Geriba

First, let me be totally clear that just because I disagree with your views doesn't mean I don't really enjoy this discussion. It's tough to express subtlety over the internet, especially when it comes to politics; know that I'm trying my best to separate my political views from my social views! Failure in school is absolutely an indicator of "not intelligent." There are exceptions- you claim to be one, and I'm definitely one (I completely sucked up high school)- but in general, poor performance corresponds to low intelligence. As for your link, it proves my point: this is highly technical chemistry, and although it's possible to create a makeshift bomb or deadly explosive with household objects, it requires a rare degree of technical skill and chemical understanding to pull off effectively. In other words, anyone can make a bomb; but making a good bomb is a little different. And none of this changes the fact that it's time consuming and has a much higher risk of failure, even if you're an expert. And I'm not sure how an overhaul of mental health in America (which probably needs some serious improvements) relates to deterring or reducing mass shootings.

We already have a lot our plates here, so I hope I'm not adding too much by suggesting we raise Heath and Fiora to above Hawkeye and Geitz. Early promotions open up huge opportunities for both of them, and while Fiora serves as a Florina-lite (aka really really good), Heath secures an important niche as your sole offensive/tanky transporter until Vaida.

No question that this guy was crazy enough to kill, and crazier still to go to great lengths to do so. I don't want to discount the fact that many murders are crimes of passion, where strict gun laws can serve as an effective disincentive to murder (cool-down laws and the like)... but this is not one of those situations. Still, that he was able to use a gun in his psychopathic fantasy ended up killing and injuring more people than if he used a knife or house bomb, and honestly, it's not too much to ask that our gun laws prevent obvious mad men from securing weaponry. As far as the Second Amendment goes, the right to bear arms doesn't translate into "the right to walk into your local Wal-Mart and purchase a fully-loaded handgun without so much as a cursory background check." I'd probably support a more state-focused offense against guns, however; leave the federal government out of things if at all possible.

If we get a large enough sample, I'd love to compile SF users' types and see how they compare to the general population. I'd put good money on us having some of the more unique (and introverted) types compared to average.

First, fun copy/paste time. [spoiler=Life Admirals rules quoted from fe 7 tourney 1] Credit to i_eat_tables for the idea. Originated at GFAQs and was pretty much a hit. Basically, five people will enter in a drafting pool. One by one (in predefined order), each participant in this pool will choose one character from the list of selectable characters. There will be 40 characters available in all, so each participant will be able to select a total of 8. Once this is done, the real tournament starts. The objective is to complete Hector Hard Mode (no Lyn Mode beforehand) as fast as possible (in terms of total turns used) using ONLY your drafted team of characters and a choice few that are allowed for everyone. The other characters you may not use (not even to support your characters with) except for: - Meatshielding (without weapons) - Rescuing non-drafted characters (but NOT characters you have drafted; this is basically so you can protect frail characters) - Holding weapons and items - Recruiting other characters Another exception is that Matthew (and only Matthew) is allowed to open chests and steal items even if you haven't drafted him. You can still draft him normally to be on your combat team. If you, for some reason, fail to abide by these rules, then you have to incur a four turn penalty for every character you've used for a purpose other than one listed above per chapter. As in the previous drafting tournament, this is four turns regardless of the importance or frequency of the foul committed. Like Kent can solo a chapter (4+ turns) or can rescue Lyn once (4+ turns). During your run, you are expected to keep track of your total turn count and report often on your progress in some detail. If you don't, it might be mistaken for inactivity and thus grounds for disqualification. You are also expected to play fair. If you cheat, shame on you! Gaiden chapters are, of course, completely optional, but since they will probably cost you quite a few turns, they're generally avoided. The first five people to sign up will enter a drafting pool. If there's enough interest, a second pool will be available for the next five to sign up. You may choose your own position in the pool (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5). If you have no preference, I will put you in whatever slot is left after five signups. The order of drafting will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1, ... until all 40 characters have been drafted. Characters allowed for everyone to use are Hector, Marcus, Merlinus and Athos. Draft pool Raven Serra Priscilla Ninian Oswin Sain Kent Lowen Guy Erk Eliwood Florina Pent Lucius Geitz Legault Fiora Hawkeye Heath Lyn Isadora Jaffar Karel Dart Vaida Rebecca Rath Louise Wil Nino Farina Karla Wallace Renault Since this tournamenHt concerns HHM, please consider carefully if you are up to the challenge! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask me. And yeah. Anyone wanna play? [spoiler=Drafting rules]Only difference in rules is drafting You draft a character for the person who will pick next unless you have the last pick of the round then you pick for the first person of the round Example: Player 1 selects Nino (great way to tick someone off right) Player 2 Geitz 3 Karla 4 Renault 5 Wallace End of round 1 The characters each person would have are 1 Wallace 2 Nino 3 Geitz 4 Karla 5 Renault Round 2 5 Wil 4 Rebecca Etc. So after this round 1 Wallace 2 Nino 3 Geitz, Rebecca 4 Karla, Wil 5 Renault Person 5 will still pick 2 units but they will go to 2 separate people [spoiler=Draft pool]Draft pool None left! Some additional rules that were decided in the last topic: -Marcus is acceptable... up to a point. I believe the agreed upon chapter before was after the defeat of Uhai, but I'm flexible about changing this. -Everyone can use Matthew for thief and Ch.11 utility; only one can use him for combat. I'll edit additional rules in if I've missed any. First come first serve! EDIT: Remember that I'll be editing the draft pool, participants! Should make it easier to keep track of which units are left for the picking. And by request, the pick order... 1. Xander ---> Karla, Nils, Rath, Farina, Eliwood, Erk, Hawkeye, Pent 2. Jaffar ----> Wallace, Louise, Bartre, Jaffar, Lyn, Vaida, Lucius, Fiora 3. General --> Geitz, Renault, Matthew, Legault, Serra, Priscilla, Sain, Isadora 4. eclipse --> Nino, Karel, Dorcas, Guy, Dart, Lowen, Ninian, Raven 5. Soul ----> Rebecca, Wil, Canas, Harken, Kent, Heath, Florina, Oswin Here's who got who according to my RNG: Xander -> Jaffar's Team Jaffar -> Soul's Team General -> Xander's Team eclipse -> Horace's Team Soul -> eclipse's Team

I agree in full with SDS's analysis (except him calling me out about the mod ruffle; we've sorted that out, thank you very much). Consistency is key here, so placing Raven below the healers only makes sense. Ninils above the healers too, and I'd advocate moving Florina and Lowen up there as well.

Reviving this. As a psychology major, I'm surprised at how quickly people are dismissing this test as "too confining"- Meyers Briggs is one of the standards of the field. Great way to get a primary look into a person's character, and the results are usually startling accurate. Best of all, unless you're pretty familiar with how the test types people, it's a tough quiz to beat. Anyway, I've taken this test several times over the years, and I consistently score ENXP (X meaning almost dead-center) with slight F leanings.

Homemade explosives don't require a license, but they do require an understanding of chemistry and a pretty high intelligence. This psychopath was deeply disturbed and was allegedly struggling at community college, so that's out. There's also the fact that homemade explosives are just that: homemade. They often turn out to be duds, or fail to eliminate the desired number of targets. "TANK-DOZER" has the unfortunate quality of not being, you know, subtle. Or surprising. Or in any way unavoidable. And airborne poison? Please. I don't know how much clearer I can make this: guns are entirely unique in how they combine ease of use with sheer destructive potential. Your "solution" does absolutely nothing to address the actual issue of mass murders- at best, it can help the murderers cope with their mistakes and prevent them from doing something similar again (although they're not ever getting out of jail, so it's a kind of non-issue). It'd be like saying "How do we prevent people from stealing? No, we don't need 'laws' or 'regulations'; just have a Robber Support Group after-the-fact."

There are not "plenty of ways" for a crazy man to kill six people and injure dozens without someone restraining him. Needless to say, guns are in a league of their own when it comes to danger.

You should! This sounds like a really interesting project. Just replayed this chapter to confirm that no, Serra isn't really necessary. Hector and Oswin are going to be traveling east immediately, an area covered in woods and, by association, +1def and +20avo. And assuming Hector gets a few unlucky hits from the PK, there's relatively little to be gained from Serra that can't be gained by a vulnerary + waiting on forest tile. In fact, putting Serra too far to the left only slows the effort down, as enemies begin to target her. Even one turn here that's "Serra-exclusive" is pretty generous. Agreed about 13 somewhat, although once again, Marcus takes away the majority of the challenge and Guy/Matthew easily handle the bottom-right corner. Chapter 14, however, is something I don't quite get. Once again, Guy/Matthew take care of the pirates coming from the bottom-right, while Marcus handles the middle; Serra's stuck traveling the northwest path and recruiting Erk. You talk about a "northwest group," so maybe this is a strategy I'm unfamiliar with, but in my experience you want to pretty much charge the middle with Marcus & Co. As a survival chapter, 15 is one of the few I fully agree Serra/Prissy really help towards. Ch.16 though? Not really. Vulneraries here are perfectly acceptable. I suppose I'll have to concede Torch utility, but remember: that's all of 21, 23, and 28. Absolutely. By the time barrier becomes usable, however, you'll have access to pre-promo Lucius with a C stave rank, and the Ch.29 example you mentioned is also doable by Pent. I'm definitely alright with giving Prissy/Serra some share of the credit here, but not all. I was referring to Pent's high magic stat making Warp more effective. Though yeah, if you're creating complex Warp chains, you'll need all the help you can get. This is where I think you've got a real point. But even accepting this to be the case- that the healers are pretty much by default better than the vast majority of combat units- then why are they above Florina/Lowen? Or below Raven?

So... anybody up for that Round 2?

The issue isn't whether or not the man is crazy- I think both sides of the aisle are unanimous in declaring a man who can bring himself to shoot and kill a nine-year-old girl "psychotic"- but rather pinpointing what motivated the man to channel his frustrations into a mass shooting spree. Democrats have a penchant for assigning blame to the vitriolic rhetoric of Republican leaders and talking heads. I think there's something to this (having crosshairs over Democratic candidates you're demonizing is not conducive to open political discourse, Palin), but I think the real villain is flying under the radar: America's embarrassingly lax private sector gun regulations. That a man so clearly insane was able to legally purchase a gun speaks volumes about how urgent the need for meaningful gun control reform truly is.

Culinary school? That is so boss. Scraped by high school somehow, and am currently a college freshman.

Stop trying to paint the issue as binary. It's not either "healers are utterly worthless" or "healers alone enable successful kills." Prissy and Serra are definitely contributing to the team in a positive manner; what I'm questioning is their placement in the higher tiers. As you yourself have made clear, their job early on is solely to auto-vulnerary units who are low on HP when necessary. Pent is Pent, but aside from that, it's not quite as big a deal. Unlike the healers, who will need to stay in the backlines to avoid getting impaled, the promoted mages can advance without too much caution- making them closer to the frontline units who'll need help the most. Does this mean physic suddenly has no use? Of course not. I'll grant that it helps, but remember that it's not all hunky dorry: the staff is expensive, comes no earlier than Ch.21 (which also assumes you nabbed the Member's Card successfully), and can be used by Pent, and Lucius (who starts with a C staves upon promotion) without too much trouble, and even still, it's a glorified Heal staff. No qualms here. Torch staff is better, absolutely granted. But healers alone do not have a monopoly on fog clearing, and that's the point I'm getting at.

I expected a PM for the double-posting thing, frankly, but if that's SF policy, then fair's fair. I'll go ahead and delete the previous post of mine to avoid getting any further off-topic. EDIT: And you can't delete posts here lol. Time to make this post semi-useful and relevant: No disagreement about how it's useful to train units besides Marcus. You mentioned Lowen and Kent, but I'd say that Florina is the one who benefits the most, given her fragile nature. The point, however, remains: Marcus is dealing with the large bulk of enemies, leaving scraps on the sidelines. Healing helps here, but assuming all healing options magically disappeared during the early game, little would change. Marcus would rush, other units would gang up on fodder for experience feeding. The "A staff" comment is about physic, which is actually a B staff (mixed up with fortify). Keeping characters live with physic is certainly helpful, but 1) it doesn't come into play until Ch.21 at the earliest, and 2) is better done by people with longer ranges, aka Pent and promoted mages. Finally, the torch staff commentary was not meant to discount it entirely, but simply to put things in perspective. Take Ch.21, for example. Not every unit is going to be attacking on turn 1, and it's almost natural to employ a regular torch during that time; while a torch staff helps, a torch use helps almost as much. As for the guiding ring comment, consider that even if you feel that robbing it off the boss during Pirate Ship isn't worth your trouble, there's one conveniently in a chest during Dragon's Gate. I'm not suggesting you promote all of your mages; one alone will suffice in putting the healers relatively out of business.

Didn't realize double posting was a bigger deal than, say, responding with a meaningless and empty message insulting my original board while threatening two hour-apart, page-split posts as a warnable offensive. Don't worry though, I'm on board with the forum's rules (and its priorities, apparently).

Great, dondon's analyses are usually excellent. Let's dissect this Serra review piece by piece: That's an interesting way to look at healing. A 15-HP Lowen can't extend himself as far as, say, a 25-HP Lowen. Makes sense. But this would apply much more in a ranked run, where all units are encouraged to take on kills. Not so here. Thanks to Blitzarcus, most units will be lucky to scrape in a few kills per chapter, if that; the Big Man handles the rest. Healing becomes a method for lesser units to get slightly-easier experience kills early on, which is hardly an essential function for the team. IIRC, in HHM, the first torch staff is obtained in Ch.19, the first barrier in Ch.20, and the first psychic in Ch.21 (secret shop); in other words, Priscilla and Serra are only promoted from refuse-kill buffers to moderately useful utility units 12 chapters in. The torch staff is good, but there are plenty of actual torches floating around, and it's highly questionable that either unit will have reached an A staff level by that point. Which leaves barrier, no doubt a highly useful staff; but does it alone justify their high placement? Pent's a lock for warp and rescue, and hammerne- while good- is hardly a Serra/Priscilla exclusive. I'm beginning to feel as though the placement of these two revolves around the assumption that a 10K fee for a Guiding Ring somehow makes early promotion of Erk/Canas/Lucius a non-possibility. All in all, Serra and Priscilla probably shave off a few turns overall, but it's not much, and their contribution to team utility is exaggerated.

In seriousness, though, I feel like this list could use some major revision. Raven is far too high up, for example. He's still second-to-(almost)-none in the combat department, but in an efficiency run, "killing things" is hardly a significant achievement when Marcus is blitzing the early-game and Saladin/Kent/Florina are blitzing the mid- to late-game. In a list based around rapid clear time, Raven excels at getting rid of the refuse so that other units can zoom in and shave off a few turns. A useful role, to be sure, and one he shares with most units, but Raven doesn't deserve to be put above, say, Florina. Healers are my next qualm. For comparison's sake, look at a recent Serenes Ranked List: they're at equivalent places, by and large, compared to this Efficiency List. Yet on a ranked run, they have the luxury of extra turns and contribute primarily to the experience rank. So why are they so high here? Early-game healing is nice for survival, but hardly a game-changer. There's no incentive to spam barrier/torch as there is in a ranked run, so healers won't be promoting early (or at all). And not only is healing less of an issue in an efficiency run, but there's simply so much more competition. Pent, of course, but also an early-promoted Erk, Canas, and Lucius all compete with Serra and Priscilla; as they can attack as well as heal, they're far superior to their staved-locked counterparts. Novelty staves like Warp only come into play late in the game, when you have high-magic prepromotes like Pent who do the job better anyway. I can't fathom why the healers are so high. As far as the dancer/bard duo goes, I think they probably ought to be above Raven as well. Ninils hits hardest where it matters most: reducing the total turn count. Of course, most of their usefulness in an Efficiency List is contingent upon the high-movement, high-utility units (as opposed to a Ranked List, where Ninils come in handy with just about any ragtag group); putting them just beneath the cavaliers and Florina seems appropriate. My proposed changes: Florina, Lowen, and Ninils above Raven (in that order, probably, although I know Lowen/Florina is hotly contested), and the healers way down. Not sure about Matthew, but I'm assuming he's there for the silver card and miscellaneous thief utility, so that seems appropriate.

Math is not my strong suit, I guess. Nor is clicking "swords" instead of "axes." Sloppy sloppy!

I hate to be on the opposing end of dondon during an FE debate, but I can't let these bases pass by undefended: Raven HM (Lv. 5) HP: 29 Str: 10 Skill: 13 Speed: 15 Luck: 2 Def: 6 Res: 2 That puts him at 18 strength and 15 AS with an iron, and 21 strength/10 AS with a steel. That's ridiculous period considering his growths, much less as a level 5 unit with so much room to grow. He comes a little late, but starts great and only gets greater. He's certainly your best non-Marcus combat unit.

I lol'd.

I'm gonna go ahead and get in line for a potential second draft, since this idea seems crazy fun.