FE9 Tier list v3

[Zkirsche]

Tell you what, how about you go and play the game, then come back and tell me how often killing enemies helped you beat the game? Because if you are questioning the value of killing enemies, then I wonder if you have ever even played a Fire Emblem.

You have missed the point entirely to make a foolish comment about if I have played a fire emblem.

Tormod gives us nothing our team can't do, except the rest of the team does it a lot better because of more mov, canto, possible flight and supports. Most of them also don't need 1000 bexp dumped into them in one session to be useful.

Soren needs 0 BEXP to help with early potshots which can help unit growth which helps the game's completion. If we choose to promote him early, then he can also ORKO quite nicely in chapter 13, and will have the same mov as other foot units (unless you think they have promoted naturally by then).

[aku chi]

Tormod gives us nothing our team can't do, except the rest of the team does it a lot better because of more mov, canto, possible flight and supports. Most of them also don't need 1000 bexp dumped into them in one session to be useful.

Well, he shares the relatively rare siege utility with the rest of the Sages.

But Tormod is being overhyped as of late, I deem. I think it's worth pointing out that there are 0 units above Tormod on the tier list that have neither a movement nor an availability advantage (except Reyson, who's Reyson). I've already explained in great detail why I believe Soren > Tormod. Tormod vs. the Swordmasters is definitely a difficult comparison, so I'm not too concerned with their relative placements.

[Anouleth]

You have missed the point entirely to make a foolish comment about if I have played a fire emblem.

No, I think I got the point. You think that combat contributions are of no significance. I don't see any other way to interpret your claim that Tormod's combat is of no significance. After all, it's not like he doesn't have good movement, or the resources he takes are too expensive to be afforded in an efficient playthrough.

Well, maybe you're applying an absurdly strict standard and claiming that combat contributions are of no significance if you don't have 9 movement and canto, but that seems so completely ridiculous, I didn't consider it seriously.

[Narga_Rocks]

The second but I'm trying to show basic mistakes. It's what I've been doing in this tier list for the past 2 months. I'll pop in with a comment, show how person x is a fucking retard for making a general sweeping comment and pop out again.

This isn't about winning or losing, kid. It's about whether or not your point is sensible or not.

Except you talked about him not being 2HKOd by stuff in a game where there are multiple units that won't die if they rush into a swarm of enemies. Like Ike or Oscar, particularly if they are supporting each other. Or Jill, even a properly leveled Marcia with some Tanith support.

Besides, he's got this annoying habit of getting criticaled and his durability isn't that much better than a properly leveled Mia (hence part of why they are so close on the list). Of course, in comparison to Tormod, he's like a tank, but at least Tormod has 1-2 range and seige tome options. Of course, I think Stefan is > Tormod easily, but denying that Stefan has somewhat poor durability is not the way to prove it.

[Lord Raven]

holy fuck aku chi fuck you omg this is going to be the longest hour of my weekend

I apologize in advance if I respond to your posts with undue hostility, but I believe that you're making a huge logical blunder. You are basing your judgements almost primarily on one particular LTC run that you are completing. You have, therefore, intimate knowledge of what can be accomplished with the units you deployed and the strategies you used. However, you do not, on the basis of this one run, have any first-hand knowledge of what is possible with different units or different strategies. This has lead you to many false conclusions, in my judgement - a couple of which are represented in this paragraph alone (and I'll be pointing out more as we go along). In general, you need to be more dedicated and creative coming up with counter-factual clears that differ from your own. It is also not a safe assumption that your clears were all optimal (I know for a fact that several were not).

Actually considering the number of units I've used I think I have enough basis to form some of my arguments, especially considering I have logged my own efficiency run. Having that said, I would think if Boyd has had trouble keeping up with a 5 (well, 4 since I stopped using Titania at some point) Paladin team then Nephenee will run into the same problem and she won't be receiving combat very often. That's a fact, and the only time I can even see Nephenee having a use is as some chick that uses Wrath towards the top of Chapter 25; she could decimate a nice army of enemies because she'll have essentially an 84% chance of killing a bunch of things (or at least getting a critical) with a Spear, forged Javelin with +9 Crit, and a 75% of a kill with a Short Spear. That's all I can think of thanks to Wrath.

How often you used Titania, Marcia, and Jill is not at all a comprehensive indication of how valuable these units are to efficiency runs in general. I'm confident that I could use Titania plus two of: { Oscar, Marcia, Jill } and accomplish more efficient clears than you. I could use Jill not at all and Marcia sparingly and vica versa. You chose to use Marcia in situations where a Paladin would have done better with similar resources. I could have used Oscar (or Kieran) instead. You chose to use Marcia in situations where Jill or Tanith would have done at least as well (with similar resources).

I'm not arguing Marcia > Jill and Marcia > Tanith is already a fact. I don't see how this is relevant at all. In fact, if you think you can accomplish more efficient clears than me without it, then go for it, I'm not stopping you. I didn't do it for competition, just for self-interest, but it's definitely giving me insight as to how to rank this tier list because I *did* playtest a bunch of things during my runthrough that didn't work out as effectively as I liked (such as Haar, Tanith, etc).

The fact is that I ended up using Marcia a ton because *she* was the one who ended up getting the boots. There are chapters that really really need her flying utility that she really does use the Boots, and Jill doesn't quite catch up because she didn't have the massive resourcedump that Marcia had. In fact, I'd argue Marcia > Jill on some of these grounds but that's far too ambitious for a lazy ass like me who is already juggling a Tormod > Nephenee on top of not having convinced someone that Tormod > Soren.

Likewise, you used Tormod from C18 onward: you did not use another Sage. You have first-hand knowledge what Tormod can accomplish but no knowledge (from this run) what Soren or Calill could accomplish in Tormod's stead. You claim, for instance, that Tormod can reach relevant siege targets that the other Sages cannot without ferrying. Your basis for this is that Tormod can reach them. This is half an argument. You also need to demonstrate that Soren cannot (without ferrying).

I did use Soren at the same time as Tormod. Soren is good for launching a Blizzard every once in a while but the problem is that after 3 turns Soren is left *completely* in the dust, being around 6 squares behind Tormod, killing his range a little bit. He doesn't even need an Arms Scroll to start the siege with Blizzard, but the fact is that his movement and lack of durability have hindered him greatly. Tormod can take 3 hits and Soren can take 2 hits. Both are doubling about as often as one another, Str lead or not.

You are quite late in the realization. Take a look at the current tier list. Notice that only three mounted units, Geoffrey, Haar, and Elincia, are lower than High Tier. Also notice that Haar, Geoffrey, and Elincia are still higher than any unit with equal or lesser availability. In fact, the only mounted units that are tiered below a non-mounted unit with equal or lesser availability are Astrid, Makalov, and Tanith tiered below Reyson - the best utility unit in the game, hands down. Also note that no Paladins are tiered above mounted fliers with equal or more availability. So before you propose changes stemming from your newfound realization, understand that you are not alone in realizing how valuable mounted units are in this game.

What part of "that was a joke" don't you understand anyway? The "three tier" idea was a joke. A joke!! Of course Haar/Geoff/Elincia won't be that high because of their availability (Elincia makes a great backup Rescue user though, which is why I don't think she deserves to be so low, and Shinon attracts attention to himself extremely well in the early game chapters which is an extreme boon so I honestly don't think they should be so low).

Here, you assume that Marcia or Jill need to ferry Ike to the seize square, when any trained Paladin is at least as well suited for the task (and better than Marcia).

Nope, not always can they do the same thing. Not *at all* always.

Chapter 10: If you're going stealth, Marcia is a lot easier to Shove and she gets you the 9-turn stealth clear.

Chapter 11: She can fly over the barracks at the end and Arrive very easily. Titania might need to take out the Knight, but Oscar/Kieran can't do that.

Chapter 12: She can kill the boss any time she wants with an Iron Lance forge. Turn 2 is actually the minimum.

Chapter 13: She can fly over and kill some of the latter enemies more easily, reach chests faster if you want to get the 7-turn clear.

Chapter 14: She'll probably be recruiting Makalov. If not, then yes in this chapter Marcia/Titania have essentially the same utility except that Marcia, according to another LTC I saw, got Shoved a couple times which is something you can't do to Oscar/Titania as easily.

You get Boots in Chapter 15, right? Marcia gets you an easy clear of Chapter 15 with a laguz lance. She is at a higher level than Jill at this point, and she has a higher Spear level to use the Laguz Lance, so she can kill Muarim extremely easily. Oscar can't do that.

Chapter 16, Marcia has probably used Boots at this point so she can ferry Ike. Why did she use Boots? You'll see.

Chapter 17-1: Oscar can't reach the far end of the thing easily without... 3 turns. Marcia contributes to a 2-turn clear by going all the way to the end, Boots included (Boots help it a lot, in fact) and being able to ORKO them all when she's given a Str drop. She doesn't need resources at this point other than a random Strength Drop or two because she already has had the resource dump.

Chapter 17-2: Oscar also has terrain disadvantages. Marcia only needs a couple shoves to hit the Arrive square on Turn 3.

Chapter 17-3: I don't know anyone who can prevent Ike from getting fucked over so easily considering he has half Skl/Spd, because everyone else has to suffer the mercy of the terrain.

Chapter 17-4: She needs a couple shoves to finish the chapter in 1 turn. Only a couple shoves. She can fly to the left, kill the Pegasus Knight or, what I managed to do, go straight to Oliver and kill him, ending the chapter.

Chapter 18: She has the boots, so she can kill the Crows that transformed before your units get there, leaving them with the untransformed ones for easy kills.

Chapter 19: If you're going for BEXP, then Marcia can easily attract Naesala and with the Full Guard take ballista hits to do it. (Vortex lol). If you're not, she is immune to mountain terrain, so you can shove her like hell and get her to Homasa extremely fast, who she can *easily* ORKO for many reasons. Giving her boots helps this a ton; Oscar can't go over Mountain terrain and he's not nearly sa easy to Shove (for example, I don't think Lethe can shove him while transformed and Mordecai can't Smite a promoted Oscar unless he's transformed).

Chapter 20: Oscar can't reach Shiharam and kill him by Turn 2, because he can't fly over mountains.

Chapter 21: Oscar can't go over the Oceans, and unless you are in the ocean you end up attract Tauroneo's attention which adds to the grief of having to deal with him and his crew taking a chokepoint and blocking you. Marcia can, and she also has boots to help get a secure 6-turn clear (I've heard of a 4 turn clear that probably involves Ike with like 16 Mag and a Sonic Sword LOL).

Chapter 22: Foot units are more useful for shoving here, but someone with Boots can more easily reach the boss or clear things out of the way while being in the back of the formation.

Chapter 23: Marcia can fly over pitholes. Oscar can't.

Chapter 24: Marcia can fly over the River and she gets an easily 3-turn with a bunch of shoves. There are too many enemy blocking your own units to keep a mounted unit from doing this, and they need boots which clearly Marcia makes better use of by this point.

Chapter 25: Marcia can ferry someone with better offense at this point, or she can kill ballista users to let your fliers go around some more and god knows what else because of the boots. The mounted units have severely hampered movement in this chapter, my 6-turn clear had them right near the ballista to the left. And I mentioned that I could've saved a couple turns if I cared more about this chapter.

Chapter 26: I'm trying this now and I have my 3-turn clear in the bag; any mounted unit with boots can do what she does but she probably has Savior by this point too. Oscar/Kieran attract out enemies for her towards the end (since she can't take too many hits, and by that I mean what do you think would happen if 2 Tigers and generally like 10 other enemies were attacking you from range and from up close? Oscar/Kieran have more evade and defense to deal with it, but they can't ferry Ike to just the right location to get him to Seize; they were still behind Marcia, but close enough that enemies give them priority due to Marcia's Shade) while she has Shade, which allows for the 3 turn clear. I'd also like to mention that she can be shoved by a ton of untransformed Laguz, whereas Oscar/Kieran require transformation for shoves.

Chapter 27: Mounts and Marcia obviously do the same thing.

Chapter 28: Mounts can't fly over trees!

Endgame: The standard 2 turn has like a 50-60% chance of occurring and requires Elincia's flying utility instead.

Oscar and Kieran *cannot* under ANY circumstance emulate Marcia and Jill. Flying is just that good.

Again, this is flatly incorrect. Any durable Paladin can solo this chapter in four turns (with an initial vigor from Reyson). Any durable Paladin with the Boots can pull off a 3-turn clear just like a flier with the Boots. Flying only allows one to avoid fewer enemy attacks on route to the Arrive Square. And even with that advantage, Full Guard Marcia undoubtedly has more durability problems than any trained Paladin with the Knight Ward. And while it is less realistic to give a Paladin the Boots, it is worth pointing out that on Chapter 24: flying is not essential to an efficient clear. Also, there are some valuables in far away houses that we want to get to, so durable units are helpful to get Savior in the north and (less importantly) a durable flier and durable cargo is useful for getting Nihil to the west.

Nobody gives a fuck about Nihil. You can get to the house to the north in 3 turns, and I know that because *I* did it very easily.

Flying allows to avoid just enough fewer enemy attacks with a Spear or Short Spear (especially since the majority are Wyverns that Canto away) and it allows her to fly over Rivers and just not worry about it. But the fliers make so much better use of Boots in many more chapters that Paladins aren't like to get Boots.

Then you should be extra careful not to exaggerate. That there is a lot of Bexp available and enemy units aren't terribly deadly does not mean that taking Bexp is costless or that durability is irrelevant. I would have hoped that your ongoing LTC run would have demonstrated this to you: your units were perpetually underleved despite using up all your Bexp and you frequently restarted due to certain units dying.

I didn't restart due to Mia dying. I also kept restarting due to units dying because of some random chain of 20-40% hits connecting, random criticals, and forgetting that they always go for the least durable unit regardless of how much they could hit them. There is a lot of BEXP available, but another comment on my LTC playthrough was that I was using a very large team. In fact, even I acknowledge this because out of my main team, I know there were like 3-4 units I could not use every single chapter. It didn't make it any less effective though, because powering up one unit to ferry Ike is just that useful in clearing stuff in low turns, and when it's a flier it's an even larger advantage to do so.

That is not true. Jill has some combat leads over Tanith, most notably in the physical durability department. Even with significantly more resources, Marcia only leads Tanith by a couple points in Strength. But Tanith has an important advantage by being able to ORKO tough enemies with the magic weapons (Wyvern Lords with the Sonic Sword, Tigers & Cats with the Flame Lance, and some Generals with the Rune Sword). These are enemies that even Jill needs a Silver forge to 2HKO, Marcia might miss altogether, but Tanith can ORKO at 1-2 range. Tanith also has a Speed lead over Jill that lets her double the fastest enemies with very few resources. Tanith also has Reinforce, which is almost always handy and very helpful in C25 in particular.

And +2 Move because Marcia makes far better use of the boots than Tanith. And a level advantage. Marcia at 20/7 (yes, I'm not exaggerating, she is very likely to be 20/7 by the time Tanith joins) with a Str drop has +4 Str, +2 Res and +4 HP; everything else either has Marcia with 1 less Spd (they double EVERYTHING ANYWAY) or the same stats. That +4 Str is a massive lead. Also, I'm going to point out that the +2 Move is a far larger lead considering she's been using it and clearing things in low turns thanks to it much earlier than Tanith.

Marcia, Jill, and Reyson are all realistic Boots candidates. But if I were training both Marcia and Jill, I'd prefer to give Jill the Boots. Jill can double everything with a Speedwing and a healthy level lead. Marcia's poor durability is much harder to fix. Even with a Seraph Robe and Dracoshield and the Full Guard, Marcia has durability concerns in the later chapters. On the other hand, Marcia can be shoved by a couple more units, so that might help us pull off some aggressive early-clears.

Reyson is not that great a Boots candidate. He does help out in turn 1, but that's about the extent of Reyson's Boots use. I posted this argument earlier.

Seraph Robe/Dracoshield/Full Guard actually helps significantly. 20/12 Marcia has like 45 HP/19 Def which is a lot, and this is towards the beginning of the endgame if Dracoshield and Seraph Robe was given. My Marcia has 14 Def/40 something HP and I'm fairly sure that I used a Seraph Robe on her, and while she has trouble surviving in C26 (when a million units are on her ass), she makes great use of Shade if needed (gets units off her ass) and with enough strategy in that chapter, Kieran and Oscar can take all the heat while Marcia doesn't need to take as much. Marcia's durability is not that large a problem later on because it's easy to *not* get her ganged up on if you plan around it. Especially if you end up with the average Defense/HP values, which help her *far* more.

Stop spouting this nonsense. If you give Jill the same amount of Bexp you would give Marcia, she will be at most 1 level behind. Jill is just plain better than Marcia with similar resources. Marcia's big advantage over Jill is C12, which is severely lessened if you're recruiting Jill anyway. Titania can perform at least as well as Marcia, with fewer resources, in many chapters in their shared availability. Chapters 12, 15, 17-2, 17-4, 20, 21, and 25 are big wins for the fliers. Chapters 13, 17-1, 18, 23, 24, 28, and Endgame are potential small wins for the fliers. Titania is at least as good as Marcia (and often better) in Chapters 10, 11, 14, 16, 19, 22, 26, and 27. And then there's the little fact that Titania is by far the most important unit in chapters 1-9 with unique utility. Oh, and lets not forget some thing very important. Titania requires almost no resources to dominate more than half of the game. Marcia and Jill both need a bunch.

Jill is above Marcia, bro, although Marcia does help with the 2 chapters before Jill exists because she's a flier -- of course, she has resources but she doesn't have Boots.

I also acknowledge that Jill is a good unit when she has Boots. Replace my above argument analyzing Marcia with Jill and you get my views on her compared to mounts as well.

Titania dominates the first thirds of the game with no resources, but Marcia/Jill use a bunch to dominate the last half of the game. You may view it as a point against them that they require so many resources, but the reason you dump so much onto them is because of how often you use them. I'm not saying they should be above her -- in fact, a no-Titania efficiency run of the first 10ish chapters would easily show why -- I'm merely saying that their contributions are similar enough to have them in the same tier. Titania can't do what Marcia/Jill can in later chapters, either.

Let me get this straight... When Marcia needs 1000 Bexp to be useful, there's plenty of Bexp to go around. But when Boyd wants 500 Bexp, that's "ridiculous"? I don't disagree that Marcia makes better use of Bexp, but the costs are also obviously higher when Marcia takes twice as much.

There is plenty of BEXP to go around, but you *still* want to dump as much as possible onto Marcia if you want to get by some of the upcoming chapters easier. There is plenty of BEXP to go around even after you dump them on Marcia or Jill, but you still can't overuse BEXP before they arrive.

My preference is for all unit deployment possibilities to be considered. I think we should consider Marcia's potential 2-turn clear of C12 despite missing out on Jill (and some stat boosters). We should also consider 5-turning C9 despite missing out on Marcia. We should consider both units being recruited and deployed, and we should consider playthroughs where neither Marcia nor Jill are being trained. I realize that this is not a popular position, but I find the alternate (making unit deployment assumptions) dull and ill-suited to tier list debate.

It just happens that possibilities involving Jill/Marcia lead to lower turns than those without.

It costs us more than just turns: it costs us Resolve at the very least. Transformed Ena without the Demi Band deals 0 damage to Ashnard at base. Even a level 20 Ena deals ~3-4 damage on average. Ena needs Resolve to be able to deal more damage than Ashnard recovers each turn. But Ena is also 2HKO by Ashnard at base, and needs Resolve to avoid being doubled. With a few levels, Ena can double Ashnard herself when in Resolve range, but then Ashnard fails to put her in Resolve range in one hit, making it hard to manipulate. Ena needs to be fully transformed to do anything worthwhile, so we also need to reserve for her a couple Laguz Stone uses, most likely. Defeating Ashnard with greater ease is a big win for Ike, in my opinion. Though, we should also consider Nasir, who can perform decently against Ashnard at base with just Resolve (though he still appreciates the Laguz Stones).

I was actually bringing that up in terms of "why should Ike get Wrath" but then I forgot that Nephenee has an innate Wrath. LOL

LOL! This is the biggest example of your complete inability to consider the counter-factual. In actuality, Boots Marcia/Jill does not save a single turn in C16. A 5-turn is more than possible with just a couple 9-mov units. To be fair, a mounted unit with the Boots might help secure both the Dracoshield and Full Guard in 5 turns, which might not be possible otherwise.

I was referring to a 4 turn, which I didn't do because I didn't give Marcia boots early enough. Otherwise I agree, and you actually only do need 2 9-move units (in my case, Titania and a promoted Marcia) for an easy 5 turn.

As for Chapter 17, the Boots help save 2 turns at the very most. C17-1 can be 2-turned without the Boots. On C17-2, I believe, it is possible to 3-turn without Boots Marcia/Jill, but it requires perfect deployment (which you have to pre-plan) and a lot of shoves. But I also hear that Boots Marcia can 2-turn C17-2 if you get her in perfect position, shove her with all of the laguz plus Statue Frag'd Brom or Gatrie. I'm prepared to give the Boots credit for making a 3-turn easier and a 2-turn theoretically possible in C17-2. C17-4 can be easily 2-turned without the Boots. The Boots make a 1-turn possible, but you forfeit Adept and it's a little more dangerous as a downside.

3 turns. You need to Shove/Smite Marcia a couple times to 2-turn without them, but that's an ass to do because you need enough combat units to take on some of the stuff (namely Armors) that Marcia leaves behind + Fighters with massive HP. Those Fighters are actually a point in Boyd's favor, and Jill/Oscar can easily take out the Armors.

You don't understand how best to take advantage of Transformed Boots Reyson, evidently. If you rescue/take/drop Reyson as you advance, the Boots let 4 9-mov units travel 2 spaces further each turn (18 spaces total). Transformed Boots Reyson can save 1-2 turns in C18 at the very least and makes three other clears more reliable, if not a turn faster (for instance, he can secure a 3-turn of C27 (but perhaps not with Resolve) and a more reliable 4-turn of C23 and a much more reliable 3-turn of C28). C21 is also a good showcase for Transformed Boots Reyson. He can enable a reliable 5-turn clear, but I'm not sure if that's also possible with Boots Marcia/Jill. On the other hand, I think Boots Jill/Marcia can save a turn in C24 and C26. There are certainly pros and cons to giving the Boots to Reyson, but he can make unique turn savings when transformed and therefore cannot be discounted as a Boots recipient.

Show me a C18 strategy that does exactly that with a Boots Reyson. I question these because I haven't seen the strategies that you're talking about. The 4-turn of C18 I'm looking at involved a Boots Oscar and a bunch of Siege users (Tormod being one of them oddly enough, because of his high proficiency with Fire; you can't get a Blizzard at this point). Boots Oscar is basically the same as Boots Marcia in that chapter anyway.

If you give Boyd Wrath and Vantage, he is one of the best units in C25. You can drop him at the top of the mountain with a forged Hand Axe (+crit) and watch him solo it all with high reliability. Without Wrath/Vantage, Boyd doesn't have the durability for a rescue/drop but can still tear up the right or left trails by himself. I don't have strong feelings about Ike vs. Boyd overall, but C25 is clearly one of Boyd's biggest late-game wins, assuming you're training him (which you gave up doing).

Yeah, that's just about it. It's hard to really do much better with him, which is why I feel the argument in his favor is not that strong, but I definitely will give you that because it's Nephenee's strong point too (although, the thing with Nephenee is that she has far better durability, whereas Boyd is a glass cannon).

If you actually read the post I linked, you would see that you are wrong. I compared both the low-resources "staffbot" use of the Mages (earlier in the topic) and the high resources, more combat-focused use of the Mages (in the linked post). My conclusion was that Soren was clearly a better staffbot than Tormod and of very similar utility when given the resources needed to be a capable combat unit. So even if you use Soren's staffbot utility soley as a tiebreaker: Soren > Tormod. I have not seen any new evidence to make me reconsider my earlier evaluation. Soren has some utility before Tormod even joins. Soren still has slightly better offense than Tormod in their shared availability. Tormod's extra movement is helpful in several chapters which is just enough to compensate for Soren's availability leads, in my judgement.

I compared them myself, too. I brought up Soren's early-game use and showed just how much he helped in my playthrough and I didn't even get the lowest possible turncounts.

It's pretty funny, though, because I'm looking at your post now and it seems like "Soren doesn't contribute much to the first half of the game, and his little move in the second half means he can't keep up as much as Tormod." Even bringing up that Tormod can probably weaken Bertram with a siege tome because of his movement. And bringing up that Tormod is more likely to see combat because of his movement, and that his contributions aren't as big as mounted units/ferrying units but he's still far more likely to see combat. In fact, you summed up your argument here:

Low-resources / Staffbot: Soren > Ilyana >> Tormod

High-resources / Trained: Soren ~= Tormod >> Ilyana

I wouldn't use Tormod as a staffbot. I can't use him as my only staff user (due to staff level), and I really don't need a second staff user. Even 300 Bexp and a Master Seal isn't worth what I get. Training Tormod, on the other hand, is costly, but it does result in a pretty good combatant with siege and healing utility. With Ilyana, I'm not sure it pays to train her. Even after investing almost 1000 Bexp and a Speedwing, Ilyana is just a decent combatant with poor durability and movement. Her only real value is in staff use and siege magic, which I can get sufficiently with staffbot Ilyana and base Calill for a lot lower cost. Soren, I can use competently as both a staffbot and a trained fighter/sieger, with the only downside (compared with Ilyana) being that I need to keep him alive and feed him some kills in chapters 4-8.

In which case, I'm arguing just *why* resources aren't as important to tiering as you are making it out to be. At least, not for units that use them extremely well. You even said yourself that they're similar, but I'm going the extra step and showing just why Soren isn't contributing as much in the first half of the game as Tormod is in the second half.

Who would laugh, I wonder? You seems motivated to make changes to the tier list based on a newfound realization of just how valuable the mounted units are in efficient PoR play. But the tier list already reflects this realization. So your efforts seem misdirected.

That was a joke, but I was pretty much bringing up just why Tormod is so good due to his high move and Marcia is so good because of her availability and flying. I'm not going to try and argue anyone but Elincia higher unless I know what I'm talking about in regards to them.

I woudl disagree, most of our units should be able to ORKO without forges, so really, there are more forging opportunities than are necessary.

That's actually not true.

No, but the difference between the two is far and away different than the durability difference between glass and a tank.

So Tormod's durability isn't as good as the best durabilities in the game? Being 3HKO'd is significantly better than being 2HKO'd, because then you can get ganged up on by 2 things as opposed to not being able to get ganged up on at all.

This is an excellent point. Which brings up another important question: What does tormod do that has any significance at all?

If you keep on reading you'll see.

Tormod gives us nothing our team can't do, except the rest of the team does it a lot better because of more mov, canto, possible flight and supports. Most of them also don't need 1000 bexp dumped into them in one session to be useful.

Except he still does it better than the units below the rest of the team because she doesn't necessarily have to share tomes and you most likely have 1000 BEXP lying around to give him at that point in the game. Astrid requires like 25-33 BEXP per level to level up until promotion (and at some point, 50) so she barely needs investment. Furthermore, siege tomes and healing *if necessary* and mounts won't have to go too out of their way to be healed. He can siege from the back of a formation much easier than Soren, too, and in C21 he can prevent Ike (or Jill) from getting hit by a Sleep staff by attacking the Sages, which Soren and Ilyana can't even reach by Turn 2 when you need it. He doesn't ORKO the Sages like every other unit in the game (unless you use the forged tome) but he gets themt o low enough HP to get hit by Sleep. And he doesn't get KO'd by the physical units nearby, the Longbow Archers do only like 6-7 damage to him per hit.

Soren needs 0 BEXP to help with early potshots which can help unit growth which helps the game's completion. If we choose to promote him early, then he can also ORKO quite nicely in chapter 13, and will have the same mov as other foot units (unless you think they have promoted naturally by then).

Umm.. What? Edited August 27, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[Life]

Except you talked about him not being 2HKOd by stuff in a game where there are multiple units that won't die if they rush into a swarm of enemies. Like Ike or Oscar, particularly if they are supporting each other. Or Jill, even a properly leveled Marcia with some Tanith support.

Besides, he's got this annoying habit of getting criticaled and his durability isn't that much better than a properly leveled Mia (hence part of why they are so close on the list). Of course, in comparison to Tormod, he's like a tank, but at least Tormod has 1-2 range and seige tome options. Of course, I think Stefan is > Tormod easily, but denying that Stefan has somewhat poor durability is not the way to prove it.

I thought we didn't factor in stupid shit like 2% chances into spots on a tier list. It's the same thing I see about Aran and I personally think that it's silly.

And yes, while I only showed that he can't be 2HKO'd for a long time, the fact is that it matters because Stefan doesn't have the move to keep up with the Paladins. Therefore, he takes significantly less hits in later chapters (like Chapter 24 for example) and his defensive parameters are more than enough to keep him alive.

And I wasn't attempting to prove Stefan > Tormod by saying his durability is piss poor (it's not), I was just pointing out that it's not as bad as everyone likes to make it out to be. Plus, with regards to Mia, she's usually got to be sitting at half HP for her offense to work while Stefan can be at full HP, which is a point in Stefan's favour on the defensive side.

holy fuck aku chi fuck you omg this is going to be the longest hour of my weekend

Since when do you HAVE to reply?

Edited August 27, 2011 by Zaphod Beeblebrox

[Lord Raven]

Since when do you HAVE to reply?

I don't, but I enjoy it. It's raining outside, I'm bored and the only thing productive to do at this point is practice trombone.

[Radiant Dragon]

I woudl disagree, most of our units should be able to ORKO without forges, so really, there are more forging opportunities than are necessary.

Not early on they can't. Iron's too weak, and Steel gives AS issues, on top of occasional accuracy issues and sometimes still is too weak. People won't really be ORKOing everything until about the time Steel forges become available. Still, I guess it's not too big of a deal to give Soren a forge in Chapter 13.

I'd rather a unit that ORKO's with a forge than an extra 1000 bexp drain.

Since when did Soren - a unit that can't ORKO, is 2HKO'd forever, and has crap move - not need any BEXP? Tormod needs more (not like it matters; we have more than enough), but he doesn't need 1000 BEXP more.

No, but the difference between the two is far and away different than the durability difference between glass and a tank.

When did I ever say Tormod was a tank? Being 3HKO'd is much better than being 2HKO'd (or being 4HKO'd instead of 3HKO'd). It's the difference between horrible durability and serviceable durability.

Because if we use Soren we want to sandbag him as much as possible right?

There's a difference between sandbagging a unit and wasting resources on them (not that bands are exactly heavily contested for). I personally question whether it's worth it to give a strength band to Soren, when there are better options for it (read: pretty much any physical unit).

This is an excellent point. Which brings up another important question: What does tormod do that has any significance at all?

He fights and heals better than Soren. Soren hasn't done a whole lot for the team before Tormod joins, either.

2 more things: What is so special about Soren's Chapter 13? What's he doing there that's so important/unique that it keeps getting brought up? And there's a difference between making unit slot deployment assumptions and making recruitment assumptions. The former is something we should avoid, but the latter is so units aren't unfairly penalized for their recruitment (Shinon, Stefan and Marcia/Jill are good examples).

Edited August 28, 2011 by Radiant Kitty

[Zkirsche]

No, I think I got the point. You think that combat contributions are of no significance. I don't see any other way to interpret your claim that Tormod's combat is of no significance. After all, it's not like he doesn't have good movement, or the resources he takes are too expensive to be afforded in an efficient playthrough.

Well, maybe you're applying an absurdly strict standard and claiming that combat contributions are of no significance if you don't have 9 movement and canto, but that seems so completely ridiculous, I didn't consider it seriously.

If we're putting Marcia > Oscar on the tier list, then I'm afraid we're well past that.

That's actually not true.

If it's not true we'd be better off spending the bexp we're giving to Tormod to our otehr untis so that it IS true.

So Tormod's durability isn't as good as the best durabilities in the game? Being 3HKO'd is significantly better than being 2HKO'd, because then you can get ganged up on by 2 things as opposed to not being able to get ganged up on at all.

Yes, because if you're 3HKO'ed you cannot be ganged up on. This is exactly what I was talking about when I said you made him out to be a tank. Even if he's ganged up on once, he may not recover full HP from a heal, and then he really does get 2HKO'ed.

Except he still does it better than the units below the rest of the team because she doesn't necessarily have to share tomes and you most likely have 1000 BEXP lying around to give him at that point in the game. Astrid requires like 25-33 BEXP per level to level up until promotion (and at some point, 50) so she barely needs investment. Furthermore, siege tomes and healing *if necessary* and mounts won't have to go too out of their way to be healed. He can siege from the back of a formation much easier than Soren, too, and in C21 he can prevent Ike (or Jill) from getting hit by a Sleep staff by attacking the Sages, which Soren and Ilyana can't even reach by Turn 2 when you need it. He doesn't ORKO the Sages like every other unit in the game (unless you use the forged tome) but he gets themt o low enough HP to get hit by Sleep. And he doesn't get KO'd by the physical units nearby, the Longbow Archers do only like 6-7 damage to him per hit.

I addressed the bexp bit.

But if he can't ORKO the bishops, then surely they can hit Ike/Jill on the EP?

Umm.. What?

I believe what I said was self-explanatory. Soren doesn't need any Bexp (aka resources) to potshot earlygame to help with levelling. And with some resources (aka, a not very contested master-seal), he can kill fairly reliably early on, and heal as well.

[aku chi]

<censored> aku chi <censored> this is going to be the longest hour of my weekend

You started it.

Actually considering the number of units I've used I think I have enough basis to form some of my arguments, especially considering I have logged my own efficiency run. Having that said, I would think if Boyd has had trouble keeping up with a 5 (well, 4 since I stopped using Titania at some point) Paladin team then Nephenee will run into the same problem and she won't be receiving combat very often. That's a fact, and the only time I can even see Nephenee having a use is as some chick that uses Wrath towards the top of Chapter 25; she could decimate a nice army of enemies because she'll have essentially an 84% chance of killing a bunch of things (or at least getting a critical) with a Spear, forged Javelin with +9 Crit, and a 75% of a kill with a Short Spear. That's all I can think of thanks to Wrath.

This response seems to have come out of nowhere, but I'll respond anyway... There are no mounted units with equal or better availability below Nephenee on the tier list (unless you count Mist, who's right below Nephenee), so I think it's already clear that Nephenee is inferior to the mounted units. But Nephenee is, alongside Boyd and Ike, one of the best non-mounted combat units. Nephenee can help with routs, especially C17-1 if we've promoted her. She is one of the best rescue/drop candidates. And while rescue/dropping doesn't seem to be your style, I assure you that it is a viable strategy in a few chapters (15, 20, 21, and 25 seem most notable for Nephenee). When we consider playthroughs that don't involve so many mounted units (for whatever reason), Nephenee's value increases further.

In fact, if you think you can accomplish more efficient clears than me without it, then go for it, I'm not stopping you. I didn't do it for competition, just for self-interest, but it's definitely giving me insight as to how to rank this tier list because I *did* playtest a bunch of things during my runthrough that didn't work out as effectively as I liked (such as Haar, Tanith, etc).

I don't mean to compete. I'm just trying to point out that there are numerous strategies for completing chapters efficiently. You undoubtedly attempted some of them. There are others that were either impossible based on your resource use or simply didn't come to mind. I'm merely suggesting caution in assuming that your particular LTC run is an exhaustive examination of efficient chapter completion strategies (no single run could be).

The fact is that I ended up using Marcia a ton because *she* was the one who ended up getting the boots. There are chapters that really really need her flying utility that she really does use the Boots, and Jill doesn't quite catch up because she didn't have the massive resourcedump that Marcia had.

That is precisely my point! If you had given Jill the exact resources you gave Marcia, you would undoutedly have used Jill much more prominently. Your run demonstrates just one possible resource allocation space. There exist many others that would allow equally efficient play (or better).

I did use Soren at the same time as Tormod. Soren is good for launching a Blizzard every once in a while but the problem is that after 3 turns Soren is left *completely* in the dust, being around 6 squares behind Tormod, killing his range a little bit. He doesn't even need an Arms Scroll to start the siege with Blizzard, but the fact is that his movement and lack of durability have hindered him greatly. Tormod can take 3 hits and Soren can take 2 hits. Both are doubling about as often as one another, Str lead or not.

You gave Tormod more Bexp (he needed more to match Soren's Mag) and the better siege tomes. You deployed Tormod alone in several chapters. Based on your resource use, I don't blame you! Once you've trained Tormod, he is the superior Sage due to his extra movement (the durability argument is really weak, considering that both are squishy and Soren dodges more with an Ike support). But if you hadn't trained Tormod, you would have made the best of Soren and come to a more accurate judgement as to when Tormod's extra movement mattered.

Chapter 10: If you're going stealth, Marcia is a lot easier to Shove and she gets you the 9-turn stealth clear.

Chapter 11: She can fly over the barracks at the end and Arrive very easily. Titania might need to take out the Knight, but Oscar/Kieran can't do that.

Chapter 12: She can kill the boss any time she wants with an Iron Lance forge. Turn 2 is actually the minimum.

Chapter 13: She can fly over and kill some of the latter enemies more easily, reach chests faster if you want to get the 7-turn clear.

Chapter 14: She'll probably be recruiting Makalov. If not, then yes in this chapter Marcia/Titania have essentially the same utility except that Marcia, according to another LTC I saw, got Shoved a couple times which is something you can't do to Oscar/Titania as easily.

You get Boots in Chapter 15, right? Marcia gets you an easy clear of Chapter 15 with a laguz lance. She is at a higher level than Jill at this point, and she has a higher Spear level to use the Laguz Lance, so she can kill Muarim extremely easily. Oscar can't do that.

Chapter 16, Marcia has probably used Boots at this point so she can ferry Ike. Why did she use Boots? You'll see.

Chapter 17-1: Oscar can't reach the far end of the thing easily without... 3 turns. Marcia contributes to a 2-turn clear by going all the way to the end, Boots included (Boots help it a lot, in fact) and being able to ORKO them all when she's given a Str drop. She doesn't need resources at this point other than a random Strength Drop or two because she already has had the resource dump.

Chapter 17-2: Oscar also has terrain disadvantages. Marcia only needs a couple shoves to hit the Arrive square on Turn 3.

Chapter 17-3: I don't know anyone who can prevent Ike from getting fucked over so easily considering he has half Skl/Spd, because everyone else has to suffer the mercy of the terrain.

Chapter 17-4: She needs a couple shoves to finish the chapter in 1 turn. Only a couple shoves. She can fly to the left, kill the Pegasus Knight or, what I managed to do, go straight to Oliver and kill him, ending the chapter.

Chapter 18: She has the boots, so she can kill the Crows that transformed before your units get there, leaving them with the untransformed ones for easy kills.

Chapter 19: If you're going for BEXP, then Marcia can easily attract Naesala and with the Full Guard take ballista hits to do it. (Vortex lol). If you're not, she is immune to mountain terrain, so you can shove her like hell and get her to Homasa extremely fast, who she can *easily* ORKO for many reasons. Giving her boots helps this a ton; Oscar can't go over Mountain terrain and he's not nearly sa easy to Shove (for example, I don't think Lethe can shove him while transformed and Mordecai can't Smite a promoted Oscar unless he's transformed).

Chapter 20: Oscar can't reach Shiharam and kill him by Turn 2, because he can't fly over mountains.

Chapter 21: Oscar can't go over the Oceans, and unless you are in the ocean you end up attract Tauroneo's attention which adds to the grief of having to deal with him and his crew taking a chokepoint and blocking you. Marcia can, and she also has boots to help get a secure 6-turn clear (I've heard of a 4 turn clear that probably involves Ike with like 16 Mag and a Sonic Sword LOL).

Chapter 22: Foot units are more useful for shoving here, but someone with Boots can more easily reach the boss or clear things out of the way while being in the back of the formation.

Chapter 23: Marcia can fly over pitholes. Oscar can't.

Chapter 24: Marcia can fly over the River and she gets an easily 3-turn with a bunch of shoves. There are too many enemy blocking your own units to keep a mounted unit from doing this, and they need boots which clearly Marcia makes better use of by this point.

Chapter 25: Marcia can ferry someone with better offense at this point, or she can kill ballista users to let your fliers go around some more and god knows what else because of the boots. The mounted units have severely hampered movement in this chapter, my 6-turn clear had them right near the ballista to the left. And I mentioned that I could've saved a couple turns if I cared more about this chapter.

Chapter 26: I'm trying this now and I have my 3-turn clear in the bag; any mounted unit with boots can do what she does but she probably has Savior by this point too. Oscar/Kieran attract out enemies for her towards the end (since she can't take too many hits, and by that I mean what do you think would happen if 2 Tigers and generally like 10 other enemies were attacking you from range and from up close? Oscar/Kieran have more evade and defense to deal with it, but they can't ferry Ike to just the right location to get him to Seize; they were still behind Marcia, but close enough that enemies give them priority due to Marcia's Shade) while she has Shade, which allows for the 3 turn clear. I'd also like to mention that she can be shoved by a ton of untransformed Laguz, whereas Oscar/Kieran require transformation for shoves.

Chapter 27: Mounts and Marcia obviously do the same thing.

Chapter 28: Mounts can't fly over trees!

Endgame: The standard 2 turn has like a 50-60% chance of occurring and requires Elincia's flying utility instead.

On shoving the mounted units: There is no unit that can shove Marcia that fails to shove Titania and Astrid unless we consider Statue Frag'd Brom or Gatrie (and I believe they need to take 2 Statue Frags, neither of which are efficient to get). I suppose it's worth noting that Ranulf doesn't need to be transformed to shove the Pegasus Knights (he does to shove the Paladins). Muarim needs to be transformed to shove the male Cavaliers and Paladins. Lethe is unable to shove the male promoted Paladins. Untransformed Mordecai and transformed Ranulf are unable to shove promoted Jill. I believe transformed Muarim can shove Haar, but I'm not positive. Transformed Mordecai certainly can.

Chapter 10: Unless we've given Marcia over 1800 Bexp (pretty much all we have), she will not be promoted in this chapter, so Titania and Lethe have a movement advantage over her. Oscar (if we've promoted him) and Mordecai (if we use a Laguz Stone) might also best her movement. So Marcia isn't even one of our best units here; if we go brute-force she needs a bunch of Bexp to be durable enough to be useful at all.

Chapter 11: A 3-turn strategy requires feeding Marcia over 1600 Bexp and is not very reliable. Any two Paladins can get a 4-turn clear with fewer resources expended and greater reliability. But if we want to recruit Jill or Haar, we need to wait until turn 5 to clear anyway.

Chapter 12: This is Marcia's big chapter if we give her a large Bexp dump. We can save 6 turns if we don't care to lose Jill, Haar, the Brave Axe, a Seraph Robe, and a Secret Book. As you demonstrated, Marcia can still save us three turns while still letting us recruit Jill, which is pretty cool. It does depend on Jill going directly to Ike, I reckon.

Chapter 13: The fliers can be helpful here if we gave them some Bexp, but they aren't required for a 7-turn clear. Titania can continue to dominate here.

Chapter 14: Flying doesn't help us complete the chapter any faster, but Marcia does help us recruit Makalov and get Vantage in 3 turns.

Chapter 15: Flying is obviously helpful here. Bexp infused Marcia or Jill can get us a somewhat unreliable 2-turn clear or a more reliable 3-turn clear (with some help or without). The Paladins are clearly worthless here.

Chapter 16: Flying doesn't help us a lick here. The Boots aren't even necessary for a 5-turn clear, but they might be for a 4-turn clear (which has a harder time getting the Full Guard).

Chapter 17-1: It's a rout, so everybody can help out, but Marcia or Jill can help us achieve a 2-turn clear by flying directly north. Boots are most definitely not required (I've done it without). Jill has an easier time ORKOing the northern enemies at 1-2 range. I believe it's possible for a Paladin being shoved by all of the laguz to also clear the northern enemies on turn 2, but my confidence in that possibility is not 100%. They might have needed the Boots.

Chapter 17-2: Paladins are close to worthless. Marcia or Jill save a turn or two over the laguz.

Chapter 17-3: Whatever.

Chapter 17-4: With the Boots, Marcia (or Jill, I believe) can secure a moderately reliable 1-turn clear. Or they can secure a slightly more reliable 2-turn clear with or without the Boots. The Paladins take 4 turns to go the long way around, I believe.

Chapter 18: Flying helps very little. Transformed Reyson is the real star of this chapter (especially with the Boots). Marcia and Jill can kill the untrasformed crows off-terrain at the end of the race, letting the transformed ones suicide on enemy phase.

Chapter 19: Almost any unit that can ORKO Homasa can 2-turn clear this chapter (with Reyson and shove help). Janaff or Ulki can help us get the Knight Ring for a 3-turn clear. A 1-turn clear might be possible with Boots Marcia (or Tanith) if she and Reyson get super-shoved, but I'm not positive.

Chapter 20: The fliers can help us 2-turn this chapter with decent reliability. The Paladins (and any leftover fliers) can help us get Smite and Rescue (very important).

Chapter 21: The mounted fliers are very helpful here for being able to traverse and rescue-drop over the moat. Transformed Reyson is the real star here, though. With the Boots, he can help secure a 5-turn clear. The Paladins can help get the Energy Drop treasure and whatever other spoils they can garner.

Chapter 22: Siege tomes make this an easy 1-turn clear. Any mounted unit with decent 1-2 range combat can nab the Bolting here.

Chapter 23: Fliers definitely have some mobility advantages here, but the chapter can be 4-turned with no combat fliers, just Transformed Boots Reyson and a couple good Paladins. Plus, the fliers need to be extra careful with the Ballistae here.

Chapter 24: You keep getting this wrong. There is nothing stopping a competent Paladin from doing exactly what a competent flier can do on this level. I have 4-turned this twice now with a Paladin solo. With the Boots, they can 3-turn it just like Marcia. The bridge chokepoint can be cleared of enemies on turn 1 and a competent Paladin will ORKO all of the rest of the enemies on enemy phase with a forged Hand Axe. They will have considerably better durability with the Knight Ward than Marcia with the Full Guard. Anyways, even if you gave Marcia or Jill the Boots, the Paladins can make themselves useful by securing Savior.

Chapter 25: Fliers are very useful, especially the durable kind (Jill and Haar). They can both kill units at the top of the mountain themself or ferry up a better combat unit to help out. The Paladins can do nothing more than kill some enemies at the starting point.

Chapter 26: Flying doesn't help here. Extra durability does. Obviously, if Marcia or Jill has the Boots, they can can help get a 3-turn clear, but Marcia in particular has durability issues.

Chapter 27: Again, flying doesn't help here. I don't think Boots Marcia/Jill can get a 3-turn clear. Transformed Boots Reyson with a trio of competent mounted units can. Kieran has the best chance of being able to ORKO Hafedd, but it's a stretch even for him.

Chapter 28: I need to play this again on Hard Mode to refresh my memory. I know on Normal Mode a risky 2-turn clear exists which only a well-trained Jill or Haar is likely to pull off. This might not be possible (or plausible) on Hard Mode. I've used Transformed Boots Reyson to get a 3-turn clear without any fliers on Normal Mode that I suspect is also possible on Hard Mode. A 3-turn clear without a Laguz Stone is possible with the mounted fliers, so it's at least a small win for them.

Endgame: I'm not familiar enough with Hard Mode efficient clears on this chapter to comment. I suspect that the mounted fliers might be slightly more helpful in more reliable clears (being able to ferry Ike around the Bryce/Dragon obstacles), but I could be wrong.

And +2 Move because Marcia makes far better use of the boots than Tanith. And a level advantage. Marcia at 20/7 (yes, I'm not exaggerating, she is very likely to be 20/7 by the time Tanith joins) with a Str drop has +4 Str, +2 Res and +4 HP; everything else either has Marcia with 1 less Spd (they double EVERYTHING ANYWAY) or the same stats. That +4 Str is a massive lead. Also, I'm going to point out that the +2 Move is a far larger lead considering she's been using it and clearing things in low turns thanks to it much earlier than Tanith.

... If the absurdity of this argument is not evidently clear to you, I'm not sure what I can do... If you assume that Marcia is getting a bunch of resources and Tanith isn't, it isn't very surprising that Tanith isn't as good... If you gave Tanith the same set of resources you gave Marcia (including the 1000+ Bexp) for comparison's sake, she would clearly be a better unit than Marcia in their shared availability. That Tanith isn't as good a Boots candidate because she doesn't exist in Chapters 16 and 17 is irrelevant when comparing the two in their shared chapters.

Reyson is not that great a Boots candidate. He does help out in turn 1, but that's about the extent of Reyson's Boots use. I posted this argument earlier.

And you're wrong, because you haven't considered how helpful Transformed Boots Reyson is on certain chapters, as I've been explaining.

Seraph Robe/Dracoshield/Full Guard actually helps significantly. 20/12 Marcia has like 45 HP/19 Def which is a lot, and this is towards the beginning of the endgame if Dracoshield and Seraph Robe was given. My Marcia has 14 Def/40 something HP and I'm fairly sure that I used a Seraph Robe on her, and while she has trouble surviving in C26 (when a million units are on her ass), she makes great use of Shade if needed (gets units off her ass) and with enough strategy in that chapter, Kieran and Oscar can take all the heat while Marcia doesn't need to take as much. Marcia's durability is not that large a problem later on because it's easy to *not* get her ganged up on if you plan around it. Especially if you end up with the average Defense/HP values, which help her *far* more.

Marcia's durability can be a problem in chapters 20, 23, 25, 26, 28, and Endgame. I should know, I used Marcia in a recent draft. She was extremely overleveled, took a Seraph Robe and Dracoshield and yet I still had some problems with her durability - and it was only normal mode.

Titania dominates the first thirds of the game with no resources, but Marcia/Jill use a bunch to dominate the last half of the game. You may view it as a point against them that they require so many resources, but the reason you dump so much onto them is because of how often you use them. I'm not saying they should be above her -- in fact, a no-Titania efficiency run of the first 10ish chapters would easily show why -- I'm merely saying that their contributions are similar enough to have them in the same tier. Titania can't do what Marcia/Jill can in later chapters, either.

I think Titania is considerably more valuable than Jill or Marcia, but I wouldn't really care if she lost her own tier (I find it mostly cosmetic) so long as she clearly owned the top of top.

There is plenty of BEXP to go around, but you *still* want to dump as much as possible onto Marcia if you want to get by some of the upcoming chapters easier. There is plenty of BEXP to go around even after you dump them on Marcia or Jill, but you still can't overuse BEXP before they arrive.

That seems contradictory. Maybe it's just a matter of semantics, but I don't see how "There is plenty of BEXP to go around" and "you still can't overuse BEXP" can both be true at the same time. On a more practical point, there is more Bexp to go around if you're only training one of {Marcia, Jill}.

I was referring to a 4 turn, which I didn't do because I didn't give Marcia boots early enough. Otherwise I agree, and you actually only do need 2 9-move units (in my case, Titania and a promoted Marcia) for an easy 5 turn.

Oh, I think I misspoke. The Boots might be essential to a 4-turn clear. But it's much more difficult to get the Full Guard in 4 turns, and I don't think it's possible to get the Dracoshield also.

3 turns. You need to Shove/Smite Marcia a couple times to 2-turn without them, but that's an ass to do because you need enough combat units to take on some of the stuff (namely Armors) that Marcia leaves behind + Fighters with massive HP. Those Fighters are actually a point in Boyd's favor, and Jill/Oscar can easily take out the Armors.

No, Marcia only needs a single shove to 2-turn clear of 17-1 without the Boots. Though that might be from a non-optimal deployment slot (for 17-2 and 17-4). Regardless, if you have some other decent combat units (like Titania and/or Oscar), you don't need Lethe or Muarim's combat here anyway. Also, I'm very reluctant to give much credit to a 2-turn Boots Marcia clear of 17-2 because of how insane the shoving involved is. So, Boots Marcia saves 1-2 turns in C17.

Show me a C18 strategy that does exactly that with a Boots Reyson. I question these because I haven't seen the strategies that you're talking about. The 4-turn of C18 I'm looking at involved a Boots Oscar and a bunch of Siege users (Tormod being one of them oddly enough, because of his high proficiency with Fire; you can't get a Blizzard at this point). Boots Oscar is basically the same as Boots Marcia in that chapter anyway.

I performed a 6-turn clear of C18 in a recent Normal Mode draft with Transformed Boots Reyson recently. I might have been able to pull off a 5-turn clear if I didn't re-recruit Shinon (and had a few more shovers). I'm not aware if anything is different on Hard Mode that would prevent a similar strategy. Here's what I did (note that I discovered the magic of rescue/take/dropping Reyson part-way through the chapter):

Deployed: Ike, Ilyana, Marcia, Kieran, Brom, Makalov, Muarim, Reyson, Rolf, Titania

Turn 1: Everybody advances north up the stairs. Kieran (killing a Soldier), Marcia, Makalov, and Titania (rescuing Rolf) take the lead. Reyson is right behind and uses a Laguz Stone. Reyson is attacked by a Halberdier.

Turn 2: Ilyana heals Reyson. Kieran (killing a Warrior), Marcia (rescuing Ike), Makalov (rescuing Ilyana), and Titania advance east in a diamond pattern. Muarim kills a Halberdier. Brom shoves Reyson. Reyson vigors my mounted units. Kieran kills a Sage. The rest (fully advancing east) drop their cargo.

Turn 3: Makalov, Kieran, and Marcia advance east, killing a Knight and Bishop. Ike, Rolf, and Ilyana advance in diamond pattern. Muarim shoves Reyson. Reyson vigors the trio. They advance safely behind my mounted units. Titania trails behind for no particular reason. Brom prepares to face the Wyvern Riders by the stairs - he kills two on enemy phase.

Turn 4: Rolf talks to Shinon. Ike kills Shinon. Titania rescues Rolf and retreats. Ilyana heals Marcia. Kieran and Marcia rescue/take/drop Ilyana, and form a diamond pattern with Ike and Makalov (who kills a General). Reyson vigors the foursome. Ike kills a Sage. Kieran advances north, killing a Soldier. Makalov and Marcia rescue/take/drop Reyson safely behind them as they advance north (why haven't I thought of this before?). Brom prepares for the Javelin Wyvern Rider. Kayechey suicides into Kieran on enemy phase.

Turn 5: Ilyana heals Kieran. Kieran and Marcia head north and kill Cavaliers. They form a diamond pattern with Makalov. Reyson vigors them. They move west to meet the Ravens, rescue/take/dropping Reyson (this is the coolest thing ever). Ike moves north. Brom finishes off the last Wyvern Rider. He and Muarim chill by the stairs, waiting for reinforcements.

Turn 6: Wow, I can get a 6-turn clear. There are 5 Ravens left. Makalov and Kieran kill nearby Ravens. Marcia kills a far-off Raven and cantos back. Reyson vigors them. Kieran rescues Reyson and retreats with Makalov. Marcia kills another Raven. The last Raven transforms and suicides on enemy phase!

In which case, I'm arguing just *why* resources aren't as important to tiering as you are making it out to be. At least, not for units that use them extremely well. You even said yourself that they're similar, but I'm going the extra step and showing just why Soren isn't contributing as much in the first half of the game as Tormod is in the second half.

But that's not the relevant argument, because Soren exists and is useful in the second half of the game. You need to demonstrate that Tormod is more useful than Soren in their shared chapters. More than that, you have to argue that the magnitude of this difference in usefulness can completely offset the utility Soren brings before Tormod even exists.

If we're putting Marcia > Oscar on the tier list, then I'm afraid we're well past that.

I will be making a detailed argument for Oscar > Marcia one of these days.

Edited August 28, 2011 by aku chi

[Radiant Dragon]

I think the point was, "There's more than enough BEXP as long as you don't misuse it", which is certainly true.

Also, I don't think 5 turning Chapter 18 is possible. The Ravens won't transform in time to suicide onto our units.

[Lord Raven]

There's a 4 turn clear posted in one of the LTC things, but that relies on getting a Bolting and a Meteor by that point (another point in Tormod's favor; he starts sieging with Meteor before Soren, but Ilyana starts sieging with Bolting faster. You could easily give Tormod one Arms Scroll and he sieges with Meteor and Bolting whereas Soren needs 2 since Blizzard is C23 onwards). Oscar was the primary offensive unit and he had like 22 Str with a regular Steel Axe or something, so Marcia is able to handle it with like the 22 Str and forge she has by that point. I forget what mode it was; something tells me normal but if it was hard, then Marcia essentially takes Oscar's role in said 4 turn.

Also, I think there's a larger enemy density in hard that makes it trickier to do the turncount you proposed.

Having that said, I forget my turncount (might've been 6) but it would've been much lower if they transformed earlier. There's also a bunch of them, and my non-Marcia units didn't get there until Turn 6 (and trust me, you'd want a Boots flier there because many of them are on the mountains when they start iirc).

As for the rest, I'm burnt out and I *really* need to practice because I haven't played trombone in like a month and auditions are in a week... and I have a concert on Tuesday too so I need to get my chops back v_v

Edited August 28, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[aku chi]

Also, I don't think 5 turning Chapter 18 is possible. The Ravens won't transform in time to suicide onto our units.

We have 3 fliers at this point to chase down and kill uncooperative Ravens in their spawn locations. I'm not positive, but I suspect a 5-turn is possible with Transformed Boots Reyson.

There's a 4 turn clear posted in one of the LTC things, but that relies on getting a Bolting and a Meteor by that point (another point in Tormod's favor; he starts sieging with Meteor before Soren, but Ilyana starts sieging with Bolting faster. You could easily give Tormod one Arms Scroll and he sieges with Meteor and Bolting whereas Soren needs 2 since Blizzard is C23 onwards). Oscar was the primary offensive unit and he had like 22 Str with a regular Steel Axe or something, so Marcia is able to handle it with like the 22 Str and forge she has by that point. I forget what mode it was; something tells me normal but if it was hard, then Marcia essentially takes Oscar's role in said 4 turn.

Getting Bolting in C16 costs us 1-2 turns and stealling the Meteor in C17-4 seems like all kinds of inefficient, so that 4-turn clear strategy can be safely ignored.

As for wielding siege tomes: so long as Soren is promoted before C17-3, he can be trained to C Thunder to wield Bolting before C22. In another draft I actually got Soren to C Fire by C20 and C Thunder by C23 without Arms Scrolls, but I admit that this is not practical under normal conditions.

Also, I think there's a larger enemy density in hard that makes it trickier to do the turncount you proposed.

Doubtful. It's a very linear chapter and our 4 mounted units can kill 6 units per player phase while rescue/take/dropping Reyson. The only thing that might impede a fast clear in Hard Mode is differences in the Raven reinforcement number and timing. Looking at the enemy stats data, it looks like it should be possible, but I wouldn't mind verifying.

Having that said, I forget my turncount (might've been 6) but it would've been much lower if they transformed earlier. There's also a bunch of them, and my non-Marcia units didn't get there until Turn 6 (and trust me, you'd want a Boots flier there because many of them are on the mountains when they start iirc).

Your turncount was 7, which is the best you can get without Boots Reyson, I believe. I don't understand what your problem is understanding that Transformed Boots Reyson saves turns that Boots Marcia does not. Do you not see how letting 4 mounted units move 2 spaces further each turn (other than the first) would be more valuable than letting 1 mounted unit move 2 spaces further, especially in a rout map?

As for the rest, I'm burnt out and I *really* need to practice because I haven't played trombone in like a month and auditions are in a week... and I have a concert on Tuesday too so I need to get my chops back v_v

Don't feel obligated to respond. We've both had our say.

[Life]

This response seems to have come out of nowhere, but I'll respond anyway... There are no mounted units with equal or better availability below Nephenee on the tier list (unless you count Mist, who's right below Nephenee), so I think it's already clear that Nephenee is inferior to the mounted units. But Nephenee is, alongside Boyd and Ike, one of the best non-mounted combat units. Nephenee can help with routs, especially C17-1 if we've promoted her. She is one of the best rescue/drop candidates. And while rescue/dropping doesn't seem to be your style, I assure you that it is a viable strategy in a few chapters (15, 20, 21, and 25 seem most notable for Nephenee). When we consider playthroughs that don't involve so many mounted units (for whatever reason), Nephenee's value increases further.

Stefan's a better choice here, to be honest. 38 Atk perfectly 4HKOs Ena and Stefan achieves that at level 10 with the Laguzslayer. The only problem is the fact that Ena may kill him first if Stefan doesn't connect with a critical but the chance of that happening is around 38% before considering that Ena doesn't have perfect hit on Stefan (89 Hit is still high though). However, this can get rectified with either a healing or Stefan whipping out the Vague Katti on the player phase since his chance of getting killed (due to taking out Ena first) now drops to ~20%. Pretty good odds.

Just wanted to comment on that. Simply because Neph has to seriously rely on Wrath activating to pull off the kill. And yeah, Ena's a tank.

Edited August 28, 2011 by Zaphod Beeblebrox

[Lord Raven]

Gonna point out that either way is pretty unreliable. Tauro with a Laguzslayer can activate Resolve on Ena pretty easily (two Mages will attack him as soon as he's recruited) and that'll give him ~31 HP if both connect (not a big if). Then you park Tauro with Laguzslayer in front of Ena, he takes Ena's hit and counters back with essentially a 40+ attack hit. This allows him and Marcia to team up for a kill on him (Marcia w/ forged Javelin does 9x2 = 18 damage at 99% displayed hit, if she has max str) so that'll be enough to kill Ena. Ike can then seize on Turn 6.

And Zaphod, Laguzguard?

[Anouleth]

Actually, since Tauroneo has 51 effective attack against Ena, he doesn't even need Marcia. He 2HKOes her 52HP/27-2DEF cleanly.

[Life]

Actually, since Tauroneo has 51 effective attack against Ena, he doesn't even need Marcia. He 2HKOes her 52HP/27-2DEF cleanly.

25 Def. Ena has a Demi Band.

I was going to mention that Tauroneo's Acc is shit (he's got 50 vs. Ena with the Silver Blade)... but then I remembered that Resolve works like Holiday Pay and the guy now has an extra 18 Acc to kill her with.

Edited August 28, 2011 by Zaphod Beeblebrox

[Anouleth]

25 Def. Ena has a Demi Band.

Which is why I said 27-2.

[Lord Raven]

25 Def. Ena has a Demi Band.

I was going to mention that Tauroneo's Acc is shit (he's got 50 vs. Ena with the Silver Blade)... but then I remembered that Resolve works like Holiday Pay and the guy now has an extra 18 Acc to kill her with.

And Laguzslayer gives him +15.

Edited August 29, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[Life]

And Laguzslayer gives him +15.

Again, the point was going to be that Tauroneo's Acc is shit even with a Slim Sword but it didn't pan out the way I thought it would.

[Lord Raven]

That is precisely my point! If you had given Jill the exact resources you gave Marcia, you would undoutedly have used Jill much more prominently. Your run demonstrates just one possible resource allocation space. There exist many others that would allow equally efficient play (or better).

And Jill is higher than Marcia on the tier list, and I actually agree with that to some extent (although I'd need to see it in action, I will do that one of these days when I'm not at school). Tanith just happens to emulate Marcia with the same resources, it just happens that she's not around as long and Marcia is a lot more likely to get said resources (so is Jill).

You gave Tormod more Bexp (he needed more to match Soren's Mag) and the better siege tomes. You deployed Tormod alone in several chapters. Based on your resource use, I don't blame you! Once you've trained Tormod, he is the superior Sage due to his extra movement (the durability argument is really weak, considering that both are squishy and Soren dodges more with an Ike support). But if you hadn't trained Tormod, you would have made the best of Soren and come to a more accurate judgement as to when Tormod's extra movement mattered.

This is bothering me a lot:

Once you've trained Tormod, he is the superior Sage due to his extra movement

What?

And of course I deployed Tormod more. Soren and Tormod received very similar resources (Tormod got a Spirit Dust though) but Tormod was actually the superior Sage in all of this due to that movement. Read through my playthrough carefully (namely in how much BEXP I fed to Soren compared to Tormod, the end result of said BEXP weren't all that different); on top of there being a reason that Soren wasn't deployed as much as Tormod.

On shoving the mounted units: There is no unit that can shove Marcia that fails to shove Titania and Astrid unless we consider Statue Frag'd Brom or Gatrie (and I believe they need to take 2 Statue Frags, neither of which are efficient to get). I suppose it's worth noting that Ranulf doesn't need to be transformed to shove the Pegasus Knights (he does to shove the Paladins). Muarim needs to be transformed to shove the male Cavaliers and Paladins. Lethe is unable to shove the male promoted Paladins. Untransformed Mordecai and transformed Ranulf are unable to shove promoted Jill. I believe transformed Muarim can shove Haar, but I'm not positive. Transformed Mordecai certainly can.

It is a pretty good argument in favor of Marcia, because shoving Jill can be pretty difficult at times especially once promoted.

Chapter 11: A 3-turn strategy requires feeding Marcia over 1600 Bexp and is not very reliable. Any two Paladins can get a 4-turn clear with fewer resources expended and greater reliability. But if we want to recruit Jill or Haar, we need to wait until turn 5 to clear anyway.

Lethe's most likely staying back to recruit Zihark. You don't even want to use the Laguz Stone unless you want to weaken your Reyson argument.

You also don't need Marcia promoted to have her fly over things. She makes a good distraction for Titania promotion or not (giving her ~1000 BEXP does the trick, a little less because levels lower than 8 require less than 100 BEXP to level up especially when you abuse it) and when Titania kills the Armor she can Arrive as soon as possible. This very fact allows for an extreme amounts of flexibility in reaching the chapter while you're waiting for Jill.

Chapter 12: This is Marcia's big chapter if we give her a large Bexp dump. We can save 6 turns if we don't care to lose Jill, Haar, the Brave Axe, a Seraph Robe, and a Secret Book. As you demonstrated, Marcia can still save us three turns while still letting us recruit Jill, which is pretty cool. It does depend on Jill going directly to Ike, I reckon.

Not killing the vigilantes gives you a bunch of BEXP to use, considering how easy it is to keep them alive AND visit the villages (it's tedious at times, though, but it's easy to trap them). 1600 BEXP is very easy to give to Marcia at this point in the game; in fact, Marcia only needs to be Level 20 and max Spd with Iron Forge to kill the boss easily (and if we're waiting for Jill, she actually doesn't even need that because she can get a solid 3HKO on the boss without too much trouble). In fact, if you get her to Level 20 before the chapter, she'll promote by killing the Crows then she can double and kill the boss. That is only a 1500 BEXP allocation. If she's Level 19, she can get a level up on the Crows to get to Level 20 because if she has max Speed (45% chance; it's actually almost guaranteed to be maxed out on Fixed mode) she can easily double and kill the boss when she's at Level 20 and promote with the boss' EXP there.

Chapter 13: The fliers can be helpful here if we gave them some Bexp, but they aren't required for a 7-turn clear. Titania can continue to dominate here.

They're actually quite helpful to get the most secure 7-turn clear you can ask for. By that I mean, everyone routed by Turn 2 or 3.

Chapter 14: Flying doesn't help us complete the chapter any faster, but Marcia does help us recruit Makalov and get Vantage in 3 turns.

If we don't recruit Makalov, she could make use of a forged Iron and fly over the river quite easily.

Chapter 15: Flying is obviously helpful here. Bexp infused Marcia or Jill can get us a somewhat unreliable 2-turn clear or a more reliable 3-turn clear (with some help or without). The Paladins are clearly worthless here.

Marcia will not be getting you an unreliable 2-turn clear. No way. If she has 21 Spd (very likely once she promotes), she can double and kill Muarim very easily with a Laguz Lance. I remember she did like 33 x2 when she had like 19 Str, so if she had her average she still gets a solid kill on Muarim.

Chapter 16: Flying doesn't help us a lick here. The Boots aren't even necessary for a 5-turn clear, but they might be for a 4-turn clear (which has a harder time getting the Full Guard).

Full Guard can still be received if you have a Chest Key leftover.

Chapter 17-1: It's a rout, so everybody can help out, but Marcia or Jill can help us achieve a 2-turn clear by flying directly north. Boots are most definitely not required (I've done it without). Jill has an easier time ORKOing the northern enemies at 1-2 range. I believe it's possible for a Paladin being shoved by all of the laguz to also clear the northern enemies on turn 2, but my confidence in that possibility is not 100%. They might have needed the Boots.

Boots are helpful if you don't want the extra Shover and instead want an extra offensive unit.

Chapter 17-4: With the Boots, Marcia (or Jill, I believe) can secure a moderately reliable 1-turn clear. Or they can secure a slightly more reliable 2-turn clear with or without the Boots. The Paladins take 4 turns to go the long way around, I believe.

Marcia provides THE most reliable 1-turn clear I can think of. A 20/3 or 20/4 Marcia takes 2 damage from Nosferatu and responds with 18x2 damage against his 32 HP (if you use a forged Javelin). Even if Nosferatu hits, she will kill him off very easily. A 20/2 or 20/1 Marcia can use the Spear and do the exact same thing.

Chapter 19: Almost any unit that can ORKO Homasa can 2-turn clear this chapter (with Reyson and shove help). Janaff or Ulki can help us get the Knight Ring for a 3-turn clear. A 1-turn clear might be possible with Boots Marcia (or Tanith) if she and Reyson get super-shoved, but I'm not positive.

It's possible, someone on GFAQs did it. It was a massive Shove chain with Reyson Canto.

Chapter 20: The fliers can help us 2-turn this chapter with decent reliability. The Paladins (and any leftover fliers) can help us get Smite and Rescue (very important).

Smite and Rescue are easy to get in 2 turns.

Chapter 21: The mounted fliers are very helpful here for being able to traverse and rescue-drop over the moat. Transformed Reyson is the real star here, though. With the Boots, he can help secure a 5-turn clear. The Paladins can help get the Energy Drop treasure and whatever other spoils they can garner.

I'm curious about the 5 turn strategy, but the Energy Drop treasure is easy too.

Chapter 22: Siege tomes make this an easy 1-turn clear. Any mounted unit with decent 1-2 range combat can nab the Bolting here.

Siege makes it 1 turn? o_O Unless you're trading around with Callil and Tormod (and even that's iffy because I don't think they 3HKO) I doubt it. Unless you want to proc a 6% critical, but I know how much you love doing that (for the record, that's about a 15% chance of success if you Canto with Reyson). You also want Bolting.

Chapter 23: Fliers definitely have some mobility advantages here, but the chapter can be 4-turned with no combat fliers, just Transformed Boots Reyson and a couple good Paladins. Plus, the fliers need to be extra careful with the Ballistae here.

I'm not sure of this 4 turn you speak of, but enemy density in this chapter's a bitch too. Ballista are a non-issue if you're only sending in one flier, and Tormod can OHKO both people very easily if he has +3 Atk from Reyson (and he can reach them easily too, he can attack the first from the back of the formation and he can off the Sniper by being Shoved or Smited once by Muarim and then attacking the Sniper).

Chapter 24: You keep getting this wrong. There is nothing stopping a competent Paladin from doing exactly what a competent flier can do on this level. I have 4-turned this twice now with a Paladin solo. With the Boots, they can 3-turn it just like Marcia. The bridge chokepoint can be cleared of enemies on turn 1 and a competent Paladin will ORKO all of the rest of the enemies on enemy phase with a forged Hand Axe. They will have considerably better durability with the Knight Ward than Marcia with the Full Guard. Anyways, even if you gave Marcia or Jill the Boots, the Paladins can make themselves useful by securing Savior.

But they're the least likely to get the Boots by this point. Marcia with the Full Guard can survive just fine; she can evade extremely well thanks to high speed anyway.

Chapter 26: Flying doesn't help here. Extra durability does. Obviously, if Marcia or Jill has the Boots, they can can help get a 3-turn clear, but Marcia in particular has durability issues.

See, this can easily be remedied by Laguz Stone Reyson coupled by 3 other Paladins. If you position Marcia and Ike just right (drop Ike to the right of Marcia), then they'll all go for Astrid, Kieran, and Oscar who are way behind, or Ike who can easily reach the throne (if you give him a Sonic Sword and give someone like Kieran and Oscar 1-range weapons, as well as support from Marcia/Ike/each other, then they won't attack Marcia/Ike and they'll go for Astrid/Oscar/Kieran which clears the path for them). Renning (I forget his name in the chapter) can be Brave Lanced and siege tomed to oblivion anyway, with some extra helping from another Brave weapon or whatever. Savior/Shade Marcia is pretty ridiculous.

Chapter 27: Again, flying doesn't help here. I don't think Boots Marcia/Jill can get a 3-turn clear. Transformed Boots Reyson with a trio of competent mounted units can. Kieran has the best chance of being able to ORKO Hafedd, but it's a stretch even for him.

Yeah but they're pretty likely to have boots by this point anyway.

Chapter 28: I need to play this again on Hard Mode to refresh my memory. I know on Normal Mode a risky 2-turn clear exists which only a well-trained Jill or Haar is likely to pull off. This might not be possible (or plausible) on Hard Mode. I've used Transformed Boots Reyson to get a 3-turn clear without any fliers on Normal Mode that I suspect is also possible on Hard Mode. A 3-turn clear without a Laguz Stone is possible with the mounted fliers, so it's at least a small win for them.

I haven't gotten to this chapter yet.

Endgame: I'm not familiar enough with Hard Mode efficient clears on this chapter to comment. I suspect that the mounted fliers might be slightly more helpful in more reliable clears (being able to ferry Ike around the Bryce/Dragon obstacles), but I could be wrong.

It's the Rescue staff that helps the most here, you want to Rescue/Drop Ike a bunch if you want to pull off a 2-turn that, while not always consistent, still works at quite a high rate.

... If the absurdity of this argument is not evidently clear to you, I'm not sure what I can do... If you assume that Marcia is getting a bunch of resources and Tanith isn't, it isn't very surprising that Tanith isn't as good... If you gave Tanith the same set of resources you gave Marcia (including the 1000+ Bexp) for comparison's sake, she would clearly be a better unit than Marcia in their shared availability. That Tanith isn't as good a Boots candidate because she doesn't exist in Chapters 16 and 17 is irrelevant when comparing the two in their shared chapters.

Marcia is better given those resources than Tanith given those resources.

And you're wrong, because you haven't considered how helpful Transformed Boots Reyson is on certain chapters, as I've been explaining.

You don't have any sort of specific strategy or playthrough to base this off of. You've mentioned your NM playthrough but enemy density is different enough in HM that the points are somewhat irrelevant.

Marcia's durability can be a problem in chapters 20, 23, 25, 26, 28, and Endgame. I should know, I used Marcia in a recent draft. She was extremely overleveled, took a Seraph Robe and Dracoshield and yet I still had some problems with her durability - and it was only normal mode.

That is quite weird, because I found some workarounds for Marcia's durability problems. 25 is a bitch for her durability, Jill doesn't do all that much better though, and 28 is filled with a shitton of Laguz units (did you consider Laguzguard though?). Endgame doesn't require her, and 26 can easily be worked around because of the small amounts of terrain. 20 and 23 isn't a problem with resource allocation though -- if anything, 23's problem is the fact that she doesn't have Savior for Ike.

I think Titania is considerably more valuable than Jill or Marcia, but I wouldn't really care if she lost her own tier (I find it mostly cosmetic) so long as she clearly owned the top of top.

She is, especially if someone were to try to low turn FE9 without Titania, but I don't think Titania's *that* good that she deserves her own tier. I never believed the gap was cosmetic anyway.

No, Marcia only needs a single shove to 2-turn clear of 17-1 without the Boots. Though that might be from a non-optimal deployment slot (for 17-2 and 17-4). Regardless, if you have some other decent combat units (like Titania and/or Oscar), you don't need Lethe or Muarim's combat here anyway. Also, I'm very reluctant to give much credit to a 2-turn Boots Marcia clear of 17-2 because of how insane the shoving involved is. So, Boots Marcia saves 1-2 turns in C17.

It saves a solid 2 turns, and 3 if you want optimal deployment for 17-2 and 17-3.

I performed a 6-turn clear of C18 in a recent Normal Mode draft with Transformed Boots Reyson recently. I might have been able to pull off a 5-turn clear if I didn't re-recruit Shinon (and had a few more shovers). I'm not aware if anything is different on Hard Mode that would prevent a similar strategy. Here's what I did (note that I discovered the magic of rescue/take/dropping Reyson part-way through the chapter):

I seriously think there's a different enemy density that prevents that but I'm not sure, I haven't tried the strategy.

But that's not the relevant argument, because Soren exists and is useful in the second half of the game. You need to demonstrate that Tormod is more useful than Soren in their shared chapters. More than that, you have to argue that the magnitude of this difference in usefulness can completely offset the utility Soren brings before Tormod even exists.

And I.. did? You even said so yourself, multiple times that Tormod ends up the superior sage and just does more when he's given the same resources as Soren and Ilyana. Repeatedly. He may require more resources due to his late join level, but you can give him a good amount of BEXP every chapter without being totally obsessed with mounted units and be caught up to Speed. I even managed to catch him up to Speed -- and have him zoom past -- around 7-8 units in my playthrough. Hell, I was using a distinctively large team and him and Soren caught up quite easily in terms of stats. It just happens that Soren makes less use of the lesser resources than Tormod does of his larger resources -- significantly less. You have said so yourself, multiple times in your 3-way sage argument.

We have 3 fliers at this point to chase down and kill uncooperative Ravens in their spawn locations. I'm not positive, but I suspect a 5-turn is possible with Transformed Boots Reyson.

Fliers don't matter in this, it's the 9 move that matters here. Anyone who has boots is charging ahead, and I'm not sure about you but due to the enemy density and the two siege tomes at play, it was hard to advance units simply because of that on top of larger enemy density. Reyson does give 4 units another turn, but that only works for one turn after being transformed initially, which still only happens after either 5 turns pass or once he uses a laguz stone (so turn 2). Granted, giving him boots gives him 10 move, but I don't see how Boots Reyson makes a difference in this.

Getting Bolting in C16 costs us 1-2 turns and stealling the Meteor in C17-4 seems like all kinds of inefficient, so that 4-turn clear strategy can be safely ignored.

Sounds about right then.

As for wielding siege tomes: so long as Soren is promoted before C17-3, he can be trained to C Thunder to wield Bolting before C22. In another draft I actually got Soren to C Fire by C20 and C Thunder by C23 without Arms Scrolls, but I admit that this is not practical under normal conditions.

No, he cannot, because he lacks the movement to receive the combat that allows him to hit C Thunder. I don't think Soren advances to C Thunder if he promotes if he already had D. Of course, that's a draft, you're bound to put in a lot of special attention into Soren combat wise.

Doubtful. It's a very linear chapter and our 4 mounted units can kill 6 units per player phase while rescue/take/dropping Reyson. The only thing that might impede a fast clear in Hard Mode is differences in the Raven reinforcement number and timing. Looking at the enemy stats data, it looks like it should be possible, but I wouldn't mind verifying.

Its linearity makes the larger enemy density a much more relevant point. The other problem is that siege tomes (ie Blizzard) will rape Reyson up the ass if you keep on rescue dropping him.

Your turncount was 7, which is the best you can get without Boots Reyson, I believe. I don't understand what your problem is understanding that Transformed Boots Reyson saves turns that Boots Marcia does not. Do you not see how letting 4 mounted units move 2 spaces further each turn (other than the first) would be more valuable than letting 1 mounted unit move 2 spaces further, especially in a rout map?

The difference is that I don't know how that's going to be relevant to the entire game.

[dondon151]

You heard it here first! Ulki > Titania!

I sure as hell didn't say that, so I can only assume that you are being serious with this claim.

And that's only the half of it. Mercenary Raven isn't even getting super-low turncounts.

My, you just can't be satisfied, can't you? First you complain that getting super low turncounts is inefficient, then you complain that the turncounts for a christened efficiency playthrough aren't low enough.

[aku chi]

This is bothering me a lot:

Once you've trained Tormod, he is the superior Sage due to his extra movement

What?

It's quite simple. When both Sages are trained, Tormod is better than Soren in their shared chapters. Considering that Soren has 11 more chapters of availability (a few in which he can make significant contributions) and takes a bit fewer resources to get ORKOing, Soren is the better unit on the whole. If this still bothers you, replace Soren with Titania and Tormod with Kieran to understand the general principle (obviously the details differ).

It is a pretty good argument in favor of Marcia, because shoving Jill can be pretty difficult at times especially once promoted.

Sadly, Marcia being easier to shove probably is her greatest advantage over Jill in their shared availability (Marcia's superior AS is the only other advantage).

Lethe's most likely staying back to recruit Zihark. You don't even want to use the Laguz Stone unless you want to weaken your Reyson argument.

I really have no clue where this came from. But on the subject, the only chapter in which I would consider using a Laguz Stone on a unit not named Reyson is C10, because Transformed Mordecai can really tear that chapter up if we decline to go stealth.

You also don't need Marcia promoted to have her fly over things. She makes a good distraction for Titania promotion or not (giving her ~1000 BEXP does the trick, a little less because levels lower than 8 require less than 100 BEXP to level up especially when you abuse it) and when Titania kills the Armor she can Arrive as soon as possible. This very fact allows for an extreme amounts of flexibility in reaching the chapter while you're waiting for Jill.

Or we can give Oscar 1000 Bexp and he can simply dominate the chapter with Titania. I know which I'd prefer...

Not killing the vigilantes gives you a bunch of BEXP to use, considering how easy it is to keep them alive AND visit the villages (it's tedious at times, though, but it's easy to trap them). 1600 BEXP is very easy to give to Marcia at this point in the game; in fact, Marcia only needs to be Level 20 and max Spd with Iron Forge to kill the boss easily (and if we're waiting for Jill, she actually doesn't even need that because she can get a solid 3HKO on the boss without too much trouble). In fact, if you get her to Level 20 before the chapter, she'll promote by killing the Crows then she can double and kill the boss. That is only a 1500 BEXP allocation. If she's Level 19, she can get a level up on the Crows to get to Level 20 because if she has max Speed (45% chance; it's actually almost guaranteed to be maxed out on Fixed mode) she can easily double and kill the boss when she's at Level 20 and promote with the boss' EXP there.

Uh, I said Marcia would need about 1600 Bexp to help 3-turn C11. For C12, she can make due with ~1200 Bexp total, because she doesn't need to promote, as you say. 1200 Bexp is a lot but it is a lot more reasonable than 1600 Bexp in chapter 11, especially considering just how substantial and unique Marcia's contributions are in C12.

They're actually quite helpful to get the most secure 7-turn clear you can ask for. By that I mean, everyone routed by Turn 2 or 3.

The most secure 7-turn clears have everyone routed and all of the chests opened before turn 7. You gain nothing by clearing the enemies faster except to make it safer to open the chests. And no fliers are necessary for that task.

If we don't recruit Makalov, she could make use of a forged Iron and fly over the river quite easily.

It's come to my attention that Marcia might be able to 2-turn this chapter if we forfeit Makalov and Vantage. I'm not sure how reliable this is. It looks like Marcia can just 2HKO Gashilma with a forged Steel Lance at 20/1, but she would need to dodge a 40% critical from a ~50% accuracy attack.

Marcia will not be getting you an unreliable 2-turn clear. No way. If she has 21 Spd (very likely once she promotes), she can double and kill Muarim very easily with a Laguz Lance. I remember she did like 33 x2 when she had like 19 Str, so if she had her average she still gets a solid kill on Muarim.

20/2 Marcia has ~75% (and as low as 55% with worst biorythm) displayed hit on Muarim with the Laguz Lance. It is not at all unlikely for Marcia to miss one of her 2 attacks. 100% reliable 3-turn clear strategies exist, so they shouldn't be discounted. Excepting the Super Soren clear, though, they all involve one of the fliers anyway.

Marcia provides THE most reliable 1-turn clear I can think of. A 20/3 or 20/4 Marcia takes 2 damage from Nosferatu and responds with 18x2 damage against his 32 HP (if you use a forged Javelin). Even if Nosferatu hits, she will kill him off very easily. A 20/2 or 20/1 Marcia can use the Spear and do the exact same thing.

Does Marcia get the kill on player phase? I thought she had to survive several attacks on enemy phase for the clear (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Smite and Rescue are easy to get in 2 turns.

Bullshit. Getting Rescue in 2 turns requires a mounted unit that can survive a lot of enemy attacks (and if it's a Paladin, they need to clear the way to the house on enemy phase as well).

I'm curious about the 5 turn strategy, but the Energy Drop treasure is easy too.

I'd post my 5-turn NM draft clear strategy, but seeing as you didn't read the last one, I figure I won't bother. Getting the Energy Drop before the chapter ends requires increasingly high-mov units as you clear the chapter faster. For instance, I don't think it's possible for 7-mov units to get the Energy Drop in 5 turns (with no shove or chant help, of course, since it's a secondary objective).

Siege makes it 1 turn? o_O Unless you're trading around with Callil and Tormod (and even that's iffy because I don't think they 3HKO) I doubt it. Unless you want to proc a 6% critical, but I know how much you love doing that (for the record, that's about a 15% chance of success if you Canto with Reyson). You also want Bolting.

Base Calill + any promoted Mage will 3HKO Schaeffer with Meteor. It's also not impossible for a trained Sage to 2HKO Schaeffer with either Meteor or Bolting. And Bolting can be obtained by a mounted unit on turn 1.

I'm not sure of this 4 turn you speak of, but enemy density in this chapter's a bitch too. Ballista are a non-issue if you're only sending in one flier, and Tormod can OHKO both people very easily if he has +3 Atk from Reyson (and he can reach them easily too, he can attack the first from the back of the formation and he can off the Sniper by being Shoved or Smited once by Muarim and then attacking the Sniper).

I've done it twice now in NM drafts, the first without a single flier (although I did use Tanith to cover up a pothole or two, she never even got attacked). And while increased enemy density on HM might make this more difficult, I'm confident that it can be done.

Marcia is better given those resources than Tanith given those resources.

Only because she has more availability. In their shared chapters, Tanith is better with similar resources.

You don't have any sort of specific strategy or playthrough to base this off of. You've mentioned your NM playthrough but enemy density is different enough in HM that the points are somewhat irrelevant.

Irrelevant? Your fundamental inability to grasp how to use Transformed Boots Reyson, even after I posted a strategy detailing his use, is baffling.

That is quite weird, because I found some workarounds for Marcia's durability problems. 25 is a bitch for her durability, Jill doesn't do all that much better though, and 28 is filled with a shitton of Laguz units (did you consider Laguzguard though?). Endgame doesn't require her, and 26 can easily be worked around because of the small amounts of terrain. 20 and 23 isn't a problem with resource allocation though -- if anything, 23's problem is the fact that she doesn't have Savior for Ike.

Jill does plenty better with 4 more defense and 4 more HP.

It saves a solid 2 turns, and 3 if you want optimal deployment for 17-2 and 17-3.

No, it doesn't. The Boots are not needed for a 2-turn clear of C17-1. Nor does 2-turning C17-1 compromise your ability to 3-turn C17-2 or 2-turn C17-4. End of story. Boots Marcia can save a turn in C17-4. She might also be able to save a turn in C17-2 if you can work out a shove jigsaw puzzle of epic proportions.

Fliers don't matter in this, it's the 9 move that matters here. Anyone who has boots is charging ahead, and I'm not sure about you but due to the enemy density and the two siege tomes at play, it was hard to advance units simply because of that on top of larger enemy density. Reyson does give 4 units another turn, but that only works for one turn after being transformed initially, which still only happens after either 5 turns pass or once he uses a laguz stone (so turn 2). Granted, giving him boots gives him 10 move, but I don't see how Boots Reyson makes a difference in this.

I'll give this explanation another attempt. A 9-mov unit with the Boots can mov 11 spaces each turn. Transformed Reyson can allow four 9-mov units to advance 18 spaces in a turn. This is impossible to do for more than 1 turn if Reyson does not have the Boots. But we can rescue/take/drop Reyson right behind a wall of mounted units. With 8 mov and Reyson protected from 2-range attacks, this lets us advance 7 spaces forward the next turn, killing any enemies in our way. Reyson vigors the 4. Now they can all move 9 spaces. 2 of them can clear out additional enemies while the other two rescue/take/drop Reyson again. So already we can move 16 spaces each turn, far better than if we just left Reyson behind after turn 1. But with 10 mov from the Boots, Reyson can allow the mounted units to advance a full 18 spaces each turn. Thats four units moving 2 spaces further each turn after the first. That is how he can save us at least a turn in long chapters like 18 and 27 (and maybe 21 and 23). Because of the way Raven reinforcements arrive, I suspect Transformed Boots Reyson can save us 2 turns in C18, but I'd have to verify.

No, he cannot, because he lacks the movement to receive the combat that allows him to hit C Thunder. I don't think Soren advances to C Thunder if he promotes if he already had D. Of course, that's a draft, you're bound to put in a lot of special attention into Soren combat wise.

Excuse me, I just told you he can (and more). C17-3 is a playground to use however we wish. If Soren is promoted by then (he should be), he can start building up his Thunder rank. If Soren doubles with Elthunder, he gains 4 Wexp for each enemy he attacks. He only needs to engage one enemy per turn to secure C Thunder in C17-3 alone. In full fairness, Adept activation doesn't produce Wexp, so he'll probably need to engage in a couple more battles to get to C Thunder, but it is clearly in the realm of plausibility.

Its linearity makes the larger enemy density a much more relevant point. The other problem is that siege tomes (ie Blizzard) will rape Reyson up the ass if you keep on rescue dropping him.

Did you miss the part where we're bring four kick-ass mounted unit to clear the path and ORKO everything on enemy phase? As for siege tomes: do your homework - transformed Reyson has 25 Resistance.

The difference is that I don't know how that's going to be relevant to the entire game.

As far as I can tell, Boots Marcia can potentially save 1 turn in C16, 1-2 turns in C17, 1 turn in C24, and possibly 1 turn in C26. 3-5 turns total. Boots Reyson can save 1-2 turns in C18, 1 turn in C27, and can at least make 2 other chapters a more reliable clear, if not a turn faster (chapters 21 and 23 are most notable). Both Marcia and Reyson should obviously be considered as Boots candidates (as should Jill, who might sacrifice a turn in C17, but is more reliable in her fast-clears).

I sure as hell didn't say that, so I can only assume that you are being serious with this claim.

You defended a statement (which Mercenary Raven clarifies was made in jest) that the fliers should have their own tier at the top of the tier list. Ulki is a flier. Titania is not. The statement you defended is absurd.

My, you just can't be satisfied, can't you? First you complain that getting super low turncounts is inefficient, then you complain that the turncounts for a christened efficiency playthrough aren't low enough.

No, I "complained" that low-reliability clears are not efficient. And I figure, if you're going to use unreliable strategies, you might as well make them faster than reliable strategies, no? But I was probably more angry than I should have been when I made my initial response, so I hope that Mercenary Raven will forgive me for that.

[Lord Raven]

It's quite simple. When both Sages are trained, Tormod is better than Soren in their shared chapters. Considering that Soren has 11 more chapters of availability (a few in which he can make significant contributions) and takes a bit fewer resources to get ORKOing, Soren is the better unit on the whole. If this still bothers you, replace Soren with Titania and Tormod with Kieran to understand the general principle (obviously the details differ).

Umm... no. The comparison is flawed.

When both are trained, Tormod is better than Soren in their shared chapters. Yes, this is the exact point you're making. This is the point you've been making in all of your posts about the two, actually! And you keep saying it. Then you turn your stance around and say Soren > Tormod because Soren uses less resources. Which he doesn't, especially if he wants to keep up with the mounts; Tormod, once you pump in the resources, doesn't require nearly as much to stay with the mounted units because he'll at least be experiencing combat and if enemies go for him over a mounted unit? He can take 3 hits before going down -- considering you're almost never ganged up on by more than 2 people on an enemy phase, this is not a big deal for him. The only thing Soren wins out in is stats, and by that logic Ike should be higher than Titania, Oscar, and Kieran because he has a stat advantage over them.

Titania and Kieran are different than Soren and Tormod. Kieran dominates in their shared chapters (well, no, because Tits is ??/10 and Kieran is like 10/--, and Tits is quite clearly winning until the last thirds of the game where they're more or less on par due to similar movement and attack strategies). Soren and Tormod have -- not close to the same -- but similar enough stats that while Tormod is losing, he'll be at a higher level in the last thirds of the game quite easily. Soren's contributions early on are nowhere near as significant as Titanias -- I'm telling you, absolutely nowhere near -- and Titania's contributions are about the same as Kieran's once he's up to par. You cannot say the same about Tormod and Soren; you've said so yourself that Soren doesn't help much in the first half of the game (you have all but outright stated it) and that Tormod is winning the second half of the game, so I don't understand your argument behind why Soren > Tormod.

Furthermore, Soren does not make many significant contributions in anything before Tormod comes in. There's one rout chapter that he does vaguely well in, and that's just about it.

Sadly, Marcia being easier to shove probably is her greatest advantage over Jill in their shared availability (Marcia's superior AS is the only other advantage).

Good so we agree that Jill>Marcia.

I really have no clue where this came from. But on the subject, the only chapter in which I would consider using a Laguz Stone on a unit not named Reyson is C10, because Transformed Mordecai can really tear that chapter up if we decline to go stealth.

There's not much to tear up in the chapter that we need a transformed Mordecai.

Or we can give Oscar 1000 Bexp and he can simply dominate the chapter with Titania. I know which I'd prefer...

Can Oscar contribute to a low turn clear of multiple chapters later on? Probably, but he's nowhere near the crux of it like a flying unit is.

Uh, I said Marcia would need about 1600 Bexp to help 3-turn C11. For C12, she can make due with ~1200 Bexp total, because she doesn't need to promote, as you say. 1200 Bexp is a lot but it is a lot more reasonable than 1600 Bexp in chapter 11, especially considering just how substantial and unique Marcia's contributions are in C12.

Marcia's are pretty unique in C11 too if you're 3-turning, and if you're 5-turning then she can easily hit the Arrive Square while Kieran and Oscar are fighting off enemies for EXP. It's a win-win, especially since Titania can off the Armor on Turn 5 then Marcia only needs to fly over some things to Arrive.

The most secure 7-turn clears have everyone routed and all of the chests opened before turn 7. You gain nothing by clearing the enemies faster except to make it safer to open the chests. And no fliers are necessary for that task.

They're still useful. You don't have anyone has necessary for the rout maps, just "useful" and a flier is extremely useful if you want to get the chests open by your two shitty thieves.

It's come to my attention that Marcia might be able to 2-turn this chapter if we forfeit Makalov and Vantage. I'm not sure how reliable this is. It looks like Marcia can just 2HKO Gashilma with a forged Steel Lance at 20/1, but she would need to dodge a 40% critical from a ~50% accuracy attack.

Why do you harpoon 50% strategies and then say that Marcia has only an 80% chance of surviving the boss?

20/2 Marcia has ~75% (and as low as 55% with worst biorythm) displayed hit on Muarim with the Laguz Lance. It is not at all unlikely for Marcia to miss one of her 2 attacks. 100% reliable 3-turn clear strategies exist, so they shouldn't be discounted. Excepting the Super Soren clear, though, they all involve one of the fliers anyway.

Biorhythm is easy enough to manipulate; you can save and restart multiple times until you get the right Biorhythm configuration. But that is beside the point sir, because ~75% displayed hit is 87.75% actual. That means she has only a... 77% chance of a 2-turn clear! God damn is that low.

Does Marcia get the kill on player phase? I thought she had to survive several attacks on enemy phase for the clear (please correct me if I'm wrong).

It's either you shove her into position to attack on Player Phase (which I did, but I got a 3 turn of 17-2) or you shove her into position to kill the Pegasus right near Oliver, then Canto to 2-range from Oliver. From there, I think Oliver always attacks first, so Nosferatu doesn't even get a chance to heal him. If you look up Georgeshwan's efficiency log (somewhere on this page) you'll find it.

Bullshit. Getting Rescue in 2 turns requires a mounted unit that can survive a lot of enemy attacks (and if it's a Paladin, they need to clear the way to the house on enemy phase as well).

I pulled it off. I had Kieran with Knight Ward, Oscar, and an overleveled Astrid as well as a Tanith who kept back (and lured a Wyvern away from Jill/Marcia) and was able to get Rescue on Turn 2.

I'd post my 5-turn NM draft clear strategy, but seeing as you didn't read the last one, I figure I won't bother. Getting the Energy Drop before the chapter ends requires increasingly high-mov units as you clear the chapter faster. For instance, I don't think it's possible for 7-mov units to get the Energy Drop in 5 turns (with no shove or chant help, of course, since it's a secondary objective).

Of course you need Paladins, but that's also Normal Mode. I have no reason to believe either unless it's hard mode.

Base Calill + any promoted Mage will 3HKO Schaeffer with Meteor. It's also not impossible for a trained Sage to 2HKO Schaeffer with either Meteor or Bolting. And Bolting can be obtained by a mounted unit on turn 1.

I'll be damned, you're right. This is also kind of a funny point because they have 70% displayed hit on Schaeffer and you have to hit him 3 times. Even funnier because you harpooned Marcia for a 20% chance to die and a roughly 25% chance of not hitting twice. Of course, I didn't factor biorhythm because my "manipulate Biorhythm" trick also works on these Sages, and frankly I'd think that a roughly 55-60% chance of a 1-turn clear is quite efficient anyway, and pretty reliable.

I've done it twice now in NM drafts, the first without a single flier (although I did use Tanith to cover up a pothole or two, she never even got attacked). And while increased enemy density on HM might make this more difficult, I'm confident that it can be done.

*No reason to believe unless it's hard mode*

Only because she has more availability. In their shared chapters, Tanith is better with similar resources.

So what are you arguing? Tanith > Marcia?

Irrelevant? Your fundamental inability to grasp how to use Transformed Boots Reyson, even after I posted a strategy detailing his use, is baffling.

Yes except that was a normal mode playthrough. Hard mode's enemy density is different enough that it's significant, considering I blazed through a normal mode transfer run because I completely overestimated the enemy density and stats.

Jill does plenty better with 4 more defense and 4 more HP.

Well no shit, have you seen Top tier?

No, it doesn't. The Boots are not needed for a 2-turn clear of C17-1. Nor does 2-turning C17-1 compromise your ability to 3-turn C17-2 or 2-turn C17-4. End of story. Boots Marcia can save a turn in C17-4. She might also be able to save a turn in C17-2 if you can work out a shove jigsaw puzzle of epic proportions.

Shove jigsaw puzzles and positioning aren't hard. 2 turns is a far more significant contribution than many other units.

I'll give this explanation another attempt. A 9-mov unit with the Boots can mov 11 spaces each turn. Transformed Reyson can allow four 9-mov units to advance 18 spaces in a turn. This is impossible to do for more than 1 turn if Reyson does not have the Boots. But we can rescue/take/drop Reyson right behind a wall of mounted units. With 8 mov and Reyson protected from 2-range attacks, this lets us advance 7 spaces forward the next turn, killing any enemies in our way. Reyson vigors the 4. Now they can all move 9 spaces. 2 of them can clear out additional enemies while the other two rescue/take/drop Reyson again. So already we can move 16 spaces each turn, far better than if we just left Reyson behind after turn 1. But with 10 mov from the Boots, Reyson can allow the mounted units to advance a full 18 spaces each turn. Thats four units moving 2 spaces further each turn after the first. That is how he can save us at least a turn in long chapters like 18 and 27 (and maybe 21 and 23). Because of the way Raven reinforcements arrive, I suspect Transformed Boots Reyson can save us 2 turns in C18, but I'd have to verify.

Yes, but you not only haven't verified but you've yet to show me specific strategies where this is saving more turns than Marcia.

By the way, they won't be getting 18 spaces. You don't do 9x2, you do something like 9x1.8 or something, because of complications with Reyson's 10 move and his durability leaves a bit to be desired if you're rescue dropping him. That is some massive theoryemblem (i coined a new term based on theorymon) you're bringing up there, and I'm curious to see it in practice, because the only thing I can think of that would at all make use of that is something like Chapter 23 where Reyson gets reamed the moment a ballista sets its sights on him. He doesn't have the durability to do that every single turn.

Excuse me, I just told you he can (and more). C17-3 is a playground to use however we wish. If Soren is promoted by then (he should be), he can start building up his Thunder rank. If Soren doubles with Elthunder, he gains 4 Wexp for each enemy he attacks. He only needs to engage one enemy per turn to secure C Thunder in C17-3 alone. In full fairness, Adept activation doesn't produce Wexp, so he'll probably need to engage in a couple more battles to get to C Thunder, but it is clearly in the realm of plausibility.

Soren won't be doubling with Elthunder, he loses at least 5 Spd every single time he uses it. He won't be promoted by C17 either, that is madness, and on top of that it's easy to rout by like Turn 7 or 8 in that chapter anyway so he's not even attacking every single turn.

Did you miss the part where we're bring four kick-ass mounted unit to clear the path and ORKO everything on enemy phase? As for siege tomes: do your homework - transformed Reyson has 25 Resistance.

I apologize for the mishap but at the same time he not only doesn't have the durability to keep that up on top of the fact that you haven't shown the specifics behind how this helps on a relevant mode on top of how he can only do this 4 times throughout the entire game.

As far as I can tell, Boots Marcia can potentially save 1 turn in C16, 1-2 turns in C17, 1 turn in C24, and possibly 1 turn in C26. 3-5 turns total. Boots Reyson can save 1-2 turns in C18, 1 turn in C27, and can at least make 2 other chapters a more reliable clear, if not a turn faster (chapters 21 and 23 are most notable). Both Marcia and Reyson should obviously be considered as Boots candidates (as should Jill, who might sacrifice a turn in C17, but is more reliable in her fast-clears).

Boots Jill does nothing different than Boots Marcia in C17 except not being shoved by Lethe... well, maybe. idk I haven't seen anyone test it yet.

You defended a statement (which Mercenary Raven clarifies was made in jest) that the fliers should have their own tier at the top of the tier list. Ulki is a flier. Titania is not. The statement you defended is absurd.

Come on dude, you're honestly arguing petty semantics in a debate about a video game? v_v

No, I "complained" that low-reliability clears are not efficient. And I figure, if you're going to use unreliable strategies, you might as well make them faster than reliable strategies, no? But I was probably more angry than I should have been when I made my initial response, so I hope that Mercenary Raven will forgive me for that.

Don't get angry bro, it's just the internet. More angry than you should've been is any anger at all.

Where did I make low reliability clears again, that in a different playthrough would have an extreme amount of reliability because I'd have a laguz lance?

Edited August 29, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[dondon151]

You defended a statement (which Mercenary Raven clarifies was made in jest) that the fliers should have their own tier at the top of the tier list. Ulki is a flier. Titania is not. The statement you defended is absurd.

I knew full well that Lord Raven's statements consisted of a substantial amount of hyperbole; I was hoping that you'd not be so nearsighted that you would take me completely literally, but I suppose that was too high of an expectation for me to have.