Augestein

Wow... That's... How did you even find that?

... I was remaining neutral, but I can't anymore. What in the holy mother of all that is good!? Seriously. This is ridiculous.

Well Fire Emblem is just a "different" game. Let's just leave that one out of it. It was poorly done there. :D

Yeah, it just makes it easier though. For instance, playthrough 1: Eliwood has B Lyndis and B Fiora. Max either or on the final chapter. Hector can do the same with say... Matthew and Serra. This is the best time to get Eliwood's "not paired" artwork. Playthrough 2: Eliwood (let's say EHM) Eliwood goes B Eliwood B Ninian, and then scratches his A Eliwood and resets to get A Ninian. Hector goes for Oswin and A Eliwood. Playthrough 3: Hector: Gets Florina B and Lyndis B for final chapter. Maxes A for both in two plays through and does none, and then you have Lyndis. I'd recommend supporting the two girls for A rank here and get that out of the way now since they will be near Hector a lot anyways. Eliwood can pretty much go for anyone at this point as he doesn't need Lyndis, and all that's left is Lowen, Harken, and Marcus. Playthrough 4: Hector goes for Farina, the last one left. Eliwood has been done since Playthrough 3, and Lyndis can pick up everyone else now that she's free from Eliwood and Hector if you haven't used her. That should cover it more clearly now.

I don't think the chapter objectives necessarily need to be different. I think the sub-objectives in the map need to remain diverse. I really miss having to reach towns before stupid brigands destroyed them. Or reaching chest before thieves got to them (now they just have chest there, and you can pretty much get them at your own pace). Also, having to figure out how to recruit enemy units that were in a sea of enemies without obliterating them was also fun. These little things have slowly filtered out of Fire Emblem. They should come back. Like let's use an example, Seize objectives aren't much different from "defeat boss." The only difference is that your lord needs to be next to the seize point, and even THAT isn't a thing anymore, so really there's absolutely no difference between them for the most part. How the map plays out is what matters. I did like RD playing around with reinforcements on a defeat boss map where the boss RUNS from you for instance, that made it completely different from the standard "boss sits idle in one spot and waits for everyone to kill you." Having chapters where you had to stop enemies from taking your throne was also cool in 7. Things like that should come back. Heck, Death or Glory played around with "defeat boss" by having a chapter where you were on a psuedo-timer based on how the green units were fairing. You could help them to give yourself more time, or you could just rush to victory. Stuff like that helps to make a chapter seem a bit more diverse without changing the main objectives.

Dual Strikes happen 100% of the time assuming that you are adjacent to a unit and not paired up (the other unit can be paired up). IE, if you are like EAA, your allies will attack together. However, it must be noted that Dual Strikes now have reduced damage for the partner. It's not full damage. Guard Stances , aka, pair up works similar to Awakening, but has some unique effects. Each character gives class bonuses and unique character bonuses as well for support levels instead of it just plain giving more stats when you pair up. It also no longer factors in the pair up unit's stats in question, just support level and class. This means that a fast unit won't give additional stats and makes pair up far less stat wall like than Awakening (in essence, it's not a brain dead choice anymore) For dual guarding, it's a little bit more strategic, every time you attack or you are attacked, a gauge will fill up slightly. Every 5 interactions with an enemy, the gauge will be full. The next attack will be a dual guard (no matter what it is outside of staff effects) and even if your character could theoretically evade it -- so if you ever have a 0% chance to be hit, avoid wasting your gauge on that. The gauge also drops a little bit if the unit has not engaged enemies for a couple of turns as well.

I feel Corrin should have been the one with capture. That would have made more sense. Then you really could spare a ton of people. Or... Corrin could at any rate.

Ni No Kuni. Man, all these top marks and I can barely stomach the game. Legend of Zelda -- like all of them except Zelda 2. These games just aren't my cup of tea.

And even that's debatable on the account that there were still people that were loyal to Garon-- otherwise you wouldn't have had the split between pro-Xander and pro-Garon. Thus, many would probably see Corrin as an opportunist and a warmonger (after all, all they know is that what sparked Hoshido finally going to war was the murder of Mikoto-- something that only happened after Corrin "infiltrated into their ranks"). What would probably happen for Corrin is that some scholars would say that Corrin was a fool, others would praise him/her. The only thing that'd they would agree on is that he shifted the axis of power between Hoshido and Nohr.

No. He's just not a good hero.

I prefer Frederick x Olivia. Gives Inigo an easy proc, and allows both parental mods basically neutralize the problems each other has. The only negatives he'll have are magic and res.Magic won't matter because he can't become a mage. So there's that. Yarne I just leave as a hard support, so he really doesn't need a proc skill IMO.

For me it's because you get enough super units to where tanks aren't consistently needed. 3-12 is the biggest problem and 3-13 your yellows can die for you.

I honestly think he's perfectly average. I'm starting to think it's our different philosophies on units and play styles that are coming into play here. I just feel like he isn't bad at all. Like I honestly think tier 1s go like this for raising: Jill, Nolan, Edward, micaiah, aran, Leo, Meg, Fiona, ilyana. Like I think Ed is in the top 3. Leo I don't worry about raising because Leo strangely functions well with or without exp. He just has horrible ending potential.

Maybe, it's crazy because dluna rated Ed higher than I did :) That might be why in his redux I thought Ed was more or less the same while many felt he was stronger. I'm starting to think I just have a nutcase play style. Leo was the guy that stood out the most. Oh, and Meg. Meg is incredible in it.

Can't make a long post because I'm on the phone, but yes, a forged sword is +2 attack assuming it's maxed.

I have. The problem is that you're largely ignoring that Edward's affinity isn't selfish. Getting +8 hit basically means that any unit that has a "worst" biorhythm loses 2 hit instead of 10 and + 2 defense to help with losing avoid. I still believe that people are too harsh on Edward and too light on Zihark.

It's entirely dependent on who I plan on using. On a standard playthrough, if I don't plan on using any of the DB, I just use them as the following: 1) Micaiah x Sothe / Leonardo - It's fine, and I leave it alone by virtue that it's free and gives both a +2 attack. The evasion boost between wind and dark is okay, and both are forced, so it doesn't weigh down anyone in this case as Sothe isn't going to really have time to build supports, much less an A rank with anyone else if I don't plan on taking the DB to the end. If I plan on specifically ignoring Sothe, I'll replace him with Leonardo for Micaiah on the account that both are back row and it gives them both +3 attack. Unfortunately, it's not really useful for Micaiah at moments as most of the enemies she can't kill, +3 isn't helping, and on the ones that it does? She kills them anyways. 2) Nolan x Leonardo / Edward / Aran - The support can start out ASAP and Nolan and Leonardo get everything all around outside of hit. If you like Crossbows or need one in a quick bind, this can be pretty useful for Nolan, and unlike Aran, he doesn't have to wait a chapter. 3) Edward x Leonardo / Aran / Nolan - These are the only supports I bother with for Edward. If Nolan is going with someone else, Edward is generally not used. +2 atk and + 3 defense is nice, but it's not enough overall IMO. 4) Volug x Aran / Laura / Micaiah - Honestly, it's faster for Volug than other supports which is nice, and he gets more evasion. Aran is probably the best one for him since he's never taken when Volug is around, and Laura really isn't a good choice for him or Aran for that matter. They are a match made in heaven tbh. 5) Zihark x Jill - Is pretty much the OTP for them on a normal playthrough. They both join at the same time, they have movement that's close to one another, neither needs to break support chains already established when they join in 1-6, and they have the closest movement to one another without falling behind. The rest generally I just ignore and don't worry about. Primarily because I'm not arguing pro-Zihark. I'm arguing pro-Ed. I don't care if it's used on both. But considering that people were saying +2 defense doesn't matter, I figured there's no reason to include an argument pro Zihark for +2 defense when we apparently throw it out on Edward. @DLuna. I never said that you called him bad. I simply said people go against Edward a bit too much and praise Zihark a bit much. The gap between them in Hard mode and normal isn't that big. I've honestly never found Zihark to be anything special. Even using your example, there's still a problem with that. In Jill / Nolan / Edward versus Jill / Nolan / Zihark, we basically have Edward not taking much more from the units. What happens is that you get a slightly better team for Part 1, and Edward gets better from Part 3 to the end. I'd say that the early game is a bit more annoying on the account that things annoy you less with more levels (biorhythms hurt less etc). My issue is that both Zihark and Edward need some TLC to be able to make it passed part 3 to be good. Edward needs some in Part 1, and once you do, he's fine. The opportunity cost you talk about aren't even that bad. Because all of the DB needs them even the good ones. That's my beef with how people are talking about the units. And I agree on Leonardo. Leonardo doesn't have to do anything to be "okay" in usefulness. Basically what I said about Leo applies, he just doesn't have much potential.

No. But if we're using averages, that's about all we can go off of. Otherwise, we can't say much of anything, as Edward could possibly be better than averages or worse, which becomes inane to even discuss. Why? Because we're using him here. That's the issue with people on sites for Fire Emblem in general. Obviously if I'm using a unit, I'm going to give them resources that help them, because it obviously helps the team. I see nothing wrong with it. This is why we have people getting rated higher or lower than they should because of this mentality. Like Lucia being "better" than Stefan despite the fact that Stefan has no problems from when he appears until the very end, and Lucia is only good for 2 chapters. It makes no sense. Anyways, Edward gets + 2 from defense because the light bonuses are .5. It's not 3. It's 2. You get .5 C 1 B and then 1.5 for A which makes it 2. Not 3. That's why I usually give him Nolan if I plan on using Edward. It's mutually beneficial, and since none of the stats overlap, you get the best possible bonus you can from both supports because of the rounding. +45 avoid isn't THAT useful for several reasons. 1) using double Earth support means that you are flat out weakening your team at some point. You can't NOT break up a support or simply have to refuse to make one in order to make Zihark get any Earth x Earth that isn't Fiona. That in itself means that you've already thrown efficiency out of the window. 2) Authority stars - Are a thing pretty constantly in Dawn Brigade chapters, and unfortunately for Micaiah, she has 0 authority stars. This means that often times, all your earth affinity is doing is attempting to negate authority stars... Which doesn't put people into reliable dodge. And most importantly: 3) Zihark joins in chapter 6, and you're not getting Earth x Earth A until way into Part 3 assuming you're playing efficiently. 1-6 Zihark doesn't have it, 1-7, he *might* get C, and he might push B at the start of Part 3. In the end of the day, it becomes realistically 2 defense 23 avoid versus 30 avoid. I'll take 2 defense over 7 avoid. 7 avoid isn't doing anything. 2 defense on its own might not do much, but at least Dracoshield + Affinity is a solid + 4 right there. He gets + 5 from promotion. So again, that's not even debatable. I can give this to Zihark as well, and the thing here is that it takes longer for Zihark to build supports with people, so it's not the super gap people talk about. Like I said, people are overly harsh on this, as he's fine to use. So? We're not discussing if Edward > Zihark, we're discussing if Edward is bad at this point. And the answer to that, is that he's not. He's fine. Micaiah barely needs levels to function, and no matter how much EXP she gets, she's still in the same boat as always. And here's the thing, I think Aran is worse than Edward. Not even kidding on that. The ones I think that are worth using that are tier 1s are Ed, Micaiah, Jill, Nolan. The rest I think are kinda worse off for various reasons. You CAN give him this, but it has much less of an apparent effect without support bonuses and the item as well as potential BEXP, that's my issue. I'm just saying Zihark isn't as good as people are claiming. You have to remember I gave Ed a 5 for being average, and I think that Zihark is like 7 ish at best. Not really. Again, Volug would prefer extra attack over more avoid. It's not nearly as beneficial for Volug, and still requires him to break up with someone else. And even worse is that Nolan is STILL there and a better choice on the account that they've been together longer and would have a higher support chain. If you give Zihark earth x earth. You're hurting the team. Period. 4 levels yes, and he gets awful EXP in HM. Like super bad. Yes. And your arguments are unfair for poor Edward. He deserves it just like Jill does. Jill has a rocky start with that questionable strength, but she's well worth letting her growths kick in to use it. If I use Jill, I'm obviously giving her that energy drop so she can not suck as much. I'm not keeping it because it "hurts the team to give it to her." Saying "using Edward" makes people worse off? Well obviously, the same applies to anyone. The EXP goes into a void the other characters didn't use. I see no point in bringing that point in because it applies all around. When I compare units, I compare Team Edward versus Team Zihark, so you can feel free to give the Dracoshield to anyone on Team Zihark, you can sale it for all that matter, but if it doesn't help nearly as much, I'm not seeing a problem realistically. No. Zihark is not decent while being lenient with him. That's the problem. I've never felt Zihark was amazing. He appears, has no chapters of being super amazing, just better than Edward for part 1, and then gets battered around like everyone else in Part 3 that's not beefy like Tauroneo or the Black Knight. Not really. That's the issue. If Zihark is being good, he's taking away from people just like a hypothetical Edward would. That's why Quint and I are having problems with it. There's no clarity how something suddenly becomes favoritism or not. Especially when we magically assume that we're going to be using people that aren't forced. Yeah, these votes are crazy varied this time around.

It really isn't though. I've done playthroughs where I did HM and used both Edward and Zihark. In the event that Edward is given that early Dracoshield, plus getting those 3 levels of BEXP, he's looking to have about +4 defense (as the stats most likely to hit are Str, Lck, and Def, so getting two points is pretty standard here) when he reaches level 20. He promotes and he gets 1 point of defense, and he has +5 defense, and he can easily have an A support by the time he promotes. So it's not just a little bit of defense, it's +7 defense from an average Edward, with about 5 of it being natural (1 point of promotion, 2 from the shield, and +2 from BEXP). So it's more like Ed promotes and has 15 defense instead of the projected 11 average, and with a support, he has at least 17 defense on promotion. Zihark doesn't get that until he's level 19 of tier 2. This is what I'm talking about when I say "promoted" Edward is actually functionally better than Zihark. Assuming that you use Zihark, you're right he'll be like 20/6, but let's look at that strength though, it's only going to be 18 most of the time with an extraordinarily low chance of being higher than it. Meanwhile, Edward has 17 strength at 20/1, and it has a slightly decent chance of being naturally 18 on average, and with BEXP, might actually be higher than 18. He may have actually been able to reach 18 strength unpromoted. Bringing up Earth affinity is honestly a joke because there's so many Earth affinity people in the DB that there's no real reason to bring it up. Nolan and Volug are both realistic supports that Edward can use to give himself some earth affinity (with Nolan x Edward actually being mutually beneficial as it stops Nolan's hit problems earlier on and essentially makes both characters immune to Biorhythm), and Earth x Earth is just pointless. It means that you have to break up someone else on your team to benefit Zihark or use Fiona (ugh). The issue I'm pointing out is that Zihark isn't some godly 7+ unit while Edward is some scrubby 2-3 unit. Zihark is usable, certainly, but he's not nearly as good as people make him out to be. He stops being better than Edward if you bother to use Edward from Part 3 until the end. Do you need Edward's superiority from that point to win? No. Zihark is good enough, and that's what makes him better, because there's less of a struggle to use him at any given random point, but it's not nearly as lopsided as people say. I literally dedicated 2 playthroughs to this because people talked about how terrible Edward was. Which doesn't even matter. Zihark doesn't double them, so it doesn't matter if it's borderline or not. He doesn't. A couple points of speed are even more worthless than a couple of points in strength when neither double, nor get doubled as a result of it. And both need Resolve to do so. Edward at least has access to a sword that gives him way more might than he should have-- or Zihark for that matter. Zihark is marginally better than Edward. but it's not a gap by any means. People are too harsh on "growth" units at moments and take a very gimped perspective on them even when they have enough time and EXP for their EXP to actually kick in.

You forget dluna, Edward caps on stats at level 17 making him ripe for bexp for 3 levels. Those 3 levels are enough. To make him better than zihark because the only stats he can get from bexp is strength, defense, luck and resistance. All of which will make him more competent than zihark.OK 4 speed is nice, but 1 laguz kill with paragon is a level. The difference between them is pretty negligible after that point with Edward getting less garbage levels. Especially when you consider that earth affinity is everywhere in the dawn brigade. Like I said, zihark is better, but it's not a huge gap. In other words, zihark isn't as good as people say or Edward isn't as bad.

Hmm... we can add to the fe7 part too. if on Eliwood mode we support say Lyn and Fiora to b, we can get the a rank on the final chapter. So with three resets, we can get 3 artwork sets. Another plaony through could be done for ninian. However, on the ninian playthrough, do the other person before ninian. On eliwood playthroughs, Hector can go for a supports that don't give artwork. On Hector mode, we can get do what we did for Hector with eliwood. So we need 2 playthroughs to get 4 arts. Make sure you use bartre in at least one Hector playthrough to get Karla. Also get Karel when you get Karla the first time.

Eh, if you give Edward the dracoshield and he gets one or two levels under his belt, he's fine. People really exaggerate how "good" zihark is. He's better, but it's not the super massive gap like the difference between say Titania and Fiona. If you decide to use Edward, the minute you get the kid to promote he's better than a zihark. Even if you use zihark because zihark has some incredibly lame exp gain early on and lame growths to boot.

6 for fe7 if you want all of the artwork too. about 3 for fe6 . 1 for fe8 because of the tower and multiple saves.

This will be absolutely hilarious and I hope it happens.

You can use it for transfer chains if you need to move a unit. Say unit A moves, you then move over and use Shelter on it with unit B. Then you follow up by having unit C transfer A and then drop the other unit, thus the unit can move 1+ spaces farther than they should have been able to (by continuing to pass this unit along other non-paired up units). So you can net some movement as opposed to just using a simple pair up transfer chain.