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Let's Grade Each Stat


Jotari
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On 10/30/2021 at 5:13 PM, Jotari said:

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.

What I meant with the availability comment is that availability is wonky, with this being Radiant Dawn, and she's stuck with the Dawn Brigade, who is experience-starved as things are. You gotta admit, underleveled and being stuck with a group that already struggles to get by is a really shitty position to be in...

On 10/30/2021 at 6:01 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

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).

That's a good point, but...

On 10/30/2021 at 6:01 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

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.

...I generally found it hard to justify her presence even in the timeframe where she's free deployment, as she's that bad. She's in a class meant to be taking hits, but she can't do that well.  Now, one could try to get around this by having her use wind edges... but wind edges are inaccurate, and combined with her poor skill, she'll frequently fail to hit her mark. Also, I fail to see why you think Edward is a must-deploy unit, because I cannot agree with that. Like I said in another thread, I find him to be more like an extra squishy archer, except he usually has to risk counters. Not good, especially considering that you cannot allow ANYONE to die in the early chapters. It doesn't help that he has issues dodging axe users, which his class is tailor-made to defeat.

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1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

I generally found it hard to justify her presence even in the timeframe where she's free deployment, as she's that bad. She's in a class meant to be taking hits, but she can't do that well.  Now, one could try to get around this by having her use wind edges... but wind edges are inaccurate, and combined with her poor skill, she'll frequently fail to hit her mark. Also, I fail to see why you think Edward is a must-deploy unit, because I cannot agree with that. Like I said in another thread, I find him to be more like an extra squishy archer, except he usually has to risk counters. Not good, especially considering that you cannot allow ANYONE to die in the early chapters. It doesn't help that he has issues dodging axe users, which his class is tailor-made to defeat.

Don't get me wrong, Meg is a bad unit, full stop. You'll almost always have a better time leaving her benched. That said, in cases where she's not competing for a slot, she can at least provide Shove and Rescue utility. Somewhat.

My point wasn't "Eddie is a must-deploy", although I can see how the wording might suggest that. Rather, it's that he's firmly ahead of Meg, in terms of deserving deployment in Part I. He's more mobile than her, faster, and (barring RNG screwage) harder-hitting. Like Nolan, his late Part I into Part III performance can often depend on how his first few levels go (although Nolan is firmly better in early Part I). Re: Axe users, supporting Nolan or Volug can help with this on Easy/Normal, while on hard, the lack of WTA means "his class is meant to dodge axes" no longer holds weight.

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On 10/30/2021 at 10:44 AM, ping said:

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.

This kinda arcs back to a previous argument, which is that move doesn't matter because of rescue dropping(their words not yours). But then you're essentially saying that mov doesn't matter, as long as you have... more mov, just elsewhere, which doesn't ultimately do much to lower the value of the stat itself, if you ask me. And in the case of Rutger, enough units can do it that any single one cannot really get the credit. If Treck had +2 mov yet even worse combat, he'd be among the de-facto ferry units and definitely be considered much better.

FE just doesn't play around wit this number much on a character to character basis. On a class tier list it's considerably more obvious.

On 10/30/2021 at 8:23 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Not totally fair to compare

Well... why not? We do that for everything else. I agree that it's obvious, but...

Edited by Cysx
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My two cents on why move is absolutely the best stat:

I see the argument going around that move gives you more options etc like the galeforce boss kill setups. And then the counter argument is that you need stats to do the boss killing. 

However, to do combat you need to get there, for which move can be considered the catalyst. Then for the combat, which is not always necessary, you need multiple stats working in tandem.

Meanwhile Move is also useful for ferrying, trading items, reaching side objectives etc etc, being reliant only on aid or wt for rescuing in certain games.

Aside from being a great tool for getting to combat in a favourable state, it is highly valuable for more than just that. Meanwhile hp, str, mag, SPD etc are only viable for combat whilst working in tandem.

Move does more on its own and also supports combat, which makes it far more valuable than any of the other stats.

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

Don't get me wrong, Meg is a bad unit, full stop. You'll almost always have a better time leaving her benched. That said, in cases where she's not competing for a slot, she can at least provide Shove and Rescue utility. Somewhat.

My point wasn't "Eddie is a must-deploy", although I can see how the wording might suggest that. Rather, it's that he's firmly ahead of Meg, in terms of deserving deployment in Part I. He's more mobile than her, faster, and (barring RNG screwage) harder-hitting. Like Nolan, his late Part I into Part III performance can often depend on how his first few levels go (although Nolan is firmly better in early Part I). Re: Axe users, supporting Nolan or Volug can help with this on Easy/Normal, while on hard, the lack of WTA means "his class is meant to dodge axes" no longer holds weight.

RE: Edward: I always found using him to be a very hard sell because he's the exact type of unit the Dawn Brigade doesn't need - that being a frail melee unit. He's great in the prologue, sure, but that's saying very little. He feels like a huge disappointment compared to the likes of Guy and Lyn (don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they were good. I'm saying that they could actually consistently dodge axe units). Sure, giving him an earth support may help with that, but when a unit can only support one other unit, that's a serious opportunity cost to consider...

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34 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

RE: Edward: I always found using him to be a very hard sell because he's the exact type of unit the Dawn Brigade doesn't need - that being a frail melee unit. He's great in the prologue, sure, but that's saying very little. He feels like a huge disappointment compared to the likes of Guy and Lyn (don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they were good. I'm saying that they could actually consistently dodge axe units). Sure, giving him an earth support may help with that, but when a unit can only support one other unit, that's a serious opportunity cost to consider...

The "only supports one other unit at a time" is endemic to Radiant Dawn, so it's not a particular strike against Edward. The Edward/Nolan support is one of the earliest available to the player to build, too. And unlike the aforementioned Guy and Lyn, he's in a game where swordlocked units have readily buyable ranged options. Finally, while his Defense (5 + 0.35x) and Res (0 + 0.2x) are lacking, his HP (19 + 0.85x) can really get rolling, letting a trained Edward take a hit or two.

I don't think he's a "must-train" unit, a la Jill or Nolan. But I do think that, barring bad level-ups in the earlygame, he can become a good contributor in late Part I and DB Part III (when melee units who don't get doubled by Cats or Hawks are in high-demand).

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1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The "only supports one other unit at a time" is endemic to Radiant Dawn, so it's not a particular strike against Edward. The Edward/Nolan support is one of the earliest available to the player to build, too. And unlike the aforementioned Guy and Lyn, he's in a game where swordlocked units have readily buyable ranged options. Finally, while his Defense (5 + 0.35x) and Res (0 + 0.2x) are lacking, his HP (19 + 0.85x) can really get rolling, letting a trained Edward take a hit or two.

I don't think he's a "must-train" unit, a la Jill or Nolan. But I do think that, barring bad level-ups in the earlygame, he can become a good contributor in late Part I and DB Part III (when melee units who don't get doubled by Cats or Hawks are in high-demand).

I think Edward is a massive resource sink that doesn't have the payoff to justify the investment, largely because Zihark can struggle in part 3, and he's much better. What does that tell you about Edward's chances there? I'd say they aren't good. And honestly, I don't see doubling up on units with the same weaknesses to do me any good in the part 3 DB chapters. You're right that the point about supports applies to everyone in RD, but even then, I'd find it hard to justify Edward/Nolan when that means that Nolan can't support a better unit. Also, unlike Guy and Lyn, Edward is in a game where enemies do NOT suck.

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

I think Edward is a massive resource sink that doesn't have the payoff to justify the investment, largely because Zihark can struggle in part 3, and he's much better. What does that tell you about Edward's chances there? I'd say they aren't good. And honestly, I don't see doubling up on units with the same weaknesses to do me any good in the part 3 DB chapters. You're right that the point about supports applies to everyone in RD, but even then, I'd find it hard to justify Edward/Nolan when that means that Nolan can't support a better unit. Also, unlike Guy and Lyn, Edward is in a game where enemies do NOT suck.

The question of "Is Edward worth it?" is one that could honestly justify its own thread on the Tellius subforum. And since we've strayed significantly from the purpose of this thread, I'm going to drop it for the time being.

15 hours ago, Cysx said:

Well... why not? We do that for everything else. I agree that it's obvious, but...

Looking back, I agree with @Jotari's general point, about the value of Movement (and thereby the Boots). But is this discussion one of a "point-by-point" comparison, or more one of expected values? Like, in 3H, I may be able to realistically boost a unit's effective Defense by around 20 points (put in Fortress Knight, give a Shield and a defensive battalion). Whereas, I could only get their move up about 6 points (Wyvern Lord, Galewind Shoes, March Ring), the Stride gambit notwithstanding. Should I be comparing a point of Defense to a point of Move? Or 20 points of Defense to 6 points of Move, if it takes roughly equal effort to get the respective boosts?

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1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The question of "Is Edward worth it?" is one that could honestly justify its own thread on the Tellius subforum. And since we've strayed significantly from the purpose of this thread, I'm going to drop it for the time being.

Fair enough.

Getting back to the topic, I find it hard to accurately make a judgment on the stats when most of them interact with other stats. And the same goes for movement - sure, more is better, but the waters get muddied when considering that a good chunk of games allow for increasing the move of other units (e.g. Fates and Awakening having pair up).

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

The question of "Is Edward worth it?" is one that could honestly justify its own thread on the Tellius subforum. And since we've strayed significantly from the purpose of this thread, I'm going to drop it for the time being.

Looking back, I agree with @Jotari's general point, about the value of Movement (and thereby the Boots). But is this discussion one of a "point-by-point" comparison, or more one of expected values? Like, in 3H, I may be able to realistically boost a unit's effective Defense by around 20 points (put in Fortress Knight, give a Shield and a defensive battalion). Whereas, I could only get their move up about 6 points (Wyvern Lord, Galewind Shoes, March Ring), the Stride gambit notwithstanding. Should I be comparing a point of Defense to a point of Move? Or 20 points of Defense to 6 points of Move, if it takes roughly equal effort to get the respective boosts?

Fire Emblem could have movement be the same as endgame stats by making much bigger maps and scaling upwards. I'm sure other strategy gamesnusing bigger numbers for such things. And, indeed in such a set up where units regularly have 20 or 30 movement, an increase of 2 would be next to useless. Likewise we could make maps smaller, like in Heroes. There an increase in movement makes even more difference than standard Fire Emblem as seen woth armoured units which are some of the best units in the game if they have a skill to increase movement  1 (on the other hand getting a cavalry to 4 movement seems like overkill in Heroes precisely because the maps are so small...not sure what my overall point is there, but I guess I'll ask this; if Boots provided 1 movement and a Dracoshield provided 6 defense, which one would you rather have in a Fire Emblem game? To an extent we do this already with Seraph Robes typically providing a lot more HP than the other stats boosters.

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Fire Emblem could have movement be the same as endgame stats by making much bigger maps and scaling upwards. I'm sure other strategy gamesnusing bigger numbers for such things. And, indeed in such a set up where units regularly have 20 or 30 movement, an increase of 2 would be next to useless.

It's an interesting concept. In theory, Thracia 776 is the closest we've come to this (I haven't beaten it). Then again, Movement growths are low enough to be something you can't count on happening more than once or twice. And my understanding is, most people warpskip as many lategame maps as possible, limiting the utility of high movement. 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

if Boots provided 1 movement and a Dracoshield provided 6 defense, which one would you rather have in a Fire Emblem game? To an extent we do this already with Seraph Robes typically providing a lot more HP than the other stats boosters.

It'd be an interesting trade-off, that's for sure. Which one's better would probably vary with how I want to use the unit. An extra point of move would be preferable on utility units, like Dancers or mounted Rescuebots. For combat units, though, I'd probably rather have the Defense. With a couple exceptions - units whose Defense starts so low that even with 6 more they're still 2HKO'd, or those whose Defense starts so high that they're already taking single-digit damage from most foes.

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

Looking back, I agree with @Jotari's general point, about the value of Movement (and thereby the Boots). But is this discussion one of a "point-by-point" comparison, or more one of expected values? Like, in 3H, I may be able to realistically boost a unit's effective Defense by around 20 points (put in Fortress Knight, give a Shield and a defensive battalion). Whereas, I could only get their move up about 6 points (Wyvern Lord, Galewind Shoes, March Ring), the Stride gambit notwithstanding. Should I be comparing a point of Defense to a point of Move? Or 20 points of Defense to 6 points of Move, if it takes roughly equal effort to get the respective boosts?

While there's no denying that the rarity of movement boosts is partially responsible for their high value, I'd argue that making them comparably as accessible(not to the extent you brought up because class changing to Fortress knight doesn't exactly come without compromise) would still keep Mov firmly above Def; regardless, it's difficult to rely on expected values when comparing a stat that grows throughout the game to one that doesn't. Point to point has the advantage of being straightforward and the standard for everything else, even if it's not fully representative in that case.
You also have to consider that many combat stats grow linearly with enemy strength(when the enemies don't suck, at least). There are baselines so to speak, or in other words your unit doesn't only have 40 speed to the enemy's 36, but also the enemy's +4, and while going from 40 to 42 doesn't sound too special, +4 to +6 is a bigger deal.
Logically, this second idea works for mov as well since there's a comparably stable relationship between it and map size/objectives distancing, which doesn't vary too much throughout any given game.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

on the other hand getting a cavalry to 4 movement seems like overkill in Heroes precisely because the maps are so small...

I haven't touched Heroes for years but, wouldn't the first unit with 4 move, or rather, 6 range and actually good combat completely break the meta, the same way Reinhardt and Brave Lyn did?

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9 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I haven't touched Heroes for years but, wouldn't the first unit with 4 move, or rather, 6 range and actually good combat completely break the meta, the same way Reinhardt and Brave Lyn did?

Ranged cavalry units can't get movement boosts, only melee. So it's more of a buff to cavalry melee units to give them the same coverage as ranged cavalry units. Though the only way (that springs to mind right now, I'm pretty sure there's another method, I just can't think of it, oh wait, it's Legendary Sigurd, but I don't have him) to increase cavalry movement is by rallying with Annete, which means deploying and using her, which also means using her turn. So bit of an investment. If there was a skill that outright gave a movement increases to cavalry units (that wasn't exclusive to legendary Sigurd) then yeah it'd probably be pretty good. But for now, given the small maps and terrain, four range seems like something that's lacking the investment. I'd rather have two range to attack from across obstacles. Though now we also have canto which likely increases the viability of four ranged cavalry a lot more, I just haven't experimented with that.

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5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Ranged cavalry units can't get movement boosts, only melee. So it's more of a buff to cavalry melee units to give them the same coverage as ranged cavalry units. Though the only way (that springs to mind right now, I'm pretty sure there's another method, I just can't think of it, oh wait, it's Legendary Sigurd, but I don't have him) to increase cavalry movement is by rallying with Annete, which means deploying and using her, which also means using her turn. So bit of an investment. If there was a skill that outright gave a movement increases to cavalry units (that wasn't exclusive to legendary Sigurd) then yeah it'd probably be pretty good. But for now, given the small maps and terrain, four range seems like something that's lacking the investment. I'd rather have two range to attack from across obstacles. Though now we also have canto which likely increases the viability of four ranged cavalry a lot more, I just haven't experimented with that.

I was rather thinking of a theoretical new unit with 4 mov and 2 range out of the box(or 3 mov and 3 range, works too, better even probably) that could outrange everyone and still kill things. I feel like you'd need everyone to be capable of hitting from across the map on turn 1 for more mov(or rather range) to start becoming superfluous in that game. But literally, what do I know.

Edited by Cysx
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Actually, there’s also a unit that units can pass through without the tile counting as a movement cost. So there have been defense maps with 6 move 2 range cavalry units. 

I don’t play FEH anymore but I have seen it.

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On 11/1/2021 at 11:11 AM, Cysx said:

This kinda arcs back to a previous argument, which is that move doesn't matter because of rescue dropping(their words not yours). But then you're essentially saying that mov doesn't matter, as long as you have... more mov, just elsewhere, which doesn't ultimately do much to lower the value of the stat itself, if you ask me. And in the case of Rutger, enough units can do it that any single one cannot really get the credit. If Treck had +2 mov yet even worse combat, he'd be among the de-facto ferry units and definitely be considered much better.

That was the angle I was going for: Low movement can be made up for, by other units with high movement. Or, sometimes, the Warp staff, although that one is usually a resource that is limited and/or available late. I am in the "Movement is the best stat" camp. :lol:

I just wanted to point out the GBA games are among the better games to be a foot unit in in general, since you were talking about Canas, not trying to argue against you.

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