samthedigital

If you're watching it you'll notice that some of his LTC strats can actually be pretty consistent and can totally apply to efficiency runs. If you develop some slightly different strategies that are a little slower you might even find ways of making them more consistent than having to rely on a few rewinds. Those are still pretty fast though. To put it another way: The point that I am making is that Lapis is going to be a completely (loose definition of the word) different character depending on exactly how we play the game. This is a large reason why you disagree with me on her compared to Kagetsu. Should I change my perspective on the unit because she doesn't match Kagetsu by his join time? Conversely I'm not changing your mind, but that doesn't mean that I've played the game any worse, and there's a reason to compare Lapis to other characters in the context I've provided earlier. As I said before I have no problem with what characters you use or suggest that others use, or even the methodology. I have also used her in my playthroughs several times because I like her as a character. What I don't find agreeable is to say that she's better than Kagetsu or Chloe; that's what the title implies and it's not universally true.

You were responding to the point I made; not yours. I implore you to watch ColonelM's playthrough. If I can't change your mind that might. This goes back to the point I made that you still seemingly don't understand. Anathaco made the same point though, so maybe if it comes from someone else's mouth you might find it to be more agreeable:

I'm not completely confident about smash, but Pokemon "ratings/tiers" (not really the best word to use for that game though =P) are completely based off of their usage rate rather than a tier list, and a lot of the concepts you're describing apply there.

You again missed the point. This is comparing Lapis A to Lapis B and not Kagetsu to Lapis. If you haven't already done the run why are you adamant that you're right? In any case when we tier characters in a fighting game we do not base it off of how the average player plays the game in much the same way that we wouldn't do it for Fire Emblem. Except for the early game, and you value it for Lapis over Kagetsu, but not for Chloe over Lapis.

If that's what you got out if it you did not understand the analogy. The fact of the matter is that the way we play earlier chapters can have a direct affect on how useful a character is later on. Are you going to claim that Fox is the same character as Falco? They're not the same character, and that's the problem with the analogy. Lapis can be more useful depending on how quickly we play. In your case you play more slowly and Lapis is better or the same as Kagetsu somehow, but that's not the case if we're playing faster. There are multiple ways to "end it", but if you truly do understand my perspective there would be no cause for argument. Lapis simply does not have the time to match Kagetsu depending on how fast we play especially if we give her no stat boosters as you suggested originally. She also does not perform better than Chloe, and this is evidenced by the myriad of LTCs and playthroughs that have not used Lapis to save time. I could again point to several runs, but it also hasn't convinced you already. You have also admitted to not having done an LTC and the turn counts you've listed several days ago do not match the ones that we can expect to see in either an LTC or efficiency playthrough anyway. If you don't agree with me I don't really care; I've stated that already, but it would be interesting to know why you don't agree when you aren't even sure in the first place given your lack of experience.

Not to mention the gold that you might have accrued earlier depending on the specifics of the playthrough.

I don't care about what your opinion of Lapis is at the moment. What I need to know is whether you understand how I'm ranking the character. You should also be able to understand that fighting game characters are not the same as Fire Emblem ones; the analogy doesn't work when one character can perform in a vastly different way depending on the context. It's static in a fighting game. Is there any reason I shouldn't assume that you're just trying to troll?

Look; I agree with how we rank fighters, but I don't have any other way to say that this is not what I'm getting at when comparing characters in Fire Emblem than what I've said already, but more on that below and we can stop using fighting games as an analogy as it doesn't convey the meaning. The key here is something I said earlier, but I'll paraphrase. We can tier Lapis in two different ways. One where she's being used in a setting where she's meant to be the carry and takes some time to get there initially, and the other where we already have a carry and don't need to take the time to train her for that role. They are still the same character, but as units they are different especially earlier on. No, it's that I don't agree that Lapis should be getting credit for what she provides in your examples because of what I've outlined above. If I were to rank characters your way then I still would still put Lapis below Chloe, but she would definitely have more of an argument when comparing her to Kagetsu. You're free to disagree that she should be tiered in the way that I've described, but that's how I (and a lot of other people) tier characters.

You can deploy more than one character in a map, and you're also misrepresenting my meaning when I say that characters don't exist in a vacuum. If you like I can go over what I am saying if you don't think it's clear enough. I am also sick of examples of games I know nothing about, but your comparison doesn't really work here. It would be similar to comparing the relative use of each individual character in the team and what they contribute than to the cast as a whole. Assuming I use Morrigan in MvC2 I'm not going to give other units credit for what she brings to the table; as far as I'm aware she does most of the work and the other units are support. I don't know anything about the game though, so if I'm wrong about the specifics we don't need to go into the weeds on that specific example if it doesn't translate. Melee is the only fighter I know something about, and examples in that game don't work. I've provided examples and you have either ignored or questioned their legitimacy, so your claim that I've provided none is false (likely because it doesn't support your narrative); it doesn't work both ways here. You're also conveniently not providing me any evidence that I'm wrong when you could easily do so if you had a quote provided it exists. It's important to note that we're feeding Chloe kills while also not wasting any turns in an LTC context; there's more time to do that when warp doesn't exist. I think that you might actually agree with me; I certainly don't disagree with most of what you've said in any case, and I'm pretty sure that I made a similar point earlier: When I am saying that efficiency has a specific meaning it's referring to the idea that taking time to kill enemies isn't what we would consider efficient play and that units don't get credit for efficient play if it means being more inefficient to get to that point. Everything has been muddied though because it's been practically impossible to stick to one topic, and I have no idea if he agrees with me on certain things making it impossible to make progress without addressing old points.

If you want to use fighting games as an example most tier lists are done by pros and do not factor in things like "ease of use". They're ranking characters based off of how they perform when top players use them. The thing is that in most fighting games characters do exist in a vacuum, so if I want to use whatever character you listed it means I'm not using another one. I don't know anything about current the meta of current card games, but it would be similar to rating individual general use cards than deck archetypes. The comparison breaks down because people would just use the better card (think Twin Twisters to MST), and the slightly worse one only has a use case when we need that much more of the same effect instead of assuming it's always used. If we used Fire Emblem as the example you do get to use Lapis, but we can also use other units, and spending time training her is not assumed. Efficiency has a specific definition when it comes to Fire Emblem and it does not involve rating characters when we slow down even if it's "not all that much". If you feel that I'm using words the way I want then prove it. Find a quote that says that we can evaluate a unit's contributions when slowing down in either Vykan or ColonelM's FAQ. If you're going to claim that slowing down to train Lapis is better in the long run then the burden of proof proof is on you too. You've done nothing but explain to me why you think Lapis is a good unit while providing nothing as evidence. We have several LTCs to go by that show that using Lapis does not in fact save time in that setting, and it should be enough to show that the same is true in an efficiency playthrough. If you happen to watch ColonelM's first few chapters some of the strategies he uses can be consistent too, so it's not as if it's a radically different game type than an efficiency playthrough. It's also infinitely more than what you've provided so far.

Do you agree or disagree with what I said; do you want to compare Lapis in a vacuum or when other characters also exist that we are free to use at the same time? If you do then we should agree on some level. We don't give Lapis preferential treatment (aka lose time) as in the example I gave above to compare her to other units. We assume that we're already playing efficiently and letting her build experience naturally. If you don't agree that this is how we should tier characters then rank her in another way and don't try using the word the way you feel it should be used when evaluating her.

I find that it also helps out Martial Masters with too because it double dips with the staff rate and shaky hit rates over the course of multiple attacks, but yeah; Hortensia is the primary reason.

She's not comparing to the best in this example. She's either having a more modest positive contribution or is losing 2 turns if she wants to replicate another unit's utility; the former is better and should be used to assess how good the unit is relative to others. If we're still talking about an efficiency context (and I hope that we are) then turn counts and reliability are the two most important factors in evaluating units; they're pretty much the full picture. If you really want to get into the weeds of the thing it's not going to help move this along.

If a unit that saved those extra turns didn't exist it would make her the better unit. In our example Chloe can instead save those turns without losing them. We would evaluate Lapis based on how much she contributes when Chloe saves those turns instead of assuming that Lapis is losing time over the course of a run. It was further addressed in the second example, but the point is that in a practical sense you're overthinking it.

It's not that complicated. Unless you mismanage staff use to a hilarious degree there shouldn't be that much of a difference. Experience management is another thing, but it's still not going to result in a lot of turns over the course of the run. Consistency might take a hit depending, but experience management is more of a concern in a strict LTC. Here is the most simple example I can come up with: Suppose Kagetsu saves 3 turns over the course of a run just to throw out a number. Then suppose that training Chloe saves 4 turns over course of the game when Kagetsu isn't a wyvern. Then suppose that we can take 2 turns to train Lapis to save those 4 turns as an alternative to using Chloe. You have to count that against Lapis (it's important to note that just using her in a map isn't what's counted against her; it's taking those 2 turns to save the 4 that is), but this doesn't affect Kagetsu at all because he's still saving 3 turns regardless. We don't just have to use Kagetsu as an example here though; you can extend that logic to some other units that I've mentioned already.

If you want to differentiate two strategies that clear the map easily without the need for resets you need to take into account what strategy does so more quickly. If we used fighting games as an example turn counts would be analogous to the amount of damage a combo does and the strategy would be the button combo in the fighting game. The difference is that manual dexterity is not required in a turn based strategy game. This isn't of much concern in an efficiency setting. We're not so much trying to be meticulous about the turn count so much as having a general idea of what's better; a turn here and there is not going to have a drastic impact on rankings.

I used the dragon veins quite a bit in my first maddening playthrough, but by the second time my units were generating enough offense that there wasn't as much need to slow enemies down, but that's not something I can necessarily help with; it's little things like generating more enemy phase offense and optimizing builds that helps with that. I always inherit canter ASAP (unless it's a Wrath/Vantage setup with Panette or something) and then decide the second one based on what the unit wants to do. I'm not familiar with DLC emblems, but if the unit is Hortensia and is just spamming staves then DP+ is amazing. Otherwise Hit+X, speed+x, and speedtaker are generally useful skills. You can probably optimize more depending on your units specific needs, but you're already near the end of the game, so might as well pick something that gives you a small benefit if you haven't already. =P

I would love to talk more about FE6, but I'll refrain from doing so to keep this on topic, anyway... I would add the Byleth paralogue if only because DP+ is really nice to have as an inheritable skill. The paralogue itself isn't particularly difficult even without cheese because a lot of the AI targets the crystals before they attack the player.

Ease of use is a subjective way of tiering units. Do we rate Seadall lower because he's harder to use than a unit that doesn't need protection? What about if you find Lapis easy to use while someone else doesn't? Using turn counts is an objective way of telling us what strategy is faster/better/etc. It's not the same difference. An LTC run is not the same thing as clearing a map in a low amount of turns. You've said the words that I quoted?

If you want some team advice I'd swap Anna to Mage Knight or alternatively put Corrin on a more mobile unit to make better use of dreadful aura. If you need to stall (not sure how good your offense is) more than that you can use Divine Pulse+ on Hortensia with Micaiah with Freeze to help with the last wave of enemies. I could give you a few more reclass options, but if you're on hard mode you should be fine, probably.

Since I don't know your team composition I can only offer general advice: Try and clear everything on the map before killing the boss. That will give you more time to deal with everything else that spawns later.

No, I said that we could use the LTC levels as a baseline to compare the units through an efficiency lens unless you thought that there was too much of a disparity between the levels between that and an LTC run. The assumption was always about evaluating the units in an efficiency context. I said this earlier: Finishing a map in a low amount of turns is not the same as doing an LTC run, but regardless of that if you don't specify there's no point; if you want to talk about the efficiency runs as described above the turn counts are still going to matter. If it's in a speedrunning context (tier lists are pretty lame there) it usually revolves around soloing the game with Alear, so there's nothing to discuss. If you want to talk about her during an ironman setting that's also completely different, etc.

None of what I said relates to rating characters in an LTC context, so I'm not sure why you feel the need to repeat yourself. Maybe I should clarify: What specific things doe she do that is significant before getting Kagetsu? Things like her chance of killing the boss of chapter 8 and 9 as a 10/1 unit (and with what loadout), etc. Those would be tangible benefits that Lapis has if you could provide them. Killing random enemies on EP when maps can be completed in 2 turns even in an efficiency context isn't significant, so we can move away from those kinds of examples.

Mmm, I ask because with Hit+10/20 Panette can reach 100% hit+ crit for a good while. I finished the Ike and Leif paralogue as soon as I was able, but I'd imagine it would be difficult to do that early given Ike's bulk in his paralogue making the setup less relevant until later on in the game.

I wouldn't say so. You also don't get access to a forged Silver bow before Mercurius as mentioned; it's not something I would dedicate bond points to.