OMG it's a tier list

[Narga_Rocks]

In 3-P and 3-1, Gatrie wins offence if he nabs Boyd's killer axe, otherwise they about tie. Gatrie doubles 4 guys in 2 entire chapters, so they are about even damagewise if Gatrie just takes a steel greatlance. He does a bit more in one hit on halbs, but she does more on the rest of the non-general enemies. She has crit, though, and some enemies (even a few warriors) are even 4HKOd or 3HKOd by the wo dao, so she has a good shot of instablicking even here. With the enemies she can pull out her wo dao taken into consideration, it cancels out the loss vs. Generals and she wins by a bit. When she 5 hits with the wo dao, though, she needs her steel sword. With this thing, she has ~9 crit or something so Gatrie is more likely to crit in one swing with the killer than Mia is in 2 swings. So if Gatrie nabs the killer axe from Boyd he wins. It means Titania and Boyd can't use it, though. Boyd has the possibility of bonds with Oscar and Rolf, so it might not be a good thing for Gatrie to take it.

Then there is all those annoying thickets in 3-P. Mia can go through those pretty good, and everyone that has shove (even Mist) can shove Mia. There are precisely 0 units that can shove Gatrie. He can be picked up and moved and dropped by Titania and Oscar, but that means neither did anything else that turn. Mia just takes one unit. Also, the horse units have issues with thickets. Gatrie's durability lead is mitigated by the number of enemies he can reasonably reach. In 3-1, Mia might have more str and 4 hit more things with the wo dao, but Gatrie is really good with the lower right house and can take on like 4 guys at once. I'd have to say Gatrie wins by a little here. All in all, they about tie 3-P and 3-1 simply because of those annoying thickets in 3-P and Boyd's higher skill and bonds.

So, Mia wins offence for 3-2 and 3-3. With a 70% proc rate with a critforge and adept vs. Gatrie and his 20 speed I think it's obvious. He wins defence, though, since Mia has only a C Ike right now. Gatrie's likely getting one level in 3-P and 3-1 combined, though his base level is only three higher than hers, so he might have a shot at 2 levels. With just one, he has a fair chance at 21 speed but not guaranteed. With it, he improves on all the 17 speed enemies, though a bunch of them are mages she stomps on anyway. A few paladins he can now defeat as well, but I think she still wins by a bit. Especially considering she is one of two units that can effectively use wyrmslayers to ORKO those dragon masters.

In 3-3, he's sure to have 21 speed by now, along with a shot at 22. Difference between 21 and 22 is 3 enemies + 1 reinforcement. Let's ignore it. She still 3HKOs the world and he still 2 rounds. Assuming 3 levels for Mia she's at level 10 and has 36 hp/14 def and is 3HKOd by 26 to 31 mt and there are some thickets to stand on so that enemies need 33 mt to 2HKO rather than 32. Not very many are 2HKOing her and it's unlikely that they are near each other enough that they both attack. Plus, many of them have lower hit than the rest. She has 29.95 spd, call it 30. 19 luck. 79 avo before stars and support. 102 after. One of those 32 mt guys happens to have 102 hit. Aside from some reinforcements and a killer bow sniper the highest hit here is 135. 33 listed, 22.11 true. A lot of enemies are around 120 or less. 18 hit is 6.66 true. The chances of her dying from those 3 hits is .0295%. 1 in over 3000. That's ignoring vantage blicks and crits. I did enough of that in the post a few days ago. End result was a 16% chance of saying "sucka" and not even getting attacked while on neutral. ~26% while on best. There was a storm sword to steal in 3-2 so Mia's 18 + 1 str means 31 mt with the storm sword and 33 mt with her forge. Over half the generals are now 4HKOd and start fearing her 1 range game. Even an adept leaves them with only 10 hp if she doesn't crit, and adept means 3 shots at critting so most times she adepts she'll crit. Also, a steel blade is 32 mt and while she doesn't have as much crit she still has ~50% with adept plus a bit with her natural crit. ~9 or so. (9% crit and 29% adept means 58% chance). So he's still losing offence severely and she's starting to laugh in the face of danger with her avo. Especially while on best, considering avo and vantage and crits and cancel. Speaking of cancel and crits, with her forge (24% crit after enemy luck) and cancel she has a really good chance to not take counters. 29% chance of adept. 71% chance of not adept on the first attack. With two shots, a 70.88% chance of not being countered. With one shot, a 46% chance. In all, she has a .46 x .71 + .7088 x .29 = 53.21% chance. So on player phase against things she 3HKOs (all but generals and sm and sages/bishops, she 2 hits the sm and sages and bishops) she has a 53.21% chance of scorching. So enemy hit against her on player phase is effectively halved. Now that's hilarious.

Anyway, with sparingly using storm swords only when there is a significant number of ranged units she'll be fine. It lasts a fair while and she'll grab another one in 3-11 from Tanith. There is a chance of disarm/stealing another along the way, but obviously not guaranteed.

She wins 3-3, especially since there is a nice thicket path on the right side and horses to release and stuff to KO and clear out so your main force along the west side isn't overwhelmed when they approach the boss. The thickets turn her chances of dying into a joke.

In 3-4, he takes a long time to get anywhere. She takes a while, too, but at least she can be shoved by 6 move units that have nothing better to do once they've taken their full move. Or she can help try to save the laguz in the middle ledge area and attack mages, which Gatrie likely can't get to with any semblence of speed. Anyway, she now has a B Ike and likely 5 levels since she started in 3-P, so 37.5 hp, 19.25 str, 29 skl, 30 spd, 19.75 luck, 15 def, 9.25 res.

110 avo with a B Ike. 34 mt with her forge. 3HKOd by 28 mt to 34 mt. 4HKOd or better by less than 28. 2HKOd by 35 and more. (technically one hit by 52 mt, but c'mon). Number of enemies with that much mt: 6. Their hit? 130, 130, 117, 112, 112, 115. Let's just say they aren't likely to hit her, considering that 117 is pulling 1.05% real. The 130s are only pulling 8.20% real. And those both need to be reduced due to her chance of saying "sucka" and they'll end up with around 6.9%. Or she can attack one of them on player phase and it has around 4%. So yeah, she's fine durably here, he has trouble reaching enemies, and she may not be 100% ORKOing like he is, but she faces more enemies and they'll stupidly attack her not him if they are both near enemies, and anything she leaves alive can usually be killed by anyone not named Mist or Heather (or Lyre). Even Lethe can kill whatever is left. Well, except the generals she leaves behind, but there aren't many of them and she can still blick with a crit or get a better chance to crit with an adept or kill with two adepts. If she gets even one adept, most units can now kill them. If she gets a crit, it's usually dead. I'd say she still wins.

3-5, she hasn't improved much and enemies are a lot closer. And there are a lot of friendly paladins kamikaze-ing into Gatrie. I'm not going to even attempt to make this look like a win for Mia. She's still doing fine, though. The only guys that can 2HKO her are pulling 115 hit or less, so she's still laughing. She's still blicking away, and with a level in 3-4 she has 19.7 str at level 13 and a very real chance of 20 str. With 20 str, she has 35 mt with a forge and a support, so she's now 4HKOing all the generals. Crit time. Again, he's winning, considering even uncrowned he's doubling most of the paladins, and 1HKOing with the horseslayer anyway. If anyone is concerned with her use of forges, Gatrie has hit issues without forges and as such needs one to not miss with the steel poleaxe or whatever he needs on a particular enemy. Even the steel axe only has 75 hit to go with his 22 skl and 16 luck. 44 + 16 + 15 + 5 + 75 = 155 hit. Not guaranteed, but close, I suppose. Many in fact are 100%, but only when at the same bio as the enemy or better. Still, it reduces his chance to ORKO from 100 to closer than whatever she's got. At least his forges are cheaper than her's.

3-7, river. They both pay 3 per, but at least she can take another square before or after. And there are a few thickets and reeds around. Which also helps her durability. Plus she's got an A Ike and likely level 14 or 15. ~39 hp, 20 str, 30 skl, 30 spd, ~20 lck, ~16 def, ~10 res. 118 avo. 3HKOd by 29 mt to 36 mt. 4HKOd by less than 29. Less than 30 on all those thickets/reeds. 2HKOd by 37 or more. 38 or more while on reeds/thickets. # of enemies: 2 + 4 reinforcements. Well, maybe more depending on the DB, but since she's only ever likely to meet Zihark and Leo and Edward, I don't think she needs to worry about that. Besides, letting Zihark end 3-6 with a forged steel or brave sword or killer weapon is almost asking for someone to die. I don't think Gatrie should be rewarded for having the durability to take a quad from Zihark because we left a brave sword equipped. Anyway, those 5 guys with 37 or more? 1 of them has the 119 hit to have an actual hit chance. He's got 123 hit. .55% chance. And he's a dragonmaster, so a wyrmslayer equipped makes him avoid her like the plague. She's fine durably. Still blicks away, Gatrie still ORKOs and takes almost no damage. The highest hit guys that don't have crossbows have like 8 to 9% true hit on her and all those 29 mt enemies are 4HKOing with that anyway. Death isn't exactly a concern. And with 36 mt (20 + 14 + 2) she's doing some serious damage when she doesn't KO. The warriors are left with 1 to 3 hp for a Mist kill. The halbs are left with 3 to 6 hp for a Mist/Heather kill. Only one is actually left with 6 hp and that's gone with 25 mt so if mist has just one point of str and an A support she's fine. Or even base level with an A Boyd or something.

At this point Mia has so much capped that she's almost assured str, def, lck each level of bexp after level 15. Also, there is 3-7, 3-8, 3-10, 3-11 to try to get her near the next level to reduce the cost. Likely the goal would be promotion during 3-E or something. Anyway, if we pull off 3 out of 5 levels as bexp then for 20/1 she'll have: +3 str, +3 def, +2 luck, +1 res, or something similar. Compared to: +1.35 str, +1.2 def, +1.05 lck, +.75 res. Well, there's the whole capping str thing. so +2 str, +3 def, +2 luck, +2 res, or something.

So at 20/1 she'll have:

44 hp, 26 str, ~10.5 magic, 32 skl, 32 spd, 23.5 luck, 23 def, 16.5 res.

Part way through 3-E.

Until then she's basically doing the same thing she's been doing for a while:

One rounding: swordmasters, sages, bishops, dragonmasters w/ wyrmslayer.

3 hitting: halbs, warriors, snipers, paladins, dragonmasters w/out wyrmslayer.

4 hitting: generals.

Also, she's getting 4HKOd by a fair amount of each map, and 3HKOd by most of the rest. There's usually a few outliers that pull off a 2HKO, but they have so little hit it doesn't even matter.

Durably, the chances of her dying between healings is so low it hardly matters, and she's beating Gatrie against swordmasters and leaving the rest with so little hp remaining that Mist can usually kill them, except dragonmasters and generals. Also, still has that 70% proc rate and only gets attacked half the time on player phase thanks to cancel/adept/crits. Even less often by the things she 2HKOs since an adept works, too. It's like, 30% adept, 30% cancel, 24% crit. 62.76% of the time she isn't attacked by those on player phase.

Also, she's wondering around with Ike, enemies ignore Ike and kamikaze into her, Ike can be slowplayed more easily and she gets to kill more things than Gatrie usually is.

Also, before forges, Gatrie with a hand axe means he misses out on a bunch of ORKOs so unless 75% of enemies attacking are wielding 1-2 range, Mia's fine sticking to a one range weapon. In the rare instances where it's a good idea, she can equip her storm sword. It should cover about half the time. Otherwise she has the wind edge, but it kind of blows. Still, it's minor. Then comes the forges and for a couple of maps he's fine.

The bad news for Gatrie: He needs 26 speed and has a 60% growth rate and isn't likely getting more than 1 level before 3-E. She actually takes out a couple of paladins along the way, but that doesn't matter much. Still, consider this: She has a 70% chance of killing things, and in any given game leaves 7 out of 10 things dead on average. Gatrie might not get the requisite speed for a fair number of enemies. In any given game, he either leaves all dead or none dead. Now, 60% of the time he'll be leaving them all dead, but in some games Mia curbstomps him from 3-8 on. Well, 3-11 has 75% of the map as slow enemies, but in the other chapters. The rest of the time, he's still only killing 3 out of 10 more enemies. Frankly, I think Mia is more reliable. Then around 3-E Gatrie probably has 26 speed, but that'll actually miss a couple of warriors. Anyway, Mia promotes partway through 3-E, and now is walking around with 26 str, so 42 mt with a forge and her support. Still has enemies kamikazeing into her, has a brand new storm sword for 40 mt, has an extra 20 crit to lay into the enemies, more avo now that her spd is uncapped, more adept, more cancel, astra. She's now above 80% killrate while on neutral, except with 42 mt she's now killing most halbs and warriors naturally. She's even 3HKOing all but one general, so that 80% killrate now applies to them, too. Also, that 40 mt storm sword is even killing a fair number of warriors and a couple halbs. In fact, about half the pallies go down to her storm sword, and almost all of them die to a steel blade. There is exactly one paladin that requires the forge to kill him.

Then comes part 4 and what I like to call the landslide.

So Gatrie's got 26 spd, maybe 27. Unlikely, though. He's not going to 4-P, because that means desert, and desert = bad. Desert = 1 move for Gatrie. So 4-1 means he's stuck on the east side attacking generals, needing a hammer because the other items are insufficient. 42 mt still kills most, and Mia could have a silver blade for 16 mt = 44 mt if we really wanted. It's not like she'd actually miss with 32 x 2 + 24 + 15 + 8 + 60 = 171 hit against things that lack >70 avo. Well, swordmasters and falco knights have it, but considering 42 mt does the trick already, why bother? A silver sword has 40 mt for her with 26 str, and that's sufficient on the swordmasters and gives her 191 hit. The old forge that's about to be retired can handle the falcos. Or she can get a point of str and take them down with a silver sword too. Tempest blade is only 166 hit, but considering enemy avo the 46 mt could be worth it. Butchers the warriors and halbs with a 95% listed hit for a very low chance of missing. Much better than Gatrie and the hammers on the only thing he doubles. And that's something any axe user can do, and with a better hit rate. Gatrie is not getting Mia's kill rate here. Mia still pulls 80% on generals, the 44 mt kills most halbs, and comes awful close to the warriors, killing two, leaving the others with a measly 2 hp. And those are the guys for whom Gatrie needs 29 speed to double, by the way. So she beats him on everything on the map, possibly including generals if her proc rate is higher than his chance of hitting twice with the hammer. 23 x 2 + 17 + 15 + 8 + 60 = 146 hit. Generals have ~66 avo, so 80 hit. 92.2 listed, but that translates to ~85% for hitting twice. Mia is actually around that number for adept + crits w/ forge + astra. So yeah, so much for that. Mia comes close on generals, and beats him everywhere else.

She's also now got

44 hp, 26 str, ~10.5 magic, 32 skl, 32 spd, 23.5 luck, 23 def, 16.5 res

So she's 4HKOd by 34 mt to 37 mt, 3HKOd by 38 mt to 44 mt, and 2HKOd by >44 mt.

And she's pulling 32 x 2 + 24 + 15 + 23 = 126 avo while doing that.

# of enemies that 2HKO: 0.

# of enemies that 3HKO: 13. Well, I didn't look at sages, but we have pure water if we really want.

# of enemies that 5HKO or more: 17. That's right, there's more that 5HKOs her than 3HKOs her.

Anyway, those 3HKO guys: 130 hit, 129 hit, 134 hit, 140 hit, 145 hit. so yeah, the most is at 19 listed, or 7.41% true. Again, reduce thanks to vantage/cancel/crit/adept, and she's facing rather low hit rates. I'm not calculating for 32 spd and 36 - lck crit again, but I'd estimate ~6% for what she 3HKOs and ~5.5% for what she 2HKOs. Maybe less. Considering all it takes is adept or crit or cancel. Only a 32% chance of vantage, though, so she obviously can't get above that for her chance of not getting attacked. Point is, her chances of death are so very low, like 1 in 1000 from 3 enemies and still pretty pathetically low for 4 or 5, that she's fine durability-wise. And crushes him offensively.

In 4-4, well, she now has the Vague Katti and another tempest blade. Also, probably 20/6 or something. Maybe 20/7. There's a fair number of enemies in the south in 4-1 and there are only like 4 or 5 units we are training, so no reason to spread kills at all anymore. If she can take it, we can give it to her. She's now 2HKOing everything not a general with the vague katti, soon to be able to do that with tempest, and has more speed, for more avo, more vantage, more adept, more cancel. She's actually no longer really guaranteed adept, though, especially since she can nuke everything but a general without it. But she's still about as good an option as any, so why not? Gatrie likely hit 28 spd during 4-1 to reduce the losses, but not before half the enemies were killed. Now, he'll be not doubling for a while again and needs 30 spd to double most halbs and half the warriors and 31 speed to double the other half. Well, 32 for like, two of them. So for half the map she's again death incarnate and he's still counting on one shot at procing something. And she can have a silver forge for critting the generals and with adept gets above 85%, I think.

Then comes 4-E. In 4-E-1, she's not ORKOing the generals. Still, she's got a massive proc rate with adept/crits/astra, and he's got miss chance with generals. Funny thing is, she's got about the same chance at killing them. He can miss once, but on his other whack he could proc something. If not for that, she'd actually have a higher chance of killing than Gatrie with a hammer.

Also, he's now capped spd, so he gets all the generals, at least. Well, except that whole miss chance, thing.

Durability-wise, she's still watching javelins sing past her and sidestepping swords and stuff. Also, 50hp and 25 def isn't too shabby either. Takes 38 mt to 41 mt just to 4HKO her. 42 mt to 49 mt 3HKOs her. So she's basically fine here, as well.

In 4-E-2, she takes a durability hit, but she's also leaving halbs with 1hp and warriors with 3. And can stand on a cover tile for turn 1 to do some of this. And she can grab a critforge without really losing much and plug away with her >85% proc rate with adept/astra/crits. Now, thanks to others having better masteries, anyone else that can double and has a skill% rather than (skill/2)% can get close to her proc rate, they'll still be lower, though. More importantly, Gatrie can't double a bunch of things.

Then comes the dragons. Well, there is the alondite and tempest. Also, the wyrmslayers. And crit, and adept. ORKOing whites and 3HKOing reds is all Gatrie can manage with a wyrmslayer, as well. And she likely has 40 x 2 + 27 + 15 + 23 = 145 avo now anyway. Reds are low, and whites are higher. Still, she's not doing too bad here and has crits to fall back on for the reds. Gatrie has luna, but between her crit and adept she's fine. They about tie offence here, and Gatrie slightly wins durability.

In 4-E-3, she has 53 mt with vague katti and actually ORKOs thunder spirits and wind spirits on cover tiles (38hp/23 + 10 def). In fact, she pulls it off with only 30 str. As for fire, she misses, but really, Gatrie doesn't get them with a brave and a blood tide, anyway. (36 str + 11 mt + 5 + 2 = 54 mt.) So he falls short from 40hp/25 + 10 def anyway. Plus, she doesn't need a tide on the others, and has better hit.

Then comes 4-E-5 where she straps on parity and does 42 damage to a corner tile, allowing Tibarn with Parity or Nailah with Parity and a speed proc to finish it off. Gatrie with parity does 34 with a brave axe if he hits, and 56 hp is left 60 hp is left w/ brave sword. 58 mt is required for finishing after a brave axe, and thus Tibarn needs a str proc. Also, Mia has a rather large hit rate advantage over Gatrie, here. Even with a brave sword, it's 5 hit with the weapon, and a lot with the skill/luck difference. Like, 40 vs. 30 or something, and ~27 vs. ~22. Mia could even have more depending on level and bexp. Over 30 is not unreasonable. So Gatrie causes more headaches. As for wardwood tile ones, 53 mt now vs. 47 + supports. So minimum 4 points and a massive hit rate difference. As for tides, better on Mia than Gatrie. Also, Mia with a brave sword and Ike has 42 mt. 48 damage with a quad and no tides. Better than Gatrie, again. 68 damage with one tide, better than Gatrie's 44 with brave axe and blood tide, provided he hits anyway. 88 damage vs. Gatrie's 54 with a brave axe. Well, Gatrie can have a +mt support, possibly, but it's still a whomping.

So Mia > Gatrie for all of part 4. Close in many parts of 3. Better in some, less good in others.

In all, Mia's wins > Gatrie's wins.

As for the Mia x Ike support, Ninji, have you read my post on it?

The basic idea is, Mia is your best offence of the less durable units. Ike support makes her awesome as far as durability is concerned. Giving the Ike support to anyone else means a smaller improvement in durability for that unit than Mia would get and a unit that is much worse offensively now having a slightly better enemy phase than before while still failing at doing damage compared to her. Why on earth would it go anywhere else? We can maximize the offensive and defensive advantages of Ike's support type by making Mia x Ike.

[Ether]

You know, this topic is slow for days in which I have nothing to do, then the one day I'm busy from noon to 11 and there is stuff about Mia and Mak and Danved get moved up, it's kind of annoying. Oh, and @Red Fox, technically nobody else argued against it, but the member formally known as pretty boi wolf did say that if they get moved up then so should Lethe, presumably above Lehran and Gareth, anyway. Since this didn't happen, it could be argued that he did disagree with the move you made.

I'm not sure how everyone is feeling about the whole Ike x Mia support right now, but to correct a few misconceptions:

Ike x Mist is way way faster than anything in the game. Ike x Mist is not exactly a good choice for efficiency's sake.

Any of Ike's 01s are about as fast as his Mia support. In order to build Ike x Soren faster than Ike x Mia, you need 9 adjacents in a single map. 3-P is like 7 turns. So Ike x Soren is looking at a C for 3-2. Rescuing to accelerate it is a bad idea because if you are trying to use Soren he needs the kills he'd miss out on for being carried, and an Ike with 14 skl and 12 spd is a sucky Ike when we need a good Ike. Saviour won't even appear until 3-2 if we get Ilyana to cart it over, but that prevents some other skill combos on Ike like Disarm + Flourish, and still doesn't fix Soren's issue of not leveling.

Ike x Soren takes 5 adjacents in 2 maps to pull off a level. Ike x Mia needs 7. For reaching B or A Ike x Mia can get away with 6 adjacents and 1 shove. Ike x Soren still need 4 adjacents and 1 shove or 5 adjacents. A shove means Ike isn't attacking anything, and with Soren's less move it means Ike is hanging back further. (Leaving Soren exposed, btw). So it takes 3 adjacents in one map and 2 in another for Ike x Soren. It takes 3 adjacents in one map and 4 in another for Ike x Mia. It is a small cramping of our tactics, outweighed by the benefits. It isn't slower at all to make Ike x Mia than Ike x Soren. The only support Ike has that can reasonably get 1 level per map is Ike x Mist, but Mist is still paper for a while even with Ike and Ike doesn't need the def Mist is giving out so all he gets is the +mt. Really the +hit is a bigger draw of Mia x Ike than the +mt, though the +mt and +hit is the perfect combination for wind edges and storm swords, considering they can't be forged ever and Ike can benefit from some 2 range options along the way.

Anyway, going back to Int's thing about Ike x Mia going anywhere and raping, let's look at Ike's earth.

So, we have this awesome Earth affinity. We also have a lot of units with mediocre offence and durability.

Offence:

Ike

crown!Gatrie

Mia

the rest.

Basically, from chapters 3-2 to 3-5, we've got 3 units who can double and do lots of damage.

Durability:

Of these, only Mia is lacking for defence, though she still does okay without it, just not awesome.

Looking at her without Earth:

Jump to 30 spd.

Since we didn't give her earth let's look at her best bio and neutral bio. She isn't tanking when she has worst bio or we might as well ask her to die.

28 skl, 14 + 10 + 15 = 39 crit.

30% or 40% cancel and vantage and adept. (Others don't have free vantage, and can't use vantage + cancel with anything. They also either don't double or don't 3HKO or don't have her speed anyway. Face it, she's the best use of vantage + cancel + adept. Giving it to anyone else is an inferior choice. Being doritos has benefits. More on adept later.)

Enemies = ~15 cev.

So 24 crit.

For best, that's:

40% vantage

40% cancel

40% adept

24% crit

So, when she vantages against something she 3HKOs, she's got a:

24% chance of blicking.

40% chance of canceling.

40% chance of adepting, followed by 24% chance of blicking and 40% chance of canceling.

So, 60% chance of not adepting when vantaging.

When she doesn't adept, she has a 54.4% chance of not getting attacked.

When she adepts, she's got 4 shots at critting or canceling.

So 79.2% chance of not getting attacked.

.6 x .544 + .4 x .792 = .6432

So when she vantages she has a 64.32% chance of not getting attacked.

So that's a 25.728% chance of not getting attacked every single time she's "attacked" at 1 range by something she 3HKOs while holding her forge. And if you want her to live, why is she not holding her forge?

On good, she has:

30% vantage

30% cancel

30% adept

24% crit

So, when she vantages against something she 3HKOs, she's got a:

24% chance of blicking.

30% chance of canceling.

30% chance of adepting, followed by 24% chance of blicking and 30% chance of canceling.

So, 70% chance of not adepting when vantaging.

When she doesn't adept, she has a 46.8% chance of not getting attacked.

When she adepts, she's got 4 shots at critting or canceling.

So 71.6976% chance of not getting attacked.

.7 x .468 + .3 x .716976 = .5426928

So when she vantages she has a ~54.27% chance of not getting attacked.

So that's a 16.28% (.16280784) chance of not getting attacked (when attacked).

Remember, 25.728% while on best bio.

So, since I basically gave her lvl 11 for these statistics, that's ~37 hp, ~14/15 def, and 60 + 19 + 15 = 94 avo. Or 104 on best. Enemies are averaging 135 hit on 3-4.

Basically she is facing 41 listed on average on neutral and 31 listed on best. For true hit, that's 34.03% for neutral and 19.53% on best.

Now to throw in the enemies chances of not getting to attack her and we get:

28.5% chance to actually get hit on neutral.

14.5% chance to actually get hit on best.

Assuming a little slowplaying which boosts hp/str/def/lck along the way the enemies average hit goes up slowly and some start equipping poleaxes and similary low hit rate weapons meaning 120s and stuff. So even by 3-11 the average hit is still around 140, though some go as high as 160s and of course the crossbows are even higher. Still, this is a good indication of what she faces on average. Of course, some enemies have more luck, some have less. Some few have 2 range so she can't apply her vantage, some are generals and aren't dropped in a single hit, but a lot of those guys are around 120. Look at 3-8 for example.

So where she is 3HKOd, her chances of death on neutral are:

2.315% in 3 attacks.

6.62% in 4 attacks.

11.8% in 5 attacks.

16.9% in 6 attacks.

21.175% in 7 attacks.

Now, some of those might not seem so bad, which is why her durability is passable without earth, and I suppose a wind/thunder/dark support would reduce it further. But the point is the number of times we might wish to ask her to face, say, 5 attacks between healings.

7 times: 58.4778% chance of death. Really really high.

Obviously when she's on best, it's lower. Her chance of getting hit is almost cut in half.

But it doesn't make that much of a difference. If we want to send her into a crowd, she'll die often enough for us to care. She's still doing okay because we don't have to send her into that crowd, but just think, a B earth, easily attainable in 3-4, gives her 15 more avo. She drops her average to 16 listed and 26 listed (and 36 listed on worst, lower than it used to be on neutral.)

Anyway, there will be many opponents with sub 10 listed, and some still have in the 20s, and on worst she still is prevented from facing 5 at once. But remember her offence:

Only crowned Gatrie and Ike have better offence, and not even against swordmasters since she ORKOs and they don't. Shinon doesn't have her numbers on enemy phase, and on player phase his defence doesn't matter.

All of those other people who would "benefit" from an Ike support will never make 5 or 6 enemies between healings relatively safe. None of them will be able to face it. You get units like Haar who can already face it, so all that earth means is being healed every 3 or 4 turns instead of every 1 or 2. His turn by turn tactics aren't going to change except now he's tied to Ike.

Except Heather, who has similar avo to Mia, except that brings us to the next point:

Mia without Ike can generally face 3 enemies relatively safely, especially if the only nearby enemies are under average in the hit department. Mia however has the best offence of the not as durable types. (ie: discounting crowned Gatrie and Ike).

When giving out Earth, you should not only want to make a unit more durable, you should also want to focus on which unit will provide the biggest boost to our offence now that they can be more durable.

Mia trounces every other potential candidate for Ike's support in either offence or new durability or both.

You aren't getting Soren to face 5 enemies every turn without worrying about him dying thanks to Earth. Not many others either. But even if you could get them to face 5 enemies, like Heather now would be able to (and Heather has the fire too), we also just gave up the option of creating a wrecking machine since Heather can't forge a powerful crit weapon (24 mt at base level for a max mt max crit steel knife forge, and Heather doesn't have base crit or amazing skill) and none of the others will suddenly be able to face swarms.

So with Mia we boost the durability of the best offence on our team that lacks durability and actually has enemy phase offence. Gatrie doesn't need the earth to face swarms, and Ike is the one giving it.

Also, as int touched on, Ike needs the avo from his own affinity anyway. Meaning he is shackled to his support if he wants to face swarms. But these swarms aren't always going to attack him. If Soren is nearby, guess who is getting attacked.

To the guy who said the maps would go slower, why? They move 7 ahead each turn, face a swarm, let the others clean up the cripples, and run ahead another 7. They can even stand side by side in 3-4 and 3-5 if you want to build support levels, so the 02 isn't so bad because Mia can stand next to Ike without dying. Soren can't. So those 2 extra turns needed to be spent adjacent? Not so relevant now, because standing Soren next to Ike means we need to find a way for Soren to not be attacked by anything likely to kill him. Mia doesn't worry as much.

Which also leads me to why not Mia with someone else? Say thunder did make her super durable and able to do what she can with earth. Well, now we have Shinon and his crossbow. Well, that's annoying. Enemies might attack Shinon a bunch, since he does less damage, and now we have things that the nubs might not be able to finish off and Shinon didn't kill anything on enemy phase, or at least not much. Which means he probably loaded all of his facings and so some enemies that only move if they can attack likely didn't move. So now on the following turn there are more enemies closer and it is suddenly harder to keep everyone out of enemy range. When Mia and Ike draw enemies, they draw everything in range. Meaning with all that they've killed plus what your nubs kill, if a nub is standing where Mia or Ike stood last turn, there is nothing that can attack them now. This applies to your Soren, Ilyana, Reyson, Heather, Mist, Rhys, whomever. Making the Ike x Mia support is actually better for all of them, too. Especially the heron, since Mia x Ike make it so much easier to protect the heron. Walling becomes less important since everything that was in range of Reyson's new position is dead. Who needs a wall to block nothing?

Giving Ike to anyone else simply causes Ike to move slower to make sure his support partner is still within 3 but out of range of all those enemies. Even if his support partner won't die, like if we give him Oscar or Heather, all those enemies attacking Oscar/Heather means we give up on damage we could have given. So either Ike gets held back or we do far less damage. Mia doesn't have these issues.

Anybody else doesn't become nigh invincible.

Mia does.

Anybody else we should probably keep out of enemy phase action anyway.

Mia should be part of enemy phase action.

With Mia we get the most durability we can get from Ike's earth, and the unit getting the most durability out of it happens to have the best offence of anyone that is in the running for the support. It really is a perfect match, since everything we get as a player out of it is superior to anything we could get out of any other pairing.

You know what? Shinon takes Soren. Shinon gets his +mt support, they are both backliners so are close together at all times, their mutual flexibility of positions (2-range in both cases) makes a support build faster, and I don't have to worry about sending ShinonxSoren off alone because Shinon sucks on Enemy Phase and he's always with the main army anyway.

There, I've solved the problem. Someone give me a cookie, please.

I'd give you a cookie, but Shinon is really good for endgame and Soren isn't. Calill can double, Ilyana can take an extra hit. Soren's third at best for sages in endgame. I also would like to give Shinon Mist, but I don't want to bring her. Really though, Shinon is a backliner. What does he need with a support in part 4? I say, Shinon x Mist in part 3, gets his mt up, gets her def up even more, and gives her the best avo she's likely to get, since she is not getting Ike or Oscar. Then in part 4 when he has silver forges and eventually double bow and we could have slowplayed in part 3 to cap his tier 2 str, he no longer really needs it as much. I'm not sure who to give him at that point, and I don't remember if I gave him anyone or who I gave him once I broke the Mist support I gave him.

Mine isn't perfect either (and Calill misses out on a spirit dust), so I guess I don't deserve a cookie. Still, it's Shinon's problem, not Mia's.

(on a side note, Rhys x Soren. Neither is getting attacked, so def and avo are not relevant. All they want is mt and hit. Rhys provides the hit, and an A support means 3 mt. Also, neither are going to endgame, so when they finish in 4-4 they don't care.)

(Oh, and @red fox, there is Elincia's physic. Don't forget that one. What does she need it for on the last turn of 2-E anyway? Otherwise it just sits in the CRK inventory until 3-11 anyway. Aside from that one and a couple of physics we need to disarm + steal and thus might not get, yes, the first one is from the bishop in 3-10 that we can steal simply by having it attack us on enemy phase.

So, adept and Mia. Was anyone complaining? Anyway, just to say this in case anyone doesn't like it but didn't voice it this time: A ~20% adept rate is not useful in any way shape or form. It is completely unreliable. We are likely going to have that unit attack something while planning to use another unit afterward. If adept procs, who cares? It just means we need to find something for the other unit to do now. Even if this other unit is Haar and has an actual enemy phase, it still doesn't do nearly as much as Mia's ~50% activation (two shots at 30%). And with crits thrown in she gets up to 70. That is, as int always points out, basically double (or more) the kill rate anyone else is likely to get with adept. Meaning much more reliable on player phase, and much better at clearing things on enemy phase.

I know to some people giving one character adept + cancel + Ike's support + letting her keep vantage + a crit forge may seem like a lot of favouritism. But the way to look at it is opportunity cost. For adept, there is almost none, since it is rather unreliable in anyone else's hands. For cancel, there is little again, since a 20% cancel rate on player phase only is not too helpful. Mia at least gets a 30% on player phase and can actually use it on enemy phase (plus it combines with the possibility of critting to give a high chance of not being attacked). Ike's support she is again doritos. Letting her keep vantage, well, it's a 10 capacity skill she gets for free and uses better than anybody else. Why have someone pay 10 for something they don't even use as well as she does? I can think of one unit in the entire game that could actually compete for vantage and cancel, and she doesn't show up after 2-E until 4-2. As for the crit forge, even if for some reason you can only afford crit on one of your forges, what can be gained by sticking it on someone else's? Most other units have like ~20 skill, so they end up with 10 crit after enemy luck is considered. Mia has 29 and doubles. They are going to be rather unreliable where critting is concerned. Units like Ike and Shinon don't generally need it, either. Plus it should be possible to afford more than just one crit forge anyway.

There is a small opportunity cost in giving her all this. But the gains are so very much higher that it is virtually meaningless. Some might disagree, but frankly I think it's a bigger gap than giving Gatrie the crown over giving the crown to Haar or Titania (or anyone else, since these two are #2 and #3, I think). And that gap is rather large, too.

Here is that post BTW,so you don't have to go back and find it.

[Florete]

Okay,well at 3-7,with Mia at 16+1 BEXP,has 40 HP,17 Def,and 120 Avo with A Ike.

Crossbows 4HKO her at 24.85% True

The next Most accurate enemies have 139 and 141 Hit,and 4/3HKO her respectively.

As for true hit,that is 7.41 and 9.03 respectively.

As Enemy hit rates dip even lower,Steel lance!Halbs having 4.06% true,warriors having 0.55% true.All of this while she is 3HKO'd.One dragonmaster pulls the Mt to 2HKO,but he physically cannot hit her.

Add in her Vantage and Cancel/Crit/Adept,and her death chances are so miniscule she may as well be invincible.

16+1 is pretty high. That's 9+1 in only 6 maps, which is 1.5 levels per map. I'd say 14+1 is more accurate (That's a good time to start using BEXP anyway). She still has 40 HP, and might even still have 17 Def, though.

In any case, Mia can die. Her chance to die in 8 hits against the Crossbow guys is 11%. At low Bio (41% true), 6 hits and she sees 19.3% chance of death, 9.4% in 5. Gatrie's chance to die against them in 1,000,000 rounds is 0% at any Bio.

A guy that 3HKOs Mia at 141 Hit (9% true) has ~3% to kill her in 8 hits. At low Bio (~20 true), it becomes 20% in 8, 15% in 7, and on. Gatrie does not have to worry.

And then there's the chance Mia doesn't have Ike support, in which the durability lead which might now look superfluous widens by a crazy amount. Gatrie just needs to rely on what he already has, he doesn't even need a Crown to be invincible.

And then Narga posted. FML.

[Narga_Rocks]

Okay,well at 3-7,with Mia at 16+1 BEXP,has 40 HP,17 Def,and 120 Avo with A Ike.

Crossbows 4HKO her at 24.85% True

The next Most accurate enemies have 139 and 141 Hit,and 4/3HKO her respectively.

As for true hit,that is 7.41 and 9.03 respectively.

As Enemy hit rates dip even lower,Steel lance!Halbs having 4.06% true,warriors having 0.55% true.All of this while she is 3HKO'd.One dragonmaster pulls the Mt to 2HKO,but he physically cannot hit her.

Add in her Vantage and Cancel/Crit/Adept,and her death chances are so miniscule she may as well be invincible.

16+1 is pretty high. That's 9+1 in only 6 maps, which is 1.5 levels per map. I'd say 14+1 is more accurate (That's a good time to start using BEXP anyway). She still has 40 HP, and might even still have 17 Def, though.

In any case, Mia can die. Her chance to die in 8 hits against the Crossbow guys is 11%. At low Bio (41% true), 6 hits and she sees 19.3% chance of death, 9.4% in 5. Gatrie's chance to die against them in 1,000,000 rounds is 0% at any Bio.

A guy that 3HKOs Mia at 141 Hit (9% true) has ~3% to kill her in 8 hits. At low Bio (~20 true), it becomes 20% in 8, 15% in 7, and on. Gatrie does not have to worry.

And then there's the chance Mia doesn't have Ike support, in which the durability lead which might now look superfluous widens by a crazy amount. Gatrie just needs to rely on what he already has, he doesn't even need a Crown to be invincible.

And then Narga posted. FML.

Just how many crossbow guys are on each map and for how many phases are we leaving them alive before killing? Honestly, she takes two or three turns of reasonable action before facing significant death chances, at which point we heal her. Also, if after one turn she actually got hit twice, fall back or heal. Sure, it isn't as good as Gatrie at times, but more often than not it is. It takes long strings of bad luck with chances in the thousands to one before Mia would need healing every turn. It's not happening in very many playthroughs. Needing healing once out of 3 turns is not a bad thing. Gatrie eventually needs healing, too.

And without that crown Gatrie doesn't double. So now Speedwing Titania or Ike or speedwing crowned Haar (where else would the speedwing go) are all better candidates than Gatrie for enemy phase. At which point, Mia without Ike will get about as much enemy phase action as Gatrie will. Consider with a crown there is an actual reason to allow Gatrie to crawl to the front lines. Without the crown, why wait for him? Why pick him up and move him with Titania and Oscar? Seriously, why bother? Titania and Oscar can paladin rush, Oscar won't kill much but hey, we didn't give Mia the Ike support and didn't give Gatrie the crown. We clearly don't care about killing stuff on enemy phase. Then Ike can kill stuff, Haar can nuke the game. Gatrie without a crown is almost as pointless to discuss as Mia without Ike.

[Ether]

Okay,well at 3-7,with Mia at 16+1 BEXP,has 40 HP,17 Def,and 120 Avo with A Ike.

Crossbows 4HKO her at 24.85% True

The next Most accurate enemies have 139 and 141 Hit,and 4/3HKO her respectively.

As for true hit,that is 7.41 and 9.03 respectively.

As Enemy hit rates dip even lower,Steel lance!Halbs having 4.06% true,warriors having 0.55% true.All of this while she is 3HKO'd.One dragonmaster pulls the Mt to 2HKO,but he physically cannot hit her.

Add in her Vantage and Cancel/Crit/Adept,and her death chances are so miniscule she may as well be invincible.

16+1 is pretty high. That's 9+1 in only 6 maps, which is 1.5 levels per map. I'd say 14+1 is more accurate (That's a good time to start using BEXP anyway). She still has 40 HP, and might even still have 17 Def, though.

In any case, Mia can die. Her chance to die in 8 hits against the Crossbow guys is 11%. At low Bio (41% true), 6 hits and she sees 19.3% chance of death, 9.4% in 5. Gatrie's chance to die against them in 1,000,000 rounds is 0% at any Bio.

A guy that 3HKOs Mia at 141 Hit (9% true) has ~3% to kill her in 8 hits. At low Bio (~20 true), it becomes 20% in 8, 15% in 7, and on. Gatrie does not have to worry.

And then there's the chance Mia doesn't have Ike support, in which the durability lead which might now look superfluous widens by a crazy amount. Gatrie just needs to rely on what he already has, he doesn't even need a Crown to be invincible.

And then Narga posted. FML.

Only 3 crossbow users on the whole map,if she doesn't blick them,anyone on your team(even Lyre) could kill them,so they never hit her 8 times,especially since she can heal off that damage.

[Florete]

Fuck this. I'm moving Mia over Gatrie unless someone can tangle with Narga.

[Shadow Mir]

Narga showed a couple of pages back that her getting Ike is far from a problem.If she can't have an Ike support,Gatrie can't have his crown.Do you want to go there,it won't be pretty for you.

How the hell did you even come to that conclusion? A Ike in no way equals a Crown for Gatrie. Mia is not Ike's best support option. He'd rather have someone like Oscar, since the hit and MT are pointless. Gatrie puts the crown to it's best use.

Because that's wasting two earth supports for overkill evade. Also, Oscar's problem lies in offense.

[grandjackal]

(where else would the speedwing go)

I could name a few places, ragfragrblargle...Kyza gets no love T.T

[_____]

I don't want to waste time typing 20 paragraphs to try to beat Narga, since I'll lose anyway. However...

Because that's wasting two earth supports for overkill evade. Also, Oscar's problem lies in offense.

Wasting? It helps Oscar and Ike out quite a bit. It's not like you can forge defense.

[grandjackal]

Because that's wasting two earth supports for overkill evade. Also, Oscar's problem lies in offense.

Wasting? It helps Oscar and Ike out quite a bit. It's not like you can forge defense.

ANY support helps Ike and Oscar quite a bit, Double Earth is overkill for the GM. They aren't without leadership stars facing DB part 3 bastards.

[Ether]

I don't want to waste time typing 20 paragraphs to try to beat Narga, since I'll lose anyway. However...

Because that's wasting two earth supports for overkill evade. Also, Oscar's problem lies in offense.

Wasting? It helps Oscar and Ike out quite a bit. It's not like you can forge defense.

Ike doesn't need anymore Avo than his own affinity gives,so it doesn't help him,and Oscar is really lacking in offense more than anything.

[Florete]

I don't want to waste time typing 20 paragraphs to try to beat Narga, since I'll lose anyway. However...

Because that's wasting two earth supports for overkill evade. Also, Oscar's problem lies in offense.

Wasting? It helps Oscar and Ike out quite a bit. It's not like you can forge defense.

Ike is already a God defensively, he doesn't need it. Oscar only needs the boost he'll already get to be really good defensively as well. Supporting each other means no one else gets the benefit of an Earth boost, which means two units who don't need the extra avoid are taking away Earth support from two other units. And then there's the move gap.

[Shadow Mir]

I don't want to waste time typing 20 paragraphs to try to beat Narga, since I'll lose anyway. However...

Because that's wasting two earth supports for overkill evade. Also, Oscar's problem lies in offense.

Wasting? It helps Oscar and Ike out quite a bit. It's not like you can forge defense.

Again, Oscar wants offense more than anything else, and there's a move gap. So yes, wasting.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Red Fox of Fire...

Edited August 25, 2009 by Jonathan Aulin

[grandjackal]

I don't want to waste time typing 20 paragraphs to try to beat Narga, since I'll lose anyway. However...

Because that's wasting two earth supports for overkill evade. Also, Oscar's problem lies in offense.

Wasting? It helps Oscar and Ike out quite a bit. It's not like you can forge defense.

Again, Oscar wants offense more than anything else, and there's a move gap. So yes, wasting.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Red Fox of Fire...

And Ether, and Me, and Jesus, and the Pagans, and the Mormons...

[Ether]

To attempt to continue the rocket ascent!

Mia vs. Sothe is essentially the same as Mia vs. Zihark.

Sothe builds up some more positive in part 1 than Zihark does,but then loses by a much greater margin than Zihark does in part 4,that's basically the summary version.

[-Cynthia-]

Fuck this. I'm moving Mia over Gatrie unless someone can tangle with Narga.

I really don't have the effort to counter a wall o' text like that unless it's a formal debate post that I have a week or so to do.

[Narga_Rocks]

(where else would the speedwing go)

I could name a few places, ragfragrblargle...Kyza gets no love T.T

Would you believe me if I said I meant the crown? With two speedwings available, I think if we aren't crowning Gatrie we'd really need to wing one or both of Titania and Haar. But I meant the crown simply because if it isn't on Gatrie then having a tank that ORKOs stuff is still useful, and otherwise it's just Ike. Well, Mia does well, but most of that post was in the context of not having Mia x Ike.

[Florete]

To attempt to continue the rocket ascent!

Mia vs. Sothe is essentially the same as Mia vs. Zihark.

Sothe builds up some more positive in part 1 than Zihark does,but then loses by a much greater margin than Zihark does in part 4,that's basically the summary version.

"Some more" is an understatement. He's clutch for 3 maps, and retains being very good throughout part 1, including being better than Zihark for it. Mia > Gatrie was tough enough to swallow, I don't think Mia > Sothe is likely at all.

I could Leanne squeezing right in between Nailah and Gatrie, though.

[Ether]

To attempt to continue the rocket ascent!

Mia vs. Sothe is essentially the same as Mia vs. Zihark.

Sothe builds up some more positive in part 1 than Zihark does,but then loses by a much greater margin than Zihark does in part 4,that's basically the summary version.

"Some more" is an understatement. He's clutch for 3 maps, and retains being very good throughout part 1, including being better than Zihark for it. Mia > Gatrie was tough enough to swallow, I don't think Mia > Sothe is likely at all.

I could Leanne squeezing right in between Nailah and Gatrie, though.

I'll leave it for now,i suppose.

But I agree with leanne going down a little bit.

Being a heron is great and all,but she has arguably the worst effects of them all,and only has 4 chapters pre endgame.

Edited August 25, 2009 by Ether

[Interceptor]

And then there's the Shoving thing Mekkah mentioned, where Gatrie can do the shoving. Hell, he's probably the perfect candidate for Smite.

OK, let's be serious about this. What Mekkah said was undeniable as a matter of fact, but incoherent as a matter of argument. There is no equivalence between 1) being good at shoving, and 2) being easy to shove. Gatrie giving up his Player Phase to put his shoulder into someone's back is not a terribly useful thing to do, especially when he's already at a MV deficit and he's just shoving someone closer to the front line than he is. Mia doesn't need to use her PP for something so retarded, she's using it for killing things. There's a reason why shove duty is usually for scrubs or people we aren't training, and it's not because it's a noble profession, it's because offense/durability don't matter.

If this situation was flipped around, say for some unexplainable reason Gatrie had Mia's CN/WT and vice-versa, this would be a big win for Gatrie. I could make shove-chains to heavily mitigate his mobility woes without having to use Celerity, and Mia would basically be too much of a fatass to outgrow her 7MV leash.

This makes me wonder if this is where IS intended to go with Meg, who is unusually easy to move around for a General (12 wt in tier 1). The difference between her and Brom/Gatrie/Tauroneo is staggering, Meg can actually be pushed around by the likes of Zihark.

Fuck this. I'm moving Mia over Gatrie unless someone can tangle with Narga.

I wouldn't even if I disagreed with him. This is his second Powelling of the day.

[_____]

ANY support helps Ike and Oscar quite a bit, Double Earth is overkill for the GM. They aren't without leadership stars facing DB part 3 bastards.

Ike doesn't need anymore Avo than his own affinity gives,so it doesn't help him,and Oscar is really lacking in offense more than anything.

Ike is already a God defensively, he doesn't need it. Oscar only needs the boost he'll already get to be really good defensively as well. Supporting each other means no one else gets the benefit of an Earth boost, which means two units who don't need the extra avoid are taking away Earth support from two other units. And then there's the move gap.

Again, Oscar wants offense more than anything else, and there's a move gap. So yes, wasting.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Red Fox of Fire...

Yeesh. Only one response was really necessary if you're all going to say the same thing... >_>;

I could Leanne squeezing right in between Nailah and Gatrie, though.

I could see her dropping to around Tibarn, really. She's available for 6 maps before Endgame and can only refresh 2 units. That is most certainly not a High Tier unit. Rafiel needs to drop, too, I guess. 4 chapters, 6 if you count Endgame. He just needs Celerity or the boots or something and he's much better than Reyson there, though.

Edited August 25, 2009 by Ninji

[grandjackal]

I'd hardly say Sothe's clutch, which would mean he's necessary. I've gotten through part 1 without using him quite fine. The better argument is that Sothe's just flat out statistically better than Zihark, around for longer.

Also, it's true. Narga drops bombs.

Edited August 25, 2009 by Robo Ky

[Narga_Rocks]

I could Leanne squeezing right in between Nailah and Gatrie, though.

I'll leave it for now,i suppose.

But I agree with leanne going down a little bit.

Being a heron is great and all,but she has arguably the worst effects of them all,and only has 4 chapters pre endgame.

Well, 6. 2-P, 2-2, 2-E, 3-11, 4-P, 4-3.

She makes 2-P routable without Haar. While that doesn't seem like much, it does mean more exp for Elincia and more exp for Marcia. Since Elincia starts a bit low leveled in 4-2, more exp means a possibly higher level. With her growths, even one level is significant, and generally means about 2 or 3 turns more Elincihax if she is given paragon for 4-2, since she'll be quad-ing or killing in 2 hits that much sooner. Also, Marcia has an extra level for being better in 2-3, 2-E, 3-9. This is about the only point in the game in which a character makes other chapters easier. In 2-2 you have one grass that needs to be passed around and 3 different laguz that worry about untransforming. Offensively, it's mostly Brom and Nephenee and Lucia vs. Lethe, Mordecai, and Nealuchi. There are about the same number of beorc fighters as laguz. Heather isn't really a full fighter. Vigor is more important here than any of reyson's chapters, really, since it's a 7 turn limit and I'm not sure it's possible to do it when you can't have Mordy attack and grass. It could be doable, but Leanne makes it much easier. And easier to get the discipline scroll and steal the secret book. In 2-E, your only unit that ORKOs just about everything happens to also be the only healer over which we have complete control. IS is kinda evil at times. Leanne means you don't have as hard a choice. Blick + heal, or heal + heal, or Blick + blick. Not just blick or heal. Rather useful, that. Plus how most units don't ORKO much and vigoring is even more awesome. I'd think in Leanne's 3 part 2 chapters she does more than Reyson does in any 3 of his part 3 chapters. Trouble is, she's not so hot in 3-11 with the onagers, though still functional. Also, Reyson has 5 pre part 4 chapters to her almost 4. Then she's not as good in 4-E, but still rather good in 4-P and 4-3. Especially 4-3. Still, in 3-11 and part 4 it kind of hurts that she only ever gets 2 units vigored.

I suppose she could stand to drop to above Nailah, but she's really good in part 2. And more important than Reyson is in part 3. That's gotta mean something. Still, I guess she could at least go under Sothe, since he's pretty vital in early part 1 and still good for the rest of it and also pretty useful in part 3. Well, not really 3-12, but whatever. Utility in 4-3, forced in 4-E and capable of finishing most units kills when they don't ORKO. At least he can if he has the baselard. Even 42 mt finishes off a lot of leftovers, and that's just level 8/1 and assuming we broke the Sothe x Micaiah support. Sure, he's not awesome anymore, but he's not useless. And since he's free, anyone who goes by the negative utility thing can't really give him any until 4-E-4, and even then he's comparable to Gareth anyway.

[Florete]

Hey...does anyone remember where I posted that Coin data?

EDIT: Robo Ky, please quote properly.

Edited August 25, 2009 by Red Fox of Fire

[_____]

Right here.