OMG it's a tier list

[a.f.k.a. Howard Hughes]

Giving all your stat boosters to Jill is very intuitive. Other units are either beyond help (miccy's or Ed's defensive stats) or quite competent in combat relevant stats (Volug raises to mind) Generally the issue with DB units isn't in Str, Hp or Def (expect like Laura who gains nothing from seraph robe) but In their movement and lack of nice things like canto. Meanwhile what Jill has over others is good performance in non combat "stats" aka Mov and Having canto while being very iffy in raw combat stats like Str, Def and Hp. Seems intuitive to me to give the one whose issues seemingly raise from not having enough of those 3 stats the Items that raise those stats.

[dondon151]

Intuitiveness needs to be defined. I would call a strategy or tactic intuitive if it could reasonably be formulated by an intelligent player who has absolutely no information beyond what the game gives them. Conclusions such as "forging effective weapons is more effective (ahem) than forging normal weapons" can be reached with some experimentation and careful thought. I can't think of a reason to intuitively conclude "It is best to give Jill all your stat boosters". Possibly, because fliers are inherently better, but how valid that is depends on how fast we're going.

in no circumstance does a player have information beyond what the game gives him.

[General Banzai]

Giving all your stat boosters to Jill is very intuitive.

giving all of your stat boosters to just one person isn't intuitive at all

[a.f.k.a. Howard Hughes]

It is when any other unit you are using (seemingly at the very least) gets basically nothing from them

[Refa]

Intuitiveness is silly and entirely subjective, some people may consider it unintuitive to use Jeigans because clearly there's got to be some catch (even when there isn't).

[PKL]

I find this intuitive-ness (<- is that even a word? Insert English isn't my main language excuse here it it isn't) thing kinda silly. Just tier how good units are relative to the rest of the cast and forget about this silly stuff imo.

Edited October 7, 2013 by PKL

[Baldrick]

well then what's "give FE9 Marcia all your BEXP or statboosters" under

Again, depends on how valid "fliers are inherently better" is to your list, as well as "first come, first served"

Giving all your stat boosters to Jill is very intuitive. Other units are either beyond help (miccy's or Ed's defensive stats) or quite competent in combat relevant stats (Volug raises to mind) Generally the issue with DB units isn't in Str, Hp or Def (expect like Laura who gains nothing from seraph robe) but In their movement and lack of nice things like canto. Meanwhile what Jill has over others is good performance in non combat "stats" aka Mov and Having canto while being very iffy in raw combat stats like Str, Def and Hp. Seems intuitive to me to give the one whose issues seemingly raise from not having enough of those 3 stats the Items that raise those stats.

Fiona also has a mount and even more dubious stats. Does that make her a more intuitive choice than Jill?

But seriously, why not transfer those boosters so a stronger unit can use them? Or to like Nolan or Zihark who are well-balanced but not yet sufficiently competent?

Re: the higher move, I'd direct you to my query about fliers in the last post.

in no circumstance does a player have information beyond what the game gives him.

http://serenesforest.net/fe10/

[dondon151]

http://serenesforest.net/fe10/

i sincerely hope that you don't think of this as a sufficient rebuttal. every bit of useful information on the site is available within the game. i had a feeling that you would completely betray your lack of understanding, and i have been proven correct.

[Baldrick]

Do you agree that there is a difference between information explicitly given to the player (base stats, shop lists) and information that is not? And that there are degrees in difficulty in uncovering that information. It is not hard to obtain the damage formula, but harder to determine, say, the support point formula, to the extent that you cannot intuitively know that information.

I can hunt down some guides written by players, if you like. I'm certain the game never explains to you, if you do X, Y and Z, you can complete 1-9 in 4 turns.

[dondon151]

Do you agree that there is a difference between information explicitly given to the player (base stats, shop lists) and information that is not? And that there are degrees in difficulty in uncovering that information. It is not hard to obtain the damage formula, but harder to determine, say, the support point formula, to the extent that you cannot intuitively know that information.

sure there is. growth rates, for example, are impossible to know with 100% certainty (yet tier discussions have relied on them as a given forever, even before the discovery of more accessible trivia, so don't hope to exclude growth rates as a component of the game that is unintuitive). but you are obfuscating the main point here. the information available to suggest that a wing spear forge for caeda is optimal is the same kind of information available to suggest that a stat booster dump on jill is also optimal. i mean, what do we care about?

- enemy stats in later chapters

- available resources (e.g., shops, treasures, EXP)

and that's pretty much it. the fact that you "can't think of a reason to intuitively conclude 'It is best to give Jill all your stat boosters'" does not suggest a lack of general intuitiveness, but rather a lack of imagination on your part.

I can hunt down some guides written by players, if you like. I'm certain the game never explains to you, if you do X, Y and Z, you can complete 1-9 in 4 turns.

no, and i'm fairly certain that i never asserted anything of the sort. the game never explains to you how to complete any chapter in any number of turns (well, except for defense chapters). that is not an argument against intuitiveness.

Edited October 7, 2013 by dondon151

[PKL]

Dondon, obviously intuitive players will give their boosters to Tauroneo, man.

[Baldrick]

Merely knowing the damage formula, I can conclude that effective weapons having +1 might equates to 3 points of damage on the relevant foes, so forging them is optimal. It does not necessarily follow that Sheeda and the Wing Spear are more optimal than other effective weapons, but if you read carefully, you'll note I only refer to EW's in general. (My intention is not to weigh in on the Sheeda v Jill debate, but to provide an example to clearly distinguish between intuitive and non-intuitive strategies). To know about Jill, I'd have to trawl through lists of enemy stats (since they're variable due to class growth rates or something, idk) and strategy guides; non-intuitive.

[Dark Sage]

The formulas aren't entirely obviously. It took me some time to figure out exactly how avoid was calculated and I often couldn't figure out how exactly effective damage was calculated. It took me a bit of time and careful examination to figure this out. Of course this was years ago when I was a far worse FE player but this is yet another example on how what is intuitive is not immediately obvious to various people.

[Vicious Sal]

I'm wondering, somewhere I in an argument I read that these units are tiered according how they are put to the best possible use with the required resources to get them to said top performance. This means if a unit does not need the 3-9 speedwing to perform better, he won't get it. However, if a unit is in high tier because the highly contested speedwing is allocated to said unit, because it gives the best overall performance boost, the resource is out of the equation for a lot of other units. Thus, their overall top performance is lowered, shouldn't this mean that this should possible affect their tiering position?

Currently Jill is topic of discussion so let's take her as an example. The DB has 2 Seraph robes, a Draco, and an energy drop and a speeding (and tons of other stuff but let's not get too complicated in an example). Jill, Nolan, Edward, Aran and Volug all want all or some of those.

Without any boosters I'll put the units into a Tier list (Note, may or may not be correct, just example)

1 Volug

2 Nolan

3 Jill

4 Aran

5 Edward

The unit that gets the overall best performance boost from these resources is Jill, so she gets a Robe, the drop and the draco. All of these were items everyone but volug would want. If Nolan/Aran would get all of these, they would rise above Volug in the tier list, however, to maximes our army, these resources go to jill, so they can't be distributed to others. As far as I understand it, the current tier list goes like this:

Jill (If she gets resources x )

Nolan (if he would get resources X)

Volug

I know it would make the list long and messy, and that should be worked out, but wouldn't it also be a lot more detailed if units got description as to what input they need to deserve their place? Because Nolan and Jill are now higher than volug in my list, but only one can get those boosters, the other doesn't, so when someone plays the game, they pump jill with boosters, expect Nolan to be great as well, and wonder why Volug is outperforming him.

What I throw in as my two cents is a tier list like:

Jill (gets resources x)

Volug (Is great due to stats, half shift yadda yadda, does not need resources X)

Nolan (Would outperform volug if given resource X, bit does not because resources X are better spent on Jill)

I don't want to upend the current tier list, and I don't know fi my presumptions on how it's built are correct anyway, but I'd like some clarification please ^^

[PKL]

Merely knowing the damage formula, I can conclude that effective weapons having +1 might equates to 3 points of damage on the relevant foes, so forging them is optimal. It does not necessarily follow that Sheeda and the Wing Spear are more optimal than other effective weapons, but if you read carefully, you'll note I only refer to EW's in general. (My intention is not to weigh in on the Sheeda v Jill debate, but to provide an example to clearly distinguish between intuitive and non-intuitive strategies). To know about Jill, I'd have to trawl through lists of enemy stats (since they're variable due to class growth rates or something, idk) and strategy guides; non-intuitive.

How is figuring out a unit with superior mov, flight, stats, etc should be favored over the other scrub DBs not intuitive?

Why should being intuitive matter in tiering?

If we're assuming a semi-blind player for this tier list now for some odd reason, then why don't we start assuming Tauroneo is given all the statboosters? He's clearly the best recipient just going from what the game provides the player: base stats.

Edited October 7, 2013 by PKL

[Refa]

Wouldn't the player give the statboosters to the unit with the worst stats AKA Meg because they need it more?

EDIT Forgot about Fiona. She...might actually benefit from them if you were seriously using her.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Refa

[shadykid]

Wouldn't the player give the statboosters to the unit with the worst stats AKA Meg because they need it more?

EDIT Forgot about Fiona. She...might actually benefit from them if you were seriously using her.

she...would turn out better than Meg with statboosters :lol

[Redwall]

If you want to have a rational discussion about Jill’s position in the tier list, a couple things need to be made clear.

-Transfers or no?

-what resources is she assumed to take? seraph robe/energy drop/dracoshield in 1-6-1? what about skills like paragon, adept, beastfoe?

-who’s she supporting? what level does she reach c/b/a?

-How fast is she levelling? What level is she assumed to be in milestone chapters like 3-6 and 3-13?

The last point is especially important. I had a quick look at a 20/1 transfer Jill w/ seraph + draco and she was still getting 2-3HKOed by the most common tiger in 3-6, which doesn’t exactly put her on Haar’s level combat-wise. But then if she’s like 20/5 in 3-6 with 2 robes and an A Volug support, that really changes things.

Assume Jill is 20/1 at the start of 3-6, and has received Str/Spd/Def transfers, a Speedwing, Energy Drop, Dracoshield, and two Seraph Robes. No BEXP is assumed.

20/1 Jill has a 97.8% chance of reaching 22 Spd to double Tigers.

I did a multinomial calculation to look at her durability. If Jill is attacked by three units with a combined Atk of 103, she has a 76% chance of surviving. However, with Beastfoe, she can ORKO Tigers with the Brave Axe during the player phase in order to bypass their attacks, making durability less of a problem. I can post the code (it's pretty short) if you wish to experiment with different combinations of enemy attacks.

It also helps that Jill can snowball quickly in 3-6, boosting her durability along the way (albeit very slightly); in Olwen's video of 3-6, I think Jill went from Lv. 3 to Lv. 9 or something, and while his Jill was unusually stat-blessed, I wouldn't expect a drastic difference between his Jill and an average 20/1 Jill (T) with boosters.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Nessie

[XeKr]

Haar needs Spd to double stuff-> Give Speedwing. Is intuitive.

Jill (T) needs Hp/Def to survive stuff -> Give Seraph Robe/Dracoshield. Is not intuitive.

Problem? >_>

I cannot tell who’s making satirical posts vs. serious ones anymore. I give this “intuitiveness” movement a 9/10 troll rating. Only a few thousand more posts to reach a 10/10 rating matching that of “efficiency”.

@Redwall. 18 Spd Tigers are rare anyways. Is the Energy Drop relevant assuming Beastfoe? Are those survival numbers including avoid or just Atk vs. Def?

If you have the code and the time/interest, a table or plot (rather than a single value) would be easy to make and be quite interesting/elucidating, as would a comparison to her peers.

[Ema Skye]

Stepping back to Neph (T) vs Mia, I think it makes sense.

Between the Skill, Spe and the 2-1 Talisman, Neph is a prime candidate for BEXP slowplay. It takes around 6 levels for Neph (T) to cap Skl and Spe and 5 levels to cap Res with the 2-1 Talisman. This shifts her highest bexp throughs to HP, Lck, and Def/Str. Not to mention that Lances are a better weapon than swords (stronger, access to 1-2 range which is forgable on 3-7). Adept + Crit forge is also something that Neph can do, with the difference in Adept being a mere 3%.

I think I'd rather have Mia move down though then Neph move up though.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Professor Palutena

[Redwall]

The Energy Drop allows Jill to guarantee a OHKO on certain enemies with a +5-Mt Iron Axe in one of the earlier chapters (1-6-1?)

The survival numbers I posted don't account for avoid, only HP and Def; enemies are assumed to have 100% accuracy against Jill. I don't know what sort of plots would interest you, so I'll just post the code for you to mess around with (I wrote it in Octave).

n=6; % number of gained levels
hp_base=40; def_base=19; % assuming promotion, defense transfers, a Dracoshield, and two Seraph Robes
hpdef=0.175; hp=0.325; def=0.175; neither=0.325; % growth rates: Jill gains both HP and Def with hpdef probability; HP but not Def with hp probability; etc.
nhits=3; % Jill is assumed to survive this many hits
num_vectors=5000;
p=[hpdef,hp,def,neither];

R=mnrnd(n,p,num_vectors);
stat_gains=R;

stat_gains(:,1)=stat_gains(:,1)*(nhits+1); % converting stat gains to effective HP
stat_gains(:,3)=stat_gains(:,3)*nhits;
stat_gains(:,4)=0;

tot_effective_HP=sum(stat_gains,2)+hp_base+def_base*nhits; % adding in base stats to effective HP

prob=sum(tot_effective_HP>103)/num_vectors; % probability of having HP+nhits*Def reach a certain benchmark

Edited October 7, 2013 by Nessie

[Baldrick]

@jack frost: we do have to make assumptions about the player's intelligence, but that's how it's always been in tiering.

@pkl:

A reminder this is not LTC. Flight is not autowin.

I believe the theory is that intuitive strategies are ones more people use, so they provide more relevant information on who is good and who is bad. If you think the idea not worth discussing, you're free to ignore the discussion.

The game provides a lot more than base stats. Tauroneo's performance is such that he doesn't need them, so it's more prudent for the player to hang on to them in case they a better option comes up. Frankly it's difficult to predict the actions of a blind player.

@xekr: if nothing else, it's good practice. I want to clearly define it to see if it holds up to scrutiny or not.

[dondon151]

I cannot tell who’s making satirical posts vs. serious ones anymore. I give this “intuitiveness” movement a 9/10 troll rating. Only a few thousand more posts to reach a 10/10 rating matching that of “efficiency”.

the mere fact that the same person is able to, on one hand, show that something is clearly intuitive, while on the other hand, show that the same thing is clearly unintuitive, should indicate that this discussion about intuitiveness is entirely nonsense to begin with.

[PKL]

So, like, why is giving Haar a speedwing because he's the only GM flier intuitive while giving boosters to the only DB flier unintuitive? Seriously, like dondon says, this is absolute nonsense.

Edited October 7, 2013 by PKL

[XeKr]

The Energy Drop allows Jill to guarantee a OHKO on certain enemies with a +5-Mt Iron Axe in one of the earlier chapters (1-6-1?)

The survival numbers I posted don't account for avoid, only HP and Def; enemies are assumed to have 100% accuracy against Jill. I don't know what sort of plots would interest you, so I'll just post the code for you to mess around with (I wrote it in Octave).

n=6; % number of gained levels
hp_base=40; def_base=19; % assuming promotion, defense transfers, a Dracoshield, and two Seraph Robes
hpdef=0.175; hp=0.325; def=0.175; neither=0.325; % growth rates: Jill gains both HP and Def with hpdef probability; HP but not Def with hp probability; etc.
nhits=3; % Jill is assumed to survive this many hits
num_vectors=5000;
p=[hpdef,hp,def,neither];

R=mnrnd(n,p,num_vectors);
stat_gains=R;

stat_gains(:,1)=stat_gains(:,1)*(nhits+1); % converting stat gains to effective HP
stat_gains(:,3)=stat_gains(:,3)*nhits;
stat_gains(:,4)=0;

tot_effective_HP=sum(stat_gains,2)+hp_base+def_base*nhits; % adding in base stats to effective HP

prob=sum(tot_effective_HP>103)/num_vectors; % probability of having HP+nhits*Def reach a certain benchmark

I don’t think the Iron forge ohko is that relevant since you could forge Steel anyway (in 1-E, with foreknowledge I suppose…) or just use the Brave Axe. Plus, there’s fog, so often Jill isn’t PP attacking if she’s flying out, and will take the hit on EP regardless if she ohkos or just orkos.

I was just noting that 103 seemed arbitrary at a glance, so a simple vector with a range of enemy atks could reveal some interesting information.

(estimating it numerically is way easier than the silliness I was imagining. Not sure what I was thinking. Cool stuff though. >_>)

@dondon. This discussion is too meta for me. <_<

EDIT: oh nvm I think I misread the Energy Drop point?

Edited October 7, 2013 by XeKr