Is Levin!Arthur really that amazing?

[Horakthi]

Would you please stop saying this? It lost meaning after you first said it, and you continue to state this. Nobody cares at this point.

Why do you think everyone keeps ignoring you? You're just repeating everyone's opinion over and over. It's not easy to reply to several people at the same time. Please don't waste our time.

[Rodykitty]

Sounds almost godly to me.

If they have the facts to back it up and can show it in actual playthroughs, then yes, Arthur is that good.

But Arthur isn't one of those characters that gets a lot of hype to begin with. Most discussion about him comes from people wondering why they should give Holsety to him instead of a character with the much higher stats, and during the whole Trueblade debacle a good half of this forum preferred Sety during his poll.

Also, if Celice is participating then it's not a solo playthrough, even if the unit in question is capable of soloing.

[Horakthi]

If they have the facts to back it up and can show it in actual playthroughs, then yes, Arthur is that good.

You said no one is trying to elevate him to godlike status.. I dunno what that has to do with what I said.

Also, if Celice is participating then it's not a solo playthrough, even if the unit in question is capable of soloing.

I didn't literally mean solo. It's a way of showing the favoritism he receives by saying solo.

[Rodykitty]

You said no one is trying to elevate him to godlike status.. I dunno what that has to do with what I said.

Well, I meant before you made this thread.

[Horakthi]

Well.. none of the Levin!Sety supporters are here anyway.

[Integrity]

Dead wrong, actually. I'm fully in the court of Levin!Sety.

Doesn't mean I can't argue with you.

[SuperTroll Maxim Lapierre]

Unless I'm mistaken about how love growth works, it takes 47 turns of Levin and Tiltyu staying next to each other in chapters 4 and 5 for them to fall in love. Are you really losing turns? I don't really have a baseline for turncounts here.

EDIT: Looking back at previous runs, pretty sure love growth does look like that seeing and Lex and Tiltyu solidly fell in love within 52 turns total for both of those chapters. Just a matter of whether 47 turns is reasonable or not (I think it is given the distances sigurd has to cover?)

Levin will be in certain situations in Chapters 4 and 5 where he can be useful(Lamia's army, Reptor, Dragon Knights, staves). When he is warped to go fetch Holsety, he's not going to be near Tiltyu nor will you feel the urge to Warp Tiltyu over much more useful candiates. Also, if he's designated as "Reptor killer", Tiltyu will not want to be with him when the Dragon Knight swarm is charging towards Sigurd and co. because she can't take the hits. So, while I guess it is possible to park Levin with Tiltyu all the time, I still think that he is going to be used often enough that he'll take more than the bare minimum to complete his pairing.

I was technically finished with Chapter 4 in 24 turns and Chapter 5 in 22 turns. However, I had to ballon my Chapter 4 turncount to 33 and my Chapter 5 turncount to 27 because of pairings(Brigid, Lachesis).

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=19747&st=0&p=939464&hl=grizzled&fromsearch=1entry939464

The NicoNico low turn count run cleared Ch4 in 22 turns, Ch5 in 16 turns, and only took 6 turns between seizing Silvail and Orgahill in Ch3. Assuming 100% adjacents, that's three turns shy.

Obviously though, even in most standard efficient play it's not done maximally efficient, like the Nico run was. Nico run also pulled some hilarious mid-chapter arena-RNG-burning shenanigans, IIRC.

Long story short, you're on a tight budget, and Levin!Arthur may be risky to make, and may or may not recoup turns spent pairing up with his contributions.

Once again, you're assuming the plays allows Levin to become dead weight in certain situations. He WILL be separated from Tiltyu once he goes into Silesia castle and then proceeds to help out against Lamia.

But I'll consider the hypothetical in which he is viable for efficiency, just for completeness.

I believe that efficiency is all about busting out Celice to go seize castles as quickly as possible(hence, he gets almost all the rings). Everyone else is there to help him with supplemental kills or to heal the supplemental killers. If you're going to lose turns do a pairing, then it better make a significant contribution to the slaughterfest. He does not in the early chapters of gen 2. I haven't completed my playthrough, so I won't say if I'm missing mounted Holsety in the later Chapters just yet. Anyway, as far as I know, he's just Levin on a horse and with the Wrath skill. What he does in helping out the Melgen army can be done with Julia as the main combatant. The mage swarm from Alster? Julia and Shanan can finish the job before Celice gets there. He is irrelevant in killing Ishtar in chapter 8 for efficiency because there are enough alternatives to kill her and they can actually reach her sooner(Aless, Leaf, even Hero Lance Fin).

[Horakthi]

Claude is super disadvantaged in chapters 4 and 5 - and Fury won't have time to go next to him in chapter 3. In chapters 4 and 5, Fury is by far one of your useful units solely because terrain has no affect on her - she's the single unit that can pass through the mountains of Silesia and the Yied Desert uninhibited. For that reason, she's already going to be flying around a lot if you want to clear the chapter as efficiently as possible. She has to stand next to Claud for 50 turns just to pair up with him - in an efficiency playthrough, it seems unlikely that they'll even pair.

Furthermore, even if you decide to do Noish, then you're not taking full advantage of Fury and you could be losing turns Fury could be spending flying in chapters 3, 4 and 5. It takes around 65 turns for that to happen, and there's a chance he might already be paired with Ayra if you pair Lex with someone else.

[Balcerzak]

Once again, you're assuming the plays allows Levin to become dead weight in certain situations. He WILL be separated from Tiltyu once he goes into Silesia castle and then proceeds to help out against Lamia.

But I'll consider the hypothetical in which he is viable for efficiency, just for completeness.

I believe that efficiency is all about busting out Celice to go seize castles as quickly as possible(hence, he gets almost all the rings). Everyone else is there to help him with supplemental kills or to heal the supplemental killers. If you're going to lose turns do a pairing, then it better make a significant contribution to the slaughterfest. He does not in the early chapters of gen 2. I haven't completed my playthrough, so I won't say if I'm missing mounted Holsety in the later Chapters just yet. Anyway, as far as I know, he's just Levin on a horse and with the Wrath skill. What he does in helping out the Melgen army can be done with Julia as the main combatant. The mage swarm from Alster? Julia and Shanan can finish the job before Celice gets there. He is irrelevant in killing Ishtar in chapter 8 for efficiency because there are enough alternatives to kill her and they can actually reach her sooner(Aless, Leaf, even Hero Lance Fin).

I was mostly trying to agree with you actually, showing that there is empirical evidence to suggest that even in the best case scenario, of assuming 100% adjacents which is not really a reasonable one, the pairing will not be able to complete. I did then allow for the fact that in said example there was abuse, and that a reasonable playthrough might have to go slightly slower, though I should have pointed out as you rightly did that Levin certainly may have other tasks he wishes to be doing. I question whether he's fully necessary against Lamia's squad, or whether Sigurd might just manage to ignore them, but that's idle speculation for the moment. At the very least he does need to get to Silesia, and while it's possible to walk the whole way, if he does so I don't remember how many turns it takes and if he can actually reach in time assuming a LegRing!Sigurd aided by RescueStaff!Lachesis pulling along Sylvia in a blitz straight for Zaxxon. Ch5 I think you can bait Leptor into attacking Levin from over the cliffs if you set his squad off early with a Fury poke, but I honestly don't remember. At any rate, things would certainly be easier for him if he had full flexibility, for sure.

(Hell, the run I'm referencing had only just completed AideenxMidir and AzelxTiltyu in Ch5 post-Phinora I believe, and needed to delay talking to Ida by a turn for AyraxLex and BeoxLach, which are considerably easier pairings. Briggid never got hitched at all.)

[Horakthi]

Since you've already done the exp rank, in chapter 10, did you more frequently let Arthur take on parts of the map or use a team more or less equally?

[SuperTroll Maxim Lapierre]

I was mostly trying to agree with you actually, showing that there is empirical evidence to suggest that even in the best case scenario, of assuming 100% adjacents which is not really a reasonable one, the pairing will not be able to complete. I did then allow for the fact that in said example there was abuse, and that a reasonable playthrough might have to go slightly slower, though I should have pointed out as you rightly did that Levin certainly may have other tasks he wishes to be doing. I question whether he's fully necessary against Lamia's squad, or whether Sigurd might just manage to ignore them, but that's idle speculation for the moment. At the very least he does need to get to Silesia, and while it's possible to walk the whole way, if he does so I don't remember how many turns it takes and if he can actually reach in time assuming a LegRing!Sigurd aided by RescueStaff!Lachesis pulling along Sylvia in a blitz straight for Zaxxon. Ch5 I think you can bait Leptor into attacking Levin from over the cliffs if you set his squad off early with a Fury poke, but I honestly don't remember. At any rate, things would certainly be easier for him if he had full flexibility, for sure.

(Hell, the run I'm referencing had only just completed AideenxMidir and AzelxTiltyu in Ch5 post-Phinora I believe, and needed to delay talking to Ida by a turn for AyraxLex and BeoxLach, which are considerably easier pairings. Briggid never got hitched at all.)

Ah, cool then.

In my experience, Lamia's army is a pain. Killer Bow Bowfighters and Thunder Mages backing each other up are not fun. Lamia's 39 attack power can finish almost anyone after her underlings are finished. At the very least, Levin is going to be there to do some healing.

I never tried it, but I think the Leptor trick was mentioned before on this forum. However, I think that Thracia's goons are unaffected by Leptor's death.

Claude is super disadvantaged in chapters 4 and 5 - and Fury won't have time to go next to him in chapter 3. In chapters 4 and 5, Fury is by far one of your useful units solely because terrain has no affect on her - she's the single unit that can pass through the mountains of Silesia and the Yied Desert uninhibited. For that reason, she's already going to be flying around a lot if you want to clear the chapter as efficiently as possible. She has to stand next to Claud for 50 turns just to pair up with him - in an efficiency playthrough, it seems unlikely that they'll even pair.

Furthermore, even if you decide to do Noish, then you're not taking full advantage of Fury and you could be losing turns Fury could be spending flying in chapters 3, 4 and 5. It takes around 65 turns for that to happen, and there's a chance he might already be paired with Ayra if you pair Lex with someone else.

It's not a big loss. Fury has staves after promotion and should be fucking rich from Thief Sword pillaging. Hell, when I use her, most of what she does in Chapters 4 and 5 is killing bandits and snatching gold. She has plenty of time to sit with Claude in Chapter 3, if one so desires.

Aira CANNOT be paired with someone else unless you parked them together for too long.

Edited April 22, 2011 by Canadiens de Montreal

[Horakthi]

It's not a big loss. Fury has staves after promotion and should be fucking rich from Thief Sword pillaging. Hell, when I use her, most of what she does in Chapters 4 and 5 is killing bandits and snatching gold. She has plenty of time to sit with Claude in Chapter 3, if one so desires.

I had a lot of trouble keeping them together because Fury was begging to fly around places, but maybe it's just my playstyle.

Aira CANNOT be paired with someone else unless you parked them together for too long.

Lex and Noish have the same rate, other than the conversation they have, which is just 15 extra turns. They have 4.5 chapters to do that and Noish is, well, crap. But I think Lex x Aira might be better anyway because none of the other Lex pairings are any useful for efficiency (I think).

Edited April 22, 2011 by Horakthi

[322reneerG]

I don't use things like this, as relying on Legendaries and skills are just showing you can't fight fairly.

[Colonel M]

I don't use things like this, as relying on Legendaries and skills are just showing you can't fight fairly.

Fighting fairly is out of the question when you're facing Bandits and sick fucks that kidnap children.

[322reneerG]

FIghting UNfairly is out of the question when following Canon.

[Life]

FIghting UNfairly is out of the question when following Canon.

What does that even mean?

If the game gives you awesome 30 Mt weapons like Mistoltin, Tyrfing, Gae Bolg, Holsety... why NOT use them?

[Mekkah]

Am I the only one who thinks an alt check might be in order here?

[TheEnd]

Overwhelming disadvantage as far as numbers are concerned. It's a war, not a duel.

Am I the only one who thinks an alt check might be in order here?

No, you aren't.

[Integrity]

FIghting UNfairly is out of the question when following Canon.

Celice, alone, is fighting upwards of twelve bandits and soldiers on the road to his very first Seize.

Fair fight my ass.

EDIT: Oh, oh, oh, and then there's THammer and Swanchika and God knows what else. But let's just Iron them to death, shall we?

Edited April 30, 2011 by Integrity

[Rodykitty]

Am I the only one who thinks an alt check might be in order here?

Sure. In fact I, a not-mod, can do it for you.

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showuser=3218

Look at the Skype name.

Bam. I singlehandedly caused Trueblade74 to get banned a 2nd time.

[Michey Mouse]

On 4/20/2011 at 12:16 AM, Horakthi said:

 

The Pursuit Ring is a bit of a waste on Arthur when he has a 70% chance of ORKOing a bunch of enemies. Patty also has other people she'll want to give money to, like staff users, other holy weapon users.. why priortize and spoil Arthur so much? There's Johan and Tinny that I can think of off the top of my head.

The reason you should spoil Arthur so much is because he has a 1-2 range nuke that makes him invincible. Johan is a subpar axe cav with no real boons, and Tinny is a 5 mov underleveled mage with even less positives going for her. Give the Pursuit ring to Arthur, because every other unit you should be using already has Pursuit or is named Ares.