I have a minor rant about Sword classes

[ra2bk]

2 hours ago, magnetic_cactus said:

FWIW, I believe Mortal Savant technically out damages Gremory for a Marianne and Dorothea when it comes to spell damage because Black Tomefaire offsets the the higher Mag bonus Gremories get. It's pretty minimal (+2 I think) but it's there. You also gain +1 move and Swordfaire for Hexblade/Soulblade-boosted Rapiers against cavalry or crit-"casting" Wo Dao+/Cursed Ashikaya Sword+ or whatever, I guess, although obviously all of this comes at the expense of somewhat weaker growth rates, needing to cross-level Sword, and loss of x2 casts. I'm not saying Mortal Savant is a great class, because it it isn't, but it's probably a little bit better than literally pure meme, at least on paper. I'd never run it on a Lys, but I could see a Dorothea or Marianne MS for shits and giggles not being a total self-gimp.

Dorothea dancer -> mortal savant, reclass back to Dancer for most maps (you'll usually get some nice strength bonus level-ups to help a bit with speed and bulk). Equip with Blutgang. Reclass to Savant pre-battle if you want to mess around with Hexblade.

Edited August 27, 2019 by ra2bk

[magnetic_cactus]

13 minutes ago, ra2bk said:

Dorothea dancer -> mortal savant, reclass back to Dancer for most maps (you'll usually get some nice bonus level-ups). Equip with Blutgang. Reclass to Savant pre-battle if you want to mess around with Hexblade.

I could see it. The Dancer class Sword Avo skill would also do a little to help with the fact you're dropping a relatively squishy character on the front lines (although I think an MS-caster should be played cautiously anyway, and works fine without worry of being blown up in that capacity; it's just not a good LTC class then).

[Troykv]

Mortal Savant is a very weird class; but I personally like how it looks xD

[Hyper L]

They just need to swap that -10% Spd growth from Mortal Savant gone.

Heck, any Spd growth reduction that isn't from mounted units needs to be gone.

AND take away the Spd growth bonus from fliers.

 

Aside from that, everything else would be solved if all class requirements were a X OR Y instead of X AND Y.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Hyper L

[timon]

1 hour ago, Hyper L said:

They just need to swap that -10% Spd growth from Mortal Savant gone.

Heck, any Spd growth reduction that isn't from mounted units needs to be gone.

AND take away the Spd growth bonus from fliers.

 

Aside from that, everything else would be solved if all class requirements were a X OR Y instead of X AND Y.

Growth is not that relevant though, even if you stay 30 levels in a negative class it's 3 points on average, and you can grow stat boosters.

Also disagreed on the requirements, it would mean that anyone who reaches A axe gets onto a Wyvern, it doesn't really make sense and it woul break the game.

What they needed to do was forget master tier and bring down the hybrids to advanced (dark, holy and great knight), with lower requirements (B and B) and stats. Everything else in master tier doesn't fill any niche and actually takes away variety.

[Hyper L]

11 hours ago, timon said:

Growth is not that relevant though, even if you stay 30 levels in a negative class it's 3 points on average, and you can grow stat boosters.

Also disagreed on the requirements, it would mean that anyone who reaches A axe gets onto a Wyvern, it doesn't really make sense and it woul break the game.

What they needed to do was forget master tier and bring down the hybrids to advanced (dark, holy and great knight), with lower requirements (B and B) and stats. Everything else in master tier doesn't fill any niche and actually takes away variety.

I keep seeing people bringing averages to downplay the effects of growth and I gotta say, I really disagree that this a good measure for how much impact they have.

If growths were fixed and followed a linear pattern, yeah, but that's not the case.

Because the seeding is not linear and resets every map, -10% could mean the difference between gaining a stat every other level or not gaining a single point within 5 levels or more. 

Similarly, a +10% growth could mean the difference between a character being screwed or them being salvaged.

----------

And about everyone going for Wyvern if ranks where X or Y. That's cuz Wyvern is hella broken.

Both Wyvern, Falcon and Bow Knight all need a nerf ASAP.

More than that, preventing everyone from just going one class is a matter of making every class line similarly good, or better yet, similarly bad at something, so that making everyone that class would be disadvantageous.

And maybe limit how many Cavalry and Fliers you can deploy per map too.

[timon]

6 minutes ago, Hyper L said:

I keep seeing people bringing averages to downplay the effects of growth and I gotta say, I really disagree that this a good measure for how much impact they have.

If growths were fixed and followed a linear pattern, yeah, but that's not the case.

Because the seeding is not linear and resets every map, -10% could mean the difference between gaining a stat every other level or not gaining a single point within 5 levels or more. 

Similarly, a +10% growth could mean the difference between a character being screwed or them being salvaged.

If you don't discuss average probability as a concept doesn't even exist. You could have an event with a 1% chance happen 400 times in a row, does that make it a 100%? That's a debate more on mathematics (and basically philosophy, really). If you don't consider the average then a 99% is the same exact thing as a 1%, because depending on the outcome something either happens or doesn't. You either have 0 or 100. Chance disappears the moment of the event, so without average there are no chances nor percentage.

Taking this into FE growths, you can get screwed with a 70 as much as with a 20, you either gain that single stat point or not. The very meaning of that 10% you lose out on is that on an average of 10 levels you're losing 1 point. Or you could gain 10 times, or you could not gain 10 times. A coin has a 50% chance of landing head and 50% of landing tail, but throwing a coin will give you either head or tail. That's why you need to base the discussion on averages, otherwise there's no discussion at all.

[Hyper L]

28 minutes ago, timon said:

If you don't discuss average probability as a concept doesn't even exist. You could have an event with a 1% chance happen 400 times in a row, does that make it a 100%? That's a debate more on mathematics (and basically philosophy, really). If you don't consider the average then a 99% is the same exact thing as a 1%, because depending on the outcome something either happens or doesn't. You either have 0 or 100. Chance disappears the moment of the event, so without average there are no chances nor percentage.

Taking this into FE growths, you can get screwed with a 70 as much as with a 20, you either gain that single stat point or not. The very meaning of that 10% you lose out on is that on an average of 10 levels you're losing 1 point. Or you could gain 10 times, or you could not gain 10 times. A coin has a 50% chance of landing head and 50% of landing tail, but throwing a coin will give you either head or tail. That's why you need to base the discussion on averages, otherwise there's no discussion at all.

But it's exactly as you say.

You could luck out multiple times with 1%, but the chances of that comming to pass are very low.

While with a 99% you could still get screwed, but chances are you will luck out instead.

Is kinda hard to explain, but is a Chance within a Chance kinda thing.

A 60% growth rate is not only the probability you will be gaining a stat every 2 levels, it is also the chance of you lucking out and gaining a stat every single level instead.

A 40% growth rate is not only the probability you will be gaining a stat every 3 levels, it is also the chance of being screwed and not ever gaining a single instead.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that these chances are double folded. 60 means more than 60, 40 means less than 40, so on and so forth.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Hyper L

[timon]

10 minutes ago, Hyper L said:

But it's exactly as you say.

You could luck out multiple times with 1%, but the chances of that comming to pass are very low.

While with a 99% you could still get screwed, but chances are you will luck out instead.

Is kinda hard to explain, but is a Chance within a Chance kinda thing.

A 60% growth rate is not only the probability you will be gaining a stat every 2 levels, it is also the chance of you lucking out and gaining a stat every single level instead.

A 40% growth rate is not only the probability you will be gaining a stat every 3 levels, it is also the chance of being screwed and not ever gaining a single instead.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that these chances are double folded. 60 means more than 60, 40 means less than 40, So on and so forth.

I understand the way you're thinking (chance is a completely unintuitive concept for the human brain), but it's just wrong, it's a matter of maths really, not opinion. What you think is the "double fold" of chance is already considered and represented when we speak of averages. The chance of being screwed in that single level is exactly what the average tells us. 6 out of ten is the same as 1 sixth out of one.

The only exception where this is not true (and I don't think it's the case here) is if there's some sort of mistake in the system that rolls the number, but that's a technical problem more than a theoretical one. I'm not sure how the RNG works in this game, if it's faulty then you could say that when it displays a 60 it's actually slighty more and so on, but as far as we know 60 is just 60, whether you're looking at one level or at a million. Obviously the fewer the iterations the lesser the chance to see all the variations of an event, but that's hardly the case here, since we're talking growth (either it increases or it doesn't, just 2 possible status).

Edited August 28, 2019 by timon

[freewaffles]

18 minutes ago, Hyper L said:

I keep seeing people bringing averages to downplay the effects of growth and I gotta say, I really disagree that this a good measure for how much impact they have.

If growths were fixed and followed a linear pattern, yeah, but that's not the case.

Because the seeding is not linear and resets every map, -10% could mean the difference between gaining a stat every other level or not gaining a single point within 5 levels or more. 

Similarly, a +10% growth could mean the difference between a character being screwed or them being salvaged.

• On my first GD playthrough, I had a Raphael that gained speed on 13 of his first 19 level ups.  When he reclassed into a Grappler at Chapter he had 22 speed.   Meanwhile my newly recruited Ingrid had just 20.  (When I reclassed him into a War Master, he was still sitting at 22 speed).

 

• On my Edelgard run, when I reclassed Ferdinand into a Wyvern Lord (fighter/brigand/wyvern rider) at level 30 he was sitting on 21 magic (8 above his expected), and 24 strength (4 below expected).  At no point did I ever think: "Wow Ferdinand's getting magic blessed, I should just ignore all the effort I put into getting his Wyvern Lord Cert and swap him to a Dark Knight."  Doing so would have taken forever for just 2 more magic.  Instead I slapped a Bolt Axe on him and called it a day.

Under no circumstances do I allow those anecdotes to color my objective expectations for those characters.  

Furthermore, class certification makes up for a significant amount of bad luck in this game.  Let's say I took Leonie, with her average strength growth (40%) and base (9) down a route that was Soldier/Archer/Sniper from level 1 to 20. I could expect Leonie to gain 7.6 strength from a base of 9, putting her at either 16 or 17 assuming neutral luck.  If I took her Soldier/Cavalier/Paladin, she would have 5% more strength growth from level 10 to 20 so she'd be likely to gain 3.6 (1-10) + 4.5 (10-20) for a total of 8.1 strength, putting her directly at 17.  

If Leonie gets screwed and doesn't earn any strength from 1-20 (other than the +1 strength from Cavalier), she'll be sitting at 9 base strength when I certify her as a Paladin.  The moment I do that, she gets bumped to 17 strength.

[Elspeth]

22 hours ago, magnetic_cactus said:

FWIW, I believe Mortal Savant technically out damages Gremory for a Marianne and Dorothea when it comes to spell damage because Black Tomefaire offsets the the higher Mag bonus Gremories get. It's pretty minimal (+2 I think) but it's there. You also gain +1 move and Swordfaire for Hexblade/Soulblade-boosted Rapiers against cavalry or crit-"casting" Wo Dao+/Cursed Ashikaya Sword+ or whatever, I guess, although obviously all of this comes at the expense of somewhat weaker growth rates, needing to cross-level Sword, and loss of x2 casts. I'm not saying Mortal Savant is a great class, because it it isn't, but it's probably a little bit better than literally pure meme, at least on paper. I'd never run it on a Lys, but I could see a Dorothea or Marianne MS for shits and giggles not being a total self-gimp.

Hi, it's me, your local Mortal Savant shill!

I genuinely think Mortal Savant is good for spellcasters. You have to weigh its pros and cons vs Gremory, and you should absolutely never do it with Lysithea except for the memes, but it can be super good on others. After all, a spellcaster on Mortal Savant is doing straight up more damage than a spellcaster on Gremory (Black Tomefaire outweighs the difference in Mag bonus between the two classes), and a Levin Sword+ with Swordfaire is a better Thoron. A mage in the class thus comes loaded with a LOT of offensive potential, at the cost of losing out on casts compared to Gremory.

It's not the strictly best option, but it is genuinely good, and I think it deserves to be weighed against Gremory rather than dismissed outright. I will argue for it being better than Gremory on Dorothea until I'm blue in the face.

That said, the thing people get tripped up on is that it's very much not a class for physical sword users. It looks like an intended upgrade to the Swordmaster/Assassin line, so people are tricked into thinking it is, when it's absolutely not. It's to be considered for use on mages who can wield a Levin Sword - nobody else.

[timon]

27 minutes ago, Elspeth said:

Hi, it's me, your local Mortal Savant shill!

I genuinely think Mortal Savant is good for spellcasters. You have to weigh its pros and cons vs Gremory, and you should absolutely never do it with Lysithea except for the memes, but it can be super good on others. After all, a spellcaster on Mortal Savant is doing straight up more damage than a spellcaster on Gremory (Black Tomefaire outweighs the difference in Mag bonus between the two classes), and a Levin Sword+ with Swordfaire is a better Thoron. A mage in the class thus comes loaded with a LOT of offensive potential, at the cost of losing out on casts compared to Gremory.

It's not the strictly best option, but it is genuinely good, and I think it deserves to be weighed against Gremory rather than dismissed outright. I will argue for it being better than Gremory on Dorothea until I'm blue in the face.

That said, the thing people get tripped up on is that it's very much not a class for physical sword users. It looks like an intended upgrade to the Swordmaster/Assassin line, so people are tricked into thinking it is, when it's absolutely not. It's to be considered for use on mages who can wield a Levin Sword - nobody else.

The problem with this reasoning is that the Levin Sword (and the magical weapons in general) are really not that good. You basically always have a spell that can do the job better, the only niche I can see is maybe on some Pegasus Knights that don't get Str but maybe have accettable Mag (it sometimes happen with Ingrid considering her terrible Str). Or maybe Bolt Axe on Edelgard since she gets okay Mag (too bad she can't get a Bolt Axe in her route lol).

In every other case you have better options, and with Thyrsus (or Caduceous if you're crestless and don't want the burden of having Lorenz around) it's a free +1/+2 range, making basically every spell better than a forged Levin Sword. And that's without thinking about the fact that that's a weapon, which needs repairing with rare materials.

The biggest loss though is the investment you have to go through, A in sword is definitely a lot of investment for that little gain, and no joke for a weapon you're basically never using. And if you're a spellcaster you already have to manage some Faith in (without screwing your Authority, too). I guess it could work if you recruited Dorothea late and she already has C/C+ in Swords, if that's the case just never touch that skill ever again and you still get an accettable 50% MS exam without further investment, but even then I don't see how that 2 damage gain is relevant against 4 Arrows, 2 Meteors and free spam of Sagittae and Thoron. For how cool it is, Levin Sword is just so irrelevant it's not enough to give MS the edge imo.

Edited August 28, 2019 by timon

[freewaffles]

57 minutes ago, Elspeth said:

Hi, it's me, your local Mortal Savant shill!

I genuinely think Mortal Savant is good for spellcasters. You have to weigh its pros and cons vs Gremory, and you should absolutely never do it with Lysithea except for the memes, but it can be super good on others. After all, a spellcaster on Mortal Savant is doing straight up more damage than a spellcaster on Gremory (Black Tomefaire outweighs the difference in Mag bonus between the two classes), and a Levin Sword+ with Swordfaire is a better Thoron. A mage in the class thus comes loaded with a LOT of offensive potential, at the cost of losing out on casts compared to Gremory.

It's not the strictly best option, but it is genuinely good, and I think it deserves to be weighed against Gremory rather than dismissed outright. I will argue for it being better than Gremory on Dorothea until I'm blue in the face.

That said, the thing people get tripped up on is that it's very much not a class for physical sword users. It looks like an intended upgrade to the Swordmaster/Assassin line, so people are tricked into thinking it is, when it's absolutely not. It's to be considered for use on mages who can wield a Levin Sword - nobody else.

Dorothea *might* be your only argument, as she's the only one who struggles to get the riding requirement for Dark Knight.  Even then, I'm skeptical that Sword investment is worthwhile over just pumping Reason/Authority, because everything you're touting as a bonus for Mortal Savant, Warlock can do, just with 2 less movement:

(1) Warlock keeps Black Tomefaire AND gets Double Black Magic uses.

(2) LevinSword+ is NOT a better Thoron, as it has 5 less accuracy, 10 less crit, and 2 more weight. 

The only advantages MS has over Warlock is 2 more weight cancellation if a Warlock gains ZERO strength in 10 levels (17 str v. 8), and 2 movement.  Dark Knight has those same bonuses, but 1 more movement (and likely to gain +1 move from Riding if you keep pumping).  Dorothea, the only mage with a weakness in Riding, has Meteor (which can't double anyway) and Physic.  That means even if she's falling behind, she's useful.  

Edited August 28, 2019 by freewaffles