Getting a Tier List on this bad boy

[Dat Nick]

It cancels out anyway, since Colm will have gained levels by the time Joshua promotes at 20 anyway. He'd gain more than the average unit as well since Rogue retains the thief EXP boost, so it's only going to get worse for Joshua if you want to bring up promotion at 20 for him.

[Florete]

So Colm hits 20 at the same time Joshua hits 12?

Why does that not sound accurate to me?

[Dat Nick]

because you're not taking the thief bonus into account?

[grandjackal]

My point exactly, Colm is highly overrated. Love how you gave him 12 defense based on Moulder because without it (because ya know, Joshua doesn't have Natasha or Artur), seems he'd only have wins of 1 HP and 2 Def on a guy who promoted 8 levels before.

I STILL could promote him at 14, he'd be similar even as an assassin.

Also, do find me someone for Artur who comes as early as Josh not Lute, and find me someone Natasha's bothering to support. She couldn't give a shit who she supports. Josh is fast, and it's nearby, he needs a friend.

Also it's NOT accurate. Josh is about level 15 by the time he's 20. Only way Colm's getting to 20 by the time Josh is 12 is with favoritism, epecially since Josh has far superior offense.

Edited September 6, 2009 by Robo Ky

[Florete]

because you're not taking the thief bonus into account?

And that amounts to an 8 level difference?

[Dat Nick]

My point exactly, Colm is highly overrated. Love how you gave him 12 defense based on Moulder because without it (because ya know, Joshua doesn't have Natasha or Artur)

its not that he doesn't have them, it's that he fails to beat Colm in combat anyway even with the lolzy WindxIce combo. Half of me wants to say they'd be better off with Cormag since the bonuses kind of exist.

Only way Colm's getting to 20 by the time Josh is 12 is with favoritism, epecially since Josh has far superior offense.

when the hell was 2 points of str "far superior offense"?

And that amounts to an 8 level difference?

Considering Colm's 2 chapters of availability and getting about 20 more EXP than anybody else, it's most certainly a notable one.

Edited September 6, 2009 by Joker

[grandjackal]

because you're not taking the thief bonus into account?

And that amounts to an 8 level difference?

Like hell it does. Colm does level fast, but he's not superior to Josh by any means. Check their bases and ask yourself who requires actual favoritism from the start. My current playthrough, Josh is 15 while Colm's at 20, and I've been favoring Colm a bit to promote him before chapter 13.

The difference between B Josh and B Cormag is 5 avoid. I won't be shedding tears over it, especially since move difference should be considered.

Edited September 6, 2009 by Robo Ky

[CATS]

For all of earlygame? Well I'm not sure as rarely I keep track, but I can garuntee you I didn't take more than 10-15 turns on any of these chapters.

10-15 turns? I think we have different views of "efficient play" here. This isn't FE6. Just playing through casually, with a low turn count kept in mind, but not like studying for hours to find absolute optimal strats or something like that......

Ch 2, someone has to backtrack to get that second village along the top of the map. Ross is your least useful unit so sending him > sending anyone else. Still, I sent Gilliam to get it and let Ross get in on the action, trying to have him atleast hit something on every turn. He actually managed to get two kills in, getting him to L2 with 23 Exp. Turncount: 5 turns.

Ch 3, I got held up a bit here because of repeated Javelin/Hand Axe misses at crucial points, so it could've been done a turn or two faster. Even with the little bit of dilly-dallying, though, Ross only managed one level (finished the chap at L3 with 83 Exp). He got a few hits but no kills. His low Atk really bites him in the ass, as he was unable to finish Brigands even after Eirika and Garcia had both attacked them. He could've finished some of these if I'd given him an Iron Axe, but it's almost never safe to have him attack with that as if he misses he gets one-rounded by the counter. Turncount: 8 turns.

Ch 4 was fairly straightforward. There's two paths for your units to advance down, the snag that leads to Lute's village, and the bridge near the center of the map. Ross and his 4 move can't keep up if you send him down the longer path across the bridge, so I sent him with the group going to Lute's village. Unfortunately most of the enemies in that area are Sword Bonewalkers, which Ross's offense is mad fail against. We're talking like less than 5 damage with unreliable hit. So he didn't manage any kills here, he did get a good number of hits, though he got lucky in some cases (~50 Hit against the Sword Bonewalker at the start, and he managed to connect, for a mighty 2 damage I might add). Finished at L5 with 50 Exp. Turncount: 7 turns, but in reality 6. I only had to take 7 because Franz missed against the boss and I had to take another turn to finish him off.

I sent Ross up the middle path in Ch 5, as I wanted my sword units to go fight the Brigand reinforcements that come in on the right side, and I wanted Seth to take the left path since no one else can solo that, which left just Ross, Garcia, Moulder and sometimes Vanessa to take care of the enemies in the middle. There's only 3 enemies up that middle area but one's an archer, so I was actually able to have Ross kill it at 1 range with the Iron Axe after Garcia hit it (Hatchet wouldn't have done enough damage). Still, only 3 enemies, and the people who go that way don't get to see much action against anything else. Garcia got in on the tail end of the fighting on the right side, but Ross wasn't able to do anything else; he couldn't get there in time with his 4 move. He finished at L6 with 96 Exp. Turncount: 7 turns.

So yeah, I don't see Ross being in his base class by the start of Ch 6 as anything close to realistic. I felt like I actually dawdled a bit; RNG screwage on Ch 3 with multiple Javelin/Hand Axe misses, also on Ch 5 (Colm, Eirika and Franz got hit by the axe enemies about 80% of the time despite facing <50% hitrates, forcing me to retreat for a turn), and on Ch 4 I held back a bit with Seth, I could've finished it one turn earlier than I planned to if I had just sent him charging in, but I wanted someone else to get the bosskill. And Ross still wasn't close to making it to L10. Remember that while his Exp gains start off huge, they also drop off pretty quick. Towards the tail end of his Trainee career, he's getting less than 50 Exp for a kill.

Consider this: Not counting bosses since Ross basically never has a shot at killing those (usually Seth's job), there's only 56 enemies in all of Ch 2-5 combined. Whereas you have 8-9 units on the field in these chaps. Splitting the kills evenly, each unit gets 6-7 kills, so even if Ross got 100 Exp for a kill he would not reach L10, and he doesn't get 100 for a kill, he gets like 60 starting off, which decreases with every level he gains. Yeah, he gets some more just from hitting, but also keep in mind that in reality he's getting less kills than that as he sucks at killing things, so it comes out to be about the same (matches up with my experiences, for sure--he finished Ch 5 having gained nearly 6 levels).

Also consider turncounts. My total turncount for these 4 chaps was 27 turns, but I'm gonna subtract two for RNG bullshit/holding back with Seth. If Ross gets ~30 Exp for a hit, then even if he had managed to hit something on each and every one of those 25 turns, he would gain only 750 Exp. Not enough to reach L10. Yeah, there will be turns when he kills, but there's also gonna be turns where he doesn't hit anything at all. I mean, you're talking about giving him 900 Exp by the end of Ch 5. I'm gonna say that you either went out of your way to give Ross more kills than he would otherwise have gotten, or spent unnecessary additional turns which allowed him to get more hits in. I don't know how you're coming up with 10-15 turns on these chaps, it's FE8, enemy density is low and the maps are small and straightforward.

I see Gerik, and it's route dependent. I could see Garcia actually quite a bit better than Gerik in Ephraim's route.

In Ch 8 you get Kyle and Forde.

In Ch 10 Eph you get Duessel and Cormag, while in 10 Eir you get Innes, Gerik and Tethys.

It takes Garcia until 20/5 to match Gerik's base Spd, and to say that the Spd advantage is "superfluous" as you did is completely absurd (come on, the dude takes until L18-19 before you even see double digits on his Spd). If you honestly think Gerik's Spd lead is superfluous, I'll be happy to provide evidence. Gerik's always winning offense. Would Garcia be able to win defense? Doubt it. He doesn't match Gerik's base Def until he promotes.

Regardless, using Garcia doesn't really help Ross's case anyways, as I explained already. Yeah support bonuses, but also more competition for resources, and Hero Crest issues (even if Ross goes Pirate, you've still got 3 Hero Crest units in a game that gives you only 2 Crests before Ch 16, and if Ross is going Pirate then someone will already want Ch 15's Master Seal).

On top of this, Ross could then switch supports over to said superior unit-Gerik. Last I checked, he was short on B options.

I already covered Gerik. Assuming Eir Route, Gerik goes for an A with Tethys, and then he has room for one B support, but with Ross in play, there's 3 units who all want that B support slot (Innes, Saleh, Ross), so that's not doing much for Ross. And on Eph Route, again, Gerik joins too late for the support to be of much use.

SURELY there are better combatants than puny Colm, yah? I'm sure we won't miss a swordie with 12 Str.

Even if this were true, why does it change the fact that promoting Colm is something the player wants to do?

Regardless of promoting Colm early (which does indeed help him--he gets +1 Str, +2 Hp/Def), it's an issue of promoting him at all. You want to use the 3 Cavaliers, but on Eir Route there's only 2 Knight Crests before the end of Ch 16, so one of them will want the Ch 15 Master Seal already, and buying another Ocean Seal is fail (blowing 10K right when the secret shop shows up and before we have the Silver Card? no thanks). But again, early promotion does indeed benefit Colm, so w/e.

you'd be surprised how long that Garcia support can last since you yourself say Garcia's at least sticking around till chapter 10.

Yeah, Ch 10 at the latest. So why did you still have him around when Dozla joins in Ch 11? And using Garcia while also promoting Ross early is just ridiculous, since Garcia's use also creates promotion issues.

Except that isn't where it goes. Rebecca and Bartre are where they are because they suck and contribute little, and stay that way for most of the game. They aren't there because of negative utility, they're there because they have almost no positive utility. Jointime is not an advantage when you suck.

It sure is if negative utility doesn't exist. If we're taking the position that only positive utility exists, then how can their actions create anything but positive points for them? And certainly there is no reason not to use them, if negative utility doesn't exist.

Because, well, it's true. It's stupid to penalize any unit for hogging a slot a better unit could use as even some people in high tier are victim to this. Marisa is already being penalized enough for being a shitty unit. What's the point in punishing her for being a shitty unit again?

Punishing her again? As Reikken said in the +/- Utility topic, she's not being punished twice. She's in bottom precisely because her use creates so much negative utility. I'll quote Reikken directly:

btw, units are lower on the tier list because they are worse, not the other way around. Their position on the tier list doesn't directly have anything to do with "negative utility".

It's not like "This unit is bad. Oh, and they also have negative utility which pulls them down even more." Instead, "negative utility" is a reflection of them being bad, or simply another way of looking at how bad they are. It's not 'in addition to' anything.

I'm not making any point, I'm telling you to stop blowing negative utility out of proportion.

Define "blowing negative utility out of proportion."

Edited September 6, 2009 by CATS

[Dat Nick]

It sure is if negative utility doesn't exist. If we're taking the position that only positive utility exists, then how can their actions create anything but positive points for them? And certainly there is no reason not to use them, if negative utility doesn't exist.

Did you even read a single word I said? It's because they basically contribute nothing due to their poor stats, not that they actually harm the team. Do I really care that you're mediocre/bad for 20 chapters as opposed to being good for 3?

Punishing her again? As Reikken said in the +/- Utility topic, she's not being punished twice. She's in bottom precisely because her use creates so much negative utility.

Marisa is a crappy unit. This is acknowledged. Using just about anybody else would be a better choice. Why even bother punishing her for that when it's already acknowledged she's worse than a lot of units? Furthermore, Marisa is an example about the "could have fielded somebody better in place of L'Arachel/Knoll" thing, I don't think you've caught onto that yet.

Define "blowing negative utility out of proportion."

Any time you post in a tier topic.

[CATS]

Did you even read a single word I said? It's because they basically contribute nothing due to their poor stats, not that they actually harm the team. Do I really care that you're mediocre/bad for 20 chapters as opposed to being good for 3?

Contribute nothing? Not even close. Despite having lesser stats than most of your other units, they're still quite capable of attacking and killing enemies. If we're judging them by comparison to an empty slot, then you have to consider how much Rebecca is helping you as compared to having nothing at all in her slot, and she's obviously much better than the complete absence of a unit.

Marisa is a crappy unit. This is acknowledged. Using just about anybody else would be a better choice. Why even bother punishing her for that when it's already acknowledged she's worse than a lot of units? Furthermore, Marisa is an example about the "could have fielded somebody better in place of L'Arachel/Knoll" thing, I don't think you've caught onto that yet.

Again, quoting Reikken:

btw, units are lower on the tier list because they are worse, not the other way around. Their position on the tier list doesn't directly have anything to do with "negative utility".

It's not like "This unit is bad. Oh, and they also have negative utility which pulls them down even more." Instead, "negative utility" is a reflection of them being bad, or simply another way of looking at how bad they are. It's not 'in addition to' anything.

Respond to this, rather than re-stating what you've already said.

Any time you post in a tier topic.

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to stop doing that. Also, do you have any sort of an actual answer for the question posed? Or are you just going to settle for deflecting it like this?

[Dat Nick]

Contribute nothing? Not even close. Despite having lesser stats than most of your other units, they're still quite capable of attacking and killing enemies.

Killing enemies? Yeah, that's kind of the problem. Rebecca and Bartre suck. They can't kill things very easily at all.

If we're judging them by comparison to an empty slot, then you have to consider how much Rebecca is helping you as compared to having nothing at all in her slot, and she's obviously much better than the complete absence of a unit.

That's why Rebecca does not have negative utility.

It's why she has very little positive utility.

Respond to this, rather than re-stating what you've already said.

Why? It's clearly not reflective of your mindset. You've made that quite clear.

Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to stop doing that.

k then

Make yourself look like a donkey just like you did with the L'Arachel thing

Not my problem

It's not just me who laughs at you whenever you try this crap, you know

Also, do you have any sort of an actual answer for the question posed?

What question?

[CATS]

That's why Rebecca does not have negative utility.

It's why she has very little positive utility.

Remember that she's being compared against nothing at all until Harken joins. Yeah, she's not able to do much initially, but her period of just doing single-digit chip damage ends long before Harken joins. A L16 Rebecca is 2RKO'ing Ch 22's Wyverns with an Iron Bow, and she's able to double most of them with a Steel Bow, which results in an ORKO. She's 1-2RKO'ing the majority of the other enemy types, too. And this is still 6 chapters before Harken joins. You're going to pretend that this makes no difference, to the point that you could just have an empty slot instead of Rebecca and not even notice?

She's present in 26-27 chaps total, while Harken is present in only 6-7. Harken's performance would need to be about 4 times better than Rebecca's after he shows up in order to even match her total contributions, much less surpass them.

Why? It's clearly not reflective of your mindset. You've made that quite clear.

It matches up perfectly with my own opinions. I don't think that negative utility is "punishing bad units twice," I think it's just a different expression of the fact that they're bad. And that passage is perfectly relevant to the issue at hand. Do you have a response to it, or are you just going to ignore it?

k then

Make yourself look like a donkey just like you did with the L'Arachel thing

Not my problem

It's not just me who laughs at you whenever you try this crap, you know

You've utterly failed at explaining what's so ridiculous about anything that I've said, so w/e. Nor do I particularly care about "who laughs at me." Tier lists are for discussion, not pointless ridicule.

What question?

I asked you to define "blowing negative utility out of proportion."

[Colonel M]

Eugh, so much... wrong.

As I was pondering to myself, notice Ross's rather... insane Atk ratios over time. Even so, how many units are RELIABLY ORKOing at a later date and time? I see 2RKOes being pretty relevant if they're there even if they lack the capability to double. A lot of other things I'd like to point out, but hopefully others will simply notice them.

Case in point, not saying Ross nor Knoll should bullet up. As we always should do with a tier list, measure the character against another. That isn't like 4 places up (L'Archel vs. Knoll is a no-no IMO, either argue L'Archel down or Knoll up), etc.

Also, let's not blow things out of proportion. Someone like Lute is not doing so hot early on either, but we're not putting heavy penalties on her due to that. No, like Ross we have to stretch the string and find things out. Enemy statistics, once I can get some (C9 all I have to do is see the reinforcements), it's easier to determine over time.

Edited September 6, 2009 by Colonel M

[Jaybee]

I could have gotten C9 Eph just now, since I just cleared it on the forced only Pt, but I didn't.

[Colonel M]

I could have gotten C9 Eph just now, since I just cleared it on the forced only Pt, but I didn't.

*Pats on head*.

Don't worry, I'll get it taken care of.

[Florete]

I already covered Gerik. Assuming Eir Route, Gerik goes for an A with Tethys, and then he has room for one B support, but with Ross in play, there's 3 units who all want that B support slot (Innes, Saleh, Ross), so that's not doing much for Ross. And on Eph Route, again, Gerik joins too late for the support to be of much use.

Supporting Dancers is shaky. They're there to make your team move faster, so if Gerik is right next to her, I don't see how he could be getting action.

That said, why would he support Innes or Saleh over Ross? Especially on Eph route, where they both start later than Ross. Innes gives him some unneeded Def, Saleh gives...nothing special, and Ross gives crit. Seriously, Wind (Saleh) vs. Fire (Ross) is crit evade vs. Avoid. Which one sounds better to you? Ice (Innes) vs. Fire is Def and crit evade vs. Atk and crit. Fire >>>>>

Edited September 6, 2009 by Red Fox of Fire

[CATS]

As I was pondering to myself, notice Ross's rather... insane Atk ratios over time.

After he finally gets to his base class, maybe. While he's still a Journeyman, he's basically stuck with the 4 Mt Hatchet. Hand Axe has shitty accuracy and only makes his Atk average instead of crappy anyways, and he's rarely able to safely attack with the Iron Axe.

Here's some stats for Ch 5.

L6 Eirika, Iron Sword/Rapier: 11/13 Atk, 12 AS

L3 Artur: 10.5 Atk (but the Def-Res gap effectively adds 2-3 points), 8.4 AS

L5 Colm, Iron/Steel: 11.2/13.2 Atk, 11.9/7.9 AS

L6 Franz, Iron Lance: 16 Atk, 9.5 AS

L5 Garcia, Iron Axe: 16.7 Atk, 7.2 AS

Joshua, Iron Sword/Killing Edge: 13/17 Atk, 14 AS

L2 Lute, 11.6 Atk (Def-Res adds 2.5, I'll say), 6.5 AS

L5 Vanessa, Slim/Iron: 10.4/13.4 Atk, 13.4/10.4 AS

The overall averages are ~13.86 Atk and ~9.9 Atk (and this is without including Seth who causes the averages to go up, especially Atk). L6 Journeyman Ross w/ Hatchet has 11.5 Atk and 4.5 AS. His Atk is a little over 2 points below average, and his AS is like 5-6 points below average. So yeah, he's sucking, no doubt about it. He's like 4RKO'ing while most other units are 2RKO'ing, and he has really no usable weapons outside the Hatchet, whereas all the other physical units can utilize different weapons to play with their Atk/AS values according to the situation.

Ofcourse, if you have Ross at tier 1 during this chapter, things look different. But again, I don't see how that's realistic, and I already wrote quite a bit on why.

Supporting Dancers is shaky. They're there to make your team move faster, so if Gerik is right next to her, I don't see how he could be getting action.

Tethys isn't always hanging 5 spaces back from everyone......if this were the case, then she wouldn't be adding any mobility at all, since units would have to end their turns where they already are so that she could reach them at all.

And this support is lightning fast. Like 3rd fastest in the game iirc, losing only to Eirika x Ephraim and (somewhat ironically) Ross x Garcia. 53 turns to A. Ross is almost 30 turns slower to A.

That said, why would he support Innes or Saleh over Ross? Especially on Eph route, where they both start later than Ross. Innes gives him some unneeded Def, Saleh gives...nothing special, and Ross gives crit. Seriously, Wind (Saleh) vs. Fire (Ross) is crit evade vs. Avoid. Which one sounds better to you? Ice (Innes) vs. Fire is Def and crit evade vs. Atk and crit. Fire >>>>>

Yeah, Ross gives slightly better bonuses, but Innes and Saleh's supports are also slightly faster. In Saleh's case this is offset by his later jointime, but Innes is there right away.

Regardless, Gerik is just raep in general, and the difference in bonuses is very slight (liek, Ross vs Innes is just Atk vs Def which is about even as always, and then Ross just gives +5 crit, whoopee), so Gerik doesn't care too much who he supports. The point is that if Ross is taking Gerik's B, then Saleh and Innes are going without. Whereas if Ross weren't there and taking up Gerik's B slot, one of them could be getting that B support.

Edited September 6, 2009 by CATS

[Florete]

Regardless, Gerik is just raep in general, and the difference in bonuses is very slight (liek, Ross vs Innes is just Atk vs Def which is about even as always, and then Ross just gives +5 crit, whoopee), so Gerik doesn't care too much who he supports. The point is that if Ross is taking Gerik's B, then Saleh and Innes are going without. Whereas if Ross weren't there and taking up Gerik's B slot, one of them could be getting that B support.

Not this again...

It goes both ways. If Saleh/Innes get that support, they take it from Ross. OMG they suck.

[CATS]

Indeed it does go both ways; if Ross is in play, then you can't assume Innes or Saleh always get the support, either. It's just like any other resource. You can't assume that Ross gets the support for the same reasons that you can't assume Gilliam gets 2 Speedwings or that Lute always gets an early promotion.

Edited September 6, 2009 by CATS

[grandjackal]

Indeed it does go both ways; if Ross is in play, then you can't assume Innes or Saleh always get the support, either. It's just like any other resource. You can't assume that Ross gets the support for the same reasons that you can't assume Gilliam gets 2 Speedwings or that Lute always gets an early promotion.

Then why assume any supports? A support is nowhere near the level of 2 speedwings for Gil, as those speed wings could have gone to Garcia and Dozla, so now I have two destroyers rather than one. Ross supporting Gerik actually gives better bonuses. Unlike Saleh and Innes, Ross can easily be garunteed a full support set in some form.

I think your complaint seems to come in the form of Tethys garunteed an A with Gerik. Due to her being a dancer, I see no reason why this is the case. Rarely will they ever be together, due to dancing and roll differences. Ross can easily fill a B, since he doesn't care to A Gerik. I could give him A Saleh and B Ross. I lost a tiny bit of avoid, but in exchange I have a more solid frontline team, since Gerik is no longer needing to be glued to a dancer or a Sniper who gives bonuses Gerik doesn't care about while diluding the bonuses he'd like, on top of being a sniper.

I also find your estimates of Ross level ludicrous. I may have lost the turn count of my playthroughs, but I garuntee you I didn't take long at all, and I could easily get Ross to base class by Serafew. No one's ORKOing aside from Seth, and plenty are leaving units in very low HP. Ross could easily get kills. Hell with that in mind, he could chip and leave someone to kill without taking a counter, or cleanly kill. Level 6 Journeyman by Serafew is rediculous.

[Florete]

I agree Robo on this one. GerikxTethys is one-sided except for the rare occasions when Tethys gets attacked, but she shouldn't be getting ORKOd anyway, especially since that would be mostly Magic enemies and she grows pretty awesome Res (75%, along with 85% HP). Ross would make much better use of the support, and he has the same affinity anyway.

A/B Saleh/Ross is probably his best option, with an A Ross being preferable since avoid >>>> crit evade. Innes doesn't care, and Gerik gets crit without him. I don't think Gerik himself cares much about Def when he's already getting +2 of it and +12-20 avoid.

[grandjackal]

I should note that it does help Garcia be a bit more of a monster the time he's around. I wish I had stats, but I have a rather average level 13 Garcia in chapter 9 Eirika. With Ross's support, he's blicking mages in one shot, and having a far easier time hitting swordies.

Oh, did no one mention that? How Ross helps Garcia have the advantage of popping someone out of existence? Again, I wish I had stats, but with Ross around, that steel axe is just so damn shiny in Garcia's hands.

[Mekkah]

I also find your estimates of Ross level ludicrous. I may have lost the turn count of my playthroughs, but I garuntee you I didn't take long at all, and I could easily get Ross to base class by Serafew. No one's ORKOing aside from Seth, and plenty are leaving units in very low HP. Ross could easily get kills. Hell with that in mind, he could chip and leave someone to kill without taking a counter, or cleanly kill. Level 6 Journeyman by Serafew is rediculous.

I get Ross promoted earlier as well, but you fail to argue why...basically you just said "he can easily get kills" with no numbers to back it up and then a lot of "ridiculous" equivalents.

The reason Ross should promote earlier is because it is rewarding to concentrate EXP towards him ASAP so he gets out of suck tier. Pirate/Fighter Ross in Ch5 can actually ORKO Soldiers and 2HKO about everything else, and fill a chokepoint more easily. In Ch6, it's even more important to have as many people capable of doing some enemy phase as possible. I'd say those outweigh the opportunity cost of having to feed him some extra kills in early chapters.

Assuming he gets 25 EXP per hit and 55 per kill (on average), and assuming they happen equally as often, he would have to get 11 hits and 11 kills, with an exchange rate of slightly over 2 hits for 1 kill. 5.5 hits and 5.5 kills spread over end of Ch2 + Ch3 + Ch4 seems...a little bit too much, tbh. Ch3 only has like 8 non-boss enemies, and two of them have WTA over Ross, so at most I can see him getting 2 kills and 3 hits here, putting him at L3 and some (if he hit 1-2 things in Ch2 for sure). Then he needs 700 more EXP from Ch4, though it has quite a bit more enemies, this seems a bit too much for a reasonable playthrough.

So if you ask me it's more likely Ross becomes L1 Fighter at the start of Ch6 instead.

[grandjackal]

On average? I can safely say that he gets 37 exp a hit from the start and those numbers don't start becoming true till he's like level 8, of which is basically too late anyways. That is a bit below average really. A kill is around 70 exp.

Also, what numbers? I can't prove dick without stats, and we don't have stats. None of us can, really. 3 hits get him a level, a hit and a kill would get him a level. After 3 hits, he would have 11 exp to top off. People generally need around 3 kills and a hit to level, so he's basically leveling at warp speed compared to your other units. Basically 4 hits and a kill is 2 levels. 6 hits is 2 levels. So unless you're saying that's all he's doing for each map before Serafew...

Another note is chapter 4. Plenty of zombies have 0 AS. By average then, he'd at LEAST be level 5 with that considered by the woods. Gilliam is not doubling, Vanessa is unlikely killing anything with her low attack (zombies tend to have high HP), same with Eirika. Only ones that basically have an offensive advantage would be Seth, Garcia and MAYBE Franz. He needs an STR up to ORKO defenseless zombies with an iron lance. If they have 1 def or are on terrain, he can't pull it off.

Ross can double with the hatchet so he has range offensive. Basically he could chip his own thing, then on the counter kill his own thing. A hit and a kill. A level up, all by himself in basically 1 turn. Others could too, but they don't just straight up level up from it. So unless you're saying Ross can't fight 5 of his own enemies...

I will say this though, he is at LEAST garunteed to be a Pirate by chapter 6.

Here are 10/1 Pirate Ross stats.

HP: 23.3, Str: 11.5, Skill: 5.15, Speed: 6.7, Luck: 11.6, Def: 6.25, Res: 1.8

Garcia doesn't get that sort of strength until level 9, Ross next level is tieing speed, doesn't get that luck till 20/5, doesn't have that defense till level 9. Base Garcia however is beating Ross by 6 HP, and 2 Skill. However, Ross will be leveling quite a bit faster still, while generally being his father's equal AND a pirate (Waterside Renvall anyone?). Ross catches up in a relative amount of time.

Edited September 6, 2009 by Robo Ky

[CATS]

I also find your estimates of Ross level ludicrous. I may have lost the turn count of my playthroughs, but I garuntee you I didn't take long at all, and I could easily get Ross to base class by Serafew. No one's ORKOing aside from Seth, and plenty are leaving units in very low HP. Ross could easily get kills. Hell with that in mind, he could chip and leave someone to kill without taking a counter, or cleanly kill. Level 6 Journeyman by Serafew is rediculous.

Just saying they're ludicrous without giving any reasons as to why? Do you have any serious logic or evidence to back up your assertions? Simply repeating things like "Ross could easily get kills" and "Level 6 Journeyman by Serafew is rediculous" isn't really very convincing. I suppose I'll re-post this......

Consider this: Not counting bosses since Ross basically never has a shot at killing those (usually Seth's job), there's only 56 enemies in all of Ch 2-5 combined. Whereas you have 8-9 units on the field in these chaps. Splitting the kills evenly, each unit gets 6-7 kills, so even if Ross got 100 Exp for a kill he would not reach L10, and he doesn't get 100 for a kill, he gets like 60 starting off, which decreases with every level he gains. Yeah, he gets some more just from hitting, but also keep in mind that in reality he's getting less kills than that as he sucks at killing things, so it comes out to be about the same (matches up with my experiences, for sure--he finished Ch 5 having gained nearly 6 levels).

Also consider turncounts. My total turncount for these 4 chaps was 27 turns, but I'm gonna subtract two for RNG bullshit/holding back with Seth. If Ross gets ~30 Exp for a hit, then even if he had managed to hit something on each and every one of those 25 turns, he would gain only 750 Exp. Not enough to reach L10. Yeah, there will be turns when he kills, but there's also gonna be turns where he doesn't hit anything at all. I mean, you're talking about giving him 900 Exp by the end of Ch 5. I'm gonna say that you either went out of your way to give Ross more kills than he would otherwise have gotten, or spent unnecessary additional turns which allowed him to get more hits in. I don't know how you're coming up with 10-15 turns on these chaps, it's FE8, enemy density is low and the maps are small and straightforward.

And something else to think about……

Ch 15 is what people usually cite as promotion time. For Franz to hit L20 by then, he needs to gain ~1.35 levels per chapter (19 levels in 14 chapters). So, assuming 1.35 levels per chapter to be the growth rate of our average unit, consider this:

Ross's Exp gains for killing are a little under 2 times as high as everyone else's. At L1 he gains ~61 Exp for a kill, while at L8 or 9 he's getting ~49. About 55 Exp per kill on average. While Franz gains ~30. So Ross should be growing at about twice the rate of all your other units, correct?

No, only if he had decent combat, which he doesn't. He's less powerful and less durable than your other units. He won't be able to get as many rounds of combat in, and he certainly won't be able to get as many kills in. He has no enemy phase and he's like 4-5RKO'ing while others are 3RKO'ing at worst (often doing better than that). So while his Exp gains are higher, the amount of action he sees and the amount of kills he gets are also lower.

You said on your game, Ross was tier 1 by Ch 5. That means he gained 9 levels in 3 chapters; his average levelling rate was 3 levels per chapter. But if 1.35 levels per chap is the average growth rate, then even if Ross was growing twice as fast as everyone else, his growth rate would only be 2.7. And as I just said, he's not, in fact, growing twice as fast as your other units; he’s bad at actually getting the kills and hits necessary to gain Exp.

If he's just growing 1.5 times faster than everyone else (not sure about that, but definitely more reasonable than twice as fast), then his growth rate is about 2 levels per chap. Not nearly fast enough to reach L10 by the end of Ch 4. For him to do that, as you’re suggesting, his growth rate would be over twice as high as that of the average unit, which obviously can’t be justified when his Exp gains aren’t quite twice as high and his combat is balls.

Then why assume any supports? A support is nowhere near the level of 2 speedwings for Gil, as those speed wings could have gone to Garcia and Dozla, so now I have two destroyers rather than one. Ross supporting Gerik actually gives better bonuses. Unlike Saleh and Innes, Ross can easily be garunteed a full support set in some form.

Slightly better bonuses, and in exchange Innes’s support is slightly faster, whereas Saleh’s is probably about the same speed, and they’re both easier to support with since they’re mainly attacking from 2 range and they have 1 more move, giving them more flexibility than Ross. The difference from Gerik’s point of view is negligible.

Assuming a high-demand support is exactly like assuming a Speedwing on Gilliam. Other units could and would use the resource in question were Ross not consuming it. This must be accounted for.

I think your complaint seems to come in the form of Tethys garunteed an A with Gerik. Due to her being a dancer, I see no reason why this is the case. Rarely will they ever be together, due to dancing and roll differences. Ross can easily fill a B, since he doesn't care to A Gerik. I could give him A Saleh and B Ross. I lost a tiny bit of avoid, but in exchange I have a more solid frontline team, since Gerik is no longer needing to be glued to a dancer or a Sniper who gives bonuses Gerik doesn't care about while diluding the bonuses he'd like, on top of being a sniper.

Care to explain how the fact that Tethys is a Dancer makes her unable to build supports?

Yeah, Tethys doesn’t need bonuses as much as Ross, but unlike Saleh/Innes, Gerik actually notices when he takes Ross over Tethys. It’s the same bonuses, but ~30 turns slower. So while you make Ross better, you make Gerik worse. And while Tethys doesn’t need bonuses asmuch as a fighter, they do indeed still benefit her, and she too is left with an empty slot if Gerik doesn’t tend to her.

On average? I can safely say that he gets 37 exp a hit from the start and those numbers don't start becoming true till he's like level 8, of which is basically too late anyways. That is a bit below average really. A kill is around 70 exp.

No. At L1, a hit is ~31 Exp. A kill is ~61. Those numbers decrease as his level increases, though admittedly his Exp for hitting just barely decreases (mine was getting 28-29 Exp per hit at L8-9). Maybe you were having him fight the Thief in Ch 3, since Thieves give increased Exp gains, but that's clearly a bad idea since his offense against that guy is garbage (as in, even more garbage than Ross's offense usually is).

Another note is chapter 4. Plenty of zombies have 0 AS. By average then, he'd at LEAST be level 5 with that considered by the woods. Gilliam is not doubling, Vanessa is unlikely killing anything with her low attack (zombies tend to have high HP), same with Eirika. Only ones that basically have an offensive advantage would be Seth, Garcia and MAYBE Franz. He needs an STR up to ORKO defenseless zombies with an iron lance. If they have 1 def or are on terrain, he can't pull it off.

Gilliam is quite capable of doubling. Ross himself has significant odds of still having 3 AS, and Gilliam’s Atk is considerably higher. L5 Ross has 11 Atk, vs Gilliam’s 16-17. Ross might be doubling those Revenants for 10’s or 11’s, but Gilliam is 2HKO’ing. Both 2RKO when Ross doubles and Gilliam doesn’t. But if Gilliam managed to get a Spd point he’s ORKO’ing, while if Ross didn’t manage a Spd point then he’s 3RKO’ing.

Then you consider that Ross isn’t doubling the Mogalls or Bonewalkers.

Gilliam’s offense is better. And if Ross loses offense to Gilliam, he’s obviously losing to most everyone else, too.

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The reason Ross should promote earlier is because it is rewarding to concentrate EXP towards him ASAP so he gets out of suck tier. Pirate/Fighter Ross in Ch5 can actually ORKO Soldiers and 2HKO about everything else, and fill a chokepoint more easily. In Ch6, it's even more important to have as many people capable of doing some enemy phase as possible. I'd say those outweigh the opportunity cost of having to feed him some extra kills in early chapters.

Assuming he gets 25 EXP per hit and 55 per kill (on average), and assuming they happen equally as often, he would have to get 11 hits and 11 kills, with an exchange rate of slightly over 2 hits for 1 kill. 5.5 hits and 5.5 kills spread over end of Ch2 + Ch3 + Ch4 seems...a little bit too much, tbh. Ch3 only has like 8 non-boss enemies, and two of them have WTA over Ross, so at most I can see him getting 2 kills and 3 hits here, putting him at L3 and some (if he hit 1-2 things in Ch2 for sure). Then he needs 700 more EXP from Ch4, though it has quite a bit more enemies, this seems a bit too much for a reasonable playthrough.

So if you ask me it's more likely Ross becomes L1 Fighter at the start of Ch6 instead.

Slowing down to feed Exp to weaker units? I mean, I think Seth is in Seth Tier because it was decided long ago that this is inexcusable on efficient playthroughs. If maximizing Exp gains > turn count, Seth needs to go down to bottom tier. Yeah, Ross gets better if you give him some favoritism, but his improvements would be cancelled out by those extra turns you had to take in order to give him that extra Exp.

I agree, he definitely has priority for any hits or kills he can get at, but he has no enemy phase at all, and as I said earlier, it’s sometimes difficult for him to finish things even after two others have weakened them. It doesn’t help that they gave him only 4 move, and that early chapters are often crowded. I can’t afford to have Ross taking up a space with his bullshit offense in Ch 3’s bottlenecks, when a better 2-ranger could be attacking from the same spot, or I could just be using that spot to bring a good unit up faster, since Ross's little bit of chip damage often doesn't make a difference in how quickly an enemy dies.

Still, L1 by Ch 6 sounds a good bit more reasonable than by Ch 5. His growth rate is reduced to 2.25 levels per chapter, which is……still over 1.5 times faster than Franz would be growing. Eh. I had him at L1 by the start of Ch 8 on my game. Ch 7 I would propose as a compromise.