Mekkah Posted November 10, 2008 Share Posted November 10, 2008 Just when you thought your Alan didn't DA enough... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekkah Posted November 10, 2008 Author Share Posted November 10, 2008 On a good day, Ward came out to play. Together with Dieck, Lot and Thany. In Ch2. Ward just stepped on a fort tile and gained EXP from Soldiers. Fun fun fun. And built supports with Lot and Dieck, since he's pretty much their fastest option, and Thany might be in play too. So Ward helps out the team even when he's not sticking his axe in things. Yay, Fire affinity at a fast rate. He's also pretty slow and inaccurate and all, but everyone else is hardly doing any better. And he has niches, like Loldier slaying with WTA, and using the Halberd on stuff, like those Ch4/Ch7 Cavs. It's a gamble, true that, but it pays off big time (he OHKOs them, and if he does, he's not taking their second hit if they double). Then Barf joins in Ch8. Let's make it easy upon ourselves and put them at the same level...Ward's level is probably higher but w/e. 9/0 Ward - C Lot/C Dieck Iron Axe - 20.5 atk, 6.4 AS, 85.8 hit, 9.8 crit - - 30.0 avo, 33.2 hp, 6.1 def, 1.3 res, 12.2 critavo 9/0 Barf Iron Lance - 17.0 atk, 5.0 AS, 82.8 hit, 2.8 crit - - 12.0 avo, 25.0 hp, 14.0 def, 1.0 res, 2.0 critavo Ward is winning all categories but Def, some by huge amounts, some by small. The Def gap is about the same as the HP gap. Ward is also benefitting his little band of friends. But it's gonna improve for Barth from here right? Since he supports people...like uh...looks like his entire list is Low tier. Except Oujay, he's bleh, but not good. And Ashtol, who runs around getting chests when fielded, and otherwise isn't fielded. Additionally, Ward has one more move than Barth, so he has an easier time sticking near the front with his two friends, who are very flexible thanks to good durability, and in Dieck's case, offense. Then Western Isles come and Barf gets WTD all the time against axes whereas Ward doesn't, and Barf gets doubled more often. Fast forward to promotion time, since all this talk about Barth being Barf makes me sick. Let's pretend Oujay is in play. 20/1 Ward - A Lot, B Dieck Iron Axe: 31.9 atk, 10.6 AS, 111.0 hit, 23.8 crit - - 58.3 avo, 49.5 hp, 13.4 def, 2.9 res, 24.1 critavo Iron Bow: 29.9 atk, 10.6 AS, 126.0 hit 20/1 Barf - A Oujay Iron Lance: 27.6 atk, 10.2 AS, 108.4 hit, 12.2 crit - - 31.6 avo, 40.0 hp, 23.3 def, 5.2 res, 19.2 critavo Javelin: 26.6 atk, 10.2 AS, 93.4 hit Iron Axe: 28.6 atk, 10.2 AS, 103.4 hit What's new? For offense, - Ward has more Atk with his weakest weapon (Iron Bow) than Barf with his strongest weapon (Iron Axe) - Ward is more accurate, most notably with Iron Bow, which is ranged, so very useful, unlike Barf's 93 hit Javelin - Ward has ~42 Atk on fliers with his Iron Bow - Ward wins all offensive parameters period For defense, Ward has nearly double Barf's Avo, and Ward has ~10 more HP, Barf has ~10 more Def, and ~2 more Res. For melee attacks, take a 30 Atk/90 Hit enemy. It has about 20% real on Ward, and 68% on Barth (being generous with rounding). It takes 4 hits to kill Ward, and 6 to kill Barth. Ward is somewhere between three and four times less likely to get hit, while Barth only takes 50% more hits. Surely Ward is better off here. Then, considering magic enemies, where the gap in Barth's favor is 2.3 rather than 9.9, while Ward's HP and Avo leads remain in existence, and taking into account Ward's option of ranged attacking, as well as being better off on two melee weapon types versus Barth's one...yeah, crushed there, Barth. This doesn't change all that much. Barth's growths are all around higher, but since he is worse at fighting and moving around, he cannot really catch up to Ward. Also, Ward becomes able to use the Steel Bow, increasing his ranged Mt on normal stuff by 3, and on fliers, by 9. Barth already has access to Steel Axe, but his Hit sucks so much he may as well throw darts with a blindfold to try and kill enemies. And in reality, Barf probably will not have Oujay for his support. Most importantly, this cripples his Hit by 15. And interestingly, it also reduces his CEV to 4.2, so stuff only needs 9 Skl to have 1% Crt on him. Or something like a 10 Skl Thunder Mage would have 10% Crt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duff Ostrich Posted November 11, 2008 Share Posted November 11, 2008 Oujay: “Sir Barth, this is a dead end!” Barth: “Don’t worry. This wall has cracks in it. We can break through it if we hit it a little with our weapons.” And the two were friends forever… In any case: I will not dodge this point: Barth sucks. His avoid sucks, his hit sucks and his AS really sucks. But in comparison to Ward, it doesn’t really look so bad, because Ward seriously fails in these areas too. Barth just happens to find one area in which he succeeds, while Ward fails at everything. Because at the end of the day Barth’s offensive performance is hardly worse than Ward’s at all. Considering the 20/1 statistics you provided, Barth is losing by 3 strength, and like, 8 hit (when both use an iron axe). Neither of them are doubling anything with 10 AS, as Ward’s only dealing three more damage than Barth per round. Ward’s bows do indeed help his hit, but he can only use them half of the time since he obviously will be switching back to his less accurate axe on the enemy phase. But I digress, there is no disputing Ward’s offensive lead. It’s definitely there; it’s just not a crushing blow. What is a crushing blow is the defensive leads that Barth gets over Ward. Ward starts out with 3 defense and a modest growth of 30% isn’t going to turn him into a tank anytime soon. In fact, Ward’s defense doesn’t even begin to look good until the endgame when Barth’s taking 10 damage from the 34 attack wyvern lords. Those guys are going to hurt Ward, and he hardly kills them fast enough to make up for it with his sucky AS. Barth takes forever to kill them as well, but he isn’t dying to them. Sure, he can use bows to fight them instead, but he STILL will not double them, and it doesn’t help his defensive failures on the enemy phase. Ward’s avoid lead? It’s still terrible. Avoid is surely more valuable than raw defense but that only matters when the person in question has enough avoid to actually dodge things. Ward gets hit and killed, Barth gets hit and survives. They both get 1-2 rounded by sages, so they’ll be avoided at all costs. But conjecture without numerical evidence is worthless. I’ll get to the numbers at three points in the game: When Ward joins, when Barth joins, and at promotion (which you graciously provided, but I have a couple of edits to make). Ward: 2/0 iron axe HP: 28 Atk: 19 AS: 5 Hit: 73 Crit: 1 Avo: 14 CritAvo: 4 Def: 3 Res: 0 Ward has a niche in loldiers? Ellen can kill those failures. Ward’s problem is that he cannot kill much else. And even then, only one rounds those in his niche with less than four speed (or the javelin one) and at least half will have four speed. All the while taking lots of damage thanks to his low avoid and defense. This guy is young Bartre incarnate. Or rather, young Bartre is Ward incarnate, and Ward is Saji incarnate. Whatever the case, he’s the resident failure axeman with terrible starting stats. More about loldiers: They’ve got anywhere from 14-16 attack, so they’re doing anywhere from 11-13 damage to Ward, so he’s getting three shotted. Not to mention that they’ve got ~55% hit on him. Ward’s out of commission in his debut chapter fairly quickly as he waits for Ellen to heal him. Dieck and Lot will be the two studs killing things on the forts as the other half of your army comes to meet you. Ward can spend his time not hitting things with Lot’s hand axe in the mean time. He has virtually no chance of making use of his hammer on the boss, and the merc one rounds him. The latter is something else that he and Ellen have in common. Now on to Barth’s starting chapter: Barth 9/0 iron/steel lance HP: 25 Atk: 17/21 AS: 5 Hit: 83/68 Crit: 1 Avo: 11 Crit Avo: 2 Def: 14 Res: 1 For the sake of sanity, you may want him to be using Wendy’s iron lance. I doubt she needs it much anyway. Regardless, this doesn’t look too good. His stats are hardly better than Wards when he came six chapters ago. Well, except for his defense, which makes his performance in this chapter much better than Ward’s has been this entire time. And it’s not like the world’s been nice to Ward in this interim time. Ward has had to deal with Cavaliers that own him (Lot’s better with the halberd anyway). He’s also had to contend with brigands, mages and wyverns who are all better than him. And he cannot do anything to a single boss since his hit is so horrible. Has Ward built up supports? With Lot, yes. With Dieck, it depends on whether you wish to deprive yourself of the Rutger/Clarine/Dieck triangle, but that will be explored in greater detail shortly. I’ll give him B Lot and C Dieck. Ward 9/0 iron axe (seven levels in six chapters is as good as Ward’s going to get) B Lot/ C Dieck HP: 33.2 Atk: 13.5 AS: 6.4 Hit: 83 Crit: 13.1 Avo: 34.6 Crit Avo: 14.2 Def: 6.1 Res: 1.3 For now, how are our gallant heroes doing in Barth’s starting chapter? Barth can actually double the steel lance soldiers, but so can everybody else. Only the mercs and Leygance can double him, and he can take the hits from anything without an armorslayer. Five damage from steel bow archers? Nine damage from armors? Leygance himself only gives Barth 10 damage per hit. Mages and mercenaries are the real dangers here, and they are just as dangerous to Ward. Ward has only one speed more than Barth, so the mercs and Leygance can still double him. Ward does have WTA against the failures known as soldiers and knights while Barth has WTA against the mercenaries, who he will only fight if they happen to not have an armorslayer. The main difference here is that Ward’s taking more damage than Barth. The same archer gives him 13 damage per hit. The same armor gives him 17 damage per hit, and it’s not like Ward’s avoid is good enough to dodge all of those hits. The terrible 71 hit armors still have a 36.4% chance to hit him. Iron bow archers have 64.4% hit on him. The steels have 49.4% chance to hit him. Oh, and on the off chance that Leygance hits him twice, he’s one rounded. We can leave Leygance to Rutger I guess. Now of course, this is when Barth is at his worst. Not only does Ward have an offensive lead in Chapter 8, but in the next coming chapters as well. But I daresay things improve once his supports start to kick in and we leave that abysmal place known as the Western Isles. If Ward and Barth are the same level in Chapter 8, it can be inferred that they stay the same level the rest of the game. Neither one of them have the slightest chance to promote anyway until the end of Chapter 16. But how are things then? Well, Barth has fast supports with Oujay and Ashtol. They can very well be built by the time chapter 16 rolls around. Now, our friend Ashtol isn’t always going to be around, but unlike Barth the western Isles are a nice place for him, and he can get a few level ups along with Chad since you cannot really have too many sword users there anyway. The supports will exist, it’s just how often Ashtol will be around that is the concern. As for the Juice, he is in play at least as often as Lot after the earlygame. Lot may very well be dropped for people with more useful combat utility (Gonzo, Echidna, maybe even Geese). And since you have a bajillion hero crest users already (Rutger, Dieck, Gonzo, maybe Geese, maybe Fir, and now that loser Ward) giving one to both Lot and Oujay is asking a bit much. I’ll say they have an equal chance to stay on your team since they’re both upper mid-ish units. It should also be noted that Ward’s need of a hero crest in light of all of this fighting for one is a point for Barth. Barth is most likely third in line for his promotion item since Noah and Treck are hardly likely in a ranked run, and our fellow knights simply aren’t getting fielded. I am willing to be generous to Ward with supports, but I’ll only go so far. Dieck B is never happening. Not any more than a Barth-Wendy-Bors triangle. Dieck has a much more profitable option in Rutger and Clarine. He becomes nearly invincible, and he makes Clarine and Rutger invincible. You simply cannot trump that. And with Lot being less than reliable, Dieck’s going to want more out of life than just a B Ward. Dieck stays at C, and that it. Now for stats, assuming Oujay and Lot decide to show up: Barth 20/1 killer lance/ iron axe A Oujay/ B Ashtol HP: 40 Atk: 31.6/29.6 AS: 10.2 Hit: 118.7/108.7 Crit: 47.4/17.4 Avo: 41.6 Crit Avo: 29.2 Def: 24.3 Res: 6.2 Ward 20/1 killer axe/iron bow A Lot/ C Dieck HP: 49.5 Atk: 33.9/28.9 AS: 10.6 Hit: 108.25/123.25 Crit: 49.25/19.25 Avo: 53.3 Crit Avo: 21.9 Def: 12.4 Res: 1.9 Things look a bit different now. I gave our intrepid warriors of Elibe killer weapons since they need one to kill anything. Except in this support scenario, Barth is actually winning hit with his killer weapon, and Barth only really wins hit with his expensive bows. The avoid lead is much smaller now, except Barth has double Ward’s Def. 9-10 HP aint gonna fix that. Barth even has a few more points in res; to be sure the promotion gains for knights have been nice to Barth. His offensive parameters are hardly inferior now, and this guys durable to handle silver lance Wyvern lords in the coming chapters. By chapter 21-23, Barth’s lead in these areas has only gotten bigger. He even has some semblance of crit avoid now thanks to his supports. Barth wins this game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekkah Posted November 12, 2008 Author Share Posted November 12, 2008 I will start with a sentence you put somewhere in the middle. But conjecture without numerical evidence is worthless. Indeed it is. You say a lot of stuff in your post, but hardly anything responds to things I said. So I'll have to assume that whatever wasn't addressed is conceded. I will now go through your post to see what was addressed. I will not dodge this point: Barth sucks. His avoid sucks, his hit sucks and his AS really sucks. But in comparison to Ward, it doesn’t really look so bad, because Ward seriously fails in these areas too. Barth just happens to find one area in which he succeeds, while Ward fails at everything. It seems you refer to Barth's strong point (Def), and conveniently forget Ward's strong point (HP). Since in your next paragraph you refer to my 20/1 comparison, I can just drag this back into the fray... For defense, Ward has nearly double Barf's Avo, and Ward has ~10 more HP, Barf has ~10 more Def, and ~2 more Res. For melee attacks, take a 30 Atk/90 Hit enemy. It has about 20% real on Ward, and 68% on Barth (being generous with rounding). It takes 4 hits to kill Ward, and 6 to kill Barth. Ward is somewhere between three and four times less likely to get hit, while Barth only takes 50% more hits. Surely Ward is better off here. Then, considering magic enemies, where the gap in Barth's favor is 2.3 rather than 9.9, while Ward's HP and Avo leads remain in existence, and taking into account Ward's option of ranged attacking, as well as being better off on two melee weapon types versus Barth's one...yeah, crushed there, Barth. So Barth gets owned on offense, as you conceded, and he gets owned on defense too. In fact, Ward’s defense doesn’t even begin to look good until the endgame when Barth’s taking 10 damage from the 34 attack wyvern lords. I'm surprised you even have the guts to bring up Wyverns against Ward, whose class seems to be completely shaped to rape those things. *looong numberspewing* 20 Wyvern Rider - 47/20/13/16/9/16/3 (10 con) Steel Lance: 30 Atk, 85 hit, 13 AS, 27 avo Javelin: 26 Atk, 85 hit, 15 AS, 39 avo Klr Lance: 30 Atk, 105 hit, 16 AS, 41 avo, 36 crt 20/13 Ward (A Lot, B Dieck) Killer Axe: 40.9 atk, 13.0 AS, 124.5 hit, 56.5 crit - - 68.5 avo, 58.1 hp, 17.0 def, 3.5 res, 29.5 critavo Steel Bow: 38.9 (56.9) atk, 13.0 AS, 124.5 hit, 26.5 crit 20/13 Barf (A Oujay)* Killer Lance: 37.0 atk, 12.6 AS, 120.5 hit, 43.6 crit - - 38.8 avo, 52.0 hp, 28.0 def, 5.5 res, 21.6 critavo Iron Axe: 35.0 atk, 12.6 AS, 110.5 hit, 13.6 crit Steel Axe: 38.0 atk, 12.6 AS, 95.5 hit, 13.6 crit * Sorry, I'm not tempted at all to field mono-sword Ashtol and keep him safe just so Barf can have a lame support bonus when I have Yodel and Roy to protect, when there's nothing worthy of stealing. Except Murdock's Knight Crest, but there's a Knight Crest in the village already if you need one for some reason, and funds is dead easy anyway. Offense: Killer Axe Ward does 25.9 damage in one hit, with 47.5% crt, and 99% real hit on the fastest wyvern. Steel Bow Ward does 40.9 damage in one hit, with 17.5% crt, and 99% real hit on the fastest wyvern. Killer Lance Barf does 21 damage in one hit, with 34.6% crt, and 91.39% real hit on the fastest wyvern. Iron Axe Barf does 19 damage in one hit, with 4.6% crt, and 91.39% real hit on the fastest wyvern. Steel Axe Barf does 22 damage in one hit, with 4.6% crt, and 74.44% real hit on the fastest wyvern. So Barf needs 3 hits to kill an unpromoted dude with whichever weapon, unless he gets a crit, but Ward's crit is higher, and he does a lot more without a crit too. Ward kills about half the things that attack him when using Killer Axe, Barth is lucky if he kills a third of them. Defense, assuming they're holding their Killer weapons for highest offense: Steel Lance dude has 0.91% real hit on Ward, does 12 damage, killing him in 5 hits. Javelin has the same hit, but only does 8 damage, killing him in 9 hits. Killer Lance has 14.31% real hit on Ward, does 12 damage, killing him in 5 hits. He has 7% crt on Ward, and does 36 damage to Ward if he crits. This has roughly 1% chance of happening. Steel Lance dude has 42.78% real on Barth, but only does 2 damage, so he probably doesn't care. Javelin tinks. Killer Lance has 77.22% real on Barth, does 2 damage, 6 with a crit which has a 14.4% chance of happening. I will admit that Barth doesn't give a damn about Wyvern Riders. However, you gotta admit that such a victory is rather worthless when Ward himself is pretty much invulnerable too. His chance of dying doesn't reach 1% unless you let 20 or so Steel Lance dudes attack him. Even if the Killer Lance one lands a crit, he lives. The only way he'd die is if two of them crit, but that has a 0.01% chance of happening, and there's only one Killer Lance Wyvern per group. Ward's offense lead, however, is huge on these things. He can knock off 40 damage in one clean shot, or have a rough 50/50 at headshotting one. Steel Bow also allows him to evade counterattacks. So let's take a look at those Silver Lance Wyvern Lords. 10 Wyvern Lord - 60/26/16/16/9/19/4 Silver Lance: 40 Atk, 100 Hit, 16 AS - - 41 avo, 60 HP, 19 Def, 9 CEV Luckily, his Spd, Luk and therefore Avo are the same, so less need to calculate. Offense: Killer Axe Ward does 22.9 damage in one hit, with 47.5% crt, and 99% real hit. 3HKO, OHKO with crit. Steel Bow Ward does 37.9 damage in one hit, with 17.5% crt, and 99% real hit. 2HKO, OHKO with crit. Killer Lance Barf does 18 damage in one hit, with 34.6% crt, and 91.39% real hit. 4HKO, 2HKO with crit. Iron Axe Barf does 16 damage in one hit, with 4.6% crt, and 91.39% real hit. 4HKO, 2HKO with crit. Steel Axe Barf does 19 damage in one hit, with 4.6% crt, and 74.44% real hit. 4HKO, 2HKO with crit. Ward's chance to OHKO Killer Axe: 47% Steel Bow: 17% Barf's chance to 2HKO Killer Lance: 31.6% Defense: Dude does 22 damage (3HKO) to Ward at ~20% real hit. Dude does 12 damage (5HKO) to Barf at ~70% real hit. So Ward has huge ass offense asskicking. For who is better off defensively, let's see. On average, Ward would die in 18 rounds, while Barth in 7 (assuming the 1 in 5 as well as 7 out of 10 ratios respectively). While it does not entirely work like that, I feel no need to dive into the calculations any deeper. Ward is winning durability if anything. What's more, he has a much higher chance of living through an encounter unscathed, whereas Barth needs all his wounds healed off. Next claim: They both get 1-2 rounded by sages, so they’ll be avoided at all costs. Now this is an interesting claim. Ward is actually quite well off against magic units, since nobody except Percival and your own magic dudes have Res to speak of, but he has huge HP and actually existent Avo. 13 Mage w/ Elfire - 21 Atk, 99 Hit, 11 AS 20/1 Barf dies in 3 hits when the Mage has 78.55% hit on him. 20/1 Ward dies in 3 hits when the Mage has 34.03% hit on him. Or I suppose you said Sages. 24 Sage w/ Aircalibur - 28 Atk, 117 Hit, 11 AS 20/1 Barf dies in 2 hits when the Sage has 95.65% hit on him. 20/1 Ward dies in 2 hits when the Sage has 66.79% hit on him. Not as lopsided as against the Mage...though it is notable that there are more Mages than Sages anyhow. It is clear that Ward wins against these things with ease. Ward has a niche in loldiers? Ellen can kill those failures. Ward’s problem is that he cannot kill much else. And even then, only one rounds those in his niche with less than four speed (or the javelin one) and at least half will have four speed. All the while taking lots of damage thanks to his low avoid and defense. This guy is young Bartre incarnate. Or rather, young Bartre is Ward incarnate, and Ward is Saji incarnate. Whatever the case, he’s the resident failure axeman with terrible starting stats.More about loldiers: They’ve got anywhere from 14-16 attack, so they’re doing anywhere from 11-13 damage to Ward, so he’s getting three shotted. Not to mention that they’ve got ~55% hit on him. Ward’s out of commission in his debut chapter fairly quickly as he waits for Ellen to heal him. Dieck and Lot will be the two studs killing things on the forts as the other half of your army comes to meet you. Ward can spend his time not hitting things with Lot’s hand axe in the mean time. When Ward is on that fort, he will obviously do much better against loldiers (to the point where they have like 19% real), and makes just as fine of a candidate of killing them as Lot. Also, Ward is forced on the field, so he is an extra helping hand even if he is merely throwing Hand Axes. You would have a point with all this if Barf was doing better, but Barf is running to a wall with a crack on it. Or maybe Barf is running into a wall because he is on crack. Ward has had to deal with Cavaliers that own him (Lot’s better with the halberd anyway) They both perform about the same with it, there's no real crucial difference...either Lot owns them, or Ward owns them, and one not doing it frees the other up to do it. He’s also had to contend with brigands, mages and wyverns who are all better than him. They are also "better than half the people you have atm". No one except Alan, Marcus, Dieck and Lance can take on multiple enemies at once, and they can have death chances even if they do that. Has Ward built up supports? With Lot, yes. With Dieck, it depends on whether you wish to deprive yourself of the Rutger/Clarine/Dieck triangle, but that will be explored in greater detail shortly. Good thing you mentioned this, even though I already did: Ward is helping other units out regardless of his own performance, Barth is not. This means that the team is better off in an undisputable way. while Barth has WTA against the mercenaries, who he will only fight if they happen to not have an armorslayer. Tell you something: the only ones who do not have an Armorslayer are from the reinforcements from the stairs way down south, which Barth can hardly get to due to his suck 4 mov and the area being too clogged. The reinforcements that come in from behind him do have Armorslayer, however. Hrhr. I will hand you that Barth is a better tank...for this one chapter. Though you convenietly forgot to factor in real hit. Those Armors, for example, have only ~25% chance to hit him. Well, Barth has fast supports with Oujay and Ashtol. They can very well be built by the time chapter 16 rolls around. Now, our friend Ashtol isn’t always going to be around, but unlike Barth the western Isles are a nice place for him, and he can get a few level ups along with Chad since you cannot really have too many sword users there anyway. The supports will exist, it’s just how often Ashtol will be around that is the concern. Ashtol can be there in Ch9, sure, maybe 10A if you have room since that's mostly axes too. 11A, there really is no need to risk the life of the thief when there is absolutely nothing to steal. 12 and 12x, he's off for chests. He gets raped in Ch13, which is 99% lance and bows. Ch14, Barth isn't getting fielded, or having 1 mov, while Ashtol would only be there for treasures. 14x, nothing to steal, no reason to Ashtol (not much of a reason for Barth either, since it's a lot of magic and axes packed together, and unit slots are limited). 15, nothing to steal. 16, treasure time. 16x, nothing to steal. Nothing to steal in all of Ilia except the chests in Ch20, and Ilia is ballista/peg/wyvern/cav dominated. 21 has been explained. 22 has chests. 23 has only a Guiding Ring to steal, which is useless for the same reason Murdock's Knight Crest is. So yeah, 2 chapters, and the time it takes Ashtol to get to chests (with his 6 mov vs Barth's 4-5, even that will not be in range often). As for the Juice, he is in play at least as often as Lot after the earlygame. Lot may very well be dropped for people with more useful combat utility (Gonzo, Echidna, maybe even Geese). And since you have a bajillion hero crest users already (Rutger, Dieck, Gonzo, maybe Geese, maybe Fir, and now that loser Ward) giving one to both Lot and Oujay is asking a bit much. I’ll say they have an equal chance to stay on your team since they’re both upper mid-ish units. It should also be noted that Ward’s need of a hero crest in light of all of this fighting for one is a point for Barth. Barth is most likely third in line for his promotion item since Noah and Treck are hardly likely in a ranked run, and our fellow knights simply aren’t getting fielded. After adding a third Hero Crester to your team, it no longer matters much. Everyone of them after it has to wait for 16. Yes, Lot may be dropped for people with more useful combat utility...but so will Oujay. Except Oujay comes underleveled before he grows out to be inferior (before that he's just superbad...1-range, 2-shotted by everything, low Mt). Knight Crests have a similar story. You only have one in a reasonable timeframe, a second one before Ch16, and the rest goes to the Secret Shop anyway. If both our units have to promote at the end of 16, what does it matter? However, Oujay brings very little to the team compared to Lot. Lot provides Dieck with a support he wants, from the Anima affinity. What's Oujay's affinity? LolWind. Who else does he support? Lol Ashtol? Lilina? Wendy? x_X I am willing to be generous to Ward with supports, but I’ll only go so far. Dieck B is never happening. Not any more than a Barth-Wendy-Bors triangle. Dieck has a much more profitable option in Rutger and Clarine. He becomes nearly invincible, and he makes Clarine and Rutger invincible. You simply cannot trump that. And with Lot being less than reliable, Dieck’s going to want more out of life than just a B Ward. Dieck stays at C, and that it. nononono. Let's interview Dieck and ask him to choose between his options. Int: Hey Dieck, glad you could come. Dieck: No problem, but make it short, because I need to go back to kick ass in a few minutes. Int: Alright, first question. You are of the Thunder affinity, right? Dieck: Hell yeah. Int: So that means you like getting Def, Avo, Crt and Crt Avo, since you like full bonuses? Dieck: Well, actually, I'd prefer Atk over Crt Avo, since I never get critted anyway (since I already get half bonuses), and extra firepower is welcome. Int: What support affinities do you have options with? Dieck: I got Anima from Lot, Fire from Ward, Dark from Rutger and Thunder from Clarine. Int: An interesting mix. All of those give you Avo, and all except Anima give you Crt. Fire is the only one who gives you Atk. Dieck: Yep. Int: Which would you prefer? Dieck: I dunno...I like all of them, but Fire is better than Dark obviously, and Anima is better than Dark too. Int: Hm. So what about support times? Dieck: Well, Lot and Ward join in Ch2 and stand right next to me, and Rutger and Clarine join in the last quarter of Ch4. Int: So Rutger and Clarine would have to be a lot faster to compensate for that, right? Dieck: Yeah. Now, I don't know the exact rates off the top of my head, but I'm sure you did your homework... Int: Yeah. Ward and Lot start at 10 and give you +2 per turn, so it takes 25 turns for a C with them. Rutger starts at 10 too, but it grows twice as slowly...40 turns for a C. Clarine is the slowest possible support in FE, with 1 base and 1 growth, taking 60 turns for a C alone. Dieck: Hm...I'm not sure. Do I want the supporters that give me equal or better bonuses that start building at Ch2 and are a lot faster, or do I want supporters that start building at Ch4 with equal or worse bonuses that are a lot slower? Int: Dunno man. Whatever you do, don't worry about Clarine. She doesn't see combat before promotion anyways, and you can still give her a C support, while she gets an A with Rutger. Dieck: Yeah, and Rutger also has a slow-but-okay support with Fir if he wants a C badly (not that he needs supports to crit the shit out of enemies). Int: Alright, thanks for the interview. Dieck: No problem. Time to kick some ass with my _good_ support partners! So yeah, screw your comparisons. My first post stands for like 100%. Ward > Barth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duff Ostrich Posted November 19, 2008 Share Posted November 19, 2008 I will start with a sentence you put somewhere in the middle. You say a lot of stuff in your post, but hardly anything responds to things I said. So I'll have to assume that whatever wasn't addressed is conceded. I will now go through your post to see what was addressed Not a chance. I avoided quote tags where I could (something this next post is too large for me to do) but I answered nearly everything. As a quick list of the points you made that I answered: -You noted that Ward has quick supports with Dieck and Lot. My post addressed this. -You noted that Ward could use the Halberd. My post addressed this. -You note Ward's statistical advantages over Barth in chapter 8 and bash his supports. I addressed this. -You noted that Ward has one more move than Barth. I left this alone because there was nothing to argue. -You noted the Western Isles. I acknowledged this. -You noted Barth's and Ward's stats at 20/1. I addressed this with a stat sheet of my own with a different support spread. -You noted how poorly Barth does at 20/1. I show how much better he does at 20/1 with a more ideal stat setup. -You noted that Barth is bad against magic and cannot use steels effectively. I addressed this by showing that Ward is also terrible against magic and I gave accurate killers to Barth instead. Ward needs them too anyway. -You noted the unlikelyhood of Oujay past chapter 8. I noted the unlikelyhood of Lot past chapter 8. I must say, if I have ignored most of your points than truly there are far more points to your post than I had initially witnessed. It seems you refer to Barth's strong point (Def), and conveniently forget Ward's strong point (HP). Since in your next paragraph you refer to my 20/1 comparison, I can just drag this back into the fray... Ward looks better there when he has the Dieck B and Barth is without his Ashtol B. With the Ashtol B, the chance to hit Barth is like, just 48% real. That, and the Ashtol support gives him yet another point in Def at B. They're still dying in the same number of hits, but Barth's not getting hit as often as your numbers imply. I'm surprised you even have the guts to bring up Wyverns against Ward, whose class seems to be completely shaped to rape those things. *looong numberspewing* Axes and bows indeed. But the best class to kill anything means little when the meatbag representing it fails so hard. But your numbers aren't going to fly on this one. Ashtol is coming to Chapter 21. You're able to bring eighteen people or something like that. After your main squad, and then filler helpful people like Niime and Igrene, you will still have spaces open. Ashtol has enough reason to come if he has a person to support. Oh, and he pays for his stay with a 10000g knight crest. It affords you that much more in killer weapons that you may not have bought for the sake of funds. Funds may be easy with the Silver Card, but being afforded more weapons is a worthwhile venture. Ashtol can stay 2-3 squares back and give Barth better offense/defense. So what if he’s knocking some mid tier filler garbage out of their spot for that chapter? They will not be missed much. About the wyverns themselves: We agree that the riders do not mean much. But I'm gonna look at the lords when Ashtol is coming, since Barth will have 48.2 avoid by then, as well as another def and more hit/crit. And since I already discussed the logic behind it, Ashtol has no reason not to come: Barth's taking 11 damage with 54 real hit. It's taking Barth around 9-10 rounds to die here. If Ward's only at C Dieck, he's taking 24 damage with 28 real hit. I'm no mathemetician, but that looks closer to 12 rounds (three hits to die, roughly one hit every four attacks). What this essentially means is that neither of them are dying to Wyvern Lords. And that’s great. They need crits to one round any of the Wyverns, but they aren’t likely to die. Barth can swallow those silver lance hits a lot easier than Ward, and he’ll be more likely to get targeted on the enemy phase due to the Wyverns knowing that they can do more damage to him, and I’m not sure that you want Ward or Barth attracting Wyverns on the enemy phase since there are people a lot more qualified than either of them to deal with them. If you’re attracting unpromoted Wyverns and not killing them, you’re hurting tactics and combat for obvious reasons. You may as well have Clarine get swarmed by them and do nothing for 1000 turns as she slowly makes her way through them. You can allow Ward to use bows to -still- not one round the wyverns, but he’ll be a real magnet on the enemy phase that way. But hey, how long can we talk about one enemy type anyway? Not as lopsided as against the Mage...though it is notable that there are more Mages than Sages anyhow. It is clear that Ward wins against these things with ease. There aren’t many mages either, and chances are that the few you fight will not be fought by Ward or Barth. Don’t forget that Ward’s avoid isn’t great. Without his supporters near him (for the +25 avoid), Ward’s going to get hit a lot. Generally you assume that people are by their supporters, but that’s only if there supporters actually exist in the chapter. We’ve already agreed that Lot’s and Oujay’s existence after the earlygame is a tenuous deal at best. When Ward is on that fort, he will obviously do much better against loldiers (to the point where they have like 19% real), and makes just as fine of a candidate of killing them as Lot.Also, Ward is forced on the field, so he is an extra helping hand even if he is merely throwing Hand Axes. You would have a point with all this if Barf was doing better, but Barf is running to a wall with a crack on it. Or maybe Barf is running into a wall because he is on crack. Lot’s still better at it, and there are also fighters and archers to fight, and since they actually have stats, Ward sucks against them. Oh yeah, Barth not being around hardly matters. It makes more sense this way: Barth’s not being around would matter if Ward wasn’t spending his time hurting the team. He is actively hurting your ranks a full seven chapters before Barth even joins. For this reason, Ward is doing more for your team when he isn’t being used than when he is being used. This is why his performance from chapters 2-7 matter very much, even if we’d like to forget it. They both perform about the same with it, there's no real crucial difference...either Lot owns them, or Ward owns them, and one not doing it frees the other up to do it. Either Lot might own them because he has six skill and has a lame chance to hit, or Ward probably will not hit because he has three skill. Oh, and he’s slower so the AS loss he has with it hurts him more. Nothing like having 3 AS when fighting the cavs, amirite? Ward using the Halberd is a bad idea. Good thing you mentioned this, even though I already did: Ward is helping other units out regardless of his own performance, Barth is not. This means that the team is better off in an undisputable way. I never claimed otherwise. However, multiple people want Dieck as a support partner. Who does Dieck want more, get involved in a support chain that might not exist after the earlygame, or a support chain with two guaranteed units. Supports are investments. You do not knowingly make an investment that has a good chance of not turning out a profit. Barth, on the other hand, can take Asthol and the Juice because they have absolutely no better investments to make. In fact, one of the main reasons Oujay isn’t used is because of his lame support options. Since Barth’s being used, that problem is fixed. Ashtol can be there in Ch9, sure, maybe 10A if you have room since that's mostly axes too. 11A, there really is no need to risk the life of the thief when there is absolutely nothing to steal. 12 and 12x, he's off for chests. He gets raped in Ch13, which is 99% lance and bows. Ch14, Barth isn't getting fielded, or having 1 mov, while Ashtol would only be there for treasures. 14x, nothing to steal, no reason to Ashtol (not much of a reason for Barth either, since it's a lot of magic and axes packed together, and unit slots are limited). 15, nothing to steal. 16, treasure time. 16x, nothing to steal. Nothing to steal in all of Ilia except the chests in Ch20, and Ilia is ballista/peg/wyvern/cav dominated. 21 has been explained. 22 has chests. 23 has only a Guiding Ring to steal, which is useless for the same reason Murdock's Knight Crest is.So yeah, 2 chapters, and the time it takes Ashtol to get to chests (with his 6 mov vs Barth's 4-5, even that will not be in range often). Nice try, but I’m not buying this one. Ashtol has decent bases and good growths. He becomes fairly decent at combat with all but guaranteed doubling of almost every enemy and decent enough str to make those hits count. Oh, and now he has supports to help his performance out. The only chapters he’s not coming in are possibly the Gaiden chapters where the unit count is kept low. He’ll only leave Barth’s side when he has some chests to go to. There may also be a few endgame chapters he’ll miss, but as I explained earlier, he’ll be in 21, and for similar reasons he’ll be in 22 and 23. But hey, he probably will not see Idoun. Neither will Barth or Ward (or Lot, or Oujay) in all likelihood. After adding a third Hero Crester to your team, it no longer matters much. Everyone of them after it has to wait for 16. Yes, Lot may be dropped for people with more useful combat utility...but so will Oujay. Except Oujay comes underleveled before he grows out to be inferior (before that he's just superbad...1-range, 2-shotted by everything, low Mt).Knight Crests have a similar story. You only have one in a reasonable timeframe, a second one before Ch16, and the rest goes to the Secret Shop anyway. If both our units have to promote at the end of 16, what does it matter? However, Oujay brings very little to the team compared to Lot. Lot provides Dieck with a support he wants, from the Anima affinity. What's Oujay's affinity? LolWind. Who else does he support? Lol Ashtol? Lilina? Wendy? x_X Ah, I guess it doesn’t. My mistake. But Oujay’s support options do not matter, because in this debate he has Ashtol and Barth, who have nothing better to do, and his Wind affinity actually helps Barth a lot. Hit and crit avoid is something Barth needs. nononono. Let's interview Dieck and ask him to choose between his options. Again, it’s a nice try, but it’s still not working. It’s not about what Dieck necessarily wants, but even if it was, what would it be? Dieck-Rutger-Clarine gives great bonuses to all concerned and everyone in the chain is all but guaranteed to be in play. Lot very likely will not be in play after the earlygame and Dieck hardly wants to be saddled with an A support with someone like that. And then what? Lot’s gone and Dieck has a B Ward? That’s somehow better for Dieck? No, Dieck wants to fill out the Clarine-Rutger triangle so that they all have full supports, instead of screwing around with Ward just so he can have some of that avoid he so desperately needs. Barth’s supporters on the other hand have nothing better to do. They’ll take him because he’s all they have. Barth is never doing quite so terrible as Ward in the early chapters and he digs himself a whole that he can never dig himself out of, whether or not Dieck and Ward are there to give him his precious 20-25 avoid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekkah Posted November 19, 2008 Author Share Posted November 19, 2008 closer zomg Not a chance. I avoided quote tags where I could (something this next post is too large for me to do) but I answered nearly everything. As a quick list of the points you made that I answered:(...) I must say, if I have ignored most of your points than truly there are far more points to your post than I had initially witnessed. Since these points actually have back-and-forth paragraphs dedicated to them, I won't address them now. I will, however note that, since you decided to make your own comparisons, I'll assume you concede that Ward is better in the ones I made. Now, most of this debate seems to hinge on who gets full supports and why, so I'll get to that first, then cut back to the comparisons. I never claimed otherwise. However, multiple people want Dieck as a support partner. Who does Dieck want more, get involved in a support chain that might not exist after the earlygame, or a support chain with two guaranteed units. Supports are investments. You do not knowingly make an investment that has a good chance of not turning out a profit.Barth, on the other hand, can take Asthol and the Juice because they have absolutely no better investments to make. In fact, one of the main reasons Oujay isn’t used is because of his lame support options. Since Barth’s being used, that problem is fixed. Well, Ward is in this debate, so he will indeed exist until lategame. You've given no real reasons why Lot would be dumped, besides "other units you could give a Hero Crest to". First, suffice it to say that if Lot is not going to be there long term, Dieck will take an A with Ward, and a B with whichever Clarine/Rutger wants/needs another support the most. Dieck doesn't care how much better these other two units are - if Ward gives him better bonuses in a quicker time (and he does), then he will take those. Now, for Lot. What's wrong with Lot? Moreover, why would he be out of the question, while Oujay is not? Or even Asthol, since your post hypes his combat pretty often. The only way we can prove using Lot on long term is to simulate doing so, so he is getting Ward and Diekc supports. When Ougay and Ashtray join, Lot is like 10/0. 10/0 Lot - C Dieck, C Lot Iron Axe: 18.1 atk, 9.5 AS, 85.0 hit, 8.8 crit - - 33.1 avo, 34.6 hp, 7.8 def, 3.0 res 3/0 Oujay Iron Sword: 12.0 atk, 9.0 AS, 107.8 hit, 4.8 crit - - 24.0 avo, 24.0 hp, 4.0 def, 0.0 res Steel Swrd: 15.0 atk, 7.0 AS, 92.8 hit, 4.8 crit - - 20.0 avo 10/0 Ashtol Iron Sword: 12.0 atk, 15.0 AS, 106.3 hit, 3.8 crit - - 41.0 avo, 25.0 hp, 7.0 def, 3.0 res Steel Swrd: 15.0 atk, 13.0 AS, 91.3 hit, 3.8 crit - - 37.0 avo As you can see, the only winning Oujay does is located in the Hit area, and Ashtol has some Avo. I can safely say that Lot's Atk and HP leads easily make up for it, not to mention benefitting support partners atm, and on Oujay he has several other leads (he wins Avo, and also has a couple of points in Def, even wins AS by half a point). But things get better from here, right? For Oujay, maybe, but Ashtol and Oujay don't support each other, and Ashtol's other options all suck, so that isn't getting us anywhere. Oujay cannot find a second support partner either. Cutting to somewhere before promotion, generously allowing Oujay to catch up in level... 18/0 Lot - A Ward, B Dieck Iron Axe: 23.5 atk, 12.2 AS, 96.0 hit, 17.0 crit - - 55.9 avo, 41.0 hp, 13.0 def, 6.2 res 18/0 Oujay - A Barth Iron Sword: 19.0 atk, 15.7 AS, 135.9 hit, 14.0 crit - - 52.7 avo, 36.7 hp, 8.0 def, 3.2 res Steel Swrd: 22.0 atk, 13.7 AS, 120.9 hit, 14.0 crit - - 48.7 avo 20/0 Ashtol - B Barth Iron Sword: 15.5 atk, 19.4 AS, 125.0 hit, 10.8 crit - - 61.3 avo, 34.0 hp, 10.0 def, 6.0 res Steel Swrd: 18.5 atk, 17.4 AS, 110.0 hit, 10.8 crit - - 57.3 avo Oujay developed some kind of AS lead. So he may kind of win offense if he doubles while Lot does not, but Lot wins in all other cases (both or neither double). And Lot runs him over on defense, winning every single parameter. And this is the same Oujay that was 7 levels behind on Lot's schedule (maybe more, I was being nice), so 15/0 is prolly more realistic. Ashtol's AS lead is more intriguing, but he is also getting beaten in Atk that much more badly. He's got an Avo lead though, so that's nice. But he's also raping the EXP rank by being 20/0. Then, promoboom time. Except for Ashtol, since FE6 makers decided he should be screwed over. I won't compare him to Lot anymore - he shouldn't be fighting due to EXP rank, he's only getting fielded for thievery, and he's gonna lose so badly. 20/1 Lot - A Ward, B Dieck Iron Axe: 27.1 atk, 14.9 AS, 103.5 hit, 18.8 crit - - 61.9 avo, 50.6 hp, 16.8 def, 6.5 res Killer Axe: 30.1 atk, 14.9 AS, 103.5 hit, 48.8 crit - - 61.9 avo, 50.6 hp, 16.8 def, 6.5 res Iron Bow: 25.1 atk, 14.9 AS, 118.5 hit, 18.8 crit - - 61.9 avo Iron Bow (fly): 37.1 atk 20/1 Oujay - A Barth Iron Sword: 21.8 atk, 18.6 AS, 139.7 hit, 14.8 crit - - 59.6 avo, 42.4 hp, 12.4 def, 5.5 res Iron Axe: 24.8 atk, 17.6 AS, 124.7 hit, 14.8 crit - - 57.6 avo Killing Edge: 25.8 atk, 18.6 AS, 134.7 hit, 44.8 crit - - 59.6 avo, 42.4 hp, 12.4 def, 5.5 res On offense, it remains Atk vs AS, and on defense, Lot still wins everything. And if they face fliers, Lot goes Iron Bow. Well, we know how that is with Ward. And instead of Hand Axe vs nothing, it is now Iron BOw + Hand Axe vs Hand Axe for ranged. So, you may be able to hype AS so much that you can "prove" Oujay wins offense. But he cannot win defense, ever, and he definitely does not win overall. So as it is now, if Barth is getting an Oujay support, then Ward is getting a Lot support. Nice try, but I’m not buying this one. Ashtol has decent bases and good growths. He becomes fairly decent at combat with all but guaranteed doubling of almost every enemy and decent enough str to make those hits count. Oh, and now he has supports to help his performance out. The only chapters he’s not coming in are possibly the Gaiden chapters where the unit count is kept low. He’ll only leave Barth’s side when he has some chests to go to. There may also be a few endgame chapters he’ll miss, but as I explained earlier, he’ll be in 21, and for similar reasons he’ll be in 22 and 23.But hey, he probably will not see Idoun. Neither will Barth or Ward (or Lot, or Oujay) in all likelihood. "decent this and that" is, as you said it, worthless without numerical values. Those numbers are above: he is okayish when he joins (on par with Oujay and Lot, generally considered Mid tier), and then gets crushed by everyone when they promote. He has supports to help himself out? He has a B with Barf. And he doesn't benefit from the support at all when he is doing what he does best: thievery. If you field him only to support Barth, he gets _nothing_ out of it. But Oujay’s support options do not matter, because in this debate he has Ashtol and Barth, who have nothing better to do, and his Wind affinity actually helps Barth a lot. Hit and crit avoid is something Barth needs. http://www.serenesforest.net/fe6/support.html Supports that are not programmed in the game do not count. If they did, Ward supporting Miledy ftw. So, all that's left for the support section is Ashtol being fielded. Now, for most maps, we already have Chad, so he's only going to be there if we need two thieves for some reason. And if that's the case, he and Barth will obviously be seperated, since chest rooms generally aren't chock full of enemies. You only really countered a few lategame chapters from this paragraph, but refused to address the others... 11A, there really is no need to risk the life of the thief when there is absolutely nothing to steal. 12 and 12x, he's off for chests. He gets raped in Ch13, which is 99% lance and bows. Ch14, Barth isn't getting fielded, or having 1 mov, while Ashtol would only be there for treasures. 14x, nothing to steal, no reason to Ashtol (not much of a reason for Barth either, since it's a lot of magic and axes packed together, and unit slots are limited). 15, nothing to steal. 16, treasure time. 16x, nothing to steal. Nothing to steal in all of Ilia except the chests in Ch20, and Ilia is ballista/peg/wyvern/cav dominated. But your numbers aren't going to fly on this one. Ashtol is coming to Chapter 21. You're able to bring eighteen people or something like that. After your main squad, and then filler helpful people like Niime and Igrene, you will still have spaces open. Ashtol has enough reason to come if he has a person to support. Oh, and he pays for his stay with a 10000g knight crest. It affords you that much more in killer weapons that you may not have bought for the sake of funds. Funds may be easy with the Silver Card, but being afforded more weapons is a worthwhile venture. Ashtol can stay 2-3 squares back and give Barth better offense/defense. So what if he’s knocking some mid tier filler garbage out of their spot for that chapter? They will not be missed much. I'd rather not bring Ashtol and use 17 units than bring him just to use full units. You've got Yodel and Roy to keep from being attacked, and then there's some people who you'd rather not have exposed to entire packs. Lugh, for example, dies in 2 hits, and unlike Clarine, isn't forcing ignorable hit rates (WLs have like 35% real on him iirc). Ellen/Saul/Ray, same story. Rutger has WTD 24/7, so he's not his usual invincible self either. And Wyverns have 7-8 mov, some have 1-2 range, and they ignore terrain, unlike most of your units (and unlike all of your frail units). Surrounding all of these with tanks is enough of a burden, I'd rather not pile that up with Ashtol. Everyone can use killers and whatever they want fine as it is. Because yes, Ashtol is a burden. Taking his 20/0 stats again: 20/0 Ashtol - B Barth Iron Sword: 15.5 atk, 19.4 AS, 125.0 hit, 10.8 crit - - 61.3 avo, 34.0 hp, 10.0 def, 6.0 res Grabbing the unpromoted one again, for example: 20 Wyvern Rider - 47/20/13/16/9/16/3 (10 con) Steel Lance: 30 Atk, 85 hit, 13 AS, 27 avo Javelin: 26 Atk, 85 hit, 15 AS, 39 avo Klr Lance: 30 Atk, 105 hit, 16 AS, 41 avo, 36 crt The inaccurate ones have 22.11% real on him, and obviously 2HKO. His death chance already reaches 4% after being attacked twice, and it stacks up quickly. Killer Lance ones actually have 53% real on him, which is much much worse. For the Lords: 10 Wyvern Lord - 60/26/16/16/9/19/4 Silver Lance: 40 Atk, 100 Hit, 16 AS - - 41 avo, 60 HP, 19 Def, 9 CEV They leave him with 3 HP after one hit, and they have 48% real. If a Lord attacks him, then someone with Steel/Javelin follows up, Ashtol has a 10% of biting the dust. And the credit for the Knight Crest isn't fully his. If I'm going to field a thief here, it'll be Chad, at least he helps Lugh survive, and he actually has full Avo support. Finaling out, Ward happens to have back-up support partner, Echidna, and gives her the best affinity she can pick from (Fiar is good for someone who likes to stack on Avo but needs some more oomph). Barth has no backup at all. So Ward has two good supports, and another one at least as good as Oujay. He benefits other units that fight, while Barth "benefits" someone who spends most of his time in treasure rooms, or being there just to give Barth support bonuses. And then mediocre Oujay. Now that supports are extensively ironed out, I will just point to the comparisons I made again, which has Ward winning. So the only thing left is...nitpicking. There aren’t many mages either, and chances are that the few you fight will not be fought by Ward or Barth. Don’t forget that Ward’s avoid isn’t great. Without his supporters near him (for the +25 avoid), Ward’s going to get hit a lot. Generally you assume that people are by their supporters, but that’s only if there supporters actually exist in the chapter. We’ve already agreed that Lot’s and Oujay’s existence after the earlygame is a tenuous deal at best. As long as you don't go against the statement "Ward is doing better than Barf", I don't care how much you belittle the win. What's also interesting is that Barth only loses by so little after promoting, but Mages are there before that. Take Ch16's L16-17 Mages with 12-13 AS. 20/0 Barth averages 7.2 Spd, 20/0 Ward averages 8.6. There's a great chance Barth is going to get doubled (and one-rounded), whereas Ward won't be (usually won't be doubled, and has enough HP to take 2 hits). Lot’s still better at it, and there are also fighters and archers to fight, and since they actually have stats, Ward sucks against them. Lot is better at it, but only slightly, and Barth isn't. Yes, "they have stats", but they have those against everyone else as well. Does that mean everyone else fails against them as well? I'm having trouble seeing your point. Oh yeah, Barth not being around hardly matters. It makes more sense this way: Barth’s not being around would matter if Ward wasn’t spending his time hurting the team. He is actively hurting your ranks a full seven chapters before Barth even joins. For this reason, Ward is doing more for your team when he isn’t being used than when he is being used.This is why his performance from chapters 2-7 matter very much, even if we’d like to forget it. He'd only be hurting something if there was someone else who could be used in his stead, but that is not the case until Ch6, and in Ch6 he's doing alright (lots of Loldiers and Knights). And in Ch7, you want all the manly muscle power you can get to rescue everyone. And his Ch8 performance is decent due to all the Loldiers and Knights again, and it Barth joins up there, sucking more than Ward. The only units who do significantly better than Ward early on are your God tiers, and Lot by a tiny bit. He's not losing to scum like Wolt and Bors. Either Lot might own them because he has six skill and has a lame chance to hit, or Ward probably will not hit because he has three skill. Oh, and he’s slower so the AS loss he has with it hurts him more.Nothing like having 3 AS when fighting the cavs, amirite? Both are getting doubled if they use Halberd. They will both have shaky hit (6% more hit is nothing to brag about). Fairly speaking, 50% of the time, Lot is owning stuff with Halberd, and the other 50% of the time, Ward is owning stuff with Halberd. What this essentially means is that neither of them are dying to Wyvern Lords. And that’s great. Correction: Neither is dying, but Barth needs to be healed much more often than Ward, because his way of surviving is HP/Def, whereas Ward will usually dodge. and I’m not sure that you want Ward or Barth attracting Wyverns on the enemy phase since there are people a lot more qualified than either of them to deal with them. If you’re attracting unpromoted Wyverns and not killing them, you’re hurting tactics and combat for obvious reasons. You may as well have Clarine get swarmed by them and do nothing for 1000 turns as she slowly makes her way through them.You can allow Ward to use bows to -still- not one round the wyverns, but he’ll be a real magnet on the enemy phase that way. You have 2480280923 people on the field, obviously one of them can trade away Ward's Steel Bow for the Killer Axe if needbe. Also, if you don't want them to get attacked, you're obviously looking for more flexibility. That would be the one with more mov and less terrain penalties, right? But you often don't have much of a choice - you have dudes to protect, and some people either shouldn't be attacked too often (Lugh) or will be surrounded on all sides due to not one-rounding (like your Paladins and Dieck, who need to crit with Killer Axe to one-round, or Clarine). So they will get attacked plenty of times, and when they do, Ward is surviving better, and hitting harder. SO my conclusion: - In my first post, you sees Ward crushing Barf in several battle comparisons. - In my last post, you see a general theme around justifying the support levels given to each. It is also explained that Ward benefits his support partners more than Barth does to his. - Then there's the misc stuff like Ward's XL offense lead against Waiverns and other fliers, the fact that Ward has a back-up support partner in Echidna, has significantly more ranged accuracy after promotion, etc. What can I say? gg, but there's only one winner, and it's not Barf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duff Ostrich Posted December 2, 2008 Share Posted December 2, 2008 Sorry Mekkah, I really do owe you more timely replies than this. Let’s finish this: Since these points actually have back-and-forth paragraphs dedicated to them, I won't address them now. I will, however note that, since you decided to make your own comparisons, I'll assume you concede that Ward is better in the ones I made.Now, most of this debate seems to hinge on who gets full supports and why, so I'll get to that first, then cut back to the comparisons. Indeed. Let’s get on with it. Well, Ward is in this debate, so he will indeed exist until lategame. You've given no real reasons why Lot would be dumped, besides "other units you could give a Hero Crest to". First, suffice it to say that if Lot is not going to be there long term, Dieck will take an A with Ward, and a B with whichever Clarine/Rutger wants/needs another support the most. Dieck doesn't care how much better these other two units are - if Ward gives him better bonuses in a quicker time (and he does), then he will take those.Now, for Lot. What's wrong with Lot? Moreover, why would he be out of the question, while Oujay is not? Or even Asthol, since your post hypes his combat pretty often. The only way we can prove using Lot on long term is to simulate doing so, so he is getting Ward and Diekc supports. Of course Ward is being used. And of course, Lot’s chances of being used are hardly worse than Oujay’s. I was not really trying to imply anything different. I was simply stating a fact that we both basically agreed with: Oujay and Lot do not have a great chance at being used. Because of this, Dieck does not want to waste his time with Ward and Lot if Lot isn’t coming. You seem to be doing your best to dodge the point, but Dieck simply does not want Ward if Lot isn’t coming too. And as previously stated, Lot has a high chance of not coming. What about Oujay? If he doesn’t come he doesn’t come. The only consequence of Oujay not being there is Barth losing his support. He can still keep Ashtol because he has no better support setup to sacrifice. About the stat comparisons: Yes Lot wins for a long time. And yes, Lot (and Oujay) will end up crushing Ashtol since he never promotes. If Lot AND Ward are being used, then you can finally justify the Dieck support. Still, Oujay really does win offense, and while Lot initially has a huge level lead, that’s all gone by chapter 16, where Oujay’s crazy AS lead is crushing. Oujay also has a higher str growth, and he can eventually use killer axes as well since he can handle the AS loss. Lot’s str lead is made small by endgame, though it does lead until then. Still, we’re not taking for granted that Lot and Ward are being used. We’re taking for granted that Lot is being used. Being better than Oujay does not increase his odds of being used. Simply being better would increase his odds of being used, but Lot just isn’t that great. Neither is Oujay? So what? It still proves my point that Dieck is not taking Lot and Ward. "decent this and that" is, as you said it, worthless without numerical values. Those numbers are above: he is okayish when he joins (on par with Oujay and Lot, generally considered Mid tier), and then gets crushed by everyone when they promote. He has supports to help himself out? He has a B with Barf. And he doesn't benefit from the support at all when he is doing what he does best: thievery. If you field him only to support Barth, he gets _nothing_ out of it. On par with Lot and Oujay? Not really. Next to Lot specifically, his AS and hit leads are crushing. He’ll actually routinely double attack things, and that makes his offense quite a bit better than Lot’s for a long time. Ashtol will not be fielded just to support Barth. In the beginning he’ll show up for thieving and stealing. Even in chapters that he can do both Barth will be with him some of that chapter. In Ch. 16, for example. Ashtol doesn’t just magically appear on chests half the map away from Barth. He will start next to Barth, and then the two will split ways after about half the chapter has been done so that Asthol can get the chests. This applies to every chapter with chests. Once Asthol hits level 20, it’s just his combat that stops. He can still steal, still loot chests, and still support Barth. Funds is not magically won when you’re eating up killers and hero crests left and right. You need funds, and Ashtol is worth a lot of money because of what he can do. Supports that are not programmed in the game do not count. If they did, Ward supporting Miledy ftw.So, all that's left for the support section is Ashtol being fielded. Now, for most maps, we already have Chad, so he's only going to be there if we need two thieves for some reason. And if that's the case, he and Barth will obviously be seperated, since chest rooms generally aren't chock full of enemies. You only really countered a few lategame chapters from this paragraph, but refused to address the others... 11A, there really is no need to risk the life of the thief when there is absolutely nothing to steal. 12 and 12x, he's off for chests. He gets raped in Ch13, which is 99% lance and bows. Ch14, Barth isn't getting fielded, or having 1 mov, while Ashtol would only be there for treasures. 14x, nothing to steal, no reason to Ashtol (not much of a reason for Barth either, since it's a lot of magic and axes packed together, and unit slots are limited). 15, nothing to steal. 16, treasure time. 16x, nothing to steal. Nothing to steal in all of Ilia except the chests in Ch20, and Ilia is ballista/peg/wyvern/cav dominated. Aha, call that wishful thinking. Still, it proves that Oujay really has no one else better to support. He’ll take Barth because he has the space, and he’ll use the Nightmare FE6 editor to give himself supports with Ashtol, Narshen and Erik of Laus, JUST BECAUSE HE CAN. I already mentioned the chest chapters. Ashtol may very well not show up in the Gaidens (as well as Ward, since space is very limited and you’ll be picking people who are good from your main team) Barth may not show up to Ch. 14, but Ward will hardly see any action either with his two move. Two move > one move, but not by much. In chapter 15 he may show up for supports. All of Ilia he will come if there is room because of supports. Chapter 21-23 has thieving he can do. Ashtol will be there more than he’ll be benched if he is being used. Yeah, he’s not doing great in Ilia, but he is no longer participating in combat anymore anyway. I'd rather not bring Ashtol and use 17 units than bring him just to use full units. You've got Yodel and Roy to keep from being attacked, and then there's some people who you'd rather not have exposed to entire packs. Lugh, for example, dies in 2 hits, and unlike Clarine, isn't forcing ignorable hit rates (WLs have like 35% real on him iirc). Ellen/Saul/Ray, same story. Rutger has WTD 24/7, so he's not his usual invincible self either. And Wyverns have 7-8 mov, some have 1-2 range, and they ignore terrain, unlike most of your units (and unlike all of your frail units). Surrounding all of these with tanks is enough of a burden, I'd rather not pile that up with Ashtol. Everyone can use killers and whatever they want fine as it is.Because yes, Ashtol is a burden. Taking his 20/0 stats again: 20/0 Ashtol - B Barth Iron Sword: 15.5 atk, 19.4 AS, 125.0 hit, 10.8 crit - - 61.3 avo, 34.0 hp, 10.0 def, 6.0 res Grabbing the unpromoted one again, for example: 20 Wyvern Rider - 47/20/13/16/9/16/3 (10 con) Steel Lance: 30 Atk, 85 hit, 13 AS, 27 avo Javelin: 26 Atk, 85 hit, 15 AS, 39 avo Klr Lance: 30 Atk, 105 hit, 16 AS, 41 avo, 36 crt The inaccurate ones have 22.11% real on him, and obviously 2HKO. His death chance already reaches 4% after being attacked twice, and it stacks up quickly. Killer Lance ones actually have 53% real on him, which is much much worse. For the Lords: 10 Wyvern Lord - 60/26/16/16/9/19/4 Silver Lance: 40 Atk, 100 Hit, 16 AS - - 41 avo, 60 HP, 19 Def, 9 CEV They leave him with 3 HP after one hit, and they have 48% real. If a Lord attacks him, then someone with Steel/Javelin follows up, Ashtol has a 10% of biting the dust. And the credit for the Knight Crest isn't fully his. If I'm going to field a thief here, it'll be Chad, at least he helps Lugh survive, and he actually has full Avo support. Finaling out, Ward happens to have back-up support partner, Echidna, and gives her the best affinity she can pick from (Fiar is good for someone who likes to stack on Avo but needs some more oomph). Barth has no backup at all. So Ward has two good supports, and another one at least as good as Oujay. He benefits other units that fight, while Barth "benefits" someone who spends most of his time in treasure rooms, or being there just to give Barth support bonuses. And then mediocre Oujay. Now that supports are extensively ironed out, I will just point to the comparisons I made again, which has Ward winning. So the only thing left is...nitpicking. Oh, stop trivializing the funds rank. Funds is not a guaranteed S. I’m not sure if it’s documented just how much money you need for S rank, but spamming killers all of the time (or silvers, but killer weapons are really better anyway) plus all of that expensive magic and staves you’re using take a toll on funds. Stealing crests from the enemy bosses in lategame affords a whole lot of killer weapons to use. If funds were really so guaranteed, Hugh wouldn’t be low tier. Oh, about Chad: Chad might be worth more than Asthol due to the early chests he can raid, but Chad starts off with horrible offense and defense. Getting one shotted by soldiers in your starting chapter is no good. Chad may thieve early on, but if he’s not getting levels then he is being replaced by Ashtol, who starts out with a far superior combat ability without the pain of babying. Babying in HM = bad. Does Echidna want Ward? She’s in the same position as Dieck honestly, She’ll take Ward if Lot comes too, but otherwise there isn’t a chance of it. Ward can take Echidna and Dieck, but then you have an unbalanced two sided triangle since Echidna and Dieck cannot support each other. This doesn’t bother Oujay or Ashtol as much because they have no one else, but Dieck and Echidna want to be full, and they just so happen to support people who make them full. Without Lot, Ward’s supports are completely sunk. Without Oujay Barth still has Ashtol. And since I’ve proven how great Asthol is, there’s no reason for him not to come. As long as you don't go against the statement "Ward is doing better than Barf", I don't care how much you belittle the win.What's also interesting is that Barth only loses by so little after promoting, but Mages are there before that. Take Ch16's L16-17 Mages with 12-13 AS. 20/0 Barth averages 7.2 Spd, 20/0 Ward averages 8.6. There's a great chance Barth is going to get doubled (and one-rounded), whereas Ward won't be (usually won't be doubled, and has enough HP to take 2 hits). I’m not belittling it at all. It’s a statement of fact: there are not very many mages in this game. There’s also a Valkyrie in chapter 15 that’s eats half of your team alive, but nobody cares because it’s about the only one you ever face. Mages are more numerous than her, but they’re also less dangerous. Also, 8.6 =/= 9. If Ward has eight speed, he gets doubled by all of the mages. If he has nine speed, he gets doubled by half of the mages. Let’s face it, Ward is not who you will have facing the mages. His win is effectively worthless. Lot is better at it, but only slightly, and Barth isn't. Yes, "they have stats", but they have those against everyone else as well. Does that mean everyone else fails against them as well? I'm having trouble seeing your point. My point is that Ward fails quite a bit more than just about everyone else. Also, as mediocre as Lot’s start is, he still has 3 skill, 2 speed, and 1 def. That’s a sizable lead and it helps his performance quite a bit in the early chapter. And as I said, Lot’s hardly great, or even good at this point. The other part of my point is that there are two forts. While it might seem all fun and games to have Ward and Thany sit on them, chances are you’ll want the better half of the mercenary group to be on the forts until the rest of your team arrives. That includes Dieck and Lot, but not Ward. He'd only be hurting something if there was someone else who could be used in his stead, but that is not the case until Ch6, and in Ch6 he's doing alright (lots of Loldiers and Knights). And in Ch7, you want all the manly muscle power you can get to rescue everyone. And his Ch8 performance is decent due to all the Loldiers and Knights again, and it Barth joins up there, sucking more than Ward.The only units who do significantly better than Ward early on are your God tiers, and Lot by a tiny bit. He's not losing to scum like Wolt and Bors. You and I have a different definition of how the ranks get ‘hurt’. Ward not taking up a limited space doesn’t automatically mean that he’s helping the team. Sucking at combat and sucking at tactics hurts the rank. Why have Ward swing and miss when one of the cavs could have done so (without the missing part)? You’re never using up Roy/Marcus/Lot/Alan/Lance/Dieck/Chad/Lugh all on the player phase, so in order for Ward to take a chance at hitting something on his turn, he could be leaving that battle to someone who will much more likely hit. Barth is doing nothing to your ranks throughout this very long and difficult stretch known as the earlygame, while Ward’s doing terrible this whole time. And you thought the Western Isles were bad? Not nearly as much so as 6.5 chapters of terrible performance from everyone’s favorite Saji. Really, being sucky for the earlygame is a big problem for trash like Wolt, Bors, and Ward. Base stat Lot has 4 AS and base stat Ward has 3 AS with the Halberd. The cavs in Ch. 4 have anywhere from 7-9 speed, so Lot’s not getting doubled by all of them. However, if they’re both being used then they will have gained two levels in the two other chapters they’ve been in. With a 35% speed growth and a couple of levels under his belt, Lot may only be doubled by the 9 speed ones if he gains a speed level up. Ward doesn’t really have a chance for this with a 20% speed growth, and he gets doubled by all of with his base stats. Lot’s way better for this. The extra six hit or so is just a bonus. Correction: Neither is dying, but Barth needs to be healed much more often than Ward, because his way of surviving is HP/Def, whereas Ward will usually dodge. And? This just gives a healer the excuse to pull from their unlimited EXP pool to heal Barth. What about the money of staves? Well, since Ashtol is coming to this chapter to steal the Knight’s Crest, I’d say that the staff usage is more than payed for. So Barth’s raising the EXP and the funds rank? Success! You have 2480280923 people on the field, obviously one of them can trade away Ward's Steel Bow for the Killer Axe if needbe. Also, if you don't want them to get attacked, you're obviously looking for more flexibility. That would be the one with more mov and less terrain penalties, right?But you often don't have much of a choice - you have dudes to protect, and some people either shouldn't be attacked too often (Lugh) or will be surrounded on all sides due to not one-rounding (like your Paladins and Dieck, who need to crit with Killer Axe to one-round, or Clarine). So they will get attacked plenty of times, and when they do, Ward is surviving better, and hitting harder. SO my conclusion: - In my first post, you sees Ward crushing Barf in several battle comparisons. - In my last post, you see a general theme around justifying the support levels given to each. It is also explained that Ward benefits his support partners more than Barth does to his. - Then there's the misc stuff like Ward's XL offense lead against Waiverns and other fliers, the fact that Ward has a back-up support partner in Echidna, has significantly more ranged accuracy after promotion, etc. What can I say? gg, but there's only one winner, and it's not Barf. If Ward’s in the backlines with the bow, then he’s not helping on the enemy phase with or without his killer axe equipped. If he’s in the frontlines, then you need to place someone behind him to switch to his killer axe, in which case that person is then taken out of commission. Of course, if two wyverns are located side by side, then it might conveniently work so that you can switch the weapon AND fight with the same character. Great, right? I’m just glad that I do not have to jump through those kinds of hoops for Barth. If neither are dying, then one is not surviving better than another. Barth just gets healed more often, but he’s not taking major damage if he does get hit. If Ward is hit, he does take a lot of damage, and if he gets hit twice during the enemy phase, he’s in big trouble. In any case, in this debate we entered fantasy land where Dieck wasn’t taking Rutger and Clarine as support partners and Oujay magically supported Ashtol. But outside of fantasy land, we recognized that Ward is hurting ranks a full third of the game before Barth even enters the picture, and that Ward’s offense lead was at most never more than ~4 points, and that’s with a support setup he’ll never get, with people who are full anyway. Barth on the other hand comes in with def that matters and can support people who actually want him. On top of that, his supports erase his crit avo problems and largely reduce his hit problems so that he actually has offense to go with his defense. Sure, Barth suffers with WTD for a few chapters, but that’s hardly worse than Ward’s earlygame. In fact, it’s not worse at all because Ward has Chapters 4-7 that he exists in that are absolutely horrible for him. Add to it that he sees minimal use in chapters 2 thanks for the circumstances of Ward’s joining, and you have someone who spends a third of the game digging himself a pit of pure suck that he can never truly get out of. Of course we have my much more reasonable comparisons which were dismissed. With only a C Dieck, at 20/1 Ward wins by 2 attack and 12 avo. Barth wins by 8 crit avo and 12 def. One only doubles what the other one doubles, since they keep the same AS the whole time. This further diminishes the value of Ward’s small offense lead. 2 more attack just means 2 more damage, period. Of course, at the end of the day we determine who the superior character is by how they affect the ranks. I think I have gone to some length to prove that Barth is better for combat and tactics at the very least. Funds is virtually identical, as is exp since they’re always the same level. Ward can scrape a win here and there with combat when he gets all sorts of absurd support combinations, but he has no way of making up for his horrible joining and the babying needed to keep him up with the team. And hey, Lot tells us in his support with Echidna that Ward’s terrified of snakes. Barth was prepared to suicide against the Ostian rebels with base stat Wendy and Oujay. Winner = Barth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekkah Posted December 6, 2008 Author Share Posted December 6, 2008 My afterthoughts of this debate... Some comments about the first finished SFF debate. On a good day, Ward came out to play. Together with Dieck, Lot and Thany. In Ch2. Ward just stepped on a fort tile and gained EXP from Soldiers. In hindsight, it might have been a good idea not to have brought this up right away, and instead wait to see if Duff was going to say anything about it, then be defensive to make Ward look more average than bad. As Reikken once put it, Ward stacks up suck earlygame, so he actually has his availability working against him in this way. Then Barf joins in Ch8. Let's make it easy upon ourselves and put them at the same level...Ward's level is probably higher but w/e. This is something I always do if I can afford to: make it seem fair. Ward had no problems worming himself a statistical win at Barth's base level, so I saw no need to argue about a level lead. Instead, I'd rather have "I'm being generous to Barth here" in my bag. Fast forward to promotion time, since all this talk about Barth being Barf makes me sick. Another thing that seems generous to do. Things only get worse for Barth, with their growths being similar but Ward getting more out of supports, not to mention all these axe users coming up, so to avoid tl;dr, I just went to promotion point. As enlightened somewhere else down the line, both of these units would have to wait until the Ch16 Secret Shop to promote unless they wish to deprive God tiers of their scarce promo items. Another reason not to bother with trying to scrape a level lead for Ward. I was very satisfied with Ward's stats versus Barth. As long as he could win raw combat, I didn't need to pull any farfetched moves. For melee attacks, take a 30 Atk/90 Hit enemy. It has about 20% real on Ward, and 68% on Barth (being generous with rounding). It takes 4 hits to kill Ward, and 6 to kill Barth. Ward is somewhere between three and four times less likely to get hit, while Barth only takes 50% more hits. Surely Ward is better off here. Now, I was being quite mean here. FE6 enemies are strong, but not this strong, and certainly not that accurate (sword enemies maybe, and those put Ward in a very awkward situation with the weapon triangle). I was glad Duff didn't catch that. I should also note that in the other posts, I strongly focused on Barth not getting his Ashtol support, since that would allow me to cut the amount of text spent on making comparisons, and simply point to the ones in my first post again. Of course, I could have tried to show that Barth still loses even if he has Ashtol, which probably would have worked since their affinity match up is extremely awkward. I kept it short and didn't do a lategame comparison, and instead just showed it wasn't going to get any better for Barth from here, again, to cut down on text. Now, Duff replies, but he didn't quote me, so it was quite hard to reply to everything while not repeating myself unnecessarily. He started out pointing out both our units sucked (pretty much), which seemed rather superflous to me...then it seemed he was going to hype Barth's defense to hell and back, but he didn't really seem to address my comparisons and reasons why Ward was better off defensively, so it seemed like a shot in the air to me. But conjecture without numerical evidence is worthless. I’ll get to the numbers at three points in the game: When Ward joins, when Barth joins, and at promotion (which you graciously provided, but I have a couple of edits to make).[L2 Ward stats] Ward has a niche in loldiers? Ellen can kill those failures. Ward’s problem is that he cannot kill much else. And even then, only one rounds those in his niche with less than four speed (or the javelin one) and at least half will have four speed. All the while taking lots of damage thanks to his low avoid and defense. This guy is young Bartre incarnate. Or rather, young Bartre is Ward incarnate, and Ward is Saji incarnate. Whatever the case, he’s the resident failure axeman with terrible starting stats. More about loldiers: They’ve got anywhere from 14-16 attack, so they’re doing anywhere from 11-13 damage to Ward, so he’s getting three shotted. Not to mention that they’ve got ~55% hit on him. Ward’s out of commission in his debut chapter fairly quickly as he waits for Ellen to heal him. Dieck and Lot will be the two studs killing things on the forts as the other half of your army comes to meet you. Ward can spend his time not hitting things with Lot’s hand axe in the mean time. He has virtually no chance of making use of his hammer on the boss, and the merc one rounds him. The latter is something else that he and Ellen have in common. This, however, was impressive. As I tipped before, Ward now had a negative attached to him, which means that, to argue him as a clearcut win, I'd have to argue his prescence early on as either "helpful" or "neutral" in order to have a clear victory (or else I would have to argue earlygame vs midgame/endgame, with earlygame conceded in his favor). I obviously went with "neutral" since in no way Ward can be argued as good early on. Borrowing Reikken's "early on you can't substitute x unit by anyone else" from the Ellen vs Gonzo debate helped. For the sake of sanity, you may want him to be using Wendy’s iron lance. I doubt she needs it much anyway. Regardless, this doesn’t look too good. His stats are hardly better than Wards when he came six chapters ago. I personally never bother to say such things about my own unit. Either my opponent will mention them, rendering it unnecessary, or he won't, in which case I won't have to dodge a negative point. And it’s not like the world’s been nice to Ward in this interim time. Ward has had to deal with Cavaliers that own him (Lot’s better with the halberd anyway). He’s also had to contend with brigands, mages and wyverns who are all better than him. And he cannot do anything to a single boss since his hit is so horrible. Heh, more sneaky deserved jabs at Ward. I usually put all of one topic in one paragraph though, or else I'd have to repeat myself or go "I already addressed this", which just doesn't make for pretty reading. Has Ward built up supports? With Lot, yes. With Dieck, it depends on whether you wish to deprive yourself of the Rutger/Clarine/Dieck triangle, but that will be explored in greater detail shortly. Indeed it was. I’ll give him B Lot and C Dieck. This surprised me. You gave him a B with Lot, while I only had him with a C. I don't look such gifts in the mouth, but you won't see me returning the favor either. Ward has only one speed more than Barth, so the mercs and Leygance can still double him. Ward does have WTA against the failures known as soldiers and knights while Barth has WTA against the mercenaries, who he will only fight if they happen to not have an armorslayer. The main difference here is that Ward’s taking more damage than Barth. The same archer gives him 13 damage per hit. The same armor gives him 17 damage per hit, and it’s not like Ward’s avoid is good enough to dodge all of those hits. The terrible 71 hit armors still have a 36.4% chance to hit him. Iron bow archers have 64.4% hit on him. The steels have 49.4% chance to hit him. Oh, and on the off chance that Leygance hits him twice, he’s one rounded. I thought this was good, but it would have looked a lot better if you had also argued about what was wrong with my own 9/0 comparison, instead of just making your own. It just looks weird that you gave Ward an extra support level, yet still made him look worse. It's like a different angle thing. Now, we got to arguing about supports. I believe I was on the right side here, with Ward having three viable supports, and Barth as much as one and a half, and Ward having one of the best affinities, supporting with some other great ones, while Barth had an okay affinity supporting two units with a bad and an okay one. To avoid relying too much on this section to justify my comparisons, I basically "conceded" Oujay, and in trade for that took Lot for granted. I spent most of the third post showing that if it's not one, the other isn't likely to be there either. I do think Lot's better, if only for his supports and affinity, and it wasn't hard to show Lot was at least as good as Oujay thanks to those. So that left me with Ashtol. I thought Duff only really showed off at the very last post here when it came to supports, or even the whole debate. Though to be honest, I was already quite satisfied with Ashtol's bad position as a support partner even if he was fielded all the time. The fact that he got nothing out of combat bonuses (unlike Echidna, Lot and Dieck) 99% of the time really makes a support lose a lot of value in my opinion. It's half the benefit you could have had. The fact that Barth was receiving Ashtol bonuses was already factored in in his comparisons - beyond that, there's no real reason to field Ashtol in, for example, those Ilia maps. But Oujay’s support options do not matter, because in this debate he has Ashtol and Barth, who have nothing better to do, and his Wind affinity actually helps Barth a lot. Hit and crit avoid is something Barth needs. Kind of a mistake you'd hope to avoid, but shit happens. On par with Lot and Oujay? Not really. Next to Lot specifically, his AS and hit leads are crushing. He’ll actually routinely double attack things, and that makes his offense quite a bit better than Lot’s for a long time. It's a shame Duff didn't show to what enemies Ashtol would do more damage, or how much more reliably he could hit things, because like with the 9/0 comparisons between Ward and Barth, you draw your own picture without showing why the one I made is false. For Ward getting a Dieck support, I thought the interview got across the point pretty well. It helps Dieck by a lot (I should have mentioned how he needed bonuses early on even moreso than later on, but whatever), Rutger can still get full (A Clarine/B Fir) or if Fir isn't in play, he is still hax. Clarine/Dieck is a tragically slow support anyway, so you're not missing out on a lot. I could have elaborated further, perhaps introduce Klein to the mix to show Clarine might get full even earlier. Then there was the Mages/Sages discussion...I had to mention them somehow, since they pierce Barth's defense lead, and capitalize Ward's HP and Avo leads, as well as his tiny AS lead. It wasn't much since, as Duff said, Mages are far less common than melee enemies, but every bit helps. I don't think I agree with the "they won't face them anyway" mentality. From there, it's only a small step to "Tate is not facing Archers" and that kind of bull. If you want to talk realism, remember that we are talking about Barth and Ward AND trying to S-rank the game. Take that as you will. Then, we had some more earlygame exchanging, and the stuff about the Halberd that felt like a huge waste of time to me. It reminded me of the whole argument of who promotes first: Eliwood or Lyn. Yes, Eliwood is better, but they gain an equal amount from the resource, so each should get it 50% of the time, technically speaking. And? This just gives a healer the excuse to pull from their unlimited EXP pool to heal Barth. What about the money of staves? Well, since Ashtol is coming to this chapter to steal the Knight’s Crest, I’d say that the staff usage is more than payed for. So Barth’s raising the EXP and the funds rank? Success! This is the kind of stuff you can only (and should) put in your last post. I would have pointed out that healers have no trouble finding someone to heal, and even if they do, they can just attack one of the million Wyverns to free up space (Lugh in particular would rather use Aircalibur while Ward dodges than heal Barth just because the fatso can't survive otherwise). The money for staves is obviously nothing worth arguing over, and I wouldn't have. After all, I had to justify losing out on the 10k Knight Crest. Also, obviously it is Ashtol raising the funds rank here, not Barth. But outside of fantasy land, we recognized that Ward is hurting ranks a full third of the game before Barth even enters the picture More stuff I wanted to counter but couldn't because of lolastpost. Ch2-Ch8, and he was in half of both of these without Barth, so we're talking six full chapters here. And there's far more than 23 chapters in the game (not counting Mamkutia) due to gaidens (Barth and Ward aren't in every one due to limited slots, but still some, and at least Ward and Lot have a Top tier who is participating in gaidens for sure...hm, perhaps you could have made a point of this for arguing Dieck getting Clarine/Rutger). And earlygame maps are shorter and have less enemies than endgame (Ch21, a chapter where I argued Ward having a huge lead in, has more enemies than all of those earlygame chapters put together). And hey, Lot tells us in his support with Echidna that Ward’s terrified of snakes. Barth was prepared to suicide against the Ostian rebels with base stat Wendy and Oujay. Winner = Barth Yeah, this is what makes debates cooler to read. Random foolery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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