aku chi

... if you are using at least three of Caineghis, Giffca, Tibarn, Skrimir, and a Reaver with blessed Urvan; Rafiel; Ena; the Rescue staff; and a Rescue staff user. In other words, it requires a very specific strategy with strong unit deployment assumptions.

Volke also has Chapter 10 all to himself where he is essential for a stealth run (if you want to recruit anybody or get any treasures). He can also help out in C11 with mediocre combat or visiting houses. Volke has both an availability advantage over Sothe and noticeable advantages in all of their shared chapters: Volke adjacent to Sothe doesn't sit right with me. It's like if Soren were adjacent to Ilyana, only worse. Or, a less extreme version of Calill vs. Bastian.

As Red Fox of Fire pointed out, Resolve isn't available during the Black Knight fight. And while Resolve is probably the best skill for Ike in the last two chapters, there's no reason not to give Ike Aether in the interim: it is quite clearly the best mastery skill and he puts it to great use. The other mastery skills are underwhelming, but Sol (for Paladins), Luna (for Devdan, Brom, or Gatrie), or Cancel (for the Hawks, if used) are the best of the rest.

Indeed they are. I still stand by my previous suggestion that Volke compares favorably with Rhys and Sothe is comparable (less favorably) with Calill. Looking over the tier list, Volke and Sothe's positions are the only part that I take particular issue with (though I wouldn't mind taking a detailed look at the Sages v the Swordmasters in Upper-mid).

Actually, I don't think Counter will activate unless you can counterattack normally. I've never seen Titania activate Counter without weapons equipped. I'm not sure about the Goddess' Blessing work-around, though.

Ha! I've had the C7 Thief steal a Vulnerary before. My guess is that it's a part of their I_am_injured_and_desire_a_Vulnerary state. If they can steal one, they will! It doesn't seem like this behavior was well implemented, because the C7 Thief, after stealing a Vulnerary, never used it and never moved again.

I'm with Red Fox of Fire here. None of that really matters in Chapters 14-16. With 6 mov, Nephenee will fall behind in Chapters 14 and 16 (the best she can do is help accomplish some secondary objectives), and we shouldn't (go out of our way to) kill any laguz in C15. C17-1 is the first chapter after C13 where Nephenee's contributions can realistically help us clear the chapter. I'm not sure that Nephenee gets auto-C Lances when she promotes, but if she does: the only real advantage of an Arms Scroll for Nephenee is to wield Steel Lances from the get-go, which isn't important if you're giving her exclusive access to a max-mt Iron Lance forge. She'll also be closer to B rank (for the Spear) and A rank post-promotion, but that's small potatoes.

You can do both. Just because you give Nephenee an Arms Scroll immediately doesn't mean you need to glue a Steel Lance to her hands. If an Iron Lance lets you double something that the Steel Lance doesn't: use the Iron Lance. Or, if you have a forged Iron Lance, only use the Steel Lance when that can get the job done just as well. More options are always > less options. The only potential downside is getting C Lances later, which is only the case if you use fewer than 10 Steel Lance uses on your path to C Lances. If you use the Steel Lance more than 10 times, an early scroll is more advantageous all around. [by the way, I'm not suggesting that you should change your playthrough, just weighing in on the optimal time to give Nephenee an Arms Scroll.] You vastly overestimate the speed at which Nephenee can gain weapon ranks. D Lances (sans Arms Scroll) by C16 is optimistic. The C16 Silver Lance is so far out of reach as to be laughable (plus, using an Arms Scroll to get a weapon inferior to a Steel Lance forge seems like a big waste). How confident are you about the auto-C Lances on promotion bit?

In my experience, Nephenee is unlikely to reach D Lances naturally before C16, but I'm interested to see how it goes in Life's run. And there's little pointing in waiting to give Nephenee an Arms Scroll. Even if you just sprinkle in a few Steel Lance uses, Nephenee will reach C Lances around the same time. I suppose it doesn't matter much if you plan to give Nephenee exclusive access to a max-mt Iron Lance forge, because it is superior to Steel Lances, Nephenee is unlikely to make good use of the D-rank Knight Killer or Heavy Lance due to their weight, and she is an unlikely candidate for the first couple Steel forges.

Be prepared for a long wait. I don't think there is any real downside to giving Nephenee the Arms Scroll immediately. If you have Nephenee use a Steel Lance at least 1/3 of time, it will take less uses to go from D->C than from E->D, to say nothing of the advantages of an earlier D rank in and of itself.

If Adept activates, the first attack won't deliver Wexp, I believe. Fair enough. It's possible, but extremely unlikely, for Soren to burn through his starting Wind tome without activating Adept once.

It would be highly unusual to not activate Adept once in 40 attempts, considering Soren starts with an 8% chance to proc. In fact, the odds of that are 3.56% if Soren didn't gain a single point of Skill, lower if he did.

I believe this is what's going on. Weird bug.

Yeah. Though one could argue that Mia needs the Vague Katti and/or Iron Blade more (lower Strength and durability, and Vantage vs. Adept). Unlike Oscar, Jill is far from guaranteed to reach B Lances before she promotes, especially if you give her a large Bexp dump, as is optimal. So Jill is in an even worse position when it comes to securing an A-rank. Axes are better and cheaper, so Jill would prefer to use them post-promotion, but A Axes is very far away. I often find myself with a C Lances, C Axes Jill around C21, so I need to decide how to go about getting an A rank (ideally by C24). An Arms Scroll once Jill reaches B Axes might be more beneficial than most Arms Scroll uses (on account of Jill being so valuable). Like Jill, Astrid is liable to have more weapon rank issues than Oscar. A Bows really doesn't substitute for A Axes, so if you ever want Astrid to 2HKO the tougher enemies, boosting her Axe rank with an Arms Scroll isn't a bad idea. Moreover, Astrid might be the sole potential wielder of the Brave Bow, and she might like an Arms Scroll to get from C->B Bows if you promoted her early.

Except Speedwing Skrimir is a monster from the get-go, and only gets better from there. He dominates Speedwing Tanith in their shared chapters. And I don't think that Tanith's decent 3-13 and better-than-nothing 3-E performances are going to swing it in her favor.

Longbows are certainly poor weapons, but 3 range is still occasionally useful. Nothing worth using an Arms Scroll for, though.

Maybe. Ilyana might be able to reach C Thunder and C Fire in time. But you'd have to use fire tomes when you wouldn't otherwise want to. An Arms Scroll for C Fire isn't out of the question. Yeah, Rolf kinda has Nephenee syndrome, except he's a lot worse. He could certainly benefit from an early Arms Scroll for immediate access to Steel Bows and Longbows and earlier access to Killer and Laguz Bows, but it generally won't be worth it. 23 Atk hitting Resistance is generally enough to 2HKO physical enemies: Mist's offense can be scary good with the Sonic Sword. The big problem with this strategy is that the Sonic Sword only has 25 uses. A Hammerne use can extend this significantly, but that's another resource added to the pile. My perspective is that the Sonic Sword Mist strategy is only worth considering if you don't have any other good Sonic Sword candidates. Oh, and it is at least possible to use 17-3 to get Mist to C Swords so that you only need to drop one Arms Scroll on her. I don't see Arms Scrolls being useful on Marcia, unless she finds herself just short of C Lances in Chapter 15 and you were banking on her using the Laguz Lance here (oops). I've tried this before. It's not as good as it sounds. Painful as it is, your best bet is to forget about trying to salvage that misplaced Gamble skill. Kieran's axe rank will be fine, so the only case where I can see an Arms Scroll being useful on Kieran is if he gets bows on promotion and is your only bow user. Then he might enjoy exclusive access to the Killer Bow and, eventually, the Brave Bow. I don't think that the Killer Lance is ever worth using an Arms Scroll for. Especially on Brom. Yeah, this is one of the best Arms Scroll uses. It takes forever for Nephenee to drag herself out of her E Lances hole otherwise. Realize, though, that Nephenee doesn't have to glue a Steel Lance to her hands just because she has D Lances. If the AS loss is problematic, switch to an Iron Lance until it's no longer an issue.

Almost. After ~600 Bexp, an Arms Scroll, and the very first Steel forge (which has a much higher opportunity cost than one a few chapters down the line). I appreciate the comparison you provided, but there were some irrelevancies. Firstly, it doesn't matter how Nephenee/Lethe fare against the Tigers, they're stationary and don't need to be killed. Similarly, with Gashilama it doesn't matter how they fare at 1-range. Gashilama doesn't move and has a chance to OHKO them with a crit. It's safer to chip away at Gashilama with 2 range and then grab the kill at 1-range when he can be finished off before attacking. Nephenee can potentially contribute a little at the 2-range chipping (10 damage). But the most important neglected point is that Nephenee has 6 mov, Lethe has 9. Nephenee isn't going to be anywhere close to the boss by the time that the likes of Titania and Lethe arrive. The best Nephenee can do in this chapter is help clear out some enemies on the first two turns or trek off to the west to visit the nearby house (or clear out the enemies along that path). Chapters 13 and 17-1 are better for Nephenee, because her inferior movement isn't debilitating like it is in Chapters 14 or 16.

I'll do a little stat comparison at the end, but I disagree that 600 Bexp when Nephenee wants it (before 17-1, at the latest) is less costly than the C13 Energy Drop. After all, Lethe herself would prefer the 600 Bexp: it would give her almost +2 Str in levels in addition to increasing her other stats, the only downside being slightly slower levelling and lower final Str. While Nephenee probably makes the best use of Vantage, it is far from uncontested. In fact, I'd place it up with Resolve and Adept as the most desired skill scrolls. Vantage combos great with Wrath and Resolve. And while Nephenee is the only unit with either of those skills in C15, Wrath can be obtained in C18: we might want to use both scrolls on one unit who can make even better use of the combo (Boyd comes to mind, Largo is a late but great option). Vantage also combos nicely (if not quite as nicely) with Adept and Guard. Zihark is a great Vantage candidate, because innate crit along with Adept can let him kill many enemies before they can even attack. Soren is a decent Vantage candidate; it improves his durability some. The C17-4 Adept opens up more possibilities for Vantage/Adept (Marcia or Titania, perhaps). Guard is also available after C15, so you might want to give Vantage and Guard to a unit with iffy durability, like Marcia. That's an issue, but hardly her only one. She needs a sizable Bexp dump to have serviceable durability and double everything. Here's a theoretical comparison between Lethe and Nephenee in 17-1 or something: Level 7 Lethe 39.2 HP, 14 + 6 Str, 12.6 + 4 Skl, 14.8 + 3 Spd, 17 Lck, 10.6 + 5 Def, 8 + 3 Res Level 20/1 Nephenee 33.15 HP, 15.2 Str, 19.15 Skl, 20.15 Spd, 9.25 Lck, 15.55 Def, 8.25 Res With a Steel Lance forge, Nephenee can have 30 Atk compared to Lethe's 28 Atk. Nephenee's 1-2 range options are poor at this point. She probably can't wield the Spear. The Short Spear only gives her 24 Atk, which is enough to 2HKO Mages. Nephenee does double everything with ease, whereas Lethe needs to be a little fortunate to double all of the Myrmidons. Lethe has a modest durability advantage and the always useful 9 mov (plus, bushes don't bother her none). Nephenee does potentially have some supports to boost her Atk, which is nice, but they aren't relevant quite yet.

Oh, cool. Lethe > Muarim happened. I guess Nephenee vs. Lethe/Muarim might be a valuable discussion, though. I don't have a clear understanding of their comparitive value. My general impressions of Lethe v Nephenee: - Nephenee requires a sizable Bexp dump to be valuable (~600 Bexp?). Lethe does not (though she probably wants an Energy Drop or two more than Nephenee). - Lethe will have a more impressive early-mid game, especially before Nephenee gets her Bexp dump. - Nephenee will be a better combatent mid-late game, but she is somewhat dependent on rescue-drops to get to the front lines. - Lethe has some shove/rescue utility, even lategame.

Man, this argument is such a moving target. Either Soren doesn't need Arms Scrolls to reach C Fire/Thunder, or Soren does need an Arms Scroll to reach both C Fire/Thunder. Either 2 siege tomes are plently for Soren, or all 4 aren't enough. I can only suppose that all of this discussion is stemming, not from an Arms Scroll use perspective, but a latent Sage/Mage use and tiering perspective. I disagree. By promoting him around C15 or C17-1, he will have enough time to reach C Thunder. 17-3 is ten guaranteed turns of self-improvement in and of itself. True, but not by much. Blizzard has 1 less Wt than Meteor, but 3 less Mt, a pretty raw deal. Blizzard is the least valuable of the three siege tomes, but it's certainly not valueless. I just think it is least worth an Arms Scroll for. This is not a discussion about which Sage is the best siege tome user (that would clearly be Calill). This is a discussion about using an Arms Scroll on Soren. For the purpose of this discussion, Soren is being used and trained. The Arms Scroll is the only relevant resource to be considered for Soren. It's valuable so long as no other Sages are being trained along with Soren.

1 Arms Scroll is all that is needed for Soren to wield Meteor. If you're assuming that you have a Bolting available for Calill in Chapter 22, Soren won't need an Arms Scroll at all (he can reach C Thunder naturally, if focused on after promotion). The reason I mentioned "one or two" Arms Scrolls is that I was alluding to Ilyana and Tormod's situations. Ilyana is a lock for C Thunder, but she needs to go out of her way for C Fire and C Wind. C Fire is probably possible, if she focuses on it after promotion (otherwise, she might want an Arms Scroll). C Wind probably isn't worth it: Blizzard is the worst of the siege tomes. Tormod starts with C Fire, but probably doesn't have enough time to build up C Thunder before C23, so he'll want an Arms Scroll for that. Like Ilyana, he'd need an Arms Scroll for C Wind, but it probably isn't worth it. Clarification of terms: "the Spirit Dust and 2 levels of BEXP" counts as being trained in my eyes. One could make the case that a single Arms Scroll is less valuable that that particular resource bundle.

Arguable and irrelevant. No. But neither should it be assumed, especially if it depends on a multitude of shoves to execute. Your point is not topical (nor do I agree with it). It isn't hard to recognize that Calill won't always be trained and used such that she renders every other Sage's potential siege utility irrelevant. When Calill isn't trained, the Mages would like to wield all three siege tomes, and may need an Arms Scroll or two to do so. So, from your perspective, it is unreasonable to not give Calill at least 2 levels of Cexp/Bexp and a Spirit Dust before Chapter 20, even if you have already trained a Sage that can 2HKO Schaeffer by his/herself?

Fair enough. I don't enjoy being snarky, but I can't let this slide. Are 20 siege tome uses not enough, or are 10 uses enough? Make up your mind. No, the only thing that Soren benefiting from an Arms Scroll depends on is not training any other Sage, which is a rather reasonable situation, no? I'm glad that's been established. Your second sentence is confusing me.

This topic has a particular focus on Arms Scrolls and weapon ranks. As such, I will ignore all of your irrelevant points. If you want to make an argument against Soren, perhaps the tier list topic would be a better location. Think really hard about what you just wrote. Notice how it doesn't make sense? Have you done this? If I remember the map correctly, the Sage in question is 10 spaces away from the nearest deployment square, making "cantos back" translate into: moves one space back. It's probably possible with some clever shoving or trading, but it's not trivial. I strongly disagree. The only (imperfect) substitute for Soren being able to wield Meteor is using Hammerne on a Bolting. A Hammerne use is more valuable than an Arms Scroll, I would think, whereas a handful of Bexp is far less valuable than a Speedwings.