unit A + team vs unit B + team

[Progenitus]

This is how comparisons should be done, as it isolates the two units being compared and thus we can more easily see their impact on the team. It also makes it easier to give both units equal amounts of favoritism.

However, what it seems most people do is unit A + unit B + team. This is wrong because this can lead to uneven amounts of favoritism for both units. As an example, if unit A used a certain resource better than unit B, people tend to give unit A the resource. They don't care what happens if unit B gets the resource because, apparently, it takes it away from unit A who gains more from it (implying that unit A is on unit B's team), yet they fail to realize that if unit B with the resource > unit A with the resource, unit B is still better anyway. Or, you give unit B a different resource of equal value, and chances are unit B will remain better anyway.

Another reason why comparisons should be unti A + team vs unit B + team is that it covers more situations/team structures than unit A + unit B + team. The latter assumes that unit A and B are ALWAYS fielded together everytime they are played, which is blatantly stupid, especially according to Vykan's tier list FAQ...

-The better a character is, the more likely they are to be in play in a given playthrough.

Note how it doesn't say anything about assuming that certain charactesr are used 100% of the time, it is simply "more likely". Even the best characters aren't played 100% of the time (like, they got massively RNG screwed or something), and although the best characters are used often enough that it could be considered as 100% of the time, it's still not the same as 100%.

Unit A + team vs unit B + team can assume that unit A and B are fielded at the same time (unit B is part of unit A's team, e.g. unit A + team which includes unit B vs unit B + team which includes unit A, which is basically the same thing as unit A + unit B + team), but it can also assume the situations where unit A and B are not fielded at the same time.

Frankly, the only time I assume unit A and B are fielded at the same time is if they are each other's best support, e.g. Alan and lance, or RD Janaff and Ulki, etc., although they should still get the same resources (or resources of equal value) even if one uses it better than the other. Otherwise I assume they are not, even if they are extremely good units.

A real life example is RD Mia vs anyone. What happens is that Mia gets multiple resources thrown on her without anyone batting an eye, while failing to realize that other units could use those resources. As an example, if the debate was Mia vs Titania, Mia ends up getting stuff like adept and ike support. However, Titania doesn't get it, because she's apparently taking it away from Mia, implying that Mia is on Titania's team, and thus their comparison is assuming Mia + Titania + team. What it SHOULD be is Mia + team vs Titania + team. Even if Titania herself can't use things like adept as well as Mia, Titania should still either get a resource of equal value, or adept should instead go to an arbitrary member on Titania's team, such as Ulki.

What this would leave us with is either, Mia w/ adept + team vs Titania w/ resource of equal value as adept + team.

Or, Mia w/ adept + Ulki w/o adept + team vs Titania + Ulki w/ adept + team. The two teams cancel out, Ulki w/ adept > Ulki w/o adept, thus Mia w/ adept would need to beat Titania by a large enough margin to win.

Edited September 24, 2009 by pen15

[Florete]

Of course you'd use Mia as your example. You're so predictable.

[dondon151]

Or, Mia w/ adept + Ulki w/o adept + team vs Titania + Ulki w/ adept + team. The two teams cancel out, Ulki w/ adept > Ulki w/o adept, thus Mia w/ adept would need to beat Titania by a large enough margin to win.

This isn't a comparison between Mia and Titania. It's like you're integrating over x and then from the +C at the end you pull out a y.

And really, Ulki isn't germane to this discussion because he joins in 3-7 while Mia and Titania both exist starting from 3-P, so Mia doesn't have that competition for Adept anyway.

Edited September 24, 2009 by dondon151

[CATS]

I agree; this is why I've been saying in the FE7 list that when tiering Eliwood, you don't have to assume Lyn is there competing for the Heaven Seal.

I'd compare it as Unit A + Unit B + team if both are highly likely to be used, such as when discussing two high or top tier units. But other than that, I agree that it should rather be unit A + team vs unit B + team.

[Narga_Rocks]

A real life example is RD Mia vs anyone. What happens is that Mia gets multiple resources thrown on her without anyone batting an eye, while failing to realize that other units could use those resources. As an example, if the debate was Mia vs Titania, Mia ends up getting stuff like adept and ike support. However, Titania doesn't get it, because she's apparently taking it away from Mia, implying that Mia is on Titania's team, and thus their comparison is assuming Mia + Titania + team. What it SHOULD be is Mia + team vs Titania + team. Even if Titania herself can't use things like adept as well as Mia, Titania should still either get a resource of equal value, or adept should instead go to an arbitrary member on Titania's team, such as Ulki.

What this would leave us with is either, Mia w/ adept + team vs Titania w/ resource of equal value as adept + team.

Or, Mia w/ adept + Ulki w/o adept + team vs Titania + Ulki w/ adept + team. The two teams cancel out, Ulki w/ adept > Ulki w/o adept, thus Mia w/ adept would need to beat Titania by a large enough margin to win.

Yeah, focus on Mia. You neglect that Mia's team without Titania has an extra speedwing now. Do you realize just how bad Titania's offence is without a speedwing? Honestly, it's not even a competition if she isn't winged. Mia no longer needs adept to crush Titania's offence into dust (until part 4 there actually is no crushing into dust if Titania is winged, I'm saying now Mia can and can do it without adept even). Mia could support thunder and be close enough to Titania's durability even without cancel (which is really wasted on others, btw) and as long as both have forges Mia will win. (Even if you look at it with Titania also getting thunder, considering +1def/8avo on Titania is not going to make a big enough durability difference to matter if Mia gets +2def/8avo, since Mia gets a significant increase for her and Titania gets a minor increase for her)

Anyway, I really like

Note how it doesn't say anything about assuming that certain charactesr are used 100% of the time, it is simply "more likely". Even the best characters aren't played 100% of the time (like, they got massively RNG screwed or something), and although the best characters are used often enough that it could be considered as 100% of the time, it's still not the same as 100%."

First you are taking Vykan's word to be law basically, then you pull something incredibly stupid in your last sentence. If it's often enough..., then let's say 90% of the time each. That means 81% of the time they are both used. Yet you seem to want to give more weight to the 19% of the time that only one or neither is used than you do when both are used. Considering there would also be a 1% chance that neither is used (and they are equal since they aren't used), you are focusing on the 18% chance of only one being used. Is 18% enough to offset the 81% they are both used?

And do you really believe "while failing to realize that other units could use those resources"? How stupid do you think people are? We aren't you. Of course we know that other units could use stuff too. We call it opportunity cost (and attempt to come to a conclusion on how much it costs, rather than just saying "oh look what you give" so-and-so), a concept you still haven't quite grasped. And Ulki has other options. Tear (somewhat expensive, but this isn't about him), energy drop, wrath (w/ Janaff support makes it incredibly safe). Besides, there are two adepts, and a third in 3-11. The only two chapters where the hawks can use skills and there are only two adepts is 3-8 and 3-10. Mia still has a ~45% crit or so without adept. Then in the other chapters it isn't so costly.

So you are ignoring all of Ulki's other options when you act like Mia is taking oh so much away from him that Ulki w/ Adept would be significantly better than Ulki w/out adept.

Oh, and Ulki w/ Tear + Wrath > Ulki w/ wrath > Ulki w/tear > Ulki w/ adept, so I'm not sure what your problem is.

Actually, this means:

Mia w/ adept + Ulki w/ wrath/tear + team vs Titania + Ulki w/ adept + team

So Titania's team has lost Mia (or at least Mia using adept), it's also lost Ulki's wrath/tear destruction, it has stuck an inferior ability (for Ulki) on Ulki, and since Mia is either not there or not as good she is basically replaced with a Titania that has only 21 speed since you aren't giving her a speedwing.

I think Mia's team is >> Titania's team, at this point.

[Renall]

Sounds reasonable to me other than the inevitable "let's use the example to drag this out into a stupidly specific debate."

[Narga_Rocks]

Sounds reasonable to me other than the inevitable "let's use the example to drag this out into a stupidly specific debate."

Except what he's ignoring is we've frequently done the whole

"unit A + team and no unit B" vs. (vice versa)

Lyre v. Astrid. He in fact took part in that debate. Or Makalov v. Lethe. He took part in that one, too. I don't think it was ever assumed that they were both used at the same time, and every time he tried to give something to Lyre or Makalov that they don't deserve. With Mia, things she uses well, and better than all (or at times just most) he wants to deny, or make a big deal over us trying to give it to her.

The difference in the high tiers is that both teams are better off if both units are in play. I can't see how Titania's team is better w/out Mia than with Mia, and (as long as you give Titania a speedwing) I can't see how Mia's team is better without Titania than with. Conversely, I think Astrid's team would very much like to not have Lyre in play, and ditto Lyre's team wrt Astrid.

Look at what CATS said:

I agree; this is why I've been saying in the FE7 list that when tiering Eliwood, you don't have to assume Lyn is there competing for the Heaven Seal.

I'd compare it as Unit A + Unit B + team if both are highly likely to be used, such as when discussing two high or top tier units. But other than that, I agree that it should rather be unit A + team vs unit B + team.

Lyn, apparently (I just checked), is in Low tier, so it's perfectly reasonable to say that a large portion of the time Lyn is sitting on the bench and couldn't care less about whether or not Eliwood is taking the seal. And, the team wouldn't miss Lyn's possible sealed performance in the slightest since she wouldn't be there anyway. Some of the time they do care (since Lyn is sometimes deployed), and that should be considered, but there shouldn't be too high of a penalty.

Smash's "real life example" was two high tiers. In fact, while smash may not believe it, two units that are very near the top of high tier. Not only are the chances of Mia not being deployed in a tier playthrough rather low if you base likelihood off how high they are, but Titania's team is going to be worse without her. The reverse is also true. Well, if you don't assume a wing on Titania then I'm not sure how much Mia's team misses wingless Titania, but whatever. I try to get the list to give Titania a wing, whatever smash thinks is best he can go on thinking is best if he wants.

So even though CATS says he agrees, he put something in his post that is in opposition with that statement, since the second line would imply that in certain cases he'd compare what smash was saying is insufficient.

So CATS, in reality, is agreeing with what we've been doing all along with the rest of the RD list. Smash is just complaining because he doesn't like Mia, or most of the female RD cast in general (Titania apparently is okay). At least, considering the characters he's chosen to defend (Aran, Zihark, Shinon) even when it's not logical, and the characters he's chosen to argue against (Lethe, Nephenee, Sanaki, Marcia, Mia, Tanith, Sigrun, Ilyana, Calill) even when his points aren't grounded in reality. So any time some (female) character gets moved above a character smash has a man-crush on, he goes off like a spoiled brat and makes topics or does other things to release some aggression.

Edited September 25, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Candlejack]

ITT: smash_fanatic pen15 is ridiculous.

[Renall]

So CATS, in reality, is agreeing with what we've been doing all along with the rest of the RD list. Smash is just complaining because he doesn't like Mia, or most of the female RD cast in general (Titania apparently is okay). At least, considering the characters he's chosen to defend (Aran, Zihark, Shinon) even when it's not logical, and the characters he's chosen to argue against (Lethe, Nephenee, Sanaki, Marcia, Mia, Tanith, Sigrun, Ilyana, Calill) even when his points aren't grounded in reality. So any time some (female) character gets moved above a character smash has a man-crush on, he goes off like a spoiled brat and makes topics or does other things to release some aggression.

I thought it was just an example. It's not like this is the tier list thread, so it isn't like the argument is going to change anything.

[Candlejack]

Shinon is actually awesome though.

I dunno why he defends Aran however. He's good, but not THAT good.

Although in the DB, that qualifies as great. You'll pretty much want to use him if you want a good tank.

Poor DB, all they get are Nolan, Aran, Zihark, and Volug. Jill too if you wanna get technical about it.

EDIT: HA. Nailah too.

Edited September 25, 2009 by OliverXRenning

[Narga_Rocks]

So CATS, in reality, is agreeing with what we've been doing all along with the rest of the RD list. Smash is just complaining because he doesn't like Mia, or most of the female RD cast in general (Titania apparently is okay). At least, considering the characters he's chosen to defend (Aran, Zihark, Shinon) even when it's not logical, and the characters he's chosen to argue against (Lethe, Nephenee, Sanaki, Marcia, Mia, Tanith, Sigrun, Ilyana, Calill) even when his points aren't grounded in reality. So any time some (female) character gets moved above a character smash has a man-crush on, he goes off like a spoiled brat and makes topics or does other things to release some aggression.

I thought it was just an example. It's not like this is the tier list thread, so it isn't like the argument is going to change anything.

You can be pretty sure any time Mia is brought up it's just an example of his anti-Mia mentality and an attempt to further his anti-Mia agenda, or at least a way for him to let off steam about her being higher than he'd like.

I have no issues with him saying that a certain type of comparison that we've been doing for ages anyway in many situations is a good way of comparing units. If that was all he was saying, it would be fine. It would also be pointless for him to say it, since we've typically done things that way for units mid and lower anyway. And I love his emphasis of how even if a unit is used enough that it could almost be considered 100% deployment, it's still not actually 100%. Sure, that's true, but as I said, if 90% of the time a unit is deployed anyway, shouldn't that comparison have far more weight? As in, not just a little more weight?

Shinon is actually awesome though.

I dunno why he defends Aran however. He's good, but not THAT good.

Although in the DB, that qualifies as great. You'll pretty much want to use him if you want a good tank.

Poor DB, all they get are Nolan, Aran, Zihark, and Volug. Jill too if you wanna get technical about it.

EDIT: HA. Nailah too.

I'm not saying they are bad. You may notice that a lot of the female characters I mentioned (like Astrid and Sigrun and Lethe) aren't really even good, and I certainly wouldn't say anything if he defends Aran against one of them. However, he does try to put them lower than they should be. As for the three males that I mentioned, it's more when he defends Aran against Neph or Shinon against Mia/Gatrie or Zihark against some of his betters... Also Janaff against units with more availability and are comparable when he's around anyway.

They are good enough, and can be quite helpful at times in a playthrough. It doesn't make them worthy of the placements smash wants to give them. It also doesn't change the fact that when one of his boyfriends is moved down the list he throws a fit.

[Candlejack]

Shinon is actually awesome though.

I dunno why he defends Aran however. He's good, but not THAT good.

Although in the DB, that qualifies as great. You'll pretty much want to use him if you want a good tank.

Poor DB, all they get are Nolan, Aran, Zihark, and Volug. Jill too if you wanna get technical about it.

EDIT: HA. Nailah too.

I'm not saying they are bad. You may notice that a lot of the female characters I mentioned (like Astrid and Sigrun and Lethe) aren't really even good, and I certainly wouldn't say anything if he defends Aran against one of them. However, he does try to put them lower than they should be.

Lethe I'll agree with, but Sigrun and Astrid really ARE terrible.

As for the three males that I mentioned, it's more when he defends Aran against Neph or Shinon against Mia/Gatrie or Zihark against some of his betters... Also Janaff against units with more availability and are comparable when he's around anyway.

Shinon is pretty damn good though. He's on a level of Gatrie/Ike level good. If he had a 1-range option outside of Double Bow, he'd be the best character in the game. I'll concede with Aran being loved too hard, but Zihark is pretty much the best Trueblade you can get. Stomps Eddie in DEF, Mia in STR, and Stefan in availability.

[Narga_Rocks]

Lethe I'll agree with, but Sigrun and Astrid really ARE terrible.

And yet Astrid > Lyre. By a wide margin. As for Sigrun, he frequently tries to argue her (and other pegs) down from where they should be.

Shinon is pretty damn good though. He's on a level of Gatrie/Ike level good. If he had a 1-range option outside of Double Bow, he'd be the best character in the game.

He's not on Ike or Gatrie's level. He lacks 1-range, as you said, and that's the entire point. Other units have monstrous durability and kill everything (or nearly so) that approaches on enemy phase. Shinon is stuck only attacking on player phase, after over half the nearby enemies have already been killed on enemy phase. He simply doesn't do enough to clear the game to justify being near Gatrie on a list. Now if he was the only dude capable of ORKOing anything, and other units couldn't face more than 2 enemies on enemy phase, it would be more justifiable to try to have him any higher in the RD tier list than he is now. But he's not, and they can, so it's not.

I'll concede with Aran being loved too hard, but Zihark is pretty much the best Trueblade you can get. Stomps Eddie in DEF, Mia in STR, and Stefan in availability.

Have you looked at their averages? By 3-13, Ed will be close in def (not that it matters, since Zihark >>> Edward overall). Also, you realize he's in the DB? He'll be at a 5 level disadvantage going into part 4, easily, and at the same level in tier 3 Mia has more str than him, at least until 20/15. And since everybody worships earth x earth he's not getting a +mt support, so technically she'll have 33 effective str due to supports by 20/12 or 20/13, while Zihark is around 20/8 and pulling 27 to 29 str. There's a 4 to 6 str gap there, for 8 to 12 damage on the enemies. That's rather huge, considering she can actually ORKO stuff in part 4 while he's still relying on proc rates, and she can 3HKO generals while he'll 4HKO and so she'll use adept better than he does on them, too. Mia's str lead is actually one of the things that got her above Zihark. Also concrete durability may have played a part. At those levels she has 2 more hp and 4 more def. That and the level lead means that if you give him earth x earth and give her Ike they are about even durability in part 4, though Mia will be less luck based thus less able to be screwed by an unlucky streak. Zihark is not the best trueblade. All he's really got is 1-6 to 1-E and 3-12. She's got all of part 3 (except 3-P and 3-1, I suppose) and part 4.

[Progenitus]

I'd compare it as Unit A + Unit B + team if both are highly likely to be used, such as when discussing two high or top tier units. But other than that, I agree that it should rather be unit A + team vs unit B + team.

Even still, I'd use Unit A + team vs unit B + team. Yes, both unit A and B are very good. One good way to see who is better is if we removed one of them from the team and see which team is hurting more.

As an example, FE7 Marcus vs Raven. The team without Marcus is SOL for multiple earlygame chapters. The team without Raven doesn't have a monster for over half the game/good unit for early-midgame. From here we can determine who is more critical.

And, another problem with this is that it may sometimes degrade into circular logic. Take Mia again. Many people assume that Mia is good, because with several resources she becomes good, and thus we're fielding Mia very often so she can take those resources and be good.

"X unit is good with Y resources, so Y resources aren't going to anyone else because they're going to X unit!"

What it should be is "X unit is good, but is even better if given Y resources".

It would be like saying "Lyn with early heaven seal + LYn's mode angelic robe + some other stuffs is good, and thus Lyn is played often and we end up dumping the early heaven seal/robe/whatever on her".

[Candlejack]

That... actually makes sense. It explains the real reason why most Character X supporters support Character X.

Me: Ike is good.

/v/tard: Rolf with Deadeye, Double Bow, forty Angelic Robes, fifty-seven Dragonshields, and Wrath are better than Ike.

Me: *Proceeds to bludgeon other person to death*

Edited September 26, 2009 by OliverXRenning

[Paperblade]

Wall of Text

Condensed it because no one needs to read 2 paragraphs of circular logic once, let alone twice.

And do you really believe "while failing to realize that other units could use those resources"? How stupid do you think people are? We aren't you.

Ah, poisoning the well. Excellent usage of an ad hominem sub-type.

Of course we know that other units could use stuff too. We call it opportunity cost (and attempt to come to a conclusion on how much it costs, rather than just saying "oh look what you give" so-and-so), a concept you still haven't quite grasped.

More ad hominem.

And Ulki has other options. Tear (somewhat expensive, but this isn't about him), energy drop, wrath (w/ Janaff support makes it incredibly safe). Besides, there are two adepts, and a third in 3-11. The only two chapters where the hawks can use skills and there are only two adepts is 3-8 and 3-10. Mia still has a ~45% crit or so without adept. Then in the other chapters it isn't so costly.

Mia has 40% crit with a max Crit Stl Forge, and it's cut down by nearly one half thanks to enemy Lck. 36% chance to kill is nice, but nothing to write home about with a crit forge.

So you are ignoring all of Ulki's other options when you act like Mia is taking oh so much away from him that Ulki w/ Adept would be significantly better than Ulki w/out adept.

Unless the skill is Mercy, you're generally better off with it than without.

Oh, and Ulki w/ Tear + Wrath > Ulki w/ wrath > Ulki w/tear > Ulki w/ adept, so I'm not sure what your problem is.

Tear + Adept > Wrath + Tear

First, Wrath puts him at 18> HP, which means if he untransforms he can't take a hit at all, which is ridiculous.

Second, getting down to Wrath HP is a PITA.

Third, Adept is more likely to get more Strike since it's x2 damage rather than x3.

Ulki's base Skl barely cancels out 3-7 enemy Lck, and his growth is pretty bad, meaning that the +50 Crit from Wrath will slowly lose power while Adept will gain it, plus Adept can proc Tear itself, gg.

Actually, this means:

Mia w/ adept + Ulki w/ wrath/tear + team vs Titania + Ulki w/ adept + team

So Titania's team has lost Mia (or at least Mia using adept), it's also lost Ulki's wrath/tear destruction, it has stuck an inferior ability (for Ulki) on Ulki, and since Mia is either not there or not as good she is basically replaced with a Titania that has only 21 speed since you aren't giving her a speedwing.

Not using Mia means I lose BEXP (either that or Ulki doesn't get 30 extra capacity from hitting 30) and Wrath? That's interesting?

Oh wait, nice false dilemma, terrible debater.

I think Mia's team is >> Titania's team, at this point.

Your fallacies are hilarious and your point is non existent.

Edited September 26, 2009 by Paperblade

[Florete]

Mia has 40% crit with a max Crit Stl Forge, and it's cut down by nearly one half thanks to enemy Lck. 36% chance to kill is nice, but nothing to write home about with a crit forge.

Wut? Enemy Luck is 20? When? Going from 3-5 I'm seeing a max of 17 Luck, which gives Mia ~41% chance to crit, which isn't much higher, but that's the high end of enemy Luck anyway.

Oh wait, you said "nearly," but you're 36% chance to kill was still based on 20 displayed crit when enemies don't start hitting 20 Luck until part 4, aka Mia is promoted and has more crit anyway (promotion itself gives her +11 crit).

[Paperblade]

So you agree with all the other points.

Edited September 27, 2009 by Paperblade

[Florete]

They aren't my points to counter, I was just pointing out that statistical flaw.

[Narga_Rocks]

Wall of Text

Condensed it because no one needs to read 2 paragraphs of circular logic once, let alone twice.

But do you have a point about it? In one part, I state that Titania without a speedwing loses regardless, so she needs a speedwing to stand a chance. I also point out that Smash doesn't say anything about the team without Titania having an extra speedwing. Leads me to one of two conclusions:

1: Smash thinks Titania wins without the speedwing vs. Mia without anything more than a crit forge (ie: no Ike, Adept, Vantage, Cancel, but give her some useful support)

2: Smash is pulling a double standard.

Pretty sure it's 1, but I wanted to point out what the situation is when Titania lacks a wing.

The other had stuff about Smash focusing on an 18% chance while ignoring an 81% chance seemingly completely. I'm not sure how it's circular logic, but whatever.

Not sure what's circular there. He's the one who said "often enough that it could be considered as 100% of the time". I randomly chose 90% and then based things off there, but that's not circular. I'd think 85% wouldn't be often enough to be considered as 100% of the time, but that's just me. Frankly, I'm thinking 95% or more is needed to be considered as 100% of the time, but then I'd have 90.25% of the time they are both fielded at once, and I thought that would just be mean, so I chose something that almost reached 20%.

Explain how both are circular logic, please.

And do you really believe "while failing to realize that other units could use those resources"? How stupid do you think people are? We aren't you.

Ah, poisoning the well. Excellent usage of an ad hominem sub-type.

Person A makes claim X

There is something objectionable about Person A

Therefore claim X is false

I was insulting him, not suggesting he's wrong because he's stupid. Focus on everything before the insult, since that is what is relevant. I never attempted to prove that we aren't stupid with that particular statement, I'm simply asking whether or not he really believes we fail to realize that other units can use stuff. I implied that we know other units can use it, but I wasn't suggesting that since smash is an idiot that we know other units can use resources as well.

Of course we know that other units could use stuff too. We call it opportunity cost (and attempt to come to a conclusion on how much it costs, rather than just saying "oh look what you give" so-and-so), a concept you still haven't quite grasped.

More ad hominem.

Not sure how. I'm not saying that we know what opportunity cost is because smash doesn't. That doesn't even make any sense. I'm saying we know that other units can use stuff too, and the evidence of that statement is that we frequently say that a unit has a certain opportunity cost for using an item. Sometimes we say it is large, other times small or even negligible, but that should effectively prove that we know that other units can use stuff too. The fact I chose to take another shot at Smash's intelligence again has nothing to do with my main point.

Back to smash's intelligence, the idea I'm saying that he hasn't grasped is this:

If unit A, let's call him Intercessor, has a 30% chance of killing everything in a fictional game, and there are 3 items that each on its own would give him a 60% chance to kill anything, and after great deliberation we determined that his utility for the item is 8 and the rest of the units in the game don't get more than 3 utility out if any of them, then if he takes one of them his economic profit is 5. Our deliberation included every variable, including how strong it makes the team, regardless of the makeup of the team itself, how much better the team as a whole is with him getting it rather than nobody getting it, etc. The 3 is made from the same type of stuff looked at for each other character.

Intercessor and unit B, let's call him Smish Phonetic, are really close on this game's fictional tier list. We are trying to determine who to place above the other.

Intercessor takes one of these items. He gets an economic profit of 5. For whatever reason, he is now better than Smish Phonetic. The next thing is, we gave him an item, but just because we gave him one thing, that is no reason for us to not give him anything else. So lets look at the rest. Well, those other two items that used to take him from 30% to 60% aren't going to take him from 60% to 120%, since that's impossible. They won't even take him to 90%. Maybe like 75% or something. Clearly, he is no longer getting an 8 from this. Also, since the pool of resources to distribute among the rest of the units has dropped by 1, it is theoretically possible that the opportunity cost has jumped from 3 to 4. However, if Intercessor still gets, say, a 5 from either of the remaining items, there is really no reason not to let him have a second item.

Even after giving Intercessor 2 things, we don't have to give Smish Phonetic anything. That said, if there is an item for which his economic profit would be positive, he can have it. Say his utility is 6, and the opportunity cost is 4, well that's an economic profit of 2. However, say the most he gets from any item in the game is a 3, and 5 or more units get a 5 or more out of the rest of the items. There is no justifiable reason to give him any of these items. If it was just one or two units that get a 5, and the rest get a 2 or less, then there is a good chance that neither of those 2 units will be on the team, and thus he can have it. It should be acknowledged that sometimes one or both units are present and so he can't have it, or that he takes it at a huge cost, but a lot of the time he still gets it. But with 5 units (or more) that can use it better?

The fact that we gave Intercessor a couple of items does not mean that we are forced to let Smish Phonetic have anything. But even if you want to give him something, you can't give him stuff and then ignore the opportunity cost. I say that smash doesn't understand this logic. I say that in his opinion if you give one unit anything, the second unit is 100% entitled to something, regardless of who else can use it, based solely on the fact that you gave something to the first unit. Then further he completely ignores the opportunity cost.

There are examples of this all over the RD tier list/board, so I'm not going digging. I'll state a couple of examples.

Makalov gets paragon for two chapters and a crown because Lethe got ~2000 stinking bexp in 3-8.

Titania gets a wing just because Mia gets stuff.

Janaff gets a drop just because Mia gets stuff.

Also, like you, he seems to be against fielding Ilyana in 1-E to bring over the speedwing. Which means, Titania is competing for the speedwing with Haar, since there is only the 2-3 speedwing. The opportunity cost of giving Titania the speedwing is massive, but he ignores it.

Ask Red Fox of Fire about Janaff and the drop, because I tried to convince her that Janaff was doritos for the 3-5 one (though I'm thinking now he might not be). Anyway, many people (I think more than just her) were saying the cost of giving Janaff a drop is too high. I was trying to push Janaff above Zihark.

Back to Intercessor getting multiple things:

As long as a unit's economic profit from getting new stuff is still positive, there is no reason to stop giving it stuff. Remember, part of economic profit is analyzing the opportunity cost, and throwing 20 things at one unit is bound to eventually mean you are giving it stuff that has a higher opportunity cost than the normal profit it brings. (normal profit - opportunity cost = economic profit)

So, new unit, unit C, let's call it Agron.

So Agron has 10000 capacity, no stat caps, and can hold every item in the game at once. You could theoretically give Agron every skill and every stat booster and every weapon, if you wanted.

If somehow the economic profit was still positive for the next item even after 10 things have been given to Agron, we can still give it that next item. The reason being, opportunity cost has already accounted for what it costs the army in terms of whatever criteria we have established. So, if we care about turncounts and assured success, then when economic profit for the next item is positive it means that we are not hurting the team by giving that item. We are, automatically, improving the team as a whole, which is what matters. Of course, in a real game, it isn't very often you run into a unit that can take 7 things at once and actually improve the fortunes of the team as a whole, so this situation wouldn't come up, but I'm suggesting that the number of things you give a unit is not relevant, what is releveant is the opportunity costs incurred by this decision, and whether or not economic profit is still increasing as we add items.

And Ulki has other options. Tear (somewhat expensive, but this isn't about him), energy drop, wrath (w/ Janaff support makes it incredibly safe). Besides, there are two adepts, and a third in 3-11. The only two chapters where the hawks can use skills and there are only two adepts is 3-8 and 3-10. Mia still has a ~45% crit or so without adept. Then in the other chapters it isn't so costly.

Mia has 40% crit with a max Crit Stl Forge, and it's cut down by nearly one half thanks to enemy Lck. 36% chance to kill is nice, but nothing to write home about with a crit forge.

Well, she starts at 38 crit, against 16 luck enemies. Eventually she hits 40% crit and enemies reach 17 or 18 for 3-11, then in 3-E she's ORKOing so it no longer matters.

So mostly 22% crit rates, then 23% and 24% (she builds skill faster than enemies build luck) and finally back to 23% and 22%. Minimum 1 - (.78 x .78), maximum 1 - (.76 x .76). So 39.16% minimum, and maximum 42.24%.

Okay, sorry, not 45%. Still, considering the best Titania does without a speedwing on most enemies is 0% unless you forge crit or give her a killer weapon, it's good. Crit on a forge on Titania is almost a waste of money, but fine, 11 to 13 base crit, from 16/0 to 20/1, so 26 to 28 crit vs. 16 to 18 luck enemies. So, 8% to 12% depending on how fast she grows. Probably goes 10%, 11%, 12%, though possibly drops back to 10% temporarily then back to 11 after promotion when facing the 17 and 18 luck enemies. So ~40% compared to ~11%. And she does more damage when Titania doesn't crit.

Now, before anyone says killer axe/sword, consider her new damage output. 3HKOing is not good when you don't double. 26 str and a killer axe means 36 mt, and even a +mt support won't give her 38mt until 3-7. 36 and 37 mt are 3HKOing a fair portion of enemies. After 3-7, so is 38. I suppose on things like swordmasters she can have 2HKO with a killer and with 12 base against 16 luck she'll have 26% crit, but Mia's ORKOing them. For a time she fears crits against them, but so does Titania, so while Mia sometimes needs to avoid them completely when they 3HKO her, Titania still needs to avoid anything else if a crit from a swordmaster brings her to KO range from other enemies, or can only safely face one other enemy if she faces a 2HKO after a swordmaster crit (and that's in terms of planning before the swordmaster has even attacked, if you want to be safe, so even if the sm wasn't going to crit, we still need to keep Mia away sometimes and Titania away if there are too many enemies around, because we don't know the sm wasn't about to crit).

And while 3HKOing against enemies with better crit may make Titania happy (more likely to get kill exp), it doesn't help the team much when she misses. Mia brings enemies low enough to kill with 1-2 range weapons, and also easier for weaker units to KO, and units like Neph can OHKO rather than ORKO.

So you are ignoring all of Ulki's other options when you act like Mia is taking oh so much away from him that Ulki w/ Adept would be significantly better than Ulki w/out adept.

Unless the skill is Mercy, you're generally better off with it than without.

But the point is with his other options he can significantly increase his ability to ORKO. Going from 0 to 59.04% with adept alone is nice and would hurt Mia's comparison with Titania a fair bit if Ulki drops from 59.04% to 0%. But if he goes from say 60 to 80 or something like that, the difference between a 60% Ulki and an 80% Ulki doesn't give Titania's team as much of an improvement, and thus Mia doesn't need to make up for nearly as much. Also, he can't use Wrath and Adept at once.

Oh, and Ulki w/ Tear + Wrath > Ulki w/ wrath > Ulki w/tear > Ulki w/ adept, so I'm not sure what your problem is.

Tear + Adept > Wrath + Tear

First, Wrath puts him at 18> HP, which means if he untransforms he can't take a hit at all, which is ridiculous.

Maybe it's a playstyle difference, but for me he's not facing attacks untransformed. I'll revert + grass if his gauge drops to 7 (or close), grass without reverting if it's below 7, and possibly just grass if it's like 15 or something, and attack for higher values. I'm not going to let him be attacked untransformed when someone else is perfectly capable of walking in and taking it on enemy phase and doing far more for me than untransformed Ulki is.

Second, getting down to Wrath HP is a PITA.

Except letting him get attacked untransformed with the goal of reaching wrath HP is actually worth it, unlike letting him get attacked untransformed while already at wrath hp with the goal of making wrath look bad. Won't take long, and having Ulki with a better chance of killing the enemy than just adept would bring makes me happy.

Third, Adept is more likely to get more Strike since it's x2 damage rather than x3.

Well, Adept means 2 wexp in 3 hits, or 2 in 4, so to get less he'd have to wrath on the first hit against an enemy he 3HKOs.

With Adept, he has to not adept on the first hit and tear on either the normal hit or the extra hit from adept. Or he doesn't have tear and isn't as good as he could be.

I'm sure it reduces his wexp over time, but probably not enough to change 40 battles to get 70 wexp into 60 battles or something. I can't be bothered to do a calculation since I don't really care at this point.

Ulki's base Skl barely cancels out 3-7 enemy Lck, and his growth is pretty bad, meaning that the +50 Crit from Wrath will slowly lose power while Adept will gain it, plus Adept can proc Tear itself, gg.

Um, if he wraths an enemy he 4HKOs it dies. Considering a Janaff support can easily hit C for 3-10, that's 37 mt. Generals in 3-10 don't have 27 def, so 44 hp or less is 4HKOd, and they are. Adept is effectively 3 hits, and they live. If he doesn't tear on any that is. If he doesn't have tear, they live (baring double adept). In 3-8, he has 36 mt, and there are some generals with 41 hp and 26 def, but only 6. He may get a higher proc rate with adept + tear on these guys, or maybe not, but he definitely has a higher proc rate on the 41 hp/25 def or 40/26 or 42/25 or whatever guys with wrath + tear. Again, I can't be bothered to calcuate for the 41hp/26 def guys.

And who cares if he can tear and adept, considering wrath has a higher chance. Also, he starts with 67 crit, so even in 3-10 he's pulling 49 to 51 crit%. Way more than he'll get with adept unless he has 40 spd and is on best bio....wait, sorry Ulki, you don't hit best. Also, adept is affected by the -.05 for being on bad, and the +.05 for being on good doesn't reach wrath's proc rate. And wrath is way better on things he 4HKOs than Adept is. And by 3-11 we have a new adept, so Mia taking it no longer precludes Ulki from taking one, even if we didn't bring over Zihark's.

Actually, this means:

Mia w/ adept + Ulki w/ wrath/tear + team vs Titania + Ulki w/ adept + team

So Titania's team has lost Mia (or at least Mia using adept), it's also lost Ulki's wrath/tear destruction, it has stuck an inferior ability (for Ulki) on Ulki, and since Mia is either not there or not as good she is basically replaced with a Titania that has only 21 speed since you aren't giving her a speedwing.

Not using Mia means I lose BEXP (either that or Ulki doesn't get 30 extra capacity from hitting 30) and Wrath? That's interesting?

Okay. what do you mean? Sure, giving Ulki bexp means we don't have it, and it is quite a lot. But it's really only enough for like two extra levels, maybe three, on top of the normal slowplaying we can normally afford even with Ulki getting a large dose. Considering he gets tear out of it, and can start KOing generals he can't KO with just adept (short of a double adept, 16% at 40 speed), I'd have to say he gives us a higher return from it than most other units would. Also, getting an extra wrath for the team if Ulki doens't take it doesn't really help. If you aren't impressed by the unit that probably uses it best outside of Micaiah in part 1 (and maybe better than she uses it in part 1) then I'm not sure if it even matters that not using Mia can net us an extra wrath.

Also, what's "that's interesting" about?

Oh wait, nice false dilemma, terrible debater.

So, you are saying Adept w/out tear or wrath is better than taking the other things simply because it costs some bexp and you don't like having him fight untransformed to get into wrath range but you do like having him fight untransformed to make wrath look bad? And you like not being able to have a massive proc rate on generals? Oh yeah, assuming 38% tear and 49% crit and 2 attempts to proc either on a 19 luck general he 4HKOs, care to tell me his proc rate? Way way way better than the 16% you get with just adept alone. Still better than the proc rate you get with adept + tear, except now the team without Mia isn't getting that oh so important extra bexp anyway.

If you think I'm a terrible debater, what do you think of this post:

I'm sorry, I must have missed the part in the discussion where Janaff wasn't beating Mia for the entire time they existed save for maybe a few chapters, in varying degrees, and that Mia's extra chapters of availability weren't enough to overcome it, especially since several of those chapters are her crappiest chapters in the game.

No wait, I didn't miss it. It doesn't exist.

Do you like all the numbers he brought up? All the detail he went into that proved how Janaff beats Mia in every chapter they stay in except maybe a few? All the details he brought up for how Mia is so bad in the extra chapters she has? Where were you to say how bad that one was?

And no, I'm not saying that since smash is terrible at debating that means I'm good at it. That was just another random shot because it's fun. I should probably stop doing that.

I think Mia's team is >> Titania's team, at this point.

Your fallacies are hilarious and your point is non existent.

If you say so. I'm still not seeing the fallacies. Not sure what post you were reading. And my point is that Ulki can benefit from things other than adept, and that those things

a: have a lower opportunity cost for giving them to Ulki, since nobody else is competing as hard

b: help him more than adept.

I don't see how you've proven either to be incorrect. And yes, the fact that other units can use adept nearly as well or better means the opportunity cost of getting it is high. The opportunity cost of him getting wrath is quite low. Technically, for giving him wrath to achieve a higher economic profit than giving him adept would, he doesn't even have to be better with wrath than he is with adept, he just has to be good enough that:

((Utility from wrath on Ulki) - (Utility from wrath on next best candidate)) > ((Utility from Adept on Ulki) - (Utility from Adept on next best candidate))

If that statement holds true (and you haven't disproven it), then giving Ulki wrath is superior to giving Ulki adept, and considering the only way to take both is to get to level 30 and not take tear (stupid) I'd have to say that Mia isn't losing utility from the fact she denies Ulki an adept for two chapters (assuming the DB kept Zihark's adept). Or she could stick with her ~(40 to 42)% from a critforge alone instead of ~70% from critforge and adept or ~60% from adept and steelblade for those two chapters if it's so bad to keep it. I'm not sure if this kills her or not in her comparisons against Titania or Gatrie.

Edited September 27, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Paperblade]

Wall of Text

Condensed it because no one needs to read 2 paragraphs of circular logic once, let alone twice.

But do you have a point about it? In one part, I state that Titania without a speedwing loses regardless, so she needs a speedwing to stand a chance. I also point out that Smash doesn't say anything about the team without Titania having an extra speedwing. Leads me to one of two conclusions:

1: Smash thinks Titania wins without the speedwing vs. Mia without anything more than a crit forge (ie: no Ike, Adept, Vantage, Cancel, but give her some useful support)

2: Smash is pulling a double standard.

More false dilemma, this is really cute. Are you still beating your wife?

Anyway, I go with door #3: he doesn't bring it up because he doesn't assume Titania gets the Speedwing, which means that there's no Speedwing for the rest of the team to gain because they already have it.

The other had stuff about Smash focusing on an 18% chance while ignoring an 81% chance seemingly completely. I'm not sure how it's circular logic, but whatever.

Not sure what's circular there. He's the one who said "often enough that it could be considered as 100% of the time". I randomly chose 90% and then based things off there, but that's not circular. I'd think 85% wouldn't be often enough to be considered as 100% of the time, but that's just me. Frankly, I'm thinking 95% or more is needed to be considered as 100% of the time, but then I'd have 90.25% of the time they are both fielded at once, and I thought that would just be mean, so I chose something that almost reached 20%.

Whoosh! Do you hear that? It's the sound of the point flying over your head. You're assuming that 100% of the scenarios accurately represent what a unit brings to the team, however the way that your ilk does comparisons the unit you're not supporting is at an inherent disadvantage, since there's a cost for taking things away from Mia but no cost for taking them away from other units.

Explain how both are circular logic, please.

Why does Mia get Adept/Support/etc. and not other units?

Because she's better.

Why is Mia better?

Because she gets Adept/Support/etc. and not other units.

Textbook.

I was insulting him, not suggesting he's wrong because he's stupid. Focus on everything before the insult, since that is what is relevant. I never attempted to prove that we aren't stupid with that particular statement, I'm simply asking whether or not he really believes we fail to realize that other units can use stuff. I implied that we know other units can use it, but I wasn't suggesting that since smash is an idiot that we know other units can use resources as well.

No, sorry champ, you haven't proved you've considered other units can use the resources yet, your flaming gets you nowhere.

Not sure how. I'm not saying that we know what opportunity cost is because smash doesn't. That doesn't even make any sense. I'm saying we know that other units can use stuff too, and the evidence of that statement is that we frequently say that a unit has a certain opportunity cost for using an item. Sometimes we say it is large, other times small or even negligible, but that should effectively prove that we know that other units can use stuff too. The fact I chose to take another shot at Smash's intelligence again has nothing to do with my main point.

Point me to a post where you discuss the "opportunity cost" of Mia getting Adept/Ike Support/Cancel/etc. in the tier thread.

Example

I like how you only mention Int (AKA Mia's) offense and ignore everyone else's (as well as their durability), and switch between %s and numbers. This entire comparison is practically gibberish.

Without having a frame of reference as to why they're close to each other on the tier list, what the other unit's offense is (does he also have 30%? Does he have 60%, which would explain why he gets less use out of it compared to other units?). Your numbers are determined by a "we". Who is "we"? Where are your numbers explaining why it has a cost of such and such and a utility of such and such, and what makes your qualified to make such statements? Would that second resource be better used on another unit? Your numbers have nothing saying "Well since it goes from this amount to this amount, this number becomes this by this algorithm" or any explanation at all for the numbers.

Basically, this explanation means nothing, and really, Intercessor and Smish Phonetic? That's neither clever nor subtle. At least use their names for the Halbs, not this obvious Mia comparison.

By the way, the fact that you're making up numbers/%s instead of using FE10 examples like in every other argument leads me to believe that you don't really do this and are instead blowing smoke up my ass.

There are examples of this all over the RD tier list/board, so I'm not going digging. I'll state a couple of examples.

Makalov gets paragon for two chapters and a crown because Lethe got ~2000 stinking bexp in 3-8.

Titania gets a wing just because Mia gets stuff.

Janaff gets a drop just because Mia gets stuff.

Yeah, let me explain. I'll use the earliest example as to why this is so.

Back when I was debating Mist vs. Rhys in FE9land, I remember they (they being Reikken, smash, and some other dude whose name escapes me) gave Mist like 7 levels of BEXP and gave Rhys an equivalent amount (he didn't get 7 levels due to diminishing returns) for the comparison. Why not give the BEXP to Oscar? I mean, Rhys doesn't benefit much from this. He's freaking Rhys. Yeah, sure, it could go to Oscar. It could go to any unit. But how do you measure that? How do you measure giving the BEXP to Oscar instead of Rhys? Especially since it could go to any other unit just as easily. Or split up between them. That's difficult to measure. Nearly impossible. So sometimes, you have to take the easy way out, and go "BTW this resource is also wanted by another unit" off to the side.

It's generally easiest to give them roughly the same amount of resources, because if team Titania can have Soren supporting Ike, Ulki using Adept, and Ranulf using Cancel, how do I measure that? Oh, Ranulf has 30% Cancel, Ulki has 36% Adept, Soren has +22 Avoid, but how much does this stack up vs. Mia with all of it? That's why being good without specific supports/skills is favored, since such and such unit isn't guaranteed to have most things. Why do you think Ike is Top tier? He doesn't need stat ups. Everyone wants to support him. He has Prf weapons that last the whole game.

And obviously, offense has diminishing returns. One unit going from 60% to 75% chance to kill is weak compared to another going from 0% to 25%.

Also, like you, he seems to be against fielding Ilyana in 1-E to bring over the speedwing. Which means, Titania is competing for the speedwing with Haar, since there is only the 2-3 speedwing. The opportunity cost of giving Titania the speedwing is massive, but he ignores it.

Smaaaaaaaaaash dooeeeeeeeeeeeeeesn't assuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuume Tiiiiiiiiiiiiitaniaaaaaaaaaaaaaa geeeeeeeeeeets theeeeeeeeeeeeeee Speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedwiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.

Although Ilyana apparently has the best 2 range of any DB first tier not named Micaiah or Leo.

Ask Red Fox of Fire about Janaff and the drop, because I tried to convince her that Janaff was doritos for the 3-5 one (though I'm thinking now he might not be). Anyway, many people (I think more than just her) were saying the cost of giving Janaff a drop is too high. I was trying to push Janaff above Zihark.

See above.

Back to Intercessor getting multiple things:

As long as a unit's economic profit from getting new stuff is still positive, there is no reason to stop giving it stuff. Remember, part of economic profit is analyzing the opportunity cost, and throwing 20 things at one unit is bound to eventually mean you are giving it stuff that has a higher opportunity cost than the normal profit it brings. (normal profit - opportunity cost = economic profit)

Cool story bro.

Do a comparison like this with Mia and Supports/Forges/Skills, not Intercessor and Smish Phonetic and unnamed resources.

Surely it's just a matter of copypasting from the tier thread like your above example, since this is what you guys actually do.

So, new unit, unit C, let's call it Agron.

So Agron has 10000 capacity, no stat caps, and can hold every item in the game at once. You could theoretically give Agron every skill and every stat booster and every weapon, if you wanted.

If somehow the economic profit was still positive for the next item even after 10 things have been given to Agron, we can still give it that next item. The reason being, opportunity cost has already accounted for what it costs the army in terms of whatever criteria we have established. So, if we care about turncounts and assured success, then when economic profit for the next item is positive it means that we are not hurting the team by giving that item. We are, automatically, improving the team as a whole, which is what matters. Of course, in a real game, it isn't very often you run into a unit that can take 7 things at once and actually improve the fortunes of the team as a whole, so this situation wouldn't come up, but I'm suggesting that the number of things you give a unit is not relevant, what is releveant is the opportunity costs incurred by this decision, and whether or not economic profit is still increasing as we add items.

Dude, what are Agron's base stats? Move? Weapon skill? Growths? If the guy had Lyre's bases and Sigrun's growths, being able to use Adept/Cancel/Wrath/Resolve/Disarm/Corrosion/Nihil/Celerity/Nullify and take every stat up (which any unit can already do, you just have to be patient) wouldn't really matter since now the rest of my team doesn't really have a hell of a lot of skills, don't have any special weapons, and are just kind of gimped in general. Sure, infinite potential might be enough to get him into Low or something, but the cost of gimping my entire team is pretty laughable.

Also, my only knowledge of a name similar to Agron is Aggron, who's a pretty crappy Pokemon to be compared to a unit of infinite potential.

Well, she starts at 38 crit, against 16 luck enemies. Eventually she hits 40% crit and enemies reach 17 or 18 for 3-11, then in 3-E she's ORKOing so it no longer matters.

So mostly 22% crit rates, then 23% and 24% (she builds skill faster than enemies build luck) and finally back to 23% and 22%. Minimum 1 - (.78 x .78), maximum 1 - (.76 x .76). So 39.16% minimum, and maximum 42.24%.

k. And Mia ORKOing unpromoted enemies and Sages in 3-E isn't special, bro, she still fails against the usual enemies. Although lol3-E anyway.

And I was unaware Mia started with a 15 crit weapon.

Okay, sorry, not 45%. Still, considering the best Titania does without a speedwing on most enemies is 0% unless you forge crit or give her a killer weapon, it's good. Crit on a forge on Titania is almost a waste of money, but fine, 11 to 13 base crit, from 16/0 to 20/1, so 26 to 28 crit vs. 16 to 18 luck enemies. So, 8% to 12% depending on how fast she grows. Probably goes 10%, 11%, 12%, though possibly drops back to 10% temporarily then back to 11 after promotion when facing the 17 and 18 luck enemies. So ~40% compared to ~11%. And she does more damage when Titania doesn't crit.

I like how you make a big deal about smash not talking about the opportunity cost of the Speedwing and then completely ignore the Speedwing in your comparison (much like smash did because he didn't assume she got it, but meh)

What? Titania doesn't double after promotion? 20/1 Titania has 25 Spd. With a max Might Steel Axe in 3-11, she's 100% one rounding Paladins, Snipers, Dragonmasters (LOLWUT), Sages, Bishops, leaves Generals at 5HP (wtfux), and with a Hand Axe still gets the Paladins/Snipers/Sages/Bishops.

With a Speedwing she one rounds everything but Generals and SMs. That's some hardcore stomping.

Did I mention she has Sol, a mount, and 24 Def/85 Avoid before supports? Oh and Counter kills Generals, that's how weak they are. Too bad Counter sucks.

Now, before anyone says killer axe/sword, consider her new damage output. 3HKOing is not good when you don't double. 26 str and a killer axe means 36 mt, and even a +mt support won't give her 38mt until 3-7. 36 and 37 mt are 3HKOing a fair portion of enemies. After 3-7, so is 38. I suppose on things like swordmasters she can have 2HKO with a killer and with 12 base against 16 luck she'll have 26% crit, but Mia's ORKOing them. For a time she fears crits against them, but so does Titania, so while Mia sometimes needs to avoid them completely when they 3HKO her, Titania still needs to avoid anything else if a crit from a swordmaster brings her to KO range from other enemies, or can only safely face one other enemy if she faces a 2HKO after a swordmaster crit (and that's in terms of planning before the swordmaster has even attacked, if you want to be safe, so even if the sm wasn't going to crit, we still need to keep Mia away sometimes and Titania away if there are too many enemies around, because we don't know the sm wasn't about to crit).

Why the crap are we using Killer prior to forged Hand Axes? Forged Steel and Steel Polaxes are easy guaranteed 2HKOs.

Note that after Titania caps Str, it might be a better idea to finish her levels with BEXP (like when she needs like <20 EXP) than with CEXP since her Spd growth is so high.

3-P and 3-1: No Forge for Mia hurts her, Titania still 2 rounds, doubles Sages.

3-2: Doubles and one rounds a vast majority of Sages and Paladins (17 spd is GG, a couple of 18 but she has a 50% Spd growth so she might have that), and some Dragonmasters, doubles Generals but needs Hammer to kill. Probably around Level 17 here.

3-3: Sages still suck, and tight quarters + Hand Axe/Forged Steel canto hits are great.

3-4: Bad horse chapter.

3-5: Probably can't double, although she can OHKO Generals with the Hammer if you want. Probably around Level 18 here.

3-7: Bad horse chapter.

3-8: Forged Hand Axes, gg 2RKOing at 2 range, just let her rofltank and let everyone else play clean up. She'll double most Generals (3HKOs with the Hand Axe, ORKOs with the Hammer) and a Sage or 2. Level 19 or so here.

3-10: Still pwnerizing with her Forged Hand Axe, doubles Axeadins and borderline on Blades, Bishops suck as usual.

3-11: Usually BEXP Titania to 20 here and use one of the two Crowns.

And while 3HKOing against enemies with better crit may make Titania happy (more likely to get kill exp), it doesn't help the team much when she misses. Mia brings enemies low enough to kill with 1-2 range weapons, and also easier for weaker units to KO, and units like Neph can OHKO rather than ORKO.

Again: Why the fuck would I use Killer?

But the point is with his other options he can significantly increase his ability to ORKO. Going from 0 to 59.04% with adept alone is nice and would hurt Mia's comparison with Titania a fair bit if Ulki drops from 59.04% to 0%. But if he goes from say 60 to 80 or something like that, the difference between a 60% Ulki and an 80% Ulki doesn't give Titania's team as much of an improvement, and thus Mia doesn't need to make up for nearly as much. Also, he can't use Wrath and Adept at once.

Ulki goes from 60% to 85%, kthx, which isn't exactly a huge difference compared to Mia's 40 to 70%

Sorry bro, 85 > 70, looks like Ulki's better.

And he can at Level 30, although he would have to sacrifice Tear.

Maybe it's a playstyle difference, but for me he's not facing attacks untransformed. I'll revert + grass if his gauge drops to 7 (or close), grass without reverting if it's below 7, and possibly just grass if it's like 15 or something, and attack for higher values. I'm not going to let him be attacked untransformed when someone else is perfectly capable of walking in and taking it on enemy phase and doing far more for me than untransformed Ulki is.

Hey bro, the tier player isn't you, as much as you want him to be, he's not. I can afford to make mistakes with Adept!Ulki, I can't with Wrath!Ulki, this is an advantage. The player trying to make up for it by playing smarter is nice but doesn't solve it, just like the player boss abusing Edward doesn't make him > Zihark

Except letting him get attacked untransformed with the goal of reaching wrath HP is actually worth it, unlike letting him get attacked untransformed while already at wrath hp with the goal of making wrath look bad. Won't take long, and having Ulki with a better chance of killing the enemy than just adept would bring makes me happy.

Any attacks Wrath!Ulki is taking to get down to Wrath HP are enemy phase attacks that could have been made watching enemies kill themselves by attacking another unit. Cool story bro, Wrath!Ulki is already behind on offense and it's already turn 1 (of every chapter, mind you). Plus, this is tedious. Even untransformed, Ulki has like 96 Avoid, so even in like 3-11 enemies have pretty poor hit on him. And you can't expose him too much or he might die, but not enough and you could waste turns. So it's all luck. He's behind no matter what though, it just depends how much.

Well, Adept means 2 wexp in 3 hits, or 2 in 4, so to get less he'd have to wrath on the first hit against an enemy he 3HKOs.

With Adept, he has to not adept on the first hit and tear on either the normal hit or the extra hit from adept. Or he doesn't have tear and isn't as good as he could be.

Ulki 3HKOs lots of things. Warriors, Halbs, Snipers, Paladins, and Dragonmasters, for example.

I'm sure it reduces his wexp over time, but probably not enough to change 40 battles to get 70 wexp into 60 battles or something. I can't be bothered to do a calculation since I don't really care at this point.

It's reduced vs. non-General/SM/Magic using enemies (so maybe like half to two thirds of enemies) on his skill that's got a ~50% activation (vs. 37-38% for Tear), meaning against about 60% of enemies, in 50% of his battles he's reducing his WEXP... So I'd say it's a fairly significant reduction. However Tear reduces it as well, but Wrath boosts that up to like 70% from like 38% (since there's still a 30% chance neither activates on the first attack)

Um, if he wraths an enemy he 4HKOs it dies. Considering a Janaff support can easily hit C for 3-10, that's 37 mt. Generals in 3-10 don't have 27 def, so 44 hp or less is 4HKOd, and they are. Adept is effectively 3 hits, and they live. If he doesn't tear on any that is. If he doesn't have tear, they live (baring double adept). In 3-8, he has 36 mt, and there are some generals with 41 hp and 26 def, but only 6. He may get a higher proc rate with adept + tear on these guys, or maybe not, but he definitely has a higher proc rate on the 41 hp/25 def or 40/26 or 42/25 or whatever guys with wrath + tear. Again, I can't be bothered to calcuate for the 41hp/26 def guys.

Yeah, it's not like enemies get attacked by Crimean NPCs, and it's not like you can activate Tear on Adept attacks. Tear has 60%, double Adept is 13.7%, Adept->Tear is 13.7% each attack...

90% vs. ~78% chance vs. the perfect enemy for Wrath/Tear.

And who cares if he can tear and adept, considering wrath has a higher chance. Also, he starts with 67 crit, so even in 3-10 he's pulling 49 to 51 crit%. Way more than he'll get with adept unless he has 40 spd and is on best bio....wait, sorry Ulki, you don't hit best. Also, adept is affected by the -.05 for being on bad, and the +.05 for being on good doesn't reach wrath's proc rate. And wrath is way better on things he 4HKOs than Adept is. And by 3-11 we have a new adept, so Mia taking it no longer precludes Ulki from taking one, even if we didn't bring over Zihark's.

Resposting for emphasis.

Any attacks Wrath!Ulki is taking to get down to Wrath HP are enemy phase attacks that could have been made watching enemies kill themselves by attacking another unit. Cool story bro, Wrath!Ulki is already behind on offense and it's already turn 1 (of every chapter, mind you). Plus, this is tedious. Even untransformed, Ulki has like 96 Avoid, so even in like 3-11 enemies have pretty poor hit on him. And you can't expose him too much or he might die, but not enough and you could waste turns. So it's all luck. He's behind no matter what though, it just depends how much.

Wrath's higher chance has to make up for THAT.

Okay. what do you mean? Sure, giving Ulki bexp means we don't have it, and it is quite a lot. But it's really only enough for like two extra levels, maybe three, on top of the normal slowplaying we can normally afford even with Ulki getting a large dose. Considering he gets tear out of it, and can start KOing generals he can't KO with just adept (short of a double adept, 16% at 40 speed), I'd have to say he gives us a higher return from it than most other units would. Also, getting an extra wrath for the team if Ulki doens't take it doesn't really help. If you aren't impressed by the unit that probably uses it best outside of Micaiah in part 1 (and maybe better than she uses it in part 1) then I'm not sure if it even matters that not using Mia can net us an extra wrath.

I didn't ask for fun facts about Ulki's offense with Tear. I know Tear is good. I want to know why fielding Titania and/or not fielding Mia prevents Ulki from using up 8750BEXP and using a Satori Sign.

Also, what's "that's interesting" about?

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g247/CableLrry/UlkiTear.jpg

So, you are saying Adept w/out tear or wrath is better than taking the other things simply because it costs some bexp and you don't like having him fight untransformed to get into wrath range but you do like having him fight untransformed to make wrath look bad? And you like not being able to have a massive proc rate on generals? Oh yeah, assuming 38% tear and 49% crit and 2 attempts to proc either on a 19 luck general he 4HKOs, care to tell me his proc rate? Way way way better than the 16% you get with just adept alone. Still better than the proc rate you get with adept + tear, except now the team without Mia isn't getting that oh so important extra bexp anyway.

Hey, champ, enemies other than 3-10 Generals exist, like those Snipers/Paladins/Warriors/Halbs that I'm losing Strike on thanks to Wrath, and those enemies I'm not killing because I'm trying to get Ulki into Wrath range.

And it's a false dilemma because there are other skill combinations. For example, if you're really not convinced, Titania team Ulki can still use Wrath! And Tear! I think! Still waiting for an explanation on what happened to my Tear!

Do you like all the numbers he brought up? All the detail he went into that proved how Janaff beats Mia in every chapter they stay in except maybe a few? All the details he brought up for how Mia is so bad in the extra chapters she has? Where were you to say how bad that one was?

*clicks on link to topic*

*scrolls up*

Janaff should be higher in general. He's a strong contender for one of the best five units in the game.

He roflstomps Mia pretty badly.

level mia needs to be to match Janaff's base in stats...

HP: never

str: never

mag: who cares

skl: 20/20/11

spd: 20/20/4

lck: never

def: 20/20/8

res: 20/20/4

lolwut

Oh, but raw stats are what matters, right? Well actually, the main thing, att, doesn't matter, since Janaff has such a huge str lead Mia takes forever to catch up to him. Since he has 40 base att, Mia with a max mt steel sword and +2 att from supports doesn't even reach that until she hits 3rd tier. except, by that point, Janaff gets S-strike, or gets it like a couple turns later or whatever, and then Mia just keeps on losing until she gets the VK, at which point she now wins att by like, 2 points or something (until Janaff gets SS-strike, then he probably wins again. Note that Mia caps str really fast, at which point Janaff can catch up). And still loses everything else except spd.

It's also worth noting that Janaff and Ulki are very likely to support each other, in which case Janaff gets more att, which will come at the point where Mia promotes and goes from "gets roflstomped" to "loses".

and...

lvl 30 Janaff's chances to get a Tear, assuming he's still at base spd; 56.4%.

20/20/1 Mia's chances to get crit or astra, assuming the enemy has 20 lck; 50.2%.

Oh, but Mia has 2-range/no transformation issues, right? Well actually, for starters, Mia's 2-range is terribad for a long time because wind edges suck. She's extremely unlikely to 2HKO sages in 3-11; that's how terrible they are. And storm swords and tempest blades are in low supply. Plus Janaff has flying/canto.

Also, wasn't it agreed earlier that Janaff > Gatrie? Why did he suddenly move below?

Cool story bro.

And no, I'm not saying that since smash is terrible at debating that means I'm good at it. That was just another random shot because it's fun. I should probably stop doing that.

Certainly picking poor examples though.

If you say so. I'm still not seeing the fallacies. Not sure what post you were reading. And my point is that Ulki can benefit from things other than adept, and that those things

a: have a lower opportunity cost for giving them to Ulki, since nobody else is competing as hard

b: help him more than adept.

Nobody wants Wrath because Wrath sucks, just like it sucks for Ulki.

Wrath doesn't help more than Adept. Strike and killing slowdown.

I don't see how you've proven either to be incorrect. And yes, the fact that other units can use adept nearly as well or better means the opportunity cost of getting it is high. The opportunity cost of him getting wrath is quite low. Technically, for giving him wrath to achieve a higher economic profit than giving him adept would, he doesn't even have to be better with wrath than he is with adept, he just has to be good enough that:

How come only Ulki has to compete for Adept? Why doesn't Mia? Adept doesn't become worse on Ulki just because he can use Wrath. If we aren't using Ulki, Wrath would still be on the same people it would have been on anyway, and Adept is being used up by Mia instead of Ulki.

((Utility from wrath on Ulki) - (Utility from wrath on next best candidate)) > ((Utility from Adept on Ulki) - (Utility from Adept on next best candidate))

If that statement holds true (and you haven't disproven it), then giving Ulki wrath is superior to giving Ulki adept, and considering the only way to take both is to get to level 30 and not take tear (stupid) I'd have to say that Mia isn't losing utility from the fact she denies Ulki an adept for two chapters (assuming the DB kept Zihark's adept). Or she could stick with her ~(40 to 42)% from a critforge alone instead of ~70% from critforge and adept or ~60% from adept and steelblade for those two chapters if it's so bad to keep it. I'm not sure if this kills her or not in her comparisons against Titania or Gatrie.

Wrath notably lowers the gain of Strike and team killing speed when it is in use.

[Interceptor]

I am shocked that you even responded to that, Paperblade, alas so far the nature of your response is predictable (I have not finished reading it yet, though). Before I finish, and before I forgot, however, I wanted to provide you with something that you requested of Narga.

Point me to a post where you discuss the "opportunity cost" of Mia getting Adept/Ike Support/Cancel/etc. in the tier thread.

I'll do you one better and give you two:

Narga's massive Colin Powell Doctrine argument for moving Mia up. (just skip to the last three paragraphs if you don't want your worldview to be destroyed)

A short post with a casual mention of opportunity cost as it relates to Gatrie and Mia.

I know that you won't thank me for it, ungracious as you are, but you're welcome anyway.

It's a shame that there is so much uselessness in this thread, crowding out real points. Narga has never argued with you before, so he took your accusations of fallacy seriously and responded to them honestly, not realizing that it just contributes to your rhetorical smokescreen. C'est la vie. I'm sure that now he realizes that you argue in bad faith, that he'll be more inclined to stick to the meat and potatoes.

Time to keep reading, to see if there's anything particularly stupid that needs to be responded to.

Edited September 28, 2009 by Interceptor

[dondon151]

Anyway, I go with door #3: he doesn't bring it up because he doesn't assume Titania gets the Speedwing, which means that there's no Speedwing for the rest of the team to gain because they already have it.

Titania without Speedwing royally sucks.

Why does Mia get Adept/Support/etc. and not other units?

Because she's better.

Why is Mia better?

Because she gets Adept/Support/etc. and not other units.

Textbook.

Mia doesn't get Adept and a support because she's better. She gets them because they have the greatest effect on her out of anyone else on the team. It just so happens that she's poor enough to make use of resources, but not too poor that those resources would have no effect (e.g. Boyd with Speedwings), and not good enough that she simply doesn't need those resources (e.g. Ike).

[Narga_Rocks]

But do you have a point about it? In one part, I state that Titania without a speedwing loses regardless, so she needs a speedwing to stand a chance. I also point out that Smash doesn't say anything about the team without Titania having an extra speedwing. Leads me to one of two conclusions:

1: Smash thinks Titania wins without the speedwing vs. Mia without anything more than a crit forge (ie: no Ike, Adept, Vantage, Cancel, but give her some useful support)

2: Smash is pulling a double standard.

More false dilemma, this is really cute. Are you still beating your wife?

Anyway, I go with door #3: he doesn't bring it up because he doesn't assume Titania gets the Speedwing, which means that there's no Speedwing for the rest of the team to gain because they already have it.

Door #3 is similar to door #1. See, if he doesn't assume Titania gets the speedwing but still thinks she actually wins the comparison, that is what I said in #1. I'm suggesting if he's not trying to give her a speedwing then clearly he thinks she now wins. Except Mia without Adept or Cancel or Vantage can still take a critforge and beat Titania's offence. Even if you then go and give Titania adept Mia still wins offence. Give Titania a critforge? Mia still wins. All Mia needs to beat Titania's non-doubling (until promotion, then again no doubling in part 4) offence is a critforge, which is practically free. And assuming Titania promotes in 3-10, she's missing out on halbs and warriors with 22 speed anyway and with the low exp gains of being promoted will be lucky to have 20/2 for 4-1, at which time she has maybe 26 speed and will only double generals, and won't ever double halbs/warriors ever again, basically. So really she's only got better ORKOing for like 3 chapters.

The other had stuff about Smash focusing on an 18% chance while ignoring an 81% chance seemingly completely. I'm not sure how it's circular logic, but whatever.

Not sure what's circular there. He's the one who said "often enough that it could be considered as 100% of the time". I randomly chose 90% and then based things off there, but that's not circular. I'd think 85% wouldn't be often enough to be considered as 100% of the time, but that's just me. Frankly, I'm thinking 95% or more is needed to be considered as 100% of the time, but then I'd have 90.25% of the time they are both fielded at once, and I thought that would just be mean, so I chose something that almost reached 20%.

Whoosh! Do you hear that? It's the sound of the point flying over your head. You're assuming that 100% of the scenarios accurately represent what a unit brings to the team, however the way that your ilk does comparisons the unit you're not supporting is at an inherent disadvantage, since there's a cost for taking things away from Mia but no cost for taking them away from other units.

?

Click on Int's links, doof.

Explain how both are circular logic, please.

Why does Mia get Adept/Support/etc. and not other units?

Because she's better.

Why is Mia better?

Because she gets Adept/Support/etc. and not other units.

Textbook.

With nothing compared to other units with nothing, she doubles, they don't. She has better offence. And even in 3-P and 3-1, she's pretty even with Gats/Titania/Oscar/etc there as well.

Mia in 3-P and 3-1

So then 3-2 comes along and you have to decide supports. Do this before we look at adept. Mia with a critforge can ORKO over 40% of most enemies. Just generals she 5HKOs instead of 4HKOs aren't. Units like Soren or Boyd or whoever else you want to give Ike to aren't. So Mia's offence is better than theirs, by a lot in some cases. Also her non-proc damage is usually on another level, too. Also, Boyd is arguably more durable pre Ike support, but inarguably less durable after Ike support compared to Mia before and after. So you raise the durability of the team as a whole with Ike x Mia, and you increase the damage output of the team by increasing the enemy phase exposure of a character with higher damage output.

As for Adept, when compared with your other units pre hawks, just click on the links and go digging yourself. This has been done to death.

I was insulting him, not suggesting he's wrong because he's stupid. Focus on everything before the insult, since that is what is relevant. I never attempted to prove that we aren't stupid with that particular statement, I'm simply asking whether or not he really believes we fail to realize that other units can use stuff. I implied that we know other units can use it, but I wasn't suggesting that since smash is an idiot that we know other units can use resources as well.

No, sorry champ, you haven't proved you've considered other units can use the resources yet, your flaming gets you nowhere.

You realize you split a paragraph into two different parts when the first few sentences were together, right?

this:

"And do you really believe "while failing to realize that other units could use those resources"? How stupid do you think people are? We aren't you."

was immediately followed by this:

"Of course we know that other units could use stuff too. We call it opportunity cost (and attempt to come to a conclusion on how much it costs, rather than just saying "oh look what you give" so-and-so), a concept you still haven't quite grasped."

I don't have to prove anything with the first three sentences.

Not sure how. I'm not saying that we know what opportunity cost is because smash doesn't. That doesn't even make any sense. I'm saying we know that other units can use stuff too, and the evidence of that statement is that we frequently say that a unit has a certain opportunity cost for using an item. Sometimes we say it is large, other times small or even negligible, but that should effectively prove that we know that other units can use stuff too. The fact I chose to take another shot at Smash's intelligence again has nothing to do with my main point.

Point me to a post where you discuss the "opportunity cost" of Mia getting Adept/Ike Support/Cancel/etc. in the tier thread.

Int did it. We've done it all over the place. The fact that you haven't read any of it yourself doesn't really bother me, nor does it mean that I have to go and find everything I've typed just to get a point across so that I can post links to make you happy.

Example

I like how you only mention Int (AKA Mia's) offense and ignore everyone else's (as well as their durability), and switch between %s and numbers. This entire comparison is practically gibberish.

Without having a frame of reference as to why they're close to each other on the tier list, what the other unit's offense is (does he also have 30%? Does he have 60%, which would explain why he gets less use out of it compared to other units?). Your numbers are determined by a "we". Who is "we"? Where are your numbers explaining why it has a cost of such and such and a utility of such and such, and what makes your qualified to make such statements? Would that second resource be better used on another unit? Your numbers have nothing saying "Well since it goes from this amount to this amount, this number becomes this by this algorithm" or any explanation at all for the numbers.

Basically, this explanation means nothing, and really, Intercessor and Smish Phonetic? That's neither clever nor subtle. At least use their names for the Halbs, not this obvious Mia comparison.

By the way, the fact that you're making up numbers/%s instead of using FE10 examples like in every other argument leads me to believe that you don't really do this and are instead blowing smoke up my ass.

I've done it elsewhere with Mia herself. Int posted some of it. I've done it elsewhere, too. And the point of the theoretical is that in those circumstances those are the opportunity costs. You basically just said "what if your example is a different example". You never dealt with the example itself. What do you do in class, ask your teacher/professor "well what if you are talking about something else, then your conclusions don't apply". Well of course they don't apply then, change the example it affects the conclusion. The idea is that the opportunity costs have been determined. Say everyone has agreed on the normal profit of each action, the opportunity cost of each action, and thus the economic profit of each action. The example doesn't need to state how those numbers came to be, they simply are. What is important is how those numbers are dealt with.

There are examples of this all over the RD tier list/board, so I'm not going digging. I'll state a couple of examples.

Makalov gets paragon for two chapters and a crown because Lethe got ~2000 stinking bexp in 3-8.

Titania gets a wing just because Mia gets stuff.

Janaff gets a drop just because Mia gets stuff.

Yeah, let me explain. I'll use the earliest example as to why this is so.

Back when I was debating Mist vs. Rhys in FE9land, I remember they (they being Reikken, smash, and some other dude whose name escapes me) gave Mist like 7 levels of BEXP and gave Rhys an equivalent amount (he didn't get 7 levels due to diminishing returns) for the comparison. Why not give the BEXP to Oscar? I mean, Rhys doesn't benefit much from this. He's freaking Rhys. Yeah, sure, it could go to Oscar. It could go to any unit. But how do you measure that? How do you measure giving the BEXP to Oscar instead of Rhys? Especially since it could go to any other unit just as easily. Or split up between them. That's difficult to measure. Nearly impossible. So sometimes, you have to take the easy way out, and go "BTW this resource is also wanted by another unit" off to the side.

woohoo. 7 levels is not similar to 2000 bexp in 3-8 at all. And the point is that he is equating two things with vastly different opportunity costs, not that there isn't an opportunity cost for one of the options.

It's generally easiest to give them roughly the same amount of resources, because if team Titania can have Soren supporting Ike, Ulki using Adept, and Ranulf using Cancel, how do I measure that? Oh, Ranulf has 30% Cancel, Ulki has 36% Adept, Soren has +22 Avoid, but how much does this stack up vs. Mia with all of it? That's why being good without specific supports/skills is favored, since such and such unit isn't guaranteed to have most things. Why do you think Ike is Top tier? He doesn't need stat ups. Everyone wants to support him. He has Prf weapons that last the whole game.

Soren supporting Ike is stupid.

Mia taking Ike support

It's in there somewhere, Int posted this first, I think, but I'm posting it too. Idea is, Soren is not nearly durable enough to rock with Ike anyway. Also, sure, you get a different unit to support with Ike, but it's an inferior option. If Titania's team is without Mia, they get an extra Ike support, sure, but the end result is inferior to what Mia's team has, and Ike is hampered by the result. Also, did you completely ignore 2 adepts before 3-11 and 3 after? Or 1 then 2? 3-8 and 3-10 without adept aren't huge. Also, Ranulf with Cancel? He gets it player phase only, unless you give him vantage too. Also, 9% (vantage + cancel) isn't as much as what Mia gets out of it. Even if it was, he's already quite durable enough. In his case, cancel means healing him slightly less. That isn't a huge benefit. Hence, low opportunity cost. Oh, and he can't use it as much on player phase as her anyway, and since she at least has the option of a critforge he'll have a lower "sucka" rate on player phase than she'd have. Anyway, he gets a small improvement, maybe gets healed one fewer times per chapter. That's what Mia's opportunity cost is there. That's not very significant. And Soren might like the more avoid, but again, healed less. When he's 2HKOd, we aren't going to let him be attacked twice simply because his chance of hit is 20% now instead of 60% or something. Not to mention, Ike get tied to Soren, and that sucks for the team. The point is, these opportunity costs are small, and her gains are big.

And obviously, offense has diminishing returns. One unit going from 60% to 75% chance to kill is weak compared to another going from 0% to 25%.

But 40 to 70 is superior from 0 to 25, because 0 to 25 doesn't really help the team a whole lot. Sure, that unit may sometimes KO now, and that unit might like the extra exp, but I did a thing in the bottom 3 paragraphs in the post Int and I linked to.

Also, like you, he seems to be against fielding Ilyana in 1-E to bring over the speedwing. Which means, Titania is competing for the speedwing with Haar, since there is only the 2-3 speedwing. The opportunity cost of giving Titania the speedwing is massive, but he ignores it.

Smaaaaaaaaaash dooeeeeeeeeeeeeeesn't assuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuume Tiiiiiiiiiiiiitaniaaaaaaaaaaaaaa geeeeeeeeeeets theeeeeeeeeeeeeee Speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedwiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.

Although Ilyana apparently has the best 2 range of any DB first tier not named Micaiah or Leo.

So? Leo needs a steel forge and an iron forge to be feasible, because without the iron forge he's not as easy to raise and without the steel forge he's got less damage than her. With him having a steel forge, Ilyana has more reason to be fielded since Leo doesn't need it in part 3. Also, the speedwing makes the GMs so much better.

Anyway, I know Smash doesn't always assume the speedwing, though there is this:

smash's post

where he tries to give Titania a speedwing and ignores the cost (Haar can't get it since bringing Ilyana to 1-E is forbidden), which is what I was talking about. So your

"Smaaaaaaaaaash dooeeeeeeeeeeeeeesn't assuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuume Tiiiiiiiiiiiiitaniaaaaaaaaaaaaaa geeeeeeeeeeets theeeeeeeeeeeeeee Speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedwiiiiiiiiiiiiiing." is very flawed. He basically says "look what Mia gets, so let's give Titania a wing while not even looking at what it costs the team"

Ask Red Fox of Fire about Janaff and the drop, because I tried to convince her that Janaff was doritos for the 3-5 one (though I'm thinking now he might not be). Anyway, many people (I think more than just her) were saying the cost of giving Janaff a drop is too high. I was trying to push Janaff above Zihark.

See above.

see above

He attempted to justify the Janaff drop, but his argument was quite flawed because the first part was focusing on the statistical improvements inherent in the bonus, while the second part was stating Ulki and Ranulf don't get anything worth it, which is also untrue. The point with Janaff without a drop is that he misses some ORKOs. Not all.

check this

Which, btw, was before Smash's thing about giving Janaff a drop and claiming there was no cost.

So sure, he doesn't go around always assuming that they get stuff, but when he tries to give stuff to units, he ignores cost. Oh, and he says 3 drops despite one appearing in 1-2, another in 2-E. Those should both be used by 3-7 otherwise Janaff is going to have to use the drop better in his time by enough to cover the timeframe the drop was wasted. And considering I already showed how much he already KOs without a drop, I'd say he fails that comparison. So he's just got the 3-5 drop to aim for. One drop, one Ike support. Smash's entire argument for justifying giving a drop to Janaff was flawed.

Back to Intercessor getting multiple things:

As long as a unit's economic profit from getting new stuff is still positive, there is no reason to stop giving it stuff. Remember, part of economic profit is analyzing the opportunity cost, and throwing 20 things at one unit is bound to eventually mean you are giving it stuff that has a higher opportunity cost than the normal profit it brings. (normal profit - opportunity cost = economic profit)

Cool story bro.

Do a comparison like this with Mia and Supports/Forges/Skills, not Intercessor and Smish Phonetic and unnamed resources.

Surely it's just a matter of copypasting from the tier thread like your above example, since this is what you guys actually do.

Already done in another topic. Look in Int's links. Forges are free, or should be. Ike is because her offence is better than most, and the only units with better offence (or potentially better, like Gats with a crown) are already durable enough already, or have no enemy phase (Shinon). She gets Adept because she uses it better than most and can apply it more often. ie: kill more thanks to adept than others would. Obviously, once Ulki shows up it's not as clear-cut, but he a: has other options, and b: isn't beating Mia by much, and probably not by anything once you consider same move in 3-8, gauge issues, that type of stuff. Considering only 3-8 and 3-10 really matter... Just because you refuse to search and didn't read when it was new doesn't mean that it isn't there.

So Agron has 10000 capacity, no stat caps, and can hold every item in the game at once. You could theoretically give Agron every skill and every stat booster and every weapon, if you wanted.

If somehow the economic profit was still positive for the next item even after 10 things have been given to Agron, we can still give it that next item. The reason being, opportunity cost has already accounted for what it costs the army in terms of whatever criteria we have established. So, if we care about turncounts and assured success, then when economic profit for the next item is positive it means that we are not hurting the team by giving that item. We are, automatically, improving the team as a whole, which is what matters. Of course, in a real game, it isn't very often you run into a unit that can take 7 things at once and actually improve the fortunes of the team as a whole, so this situation wouldn't come up, but I'm suggesting that the number of things you give a unit is not relevant, what is releveant is the opportunity costs incurred by this decision, and whether or not economic profit is still increasing as we add items.

Dude, what are Agron's base stats? Move? Weapon skill? Growths? If the guy had Lyre's bases and Sigrun's growths, being able to use Adept/Cancel/Wrath/Resolve/Disarm/Corrosion/Nihil/Celerity/Nullify and take every stat up (which any unit can already do, you just have to be patient) wouldn't really matter since now the rest of my team doesn't really have a hell of a lot of skills, don't have any special weapons, and are just kind of gimped in general. Sure, infinite potential might be enough to get him into Low or something, but the cost of gimping my entire team is pretty laughable.

You are again ignoring the point. Giving 10 or so things to Agron would be a bad idea because eventually the team is weaker than if those things went elsewhere. In fact, if you want to create base stats when they are not relevant, I'd have to say at this point giving even one thing to him is probably less good for the team if his bases are so bad, thus he gets nothing. The idea is, if he has a higher normal profit from getting something than the opportunity cost, he gets it. Everything you brought up is already accounted for. Oh, and while every unit can technically take every stat up, most units cap something, or more than just one thing. My point is, with Agron, you never lose the benefit of the stat up because there is no cap.

Also, my only knowledge of a name similar to Agron is Aggron, who's a pretty crappy Pokemon to be compared to a unit of infinite potential.

Given the theme, you didn't consider that it's a play on Narga? Replace an A with an O, rearrange, tada!

Well, she starts at 38 crit, against 16 luck enemies. Eventually she hits 40% crit and enemies reach 17 or 18 for 3-11, then in 3-E she's ORKOing so it no longer matters.

So mostly 22% crit rates, then 23% and 24% (she builds skill faster than enemies build luck) and finally back to 23% and 22%. Minimum 1 - (.78 x .78), maximum 1 - (.76 x .76). So 39.16% minimum, and maximum 42.24%.

k. And Mia ORKOing unpromoted enemies and Sages in 3-E isn't special, bro, she still fails against the usual enemies. Although lol3-E anyway.

Check Int's link. Silver Blades exist, you know. Even without Silver Blades, once she promotes the halbs and warriors are basically toast.

And I was unaware Mia started with a 15 crit weapon.

Oh, so you are pretending that the critforge has a large opportunity cost now?

Okay, sorry, not 45%. Still, considering the best Titania does without a speedwing on most enemies is 0% unless you forge crit or give her a killer weapon, it's good. Crit on a forge on Titania is almost a waste of money, but fine, 11 to 13 base crit, from 16/0 to 20/1, so 26 to 28 crit vs. 16 to 18 luck enemies. So, 8% to 12% depending on how fast she grows. Probably goes 10%, 11%, 12%, though possibly drops back to 10% temporarily then back to 11 after promotion when facing the 17 and 18 luck enemies. So ~40% compared to ~11%. And she does more damage when Titania doesn't crit.

I like how you make a big deal about smash not talking about the opportunity cost of the Speedwing and then completely ignore the Speedwing in your comparison (much like smash did because he didn't assume she got it, but meh)

What? Titania doesn't double after promotion? 20/1 Titania has 25 Spd. With a max Might Steel Axe in 3-11, she's 100% one rounding Paladins, Snipers, Dragonmasters (LOLWUT), Sages, Bishops, leaves Generals at 5HP (wtfux), and with a Hand Axe still gets the Paladins/Snipers/Sages/Bishops.

With a Speedwing she one rounds everything but Generals and SMs. That's some hardcore stomping.

Did I mention she has Sol, a mount, and 24 Def/85 Avoid before supports? Oh and Counter kills Generals, that's how weak they are. Too bad Counter sucks.

So, when is she promoting at 20/1? 3-2? Don't think so. Also, that wing still falls short of stuff in 3-4 and 3-5 and 3-8 and 3-10. Or it can, depending on her exp growth. Like Halbs and Warriors, at times. I did a huge thing on Titania vs. Mia. Well, I think this was

Titania v. Gatrie

But it goes over Titania with a speedwing, and points out I'm not even seeing Titania > Nailah if Titania doesn't get a speedwing.

And I left out the wing this time because smash always leaves it out. Notice that I compared Mia's no-adept offence to Titania's no-speedwing offence. That should tell you something right there.

Why the crap are we using Killer prior to forged Hand Axes? Forged Steel and Steel Polaxes are easy guaranteed 2HKOs.

Note that after Titania caps Str, it might be a better idea to finish her levels with BEXP (like when she needs like <20 EXP) than with CEXP since her Spd growth is so high.

3-P and 3-1: No Forge for Mia hurts her, Titania still 2 rounds, doubles Sages.

3-2: Doubles and one rounds a vast majority of Sages and Paladins (17 spd is GG, a couple of 18 but she has a 50% Spd growth so she might have that), and some Dragonmasters, doubles Generals but needs Hammer to kill. Probably around Level 17 here.

3-3: Sages still suck, and tight quarters + Hand Axe/Forged Steel canto hits are great.

3-4: Bad horse chapter.

3-5: Probably can't double, although she can OHKO Generals with the Hammer if you want. Probably around Level 18 here.

3-7: Bad horse chapter.

3-8: Forged Hand Axes, gg 2RKOing at 2 range, just let her rofltank and let everyone else play clean up. She'll double most Generals (3HKOs with the Hand Axe, ORKOs with the Hammer) and a Sage or 2. Level 19 or so here.

3-10: Still pwnerizing with her Forged Hand Axe, doubles Axeadins and borderline on Blades, Bishops suck as usual.

3-11: Usually BEXP Titania to 20 here and use one of the two Crowns.

cool story? So is she going around alone in order to force the 2 range enemies to attack her? Or will there be other units around (since we are trying to go fast) that also need to equip 2 range? Also, why are the enemies attacking Titania rather than others? Also, Titania would be lucky to get 24 speed at level 20 with bexp. She could just as easily get 23 speed only, since bexp isn't guaranteed spd even after capping str. Sure, 24 speed is more likely now than a normal level 20 Titania, but I can't imagine it's above 50%. And 26 speed at promotion will cause trouble in part 4, considering she had issues when she has 27 speed at 20/1, so 26 should be worse.

And the killers are not a good idea. I was saying a killer is a bad idea. You know, the previous paragraph is where I dealt with forges? Oh, and as for Mia in 3-P and 3-1, check one of the links above.

And while 3HKOing against enemies with better crit may make Titania happy (more likely to get kill exp), it doesn't help the team much when she misses. Mia brings enemies low enough to kill with 1-2 range weapons, and also easier for weaker units to KO, and units like Neph can OHKO rather than ORKO.

Again: Why the fuck would I use Killer?

Just pointing it out. You need to take everything together to see that I was saying various things don't work. This was one of them, in case someone suggested it.

Ulki goes from 60% to 85%, kthx, which isn't exactly a huge difference compared to Mia's 40 to 70%

Sorry bro, 85 > 70, looks like Ulki's better.

And with wrath he's at 90%. Your point?

Mia going from 40 to 70 is an increase. Ulki going from 60 to 83 is nice and all, or 64% to 87% (40 speed) is also nice. But considering Mia from 40 to 70 is 1.75x better and Ulki is 1.36x better, I'd say Mia w/ Ulki means Ulki can stick with Tear alone and the team still improves. Sure, Titania's team can have a 87% Ulki, but they don't get extra bexp now anyway. And on a fair portion of enemies, Titania is doing worse than Mia, especially come 3-E and part 4. And by this point Mia's team with Ulki can let Ulki have adept anyway. I'm not sure you are understanding that the dilemma only happens in 3-8 and 3-10. Also, assuming 38% tear and 50% crit from wrath, Ulki has 90.39% KO, or with 40 speed has 91%. Also, this proc rate actually works on generals. Ulki 4HKOs them, so adept alone doesn't cut it. Hence, that 87% with adept drops significantly compared to wrath. So he's doing better.

And he can at Level 30, although he would have to sacrifice Tear.

Last paragraph in my post?

Hey bro, the tier player isn't you, as much as you want him to be, he's not. I can afford to make mistakes with Adept!Ulki, I can't with Wrath!Ulki, this is an advantage. The player trying to make up for it by playing smarter is nice but doesn't solve it, just like the player boss abusing Edward doesn't make him > Zihark

Or, you know, you could not make mistakes and your team goes better? I don't see how that relates to boss abusing Edward. Besides, you can afford to have Ulki fight untransformed, which you later say is bad.

Any attacks Wrath!Ulki is taking to get down to Wrath HP are enemy phase attacks that could have been made watching enemies kill themselves by attacking another unit. Cool story bro, Wrath!Ulki is already behind on offense and it's already turn 1 (of every chapter, mind you). Plus, this is tedious. Even untransformed, Ulki has like 96 Avoid, so even in like 3-11 enemies have pretty poor hit on him. And you can't expose him too much or he might die, but not enough and you could waste turns. So it's all luck. He's behind no matter what though, it just depends how much.

This is 3-8 and 3-10. I'm not sure you realize how easy it is here. 3-10 has this nice spot near the start, and since the map is rout it's not costing you any, and he can now actually KO generals more easily.

Ulki 3HKOs lots of things. Warriors, Halbs, Snipers, Paladins, and Dragonmasters, for example.

Your point? He's only getting 2 wexp from adept considering the extra hit doesn't get wexp. And since he can tear anyway, the wrath isn't slowing it down too much.

It's reduced vs. non-General/SM/Magic using enemies (so maybe like half to two thirds of enemies) on his skill that's got a ~50% activation (vs. 37-38% for Tear), meaning against about 60% of enemies, in 50% of his battles he's reducing his WEXP... So I'd say it's a fairly significant reduction. However Tear reduces it as well, but Wrath boosts that up to like 70% from like 38% (since there's still a 30% chance neither activates on the first attack)

Um, 38%, so 1.62 per battle. Wrath + Tear = 1.31 per battle, assuming 38% tear and 50% crit. So 70/1.62 = ~44 battles, while 70/1.31 = 54 battles. That's an extra 10 battles. Considering I am now forced to let him counter untransformed at the beginning of each chapter, I'm not actually increasing the number of chapters until he hits S. Also, it's only 3-8 and 3-10, since he can have adept in 3-11 if we want.

Again, Titania's team has Ulki with Tear + Adept, Mia's team has Ulki with Tear + wrath for two chapters if we think it's worth it, or just Tear alone. The difference there is not a big enough cost that Mia's team feels much if any pain.

Yeah, it's not like enemies get attacked by Crimean NPCs, and it's not like you can activate Tear on Adept attacks. Tear has 60%, double Adept is 13.7%, Adept->Tear is 13.7% each attack...

90% vs. ~78% chance vs. the perfect enemy for Wrath/Tear.

And?

Resposting for emphasis.

Any attacks Wrath!Ulki is taking to get down to Wrath HP are enemy phase attacks that could have been made watching enemies kill themselves by attacking another unit. Cool story bro, Wrath!Ulki is already behind on offense and it's already turn 1 (of every chapter, mind you). Plus, this is tedious. Even untransformed, Ulki has like 96 Avoid, so even in like 3-11 enemies have pretty poor hit on him. And you can't expose him too much or he might die, but not enough and you could waste turns. So it's all luck. He's behind no matter what though, it just depends how much.

Wrath's higher chance has to make up for THAT.

Also, since Mia is on Mia's team, adept on Ulki on Mia's team would have to make up for her not having it. On Titania's team, in 3-8 Titania has the same move as Mia and she probably has 24 speed right now, rather than 25. So a fair amount of the time Titania is worse on all those 21 speed enemies than Mia. Also, Swordmasters. So Ulki + Mia compared to Ulki + Titania isn't doing so bad here. Besides, I've already acknowledged in other topics that Titania pulls minor wins during part 3 at times. You can check it yourself.

I didn't ask for fun facts about Ulki's offense with Tear. I know Tear is good. I want to know why fielding Titania and/or not fielding Mia prevents Ulki from using up 8750BEXP and using a Satori Sign.

Because apparently it's an advantage of Titania's team that Ulki doesn't need tear. Or at least, smash never mentioned Titania's team having an Ulki with tear.

Hey, champ, enemies other than 3-10 Generals exist, like those Snipers/Paladins/Warriors/Halbs that I'm losing Strike on thanks to Wrath, and those enemies I'm not killing because I'm trying to get Ulki into Wrath range.

And it's a false dilemma because there are other skill combinations. For example, if you're really not convinced, Titania team Ulki can still use Wrath! And Tear! I think! Still waiting for an explanation on what happened to my Tear!

Insignificant amounts of strike, considering the math. Also, in 3-8 and 3-10 it's not so bad to lose a bit on turn 1. And hey, if Ulki on Titania's team is no longer giving Adept to Ulki, then what's the problem?

Do you like all the numbers he brought up? All the detail he went into that proved how Janaff beats Mia in every chapter they stay in except maybe a few? All the details he brought up for how Mia is so bad in the extra chapters she has? Where were you to say how bad that one was?

*clicks on link to topic*

*scrolls up*

Janaff should be higher in general. He's a strong contender for one of the best five units in the game.

He roflstomps Mia pretty badly.

level mia needs to be to match Janaff's base in stats...

HP: never

str: never

mag: who cares

skl: 20/20/11

spd: 20/20/4

lck: never

def: 20/20/8

res: 20/20/4

lolwut

Oh, but raw stats are what matters, right? Well actually, the main thing, att, doesn't matter, since Janaff has such a huge str lead Mia takes forever to catch up to him. Since he has 40 base att, Mia with a max mt steel sword and +2 att from supports doesn't even reach that until she hits 3rd tier. except, by that point, Janaff gets S-strike, or gets it like a couple turns later or whatever, and then Mia just keeps on losing until she gets the VK, at which point she now wins att by like, 2 points or something (until Janaff gets SS-strike, then he probably wins again. Note that Mia caps str really fast, at which point Janaff can catch up). And still loses everything else except spd.

It's also worth noting that Janaff and Ulki are very likely to support each other, in which case Janaff gets more att, which will come at the point where Mia promotes and goes from "gets roflstomped" to "loses".

and...

lvl 30 Janaff's chances to get a Tear, assuming he's still at base spd; 56.4%.

20/20/1 Mia's chances to get crit or astra, assuming the enemy has 20 lck; 50.2%.

Oh, but Mia has 2-range/no transformation issues, right? Well actually, for starters, Mia's 2-range is terribad for a long time because wind edges suck. She's extremely unlikely to 2HKO sages in 3-11; that's how terrible they are. And storm swords and tempest blades are in low supply. Plus Janaff has flying/canto.

Also, wasn't it agreed earlier that Janaff > Gatrie? Why did he suddenly move below?

Cool story bro.

Let's see, he gave Mia no crit on her forge in 20/20/1. Also, he ignored how in 3-E and 4-1 and 4-4 she basically ORKOs warriors/halbs anyway, and so should Janaff if he goes there. At which point, it's just generals, but she has crit options there, too. Also, by this point they use adept similarly if she and he have the same spd, so that's no advantage for either. And considering they aren't likely to hit 20/20/1 until tempest blades have appeared, she's got nice 2RKO. Low supply does not equal not existing. And Janaff's flying canto is nice, but I'm not seeing how Mia in 4-1 and 4-4 is hurt without those things by a significant amount. And all those raw stats mean is that Janaff pulls some wins in 3-7 and 3-8 and 3-10 and 3-11, unless she promotes midway through 3-11, then it's only part of 3-11. But he still has gauge for that time. Also, major availability advantage, and he never proved she's so bad she can't get good positives out of those chapters.

Certainly picking poor examples though.

If you say so.

Nobody wants Wrath because Wrath sucks, just like it sucks for Ulki.

Wrath doesn't help more than Adept. Strike and killing slowdown.

Strike slowdown is irrelevant. Killing slowdown amounts to one turn in 3-8 and 3-10, and it's actually not so bad there, considering in 3-10 the enemies near the start will likely die turn 2 anyway without slowing us down, and in 3-8 the enemies are spaced enough it still doesn't hurt since the mostly die anyway.

How come only Ulki has to compete for Adept? Why doesn't Mia? Adept doesn't become worse on Ulki just because he can use Wrath. If we aren't using Ulki, Wrath would still be on the same people it would have been on anyway, and Adept is being used up by Mia instead of Ulki.

Mia has Adept as a choice. She doesn't have other ways to go from 40 to 70. Ulki has other ways, and can get tear and it's now a smaller improvement from adept to the team than she gets. Wrath also doesn't help other units much. So, Mia's opportunity cost to get adept is lower. It isn't gone, it's just lower. Optimal distribution of resources towards the goal of a stronger team as a whole would imply Mia gets it.

Wrath notably lowers the gain of Strike and team killing speed when it is in use.

The only point that actually exists from that sentence is slowing down the killing speed, but if he attacks enough enemies and Mia attacks enough enemies then the few things at the beginning of the chapter are canceled, or close to it.

I'm probably not going to bother with another post. So you can go ahead and misrepresent all the arguments you want and ask for details that are either irrelevant or minor and you can ask for all the links you want to various stuff that you could find with just a little effort, or simply assume is true because it is. You can also halfway calculate stuff and not apply numbers to what actually happens and you can pretend that when I suggest doing stuff for 2 chapters that it's happening over the unit's entire existence. You can pretend anything else that you have pretended over the last few posts and do whatever else. If someone else is actually reading this and will apply anything they learn from this topic to making arguments in the tier lists, I hope they can see through your smokescreen, but I won't bother with attempting to clear the smoke for people any further in this topic.

Edited September 28, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[grandjackal]

Speaking of other ways to help Ti's offense, I see he didn't bother crowning Titania at the opportune time for the proper speed, considering it gives +2 speed.

I think another point is that for Wrath you'd have to consider if anyone uses it better to make Ulki care about Adept so badly as to warrent Wrath an issue for him to get. The only people I can think of are Janaff and a Speedwinged Kyza. Wing Kyza doesn't have Tear, Janaff needs 2 levels to Ulki's 1. Only problem I could see is that it's easier to get Janaff and Kyza to half health, but Ulki can at least maintain himself once he's there. Of course, Kyza costs us a wing on top of it, and Janaff needs more BEXP. Advantage Ulki.

As for Soren with Ike support, an A nets him 36 avoid, am I right? Assuming we crown him immediately, he would have 56+36 avoid, which is 92. Well, we got Ulki untransformed doing magic damage and using staffs. However...

Not sure what level Mia would be at, but from the looks of it, at level 12 he would have 79+22 avoid, which is 101. If I crowned her, I'd have 105. However, why crown her? She already has better avoid, offense and defensive parameters (even with the crowning boost super-duper-ing Soren's durability, he would only be base Mia with 1 more defense). Higher crit, higher proc rate for skills, she has ranged as well (and it is better due to doubling+crit+superior skill proc).

So, now the question is "is 92 avoid good enough? Well it really depends on what chapter it's happening. I'll give the benefit of the doubt, say it's 3-4. Lowest I'm seeing on flat ground neutral bio is 17 displayed, highest is 57 save the crossbow. Basically an average range of 37 displayed. However, reduce those numbers by 9 for her advantage. Her average would be 8-48, an average of 29. Only things that fail to 2RKO Soren here are Halberdiers and Swordmasters (thank god they don't double, but they still have crit on him. If they pull it off, good night sweet prince). Mia's 3 more HP and 1 more defense at this time however is saving her from such fates as well, on top of her luck helping boil crit down along with having lower hit rates, vantage, and skills that combo well with said skill to help proc out more attempts at her life. Soren in no chance in hell uses Adept as well as Mia due to a gaping 9 less speed, and neither is Vantage with his 4 less skill, in case you were thinking you could switch the combo over to him. You could say Soren's range would help make him more durable. Well not only does Mia have range as well, but she procs more skills so more often than not, along with far higher crit (24 to his 12, that is indeed double his rate), she can kill at range as well. Nevermind that she has far better chances at melee, of which a natural Vantage keeps her alive and running far more often than not. So basically she would have avoid, durability, luck, proc rates and range as opposed to Soren's...Soren has no defensive advantages. So Mia would be putting Earth to better use defensively, which is the entire point. Well I suppose Soren doesn't fear mages at all, but Mia's facing 28-19 displayed. Good luck hitting her in the first place.

However, defense isn't the only thing. What good is defense if you have shit for offense anyways? We don't give Gatrie a crown for no reason after all. Well all I have to say is Soren doesn't double and Mia already wins. With her proc rates compared to his, hitting a weaker stat means dick to me really. In fact, his speed is so bad that he barely doubles a couple mages and generals. That's right, he's at best doubling a couple enemies. I can stop here, really. Even with a wing, all he went from was doubling some mages and generals to doubling all of them. He didn't gain any advantage on anything else. Does push him up to 96 avoid, so the difference between them is only 5, of which I could actually say "Not enough to make a difference" there.

This isn't even accounting for the fact that this is post promotion Soren vs pre-promotion Mia. Prepromotion Soren before an A can come in, it doesn't even come close. Like when he hits C, he's struggling to meet Mia's avoid at base if I made her luck stat vanish.

The only reason you would have Ike support Soren is if you felt sorry for Soren. Sort of a socialist way to impliment with the capitolist and communist jokes going around. To bring someone up to equal the already well off. I mean fuck, Boyd would support better with Ike simply because he will always have more avoid. Then Mist, because I don't have to crown her to make her into something useful. Soren is at best third, perhaps fourth wheel support to Ike.

Nevermind an A by 3-4 is a bit ludicrous no matter what, but it still illustrates the point well. It would only mean it can only get worse for Soren as the game goes on. An avoid growth of 105% is blech.

Edited September 28, 2009 by France