Let's make subpar units much better together

[mangasdeouf]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I haven't been playing the game lately, and the only site that has enemy data (1) is in Japanese, and (2) doesn't even have data for all the chapters.

You do realize that you just disproved your own point just now, did you not? And I find your last few sentences funny because you tend to repeat yourself ad nauseum.

Sure Bulbasaur doesn't get any grass moves until then, but what else are you going to use for Brock? No matter which way you slice it, your starter is the only one that you can really rely on, for the most part, as most other mons at that point hit it for NVE damage (granted, this includes Charmander, but because Brock's mons don't actually have super effective moves to use against it, in addition to their having low Special, you can get away with that). As to Bulbasaur's weaknesses... Bug is pretty much irrelevant as an attack type (only three attack moves, and all of them are weak), Poison is only neutral, Ice isn't very common (only 5 ice Pokemon, and one is legendary, while most of the rest are also Water type and thus weak to Grass), Fire isn't that common either aside from Blaine's Gym, which it's pretty much guaranteed that I have something else that can handle it because it requires Surf just to get to and is rather late anyhow, which just leaves Psychic, which I admitted is a problem, and Flying. Anyway, I don't see sending your starter against a mon with a type advantage against it, as you do seem to think is a good idea with sending Wartortle against Surge's Pokemon, as anything other than an easy way to get your ass handed to you on a silver platter. That being said, Squirtle is a solid Water mon, but it's ultimately just the bridesmaid, not the bride. Both in terms of starters and in terms of Water mons in general.

What's that supposed to mean? Because speed aside, Mozu doesn't really have any noteworthy growth advantages over Silas. Rinkah's got poor strength, which isn't helped by clubs having poor might, and while Fiery Blood helps, at the same time Silas has Elbow Room, which mostly cancels it out, meaning she doesn't really have a leg to stand on. It doesn't help that she tends to have low HP, and needing to not be at full HP to benefit from your personal isn't good when your max HP is low in the first place.

 

I thought she only did 1 damage to the Faceless with a Brass Naginata. Which sure sounds like "next to no damage" to me. Even if it was 2 damage, that ain't much better. Her performance might be better as an archer, but not by much (and that's ignoring the opportunity cost that carries). In any instance, it ain't like I can reliably set up kills without using Takumi's Shinai or Niles's Bow, both of which are randomly obtained, and both of which it's unlikely for a unit to have the weapon rank for at that point.

It's true that Magikarp forces you to switch grind until level 20 (would say 15, but honestly, it has pathetic offense, so you might as well keep doing it until it evolves), and the problem with that is that it delays my other Pokemon getting good because they have to split exp with it. I mentioned Rolf because in PoR, he pretty much has to go through the same thing Mozu does (coming at level 1 when some of your units might already be coming into their own). Shinon's not that great in said game either (I fail to see why you mentioned RD because it's an entirely different game). Regardless, I would say Mozu has much the same problems as Magikarp, minus the not being able to attack part.

I dunno about you, but I tend to consider earlygame an "all hands on deck" situation - ergo, I'm stuck with these guys, might as well get something out of them while I'm forced to use them. Trying to focus on one unit is not an idea I'm willing to entertain in this game because the exp dropoff for higher level units is much more evident than in past games.

Rinkah might survive, but she ain't going to be doing meaningful damage to those Great Knights without a Hammer, which the first one you see in chapter 12 drops. And I fail to see Mozu as the best option for dealing with Great Knights at that point because she's most likely not doing any meaningful damage to their 37 HP/17 (?) Def. Takumi actually can hurt them.

And growths alone don't tell the whole story. Though you seem to willfully ignore that.

I don't see it as sloth, or even being lazy. It's because I look at the whole picture, as opposed to you being misguided because you settle for only looking at one part of it (in this case, Mozu's growths) and ignoring everything else. Most of the units considered the worst in other games have the same problems she has - coming underleveled, bad bases, having a hard time catching up. Good growths don't mean a thing when you have a hard time killing enemies to level up. Just look at Donnel, Rolf, Wendy, Meg, etc. I'm not one to fall into the pitfall of thinking "surely this unit that starts underleveled will grow into a complete badass if given the TLC", because it just might not be true.

What in the name of Seiros are you on about? You are not making a lick of sense. At all.

That doesn't make up for her making others more durable just by being near her. -2 damage is huge when you're talking about a cast where most units aren't very durable. 

Because I use my head. It's a strategy game, so what did you expect?

You're dead wrong about debuffs disappearing entirely the next turn - that's in Heroes and 3H. Debuffed stats only recover at a rate of 1 point per turn in this game (2 if you have the Dread Fighter skill Clarity). Also, the self-debuffs from silver weapons and such stack with those from other sources. For example, if she uses a Silver Bow on an enemy with Seal Strength and fails to kill that enemy, she's out 8 (!!!) strength, and needs to wait for 8 turns before her strength returns to normal. That's not good. For that reason, I prefer to use silvers for attack stance or to finish off an enemy. Surely you've seen other users state that silver weapons aren't worth using in this game by now, and that and the Cev drop are why (the price tag doesn't really help, either). I already went into detail on the problems with the forging system - long story short, unless you really go out of your way, you probably won't be able to forge a weapon beyond +2. The Killer Bow doesn't help much because killer weapons got nerfed hard in this game - if I wanted to use killer weapons, I'd play another game where they're actually better than steel.

I don't see why Takumi would need to use a silver when the Fujin Yumi is good enough for most situations and silver isn't strong enough compared to it to make up for the downsides. About the only other weapon I'd have him use is the Dual Yumi, which I would reserve for situations where he's at a weapon disadvantage. 

If Takumi's killing, does it matter that Mozu is overkilling? No. Also, part of the reason I like Takumi is that he doesn't require me to go out of my way to baby him like Mozu does (which tends to be a problem with archers in most other games - poor stats combined with no enemy phase result in needing to force-feed them for them to stay relevant). And I'm not convinced that when trained, Mozu will be so much better than everyone else as to make up for her being a liability early on.

You not liking growth units ("trainees" sort of) doesn't mean they're bad or not worth the investment. You ignore every data I write and just tell us how much you're better at tactics than players like me. Well, firstly, you talk of silver weapons without even knowing their drawback. It's -2 str/skl per BATTLE, not per hit. Meaning if she is used by herself + in attack stance, she should have -4 str/skl, not -8, that's a HUGE difference. Even then, for attack stance she can be traded another weapon so the drawback doesn't apply twice, since you're already next to her. I gave you the average stats, and you can see that even under averages she beats Takumi. His inability to double most ennemies for most of the game is not helping him accomplishing anything. He's just a chip damage bot who can OHKO weaklings that most powerful units in your party could kill by mid game with an adapted weapon or a forge, which you get by the time you upgrade your armory.

 

[For Bulbazaur, you're the one who disproved his own point. He's weak because he uses tackle on all early game ennemies for 7 or 8 levels before he learns his 1st grass type move (35 power) and the next one is around lv 31 when he's evolved, so he's using tackle (94 acc 50 atack, normal) and vine whip (35 power, 10 PP, so bad it's barely worth mentioning, you'll have a hard time going through the Mt Moon in one go) for at least 18 levels before he learns razor leaf (94 acc, 55 power), even then he never learns any attaking move of any type other than grass (and it's solar beam, that trash move which costs 2 turns). His typing makes him weak to fire, ice, flying, psychic and bug. Zubat kills him in 4 leech life while being 4+ levels lower, there are like 3 in Mt Moon, + Ratticate, and several pokémon you want to use vine whip on, which means...you'll have to waste time to back to the pokécenter.

Meanwhile you could use Squirtle, who learns more attacking moves, + withdraw later, has 2 weaknesses, which are so easy to make up for (Spearow destroys any plant type in sight and he's available on the route going to the Elite 4, West from the 1st town you encounter, Sandshrew ignores most of the electrical gym, only sonic boom users do anything worth mentionning to him, and Sandslash should be able to OHKO Surge's Raichu in a slash crit while taking 0 damage from electric attacks and his Raichu doesn' have any non electric attacking moves, at that point you could even use an underlevelled Digglet with it's 10 HP and beat Surge by spamming dig).

Wartortle solos the water gym lv 24 with bite since Starmie doesn't have anything but tackle to hit him with and Starmie's HP/attack/def vs Wartortle's are seriously a one way street (esecially since you can start the fight by tail whipping it since Misty uses a def+ on it, with a second tail whip it should have base def or lowered def and you just spam bite, I don't remember if Misty has a super potion in g1, but anyway bite has 25 uses and her tackle is tickling your Wartortle. Also, Blastoise can OHKO or 2HKO Raichu and has enough special and HP to tank 2 thunderbolt without being KO (if not 3), so it's a non problem (I usually use my starter if I'm allowed to in that gym and it's already evolved by the time I reach Surge, and any fully evolved starter makes quick work of his underlevelled Raichu, lv 24!).

And FYI, Butterfree solos the 1st gym at lv 12, while Beedrill needs barely more to beat it with fury attack (multi hit makes rock types much less problematic, especially multi-hit + poison status). You could use Beedrill and Rattata and still beat the game, even though your rival's lv 59-65 in the E4. Bulbasaur is just the worst starter since it's replaceable with any of the grass types on the road to the Pokemaniac's house, and both of them have a better movepool than Bulbasaur (one even learns petal dance, which makes the game so easy). When you play challenge runs, where you do things youdon't usually do, you learn a lot more thn when playing "efficiently". For example, if you don't use Zubat or Beedrill, you could not even know that bug moves annihilate psychic types unless you saw it on the Internet because Kadabra and Mr Mime both OHKO Zubat, Golbat and any bug in the game if you play them, but if you play the bugs, you're likely to be overlevelled so moves like twineedle kill them before they even move, all you need is to outspeed them.]

As for killing vs overkilling, well, if Takumi's killing, so is Mozu. If Takumi needs to double to kill, he can't kill while Mozu can. So, considering his trash speed and average growths, he doesn't double even half of the ennemies in the game with a speed tonic: it means he needs a backpack to do anything (and potentially a +spd personal support bonus backpack on top of 4 spd class, it means samurai, swordmaster or master ninja are his only otions, and it's a waste of these units, ninjas being better than Takumi and Hinata being the fastest tank you have for EP before Ryoma/Scarlet join, even then a trained Hinata can be tankier than Ryoma after promotion, which means...you're fielding Hana to patch up Takumi's garbage speed). Takumi is a great filler for 2 chapter when he comes. That's all we need him for (like Reina). He's outclassed by any half competent fast unit or by anything resembling a tank.

Epsecially the ones who, you know, don't need a backpack to do the only job they're good at (like Rinkah is tanky without wasting any resource and has +4 damage just by giving her...an HP tonic at the 1st turn, which has been told already million times and you still do as if it wasn't a thing, it makes her bases 12 str and 6 magic virtually, better than any lv 4 unit you have, her only real competition for a few levels is Silas, and he's slower since he has 2 levels less to grow any speed with the same base while having the same base def too with 2 levels less to grow and 15% less def growth to show off his tank skills, he's better than Rinkah only with VoF activated, otherwise his only advantage over her is being mounted, which is a bane in the chapter with wolfskins who nearly OHKO him, and if he's against a counter wolfskin, he's dead, meanwhile Rinkah's lower damage, higher speed and def mean she can hope to tank even the counter, or she could...use a tome and not take damage from counter, and clubs and not take damage from countermagic, which makes her the most adaptive tank since FE was created, if she uses a horse spirit, it's magic, she has more def than VoF Silas! And it's only D rank which is quite fast to get to when you face low res ennemies for most of the game with a base of 2 (6 total) at level 4 and more growth than Subaki and Hinoka).

[samthedigital]

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Bulbasaur is just the worst starter since it's replaceable with any of the grass types on the road to the Pokemaniac's house, and both of them have a better movepool than Bulbasaur (one even learns petal dance, which makes the game so easy).

You should avoid comparing Bulbasaur to other grass type Pokemon in this way. We could use multiple Pokemon of one type assuming they were good. I would rather use Mew and Mewtwo for example than Mewtwo and Beedrill. Bulbasaur is the worst starter because it doesn't have a good enough movepool or base stats to OHKO other Pokemon without being massively overleveled. It's as simple as that.

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Meanwhile you could use Squirtle, who learns more attacking moves, + withdraw later, has 2 weaknesses, which are so easy to make up for (Spearow destroys any plant type in sight and he's available on the route going to the Elite 4, West from the 1st town you encounter, Sandshrew ignores most of the electrical gym, only sonic boom users do anything worth mentionning to him, and Sandslash should be able to OHKO Surge's Raichu in a slash crit while taking 0 damage from electric attacks and his Raichu doesn' have any non electric attacking moves, at that point you could even use an underlevelled Digglet with it's 10 HP and beat Surge by spamming dig).

Wartortle can use Dig for Surge, and it gets Ice Beam to deal with any grass type Pokemon. It really doesn't need help from other Pokemon; and having to rely on them would just be a weakness. I'm also not sure why you mentioned Withdraw. No one should ever use that move.

 

I'm still not sure why Pokemon is having such a huge emphasis on a topic about making subpar units good in a Fire Emblem game. >_>;;

Edited October 30, 2019 by samthedigital

[Ownagepuffs]

Delete Kagero.

Hana's base class is ninja.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Ownagepuffs

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/29/2019 at 5:05 AM, mangasdeouf said:

You not liking growth units ("trainees" sort of) doesn't mean they're bad or not worth the investment. You ignore every data I write and just tell us how much you're better at tactics than players like me. Well, firstly, you talk of silver weapons without even knowing their drawback. It's -2 str/skl per BATTLE, not per hit. Meaning if she is used by herself + in attack stance, she should have -4 str/skl, not -8, that's a HUGE difference. Even then, for attack stance she can be traded another weapon so the drawback doesn't apply twice, since you're already next to her. I gave you the average stats, and you can see that even under averages she beats Takumi. His inability to double most ennemies for most of the game is not helping him accomplishing anything. He's just a chip damage bot who can OHKO weaklings that most powerful units in your party could kill by mid game with an adapted weapon or a forge, which you get by the time you upgrade your armory.

It does when the extra effort isn't even rewarded with a unit that's much better than their competitors. Just look at the trainees in Sacred Stones. No one tries to sell Amelia or Ewan as being a good unit, and even Ross isn't that good. On silvers, if the debuffs from silver were applied every combat you had them equipped for even if you couldn't attack, that'd be really bad. Though what we have is bad enough already. SF also states that the debuffs only apply if the user is the lead unit; that means they could be used for dual strikes with no penalty. Regarding Mozu, the only thing you've proven is that she is better if you favor her over everyone else. What do you suppose would happen if I favored a better unit instead...?

On 10/29/2019 at 5:05 AM, mangasdeouf said:

Epsecially the ones who, you know, don't need a backpack to do the only job they're good at (like Rinkah is tanky without wasting any resource and has +4 damage just by giving her...an HP tonic at the 1st turn, which has been told already million times and you still do as if it wasn't a thing, it makes her bases 12 str and 6 magic virtually, better than any lv 4 unit you have, her only real competition for a few levels is Silas, and he's slower since he has 2 levels less to grow any speed with the same base while having the same base def too with 2 levels less to grow and 15% less def growth to show off his tank skills, he's better than Rinkah only with VoF activated, otherwise his only advantage over her is being mounted, which is a bane in the chapter with wolfskins who nearly OHKO him, and if he's against a counter wolfskin, he's dead, meanwhile Rinkah's lower damage, higher speed and def mean she can hope to tank even the counter, or she could...use a tome and not take damage from counter, and clubs and not take damage from countermagic, which makes her the most adaptive tank since FE was created, if she uses a horse spirit, it's magic, she has more def than VoF Silas! And it's only D rank which is quite fast to get to when you face low res ennemies for most of the game with a base of 2 (6 total) at level 4 and more growth than Subaki and Hinoka).

First you bash Takumi (who, mind you, happens to be one of the very few archers that manages to not be a flaming pile of garbage) and several other units for needing tonics, now you turn around and are okay with giving Rinkah an HP tonic for the sake of having her personal skill active? That's not only hypocritical, it's a blatant double standard. Also, I don't see why you're hyping her ability to use tomes and clubs as an Oni Chieftain when said class sucks worse than Little Mac's recovery. She's already bad enough as it is, I don't see a good reason to weaken her further by trying to make her a (bad) hybrid unit. RE: Wolfskin, one, not all the Wolfskin have Beastbane, and two, Counter got nerfed; it requires the opponent to initiate combat to work, so it's not something to worry about most of the time. Countermagic is even less threatening, because mages are liable to be a minority in your forces. It's not like most of the magic weapons are all that useful either. Third, Wolfskins are only relevant for all of one chapter, so it's not like Silas is suddenly a liability. Also, it's not like enemy resistance is THAT low - 

On 10/29/2019 at 5:05 AM, mangasdeouf said:

As for killing vs overkilling, well, if Takumi's killing, so is Mozu. If Takumi needs to double to kill, he can't kill while Mozu can. So, considering his trash speed and average growths, he doesn't double even half of the ennemies in the game with a speed tonic: it means he needs a backpack to do anything (and potentially a +spd personal support bonus backpack on top of 4 spd class, it means samurai, swordmaster or master ninja are his only otions, and it's a waste of these units, ninjas being better than Takumi and Hinata being the fastest tank you have for EP before Ryoma/Scarlet join, even then a trained Hinata can be tankier than Ryoma after promotion, which means...you're fielding Hana to patch up Takumi's garbage speed). Takumi is a great filler for 2 chapter when he comes. That's all we need him for (like Reina). He's outclassed by any half competent fast unit or by anything resembling a tank.

There you go again, ignoring that Mozu needs lots of TLC that she's not even entitled to just to even be equal to him in the first place, much less surpass him. Why should I feed her all that instead of making my already good units (like Takumi) even better??

On 10/29/2019 at 5:05 AM, mangasdeouf said:

And FYI, Butterfree solos the 1st gym at lv 12, while Beedrill needs barely more to beat it with fury attack (multi hit makes rock types much less problematic, especially multi-hit + poison status). You could use Beedrill and Rattata and still beat the game, even though your rival's lv 59-65 in the E4. Bulbasaur is just the worst starter since it's replaceable with any of the grass types on the road to the Pokemaniac's house, and both of them have a better movepool than Bulbasaur (one even learns petal dance, which makes the game so easy). When you play challenge runs, where you do things youdon't usually do, you learn a lot more thn when playing "efficiently". For example, if you don't use Zubat or Beedrill, you could not even know that bug moves annihilate psychic types unless you saw it on the Internet because Kadabra and Mr Mime both OHKO Zubat, Golbat and any bug in the game if you play them, but if you play the bugs, you're likely to be overlevelled so moves like twineedle kill them before they even move, all you need is to outspeed them.]

Two problems with that: One, it needs grinding, like Bulbasaur does (and personally, I'm much more inclined to favor my starter Pokemon over an early bug that probably won't be relevant for long), and second, Caterpie is much rarer in Red. Inflicting poison requires luck, as does multi-hit attacks, especially since multi-hit moves tend to have miss chances. Also, I know full well that psychic types are weak against bug moves - the problem is that the only bug moves in Gen 1 are pathetic (Leech Life only has 20 power, Pin Missile is unreliable and only has 14 might, and Twineedle is exclusive to Beedrill, which is not that fast as well as weak to Psychic). As a result, I'd be much better off using a STAB move or something. What's more, Oddish is Red exclusive, and Petal Dance won't be relevant for a looong time (level 44) - have fun with Absorb and later Acid, which doesn't come until level 28, as your only attacks until then! It's also much slower than Bulbasaur and its evolutions, which means you're often taking damage or getting statused or set up on before you get the chance to attack. That's no good, especially considering that waking up from sleep takes up your turn. For something that you so say can easily replace Bulbasaur, that's really bad.

On 10/29/2019 at 5:05 AM, mangasdeouf said:

Wartortle solos the water gym lv 24 with bite since Starmie doesn't have anything but tackle to hit him with and Starmie's HP/attack/def vs Wartortle's are seriously a one way street (esecially since you can start the fight by tail whipping it since Misty uses a def+ on it, with a second tail whip it should have base def or lowered def and you just spam bite, I don't remember if Misty has a super potion in g1, but anyway bite has 25 uses and her tackle is tickling your Wartortle. Also, Blastoise can OHKO or 2HKO Raichu and has enough special and HP to tank 2 thunderbolt without being KO (if not 3), so it's a non problem (I usually use my starter if I'm allowed to in that gym and it's already evolved by the time I reach Surge, and any fully evolved starter makes quick work of his underlevelled Raichu, lv 24!).

Is overleveling your only solution to everything? Disappointing. Not everyone has the patience for that. I thought that was painfully obvious. 

On 10/29/2019 at 5:05 AM, mangasdeouf said:

[For Bulbazaur, you're the one who disproved his own point. He's weak because he uses tackle on all early game ennemies for 7 or 8 levels before he learns his 1st grass type move (35 power) and the next one is around lv 31 when he's evolved, so he's using tackle (94 acc 50 atack, normal) and vine whip (35 power, 10 PP, so bad it's barely worth mentioning, you'll have a hard time going through the Mt Moon in one go) for at least 18 levels before he learns razor leaf (94 acc, 55 power), even then he never learns any attaking move of any type other than grass (and it's solar beam, that trash move which costs 2 turns). His typing makes him weak to fire, ice, flying, psychic and bug. Zubat kills him in 4 leech life while being 4+ levels lower, there are like 3 in Mt Moon, + Ratticate, and several pokémon you want to use vine whip on, which means...you'll have to waste time to back to the pokécenter.

 Meanwhile you could use Squirtle, who learns more attacking moves, + withdraw later, has 2 weaknesses, which are so easy to make up for (Spearow destroys any plant type in sight and he's available on the route going to the Elite 4, West from the 1st town you encounter, Sandshrew ignores most of the electrical gym, only sonic boom users do anything worth mentionning to him, and Sandslash should be able to OHKO Surge's Raichu in a slash crit while taking 0 damage from electric attacks and his Raichu doesn' have any non electric attacking moves, at that point you could even use an underlevelled Digglet with it's 10 HP and beat Surge by spamming dig).

I already stated, bug is practically irrelevant after the earlygame, ice is rare (it doesn't help that most ice types in gen 1 are also water types), and so is fire. By that point those are actually worth worrying about, I would already have something to cover those. Which leaves only Psychic, which is the bane of pretty much everything that's not a Psychic type as well, and Flying as being worrisome.

@samthedigital I was trying to make the point that Pokemon games, like FE games, are harder early on because your selection of useful Pokemon is limited. Take Misty's Starmie, for example. The only mons that have an advantage over it at that point are Bulbasaur (which would likely be an Ivysaur at that point), Pikachu, and Oddish/Bellsprout depending on version. Out of those, Pikachu is very rare (only 5% chance to find in Viridian Forest), and Oddish/Bellsprout are likely to need grinding before they can even stand up to it. That's how all this Pokemon talk started.

[samthedigital]

Quote

I was trying to make the point that Pokemon games, like FE games, are harder early on because your selection of useful Pokemon is limited.

The thing is that neither of seems that knowledgable about the first generation of Pokemon games, so I don't see why you are making comparisons between Pokemon and Fire Emblem. I could get more into it than I already have if you like, but it doesn't really seem appropriate given that it sidetracks the conversation even more.

[mangasdeouf]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

It does when the extra effort isn't even rewarded with a unit that's much better than their competitors. Just look at the trainees in Sacred Stones. No one tries to sell Amelia or Ewan as being a good unit, and even Ross isn't that good. On silvers, if the debuffs from silver were applied every combat you had them equipped for even if you couldn't attack, that'd be really bad. Though what we have is bad enough already. SF also states that the debuffs only apply if the user is the lead unit; that means they could be used for dual strikes with no penalty. Regarding Mozu, the only thing you've proven is that she is better if you favor her over everyone else. What do you suppose would happen if I favored a better unit instead...?

First you bash Takumi (who, mind you, happens to be one of the very few archers that manages to not be a flaming pile of garbage) and several other units for needing tonics, now you turn around and are okay with giving Rinkah an HP tonic for the sake of having her personal skill active? That's not only hypocritical, it's a blatant double standard. Also, I don't see why you're hyping her ability to use tomes and clubs as an Oni Chieftain when said class sucks worse than Little Mac's recovery. She's already bad enough as it is, I don't see a good reason to weaken her further by trying to make her a (bad) hybrid unit. RE: Wolfskin, one, not all the Wolfskin have Beastbane, and two, Counter got nerfed; it requires the opponent to initiate combat to work, so it's not something to worry about most of the time. Countermagic is even less threatening, because mages are liable to be a minority in your forces. It's not like most of the magic weapons are all that useful either. Third, Wolfskins are only relevant for all of one chapter, so it's not like Silas is suddenly a liability. Also, it's not like enemy resistance is THAT low - 

There you go again, ignoring that Mozu needs lots of TLC that she's not even entitled to just to even be equal to him in the first place, much less surpass him. Why should I feed her all that instead of making my already good units (like Takumi) even better??

Two problems with that: One, it needs grinding, like Bulbasaur does (and personally, I'm much more inclined to favor my starter Pokemon over an early bug that probably won't be relevant for long), and second, Caterpie is much rarer in Red. Inflicting poison requires luck, as does multi-hit attacks, especially since multi-hit moves tend to have miss chances. Also, I know full well that psychic types are weak against bug moves - the problem is that the only bug moves in Gen 1 are pathetic (Leech Life only has 20 power, Pin Missile is unreliable and only has 14 might, and Twineedle is exclusive to Beedrill, which is not that fast as well as weak to Psychic). As a result, I'd be much better off using a STAB move or something. What's more, Oddish is Red exclusive, and Petal Dance won't be relevant for a looong time (level 44) - have fun with Absorb and later Acid, which doesn't come until level 28, as your only attacks until then! It's also much slower than Bulbasaur and its evolutions, which means you're often taking damage or getting statused or set up on before you get the chance to attack. That's no good, especially considering that waking up from sleep takes up your turn. For something that you so say can easily replace Bulbasaur, that's really bad.

Is overleveling your only solution to everything? Disappointing. Not everyone has the patience for that. I thought that was painfully obvious. 

I already stated, bug is practically irrelevant after the earlygame, ice is rare (it doesn't help that most ice types in gen 1 are also water types), and so is fire. By that point those are actually worth worrying about, I would already have something to cover those. Which leaves only Psychic, which is the bane of pretty much everything that's not a Psychic type as well, and Flying as being worrisome.

@samthedigital I was trying to make the point that Pokemon games, like FE games, are harder early on because your selection of useful Pokemon is limited. Take Misty's Starmie, for example. The only mons that have an advantage over it at that point are Bulbasaur (which would likely be an Ivysaur at that point), Pikachu, and Oddish/Bellsprout depending on version. Out of those, Pikachu is very rare (only 5% chance to find in Viridian Forest), and Oddish/Bellsprout are likely to need grinding before they can even stand up to it. That's how all this Pokemon talk started.

You said earlier that you liked to train your starter, well, I' doing that too. My starter takes little to no effort getting to lv 32 (Venusaur) or 36 (Blastoise/Charizard), so there's no effort taken for any of them to beat the 3rd gym, the 2nd can be beaten after the boat with Charmander when he learns slash, not even needing the help of a grass type, and Pikachu still get killed in 1 bubblebeam. I've played this game countless times, I know most of the game until the SYLPH SARL by memory, all the match ups that are relevant and many challenge runs have expended my knowledge of this game at the point where I can play it the eyes closed with pretty much any team comp. Let's forget the Pokémon topic now.

Trying to fix Takumi wastes ressources, since he needs permanent ressources to fix his speed, he's like Xander in terms of investment, only the benefits are much lower. I'd rather invest 9 level ups on Mozu for her to be better than Takumi forever and being totally independant, than use a speedwings + spd tonic and robably add a spd backpack since he's still too slow with 15 speed after the speedwings + tonic (meanwhile the same investment in Mozu makes her able to double all the spear fighters without help, and maybe the fighters/berserkers since her speed nearly gains 1 point per level). 

On 10/29/2019 at 11:05 AM, mangasdeouf said:

Takumi is a great filler for 2 chapter when he comes. That's all we need him for (like Reina).

That's my words, and I stay on this train. I won't waste permanent ressources that could help a good unit double all the time (let's say a speed screwed Scarlet after a few levels, or paladin Jakob, or any unit that's competent, has EP and lacks 1 or 2 spd to reach doubling thresholds, while Takumi lacks like 5 spd to reach them except for slow ass ennemies who still need him to get a tonic + speedwing or a permanent backpack: onis have 9 spd in chap 7, Takumi needs 3 spd to double the slowest non armored units tat you fight 2 whole chapters before getting him, that says how unimpressive his speed is, plus the ennemies he can double with a +4 spd have 30+ HP and 10+ def, so he couldn't kill them in one hit even if he got +5 str, since he needs 40-48 damage to kill them and he doesn't reach that until after promotion, when they also get theirs for more base speed and def/hp, Takumi's only chance to ever see the doubling thresholds is a sniper promotion and it doesn't last long until these ennemies catch up and he needs more overlevelling and ressources to reach doubling thresholds again).

Takumi isn't worth any investment. Like Reina, their bases are great for their role, which is to cheese chapters 10 and 11, maybe 1 or 2 more in the game if ennemy flyers don't carry bow breaker in flyer oriented chapters. Outside this and ninjas, they don't see much use since Reina has no real EP thanks to flying (hard to go trade with her if she uses her mobility) and using bows to kill without exposing her to counter attacks and having no real defensive capabilities past chapter 11, where she even falls in 2 hits from promoted ennemies while being a prepromote herself and having the highest base HP pool in your team for this chapter, because she's so glass cannon...

If I'm using a long term archer, I reclass Mozu and she carries me after little investment, while like I stated, the exp put into her wouldn't even make my other units gain 2 llevels, so their performance would be largely the same and that exp would be wasted because it would serve no purpose, my team wouldn't get any stronger by feeding 1 level up to Silas when he gains barely 3 points per level up most of the time, because he's so damn average, Subaki wouldn't hit much harder, Hana would still barely survive 1 physical hit and her luck would still be damn low with the luck nerf 50% luck as dodge/avoid. The only one to get from nothing useful to a force to be reckoned with is Mozu, so it's her that I train. I don't like wasting exp and levelling units 1 level higher for little benefits doesn't interest me. Silas would gain like, 1 HP 1 skl 1 lck, which wouldn't make him anything better than he would be the previous level, even 1 str/spd/def wouldn't help him with his lv 4 Rinkah base stats at level 6 (in most stats), and Rinkah had 4 chapters of availability over Silas to grow to level 7-9 before he's even part of the team, at which point she should have 2-3 def over him alongside quite similar strength and decent enough skill/spd/res, especially more speed than him when starting 2 levels lower with equal base speed.

Your available units are either overlevelled or playing with bases mostly, so the only benefit to play Mozu's paralogue is to use her and get the best and most efficient trainee unit in FE history (Donnel is better but starts worse and can't reclass for 9 levels, + no flying access and he's forced to play at 1 range until D rank in lances and javelins MT sucks in Awakening). And when I put "" to "trainee", it was to highlight the fact she wasn't completely a trainee since she's in a tier 1 class, not a tier 0 and she has promotions in her base class, even one being the equivalent of hero with complete weapon triangle control. She's far from being as bad as FE8 trainees and she's no Est since she joins early. Like I already said, 50-80 growth in every stat is better than 30-60 with 40-55 in the most important stats, naemly speed (80% speed in archer ain't no joke).

So if you prefer playing Takumi, keep playing the same way over and over, playthrough after playthrough, while me and other players try funny things, uncommon builds, getting the best out of the so called "worst units" who're just mostly underrated because they have to compete with royal bias bull****. We're having fun at least and every playthrough feels different from the others.

[samthedigital]

Quote

My starter takes little to no effort getting to lv 32 (Venusaur) or 36 (Blastoise/Charizard), so there's no effort taken for any of them to beat the 3rd gym

You need to grind to get your starter much past 27 for Surge when it's a better idea just to beat him as soon as it's possible to do so. That's what effort is in this context.

[mangasdeouf]

8 hours ago, samthedigital said:

You need to grind to get your starter much past 27 for Surge when it's a better idea just to beat him as soon as it's possible to do so. That's what effort is in this context.

Since most Pokémon I catch come around 3rd/4th gym on later, my starter is most of the time the only Pokémon I raise until then, so it takes the exp from every trainer, I don't need to grind, I just let them solo until I get my beloved Pokémon or whatever I chose to use. It means at the end of the boat, the starter has gotten all the exp from Palette town to the 3rd gym, you see what I mean? I fight every trainer, it's not grinding since I don't fight them till the last pokémon, let mine be KO and battle them again. That would be grinding. I just beat the game 100% (except Pokedex which is just plain stupid and impossible to complete without cheating on emulators), which is what the game was made for (+ Pokedex). Also, getting enough money to buy Pokémon in the casino requires to fight most trainers until the big city. Which leads to getting high amounts of exp.

But it's off topic.

[samthedigital]

Quote

 I fight every trainer, it's not grinding

To me that's grinding. Extra trainers are similar to repeatable maps in Birthright or something to me.

[Flere210]

First Bulbasaut is the second best starter if you solo or almost solo and the best if you play whit an actual team, because there are many water types better than blastoise(Starmie and Slowbro have the 2 most broken gen 1 thing, Psychic type and Amnesia for example) and fire types have barely ever a good matchup in gen1. Thete are better grass types than Venusur, but they are not even close to the best water types and are niche themselves(parasect because gen1spore is broken and exeggutor because lolpsychic)

speaking of the actual topic. It's the efficiency argument all over again. 

speedwings, tonics and backpacks are lesser resources compared to turncount if you are discussing efficiency. Is the reason why Jill is considered good in RD despite requiring 3 boosters. Takumi has the improved mobility that no one else can have, so if you need an archer, is better to focus on the feature that cannot be replicated whit investment. If Takumi can kill like Mozu, but Mozu can't move like Takumi, it's obvious which way gives the best of both worlds. Mozu would be better if you can make her a kinshi and kill as well as a sniper Takumi while losing little to no turns, wich i don't know if it's possible.

that said the best trainee imo is Ross because he can chip right of the bat and his ability to walk on water give him great utility even if you did not focus on training him, even if his lategame is unspectacular compared to other trainees.

[joshcja]

I don't think anything posted on this page is accurate at all.

Even in the pokemon debate. We all know Nidoran is the best starter.

Also Flere210, my dude, Kinshi exists. Pre-promoted Kinshi, exists. Like, there's pony advantage, there's flyer advantage, there's 1-2 advantage, and then there's birdbowpony1-2-360noscope advantage. Just... tossing that out there.

(Also trained Setsuna is better than Taco in his join. Mozu is hilarious overkill, unfortunately early seals in BR are meaningfully limited)

Edited October 31, 2019 by joshcja

[samthedigital]

Quote

First Bulbasaut is the second best starter if you solo or almost solo and the best if you play whit an actual team, because there are many water types better than blastoise(Starmie and Slowbro have the 2 most broken gen 1 thing, Psychic type and Amnesia for example) and fire types have barely ever a good matchup in gen1.

This is wrong on both counts. Venusaur has the slowest solo out of the three starters, and on a full team he's still worst because he has a hard time killing things quickly with the plethora of grass resistant Pokemon and his lack of strong attacks. Even if there were better water Pokemon it doesn't matter either; having two water Pokemon is still better than having Venusaur and a water Pokemon. Slowbro isn't even very good unless you're playing PVP because he's really slow.

 

[mangasdeouf]

11 hours ago, samthedigital said:

To me that's grinding. Extra trainers are similar to repeatable maps in Birthright or something to me.

It's not, using re-match options in later games or fighting the Elite 4 several times is grinding, while beating every trainer offered to you once is completing the battle part of the game. If you don't battle every trainer, you didn't beat the battle part of the game, you just skipped what you could, which means you're speedrunning to a certain degree. Speedrunning isn't completing the game, it's going as fast from the beginning to the end as possible, while using cheap tactics like bug exploit (which makes completing gen 1 in less than 5 minutes possible, without even getting the starter, or like in Diablo where they beat the game in 3 minutes...sure by using a montage/save states where they select the shortest level path where the next level spawns right next to the previous one, so they get to level 9 without fighting a single monster, kill 1 ennemy with a fixed drop teleport staff to skip everything until they can't skip...), frame abuse (like some shortcuts in Dark Souls games that can only be used if you move exactly at the frame needed to fall there and not somewhere else where you'd die or follow the path), and such abnormal ways of playing.

4 hours ago, Flere210 said:

First Bulbasaut is the second best starter if you solo or almost solo and the best if you play whit an actual team, because there are many water types better than blastoise(Starmie and Slowbro have the 2 most broken gen 1 thing, Psychic type and Amnesia for example) and fire types have barely ever a good matchup in gen1. Thete are better grass types than Venusur, but they are not even close to the best water types and are niche themselves(parasect because gen1spore is broken and exeggutor because lolpsychic)

 

4 hours ago, samthedigital said:

This is wrong on both counts. Venusaur has the slowest solo out of the three starters, and on a full team he's still worst because he has a hard time killing things quickly with the plethora of grass resistant Pokemon and his lack of strong attacks. Even if there were better water Pokemon it doesn't matter either; having two water Pokemon is still better than having Venusaur and a water Pokemon. Slowbro isn't even very good unless you're playing PVP because he's really slow.

To both: Venusaur is the worst starter because: his type is bad for everything but a few trainers and 3 gyms in early game, his movepool is garbage like samthedigital said. Blastoise isn't the best water type, but he's the only one not needing to be fed exp while doing nothing for 15 levels, only to have bite as it's first actual move and dragon rage, and learning hydro pump only at level 45, or coming after you've beat half the game already to finally access a damn fishing rod that fishes more than Magikarp or get access to surf. Before these, you only have lv 5 Magikarp and Squirtle. Charizard is good because he's got slash and has 98% crit rate with it or something like that, then he learns flamethrower (he learns it before lv 40 if you let Charmander evolve only after learning it), he can learn dig, earthquake, strength, the move that deals lv x1 damage gotten on the path to the maniac's house to deal with rock types before you get dig or to have a second anti rock move since dig has 10 uses.

Slowbro is the best water type in gen 1: amnesia + psychic + surf + withdraw/headbutt/body slam/sleep and he's basically soloing everything you fight after getting him, but it needs to be evolved to be good and has a poor movepool until level 30+.

5 hours ago, Flere210 said:

speedwings, tonics and backpacks are lesser resources compared to turncount if you are discussing efficiency. Is the reason why Jill is considered good in RD despite requiring 3 boosters. Takumi has the improved mobility that no one else can have, so if you need an archer, is better to focus on the feature that cannot be replicated whit investment. If Takumi can kill like Mozu, but Mozu can't move like Takumi, it's obvious which way gives the best of both worlds. Mozu would be better if you can make her a kinshi and kill as well as a sniper Takumi while losing little to no turns, wich i don't know if it's possible.

But they cost you something valuable: they're 1 use only, and could be used to perfect already good units instead of patching poor units' design. Takumi has mobility but he sucks at growing into a good archer, he only has his bases to go with since his growths are like Silas, completely average and unsatisfying (compare Takumi and Kagero, she has worse bases but her speed and strength growths are among the highest in the damn game, with her base strength being what you'd expect a prepromote ninja to have, whie she has 10 more levels to grow. Mozu is not good at base, but she's not terrble and training her is highly beneficial since she is a delete button, and can delete many ennemies Takumi can only chip. Mozu is sure to kill them, because her speed can't be as bad as Takumi's even if she's speed screwed, and can be twice as good as his, and speed is everything a Fates archer wants, thanks to quick draw, certain blow/air superiority and bows/yumi being stronger than clubs/axes and forges being all a strength screwed archer needs to reck havoc.

Mozu can be good in all physical classes, and even more in ranged classes which don't require her to stat check the ennemy's damage and her def/HP, which is quite similar to Takumi only she has more def/res and less HP at equal level, and in 3-4 maps she should be higher than level 11 especially with chapter 9 reinforcements being too strong to take out with only frontliners and divding your team into 2 groups, one for cavs one for mages.

4 hours ago, joshcja said:

Also Flere210, my dude, Kinshi exists. Pre-promoted Kinshi, exists. Like, there's pony advantage, there's flyer advantage, there's 1-2 advantage, and then there's birdbowpony1-2-360noscope advantage. Just... tossing that out there.

(Also trained Setsuna is better than Taco in his join. Mozu is hilarious overkill, unfortunately early seals in BR are meaningfully limited)

I fully agree with you. Also she has enough maps to see some chip/last hit use and desert chapter is a good map to train her because your units come from the right so she can take out the left ennemies with some help. Fast archers rule. She can double ennemies doesn't double while she's using a steel yumi, which means she takes a speed penalty and still outclasses Takumi. Unlike Reina, she can access certain blow and quick draw makes up for most of the str difference between them, also by the time you get Reina at garbage D rank bows while she's a prepromote, Setsuna should be between C and B rank, close to using silvers and already able to use dual yumi and other specific weapons.

5 hours ago, Flere210 said:

that said the best trainee imo is Ross because he can chip right of the bat and his ability to walk on water give him great utility even if you did not focus on training him, even if his lategame is unspectacular compared to other trainees.

Ross' accuracy is garbage even with the most accurate axe in FE history and won't become good anytime soon. His speed is and stays garbage, his HP (the only pro of using axe wielders in melee) has nothing to go for him since he's got about the same as Colm. His def and res are laughable and his strength isn't impressive. His father costs less investment to be better than 10/20/1 Ross. He can also get bows or swords, and his con is high enough to wield every weapon in the game without speed penalty except dark tomes which are simply bullshit and irrelevant. By the way, if hero makes him faster, don't forget he keeps 14 con, which means 1 spd difference with warrior with steel axe (15 weight) and same spd as warrior with the free battle axe from Dozla (it's garbage but it's free and powerful and has 5 crit), while warrior gives 1 def/res more vs 1 HP and these 2 spd vs 2 con. Cavaliers outside Kayle can still rescue him. Ross is really a liability. As much as I'd like him to have something for him, he's just garbage and not even the metis tome given to base Ross can salvage him with tower abuse. He's just bad and every other option for axes is better than himwhile costing less to raise (hell even Dozla is far better since he's actually tanky at base and can use a speedwings to be nearly as fast as base Seth, with decent spd growth and high HP/str and decent skl and not loosing speed to any axe, with a pure water he's got 13 res at base like Duessel).

[samthedigital]

Quote

It's not, using re-match options in later games or fighting the Elite 4 several times is grinding, while beating every trainer offered to you once is completing the battle part of the game. If you don't battle every trainer, you didn't beat the battle part of the game, you just skipped what you could, which means you're speedrunning to a certain degree.

It's really a matter of opinion, but most trainers are optional content and take extra time to do. It does not directly translate to Fire Emblem because generally speaking it doesn't take a whole lot of time to kill an enemy in Fire Emblem. It depends on the chapter though; sometimes it's more efficient to just turtle in a defend map for as few actions as possible.

Quote

Speedrunning isn't completing the game, it's going as fast from the beginning to the end as possible, while using cheap tactics like bug exploit (which makes completing gen 1 in less than 5 minutes possible, without even getting the starter

Err what? Most speedruns do complete the game, and getting to the end is beating the game by definition. Pokemon speedruns also have glitchless categories, and speedruns are often good resources for how a game can be beaten efficiently. In Fire Emblem's case it's a little different because there are no hard mode speedruns unfortunately.

[joshcja]

That sure is a wall of text that is.

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/30/2019 at 8:14 PM, mangasdeouf said:

So if you prefer playing Takumi, keep playing the same way over and over, playthrough after playthrough, while me and other players try funny things, uncommon builds, getting the best out of the so called "worst units" who're just mostly underrated because they have to compete with royal bias bull****. We're having fun at least and every playthrough feels different from the others.

I do not get bored that easily.

 

13 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Slowbro is the best water type in gen 1: amnesia + psychic + surf + withdraw/headbutt/body slam/sleep and he's basically soloing everything you fight after getting him, but it needs to be evolved to be good and has a poor movepool until level 30+.

No. It's constantly getting set up on, statused, or taking damage before it does anything, Also, lolwithdraw.

On 10/30/2019 at 8:14 PM, mangasdeouf said:

You said earlier that you liked to train your starter, well, I' doing that too. My starter takes little to no effort getting to lv 32 (Venusaur) or 36 (Blastoise/Charizard), so there's no effort taken for any of them to beat the 3rd gym, the 2nd can be beaten after the boat with Charmander when he learns slash, not even needing the help of a grass type, and Pikachu still get killed in 1 bubblebeam. I've played this game countless times, I know most of the game until the SYLPH SARL by memory, all the match ups that are relevant and many challenge runs have expended my knowledge of this game at the point where I can play it the eyes closed with pretty much any team comp. Let's forget the Pokémon topic now.

You completely missed the point, as usual. Not that that surprises me. My point is that you turning around and praising something else that needs grinding to stand a chance against Brock when you just bashed Bulbasaur for the same thing is hypocritical. Second, the fact you're considering skipping the second gym and coming back later is a point against Charmander, as far as I'm concerned - you're admitting you need to grind then. Anyway, it's about time we dropped the discussion, I've said all I need to say on it.

 

On 10/30/2019 at 8:14 PM, mangasdeouf said:

 Trying to fix Takumi wastes ressources, since he needs permanent ressources to fix his speed, he's like Xander in terms of investment, only the benefits are much lower. I'd rather invest 9 level ups on Mozu for her to be better than Takumi forever and being totally independant, than use a speedwings + spd tonic and robably add a spd backpack since he's still too slow with 15 speed after the speedwings + tonic (meanwhile the same investment in Mozu makes her able to double all the spear fighters without help, and maybe the fighters/berserkers since her speed nearly gains 1 point per level). 

I would imagine that trying to raise Mozu wastes resources, too, except even more and more valuable ones (including one of the 4/5 heart seals you can get for most of the game!) unless you want to deal with her as a Villager, where she has to worry about eating counters should she fail to kill for whatever reason. And if you DO use that Heart seal, she is put into direct competition with Takumi on two of three routes. It's almost like what Edward has to go through in Radiant Dawn. I find it very hard to find a reason to invest in a unit that, no matter what I do, won't ever get out of the shadow of a better unit that comes later.

13 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

Ross' accuracy is garbage even with the most accurate axe in FE history and won't become good anytime soon. His speed is and stays garbage, his HP (the only pro of using axe wielders in melee) has nothing to go for him since he's got about the same as Colm. His def and res are laughable and his strength isn't impressive. His father costs less investment to be better than 10/20/1 Ross. He can also get bows or swords, and his con is high enough to wield every weapon in the game without speed penalty except dark tomes which are simply bullshit and irrelevant. By the way, if hero makes him faster, don't forget he keeps 14 con, which means 1 spd difference with warrior with steel axe (15 weight) and same spd as warrior with the free battle axe from Dozla (it's garbage but it's free and powerful and has 5 crit), while warrior gives 1 def/res more vs 1 HP and these 2 spd vs 2 con. Cavaliers outside Kayle can still rescue him. Ross is really a liability. As much as I'd like him to have something for him, he's just garbage and not even the metis tome given to base Ross can salvage him with tower abuse. He's just bad and every other option for axes is better than himwhile costing less to raise (hell even Dozla is far better since he's actually tanky at base and can use a speedwings to be nearly as fast as base Seth, with decent spd growth and high HP/str and decent skl and not loosing speed to any axe, with a pure water he's got 13 res at base like Duessel).

Bullshit. The Hatchet isn't THAT inaccurate, and it's not like Sacred Stones enemies are speed demons. Also, Dozla's not that good - he's too big to be rescued, for one. He's not that fast, second. "Being nearly as fast as base Seth with a speedwing" isn't impressive, considering that he comes in when the game is halfway over. Third, he doesn't compare well to a Ross that was promoted early.

13 hours ago, mangasdeouf said:

I fully agree with you. Also she has enough maps to see some chip/last hit use and desert chapter is a good map to train her because your units come from the right so she can take out the left ennemies with some help. Fast archers rule. She can double ennemies doesn't double while she's using a steel yumi, which means she takes a speed penalty and still outclasses Takumi. Unlike Reina, she can access certain blow and quick draw makes up for most of the str difference between them, also by the time you get Reina at garbage D rank bows while she's a prepromote, Setsuna should be between C and B rank, close to using silvers and already able to use dual yumi and other specific weapons.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CripplingOverspecialization

That's Setsuna in a nutshell. She's fast, but sucks everywhere else. That's not the mark of a good unit.

[De Geso]

Why are you nerd lamers talking about Pokemon when we should be discussing the esteemed Fire Emblem Fates? Who cares which starter is best in Gen 1? Also who cares about who is better between three really bad units (the FE8 trainees)? They are all garbage so you shouldn't use them unless you like headbands, pink or shotacon. Even if you like those things you shouldn't use those awful units.

Anyway, Takumi is a loser and he's only good because of his bow. Just use Reina if you want to use bows in Birthright. Setsuna is better than him after some growing but who the fuck cares, Setsuna still isn't good or worth using in her base class. Just make her a ninja if you want to use her.

 

[mangasdeouf]

4 hours ago, De Geso said:

Why are you nerd lamers talking about Pokemon when we should be discussing the esteemed Fire Emblem Fates? Who cares which starter is best in Gen 1? Also who cares about who is better between three really bad units (the FE8 trainees)? They are all garbage so you shouldn't use them unless you like headbands, pink or shotacon. Even if you like those things you shouldn't use those awful units.

Anyway, Takumi is a loser and he's only good because of his bow. Just use Reina if you want to use bows in Birthright. Setsuna is better than him after some growing but who the fuck cares, Setsuna still isn't good or worth using in her base class. Just make her a ninja if you want to use her.

 

I almost agree with everything you said. Except that in ninja she's a worse Kaze, might as well use Kaze for that matter. Every fast unit beats Takumi in the archer class because every acc problem is solved in archer and whatever promotion you choose (air superiority makes flyers a big target you can't miss, certain blow makes everyone a big target but it only works PP and doesn't counter flyers' target access while air superority means you can ridicule flyers who can't hit you more than 1/3rd of the time, and Kinshi has 4-5 res over sniper for what it's worth). Fujin Yumi is just a nice early game weapon that's ridiculed by the forging system and my castle granting free forging materials/gold efficient high rank weapons when you can't have them in your own castle.

 

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Bullshit. The Hatchet isn't THAT inaccurate, and it's not like Sacred Stones enemies are speed demons. Also, Dozla's not that good - he's too big to be rescued, for one. He's not that fast, second. "Being nearly as fast as base Seth with a speedwing" isn't impressive, considering that he comes in when the game is halfway over. Third, he doesn't compare well to a Ross that was promoted early.

Ross takes 28 level ups (or 18) to be worse than every other axe unit (not being able to wield anything but iron without a spd penalty is pathetic, he's the Ogier of FE8 with garbage speed on top of the rest). Dozla has the decency to come with 43 base HP and 11 base def, 6 res, enough speed to pick his fights (don't send him against fast paladins (they're very rare though), heroes or swordmasters, maybe fast snipers (also very rare), any other ennemy type is just being annihilated with effective weaponry or killer axe, and Dozla can do that at base. He's not Seth or Duessel but he becomes faster than Duessel as well as stronger than Seth, with innate 15 crit bonus and axes, B axes means he will fast get a total 20% bonus crit so who cares about anything else? With the S rank axe, should you give it to him, only swordmasters can double him (and maybe 1 or 2 heroes in ch20 in hard mode, that's it) since at base his speed is 9+5=14, not many ennemies have 18 speed in FE8.

That's the difference between a game with bad unit balance but low/average thresholds (and 4 spd difference to double) and a game with bad unit balance but high/very high thresholds (no HP emblem meaning you have to take 2 damage per hit to survive if you get def debuffed, since -3 means 5 damage per hit to 30 HP, seal def means 8 damage per hit, meanwhile in SS even if you have 0 def, you have more HP on every levelled unit than any Fates unit HP except Revelations Silas and Ryoma/Xander who have about the same HP as Seth at final level, which is still 12 less than Kyle, Gerik, Garcia, Gilliam, Cormag, Dozla, 8 less than Duessel,...and 5 spd difference to double in Fates doesn't help it's units balance). Add to that the massive avoid nerf in Fates (1.5xspd+0.5xluck vs 2xspd+1xluck) and crit avoid being quite inexistent aside bias weapons (10 avoid) and redemptor lv 10 skill (15 avoid) I'm glad everyone can use as soon as they reach lv 10 without having to go redemptor, which is gender locked and slow+unskilled.

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I do not get bored that easily.

Enjoy playing the same playthrough over and over while we enjoy varying our experience then, what do you want me to answer that? If I played FE8 Seth solo 5 times in a row, I'd be mindblowned and so bored that I'd sell my cartridge and never play the game again (even after 2 Seth solos if I'm being realistic), not everyone likes doing always the same thing and I personnally hate routine, it gets boring really fast (for example in LOL I don't have a real main, because I like playing different things and get bored after 5 games in a row with the same champ, there are 145 champs or something like that, why would I play only 3% of the roaster and be awesome at them when I can play 40% and be correct at them while having more adaptability to meta and match ups?).

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

You completely missed the point, as usual. Not that that surprises me. My point is that you turning around and praising something else that needs grinding to stand a chance against Brock when you just bashed Bulbasaur for the same thing is hypocritical. Second, the fact you're considering skipping the second gym and coming back later is a point against Charmander, as far as I'm concerned - you're admitting you need to grind then. Anyway, it's about time we dropped the discussion, I've said all I need to say on it.

You repeat yourself a lot, and you read/listen to others too little. Getting Butterfree to lv 12 takes, what, 10 minutes? 3 with an emulator? Is it too long for you? Then how can you even play modern games with even slower execution and walls of worthless talk about food and weather in war games? How can one say it's a waste to spend 3 minutes training Buterfree in blue/red to pass the 1st gym and play X/Y? That game has literally walls of tutorial text, half of it is a f****** tutorial, it's like playing FE6 without a save! I prefer largely replaying g1, even if I spend 3 min training a Caterpie it's a game that I can finish in 2-3h while beating 100% of the trainers with any team comp with little to no grinding (I remind I don't consider cleaning the trainers like grinding, since they're all here from the beginning, don't require you to loose more than 5 extra minutes to clear if you do both routes to the poison gym city, and you're fighting each trainer only once, it's not like waiting for reinforcements in FE since these trainers are already there, it's rout the ennemy without reinforcements, that's my rule for almost every game involving combat, otherwise I'm not better than Sacha who skipped everything and didn't get his badges legitimately because I skipped many steps).

 

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would imagine that trying to raise Mozu wastes resources, too, except even more and more valuable ones (including one of the 4/5 heart seals you can get for most of the game!) unless you want to deal with her as a Villager, where she has to worry about eating counters should she fail to kill for whatever reason. And if you DO use that Heart seal, she is put into direct competition with Takumi on two of three routes. It's almost like what Edward has to go through in Radiant Dawn. I find it very hard to find a reason to invest in a unit that, no matter what I do, won't ever get out of the shadow of a better unit that comes later.

Edward has about 50% in offensive growths and 20-30% in defensive with 70-80% in HP, he beats Zihark in HP, str and def after 12 level ups or something like that and the promotion, while Mozu requires 9-10 level ups which she can and should get before obtaining Takumi if you dispatch your ressources while being aware of which unit does best at a specific moment with the same ressource consumption.

The fact is that most units you get before Takumi are short-term units that will soon be replaced. The only units that don't have a better version of themselves later are: Rinkah (no one excells in def as much as she does), Saizo (no other ninja is as versatile as he is), Kagero (no other shuriken user has such combination of str/spd), and Mozu is a generalist who excells in skl, spd and lck and has no effective mid/long term concurrence. Takumi is just a disposable who does fine at base and doesn't require training to do the role he plays, but he plays 1 role, not 2 or 3 or 5. He's the one who goes though terrain and kills very slow average def or low hp/def ennemies with annoying gimmcks like ninjas and spear fighters (actually he can't even kill spear fighters by himself at any stage of the game unless overlevelled since he's too slow and not strong enough).

[De Geso]

16 minutes ago, mangasdeouf said:

all that shit

You do not need to write that much in this discussion, I think. Don't overdo it.

[Parrhesia]

Jesus Christ.

... That was going to be my dramatic mic-drop before the lock and then I remembered I don't actually moderate the vintage FE boards. Cleave back to the topic in time for someone more forgiving to turn up.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Parrhesia

[Shadow Mir]

Suggestions for improving bad units:

Setsuna would get better bases and growths in all stats aside from Speed and Magic (particularly Skill, since it's embarrassing that she's in a class known for having good skill, yet her skill growth is one of the worst, which is exacerbated by most Yumi having iffy hit rates) - as is, speed is her only growth above 50%, and that ain't enough for me to consider her a good long-term unit, let alone anywhere near Takumi's level. Rinkah would get buffed in HP and Strength, both for base and growth - It's embarrassing that the freaking healer has better growths in both of those stats than her. Also, have her auto-level in Revelation, because it's unlikely for her to get much exp in the pre-branch maps. Arthur should have the negative effect of his personal nixed and improve his luck growth, taking out the gameplay and story integration aspect that makes him frustrating to use.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[mangasdeouf]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

Suggestions for improving bad units:

Setsuna would get better bases and growths in all stats aside from Speed and Magic (particularly Skill, since it's embarrassing that she's in a class known for having good skill, yet her skill growth is one of the worst, which is exacerbated by most Yumi having iffy hit rates) - as is, speed is her only growth above 50%, and that ain't enough for me to consider her a good long-term unit, let alone anywhere near Takumi's level. Rinkah would get buffed in HP and Strength, both for base and growth - It's embarrassing that the freaking healer has better growths in both of those stats than her. Also, have her auto-level in Revelation, because it's unlikely for her to get much exp in the pre-branch maps. Arthur should have the negative effect of his personal nixed and improve his luck growth, taking out the gameplay and story integration aspect that makes him frustrating to use.

Finally we agree on something.

Setsuna has 45% in skill (30 personal 15 archer), that's quite good considering she gets either certain blow or air superiority and she comes with skill +2 (the main problem of +2 skills is IS thinks too much of units with +2 but not enough without it, making Effie a poor defensive unit in a purely defensive class, meanwhile if she had 14 base def +2 she would actually be much better, or if she had +2 in speed to not be slower than the slowest units in the game before Benny, who have 8 speed, namely Silas, Rinkah, Mozu at 7 base, Effie's spd has the same base as Benny while her base def isn't impressive, her HP base/growth is nothing like a tank should have and in knight she doesn't benefit from any boost to her speed growth. If she was a wyvern, her stat assignment would be great, for knight it's trash. Benny is more usable in their base class set than she is, that says much about her performance as your early knight who can be killed by the top ennemies because of poison strike and speed seal which leaves her at 0 speed and ennemies doubling her with 4-6 damage per hit or something like that, now compare with Gilliam who's said to be trash, well he does much better against the ennemies he faces in his joining map and the next one as well because most of them can't double him at base and he actually has HP base+growth for average def, still 3 points higher than Franz with a 5 base HP advantage, all Gilliam should have is a lower starting level or 1 more point in hp, skl and def).

Rinkah would benefit a lot from the Benny HP treatment (a lot less from his speed). Also another problem with her is...oni has awfully low use skills, like why would the tank use shove instead of a weak unit to push the tank to the frontlines? I don't see why they didn't put shove on another class and maybe swap on oni. Seal res is also not very useful for a clearly str/def oriented class, even though oni chieftain uses magic (why not let oni chieftain have res seal and put a useful t1 skill on oni savage?). Oni only offers nice growths (except in skl) but skill-wise it's one of the worst classes in the game. That's when too many classes hurt more than they help. As much as I like their design, their skills don't even fit their theme! And why do ennemy onis have 10 more HP than Rinkah? seriously, ether let her have more HP or reduce randoms'HP. If we play no HP emblem, then why should ennemy units have 60% more HP than playable units? That's just BS.

Arthur has many ways to patch his luck, the easiest ones being Percy and bronze weapons, another one being redemptor's veteran skill lv 10. Anyway, outside the negative dodge, most units have garbage dodge anyway since you need 20 luck to have 10 crit avoid. Only royals and a few gifted units that suffer from other problems have enough luck to be useful against crit. The best is to deal with crit by not letting it hit you...or chip damage with Benny who will tank 4 crits in a row after 5 level ups and still be alive (not exaggerating too much).

I'd also give more base strength to Subaki, Hinata, Kaze, more base speed to Silas, Rinkah, Orochi, Hayato, more base skl to Hinata, Rinkah (she's supposed to be skilled as opposed to her class), Niles, Nyx, Hayato, more base res to Nyx, Hayato, Orochi, Reina, Takumi, more base def to Silas, Effie, Arthur, Owain, Subaki, Oboro, Mozu, Azura, Saizo, Hana, Benny, Charlotte, Kaden, Keaton, more base HP to Corrin, Hayato, Mozu, Hana, Subaki, Rinkah, Effie, Silas, Nyx, Owain, Niles, Scarlet, Reina, Benny, Charlotte, Xander, Laslow, Peri, Beruka, Selena, Miltank, Oboro, Kaden, Keaton, Kaze, Saizo, Kagero, Setsuna, and boost everyone's HP growth by 15%.

[Captain Karnage]

15 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Jesus Christ.

... That was going to be my dramatic mic-drop before the lock and then I remembered I don't actually moderate the vintage FE boards. Cleave back to the topic in time for someone more forgiving to turn up.

I got you Par 

I'm going to look into this thread when I get home from work.