OMG it's a tier list

[Vykan12]

Bastian's useful in 4-E as well though. He's like Oliver but has even higher base mag and doesn't fail horribly at combat.

[charmander6000]

Meg vs Astrid (which would imply Meg > unholy trinity since astrid's at the top of the bunch) was covered a long time ago

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?...trid&st=880

the arguments start there

The argument isn't whether Meg > Astrid, it's whether she's better enough to be a tier above them.

So, since no one's gonna argue Danved vs Bastian...

Danved's surrounded by bastards with horses his entire CRK existence, only being semi-reliable 3-9, then he is hot garbage come the mercs.

Bastian on the other hand comes with a full arsenal of effective weapons (all laguz), and magic damage, since Danved's never gonna double shit. Sniper weapons, staffs, chance to actually put that effective power to good use (joining chapter, dragons)

How does Bastian not shit-stomp Danved?

Let's see Danved 3RKOs most enemies in 3-9 and 4RKOs when he joins up in 3-11. If he ever wants to double he needs either a speedwing or a master crown which will then let him 2RKO most enemies in part 4.

Bastian can 2RKO all the laguz if he uses the right magic. He's also pretty durable for a mage, though not enough to be taking too many enemy phases. He can also use staves.

I think this will come down to how much does endgame want a secondary staff user.

[Narga_Rocks]

Bastian's useful in 4-E as well though. He's like Oliver but has even higher base mag and doesn't fail horribly at combat.

Yep. And since Micaiah has been reduced to being a healbot by this board it doesn't even matter that Bastian can't fortify. Micaiah is doing that.

Then since Rhys needs --/20/7 just to match Bastian's spd and --/20/13 or 14 to match his magic, and since feeding him kills seems rather pointless and limiting, I don't see him matching Bastian's mag or spd so Bastian is better for endgame.

As for Mist, I'm pretty certain Bastian can beat her damage output and she needs to be --/20/14 to match his hp/def, though she gets a boost from water so --/20/10 could be argued as similar concrete durability. Bastian will likely be doubled, though, by a fair number of 4-E-2 enemies, unless he gets 5 levels in 2 chapters (4-5 and 4-E-1). Still, with 32 res a wardwood tile means spirits tink, but Mist might outdamage him against them, depending on her level.

As for Elincia, if you trained her enough to be good, she might as well ORKO stuff with her amiti as much as possible rather than healing that Bastian could do. If you didn't train her, she has rather low magic and healing ~30 hp with physic isn't always helpful, especially on guys 3RKOd by dragons, because a better heal after taking two hits means they can do it again, rather than just take one hit. Other cases might show up where it matters.

As for Laura, she needs training. I actually don't see it as a bad thing, since it can be done without hurting the team or going over max bexp turn limits, but this board seems to. So she isn't a good candidate for Endgame.

All said, Bastian is actually a pretty good candidate for endgame healing. The other sages if raised to arch sage could be healers too, and will have comparable hp/mag/def (except remove Def for Soren), but honestly raising those sages for healing seems silly. If you are going to raise them, make them fight well, and use them for it. And if they can't be brought up to fight worthy levels and you are just making them a healbot in endgame, what was the point? You have plenty of potential healbots and none of them even needed to be raised to a high enough staff level to physic.

So yeah, assuming you appreciate having a second healer who can occasionally deal decent damage when healing is unnecessary, and can toss out the long range double against dragons with a range tome, he's a pretty good endgame guy.

If we go by 4-E is 2 chapters, then he has 3 chapters where he is pretty good, and that is compared to Danved standing unequipped on a thicket in 2-3 keeping 5 enemies from suiciding into partner units, plus a bit of help in 3-9 clearing out enemies.

Now, everyone in 3-9 is helpful combining to kill things on the way to the boss while saving houses, but that's just one chapter. I could actually see Bastian rising above Danved.

His only real competition for partial healbotting in endgame is a 20/20/something Laura, because if she's that high then leveling her should be simple and then she'll pass him in a few important stats. But how many people are actually raising Laura to that level? Aside from me, that is.

[Florete]

I don't get the argument that apparently "Elincia can fight well, so that's all she should be doing." If a unit can use a staff, that unit can heal. If that unit can also fight, bonus points are given and other healers start to look more obsolete, since ability to fight + heal > just heal.

Personally, I rarely find I need more than two staff users for Endgame. In my first Hard run I had 3 (Soren, Calill, and Micaiah) but I usually only needed Micaiah to heal and the other two mostly fought. 4-E-3 is the only real exception, where you probably have staff users healing more often than fighting because Dragons hit hard with decent accuracy, but then you also have to remember our Heron and its Blessing that can heal allies, and I'm reasonably sure the Dragons don't attack the Herons.

This is why I find characters like Bastian and Oliver (especially Oliver) virtually useless, because there are plenty of decent units that can do their job and more, and yet the demand for them already isn't very high.

[Progenitus]

The argument isn't whether Meg > Astrid, it's whether she's better enough to be a tier above them.

Meg stomps Astrid REALLY, REALLY hard

I daresay Meg is far more comparable to the low tier units than the bottom tier trash, which is reason enough to put bump her up

[Narga_Rocks]

I don't get the argument that apparently "Elincia can fight well, so that's all she should be doing." If a unit can use a staff, that unit can heal. If that unit can also fight, bonus points are given and other healers start to look more obsolete, since ability to fight + heal > just heal.

I like the idea of bringing Elincia and Bastian, really. Well, Elincia and Laura, but this board doesn't like Laura for Endgame, so I figure Bastian fills the role.

charmander6000 said it all comes down to how much does endgame want a secondary staff user. I agree. Really, it likely depends on the units brought to endgame. If there are two slots left, and Elincia and Bastian and some other unit are what is being chosen between, then it is a question of team composition. Assume that other unit has offence equal to Elincia's, then the choice is Elincia + other unit or Elincia + Bastian. If the team could use two units with good offence, then Elincia + other unit. If the team really doesn't need 2 units with really good offence, but frequently ends up needing healing, and occasionally even needs a third healer, then Elincia + Bastian is good. If the team never needs that third healer ever, then Elincia + other unit might be best, since Elincia can heal and the other unit can fight just as well as Elincia would have if Bastian had healed instead of her.

If this scenario is altered such that the other unit has less offence than Elincia, then the situation changes thus:

If we still only ever need two more units with good offence, Elincia + other unit.

If we only ever need two healers, but it happens frequently, Elincia + Bastian.

The reason is, if Elincia is healing, then other unit is possibly not killing something that Elincia would've killed if Bastian had been healing instead.

Besides, every extra long range bomber in 4-E-3 makes the chapter much easier.

Anyway, this is also the basic idea for Bastian against Calill or Soren, where Calill or Soren replaces Elincia in the argument, and that's only if they have C staff.

It doesn't always land in Bastian's favour, though. I think part of my problem is I let Micaiah and Elincia fight too much and so Laura is left holding the bag (staff), so maybe if I never let Micaiah fight anything I'd feel more secure with just Micaiah and Elincia for healing.

Personally, I rarely find I need more than two staff users for Endgame. In my first Hard run I had 3 (Soren, Calill, and Micaiah) but I usually only needed Micaiah to heal and the other two mostly fought. 4-E-3 is the only real exception, where you probably have staff users healing more often than fighting because Dragons hit hard with decent accuracy, but then you also have to remember our Heron and its Blessing that can heal allies, and I'm reasonably sure the Dragons don't attack the Herons.

This is why I find characters like Bastian and Oliver (especially Oliver) virtually useless, because there are plenty of decent units that can do their job and more, and yet the demand for them already isn't very high.

Everyone plays differently. Again, maybe I just let Micaiah kill too much. I suppose I could dump Laura for another devoted fighter and not let Micaiah fight, but blessed Nosferatu in 4-E-3 is just too much fun to pass up, and then Laura is like my only healer for some turns.

Edited July 16, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Florete]

I like the idea of bringing Elincia and Bastian, really. Well, Elincia and Laura, but this board doesn't like Laura for Endgame, so I figure Bastian fills the role.

The problem with Laura is getting her there. She starts at level 1 with only healing going for her. Even with some boss abuse and BEXP, it's very difficult to get her to 20 by 3-6. Then, still as primarily a healer (and competing with Micaiah nonetheless) she needs to gain 19/20 levels in 5 maps. That part shouldn't be as hard because of 3 Paragons in part 4 and a lot more BEXP, but she also doesn't have advantages that make it easier for Micaiah like Thani and a good affinity (because even Micaiah people don't assume reaches 20/20 by her second promotion).

If the team really doesn't need 2 units with really good offence, but frequently ends up needing healing, and occasionally even needs a third healer, then Elincia + Bastian is good.

How often does a scenario like that occur, where we have good offense but bad defense? The only case I can think of is Archsages, but then hey, there's our Bastian replacement already.

Besides, every extra long range bomber in 4-E-3 makes the chapter much easier.

Agreed, but I don't think I need 5 characters whipping out Meteor and Blizzard on Dragon ass. I do need some walls.

It doesn't always land in Bastian's favour, though. I think part of my problem is I let Micaiah and Elincia fight too much and so Laura is left holding the bag (staff), so maybe if I never let Micaiah fight anything I'd feel more secure with just Micaiah and Elincia for healing.

Everyone plays differently. Again, maybe I just let Micaiah kill too much. I suppose I could dump Laura for another devoted fighter and not let Micaiah fight, but blessed Nosferatu in 4-E-3 is just too much fun to pass up, and then Laura is like my only healer for some turns.

The point is that Elincia and Micaiah can heal. I have them fight quite often too, but that doesn't mean I disregard their staff, especially when it's necessary.

[Narga_Rocks]

How often does a scenario like that occur, where we have good offense but bad defense? The only case I can think of is Archsages, but then hey, there's our Bastian replacement already.

4-E-1 has three fronts, and one of them is 5 wide. I don't know if we'll ever actually need 2 or 3 healers at once, but there are basically 7 units that can get attacked on any one turn, no matter how it's done. Likely a large number of those units have pretty high #HKOs, or high avo, but it is possible to need a bit of extra healing.

4-E-2 depends on how long you are taking. 2 turning likely means no need for healing, whereas obliterating means with the most defensive of formations there are still 3 units taking enemy phase action, at least for the first 3 turns. It is possible to need healing.

And if we pulled out a team of archsages, then Bastian can heal whichever was damaged, and it can go kill something. It again depends on the offence of that archsage you want to do the healing compared to the offence of the guy that would replace Bastian.

Agreed, but I don't think I need 5 characters whipping out Meteor and Blizzard on Dragon ass. I do need some walls.

There actually isn't really all that many dragons that move. At least, not from the beginning. There are a few nearby on turn 1, but with the right units all of them can be killed on turn 1, though I usually let one live and block it in with a royal untransformed next to it. Anyway, there really isn't much need to wall on turn 1, just careful placement of 2 or 3 units to take on the dragons that move in. Then there are 3 reds on the left and 3 whites on the right, and because of the set up 1 unit on each side can draw them. The reds on the wardwood tiles can be taken down with ranged tomes, though it obviously takes a bit longer because they are on wardwood, especially if there is no bolting. At this point, aside from the few reinforcements, nothing moves if you aren't in it's range. 4 tanks could likely handle the walling needs of the entire map. Micaiah on the cover tile with a blessed Nosferatu is particularly effective against the reds on the right side. With enough mag and her support they should be OHKO for many units, or at least ORKO. And that's ignoring the option of simply blasting the way to Deg, which the range users also help with.

The point is that Elincia and Micaiah can heal. I have them fight quite often too, but that doesn't mean I disregard their staff, especially when it's necessary.

It isn't as if I never let them heal, especially Elincia since her level is usually rather high after Paragon in 4-2 and only training 3 units for endgame in 4-2 and 4-5, of which she is one. So she spends a fair amount of time healing. It's just, sometimes it is preferable for them both to attack, and let Laura heal.

I think I might just be overly cautious? It's possible I could get by without Laura, and if I let Micaiah actually use the fortify rather than finish the game with 4 uses left it might be easier, but I figure if neither extra attackers nor extra healers are needed, why not a healer? Why not an attacker is also a good question, but that basically means that Bastian is just as good as anything else.

Plus, I'm trying to get Micaiah levels, I guess. Fortify is only good for 3 levels, without hammerneing it. Freeing up Micaiah to attack allows her to get levels to reach that invincible stage against the red dragons, though I forget what mag/hp/def she needs for that.

Edited July 16, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Interceptor]

She's not that bad if you train her. This is more about how badly Astrid/Lyre/Fiona are than how good Meg is. At least she's trainable while the other three requires a lot of things just so they can damage enemies enough to kill them without trying to add everything up.

This argument does not work for me. Meg is a resource black hole from which not even light can escape. The opportunity cost of giving her skills/stat-ups etc is greater than the benefit that you actually get from giving them to her in the first place, with the sole exception of tossing her a forged iron/steel sword or two (since they are basically free). It's entirely pointless, in my opinion, to prove that Meg w/favoritism > Astrid w/favoritism, since a trained Meg is still so outclassed by other units, and the resources could go to so much better use, that the negative utility puts her down in the 9th circle of Hell. Meg w/resources is so bad that Astrid can beat her just by not taking anything at all, since "Astrid's team" now has all of that shit that you just gave Meg ("armies" are an oversimplification, but you get the idea).

Personally I'd rather leave Meg there and drop the three down another tier, but only one unit in a tier seems like a waste of space.

The purpose of tier breaks, IMO, is to organize units into logical groupings, not to make sure that at least X number of units are in the same group. That means if there is a situation where a unit stands alone, it's fine to have that unit in its own tier.

Sorry. I warned everyone reading what I said there would be a waste of time. I couldn't come up with anything major. I did put in the few points that I found with it. I added a bit of stuff like ratings and inane comments, but that's pretty much just because I thought my post was rather bland without it. Rather meaningless with it, too, but I felt better about typing it. Plus I was more focused on the Boyd thing and just wanted to push something out in response to your rant. It took a long time to type all the Boyd stuff.

Yeah, well, it's nice to have a reply from someone who is not constantly trying to "curbstomp" me.

It's just tough to say anything against it when it is logically constructed and has its own flow. I don't agree with the conclusions entirely, but I can't find where your logic breaks, or if it does.

Think back to the discussion about 3-6. In terms of game mechanics, there is no reason to rush through that chapter. You get nothing for speeding through it, not even BEXP (the bonus is fixed, it is not turn-based), and in fact an argument could be made that going slower allows you to get more CEXP out of it (the laguz do give a lot of CEXP for non-fatal hits). But despite the fact that you get no "objective" bonus out of going faster, people are generally agreement that faster was better than slower for tiering purposes.

So, extending that theory that faster > slower to every chapter in the game -- including those with turn-based BEXP bonuses -- it sets the stage for the argument that I laid down. I pointed out several places where turns could be chopped in Part 1 without unduly endangering turn counts in later chapters. The side-effect of cutting turns, though, is losing the ability to level DB members sufficiently for Part 3/4, as well as some items (chests in 1-E, as an example, you can't get them all while minimizing turns). This suggests that training the tier 1 DB members must necessarily now include a turn-count opportunity cost, that is to say that levelling them up is going to remove your ability to take these specific turn shortcuts (best example: 1-6-2).

But, I really don't think it is all that much work to get Nolan and Jill to level 18 by the end of 1-E. I don't think it pads turncounts significantly, so unless we are speedrunning there's no actual reason to 2 or 3 turn 1-6-2, for example. If we just look at max bexp, there isn't really a downside to training them. I see I was wrong about the higher turncount thing, because it seems as long as you are using a couple of units in the right way it is possible to do things faster than if we train the first tiers.

It's not that it's a lot of work, it's that you cannot simultaneously train them to a specific level threshold and meet minimum turns at the same time. Compared to the GMs, who start at a higher base level and have ample oportunites to farm up CEXP while rushing towards chapter goals, the DB's costs are higher. I don't think that there is any denying this. smash's silence on this issue is tantamount to conceding that point.

Basically, most will disagree with the idea, but raising one unit in part 1 means not raising another. If we assume that (in addition to Sothe, Volug, Micaiah, and Laura) 3 somewhat high-leveled tier 1 units can be raised to tier 2 by part 3, and only Nolan, Jill, Ilyana is high enough to make it there if we raise 3, then to raise a different unit up to level 19 instead of one of those 3 would mean only 2 tier 1 units will make it to tier 2, and another might reach level 14 or 15.

I don't disagree with this idea. You only have the ability to put a certain amount of effort into traning, and certain units take X effort over Y chapters to get to a workable level of performance.

Oh, one more gripe with your theory, though, and this is only because so many people are trying to bring Sothe down in the tier list. I think this setup where you don't care about the tier 1 dbers likely boosts Sothe (well, in the case of this tier list it merely helps to justify his position).

I don't disagree. In terms of reducing turn counts, Sothe is really good.

I suppose you can just deploy Sothe and Micaiah and give Sothe saviour and just find a spot where he can survive, but even then he is your sole unit for a few turns.

This is, in fact, exactly how you clear 3-6. There is a thicket next to a dead tree where Sothe can stand with Savior'ed Micaiah, and he'll get bracketed by two cats (one of which only has A Strike) that can never kill him under any circumstances. The NPCs distract the laguz long enough for him to get there, and once the BK shows up it's Goodnight Irene.

In 3-12 you are looking at Volug/Zihark combo, which might not actually have A support because 1-6-2 is 3 turned, 1-8 has Volug far away from Zihark, and 3-6 might not even see them deployed simply because it is the easiest way to keep Laguz from attacking anything but BK. (Sothe needs to stand where he faces one Laguz unequipped and burn vulneraries, I guess.)

They won't have A, but they will have at least C or possibly B, which is good enough for government work when you're only facing tier 2 becorcs.

So just to sum up, my basic problem with the way that the DB units are tiered is that people operate under the assumption that the DB units deserve to be trained. I don't understand this. It's well-established in the Fire Emblem universe that certain units have early-game use that peters out as they increasingly become obsolete compared to other units. In many cases, insisting on using them for the entire game is just going to drag them down in the rankings because they might start becoming really shitty compared to their peers. I'm not endorsing this tiering philosophy in its entirety, I'm just pointing out that it's the logical conclusion of some of the arguments that have been made in this thread.

[Narga_Rocks]

Yeah, well, it's nice to have a reply from someone who is not constantly trying to "curbstomp" me.

Quite true.

Think back to the discussion about 3-6. In terms of game mechanics, there is no reason to rush through that chapter. You get nothing for speeding through it, not even BEXP (the bonus is fixed, it is not turn-based), and in fact an argument could be made that going slower allows you to get more CEXP out of it (the laguz do give a lot of CEXP for non-fatal hits). But despite the fact that you get no "objective" bonus out of going faster, people are generally agreement that faster was better than slower for tiering purposes.

So I take it that means the initial assumption is:

If it is a good thing to go through 3-6 as quickly as possible despite having no max bexp number, then why should having a max bexp number in some other chapter suddenly mean we no longer care about doing that other chapter as quickly as possible?

Which is again why I say I can't see where your logic breaks. Once we take this assumption, the logic flows from there. We shave off more turns overall by speeding through part 1 and spending a few extra turns in 2 db part 3 chapters than we would by training in part 1 and not spending a few extra turns in 2 db part 3 chapters. (The only way to reject your conclusion that I see is to reject the initial assumption.)

Plus the headache argument for the entire thing, too. It's my argument, not yours, but it takes less thought/planning/effort to easy button the db parts than it does to attempt to train a bunch of guys who are 2 or 3 rounded while facing enemies all over the place. The opportunity cost of training the db is the player's sanity.

So, extending that theory that faster > slower to every chapter in the game -- including those with turn-based BEXP bonuses -- it sets the stage for the argument that I laid down. I pointed out several places where turns could be chopped in Part 1 without unduly endangering turn counts in later chapters. The side-effect of cutting turns, though, is losing the ability to level DB members sufficiently for Part 3/4, as well as some items (chests in 1-E, as an example, you can't get them all while minimizing turns). This suggests that training the tier 1 DB members must necessarily now include a turn-count opportunity cost, that is to say that levelling them up is going to remove your ability to take these specific turn shortcuts (best example: 1-6-2).

Except that it is really hard to judge the opportunity cost of those extra turns. How far down does it push them? How do we judge units that are slightly better for 4-3/4-4/4-5 and 4-E if trained than their GM counterparts, but now we have something like the opportunity cost of those extra turns to consider?

It's not that it's a lot of work, it's that you cannot simultaneously train them to a specific level threshold and meet minimum turns at the same time. Compared to the GMs, who start at a higher base level and have ample oportunites to farm up CEXP while rushing towards chapter goals, the DB's costs are higher. I don't think that there is any denying this. smash's silence on this issue is tantamount to conceding that point.

I guess my last paragraph applies to this, as well.

I don't disagree with this idea. You only have the ability to put a certain amount of effort into traning, and certain units take X effort over Y chapters to get to a workable level of performance.

The "most will disagree with the idea" was only partly referring to that paragraph, it was also referring to everything beneath it down to the extra space I put between paragraphs. But basically one of the conclusions from the paragraph you quoted was that if you train Jill, Nolan, and Ilyana, there is no cost of getting Ilyana up to second tier and not having an extra tier 2 unit for the db's part 3, because we can't have 3 extra tier 2 units in part 3 anyway. The best you can get in addition to Jill and Nolan is lvl 15 or so for someone else, or lvl 15 or so for Jill or Nolan and tier 2 for the someone else. Either way, there are only going to be 2 tier 1 units that reached lvl 19 before the dbs part 3 that actually go there.

Or as I said elsewhere, we just don't train Micaiah as much, and can then have 3 tier 1 dbs get to tier 2 for the dbs part 3. But then the opportunity cost for raising that extra tier 1 unit to tier 2 (when we don't really need him in part 3 anyway) is a weaker Micaiah. And further, in part 4 when that extra unit got dropped, we have nothing in part 4 to show for it, and our Micaiah is still weaker than she would've been. ie: all cost, no gain in part 4. Plus, since we used an extra db unit in part 3, our other db units are now 20/10 instead of 20/15 going into part 4, so we also have the cost of having lost a more usable Jill or Nolan in part 4.

Basically, training and using a tier 1 db member that isn't Nolan or Jill or Ilyana and getting it to tier 2 for part 3 is an all cost little gain scenario. Oh, and of course these last 3 paragraphs are ignoring the idea that part 1 should be speedrun, which by extension also implies that I'm rejecting the idea that 3-6 and 3-12 need to be done quickly. Or more accurately, these paragraphs are only meaningful if 3-6 and 3-12 don't need to be done quickly. Otherwise, training even 1 tier 1 member up to tier 2 for part 3 is already very costly.

I don't disagree. In terms of reducing turn counts, Sothe is really good.

Oh, okay. So under "initial assumption", Sothe's spot on the tier list is deserved. If we reject "initial assumption", then your points in red fox's rating topic that were lost in the time warp for why Sothe doesn't deserve his vaunted position become valid again, or something like that.

This is, in fact, exactly how you clear 3-6. There is a thicket next to a dead tree where Sothe can stand with Savior'ed Micaiah, and he'll get bracketed by two cats (one of which only has A Strike) that can never kill him under any circumstances. The NPCs distract the laguz long enough for him to get there, and once the BK shows up it's Goodnight Irene.

Figured as much. Didn't know the logistics because I've never tried, but it makes sense.

They won't have A, but they will have at least C or possibly B, which is good enough for government work when you're only facing tier 2 becorcs.

Is it enough to survive if they keep clearing space? Or is the idea that they just aren't strong enough to clear space so they can be healed and will kill one enemy each on player phase? I was just looking for things that make Sothe more important under the new viewpoint, but if it works for Z and V with just B or C, then that chapter doesn't help him, oh well.

So just to sum up, my basic problem with the way that the DB units are tiered is that people operate under the assumption that the DB units deserve to be trained. I don't understand this. It's well-established in the Fire Emblem universe that certain units have early-game use that peters out as they increasingly become obsolete compared to other units. In many cases, insisting on using them for the entire game is just going to drag them down in the rankings because they might start becoming really shitty compared to their peers. I'm not endorsing this tiering philosophy in its entirety, I'm just pointing out that it's the logical conclusion of some of the arguments that have been made in this thread.

I guess for me I just like having 34 speed endgame units. I never really cared about turn counts any more than the numbers the game gives me as a guiding light. Well, the number serenes forest gives for max bexp, anyway. Under the conditions I set out for myself, I think Jill and Nolan do great and aside from thinking harder in their chapters, I don't see a cost of raising them.

If I were to accept "initial assumption", then I don't know how to apply the cost of a higher turn count to Jill and Nolan and company's current place on the tier list.

(It might be more accurate for me to say:

So I take it that means the initial assumption is:

It is a good thing to go through 3-6 as quickly as possible despite having no max bexp number

and that the first logical step would be:

Then why should having a max bexp number in some other chapter suddenly mean we no longer care about doing that other chapter as quickly as possible?

But whatever)

Edited July 16, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[charmander6000]

This argument does not work for me. Meg is a resource black hole from which not even light can escape. The opportunity cost of giving her skills/stat-ups etc is greater than the benefit that you actually get from giving them to her in the first place, with the sole exception of tossing her a forged iron/steel sword or two (since they are basically free).

The only favouritism Meg needs is getting most of the kills in 1-4 and a master seal after part 1. Anything else is a bonus. I don't have much time and I'll go into further detail, but Meg usually 3RKO and is usually 3RKO by most of the enemies.

It's entirely pointless, in my opinion, to prove that Meg w/favoritism > Astrid w/favoritism, since a trained Meg is still so outclassed by other units, and the resources could go to so much better use, that the negative utility puts her down in the 9th circle of Hell.

There's a reason why Meg is low on the tier list, of course other units outclass her.

Meg w/resources is so bad that Astrid can beat her just by not taking anything at all, since "Astrid's team" now has all of that shit that you just gave Meg ("armies" are an oversimplification, but you get the idea).

Astrid doesn't do much, we could also field Meg from 1-4 to 1-6-2 and all of part 3 have her do nothing and you'll get about the same benefit except Meg doesn't take a unit slot from anyone.

Edited July 16, 2009 by charmander6000

[_____]

Anyone have an opinion on closing the gap between Mist and Rhys, besides kirsche, who has stated he's for it, and I?

[Florete]

Anyone have an opinion on closing the gap between Mist and Rhys, besides kirsche, who has stated he's for it, and I?

No one argued against it IIRC, and I agree myself, so I did it.

[Interceptor]

So I take it that means the initial assumption is:

If it is a good thing to go through 3-6 as quickly as possible despite having no max bexp number, then why should having a max bexp number in some other chapter suddenly mean we no longer care about doing that other chapter as quickly as possible?

That's exactly right.

Plus the headache argument for the entire thing, too. It's my argument, not yours, but it takes less thought/planning/effort to easy button the db parts than it does to attempt to train a bunch of guys who are 2 or 3 rounded while facing enemies all over the place. The opportunity cost of training the db is the player's sanity.

That's true I guess, but I'd approach it from another angle. The 3-6 Sothe strategy that I outlined has a 100% chance of success. Not 99.999%: it's 100%. It cannot fail so long as you make the correct moves. So I'd argue it from the perspective of likelyhood to succeed.

As an example of what I mean, look at Aran's performance in 1-4. One thing that you didn't mention when you were arguing with smash is that the laguz have non-zero crit rates on Aran in this level. If Aran gets critted, he's dead. You can't do anything about it. It means a failure of the strategy, and possibly if the level if he was protecting Micaiah or something. smash never mentions it, because he knows it's fatal to his argument, but the cumulative effect of Aran facing X attacks in this level means that he's facing a real chance to die.

Except that it is really hard to judge the opportunity cost of those extra turns. How far down does it push them? How do we judge units that are slightly better for 4-3/4-4/4-5 and 4-E if trained than their GM counterparts, but now we have something like the opportunity cost of those extra turns to consider?

Well, that's a sticky problem for which I don't have an answer. All that I can do is start from the baseline of arguing that the DB is certainly incurring a cost of more turns than the GMs would to get to a unit of a certain martial threshold... in general. Zihark could obviously beat Rolf, but Nolan loses a Mia comparison. Etc.

The "most will disagree with the idea" was only partly referring to that paragraph, it was also referring to everything beneath it [...] Basically, training and using a tier 1 db member that isn't Nolan or Jill or Ilyana and getting it to tier 2 for part 3 is an all cost little gain scenario.

That makes sense to me.

Oh, and of course these last 3 paragraphs are ignoring the idea that part 1 should be speedrun, which by extension also implies that I'm rejecting the idea that 3-6 and 3-12 need to be done quickly. Or more accurately, these paragraphs are only meaningful if 3-6 and 3-12 don't need to be done quickly. Otherwise, training even 1 tier 1 member up to tier 2 for part 3 is already very costly.

Understood. Your calculations are hinging on a strategy that does not minimize turn count.

Oh, okay. So under "initial assumption", Sothe's spot on the tier list is deserved. If we reject "initial assumption", then your points in red fox's rating topic that were lost in the time warp for why Sothe doesn't deserve his vaunted position become valid again, or something like that.

At least *I* think that they are valid. Sothe is over-rated in my opinion owing to his poor Part 3 and atrocious Part 4. There is only so much credit that you can give him for Part 1 before it becomes silly.

Is it enough to survive if they keep clearing space? Or is the idea that they just aren't strong enough to clear space so they can be healed and will kill one enemy each on player phase? I was just looking for things that make Sothe more important under the new viewpoint, but if it works for Z and V with just B or C, then that chapter doesn't help him, oh well.

I'd say that Sothe is better served by killing things with knives from the top of a ledge. It's kill counts that matter in this chapter, and the ledge is clearly giving him a massive durability boost. I wouldn't begrudge him of it. If he an Taru are killing in the west, that takes some of the pressure off of the ramp.

I guess for me I just like having 34 speed endgame units. I never really cared about turn counts any more than the numbers the game gives me as a guiding light. Well, the number serenes forest gives for max bexp, anyway. Under the conditions I set out for myself, I think Jill and Nolan do great and aside from thinking harder in their chapters, I don't see a cost of raising them.

Well like I said, I'm not endorsing 100% of it, I'm just floating the theory as the logical conclusion of what people have argued here.

The only favouritism Meg needs is getting most of the kills in 1-4 and a master seal after part 1. Anything else is a bonus. I don't have much time and I'll go into further detail, but Meg usually 3RKO and is usually 3RKO by most of the enemies.

"Only?" That's a massive lot of favoritism right there. Meg is not even capable of tanking in this chapter, which means until she is, she's relying largely on Player Phase kills after someone else has nearly gummed it to death. Getting Meg enough levels in this chapter to put her 3HKOed and 3HKO'ing sounds like it will obliterate the BEXP bonus and take dozens of turns.

There's a reason why Meg is low on the tier list, of course other units outclass her.

Right, but the point here is that she's so bad that resources don't help her tier position relative to other units.

Astrid doesn't do much, we could also field Meg from 1-4 to 1-6-2 and all of part 3 have her do nothing and you'll get about the same benefit except Meg doesn't take a unit slot from anyone.

Astrid can potshot with a Silencer, and if the only useful thing she does is rescue Gatrie and move him closer to the front lines, that's probably already more than I can do with a level 3 Armor that has 5MV and is too weak to shove anyone who weighs more than 8. Meg has 8SPD at base, that's ridiculously awful for 1-4. Getting doubled murders her potential at this juncture.

[Narga_Rocks]

That's true I guess, but I'd approach it from another angle. The 3-6 Sothe strategy that I outlined has a 100% chance of success. Not 99.999%: it's 100%. It cannot fail so long as you make the correct moves. So I'd argue it from the perspective of likelyhood to succeed.

True, an unequipped Sothe will not die in the strategy you outlined. BK obviously will not die. Sothe will go through a lot of vulnerary and concoction uses, but those are cheap. No matter how trained the other db units are, they still generally pull off a 2% or more crit chance and might clear space that'll kill them.

As an example of what I mean, look at Aran's performance in 1-4. One thing that you didn't mention when you were arguing with smash is that the laguz have non-zero crit rates on Aran in this level. If Aran gets critted, he's dead. You can't do anything about it. It means a failure of the strategy, and possibly if the level if he was protecting Micaiah or something. smash never mentions it, because he knows it's fatal to his argument, but the cumulative effect of Aran facing X attacks in this level means that he's facing a real chance to die.

He's that bad? Ouch. I should've looked at how he has 6 lck and all but one enemy has 7 or more crit, but to be honest it never occurred to me he could be that bad. Considering he will be 3HKOd at best by tigers, he's looking at a 1% crit against tigers from non-bosses. Assuming you expose him on enemy phase if he pulled off the hp and def gains to achieve his 3RKOdness, and actually make use of it, he could easily face 8 attacks at least.

A ~7.7% chance of dying on top of the 35% chance of actually getting those numbers drops it further to a ~32.3% chance of being better than the others at facing 2 enemies at once, but more importantly it makes him worse than anyone with 8 lck (9 against one boss) against even one enemy. Since we don't actually need to have someone be 3RKOd very often in that map, but we frequently need someone to take a single hit, it seems to me that his chance to be blicked is a bad thing. We can't even get an Ashera icon until 1-8.

Well, that's a sticky problem for which I don't have an answer. All that I can do is start from the baseline of arguing that the DB is certainly incurring a cost of more turns than the GMs would to get to a unit of a certain martial threshold... in general. Zihark could obviously beat Rolf, but Nolan loses a Mia comparison. Etc.

Well, the first idea I guess would be any comparisons between GM units and DB units that seem very close without considering extra turn counts would instantly require the DB unit to drop below the GM unit.

At least *I* think that they are valid. Sothe is over-rated in my opinion owing to his poor Part 3 and atrocious Part 4. There is only so much credit that you can give him for Part 1 before it becomes silly.

Want to go another few rounds with Red Fox? It is a shame it was lost in the time warp, if you want motivation. Whatever changes could be made, I still kinda think Sothe > Titania. Just that he may not be better than some people below the two of them.

Anyway, in the low turn count system, I don't think his Part 3 performance is poor anymore, and he doesn't have as much of an issue with his performance waning as part 1 goes on, and his initial chapters involve even more god-moding than before. He now has no usage in 1-E, but his 1-7 and 1-8 are vastly improved compared to the non-low-turn-count version of the DB.

He still has a pretty bad part 4, but now he is no longer relying solely on early part 1 epicness. And his Indiana Jones-ing isn't hurt any.

I'd say that Sothe is better served by killing things with knives from the top of a ledge. It's kill counts that matter in this chapter, and the ledge is clearly giving him a massive durability boost. I wouldn't begrudge him of it. If he an Taru are killing in the west, that takes some of the pressure off of the ramp.

At which point he is one of 4 units capable of doing things, and all 4 are important for speeding up the chapter.

Not that it matters, you haven't actually attempted to argue Sothe down in the low turn count system, from what I can tell. Just most of the other dbers. This is just another point in Sothe's favour in the low turn count system.

Well like I said, I'm not endorsing 100% of it, I'm just floating the theory as the logical conclusion of what people have argued here.

Seems to be the logical conclusion, anyway.

Is this mostly an attempt at getting them to quit saying speeding up 3-6 and 3-12 by a couple of turns actually matters?

I don't think it's going to work, sadly.

Edited July 16, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Interceptor]

True, an unequipped Sothe will not die in the strategy you outlined. BK obviously will not die. Sothe will go through a lot of vulnerary and concoction uses, but those are cheap. No matter how trained the other db units are, they still generally pull off a 2% or more crit chance and might clear space that'll kill them.

You'd be surprised about the heals. I usually don't even go through a stack of vulns. He's standing in a thicket, and the cats are constantly running out of gauge and untransforming. Renewal helps.

He's that bad? Ouch. I should've looked at how he has 6 lck and all but one enemy has 7 or more crit, but to be honest it never occurred to me he could be that bad. Considering he will be 3HKOd at best by tigers, he's looking at a 1% crit against tigers from non-bosses. Assuming you expose him on enemy phase if he pulled off the hp and def gains to achieve his 3RKOdness, and actually make use of it, he could easily face 8 attacks at least.

A ~7.7% chance of dying on top of the 35% chance of actually getting those numbers drops it further to a ~32.3% chance of being better than the others at facing 2 enemies at once, but more importantly it makes him worse than anyone with 8 lck (9 against one boss) against even one enemy. Since we don't actually need to have someone be 3RKOd very often in that map, but we frequently need someone to take a single hit, it seems to me that his chance to be blicked is a bad thing. We can't even get an Ashera icon until 1-8.

It's actually worse than that. Consider that Aran may be getting doubled by a cat that has 2% listed crit on him, which happens if he's base level, or if he failed to get SPD/LCK on level-up.

Well, the first idea I guess would be any comparisons between GM units and DB units that seem very close without considering extra turn counts would instantly require the DB unit to drop below the GM unit.

That would be reasonable, I think.

Want to go another few rounds with Red Fox? It is a shame it was lost in the time warp, if you want motivation.

Maybe another time.

Seems to be the logical conclusion, anyway.

Too bad that only two people have even acknowledged that it exists, and one of them doesn't count.

Is this mostly an attempt at getting them to quit saying speeding up 3-6 and 3-12 by a couple of turns actually matters?

I don't think it's going to work, sadly.

I don't have any ulterior motives, I just want logical consistency. WRT the 3-6 argument, that one is already a non-starter for the reasons that dondon already laid out: offense is not worth as much in those chapters regardless of how you weight the turn counts, because of the danger that something like Adept/crits present.

[Narga_Rocks]

You'd be surprised about the heals. I usually don't even go through a stack of vulns. He's standing in a thicket, and the cats are constantly running out of gauge and untransforming. Renewal helps.

Guess so.

It's actually worse than that. Consider that Aran may be getting doubled by a cat that has 2% listed crit on him, which happens if he's base level, or if he failed to get SPD/LCK on level-up.

Yeah, but if he gets hp and def he is 5HKOd by cats anyway, so he needs either hp + def or spd anyway as long as he's at full hp. Which I was basically assuming he gets for my look at crits. If he doesn't get hp + def, he isn't pulling 3HKO from tigers anyway, so since he's obviously worse if he's at 2RKO than everyone else that's 2RKO anyway (because he can be critted and they can't), it doesn't change much. Well, it does mean 3RKO from cats just became 2RKO from cats, but that isn't worse than any of the other people. Though without speed he's pulling a .04% chance of getting double critted, but while that is obviously worse than 0%, it won't affect very many players. There's only 5 cats anyway. Basically if he faces each of them one at a time he's looking at a ~.2% chance of dying from them. Still, on average 10 out of 5000 people will be whining about RNG screwage, so I guess it is worse.

Too bad that only two people have even acknowledged that it exists, and one of them doesn't count.

? Why don't you count? Well, I suppose you can't have a conversation with yourself. Well, you can, it just doesn't change much.

I don't have any ulterior motives, I just want logical consistency. WRT the 3-6 argument, that one is already a non-starter for the reasons that dondon already laid out: offense is not worth as much in those chapters regardless of how you weight the turn counts, because of the danger that something like Adept/crits present.

Well, you know it's a non-starter, dondon knows it's a non-starter, I know it's a non-starter. That doesn't mean others aren't trying.

But yeah, I understand wanting logical consistency. It's irritating when an idea is brought up and generally accepted, but the conclusions that result from that idea are ignored. Especially when those conclusions hurt what people use the idea itself to support.

Edited July 16, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Jaybee]

Rhys is now closer to Mist on the tier? YES!

What's the argument going on? I see lots of crap about Endgame but no actual units.

[grandjackal]

Rhys is now closer to Mist on the tier? YES!

What's the argument going on? I see lots of crap about Endgame but no actual units.

Danved vs Bastian, which I thought would be pretty clear-cut, but apparently is not.

[Progenitus]

I support Bastian > Danved.

also, wtf @ Sanaki and Meg not being in the same tier. Sanaki's HP/def are comparable to BASE LEVEL DB. Nothing will ever save her durability, ever, and her offense isn't significantly better. Meg is awful, but at least she's usable with some favoritism (an angelic robe, and enough spd to stop getting doubled which actually happens very fast since she has 65% spd growth and gains exp like a madman, and she's pretty much matching Nolan's durability, a high tier dude).

"but sanaki can potshot"

sucks that 4-P is loladin heaven, which means if she's anywhere near the frontlines the 2-range loladins will just kill her because they can hit and run and not clog up the chokepoint you had to set up for her.

Plus it's not like anyone actually needs help to kill loladins. You only need 26 spd to double (there are a FEW loladins with 23, but fuck them), and like low 40s att to 2HKO, so basically every nub in mid tier and above should be one rounding. If they're not one rounding they can either just use a killer weapon (like Zihark), or they're people like Sothe who already outlived their usefulness and thus we're not bothering with them anyway (unless you're an idiot), or they're super tanks like Haar where you can just have them make a beeline to the boss because they don't care what's attacking them, which is pretty fucking awesome and hilarious in comparison to Sanaki who loses like 90% of her HP in one hit. We also have the horseslayer so basically every lance user can one round, and since this is like the last chapter we'll ever see loladins (there's like 1 in 4-2, oh noez), we may as well use them up.

Grats Sanaki, you make it easier to feed a kill to a low tier unit, except like everyone else on the team is one rounding anyway so no one really cares. Actually wait, even a few low tiers can one round (Edward uses killing edge. Danved/Sigrun need to be third tier. Mak too, but lol @ a paladin going to the desert).

So she's pretty worthless here.

4-3 sounds better because it's a desert, right? Oh wait, in order to attack enemies, she has to be up close where the enemies can reach her anyway. And the enemies are even faster. Like, halbs/warriors/snipers easily reach 26, which means our little empress with cymbaline needs to be level 5 or 6 to not get doubled, which is really hard for someone who only attacks once per player phase and can't even one round without a mastery (which she has like a sub-25% chance of doing). Or we could give her a forged tome, where she probably won't get doubled by non-SMs anymore, but enemies can still OHKO her anyway, (liek, any warrior not using a crossbow has 40+ att).

So we still need to make a wall of meat in front of her just so she can attack one enemy a turn and not even kill it, when these walls are better off just waltzing into the group of enemies and tanking as many guys as they can, because this map is huge and a pain in the ass, and since the enemies have only 2 move that means fewer can kamikaze into you, so you WANT to have your tanks get surrounded to maximize damage output, not only have enemies come at you from 1-2 directions because you're trying to protect Sanaki. Liek, I'd rather throw someone like haar into a bunch of enemies so he can increase the number of dumbasses he's weakening (or killing) rather than having him park himself in front of Sanaki so she doesn't die, because the amount of att needed to OHKO Sanaki is like 7HKOing Haar or something retarded like that.

Trust me; I tried beating 4-3 without any tanks on my last NM playthrough (my tankiest unit in 4-3 was Lyre, just to give you an idea), and it took me well over the turn limit for max BEXP (12) turns because I was only killing like 3 enemies a turn, since I had no one to go "hey I'm going to throw you into this group of 10 enemies, go pwn them all for me kthnx". I was on turn 15 and I still had a lot of enemies left to kill, so I was like "fuck this" and restarted and threw in base level Mordy for a filler tank and I actually went faster (beat it on turn 15, I think).

So she's worthless here too.

4-E-1 is a horrible chapter for her too because the generals have lots of att, which means they'll OHKO her (the LOWEST att general in 4-E-1 is a 41 att short spear. The NEXT lowest is 43. some even reach 50), so we can't just go "dur forge a tome for her because she's a nub and Cymbaline is still weighing her down", they're OHKOing her anyway. I recall a lot of wardwoods in this chapter too, which really sucks because now with Cymabline she's like 3-4HKOing and not doubling, and at this point I may as well not even field her. Also, by this point Flare is probably not OHKOing anymore even with Cymbaline, because Flare is a nubass mastery.

4-E-2 is even worse, since it's an open field, so have fun at making walls for her without slowing the team down, since she needs to be completely surrounded and still can't do anything if 2-range enemies can reach her. Considering basically everything can OHKO or one round her except halbs, even if she's using a forged tome so she doesn't lose AS, that's hilarious.

4-E-3 is even worse than 4-E-2, believe it or not, because red dragons have like 58 att, so Sanaki ON COVER doesn't stop getting OHKO'd until level 12 (she can stop getting OHKO'd earlier if she supports, but, who wants light at this point in the game?). White dragons actually 2HKO her if she's not on wardwood until she's like level 18, because her base HP is that bad. Meat shields obviously wont' save her anymore.

"but siege tome", except she still does jack. The dragons reach up to 14 AS, so Sanaki with purge, the LIGHTEST siege tome, doesn't double them until level 13. lawl @ her reaching that level without feeding kills to her, since potshotting doesn't involve "let's feed Sanaki a kill every turn".

by 4-E-4 she's not even worth bothering with, since the enemies have a ton of res, and she might actually die on us if she's not on wardwood, especially if all the exp she got was from potshotting. She needs to be level 12 to not get doubled by the 30 AS spirits, which is laughable because the wind ones have 39 att, which means they're like 3-rounding her if she's getting double and she's not on wardwood. Speaking of wardwood, if the spirits are on one, Sanaki's damage goes from 3HKOing and not doubling to "why even bother?".

In 4-E-5 Ashera can actually OHKO Sanaki with her single target physical attack (apparently she has like 58 att) until she's about level 12, and that's WITH the rudol gem factored in. The magic attack actually OHKOs her until about level 10. And of course Sanaki's damage to the auras at this point is retarded.

At this point I'm pretty sure Meg shoving shit would be comparable to Sanaki's potshots that will rarely, if ever, help us out (I'm leaning towards "never"). Sanaki can shove too, but oh wait she only has 4 con. That can shove, like, Micaiah and the herons, and that's about it. Meg has 6, so she can shove more. Oh, and she also has chapters where she can just block ledges, like 1-5 and 3-13.

And then Meg with favoritism is actually usable. As said before, Meg needs only an angelic robe and enough spd to not get doubled to have fairly comparable durability to Nolan, and then if you throw a master crown on her ASAP to unlock her spd cap she might actually double in part 4, which is badass for someone who's apparently in bottom tier, since this gives her more chances to get her mastery go off. Plus she can actually take more than one hit before dying.

Sanaki with favoritism is still garbage. She's less likely to get OHKO'd (and if that's all you do for her, she's still probably slowing your team down if she tries to potshot), and that's pretty much ALL you can do, unless you throw like every speedwing in the game on her so she can BORDERLINE double. Since 3 speedwings puts her at 29 spd, this means she might run into issues doubling the 26+ AS enemies in 4-3, will have severe issues doubling the 28-29 spd enemies in 4-E-2 (especially since her spd cap is only 32), and will not double spirits in 4-E-4 and 5 without rexflame, except rexflame has 13 wt and Sanaki only averages 9.6 str at 20/20, so she'd need energy drops to double them anyway.

So...

No favoritism involved; Meg can shove better than Sanaki, and blocks ledges in a couple of chapters. Sanaki can potshot, except it'll almost never help us anyway.

With favoritism involved: Meg is actually usable, she might resemble a mid tier unit. Sanaki still has shit for durability and needs all the speedwings in the game just to have a chance at doubling

You can't honestly think Meg and Sanaki shouldn't be in the same tier.

[cheetah7071]

You're slightly underestimating Sanaki's usefulness. She's insurance against missing. If the units you have walling against the paladins miss, Sanaki can finish one off. This requires the paladin to not canto away, but that just means you set the wall at the edge of their range. That's better than Meg's shovebotting. She has a similar function in 4-E-3 if you managed to pick up a bolting except it isn't formation-specific. If you didn't, well, might as well not bring her.

[Progenitus]

btw narga, several more reasons why Aran is still better than Edward in 1-4 other than "he actually has a non-0 chance of surviving shit", since that apparently doesn't impress you (even though we deal with percentages that happen about just as often, such as units actually having their average stats at some 20 levels down the line. In fact, just to give you a general idea, for a theoretical and very simplified unit that has 50% in all growths, the chances that the unit will have its perfect averages after gaining just 2 levels (+1 to all stats) is less than 1%). I thought losing 50% of your HP vs 90% of your HP made the winner really obvious, but I forgot, I'm talking to the person who thinks Astrid doing like 30% of an enemy's HP is better than Lyre doing 50% of an enemy's HP.

I'll bold the main points, so Interceptor anyone that wants to strawman me or take my stuff out of context can now do it more easily, since they only have to scan my posts for the bolded parts, say something random, and then pretend that they refuted me...

- Micaiah with Sacrifice will generally heal Aran fully (or almost fully) if he got hit. She won't if it was someone like Edward.

Like, 8/0 Edward. 22-23 HP, 6-7 def. If a 26 att tiger attacks him, he drops down to like 3 HP. Micaiah sacrifices, but she might only have like 16-17 HP because she's a nub and her HP is horrible, so he goes up to like 18 or something. And then the tiger just kills him off (not even a 26 att one; a 24 att one can do the job too). In fact Laura with heal might not be enough, especially if Edward got def screwed.

And this is assuming Edward is level 8, which is 4 levels in 4 chapters, except since according to some genius here (aka dondon) Aran getting anything more than like 1-1.2 level a chapter is BLASPHEMY (Aran will CLEARLY be 16/0 at the end of 1-E, since apparently Aran getting ~1.5 levels a chapter so he can be at a more realistic 19/0 or so by the end of 1-E or something is NOT POSSIBLE in OTHER FEs, so it's ridiculous to assume that's the case for RD, mirite), 1 level a chapter for edward when enemy density is FAR lower than mid/late part 1 chapters is not happening, especially since Edward has HORRIBLE OFFENSE (according to that same genius referenced earlier, offense is the ONLY thing that matters when it comes to kills) because he's borderline doubling. Like, 50-60ish% chance of doubling the lower end enemies. But since apparently we don't give a shit that Aran has like a 50+% chance of actually being able to take 2 rounds from enemies in 1-4 or 3-6, we equally shouldn't give a shit that Edward has that chance of doubling. And it's not like Edward doubling is impressive anyway, since his att is balls (4-5HKOing), and if he uses steel sword he's not doubling anyway.

Also, 1-1 is just one long chokepoint, and since apparently Aran in 1-3 is made obsolete because Nolan and Sothe exist and apparently we spend all day in 1-3 sitting at a 2-man chokepoint and we don't even think of doing things with Sothe like having him jump out of the chokepoint so he can take out an annoying enemy like an archer and have Aran sitting at the chokepoint instead, Nolan obviously makes Edward completely pointless in 1-1.

And he's obviously garbage in 1-3, since he's basically worse than Aran, and Aran was made pointless because of Nolan/Sothe, so I don't even want to imagine what Edward's like.

So let's use a slightly more realistic level, shall we? Something like 6/0 Edward. Even though that's still a bit high (since he's pretty much out for 1-1 and 1-3, that's 2 levels in 2 chapters, still stretching it using our aforementioned genius' irrefutable logic). 20.7 HP, 5.7 def.

Oops, 26 att tigers now might actually OHKO, and 24 att tigers is basically the same as 8/0 Edward vs 26 att tigers.

sry edward, ur garbage. gtfo.

Aran at BASE level loses 15 HP from a 26 att tiger, which means Micaiah with Sacrifice will definitely let him take another hit.

"but edward supports"

like who? Nolan? Nolan doesn't want Light. If he wanted a temporary support until Zihark/Volug came he'd take Leo, since Leo gives att. Plus if Edward's supposed to be frontlining in 1-4, Nolan and Edward will be at different chokepoints anyway. Edward isn't going to get Leo, since the +def might actually help Nolan (he's also losing ~50% of his HP from tigers), while Edward loses like 90% of his HP so +1 def isn't helping him anyway. Laura probably wasn't standing next to Edward long enough.

- Aran hits harder than Edward.

Edward has less str than Aran like forever, and swords have less mt than lances, and won't double anything except maybe the 10 AS tigers, except there's only like 4 of them out of the 15 laguz so Aran wins against more enemies than Edward, plus he has to be 7/0 just to average 13.8 AS, and he only has 14+ AS ~65% of the time according to this

http://www.feplanet.net/index.php?fep=game...;id=2&key=5

so yeah, w/e, since of course Aran's 50+% chance of surviving 2 rounds from most combinations wasn't worth anything, who cares. Since the laguz are so godly you're lucky if you're 3HKOing, every point of damage counts.

Here's something I had in a debate between Meg vs Gareth, about Meg's damage in 1-4, since my opponent tried to pass off the damage as pointless. Meg is of course not Edward, but base level Meg actually has more str than him anyway (lawl, stop failing Edward!) until level 9 where he ties, so it more than applies anyway, and he only doubles a small portion of the tigers if even that, so for Edward it's actually even worse.

Here's a familiar situation. We have someone (Sothe/Nolan/Aran, or in this case lolmeg) blocking a chokepoint, and we have some tiger d00d storming in to attack. Let's say 40 HP/10 def/2 res for our friend. Our tanker attacks. If we say, take Aran vs Meg, Aran with his +5 iron lance does 13 damage to it, and Meg with her +5 sword does 11, so our tiger friend has 27 or 29 HP left.

Now we wanna weaken this guy and let our tank take the kill, so we're gonna use our backliners to weaken it first (we can't use frontliners because we're at a chokepoint and there's no space for other 1-range units to attack, unless we move our tank). Base level Ilyana with Elthunder has 18 att (we're not going to seriously use Ilyana, so we probably won't forge a weapon for her, meaning she's just using whatever she came with). This does 16 to the tiger. Hey look, Aran's tiger has 11 HP left. Aran can finish it off pretty cleanly. But Meg's tiger has 13. It's not gonna die. We're gonna have to use someone with higher att like Micaiah (and even then Meg may not be able to kill it), or have a second guy like Leo attack it, which not only prevents Leo from attacking a different laguz, it takes up space behind Meg so we can have Laura (or Micaiah with sacrifice) to heal. After all, our tank was attacked on enemy phase and still hasn't been healed yet.

This situation may not arise as often as the durability (where Nolan/Aran are 9001 times more likely to survive 2 hits than Meg), but it definitely comes up, and matters too.

btw, if someone like Int wants to complain about Ilyana using elthunder instead of a forge just to try and dodge the entire point of this example, we actually only have ~8k gold for this chapter (5k starting, 3k from meg's fortune). Even if we sell off things we won't be using, like Micaiah's Light tome (we have thani), that still pushes it to like 9k. Since we want several forges, plus Sothe's beast killer, and like a hand axe for Nolan, among a few other things, we might not have enough gold to get Ilyana a forge that's significantly better than Elthunder, especially since giving Ilyana a forge is like at the bottom of our list of priorities. And I mean significantly, since even in this example her thunder tome would need +4 mt to let Meg kill, and Meg has more str than Edward. In fact, even a +5 mt thunder tome might not let Edward kill, since Edward's that bad.

speaking of gold, Edward is more liekly forced to use a vulnerary whenever he self-heals (same reason as Micaiah sacrificing; using an herb isn't enough). However, we only have 32 uses from what our PCs joined with, and we probably burned through a lot in the first four chapters (the first two don't even have a dedicated healer, and even after we do, Laura's only one healer). Plus we want to give a vulnerary to Sothe and Nolan. So we probably would have to spend 800 gold on a new vulnerary. Aran can just use an herb lying around, since 10 HP is usually enough to let him take another hit (unless he's leveled up and can survive the 2RKO, in which case he's obviously crushing Edward). This is minor though, since Aran's forged lance costs a little more than Edward's.

- If Aran kills a cat on the counter, he won't take the second hit (assuming he got doubled). This lets him take another hit from anything and still live.

This can happen more often than you think, since cats only have ~35 HP, 8 def, which means base level Aran with a max mt iron lance does 14 damage. And he might crit too, since laguz do have fail lck. Though, he only has like 5 crit on them (you can forge more crit, though you probably won't have the money in this chapter), so critting won't happen often, but apparently Aran's 1-2% chance of getting critted is SO HIGH, 5 crit goes off waaaaaay more often.

Edward? lol. Edward's a nub. Cats 2HKO him until he's like level 9 or 10. Killing them on the counter is actually bad for him.

This also means Aran benefits more from getting Leo's cancel (like anyone is ever going to leave it on that idiot) than anyone else in the map if cats are doubling him, since if he gets cancel on the counter it will stop the cat's second attack, while no one else is getting doubled anyway. Of course it only has like a 10% chance of happening, but that's still twice his chance of getting a crit with a forge, and FIVE OR TEN TIMES his chances of the laguz critting him.

- Since we're talking about crits, Edward has more crit, which means he has a greater chance to crit something on enemy phase and get pwned in the face.

Edward has 10 base crit (since myrms get an innate +5, and he has 11 skl), while Aran has 6 (12 base skl). Since the laguz have fail lck, Edward has 8-9 crit on them while Aran has 4-5. So Edward's chances of critting are like twice Aran's. And if you're a moron and left Edward's wrath on him, tigers put him into wrath range, which boosts his crit by 50. lol. If you were complaining about Aran getting critted, Edward is going to die on us because he critted a laguz FAR more often than Aran gets critted by a laguz or Aran accidentally critting a tiger and then getting killed (as pointed out previously, Aran critting a cat isn't going to really bother him).

This of course means that occasionally edward will do more damage than Aran on player phase because of more crit, but the whole argument right now is just avoiding random chances to die, while the earlier point mentioned about damage is reliability. In terms of player phase damage, Aran is much more reliable than Edward when it comes to requiring fewer PCs/luck/whatever to kill the enemy in front of him. In terms of enemy phase survival, Aran is still much more reliable even with his 1-2% chances of getting critted by the laguz. So before you start screaming, this isn't a double standard at all.

- Aran can actually take the dracoshield and avoid getting 2RKO'd by most combinations.

At base level, the shield means the 24 att tigers 3HKO, the cats 5HKO (that means a crit won't let him get one rounded. They would need double crits), and the 26 att tigers now do 13 damage, which means a +HP and def from a level up will now stop him from getting 2HKO'd. Edward? Well, it helps him avoid getting 2HKO'd by cats. The tigers still pwn him in the face, where a cat + tiger will still kill him. lol. Not to mention the shield helps him in every future chapter, while Edward's still probably getting 2HKO'd, but this is strictly a 1-4 comparison, so the rapage will have to stop there.

So...

Aran has his 50% or whatever chance to avoid getting 2RKO'd by most combinations just from leveling up. edward's is like 0, cause he's a nub and tanks with his pants off.

Aran can be fully healed with Micaiah's sacrifice, or at least heal enough HP to take another hit from anything. Edward healed by Sacrifice may still die anyway, since he's a nub and loses like 20 HP when a tiger hits him. This might even apply with Laura using heal.

Aran does more damage, which means more combinations of PCs can help him kill, or just fewer potshotters to attack with him.

Aran killing cats on a counter (be it he just finished it off, or got a crit, or even just activated cancel) means he can take a second attack from basically anything.

Edward, on the other hand, has more crit than Aran, which means he's more likely to crit on the counter, and die on us because another laguz runs up to finish him off, because Edward's a nub and gets 2HKO'd by everything.

Aran benefits from a dracoshield far more than Edward does, since Aran getting the dracoshield is even more effective than getting an HP + def level up. Edward with the shield will only avoid getting 2 rounded if two cats attack him, and nothing else.

But nah. Aran is obviously garbage in this map. Losing ~50% of your HP from one laguz is obviously the same as losing like 90% of your HP. No wait, he's even WORSE, because he has a MIGHTY 1-2% chance of getting critted, while we're going to ignore that Edward has more crit than Aran and will more often crit a laguz on enemy phase and die because a second one attacked him, which will happen a lot more often than Aran getting a crit OR getting critted. Obviously, none of the above will ever happen. Obviously, I cannot match the combined wits of Interceptor and dondon. They are far too skilled at debating for me to handle. I bow down to their greatness.

inb4someonetakesthatlastparagraphoutofcontext

"but why compare edward u can use someone else"

Like who? Leo, who can't even counter, and has even worse HP/def than Edward? Ilyana, whose HP/def is worse still, and also faces those MIGHTY crit rates because she has the same base lck as Aran (and still has more crit, because her thunder tomes have crit, and it's pretty retarded to forge her tomes just for minus crit)? lollaura? lolmicaiaih? lolmeg?

I find it laughable that people think Aran is anywhere near the worst character in this map.

"but he's worse than sothe"

Actually, Sothe should be going around gathering the hidden items and chests because this chapter is gay and thought it'd be funny to put a 10 turn limit for max BEXP and then put items in all four corners of the map, so he's not actually sitting at a chokepoint, he's usually in front of it. Props to him if he kills the laguz stupid enough to attack him though.

"but he's worse than nolan"

ONE unit, and unfortunately we have more than one chokepoint, and Nolan isn't Naruto and can't do the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.

[Interceptor]

You have some decent points in that post, smash, but not any good ones. Your argument against Sanaki's tier placement is holier than she is.

also, wtf @ Sanaki and Meg not being in the same tier. Sanaki's HP/def are comparable to BASE LEVEL DB. Nothing will ever save her durability, ever, and her offense isn't significantly better. Meg is awful, but at least she's usable with some favoritism (an angelic robe, and enough spd to stop getting doubled which actually happens very fast since she has 65% spd growth and gains exp like a madman, and she's pretty much matching Nolan's durability, a high tier dude).

Meg being "usable" is something that requires more attention than you are giving it. Consider that to make Meg "usable", we have to drop at least one other DB member as a prospect for Part 3+ (and all of the candidates are better than she is), we give her a stat-booster, and she's still the worst or one of the worst units on your team, something that she never grows out of, ever. Her negative utility is massive.

Your tier position sleight of hand is also something that requires a closer look. You try to make Meg seem better by comparing her to a High tier unit, but the problem is that your comparison is silly. Nolan's durability? This is like you claiming that Shinon is High tier because herons are High tier, and herons have only Player Phase utility, so somehow we wave our hands around and move Shinon closer to them because he shares a part of their Enemy Phase impotence.

It was nonsense then, it's nonsense now. Nolan is not High tier because of this snapshot of his durability where Meg is sorta-close to him when she has a Robe and he has jack shit. Nolan is high tier because he's 1) clutch in the early chapters before the prepromo storm starts, 2) he's Earth support and has really good avoid eventually, 3) Tarvos makes him one of the few good tanks in Part 3, 4) his Part 4 is actually respectable form a martial standpoint, and 5) his 34+ SPD cap even gives him good Endgame prospects. It makes no sense to take everything that makes Nolan good, ignore it because Meg can't even compare, and then match them up in some asinine aspect for one chapter. It'd be like me saying that Lethe's AS and durability are about as good as Ike's for a short period of time, and then ignore why he's destroying her and pat myself on the back for making such an astute observation.

The logic that you just employed was so tortured that it's probably a violation of Geneva Conventions.

sucks that 4-P is loladin heaven, which means if she's anywhere near the frontlines the 2-range loladins will just kill her because they can hit and run and not clog up the chokepoint you had to set up for her.

Oh look, it's one of smash's favorite argument, where he offers the hypothetical that the person controlling UNIT X is a retard and does something stupid, therefore the unit itself is worthless.

Obviously, we are not going to put Sanaki in harm's way like that. This chapter gives us like two to three times more deployment slots than we actually need, so even in the situation where Sanaki would be exposed, I can have a useless grunt like Aran either Rescue or Shove her out of range after she attacks. Or I could you know, move the front line forward, using the enemy that Sanaki weakened as a jumping-off point.

Plus it's not like anyone actually needs help to kill loladins.

Except that they do. You already listed units that fail to reach either the AS or the mt threshold, and Sanaki turns a chancy kill (like with a Killer) into a sure thing. And on top of that, there are a few non-Paladins on this map, and 4-P is a Rout, so you actually do have to kill them. Oh, and there are no authority stars here, so if you miss a swing, Sanaki might be able to help you out.

And the other side of this coin is that Sanaki can actually one-round herself. If Sanaki's mastery fires, her mt with her PRF weapon is enough to kill just about anything in that one hit. Sure, it's only 22% activation and she doesn't double, but she has Mia's biorhythm and spends Turns 2-4 with a 32% activation rate, aka sometimes it pop up high enough for her to realistically take something out.

So we still need to make a wall of meat in front of her

I guess someone forgot that tons of enemies in this chapter have 2 move in the desert. My "wall of meat" is called "one dude", because the enemy would need a 2-range weapon to hit Sanaki if someone was standing in front of her. Even Sothe can do something like this. Enemies are scattered all over the place, here. Hey, plus if someone else attracts the attention of a Draco, she can blick it in the right circumstances.

This is not mutually exclusive with sending a flier into the fray and having them tank a million guys, because there are enemies all over the place and this chapter is still a Rout. A kill is a kill, it moves you closer to the chapter goal, end of story. Sanaki chewing on some dude in the north part of the desert is not going to prevent Haar from going "kill me if you can" to a bunch of guys in the center near where the BK shows up.

4-E-1 is a horrible chapter for her too because the generals have lots of att, which means they'll OHKO her (the LOWEST att general in 4-E-1 is a 41 att short spear. The NEXT lowest is 43. some even reach 50), so we can't just go "dur forge a tome for her because she's a nub and Cymbaline is still weighing her down", they're OHKOing her anyway. I recall a lot of wardwoods in this chapter too, which really sucks because now with Cymabline she's like 3-4HKOing and not doubling, and at this point I may as well not even field her. Also, by this point Flare is probably not OHKOing anymore even with Cymbaline, because Flare is a nubass mastery.

It doesn't matter if Generals are blicking her, because she's not getting hit, she's weakening them to ensure kills for other people. There are a ton of units in your army that are requiring ninja magic to get a clean kill on a General, and Sanaki delivers by making it 100%. Also, deployment slots actually MATTER now in Endgame, and Sanaki is not taking one like Meg would.

4-E-2 is even worse, since it's an open field, so have fun at making walls for her without slowing the team down, since she needs to be completely surrounded and still can't do anything if 2-range enemies can reach her. Considering basically everything can OHKO or one round her except halbs, even if she's using a forged tome so she doesn't lose AS, that's hilarious.

What's even more hilarious is that you can put Blizzard in her hands, hook her up with Micaiah, and now I can have the goddamn Wishblade on Turn 1 because the two of them can drop Levail like a sack of potatoes. Even at base level Sanaki does serious damage to him.

4-E-3 is even worse than 4-E-2, believe it or not, because red dragons have like 58 att, so Sanaki ON COVER doesn't stop getting OHKO'd until level 12 (she can stop getting OHKO'd earlier if she supports, but, who wants light at this point in the game?). White dragons actually 2HKO her if she's not on wardwood until she's like level 18, because her base HP is that bad. Meat shields obviously wont' save her anymore.

Except she's not getting attacked at all. You just casually ignored siege tomes because she can't double, but Sanaki doesn't need to double to be useful with Siege. Red Dragons are even tankier than the Generals that people were already having trouble with in 4-E-1, so you have units like Ike going "wow I'm like one of the best units in the game and I can't ORKO a Red Dragon even with max STR and a Wyrmslayer", and then Sanaki blasts the thing from a mile away for 20+ damage, and now Ike is thanking her loli mediocrity.

The funniest thing is, you can plop her in one of Ena's four Tide spots and she gets +5 effective AS with siege due to the +STR. Now it's theoretically possible that she can double and half-kill any Red Dragon within 10 tiles. Not bad, Empress.

by 4-E-4 she's not even worth bothering with, since the enemies have a ton of res, and she might actually die on us if she's not on wardwood, especially if all the exp she got was from potshotting. She needs to be level 12 to not get doubled by the 30 AS spirits, which is laughable because the wind ones have 39 att, which means they're like 3-rounding her if she's getting double and she's not on wardwood. Speaking of wardwood, if the spirits are on one, Sanaki's damage goes from 3HKOing and not doubling to "why even bother?".

You don't need to deploy her if everyone has 2-range weapons, and if they all don't, she might not even get attacked. Preventing her from getting doubled is as simple as putting her next to Nasir, ohnoes. You have Gareth as well as Ena now, making it easier to boost her STR and reduce the wt penalty if you would find that useful to do.

In 4-E-5 Ashera can actually OHKO Sanaki with her single target physical attack (apparently she has like 58 att) until she's about level 12, and that's WITH the rudol gem factored in. The magic attack actually OHKOs her until about level 10. And of course Sanaki's damage to the auras at this point is retarded.

I don't care if Sanaki dies at this point, so if she can absorb a hit from Ashera that would have hurt/killed someone else, she's already ahead of Meg. And until she dies, she can still be doing chip damage to auras on Cover tiles, and she can use one of those slots next to Nasir that nobody else can use for the +5 MAG, too.

At this point I'm pretty sure Meg shoving shit would be comparable to Sanaki's potshots that will rarely, if ever, help us out (I'm leaning towards "never"). Sanaki can shove too, but oh wait she only has 4 con. That can shove, like, Micaiah and the herons, and that's about it. Meg has 6, so she can shove more. Oh, and she also has chapters where she can just block ledges, like 1-5 and 3-13.

Yeah well, the reason you're "sure" about it is because your entire argument was disingenuous. Now that people can look at what Sanaki can actually do, aka after reading my post, I thin kthat the calculus changes.

And then Meg with favoritism is actually usable. As said before, Meg needs only an angelic robe and enough spd to not get doubled to have fairly comparable durability to Nolan, and then if you throw a master crown on her ASAP to unlock her spd cap she might actually double in part 4, which is badass for someone who's apparently in bottom tier, since this gives her more chances to get her mastery go off. Plus she can actually take more than one hit before dying.

Yeah, too bad that training her to this point has accumulated enough Negative Utility Frequent Flier miles to put her fat ass in First Class all the way to Hatori.

[charmander6000]

Is there a reason why Edward can not use a vulnerary? It's unfavourable to attack on player phase unless the hit gets a kill and it's not like Edward will only face Tiger attacks. Sure the shop doesn't sell them yet, but you do come with four of them plus whatever Sothe has stolen and including Meg you have five frontliners so you should have enough.

[CT075]

Is there a reason why Edward can not use a vulnerary? It's unfavourable to attack on player phase unless the hit gets a kill and it's not like Edward will only face Tiger attacks. Sure the shop doesn't sell them yet, but you do come with four of them plus whatever Sothe has stolen and including Meg you have five frontliners so you should have enough.

I think the idea was that even if Eddie took his Vulnerary, if he critkills the guy in front of him, he's screwed, whereas Aran has a non-0% chance to survive if he critkills someone.