I would like to debate units

[banana_boy]

10 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

Roy's strength comes from a combination of

• Supports are excellent. They're fast to build and give huge bonuses to relevant units like Marcus, Alan, and Lance. Roy's support with them keeps them relevant, and in NM makes them superior to units like Zealot and even Perceval. Current draft race strats (NM) use a LOT of Roy, and he basically never falls off. Even in maps like chapter 18 and 20 he's still scrappin.
• Swords are strong. They're accurate, killing edges are plentiful in the early game, and silver swords come in pretty early too. Roy with an iron sword or rapier of course looks doodoo but the moment you put a stronger sword on him he does much better. Also don't forget the light brand. With his high skill, luck, and aforementioned supports it's really easy for him to put the 10 damage on targets when you need to.
• Effective weaponry is strong. Roy with an armorslayer, wyrmslayer, or lancereaver can demolish whatever it is he's attacking. Turns out you don't need much stats when your weapon's base damage and accuracy is already through the roof.

What does Roy have to do anyway? Most of the time he's being escorted and so as long as he can deliver high amounts of damage to a threatening target on player phase he can usually defend himself adequately. Also his bulk at level 20 (which he usually reaches somewhere around chapter 11-13 for me) is not something to sneeze at. All he realistically needs to do on each map is keep enemies away, and he does that just fine.

Roy's supports are good (Alen/Lance/Roy triangle), but if you're not assuming support grinding he can't even do that and without his support partners his bulk is a lot worse off. 

Swords may be good but Roy's stats are not. He averages 12 str/14 spd/9 def at level 20. With those stats he won't be damaging much and will take strong hits back from stuff like wyverns and pegs/nomads. 

Yes you could use a Wyrmslayer against wyverns but even with the triple might not having weapon triangle kinda hurts. When Binding Blade comes in he will kill everything but until then he just isn't great.

[ping]

My usual Hot Take (tm) is that Roy isn't as outstandingly weak compared to the rest of the GBA lords as most people make him out to be: Because Lyn without Lyn Mode is insanely frail, and because both Eliwood and Eirika are both pretty bad, just in overall easier games than BinBla. But I guess I've been one-upped already.

Edited September 11, 2021 by ping

[Shadow Mir]

14 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

By the way, supports are not that difficult to train. Draft speedrun gets B Roy/Marcus and A Roy/Thany by the end of chapter 4, that's 5 support ranks in 4 chapters, you can't do that in RD.

>Draft speedrun
>Roy/Shanna A in chapter 4
Nice oxymoron there. Roy/Shanna starts at 1 point and builds up at a speed of... drumroll please... the dreaded +1. In other words, you'd have to go completely out of your way to get it to A, especially that early.

14 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I don't think Ike is weak at all. But the cost to train him is nonzero, whereas the cost to train Micaiah is zero. Furthermore, even though he can fight at 1-2 range in part 4 or fight at 1 range in part 3, so can many other people, and he's probably not even in the top 10 units who can do those things. Even on the most demanding maps, you still only need like 4ish units spreading out across the map to fight bad guys on enemy phase. If you're spreading out your combat units and an enemy attacks Ike, that's a combat that could have involved a more capable player unit.

Really? Because I have trouble thinking of 10 units that would be better than Ike.

14 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

You claim it takes only 15-20 enemies to get him to 20, but that's a LOT of units. I'm pretty sure the entire front half of 3-8 has that many units in it. The seven levels on Ike could have been seven levels of exp going to Haar, Titania, Janaff/Ulki's strike rank, Mia, Shinon, even Gatrie. Furthermore, if you're leveling up by killing enemies then who knows where your stat points are going to end up, and if you're leveling up by using BEXP that's another resource that could have gone towards anyone. I'm pretty sure the number of enemies you have to kill is even greater on Hard Mode, but regardless of how nitpicky we want to get, 15-20 is still greater than zero (the number that Micaiah needs). And once you do give him that exp, what are you left with? Another fighting unit to fight enemies, not like you don't have dozens of those anyway. If I were in the endgame maps and had to choose between undeploying a 20/20 Ike and undeploying a base level Micaiah, I'd probably keep the Micaiah.

Shinon's not better than Ike, largely because being locked to bows means he has a shit enemy phase (and no, crossbows don't help that much on that front).

Edited September 11, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[OriginalRaisins]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

>Draft speedrun
>Roy/Shanna A in chapter 4
Nice oxymoron there. Roy/Shanna starts at 1 point and builds up at a speed of... drumroll please... the dreaded +1. In other words, you'd have to go completely out of your way to get it to A, especially that early.

 

10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I'm gonna have to call bullshit here. There is a limit to how many support points can be gained in a single chapter, for one. Also, needless to say, not everyone is okay with turtling to build supports (which you seem to be assuming).

(This video will expire in like a week from posting but I'll do another one. Skip to 11:30 vod time) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1144110097

 Here's DonDon151 getting a time of 2:20:22 using only Roy (who is free), Marcus (who is free), Shanna, Fa (who is free), Merlinus (who is free), Perceval, and some other units. It assumed that he was in first position and that the first round of the draft went something like the picture above. The rules state that we draft a full team of ten so if you are in position to pick Shanna, the tools he used in the run are not unreasonable to expect yourself to have, and he has plans in case the draft goes differently anyway. He grinds Roy/Shanna B in chapter 2 (takes 4 minutes 30 seconds) and Roy/Shanna A in chapter 4 (took him 4 minutes). 

Here's a video of me reading your post and then opening up my emulator to get Roy/Alan A by the end of chapter 2. Forgive slow inputs, I was kind of rusty for playing earlygame. 

We build supports because it's fast and because we're not manipulating the RNG. You see the green "Active" in the top left? That's an RNG scrambler, and it's been standard practice to use on in all races for months now. Because you can't rig crits against bosses or rig str levelups on your carry, you need to get your boosts some other way, and supports give you enough boosts that you can reliably cleave through the game, particularly when that support comes from Roy. We spend 9 minutes at worst (Roy/Shanna) to skip probably hours of bad combats. The strat you saw above (that gets Alan to A) probably won't actually be used on the race day. Can you figure out why? It's because it doesn't build ENOOUGH support. It's better to spend chapter 1 building up Roy/Marcus B and Roy/Alan C. In chapter 2, you use the Roy/Marcus B to get out of there faster and then build a Roy/Alan B in chapter 2 (A is still unreachable at this point) but since Roy/Alan is double fire the support boosts are enough to let base level Alan oneround soldiers in chapter 3. Chapters 3 and 6 are, by the way, where you get the majority of the exp on your carry earlygame in this run, and the grinding process is immensely aided by the support boosts.

10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Also, needless to say, not everyone is okay with turtling to build supports (which you seem to be assuming).

And they should be okay with it. If you're LTCing then that's different but if not there's no reason to bang them out fast.

 

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, ping said:

My usual Hot Take (tm) is that Roy isn't as outstandingly weak compared to the rest of the GBA lords as most people make him out to be: Because Lyn without Lyn Mode is insanely frail, and because both Eliwood and Eirika are both pretty bad, just in overall easier games than BinBla. But I guess I've been one-upped already.

One thing I've been tossing around making for a while now that I just haven't done is making a "Lyn mode" of Binding Blade, where in Roy is replaced stat for stat with Lyn. The idea is less to show how Lyn is bad and more actually to show how she's good. As I think Binding Blade suits Lyn's stat line more than Blazing Blade does. As Blazing Blade relies really heavily on a unit having 1-2 range and being able to tank enemy phase, where as Binding Blade is much kinder to sword units in its design. It would probably only take only half an hour to actually create the hack, but I just haven't felt the sufficient motivation to do so yet.

[OriginalRaisins]

11 minutes ago, Jotari said:

One thing I've been tossing around making for a while now that I just haven't done is making a "Lyn mode" of Binding Blade, where in Roy is replaced stat for stat with Lyn. The idea is less to show how Lyn is bad and more actually to show how she's good. As I think Binding Blade suits Lyn's stat line more than Blazing Blade does. As Blazing Blade relies really heavily on a unit having 1-2 range and being able to tank enemy phase, where as Binding Blade is much kinder to sword units in its design. It would probably only take only half an hour to actually create the hack, but I just haven't felt the sufficient motivation to do so yet.

I think you're right that Lyn copy/pasted into fe6 would be really strong. A few questions

• Does Lyn get the ability to build supports with people like Roy does?
• Do I replace all instances of Rapier with Mani Katti?
• Do I replace the binding blade with Sol Katti?
• Do I make her promotion gains the same as in fe7 or does she get Roy's fe6 promo gains

I also completely admit I have no idea how to get her to use a bow.

Edited September 11, 2021 by OriginalRaisins

[Jotari]

49 minutes ago, OriginalRaisins said:

I think you're right that Lyn copy/pasted into fe6 would be really strong. A few questions

• Does Lyn get the ability to build supports with people like Roy does?
• Do I replace all instances of Rapier with Mani Katti?
• Do I replace the binding blade with Sol Katti?
• Do I make her promotion gains the same as in fe7 or does she get Roy's fe6 promo gains

I also completely admit I have no idea how to get her to use a bow.

Getting her to use a bow isn't difficult. How useful the bow would be is another question. If she's allowed to promote freely with a regular item she could be great at taking down Wyverns, but if she has to wait for Roy's late ass promotion then most of the wyvern heavy maps in the game have already been dealt with and there'd be so little time to build her a decent bow rank as for it to be useless (especially if she gets the Binding Blade).

As for the other points, yes, Lyn would have Roy's supports, as the idea is to very easily change Roy's bases and growths to Lyn's and then give him Lyn's portrait and battle animation (and then give her bows on promotion, which like I said isn't tough to do at all mechanically).

Replacing rapier with Mani Katti seems reasonable enough, this would be a straight up boost as the Mani Katti is better in everything other than hit where it's 15% worse than a Rapier (which is actually a pretty decent balancing considering Biding Blade's hit rates, then again Lyn should have enough skill to still reliably hit so Mani Katti's higher damage and crit is probbaly still preferred).

Replacing the Binding Blade with Sol Katti would be a major nerf, obviously, but I suppose it'd only be fair if we're replacing the rapier too.

Her promotion gains would best be her own (another nerf as I think Roy has major promotion gains to compensate the lateness), though that's one thing that is quite likely to slip through the cracks and be forgotten about in the edit. Now that it's been brought up maybe I should finally go ahead and make this. Like I said, it wouldn't be all that challenging to do. It's just that I'd kind of be obligated to play Binding Blade with her once it's done and I have other games are the burner at the moment.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

And they should be okay with it. If you're LTCing then that's different but if not there's no reason to bang them out fast.

You're completely missing the point here. My point is that the GBA support system is disliked by a lot of people, myself included, because most supports take way too long to kick in to the point where you have to actively go out of your way to even make them relevant (let's face it, not everyone likes the idea of having to tether units together to build supports), and the bonuses are not enough to justify the wait most of the time. LTCing has nothing to do with it, but the fact that I have better things to do with my time than twist and contort my game just to grind supports that probably aren't even worth it does. Anyways, Ike doesn't need me to go out of my way to grind supports to not suck, whereas Roy does. And the fact that Roy is in what is probably the biggest Horse Emblem game that isn't Holy War only makes things worse.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[ping]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

One thing I've been tossing around making for a while now that I just haven't done is making a "Lyn mode" of Binding Blade, where in Roy is replaced stat for stat with Lyn. The idea is less to show how Lyn is bad and more actually to show how she's good. As I think Binding Blade suits Lyn's stat line more than Blazing Blade does. As Blazing Blade relies really heavily on a unit having 1-2 range and being able to tank enemy phase, where as Binding Blade is much kinder to sword units in its design. It would probably only take only half an hour to actually create the hack, but I just haven't felt the sufficient motivation to do so yet.

I've had the same thought, yeah. Including the lack of motivation to actually see it through

There's two things that I suspect would work against Lyn. One, obviously, her frailty. Roy starts with 18 HP/5 Def and is considered somewhat squishy until he promotes; Lyn starts with 16 HP/2 Def. This would almost get her one-shot by the Brigands in chapter 1 (17-18 Atk, minus one because weapon triangle) and she'd be two-shot by ch.1 Archers (12 Atk, so Roy survives two arrows). Lyn's bulk at base is slightly worse than Lugh's, and she doesn't have 1-2 range to help her out.

Two, the competition. Lyn would be more distinct from Alance than Roy, but she'd still initially be outclassed by Dieck (9 Str > Mani Katti, unless it deals effective damage) and then by Rutger. Versus Alance, she'd deal a lot more damage at the cost of being two-shot by virtually everything, versus Dieck (initially) and Rutger (permanently), she would only have an offensive edge against cavaliers.

Regarding the Mani Katti: An identical version would be considerably stronger than in FE7, thanks to x3 effectiveness. A "BinBla-dified" version might only have 6 Might; the idea being that the Rapier gained +2 Mt between BinBla and BlaBla. But one could also make the point that effectiveness aside, the Mani Katti is a slightly more accurate Steel Sword with crit on it, so 8 Mt/75 hit would also be arguable.

Regarding bows: BinBla has the nasty habit of only giving an E rank for a new weapon type at promotion. The only exception are Bishops, and that's because there's no E-rank Light tome. If Lyn's promotion would be be changed to fit BinBla's conventions, it would make the Bow option a lot weaker, I'd say: Iron Bows that late into the game really wouldn't cut it, and you'd have to make an effort to just get her to Steel before the end of the game.

In any case, I wouldn't be shocked if Lyn would do a bit better than Roy overall; although she would also make the "keep the lord alive while others do the heavy lifting" a bit more difficult with her even worse bulk. But I also think that this thought experiment sweeps one big problem of Lyn under the rug - that she is in a game where 1-2 range is massive and her excellent speed is less useful than it would be in other games. My personal GBA lord rankings would probably go somewhere around
Hector > Ephraim > Eirika > Lyn (with Lyn Mode) > Eliwood > Roy > Lyn (without Lyn Mode),
with very small gaps between Eirika and Lyn, and between Eiiwood and Roy. No-Lyn-Mode-Lyn being a melee-locked unit that is two-shot by a Short Bow Archer in the map right after her joining chapter weighs heavily against her, in my opinion, especially since she's the only (non-flying ) character with that predicament.

[AnonymousSpeed]

4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

You're completely missing the point here. My point is that the GBA support system is disliked by a lot of people, myself included, because most supports take way too long to kick in to the point where you have to actively go out of your way to even make them relevant (let's face it, not everyone likes the idea of having to tether units together to build supports), and the bonuses are not enough to justify the wait most of the time. LTCing has nothing to do with it, but the fact that I have better things to do with my time than twist and contort my game just to grind supports that probably aren't even worth it does. Anyways, Ike doesn't need me to go out of my way to grind supports to not suck, whereas Roy does.

But if people are getting Roy to A support with a couple idle minutes, then doesn't that kind of...not take too long? I mean, if it's viable in a draft race (which, unlike LTC, is strictly concerned with the amount of your own real-life time taken up), then that should stand to reason, right?

3 hours ago, ping said:

But I also think that this thought experiment sweeps one big problem of Lyn under the rug - that she is in a game where 1-2 range is massive and her excellent speed is less useful than it would be in other games.

Elegantly stated. Context is what creates value- neither of Roy and Lyn would be any better if they were in a game with no enemies.

[Florete]

My hot take contribution to this topic: Lyn is the best Blazing Blade lord.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Just now, Florete said:

My hot take contribution to this topic: Lyn is the best Blazing Blade lord.

Help - I was gonna write a comment  but I've been blinded by this white-hot take.

4 hours ago, ping said:

My personal GBA lord rankings would probably go somewhere around
Hector > Ephraim > Eirika > Lyn (with Lyn Mode) > Eliwood > Roy > Lyn (without Lyn Mode),
with very small gaps between Eirika and Lyn, and between Eiiwood and Roy.

Ooh, I like this. I'm gonna say

Ephraim (Ephraim Mode) >

Hector (Eliwood Mode) >

Hector (Hector Mode) >

Eirika (Eirika Mode) >

Eliwood (Hector Mode) >

Roy >

Ephraim (Eirika Mode) >

Eliwood (Eliwood Mode) >

Lyn (with Lyn Mode) >

Eirika (Ephraim Mode) >

Lyn (without Lyn Mode)

[Dark Holy Elf]

To be honest I'd much more easily see Lyn as the best Blazing Blade lord than I would see Hector above Ephraim. All the BlaBla lords have their issues, and I'm never sure how much I feel about each one's on a given day.

I think my list is the same as ping's just with Hector at least one spot lower, I find him hard to compare to the speedy types but Ephraim is just clearly better (similar atk/def but waaay better speed/luck/avoid, and also a better prf and better promotion).

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

But if people are getting Roy to A support with a couple idle minutes, then doesn't that kind of...not take too long? I mean, if it's viable in a draft race (which, unlike LTC, is strictly concerned with the amount of your own real-life time taken up), then that should stand to reason, right?

Doesn't make it any less stupid or any less immersion-breaking, especially when the supporters have a move gap between them (like Roy and Shanna, for example). Also, most of the time I think "draft", I think of them in the context of "how fast can you clear the game with your team", both in terms of turncount as well as in real time-  and building supports in the GBA games would likely inflate your turncount like crazy, especially if it was something like Roy/Shanna (which not only has a move gap, but is pretty much as slow to build as a support can be in Binding Blade).

Edited September 12, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[ping]

I might overvalue Hector following my ranked runs, i.e. runs with very light Marcus usage In those, Hector obviously carries a lot more than in a regular playthough, especially with Oswin "stealing XP" as well, but in general, I find his earlygame very convincing and that's where Hector got his brownie points for my list.

Regarding Ephraim, I think I can agree with @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate - in his own route, he does a lot; in Eirika's, he doesn't. My personal algebra averaged that below Hector, whose earlygame is excellent in both EliMode and HecMode, but I don't think I can argue that EphMode Ephraim is any worse.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Help - I was gonna write a comment  but I've been blinded by this white-hot take.

Ooh, I like this. I'm gonna say

Ephraim (Ephraim Mode) >

Hector (Eliwood Mode) >

Hector (Hector Mode) >

Eirika (Eirika Mode) >

Eliwood (Hector Mode) >

Roy >

Ephraim (Eirika Mode) >

Eliwood (Eliwood Mode) >

Lyn (with Lyn Mode) >

Eirika (Ephraim Mode) >

Lyn (without Lyn Mode)

Are you judging Eirika mode Ephraim off the fact that he doesn't exist? Because he seems like he should be way higher than Roy, higher than Eliwood too. And hell, I'm going to actually say it, higher than Eirika mode Eirika too. Sure you don't have him around for as long, but it's still freaking Ephraim, with all the bells and whistles that come with that status.  It's not like missing a few chapters even make him that hard to train (in fact you can get him to almost level 20 by soloing his first chapter with him, which yeah I'm sure someone will point out is stealing exp from his cavalier buds, but that's not really the point I'm making, it's that he had good enough stats to level pretty fast by being in the thick of combat, and unless you're using Orson for some reason, there is still plenty of exp in that chapter to divide between three units (assuming you even want to use all of them).

[Vicious Sal]

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Doesn't make it any less stupid or any less immersion-breaking, especially when the supporters have a move gap between them (like Roy and Shanna, for example). Also, most of the time I think "draft", I think of them in the context of "how fast can you clear the game with your team", both in terms of turncount as well as in real time-  and building supports in the GBA games would likely inflate your turncount like crazy, especially if it was something like Roy/Shanna (which not only has a move gap, but is pretty much as slow to build as a support can be in Binding Blade).

 

 

So you're arguing that you think it's bad and stupid under the explained scenario because you don't like it under your own scenario. That's a faulty argumentation. You're arguing that you don't like CG in Jurassic World whereas the topic at hand is Jurassic Park. 
There has been evidence presented and your arguments have boiled down to;
- I, and other don't like they way they are implemented and structured (An opinion, which doesn't do much when not back with factual arguments)
- They take too much time/poorly handled/tedious (Already refuted by the video's shown)

- Aren't even worth it (also already refuted, making Alance able to reach ORKO benchmarks in chapter 3 as an example)
- Immersion breaking (What does this have to do with a draft race? Right, nothing)
- This is how I define a draft race (Nice that you draft race with LTC and Real time at the same time, but that was not the topic at hand, though evidently you are right that in an LTC setting supports value diminish greatly because of the turn count.)
- Move gap (Rescue exists and is used prominently in draft races)

 

[Jotari]

21 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

I think you're right that Lyn copy/pasted into fe6 would be really strong. A few questions

• Does Lyn get the ability to build supports with people like Roy does?
• Do I replace all instances of Rapier with Mani Katti?
• Do I replace the binding blade with Sol Katti?
• Do I make her promotion gains the same as in fe7 or does she get Roy's fe6 promo gains

I also completely admit I have no idea how to get her to use a bow.

 

17 hours ago, ping said:

I've had the same thought, yeah. Including the lack of motivation to actually see it through

There's two things that I suspect would work against Lyn. One, obviously, her frailty. Roy starts with 18 HP/5 Def and is considered somewhat squishy until he promotes; Lyn starts with 16 HP/2 Def. This would almost get her one-shot by the Brigands in chapter 1 (17-18 Atk, minus one because weapon triangle) and she'd be two-shot by ch.1 Archers (12 Atk, so Roy survives two arrows). Lyn's bulk at base is slightly worse than Lugh's, and she doesn't have 1-2 range to help her out.

Two, the competition. Lyn would be more distinct from Alance than Roy, but she'd still initially be outclassed by Dieck (9 Str > Mani Katti, unless it deals effective damage) and then by Rutger. Versus Alance, she'd deal a lot more damage at the cost of being two-shot by virtually everything, versus Dieck (initially) and Rutger (permanently), she would only have an offensive edge against cavaliers.

Regarding the Mani Katti: An identical version would be considerably stronger than in FE7, thanks to x3 effectiveness. A "BinBla-dified" version might only have 6 Might; the idea being that the Rapier gained +2 Mt between BinBla and BlaBla. But one could also make the point that effectiveness aside, the Mani Katti is a slightly more accurate Steel Sword with crit on it, so 8 Mt/75 hit would also be arguable.

Regarding bows: BinBla has the nasty habit of only giving an E rank for a new weapon type at promotion. The only exception are Bishops, and that's because there's no E-rank Light tome. If Lyn's promotion would be be changed to fit BinBla's conventions, it would make the Bow option a lot weaker, I'd say: Iron Bows that late into the game really wouldn't cut it, and you'd have to make an effort to just get her to Steel before the end of the game.

In any case, I wouldn't be shocked if Lyn would do a bit better than Roy overall; although she would also make the "keep the lord alive while others do the heavy lifting" a bit more difficult with her even worse bulk. But I also think that this thought experiment sweeps one big problem of Lyn under the rug - that she is in a game where 1-2 range is massive and her excellent speed is less useful than it would be in other games. My personal GBA lord rankings would probably go somewhere around
Hector > Ephraim > Eirika > Lyn (with Lyn Mode) > Eliwood > Roy > Lyn (without Lyn Mode),
with very small gaps between Eirika and Lyn, and between Eiiwood and Roy. No-Lyn-Mode-Lyn being a melee-locked unit that is two-shot by a Short Bow Archer in the map right after her joining chapter weighs heavily against her, in my opinion, especially since she's the only (non-flying ) character with that predicament.

The motivation struck and I did it.

By far the most troublesome thing was editing the text to replace Roy with Lyn. I now hate the words Destroy and Royal for having the same letters as Roy.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Are you judging Eirika mode Ephraim off the fact that he doesn't exist? Because he seems like he should be way higher than Roy, higher than Eliwood too. And hell, I'm going to actually say it, higher than Eirika mode Eirika too. Sure you don't have him around for as long, but it's still freaking Ephraim, with all the bells and whistles that come with that status.  It's not like missing a few chapters even make him that hard to train (in fact you can get him to almost level 20 by soloing his first chapter with him, which yeah I'm sure someone will point out is stealing exp from his cavalier buds, but that's not really the point I'm making, it's that he had good enough stats to level pretty fast by being in the thick of combat, and unless you're using Orson for some reason, there is still plenty of exp in that chapter to divide between three units (assuming you even want to use all of them).

Basically that - it's an availability consideration. On an Eirika Mode playthrough, Ephraim is around for just 9 out of 23 chapters. He's a great unit on those chapters - better than, say, Roy on any chapter before his promotion - but his relative scarcity makes it hard for me to consider him the better unit overall. Truthfully, Eirika Mode Ephraim is the hardest unit to rate on this kind of list, as his low availability is pretty much unique (even Ephraim-mode Eirika is around for a much-more-forgivable 16 of 23 chapters, which is even ahead of Ephraim-mode Ephraim).

8 hours ago, ping said:

I might overvalue Hector following my ranked runs, i.e. runs with very light Marcus usage In those, Hector obviously carries a lot more than in a regular playthough, especially with Oswin "stealing XP" as well, but in general, I find his earlygame very convincing and that's where Hector got his brownie points for my list.

Regarding Ephraim, I think I can agree with @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate - in his own route, he does a lot; in Eirika's, he doesn't. My personal algebra averaged that below Hector, whose earlygame is excellent in both EliMode and HecMode, but I don't think I can argue that EphMode Ephraim is any worse.

Yeah that is fair. Hector also enjoys full- and near-full availability on his two modes. He's fairly reliable (assuming no growth screwage) throughout said routes. For the record, I do think Ephraim can still be a very good unit in the brief time he's around on Eirika mode.

[OriginalRaisins]

50 minutes ago, Jotari said:

By far the most troublesome thing was editing the text to replace Roy with Lyn. I now hate the words Destroy and Royal for having the same letters as Roy.

Should have gone the easy way and let your patch change "Destroy" into "Destlyn". Just like the BersLute staff :)

[Jotari]

35 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Basically that - it's an availability consideration. On an Eirika Mode playthrough, Ephraim is around for just 9 out of 23 chapters. He's a great unit on those chapters - better than, say, Roy on any chapter before his promotion - but his relative scarcity makes it hard for me to consider him the better unit overall. Truthfully, Eirika Mode Ephraim is the hardest unit to rate on this kind of list, as his low availability is pretty much unique (even Ephraim-mode Eirika is around for a much-more-forgivable 16 of 23 chapters, which is even ahead of Ephraim-mode Ephraim).

Yeah that is fair. Hector also enjoys full- and near-full availability on his two modes. He's fairly reliable (assuming no growth screwage) throughout said routes. For the record, I do think Ephraim can still be a very good unit in the brief time he's around on Eirika mode.

Sure, but it's not like his lack of presence actually hinders his performance when he is around. Is Athos a bad unit for being around for one chapter? I think most people would say no, because he's pretty damn useful in that one chapter.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Jotari

[ping]

48 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Sure, but it's not like his lack of presence actually hinders his performance when he is around. Is Athos a bad unit for being around for one chapter? I think most people would say no, because he's pretty damn useful in that one chapter.

In a "recommended units" context, I think everybody will agree that yes, one should use Athos, unless some arbitrary self-restictions are in place. In a tier list context, I think I usually see Athos somewhere in the middle; the tier lists yielded from Reddit and SF by two minutes of googling all had Athos closer to the bottom than to the top.

The comparison between a unit that helps a lot for a short while, and a unit that helps a little, but consistently is always rather subjective, of course. There's also to consider that you generally have a higher supply of very competent units in the lategame, although Athos manages to stand out no matter how good your other magic units turned out.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Sure, but it's not like his lack of presence actually hinders his performance when he is around. Is Athos a bad unit for being around for one chapter? I think most people would say no, because he's pretty damn useful in that one chapter.

I'd personally put Athos near the bottom of an FE7 tier list. Probably not "bottom-tier", because he's very good in that one chapter (which is more than, say, Rebecca can claim), but no more than one tier above. The fact that he's only there for one chapter necessarily puts a cap on how much he can contribute to your playthrough as a whole. Like, Athos isn't doing me any favors in chapter 14, where even a middling unit like Dorcas or Serra can be doing something of value.

3 hours ago, OriginalRaisins said:

Should have gone the easy way and let your patch change "Destroy" into "Destlyn". Just like the BersLute staff 🙂

I can't stand it when my BersLuteer gets BersLuted. It really destLyns my strategy.

[AnonymousSpeed]

At least Lyn wasn't named "An". Although I might have considered that an improvement, given that funny typos and text-replacement shenanigans are the only reason to read what is otherwise just the original script.

[Jotari]

On topic, my particular unit hot take has always been that Radiant Dawn Astra is far better than people give her credit for. Yeah, she does require some amount of babying, but that babying is really worth it once you give her a few levels, because she's one of the only units in the game that can effectively combo Paragon and Blossom together given her made stat gains. I literally once had an Astrid that had capped all stats by the time she was a level 14 Silver Knight. And to top it all off, she's the only unit that can use the Double Bow (aka the best weapon in the game) in conjunction with canto.