Dark Holy Elf
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Posts posted by Dark Holy Elf
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Sanaki averages 29.7 speed and 9.6 strength at 20/20, never mind that 20/20 is a higher level than I'd expect Sanaki to hit without blatant favouritism. (And at no point is it practical to BExp her for those stats, they're two of her lowest growths.)
Meanwhile Calill hits 32 speed at 20/10, and always has enough strength.
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Kieran: 5.5/10. Geoffrey except he can be used in 3-11, 3-E, and (first map of splitpath), and therefore isn't underlevelled for (second map of splitpath). He's nothing special but tends to see some use as filler in Part 4 since you have 30+ deployment slots, and Kieran's stats/movement are solid enough.
Astrid: 1/10. Completely worthless. Using her in 2-3 or 2-E is a risk that you lose her valuable Paragon, no thanks. Her growths are seriously awful, I used her in endgame once and she was junk even with the Double Bow. She's not as terrible at base as Fiona (the nice HP for her level helps), but unlike Fiona she stays bad forever.
Makalov: 4/10. He has great growths but never really gets a chance to shine. In Part 2 his mediocre bases hold him back (def is decent, str/spd need work), and lategame he does nothing other gold knights don't do better. In the middle if you decide to favour him his speed growth will make him solid in the part 4 splitpath. So he's kinda like Kieran but with a considerably worse start.
Danved: 4/10. He's the fastest CRK at base, and isn't weak to the Horseslayer in 2-3 + can climb ledges in 3-9. Otherwise, no mount hurts him in all other situations, and he's not as tanky as the non-Astrid paladins (even base Makalov), nor does he have Marcia's 2 weapons + flight, etc.
Calill: 6/10. Well she's the best Sage in the game (Soren has worse stats and is stuck on the bad Part 4 path for mages), that's worth... not much, but hey. Decent mag/spd growth so she can perform solidly enough and is actually pretty damn good at endgame with 34 speed + taking out corner auras and other enemies on cover (Sanaki doesn't compare at all, she's never getting 39 AS even WITH a red dragon). Still she has to gain a lot of levels in a short amount of time, Paragon in 3-9 helps but it certainly keeps her from a high score. -
I'm not going to risk Felicia taking damage from 60% hits that will kill her if they all hit, so it's moot. Again, the difference between 60 hit and 80 hit on anyone is kind of eh, but on Felicia is worth almost nothing.
Felicia's Plate is (a) not a reliable thing to have like all the goofy named weapons, and (b) is significantly worse: -5 might, -2 Speed compared to Flame Shuriken, which also means the avoid boost is only +7 anyway. (Though it does also have +10 hit.)
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On the one hand, the avoid penalty from magic weapons does matter, especially on someone with a -breaker skill. I don't really care that it turns 60 hit into 80 hit since I'll be assuming 60 hit lands anyway (more on this in a moment), but I do care that it turns 10 hit into 30 hit. The Flame Shuriken makes it harder for Felicia to completely laugh off mages.
On the other hand, the reason turning 60 hit into 80 hit isn't a big deal especially for Felicia is due to Live to Serve. Normally the big advantage of facing 60 hit over 80 hit is that there's a higher chance you won't need to heal this unit. In the case of Felicia, she heals herself automatically when she heals someone else, so it's not really that big a deal.
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I'm surprised that so many people have a much lower opinion of Geoffrey than the Black Knight, considering they have basically the same amount of availability (2 or 2.5 chapters each assuming Geoffrey doesn't go to Endgame) and serve the same purpose of being the best unit on their respective teams. Geoffrey may outclass the non-Kieran units on his team by a smaller margin than the Black Knight outclasses the non-Nailah units on his team, but he does have the advantages of being a Paladin instead of a General so it kinda balances out.
I dunno, it just seems that they should be a little closer to me.
A couple thoughts on that:
-Geoffrey doesn't just exist for chapters where he's good, but for chapters where he's not good (4-5, Endgame). Essentially people are giving Zelgius points for not being available in those later maps, compared to Tormod or Geoffrey. Whether you agree with that or not depends on your tiering philosophy. (I think it's correct.)
-Geoffrey doesn't outclass other members on his team by that much, generally. Marcia can fly. Danved has a critical 1 more point of speed and no weakness to 2-3's pesky Horseslayer. Kieran has similar stats in general outside accuracy (and thanks to weapon triangle concerns in modes that don't idiotically remove this fundamental mechanic even that gap mostly vanishes a lot of the time). In 3-9 I'd outright question if he's the best unit; depending on our goals Marcia's ability to fly up and save the upper houses may make her more essential.
If Mordecai runs out against a physical unit, he's still got more durability than a unit like Marcia or Lucia, aside from the fact he's probably getting doubled. At the very least he is not incapable of tanking through an enemy phase if his transformation runs out.
At 9 speed there's no "probably" about it (even unpromoted knights manage it), so Marcia/Lucia are definitely more durable than him at that point. Since he's already doubled we can essentially half his HP (although it's worse than this since it's harder to heal back):
untransformed Mordecai: 29 HP, 16 Def, 4 Res, 33 avo (+authority, etc., which is the same for everyone)
Lucia: 38 HP, 14 Def, 15 Res, 73 avo
Marcia: 34 HP, 16 Def, 15 Res, 52 avo + whatever stats she gains in 2-P and 2-3
So he's definitely less durable than them. That said I don't think this is terribly relevant since we aren't actually going to send untransformed laguz to take hits. I've used laguz a lot (including cats) and barely ever saw mid-enemy phase detransformation; it's usually easy enough to count enemies in range and make sure you're grassed up if necessary.
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And that isn't a problem when laguz tend to not have much of an enemy phase? To put it into perspective, for most laguz, three combats and a turn take off 13 points from their gauge, but a cat loses 17 points - more than half their gauge - to the same (and they'd lose 13 gauge to only two enemies and a turn), and would need to grass up if they wanted to stay transformed. Anyways, if I were you, I wouldn't get my hopes up about Ranulf...
Sure, but if you're proposing that after three combats and a turn, the cat grasses and the tiger/wolf/hawk attacks, then the other laguz is at 13 and the cat is at 30 going into the next phase, which pretty much guarantees that next turn the gauge gap will be ~15 and it will be the other laguz who needs to use grass. You can spin this however you want by trying to cherrypick examples but the facts are clear: an extra grass is needed every 15 combats+turns, no more and no less.
Ranulf is very obviously better than Mordecai (he doubles, Mordecai doesn't, and that more than makes up for the odd extra turn on grass given they have the same str).
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I'd be much more down for hyping his smite ability if this were PoR and he could smite mounted units. As is I just don't recall many things he can smite that, say, Ike can't. I'm sure they exist (some of the transformed laguz surely) but it's not enough for me to deploy him.
I disagree on cat gauge being overhated - that extra -1 they get compared to tigers, hawks, and ravens limits them even more.
As I said in my post, it's one extra lost turn to using Olivi Grass every 15 turns+battles. Yes, it matters; no, the difference isn't large. Granted Lethe isn't great anyway (and Lyre sucks) so whatever, but Ranulf had better score above the tigers at least.
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Heather: 5/10. She steals things. She can kinda combat a little if you really want, but isn't great at it. This is the best rating for today.
Lucia:: 3.5/10. She's really good on one map, then bad. Not so different from the Tormod crew.
Lethe: 3.5/10. Not as good as Lucia in 2-2, but also has 2-E. Then she's kinda mediocre (though does benefit a lot from Energy Drops). Cat gauge is a bit overhated (you need 15 turns + combats to require an additional Olivi Grass compared to tigers or wolves) but it's the gauge in general is a problem she doesn't need. Decent in endgame if you get her there (laguz gems + actually gets to SS strike easily) but nothing great.
Mordecai: 3.5/10. Also mediocre. I feel like Serenes overrates tigers. He never doubles (barring the odd knight in 2-E) which means both bad offence and halved strike gauge gain so all he's really good for is being a wall with a ticking gauge who is outclassed by half a dozen other better walls in part 3. Brom minus.
Geoffrey: 4/10. Like Lucia except he has two maps (plus his forgettable no-authority showing in 2-E). But even in 3-9 I find myself using him as little as possible due to knowing what's coming; Kieran has pretty much identical stats and actually sticks around, and Marcia has a huge mobility edge in a map where it matters a lot.
What an underwhelming group. -
Yeah yeah, I totally get why someone would go 5-7, but, like...4? 3? 2.5? That's just silly, I think. Those are the ratings reserved for the worst of the worst.
To be perfectly honest 4 is a far more reasonable score for Brom than a 9 is. And 4 certainly is not "reserved for the worst of the worst"! 4 means "slightly below average". Which considering there's a solid argument to bench Brom immediately after Part 2, doesn't seem unreasonable, for all that you'll note I scored him slightly higher myself.
(I also like Brom the character quite well! And hey we'll always have PoR where he was better than Gatrie though still not very good because knights sucked in that game in my opinion.)
I think a 1 is insane for ANY refresher unit. No matter how fragile they are, they are easier to field than an untrained combat unit. They always slot in and double the effectiveness of your favourite units. Like even the worst of them like Tethys is still a really good unit, and she only refreshes 1 unit with literally nothing else to her name. A unit who lets your army penetrate almost twice as deep into enemy ground is worth the trouble to keep safe, especially in this game where a strong enemy phase is just so important.I think lowish scores for refreshers are more justified in games which have reinforcements which act on the turn they appear, like Binding Blade and Awakening. In those games you can get your bard/dancer ganked by units you didn't know they were there, and in both cases they're frail enough that OHKOs are possible at least on certain difficulties. That's a pretty notable weakness! I still wouldn't give them a 1, but I don't think scores that low would be crazy.
Radiant Dawn doesn't have this issue though, so yeah in this case I basically second all your thoughts.
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I enjoyed the game quite well (despite not expecting to, since I'm not a fan of SMT generally) but it's very much a game whose only real strength is its gameplay. Others have said better than me how what sorts of things you may or may not look for in a JRPG will influence your opinion of this game. (I don't care about exploration so TMS lacking that is of no concern for me.)
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and because she has a 45% magic growth compared to his 25% growth she'll be doing a much better job a healing then he will.
This means that it takes 15 levels for her to gain +1 healing on him. Magic is a very minor factor for healing in Fates.
Meanwhile you totally gloss over Jakob's durability lead.
and I find that demoiselle in conquest is a big help in the early game of counquest, because the most of the units you get in the first 3 chapters are men and the only tow units that will benifit from the male version are Effie and Elise.And in the chapter right after the arbitrary cutoff you assigned you get three more female combat units.
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That comment wasn't a reply to yours, but to Eclipse's question of if Charlotte has enough speed to avoid being doubled.
Charlotte's crit evade is indeed a bit of a problem though in the specific case of the foxes who have great evasion but only so-so defence you should be using bronze almost all the time anyway which does help some.
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Another neat tactic with switch is that you can start with a team of faster characters and then switch in slower ones to have them act earlier in the round than they would have otherwise. They'll still act at their normal speed the next round, but sometimes the earlier turn in round 1 can make all the difference for clearing out a trouble random or two (or statusing them out).
But yeah just switching to someone who can hit weakness on whatever enemy you're trying to take down is the most basic, and useful use of it, as well as ensuring you have the best team for a boss fight. It's really useful.
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If Charlotte is being doubled by foxes (or much of anything post-promotion) something has gone very wrong with your quest to use her as a combat unit and it should probably be aborted.
I knew I was forgetting something. Sorry about that! The higher-stat generals, IIRC, have Wary Fighter, which means that they need to be OHKO'd, or someone else needs to give them a hand. I distinctly remember Camilla not being able to ORKO the Chapter 18 guys on Hard.
Yeah you don't typically OHKO those guys (one of the few things I can see hyping crits against) but armour weakness makes a big difference in 2HKOing them vs. not.
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Leanne: 7/10, the same score I gave Rafiel. She can refresh fewer units, but on someone who is one-shotted by everything, Canto is really nice. Really awesome in 2-E due to the way the map is structured.
Nealuchi: 4/10. He's workable in Part 2 but not really that great; he tanks well until his gauge empties. Then he leaves and doesn't come back until he's really weak, though still better than Vika then if you insist on using a non-royal raven for some reason.
Haar: 20 base speed is decent but the growth lets him down (he'd kinda like a speedwing and those are valuable), and he can be one-shotted by thunder mage crits (even if you give him Nullify) due to low res/luck. But his HP/Str/Skl/Def are monstrous, he flies in maps where flying is dominant, he has two weapons (something not even paladins have at tier 2 in this game) at high weapon ranks, 1-2, canto, no bow weakness, Hammer access, etc. Overall the most useful unit in the game. I'm debating if that's worth an auto-10 or if the fact that he isn't perfect means 9.5 is more approrpriate. Eh, I'll give him 10 today.
Brom: 5.5/10. Well he's invaluable in 2-1 but I'm not sure how much I care. He's solid as a tank for the rest of part 2 and then hard outclassed by Gatrie, Haar, and others in Part 3. He really needed to have more than an E rank in his backup weapon. He is tougher against magic than his competition, though, and unlike some units who are good in their starting part then fall off, he never becomes unworkable.
Nephenee: 7/10. Marcia who doesn't fly but doesn't have to worry about becoming underlevelled due to missing a chunk of part 3. I'd say that kinda balances. Her Str could be better but the speed is nice, especially once it gets rolling a bit (she'll double more than any beorc except like Heather/Mia, and is sturdier than them). She is reliant on some good levels early to get started, though. -
Chapter 26 has a substantial number of armour units as well. And perhaps more importantly, armour units, while uncommon, are actively difficult to take down in a way that most mounted units are not (especially since the mounted units of C14, C20, and C24 all have an arrow weakness as well, with the sole exception of Hinoka). I am thus inclined to disagree with the statement that hitting beast weakness is more valuable. (Though I do agree with the statement that Keaton provides a new, unique source of weakness hitting whereas other units are fighting over a limited supply of Hammers, etc.)
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FE4 is at this point very old and rough around the edges; I don't think disliking anything about it is especially unpopular at this point though of course it does have its fans. I can't say the game did anything for me before I got tired of it and put it down, and what I read of the story beyond that did not impress me, either.
I like Lyn Mode pretty well; the maps are not the best but they're fast, introduce new units/concepts at a good clip, and the writing is of considerably higher caliber than the rest of FE7 IMO.
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Well "as far east as you can go" is rather arbitrary (if we'd drawn the international date line in the atlantic then we'd have an entirely different conversation), but I'll point out that many of the places which are "further east" than Japan, such as (Eastern) Australia and New Zealand, are also western!
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Elincia: 9/10. Ridiculously OP in 2-E. Rejoins somewhat weaker as a combat unit, but still a mobile, flying healer (in maps with loads of terrain penalties). Her combat tends to quickly grow back to be excellent again thanks to very high growths in Str/Spd and a very silly-powerful sword. You can give her Dragonfoe and have her one-shot reds without fear of a counter, for instance. But regardless her mobility and combat are both far better than other staff users, so she's an obvious pick.
Marcia: 7/10. Marcia got nerfed a lot. But she's still in a good class with high speed in a game where things are difficult to double, and flight is really useful in many of her maps (2-E, 3-9, 3-11, most part 4 maps outside Ike's route). Like all the CRK she plays catchup a bit compared to the GMs but she's one of the best candidates for said catchup (you have two Paragons in 3-9, after all).
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I probably would not personally have held a ranking the Black Knight, but it doesn't bother me that we are (and since we are, I'd like my opinion to count).
The Black Knight - The Black Knight is easily the most valuable team member in two of the three chapters he is available. In 1-9 because he is all you get and in 1-E because making progress on that map without him or Nailah is one hell of a slog and unlike Nailah he can clear the ledges.I usually give Nailah Pass for that map so that she can easily clear ledges and go wherever the hell she wants; I find it offers amazing control of the map (with 9 move and no penalty for moving over ledges, Nailah can pretty much go anywhere and troubleshoot), and I don't really miss Pass in Part 3.
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Arthur's low dodge is an issue and should not be diminished, and yes, it takes +10 luck to offset it. More likely he'll just end up using Bronze a lot, which turns him from a highish-power unit into a lowish-power unit in practice. Still, it's not a fatal issue by any means, since as mentioned we can protect Arthur from fatal crits just as we protect Azura and Elise from damage, and once Percy shows up that's a big boon to making this problem less bad. As well as the ability to forge bronze weapons.
I think Arthur's roughly in the right place. If it were up to me I'd probably swap him and Peri but that's about it.
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B) Charlotte will always have really bad skill whereas mozu not only has good skill but gets Certain Blow.
-Charlotte's Skill actually isn't that bad, it's about 7-8 points worse than Mozu's at Level 20/15 for instance, after the full wrath of their 25% growth difference has kicked in (luck gap is similar), which is only a difference of around 15 hit. Skill just isn't a very potent stat in this game (or many others).
-Charlotte's Strength is so much higher than Mozu's that she can afford to use more accurate weapons like bronze and still ORKO easily. There is also a Dual Club on Conquest, but no Dual Yumi, and if we're giving people preferential treatment Charlotte can use that to reliably OHKO swordmasters.
She doesn't have Certain Blow, but unlike Mozu she can take a hit or two on EP and murder whoever is foolish enough to touch her. Her offence is also generally better: more power (which lets her OHKO speedier enemies or just avoid counters in cases like mages), more speed, more weapon options.
You're right that Charlotte doesn't benefit specifically from P1 (since the enemies there don't scale), but there are other options to gain levels with her if you're willing to put in the effort.
I'm not really trying to prove a specific point about this, other than the fact that for some reason people love to give Mozu favouritism out of project arguments but not do the same thing for others (because it isn't as fun to raise a Level 10 Golddigger as a Level 1 Cute Child, I guess). Any tier list that puts Mozu significantly above Charlotte is making a pretty big mistake in my books, which at that point leaves me wondering what units you do see Mozu being significantly better than? Maybe we should move the conversation there.
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Regarding Reyson and teams of laguz, I want to point out that since Reyson doesn't see combat, a Laguz Stone works well in place of a gem; his gauge likely won't empty on most maps. And you can buy loads of those right before Endgame. So even teams of many laguz (I've run an all-laguz endgame team) don't really weaken the case for Reyson.
Nailah: 9.5/10. Absolutely awesome for 9 maps. There are some knocks on her like no Canto or 2 range but she's one of the hardest units to kill in the game, and gets four pre-endgame maps, the most of any laguz royal. Maybe it's just me but some of the maps she can help out on are unusually difficult, like 1-E and 4-4, which makes her OPness there invaluable. Also I'd certainly argue she's better than Naesala even only considering their shared availability (her notably better atk/def/luck/no bow weakness is more valuable to me than Canto, and the flying doesn't matter in Endgame aside from E-1 a little), but ultimately this is irrelevant.
Zelgius: I have a hard time giving him a score, since he's a pure temp. But... obviously great in 1-9 (can be essential easily enough), and the only knock on him in 1-E is that he only has 6 move, so he isn't as good as Nailah for murdering thieves and the siege tome user. But he's still "you win the fight" so yeah. In 3-6 I rarely find him relevant but he does instantly win the fight again if you're having trouble. I guess 8ish seems fine?
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Vika: 3/10. Her flaws have been stated, and yeah she is bad outside Part 1... though I have used her before for giggles, she does become damn near unhittable in Endgame if you massively baby her in 4-4 at least? No, I'm not hyping this. What I am inclined to hype is that she's possibly the MVP of the swamp map if your goal is to save all the prisoners, which keeps me from giving her a truly low score. She can lure that first wyvern to where Tormod can ORKO him, then transform and beat up the brigands who might otherwise reach the east prisoners. Not worth using in 1-E, though, so 1-8 is basically 90% of her worth.
Rafiel: 7/10. People more obsessed with turncounts than me like him more than Reyson in Endgame, but I personally find Reyson far more useful there: you toss him a Laguz Gem/Stone and in exchange for no refresh on turn 1 you get someone who has +3 (!!!) move and Canto, plus can actually take the odd hit (from siege tomes, MT attacks, etc.). I'll take that trade any day. Anyway Rafiel is a heron and thus great, but there's only so high I want to score him when I don't want to bring him to Endgame and he only has 4 maps before then; him being above Nailah would certainly rub me the wrong way for instance.
Lucius... Overpowered?
in Fire Emblem
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I'm not sure how you can argue Canas has the best bases upon joining when he joins last and with only 7 AS. Maybe if you skip Lyn Mode, but otherwise, definitely not.
Lucius isn't overpowered due to the durability (and the low might of light tomes reining in his Mag stat some), but I do like him overall and he is quite good at what he does, high range 2 offence. The archers only wish they could compare, Lucius is even better than them at killing wyverns.