OMG it's a tier list

[grandjackal]

Fine, either way speed's her best growth, and by a healthy margin.

But as for weapon rank, the thing with Lyre is that she only needs 1 speed to generally be doubling. Let's say she gets exposed to 6 battles per chapter. Not much considering. She needs 35 battles to go up a rank.

6 chapters, she has S rank. 5 more damage per strike. Let's assume she has base strength. Lyre will have 27 MT. Enemies from chapter 3-10

4x Halberdier lvl 13 (Steel Lance)

HP 39, atk 31, AS 21, Hit 142, Avo 63, Def 21, Res 14, Crit 15, Ddg 15

2x Halberdier lvl 14 (Steel Lance)

HP 40, Atk 31, AS 22, Hit 143, Avo 65, Def 22, Res 14, Crit 15, Ddg 16

Generally a 4RKO

1x Warrior lvl 12 (Steel Poleaxe)

HP 42, atk 39, As 21, Hit 123, Avo 63, Def 16, Res 10, Crit 10, Ddg 16

1x Warrior lvl 13 (Steel Poleaxe)

HP 43, atk 39, AS 22, Hit 124, Avo 66, Def 18, Res 10, Crit 10, Ddg 16

2RKO-3RKO

2x Swordmaster lvl 13 (Steel Sword)

HP 35, atk 28, AS 25, Hit 157, Avo 72, Def 17, Res 11, Crit 22, Ddg 17

If she doubles, 2RKO

Generally the trend keeps up like that, but that's at base mt with small amount of exposure per chapter. As for her avoid, well the enemy hit rate has hardly increased. By now she'd have a support rolling. Her avoid and durability will be better. Even with only 2 def and at base, she needs 4 halberdiers to take her out. At this point I could say surviving isn't a problem.

As for Astrid 3-11? Well first off as a note, she's not doubling anything even if we by some miracle got her to level 20 and promoted her. However, that obviously will not be the case. With paragon and her time though, I'll be generous and give her...5 levels and a silver bow, assuming she somehow got 70 strikes in 3 chapters. The most common enemy on the map.

2x Lance Paladin lvl 14 (Steel Lance)

HP 40, Atk 30, AS 20, Hit 144, Avo 66, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 9, Ddg 16

3x Lance Paladin lvl 15 (Steel Lance)

HP 40, Atk 30, AS 20, Hit 148, Avo 68, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 10, Ddg 18

* One has a Vulnerary

1x Lance Paladin lvl 15 (Stl Greatlance)

HP 39, atk 35, AS 20, Hit 135, Avo 67, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 9, Ddg 17

1x Axe Paladin lvl 14 (Steel Poleaxe)

HP 39, Atk 36, AS 19, Hit 127, Avo 65, Def 19, Res 12, Crit 10, Ddg 17

1x Axe Paladin lvl 14 (Hand Axe)

HP 40, Atk 30, AS 19, Hit 136, Avo 64, Def 19, Res 12, Crit 10, Ddg 16

1x Axe Paladin lvl 16 (Steel Axe)

HP 40, Atk 33, AS 19, Hit 142, Avo 66, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 10, Ddg 18

2x Blade Paladin lvl 15 (Steel Sword)

HP 40, Atk 29, AS 20, Hit 151, Avo 68, Def 21, Res 13, Crit 9, Ddg 18

1x Blade Paladin lvl 15 (Storm Sword)

HP 40, atk 32, AS 20, Hit 116, Avo 68, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 9, Ddg 18

1x Blade Paladin lvl 16 (Steel Sword)

HP 41, Atk 29, AS 20, Hit 141, Avo 68, Def 21, Res 13, Crit 9, Ddg 18

1x Blade Paladin lvl 16 (Silver Sword)

HP 41, Atk 33, AS 20, Hit 146, Avo 68, Def 21, Res 13, Crit 9, Ddg 18Astrid 6-

1x Bow Paladin lvl 16 (Steel Bow

HP 41, Atk 29, AS 20, Hit 148, Avo 68, Def 20, Res 14, Cr 10, Ddg 18

Astrid 5-6RKOs while Lyre at base Str with S strike 4-3RKOs. They 2-1RKO Astrid (she absolutely cannot be screwed out of a single point of speed, Lyre only needs a point of speed to double them all. Rediculous to think she won't have it by now). At base Lyre, gets 3-4RKOd. Lyre can counter, and thus attack more than one, while Astrid cannot even risk being attacked, not that it would gain you anything. Lyre is also bound to have plenty more avoid, and has a defense+avoid boosting affinity. This is assuming that Lyre is at base HP, Str and Def, while I was being generous to Astrid with levels and weapon consideration.

I don't see how having worse offense than Lyre is made up for with Canto when Lyre's durable as is.

[Narga_Rocks]

Fine, either way speed's her best growth, and by a healthy margin.

But as for weapon rank, the thing with Lyre is that she only needs 1 speed to generally be doubling. Let's say she gets exposed to 6 battles per chapter. Not much considering. She needs 35 battles to go up a rank.

6 chapters, she has S rank. 5 more damage per strike. Let's assume she has base strength. Lyre will have 27 MT. Enemies from chapter 3-10

4x Halberdier lvl 13 (Steel Lance)

HP 39, atk 31, AS 21, Hit 142, Avo 63, Def 21, Res 14, Crit 15, Ddg 15

2x Halberdier lvl 14 (Steel Lance)

HP 40, Atk 31, AS 22, Hit 143, Avo 65, Def 22, Res 14, Crit 15, Ddg 16

Generally a 4RKO

1x Warrior lvl 12 (Steel Poleaxe)

HP 42, atk 39, As 21, Hit 123, Avo 63, Def 16, Res 10, Crit 10, Ddg 16

1x Warrior lvl 13 (Steel Poleaxe)

HP 43, atk 39, AS 22, Hit 124, Avo 66, Def 18, Res 10, Crit 10, Ddg 16

2RKO-3RKO

2x Swordmaster lvl 13 (Steel Sword)

HP 35, atk 28, AS 25, Hit 157, Avo 72, Def 17, Res 11, Crit 22, Ddg 17

If she doubles, 2RKO

Generally the trend keeps up like that, but that's at base mt with small amount of exposure per chapter. As for her avoid, well the enemy hit rate has hardly increased. By now she'd have a support rolling. Her avoid and durability will be better. Even with only 2 def and at base, she needs 4 halberdiers to take her out. At this point I could say surviving isn't a problem.

As for Astrid 3-11? Well first off as a note, she's not doubling anything even if we by some miracle got her to level 20 and promoted her. However, that obviously will not be the case. With paragon and her time though, I'll be generous and give her...5 levels and a silver bow, assuming she somehow got 70 strikes in 3 chapters. The most common enemy on the map.

2x Lance Paladin lvl 14 (Steel Lance)

HP 40, Atk 30, AS 20, Hit 144, Avo 66, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 9, Ddg 16

3x Lance Paladin lvl 15 (Steel Lance)

HP 40, Atk 30, AS 20, Hit 148, Avo 68, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 10, Ddg 18

* One has a Vulnerary

1x Lance Paladin lvl 15 (Stl Greatlance)

HP 39, atk 35, AS 20, Hit 135, Avo 67, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 9, Ddg 17

1x Axe Paladin lvl 14 (Steel Poleaxe)

HP 39, Atk 36, AS 19, Hit 127, Avo 65, Def 19, Res 12, Crit 10, Ddg 17

1x Axe Paladin lvl 14 (Hand Axe)

HP 40, Atk 30, AS 19, Hit 136, Avo 64, Def 19, Res 12, Crit 10, Ddg 16

1x Axe Paladin lvl 16 (Steel Axe)

HP 40, Atk 33, AS 19, Hit 142, Avo 66, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 10, Ddg 18

2x Blade Paladin lvl 15 (Steel Sword)

HP 40, Atk 29, AS 20, Hit 151, Avo 68, Def 21, Res 13, Crit 9, Ddg 18

1x Blade Paladin lvl 15 (Storm Sword)

HP 40, atk 32, AS 20, Hit 116, Avo 68, Def 20, Res 12, Crit 9, Ddg 18

1x Blade Paladin lvl 16 (Steel Sword)

HP 41, Atk 29, AS 20, Hit 141, Avo 68, Def 21, Res 13, Crit 9, Ddg 18

1x Blade Paladin lvl 16 (Silver Sword)

HP 41, Atk 33, AS 20, Hit 146, Avo 68, Def 21, Res 13, Crit 9, Ddg 18Astrid 6-

1x Bow Paladin lvl 16 (Steel Bow

HP 41, Atk 29, AS 20, Hit 148, Avo 68, Def 20, Res 14, Cr 10, Ddg 18

Astrid 5-6RKOs while Lyre at base Str with S strike 4-3RKOs. They 2-1RKO Astrid (she absolutely cannot be screwed out of a single point of speed, Lyre only needs a point of speed to double them all. Rediculous to think she won't have it by now). At base Lyre, gets 3-4RKOd. Lyre can counter, and thus attack more than one, while Astrid cannot even risk being attacked, not that it would gain you anything. Lyre is also bound to have plenty more avoid, and has a defense+avoid boosting affinity. This is assuming that Lyre is at base HP, Str and Def, while I was being generous to Astrid with levels and weapon consideration.

I don't see how having worse offense than Lyre is made up for with Canto when Lyre's durable as is.

Sigh.

3-4, 3-7, 3-8, 3-10 is 4 chapters, or 8.75 doubles per chapter. She needs 70 points to get to S and each attack is worth 1.

Astrid has a steel bow. Each hit is worth 3. She needs 20 attacks to get to 60, which is the line for getting from B to A.

Astrid needs 20 attacks, Lyre needs 35 attacks in which she doubles each time. Astrid can get to A from the beginning of RD on a transfer from a casual playthrough of PoR where somebody used her but not extensively and got her to a mere B. Even if we ignore transfers, Astrid has an easier time getting to A than Lyre to S.

Why do they even put up the information on this site if no one reads it?

There is no point letting Lyre tank on enemy phase because she is wasting our time. Lyre thus needs to attack almost every round and if we were "nice" to her and weakened an enemy for her to kill without having to get countered at 50% hit rates depending on bio and the enemy, she needs even more attacks.

Lyre is not doubling swordmasters without a lot of levels. Lyre is virtually guaranteed skl/spd on a bexp level. Lyre needs 1 full bexp level to double warriors and halbs in (edit:)3-4 and spends most of the map running to the top and because most enemies are at the top and by the time we get there we have to rush, Lyre is only likely attacking 4 guys tops. She is not leveling when gaining exp like a 20/16 beorc. Come 3-8, Lyre needs to have gained a level through killing something every player phase in 3-7 (so she gets grassed and reyson must vigor her) and might still not get one. So, more bexp to get to 26 speed so she can double warriors and halbs that have 21 speed. In 3-10 she is now okay with doubling until 3-E because warriors don't get above 22 until 3-E, and not all of them. Still, she isn't guaranteed to double all the time, especially if we don't want to have to heal her every few turns.

Lyre is not going to have S strike by 3-11 unless we let her 'tank'. Remember, she maxes at 3 enemies. This is what happens with 4:

She starts enemy phase with 30 meter. 4 enemies later it is at 14. On player phase it drops to 9. She can't attack on player phase or she will untransform (-4 for attack, -5 for next turn), so she has to take a grass. 24. 4 enemies later it is 8 and on player phase 3. If she takes 4 enemies again she untransforms. So grasses and 18 meter. 3 attack her, 6 meter. 1 come player phase. Now she can't even take 3 guys next enemy phase or she untransforms. Notice she is now down to 2 enemies per enemy phase and alternates between 2 and 3 per enemy phase to avoid untransforming. So she isn't taking 4 per, and if we ever want her to attack on player phase to feed kills it gets worse. Reyson must vigor her every turn and she tanks one less enemy per enemy phase than the numbers I gave earlier.

As for tanking in general, she leaves enemies with so much HP that everyone on our team is incapable of 1HKOing and thus must be able to double or can't kill, and either way is taking a counter. Lyre tanking causes us to heal Lyre and a bunch of our other people and causes us to go slower because she draws 3 enemies per phase, or 2 if she grasses and attacks on player phase with reyson's help. Sure, letting Lyre tank will boost her strike level much faster, but it is such a detriment to efficient play or even smart play that it is not advisable. Plus since she isn't killing as much she eats through our bexp even more to get to 26 speed than if we let her kill things. And this is ignoring how sometimes she might get attacked on enemy phase by a ranged weapon and not even build strike. And ignoring how it is usually easier to not face any enemies on enemy phase than it is to face exactly a certain number, especially in chapters with paladins where 5 or 6 can move in on the same spot.

Conversely, Astrid can attack without repercussions, easily finish off guys that Mia or Gatrie or Ike or Ulki left alive, can attack every phase without grassing and doesn't take reyson away from better units. Without Reyson preference, Lyre's attacking goes like this:

grass.

grass.

Attack, 26 meter.

next player phase 21 meter. Attack, 17 meter,

drops to 12. Attack, 8 meter,

drops to 3. Grass, up to 18,

drops to 13. Attack, down to 9,

drops to 4. Grass. up to 19,

drops to 14. Attack, down to 10.

drops to 5. grass.

You might notice that she is now alternating between attacking and grassing and she can't forego a grass until she reaches 10 meter or it will go like this:

9 meter or less. Attack, 5 or less.

next player phase, untransform.

(btw, if she stones instead of grassing twice she starts turn 2 at 25, attacking drops to 21, turn 3 starts at 16 and she can attack and goes to 12, turn 4 starts at 7 and she is already alternating between grass and attack. By turn 10 she is at 10 meter so she can attack without grassing.)

With two grasses at the beginning and two grasses along the way she gets 5 attacks in 10 turns, or 6 if turn 10 is the last.

With a stone at the beginning, and a grass on turn 4, 6, and 8 she gets 6 attacks in 10 turns (turn 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10), which she gets with the grass method anyway if we end things by turn 10.

And if you've been keeping track, the grass method means that by turn 20 she has the 10 meter needed to not untransform turn 21, so she would only get 6 more attacks if we prolonged the chapter by 10 turns.

The point is, Lyre is attacking so little unless we let reyson vigor her that she has a tough time building her gauge(edit:) strike if we are smart enough to not let her tank.

Please tell me how this is superior to Astrid killing something every turn (or at least bringing it down to ORKO range for someone else) and never needing to be healed.

edit: fixed a few typos and things like that. re-reading is recommended if anyone wants to gripe over things I fixed.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Interceptor]

Why are we taking Astrid to A bows in a hurry, again? Might as well just give her a Steel Forge, since it has the same mt but better HIT than a Silver bow.

[Narga_Rocks]

Why are we taking Astrid to A bows in a hurry, again? Might as well just give her a Steel Forge, since it has the same mt but better HIT than a Silver bow.

We have lots of money, as you've pointed out often. I know we could give her a forge, but I really just wanted to make things simple. With forges I tend not to use them every turn and even if we can forge top of the line stuff (max mt, hit when necessary, crit for some) I'm not convinced we can use them every round and have money to forge again when it breaks. Plus in 3-11 we get money but I try to save it for 4-2 so I can forge silver without selling stuff yet. However, every time I get to 4-E-1 and finally sell stuff I no longer need I have so much money I make stuff I barely need. I even forged a bow for Shinon so he could ORKO the Double bow guy from 3 range to get the double bow faster. I had so much money I knowingly forged something for like 2 hits. But I still resist forging in 3-11, maybe I shouldn't.

Anyway, that is why I was trying to give her a silver bow. And because it isn't like it is hard.

[Interceptor]

Astrid is not doubling, she's not countering, so even in the rosy scenario where she attacks every Player Phase with a steel forge, it still takes her 35 Turns to break it. By that point she can upgrade to a Silencer.

Definitely you should be forging more often. Gold is there to be spent. Some day I will re-create my "GMs are not poor" rant.

[charmander6000]

Call it PE, but the only GM laguz I can get to S rank without abuse before 3-E is Lethe. Here's a break down of chapters and weapon ranks for laguz.

Volug - S between 1-8 and 1-E and SS between 3-13 and 4-P/1/2

Muarim - S between 4-E-1 and 4-E-2, never SS

Vika - S between 4-E-1 and 4-E-2, never SS

Nealuchi - S between 4-E-1 and 4-E-2, never SS

Lethe - S between 3-10 and 3-11, SS about 4-E-1

Mordecai - S about 3-E, SS about 4-E-3

Ranulf - S about 3-E, SS about 4-E-1

Kyza - S about 3-E, SS about 4-E-1

Lyre - S about 3-E, SS about 4-E-1

Janaff - S about 3-E, SS about 4-E-1

Ulki - S about 3-E, SS about 4-E-1

Skrimir - SS between 4-3 and 4-E-1

Naesala - SS between 4-3 and 4-E-1

Kurthnaga - S about 4-E-5 or never, never SS

Ena - never S or SS.

Nasir - never SS

Gareth - never SS

[Narga_Rocks]

Astrid is not doubling, she's not countering, so even in the rosy scenario where she attacks every Player Phase with a steel forge, it still takes her 35 Turns to break it. By that point she can upgrade to a Silencer.

Definitely you should be forging more often. Gold is there to be spent. Some day I will re-create my "GMs are not poor" rant.

I've seen it. It is good. Mostly I just horde stuff until 4-E-1 and that might be my problem. But I usually try to have something for every slot in part 4 so I can't sell too early. Any chip damage I can do helps. I even brought base level Meg to 4-P for her support with tier 1 level ~10 Leo so he could have 100% hit rates for ~8 damage just because I could. Not that I could have sold his weapon, though, but that's the idea. It was enough that Marcia could OHKO paladins with a horseslayer, so it helped.

I did burn through most of my money in 4-2, though, making forges. I was just saving what I had in 3-11 for then.

Call it PE, but the only GM laguz I can get to S rank without abuse before 3-E is Lethe. Here's a break down of chapters and weapon ranks for laguz.

You could probably get Mordecai there earlier with resolve in 3-4 on, since he can then double till part 4. Everyone else I can't imagine getting there faster than you have.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Progenitus]

Same point as in Meg vs. Astrid: Lyre surviving means that she got hit. Getting hit, regardless of whether she's Rhys or she's Jesus, means that her crappy offense is slowing down your team, because whatever just attacked her is not going to attack Ike, or Titania, or Mia, or whoever. Point being is that Lyre's durability isn't as cool beans as you seem to think it is, since it comes with her crappy offense.

Except when it comes to Shinon vs Boyd, Boyd being able to counter even though his durability is lolcrap and we should be letting people like Titania and Ike counter instead suddenly matters more than Shinon one rounding like anything he wants, rite

You flip flop your views more often than John Kerry.

[grandjackal]

Sigh.

3-4, 3-7, 3-8, 3-10 is 4 chapters, or 8.75 doubles per chapter. She needs 70 points to get to S and each attack is worth 1.

What the hell happened to 3-9?

Astrid has a steel bow. Each hit is worth 3. She needs 20 attacks to get to 60, which is the line for getting from B to A.

God I hate the wexp system in this game...

Astrid needs 20 attacks, Lyre needs 35 attacks in which she doubles each time. Astrid can get to A from the beginning of RD on a transfer from a casual playthrough of PoR where somebody used her but not extensively and got her to a mere B. Even if we ignore transfers, Astrid has an easier time getting to A than Lyre to S.

Lyre has more time, able to be exposed to more action, and why should I play through an entire other game just for that?

Why do they even put up the information on this site if no one reads it?

Cause common sense usually applies?

There is no point letting Lyre tank on enemy phase because she is wasting our time. Lyre thus needs to attack almost every round and if we were "nice" to her and weakened an enemy for her to kill without having to get countered at 50% hit rates depending on bio and the enemy, she needs even more attacks.

You seem to have forgotten about Ike's authority.

We need her to kill now? Because bringing enemies into the grasp of my army is quite more handy than just attacking once per player phase, and generally failing in every aspect otherwise.

Lyre is not doubling swordmasters without a lot of levels. Lyre is virtually guaranteed skl/spd on a bexp level. Lyre needs 1 full bexp level to double warriors and halbs in (edit:)3-4 and spends most of the map running to the top and because most enemies are at the top and by the time we get there we have to rush, Lyre is only likely attacking 4 guys tops. She is not leveling when gaining exp like a 20/16 beorc. Come 3-8, Lyre needs to have gained a level through killing something every player phase in 3-7 (so she gets grassed and reyson must vigor her) and might still not get one. So, more bexp to get to 26 speed so she can double warriors and halbs that have 21 speed. In 3-10 she is now okay with doubling until 3-E because warriors don't get above 22 until 3-E, and not all of them. Still, she isn't guaranteed to double all the time, especially if we don't want to have to heal her every few turns.

You do realize Lyre is capable of enemy phase, right? Something Astrid can't do? Don't treat Lyre like an archer when she clearly isn't one. Besides, if she's leveling slowly, the rest of the GM must be shit out of luck this far in, considering practically half of them start at that level. This also doesn't address the fact that Lyre's problem as shown here is fixable, and that it seems she can limit it with actually limit what she takes.

Lyre is not going to have S strike by 3-11 unless we let her 'tank'.

At least she's capable of it, unlike a pathetic archer on a horse I could name.

Remember, she maxes at 3 enemies. This is what happens with 4:

She starts enemy phase with 30 meter. 4 enemies later it is at 14. On player phase it drops to 9. She can't attack on player phase or she will untransform (-4 for attack, -5 for next turn), so she has to take a grass. 24. 4 enemies later it is 8 and on player phase 3. If she takes 4 enemies again she untransforms. So grasses and 18 meter. 3 attack her, 6 meter. 1 come player phase. Now she can't even take 3 guys next enemy phase or she untransforms. Notice she is now down to 2 enemies per enemy phase and alternates between 2 and 3 per enemy phase to avoid untransforming. So she isn't taking 4 per, and if we ever want her to attack on player phase to feed kills it gets worse. Reyson must vigor her every turn and she tanks one less enemy per enemy phase than the numbers I gave earlier.

This is what Astrid's actions look like

Attack one unit. run back behind a wall like Lyre.

no enemy phase

Repeat.

Seems Lyre can do a crapload more damage overall than Astrid can. Astrid needs Reyson just to attack two people a turn, and it appears that Lyre can attack 3-4 a turn.

As for tanking in general, she leaves enemies with so much HP that everyone on our team is incapable of 1HKOing and thus must be able to double or can't kill, and either way is taking a counter. Lyre tanking causes us to heal Lyre and a bunch of our other people and causes us to go slower because she draws 3 enemies per phase, or 2 if she grasses and attacks on player phase with reyson's help. Sure, letting Lyre tank will boost her strike level much faster, but it is such a detriment to efficient play or even smart play that it is not advisable. Plus since she isn't killing as much she eats through our bexp even more to get to 26 speed than if we let her kill things. And this is ignoring how sometimes she might get attacked on enemy phase by a ranged weapon and not even build strike. And ignoring how it is usually easier to not face any enemies on enemy phase than it is to face exactly a certain number, especially in chapters with paladins where 5 or 6 can move in on the same spot.

Bringing the enemy into your grasp is not efficient? Doing pathetic damage to one enemy a whole turn doing generally worse damage must blow ass. When the enemy is in your grasp, you can easily strategize how you handle them, which is better than Astrid running up to shoot a nerf dart at them, then proceed to get gang-raped on enemy phase. Speaking of bringing them into OHKO range, how the fuck is Astrid possibly able to do that herself? Astrid needs some sort of tank just to function properly, she can't bring them to OHKO range either.

Conversely, Astrid can attack without repercussions, easily finish off guys that Mia or Gatrie or Ike or Ulki left alive, can attack every phase without grassing and doesn't take reyson away from better units. Without Reyson preference, Lyre's attacking goes like this:

Oh wow, finishing off an enemy, NO ONE can do that but Astrid. You serious? That's her only use? Come on, do better.

grass.

grass.

Attack, 26 meter.

next player phase 21 meter. Attack, 17 meter,

drops to 12. Attack, 8 meter,

drops to 3. Grass, up to 18,

drops to 13. Attack, down to 9,

drops to 4. Grass. up to 19,

drops to 14. Attack, down to 10.

drops to 5. grass.

You might notice that she is now alternating between attacking and grassing and she can't forego a grass until she reaches 10 meter or it will go like this:

9 meter or less. Attack, 5 or less.

next player phase, untransform.

It's better than doing nothing on enemy phase, then doing generally worse on the same phase.

(btw, if she stones instead of grassing twice she starts turn 2 at 25, attacking drops to 21, turn 3 starts at 16 and she can attack and goes to 12, turn 4 starts at 7 and she is already alternating between grass and attack. By turn 10 she is at 10 meter so she can attack without grassing.)

Uhhh....thanks?

With two grasses at the beginning and two grasses along the way she gets 5 attacks in 10 turns, or 6 if turn 10 is the last.

With a stone at the beginning, and a grass on turn 4, 6, and 8 she gets 6 attacks in 10 turns (turn 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10), which she gets with the grass method anyway if we end things by turn 10.

Oh ok sweet, seems she doesn't need stones. Thank you for showing cats don't really need stones.

And if you've been keeping track, the grass method means that by turn 20 she has the 10 meter needed to not untransform turn 21, so she would only get 6 more attacks if we prolonged the chapter by 10 turns.

6 more player phase attacks, which when compared to enemy phase because there's no reason to treat a unit that can counter like an archer...

The point is, Lyre is attacking so little unless we let reyson vigor her that she has a tough time building her gauge(edit:) strike if we are smart enough to not let her tank.

Little on player phase, yeah. However, you tend to do more damage on enemy phase. Lyre can do more on enemy phase. Doing more on enemy phase>player phase, of which Astrid doesn't even do well anyways.

Please tell me how this is superior to Astrid killing something every turn (or at least bringing it down to ORKO range for someone else) and never needing to be healed.

Because I showed stats that show she's actually doing less damage. and thus no way in hell is doing that SHEER exageration you just stated, along with the complete ignorance of Lyre having actual enemy phase, along with the fact that she's not even doing that in general unless there's a wall of units in front of her, of which Lyre is able to be part of?

[Progenitus]

btw, on the subject of astrid vs lyre, I'd certainly defend lyre. At least lyre is somewhat usable if we throw stat boosters on her. Astrid is literally never usable unless you give her, like, twice as much favoritism as Lyre gets.

[Interceptor]

Except when it comes to Shinon vs Boyd, Boyd being able to counter even though his durability is lolcrap and we should be letting people like Titania and Ike counter instead suddenly matters more than Shinon one rounding like anything he wants, rite

When it comes to Shinon vs. Boyd, Boyd is 2RKO on tons of stuff with a non negligable chance to ORKO, which isn't really bad at all, and in many cases at least somewhat comparable to what other GMs can do (since few double reliably anyway). Boyd can usually take 3-4 hits before he goes down, which is frankly plenty when he doesn't have to spend his turns grassing, and can instead drop a Concoction on himself.

It's leagues better than Lyre, who doesn't even injure something enough for an Ike/Haar/Titania/anyone to finish off.

You flip flop your views more often than John Kerry.

You fling up more straw men than a bus full of climate-change denying, red-state Republicans.

P.S.: update your references.

[grandjackal]

btw, on the subject of astrid vs lyre, I'd certainly defend lyre. At least lyre is somewhat usable if we throw stat boosters on her. Astrid is literally never usable unless you give her, like, twice as much favoritism as Lyre gets.

Would be appreciated, I have a history of sucking under pressure.

[Progenitus]

When it comes to Shinon vs. Boyd, Boyd is 2RKO on tons of stuff with a non negligable chance to ORKO, which isn't really bad at all, and in many cases at least somewhat comparable to what other GMs can do (since few double reliably anyway). Boyd can usually take 3-4 hits before he goes down, which is frankly plenty when he doesn't have to spend his turns grassing, and can instead drop a Concoction on himself.

It's leagues better than Lyre, who doesn't even injure something enough for an Ike/Haar/Titania/anyone to finish off.

Except the difference between Shinon vs Boyd and Astrid vs Lyre is that Shinon has about 12365123621 times more offense than Boyd while Astrid's offense is not even much better than Lyre's (if at all, since Lyre can at least double). And Shinon actually wins durability vs Boyd, lawl.

So basically this is how it goes.

Shinon attacks some shit and pwns it because with the silencer he has Janaff-level offense (actually, it's arguably even better, since he loses att by a small amount, loses AS but still doubles everything except SMs, and wins crit). Dudes like Ike and Titania do their shit on player phase, and then on enemy phase those guys counter. Now because they're pwn and uber and have actually good durability they don't have to spend nearly as much time healing, which means they can probably just attack something else again on the next player phase.

Boyd attacks some shit on player phase, or rather more likely he's healing himself from the damage he took on the last enemy phase. Then on enemy phase the enemies want to attack Boyd because his durability is lolcrap when compared to the top/high tiers while only doing about the same damage as what my people like Titania and Haar and Gatrie could've done (maybe less, since Titania/Gatrie might actually double if we throw some favoritism on them).

Shinon's team is getting like one extra kill every single turn because Shinon goes and rapes something while Boyd's too busy healing himself, which means Shinon is kinda like two units at once since he's one rounding in a team that's usually just two rounding, or he's beating those enemies within an inch of their life so nubs like Mist or Ilyana can finish them off. Boyd's like zero units because he just wastes time healing himself on player phase which doesn't help anyone else, and on enemy phase he just counters stuff which anyone else could've done. And if he's just attacking on player phase, lawl @ him being even close to Shinon's offense, plus since he takes counters and his durability is poor for a frontliner GM he'll eventually have to heal himself anyway.

Fuck, Shinon can just crossbow and do the same thing as Boyd on enemy phase if he really wants to, since if you really want to you can ahve someone trade with him after he attacks on player phase. Which is pretty sad since Shinon's damage output with the frickin crossbow is almost the same as Boyd's (at least until Boyd's nearing promotion), since Shinon doubles and Boyd doesn't, and Shinon has more crit, and Shinon is actually countering the 1-2 range enemies (unless you want to nerf Boyd's offense even more by giving him a hand axe instead).

And then SHinon promotes and gets 3-range which is lolawesome, and then the double bow comes in 4-E and then he just starts soloing maps because he has tibarn-like offense, only 1-3 range instead of 1-range, and has uber durability.

Are you seriously suggesting Shinon vs Boyd isn't a roflstomp in Shinon's favor? I will repeat myself; Shinon's offense is arguably better than JANAFF, the guy associated with raping everything in sight. What the fuck does Boyd bring to my team by using him? "Hey look here's a Titania/Gatrie/Haar with less durability and/or mobility". fuck yeah so useful

On the other hand, Astrid does like 5-10 damage a hit and doesn't double, which means she may as well not even attack because no one cares if she's 4-5HKOing enemies, and then she has to actually watch what she attacks because if it can counter her, it'll probably double and one round and kill her (or at least damage her, which sucks for her because she'll waste a turn healing, and considering she's ONLY doing things on player phase, this cuts into her already terrible damage output), which means snipers/sages/1-2 range enemies are off limits, and ON TOP OF THAT she's doing jack squat to generals and her attacking them won't do shit, which means she's limited to attacking like halbs/warriors/swordmasters who aren't using 1-2 range. Even if we throw shit like all three energy drops on her that'd only improve to 16 damage a hit, which is a 3HKO and is salvageable, but that's THREE drops.

Lyre offense isn't much better even once she starts doubling (which only takes, like, 1 level up, CEXP or BEXP, so it actually doesn't take very long), but at least she's not "WELL FUCK I CAN ONLY ATTACK LIKE HALF THE AVAILABLE ENEMIES BECAUSE THEY'LL ONE ROUND ME IN RETURN", and she doesn't die on us if looked at funny.

Especially with stat boosters in play (these are bottom tiers, favoritism is fair game), Lyre improves more with one energy drop as Astrid does with THREE, since one energy drop on Lyre is a +4 str transformed, and since she's doubling that's like +8 damage, while three energy drops on Astrid was only +6 damage because she doesn't double. Even a dracoshield is the same case, since Lyre gains +4 def from one when transformed, while +2 def on Astrid doesn't really do much since her def is so garbage (lol @ 10 base and 30% growth for tier 2 unit) in the first place and she's probably getting doubled anyway. It might help her avoid getting one rounded. Might. Considering at 20/7 Astrid with a dracoshield has 35.75 HP, 13.5 def, 17 spd, which means it only takes 21 spd and ~31 att to one round, which basically every warrior/halb/sniper/swordmaster will reach, or come damn close.

Here, I'll do a quick rundown of Astrid and Lyre's offense in 3-11. I'll give Lyre one energy drop and make her level 20. I'll give Astrid THREE energy drops with silencer and make her level 10.

Astrid has 38.2 att, 18.2 spd.

Lyre has 28.1 att, 26.2 spd.

Lyre doubles basically everything except SMs (25-26 spd) and a few warriors that appear in the back (where she might actually be able to double them by the end of the chapter. She DOES have a 70% spd growth), so I'm going to assume that Lyre doubles and Astrid doesn't.

Against an 18 def enemy, they roughly tie in damage. (Warriors have about this much. SMs too, but Lyre can't double them)

Against a 20 def enemy, Astrid does 2 more damage. (paladins/snipers have about this much)

Against a 27 def enemy, Astrid does 9 more damage. (generals have about this much)

Against a 13 def enemy, Lyre does 5 more damage. (sages have about this much)

This is pretty frickin bad when Astrid got three drops to Lyre's one, since her only significant offense lead is against generals. Look at what happens when we give Lyre a second drop (still assuming Astrid got 3). Lyre's att now improves to 32.

Against the 18 def enemy, Lyre now does 8 more damage.

Against a 20 def enemy, Lyre does 6 more damage.

Against a 27 def enemy, Astrid does 1 more damage.

Against a 13 def enemy, Lyre does 13 more damage.

lawl

btw, at this point Lyre's 2-rounding stuff like warriors and halbs and snipers and paladins (Astrid is 3HKOing with 3 drops), and actually one rounds sages, which means that people like Titania and Haar DO care Lyre's attacking because they're probably 2-rounding themselves, while people are a lot less likely to care that Astrid is 3HKOing with all 3 drops. Against generals their damage may as well be tied. Even against swordmasters it's not like Astrid's damage lead (she wins since Lyre doesn't double) really matters, since Lyre + some guy should be able to 2HKO since swordmasters have lame HP/def. And Astrid STILL has to watch out for enemies that can counter her because her durability is so garbage, while Lyre is only really worried about fire sages.

So in this scenario I give Lyre one less energy drop than Astrid, and I'm still getting better results, since Lyre might actually do something useful whenever she attacks, and is far less limited to what she can attack because she doesn't get one rounded by like everything that moves. And the only drawback is I have to grass? Yes plz.

Giving Lyre the third drop will actually make her att about the same as base level Ranulf, which isn't that bad since Ranulf is probably at base level too (he gains like 1 exp for doing something). Astrid with three drops still has less offense than what people like Titania and Gatrie had at 3-P, which is pretty sad.

This doesn't really get much better for Astrid, since while Astrid gains levels faster, Lyre's str growth is about the same as Astrid's, which means if Astrid gets 2 levels and Lyre gets 1, they both gain about the same str, so for Astrid to get more att from leveling up than Lyre she'd have to gain like 3 levels to Lyre's 1, which doesn't last forever. Plus, Lyre's strike rank should upgrade pretty soon, which is a +5 att (since she doubles, that's a +10 damage), while Astrid is pretty much using her strongest weapon already, and for her to match Lyre's S-strike upgrade her weapon would need like 10 more att than what the silencer has, which is not possible. Astrid's only advantage is that she eventually promotes, which is +3 str and mastery (which doesn't really help since Sol is a horrible mastery offensively, and the healing doesn't help), and Lyre will eventually get her mastery too.

Also, BEXP. Astrid is garbage at it, because lck/HP/res are her highest growths, and even after HP/res caps, skl is still higher than the other growths, which means she might get one of str/spd/def. If Lyre BEXPs spd is her highest growth, which is cool since spd helps her double more reliably plus gives her 4 avoid per point of speed. Although that's it, since her str/def growts are so low, but at least she'll get something significant out of BEXPing.

Lyre also gets a lot more out of adept than Astrid since she doubles while Astrid doesn't.

And I could go on but I'm getting tired already.

Lyre vs Astrid is a little closer than Meg vs Astrid, but Lyre still wins.

Edited July 3, 2009 by smash fanatic

[Vykan12]

Time to pull out some popcorn. Witty retorts, bold accusations and many forms of insult await!

[Narga_Rocks]

sometimes I wonder how much people understand from my posts.

What the hell happened to 3-9?

You mean the chapter that Geoffrey and friends are saving houses in?

Lyre has more time, able to be exposed to more action, and why should I play through an entire other game just for that?

my point was that almost everyone who already has a completed game of PoR will have an Astrid with B bows in at least one of their clear datas. Or at least they could easily have one. Just look at Astrid's place in PoR's tier list. She's tenth. 5th spot in High Tier. She could easily have been played, and if so will almost certainly have B Bows and you don't need 20/20 to transfer weapon ranks.

Besides, she could have a forge or take 20 potshots in 3 chapters. How hard is that for her to do?

Cause common sense usually applies?

What does that mean? I was saying that information is there to be read and people don't read it. There is a lot of typing that could be avoided if I didn't have to correct people on how the game works. Case in point, unit availability in 3-9 that would have answered your question about what happened to 3-9.

You seem to have forgotten about Ike's authority.

We need her to kill now? Because bringing enemies into the grasp of my army is quite more handy than just attacking once per player phase, and generally failing in every aspect otherwise.

The point is she'll be hit sometimes. More than Astrid because Astrid doesn't get attacked.

You do realize Lyre is capable of enemy phase, right? Something Astrid can't do? Don't treat Lyre like an archer when she clearly isn't one. Besides, if she's leveling slowly, the rest of the GM must be shit out of luck this far in, considering practically half of them start at that level. This also doesn't address the fact that Lyre's problem as shown here is fixable, and that it seems she can limit it with actually limit what she takes.

She either gets enemy phase or player phase, not both. If you try to do both she can only do so with reyson priority (favouritism when we've got 8 or so guys that reyson should be vigoring over her), and even then over a prolonged period of time her enemy phase drops to 1 or 2 guys depending on which turn. And since you are bexping her in 3-4 for about a third or more of our bexp reserves, she is leveling like she is 20/16. Shinon needs 3 levels in 4 chapters (2 of which have low enemy counts, arguably 3) when he is leveling slowly. Everyone else is unlikely to have levels anywhere near Lyre's, and how do you get

practically half

when 15 out of 16 start at a lower level (the gms that start in 3-P + those in 3-2) than she does. Over 10 of them start 5 levels or more less than Lyre if you give her the bexp level.

At least she's capable of it, unlike a pathetic archer on a horse I could name.

Did you even read why her tanking is a stupid idea? We've got at least 7 guys who can tank better than her and bring enemies down to ORKO range for almost anyone on our team. Only Shinon won't bring enemies down to OHKO. Why should I let lyre attack anything on enemy phase? Remember, everything that isn't brought down to OHKO range means it attacked Lyre on enemy phase and whoever attacked it first on the following player phase. The sheer number of extra people to heal over a single map will overwhelm our two little healers.

This is what Astrid's actions look like

Attack one unit. run back behind a wall like Lyre.

no enemy phase

Repeat.

Again, you missed how Astrid doesn't need a wall when she is in range of no enemies on enemy phase because we just killed everything in her immediate area. And it is easier for Astrid attack and find a sweet spot than Lyre because of Canto.

Seems Lyre can do a crapload more damage overall than Astrid can. Astrid needs Reyson just to attack two people a turn, and it appears that Lyre can attack 3-4 a turn.

By letting Lyre do 10 or so points more damage than Astrid spread over 3 units each turn we just gave up 100 or more damage that Mia or Ike or Gatrie or Shinon or Ulki or Haar or Janaff could've done to those same enemies. Whoopie, Lyre just caused -90 damage! Yay her. Astrid caused zero because she wasn't attacked and thus didn't stop someone else from causing damage on enemy phase.

Bringing the enemy into your grasp is not efficient? Doing pathetic damage to one enemy a whole turn doing generally worse damage must blow ass. When the enemy is in your grasp, you can easily strategize how you handle them, which is better than Astrid running up to shoot a nerf dart at them, then proceed to get gang-raped on enemy phase. Speaking of bringing them into OHKO range, how the fuck is Astrid possibly able to do that herself? Astrid needs some sort of tank just to function properly, she can't bring them to OHKO range either.

Bringing the enemy into my grasp is not efficient when Gatrie would've killed said enemy or brought it to about 5 hp left or something, which anyone including Lyre could kill. You know, rather than leaving it with 30 HP and needing 2 hits to bring it down afterwards like Lyre does?

Oh wow, finishing off an enemy, NO ONE can do that but Astrid. You serious? That's her only use? Come on, do better.

Of course anyone can kill an enemy with 7 hp left, or whatever. The point is that Astrid does this in one hit and Lyre does it in two, thus getting attacked. Plus Astrid does it every turn and Lyre does it 6 out of 10 turns, when she is NOT tanking. When she is tanking Lyre can't do this at all without Reyson, because otherwise she will untransform. I thought it was clear that tanking and player phase killing were mutually exclusive. One or the other without Reyson.

It's better than doing nothing on enemy phase, then doing generally worse on the same phase.

Maybe I'm just weird or something, but I thought that 0 > -90, you know, the damage Lyre cost us by being in the way on enemy phase. Oh, and if Lyre is doing "better" on player phase, she is either taking a spot with Reyson from those 7 better guys I mentioned earlier, or is not tanking at all on enemy phase because she wanted to stay transformed.

Uhhh....thanks?

Your thanking me for what? Saying she gets the same 6 attacks with a stone as without when we finish in 10 turns? Remember, those calculations were with Lyre doing no tanking. Read it over and use this site to see what it says about transformation gauges. The point was that a stone doesn't fix things.

Oh ok sweet, seems she doesn't need stones. Thank you for showing cats don't really need stones.

Unless you think attacking 6 out of 10 turns is better than attacking 10 out of 10 turns I don't really think I helped you much. All I proved was that grassing and stones over the course of 10 turns were equivilently bad.

6 more player phase attacks, which when compared to enemy phase because there's no reason to treat a unit that can counter like an archer...

You do realize it is player phase or enemy phase for Lyre, right? So she is killing nothing on enemy phase and doing -90 damage or worse each enemy phase, or she is attacking fewer times than Astrid for approximately the same damage each time as Astrid on Player phase. And if you haven't let her tank on enemy phase she isn't S strike so she is getting countered while needing the second hit to reach Astrid's damage in one. Remember, if she is tanking she is doing -90 damage each enemy phase thus reaching -900 damage in a mere 10 enemy phases. That much negative utility over time has got to hurt far more than getting S strike in 3-11 would help.

Little on player phase, yeah. However, you tend to do more damage on enemy phase. Lyre can do more on enemy phase. Doing more on enemy phase>player phase, of which Astrid doesn't even do well anyways.

No, people who do good damage on enemy phase do more damage on enemy phase. Lyre can do so little on enemy phase that it would be stupid to let her. This isn't something that is of a benefit to the army. While you could do this to make Lyre give more than Astrid, this also causes Lyre to take away far far more than she is giving. Thus, she takes away from the army by having an enemy phase. Therefore, causing the army to do less on enemy phase < Astrid's player phase.

Because I showed stats that show she's actually doing less damage. and thus no way in hell is doing that SHEER exageration you just stated, along with the complete ignorance of Lyre having actual enemy phase, along with the fact that she's not even doing that in general unless there's a wall of units in front of her, of which Lyre is able to be part of?

Your stats were with an S strike Lyre in 3-10, somehow achieving S strike in 3 chapters. Without S strike she is doing less than Astrid per hit.

Look, these are bottom tiers. We aren't asking them to be a one woman army or something. We are asking them to not hold us back. Whosoever holds us back less is the winner here. Astrid kills crippled enemies on player phase just as well as someone better than her does, because she can do it every turn. Lyre can't. Winner is Astrid because there is no point in either of these doing anything on enemy phase so enemy phase is irrelevant.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Progenitus]

rofl @ thinking Astrid is doing anything useful.

Without any energy drop at level 10 she has ~32 att with silencer instead of 38, which means she's like 4HKOing warriors and paladins and shit and does lolcrap vs generals, and on top of this can't attack anything that can counter her. No one cares if Astrid can do crap damage because everyone is still giving her the finger because they still need a 2nd guy to attack.

Even if this is better than Lyre, it's still lolgarbage.

So this is how it goes.

With no favoritism, Astrid > lyre, except Astrid is still awful.

With favoritism, Lyre >>> Astrid, except Lyre is actually usable and does something noticeable, while Astrid actually hardly got any better than her situation without favoritism.

Since tier lists are assuming we're actually trying to use the unit, and since this is bottom tier and thus it makes sense that favoritism is fair game, I don't possibly see how Astrid could be better than Lyre, until someone can actually prove Astrid > Lyre given the same amount of favoritism (that doesn't consist of "let's throw every resource in the game on Astrid").

[dondon151]

Guys, if anyone has Blossom and a save with a few characters close to leveling up, just gather some empirical data with giant sample sizes.

So sorry that I'm late to this debacle.

[Interceptor]

Time to pull out some popcorn. Witty retorts, bold accusations and many forms of insult await!

Don't count on it. Don Quixote here is tilting at windmills again. I skimmed the post, I think I'll be lucky if I find even two consecutive sentences to reply to that are germane to my point, and not merely tangential rants that are countering someone who doesn't actually exist. Maybe tomorrow if I am bored.

Since tier lists are assuming we're actually trying to use the unit, and since this is bottom tier and thus it makes sense that favoritism is fair game, I don't possibly see how Astrid could be better than Lyre, until someone can actually prove Astrid > Lyre given the same amount of favoritism (that doesn't consist of "let's throw every resource in the game on Astrid").

This is really silly logic, smash. Bottom tier units are so bad with favoritism that giving it to them is worse for completion than leaving them alone in the first place, because you tend to leave tons of better options on the table when you do -- that's usually why they are Bottom tier.

I'm not sure why you think that favoritism is "fair game", like you can just fling desirable resources around like Skittles: you should have paid more attention to my post on opportunity cost (I did, after all, write it for your benefit, since you don't seem to "get it"). Not all Energy Drops are created equally: there is a big difference between giving one to someone who contributes a great deal to game completion with it relative to without (aka, Ulki), versus giving it to someone who is so awful that it barely increases your efficiency at all.

[Narga_Rocks]

rofl @ thinking Astrid is doing anything useful.

Without any energy drop at level 10 she has ~32 att with silencer instead of 38, which means she's like 4HKOing warriors and paladins and shit and does lolcrap vs generals, and on top of this can't attack anything that can counter her. No one cares if Astrid can do crap damage because everyone is still giving her the finger because they still need a 2nd guy to attack.

Even if this is better than Lyre, it's still lolgarbage.

So this is how it goes.

With no favoritism, Astrid > lyre, except Astrid is still awful.

With favoritism, Lyre >>> Astrid, except Lyre is actually usable and does something noticeable, while Astrid actually hardly got any better than her situation without favoritism.

Since tier lists are assuming we're actually trying to use the unit, and since this is bottom tier and thus it makes sense that favoritism is fair game, I don't possibly see how Astrid could be better than Lyre, until someone can actually prove Astrid > Lyre given the same amount of favoritism (that doesn't consist of "let's throw every resource in the game on Astrid").

The point is that Astrid is never meant to attack a guy with full health. What does it matter if Astrid 5HKOs some enemy that Mia left alive with 5 hp. If Astrid can do 5 damage, she's good. If Lyre is grassing that turn, Astrid did better. If Lyre was not grassing that turn, it's a tie.

If we give Mia level 16, assume she never finished up a level with bexp to gain strength, gave her a steel blade and an A anyone support, she has 36 mt. In 3-11, paladins have 41 HP, 21 Def tops. Mia does 30 damage to the most durable paladins. At level 7 with a silencer she can finish off any paladin. Give Mia bexp when she ends a map with 80 exp or something a couple of times and Astrid can finish them with a silver bow. Keep in mind that Ike or Gatrie or Ulki either kill these guys or we can give them a weapon to leave the paladins with <9 hp if we want. And Janaff will kill some and leave the strongest with 3 hp. There is no reason Astrid should be attacking a fresh enemy because the almost dead ones will be closer to where she starts her turn. There are 5 people who leave these guys at HPs that Astrid can kill. If Titania has a speedwing she can too. Even Ulki gets 37 mt with a C support he should have managed to get in two maps and he brings them all to where Astrid can take them down with a silver bow.

Astrid finishes enemies every turn so our strong people can continue on. If you are worried about her missing, forge something. As Int says, everyone can have one. I'm not sure with Ike's stars and Astrid's luck and skill if she has a hit rate any significantly worse than Lyre's even with a Silver Bow. Lyre can't do this every turn, Astrid can. Since one unit is not an army and should not be attacking stuff there is no point in attacking, Astrid wins. And she never takes counters because there are enough 1 range enemies each turn that we aren't dumb enough to have her attack a 2 range enemy she can't OHKO with a 100% hit rate.

If we try to make them do stuff it isn't smart for them to do, sure, Lyre is slightly less bad at it than Astrid is. But what's the point in doing dumb things that will just waste turns anyway? If there is an enemy with 5 hp left, and another with 40 hp left, and I've got Astrid and Ike who can still move, then why would Ike kill the weakling and Astrid attack the other one? Clearly anyone who understands even the simplest of tactics will have Astrid attack the guy with 5 hp left and Ike kill the one with 40hp. 2 dead enemies > 1 dead enemy. And if Astrid isn't being played and this is a turn in which Lyre had to grass or untransform? 1 dead enemy max. Doesn't much matter which one if the living enemy can now attack our staff holder that is about to get some nice red lines added to his/her clothes. Or if we were actually able to protect our staff holder like we should be able to it might attack Lyre herself and a couple of turns down the road she will have to grass where she wouldn't have had to otherwise. Whatever happens, that enemy isn't dead when Astrid would've killed it.

And as far as I know Int's point about Boyd was that Shinon is not 3.5 points better than Boyd. It never seemed like he was saying Boyd > Shinon. I don't really care to form an opinion on how many points different they are, though, and I don't remember what he said the difference should be, or if he did. Still, I'm not touching that one any more than this one paragraph for now.

And do the people arguing get popcorn too?

Edited July 3, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Progenitus]

This is really silly logic, smash. Bottom tier units are so bad with favoritism that giving it to them is worse for completion than leaving them alone in the first place, because you tend to leave tons of better options on the table when you do -- that's usually why they are Bottom tier.

Except since the debate is Astrid vs Lyre, we're assuming that we're actually using both of them. By saying "well even though this is Astrid vs LYre, we're not going to use them at all because they're bottom tier and there are superior choices to them", you're saying that we'd only be using the absolute best units in the game because even if we're using mid tiers we're gonna go "well I could always use a better unit".

No shit Astrid and Lyre are hurting our teams. That's why they're bottom tier. But at least when I use Lyre she doesn't hurt my team as much as Astrid's, or she can actually DO something if we throw enough favoritism on her. Astrid is useless no matter what we do.

I'm not sure why you think that favoritism is "fair game", like you can just fling desirable resources around like Skittles: you should have paid more attention to my post on opportunity cost (I did, after all, write it for your benefit, since you don't seem to "get it"). Not all Energy Drops are created equally: there is a big difference between giving one to someone who contributes a great deal to game completion with it relative to without (aka, Ulki), versus giving it to someone who is so awful that it barely increases your efficiency at all.

So you're saying that favoritism should only go to one unit, or never be used at all? That's really the only thing your paragraph is telling us.

"oh no we can't give X favoritism to Lyre because Y unit does better with it than her." Well Lyre does better with X favoritism than Astrid does with X favoritism, so this doesn't matter, yet Y unit using it better than Lyre does?

The point is that Astrid is never meant to attack a guy with full health. What does it matter if Astrid 5HKOs some enemy that Mia left alive with 5 hp. If Astrid can do 5 damage, she's good. If Lyre is grassing that turn, Astrid did better. If Lyre was not grassing that turn, it's a tie.

rofl @ assuming that all of your other units will leave every enemy they attack with a specific amount of HP so that Astrid will always have something to kill off.

double rofl @ thinking Astrid is going to get the kill every single time. Does exp mean anything to you? If Astrid is the one taking kills all the time, this lowers everyone else's level because they're getting a lot less exp than they'd usually get.

triple rofl @ thinking we actually have a shortage on fighters where Astrid's potshot is helping us all the time. Tell me, if we had one enemy at 5 HP and multiple fighters available to kill it, what makes Astrid's attack so special that the other three fighters couldn't replicate?

If we give Mia level 16, assume she never finished up a level with bexp to gain strength, gave her a steel blade and an A anyone support, she has 36 mt. In 3-11, paladins have 41 HP, 21 Def tops. Mia does 30 damage to the most durable paladins. At level 7 with a silencer she can finish off any paladin. Give Mia bexp when she ends a map with 80 exp or something a couple of times and Astrid can finish them with a silver bow. Keep in mind that Ike or Gatrie or Ulki either kill these guys or we can give them a weapon to leave the paladins with <9 hp if we want. And Janaff will kill some and leave the strongest with 3 hp. There is no reason Astrid should be attacking a fresh enemy because the almost dead ones will be closer to where she starts her turn. There are 5 people who leave these guys at HPs that Astrid can kill. If Titania has a speedwing she can too. Even Ulki gets 37 mt with a C support he should have managed to get in two maps and he brings them all to where Astrid can take them down with a silver bow.

So Astrid is better if your team always consists of top and high tiers, which basically means the player is now going to only use one team, one strategy, every single playthrough.

And we're assuming that our other units aren't actually going to try for the one round (e.g. Mia might want to use a killing edge instead of a regular weapon since this increases her chances to one round, and she's probably two rounding even if she doesn't land a crit anyway), or the fact that with favoritism the rest of my team will be killing without Astrid's help (since this is assuming Astrid and Lyre are not getting any favoritism for some retarded reason, it has to go somewhere), aka let's purposely nerf their offense so that Astrid looks like she's helping the team.

And then you also take just one enemy type, and not just one enemy type but loladins, when it's a much different story for things like warriors and halbs that are not only more difficult to double but are more durable in general, meaning people like Mia and Ulki are only taking off ~60% of the guy's HP and Astrid's potshot doesn't do shit for us, or people like Titania who aren't doubling and taking off ~50% of the guy's HP.

And then she still can't attack enemies that can counter her because her durability is that piss poor.

ITT: Narga tells us his idea of how we should construct our team...

HIGH TIERS ONLY

NO FAVORITISM

FINAL DESTINATION

If we try to make them do stuff it isn't smart for them to do, sure, Lyre is slightly less bad at it than Astrid is.

moar like "if we throw favoritism on Lyre she somewhat resembles Ranulf, while if we throw favoritism on Astrid we still get a piece of crap".

But what's the point in doing dumb things that will just waste turns anyway? If there is an enemy with 5 hp left, and another with 40 hp left, and I've got Astrid and Ike who can still move, then why would Ike kill the weakling and Astrid attack the other one? Clearly anyone who understands even the simplest of tactics will have Astrid attack the guy with 5 hp left and Ike kill the one with 40hp. 2 dead enemies > 1 dead enemy.

Yes let's make an incredibly specific situation where Astrid might be helping more than Lyre and use that as our only proof that Astrid > Lyre.

How about I make another situation to counteract yours?

We have two enemies at roughly half HP, or really any HP amount between like 10-20, and LYre/Astrid + some guy left to attack. Only Lyre will be able to kill one of the enemies on her own because we threw two energy drops on her and now 2-rounds crap, and the other guy kills the other enemy. Astrid does jack shit even if we threw three drops on her because her damage is piss poor.

The difference between my situation and your situation is that my enemy could have 1-20 HP and Lyre will still probably kill it off when yours needs to have 1-5 or 10 so Astrid can kill it off (remember that my situation is assuming favoritism was given out, while your situation is assuming no favoritism is given out), so my situation happens far more often than yours.

And as far as I know Int's point about Boyd was that Shinon is not 3.5 points better than Boyd. It never seemed like he was saying Boyd > Shinon. I don't really care to form an opinion on how many points different they are, though, and I don't remember what he said the difference should be, or if he did. Still, I'm not touching that one any more than this one paragraph for now.

The reason why Shinon is uber and Boyd is nothing but mediocre is that Shinon actually brings something different and useful to the team (one rounding in a game that has difficulties doing it, or at least pwning enemies to the point that any random dumbass can finish it off) while Boyd is just a watered down version of like everyone else on the team.

Edited July 3, 2009 by smash fanatic

[dondon151]

rofl @ assuming that all of your other units will leave every enemy they attack with a specific amount of HP so that Astrid will always have something to kill off.

This is actually very possible. You have a plethora of units available that can leave enemies alive with a giant range of HP. You're assuming that favoritism is actually very difficult, but it's not. I can upload a chapter 20 video of FE7 to let you see how easy it is for base stat Lyn and Eliwood to steal kills.

double rofl @ thinking Astrid is going to get the kill every single time. Does exp mean anything to you? If Astrid is the one taking kills all the time, this lowers everyone else's level because they're getting a lot less exp than they'd usually get.

But she definitely gets some of the kills.

[Narga_Rocks]

Except since the debate is Astrid vs Lyre, we're assuming that we're actually using both of them. By saying "well even though this is Astrid vs LYre, we're not going to use them at all because they're bottom tier and there are superior choices to them", you're saying that we'd only be using the absolute best units in the game because even if we're using mid tiers we're gonna go "well I could always use a better unit".

No shit Astrid and Lyre are hurting our teams. That's why they're bottom tier. But at least when I use Lyre she doesn't hurt my team as much as Astrid's, or she can actually DO something if we throw enough favoritism on her. Astrid is useless no matter what we do.

Unless we are only using bottom tiers and Lyre benefits more than the other bottom tiers, I don't see how giving Lyre 2 energy drops is a valid idea. It doesn't have to be Ulki, it could be anyone better. We can assume we are using Lyre and Astrid, sure, but we should still be optimizing with whatever units we chose. This means someone who does more for the army gets energy drops. Sadly for Lyre, that means if we want to win as efficiently as we can with whatever units we chose, Lyre isn't getting them. If giving Lyre a couple of energy drops suddenly improved her performance so much that having two units at whatever strength she is now is better than her as she was and that other unit that much better, and if it could be argued that Lyre getting energy drops is better for our army (whatever it is) than giving them to someone else, then fine. It doesn't even have to be a lot better, just a bit better than the second best choice and giving her energy drops wouldn't be so bad.

So you're saying that favoritism should only go to one unit, or never be used at all? That's really the only thing your paragraph is telling us.

"oh no we can't give X favoritism to Lyre because Y unit does better with it than her." Well Lyre does better with X favoritism than Astrid does with X favoritism, so this doesn't matter, yet Y unit using it better than Lyre does?

I don't know what int was getting at, but the problem is the rest of the alphabet uses the energy drop better than Lyre, so what does it matter if Astrid does worse when we aren't doing a Lyre x Astrid duo?

rofl @ assuming that all of your other units will leave every enemy they attack with a specific amount of HP so that Astrid will always have something to kill off.

double rofl @ thinking Astrid is going to get the kill every single time. Does exp mean anything to you? If Astrid is the one taking kills all the time, this lowers everyone else's level because they're getting a lot less exp than they'd usually get.

triple rofl @ thinking we actually have a shortage on fighters where Astrid's potshot is helping us all the time. Tell me, if we had one enemy at 5 HP and multiple fighters available to kill it, what makes Astrid's attack so special that the other three fighters couldn't replicate?

Um, Astrid's potshot doesn't have to be better than another unit's. There should be 3 or 4 things almost dead nearly every enemy phase. Whether or not we even let Astrid kill it, she's doing better than Lyre who needs energy drops she shouldn't get just to kill it in two one hits, and can't even do so every turn. Lyre gets countered, Astrid doesn't. Win for Astrid. (the change is an edit)

Everyone is killing the leftovers. There are lots. There are usually lots of enemies in chapters and unless we want two guys to get all the kills we are looking at leftovers. Lots of leftovers. Everyone we are using gets kills. Boyd, Rolf, Soren, Ilyana, Calill, Marcia, Titania, Oscar, Shinon, whatever you want. We aren't using all of them and there are only so many nubs we can bring to take up the rear. I know I only brought up one enemy, but I thought everyone would assume there won't be just one cripple leftover on player phase. And Astrid isn't special, she's one of many. Since she can't do much else there is a reason she is bottom tier. But she can do it every time we need it. Lyre can't. And if some enemy has 18 hp or something because we left the wrong unit in its range for enemy phase, well as you said, there are other units. Let them kill it. If Astrid loses out on a couple of potshots because she can't kill it or there is nothing there, she wasn't needed that turn anyway, cause as you pointed out there are other units. Lyre can be on the verge of untransforming 2 or 3 times a map and there's no way of guaranteeing we won't need her on that turn (Edit:) if Astrid was actually needed for the 18 hp enemy.

So Astrid is better if your team always consists of top and high tiers, which basically means the player is now going to only use one team, one strategy, every single playthrough.

All it takes is Ike. Oh look, he's forced. Go Astrid! The point is with 6 guys to choose from (Haar probably isn't bringing the enemy down far enough) we are likely to have at least one, and since we need someone to tank enemy phase anyway the unit might as well be able to cripple stuff.

And we're assuming that our other units aren't actually going to try for the one round (e.g. Mia might want to use a killing edge instead of a regular weapon since this increases her chances to one round, and she's probably two rounding even if she doesn't land a crit anyway), or the fact that with favoritism the rest of my team will be killing without Astrid's help (since this is assuming Astrid and Lyre are not getting any favoritism for some retarded reason, it has to go somewhere), aka let's purposely nerf their offense so that Astrid looks like she's helping the team.

Let's see: Mia ORKOs a few things, but in general it is a 3HKO, and even with adept and a crit forge she is at 70% or something fun like that. With an Ike support she can take on 4 or 5 enemies rather safely since she is 3RKOd at 20% or less hit rates. She kills 3 of them, 2 of them live, or something, and she isn't the only unit tanking enemy phase on a lot of maps anyway. Mia gets kills, nubs get kills, everyone is happy. Well, Mia is a little too happy right now because she likely doesn't need that many kills. So she gets a steel blade and now 2 or 3 out of 5 live. Mia's still leveling faster than anything not tanking anyway and there's more leftovers for the nubs. Everyone is still happy. I'll admit, this scenario doesn't play out as nicely for some of the others. Ulki though doesn't care because he is getting 1 exp regardless. He's quite happy to get 2 strike on enemy phase from each enemy he tanks. Janaff is in the same spot, but he kills more anyway. Ike can alternate turns between Ettard and Steel Sword if he wants. He is probably level 20 by now anyway so steel sword or blade is likely best anyway. Gatrie got crowned so letting him kill when it isn't necessary is slowing down everyone else anyway, so 'nerfing' him once in a while won't hurt anyway, plus he is doubling with a fair shot at pulling off a Luna. If you gave Oscar the Ike support he can reach 36 might easily enough with either a forge or a steel greatlance, and he can help out if we let him tank only when he doubles. There are tons of ways to do this and Astrid won't be sucking all the experience away. She'll likely still be getting far less than our heroes are getting anyway.

And then you also take just one enemy type, and not just one enemy type but loladins, when it's a much different story for things like warriors and halbs that are not only more difficult to double but are more durable in general, meaning people like Mia and Ulki are only taking off ~60% of the guy's HP and Astrid's potshot doesn't do shit for us, or people like Titania who aren't doubling and taking off ~50% of the guy's HP.

Did you look at the Warrior? Astrid needs only about 26 might on the short axe one, and 31 might on the 2 warriors that appear on turn 8. The halbs are annoying but there's like 3 and without massive favouritism Lyre doesn't help anyway, and the snipers that don't move take 32 damage from Mia's 36 (and I intentionally sandbagged her level and str anyway, so it should be 2 higher) leaving them with 8 and 11, and Astrid still finishes them off. By the way, those Halbs, with the 38 mt Mia should have at this point the shine barrier one probably doesn't move, and the other two need 31 mt to kill now instead of 35. And even that 35 mt needed to finish off the (edit:) non shine barrier duo with a 36 mt Mia is killed by a level 12 Astrid with silencer and one energy drop. If Lyre can have them (which she shouldn't), then Astrid can too (which she shouldn't either). But since Lyre loses so badly without energy drops I don't see how (major edit:) three halbs matter anyway. Plus it is only one (energy drops or not) if Mia has 23 str like she should with a bit of bexp to finish off levels like every other character that has capped enough stuff should be getting. Or even 22 str and a 14 mt forge. Remember, support level A makes 38 mt.

And (edit:) aside from the halbs this was all with a gimped Mia not allowed to have a max mt forge and an Astrid without an energy drop. And by 3-E Mia should promote and the level difference in enemies will be irrelevant, although Mia's strength was irrelevant all along anyway because Mia wasn't needed in the first place since a fair number of units could fill her post.

Since I don't always want to type unnecessary stuff I didn't bother putting in too much information that people can look up. I gave specifics with a map and an enemy and assumed if people wanted to whine about me not mentioning other enemy types that they would at least look at other enemies hp/def.

And then she still can't attack enemies that can counter her because her durability is that piss poor.

In the average map, maybe half the enemies have range and they usually aren't all clumped together. The idea that Astrid is attacking these guys if she can't 100% OHKO their remaining hit points is absurd. edit: Or more importantly, the idea there isn't something for her to attack is also usually ridiculous.

ITT: Narga tells us his idea of how we should construct our team...

HIGH TIERS ONLY

NO FAVORITISM

FINAL DESTINATION

Not all high tiers, just need 2 or 3. Unless we are playing to torture ourselves we likely have that, or at least carry them around to weaken stuff.

Favouritism? When it improves our army overall I'm all for it. Let's do what is best for the army. Minimize kills to people who aren't in it for the long haul when it won't hurt us in the long run, whatever it takes to win without even a 1% chance of error whenever possible. I'm all for optimizing. I'm just not for giving stuff to people who don't use it as well as someone else can. And with Lyre's position, there will be someone else if we aren't doing an Astrid x Lyre duo.

moar like "if we throw favoritism on Lyre she somewhat resembles Ranulf, while if we throw favoritism on Astrid we still get a piece of crap".

Okay, so we give her all our energy drops and she has 1 less strength than Ranulf, still has the cat gauge, still levels worse than anyone but Titania, 34 mt now makes her enemy phase less suck, but if we want to have her tank every turn she averages about 3 enemies per phase over the course of the map. She still doesn't help every turn on player phase when we might need her, and we've prevented anyone else from getting something they could use better. And she needs lots of bexp to get to 24 spd, then 26 spd by 3-8, then 28 spd by 3-E. I'll give her the desert so she sucks less in part 4 and she still needs 32 speed in 4-3 (maybe just 30), and 34 speed in endgame. She's not leveling very fast if she doesn't kill so helping her enemy phase doesn't help, and now she can do on player phase what she already could on player phase before the energy drops, so what was the point? And we healed her multiple times over the course of the game while our other units were getting attacked too, so we either had to hold her back to wait for healing or someone else because we raised her. With Astrid, that favouritism that was "useless" just means that there are even more situations in which Astrid can finish off an enemy. Plus in 4-2 (if she goes there, and she likely helps the army more in 4-5 than 4-4 anyway) she gets a silver forge and now has a 20 mt weapon to counteract Lyre maybe reaching S strike.

Yes let's make an incredibly specific situation where Astrid might be helping more than Lyre and use that as our only proof that Astrid > Lyre.

Forgive me for thinking people could extrapolate to how the situation applies to the game overall.

How about I make another situation to counteract yours?

We have two enemies at roughly half HP, or really any HP amount between like 10-20, and LYre/Astrid + some guy left to attack. Only Lyre will be able to kill one of the enemies on her own because we threw two energy drops on her and now 2-rounds crap, and the other guy kills the other enemy. Astrid does jack shit even if we threw three drops on her because her damage is piss poor.

The difference between my situation and your situation is that my enemy could have 1-20 HP and Lyre will still probably kill it off when yours needs to have 1-5 or 10 so Astrid can kill it off (remember that my situation is assuming favoritism was given out, while your situation is assuming no favoritism is given out), so my situation happens far more often than yours.

The only enemy in existance that should have roughly half hp left on enemy phase is a general, unless we stupidly let shinon tank with a crossbow, and a 13 str Lyre with A Strike does 14 damage after doubling to his 22 remaining hp. Even a 14 str Lyre does a mere 18 damage to his 22 remaining hp. And that is a 20/20 Lyre with 3 energy drops and no bexp levels to get that extra str point. Also leaving her with 22 spd in 3-4 and probably only 24 spd in 3-8 where she can't double warriors and halbs. And it still isn't enough to finish the general.

Everything that is not a general is brought down to Astrid's 1HKO range by 36 mt and doubling, rather easy to get if we are using a decent wall.

And a Lyre that needs to double to kill is a Lyre that got attacked. She doesn't need to be healed after every attack, but if anyone is still considering having Lyre tank, she does.

And like you said, we have other guys. Some of them might be as weak as Astrid is since you are so against bringing too many high tiers. If an enemy that isn't a general has 20 hp for some reason, Astrid brings it down to the range someone else can take out. You even said Astrid is never the only unit that we have left so she was taking favouritism on the kill in my example. Why can't this random unit that might be almost as bad as Astrid combine with her to kill it?

The reason why Shinon is uber and Boyd is nothing but mediocre is that Shinon actually brings something different and useful to the team (one rounding in a game that has difficulties doing it, or at least pwning enemies to the point that any random dumbass can finish it off) while Boyd is just a watered down version of like everyone else on the team.

But shinon does one thing every turn, 2 if we let him be vigored (not a bad idea a fair amount of the time, I'll admit). Boyd brings enemies down to a stage where people that don't suck like Astrid and Lyre can actually OHKO it. Shinon's 28 mt is not guaranteed to do that so his enemy phase doesn't really help much. They both do something really helpful (Shinon's player phase, Boyd's enemy phase letting Titania, Oscar, etc kill things on player phase). Shinon's will frequently be more helpful, especially considering others can tank better than Boyd, but the point is they both help. Since Shinon's is frequently more helpful to the army, he is better. Is he 3.5 better? Int clearly disagrees with you.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Progenitus]

This is actually very possible. You have a plethora of units available that can leave enemies alive with a giant range of HP. You're assuming that favoritism is actually very difficult, but it's not.

The problem is that there are far fewer units that Astrid can team up with to kill an enemy than Lyre can.

Or are you implying that offense doesn't matter unless you one round? "yeah well Unit A can't kill, but as long as Unit A + some random unit B can kill that's fine and dandy, let's just ignore the fact that Unit C + some random unit B or D or E or F could kill."

Do you understand now? Do you see the difference between Astrid and Lyre? Astrid puts far more restrictions on my team than Lyre does. The only real limitations Lyre puts on us are "well I have to grass", which is the same problem that guys like Ulki and Ranulf have yet no one really cares. She also needs a bit of energy drops and whatever while those other laguz don't, but that just what makes her bottom tier and those guys top tier.

Astrid is like "well I need a wall of human flesh in front of me at all times or else I get pwned in the face PLUS the pool of units I can choose to team up with so me and that other unit can kill an enemy is far smaller than the pool that Lyre can choose from to kill that same enemy, and I can't even attack certain enemies because they'll counter and pwn me in the face."

I can upload a chapter 20 video of FE7 to let you see how easy it is for base stat Lyn and Eliwood to steal kills.

The difference is taht FE7 enemies are jokes, especially if these kills Lyn/Eliwood stole were lolsoldiers.

I daresay the gap between Astrid and the enemies in 3-11 is greater than the difference between base level Lyn/Eliwood in chapter 20.

I don't know what int was getting at, but the problem is the rest of the alphabet uses the energy drop better than Lyre, so what does it matter if Astrid does worse when we aren't doing a Lyre x Astrid duo?

rofl @ "rest of the alphabet"

When Lyre doubles she's getting +8 damage per round from just one drop.

Beorcs that don't double are out of the equation since they only get +2 damage a round.

Even beorcs that double are only getting +4 damage a round.

Laguz that double also get +8 damage a round, but most of them are uber like hawks/Ranulf, and that +8 damage is only going to help them one round a few enemy types, while Lyre's damage is helped against all enemy types.

Laguz that don't double only get +4 damage a round so they're out too.

Your turn.

Um, Astrid's potshot doesn't have to be better than another unit's. There should be 3 or 4 things almost dead nearly every enemy phase. Whether or not we even let Astrid kill it, she's doing better than Lyre who needs energy drops she shouldn't get just to kill it in two one hits, and can't even do so every turn. Lyre gets countered, Astrid doesn't. Win for Astrid. (the change is an edit)

Well, with your genius idea of "we are only using top/high tiers so taht one of those guys + Astrid can kill something, since a mid tier + Astrid definitely isn't going to kill it" and "we aren't giving favoritism to Astrid/Lyre", we can give favoritism to our top/high tiers so they can one round without Astrid's potshot anyway, thus making Astrid and lyre equally useless.

Fuck, at that point I'd rather just have Lyre stand around and shove our heron (smite for good measure). That'd be better than Astrid's shitty potshot that has to be combined with very specific units on very specific enemies so she can help kill it.

Um, Astrid's potshot doesn't have to be better than another unit's. There should be 3 or 4 things almost dead nearly every enemy phase. Whether or not we even let Astrid kill it, she's doing better than Lyre who needs energy drops she shouldn't get just to kill it in two one hits, and can't even do so every turn. Lyre gets countered, Astrid doesn't. Win for Astrid. (the change is an edit)

Everyone is killing the leftovers. There are lots. There are usually lots of enemies in chapters and unless we want two guys to get all the kills we are looking at leftovers. Lots of leftovers. Everyone we are using gets kills. Boyd, Rolf, Soren, Ilyana, Calill, Marcia, Titania, Oscar, Shinon, whatever you want. We aren't using all of them and there are only so many nubs we can bring to take up the rear. I know I only brought up one enemy, but I thought everyone would assume there won't be just one cripple leftover on player phase. And Astrid isn't special, she's one of many. Since she can't do much else there is a reason she is bottom tier. But she can do it every time we need it. Lyre can't. And if some enemy has 18 hp or something because we left the wrong unit in its range for enemy phase, well as you said, there are other units. Let them kill it. If Astrid loses out on a couple of potshots because she can't kill it or there is nothing there, she wasn't needed that turn anyway, cause as you pointed out there are other units. Lyre can be on the verge of untransforming 2 or 3 times a map and there's no way of guaranteeing we won't need her on that turn.

I'll just repost this that I directed to dondon in this post.

The problem is that there are far fewer units that Astrid can team up with to kill an enemy than Lyre can.

Or are you implying that offense doesn't matter unless you one round? "yeah well Unit A can't kill, but as long as Unit A + some random unit B can kill that's fine and dandy, let's just ignore the fact that Unit C + some random unit B or D or E or F could kill."

Do you understand now? Do you see the difference between Astrid and Lyre? Astrid puts far more restrictions on my team than Lyre does. The only real limitations Lyre puts on us are "well I have to grass", which is the same problem that guys like Ulki and Ranulf have yet no one really cares. She also needs a bit of energy drops and whatever while those other laguz don't, but that just what makes her bottom tier and those guys top tier.

Astrid is like "well I need a wall of human flesh in front of me at all times or else I get pwned in the face PLUS the pool of units I can choose to team up with so me and that other unit can kill an enemy is far smaller than the pool that Lyre can choose from to kill that same enemy, and I can't even attack certain enemies because they'll counter and pwn me in the face."

Fuck I don't even want to counter the rest of your shit.

[dondon151]

The problem is that there are far fewer units that Astrid can team up with to kill an enemy than Lyre can.

How much damage does Astrid do? There are many, many ways to get an enemy's HP that low.

Or are you implying that offense doesn't matter unless you one round? "yeah well Unit A can't kill, but as long as Unit A + some random unit B can kill that's fine and dandy, let's just ignore the fact that Unit C + some random unit B or D or E or F could kill."

No, that's not what I'm implying; that's what you want me to imply so you can conveniently counter it. In fact I don't even understand what you want me to imply, because as long as unit A + some random unit B can kill, it is fine and dandy. This means that Astrid can get kills. Unit C + other unit can kill as well but we just need the means to favoritise Astrid in order to favoritise her.

Do you understand now? Do you see the difference between Astrid and Lyre? Astrid puts far more restrictions on my team than Lyre does. The only real limitations Lyre puts on us are "well I have to grass", which is the same problem that guys like Ulki and Ranulf have yet no one really cares.

Astrid doesn't require any protection up front and Lyre's grass problems are far more severe than Ulki's (people do care about Ranulf's transformation problems, btw).

The difference is taht FE7 enemies are jokes, especially if these kills Lyn/Eliwood stole were lolsoldiers.

There is 1 soldier on the map. Shows how much you know.

No, actually, these range from cavaliers to fighters to shamans, and both of them do like 7 damage per hit, so FE7 enemies being jokes has nothing to do with anything because they're in the same situation as Astrid, except they can't canto away or attack without risk of counter.

Since you don't seem to know anything about this map at all, just take my word for it instead of pulling straws to hypothetically counter my arguments when I can make and upload video proof in the span of about 20 minutes (i.e. when I get off my lazy ass and determine that people are actually interested in 0% growth playthrough videos).

I actually had to train base stat Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector to the point where they got 50 combined levels for that playthrough, which was not as difficult as I had imagined.

I daresay the gap between Astrid and the enemies in 3-11 is greater than the difference between base level Lyn/Eliwood in chapter 20.

Astrid needs like 31 atk to do 7 damage to the 24 def halberdiers, which is 2 points of strength from base and a Silencer. This is not even counting the plethora of enemies that have 18 def.

Edited July 3, 2009 by dondon151

[Narga_Rocks]

The problem is that there are far fewer units that Astrid can team up with to kill an enemy than Lyre can.

Or are you implying that offense doesn't matter unless you one round? "yeah well Unit A can't kill, but as long as Unit A + some random unit B can kill that's fine and dandy, let's just ignore the fact that Unit C + some random unit B or D or E or F could kill."

Do you understand now? Do you see the difference between Astrid and Lyre? Astrid puts far more restrictions on my team than Lyre does. The only real limitations Lyre puts on us are "well I have to grass", which is the same problem that guys like Ulki and Ranulf have yet no one really cares. She also needs a bit of energy drops and whatever while those other laguz don't, but that just what makes her bottom tier and those guys top tier.

Astrid is like "well I need a wall of human flesh in front of me at all times or else I get pwned in the face PLUS the pool of units I can choose to team up with so me and that other unit can kill an enemy is far smaller than the pool that Lyre can choose from to kill that same enemy, and I can't even attack certain enemies because they'll counter and pwn me in the face."

Why does she need a wall of human flesh to protect her from the zero enemies close enough to attack her after she attacks something? And why are we letting those random units tank? They can take fewer hits, so they can't go as far in the map as our one or two high tiers, they do less damage so probably need to stay with the rest of our people killing the few enemies they did draw, then maybe if they have canto they can get past the point on the map that our others could've gotten to last turn. The reason we let Gatrie, Ike, Mia, Janaff, Ulki tank is because they can draw more enemies without dying and bring them down far enough for anyone to kill, even Astrid. Aside from generals they are pretty good at letting even Lyre reach OHKO, but she is sometimes needing to ORKO and get countered. And I'm not sure why you keep bringing up the possibility of Astrid getting attacked. If Astrid with 2 range and canto can't get far enough away, can Lyre? How much gauge does she have, how many enemies are attacking? She can easily be made to untransform if we try to let her attack stuff in a situation she can get attacked. Think, if Astrid is 6 squares away from what she's attacking, she moves up 4 and attacks and can be 5 away from the spot from which she attacked. If Astrid needs a wall, then Lyre is surely getting attacked once or twice and she'll need to grass earlier than normal and suddenly there are yet more units that are too strong for either to kill. So basically if Astrid can get attacked then so can Lyre, and while Lyre won't exactly be in danger of dying unless she untransforms during enemy phase, she is now grassing far more frequently and rarely gets a useful player phase for all the grassing she is doing.

rofl @ "rest of the alphabet"

When Lyre doubles she's getting +8 damage per round from just one drop.

Beorcs that don't double are out of the equation since they only get +2 damage a round.

Even beorcs that double are only getting +4 damage a round.

Laguz that double also get +8 damage a round, but most of them are uber like hawks/Ranulf, and that +8 damage is only going to help them one round a few enemy types, while Lyre's damage is helped against all enemy types.

Laguz that don't double only get +4 damage a round so they're out too.

Your turn.

Does the rofl thing mean you thought 'rest of the alphabet' was funny or stupid? I'm sure you are trying to say that Lyre is better with energy drops than they are, but what about the words that I used themselves?

Anyway, Ranulf doesn't ORKO much until he gets S Strike. With Adept sure, 50% of the time, but if you give Ranulf an energy drop you can give someone else adept and now you have two people that can kill. Anyway, you'll probably want numbers. Ranulf has 36 mt at the beginning. In 3-4 he can't 2HKO (ie: ORKO without adept activating) halbs, warriors, snipers, generals. Look up the numbers yourself if you don't believe. And bexp isn't helping str when it is his 5th best growth, so he is helped by that energy drop. And with how slowly he levels and how Lyre sucked away most of our bexp to double in 3-4, he isn't getting strong soon. We all know Ulki doesn't ORKO either since he has the same mt as Ranulf and takes longer to get to S strike. And Ulki's str is tied for last in his growths so bexp isn't helping. And he levels even slower than Ranulf. And bexp takes even more. If we like units ORKOing, they make more use of it. If we don't care about ORKOing and like taking extra time to clear maps, then any unit combination that falls short of combining to 2RKO an enemy unit by 2 could use it, or by 4 could use 2 drops. They might also eventually be able to take more enemies per enemy phase than Lyre can, and even if they only take 3 then at least they have a player phase due to not grassing. So either Lyre gets to use her 3 energy drops 6 out of 10 turns in a map, or she can use it every enemy phase while tanking but never getting to kill anything on enemy phase due to grassing. Either way, she isn't bringing the energy drops to use quite as often as other people.

Well, with your genius idea of "we are only using top/high tiers so taht one of those guys + Astrid can kill something, since a mid tier + Astrid definitely isn't going to kill it" and "we aren't giving favoritism to Astrid/Lyre", we can give favoritism to our top/high tiers so they can one round without Astrid's potshot anyway, thus making Astrid and lyre equally useless.

Fuck, at that point I'd rather just have Lyre stand around and shove our heron (smite for good measure). That'd be better than Astrid's shitty potshot that has to be combined with very specific units on very specific enemies so she can help kill it.

Well of course I'd rather not use Astrid. But if I have to let Astrid take a deployment slot all the way through to endgame, then I might as well have her kill stuff. What is the point in taking Astrid to endgame if I don't make sure she kills some things. It isn't as if she is taking more kills than anyone else in her slot would be. I can do this with anyone that will actually attack most of the time. The tops will do just fine in levels with all the kills they will be getting while still managing to give a few kills to Astrid.

Look, I wouldn't complain about Lyre if it wasn't for two things:

1. Not always able to attack when I want her to.

2. Getting countered.

Since she doesn't bring anything important to the table to beat Astrid with, I say those two things are enough to put Astrid > Lyre.

Look, if the enemies weren't so nice that they go up to anything in range and attack my tanks which leave them almost dead and allow any nub to kill it, then I wouldn't be so in favour of Astrid over Lyre. Astrid just does something better than Lyre and Lyre can't do anything more useful. If my tanks could only attack 1 or 2 things per round and we had to actually let others start off on enemies from scratch, then I wouldn't complain about putting Lyre above Astrid. The problem is that using the army to their best performance generally involves tanks that can hurt things so well that Lyre isn't important.

If I wasn't using Astrid, then I might let idiots tank once in a while just for kicks, but since we are using Astrid, why not use the army in such a way that she doesn't slow us down? Because of the 2 things I mentioned earlier, Astrid does it better than Lyre. Using either unit any other way is not optimal. Army with Astrid > Army with Lyre when played well. Simple as that. When played poorly, sure, Lyre might occasionally do things Astrid can't, but we shouldn't punish Astrid for us doing things that aren't optimal. There are a LOT of units we need to play without in order for Lyre > Astrid to make sense. First we need to take out most of top and high tier. Even a few units in upper middle can bring Astrid to OHKO range. Why should that have any bearing on how good Astrid is?

I'll just repost this that I directed to dondon in this post.

The problem is that there are far fewer units that Astrid can team up with to kill an enemy than Lyre can.

Or are you implying that offense doesn't matter unless you one round? "yeah well Unit A can't kill, but as long as Unit A + some random unit B can kill that's fine and dandy, let's just ignore the fact that Unit C + some random unit B or D or E or F could kill."

Do you understand now? Do you see the difference between Astrid and Lyre? Astrid puts far more restrictions on my team than Lyre does. The only real limitations Lyre puts on us are "well I have to grass", which is the same problem that guys like Ulki and Ranulf have yet no one really cares. She also needs a bit of energy drops and whatever while those other laguz don't, but that just what makes her bottom tier and those guys top tier.

Astrid is like "well I need a wall of human flesh in front of me at all times or else I get pwned in the face PLUS the pool of units I can choose to team up with so me and that other unit can kill an enemy is far smaller than the pool that Lyre can choose from to kill that same enemy, and I can't even attack certain enemies because they'll counter and pwn me in the face."

You know that was in the exact same post earlier, right? And it still doesn't explain how letting some idiot tank on enemy phase to do 20 damage per enemy is a better idea than letting someone tank while doing 32 damage per enemy.

Fuck I don't even want to counter the rest of your shit.

Right, because then you'd have to admit that Mia or Ulki vs. a warrior or sniper or 2 out of 3 halbs still bring them down far enough for Astrid to OHKO. Or that we aren't gimping the rest of the army's levels to let Astrid kill stuff. Or that Astrid will have nothing to attack on player phase less often than Lyre has to grass. Or that 2 high tiers is enough on most maps to bring enemies down to Astrid level hp ranges. Or that I'm not suggesting you have to load your team with high tier only. Heck, most of the strategies I've been able to come up with is from loading my team with a few high tiers plus an equal number of other units that need kills somehow and can't live through much. And I can still finish HM getting most maps in the turn limit, while getting my 4-E-5 team to a good enough level for endgame. Or how giving Lyre 3 energy drops (One is going to waste for all of part 1 and 3 GM maps in part 3) doesn't change that she is only ever finishing things off on player phase which she can do without all 3 anyway. Or how my "incredibly specific situation" happens at the start of every player phase. Or how if we let good tanks tank then the only enemies that will consistently have enough HP that Astrid can't OHKO are generals and halbs, and eventually not even halbs. And if there are oh so many units on player phase from whom Astrid is stealing kills, then why aren't they helping to kill what she can't OHKO while she picks off what she can? No, of course you don't want to counter it.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Narga_Rocks