Mekkah

CC is 100% monsters. Can't see why you wouldn't want Slayer there. Anima will never be useful, and the caps won't make nearly as much of a difference.

Oh come on, I didn't post the averages for nothing (where Guy wins every parameter, without supports factored in).

Lyn is definitely not forced on your team. She is only required in: - Noble Lady of Caelin. You can keep her in the corner where she starts, and all she has to do is take on two brigands. At this point, it makes no difference whether you used Lyn or not anyway. - Dragon's Gate, where you can keep her where she started, and she won't face anything, other than maybe a few Peg Knights if you don't kill Darin before they show up, but that takes ages. If you want, you could put her on one of the spots they'd appear in, so that one of the reinforcements is blocked. And then just use a vulnerary every time she has to take on one of them. - Kinship's Bond. Just get her to Rath, then hide in the corner he comes from. Done. Or screw getting Rath and just keep her near Nils and Merlinus, since no enemy is allowed to access that area anyway. - Unfulfilled Heart. Yeah, it'd be slightly easier if you trained her here, but unless you're promoting her before Eliwood, she'll still get raped, so it hardly matters (and even if you do promote her, she's still stuck with either no countering or getting WTD and 2HKOed). - Final. Very easy to keep her out of range. The doors open after enemy phase, so once the Bolting Sage appears, take him out like you usually would. Nothing else is a threat to her, or if it is, you are raping your tactics rank. Just hide her in one of the rooms you already eliminated if you don't want to keep her in the middle. She's nowhere near required. Just forced to be fielded occasionally. She's more like Ranulf in FE10 or something.

Which unit is, in your opinion, the most useful for the entire game? So I don't mean "zeis is a cool guy eh killed mamkutes with malte and doesnt afraid of anything since half of his stats were maxed". I think it's either Rutger or Lance. Rutger is fast enough to double stuff nobody but Fir could dream of doubling, including Nomad Troopers, Swordmasters, Heroes, that kind of stuff, and while his Atk can be low, his Crt commonly hits the higher 40s with Iron Sword alone, then goes up more and more when switching to Killer and adding on his good supports...and he has a million Hit, in a game where missing is common (Iron Axe in FE6 is as accurate as Steel Axe in FE7 iirc). And obviously Rutger has hax HP + Avo to stay alive. Lance doesn't have the overkill offense that Rutger has going on, but he has pretty damn high concrete durability, and his supports are much, much quicker and earlier. He's also crucial for the first few chapters before Rutger is there, which are some of the most difficult. He also has the benefit of ranged attacks and being able to frontline at all times (due to 2 more mov than the team, including Rutger). He likely won't keep up with Rutger's hit/avo even with WTA, but it does help to close the gap. I don't think anyone else really qualifies. Alan and Dieck don't have the Spd to double as much as these two, though they do it a decent amount. Miledy only joins halfway through, and is behind the team for a bit, and has lame supports...she has flying to compensate, but that's about it. Percival joins even later and doesn't have supports either. The only contestant of these two that I can think of is Clarine, who has awesome staff utility, but she's insanely frail until some time before promotion (where her dodge starts to become reliable), not to mention an enemy magnet, and after promotion, her offense is definitely not as good as Rutger/Lance's, especially not taking Killer/Silver into the equation, what with her being locked to Fire for a long time first.

Take Bishop. Slayer > Anima.

Instead of generalizing the two, I'll just cut it short and move to their stats. Guy gets the following HM bonuses: 3.5 HP, 1.75 Str, 2 Skl, 2 Spd, 0.75 Def and 1 Res. Putting both him and Lyn at 10/0: Guy w/ Iron Sword 14.8 atk, 17.9 AS, 126.8 hit, 8.0 crit - - 44.0 avo, 29.7 hp, 6.8 def, 2.8 res Lyn w/ Iron Sword 12.6 atk, 14.4 AS, 119.5 hit, 6.0 crit - - 38.8 avo, 22.3 hp, 3.8 def, 2.7 res Now, what do we see here? Guy wins _every single battle parameter_. What's more, this is without supports. Cutting through to 20/0: Guy w/ Iron Sword 17.9 atk, 20.0 AS, 136.1 hit, 9.8 crit - - 52.7 avo, 37.3 hp, 8.3 def, 5.2 res Lyn w/ Iron Sword 16.6 atk, 19.3 AS, 133.7 hit, 8.8 crit - - 54.0 avo, 29.3 hp, 5.8 def, 5.7 res So Lyn actually has leads now: 1.3 avo and .5 res at that. Looks worthless in the face of 1.3 atk, 8 hp and 3.3 def to me. Now Guy promotes and builds up a level lead until Lyn finally gets to gimp Eliwood out of a promotion at Ch26. We'll say Guy is 20/5 when Lyn promotes. Guy w/ Iron Sword 21.1 atk, 22.7 AS, 140.8 hit, 25.7 crit - - 59.9 avo, 45.3 hp, 10.8 def, 7.2 res Lyn w/ Iron Sword 18.6 atk, 19.3 AS, 137.6 hit, 9.8 crit - - 54.0 avo, 32.3 hp, 8.8 def, 10.7 res 3.5 res for Lyn vs everything else for Guy? I'm not impressed. Now, for supports, Lyn cannot claim a win either. Kent wants a B with her, sure, but definitely not an A, since Sain has that reserved. Eliwood definitely does not want A Lyn when Hector and Lowen are much better options for him (better bonuses that start earlier and build faster). So she's stuck with trying for Florina A, but Florina probably would rather take Fiora, and she'll fly away from the pack whenever that is beneficial. Guy is Priscilla's best support next to Erk, and Matthew's single best support, so he has no trouble filling up here. Matthew will probably be absent sometimes for chests, but no more often than that Florina flies off to kill stuff...and Matthew is pretty much guaranteed to be fielded, whereas Florina definitely is not. For support bonuses, leaving off Hit and CEV since they don't help these units at all... Guy A Wind: 3 Atk, 7.5 Avo, 15 Crt Guy B Wind: 2 Atk, 5 Avo, 10 Crt Total: 5 Atk, 12 Avo, 25 Crt Lyn A Light: 3 Atk, 1.5 Def, 15 Crt Lyn B Anima: 2 Atk, 1 Def, 5 Avo, 5 Crt Total: 5 Atk, 5 Avo, 20 Crt, 2 Def So even throwing supports in is not going to help Lyn's case. Now, you put up a lot of stuff about strategy, but all you're doing is dimnishing the negative of having to shield a unit with less durability. But you still cannot deny that having more durability is a good thing, for reasons I have already stated multiple times. If Guy has enough durability to move out and kill a lot of stuff whereas Lyn does not, Guy is more useful. It also means I don't have to send Oswin there, who probably only single-strikes those enemies, so I have to waste like 3 other people's turns to mop up the survivors, whereas Guy will be able to kill those enemies. And yes, Lyn's Heaven Seal costs 20k and is at two set points available, whereas Guy can promote whenever he wants after Whereabouts Unknown for only 10k.

Dozla's problem is that he sux at DAing, so he needs a Crt to one round, and he also has terriblegh avoid. He's not the worst unit in the game, but he's down there.

Light magic brings WTA against Gorgons and Mogalls, which is useful enough. I prefer Mage Knight though.

That's not ever what happens in the game though, so it's insignificant. Seth is a L1 Paladin, not a L20 Cavalier. Though for all it matters, I would still promote him (as long as I could right away, and not only when you get the first real Knight Crest) and use him over Franz, since he still has those growths and that level lead.

I voted yes, since it seems that oftentimes when debates are brought up in a topic on a normal FE board, non-debaters start to go "oh no im not gonna debate, im outta here"...there's clearly folks out there that do want to debate, and they should be given a chance to without interruptions. I'm a huge fan of debating myself, but the art of it has died everywhere else.

Well, obviously if Amelia isn't used, then Franz is better by a lot. And if Franz isn't used, then Amelia is better by a lot...well, after catching up 10 levels, that is, lol. That leaves the cases where neither or both are being used. If neither are used...then the debate is stale, because if you're not on the field doing anything, your stats don't matter. You might as well have 0 across the board, or 30. That leaves both being used, though this doesn't have to be in the same theoretical playthrough (meaning it's not assumed that Franz is in play to support Amelia, when defending Amelia, for example). Makes sense now?

The numbers I used were randomly assigned to prove my point about durability being better, I wasn't talking about Erk vs Lucius specifically. I'll drop the example if you want to go into real existing characters. Because I can. When we're talking of people like Erk, we're talking about people with strong 1-2 range - accurate, powerful (due to Res-hitting) and able to DA. I'd like to be able to expose that on enemy phase as much as possible. And yes, someone like Erk can survive enemy phases quite comfortably once raised, whereas Lucius seems to be in danger plenty. By the time Lucius joins, Erk can DA as well. He only needs one, maybe two Spd level ups to do it to those lame Lyn Mode enemies. They can kill about the same stuff there...not nearly as important as Erk's availability in Ch15, Ch16 and Ch17. You know, chapters with more than 10 enemies total.

I really really like Oswin, but mostly because of his earlygame performance. It's really nice to have a unit around that cannot die there. However, later on, I find that most units have no trouble staying alive, but I'm usually wishing for more offense or movement, especially on ranked runs. So Oswin gets ditched there.

Room for RNG blessing comes with room for RNG screwing. Those two cancel each other out as viable arguments. Sadly, first time players almsot always go "zomg early prepromo stealin ma skillz - DONT USE DONT USE DONT USE" :( But meh, their problem. For item cost, you don't even need Lagdou Ruins. You get 5k after Ch1, then 10k after Ch8. Then on Eirika route, another 5k after Ch13, and another 10k during Ch14 in a chest. Ephraim only finds 2.5k in a chest, and then 10k in Ch14 as well, but he prolly finds an extra gem somewhere. Then in case you ever ran out of money, you get the Silver Card during Ch15, 5k in a chest in Ch19, and ANOTHER 10k at the end of Ch19. Not to mention the fuckton of gems you can sell, notably the White Gem Innes/L'Arachel comes with (depends on route). In the words of someone else, you have gold coming out of your ears and no funds ranking.

Averages or none, please... How is it not? Either you get to crush enemies with Seth's amazing powers, or he grants the rest of your team more EXP, level-ups and therefore stats. Other units can't do either. It is not exactly "not using him". It's more like a different method of using Seth. Averages take the RNG into account. They take into account all of the possibilities the RNG may give you, which is better than just one possibility, even if it is the most common one. Much more relevant than "check out these stats I got from my pt - they're better than this other unit's", when someone else can just reverse the point, and you're back to square one.

I checked the Chapter Data... Turn 2: Two Brigands from the eastern mountains Turn 3: Two Brigands from the eastern mountains Turn 4: Two Brigands from the eastern mountains Turn 5: Two Brigands from the eastern mountains Once Marisa is recruited, but not if she is killed, one turn later Pegasus Knights and a Falcoknight appear from the south western mountains and Cavaliers and a Ranger appear from the south east.. Interesting, I knew SS had more location-based reinforcements than turn-based ones, but nonetheless this is very cool, lol. Might as well wait out Marisa all the way to the fortress then, so it only takes her one phase to get in there.

They would probably take out all the incest and maybe split up the chapters in much shorter parts.

If you decide to not give him kills, and instead float them over to someone else, that's just another pro for using him. He can afford to give away EXP to others. If you had used another L1 character over him, the others would not have gotten that EXP.

You don't really seem to be addressing my point...or you have misunderstood me. That is not what I said. I said it is better for them to be durable than for them to be not durable. A Mage with 25 HP/10 Def is much better than one with 19 HP/5 Def. They may have equal offense on that uncountered player phase attack, but when enemy phase rolls around, the first dude can get more attacks in, be more exposed to enemies, advance further, retreat less, etc. Archers are just ghey...the fact that they cannot be exposed without being a liability alone makes them bad. Bad durability on top of that sucks even more. That's ridiculous. Having Oswin, Hector, Dorcas, Geitz and stuff on my team doesn't mean I'll take a glass cannon like Lucius over someone with actual durability like Erk (yes, their durability difference is significant). If I use one with more durability, that one will be able to move out on its own, for example, or do all the things I described in my first paragraph. But that terrain may not always be there. Or when it is, it could be that you have more than one unit who wants to take advantage of it when in reality you can only cover one unit. So instead of focusing on how to get through the game in case one of your great units gets knocked off somehow so you'll need to dig in your reserves for a unit that's capable enough to get the job done, we're going to focus solely on the characters, which have wild fluctuations in stats from playthrough to playthrough? You're not making any sense. I honestly am not understanding your point. Yes, they have the same purpose: they fight. Just like Oswin, just like Hector, just like Erk, just like Dorcas, just like Marcus. That is the only purpose they serve (before promotion). They have some parameters along that though. Erk has 1-2 range and hits Res, Oswin chinks everything, Hector has a Prf weapon, etc...all of those can be factored in their combat performance. If the sums of those make Guy and Raven better to bring than someone like Lucius, then I will take a second one of them rather than Lucius. Even taking into account that Lucius hits Res, the other two have the better offense (due to doubling earlier, having more Mt (especially after promo), and being able to be exposed more), and much much better defense (Lucius gets OHKOed or 2HKOed by every single physical enemy you encounter for a long, long time, and never has reliable Avo, whereas both Raven and Guy have reliable Avo and soon walk into 4HKO range...and their CEV doesn't suck). Units and characters are the same thing pretty much. Maybe not in your view, but they seem to be in everyone else's. So nothing matters then. Ok. That even contradicts yourself saying All that matters is offense and mobility on magic units, yes. I'll take a unit with 20 in every stat over one with 10 over every stat, even though I could wall off the latter and always babyspoon him kills. Leaving off irrelevant bonuses like Hit and CEV: B Guy: 2 Atk/5 Avo/10 Crt B Raven: 1 Atk/1 Def/5 Avo/5 Crt Priscilla largely doesn't give a damn about her bonuses prepromotion. She cannot attack, and she sucks at defending no matter what bonuses she gets, and has no reason to be in the line of fire (unlike Mages). After promotion (when the support has hit B), we see it's 1 Atk/5 Crt vs 1 Def. 1 Atk vs 1 Def looks about equal to me (I'd argue 1 Atk helps her more, but w/e), so the Crit is the kicker. Priscilla wants as much offense as possible so she can score kills with Fire and become able to use Thunder, after all. Sorry, but...you call using both swordies massive fail, while recommending me to use Lyn, Dorcas and Bartre? First things first: Lyn's promotion isn't free. Heaven Seal costs 20k, and there's only one reasonably early one, which Eliwood might want. Now, what is this obsession with wanting so many different weapon types or something? Because that's the only reason to ditch some god like Raven over a stub like Bartre. Are you saying your team must always consist of swordie/axer/lancer/bow user/Lucius/Canas/anima/staff user or something? Because that's obviously pretty dumb. You're not playing Pokemon where type matters. The only time it makes a difference between 8 axers and 4 axers/4 swordies is if you're going to get a significant amount of WTD...but you can even get away with WTD since it's only a small percentage of the whole combat window. 15% hit/avo and 1 Atk/Def, while significant, is not the end of the world, especially not if Raven has all around better battle parameters than said axe user. If you want me to compare the averages of Dorcas and Bartre (who, FYI, hardly ever go higher than Mid tier on tier lists, if that) versus Raven or Guy (who have always been near the Top, or in High), say so. Oh wait, you don't believe in stats, do you? I guess weapon type doesn't matter then either. For Lyn, suffice it to say that her durability blows cock (she has less physical durability than Lucius, and way less magical durability, and unlike Lucius, she has no ranged attack until promotion...that's how much she fails). Using her over a good unit is nuh-uh. Sorry, but Guy's offense is better than the majority of your characters against the majority of enemies. The only time others have any kind of contest against him is against a lance user when the other dude has no WTD, but even then he usually wins a comparison.

If you are referring to the SSS run (AAA on console), that one is YayMarsha's, who also beat FEDS in like 17 mins.

Depends on your definition of suck. Effectively joining at the end of Ch12 isn't that great, and the next two chapters overflow from lance users, and Gerik is less likely to be played due to joining later than on Eirika route. What I mean is that even if difficulty of recruitment was a valid point against a character, it would not help Joshua in a Joshua vs Marisa debate, since he's about as "hard". Hyperbole. It's just quite a bit of chapters...well, mostly on Eph route. On Eir route, it's more like five chapters, or about a fourth of the game. Marisa being babied...maybe. She's not _that_ bad off in this regard (nowhere near Ewan/Amelia level). She doubles everything but Gwilgigyhsbhdhuiewueis and enemy Swordies, she can comfortably face axes, and she can survive one hit (meaning she can fight on her own in chokepoints as long as she has healer/vulnerary assistance).

So all that matters is offense and mobility or something? Obviously not. More durability means being able to use your offense more. No need to pop Vulneraries or retreat to get healed, and you can expose yourself to more enemies on enemy phase. In addition, it makes you more flexible. Earlygame Lute cannot go anywhere in Ch6 without getting 2HKOed. Garcia can take 3 or even 4 hits without dying. The better the unit, the less strategy the player has to apply to make up for their flaws. If you assume the player is 100% strategic and always finds perfect formations so that it doesn't matter how much a unit sucks or rules, then all units are equal and we get nowhere. Even if it worked like that, we can apply the same "it no matter" argument to offense. Who gives a shit if his Atk and AS are poor? If he's attacking an enemy that isn't weakened beforehand, you did it wrong. How good or bad a unit is by themselves only matters if the question is whether they are in play or not. If Guy isn't in play, Priscilla cannot support him. However, if he is, then Priscilla definitely prefers his bonuses. And both Guy and Raven are likely to be in play, since they're both amazing. Guy's Str _growth_ may be bad, but Str growth is not everything (hello Athos, you are the worst unit in the game tyvm...sorry Lance, you are a worse unit than Ward, etc). Guy doubles where others do not. Guy has a 7-8 Str base at L3. Guy can get up to 5 Atk from supports. Guy can build up crit to the point where it's higher than most people's Hit. But it also starts a good deal earlier.

Oh, good, there IS someone who doubts the great Seth!!! The point of the game isn't gaining EXP or leveling up. It's killing enemies. EXP has no value in itself. The fact that Seth gains so little of it doesn't hurt his case at all, seeing as he remains superior until Franz hits 18/0 (while Seth gains no level-ups, mind you). If Franz joined at 18/0, would you think he's worse than if he joined at 2/0? Contrary to popular belief, Seth does not "absorb" more EXP than others. In fact, he needs less than others. Seth kills something. Oh no, now Eirika, Lute, Arthur and Vanessa did not get that kill! Franz kills something. Oh no, now Eirika, Lute, Arthur and Vanessa did not get that kill! But...Franz does need to kill stuff to level up, gain stats to remain good. A 2/0 Franz in Ch12 is doing you no good. Seth, however, is fine there at base level. Is it an advantage for Franz that he needs EXP to remain good?

itt I make an outrageous claim Chad gets you a bunch of goods early on, but after that, I think I prefer Ashtol. He's more sturdy, and he doesn't require training at a point where he gets OHKOed, or left with 1-2 HP by 99% of the enemies.

I usually recruit him for giggles (even field a L1 Fir to do it), but that's it. I prefer to handle his joining chapter with my own units, and the Mamkute feast has vey limited unit selection. I'd rather use Durandal on Alan/Lance/Percival/Rutger/Dieck since they've been with me for all game. Would be rather anticlimatic for them to sit the final out.