Anouleth

Believe me when I say you can pack your team with flying units and not have any problem with the desert, because the bow wielders are all in a clump at the bottom of the map where they're easy to avoid. Lateness isn't really an issue, though. I mean, the Speedwing shows up in 3-9, so it's not like you have to hold on for it for a while to use it on Tanith.

But it also helps his speed. It's not like Cormag has strength issues.

Not sure why you would use Slam or Strength over Return. Strength you might want to keep on Serperior in dungeons or stuff, but you won't be using it in Gyms.

In what way do Soren or Boyd contribute more than Tanith?

Well, the burden of proof is on you to explain why losing 1 or 2AS is so much more catastrophically worse in Tellius than it is in GBAFE. No, it is important information. We want a good AS system so that units will be balanced relative to each other. Not so that "classes" will be balanced relative to each other. Fiona might be in a balanced class. Sophia might be in a balanced class (she isn't, but for the sake of argument). That doesn't make up for their flaws. And what does that have to do with anything? No, it isn't. Shaman F actually has awful base stats on par with Soldier (because apparently they're relevant, despite being used for nothing other than calculating enemy stats). So, even when you compare the classes in a "vacuum" and completely disregard what actually happens in the game, Shaman is still a poorly balanced class. And in FE9, Sage's specialized tomes offer advantages other classes have no access to as well, and if mages are bad, it's not because of the strength system which only imposes small penalties that can be worked around. Why is this suddenly horrible balance when FE9 does it? Or you could give him a forge with the exact same effects. Well, no shit, sherlock. Of course Soren would be better if he took smaller AS penalties. He would also be better if the weight system was removed entirely, or if STR or CON based weight mitigation was removed. Soren would be better under every system, because the current system uses his lowest stat, just as Lute and Nino would be better under every conceivable system because their system uses their lowest stat: but that doesn't mean the system is bad. It just means they have a low stat in that area. So basically, you think that every mage in the game should have enough CON to use whatever weapon they want? That's ridiculous and in fact, exactly what you were arguing against earlier. Erk might "prefer to be using" Elfire, but tough shit, he has to take a penalty, and that's a good thing because it forces you to make a tradeoff. But apparently, when Soren has the same tradeoff between AS and MT, that's just terrible and therefore Soren has to have a more generous AS system because we can't have him being slowed down by anything. Except that in fact, it's actually a kinder tradeoff than Erk gets because while Erk trades 4AS for 2MT, Soren trades 3AS for 3MT. CON makes the forging system better, because it reduces the need to forge weapons? I mean, if that's the case, then shouldn't removing weight entirely be even better, because then nobody will have to worry about weight drops and all your weapons will be cheaper? No, you can't. Again, I think you are severely, extremely wrong if you think that Soren's problems all stem from his low strength. I invite you to look at the FE9 Tier List and try to find one place where people seriously talk about giving Soren a Speedwing. Because it simply doesn't exist. Soren is, if anything, the least hampered by speed concerns of the three mages in PoR because his speed base is so much better than his peers and his magic is so high that he can often afford to use weaker, lighter tomes. This is especially true when comparing him to Ilyana after promotion: in a comparison against Ilyana, Soren can either choose to wield Thunder and be faster than her with the same damage, or choose to wield Elthunder and hit harder than her with the same AS. That's not to say that strength isn't a concern at all, because it makes him easily the slowest siege tome user, but he also hits hardest with siege tomes and is naturally the most accurate with them. Man, if only there was a STR-based AS system game where all the magic users start with sizeable strength bases! Too bad no such game exists, oh well. The purpose of the AS systems is to support character balance. Soren is not going to need to wield Elthunder prepromotion: nor do I get your obsession with Elthunder tomes. You don't do this for GBA titles, do you? Demand that everyone use Thunder, and then complain that Nino sucks because she takes a speed penalty from it? Or, perhaps he can carry around both tomes, and upon encountering an enemy that he can double with Wind but not with Thunder, he can proceed to wield Wind, and upon encountering an enemy that he can double with both or neither, he can then switch to Thunder, and in that way maximise his damage output. Or until you make them a forge, or give them some BEXP, or level them up so they aren't level 0, or use a Speedwing (why you would use an Energy Drop instead of a speedwing is beyond me), except that it's generally agreed that Soren doesn't need a Speedwing, or in fact, any of these things except the BEXP and the forge, which everyone gets. Well, as a class Mage is very weak in FE9 because it has a 1 magic base. This puts it at a 4HKO against even a 20HP/0RES unit. I think that addressing this low base magic is a far more serious concern than addressing the 0STR base, especially since Mage is quite a bit faster than most other classes, with 2AS (in comparison, Soldier has 1AS and Fighter has -2AS with Iron weapons). Except when they don't, and also even in FE9 you often have a choice to tradeoff AT for MT. Oh yes, all those advantages that Shaman F has. With it's 1SPD base. What a biiig advantage? Well, hopefully Nosferatu will make up for the class being effectively slower than even 0AS Armour knights. So the CON system is balanced, except when it's not, and the STR system is unbalanced if you assume that all units have 0 personal bases in everything when in actual fact there are only three such units in the entire game and two of them are staff users and assume that all magic using classes would have 0 class base in strength, when in fact, this didn't happen at all in Radiant Dawn. So apparently a character having bad strength is the fault of the STR based AS system. It would simply be impossible to program a Fire Emblem where units had strength bases different to their class bases. How? At the end of Chapter 19, you get about 70,000 gold, maybe more (I don't recall exactly). Maybe this doesn't happen in Maniac Mode, but in the NA version, you will not have money problems after Chapter 19. They... aren't. A thunder forge costs twice as much as a Steel Sword forge. That's more expensive, but not prohibitively so. And you're playing on Maniac Mode. I don't really expect the game to be balanced or fair on Maniac Mode. Actually I don't expect it on any mode, but I don't think anyone should go into Maniac Mode thinking they can use whatever characters they want to, or thinking they can "get away" with using average characters like Mages. But not their bases in any other stats? Because it's 100% terrible when Tellius Mages take an attack speed penalty and have other advantages to make up for it, but it's not terrible at all when GBA magic users take an attack speed penalty because they have other advantages to make up for it [citation needed]. I don't understand your obsession with these base stats. Or why you think it's "bad" when Tellius Mages are hampered by attack speed penalties, but it's fine when GBA magic users are hampered by attack speed penalties. Or why you like the idea of Tellius Mages being able to use any buyable tome without any attack speed penalties, but you hate the idea of Tellius physical units being able to using any buyable weapon without any attack speed penalties.

Wow, sorry. I got your avatars mixed up. And Soren, and Ilyana, and Tormod are not bad because of their low strength. You say it's ridiculous to say that Sophia is bad because of her low CON, well, you have read what I think of your suggestion that Soren is bad because of his low strength. Moreover, you have missed my point. You claimed initially that "Low con units have advantages that make up for their low con, and that is ignored by people who whine about some class' low con scores." And that isn't true: low CON units sometimes have nothing at all to make up for their low CON. Some people complain even about units that have advantages to make up for CON, that's true, and I've also talked about this: for whatever reason, people perceive units taking weight penalties as being unfair or unfun even if the unit is still good. It dissuades them from using stronger weapons, which is also unfun. And this is probably why IntSys did away with the system. So, just like Tellius Mages? Of course they are relevant. The reason we would want classes to be balanced against each other is so that characters would be balanced against each other. It does noone any good if, in a vacuum, Shamans are perfectly balanced against female Mages, but the only Shaman in the game joins late and extremely underlevelled while the only female Mage joins early and overlevelled. For example, in theory, most of the classes in FE4 are balanced against each other, since the mounted units have generally low caps, bad weapon ranks and no skills to make up for their high movement. In practice, the game is horrendously unbalanced. Yeah, it does. Because it has 2MT, not because it's too heavy. Hence my point about Mages in FE9 being bad, not because they take AS penalties, but because they have weak weapons (and the other things). If Soren's Attack Speed is apparently so bad, then why would he forgo double attacking just for a measly 2 attack? 2AS for 2MT is a tradeoff, just like in GBA FE. You cannot criticise FE9 for offering a tradeoff between AS and MT when GBAFE does the exact same thing: and usually under far more punishing terms, with no option to make a forge. And, tell me, how did you decide that Ilyana "should" have more speed? It seems to me to be a fairly deliberate choice to give her 1 strength instead of 2 or 3. How is that a quality of the class? It's not limitless, but the last time I played the game, in NA Hard Mode, I often forgot to make forges and still never ran out or had any problems at all.

You said that these characters had advantages that made up for their poor CON. I challenge you to name one. What advantage does Sophia have that makes up for the disadvantage of her low CON? Because honestly, I do not believe for one second that every low CON unit has advantages that make up for their low CON: any more than I believe the every low move unit has advantages to make up for it, any more than I believe it for any other given stat or flaw in the game. Nor would I want it to be that way. I don't mind some units being worse than others. Okay, tell me: what advantage does Pegasus Knight have over Wyvern Rider that makes up for the low constitution of Pegasus Knight? Even, supposing for a moment that how the classes compare against each other in a vacuum has anything to do with anything. Oh god, Soren has such awful AS issues! I mean, his speed is just TERRIBLE for a level 1 unit! I mean, 8 speed is perfectly fine, but because of his 0 strength, he loses an EARTH-SHATTERING 1 AS, rendering him completely awful! This is definitely far, far worse than Sophia or Lute or Nino or Ray losing 1AS (or 2AS for Sophia and Ray) from their starting weapons! I mean, when the GBA units lose 1AS from even their lightest possible weapon, an obstacle they can never get around without using a rare Body Ring, it's okay, because that's not what makes them bad. But when Soren and Ilyana lose 1AS from their starting weapon with a chance to mitigate that, that is the sole reason that they are considered mediocre, and not their low movement, them all being underlevelled, the low mt of magic tomes, the relatively high resistance of enemies, or their low durability in a game that is heavily focused on enemy phase performance, or the amazing performance of Paladins that overshadows most units. Never mind that of all the early game units, Soren is perhaps the least hampered by STR based AS, with Ike, Boyd, and Oscar all taking larger penalties than him. Never mind that the specific case of Soren starting with 0 STR does not actually mean that a STR based system is inherently broken, any more than the specific case of Sophia proves that a CON based system is inherently broken (although it does prove that it's not inherently balanced). RFoF, I get the impression you have never played Path of Radiance. Soren's last problem is his AS. You have huge amounts of money to spend on forges, they are basically limitless after a certain point in the game. What is a problem is the general weakness of tomes in FE9. Soren starts with a fairly low 8 attack. This is in fact, lower than the starting attack power of any mage from FE6 onwards, and makes it impossible to do anything better than 3HKO enemies. He's also thrust into a dense chapter that is very very easy for him to die in and gives him few opportunities to kill enemies, and he's underlevelled. That is why Soren is weak earlygame, not because he's "slow" (which he isn't), not because he's weighed down (when there are many GBA mages that are weighed down). He's mediocre, because, and it bears repeating because it's mind-boggling that anyone could miss this when claiming that Tellius mages suck, he has shitty movement and shitty durability and a bad starting position. You know, even supposing this 1AS deficit was some sort of crippling disadvantage for Soren, it's the equivalent of having to give him an extra two levels of BEXP. Which is peanuts in FE9. You must be off your rocker if you think that Soren is "broken" by the loss of a measly 1AS in earlygame, and not by the loss of 1 MOVE forever. Are you actually insane? Or is this just a last-ditch effort to defend your original point? It's not like there aren't genuine, non-crazy complaints to make about STR-based AS, like how in earlygame it makes Strength ridiculously valuable and places the player further at the mercy of the levelup RNG. But that's kind of dependent on what kind of stats units start out with.

Having earwax that tastes like candy. Because even if it tasted like candy, you could never convince anyone to taste it. Trust me, I've tried!

No, that's never explicitly stated: and it simply makes no sense, either. How can four people hold an entire castle on their own? In fact, there is evidence to the contrary: "Midayle: My lady, the castle's completely surrounded! We've failed you miserably! Adean: Midayle, it's alright. Everyone gave their best. You needn't worry about me anymore. Please save yourself. I want as many of you to get out of this alive as possible! Midayle: None of us are going anywhere, my lady. We're here for you till the very end. Even if it means our lives." It definitely makes no sense for one knight to be garrisoning an entire castle. Certainly, there's a difference between this, where a unit could be argued to be representative of a group of soldiers, and such units make up your entire army, and FE9 and FE10 (possibly FE7 where you don't really have an "army") where your army is just the "vanguard" or an elite unit and there are many other soldiers fighting offscreen.

But his base stats are almost as high as Wil's now!

So that's why you wanted to get rid of the Axe Fighters: to put in mage girls.

I still don't get it. Why, upon turning level 38 and having the choice to ditch Growth for Coil, would you still have Leaf Tornado in your move set? Water coverage is not undesirable. Serperior would need to take two criticals in order to take more damage over the course of a 6 turn Coil setup than over the course of a 4 turn Growth setup. Dragon Pulse is unlikely, for the same reasons as Superpower. And why do you need to get your full HP back? Serperior is supposed to be sweeping. The whole point of spending four to six turns boosting is so that he can sweep. If you plan to use the weaker Giga Drain instead of Leaf Blade, you will need to take longer setting up. A Coil sweeper would do as much damage with a +5 Leaf Blade as with a +6 Giga Drain. Coil is still probably a better move against Marlon since Jellicent is stronger on the specially defensive side. And setting up Sunny Day against Wailord can be easily frustrated because he carries Rain Dance. Regardless, I think that Marlon is the least of Serperior's problems.

I think Big Boss' point was that in earlier FEs, units were taken to represent parts of your army, rather than being individuals. So while you technically have say, twenty units in FE4, those units represent a larger army of hundreds or thousands. This use of synecdoche corresponds with Advance Wars, where one "Tank" explicitly represents a squadron of five tanks and one "Mech" represents a squad of ten soldiers.

Why, precisely, would you use Leaf Tornado when Leaf Blade is stronger, more accurate, and has a better secondary effect? Coil is so much better than Growth, it's crazy. The only reason you might pick Growth is to boost Giga Drain, and even then, the defense boost from Coil is usually more pertinent to survival than having a stronger Giga Drain. It's just as fast to use Coil twice and get +2 attack and +2 defense is it is to use Sunny Day, then growth, and you'll take less damage in the process and be more durable at the end of it, as well as giving you an extra moveslot.

Coil boosts accuracy, so that's a non-issue. Coil does not take too long to set up. There's a reason that speedruns pick Snivy, and it ain't for his winning personality.

That's not really a smart thing, though, because that's just giving the player more weapons to steal. Only an idiot would get their weapon stolen, and then spend money on a new one while a thief is still in range.

Best: Rexaura Worst: FE4 Holsety, because it's so long

I would think that quite a lot of pokemon can "sweep Drayden with ease" at level 60.

Well, it isn't. I thought for a minute that you were saying that any complaints about CON weren't valid because the things that people don't like about it are deliberate, but I have decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that is not what you meant. Do they? Please elaborate on the advantages that Sophia, Farina, or Marisa bring to the table to make up for their low CON, because despite your protests to the contrary, low CON units are not universally balanced with high CON units. And I don't think people particularly care what IntSys' intentions were when designing the CON system. I don't blame the CON system for that: partially because I don't see a lack of balance as being an inherently bad thing. I don't understand at all how STR-based AS causes imbalance among magic users. In fact, in Path of Radiance, STR-based AS lead to the magic users being the most balanced relative to each other in the history of the entire series. The gaps between Ilyana, Tormod, Soren, and Calill are far smaller than the gaps between say, Pent, Erk, and Nino.

FE8 AI is worth noting just for Chapter 16, where passing a certain point in the map makes every enemy go insane and charge you.

How is Con the best system? By what metric? I don't see what your point is. I can use the "it's supposed to be that way" defense for literally any aspect of the game. "High level units aren't supposed to be slowed down by weapons!" "Iron weapons are supposedly to be obviously inferior to Steel weapons!" "Fiona is supposed to be very very weak!" The question is whether this element makes the game more fun. Imposing disadvantages and advantages on various units can indeed, make the game more fun, because it increases variety between units. It can also make the game less fun because it makes the game more complex. Many players seem to have the impression that it isn't "fair" that certain units are just inherently worse with no opportunity to overcome this. "Fairness", is of course, entirely subjective, and it's rather strange to point out differences in CON when there are so many other ways that units can be better or worse than each other, but for whatever reason people seem to dislike it, which I guess is why IntSys changed it. At least, I think that's a better way to judge a game mechanic than trying to play guessing games about what weapons low con or low strength units are supposed to be able to wield.

FE5 AI does do some very stupid things. I like to think of it as Jimmy Savile AI, because it's obsessed with trying to catch vulnerable adolescent girls. I think that FE12 AI is probably the best and certainly the most entertaining to play against, although it does get a bit infuriating trying to figure out exactly what triggers enemies to start moving. I can't think off the top of my head, of anything really weird that it does.

It's a pretty poor move in earlygame, since it's weak against Burgh, Roxie, and Skyla, and because unpromoted pokemon tend to have low weight anyway.

I think that assuming Superpower goes to any unit in the game is a bad idea. I'm on the Elite Four, and I still don't have ten shards to get it with, even if I wanted to. Especially since you're also talking about giving him Low Kick, which isn't exactly cheap either, and in the short term is duplicated coverage (Low Kick and Dig hitting pretty much the same things for super effective damage).

FE10 Bishops will use a Rescue staff to move their allies 0 spaces.