Reikken

eh? That doesn't have anything to do with my post.

Indeed missing can put you in a bad position. Missing can be fatal for anyone. Fortunately Thany's hit is on the high side: 84% real when going against the weapon triangle. It only goes up from there. She also has the highest hit growth rate in the game, barring the obvious exceptions of Fa and Karel. (Rutger is 2nd, 5% behind.) Meaning that, with that combined with her highest-exp-gain, her hit will be going up even during the chapter. Anyway, with knowing how bad missing can be, you should be glad to use Thany in ch 2. She doesn't miss even half as much as Lot and Ward do. Even after removing Ward---he misses enough for three people. Or more. Yes, handaxers take an extra round or two to kill, but what does that have to do with this? Missing your best attacker/counterattacker/tank, Marcus, wasting him on a village getting an item you don't need 'til the end of the chapter, is still slowing you down. Those other things slowing you down doesn't nullify this any. It just means you're now getting slowed down twice. And btw, even a 1-turn improvement is still very substantial. Considering that it's one action by one unit in one chapter. Or even if it's just like 70% of a turn. It really adds up. To help put that in perspective, if you have just two 70%-of-a-turn things per chapter by just 7 of your like 10-12 units over the game's 30ish chapters, that's about 300 turns. -- I'll take a moment to say a bit more on that before moving on. Let's take just Thany, over ch 2-6. i.e. before Zealot joins. Just her saving 0.7 turns twice per chapter (This is being very conservative. It easily amounts to much more than this, especially considering that it's using Thany vs using no one at all for the first 4 and then Thany vs the likes of Bors and Wolt for ch 6), that amounts to 7 turns. Does Zealot save you 7 turns all by himself in ch 7? I think not. You can even spend a few turns retreating a bit from the wyverns and whatever else, while getting better positioning and thinning them enough to advance again, and still come out fewer than 7 turns under. And that's a huge overestimation of Zealot as well. He's not THAT good. And this is also without giving any consideration to anything else, like exp rank and supports. Just to further reinforce the point that being helpful in 5 chapters >>> in 1 chapter -- Yes, +combat rank is cool. But there are two problems. First, iron blade makes Deak prone to missing. And second, you want to still have that weapon for when you need it later. So you should save it whenever you can. And as an added bonus, you get +exp rank for doing so. Not only do you get +nonkill exp for Deak, but also Deak's exp/kill is the lowest aside from Marcus. And Thany's is highest. Now the rest of your analysis seems to revolve around those forts. Indeed, if you're camping out on forts, Thany is not seeing much action, but you only spend like 2 turns there at the most. You want to advance, not camp out. That runs completely against efficency and tactics rank. Fewer turns, not more. Someone kills something, and then others move past them. Or next to them, sometimes. Either way, they're not left out in the open. Indeed, Roy needs an iron sword and Lance needs an iron lance, as you said (though you said "maybe". This is not a maybe.), but also Marcus wants an iron lance as well, which is something you didn't mention. No, it's not a lot, but again, every bit helps. On ch 4, not only is your analysis based off of a garbage assumption in ch 2, but you also again ignored the fact that iron lances exist with your "0-1" damage bit. Also note that even a base str Thany who somehow cannot wield iron lances is only doing that 0-1 damage (per hit. actual damage is doubled) to the lance-wielding ones. She gets WTA on the sword ones. +1 damage. Also considering that WTA, she only gets 2-shotted if both use lances, assuming neutral stat deviation. Before you say "That's frankly worse than Ward", consider that Ward has little more than half as much def and gets doubled by half the cavaliers. For Ward to not get 2-rounded, both of them have to be slow cavaliers (as opposed to both of them having to be fast, as is the equivalent case for Thany). And while he may do more damage, his hit is terrible, which is especially dangerous in a chapter like this. 77% real with WTA. And then 43% real the other half of the time. Again with the forts on ch 5. You're staying there for even less time here since you have a full army behind you (which now includes Rutger!) to push through the enemy forces. Now you say Lot's ~84% real hit on 7's wyverns is bad? And Zealot's 91% is soooo much better? That's pretty bad for a guy that's supposed to be wtfpwning everyone. Zealot may be able to double, but Lot's not without an answer of his own, in the form of 32 crit and 2-3 atk. It's even arguable who has better offense, given that Zealot needs 3-4 rounds to kill anyway. So many swings is a lot of chances for that 32 crit to kick in. Also Thany's massive speed is so massive that she's not probably doubling things. She's definitely doubling things. In fact, she's likely doubling even with iron. No need for the lightness of slim. Cavaliers, archers, mages,,, basically everything not a merc she has a good chance to double. Remember that cavaliers usually have 1-2 AS loss. And massive speed is massive. To finish off with, I'll re-state this, since it's a pretty good summary of earlygame: I'll take a moment to say a bit more on that before moving on. Let's take just Thany, over ch 2-6. i.e. before Zealot joins. Just her saving 0.7 turns twice per chapter (This is being very conservative. It easily amounts to much more than this, especially considering that it's using Thany vs using no one at all for the first 4 and then Thany vs the likes of Bors and Wolt for ch 6), that amounts to 7 turns. Does Zealot save you 7 turns all by himself in ch 7? I think not. You can even spend a few turns retreating a bit from the wyverns and whatever else, while getting better positioning and thinning them enough to advance again, and still come out fewer than 7 turns under. And that's a huge overestimation of Zealot as well. He's not THAT good. And this is also without giving any consideration to anything else, like exp rank and supports. Even being biased towards Zealot on 3 counts, he still loses. And that's only earlygame. It says nothing about the chapters after, where Zealot gets pwned outright, where Zealot loses badly in both combat and non-combat leetness (flying, exp rank,etc). One more thing. It's been said already, but it deserves repeating, as it seems to almost have been forgotten. Still being able to use Shin while going Ilia. The kid is awesome. Not only is he good at combat right away with bases better than Lance's lv 11 stats, but he also joins on a low level, meaning good for exp rank, and he fills a post that's otherwise likely pretty vacant. Who else is going to be using bows? And while bows get a bad rap in many other FE games, that's only because those games are so easy. Like in FE7 you can throw out some random unit with mediocre offense and counterattack-kill most everything that comes at you. Of course you have no need for bows there. Such doesn't apply here. One-rounding is rare, and avoiding counters is important, since those counters hurt a lot. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Anyway, Zealot fails so much that Thany, who isn't that amazing, pwns his face off. But even as bad as Zealot is, there are whole tiers of units who fail even more. That's pretty awesome. FE6 ftw.

I took the question as meaning that the other way of judging is not "I know Haar is better than Lyre, so Paul wins", but rather... if you knew nothing about how good any of the characters were, which debater would have convinced you of their character being better. As opposed to which debater argued better. It's usually the same, but often not, especially with characters that aren't close.

Petrine, for lack of options. Limstella gets runner up. That's how bad it is.

From memory, on hard mode, steel starts at 14, throwing starts at... 18? silver starts at 23 for sword/bow. axe/lance 24. It's earlier on other difficulty modes.

Nay, nay. If you really want to break it down, all you need is to complete chapters as quickly as possible (tactics and indirectly, combat) while not dying (survival and power) and gaining as much exp as possible in the process (exp and power). However you choose to do that is up to you, as long as it works. Thany helps with all of these objectives, and right away, even. You say that she's not much use in ch 2, but that's quite wrong. For example, the boss has 15 def, so the only way you're killing him is with an armor-slaying weapon. However, he also has 28 avoid, and the best hit you can get with a hammer is about 58, since only Lot and Ward can use it (Ward has 5 less hit, too). That's only 40 hit after WTA and avoid (32.4 real), and you need two hits on him. 6 swings? Even more if you get unlucky? That's a lot of wasted turns. Ward gets 35 hit (24.85%), btw. So what do you do? Use the armorslayer, which is in that village. Of course, you could have Marcus go backwards to start off and get it, but then your best unit is not on the front lines, which slows your advance. Another option is to have Merlinus get it and then go about his business as usual (shopping), and then have Thany fly over the mountains and get it from him and bring it back in time to kill the boss, also bringing over some of those newly bought supplies in the process, so that you have a bit more time to distribute them, instead of having to get all that done at the start of ch 3, likely wasting time. And/or she can help advance Ellen and Roy. Then, while she's only doing 4x2 to those axe guys, that's enough. In fact, just the 4 is all that's needed usually. Deak does about 12x2---unless he uses his iron blade, which he won't get a chance to replinish until mid ch 7---, which isn't enough to kill. about 4 more damage is needed. Which Thany covers. Lot + Ward combined do about 12x2 (12+13). Same story there. Deak + SomeoneElse or SomeoneElse x 3 = a kill. The only one different atm is Deak. The other three are effectively the same on offense. Aside from accuracy issues, where Thany wins despite the weapon triangle. Lot is looking at ~75% real and Thany ~84%. Ward is...worse. 68. And Thany's getting more exp per kill than anyone else atm. Deak, for instance, gets 13 less. Lot 6 less. ..and there are only two enemies in the chapter than kill her in one hit, and those are the two archers. Her base hp may be low, but her base def is not. It's the same as Deak/Alan/Lance's. She doesn't get OHK'd by anything but bows. Steel axe? Not enough. Unless the RNG goes way up for that one fighter's str. tl;dr Thany is very important to getting the most out of ch 2. And while Thany is helping in ch 2, getting you exp and saving you turns, Zealot is, of course, doing nothing at all. O noz, Thany can't take on the archer in ch 3 on the way to Lugh. No one can take that solo except Marcus. She'll have help, obviously. Also, using more than one mounted unit is the best way to get Lugh into the action as soon as possible (chained rescue/drop) And indeed, aside from Wolt and Bors (and Chad), everyone 2-rounds the soldiers with few exceptions, Thany included. You were quite right about Thany's flying utility in ch 4, but I must correct you on the rest. "For combat however, this chapter is a nightmare for her." Correction: combat is a nightmare for everyone not named Marcus. Also I don't know why you assumed Thany gained nearly no exp in the previous two chapters. 0-1 with a slim lance? Add 1 to that. Anyway, if a slim lance does less than 3, iron is more damaging even without doubling. Now fortunately for everyone (not just Thany--not being melee or weak to rapier is hard on everyone), there are only two Nomads, and only one at a time. Everyone who doesn't get one-rounded is helpful in this chapter for helping with formation so that others don't take too many hits at once and so that healers don't get attacked, and for helping to do damage. And then aside from combat Thany has that which was already mentioned. And as for Zealot? Nothing. Ch5 no one is very good at except Rutger. Even Lance usually can't double the fighters that don't use steel, and it takes him 3-4 hits to kill. 3 for Alan. Same for Deak. Thany's damage very often is enough to eliminate the need for that 3rd/4th attack, though. And no, Bors won't be tanking any mercenaries. Aside from the ones mixed in with fighters and mages, which destroy him, there are only 3, and Bors doesn't have the move to get through that wooded section ahead of your other units anyway. Him (and Wolt and whoever else) hitting things for extra damage could be useful, but they can't get there to do it. That's what makes Thany different as far as combat goes. Everyone has like 2-3 move in that foresty area, making it extremely crowded. Only a few units can attack at a time due to this, so only the best are attacking. The rest are just getting in the way, so they don't get to attack. Thany, however, still has 7 move, and she can move on the peaks, too, so she actually can help out. And as always, but even moreso now, Thany can help move people around. Whether it's moving someone who just attacked out of the way so someone else can finish that enemy, pulling a healer (or attacker) out of danger so that you can actually get in that heal/attack, or whatever. This is all much better than what Zealot's doing (nothing), in any case. Indeed Thany's movement (and res! : mages) is of great use in ch 6, which was partially explained before, but unlike what you seemed to imply, there actually aren't many archers to watch out for at all. None at all are there to begin with. There are only a few in with the reinforcements. So rack up more turns, and to a lesser extent now, exp for Thany. And nothing for Zealot. Yeah, Zealot is great in ch 7, but you overstate his use. All it comes down to is turns to completion (and at the cost of exp). He may be the best unit in the chapter, but you can do just as well without him; it just takes longer. All he manages to do is lessen the lead Thany got on him over the first 5 chapters. And no, Thany is perfectly capable of visiting most of those villages even by herself. The archers don't move unless you end the turn in attack range, and she can move after visiting, for the ones that they even can reach. After ch 7, the next two chapters are mostly just straight shots with a few enemies here and there. You go to the enemies rather than them converging onto you for the most part, and there aren't an overwhelming number of them in any one place, so defense isn't as important for the next couple of chapters. Zealot's nice defenses aren't as impressive anymore for a while. A while long enough for him to not be impressive at all by the end of it. And Alan and Lance with their awesome supports are even beating him in offense. Deak is as well, thanks to his supports from Thany and Lot. Once Thany hits B/B on her own supports, which is very soon and may even happen during chapter 8, her base atk is close to Zealot's. And she both has a higher str growth and gains tons more exp, so she'll be passing him soon. Thany can't damage armors? lol you have grossly underestimated this pegasus knight. She's capable of wielding steel lances, too, you know. She has so much speed that she can eat the 9 AS loss and still double armors and soldiers. And then anything Zealot kills is hurting your exp rank, and he'll just suck more and more as time goes on, so he's not worth using anymore after ch 7. Yeah, he may be better than Thany at combat for a few chapters now, but Thany wipes the floor with him later, so that's not impressive at all. Zealot (and Marcus? lol) for taking on the bosses? More like Rutger/Deak. And Lance/Alan if they have C in swords. They have substantially more atk/hit/crit than Zealot. Rutger doesn't have more atk yet, but he has tons more speed, actually able to double Henning while he has that sword equipped. And Leygance (Reygance!?) is also out of Zealot's range unless his 20% growth kicks in before then. Also, about those fighters and whatnot... After her supports, Thany has so much spd that even with the AS loss from an iron lance and the weapon triangle working both against her and for Zealot, she beats him in avoid until/if he gets supports of his own. Also, you could just promote Thany immediately as soon as she caps spd if you want to, which more often than not, is by lv 14. Actually nothing's stopping you from promoting her immediately at the end of ch 8. No promotion item competition ftw. In this way Thany beats Zealot at everything right away in exchange for beating him at exp by less and beating him later on by a bit less. Though... while other stats are compromised a bit, spd is actually higher with an early-promoted Thany, so maybe she's not any worse later? And she has more time to get weapon levels. Hmm..... Anyway, so we have two options for dominating Zealot. Oh, before going any further, if I do at all, I'll address your issues on supports. Clarine does indeed like supports. But why would she be limited to a B Rutger? Unlike her support with Deak, that one actually grows at a nice rate. (It's a +2 rather than a +1.) A Rutger plx. And B Lot/B Thany still leaves Deak able to grab a C support with her. It might take a bit longer to get than usual, but like she cares when she's not promoted and on a low level. It matters little. And then if you really want to, you can even get Clarine to max on supports. How? Have Alan and Roy take the A, leaving Lance with two Bs, and let Clarine get a C from him. A C C. This is also another way to max Roy's supports, making him a bit better. For Noah, Treck, and Lot... Noah and Treck, at least as far as I've seen on tier list discussions and whatnot, are usually compared assuming having supports with each other (why? despite both of them being meh? iunno). That good support that they share is a main reason that they're viable at all. Without that support, they're pretty bad. Lot, on the other hand, is usually assumed to not have a support with Thany and just have a support with Deak until several chapters after Echidna joins, where he may or may not recieve additional support levels. With a Thany support, though, he's quite a bit better. That's up to an additional +3 atk pretty early on, among other things. A Deak = +1 atk, 7 crit, 3 def, 15 avo, 15 crit avo, A Thany B Deak = +4 atk, 7 hit, 12 crit, 3 def, 17 avo, 25 crit avo 7 hit makes a pretty big difference, too. And you'll be thankful for that critavo when facing killer weapons. Comparing Lot to Noah? Lot also has more time to level than they do, so... let's take a 15/0 Lot vs a 14/0 Noah or 13/0 Treck. Actually not Treck. He's an inferior version of Noah, pretty much. Lot, AB supports, Iron Axe: 22.6 atk, 11.2 AS, 93.8 hit, 16.6 crit - - 45.0 avo, 38.6 hp, 11.8 def, 5.8 res, 30.6 critavo Noah, B Zealot C Fir, Steel Sword: 20.1 atk, 11.1 AS, 101.6 hit, 11.8 crit - - 46.0 avo, 32.2 hp, 10.1 def, 2.7 res, 20.8 critavo Also killer axes can be bought in ch 11. And in the first few turns of it if you're using Thany. Killer lance/killing edge? Not until ch the end of 13, 3.5 chapters later. So it's worth making a comparison with that in mind: 15 Lot, AB supports, Killer Axe: 25.6 atk, 11.2 AS, 93.8 hit, 46.6 crit - - 45.0 avo, 38.6 hp, 11.8 def, 5.8 res, 30.6 critavo 14 Noah, B Zealot C Fir, Steel Lance: (for steel sword, see above) 22.1 atk, 8.1 AS, 86.6 hit, 11.8 crit - - 40.0 avo, 32.2 hp, 10.1 def, 2.7 res, 20.8 critavo also no AS loss from hand axe pretty pro winning in atk by 5-6 / 3-4. Also crit by 35 for those 3.5 chapters. Actually, he wins crit by >30 from the moment Noah joins (as well as atk by massive amounts). Why? You get a killer axe in ch 6, and Lot's the only one who can use it. It may as well be his prf weapon. Marcus and Zealot's weapon levels are too low, and Ward is lol and doesn't have the weapon levels for it either anyway unless he got 50 swings in. And no one else can use axes. Not so for that killing edge, which 5-8 people can use. There's also a silver axe waiting for him for as soon as he hits A. Even Echidna only starts with a B in axes. And there's not much competition for the brave axe either, while I'm talking about weapons. Echidna doesn't want it; she can double fine without it and loses 7 AS from it, and Gonzales can't use it at all until he hits B. And the only other potential users are Geese, and Bartre if you took that route. And Geese loses 6 AS from it, which is often enough to get him doubled. And you're short on axers anyway. Meaning it's nice to have someone who's better against different enemy types rather than better against the same ones that over half your party is good against. Make the harder parts easier rather than make the easy parts even easier. For example, the best guy against those wyverns in ch 7 after Zealot isn't Alan or something. It's Lot, with his killer axe. Solid Snake indeed. Noah does have better hit; I'll give him that. (Skl and luck are his only good stat growths.) But he's same/worse in the rest. Except he also wins avoid after a while. And Lot's hit is greatly aided on promotion, with the ability to use an 80-hit weapon instead of just a 65-hit one. k, with that out of the way... back to how badly Thany crushes Zealot, I guess. Let's look at a 14/1 Thany (A Lot B Deak) and compare to a 4 Zealot with B Noah even though Noah is n00b Thany, iron lance: 20.9 atk, 18.2 AS, 118.6 hit, 24.4 crit - - 61.2 avo, 28.9 hp, 11.3 def, 12.2 res, 37.8 critavo iron sword: 18.9 atk, 21.2 AS, 133.6 hit, 24.4 crit - - 67.2 avo steel lance: 23.9 atk, 13.2 AS, 103.6 hit, 24.4 crit - - 51.2 avo Zealot, steel sword: 19.8 atk, 13.6 AS, 102.7 hit, 11.1 crit - - 42.7 avo, 37.2 hp, 12.9 def, 8.5 res, 15.5 critavo steel lance: 21.8 atk, 11.6 AS, 87.7 hit, 11.1 crit - - 38.7 avo, 37.2 hp, 12.9 def, 8.5 res, 15.5 critavo w1n offense and hax avo > Zealot later? Noah clearly wants A with Fir over Zealot, so Zealot's supports haven't advanced any. 14/12 Thany, killer lance: 27.2 atk, 23.6 AS, 138.7 hit, 57.3 crit - - 78.6 avo, 33.8 hp, 12.4 def, 15.0 res, 44.4 critavo killing edge: 26.2 atk, 25.6 AS, 148.7 hit, 57.3 crit - - 82.6 avo 13 Zealot, killer axe: 25.0 atk, 15.4 AS, 102.0 hit, 42.0 crit - - 47.6 avo, 44.0 hp, 15.6 def, 9.8 res, 16.8 critavo killing edge: 23.0 atk, 15.4 AS, 122.0 hit, 42.0 crit - - 47.6 avo ouch. Those 20% growths are rather unforgiving. 20/10 Thany, killer lance: 28.4 atk, 23.0 AS, 143.7 hit, 58.3 crit - - 79.8 avo, 35.6 hp, 12.8 def, 16.0 res, 46.8 critavo killing edge: 26.4 atk, 25.0 AS, 153.7 hit, 58.3 crit - - 83.8 avo pwns by even more indeed I think that covers it. Did I miss anything? The coolest part about debaeting for random characters is I see things I never realized before.

Thany has several advantages over Zealot. First of all, Thany is great for the exp rank, due to starting at level 1 (even for ch 2, that's below average), while Zealot hurts it pretty badly since he joins at lv 21, and considering how steep the exp rank is, this is pretty important, despite how little there is to say about it. It's pretty straightforward. Next, Thany has extant and useful supports. For Deak and Solid Snake (or "Lot" for short), their best supports are with Thany and each other. Well, Ward would be better, but he is too terrible to be used long enough to be supporting anyone, so he really doesn't matter. What about Rutger/Clarine for Deak? They are MUCH slower supports, and they're mostly defensive. Deak is the tankiest character in the entire game, so that much defense mid or late game is overkill. More offense would benefit him much more at that point, and that's exactly what Thany's full-offense affinity offers him. And due to the support both starting several chapters earlier and being more than twice as fast in building, Thany actually offers him more defense as well when he actually needs it: early on. Thany-Deak hits B in 55 turns, while Deak-Rutger C is 50 turns, and Deak-Clarine is even slower. Deak-Thany is 5 more turns, but it starts 2 and a half chapters earlier, so Deak gets that +1 def and 5 avoid about 2 chapters earlier. and +2 avoid several chapters earlier, as well as +2->5 crit avo. Lot is pretty obvious. Other than Deak (and the already-discarded Ward), Lot has no other early support options. And again, Lot's weakest area is his offense, especially hit. His defense is pretty respectable (lol 40% def growth). Thany makes this already decently good character even better. Additionally, Thany supports Roy and Tate. Roy is often left lacking a 5th support level, since Alan-Lance-Roy group works best with Alan and Lance taking A with each other and Roy getting B with each, and Roy has no other good supporters aside from Lalum, who joins much later. So a Thany support would help him out as well. Zealot's supports, on the other hand, are . . . not as impressive. He supports Treck, Noah, and Tate (and Thany!). All three are a good bit worse than Deak and Snake. Thus Zealot will have a harder time even getting his supporters onto the field long enough for the supports to even be used, and unused supports aren't doing anyone any good. And then, Treck and Noah's best support partners are of course each other, and Noah has a better secondary supporter in Fir. Zealot is fairly unwanted. Tate is a supporter they have in common. The biggest difference, though, is that Thany's support with her is 3 times faster. Enough about supports. Next is about Ilia and Sacae. As you probably know, which path you take depends on the exp gained by your pegs and nomads. And one of those nomads is pretty awesome. Without leveling pegs, you can't use him without being forced into Sacae, so if you want to go to Ilia, having Thany is very helpful. And Thany is the only flying unit for the first ~10 chapters. And she has 16 aid and is mounted to go with that. For the early chapters, you have a shortage of mounted units. You have only 3, and they're also your best combat units, so you can't really afford to have them rescuing and such. And they're slowed down by forests and forts and have to go around mountains and cliffs and rivers where they apply, so they're often not as good at the job anyway. Thanks to Thany, you can attack enemies or heal allies in places that would normally not be safe to move to without incapacitating your important fighters. Move in to do whatever, and then rescue and get out. And then use some otherwise-worthless unit like Bors to take/drop. This can also be used to correct fatal mistakes. If you move somewhere and only after moving realize that doing so could result in X unit getting killed. And you can also visit out-of-the-way villages and shops (ch 4 mainly), help Chad get chests open faster (it usually takes a lot longer to get all those chests in ch 6 open than it does to kill the boss and sieze, so the faster you get this done, the faster you complete the chapter, so this is especially important), etc. By the time Zealot shows up, you have several non-top-tier mounted units instead of just Thany, so any one of them being able to do rescue operations is much less important. However, you still have only one that can fly. It doesn't matter in ch 8 and 8x, since those are indoor, but it can be nice in 9, 10, 11, until Tate appears. Even then, without Thany, you're limited to just Tate, which sucks massively if you don't want to use Tate, since she's not too great. Miledy joins soon after, but she's usually busy putting her massive stats to use in fighting. Her aid is kinda low as well. In short, Thany's mounted/flying powerz are very important early on and are still helpful later. Further, in those first 5 chapters, you only have as many units as unit slots, so every fighter is at least somewhat helpful, unlike later, where every unit in means another unit out. So Thany has that going for her as well. Now, what does Zealot have? He can tank---and, to a lesser extent, kill---very well in ch 7. That's about all he has going for him. Aside from the above points, Zealot and Thany are just two units with crappy stats. What makes them actually useful has been outlined above, and Thany has much more going for her than Zealot does. That's why Thany > Zealot.

I started saving formal debaets and some of the better and more long-winded informal debaets 2-3 years ago. 1.77 MB so far...!

Kent doesn't reach Lowen's base str until lv 3-4. He doesn't reach Lowen's base def until lv 9. Lowen and Kent have the same base spd. Lowen's bases are much better. With both at lv 8, Kent and Lowen have the same str, and Kent has only about a point and a half more spd on average, and even that's partially negated by Lowen's higher con. Meanwhile, Lowen has 2-3 more def and 3-4 more hp. Lowen is easily better. Later on, the vast majority of enemies are incredibly easy to kill (facing level 9 enemies when my units are lv 18-20? Are you serious, FE7?), so even poor offense can take them out, but there are still a lot of them, so you need defense to live through them, and Lowen excels in that.

Best durability? Manith has better avoid and crit avoid. He has a glaring flaw in speed--a flaw that Jill doesn't have, or has much less issue with--so.. yes.

It's easy to position a 2 ranger where a 1-2 range enemy can only attack at 2 range. If a wall or river or such stands in the way, another character is in the way, another enemy is in the way, or you're just at the edge of the enemy's range--this last one can be helped by hard-to-cross terrain being between the two units---- for any of those, 2 range can counterattack 1-2 range. 1 range can only counterattack if another enemy is the way. Or much more often, several other enemies, since there are far more places to attack something from 2 range than from 1 range.

Matthew and Geitz are pretty awesome. I also tend to like many underrated characters (meaning that I like them partially because they are underrated), and Isadora is one of them.

1 range is not inherently better than 2 range. It's definitely worse against 1-2 range enemies. Aside from that, it depends. It's worse against 1 range for low durability units such as Lyn. And that reminds me... Are you serious? Not using Bartre isn't even related to this. In that, he's not doing anything. Rebecca, however, is doing damage to enemies. "while using her in a way that supports her utility for more chapters hurts the rest of the team" No. It's exactly the same as anyone who attacks melee, with regards to the point in question. Attacking from 1 range and WTA or whatever (which is doesn't matter except against hand axes) is irrelevant to the point. That's the problem with analogies. They often get attacked on irrelevant points. I guess it wasn't clear enough. I'll try to explain it directly, then. You said that the ability to do damage without taking damage works against the character, and that's totally absurd. It is in no way, shape or form a negative of any kind. It's 100% impossible for an optional advantage to be an overall negative. If the long term effects somehow turn out worse than the tactical advantage it gives you, then just don't use it. It's not mandatory. Have her finish just as often as anyone else. Then, rather than getting the effect of better overall team durability, and increased exp for others at the cost of less exp for herself, it drops to just improving her own durability. By "in short supply", I mean that you have only two, and there are four units who can use them. Or in chapter 12, one hand axe and three users. Eh, I was assuming Lyn mode and how Dorcas is like Bartre except better. Also, "no one can double yet" is incorrect. Matthew doubles, LHM or not, and so does Marcus. Guy doubles as well once he joins. And Soldiers get doubled by anyone not Bartre. In 12, Bartre counterattacking is fine. No Oswin, Hector, or Matthew exists in the vicinity. In 13, if it's a peg he's countering, then that's fine. Otherwise, it's usually better for someone else to do it. After that, times where he should be counterattacking start to not exist. Indeed there are tons of other characters who don't want to be ganged up on. And how does one prevent this? Either by being farther away so that fewer enemies can reach, or by not having holes in your front line, so that characters can't be attacked on multiple sides. Rebecca's presence rarely, or even never (in the very early chapters, at least), increases the need for blocking off characters and such. No, because playing Bartre the way Rebecca plays usually requires him to be using a hand axe. Attacking without being exposed to enemies generally involves attacking from range. Attacking over other characters. He also has offensive and defensive shortcomings (misses, gets doubled). Are his raw offensive and defensive parameters better overall? Sure. But to make use of that better offense, he has to attack at 1 range, usually negating or even reversing his defense lead, and, in tight quarters, leaving others less able to attack. At 2 range, he doesn't have better offense. Is Bartre better overall? For 12, though there's not much to really do, yeah, he's better. You have a shortage of good meleers. In 13... he may be better if he gets to use the hand axe, but then if he's using it, that means two of the other three hand axers don't have a hand axe, so I don't think he is. For 13x, he's worse. Swords and things that actually have avoid and spd exist, and you definitely have no shortage of frontliners. For 14... I dunno. In 15, he's better until the soldiers and knights are gone, and then he's worse. In 16, he's worse. Most enemies either use a sword or likely get doubled by Rebecca, and a lot is on forests, so his hit sucks. Here on, Rebecca doubles things more and more, and Bartre starts losing offense against everything but knights, even at 1 range.

Isn't the "don't care" option the one where you ...don't vote? and don't post. due to not caring about the topic.

It would probably be a locked skill. Brom using reinforce doesn't make sense. And yes, it should have been kept.

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=13650 (This is where I post this, right?)

===== 13x ===== I hate the lack of a preparations menu. No one starts where I want them to... Also, Wolf Beil h4xes nomads. I have to do a bit of rearranging to start off. Move this guy here so that he's out of the way so I can move this other guy here, etc. Among that is a rescue/drop on Oswin to get him up north faster. Hector+Rebecca kills that first archer while Eliwood gets a C support with Hector on turn 1. And Guy takes the south side solo. Marcus gets to the village on turn 3. Those brigands were definitely going for it. 4 of them, in fact. Too bad for Guy. The more go north, the less he has to kill. One brigand suicides on Marcus. The other three get killed by Lowen and Rebecca on later turns. On turn 5E/6P, Marcus lures out Puzon, and then Oswin takes a shot at him with a Javelin, knocking him down to 2 hp. Eliwood goes in for the kill. No one really went left. The initial mage and archer got killed off by various doods, and then Matt and Dorcas fought at that bridge a bit longer, but then the brigands ran away--went around to the north side, and the myrmidon was left with 1 hp and ran away to use a vulnerary. I didn't chase. Instead I torch'd the right side so Guy could see the 5-hp brigand and nomad who also ran away and were camping out on the forts. The myrmidon came back on the last turn, and the same thing happened. What a pansy. Tactics: 26 / 27 Exp: 2635 / 2000 Funds: 30360 / 20400 ===== 14 ===== I let Oswin and Bartre take care of the soldiers and pegs. Meanwhile, Hector went to the south bridge, and Lowen and Marcus do some rescue/drop on him to move him a bit farther. Rebecca and Eliwood follow. Guy and Dorcas kill that soldier (Dorcas could do it by himself, but this way I get more exp--Serra gets to heal Guy, too), and Matthew goes that way, too. 2 Next turn, recruit Erk and raep all the archers and soldiers except one archer. Marcus kills the far southwest archer. The mercs got killed on enemy phase: Counterattack crit from Dorcas, and then Erk killed the other one. Hector is moving as far west as possible (hand axes a soldier, too). 3 Erk gets village, and Marcus makes for the south village. Others continue to press west. 4 Hector counterattacked Erik, but I let Dorcas get the kill (only one other than Hector with enough power to finish in one hit) so that Hector can move freely: Hector manages to get in range of the all the far southwest horsies. I move Serra in that steel sword myrmidon's range so that he won't get in Erk's way: Erk has to kill those two brigands ASAP. 5 It starts raining, but I managed to get all enemies within attacking range. Priscilla buys two fires and two heals. 6 Eliwood finishes off the last brigand (after Rebecca weakens it further) for the win. Tactics: 32 / 37 Exp: 3525 / 2850 ===== 15 ===== I figured I could get away with not using Oswin, Marcus, or the fighters, so I went for it. Matt, Erk, and Serra on the right; Lowen, Rebecca, Eliwood, Guy, Priscilla(, and Hector) on the left. First turn, Priscilla and Lowen drop Hector in range of just about everything, with a hand axe equipped (he's the only one in range of anything but the javelin soldier), and then Eliwood and Guy pull Priscilla out of range of the javelin guy. Then Matt unlocks the door, and Erk moves into position to counterattack the mage. Next turn Sealen runs out and misses Matthew, and then the 3 knights and 2 soldiers get mopped up. Matt kills one of the archers with the iron blade. Matt helps out with combat for another turn, letting the thief unlock the treasure room door for him before stealing his lockpick, and Erk, supported by Serra, eventually kills Sealen and then heads down to help out for the last few turns. Guy moves up to take out the fighters on turn 3. Tactics: 40 / 37 Exp: 4477 / 2850 Funds: 47375 / 30400 13x 14 15 Total 2635 3525 4477 chapter 1110 890 952 Hector 6.09 7.09 8.04 Matthew 13.53 14.04 14.43 Serra 14.35 14.92 15.58 Eliwood 5.01 6.03 7.37 Rebecca 5.13 6.28 7.32 Lowen 4.73 5.32 6.72 Marcus 2.37 2.49 2.49 Oswin 10.57 11.02 11.02 Dorcas 7.60 9.12 9.12 Bartre 2.32 3.22 3.22 Guy 4.83 5.58 7.31 Erk 12.59 13.93 Priscilla 3.11 3.78

There is no hype. Sain can run out with a Javelin and kill stuff, yeah. But that's a whole two tiers up. I'm not saying high tier. Mid tier contains many units who can't do that at all.

[complains incessantly]

Roy isn't that bad. His brokenly fast supports make him fairly good early on. He'll probably have +4 atk and +20 avo (and +15 hit/crit) by chapter 7. 45 turns to B, and chapters are longish. Then starting with ch 8x, there are axes everywhere for him to feast upon for several chapters.

4, 5, 6, 7, part of 8 I count 4-5 chapters. Indeed. He wins, but it's not by a whole lot. Who's to say she gets any supports at all? Gatrie and Mia suck, and Zihark and Mordecai, while decent, aren't exceptionally good (A full team of the best units does not include either), much unlike Ike, who is always fielded. Ike is guaranteed, and Zihark and Mordecai are only as likely as Stefan. Then even when Zihark takes the field, he has other, better, support options as well. Stefan does not.

Lyn is pretty crappy. poor defenses on a melee unit is pretty lulzy Micaiah > many others. Yes, she gets doubled or OHK'd or both, but she's ranged, so she doesn't need to get attacked, and Thani h4xes. And she gets staves after she promotes, and then she never has to attack again. But it's useful for her to do so sometimes.

Kent, Sain, and Lowen are all extremely good. Isadora isn't too bad, either. Rath...gets shafted badly. Too bad about that joining time/level.

So I was inspired to also do a HHM S rank run. I have never completed one before. I haven't even played past the early chapters in a long time... I'm also doing the average stats thing, somewhat. I'll only reset stats to the average when it falls outside the standard deviations provided by rpgdl's stats (taking the minimum margin to be 1.5, aside from cases where the deviation decreases due to massive cap-ramming). However, I will be doing LHM. And most importantly, my emphasis, at least until later, will be on tactics rather than exp. My reasoning? Enemy levels (and numbers) are higher in later chapters, so I'd rather spend more time there. Also, arenas. The reason for going fast in early LHM chapters is because Nils doesn't exist until ch 7, and 2 heals per turn for Serra > 0/1 heals. picked Thunder affinity for my tactician. Erk, Serra, Hector, Geitz could all use some extra avo/hit. Going for as much exp on Erk and Serra as possible because magic users get a ton out of promotion, so the earlier that happens, the better. They also rejoin early. Lucius has only one tome until the end of ch10, so that's a no-go for him. P- 5 turns 1- General strategy: Push northeast, without exception. Lyn+Kent kills first guy. Trade Lyn's sword to Sain on turn 2 so he can use it on Enemy Phase that turn. Trade sword back for turn 3; Lyn uses on EP that turn, while Sain is out of enemy range (just out of boss's range). Trade sword again on T4; Sain uses on boss. Kent attacks boss as well. Boss suicides on T4 EP. 2- Did not kill all enemies. 2-3 were still alive at the end. Win on T4. 3- tried something new: rescue/drop to bring Lyn over faster to help clear out enemies faster since she can double with a 1337 sword, and Kent can't. It worked. Easy 4 turn-completion. (Usually I have Lyn visit the house with Wil. Florina did it this time.) 4- nothing too noteworthy 5- rescue/drop'd Dorcas with Florina so he could help Erk kill the boss faster. Dead on T4. 6- 4 turns. Total: 33/45 7- k, now comes the hard part: making sure I have at least two people with damage every turn. Not too terribly hard on this chapter. Started making use of the "Kent/Sain rescues someone and equips a javelin" strategy. 10 turns. 43/51 7x- Massive Matt spamming. Erk spam, too. 11 turns. 54/58 8- 8T. 62/65 9- 9T. 71/73 10- This one is very hard. To get Serra to heal twice every turn, that is, because of the first few turns. Made use of Matt and Florina to get several units across the river because going around is way too slow. Matthew takes across Lyn and Erk on T1. Florina gets Lucius, Nils, Serra, and Dorcas across, in that order, on T2-5. Getting Nils and Serra across such that Serra still gets in two heals those turns was a bit tricky. Serra healed, and then Nils plays, and then Nils got rescued by Sain and take/drop'd by Florina, and Serra heals. And then next turn, Serra heals (damage provided by Dorcas attacking a mage while holding Wil), gets ferried across by Sain and Florina, and then Nils and a Lucius who got attacked by a Merc last turn are there waiting. Rain causes minimal interference since I'm moving through mountains and forests when it kicks in anyway. Got in a few turns of Lundgren abuse (with Erk rescuing Florina so he doesn't double or dodge---he does this for the cavalier reinforcements, too---and Matt taking advantage of my funds surplus to burn through that lancereaver) before time was up. Stats set to averages at the end of Lyn mode. Matt got the robe since he rejoins earliest and has to go to dangerous places sometimes (ex: stealing Zoldam's guiding ring) PC levels at the end of each chapter: P 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7x 8 9 10 Total exp 133 395 580 942 1683 2075 2394 3223 4093 4730 5677 6782 per Ch 133 262 185 362 741 392 319 829 870 637 947 1105 baseLvl Lyn 1.00 2.33 3.00 3.10 3.60 4.00 4.23 4.43 4.43 4.62 5.34 6.18 6.48 Sain 1.00 1.31 2.09 3.98 5.60 6.03 6.03 6.28 6.30 6.31 6.31 6.64 Kent 1.00 2.64 3.61 3.91 5.80 6.04 6.04 6.04 6.04 6.13 6.14 6.52 Florina 1.00 1.73 3.47 3.80 4.50 5.54 6.01 6.19 6.62 6.90 Wil 2.00 2.20 2.20 2.30 2.40 2.40 2.40 2.40 2.40 2.43 Dorcas 3.00 4.76 5.11 5.21 5.21 5.21 5.31 5.79 6.41 Erk 1.00 2.80 4.16 4.46 7.02 8.64 10.21 12.38 Serra 1.00 1.44 1.89 4.09 6.40 7.97 9.85 12.72 Rath 7.00 7.13 7.13 7.13 7.13 7.13 7.15 Matthew 2.00 2.15 5.06 6.34 6.34 8.90 11.05 Nils 1.00 2.00 3.10 3.93 4.84 6.24 Lucius 3.00 3.59 4.36 5.61 6.40 6.90 Wallace 12.00 12.00 12.00 === 11 === So I thought about forgoing the red gem in favor winning in 6 turns instead of 8, but then I found that having an uber Matt allows me to get the gem while doing it in 7 turns. 1- break wall 2- Hec kills soldier, Matt steals vuln -archer attacks Hec despite him having more def and being able to counter (Hector misses) while Matt can't since Matt has 32 hp and Hector has only 14/19 (archer does 5 damage to Hector) 3- Matt moves into position for... Hec moves full west and takes Matt's vuln and heals -arch attacks Hec again and gets countered despite being able to attack Matthew. 4- Matt opens door. Hec moves past Matt, out of archer's range, and heals -arch attacks Matt 5- Matt moves south to be in range of all three enemies, in order to draw fire away from Hector, and he takes the vuln back. Hect makes for the boss. -Matt takes a beating 6- Hect stands in front of Wire and equips Wolf Beil. Matt moves towards the enemy thief, but only 5 tiles, so he can counterkill the soldier on EP, and he finishes off the vulnerary so he can survive the 3 attacks. -Matt dodges one of the attacks, so he has enough hp left to attack and kill the thief instead of just stealing 7- Matt kills thief, gets gem. Hector kills Wire. === 12 === So... Go for the 4-turn win with rescue/drop Marcus boss rush, or take 5 turns... 4-turn one means less building supports and less exp. and I may not be able to visit the armory. eh. 5 turns it is. Bartre gets the secret book and sells it so I can buy stuff, since Hector's group is way too busy to go sell the red gem. Marcus kills t3h boss. Also, Hector's earlygame hit sucks. Note: You gain about 20k in funds this chapter, (Rapier6k, Silver Lance1.2k, SecretBook8k, +cheaper equips for about 7 characters) but since Eliwood mode is used as the base, the funds ranking data for this chapter (which you only need to keep 80% of) is only 15k. Then the chapter before this was a zero chapter. Pretty nice. === 13 === I usually take Oswin west, since he can break that stump in one hit, and he's close to that side anyway, and Marcus goes south, but this time, I did the opposite, using Lowen to help move Oswin to the south faster. Worked pretty nicely. I can use Marcus to get a low turn count without having to sacrifice too much exp. 1 Marcus,Hector,Eliwood, and Bartre went to the west. Others south. Eliwood and Bartre take out the snag, and Marcus moves in to absorb the javelin attack. 2 Bartre counterattacks the first peg, but instead of finishing it, he moves on so that it'll attack Eliwood, so that he can get the exp instead. Eliwood and Hector team up to take out the cavalier, and Marcus destroys the second snag. 3 Eliwood doesn't quite kill the peg on the counterattack, so he does it on his next turn. Hector moves forward as much as possible and handaxe's another peg that Bartre counterattacked. Bartre and Marcus then rescue/drop to put Eliwood next to H4xtor. Marcus grabs Eliwood's vulnerary and Bartre's iron axe in the process, since he has taken damage and is going to be attacking the boss, and axes work well on the boss. 4-6 Marcus goes down the left side of the castle, killing the two n00bs there, while Hector counterkills the right side cavalier, and then Marcus moves in front of the boss and heals, and then finishes him next turn. Eliwood visits armory on turn 6, right before Hector siezes, and Bartre gets the village. 1 On the other side, Lowen grabs Oswin, and then I discover that Dorcas can't take/drop because Oswin is too fat. Matthew counterattacks the first brigand, and Rebecca counters the archer. 2 Then Serra heals Rebecca, Matt finishes the archer, Lowen finishes the brigand (while holding Oswin..!), and Dorcas and Rebecca take out the peg. 3 Serra heals Rebecca again because she got attacked by an archer (No one else has any damage. Dorcas was on a forest and had WTA, so he dodged). Rebecca moves down and finishes a peg that Dorcas countered. Matt kills the archer that Rebecca counterattacked. Lowen moves down and drops Oswin off, in range of 3 enemies, and trades up Oswin's Javelin. Then Oswin counterattacks two of the enemies, but the hand axe brigand goes around Oswin and Lowen to attack Rebecca, who counterattacks him. 4-6 Serra heals R again, and then Dorcas and Matt take out the two enemies Oswin countered. Lowen and Rebecca take out the brigand. Oswin moves into Guy's range and attacks a brigand. Then Oswin takes several attacks, including one from Guy, and Rebecca gets attacked at range by a brigand yet again (dodges it this time). Then Matt recruits Guy, and another two turns of killing things without moving around much goes by before Hector siezes. Dorcas gets the mine. So, as you probably noticed, Rebecca did a lot of counterattacking. Every single time, there was someone else in range who couldn't counterattack. Her low hp has actually proven advantageous, making the AI target her over Lowen, Matt, or Dorcas. I found this interesting (and mildly amusing). Hopefully I can make use of it in later chapters. 11 12 13 Total 235 752 1525 chapter 235 517 773 baseLvl Hector 1.00 2.58 4.21 4.76 Matthew 11.05 11.82 12.32 12.88 Serra 12.72 13.12 13.67 Eliwood 1.00 1.33 2.20 Rebecca 1.00 1.67 3.63 Lowen 2.00 2.40 3.43 Marcus 1.00 1.44 2.13 Oswin 9.00 9.41 9.99 Dorcas 6.41 6.80 7.33 Bartre 2.00 2.00 2.21 Guy 3.00 3.20 Tactics: 18/20 Exp: 1525/1300 just noticed that Hector's hp is low (20). Reset to 22.