XeKr

I explained in that very post why I was posting about something specific I was curious about. I wasn't sure why you post incessantly about something you dislike. (It's the nature and direction of the dialogue, which was unclear from your title, op, and past posts. I think you eventually clarified, though, and I think that's a more worthwhile conversation) I agree with you that “favorite” is subtly different from “best” yet they are often conflated (not too surprising, tho). Some of your statements still read (to me) that you consider “best” to be objective in some way, which is a little puzzling (or I'm misunderstanding). For a slightly more relevant example, I think FE13 has better and more streamlined tactical/strategic design and don’t miss a lot of mechanics that people mention that I would consider to be flavor, or nostalgia.

Do you agree/disagree some people are better qualified for certain jobs because they are more educated? For example, do doctors not mostly follow that definition that “with specialized training or experience…are those whose influence or authority [in medicine] is greater than that of others; whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight; whose views or actions are most likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities, or wisdom render them especially fit to [practice medicine]. I added some brackets, though you’ll note there’s a lot of “or” in that definition so someone could cherrypick however. Since elitism is generally thrown around in the context of a particular field (FE tiering, philosophy, etc), not governance, I think the modifications aren’t too crazy. You’ve explained why elitism is generally thrown around like an insult. You immediately associated elitism with belittling, condescending, and showing arrogance (though Sagan did not use that term and I don't actually know the context of the quote) The crux of the matter is then, does one think elitism necessarily requires being belittling, condescending, and arrogant or vice versa?

My question was trying to get at less surface issues. Okay so if you were irked about some people’s opinions during a SSB4 discussion. I'm irked by these kinds of topics. Why do you care so much about what others think? (to the point of whining about it. Like, afaik, every post of yours in this forum is somewhat to that extent) Why do you feel the need to make this topic (here in SF) if you already claim to know the nature of game preference, which is subjective and relative? (btw, “best” is not objective either, in colloquial use) You're obviously free to do so, but I'm not sure what kind of (non-trivial) answers you were expecting. (if we want to get meta, I’m actually curious why people make topics in the realm of “why do people like what I don’t like?”, particularly if they probably know the trivial answer. And a very small percentage of my posts are to this extent, and are always reactionary to something.)

Honestly, I don’t get why people (you, TC) care so much. (btw it’s fun. I hope my fun is not diminishing your life somehow. :(( )

http://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/ (lolonion, etc, but I believe this brand of satire effectively communicates the point. Perhaps surprising, yet rather profound.) EDIT: To clarify a bit, this article has been circulating among people that I personally consider to be very respectable and reputable (for good reason, imo) and I also think it's very relevant.

I agree with –Cynthia- almost completely, and add that in FE13 Avatar can marry Chrom so females are probably better there, especially if you count Lunatic+. (still close in difficulties like Lunatic, with Frederick/Libra vs. Olivia/Anna also). It’s pretty balanced across FE. Mostly Jeigans, Horses vs. Pegasus, Hammerne. Both have good Warpers and Wyverns and Vigor/Dance (and pure ferries/warpers/utility need fighters too)

Reinforce is pretty sick in Maniac. >_> Otherwise, look how useful Espinosa found her in 0% growths.

(note I don’t necessarily disagree with the last part of your last statement) I’m getting (in excel) that: Note that most cdf calculators deal with a number of successes or less. 15 levels to get 5 procs or more at 30% = 15 levels to get 10 or less misses at 70% (b/c of how cdfs work) BINOMDIST(10, 15, .7, 1) = 0.484508941 15 levels to get 8 procs or more at 50% = 15 levels to get 7 or less misses at 50% BINOMDIST(7, 15, .5, 1) = 0.5 15 levels to get 11 procs or more at 70% = 15 levels to get 4 or less misses at 50% BINOMDIST(4, 15, .3, 1) = 0.515491 I don’t see where 50% is the worst growth in this case. I believe the values you’re calculating are the chances to get strictly more than 5 procs in 15 levels with a 30% growth, so more than 16 Res for example. Or you’re doing something like 1-[chance of 5 or less procs at 30% growth]. You should be doing 1-[chance of 4 or less procs at 30% growth], since 5 procs is 11+5=16 Res. I have a separate formula to do it but for verification I compared a few numbers by manually summing the pdfs so atm I think this’s what’s happening (could still be mistaken). Suppose the benchmark was 17 Res (or more) instead. I then get the same numbers as you, where 50% has the highest chance to have 17 or more Res (or more than 16 Res). But what about that 16 number that’s above the average Res? Ignoring it is where you get some of these results, as the chance of getting exactly 5 procs (or 10 misses) in 15 levels is fairly high for 30% growth and the chance of getting 11 procs or 4 misses is fairly high for 70% growth. And it’s being neglected. Suppose I came up with an equally contrived situation, where we have 10 levels to grow, and an array of bases/growths 7/30%, 5/50%, 3/70%, where the average Res is 10 in all 3 cases. The relevant probabilities for 9 or more Res are 0.849731667, 0.828125, 0.850692, respectively. Here, 50% has a lower chance to have 9 or more Res (or “too much Res”). Why is 50% the “best” growth in this case, in terms of not having “too much” Res? I’m sure one could tweak numbers however and so on. (incidentally I think for intuitive purposes we should perhaps shift over to RNG screwage and lower stats being “bad” instead of RNG blessing and higher stats being “bad”. Doesn’t change the actual numbers, but eh?) I’ll verify mathy stuff later. Good convo tho.

To more accurately take the conditions of your theoretical case, the chance that Priscilla has exactly 16 Res at level 19 is approximately 12.2% with her 50% growth, and 3.9% if she had 40% growth and 19.8% if she had 60% growth. The same trends hold as before and for other lower/higher growths; 50% is not that special. I was describing the or more case, which is generally more relevant since she wouldnt able to staff bait with 16, 17, 18 etc Res. Specifically, I was clarifying the case where higher growths are not "strictly better". While I think I know what you're getting at, I don't particularly see how your example is a clean illustration of it. EDIT: For example, I guess you could say if getting exactly 14 Res at level 19 was bad for Priscilla, then she has a marginally higher chance (5.5%ish more) of having 14 Res at 50% growth (it's the average after all) than other growths, for example 40% and 60% in this case or other lower/higher growths. But at every other Res value, it's the inbetween case. And 50% is still not that special, as you'd see similar trends if comparing for 15 Res at level 19 for 50%, 55%, 60% growths (55% being "bad" here) or other things along the same lines.

A bit meta here, but I ninja'd a glance at your post pre-edit which is somewhat relevant. >_> Anyways, fair enough, I think my difficulty/confusion stems from conceptually reconciling the idea of information entropy with certain supplementary and clarifying statements such as those re: Gatrie's Def.

okay I lied, it’s a little interesting. Okay maybe I’m totally confused, but…Miikaya or someone tell me if I’m butching statistics 1. Priscilla has 6 base res according to Serenes. Fiora has 7 base Res. 2. Priscilla’s average Res at level 19 is 14. Fiora’s is 13. (okay true averages b/c of caps, etc, w/e) 3. How I would try to describe things is: At 50% growth, the chance of Priscilla getting 10 or more Res procs in 16 levels (to have 16 or more Res or we can say “too much” Res at level 19) is around 22.7%. The chance of Fiora getting 9 or more Res in 12 levels, for the same benchmark, is around 7.3%. These are low but not completely improbable, true (not even that low). 4. If the growth was 60% instead, the chance of them having “too much” res is 52.7% and 22.5% respectively. Which are higher than for 50% growth and “worse”. 5. If the growth was 100% instead, there’s a100% chance, with 0 variance, they would have more Res than Pent and couldn’t Staff bait. I guess that’s bad? 6. If the growth was 0% instead, there’s a 0% chance, with 0 variance, to have more Res than Pent. They can always staff bait. Yay? 7. There is nothing special about 50% here (besides the aforementioned notes about variance and information entropy) In this specific case, lower growths might be better in a sense, but because they’re lower, not because they have less variance. The flip side, higher growths being worse (for this specific case) is also true, despite them having lower variance. Could pick growths like 49% and 51% and see the same trends. To clarify an earlier statement of higher growths being “strictly better”: you will more consistently have higher stats with some growth (including 50%) than all growths lower (independent of if higher stats are strictly preferred over lower stats, or not, for uses such as bait. Even then, that’s a specific case and there may be many other cases, across the game, where the higher growth and stat is preferred) If we’re being a bit more clear about things, the implication was I disbelieved someone would seriously state/take a position that could be considered (in the succinct words of others) “garbage” or “hilariously bad”. The fact remains however, that I’m actually seen it around, propagated by others. So apologizes if you felt singled out, but my posts were intended to challenge that position. Still, (imo) that’s quite mild of an attack compared to the content of some other posts we might see elsewhere in SF. Also, I admit I still don’t fully understand your interpretation of probability (the one you refer to with “I”, whether you believe it or not I dunno), including why 50% is more a “gamble” or “risk” and statements like “i can guranteed that Gatrie in FE9 is gonna cap his defense.” (just 60% growth and apparently 87% chance to cap, more because of his base than anything else). EDIT: btw +Def/-Luck Avatar is obvs the most unreliable character ever, with Str/Skl/Spd/Luck/Def all at 50% growth, and Mag at 45%. dat risk. EDIT2: formatting...

@Thor: That’s why it’s preferable to calculate binomials instead of averages, as possible/convinient. @Chiki: <_< @Eclipse: Fair enough, though I don’t recall this ever happening myself (across the game, wanting a lower growth). @Miikaya: Whoa, let’s not bring actual math into this.

…both trivial and irrelevant… (apologizes for any perceived elitism, but I seriously don’t have the time or interest, to go into detail. >_>)

Yeah I'm going to try to avoid a stats lecture... The fact that 50% growth has the highest variance is (true but...) both trivial and irrelevant. It’s still statistically better than all lower growths, in every reasonable sense.

>_> I legitimately can’t tell if you’re being serious. Answer this, suppose you have a 50% chance ticket to win the 1 billion dollar lottery or could trade it for any % below 50%. Would you take anything below 50% because of less “risk” or because 50% is a "coinflip"? Your interpretation of probability makes no sense. Please clarify your logic.

wtf is happening in this topic. 0% growth has 0 variance, clearly that must be a good growth? >_> The variance for a binomial with probability (growth rate) p and n trials (level ups) is np(1-p). From this we observe that p = 0.5 gives the highest variance. That’s all. Higher growths are strictly better. The average is better, the distribution is better (even if spread out marginally more around 0.5). 50% is better than all growths below it and worse than all growths above it. EDIT: Suppose you have 10 level ups and either 40% or 50% growth. Tell me which distribution you prefer. 40% because it has lower variance?

I’m pretty sure the gap between Saphy and whoever is worst in FE5 is pretty huge. >_> FE10 might have the best case b/c of the availability shenanigans and since you can bexp anyone to godmode if you really wanted. But FE is not balanced, and I don't think it's designed to be (or if that's necessarily a good thing here).

I didn’t deny Sain is probably better, just mentioning that Kent has a better chance of meeting Spd benchmarks. Mercs, Nomads (I'll cherrypick that 13/1 Kent is around 3x more probable to double 10 AS Nomads in C17, for example), and perhaps some bosses, are pretty fast too. And Kent is marginally better at doubling stuff while carrying others (again, at 13/1, around 3x more likely to double 3 AS while rescuing someone). However, most of what Sain does, Kent (and Marcus) can probably do also. No-one else can do what Marcus does in early HHM, is the general point (alternatively, Marcus can't do Lyn mode stuff, but ehlynmode).

I used Nino my last FE7 run. It was pretty fun. More generally, I'm sure tons of people use Nino, but I'm not sure if they can defend calling her a good, or high tiered, character.

Lyn’s mode is optional. ;) I think it depends on how much you value efficient clears of Lyn mode and the early chapters of HHM. Is Kent really that much worse anyways as the Lyn mode pally? He’s a decent amount more likely to hit Spd benchmarks, though he’ll most probably be expected to miss the Str ones (if any are relevant).

I feel obligated to point out: If you go to the mountain instead of the fort, you should be able to reliably survive without much luck. But iirc it’s complicated to save everyone else; you have to do clever transfer drops and such. As Czar_Yoshi said, Pairing don't make too much of a difference, since you can beat the main game without children if you want. Though some children are simple to recruit/train/use and make things easy (some the opposite). The different Pair Up bonuses are probably more important, so you want synergistic ones there if possible. If you choose to go that route, Nowi!Morgan is probably one of the easier ways to beat the main game if you pass Veteran and keep reclassing to Manakete.

I found I rarely hit unpromoted caps with first gens (maybe Panne) unless doing multiple reclasses, which I never find enough Second Seals for. Capping stuff means obvious diminishing returns, and you should clearly promote. When I say “stay unpromoted” I mean you should usually reclass asap and promote at like 12/20 instead of 12/10 (though this is still workable). There’s a lot of advice out there that says promote asap since you have unlimited leveling overall, but in no grind runs that tanks your exp gain and longer term potential. I suspect this is why there exists a prevalent belief that most other first gens besides Avatar aren’t viable lategame, even though they all are. I also tend to promote Avatar with the first Master Seal, since that leaves the first/second (Renown/C8) Second Seals to others like Chrom or Panne for an early reclass, giving more competent combat units in total. Veteran compensates. The earlier the reclass, the easier it is to keep up (and surpass to some extent) the stat curve, even in Lunatic. Internal level is lower, exp gain is faster, secondary weapon rank is better, eventual promotion comes faster, etc. That's actually a pretty fun run imo and you can afford a (much) larger team in that case. Especially since more chapters, is more combat, is more supports points, is more children Paralogues, and so on. Plus the DLC classes level so fast, plus Paragon, etc.

I think 3-4 combat pairs is pretty balanced for a first run, but it depends on who you decide to use and how much onesided the pair is. Skill building helps, but it’s not going to be a big deal if not grinding. For the easiest time you should just go with synergistic reclasses, like with common weapon ranks. Definitely reclass first as possible. But bear in mind the limited number of Second Seals in no-grind runs (by the time they’re consistently buyable, you’ll want to be almost promoting). Still try to stay unpromoted until you need the boost from promo gains. +Def/-Luk is generally recommended to phase out Frederick’s use faster, as he has little longterm potential here (besides as a pocket unit or for forged effective damage). Generally, the less you rely on him, the easier you’ll find the mid and lategame. However, bear in mind earlygame is still the hardest part and Frederick is very good there.

Yeah it’s really challenging to steamroll other games with prepromos. It totally requires tactical skills. >_> (p.s. FE games are easy. The only game I would classify as requiring tactical skills in casual play is FE12 and half that game can be trivially turtled with an op MU as well. I suppose it's notable that L+ here requires a different kind of tactics, for the most part. Also I suppose earlygame in some relatively harder FEs requires some skill too, though I'll argue it's most prominent in FE13. Or insofar as optimization is concerned, it's relevant to all games, if we consider efficient play. But FE13 is certainly quite hard to optimize wrt to sensitivity in positioning, reliability, and exp optimization.)

Yeah, but being above averages probably matters less than being below averages, if said values are borderline or important benchmarks. Growth distributions are pretty variable, and averages are not very useful without context. While stat blessing happens, in general, it’s less likely to matter. This is primarily inherent because there’s some other factors in the ultimate limit of how fast you can go (overkill, move, levels, etc). Though functionally, we observe that it's more probable to at least meet a lower benchmark compared to a higher one. Case in point, Allen needs at least 5 Spd procs +promotion at 45% growth to match Zealot’s base Spd. Supposing he gets to promotion by then, 10/1 Allen has a 37.8% chance of reaching or exceeding that (62.9% to reach his average of 12 Spd or more). Plus, consider the (seriously) imperfect accuracy when setting up some of those kills to get to that level in the first place. Some kills are certainly inevitable in the process of efficient clears, but others are luxuries and they can’t self-sufficiently get exp. Such is FE6. Otoh, you can be sure Zealot doubles 8-9 AS enemies 100% of the time. In context, that’s probably more relevant overall than Allen having around a 16.6% or so (or less) chance to double 10 AS enemies. (which look to be few in number, but eh there’s probably variations there too. Incidentally, Lance is a lot better off, at 91% and 74.6% to reach 13/14 Spd or more). The point being more reliable > less reliable. Zealot can always do Zealot’s (quite important) duties in efficient clears, whereas Allance only replicate it some (most?) of the time and cost resources to do so (Knight’s Crest, kill exp, etc). Being "about equal" is currently questionable to me, though Lance probably has the better case (but does he miss 2hko’s without the Str/Weapon rank?). It’s probably also important not to skim over Zealot’s durability/weapon rank lead, and just how crucial Zealot is in his 2 chapters extra of being a Paladin, C7 being quite difficult, and C8 being quite long. He’s the best unit there, whereas Allance are mostly utility dudes supporting Marcus in their early chapters. Regardless (this is all fairly nitpicky), I agree with you that, ultimately, it probably depends on how the early chapters are valued, and perhaps a few later things (things Zealot perhaps can’t do). The current position of Wolt (and even stuff like Marcus/Percival) implies that to some extent, intuitively, we think earlygame doesn’t matter as much (though I don’t really lean strongly either way on this. It’s somewhat logical, but tricky to deal with consistently. dangerous philosophical meandering though). The mid/lategame has the dominance of Miledy/Percival/Warpers, so I’m not sure how much Allance is actually expected to contribute there either, beyond what Zealot does. Certainly, the lack of evidence is an issue on both sides here. <_< To clarify, my view is not so much no reseting, but more like those reset turns are also “counted” in a way, so we want to adopt a strategy that maximizes that efficiency/minimizes those turns as well as the ones during the actual clear. It could still be that it’s worth a risky strategy over a cautious one if the speed of the clear is significant enough. In addition to my preference, this way of thinking has some precedent in the use of average stats, even if it isn’t traditionally thought of that way. One of the obvious criticisms being that probability doesn’t play out like so in real FE6; in reality, you have 100% chance or 0% chance to clear, depending on your strategy and execution. Moreover, the ensemble view necessarily requires a model to interpret (there’s always going to be certain issues intrinsic to modeling and wrt to biasing/weights, though this is trivially true in general). We’d end up estimating stuff anyways, so it ends up being handwavey to an extent as well (though I think this doesn’t really matter if it’s enough to satisfactorily resolve character differences.) Chapter-by-chapter lists could be cool in general, though there's a few obvious issues off the top of my head. But someone should start it if they're interested. EDIT: i bad at stats