OMG it's a tier list

[Anouleth]

Well, there's no reason that regular transfered units and um, kitten-powered transfered units can't happily coexist. I mean, if Marcia (STR/SKL/SPD) can be on the list, then there should be no problem with putting Marcia (MAG/STR/SKL/SPD/DEF/RES) on the list. Why stop at two?

[Interceptor]

It's not a question of co-existing. The problem is clutter: there are like 70 units, and many of them have separate transfers as it is. You want to add even more entries? Madness.

On top of that, we already had to thread a camel through the eye of a needle in order to get the current (T) units ranked using the same logic as the normal ones, coming up with an absurd construct where (T) units exist in a void. So, I'd just assume make a new list where multiple transfers are assumed (aka, no Normals), and thereby solve two problems at once.

[dondon151]

I don't see what is odd about the MistxTitania support, since it's an 01 support that builds like whoa, and gives Titania concrete benefits (and Mist doesn't care who she supports). Not only that, but Mist moves at a 7, which is not exactly wheelchair-bound, can be moved by every playable character with Shove, and generally does not get put in silly positions because of Player Phase attacks (has Physic freedom).

7 move means that Mist will be out of Titania's range on turn 2 assuming they're running a horse race. In the real world, however, Titania probably gets priority on a forward starting position, while Mist is relegated to the back. This means that Mist is out of Titania's range starting turn 1. Furthermore, you don't have to be conservative about Titania's movement because you can have her charge into enemy territory without risk of death. Mist? Didn't think so.

I mean, if some useful non-ATK unit was chomping at the bit to get Titania's Light affinity, that's one thing, but that person doesn't exist.

Hey, I didn't say that Titania should be supporting someone else. I said that Titania, if supporting Mist, doesn't have that support in play very often.

Goes without saying? You did not even begin to address my point. Mia kills Generals for free, and Ike can pop somewhere in the neighborhood of ten Generals with Brave before he reverts to merely beating them within an inch of their lives with high-40's freaking mt from Ragnell. Never mind that Hammerne exists to extend both the effective life of Hammers and the Brave Sword, if needed.

Mia kills generals only pending Adept or crit procs. In 3-8, Mia needs max str and A Ike in order to 3HKO the weaker 25 def generals with a 14 MT Steel Sword forge, so it's safe to assume that she 4HKOs. She needs 2 Adept procs or a crit proc. Assuming that Mia is a neutral biorhythm, has maxed skl and spd, and has a 15 crit forge (40 crit against 17 cev), the math is:

2 Adepts: .30 * .30 = .09

1 Adept, 1 crit: 2 * (.70 * .30) * (1 - .77^3) = .228

0 Adepts, 1 crit: .70 * .70 * (1 - .77^2) = .199

Add them up, and Mia only ORKOs generals 51.7% of the time.

Also, Ike does not get 10 free general kills. Zihark will use up probably 12 uses of Brave Sword in part 1 going for efficient clears, which leaves Ike with 7 general kills. There are twice that amount of generals in 3-8 alone, not even counting Septimus or the reinforcements.

WRT Hammerne on Hammer, you can probably use them on something like Rescue and get obscenely low turncounts on 4-E. I have not had the opportunity to experiment with this yet.

Your own experience is evidence enough of that. You're scraping Hammer uses together, it's true. But now consider that everyone else in the world is going to have less trouble than that, since they don't have self-inflicted limiters on their offense.

My experience is evidence enough of nothing other than the direct implications of my playthrough. Essentially:

- Titania needs a promotion to OHKO 3-8 and 3-10 generals without a +atk support

- Haar needs 28 str to OHKO 3-8 and 3-10 generals without a +atk support

- Hammers are in low supply

- Generals exist in every non endgame part 4 chapter not 4-5, and in 4-E-1

Things that I don't know will work:

- Mia has a roughly 50/50 chance to ORKO generals in part 3

- Ike can get 7-8, not 10, general kills with the remnants of the Brave Sword

True, everyone else has less trouble with growths but Haar and Titania (and Ike) are still the only units who ORKO reliably. Additionally, while Mia gets a large boost to proc rates in part 4 due to getting 10 crit upon promo and Astra, Haar and Titania are still unreliably KOing without Hammer.

[RNG Princess]

which one permits more rng abuse random mode or fixed mode? I feel like replaying PoR just to transfer different characters.

BTW is that Callil & Largo combo transfer a fake or does it really work?

Edited August 16, 2010 by Queen_Elincia

[Interceptor]

Hey, I didn't say that Titania should be supporting someone else. I said that Titania, if supporting Mist, doesn't have that support in play very often.

Or in other words, you're wasting my time.

If you have no objection to Titania supporting Mist or Mist supporting Titania, it's academic to get the support to A-rank by 3-8, which is the specific chapter that I brought it up for. This bullshit about Mist and Titania chasing each other around a NASCAR racetrack obviously has no relevance in a chapter where Mist is probably riding Titania to begin with, so I'm just going to ignore everything else that you said.

Add them up, and Mia only ORKOs generals 51.7% of the time.

Which is 1) considerably better than the whocares% of the time that shitstains like Oscar can ORKO Generals, and 2) more than what you had available, which tends to reduce the Hammer uses needed over time. Is this point perfectly clear now?

Also, Ike does not get 10 free general kills. Zihark will use up probably 12 uses of Brave Sword in part 1 going for efficient clears, which leaves Ike with 7 general kills. There are twice that amount of generals in 3-8 alone, not even counting Septimus or the reinforcements.

Yes, thank you for adjusting my math, to show that Ike's General-killing prowess is merely saving you around ONE THIRD of a Hammer rather than about ONE HALF. The effect of this data on my overall point about a Ike with growths saving you Hammer uses, is roughly jack squat.

WRT Hammerne on Hammer, you can probably use them on something like Rescue and get obscenely low turncounts on 4-E. I have not had the opportunity to experiment with this yet.

You only need two uses to 1-turn 4-E-3 and 4-E-4 -- if even that much -- and the staff does not help you cut turns in 4-E-2 or 4-E-5. At best, you will use one Hammerne use on Rescue. Big deal. When you have the opportunity to do a one-turn clear of 4-E-1 that requires 5 uses of Rescue, let me know.

My experience is evidence enough of nothing other than the direct implications of my playthrough.

Why is it when I point this out, that you get a little huffy?

True, everyone else has less trouble with growths but Haar and Titania (and Ike) are still the only units who ORKO reliably. Additionally, while Mia gets a large boost to proc rates in part 4 due to getting 10 crit upon promo and Astra, Haar and Titania are still unreliably KOing without Hammer.

I don't understand why you are having such trouble seeing my essential point, here: having more non-Hammer options for killing Generals reduces the load on your Hammers. You, who have none of these options, are (potentially) having Hammer troubles. Everyone else can rely more on shit-stomping Ike and crit-queen Mia to reduce the load on this particular special weapon.

[Colonel M]

*Sigh*.

To be fair I only used up 3 uses of the Brave Sword in Part 1. At the very worst I could see the Sword missing 4-6 uses since Maurim is handling the south, Nailah is handling the west, and Volug, Nolan, and Zihark are comboing on the north with Micaiah supporting them. Then again I would rather just have Ike combo with a General and use the Brave Sword as a dire emergency.

[dondon151]

Or in other words, you're wasting my time.

If you have no objection to Titania supporting Mist or Mist supporting Titania, it's academic to get the support to A-rank by 3-8, which is the specific chapter that I brought it up for. This bullshit about Mist and Titania chasing each other around a NASCAR racetrack obviously has no relevance in a chapter where Mist is probably riding Titania to begin with, so I'm just going to ignore everything else that you said.

The last time I checked, you did not advocate Titania supporting Mist just so you can get +2 atk for 1 map. So the horse track analogy applies, perhaps not in 3-8, but in every other part 3 map - Titania is receiving the blessings of Mist's support for 1 turn at most. It only becomes more relevant when Mist gets a pony, but that usually doesn't happen until 4-4 unless you want to assign Paragon to her in 3-11 and 3-E.

Furthermore, the Mist support is pointless if you make your BEXP go the extra mile and promote Titania. I spent my BEXP reserves dry in 3-10 and started 3-11 with 25812 BEXP. I pretty much BEXP'd Titania to promotion in 3-8, but I also blew about 3 levels on Ranulf, who levels like a late tier 2 or early tier 3 unit. In 3-11 I blew about a level each on Ranulf, Sigrun, Janaff, Ulki, and Marcia. 3-E was 3 more levels for Ulki, Sigrun, and Oscar. All things considered, that's at least 11 levels' worth of BEXP that under normal circumstances, would have gone to other beorc units. You get massive clear bonuses in 3-13 and 3-E, such that you again have maybe at least 7 levels' worth of BEXP to hand out to beorc units (including the DB).

Regardless, the original argument was that Titania was a waste of a Master Crown. I have to change my stance on this and concur that it's true. You have 5 Master Crowns; 1 of them is best on Haar (3-3); the other 4 are probably best reserved for your more dominant, lower leveled units (Nolan, Jill, Neph, Mia) while Titania and Shinon have a high enough base level that they can promote naturally.

Which is 1) considerably better than the whocares% of the time that shitstains like Oscar can ORKO Generals, and 2) more than what you had available, which tends to reduce the Hammer uses needed over time. Is this point perfectly clear now?

Mia ORKOing more often than Oscar is irrelevant. I never insinuated anything about Oscar being able to ORKO generals in the first place. As for saving Hammer uses, the overall effect is minimal (as I will describe below). Mia doesn't have canto. If she stops to ORKO a general, she can't move on. Additionally, if she fails to ORKO a general 48.3% of the time, either the shitstains like Oscar pick it off or she has to finish it off and get left in the dust.

Lastly, I question even assuming the current KO rates for Mia in 3-8 and beyond. Janaff and Energy Drop Ulki have 40 atk, 3HKOing the toughest generals in 3-8 on the dot. They have 34% and 36% Adept activation at neutral bio, respectively, for 56.4% and 59.0% chances at ORKOing, respectively. The icing on the cake is that they have 9 move, flying and canto, while Mia has none of that, AND they have +2 move on Titania and Haar in 3-8. Their gauge is not a problem if Reyson vigors them every turn - on the first opportunity, they eliminate ranged threats, and on the second opportunity, they run forward and use Olivi Grass. This is not even inefficient when you consider that Titania and Haar only need to keep up and occupy the other 2 vigor slots.

Yes, thank you for adjusting my math, to show that Ike's General-killing prowess is merely saving you around ONE THIRD of a Hammer rather than about ONE HALF. The effect of this data on my overall point about a Ike with growths saving you Hammer uses, is roughly jack squat.

I don't understand why you are having such trouble seeing my essential point, here: having more non-Hammer options for killing Generals reduces the load on your Hammers. You, who have none of these options, are (potentially) having Hammer troubles. Everyone else can rely more on shit-stomping Ike and crit-queen Mia to reduce the load on this particular special weapon.

To be honest, it is not really saving you any Hammer uses at all. Titania and Haar cannot be everywhere at once. Generals that they can never get in the first place fall to Ike's Brave Sword, Mia's crits, Ulki and Janaff's Adepts, etc. In the same vein, Titania can't be everywhere at once in 4-1 or 4-4, for example. Especially in 4-4, Titania is confined to the generals on the ground floor, while Mia has free rein to do whatever she wants to the generals on the upper floors. This is not saving Hammer uses at all.

You only need two uses to 1-turn 4-E-3 and 4-E-4 -- if even that much -- and the staff does not help you cut turns in 4-E-2 or 4-E-5. At best, you will use one Hammerne use on Rescue. Big deal. When you have the opportunity to do a one-turn clear of 4-E-1 that requires 5 uses of Rescue, let me know.

I think that 2 or 3 turns is doable on 4-E-1 with some well placed Rescues. Also, what about the other part 4 maps? 4-5 in particular, I'm certain that you can 1 turn with Rescue. You can definitely shave off turns on any of the other part 4 maps with some well placed Rescues as well.

Why is it when I point this out, that you get a little huffy?

I'm not being "huffy." I am merely stating the results of my playthrough and how the playstyle is applicable to changes in the tier list. The verdict: mounts rule, canto rules, infantry get the short end of the stick. Note that the only occasions where Ike got to rape face (outside of 3-P and 3-1) were 3-4 and 3-E, and that was only because Haar dropped him in a good location. Among other things, I noticed that Titania (and by extension, growths Haar) OHKOing generals with Hammer and ORKOing everything else (with growths) except for SMs made Mia's part 3 role relatively trivial. And by extension, saving up those Hammer uses is important, because Rescue likely has greater capacity in shaving turns and Titania and Haar pretty much can't keep up their dominance against generals otherwise.

Edited August 17, 2010 by dondon151

[incognit0]

Do you even have to use the hammer to ORKO generals in 3-8? A promoted Titania with an A Mist support and a 16 mt steel axe forge has 47 mt, enough to cleanly ORKO all the generals.

[Naglfar]

Just as a note, I still wonder how the hell people manage to screw up the whole transfer unit thing. You (Naglfar) aren't the first, and I'm sure you won't be the last. But how blind do you have to be to not notice the (T) sitting there telling you what stats he has boosted? Or to notice the little "Soren" sitting at the bottom of middle tier.

Hahaha. You'll be surprised. Especially with my recent fail streak. Fuck, let me try that again.

Okay, so Soren(T). You can actually get some mileage out of this guy. He caps speed at --/14, which isn't too hard to get to without making the 3-7 crown wait. He's already been doubling things here and there, and with the crown he can actually ORKO stuff. BEXP is an option if you can spare it.

Despite this, he'll probably be stuck killing just one enemy per turn because he's 2RKO'd. He can ORKO about half of P3's generals, but he's missing stuff like halbs. With a forge, he can kill the generals he misses. So we have a largely player phase-only unit with mostly reliable offence. So, is this worth a crown? Maybe. Shinon might want it for Deadeye and 2-3 range once a few of his stats cap. Boyd might want it if he wants to double as soon as possible. Friggin' Oscar might want it for 25 speed. Mia might like it for the huge promotion bonuses she gets, and Gatrie already got one. Soren(T) has a hell of a lot of competition, and that competition isn't locked to player phase attacking and Heal staves when you already have two healers.

Without a crown, Soren(T) is raped by his caps and likely won't be up to par when he finally does promote. Oh, and then P4 comes around and his speed is borderline again before quickly falling to shit. Or it's P4 before he promotes. Using a crown to make the most of his potential is nice, but is it really worth it when other units simply have more potential than Soren(T) does?

Now I come to Rhys. Rhys cares about none of this. He doesn't want a crown, he doesn't want BEXP, he doesn't want stat boosters. He's a healer. Rhys will never ORKO anything, but that doesn't matter because he's healing all the time. The GMs have more deployment slots than you need, so he and Mist are always there. This tends to cancel out Arch Sage!Soren's healing utility, because rarely are you going to think "oh dear, I have three or more units who need to be healed". Enemies don't spread out their attacks like that. Furthermore, you're not being attacked from multiple fronts very often in FE10. Not often will a third healer be necessary, especially when healing items exist anyway. It's not every turn you'll even need two healers. Besides, Soren(T) would much rather be attacking. And "I need one more X" is what Reyson's for!

There are no negatives to Rhys. He just heals and isn't a burden to anybody else, and he's bloody good at it. Healing including Physic enables your party more than a short period of good offence. When Soren(T) is demoted to healbot, Rhys is a better healbot. You don't fiddle with resources and arguably compromise efficiency to make Rhys good. You just use him.

[grandjackal]

Just a tidbit of a nitpick here.

Mia as she grows is just fine offensively partly in thanks due to her affinity. Now granted she's not Janaff and Ulki crazy, but just like Ti and Haar they can't be everywhere at once. Mia's contributions are not bad at this point, just null since she's no longer doing "heavy lifting" (since Haar, Ti, Janaff and Ulki are generally ahead of her).

It's sort of like how Boyd ws early on in part 3. You obviously had better fighters who got ahead, but if you had the extra slots, might as well field him so he can help smack things around your main army wasn't otherwise doing themselves.

[dondon151]

Do you even have to use the hammer to ORKO generals in 3-8? A promoted Titania with an A Mist support and a 16 mt steel axe forge has 47 mt, enough to cleanly ORKO all the generals.

You are introducing a second condition, which is a lot harder to fulfill than just one. Giving Titania Pocket Mist entails her giving up her first player phase and Mist giving up all of her subsequent heals after that. This leaves you with just Rhys on healing duty. You lose at least 5, probably 6, opportunities at giving Mist free EXP. Lastly, Titania isn't obscenely durable on the concrete end, and their support doesn't give any avo at all, so expect her to take quite a few hits and to have Rhys direct Physics at her that you might not want to use. They are minor, but nonetheless existing, inconveniences.

Also, Hammer allows Titania to not take a counter. I guess you do have a valid point, though - Titania also ORKOs everything else with a Steel Axe forge (without Mist support), but she probably wants a Hand Axe forge more so that she can ORKO non generals from 2 range (the toughest 40 HP, 22 def halbs are 2HKO'd by supportless Titania).

Edited August 17, 2010 by dondon151

[Anouleth]

Shinon might want it for Deadeye and 2-3 range once a few of his stats cap.

Character X wants it for skill Y. Flare is generally much better than Deadeye since it heals as well as kills. Shinon would rather remain in Tier 2 to work on his strength.

Boyd might want it if he wants to double as soon as possible.

See, there is no easy solution to Boyd's speed. After all, it's worse than Soren's, except that he can't even BEXP it. Let's say that we got Soren to cap speed at level 11 with BEXP. Boyd is probably at level 13 or something, so even with a Crown, he only has 22AS (doubles even less than Soren). He would need a Wing AND a Crown to even think about doubling, and he'd permenantly screw over his speed for Part 4.

Friggin' Oscar might want it for 25 speed.

26 speed. However, Oscar has a fairly advanced level already and probably wants to BEXP his STR/DEF. I can see him getting a Crown over Soren, but mainly because of 9 move.

Mia might like it for the huge promotion bonuses she gets,

Soren is also getting huge promotion bonuses. 2AS is not to be sneezed at when it's the difference between doubling many enemies, and neither is more magic when it allows him to ORKO generals more cleanly. If Mia doesn't get the Crown, boo hoo, she stays in Tier 2 and works on her strength and defense some more. If Soren doesn't get the Crown, he's stuck with 23AS until the end of eternity. I see far bigger dividends coming out of Crowned Soren than out of Crowned Mia.

and Gatrie already got one.

Gatrie is no longer assumed to get a Master Crown, since he has even bigger movement issues than Soren and Haar can make good use of the 3-3 Crown. So he could very well be competing with Soren for the 3-6 Crown.

Soren(T) has a hell of a lot of competition, and that competition isn't locked to player phase attacking and Heal staves when you already have two healers.

Well, since you brought up Shinon, who is locked to player phase attacking, that's not strictly true.

[Fenrir]

hmm, looks like not much has happened...aran still in upper mid(is boyd keeping him there?) eddy in lower mid(whats keeping him here?) and of course rhys and mist are still pretty far apart, id vote mist down but, im okay with either option. basically...i dont understand what the arguement is over now =/ are we still looking at dondon's stuff?

also, i saw something about boyd and his speed woes, I'd like to give my two cents. Boyd is used for chip damage until around 3-7 or 3-8, now we start feeding him kills(or bexp if you really want) and then on 3-10 he takes a wing, I don't really see who's a better person for this seeing as Ike should be fine if slowplayed, and titan and haar have taken theirs. Basically, Boyd is like a reinforcement unit, he'll do fine chipping in P3, but later on when he can eat a wing he's gonna make heads a rollin.

[Interceptor]

dondon, I hereby award your latest series of posts a score of seven Vykans out of ten. I haven't had someone infer so many things that I wasn't implying, or go off on this many tangents, since approximately 2008. It brings back memories of once hitting my forehead on the surface of a desk. Except replace "once" with "repeatedly".

The last time I checked, you did not advocate Titania supporting Mist just so you can get +2 atk for 1 map.

There is only one map in question, so this point isn't even relevant. Allow me to sum up the arc of conversation:

Pope: Titania is a candidate for the 3-6 crown.

Int: Titania is garbage for the crown, except for weird situations. With an A-rank Mist support and capped STR in tier 2, she ORKO/OHKOs whatever she needs to in 3-8.

Pope: What if she doesn't have that support? I find it odd to assume.

Int: If she doesn't have it, she doesn't OHKO Generals, she just ORKOs them. Nothing wrong with TitaniaxMist, it builds quickly and their supports are not in demand.

Unless you have some reason that we shouldn't be supporting these two units, such as someone who wants Titania's Light (rofl?) or Mist's Water (kirsche, step away from the keyboard, I don't want to hear about the Spirit Dust), there should be no problem. The fact that they are apart for some portion of the time doesn't matter much, mostly because 1) the boosts are not super-crucial early on, 2) low opportunity cost for the support, and 3) Shove and Physic mitigate the geography problems somewhat.

Furthermore, the Mist support is pointless if you make your BEXP go the extra mile and promote Titania.

This would be a really awesome point to make if BEXP was free, or if we were struggling to find uses for it. I am not going to take a $100 bill and use it to light a Cuban cigar, just to make it go the "extra mile", since I already have plenty of things to do with money that aren't stupid.

Regardless, the original argument was that Titania was a waste of a Master Crown. I have to change my stance on this and concur that it's true.

Good. I think it's time to enroll this conversation in STF University.

blah blah Mia

The point about Mia was simple: she will occasionally make it unnecessary to use a Hammer use to kill a General. This isn't something that can really be disputed, no matter how valiant the effort. She crits, General dies, moving on. The same applies to Ike and his Brave Sword. Note also that if Mia fails to ORKO a General on Player Phase, it will die during Enemy Phase.

Now, if you were playing a run where nobody grew any stats, Ike and Mia both lose the ability to do this, and Hammers become more important/precious, but that doesn't actually happen often on this list.

Ulki/Janaff

What the fuck?

I think that 2 or 3 turns is doable on 4-E-1 with some well placed Rescues. Also, what about the other part 4 maps? 4-5 in particular, I'm certain that you can 1 turn with Rescue. You can definitely shave off turns on any of the other part 4 maps with some well placed Rescues as well.

What ABOUT the other Part 4 maps? You specifically said Endgame. I'm OK with people revising a hastily-contrived argument, but can you do me a favor and stop moving the goalposts every 5 minutes? I'll still be here whenever your banana nut bread finishes baking, I promise.

I'm not being "huffy."

Of course not.

And by extension, saving up those Hammer uses is important, because Rescue likely has greater capacity in shaving turns and Titania and Haar pretty much can't keep up their dominance against generals otherwise.

Titania and Haar don't really face a whole shitload of Generals in Part 4. Haar doesn't want anything to do with the Greil Army, and Titania's performance is gated by problems that aren't Generals. It remains to be seen what is going to roll out in 4-E-1, but Hammerne has 3 charges, you know. Even if we burn two on Rescue (7+ uses? Seriously? Seems dubious to me), and our army is so retardedly underpowered that Generals are completely confounding us, there's still a charge left for Hammertime.

You are introducing a second condition, which is a lot harder to fulfill than just one. [...] she probably wants a Hand Axe forge more so that she can ORKO non generals from 2 range (the toughest 40 HP, 22 def halbs are 2HKO'd by supportless Titania).

Yes, Titania wants a Hand Axe forge. Also, in case you forgot, Titania only has 7MV in 3-8, which means Mist has no trouble keeping up with her at all, should you choose to forgo Rescue for a Player Phase kill or five. This is the wonderful flexibility of a healer with Physic access that can stand almost anywhere that she wants (including lava).

Thank you, and good day.

[dondon151]

dondon, I hereby award your latest series of posts a score of seven Vykans out of ten. I haven't had someone infer so many things that I wasn't implying, or go off on this many tangents, since approximately 2008. It brings back memories of once hitting my forehead on the surface of a desk. Except replace "once" with "repeatedly".

Int, we're not in a highly structured debate with our own rules that we can't bring up points not directly relating to certain characters or that we must limit ourselves to one map. Every point that I brought up relates to Titania in a way; hardly any of them can be accurately described as going on a tangent.

The fact that they are apart for some portion of the time doesn't matter much, mostly because 1) the boosts are not super-crucial early on, 2) low opportunity cost for the support, and 3) Shove and Physic mitigate the geography problems somewhat.

I don't have problems with 1 and 2, but 3 is a stretch. Why is the player shoving Mist when the objective (for 3-8 and 3-10) is to rout enemies and thus they would probably get better mileage out of shoving Mia or Ike? Why is Mist a better recipient of Physic than Rhys when Mist only have ~7 staff range and falls behind very quickly? This is compounded by the fact that it is optimal for Reyson to vigor Titania (among other units), and she'll advance farther (with canto, no less) and leave Mist behind in the dust. Titania having 7 move is not incredibly damaging to my argument of Titania far outpacing Mist because there are numerous factors that contribute to highlighting the movement disparity. I think I've brought them all up at some point - Titania has the benefit of being doritos for the forward most deployment tiles, has canto to always use max move, is doritos for vigor, and either ties or wins move by 2.

This would be a really awesome point to make if BEXP was free, or if we were struggling to find uses for it. I am not going to take a $100 bill and use it to light a Cuban cigar, just to make it go the "extra mile", since I already have plenty of things to do with money that aren't stupid.

It's your word against mine. You once proved that the GMs are not poor; I guess it's up to someone like Colonel M now to show that BEXP is relatively scarce or abundant for my purposes.

The point about Mia was simple: she will occasionally make it unnecessary to use a Hammer use to kill a General. This isn't something that can really be disputed, no matter how valiant the effort. She crits, General dies, moving on. The same applies to Ike and his Brave Sword. Note also that if Mia fails to ORKO a General on Player Phase, it will die during Enemy Phase.

Now, if you were playing a run where nobody grew any stats, Ike and Mia both lose the ability to do this, and Hammers become more important/precious, but that doesn't actually happen often on this list.

I don't think you understood my point. First, Mia has the same movement issues as Mist, except she's not relegated to a backline starting tile. Second, Haar and Titania can only cover 2 parts of the map. Mia ORKOing generals in a third part of a map doesn't help you save Hammer uses because neither Titania nor Haar were going to KO that general in the first place. This has absolutely nothing to do with "what if Mia were actually good."

What ABOUT the other Part 4 maps? You specifically said Endgame. I'm OK with people revising a hastily-contrived argument, but can you do me a favor and stop moving the goalposts every 5 minutes? I'll still be here whenever your banana nut bread finishes baking, I promise.

Well, how else would I say, "oh, I forgot to include certain parts of my argument that I didn't think of before?" I apologize if I sounded accusatory, but that's how I type.

Titania and Haar don't really face a whole shitload of Generals in Part 4. Haar doesn't want anything to do with the Greil Army, and Titania's performance is gated by problems that aren't Generals.

The entire RHS of 4-1 consists of generals and a random halberdier reinforcement. I count 14 generals in 4-4 (not all of whom Titania has access to). Haar doesn't really care about generals in his part 4 maps because there are so few of them in 4-P and 4-3.

It remains to be seen what is going to roll out in 4-E-1, but Hammerne has 3 charges, you know. Even if we burn two on Rescue (7+ uses? Seriously? Seems dubious to me), and our army is so retardedly underpowered that Generals are completely confounding us, there's still a charge left for Hammertime.

Like I said, I can't comment on the utility of Rescue in part 4 without having tried it out myself, but if you can have a full 9 uses to shave off turns, why would you want to Hammerne a Hammer when you can be conservative with them and go for straight OHKOs instead of 2HKOs up to 4-1? I had 23 uses left of Hammers after 3-E, with 1 or 2 uses being inadvertently wasted because I forgot to trade it off.

After revising my numbers, I've found that Haar with max str can 2HKO all generals in 4-E-1 with Urvan. Which means that the only units who need Hammers are Titania and Jill, and you might as well replace one of them with a laguz royal if you're aiming to ORKO from 1 range.

Edited August 17, 2010 by dondon151

[Anouleth]

I recall there being quite a few Generals in 4-3, near the end of the map around the Bishops, and there are one or two in 4-1. Still, Haar can likely ORKO them naturally, as can Skrimir w/Speedwing.

[Interceptor]

Int, we're not in a highly structured debate with our own rules that we can't bring up points not directly relating to certain characters or that we must limit ourselves to one map. Every point that I brought up relates to Titania in a way; hardly any of them can be accurately described as going on a tangent.

The subject is specifically the 3-6 crown as it relates to Titania. If you don't believe me, re-read the original post that I made about it, the post that you replied to. Everything else here is either you 1) inferring things that I am not implying, or 2) flying off to Candyland. If I want to have a meandering conversation, where not even Ashera knows where it will go next, I will start a fight with Grandjackal about Eddie. In this case, I had a specific point to make, and that's the end of the adventure.

I don't have problems with 1 and 2, but 3 is a stretch.

No it isn't. I qualified #3, and you clearly just ignored that part. Shove and Physic are not a panacea, but they do mitigate the problems somewhat. Savior + Rescue is another. Pick your poison. If you manage to succeed somehow, against the overwhelming odds that is trying to keep from blowing your foot off with a shotgun, you've just maintained excellent offense on Titania while keeping BEXP and a Master Crown for someone else.

It's your word against mine. You once proved that the GMs are not poor; I guess it's up to someone like Colonel M now to show that BEXP is relatively scarce or abundant for my purposes.

This is a false equivalence. Your 0% growth run has an incentive to get people to promotion/mastery as quickly as possible, and throws out all of the other advantages of BEXP use in a real playthrough. There is no prospect of an excellent Mia, Nephenee, high-SPD Ike, etc, so there's hardly any reason for you to not plow it into laguz or people close to third tier. A 26STR/25SPD tier 2 Titania with good durability is foreign to your experiences, because you're not hitting her with stat boosters and abusing BEXP'ed level-ups like you would ordinarily.

I don't think you understood my point.

I'd like to state for the record that I rejected your point, rather than misunderstanding it.

First, Mia has the same movement issues as Mist, except she's not relegated to a backline starting tile. Second, Haar and Titania can only cover 2 parts of the map. Mia ORKOing generals in a third part of a map doesn't help you save Hammer uses because neither Titania nor Haar were going to KO that general in the first place. This has absolutely nothing to do with "what if Mia were actually good."

Everyone starts in approximately the same area of the map, and fans out from there. This is important, there is a lot of overlap in the upper left corner in terms of kills. Since I don't have to rely on Hammers for the majority of my offense, seeing as I have perfectly capable back-up options for the job, the urgency to take guaranteed ORKOs on my most forward units is lessened. I can save my limited-use Hammers for when they are actually decisive, since I'm not limited to a small handful of people who can even deal with the Generals in the first place.

The entire RHS of 4-1 are generals and a random halberdier reinforcement. I count 14 generals in 4-4 (not all of whom Titania has access to). Haar doesn't really care about generals in his part 4 maps because there are so few of them in 4-P and 4-3.

More fun facts about the 4-1 RHS: Nailah starts over there, ORKOs every General forever, and most of them don't have 2-range. Titania Hammertime? Negative.

As for the Generals in 4-4, do that chapter for yourself and get back to me on it. Titania is basically locked on the bottom floor unless you use Rescue on her, and her problems down there have nothing to do with Generals. Instead, her issues are lack of mt on non-effective targets, AS problems, and 1-2 range shenanigans.

[dondon151]

The subject is specifically the 3-6 crown as it relates to Titania. If you don't believe me, re-read the original post that I made about it, the post that you replied to. Everything else here is either you 1) inferring things that I am not implying, or 2) flying off to Candyland. If I want to have a meandering conversation, where not even Ashera knows where it will go next, I will start a fight with Grandjackal about Eddie. In this case, I had a specific point to make, and that's the end of the adventure.

I am well aware of this fact, and you are well aware that I conceded that the 3-6 Master Crown is better used on other units who don't have Titania's high base level. One side point of your argument was that Titania didn't need to be promoted by 3-8 because she got a free Mist support to OHKO generals (and, by extension, 2HKO halbs). My rebuttal to this argument was that the Mist support is irrelevant if the player BEXPs Titania to promotion by 3-8 and that the Mist support is rarely in play otherwise. You can see now how the argument has shifted; I see no need to throw your hands up in frustration just because this is "off topic," as it's an important issue in itself.

Actually, wait. No, it's not. Whatever way you swing it, Titania is ORKOing non generals in 3-8 and is OHKOing generals. You conserve Hammer uses and you're happy in 4-E. Now I believe that after that we were arguing on whether a 0% growths run accurately reflects efficient Hammer usage and arguing about whether we should be cautious in conserving it.

No it isn't. I qualified #3, and you clearly just ignored that part. Shove and Physic are not a panacea, but they do mitigate the problems somewhat. Savior + Rescue is another. Pick your poison. If you manage to succeed somehow, against the overwhelming odds that is trying to keep from blowing your foot off with a shotgun, you've just maintained excellent offense on Titania while keeping BEXP and a Master Crown for someone else.

I do believe that the entire remainder of the paragraph containing the sentence that you quoted qualified my arguments against #3.

This is a false equivalence. Your 0% growth run has an incentive to get people to promotion/mastery as quickly as possible, and throws out all of the other advantages of BEXP use in a real playthrough. There is no prospect of an excellent Mia, Nephenee, high-SPD Ike, etc, so there's hardly any reason for you to not plow it into laguz or people close to third tier. A 26STR/25SPD tier 2 Titania with good durability is foreign to your experiences, because you're not hitting her with stat boosters and abusing BEXP'ed level-ups like you would ordinarily.

I already anticipated and addressed this in a previous post. I spent 3 levels of BEXP on Ranulf, then 8 levels of varying values of BEXP on other characters ranging from Marcia to Janaff. At the beginning of 4-P, I started out with enough BEXP for 9 more levels for high tier 2 units. Reallocating all of this BEXP should be more than sufficient to tinker with the prospects of excellent beorc units. However, since I can't say anything definite about how this reallocation could pan out, and since you took your time on part 3 chapters to slowplay up your units, we'll just have to wait for CM to provide a more accurate analysis, since he's adhering closely to my turncount but is also using "conventional" characters.

I'd like to state for the record that I rejected your point, rather than misunderstanding it.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Everyone starts in approximately the same area of the map, and fans out from there. This is important, there is a lot of overlap in the upper left corner in terms of kills.

This is bull, and you know it. The starting positions of units are of paramount significance and have the greatest impact on how the rest of the chapter plays out. You can't change the movement range of characters (short of using Celerity, and Reyson will probably take a Laguz Stone turn 1), but you can change where they will be after turn 1. Degenerating the starting positions into "approximately the same area" falsely represents their importance.

Since I don't have to rely on Hammers for the majority of my offense, seeing as I have perfectly capable back-up options for the job, the urgency to take guaranteed ORKOs on my most forward units is lessened. I can save my limited-use Hammers for when they are actually decisive, since I'm not limited to a small handful of people who can even deal with the Generals in the first place.

KOing the proximate enemies with you high move units allows your less powerful or 7 move units (who start in further tiles) to utilize more of their movement so that they don't draw out weaker enemy phases. This is exactly what I did on 3-8, in fact - Titania and Ike combined for a KO on turn 1, Haar moved into enemy range, and Ike, Oscar, Shinon, and Mia picked off the stragglers. It also allowed Ulki and Janaff to move forward more than usual while remaining safe.

More fun facts about the 4-1 RHS: Nailah starts over there, ORKOs every General forever, and most of them don't have 2-range. Titania Hammertime? Negative.

As for the Generals in 4-4, do that chapter for yourself and get back to me on it. Titania is basically locked on the bottom floor unless you use Rescue on her, and her problems down there have nothing to do with Generals. Instead, her issues are lack of mt on non-effective targets, AS problems, and 1-2 range shenanigans.

Well, great. If you deem it fit for Titania to not have to use Hammer at all in part 4, then you can go wild with it in 4-E-1. You'll probably have 20 free uses (which is still only 10 enemies barring mastery procs).

[Interceptor]

I am well aware of this fact [...] My rebuttal to this argument was that the Mist support is irrelevant if the player BEXPs Titania to promotion by 3-8 and that the Mist support is rarely in play otherwise. You can see now how the argument has shifted; I see no need to throw your hands up in frustration just because this is "off topic," as it's an important issue in itself.

Mist support has nothing to do with it. That's a valid point, to the extent that it's meaningful at all (that one, in a moment). But Ulki and Janaff from nowhere, a total mis-fire on Oscar, Mia's proc rates beyond 3-8 (or at all).... that's something else entirely.

I do believe that the entire remainder of the paragraph containing the sentence that you quoted qualified my arguments against #3.

Department of Redundancy Department, since I already qualified it myself. Does "mitigate somewhat" sound to you like a full-throated defense of the Mist/Titania mobility gap?

I already anticipated and addressed this in a previous post. I spent 3 levels of BEXP on Ranulf, then 8 levels of varying values of BEXP on other characters ranging from Marcia to Janaff. At the beginning of 4-P, I started out with enough BEXP for 9 more levels for high tier 2 units. Reallocating all of this BEXP should be more than sufficient to tinker with the prospects of excellent beorc units. However, since I can't say anything definite about how this reallocation could pan out, and since you took your time on part 3 chapters to slowplay up your units, we'll just have to wait for CM to provide a more accurate analysis, since he's adhering closely to my turncount but is also using "conventional" characters.

Even after you take care of the BEXP needs of excellent beorcs, you STILL have options that are better than BEXP'ing Titania to tier 3 early. How much clearer do I need to make this point? The cost of a MistxTitania support is tiny, and it basically eliminates the need for an early promotion. I'd have to be reduced to Lyre being my best BEXP recipient before I started second-guessing the support pairing, because you know, I really want that Spirit Dust for Tormod.

Also, I did not take my time in Part 3. What I did was play efficiently, without attempting to low-turn. There was no abuse, I went directly for map objectives, Chapter 3-2 and 3-5 weren't Routed, etc. If a unit happened to land at a good spot for a BEXP'ed level, that was nice, but if they didn't, I would just eat the cost.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Nobody said that they were. I suggested that I both understood and rejected your argument. Did I really just waste keystrokes on this paragraph?

This is bull, and you know it.

Negative. You are not catching what I am throwing.

Titania and Haar are nowhere near the bottom right portion of the map, they have to get there the hard way. They (or the hawks, or whomever) are my front line, and seeing as how this is a Rout map, in all likelihood they are also the cornerstone of a quick clear. But forgotten amongst the sands of time, are my non-Cantoing 7MV footsoldiers, Ranulf, etc, aka a clean-up crew. I don't care that someone is flying past a perfectly good General, or that they don't ORKO some intermediate d-bag, because I have plenty of firepower that's going to get here Next Turn. This is why Pocket Mist is kind of cool, since it eliminates the need to even protect her at all (not that it's impossible).

You describe part of this yourself, but I guess in your haste to correct me and/or argue about something, did not complete the connection.

Well, great. If you deem it fit for Titania to not have to use Hammer at all in part 4, then you can go wild with it in 4-E-1. You'll probably have 20 free uses (which is still only 10 enemies barring mastery procs).

I didn't say that she doesn't use the Hammer at all, I said that Generals are not her major malfunction. With Titania I have to deal with things like her being unable to ORKO a Warrior and counter a Sniper with the same weapon, and being unable to double Swordmasters, amongst other things. I don't have to have her take Nailah's job in 4-1 (Titania is excellent in the west, especially with a nice MIST SUPPORT), or Ike and Mia's job in 4-4, so that means I don't have to save a bunch of Hammer uses for her.

[dondon151]

Mist support has nothing to do with it. That's a valid point, to the extent that it's meaningful at all (that one, in a moment). But Ulki and Janaff from nowhere, a total mis-fire on Oscar, Mia's proc rates beyond 3-8 (or at all).... that's something else entirely.

I do believe that one of your tangents was that Mia was some sort of general killer, which entailed me showing that Mia is not a general killer, almost half the time. Don't act like these tangents are entirely my fault; they were the ultimate result of our mutual attempts to stamp out falsehoods and misinformation.

Department of Redundancy Department, since I already qualified it myself. Does "mitigate somewhat" sound to you like a full-throated defense of the Mist/Titania mobility gap?

Your argument is not immune from being refuted even if you pepper vague qualifying words such as "mitigate." It's not even like I attempted to entirely refute your point because I said that #3 was a "stretch" and not along the lines of "entirely impossible."

Even after you take care of the BEXP needs of excellent beorcs, you STILL have options that are better than BEXP'ing Titania to tier 3 early. How much clearer do I need to make this point? The cost of a MistxTitania support is tiny, and it basically eliminates the need for an early promotion. I'd have to be reduced to Lyre being my best BEXP recipient before I started second-guessing the support pairing, because you know, I really want that Spirit Dust for Tormod.

I am a little confused by your interpretation of "early." You said somewhere that Titania reaches promotion around 3-10. That's just 1 map later than 3-8. Under these circumstances, Titania is only diverting away 1 level's worth of BEXP for an earlier promotion. You can give her Lombroso's bosskill and get her to --/20/1 even faster than I did with less BEXP investment.

What are your other options for BEXP? You BEXP your beorc characters after they cap ram certain stats. Neph can get BEXP starting at only --/12 for great benefit. Mia is --/14. Nolan is 20/10. Those levels are considerably lower than the levels that I BEXP'd for Satori Sign or promotion (--/19 for Sigrun, --/18 for Oscar, --/19 through --/--/3 for Ranulf). You also have opportunities (maybe 1 or 2 if we're going fast) to slowplay the beorc to conserve BEXP. The remaining options are to get Ulki and Janaff to 30 for Tear, and even when you account for that you still have a nice chunk of BEXP remaining.

Also, I did not take my time in Part 3. What I did was play efficiently, without attempting to low-turn. There was no abuse, I went directly for map objectives, Chapter 3-2 and 3-5 weren't Routed, etc. If a unit happened to land at a good spot for a BEXP'ed level, that was nice, but if they didn't, I would just eat the cost.

There is a fine line between "playing efficiently without attempting to low-turn" and "playing inefficiently without attempting to low-turn." I'm not exactly sure what vague definition of efficiency you were using, but you made, at least turn count wise, some glaringly inefficient decisions while trying to feed EXP to your 7 move beorcs. You took +3 turns on 3-3 to give Mia more kills. +1 turn on 3-5 to give Neph a bosskill. +2 turns on 3-6 to give EXP to Nolan and Jill (which I only took 9 turns on because Volug is useless for turns 1 and 2). I guess +2 turns on 3-13 was unavoidable, so I'll not consider that one, in addition to the +1 for 3-9 because no one cares, and for all intents and purposes I'll count my 3-2 as a 3 turn. That's still a 13 turn difference.

Also consider that I plainly just didn't bother feeding EXP to our normal growth units (outside of getting Mia to --/10). CM is taking a look at how making the most optimal turncounts affects the normal growth units.

Nobody said that they were. I suggested that I both understood and rejected your argument. Did I really just waste keystrokes on this paragraph?

I suggested that you rejected the argument because you misunderstood it.

[Interceptor]

I do believe that one of your tangents was that Mia was some sort of general killer, which entailed me showing that Mia is not a general killer, almost half the time. Don't act like these tangents are entirely my fault; they were the ultimate result of our mutual attempts to stamp out falsehoods and misinformation.

And again, you are wrong. My first post, which you apparently need to read more properly, laid out the case for Titania being a crappy candidate for a crown. Included in the reasoning was that 1) Mist support and capped STR puts Titania in ORKO/OHKO territory on lots of targets without a promo, and 2) even in the case where she doesn't reach OHKO on Generals, there's no need to be over-conservative with uses on Hammers, because of units like Ike (Brave Sword) and Mia (crits).

Mia was not a "tangent", she was one of the reasons given in the primary post as to why we don't have to Hammertime quite so many Generals. You took the ball and went off on a REAL tangent, first about irrelevant stats (~50% ORKO is significant to the argument), and then about the Hawks, of all the stupid things.

Your argument is not immune from being refuted even if you pepper vague qualifying words such as "mitigate." It's not even like I attempted to entirely refute your point because I said that #3 was a "stretch" and not along the lines of "entirely impossible."

Who said anything about immunity to a refutation? Reason #3 was a lesser point, but Shove/Physic are still worth mentioning for Mist, so knowing that, I attached a qualifier to it. Unsatisfied, you put on the Comic Book Guy hat, going into redundant detail while implying silly things about Mist's potential shovability (Mia needs to be shoved, why would we ever shove Mist?), and tossing in a random Rhys moment as a bonus prize (Rhys is better at Physic healing, never mind that Titania would rather not support him and Mist is still good enough).

I am a little confused by your interpretation of "early."

Then apply some critical thinking to my posts, then. Early promotion is a superfluous promotion, it's Titania having 29STR/27AS in a chapter where she's not using the extra stats for anything useful. There is not very much value in having Titania promoted in 3-8, and in fact you can have her promote partway through 3-10 as well, if needed. The chapters are Routs, Titania has excellent performance in both, CEXP is happening, might as well kill two birds with one stone.

What are your other options for BEXP?

Ike, Mia, Nephenee, Ranulf, Ulki, Janaff, Haar, and Shinon in Part 3 for starters, in addition to Titania herself of course. An argument could be made for others, situationally.

Keep in mind that you're not only spending BEXP on stat-capped levels, you're also opening up the option to BEXP to 99 in base, or even toss people un-capped BEXP levels in order to get them closer to their caps. I mean, what's the harm in BEXP'ing a -/12 Mia who only has SPD capped? She's probably going to get HP, SKL and STR, which is just fine for setting her up for future BEXP abuse. This is the same logic that has someone BEXP'ing Nephenee in Part 2, by the way, since you don't see the BEXP again until 3-9/3-11.

There is a fine line between "playing efficiently without attempting to low-turn" and "playing inefficiently without attempting to low-turn."

Yes, and to nobody's great surprise, naturally you've drawn the line right at your own performance. It's obvious from this:

I'm not exactly sure what vague definition of efficiency you were using, but you made, at least turn count wise, some glaringly inefficient decisions while trying to feed EXP to your 7 move beorcs. You took +3 turns on 3-3 to give Mia more kills. +1 turn on 3-5 to give Neph a bosskill. +2 turns on 3-6 to give EXP to Nolan and Jill (which I only took 9 turns on because Volug is useless for turns 1 and 2). I guess +2 turns on 3-13 was unavoidable, so I'll not consider that one, in addition to the +1 for 3-9 because no one cares, and for all intents and purposes I'll count my 3-2 as a 3 turn. That's still a 13 turn difference.

... that you see no essential difference between "efficiency" and "optimal turn counts". This is your prerogative, but it means that we probably don't have much to discuss, since you're not ever going to budge. I will, however, make these points:

- Turn counts are only numbers. In terms of efficiency, a strategy that barely Routs by Turn 5 is only a little more efficient than one that Routs on Turn 6 because it missed a single kill. Focusing on numbers to the exclusion of all else means missing the forest for the trees.

- When it comes to my putting of my finger on the scale for the 7MV growth units, out of an abundance of caution... you raise complaints about it at your own peril, since it kicks the legs out from under your own argument. If I were to streamline completions to the point where units take significant CEXP losses, I have to make it up with BEXP to maintain their performance for now and in the future. I don't need to finish this thought for you, do I?

I suggested that you rejected the argument because you misunderstood it.

Obviously. The point was that I didn't imply that they were mutually exclusive in the first place. If you suggest that someone is illiterate, they usually take offense.

Anything else?

[Naglfar]

Character X wants it for skill Y. Flare is generally much better than Deadeye since it heals as well as kills. Shinon would rather remain in Tier 2 to work on his strength.

See, there is no easy solution to Boyd's speed. After all, it's worse than Soren's, except that he can't even BEXP it. Let's say that we got Soren to cap speed at level 11 with BEXP. Boyd is probably at level 13 or something, so even with a Crown, he only has 22AS (doubles even less than Soren). He would need a Wing AND a Crown to even think about doubling, and he'd permenantly screw over his speed for Part 4.

26 speed. However, Oscar has a fairly advanced level already and probably wants to BEXP his STR/DEF. I can see him getting a Crown over Soren, but mainly because of 9 move.

Soren is also getting huge promotion bonuses. 2AS is not to be sneezed at when it's the difference between doubling many enemies, and neither is more magic when it allows him to ORKO generals more cleanly. If Mia doesn't get the Crown, boo hoo, she stays in Tier 2 and works on her strength and defense some more. If Soren doesn't get the Crown, he's stuck with 23AS until the end of eternity. I see far bigger dividends coming out of Crowned Soren than out of Crowned Mia.

Gatrie is no longer assumed to get a Master Crown, since he has even bigger movement issues than Soren and Haar can make good use of the 3-3 Crown. So he could very well be competing with Soren for the 3-6 Crown.

Well, since you brought up Shinon, who is locked to player phase attacking, that's not strictly true.

Alright then. I won't argue with much of that. So we have Haar, Gatrie, Soren, and maybe Oscar wanting a crown. The 3-3 crown is going to Haar, definitely. The 3-6 crown is a problem, Soren(T) could crown to break 25 speed, but so could the other two. On top of that, both are seeing more combat than him. Soren(T) can reliably ORKO generals, but the others have enemy phase, and potentially 2RKOing multiple enemies per turn is already at least as good at potentially ORKOing one enemy per turn. And it's not like they're 2RKOing everything, third tier units kill like fuck. Mastery skills are another minor point, especially Sol.

Soren(T) might want a bit of BEXP to help him cap speed by 3-7. But he's not the only one who wants it. Lots of people want BEXP, such as, like you said, Oscar to build up strength and defence. Even if Soren can get the BEXP he needs in time, wouldn't a pumped Oscar grow in priority for a crown for the same reason? Soren is competing for a lot, but doesn't quite have what it takes. I don't see him getting the 3-6 crown. He may still have to compete for the 3-11 crown, though whether or not his competition cares anymore is debatable. Gatrie or Oscar might have already promoted naturally, and lolCRKs. On the other hand, there's Tanith and Sigrun, and Sigrun especially likes a crown because she's forced for a while. Plus, with only two GM chapters until P4, it could be too late for crowning Soren(T) to be worth it.

Back to my main point. Soren(T) has to compete and complicate shit a lot, while being mediocre in return. Actively using Rhys does not eat BEXP or deprive other units of Master Crowns. Even if Soren(T) gets the 3-6 crown, he's disadvantaging other units. Having to fuck others over to reach your own potential is not a point in favour of a Mid tier unit.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Naglfar

[dondon151]

Mia was not a "tangent", she was one of the reasons given in the primary post as to why we don't have to Hammertime quite so many Generals. You took the ball and went off on a REAL tangent, first about irrelevant stats (~50% ORKO is significant to the argument), and then about the Hawks, of all the stupid things.

Do I have to trace out the sequence of tangent lines for you? Mia is a reason for why we can conserve a couple of Hammer uses on generals. 51% ORKO is a reason why she doesn't conserve many uses at all. Ulki and Janaff indirectly further reduce that ORKO ratio in order to supplement their own. I intend for every one of my points to have some relevant significance to the argument at hand; it is not my problem if another refuses to trace out the resulting cyclic quadrilateral.

Who said anything about immunity to a refutation? Reason #3 was a lesser point, but Shove/Physic are still worth mentioning for Mist, so knowing that, I attached a qualifier to it. Unsatisfied, you put on the Comic Book Guy hat, going into redundant detail while implying silly things about Mist's potential shovability (Mia needs to be shoved, why would we ever shove Mist?), and tossing in a random Rhys moment as a bonus prize (Rhys is better at Physic healing, never mind that Titania would rather not support him and Mist is still good enough).

I did not infer reason 3 to be a lesser point, because points 1 and 2 were never significant to begin with. Supports tend to suck at C and B, we all know that. I also never had a problem with building the support. My only argument against the support was what reason 3 was addressing. As for your qualifiers, much like your "Mia saves Hammer uses" qualifier, I proceeded to reason against it by using a number of proximate and distant reasons. Again, I do not randomly spew out logic unless I believe that it is relevant.

Then apply some critical thinking to my posts, then. Early promotion is a superfluous promotion, it's Titania having 29STR/27AS in a chapter where she's not using the extra stats for anything useful. There is not very much value in having Titania promoted in 3-8, and in fact you can have her promote partway through 3-10 as well, if needed. The chapters are Routs, Titania has excellent performance in both, CEXP is happening, might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Ike, Mia, Nephenee, Ranulf, Ulki, Janaff, Haar, and Shinon in Part 3 for starters, in addition to Titania herself of course. An argument could be made for others, situationally.

Keep in mind that you're not only spending BEXP on stat-capped levels, you're also opening up the option to BEXP to 99 in base, or even toss people un-capped BEXP levels in order to get them closer to their caps. I mean, what's the harm in BEXP'ing a -/12 Mia who only has SPD capped? She's probably going to get HP, SKL and STR, which is just fine for setting her up for future BEXP abuse. This is the same logic that has someone BEXP'ing Nephenee in Part 2, by the way, since you don't see the BEXP again until 3-9/3-11.

You're treating that 1 extra BEXP level for Titania as if it completely ruins part 4 prospects for your 7 move beorc. In reality, you're probably trading only slightly more than 1 level out of your other 7 move beorc. The only unit that it might potentially damage is Neph, who relies on getting BEXP'd to 99 in order to catch up, but I had 3 full levels of BEXP for Ranulf that likely yield close to 6 BEXP-to-99 levels for Neph before the CRKs replenish your BEXP supply in 3-11.

Also consider that promoting Titania earlier gives her a head start on reaching the necessary part 4 AS without a Speedwings. I got Titania to --/20/3 by the end of 3-E. She needs 6 more levels to reach 31 AS on average to double warriors in 4-4, which is probably doable with Paragon in 4-1.

... that you see no essential difference between "efficiency" and "optimal turn counts". This is your prerogative, but it means that we probably don't have much to discuss, since you're not ever going to budge. I will, however, make these points:

Why do I have to be the one that budges?

- Turn counts are only numbers. In terms of efficiency, a strategy that barely Routs by Turn 5 is only a little more efficient than one that Routs on Turn 6 because it missed a single kill. Focusing on numbers to the exclusion of all else means missing the forest for the trees.

Uh, how is this relevant? There are only 4 rout maps in part 3. We have little control over what we can do in 3-1. In 3-8, I got -1 turn relative to you (if you're implying that I "barely routed" the map, the margin was pretty comfortable). We got the same turncounts for 3-10 and 3-E, and I know that I routed those by a comfortable margin. Most of the maps that you stalled longer on were not even rout maps. 3-3 in particular is not a rout map and has a lot higher chance of success with growths because Gatrie can proc any of his defensive parameters to guarantee survivability after a drop instead of relying on a combination of Resolve avo tanking and concrete tanking (although you'll probably have Resolve on him anyway to double enemies when his HP is low). There's also 3-4, 3-5, and 3-11, all of which require no RNG manipulation other than, of course, the necessary attacks hitting, and even those are relatively few.

- When it comes to my putting of my finger on the scale for the 7MV growth units, out of an abundance of caution... you raise complaints about it at your own peril, since it kicks the legs out from under your own argument. If I were to streamline completions to the point where units take significant CEXP losses, I have to make it up with BEXP to maintain their performance for now and in the future. I don't need to finish this thought for you, do I?

This is exactly why CM's current playthrough is important. We don't know anything for sure until then, but my hunch is that the CEXP losses won't actually be that significant.

EDIT: OK, this is really odd. There are 2 separate arguments occurring simultaneously that aren't even close to being on the same page in terms of acceptable assumptions.

Edited August 18, 2010 by dondon151

[Anouleth]

Alright then. I won't argue with much of that. So we have Haar, Gatrie, Soren, and maybe Oscar wanting a crown. The 3-3 crown is going to Haar, definitely. The 3-6 crown is a problem, Soren(T) could crown to break 25 speed, but so could the other two. On top of that, both are seeing more combat than him. Soren(T) can reliably ORKO generals, but the others have enemy phase, and potentially 2RKOing multiple enemies per turn is already at least as good at potentially ORKOing one enemy per turn. And it's not like they're 2RKOing everything, third tier units kill like fuck. Mastery skills are another minor point, especially Sol.

Soren has fewer movement issues than Gatrie, so I hardly see why he'd engage in less combat. Soren's mastery skill buffs his weak durability. Over three rounds of combat, Soren has something like an 82% chance of proccing Flare and healing himself, and he can easily be put in 3HKOed territory with BEXP in tier 2, a Seraph Robe or a Dracoshield (which are less valuable stat boosters). Sol has 13% activation rate to Flare's 25%, and Gatrie should 2HKO anyway so Luna is just an especially flashy way of doing so.

Soren(T) might want a bit of BEXP to help him cap speed by 3-7. But he's not the only one who wants it. Lots of people want BEXP, such as, like you said, Oscar to build up strength and defence. Even if Soren can get the BEXP he needs in time, wouldn't a pumped Oscar grow in priority for a crown for the same reason? Soren is competing for a lot, but doesn't quite have what it takes. I don't see him getting the 3-6 crown. He may still have to compete for the 3-11 crown, though whether or not his competition cares anymore is debatable. Gatrie or Oscar might have already promoted naturally, and lolCRKs. On the other hand, there's Tanith and Sigrun, and Sigrun especially likes a crown because she's forced for a while. Plus, with only two GM chapters until P4, it could be too late for crowning Soren(T) to be worth it.

You can slowplay characters, and you should definitely do so for high levelled characters such as Oscar. And Soren is among the most effective recipients of BEXP, since he has a low base level, caps stats around level 8 instead of level 17, and the BEXP goes to Speed quite reliably since it's tied for his second highest growth. For Oscar, Strength is third and Defense is second, behind 50/55% growths.

And if we're going to BEXP Oscar once he reaches level 17, we might as well save ourselves the hassle and give the crown to someone who isn't two levels away from promotion. Gatrie has to endure 6 levels at his 23SPD cap, and Soren has to endure maybe 10.

lolTanith and Sigrun. There is no point in Crowning Tanith, since her 25 speed will not even double Part 4 Paladins. It is better to give her Paragon or something and let her kill stuff, so she can actually be useful in Part 4. Sigrun will double Part 4 Paladins, but her 19/1 strength is 21, which is really bad. Like, pre-promotion Mia beats her. And there is the problem that again, Sigrun is on the cusp of promotion anyway.

Back to my main point. Soren(T) has to compete and complicate shit a lot, while being mediocre in return. Actively using Rhys does not eat BEXP or deprive other units of Master Crowns. Even if Soren(T) gets the 3-6 crown, he's disadvantaging other units. Having to fuck others over to reach your own potential is not a point in favour of a Mid tier unit.

Every character fucks over other units. When Tauroneo kills the boss of 1-6-2, he disadvantages units that could have gained EXP in that chapter. When Rhys uses Physic, he disadvantages Mist because she wants to use it herself. When Haar, Gatrie or Soren use a Crown, they disadvantage each other. Such is the nature of RD. As happy I would be to divide a Master Crown into 4 equal slices and give them all one each so as not to hurt their feelings, sadly that's not possible. Nor do I want to dole out Crowns on the basis of tier position (in which case Gatrie would be behind Mia anyway).

[Soren37]

Titania 20/3 (With Hammer)

43 Atk (129 against Armours), 135 Hit, 26 AS 13% Sol

Titania 20/3 (With Steel Axe)

41 Atk, 150 Hit, 26 AS, 13% Sol

3-4 Generals

1x Axe General lvl 11 (Steel Poleax)

HP 40, Atk 37, AS 17, Hit 117, Avo 51, DEF 24, RES 15, Crit 10, Ddg 17

1x Lance General lvl 9 (Short Spear)

HP 39, Atk 31, AS 18, Hit 109, Avo 52, DEF 24, RES 14, Crit 9, Ddg 16

1x Axe General lvl 10 (Steel Poleax)

HP 39, Atk 37, AS 17, Hit 116, Avo 50, DEF 24, RES 14, Crit 10, Ddg 16

1x Lance General lvl 12 (Short Spear, Arrive square)

HP 41, Atk 32, AS 18, Hit 112, Avo 53, DEF 25, RES 5, Crit 10, Ddg 17

She'll deal 34 damage total to all of them, except for the Arrive Square guy, which she'll only deal 32 damage. If we give her a Steel Axe Forge, with +5 Mt, then she can cleanly ORKO all of them, which will preserve Hammer uses. And the link in Int's sig about the GM's funds shows that you do have the money to forge for her. It'll cost 1600 Gold, which you should you have enough.

After looking at Mia's stats if she were the same level as Titania, she'd have issues killing Generals unless she got a critical, Adept, or Astra, and even then, she'd need a Steel Blade to pull it off.

As far as I can tell, Titania is a better General killer, but she needs a Steel Axe Forge to pull it off and avoid eating through Hammer uses.

Ignore. Stupid post is stupid.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Soren37