Rate the Unit Day 10: Safy

[Mikado]

Papermate said it was ok for me to do this, so let's keep it going, shall we? Bolded the new rule btw.

Dat Rules (stolen/borrowed from Integrity, which where then copied from the FE10 ratings)

- Ratings are assumed to be on Normal Mode.

- Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted. If somebody else said what you want to already, quote them explicitly.

+/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is encouraged, but no more. If you exercise your bias privileges, please do so explicitly.

- Numerical votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Make it easy to calculate for my sake.

- Every ranking phase ends whenever I get home from school, between 1500 and 1600 EST.

- I will insist you do not use the "Not X" reason on any character, where X is another unit. If you do, your vote will be thrown out.

- "Recruits X" or "takes you to X chapter" arguments are explicitly banned. C'mon, people, this shouldn't need to be a rule. That's not gameplay performance.

- Assume that the character in question is being recruited.

- Similar to the "Recruits X" rule, do not use "she brings a warp staff" or any other justification as an argument.

- Rating a unit too low because you think its overrated will make me throw away your vote without mercy.

- I withhold the privilege to tell you your rating is bogus and demand you revise it if it breaks any of the above. I will not throw out votes anonymously, you will be informed and given a chance to revise.

- Scrolls do have impact on a unit's rating. Though they are counted as a seperate point, but no more than +/-1. So that means one point for bias and one for scrolls!

- Warp skipping has an impact on scores in so far as "Safy has an high base staff rank". Nanna would score lower than Safy because of her lower rank, but no chapter is explicitly said to be skipped. You can't get Warp and then suddenly say every character after doesn't exist or requires turns to recruit. Something could be said of Xavier, or Conomore/Amalda who are in an escape chapter where Leaf starts next to the escape point.

Ronan: 2.42

Marty: 2.89

Tanya: 3.82

Evayl: 5.02

Halvan: 7.35

Dagda: 7.54

Leaf: 8.18

Othin: 8.86

Fin: 9.06

9/10

+1 scroll bias for capping magic unpromoted = 10/10

Sexy Staffbot! Can silence/sleep most enemy units thanks to her great magic and her Repair Staff comes in handy.

Also, can we please not argue while we do this? I don't want this to turn into the FE9 RTU Endgame thread.

[The Envoy of the Beginning]

10/10 Best unit in the game especially thanks to her 5-use repair staff and how staves are amazing in FE5 (assuming a unit's staff rank can get high enough).

[Ice Sage]

Goddess of repair and other staffs.

10/10

[Psych]

8.5/10

Her low HP basically means she's getting fatigued every other chapter.

[PuffPuff]

8.5/10

Her low HP basically means she's getting fatigued every other chapter.

^This.

And Repair makes her the utmost important character in the game.

9/10

[Non-Existent Member]

Your early staffbot. Repairs stuff with her personal staff.

8/10

[Icon of Sin]

Staves being broken in FE5 do a lot of good for Saphy. A C+40 base in Staff rank is ridiculous for someone coming as early as chapter 3, especially when she can use her personnal staff for a massive +10 experience per cast, even on a miss. Speaking of which, Hammerne is especially fun in this game to essentially duplicate personnal weapons or a few of the rarer staves before you can get a few more.

Statwise, she doesn't need much other than some HP to combat fatigue, some magic to avoid being silenced/being able to use status staves well and some skill to stop missing. Oddly enough, her strength growth is a fairly decent 30%. My general guess is that her sister probably stole it away from Ronan and placed it on her. Because of her unexistant physical defense, she should definitely avoid ballistae since a single bolt is more often than not a OHKO.

She even has the added perk of supporting Shiva, Rivis and Tina. Shiva especially likes it since it brings his critical hit that much closer to 100% on a pursuit hit.

She doesn't even need a promotion if you can get her to A staves, not like it brings much anyway. While she'd do fairly decent damage per hit, she really can't take many in return and would rather use the small time she has before fatigue for staves.

To sum it up : excellent staff utility, saves a Knight Crest, supports as a bonus, but can't stand to be in the frontlines due to being a bait for ballistae/captures and she fatigues easily.

9,5/10.

[PuffPuff]

but can't stand to be in the frontlines due to being a bait for ballistae/captures and she fatigues easily.

Thankfully her Repair Staff doesn't get taken whenever she gets captured.

[Mekkah]

10/10

also talks about FE11 warpchick but

Two frail little sisters all the way up there, sitting rather uncomfortably with badasses such as Haar and Marcus. What exactly have they done to get to the top? Surely it can't have been "take a lot of hits", because both of these get OHKO'd pretty consistently in their respective games. It can't have been their combat, because they have none until they promote (well, Lena can go Mage, but she shouldn't), and even when they've promoted it isn't amazing enough to be up here.

However, I am pretty convinced that both of these units broke the games they are in, multiple times. The reason why: infinite range Warp, almost instantly, nearly the entire game long. They can reduce the chapter from "fight your way to the seize point, through all the enemies" to "Warp, bosskill, Warp, seize", turning this strategy game into a non-strategy game. And with that in mind, who cares if their stats are bad? Only one enemy matters, and that's the boss.

For FE5, the main bosskiller (when Warp is available) is Asvel, and maybe Mareeta counts too. In FE11, it will be Dracoknight Shiida, sometimes replaced by Swordmaster Shiida. At the end, throw in a little Galzus/Sety/Nagi/etc, but for the most part, the game becomes a less-than-five-men show. Of course, as the game goes on, more units with the capability to Warp join, and that would kind of rain on their parades...but on the other hand, you often need 2 Warps for a 1-turn win (bosskiller + lord), and sometimes you want to Warp even more than that to get important things from villages, or recruit new characters, or get new Warp staves. The best example of this is the Hammerne Staff in FE11, which is actually rather tricky to get when you've been skipping entire chapters!

Warpskipping is not something done by JUST these units, but they are such a huge part of it and they change the dynamics of the game so much that I felt #3 was sufficient for them. The only things better than Warp trivializers, imo, are units that literally trivialize the entire game, from start to end.

I could have tagged Malleelsleielslesilesia in here, but 1) I don't really have enough FE12 H3 experience to comment properly on her, and 2) she can't Warp in H3, just Rescue, and Rescue is significantly less game breaking. It saves quite a few turns if your Marth goes sidetracking, but it's not like Warp where you just jump over all the enemies, kill the boss and take the throne. In addition, you do get Wendel and Etzel quickly enough to kinda dimnish the worth (I don't believe you need multiple Rescues very often?). Maybe she should have been somewhere in the Top30, but we can always evaluate that later.

[Colonel M]

Safy has terrible HP, Def, and Bld, in fact borderline close to the worst in the game. There's some that can compare to her in defensive terms, but they probably aren't as bad as Safy. As such, she's a useless member of the team.

0/10.

But in all seriousness, Safy's biggest perks are Hammerne and having C+40 Staves. The major issue with her is that fatigue can sometimes work against her, so there's always a sense of caution used. Still, can't argue against her worth at all; especially in Warpskipping terminology.

I could have tagged Malleelsleielslesilesia in here, but 1) I don't really have enough FE12 H3 experience to comment properly on her, and 2) she can't Warp in H3, just Rescue, and Rescue is significantly less game breaking. It saves quite a few turns if your Marth goes sidetracking, but it's not like Warp where you just jump over all the enemies, kill the boss and take the throne. In addition, you do get Wendel and Etzel quickly enough to kinda dimnish the worth (I don't believe you need multiple Rescues very often?). Maybe she should have been somewhere in the Top30, but we can always evaluate that later.

Malliesia in FE12 is somewhat invaluable primarily because repairing Rescue (and possibly Again) is pretty damn important, but she doesn't get exclusive access to Rescue really. She's awesome in a sense that she helps make the game easier, but she's not completely "game-breaking" like Warp on her could be.

[Jave]

Early Staffbot, can easily reach A-rank, unique utility thanks to Hammerne, and generally good growths and stats save for Defense, Luck and HP, which are kinda expected for a healer.

10/10

[Swordsalmon]

Trivializes everything. Staffbot10/10

[Kiriane]

9/10 staves

the -1 is because fatigue and crappy movement compared to mounted blitzers on outdoor maps before Warpskipping, and also because I'm holding out to give Sety 10/10 (I know, I know.)

[MacLovin]

Staves being broken in FE5 do a lot of good for Saphy. A C+40 base in Staff rank is ridiculous for someone coming as early as chapter 3, especially when she can use her personnal staff for a massive +10 experience per cast, even on a miss. Speaking of which, Hammerne is especially fun in this game to essentially duplicate personnal weapons or a few of the rarer staves before you can get a few more.

Statwise, she doesn't need much other than some HP to combat fatigue, some magic to avoid being silenced/being able to use status staves well and some skill to stop missing. Oddly enough, her strength growth is a fairly decent 30%. My general guess is that her sister probably stole it away from Ronan and placed it on her. Because of her unexistant physical defense, she should definitely avoid ballistae since a single bolt is more often than not a OHKO.

She even has the added perk of supporting Shiva, Rivis and Tina. Shiva especially likes it since it brings his critical hit that much closer to 100% on a pursuit hit.

She doesn't even need a promotion if you can get her to A staves, not like it brings much anyway. While she'd do fairly decent damage per hit, she really can't take many in return and would rather use the small time she has before fatigue for staves.

To sum it up : excellent staff utility, saves a Knight Crest, supports as a bonus, but can't stand to be in the frontlines due to being a bait for ballistae/captures and she fatigues easily.

9,5/10.

[Enex]

9/10 staves

the -1 is because fatigue and crappy movement compared to mounted blitzers on outdoor maps before Warpskipping, and also because I'm holding out to give Sety 10/10 (I know, I know.)

I don't know what to say... Kiriane reads my mind... -1 to this women

Score 9/10

[ZemZem]

Early Staffbot, can easily reach A-rank, unique utility thanks to Hammerne, and generally good growths and stats save for Defense, Luck and HP, which are kinda expected for a healer.

10/10

[Colonel M]

Oh yeah I give her 10/10 if my rating didn't show.

[Thor Odinson]

Her movement isn't too big of an issue due to infinite range physic and how you can just grab them off enemies and there's actually pretty good supply of it, and rewarp is a thing. Prf Hammerne totally makes up for the fatigue problems (well, cancels out the negation) because it's awesome. You get her early too, and she can do standard staffchick fare like warp, hammerne, restore, barrier, physic, what have you.

10/10.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Luminescent Blade

[riariadne]

10/10

yup

[dondon151]

the -1 is because fatigue

every SSS run uses the chapter 2 life ring and the chapter 9 S drink on saphy

i'm just going to point out that fatigue is not actually a problem for runs that focus highly on warpskipping

and crappy movement compared to mounted blitzers on outdoor maps before Warpskipping,

good thing saphy only has 2 and a half outdoor maps before warpskipping becomes the dominant strategy

anyway 10/10

[Baldrick]

Unless you're Warpskipping, she'll be hurt by fatigue, and using a stiff breeze on her would be overkill. Otherwise, good unit is good.

9/10

[Refa]

Is Safy really that good if you're not warpskipping?

I mean I know most of the 10/10s do assume this and it's fine, but what about the people who explicitly say not warpskipping (or just complain about fatigue, I guess, since it's not an issue in warpskip)?

Edited May 29, 2012 by Refa

[Mekkah]

Oh yeah, I guess Warpskipping is kinda banned in the rules...8/10 then. Having Warp available to save villages and make several chapters easier (12x comes to mind), and then being so good vs status staves lategame makes her still great, but no longer the best imo.

[Jave]

Well, I do take into account that Warpskipping is not allowed, but having Warp access exclusively until 16A is a huge bonus for Safy since she makes a lot of chapters a lot easier. In Chapter 12, just warp Othin or Fin to capture Salem and prevent him from Sleeping your units. In 12x, warp Lara to recruit Pahn and prevent Tina from stealing your stuff. In 14, warp and rescue Dean to have him get his Prf Lance without worrying about the ballistas.

Provided you still beat the map normally, I don't consider that to be Warpskipping.

[Mikado]

Well, I do take into account that Warpskipping is not allowed, but having Warp access exclusively until 16A is a huge bonus for Safy since she makes a lot of chapters a lot easier. In Chapter 12, just warp Othin or Fin to capture Salem and prevent him from Sleeping your units. In 12x, warp Lara to recruit Pahn and prevent Tina from stealing your stuff. In 14, warp and rescue Dean to have him get his Prf Lance without worrying about the ballistas.

Provided you still beat the map normally, I don't consider that to be Warpskipping.

This.

There are some chapters where "warpskipping" is necessary. Like chapter 12, 12x, heck even 24x and (I think) the final chapter. Do you guys think I should change/remove the warpskipping rule or just let it be? :\