Is Henning really a bad boss?

[Hello72207]

18 hours ago, joevar said:

Tier list place lilina in low tier?

Horrible bases for jointime, very frail, slow. Those are the main reasons.

[OriginalRaisins]

I think you have to view Mekkah's video in context. He tends to focus on fast & efficient play and using bases over growths. For the average player, training Lugh or Rutger up to a decent level and then using rescue shenaniganry is acceptable, but for Mekkah, the boss can provide a wall. It doesn't help that because the boss' durability comes from dodge, you feel at the mercy of the RNG. If a boss takes a long time to kill because they have high defense, nobody really bats an eye, but if it takes (on average) many turns to kill because they keep dodging, that feels bad.

  

On 10/20/2020 at 11:02 AM, joevar said:

Tier list place lilina in low tier? i thought she should be medium tier at least, or thats how i remember many guide place her 15+ years ago when playing it.

but in case of Henning then yes of course Lilina cant contribute, its her second chapter versus Lugh 5th(6th?) chapter. But in long run she should be fine alongside lugh. Maybe it becomes harder because said person already used to places restriction to each of his playthru? (like low turn count, etc)
 

She's a growth unit who has potential. The problem is that you have to babysit her a lot and even then you're not guaranteed to have a strong unit. Units who start at level 1 have the highest variance in where they end up whereas units who start at a higher level (Karel) can perform reliably. You're really taking a risk when training Lilina, and for every runthrough where it pays off there's probably two or three where she got screwed out of one stat and you have to throw the effort away. This isn't a big deal in casual playthroughs, since you literally have to do this process with every unit and it's fun to grow somebody to a great unit, but if you're playing competitively or efficiently, you have to assume the worst and minimize the risk. Lilina's worst is UGLY when compared to Dieck, Lugh, and the other units you're using around that time.

[joevar]

2 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

The problem is that you have to babysit her a lot and even then you're not guaranteed to have a strong unit. Units who start at level 1 have the highest variance in where they end up whereas units who start at a higher level (Karel) can perform reliably. You're really taking a risk when training Lilina, and for every runthrough where it pays off there's probably two or three where she got screwed out of one stat and you have to throw the effort away. This isn't a big deal in casual playthroughs, since you literally have to do this process with every unit and it's fun to grow somebody to a great unit, but if you're playing competitively or efficiently, you have to assume the worst and minimize the risk. Lilina's worst is UGLY when compared to Dieck, Lugh, and the other units you're using around that time

thanks for explaining. maybe im just lucky because  Lilina in my playthru ends up strong even her speed doesnt really fall behind that much. ofc i need to babysit her, but it pays off in the end

its just that i keep forgetting that people who discuss this always assume "efficient" playthru for every argument and something that could be bad is always bad by default

Edited October 28, 2020 by joevar

[OriginalRaisins]

10 hours ago, joevar said:

thanks for explaining. maybe im just lucky because  Lilina in my playthru ends up strong even her speed doesnt really fall behind that much. ofc i need to babysit her, but it pays off in the end

its just that i keep forgetting that people who discuss this always assume "efficient" playthru for every argument and something that could be bad is always bad by default

True. I think it's easy to look at past results and say "My Lilina is always good so she will always end up good" but the fact is her future performance is uncertain.

Also, let me go on record saying I have nothing against taking a gamble by deploying and using a growth unit. If you use many such units, you'll likely need to bench most of them but the odds that at least one of them turns out amazing is actually quite good. It's part of the reason I like fe6 - all your units are bad and join at such a low level that you have to take risks with them and you never really know who is going to end up strong. You have to be willing to accept that you might bench many of the units you're training, and that your final result will not resemble an "ideal team composition" in any way. It's a fun way to play the game, and I enjoy watching a busted Lilina roll some heads as much as anyone ^_^

The problem is insisting that a risky unit will always perform well, or that a growth unit will catch up if you just give them a few more levels. The variance in a unit's stats will ALWAYS increase as you plan to give them more levels.

[joevar]

4 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

True. I think it's easy to look at past results and say "My Lilina is always good so she will always end up good" but the fact is her future performance is uncertain.

Also, let me go on record saying I have nothing against taking a gamble by deploying and using a growth unit. If you use many such units, you'll likely need to bench most of them but the odds that at least one of them turns out amazing is actually quite good. It's part of the reason I like fe6 - all your units are bad and join at such a low level that you have to take risks with them and you never really know who is going to end up strong. You have to be willing to accept that you might bench many of the units you're training, and that your final result will not resemble an "ideal team composition" in any way. It's a fun way to play the game, and I enjoy watching a busted Lilina roll some heads as much as anyone ^_^

The problem is insisting that a risky unit will always perform well, or that a growth unit will catch up if you just give them a few more levels. The variance in a unit's stats will ALWAYS increase as you plan to give them more levels.

in that case i could agree lilina being low tier. since RNG have better chances at screwing her stat compared to other char with high base high lvl

[Jotari]

I would bring up that Lilina as a character is based around having a very high magic stat in which she has quite a reliable 75% growth. So she can actually be relied on as a pretty consistent unit I think. She can hit things hard. It's just her stat line resembles a Fighter more than a Myrmidon with power, but questionable accuracy and speed. Which efficiency players are going to hate, but casual players would be fine with, especially as those are issues that can be fixed with stat boosters and supports. Essentially she puts all her eggs in one basket which is a more niche playstyle for a unit. It'd really help if she had an extreme growth in another stat, especially skill. If she has a 75% skill growth too to fix her accuracy problems then I think she'd actually be a rather popular character with efficiency players as, while lacking the ability to double, her ability to one shot certain speedier enemies would be considered quite valuable.

[OriginalRaisins]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

I would bring up that Lilina as a character is based around having a very high magic stat in which she has quite a reliable 75% growth. So she can actually be relied on as a pretty consistent unit I think.

75% is, as you said, very reliable. Generally speaking, the closer to 50% the growth is, the higher the variance. Also don't forget that with a high magic stat comes great utility with warp and rescue staves - great for any LTC play.

[Mars of Aritia]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

I would bring up that Lilina as a character is based around having a very high magic stat in which she has quite a reliable 75% growth. So she can actually be relied on as a pretty consistent unit I think. She can hit things hard. It's just her stat line resembles a Fighter more than a Myrmidon with power, but questionable accuracy and speed. Which efficiency players are going to hate, but casual players would be fine with, especially as those are issues that can be fixed with stat boosters and supports. Essentially she puts all her eggs in one basket which is a more niche playstyle for a unit. It'd really help if she had an extreme growth in another stat, especially skill. If she has a 75% skill growth too to fix her accuracy problems then I think she'd actually be a rather popular character with efficiency players as, while lacking the ability to double, her ability to one shot certain speedier enemies would be considered quite valuable.

Accuracy is not even a big deal. unlike axes, magic has good hit rate (fire is tied for most accurate weapon in the game), she has a super fast roy support (+5 hit each level) and you get a secret book that no one else really needs in her join chapter. and the most of the enemies she is attacking during the grinding phase are slow fighters weighed down by steel axes.

and you don't need to double if you can one shot 😉 .

56 minutes ago, OriginalRaisins said:

75% is, as you said, very reliable. Generally speaking, the closer to 50% the growth is, the higher the variance. Also don't forget that with a high magic stat comes great utility with warp and rescue staves - great for any LTC play.

there is absolutely no way lilina reaches A rank staff lol.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Mars of Aritia

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Mars of Aritia said:

Accuracy is not even a big deal. unlike axes, magic has good hit rate (fire is tied for most accurate weapon in the game), she has a super fast roy support (+5 hit each level) and you get a secret book that no one else really needs in her join chapter. and the most of the enemies she is attacking during the grinding phase are slow fighters weighed down by steel axes.

and you don't need to double if you can one shot 😉 .

there is absolutely no way lilina reaches A rank staff lol.

Well yeah I did say she has ways to mitigate her hit issues, but I figure only non efficiency players would really care about that. As efficiency players (I expect) would generally have the view that the resources you put on her could be put on someone else. Though I guess you're right that there isn't a massive amount of competition for Secret Books, and I guess even Roy's support pool doesn't have a tonne of great units off the top of my heat. Granted I'm n ot actually checking it right now, it's just the units that are coming to mind for me are Wolt, Cecilia, Sophia and Lalum, none of which are particularly great (well, Lalum's a dancer so I guess Roy could help her dodge tank if you have the patience to build up that really slow support).

[Mars of Aritia]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well yeah I did say she has ways to mitigate her hit issues, but I figure only non efficiency players would really care about that. As efficiency players (I expect) would generally have the view that the resources you put on her could be put on someone else. Though I guess you're right that there isn't a massive amount of competition for Secret Books, and I guess even Roy's support pool doesn't have a tonne of great units off the top of my heat. Granted I'm n ot actually checking it right now, it's just the units that are coming to mind for me are Wolt, Cecilia, Sophia and Lalum, none of which are particularly great (well, Lalum's a dancer so I guess Roy could help her dodge tank if you have the patience to build up that really slow support).

There's Allen & Lance, though their large movement differences would make it annoying to keep them together with Roy.

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Mars of Aritia

[German FE Nino]

Lilina is less of a growthunit but moreso a misplaced one. She was originally supposed to join in chapter1, so the most likely explanation for her poor performance is that they moved her to castle ostia to serve as the requirement of the X chapter but forgot to buff her accordingly.

[OriginalRaisins]

13 hours ago, Mars of Aritia said:

there is absolutely no way lilina reaches A rank staff lol.

Oh lol I forgot it's fe6 weapon ranks. Nevermind then.

[joevar]

5 hours ago, German FE Nino said:

Lilina is less of a growthunit but moreso a misplaced one. She was originally supposed to join in chapter1, so the most likely explanation for her poor performance is that they moved her to castle ostia to serve as the requirement of the X chapter but forgot to buff her accordingly.

seems plausible since she is in fact with Eliwood in beginning. still.. theres sophia who join midgame but joins as lvl 1 unpromoted unit. which i dont know what explanation can excuse that (her being half dragon means she's not younger than anyone else in your army, but still lvl 1 ...)

a remake really should overhaul most of the character

[German FE Nino]

Sophia just has no fightingexperience and inherited all the weak traits of both species(low bases and only average growths). That is the explanation I can come up with.

[joevar]

i just replayed FE6 (last time i played it was more than a decade ago), and minutes ago beat ch.8x . And i could say, Henning is not really a bad boss compared to previous boss just your typical inflated HM boss (with atrocious FE6 throne bonus). Rutger is not the absolute requirement, and no need to promote him either, as long he is lvl 15+ and not RNG-screwed, you're good. just equip your fastest character with good str with light brand when the boss equip steel blade and chip his hp slowly, and bait him to change from hand axe back to stl blade using sword-wielding + highest Def char.
i even manage to give his exp to Lilina with only 1 retry...

Spoiler

i didnt use arena-trained character to beat Henning, except rutger, even then i only lvl up him once there

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by joevar

[OriginalRaisins]

9 hours ago, joevar said:

And i could say, Henning is not really a bad boss compared to previous boss just your typical inflated HM boss (with atrocious FE6 throne bonus). Rutger is not the absolute requirement, and no need to promote him either, as long he is lvl 15+ and not RNG-screwed, you're good. just equip your fastest character with good str with light brand when the boss equip steel blade and chip his hp slowly, and bait him to change from hand axe back to stl blade using sword-wielding + highest Def char.
i even manage to give his exp to Lilina with only 1 retry...

Sounds like you have evolved O_O

I think a lot of the difficulty behind Henning is that LTC-ers and speedrunners will try to cut corners everywhere in their play and Henning simply won't let that slide. You need a good unit and if you've been rushing thrones since the prologue chapter you're very likely under-prepared.

[Mars of Aritia]

I know most people avoid going through nomad hell on hard mode for good reason, but Kel seems like he'd be a lot more intimidating than Henning. he has an absolutely ridiculous 88 avoid, 29 atk and 43 crit. Melee is not really an option since anyone strong enough to survive can't touch him, and anyone who can hit him has a high risk of being doubled and critted to death. Fortunately, the light sword sucks at range in this game, but you will still have to rely on coin flip hits from nomads & mages. I guess if you're really desperate you can make him was his sword as it only has 25 uses and he will double pretty much everyone.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Mars of Aritia said:

I know most people avoid going through nomad hell on hard mode for good reason, but Kel seems like he'd be a lot more intimidating than Henning. he has an absolutely ridiculous 88 avoid, 29 atk and 43 crit. Melee is not really an option since anyone strong enough to survive can't touch him, and anyone who can hit him has a high risk of being doubled and critted to death. Fortunately, the light sword sucks at range in this game, but you will still have to rely on coin flip hits from nomads & mages. I guess if you're really desperate you can make him was his sword as it only has 25 uses and he will double pretty much everyone.

Kel is on the list referenced in the OP I believe, but he:s never been even a blip on my radar before. Light brand has such pathetic ranged attack that you can very safely pick him off from afar with multiple units.