Othin

Yeah, it is. Same as Black Meteor's first line. The line breaks weren't originally there; I added them to emphasize the similar (and presumably separate) sections. Looks like just I put it in the wrong place. So Holy and Black Meteor both have an auto-Mercy effect... interesting, if a bit odd for the latter. Unless it isn't a Mercy effect; the descriptions seem quite different. Could just be a shortened version, though. Mercy - 敵のHP以上のダメージを与える場合、代わりにHPが1残るようにダメージを与える。

That's rather specific. Are you willing to show evidence for precisely what that exact sentence would have accomplished?

I'm not sure what to make of that... Certainly doesn't sound like her Mug skill is any good on its own, at least before promotion. The apparently larger increase from having both is also odd, indicating that it may not be consistent. So there is a third forced map. That makes more sense; I think we can go with that. That % thing makes a lot more sense, seeming larger only because of the larger heals from the spells in the first place. I also confirmed it by using the Mind Potion on Olwen and having his heal power go up by 2 instead of 1 with Heal II (he had 9 Mind before, and 20 Holy Skill). So that's good to know. Fighting archers does make sense as a niche, them being incredibly common and much more troublesome in this game, and him being the only user of the skill to be able to counter them. Thinking about it that way, it also makes sense with why Lanette's personal weapons have increased range, to fight magic more easily. And I've also found his high power with Wind magic to be effective; if only I could say the same about the accuracy... His skill caps are just terrible, though; when I first saw them, I thought they were an error. On an unrelated note, Bau Crash still confuses me. It seems like it has to do something; all Dark magic does. It has only 8 uses, is only used in the final chapter, has pretty much the worst stats among all Dark magic and essentially the only drawback, has one of the highest ranks, and it was an area attack in TRS... Looking at it next to Hellworm, Tomahan, and Black Meteor, two of which are used within the first four chapters, there just seems to be something wrong. Also, checking back, it seems I still don't know quite what Holy does. I noticed a few effects could be compared based on the Japanese text... Holy 攻撃相手を倒さない (something about enemy?) 必ず先手を取る (attacks first?) Bau Crash 飛行ユニットには無効 (cannot hit flying foes?) 反撃に用いることができない (cannot counterattack?) Black Meteor 攻撃相手を倒さない (something about enemy?) 反撃に用いることができない (cannot counterattack?) This is pretty much the last bit of weapon confusion. For skills, I have most things figured out except activation rates. The only skills where I'm just not sure what they do at all are Wrath and Iaido, and the conditions regarding Sylvia's Backhanded skill working (I had thought it doubled the chance all the time, the the wiki seems to indicate that there's more to it). So if we can get these things figured out, the database will be nearly finished.

Berwick's ranks seem to be big on 100% completion. Breathing room sounds a bit odd; I'm not inclined to assume it without further investigation. The thing about those ranks is that 23 from maps just doesn't make sense. There are 22 "regular" side maps, and 4 character-specific maps, so the number seems like it would be 22 or 26. Of course, there are the two required (?) "side" maps counted in that total, so 24 could also be a possibility? Unless I'm forgetting one that's required, which would make it make sense. However, another part of my concern is this page on the wiki, which indicates that some other point comes from somewhere, leaving 22 points for the maps, which makes more sense - I just can't figure out what it's talking about for that last point, if it's even accurate at all. Of course, this would mean that the required maps are forced ranking points while the Exp maps aren't counted at all, but looking at all the required Tactics points and the requirements for the Exp maps for the Happiness rank, it doesn't seem so strange. Still, this leaves us with several possibilities. That was my other thought. The wiki claims it's 10-20 damage and ignoring defenses, but I quickly found that to be inaccurate, so it either didn't ignore defenses or had a potentially lower random number. Luck explanation makes sense. Even better, it means I can avoid mentioning it much until we can find out more. I'm assuming it'd stack for Flourish + Harpoon, but I'm wondering more about if it'd also stack with the normal base rate of 3% - so would Arthur using Flourish with a Harpoon have 45% or 48%? Not the easiest question to answer with testing, I guess, but the 45% version (weapon bonus overrides the base, but stacks with other stuff) makes more sense with the Bolt Knife in mind, I think. It's definitely not random. Characters equipping a healing spell have some sort of "heal power" stat instead of an Attack stat, and it doesn't appear random. The "heal power" is generally a bit more than Mind + (spell bonus); with a bit of testing, I guessed concluded that Heal and Range Heal have a bonus equal to 10% of Heal Skill and Heal II has a bonus equal to 15%. (Semi-Heal, as the description indicates, has no such bonus.) However, I wasn't able to forge Area Heal to test it, and none of the enemies I've been seeing with Dark Heal have had enough Dark Skill to give any conclusions. ...Having written this, I remembered that enemy stats are fixed and all listed on the second site I've been using. Looking at the enemy reinforcement in Ch4, his heal power is just a bit too high for the bonus to be 10%, so it seems fair to conclude that, as makes sense with it sharing the +10 fixed bonus of Heal II, it also shares the 15% bonus. Area Heal is forge-only, so there are no enemies to check, but I'd assume that for the same reasons, it shares the 10% with Heal and Range Heal. I'm tempted... very tempted. Hey, NoA changed Ulysses to Bastian. Wouldn't be that strange. I can't speak for his actual effectiveness, but Percival reeks uselessness. Out of the four mages, he's the only one not to specialize in an elemental magic type, and therefore the only one not to have a completely ridiculous personal spell of that type. His skills are limited to ones that too many characters already have already and have limited strategic use, which in combination with all that leaves him with basically no niche. He also lacks Fire magic. I can't load the first link, and can't figure out what the second one is saying. Could you summarize?

Don't know about anyone else, but I was not aware. Good find. If nothing else, images should help lend character to the database, rather than leaving it as a faceless collection of data - much like how even with hearing and reading various things about Berwick Saga previously, I could never really consider it a game more than a collection of ideas until watching YayMarsha's videos and actually seeing things. Anyway, Paladin's site seems to have solved the Paramythis mystery, as well as the matter of the Tactics rank and has added a few apparently unused shields to the database (also verified by their presence on Pegasus Knight, like the Old Imperial Sword), but now I'm even more confused about Fame and Action - Fame seems to add up to 37 points rather than 35 like the other ranks, and Action, as Paladin noted, seems to list the illogical 23 optional maps. I don't know what to make of either of these, so help from anyone would be appreciated. Happiness should be easy enough to figure out once I persuade myself to slog through the gibberish resulting from online translations messing up the word order. I have a sort of Calculations page for most of the basic stuff, although I opted to not explain the weapon/skill/food bonuses on this page for now when they're listed everywhere else and it would be ridiculously complicated to do so. I don't have the critical bonus to damage listed, because I don't actually know what it is, just that it seems to be some random addition rather than a fixed multiplier or anything of the sort. Also don't have any idea what Luck does and if it exists from anything other than two foods, so if anyone has input on any of these things, it'd help a lot. Then there's the injury rates. I know the injury rate is normally 3, but instead for knives, and has all sorts of bonuses on top of that, but how do bonuses to the injury rate from weapons fit into that? The Bolt Knife seems to have Injury +33% as an effect; does that give it a total injury rate of 42%? Seems a bit high... And still looking for a handful of other things - specifically the % effects of weapon skill on the heals for Area Heal and Dark Heal, and any effect of Bau Crash other than not hitting ground enemies (it really sounds like an area attack based on some of the descriptions, but I don't want to make any assumptions about that or how the area is calculated). If I can get information on all of these things and figure out the details on the last few skills, I can have all gameplay data in this database completed, just leaving a few name translations to work out. Regarding the translations, I'm trying to find actual names and otherwise meaningful translations in whatever I can rather than just random words and sounds - as I indicated in another thread, I've managed to give all of the characters names that, while fitting with existing translations, are existing English names (preferably first names) when possible, and mythological references for the handful that didn't fit (Ouro, Aegina). I believe this makes the database the only existing source of thorough English translations for all character names, although that isn't really the only unique thing about it within the English language anyway.

The Demon Bow is a Blacksmith forge. So the curse is a chance, rather than an actual percentage of the damage on all hits? That's what seemed most plausible, but I couldn't tell from the translations, so it's good to know for sure. Chris's bow growth is 50%, which is plenty better than Elbert's spear growth of 30% - and Adel's, for that matter. I've still found it much more effective for her to use crossbows when she can't set up an Aim shot, but at least the option is there. I can see the benefit in that, but it's hard to imagine her being worth the unit slot even with all that. With that in mind, there are a few other relevant things I've been meaning to find out, since the other sites don't seem to have complete information on them. First, how's the chance for Mug / Mug II determined? Is it Czene's level before promotion, and always 30 afterward, or something more complex? Second, does Czene have Re-Move when mounted? I'd assume yes, but it's not listed on the wiki, unlike other mounted characters, so I want to be sure. Speaking of odd class skills, the wiki lists Self-Heal "and others" as class skills for the Holy Knight class, but Self-Heal isn't listed as a skill for Paramythis despite other class skills being listed for their respective characters, and her other skills don't seem to be associated with her class. So assuming you've played far enough to get Paramythis on past playthroughs, do you know whether or not she actually has Self-Heal or any other class-specific skills? Good to know regarding Burroughs. So is his movement also restricted by the rotation? That sounds like a pain. But if he's effective enough even considering all that, he seems like a fascinatingly unique character to use.

Oh, I'm sure you don't want to worry about my little undertaking; I'm using name translations that actually mean something in English.

Pascannon seems amazing, looking at its stats (I haven't used Estobar yet either, although I intend to use him on my next playthrough, if only because of Pursuit), but I personally love crossbows too much to ever not be using both Sylvia and Chris. Sylvia also has a ton of other awesome abilities, like Shooter and inflicting more injuries, which with the Demon Bow, is quite ridiculous. Haven't actually gotten it yet, but I can tell what effect it'll have. I do agree about not ranking characters with free unit slots. There's nothing for them to compete for. Axel requires some careful positioning to be effective, but his mobility helps a lot with that, as well as Hide. I also find his Search skill highly convenient, since it means I don't have to spend a unit slot on a thief in some chapters. Pulverize alone wouldn't be enough for me to put Axel and Daoud on that level, but in combination with everything else they can do, I've found them both as effective as Dean so far. I've read about a glitch that lets Burroughs move and fire in the same turn by unequipping his ballista and then reequipping it after moving. I don't know much about ballistae in this game, not having gotten him myself, but it seems like if you can use that movement to rotate him somehow, it might get around that. I've certainly heard that at least with the glitch, he's utterly ridiculous.

I will soon finish compiling a database that should make it possible to play Berwick Saga with little to no issues from the language barrier. (Honestly, it's pretty much already at that point, but there are a few more things I want to get sorted out before doing anything with it.) Berwick Saga is a fantastic game; I highly recommend playing it before or after I finish the database. Feel free to annoy me into completing it faster; that tends to be effective.

History lesson time! The FE series is, logically, divided into four groups of games. The first group is FE1-5, made by the collaboration of Kaga and IS. In this group, there was no specific face to the series. It grew organically, with each new game bringing many new aspects to the series, while holding onto some but not all aspects of previous games. The result was a series where each game was a unique experience, while still progressing from one game to the next. The BSFE downloads are in a sense exceptions, as they mirrored the gameplay of FE3, but they were really an add-on to FE3 rather than separate games(s) anyway. The next group is FE6-10, new games made by IS after Kaga left. The gameplay for these games is, for all practical intents and purposes, a stripped-down version of FE5's gameplay. New features were scarce for each release; the closest thing was typically recycled features from FE2 or FE4. The result was a mechanical, formulaic group of games, rather than the organic progression of the earlier games. FE13 may or may not turn out to fit into this category; we'll have to see. The third group is FE11-12, remakes of early games made by IS without Kaga. They essentially follow their own formula, with a few new aspects, and a few changes, although the ability of those changes to make the remakes feel like a new experience is debatable. The fourth group is TearRing Saga and Berwick Saga, made by Kaga himself after he left IS. These games continued the organic progression that had been present in the first group - while the dramatic changes to each new game seem odd from our current perspective, when they're placed next to only Kaga's other works, they don't seem strange at all, just the things that make each new game a unique experience. Some changes were good, others not so good. I don't know how good TearRing Saga is overall (from what I've heard, half the cast has one game-breaking ability or another, making the difficulty a joke, for one thing), but speaking personally, Berwick Saga is my favorite game in the series. So, myself, I don't want Kaga to necessarily make games "like" one game or another in particular - that's never been his style anyway; there's no real pattern to his past games for him to follow in a new one other than being a unique experience. I just want him to make another game, using whatever new and returning features he feels is best, with or without IS. I don't know how much you know about the above already, but I'm sure there are many people here who don't, and it helps to explain my personal view on the matter better. It's also something I've been wanting to post here for a while for that reason... I just hope I haven't already posted it and forgotten about it.

Much appreciated. That makes more sense than the impression I got from the wiki - some characters not affecting it at all, other characters giving extra points for being both recruited and promoted. You mentioned other requirements than just permanent recruitment, survival, and class change - do you know anything about where I could find information on those requirements for each character that has them? I've been trying to try out most characters, but given that I've only completed half a playthrough so far, there's only so much I can say. The best characters so far seem to be Reese, Larentia, and Sylvia, followed by the axe trio of Dean, Axel, and Daoud. Pulverize is just amazing. I haven't even hired Faramir once, so I have no idea how he compares to these characters. Arthur is turning out to be another one of my best characters, right behind the axe trio. Looking at his growths, he'll probably surpass them soon and be better overall, but I'm not inclined to make any assumptions. So far, I haven't used Czene or Percival much, but they don't seem to stand out at all yet; Sedy and Aegina have definitely been performing better for me up to this point. It's difficult to compare given how different they all are, though.

Good finds on Tactics. As for the others, I was using this page as a source, so I know about most of Action and Happiness. Action in particular seems to note 22 points for extra missions, not 23. Now, this makes sense; there are 22 "main" optional missions, plus the 4 Exp maps that you'd need to complete to recruit characters and complete the Happiness rank anyway. But it leaves the question of where the last point comes from. For Happiness, looking at the specifications on promotion and recruitment requirements, they seem to also add up to 34, leaving one more point. For both Action and Happiness, the wiki lists some requirement for some other point, but I can't seem to get a coherent translation for it on my own. For Fame, do you know of any complete listings of the civilian requests?

I've been trying to check ChinaFE for ranking stuff for a while, and I haven't been able to. Is anyone else able to get info from it, particularly details on the rankings?

It's a new game with new names that aren't officially translated. When aren't there arguments over names in that situation?

False. You are keeping yourself from using different characters and teams throughout a playthrough. It's not something people will typically do on their own. It's an option, but not one people normally go for without a specific challenge dictating it, one imposed by themselves or by the game. This is a challenge imposed by the game to that end. The expectations of the game further play a role in this. In a game that's designed to be played through with one small team, playing with a larger team gives up levels and stats, something typically avoided. In a game where all characters can be used continuously, it's often most effective, when playing the game normally to go through the game with a team aboutas big as you can bring into any given chapter. There's also the strategy aspect. Not being able to use your best characters all the time means you have to think about when to use them, and adept to new strategies when you can't use them.

How about a mechanic that encourages you to use units you might not think to use, hmm? Going through the whole game with the same team is boring. Fatigue is a worthy addition to any FE game, with the exception of games like FE10 because it'd get all screwed up by the multiple teams and isn't as necessary in the first place for that reason.

This is the difference between turn-efficiency and other forms of efficiency, and why using the general term "efficiency" to refer specifically to the specific branch of efficiency correctly referred to as turn-efficiency is simply wrong.

Most tier lists can be used to give new players a good idea of who to use to make the game easier, or experienced players an idea of who to use to make the game harder. Those are the normal reasons why such tiers exist, and there are indeed people who benefit from them. Are the tiers regardless mostly made for the fun of making them? Sure. I didn't say otherwise.

There is little practical value in telling people how to clear the game with a low turncount. A tier list fulfills precisely none of that value. Consider how many people actually care about your standard of minimum turncounts. As you've admitted yourself, it's quite low, and most of the people who care are the ones arguing the tier lists in the first place... so you're creating the tier lists to instruct yourselves. Which leads back to my point that the tier lists exist only for their own sake. As for someone who wants to learn about it, a tier list is a woefully inadequate method of conveying how to clear the game in minimum or even remotely low turns. Getting particularly low turncounts requires using specific strategies, or a specific strategy, period. Telling people how to clear the game with a low turncount means showing or explaining those strategies, or at least the general methods behind those strategies. A simple ordered list of characters will not convey those strategies; giving that list to a player who knows nothing about those strategies will not cause them to magically figure out those strategies, and without those strategies, they won't get remotely close to low turncounts. On the other hand, if you don't bother ranking the characters, but simply show or explain the strategies, then once a player sufficiently understands those strategies, they will figure out approximately who they need to make use of on any given chapter on their own - at least as effectively as they'd be able to figure it out with the aid of a tier list. The core of this is that tier lists as a method of instruction don't fit with something with options as limited as low turncounts. Once you've been analyzing strategies in that much detail, and you've planned out strategies that are being assumed for the purposes of a tier list, there isn't some simple scale of characters being more or less effective, as tier lists are meant to show. There are characters that are necessary for some or many strategies, characters that are interchangeable, maybe modifying the chances of a strategy working, and characters that just don't do much of anything. You can quantify those effects, but that quantification isn't necessarily any help in telling people which characters to use at any given time, or even whether or not they have a choice. It's like if Metroid Prime speedrunners were making a tier list about which Missile Expansions are most or least effective to get on a speedrun. Now, I'm a huge fan of Metroid games, both in general and in speedruns. But such a tier list would be completely worthless. On a speedrun, you figure out which Missile Expansions will be worth it to get on whichever route is the best at the time, and you get them. By the same token, on an FE turn-efficient playthrough, you figure out which characters will be useful or necessary to your planned strategy on a given chapter, and you use them. No simple tier list can ever provide accurate enough information about that.

You mean like Tear Ring Saga?

Where would be the fun in arguing characters if the comparison could be boiled down to one number on one strategy? Turn-efficiency tier lists don't have the slightest shred of practical value; their only purpose is the enjoyment of making them. Or at least I've been told it's enjoyable for you people. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, but it means that if you furthermore make the process purely objective, leaving no subjective room for enjoyable argument, there's no point in bothering to spend time making the tier lists at all.

No one likes spaces in acronyms.

If you practically needed them, they'd be more important on harder modes, not less.

Even if the difference is just 0.0001% of the game's overall quality or something similarly ridiculous, good graphics are always better than bad graphics, at least whenever the good graphics don't otherwise cost something from the game. Note that this is defining "good graphics" in terms of total graphical design, not just the technology or resolution behind it.

Efficiency can refer to anything you put in. Literally and practically speaking, the most efficient playthrough is one that is efficient in terms of everything you put into the game to complete your goals as best you can, including time spent resetting and even planning strategies. So a perfectly efficient playthrough would have strategies that are simple, easy, reliable, and reasonably quick - taking 15 extra turns in a chapter would almost never be efficient, but taking 3 extra turns in a typical enough chapter to use simple and reliable strategies would probably be efficient quite often. Now, those goals can just be completing the game, but they can also be anything else on top of that - completing a certain difficulty, completing with ranks, completing while using or obtaining certain characters or items, etc. Of course, the most popular additional goal here is completing while getting particularly low turn counts, even when it causes the strategies to be more complex, more difficult, and less reliable. But even for this particular type of efficiency, it indeed makes sense to put limits on that, considering what is efficient to give up for the sake of turns. Efficiency simply means making what you get out worth what you put in. Sometimes that means not getting perfect ranks or perfect turncounts if they aren't worth what you would put in, by whatever definition, if you're playing with the goal of getting good ranks or turncounts but not necessarily perfect ranks or turncounts. And playing with the goal of fulfilling an objective well rather than perfectly is a far healthier mindset to take. Indeed, as Mercenary Raven noted, especially for a tier list, it is important to keep in mind what you have to put in in order to get those low turncounts, and whether or not that is truly "efficient".