Mekkah (Kieran) vs Reikken (Danved)

[Vykan12]

Danved is certainly not Devdan, though Kieran would like a say in the matter.

[Mekkah]

keeping this a lil' short for now, mkay

I Have A Horse And You Don't

The first thing you will notice is that Danved, Devdan, Nadved and all his other forms cannot ride a horse, whereas Kieran can. This gives Kieran a pretty significant advantage in flexibility. Two more movement and Canto, which allows him to reach enemies earlier, be in support range more often, allow others to be in support range more often, etc etc. And move advantages compound over turns, since Kieran gains 2 every time both use their full move, and then with enemies in the way Kieran can kill something then move on, while Devdan is stuck in place.

Combat At Base

Nao, for battle stats at base, for all they're worth.

9 Ndadev

Iron Lance: 24 atk, 21 AS -- 60 avo, 39 hp, 15 def, 12 res

11 Kieran

Iron Axe: 29 atk, 20 AS -- 56 avo, 41 hp, 18 def, 11 res

The main difference comes from Kieran doing 5 more damage per blow, and having 2 hp/3 def wins. Veddan's leads are all "who cares", like 1 AS, 4 avo and 1 res. I don't think I have to elaborate on why those leads are rather useless.

Future Development

Now, let's see how things will change growths-wise:

atk - 60% Kieran, 40% Danved

AS - 30% Kieran, 45% Danved

avo - 90% Kieran, 150% Danved

hp - 75% for both

def - 60% Kieran, 45% Danved

res - 25% for both

So as things progress, Kieran's atk/def leads will increase, as will Devdan's avo/AS leads. But his avo lead is compromised largely by Kieran gaining more avo from supports, so it will never really be a significant gap. And then Biorhythm fucks it up some more. The atk difference was large to begin with, and Devdan can only catch up by like 3 points at max (if he gets an Atk support and Kieran doesn't). For AS, the gap is only 1 to start, and widens by one every 6-7 levels or so, so again it's hardly significant.

Now, you could argue Devdan gets an offense lead later, but Kieran will always be mightily superior defensively, and defense > offense. You can trade defense for offense, by exposing yourself to more enemies than someone with less defense could do, or needing to retreat and heal less than someone with less defense. And when Kieran has to do this, it takes less time, since he has Canto and more move. Which brings me to another point: if Kieran reaches enemies a turn earlier than Devdan, and he 2-rounds while Devdan 1-rounds, the enemy is dead at the same time, so who cares? And then Canto allows Kieran to get into better positioning for Vigoring which increases his offense as well.

Data Transfer Stuff

Then there's the point of Data Transfers. First, Devdan is a rather shitty unit in POR, whereas Kieran is Top tier (again, I don't feel the need to elaborate on this when not needed, but if you contest it I will), so it is more likely that when playing POR you will be using Kieran than that you'll be using Davden. Or, in another way, it hurts your efficiency more in POR to play through with Kieran than with Denvad.

Anyway, chances to cap, pulled from here: http://www.serenesforest.net/fe9/cap_chance.html

Kieran has 65% chance to cap Str, 50% for Skl, and 7% for Def. Devdan has...33% chance to cap Str and that's it, with everything else being insignificantly low. So that makes Kieran lead in Atk even more, most notably, and sometimes in Def.

Kieran also has a 25% chance to cap Spd the way he is, and then there's the Knight Ward. He only needs 13 Spd level-ups out of the 27 he has, and Knight Ward effectively gives him 70% Spd growth when he has it. With BEXP the way it is in PoR, Kieran's chance to cap Spd with Knight Ward is pretty much a guarantee.

Coinidentally, Devdan only needs 13 Spd level-ups too with the thing, but he only has 65% growth with the Knight Ward, and only 16 level-ups, so his chances suck a lot more.

[Reikken]

<_________<

Indeed the first thing noticed is that Kieran is riding a horse while Danved is not. Fortunately, horsies are pretty well-balanced in this game (as opposed to being OP'd like in PoR). Having a horse brings several advantages, which you were quick to point out, but it also brings just as many disadvantages.

First of all, units on horses cannot shove. Shoving has quite a few uses. Of course there's the moving around an ally unit, to allow it to reach a target or to get it away from something or whatever. Then there are a few other not-so-obvious uses. Shoving a sleeping ally gets it awake faster. This is especially nice for units like Ike, who is incredibly awesome, so you want him awake at all times, but he has terrible res, so he's very prone to being sleep'd. Also, shoving builds supports. Whenever there's nothing worthwhile to attack, you can get those supports built up quicker (an example of something not worthwhile is 2 enemies in range and 8 characters to kill them with). Building supports is especially an issue for Danved and Kieran because they don't meet up with Ike's group until only two chapters are left before part 4, and there aren't many worthwhile units in the Cremean Royal Knights group to support with.

Then in addition to not being able to shove, it's also nearly impossible for a mounted unit to be shoved.

Then mounted units get movement disadvantages as well. One is additonal terrain penalties. It takes 3 move to cross thickets instead of 2. Pass through two of those, and he doesn't have any mov lead at all. Pass through three, and Danved has 1 left over for crossing a plains tile, while Kieran does not. For crossing it either before or after, too (or midway through). If Danved starts a turn with an open tile between him and a patch of undergrowth, he can cross that tile and then proceed to move 3 into the thickets. Kieran in the same situation can only move in 2, and thus has to waste another three move to make up for lost ground before continuing on. Then in the desert, a unit on horseback has 1 move, while a foot unit such as Danved has 2. 2 is only 1 better than 1, but it's also twice as much as 1, meaning foot units don't fail completely there, but horse-mounted units do.

Then there's the main things that set this apart from PoR: Indoor maps reduce the move of mounted units by 2. And more importantly, some terrain is completely impassable to mounted units but can be crossed by foot units. Most notable are gaps. Height differences. Danved can climb up or down a gap and be on his way, while Kieran has to go around the long way, assuming much a path even exists at all. Additionally, there is water. Foot units can cross water, while horse-riding units cannot. Indeed, there are some places accessible to foot units that horse units can't reach even given all the time in the world. And I'm not talking about useless places, either. I mean places with enemy units and such.

There are also a few horse-slaying weapons, which pose a huge threat when they pop up because of the tripled mt. A Horeslayer has 36 mt against a horsie (and 12 against a footie). Probably not quite enough to kill Kieran in one hit, but enough that he'll go down from a hit from that and anything else or will be OHK'd if he took any unhealed damage previously.

Now, for stats and such, you left out a few things, such has hit, crit, and crit avoid. And of course, Danved has leads in all three. And all of them matter. Yes, even crit avo is important in this game.

2-3's enemies are made of suck and fail, most being one-rounded easily by either of our two characters and not posing any kind of threat either. Also, Danved gains about 3~5 exp from killing one, while Kieran gains 1-2.

Here's an example of one: HP 34, Atk 28, AS 15, Hit 111, Avo 38, DEF 10, RES 4, Crit 7, Ddg 8

At base, assuming iron poleaxe/greatlance, and after Geoff's authority stars...

Kieran: 33.0 atk, 20.0 AS, 136.0 hit, 9.8 crit - - 71.0 avo, 41.0 hp, 18.0 def, 11.0 res, 16.0 critavo

Danved: 28.0 atk, 21.0 AS, 154.0 hit, 16.3 crit - - 75.0 avo, 39.0 hp, 15.0 def, 12.0 res, 18.0 critavo

The promoted ones suck less but are also much rarer.

2-E they won't see much action in due to joining incredibly late.

3-9 is their first major chapter. The first thing I notice about this chapter is that it has lots of gaps. 5 of them iirc. Then the shortest path that Kieran can take to the boss and that area (the highest height level) goes through a 3-deep patch of thicket (The shortest path for Danved goes across a gap). Riding a horse is not looking so great.

Now, there are two paragon scrolls in this group, so they'll be leveling up during the chapter. And Danved might have gained a level before it. Kieran is less likely to have done so. Enemy AS in this chapter ranges from 18 to 23, so when Danved gains a point of spd, he starts doubling things. Against things neither doubles, Kieran can do more damage, but only at the cost of having unreliable hit. Ch 3-9 enemies have about 52-60 avo (+10 if on a thicket). Dropping to iron, his hit is almost as good as Danved's (151 at base lv), but his atk is almost no better (29 at base). Danved with steel great has liek 2 more atk and only 2 less hit than that. Also, Danved has real crit rates on everything, while Kieran doesn't. That looks to be overall pretty even on offense.

On defense, 3 def > 4 avo, of course, but almost half this chapter's enemies have 20-21 crit. Kieran will be taking about twice as many crits. Or more. Danved has a 60% luck growth to Kieran's 30%, so he's likely to reach crit immunity to at least some of them before the chapter ends.

3-11 and 3-F are kinda similar except

Danved's AS lead has increased, so he's doubling even more

Kieran's atk lead has increased

Kieran's def lead has increased

Danved's avo lead has increased (by 4 times as much, so that they're about equivalent increases

And there are fewer terrain disadvantages, so Kieran's mountedness is helpful rather than hurtful. But he still can't be running ahead or anything like that, or else he'll be getting killed. He can't do what he used to be able to do in PoR. Throw in 3-11's pitfalls, further limiting his movement.

Neither has anything even close to a decisive win.

Moving on to part 4...

20/2 Danved, steel greatlance, A with null affinity

39.8 atk, 28.4 AS, 159.8 hit, 23.9 crit+(28.3%) - - 82.0 avo, 49.8 hp, 22.4 def, 19.0 res, 25.2 critavo

20/3 Kieran, steel poleaxe, A with null affinity

45.2 atk, 25.3 AS, 140.1 hit, 12.9 crit+(13.2%) - - 77.9 avo, 50.5 hp, 26.6 def, 17.8 res, 19.3 critavo

Devdan's offensive advantage is pretty huge now. His AS is now quite good, and he has a lot of crit. At neutral bio, doubling an enemy that has 18 luck, he has a 54.5% chance of crit/Impale, at least assuming hit isn't an issue. Kieran's is 24.7%,,, assuming he doubles, which he isn't likely to do, and assuming he hits, which he has issues with. Enemies have ~65 avoid in the first chapter of part 4. More in all others.

On defense, 4 def is kinda nice--better than 4 avo--, but that 19 crit avo is going to give him a lot of trouble. Snipers, halberdiers, and swordmasters all have boosted crit. Halberdiers have about 22 or so at first, rising fairly rapidly in later chapters (70% skl growth--more than twice Kieran's luck growth). Snipers about 28 and rising (90%! skl growth), and swordmasters about 33 (85%). So enemy crit rate is rising slightly on Kieran and dropping relatively quickly on Danved. Also, swordmasters are fast enough that Kieran is likely getting doubled. A lv 9 one (4-1 and 4-2 features enemies up to lv 9) has about 29 AS, and it has over twice Kieran's spd growth (80%), so the likelyhood of being doubled only increases. (Thankfully for Danved, other enemies are much slower, so he can still double them pretty well. A 20/7 Halberdier has about 22 AS, for example. [18 class base + 60% spd growth])

All that considered, Danved is better off defensively as well.

Then all paths of part 4 have terrain issues going against Kieran's horse. Micaiah's has the desert; Ike's has an indoor map with lots of gaps; Tibarn's has loads of thickets and water.

So they're pretty close in part 3, but then in part 4, Kieran gets floored. Danved is clearly better.

[Mekkah]

Having a horse brings several advantages, which you were quick to point out, but it also brings just as many disadvantages.

I daresay, however, that the advantages >>> the disadvantages.

First of all, units on horses cannot shove. Shoving has quite a few uses.

Of course, shoving is useful. But the first problem with your essay is that that advantage is not there for Danved in 2-3 (since every unit besides him is mounted), and the same applies in 2-F until after he caught up.

Then in part 3, the problem is that his shoving feature simply isn't unique enough to have a lot of value. If I need someone to move one extra space, and Devdan was the only one who could shove, that'd be a huge edge for Devdan. But since I have 328902380923 people available who could shove, even have room for some fillers who might not have anything better to do, then who cares? Kieran's mountedness is fairly unheard of among the Greil Mercs. You have Titania/Haar, and then some more iffy choices like Oscar and Marcia. And Hawks, but they can shove too. Meanwhile, the list of dudes who can shove is like...Ike/Shinon/Gatrie/Ranulf/Mia/Mist and then more iffy people like Boyd and Rhys and Soren.

Shoving a sleeping ally gets it awake faster. This is especially nice for units like Ike, who is incredibly awesome, so you want him awake at all times, but he has terrible res, so he's very prone to being sleep'd.

Just buy a Restore Staff at the base, problem solved. Enemies using Sleep is a very rare phenomenon, and this way you get (W)EXP for your healer + only need to use up one unit's turn. If your healer is too far away, I suppose Kieran can help to form a rescue train in some way or another to solve it faster. Davden really has no claim on this one.

Also, shoving builds supports.

Being next to each other also builds supports, and Kieran's higher move + Canto allows him to be next to his support partner more often than Denvad. It even allows him and his support partner to attack the same enemy without needing 1-2 range.

Then in addition to not being able to shove, it's also nearly impossible for a mounted unit to be shoved.

List of units worth a damn who can shove Danved's 18 wt but not Kieran's 36:

- untransformed Mordecai

- untransformed Skimrir

- transformed Ranulf

- transformed Ulki

- transformed Tibarn

- transformed Naesala

- transformed Volug

- transformed Caineghis

Interestingly, they all happen to be laguz, which means they pretty much _always_ have something better to do than shoving Denvad, either choking grass/stone/gem or attacking to use their hax move and stats while they can.

So this really isn't any kind of point for Devdan. Maybe if he wasn't so fat.

Then mounted units get movement disadvantages as well. One is additonal terrain penalties. It takes 3 move to cross thickets instead of 2. Pass through two of those, and he doesn't have any mov lead at all. Pass through three, and Danved has 1 left over for crossing a plains tile, while Kieran does not. For crossing it either before or after, too (or midway through). If Danved starts a turn with an open tile between him and a patch of undergrowth, he can cross that tile and then proceed to move 3 into the thickets. Kieran in the same situation can only move in 2, and thus has to waste another three move to make up for lost ground before continuing on.

And if there is even one enemy in the way anywhere there, Kieran violently reverses that mobility gap by being able to use move after killing said enemy, making this a very null point in retrospect.

Then there's the main things that set this apart from PoR: Indoor maps reduce the move of mounted units by 2.

That ties their movement, but indoor maps also don't have any bushes to go through, and Kieran still has Canto.

Then for stuff like desert/water, pretty much everyone who isn't sleeping with an eyepatch on has hell loads of trouble with that, including Devdan, meaning advancing is unlikely to get you to enemies in a faster time than them coming to you. When playing efficiently, the player is much more likely to use Janaff/Ulki/Haar/Jill to scrape up the immobilized enemies rather than letting Devdan struggle there with his existent-but-still-crippled movement to win a debate on the internet.

There are also a few horse-slaying weapons, which pose a huge threat when they pop up because of the tripled mt. A Horeslayer has 36 mt against a horsie (and 12 against a footie). Probably not quite enough to kill Kieran in one hit, but enough that he'll go down from a hit from that and anything else or will be OHK'd if he took any unhealed damage previously.

Those are so rare that Kieran can avoid facing them with little to no loss in flexibility at all. He just has to trade roles/positions with someone not Horseslayer weak for one turn before that enemy is routed.

So when having a horse is a disadvantage, it is an extremely small one, whereas when it is an advantage, it is extremely convenient (why this is is in my first post).

2-3's enemies are made of suck and fail, most being one-rounded easily by either of our two characters and not posing any kind of threat either.

Which means Kieran wins overall, since he is advancing faster than Devdan.

3-9 is their first major chapter. The first thing I notice about this chapter is that it has lots of gaps. 5 of them iirc. Then the shortest path that Kieran can take to the boss and that area (the highest height level) goes through a 3-deep patch of thicket (The shortest path for Danved goes across a gap). Riding a horse is not looking so great.

http://www.serenesforest.net/fe10/chapter3.html

Feel free to point out which routes you're talking about, because I'm not seeing it. Also, if Devdan climbs a gap, pretty much only Calill and her phail durability can accompany him. Which means he's bound to get swarmed and raped, and same for Calill, so she would rather go with the main group. So he goes through enemies slower than Kieran, who has the company of Geoffrey, Makalov, Astrid (who can hit-and-run at the very least to stop her from being exposed) and the NPCs who can do chip damage.

Oh, there's Marcia, but she can go anywhere she wants, and is not overly likely to accompany Devdan's "group" when she can be independently extinguishing fires, or actually be with the main group where she can kill enemies with group effort, and make use of her bond with Makalov.

Now, there are two paragon scrolls in this group, so they'll be leveling up during the chapter.

You can't swap around skillz during Part 2 in Hard Mode, so those will be staying on Geoffrey and Astrid for that time. Then in Part 3, Calill and Marcia definitely want to apply for those too, so that is in no way something that can be assumed.

And Danved might have gained a level before it.

By getting 20-30 kills in 2-3? Probably not. If he did, then so did Kieran - he gains slightly less EXP, but he has a much easier time exposing himself due to more mobility.

Against things neither doubles, Kieran can do more damage, but only at the cost of having unreliable hit. Ch 3-9 enemies have about 52-60 avo (+10 if on a thicket). Dropping to iron, his hit is almost as good as Danved's (151 at base lv), but his atk is almost no better (29 at base). Danved with steel great has liek 2 more atk and only 2 less hit than that.

Or, in other words, Kieran does more damage than Devdan either way with only 3 less hit, but he can choose to exchange hit for power when that's needed.

Also, Danved has real crit rates on everything, while Kieran doesn't. That looks to be overall pretty even on offense.

If enemy AS ranges from 18-23, and avo ranges from 52-60, with the boss having no authority, that'd mean they have enough luk to cancel out Devdan's crt (36-46 avo would be if they had 0 luk, so they'd need like 14 luk), meaning Devdan has like lol 2% crt on them at best. Worthless. On average, that's once in 50 battles, it will be like "Devdan critted so now I get to attack something else instead if I still have PCs and enemies leftover", and this is assuming Devdan wasn't doing a finishing blow to begin with. And then Kieran has a 5% crit bond with Geoffrey, and both have Canto so they can actually make use of it. Which also gives avo.

On defense, 3 def > 4 avo, of course, but almost half this chapter's enemies have 20-21 crit. Kieran will be taking about twice as many crits. Or more. Danved has a 60% luck growth to Kieran's 30%, so he's likely to reach crit immunity to at least some of them before the chapter ends.

Even if Devdan gains a point of luk while Kieran doesn't, it's still a mighty difference of 3 CEV. 4-5 crt on Kieran, 1-2 on Devdan. Like with your desert movement comparison, 200% of very very little is still very little. This is easily canceled out by the fact that when they get critted, Kieran's defense lead is magnified. Like a 25 atk enemy who crits either would do 21/41 to Kieran and 30/39 to Danved, and a 30 atk enemy would have Kieran surviving with 5 hp while Devdan dies.

Now, for part 3, it's as you said with AS/avo vs atk/def. With biorythm shaking up the former but not the latter, and neither of Devdan's AS/avo being as reliable and concrete as Kieran's leads to begin with, the situation only improves for Kieran.

And there are fewer terrain disadvantages, so Kieran's mountedness is helpful rather than hurtful. But he still can't be running ahead or anything like that, or else he'll be getting killed. He can't do what he used to be able to do in PoR.

It is now very much more helpful, and if you look at the first post, you see that he doesn't necessarily have to run way ahead of the group to put his mount to good use.

Throw in 3-11's pitfalls, further limiting his movement.

The player probably knows where pitfalls are located, and you have two forced fliers + Haar who can prevent others from falling down those. The bridge doesn't have any other kind of terrain, so while Devdan may win flexibility by a little bit when it comes to pitfalls (emphasis on little - all it means is someone can carry him out), Kieran is superior on every other tile on the map.

Neither has anything even close to a decisive win. Moving on to part 4...

No, Kieran definitely has a win going on in Part 2 and 3, which means Devdan has to really hax him up in the following parts to make up for it. Of course, from now on the gap between them and the team increased severely, and you get many more hax units in Part 4 to work with, like a royal on every route, plus Skimrir, Ragnell Ike, Amiti Elincia, etc. So they are much less likely to be fielded since they no longer are like 1/3 of your army, and they hurt your progress rather than helping it. So a win on these parts is much less significant.

Devdan's offensive advantage is pretty huge now. His AS is now quite good, and he has a lot of crit. At neutral bio, doubling an enemy that has 18 luck, he has a 54.5% chance of crit/Impale, at least assuming hit isn't an issue. Kieran's is 24.7%,,, assuming he doubles, which he isn't likely to do, and assuming he hits, which he has issues with. Enemies have ~65 avoid in the first chapter of part 4. More in all others.

It is kinda odd that you assume they have an A established at the start of Part 4, but whatever.

For Kieran having hit issues...~65 avo against 140 hit is still 87% real, which is just fine. And then a hit forge is surprisingly cheap for when it's needed.

Also, since both Devdan and Kieran are likely to be less powerful and durable than the other ppls you're fielding, they will probably be getting finishing blows on enemies that others weakened. This means Kieran's 4 atk lead is going to come in handy, since it can spell the difference between leaving an enemy alive or dead with one hit. If both or neither double, that makes it easier to set it up for them, and even if Devdan doubles, he likely has to take a counterattack.

Also, Kieran can use the Hammer for huge atk leads against Generals, which are common (39 mt vs, say, 14 of a Steel Great, plus Kieran still has his natural atk lead). And halfway through, Kieran probably gains access to using a Wyrmslayer as well (only has to go from C to B, which is 50 WEXP).

Also, you forgot to take Sol into account for Kieran (13% at neutral bio), so the chance of Kieran triggering either at neutral bio is more like 43%.

On defense, 4 def is kinda nice--better than 4 avo--, but that 19 crit avo is going to give him a lot of trouble.

If CEV is going to be trouble, Kieran has room for Fortune, which pretty much no one else gives anything about. Then, again you forgot to take Sol into account, which is basically a 13% chance every battle of restoring all HP lost in the process of enemy phase so far. As well as the earlier mentioned fact that crits magnify Kieran's def lead if they happen on both of them.

Then all paths of part 4 have terrain issues going against Kieran's horse. Micaiah's has the desert; Ike's has an indoor map with lots of gaps; Tibarn's has loads of thickets and water.

Aside from Tibarn's, the issues are only in one of the two maps, whereas in the other part 4 map, his mobility advantage over Devdan is pretty huge. And he is better defensively, plus has Canto to place himself better among other PCs, on beneficial terrain and in support range, as well as allowing both him and his partner to attack in support range on player phase. And then there's this for desert and stuff:

Then for stuff like desert/water, pretty much everyone who isn't sleeping with an eyepatch on has hell loads of trouble with that, including Devdan, meaning advancing is unlikely to get you to enemies in a faster time than them coming to you. When playing efficiently, the player is much more likely to use Janaff/Ulki/Haar/Jill to scrape up the immobilized enemies rather than letting Devdan struggle there with his existent-but-still-crippled movement to win a debate on the internet.

So basically, Kieran wins part 2 and 3 by pretty huge amounts. Devdan may or may not win offense in part 4 (it's pretty arguable), but he definitely loses defense forever, and part 4 also matters the least of their performance, so Kieran overall >>>

Edited February 12, 2009 by Mekkah

[Reikken]

"Which means Kieran wins overall, since he is advancing faster than Devdan."

True enough, except..

(merging the horseslayer point here instead of leaving it separate, since here is where it applies most)

...except one has a horseslayer, so the "not posing any kind of threat either" was a bit of a lie.

"Those are so rare that Kieran can avoid facing them with little to no loss in flexibility at all. He just has to trade roles/positions with someone not Horseslayer weak for one turn before that enemy is routed."

Not here. There are all of two player units not weak to the horseslayer on this map, and one is Danved. The other is Marcia, who is (very) weak to the two crossbows in the same general area as the horseslayer guy. Trade roles with someone? That someone is Danved.

Feel free to point out which routes you're talking about, because I'm not seeing it.

Here are marked the shortest paths for Danved and Kieran, in yellow and red respectively. Danved's path takes 13 tiles to meet up with Kieran's, while Kieran's takes 17 to meet. This is just path length, not counting how long it takes to cross those tiles.

Also, as you can see, the paths are rather narrow. They're not getting swarmed. And Calill's move sucks, so I daresay she would rather go the shorter route. That way is slightly better for others, too. Going the other way, you'd have to put Calill in the front (displacing someone else to a farther starting spot) to try to help her low move, or else she won't be doing any attacking for a bit. Additionally, that path through thickets between the houses is 1 tile wide, so unless you're going around (29 tiles), you get jammed up there a bit (certainly doesn't help Kieran's mobility), so the fewer guys going through there, the better.

Indeed Danved's crit is only 2-3 (unless you use that killer lance he starts with, and if you're not going to get the kill otherwise, you may as well). It's 7 against the soldiers, though, and he's also likely to double those, while Kieran is not.

And for those bond supports you mentioned, that only puts them on par with Danved, except that they also have less skl, so all but 0-1 points of that +5 crit is negated. Again, except against the soldiers.

"Or, in other words, Kieran does more damage than Devdan either way with only 3 less hit, but he can choose to exchange hit for power when that's needed."

Let's see... (at base lv):

Danved with steel great: 31.0 atk, 149.0 hit

Kieran with steel pole: 36.0 atk, 131.0 hit

Kieran with iron pole: 33.0 atk, 136.0 hit

Kieran with steel: 32.0 atk, 146.0 hit

So basically, yes. Each option is more or less equivalent, but Kieran has more significant options to choose from. That's his advantage.

And Danved's advantage is doubling low AS enemies and also crit.

Thus I say they're pretty close.

"You can't swap around skillz during Part 2 in Hard Mode, so those will be staying on Geoffrey and Astrid for that time. Then in Part 3, Calill and Marcia definitely want to apply for those too, so that is in no way something that can be assumed."

Sure, it can't be 100% assumed---almost nothing can---, but it's pretty likely. You have to be using both for him to have competition, and neither are particularly good.

"And if there is even one enemy in the way anywhere there, Kieran violently reverses that mobility gap by being able to use move after killing said enemy, making this a very null point in retrospect."

No. Kieran/Danved has to be the one landing the killing blow on the enemy for this to hold true. So sometimes, yes, but usually no.

"That ties their movement, but indoor maps also don't have any bushes to go through, and Kieran still has Canto."

Yes. Instead they have gaps, which are much worse (for Kieran).

Indeed lots of people can shove, but most of them suck at it. "Meanwhile, the list of dudes who can shove is like...Ike/Shinon/Gatrie/Ranulf/Mia/Mist and then more iffy people like Boyd and Rhys and Soren." How many of those can shove, say, Ike? Danved can, but of those, we have... Boyd, Gatrie, and... and that's it. Ranulf if he's transformed.

Even if Devdan gains a point of luk while Kieran doesn't, it's still a mighty difference of 3 CEV. 4-5 crt on Kieran, 1-2 on Devdan. Like with your desert movement comparison, 200% of very very little is still very little. This is easily canceled out by the fact that when they get critted, Kieran's defense lead is magnified. Like a 25 atk enemy who crits either would do 21/41 to Kieran and 30/39 to Danved, and a 30 atk enemy would have Kieran surviving with 5 hp while Devdan dies.

Now, for part 3, it's as you said with AS/avo vs atk/def. With biorythm shaking up the former but not the latter, and neither of Devdan's AS/avo being as reliable and concrete as Kieran's leads to begin with, the situation only improves for Kieran.

First of all, it's 300%. 4-5 is three times as much as 1-2. And fortunately for Danved, 30-atk crit enemies are much rarer and after a few level ups, half of them can't even crit him at all.

Also, as you may be aware, bexp levels favor higher growths. Luck is Danved's second highest growth, and spd is 3rd, tied with def, so using a bit of bexp to cap off his level after his part 2 exp increases his chances of getting that luck to negate crit and getting spd to DA.

As for the desert move thing, you say "When playing efficiently, the player is much more likely to use Janaff/Ulki/Haar/Jill to scrape up the immobilized enemies rather than letting Devdan struggle there with his existent-but-still-crippled movement to win a debate on the internet.", but you're getting the wrong idea. It's not like you're having those fliers sit back and watch Danved fight. They're going at it, too. Danvded is just helping. Danved (and others) take care of closer enemies (and the reinforcements that spawn relatively close by) so the fliers don't have to waste their time on it. They're then free to fly off and take care of business on distant parts of the map. The point is that Danved is much more able to help out than is Kieran. He can also further help people struggling to move around via shoving.

for atk/def/AS/avo, biorhythm shaking things up helps just as much as it hurts. In fact, I would say it helps more than it hurts. Devdan's avoid is generally not reliable; it's more of "Awesome, he dodged. Now I don't have to waste a turn healing him for next turn and/or hold him back because he's injured", but when bio is working in his favor, it is much more reliable.

Then AS...is quite concrete. You either DA that guy with 100% certainty, or you have a 0% chance of doing so. Just the same as with atk. You either have enough atk to get the kill, or you don't.

Now...

"Of course, from now on the gap between them and the team increased severely, and you get many more hax units in Part 4 to work with, like a royal on every route, plus Skimrir, Ragnell Ike, Amiti Elincia, etc. So they are much less likely to be fielded since they no longer are like 1/3 of your army, and they hurt your progress rather than helping it. So a win on these parts is much less significant."

On the contary, part 4 matters more (aside from 3-9), not less. Your party gets split three ways, meaning your good units are now spread more thinly, and you have lots of space to take other units. Contrast this with 3-11 (and 3-F to a slightly lesser extent), where all your GM h4x0rs are in the same place, and you don't even have enough room to field them all. They are much more likely to be fielded in part 4 (excluding endgame, which is very tight).

And Ragnell Ike exists the moment Danved/Kieran meets up with Ike, so that's a moot point. And Amiti Elincia is pretty meh at combat when she rejoins. Low str, and not enough spd to double except for Amiti's brave effect. It's that 65/70% str/spd growth that makes her good by endgame.

For Kieran having hit issues...~65 avo against 140 hit is still 87% real, which is just fine. And then a hit forge is surprisingly cheap for when it's needed.

Also, since both Devdan and Kieran are likely to be less powerful and durable than the other ppls you're fielding, they will probably be getting finishing blows on enemies that others weakened. This means Kieran's 4 atk lead is going to come in handy, since it can spell the difference between leaving an enemy alive or dead with one hit. If both or neither double, that makes it easier to set it up for them, and even if Devdan doubles, he likely has to take a counterattack.

Also, Kieran can use the Hammer for huge atk leads against Generals, which are common (39 mt vs, say, 14 of a Steel Great, plus Kieran still has his natural atk lead). And halfway through, Kieran probably gains access to using a Wyrmslayer as well (only has to go from C to B, which is 50 WEXP).

Also, you forgot to take Sol into account for Kieran (13% at neutral bio), so the chance of Kieran triggering either at neutral bio is more like 43%.

First of all, No, I did not forget Sol. Kieran's chance of activating a crit is zero. Enemies have luck. That chance I stated is for Sol alone. And it's for when he doubles, which he pretty much never does, so I'll restate it more accurately: 13%. Or rather, 11.3% because he only has that 87% real.

Btw, a hit forge is no less expensive than a mt forge. Then you can also do crit forges, or even just throw a killer lance at Danved. 4x damage (DA w/1 crit) is generally enough to score a kill on non-generals even with the weapon's low mt, and crit/Impale rates that high is pretty cool (78.2% for a 20/2 Danved at neutral bio doubling an enemy with 19 luck---getting close to that 87% chance).

Rather than finishing, they're likely weakening more often so that others get the kill exp because Danved and Kieran are likely not going to endgame. Especially Danved attacking first since he very often one-rounds the enemy outright.

Hammer has hueg atk on generals, yes. Danved doubles them, however, while Kieran does not (usually). And crit/Impale pwns them regardless. And while Hammer raeps Generals, Horseslayer raeps Paladins, which are even more common.

C to B isn't all that far, but doing it means attacking with a steel sword/iron blade several times when he could have been using a steel/silver poleaxe (6-8 mt diff, though the swords do have better hit, steel sword especially).

If CEV is going to be trouble, Kieran has room for Fortune, which pretty much no one else gives anything about. Then, again you forgot to take Sol into account, which is basically a 13% chance every battle of restoring all HP lost in the process of enemy phase so far. As well as the earlier mentioned fact that crits magnify Kieran's def lead if they happen on both of them.

Actually, lots of people have issues with critavo. Lowish luck is not unique at all. Zihark, Nephenee, Mia, Titania, Shinon, Haar, etc. all have meh to bad luck. Though Haar likely has enough def that it doesn't much matter.

And Fortune is gotten early on, when crit isn't an issue, and when few can even equip it, and it sells for a pretty penny, so it may not even exist anymore.

Even assuming it does exist, and someone else doesn't also want it, you can't use another skill with it on, and at this point in the game, you have tons of skills to throw around (3 Paragons, 3 Adepts, 3 Wraths, 2 Resolves, 2 Passes, etc.), so not being able to equip a skill is pretty substantial. They'll almost certainly have some sort of useful skill equipped.

Luck is just not a garbage stat like it is in other FEs.

Yeah, Sol helps. However, it doesn't activate ranged even if he does have a ranged weapon equipped, so that certainly doesn't help on those critty snipers. And swordmasters are harder for him to even hit in the first place. And 13 (or 11.3)% is very unreliable to begin with and sucks more against burst damage (crits).

Aside from Tibarn's, the issues are only in one of the two maps, whereas in the other part 4 map, his mobility advantage over Devdan is pretty huge.

One one map, he wins mobility substantially. On the other, he loses substantially. That's pretty even, like I said.

Now, I can't see how you can call the offense difference in part 4 arguable at all. High crit + fairly good AS >>>>> ...above average atk and meh hit. And that atk diff hardly matters at all anyway. You have to really suck to not do at least half the enemy's hp in a round. More damage is worthless when it doesn't get the enemy killed any faster.

All the other differences, in mobility, offense, defense, in other parts of the game are arguable/close. Not at all similar, but certainly close. They have their advantages and disadvantages that cancel out, more or less. The part 4 offense lead, however, is pretty crushing.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Reikken

[Mekkah]

Sorry for the delay. a_A

True enough, except..

(merging the horseslayer point here instead of leaving it separate, since here is where it applies most)

...except one has a horseslayer, so the "not posing any kind of threat either" was a bit of a lie.

Even if there's one dude who poses a threat, he still doesn't OHKO. And Kieran's mobility advantage stretches out as turns go on, so if he has to go back to pop a vulnerary just because one horseslayer hit him that doesn't hurt him at all.

And then the role trading still applies to part 3+.

Here are marked the shortest paths for Danved and Kieran, in yellow and red respectively. Danved's path takes 13 tiles to meet up with Kieran's, while Kieran's takes 17 to meet. This is just path length, not counting how long it takes to cross those tiles.

Then Devdan loses 2 from the ledge, and Kieran 6 from the forests, but Kieran has 2 extra move for the 2-3 turns it takes them to meet to begin with, and then Devdan is likely to not use his full move when bumping into enemies while Kieran can always Canto.

Also, as you can see, the paths are rather narrow. They're not getting swarmed. And Calill's move sucks, so I daresay she would rather go the shorter route. That way is slightly better for others, too. Going the other way, you'd have to put Calill in the front (displacing someone else to a farther starting spot) to try to help her low move, or else she won't be doing any attacking for a bit. Additionally, that path through thickets between the houses is 1 tile wide, so unless you're going around (29 tiles), you get jammed up there a bit (certainly doesn't help Kieran's mobility), so the fewer guys going through there, the better.

If Calill goes with Danved, she only has one dude to keep her from harm. Arriving at the meeting point earlier does her performance no good if she gets killed. So she'd rather be secluded by the larger amount of people. For the thicket spot, peoples may get clogged up for a bit, but Devdan will only get stuck a little further due to the rather large enemies around there, so he's not advancing any faster than the mounted crew.

Indeed Danved's crit is only 2-3 (unless you use that killer lance he starts with, and if you're not going to get the kill otherwise, you may as well).

He's not the only one who can use it though, and effectively that Killer Lance could also be at GMs. So being fair with its share, he may have access to about 3 uses of it or so.

It's 7 against the soldiers, though, and he's also likely to double those, while Kieran is not.

Even Devdan grew that point of Spd while Devdan did not when they already leveled up, he only has 2 AS more. And a data transfer gives Kieran exactly that, so it's a rather moot point.

And for those bond supports you mentioned, that only puts them on par with Danved, except that they also have less skl, so all but 0-1 points of that +5 crit is negated. Again, except against the soldiers.

It also gives them avo. Either way, making use of a bond > not making use of a bond.

So basically, yes. Each option is more or less equivalent, but Kieran has more significant options to choose from. That's his advantage.

And Danved's advantage is doubling low AS enemies and also crit.

Thus I say they're pretty close.

Seeing as Devdan's advantages (if they're there) can be negated by data transfer and bonds respectively, whereas Kieran's cannot (and are also more concrete, such as more damage every battle, as opposed to a chance based crit that may or may not occur when it would be beneficial), I would say the advantage is Kieran's.

Sure, it can't be 100% assumed---almost nothing can---, but it's pretty likely. You have to be using both for him to have competition, and neither are particularly good.

Last I recall Marcia and Calill are both considered "decent" at the very least. Their main problem being low availability, so also underleveledness, which is exactly what Paragorn helps them with.

No. Kieran/Danved has to be the one landing the killing blow on the enemy for this to hold true. So sometimes, yes, but usually no.

Seeing as enemies seem to generally get 2RKOed, that actually seems likely, particulary since people like Geoffrey and Makalov aren't considered perm-used, meaning it's in the best interest to give kills to these two anyway. And since the units you got (other than Danved) are quite flexible with Canto and all (leaving more room for others to attack), this is something I'd say to be usual, not sometimes.

Indeed lots of people can shove, but most of them suck at it. "Meanwhile, the list of dudes who can shove is like...Ike/Shinon/Gatrie/Ranulf/Mia/Mist and then more iffy people like Boyd and Rhys and Soren." How many of those can shove, say, Ike? Danved can, but of those, we have... Boyd, Gatrie, and... and that's it. Ranulf if he's transformed.

Generally shoving isn't in such high demand that you cannot afford to be picky - if Ike requires shoving, there are units available for it. Also, Kieran can ferry people, and even do take/drops with other mounts or fat people to counter mobility advantages Shove gives, and even carry people closer to Restore staves if you want to press on the point about Shoving someone to wake up from Sleep (which takes like 4 shoves at any rate - much less efficient than just Restoring or even just leaving that one person be so those 4 others can do something else).

First of all, it's 300%. 4-5 is three times as much as 1-2. And fortunately for Danved, 30-atk crit enemies are much rarer and after a few level ups, half of them can't even crit him at all.

300% of very little still means very little. Marth has infinitely more Res growth than every other weapon user in FEDS (since he has 2% whereas everyone else has 0% or something like that), but that doesn't make his res anything impressive.

It doesn't have to be a 30 atk crit enemy. As you can see, the 25 atk one left Devdan with only 9 hp (less than 1/4 of his max), and Kieran with 21 (slightly over half what he had to begin with). If Devdan takes one atk + a crit, he is out, whereas Kieran likely is not.[/quote\

Also, as you may be aware, bexp levels favor higher growths. Luck is Danved's second highest growth, and spd is 3rd, tied with def, so using a bit of bexp to cap off his level after his part 2 exp increases his chances of getting that luck to negate crit and getting spd to DA.

If we're gonna bring BEXP into this, a typical Kieran BEXP growth is hp/str/def, where the def of that essentially negates 3 damage from crits, which is more significant than 1% extra to prevent a critical hit.

As for the desert move thing, you say "When playing efficiently, the player is much more likely to use Janaff/Ulki/Haar/Jill to scrape up the immobilized enemies rather than letting Devdan struggle there with his existent-but-still-crippled movement to win a debate on the internet.", but you're getting the wrong idea. It's not like you're having those fliers sit back and watch Danved fight. They're going at it, too. Danvded is just helping. Danved (and others) take care of closer enemies (and the reinforcements that spawn relatively close by) so the fliers don't have to waste their time on it. They're then free to fly off and take care of business on distant parts of the map. The point is that Danved is much more able to help out than is Kieran. He can also further help people struggling to move around via shoving.

This is still a very small part of the overall desert map, since they're facing the smallest portion of enemies. These are also divided by most people, likely - while Haar and stuffs can each fly to a seperate section of the map to clear out enemies and move on to the next, everyone who has trouble moving likely hangs around with Devdan/Kieran (meaning it's likely that if Devdan hadn't done something about that one stray Halberdier, someone else would have anyway).

for atk/def/AS/avo, biorhythm shaking things up helps just as much as it hurts. In fact, I would say it helps more than it hurts. Devdan's avoid is generally not reliable; it's more of "Awesome, he dodged. Now I don't have to waste a turn healing him for next turn and/or hold him back because he's injured", but when bio is working in his favor, it is much more reliable.

See, the thing is that it _is_ not reliable unless his biorhythm is good (and even then it may not be), whereas the player can know beforehand that Kieran takes 1-2 extra hits and thus can be exposed slightly more than Devdan without risk of death. "Awesome, he dodged" moments cannot be prepared for or counted on, but "awesome, i survived an extra hit" can be.

Then AS...is quite concrete. You either DA that guy with 100% certainty, or you have a 0% chance of doing so. Just the same as with atk. You either have enough atk to get the kill, or you don't.

It's more like "that extra AS only allows for an extra attack against enemy x, y, z, whereas the extra atk does more damage (meaning an easier job for someone else, or for Kieran) does more against not only does, but also against enemies q, r and s".

On the contary, part 4 matters more (aside from 3-9), not less. Your party gets split three ways, meaning your good units are now spread more thinly, and you have lots of space to take other units. Contrast this with 3-11 (and 3-F to a slightly lesser extent), where all your GM h4x0rs are in the same place, and you don't even have enough room to field them all. They are much more likely to be fielded in part 4 (excluding endgame, which is very tight).

As you can see, I said So they are much less likely to be fielded since they no longer are like 1/3 of your army which implies I was comparing it to 2-3 and 3-9.

Anyways, even if there's likely more room for them, they are less likely to actually improve your efficiency by being fielded. More likely, they are a detriment by running higher death risks. You can have them accompany someone like Titania or Tibarn all you want, but that may just mean an enemy attacks them instead of Titania, who could have done more damage. And they can't exactly go out somewhere on their own instead to clear enemies.

Rather than finishing, they're likely weakening more often so that others get the kill exp because Danved and Kieran are likely not going to endgame. Especially Danved attacking first since he very often one-rounds the enemy outright.

Kieran/Devdan doing the finishing blow is more efficient defense-wise, since their durability is less "wow!" than others, so this way your staff users can more often do something else instead of healing them.

Hammer has hueg atk on generals, yes. Danved doubles them, however, while Kieran does not (usually). And crit/Impale pwns them regardless. And while Hammer raeps Generals, Horseslayer raeps Paladins, which are even more common.

Generals are definitely more common in 4-1, 4-3 and 4-4, from what I see, and 4-5 has neither. But feel free to support your claim with exact counts if I'm wrong.

C to B isn't all that far, but doing it means attacking with a steel sword/iron blade several times when he could have been using a steel/silver poleaxe (6-8 mt diff, though the swords do have better hit, steel sword especially).

Besides using swords when it makes no difference (or is a better option, even), there's also 4 of them hidden throughout the game up to 4-P, and any more needed can be bought from Aimee.

Actually, lots of people have issues with critavo. Lowish luck is not unique at all. Zihark, Nephenee, Mia, Titania, Shinon, Haar, etc. all have meh to bad luck. Though Haar likely has enough def that it doesn't much matter.

Zihark, Nephenee and Mia also have issues getting hit by enemies to begin with, so crits on them are one in a million things. Shinon getting attacked right now is detrimental to begin with (and he can have it for 4-E when neither Devdan nor Kieran are going to be fielded, as you said), and if someone attacks him it's likely only one enemy that goes through your formation.

you have tons of skills to throw around (3 Paragons, 3 Adepts, 3 Wraths, 2 Resolves, 2 Passes, etc.), so not being able to equip a skill is pretty substantial. They'll almost certainly have some sort of useful skill equipped.

Other ppls would rather take one of those, and give Fortune to Kieran, rather than vice versa. Even if you gave one to everyone, someone like Naesala can always appreciate an extra Adept to stack on to make for pretty much 99% reliable kills.

One one map, he wins mobility substantially. On the other, he loses substantially. That's pretty even, like I said.

It is more like "on one, they both suck, whereas on the other, Kieran's is great whereas Devdan's is average".