Vykan12 vs Smashfanatic

[Vykan12]

Battle of the furries. I open.

[Vykan12]

Ranulf has one major advantage over Mordecai: AS. He has 30 at base level, the same as Mia’s second tier speed cap, and also has a 35% growth to boot, meaning every 3 levels he gains a little over 2 points of speed. To put it shortly, he’ll be doubling the entirety of the game, with his only minor concern being auras.

Mordecai, however, is the complete opposite. He has 18 base speed, which ties with people like Boyd, and also loses spd growth by 10%. For reference, you need about 26-28 spd to double consistently throughout part 3, a mark Mordecai never even reaches. Yes, at lv 40, he averages 12.5 spd, which at best is 26 spd transformed.

Now compare their att: They have the same base and Ranulf actually leads in growth by 5%. Moreover, since Ranulf is always doubling and Mordecai almost never is, Ranulf levels up his strike practically twice as fast. Even with Mordecai’s head start in part 2, Ranulf will have a lead in strike for the majority of the game. Even factoring in Mordecai’s water affinity (+1-3 att) and superior fang Mt, he’s at best leading Att by a few points, which means Ranulf’s winning big since he’s doing a little less than double damage.

Now, speaking of offence, Ranulf is only 4 levels away from gaining rend whereas Mordecai is 14 levels away, possibly 13 after part 2. Not only that, he also has sizeable activation leads with adept, cancel and vantage. Rend alone gives him a 51% chance of killing an enemy with neutral bio, and adding adept to the mix jumps that up to 76%. A 20 spd Mordy with both those things has a 36% chance of activating anything unless he doubles, meaning Ranulf wins with just 1 resource.

Now consider Ranulf is force deployed for a couple maps, meaning he’s not taking up a slot, and is even encouraged to be used in 3-5 since he’s forced to arrive in conjunction with Ike. A minor advantage, but one he still possesses over Mordy for taking up a unit slot from other h4x GM units.

Okay, so where is Mordecai really winning anything? One would naturally look at durability. Of course, with Ranulf winning everything else, Mordecai would have to win durability by a humongous margin to fathom pulling out a win in this match-up. Let’s take a look:

Mordy has 32 base def and a 45% growth, which makes him basically impervious to physical damage. However, Ranulf’s 26 def isn’t so shabby itself, and Ranulf has many other advantages that keep him alive. First off, he has 98 base avoid and a 195% avo growth. Then he also beats Mordy’s res by 12. Now jump into the future a little and Ranulf will be lv 31 with an A thunder support giving him 119 avo and 30 def. Let’s compare that with some other GMs with the same A support.

Titania hits 30 def at lv --/20/16-17. At max level, Titania can get 117 avo. She never bypasses Ranulf’s base hp. Ranulf beats her in durability handidly.

Now let’s take someone known for being quite durable such as Haar. He surpasses 30 def at --/20/1, never surpasses 119 avo and reaches Ranulf’s base hp at --/20/4. Ranulf also beats Haar handidly in the res department.

I don’t think I need to look farther. Ranulf clearly isn’t concerned about survival in the frontlines so at best, whatever invincibility Mordecai has on the frontlines is superfluous. Even factoring in Ranulf’s greater transformation issues, he has far too many wins for Mordecai to overcome.

Blue cat > blue tiger.

Edited March 12, 2009 by Vykan12

[Progenitus]

I'll talk about several advantages and things Mordy has that Ranulf doesn't, before I get to your post.

First, Mordy's got several chapters in part 2 to be pwning stuff, while Ranulf doesn't, which is definitely good because being pwn and stomping on more chapters > being pwn and stomping on fewer chapters. It's why people like Haar are better than people like Tibarn, despite Tibarn obviously having the better stats.

2-2 is pretty important, because you don't have any healers in that chapter, which means you want to be minimizing the damage you take because otherwise your fighters will be wasting turns using vulneraries instead of attacking. Transformed Mordy is so badass that he takes 0 damage from every single enemy that doesn't use magic or uses a venin weapon (poison). He also has 38 att, which OHKOs enemy sages, and wins/matches offense against everything except Lucia, since everyone else either don't double with less att, or they double but have 10+ less attack. Best durability + 2nd best offense = Mordy is the best unit in 2-2.

In 2-E, it's more Mordy tanking everything and never dying. Out of the initial enemies, only 10 do any damage at all. 3 of them are thunder sages, and the rest do less than 5 damage to him, minus Ludveck who does 8. Yes, Ludveck, the guy who has 40 att and can 3HKO even Haar, does like an 8HKO on Mordy. Again, he's got 38 base att, which matches Haar with a steel poleaxe and Haar's hit can be a problem with that. The only person who clearly beats him in offense is Elincia (and hammer Haar vs generals I suppose). So Mordy's a really cool guy in 2-E too. He's easily on par with Elincia and Haar, who are considered the Gods of 2-E.

Next, Mordy has an advantage in supports. Water is one of the best affinities in the game. Most everyone wants water. Att + def is sexy. Def can easily let a unit take an extra hit or even two, and att can put a unit with borderline 1-rounding att up to par. On the other hand, Ranulf has wind, which is the worst. Small hit + avoid boost is lame. The small hit boost is minor, because either the unit doesn't need it, or it's not going to be enough to bring their hit up from "lame" to "reliable". Avoid is also lame unless the unit already has lots of avoid, like, faces 30 or less displayed hit on enemies, since biorhythm can easily screw with avoid. So Mordy is giving out extra att + def to another unit who really likes it, and Ranulf will be giving out wind to a unit that most likely does not benefit from it.

Mordy also has innate smite. It's minor, but it means Mordy doesn't waste any cap for this skill, which is cool because smite's nice. It's essentially +2 move to another unit you want, since Mordy can smite like anyone he wants. Of course Ranulf with shove is okay, but it definitely isn't as noticeable as smite.

Now, Mordy has a nice advantage in class as well. Tiger is a decent laguz class. Tiger claw has one of the highest mt of the laguz weapons, while Cat has one of the lowest.

Tiger also untransforms at a normal rate, while Cat untransforms much faster. Ranulf loses 1 more gauge for every action than Mordy does, which adds up very quickly. Let's run through a few examples.

- At full gauge, if Ranulf attacks 6 enemies and 1 turn passes, Ranulf is at 1 gauge. Mordy can attack 8 enemies and have a turn pass, and he'll have 2 gauge left. Mordy attacks 33% more enemies than Ranulf and still has more gauge remaining.

- If 2 turns pass, Ranulf can only attack 4 enemies safely before he untransforms on his 5th round (4 gauge left). Mordy can attack 7 and he'll still have 1 gauge left, meaning Mordy is attacking 75% more enemies. This is probably the most common scenario, because you probably won't be grassing every turn. Well, at least Mordy won't, since 7 attacks in 2 turns is quite a bit. Ranulf can only safely attack 4 enemies, which is only 2 enemies a turn. That's very little flexibility.

- Over, say, 10 turns, assuming Mordy and Ranulf transform on turn 3 and they enter 15 battles total, Ranulf loses 95 gauge total while Mordy loses just 73. Ranulf loses at least extra 1 player phase to grassing than Mordy does, likely more. Assuming the turn count is the same, Mordy can enter 7 more battles than Ranulf (which is 22 total, nearly 50% more battles than Ranulf) and he only loses 94 gauge.

- Often, one olivi grass will not get your gauge back to 30. Say our laguz friends are at 5 gauge when grassed, now they're at 20. This means that Ranulf can only take 3 attacks without untransforming. Mordy at 20 gauge can take 5 attacks without untransforming. Mordy is attacking 60% more enemies.

This gives Mordy a huge advantage in terms of player phase flexibility. An enemy is bothering your healer? Ranulf is probably busy grassing, but Mordy is much more likely to be free to save them. Your laguz is going to hold a chokepoint and be attacked by lots of enemies? Ranulf is significantly more likely to untransform during enemy phase, at which point he's gone. The list goes on.

So, Mordy has several chapters of being useful and helping out before Ranulf even joins, he has a superior affinity which makes another ally stronger than if Ranulf were to support that same unit, and he's also in a superior class which makes him better at staying transformed. These are all areas outside of straight-up offense or defense that need to be considered, and Mordy has an advantage in all of them.

Now compare their att: They have the same base and Ranulf actually leads in growth by 5%. Moreover, since Ranulf is always doubling and Mordecai almost never is, Ranulf levels up his strike practically twice as fast. Even with Mordecai’s head start in part 2, Ranulf will have a lead in strike for the majority of the game. Even factoring in Mordecai’s water affinity (+1-3 att) and superior fang Mt, he’s at best leading Att by a few points, which means Ranulf’s winning big since he’s doing a little less than double damage.

Now, speaking of offence, Ranulf is only 4 levels away from gaining rend whereas Mordecai is 14 levels away, possibly 13 after part 2. Not only that, he also has sizeable activation leads with adept, cancel and vantage. Rend alone gives him a 51% chance of killing an enemy with neutral bio, and adding adept to the mix jumps that up to 76%. A 20 spd Mordy with both those things has a 36% chance of activating anything unless he doubles, meaning Ranulf wins with just 1 resource.

First, I'll address the levels bit.

Ranulf only needs 4 levels for his mastery, but those are really long levels. Because laguz level is doubled when doing EXP calculations, Ranulf levels like a 20/20/12 beorc. This means he's getting 1 exp for doing any action for a very long time. Even killing a 20/20 enemy gets him like 2 exp. The enemy needs to be about 20/20/5 before Ranulf even gets double digit exp for killing it, which doesn't happen until part 4 at the earliest. He's still going to be at base level when he enters part 4 unless you fed him several boss kills, and chances are he won't even get Rend until 4-E.

On the other hand, Mordy levels like a 20/12 beorc and has 2-2 and 2-E to level up in, so he gets decent exp. For example, if level 16 Mordy kills a level 20/10 beorc in 3-4, he gets about 17 exp, which is 17 times more than what Ranulf gets. Even if level 20 Mordy kills a level 20/10 beorc in some chapter, that gets him 5-6 exp, which is still 5-6 times more than Ranulf. And then, say, a level 21 Mordy kills a 20/20/5 enemy, Mordy actually gets 25 exp when level 26 Ranulf was barely getting 10.

Thsi means Mordy can be like level 22 before Ranulf even reaches 27, giving him about 2 str and 5 def leads before even transforming.

Now, let me address something. It's true that Ranulf doubles everything while Mordy doesn't, and he gains more from things like adept than Mordy does. However, keep in mind that Adept is a skill that many want. The hawks like it, Mia likes it, Shinon probably wants it unless you somehow get the DB's Double Bow in 3-6 to the GMs, Soren likes it because it's his innate skill, and then when the DB joins up we have people like Jill who wouldn't mind it either, and the list goes on. So I can't say much about Ranulf being better with Adpet when I have other units who could benefit just as much, or more.

However, there's a skill that fits Mordy extremely well; Resolve. This is where wtfmassiveoverkilldefense comes in handy. You just let Mordy get to half HP when he's untransformed, then transform him, and suddenly we have a unit with huge att, def, AND speed. He basically one rounds the entire map and takes no damage back. That's like, the definition of the perfect unit. If laguz didn't have 2-range or transformation problems, this would make Mordy top tier.

And who really gains so much from Resolve, enough so that Mordy taking a Resolve hurts them to a point that's noticeable? Slow units gain the benefit of being able to double, but these units either have issues surviving at half HP (like mages) or have issues getting to half HP (like Aran) so they probably don't want it. We have units like Skrimir who can *kind* of survive at half HP and have doubling issues, but certainly not as well as Mordy. And usually, the units who have issues doubling only need a few points in speed (such as Boyd or Skrimir), so they can just take a speedwing. Certain units can also BEXP their speed up like Soren and Aran. And there's also an early master crown option which functions like a speedwing (if speed is all they care about). No need for resolve.

The really fast units (such as Mia and hawks) are already doubling everything so the AS bonus doesn't help; if they wanted better offense they'd take something like Adept over Resolve. And the avoid bonus doesn't help a lot, because these fast units already have good avoid.

Also, Resolve not only lets Mordy double, but makes his strike gauge increase twice as fast than without resolve.

The demand for resolve is fairly low, and the number of units who make as much use of it as Mordy does is 0. Yes, Mordy taking resolve will hurt the team, but the gains far exceed the drawbacks. And with resolve, Mordy is the one winning offense, because he's got a lot more att and now doubles too.

And resolve is not all he can take. Mordy can also take wrath, which isn't as good as resolve, but it's in even lower demand than resolve and greater supply. If you want overkill, you can give him both.

By the way, Mordy's the one who wins str growth by 5.

Now consider Ranulf is force deployed for a couple maps, meaning he’s not taking up a slot, and is even encouraged to be used in 3-5 since he’s forced to arrive in conjunction with Ike. A minor advantage, but one he still possesses over Mordy for taking up a unit slot from other h4x GM units.

It is indeed minor. GM chapters lets you field lots of units. Even a chapter like 3-7 lets you field 8 units of your choice, and considering paladins have no place here, you have lots of room for anyone else you want. Most GM chapters let you field 10 units of your choice, which is more than enough for the units you want to use + a few filler.

And on the flip side, Ranulf is locked to Tibarn's team in part 4. It's the easiest team out of the 3, because Tibarn has the most authority stars, and the chapters are more lenient in general (4-3 is wtfdesert with an elsilence and elsleep. 4-1 is FoW and 4-4 is wtfledges and 10 turn limit for a huge mass of enemies and sleep and silence staff. 4-2 is an easy standard chapter, and 4-5 is just an exp mine chapter, fighting against enemies that are slightly stronger than what the DB was fighting in 3-13 when they were 10-15 levels lower and had 0 authority stars up against 3, rather than 4 authority stars up against 0). Mordy can go with any team he wants. In fact, he's best with Micaiah, because he has his full move in 4-3.

Helping out in a team that has it pretty bad, or helping out in a team where they won't have any trouble without you? Mordy certainly has the upper hand.

Mordy has 32 base def and a 45% growth, which makes him basically impervious to physical damage. However, Ranulf’s 26 def isn’t so shabby itself, and Ranulf has many other advantages that keep him alive. First off, he has 98 base avoid and a 195% avo growth. Then he also beats Mordy’s res by 12. Now jump into the future a little and Ranulf will be lv 31 with an A thunder support giving him 119 avo and 30 def. Let’s compare that with some other GMs with the same A support.

Titania hits 30 def at lv --/20/16-17. At max level, Titania can get 117 avo. She never bypasses Ranulf’s base hp. Ranulf beats her in durability handidly.

Now let’s take someone known for being quite durable such as Haar. He surpasses 30 def at --/20/1, never surpasses 119 avo and reaches Ranulf’s base hp at --/20/4. Ranulf also beats Haar handidly in the res department.

First, who with thunder is ever going to take wind? Thunder is one of the best affinities in the game. A unit with thunder is going to look for any other affinity before they think of taking wind. In fact, the only thunder affinity units in the GMs are Shinon (who wants att), LOLLYRE, and Janaff (who probably wants att too). Ranulf is more likely taking something like Fire/Wind/Light, which gives him lower defensive bonuses.

Next, it's not quite fair to compare a laguz and beorc's durability straight up. A laguz wastes player phases grassing while a beorc doesn't, so if my laguz was only matching my mid tier beorcs in durability I'd start questioning about the value of said laguz.

I'll give you that Ranulf isn't worried about straight up dying, but that's not his problem. His big problem is his class, where he untransforms so quickly he's constantly wasting his turns grassing, and you don't want your healer to waste his or her turn to heal him too because he was taking damage. And then Ranulf might get attacked by so many enemies he untransforms prematurely, and in that phase he WILL get hit, and hit hard. Mordy, on the other hand, is worrying little about running into trouble even at half HP for Resolve, save for magic users, because he's taking 0 damage from many enemies, and the ones who do any damage is negligible because he still has 30+ HP with resolve. And, he isn't as worried about untransforming prematurely.

So...

Ranulf's only real advantage over Mordy is AS. However, that can be made up by giving Mordy resolve, which few want and no one makes better use of it than Mordy does. Or wrath, somewhat, which is in even lower demand and greater supply. And with resolve in play, Mordy is the one winning offense. Doesn't leave Ranulf with much left in his favor.

And now, Mordy is a much more team-friendly unit. He's got a large list of advantages.

- Useful in several part 2 chapters, being the best or one of the best units available.

- Superior affinity that makes an ally stronger than if that ally were to support Ranulf instead.

- Innate smite, which certainly has its uses.

- Superior laguz class, especially in the transformation department, which gives him greater player phase freedom, and allows him to be much more helpful overall, since he isn't as worried about grassing and keeping his gauge up.

Essentially, Ranulf vs Mordy boils down to this question: Is spending the resolve on Mordy worth all those advantages?

The answer is, yes.

[Vykan12]

First, Mordy's got several chapters in part 2 to be pwning stuff, while Ranulf doesn't, which is definitely good because being pwn and stomping on more chapters > being pwn and stomping on fewer chapters. It's why people like Haar are better than people like Tibarn, despite Tibarn obviously having the better stats.

Mordy undeniably has an availability advantage. However, unlike your Tibarn vs Haar analogy, we’re talking about 2 chapters difference, not 12. Assuming Ranulf is better in his chapters, he simply has to be better by such an amount as to override Mordy’s part 2.

2-2 is pretty important, because you don't have any healers in that chapter, which means you want to be minimizing the damage you take because otherwise your fighters will be wasting turns using vulneraries instead of attacking.

Wasting player phases to use vulneraries mind you, something Mordy is doing in his own way by needing to pop grass.

Anyway, let’s look at the performance of other units on the team.

1x Soldier lvl 18 (Venin Lance)
HP 31, Atk 22, AS 16, Hit 126, Avo 41, DEF 13, RES 8, Crit 8, Ddg 9
2x Soldier lvl 19 (Venin Lance, one has droppable vulnerary)
HP 32, Atk 24, AS 16, Hit 126, Avo 41, DEF 14, RES 9, Crit 8, Ddg 9
1x Soldier lvl 19 (Javelin)
HP 32, Atk 23, AS 16, Hit 106, Avo 41, DEF 14, RES 9, Crit 8, Ddg 9
2x Soldier lvl 18 (Steel Greatlance)
HP 30, ATK 30, AS 15, Hit 111, Avo 39, DEF 13, RES 8, Crit 8, Ddg 9
1x Soldier lvl 18 (Killer Lance)
HP 31, Atk 25, AS 16, Hit 114, Avo 40, DEF 13, RES 9, Crit 36, Ddg 8
1x Soldier lvl 19 (Killer Lance, stealable vulnerary)
HP 33, Atk 25, AS 16, Hit 117, Avo 41, DEF 13, RES 9, Crit 37, Ddg 9
1x Halberdier lvl 3 (Steel Lance, stealable vulnerary)
HP 34, Atk 27, AS 18, Hit 127, Avo 47, DEF 15, RES 12, Crit 14, Ddg 11
1x Halberdier lvl 3 (Steel Greatlance, stealable vulnerary)
HP 34, Atk 31, AS 17, Hit 117, Avo 45, DEF 16, RES 12, Crit 14, Ddg 11

1x Armor Sword lvl 18 (Steel Blade)
HP 35, Atk 31, AS 13, Hit 102, Avo 37, DEF 17, RES 7, Crit 6, Ddg 11
1x Armor Sword lvl 20 (Steel Blade)
HP 37, Atk 32, AS 16, Hit 107, Avo 44, DEF 19, RES 7, Crit 7, Ddg 12
1x Sword General lvl 3 (Steel Blade)
HP 36, Atk 30, AS 17, Hit 110, Avo 47, DEF 21, RES 10, Crit 8, Ddg 13
1x Lance General lvl 4 (Steel Axe... wut?)
HP 36, Atk 30, AS 16, Hit 123, Avo 46, DEF 21, REs 11, Crit 8, Ddg 14

1x Archer lvl 18 (Steel Bow)
HP 29. Atk 27, AS 17, Hit 125, Avo 43, DEF 13, RES 6, Crit 9, Ddg 9
1x Archer lvl 18 (Venin Bow)
HP 29, Atk 24, AS 15, Hit 129, Avo 40, DEF 12, RES 6, Crit 8, Ddg 10
1x Archer lvl 19 (Iron Longbow)
HP 30, Atk 26, AS 17, Hit 109, Avo 44, DEF 12, REs 7, Crit 8, Ddg 10

2x Thunder Mage lvl 18 (Elthunder)
HP 26, Atk 21, AS 13, Hit 109, Avo 34, DEF 6, RES 12, Crit 16, Ddg 8
1x Thunder Mage lvl 19 (Elthunder)
HP 25, Atk 21, AS 14, Hit 111, Avo 36, DEF 7, RES 13, Crit 17, Ddg 8

1x Warrior lvl 3 (Bowgun)
HP 37, Atk 24, AS 18, Hit 148, Avo 48, DEF 13, RES 8, Crit 9, Ddg 12

1x Rogue lvl 3 (Iron Dagger, stealable coin)
HP 29, Atk 19, AS 20, Hit 118, Avo 42, DEF 12, RES 8, Crit 14, Ddg 2

1x Maraj lvl 6 (Wind Sage boss, Elwind, stealable Secret Book)
HP 35, Atk 29, AS 19, Hit 133, Avo 43, DEF 13, RES 18, Crit 9, Ddg 5

Reinforcements:

1x Halberdier lvl 3 (Venin Lance, stealable vulnerary, Turn 5, southwest)
HP 34, Atk 24, AS 18, Hit 132, Avo 47, DEF 16, RES 12, Crit 14, Ddg 11
1x Thunder Mage lvl 19 (Elthunder, Turn 5, southwest)
HP 25, Atk 22, AS 14, Hit 113, Avo 36, DEF 7, RES 13, Crit 17, Ddg 8
1x Soldier lvl 20 (Javelin, Turn 5, southwest)
HP 34, Atk 23, AS 18, Hit 106, Avo 45, DEF 14, RES 10, Crit 8, Ddg 9

Durability-wise, Lucia has 83 avo, and the average hit rate is about 120, so that translates out to about 28 true hit. There are some enemies that 3HKO her, though the majority 4HKO. That translates to a ~0.6-2% chance of dying, not half bad considering that enemies don’t exactly come in huge clusters in this level. Then on offence, she’s definitely beating Mordy because she can attack semi-decently at range, and is borderline one rounding most enemies with a silver sword.

There’s also Leanne, who, despite having to contend with paper durability and FOW, is still offering twice the player phase attacks as other units, which translates both into healing (a unit attacks, gets vigored, heals) and extra offence (a unit attacks, gets vigored, moves forward and might attack again).

Now look at Nealuchi, who despite probably needing a laguz stone to actually do anything in this chapter, is also pretty wtfinvincible in this level. He has 53 hp, 20 def, and most of all 106 avo at base level. Pit him against the most accurate enemy in the level and he faces 35 true. Everything else might as well not exist since they’ll be doing 4-8 damage at <10 true. Like, he’s so durable that you’d want him to take a hit from the bowgun user in the level on purpose, heal with an herb just to be safe, then rape everything left in the level, boss included, with wrath activations.

So as far as I can tell, Mordy is only demonstrably better than Neph, Brom and Lethe in this level, which isn’t exactly jaw dropping.

In 2-E, it's more Mordy tanking everything and never dying. Out of the initial enemies, only 10 do any damage at all. 3 of them are thunder sages, and the rest do less than 5 damage to him, minus Ludveck who does 8. Yes, Ludveck, the guy who has 40 att and can 3HKO even Haar, does like an 8HKO on Mordy. Again, he's got 38 base att, which matches Haar with a steel poleaxe and Haar's hit can be a problem with that. The only person who clearly beats him in offense is Elincia (and hammer Haar vs generals I suppose). So Mordy's a really cool guy in 2-E too. He's easily on par with Elincia and Haar, who are considered the Gods of 2-E.

Mordy is definitely not on par with Elincia and Haar here. First, Elincia one rounds every single enemy type in the level except Ludveck, whom she reduces to about 10 hp. Then she has flying capabilities, the ability to re-move after an action, and of course physic healing. Yes, she might have to hit & run for a while to avoid death by bows, or perhaps devote herself to healing for the first few turns until such threats are clear, but otherwise, she’s basically leagues ahead of him.

As for Haar, he wins offence by virtue of having better mobility, 1-2 range and no transform issues, all of which easily override Mordy’s slightly better survivability. With ranged attacks alone, Haar’s being much more efficient at killing things in chokepoints since he can counter twice as many enemies, if not more, depending on what he one/two rounds.

Then, as in 2-2, you didn’t make any mention of Leanne. In this level, she’s amazing. Not only can she easily double the player phase of your 2 best units, she is also an integral part of defeating Ludveck on any given turn. Speaking of which, this is Mordy (and almost everyone else’s) problem in this level: they don’t really contribute to the efficient completion of this level. Whereas Haar, Elincia and Leanne can team up to kill Ludveck in as little as 2 turns, Mordy would have to plow through the entire east entrance worth of enemies in the castle just to reach Ludveck, which clearly isn’t happening with all his 2 rounding, grass popping and ineffectiveness against ranged targets. Even with help, he might only reach Ludveck after like 10-12 turns.

My point is, even if Mordecai can go tank a bunch of enemies and be one of your best units for clotting up a passage, it has no valuable worth aside from self-improvement. If I’m not going to kill Ludveck right away, or maybe after getting nullify or something, then that just leaves playing out the chapter for 15 turns. Whatever is accomplished isn’t allowing you to beat the chapter any more efficiently, it’s simply allowing certain units to perform better in later maps, which they’ll get accredited for at that time, not in this chapter.

Next, Mordy has an advantage in supports. Water is one of the best affinities in the game. Most everyone wants water. Att + def is sexy. Def can easily let a unit take an extra hit or even two, and att can put a unit with borderline 1-rounding att up to par. On the other hand, Ranulf has wind, which is the worst. Small hit + avoid boost is lame. The small hit boost is minor, because either the unit doesn't need it, or it's not going to be enough to bring their hit up from "lame" to "reliable". Avoid is also lame unless the unit already has lots of avoid, like, faces 30 or less displayed hit on enemies, since biorhythm can easily screw with avoid. So Mordy is giving out extra att + def to another unit who really likes it, and Ranulf will be giving out wind to a unit that most likely does not benefit from it.

Looking at affinities in isolation, what you say is of course sound. However, the fact that partial support bonuses round up has a big impact on the nature of support bonuses in this game.

Suppose Ulki supported Mordecai. He gets 3 atk and 3 def. Now support him with Ranulf. He gets 2 atk, 2 def and 8 avo. Now, exchanging 1 atk and def for 8 avo is hardly a sacrifice. In fact, it could even be a positive trade-off if the unit had greater durability issues than offensive ones since the 1 atk lost would be superfluous whereas 8 avo >> 1 def.

Okay, but what if Ranulf supports another “crappy” affinity? Pairing up wind gives both characters 15 avo and, though less notably, hit that actually matters in the lategame chapters (auras have 135 avo, for instance). Ranulf certainly isn’t complaining about the bonuses he’s receiving and his partner is just glad to have a support period since all the good affinities are taken.

Mordy also has innate smite. It's minor, but it means Mordy doesn't waste any cap for this skill, which is cool because smite's nice. It's essentially +2 move to another unit you want, since Mordy can smite like anyone he wants. Of course Ranulf with shove is okay, but it definitely isn't as noticeable as smite.

Ranulf’s ability to use 3 spd% based skills better than Mordy easily supercedes this advantage.

Tiger claw has one of the highest mt of the laguz weapons, while Cat has one of the lowest.

The difference is a whopping 2 atk, but then Ranulf doubles 5890523780 times more often, thus winning damage output.

At full gauge, if Ranulf attacks 6 enemies and 1 turn passes, Ranulf is at 1 gauge. Mordy can attack 8 enemies and have a turn pass, and he'll have 2 gauge left. Mordy attacks 33% more enemies than Ranulf and still has more gauge remaining.

What good is an example that bears no realism? There’s no sensible situation where you’re sending a laguz unit alone into such a volume of enemies.

- If 2 turns pass, Ranulf can only attack 4 enemies safely before he untransforms on his 5th round (4 gauge left). Mordy can attack 7 and he'll still have 1 gauge left, meaning Mordy is attacking 75% more enemies. This is probably the most common scenario, because you probably won't be grassing every turn. Well, at least Mordy won't, since 7 attacks in 2 turns is quite a bit. Ranulf can only safely attack 4 enemies, which is only 2 enemies a turn. That's very little flexibility.

What would be wrong with Ranulf popping grass every turn? The added expense is not really a significant issue, and there’s enough olivi grass being sold in the shops that you won’t run out unless you’re doing a laguz only playthrough or something. Considering that, Ranulf loses a bunch of player phases to Mordecai, but he doesn’t care because his offence is much better, especially once he gets S strike and comfortably one rounds some common enemy types.

Say you had a group of 4 enemies, where Ranulf one rounds 3 of them while Mordecai one rounds one of them and 2 rounds the rest. Initially, Mordecai is a kill ahead, but once the turn is fully over (ie both phases have passed), Ranulf’s killed 3.5 enemies whereas Mordy killed 2.5. So even with Ranulf popping grass while Mordy was free to attack, Ranulf won. If both had to pop grass, then Ranulf would be winning by an even larger margin.

Over, say, 10 turns, assuming Mordy and Ranulf transform on turn 3 and they enter 15 battles total, Ranulf loses 95 gauge total while Mordy loses just 73. Ranulf loses at least extra 1 player phase to grassing than Mordy does, likely more. Assuming the turn count is the same, Mordy can enter 7 more battles than Ranulf (which is 22 total, nearly 50% more battles than Ranulf) and he only loses 94 gauge.

Unless you’re low manning or fighting in a map with very high enemy density, either character might not even reach 15 battles in the entirety of a chapter. The fact that Ranulf only loses 1, possibly more player phases to grassing plays even better into my previous example, which was implying that Ranulf would grass every turn while Mordy would grass every second turn and yet Ranulf would still be winning.

Often, one olivi grass will not get your gauge back to 30. Say our laguz friends are at 5 gauge when grassed, now they're at 20. This means that Ranulf can only take 3 attacks without untransforming. Mordy at 20 gauge can take 5 attacks without untransforming. Mordy is attacking 60% more enemies.

A good way to counter-act really low gauge is to revert and take a laguz stone. Sure, they may be finite, but this certainly helps reduce the impact of this issue. Anyway, if Ranulf were grassing every turn, he’d have greater than or equal to Mordy’s gauge anyways.

This gives Mordy a huge advantage in terms of player phase flexibility.

I can’t see how that’s as big of a deal as being much better at clearing a group of enemies. You have plenty of units on the team who can hit hard in one hit, so a problematic enemy usually just requires 2 units to take care of them. However, Ranulf killing stuff better on enemy phase means there’s less such threats to begin with, and that they’re easier to pick off.

Ranulf only needs 4 levels for his mastery, but those are really long levels. Because laguz level is doubled when doing EXP calculations, Ranulf levels like a 20/20/12 beorc. This means he's getting 1 exp for doing any action for a very long time. Even killing a 20/20 enemy gets him like 2 exp. The enemy needs to be about 20/20/5 before Ranulf even gets double digit exp for killing it, which doesn't happen until part 4 at the earliest. He's still going to be at base level when he enters part 4 unless you fed him several boss kills, and chances are he won't even get Rend until 4-E.

You’re forgetting BEXP, which is far more effective on laguz than CEXP is.

For instance, let’s compare BEXPing base level Ranulf to a 20/20/1 Titania. Titania needs 2100 BEXP for her next level-up whereas Ranulf needs 2000. Heh look at that, Ranulf actually uses BEXP more efficiently than a freshly promoted unit, a huge contrast to gaining like 1/15th of the CEXP gain of a beorc unit from a generic enemy kill.

Now before you cry about part 3 not having much BEXP, note that it is the part of the game where you get the most of it. By 3-8, you have 21600 BEXP available, and even on a 10 unit team, Ranulf’s already got himself a level. By 3-E, assuming you didn’t use any CRK BEXP, you have well over 26750 BEXP, which is another level for Ranulf. Now consider this is all assuming Ranulf is only getting 10% of the team’s BEXP supply. In reality, Ranulf gets a lot more from doubling the BEXP he intakes as others do since they aren’t gaining a wtfw1n ability, nor are they levelling like caterpillars in the actual chapters. And so, it is perfectly rational for Ranulf to soak up that extra BEXP since he overrides that negative and then some with his stat improvements and mastery ability.

At any rate, even assuming you were correct that Ranulf would only gain those levels by part 4, then Mordy isn’t going to get roar ever, making Ranulf’s part 4 win all the more fruitful.

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Now, let me address something. It's true that Ranulf doubles everything while Mordy doesn't, and he gains more from things like adept than Mordy does. However, keep in mind that Adept is a skill that many want. The hawks like it, Mia likes it, Shinon probably wants it unless you somehow get the DB's Double Bow in 3-6 to the GMs, Soren likes it because it's his innate skill, and then when the DB joins up we have people like Jill who wouldn't mind it either, and the list goes on. So I can't say much about Ranulf being better with Adpet when I have other units who could benefit just as much, or more.

There are, however, 3 adept scrolls in the game. Moreover, you can set up a system where you alternate adept between a set of units who want it each chapter. So, even with Ranulf’s competition, he could be getting it every second or third chapter.

However, there's a skill that fits Mordy extremely well; Resolve. This is where wtfmassiveoverkilldefense comes in handy. You just let Mordy get to half HP when he's untransformed, then transform him, and suddenly we have a unit with huge att, def, AND speed. He basically one rounds the entire map and takes no damage back. That's like, the definition of the perfect unit. If laguz didn't have 2-range or transformation problems, this would make Mordy top tier.

Whoa whoa whoa. Adept is highly competed for whereas resolve isn’t? Resolve is 10 times the skill adept is, and easily the most valuable skill in the game. It makes terrible units like Bastian and Sanaki useable, and in some instances, even good. It makes high avo and high def units alike invincible, and propels both unit archetype’s offences to incredible heights.

Let’s look at resolve on a 20/20/1 Zihark for instance. Depending on his supports and army, he’s got 104-139 avo. With resolve active, his avo jumps to 136-174 avo. Let’s take a specific example for the purpose of perspective.

Zihark goes into the hawk’s army, and his supporter gives him 30 avo. So, with resolve, he’s got 159 avo. The most accurate non-boss enemy in 4-2 I could find was a priest who had 153 hit. That means at neutral biorhythm, Zihark is literally invincible to every enemy on the map at neutral biorhythm except Valtome, who has 1.36 true hit on him. Hell, even if Zihark dropped to bottom biorhythm and Valtome went to top, he’d be facing 15.96 true.

And no, Zihark isn’t wtfdurable before resolve. Removing him from his supporter, he has 97 avo and 19 def, so it only takes 2 hits from most enemies to get him below half hp, and this is against 18-32 true, which stacks up in a hurry. So, just like Mordy, Zihark can easily get in resolve hp and becomes invincible in such a state.

Now look at what happens to his offence. There’s a good chance he’ll be keeping adept since it’s innate and he’s one of your most important DB units if you’re using him, especially in part 3, so shafting him of a skill he uses well anyways would be highly counter-intuitive. Assuming he has about 20 crit on enemies with a regular weapon, look at the proc%age transformation:

Before resolve: ~80% chance of adept/astra/crit in 2 hits

After resolve: ~92% chance

Now put a forged steel sword with +Mt and +crit in his hands

Before resolve: ~92% chance

After resolve: ~97%

These may seem like small improvements, but consider how much this improves Zihark’s 1-2 range. With resolve, he can kill enemies with a storm sword or even a wind edge far more reliably, and combining that with his invincibility, it could almost be claimed he’s putting Tibarn to shame.

Now why on earth’s name would Zihark or any unit like him (Mia, Volke, hawks, Oscar, Shinon, etcetc) pass up those kinds of performance boosters?

Now take someone slightly tankier. A 20/7 Haar only has 26 spd, but after resolve, he has 39. If his support gives him 15 avo and he goes Ike’s route, he has 102 avo. Mag users in 4-4 have 140-150 hit, and his resistance is pretty poor, so just a couple hits and he’s easily below 27 hp. But then resolve kicks in and he now has 128 avo. Now those mages have 1/5th of the hit they had on him before, and Haar’s gone from doubling practically nothing (even bishops are borderline for him), to doubling and thus being able to ORKO almost the entire map with a forged hand axe or tomahawk. Once again, units similar to Haar are plentiful. Tauroneo, Kieran, Titania, Skrimir, Gatrie, etc etc.

So even supposing Mordecai made the best use of resolve, he’s still taking a resource that can practically revolutionize a given unit’s chapter performance.

And who really gains so much from Resolve, enough so that Mordy taking a Resolve hurts them to a point that's noticeable? Slow units gain the benefit of being able to double, but these units either have issues surviving at half HP (like mages) or have issues getting to half HP (like Aran) so they probably don't want it. We have units like Skrimir who can *kind* of survive at half HP and have doubling issues, but certainly not as well as Mordy. And usually, the units who have issues doubling only need a few points in speed (such as Boyd or Skrimir), so they can just take a speedwing. Certain units can also BEXP their speed up like Soren and Aran. And there's also an early master crown option which functions like a speedwing (if speed is all they care about). No need for resolve.

In the case of mages, Soren and Calill can definitely put resolve to use. First of all, they have flare, whose activation rate is skill% and is boosted to 1.5skill% once resolve is in play. A --/15/10 Soren has 30 skl, so that’s a 51% chance to heal every round of combat. Second, both Soren and Calill have the dark affinity, an attractive support since it gives atk and avo, the avo being the important component there. Going back to our --/15/10 Soren, he has 120 avo with an Ike support, but jumps up to 148 when below half hp, so even those accurate snipers are posing 1.71 true. Chances are, Soren’s gonna heal much sooner than she’s going to take a finishing blow.

Of course, you must be asking why put resolve on a unit who has a healing mastery? Yes, it would reduce the amount of activation time resolve could’ve potentially gotten on another unit who could sustain <50% hp. However, Soren has a safety net to exponentially increase his odds of staying alive, and also gets a hefty offensive boost in those situations (+flare/crit). Soren would obviously want that over something like cancel, or vantage, or a stat booster.

As for the units who have trouble falling to below half hp, there is usually a way to get them there in a hurry (eg/ removing a unit from their supporters, having them fight mages, having them rescue a unit, etc), and they obviously appreciate half a chapter of resolve h4x > none at all.

The really fast units (such as Mia and hawks) are already doubling everything so the AS bonus doesn't help; if they wanted better offense they'd take something like Adept over Resolve.

Resolve > adept since resolve boosts crit and mastery activations, and also offers increased durability.

And the avoid bonus doesn't help a lot, because these fast units already have good avoid.

If someone like Mia or Zihark can be killed in 2 hits after falling below half hp, then the difference between facing 10 true and 0 true is paramount to their survival. So yes, it does indeed help a lot.

Also, Resolve not only lets Mordy double, but makes his strike gauge increase twice as fast than without resolve.

That much is true I’ll grant. However, doubling allows people like Gatrie to level up secondary weapons like axes faster, and increased adept activation is also beneficial to levelling up the strike of speedy laguz like Ulki.

And with resolve, Mordy is the one winning offense, because he's got a lot more att and now doubles too.

Resolve doesn’t affect att in this game.

Helping out in a team that has it pretty bad, or helping out in a team where they won't have any trouble without you? Mordy certainly has the upper hand.

A team that’s pretty bad? Plz. The DB have Zihark, Volug, Nolan and Jill for starters, all units who are basically at their prime in part 4 (well not Volug, but he’s still pwn). Then, they also get Naesala, Skrimir and Leanne, the former 2 of which can easily solo 4-P and 4-3. The DB have all the firepower they need unless you send off their members into other armies, which is inadvisable since you’d be breaking support chains.

I won’t argue Mordy has the advantage of choosing which army he goes with, just that its ramifications are fairly small.

First, who with thunder is ever going to take wind? Thunder is one of the best affinities in the game.

When did avo and def become >>>> avo and hit? The def lost is only 1 if one of the supporters gives def, and hit is far from useless in this game since enemies have actual evd, which in conjunction with biorhythm, makes for a lot of units who will have hit rate issues in some way or other.

A unit with thunder is going to look for any other affinity before they think of taking wind. In fact, the only thunder affinity units in the GMs are Shinon (who wants att), LOLLYRE, and Janaff (who probably wants att too).

Why would Janaff want an att support? Once he gains S strike, he has only 2 less att than Naesala, and it only takes him 1 level of BEXP to give him tear. His concern is more with archers/crossbow users, so he’s looking for avo, which Ranulf gives.

I'll give you that Ranulf isn't worried about straight up dying, but that's not his problem. His big problem is his class, where he untransforms so quickly he's constantly wasting his turns grassing, and you don't want your healer to waste his or her turn to heal him too because he was taking damage. And then Ranulf might get attacked by so many enemies he untransforms prematurely, and in that phase he WILL get hit, and hit hard. Mordy, on the other hand, is worrying little about running into trouble even at half HP for Resolve, save for magic users, because he's taking 0 damage from many enemies, and the ones who do any damage is negligible because he still has 30+ HP with resolve. And, he isn't as worried about untransforming prematurely.

I must point out the hypocrisy of assuming Mordy has resolve while Ranulf doesn’t. If we are to compare them in any way and one gets a resource of choice, as does the other. Ranulf with resolve has 82 avo untransformed, 97 if he has A wind/thunder/dark, and he won’t get doubled by anything but SMs. That alone gives him some dependable survivability, and mind you these are in very rare situations since a laguz shouldn’t be untransforming from combat ever. If you can see how many enemies are ahead, you can plan out gauge usage accordingly, accounting for the worst possible situation (all enemies attacking Ranulf, maximimizing his loss in meter). Anyway, in the 99% of situations where he’s transformed, resolve also gives him 128-143 avo (and this is at base level), quite similar to Ulki’s h4x avo. Then of course his rend activation goes up, and if he has adept, he’ll gain strike faster. All this > Mordy, resolve or not.

The rest of your post was summarizing points I already addressed.

Ranulf > Mordecai

Edited March 17, 2009 by Vykan12