Anouleth

I didn't really like it so much... I would have preferred American. well as long as i can turn it off WHAT A BUNCH OF JOKERS

I was incorrect to say that. Well, apparently we're storming ahead with a team of ORKOing God-Paladins who shred through enemies effortlessly on enemy phase, so I would think he doesn't need much in the way of protection. I doubt Rolf could reach level 20/2 in time for Tauroneo without BEXP; even if he did, Tauroneo can beat Rolf's combat with Resolve. Brom just has better combat. Gatrie and Shinon both have earlygame; Gatrie has better combat. Devdan and Largo have the same movement as Rolf, so I don't get your point there; they also have better combat. All these characters save Shinon also have an enemy phase. Elincia has flight and staffh4x. And I could really ask the same of you. If apparently using Rolf is such a monumental drain on our resources, and even moving him and having him perform actions is too much effort and he is doomed to suck his thumb on the bench for all eternity, why is he not in his own special graveyard tier? Why is he better than Lucia and Nasir and Ena? Why have you not pulled this argument on other units that are "too much effort" such as Astrid, Fiona, Meg, whose super minor contributions are too, arguably not worth the physical effort of moving them? I don't value "chip" so much. I describe it as "infinitesimal". In other words, /small/. "infinitesimal" does not mean "large". It is the tiebreaker between two units who are similar. If Rolf is ever so slightly better from Chapters 9 to 23 and just as good from Chapter 24 to Final, then Rolf is BETTER. I could say the same about many mid tiers. Like Brom, or Mia. This is stupid. Obviously, you are so obsessed with the hyperbole about Rolf being terrible and useless that you won't listen to any argument to the contrary. Except that using Rolf is not "painfully shooting yourself in the knee". If you hate Rolf so much that you suffer real physical pain from using him, that is your problem, not the problem of the tier list. I mean, this is full smashfanatic retard mode where he insists on putting Nasir and Ena in the middle of every tier list, under the basis that Nasir and Ena don't "cost" us anything, but everyone below the median does cost us and everyone above the median has a benefit greater than their cost. 100% of the time, naturally, since our time is worth nothing and the monetary cost is negligible. The only thing we lose out on is perhaps making a +5 Light forge for Rhys. Well, I know how fruitless it is to try and argue for BEXP for Rolf, even though there really is enough. Well, for a start, Boyd doesn't "chip" enemies (he can actually kill them), and it's eight chapters, not nine. Oh, he can, it's just not very likely. Maybe 10% of all playthroughs? The chance of using one of Soren/Ilyana/Calill/Tormod in an efficient playthrough is 100%. Siege tomes are useful and only an inefficient player would not avail himself of them in Chapter 22 and 23. Mia is not useful to an efficient playthrough, any more than Rolf is. It's true that she's less of a drag, but she's still a drag. Effectively, she's useless for practically her entire lifespan... Let me save you some time: Titania tier Titania Top Marcia Jill Oscar Kieran High Boyd Ike Reyson Tanith Astrid Makalov Upper-Mid Lethe Muarim Mordecai Nephenee Mist Mid Tormod Soren Calill Stefan Zihark Ilyana Rhys Volke Lower-Mid Sothe Haar Geoffrey Devdan Low Janaff Elincia Mia Largo Ranulf Tauroneo Bottom Gatrie Shinon Ulki Bastian Brom Rolf Lucia Nasir Ena Your time is worthless. Even a trained Rolf is worth more. Yes. Most units do require effort. In fact, all of them do. Except Merlinus. Where are you going with this? What hyperbole? You mean me calling Rolf's chip "infinitesimal"? Yes, I suppose it is hyperbole, since infinitesimals don't actually exist. I apologise for the sloppy maths, I promise to be more accurate in my terminology. How about "very small"? But you were responding to my point: "Really? Because I've posted matchups and comparisons that show pretty clearly that Rolf is about even with Bastian in terms of combat and dealing damage, if not slightly ahead since he has options like the Brave Bow and his innate critical rate. And obviously Rolf has more movement." This is confusing, because that isn't hyperbole. Hyperbole is an exaggeration for comedic effect, and no matter what you might think of the humour value of defending Rolf, this is not an exaggeration. You are welcome to try and prove otherwise. I thought you Well, it's not like Rolf exists in Chapter 25 so we can do a side-by-side comparison. And really, once Rolf begins growing and gets a forge (since he's going to start at the back of the queue), he can probably pull 33% too, for most of his lifespan. And his lifespan, if you haven't noticed, is much, much greater. In order to ORKO Fighters, Soren needs to be level 18. Ilyana and Mia need to be promoted, and Mia needs a forge on top of that. Marcia cannot. Oscar needs to be level 19, also with a forge. Ike needs to be level 17, also with a forge. Myrmidons are easier, but Soren still needs level 17. Ilyana needs to be promoted. Boyd needs level 20. Oscar needs level 19. I didn't have my units at that level, but apparently I'm an inefficient player! The obvious difference is that while siege tomes are rare and useful and have multiple alternate users, Rolf's Bow is not useful to anyone besides Rolf. Even if we had other Bow users (we don't in Chapter 9), or for some reason they wanted to use bows (they don't), Rolf's Bow is a prf weapon, and we can buy more bows if we want to. Availability is not everything, which is why I'm happy for Rolf to remain below Ulki or Shinon. However, if between two units who are roughly comparable during their shared lifespan, one of them is available in other chapters and can assist, even in the most minor and insignificant of ways, then they are overall better. X = Z Y >= 0 X + Y >= Z The difference is that Tormod and Soren are actually semi-decent units and we're open to the possibility of giving them BEXP. Would you deny that Soren's availability and ability to gain CEXP and establish a lead is a factor in his favour? Because I remember making a facetious argument among those lines when I just wanted Tormod to move up and people were poo-pooing giving him BEXP. Are you seriously suggesting we give Bastian a BEXP dump? Look, if you bring BEXP into this at all, that only expands Rolf's lead since he grows better than Bastian. Well no shit sherlock! of course you have to use characters for them to be useful! In fact, that's kind of an unstated assumption of the tier list; that when you judge a characters' contributions, you are deploying them and using them. I might as well say that I have to use Boyd for him to have better combat than Bastian. So does base Nephenee, and base Tormod, and base 90% of the tier list. Wait, what's this? You're actually engaging with my argument and trying to point out flaws in it instead of throwing out ridiculous hyperbole and strawmen? I'm amazed, Colonel. I didn't think you were capable of such things. If a BEXP dump is necessary to get Rolf to level 20/1 in Chapter 17, what does that say about his level in Chapter 25? Nothing. Also, why would we wait until Rolf is level 13 before giving him BEXP? In fairness, Rolf probably does require kills, but the CEXP cost is basically zero. Since the likes of Kieran and Titania ORKO everything anyway, them losing out on the odd kill doesn't affect them. Fair enough, but quite frankly the kills aren't a big deal. If promoted Marcia kills some scrub unpromoted soldier she only gets like 10 EXP anyway; exp that would likely make no difference since she 1-rounds everything. The capability that you only had because you deployed Merlinus in the first place. And the only one that affects is Merlinus. Except you don't have to protect him or watch him or do anything with him. You can do those things, if you want to, but they are not required. Rolf is weak, but he does not actually increase the HP of enemies when he hits them. [quote Wait a minute. Training a unit is now suddenly free? Uhhhhhh... No. Training units is most certainly not always "free". It still has an opportunity cost, even though we likely discard it most of the time he hogs CEXP what are you doing. There is also deployment slots and the like, though that's already discarded by the so-called "tier list assumption". Which by the way... should really be written out. Turns, possibly resources, etc. By your argument, even Nino's training comes "free". In other words, the training you take with Nino has /no opportunity cost/ since there is nothing you can do to an enemy that Nino hasn't chipped that you could not do to an enemy Nino has chipped. It doesn't have an opportunity cost, you're quite right. If you could actually point out the opportunity cost, you would... but you can't, because it doesn't exist. What's the difference? Sain storms up to the weakened Wyvern and ORKOes it. Does it matter if it was at 25 or 15 HP before? No, it doesn't. The only way it would make a difference is if Nino got a surprise crit and Sain lost out on the EXP, but enemies in this game actually have luck. So are you saying that you don't use Wolt in earlygame? Because I do. I think you fail to comprehend just how hugely stat-screwed Ike needs to be in order for Ena to have better combat, and even then he's still better for other reasons. It's probably not an exaggeration to say that the chance of Ike being that screwed is similar to the chance of Rolf capping his strength in tier 1. Then I have to ask what characters such as Mia and Brom are doing so high, since they also have range that's less than a Paladin and take quite a long time to ORKO. If this is going to be a max-efficiency tier list, it doesn't look much like one. If anything, it's a hypocrisy for people to constantly be saying "oh well we have infinite BEXP, just tons and tons we can do whatever we want with it" but at the same time stolidly refuse to give Rolf a single point of BEXP ever. If we really are assuming maximum efficiency, then we will actually have quite a lot of BEXP left over to do inefficient things with (like give to Rolf). The real "cost" of giving Rolf BEXP is not that he takes away BEXP that could actually be used for an efficient use, but that he takes BEXP away from other inefficient characters (they're still better, just inefficient). I mean, I had enough BEXP for Rolf, Marcia, Astrid, Mist, and Tormod all to play with.

I remember hearing that FE10 had as much dialogue as FE9 in terms of sheer words, despite the lack of support conversations.

They're nice visual effects. I like snow and rain. I just think their gameplay effect is horrible...

Uh, reclassing?

That might be true if Boyd had more movement than Kieran during their shared lifespan, as Rolf does in comparison to Bastian. And what does Rolf "cost"? Because I'm not giving him any BEXP, or anything aside from forges. Shinon is highly unlikely to be used... Well, that's fine. But I was under the impression that efficiency lists weren't based on the amount of physical time taken. If that's the case, then a lot of other units who don't save time will have to move down, such as Brom and Mia. I don't get what your point is, or why you're acting so dumb. I have never attempted to sandbag Bastian by assuming he doesn't get a weapon, nor have I ever suggested such a thing. I get the impression you are trying to make a strawman, but I cannot see even the slightest passing resemblance between your strawman argument and my own. And perhaps the most ridiculous thing is that you are objecting to my claim that Bastian doesn't do anything in Chapter 9. How is this upsetting you? That might be a relevant argument if Soren and Ilyana had more movement than Tormod. They do not. Really? Because I've posted matchups and comparisons that show pretty clearly that Rolf is about even with Bastian in terms of combat and dealing damage, if not slightly ahead since he has options like the Brave Bow and his innate critical rate. And obviously Rolf has more movement. Which is why I have described them as "infinitesimal". Repeatedly. What is this shit? A cross-chapter comparison? I couldn't care less if Bastian in Chapter 25 is better than Rolf in Chapter 9 because Rolf is also in Chapter 25. You really don't have any cogent argument aside from "omg siege tomes rolf sucks". Yes, you would like, have to have better combat and mobility than him oh wait. Like I said, the midgame chip is not significant. I have NEVER said it was significant. However, it makes an adequate tiebreaker between two units who are similar, and yes, they are similar, I don't give a flying fuck about Bastian being able to waste siege tome uses. I was wrong to say that; he does not need BEXP. Indeed, no character in this game needs it. Uh, I thought that when he died you didn't actually lose anything? Tell me when forts gain levels, move, have inventories, have supports, can engage in combat, have stats, can make actions, and show up in the Unit screen which provides a list of units. Shitty strawman. Again. If Nephenee never engaged in combat, she would be a terrible, dare I say, a useless unit. Part of the operating principle of the tier list is that when we have opportunities to attack, we will. Of course, your whole idiotic argument is predicated on the assumption that Rolf will never do anything and chillax in a corner for the entire game because it's too much "effort" to move him. Except that that "training" is free. In other words, the training you take with Rolf has /no opportunity cost/ since there is nothing you can do to an enemy that Rolf hasn't chipped that you could not do to an enemy Rolf has chipped. I am not playing devil's advocate. What confuses me is that you, a normally seemingly reasonable and sane person, could pull out all these ridiculous shitty strawmen and arguments. I guess when you're defending one of the Sacred Holy Axioms of FE9 Tier Lists, which is that Rolf is some kind of singularity of awfulness, actual facts can't be allowed to get in the way. Why not put Rolf at the bottom, hmm? After all, according to you he does literally nothing. According to you, the best way to use Rolf is to literally never have him make an action, because even to view his move range for a single frame is a tragic waste of our oh-so-valuable time. You say you're only pretending to be stupid for the sake of the argument. I admit I was fooled. Actually, I was arguing Chapter 25. I really doubt Bastian is going to gain a level in Chapter 24, and it's not really an important chapter anyway.

1. enemies actually have good stats 2. most weapons have less hit, but that's barely an issue past midgame since FE6 Killer weapons have more/equal hit to their FE7 counterpart 3. weaker weapon triangle

Gharnef never actually betrays anyone. He might have planned to betray Medeus, but really? Is there a Nobel Prize for Conspiracy to Commit Chemistry? Lyon, on the other hand, manipulates Eirika and abuses her trust into giving him a Sacred Stone. Much better...

Hmm... FE4 gave us the weapon triangle. FE5 gave us rescuing. FE6 gave us support conversations These are great additions but I can't really say that any of them are "revolutionary"?

Right, and Rolf kills more enemies and doubles more enemies and also has better movement. Versus Cats (Elfire/Laguz Bow) Bastian 20 damage (3HKO) Rolf 18 damage (3HKO) Versus Warriors (Thunder Forge/Steel Forge) Bastian 21x2 damage (3HKO) (doesn't always double) Rolf 18x2 damage (3HKO) Versus Snipers Bastian 18 damage (2HKO) Rolf 16 damage (2HKO) Versus Halberdiers Bastian 20 damage (2HKO) Rolf 17x2 damage (3HKO) And Sages, Ravens, Bishops, Rolf obviously wins by a mile. And Rolf also has the crit boost so sometimes he will crit where Bastian would not, which is important when they don't ORKO anything. And the movement advantage. And Brave Bow access. Except that I do not lose anything by "putting up" with Rolf. He is not going to magically suck up BEXP, or cockblock me when I clumsily seduce Kieran. In fact, I gain because he chips and weakens enemies. An infinitesimal gain, perhaps, but it's not a cost. And Bastian's Chapter 9 performance is actually insignificant because it's not a thing. What do you mean by "well"? Since Tormod has better range with them, every mage has better attack with them. I guess he's faster with them with Soren, so he can have that solace. Well apparently he will never ever get any BEXP anyway, so I hardly think it matters. I know just how futile it is to argue for any conceivable resource for a unit in lower mid or below, so I'm not even going to bother arguing for BEXP. Although I also used Tormod in my Rolf-using playthrough, so it's not like we can't have our cake, eat it, and hollow it out into a summer home all at once. Sounds a hell of a lot like Douglas to me, so I have no idea where you're going with this. Plus, I don't think your tier list assumes deployment, but I think this one does. Rolf's chip is fairly infinitesimal in utility, but it's an adequate tiebreaker for two units who are pretty damn similar for their shared lifespan. Plus, even if Wendy chips that Chapter 8 wall, that's not going to catapult her to level 10. You need to chip lots of enemies, and Wendy simply can't. Wolt is probably a fairer argument, but Wolt's chip damage is actually pretty significant. Okay, chip damage before Bastian exists and just being plain better after Bastian exists. If Rolf goes up and chips an enemy that was going to die anyway, then that does not cost anything except for a negligible amount of money to pay for his weapon, and a moment of our time (worthless). If he is somehow taking kills, that rather puts a hole in your refrain of Rolf being completely useless and unable to do anything in a world of ORKOing God-Paladins. I don't think I've even suggested giving Rolf BEXP. In fact, I have taken great pains to suggest he's not. If he does, training him becomes almost trivial. I had him promoted in midgame; let alone by the time Bastian joins. Nope. Just not true! One could easily conceive of a unit who had no cost. Like, say, FE7 Merlinus. Except that even if you don't give Rolf BEXP, ever, he is still strictly >= Bastian because he has 15 chapters of chipping and then both of them exist and hey Rolf is better. I believe I gave him about 1k of BEXP over earlygame and midgame. He was promoted in the Chapter 17 base. It's greater than or equal to zero. And Bastian is hardly better than a 20/2 Rolf. If it's the case that Wolt can do that without incurring any significant costs and in a reasonable time frame and there's consensus that 20/1 Wolt is better than base Douglas, then yes, Wolt should absolutely be above Douglas. How would you define "effort"? Work done? Calories expended? Buttons pressed?

Are you talking about in the sense of physical time? Because certainly, even assuming deployment for Rolf, a speedrun or TAS might very well choose not to move him and have him act under the basis that the benefit of his combat performance is not worth the time to move him and watch his animation.

If you use chokepoint, why do you need bulky knights? Except that's not what you said. You said "how often do we field this unit". You didn't say anything about when or where they were fielded, only how often.

I trained Rolf and I had a hotshot Marcia. Are you so stupid as to not realise the obvious difference; that while we will want many dedicated combat units, we only need one siege tome user?

No. He's an archer, after all. He's somewhat limited to either chipping enemies at range or killing enemies at range, and he's certainly not going to do much of the second. And pray tell; what does Bastian do if not "chipping"? Except that it's far easier to train Rolf than Wendy (Rolf has more viable movement, far better 2-range and at least he can damage enemies even if it's for poor damage. He also gets 1-rounded less and is far more accurate). And also Sophia. And while Rolf definitely beats Bastian if you expend even the slightest effort in training him, the same is not true for Wendy and Douglas, with 10/1 Wendy getting the snot kicked out of her by base Douglas (he has 8 more strength, far better weapon ranks and way more durability. Wendy has a little bit of speed but still won't double anything). Sophia has literally all of three chapters to try and scrape together levels before Douglas shows up. And unlike in FE9, both Sophia and Wendy have to pay for their promotion items. You misunderstand. The same fallacy is at play in both situations. Jeigans do not hog exp. It is true that when they kill an enemy, the exp cannot go to another unit, but this is a trivial description since that is true of all units in every Fire Emblem. There is no point. You would never dump 2185 BEXP into Rolf. Uh, I doubt it. When she's getting ORKOed and does virtually no damage and struggles to reach enemies or even hit them. You must be nuts if you seriously think Wendy is as easy to train as Rolf, since you are saying that Wendy can gain 9 levels in 9 chapters but Rolf cannot gain 19 levels in 17 chapters, one of which is a four-parter. And also even if Wendy does reach level 10/1 and we shell out for her Knight Crest bling, Douglas still beats her.

If he's costly with a major downside, then he is a horrible unit. I might as well say that Bastian isn't horrible, just a unit with one downside (availability). I agree with this except your misspelling of Bastian. It's irrelevant. Even if Rolf somehow isn't promoted by Chapter 25 Apparently, my playthrough is inefficient then. So what kind of target is the tier list going for then? sub 155 turns? sub 150? Oh, just shut up. We get it. Rolf is bad. I am not denying that he's bad. The question is whether he is worse than Bastian. And no, he isn't. Bastian does nothing for those fifteen chapters. Rolf chips. Chipping is better than nothing. Rolf does not magically suck up BEXP. He is not some vampire that steals into the BEXP tent after hours and gorges himself on delicious game abstractions. This is as ridiculous as ye olden days where people would say that Jeigans "hog EXP". The only BEXP that Rolf takes is the BEXP you give him. And you don't have to give him ANY if you don't want to. Oh, yeah, I'm seriously suggesting that we literally never use Rolf until Chapter 25 and then give him 2185 BEXP. Speaking as someone who has actually used Rolf, he does not need /that/ much BEXP. He needs a lot, that's true, but he can gain a decent amount of CEXP on his own. Level 10 is certainly within his reach by Chapter 25. And definitely level 20. I think you are believing your own hyperbole. Rolf is bad. But he is not unusable by any stretch of the word.

Right, except that Rolf also gets effectiveness on laguz and Wyverns since he can use the Laguz Bow, and his effective bonuses are much, much bigger. Look, Rolf only needs to be what, level 20/2 to be quite arguably comparable to Bastian (1 more attack when Rolf uses a Steel forge and Bastian a Thunder forge, but more speed and more movement and better weapon access). And there's the other 15 chapters where Rolf exists and Bastian doesn't. I don't think it would take a significant amount of BEXP at all to see him reach 20/2 in time for Chapter 25.

Like in FE9. There was no Light magic rank, there was only Staff Rank and the Lumina skill which let you use staff rank to cast light magic. I think that's really an excellent solution. Assuming it's a Priest skill, it gives Priests an edge over Troubadores and speeds up the usually painful process of building staff rank. Certainly sounds a lot better than Miracle at level 10...

What do Marisa and Joshua have to do with Colm?

I can see an argument for Rolf over Bastian. I mean, siege tome use after Chapter 24 isn't really that useful, and there's a big difference between siege tome use and Rolf's chipping; that while there's no cost to using Rolf and having him chip things, the limited number of siege tomes in the game demand that when Bastian uses that Meteor tome, Tormod/Calill/Soren must go without.

"Awesome" is not the word I'd use to describe saving 80 gold on every chest and door.

Just deploy Rennac. After all, it's not like you're worrying about turns, right?

My idea is that FE7 weather is horrible.

Except that he gets off scot free and nothing bad actually comes of it. So while we're constantly told that Ike's bluntness is a "flaw", it's a flaw that doesn't actually have any negative consequences aside from him getting occasionally told off.

I can't really say that having Sleep Powder is that amazingly better than having Thunder Wave (which is permanent).

Best: Marthipan Worst: Joshua's hat