Othin

Promotion is good, as it allows for characters to maintain their existing abilities while gaining new ones that make sense for them to learn. Branched promotions, when done well, are even better, as they offer more options and replay value. Reclassing is an entirely separate matter, and while it may be balanced, it removes any meaning from choosing different characters. As similar as they may be in most FE games, the choice between a Hero and a Paladin is a far more meaningful choice than the choice between a few points of Str and a few points of Spd.

List of swords with 75+ Hit: Short Sword Slim Sword Rapier Silver Sword Hero Sword Light Sword Earth Sword Doesn't look too much better. Swords are more accurate, but not by much. The solution is to remove reclassing entirely. Isn't that how we got into this dispute? Those are words used by frontline classes. Bishop is not a frontline class. The option of reclassing greatly degrades the relevant differences between characters both from an atmospheric and gameplay perspective. I chose not to use it the few times I played FE11/12, and I really didn't hold it against the game much, but it's still a ridiculously stupid mechanic. Is this a good time to mention that in Tear Ring Saga and Berwick Saga, characters that start out as unarmed healers stay unarmed healers?

Comparing the Iron Axe and Iron Sword, the Iron Axe has +3 Mt in exchange for -5 Hit and +4 Wt. When considering that every starting axe user has 11+ base Bld, and Machua, the only character to gain axes on promotion, has 8 Bld minimum after promotion, that sounds like a damn good trade. Even more so when considering supply and demand of the respective weapons, which is far more than enough to make for the Iron Axe's less uses. As a Bishop, Lena's average Str is 1. Reclassing to Paladin, it jumps to 7, which may be weak for the point in the game where it happens, but it's the same as Jagen's base Str, and more than Ogma or Navarre's base Str. That seems pretty damn strong to me. Promotions in FE typically appear to involve magic items of some sort, or other spell-like effects. I've never played the FF games you're referencing, but I've played FFV, and the job system in that game involves granting characters abilities through powerful magic crystals, which is certainly a good reason for their stats to change. Reclassing in FE11/12 doesn't appear to have anything of the sort.

No, it isn't. As a cleric, she uses magic and has pathetically weak physical strength. As a bishop, that remains true; she just also learns how to use a different type of magic. As a paladin, she apparently forgets how to use that magic and gains considerable strength out of nowhere, and starts running around on the front lines stabbing people. It may not feel like an important distinction to you, but it's there, and to some of us, it completely ruins the atmosphere of the game and its ability to have believable characters. Most of us, from what it looks like.

And other stats, for that matter, treating their mounted stats at the defaults.

For this test, I decided to start a new file and track every character throughout the first mission. Several oddities... not all growths may be handled the same, and the change I assumed at multiples of 10 may be inconsistent or wrong. I included caps in case they play a factor. I'll repeat this test at least once and see how the results compare. Edit: I started a second test, starting Ch1 from the start again. This time, I decided to save at the start of Turn 5 and resume from there a few times to explore possibilities. I found it much more effective than I had expected. The main focus of this test was on Sherlock, who, before this point, had hit three times with his bow and missed once. Attacking a soldier, I found that he usually gained his first point in Bow Skill (from his base of 9 to 10), but not always. I decided to retry a large number of times to make sure I would get a good amount of data not only from the times when he hit and killed the enemy, but also the times when he missed. After the testing, he gained a point 17/27 times (63%) when he hit and killed the enemy, and 8/10 times (80%) when he missed. This indicates that, at least at this part of the calculations, it may not matter whether or not the attack hits the enemy. This proved especially true when I combined the numbers and found that his overall rate of gaining a point was 25/37 times - 68%, almost exactly the same as his Bow Skill growth of 70%. I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I think I'm on to something here. The second focus of this test was on Reese, and entirely by accident. Sometimes, after Sherlock attacked the soldier, an enemy archer would attack Reese. He usually missed, but every time he hit, Reese gained his first point of S Shield skill (from his base of 7 to 8). This was true the first four times - two of those times, Reese successfully blocked the hit with his shield; the other two, he didn't. Reese had already been hit twice, blocking both attacks with his shield, so this was no surprise; on the first test, as noted above, Reese gained increased his S Shield Skill for the first time on his second time being hit, and overall, increased his S Shield Skill 6 out of the 9 times he was hit throughout the mission. The weird thing was the fifth time, right when I was almost finished with Sherlock's test: the fifth time the archer hit, Reese blocked with his shield, and gained two points of S Shield Skill, jumping straight from 7 to 9. I reloaded the file to verify that Reese had had 7 S Shield Skill before the battle, then decided to try making it happen again. After sending Reese into the group of enemies, the first time he was hit, he blocked the hit and gained two points at once yet again. Conclusions: There is a random factor in characters' weapon skill growths There is a non-random factor in characters' weapon skill growths It is possible to gain multiple points of weapon skill in one battle, even with only one use of the weapon Assumptions: It doesn't matter whether or not the attack hits or kills an enemy Weapons and shields grow differently, maybe magic as well At certain points, the character's weapon skill growth rate is used as a chance of increasing the weapon skill Edit2: When Saphira appears as an NPC in 12-1, are all of her items are temporarily gone? I'm guessing yes, but I want to make sure before saying so on the NPC page. Aside from this, the NPC data page is now complete. Edit3: More tests. I noticed that characters seem to often get their first point in regular weapons skills at their fifth fifth at the earliest. But even at low levels, it couldn't be that simple; I had seen Sherlock and Chris level up their respective bow type skills first on their fifth attack, then on their ninth, only a gap of four attacks between the first and second points. Reese having three sword attacks at that save, I decided to see if I could get him to get a point on his fourth attack. After 53 tests, I found that Reese increased his sword skill in the next battle 47% of the times reloading from that save, counting only the battles where he attacked once. I'm not sure what to make of this number and how it might relate to Reese's 60% Sword Skill growth rate. It may be notable that Reese killed one enemy in those first three hits, so if killing enemies counts for double points, that could explain it. I then decided to try Izerna. At that same save, she had healed two times, and based on my previous full test, she seemed to like increasing her Heal Skill about every three heals. Over 20 tests, she increased her Heal Skill 80% of the time, despite only having a 50% growth. I had also noticed that she had a similar pattern with Sherlock and Chris, increasing on her 3rd, 5th, and 8th heals on the full test. I decided to see if the skill increase on the second heal could possibly happen for her first point. After testing 10 times, she never did. So something's up here with cumulative WExp between points. On that same attempt, I decided to test how Ward's stats would increase with his higher weapon levels. After attacking with his spear 15 times, he didn't increase his Spear Skill once, but he increased his M Shield skill on his third or fourth block, having blocked all potentially damaging hits against him up to that point. Shield skills definitely increase much faster than weapon skills, and to a lesser extent, healing magic appears to do the same. Edit4: wtf? On another test, Izerna raised her Holy Skill on the second heal when I wasn't even expecting her to; I was trying to her her to a point where I could test the chance of raising it on later heals. Now I have to test this more. Edit5: My tests appear to indicate that Izerna has a 50% chance - her Heal Skill growth - of increasing her Heal Skill on the second heal if it heals 5 or more HP and a 0% chance of it if she heals 4 or less HP, out of the maximum of 8. I believe she healed 8 HP on her first heal. I'm going to try for some different numbers and see how they work out. Edit6: After having Izerna heal 5 HP on her first heal, she healed 6 HP on her second heal on 20 tests following a save and increased her Heal Skill 45% of the time - likely another 50% chance. This was a total of 11 HP healed, as opposed to the 13 HP needed for the Heal Skill increase on the first test, so it appears that it's not a matter of the total HP healed, but rather an all-or-nothing deal. My hypothesis is that healers only gain full WExp from healing more than half of full potential of their heal, while healing half or less, they gain less or no WExp. On an unrelated note, I'm working more on the mission data, but I'm not sure about the details of the objectives for Ch8 and 8-1. Can anyone clarify or correct what I have listed? Edit7: Based on the above, it appears that two heals of more than half of the potential healed damage give Izerna the WExp she needs to have a chance of leveling up. On another test, she gave two of these "full" heals and failed to gain a point of Heal Skill, then after a save, I had her use a "partial" heal on Dean (1-4 HP out of the maximum of 8) 7 times, reloading each time, and found that she didn't increase her Heal Skill any of those times. This leads me to conclude that heals below a certain amount of HP (in this case, I assume half or less of the healing power) are of absolutely no value to Heal Skill increases. So while healing a point or two of damage here and there will get Exp, it won't get any Heal Skill. Meanwhile, for healing minor injuries, Semi-Heal appears particularly valuable, not just as a cheaper and more common alternative, but as one that would actually offer a chance to increase Heal Skill. This last part is only a hypothesis, however; testing this only with Ch1 Izerna, I don't know if it's at all different if characters have different healing power. To be sure, I injured Dean further (his Desperation skill is really coming in handy for getting him beat up) and tried having Izerna heal him again, her third heal now being a full heal. On the first such test, she increased her Heal Skill. Edit9: I've been trying to replicate the thing I mentioned above about Reese increasing his sword skill on his fourth attack, but I can't make it happen, even replicating the three actions before it as best as possible (two hits and a kill). My best guess right now is that it's just not possible, and must have been a mistake in my notes. I'm back to being thoroughly befuddled regarding how Chris and Sherlock raised their Crossbow/Bow skills on both their 5th and 9th attacks, but I'm guessing it was some sort of spillover, and the levels aren't entirely separate. Certainly, I wasn't able to get Sherlock to increase his Bow Skill on his fourth attack, despite testing a few times to see if it would happen.

I'm not saying all four, just a different selection of two. If his primary fighting style is using an axe on horseback, which fighting style would be easier and make more sense to learn dismounted: axe or sword? Bow Knights don't gain swords in FE5, ever.

But the same thing goes for using axes. Apparently Brighton learned how to use an axe while mounted and how to learn a sword while dismounted, but not how to use either one at both times? It seems like it would be both easier and more effective to learn how to use an axe both mounted and dismounted or a sword both mounted and dismounted, since all four of those are demonstrated to be effective fighting styles. I like how the dismounting system gave the mounted units disadvantages, but I feel it just took it in too strange of a direction in FE5. Do bear in mind that I hardly hold it against FE5 as a whole, if at all; it's one of my favorite games both within the FE series and overall.

Which is entirely irrelevant when axes are being discussed. That said, apparently that isn't the case, as a Knight or Soldier using a lance will do as much damage as a Cavalier with the same Str score. Now, in Berwick Saga, where spears gain damage based on movement from a charge and lances are a mounted-only subset of spears even more dependent on movement, you might have a point, but we're not talking about Berwick Saga. Speaking of Berwick Saga, if we were complaining about mounted units not being able to use every weapon in the game, we'd really be complaining about the Spear Knights who can't use any weapons outside of the Spear weapon group ever, even when dismounted. But we're not; I don't know about Paladin, but that's the sort of system I'm advocating. Neimi: Um... Is there anything I can do to help? I feel so... When I was little I used to go hunting with my grandfather. What I mean is I can-- I'm not bad with a bow. It's not clear how much of her experience she's expressing, but she's very much trained with not only using a bow, but using it on living things. The extent of that training is unclear, but it still demonstrates she's not necessarily inexperienced with the weapon just because she hadn't actually used it on a human.

Thunder is the only magic type that's ever going to actually use its effective bonus outside of 4-5. Seems that should count for something.

Okay, that's just ridiculous. I'm aware of the yellow thing; I was referring to its stats. I'm not sure how that could possibly have been intended for ingame use... and looking at it, the same goes for Pallas Rihanna. Not only the uses, but 7 Mt and 10 Prec? Any thoughts on the weapon skills thing?

Don't forget the people who can summon thunderbolts by waving their hands around. But yes, I am. The two aren't necessarily related; the existence of magic and other fantasy elements in a setting is not automatically an excuse for just anything without further justification. That justification can be related to the fantasy elements, but it still has to be there.

Looks like Pallas Rihanna doesn't regain durability in that version. Hypothetically, it can be used up to 128 times in the final game, so it's actually gained durability since then in exchange for having to spread it out more. wtf is with Young Clifford's lance? How did you get these images, anyway? Vester's class is Duke Knight, like Clifford. --- Test 5 8 base, 70% growth 5 hits 9 hits 15 hits 24 hits No misses this time, either. No kills, either. I wasn't keeping track of kills the first few times, but I think she got a kill in the first few attacks in a couple of attempts. I don't know what's affecting the results, but I'm really starting to think it's a random factor. There's definitely a non-random factor involved as well, though. I noticed Elbert often seemed to be gaining a sword level early in the tests, fighting non-Derrick enemies, so I decided to give him ten briefer tests, all from the start of the mission. All ten times (7 hits and 3 misses), he increased his sword rank (from 12 to 13). I know I used him before that point; I'm not sure how much, but it's enough to verify that there's something cumulative involved. Perhaps it works like the durability system, having a small chance of increasing when you reach certain point totals towards the next increase, then increasing 100% of the time once you get all the points?

The plausibility of a character being able to use one (non-lance) weapon only when on a horse and another completely different weapon only when dismounted, when the two weapon types are both very much usable both mounted and dismounted.

I'm not talking about gameplay, as it's not an issue here; there are plenty of alternatives to giving that Axe Knight two weapons in a situation where it would be unbalanced in the first place.

But then they couldn't use the weapon while mounted if they knew how to use it while dismounted? While a lance makes sense to only use mounted, it doesn't seem like there's much of a reason why a character would be able to use an axe mounted and a sword dismounted, but not vice versa.

I thought I would need you to approve a move of the page or something, but apparently not; I was able to move it myself. So the only thing I can't do regarding it is update the link at the main site. So I'll finish filling in stuff for that, and I also intend to start an NPC data page sometime tonight. I'll also beat up Derrick a bit to test out the weapon skills; I have a test file saved right before his mission. Edit: Chris's arrow count showed that she hadn't attacked once up to that point, which sounds about right, since I skilled most of the missions up to that point and only brought her into Ch1. I decided to use that same arrow count to keep track of her attacks while fighting Derrick and some other enemies. Test 1 8 base, 70% growth 7 hits 11 hits 21 hits Test 2 8 base, 70% growth 5 hits 9 hits 17 hits 23 hits Test 3 8 base, 70% growth 5 hits 9 hits 17 hits 24 hits If you're thinking I did something on the second and third tests that I didn't do on the first, you're correct: I started using Aim. The first time, I hadn't wanted to risk it, since I had left Chris with Sherlock's Bronze Arrows, which could do 3 damage to Derrick without his shield; this damage building up and killing him was what ended the first test. For the second and third tests, I bought Chris a large number of Wood Arrows before the battle, which couldn't damage Derrick no matter what (interestingly, he never bothered blocking with his shield at those times). Both times, she did some fighting with nearby enemies before getting in position to attack Derrick repeatedly, and missed exactly once in the first five hits both times. So it seems likely that misses may count for less points than hits, although they certainly count; I've observed characters increasing their weapon skills while missing, and in fact, on the third test, Chris's miss was on her fifth hit, when she leveled up the skill. One conclusion I think we can draw from this so far is that the number of attacks needed to increase a weapon skill goes up every 10 times: when Chris's Bow Skill was 10+, she required twice as many hits as when it was 8-9, and I'm sure it would be three times as many hits at 20+. Edit2: Test 4 8 base, 70% growth 6 hits 11 hits 18 hits 26 hits (24.5) 38 hits (30.5) This was with no missing whatsoever. I'm really starting to think that whether or not missing changes anything, there's a random factor involved. Numbers in parentheses are to compensate for the halved growths past Turn 24; Chris had attacked 23 times by that point.

Indeed. While the mechanic had some interesting implications at times, the dismounting system in Berwick (and TRS, from what I can tell) was much better.

Good finds. Added both, although I'm not sure I explained Shadow the most clear way. Edit: Changed around the format of the Base Stats and Growth Rates pages a second time to try to find an even better way to fit in the weapon skills. This one combined them back into one table without stretching the screen, but is less effective at comparing weapon availablities at a glance... which was a result of an enormous amount of blank space. Anyone have thoughts on it compared to the previous versions? Edit2: So looking back, it's 11+ speed for moving up to counter range 1? Never figured out what caused that... interesting. What's with dragons? Their weapons are listed as range 0-1, but they fly up, as if they're attacking at range 0, even when they initiate combat, rather than staying at range 1 like other 0-1 weapon users. I was able to get Larentia to counter that with a Pilum, though, so is it not really range 0 in the first place? Also, does anyone understand how weapon skill growths work? It's definitely not the full growth whenever you swing the weapon or take a hit; is it half the chance, or more complicated? Thinking it over, half the chance sounds really likely, but again, I don't want to assume. Edit3: Expanded the Optional Missions page a bit, thinking about changing it to a general Mission Data page, but I think I need Vincent's help with that.

Sure. Doesn't change the fact that a character that needs less strategy to be effective is better than a character that needs more strategy to be effective. And identifying those better characters isn't just for the sake of using those better characters. Here, I see such big deals being made from people neglecting to use one or two of the best units in a game and seeing how different it was. To use FEFF as an example again, since it makes such a great example, I recall people there using their rank-based tier lists in part to identify which characters would take more skill and strategy to be used so that confident players could focus on those characters for the fun of playing the game with more strategy and exploring different options. When focusing specifically on particularly low turn counts, the different options to explore are greatly limited, which in turn takes away from the reason to play FE as a strategy game.

And then we consider the time and effort of figuring out how to get those low turns reliably and we find that particularly low turncounts aren't always that efficient at all compared to turncounts that are merely reasonably low - say, compared to one of dondon's runs, taking another 100 turns or so throughout the entire game.

I intend to make a full list of item locations eventually; for now, I think this is enough. To my knowledge, the Monster Sword Albatross is the only item only available once before the end of Ch13, but I've made a note of that, and I'll add more if you know of anything else. I also made a note of the requirement of delivering the items before Ch13 since it's also useful information, and I'll add it to other relevant locations as well. Forenden is an S Shield. In the current version, I described it as a shield to make it a bit more clear. Working on boss data now. Shouldn't take too much longer. Edit: All boss data uploaded. Anyone know if I missed any relevant events regarding them? I want to assume Kay and Sophie leave after their events, but I haven't found any information about that, and as I noted, assuming hasn't been going too well with this. Which leaves the question of why I listed knives along with swords in the Dodge Swords skill and why I haven't at least bothered to play Ch8 to check Kay for myself, but bah. Also Pascannon being personal for Sophie as well as Estobar, but that's actually supported by what I've read. Anyone know if that (and the other stuff I've been talking about) is accurate?

Regardless of any turn limits, wasting a character's action when you need them to be doing something else (killing a certain enemy, plugging a hole, etc.) can cause issues. And some maps have natural turn limits for various reasons - map ending automatically in a certain number of turns, needing a certain turn count to get to a Gaiden or other objective, needing to catch a thief before it reaches a chest, etc. Reading the rest of your post other than that most glaring error, the same answer applies to just about all of it. Sometimes you can slow down to make up for less offense, durability, or whatever else, and sometimes you can't.

Based on the main site, the maximum number of turns from Charge is 20. And that may not even be possible to reach, because of FE4's buggy RNG running out of RNs if battles go on long enough. Or it may be the only way to force it to activate all those times; I can't remember the details of what happens.

Playing with the goal of low turn counts isn't the easiest way to play, it isn't the most reliable, it isn't the most intuitive, it usually isn't the one that fits best with what the game tells you to do, and for many people, it isn't the most fun. So by what standard is it the "smartest" way to play? Certainly not a standard worth caring about if we agree about the existence of those issues.