Vykan12 Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 Re-posting Crimson's opener. ==================== OK! Sothe: Join Time: 1-2 Base Stats/ Rogue Caps HP: 35/40 Str: 18/22 Mgc: 4/15 Skl: 20/26 Spd: 20/30 Luck: 15/40 Def: 14/20 Res: 9/15 So Sothe joins in 1-2 and is useful right from the start. Yes, he is a pre-promote but that doesn't matter much. His bases are excellent, far better than any of the other characters you have at this time. His knives are low-powered, so you can use him to weaken enemies and have your other units (most of which are low level) finish. His HP, Def and Res allow him to tank in part 1, and somewhat in part 3. Not to mention he'll dodge at least half of the attacks sent at him, thanks to excellent Spd and decent Luck. His Guard skill and A Micaiah support are also good things. Micaiah is, and mostly will remain, weak. Guard will allow him to take some attacks against her onto himself and his actually good Def. An A support with a forced character (not to mention he's forced himself) right from the start is wonderful, and will keep a lot of trouble at bay. Growth Rates: HP: 30 Str: 60 Mgc: 20 Skl: 80 Spd: 45 Luck: 65 Def: 20 Res: 30 So he'll easily cap Str and Skl, and usually HP. Spd and Luck will be high as well, with Spd possibly capping if you have a little luck on your side. This makes him an even better dodger and capable of dealing decent damage even in part 3. His base Def and Res are good enough to keep him alive despite the low growths, especially considering all the dodging he'll do. This is good, considering he's forced into the final chapter anyway. His main problem is his story-based promotion. Getting him to 20 before promotion will probably require Paragon and a lot of CEXP or BEXP. The good news is that this is actually pretty easy to get. You get two Beast Killer knives (one in part 1 and one in part 3), so have him equip them in 3-13, equip Paragon (or Resolve depending on his level) and send him to one of the two front entrances, and keep him there until the two BK knives run out. He'll have picked up a LOT of EXP from that, and the chances of him dying are rather low, assuming you give him an Elixer or Concotion if his HP gets low (it might get low, but it will rarely actually get to 0). And then there's always 4-P if he didn't get to 20 (which is possible if you didn't use him much in part 1). Now, let's compare him to 3 characters who get a lot of praise: Nolan, Zihark and Volug. vs Nolan: at Recruitment: Nolan lvl 11: vs Sothe base level HP: 29.6 vs 35 Str: 12.45 vs 18 Mgc: .2 vs 4 Skl: 11.7 vs 20 Spd: 10.6 vs 20 Luck: 7.3 vs 15 Def: 9.35 vs 14 Res: 3.4 vs 9 Sothe is absolutely slaughtering Nolan. Nolan only comes close in HP and he's still 5.4 points behind. at 1-E: Nolan lvl 20/2 vs Sothe lvl 8 (assumes you used him a decent amount) HP: 38.2 vs 37.1 Str: 18.4 vs 22 (capped) Mgc: 4.4 vs 5.4 Skl: 20.4 vs 25.6 Spd: 18.2 vs 23.15 Luck: 10.6 vs 19.55 Def: 14.2 vs 15.4 Res: 9.8 vs 11.1 Nolan wins HP and loses everything else. Evade (Nolan is praised here): Nolan (C Zihark) = 62 vs Sothe (A Micaiah) 80.85 Sothe wins easily at Sothe's promotion: Nolan lvl 20/15 vs Sothe lvl --/20/1 HP: 46 vs 44 Str: 24.25 vs 24 Mgc: 5 (capped) vs 11.8 Skl: 26 (capped) vs 28 Spd: 26 vs 30.55 Luck: 14.5 vs 27.35 Def: 18.75 vs 19.8 Res: 13 (capped) vs 18.7 Sothe still wins everything except HP and this time Str (by .25...). Evade: Nolan (B Zihark) = 96.5 vs Sothe (A Micaiah) 103.45 Sothe still wins. Get the picture...? vs Zihark Zihark joins: Sothe (lvl 3) vs Zihark base HP: 35.6 vs 30 Str: 19.2 vs 17 Mgc: 4.4 vs 6 Skl: 21.6 vs 22 Spd: 20.9 vs 23 Luck: 16.3 vs 11 Def : 14.4 vs 13 Res: 9.6 vs 11 Now this is actually a challenge for Sothe. 5.6 HP, 2.2 Str, 5.3 Luck and 1.4 Def against 1.6 Mgc, .4 Skl, 2.1 Spd, and 1.4 Res. Sothe obviously wins, but it's still actually somewhat close. at 1-E: Sothe (lvl vs Zihark (lvl HP: 37.1 vs 32.75 Str: 22 (capped) vs 18.75 Mgc: 5.4 vs 6.5 Skl: 25.6 vs 25.75 Spd: 23.15 vs 26.5 Luck: 19.55 vs 13 Def: 15.4 vs 14.25 Res: 11.1 vs 12.75 4.35 HP, 3.25 Str, 6.55 Luck, and 1.15 Def vs 1.1 Mgc, .15 Skl, 3.35 Spd, and 1.65 Res. Sothe's HP lead is lower, as is his Def lead, but his Str and Luck leads have grown. Zihark's Skl, Spd and Res leads have grown, and his Mgc lead has lowered. Sothe still wins here. Evade: Sothe (A Micaiah) 80.85 vs Zihark (C Nolan) 81. Zihark wins by .15... at Sothe's promotion: Sothe (lvl 20/1) vs Zihark (lvl --/20/5) HP: 44 vs 45.55 Str: 24 vs 26.35 Mgc: 11.8 vs 12.1 Skl: 28 vs 35 Spd: 30.55 vs 34.8 Luck: 27.35 vs 19.4 Def: 19.8 vs 20.25 Res: 18.7 vs 20.4 Now Sothe only wins in Luck (by 7.95), while Zihark wins HP (1.55), Str (2.35), Mgc (.3), Skl (7), Spd (4.35), Def (.45), AND Res (1.7). So yes, Zihark wins, but 1) his biggest lead is Skl (a relatively unimportant stat), and his HP, Mgc, Def and Res leads are all neglible. Str and Spd leads are actually important, and so I have to say Zihark wins, but not by THAT much. Evade: Sothe (A Micaiah) 103.45 vs Zihark (B Nolan) 119. Zihark wins. Still, his win is significant, but Sothe and his support are forced, while Zihark and his are not. vs Volug Volug joins: Sothe (lvl 3) vs Volug base level --> Halfshift HP: 35.6 vs 49 Str: 19.2 vs 11 --> 16 Mgc: 4.4 vs 2 --> 3 Skl: 21.6 vs 12 --> 18 Spd: 20.9 vs 13 --> 19 Luck:16.3 vs 13 Def: 14.4 vs 9 --> 13 Res: 9.6 vs 5 -->7 Volug wins HP (13.4) and that's it. Sothe wins Str by 3.2, Mgc by 1.4, Skl by 3.6. Spd by 1.9, Luck by 3.3, Def by 1.4, and Res by 2.6. Sothe mops the floor with Volug here. at 1-E: Sothe (lvl vs Volug (lvl 20) --> Halfshift HP: 37.1 vs 53.75 Str: 22 vs 12.25 --> 18 Mgc: 5.4 vs 2.75 --> 4 Skl: 25.6 vs 13.75 --> 21 Spd: 23.15 vs 15 --> 22 Luck: 19.55 vs 17.5 Def: 15.4 vs 9.75 --> 15 Res: 11.1 vs 5.5 --> 9 Volug wins HP (16.65). Sothe wins Str (4), Mgc (1.4), Skl (4.6), Spd (1.15), Luck (2.05), Def (.4) and Res (2.1). Sothe still owns Volug. at Sothe's promotion: Sothe (20/1) vs Volug (lvl 32) --> Halfshift --> Shift HP: 44 vs 65.15 Str: 24 vs 15.25 -->22 --> 30.5 Mgc: 11.8 vs 4.55 --> 7 --> 9.1 Skl: 28 vs 17.95 --> 27 --> 35.9 Spd: 30.55 vs 18 --> 27 --> 36 Luck: 27.35 vs 28.3 Def : 19.8 vs 11.55 --> 18 --> 23.1 Res: 18.7 vs 6.7 --> 10 --> 13.4 Volug wins everything except Mgc and Res WHEN TRANSFORMED. When he's not, he loses everything except HP and Luck, even if he halfshifts (and if he has Wildheart, he'd be a lower level anyways due to decreased XP gain). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florete Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 (edited) Grabbing some iTunes and readying my reply. Here I go. I'll start with the most important part: looks. Check out Volug. Look at that hottie. Awesome hair, rock hard abs, determined expression, and that tassel thing or whatever it is around his waist. I don't think it gets more badass. Then we have Sothe. What the hell is up with that cut-off shirt? I don't think men normally wear cut-off shirts...And he looks like he's about to be hanged by that scarf. What is he emo? I guess I'll go to the stat comparisons next. Meh. His Guard skill and A Micaiah support are also good things. Micaiah is, and mostly will remain, weak. Guard will allow him to take some attacks against her onto himself and his actually good Def. An A support with a forced character (not to mention he's forced himself) right from the start is wonderful, and will keep a lot of trouble at bay. The problem here? Guard is unreliable (I personally have never seen it work) and Sothe's affinity, Wind, sucks. It's possibly the worst in the game. He has an auto-A with Micaiah, yeah, but does she want that? I think now. She'd much prefer to dump Sothe for Zihark, Nolan, or even Volug! At the breaking from A-Sothe to C-someone else, she'll lose 1 atk, 8 hit, and 5 avoid. The atk and hit are laughable; she doesn't double and has overkill Magic (80% Magic growth as well as Thani being the strongest Light magic until part 4), and Light Magic is highly accurate as is (100 hit for Thani, and Micaiah has pretty good accuracy growth with 40% Skill and 80% Luck growth). 5 avoid? That's a bit bigger, but she's extremely frail as it is (low AS, HP, and Def ftl) and that'll be +5 avoid over Sothe support at B level anyway. Point being, Micaiah does not want Sothe at all, so she's more likely to break the support. Sothe can go support someone else with a fail affinity like Laura or Meg. His main problem is his story-based promotion. Getting him to 20 before promotion will probably require Paragon and a lot of CEXP or BEXP. The good news is that this is actually pretty easy to get. You get two Beast Killer knives (one in part 1 and one in part 3), so have him equip them in 3-13, equip Paragon (or Resolve depending on his level) and send him to one of the two front entrances, and keep him there until the two BK knives run out. He'll have picked up a LOT of EXP from that, and the chances of him dying are rather low, assuming you give him an Elixer or Concotion if his HP gets low (it might get low, but it will rarely actually get to 0). And then there's always 4-P if he didn't get to 20 (which is possible if you didn't use him much in part 1). And why, may I ask, is Sothe getting Paragon? Anyone else can use it. Micaiah and Laura can use it to level faster with staff abuse. Volug can get it because he levels fairly slow as it is. Anyone else can take it for the same reason as Sothe; to level faster. And the same goes for Resolve. And 3-13, lol. Ike has three authority stars here, boosting all the Laguz hit rates, and if Sothe still has his Micaiah support, he can't use it here because he's out fighting while she's behind the line, so killing too much on the enemy phase is actually a bad thing. He kills, another comes, hurts him, he kills, another comes, he dies. Yeah. Just for kicks, let's compare him to Volug here: Sothe: lv --/6 HP: 37 Atk: (Beast Killer) 48 against Cats/Tigers, 30 against Hawks Or, as I pointed out, if he wants to live: (Steel Dagger) 29 Mag: 5 Hit: 107 (BK), 127 (SD) Crit: 32/17 AS: 22 Avoid: 62 (77 if in support range) Def: 15 Res: 10 Volug: lv 20, S Strike HP: 54 Atk: 38 Mag: 6 Hit: 136 Crit: 14 AS: 30 Avoid: 78 (123 with Earth support (Zihark/Nolan), 108 with Thunder (Jill most likely) support) Def: 20 Res: 10 Volug is creaming Sothe everywhere here except for a tie in Resistance, but they don't see any mages at all in part 3, so that's meaningless. Volug has +17 HP, +8-9 atk when Sothe doesn't use Beastkiller, +1 lolMagic, +9 hit minimum (29 hit when Sothe uses BK), +8 AS, +1 avoid when Volug is unsupported and Sothe is in support range, though that lead jumps to as much as +55, +5 defense. The only lead Sothe has is Crit. Winner = Volug, by a longshot. Also note that Volug might be hitting SS strike soon, making his offensive lead all the more greater. vs Nolan Yes, Sothe beats Nolan immediately. Conceded. at 1-E:Nolan lvl 20/2 vs Sothe lvl 8 (assumes you used him a decent amount) But this is wrong. Sothe is very unlikely to reach level 8 by 1-E given his low experience gain. 20/4 sounds more appropriate. Nolan should be lower as well, but only 1 level. Also, your stat comparison left out the fact that Axes are much stronger than Knives, so Nolan is actually dealing more damage per hit than Sothe is. Of course, Sothe is doubling more, so point mostly conceded. at Sothe's promotion:Nolan lvl 20/15 vs Sothe lvl --/20/1 Lolwut? Nolan only got to level 20/15 by the time Sothe promoted? Nolan can fairly easily promote before Sothe does, but this is fairly irrelevant for now so I'll leave out the stat comparison. vs Zihark (joining) Once again, you leave out the existence of weapons. Zihark + Killing Edge = 25 atk, 140 hit, 41 crit, 57 avoid, 23 AS. Sothe + Iron Dagger + possible Micaiah support = 26 atk, 146 hit, 15 crit, 72 avoid, 21 AS. That's a lead on Zihark's part, especially with that awesome critical chance. Note that Sothe can't yet get Steel Daggers. But why compare him to Zihark when he can be compared to Volug? Sothe still has 36 HP, 24 atk, 138 hit, 15 crit, 72 avoid (maybe), 21 AS, 14 defense, 10 resistance. Volug has 49 HP, 25 atk, 139 hit, 9 crit, 53 avoid, 20 AS, 13 defense, 7 resistance. Still, +13 HP gives him an awesome durability lead. Let's take a random 1-5, a Fighter, with 26 atk. Note there are four of these guys. He 3-rounds Sothe and 4-rounds Volug. Another Fighter with 23 atk 4-rounds Sothe and 5-rounds Volug. HP ftw. Volug still has very similar atk and much better mobility, so Volug is immediately better than Sothe upon joining. Okay, the Fire mages are 3-rounding Volug and only 6-rounding Sothe, but they're all off to the right so Volug never has to see any of them anyway. at 1-E: --/8 is too high for Sothe. --/5 is more like it. Hell, 20 for Volug is even too high. Let's see how base level Volug compares to --/5 Sothe? Sothe (Steel Dagger, A Micaiah): 36 HP, 30 atk, 157 hit, 16 crit, 77 avoid, 22 AS, 15 defense, 10 resistance. Volug (A Strike, B Nolan): 49 HP, 25 atk, 139 hit, 9 crit, 83 avoid, 20 AS, 13 defense, 7 resistance. Base level Volug is comparable to Sothe now. He's still more durable because of +13 HP and he has greater avoid, as well as giving a good avoid bonus to Nolan. Sothe wins offensively against the enemies he doubles and Volug doesn't (only a few), and yet Volug might have hit S Strike, effectively tying that, and also has better mobility than Sothe. Volug still wins over Sothe. Why don't I randomly mention some other stuff now? First off, Volug always has more skill capacity. Along with Shove, he has 30 additional capacity, allowing him to take to 15 capacity skills where Sothe can only take one 15 and has only 10 left. This allows for cool combos like Wrath + Resolve, Celerity + Pass, 2 "foe" skills, etc. All of this that Sothe can't do with his limited capacity.(This is, of course, after removing Wildheart in part 3, but Volug doesn't need such combos in part 1 anyway) In fact, when Volug reaches level 30, his total capacity increases to 70. You can either refrain from giving him a Satori Sign so you can give him h4x combos like Nullify + Adept + Wrath + Resolve or something like that. Of course, getting Savage is likely to be much better, but the choice exists, and choice of it > no choice of it. Like, if all the 6 Satori Signs have been used or some haven't been found, Volug isn't left in the dust. Oh yeah, mastery skills. Savage > Bane. This goes without saying. What's funny is that a base level Volug would have a higher chance of activating his mastery skill than a level --/20/1 Sothe. (Volug's 24% to Sothe's 14%) Of course, by the time Savage is acquired, his activation rate is, on average, 34%. More than double Sothe's. Then there's the fact that Sothe's max activation rate reaches 19% while Volug's max possible activation rate is 46%. Need I say more? I will. Bane leaves the enemy with one health. Frankly, that sucks. Savage triples strength and halves enemy skill, so even if it doesn't kill, which it almost always will, killing that guy won't end up being much of an issue. Savage >>>>>>> Bane. Let's delve into part 4. Volug's advantage is that he can go to any route instead of being locked to Micaiah's like Sothe is, and he's awesome wherever he goes. Micaiah's group: He laughs at terrain in 4-P and has full movement in 4-3. That > Sothe. Ike's: Not much special in 4-1, but he ties for best mobility in 4-4 with Nailah and any other 9 move Laguz for 1) not getting a movement penalty like mounted units, and 2) ease of jumping up ledges. Tibarn's: He laughs at terrain and the fact that enemies can't hit him and he gets a lot of levels in 4-5 against all those Laguz. Wherever Volug goes, he's great. That's already > Sothe. Still, let's compare statistics for 4-P/1/2. Sothe, lv --/10, A Micaiah for now Hp: 38 Atk (Silver Dagger): 36 Hit: 166 Avoid: 84 AS: 24 Crit: 18 Def: 16 Res: 12 Volug, level 22, A Earth (Nolan/Zihark) or A Thunder (Jill), S Fang HP: 56 Atk: 40 Hit: 166 (181 with Ike, 186 with Tibarn) No authority avoid/Micaiah's group: 83 unsupported, 128 with earth, 113 with Thunder. With authority, Ike/Tibarn: 98/103 unsupported, 143/148 with earth, 128/133 with Thunder. AS: 32 Crit: 14 Def: 20 with Earth, 22 with Thunder Res: 12 Some things to note: I gave Sothe a Silver Dagger. These are fairly expensive and don't have much use, so he won't get that kind of power all the time, and Volug beats him even with it and the Micaiah support that Sothe might not still have. Also, unsupported, no authority Volug loses 1 avoid to supported Sothe. This is the bare minimum for Volug, yet the max for Sothe. I can pretty much say Volug is owning Sothe right about now. +18 HP, +4 atk (minimum (+8 on doubles)), tied hit without authority, but as much as +20, massive avoid advantage, as much as +64 (Which is also an awesome help to whoever he is supporting), +8 AS (Volug can double enemies that double Sothe....), +4-6 defense, tied resistance. The only place Sothe wins is +4 crit, but he'll rarely see high crit chances anyway. Otherwise, Volug is completely murdering Sothe. It's not even a competition. And Volug's lead only increases from there. He'll get to SS Strike soon, so he can reach as high as 59 attack while Sothe can only reach 38 attack, and that's if he keeps his support. That's 21 more damage per hit, and he doubles. So even if Volug comes short on his strength, he'll always have a damage lead, no question about it. He'll also always have his avoid lead because of awesome Speed/Luck and earth affinity, has no problems with accuracy, and keeps up fairly well defensively, though both suck in defensive stats. Thing is, Volug's avoid makes up for that. And weapons. Granted, Sothe has little competition for Knives, but Volug's situation is better since he has his own, unbreakable weapon that costs 0 money, making him the clear winner here. I can't think of anything else at the moment, so I'll end my argument here. Edited January 30, 2009 by Red Fox of Fire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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