Redwall

You can simply Switch to the secondary character, unequip his or her weapon, and then switch back to avoid unwanted Dual Attacks.

I think Interceptor's point is that the marginal value of adding Sumia to the set A={Cordelia, everyone not named Cordelia or Sumia} is different from the marginal value of adding Sumia to the set B={everyone not named Cordelia or Sumia} which in turn is different from the MV of adding Cord to the set C={Sumia, everyone not named Cordelia or Sumia}.

You should probably change "might" to "Atk" to avoid confusion. Might is strictly a property of the equipped weapon, while Atk is going to be the sum of Str, Mt, and weapon-rank bonuses.

I'd say it counts since most people aren't going to have two Galeforce users, and will instead fight unpaired for the two-turn clear or paired for the five- or six-turn clear.

Your testimony is accepted for correctly spelling "stationery."

1. Tales of Symphonia: terrible writing, but super-fun gameplay 2. Paper Mario TTYD: you get Yoshi 3. Viewtiful Joe: very solid platformer 4. Megaman (Anniversary Collection): PS2 version probably controls better, but oh well 5. Legend of Zelda (Anniversary Collection): three solid games on one disc

1. Legend of Zelda: getting a bit stale, but hopefully that will change 2. Fire Emblem: of course 3t. Metroid: it's Metroid 3t. Mario: it's Mario 5. Pokemon: not just the actual cartridges, but also for online battles on Shoddybattle and the like

There's no need to publicly call out someone for having varying opinions over...a video game character.

One of the best units in the game. She goes great with Fred, who allows her to level up really easily due to not just the Str/Def bonuses, but also the +1 Mov bonus. As a Dark Flier, she gets Rally Movement, which can save some $$ for Rescue staves and forges. Flight is really good in general (desert levels; flying over water; etc). 10/10 without bias, and 9/10 with bias just because I cannot stand her cartooniness [sic].

Ditto and lol, you can't get Leif's Blade if you're abiding by SDS's tier list.

No matter how skilled you are, you definitely need to use Pair Up at some point to survive Lunatic if you're not grinding just because the enemies have such high stats. When it comes to lowering your turncounts and/or increasing your reliability, Lunatic mode in Awakening heavily favors having strong superpairs over fielding team of evenly trained units. Pair Up simply means that the enemies need to be stronger to compensate. That is it. Your argument is rejected for not specifying what this "depth" entails. Lunatic earlygame has a heavy emphasis on the enemy phase. I assure you that you will not miss having both Fred and Sumia attack during the player phase since Sumia explodes to anything if she's unpaired. Assuming an efficient playthrough that continues with premature boss-kills going into the later stages, you simply cannot make it even on player phase victories without Pair Up since the enemy stats are so high. Making your units Pair Up is simply a no-brainer. You clearly haven't played the earlier games very carefully if you believe that transporting the Lord or the boss-killer while maintaining low turncounts is always going to be trivial. Rescue has clear drawbacks, while Pair Up only hurts you if you're going for a non-Galeforce, two-turn clear of Paralogue 17; there do not exist any other stages where avoiding Pair Up improves reliability. This is trivial with a +Def Avatar. Unless you're going to tell me you didn't rely on Pair Up combined with an enemy-phase heavy strategy, this only confirms the necessity of Pair Up in Lunatic for the sake of jacking up your numbers. There is no downside given how strong the enemies are throughout.

How is using a buyable Rescue staff any different when it comes to "avoiding consequences?" Both old-school Rescuing and buyable Rescues obviously allow for people to undo their mistakes, but they also also for good players to do clever things. The old-school Rescue command at least required some thought to use well (getting the Lord in position to seize, or the boss-killer in position to KO), and had some drawbacks (lower stats, which isn't a problem if you're turtling, but which makes you think about positioning to avoid getting mauled on the EP). Pair Up has no such drawbacks. Every map in Awakening is "durr kill all da enemies with your superpairs."

I have no idea what you mean by using Sumia seriously. If we use her optimally, then we'll obviously Pair her with Frederick prior to C15--which makes lances all the better during that time while failing to make 3 Mt Thunder tomes any better. After C15, the Sumia/Henry squad continues to be inferior to the Sumia/Fred Pair for a long time due to her low Mag, sub-B tomes having bad Mt in general, and the lower Dual Attack/Guard chances. I brought up C15 because the following chapters are assassination missions, giving her few opportunities to gain EXP. Spirit Dust should go to the Avatar or a staffbot if you're playing quickly; but yes, I don't disagree that we can get away with a lot of suboptimal choices, including feeding Sumia that Spirit Dust to allow her to just barely ORKO unpromoted enemies when promoted enemies are about to appear en masse. If we expect Iron Lance Sumia to be targeted by 2-range, then we will have equipped a Javelin beforehand, benefiting not only from Fred's +2 S-support boost, but also the +2 boost provided by A-rank lances (which ought to be enough for KOing Mages), and, most importantly of all, the Dual Attack chances from an S support. Even a round of unforged Javelin combat leaves a high chance of ORKOing Cavaliers in C15 due to her 1 - 0.35^2 = 87.75% chance scoring a fatal Frederick DA. Again, I don't disagree with your claim that tome-wielding Sumia is salvageable.

Yes. I don't mind grinding, but for the sake of character/class comparisons, assuming it isn't being done allows us to see visible differences between these characters and classes.

I don't think Chiki is saying DF Sumia is an unsalvageable mage; just that she works better as a physical attacker. Just as an example, the C15 Cavaliers have 38 HP, 11 Def, and 4 Res. ORKOing them with a Sumia capable of doubling will require either 23 MAtk or 30 PhysAtk. An average 15/5 Sumia has 11.9 Mag and 14.9 Str; with a Henry Pair Up (she won't have C support by then) and a Mag Tonic, she'll have 17.9 Mag with E-ranked tomes, while with a Fred S support and a Str Tonic, she'll have 22.9 Str with A-ranked lances. With a 6 Mt lance and the A rank, the average Sumia is guaranteed to ORKO the Cavs, but with a Henry Pair Up, Mag tonic, and a Thunder tome, she's still short and will require a Dual Attack at low odds. The Spirit Dust is better used on staffbots and the Avatar, and stronger enemies like the Generals require a Fred DA which will occur with high odds, while Sumia has no chance of taking out Generals in that Chapter with just a Henry Pair Up.

If you position your Tantivy units smartly and have been feeding them enough EXP, they shouldn't be dying anyway in Hard mode. Having other dudes next to them doesn't improve their chance of survival for this reason; they'll take slightly less damage, but they won't die with or without having allies near them.

Odd Rhythm is in principle superior to Even Rhythm if you think about it, though the difference is minuscule: Odd Rhythm is guaranteed to activate at the start of battle, while Even Rhythm needs a turn to catch up. At best, Even Rhythm ties with Odd Rhythm, but if you're clearing a stage in a single turn, then Even Rhythm is useless, while Odd Rhythm has a shot at being useful. The exception would be if you had some stage where the best way of clearing would be to do all the heavy lifting on an even-numbered turn. I think it would be more interesting to do these things based on comparing against other skills in the class tree: for example, using a Master Seal on Sumia gives you the choice of getting either Rally Mov or Rally Spd, and in a no-grind playthrough, you're realistically only getting one.

I think I would actually like Vaike if he were a good enough unit to justify his ego

^yep. Anyway, more thoughts on Luna: (Normal/Hard) Sully should be reclassed to Wyvern Rider for Avoid-stacking (Outdoor Fighter, Tantivy, Quick Burn), so she shouldn't be getting Luna anyway. Fred should be ORKOing earlygame enemies with or without Luna, and by the midgame, you should have other characters trained. Stahl can use Luna well, but he'll get it about the same time your Avatar gets Ignis, and the Avatar will generally trigger Ignis more often due to higher Skl. (Lunatic) Sully and Stahl are usable, but shouldn't be used. Fred benefits a little from Luna in the earlygame, then falls off sharply once promoted enemies appear, so by that time, Luna becomes useless.

Luna's "advantage" in availability translates to about one or two extra points of damage due to the low Def earlygame enemies have. By the time enemies have enough Def to make Luna meaningful, Frederick will have fallen off.

Rout maps are cleared most efficiently by spreading out your strongest units; for this reason, Tantivy is highly useful in these contexts (look at Olwen's 49-turn clear of HM, for example). Clumping your units together slows down the rout without improving reliability.

Yeah, I'm surprised people are lumping Tantivy in with trash skills like Relief. Recall that Tantivy doesn't lose its effect when you have a Pair Up; a Wyvern Morgan Paired Up with Lucina will receive +15 Hit/Avo from Tantivy combined with Charm, and that's not even counting their support bonuses. I'm pretty sure Relief activated, like, twice in the playthrough linked to in my sig.

Rally Speed has its uses in Lunatic LTC if you're not rigging Spd growths. It's unnecessary for Hard LTC, though, and prevents you from getting Rally Movement (which is rather good for HM LTC).

stahp typing so big

A peer-reviewed journal. My point is that this thread doesn't have to be some logically rigorous analysis of unit worth. It's more for entertainment value than as a reference for "hardcore" gaming purposes.