FE9 Tier list v3

[Vykan12]

The root of our disagreement is in the weight of the opportunity cost of raising Marcia, so I’m going to focus on that. I'll start with a detailed breakdown of how I'd expect Marcia to be used in a LTC run, and what resources that entails.

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It seems the most efficient way to beat POR is to powerhouse Marcia as soon as you possibly can (namely C11 since C10 is stealth), then build the rest of your team from there.

After this initial surge of resources, Marcia’s not touching BEXP ever again. This means from C12 onwards the rest of the team is free to use BEXP as they please.

Just to be thorough, let’s look at Marcia’s combat in C11.

Marcia 20/1 (steel lance): 32 hp/26 atk/20 AS/14 def/13 res/50 avo

She does 68% damage to knights, but otherwise ORKOes the rest of the map. Defensively, the most atk she’ll face is ~20, which is a 6HKO. Even more impressive, Mackoya only 3HKOes her with an iron bow. As for hitrates, she’s seeing around 35-50 display, though the enemies with higher hitrates tend to do 0-2 damage to her. Overall, that is pretty dominant.

In C12, Marcia gets around 30 exp per crow kill, and ORKOes them. The bosskill is also basically hers. Following Gergeshwan’s LTC video, she gets around 1.5 levels here. What’s even better is that a less efficient clear will only net Marcia more CEXP since she’s the only person who can intercept crows before they land ship.

In C13, Marcia’s still ORKOing the entire map, except for halberdiers. Average enemy atk has also decreased, so she’s even more durable here than she was in C11. Since this chapter has a set turn count, this chapter is a perfect opportunity to build the other members of your team.

Available BEXP: ~500 (C11) + 300 (C12) = 800

This amounts to roughly 7-8 levels for any unpromoted unit you want to develop. Note that units like Ike, Oscar and Boyd are already reasonably well trained from earlygame CEXP.

Even with the intent of developing your team in this chapter, I’d say Marcia can still get a fair share of exp from crowkills, particularly the ones on the last turns that spawn in an area non-fliers cannot reach. Gergeshwan already has her at 20/4, so I’ll go with that.

C14, the boss has 50 crit so I’m not sure what would be considered a reliable LTC strategy. My first guess is that Marcia will use an iron sword, at which point she faces 28 display hit (16 real hit). That’s a 16-30% chance of death, depending on whether she takes 1 round or two. IMO those odds are pretty ****y so I’d probably have Titania and another paladin hit the boss with a hand axe first. This means there’s enough turns to train the remainder of your army a bit.

C15, Marcia easily ORKOes Muarim with the laguz lance. She should easily be 20/5 now.

C16, I can see Gergeshwan has a promoted Oscar and Kieran, Ike’s level is maxed out, Titania is --/8, that’s already 4 quality units besides Marcia that have been raised off the BEXP we’ve accrued since C12.

I’ll stop here, but I don’t really see why Marcia needs all the stat boosters you mentioned. For instance, Marcia’s benefits more from a forge than an energy drop, giving her both is redundant and therefore a waste. Forges are also way more plentiful (there’s like 20 forges vs a couple energy drops), so the opp. cost is much lower.

Since Marcia’s paramount to LTCing, she’ll almost always get bosskills, which means even though she’s overlevelled, she’ll be gaining around a level/chapter. By C18 Gergeshwan already has Marcia at 20/8, I believe I’ve had her as high as 20/10 at this point in previous PTs (probably because I killed more crows in C12). Sure, sending bosskills and such her way is still a form of opp. cost, though not a very big one (*points at earlygame Titania*).

I’ll agree that a seraph robe is a worthwhile investment on her, but adding dracoshields on top of that is overkill. By the time Marcia starts to face anything threatening, she’ll have maxed out her natural avoid at 72 avo.

Vs 90 hit: 7 real hit

Vs 100 hit: 16 real hit

Vs 110 hit: 29 real hit

Enemies don’t generally exceed 110 hit unless they are laguz, or SMs (who have weak atk anyway). On top of that, A Tanith support adds up to 22 avo.

Vs 90 hit: invincible

Vs 100 hit: 0.78 real hit (lol)

Vs 110 hit: 5 real hit

Vs 120 hit: 14 real hit

Vs 130 hit: 26 real hit

120-130s is only common among laguz, and the only enemies who go higher than that are dragons, who are a threat to everyone. Basically, she’s such an avo tank that she only needs enough concrete durability to survive freak occurrences (eg/ two 5% hits landing in a row).

With the robe she has 44 hp/16 def, it would take 27 atk to 4HKO her. Only lategame warriors and laguz achieve this type of atk. To 3HKO you need 31 atk, which is basically tiger-only territory. That gives plenty of leeway to heal her in case an attack or two make it past her monstrous avoid.

Hell, even bows aren’t much of a threat to her. A C25 sniper has 31 effective atk with a steel bow (3HKO), and only 109 hit (5-29 real hit, depending on supports). My point being, if you want to get finicky with full guard usage, Marcia can use it exclusively for ballista survival. Also remember that you can TRADE the full guard in-chapter.

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I obviously wrote a lot, so I’ll just summarize quickly.

-If we give Marcia all of our available BEXP in C11, she will never need BEXP for the rest of the game. This means that after 1 serious resource strain, she’s low maintenance for the rest of the game.

-She doesn’t require as many resources as you previously claimed to achieve god-like performance.

-It’s perfectly reasonable to build a core of 4-5 units to supplement Marcia’s dominant role in a LTC.

Moving on:

1) Jill (and Tanith) can do almost everything that Marcia can.

Because this isn't "fliers vs." If we're evaluating Marcia and supposing that she gets a Full Guard monopoly, she is depriving Jill and Tanith of a valuable resource. If we're evaluating Jill and supposing that she gets the Full Guard in chapters with Ballistae, she is depriving the other fliers of that valuable resource in those chapters.

Suppose Reyson can save 3 turns if given the Boots (which is at least in the ballpark). Further suppose that Marcia can save 5 turns if given the Boots. If turns saved are all that matters, Marcia is clearly the better recipient of the Boots. But the opportunity cost of Marcia receiving the Boots is at least 3 turns, because by giving the Boots to Marcia we forfeit the 3 turns that Reyson could have saved if we gave him the Boots.

The recurring theme here is that if one unit can act as the clone of another, then there’s no net benefit to favoring one of the units because of opp. cost.

Look, I understand where you’re coming from, but this logic just doesn’t seem to apply properly here. It’s like you’re negating an advantage that clearly must exist.

Yes, we have this hypothetical that if I don’t use Marcia, Jill will take over and produce pretty much the same output towards LTCing. But, we could apply this same kind of reasoning to invalidate Oscar’s role to the team. If we drop Oscar in C20, we already have such a well established team that you might not lose a turn for the remainder of the game. If you’ve raised 6 paladins and 2 fliers, do you really think dropping Oscar from the team’s going to affect efficiency in any significant way? Nope, Kieran, Astrid, Makalov, Titania, etc. have him covered.

You have to look at things from an angle of “uniqueness”. Being a competent flier is more unique than being a competent paladin, because there are only 1-3 fliers for most of the game, compared to 3-5 paladins. If you remove a flier from the equation, you have more to lose than dropping a paladin.

Let’s suppose you have an active team of Ike/Oscar/Titania/Kieran/Astrid/Makalov/Marcia/Jill/Reyson. Also suppose each unit is promoted by C17, so they’re all quite competent in combat. What will cause a greater blow in efficiency? Dropping Oscar or dropping Jill? The answer should be obvious. Even if 1 flier is doing 70% of the work, that 2nd combat proficient flier is still providing all sorts of tactical flexibility. As you add fliers to the team the value of that flexibility starts to decrease, but not to the point where you’re completely disregarding it. Your attitude seems to be that 1 flier can literally do everything, thus rendering the tactical advantage of a 2nd flier completely nil.

Actually, if you are of that opinion, then the logical conclusion is to only recruit 1 flier, at which point their usefulness is unrivalled until Tanith shows up. Reading Mercenary Raven’s post, there’s some contention as to whether Tanith can be turned into Marcia 2.0, so at no point in the game would you have a clone of your super flier.

I think it would be interesting if someone were to try an efficient non-flier playlog, as this would give a more concrete way of measuring the true benefit of flier utility towards LTCs. It would basically be an entire PT determining the opportunity cost of neglecting Marcia/Jill.

Edited September 26, 2011 by Vykan12

[Lord Raven]

I'm not sure why you're under the impression that I don't realize this (though I'd disagree with the "much" qualifier in the above quote). Since the resources we're discussing are Marcia's optimal resource bundle, it's tautological to state that giving those resources to other units results in a higher opportunity cost... But this fact is only relevant if someone was recommending that those resources be given to another unit. Let me make this very clear: that is not what I have been doing. What I have been doing is hypothetically considering the alternatives to giving Marcia's optimal resource bundle to Marcia. Tautologically, these alternatives are inferior. But they are 100% relevant when evaluating the opportunity cost of Marcia taking those resources.

Put another way: when evaluating Marcia's net value, it is not sufficient to consider how valuable she is when given her optimal resource bundle. We must also consider how valuable her optimal resource bundle is when its elements are given to their next best recipients. The difference between the first evaluation and the second is the true measure of Marcia's net value.

At this point, I really don't know how I can be more clear.

If the alternatives are inferior then why is Marcia being penalized so heavily for taking them away?

Uh, what? This is just nonsense. Apparently, using Tanith, who joins at level 10 promoted and is highly capable from the second she joins has higher opportunity cost than plowing 3k of BEXP into Marcia and Jill. Apparently, needing no resources has a higher opportunity cost than needing resources. Apparently, using Tanith in Chapter 18 somehow means we can't give BEXP to Marcia in Chapter 11. Such is the almighty power of Tanith that she takes resources away from the team before she even joins.

Not my point. aku chi was saying at some point that Tanith is the same as Marcia when you pump the same resources into Marcia and Tanith- clearly not because there is an opportunity cost involved. And Tanith definitely does need resources, especially because she hasn't even had the extra 7 chapters of use that Marcia has (32 HP blows, she still requires the Seraph Robe/Dracoshield Marcia need) and giving her Boots takes them away from Marcia and Jill who will be using them for longer.

If we're arguing her on those grounds then giving her those resources equates to not giving them to others. This is perfectly relevant given aku chi's stance on opportunity costs. This is only a point against her if you give the M/JBundle to Tanith instead of those two.

That’s a 16-30% chance of death, depending on whether she takes 1 round or two.

16% real hit = 8-18% chance of death. She only engages in one round of combat with the boss (since apparently he escapes to heal instead of attacking again) and Fighter Band + Strength Drop + Level 20/4ish will DEFINITELY give her the 20 strength she needs to ORKO the boss with a forged Iron Sword. That's if you don't want Makalov though; Makalov doesn't really do much but since we are considering most playthroughs it's not hard to bumrush the boss for a 3-turn. Also, Marcia with Dracoshield/Seraph Robe narrowly avoids getting killed making a forged Steel Lance strategy reliable (16 defense at 20/3-4 + 41 HP at 20/3-4 = 13 x 3 damage from Gashilama if he criticals, while he lacks the avoid to survive two Steel Lance hits). The Tigers don't even move, on top of the fact that she can wait in front of Gashilama on enemy phase- the Mage does zero damage to her. Edited September 26, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[Life]

Not my point. aku chi was saying at some point that Tanith is the same as Marcia when you pump the same resources into Marcia and Tanith- clearly not because there is an opportunity cost involved. And Tanith definitely does need resources, especially because she hasn't even had the extra 7 chapters of use that Marcia has (32 HP blows, she still requires the Seraph Robe/Dracoshield Marcia need) and giving her Boots takes them away from Marcia and Jill who will be using them for longer.

If we're arguing her on those grounds then giving her those resources equates to not giving them to others. This is perfectly relevant given aku chi's stance on opportunity costs. This is only a point against her if you give the M/JBundle to Tanith instead of those two.

I would like to point out that the Chapter 11 Dracoshield is now free to go to any unit not named "FLIER" since Tanith can now take the Chapter 16 one if you're adamant about her taking it. Like, units that could actually put them to good use. AKA Titania, Nephenee...

What this means is that we're not saving up this specific Dracoshield and letting it collect dust. We're putting it to other uses. Using Tanith allows more flexibility with the rest of the team. As for the Boots, all you lose out on is a turn each in Chapter 16 and 17-2 when you can possibly make it up at a later date due to Tanith's other positives.

[Anouleth]

Not my point. aku chi was saying at some point that Tanith is the same as Marcia when you pump the same resources into Marcia and Tanith- clearly not because there is an opportunity cost involved.

If Tanith and Marcia end up about the same with the resources, then the opportunity cost is negligible, since the cost is about equal to the benefit. Moreover, the cost of Tanith taking those resources is actually less than Marcia, since Tanith takes those resources in Chapter 18 instead of Chapter 11. The only sense in which Tanith is not equal to Marcia given resources is the sense in which Tanith still does not exist before Chapter 18.

And Tanith definitely does need resources, especially because she hasn't even had the extra 7 chapters of use that Marcia has (32 HP blows, she still requires the Seraph Robe/Dracoshield Marcia need)

I don't see how being used for 7 chapters magically makes Marcia more durable. In addition, the amount of resources that Marcia takes is higher than the amount of resources that Tanith takes. Marcia is not only taking an enormous amount of BEXP in addition to basically every stat booster and numerous forges, but she is devouring a huge proportion of the CEXP in between Chapter 11 and 17.

[Lord Raven]

Not only is Tanith not using the resources she's given as long and therefore to as large an extent, but the reason why Marcia "takes" all the CEXP is because she's the one with the most move and therefore most likely to get it. In which case, Vykan's entire post covers the argument about Marcia and opportunity costs quite well.

Also, a 20/6-7 Marcia has better offense and defense than Tanith at base level, especially considering she has access to the Knight, Wyvern, or Fighter Band which increases the offense/defensive gap by about a point more (and is the best candidate for Dracoshield/Seraph Robe before that point). Tanith isn't using the resources as long as to as much of an extent; the fact that she comes battle ready upon joining is a perk but it's not as large a perk when it's obviously more efficient to pump Marcia or Jill up with those resources than Tanith and just about any other unit.

If Tanith and Marcia end up about the same with the resources, then the opportunity cost is negligible, since the cost is about equal to the benefit.

Still false. The only opportunity cost to using the "Bundle" with Marcia is Jill because the resources that optimize her (Boots, Seraph Robe, Dracoshield etc) are around just as long in both cases. Probably only a chapter or two longer in the stat items' case. In Tanith's case, we're missing many chapters worth of use giving her all those resources. Therefore, there is an opportunity cost to Tanith, because they're not identical simply because she hasn't been around as long.

Neither has Jill relative to Marcia, but recruiting Jill (and therefore using her in favor of Marcia) ends up making Marcia less useful in the sense that you can take Chapter 11 more leisurely as opposed to giving her +1800 or 1900 BEXP or something to get her to the Arrive square or her not being able to solo Chapter 12 (since that's the cost of recruiting Jill anyway). The cost of using Jill instead of Marcia or Tanith is negligible compared to using Tanith instead of Marcia or Jill.

Edited September 26, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[dondon151]

No, I don't think the crux of this argument is Marcia's opportunity cost; I think it's her gross benefit that's being misinterpreted.

Assume that instead of giving Marcia her resources, you give them to alternative units instead (disregard Jill as a candidate; I will cover this later on). The x turns that Marcia would have saved had she been given her resources instead of the alternative units (gross benefit - opportunity cost), due to mobility and terrain, is much greater than the y turns that Oscar saves in earlygame by Marcia not existing (the opportunity cost to using Oscar earlygame is negligible). Thus Marcia > Oscar.

With Jill considered, all of the significant resources that Marcia gets goes to Jill. If we assume that Marcia and Jill are nearly identical in terms of ability, then each of them has a gross benefit = opportunity cost and there would be no net benefit from using either of them, so Oscar > Marcia = Jill.

This leads into my problem with this line of thought. Let's have a thought experiment:

Assume that Jill does not exist in FE9. The analysis in the first paragraph would apply and we'd come to the conclusion Marcia > Oscar.

Now assume that when Marcia joins, she is accompanied by another unit named Marsha. Marcia and Marsha are identical units in every way except for unimportant parameters (such as name, portrait, etc.). The opportunity cost of using Marcia is the gross benefit of using Marsha, and vice versa. We come to the conclusion that Marcia and Marsha both have a net benefit of 0, which yields Oscar > Marsha = Marcia.

Does anyone see a problem with this? Marcia is better than Oscar in the first example but worse in the second example even though in both cases, they are exactly the same. The only difference is the presence of an alternative unit that is at least equally superior to Oscar but requires the same resources. In the context of ranking units on the tier list, this doesn't make sense.

EDIT: derp this is pretty much what Vykan said

Edited September 26, 2011 by dondon151

[Anouleth]

Not only is Tanith not using the resources she's given as long and therefore to as large an extent, but the reason why Marcia "takes" all the CEXP is because she's the one with the most move and therefore most likely to get it. In which case, Vykan's entire post covers the argument about Marcia and opportunity costs quite well.

True, but I don't think there's anything wrong with aku chi saying that Jill and Tanith do everything that Marcia does. Obviously, that's not perfectly accurate because Jill and Tanith don't exist for as long as Marcia, but clearly aku chi was not trying to argue that Jill/Tanith actually join in Chapter 9.

In addition, even if Tanith doesn't use the resources she takes for as long, she is taking later resources. Tanith is not going to be given BEXP from chapter 10: we will give her BEXP from chapters 17/18/19, which is less valuable (just as Bryce's Speedwing is less valuable than Ikanau's).

[-Cynthia-]

I would say that Marcia having both Jill and Tanith exist does affect her tier position. Without them, it would be harder to justify Titania being a tier above Marcia, or perhaps even above her entirely. However, I think these other units reduce Marcia's gross benefit to a point where putting Titania a tier above her is reasonable.

Now one could say that the logic behind putting Titania above Marcia and Oscar above Marcia are similar (saving turns in earlygame primarily). Titania saves many more turns in earlygame than Oscar though (and is probably better for most of the game after that).

[Lord Raven]

I would say that Marcia having both Jill and Tanith exist does affect her tier position.

It shouldn't. Jill is Marcia 2.0 and Marcia is Jill 2.0; Tanith is an inferior version of both of them. Read: dondon's argument. I've still yet to hear any opinions on Jill and Marcia's position being as "Jill/Marcia" simply because if you factor in all the playthroughs... they're the same unit and it's extremely hard to weigh the various chapters that one does better than the other in.

[Anouleth]

It shouldn't. Jill is Marcia 2.0 and Marcia is Jill 2.0; Tanith is an inferior version of both of them. Read: dondon's argument. I've still yet to hear any opinions on Jill and Marcia's position being as "Jill/Marcia" simply because if you factor in all the playthroughs... they're the same unit and it's extremely hard to weigh the various chapters that one does better than the other in.

I think her point is more that having a unit that can emulate what another unit does affects that unit's position. Which is of course, true. Unique contributions are more valuable than non-unique contributions.

[Narga_Rocks]

I think her point is more that having a unit that can emulate what another unit does affects that unit's position. Which is of course, true. Unique contributions are more valuable than non-unique contributions.

And yet, can't Kieran emulate most of what Oscar can do starting in chapter 11? If this whole Marcia/Jill thing is screwing over Marcia, shouldn't the same thing happen to Oscar? And then you bring up Tanith, but what of Astrid and Makalov? Heck, you already have a ground-stomp known as Titania, so what do you even need Oscar for in most chapters?

Titania = ground 1

Oscar = ground 2

Kieran = ground 3

Astrid = ground 4

Makalov = gorund 5

Marcia = air 1

Jill = air 2

Tanith = air 3

Unless Oscar somehow makes some insane improvement to the first 9 chapters (he doesn't), I don't see how Jill/Tanith somehow hurt Marcia more than Kieran/Astrid/Mak/Titania hurt Oscar. Oscar isn't even the best ground unit, but Marcia is arguably the best air. Kieran even shows up earlier than Jill.

What I want to know is how come aku chi is making this anti Marcia argument without considering a similar argument against Oscar's tier position?

[dondon151]

I think her point is more that having a unit that can emulate what another unit does affects that unit's position. Which is of course, true. Unique contributions are more valuable than non-unique contributions.

Yes, that is true. However, it is counterintuitive to place Marcia and Jill below Oscar if individually they each play a greater role in efficiency than Oscar. In the thought experiment where the player has to pick between Marcia and Marsha, the end result is no different than if the player's only early flier option were Marcia (and Jill didn't exist). It doesn't seem quite right that simply the presence of an equivalent alternative essentially render's Marcia's entire contributions worthless.

[GreatEclipse]

Unless Oscar somehow makes some insane improvement to the first 9 chapters (he doesn't), I don't see how Jill/Tanith somehow hurt Marcia more than Kieran/Astrid/Mak/Titania hurt Oscar. Oscar isn't even the best ground unit, but Marcia is arguably the best air. Kieran even shows up earlier than Jill.

What I want to know is how come aku chi is making this anti Marcia argument without considering a similar argument against Oscar's tier position?

From my understanding of the argument, the issue seems to be Marcia needing a huge amount in the way of resources to be used to her full potential that Oscar does not, so much in fact that adding Jill to a team with Marcia already on it would be harder to do than adding Kieran to a team with Oscar already on it. Hence, why Marcia and Jill cancel each-other out, in a sense.

Edited September 26, 2011 by GreatEclipse

[Vykan12]

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.

Note: I’m assuming Jill isn’t recruited to avoid all “Jill = Marcia clone” type argumentation.

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.

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With the exception of ~5 chapters, having some form of flying juggernaut will save you at least 1 turn compared to the next ideal choice, and in some cases saves a tremendous amount of turns (C12 and 17 come to mind).

You have to admit it’s rather incredible that Marcia’s saving 10-15 turns in her first 7 chapters (disregarding C9-10). Is Oscar saving 10-15 turns in the entirety of his earlygame? I highly doubt it.

From C18 onwards Tanith is available, but she’s already losing significant value from not having the boots. The cost of saving the boots for her is incredibly high, I mean you’re losing minimum 4 turns by doing that (C16, C17-1, C17-2, C17-4). That’s a bigger cost than recruiting Jill for pete’s sake. And, as Mercenary Raven said, there won’t be many stat boosters for her since saving stat boosters carries a hefty opp. cost.

Even overlooking that, Tanith’s going to need a seraph robe to cover an hp deficit (I believe Merc Raven covered that), and she only has 16-20 str, depending on her level. In comparison, Marcia has 16 str at 20/1, possibly 17 thanks to a str boosting band. And, if we push for Marcia to have 20 str for the fancy C14 bosskill, she’ll have capped str by the time Tanith joins. 16 str vs 23, that’s a 14 damage difference per double. If Marcia needs forges all the time, Tanith’s offence must be screwed.

P.S. She does have reinforce, but she can make use of that without being trained :)

Well, I’m already sick of this topic so that’s all I have to say. I’d be more interested talking about Mist/Elincia’s placement since I have a feeling the rescue staff hasn’t been discussed.

[Narga_Rocks]

From my understanding of the argument, the issue seems to be Marcia needing a huge amount in the way of resources to be used to her full potential that Oscar does not, so much in fact that adding Jill to a team with Marcia already on it would be harder to do than adding Kieran to a team with Oscar already on it. Hence, why Marcia and Jill cancel each-other out, in a sense.

That all depends on what kind of Oscar we are talking about. If we are talking super-powered Oscar, then he's taking nearly as much bexp as Marcia anyway. The alternative is giving Kieran superpowers. Even if we aren't, the benefit of 2 paladins compared to the benefit provided by the third, then fourth, then fifth... I just don't see how Jill cancels Marcia but Kieran/Astrid/Titania don't hurt Oscar at least as much. Arguably more. If at any time you can replace Marcia with Jill, and thus net profit = 0 due to canceling, how much worse is it for Oscar when there are multiple units (at least Marcia can say "what if Jill isn't recruited?") that can replace him?

How about, try playing without Oscar. Now try playing without Marcia (even with Jill around). Where are we better off? Earlier aku chi said if he had to choose 2 out of 3 of Oscar, Jill, Marcia, he'd chose one flier + Oscar. Personally I'd rather use both fliers, but I guess that doesn't matter too much.

Edited September 26, 2011 by Narga_Rocks

[Toothache]

Just to point out that you need at least 1 use to Hammerne the Rescue staff, so you have 7 potential uses, not 9.

[Anouleth]

Yes, that is true. However, it is counterintuitive to place Marcia and Jill below Oscar if individually they each play a greater role in efficiency than Oscar. In the thought experiment where the player has to pick between Marcia and Marsha, the end result is no different than if the player's only early flier option were Marcia (and Jill didn't exist). It doesn't seem quite right that simply the presence of an equivalent alternative essentially render's Marcia's entire contributions worthless.

I'm not saying that they're worthless. Just that the presence of other units that can do it make it less valuable. Even if there are other units that can do X, Y, and Z, that doesn't change the fact that Marcia can do X, Y, and Z and Oscar can't.

Note that I don't actually agree with Oscar>Marcia.

[dondon151]

But that is exactly what opportunity cost dictates. If Jill can do X, Y, Z and Marcia can also do X, Y, Z, then Marcia's contribution is 0 because if the player didn't use her, he'd still be able to get X, Y, Z from Jill.

[Kaoz]

But that is exactly what opportunity cost dictates. If Jill can do X, Y, Z and Marcia can also do X, Y, Z, then Marcia's contribution is 0 because if the player didn't use her, he'd still be able to get X, Y, Z from Jill.

Well technically, Jill can't complete Ch. 12 in 2 turns, and neither can anyone else. Wouldn't that raise Marcia's contributions to more than 0?

[aku chi]

The root of our disagreement is in the weight of the opportunity cost of raising Marcia, so I'm going to focus on that. I'll start with a detailed breakdown of how I'd expect Marcia to be used in a LTC run, and what resources that entails.

I appreciate the work you put into that, but it's not particularly relevant to the opportunity cost of giving Marcia various resources. Your second post was a more relevant (though flawed) analysis, so I'll respond to that later.

It seems the most efficient way to beat POR is to powerhouse Marcia as soon as you possibly can (namely C11 since C10 is stealth), then build the rest of your team from there.

I'd argue that Bexping Marcia before C12 doesn't really give us much benefit, but it's a minor point.

After this initial surge of resources, Marcia's not touching BEXP ever again. This means from C12 onwards the rest of the team is free to use BEXP as they please.

How generous. So Marcia only takes ~1600 Bexp at the point when it's most valuable.

I'll agree that a seraph robe is a worthwhile investment on her, but adding dracoshields on top of that is overkill. By the time Marcia starts to face anything threatening, she'll have maxed out her natural avoid at 72 avo.

Enemies don't generally exceed 110 hit unless they are laguz, or SMs (who have weak atk anyway).

And Bosses + Ballistae, which are the big threat to Marcia lategame. Marcia can also get stomped by chapter 28's laguz if she attempts an Ike drop over the trees. There are also a smattering of laguz in all of the lategame chapters. Plus, when biorhythm is not in Marcia's favor, she can face as much as 10 more displayed hit. Marcia has durability issues, especially lategame.

I think it would be interesting if someone were to try an efficient non-flier playlog, as this would give a more concrete way of measuring the true benefit of flier utility towards LTCs. It would basically be an entire PT determining the opportunity cost of neglecting Marcia/Jill.

I've already performed a draft run with no fliers, so I have a pretty good idea in which chapters the fliers are necessary to save turns. I'll post my knowledge in response to your second post. But don't overstate your case. Neglecting Marcia and Jill still doesn't affect much of anything (negative) past chapter 18. Having 2 mounted fliers in C21 is nice, as is having 3-4 fliers in C25, but I'm not sure if they actually save a turn. Plus, it's not terribly relevant to consider efficiency runs with neither Marcia nor Jill.

No, I don't think the crux of this argument is Marcia's opportunity cost; I think it's her gross benefit that's being misinterpreted.

Assume that instead of giving Marcia her resources, you give them to alternative units instead (disregard Jill as a candidate; I will cover this later on). The x turns that Marcia would have saved had she been given her resources instead of the alternative units (gross benefit - opportunity cost), due to mobility and terrain, is much greater than the y turns that Oscar saves in earlygame by Marcia not existing (the opportunity cost to using Oscar earlygame is negligible). Thus Marcia > Oscar.

I think you overestimate the turns Marcia can uniquely save even if Jill isn't recruited/used. I suspect x >= y for C12 alone, though. From a "turns saved" metric, Marcia's C12 really is the most significant single performance in the game (Titania in C6 might be second...). Marcia's 2-turn clear of C12 does come at some significant costs, but Marcia can still secure a 5-turn clear without forfeiting Jill or any other spoils.

With Jill considered, all of the significant resources that Marcia gets goes to Jill. If we assume that Marcia and Jill are nearly identical in terms of ability, then each of them has a gross benefit = opportunity cost and there would be no net benefit from using either of them, so Oscar > Marcia = Jill.

This leads into my problem with this line of thought. Let's have a thought experiment:

Assume that Jill does not exist in FE9. The analysis in the first paragraph would apply and we'd come to the conclusion Marcia > Oscar.

Now assume that when Marcia joins, she is accompanied by another unit named Marsha. Marcia and Marsha are identical units in every way except for unimportant parameters (such as name, portrait, etc.). The opportunity cost of using Marcia is the gross benefit of using Marsha, and vice versa. We come to the conclusion that Marcia and Marsha both have a net benefit of 0, which yields Oscar > Marsha = Marcia.

Does anyone see a problem with this? Marcia is better than Oscar in the first example but worse in the second example even though in both cases, they are exactly the same. The only difference is the presence of an alternative unit that is at least equally superior to Oscar but requires the same resources. In the context of ranking units on the tier list, this doesn't make sense.

You have stated this common objection very well. Firstly, let me agree with Anouleth that the presence of another unit (or two) that can emulate Unit1's contributions should affect Unit1's value (and, therefore, tier list position). But the problem isn't quite as extreme as you make it out to be for two reasons:

1) Marcia and Jill are not perfect substitutes. While they can mimic each other's (otherwise unique) contributions in a few chapters, they have their own advantages and disadvantages. Marcia and Jill don't derive quite the same value from various resources, so their presence doesn't completely negate (via opportunity costs) the benefits the other can receive from resources.

2) Favoritism inertia plays an important role. When we're considering how to spend 1500 Bexp in C12's base, suppose that Marcia is the best candidate. Suppose further that saving it to use on Jill next chapter is the next best option. Jill is the opportunity cost for this resource allocation. But we choose to give Marcia the Bexp. Now it's C16's base and we're considering who to give the Boots to. Suppose at this point that we have a promoted Marcia who can solo chapters. We also have a Jill that isn't much higher than base level. What a well-trained Jill can do with the Boots isn't really relevant at this point because we don't have a well-trained Jill. Marcia is the best candidate for the Boots at this point. Moreover, the next best alternative is Reyson, not Jill. This is one example out of several. Once we start giving resources to Marcia or Jill, it becomes less valuable to use future resources on Jill and Marcia, respectively. This also applies to the Marsha hypothetical. "Favoritism inertia" is the phrase I'm giving this phenomenon.

Yes, we have this hypothetical that if I don't use Marcia, Jill will take over and produce pretty much the same output towards LTCing. But, we could apply this same kind of reasoning to invalidate Oscar's role to the team. If we drop Oscar in C20, we already have such a well established team that you might not lose a turn for the remainder of the game. If you've raised 6 paladins and 2 fliers, do you really think dropping Oscar from the team's going to affect efficiency in any significant way? Nope, Kieran, Astrid, Makalov, Titania, etc. have him covered.

Don't overstate my point. I've been talking about the opportunity costs of assigning resources, not deploying and using a unit. It just so happens that with Marcia and Jill it's one and the same, because they're close to worthless without a large Bexp dump (base Jill can be a decent rescue-dropper in C15, though). With Titania, it's the opposite. She doesn't need many/any resources to be very helpful throughout the game (especially the first half). Oscar is closer to Titania in this respect. He does compete with Kieran and Marcia for Bexp in chapter 9, but neither Kieran nor Marcia is quite as good with just 400 Bexp (and they don't make use of it quite as soon). Oscar faces an opportunity cost for this Bexp, but obviously less than the larger amount of Bexp that Marcia and Jill demand not much later. And once give Oscar 300-600 Bexp sometime between chapters 9-11, he is helpful for the rest of the game. He is not quite as valuable as a trained Marcia or Jill in certain chapters, but he is still one of the most helpful units in a bunch of chapters. Titania is awesome because she can do almost everything that Oscar can do with close to 0 Bexp. But no other Paladin can match Oscar's performance without more Bexp. And being one of the two best Paladins is a pretty awesome role to have in PoR.

From my understanding of the argument, the issue seems to be Marcia needing a huge amount in the way of resources to be used to her full potential that Oscar does not, so much in fact that adding Jill to a team with Marcia already on it would be harder to do than adding Kieran to a team with Oscar already on it. Hence, why Marcia and Jill cancel each-other out, in a sense.

Yes.

Here's a monster post theorizing Marcia's turn count savings vs the optimal alternative.

No joke. I'll tackle this later.

That all depends on what kind of Oscar we are talking about. If we are talking super-powered Oscar, then he's taking nearly as much bexp as Marcia anyway.

You've got to be kidding me! Oscar needs ~300-600 Bexp and Knight Ward level-ups at base to be able to ORKO almost everything with great durability. Marcia needs a hell of a lot more to accomplish that same feat!

How about, try playing without Oscar. Now try playing without Marcia (even with Jill around). Where are we better off? Earlier aku chi said if he had to choose 2 out of 3 of Oscar, Jill, Marcia, he'd chose one flier + Oscar. Personally I'd rather use both fliers, but I guess that doesn't matter too much.

I think it matters. If you had to choose one unit of {Oscar, Marcia, Jill} to never use in a playthrough, would you really choose Oscar!? Oscar is critical to save some turns earlygame and is very helpful in the rest of the game. A second early-join flier is just a little bit better than Oscar for the rest of the game even with a bunch of resources. The first early-join flier is more valuable than Oscar. The second is considerably less valuable than Oscar. That's what makes this comparison a little wonky.

[-Cynthia-]

I am considering putting Marcia>Jill, mainly for the early C12 clear. Jill is more offensively and defensively reliable in general, but the turns Marcia saves on C12 seems to be the biggest factor in comparing the two.

[Lord Raven]

See, though, Jill's offensive and defensive reliablility apply to only a couple chapters but Marcia's unique contributions in other chapters (in terms of reliability, her Resistance is actually the key factor in this sense) cancel those out. I'm not even just referring to her pre-Chapter 13 (?) contributions, I'm referring to (as I've already said) Chapter 21 and 17 as well where her light weight (both chapters, in terms of shoving) and resistance (Chapter 21 and actually Chapter 15 because her immunity to the Mage's damage allows her to successfully survive a critical from the boss) are better than Jill's more reliable offense. In the same vein, for later chapters which have stronger enemies (ie, Chapter 24 onwards), Jill is actually a very good choice over Marcia if she got Boots... so I think it's far too close to judge. I don't really like the idea of one being over the other because while Marcia is *slightly* better in around 3-4 chapters than Jill (+exists longer), Jill is *slightly* better in the late game.

[Vykan12]

I appreciate the work you put into that, but it's not particularly relevant to the opportunity cost of giving Marcia various resources. Your second post was a more relevant (though flawed) analysis, so I'll respond to that later.

Most of what I wrote was for personal reference, I was sick of trudging through pages upon pages of posts trying to figure out how exactly Marcia was assumed to be used optimally. Some of my conclusions may be off, but that’s for others to point out I guess.

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.

I can’t really prove that you can quickly build a team around Marcia through theorycrafting (well I probably could but it would take forever to prove exp gains), but I can point to Mercenary Raven, Radiant Dawn, and Gergeshwan’s efficiency PTs as evidence.

Looking at Mercenary Raven’s log:

C25:

         Level  HP Str Mag Skl Spd Lck Def Res
[b]Ike       11.70+ 52  25   9  24  26  17  21  14
Marcia    13.79+ 42  23  10  25  26  17  14  20
Oscar     06.55+ 40  23   4  18  21   8  18   7
Jill      11.35+ 42  27   7  25  23   9  22   6
Tormod    08.20+ 36   6  23  22  20  15  13  19[/b]
Reyson    06.01+ 24   2  11  12  16  18   2  22
[b]Kieran    04.58+ 40  22   5  19  21  10  19   6
Boyd      04.50+ 48  23   1  16  19   8  10  10
Soren     02.58+ 32   4  21  23  20  11   6  23[/b]
Muarim    09.26+ 45  23   4  17  18  11  15   8
[b]Makalov   03.75+ 38  20   4  16  21  12  19   7
Astrid    10.61+ 39  20   8  24  27  17  20  13[/b]

That’s a core of 10 trained units, or 8 non-fliers.

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.

All to say, I see clear evidence that a team can be quickly built around Marcia to account for the instances where Marcia (+ Reyson/shovers) alone isn’t enough.

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.

How generous. So Marcia only takes ~1600 Bexp at the point when it's most valuable.

Think of the progression for a second. Marcia eats up 1600 BEXP in order to save 6 turns in C12. Initially she’s using 100% of your BEXP, which seems like a huge investment. However, by the time you reach C18, you’ve gained 3310 BEXP. After only 6 chapters, that 100% investment has been reduced to 32%, and Marcia’s been saving us numerous turns on the way (particularly C12, 15 and 17).

That remaining 64% of BEXP goes a long way towards developing new frontliners. On top of that, chapters 13 and 17-3 are 17 turns worth of free CEXP for your developing team.

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).

And Bosses + Ballistae, which are the big threat to Marcia lategame. Marcia can also get stomped by chapter 28's laguz if she attempts an Ike drop over the trees. There are also a smattering of laguz in all of the lategame chapters. Plus, when biorhythm is not in Marcia's favor, she can face as much as 10 more displayed hit. Marcia has durability issues, especially lategame.

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.

Which bosses are particularly dangerous for her?

C21: She won’t be facing Kasatai (the brave lance dude), and Ena’s only doing 9-10 damage if Marcia equips the laguzguard (no real opp. cost since there are no other laguz in the map).

C22: Marcia’s not attacking Schaeffer.

C23: Marcia’s actually ideal against Petrine since her flame lance targets res. Only taking 12 damage.

C24: Arrive chapter, Marcia’s not facing any bosses.

C25: Gromell does even less damage to Marcia than Petrine (10 damage).

C26: Bertram has 34 atk targeting res, he gives everyone problems. However, Marcia’s got options. With spirit water, she can reduce his damage from 17 to 10 (3HKO to a 5HKO). Probably a more ideal solution is a Tanith support, which reduces his hitrate to ~14 real.

C27: By now Marcia’s probably maxed out her level, giving her 50 hp/18.5 def with a robe. She’s only 3RKOed by Hafedd, more if any of his brave lance hits miss.

C28: The dragons and other laguz are more threatening than the boss himself.

C29: Ashnard is Ike’s problem.

In addition, 95% of bosses don’t move, and you’ll likely have cleared the enemies near the throne the enemy phase before Marcia is in range of the boss. She can take an elixir and ORKO bosses on enemy phase. She can drop Ike besides the boss, and clean up next phase so Ike can seize same-turn. If Mist is in physic range, Marcia can get healed enough to survive a boss hit, which is all she needs to do if Ike is ready to seize.

Really, only C28 seems to be a major issue for Marcia. But, if she plays a crucial role in the chapter (eg/ ferrying Ike directly to the boss), she’ll be the ideal recipient for the laguzguard. Tiger hits are reduced from 12 damage to 6 (a scratch on her 50 hp), while lesser enemies like cats and hawks are basically tinking her. Dragons are a huge problem for everyone (45 atk 2-3 HKOes your entire army more or less), so you have to exercise caution no matter who’s involved in your strategy. I’ll grant that being able to take an extra dragon hit creates some huge tactical flexibility.

Having laguz scattered around other lategame chapters just means Marcia has to be more cautious. This is very similar to how FE10 Haar has to be weary of thunder mages, this doesn’t stop him from being arguably the best unit in the game. And Marcia’s laguz flaw is minor in comparison (doesn’t face crit rates, can take more hits, has more avoid, laguzguard > nullify since Haar wants to be using other skills like celerity).

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

Vs Kieran: 4 hp and 18 avo vs 2 def. Granted, Kieran has better WTC with axes (Marcia rarely wants to use swords b/c of lowered atk) and the possibility of sol, but otherwise I’d argue Marcia is more durable.

Vs 100 hit, Kieran faces 43 real hit, whereas Marcia faces 16 real hit. If we take supports into account, this favors Marcia more than Kieran because of the 2 RN system.

Doing a simple N/P argument, if Marcia is 4HKOed, she can take 4/0.16 = 25 hits on average. Kieran is at best taking an extra hit, but 5/0.43 ~= 12 hits. I know durability doesn’t work this way, the worst case scenario carries more weight than best case, but this should illustrate the impact of her avoid lead.

An alternative argument is to look at chance of death.

Dying in 4 hits

Kieran: 0%

Marcia: 0.07%

Dying in 5 hits

Kieran: 1.47%

Marcia: 0.3%

Dying in 6 hits

Kieran: 5.6%

Marcia: 0.7%

Vs Boyd: Aside from a 4 hp deficit, Marcia wrecks him in terms of durability.

Vs Astrid: Even without the robe Marcia has superior durability.

Vs Titania: Pretty evenly matched.

Vs Ike: Also evenly matched. With A Oscar, he pretty much ties Marcia’s avo with A Tanith.

Vs Oscar: Identical case to Kieran, except Oscar has ways to skyrocket his avo. Though, even with A Ike, he only has 13 more avo than unsupported Marcia, and she can cover that deficit with as little as B Tanith. Also, Tanith’s more realistically going to be in range of her support partner.

Vs Tanith: More durable even without a robe.

Really, the only units who stomp Marcia from a concrete durability standpoint are Jill, Makalov and maybe Muarim. Generals are too slow to matter, Mordecai is a smite bot in a LTC, Haar doesn’t have the offence to support his durability, people like Zihark/Neph/Stefan certainly aren’t more durable, and that pretty much covers every meaningful unit in the game.

So, with only a seraph robe and an inflated level from bosskills/excess CEXP, she only decisively loses durability against 3 units, 2 if Jill isn’t recruited. So, either 90% of the high/top units are fragile as glass, or Marcia’s durability is pretty w1n. If an enemy is causing her problems, it’s causing pretty much everyone problems.

All this isn’t even taking into account Marcia’s impressive res (18 res at 20/15). This is a 5-10 point advantage against most viable frontline units. While mages are not as common, they are problematic in their own right (1-2 range, high hit, effective vs laguz, etc). Actually, they’re often more common than laguz even in lategame maps (C28 being an exception).

So yeah, Marcia doesn’t need dracoshields to pull off LTC stunts. I’d send them her way anyway because IMO it’s a very worthwhile investment (reducing risk factors for your MVP), but I’m trying to reduce the opp. costs involved since you’re highly fixated on that.

1) Marcia and Jill are not perfect substitutes. While they can mimic each other's (otherwise unique) contributions in a few chapters, they have their own advantages and disadvantages. Marcia and Jill don't derive quite the same value from various resources, so their presence doesn't completely negate (via opportunity costs) the benefits the other can receive from resources.

You’re missing the point. You’re still looking at Marcia = Jill as their usage with favoritism cancelling out due to opportunity cost. Then, making the net benefit of each character based on their differences.

Let me try and put this as clearly as possible.

Dondon’s arguing that if we have Marcia = Marsha, the net benefit of favoring 1 of the 2 fliers isn’t 0. Sure, the presence of Marsha will reduce both characters’ ranks on the tier list, but not to the point where the advantage of favoring one of the fliers is rendered to nil. There’s still some hard to define value X that both units carry in being able to trivialize the 2nd half of the game.

Same thing for Jill vs Marcia, but now we have to account for their differences.

Jill’s usefulness: X + (a-b)

Marcia’s usefulness: X + (c-d)

Where (a-b) = Jill’s relative advantage to Marcia, and (c-d) is Marcia’s relative advantage to Jill.

From your description, you’re still regarding X=0, which gives:

Jill’s usefulness: (a-b)

Marcia’s usefulness: (c-d)

The difference is very important when comparing the fliers to other units.

Once we start giving resources to Marcia or Jill, it becomes less valuable to use future resources on Jill and Marcia, respectively. This also applies to the Marsha hypothetical. "Favoritism inertia" is the phrase I'm giving this phenomenon.

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.

Don't overstate my point. I've been talking about the opportunity costs of assigning resources, not deploying and using a unit.

My point wasn’t about deployment, I think Narga was more clear with expressing what I was trying to say:

Even if we aren't' date=' the benefit of 2 paladins compared to the benefit provided by the third, then fourth, then fifth... I just don't see how Jill cancels Marcia but Kieran/Astrid/Titania don't hurt Oscar at least as much. Arguably more. If at any time you can replace Marcia with Jill, and thus net profit = 0 due to canceling, how much worse is it for Oscar when there are multiple units (at least Marcia can say "what if Jill isn't recruited?") that can replace him?[/quote']

You sort of addressed that here:

I think it matters. If you had to choose one unit of {Oscar, Marcia, Jill} to never use in a playthrough, would you really choose Oscar!? Oscar is critical to save some turns earlygame and is very helpful in the rest of the game. A second early-join flier is just a little bit better than Oscar for the rest of the game even with a bunch of resources. The first early-join flier is more valuable than Oscar. The second is considerably less valuable than Oscar. That's what makes this comparison a little wonky.

Consider the compromise of using Oscar in earlygame but dropping him around C11-15. Obviously it would be a stupid decision, albeit one with minimal cost. Not only is Kieran making up for what we’re missing out on with Oscar, so is Titania, Makalov and Astrid, in whatever combination you want to use them.

# of possible paladin teams without Oscar: 5 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 = 31

You don’t even remotely have this kind of freedom with flier utility. For a large portion of the game, you have 2 choices: Marcia or Marcia + Jill. Adding Tanith and Haar doesn’t change much since all the important resources have already been distributed (the opp. cost is way too steep to be saving stat boosters until the 2nd half of the game), meaning they can’t emulate what Marcia or Marcia + Jill are doing.

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.

[Narga_Rocks]

Consider the compromise of using Oscar in earlygame but dropping him around C11-15. Obviously it would be a stupid decision, albeit one with minimal cost. Not only is Kieran making up for what we’re missing out on with Oscar, so is Titania, Makalov and Astrid, in whatever combination you want to use them.

# of possible paladin teams without Oscar: 5 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 = 31

You don’t even remotely have this kind of freedom with flier utility. For a large portion of the game, you have 2 choices: Marcia or Marcia + Jill. Adding Tanith and Haar doesn’t change much since all the important resources have already been distributed (the opp. cost is way too steep to be saving stat boosters until the 2nd half of the game), meaning they can’t emulate what Marcia or Marcia + Jill are doing.

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.

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

You've got to be kidding me! Oscar needs ~300-600 Bexp and Knight Ward level-ups at base to be able to ORKO almost everything with great durability. Marcia needs a hell of a lot more to accomplish that same feat!

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).

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?

I think it matters. If you had to choose one unit of {Oscar, Marcia, Jill} to never use in a playthrough, would you really choose Oscar!? Oscar is critical to save some turns earlygame and is very helpful in the rest of the game. A second early-join flier is just a little bit better than Oscar for the rest of the game even with a bunch of resources. The first early-join flier is more valuable than Oscar. The second is considerably less valuable than Oscar. That's what makes this comparison a little wonky.

Kieran, Makalov, Astrid

Heck, Oscar is the second joining ground mounted unit, remember the goddess Titania?

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. Not to hold this against Jill (I'm not, as people don't want to consider op. cost of recruitment) but the 8 turns compared to 2 turns in chapter 12 is quite significant where Jill's existence and Oscar's contributions are concerned, and then Marcia doesn't have to deal with all this crap about cancelling the benefit of Marcia due to Jill. Marcia > Oscar > Jill in that world, since Jill has to deal with potentially being the second flier but Marcia never has an extra flier. And that's only if we assume Oscar is somehow worth more than the second flier despite the total cancelation of all of his usefulness after chapter 11 starts (Kieran + the laguz + Titania cancel anything he can do).

Now, for Oscar's early part, how much is he doing on his own? How much credit do you want to give him? Now, having 6 or so units on a team makes it more significant than Eddie's 1-P, but we are consistently doing this type of thing where "oh but if the team were bigger...". So,

add about 5 or 6 units of median value (so, if there are 7 units originally then make them all equivalent to 4th best) and you'll see Titania is still a superstar. Oscar is no longer nearly as significant. Similar principle in 1-P of RD and if you have a team of Micaiah's the addition of Edward is no longer a turnsaver of 15+. I'm not sure I agree with the whole idea, but it solves the ridiculous claim that if Oscar's contribution is much less significant early due to team size then Titania's is a lot less significant and I don't want Edward for top tier based on 1-P alone. Similarly, in a team of Micaiah/BK blends (not sure how that works, I guess level 20/10 units or something) BK is still awesome but no longer the game-saving unit he is.

That idea aside, there's no reason we can't look at Oscar's early part for what it is and then compare it to what a second flier gives us in chapter 13 and beyond. Remembering that Oscar is made near-useless by op. cost once Kieran gets bexp with the KW in chapter 14 or possibly before that if we don't care much about the bexp savings the KW gives (higher speed at lower levels and with his str and def he doesn't so much need higher levels anymore).

From my understanding of the argument, the issue seems to be Marcia needing a huge amount in the way of resources to be used to her full potential that Oscar does not, so much in fact that adding Jill to a team with Marcia already on it would be harder to do than adding Kieran to a team with Oscar already on it. Hence, why Marcia and Jill cancel each-other out, in a sense.

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?

Edited September 26, 2011 by Narga_Rocks

[Anouleth]

^Mordecai is not a combatant.