Anouleth

Thank you for espousing Net Utility. You compare Oscar + the number of turns that Jill saves through the Boots against Marcia + the number of turns that Marcia saves through the Boots. Or, alternatively, Oscar, versus Marcia + the number of turns that Marcia saves through the Boots - the number of turns that the optimum alternative would save through the boots (also known as the opportunity cost). After all, we always have a pair of Boots to give out, whether Marcia exists or not, and they always save us turns, That's not what anyone does. Unless you're comparing how the characters do in a solo, you compare a given team + Oscar against a given team + Jill. What else could "cut turns" even mean? But by your arguments, we have to. We always have a flier, according to you. We always have Laguz performing smite chains. In the case of Oscar, we always have Kieran, and in the case of Kieran, we always have Oscar (since their turn count savings versus Titania are reliant on the presence of the other). You assume that we have all the other elements needed to perform these amazing 3 turns and 4 turns for Marcia, so why can't the same be done for Oscar? You're the one that wants to argue pure, net, marginal utility of Marcia and Jill versus their optimal alternative. You're the one that says that Titania is useless and should never be used after Chapter 11 because she loses 2 turns in the purest, most optimal playthroughs. Is that not the same as saying that Titania's "team" is worse than Oscar's "team": because Oscar sure as hell isn't delivering those turncounts singlehandedly, not when Oscar is performing a rescue chain with another character (Kieran) to move another character (Mordecai) to shove a third character (Marcia) after she's shoved by two more characters (Lethe and Muarim) and given the Boots by a Thief (Volke) and a mass of BEXP (courtesy of Titania since she helps us hit difficult BEXP targets in earlygame). How is it that Oscar can take credit for all these other contributions to suddenly be better when he's at best, 1/8th of the solution?

Why does that matter? Read the tier list FAQ: "-The better a character is, the more likely they are to be in play in a given playthrough. This is mainly important when discussing supports." Jill is, according to you, the second or third best character in the game. So obviously she is very likely, in fact certain to be in play if Marcia is not. If we're not recruiting or using Marcia (and Marcia isn't assumed), then she costs us nothing. None of which are convincing reasons to give Titania the Boots over Jill. Why does this matter in relation to the Boots? So under your optimal deployment/net utility theory, Marcia's "benefit", or the number of turns she saves, is 5 turns? Isn't that less than Titania?

Sacrifice isn't that glorious. It's rarely mentioned, after all. The same could be said for Ike and Elincia. Actually, Soren rather dislikes Micaiah: "Soren: Do not presume to understand me, you ridiculous girl. You have no idea who I am and what I can do. None at all. Daein has no business in this war. I will defeat you swiftly and send you and your army back to Daein."

Okay that's even Sue-er. "Sephiran isn't evil, he was just driven insane by how evil those filthy humans are!"

There are some evil laguz, like the laguz bandits in 1-4, and Sephiran. You do have a point, that laguz are generally portrayed as being nicer and more wonderful than beorc. There are no evil laguz empires trying to take over the world, or evil laguz scientists performing experiments. They all have extended lifespans, and the ability to sense spirits and auras and shit. Tibarn and Caineghis are portrayed as perfect rulers who command total obedience from their subjects: certainly, there's far less civil war and insurrection among the laguz than there is among the beorc, when you'd actually expect more! What happy coincidence that in a society where the strongest rule, often for decades and centuries with no accountability, all the rulers happen to be competent and caring... Really, when they compare Laguz and Beorc leadership, the Beorc are always portrayed as being inferior, even though basing leadership on inheritance is likely a better strategy than basing it on physical strength. That being said, I do love Deghinsea. I thought he was really noble in making the sacrifices he did to preserve peace and shit. Tibarn, on the other hand, is treated by much of the fanbase as being really perfect and wonderful, but I hate his violent nature. I don't think he's "cool" at all.

I understand that flight is important, and it doesn't make the comparison fairer. Titania loses out by taking the Boots because she'd rather give them to Jill or Tanith and invalidate some of Marcia's turn gain advantages than take them herself.

Even if he does, he only needs 30 WEXP, which is like, five rounds of combat. He can get that just from Caellach's underlings.

I don't really understand this logic. Why is Titania taking the Boots?

Surely draft rules should be changed to negate the cost of recruiting him?

Why is that a problem. What else will we do with it?

It probably depends more on your specific needs, but I think in general Summoner is probably preferable. The point isn't that he'll be used as a serious combatant at the exclusion of him getting items, it's that him being able to fight makes it easier for him to get items since we don't need to have someone babysit him. After all, you take a penalty if he gets attacked. At minimum. Knoll, but also with the option to go Mage Knight, generally better combat (whatever that's worth), and apparently this Energy Ring. I was under the impression he was a decent bosskiller. Who else is going to double Caellach?

Almedha isn't known for her cool, logical nature. "Micaiah: What are the "Branded"? Pelleas: I'm pretty sure it refers to beorc who have laguz blood in their veins. I know, it's hard to imagine someone with the blood of a sub-human running through their veins." Pelleas ends up being a bit more comfortable with laguz by the end of Part 1, but who knows how he would react to Micaiah being Branded.

but that's a Md Tank you baka gaijin and a Md Tank would have way more than 27HP

So basically it would be exactly like a conventional FE? You'd be throwing out every difficult moral choice and decision that Micaiah has to make, in the favour of "all the good guys just team up to defeat the obviously evil bad guys"? Essentially, you'd be removing literally everything that makes FE10's plot unique and interesting. Yeah that's just what FE needs, a political debate about war sanctions and protectionism. The point would be more that if it were found out that she were Branded, it could even cause another civil war. Pelleas doesn't like branded, so what if he were to try to get rid of her? It could easily spiral into a conflict between those who support Micaiah no matter what, and those who think she should be executed as a Branded (or something). Micaiah doesn't want to be ostracised or hated: but she's already said that she doesn't care if people think she's a monster, as long as she does what's right by Daein. I don't think the solution is to destroy her existing characterisation. I mean, enough people hate her for her "bad decisions" already. Yes. Yune only reawakens when every country joins in the war (the last are Goldoa and Hatary). The reason why Ashnard failed to reawaken the dark god through war is because he was unaware of the existence of an eighth nation. That's my headcanon, anyway. Wow read the script why don't you "Micaiah How could you, Almedha? How could you not tell us? You knew all along-- Almedha Because I was terrified! I knew that once you found out the truth, you would butcher my dear son to save your doomed country! I would have done anything to save my Pelleas... That's why I didn't say anything... How could I? In the end, though...it wasn't enough."

Levin!Arthur isn't too overrated enough, if anything.

Better move over forests, deserts, mountains, rivers. You mean "Gilliam is a steaming pile of ass if we don't promote him". It has nothing to do with Kyle and Forde and everything to do with the fact that Gilliam is useless without the Crest: which is not a point in his favour. So you admit that he's not useful if you have Franz? Thanks, that's all I needed. I would like to imagine that Tethys has better things to do than spam out heals for WEXP.

Okay then. Except that in your very post, you are implying that Marcia and Jill do the same thing! They replicate each other's turn count savings. And we can hardly give both of them the Boots. Only one of Marcia/Jill can be the most likely to take the Boots. Which one? I mean, you're willing to poo-poo any suboptimal decision that we dare to suppose for any given resource ever, even if it's something as pathetically small as training Titania instead of the virtually identical Oscar. Why is it that you seem to think that Titania is queen EXP hog because she competes with Oscar, but you're unwilling to tell us which is the EXP hog out of Marcia and Jill? I don't have nearly as much experience as you do with LTC, so I'll take your word for it, whichever one you pick. But you have to pick one. Both cannot be optimal. Even if it's a turncount saving of 1 or 2 turns, well, that's all Oscar has over Titania, which is apparently enough for her to be "useless". There's a difference between me saying that Titania saves turns singlehandedly and saying she can solo the entire earlygame with no turncount loss. No matter what combination of strategies, or resource distribution, or characters you choose to use in earlygame, Titania will save turns on that. But if you choose to train up Jill and give her the boots, then Marcia's turn count savings evaporate. I only realised that later :( No matter WHAT team, or strategy, or resource distribution you pick for earlygame, Titania will deliver a turncount saving upon that. That is to say, that her turn savings are contingent on nothing. Not getting BEXP/Boots that other, equally good units could use (since apparently Marcia and Jill are equally good because you're unwilling to say which is better). Not the deployment of a laundry list of specific Smite-equipped Laguz and various Paladins and roided up Valkyries.

Actually, I was thinking of a laguz or even a Crimean assassination attempt against Pelleas. Pelleas is already established as disliking laguz, but he might really get paranoid if there was an assassination attempt on his life. Micaiah might go along with it because Pelleas is needed to unify Daein, and everyone in Daein goes along with her. Perhaps you could also put something in about Pelleas getting cursed by the "assassins" (instead of the whole country getting cursed), but it turns out to have been Izuka. Alternatively, Begnion could find out that Micaiah is Branded. With that information in their grasp, they could potentially blackmail Micaiah and the Liberation Army into aiding them. Problem with these is, there's no reason for Micaiah to continue the war after a certain point. Micaiah might go along with a crazy king for a while (like Haar and Tauroneo did with Ashnard) but she'd eventually get to the point where keeping Daein unified isn't worth it being annihilated in war (like Haar and Tauroneo eventually decided to abandon Ashnard). Begnion really does need a way to directly control Daein in a way that they can't refuse to fulfil the demands of the plot.

But it still has a cost. Just because it's a great deal, doesn't make it free. Somehow I have a mental image of you walking past shops, and seeing items on sale, so you decide to buy all of them because they "don't really have a cost". But nobody argues that those resources don't come with an opportunity cost. That Pursuit Ring isn't superglued to Arthur's hand, you can give it to other people. Because the turns that Marcia saves are often heavily contingent on the presence of other characters, or can be replicated by other characters. Since no character is assumed to be in play (or assumed not to be in play), she can therefore only take partial credit for them. Titania's turn savings are not contingent on anyone and cannot be replicated by other characters. Isn't Oscar apparently also completely necessary... Well, I guess there's always Makarov. Er, or Tanith. I don't see any reason why Tanith can't do the same thing as Marcia/Jill in this chapter. And I imagine that you would also have to use quite a lot of other characters. It's not like Marcia/Jill save those turns singlehandedly. I agree with this.

Can you think of a better reason for them to join the war on Begnion's side?

Oh, okay, Gilliam has shitty move, so he gets the Crest for free? I am not saying that Forde/Kyle should necessarily be priority over Gilliam, only that by depriving us of a badass Paladin, he is incurring a heavy opportunity cost that Gerik does not incur. Hero Gerik has better move than Gilliam. Good for them, but it's still an opportunity cost.

The problem is that many times, Gilliam instapromoting comes at a high cost. If Franz, or Forde, or Kyle are in play, there's a heavy opportunity cost associated with the Knight Crest. certainly I wouldn't say he's doing anything special with it in chapters 8-10. After all, any of Franz, Forde, Kyle, Vanessa, or even Colm, Lute, Neimi and Artur can also "ferry" Eirika just as well or better than Gilliam. Plus, why can't Gerik ferry Eirika? Gerik has better movement than Gilliam, if you forgot.

I think it's more reasonable to move Titania into the same tier as the other units.

If you can't figure out if that sprite is good or bad on your own, then I recommend you give up trying to learn to sprite.

Except it was claimed that Ike "learned not to judge countries by the actions of their leaders". Clearly, you probably meant to say "learned not to judge countries by the actions of their people", but I don't get that impression either. At what point does Ike deliberately go out of his way to suggest that Daein isn't a racist country just because it's people are racist, for instance?