Vykan12

Re-posting Crimson's opener. ==================== OK! Sothe: Join Time: 1-2 Base Stats/ Rogue Caps HP: 35/40 Str: 18/22 Mgc: 4/15 Skl: 20/26 Spd: 20/30 Luck: 15/40 Def: 14/20 Res: 9/15 So Sothe joins in 1-2 and is useful right from the start. Yes, he is a pre-promote but that doesn't matter much. His bases are excellent, far better than any of the other characters you have at this time. His knives are low-powered, so you can use him to weaken enemies and have your other units (most of which are low level) finish. His HP, Def and Res allow him to tank in part 1, and somewhat in part 3. Not to mention he'll dodge at least half of the attacks sent at him, thanks to excellent Spd and decent Luck. His Guard skill and A Micaiah support are also good things. Micaiah is, and mostly will remain, weak. Guard will allow him to take some attacks against her onto himself and his actually good Def. An A support with a forced character (not to mention he's forced himself) right from the start is wonderful, and will keep a lot of trouble at bay. Growth Rates: HP: 30 Str: 60 Mgc: 20 Skl: 80 Spd: 45 Luck: 65 Def: 20 Res: 30 So he'll easily cap Str and Skl, and usually HP. Spd and Luck will be high as well, with Spd possibly capping if you have a little luck on your side. This makes him an even better dodger and capable of dealing decent damage even in part 3. His base Def and Res are good enough to keep him alive despite the low growths, especially considering all the dodging he'll do. This is good, considering he's forced into the final chapter anyway. His main problem is his story-based promotion. Getting him to 20 before promotion will probably require Paragon and a lot of CEXP or BEXP. The good news is that this is actually pretty easy to get. You get two Beast Killer knives (one in part 1 and one in part 3), so have him equip them in 3-13, equip Paragon (or Resolve depending on his level) and send him to one of the two front entrances, and keep him there until the two BK knives run out. He'll have picked up a LOT of EXP from that, and the chances of him dying are rather low, assuming you give him an Elixer or Concotion if his HP gets low (it might get low, but it will rarely actually get to 0). And then there's always 4-P if he didn't get to 20 (which is possible if you didn't use him much in part 1). Now, let's compare him to 3 characters who get a lot of praise: Nolan, Zihark and Volug. vs Nolan: at Recruitment: Nolan lvl 11: vs Sothe base level HP: 29.6 vs 35 Str: 12.45 vs 18 Mgc: .2 vs 4 Skl: 11.7 vs 20 Spd: 10.6 vs 20 Luck: 7.3 vs 15 Def: 9.35 vs 14 Res: 3.4 vs 9 Sothe is absolutely slaughtering Nolan. Nolan only comes close in HP and he's still 5.4 points behind. at 1-E: Nolan lvl 20/2 vs Sothe lvl 8 (assumes you used him a decent amount) HP: 38.2 vs 37.1 Str: 18.4 vs 22 (capped) Mgc: 4.4 vs 5.4 Skl: 20.4 vs 25.6 Spd: 18.2 vs 23.15 Luck: 10.6 vs 19.55 Def: 14.2 vs 15.4 Res: 9.8 vs 11.1 Nolan wins HP and loses everything else. Evade (Nolan is praised here): Nolan (C Zihark) = 62 vs Sothe (A Micaiah) 80.85 Sothe wins easily at Sothe's promotion: Nolan lvl 20/15 vs Sothe lvl --/20/1 HP: 46 vs 44 Str: 24.25 vs 24 Mgc: 5 (capped) vs 11.8 Skl: 26 (capped) vs 28 Spd: 26 vs 30.55 Luck: 14.5 vs 27.35 Def: 18.75 vs 19.8 Res: 13 (capped) vs 18.7 Sothe still wins everything except HP and this time Str (by .25...). Evade: Nolan (B Zihark) = 96.5 vs Sothe (A Micaiah) 103.45 Sothe still wins. Get the picture...? vs Zihark Zihark joins: Sothe (lvl 3) vs Zihark base HP: 35.6 vs 30 Str: 19.2 vs 17 Mgc: 4.4 vs 6 Skl: 21.6 vs 22 Spd: 20.9 vs 23 Luck: 16.3 vs 11 Def : 14.4 vs 13 Res: 9.6 vs 11 Now this is actually a challenge for Sothe. 5.6 HP, 2.2 Str, 5.3 Luck and 1.4 Def against 1.6 Mgc, .4 Skl, 2.1 Spd, and 1.4 Res. Sothe obviously wins, but it's still actually somewhat close. at 1-E: Sothe (lvl vs Zihark (lvl HP: 37.1 vs 32.75 Str: 22 (capped) vs 18.75 Mgc: 5.4 vs 6.5 Skl: 25.6 vs 25.75 Spd: 23.15 vs 26.5 Luck: 19.55 vs 13 Def: 15.4 vs 14.25 Res: 11.1 vs 12.75 4.35 HP, 3.25 Str, 6.55 Luck, and 1.15 Def vs 1.1 Mgc, .15 Skl, 3.35 Spd, and 1.65 Res. Sothe's HP lead is lower, as is his Def lead, but his Str and Luck leads have grown. Zihark's Skl, Spd and Res leads have grown, and his Mgc lead has lowered. Sothe still wins here. Evade: Sothe (A Micaiah) 80.85 vs Zihark (C Nolan) 81. Zihark wins by .15... at Sothe's promotion: Sothe (lvl 20/1) vs Zihark (lvl --/20/5) HP: 44 vs 45.55 Str: 24 vs 26.35 Mgc: 11.8 vs 12.1 Skl: 28 vs 35 Spd: 30.55 vs 34.8 Luck: 27.35 vs 19.4 Def: 19.8 vs 20.25 Res: 18.7 vs 20.4 Now Sothe only wins in Luck (by 7.95), while Zihark wins HP (1.55), Str (2.35), Mgc (.3), Skl (7), Spd (4.35), Def (.45), AND Res (1.7). So yes, Zihark wins, but 1) his biggest lead is Skl (a relatively unimportant stat), and his HP, Mgc, Def and Res leads are all neglible. Str and Spd leads are actually important, and so I have to say Zihark wins, but not by THAT much. Evade: Sothe (A Micaiah) 103.45 vs Zihark (B Nolan) 119. Zihark wins. Still, his win is significant, but Sothe and his support are forced, while Zihark and his are not. vs Volug Volug joins: Sothe (lvl 3) vs Volug base level --> Halfshift HP: 35.6 vs 49 Str: 19.2 vs 11 --> 16 Mgc: 4.4 vs 2 --> 3 Skl: 21.6 vs 12 --> 18 Spd: 20.9 vs 13 --> 19 Luck:16.3 vs 13 Def: 14.4 vs 9 --> 13 Res: 9.6 vs 5 -->7 Volug wins HP (13.4) and that's it. Sothe wins Str by 3.2, Mgc by 1.4, Skl by 3.6. Spd by 1.9, Luck by 3.3, Def by 1.4, and Res by 2.6. Sothe mops the floor with Volug here. at 1-E: Sothe (lvl vs Volug (lvl 20) --> Halfshift HP: 37.1 vs 53.75 Str: 22 vs 12.25 --> 18 Mgc: 5.4 vs 2.75 --> 4 Skl: 25.6 vs 13.75 --> 21 Spd: 23.15 vs 15 --> 22 Luck: 19.55 vs 17.5 Def: 15.4 vs 9.75 --> 15 Res: 11.1 vs 5.5 --> 9 Volug wins HP (16.65). Sothe wins Str (4), Mgc (1.4), Skl (4.6), Spd (1.15), Luck (2.05), Def (.4) and Res (2.1). Sothe still owns Volug. at Sothe's promotion: Sothe (20/1) vs Volug (lvl 32) --> Halfshift --> Shift HP: 44 vs 65.15 Str: 24 vs 15.25 -->22 --> 30.5 Mgc: 11.8 vs 4.55 --> 7 --> 9.1 Skl: 28 vs 17.95 --> 27 --> 35.9 Spd: 30.55 vs 18 --> 27 --> 36 Luck: 27.35 vs 28.3 Def : 19.8 vs 11.55 --> 18 --> 23.1 Res: 18.7 vs 6.7 --> 10 --> 13.4 Volug wins everything except Mgc and Res WHEN TRANSFORMED. When he's not, he loses everything except HP and Luck, even if he halfshifts (and if he has Wildheart, he'd be a lower level anyways due to decreased XP gain).

Danved is certainly not Devdan, though Kieran would like a say in the matter.

If you saved your opener, Smash, I ask you to repost it, otherwise I'll see if Charmander wants to open instead so you don't feel like all your work went to waste.

Loyal tiger servant vs blue haired babe.

You're Forest Queen? Haha I had no idea. Your level conversion thing makes good sense though, and I think someone else brought up the 1.5 factor before, so thanks for affirmation of that!

You're following the gfaqs debates? They got deleted again and my account's warned, so do you mind if I move them here (as in the debate section of the site)? And yes, there is a HM exp gain formula, I just dunno how to convert laguz levels into "beorc" levels.

Can anyone tell me how much exp Kyza gets from attacking a level 11 enemy in part 3? Would also help to know how much he gets from a kill, though that might be difficult (with a speedwing he ORKOes mages though). If you can find out for any other laguz, that might work, though I'll need the level of the laguz and the enemy. I need this info for a debate, btw. I don't want to be claiming Kyza gains 3 levels where he might only gain 1 or less or something.

I dunno, a list for 20 different chapters would get tiresome, and isn't necessarily telling us more than an overall list would, just disambiguating their performance over time, which we should already more or less be doing in comparisons. Anyway, I'd up Vanessa's rank in chapter 2. She is solely responsible for getting Ross and Garcia recruited as soon as possible, which not only gives you a couple extra enemies to kill, but also expels any risk of eg/ Ross dying as an NPC. Also efficient for visiting villages. Moulder, however, hasn't reached his prime yet since the enemies are just scraping your doods, so vulneraries are more than sufficient right now. I'll assume Colm is so high in chapter 3 cuz of stealing. If I'm not mistaken, the items found in the chests are an iron lance, hand axe, and iron sword while the bottommost chest can be opened with a chest key acquired from the enemy in that room. Those items are pretty damn useless considering you can buy all of them and aren't exactly short on cash yet. Also, Colm opening doors isn't that important since the most efficient path to the boss involves breaking walls. So Eirika > Colm at least.

If you want opinionated bullcrap, read this or this.

Not a single stat comparison in 3 pages? This is madness! Though seriously, I don't think anyone mentioned routes. Considering both characters are above average when available, it goes something like this: Eph route Ephraim > Eph route Eirika Eir route Eirika > Eir route Ephraim So the only comparison with any purpose is Eph route Ephraim vs Eir route Eirika. But even then, Eirika has about a 6 chapter lead on Ephraim, so if Ephraim is to win, he has to win by quite a lot when he's around. Upon route split: Ephraim lv 8/0 (C Forde, C Kyle, iron lance): 26 hp, 18 Mt, 11 skl, 13 spd, 8 def, 3 res, 10 luck, 12 crit, 122 hit, 15 cev, 43 avo Eirika lv 11/0 (B Seth, iron sword): 22 hp, 15 Mt, 13 skl, 14 spd, 8 def, 6 res, 10 luck, 11 crit, 131 hit, 15 cev, 43 avo Ephraim leads slightly in durability (4 hp > 3 res) and in offence (3 MT > 1 spd) while everything else is more or less tied. Though, Ephraim also has a much better prf weapon than Eirika, and probably more uses left. Marginal win for Ephraim. Jumping to promotion: Ephraim lv 20/1 (A Forde, B Kyle, steel lance): 40 hp, 33 Mt, 21 skl, 17 spd, 16 def, 12 res, 16 luck, 30 crit, 163 hit, 28 cev, 67 avo Eirika lv 20/1 (A Seth, B Tana, steel sword): 33 hp, 26 Mt, 21 skl, 17 spd, 16 def, 16 res, 16 luck, 27 crit, 145 hit, 28 cev, 57 avo Now Ephraim is winning by quite a lot. He has a huge 7 Mt attack lead, and they share the same speed, which means Ephraim’s doing a whopping 14 damage more than Eirika when both double, which is rather often. He also leads durability with 7 hp and 10 avo > 4 res. Now, to lazily look into the future, compare their growth rates: Eirika: 70% hp, 40% str, 60% skl, 60% spd, 60% lck, 30% def, 30% res Ephraim: 80% hp, 55% str, 45% spd, 50% lck, 35% def, 25% res Difference (+ for Ephraim, - for Eirika): +10% hp, +15% str, -15% skl, -10% spd, -10% lck, +5% def, -5% res What this tells us is that Ephraim will continue winning hp, strength and def, whereas Eirika will continue winning res. She does have other leads, but they won’t take much effect. For instance, a 10% speed lead just means that she’ll win speed by 1 in 10 levels, and both are doubling everything as it is. She also has a 30% avo growth lead, but Ephraim’s already ahead by 10, so she’ll never be able to close that gap. Finally, I want to put more attention on supports. Eirika has a no brainer A support with Seth, but filling her B is quite an ordeal. Saleh, L’Arachel and Innes are all pretty bad (or at least worse than Ephraim’s supports), which leaves Tana, Forde and Ephraim. The Ephraim support is rather late considering it will only start like halfway through the desert chapter, and Forde has Kyle, Ephraim and Franz he could support earlier. So Eirika really is relying on that B Tana to fill in her support set, and Tana is really only an upper mid unit at best. Ephraim, on the other hand, has Kyle, Forde, Duessel and Tana, all of which are lightning fast supports with good 2 way benefits. Clearly Ephraim having 4 viable support options > Eirika having 2, maybe 3, and Ephraim wins support speed regardless. So yeah, I think there is overwhelming evidence of Eph route Ephraim > Eir route Eirika.

Impossible, you need 190 sacrifices to get her to max level, which far exceds the number of healing items in the level. In fact, there's a possibility of every enemy's weapon running out even if Micaiah had renewal or something.

So I guess I'm well established enough here to become a judge here now?

Hehe yeah, and because of that you can 3 turn the entire final chapter (1 turn for taking out the enemies, a second for Nergal, and a third for the Red Dragon). I told Rolanmen and Leopold I'd do a TAS of that sometime, though with school starting for me and all, I'm not sure if I'll get onto doing that done any time soon.

Ok, re-quoting what you said: So then, are you saying I've had practice debates against myself? 0_o

Sure, I can try my best I guess. Although I didn’t make any sort of outline, I certainly had the following things in mind for the debate: -Minimize Elincia’s part 2 win. With 2-P I had the set turn count and the durability of the other units to work with, though 2-E was a lot more difficult to argue. I did my best with the crossbow argument, but ultimately I had to concede most of the points I made about this and in my last post I put a few lines in trying to downplay Elincia’s availability advantage. You did a good job of keeping more focus on the part 2 chapters as there should’ve been, since I couldn’t just say “all of this doesn’t matter in the big picture” since it would appear that I was conceding a point I could possibly win anyway given the right persuasion tactics. -Demonstrate that Tibarn is clearly superior to Elincia in terms of combat with a stat comparison. Although I don’t normally do this, I put a lot of effort to put into perspective the meaning of each lead since the average person might not see how much of a win 50 avoid is compared to a 10 avoid lead, for instance. Showing that base level Tibarn beats a fully leveled Elincia was another way of quantifying Tibarn’s leads, and didn’t give the opposing debater any opportunity to make arguments about Elincia’s combat potential. -With Tibarn’s combat lead clearly established, I do my best to hype Tibarn’s combat ability while minimizing the value of Elincia’s healing. This is obviously why you see me constantly mentioning Tibarn’s mobility, maintaining focus on max efficiency strategies, showing the disadvantages the other royals have compared to him, doing my best to disregard your Shinon point vs Deghinsea, etc. Once we got into the debate, you brought up things I didn’t in my opener so I did my best to address them. In particular, downplaying the value of mercy by showing all the alternatives to raising crappy units I could think of, demonstrating how the even low tier units aren’t so helpless as to need enemies reduced to 1 hp, etc. Anyway, if I were to argue Elincia, the main thing I would’ve focused on would be Elincia’s hybrid ability. You’ll see that I argued that almost everyone could heal better than Elincia, but none of those characters could heal well, attack well, be durable, all the while having great mobility. By putting emphasis on that, and to how you don’t even need much magic to heal effectively (eg/ recover use), then it’s easy to establish that she’s your best healing option in 4-E. Next would be to refute the point I made about Micaiah healing reducing Elincia’s value as best as I could. First off, I could put into question Micaiah being raised, particularly if my opposition was arguing for some really efficient strategies, which wouldn’t give many DBs opportunity to develop when applied to part 1. I would’ve also pointed out that Micaiah could only have up to an A rank in staves in 4-E-1, which isn’t enough to use a fortify, and would do my best to downplay her getting an arms scroll, which would then involve some pretty detailed arguments about why you’re short on cash at that point (even if you’re not lol). And I would’ve argued for the hammerne to be used on brave weapons instead of what weapons you pointed out, though me refuting the specific examples you gave was sly of me since obviously the hammerne can apply to any weapon, not just the ones mentioned. I’m not really sure what else I would’ve done. Skimming back through the debate, I notice how I pointed out Elincia’s durability was bad in 4-5, but I could use this point in her favor by pointing out how incredibly useful her healing is here considering how hard tigers hit and how large the enemy numbers are. The problem is, when you get 2 really good debaters going at it, then it starts to matter a lot more which character is better than which debater is doing a good job selling his/her character. You have Tibarn > Elincia on the current HM list, and for good reason. If I were to debate Elincia against say, Mekkah with Tibarn, I could definitely lose because whatever persuasive argument I can muster for the inferior character can only go so far, whereas if Mekkah can dig out enough detail and persuasion for his superior character, then there’s nothing I can do. Hope that helped somewhat :/

You didn't know that I'm prognosis 4? I can't really prove it unless someone checked my IP adress or something, though you'll notice in my gfaqs sig that it has the link to my youtube page. Edit: Here, this should be a little more convincing. You can see on my SDA account that my sig explicitly says "I usually go by the username of Vykan12".

Now there’s a way to choose a king. Instead of having some blood feud over who inherits the throne of a country, thus creating numerous inferior leaders over a mere tradition, Phoenicis appoints the King to whoever has what they value most: Strength. While Elincia is a timid leader and far too young and naïve for her role as queen, Tibarn is quite a deal more comfortable with his position of authority as it suits his characteristics much better. Conceded. However, this has almost no relevance to the core of the Tibarn vs Elincia debate. Fair enough, though Elincia has the weakest exp gain on the level (combat-wise, at least) and the only purpose of prolonging the level at all is to improve your characters, so it seems more logical for Leanne to be vigoring the likes of Marcia, Neph, Brom and Calill before anyone else. I had not considering baiting out the boss and the crossbow dude using Haar, then having Elincia attack either on turn 2. However, if Haar gets the speedwing, he could either equip a hand axe and ORKO the crossbow guy or a hammer and just end the chapter immediately. Actually, come to think of it, Haar with 20 spd could just hammer Ludveck a single time and 1 to 2 meteor attacks would finish him off. Or Leanne could allow Haar to attack twice on the same turn. There’s plenty of strategies permitting killing Ludveck within the first 3 turns that don’t involve Elincia, thus decreasing the value of her being able to use the lure tactics you mentioned. On the contrary, the number of bow users exceed the amount of thunder mage users at least 2 to 1. The bowgun to thunder ratio might be similar, but then you have to consider regular bow users that Elincia fears just as much. Also, Haar only takes about 50-60% damage from a thunder hit whereas Elincia is auto blicked by crossbow dudes and takes a good 66-80% damage from regular archer hits, and crossbow dudes are more accurate against her than thunder mages are against Haar. Fine by me. That all depends on who you choose to field in the long term. If you’re not using Brom, Neph, Heather or Marcia, then there’s not much purpose in playing out additional turns. Laguz won’t gain much strike level because you’re looking to conserve laguz stones at this point, and the only half decent laguz in the long term is Mordy anyway, who has mighty troubles doubling. Haar wants a speedwing a lot more than whatever level-ups he’ll get here, which just leaves Elincia. You could do something like giving her paragon in 4-2, since every mercy attack is like a kill for her, and physic heals similarly give some amazing exp gains, so that’ll help her catch up those levels lost in 2-E, and only at the expense of giving paragon to someone of choice. But she’s a likely candidate considering she has low bases, high growths and is an ideal endgame choice, so it’s not a particularly harmful decision. As such, once one gets all the loot the level has to offer then the remaining 8-10 turns aren’t generally worth the trouble. Maybe on most enemies she might not face particularly high hit rates, but crossbow guys are posing more than 44 real. 1x Sniper lvl 3 (Crossbow) HP 34, Atk 28, AS 18, Hit 159, Avo 57, DEF 14, RES 10, Crit 19, Ddg 11 1x Sniper lvl 5 (Crossbow) HP 35, Atk 28, AS 18, Hit 163, Avo 59, DEF 15, RES 11, Crit 20, Ddg 13 1x Sniper lvl 6 (Crossbow) HP 35, Atk 28, AS 19, Hit 165, Avo 61, DEF 16, RES 11, Crit 20, Ddg 13 Elincia’s avoid at neutral biorhythm (considering leadership bonuses) is 88. Against a 160 hit sniper, she has an 84.6% chance of dying. The crossbow guy on the right side of the map is lodged pretty heavily behind other enemies, so if Elincia kills a bunch of dudes, she risk getting exposed to his attack and getting what’s practically an automatic game-over. I’ll freely admit she can tank this side just as well as Haar when the crossbow dood is taken care of, but he’s as much a threat to Elincia as the hammer guy is to Brom before they’re disposed of. I claimed most of the crossbow reinforcements come from the left. The only reason she might not take on the right has already been mentioned above. Yeah yeah I get it. Elincia can fly around and find targets to kill easier than most other units in this level. I never claimed she was bad here, just that she required careful use to keep alive. I never said otherwise, but 2-P and 2-E only make up 22% of her playtime, and it’s been pretty well established that her use is banal in 2-P, so she really only has about a ten percent playtime advantage over Tibarn. The majority of my argument revolves around Tibarn being >>> Elincia when they’re both around, hence why I feel having so much talk about these 2 chapters is semantics at best. Indeed Elincia can make easier use of Leanne than others, which makes it more realistic for her to use her services than others. However, Elincia depending on Leanne for her hit & run tactics isn’t so hot, at least when comparing it to people who don’t need to do that and can perform just as well offensively. Though, that really is just Haar, so I suppose you have a point. Look at it this way: Elincia is in dire need of exp in order to get to a point where she’s killing things reliably whereas Tibarn’s already set for the rest of the game at base level. While Elincia can give her other units more exp with mercy, it’s at the expense of her own development, whereas Tibarn can do largely the same thing in other ways. For instance, with his h3x movement and savior, he could spend the entirety of 4-2 ferrying units instead of pwning enemies, and this is generally a good thing even with under-levelled units considering how many stationary enemies there are in this stage. Another thing I’d like to point out is that mercy is overrated in regard to feeding your other units kills. Although it is no doubt the best means to feed one of your units kills, there exists plenty of alternatives such as having your stronger characters use bronze weapons, or putting flourish on someone, or having weak characters team up for a kill. And, like I pointed out earlier, it’s questionable that a unit who needs an enemy to be weakened to single digit hp for a free kill is going to be endgame ready on time without massive babying. Someone like Lucia, for instance, might only be lv 20/14 but she’s 3 rounding some of the weaker enemy types, isn’t too concerned about her durability thanks to nice avoid and has some pretty easy means to boost her killing chances (adept + killing edge, for instance), and Lucia’s generally accepted as a low tier character on hard mode. Another example is Pelleas, who is 20/12, has a 21 spd base and a 60% growth, so he’ll be doubling in no time, attacks at range, has enough magic to 2-3 round most stuff and can even resort to using the fenrir for 3-10 range snipes. So, even your crappy characters aren’t so helpless that they need Elincia to weaken enemies to the extreme to pick up kills with any consistency, meaning the alternative aforementioned methods will work just fine. First of all, I don’t see how Volug would be a main candidate. He’s great and all, but there’s no doubt that he dwindles in part 4. At level 31 and with SS strike he only has 49 Mt whereas someone like Titania has 56 Mt with the Urvan, and I doubt Volug is ever going to gain 17 levels in 10 chapters, especially considering how his exp gain in half of them are nonexistent. The only reason Volug would be used as a serious endgame choice is to help out his support partner while offering a mediocre attacker with high durability in himself, but even that becomes questionable in the later 4-E chapters where dragon/spirit/etc hit rates supersede high avoid, and Volug’s resistance is terrible (16 at max level). Though, assuming you do use him, levelling won’t do him much good since it doesn’t change anything about him having a 25% str, 15% def and 10% res growth, which are the main issues I outlined concerning his 4-E performance. Finally, he’s too valuable for the DB to leave them in the dust considering he won’t have any troubles in 4-P (the enemies there are about as strong as part 3 ones) and his mobility is very useful in the desert. As for the remaining ones, consider first that if you are going to use Zihark, Nolan and/or Jill, you would’ve given them “kill favoritism” in parts 1 and 3 to promote their development, so they might not be as underlevelled as one would think. And with the existence of 3 paragons and few units who actually need raising at this point, in addition to how good these units are despite their low level, they can definitely level up just fine without Elincia’s help. This leaves the GMs, but consider that the exp gain difference in Ike’s route and Tibarn’s route isn’t quite so far apart as people would lead you to believe. Particularly, Oliver’s mansion has over 100 total enemies if you permit all the reinforcements to show up, so there’s definitely a huge exp pool here even if it isn’t quite as infinite as 4-5’s is (and using that one for all 30 turns can be considered abuse). Plus, just like Nolan/Z/Jill, you can put effort into focusing some of your better resources into your weakest links to promote their development so long as it doesn’t harp with your efficiency in any meaningful way. Granted, though that doesn’t change the fact that Tibarn can reach enemies sooner than any other unit in your army, and is the main proponent for intercepting Izuka as quick as possible, so there’s definitely ways in which Tibarn’s route being easy doesn’t affect his h3x. Hmm, you seem to underestimate the 4-5 enemies, especially considering how you seem to be expecting all your weaklings to be piled onto that group. So, just for fun, let’s examine Elincia’s durability against enemies here. A level 10 Elincia has 40 hp, 23 def and 110 avoid. Going by the NM mode stats I recorded a long time ago, so keep in mind the enemies will actually be more powerful than indicated. Also didn’t list ravens since they suck and are infrequent. Tiger lv 22 : Mt 45, Hit 148 Cat lv 21: Mt 33, Hit 158 Red dragon lv 18: Mt 54, Hit 146 Elincia is 2HKOed by tigers at 29 real. 8% chance of dying in 2 hits 0_o Against cats, she’s 4HKOed at 43 real. 3.41% chance of dying in 4 hits For red dragons, 2HKOed at 26 real. 6.76% chance of dying in 2 hits These numbers are just bad, and Elincia’s supposed to be one of your better units in this level. Note that giving her imbue won’t save her since enemy laguz have tons of move on land and her getting attacked by 2-3 of anything is quite likely. So yeah, I’ll give that 4-2 is easier than 2-E (but not 2-P), though between 2-E and 4-5, it’s rather arguable, and both really depend on what approach you use to beat the level in terms of risk vs efficiency management. Nevertheless, you already conceded that the part 4 chapters are at least longer, so if the difficulty is arguable, then the advantage is still Tibarn’s (long + difficult > short + difficult in terms of Tibarn’s contribution to the team). The thing is, Elincia isn’t even your best healer, strictly speaking. Elincia lv --/--/15: 23 magic Micaiah lv 20/16/1: 32 magic Laura lv 20/9: 25 magic Ilyana lv 20/20/6: 30 magic Soren lv --/20/8: 35 magic Mist lv --/20/10: 28 magic Rhys lv --/20/10: 33 magic Pelleas lv --/12/1: 26 magic Base level Bastian: 35 magic Base level Oliver (!!!): 31 magic Every mage character in the game aside from Tormod out-heals Elincia, and I’m generously under-estimating the levels of most of the units here. In fact, most of these healers win magic by at least 10 points, which is 5 physic range, more than enough to counteract Elincia’s mobility advantage. So lol at Elincia being the second crappiest healer in the game before factoring in mobility advantages. And all the mobility is doing is allowing her to use restore/ward/etc staves on your units easier than the likes of Oliver, and those staves are used far less frequently than raw healing. So again, if I don’t use Elincia, I’m more than covered with alternatives whereas there’s no one except maybe the lions who can match Tibarn’s fighting capabilities (and I already argued why they’re worse on auras), and absolutely no one with his kind of movement. She could use recover for all I care. The fact is, other people are healing arguably better even when considering Elincia’s flying, but the same can never be said about Tibarn in relation to his combat abilities. Although true for Giffca (50% spd growth on a lion? Wtf?), the same can’t be said so much for Nailah. She starts off at level 33 and has a 20% speed growth, so she needs to reach level 36-38 just to have a reasonable chance of capping spd, which isn’t happening. Ok, you could use BEXP, but that makes her spd growth even worse. Nailah’s growths: Hp 60%, Str 30%, Mag 15%, Skl 20%, Spd 20%, Lck 45%, Def 30%, Res 30% Not only is spd tied for her second lowest growth, her hp and luck growth are also noticeably higher than everything else. We all know that BEXP skews towards higher growths, so Nailah’s chances of gaining spd easily drop to like 10% or lower. Yeah, kinda ironic how she only needs one point of speed but has the uttermost difficulty of reaching it. Getting back to Giffca, Tibarn is at quite an advantage considering he always has his first player phase and doesn't need to use up the most expensive resource in the game to keep himself transformed. Again, no argument there. However, the majority of the units we’re fielding are fighters, so Tibarn having a couple of units more or less on his level isn’t as damaging as Elincia having much more competition for her position as a healer since we only want to field 1 or 2, and it’s already been well established that Elincia’s worse at what she does than Tibarn is. Naesala isn’t actually fighting quite that well. He’s arguably worse than a good deal of your beorc units in 4-E-1 since he won’t have SS strike by then without having levelled the whole desert or something, and thus has trouble killing generals without a tear activation (which is pretty high I’ll admit). So, Jill getting a guaranteed kill with the hammer/urvan > Naesala killing enemies with 75%+ proficiency. Once he does hit SS though, I’ll grant that he does perform rather close to Tibarn’s level, though obviously never surpassing him. That’s not the same thing as an AOE sleep affliction. Also note that Lekain’s AOE actually cancels out the effect of sleep, so Hetzel and Lekain putting 2 units to sleep isn’t quite as threatening as it should be. Oh, and normally the unit being put to sleep has high def but low res, so they can handle taking a couple of guaranteed hits if such a thing must be allowed in the given situation. Florete? You’re kidding me, right? Why would I pass on an uber healing item so that I can continue having Mist fail at being an attacker? Note that there’s a buyable florete anyway (though damn expensive), that Mist can use alondite in 4-E and the she can get the florete blessed. Serious waste of a hammerne use unless you’re really insistent on developing Mist in a hurry, and there’s other ways of carrying that out. Tarvos is not quite so silly. However, a silver poleax has 2 more MT than the tarvos, and a forged silver axe has at least 3 more MT, so the only reason to prolong the life of the Tarvos is for the +4 def bonus, but Nolan has dependable avoid and the Urvan gives +3 res anyway, in addition to being a whopping 6 Mt stronger. Don’t see that one happening. SS magic would be another waste. Your only magic users with any chance of going to 4-E are Calill and Soren, and they have enough magic to kill generics with arcmagic, or maybe bolganoe/tornado if you’re really desperate, so they can be saved long enough that they get blessed before breaking. So yeah, I don’t see any weapons you mentioned that even come close to offering the broken power of extra heal-alls. Nullify would allow Tanith to pull that off, though she’s kinda mediocre, so don’t put too much thought towards that. More importantly, though, is that you can kill the blizzard guy and canto to the left, thus avoiding any chance of being put to sleep since that unit will be out of sleep range. ??? The bolting guy can’t counter, so that’s not an issue. There is a lone elthunder user there as well, but nothing spirit water + nullify won’t take care of. If it isn’t clear, Haar takes spirit water while moving closer to his location, then after vigoring takes out the bolting mage. Yes, I suppose that does make the bolting guy not so ideal to remove immediately. There are ways to remove both sleep staff users on the first turn with proper allotment of the celerity and pass skills, and perhaps the boots, depending on who you’re using. Anyway, we’re detracting from the original point which was when you said “And don't forget Mr. Bolting, Mr. Blizzard, and Mr. Double Bow that can hurt more units than Micaiah can heal, especially your dragons.” In addition to some of the workarounds I mentioned in the past few paragraphs, the fortify + hammerne strategy and vigor healing strategy combine for enough cases that a second healer is easily avoided without any real negative consequence. Just felt like pointing out something random, but some units actually become more durable with increased enemy exposure. This mostly applies to Ike since he never has to worry about dying and each enemy he faces helps him stay at full hp thanks to Aether activation. I guess my real point was that there’s no real risk to be faced in sending out good units like your royals to face large enemy exposure, at least for 4-E-1. And what is the value of having your best healer deployed in 4-E versus your second best, or even the value of healing at all? After all, what healing is doing is permitting your fighters to stay on the frontlines, and if they can do that already, then the healer is suffering more from futility than then the fighters are from having their performance relative to other fighters becoming too alike. True, but we’re talking about 1 class (though mainly 2 units) against a single boss, which taken in isolation is nothing but a special case, an anomaly if you will. The only other boss that comes close is Ashera herself, but she’s only slightly harder to kill than an Aura (+30 hp but –5 def) and must be finished with Ike, so she’s a non-threat compared to Deghinsea, who’s very difficult to damage. He does, however, apply to many more 1 turn strategies than Elincia does. For instance, putting celerity on Tibarn and shoving him is one of the best ways to get someone to take out the aura in front of Lehran without getting vigored to cover the distance. It always helps to show that Tibarn wins in a multitude of situations :) As mentioned earlier, 4-5 is arguable, and 4-E-5 is actually a very difficult chapter if you don’t optimize resource use properly. IE, if you deploy a crappy team for 4-E or forgot to bring any of your skills, or didn’t acquire fortify and missed Lehran, then you could be in big trouble, whereas 2-E doesn’t have such risk factors to consider. And there’s If it’s a waste of time to do so in 2-E, then what of 3-13? Also, walling in and taking 15 turns is faster than playing out 15 turns because of the time saved in player phase moves, thinking out what you’re going to do, etc. If part 4 chapters are easy, then not only are enemies easier to kill, they are lesser threats to your units, which decreases the value of healing as well. It’s difficult to say who gets more affected by this, but I’d say it’s Elincia since at least Tibarn has the capability of solo’ing (though more likely semi-soloing if you’re going for low turns) his part 4 maps whereas most others cannot at his level of proficiency, Elincia included. This was a very fun debate, hope you enjoyed it too RFoF.

The problem is if it’s not Haar, then it’s the second best unit. But then you can recursively argue that the second best unit won’t be used, and so forth. So using the “if X isn’t deployed” versus “if Y isn’t deployed” is an invalid argument in this case since Leanne depends on vigoring any units, but those units are guaranteed to be there, hence why you can’t suppose they’re not. First, 2-E is somewhat of a bad example due to your limited choice of units. Look at something like 3-11, for instance, and you’ll have a lot more competent tanks for Leanne to vigor. Also, Brom w/ the hammer or Elincia (assuming no bow users) could adequately tank the right side in any case. And they’re going to be there. In part 2, Elincia is auto-deployed and a win character, so Leanne has her at the very least. And the majority of Leanne’s performance is in part 4, where she has the likes of Naesala, Skrimir and whatever powerhouses you send to the DB, and 4-E-5 has your top 10 optional units. Leanne is helping Haar get more enemy phase exposure though. Suppose in 4-3 Haar attacks some enemies south, clears them, and returns north. Normally, he’d have to wait another turn before taking on a group of enemies in the middle of the map, but Leanne allows him to do that on the same turn. Or Haar could kill that enemy on player phase then canto into an area with uninjured enemies while your weaker characters take care of the enemies Haar had already weakened. Or he could rescue someone, look for a secret item, make a trade, etc. It all depends on the situation. Leanne boosting Haar’s mobility by up to 7 squares doesn't just mean a few more attacks, it means he can continually fight enemies before others can catch up to him, or he can move more efficiently from areas without enemies to those with them, etc. I will agree though that people misuse the notion of a heron giving you multiple characters, as it’s technically just the function of that character’s extra move on the given turn in addition to some of its consequences. The problem is those statements are kind of void since we’re using a bunch of units cohesively, not just taking the sum of individual performances. Also, you can pass on a top tier fighter like Tibarn in 4-E whereas passing on the heron hurts you more, and I feel that way for almost every map, so I tend to disagree with that statement.

Playing a bigger role in the plot doesn’t necessarily make one a more likeable character. Look at someone like Volke for instance. His manner of secrecy and strictly business conversation style makes him a fan favorite. Similarly, Tibarn being a total badass is sufficient enough to make him more likable than Elincia and her backstory. Well technically, it’s just a better use of resources since 1/30 mend uses is more cost efficient than 1/8 vulneraries. And I already stated that Elincia healing is no different than Marcia doing so in terms of Marcia being able to attack if there’s no enemies in her immediate range. Although he might get injured during the chapter, particularly when transformed, it’s very unlikely that he’ll get injured enough in 8 turns to die. That is, unless you do something really moronic like have him rescue someone untransformed or get attacked by the boss untransformed, at which point I’d be questioning the player’s sanity. Hmm, didn’t really consider that, though in some situations having the enemy rescue Leanne on purpose is useful since it reduces their hit rate considerably and makes them easier to double. Particularly useful for the boss, in any case. True, although that’s only really benefiting Marcia, since she’s the only one concerned about dying here. This, however, requires Elincia to use Leanne instead of having someone else make use of her services, and Leanne’s particularly useful on the early turns to get your units to hurry up and reach the enemy. But the problems don’t end there. Elincia cannot pursue Ludveck because he is guarded by a crossbow dude, and it doesn’t help that there are 2 longbow archers there as well. Also, the southern area is infested with enemies, so Elincia will be taking a lot of damage from non-bow threats, so her chances of dying are pretty high if she chooses to go for Ludveck in an aggressive manner. Because of the reinforcement bowgun users on the left side of the map, she’s also likely restricted to attacking on the middle platform or the right side, but the right side is usually taken by Haar since there’s plenty of generals there he can double and thus optimize his exp gain. So her attacking options are pretty limited overall, at least on enemy phase. That cannot be argued, but what’s the value in that? Elincia gains little exp from killing those units and it’ll take quite a long time for units heading to the right to actually reach Ludveck, so it serves little purpose aside from self-improvement, and I’ve already shown that a max level Elincia loses to a base level Tibarn. This is assuming Elincia is hogging Leanne, and considering the static nature of the chapter (ie people sitting around clogging spaces, assuming Haar doesn’t go hammer time on Ludveck), Leanne will have plenty of other options available for vigoring. Though yes, Elincia does have a nice balance of healing and hit & run tactics to offer, which I had already conceded in my opener. Ranged swords? Elincia would give up a 15 MT, infinite use brave sword for a wind edge? That’s silly, in 4-2 she’d have 28 Mt and would be single attacking enemies, meaning she’d be lucky to reach double digit damage against most enemies. I guess things get better when tempest blades start showing up, though there are only 2 that you get without stealing, and with a tempest blade, max str, and a fire support, she has 47 Mt. It takes 52-56 MT to ORKO 4-E generals, so it might help her kill stuff in 4-E-2, but that’s about the extent of it. Valid point. Whether it’s a serious advantage or not depends on what combination you give him. There’s a lot of really deadly 15-20 skill combos that Elincia cannot make use of such as celerity + pass, adept + pavise, resolve + nihil, etc. It weakens Elincia’s exp gain, which in turn hurts both her offensive capabilities and healing (less mag growth). By helping others get easy kills, she’s doing so at the sacrifice of her own performance in the upcoming chapters, which isn’t exactly good when she’s already losing to Tibarn by a huge margin (in fact one she can’t even overcome). You’re overvaluing this powerleveling strat in 4-5. The people who make the best endgame units are those who don’t generally need that much leveling, such as most of your GMs and the Royals. I’ll grant some of the DB might be worth pursuing (Nolan and Zihark particularly) but everyone else who needs major leveling is an inferior choice anyways. The CRKs are mostly made of paladins who all have fail caps, which just leaves Calill, but even then she targest res, which is bad for the very final chapter, and having bad durability and move is not too hot even if she does attack at range. The DB have fail like Leo, Ilyana and Meg, and Edward offers nothing that Zihark and Mia don’t. That really just leaves lategame fillers like Tormod, Pelleas, Lucia, etc., none of which have anything superior to offer relative to higher availability units in their classes. Plus, if your units are so bad that they need the enemy to be reduced to 1 hp, how would you expect them to develop enough in time for 4-E? I know 4-5 is an exp goldmine, but the more turns you spend on it is time wasted for trivial returns since you already have all you need for an efficient completion of 4-E. So you’re essentially trying to argue that Tibarn’s too good? The purpose of gaining tons of exp is to gain levels, which in turn increases your combat performance, so Tibarn already being there is a major plus for him, not some bizarre negative as you’re trying to assert. This would be a cool point if we were arguing why Elincia is teh pwnzorz, but is a bit meaningless in this debate since Tibarn has better durability without imbue than Elincia does with the skill. I agree that it’s ambiguous whether leadership should be considered a point for Tibarn or not. However, to claim Tibarn’s brokenness isn’t so valuable is a gross exaggeration. First of all, the difference between Tibarn’s leadership bonus and Ike’s is 5, so the difference is only really noticeable between Tibarn and Micaiah’s group. Second, the leadership bonus doesn’t offer any help to offensive capabilities unless you have hit rate issues, nor does it offer much help to units who have poor base avoid. Damn, didn’t think of that. Guess they cancel out, though Tibarn’s chapters are arguably harder and longer than Elincia’s part 2 chapters, so his bonuses are more valuable. If you’re aiming for speed, then there’s plenty of people one rounding generals. Ike, all the royals except Naesala (even then he only needs SS strike), any axe user (cuz of hammer + urvan) and any bow user (cuz of the double bow), and none of this is factoring in mastery activations, which allow just about any character to kill the enemy with >50% reliability, moreso with adept or bliss in effect. Hence why I mentioned fortify. You can also have the same healer use a physic twice thanks to your heron. Flying doesn’t even offer that much mobility advantage in 4-E as it does in most other maps in the game. It’s completely irrelevant in 4-E-2, 4-E-4 and 4-E-5, which just leaves a couple platforms to fly between in 4-E-1 and 4-E-3. However, Mist has more magic than Elincia does, and probably a level lead as well, so she has more physic range and does her healing job better. Also, if you don’t use Elincia, then you can replace her easily with Mist (kinda mentioned the reasons ^ and she also gives a sweet water support to someone), whereas it’s very difficult to find someone who can fight on Tibarn’s level. You could say the lions do it, but they have a lot of trouble reaching 40 spd (the amount required to double auras without Nasir) whereas Tibarn has 40 base speed, and the auras are the only non-boss enemies that high end royals will have trouble killing. Silencing is a pretty lolable status affliction since you’re not deploying many mage characters and units with high res have a low probability of being silenced anyway. I don’t recall any sleep statuses ever occurring except in 4-E-5, and that’s if you take like 7 turns, which is quite unlikely if you’re making proper use of your attackers, dragons and heron. Damage is covered in the next point. Again, fortify staff. It might only have 5 uses (17 with full hammerne use) but using it in a timely manner will more than keep you covered if you have a half decent team deployed. Since 4-E-5 has the Ashera staff, we’re basically talking about more than 1 use per chapter, and there’s no reason you’ll need it on a joke chapter like 4-E-2. You could either take them out on turn 1 with a flier or put them to sleep with Micaiah or something. Oh, and Mr. Double Bow doesn’t move, so he’s easy to take care of. Reliability (100% kill rate > 80/90), performance against bosses, particularly Deghinsea and the entirety of 4-E-5, and of course reaching enemies the soonest thanks to having the best mobility in the game. You don’t need a healer at all for chapters that are 1 turned. 2-E difficult? What’s hard about blocking 2 passages with unarmed units? It’s as difficult as you make it for yourself and there’s definitely a balance of getting your units exp and keeping things not too risky that can be reached. Who exactly is broken in 4-2 and 4-5? And he’s performing better enough than your other units that he’s not “just another broken fighter” he IS the broken fighter that most of your units aspire to be. Elincia’s combination of healing, flying and decent combat cannot compete with that.

Tibarn is way cooler than Elincia. Not only is he the King of a country of hawks, he has a huge scar across his face signifying his experience in battle and of overcoming adversity. Elincia, on the other hand, is merely a princess hastily thrown into a position of power from the death of her parents, and it’s perfectly clear by the part 2 occurrences that she doesn’t have the leadership or the resolve to successfully lead Crimea. With that nonsense aside, let’s look at Elincia’s part 2 chapters. In 2-P, she is your worst offensive unit. She does a whopping 4 damage per hit against the enemies’ 34 hp, meaning it takes her 5 rounds just to kill an enemy. Hell, it would take her 2 rounds to kill an enemy if she got a double stun, and that only has a 4.41% chance of happening at neutral biorhythm. In contrast, Marcia and Nealuchi 2 round everything, Haar 1 rounds (or at least close to it) and Leanne is basically giving you a free kill per turn. Ok, Elincia does have healing, but nobody’s going to be needing it. Nealuchi has 53 hp, 20 def and 96 avoid, so he’s getting 7HKOed at 12 real hit. In fact, Nealuchi could survive the entire level untransformed since the enemies still won’t be able to double him and would only pose about 50ish hit rates at that point. Similarly, we all know how much of a tank Haar is (46 hp, 23 def, only there for half the map), Elincia can’t use mend on herself and no one’s attacking Leanne, just capturing her. That leaves Marcia who *might* need healing, but there’s plenty of healing items circulating around and you’re not going to be attacking every turn since the enemies are fairly spaced out. So, Elincia is almost completely useless here, and even if she weren’t, being good on a map where all you have to do is wait essentially is not much of a selling point. In 2-E, it’s hard to make a case against her. She now has the amiti and a physic, and will be your best attacker aside from perhaps Haar. Nevertheless, she is a huge liability since archers and crossbows 1HKO her at high hit rates, so her offensive use is pretty restricted until those enemies are cleared. If you so much as forget about them or miscount the attack range of a crossbow dude, you’re basically guaranteed to hit reset. So after Elincia being really good for all of 1 chapter, she decides to have hawt lesbian action with Heather (though more likely just twiddling her thumbs) until 4-2, at which point Tibarn boldly claims status as team leader and Elincia cowers away in fear. I’ll assume Elincia got 3 levels from her healing, but that’s being generous and assuming 2-E was played out the full 15 turns. Elincia lv --/--/4 (Amiti): 37 hp, 36 Mt, 18 mag, 23 skl, 24 spd, 31 luck, 22 def 28 res, 11 crit, 187 hit, 99 avo, 23% stun, 9 move Tibarn lv 31 (SS strike): 68 hp, 56 Mt, 48 skl, 40 spd, 29 luck, 32 def, 20 res, 24 crit, 235 hit, 129 avo, 40% tear, 10 move This is a complete blowout, it’s like watching a tidal wave drown an ant. Tibarn’s offensive leads are huge (20 Mt, 16 spd, 13 crit, 48 hit, 17% mastery). There’s no way to sufficiently put into perspective how much better Tibarn is than Elincia on offence, but one way of looking at it is that he would tie her attack power if his talons had 0 Mt, and most of his leads are almost double Elincia’s respective stats. As for durability, it’s once again only describable in metaphor (think Roger Federer playing tennis with a 3 year old). 31 hp, 10 def and 30 avoid… it’s like Tibarn took Elincia’s bases and added on 20 levels of growth. I can only do my best to try and put these numbers into perspective, but even assuming they had equal def and avo, Tibarn’s hp lead is large enough that he takes roughly twice as many hits. Leaving that hypothetical aside, Tibarn takes 10 damage to Elincia’s 20, and if she takes any less damage, then the attacks required to take down Tibarn grow exponentially. Then when Elincia faces 50% real, Tibarn faces 8%. When Elincia faces 32% real, Tibarn faces 2%. Now try putting all those facts together, and it’s pretty clear we’re dealing with 2 units in entirely different leagues in terms of combatative performance, and I haven’t even gotten to some of the lesser recognized points. Tibarn has an extra point of move over Elincia, and his base move of 10 is the highest in the game. The advantages of that should be obvious, so no need for juicy analogies. Then Tibarn also has a better set of innate skills with savior and pavise while Elincia is stuck with lolrenewal, as well as that awful mercy skill she’s likely to remove. Then Tibarn has a lot more skill capacity than Elincia, so he could replace savior and pavise with anything he wants whereas Elincia’s stuck with 2 skills such that they can only take up a combined 25 capacity. This means I can give Tibarn utterly broken skill sets like celerity and resolve while Elincia is stuck with much tamer combinations. And finally, for what it’s worth, Tibarn gives his team 20 hit and avoid because of his leadership bonus. Considering everything I’ve laid out so far, it’s pretty obvious that Tibarn’s utterly destroying Elincia in every way imaginable. Oh yeah, I forgot, Elincia needs 26-27 speed to double even basic enemies like warriors and halberdiers in 4-2, so she doesn’t even have quadruple attacks from the amiti yet. Though, even if she did, Tibarn is still killing enemies more proficiently since he fares better against high def units and has a much better chance of killing the enemy in one hit thanks to his tear activation percentage. Anyway, before going on about what might be Elincia’s only saving grace, let’s look at a 20/20 Elincia against a base level Tibarn. Elincia lv --/--/20 (A Fire, Amiti): 45 hp, 45 Mt, 25 mag, 31 skl, 35 spd, 40 luck, 25 def, 33 res, 15 crit, 245 hit, 125 avo, 31% stun, 9 move Tibarn lv 31 (SS strike): 68 hp, 56 Mt, 48 skl, 40 spd, 29 luck, 32 def, 20 res, 24 crit, 235 hit, 129 avo, 40% tear, 10 move Tibarn still wins everything by huge margins aside from resistance. The only thing that really changed in Elincia’s favor is her huge hit rate increase from supports, but Tibarn has 100 hit on auras anyway, so it’s a virtually nonexistent advantage. Clearly had I given Tibarn a support and a level or two, then he’s simply winning by more than he already is, though I feel that’s getting to be a bit redundant. Onto Elincia’s saving grace, which is undoubtedly healing. Let’s look at what healing fundamentally does: It allows a unit to persist attacking the enemy instead of having to retreat and take a concoction or something. Though, is there really many situations where this is really going to take any significant effect? Let’s look at what’s mitigating Elincia’s only advantage. Micaiah is a force deployed healer in 4-E, and she will be healing since her offence is terrible. Just taking a quick look at her numbers: Micaiah lv 20/15/1 (A Sothe, Rexcalibur): 34 hp, 46 Mt, 24 skl, 22 spd, 36 luck, 19 def, 34 res, 110 avo She’s pretty awful. 4-E generals have 24-26 spd, so she’s certainly not doubling them and is easily getting doubled by anything just slightly faster than them. She’s also getting 2HKOed though her avo is not half bad. Thani doesn’t allow her to 1HKO generals, so she’s pretty much not 1RKOing anything, then we have to consider her crap move and how the enemies past 4-E-3 have super high res, there really is not much point in having her attack things. So that at least has me convinced that Micaiah’s healing 24/7, and Micaiah actually heals better than Elincia in any case due to having magic that’s at least 7 points higher. Now consider the existence of the fortify, a 5 use staff that heals anyone within 16 spaces of Micaiah by 42 hp, and it’s pretty clear that Micaiah has healing entirely covered. Though if she’s not enough, you also get Lehran in 4-E-5 with an Ashera staff, plus you could trade him the hammerne to repair the fortify, and thus have more uses in the final chapter than turns you’ll take to beat it. The next major point as to why Elincia’s healing is completely frivolous in 4-E at least is based on the raw power of your attackers. Out of 73 units, you’re going with whoever your top 10 are, and you’re already guaranteed 2 top tier units in Reyson and Haar. Plus, you’re piling all of your best resources onto them. By this point, you have 3 cancels, 4 nihils, 2 shades, 1 stillness, 2 fortunes, 2 resolves, 2 imbues, 2 saviors, 3 paragons, 2 paritys, 2 renewals, 1 pavise, and the list goes on. Pretty much any of your 10 optional units will be getting a skill that helps them out defensively, and about half of them are either royals, physical tanks or have an earth support leading to wtflevels of avoid. If that weren’t enough, there’s many strategies allowing you to 1 turn 4-E-2, 3 and 4, and 4-E-1 and 5 also take single digit turn counts at most, which exemplifies how trivially easy the final chapters are with some decent planning. Thus, it’s evident that you’d want someone who’s clearly a cut above the rest in combat for your part 4 chapters instead of some sub par healer who happens to outmanoeuvre your other healer options and can also fight decently. Hence the reasoning behind Tibarn > Elincia.

Titania's a no brainer if you're talking about utility. As for storyline, it's arguable between Kieran and Makalov.

2 turning the red dragon? Blasphemy! Athos does 30 damage per hit with the luna and doubles, so he can 1 turn the red dragon alone assuming Nils dances him. Or, if the dragon actually does 40 damage to him, Nils can use a dance (forgot what it's called) to boost his def by 10, and the other 60 damage can be done by your other units (though Hector and Eliwood would suffice). Also, Canas can potentially do the most damage to the Red Dragon. With max magic, luna, supports and Filla's might, he's doing 44 damage per hit to the big goon. Though, he only averages 23 magic at 20/20, so getting him there is questionable.

I know, I know. What I meant is if Haar gets the speedwing, he’s undoubtedly better, otherwise he’s arguably slightly worse. What value the first conditional holds compared to the second is of course debatable, but since it’s an intelligent use of resources with great returns, I think it’s certainly realistic (maybe 50/50 territory or higher). I don’t see much value in hypotheticals that cannot be realized. One could just as well say something like “If the GMs didn’t have Gatrie, Titania and Haar, Oscar would be top tier”. I don’t actually mean that, it’s just an example. Yeah I get it, if you don’t use a certain unit, you can replace them, whereas you lose a unit if you don’t use Ike. The thing is, this isn’t a “who’s used” tier list, it’s about determining who’s the most useful. So Ike could be used sparingly instead of not at all. In fact, the average player might only use Ike sparingly in part 3 because of how fast he caps his level, though that sounds like a “don’t use Ike, eh steals exp” kind of argument, so I’m reluctant to pursue that one any further. Tibarn gives 20 however, and leadership bonus doesn’t really give Haar anything he wants since 15 avo and hit isn’t doing much for a physical tank. We’re talking about maybe saving 1 turn between using Ike seriously and not so seriously since the hammer has the power of a one hit wonder . Plus, you’re likely looking to kill as many enemies as possible with the rest of your units, so intentionally sacrificing turns is actually a realistic strategy if your units are in need of any further development.

Indeed, Haar needing the speedwing more than Ike is a disadvantage for Haar, moreso considering everyone else who could make use of one. But your counter-example is bizarre. Why would I pass on making Haar uber so that I could have an easier time recruiting a bottom tier character? Plus, there exists strategies to attack the BK without getting countered in 3-7.

I've got today off from school, so I'll do it sometime today.