Nathan Graves vs Vykan12

[Lord Raven]

Reserved, I'll whip up an opener by tomorrow since I have homework to do.

(Also, I tend to avoid trying to be funny in my debate posts but I guess I'll mention the eyepatch)

Oh, question: Difficulty? I'm thinking NM but HM is cool too.

Edited January 18, 2009 by Nathan Graves

[Vykan12]

Hard mode is generally assumed, I don't see any need to break that convention.

[Lord Raven]

(You see with NM I'd include WTA has part of my argument, but you just made life easier)

Haar > Reyson

Haar has an eyepatch. There's my eyepatch comment. Lame, but I don't care.

What exactly makes Haar > Reyson? Well, Haar beats Reyson in most stats. Compare their bases:

Reyson

HP 40

Str 3

Mag 5

Skl 5

Spd 11

Lck 31

Def 6

Res 17

Haar

HP 46

Str 23

Mag 2

Skl 24

Spd 20

Lck 13

Def 23

Res 7

We can easily agree that many of the enemies are physical units, correct? I'm going to place an estimate around 75%. Against 75% of the enemies in the game, Haar is taking their attacks a lot better. While not doubling that often (against Mages? Maybe. Against Armors? Definitely. Against everything else? Well he does a lot and takes little so who cares?), he's not getting doubled either. On top of that, the enemies who are doubling him in the first place do little damage to him.

Reyson can't attack and is limited to 10 EXP per turn unless you get him attacked. But Reyson, while untransformed, is guaranteed to get killed or almost get killed when attacked - he is doubled (11 speed) and only has 50 evade to deal with enemy attacks. 6 defense is not cool either; 40 HP is his only saving grace and that isn't even reliable (enemies in part III tend to have 16 or 17 strength at least [and I'm being gracious here], doing the math if they have something that's at least 9 or 10 might he will die easily unless transformed). If he gets attacked while transformed, it takes away a potential turn he can revitalize your units with.

What has Haar to fear in Part III? Pretty much nothing aside from a Bolting Sage in Chapter 2. Because he has offense (unlike Reyson, who only has Cards to attack - hah, that stuff is worth selling for money which the Greil Mercs have little of than used with a char who has no offense otherwise) and defense against 75% of the enemies in the game.

Now's a good time to mention that he has access to the strongest weapon in the game. It's inaccurate, but Haar has the Skill and Luck to compensate.

Lets run down Haar, specifically now.

2-P

Marcia and Elincia can't take on those Wyverns, and neither can Nealuchi because they don't do enough damage and take far too much. While Leanne helps when she gets kidnapped, they still don't do that much damage or dodge reliably. Then comes Haar, and when recruited by Marcia the enemies can't do much, if any, damage to him at all. He one or two rounds (IIRC) every single wyvern in that chapter except the boss, who Nealuchi/Elincia/Marcia don't even come close to kill anything.

2-E

The only other character here that can compete his usefulness is Elincia. Because of Amiti and healing, nothing more. Haar can take an entire side by himself and only need to heal once every couple turns. An occassional thunder mage might come by but can easily handle that - everything else takes minimal damage and Haar returns with massive damage. Against armors he can use a Hammer, against everything else he can use a Killer Axe and hope to score a critical once every three shots. With the hand axe he can fight indirectly.

Hell, you can even skip all this by injecting a bunch of BEXP into him to give him a lot of Str/Skl/Def, and eventually speed/HP when Str/Def max out. From there, he can easily kill the boss after a turn or and save you a load of trouble of having to go throughout the chapter.

It's nearly impossible to beat this chapter without using Haar.

In 2-P and 2-E, he is raping every other unit in overall offense and defense.

At this point, I'm going to guess that he's Level 16 if you don't go by the 1 turn method.

HP 47.5

Str 26.5 ±1.4

Mag 2.2 ±0.8

Skl 26.0 ±0.5

Spd 21.5 ±1.4

Lck 15.3 ±1.7

Def 25.7 ±1.1

Res 8.0 ±1.4

The one turn method has different stats, notably higher in Strength, Skill, and Defense (and potentially Speed/HP), but I dunno what they are since I don't recall if we know the specifics on BEXP.

3-2

Finally, his first major threat (major is a rather liberal word for it, in fact; I wouldn't even go that far!) At this point, he's roughly on par if not a bit better than most of your Greil Mercs - who at this point have gained probably a level up or two in the previous two chapters. So he needs less EXP to be good and still beating the rest of your team. In fact, he can fight against the southeastern enemies easier and reach the boss way before your Greil Mercs because of his flying utility. Man, do I wish I was Haar in this game.

3-3

He burns the cargo. He can easily fly over enemy things and terrain disadvantages that your units will inevitably get, and helps burn the cargo. He can survive most of the hits directed at him too, considering how strong his Defense is.

3-4

So yeah the rest of your unit has movement disadvantage on the cliffs. Haar doesn't! Haar can easily reach the enemy units here and start killing them, one by one. because he is able to two round at this point (your Greil Mercs are two rounding as well, certain ones are three rounding so his offense is still ahead; as is his defense as a flier). And he has the Hammer to kill the boss easier, as well as the random other Armors in this chapter that some of your units will otherwise have trouble with.

3-5

This is where him and Reyson complete. It's a protect mission, and Haar can hold enemy lines coming from the South quite easily. Reyson needs a turn break to use the laguz stone, then after the fifth turn (and two turns subsequently) he needs an Olivi Grass. So that's at least three turns wasted if you want to hold the fort for the full time. If not? You can send Haar by himself to kill enemies once again, because he isn't object to terrain bonuses and such. Reyson can help circumvent this arguably, but there are often reinforcements coming in from all sides and his frailty starts to show, especially since he needs constant protection.

3-7

A battle with a swamp. Your units have a tough time traversing the river, but Haar sure as hell doesn't! He can take out annoying Wyvern enemies, or take the entire west side by himself (although there are a couple thunder mages, but a vulnerary or two takes care of that ). And he can travel with your main group, baiting/weakening enemies and helping kill the annoying ones that are out of reach, because your units have a tough time reaching them.

Reyson needs the first turn once again, and has four turns where he needs to use the Olivi Grass to stay transformed. Not too much of a hindrance on him, but he still has a hard time surviving hits. Especially since there are a multitude of things here - Swordmasters, a buffed up Zihark from the Dawn Brigade being one of them, Crossbow users, Wind mages... and axe users will have a hell of a time with him too. He shouldn't be getting ganged up on, yeah, nor should he be getting attacked, but the fact of the matter is that he needs to stay the fuck away from the front in order to stay safe. Which can be a hassle especially since very few characters will ever be killing on their own turn.

Haar also has the potential to promote here. Coming in around Level 16 should've given him four levels to grow since Part III, which is pretty realistic considering he's probably gotten a lot of kills over the chapters he's been in.

3-8

Haar is penalized here for it being indoors. So are your other mounts (basically, Titania and Oscar...). Reyson is probably more useful than Haar here because his flying advantage doesn't mean that much, but offensively Haar is still ahead especially since he should be promoted as of 3-7. He still beats the rest of the squad in overall; in fact his competition now are Janaff and Ulki. And lets not get into that; they both compete with Reyson for the Laguz Stone, and giving them the Laguz Stone to transform early takes it away from Reyson which attacks your own unit.

If not, then his competition takes three turns to get up to paar (ha ha ha). So he remains a consistent force of your team.

3-10

He still is ahead in movement. He can save Elincia from dying, who's just asking to be killed by staying in the middle of the field (idiot) by getting in front of her and trying to intercept enemy attacks. Then precede to helping pick off some of the more annoying enemies in there, like the Bishops with Purge and using a Hammer to kill down the Generals before any Sage can reach them.

Reyson does fine, just not as well as Haar since Haar makes full use of his offense, defense, and mobility here.

3-11

Reyson isn't in this chapter for once. Just Haar.

Furthermore, Haar is immune to traps which your other units are not immune to. He also assists in getting your units to circumvent these traps, something Reyson can't do because he doesn't exist in this chapter. In many ways, he helps this chapter go by faster because he is immune to the potholes. If you don't know how to circumvent them, Haar can rescue basically any character except a mounted unit, due to his massive Wt; he can lift them to the other side of the potholes right next to where that one guy places a Light Rune. Your Hawks and freshly recruited Falconknights can also do this, but his existence speeds up the process considering two of those four others are forced.

3-F

There are _so_ many enemies here, and Reyson cannot afford to get hit. Haar can, although there's a Sleep staff and a Bolting Sage around. Your Dawn Brigade, likely to have decent leveled units, can easily take down Reyson while Haar is affected very little by them because he's still ahead of your team. And in such a short chapter, his use only exists in about three or four moves - first turn is Laguz Stone while the next three are routing the enemies. Haar is, in fact, likely to be the guy taking a lot of counter attacks and being able to dish them back while taking little damage.

Part IV

I'll start by saying this; Reyson is stuck with Tibarn's group, who has a lot of distance to cover anyway. He's fairly useful in those chapters, but Haar can suck up and dish out the hits that he takes from the laguz quite easily, on top of the hits that he takes from the Beorc. The Blizzard Sage? Him or Tibarn are killing him. The Crossbows? Him or Tibarn. Those two pose the most threat to him out of anything in the chapters, and he is sure to get hit by either of them and take tons of damage, as well as draining his laguz-o-meter.

Then the other chapters. Haar isn't doing all that stellar in the Greil route; he's doing fine, on par with other units (actually, pretty much on par with Ike, but Nailah is doing a lot better than both anyway; Ike is doing better than 90% of your army). In the Silver Army route, he's doing stellar. You have not one, not two, not three, not four, but five frail units that are forced to be in the chapter that you must protect. Leanne, Sanaki, Micaiah, Sothe, and Sigrun (Sigrun to less of an extent, but Sigrun sucks too much for HM) and Haar can easily protect against those two. He takes little damage from everything considering there are only like three magic using units here, and the only one doing better than him is Naesala.

Endgame is where Reyson has the Laguz Gem. They are all short chapters, so he only has the effect for about a turn. Rafiel is a better choice here given something like Pass, Boots and/or Celerity so he can reach and give four units their move from turn 1, whereas Reyson needs a Laguz Gem to do that. Haar still sustains his tank status, and in fact gets one of the strongest weapons in the game; Urvan. 22 Might with about 110 accuracy. At this point his AS is about 28 or 29 and his attack is in the 50s; he's doing a lot of damage. In the endgame he fares worse than only about five units in your army; and those are the laguz royals. He's on par with the rest, or even better.

And Savior is a mighty fine skill on him, considering his ability to rescue almost anything and travel long distances for a long time.

So basically, availability, Canto, flying, offense, defense > giving many units another move after the first turn.

It's rather halfassed (I've only debated like three times before), but good luck.

Edited January 12, 2009 by Nathan Graves

[Vykan12]

Haar has an eyepatch. There's my eyepatch comment. Lame, but I don't care.

Aw, don’t be such a party killer. Haar has really inappropriate shmecks with Jill whereas Reyson had the guts to punch Oliver so hard he broke his fist.

http://keiiii.deviantart.com/art/HERON-PUNCH-84676569

As cool as Haar’s pirate-ness and sleepy habits are, he cannot possibly compare to the raw manliness that is Reyson.

What exactly makes Haar > Reyson? Well, Haar beats Reyson in most stats. Compare their bases:

Reyson

HP 40

Str 3

Mag 5

Skl 5

Spd 11

Lck 31

Def 6

Res 17

Haar

HP 46

Str 23

Mag 2

Skl 24

Spd 20

Lck 13

Def 23

Res 7

This is incorrect in more ways than one. First of all, Haar isn’t going to be at base stats when Reyson joins, which means you’re understating his stats, but you also have posted Reyson’s untransformed stats when he likely will be transformed almost all the time on every chapter he’s in, meaning you’re vastly understating his stats. This is irrelevant in the big picture anyway, since comparing these units statistically says nothing about Reyson’s unique function to the team. He can vigor up to 4 people at once, and since there’s always many good units with canto, setting up a 4 unit vigor is trivially easy. So what you should be comparing Haar to is Janaff, Ulki, himself and Mist. Obviously Haar can only tie himself and begins to lose massively when considering the presence of the 3 other characters, at least as far as player phase is concerned.

We can easily agree that many of the enemies are physical units, correct? I'm going to place an estimate around 75%. Against 75% of the enemies in the game, Haar is taking their attacks a lot better. While not doubling that often (against Mages? Maybe. Against Armors? Definitely. Against everything else? Well he does a lot and takes little so who cares?), he's not getting doubled either. On top of that, the enemies who are doubling him in the first place do little damage to him.

No disagreement there.

Reyson can't attack and is limited to 10 EXP per turn unless you get him attacked.

However, Reyson has an exp pool that’s even less limited than the healing pool. While attackers are limited by the enemies on a map and healers are limited by the number of injured units, Reyson’s only concern in regards to exp gain is the turn count of a chapter, which he’s helping to lower significantly in any case.

But Reyson, while untransformed, is guaranteed to get killed or almost get killed when attacked - he is doubled (11 speed) and only has 50 evade to deal with enemy attacks.

Now why exactly would Reyson ever be untransformed? He’s available in 12 chapters, 5 of which have laguz gems, the other 7 of which there are 6-8 laguz stones available, depending on what you did with your part 2 stones, which are more than likely saved. Though, even if Reyson didn’t use a stone in a chapter, he can still lay on the backlines for 2 turns popping olivi grass and won’t risk untransforming for the rest of the chapter.

If he gets attacked while transformed, it takes away a potential turn he can revitalize your units with.

What? How? If Reyson gets hit transformed, there’s no police dictating that he must get healed immediately, just that you need to use him more carefully in regards to avoiding enemy exposure. Considering that Reyson is by far your largest offensive catalyst on player phase, he’s actually responsible for enemies ahead to either be dead or blocked from a clear path to him.

What has Haar to fear in Part III? Pretty much nothing aside from a Bolting Sage in Chapter 2.

And thunder sages, and elthunder, and arcthunder, and he also gets hurt pretty badly by mages using other magic types. Not only that, his luck is a bit low, so some enemies have a critical rate on him in the early going.

Because he has offense (unlike Reyson, who only has Cards to attack - hah, that stuff is worth selling for money which the Greil Mercs have little of than used with a char who has no offense otherwise) and defense against 75% of the enemies in the game.

Again, Reyson’s offence (and defence, healing, mobility, etc) manifests itself in what he gets vigored units to do.

Now's a good time to mention that he has access to the strongest weapon in the game. It's inaccurate, but Haar has the Skill and Luck to compensate.

I’d say Reyson being able to allow units to move twice in a turn, or have them at peak biorhythm, or fill a unit’s laguz meter, all the while providing some healing through blessing is quite a ways more useful than Haar just being wtfhax as a combatative unit.

2-P

Marcia and Elincia can't take on those Wyverns, and neither can Nealuchi because they don't do enough damage and take far too much. While Leanne helps when she gets kidnapped, they still don't do that much damage or dodge reliably. Then comes Haar, and when recruited by Marcia the enemies can't do much, if any, damage to him at all. He one or two rounds (IIRC) every single wyvern in that chapter except the boss, who Nealuchi/Elincia/Marcia don't even come close to kill anything.

This map is basically *wait for 8 turns and kill whatever you can, not that it matters anyway because exp gain is crap*. Even though Haar is your best unit here, it doesn’t matter in the slightest because of the nature of the chapter.

The only other character here that can compete his usefulness is Elincia. Because of Amiti and healing, nothing more. Haar can take an entire side by himself and only need to heal once every couple turns. An occassional thunder mage might come by but can easily handle that - everything else takes minimal damage and Haar returns with massive damage. Against armors he can use a Hammer

Again, this is a wait for x turns type of map, there’s not much point in killing Ludveck right away because you don’t lose BEXP waiting out the 15 turns and get a lot more CEXP for your units, which I suppose is important if you’re considering using Brom, Neph or Haar in the future. So, Haar’s only use in the map that isn’t just selfishly soaking up kills to better himself is to chokepoint enemies from passing any further, but people like Brom, Mordecai and even Elincia can do that just as well.

As for using the hammer, that’s generally a weapon you’d want to save for later. Part 3 generals are pretty hard to one round, and 4-E-1 is a general-fest, so wasting the hammer here for somewhat frivolous purposes is going to ultimately hurt you in the long run.

against everything else he can use a Killer Axe and hope to score a critical once every three shots.

It would make more sense just to say he has a 33% chance of critting. In any case, the killer axe just gives him a more unreliable way of killing enemies, so I don’t see much value in that.

Hell, you can even skip all this by injecting a bunch of BEXP into him to give him a lot of Str/Skl/Def, and eventually speed/HP when Str/Def max out. From there, he can easily kill the boss after a turn or and save you a load of trouble of having to go throughout the chapter.

Since this is HM we’re talking about, plugging Haar with BEXP won’t quite get him to lv 19-20 and he has a high risk of not reaching the required 22 spd to double Ludveck. That is, unless you give him the 2-3 speedwing, at which point Haar’s resource consumption is becoming quite hefty. And of course, any BEXP Haar chooses to use is BEXP that Reyson doesn’t need, meaning he’s allowing other units to use more BEXP by being a member of your team. Advantage -> Reyson.

It's nearly impossible to beat this chapter without using Haar.

Lolno. You’d be surprised how much of an impediment the NPCs are to the enemies, and Elincia, Brom, all the laguz you have, etc can more than handle this chapter.

At this point, I'm going to guess that he's Level 16 if you don't go by the 1 turn method.

HP 47.5

Str 26.5 ±1.4

Mag 2.2 ±0.8

Skl 26.0 ±0.5

Spd 21.5 ±1.4

Lck 15.3 ±1.7

Def 25.7 ±1.1

Res 8.0 ±1.4

The one turn method has different stats, notably higher in Strength, Skill, and Defense (and potentially Speed/HP), but I dunno what they are since I don't recall if we know the specifics on BEXP.

Okay… all you did was show me Haar’s updated stats. You didn’t compare them to Reyson’s, or to any upcoming enemies, so that was a complete waste of time as far as I’m concerned. Soz, my counter-argument is that Ike has 7 move, 9 with the boots :P

3-2

Finally, his first major threat (major is a rather liberal word for it, in fact; I wouldn't even go that far!) At this point, he's roughly on par if not a bit better than most of your Greil Mercs - who at this point have gained probably a level up or two in the previous two chapters. So he needs less EXP to be good and still beating the rest of your team. In fact, he can fight against the southeastern enemies easier and reach the boss way before your Greil Mercs because of his flying utility. Man, do I wish I was Haar in this game.

3-3

He burns the cargo. He can easily fly over enemy things and terrain disadvantages that your units will inevitably get, and helps burn the cargo. He can survive most of the hits directed at him too, considering how strong his Defense is.

3-4

So yeah the rest of your unit has movement disadvantage on the cliffs. Haar doesn't! Haar can easily reach the enemy units here and start killing them, one by one. because he is able to two round at this point (your Greil Mercs are two rounding as well, certain ones are three rounding so his offense is still ahead; as is his defense as a flier). And he has the Hammer to kill the boss easier, as well as the random other Armors in this chapter that some of your units will otherwise have trouble with.

Indeed, I can’t really counter this since it’s ascertainably true.

3-5

This is where him and Reyson complete. It's a protect mission, and Haar can hold enemy lines coming from the South quite easily. Reyson needs a turn break to use the laguz stone, then after the fifth turn (and two turns subsequently) he needs an Olivi Grass. So that's at least three turns wasted if you want to hold the fort for the full time. If not? You can send Haar by himself to kill enemies once again, because he isn't object to terrain bonuses and such. Reyson can help circumvent this arguably, but there are often reinforcements coming in from all sides and his frailty starts to show, especially since he needs constant protection.

I’d think it’s more effective to have Haar, Titania and Oscar defending the south area, in which case all 3 of them can canto into a v formation after attacking so they can all get vigored. This is useful in so many ways I probably can’t name them all. Suppose Oscar got hurt pretty badly from an enemy you thought wasn’t going to land a hit on him, with a vigor he can lay to rest any risk of dying by taking a concoction. Or in Titania and Haar’s case, they get their durability increased by being able to take on more enemies at range with a hand axe. Plus player phase kills always > enemy phase kills since you get to control who gets the exp better instead of having the enemies all bully a single unit. Oh, and Reyson is vital to any strategy that involves taking out Lombroso efficiently whereas Haar can be overlooked to say, Titania with celerity.

3-7

A battle with a swamp. Your units have a tough time traversing the river, but Haar sure as hell doesn't! He can take out annoying Wyvern enemies, or take the entire west side by himself (although there are a couple thunder mages, but a vulnerary or two takes care of that ). And he can travel with your main group, baiting/weakening enemies and helping kill the annoying ones that are out of reach, because your units have a tough time reaching them.

Haar killing enemies that no one else will even reach is again, only benefiting himself and has no real value outside of that. Reyson is doing more for you by allowing your newly joined hawks to access enemies sooner, since that gives them strike gains, or he could help people like Ike and Boyd reach enemies they normally wouldn’t through vigor time.

Reyson needs the first turn once again, and has four turns where he needs to use the Olivi Grass to stay transformed. Not too much of a hindrance on him, but he still has a hard time surviving hits. Especially since there are a multitude of things here - Swordmasters, a buffed up Zihark from the Dawn Brigade being one of them, Crossbow users, Wind mages... and axe users will have a hell of a time with him too. He shouldn't be getting ganged up on, yeah, nor should he be getting attacked, but the fact of the matter is that he needs to stay the fuck away from the front in order to stay safe. Which can be a hassle especially since very few characters will ever be killing on their own turn.

It’s a good thing the level is basically a huge ocean with piles of land, and non-wyvern enemies can only move 2 spaces to Reyson’s 8, so there really is no reason for him to be attacked. It’s like saying Leanne would ever get attacked in 4-3 supposing there weren’t any long range tome attackers.

Haar also has the potential to promote here. Coming in around Level 16 should've given him four levels to grow since Part III, which is pretty realistic considering he's probably gotten a lot of kills over the chapters he's been in.

Reyson couldn’t care less if Haar was lv 1 or lv 20/20/20 or was Jesus, since he’s contributing to Haar’s output on one phase as well as others.

3-8

Haar is penalized here for it being indoors. So are your other mounts (basically, Titania and Oscar...). Reyson is probably more useful than Haar here because his flying advantage doesn't mean that much,

That’s all I needed to hear :D

but offensively Haar is still ahead especially since he should be promoted as of 3-7.

Is this still assuming Reyson’s offence = daemon cards?

in fact his competition now are Janaff and Ulki. And lets not get into that; they both compete with Reyson for the Laguz Stone, and giving them the Laguz Stone to transform early takes it away from Reyson which attacks your own unit.

Sure, Janaff, Ulki and Ranulf make for good competition for the laguz stones, but Reyson is arguably making the most use of it because of the h3x nature of vigoring, so I’m willing to argue he gets first dibs on it.

If not, then his competition takes three turns to get up to paar (ha ha ha). So he remains a consistent force of your team.

I C what u did thar.

3-10

He still is ahead in movement. He can save Elincia from dying, who's just asking to be killed by staying in the middle of the field (idiot) by getting in front of her and trying to intercept enemy attacks. Then precede to helping pick off some of the more annoying enemies in there, like the Bishops with Purge and using a Hammer to kill down the Generals before any Sage can reach them.

Reyson does fine, just not as well as Haar since Haar makes full use of his offense, defense, and mobility here.

Actually, proper use of Reyson allows you to reach almost every enemy before the CRKs do, so him getting your team more exp as well as lowering your turn count and every other redundantly stated benefit of vigor is pretty win. Even if Haar isn’t there, Reyson has plenty of subjects he can be a boon for whereas again, Haar depends on Reyson to really reach enemies before anyone else can.

3-11

Reyson isn't in this chapter for once. Just Haar.

Furthermore, Haar is immune to traps which your other units are not immune to. He also assists in getting your units to circumvent these traps, something Reyson can't do because he doesn't exist in this chapter. In many ways, he helps this chapter go by faster because he is immune to the potholes. If you don't know how to circumvent them, Haar can rescue basically any character except a mounted unit, due to his massive Wt; he can lift them to the other side of the potholes right next to where that one guy places a Light Rune. Your Hawks and freshly recruited Falconknights can also do this, but his existence speeds up the process considering two of those four others are forced.

I can’t say anything for Reyson when he’s not around, so conceded.

3-F

There are _so_ many enemies here, and Reyson cannot afford to get hit. Haar can, although there's a Sleep staff and a Bolting Sage around. Your Dawn Brigade, likely to have decent leveled units, can easily take down Reyson while Haar is affected very little by them because he's still ahead of your team. And in such a short chapter, his use only exists in about three or four moves - first turn is Laguz Stone while the next three are routing the enemies. Haar is, in fact, likely to be the guy taking a lot of counter attacks and being able to dish them back while taking little damage.

Just like in 3-10, using Reyson effectively means you can reduce the amount of kills that NPC laguz get while also reducing turn count and him improving the entire team > Haar going on a killing spree.

I'll start by saying this; Reyson is stuck with Tibarn's group, who has a lot of distance to cover anyway.

Large maps play in Reyson’s favor since he’s increasing team mobility by getting multiple units to move farther than they usually would in a turn.

He's fairly useful in those chapters, but Haar can suck up and dish out the hits that he takes from the laguz quite easily, on top of the hits that he takes from the Beorc. The Blizzard Sage? Him or Tibarn are killing him. The Crossbows? Him or Tibarn. Those two pose the most threat to him out of anything in the chapters, and he is sure to get hit by either of them and take tons of damage, as well as draining his laguz-o-meter.

Seeing as how we can choose who goes in what army, there’s a lot of good units one could potentially put on any given team, thus reducing the value of Haar’s combat ability. So he has great mobility? As does Jill, and she’ll probably be on Tibby’s route due to being underlevelled. Then you have Tibarn, Elincia, possibly Tauroneo, Ranulf and so many others (like any non-forced GM, for instance) that make Haar seem like just another pwn attacker. On the other hand, Reyson is guaranteed to reduce turn count, which thus leads to more BEXP, or at least more flexibility in what you do each turn, which I cannot stress enough is of paramount value.

Then the other chapters. Haar isn't doing all that stellar in the Greil route; he's doing fine, on par with other units (actually, pretty much on par with Ike, but Nailah is doing a lot better than both anyway; Ike is doing better than 90% of your army). In the Silver Army route, he's doing stellar. You have not one, not two, not three, not four, but five frail units that are forced to be in the chapter that you must protect. Leanne, Sanaki, Micaiah, Sothe, and Sigrun (Sigrun to less of an extent, but Sigrun sucks too much for HM) and Haar can easily protect against those two. He takes little damage from everything considering there are only like three magic using units here, and the only one doing better than him is Naesala.

Skrimir too, but that’s arguable. The “weaklings” don’t really need that much protection in any case. Aside from Sothe having great durability (very good speed and an avo affinity = major avoid), the level is composed of a 2 square chokepoint to the north and a 3 square chokepoint to the east, so you’d only need 5 attackers to hold off the initial enemy burst – the 2 you’re already provided in Skrimir and Naesala (and Leanne but in a different way).

Endgame is where Reyson has the Laguz Gem. They are all short chapters, so he only has the effect for about a turn. Rafiel is a better choice here given something like Pass, Boots and/or Celerity so he can reach and give four units their move from turn 1, whereas Reyson needs a Laguz Gem to do that.

Supposing you beat 4-E chapters ultra fast, then any heron is crucial to use except in 4-E-2. Haar, on the other hand, is arguably at his worst. You’re choosing your best units 10 units out of about 73 choices, and you have people like the royals, marksmen, reavers, trueblades, etc that probably take priority. Not only that, his lack of spd makes him stand out as meh in 4-E-2, 4-E-4 and 4-E-5, maps where most units are 1RKOing everything in sight.

Now supposing you take your time with 4-E chapters, then Reyson's vigoring potential is at its peak since he doesn't have to worry about taking olivi grass. Plus, now Reyson gets to vigor some of the most overpowered units you have, so giving Tibarn, Caneighis and Naesala an extra attack is incredibly valuable.

Haar still sustains his tank status

Not really. 4-E-3 white dragons and 4-E-4 to 5 spirits target his paltry res, and there’s plenty of people who either match or beat Haar’s durability at this point.

and in fact gets one of the strongest weapons in the game; Urvan.

Too bad that’s one of the most heavily competed-for SS weapons.

At this point his AS is about 28 or 29 and his attack is in the 50s; he's doing a lot of damage. In the endgame he fares worse than only about five units in your army; and those are the laguz royals. He's on par with the rest, or even better.

Not by a long shot. Speedy characters with low attack will likely have adept + a mastery to depend on for their offensive output whereas Haar is stuck not doubling, and having a near certain kill > almost certainly not killing the enemy. Though, going by each class;

Reavers have more attack power and can attain up to 36 speed, so no doubling issues for them.

Trueblades double everything, including auras without the assistance of Nasir. The hawks and Ranulf also fit into this category and even if they have say, 10 less attack than Haar, they’re doing almost twice as much damage to auras + spirits thanks to doubling. Nope, Haar cannot double an aura even when using Nasir, which is pretty sad. Then marksmen have –you guessed it- more speed, and that wondrous 1-3 attack range with the double bow. I could go on, but it’s pretty obvious that Haar’s well past his prime and the higher altitude of the tower is somehow causing him to fall into a distant sleep.

And Savior is a mighty fine skill on him, considering his ability to rescue almost anything and travel long distances for a long time.

??? Maybe you should’ve brought this up earlier. It baffles me why you’d want to rescue anyone besides maybe Micaiah in 4-E seeing as how they’re among the easiest chapters in the game.

So basically, availability, Canto, flying, offense, defense > giving many units another move after the first turn.

Now just reverse the inequality sign and I agree :)

Edited January 16, 2009 by Vykan12

[Lord Raven]

Aw, don’t be such a party killer. Haar has really inappropriate shmecks with Jill whereas Reyson had the guts to punch Oliver so hard he broke his fist.

Sorry.

What makes Oliver any special? He's a creepy pedophile with like nothing. And Reyson broke his first punching such a man. Haar kills armored shit with axes and doesn't break a sweat, or his hand.

http://keiiii.deviantart.com/art/HERON-PUNCH-84676569

Haar can do that while sleeping.

As cool as Haar’s pirate-ness and sleepy habits are, he cannot possibly compare to the raw manliness that is Reyson.

Faggy white angel wings manliness vs dark, bamf wyvern?

He can vigor up to 4 people at once, and since there’s always many good units with canto, setting up a 4 unit vigor is trivially easy.

No disagreement here either.

However, Reyson has an exp pool that’s even less limited than the healing pool. While attackers are limited by the enemies on a map and healers are limited by the number of injured units, Reyson’s only concern in regards to exp gain is the turn count of a chapter, which he’s helping to lower significantly in any case.

So Reyson helps himself gain less EXP?

Now why exactly would Reyson ever be untransformed? He’s available in 12 chapters, 5 of which have laguz gems, the other 7 of which there are 6-8 laguz stones available, depending on what you did with your part 2 stones, which are more than likely saved. Though, even if Reyson didn’t use a stone in a chapter, he can still lay on the backlines for 2 turns popping olivi grass and won’t risk untransforming for the rest of the chapter.

In those two turns it takes to use an Olivi Grass (plus 3 with lower movement before transformation), Haar is dishing out attacks and taking counter attacks with minimal effort. This always puts his offense a turn or two ahead.

And thunder sages, and elthunder, and arcthunder, and he also gets hurt pretty badly by mages using other magic types. Not only that, his luck is a bit low, so some enemies have a critical rate on him in the early going.

Thunder Sages tend to use magic that kills him in a hit or two, a critical doesn't make it THAT much better. If not, then he has a simple time killing them back; their speed is pretty low (16 AS vs 20 AS).

Halberdiers, on top of doing few damage, won't do much better with their minuscule crit%.

Halberdiers do 9-10 damage to Haar with Steal Greatlance, 1-2 with Javelins, 4-5 with Short Spears and Steel Lances. Once every 100 attacks towards Haar is a critical, which is not bad even though he'll take like 27-30 damage from said critical at best. (1% rate of Crit, btw)

I'm assuming you're getting attacked by the eastern portion of the fort, and in that case Halberdiers and Armors are pretty much the only things that exist there. And Thunder Mages, but those come once every couple turns... enough for him to recuperate from other attacks.

Again, Reyson’s offence (and defence, healing, mobility, etc) manifests itself in what he gets vigored units to do.

I’d say Reyson being able to allow units to move twice in a turn, or have them at peak biorhythm, or fill a unit’s laguz meter, all the while providing some healing through blessing is quite a ways more useful than Haar just being wtfhax as a combatative unit.

He's not even "wtfhax" for being amazing at combat, it's his availability in which he's wtfhax for.

About 15 chapters (I'm weighting the final chapter as 2, by the way) vs 9 chapters. Haar's offense kicks in for about 100% of those chapters; Reyson's kicks in for about 70%.

This map is basically *wait for 8 turns and kill whatever you can, not that it matters anyway because exp gain is crap*. Even though Haar is your best unit here, it doesn’t matter in the slightest because of the nature of the chapter.

Haar can probably gain like 40 or 50 EXP from the boss, even if he gets like 2-3 from the other units.

Again, this is a wait for x turns type of map, there’s not much point in killing Ludveck right away because you don’t lose BEXP waiting out the 15 turns and get a lot more CEXP for your units, which I suppose is important if you’re considering using Brom, Neph or Haar in the future. So, Haar’s only use in the map that isn’t just selfishly soaking up kills to better himself is to chokepoint enemies from passing any further, but people like Brom, Mordecai and even Elincia can do that just as well.

I'm not saying it's the best way out, I'm saying it's the fastest way out and an option. Hell, he can get that Tomahawk from Ludveck (since Brom and the rest of them aren't very capable of fighting Ludveck, or taking the hordes of enemies down there at once) because of using the Hammer.

Elincia, Brom and Mordecai do it just as well?

Lets start with why that's false.

(I'm quote some random, related points while I'm at it)

Lolno. You’d be surprised how much of an impediment the NPCs are to the enemies, and Elincia, Brom, all the laguz you have, etc can more than handle this chapter.

- Elincia is weak to Crossbows/Bowguns. They OHKO her. A couple of early Warriors will have Crossbows and/or Bowguns. Haar can survive them.

- Brom is a decent candidate, but he is a lot less accurate than Haar, and as a result gets ganged up more easily because he'll be hitting less, and Brom's HP/Defense aren't as high as Haar's either.

- Some of the Axe Generals have Hammers, and he doesn't have the AS to fight back either

- Mordecai has the laguz meter. If you're going to use laguz stones to refute this point; that's cool, except it hinders your own unit's performance. If you're going to use Olivi grass, then taking about two or three indirect attacks at once on top of two or three direct attacks will lower his laguz bar significantly. His ability to survive more than one turn on the enemy phase while keeping up with offense on the player phase puts him below Haar, who doesn't require much maintenance to use.

That is, unless you give him the 2-3 speedwing, at which point Haar’s resource consumption is becoming quite hefty. And of course, any BEXP Haar chooses to use is BEXP that Reyson doesn’t need, meaning he’s allowing other units to use more BEXP by being a member of your team. Advantage -> Reyson.

- A Speedwing patches things up indeed since I don't think the favorable BEXP is a good enough argument (requires too much favor + you don't get much BEXP so he's getting 2~3 levels + we don't know the mechanics, and speed is probably a lower priority stat boost), and he deserves it over other units because, on top of making use of it, he has much more durability than everyone else, or has that borderline Speed where you're close to doubling pretty much everything. Granted, there are some enemies (namely Halberdiers and Snipers) that he won't double for another two or three level ups, but that's cool because he 2-rounds a lot of things in this chapter with a Steel Axe or Poleaxe, having consistent accuracy to boot. Mordecai and Geoffrey/Kieran are the only things that can really compete with this, and Geof/Kieran have durability that falls behind Haar's anyway.

- Mordecai's resource consumption is even heftier, because it competes directly with your unit's as well.

Anyways, tl;dr Haar >>> those three.

As for using the hammer, that’s generally a weapon you’d want to save for later. Part 3 generals are pretty hard to one round, and 4-E-1 is a general-fest, so wasting the hammer here for somewhat frivolous purposes is going to ultimately hurt you in the long run.

Nobody says you have to one round generals. It's an option available, but it's not like he's going to constantly excercise that option; once every three attacks (33% chance makes just as much sense, also with Killer Axe) he's almost guaranteed a critical after doubling, so he one rounds every other General he comes across.

It would make more sense just to say he has a 33% chance of critting. In any case, the killer axe just gives him a more unreliable way of killing enemies, so I don’t see much value in that.

33% is roughly once in three. How does it make more or less sense to say one or three?

Even then, against Generals one every three attacks is a one round (and he doubles them normally). He normally has 10-11 attack on them too, while they have HP in the mid 30s. Do the math.

Since this is HM we’re talking about, plugging Haar with BEXP won’t quite get him to lv 19-20 and he has a high risk of not reaching the required 22 spd to double Ludveck.

He doesn't need to be at 14 or 15 are good levels too.

By the way, there are points from here that, if I don't answer to them, I agree.

Suppose Oscar got hurt pretty badly from an enemy you thought wasn’t going to land a hit on him, with a vigor he can lay to rest any risk of dying by taking a concoction.

or sex, which Haar probably gets more of than Reyson

Oh, and Reyson is vital to any strategy that involves taking out Lombroso efficiently whereas Haar can be overlooked to say, Titania with celerity.

Haar with celerity? Haar can definitely make more use of celerity - he goes through chapters faster that way, clears out any enemies that are just ready to annoy the shit out of you, and he can do it in a much more convenient way. All while being immune to terrain.

Haar can't be overlooked to Titania with Celerity.

Titania is Level 19, Haar Level 17

Name	HP	Str   Mag   Skl   Spd   Lck   Def   Res
Titania 37.2  25.8  10.3  23.1  22.0  19.8  20.4  14.6
Haar	47.8  27.2   2.3  26.0  21.8  15.7  25.9   8.2

The only thing Titania really wins here is Resistance, in which case Haar has much better HP. Other than that, Haar gets lower Speed but is more likely to make use of the 2-3 speedwing than Titania is, so that Speed is actually 23.4ish at this point which is higher than Titania.

On top of that, the Sages in this chapter are the Meteor Sages - in which case, both are taking damage in the mid to late teens from this douche bag. Haar, on the other hand, is taking six less damage per hit against the enemies who have plenty of attack to begin with (compare, six damage to 12 damage on average considering they have attacks in the 30s, with some having attacks in the late 20s). I'd rather give the Celerity to Haar - or just as good, Ike - than Titania because her survivability isn't as good as either of those two.

Haar killing enemies that no one else will even reach is again, only benefiting himself and has no real value outside of that.

Killing annoying enemies before they reach your already slow moving characters, and requiring them to go out of their way to kill them instead of advancing further is, in its own way, an advantage for your team.

It’s a good thing the level is basically a huge ocean with piles of land, and non-wyvern enemies can only move 2 spaces to Reyson’s 8, so there really is no reason for him to be attacked. It’s like saying Leanne would ever get attacked in 4-3 supposing there weren’t any long range tome attackers.

There actually aren't in that chapter from what I recall. However, there are plenty of Snipers and Swordmasters that have a tough time getting one rounded (if they are getting one rounded at all, let alone two rounded in select cases) that can break your line and attack Reyson. "Breaking" referring to going around, by the way; Haar can two round them pretty consistently and has an easier time reaching them.

Reyson couldn’t care less if Haar was lv 1 or lv 20/20/20 or was Jesus, since he’s contributing to Haar’s output on one phase as well as others.

Actually, if he was Jesus he'd be pre-Level 1. You see, being an atheist and all means Jesus is pretty much a regular man... which is below most FE chars.

Is this still assuming Reyson’s offense = daemon cards?

Indeed, but I think that's kinda stupid now.

Sure, Janaff, Ulki and Ranulf make for good competition for the laguz stones, but Reyson is arguably making the most use of it because of the h3x nature of vigoring, so I’m willing to argue he gets first dibs on it.

That's cool, getting rid of Haar's competition.

I C what u did thaar.

Actually, proper use of Reyson allows you to reach almost every enemy before the CRKs do, so him getting your team more exp as well as lowering your turn count and every other redundantly stated benefit of vigor is pretty win. Even if Haar isn’t there, Reyson has plenty of subjects he can be a boon for whereas again, Haar depends on Reyson to really reach enemies before anyone else can.

On turn 2 he can reach the Purge Bishops pretty easily, and still fly over the trees to fight against the Paladins and such nearby the boss as well as the other enemies.

Just like in 3-10, using Reyson effectively means you can reduce the amount of kills that NPC laguz get while also reducing turn count and him improving the entire team > Haar going on a killing spree.

Haar doesn't need to go on a killing spree. He could if you let him but obviously he's not the only one entitled to EXP.

Seeing as how we can choose who goes in what army, there’s a lot of good units one could potentially put on any given team, thus reducing the value of Haar’s combat ability. So he has great mobility? As does Jill, and she’ll probably be on Tibby’s route due to being underlevelled. Then you have Tibarn, Elincia, possibly Tauroneo, Ranulf and so many others (like any non-forced GM, for instance) that make Haar seem like just another pwn attacker. On the other hand, Reyson is guaranteed to reduce turn count, which thus leads to more BEXP, or at least more flexibility in what you do each turn, which I cannot stress enough is of paramount value.

Considering how you can easily use half the units you bring in the chapter, on top of the fact that there are still many slot available per team, I'm sure Haar can find some way to fit into Tibarn's team.

Also, aiding in the bitchy chase for Izuka is pretty helpful, and reduces turn count if you're so concerned. If not, then protecting from Hawks, Ravens, and Red Dragons (the former two will have high AS, whereas the latter two will have higher defense stats) is a pretty good thing on its own, as well as taking a lot less damage from the cats and tigers. Tibarn can do it two but... having two units with similar function isn't a bad thing.

Finally, Hawks and Ravens don't have trouble breaking past your defensive lines, who are also in fear of enemy tigers with their massive attack. Reyson is pretty good setup bait here.

Skrimir too, but that’s arguable. The “weaklings” don’t really need that much protection in any case. Aside from Sothe having great durability (very good speed and an avo affinity = major avoid), the level is composed of a 2 square chokepoint to the north and a 3 square chokepoint to the east, so you’d only need 5 attackers to hold off the initial enemy burst – the 2 you’re already provided in Skrimir and Naesala (and Leanne but in a different way).

And Haar can be one of those attackers to fill the chokepoints, pretty easily too. There are plenty of enemies that come in from both sides. If he takes the top he doesn't even really need that much support; maybe another attacker to cover the chokepoint, but he can definitely handle the crossbow users a lot better than Naesala.

The "weaklings" refer to the likes of Micaiah, Sanaki, Sigrun, and Leanne's individual durability. (Speaking of which, without Canto the way she uses Canto is really somewhat annoying to efficiently use).

Naesala gets screwed over by Crossbow users by the way. They're accurate and only two are needed to kill him. Haar is immune to that shit, motherfucker!

Supposing you beat 4-E chapters ultra fast, then any heron is crucial to use except in 4-E-2. Haar, on the other hand, is arguably at his worst. You’re choosing your best units 10 units out of about 73 choices, and you have people like the royals, marksmen, reavers, trueblades, etc that probably take priority. Not only that, his lack of spd makes him stand out as meh in 4-E-2, 4-E-4 and 4-E-5, maps where most units are 1RKOing everything in sight.

If you beat 4-E chapters fast, then Rafiel is better than Reyson. With boots, he can reach things quite quickly and use his instant, four turn Canto right away. So basically, they're both pretty much useless here.

It's tough to refute your final chapter points. I won't bother, they'd be half-assed, not proving anything, and not factually right either considering Reyson > Haar in the Final.

??? Maybe you should’ve brought this up earlier. It baffles me why you’d want to rescue anyone besides maybe Micaiah in 4-E seeing as how they’re among the easiest chapters in the game.

It wasn't in reference to Part IV. I just couldn't be bothered to change stuff around after thinking of it.

If this sends and says "the opening and closing quote tags do not match" I will be PISSED

... and it did, GRR

Edited January 16, 2009 by Nathan Graves

[Vykan12]

What makes Oliver any special?

He’s beautiful.

http://fireemblemblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/oliver.jpg

How can you possibly look at such perfection without considering changing sexual orientation? Whereas Haar would either fall in love with Oliver’s magnificence or simply fall asleep, Reyson sees past Oliver’s amazing aesthetics for the crooked man he truly is.

And Reyson broke his fist punching such a man.

All this shows is how intense he is, which is much cooler than Haar being the epitome of laziness.

Haar kills armored shit with axes and doesn't break a sweat, or his hand.

And Ashera can turn almost everyone to stone. That doesn’t automatically make her awesome.

Faggy white angel wings manliness vs dark, bamf wyvern?

More like angry, heavily burdened but ultimately badass heron vs some pedo pirate with major fatigue issues.

So Reyson helps himself gain less EXP?

No, silly, he’s not taking away exp from your other units, which means fielding him = more kills and thus exp/levels for everyone else.

In those two turns it takes to use an Olivi Grass (plus 3 with lower movement before transformation), Haar is dishing out attacks and taking counter attacks with minimal effort. This always puts his offense a turn or two ahead.

It really just comes down to some simple math. Even if Reyson only gets to vigor an average of 3 units for 5/10 turns, that’s still 15 player phase attacks he’s responsible for, whereas Haar himself is only responsible for 10. Sure, he can produce a lot on enemy phase, but so can the people that Reyson’s vigoring since they can reach enemies much sooner than had he not been there. And of course I’d argue that Reyson is vigoring more than half the time and averages more like 3.2-3.5 vigored units when not popping grass, so there really is no contest.

Thunder Sages tend to use magic that kills him in a hit or two, a critical doesn't make it THAT much better. If not, then he has a simple time killing them back; their speed is pretty low (16 AS vs 20 AS).

This isn’t bad how? Every time he gets hit by a thunder type mage, he probably has to heal, which means hogging the attention of a healer or popping a concoction. And they’ll hit him pretty often since his avoid is far from superb. Plus, a lot of time mages come in groups of 2 or 3, so he can easily face 20-30% chances of dying, which is horrible.

Halberdiers, on top of doing few damage, won't do much better with their minuscule crit%.

Halberdiers do 9-10 damage to Haar with Steal Greatlance, 1-2 with Javelins, 4-5 with Short Spears and Steel Lances. Once every 100 attacks towards Haar is a critical, which is not bad even though he'll take like 27-30 damage from said critical at best. (1% rate of Crit, btw)

The point about criticals was mostly concerning mages, since every mage that has a critical% chance on him has a chance of killing him instantly. Though, now that you brought this up, a halberdier doing 30 damage from a crit is a lot since Haar has maybe 50-60 hp depending on his level. Losing >50% of your hp to a lolberdier is pretty lame.

I'm assuming you're getting attacked by the eastern portion of the fort, and in that case Halberdiers and Armors are pretty much the only things that exist there. And Thunder Mages, but those come once every couple turns... enough for him to recuperate from other attacks.

What you’re describing is situational. If you want to play that card, look at 3-8. There’s 2 druids and a fire mage all located in the same general area as the boss, and I recall there being a thunder and wind mage close to each other in the middle area of the map as well. Or we could look at how sleep mages in 3-E, 4-3, 4-4, etc sabotage Haar’s ability to go solo parts of a map even when using spirit water. I’d assert that there’s more situations where Haar risks getting mauled by mages than there are ones where he can pace himself between singular mage attacks, though feel free to prove me wrong on that.

He's not even "wtfhax" for being amazing at combat, it's his availability in which he's wtfhax for.

Availability alone isn’t worth much at all. Is Ilyana hax because she has the highest availability in the game?

About 15 chapters (I'm weighting the final chapter as 2, by the way) vs 9 chapters. Haar's offense kicks in for about 100% of those chapters; Reyson's kicks in for about 70%.

Yes, it’s quite clear Haar wins availability, but Reyson is exceeding Haar’s performance by huge factors when their availability overlaps.

Also, your comment about “offence kicking in” is grossly oversimplified. Haar cannot be attacking all the time. Occasionally, he’ll be ferrying, or taking a concoction, or spirit water, or he won’t be able to reach any enemies with 9 move, or you’ll want to have other people attack first, etc etc.

I’m assuming Reyson kicking in only 70% of the time refers to how much time he won’t spend popping addictive hallucinogens/stones. But, if he’s allowing 3-4 people to attack, or heal, or reach a destination sooner, one could easily claim his offence is in effect 210-280% of the time. I’m sorry but there’s no way any individual unit can compete with someone who is producing 2-3 times as much as the average unit, Haar included.

I'm not saying it's the best way out, I'm saying it's the fastest way out and an option. Hell, he can get that Tomahawk from Ludveck (since Brom and the rest of them aren't very capable of fighting Ludveck, or taking the hordes of enemies down there at once) because of using the Hammer.

Agreed, though I don’t think you realize that base level Elincia does 32-36 damage to Ludveck, and can kill him if she activates stun just once in four attacks. Plus, if you play your spacing right, Elincia could attack Ludveck twice in a turn, so Haar isn’t quite the only bosskiller in the level.

Elincia is weak to Crossbows/Bowguns. They OHKO her. A couple of early Warriors will have Crossbows and/or Bowguns. Haar can survive them.

I generally have Elincia hit & run those crossbow dudes since she can 1RKO them in 2 hits via the amiti, have her vigor’ed by Leanne, and do it again. Once all the bow threats are gone, she’s free to do as she pleases on offence, at which point my claim stands. Okay, Elincia depends on the aforementioned hit & run strategy, but are you seriously going to use Leanne on anyone but fliers if she’s not ever going to descend the ledge until all the enemies are gone?

Brom is a decent candidate, but he is a lot less accurate than Haar, and as a result gets ganged up more easily because he'll be hitting less, and Brom's HP/Defense aren't as high as Haar's either.

Who said anything about Brom needing to kill the enemy? He just needs to keep those suckers at bay. If you’re not using anyone in part 2 seriously, you might as well disarm whoever’s guarding the chokepoints. But of course I suppose Haar is likely to be used, but he can fly around and find targets at will anyway to gather exp for himself.

Some of the Axe Generals have Hammers, and he doesn't have the AS to fight back either

One hammer user, and you can just dispose of him with a Calill meteor attack or something.

Mordecai has the laguz meter. If you're going to use laguz stones to refute this point; that's cool, except it hinders your own unit's performance. If you're going to use Olivi grass, then taking about two or three indirect attacks at once on top of two or three direct attacks will lower his laguz bar significantly. His ability to survive more than one turn on the enemy phase while keeping up with offense on the player phase puts him below Haar, who doesn't require much maintenance to use.

Even if Mordy is popping grass every turn, he has the best raw durability on the team and is 2RKOing anything that attacks him at 1 range, so it’s hard to be displeased with his performance. I never said he was doing better than Haar, just performing more than adequately at his role in the chapter, which is preventing the enemies from further passage.

Anyways, tl;dr Haar >>> those three.

Haar > Kieran, Mak, etc indeed. However, you’re forgetting that if you save the speedwing in 2-E, you get it back in 3-2, and there’s a lot of people in the GMs who want to up their speed. Titania, Ike (can get spd screwed with his 35% spd growth), Boyd, Rolf and quite a few others definitely want the speedwing, and Reyson allowing anyone to take the speedwing > Haar hogging it.

Nobody says you have to one round generals.

It’s a lot more helpful to have options to beat the most durable enemies in part 3 versus using it on part 2 enemies you don’t even need to kill anyway. Eg/ Boyd can 1HKO gens with a hammer, which is good for him considering how bad his offence is vs most other enemies early on because of his spd issues.

It's an option available, but it's not like he's going to constantly excercise that option; once every three attacks (33% chance makes just as much sense, also with Killer Axe) he's almost guaranteed a critical after doubling, so he one rounds every other General he comes across.

33% chance of critting is 57% in 2 hits. That’s far from guaranteed, and the largest stat deviations occur when you’re closest to 50%, so there’s a very good chance of getting screwed out of criticals, though there is also the chance of getting a large string of criticals. All to say, it’s just unreliable to depend on the killer axe for kills and saying he one rounds every other general he comes across is undoubtedly flawed.

33% is roughly once in three. How does it make more or less sense to say one or three?

You made it sound like he landed a critical every 3 hits, which is a different statement entirely.

or sex, which Haar probably gets more of than Reyson

Wth does this have to do with my point? And again, sex with Jill = wrong, and I doubt you can show that Haar engages in coitus with other partners as well.

Anyway, here’s my rebuttal.

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress....ng_it_wrong.jpg

Haar with celerity? Haar can definitely make more use of celerity

I wasn’t arguing he couldn’t, all I said is that there’s methods to kill Lombroso efficiently that definitely involve Reyson but don’t necessarily involve Haar and putting celerity on Titania is one of them.

Though now that we’re mentioning celerity, Reyson easily makes the best use of it. With it, he has 10 move transformed, meaning he can keep up with even your most mobile units, he can vigor & run more easily and he has more flexibility in setting up quad vigors, all of which is way more useful than Haar just reaching enemies sooner.

Killing annoying enemies before they reach your already slow moving characters, and requiring them to go out of their way to kill them instead of advancing further is, in its own way, an advantage for your team.

I was talking about really distant enemies, like the ones close to the BK, that won’t reach your party by turn 12. Besides, everyone and their mom will kick *** in this level because of how under-levelled the enemies are, and since they suffer from bad movement as much as you do, it’s very easy to pace yourself vs just getting swarmed at once. Though most importantly, Reyson is the one most responsible for allowing your units to actually meet those enemies who are otherwise too far to reach normally in 12 turns.

There actually aren't in that chapter from what I recall. However, there are plenty of Snipers and Swordmasters that have a tough time getting one rounded (if they are getting one rounded at all, let alone two rounded in select cases) that can break your line and attack Reyson. "Breaking" referring to going around, by the way; Haar can two round them pretty consistently and has an easier time reaching them.

I don’t see what this has to do with whether enemies will reach Reyson or not. Snipers would have 2 move in the water + 2 range, meaning Reyson would have to be 4-5 squares into the water, but this just means he can move 4 spaces towards your units, vigor, then move 4 spaces in another direction. Or, if he has celerity, there probably won’t be any concern at all.

Actually, if he was Jesus he'd be pre-Level 1. You see, being an atheist and all means Jesus is pretty much a regular man... which is below most FE chars.

I meant Jesus in a metaphorical sense. Think of it as meaning some character with legendary/mythical ability or something.

On turn 2 he can reach the Purge Bishops pretty easily, and still fly over the trees to fight against the Paladins and such nearby the boss as well as the other enemies.

That’s nice, but the enemies in the northeast corner of the map are all stationary before turn 5, so it’s best to get as many characters down there as soon as possible, which is where Reyson comes in handy.

Considering how you can easily use half the units you bring in the chapter, on top of the fact that there are still many slot available per team, I'm sure Haar can find some way to fit into Tibarn's team.

I wasn’t claiming Haar wouldn’t make it onto Tibarn’s team (or any team for that matter), just that his combat ability wouldn’t stand out as much because of the sheer amount of competent fighters you now have available, even if they’re spread in 3 groups.

Also, aiding in the bitchy chase for Izuka is pretty helpful, and reduces turn count if you're so concerned.

Without Reyson, it takes at least 4 turns to beat Izuka, possibly more. With Reyson, it takes 2 with some clever planning, and 3 turning is amazingly simple. Or, if you’re willing to reap the chapter for some exp, Reyson is netting you plenty of ranged attacks against those deadly tigers. Again, Haar has no way to match this.

Finally, Hawks and Ravens don't have trouble breaking past your defensive lines, who are also in fear of enemy tigers with their massive attack. Reyson is pretty good setup bait here.

Seriously? I’ve never had an issue with that. Hawks and ravens are the most rare enemy type in this level, and are also the easiest to kill. A simple crossbow or arcwind attack kills them instantly, then you might’ve acquired birdfoe, and the ravens in particular have really pathetic attack power. Reyson has nothing to ph33r.

And Haar can be one of those attackers to fill the chokepoints, pretty easily too. There are plenty of enemies that come in from both sides. If he takes the top he doesn't even really need that much support; maybe another attacker to cover the chokepoint, but he can definitely handle the crossbow users a lot better than Naesala.

There’s no doubt Haar is useful here, you just went on as though he was crucial or something.

Naesala gets screwed over by Crossbow users by the way. They're accurate and only two are needed to kill him. Haar is immune to that shit, motherfucker!

There’s only one crossbow user in 4-P, and he only poses about a 50% chance to hit, it isn’t fatal, and Naesala has a good 40ish% chance of landing tear for an insta kill. In addition, if you just get rid of that lone crossbow dude with someone else, Naesala has nothing to fear for the rest of the level aside from archers, which 2-3RKO him and have maybe 40 display hit. As for the desert, Naesala simply out-mobilizes everyone, so his durability is of no concern unless you’re making really careless moves.

If you beat 4-E chapters fast, then Rafiel is better than Reyson.

So? That doesn’t make Reyson any less valuable if you choose to use him. Reyson would get a slight negative for taking a better unit’s slot, but he destroys that negative by being made of pure, un-distilled win.

Plus, Reyson has much better move and durability than Rafiel, so it’s not indisputable that Rafiel’s being used even if you’re aiming for really low turn counts. He has 7 move with celerity whereas Reyson has 8 without when transformed, and Rafiel can get ORKOed by long range tomes, in addition to not having canto, so he’s much more of a defensive liability than Reyson.

So basically, they're both pretty much useless here.

Say what?

[insert predictable concluding statement summarizing why Reyson > Haar]

Edited January 17, 2009 by Vykan12

[Lord Raven]

Sure, he can produce a lot on enemy phase, but so can the people that Reyson’s vigoring since they can reach enemies much sooner than had he not been there. And of course I’d argue that Reyson is vigoring more than half the time and averages more like 3.2-3.5 vigored units when not popping grass, so there really is no contest.

Aside from the chapters where there is a lot of terrain to traverse.

3-5 - small enough map that it doesn't matter who Reyson gets to and who he doesn't. It allots them more player phase attacks, pretty much. Haar can easily cross the ridges, whereas Oscar and Titania and them have to go around while suffering move penalties from grass. It's not too big a disadvantage but... Haar still has an easier time.

3-6 - Haar and the Hawks and Reyson are the only things that can move here. :/

3-8 - Haar's movement is the same as everyone else's. I think your argument holds most water here, with the fact that Haar is about the same as a foot soldier.

3-10 - allows him to switch between taking out Purge Bishops and going north against the bosses cavalry pretty easily. Everyone else has to go around the trees.

3-F has an early chokepoints Haar can fly over. The rest I'll give you.

4-2 and 4-5 have a lot of terrain that your foot units are slowed down a TON in.

Typically your units can't reach enemy units sooner than Haar.

This isn’t bad how? Every time he gets hit by a thunder type mage, he probably has to heal, which means hogging the attention of a healer or popping a concoction. And they’ll hit him pretty often since his avoid is far from superb. Plus, a lot of time mages come in groups of 2 or 3, so he can easily face 20-30% chances of dying, which is horrible.

The point about criticals was mostly concerning mages, since every mage that has a critical% chance on him has a chance of killing him instantly. Though, now that you brought this up, a halberdier doing 30 damage from a crit is a lot since Haar has maybe 50-60 hp depending on his level. Losing >50% of your hp to a lolberdier is pretty lame.

An lolberdier critical which happens maybe 6 or 7% of the time? The Thunder Sage criticals happen just as often.

I'm not saying it's a good thing either, I'm saying that it can easily be recovered from. Vulneraries heal 20 so he can pop one every turn, retreat to Leanne (who can revitalize both him and Elincia), and then come back and kill another enemy. Elincia can heal him or Brom or something in the meantime, or Elincia can use the Physic on him, get Vigored, and then use it on Brom.

What you’re describing is situational. If you want to play that card, look at 3-8. There’s 2 druids and a fire mage all located in the same general area as the boss, and I recall there being a thunder and wind mage close to each other in the middle area of the map as well. Or we could look at how sleep mages in 3-E, 4-3, 4-4, etc sabotage Haar’s ability to go solo parts of a map even when using spirit water. I’d assert that there’s more situations where Haar risks getting mauled by mages than there are ones where he can pace himself between singular mage attacks, though feel free to prove me wrong on that.

Availability alone isn’t worth much at all. Is Ilyana hax because she has the highest availability in the game?

No, but Haar is hax because he's hax for the long time he's available.

Yes, it’s quite clear Haar wins availability, but Reyson is exceeding Haar’s performance by huge factors when their availability overlaps.

Also, your comment about “offence kicking in” is grossly oversimplified. Haar cannot be attacking all the time. Occasionally, he’ll be ferrying, or taking a concoction, or spirit water, or he won’t be able to reach any enemies with 9 move, or you’ll want to have other people attack first, etc etc.

Reyson can't be Vigoring all the time, either.

Haar can easily attack while ferrying--Savior basically comes in the chapter you get Haar, so giving it to him works.

I’m assuming Reyson kicking in only 70% of the time refers to how much time he won’t spend popping addictive

hallucinogens/stones. But, if he’s allowing 3-4 people to attack, or heal, or reach a destination sooner, one could easily claim his offence is in effect 210-280% of the time. I’m sorry but there’s no way any individual unit can compete with someone who is producing 2-3 times as much as the average unit, Haar included.

But Haar's above the average unit! ^_^

Now seriously, the 3-4 people he might let attack probably can't take counters all that well either (in order for this to be true, you have to be vigoring something like Gatrie, Ike, or Oscar with A Ike). Haar can take them pretty well and has this hit and run thing going on - something only Titania and Oscar have access to at any rate.

Agreed, though I don’t think you realize that base level Elincia does 32-36 damage to Ludveck, and can kill him if she activates stun just once in four attacks. Plus, if you play your spacing right, Elincia could attack Ludveck twice in a turn, so Haar isn’t quite the only bosskiller in the level.

Haar can easily one round Ludveck, because he can easily reach 22 Speed and has a 100% guaranteed chance of hitting him with a Hammer. He does 38x2, which makes him most efficient here.

On top of that, the only actual thing that poses a threat to Haar down there - a Thunder Sage. Everything else is a HUGE threat to Elincia. And Haar's the one that can clear the way for Elincia, or take out Ludveck without letting Elincia worry about it.

I generally have Elincia hit & run those crossbow dudes since she can 1RKO them in 2 hits via the amiti, have her vigor’ed by Leanne, and do it again. Once all the bow threats are gone, she’s free to do as she pleases on offence, at which point my claim stands. Okay, Elincia depends on the aforementioned hit & run strategy, but are you seriously going to use Leanne on anyone but fliers if she’s not ever going to descend the ledge until all the enemies are gone?

I concur actually, although Elincia's defense is still shaky against enemies - Warriors are the only things she can dodge somewhat well, if at all. She would help with Thunder Sages too, though if Haar protects the entirety of the chokepoint she's going to have a hard time reaching it...

Who said anything about Brom needing to kill the enemy? He just needs to keep those suckers at bay. If you’re not using anyone in part 2 seriously, you might as well disarm whoever’s guarding the chokepoints. But of course I suppose Haar is likely to be used, but he can fly around and find targets at will anyway to gather exp for himself.

Haar is better at keeping those suckers at bay. Though, there are ways that Brom can do it while getting few counters -- but the fact that he can't and won't be able to take counters says more about him than Haar.

One hammer user, and you can just dispose of him with a Calill meteor attack or something.

Callil doesn't double him nor does she do much with Meteor. Haar is perfectly capable of it and does loads with a Hammer.

Even if Mordy is popping grass every turn, he has the best raw durability on the team and is 2RKOing anything that attacks him at 1 range, so it’s hard to be displeased with his performance. I never said he was doing better than Haar, just performing more than adequately at his role in the chapter, which is preventing the enemies from further passage.

So we... pretty much agree?

Haar > Kieran, Mak, etc indeed. However, you’re forgetting that if you save the speedwing in 2-E, you get it back in 3-2, and there’s a lot of people in the GMs who want to up their speed. Titania, Ike (can get spd screwed with his 35% spd growth), Boyd, Rolf and quite a few others definitely want the speedwing, and Reyson allowing anyone to take the speedwing > Haar hogging it.

Ike's speed is just fine. 24 base with 35% growth isn't bad at all, considering how 27 speed is plenty before promotion.

Titania's speed base is better than Haar's, and her Speed up helps her as much as it helps Haar. They're both equally entitled, aside from the fact that Haar gets it earlier and not using it earlier means you lose +2 speed for the longer time.

And while it can be argued that you can use the 3-3 Speedwing on a Crimean Knight - you can, but using the Speedwing on Haar benefits you for more chapters. He has far better availability so the +2 Speed exists for much longer, therefore using it on Haar is a larger benefit.

It’s a lot more helpful to have options to beat the most durable enemies in part 3 versus using it on part 2 enemies you don’t even need to kill anyway. Eg/ Boyd can 1HKO gens with a hammer, which is good for him considering how bad his offence is vs most other enemies early on because of his spd issues.

I'm inclined to agree, in fact.

33% chance of critting is 57% in 2 hits. That’s far from guaranteed, and the largest stat deviations occur when you’re closest to 50%, so there’s a very good chance of getting screwed out of criticals, though there is also the chance of getting a large string of criticals. All to say, it’s just unreliable to depend on the killer axe for kills and saying he one rounds every other general he comes across is undoubtedly flawed.

It's about 70% of having one in three hits, though.

Wth does this have to do with my point? And again, sex with Jill = wrong, and I doubt you can show that Haar engages in coitus with other partners as well.

Sex with Jill is only wrong when she's a loli in FE9. But she's a full grown woman in those three years between 9 and 10, so it's perfectly acceptable. Because Jill is sexy now.

(It was meant to be a joke).

I wasn’t arguing he couldn’t, all I said is that there’s methods to kill Lombroso efficiently that definitely involve Reyson but don’t necessarily involve Haar and putting celerity on Titania is one of them.

Celerity Haar is a better option.

I was talking about really distant enemies, like the ones close to the BK, that won’t reach your party by turn 12. Besides, everyone and their mom will kick *** in this level because of how under-levelled the enemies are, and since they suffer from bad movement as much as you do, it’s very easy to pace yourself vs just getting swarmed at once. Though most importantly, Reyson is the one most responsible for allowing your units to actually meet those enemies who are otherwise too far to reach normally in 12 turns.

If you're talking about the western units, Haar can reach them a lot easier than your units can, even with Reyson's help.

Enemies are underleveled? 24 AS Swordmasters (with Zihark probably having 25ish AS), 20 AS Snipers, 20-21 AS Warriors, and 20 AS Halberdiers. Ike and Mia are the only ones doubling them, though pretty much everyone else is able to double Sages and Generals. At best they can one round the sages and bishops, but against these guys they're two rounding and potential three rounding (if you get unlucky enough). Of course, Haar will be two rounding but he's off doing stuff against Wyverns anyway.

I meant Jesus in a metaphorical sense. Think of it as meaning some character with legendary/mythical ability or something.

I think Jesus is a pretty cool guy, eh died for our sins and doesn't afraid of anything.

That’s nice, but the enemies in the northeast corner of the map are all stationary before turn 5, so it’s best to get as many characters down there as soon as possible, which is where Reyson comes in handy.

If Reyson Vigors Haar that one turn, then you have the most annoying threat in the chapter eliminated. 80% hit rate is nothing to fuck around with.

I wasn’t claiming Haar wouldn’t make it onto Tibarn’s team (or any team for that matter), just that his combat ability wouldn’t stand out as much because of the sheer amount of competent fighters you now have available, even if they’re spread in 3 groups.

His only competition in that chapter would be something like Tibarn and the underleveled units you're probably going to bring that aren't forced with others. In other words, people he was already beating near the end of Part III and can still have a chance to get ahead of, because terrain penalty is massive in Tibarn's chapters.

Without Reyson, it takes at least 4 turns to beat Izuka, possibly more. With Reyson, it takes 2 with some clever planning, and 3 turning is amazingly simple. Or, if you’re willing to reap the chapter for some exp, Reyson is netting you plenty of ranged attacks against those deadly tigers. Again, Haar has no way to match this.

Other than defending your units from the inevitable Tigers, and being able to survive their attacks, so you can actually reach those four turns. Or helping take out the enemy around Izuka so someone else can do it.

Then again, a 4 turn finish is not ideal - your units don't get the EXP they're in Tibarn's route to obtain.

Seriously? I’ve never had an issue with that. Hawks and ravens are the most rare enemy type in this level, and are also the easiest to kill. A simple crossbow or arcwind attack kills them instantly, then you might’ve acquired birdfoe, and the ravens in particular have really pathetic attack power. Reyson has nothing to ph33r.

It matters little how much of an issue you've had, because their doubling Reyson is, on top of being risky (due to shoddy defense), also takes away about a turn of Vigoring. They may not be the most common, but they can break past your defense and go onto Reyson if you screw up... and you can't assume everything is perfect.

There’s no doubt Haar is useful here, you just went on as though he was crucial or something.

There’s only one crossbow user in 4-P, and he only poses about a 50% chance to hit, it isn’t fatal, and Naesala has a good 40ish% chance of landing tear for an insta kill. In addition, if you just get rid of that lone crossbow dude with someone else, Naesala has nothing to fear for the rest of the level aside from archers, which 2-3RKO him and have maybe 40 display hit. As for the desert, Naesala simply out-mobilizes everyone, so his durability is of no concern unless you’re making really careless moves.

You're saying that a 20-30% chance of dying is bad, yet you go on about a near-fatal (58 damage if I recall correctly) bowgun attack that doesn't even let Naesala take another attack before dying? And shrugging it off as almost nothing?

If I did my math right, though, Naesala can be taken down easily by one of the Snipers, or a Bow Paladin, as well as the Crossbow Warrior. The Snipers have about a 78% chance of hitting him once since there are at least three bow users past that chokepoint.

So? That doesn’t make Reyson any less valuable if you choose to use him. Reyson would get a slight negative for taking a better unit’s slot, but he destroys that negative by being made of pure, un-distilled win.

Actually, you're probably beating that chapter in 3 turns with or without Reyson. Reyson's only there for two turns, and everyone else is taking a bunch of counters to make that 3 turns possible - Rafiel is giving four units vigor right when the chapter begins, so he's taking out a better unit's slot that does much more in three turns than he can.

Plus, Reyson has much better move and durability than Rafiel, so it’s not indisputable that Rafiel’s being used even if you’re aiming for really low turn counts. He has 7 move with celerity whereas Reyson has 8 without when transformed, and Rafiel can get ORKOed by long range tomes, in addition to not having canto, so he’s much more of a defensive liability than Reyson.

I'm trying to recall where the long range tomes generally are... he can Canto a bow user (Shinon) or Hand Axe Haar or something to take out what I SUSPECT is the first one, whereas he can Canto Tibarn to take out where I suspect is the second one.

Good luck Vykan, I had a pleasurable time debating with you.

(Also Haar > Reyson)

Edited January 17, 2009 by Nathan Graves

[Vykan12]

3-5 - small enough map that it doesn't matter who Reyson gets to and who he doesn't.

3-5 is not a small map by any means, though I don’t feel like counting out the dimensions of the level to prove my point. I guess you meant it’s small to play defensively since then you’re just limiting yourself to within the confines of the castle, but I think it’s just as likely you’d go at the enemies aggressively, especially if, say, you want Lombroso’s energy drop or want to end the map quickly.

It allots them more player phase attacks, pretty much. Haar can easily cross the ridges, whereas Oscar and Titania and them have to go around while suffering move penalties from grass. It's not too big a disadvantage but... Haar still has an easier time.

Enemies are coming from every side of the map except the North, so Reyson’s undoubtedly helping someone, if not numerous people, to get enemy phase exposure.

3-6 - Haar and the Hawks and Reyson are the only things that can move here. :/

3-6 is a Dawn Brigade map so I’ll assume you meant 3-7. Believe it or not, plenty of people can get fairly far in various ways, though mainly by having your 3 fliers do lots of ferrying. It’s really only Oscar, Titania and maybe Gatrie + Brom who can’t do much of anything here, but even staying on the northeast island, they can take care of reinforcement wyverns. So, pretty much everyone’s getting some action, and Reyson’s doing what he does best.

3-8 - Haar's movement is the same as everyone else's. I think your argument holds most water here, with the fact that Haar is about the same as a foot soldier.

Indeed, this means that aside from non-heron laguz, Reyson has the best move on the team, so keeping up isn’t a concern for him, which bodes well for vigor strategies.

3-10 - allows him to switch between taking out Purge Bishops and going north against the bosses cavalry pretty easily. Everyone else has to go around the trees.

Going around the trees, so to speak, isn’t a concern since the distance to reaching the northeast enemies is the same regardless. The only advantage raw flying gives is going south to north across the trees, but most of the enemies aren’t situated in the middle of the map, so it’s more of a defensive maneuver than anything.

3-F has an early chokepoints Haar can fly over. The rest I'll give you.

K.

4-2 and 4-5 have a lot of terrain that your foot units are slowed down a TON in.

Then again, you have Elincia, Tibarn and possibly pplz like Jill and Tanith who are doing fine. Also, I don’t think beast laguz suffer movement penalty in 4-2 grass patches, and Ranulf is forced.

Typically your units can't reach enemy units sooner than Haar.

And Reyson helps Haar reach enemies sooner. Really, the better your combat units are, the better Reyson is looking because he’s feeding off the performance of the people he’s helping to re-move.

I'm not saying it's a good thing either, I'm saying that it can easily be recovered from. Vulneraries heal 20 so he can pop one every turn, retreat to Leanne (who can revitalize both him and Elincia), and then come back and kill another enemy. Elincia can heal him or Brom or something in the meantime, or Elincia can use the Physic on him, get Vigored, and then use it on Brom.

Yeah sure, he has ways to work around bad criticals or damaging mage hits, but a good chunk of your GM frontliners don’t really ever have this concern. Ike has nice def, a +5 def bonus from Ragnell and wtfavoid from supports, Oscar also has amazing avoid and later sol, Gatrie is like impossible to kill without a hammer and even someone slightly more mediocre pplz like Brom or Mordecai don’t really have these concerns.

Reyson can't be Vigoring all the time, either.

He doesn’t even need to. Look at where dancers like Lara, Ninian/Nils, FE9 Reyson and Tethys are ranked in their respective games, and they cannot remotely compare to Reyson’s abilitites.

Haar can easily attack while ferrying--Savior basically comes in the chapter you get Haar, so giving it to him works.

He could, but that involves taking savior from other people, which is okay in itself I guess but compounds with him taking BEXP and possibly a speedwing, none of which Reyson asks for. The only thing he ever has to compete for are laguz stones whereas Haar has to compete for means of exp gain, stat boosters, special weapons, healing services, etc etc.

Also, Reyson can save you from situations where you’d need savior. Generally you rescue someone who is in danger of dying but if you can just vigor them, that unit can retreat, or take a concoction, or perhaps you vigor Mist and have her use a physic heal.

But Haar's above the average unit!

If Reyson is 2-3 times better than the average unit, he might only be, say, 1.2 times better than Haar, but the assertion still remains that he’s better.

Now seriously, the 3-4 people he might let attack probably can't take counters all that well either (in order for this to be true, you have to be vigoring something like Gatrie, Ike, or Oscar with A Ike). Haar can take them pretty well and has this hit and run thing going on - something only Titania and Oscar have access to at any rate.

People in the GMs who can’t take counters? You’re kidding, right?

Durable people in the GMs

Ike

Titania (particularly after supports and when in third tier)

Oscar (again, after supports, which are lightning quick in this game)

Shinon (43 hp, 20 def and 78 avo on a sniper is hilarious win)

Gatrie

Haar

Brom

Mordecai

Kyza (55 hp and 20 def isn’t half bad)

Ranulf

Janaff

Ulki

Whoever’s left has more questionable durability, but people like Kieran or Lethe certainly don’t have the fail durability of a unit like Fiona.

Part 4 is a little more hilarious because of all the royals you get, particularly in 4-E when you can have them all together, plus deploying your 10 best units will likely all be very durable units.

Haar can easily one round Ludveck, because he can easily reach 22 Speed and has a 100% guaranteed chance of hitting him with a Hammer. He does 38x2, which makes him most efficient here.

On top of that, the only actual thing that poses a threat to Haar down there - a Thunder Sage. Everything else is a HUGE threat to Elincia. And Haar's the one that can clear the way for Elincia, or take out Ludveck without letting Elincia worry about it.

Ok fine, you got me. There’s not much Elincia can do about the bottom having 2 archers and a crossbow unit, at least within the first 4-5 turns, so point taken.

I concur actually, although Elincia's defense is still shaky against enemies - Warriors are the only things she can dodge somewhat well, if at all.

What makes you say that? Warriors only average say, 10 less hit than most other units, and there’s no weapon triangle on hard mode. You’re also underestimating Elincia’s avoid, though I’m too lazy to bring up the numbers at this point.

Callil doesn't double him nor does she do much with Meteor. Haar is perfectly capable of it and does loads with a Hammer.

That hammer guy is pretty far away, so even if it take Calill 3 turns to kill the hammer dood, who cares? She’s not exactly going to be frontlining or healing, so she has nothing better to do than to fit in some safe attacks that help your units survive.

Ike's speed is just fine. 24 base with 35% growth isn't bad at all, considering how 27 speed is plenty before promotion.

23 base actually, and he only averages 26 speed at 20/20, which is pretty mediocre. You need at least 30 speed to double anything consistently in 4-4 on normal mode, so you can see that Ike is skating on a slippery slope with his spd. If even the slightest spd screwage occurs, his offense suffers tremendously. Though even if it didn’t, Ike gets a better shot at doubling swordsmasters, bosses, etc, so he cannot be overlooked for the speedwing just because he has good base speed.

Titania's speed base is better than Haar's, and her Speed up helps her as much as it helps Haar. They're both equally entitled, aside from the fact that Haar gets it earlier and not using it earlier means you lose +2 speed for the longer time.

So you’re openly admitting that Titania has almost a 50/50 chance to take the speedwing from Haar… that’s just one GM cutting Haar’s odds at the stat booster rather heftily, and you didn’t make any counter towards my mentioning Rolf, Boyd and Mordecai wanting one as well, and those were just a couple examples.

And while it can be argued that you can use the 2-3 Speedwing on a Crimean Knight - you can, but using the Speedwing on Haar benefits you for more chapters. He has far better availability so the +2 Speed exists for much longer, therefore using it on Haar is a larger benefit.

Yeah, that’s a waste since the CRKs fail at life. Do note that in 2-E, Haar still has to compete with Neph, Brom and Mordy for that speedwing if you’re looking to use it immediately but also effectively.

Sex with Jill is only wrong when she's a loli in FE9. But she's a full grown woman in those three years between 9 and 10, so it's perfectly acceptable. Because Jill is sexy now.

Nah, that just makes it legal, but the age discrepancy still makes it gross.

Celerity Haar is a better option.

My point stands. In 3-5 (and in general), using Reyson and not Haar > using Haar and not Reyson, and as far as I’m concerned that’s one valid platform on which to measure a unit’s worth.

If you're talking about the western units, Haar can reach them a lot easier than your units can, even with Reyson's help.

No, the ones directly south, as in just east of where the BK is sitting. Also, I think you meant without Reyson’s help, otherwise you just gave me a freebie.

Enemies are underleveled? 24 AS Swordmasters (with Zihark probably having 25ish AS), 20 AS Snipers, 20-21 AS Warriors, and 20 AS Halberdiers. Ike and Mia are the only ones doubling them, though pretty much everyone else is able to double Sages and Generals.

This is 3-7 we’re talking about, your units have had 5 chapters to level up, and each unit is likely getting at least one level per chapter. So, let’s look at who can really double:

20/7 Neph

Base level Lethe

Ike

20/20/1 Titania

20/17-18 Oscar

Base level Shinon

Gatrie (if crowned)

Mia

Ranulf

The hawks

20/11 Rolf

That’s quite a lot more than 2 people who are doubling :)

At best they can one round the sages and bishops, but against these guys they're two rounding and potential three rounding (if you get unlucky enough). Of course, Haar will be two rounding but he's off doing stuff against Wyverns anyway.

You’re vastly underestimating the offensive capabilities of the GMs here. Titania ORKOes wyverns at base strength with a steel poleax, as does Janaff. Then you have wyrmslayers available for ppl like Ike and Mia, and one adept floating around, and some killer/brave weapons you carted from the CRKs. Giving Shinon a killer bow, he has 68-70% crit in 2 hits, and more than 75% when besides Rolf. I could continue, but I think I made my point at showing how you were underestimating the team’s doubling potential.

I think Jesus is a pretty cool guy, eh died for our sins and doesn't afraid of anything.

Here, I have a

for you.

If Reyson Vigors Haar that one turn, then you have the most annoying threat in the chapter eliminated. 80% hit rate is nothing to fuck around with.

If you mean saving Elincia from getting mauled, then anyone with 9 move can perform the same function. And again, you almost seem oblivious to the fact that Haar depending on Reyson for that function is as much, if not more of a point for him than it is for Haar.

His only competition in that chapter would be something like Tibarn and the underleveled units you're probably going to bring that aren't forced with others.

You can’t assume that we’re piling on all your weaklings onto team 3 so they can power level in 4-5. If that was our prerogative, why put Haar on that route in the first place?

In other words, people he was already beating near the end of Part III and can still have a chance to get ahead of, because terrain penalty is massive in Tibarn's chapters.

Pretty sure I countered this already. You have 2 forced fliers (Elincia,Tibarn) and 2 forced laguz (Reyson, Ranulf), in addition to whatever other mobile units you chose to bring along. The terrain isn’t that big of an impediment, though even assuming it is, it’s not stopping Reyson, so he’s just being more useful in getting your slowpokes to keep up than he might normally be.

Then again, a 4 turn finish is not ideal - your units don't get the EXP they're in Tibarn's route to obtain.

That’s not countering the second sentence, which stated “Or, if you’re willing to reap the chapter for some exp, Reyson is netting you plenty of ranged attacks against those deadly tigers.”

It matters little how much of an issue you've had, because their doubling Reyson is, on top of being risky (due to shoddy defense), also takes away about a turn of Vigoring. They may not be the most common, but they can break past your defense and go onto Reyson if you screw up... and you can't assume everything is perfect.

If hawks and ravens are getting past your defensive line, then so are tigers and cats since they have the same move, just that they can’t fly across trees and rivers. At that point, I question how you can even beat the chapter with such an approach, much less use Reyson and Haar.

You're saying that a 20-30% chance of dying is bad, yet you go on about a near-fatal (58 damage if I recall correctly) bowgun attack that doesn't even let Naesala take another attack before dying? And shrugging it off as almost nothing?

The difference is Naesala has a way to work around this flaw that doesn’t involve any major resource consumption or detouring. For Haar to eliminate risk from mage attacks, he either needs spirit water or nullify, though more likely both, whereas Naesala just has to avoid a single enemy in 4-P and use his mobility properly in 4-3.

If I did my math right, though, Naesala can be taken down easily by one of the Snipers, or a Bow Paladin, as well as the Crossbow Warrior. The Snipers have about a 78% chance of hitting him once since there are at least three bow users past that chokepoint.

The snipers only do about 30-35 damage to him, so if a sniper hits him, he can still take on anything else that comes at him in a given turn. Also, Naesala won’t face many bow threats going north so long as someone takes out that bowgun ***hole.

Actually, you're probably beating that chapter in 3 turns with or without Reyson. Reyson's only there for two turns, and everyone else is taking a bunch of counters to make that 3 turns possible - Rafiel is giving four units vigor right when the chapter begins, so he's taking out a better unit's slot that does much more in three turns than he can.

3 turning 4-E-1? I’d hardly think so. Anything below 4-5 turns involves massive luck manipulation, which you can’t really assume applies for hard mode. And I stand by my comment that Rafiel’s crap move and durability will hurt his flexibility of use enough that Reyson is competitive even in a low turn count setting.

Ike: D’oh, we forgot about that general with the tempest blade

General: I got really *****y accuracy with my 55 hit weapon but I still pwn joo!

Rafiel: Nooooo! *dies in 1 hit*

General: Whoa… that was about as difficult as ripping a paper towel in half.

Reset

Ike: Dang it, there’s a bolting dude up there.

Sage: The power of thundah compels you!

Rafiel: Gaaah *gets doubled and dies*

Ike: Why the hell did I bring this walking tissue in the first place?

I'm trying to recall where the long range tomes generally are... he can Canto a bow user (Shinon) or Hand Axe Haar or something to take out what I SUSPECT is the first one, whereas he can Canto Tibarn to take out where I suspect is the second one.

Neither of those would work. Shinon cannot target the bolting sage from the middle area even with 3 range and Tibarn cannot take out the blizzard sage since he is on a lone tile, meaning you can only attack him at 2 range.

Good luck Vykan, I had a pleasurable time debating with you.

The feeling’s mutual.

(Also Haar <<< Reyson)

Fix’d for accuracy.

Edited January 17, 2009 by Vykan12

[Vykan12]

So, 3 posts each, does that mean it's judging time nao?

[Lord Raven]

Yeh

I enjoyed your gift.

Edited January 18, 2009 by Nathan Graves

[Florete]

Sex with Jill is only wrong when she's a loli in FE9. But she's a full grown woman in those three years between 9 and 10, so it's perfectly acceptable. Because Jill is sexy now.

I liked that part ^_^

It was pretty close, and I'm not a judge (don't know where they are either....), but if I had a vote I'd probably give it to Vykan. But Nathan also did pretty well.

[Mekkah]

I'm voting vykan, I don't know if I even need to explain why.

[Lord Raven]

can I have some critique btw? this only my second "official" debate so

[Interceptor]

I'm not one of those fancy-pants judges, but what I lack in robes, funny wigs, and forum credentials I make up for 1) visibly existing, and 2) having something substantial to say. Some things that I noticed that you could have done differently, and therefore took away from your argument:

Comparing their stats directly is sort of superfluous, since they fill different roles. But the stats are not completely irrelevant, because of durability considerations. Raisin requires protection. Sometimes it's a non-issue, like as described in 3-7, because enemies are more easily avoided without making any sort of special walls for Raisin, and having Canto helps, but in any other case where there's a threat in range that he can't escape from, you need to contort your front line for him. It's fair to say Vigor justifies it, but it reduces the net efficiency that it gives, aka Raisin's advantage over Haar.

In my opinion, you didn't really lean on Raisin's durability enough. That's the big chink in his armor.

The other thing was Raisin's EXP gain. It's true that he has his own EXP pool, but that's nothing amazing, and in fact it's a downside for him, because he has no access to staff CEXP and laughable killing power. Getting 10 EXP per Vigor isn't going to level him up very quickly, especially when he is burning turns with stones and grass. You let Vykan get away with claiming that Raisin could refill laguz gauges, when he needs 15 levels past his base to do something like that. Not gonna happen without abuse or BEXP. I also don't have complete stats for HM enemies since I stopped gathering them at 3-10, but Raisin has 22 AS transformed and only a 20% SPD growth: I think that chances are he's looking at getting doubled by something more significant than a 4-5 Raven as Endgame approaches, even when transformed.

WRT Endgame, you sandbagged Haar's Endgame performance by not mentioning how well he does with Brave weapons. He doesn't double? Who cares, he has a 38 STR tier 3 cap, which is enough to penetrate the DEF of Endgame targets with a Brave Lance/Axe, especially when you throw in something like an ATK support or Blood Tide. Urvan is not really a useful weapon for Haar in Endgame, and belongs in the hands of someone with 34+ SPD (aka, a Reaver). His RES is a problem, but it's a fixable one, and flying + Canto is as valuable in Endgame as it is anywhere else. You handed Endgame away too easily, I think.

Then there's availibility, which looks like you forgot to counter, since you quoted Vykan but said nothing about it. Haar's availablity advantage over Raisin is significant and undeniable. Vykan brought up Ilyana, but you parried that pretty deftly by pointing out that Haar is an incredible unit and Ilyana is not. It would have been better if you followed up by asserting that Raisin's contribution in the Haar chapters where he is missing are effectively 0%. You argued that Haar has about 15 chapters to Raisin's 9, you could have made the additional argument that if all chapters were considered equal, Raisin would need to be, say, ~67% better than Haar in their shared chapters in order to tie game, after considering mitigating factors (like how good Haar is in comparison to other GMs, and Raisin's durability, etc).

The last thing is numbers. This is a personal bias, but you could have put in more enemy comparisons. I think it would be persuasive to illustrate exactly how badass Haar really is compared to the other GMs, as least when given reasonable resource access in the form of a Speedwing. He is most certainly not an "average" unit, unless your bar is set at "Jesus". That sort of dovetails into the availibility argument.

If this post seems critical, it's because you asked for a critique. :P I think it was good argument for Haar, all things considered. Haar vs. Raisin is sort of doomed to begin with, after all.

[Lord Raven]

EDIT: second thought, I'm pretty sure the only thing I can effectively take from that is brave axe lol, thanks for trying but the rest was pretty much a losing battle

arguing durability = questioning its point

arguing level = questioning its point once again

availability = reyson wins, performing much better for the less time he's in

enemy comparisons = not necessary, I think I refuted Titania comparisons and Ike is definitely better than Haar

Edited January 30, 2009 by Nathan Graves

[Interceptor]

I agree, personally I think that Raisin is a bridge too far for Haar. But, I figure, if you're going to lose, you might as well make it as close a battle as possible, by making the fullest argument that you are able, with whatever wedges you can latch on to. ;)