OMG it's a tier list

[Narga_Rocks]

SPEAKING of Bastian, was Bastian vs. Danved ever concluded?

Bastian's overall weapon ranks (fire for them laagooz, wind for fliers, thunder for the dragons, able to snipe with any of them) and vague usefulness in part 4 in the form of staffs>Being a rather meh unit in part 2 and sucking royally afterwards.

Not even a real point in training him. He's like what, our worst Wishblade unit? He's Aran without the defense...Or the offense. Or friends.

Yes, let's focus on this one. I agree.

Although, I might just be agreeing because Calill is currently above Soren and if everyone stops talking about Calill and Soren then Red Fox might not change them.

Bastian > Danved anyone?

[Florete]

Wait, why would we promote Soren soon? So he can access staves? We really need a third staff user? I don't know about everyone else, but I find Mist alone does the job well enough after 3-2 or so, and then we still have Rhys. In part 4, we have a forced staff user on each team as it is (Micaiah, Mist, Elincia), and then we still have Rhys and Laura, but Soren/Calill could be promoted normally by that time anyway.

Problems with Soren include, as Interceptor stated, Luck and Dodge. Once Mist gets out of ORKO range, she is arguably more durable than him because of high Luck, and that's just sad. He has a 105% avoid growth and never doubles, so his offense suffers. Calill starts worse, but not by a staggering amount, and once she gets to doubling speed her offense will win. Plus, she comes at a perfect time to support Tanith or Marcia if only one is being used, and both like her boosts. If she supports Tanith, Calill will be getting good enough avoid to partially overcome bad concrete defense. Soren needs Ike or Oscar to do this, but neither really want to support him, and his avoid will still be rather shaky regardless. Soren and Calill are quite close, but in the end I find Calill pulls the win.

I can also see Danved > Bastian, though I'll need a bit more than what's been said already.

[Shadow Mir]

Wait, why would we promote Soren soon? So he can access staves? We really need a third staff user? I don't know about everyone else, but I find Mist alone does the job well enough after 3-2 or so, and then we still have Rhys. In part 4, we have a forced staff user on each team as it is (Micaiah, Mist, Elincia), and then we still have Rhys and Laura, but Soren/Calill could be promoted normally by that time anyway.

Problems with Soren include, as Interceptor stated, Luck and Dodge. Once Mist gets out of ORKO range, she is arguably more durable than him because of high Luck, and that's just sad. He has a 105% avoid growth and never doubles, so his offense suffers. Calill starts worse, but not by a staggering amount, and once she gets to doubling speed her offense will win. Plus, she comes at a perfect time to support Tanith or Marcia if only one is being used, and both like her boosts. If she supports Tanith, Calill will be getting good enough avoid to partially overcome bad concrete defense. Soren needs Ike or Oscar to do this, but neither really want to support him, and his avoid will still be rather shaky regardless. Soren and Calill are quite close, but in the end I find Calill pulls the win.

I can also see Danved > Bastian, though I'll need a bit more than what's been said already.

I'm with Red Fox. Soren's Luck sucks, making his avoid suffer and meaning he can get insta-blicked.

[grandjackal]

In fact, would it be wrong for me to assume that Bastian should top low? Or would Vika and that one pegasus chick no one cares about be too much competition?

[Florete]

I brought up defense for Sigrun before, though I think it was more or less undecided if she should be > Bastian. It's just that no one really opposed it.

I don't know about Bastain vs Vika. Vika's not amazing in part 1, but she's good, and Bastian's not great while he's around anyway.

[dondon151]

Ashera Icons (are in no demand).

Crown or not, I don't see how Soren isn't above Calill.

[Narga_Rocks]

Ashera Icons (are in no demand).

Crown or not, I don't see how Soren isn't above Calill.

I might disagree. We'd probably like Haar to not be crit-blicked by thunder mages. It changes Haar from being a chance to reset whenever he meets a thunder mage to not. Even Nullify just gets him to 3HKO from them, which is still crit-blickable.

If we aren't going to sell them, which I thought it was assumed we are so that our forging ability is virtually unlimited, then since giving them to Haar likely helps more than giving them to Soren would (we already have Mist able to heal and not be ORKOd), I don't see why we wouldn't give them to Haar. Not to mention a +4 from the 2-1 and 3-3 icons wouldn't protect Soren from Snipers and Swordmasters anyway, whereas Mist can quickly reach safety from snipers, at least. Even faster if you are willing to use the ashera icons on people. Even if you take the 1-8 icon as well Soren can still get blicked by Snipers and Swordmasters for a while.

Then comes part 4 where halbs now have even more crit, as do snipers and swordmasters.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[dondon151]

An Ashera Icon doesn't help Haar escape crits from thunder mages either.

[Narga_Rocks]

An Ashera Icon doesn't help Haar escape crits from thunder mages either.

Two will, after a few levels, anyway.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[Lord Raven]

I don't know about Bastain vs Vika. Vika's not amazing in part 1, but she's good, and Bastian's not great while he's around anyway.

I'm playing HM and he actually one shots and one rounds a bunch of stuff in the chapter with simple fire tomes. I think El or Arcwind takes care of the Birds just fine and there's not enough dragons to matter. Sure his durability is poor but at least he has some use in there, because your other mages, if any, are with Micaiah or benched. Edited July 30, 2009 by Lord Raven

[dondon151]

I'm playing HM and he actually one shots and one rounds a bunch of stuff in the chapter with simple fire tomes. I think El or Arcwind takes care of the Birds just fine and there's not enough dragons to matter. Sure his durability is poor but at least he has some use in there, because your other mages, if any, are with Micaiah or benched.

Eh? The numbers don't add up. 24 AS only doubles lower end tigers. Bastian needs Bolganone to OHKO cats and tigers (maybe Arcfire if he gets a few points of magic). He also needs Tornado to OHKO hawks and he will always be short of OHKOing ravens, unless he uses Rexcalibur. Dragons he ORKOs with Arcthunder, though.

Of course this doesn't change the fact that Bastian can OHKO these dudes, but he can't do it with low level tomes.

[Jaybee]

Though maybe Rhys needs to move down a bit.

Fuck you.

But then Mist looks too high again...

^^Win.

I'd personally say Bastian > Vika. Vika is outshined by Tormod, Muarim, BK, Nailah, Zihark, Sothe and Volug, and is probably on par with Micaiah, Nolan and Aran. Other than being able to move freely in 1-8, she's rather ehhh. Bastian, however, has effective damage against all the enemies in 4-5 except Izuka, who Tibs ORKOs anyway. Then there's Vika's 4-4 frailness and Bastian's 4-E win.

[Lord Raven]

Eh? The numbers don't add up. 24 AS only doubles lower end tigers. Bastian needs Bolganone to OHKO cats and tigers (maybe Arcfire if he gets a few points of magic). He also needs Tornado to OHKO hawks and he will always be short of OHKOing ravens, unless he uses Rexcalibur. Dragons he ORKOs with Arcthunder, though.

Of course this doesn't change the fact that Bastian can OHKO these dudes, but he can't do it with low level tomes.

I definitely can recall my file right now. I'll update it as soon as I get a chance to play it tomorrow, though. But I'm damn sure that Elfire kills the cats and Fire kills the Tigers, especially since he can double the Tigers. Worst case scenario, slap a physic on him and he can heal.

[Jaybee]

I definitely can recall my file right now. I'll update it as soon as I get a chance to play it tomorrow, though. But I'm damn sure that Elfire kills the cats and Fire kills the Tigers, especially since he can double the Tigers. Worst case scenario, slap a physic on him and he can heal.

Wat difficulty? I don't remember Bastian doubling Tigers.

[dondon151]

There are some 20 AS tigers that Bastian doubles. The HM enemy data lists decimals and odd numbers for enemy laguz stats in 4-5, so I'm assuming that the next level up is 22 AS tigers, which Bastian needs to be really lucky if he wants to double them on the tail end of the map.

[Vykan12]

Who cares if Bastian's offence is good in 4-5? His durability is terrible to compensate.

Tigers 2RKO him at 77 hit, which is already a 59% death chance after 2 attacks, and 87% after 3. Cats and ravens 3RKO him at even higher hit rates, so he doesn’t fare much better against those either.

Then he goes into 4-E where he doesn't have eff might on anything except dragons, so he's mainly dependent on staves to be useful.

Yeah I don't see Bastian > Vika. I made a reasonable case for her being one of your better units in the DB when she's around here. That was a debate post of course, though the only thing I honestly ignored was her transform gauge.

Where is Bastian being helpful? Units slots are very competitive in 4-E, certainly moreso than 1-8 and 1-E. Vika gets forced in one chapter, Bastian does not. DB chapters are harder than 4-5 by a longshot, so Vika's usefulness relative to her army is higher. Etc.

[Lord Raven]

Probably. I'm more or less saying that Bastian's got an offensive and utility win over Vika in the endgame whereas Vika has utility and offense in the DB chapters before disappearing for a whole half of the game. Though using any resources on her strips you of those resources until 4-4 where she's practically unusable with them at this point, and she needs to be transformed in order to rescue any villages effectively in 1-8.

There's an Olivi Grass available but this means that she won't be able to rescue them until about 2 of them are dead, and even then she'll probably only be able to rescue another one at best because the rest are going to end up getting killed off because the Wyvern cunt picks them off first. Plus, this effectively halves her speed making her AS advantage less apparent, and her lack of durability quite a bit more apparent. Yes, she's useful, but it's not THAT useful.

You can't really drop anyone off safely until the Wyvern's picked off, too.

1-7 she does shine, and 1-E she can shine too, but she can't use abilities in the former because she was just recruited and she can't necessarily do so in the latter because then you won't get to make use of them in part III -- which are REALLY hard chapters as well.

Bastian competes for a slot in 4-5 with a bunch of undertrained units you have at this point, who probably can't even take one hit from a laguz. He can heal when needed (letting elincia do a couple more kills), more or less kill tigers and cats, and Elthunder some dragons. Since your magic users are with Micaiah, I think he'd be the only one doing this.

Even if his durability is low, it's easy enough to make a formation where he'll only be getting attacked once a turn, at best since characters like Tibarn, Volke, Elincia (4x attack on Tigers + a very high chance of activating Stun as a result), and whoever else you brought here can also take care of laguz that may try to kill him.

And at the same time, 4-4 is a fucking annoying chapter in Hard mode and Vika has to survive all of that. She is quite likely to get killed, especially since Swordmasters double her transformed and you're basically surrounded by enemies everywhere. She's frail. Muarim can take some hits at the endgame and dish out some finishing blows, but Vika can't even do that.

At least in Bastian's chapter reinforcements are consistent and there are enemies only attacking you from one end (well, two), Vika's one of the two frail units (three if you count Rafiel, four if you end up using Mist because she is also likely to be doubled by Swordmasters) that you have to protect, and that's very negative. Besides, it's easy enough to keep Bastian from the frontlines.

That's just rambling, there's a bunch of fallacy in there but I haven't debated in a good while.

Wat difficulty? I don't remember Bastian doubling Tigers.

I'm definitely talking about HM. He doubled some but didn't double others as I recall, but I definitely remember Elfire OHKOing Tigers and Cats.

[Interceptor]

[...]and she needs to be transformed in order to rescue any villages effectively in 1-8.

There's an Olivi Grass available but this means that she won't be able to rescue them until about 2 of them are dead, and even then she'll probably only be able to rescue another one at best because the rest are going to end up getting killed off because the Wyvern cunt picks them off first. Plus, this effectively halves her speed making her AS advantage less apparent, and her lack of durability quite a bit more apparent. Yes, she's useful, but it's not THAT useful.

You can't really drop anyone off safely until the Wyvern's picked off, too.

This is another example of where PE = everything.

Vika can transform on Turn 2. Why? Because on Turn 1 you pop a grass, and fly her to the right of a Reed where a Bandit will go. The Bandit attacks her on Enemy Phase, she counters for zero damage (because of reeds) and gains +10 gauge. The next turn, she gets a +6 turn bonus, and now she's at 30/30 and can transform + fight.

The Draco that starts on the map dies before he can kill a single villager. Why? Because on Turn 1, Tormod moves into the swamp, and Maurim gives him an extra shove. Now the Draco attacks Tormod on Enemy Phase, and gets obliterated.

Conclusion: Vika is really useful here. Once she's transformed, she can battle the reinforcements pretty easily. Active protection is > Rescuing in this scenario, because the flying threat is dead.

And at the same time, 4-4 is a fucking annoying chapter in Hard mode and Vika has to survive all of that.

Why does she have to survive? You can suicide the LEA to the north and drain the Sleep staff to make the chapter much easier to clear (Ike now fears nothing).

Edited July 30, 2009 by Interceptor

[-Cynthia-]

Yeah, the only way Vika's survival would be an issue is if the game would end if she died.

[Narga_Rocks]

Why does she have to survive? You can suicide the LEA to the north and drain the Sleep staff to make the chapter much easier to clear (Ike now fears nothing).

You are so cold-blooded. :P

This is like your 1-8 strategy of protecting one villager and letting the rest die. (Which, to anyone else reading, has nothing to do with what he was saying in his last post about 1-8. His last post should actually help you protect all the villagers, I think. This comment is about something from many many pages ago.)

To add to what Int is saying about Vika and protecting civilians in response to Lord Raven:

Plus, once the dragon knight is dead the only things going after the civilians are 5 move bandits, which translates to 1 move in the swamp. Even untransformed Vika with a vulnerary can keep the civilians safe while waiting to transform (at which point the bandit won't even no what hit him.) Since the bandit can't even reach the civilians with Vika in the way, they attack her, she heals. If the poor guy had 16 def instead of 15 def, he's just speeding up his own doom. 16 def matters if you can't get one to stand on a thicket.

For 4-3, I bring Haar to Ike's chapters because I have enough fliers and other things in Micaiah's chapters and a promoted Haar takes priority from the sleep staff user over Ike and can be place behind a wall. This way I can still finish the chapter quickly while Ike counters enemy phase. It helps that I don't bring Haar to endgame, otherwise this strategy would not be kind to his 4-E level.

This works because Ike has more res than Haar and is close to the same level. Other units that have less res than Ike don't seem to make the sleep staff user not target Ike because of a huge level gap between Ike and the other unit or something. Anyway, I don't get why everyone's complaining so much about 4-4. It isn't that hard. Just make sure the sleep staff user is targeting someone that isn't in a spot that can be attacked by enemies. Have Rhys restore that unit each player phase so the sleep staff user keeps sleeping the same unit. While you are doing that, it's just a matter of Ike x Mia cleaning up the northwest and Shinon x Nailah cleaning up the northeast treasure room and the reinforcements in the east that show up before turn 10. Heather should be able to survive the 2 sages in the north treasure room and if you've got a couple of weaker units that you dragged up there they can clean up the sages on player phase. Since claiming the middle staircase is easy with Ike and Mia, Rafiel can help out on turn 1 to 4 with whatever units are helping Mist to clean up the enemies in the south east. Once that's done, Vika actually has a use in picking up Rafiel and flying him up to Ike so he can trail behind for Oliver to talk to a few turns later. You are only likely to get people killed if you actually try to use Muarim to draw on enemy phase. Both he and a base level mordy have this annoying habit of getting critblicked and causing me to reset (stupid sniper that double critted). If I'd leveled Mordy enough for him to get two or more defense points he might've been okay. Anyway, when I realized I should be treating them like paper, the chapter became a lot easier.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Narga_Rocks

[nflchamp]

She is quite likely to get killed, especially since Swordmasters double her transformed

You know, I don't particularly care too much, but Vika's base SPD is 30 transformed. I was unaware any enemies had 34 SPD even in hard mode.

[Lord Raven]

Are we assuming we can off some characters on the grounds that they're useless? If so, I totally missed that discussion.

The Draco that starts on the map dies before he can kill a single villager. Why? Because on Turn 1, Tormod moves into the swamp, and Maurim gives him an extra shove. Now the Draco attacks Tormod on Enemy Phase, and gets obliterated.

Wouldn't the Draco much rather attack the villager than Tormod? It sounds kinda idealistic that they'd attack Tormod instead. Even then you're only getting like 600 BEXP for letting them survive, so it's not that crucial.

I've been through 4-4 with like 6 usable combat units (Muarim was usable, as well as Ike, Boyd, Shinon, Mist, and Nailah, Mist didn't really help) so it was pretty bad for me. I decided to eventually just use shoving chains because I don't think I had a restore staff to make use of at this point. It took like 3-4 extra turns (and I also had Heather to protect since I lacked the chest keys, so if I had the chest keys I'd have definitely beaten the chapter in like 15 turns instead of 25). It took like 6-7 restarts before I got it right.

[Interceptor]

Are we assuming we can off some characters on the grounds that they're useless? If so, I totally missed that discussion.

You can off characters on the grounds that it helps you to do so. It's not accurate to say that they are useless, because in dying they are doing something useful. Care to argue that traning Vika and bringing her to 4-E is better than using her to make 4-4 easier and then brnigng someone better than she is to Endgame instead?

Wouldn't the Draco much rather attack the villager than Tormod?

I'm sure that he would rather attack the villager, unfortunately he doesn't have any say in the matter because there are no villagers in his attack range on Turn 1.

[Narga_Rocks]

I've been through 4-4 with like 6 usable combat units (Muarim was usable, as well as Ike, Boyd, Shinon, Mist, and Nailah, Mist didn't really help) so it was pretty bad for me. I decided to eventually just use shoving chains because I don't think I had a restore staff to make use of at this point. It took like 3-4 extra turns (and I also had Heather to protect since I lacked the chest keys, so if I had the chest keys I'd have definitely beaten the chapter in like 15 turns instead of 25). It took like 6-7 restarts before I got it right.

Considering restore staves have been buyable since 3-6, I don't see why the tier list should assume the player doesn't have one. We can see the sleep staff user on the advance screen and then simply return to base and buy one and stick it on rhys if we don't already have one kicking around.

I 10 turned (and got all the chests and I think I got the coin but didn't even try for maelstrom since it's only worth 500 sold) 4-4 with:

one chest key from the inventory

20/~6 Ike (transfer bonuses meant 30 speed in tier 2 thanks to bexp and so 33 speed to start this map)

20/~7 Mia, A support with Ike (vague katti, silver critforge, tempest blade)

20/1 Mist, A support with Shinon (transfer made her a bit better)

20/1 Heather, support partner nowhere close (silver dagger, eventually baselard for like 2 enemies (Sothe with full inventory is so helpful in 4-3))

20/~2 Shinon (silencer, no silver forge)

Nailah with one level above base. I think C or B support with Volug

lvl ~21 Volug with SS.

Sleepy Haar, 20/~2 and didn't even attack much with him since I wasn't taking him to 4-E anyway.

LEA + base Mordy, Tormod hit 2 things and Vika moved Rafiel around on turn 4 or 5 and Muarim and Mordecai mostly moved around the keys. 1 from the enemies in the first chest room and one from my inventory.

unpromoted Rhys.

Rafiel

(3rd try, 1st try Mordy got double blicked by a sniper and 2nd try Muarim got blicked. 3rd try had a better strategy anyway (they didn't get attacked by any set of enemies at once that could kill either with enough crits)

The team is pretty strong, but they aren't superpowered considering most of the beorc are fresh off promotion. Most weren't doubling much aside from Nailah/Ike/Mia. The key for me was likely having Haar as a sacrifice to the sleep staff user and keeping him out of enemy ranges while sleeping. Really speeds things up when Ike is able to counter on all the enemy phases. Even managed to get over half the kills on Ike/Mia/Shinon, the guys that were actually going to endgame and got good experience (unlike Nailah, who was also going to Endgame. She probably got the 4th most kills)

It really depends on who you raise and where you send them and the supports you make, I guess. A not so good team likely makes 4-4 a pain, and makes 10 turning or better really hard.

And I still think Vika ferrying Rafiel for a turn or two is more useful than having her slept and killed, especially since the sleep staff user will ignore her if Ike's in range. Her level is too low for the AI to care. I don't see how you can finish in 10 turns with just draining the sleep user while your other units hang back.

I wonder how even with a bad team people are getting killed, but I guess not controlling the sleep staff bishop and not having a restore staff makes things really difficult. I had issues on NM before I figured out how to trick the guy and missed on turn 10 by like 5 enemies in the Oliver area and so after the reinforcement surge I finished on turn 17. I did it twice on NM, once where I wasn't really caring and just sped through allowing lots to die. That was interesting. I had Rolf/Mia/Ike/Mist finish the chapter on their own (raised rolf in NM not shinon). Mist broke her second florette and took a weapon off Mia. Even Mia broke something, I think. I might have had one other unit alive, but I don't think so. A day or so later was when I 17 turned the map without anyone dying. I still find it odd that the only time I 10 turned the map was on HM, and I even played EM on my first playthrough.

[Lord Raven]

I should mention it's what I did and not part of my argument. btw there's definitely a restore staff in 1-8 too.

(20/3 Mist, 20/8 Ike A Shinon, who is also 20/9, Boyd 20/5, Nailah, Muarim were my main attackers. Heather/Rafiel for utility, Vika/Tormod were being protected).

You can off characters on the grounds that it helps you to do so. It's not accurate to say that they are useless, because in dying they are doing something useful. Care to argue that traning Vika and bringing her to 4-E is better than using her to make 4-4 easier and then brnigng someone better than she is to Endgame instead?

There's something about this argument here that irks me. I'm not sure at all whether or not the tier list counts perfect availability or not, in which case, doesn't it show how poor Vika is by the endgame if you have to kill her to make a chapter easier? In fact, you almost make it sound like "well Vika's pretty good if you kill her because her death makes the chapter easier."

I'm sure that he would rather attack the villager, unfortunately he doesn't have any say in the matter because there are no villagers in his attack range on Turn 1.

oic. And where's untransformed Muarim? Edited July 31, 2009 by Lord Raven