Reikken

Oh yeah, and to compare Marcus to base Shin, just for kicks, since you brought it up: 5 Marcus: Steel Sword: 18.0 atk, 12.0 AS, 104.8 hit, 7.2 crit - - 34.8 avo, 34.4 hp, 9.6 def, 8.8 res, 10.8 critavo Steel Lance: 20.0 atk, 10.0 AS, 89.8 hit, 7.2 crit - - 30.8 avo lolSilverLance: 24.0 atk, 12.0 AS, 99.8 hit, 7.2 crit - - 34.8 avo 2 def, 6 hp, and almost 8 res, and then often a +1 for full WTC makes for no small lead in concrete defenses. Marcus is one of few who would actually be able to eat a two hits from a steel axe and still be alive. Marcus is winning offense as well. Shin has 1 AS, while Marcus has leads in atk and hit, or with a limited use weapon, a huge lead in atk. And not just "melee". He also has 1-2 range from two different weapons.

7 chapters of being great to godly >>> spending the entire game being average, yes. Shin compares well to Lance? lol? base Shin: Iron Bow: 15.1 atk, 13.2 AS, 105.4 hit, 5.2 crit - - 34.4 avo, 28.5 hp, 7.8 def, 1.1 res, 8.1 critavo Steel Bow:18.1 atk, 11.1 AS, 90.4 hit, 5.2 crit - - 30.4 avo 13 Lance, B Alan B Roy Iron Lance: 20.8 atk, 14.0 AS, 105.6 hit, 15.4 crit - - 54.2 avo, 29.6 hp, 10.4 def, 3.8 res, 16.2 critavo Steel Sword: 21.8 atk, 13.0 AS, 105.6 hit, 15.4 crit - - 52.2 avo uh ohz, Shin has comparable spd. And is massacred everywhere else. Like weapon triangle for a 62 avoid on the mass axes in these chapters while using a steel sword for ~23 atk, and being able to counterattack them as well. Hell, let's compare him to a noncombat unit: 14 Chad, B Lugh Iron Sword: 16.5 atk, 19.6 AS, 114.7 hit, 9.5 crit - - 61.0 avo, 27.0 hp, 6.2 def, 2.9 res, 16.8 critavo Steel Sword: 19.5 atk, 14.6 AS, 99.7 hit, 9.5 crit - - 51.0 avo Chad is beating him even before you factor in lolWTAandCounterattacks

Marcus isn't used for said rest of the game, so them beating him via a direct comparison is irrelevant. By the time Shin shows up, you have a nearly full team that's kicking his ass. Beating Marcus's stats? So what? (he's not, btw; he just has better spd, but loses in everything else, often very badly) Ditto on Lot. Lot is never any better than average, and usually worse, depending on what "average" is (in a good team, he'll be among the worst, if not the worst). Except in ch 7 against those wyverns, he's a bit better than Alan and such. All high tier+ units have something really going for them. Marcus is no exception.

What is FEDS H5 Beefage? and more importantly, how would that be applied?

Indeed. FE7 Marcus is top of top when exp (and funds--else Matthew takes it) rank doesn't exist. FE6 Marcus can be well below that and still be in high tier. How is MARCUS high tier? How is he not is a better question. He's the MVP for several of the hardest chapters. He's king of kings when no one else can step up to the plate at all. He is extremely useful and even essential to completing the game efficiently. Ch 1-7 are made much harder, slower, or even luck-based without him. He makes a bigger impact in those chapters than any unit does in any other chapter. What do the likes of Shin or Lot have on that?

Not really. Only something impractical and/or vague like "what if enemies didn't suck?"

Dorothy is cool because she gives Saul an excellent support that there's no way he's getting filled otherwise, and a promoted Saul packing A Dorothy B Ellen is pretty good. Also, Marcus is way too low. With exp rank not existing? Yeah, he's amazing as far as efficiency goes. High tier at least.

If you really want to kill off those ravens, I should think a forged lance would come into play. 2 hits with iron and one with forged iron is enough to take out 10-def ones for a base lv Jill. While certainly unimpressive, a 4RK isn't what I would label as "sucks". Anyway, too much discussion on one chapter---the one least representative, even: When else is Jill getting doubled or having real issues hitting?---misses the point.

If you're going for a low turn count, flying can shave off ridiculous numbers of turns in 17-2 and 17-4 since they're arrive and defeat boss, and to get to those points, you have to go way around or through a huge swamp in 17-2, or around and though a bit of swamp in 17-4. 17-1 is rout, and flying helps with killing off the outlying units. 17-3 is defend, so it helps the least there, but there are still a lot of trees and swamp in close quarters, so it might be tactically beneficial.

I'll go for some kind of conditional FE7 debaet.

~2 atk and 2 def for two units is none too minor. Anyway, w1n supports, a horse (not just mounted healer; mounted period), defense, and wtfraep (albeit limited) in mag swords I think is enough for quite a sizeable gap.

You have a grand total of 4 steel forges to spread over your entire team for ch 14, 15, 16, 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 17.4. And the only way to use Makalov is to give him a forge? lulz. On the contrary, assuming a forge = lol. Not only that, but also his offense is utter garbage without one, so he'll have to be using it just about every time, which is bad news when it has only 35 uses. Then Astrid's offense with a normal steel bow is similar to Makalov's with forge. She has 3.5 less atk and 3.5 more spd. So Makalov uses up an extremely valuable resource (one-rounding is extremely difficult at this point, there are only 4 possible so far, and you have that long ch 17 coming up), and he still loses offense (he only ~ties for 35 swings...and Astrid still has killer, laguz, etc bows, and Astrid levels faster). Or you can opt to give Astrid a forge as well and have her offense be amazing. Two options, both of which have their merits, and both of which beat Makalov. A killer bow is worth only 35g per use to sell. That's very little. How little? That's only 15 more per use than it costs to buy a steel sword (A steel sword is 20 per use in the first place). Or crit lance forges? It's apparently 3654 for the total addition to max crit on a lance, and the last addition (at least for steel sword) is ~50% higher than the first, so the cost for it should be about 1460. The total amount of money you get for selling all 3 killer bows is 1575. So basically, selling all your killer bows lets you afford an extra 3.2 crit on one of your 35 use steel lances. Incredible. So much for that. Selling bows is worthless. Yes, Makalov has access to killing edges, but every time he uses one, he deprives other units of using it, like Ike, Stefan, Zihark. Even Mist. So overall, it's not worth much. Kieran with bows on promotion? Only half the time. Lances are arguably a better option as an iron lance is the best against swordmasters, the only things he wouldn't be using a steel axe against. Even if/when he does take bows, he starts with E. He needs to use a loliron bow enough to get D and then a steel bow enough to get C before he can use a killer bow. By then you likely can buy silver axes, so there wouldn't be much reason for him to use a killer bow with its 7 less mt. So no, Astrid's really the only one using them, barring the use of Rofl or something. While having 13 AS is the highest chance for any one possibility, he also can have 12, 11, or even 10 AS. He'll have 13 on fixed mode due to his 70 base spd exp, but he has 13 only half the time on random, and the other half of the time, he has 11 or 12. And he has a 0% chance of having higher. Also, averages do not round. Makalov has X chance of having Y atk. Or on fixed mode, he has 0 base str exp, so cut off the decimal part of the average to get his atk. ie round down, rather than the rounding up that you undoubtedly did. So your analysis is inaccurate (biased in Makalov's favor). A typical Makalov can't one-round anything that he can counterattack, even with a forge. Myrmidons are too fast. Fighters have too much hp. Soldiers have too much def/WTA. Knights are obvious. Archers and mages he can't counter. and are usually also too fast. So you leave Kieran or someone without a forge and therefore unable to one-round much, and you also have Makalov counterattack and not kill. Or you could do something like this: Give Kieran a forged steel axe, making him a beast; one round that fighter, soldier, whatever on the counterattack, and then have Astrid one-round that myrmidon or something with a normal steel bow, and then move to the edge of that mage's range, take a hit to her rather nice res, and then one-round it on the counterattack. Or take a killer bow to something like a fighter or a promoted enemy or one of those hard-to-kill cavaliers, and score a ORK a bit over half the time. winner: Astrid also.. You may have used a seal on someone else or not used a sage at all; they're still not high tier or anything. Either way, a promoted staffer having to heal means not being able to attack. And unlike Astrid, when Makalov has taken a lot of damage and has low hp, he has to hold back until he gets healed. First of all, they're mostly mages or 1-2 range weapon users, which hit her high res or are weak and inaccurate, respectively. Archers are the strongest, and even those have low str. Considering that, combined with her great ability to carry on killing things and whatnot on player phase even if she has 1 hp, she's better off in counterattacking than Makalov even defensively. Yes, the enemies that Astrid counterattacks may be less common, but the units you have that are any good at countering them are much less common. You have like Titania, and that's it. Whereas you have tons of units that excel at melee. Kieran, Ike, Boyd, Stefan, Muarim, Titania again, etc. Astrid is a much more valuable/useful asset than Makalov. Astrid's enemy phase > Makalov's. Also, actually getting kills matters much more for leveling. For the rest, a promoted Astrid's enemy phase is wtfamazing. She can counterattack either 1 range or 2 range and do either extremely well, or even do both at the same time. So your "above reasoning" would actually imply Astrid being a higher level rather than lower. And again, averages do not round, so +0.05 avg str/def means next to nothing. And on fixed mode, they effectively round down, no matter how high that decimal on the end of the average is. Well, for def, he has 35 base exp, so a .65+ effectively rounds up. But other than that, no. So Makalov's 1 def lead is garbage. 1.5 would be meh, too. 2, too, in the face of Astrid's avo lead. You seriously underestimate the power of avoid that's paired with decent concrete defenses. I'll show you. In a second. If I have space. First, I must refute your KW stuffs. Everyone else not likely to have AS issues? Everyone wants more spd. While unpromoted, everyone that can use the KW has major AS issues, what with meh spd and then also AS loss from steel up until almost to lv 20, but even once promoted, Kieran's average spd at 20/1 is 17.2. The paladins running around in ch 17, for instance, have 14 spd at least. Then even if manages to get enough spd to double, they're hard to 2HK, so having even more spd so he can double with a pole axe = win. And then on random mode, you can easily be down in spd by a point or two. Oscar is slower than Kieran. Even if there weren't any spd issues on anyone after promotion, that would be very few levels left for Makalov to KW before now anyway. Like what, 1? since the KW doesn't help for the 20 -> promotion level up. And then of course, with Gatrie/Brom/Devdan, they need as much KW action as they can possibly get forever. Also, Astrid would be getting more KW levels than Makalov if either were to get any, since she levels more often and is more able to trade while still attacking due to range (bows have twice as many places to attack from as melee, and then once she promotes and gets melee as well...). k, I would make a chance of death list for Makalov and Astrid, but I'm low on space, and it basically boils down to lolFE9paladins (ie invincibility for both). like 17 attacks before 10% chance of death, 10 before 1%, etc.

The portion of units that are negative depends on the particular game and tier list/judging criteria. It could indeed be that more are negative than positive.

It has nothing to do with the definition of negative utility. It does have something to do with negative utility as it applies to how Fire Emblem tier lists are structured, but that's something else entirely, isn't it? Your definition of negative utility depends on a tier list also representing playthroughs that are not the most efficient. I understand all of your reasoning, so there's no need to keep rephrasing it. None of it is really germane to the point that I am trying to make (that you ignored). As for the arbitrary bit, I am not accusing you of making things up, I am just pointing out your choice for what it is. You draw a line in the sand, you have your reasoning for it, but it's not the only logical way to construct a tier list and it's not necessarily the best way, either. So you agree with me except on tier list goals? If not, you'll have to do a better job of explaining where the discrepancy is.

No. If they're agreed to discussed inefficient play, there will be no such switch. The point in step 2 may or may not be valid depending on the specifics of the agreement in step 1.

Truly, my definition of negative utility is simply "A unit who performs worse than the worst unit's slot it would be taking in order to be fielded has negative utility" (That's not really a definition, though. I guess it's still "utility - opp cost".) And that's it. If we were doing a perfect playthrough tier list or whatever you call it, every unit used outside of the perfect team would have negative utility. The first paragraph of this quoted post does still apply even there. The "likelyhood of [whatever] particular team" in that case is 100% for the perfect team. Thus I must amend part of the second paragraph. It's not arbitrary at all; it's just not always possible/practical to calculate, so if it's not, I do the best I can practically do and estimate it.

No.This is just saying, "Let's punish units on the tier list for already being lower on the tier list." You can be not as good as the "optimal team" and still not be a negative. So you're saying that I am wrong because you don't think that I'm right even though I have a logical argument and you do not. (There is no argument in your post, just a voicing of disagreement.) btw, units are lower on the tier list because they are worse, not the other way around. Their position on the tier list doesn't directly have anything to do with "negative utility". It's not like "This unit is bad. Oh, and they also have negative utility which pulls them down even more." Instead, "negative utility" is a reflection of them being bad, or simply another way of looking at how bad they are. It's not 'in addition to' anything.

I fail to see how that has nothing to do with negative utility. I thought I explained it already, but I'll give it another shot. A unit who performs worse than the worst unit's slot it would be taking in order to be fielded has negative utility, as your overall performance becomes weaker by adding that unit to your team. Pretty straightforward, right? Now, where the "likelyhood of a particular team" comes in is this. If a better unit would not have been fielded anyway, the unit whose utility is in question can not be taking the place of that unit. Thus this unit's opportunity cost will vary depending on the particular team that otherwise would have been used. To account for all situations and form an overall or average opportunity cost, take the cost for each team weighted by the "likelyhood of [that] particular team" and average them all together. And as for the "arbitrary" bit: It's not arbitrary at all; it's just impossible/impractical to calculate, so I do the best I can practically do and estimate it. The value I come up with may be arbitrary, depending on your conception of that term, but the value that it's based on is certainly not.

Yes, anyone indeed helps more than an empty slot. An empty slot is the worst thing you can take with you to the field, barring the existence of a survival rank and reinforcements that come from behind or something, or getting +bexp for having an empty slot. Of course, this also means that this crappy unit may not be gaining much exp at all (or in extreme cases, not staying alive), as having to gain that exp could force the unit to be used in situations where it does indeed perform worse than an empty slot. I'm not sure what the relevance of being better than an empty slot is though, because tl;dr.

Eliw00t >>>>> Roy - much better animations - fast supports and a good def growth makes him soon become quite tanky. It may be interesting to note that there are only 4 units with a higher def growth than Eliwood. 7 tie, 5 if you don't count Merlinus and Ninian, and 3 of those are prepromotes lv 6-13 (don't get many levels with their growths). - better promotion time and better promotion itself. Horse and lances >>>

Quote things properly, please. I don't want to see my name on something that I didn't say.

Then the problem isn't that you didn't read my post, but that you didn't comprehend the point that I was making. I believe I understood your post just fine. This topic isn't about tier goals; it's about the definition of negative utility. Save it for the tier topics themselves, as any specific implementation of negative utility will depend on the particular list's goals. That's what I was getting at.

Yes, but the differences between giving her a Mordy support and not are often non-existant, 'A' Mordy + 'B' Jill gets Mist 4 Atk and 5 def. 'A' Boyd, 'B' Jill gets Mist 4 atk and 4 Def. Mist loses a whopping 1 def. But without the Mist support, Boyd loses 3 Atk and 1 def. The loss for the latter scenario is greater than the loss of the former scenario. That's a loss of 2 def, actually, as I stated. Halves round down. Anyway, Boyd has supporters other than Mist. If you're not using them, then sure. Whatever setup works best for your particular team.

Why would Mordy choose Stefan over Ilyana? Besides, Mist can have Jill and Titania/Boyd. Indeed she can, but Mordecai gives her full in both atk and def, rather than in just one of them. 2 atk or def >> 7 hit. 7 avo is arguable. Though Jill does give Mist the disadvantage of Jill wanting to fly to other areas sometimes. Why would Mordecai choose Stefan? Mordecai doesn't care too much about the bonuses either way. He has tons of atk and def, especially after a support with Mist; his only problem stat is spd. It's just that if Stefan is going to be used (as is being assumed for Soren, apparently), it would be nice for him to have supports so that he doesn't suck once his level is no longer uberly high. I have no idea what you just said. Rhys is out of range of Kieran more often than other support pairs because he has low move and unimpressive defenses, while Kieran is the opposite, correct? In other words, Kieran tends to be more in the front (closer to the enemies) and Rhys more in the back. Well when Rhys is being attacked by several enemies, this likely means that he's closer to the enemies, closer to the front, closer to where Kieran is.