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Let's Grade Each Stat


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5 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Almost forgot about this, but HP is the one stat that I don't think has a real defined diminishing return point.

Sorry if I sound nitpicky, but you're not actually referring to diminishing returns, but rather, I think referring to diminishing marginal utility (I think that term can apply to this). Diminishing marginal utility is more about how rewarding it feels based on what is being put in, while diminishing return is the actual decrease of output. So for something like Def, 30 Def will set up the character to block up to 30 physical damage (excluding any additional modifiers). Adding 1 extra Def will still net you 1 additional block of physical damage The fact that the opposition isn't always able to force you to 'need' the maximum effectiveness of those other particular stats doesn't mean those stats can't produce those results. Diminishing marginal utility is more about how rewarding it feels based on what is being put in. So for the Def example earlier, even though 30 Def can block up to 30 physical damage, the player probably doesn't care as much since not enough enemies can actually deal that amount of damage.

Lastly, I do want to mention, I think LCK gets a bad rep. I think a large reason it appears so low in ranking usually is because the enemy usually have awful LCK. Awful as in, it is usually the enemy's worst stat. Like for example, in FE8, even if were to face a max level 20 promoted enemy unit, they would range around 4-10 LCK, unlike all the other stats (exclude HP) which tends to range between 12-25.

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Something that probably matters when ranking stats is realizing that there's a "benchmark" for most of them. For speed, this is four more than the speed of most enemies. For attack, this is however much you need to 2-shot or 1HKO with an effective weapon. For luck, it's half of enemy skill. Reaching these benchmarks is significantly more important than surpassing them, which has greatly diminishing returns by comparison.

EDIT: For clarification, I mean that most games don't have a stat where you just want a ton of it at the expense of everything else. Enemy quality does play a role in how specialized you want units to be, though. Generally speaking, higher enemy quality means more specialized units are better, since they stand a chance of actually hitting a benchmark. If enemy quality is low, generalists are better since they can hit multiple benchmarks fairly easily.

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4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Something that probably matters when ranking stats is realizing that there's a "benchmark" for most of them. For speed, this is four more than the speed of most enemies. For attack, this is however much you need to 2-shot or 1HKO with an effective weapon. For luck, it's half of enemy skill. Reaching these benchmarks is significantly more important than surpassing them, which has greatly diminishing returns by comparison.

I don't disagree, but depending on the game and the attribute, it can be more gradual than this. For example, in a Juggernaut-friendly game, what you say is 100% true for Strength - if Seth one-rounds, he doesn't need any additional points of it.

But in a game with relatively more powerful enemies the benchmark might be the combined strength of two or three units. Or one unit's strength might have breakpoints to set up a kill for

  • Allen
  • Lance
  • Lugh
  • Roy
  • Shanna

...all of which are relevant because it will make feeding XP to the unit in question easier. There are also different requirements to KO an enemy with Iron, Steel, or Silver, which affects reliability and might help to keep your limited stock of Silver weapons intact.

You can look at HP/Def in a similar fashion: different benchmarks allow a character to survive additional hits. For a simplified example, if theres a large group of enemies with 16 Atk (with weapon triangle taken into account), you need...

  • ...or [23 HP, 5 Def], or [21 HP, 6 Def], or [19 HP, 7 Def], or.... to survive two hits.
  • ...or [25 HP, 8 Def], or [22 HP, 9 Def].... to survive three hits.

And so on, you get the idea. And up to the point where the character can reliably juggernaut  all enemy groups in the game, every additional point of Def only becomes more valuable as the stat grows (when you reduce dmg per hit from 8 to 4, you can take twice as many hits. After that, you'd only need +2 Def to double that again) - the old "give your Dracoshield to a tanky unit" argument.

13 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

I´ll ask you again, but do you one better: infinite MOV Shanna, but only 5 AID. Is she still good? Or let´s turn it around. Give any of the bad units you posted any amount of MOV you want. Are they suddenly high tier units?

Let me answer with a question. If Rutger has 999 Str, but he can't wield any weapon, is he still good?

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12 hours ago, Cysx said:

A good half of your argumentation is MOV vs everything else at once, which can be its own debate, but it does little to prove that most stats are superior individually, which I believe is what your stance is?

The entirety of my argument, as per my first post: 

23 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Thus, in order for MOV to be good, all other relevant stats must already be good. MOV does not make units good, it ENHANCES.

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11 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

None of those existing is about as likely as [...] These unseen 0 stat runs, which seemed to be the whole ludicrous premise of your scenario. Plus seeing as 4 of the games (FE1,3,11,&12) with the Throne softlocks don't have Rescue/shove mechanics, and no lord having flight (until they separated seizing from Lords entirely) still leaves a lot of 1 Mov softlocks on the table.

You can take the core of my argument out of my first post in this topic, and it has little to do with 0 stat runs. Which are used as an hyperbolic, extreme example. [4 out of 16 games and the other 4 are 2 separate games and their remakes.] Ofc, 1 MOV is just as arbitrarily picked a number as 10 from all stats. And because you seem obsessed with the numbers I randomly pick, let me put this disclaimer here, that these numbers are indeed picked randomly. e.g.: if I say High to low MOV that doesn´t automatically mean 10 to 1.

11 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The answer is very clearly yes, as basically every early game flyer (barring Caede in FE11), has stats that would make them terrible without their move. While not an S to F drop, the otherwise mediocre Christmas cavaliers get carried by their extra Mov into the tiers they get. etc.

Depends on the unit, but some certainly would. I mean Ping's coy mention of Meg is a great example of one that would (well perhaps not S-tier simply due to the weird structure of RD, but of the DB she would jump into one of the top two or three...)

While maybe true for w/e early joining flier it wouldn´t hold true for any unit with good or moderate combat, as the ability of your units to successfully do combat still dictates the when and where of engagement. If all high MOV units would be reduced to the MOV of their more grounded companions, the evaluation would simply shift to their ability to fight.

11 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The fact that you think a few points of move are comparable to 10 points in every stat (or Minimum/Maximum Mov being compared to Maximum/Minimum in every other stat) says a lot about how powerful you know Mov is, despite your argument...

I like that you know what I think. Scratch that, you don´t. Also, yeah, it´s not like there are early joining units with high stats, sometimes 2x or 3x the stats of your other units that this specific randomly picked number of stats would be almost primed to be used on in this little thought experiment, since it would equalize their stats with other units. What a coincidence. Also, the fact that “I dunno let´s say” leaves open room for discussion on other stat amounts and units, but don´t let that bother you.

 

Alternatively, I have watched some - few, but some - videos across 0% growth runs as well as Mekkahs recent Lyn in FE6 series and know what you notice in these videos? In Mekkahs run there are only two high move units that actually makes use of their movement, one being the one who can do effective combat (Marcus) and the other being Shanna playing airplane, enabled by her flying and Aid stat. The rest of the army is huddled up behind Marcus rather broad back, waiting to  deal finishing blows. And in the 0%growth runs units still are huddled behing units that can actally do combat.

4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

"benchmark" for most of them. For speed, this is four more than the speed of most enemies.

Unless dodgetanking is viable. Then there cannot be enough SPD.

15 minutes ago, ping said:

Let me answer with a question. If Rutger has 999 Str, but he can't wield any weapon, is he still good?

Let me, unlike you throughout our interaction in this thread, answer your question, as my comparisons don´t completely take away a units ability to perform, but yours does.

And yes, he can still be bait (I guess, as I said before my experience wit Roys game is limited?) Also, if he can enter combat like that, couldn´t he still level up, albeit slowly? That means his other stats would still grow no? So even as a piece of bait he´d be able to become an even better piece of bait. A true pawn. Whether or not that would allow him to be good or not, I lack the ability to judge, as per my prior statement about exp with Roy FE.

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5 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

Let me, unlike you throughout our interaction in this thread, answer your question, as my comparisons don´t completely take away a units ability to perform, but yours does.

And yes, he can still be bait (I guess, as I said before my experience wit Roys game is limited?) Also, if he can enter combat like that, couldn´t he still level up, albeit slowly? That means his other stats would still grow no? So even as a piece of bait he´d be able to become an even better piece of bait. A true pawn.

It's an exaggerated of your question's assumption. "If we change the game mechanics so that a stat becomes less useful, does that make the stat less useful?" Well, yes, it does. How very surprising. I'm shocked. Shocked. In a bit of a twist, it also makes every unit with bad movement worse, because those generally rely on high-movement unit to traverse BinBla's fairly large maps. Your question comes across as an attempted "gotcha" moment, instead of just stating your point, so I wasn't (and am not) particularly interested in reacting to it.

But if you'd categorize a unit as good that can do nothing but bodyblock with increasingly bad surviviability (good luck leveling up at the rate of 1 XP per fight), and maybe occasionally help in a rescue manoeuvre - in that case, the hypothetical Shanna with infinite movement but no rescue/drop utility would be fucking busted.

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1 hour ago, ping said:

1) It's an exaggerated of your question's assumption. 2) "If we change the game mechanics so that a stat becomes less useful, does that make the stat less useful?" Well, yes, it does. How very surprising. I'm shocked. Shocked. 2.1) In a bit of a twist, it also makes every unit with bad movement worse, because those generally rely on high-movement unit to traverse BinBla's fairly large maps. 3) Your question comes across as an attempted "gotcha" moment, instead of just stating your point, so I wasn't (and am not) particularly interested in reacting to it.

2.1) But if you'd categorize a unit as good that can do nothing but bodyblock with increasingly bad surviviability (good luck leveling up at the rate of 1 XP per fight), and maybe occasionally help in a rescue manoeuvre - in that case, the hypothetical Shanna with infinite movement but no rescue/drop utility would be fucking busted.

1) Your example is, what would the correct word be... faulty, disingenuous? ....... at best since it takes away a unit’s ability to perform the single most important core mechanic of Fire Emblem. Unless a unit uses staffs, their primary purpose is to fight, which you just took away. You didn´t exaggerate my example – I´ve done that myself and in that case, we would be talking about seeing 0s in stats - you changed the premise entirely.

2) It would be "If we change a certain stat, how would that influence a unit’s evaluation and the effect of said evaluation on other units." I have not changed the games mechanics, I have changed a certain unit’s stat, that affects that mechanic. And then I asked how that would change a unit’s evaluation in your opinion, but you have yet to give a concrete answer to that either.

2.1) We can always discuss in the context of other games - something you have consistently ignored and taken advantage of, is my admittance that I don´t know much about Binding Blade (and GBA in general - I am only on my first playthrough) and am thus not in a great position to judge that game. Additionally, you are misrepresenting what I´ve said on top of not answering my question.

3) I have stated my point multiple times. It is on page 2, post 3, with an addendum on page 2 post 6 quote 3 (potential forum display differences due to hardware differences not considered).

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17 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

The entirety of my argument, as per my first post: 

You forgot about this part:

23 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Movement is among the worst stats in the franchise, possibly only surpassing SKL, LCK, CHA. 

which is far more what I take issue with,

26 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

Thus, in order for MOV to be good, all other relevant stats must already be good. MOV does not make units good, it ENHANCES.

While it probably avoided your notice, multiple people, most notably Lenticular broke down extremely thoroughly, how no single stat makes a unit function without other stats.What she listed for what a unit with only Move could do certainly sounds the most useful of the lot, but more than one stat is necessary to make a good unit. That you need more than one stat to function isn't an indictment of Move. What you claim is the entirety of your argument doesn't show that MOV is one of the worst stats in the game, as you could replace MOV with literally any stat in the series, and it would still hold true, which would be paradoxical. Every single stat in the franchise can't be amongst the worst in the franchise.

 

2 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

While maybe true for w/e early joining flier it wouldn´t hold true for any unit with good or moderate combat

Not every unit reaches a high tier for the same reason. Some get there thanks to the power of the Move stat, despite weakness in other stats, and there are not many other stats that can cause such a shift.

 

20 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

as the ability of your units to successfully do combat still dictates the when and where of engagement.

...Move is what determines the where and when of engagement, that is literally what the stat does for a unit. If you don't have enough Move you can be forced into battles that yours stats are insufficient to overcome.

 

2 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

If all high MOV units would be reduced to the MOV of their more grounded companions, the evaluation would simply shift to their ability to fight.

...And your point is? If all the units had the same strength (or defense, or speed, etc.) it wouldn't be an important stat for character evaluation either. Its only when there are differences in those stats that they become something that are worth evaluating.

In the event that you simply poorly worded this, and more meant to imply that you have to slow your high Movement units down to allow slow units to catch up, that isn't the case. Even if you need that slow unit's capabilities in combat, the higher move unit can use that extra move to manipulate where the enemy goes (and thus where the fight ends up taking place), you can get more of them in a position that is safe on enemy phase, but can still let them contribute on next player phase thanks to their move, higher move units can also more easily ganag up on difficult to kill opponents, or simply help by rescue dropping a slower unit. Alternatively your higher move units can head towards an object they can complete, while the slower units deal with those that they are required to deal with. High move increases your options, whereas lower move limits them.

 

24 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

You can take the core of my argument out of my first post in this topic, and it has little to do with 0 stat runs. Which are used as an hyperbolic, extreme example. [4 out of 16 games and the other 4 are 2 separate games and their remakes.] Ofc, 1 MOV is just as arbitrarily picked a number as 10 from all stats. And because you seem obsessed with the numbers I randomly pick, let me put this disclaimer here, that these numbers are indeed picked randomly. e.g.: if I say High to low MOV that doesn´t automatically mean 10 to 1

52 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

I like that you know what I think. Scratch that, you don´t. Also, yeah, it´s not like there are early joining units with high stats, sometimes 2x or 3x the stats of your other units that this specific randomly picked number of stats would be almost primed to be used on in this little thought experiment, since it would equalize their stats with other units. What a coincidence. Also, the fact that “I dunno let´s say” leaves open room for discussion on other stat amounts and units, but don´t let that bother you.

 

If move were as bad of a stat as you acted, you wouldn't need all these hyperbolic and extreme examples to show how it is the worst stat in the franchise, you could simply bring up examples of how it does.

 

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

 

Alternatively, I have watched some - few, but some - videos across 0% growth runs as well as Mekkahs recent Lyn in FE6 series and know what you notice in these videos? In Mekkahs run there are only two high move units that actually makes use of their movement, one being the one who can do effective combat (Marcus) and the other being Shanna playing airplane, enabled by her flying and Aid stat. The rest of the army is huddled up behind Marcus rather broad back, waiting to  deal finishing blows. And in the 0%growth runs units still are huddled behing units that can actally do combat.

And the stat that lets Marcus reach a position that can protect other units is his move stat. The stat that lets a unit that hides behind Marcus's coat tails on one turn, and still reach enemies to finish them off on the next, is their move stat. The move stat is critical to combat in that it determines where and when combat occurs. If you have too low of move you wont reach the units you want to on player phase, or control which enemies attack which of your units on enemy phase, and both are vital. When rescue is available, high move gets a lot of extra utility regardless of their combat stats, and while aid is a part of that, plenty of units without flight can contribute to rescue-dropping units as log as they have a good movement stat.

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On 10/6/2021 at 3:34 AM, Imuabicus said:

Thus, in order for MOV to be good, all other relevant stats must already be good. MOV does not make units good, it ENHANCES.

Let's just act as if what you say is completely true. The fact that MOV "ENHANCES" a good unit is what makes a lot of other people value MOV so highly.

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On 10/7/2021 at 12:02 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

...Move is what determines the where and when of engagement, that is literally what the stat does for a unit. If you don't have enough Move you can be forced into battles that yours stats are insufficient to overcome.

Not really. What happens to units you place in enemy range if they can´t survive combat? What happens if you attack an enemy if you can´t survive combat? They die. Your stats will decide if you can break up any formation and survive. Of course, there´s enemies that come after you, but how often are they so close that you cannot in any way shape or form that you can´t set up to receive them. Granted, this is going into playstyle and differs by game.

On 10/7/2021 at 12:02 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

If move were as bad of a stat as you acted, you wouldn't need all these hyperbolic and extreme examples to show how it is the worst stat in the franchise, you could simply bring up examples of how it does.

FE:A Lunatic and Lunatic+, SD H5, TH Maddening early game. In other words every situation in which your units stats don´t trivialize the enemy, or the enemy may even be superior to your army. I know, I know these situations are hard to come by.

On 10/7/2021 at 12:02 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

And the stat that lets Marcus reach a position that can protect other units is his move stat. The stat that lets a unit that hides behind Marcus's coat tails on one turn, and still reach enemies to finish them off on the next, is their move stat. The move stat is critical to combat in that it determines where and when combat occurs. If you have too low of move you wont reach the units you want to on player phase, or control which enemies attack which of your units on enemy phase, and both are vital. When rescue is available, high move gets a lot of extra utility regardless of their combat stats, and while aid is a part of that, plenty of units without flight can contribute to rescue-dropping units as log as they have a good movement stat.

Yeah, but how often is your army so split up that units can´t retreat behind Marcus. What about other units who are competent at fighting like Dieck, to remain with the 0% run. And what has the player make the desicion to put Macus in front of their other units? The fact he doubles and almost tripples some characters in relevant stats and no other early unit has such a combination of high stats. Aside from Rescue depending on another stat aside, high move rescuers get their utility seemingly from another class trait - Canto. Aid isn´t part of that, it´s what enables it to begin with.

On 10/7/2021 at 12:02 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

...And your point is? If all the units had the same strength (or defense, or speed, etc.) it wouldn't be an important stat for character evaluation either. Its only when there are differences in those stats that they become something that are worth evaluating.

My point was, that even in an equalized Mov setting units would still be, but more strongly, evaluated by their combat - seeing as many high Mov are also competent fighters, only it would change what units go into which tier as there are plenty of good non high Mov units. 

On 10/7/2021 at 12:02 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

While it probably avoided your notice, multiple people, most notably Lenticular broke down extremely thoroughly, how no single stat makes a unit function without other stats.What she listed for what a unit with only Move could do certainly sounds the most useful of the lot, but more than one stat is necessary to make a good unit. That you need more than one stat to function isn't an indictment of Move. What you claim is the entirety of your argument doesn't show that MOV is one of the worst stats in the game, as you could replace MOV with literally any stat in the series, and it would still hold true, which would be paradoxical. Every single stat in the franchise can't be amongst the worst in the franchise.

Str, Mag and Spd can function on their own - stats are also supplemented by weapons. A unit with high Str/Mag may equip an accurate weapon, a fast unit may equip a strong weapon to 1rko etc. Units like that will still be able to fulfill FEs core function - combat. Mov on the other hand? FE can be played while not picking up secondary objectives, I´m not at this moment aware of any map where a victory condition is left so unguarded you could just infinite-move up to it. Having no combat capability - or little considering a units ability to equip weapons - isn´t something I´d describe as useful. 

Now would you look at that - we´ve gone full circle and went back to hyperbolic examples to illustrate a point.

I gave an approximate idea of what stats are worse than Mov - it is only the 4th worst stat, possibly depending on the game.

 

A bad unit doesn´t become a better unit with more movement - it only becomes a unit with more chances to die.

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On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

Not really. What happens to units you place in enemy range if they can´t survive combat?

You don't leave them in range of combats they can't survive (assuming they have the move to do so), or use the movement of your other units to create a formation that allows them to survive. You have control over what your units do on the map, and higher move gives you more options.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

What happens if you attack an enemy if you can´t survive combat?

You don't have to attack an enemy you wont survive... but if you decide to do so anyway, you can use an attack range the enemy doesn't have to avoid the counter, or use the movement of units that can survive combat with the target to chip the target so you can one shot (and thus don't take the counter you can't survive), or you use your movement to attack from more favorable terrain to get a favorable advantage (whether that is enough defense to swing your survival, or just have a higher dodge rate to increase your chance of survival as high as you can). Or most obvious of all you don't attack in that situation, and instead use your movement to keep them from targeting this unit on enemy phase as well, and start getting your units into a position where you can deal with this enemy, or bait him in a way that you can ignore him.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

Your stats will decide if you can break up any formation and survive.

And one of the more critical stats to whether or not you can do that is move...

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

FE:A Lunatic and Lunatic+

High move Galeforce boss kill starts are a big part of FE:A Lunatic/Lunatic+. Nosferatu, the exp formula, and pairup all being kinda broken are also a big part of it, but FE:A lunatic/lunatic+ alone doesn't make a strong argument for move being a bad stat, seeing how useful it is.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

SD H5,

Are people regularly reclassing high move units into classes with lower move but better stats? I always remember reclassing to DracoKnight being a big thing in that game...

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

TH Maddening early game.

A big part of that early game difficulty is you are stuck with only 4 Move beginner classes for so long. The power of the stride gambit helps, but that boost doesn't last forever.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

In other words every situation in which your units stats don´t trivialize the enemy, or the enemy may even be superior to your army. I know, I know these situations are hard to come by.

Move shines a lot when you are at a stat disadvantage like that, as it lets you use the units you have to more efficiently coordinate their attacks, or attack in ways that allow for the creation of defensive formations simultaneously with your attacks. Also you might want to mention New Mystery if high enemy stats is all you are thinking about. It has a far more interesting relation to this debate, as on its higher difficulties it is one of the only games where stat caps actually matter, and there are points very late into the game where hitting key stat thresholds above the caps of higher mobility classes is a thing. How much of an impact the last 3-5 chapters are on how important a stat is for the entirety of the game is a curious question, especially when move is so very vital to the earlier ~20+ chapters in the game.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

Yeah, but how often is your army so split up that units can´t retreat behind Marcus.

Its more about your units being able to reach a place with terrain that allows your units to hide behind a single Marcus, than them being separated. Also having the move to bee able to meaningfully act after however far away they had to get to be covered by Marcus is a big part of it too.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

What about other units who are competent at fighting like Dieck, to remain with the 0% run.

On 10/7/2021 at 3:02 AM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Not every unit reaches a high tier for the same reason.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

Aside from Rescue depending on another stat aside, high move rescuers get their utility seemingly from another class trait - Canto. Aid isn´t part of that, it´s what enables it to begin with.

Even without Canto units can contribute with rescue, it just requires more planning.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

A unit with high Str/Mag may equip an accurate weapon,

Which only helps if you only engage in combats where you attack first, which in all likelihood requires both move, and help from other units that have move. That is assuming they have high enough strength to OHKO, and if the don't hit that threshold, or can't hit anyway, then low speed, defense, and hp leads to them being killed with every attempt to attack.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

a fast unit may equip a strong weapon to 1rko

Doubling only helps if you can take the enemy counter, which requires the HP and defense/resistance to do so, and that isn't even getting into the point that very few games have weapons good enough to cover for terrible strength to reach that 1 rko...SD forged effective weapons and maybe forged brave weapons are some of the few I am thinking of that could pull off such a shift.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

Units like that will still be able to fulfill FEs core function - combat.

FE is an SRPG, not simply an RPG, movement/positioning are also core functions to units in these games.

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

 FE can be played while not picking up secondary objectives, I´m not at this moment aware of any map where a victory condition is left so unguarded you could just infinite-move up to it. Having no combat capability - or little considering a units ability to equip weapons - isn´t something I´d describe as useful. 

And if you move beyond these hyperbolic examples, where units with move have other stats as well, it might help you see how Move helps with most of the main objectives too. The two most common objectives are Seize and Boss kill, both of which generally require you to move a fair distance across the map, and engage in a minimum of one combat. Having higher move lets you complete that main objective faster, and easier; sure combat is a part of completing it, but move plays a far greater role, and lets you control how much combat is required. Arrive/escape is basically the possibly combat optional version of seize (in general, Thracia's version is a little more involve, but same idea overall), where move is the biggest factor between you and your main objective. Rout and kill X number of units are the big objectives where combat takes center stage, and move takes a more ancillary role (like combat did in the other main combat types mentioned so far). Don't get me wrong, move plays a role, as it lets you control where combat occurs, and how many of your units can engage enemies, and which enemies they have the option of engaging on each given turn. Defend/survive for X turns is a bit of an odd man out objective-wise, as  combat and move are both kinda optional, with defensive, and healing ability being more closely tied to completing the objective. Although using your combat to wipe out enemies, or movement to manipulate the AI (not to mention the role it plays in combat in general), can both play a major role in completing it.

Also for my own entertainment, I will go through and list the maps where I think it might be possible to complete the main objectives with infinite move but all combats result in the blue unit dying, and red unit taking 0 damage.

Spoiler

Dark Dragon and Blade of Light:

Chapters 1 and 2: a weird quirk of this game is some of the bosses don't move onto the throne until enemy phase turn 1, so that gives you the opportunity to seize turn 1 with inf. move

Chapter 3: same idea as above, but due to how they are positioned your seizer would need flight to pull it off on this map

Chapter 19: You can recruit the boss Tiki and then seize for the win on this one.

 

Gaiden:

Chapter 2-4; 3-1 Cel ; and 4-6 Alm : All Gaiden chapter are rout (or the rare boss kill), but with healing support, the Green units on these maps might be able to pull this off, but you do have to rely on the lemmings.

 

Mystery of the Emblem Book 1:

Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 15 same strats as their Dark Dragon and Blade of Light counterparts.
 

Mystery of the Emblem Book 2:

Chapter 1: you would need to trigger some enemies to move (or sacrifice some units to body-block enemies from killing Marth), but you can trigger the Lorenez suicide event to clear the throne for seizing.

Chapter 2: You can bait the boss off the throne for this one to then seize.

Chapter 8& 10: With inf move you can recruit the boss and then seize both these chapters.

Chapter 14: With Inf. move Marth can trigger the events to reveal the throne safely and seize.

Chapter 17:  You would need either a dance, a rescue staff use, or to sacrifice a unit to protect Marth to have him recruit and then seize.

 

Genealogy of the Holy War:

All seize maps, with no way to cheese the bosses away (even the map where you talk to Aida at the end, she will not end the map before Reptor is dead).

 

Thracia 776:

Chapter 2x: You would need to bait some enemies off a bridge (I seem to remember them moving with no need to prompt them so you might just have to wait), and navigate your movement in Thracia Darkness, but after doing that you capture Lifis without combat and seize.

Chapter 4: This would be tricky to pull off with everyone alive, but thanks to some green units that can (and will if you let them) clear away the only enemies blocking the way, you should be able to escape with everyone. Recruiting Dalshin safely would require some really careful AI manipulation, and might not be possible depending on enemy move stat variance.

Chapter 4x: I think you could pull this off, but it might not be possible without sacrificing units. The tricky bit would be getting the armoured knights and mages at the start to move in a way that gives you access to the door behind them (you might have to sacrifice a unit to arrange that), saving whoever opens the door would be tricky too, as you would have to setup a creative rescue train to pull back both the door opener, the one who first rescued them, and the one who takes and drops the door opener, and you would have to do it after the green Sety clears the other side of soldiers (which might not be possible depending on AI behavior that I don't have a save lying around to check...). Once that is completed your ability to rescue-drop green Sety should solve all of your combat problems for the rest of the map.

Chapter 5: I think this one is doable, but finding a way to trigger the exit to appear without sacrificing a unit would be tricky (and might require a lot of creative uses of the rescue command)

Chapter 6: Finally Thracia gives an easy to accomplish escape map (as long as you still have a means of opening doors). Recruiting Hicks wouldn't even be that hard thanks to him having canto to rescue his recruiter with.

Chapter 7: Use Karin's flight to trigger Hannible's appearance, to get the swordsman out of the way. Recruitin Shiva shouldn't be that bad as you would have access to rescue+canto to save Safy after she recruits him.

Chapter 8: Another tricky one, but if you can use your inf movement to stall til turn 15, the boss will mount and become mobile, and can be baited off the gate for the seize.

Chapter 9: An easy escape map for inf move.

Chapter 11: I am not sure if you pull off the gaiden requirements and complete it (perhaps with enough door keys and rescue strats), but you should be able to sacrifice a unit to trigger Kempf's escape condition, and then find a way to bait the enemies into giving you a path to the throne to seize.

Chapter 11x: This one might be possible, as the boss does leave on turn 30 so you can seize, but you will need to find safe spaces in Thracia darkness for all that time. Depending on how the AI works for the soldiers blocking the corridor of death, you either need to sacrifice one unit there (possible a second to move units in the throne room as well), or a warp use, but seeing as you get a staff before this map in Thracia, its not as unreasonable as it sounds. Olwen and Fred are doomed though.

Chapter 12x: With one warp use to recruit Pahn, the map basically clears itself.

Chapter 13: With a flyer to rescueLeif (or a warp use), its trivial.

Chapter 14: Depending on how the AI works you might be able to use your flyers to bait the enemies into wasting their time until the turn limit.

Chapter 14x: A nice easy escape chapter for this though experiment

Chapter 15: Trivial 1 turn if you want to take the A route, and wait for a few enemies to move for the B route.

Chapter 16B: Normally an obnoxious map, but with inf move, a trivial escape map.

Chapter 19: A trivial escape map for this. The recruits having canto even lets you recruit them and save whoever recruited them with rescue-canto.

Chapter 21x: Trivial to complete, although you will probably have to use the rescue staff to save the prisoners (although that is not that unusual for this map anyway).

Chapter 23: Trigger the Ced even and either dance Lief after recruiting, or rescue his ass off the gate before seizing.

 

Binding Blade:

Chapter 1: Thanks to a overabundance of FE1 nostalgia the boss doesn't start on the gate, but Roy would need to be given flight along with the inf. move based on enemy starting positions to pull it off.

Chapter 13: On turn one you have the opportunity to rescue Cecile and seize.

 

Blazing Blade:

Chapter 4: You should be able to rescue Natalia with canto, recruit Dorcas, spawn block at least the troops in the right hand corner, and stall with movement until the turn limit arrives.

Chapter 13x: Assuming you can successfully navigate  the fog of war (and find safe spaces within it) you should be able to rescue Merlinus and stall.

Chapter 16x/17x: Trivial to complete with inf. move.

Chapter 17/18: Rescue the lord with a flyer and stall til the turn limit arrives, shouldn't be too hard if you are careful even with enemy fliers on the map.

Chapter 22/23: The green Pent can clear this chapter on his own (and with inf move you can safely avoid combat), but depending on the difficult it might be rather RNG reliant, even with healing support.

Chapter 25H: The bosses do move on this map, so you can complete this one, but it requires that you sacrifice a unit to each of them thanks to their AI.

Chapter 24/26: Thanks to the Wyvern's baffling AI I think you could pull this one off just using your inf move to stall.

Chapter 26/28: Being able to canto-rescue with inf move all the NPCs should make this rather easy to accomplish.

 

Sacred Stones:

Chapter 10 Eph: With flying rescue-canto, terrible terrain, and inf. Move, I think you can find a way to stall this out with the fliers you have.

Chapter 13 Eir: I am not sure if can make it without deaths, but I think you can complete this map, but it will be very difficult thanks to those ballista (not to mention Pascal's purge).

Chapter 19: With creative use of canto-rescue-dropping I think you can use the green units to bait the enemies into wasting their time in the left while you rescue Mansel and spawn block the enemies in the right hand corner, and eventually using inf. move baiting stall strats til the timer runs out. Again you need to be able to successfully navigate fog of war for this.

 

Path of Radiance:

I will assume that the units summoned with the Reinforcement skill have the same issues your units do to make it a bit easier on myself.

Chapter 10: The inf. move should make it easier to pull off the stealth path of this map.

Chapter 13: This might be possible on some difficulties, as the green units have to be able to pull their weight.The trick would be rescue-dropping the green units where you need them, having your healer (possible master sealing your mages for extra healer) with mends (for static 20 healing) to keep them going, and all of your ponies to rescue-drop units around (possibly even using flight to drop a green unit onto the enemies boat in a desperate attempt to bait them back. Don't forget to occupy the point at all times, and keeping Gatrie as a tanky green unit would probably help as well.

Chapter 17 part 2:  Trivial

Chapter 17 part 3: If Ike could give Leane to anyone else this would be an easy yes thanks to flyers and rescue, but without that power I am not entirely certain. Thankfully there is some terrain you can take advantage of, but the map is small enough that you might need to sacrifice some units to win (unless the move came with flight in which case easy win.

Chapter 17 part 4: I think the green units (TIbarn at least) is capable of finishing this boss kill objective with enough time. You might need early promote Mist to canto heal some of them. There is plenty of room to hide for the bird to finish it for you (n

Chapter 24: Trivial

Chapter 28: Tibarn should be able to clear a path to seizing for you.

 

Radiant Dawn:

Chapter 1-3: Trivial (except on easy where they changed the mission objective)

Chapter 1-5: This one looks doable with creative AI manipulation using you inf. move (except on easy where they changed the mission objective). Keeping the green units from behaving like lemmings would probably be the hardest part...

Chapter 2-P: This one might be doable, but it would be tricky, and highly reliant on how the enemy AI works this map, as you need to find 3 safe spaces for like 6-8 turns (as you can let Leanne get captured late into the map as long as they don't have time to escape off the bottom right hand corner with her), and 2 for the last few turns.

Chapter 2-3: The boss can be baited off the seize point, and you have a lot of yellow units to distract and bait enemies away, so this one can probably be done without losses.

Chapter 2-E: With yellow units you can use to clog up chokepoints, the biggest problem would be having only one healer (plus dance so two mend uses per turn), to hold them off for the turn limit.

Chapter 3-P: This one is in the realm of possibility, thanks to the southern pass letting you join the Laguz army, but you would need to get creative to ensure the mages don't take down  Skrimir.

Chapter 3-3: With Haar using flight and Canto to safely burn one of the supplies every turn, and Ike able to use his inf. move to avoid enemies, it should be an easy enough map.

Chapter 3-5: Depending on how the AI works, this might be beatable. Leaving a unit on the defend point, and the rest of the troops baiting anyone that gets close in the other direction, but it would still be tricky to pull off.

Chapter 3-7: Shouldn't be too hard to use inf. move to stall out the defend timer, especially with some bad terrain on this map. The hardest part would be managing enemy fliers, but it should be doable.

Chapter 3-10: If you managed to swol up the variable stat green units, it might be possible for them to clear this one, but it is all reliant on the lemmings...hard to say honestly.

Chapter 3-11: Triggering Tibarn early, and hoping he procs Tear to one shot the boss (that can actually one shot him in return thanks to crossbow), would probably be necessary, but this one is in the realm of possibility.

Chapter 3-13: This one feels doable, especially with the Laguz having no 2 range, so you can safely block the scalable sections (although you will be reliant on the chapters famously good archers to deal with the birds).

Chapter 3-E: Stall until the green units trigger victory.

Chapter 4-3: The BK can clear this one for you, but it will be even more tedious than this map normally is as you stalling in the desert...

 

Shadow Dragon:

Chapter 1: That old FE1 nostalgia make a turn one seize possible on this map.

Chapter 19: Easy recruit and seize.

Chapter 20: With Lorenz and Camus having switched position you can recruit and seize to win.

 

New Mystery of the Emblem:

Chapter 1, 2, 8, & 10:  Same strats that work in Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 work here too.

Chapter 14 & 17: Change in enemy placement means you need to wait/bait a few enemies out of position to pull off the same strat. Plus on Lunatic you might have to sacrifice units or use rescue staff for Chapter 14 due to units added on that difficulty.

 

Awakening:

Its all route and boss kill here, with no real creative outs

 

Fates:

Chapter 12 B : Fairly easy Corrin escape chapter.

Chapter 10 C : I am honestly not sure about this one, as it is highly, highly dependent on some minute details about how the differing AI on this chapter works.

Chapter 12 C : you would have to bait one of the swordsmen next to Ryoma, but once that is accomplished it would be a cinch.

Chapter 15 C : with Corrin/Azura in a flying class its trivial, otherwise you have to bait out one enemy for the win.

Chapter 21 C : Trivial on normal, or if you have a single unit in a flying class.

Chapter 19 R : Trivial.

 

Echoes: Shadows of Valentia:

Chapter 2-4; 3-1 Cel ; and 4-6 Alm: So faithful to Gaiden that all the statements there hold

 

Three Houses:

Another Route/Boss kill game (barring the paralogues...), so its looking at the lemmings for creative solutions. Lets just get a blanket complaint about lemming green AI, and a fair bit of luck being needed for these.

Prologue: on Casual (that way any combat doesn't result in a game over) you might be able to bait the enemy into dying to Jeralt.

Chapter 5: With enough healing support, Gilbert might be able to clear this chapter on some difficulties, but it would be very tedious.

Chapter 8: You might be able to get Jeralt to kill Solon for you, although how easy that would be I am not entirely certain.

Chapter 9: Jeralt might be able to clear this with some healing support, and baiting the beasts so they don't swarm him.

Chapter 12 CF: I single out the CF version mostly due to the aggression of the green units on this one, as they need to be willing to push towards the boss to complete the chapter, and the task needed to unlock their set of green reinforcements is much more achievable for these ones.

Chapter 15 SS,AM,VW: This would take a lot of careful finessing, and baiting, as even the green AI can be controlled on this one.

Chapter 17 AM,VW: you will probably have to sacrifice a unit to trigger the yellow units, but once they do start moving you should be able to get the red and yellow to fight each-other, but you might need to bait them around the south side to get Edelgard to fall before the yellow units break themselves.

Chapter 19 AM: Triggering Arundel immediately might be the way to go on this one, to get the green units damaging him before they are overwhelmed.

Paralogue Ashe/Catherine: Another navigating the fog to stall to victory.

Paralogue Ingrid/Dorthea: An easy arrive objective to complete.

Paralogue Lorenz: This will be difficult, and require a lot of death, as you will need to lure the enemy into concentrating to get into a rythm where you can start using inf. move stall strats.

Paralogue Hubert: This one would require some solid ability to heal for an extended period of time, and a bit of creative baiting to ensure none of the beasts can gang up on the green units...hard to say, the margins would be thin on this one.

 

I am surprisingly tempted to open up a thread on this topic, assuming anyone has interest in engaging in this extensive thought experiment.

 

 

On 10/26/2021 at 10:18 AM, Imuabicus said:

 

A bad unit doesn´t become a better unit with more movement - it only becomes a unit with more chances to die.

It really does make a bad unit better. There is a reason General Amelia is a joke compared to Paladin Amelia, and its the move that makes that terrible unit better. The jokes about Meg having the stat lines of a pegasus knight come to mind as well, as she is one of the worst units in that game, whereas the pegasus knights her stats are compared to are generally seen as rather good. Also this idea that having more movement gives you more chances to die instead of less is ludicrous, more move gives your unit more options, and the more options you have, the more likely one of those will result in their survival, and you only need one...

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34 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Prologue: on Casual (that way any combat doesn't result in a game over) you might be able to bait the enemy into dying to Jeralt.

I am practically certain that this one isn't possible, having spent a fair bit of time trying to get it to work when I did a "don't use any items" run of the game. Jeralt won't move from his starting position until some of the enemies are dead, enemies won't attack him there even if you bait them into range and he's their only target, and then he's also specifically programmed not to be able to kill Kostas but always leave him at 1hp instead.

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4 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I am practically certain that this one isn't possible, having spent a fair bit of time trying to get it to work when I did a "don't use any items" run of the game. Jeralt won't move from his starting position until some of the enemies are dead, enemies won't attack him there even if you bait them into range and he's their only target

That is an interesting quirk of the AI of that map. Its weird little quirks like this that led to a lot of uncertainty in that big list.

5 minutes ago, lenticular said:

and then he's also specifically programmed not to be able to kill Kostas but always leave him at 1hp instead.

Sigh...Such a weird, and kinda random restriction.

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13 hours ago, lenticular said:

he's also specifically programmed not to be able to kill Kostas but always leave him at 1hp instead.

 

13 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Sigh...Such a weird, and kinda random restriction.

In fact, that's extended to all green units. probably because it'd suck to lose the experience that a boss would give a unit when defeated.

With regard to bad units and movement, most of the bad units in the series that come to mind are bad for other reasons than low movement. It's pretty much always bad base stats, poor growths, bad jointime, a bad class, or coming underleveled (or even a combination of the above) that makes a unit bad. 

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If I had to grade stats I'd do it based on how easy/difficult it is to compensate for them being low and what sort of restrictions said compensating puts on your playstyle. Obviously a unit wants every stat to be high, barring niche situations like feeding kills to someone else, but since that rarely happens I'd say the "best" stats are the ones that are the hardest to make do without.

Using that metric, I would have to say: Move > Speed > Strength > Magic > Skill > Luck > HP > Defense > Resistance.

  1. Move: This isn't really a stat in the same vein as the others, but given the current track of discussion I put it in anyway. A unit with low move is incredibly restricted in what they can do in combat because they so often have trouble just getting to said combat in the first place. See Genealogy and Binding Blade with their huge maps and abundance of high-move units on both sides. When you have to move for three turns just to get in range of the enemy, infantry end up an entire turn's worth of move behind their mounted comrades. Compensating is also very difficult. Rescue-dropping doesn't work well for actual fighting and ties up another unit. Slowing down the rest of the army can cause problems with secondary objectives and still doesn't help the unit do anything other than smash straight into the enemy's frontline where more mobile units can slip around to take out different targets. Warp and Rescue are generally very limited in use and the latter still requires the staffer to get to wherever needs to be gotten to first. Awakening and Fates have Pair-Up, which does a good job of making low-move units more useful, but that still requires them to rely on a high-move unit.
  2. Speed: Incredibly useful in both player and enemy-phase combat, improving evasion and enabling doubling. The former can be compensated for in plenty of ways (supports, terrain, etc), even if Speed is the most reliable method, but the latter can only truly be replaced by Brave weapons, which aren't the most common things. You can sort of make up for not doubling by just hitting really hard, but that takes very heavy investment in Strength/Magic and good weapons.
  3. Strength/Magic: These two stats do basically the same thing, but since most enemies have higher Defense than Res I ranked Strength higher. These can be compensated for by doubling, using stronger weapons, critical hits, or effectiveness, but early in the game that isn't as much of an option. In general you always need to be able to kill the enemy, especially in situations like breaking chokepoints or formations, so a unit being strong enough to ORKO or even OHKO gives you a lot more options for using your other units.
  4. Skill: This affects a lot of things, but usually not in a big enough way for me to rate this higher. Its most important role is in boosting hit rate, but like with Speed and evasion there are a ton of ways to circumvent this (supports, weapon advantage, etc). However, since hit rate is virtually always higher than evasion anyway due to getting boosted by weapon stats, I think it's more useful to make evasion (i.e. Speed) as high as possible to minimize the enemy's hit rate since getting over 100 visible hit rate on your own units is pointless. Critical hits and skill activations are nice, but they're usually not reliable enough to count on in good strategy.
  5. Luck: Like Skill this affects a lot of things, including both hit rate and evasion, but it doesn't do as much for each as Skill or Speed does. It is usually the sole source of dodge, so that bumped it up a bit even if enemies usually have bad critical chances. Still not that important unless it's atrociously low like Arthur's.
  6. HP: The all-purpose defensive stat. Although it's not as effective as Defense or Resistance if you get hit multiple times, there are often skills and such that explicitly ignore those two stats, not to mention just circumventing them with physical or magic damage, so I think in the grand scheme of things HP is more useful. In general I don't rate these three stats very highly because high evasion can render them unnecessary, while minimizing exposure to constant enemy attacks through aggressive offense or firm defense means what damage you do take can be topped up by healers before anyone gets low enough to be at risk of actually dying.
  7. Defense/Resistance: Again, these two stats do basically the same thing, but since most enemies are physical I rate Defense higher. Most of my argument for these is in the HP section.
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On 10/6/2021 at 1:00 AM, Jotari said:

You're kind of arguing both ways there. Defense isn't important in Oswin's case because it's all he does. Yet it's not good in Jill's case because she also does other stuff well. It's kind of contradictory.

Missed this before but I want to clarify; Oswin is subpar because his defining trait (Def) is a subpar stat. (Though what really makes him helpful is his good base Str that helps others get kills early on) Jill is a good unit because her defining traits (flight and good stats) are good.

The one who only does Def isn't good. The one who does other stuff is good.

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On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

You don't leave them in range of combats they can't survive (assuming they have the move to do so), or use the movement of your other units to create a formation that allows them to survive. You have control over what your units do on the map, and higher move gives you more options.

You don't have to attack an enemy you wont survive... but if you decide to do so anyway, you can use an attack range the enemy doesn't have to avoid the counter, or use the movement of units that can survive combat with the target to chip the target so you can one shot (and thus don't take the counter you can't survive), or you use your movement to attack from more favorable terrain to get a favorable advantage (whether that is enough defense to swing your survival, or just have a higher dodge rate to increase your chance of survival as high as you can). Or most obvious of all you don't attack in that situation, and instead use your movement to keep them from targeting this unit on enemy phase as well, and start getting your units into a position where you can deal with this enemy, or bait him in a way that you can ignore him.

The takeaway is: stats are what determines what situation you can deal with. Your stats are insufficient = you move out the way. And if we take the players ability to plan ahead into account Mov becomes even less relevant – the further ahead you plan, the less you´ll have to scramble to get in position.

On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

FE is an SRPG, not simply an RPG, movement/positioning are also core functions to units in these games.

Rolls in Dark Souls. Neither your movement nor your positioning are relevant if you can´t fight (and survive).

On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:
On 10/26/2021 at 7:18 PM, Imuabicus said:

What about other units who are competent at fighting like Dieck, to remain with the 0% run.

On 10/7/2021 at 12:02 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Not every unit reaches a high tier for the same reason.

On 10/6/2021 at 10:34 AM, Imuabicus said:

Every good unit in the franchise is good, not because they move a lot, but because they deal a lot of damage, they heal a lot or othe staff utility, they can take a lot of damage or are roleplaying airplanes for other units.

On 10/6/2021 at 1:58 PM, Imuabicus said:

Imagine forgetting to add a "on top of moving a lot", to your argument. Yep, that´s me.

 

On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

And one of the more critical stats to whether or not you can do that is move...

Right after the stats that decide if you´ll be succesful in combat. 

On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

High move Galeforce boss kill starts are a big part of FE:A Lunatic/Lunatic+. Nosferatu, the exp formula, and pairup all being kinda broken are also a big part of it, but FE:A lunatic/lunatic+ alone doesn't make a strong argument for move being a bad stat, seeing how useful it is.

Are people regularly reclassing high move units into classes with lower move but better stats? I always remember reclassing to DracoKnight being a big thing in that game...

A big part of that early game difficulty is you are stuck with only 4 Move beginner classes for so long. The power of the stride gambit helps, but that boost doesn't last forever.

High move Galeforce bosskills are relevant when you have the stats to pull it off, since they require you to kill an enemy. What I was referring to was mostly the early game when, you know, just like I initially wrote, the enemies stats are equal or higher than the players.

You mean Dracoknight, that class that has access to the best weaponry in the form of Axes and Javelins, have a very nice stat spread and is also unimpeded by terrain? That Dracoknight class? Also show me how you reclass in chapter 1-3, which are almost certainly among the games hardest maps. Something, something reclassing Sedgar/Wolf into General. Also, you once again ignored the important formula “the enemies stats are equal or higher than the players.

A big part of TH early game troubles isn´t that you don´t have Mov, but that your units aren´t strong enough to deal with more than ~3-5 enemies. I have gotten up to chapter 5 in my Maddening full skip run and had to sac Raphael due to my units not being able to deal with the last group of enemies. Rengors 0% run chapter 2 gives a nice visualization of what I mean.

On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Which only helps if you only engage in combats where you attack first, which in all likelihood requires both move, and help from other units that have move. That is assuming they have high enough strength to OHKO, and if the don't hit that threshold, or can't hit anyway, then low speed, defense, and hp leads to them being killed with every attempt to attack.

On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

Doubling only helps if you can take the enemy counter, which requires the HP and defense/resistance to do so, and that isn't even getting into the point that very few games have weapons good enough to cover for terrible strength to reach that 1 rko...SD forged effective weapons and maybe forged brave weapons are some of the few I am thinking of that could pull off such a shift.

On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

And if you move beyond these hyperbolic examples, where units with move have other stats as well, it might help you see how Move helps with most of the main objectives too. The two most common objectives are Seize and Boss kill, both of which generally require you to move a fair distance across the map, and engage in a minimum of one combat. Having higher move lets you complete that main objective faster, and easier; sure combat is a part of completing it, but move plays a far greater role, and lets you control how much combat is required. Arrive/escape is basically the possibly combat optional version of seize (in general, Thracia's version is a little more involve, but same idea overall), where move is the biggest factor between you and your main objective. Rout and kill X number of units are the big objectives where combat takes center stage, and move takes a more ancillary role (like combat did in the other main combat types mentioned so far). Don't get me wrong, move plays a role, as it lets you control where combat occurs, and how many of your units can engage enemies, and which enemies they have the option of engaging on each given turn. Defend/survive for X turns is a bit of an odd man out objective-wise, as  combat and move are both kinda optional, with defensive, and healing ability being more closely tied to completing the objective. Although using your combat to wipe out enemies, or movement to manipulate the AI (not to mention the role it plays in combat in general), can both play a major role in completing it.

These were not my hyperbolic examples (anymore) and I talked about them, because you distinctly pointed to them? 

And once you move beyond the idea that FE needs to be played as fast as possible you´ll understand that [within the group of maps that don´t have a time limit] Mov is largely irrelevant to the completion of a map. 

On 10/28/2021 at 3:56 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

It really does make a bad unit better. There is a reason General Amelia is a joke compared to Paladin Amelia, and its the move that makes that terrible unit better. The jokes about Meg having the stat lines of a pegasus knight come to mind as well, as she is one of the worst units in that game, whereas the pegasus knights her stats are compared to are generally seen as rather good. Also this idea that having more movement gives you more chances to die instead of less is ludicrous, more move gives your unit more options, and the more options you have, the more likely one of those will result in their survival, and you only need one...

Ah yes, Sacred Stones. Tell me, why is Amelia regarded as a bad unit again? I haven´t completed my first run yet, so I don´t know. 

Haven´t played whichever game of 9/10 Meg is in, so you´ll have to help me out here, but it couldn´t have anything to do with being swordlocked, not flying, not having Canto, weird base stats and growths for the class she´s in? 

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22 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

 

In fact, that's extended to all green units. probably because it'd suck to lose the experience that a boss would give a unit when defeated.

With regard to bad units and movement, most of the bad units in the series that come to mind are bad for other reasons than low movement. It's pretty much always bad base stats, poor growths, bad jointime, a bad class, or coming underleveled (or even a combination of the above) that makes a unit bad. 

What qualifies as low movement in FE? Footsoldier mobility isn't that, it's the norm. Exceptions being knights and unmounted Genealogy units, and those definitely are considered limited primarily because of it.

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1 hour ago, Cysx said:

What qualifies as low movement in FE? Footsoldier mobility isn't that, it's the norm. Exceptions being knights and unmounted Genealogy units, and those definitely are considered limited primarily because of it.

You got a point. Which makes me think, is movement really THAT important when Holy War is practically the only game where it's held against a good chunk of units??

12 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Ah yes, Sacred Stones. Tell me, why is Amelia regarded as a bad unit again? I haven´t completed my first run yet, so I don´t know. 

Poor bases and underleveled.

12 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Haven´t played whichever game of 9/10 Meg is in, so you´ll have to help me out here, but it couldn´t have anything to do with being swordlocked, not flying, not having Canto, weird base stats and growths for the class she´s in? 

Meg is in Radiant Dawn. She's considered bad because she comes in underleveled, with poor bases and growths that contradict her class.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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4 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

You got a point. Which makes me think, is movement really THAT important when Holy War is practically the only game where it's held against a good chunk of units??

It's the only game where cavalry is the norm, especially in early gen 1(and of course there's the gigantic maps).

It's not like it doesn't make a difference in other entries, it's just tipped the other way. Units with good to great movement are typically at an advantage tiers wise, and infantry is average. Can't really call out, idk, Canas for low move when most units have the same value.

Edited by Cysx
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36 minutes ago, Cysx said:

It's the only game where cavalry is the norm, especially in early gen 1(and of course there's the gigantic maps).

It's not like it doesn't make a difference in other entries, it's just tipped the other. Units with good to great movement are typically at an advantage tiers wise, and infantry is average. Can't really call out, idk, Canas for low move when most units have the same value.

There's also that the GBA and Tellius games in particular allow high-move characters to "give" their mobility to footlocked units. Rutger (to take a top-tier unit with only 5/6 move) can be ferried by characters like Treck and Noah, which means that he doesn't even have to use his own full movement every turn and he'll still be able to remain at your frontline even on maps like Ch.8.

It's not brought up as frequently in BlaBla, SacSto, and PoR because there aren't really any foot units with similarly outstanding combat parameters as Rutger - largely because the Jeigans carries your butt hard for the first half of their respective games, including killing bosses - but it still makes it generally easier to use an infantry unit more effectively. Still, this is mostly mentioned when it comes to "can carry promoted Hector" utility, not as much elsewhere.

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On 10/29/2021 at 11:12 AM, Imuabicus said:

Ah yes, Sacred Stones. Tell me, why is Amelia regarded as a bad unit again? I haven´t completed my first run yet, so I don´t know. 

It's a complex of factors. She joins midgame with poor stats, including a miserable 4 move, and E Lances (no Javelin at base). Should you get her to level 10 (to her credit, she grows quickly as a trainee), her options are Knight (better Con, Strength, and physical bulk) and Cavalier (3 more move, Canto, higher Aid, Swords). Between the two, Cav is pretty much a no-brainer, granting her a new weapon type and Rescue utility. But even assuming no Swords or Canto, I'd much prefer her slightly-weaker 7-move promotion to her 4-move one. They both suck, but the former at least has more options.

14 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Meg is in Radiant Dawn. She's considered bad because she comes in underleveled, with poor bases and growths that contradict her class.

IMO the "growths that contradict her class" is a bit misguided. Like, of course Meg wants higher Strength (10 + 0.35x) and Defense (10 + 0.35x). But at the cost of her Speed (8 + 0.65x)? The worst thing you could do for her survivability is lowering her speed growth so that she can't escape doubling territory (and RD is known for its speedy enemies). Her Luck (8 + 0.75x) , I will grant, is redundant in light of her Fortune skill, and could probably be cannibalized into her Strength and/or Defense.

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Still, if the game gave you an array of stat boosting items to choose from, I bet pretty much every player seriously weighing things would choose the Boots.

Not totally fair to compare, say, +2 Mov to +2 Strength, when "8" is generally a great lategame value for the former and an atrocious one for the latter. Unless the argument is "a single point of Mov is more valuable than a single point of any other stat", to which I would say: yes, no one should be doubting that much.

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

IMO the "growths that contradict her class" is a bit misguided. Like, of course Meg wants higher Strength (10 + 0.35x) and Defense (10 + 0.35x). But at the cost of her Speed (8 + 0.65x)? The worst thing you could do for her survivability is lowering her speed growth so that she can't escape doubling territory (and RD is known for its speedy enemies). Her Luck (8 + 0.75x) , I will grant, is redundant in light of her Fortune skill, and could probably be cannibalized into her Strength and/or Defense.

The thing is, though, for someone who is in a class that's supposed to be good at taking hits, she... isn't. That's a serious strike against her, especially when Tauroneo and Gatrie do her "speedy armor knight" shtick better while still having the defense to do their original job. Her availability doesn't help her case, either.

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9 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The thing is, though, for someone who is in a class that's supposed to be good at taking hits, she... isn't. That's a serious strike against her, especially when Tauroneo and Gatrie do her "speedy armor knight" shtick better while still having the defense to do their original job. Her availability doesn't help her case, either.

One can make a lot of strikes against Meg, but I'm not sure her availability is one of them. She has one of the highest avilabilities in the game. And not only just that, but she has at least two chapters where she's not in competition for a deployment slot. Meg doesn't have a lot going for her, but one thing I think she inarguable has is the actual presence to be used if you do want to use her.

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56 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

The thing is, though, for someone who is in a class that's supposed to be good at taking hits, she... isn't. That's a serious strike against her, especially when Tauroneo and Gatrie do her "speedy armor knight" shtick better while still having the defense to do their original job. Her availability doesn't help her case, either.

The comparison to Gatrie isn't particularly instructive, as they won't be competing for a slot until Part IV at the earliest. As for Tauroneo, yeah Meg is far worse than he is, but he's also barely around (literally 3 playable maps before Part IV).

Comparing Meg to units she'll actually be competing for a slot against in more than one chapter, you should definitely field units like Jill, Nolan, Zihark, and Edward ahead of her. Probably Aran and Laura, too. Leonardo and Ilyana, I would say, are the most debatable ones.

As for stats, Meg's Speed growth is about the only especially "good" thing she has going for her. So I don't see compromising her Speed growth for slightly higher growths in Strength and Defense as being especially useful. For a unit at risk of being doubled by Tigers on Hard Mode in her joining chapter, getting her Speed up is the priority for her survivability. You want to steal from her needlessly-high Luck growth, have at it.

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