Cysx

Idk what to tell you, it's a pretty good pick. Although, nothing really stops you from delaying Mozu's paralogue to funnel much of that exp into him instead, since he joins between chapters. At base, he hits a good bit harder than her without having to take a counter(10 vs 14, thanks personal skill). He also makes for a pretty amazing Oni chieftain if you put in the effort... a lot of effort.

Whether she's good or not matters "less" when she's around either way, most of the crew's stats are predictable and you have so few combat units. You said the word puzzle and that's pretty much exactly what it is; a low reward puzzle that you can easily skip. There was so much hyperbole around the character early on that I did put myself to the task, and all it really takes is to stay ahead of Ryoma in ch 4(specific but fully doable), and yeah, not use her as a pairup in ch 5 since it rids her of almost any exp/wexp gain. You don't retreat, or pair Kaze up with her either, that'd just be worse, instead you figure out a way to make things dead with her and Kaze attack stancing as much as possible. If done successfully, this is positive even for Kaze, but especially so for her (obviously). And the less you use "Corrin", the better. You have to be proactive in both chapters so there's no major turn loss, the method is one turn slower in ch 5 iirc. There's not much of a reason not to do it from what I've seen, but at the same time, it really is just about making a mediocre -and route locked- unit slightly less mediocre, everyone else will be fine either way. That is true, at the same time Setsuna doesn't have to risk low hit counters on non-green engagements early on, and Certain blow completely fixes her accuracy problems once she gets it. The only thing she direly needs that her class/weapon type doesn't give, is also the one thing she's good at on her own. She's a weird character. I also remember Hana falling off in lategame luna as she's really bad at dealing with several parts of the weapon triangle at once and enemies hit really hard, while Setsuna remains a consistent player phase unit, in theory anyway.

I think I'd rather have Setsuna than Hana. Setsuna is carried by Yumi mt and archer/sniper skills to the point where their outputs are similar, and neither have much of an enemy phase anyway. I'm not sure that's true overall(people spent a while on FE6), but mostly... it is kinda tough to say. She does get the opportunity to grow her Axe rank pre decision as well at limited opportunity cost(ultimately chapter 0 and 1 are quite short, and Corrin cannot build rank in ch 5... the difference isn't that big). People just generally don't bother.

At 20/7 she'd have 13 Def as a Dark Knight.

I can't really argue about Conquest in detail. There's too much I don't remember, need to replay it first. My main line of defense for Rinkah back then was that the existence of attack stance allowed other units to attack through her walling as long as she had 1-2 range equipped(through throwing club at first, but eventually horse spirit, which is a pretty good defensive weapon). This keeps her up to speed exp wise(one wouldn't think so, but it does, very well at that), and results in easy enemy phase chipping as well as quite a bit of additional exp and (especially) wexp in the long run. Oboro can pull off much the same thing, though, and while this works, there are simpler ways through Birthright Luna. Regardless, she has very limited potential as a combat unit, while she can at least take hits to the face more competently than most BR units, so... ... then there's indeed pairup, which is frowned upon by many others than yourself, but... it is a form of utility, at the end of the day, that not all characters share(especially in her case, as the sole base Oni savage). I believe she's also the only source of Blacksmith and thus Lancebreaker for Ryoma? MyCastle abuse notwithstanding. Those do not beat being a good unit, clearly, but if the question is "did this character's presence contribute to beating the map", and the answer is yes... that's not nothing. Staffbots don't fight, Dancers don't fight, Pairups don't fight(in Fates). It's not fundamentally that different.

I've used Nyx regularly to some success in lunatic(thanks heartseeker), but wasn't there a thing about immediately promoting her to Dark knight since she joins at level 9? Makes her solid for a bunch of chapters(including good ol' ch 10), then she can become a solid pairup bot, something like that? Speaking of pairup, Rinkah, Arthur and Charlotte are all considered as some of the best physical backpacks in Fates, and none are even close to unusable in their respective game. FE6HM showers you with units that are legitimately difficult to get anywhere.

I wasn't talking about using Donnel, because indeed, it's too much of a hassle. But it's not difficult to pair him up with someone, reach S-rank and pop goes the child with aptitude and pegasus knight access(if female, so Noire, Kjelle or Nah, none of which are easy at all to recruit granted). There's not really such a thing as speeding up capping stats in lunatic, as said, and it's not like the game begins at the endgame either. Aptitude results in better stats throughout and that's generally pretty useful. With that being said, why do you think Virion and Ricken are better(or even Brady since he was just brought up)? It's more interesting.

I'd rather say that grinding in Lunatic isn't quite so simple(dlc notwithstanding, but let's be real here, no balance will survive that kind of stuff) because skirmishes are very tough, and I believe spotpass teams give next to no exp? Also internal level actually matters and as you reclass you reach a point where your exp gains become miserable very quickly. So with that in mind, aptitude is quite useful. Considering Donnel doesn't require training to provide it and pegasus knight to girls, there's certainly an argument to be made that his inheritance alone keeps him from being the worst. ...but I'm not too sure who I'd point at. Sure Virion is terrible but at least he's around for the whole game and forced in two of the hardest chapters. Someone brought up Priam, and, yeah, considering he actually has 0 availability, that sounds accurate, but eh. If it's not Donnel or Virion the next in line is Ricken, I guess? Joins a little late considering he needs just as much babying as everyone before him, is a hindrance in his one forced chapter, inheritance is among the worst... there's Celica's gale to consider, but he can't use it at base... I'd bring up children but even Laurent can pull off a basic nosferatank build no matter the dad.

Even on a completely fresh new game, it only takes 100 renown to get to the second seal, which can reasonably happen pretty early. I don't remember if the prologue counts, but at worst, by chapter 6 you have two paralogues unlocked, and by 7 you have a third one. With all of that completed, you've reached the requirement.

Panne's pretty great actually. She requires an immediate second seal, no ifs or buts about it, but taguel has such terrible class bases that merely class changing to wyvern rider gives her +5 Str & Def. This gives her basically the same statline as lv 1 Frederick, later in the game and at E rank axes, but with wings and her promo gains still ahead of her. And she has some of the very best growths in the first gen, arguably the best, period. Edit: Forgot that you cannot use a second seal before level 10 (worst part is, I'm speaking from experience, it's just been a while), so she does have to be a pairup mule for a minute before initiating god mode. Fortunately taguel gives very good pairup bonuses. ... Or she could actually fight, but eeeh.

Genderlocked classes only: - Only genderlocked intermediate, advanced and master classes are allowed - Post timeskip, only one of each class allowed on the field at once(one Dark Mage and one Dark Bishop is fine, but two Dark Bishops isn't) - That one can be enforced earlier if you feel like it. Just don't want half of the cast to be stuck in beginner for half the game. At the same time, without something like that this'd just become a pegasus knight challenge. - No unique classes allowed unless you're forced to use them. Though you may pick up a dancer if you're bored. - DLC access is probably advisable, since there aren't that many female genderlocked classes without it(3 females vs 6 males).

I was rather thinking of a theoretical new unit with 4 mov and 2 range out of the box(or 3 mov and 3 range, works too, better even probably) that could outrange everyone and still kill things. I feel like you'd need everyone to be capable of hitting from across the map on turn 1 for more mov(or rather range) to start becoming superfluous in that game. But literally, what do I know.

While there's no denying that the rarity of movement boosts is partially responsible for their high value, I'd argue that making them comparably as accessible(not to the extent you brought up because class changing to Fortress knight doesn't exactly come without compromise) would still keep Mov firmly above Def; regardless, it's difficult to rely on expected values when comparing a stat that grows throughout the game to one that doesn't. Point to point has the advantage of being straightforward and the standard for everything else, even if it's not fully representative in that case. You also have to consider that many combat stats grow linearly with enemy strength(when the enemies don't suck, at least). There are baselines so to speak, or in other words your unit doesn't only have 40 speed to the enemy's 36, but also the enemy's +4, and while going from 40 to 42 doesn't sound too special, +4 to +6 is a bigger deal. Logically, this second idea works for mov as well since there's a comparably stable relationship between it and map size/objectives distancing, which doesn't vary too much throughout any given game. I haven't touched Heroes for years but, wouldn't the first unit with 4 move, or rather, 6 range and actually good combat completely break the meta, the same way Reinhardt and Brave Lyn did?

This kinda arcs back to a previous argument, which is that move doesn't matter because of rescue dropping(their words not yours). But then you're essentially saying that mov doesn't matter, as long as you have... more mov, just elsewhere, which doesn't ultimately do much to lower the value of the stat itself, if you ask me. And in the case of Rutger, enough units can do it that any single one cannot really get the credit. If Treck had +2 mov yet even worse combat, he'd be among the de-facto ferry units and definitely be considered much better. FE just doesn't play around wit this number much on a character to character basis. On a class tier list it's considerably more obvious. Well... why not? We do that for everything else. I agree that it's obvious, but...

It's the only game where cavalry is the norm, especially in early gen 1(and of course there's the gigantic maps). It's not like it doesn't make a difference in other entries, it's just tipped the other way. Units with good to great movement are typically at an advantage tiers wise, and infantry is average. Can't really call out, idk, Canas for low move when most units have the same value.

What qualifies as low movement in FE? Footsoldier mobility isn't that, it's the norm. Exceptions being knights and unmounted Genealogy units, and those definitely are considered limited primarily because of it.

I'd probably be laughing uncontrollably for a good hour, before begging you to make this a yearly tradition from that point on. Long as the dog is fine, of course. ... I'm helping.

It's definitely more of a curve, although specific skills aside(having just enough HP that certain skills will trigger in one hit, for example), I think Fatigue can kinda work as that? Aka you only need has much max HP as the amount of fatigue you'll spend until the end of the game. It's specific, though.

Do we have any reason to think it would be any different for FE, though? I brought up flying to fit the plane analogy, I wasn't thinking of fliers in particular. Horses can ferry as well, but not with low MOV. I'm saying that the fact that combat is divided in so many stats limits the value of each of them to an extent. One could say there are two big poles to Fire Emblem, combat and movement(and then add support as a lesser third). Picture an FE game where your HP is also your STR, your SPD, your DEF and your SKL, and is just called WIN. WIN would be an incredibly pivotal stat. Well that's basically what MOV is, for mobility. Thus, your argument inevitably becomes analogous to "Mobility doesn't matter", which is not a statement you'll get too many to agree with. The one thing that goes your way is that how fast you win is irrelevant, only winning matters. You'll miss out on side objectives and every now and then you're actually timed but for the most part, nothing stops you from slowly getting a 1 MOV unit across most maps there are, disregarding terrain(though you'd need incredible combat to deal with being swarmed constantly). A lot of what makes movement good is arbitrary or optional. But, it still functions as a grading of how much one unit can accomplish in a single turn. It makes little sense to declare that one unit that can go ten spaces and see many more opportunities is just as good as one that can only move five, just because the player might choose not to capitalize on that difference. Also I don't even know if you'll agree with the above, so that's enough of that. A good half of your argumentation is MOV vs everything else at once, which can be its own debate, but it does little to prove that most stats are superior individually, which I believe is what your stance is?

I ain't leaving though. ... but seriously, I didn't mean to antagonize you(my last message was misworded in that regard, it was more of a "see, neither of us are listening here" instead of the "gotcha you pleb" it probably came off as). I just think you're very obviously wrong, also your rebuttal ignored half of my response, and... idk, I'm just not feeling it man. Which is fine, again, there are other people.

You pretty much just confirmed that we wouldn't get anywhere. I'm curious to see what others have to say about it, though.

I honestly see this as you going at this backward. Yes, combat is important. So is movement. I really don't think you need my input to realize what is flawed about your logic if you're willing to think on it, and if you aren't, there's nothing for me to do either. So I'll stop there.

While this series in particular doesn't dabble too much into that territory, s-rpg units with next to no move(1 or 2) will typically suck no matter how high everything else is. Similarly, having even as little as minus 2 move than average will seriously limit your opportunities to contribute and gain exp, while having two more, as FE teaches us, gives you a massive advantage. Then there are classes and roles that aren't focused around combat or stats. You even mentioned some of them, how useful are those roleplaying airplanes if they cannot fly? It's a different stat from most others, but it's critical to almost any type of performance. If anything, the fact that you need 3 to 4 stats to have good combat while you just need one to have good movement has predictable consequences. HP: 7/10 One of the hardest stats to rate. It doesn't match most others numerically, and it's almost always strictly defensive, in a series that often gives you the tools to eventually ignore that side of combat. Plus, it has noticeably diminishing returns. At the same time, it's incredibly important early on when the two previous statements don't apply, and while making HP pointless is possible, it's not always convenient or practical to do so. Plus, defensive stats also get bonus points because of permadeath. In many comparable games, having your HP depleted doesn't matter nearly as much as it does for most of the FE series. STR: 9/10 Straightforward, it's the primary combat stat in a majority of situations. It's arguably superior to speed but I like having those two tied. Not much to say here, really. MAG: 8/10 Considering the much more modest place magic damage has, this is this close to strength because it also affects other things, specifically staves, but also mixed combat, and it hits the usually much lower res. Plus it's still strength for a 4th to a 3rd or all FE characters, basically. SKL: 6/10 This is the stat that varies the most in value from game to game. In 3H, it's next to worthless, in FE5 and 6, it's pretty great. This shifts depending on how the RNG works, what the formulas are, how much avoid enemies usually have, how much innate accuracy weapons give... This is definitely just an average. SPD: 9/10 This could be controversial. Speed is the diminishing returns stat, in that once you can double, getting more loses 90% of its appeal in the moment. Still, not only is doubling obviously great, but so is not getting doubled, and dodgetanking, aka what is arguably the strongest form of survival in FE, is always largely based on speed. It's not a 9/10 in every game, unlike strength is, but I'd still say it fits. LCK: 3/10 I really like luck, it's such an interesting stat. I really wish it was better on average, and there are some games where formulas or skills make it good. But usually, having terrible luck is fine, and that's not a great sign is it. DEF: 7/10 Cf my HP rating about defense and permadeath. Unlike HP, it does nothing for magic damage, also unlike HP, getting more when you have none doesn't matter, and getting more when you have a lot is really, really good. Mitigating damage is always something devs have to keep in check because it's the quickest way to invincibility, and there's a reason this stat has historically lower growths than everything else. Also this one isn't really an unhelpful average like for HP and skill, I'd say it's roughly this good in every single game. RES: 4/10 Magic damage is too rare and too easily dealt with by HP on its own for this to get any higher. Still a mitigation stat, though, and having a ton of it instantly gives you a niche on most any team. CHA: 3/10 Another one I wish was better, unfortunately it suffers a very restrictive dynamic cap and influences battalion damage very little. It's still your primary accuracy source for one of the most overpowered tools 3H brings though, so I can't put it any lower. MOV: 10/10 I kinda said my piece already, didn't I. Movement is by far the most restricted stat around, and for very good reason.

To me (disclaimer, I don't use them at all either, not in 3H anyway), their utility lies in either enabling key ORKOs(duh, I guess), or genuinely boosting the output of an unit that will see more than one encounter before the effect expires, which is why they work particularly well with enemy phase builds, and why dancers and dancing battalions bring said utility up a little. Another small quality they have is that they make things simpler, as you only have to worry about the performance of one unit instead of two. Rally strength can also make gauntlets much stronger during the early game.

Ignatz has the best accuracy in the game, and we're talking about one of the classes that gets the most mileage out of the stat, since it extends its reliable range of attack. HV can hit at 4 range, but -50 Hit will often be a pretty big hurdle depending on target and build. He also does reach higher crit rates than the majority of other candidates with a 105% combined Dex&Lck growth, which is another stat HV Sniper favors(this also matters because there's a bit of a tradeoff between hit and crit when it comes to accessory and battalion, so even having too much hit can translate to more crit in that sense). That number is the 2nd best in the game behind Shamisen's 110%, tied with Claude(average is around 78%, though that's with every single character taken into account).