OMG it's a tier list

[Jaybee]

Smash still doesn't realise Cynthia is female. Wow.

1-1 is just one long chokepoint, which means Nolan can do all the work, and in fact trying to have Edward tank in place of Nolan just makes you go slower.

Near the end there is a space where an archer can snipe Nolan from. Edward can stay there and damage him or take the hit.

1-2 is a bit more open, but you only need Laura to reach the arrive square, and there's hardly any enemies in the way that people like Sothe and Nolan can't take out on their own.

All this while missing out on the boss and the Energy Drop. Smart.

1-3 is laughable, because Edward is pretty much your worst unit in the chapter. Sothe godmodes, Nolan/Aran don't get 2HKO'd by the entire map, Micaiah/Leo/Ilyana potshot safely at 2-range, Laura heals. What does Edward give me besides some frontliner who actually can't frontline because he gets 2HKO'd by everything?

Archers will come for either Leo, Micaiah or Laura. That or ranged enemies will. Leo also does horrible chip damage.

1-4 is pretty much the same thing. Although technically, Edward isn't the worst unit anymore since Meg joined. But he's still awful. lol @ him actually being useful here other than for shoving

Edward can probably take out the tiger at the back along with reinforcements. Place Micaiah along with Laura there and you're good.

Ditto for 1-5 only now Volug comes and starts roflstomping everything in sight with Sothe.

Fine.

Also, Stefan comes in 4-3, where he can't do much because of 2 move. Sure he has VK, but does he really do anything with it? He has one chapter of averageness, then he probably doesn't get chosen for endgame because of royals and other guys like Mia and Shinon. At least Edward has 1 good chapter.

[Hexmaster44]

Definitely not. Danved (Devdan?) is pretty bad in 2-3. He falls behind the mounted units too easily and only has mediocre durability to show for it.

Neph has 2-1, where the chapter would be basically impossible to visit all the houses, get Heather, and get max BEXP without her.

Neph has 2-2, where she's pretty good. The chapter would be a lot harder without her. The laguz have their meters to worry about (and there's only one Olivi Grass) and Heather and Leanne have loldurability. She chokepoints well. The chapter would be much harder to complete without her. EDIT: fix'd

Devdan has 2-3, but you could just as easily beat this chapter without him. He doesn't keep up with the horses, has bad durability and wields lances in an axe-heavy chapter. At least Geoffrey has a horse and good evasion/durability and Marcia has her Pegasus for hit and run with her Javelin/Steel Lance.

Neph has 2-E, where she is worse, but she still helps massively. At the very least, she can stand on the ledge and chuck Javelins at poor, unsuspecting soldiers. She does decent chip damage and almost always doubles. She does enough to let someone like Haar, who doesn't double, kill that unit without taking any damage.

Devdan comes late to this chapter, but he might as well not come at all. The only enemies worth killing here are the two generals near the start, one with the Silver Greatlance, who might have been killed by someone that flies like Elincia or Nealuchi already. If they press forward, they get swarmed and someone like Makalov is likely to die. Even Geoffrey and Kieran face difficulties here. And it's not like Devdan can charge ahead by himself because he will be swarmed and his bad evasion and bad defense will eventually get to his good HP.

I don't see how Neph is losing.

Edited June 18, 2009 by Hexmaster44

[Colonel M]

Uh... sorry Hex.

Devdan doesn't face WTD first off. Second, this chapter is pretty balanced in weapons. Though normally I'd say Makalov is the worst because Nadved here at least has decent damage output, I agree that Danved has that movement issue.

[nflchamp]

The Nephenee worst character in Part 2 only thing shouldn't be discussed here, as far as I'm concerned. It has no bearing on the actual tier list. Discuss somewhere else. Like the topic it started in.

[Colonel M]

I was simply nitpicking, 'tis all.

[charmander6000]

Edward has availability over Stefan and if you train him by the time Stefan shows up both units have similar stats so I don't see how Edward would lose.

[Martelé]

Edward has availability over Stefan and if you train him by the time Stefan shows up both units have similar stats so I don't see how Edward would lose.

No, for Edward to have similar stats to Stefan, you need to raise him, which is annoying because of his pathetic durability and mediocre offense. His availability isn't worth much.

At least Edward has 1 good chapter.

And like 10 (didn't check) in which he's terrible in.

[Interceptor]

Arguments can be made for and against all of them, e.g. The laguz have no 2-range and transformation issues.

This is a thoroughly meaningless statement. Arguments can be made for or against many things. The fact that arguments can be made says nothing about a unit's actual tier placement, it's the results of arguments that matter.

Again, performance is relative to the PCs, not the enemies, so it doesn't matter exactly how much the GMs are pwning their enemies, but rather how the GMs fare against each other.

Did you even read my post?

The advantages that I listed for Gatrie were all advantages relative to the other GMs. His durability and offense are amongst the highest in the group. I'm not even sure that he knows how to die, his concrete durability is on par with Top tier characters, higher in same cases due to his affinity. He only two-rounds for as long as it takes you to slap a Burger King crown in his head for him to start ORKO'ing. Gatrie is one of those characters that's kept out of Top only by a glaring flaw, which in this case is his mobility. But hell, Tormod's skill fixes that and lets G rolls with 7MV units with up to one intervening obstacle in the way.

Ulki and Janaff are the same way, they are awesome units even relative to the GMs that they roll with. They have king mobility in the GMs, better than Haar's (no indoor MV penalty). Janaff has more avoid at base than Mia does with B Ike, and she's already incredibly dodgy. Ulki blows the roof off of that one by being +19 over Janaff. Both of them have basically as much HP as base level as Gatrie/Shinon will have at level 20 tier 3. Janaff is doubling with 40mt, also known as "max STR tier 2 Ike with a Steel Blade", and Ulki can do the same thing with a Drop. They level up Strike quickly because of their SPD, and that's another +5 and +5 for S and SS. If they fail to ORKO, just wait for Tear. The only limiter on their offense is 1-range and gauge, and the only ceiling on their tier position is their availbility. Fortunately, there's plenty of grass for the both of them, they ride with a heron, and their mobility lets them get ahead, pwn 1-range units, and let the other GMs clean up the mess of 1-2's that they can't counter.

And then there's Zihark, whom I ALSO did not compare to anyone but the units he was with: everything I said was relative to his team. His durabiilty goes from average to poor to great -- relative to his team. His offense goes from excellent to a liability to underwhelming -- relative to his team.

Why must I always have to spell these things out for you?

[...] doesn't actually mean it's their opinion.

This is the only part of your statement that was right. I was pretty clear that my answers were predictions of smash's "logic", and not necessarily correct. Although in this case, I think that Stefan actually probably is better than Eddie, overall.

It's interesting though, smash doesn't usually care about Part 4 at all, or Endgame in particular, he dismisses them out of hand as "loleasy" chapters that mean next to nothing. All you have to do is look at any old Nephenee vs. Aran argument, or Nephenee vs. Oscar, or Nephenee vs. Brom... hmm, perhaps I just answered my own question! He hates Eddie, so now Part 4 matters. Relevancy as a moving target!

[-Cynthia-]

This kind of goes back to the old Geoffrey vs. Volke argment I had earlier.

Anyway, if Edward is such a negative past the early DB chapters, there's no reason we can't just drop him if that's the most efficient way of using him. You can't really count availability against a character- since there's always the option not use them. There's no reason we have to use Edward past like 1-5.

Also, on Stefan being average, it's number time.

--/8 Stefan(Vague Katti)

53 HP 47 Atk 36 AS 26 Def 16 Res 92 Avo

Base level Tibarn

68 HP 56 Atk 40 AS 32 Def 20 Res 119 Avo

Naesala (with SS Strike)

60 HP 52 Atk 42 AS 26 Def 28 Res 124 Avo

Caineghis

26 HP 66 Atk 34 AS 44 Def 20 Res 94 Avo

Giffca

73 HP 64 Atk 36 AS 40 Def 22 Res 92 Avo

--/14 Volke(Baselard)

53 HP 49 Atk 36 AS 26 Def 22 Res 91 Avo

--/34 Ulki (SS Strike A Janaff)

63 HP 51 Atk 40 AS 27 Def 24 Res 115 Avo

--/35 Janaff (SS Strike A Ulki)

60 HP 55 Atk 38 AS 28 Def 18 Res 99 Avo

20/10 Shinon (Double Bow A Mia)

54 HP 55 Atk 34 AS 30 Def 21 Res 96 Avo

--/35 Nailah

67 HP 56 Atk 38 AS 34 Def 28 Res 74 Avo

20/10 Mia (Vague Katti A Ike)

50 HP 51 Atk 38 AS 30 Def 18 Res 147 Avo

Ok, so that's 10 characters better than Stefan, many of them have Mov leads/flight/range I didn't bring up.. There are more I could have brought up, like Zihark, but I think you get the point. Stefan is almost always going to taking the spot of a better unit in Endgame, meaning that's he's a negative for almost his entire existence. People like Edward and Lucia are at least useful for a chapter/ a few chapters.

Counterign the spirits on the enemy phase isn't terribly important, it doesn't help to clear E-4 or E-5. As for Sigrun ferrying Micaiah, that's an excellent way to get Sigrun and Micaiah killed and fail the chapter. Pretty much all the enemies have to be cleared out for Micaiah to recruit Stefan. He doesn't do much here because he loses Mov to lol desert and the chapter should be almost completed by th time he's recruited.

Edited June 18, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[dondon151]

I challenge anyone to show that it's faster to complete 1-1 without using Edward than with. Or 1-2.

[Mekkah]

Anyway, if Edward is such a negative past the early DB chapters, there's no reason we can't just drop him if that's the most efficient way of using him. You can't really count availability against a character- since there's always the option not use them.

Sure, it's just that all he has to Stefan is his usefulness between 1-P and 1-4 or wherever he's going to be dropped, chapters that can easily be argued to hold less weight than even 4-E. I agree that Stefan's competition for 4-E, like anyone's, is big though...but counting him as a negative there is a whole new story. It'd mean everyone but the top10 has negative to him. I've advocated a similar stance before though.

[Interceptor]

I challenge anyone to show that it's faster to complete 1-1 without using Edward than with. Or 1-2.

Look at the Nephenee vs. Lethe battle that's raging in Debates, and ask yourself if you want to do the same thing with Eddie. Because you're going to have the same opponent as Vykan, and argue the same general point. Just saying.

[Progenitus]

Ok, so that's 10 characters better than Stefan, many of them have Mov leads/flight/range I didn't bring up.. There are more I could have brought up, like Zihark, but I think you get the point. Stefan is almost always going to taking the spot of a better unit in Endgame, meaning that's he's a negative for almost his entire existence. People like Edward and Lucia are at least useful for a chapter/ a few chapters.

Cynthia, it would help if you read my posts before you responded to anything.

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?...st&p=455305

Counterign the spirits on the enemy phase isn't terribly important, it doesn't help to clear E-4 or E-5.

lolwut

Not countering spirits on enemy phase means you have more crap to deal with on your player phase.

And you didn't mention anything about the dragons who have 2-range as well.

As for Sigrun ferrying Micaiah, that's an excellent way to get Sigrun and Micaiah killed and fail the chapter. Pretty much all the enemies have to be cleared out for Micaiah to recruit Stefan. He doesn't do much here because he loses Mov to lol desert and the chapter should be almost completed by th time he's recruited.

The enemies also have 2 move in the desert so Sigrun/Micaiah can easily outmaneuver the nearby enemies.

[-Cynthia-]

Sure, it's just that all he has to Stefan is his usefulness between 1-P and 1-4 or wherever he's going to be dropped, chapters that can easily be argued to hold less weight than even 4-E. I agree that Stefan's competition for 4-E, like anyone's, is big though...but counting him as a negative there is a whole new story. It'd mean everyone but the top10 has negative to him. I've advocated a similar stance before though.

I guess the question then becomes how many characters you need to be worse than in order to be a negative for 4-E. I could keep going if you want. Note that almost any other character we bring to 4-E can bring a full 'A' support with them, which may be important enough to wipe out some small statistical lead Stefan may have.

And Stefan's problem is that he's really only available for 4-E, which means his available time is in competition with the best units in the game. You yourself say that a character's performance is relative to your other PC's, Stefan is always going to be worse than his other PC's.

In 4-E(4) we just have to shove/kill the spirits surrounding Sephiran, not kamikaze the whole map. In 4-E(5) the point is to kill auras, not spirits.

Edited June 18, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[dondon151]

Look at the Nephenee vs. Lethe battle that's raging in Debates, and ask yourself if you want to do the same thing with Eddie. Because you're going to have the same opponent as Vykan, and argue the same general point. Just saying.

I think you're misinterpreting me. I personally believe that Edward is a necessary unit in 1-1 and 1-2, not the other way around.

[Interceptor]

Cynthia, it would help if you read my posts before you responded to anything.

Your post does not actually address her core issue, which is that finding 10 deployables better than Stefan means that he has negative utility. That's negative utility by your own definition, btw, which would suggest that it's a fair point.

Pointing out that you'll get a silly tier list if you only deploy the best units, doesn't mean much of anything. Nobody here is going to let you get away with arbitrarily substituting "useless" in place of "negative".

I think you're misinterpreting me. I personally believe that Edward is a necessary unit in 1-1 and 1-2, not the other way around.

Then I am not misinterpreting you. My point remains.

Edited June 18, 2009 by Interceptor

[dondon151]

Then I am not misinterpreting you. My point remains.

Vykan showed that it's faster to clear 2-1 with Nephenee than without and I personally believe that it's faster to clear 1-1 and 1-2 with Edward than without. I don't understand.

[Interceptor]

Vykan showed that it's faster to clear 2-1 with Nephenee than without and I personally believe that it's faster to clear 1-1 and 1-2 with Edward than without. I don't understand.

"same opponent as Vykan" != "your opponent would be Vykan"

[Mekkah]

I don't think anyone disagrees that up to 1-2 or even 1-4 would be faster without Edward than with. The problem is afterwards.

[Progenitus]

He would make you go faster, but by a very, very small amount. And that's assuming you're going to drop him right after, because his usefulness isn't in fighting (e.g. stuff like shoving).

[Interceptor]

I don't think anyone disagrees that up to 1-2 or even 1-4 would be faster without Edward than with. The problem is afterwards.

Eddie does not actually start slowing you down until 1-6. He's part of a 2-turn boss kill in 1-4 (although granted, even Meg can do what he does here), and I'm not sure that leaving him at home in 1-5 is going to make it any easier to take the central platform and hold it down. He does pretty well on a ledge with a Wind Edge.

You can just shitcan him afterwards, and he accrues zero negative utility, after chapters of nothing but positives. Actually, he has one swan song moment, in that Tauroneo can support him to C in 3-12 to become slightly tankier, if you rescued Eddie with T, to stop T from blicking every enemy in 1-6. But that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, point being is that if you accept the argument that Stefan not being a top 10 Endgame character means deploying him in Endgame is a negative, however slight it might be, he can't beat Eddie overall. The question becomes, do you accept that logic of negative utility? If you do, your name is smash_fanatic or Paperblade, since they've been arguing that point off and on since early 2008, in hundreds of posts about Ilyana, Largo Jr, Ulki Jr, and some other Jr. that I am probably forgetting.

Therefore: smash's logic would appear to not support his assertion that Stefan > Eddie. Unless we get into the "Nephenee doing something in 2-1 means she's neutral" BS, which is new. I'll be interested to see how he writhes around this one.

[Progenitus]

Int, you should become a comedian when you grow up. I had a good laugh.

Your post does not actually address her core issue, which is that finding 10 deployables better than Stefan means that he has negative utility. That's negative utility by your own definition, btw, which would suggest that it's a fair point.

Pointing out that you'll get a silly tier list if you only deploy the best units, doesn't mean much of anything. Nobody here is going to let you get away with arbitrarily substituting "useless" in place of "negative".

Nope, proving that "10 UNITS BEAT STEFAN THUS STEFAN HAS NEGATIVE UTILITY" gives us ridiculous results such as half the units in the game never being used and thus in bottom tier is valid logic.

sry int, but "no u" doesn't disprove me

Eddie does not actually start slowing you down until 1-6. He's part of a 2-turn boss kill in 1-4 (although granted, even Meg can do what he does here), and I'm not sure that leaving him at home in 1-5 is going to make it any easier to take the central platform and hold it down. He does pretty well on a ledge with a Wind Edge.

You can just shitcan him afterwards, and he accrues zero negative utility, after chapters of nothing but positives. Actually, he has one swan song moment, in that Tauroneo can support him to C in 3-12 to become slightly tankier, if you rescued Eddie with T, to stop T from blicking every enemy in 1-6. But that's neither here nor there.

His usefulness outside of 1-P is largely just shoving things and occasionally finishing off an enemy, since he lolsucks at weakening anything (he gets 2HKO'd at like 70 hit and his offense is crap anyway, unless he can somehow double, in which case his offense becomes okay, but for him to double he'd have to take kills, which means more suckage when he was taking those kills because he's awful at fighting anyway)

And if we're doing retarded shit like "well we only need 10 guys to be better than Stefan before Stefan has negative utility", then Edward has negative utility in 1-5 as well because we only need 2 people to block the ledges, and we have Leo/Ilyana/anyone to do that.

Anyway, point being is that if you accept the argument that Stefan not being a top 10 Endgame character means deploying him in Endgame is a negative, however slight it might be, he can't beat Eddie overall. The question becomes, do you accept that logic of negative utility? If you do, your name is smash_fanatic or Paperblade, since they've been arguing that point off and on since early 2008, in hundreds of posts about Ilyana, Largo Jr, Ulki Jr, and some other Jr. that I am probably forgetting.

Therefore: smash's logic would appear to not support his assertion that Stefan > Eddie. Unless we get into the "Nephenee doing something in 2-1 means she's neutral" BS, which is new. I'll be interested to see how he writhes around this one.

My logic of positive/negative utility isn't retarded unlike cynthia's "LOL 10 GUYS BEAT STEFAN THUS STEFAN IS BAD BECAUSE WE'RE USING THE EXACT SAME TEAM IN EVERY SINGLE PLAYTHROUGH".

Saying "well only the best team is ever used" will give us ridiculous results such as Boyd being in bottom tier because he's not part of the best team.

Edited June 18, 2009 by smash fanatic

[Mekkah]

I don't believe in "top N is good, rest is bottom", where N is the max deployment amount. I do believe, however, that using unit B over unit A in 4-E when unit A has +3 in every stat across the board, for example, hurts you by as much as +3 in every stat allows unit A to survive and kill more things in an equal or shorter time frame. No more, no less.

And if we're doing retarded shit like "well we only need 10 guys to be better than Stefan before Stefan has negative utility", then Edward has negative utility in 1-5 as well because we only need 2 people to block the ledges, and we have Leo/Ilyana/anyone to do that.

Total number of people you can deploy in 1-5: 10

Total number of people available in 1-5: 10

[Progenitus]

I don't believe in "top N is good, rest is bottom", where N is the max deployment amount. I do believe, however, that using unit B over unit A in 4-E when unit A has +3 in every stat across the board, for example, hurts you by as much as +3 in every stat allows unit A to survive and kill more things in an equal or shorter time frame. No more, no less.

This doesn't necessarily mean that unit B has negative utility, since unit A has to be played in the first place.

Basically, even if we have, say, exactly 10 guys that outclass Stefan in 4-E, for Stefan to be harming the team, all 10 of them have to be in play, which is extremely unlikely.

Now if we had, say 20 guys that outclassed Stefan in 4-E, then we'd have an argument, but that's not the case here.

Nevermind that there are very few units in the first place that seriously outclass Stefan. He's basically Mia with a little less str/def/avo (though has a little more HP), but being worse than Mia in 4-E isn't a bad thing.

Total number of people you can deploy in 1-5: 10

Total number of people available in 1-5: 10

What's your point? This doesn't change the fact that I have multiple units who can block that center ledge, meaning edward's only really useful here for shoving.

[Interceptor]

I had a good laugh.

Probably a sign of cognitive dissonance, I'd say.

Nope, proving that "10 UNITS BEAT STEFAN THUS STEFAN HAS NEGATIVE UTILITY" gives us ridiculous results such as half the units in the game never being used and thus in bottom tier is valid logic.

Oh, what a pickle I am in now. See, I don't actually hold this position, so I'm forced to argue as if I were you from 2008, which is awkward, to say the least, especially because you are using some of the same arguments that I did back then. But, I will try. *ahem*

No, smash2009, you're wrong. It's not the case that negative utility of any sort makes everyone bottom tier, since we are still able to rank units based on relative negative utility. Compare Renning to Stefan, since they both show up around the same time, and have the same general availibility. Renning is worse than Stefan: a lot worse than Stefan. Even though Stefan's Army is not as good as any number of more optimal ones, he's way better than Renning's Army. So, as a result, we can safely tier Stefan above Renning, and in fact we can even put them in different tier breaks, since Stefan is significantly better than Renning (and not barely better, like perhaps an Oliver).

His usefulness outside of 1-P is largely just shoving things and occasionally finishing off an enemy, since he lolsucks at weakening anything (he gets 2HKO'd at like 70 hit and his offense is crap anyway, unless he can somehow double, in which case his offense becomes okay, but for him to double he'd have to take kills, which means more suckage when he was taking those kills because he's awful at fighting anyway)

This is not true, since Eddie can weaken on Enemy Phase, aka walling. It just requires that he not be hit by something that can put him under 30% if there are others around. 1-2 is a good example where this is useful, Nolan cannot block everything by himself, and Sothe isn't usable until Turn 3.

And if we're doing retarded shit like "well we only need 10 guys to be better than Stefan before Stefan has negative utility", then Edward has negative utility in 1-5 as well because we only need 2 people to block the ledges, and we have Leo/Ilyana/anyone to do that.

There are five places where enemies can jump up, and any of the walls can be shot over. AKA, Eddie can weaken even if he's not blocking (but he's probably blocking). Also, he's useful for the initial push to the ledge, because you need as much firepower as possible. There are enough indirects availible that he doesn't even need to get hit. Seriously.

Saying "well only the best team is ever used" will give us ridiculous results such as Boyd being in bottom tier because he's not part of the best team.

Problem is, nobody actually said that. That thing you put in quotation marks. Y'know, those things that we use to indicate when we're quoting something.

Ugh, I feel dirty after writing this post.