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What is the general consensus on Marcus vs. Sain?


Xator Nova
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What the title says.

I used to believe for a long time that Marcus was superior to Paladin!Sain. However, I've recently considered that Sain might be able to reach reasonably high levels and weapon ranks in Lyn Mode (I've seen people reaching Lv20, B Swords, B Lances in Lyn Mode). Both of them compete for experience when both exist, and Sain requires less resources to reach important parameters than Marcus due to better growths overall, particularly speed.

Who do you believe is the better unit, and why? Is Marcus's availability more important than Sain's less resource necessity for speed benchmarks (14 AS)?

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Marcus is still better.

Unless you sandbag Marcus, he should be good enough for quite a long time. You have to baby sain to Lv20 in Lyn mode which takes how long? Very long.

Sain also (in this case) requires both a vast monopoly of Lyn mode Experience and the early Knight Crest, which cuts into Kent being able to fit into the team well. Deploying Marcus doesn't rob the team of any potential units, as Lowen still has the ability to gain exp at a decent rate, but base Kent struggles to hold his own outside of Lyn mode in harder modes.

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Lyn’s mode is optional. ;)

I think it depends on how much you value efficient clears of Lyn mode and the early chapters of HHM.

Is Kent really that much worse anyways as the Lyn mode pally? He’s a decent amount more likely to hit Spd benchmarks, though he’ll most probably be expected to miss the Str ones (if any are relevant).

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Sain actually ha some pretty bad hit issues when fighting with javelins and hand axes if he's earlypromod, something Marcus doesn't really have to worry about. Marcus hits just as hard for a while since sain is taking a while to math his weapon ranks, and they both slow down a bit if you early promote sain, his speed is hardly better than Marcus's. Unless we aren't doing Lyn mode efficiently. Kent actually hits the boss killing parameters easier than Sain in Lyn mode too.

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With how slow HHM enemies are, str>superflous spd.

I didn’t deny Sain is probably better, just mentioning that Kent has a better chance of meeting Spd benchmarks. Mercs, Nomads (I'll cherrypick that 13/1 Kent is around 3x more probable to double 10 AS Nomads in C17, for example), and perhaps some bosses, are pretty fast too. And Kent is marginally better at doubling stuff while carrying others (again, at 13/1, around 3x more likely to double 3 AS while rescuing someone).

However, most of what Sain does, Kent (and Marcus) can probably do also. No-one else can do what Marcus does in early HHM, is the general point (alternatively, Marcus can't do Lyn mode stuff, but ehlynmode).

Edited by XeKr
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(I've seen people reaching Lv20, B Swords, B Lances in Lyn Mode).

what the fuck

marcus needs less resources to reach benchmarks than sain does, he needs a lot less exp and has an easier time getting it than sain.

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If you like boss abuse Sain to level 20 in Lyn Mode he might be better than Marcus.

If you play Lyn Mode efficiently, he still has to catch up in weapon ranks and while his speed is decent, he can miss out on faster enemies like nomads and promoted enemies like in Genesis, since it is unlikely he will gain enough levels to have that much AS.

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marcus has chapters 12-15

he also only needs 12 AS by chapter 20 to double the cavs, oleg in chapter 21, and weighed down sages and druids in chapter 23x. sain does have some hit problems, too, but you have 2 early secret books to patch that up.

i think the highest that sain can get in LHM with efficient play is 13/1, which is not better than base marcus by more than 1 point in any stat.

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Fun fact:

Marcus has the second highest res(pect) growth of all melee units (behind Fiora).

Only Fiora, Lyn and Nino have a skill growth higher than Marcus, (the highest only being 10% higher).

The rest are pretty cruddy in comparison to much of the rest of the army, but its a neat tidbit nonetheless.

Edited by Elieson
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As far as I have understood, Marcus's unique utility during early chapters, better accuracy, axe rank, and less opportunity cost, and being independent of Lyn Mode make him superior.

This clears things up. Thanks for the comments.

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Marcus.

Again, people have moved on from comparing utility to comparing ability to survive on base stats alone. Marcus is a prepromote. End of story.

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Marcus is a prepromote who stays strong the ENTIRE game.

Try a 0% growths run sometime to see that.

That's what I meant. He's a prepromote, so he's immediately better. I thought alluding to 0% runs made that clear.

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