Renall

I concede this on a chapter like FE5 ch4 because there's an explanation. I can't understand the notion applying to reinforcements that appear on the edges of an outdoor map. How does that even make sense?

Stop trolling. What stick is up your butt that you can't talk about anything but my disapproval of your strategy on one chapter of one game? Why aren't you addressing my better example? Do you have any opinion on my suggestion as to how that aspect of the game could be approved and even made more tactical? What button do I press to show me where all the reinforcements come from on outdoor maps, because apparently I can't find it?

If Brighton was like "There are doors at each of the entrances. If one of us can hold them closed, maybe we can keep them out!" it would be clear that you were intended to block reinforcements. As it is, that particular chapter, which you seem to be fixated on, is perfectly beatable without blocking reinforcements, as the units you do have are perfectly capable of fighting the soldiers and you have more than enough time to free Lifis/Leaf/Fergus/Karin and arm them before they start coming in. My point is that blocking reinforcements in this situation makes no sense. Or blocking them in the chapter with Glade, even though there are still open squares on the north side of the map. Why don't the reinforcements just ride around your blockade? I'd prefer a system with 'objective areas' similar to the green line in 3-13 of FE10 that you can't let units through. If a certain number of your units "hold" that area (by being within a bounded area), the reinforcements stop. If the enemy "holds" the area (with other units actually present), they increase. That sort of thing, that makes it perfectly clear that certain areas are important (like a pass, or a doorway, or a gate), and that it's tactically viable to hold them. Blocking the spawns on the Glade chapter is basically exploiting the fact that you happen to know which squares the units will always appear on, even though the map provides no indication of this fact.

Grinding on reinforcements is equally as abusive as arena abuse. That is, it's fine if you're just killing a stream of reinforcements (and blocking them is equivalent to this) until you're doing it to the point that you're just extending the chapter. I suppose I should add a category separate from "abuse" that I would call "poor game design." Reinforcements that are blockable (without a very different objective system), reinforcements that are infinite (come on, they really have 8000 guys?), shitty shopping/base mechanics (hi FE6), bad objective design, maps that are too large/too small, etc. Exploiting these things isn't exactly wrong, but IS shouldn't have created these circumstances in the first place.

Some people don't think arena abuse is wrong because arenas are part of the game. I think most "serious" players would say that it is. So there is a degree of subjectivity, and the conventional wisdom of debaters isn't so much "right" as "most conducive to actually allowing for debate."

Because he asked what would be considered abuse, and I guess some people might think it is, and I happen to personally lean slightly that way? Might as well be comprehensive about all the possible things people might call "abuse."

What the fizzeck. Never mind that we use actual tactics. If it isn't fighting like a man, it's abuse! I know you like to troll me over this but you didn't even take the part where I said it wasn't abuse out of there to make my quote out of context. What the fizzeck indeed, man.

I've seen suggestions that Noish/Alec/Ardan be given minor holy blood for balance purposes. Something like giving Alec Minor Dain, Noish Minor Hezul, and Ardan... something that gives him more DEF or SPD or somesuch. Fury don't need no blood though cuz her kids are always ridiculous.

I wouldn't consider using the arena abuse. But using it for excessive numbers of turns (more than say 3-5 turns after you could finish the chapter) is certainly abuse. I wouldn't consider stuff like the FEDS wi-fi shop abuse, although some people might frown on it. Blocking reinforcements is something I consider shady but it isn't abuse because IS could've easily worked around it and didn't (and in the case of GBA forts encourage you to do it). Likewise gimmicky tricks like capture manipulation in FE5 or Disarm abusing in FE10 might be abusive if used to excess but are not abuse fundamentally. What I'd consider abuse: Glitches (Rescue Staff in FE4), RNG manipulation (drawing pathing lines to cycle the RNG in GBA games), resets or savestates for better stats, abusing FE9 bexp (but not abusing FE10 bexp as I don't know anyone, not even myself, who would reset for FE10's bexp system).

At the risk of elevating the discussion to a level it probably doesn't deserve... The problem with abuse it that it is to an extent so easy that some minor forms of abuse are probable for many players. It depends, of course, on the player and the game (obviously you can't abuse the wi-fi shop in a game that isn't FEDS). What happens, though, is that certain sanctioned forms of abuse and favoritism create a greater likelihood of a unit being perceived as good via personal experience (regardless of what raw stats or averages might suggest). FE10 is kind of a good example of this. Battle Saves are very abusable. I don't know anyone other than myself who has meticulously abused them to give everyone as close to max stats as possible (and I only did it for laughs, and I'm still stuck in 4-5 leveling Bastian or whoever after a year of intermittent boss abuse), but certainly I know there are quite a few people who will reset if a character gets an especially bad level (at least on the player phase). This is relevant (not to tier debates, but in general) because it means prepromotes are not as good as they are in a strict averages context; Edward can wind up better than Mia and Zihark if he's given preferential levels (3+ stats per level, although in Edward's case that's actually not good enough but you know what I mean) since he has more levels to gain, and the average player isn't looking at things in terms of efficiency (they don't take forever on maps, but they probably don't try to complete them very quickly either). This can lead to a misperception of Edward being better than he really is, which combined with things like his inexplicable popularity due to his appearance (Nephenee I can understand because she's an attractive female, but Eddie?) makes people attribute positive personal experience to him more often than for other characters. The thing is, he's not as good as they think, but he's probably turning out OKAY. FE9 BExp is another example. I certainly will reload if the level is crappy. IS clearly realized people would and did do this because they changed the system for FE10. Again, this advantages earlier characters which leads to things like people finding Titania to not be that great (the "jeigan" stigma probably also affects this) even though she's basically God Tier to debaters (and rightly so). I don't know how much abuse runs in the people who play SNES games (I only recently learned how to easily manipulate the Thracia RNG, and now I pretty much do it constantly), but certainly the GBA games had their share. While I doubt too many average players manipulate the pathing arrow to cycle RNGs, I'm sure they abuse savestates (if emulating) and arenas. Perhaps they don't sit around getting everyone to 20, but they'll use an arena, which fucks up tiers something nasty. It also tends to favor certain characters (those who do well in an arena due to either overkill offense or defense). RNG abuse in general favors characters with balanced, moderate-high growths. Skewed-growth characters may turn out better on averages, but it's easier to manipulate a character with a bunch of 30-50% growths into 6+ stat levels (this is why Mist is better than Rhys if you abuse the RNG). Also, reading things on boards like this might encourage people to reset if they don't get particular stats. After reading that Ike needed a certain amount of SPD by 3-7 in FE10, I made sure he gained it every level... and wound up with an Ike that had remarkably under-average STR. This colored my personal experience until I did it again and realized Ike is supposed to be MUCH stronger than mine was. To an extent, personal experience and abuse are acceptable if they're predicate conditions of a discussion. But they also make discussion very difficult to engage in beyond preliminary considerations. The idea of PEMN is fundamentally absurd while playing the game, as your personal experience and the abuse decisions you engage in or do not engage in fundamentally change certain aspects of the game (with exceptions; you can't make Athos or FE10 Haar bad). But the idea of not using PEMN when debating is equally absurd, as it turns things into an opinion contest. Well, I mean tier lists and rating threads and whatnot usually already are veiled opinion contests, but at least people are asked to bring facts from time to time.

Would Ardan be useful if he started as a General (like Hannibal) at his usual level and armors had comparable Mov to other foot units?

Looks like you're never going to be in a Fire Emblem game. Nah, if he's a crappy archer, it means he's perfect for a Fire Emblem game.

Lost what I was typing but basically I just want to stress that Eyrios's defense is not godly for his level or anything and he's not as tanky as you're going to want. His skills do not make him a combat god. He's best used as support, sniping, and using his mobility to ensure he doesn't have to face a lot of Enemy Phase crap from people. You wouldn't throw him constantly into the meatgrinder, and you wouldn't do that with Olwen either. There's a lot of biased disingenuous behavior going on here with respect to the roles the two of them fill. Which, last I checked, is basically the same role, since they're the same class. There's also the wholly unaddressed point that Eyrios doesn't exist half the time (or more) and that Olwen accumulates utility even if you do recruit Eyrios since you can use her with abandon and blow her Daimthunder before killing her off and recruiting him.

"Only way of killing." Yes, way to completely sandbag her. She can kill things without her personal weapon. lol guys Othin is a shitty character compared to Conomore I mean look Conomore at his base stats when he joins 20 chapters after Othin totally own Othin's bases. Seriously, listen to yourself. Eyrios's durability is better, but it's completely unfair to compare his bases to Olwen's like she's not going to level any. Again, nnnnnnnno? She has 10 base MAG and can use Thunder, Fire, or Wind at discretion. With her base 10 SPD, she has an AS of 5-9, which is certainly enough to double some things. Promoted units don't gain hideously slow exp really, and there's lots of guys to kill in chapters like 14. Eyrios's bases aren't even that impressive for his level. Sure, Olwen's aren't either, and they both have high growths, but comparing Eyrios to an equivalent-leveled Fergus - before scrolls, which Fergus has had lots of time to be able to use - he's pretty lousy. Having tomes is basically what saves him. Oh and 0 PCC. Let's not all totally forget that shit. Or you can use other tomes, but that's clearly not your objective here. Guys Saphy is Bottom Tier because BALLISTAS ONE-SHOT HER ZOMG! By this point in the game I'm not that worried about people dying. There's Fin and Glade, the King Sword and Nanna, and incidentally Leaf supports Olwen. Also tons of staves. Sol is pretty overrated. Evade is actually useful in this game with the BS terrain bonuses and 1 RNG. Good tactics generally don't require anyone to die and with the staves and full-health Vulneraries I'm not seeing why this is so great. Eyrios could just pop a Vulnerary and kill everybody with PCC crits on the Enemy Ph- Oh right, he has 0 PCC. Wow I sure don't already have a ton of staff guys. He's more useful than Miranda, sure, but so what. Bad as Miranda is, if actually raised she caps MAG and SPD right after promoting (and could, indeed, be promoted early), and she has an eternity to be scroll abused. If you're going by strict tiering she's pretty bad but if you want to make something of her she's basically the Est/Nino (who are also bad tierwise but perfectly serviceable if you choose to invest in them). But this isn't about Miranda, much like how no one going the A route gives a shit about Misha. That is the best thing to do. Once her daimthunder is gone, she is worthless. And if you happen to get lucky enough to steal the second one? That's a lotta Daimthunder. People are gonna be like what, lv15ish by the time Olwen joins? Her stats are pretty average for that time. Sure, she's a prepromote and won't get promo bonuses when people start using Proofs, but if she's average when she joins she doesn't need to be "babied" from the start. As to scrolls, we have Hezul, Baldo, Odo, Sety, Neir, Fala and Heim by about the time she joins. Hezul helps her with HP and her high LCK mitigates the negative. Baldo is just overall good with her high general growths. Sety hits HP but boosts SPD and MAG and Hezul would offset it. Fala's good overall. She doesn't even especially need Sety, which is a very popular scroll. She doesn't really need to be scroll-greedy by any means, but there are several that help. There are also two Life Rings before her join chapter. I'd probably give them to Saphy or something for Fatigue purposes but if you're seriously using Olwen you could consider it. I will grant that Ambush and a Life Ring is pushing it for resource investment, but that's part of why Eyrios is so close. Because it isn't his PCC. Cuz he ain't got none. That misses the point. I was raising these things on the B route because conventional wisdom seems to be that we will always go A, which is retarded. Debatable. I have lots of ways to keep myself alive. I don't have a lot of ways to beat up the really tough enemies (unless they're armors, lolololol Hammers). Sol's probably still better but you do get Luna, so it isn't like you get nothing. Unless you already have a goodly number of staff users and/or aren't Warp-skipping half the game. Half price can be nice for buying Killers, Proofs, stat boosters, or whatever. And you never actually have to use Shanam for anything but purchase bitch. He's Merlinus with a sword and a mullet. Not needing to repair the Pugi means you can repair something else. It could be a Warp staff, but it doesn't have to be. It can be anything you like. You can never have too many Silences and they're not really worth repairing. Silences can effectively buy other staves if you silence the enemy staff user before they can fire one off. Thorons are really heavy and completely worthless to anyone but Olwen and Eyrios. Yes, even Sety can't use them (B Thunder, what up). And good luck getting A Thunder with Asvel, like he'd even want it. Homer, Linoan, and Sara have no prayer. I think a lot of people just don't like Olwen.

She also exists longer than he does, and can be scroll abused more if you're inclined to do that. If you don't "abuse" scrolls, she can still level with them. That's a bit harder to quantify. She needs to die or not be recruited in order to get Eyrios, so, what you do is use her up until 16a, have her suicide there while taking out the brigand around Eyrios' troupe, then, you get Eyrios for longer than Olwen. There's the other elephant in the room which is: What if we take Route B? Then Eyrios never exists at all. And it's not like we'd never take that route, as it comes with many benefits (Luna manual, extra Pugi, Shanam's Bargain, more Silence staves, a Berserk staff). You could even count Miranda for the very vague point that she allows you to have two Mage Knights at once. Admittedly pointless unless abusing arenas or something since Miranda sucks, but it is there to be noted. And I want to stress, that Berserk staff is very useful. Maybe not as useful as extra Warp staves, but it's great for a lot of things that would otherwise be quite annoying. If you aren't or cannot Warp-skip 22, having a Berserk is indispensable as it lets you Berserk the ballistas or even Reinhardt's goons (assuming you have someone like Safy with a Pure Water or M Up or something around). It can really take off the pressure - and the first Berserk staff you'll get on the A route is Coen's, which he'll break using on you if you don't Warp-skip and which you aren't getting if you DO Warp-skip. So it's not unreasonable that someone might take the B route, which means that in roughly half of all games, Eyrios isn't there at all.

She also exists longer than he does, and can be scroll abused more if you're inclined to do that. If you don't "abuse" scrolls, she can still level with them. That's a bit harder to quantify.

Bandits carry TNT. And obviously because it's more stylish, and so the enemy is awed by the archer's style and fails to defend themselves properly.

Why wouldn't the soldiers just attack you? They're just stairs. It's pretty arbitrary. I don't have a counter to the "block forts" thing, but I still don't consider it terribly sporting. I can think of some ways they could get around it by encouraging you to do certain things that can block, slow, or stop spawns without just being "lol stand on this square and guys can't just walk around you to one of the other 50 border squares on this outdoor map." Also: The fort thing only really makes sense if blocking it for one turn prevents reinforcements forever, instead of only when the fort is blocked. Unless you're telling me Dieck is just besieging the fort and not seizing control of it.

They could have been his maternal uncles!

There are probably "grades" of holy blood which are more complex than the tertiary system provided by the game of Major/Minor/None. For example, Linoan in FE5 is supposed to be a distant descendant of St. Heim, but it isn't clear whether her blood would be enough to rise to the level of Minor Narga in FE4 terms. It does appear that the major bloodline will persist indefinitely in at least one child of the individual who already had the blood (Byron to Sigurd to Celice), that it isn't greatly diluted by different kinds of holy blood (Leaf), and that it can be strengthened by "incest" (Holyn/Ayra's kids). Logically, it can probably also be diluted through minor bloodlines constantly intermarrying with non-holy-blood people. So if the Augustrian royal family started with minor blood (Nodion's heirs got the major), and married other Augustrian nobility to strengthen political ties, over time the Hezul blood would dilute to levels that are not possible to detect with any effect. Alternately, Shagall should have had Minor Hezul and they just screwed up. Look at Hilda and Scorpio.

How is blocking reinforcements not the scrubby thing. "Oh these guys are supposed to show up to make the chapter harder, but you can exploit a programming oversight by putting your own guys on the squares."

For any new players...Don't listen to this guy. You'll be thankful blocking spawn areas. It's entirely possible to get the soldiers down to a manageable number and escape without having to wait them out entirely. You don't even need to be a tactical genius, you just have to be careful and funnel people to Fergus/Brighton so they die on the enemy phase. And if you didn't bring much of anything there'd be few chests to open anyway and you could just leave.

I've always considered blocking spawn points cheap. Except on the chapter with Glade. Fuck that chapter.

Dagda starts with a Hammer, yes, and he has very few people to use it on so you may as well give it away to the prison crowd. I forgot Brighton starts with a Steel Axe, so just passing the Hammer and Brave should be more than enough for Dalshin and him. Brighton has the CON to capture, but he doesn't always double. Just did the chapter and 4x last night, and had an easier time of it than before. Hardest part is circling the room to get the chests (especially since there were 18 of them). Machua has a Chest Key which I passed off to Karin, who helped Lara and Lifis grab chests (thankfully, the very first one Lara opened had Lifis's Lockpick in it). Lara got captured several times because I had passed her sword to Karin, but I was always able to get it back. The allied brigands captured a couple of the armors and eventually got stuck in the west exit with 4 enemies poking them and stalled for several turns until the vulneraries they stole wore out. Saved me some headaches. Eventually I got the west side chests, but Lifis had to dodge-tank 4 guys in the SE treasure room until Fergus and Leaf could show up to save him. After that it was easy to go north and let the civilians out. I think soldiers stop spawning from the sides once the civilians are released, as they only appeared from the bottom after I popped the east cell. It's possible I just went enough turns that they didn't appear, or got lucky, but I didn't stall the full 70 turns or whatever it was because I wanted to actually complete it in a reasonable turn count (for FE5, anyway, so it wound up being like 30). Anyway it was easy to block off the east/west while the civilians left, then everybody headed North. The second part was laughable. Dalshin and Fergus with a Hammer/Armorslayer just raped all the other armors, Lifis jacked the mages' Thunders, and the survivors got bum-rushed. 4x was easy. You can't really do much more than rush the enemies anyway. Picked up Asvel, the Sety scroll, the Hero Sword and the Devil Axe (I figured I might need the Mt for my favored ch6 strategy), got the Physic off the bishop, and had Brighton carry Sety until I was ready to leave, whereupon he was dropped off and killed about 6 reinforcements per turn covering our escape. Got out of that one in about a dozen turns tops. Isn't it just bullshit how many awesome swords you can have in the Manster chapters that only Fergus really has any chance of using? The Fire, Brave, and Armorslayer are all B rank and only Fergus is going to have that. Machua can use the Killer and Rapier but Fergus is much better with the former with his 5 PCC and Karin support. Brighton doesn't really need anything but Steel since he has Wrath for enemy phase badassery, but Fergus is killing everything with almost-guaranteed crits, attacking MAG from 2 range, getting effective damage against horses and armor, and then ch6 hits and he also has a fucking horse. How is he not the best character in the game again? He can't use staves.

How difficult is it to patch Playstation-era games, anyway? I've never played a game that had a translation patch that wasn't based on a cartridge ROM.