Mekkah (Janaff) vs Red Fox of Fire (Volug)

Vykan12 · March 7, 2009

Another lagooz match-up. Good luck to both of you.

Mekkah · March 8, 2009

Round of the furries, here we go!

Now, we have the Hawkeye-chested wolf in part 1 plus 3-6/3-12-3-13, and the toddler hawk who tells Tibarn to shut up for part 3, and they both rule. We can get into statistical detail about it for many a paragraph if you wish, though I would say it's an excercise in futility to argue which is relatively better compared to his team. You will likely bring up that Volug has 3 more Dawn Brigade maps than Janaff has Greil Merc maps. However, Janaff also has flying and canto to expose himself to more enemies (meaning he is more productive), and his gauge fills up quicker than his in part 3 for what it's worth.

Then we get to part 4. Stat time, obviously assuming no Wildheart. I'll put Volug at 24 and Janaff at 32. 9 levels for Volug seems unrealistic while 3 levels for Janaff seems like he's hardly got any training at all, so if Janaff wins in this case, then Volug really has no claim in a less generous scenario. I will give both S Strike. Volug's had more maps to build his Strike level, but besides Janaff's mobility advantage, he also doubles much much more consistently.

24 Volug

57.6 hp, 26.6 str, 30.4 skl, 33 spd, 21.1 luk, 20.6 def, 11.8 res

S Strike: 40.6 atk, 151.9 hit, 33 AS, 15.2 crt -- 87.1 avo, 57.6 hp, 20.6 def, 11.8 res, 21.1 cev

32 Janaff

58.7 hp, 34.4 str, 40.8 skl, 35.6 spd, 31.5 luk, 26.2 def, 16.6 res

S Strike: 48.4 atk, 233.1 hit, 35.6 AS, 20.4 crt -- 102.7 avo, 58.7 hp, 26.2 def, 16.6 res, 31.5 cev

As we can see, Janaff wins every single possible parameter. To go through them:

Janaff's ~8 more atk means 16 more damage everytime they double.

80 more hit is a lot, though both have reliable hit to say at least. Still, foolproof > not 100% foolproof, what with Biorhythm and all.

2.6 more AS means Janaff does quite huge chunks more damage against things with 30-31 speed. Apparently NM Swordmasters have around 28 AS in 4-3, 29 in 4-4, so it is likely that Janaff doubles those while Volug does not in HM. Or, if Volug is given a less generous level, he may also have more troubles with others. Or one of them could be speed screwed, and Janaff has more breathing room.

The damage gap is even more with skills. More on that later.

Now we get to Janaff's 13.6 more avo, and you will probably bring up Volug's support affinity advantage. Earth gives 5 more avo per support level, so at best this allows Volug to have an 1.4 avo advantage at A-level, which is very lolworthy. This can very well be countered by the fact that supports cannot always be in range, though they will be for Janaff moreso than Volug since he is quite a bit more flexible. And Janaff has a million avo either way.

Then, of course, we must remember that from supports, Janaff also gains some def/res from his affinity, which stack on the ~5 leads he has in each of those. And we end with a 5-6 cev advantage. Given how many Swordmasters, Snipers and Halberdiers this game throws at you who only need around 26 skl to have some crt% on Volug, and how these are among the enemies who do have existent hit rates on him, I'd say this, too, matters.

This isn't everything. We also have skills to throw around to increase some unit's damage output, and when giving one to both of these, Janaff raeps even more. First is the fact that Janaff is already compatible with Tear while Volug is not with Savage until 6 levels later, so that's a 35% chance for Janaff to peck something into oblivion. Per hit, so we're talking about 57.75% chance of activating either. Then we have three Adepts laying around (Zihark, Soren, 3-9 bargain), and giving Janaff one of those gives him another 35% chance of (usually) killing the enemy per hit, not to mention I believe you can activate Tear on an Adept hit. Volug with Adept has 33% per hit, which isn't much lower, but he also doubles less and has no mastery to stack it on.

Assuming one Adept or Tear is needed to kill an enemy:

42.25% chance of not activating either on one hit

17.85% chance of not activating either on both attacks

82.15% chance of activating at least one on a double

While Volug with just Adept, for example, has a 55% chance of not activating Adept when doubling. And then he also has that 8 atk loss that might stop him from killing with the same amount of activation as Janaff. And as they face more enemies, the gap between Janaff's ORKOing and Volug's ORKOing increases.

Janaff's sheer hax doesn't end here either. Part 4 is full of terrain which Volug gets penalized by while Janaff does not.

4-P has a river with only two bridges. Janaff can reach any place he wants within 2-3 turns, whereas Volug is hindered not only by the water, but also by thickets, and he will also have several of his paths blocked by enemies, whereas Janaff usually has a lot of alternate paths to fly around to the same space.

4-2 is a thicket fest, with more than half the map covered in them. Besides allowing Janaff to reach enemies earlier, it also allows him to retreat after attacking if needed to a place an enemy couldn't even reach him, making it both a significant offensive as defensive advantage.

4-3 is the desert. Janaff's mobility lead here consists mostly of Canto, admittedly, though it should be noted that untransformed Volug also gets a huge move penalty here while untransformed Janaff doesn't.

4-4 has all the annoying ledges that slow Volug down by some and Janaff by nothing.

4-5 is lolswamped. No place except the starting island allows Volug to move his full movement, whereas Janaff can fly anywhere.

To sum up part 4 pre-endgame, Janaff wins offense, defense and mobility, and those all flow over into each other (you can use your offense more if you're more durable and mobile, you can retreat to increase your durability if you're more mobile, if you kill more enemies those enemies no longer pose a threat to your team, making them more durable, etc).

In 4-E, the huge terrain advantages are gone, though Janaff's Canto remains, which means he has an easier time staying in support range, as well as getting Vigors or Dragon boosts to his offense/defense.

For Volug to catch up, he needs a huge growth advantage or something.

Janaff: 55/40/15/45/25/50/35/10

Volug: 95/25/15/35/40/90/15/10

Janaff has 15% str, 10% skl, 20% def.

Volug has 40% hp, 15% spd, 40% luk.

Volug's hugest wins are in hp and luk, but those also do not get doubled when transforming, making them both 20% wins in comparison. Or double all the others, and you get roughly the same result.

Volug will admittedly catch up in Janaff when it comes to hp, since they're only 1 hp apart after all, but the little time left in the game won't allow this for much of a lead. Maybe it'll ammount to 2-3 extra hp at the end.

For Spd, the problem with Volug is that he caps at 18 (36) AS, which Janaff happens to average if he just levels up once more after the above comparison, and from there it only gets better for Janaff.

In Luk, Volug's hugest growth advantage is here, but it's only one point for every 5 levels, and Janaff is ahead by more than 10 points.

Janaff's extra skl isn't extremely useful, I'll admit. His 15% more Str growth combined with his more consistent doubling (meaning a shorter way to SS Strike) is significant however, and so is the moar def.

Then for 4-E, Auras have 35 AS. Even capped Spd Volug (36) would need Nasir's help to double these, whereas Janaff has around 25% chance of doubling them without help, not taking into account BEXP or Speedwings. Not much, but it's there. And he's more likely to have access to Nasir to begin with, since he can Canto. Or rather, he can take a spot next to Nasir, attack, then Canto out so someone else can use that. Same goes for Gareth/Ena.

So Janaff rapes Volug in part 4 really badly.

EDIT: forgot Vigilance

Edited March 8, 2009 by Mekkah

Florete · March 12, 2009

First, important things. We have Volug, a Wolf with no shirt, rock hard abs, and determination. Hot in every form of the word.

Then we have Janaff, a Hawk with a weird grin on his face whom many confuse for a girl.

Volug is the clear winner. /debate

Now, we have the Hawkeye-chested wolf in part 1 plus 3-6/3-12-3-13, and the toddler hawk who tells Tibarn to shut up for part 3, and they both rule.

It's actually part 4 where Janaff tells Tibarn to shut up. And yes, they do both rule.

We can get into statistical detail about it for many a paragraph if you wish, though I would say it's an excercise in futility to argue which is relatively better compared to his team.

Exercise in futility? Pheh, no way. We're not just gonna skip over parts 1 and 3 simply because both are awesome. We need to see exactly how awesome the two are on their team. Part 1 with Volug comes first, so I'll start there.

Volug. lv 15

HP: 49

Atk: 25

AS: 19

Avo: 51

Def: 13

Res: 7

He one-rounds every enemy on the map and is at worst 4-rounded by physical enemies, (but as much as 10-rounded by some weaker enemies) 3-rounded by magic enemies, but there are only a few magic enemies, so that really isn't a problem for him. It can also be noted that the stronger physical enemies have ~53 hit on him, so the chance of him actually dying in 4 hits is pretty low.

Let's compare him to the otherwise best unit on the team, Sothe.

Sothe. lv 3, A Micaiah, w/Kard

HP: 35.6

Atk: 25

AS: 21

Avo: 73

Def: 14.4

Res: 9.6

They have the same Atk and they both double everything, so their offense is equal. Volug's got that nice 13-14 HP lead though, which is easily > 1-2 defense, so his durability wins. Sothe is 3-rounded by the 26 Atk enemies that 4-round Volug, 4-rounded by the 24 Atk enemies that 5-round Volug, and everything else is negligible in comparison. He also has +2 move, so he's pretty much the best unit on the team immediately.

The only other possibly notable people on the team are Nolan and Aran. A level 12 Nolan is 2-rounded by those 26 atk guys (4 round Volug), 3-rounded by those 24 atk guys (5 round Volug), and 4 rounded by 19 atk Myrms (9 round Volug), possibly 2 rounded is his Speed is a point lower (average of 11.8, Myrms have 15 Speed).

Level 9 Aran is 2 rounded by those 26 atk guys, 3 rounded by the 24 atk guys, 2 rounded by the myrms who will double him, and even 2 rounded by the mages that are 3 rounding Volug.

Volug's awesome, Sothe is good, almost everyone else is a liability.

Yes, better units come in, but he's still better than most. I don't really want to post the stats of everyone on the team, but I think it's fairly obvious he beats Jill (24 HP/13 Def), Zihark (30 HP/13 def), and Tormod (34 HP/12 Def) in durability at least, and since his offense doesn't falter until he stops doubling (Few enemies in 1-7 and 1-8) he almost always wins offense as well.

You'll probably mention Tauroneo, Muarim, Nailah, and the Black Knight. Tauroneo is only available for two maps, one of which is terrain heavy (Volug can go through it fine, Tauro can't). Muarim has transformation to worry about, Nailah admittedly beats him for the two maps she's around and so does the BK for his one whole map. Not too much to worry about.

Don't let me forget supports. Volug is sporting Earth affinity, the best in the game. This means everyone on our team wants Volug's support, so finding an option for support is no problem what-so-ever. He can support Nolan/Zihark for extra h4x avoid, Jill/Aran for awesome avoid + some defense, or Micaiah would even break her lame Sothe support for one much better, awesome avoid + some offense (All Micaiah loses is 8 hit, which is laughable for her). I won't be assuming any one, but rather I will take them all into account whenever one makes a difference.

Volug is possibly your best overall unit in part 1, the hardest part of the game.

Part 3 rolls around. Looking at 3-6, Volug has probably acquired S Strike by now. This is slightly less than 6 rounds, doubling, per chapter. He doesn't double everything, but a lot of that can be made up in 1-6-1 and 1-6-2 where he has a lot of Armors/Cavs he can tank for quicker strike experience, as well as general tanking ability throughout the part, so S Strike is easily acquirable.

It's not too likely for him to have gained a level, but he can have ~60-70 experience for whatever it's worth. His stats, however, are now totally awesome, as well as having a full support with Earth (Nolan/Zihark), Dark(Micaiah), or Thunder(Jill/Aran).

Volug. lv 15, S Strike, A Earth/Dark/Thunder.

HP: 49

Atk: 36, 38 w/Dark

AS: 26

Avo: 65 alone, 95 w/Thunder/Dark, 110 w/Earth

Def: 18, 20/Thunder

Res: Doesn't matter until part 4 anyway.

The weakest enemies, some low level Cats, 13-round a non-Thunder supported Volug (25 w/Thunder). Some low level Tigers 4 round him no Thunder, 5 w/Thunder. The strongest, 39/41 MT Tigers, 3 round him. And as long as Volug has a full support with a Dark/Thunder partner, he'll see hit chances of ~47 displayed, 32 with an Earth support (~21 true). This sounds nice, but how is everyone else?

Last time I looked at Sothe, so I'll check him out again. I'll assume he's kept his support with Micaiah for the sake of this argument.

Sothe. lv 6, Beastkiller, A Micaiah

HP: 36.5

Atk: 50 (for this map's laguz)

AS: 22

Avo: 77

Def: 15

Res: Doesn't matter until part 4 anyway.

Volug creams him all across the board except in damage output. What 13 rounds Volug 6 rounds Sothe. What 4 rounds Volug 3 rounds Sothe (leaving him with minimal HP as well, so anything else can kill him immediately), and what 3 rounds Volug 2 rounds Sothe. All the while Sothe sees ~65% displayed hit. So Volug murders him defensively.

Let's check out Zihark now. A level 5 Zihark is 4 rounded by what 13 rounds Volug, 2 rounded by what 4 rounds Volug, and near OHKO'd by what 3 rounds Volug. With a full Earth support, he sees ~37% displayed hit, so Volug is beating Zihark defensively even more than Sothe.

How about Nolan? A level 20/2 Nolan is 5 rounded by what 13 rounds Volug, 3 rounded by what 4 rounds Volug (left with minimal HP, however), and 2 rounded by what 3 rounds Volug, all the while facing ~57% displayed with a full earth support. It can also be noted that the 22 AS cats may very well be able to double him and thus 2 round him while those same Cats 5 round Volug. Another substantial defensive lead.

Lastly, Aran, the only other one who may stand a chance defensively. A 20/1 Aran is 3 rounded by 27 Atk cats that 6 round Volug since they double Aran, 2 rounded by 31 Atk Cats that 4 round Volug, 3 rounded by Tigers that 4 round Volug, and 2 rounded by 39/41 atk Tigers that 3 round Volug. It can also be noted that since his Speed is so slow, if he's just slightly screwed in it, those 41 atk Tigers can double and ORKO Aran. Oh, and his avoid is so horrid it isn't even worth mentioning. Another defensive lead for Volug.

(Coming back after I've gone through a lot past this) I just realized I forgot Jill. Well, she's not much different than the others. What 13 rounds Volug 6 rounds Jill, what 4 rounds him 2 rounds her, etc.

Offensively now. Well, Volug doubles everything, which is more than anyone else can say (even Zihark can't double the 22 AS Cats). Anyway, he ORKO's any Cats except the 43HP/16 Def ones that he can OR with a Dark (Micaiah) support. He two rounds all the Tigers on the map without exception. The only competition he's really got is Sothe with the Beastkiller, but Sothe can only do that on the Player Phase since he risks his life with it equipped on the enemy phase, and anyone who has Beastfoe (Nolan/Leo especially), but Volug can equip Beastfoe himself anyway.

So Volug wins defensively and offensively. Combine that with high move and more skill capacity than anyone and he's easily the best character in this chapter. This stays the same in 3-12 and 3-13, where he's only gotten better.

And finally, Janaff. Janaff joins in 3-7 at the back of the map after a few turns, so he has to catch up to the party. Not exactly an issue since he flies. This post is already long enough (I've got about 4 pages in MW) so I don't want to list everyone's stats. He is offensively and defensively capable, that's for sure, but it should be noted that anyone with a Crossbow can ORKO him with 56% displayed hit (61.72% true) and Elwind Sages can 3 round him with 36% displayed hit (26.28% true). Characters like Haar and Ike hardly even take damage from Crossbows. His raw defensive stats (57 HP/24 Def) are better than most on the team for sure, but someone like Ike is still being 4 rounded by the strongest of enemies, and that's only if they hit him; he has the Earth affinity, so his avoid is likely through the roof.

Janaff has an offensive advantage in that he doubles everything (only Ulki, Ranulf, Mia can match this), but this mainly only refers to SM's who are 2 rounded by almost anyone else anyway. Other enemies are easily 1-3 rounded by the rest of the team.

Next, competition. Both are laguz, so both need to transform. Well, Volug is the only Laguz on his team, so he gets all the Olivi Grass (4 of them) to himself to use. Janaff has to share with Ulki, Ranulf, Mordecai, and Reyson, possibly even Kyza. Since we've only gotten ~4 at this point in Ike's group, this doesn't make things easy for him when transformation comes.

Deployment slots. Volug never takes up a slot. Ever. Not until 4-E anyway. He's forced throughout part 1, in part 3 his whole team can be deployed, and part 4's team split makes it easy to deploy who you want. Janaff doesn't have it so easy. He's got a free pass for 3-7, but 3-8 poses issues. Only 10 units can be chosen after Ike and Ranulf. The ones we can assume are possibly being played include Haar, Brom, Nephenee, Heather, Mordecai, Titania, Soren, Mist, Rolf, Boyd, Oscar, Shinon, Gatrie, Rhys, Mia, Reyson, and Ulki. And of course, Janaff. That's 18 units for 10 slots, and more people join later. Janaff could be the best unit to pick for this, but that doesn't change the fact that deploying him means another potential unit isn't being deployed, and there are some damn good units on that list. So the competition advantage goes to Volug.

This whole huge thing just goes to show that Volug is more valuable in his pre part 4 chapters than Janaff is in his. Being the obvious best unit among nubs > being one of the best surrounded by awesome anyway.

I'll put Volug at 24 and Janaff at 32. 9 levels for Volug seems unrealistic while 3 levels for Janaff seems like he's hardly got any training at all, so if Janaff wins in this case, then Volug really has no claim in a less generous scenario.

I respectfully disagree. I'd call that a fair comparison, though putting them both a bit high. If anything, it's more in favor of Janaff. How is this, you ask? Well, Janaff was getting a grand total of one experience point per battle for 5 maps, even for kills, so he'd have to enter 300 battles (60 per map) to get 3 levels, or be fed a lot of BEXP. I don't know about you, but that sounds damn well unrealistic to me, seeing as even in NM with decent use I only got him to 31 by the start of part 4, and that was with a good deal of BEXP. But w/e, PEMN and all.

Volug, on the other hand, was getting quite a lot of experience in his chapter. 14 levels lower, lots of enemy exposure as a result of being the most defensive member of his team, and Laguz give a lot of experience. It's even possible for him to do some safe untransformed fighting w/Earth support and Resolve, giving him ~96 avoid at base level, going up pretty much every level (170% untransformed avoid growth), and getting mountains of experience. Yes, this requires a healer and it means no one else got Resolve, but we have Laura and Micaiah and this is really just putting him at the same level as everyone else defensively, the price of shooting his level up. Since we pretty much have to play defense against the laguz anyway, this isn't hurting team efficiency very much either, which is something we can't say about Janaff's case.

In the end, your comparison favored Janaff more than Volug.

I will give both S Strike. Volug's had more maps to build his Strike level, but besides Janaff's mobility advantage, he also doubles much much more consistently.

There were only 3 maps where Volug didn't double every enemy, but he still doubled quite often. I already explained Volug having S Strike in 3-6, so by this time he's probably about 1/3 of the way to SS, maybe more. Meanwhile, Janaff has had 5 maps to enter 35 battles doubling, 7 battles per map. That's not too far out there, but he's still been needing to watch his gauge quite a lot and has had a lot of competition for enemy kills, so it's actually possible he hasn't made it that far. It should also be noted that he will only double if his first hit doesn't kill; if someone already weakened the enemy, he only gets one hit.

As we can see, Janaff wins every single possible parameter.

But why did you leave out supports entirely? Janaff may be winning offensively, but Volug can have as much as 30 avoid on Janaff with a full Earth support while Janaff might not even have built a full support by now unless it's with Ulki.

Apparently NM Swordmasters have around 28 AS in 4-3, 29 in 4-4, so it is likely that Janaff doubles those while Volug does not in HM.

You're assuming Volug didn't even gain a level in 4-P/1/2. He only needs to be ~24-25 to double these guys anyway, which is easily obtainable with a fair spread of kills and BEXP.

Earth gives 5 more avo per support level, so at best this allows Volug to have an 1.4 avo advantage at A-level, which is very lolworthy.

Eh? Volug has 2 great options for Earth support on his team while Janaff effectively has none. Oscar (if played) and Ike are more than likely already taken, and Tanith would be a good support but with only 2 maps, it might not even be at C yet. Then there's the issue if he should even get it (since everyone wants an Earth support and Calill and Marcia just joined, so they might be played and needing support). Volug's giving the Earth support, Janaff has to get it. Volug will get a bare minimum of 23 avoid at A, while Janaff without Earth can get a maximum of 15 at A. The avoid advantage is most definitely Volug's.

Offense stuff w/Adept and all that

Yes, access to Tear + higher Str means Janaff's offense is definitely better. But it only really matters when Volug doesn't ORKO anyway. In NM (since we lack HM enemy stats for part 4) Volug ORKO's every non-General enemy anyway. He cuts it close on some, so this might change in HM, but with one more Strength up he's almost definitely OR'ing in HM as well. Than throw in the fact that he'll hit SS Strike before Janaff and he'll most definitely be OR'ing all around (likely around 4-3/4/5), so Janaff's offensive lead really isn't so big.

4-P has a river with only two bridges. Janaff can reach any place he wants within 2-3 turns, whereas Volug is hindered not only by the water, but also by thickets, and he will also have several of his paths blocked by enemies, whereas Janaff usually has a lot of alternate paths to fly around to the same space.
4-2 is a thicket fest, with more than half the map covered in them. Besides allowing Janaff to reach enemies earlier, it also allows him to retreat after attacking if needed to a place an enemy couldn't even reach him, making it both a significant offensive as defensive advantage.

Hm, thickets don't hinder transformed Laguz actually. And if Volug heads north in 4-P, he wouldn't be worrying about any of that anyway.

4-3 is the desert. Janaff's mobility lead here consists mostly of Canto, admittedly, though it should be noted that untransformed Volug also gets a huge move penalty here while untransformed Janaff doesn't.

True, but this chapter also has a lot of Crossbow enemies. Janaff needs to be ~33 to not be ORKO'd by these guys, but all he would need is one more enemy to attack him and he'd likely be dead while Volug laughs in Crossbows faces taking ~6-8 damage with his ~60 HP, if they hit him and his h4x avoid. So Janaff really isn't as flexible here as he'd like to be.

4-4 has all the annoying ledges that slow Volug down by some and Janaff by nothing.

Ledges, like thickets, don't slow down any transformed Laguz. There's no advantage.

4-5 is lolswamped. No place except the starting island allows Volug to move his full movement, whereas Janaff can fly anywhere.

Not entirely true. If Volug heads north east, the main path where all the enemies are anyway doesn't hinder him at all. Since these guys offense will pretty much be the same by now, Janaff's mobility advantage is all he's got on his side, but it still isn't very much since Volug's 9 move + minimal hindrances is still pretty good.

For Spd, the problem with Volug is that he caps at 18 (36) AS, which Janaff happens to average if he just levels up once more after the above comparison, and from there it only gets better for Janaff.

This would only be an advantage if Janaff reaches 40 Speed (The fastest enemies past 31 AS have 35 AS) and Janaff only barely reaches that at level 40, which he might not even hit since transformed laguz experience gain is so low. Basically, he'd need BEXP to reach that, but BEXP is more limited in HM and it favors his HP, Str, Skl, Luck, and Def before his Spd.

Janaff's extra skl isn't extremely useful, I'll admit. His 15% more Str growth combined with his more consistent doubling (meaning a shorter way to SS Strike) is significant however, and so is the moar def.

I'm pretty sure I covered this already. Volug doubles most of the enemies he faces and simply has more time and less competition to reach SS Strike.

Let me also mention that from level 30 on, Volug has 10 more capacity (Volug's 35 to Janaff's 25) +2 skill slots more than Janaff. This can do a lot for Volug. First off, it allows him to equip two 15 capacity skills like Adept + Resolve, or two 10's and a 15 like Cancel/Vantage/Adept. The best Janaff can do in comparison is a 10 and a 15 or two 10's.

This allows Volug to equip Nihil and another 15 capacity skill. This is especially useful for 4-E so he can carefully fight bosses yet still have another skill for common enemies. The best Janaff can do in comparison is Nihil + lolMiracle. So Volug has much more flexibility with skills.

Before level 30, it's still Volug's 30 capacity to Janaff's 20, so even though Janaff hits 30 before Volug, he still has 5 less capacity. If you assume he gets Nullify to deal with his Crossbow weakness (Which Volug doesn't need for his Fire weakness, btw, since they don't nearly ORKO him and likely won't hit him), Volug gets a massive capacity lead.

So Janaff rapes Volug in part 4 really badly.

That's a pretty major overstatement. Janaff wins in part 4, but only barely (offense is a bit better, defense is similar/worse because of less avoid and Crossbow weakness).

In conclusion, Volug is much more valuable pre-part 4 than Janaff and only barely loses in part 4 (even wins in some cases, namely durability). Being amazing for 9 maps when the rest of the team isn't and still great for the next 7 > being awesome for 2 maps when most of the rest of the team is pretty awesome anyway.

I've got a bit more than 7 pages in MW and I'm finally finished. Hope I didn't miss anything...

EDIT: forgot Vigilance

EDIT: Janaff has Insight, not Vigilance. Not that it changes anything (assuming you gave him +20 hit and not +20 avoid, that is).

Edited March 13, 2009 by Red Fox of Fire

Mekkah · June 10, 2009

reposting for archiveness or something??

First, important things. We have Volug, a Wolf with no shirt, rock hard abs, and determination. Hot in every form of the word.
Then we have Janaff, a Hawk with a weird grin on his face whom many confuse for a girl.

Volug is the clear winner. /debate

You say you wish to address important things first, and you skip over one of the most important parts ever? Hawks are badass. Wolves are extremely cliché, and are associated with other cliché animals and beings such as vampires. Try Google Image searching hawk and not be impressed.

For their sexiness, it's too bad that the only furries in the FE world are both taken - Ike by Soren or Ranulf, and Zihark by either a dead girl or a fat girl (not sure which is worse). But Janaff hits on Lucia in FE9, so he's pretty likely to get some somewhere down the line.

It's actually part 4 where Janaff tells Tibarn to shut up.

I know and did not imply otherwise, it's just that it's such a significant event that it had to be mentioned even before it had actually happened.

Exercise in futility? Pheh, no way. We're not just gonna skip over parts 1 and 3 simply because both are awesome. We need to see exactly how awesome the two are on their team.

Okay, so you wish to dig the numbers and compare Volug to 2179832982 variable things in the DB versus Janaff to 32728922982 variable things in the GMs. That's cool. It's just that an irrefutable win for Part 4 is much more important than a shaky comparison when they're not in the same army. See, it’s impossible to assign objective value to units not in the same army, since the circumstances are so different.

Excuse me for not entirely digging into a woahwalloftext right here to spare the judges besides nitpicks here and there. You showed that Volug was good in part 1. However, you didn't show anything really about Janaff in part 3. Let me get to him first, so we've had that.

And finally, Janaff. Janaff joins in 3-7 at the back of the map after a few turns, so he has to catch up to the party. Not exactly an issue since he flies.

And everyone not named Haar and Ulki does not, so they are likely stuck not advancing much in the swamp that is 3-7.

He is offensively and defensively capable, that's for sure, but it should be noted that anyone with a Crossbow can ORKO him with 56% displayed hit (61.72% true) and Elwind Sages can 3 round him with 36% displayed hit (26.28% true).

First, Crossbows are super rare. According to this topix, we have a grand total of 3 Crossbow Warriors in 3-7, one of which is a reinforcement. Now, these guys, just like nearly everyone, are getting owned by the river, while Janaff can freely fly around to sections where there's no Crossbows. Or if you really want Janaff there, someone like Haar can pick these off, and then Janaff has free game wherever. He can given pick off things in the Crossbow range and Canto out of them if desired.

Roughly the same goes for 3-8 - there's no swamp, but there's nonetheless enough merit in his flying due to the map's layout and the fact that certain spots have to be avoided unless you want a lava shower.

So we're looking at about 5 enemies (6 if we count that boss of 3-11, but he doesn't even move so who cares about him) in Janaff's entire Part 1 availability. Volug's weakness to Fire may be less severe, but Fire Mages are also at least twice as common in his respective Part 1 chapters, and also much less avoidable for him since he has no Canto, plus there's a Mage with Meteor in 1-E.

From there, Crossbows also only extremely barely OHKO Janaff. He has 57 hp/24 def at base, 81 total, and Crossbows always have 84 might. So one Dracoshield or Seraph Robe, for example, allows him to take a Crossbow hit, and there's 6 total of these. And later he can have leveled up to avoid the OHKO - he only needs +4 hp/def total, so that could be 2 def level-ups, or 2 hp and 1 def. Or def from supports (Ulki x Janaff gives 1 per level)

You may go "but then anything else kills him", but we're talking about a dude with 98 base avo, plus 15 from Ike's leadership. You mentioned Ike's avo being through the roof thanks to his Earth support. Guess what? 20/0 Ike has 68.7 avo, and a B double Earth puts that pretty much at base Janaff's level. And this is with Ike taking the only available Earth support (Oscar).

Taking a very accurate enemy in 3-8, like a Swordmaster or a Wind Sage, which has 136 hit in NM, so let's say 146 in HM. 22% real hit, so for both him and the Crossbow to hit Janaff, we're talking about a 13.6% chance. Giving him just a C with Dark/Wind/Thunder, or enemies getting affected by Daunt, and the SM/Wind Sage now has about 16% real, and the Crossbow dude 52%, for an overall 8% chance of death.

And yes, there's Nullify as well, which makes Janaff pretty much invincible to everything. The only other real candidates for that would be Haar and Ulki, and both have just as easy of a time avoiding their weaknesses as Janaff does, not to mention Haar is more afraid of Thunder magic critting him than hitting him, and Nullify doesn't negate that. And he can be Warded/Pure Watered.

And finally, since you mentioned Resolve kickboxing with Volug in 3-6, I must note that Janaff can just as easily take Resolve and get hit by a Crossbow on purpose. We're now talking about a unit with 132 avo without supports or anything, which means those 146 hit things only have lol 4% real. 2% with Daunt or a C support. It can easily be combined with Wrath to make him go from killer machine to Terminator – very few other people care about Wrath since they suck at surviving at <30% hp, and in addition none of them except just Ulki activate their shit as reliably as Janaff.

This brings me to another point: being in the Greil Mercenaries has the advantage of much more and better resources, with a team that also cares less if someone else takes it. Not just all the goodies from part 3 itself, but there's also one-way connections flowing towards them from the Dawn Brigade and the CRKs via Ilyana, Nephenee and Brom (and also Zihark/Jill if you're into that). Janaff has access to pretty much everything Volug has access to and more, while the reverse is not true. For example, you brought up that Volug has much less competition for Olivi Grass, but he also has much less available. There's two in part 1 and you seem to get only one extra in all of the part 3 maps, and Muarim/Vika would like to use some when they can, and there's no Laguz stones at all. Meanwhile, there's lots of Olivi Grass in part 2 and 3. Mordecai and Ranulf bring their own, you can buy two in 3-4, 2 more in 3-7, another in 3-8, then as much as six in 3-10, and then more and more. And then there's 3 sets of Laguz Stone as well.

Then like half of your BEXP in the entire game is with the Greil Mercenaries, and laguz use BEXP about as efficiently as beorc

There's also an extra Seraph Robe, 2 Energy Drops, 2 Secret Books, 2 Speedwings, 2 Ashera Icons, 2 Dracoshields and a Talisman that Janaff has access to that Volug does not.

Deployment slots. Volug never takes up a slot. Ever. Not until 4-E anyway. (...) but 3-8 poses issues. Only 10 units can be chosen after Ike and Ranulf. The ones we can assume are possibly being played include Haar, Brom, Nephenee, Heather, Mordecai, Titania, Soren, Mist, Rolf, Boyd, Oscar, Shinon, Gatrie, Rhys, Mia, Reyson, and Ulki. And of course, Janaff. That's 18 units for 10 slots.

At least half of those are sub-par on HM, and unlikely to be in play. Nephenee, for example, has to be babied throughout part 2 and 3 to be of any use in 3-8, which is undesirable. I don't believe there's anything significant to steal in 3-8, so Heather is likely out too. Soren and Rhys have extremely severe durability issues, and Rolf has issues period. Brom has offense and mobility problems, Boyd has some speed problems, etcetera. Also, the desire to deploy so many units is very low. You would be spreading your EXP extremely thin, in a world where there's hardly much to go around anyway. When you're only given this much deployment slots, and never really much more than this, it would simply be inefficient to have such a massive army.

The only givens out of that army are really Haar, Titania, Reyson and Ulki. If you add Janaff to that, you have half of the slot filled, and you can still pick 5 out of all these less likely people that usually drag you more down than up. You could take a staff user (though the auto-equipment of a staff after healing and the viability of healing items in this game doesn't render that anywhere near as vital as in other games), you can still have your Mordecai if you want, and then someone like Mia/Gatrie, etc. I would not make a deal out of Volug taking up a slot either, since it'd just mean he'd boot out some trash like Meg or Fiona, and in the same way nobody cares if you cannot use Rolf or Kyza on GM map.

For "more people joining later", yes, Tanith and Sigrun join and are forced in 3-11. Then the next GM map is 3-F, and Sigrun is still forced out there, so it's really just Tanith, who is meh at best.

I respectfully disagree. I'd call that a fair comparison, though putting them both a bit high. If anything, it's more in favor of Janaff. How is this, you ask? Well, Janaff was getting a grand total of one experience point per battle for 5 maps, even for kills, so he'd have to enter 300 battles (60 per map) to get 3 levels, or be fed a lot of BEXP. I don't know about you, but that sounds damn well unrealistic to me, seeing as even in NM with decent use I only got him to 31 by the start of part 4, and that was with a good deal of BEXP. But w/e, PEMN and all.

It doesn't matter much. Lower Janaff by 1-2 levels and his performance is roughly the same. Here, revisited:

24 Volug

57.6 hp, 26.6 str, 30.4 skl, 33 spd, 21.1 luk, 20.6 def, 11.8 res

S Strike: 40.6 atk, 151.9 hit, 33 AS, 15.2 crt -- 87.1 avo, 57.6 hp, 20.6 def, 11.8 res, 21.1 cev

30 Janaff

57.6 hp, 32.8 str, 39 skl, 34.6 spd, 30.5 luk, 24.8 def, 16.2 res

S Strike: 45.8 atk, 198.5 hit, 34.6 AS, 19.5 crt – 99.7 avo, 57.6 hp, 24.8 def, 16.2 res, 30.5 luk

Besides that he now ties hp, he still wins every other area.

It's even possible for him to do some safe untransformed fighting w/Earth support and Resolve, giving him ~96 avoid at base level, going up pretty much every level (170% untransformed avoid growth), and getting mountains of experience. Yes, this requires a healer and it means no one else got Resolve, but we have Laura and Micaiah and this is really just putting him at the same level as everyone else defensively, the price of shooting his level up. Since we pretty much have to play defense against the laguz anyway, this isn't hurting team efficiency very much either, which is something we can't say about Janaff's case.

Instead of putting Resolve on Volug to make him worse defensively (trading his reliability just to make him grow faster – worse now, better later), it could go to Nolan, Zihark or even Aran to make them _better always_.

And that’s not it. Behold Volug’s base untransformed stats.

49 hp, 11 str, 12 skl, 13 spd, 13 luk, 9 def, 5 res

S Strike: 25 atk, 13 AS, 127 hit, 6 crt – 39 avo, 49 hp, 9 def, 5 res

Cats will do around 2x20 (9 hp left), so that means that if he gets one more time, he’s dead. Tigers have around 16 AS from the enemy sample site I see, but they could have as much as 17, and then their 32 might will put him to KO range of anything next as well (3hp left). The only way he will survive two hits is from two 16 AS tigers.

But Resolve is going to solve all of that, right?

Cat lv 15

Hp 41

Mt 29

As 20-22

Def 14

Res 10

Avo 50

Tiger lv 14

Hp 48

Mt 32

As 16-18

Def 18

Res 4

Avo 38

Resolve, S Strike: 25 atk, 19 AS, 139 hit, 9 crit – 51 avo, 24/49 hp, 9 def, 5 res

A T/W/D: 81 avo

A Earth: 96 avo

Let’s take the most generous case first: we’ll give Volug A Earth, high biorhythm and Resolve is activated for a net of 106 avo. Then, we’ll just take the 132 hit tiger, who has 26 disp (13.78% true) in these circumstances. That is a 13.78% chance to bite the dust right there, forcing a chapter reset. That death risk alone is enough reason to laugh at any kind of kickboxing maneuver, and this was the lowest hit enemy in the best case possible. If he faces two tigers in a row, it becomes about a 25% chance for Volug to die. Okay, I lied, it could be more generous by giving the Tiger low bio too, but I’d rather debate about Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn rather than Fire Emblem: Radical Dream.

Or now we’ll take him to normal biorhythm so he only has 96 avo. Now this tiger has 26% true (twice as much as before), about 55% chance of killing him after just two attempts. Or let’s move down to normal bio + T/W/D rather than Earth: now the tiger has 52.47% true, like 77% chance of killing him with two bites.

We can skyrocket it further with more enemies, using cats instead of tigers, taking into account that Volug’s supporter might not be in range at all, etc etc. The point? Kickboxing is a joke and it’s not going to get Volug any points.

Also, about that Earth support of Volug's. Just because he has an Earth affinity does not entitle him to another Earth. The Dawn Brigade has two other Earths available (Fiona can ride off a cliff...if this game's movement penalties would allow her to kill herself like that) who could just support each other if Volug were not there. Putting Volug with one just means the other cannot do Earth/Earth, so while it helps him, it hurts the other. Then the other DBs aren't as viable or don't give as great bonuses. Most of them are trash due to availability or durability, so besides those Earthers that pretty much leaves Micaiah, Sothe, Jill and Aran.

Micaiah and Sothe have their in-built A which they really have no reason to give up. Micaiah wouldn't cancel a 15 avo support to have 0 and 10 for a while only to have 20 then 30 for a while. Plus, even with an Earth support, she's still getting ORKOed and healing a lot, so she's not really benefitting from it. Maybe if her avoid became anywhere near reliable. And if that support is kept, Sothe won't be giving in either, plus even if he does he is too sucky to do anything significant in late part 3 and anything after.

Leaves us with Aran, who doesn't gain any kind of reliable avoid either.

And Jill. I guess he could have her if she's played, though there's also a chance she is carted to the GMs (I'm not saying it always happens, but it has its advantages, so it cannot be ignored). She is also the only person in the Dawn Brigade who can keep up with Volug’s 9 movement (when she’s not choosing to fly over things Volug can’t run over), so him supporting with someone like Zihark or Nolan either restricts the amount of time the support bonus benefits both parties, or the places Volug can go (effectively giving himless movement).

ALSO, while Volug's affinity is better, Janaff has other misc advantages. He has both Shove and Canto, so he can build up a support with someone else insanely fast by shoving them and ending next to them. Or he can even shove his partner, then get into position for a Vigor, and shove again and end up next to them.

And finally, the Greil Mercs in general are better units due to their huge level leads on the Pawn Brigade, so they can be counted upon more to be fielded in part 4 (especially 4-E), and of course they are also more flexible in general for where they can go, so they benefit from the support.

Janaff has an offensive advantage in that he doubles everything (only Ulki, Ranulf, Mia can match this), but this mainly only refers to SM's who are 2 rounded by almost anyone else anyway. Other enemies are easily 1-3 rounded by the rest of the team.

"1-3 round" still leaves a lot of room for improvement.

For example, we have a 3-10 Halberdier with 39-40 hp and 21-22 def, and 21-22 AS.

Janaff (40 atk, 34 AS) weakens it to the point where anyone can finish it off, and with just +1 Str (or an Atk support, like C Ulki), or any skill activation, he ORKOs.

Haar has to be 20/6 to even double it if it has 22 AS (20/3 if it has 21), and he likely isn't.

Ike has to be 20/0 to double it if it has 22 AS, and with his 27 atk + Ettard he just matches Janaff's atk.

Soren doesn't double it until 20/6.

Gatrie doesn't double it until 20/3.

Oscar doesn't double it until 20/2.

Mia doubles even at base, but her Str fails, so she needs to be 20/5 to ORKO with Steel Blade.

Now back to Part 1 Volug. I’ll concede whatever you said about him in 1-5, his joining chapter. However, from 1-6 on, Volug gets serious competition, and you cannot just brush them off like you did by naming their disadvantages.

1-6 terrain is heavy? 1-6-1 doesn’t have much terrain that Volug can cross that Tauroneo cannot, plus having more movement is pretty worthless if crossing half the map in one turn means that someone like Micaiah or Laura is going to die. 1-6-2 has more bushes, but it also has more chokepoints, which again negate a lot of Volug’s mobility’s usefulness. Suddendly, he is perfectly arguable as the best unit.

Then, Zihark is beating him on offense. Like, Volug has 25 atk/19 AS, and Zee-Hark surpasses that Atk even with a Steel Sword, and then there’s Brave and Killeretc, and he has lol 23 AS.

1-7 has no Tauroneo, but it brings Tormod, Muarim and Vika instead. I won’t delve too deeply into Vika, but as for the other two…you cleverly mentioned “Muarim transform” but forgot about Muarim’s wtfrape.

Muarim: 46 atk, 22 AS – 56 avo, 58 hp, 30 def, 18 res

Volug: 25 (30) atk, 19 AS – 51 avo, 49 hp, 13 def, 7 res

Basically wtfinvincible once grassed up, and he spends more turns transformed than untransformed definitely. Then Nailah is like him, except instantly transformed, and the Black Knight is like o_O.

That is not all. Volug’s inability to do 1~2 range makes him lose out to even people like Nolan and Aran, but also Tormod, when things such as enemy Mages come into play. Yes, Janaff has the same “problem” in part 3, but he has it for a smaller amount of time. It narrows any kind of gap between Volug and Janaff significantly if both are producing 0 damage on an enemy phase to 2-range. Of course, it can be argued that it’s worse for Volug, since if he is taking a 2-range attack, it could be taken by Tormod or the Burger King instead to clear the way, while the Greil Mercenaries have no such 2-range ubers (closest are things like Haar with a ranged axe).

Apparently NM Swordmasters have around 28 AS in 4-3, 29 in 4-4, so it is likely that Janaff doubles those while Volug does not in HM.
You're assuming Volug didn't even gain a level in 4-P/1/2. He only needs to be ~24-25 to double these guys anyway, which is easily obtainable with a fair spread of kills and BEXP.

Him reaching those levels is questionable considering Resolveboxing wasn’t quite that great. Given one level in Part 1, Volug would still need to have gained around 9 levels in his three part 3 chapters. His performance is of course good enough to give him enough exposal, but he still just gets fairly average EXP rates against laguz, and he also has to spend turns grassing. And even at level 25, there’s a 17% chance he has less than 32 transformed AS (23% on level 24, 32% on level 23), whereas Janaff always joins with 34.

Yes, access to Tear + higher Str means Janaff's offense is definitely better. But it only really matters when Volug doesn't ORKO anyway. In NM (since we lack HM enemy stats for part 4) Volug ORKO's every non-General enemy anyway. He cuts it close on some, so this might change in HM, but with one more Strength up he's almost definitely OR'ing in HM as well. Than throw in the fact that he'll hit SS Strike before Janaff and he'll most definitely be OR'ing all around (likely around 4-3/4/5), so Janaff's offensive lead really isn't so big.

In 4-P to 4-2, a Sniper has 42/18 hp/def on NM. Needs 39 atk to ORKO, so Volug needs 26 transformed Str, which he has at level 23. But a 4-3 one for example has 45 hp/20 def, which requires 43 atk to ORKO, meaning he needs 30 transformed Str, which he has to be at level 31 for. Or SS strike, but that is 40 double attacks away, which is hard to reach for any significant amount of time, especially if you have to spend time keeping your gauge up.

Even if they only had +3 hp/+2 def on HM, that basically means he needs that 30 transformed Str on the first Sniper, which is a pretty long time away for Volug. Janaff has 32 transformed Str at base, so if he just has S Strike he is fine. Or even if he doesn’t have that, he has those hax Tear/Adept activations.

Hm, thickets don't hinder transformed Laguz actually. And if Volug heads north in 4-P, he wouldn't be worrying about any of that anyway.

Well, it hinders him on the first turn then, at least, which means Janaff still gets to move 2-3 times as far on the very first turn. What about going north? 4-P’s northern side is still quite bushy, and enemies being stationed on the normal grounds between them means Janaff can fly around more easily. As I said, when one path to a certain square is blocked by enemies and thickets, Janaff can fly there as easily as if there were neither enemies nor thickets, whereas Volug cannot move as far.

True, but this chapter [4-3] also has a lot of Crossbow enemies. Janaff needs to be ~33 to not be ORKO'd by these guys, but all he would need is one more enemy to attack him and he'd likely be dead while Volug laughs in Crossbows faces taking ~6-8 damage with his ~60 HP, if they hit him and his h4x avoid. So Janaff really isn't as flexible here as he'd like to be.

Like with 3-7, the enemies are extremely immobile, while Janaff doesn’t have a care for the world where he flies to. And like before, there are several ways to beat this Crossbow weak (stat boosters, Resolve, Nullify), in fact the situation is even better because of the possibility of being highly levelled enough to survive without anything else.

[4-5] Not entirely true. If Volug heads north east, the main path where all the enemies are anyway doesn't hinder him at all. Since these guys offense will pretty much be the same by now, Janaff's mobility advantage is all he's got on his side, but it still isn't very much since Volug's 9 move + minimal hindrances is still pretty good.

All the enemies are on this “main path”? Nah. Just look at the map, they’re scattered all over, and Izuka summons new ones next to him when he can. Oh, and this map has Red Dragons, which Janaff can Tear but Volug cannot Savage. Fun.

This [higher Spd cap] would only be an advantage if Janaff reaches 40 Speed (The fastest enemies past 31 AS have 35 AS) and Janaff only barely reaches that at level 40, which he might not even hit since transformed laguz experience gain is so low. Basically, he'd need BEXP to reach that, but BEXP is more limited in HM and it favors his HP, Str, Skl, Luck, and Def before his Spd.

Or a Speedwing you could have lying around.

Let me also mention that from level 30 on, Volug has 10 more capacity (Volug's 35 to Janaff's 25) +2 skill slots more than Janaff. This can do a lot for Volug. First off, it allows him to equip two 15 capacity skills like Adept + Resolve, or two 10's and a 15 like Cancel/Vantage/Adept. The best Janaff can do in comparison is a 10 and a 15 or two 10's.
This allows Volug to equip Nihil and another 15 capacity skill. This is especially useful for 4-E so he can carefully fight bosses yet still have another skill for common enemies. The best Janaff can do in comparison is Nihil + lolMiracle. So Volug has much more flexibility with skills.

Before level 30, it's still Volug's 30 capacity to Janaff's 20, so even though Janaff hits 30 before Volug, he still has 5 less capacity. If you assume he gets Nullify to deal with his Crossbow weakness (Which Volug doesn't need for his Fire weakness, btw, since they don't nearly ORKO him and likely won't hit him), Volug gets a massive capacity lead.

Huh? According to the site they both have the same capacity at the same level, and their masteries also only take up 30. Sourceplz.

EDIT: Janaff has Insight, not Vigilance. Not that it changes anything (assuming you gave him +20 hit and not +20 avoid, that is).

Yeah, I meant +20 hit.

Edited June 10, 2009 by Mekkah

Florete · June 29, 2009

Sorry I completely forgot about this...

You say you wish to address important things first, and you skip over one of the most important parts ever? Hawks are badass. Wolves are extremely cliché, and are associated with other cliché animals and beings such as vampires. Try Google Image searching hawk and not be impressed.

Google Wolves

Google hawks

I guess it's up to opinion, but the Wolves look more badass to me.

All you say is Hawks are badass and deem being associated with Vampires a bad thing, but Vampires are pretty cool themselves. and have you ever heard of Werewolves? What do hawks have in comparison?

For their sexiness, it's too bad that the only furries in the FE world are both taken - Ike by Soren or Ranulf, and Zihark by either a dead girl or a fat girl (not sure which is worse). But Janaff hits on Lucia in FE9, so he's pretty likely to get some somewhere down the line.

Janaff hits on Lucia, but she'll take Bastian before taking Janaff, and she won't even take Bastian, so Janaff is out of luck. All Volug has to do is show off his sexy chest and that sexy ancient tongue and he can get any girl he wants. You're trying to argue that Janaff will have better Luck with girls when Volug's Luck growth is almost double Janaff's (40% higher).

Okay, so you wish to dig the numbers and compare Volug to 2179832982 variable things in the DB versus Janaff to 32728922982 variable things in the GMs. That's cool. It's just that an irrefutable win for Part 4 is much more important than a shaky comparison when they're not in the same army. See, it’s impossible to assign objective value to units not in the same army, since the circumstances are so different.

Nonononono. You're saying we should pretty much skip over parts 1-3, aren't you? That can't be more wrong. It would be like saying Fiona is better than Haar because by the time both are in the same army, Fiona's performance is better than Haar's (which is actually possible, even though it's not likely). But that's absurd, right? It is. That's why we must gauge these units performance in relation to the rest of the team and for how long they are around.

After all, the point of this debate is to convince the judges that our character is the better one, or to expand, is the one that is the biggest help to the player in getting to the end of the game and completing it. Therefore, determining which character is a bigger help at the times when either is around is just as important as when both are around. In this case, even more important, because part 4 is almost always deemed as the easiest part of the game.

First, Crossbows are super rare. According to this topix, we have a grand total of 3 Crossbow Warriors in 3-7, one of which is a reinforcement. Now, these guys, just like nearly everyone, are getting owned by the river, while Janaff can freely fly around to sections where there's no Crossbows. Or if you really want Janaff there, someone like Haar can pick these off, and then Janaff has free game wherever. He can given pick off things in the Crossbow range and Canto out of them if desired.

See, the problem here is that there are 3 enemies on his joining map that can wipe him out in a single hit, and with a fairly decent chance to boot. Volug never has a problem like that. And that's just Janaff's joining chapter. The next one (3-8) has 2 more Crossbow dudes (and some more Elwind dudes as well), 3-10 has one, 3-11 has one and the boss.

# of enemies that can kill Janaff in one hit pre part 4: 8

# of enemies that can kill Volug in one hit pre part 4 (or ever): 0

And I already showed how Volug's durability pwns the rest of his team. However, I'm pretty sure most of the GM's aren't in fear of being OHKO'd by anything. There aren't many, but it's still a problem Janaff must be aware of, something Volug doesn't have a problem with.

Volug's weakness to Fire may be less severe, but Fire Mages are also at least twice as common in his respective Part 1 chapters, and also much less avoidable for him since he has no Canto, plus there's a Mage with Meteor in 1-E.

Eh, not really. There are only a couple in any given chapter (They are absent from 1-6-1) and they don't exist for him in part 3. That Meteor Mage might be a problem, but he still is never in danger of being ORKO'd, and he might even dodge because he has a support built at this point, though it's tough to calculate because I don't know how height bonuses work for long range magic.

From there, Crossbows also only extremely barely OHKO Janaff. He has 57 hp/24 def at base, 81 total, and Crossbows always have 84 might. So one Dracoshield or Seraph Robe, for example, allows him to take a Crossbow hit, and there's 6 total of these. And later he can have leveled up to avoid the OHKO - he only needs +4 hp/def total, so that could be 2 def level-ups, or 2 hp and 1 def. Or def from supports (Ulki x Janaff gives 1 per level)

As I pointed out before, he grows very slowly, so getting there by level within part 3 is pretty much out of the question. As for stat boosters, that's always a shaky argument, and one of those Dracoshields has to be bought for 8k anyway, which isn't likely since the GM's are pretty strapped for cash in 3-3. An A support with a Defense partner like Ulki alone will bring that 81 to 84, which is still OHKO range. So he's pretty much in OHKO range from these guys throughout part 3.

You may go "but then anything else kills him", but we're talking about a dude with 98 base avo, plus 15 from Ike's leadership. You mentioned Ike's avo being through the roof thanks to his Earth support. Guess what? 20/0 Ike has 68.7 avo, and a B double Earth puts that pretty much at base Janaff's level. And this is with Ike taking the only available Earth support (Oscar).

If he gets the means to survive the attack, then yeah, anything else kills him. He may have pretty awesome avoid, but once again, I don't see others on the GM's or Volug on his team running around in OHKO range of every enemy they face. And if Janaff is on the enemy phase when this happens and his gauge drops to 0, bye-bye Janaff, since that's 34 avoid that just went down the drain and a target painted on his forehead.

And finally, since you mentioned Resolve kickboxing with Volug in 3-6, I must note that Janaff can just as easily take Resolve and get hit by a Crossbow on purpose. We're now talking about a unit with 132 avo without supports or anything, which means those 146 hit things only have lol 4% real. 2% with Daunt or a C support. It can easily be combined with Wrath to make him go from killer machine to Terminator – very few other people care about Wrath since they suck at surviving at <30% hp, and in addition none of them except just Ulki activate their shit as reliably as Janaff.

Guess what? Volug can do the same thing with Resolve, only without the risk of getting OHKO'd first. Base level Volug w/Resolve is suddenly running around with 91 avoid, 121 w/Thunder, Dark, or Wind and 136 w/Earth. 142 is the max hit of any enemy on 3-6, and this is only base level Volug. Combine this with the calculations from my first post and Volug has become God. Give him a couple level ups and he will literally be invincible. This can be combined with Wrath as well, since Volug's team is even worse at surviving with such low HP, but he doesn't really need it because he ORKO's just about everything anyhow.

For example, you brought up that Volug has much less competition for Olivi Grass, but he also has much less available. There's two in part 1 and you seem to get only one extra in all of the part 3 maps, and Muarim/Vika would like to use some when they can, and there's no Laguz stones at all.

There are a few Olivi Grass dropped in 3-6. Even if you could argue that Muarim and Vika somehow used up all the Grass in part 1, there's still a good amount in part 3 to get Volug through. Or, you could argue that all of that is being carted through Jill and Zihark, but then you're pretty much robbing Volug of resources (And the team of one/two good characters while at it), which is like the opposite of favoritism. So Grass really isn't an issue for Volug.

Meanwhile, there's lots of Olivi Grass in part 2 and 3. Mordecai and Ranulf bring their own, you can buy two in 3-4, 2 more in 3-7, another in 3-8, then as much as six in 3-10, and then more and more. And then there's 3 sets of Laguz Stone as well.

Mordecai isn't bringing much because a lot of that was used by him, Lethe, and Nealuchi in part 2. So he might not bring anything at all. And then it's still all of that spread among Janaff, Ulki, Mordecai, Ranulf, and Reyson. On 3-7 alone, that's maybe 4 of them spread among 5 units, and you only get one more in 3-8. 3-10 it gets better, but it was a struggle before that.

Then like half of your BEXP in the entire game is with the Greil Mercenaries, and laguz use BEXP about as efficiently as beorc
There's also an extra Seraph Robe, 2 Energy Drops, 2 Secret Books, 2 Speedwings, 2 Ashera Icons, 2 Dracoshields and a Talisman that Janaff has access to that Volug does not.

Everything combines in part 4, so Volug does have access to it, just later. But Volug doesn't really care about any of it until part 4 anyway, so the fact that Janaff can use them sooner isn't actually helping his case at all, since it isn't suddenly making his performance more valuable than Volug's, especially since he took a highly useful resource from the rest of the team.

At least half of those are sub-par on HM, and unlikely to be in play. Nephenee, for example, has to be babied throughout part 2 and 3 to be of any use in 3-8, which is undesirable. I don't believe there's anything significant to steal in 3-8, so Heather is likely out too. Soren and Rhys have extremely severe durability issues, and Rolf has issues period. Brom has offense and mobility problems, Boyd has some speed problems, etcetera.

All of those issues can be dealt with. You mentioned all those stat boosters, and these characters can use them just as easily. Plus, Ike's maps are generally much easier than Micaiah's (3 authority stars helps this) so it's often safe to use a weaker character like Rolf that will turn out good because it's a very minor detriment to the team.

Ike's team also has a lot of BEXP to take advantage of and anything from Micaiah's team, like skills, that Ilyana carts over. The only units on the team that can really be said to "suck" are Ilyana, Lyre, Lethe, and maybe Kyza, Sigrun and other CRK's when they join, and they weren't on my list of characters anyway.

Also, the desire to deploy so many units is very low. You would be spreading your EXP extremely thin, in a world where there's hardly much to go around anyway. When you're only given this much deployment slots, and never really much more than this, it would simply be inefficient to have such a massive army.

That might have been true for Micaiah's team, but not Ike's. Like I mentioned above, hardly anyone on the team truly sucks, and most of the problems the sub-par units have can be fixed rather easily. There's enough C/BEXP to spread amongst a team of 10-12 and still have them all be good units. And since Ike's maps are generally fairly big and open, having more units is often better because you can spread your army without too much risk to having anyone get ganged up on by the enemy, and you can have two healers in two different places, etc.

The only givens out of that army are really Haar, Titania, Reyson and Ulki.

Aside from the fact that no one is exactly "guaranteed" except Ike and Ranulf, characters like Mia, Gatrie, Shinon, Mordecai, Oscar, Nephenee, and Boyd are all Upper Mid/High tier characters and pretty likely to be played, and then we need a healer like Mist and/or Rhys, and we might take Mid characters like Rolf, Soren, Brom, and Heather because they're good at times as well, and the competition is heavy.

You could take a staff user (though the auto-equipment of a staff after healing and the viability of healing items in this game doesn't render that anywhere near as vital as in other games)

Saving another unit a turn on healing is still a highly valuable ability. That hasn't changed.

For "more people joining later", yes, Tanith and Sigrun join and are forced in 3-11. Then the next GM map is 3-F, and Sigrun is still forced out there, so it's really just Tanith, who is meh at best.

There's also Calill and Marcia who might be played, and Kieran who is pretty borderline.

Besides that he now ties hp, he still wins every other area.

It can also be noted that if he hasn't acquired S Strike or if Volug has hit SS Strike, he'll tie/barely beat Volug in atk. Seeing as Janaff has 5 maps and a lot of competition to get 35 double attacks in (7 per map), it's a fairly likely possibility. If you throw in the possibility of him not making it to a map, this means he'd only have 4 maps, so he'd need ~8-9 double attacks per map. When you consider his transformation issues and competition for Grass and deployment slots, this is possible, though I think we can assume he's at least being deployed every time, to be fair.

You might go "SS Strike for Volug? wtf?" but let me explain. He has 6 maps in part 1 (which is already more than Janaff's part 3) where he doubled most of the enemies and is among your most durable units. He'll be tanking quite a lot to help any tier 1 units get kills, so acquiring S Strike by 1-8 or 1-E is easily possible. In his fastest case, it's at Janaff's level (5 maps) but with less competition for combat since Volug's team isn't awesome except for a few choice units, and then he still has another 4 maps to build it. Two of these are full of 1 range enemies (Laguz) that Volug is downright the best unit you have to use against them, so he'll either have SS Strike by end of 3-13/beginning of 4-P/1/2 or he'll get it somewhere in the middle of 4-P/1/2, and then he'll tie/beat Janaff's raw power, eventually surpassing him because of higher experience gain.

Oh, and your comparison forgot to take supports into account, which will very likely boost Volug's avoid higher than Janaff's, and depending on who both support, could boost his offense even higher.

For the kickboxing stuff...It was mainly for when he's choking a spot and only one enemy can attack him, but it was a weak argument in the first place, so I'll drop it.

Also, about that Earth support of Volug's. Just because he has an Earth affinity does not entitle him to another Earth.

Which is why I also gave scenarios for Thunder, Wind, and Dark.

Micaiah and Sothe have their in-built A which they really have no reason to give up. Micaiah wouldn't cancel a 15 avo support to have 0 and 10 for a while only to have 20 then 30 for a while. Plus, even with an Earth support, she's still getting ORKOed and healing a lot, so she's not really benefitting from it. Maybe if her avoid became anywhere near reliable. And if that support is kept, Sothe won't be giving in either, plus even if he does he is too sucky to do anything significant in late part 3 and anything after.

You do realize that last sentence kind of contradicted your point in the first place, right? If Sothe is so sucky later, why does Micaiah want to support him at all?

And Micaiah wouldn't have 0 avoid ever. The Volug support would come as the Sothe support drops, so she'd go from 15 to 10, increasing it to 20 in just one more level. All that she loses in the end is 8 hit, but she doesn't care about that, and she's now supporting a better character. Plus, her avoid might not be reliable at all, but increasing her chances to live by 15% displayed (which magnifies with true hit) is definitely good for her. In the end, supporting Volug > supporting Sothe. Better character, better bonuses.

Leaves us with Aran, who doesn't gain any kind of reliable avoid either.
And Jill. I guess he could have her if she's played, though there's also a chance she is carted to the GMs (I'm not saying it always happens, but it has its advantages, so it cannot be ignored). She is also the only person in the Dawn Brigade who can keep up with Volug’s 9 movement (when she’s not choosing to fly over things Volug can’t run over), so him supporting with someone like Zihark or Nolan either restricts the amount of time the support bonus benefits both parties, or the places Volug can go (effectively giving himless movement).

He does give Aran +2 defense, though Aran gets that from anyone. In the end, Aran is just another option.

Jill is probably best for both. Matching movement, etc. If she's carted to the GM's, Zihark probably is as well since they both likely are supporting each other so they can go to the GM's and not suck, and then since Nolan wants +45 avoid he's probably going to support Volug, giving Volug that +45 avoid as well. And if Jill and Zihark get transferred to the GM's, that's creating more competition for Janaff and making Volug even more valuable. I don't think I need to go further into that.

It's kind of a win-win situation for Volug. Jill stays, he gets +30 avoid and +2 defense with a partner that matches his movement. If she's carted with Zihark, he's getting +45 avoid now and he's just become Micaiah's savior for 3-12 and 3-13, as well as letting Nolan keep +45 avoid.

As for a movement difference, Micaiah's part 3 maps generally have you sitting at a chokepoint taking the enemies on their phase, so it's not a big deal at all.

ALSO, while Volug's affinity is better, Janaff has other misc advantages. He has both Shove and Canto, so he can build up a support with someone else insanely fast by shoving them and ending next to them. Or he can even shove his partner, then get into position for a Vigor, and shove again and end up next to them.

That would matter if Volug's supports weren't built by the time he needs/wants them anyway and if Volug's bonuses weren't better than Janaff's.

And finally, the Greil Mercs in general are better units due to their huge level leads on the Pawn Brigade, so they can be counted upon more to be fielded in part 4 (especially 4-E), and of course they are also more flexible in general for where they can go, so they benefit from the support.

This is true, but Volug's support alone makes his partner much more easily usable in part 4 since they can dodge much. much better. If he supports Micaiah, well, she's forced, so that's a guarantee there. If he supports Jill, they can both raep the desert or the swamp. If he supports Nolan/Zihark, they can go to Ike's/Tibarn's group and be virtually untouchable. Don't forget that Jill is often regarded as one of the best endgame units, as is Nolan.

"1-3 round" still leaves a lot of room for improvement.

The 3 rounding is, like, Mist against Halberdiers or unleveled Rolf against Generals. Most enemies are 1-2 rounded by any decent offensive unit on the team.

Haar has to be 20/6 to even double it if it has 22 AS (20/3 if it has 21), and he likely isn't.
Ike has to be 20/0 to double it if it has 22 AS, and with his 27 atk + Ettard he just matches Janaff's atk.

Soren doesn't double it until 20/6.

Gatrie doesn't double it until 20/3.

Oscar doesn't double it until 20/2.

Mia doubles even at base, but her Str fails, so she needs to be 20/5 to ORKO with Steel Blade.

Aside from the fact that this is one enemy, these problems can generally be fixed.

Ike probably is 20/0, and can have easily been BEXP'd to high enough Speed anyway.

Soren's sub-par as it is.

Gatrie probably got the 3-3 Master Crown and is kicking everything's ass, including this guy.

Oscar, yeah, his tier 2 speed cap sucks.

Mia has crit and likely Adept on her side.

1-6-2 has more bushes, but it also has more chokepoints, which again negate a lot of Volug’s mobility’s usefulness.

Not at all. Volug, with possible help from Jill, is all that is saving Fiona and her Marado Knights/Civilians, helping use save some BEXP. This is something even Tauroneo can't do because he can't reach it in time.

Then, Zihark is beating him on offense. Like, Volug has 25 atk/19 AS, and Zee-Hark surpasses that Atk even with a Steel Sword, and then there’s Brave and Killeretc, and he has lol 23 AS.

Zihark loses durability by a lot. Volug's 49 HP, 13 def, 51 avoid to Zihark's 30 HP, 13 def, 57 avoid. 19 HP >>>>>> 6 avoid.

1-7 has no Tauroneo, but it brings Tormod, Muarim and Vika instead. I won’t delve too deeply into Vika, but as for the other two…you cleverly mentioned “Muarim transform” but forgot about Muarim’s wtfrape.

Yes, Muarim rapes when transformed, but there is no Olivi Grass on 1-7, so he can't use that raep all the time.

That is not all. Volug’s inability to do 1~2 range makes him lose out to even people like Nolan and Aran, but also Tormod, when things such as enemy Mages come into play. Yes, Janaff has the same “problem” in part 3, but he has it for a smaller amount of time. It narrows any kind of gap between Volug and Janaff significantly if both are producing 0 damage on an enemy phase to 2-range. Of course, it can be argued that it’s worse for Volug, since if he is taking a 2-range attack, it could be taken by Tormod or the Burger King instead to clear the way, while the Greil Mercenaries have no such 2-range ubers (closest are things like Haar with a ranged axe).

...Wait, what? Are you pretty much saying that since Janaff has fewer chapters to worry about range, he has an advantage? That's confusing logic.

Let's look at it from a different side. Tauroneo, Tormod, Zihark, Muarim, Nailah, Black Knight. 6 units that could arguable be said to be better than Volug. The problem? Only 5 max are on any given map, and only once, 1-E. 1-5 has none of them, 1-6 has 2, 1-7 has 3, and 1-8 has 4. This is much less competition than Janaff is dealing with for sure.

And I don't get how the two range thing is worse for Volug. "Tormod or BK could take it." Well, Haar, Shinon, Boyd, Ike, Gatrie, Titania, etc., could take it. Tormod's not a "2 range uber" anyway. His durability is similar to Zihark's without the avoid. Don't forget that Volug competes with BK for one map, and he still has +3 move.

Him reaching those levels is questionable considering Resolveboxing wasn’t quite that great. Given one level in Part 1, Volug would still need to have gained around 9 levels in his three part 3 chapters. His performance is of course good enough to give him enough exposal, but he still just gets fairly average EXP rates against laguz, and he also has to spend turns grassing. And even at level 25, there’s a 17% chance he has less than 32 transformed AS (23% on level 24, 32% on level 23), whereas Janaff always joins with 34.

I didn't actually take Resolveboxing into consideration when getting that level, otherwise I'd have gotten 28-30. Fact is, Laguz give a lot of experience and he fights a lot, and 23% is still less than a quarter of the time. Obviously, Janaff's 100% is better, but 1 in 4 times is still pretty damn reliable.

As for grassing, almost all of what he does is enemy phase anyway. It's a tiny loss.

Well, it hinders him on the first turn then, at least, which means Janaff still gets to move 2-3 times as far on the very first turn.

I'm pretty sure we don't want untransformed Janaff going very far.

What about going north? 4-P’s northern side is still quite bushy, and enemies being stationed on the normal grounds between them means Janaff can fly around more easily. As I said, when one path to a certain square is blocked by enemies and thickets, Janaff can fly there as easily as if there were neither enemies nor thickets, whereas Volug cannot move as far.

The thickets are all on the sides, they aren't really hindering anyone. Otherwise, yeah, flight. But even that only matters if we're still on the bridge, since the rest of it is wide-open space, so that advantage lasts for a short time.

Like with 3-7, the enemies are extremely immobile, while Janaff doesn’t have a care for the world where he flies to. And like before, there are several ways to beat this Crossbow weak (stat boosters, Resolve, Nullify), in fact the situation is even better because of the possibility of being highly levelled enough to survive without anything else.

But see, Volug laughs at them with or without skills or stat boosters. Considering someone like Jill, Haar, or Ulki got Nullify, Janaff is now phearing them quite a lot. Even if he can survive a hit, anything else kills him.

All the enemies are on this “main path”? Nah. Just look at the map, they’re scattered all over, and Izuka summons new ones next to him when he can. Oh, and this map has Red Dragons, which Janaff can Tear but Volug cannot Savage. Fun.

They're scattered, but they follow that main path because they can't move well in the swamp either (their mobility is the exact same as Volug's). Yes, Red Dragons, but they are fewer than your Crossbow friends in the desert and not as dangerous to Volug. A minor advantage for Janaff, and not even one if Volug has hit 30 (not too likely, but possible).

Flexibility with skills is fun and all, but Volug only has those advantages because Janaff has in-built Canto, which he's not taking away from anyone else. The advantages of Canto, which add to the team (such as getting boosts from Dragons or supports more easily without taking a spot from someone else) clearly >>> the advantages of just taking Adept + Resolve from someone else.

The point of it was that Volug can take virtually anything that's lying around. What if, for any given reason, we have something like Adept and Resolve lying around and everyone but Janaff and Volug are outfitted with skills? Who takes better advantage of this situation? The skills could be anything that add up high enough/are not extremely desired/etc. Canto likely coounteracts this, but to a lesser extent than it would if Janaff had more capacity.

Mekkah · June 29, 2009

Going through the fun stuff really quick

I guess it's up to opinion, but the Wolves look more badass to me.

you're biased

but Vampires are pretty cool themselves

Vampires are associated with goths are associated with emos are associated with fags.

Hawks? All I can think of is Tibarn's awesomeness (besides the whole Google image thing)

Janaff hits on Lucia, but she'll take Bastian before taking Janaff, and she won't even take Bastian, so Janaff is out of luck. All Volug has to do is show off his sexy chest and that sexy ancient tongue and he can get any girl he wants. You're trying to argue that Janaff will have better Luck with girls when Volug's Luck growth is almost double Janaff's (40% higher).

???

Well, Bastian is just a Shakespeare rip-off, but Lucia gives him a chance anyway. Sort of.

FE9 Bastian/Lucia A support

Lucia: Count Bastian... You may talk like you're completely psychotic, but I know it's just an act. And as much as I hate to admit it... I don't think you're all that bad.

Bastian: Then you feel the same?

Lucia: Well... When the war is over...and Crimea is once again back on her feet... I might consider it. Might.

Bastian: Oh, my beloved!

Lucia: As hard as I've tried, you're just impossible to hate.

But there's evidence that Janaff is more succesfull than Bastian will be at any rate...

FE9 Janaff/Lucia A support

Janaff: Same here. The king's ally is my ally. And the king's enemy... But if I can help it, I'd rather not fight a good-looking woman like you! Dinner would be much more enjoyable.

Lucia: I agree, Janaff. When this war is over and Crimea rebuilt...let's meet again. Not as enemies, but as friends.

Janaff: I hope you'll be old enough to go out without a chaperon by then!

Lucia: I hope so as well.

Nonononono. You're saying we should pretty much skip over parts 1-3, aren't you? That can't be more wrong. It would be like saying Fiona is better than Haar because by the time both are in the same army,

I'm not saying they should be skipped over entirely. I'm saying it can be summarized as "both pwn, why go tl;dr about it?". You took an extreme case of a unit that's being a severe detriment versus a unit that can't really do anything wrong other than fly unequipped in the first batch of Thunder Sages, but that is in no way what we're looking at here.

I've given you that Volug is wtfpwn in 1-5, but after that more and more dudes plow in that make his case arguable to say at least, and then part 3 has no BEXP limits and is defensive by nature. Not just chapter goals, but 3-6 and 3-13 are also chokepoint based, and the majority of your army gets their ass kicked if they move too far out of bounds anyway due to enemy laguz being so strong. In 3-12, the majority of the work can be done by someone like Crown!Tauroneo and the massive amount of NPCs you have at your disposal.

See, the problem here is that there are 3 enemies on his joining map that can wipe him out in a single hit, and with a fairly decent chance to boot. Volug never has a problem like that. And that's just Janaff's joining chapter. The next one (3-8) has 2 more Crossbow dudes (and some more Elwind dudes as well), 3-10 has one, 3-11 has one and the boss.

You're kind of repeating yourself here - you talk about the prescence of Crossbows and that they can "wipe out" Janaff, but I've shown that there's numerous easy solution to what's actually a pretty small problem.

Now, these guys, just like nearly everyone, are getting owned by the river, while Janaff can freely fly around to sections where there's no Crossbows. Or if you really want Janaff there, someone like Haar can pick these off, and then Janaff has free game wherever. He can given pick off things in the Crossbow range and Canto out of them if desired.

As I pointed out before, he grows very slowly, so getting there by level within part 3 is pretty much out of the question.

The player may choose to BEXP him close to a new level-up, which has the additional benefit of giving Janaff Tear, giving him essentially the best offense out of anyone, combined with the best mobility. According to this, you only require about as much BEXP to do that as 3-7 gives you in total, unless Hard requires more (I've heard rumors about it, but I can't see anything about it on the site), but the GMs do have plenty of BEXP for that, especially if the return is, as I said, best offense + best mobility for the rest of the game.

As for stat boosters, that's always a shaky argument

Not when there's so many of them available and so few people want them. Most GMs are more pining for Speedwings or Energy Drops, since offense (particulary doubling) is their main problem, whereas durability usually hardly is (and for the ones who it is, one robe or shield usually doesn't save them). And Janaff being able to take an extra hit from Crossbows is much more valuable than, say, Nephenee surviving an extra hit, because he has the mobility to make use of it more often, plus this way he does get to go into Crossbow range (might even be able to use the Resolve convo outlined in my post), AND being a laguz he benefits twice as much from a Dracoshield to begin with.

and one of those Dracoshields has to be bought for 8k anyway, which isn't likely since the GM's are pretty strapped for cash in 3-3.

In 3-3? That's one map after the Silver Card and the arrival of Ilyana, Nephenee and Brom with lots of supplies from the DB and the CRKs, neither of which can do a whole lot with money...in fact, they're overflowing. Normally I'm not one to let others do their work for me, but Interceptor outlined it so clearly here that there's hardly any better way to word it.

By the time that 3-2 begins, the GMs have access to roughly 48,000 gold in possible liquid assets from base gold + selling shit, and this includes up to 20,000 gold worth of "stuff" from Elincia (not liquid, but can be made into ~10,000 liquid if needed). By 3-4, that figure goes up by another ~32,000 gold in liquid assets. By the time 3-11 starts, you get another 20-30k dumped in your lap.

An A support with a Defense partner like Ulki alone will bring that 81 to 84, which is still OHKO range. So he's pretty much in OHKO range from these guys throughout part 3.

A support alone won't do, of course, but for example a level of BEXP for the magic level 30 that gives either hp or def in addition to that support already gets him out of range.

And if Janaff is on the enemy phase when this happens and his gauge drops to 0, bye-bye Janaff, since that's 34 avoid that just went down the drain and a target painted on his forehead.

If either of these guys have their gauge ever running low, they're effectively dead, no matter when or how. That's not really relevant to the Crossbow matter.

Guess what? Volug can do the same thing with Resolve, only without the risk of getting OHKO'd first.

Huh? There's no chance involved in calculated damage, especially not since enemy Crossbow users have fixed Atk. The moment Janaff gains the ability to survive one hit, the RNG can't do anything to change that.

Base level Volug w/Resolve is suddenly running around with 91 avoid, 121 w/Thunder, Dark, or Wind and 136 w/Earth. 142 is the max hit of any enemy on 3-6, and this is only base level Volug. Combine this with the calculations from my first post and Volug has become God. Give him a couple level ups and he will literally be invincible. This can be combined with Wrath as well, since Volug's team is even worse at surviving with such low HP, but he doesn't really need it because he ORKO's just about everything anyhow.

Why did you bring this up again? You already conceded kickboxvolug sucks.

For the kickboxing stuff...It was mainly for when he's choking a spot and only one enemy can attack him, but it was a weak argument in the first place, so I'll drop it.

because

Let’s take the most generous case first: we’ll give Volug A Earth, high biorhythm and Resolve is activated for a net of 106 avo. Then, we’ll just take the 132 hit tiger, who has 26 disp (13.78% true) in these circumstances. That is a 13.78% chance to bite the dust right there, forcing a chapter reset. That death risk alone is enough reason to laugh at any kind of kickboxing maneuver, and this was the lowest hit enemy in the best case possible. If he faces two tigers in a row, it becomes about a 25% chance for Volug to die.

You do realize that last sentence kind of contradicted your point in the first place, right? If Sothe is so sucky later, why does Micaiah want to support him at all?

He still gets forced on the map all the damn time, even though in part 4 he becomes somewhat obsolete. And in 4-3 he's used for digging up treasure in the desert.

And Micaiah wouldn't have 0 avoid ever. The Volug support would come as the Sothe support drops, so she'd go from 15 to 10, increasing it to 20 in just one more level. All that she loses in the end is 8 hit, but she doesn't care about that, and she's now supporting a better character. Plus, her avoid might not be reliable at all, but increasing her chances to live by 15% displayed (which magnifies with true hit) is definitely good for her. In the end, supporting Volug > supporting Sothe. Better character, better bonuses.

She doesn't care much about increased chance of survival, because the moment she's attacked your efficiency is already hurt. Micaiah isn't good for anything but healing after part 1, since she never doubles ever, so she will usually have a staff equipped. Then, Micaiah gets ORKOed all the time, so her being exposed to begin with brings high risks of chapter resets. Such situations simply shouldn't happen at all. Therefore, she doesn't really benefit from a support. For Volug being a "better character" than Sothe, that doesn't matter, for the same reason FE6 Dieck wouldn't take Rutger or Clarine over Lot or Ward if he was given the choice - supports between units that are already assumed to be used go regardless of tiers.

He does give Aran +2 defense, though Aran gets that from anyone. In the end, Aran is just another option.

A rather futile one, given that +2 def at A doesn't solve any of his problems. His problems are not doubling and getting doubled in part 1, and then still lackluster offense in later parts. All Volug does is increase his avo, but he'll still face over 50% display, and by the time it's anything significant, Aran is running around as a nearly unkillable dude in part 3, or even as an extraneous roadblock in part 4.

Jill is probably best for both. Matching movement, etc. If she's carted to the GM's, Zihark probably is as well since they both likely are supporting each other

Carting one of them to the GMs is annoying enough for them, but they don't really want to cop with two extra EXP dumpsters. Plus, if Jill goes to the GMs, she'll want to support Haar/Ulki/Janaff, since otherwise they have to limit their extreme mobility advantage just to get support bonuses.

And if Jill and Zihark get transferred to the GM's, that's creating more competition for Janaff and making Volug even more valuable.

Janaff lays bird shit all over Jill and Zihark statistically, so he isn't really concerned about that. It might even help him more than it hurts, since as I mentioned before, it gives the opportunity of flowing more resources from the Dawn Brigade to the Greil Mercenaries. Away from Volug, in reach of Janaff.

That [shove/Canto helping support building] would matter if Volug's supports weren't built by the time he needs/wants them anyway and if Volug's bonuses weren't better than Janaff's.

It matters regardless of Volug's advantages, or rather, it counters his advantages.

This is true, but Volug's support alone makes his partner much more easily usable in part 4 since they can dodge much. much better. If he supports Micaiah, well, she's forced, so that's a guarantee there.

Guaranteed fail, you mean. Micaiah is best used as a Sacrifice + Wrath gimmick in part 1, then as a healer, and it's likely she doesn't even make it to level 15 before her promotion. She still suffers from getting ORKOed and not doubling, so she's not benefitting from a support at all for the same reason why she isn't in part 1. For Volug to get bonuses at all in 4-P/4-3, he'd have to severely restrict himself. Advantage to Janaff, no more, no less. And of course, this way he can't go to Tibarn's or Ike's routes at all.

If he supports Jill, they can both raep the desert or the swamp.

Yes, if you copped with Jill's sucky part 1, didn't transfer her to the GMs in part 3 to solve her underleveledness, I suppose that works. And in the swamp, she's still limited in flexibility compared to Volug.

If he supports Nolan/Zihark, they can go to Ike's/Tibarn's group and be virtually untouchable. Don't forget that Jill is often regarded as one of the best endgame units, as is Nolan.

Nolan and Zihark can get that much from each other, too, and again those two move much less far than Janaff can...especially in Micaiah's, which you implied they're not going to, so again, flexibility limit for Janaff.

The 3 rounding is, like, Mist against Halberdiers or unleveled Rolf against Generals. Most enemies are 1-2 rounded by any decent offensive unit on the team.

Glad you see some of the GMs are having trouble and, as I said, leave lots of room for improvement.

Aside from the fact that this is one enemy

It's one enemy, yeah, I can take more samples.

SMs (24 AS), Janaff is like one of the three people who can double those.

Warriors have about the same AS as Halberdiers.

Generals have slightly lower AS, but they take like 7-9 more atk to ORKO than Halberdiers, due to having slightly more hp and significantly more def.

Snipers are about the same as Halberdiers.

Sages and Bishops suck defensively.

Oh, and I guess bosses exist, who often have somewhat higher stats than generics of their class. So people who are borderline on doubling or ORKOing now can't. Janaff can act as a pretty good bosskiller.

these problems can generally be fixed.
Ike probably is 20/0, and can have easily been BEXP'd to high enough Speed anyway.

Soren's sub-par as it is.

Gatrie probably got the 3-3 Master Crown and is kicking everything's ass, including this guy.

Oscar, yeah, his tier 2 speed cap sucks.

Mia has crit and likely Adept on her side.

Spd is Ike's 4th highest growth, so he would have to receive the BEXP when he caps one of his stats, but before he's 20/0. Possible, though the bulk of the BEXP from the GMs comes after this chapter. And of course, he still doesn't ORKO.

Soren is sub-par, yes, which cuts into your whole "GMs are uber while DB are sux so Volug >>>" argument.

Then again, Soren is a Crown candidate, just like Gatrie...

[Oscar] Uhuh.

Mia would just be taking an Adept from someone else, and her crit isn't anywhere near reliable...but she has like one of the best offenses of the GMs anyway.

I see we're moving back to part 1 now...

[1-6-2]Not at all. Volug, with possible help from Jill, is all that is saving Fiona and her Marado Knights/Civilians, helping use save some BEXP. This is something even Tauroneo can't do because he can't reach it in time.

Fiona's stupidity is only one part of the chapter though. Tauroneo can go banzai on other parts of the map in the meanwhile. And he can make use of Jill's help just as well by being dropped in the middle of enemies.

Zihark loses durability by a lot. Volug's 49 HP, 13 def, 51 avoid to Zihark's 30 HP, 13 def, 57 avoid. 19 HP >>>>>> 6 avoid.

I didn't make any claims about his defense though. He loses durability, but he has similar offense, perhaps more against stuff like Myrms.

Yes, Muarim rapes when transformed, but there is no Olivi Grass on 1-7, so he can't use that raep all the time.

Muarim transforms by story mode ("kill the beasts with fire!") and has enough gauge to murder all that's left, so he can definitely raep all the time.

...Wait, what? Are you pretty much saying that since Janaff has fewer chapters to worry about range, he has an advantage? That's confusing logic.

It's not an advantage for Janaff, but a reduced advantage for Volug. Anytime a ranged enemy attacks them, their performance, relative or absolute, is equal.

Let's look at it from a different side. Tauroneo, Tormod, Zihark, Muarim, Nailah, Black Knight. 6 units that could arguable be said to be better than Volug. The problem? Only 5 max are on any given map, and only once, 1-E. 1-5 has none of them, 1-6 has 2, 1-7 has 3, and 1-8 has 4. This is much less competition than Janaff is dealing with for sure.

Who is arguably better than Janaff again, then? Ulki? Haar? No one else matches his offense, defense and mobility.

And I don't get how the two range thing is worse for Volug. "Tormod or BK could take it." Well, Haar, Shinon, Boyd, Ike, Gatrie, Titania, etc., could take it. Tormod's not a "2 range uber" anyway. His durability is similar to Zihark's without the avoid.

None of those can ORKO with a ranged weapon as reliably as Burger King, or even Tormod, mostly due to doubling issues. Well, Shinon can, but many 2-range things also have 1-range, and he sucks against those.

Don't forget that Volug competes with BK for one map, and he still has +3 move.

And BK has infinite offense and durability, whereas Volug, as conceded, began to falter in that area.

I didn't actually take Resolveboxing into consideration when getting that level, otherwise I'd have gotten 28-30. Fact is, Laguz give a lot of experience and he fights a lot, and 23% is still less than a quarter of the time. Obviously, Janaff's 100% is better, but 1 in 4 times is still pretty damn reliable.

Resolvekickboxing is only possible with a lot of reset attempts, so that level never happens. 77% [or 67%] are pretty unreliable when it's about something as vital as doubling the most common enemies.

As for grassing, almost all of what he does is enemy phase anyway. It's a tiny loss.

Actually, since Volug fails to ORKO Tigers, he loses out on the kill EXP of those if he grasses on player phase.

I'm pretty sure we don't want untransformed Janaff going very far.

I'm assuming they're using laguz stone/gem on turn 1, so basically Janaff transforms, then cantos further with his transformed move and stats. Volug can't do that.

The thickets are all on the sides, they aren't really hindering anyone. Otherwise, yeah, flight. But even that only matters if we're still on the bridge, since the rest of it is wide-open space, so that advantage lasts for a short time.

Again, if enemies are blocking the bridge or the roads between the thickets, then others are more limited in where they go compared to Janaff. The only wide, open space in this chapter is in the north east corner, near the boss.

But see, Volug laughs at them with or without skills or stat boosters. Considering someone like Jill, Haar, or Ulki got Nullify, Janaff is now phearing them quite a lot. Even if he can survive a hit, anything else kills him.

He's facing even more lolable hit rates than in 3-7 and 3-8 due to Greatlance/Poleaxe/Blade weapons being the new thing today, and there's an extra Resolve to throw around. And again, those enemies only have extremely limited range, so Janaff can afford to wtfpwn somewhere else while Skrimir or Haar or whoever takes out the occasional Crossbow man.

They're scattered, but they follow that main path because they can't move well in the swamp either (their mobility is the exact same as Volug's). Yes, Red Dragons, but they are fewer than your Crossbow friends in the desert and not as dangerous to Volug. A minor advantage for Janaff, and not even one if Volug has hit 30 (not too likely, but possible).

To follow a main path, they have to get to it first, and Janaff can get to them first. As for Dragons, minor advantage, advantage all the same.

The point of it was that Volug can take virtually anything that's lying around. What if, for any given reason, we have something like Adept and Resolve lying around and everyone but Janaff and Volug are outfitted with skills?

What if Micaiah had Ike's stats?

What if Janaff wasn't weak to bows?

What if Volug joined at the same time as Sephiran?

Unrealistic situations are given no weight. There's always someone around to take advantage of these skills, especially since the best skills are the ones everyone wants. And if you're looking for minor counterarguments to skill usage: Janaff uses both of these skills better anyway due to his higher activation rate.

Florete · June 29, 2009

you're biased

I could say you are, too.

Hawks? All I can think of is Tibarn's awesomeness (besides the whole Google image thing)

That's because there's nothing special to say about Hawks. Wolves have special places in old folklore and stuff, but Hawks are just...another animal, I guess.

Tibarn is pretty awesome, yeah, but Janaff is not Tibarn.

FE9 Bastian/Lucia A support

It's true, he is impossible to hate. But as you said, that was more of a "sort of."

But there's evidence that Janaff is more succesfull than Bastian will be at any rate...
FE9 Janaff/Lucia A support

It seemed to me to be more like small talk among friends, not anything to get into a relationship over. Lucia's a good friend of his, I'll give you that.

I'm not saying they should be skipped over entirely. I'm saying it can be summarized as "both pwn, why go tl;dr about it?". You took an extreme case of a unit that's being a severe detriment versus a unit that can't really do anything wrong other than fly unequipped in the first batch of Thunder Sages, but that is in no way what we're looking at here.

Perhaps my Fiona/Haar thing was a bad example, but the point still stands. Both pwn, but if one is pwning as much as the next 6 units on the team and the other is pwning harder than anyone else on his team, the second guy is starting to look a lot more valuable. I can drop that first guy and not see much of a change because I still have 6-10 other pwnage people that can get the chapter finished in the same amount of time, while if I drop the second guy I'm noticing a significant drop in efficiency because it's like quadratic equations without a calculator; still possible, just a lot more difficult. I don't want difficult, I want easy.

This is pretty much the case in Janaff vs. Volug. At times (not all times of course) Volug is almost paramount to survival. Janaff is replacing a less-capable-yet-still-capable unit.

and then part 3 has no BEXP limits and is defensive by nature. Not just chapter goals, but 3-6 and 3-13 are also chokepoint based, and the majority of your army gets their ass kicked if they move too far out of bounds anyway due to enemy laguz being so strong.

Ah, but see, this is what makes Volug so good. You yourself just mentioned the majority of our army getting their ass kicked. If that's the case, wouldn't a unit with great offense and defense be a major boon to such a team? It's true that there are no BEXP limits and you can generally take as long as you want, but using Volug significantly reduces my chances of someone dying and forcing a reset since he's so much better defensively (a lot of characters are getting 2HKO'd while he's 3HKO'd, which is a big improvement). If I didn't have him, I'd have to replace him with someone frail like Edward since the not-Volug-durable units (Nolan/Aran to an extent, maybe Jill) are probably already elsewhere on the field but we still have chokepoints to hold. On the other hand, Janaff would be replaced by someone like Oscar or Nephenee or Mia who might not be as good but are still pretty good as characters on their own, so the loss from not using Volug is greater than the loss from not using Janaff.

In 3-12, the majority of the work can be done by someone like Crown!Tauroneo and the massive amount of NPCs you have at your disposal.

Crowned Tauroneo is good, but he also starts far away from everyone else over at the left where hardly anything even has to be done and takes a while to get to everyone else since he only has 6 move. NPC's are there, yes, but if you have them Roaming then the unpredictability of their movements is obviously making that iffy, and if you have them on Target they aren't attacking and you just broke up that defensive line at the left.

You're kind of repeating yourself here - you talk about the prescence of Crossbows and that they can "wipe out" Janaff, but I've shown that there's numerous easy solution to what's actually a pretty small problem.

This is true. However, I can also wall in my healer and minimize his/her defensive issues, but that doesn't get rid of them. I can keep Haar away from any Thunder Sages that ever exist to eliminate that hole in his defense, but the fact remains that there's an issue here which needs to be put under control, something Volug doesn't worry about. In the end, it's really just lowering his reliability because there are those times where you need to be sure he's not in a certain area.

According to this, you only require about as much BEXP to do that as 3-7 gives you in total, unless Hard requires more (I've heard rumors about it, but I can't see anything about it on the site),

Hard requires 2x the BEXP, so HM essentially has 1/4 the BEXP NM has. Janaff at base BEXP's like a 20/20/3 Beorc (somewhere around there, his odd level makes it confusing to pinpoint, a.k.a. it might be 20/4), so he takes 4400 BEXP to level up. At the end of 3-7, if we've maxed out our BEXP, we've acquired 17100. For the sake of being realistic, let's say only 12000 is remaining. That means to level up Janaff, it'll take ~37% of our total BEXP. That doesn't sound like a lot, but then there are problems with missing BEXP, like 3-P's crazy requirements and 3-4's fairly low turn requirement. To add to that, we're getting more units that want BEXP constantly. Practically every GM except Rolf and Boyd that's being used wants some, Ulki wants some for the same reasons as Janaff, other Laguz for the same general reasons, like Ranulf, then Haar, Nephenee, maybe Marcia when she shows, etc. The competition for BEXP is pretty big. He can fairly use enough to get him to 30 by part 4, but no more.

especially if the return is, as I said, best offense + best mobility for the rest of the game.

Although it really has nothing to do with this debate, I should point out that Laguz royals beat him pretty well in part 4, which is part of the rest of the game, especially Tibarn.

But they are also better than Volug by then. No surprise there.

and for the ones who it is, one robe or shield usually doesn't save them).

O rly?

Let's look into that.

First things first, if Micaiah uses the first Dracoshield, it prevents her from getting OHKOd by the majority of 1-1 enemies that have 17 atk. She needs to gain 2 HP/Def by 1-2 to use it and no longer be OHKO'd by anyone except the boss. Etc. etc.

Giving it to Aran will take him from being 2RKOd by near everything on 1-4 to 3RKOd by almost everything, a pretty nice improvement. It also prevents 1-5's 26 atk Fighters (5 of them) from 2RKOing him.

Giving Jill a Robe prevents her from getting OHKO'd by 1-6-1's Elthunder Sage as well turning a few 2RKOs into 3RKOs. It also turns 1-6-2's Fire Mages 2RKOs into 3RKOs. A Dracoshield turns a lot of 3RKOs into 4+RKOs, etc.

So the DB's boosters might already be gone, and I didn't even cover everyone. But since you were originally arguing the GM's, let's take a look at them.

It does wonders for Mia. Any 3-2 enemy with 31-32 atk (~8 of them) is suddenly 3RKOing instead of 2RKOing with a Dracoshield, the 33 atk guys as well (10 of them) if she was lucky enough to get a Defense boost on a level up. Similar case for 3-3 and on.

Nephenee is very similar defensively to Mia, so it helps her in almost the same way, except it's even better for her because Nephenee's avoid is lower.

And then there are characters like Titania, Marcia, Tanith, Elincia, Calill, Oscar, Zihark, and Sothe who all run into durability issues later, in addition to the ones already mentioned, who would respect a defensive boost.

And Janaff being able to take an extra hit from Crossbows is much more valuable than, say, Nephenee surviving an extra hit, because he has the mobility to make use of it more often, plus this way he does get to go into Crossbow range (might even be able to use the Resolve convo outlined in my post), AND being a laguz he benefits twice as much from a Dracoshield to begin with.

Personally, I'd rather have Nephenee perform better against half the enemies she faces than Janaff performing better against 7 of the enemies he faces.

Also, "benefits twice as much" isn't exactly an accurate statement. He gets double the boost, yeah, but can you say Mordecai benefits twice as much from a Dracoshield as Mia does since he gets +4 def instead of +2? Benefit is relative to the character, not what the actual boost is.

In 3-3? That's one map after the Silver Card and the arrival of Ilyana, Nephenee and Brom with lots of supplies from the DB and the CRKs, neither of which can do a whole lot with money...in fact, they're overflowing. Normally I'm not one to let others do their work for me, but Interceptor outlined it so clearly here that there's hardly any better way to word it.

It's worth noting that that point was made before Interceptor's knowledge was known to us. It's also worth noting the god-awful positioning of the Dracoshield. It's one chapter after the Silver Card and before the Gems. This means we might easily have just used as much money as possible on 3-2 for uber forges and stuff since it was all at half price and not have enough money on 3-3 for the Dracoshield. This is likely better because it means we can practically plan our entire weapon inventory for the rest of the game and make sure everyone we plan to use will have an awesome weapon as soon as they show up. Or we buy the Dracoshield and use it right away. Sorry, Janaff.

A support alone won't do, of course, but for example a level of BEXP for the magic level 30 that gives either hp or def in addition to that support already gets him out of range.

This also has to build to an A, something that likely won't happen until ~3-E, at which point most of the Crossbow dudes are now gone.

Oh, and Ulki might actually support someone else, since he has Water, a very desirable affinity. The most likely alternative for him is Mordecai, since Mordecai gives him more Atk instead of avoid, and we all know Ulki's issue lies in offense, not defense.

So then Janaff has to support someone who boosts Defense to get that magic Defense. The problem is that none are left. The GM's are likely already building support, so Ranulf and Reyson are what's likely to be left, and neither boost defense. Even if you want to argue one of the CRK's, only Makalov boosts Defense, but that's a bad support for this time in the game since Makalov is meh and we're getting to the point where the Paladin class starts to look bad, a.k.a. part 4. There's also Sigrun, who downright sucks.

tl;dr, it's possible that even a level in HP or Def and an A support won't save him from Crossbows.

Why did you bring this up again? You already conceded kickboxvolug sucks.

Those calculations you quoted with this were for Volug transformed w/Resolve, not kickboxing. :/

He still gets forced on the map all the damn time, even though in part 4 he becomes somewhat obsolete. And in 4-3 he's used for digging up treasure in the desert.

Being forced doesn't mean he has to do anything. And digging up treasure means he probably isn't supporting Micaiah since he's likely being ferried by Sigrun/Nealuchi/etc. and is too far away from her.

She doesn't care much about increased chance of survival, because the moment she's attacked your efficiency is already hurt. Micaiah isn't good for anything but healing after part 1, since she never doubles ever, so she will usually have a staff equipped. Then, Micaiah gets ORKOed all the time, so her being exposed to begin with brings high risks of chapter resets. Such situations simply shouldn't happen at all. Therefore, she doesn't really benefit from a support. For Volug being a "better character" than Sothe, that doesn't matter, for the same reason FE6 Dieck wouldn't take Rutger or Clarine over Lot or Ward if he was given the choice - supports between units that are already assumed to be used go regardless of tiers.

This is true. However, just because she shouldn't ever be attacked doesn't mean she never will, and helping her live when she is can obviously be seen as a good thing. Micaiah is ORKOd by everything on 3-6 (unless she gets a Dracoshield, which let's her survive against lv 14 Cats. More competition for that booster) except for that one 32 atk Tiger. With a Sothe support, she has 68-70 avoid. With a Volug support, it becomes 83-85. This takes her from facing 62-74% hit rates and turns them into 47-59%, which in true hit reduces her chance to be hit by ~20-26%. At lows, she faces <50% chances to be hit instead of a little more than 2/3 chances to be hit, so this support can actually help her quite a bit whereas Sothe support doesn’t really help her at all.

The stuff about Aran doesn't really matter. The only reason you'd have the two of them support is if everyone else is taken for some reason, in which case the support still helps both somewhat. But that doesn't matter because it's highly unlikely they'd be stuck with each other.

Carting one of them to the GMs is annoying enough for them, but they don't really want to cop with two extra EXP dumpsters. Plus, if Jill goes to the GMs, she'll want to support Haar/Ulki/Janaff, since otherwise they have to limit their extreme mobility advantage just to get support bonuses.

If we're only sending Jill over to the GM's, we're sending a low leveled, supportless unit over to a team that really doesn't need much help. If we send both, they can at least pull their own weight until they find new partners, assuming they want to break what they have together. Canto makes staying in range not such a big deal, so the only reason she'd really want to break that support is to marry Haar, but that has nothing to do with actual gameplay, obviously.

But it's the support situation that's the real issue. If we send Jill over, she either wasn't supporting or left her partner behind, meaning we were coping with a supportless unit since part 1 or we've just made a unit worse for 3-12 and 3-13. If we send only Zihark over, Volug's support situation is simply better because now Nolan wants him but he can still easily get Jill.

Janaff lays bird shit all over Jill and Zihark statistically, so he isn't really concerned about that. It might even help him more than it hurts, since as I mentioned before, it gives the opportunity of flowing more resources from the Dawn Brigade to the Greil Mercenaries. Away from Volug, in reach of Janaff.

As I said before, more playable units is more playable units. I only need as many decent/good units as I have deployment slots for Janaff to need to compete for a slot, and I have them in spades. Carting to the GM's is nice, but Volug could've used any resources he wanted to by this point anyway, so carting them over is simply telling us that Volug (and his team, I suppose) didn't need them, which is more good than bad because now someone who needs it can use it.

Guaranteed fail, you mean.

I'm assuming this was directed at Micaiah's avoid, but when I said "guaranteed" I meant he's near-guaranteed a slot for 4-E since Micaiah wants to at least have a support on her side.

Micaiah is best used as a Sacrifice + Wrath gimmick in part 1, then as a healer, and it's likely she doesn't even make it to level 15 before her promotion.

This might not be relevant to the debate, but getting Micaiah to 20 before both promotions is very easy. I'm assuming you meant her second promotion, since that's the one people normally attack. She's healing quite a lot in part 3, Physicing practically every turn in 3-13, so she can get to ~8 by the time part 4 rolls around. "12 levels in 2 maps? Madness!" you say? If you don't really use her maybe. Part 4 enemies are counted as tier 3, so she gets a shitload of experience just for hitting, and 4-P has plenty of Paladins for her to Thani-bomb. She doesn't quite kill them, but it makes it a cinch for anyone to kill without taking a counter. She can also grab Paragon for one of her maps, since with 3 rolling around and not too many units that need it, she isn't taking much of anything from the team.

She still suffers from getting ORKOed and not doubling, so she's not benefitting from a support at all for the same reason why she isn't in part 1.

I covered this for 3-6, but it matters here as well. Sothe might easily not be getting used at all any more, so she probably can't benefit there. +30 avoid is a big deal. Like if she would normally face 92% true (80% displayed) she's suddenly facing 50.5% true, meaning she's getting hit half the time instead of slightly more than 9/10 times. If she's always one rounded, that makes 4 out of any given 10 attacks that we weren't forced to reset, though I think by part 4 she's finally gotten out of ORKO range, which means she benefits even more from better avoid.

If she's been a good girl and has biorythm on her side to normally face 82% true (70% displayed), she's suddenly only facing 32% true (40% displayed), a 50% subtraction. She gets hit 1/3 of the time instead of 3/5 of the time, or, put a bit simpler, 5/15 times instead of 9/15 times, and those fractions round 32 up and 82 down, so it's actually slightly better than that. Throw is Resolve and making Micaiah survive just got a hell of a lot easier.

For Volug to get bonuses at all in 4-P/4-3, he'd have to severely restrict himself. Advantage to Janaff, no more, no less. And of course, this way he can't go to Tibarn's or Ike's routes at all.

This is hardly a negative. He's being forced to the area he performs the best in. If anything I'd call it a positive since there's no chance he'll go somewhere else as a result of this team being full or something. He might have to restrict himself on occasion, but even that's a very tiny negative at best.

4-P he chokepoints Paladins. No problems at all.

4-3 enemies have shit for move, so keeping Micaiah out of range of everything is very easy. Only Dragonmasters and Sages have good move, but Dragonmasters aren't very abundant and she laughs at Sages with her uber Resistance.

Yes, if you copped with Jill's sucky part 1, didn't transfer her to the GMs in part 3 to solve her underleveledness, I suppose that works. And in the swamp, she's still limited in flexibility compared to Volug.

I don't see what Jill's part 1 really has to do this unless you want to make an argument for not using Jill, but you didn't. And anyway, Volug support makes her much, much easier to use in part 4. Look at what +30 avoid did to Micaiah and apply it to a character who's avoid is leagues better naturally. In the swamp, I wouldn't say she's limited at all. Unless she supports another flier (which I'll get to), she'll be "restricted" anyway, but Volug has the best movement of any non-flier possible on this team anyway, and it's not like she's dashing off to fight Laguz supportless.

As for supporting fliers, there are issues with that. First, none other than her even exist in the DB. So she'd have to transfer to the GM's to do that, but then she's probably supporting Zihark in that case. In the event she does support a flier, who cares? He'll just support someone else, like Micaiah or Nolan for the same/better bonuses and help them out.

Nolan and Zihark can get that much from each other, too, and again those two move much less far than Janaff can...especially in Micaiah's, which you implied they're not going to, so again, flexibility limit for Janaff.

I didn't mention Micaiah's because she lacks authority stars, but nothing is stopping them from going there. Nolan and Zihark can get that much from each other, yes. That's why Jill and Micaiah exist. (Or any DB member)

Also, Nolan and Zihark have slight offense issues in part 4, and Volug doesn't exactly help that.

In a way it does actually. More durability means more enemy exposure, which means they do more on enemy phase and grow faster, which ultimately helps their offense. It may not help offense directly, but it has a lasting effect on performance.

Glad you see some of the GMs are having trouble and, as I said, leave lots of room for improvement.

What? 1-2 rounding isn't bad at all. That "some" is weak characters that either shouldn't be fighting or aren't likely fielded.

Oh, and I guess bosses exist, who often have somewhat higher stats than generics of their class.

Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, but this sentence reminded me of it. It goes back to the DB's part 3, where the generics they face are generally stronger than the bosses the GM's face with a team averaging 10 levels lower, generics Volug is the definite best against. In order for Janaff's part 3 utility to even compare to Volug's, his team would have to consist of a bunch of Soren's, aka units who get 1-2 rounded by everything with only decent offense. And Soren is often considered a below-average character and might easily not be played at all. This gives Volug some serious value in part 3 that Janaff does not have.

Soren is sub-par, yes, which cuts into your whole "GMs are uber while DB are sux so Volug >>>" argument.

He's a noob among awesome. No one ever assumed he was in play.

Fiona's stupidity is only one part of the chapter though. Tauroneo can go banzai on other parts of the map in the meanwhile. And he can make use of Jill's help just as well by being dropped in the middle of enemies.

But it gives him value Tauroneo doesn't have, which cuts into the argument of the dude being so much better than Volug. And Jill doesn't need to go with Volug, she just helps.

Muarim transforms by story mode ("kill the beasts with fire!") and has enough gauge to murder all that's left, so he can definitely raep all the time.

But there are issues even with that. He has to be recruited first, which means there have been 1-2 turns of no action for him. Then he has to go around everything because the northern and eastern gaps are all blocked by enemies. He can't actually do a whole lot before his gauge starts to need help and he reverts.

It's not an advantage for Janaff, but a reduced advantage for Volug. Anytime a ranged enemy attacks them, their performance, relative or absolute, is equal.

I don't see where the reduce in advantage is. Neither does any better against this specific type of enemy, so neither earns any points, and therefore neither can be said to have higher performance. Unless...

This is probably a very good time to mention Volug's innate Howl. A small point, but one nonetheless. Every time an enemy attacks him at range, there's a 19% chance the enemy will be imobilized. In other words, one in every five enemies that hits Volug at range can't do anything for an entire turn, which gives Volug a very slight lead over Janaff for ranged enemies. No one else on his team can use it, and you yourself posted Interceptor's novel on how money is not an issue, there's no reason to take it from Volug.

None of those can ORKO with a ranged weapon as reliably as Burger King, or even Tormod, mostly due to doubling issues. Well, Shinon can, but many 2-range things also have 1-range, and he sucks against those.

This is true, but there are many units with reliable range on the GM's (almost all of them) while only a few exist on the DB. In fact, BK and Tormod are probably the only ones who can reliably take the risk, but the GM's have Ike, Titania, Boyd, Shinon, Gatrie, Mia, Brom, Nephenee, Haar, Oscar, and eventually Tanith and the CRK's, all with better offense vs. ranged enemies on the enemy phase than Janaff. If they've been used, toss Rolf, Soren, Ilyana, and hell, even Heather into it.

77% [or 67%] are pretty unreliable when it's about something as vital as doubling the most common enemies.

As I recall, this was only for SM's anyway, far from "the most common" enemies. 4-P has 3 as reinforcements, 4-1 has 4 total, and 4-2 has 9. 4-3 has 12, 4-4 has quite a bit, 4-5 has 0. Overall, they make up a small % of the total enemies, so it's a very small portion of enemies Janaff only might have an advantage against.

Actually, since Volug fails to ORKO Tigers, he loses out on the kill EXP of those if he grasses on player phase.

How is that? Unless someone else comes in and kills, he'll just kill on enemy phase. And besides, the lower end Tigers require 52 atk to ORKO, 54 when in a Thicket. Assuming Janaff has reached S strike, he needs to be level 36-37 and have an attack support to reach this. Note that this is Janaff with Str capped, so no easy jumping by means of Energy Drop either. This is just the lower end, defense screwed Tigers. In other words, neither Janaff nor Volug can reliably ORKO Tigers. Janaff has Tear, okay, but that's a % activation, so it's not perfectly reliable.

Oh shit, that was for Volug's part 3, wasn't it? Oh well. Just use the first two sentences. If anything, killing on the second round is still good because he got a bit more experience or gave easy experience to someone else. Since it's a defend chapter, we don't have to worry too much about making sure every last enemy is killed, so this is rather fine.

I'm assuming they're using laguz stone/gem on turn 1, so basically Janaff transforms, then cantos further with his transformed move and stats. Volug can't do that.

I'm pretty sure using a Laguz Stone (Gems are being saved for Endgame) doesn't allow a unit to Canto with full move, but I see your point.

The only wide, open space in this chapter is in the north east corner, near the boss.

Uh, no, not at all, at least relative to where enemies are. The entire north half of the map is practically wide open as far as our two characters are concerned, and even the east side is enough for anyone because of how the enemies spawn.

To follow a main path, they have to get to it first, and Janaff can get to them first.

But you miss the point. They are always on this path. Janaff doesn't really get to anything first because all the enemies are within Volug's range, because they all follow his path. Janaff might get to different enemies first, but that's not giving him any sort of advantage. The only units with real mobility issues here are non-flying Beorc, which Volug is not.

What if Micaiah had Ike's stats?
What if Janaff wasn't weak to bows?

What if Volug joined at the same time as Sephiran?

Unrealistic situations are given no weight. There's always someone around to take advantage of these skills, especially since the best skills are the ones everyone wants. And if you're looking for minor counterarguments to skill usage: Janaff uses both of these skills better anyway due to his higher activation rate.

But see, the scenario given was actually possible. Micaiah doesn't have Ike's stats ever, Janaff is always weak to bows barring Nullify, Volug always joins in 1-5. If I have an Endgame team consisting of Caineghis, Tibarn, Naesala, Nailah, Giffca, Elincia, Janaff, Volug, and two more, with 3 Adepts, 2 Resolves, and more skills to toss around and at least 5 units who don't really need them at all, it's actually very possible for an Adept and Resolve to be left behind.

Let's conclude:

Very possibly the best overall unit in part 1.

The DB's downright best part 3 unit, facing generics as strong as GM bosses.

Awesome affinity that goes well on anyone and makes almost anyone much more easily usable.

Only slightly worse, if at all, in part 4.

No Bow weakness, only a negligible Fire weakness.

No shirt and abs of steel. (<-- The real kicker)

Volug for Top tier.

^Already happened.

Like, votes, or something?

Vykan12 · June 30, 2009

I believe Red Fox won 2-3 votes to 0.

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Mekkah (Janaff) vs Red Fox of Fire (Volug)

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