ITT I rank the characters

[Esaka]

Holy crap he's back. 0-o.

This will be... interesting.

[Lord Raven]

Can everyone else on the team one round (at 1-2 range if applicable) and not require healing (or when they did, be able to get it without wasting time)? Then unfortunately, those units would want the BEXP that Raven dumped on his units like Tormod and Mak.

Nobody is arguing based upon pure combat utility alone. Combat is basically handled by Marcia and Jill and *maybe* a coupled mounted units behind taking off the scraps. Of course, this isn't always the case, but a magic user with 8 movement + able to heal and do good damage is pretty good, especially since he doesn't have AS issues after being placed up to par. And frankly, an 8 move siege user, especially in larger maps, is very good, and I'd be happy to get into specific things Tormod can do on general playthroughs if you so want them- trust me, I know what I am doing.

Sure there are some exceptions (like, Reyson doesn't actually have to be invincible), but units like Oscar and Boyd were forced to get by with minimal amounts of BEXP. While they could still perform at the same level as the units on his team he did dump BEXP on, I fail to see how they were one rounding everything they wanted and also faced little to no chances of death. Now imagine if "Oscar and Boyd" were replaced with mid tiers and/or underleveled units like Zihark and Neph. If they tried to get by with little to no BEXP they would just flat out suck.

I used plenty of BEXP on Oscar and Boyd thanks, and frankly I didn't find using BEXP on them as much of a benefit as using BEXP on chars like Tormod, Marcia, Jill, or Ike (Ike needs rescue dropping) because they may be good (btw I'm the reason Boyd's in high tier now) but they don't do much for me. Tormod can do things that help regardless of whether or not you pumped stuff into Oscar, Boyd, Jill, Marcia, etc, so who cares? His 8 move means he'll catch up with a purely unmounted team and even be ahead of them (and come on, you're not honestly putting him on the frontlines right? The benefit he brings has absolutely little to do with the frontlines) or he's close to a mounted team... or he can siege from further away.

And smash, to add to this:

I'm pretty sure Lord Raven was doing the thing where you give Marcia like 14 levels of BEXP right after she joins.

my playthrough is on page 1 and i list how much BEXP i use per chapter and how I distribute it. I use a pretty poor distribution of BEXP btw, many of which I didn't think through and I used more than I should've, and I *still* brought Tormod up to par.

Yeah, and Marcia did *not* use only 10% of my BEXP from the start of the game. I'm fairly sure she used a solid 60% once she came in, and Jill used a whole bunch up while I was trying to build up Soren (waste of time) and keep Boyd/Oscar/Astrid/Makalov/Ike up to par because Marcia took *that* much EXP. And you know what? They were all good, and Tormod was still brought up to par.

Edited November 12, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[dondon151]

Can everyone else on the team one round (at 1-2 range if applicable) and not require healing (or when they did, be able to get it without wasting time)? Then unfortunately, those units would want the BEXP that Raven dumped on his units like Tormod and Mak.

Now hold on a second. Why does everyone else have to ORKO at 1-2 range and Tormod and Makalov don't?

[Dark Sage]

And I don't want to be arguing semantics about how "my style of debating is superior to yours." Been there, done that, those arguments don't go anywhere and don't produce anything except headaches. If you think that way, make your own topic and give your own scores to characters. This goes to everyone in this topic as well. If there's a contradiction within my logic, go and point it out. But if you disagree with the style of debating and logic I employ, make your own topic and have the others who agree with you go there instead.

This is a retarded statement. Honestly, the very way you rank characters is a valid criticism. It's not even like people are calling you names or anything so you can't use that card. You're ranking characters based on how well they do on an efficient playthrough right? Then Ulki needing to wait for a few turns to be apparently better at combat than Janaff is a major negative since it means he requires a demi band (which requires taking it away from Muarim who loves it a lot) and that kills his speed stat.

In addition you don't seem to understand the fact that it's much more efficient to pump large amounts of resources into excellent characters like Jill and Marcia (which turns them into flying goddeses) than distribute BEXP equally among them. Keep in mind that as Mercenary Raven pointed out, he was able to pump lots of BEXP into Jill, Marcia, Makalov, Soren and Astrid, and he still had enough to pump Tormod full of BEXP and using some to keep Boyd, Ike, and Oscar up. In other words, Tormod's BEXP cost is not as big a negative as you claim it is because if it's possible to have that much BEXP left over even after all those dumps, then Tormod taking some is not that big a deal. The fact that he took some BEXP that could've gone to Ike, Boyd, Marcia, Jill, etc. is irrelevant. Jill and Marcia didn't need anymore BEXP afterwards and the net benefits of Tormod taking the BEXP exceed just spreading it out to everyone else since it got Mercenary Raven an 8 move sage who could siegebomb, ORKO with magic, and occasionally pull out a heal staff.

Now to revisit the criticism argument. Your refusal to accept the criticism offered by people posting in this thread shows immense hypocrisy. Why is it ok for you to go criticize Red Fox of Fire in her topic, but it's not ok for you to get criticized here?

@bolded: I guess next time I receive valid criticism in a character ranking topic, I should just say that everyone who disagrees with me should just make their own topic. And of course, the whole point of replies to ratings in such topics is to provide only praise and agreement. I guess Inui style posts would be in order.

[Progenitus]

Nobody is arguing based upon pure combat utility alone. Combat is basically handled by Marcia and Jill and *maybe* a coupled mounted units behind taking off the scraps. Of course, this isn't always the case, but a magic user with 8 movement + able to heal and do good damage is pretty good, especially since he doesn't have AS issues after being placed up to par. And frankly, an 8 move siege user, especially in larger maps, is very good, and I'd be happy to get into specific things Tormod can do on general playthroughs if you so want them- trust me, I know what I am doing.

So you effectively low-manned your playthrough while stuffing it with other units so they could pretend they were doing something useful while you dumped resources into a few units so they could solo the game, and while your fliers were doing that you pretended that units like Ike and Oscar got everything they wanted (because everything you made them do mattered very little anyway).

While this is, again, a style of debating or playing that is perfectly acceptable, it's a style I find to be boring to debate about. I'm more interested in arguing what a team can do, not what "select few overleveled units + a bunch of underleveled whoever" can achieve. If again, you think this style of debating or playing is superior to what I employ, then I ask that you create your own rankings for the characters because I don't want to be arguing semantics about playstyle.

I used plenty of BEXP on Oscar and Boyd thanks,

Considering they were barely 20/1 by chapter 18 when in a more normal playthrough they could be up to 20/4 at the same point, you should define what you mean by "plenty".

Of course in the face of an overleveled marcia and Jill raping everything, seems like Boyd and Oscar were "content" on twiddling their thumbs and picking up scraps.

and frankly I didn't find using BEXP on them as much of a benefit as using BEXP on chars like Tormod, Marcia, Jill, or Ike (Ike needs rescue dropping) because they may be good (btw I'm the reason Boyd's in high tier now) but they don't do much for me.

Well if your playstyle revolves around having Marcia solo the game then that might explain it.

Tormod can do things that help regardless of whether or not you pumped stuff into Oscar, Boyd, Jill, Marcia, etc, so who cares? His 8 move means he'll catch up with a purely unmounted team and even be ahead of them (and come on, you're not honestly putting him on the frontlines right? The benefit he brings has absolutely little to do with the frontlines) or he's close to a mounted team... or he can siege from further away.

If he's not on the frontlines, then what's the point of his celerity? What's the point of even training him? Naturally you would respond with "siege tomes", yet Calill can use them too without requiring an assload of BEXP, and if Soren or Ilyana received the same amount of BEXP Tormod did they can siege tome just as well.

my playthrough is on page 1 and i list how much BEXP i use per chapter and how I distribute it. I use a pretty poor distribution of BEXP btw, many of which I didn't think through and I used more than I should've, and I *still* brought Tormod up to par.

At the expense of half your team.

Yeah, and Marcia did *not* use only 10% of my BEXP from the start of the game. I'm fairly sure she used a solid 60% once she came in, and Jill used a whole bunch up while I was trying to build up Soren (waste of time) and keep Boyd/Oscar/Astrid/Makalov/Ike up to par because Marcia took *that* much EXP. And you know what? They were all good, and Tormod was still brought up to par.

"good" to what degree? Good enough to take all the scraps that overleveled marcia and Jill left behind, or good enough so they too were capable of soloing enemies?

Adn again not to mention that if you hadn't stuffed the rest of the team with top tiers, but instead used units like Neph and Zihark, they would just be awful and not even worth fielding anymore.

Now hold on a second. Why does everyone else have to ORKO at 1-2 range and Tormod and Makalov don't?

Don't strawman me.

The problem is that Tormod taking BEXP from the team means that Ike can't use that BEXP, that Oscar can't use that BEXP, that Kieran can't use that BEXP, and so on. And if Ike/Oscar/etc. cannot one round at 1-2 and not require healing, then the BEXP given to Tormod is not free

This is a retarded statement. Honestly, the very way you rank characters is a valid criticism. It's not even like people are calling you names or anything so you can't use that card. You're ranking characters based on how well they do on an efficient playthrough right? Then Ulki needing to wait for a few turns to be apparently better at combat than Janaff is a major negative since it means he requires a demi band (which requires taking it away from Muarim who loves it a lot) and that kills his speed stat.

I don't want to be arguing semantics about playstyles and ways of debating because it's happened several times and has NEVER gone anywhere. Even when I didn't (or barely) participate in them, they accomplished absolutely nothing. Why should I waste my time on something I KNOW will not accomplish anything?

This is the internet: there is no award or prize for winning an argument or forcing someone to concede their side of the argument other than e-peen. I personally only debate because the journey is what is exciting, not the destination. I just don't understand why everyone is so hostile about how I have a different style of ranking units, because when I see someone that I cannot argue against because he/she is very stubborn (snowy, int, narga, etc), I learned to just ignore them, while the people at serenesforest continue to pester me, as if they have something on the line to change my viewpoints when, from my point of view, my style of debating is the best (but not the only one).

And here's an example. If I (or someone) made a ranking topic about how characters solely perform at average 20/20 stats, are you going to barge in and say "THAT IS A HORRIBLE WAY TO RANK UNITS" when it's quite clear that the creator doesn't care about that for that given topic? That seems pretty elitist to me. Similarly if someone wants to rank or tier units on normal mode instead of hard mode, I don't jump into his topic and call him bad at this game, or criticize him for not ranking units on hard mode. Why do people do that against me?

Now to revisit the criticism argument. Your refusal to accept the criticism offered by people posting in this thread shows immense hypocrisy. Why is it ok for you to go criticize Red Fox of Fire in her topic, but it's not ok for you to get criticized here?

@bolded: I guess next time I receive valid criticism in a character ranking topic, I should just say that everyone who disagrees with me should just make their own topic. And of course, the whole point of replies to ratings in such topics is to provide only praise and agreement. I guess Inui style posts would be in order.

It's not the actual criticism that I don't like. It's the criticism about debating style and playstyle.

Pretty sure when I posted in Fox's ranking topic I criticized her for a discrepancy within her own style. You and most other people in this topic, on the other hand, are criticizing that my playstyle is inferior to the one the serenesforest debaters employ.

See the difference? The first one would be pointing out a hypocrisy within the person, which can easily be worked out or clarified. The second is a clash of styles.

Edited November 12, 2011 by smash fanatic

[Colonel M]

No matter how much BEXP I give Ike, he can't 1-2 range unless he busts the Sonic Sword or gets Ragnell.

[Anouleth]

Becuase clearly, Devdan having better offense than Ulki somehow refutes the fact that Ulki can actually one round more enemy types than Janaff.

That's not really true.

Level 14 Ulki w/Demi Band and an A support:

32ATK/18AS

Level 15 Janaff w/nothing

30ATK/25AS

You don't have to be a genius to work out that the 7AS lead is far more important than the piddling 2ATK lead that won't always exist. Janaff doubles Snipers, Swordmasters, Paladins, and Tigers that Ulki does not. And Janaff is not taking a valuable and contested resource to do so.

The problem is that Tormod taking BEXP from the team means that Ike can't use that BEXP, that Oscar can't use that BEXP, that Kieran can't use that BEXP, and so on. And if Ike/Oscar/etc. cannot one round at 1-2 and not require healing, then the BEXP given to Tormod is not free

Well, thank you for directly implying that the BEXP given to Tormod is free since Ike/Oscar/etc. can totally do that (obviously aside from Ike 1-rounding at 1-2 range, but he wouldn't do that even with all the BEXP under the sun).

Edited November 12, 2011 by Anouleth

[Dark Sage]

I don't want to be arguing semantics about playstyles and ways of debating because it's happened several times and has NEVER gone anywhere. Even when I didn't (or barely) participate in them, they accomplished absolutely nothing. Why should I waste my time on something I KNOW will not accomplish anything?

I agree that arguing about stuff like that can be really annoying.

This is the internet: there is no award or prize for winning an argument or forcing someone to concede their side of the argument other than e-peen. I personally only debate because the journey is what is exciting, not the destination. I just don't understand why everyone is so hostile about how I have a different style of ranking units, because when I see someone that I cannot argue against because he/she is very stubborn (snowy, int, narga, etc), I learned to just ignore them, while the people at serenesforest continue to pester me, as if they have something on the line to change my viewpoints when, from my point of view, my style of debating is the best (but not the only one).

I find it incredibly ironic that you're complaining about Int, Narga, and Snowy being stubborn (Snowy is incredibly stubborn but still...)

Anyway times change Smash. The way of ranking characters evolves. Just like how we moved on from judging characters based on 20/20 stats, we moved on from assuming a more communist style resource distribution method. You are ranking characters based on how they contribute to an efficient playthrough. The standards of that have changed. A lot of discussion has been done about how to tier certain units, valid resource distributions, etc. A lot of the stuff in your rankings that was considered correct then is now considered to be incorrect. Naturally, people will want to point this out so they can have more accurate rankings. It is not about wanting to increase the size of one's e-penis or forcing people into different playstyles. It is the desire to make your rankings better and more helpful.

Also I don't see where people are being hostile. Could you please show me so I don't make the assumption that you're simply being a little thinskinned?

And here's an example. If I (or someone) made a ranking topic about how characters solely perform at average 20/20 stats, are you going to barge in and say "THAT IS A HORRIBLE WAY TO RANK UNITS" when it's quite clear that the creator doesn't care about that for that given topic? That seems pretty elitist to me.

Except that's not what people are doing so the example here is invalid.

It's not the actual criticism that I don't like. It's the criticism about debating style and playstyle.

Could've fooled me.

Pretty sure when I posted in Fox's ranking topic I criticized her for a discrepancy within her own style. You and most other people in this topic, on the other hand, are criticizing that my playstyle is inferior to the one the serenesforest debaters employ.

See the difference? The first one would be pointing out a hypocrisy within the person, which can easily be worked out or clarified. The second is a clash of styles.

Like I said, people aren't saying your playstyle is inferior. People are quite willing to let you play however you want. However, if you're going to rank characters based on how they do on an efficiency playthrough, people are going to criticize what they see to be factually or logically incorrect statements.

In addition, let me provide the criticism you gave RFoF:

lol @ 0.5 gap between Chuck BROlan and miccy sue. Apparently getting 3RKO'd and not ORKO'd is only marginally better than winning offense vs armors, and by the time miccy sue even gets staves, the durability (and offense for that matter) gap just keeps growing thanks to lolearth, better growths, etc.

You already have a problem 4 ratings in. At least for me it took until Aran where people started to complain.

I'll ignore the elitism in the last statement and focus on what you were claiming was hypocrisy. You're complaining that it was hypocrisy that RFoF gave Nolan a .5 higher rating than Micaiah. I don't see how it is. To RFoF, Micaiah's ability to use staves and her winning offense vs Armors is more useful than Nolan's durability. There doesn't seem to be any hypocrisy involved. If she claimed that being ORKO'd makes a unit suck automatically and then said Nolan isn't that much better than Micaiah, then that would be hypocrisy. But she didn't, so the hypocrisy you see doesn't exist.

Not only that but I noticed you seem to be complaining a lot about how bad serenesforest debaters are to you and have complained about them a LOT in this thread. But I have a serious question for you. Why are you even here if you think serenesforest sucks? It's not meant to be a question to shut you down and make you go away, it's genuine curiosity. If you hate talking to people here (and honestly, the main reason why you'd be here would be to debate FE), then posting here doesn't seem to make much sense.

On another note, I admire your self restraint in not barging into the FE9 tier topic and yelling at us about our standards. A certain somebody who is very stubborn has been doing that a lot recently and has been irritating me and the others to absolutely no end.

[I.M. Gei]

It's a real shame that Int and Narga are essentially out of the debating scene, now.

[aku chi]

The fact that [Tormod] took some BEXP that could've gone to Ike, Boyd, Marcia, Jill, etc. is irrelevant.

It is 100% relevant when measuring how valuable Tormod is.

It's not the actual criticism that I don't like. It's the criticism about debating style and playstyle.

Pretty sure when I posted in Fox's ranking topic I criticized her for a discrepancy within her own style. You and most other people in this topic, on the other hand, are criticizing that my playstyle is inferior to the one the serenesforest debaters employ.

See the difference? The first one would be pointing out a hypocrisy within the person, which can easily be worked out or clarified. The second is a clash of styles.

Oh, would you like us to point out hypocrisy in your ratings? Then tell me how the following:

Like my FE10 one, it's based on beating HM as quickly and efficiently as possible.

...can lead one to prefer Ulki doing absolutely nothing (except get left behind) for the first 3 turns of each chapter to Ulki using the Demi Band to scrape up some tertiary flier utility and chip damage for the entire chapter?

Also, I didn't see an exception to "low-manning" in the preamble to your ratings. Given your preamble, there is no reason not to consider the most quick and efficient ways to complete the game (i.e. "low-manning"). If you simply left out the details of this exception to your rating criteria, I would appreciate some clarification. We need more information about what you disallow under the descriptor "low-manning" to properly judge the internal consistency of your ratings (that seems to be the kind of feedback you want).

[Dark Sage]

It is 100% relevant when measuring how valuable Tormod is.

You're right. I should've used a better choice of words. Not as important as smash thinks is more accurate.

[Progenitus]

I find it incredibly ironic that you're complaining about Int, Narga, and Snowy being stubborn (Snowy is incredibly stubborn but still...)

Never said I wasn't stubborn.

Anyway times change Smash. The way of ranking characters evolves. Just like how we moved on from judging characters based on 20/20 stats, we moved on from assuming a more communist style resource distribution method. You are ranking characters based on how they contribute to an efficient playthrough. The standards of that have changed. A lot of discussion has been done about how to tier certain units, valid resource distributions, etc. A lot of the stuff in your rankings that was considered correct then is now considered to be incorrect. Naturally, people will want to point this out so they can have more accurate rankings. It is not about wanting to increase the size of one's e-penis or forcing people into different playstyles. It is the desire to make your rankings better and more helpful.

Well, it's a movement I dislike/don't understand.

I can understand things like greatly reducing (if not ignoring) the importance of 20/20 stats, because obviously the endgame isn't the only part of the game that matters.

What I don't understand, however, are things like trying to aim for low turn counts when I care more about other factors (that I don't want to elaborate on because everytime I do, the arguments about them never go anywhere anyway).

Things like low-manning which basically removes a significant factor from the debate (stats, as you can pump up your small team to ridiculous amounts), which restricts what can be talked about.

Things like Raven's FE9 or Anouleth's FE10 playlogs where they are actually resetting maps before they get a strategy they like. When I debated tiers with the likes of WJC and Reikken a long time ago, resets were never (or very, very rarely) allowed. For example if a unit died on you and you resetted, that amount of time wasted would be added to that unit. I believe WJC didn't even reset ever, so if someone liek Lucius died on him, he would assume the player would just keep playing.

Also I don't see where people are being hostile. Could you please show me so I don't make the assumption that you're simply being a little thinskinned?

aku chi's first post, for starters

Except that's not what people are doing so the example here is invalid.

The concept is the same.

"Why are you taking more than X turns in a chapter and Ulki is able to even transform in the first place?" I think I've clearly expressed on several occasions that I do not support playing through maps at a speedrun pace.

"Why are you not dumping your resources onto the fliers/low-man the game?" I think I also expressed my dislike for lowmanning strategies.

Again, it's an acceptable way to debate tiers and rank characters. But it's something I do not want to adapt to because it covers bases that I do not care about.

I'll ignore the elitism in the last statement and focus on what you were claiming was hypocrisy. You're complaining that it was hypocrisy that RFoF gave Nolan a .5 higher rating than Micaiah. I don't see how it is. To RFoF, Micaiah's ability to use staves and her winning offense vs Armors is more useful than Nolan's durability. There doesn't seem to be any hypocrisy involved. If she claimed that being ORKO'd makes a unit suck automatically and then said Nolan isn't that much better than Micaiah, then that would be hypocrisy. But she didn't, so the hypocrisy you see doesn't exist.

It's almost guaranteed to be a hypocrisy because she would view durability leads that large (getting one rounded -> getting three rounded) as well as the other advantages Nolan has on micaiah as much, much larger in any other given situation or comparison. There is no hypocrisy within only the Nolan adn Micaiah ratings, but if you look elsewhere there is bound to be one.

For example, her current ratings have Aran at 6.5 and Edward at 4.0. The major difference between these two is obviously the durability, and is probably the same size as the durability between Nolan and Micaiah (pretty sure that after Aran's def gets going, he can take 2-3 times more hits than Edward, while Nolan is taking 2-3 times more hits than Micaiah). So if that is worth 2.5 between Aran and edward, why would it be worth only 0.5 between nolan adn Micaiah? Yes, there are other factors in Nolan vs Micaiah (namely the 1 move vs staves and thani), but it's still a gap discrepancy from what I saw.

(note: fox's current rating has Nolan at 8.5 and Micaiah at 7.5, which not only do I find more acceptable, but proof that there was a small mistake in her ratings).

(Another irrelevant note: I was complaining about her NOlan and Micaiah ratings when she just posted them and so that is what I worked with. But since she completed her ratings a long time ago, if I still wanted to criticize the gap she has between Nolan and Micaiah, I would instead say things like "why is nolan lower than X unit in the 9.0 bracket when he has this and this", or "why is miccy higher than Y unit in the 7.0 bracket when Y unit has this and this", rather than say "the gap between Nolan and Micaiah is to my disliking").

Not only that but I noticed you seem to be complaining a lot about how bad serenesforest debaters are to you and have complained about them a LOT in this thread. But I have a serious question for you. Why are you even here if you think serenesforest sucks? It's not meant to be a question to shut you down and make you go away, it's genuine curiosity. If you hate talking to people here (and honestly, the main reason why you'd be here would be to debate FE), then posting here doesn't seem to make much sense.

1) To keep my ratings organized in case I want to post them on other forums. The edit and hotlinking functions are pretty nice when gamefaqs doesn't have them.

2) To possibly attract more of the casual FE crowd that post on this forum. This forum is probably the most popular FE forum, so naturally it should have the most casuals as well.

3) Hopes that there are some serenesforest debaters that are not as mean.

Although given this topic it is quite clear that we truly are at an impasse in terms of debating styles. I haven't posted in the tier topics on this forum for years (even pre-ban, I stopped posting in them by liek 2009 and my ban was in 2010) almost exclusively for this reason. The attitude I received didn't help either (although I will admit that my attitude even today is poor, though keep in mind that I am rarely the one who is aggressive first). I don't plan on arguing here for much longer.

...can lead one to prefer Ulki doing absolutely nothing (except get left behind) for the first 3 turns of each chapter to Ulki using the Demi Band to scrape up some tertiary flier utility and chip damage for the entire chapter?

Also, I didn't see an exception to "low-manning" in the preamble to your ratings. Given your preamble, there is no reason not to consider the most quick and efficient ways to complete the game (i.e. "low-manning"). If you simply left out the details of this exception to your rating criteria, I would appreciate some clarification. We need more information about what you disallow under the descriptor "low-manning" to properly judge the internal consistency of your ratings (that seems to be the kind of feedback you want).

I'll add what my definition of efficiency is (or at least more clearly state exactly what kind of playthrough I'm assuming) to the OP. You'll have to give me some time though because I actually should be doing homework right now, and it's not easy to come up with a list of rules that are not contradictory.

[Junkhead]

It's a real shame that Int and Narga are essentially out of the debating scene, now.

They are? I just think they're on a vacation.

[eclipse]

What I don't understand, however, are things like trying to aim for low turn counts when I care more about other factors (that I don't want to elaborate on because everytime I do, the arguments about them never go anywhere anyway).

If you plan on persuading anyone besides yourself that you have a point, then you'll need to elaborate. Right now, I'm not seeing why you think the way you do, and that's hurting your stance greatly.

[Anouleth]

Smash, don't get caught up in responding to these other fools. I posted an actual argument, short as it might be.

Things like Raven's FE9 or Anouleth's FE10 playlogs where they are actually resetting maps before they get a strategy they like.

I play how I want to play. If I want to try a chapter many times so that I can build a good strategy, I will. I'm not dondon who can look at a map and know what to do straight away.

[aku chi]

Level 14 Ulki w/Demi Band and an A support:

32ATK/18AS

Level 15 Janaff w/nothing

30ATK/25AS

You don't have to be a genius to work out that the 7AS lead is far more important than the piddling 2ATK lead that won't always exist. Janaff doubles Snipers, Swordmasters, Paladins, and Tigers that Ulki does not. And Janaff is not taking a valuable and contested resource to do so.

That's the (general) argument I opened with in the linked topic. Smash fanatic circumvented Janaff beating Ulki's Demi Band stats by arguing that we should wait three turns and let Ulki transform naturally. Then the madness began...

[eclipse]

That's the (general) argument I opened with in the linked topic. Smash fanatic circumvented Janaff beating Ulki's Demi Band stats by arguing that we should wait three turns and let Ulki transform naturally. Then the madness began...

I REALLY want to see smash's logic behind this. In my mind, Ulki's doing a whole lot of nothing for those three turns, so that should count against him.

[Narga_Rocks]

They are? I just think they're on a vacation.

I'm pretty much not debating anymore. Can't comment on Interceptor, but unless he's on a 6 month vacation it seems to me he's no longer bothering either.

[Lord Raven]

So you effectively low-manned your playthrough while stuffing it with other units so they could pretend they were doing something useful while you dumped resources into a few units so they could solo the game, and while your fliers were doing that you pretended that units like Ike and Oscar got everything they wanted (because everything you made them do mattered very little anyway).

While this is, again, a style of debating or playing that is perfectly acceptable, it's a style I find to be boring to debate about. I'm more interested in arguing what a team can do, not what "select few overleveled units + a bunch of underleveled whoever" can achieve. If again, you think this style of debating or playing is superior to what I employ, then I ask that you create your own rankings for the characters because I don't want to be arguing semantics about playstyle.

I wasn't saying that. I was saying that there is still more than enough BEXP to give to Tormod even under some playthrough where you give 90% of your resources to like 3 units so they can low turn. Of course, the fact that you are responding the way you are directly shows you don't read the rest of the points before responding to my posts, which is incredibly stupid. I outlined Tormod's use in a playthrough without mounted units as well.

Considering they were barely 20/1 by chapter 18 when in a more normal playthrough they could be up to 20/4 at the same point, you should define what you mean by "plenty".

I used a large team and had a rather conservative stance on combat. It's my first efficiency run so my resource allocation isn't optimal.

Of course in the face of an overleveled marcia and Jill raping everything, seems like Boyd and Oscar were "content" on twiddling their thumbs and picking up scraps.

Duh.

Well if your playstyle revolves around having Marcia solo the game then that might explain it.

But it's not that important. You know why? (Physical) Combat gets largely redundant, and you don't need much more than a sole couple units (Marcia/Jill in my case); siege tomes on the other hand are not, and the 8 move on top of 10 range actually makes Tormod extremely versatile for the larger maps. There are specific instances where Tormod can off a unit or get to a Bishop in time to prevent, say, Reyson/flying units without Full guard from getting Sniped off or a Bishop healing another bishop instead of putting Ike/Jill to sleep. These advantages extend beyond just the lowest turn counts because Tormod can still reach said units before most of your unmounted units and allow your flying units to cover more ground overall, on top of the fact that Tormod's offense is actually pretty decent all things considered.

If he's not on the frontlines, then what's the point of his celerity? What's the point of even training him? Naturally you would respond with "siege tomes", yet Calill can use them too without requiring an assload of BEXP, and if Soren or Ilyana received the same amount of BEXP Tormod did they can siege tome just as well.

Not only does Calill lack the 8 move that Tormod has, but she doesn't have as many good units that support her as Tormod nor does she have the ability to use a Heal staff on a frontline unit. Tormod can survive 2 hits (and he gets killed on the third) which is more than enough on your standard FE9 enemy phase.

At the expense of half your team.

"Half my team" was not being hindered, no.

"good" to what degree? Good enough to take all the scraps that overleveled marcia and Jill left behind, or good enough so they too were capable of soloing enemies?

Good enough that they could experience combat, kill things, and live, but they still wouldn't be doing that because they don't fly.

Adn again not to mention that if you hadn't stuffed the rest of the team with top tiers, but instead used units like Neph and Zihark, they would just be awful and not even worth fielding anymore.

The fuck are you talking about?

Don't strawman me.

funny funny

The problem is that Tormod taking BEXP from the team means that Ike can't use that BEXP, that Oscar can't use that BEXP, that Kieran can't use that BEXP, and so on. And if Ike/Oscar/etc. cannot one round at 1-2 and not require healing, then the BEXP given to Tormod is not free

This isn't 2009 anymore. They are always doing fine, and there is a point where Tormod doesn't _need_ BEXP that Ike/Boyd can use it if they so wish. You completely underestimate the amount of BEXP in this game.

It is 100% relevant when measuring how valuable Tormod is.

For the love of God aku chi, the million people against you on that debate really didn't convince you at all? There is almost zero opportunity cost to using Tormod simply because there's enough BEXP in this game to trivialize it.

[Progenitus]

@ anouleth

From what aku chi (or another janaff supporter) has said, Janaff is just picking off scraps. I have no idea if this means Janaff is actually being used to one round something (which is liek mages and archers and that's about it) or if he's attacking a weakened enemy that somehow got left alive. But if it's the latter, then there's really a negligible difference from letting demi band Ulki finish the job or chipping at an enemy, with the only drawback being that Ulki of course has to use the demi band.

Of course in the maps (or playstyles) where Ulki can actually transform naturally then he's kinda giving Janaff the beatdown.

At this point I'm tired of arguing the hawks. if all you guys want is to drop Ulki to the same score as Janaff, or even have Ulki half a point below, then I'll make the change. If you want Janaff to be 1+ point above Ulki though then no dice; I'm staying firm.

@ raven

If you say that there's enough BEXP so that the most underleveled unit in the entire game (save for liek Rolf and Mist who are tied in that department) has absolutely no problems catching up to the team in levels while not harming the rest of the team in any way, then stats should just flat out not matter anymore and everything should be based on availability and mobility (and 1-2 range). I advise that you also apply (or at least push for) that style for the actual tier list on this board as well, or there will be contradictions in your stance.

At this point, again, we are at an impasse due to our differences in debating styles. It's clear you think there's enough resources to go around due to your playstyle. And I think that doing that kind of playstyle is a boring way to debate (since, like I said, I find the actual debating to be more interesting rather than coming up with the correct conclusion, and removing an entire aspect of the debate from the picture - stats - doesn't help that).

Of course at this point you know what I'm going to tell you. It's now up to you if you want to flame or taunt me, or call me stubborn. Or we can agree to disagree (yes, this is an actual option), and you can do something more productive and argue with people who agree with your standards and styles of debating and playing and thus you can argue actual units and not semantics.

Edited November 13, 2011 by smash fanatic

[eclipse]

*is VERY confused*

Unless you're on a map where there's a whole lot of nothing happening for the first three turns, I think a transformed Janaff is contributing a lot more than an untransformed Ulki. Of course, Ulki can nab the Demi Band for those turns, but then he's competing against a fully transformed Janaff, and I think we know how that will end.

The question is, do those three turns in the beginning matter? I think they do, as my goal isn't to get every support in the game. Not sure what your opinion is.

[Anouleth]

@ anouleth

From what aku chi (or another janaff supporter) has said, Janaff is just picking off scraps. I have no idea if this means Janaff is actually being used to one round something (which is liek mages and archers and that's about it) or if he's attacking a weakened enemy that somehow got left alive. But if it's the latter, then there's really a negligible difference from letting demi band Ulki finish the job or chipping at an enemy, with the only drawback being that Ulki of course has to use the demi band.

I don't care what they said. The fact is that Janaff can 1-round

Of course in the maps (or playstyles) where Ulki can actually transform naturally then he's kinda giving Janaff the beatdown.

It's not so much that Ulki can't transform: Turn 4 isn't *that* late. It's just that generally in the lategame maps which are done in anything from 5-6 turns, Janaff is being useful for four of them and Ulki is being useful for two or three. In addition, earlier turns are more important than later turns. Janaff can assist in rescue-drops and has the benefits of 8 move against Ulki's 6. So it's questionable if after those three turns of inactivity are up, Ulki can be as useful as Janaff, given that he'll be behind, that he might not have the benefit of his support, and that earlier turns are more important.

Maybe I'm just being overly conservative about supports, since I know that in my playstyle supports rarely come into play especially between people who lack canto and don't match movement.

[Progenitus]

I find it interesting that you both ignored the part about me saying that I could drop Ulki's score if it would make everyone stop bickering about it.

[aku chi]

I don't care what they said. The fact is that Janaff can 1-round

The only units that Janaff can 1RKO that will actually attack him at 1-range are the Swordmasters that he can double. Janaff can also ORKO Sages, Bishops, and some Archers, just like Mist with a Steel Sword forge and Volke with a Stiletto.

I'm no Janaff supporter. The only time I talk about his combat is to mention how much it sucks (and is unfavorably comparable to Volke and Lucia's combat). The problem is that Ulki's combat is worse. With the Demi Band, he has almost identical Atk and durability as Janaff, but is super-slow. Demi Band Ulki can only double the slowest foes. Without the Demi Band, Ulki just isn't usable at all (and still has mediocre combat full-transformed).

I find it interesting that you both ignored the part about me saying that I could drop Ulki's score if it would make everyone stop bickering about it.

This is not a communal tier list; these are your unit rankings. If you are convinced that Janaff is more valuable than Ulki, make whatever change seems fitting to you. I don't know what your full rating criteria are, so I won't even make a recommendation besides Janaff > Ulki.

[Colonel M]

Fine, make Ulki drop .5 points below Janaff please.