Reikken

Marcia, then Mia, then Jill for most improved

I dunno, dude. It looks like you have way too much exp rank as it is. Also, rescue/drop works nicely. It's worth it if it means bringing in a guy who rapes on even the toughest enemies.

That's usually irrelevant. If we're talking about how good Bors is, and proposing OJ as a support partner for Bors, it doesn't matter that OJ's support options suck (Actually, it's helpful for Bors).

They can. Use more Raven. 20/1 Raven doubles him. or 18/1, even, if you're not spd screwed.

Those are upper mid, not lower. And I, at least, generally consider them as very iffy.

There's quite a large difference between not being used and not reaching 20/20.

That was totally irrelevant and uncalled for... Yes, using inferior units can still let you beat the game. That's not the issue. It's just that better units make it easier/faster and/or more reliable.

wat? Sounds more like the opposite of what happens. Gaps between units/tiers are bigger in FE6 than in other games. Using a low tier unit is much worse in FE6 than in most others games.

Axes are statistically much better than the others. And weapons don't have a personality or anything like that, and they all do the same thing, so,,, yeah. Axe.

50% spd growth http://fea.fewiki.net/fea.php?character=makalov&game=9e

I'll second feeling that those three are too low. I haven't done any recent re-examinations, though.

or a craven cur

AXE IS THE ONLY WEAPON TYPE NOT STUCK WITH IRON AT E. I'm surprised this got no mention. That and they're stronger and cheaper than other weapons, and weight isn't an issue for a promoted unit.

Things that are obvious shouldn't need explaining... Oscar obviously is getting his ass kicked for the first few chapters. This continues until he promotes, though to a progressively lesser extent. Once his supports kick in, he has no more issues with defense, but they don't help his offense at all, which continues to be lacking. Here's some stats when Oscar's getting close to promotion: 17 Oscar, A Ike, B Kieran, Steel Lance - 22.3 atk, 12.6 AS, 110.2 hit, 6.3 crit - - 79.4 avo, 33.7 hp, 12.9 def, 4.2 res, 9.2 critavo - - 8 move 5 Titania, B Boyd, B Mist, Steel Axe - 26.8 atk, 14.8 AS, 123.6 hit, 7.5 crit - - 42.4 avo, 36.2 hp, 15.6 def, 11.8 res, 12.8 critavo - - 9 move Steel Lance - 25.8 atk, 16.0 AS, 128.6 hit, 7.5 crit - - 44.8 avo And even this doesn't tell the whole story. Titania can use those awesome slayer axes like the hammer and poleaxe, which are much stronger than their lance counterparts (ex: hammer has 22 mt on knights; heavy spear has 16), while Oscar cannot. Also, the weapon triangle comes into play. Vs lances and axes, the enemies that typically have the most hp/def, that steel axe beats Oscar's lance by an additional +1 mt. Works on defense as well, not that either of them need it.

The fact that she pwns the face off him for half the game

If you're playing something other than HHM, then yeah, Sain's defenses should be enough in most cases. But not on HHM. *boots up ch 17 savestate* Take ch 17, for example, assuming Sain/Lowen is lv 9. A 18-atk Steel lance Knight, 17-atk Steel bow Archer, and a 14-atk Iron bow Nomad is enough to take down an average Sain. The average Lowen, however, would be left with about 9-10 hp left. Enough to survive even a fourth attack. Sain here could only be exposed to two enemies without a high chance of dying. Lowen, however, could take 4.

+10 avo with just a B Eliwood beats that already... Can't get much more reliable than that, either. Anyway, No. Comparing them at lv 18, for example Sain averages 1.0 (!) more spd than Lowen, and Lowen averages 1.1 more luck. 0.9 more avoid for Sain. Except it's a 1.1 lead in Lowen's favor when using something like a Javelin or Steel sword because Lowen has more con. So again, No. Sain does not generally have better avoid.

wtfbbqh4x

<_________< Indeed the first thing noticed is that Kieran is riding a horse while Danved is not. Fortunately, horsies are pretty well-balanced in this game (as opposed to being OP'd like in PoR). Having a horse brings several advantages, which you were quick to point out, but it also brings just as many disadvantages. First of all, units on horses cannot shove. Shoving has quite a few uses. Of course there's the moving around an ally unit, to allow it to reach a target or to get it away from something or whatever. Then there are a few other not-so-obvious uses. Shoving a sleeping ally gets it awake faster. This is especially nice for units like Ike, who is incredibly awesome, so you want him awake at all times, but he has terrible res, so he's very prone to being sleep'd. Also, shoving builds supports. Whenever there's nothing worthwhile to attack, you can get those supports built up quicker (an example of something not worthwhile is 2 enemies in range and 8 characters to kill them with). Building supports is especially an issue for Danved and Kieran because they don't meet up with Ike's group until only two chapters are left before part 4, and there aren't many worthwhile units in the Cremean Royal Knights group to support with. Then in addition to not being able to shove, it's also nearly impossible for a mounted unit to be shoved. Then mounted units get movement disadvantages as well. One is additonal terrain penalties. It takes 3 move to cross thickets instead of 2. Pass through two of those, and he doesn't have any mov lead at all. Pass through three, and Danved has 1 left over for crossing a plains tile, while Kieran does not. For crossing it either before or after, too (or midway through). If Danved starts a turn with an open tile between him and a patch of undergrowth, he can cross that tile and then proceed to move 3 into the thickets. Kieran in the same situation can only move in 2, and thus has to waste another three move to make up for lost ground before continuing on. Then in the desert, a unit on horseback has 1 move, while a foot unit such as Danved has 2. 2 is only 1 better than 1, but it's also twice as much as 1, meaning foot units don't fail completely there, but horse-mounted units do. Then there's the main things that set this apart from PoR: Indoor maps reduce the move of mounted units by 2. And more importantly, some terrain is completely impassable to mounted units but can be crossed by foot units. Most notable are gaps. Height differences. Danved can climb up or down a gap and be on his way, while Kieran has to go around the long way, assuming much a path even exists at all. Additionally, there is water. Foot units can cross water, while horse-riding units cannot. Indeed, there are some places accessible to foot units that horse units can't reach even given all the time in the world. And I'm not talking about useless places, either. I mean places with enemy units and such. There are also a few horse-slaying weapons, which pose a huge threat when they pop up because of the tripled mt. A Horeslayer has 36 mt against a horsie (and 12 against a footie). Probably not quite enough to kill Kieran in one hit, but enough that he'll go down from a hit from that and anything else or will be OHK'd if he took any unhealed damage previously. Now, for stats and such, you left out a few things, such has hit, crit, and crit avoid. And of course, Danved has leads in all three. And all of them matter. Yes, even crit avo is important in this game. 2-3's enemies are made of suck and fail, most being one-rounded easily by either of our two characters and not posing any kind of threat either. Also, Danved gains about 3~5 exp from killing one, while Kieran gains 1-2. Here's an example of one: HP 34, Atk 28, AS 15, Hit 111, Avo 38, DEF 10, RES 4, Crit 7, Ddg 8 At base, assuming iron poleaxe/greatlance, and after Geoff's authority stars... Kieran: 33.0 atk, 20.0 AS, 136.0 hit, 9.8 crit - - 71.0 avo, 41.0 hp, 18.0 def, 11.0 res, 16.0 critavo Danved: 28.0 atk, 21.0 AS, 154.0 hit, 16.3 crit - - 75.0 avo, 39.0 hp, 15.0 def, 12.0 res, 18.0 critavo The promoted ones suck less but are also much rarer. 2-E they won't see much action in due to joining incredibly late. 3-9 is their first major chapter. The first thing I notice about this chapter is that it has lots of gaps. 5 of them iirc. Then the shortest path that Kieran can take to the boss and that area (the highest height level) goes through a 3-deep patch of thicket (The shortest path for Danved goes across a gap). Riding a horse is not looking so great. Now, there are two paragon scrolls in this group, so they'll be leveling up during the chapter. And Danved might have gained a level before it. Kieran is less likely to have done so. Enemy AS in this chapter ranges from 18 to 23, so when Danved gains a point of spd, he starts doubling things. Against things neither doubles, Kieran can do more damage, but only at the cost of having unreliable hit. Ch 3-9 enemies have about 52-60 avo (+10 if on a thicket). Dropping to iron, his hit is almost as good as Danved's (151 at base lv), but his atk is almost no better (29 at base). Danved with steel great has liek 2 more atk and only 2 less hit than that. Also, Danved has real crit rates on everything, while Kieran doesn't. That looks to be overall pretty even on offense. On defense, 3 def > 4 avo, of course, but almost half this chapter's enemies have 20-21 crit. Kieran will be taking about twice as many crits. Or more. Danved has a 60% luck growth to Kieran's 30%, so he's likely to reach crit immunity to at least some of them before the chapter ends. 3-11 and 3-F are kinda similar except Danved's AS lead has increased, so he's doubling even more Kieran's atk lead has increased Kieran's def lead has increased Danved's avo lead has increased (by 4 times as much, so that they're about equivalent increases And there are fewer terrain disadvantages, so Kieran's mountedness is helpful rather than hurtful. But he still can't be running ahead or anything like that, or else he'll be getting killed. He can't do what he used to be able to do in PoR. Throw in 3-11's pitfalls, further limiting his movement. Neither has anything even close to a decisive win. Moving on to part 4... 20/2 Danved, steel greatlance, A with null affinity 39.8 atk, 28.4 AS, 159.8 hit, 23.9 crit+(28.3%) - - 82.0 avo, 49.8 hp, 22.4 def, 19.0 res, 25.2 critavo 20/3 Kieran, steel poleaxe, A with null affinity 45.2 atk, 25.3 AS, 140.1 hit, 12.9 crit+(13.2%) - - 77.9 avo, 50.5 hp, 26.6 def, 17.8 res, 19.3 critavo Devdan's offensive advantage is pretty huge now. His AS is now quite good, and he has a lot of crit. At neutral bio, doubling an enemy that has 18 luck, he has a 54.5% chance of crit/Impale, at least assuming hit isn't an issue. Kieran's is 24.7%,,, assuming he doubles, which he isn't likely to do, and assuming he hits, which he has issues with. Enemies have ~65 avoid in the first chapter of part 4. More in all others. On defense, 4 def is kinda nice--better than 4 avo--, but that 19 crit avo is going to give him a lot of trouble. Snipers, halberdiers, and swordmasters all have boosted crit. Halberdiers have about 22 or so at first, rising fairly rapidly in later chapters (70% skl growth--more than twice Kieran's luck growth). Snipers about 28 and rising (90%! skl growth), and swordmasters about 33 (85%). So enemy crit rate is rising slightly on Kieran and dropping relatively quickly on Danved. Also, swordmasters are fast enough that Kieran is likely getting doubled. A lv 9 one (4-1 and 4-2 features enemies up to lv 9) has about 29 AS, and it has over twice Kieran's spd growth (80%), so the likelyhood of being doubled only increases. (Thankfully for Danved, other enemies are much slower, so he can still double them pretty well. A 20/7 Halberdier has about 22 AS, for example. [18 class base + 60% spd growth]) All that considered, Danved is better off defensively as well. Then all paths of part 4 have terrain issues going against Kieran's horse. Micaiah's has the desert; Ike's has an indoor map with lots of gaps; Tibarn's has loads of thickets and water. So they're pretty close in part 3, but then in part 4, Kieran gets floored. Danved is clearly better.

We arrived at irreconcilable differences, and then we dueled, much like you and I are doing now. He was slain.

Mm. Perhaps. But I'm more of a former disciple.

His name was Adlar. Have you heard of him?

Why thank you. I did have a good teacher. Your parry isn't too bad, either.

Very well. I accept your challenge. I do enjoy a good duel.

If it makes you feel any better, I think she's underrated by most debaters, too. Not by too much, but underrated nonetheless. But it's far more than countered by the overrating she gets from many others.