trouble; it IS a rout map.

I think the idea is that vantage + brave axe Boyd will 1RKO 1-range enemies before they even get a chance to attack. How effective this is depends on how many 1-2 range enemies are up there, but you do have additional turns to mop them up after the first turn carnage. You’re right about SMs though, Boyd only has 62 display hit on them with the brave axe, and faces a non-0 crit chance.

I don’t think this is a strong point anyway because of *surprise* opportunity costs. Vantage is useless on Boyd until the brave axe comes into play… The skill would’ve been put to better use on someone with a good starting skill like wrath or adept. And the brave axe is a highly valuable weapon with only 30 uses. By having Boyd use it here, we’re cutting back on guaranteed tiger+general kills, facilitated bosskills, increased player phase durability, and so on.

To be fair, Marcia’s largely doing the same when a strategy relies on her using a spear or a forge, so I guess that aspect cancels out.

Finally, getting him rescue dropped in a decent amount of time is a bitch because of the boss). At any rate, comparing this to Jill and Marcia; they can Brave Lance Hafedd (Marcia can) and doesn't need much to get someone else to finish the kill.

I think you mean Gromell, because Hafedd is the C27 boss (the BK chapter). IIRC base Tanith can 2RKO with the sonic sword, so he’s not that much of a nuisance.

That fixes Jill and giving her the ability to kill Oliver. But the only unit that's likely able to use Ward at this point is Rhys and for some reason I doubt he'll be viable enough to bring at this point (especially since you love to milk the fact that 17-3 shouldn't be cleared ASAP). Pure Water wastes a turn at any rate, and using that means you can't use it later against some status Bishops... Marcia existing doesn't need any of these precautions.

This is completely wrong. Bosskiller uses pure water, gets rescued. The rescuer gets vigored, drops the bosskiller. Turn 2, the bosskiller is free to move while profiting from the res boost. No turns are lost using the spirit water.

Vykan- someone calculated 37.5% of Ike killing Ashnard... that's where I got it from.

Yeah, but where? Trudging through this topic is a pain.

Also, if you're playing fixed mode for Chapter 6- 25 Atk Titania has no problem taking on the boss. You know how she can do this? You need a durable Ike, but on Fixed mode she tends to get 1 EXP per hit... so equip her with a Fighter Band and give her the the Steel Axe (and for good measure a Fighter Band) and she'll actually proc the +2 she needs to kill the boss in one round. I'm actually extremely sure this makes a 4-turn likely without Oscar.

The issue isn’t so much whether Titania can kill the boss as it is Ike keeping up with her. I know Titania is awesome, but I’m not sure she can handle enemies while carrying Ike without getting her path blocked. It wouldn’t amaze me if she could, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whoa, chill out Merc Raven.
Considering this is the millionth time he has ignored crucial points and said the same shit to me I have every right.
I think the idea is that vantage + brave axe Boyd will 1RKO 1-range enemies before they even get a chance to attack. How effective this is depends on how many 1-2 range enemies are up there, but you do have additional turns to mop them up after the first turn carnage. You’re right about SMs though, Boyd only has 62 display hit on them with the brave axe, and faces a non-0 crit chance.
There are a lot of enemies with 1-2 up there, and an untrained flier is also at the mercy of Ballistas... I know what his point was but I question the efficiency of the entire strategy because I'm sure like 33-50% are 1-2 ranged.
To be fair, Marcia’s largely doing the same when a strategy relies on her using a spear or a forge, so I guess that aspect cancels out.
Marcia's main advantage (and Jill's by extension) is to ferry someone like Nephenee who can actually use Vantage... somewhat of an opportunity cost but frankly I think there's enough BEXP for a one-chapter-wonder.
I think you mean Gromell, because Hafedd is the C27 boss (the BK chapter). IIRC base Tanith can 2RKO with the sonic sword, so he’s not that much of a nuisance.
Chapter 26? Gromell is 4HKO'd by Ike Sonic Sword (my Ike was a freak of nature with 9 Mag) so I can't imagine a 2HKO from base Tanith.
This is completely wrong. Bosskiller uses pure water, gets rescued. The rescuer gets vigored, drops the bosskiller. Turn 2, the bosskiller is free to move while profiting from the res boost. No turns are lost using the spirit water.
Oh didn't think of that... but you can't Vigor in 17-4. That's beside the point because getting a kill on Turn 2 EP is a good enough win because you don't have to deal with Oliver healing himself so Pure water is useless here.
Yeah, but where? Trudging through this topic is a pain.
http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27723&view=findpost&p=1671232

Too lazy to verify it though...

The issue isn’t so much whether Titania can kill the boss as it is Ike keeping up with her. I know Titania is awesome, but I’m not sure she can handle enemies while carrying Ike without getting her path blocked. It wouldn’t amaze me if she could, though.
She'll be perfectly fine. People underestimate Titania and that's saying a surprising amount... Finally, you need a particular amount of Def on the Myrmidon in order to actually beat the chapter in 4 turns (iirc he needed like 19 HP/4 Def, you can restart repeatedly to proc it but I know aku chi won't like this argument. Without that you can't complete it in four turns, see this, and my Oscar was +1 Str higher than usual).
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Considering this is the millionth time he has ignored crucial points and said the same shit to me I have every right.

BushInternetSeriousBusiness.jpg

Chapter 26? Gromell is 4HKO'd by Ike Sonic Sword (my Ike was a freak of nature with 9 Mag) so I can't imagine a 2HKO from base Tanith.

Tanith has 10 base mag and doubles (lol 17 AS boss), so it's still a 2RKO as I claimed.

http://serenesforest...dpost&p=1671232

Too lazy to verify it though

XanderSalamander clearly failed at math because he didn't take into account the increased probability of only needing 1 crit in 2 hits. The 67% value I came up with is also an underestimation because I forgot about the 6-7 crit bonus Ike gets from resolve. The odds are then easily above 70% for the 2 turn.

Edited by Vykan12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Say what you will but there's people on the other side of the computer. Doesn't matter the means of communication; you are still communicating with a person.

And you are right, I was misreading (4HKO IS 2RKO...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regardless, I don't see how it's not particularly relevant when I assert that Marcia doesn't need an energy drop, dracoshield(s), or full guard use beyond bypassing ballistae. Also, the ability to build a team around Marcia is paramount in determining her opp. cost. The faster a team can build around her, the lower her opp. cost becomes.

The Energy Drop and Dracoshield are situationally useful to increase the reliability of some of Marcia's clears. They are not always best for Marcia, but I thought they were worth mentioning. As for the Full Guard, I do tend to underestimate just how sucky Archers and Snipers are in PoR (even Bow Paladins are a minor threat).

Another thing to consider is the sheer amount of low maintenance units the game provides. Titania, Tanith, Muarim and Geoffrey are ready-made combat units that reduce the need for BEXPing people like Makalov into glory. And, as I said before, earlygame units like Ike, Oscar and Boyd have access to enough CEXP to be low maintenance in their own right. My point being, you already have a huge pool of useful units that don't require extensive BEXP to achieve combat ownage.

Haar is at least as ready-made as Geoffrey. Anyways, you make a good point, but Titania is the only ready-made mounted unit available before C18 and we often need 2-3.

The idea is, Marcia's strain on resources over the long term is actually quite low. Initially her investment is extremely high, but she immediately reaps a worthy reward (6 turns in C12). As she continues to match or improve turn counts for subsequent chapters, your resource pool is also building, to the point where the only distinguishable difference between Marcia's team and Oscar's team is the raw advantages of Marcia's flight.

It would be another matter entirely if BEXP were scare (it only is in the short term), units were difficult to raise (they really aren't, especially if you use an optimal core of 6-8 units), or if Oscar's team were actually saving turns at certain points compared to Marcia's team (never the case).

Oscar's team "saves turns" earlygame. And if Oscar's team recruits Jill, Marcia's team is the one that struggles to save turns (with or without Jill) beyond C12.

With respect to Bexping Marcia, it's a funny situation to be sure. Marcia demands resources like no other unit in the game, but she can also provide unrivaled utility. It's certainly a difficult task to accurately account for the opportunity cost of Marcia taking her resources. I'm not sure we're making much progress.

Ballistae aren't that dangerous with the full guard equipped. They vary from 18-22 atk, but Marcia is already 20/8-20/10 when they start showing up, and thus has 44hp/16 def with a seraph. She laughs at that 2-6 damage.

Until they crit her. A Killer Ballista deals 12 damage on a crit to a 20/10 Full Guard Marcia (and OHKOs Marcia without the Full Guard, of course). Plus, all of the Ballistae in C24 are Iron Ballista, dealing 6 damage to a 20/10 Full Guard Marcia. Even with the Full Guard, Marcia's durability is an issue in chapters 23 and 24.

Which bosses are particularly dangerous for her?

Good point. I forgot so many late-game bosses used magic weapons...

Really, only C28 seems to be a major issue for Marcia.

Chapter 25 is another major issue. We want to send a flier up to the north to either drop a destroyer or tear up the place themselves. Marcia (and Tanith)'s mediocre durability make them less suited for this task than the Wyvern Lords. Chapter 26 also has a very high enemy density on the way to the boss, which make things a little dangerous for Marcia. I'll grant that sending Tanith along to give +10 Avo can help.

And, just as an interesting aside, let's look at how Marcia's "fragile" durability compares to other revered units.

20/15 Marcia: 47 hp/17 def/72 avo (+ seraph robe)

20/10 Kieran: 43 hp/19 def/54 avo

20/10 Boyd: 53 hp/14 def/ 51 avo

20/15 Astrid: 40 hp/18 def/66 avo

20/18 Titania: 47 hp/18 def/63 avo

20/8 Ike: 43 hp/18 def/61 avo

20/10 Oscar: 43 hp/19 def/55 avo

20/15 Tanith: 35 hp/16 def/72 avo

So Marcia, one of the most underleveled units in the game, has a 5 level lead on Boyd, Oscar, and Kieran... Oh, and only Marcia gets a durability stat booster. Also ignored is that Marcia needs a Full Guard to avoid bonus damage. Meanwhile, the Paladins can all equip the Knight Ward when needed for an extra +2 Def and +2 Res. Yeah, this seem like an ingenuous comparison...

Cool idea.

Now, once the boots come into play, whoever has 10 move is far and away the ideal recipient for other resources (full guard, seraph robe, forges, etc). Let's assume we give Jill the boots in this example. From this point onwards, there's a net benefit to plowing Jill with resources, even if we attribute the cost directly to how 8 move Marcia would improve.

I think this actually goes a long way to making this value X tangible.

Jill takes the boots: 0 net benefit because of Marcia's existence.

Jill takes further resources: Net benefit, even if Marcia is considered the opportunity cost.

And, as Jill takes more resources, the next resource she takes will have a higher net benefit because Marcia has less resources available to her to become ridiculous.

For example, if Jill has the boots and the full guard, the net benefit of Jill taking a forge on top of that is increased, since Marcia is already relegated to 8 movement and has to avoid ballistae. Under those conditions, the benefit of giving Marcia a forge is pretty minimal.

If we follow this to its logical end, once Jill has all the resources she needs, Marcia doesn't have any resources at her disposal to emulate Jill's performance. She's simply going to be an 8 move flier with reasonable combat. Jill's net benefit is going to be significant, because the alternative is a non-favored Marcia trying to pull Jill's crazy stunts, which is going to cost turns.

It's kind of like time-based opportunity cost. At the time Jill takes the boots, her net benefit is 0 b/c of Marcia. But, once that decision is made it's as though the boots don't exist and Jill started the game with 10 move all along. It no longer weighs against her when factoring future opportunity costs. Each new chapter is a snapshot where only the resources currently present are considered. What Oscar can do in C28 with the boots is irrelevant because our decision branch gave it to Jill a long time ago, and we've already factored the cost by considering what Marcia can do with the boots for the remainder of the game.

That's the general principle. Which unfortunately makes it even harder to accurately evaluate opportunity costs. But it is more accurate: so be it.

Whatever way you want to spin it (dynamic resource allocation, favoritism inertia, intuition, etc), the fact that less units can satisfy a pivotal role (super flier) than a lesser role (high move frontliner) bodes in their favor.

Of course. If Marcia were equivalent to Oscar in every way (including availability) but had flight on top, Marcia > Oscar would be a no-brainer. But Oscar does have meaningful advantages over Marcia (availability and needing fewer resources for optimal performance) which make the comparison more contentious.

Don't forget Lethe and Mordy and later Muarim. They don't have re-move, but they do have 9 move.

They also don't have 2 range. They can't really compete with the Paladins' combat. But Lethe and Muarim's combat can help, and it comes ready-made.

So...no 9 move Oscar before chapter 14 and he's apparently not getting much bexp before then either, for some reason. Good to know. I was assuming we wanted him promoted for movement and that you wanted him to be better earlier (fewer levels with KW).

It depends on what we want Oscar to do. If we want a 3-turn clear of C10 and don't want to use a laguz stone on Mordecai, giving Oscar enough Bexp to promote in C10's base might be a good idea. Similarly, if we want to 4-turn C11 (missing out on Jill, Haar and their equipment), a promoted Oscar is a boon (though I think we can manage it with just Titania and Lethe). Otherwise, Oscar is fine with promoting around chapter 13-14. Even an unpromoted (though high-level) Oscar can ORKO most of C13's units. Promoting him lets him ORKO the Halberdiers, so it isn't a bad idea. As for when to give Oscar his moderate Bexp dump so he can double and 2HKO most enemies, the earlier the better. Even Bexp in C8's base can result in more C8 Cexp by allowing Oscar to safely expose himself to more enemies.

You have Titania + Kieran + Jill + Marcia + Lethe + Mordy and you think that Oscar's addition to the team is NOT hurt significantly more than the addition of a second flier?

You're still missing the distinction. Jill's existence hasn't been the focus of my argument. The opportunity cost of giving Marcia's resources to Jill has been my focus. If Marcia2 joined the team in place of Marcia at level 20/2 with Marcia's 20/2 averages and growths, she wouldn't need any Bexp and thus wouldn't suffer those opportunity costs that Marcia normally does. In this case, Marcia2 > Oscar. Because Marcia needs a bunch of resources to deliver most of her noteworthy contributions and those resources have the high opportunity cost of being given to Jill instead, Marcia is in a very different situation from the hypothetical Marcia2. Oscar's situation is also different, because he needs 0 resources to provide his earlygame utility and relatively few resources to continue to make significant contributions throughout the rest of the game. It's not irrelevant that we get additional mounted units that can reduce the uniqueness of Oscar's contributions, but it isn't related to my opportunity cost argument for Marcia/Jill.

Also, Marcia can arguably exist in a Jill-less world. If the second flier isn't particularly significant (you don't seem to think it is much more significant than being one of 5 mounted units on the team) then Marcia is saving an additional 3 turns over having to recruit Jill.

This is true. The opportunity cost of Marcia's Bexp dump might not always be Jill, because Jill won't always be recruited. In this case, it would be the lesser (but still significant) opportunity cost of giving the Bexp to Kieran, Astrid, or Makalov. The same applies to Jill. We can save 3-4 turns in C9 by not recruiting Marcia, so her recruitment should not be assumed when evaluating Jill. Sometimes Marcia will exist, so Jill faces a higher opportunity cost for her Bexp dump. On other playthroughs, Jill's top competition for Bexp will come from the likes of Kieran or Astrid. I don't know what likelihood we should assume for the recruitment of the other early-join flier. It does affect the early-join fliers' evaluation more than a little.

I think maybe a better answer than the one I provided earlier is this:

Marcia + Jill equals two fliers, and apparently having a second isn't so important. I'm not saying Kieran cancels Oscar because you either have Kieran or Oscar. I'm saying that Kieran cancels Oscar because you have 3 Paladins instead of 2. Having a third isn't so important. Oscar can't choose which Paladin he is, just like Marcia or Jill can't choose which flier they are. Anything Titania + Oscar + Lethe + Mordy can do, it is likely that Titania + Kieran + Lethe + Mordy are perfectly capable of pulling the same feat. Or, for those who have played this a ton recently, is that statement incorrect?

This statement is mostly correct, except that units that accomplish similar feats don't cancel each other out (as in, neither get the benefits for what both can do). They do:

1) Make the contributions that both can make less unique.

2) Make the opportunity cost for resources both need nearly equal to the benefit that the units gain from that resource.

It is the second point which applies much more to Marcia and Jill than Oscar and Kieran, because Marcia and Jill need considerably more resources to make their awesome contributions than Oscar or Kieran. Hell, with the same amount of Bexp it takes for Marcia or Jill to kick ass (ORKO most units with sufficient durability), we could get both Oscar and Kieran to kick ass. Now, the resources are still best spent on one of the fliers first (then the pair of Paladins, then the second flier), but that flier bears the full brunt of the opportunity cost for that Bexp (which Oscar and Kieran only share, and unequally - Kieran needs more Bexp). Is this distinction clear?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

*Note that I heavily edited this post since I initially wrote it in a rush.

Oscar's team "saves turns" earlygame. And if Oscar's team recruits Jill, Marcia's team is the one that struggles to save turns (with or without Jill) beyond C12.

By your concept of favoritism inertia, this is false. Once we begin to favor Marcia, she's beginning to build a net benefit over Jill that only increases the more resources we put towards her.

Until they crit her. A Killer Ballista deals 12 damage on a crit to a 20/10 Full Guard Marcia (and OHKOs Marcia without the Full Guard, of course). Plus, all of the Ballistae in C24 are Iron Ballista, dealing 6 damage to a 20/10 Full Guard Marcia. Even with the Full Guard, Marcia's durability is an issue in chapters 23 and 24.

Sure, that's a problem. It's not like there aren't workarounds though. For instance, with all the movement boosting Marcia gets (shove/smites, boots, vigor), she can often take out a ballistician on player phase. I know because I used to do it all the time when I played the game. Compared to Jill, what is Marcia losing? A player phase action? Not the end of the world so long as Marcia can push forward unhindered.

Chapter 25 is another major issue. We want to send a flier up to the north to either drop a destroyer or tear up the place themselves. Marcia (and Tanith)'s mediocre durability make them less suited for this task than the Wyvern Lords. Chapter 26 also has a very high enemy density on the way to the boss, which make things a little dangerous for Marcia. I'll grant that sending Tanith along to give +10 Avo can help.

I don't understand why Marcia would have trouble surviving when she's flying in an area where most enemies can't reach her. Savior covers the issue of her carrying someone. Full guard covers the problem of the only ballista shooting at her. Gromell was already shown to be a minimal threat, especially when we can 2RKO him with a combination of sonic sword + bolting... and that pretty much covers it for turn 1. The wyverns only show up later as reinforcements, giving her an opportunity to heal if necessary.

Ironically, Jill and Haar are actually worse off in this situation thanks to Gromell. Because of their thunder weakness, Gromell has 10 extra atk (36 total), and does 25 damage to both characters (2HKO before def boosters come into play). They also have much less avoid.

This boss advantage isn’t limited to C25 either. As you said yourself, “I forgot so many bosses used magic weapons…”

So Marcia, one of the most underleveled units in the game, has a 5 level lead on Boyd, Oscar, and Kieran... Oh, and only Marcia gets a durability stat booster. Also ignored is that Marcia needs a Full Guard to avoid bonus damage. Meanwhile, the Paladins can all equip the Knight Ward when needed for an extra +2 Def and +2 Res. Yeah, this seem like an ingenuous comparison...

I already explained the 5 level lead is based on increased CEXP gains from bosskilling and playing a pivotal role in most chapters. There's an opp. cost to that (like all things), but I'd say it's pretty small since alternative approaches often involve some unit charging ahead and sponging most of the exp for themselves anyway.

More importantly, though, I think you’re misinterpreting the intent of my post. Obviously if we compared Marcia to Kieran and gave both seraph robes, exp favoritism, etc, then Kieran’s going to be more durable. That’s not the point.

It’s more like this: most of the units in high/top tier are plenty durable without any form of durability boosting favoritism. So, if Marcia can measure up to them using the resources I discussed (EXP favoritism, seraph robe, full guard), then her durability concerns have been addressed. Your argument seems to be that even with all these things, she’s still a defensive liability and therefore needs dracoshields on top of everything. That’s all that I’ve been challenging.

=====================================================================================

Now for the stuff you quoted Narga on:

It depends on what we want Oscar to do. If we want a 3-turn clear of C10 and don't want to use a laguz stone on Mordecai, giving Oscar enough Bexp to promote in C10's base might be a good idea. Similarly, if we want to 4-turn C11 (missing out on Jill, Haar and their equipment), a promoted Oscar is a boon (though I think we can manage it with just Titania and Lethe). Otherwise, Oscar is fine with promoting around chapter 13-14. Even an unpromoted (though high-level) Oscar can ORKO most of C13's units. Promoting him lets him ORKO the Halberdiers, so it isn't a bad idea. As for when to give Oscar his moderate Bexp dump so he can double and 2HKO most enemies, the earlier the better. Even Bexp in C8's base can result in more C8 Cexp by allowing Oscar to safely expose himself to more enemies.

If we plough Oscar with BEXP in C10-11, this carries the cost of delaying Marcia and/or Jill’s ascension to godmode. Hell, it already compromises low turning C12, arguably Marcia’s biggest single victory in the game. Opportunity costs can work against Oscar too you know.

Besides, what is so costly about Mordecai using a laguz stone in C10? Is there any other point in the game where there’s a pressing need for him to be transformed? 90% of the time he smites on turn 1 and is done, no transformation required. And if he really needs it, there’s always the demi-band.

I’m certain Titania can single-handedly reach the arrive square by turn 4, so having Oscar promoted in C11 is pretty inconsequential, as you even implied. BEXPing him at this point would be a waste.

Oscar's situation is also different, because he needs 0 resources to provide his earlygame utility and relatively few resources to continue to make significant contributions throughout the rest of the game.

You obviously highly value low maintenance units, and if this were a harder game like FE6, we wouldn’t be having these long discussions. The problem is, the value of low maintenance isn’t as significant in a game like FE9 because of its lack of difficulty and large pool of resources. These factors significantly reduce the cost of being high maintenance because the combat requirements a unit must meet to 1RKO with reasonable survivability are quite low, and there’s such an abundance of BEXP over the course of the game that you can turn do crazy things like instantly turn 4-5+ gutter units like Tormod into ready-made 1RKO machines over the course of a playthrough.

This is why I keep insisting Marcia’s resource drainage isn’t a big deal. On paper it might seem that way, but the circumstances of the game paint a different picture. Enormous emphasis is put on the 1600 BEXP she initially uses. I did some rough adding and the total BEXP supply over the course of the game is roughly 15020 BEXP. That’s only exhausting about 10.6% of the total supply, which is very reasonable given a 10 unit team, no less a smaller one (which is far more likely).

BTW, it takes 1645 BEXP to get Marcia from base level directly to promotion. She has 3 chapters of usage before C12 (though C10 may or may not be stealthed). If she gains so much as a level in that time frame, she cuts the BEXP by ~100 points.

Speaking of C10, you loose a whopping 700 BEXP by fighting your way through. If the cost of low turning chapters is considered, this should be no exception. I’ll admit I have a personal bias that stealthing should be assumed… it may take 2 more turns but it’s just so much more elegant than bulldozing your way through. I don’t expect many to agree with this view, though, since it’s arbitrary.

It is the second point which applies much more to Marcia and Jill than Oscar and Kieran, because Marcia and Jill need considerably more resources to make their awesome contributions than Oscar or Kieran. Hell, with the same amount of Bexp it takes for Marcia or Jill to kick ass (ORKO most units with sufficient durability), we could get both Oscar and Kieran to kick ass. Now, the resources are still best spent on one of the fliers first (then the pair of Paladins, then the second flier), but that flier bears the full brunt of the opportunity cost for that Bexp (which Oscar and Kieran only share, and unequally - Kieran needs more Bexp). Is this distinction clear?

Again, you’re underestimating the availability of BEXP over the long term. We can easily have a team of Oscar, Kieran, Jill AND Marcia all capable of kicking ass, with enough BEXP left over to easily build another 3-4 units. The only point of contention is in the order which these units are BEXPed, but that is already pretty much decided since making fliers awesome ASAP is clearly the optimal choice.

I.E. Let’s go down the path of making Oscar + Kieran awesome first. There’s 1460 BEXP from chapter 15 alone, BOOM a flier is raised. Similarly, complete just about any 3-4 chapters after 10 and you’ll have a similarly large supply to work with. By chapter 17-18 you will easily have both of your fliers promoted, even despite favoring Oscar + Kieran beforehand. And, in a couple more chapters we can push another loser unit into glory mode. Lather, rinse, repeat, and none of this is factoring CEXP gains or ready-made units.

Edited by Vykan12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since I seem to have killed all discussion with that last post, let me see if I can re-ignite some debate.

=====================================================================================

First, I’d put Mordecai over Muarim and Neph for smiting considerations. The only cost to using Mordecai is a deployment slot, yet his usefulness in LTCs is unquestionable. OTOH, Neph demands resources to become a 7 move combat machine… hardly the same level of usefulness in regards to highly efficient play.

Muarim is a trickier argument. He can counter Mordy being a smite bot by being a shove bot himself. Then, in lategame we can give Muarim smite, effectively making them identical in this regard. However, lategame smiting is less useful compared to midgame because of the presence of Reyson + the rescue staff. Aku Chi covered this in detail in one of his posts. It’s true that Muarim is a decent combat unit for about 6 chapters, though apparently Mordecai can OHKO a bunch of enemies with a Mist support, and ORKO a fair share of slower enemies throughout a similar time span. Overall I’d take Mordy’s smiting > Muarim’s combat in that timespan before the 2nd smite scroll becomes available. After all, by C18 you already have an established offensive core, whereas giving units +2 move every turn cannot be replicated by any other unit.

=====================================================================================

I also think Calill needs to move up. I’d go as far as arguing her > Soren. I’ve actually done this before, but there was a different tiering philosophy present at the time.

In the context of LTCing, most of the usefulness of having a sage is for siege tome bosskills. Other usage such as staff utility and mopping up reinforcements simply pale in comparison to eliminating bosses more quickly.

Since sages are relegated to this very simple task, it makes sense that low maintenance is of utmost importance in terms of their ranking. Soren fails in this regard because he requires a lot more EXP than Calill to produce the same output in regards to eliminating a boss.

First, let’s look at the availability of siege tomes.

Blizzard- Chapter 23 (enemy sage)

Meteor- Chapter 20 (Calill)

Bolting- Chapter 16 (chest), chapter 22 (enemy sage)

The C16 bolting’s in the upper-left chest room, and will therefore be missed unless we recruit Devdan or something (even then…). So chapter 20’s the earliest that bosskilling becomes relevant.

========

Chapter 20

========

Shiharam lv 10 (tomahawk [d], full guard, elixir)

45 hp, 33 atk, 14 AS, 100 hit, 29 avo, 21 def, 13 res, 8 crit, 1 cev

Let’s say a 20/8 Marcia faces Shiharam. With forged steel she has 34 atk, doing 24 damage. Shiharam has 21 hp left.

Base Calill does 17 damage with meteor. All she needs to finish him off is a spirit dust and 4 levels of BEXP (783 BEXP total). If Marcia has just 1 more strength, then Calill only needs the dust.

In comparison, Soren needs 20 levels just to match Calill’s base mag. Sure, some of that is for free off of earlygame CEXP chipping, but otherwise that’s a LOT more investment to achieve the same result.

========

Chapter 21

========

Without bolting available neither sage is particularly useful against Ena. Base Calill is only doing 5/52 damage.

========

Chapter 22

========

The most reliable 1 turn strategy involves siege toming Schaeffer twice (with the help of Reyson obv). He has 51 hp/9 res, so 36 atk is required. Base Calill has 30, so with a spirit dust only 8 levels of BEXP are required. But, since we already gave her 4 to deal with Shiharam, our net loss is only 4 levels or 974 BEXP.

========

Chapter 23

========

Seiging Petrine is pretty useless since she has high res, and it’s difficult to get a sage there anyway.

========

Chapter 24

========

Who’s Rikard?

========

Chapter 25

========

We now have bolting, so Gromell is screwed. Our trained Calill takes off 72% of his health per hit, with 80 display hit (92 real). Even base Calill can team up with a sonic sword peggie for the kill.

Also note that Calill has 22 spd/10 str. This means she can double most enemies using meteor and blizzard (0-1 AS loss). Even with bolting she has 19 AS, enough to double all non-laguz/non-SM enemies. Goodbye ballista threats.

========

Chapter 26

========

Being able to attack Bertram at 3-10 range is very useful because he has no opportunity to heal himself. Since he has 54 avo, maximizing accuracy is paramount, so we’ll choose the blizzard.

Same Calill as C22 is doing 12/49 damage to him at 83 display hit (94 real). This leaves Bertram with 37 hp/25 def. This allows Marcia to ORKO him with a forged silver lance, let alone other units with higher str stats.

========

Chapter 27

========

Similar to chapter 26.

================

Chapter 28 + Endgame

================

By now we can be careless with BEXP, so maxing Calill’s level gives her 11.5 str/25 mag/24 AS/68 hit. That’s a whopping 51 eff mt against dragons. Given a +str band, she can borderline double the lower levelled dragons, and borderline 2HKOes! Yes, she’s borderline ORKOing some of the toughest enemies in the game, or is otherwise weakening them significantly. Hitrate’s not an issue either (>90 display hit).

Basically, with as little as a spirit dust and 1757 BEXP, Calill can shave turns by either directly killing or heavily assisting in the slaying of multiple bosses. Namely, Shiharam, Schaeffer, Gromell, and C28-29 dragons.

The spirit dust comes at virtually no cost since fielding 2 sages in the same PT is pretty stupid. I guess it could increase Mist or Elincia’s rescue range by 1, but that’s not making any difference as far as I know. The 4k you could get from selling the dust is inconsequential since money isn’t even remotely an issue in this game.

The BEXP may sound like a lot (zomg more than we give Marcia!), but it’s given in 2 lump sums, not all at once, and the later in the game you use BEXP, the loss costly it is since the available supply of BEXP will be larger. C20 and 22 are pretty late in the game (~2/3 through). At this point, we’ve accumulated around 10270 BEXP so far, so she’s only using 17% of our available BEXP supply. By the end of the game this value falls to 11.69% of our total supply. I’d hardly call that a strain on resources. On an 8 unit team, a fair BEXP share would be 12.5%, and most useful units are vying for BEXP earlier on.

This argument isn’t so much about Calill > Soren as it is simply gauging the usefulness of sages towards LTCs. But, unless Soren, Tormod and Ilyana have significant contributions towards efficient play outside of bosskilling, Calill stomps them because she requires around half the BEXP they do to achieve the exact same thing.

And it’s not as though Calill can’t hold her own in regular combat anyway. I’ve already shown a long time ago that even base Calill is a ORKOing machine, and that her primary combat issue is durability. What’s so amazing about Soren’s earlygame as to warrant a higher ranking? It’s already been shown that Oscar’s not saving that many turns in earlygame due to Titania domination, imagine where that puts Soren, whose combat is at its worst in earlygame.

Tormod’s a weird case since he can actually keep up with our mounts, so his combat utility over the game is much more relevant. He isn’t mostly limited to boss sniping. For this reason I wouldn’t object to Tormod > Calill > Soren.

=====================================================================================

Gatrie > Haar seems pretty suspect to me. Let’s look at Gatrie’s earlygame.

Chapter 3: Ike, Gatrie and Shinon are nothing more than distractions for the enemies as Titania charges for the boss. He’s basically inconsequential here.

Chapter 4: See chapter 3.

Chapter 5: Loldefendchapter.

Chapter 7: Since Gatrie and Shinon spawn at opposite ends of the map relative to your other units, their circumstances basically force them to be useful. This is precisely “FE10 1-P Edward” type usefulness. Even so, both units do little more than distract the enemies until Titania can catch up and mop up their mess.

After that, Gatrie disappears until C13, at which point he might as well not exist due to lolmove and AS issues.

Wow, Gatrie did next to nothing useful for his entire existence! What about Haar? We’re basically getting a durable flier for free. The usefulness he has from rescue dropping in C25 probably outweighs all of Gatrie’s earlygame, and that’s even if we deploy Tanith, Marcia AND Jill on that map.

=====================================================================================

Devdan > Brom, anyone?

First off, Devdan’s bases wreck Brom. Look at what levels Brom needs just to match them.

Hp: 18

Str: 17

Mag: 20/20 (just for the lulz)

Skl: 20

Spd: 20/4

Spd (using KW): 20/1

Luck: 20/20 (actually never)

Def: Already 2 points ahead

Res: 20/9

The spd advantage is especially biting. Brom needs to be promoted just to compete with Devdan statistically. Since getting Brom CEXP is pretty hopeless except in C13, he has to make up that deficit almost entirely through BEXP. There goes around 1500 BEXP, now we’ve delayed Marcia h3xing the game at least 2-4 chapters.

Even ignoring the huge BEXP cost to put Brom on equal footing, Devdan’s still superior to him, for 3 reasons.

1) 10% higher spd growth means the gap between Devdan and Brom’s spd only increases as the game goes on.

2) Devdan has +1 move on him, and we all know how important that is.

3) Brom is harder to rescue (Marcia + Tanith cannot do it) and shove.

The comparison is already unsalvageable for Brom. The fact that he has overkill durability, that he can use axes, and that he gives Boyd an awesome support, this is all rendered pretty much irrelevant by the other factors I’ve mentioned.

=====================================================================================

I’d definitely put Volke and Sothe above Brom/Devdan, possibly even Haar/Gatrie. I mean, both thieves get partial credit for the boots, which is a huge freaking deal. They eliminate the need for chest keys in C13, can be rescue-dropped all the way to the full guard chest in C16, and provide some other tidbits of usefulness here and there. I can understand that LTCing forces us to miss most treasure in the game, hence their plummeting rank, but they should still be above ****y combat units that would be lucky to get more than 5 kills on a LTC run without being given serious investment that would outweigh their usefulness (i.e. BEXPing Brom more than Marcia early on).

=====================================================================================

The last thing I’ll say is that I think the bottom tiers could use some loving attention. For now I’m only going to focus on Elincia’s ranking, though.

Janaff

Largo

Ranulf

Tauroneo

Low

Shinon

Elincia

Ulki

Rolf

Nasir

Lucia

Bastian

Ena

Elincia being in the lowest possible tier is ridiculous. If Mist isn’t in play (which would save ~1000 BEXP and a master seal, mind you), then Elincia is instrumental in all 3 of her final maps because of the rescue staff. Other sages will never have the rank to use it, and Rhys cannot match her range unless he gets shove conga’ed, and even then he can’t canto back to safety. In fact, even if Mist is in play, it’s possible for both units to use the rescue staff on the same turn through trading.

There’s a lot of units as high as upper-mid that you can argue barely affect that game’s turn count positively, especially given opp. costs (if I don’t use Stefan how does my team suffer? … They’re barely affected?!?). With Elincia though, the benefits are clear and measurable (eg/ 1 turn saved in endgame). Even better, she has free deployment in 2/3 of her maps.

Edited by Vykan12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

========

Chapter 22

========

The most reliable 1 turn strategy involves siege toming Schaeffer twice (with the help of Reyson obv). He has 51 hp/9 res, so 36 atk is required. Base Calill has 30, so with a spirit dust only 8 levels of BEXP are required. But, since we already gave her 4 to deal with Shiharam, our net loss is only 4 levels or 974 BEXP.

Actually, she only needs six levels since she can have C Tormod by that point. Deployment slots are not at such a premium that we can't deploy even an untrained Tormod to build their support. Five with the Mage Band.

========

Chapter 23

========

Seiging Petrine is pretty useless since she has high res, and it’s difficult to get a sage there anyway.

A good siege tome user can kill the Ballista operators and help with finishing off enemies.

================

Chapter 28 + Endgame

================

By now we can be careless with BEXP, so maxing Calill’s level gives her 11.5 str/25 mag/24 AS/68 hit. That’s a whopping 51 eff mt against dragons. Given a +str band, she can borderline double the lower levelled dragons, and borderline 2HKOes! Yes, she’s borderline ORKOing some of the toughest enemies in the game, or is otherwise weakening them significantly. Hitrate’s not an issue either (>90 display hit).

Why are we being careless with BEXP? I find that even lategame BEXP is useful to dump into Elincia for more staff range.

And it’s not as though Calill can’t hold her own in regular combat anyway. I’ve already shown a long time ago that even base Calill is a ORKOing machine, and that her primary combat issue is durability. What’s so amazing about Soren’s earlygame as to warrant a higher ranking? It’s already been shown that Oscar’s not saving that many turns in earlygame due to Titania domination, imagine where that puts Soren, whose combat is at its worst in earlygame.

It depends on whether you consider Soren's early and midgame to be a negative or a positive.

The comparison is already unsalvageable for Brom. The fact that he has overkill durability, that he can use axes, and that he gives Boyd an awesome support, this is all rendered pretty much irrelevant by the other factors I’ve mentioned.

Brom cannot use Axes in this game, only in FE10. In this game, he uses Lances initially and gains E Swords (hahahaha) on promotion, like all Knights.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A good siege tome user can kill the Ballista operators and help with finishing off enemies.
Tormod needs Reyson support to OHKO the Ballista operators, to make things clear. I'm not holding this against him, because Reyson is very likely to be fielded, but he can be in the back of a formation, get Smited just once by Mordecai, and kill off the Archer and the Sniper operating a Ballista by Turn 2. He is also good against Petrine since in my playthrough, Marcia got her down to ~15-20 HP and a siege tome was enough to finish her off. (Well, I used two, but I didn't realize that Reyson support + Bolting killed Petrine with one use). Of course, he was good against Shiharam and in Chapter 21 he's the only Sage that can a) help kill Ena if you *hypothetically* get one of the Boltings and b) reach a Sage in the time that it takes Marcia/Jill/Ike to get to boss' room so that he can weaken him and allow the Bishop to heal the Sage instead of using a Sleep staff on Jill/Ike. It's generally so good that you can meteor things in bigger maps (eg chapter 26) without much help.

Tormod's healing also exists even if it's only a heal staff... he may only end up doing like 3 heals throughout the entire game but it's good utility to have for an 8 move unit.

Edited by Mercenary Raven
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...