Mekkah vs Cynthia

[Mekkah]

L'Arachel joins either one map before, or one map after Marisa does, effectively, and neither version of either of them plays significantly different on either route for it to matter.

L'Arachel is an underleveled healer, which sucks for her, since she gets the disadvantages of being underleveled (low durability, and actually no offense at all), but not its usual advantage (fast EXP gain). She can only gain up to 12 EXP by her using Mend due to only having D staves, which means she has to burn through an entire Mend staff just to gain 2.4 levels, and that would take her 20 turns of non-stop healing. Most chapters certainly don't take 20 turns, usually more like 10 to 14, and sometimes she won't be able to heal. There might not be any PC injured, like on turn 1, or there could be less injured PCs than healers available, which means that in order for her to heal, we'd have to neglect one of the others, be it Moulder, Saleh, Natasha, or someone else. After 10 uses of Mend she gets a C rank, but even then her options are painfully limited to staves that are used extremely rarely, i.e. Torch (15 EXP), Hammerne (40 EXP, but only 3 uses, and comes in Ch14), Restore (20 EXP, but only if someone is statused).

Marisa, however, is an underleveled fighter, who at least can be pretty quick at collecting EXP. She gains as much EXP from hurting one L10 enemy as L'Arachel gets for Mending one ally (12), and killing one nets her a quick ~50 EXP. Combine this with L'Arachel starting at L3 and Marisa at L5, and you'll see that Marisa can promote significantly earlier, even on Ephraim's route.

Even on Ephraim's route, she only has to gain 500 EXP to get to L10, which can easily happen in two maps. 250 EXP per map, 5 kills in each of them, or 4 kills and 5 non-kills. L'Arachel, however, is stuck as a healbot until she's done 58 Mends, or maybe more like 50 staff uses if we take into account some more powerful staves. We'll assume her to promote 4 maps after jointime, which means I'm giving her a generous 12.5 staff uses every map.

So atm, it looks like L'Arachel is at 10/1 in Ch16 either way, whereas Marisa manages to be that at either Ch13 (Eir) or Ch15 (Eph).

Next step is supports. Every single unit on Marisa's list is viable enough to be in play.

Tana: Ephraim and Eirika are in very high demand as supporters, Syrene is late, and Innes/Cormag are crappy on either one route or the other, so she's bound to have place.

Joshua is probably full.

Colm: The only good units on his list are Kyle and Moulder, who do have other options, so this one can be there. Sometimes.

But there's little need for these shaky options, since Gerik and Tethys are likely to support her. They make a support triangle, which helps because then you can break them loose from the group without breaking up the entire group's supports. Joshua and Eir Saleh could be argued as faster supports taking jointime into account, but they also give worse bonuses (Ice > Wind), and everyone loves avo. Tethys only has Arthur as a remotely likely other partner, so there's a million reasons that could not happen (not in play, full with Lute/Joshua, Tethys prefers support triangle).

So assuming B Gerik/B Tethys is what I'm gonna do.

L'Arachel's list:

Ephraim and Eirika are, as I pointed out, already very desired by like their entire list.

Joshua probably is full.

Dozla and Rennac are sucky.

Innes is only viable in Eirika route, and has plenty of partners to turn to.

But I'll give her B Joshua/B Innes as partners anyway, for laughs. I'm gonna assume Mage Knight L'Arachel since then she can use more things without weighing down as much. Promo gains are the same as for Valkyrie anyway, except Mage Knight has 1 less res.

So uh, for Eph route Ch16:

10/2 Marisa - B Gerik, C Tethys (7 con)

Killing Edge: 19.8 atk, 16.6 AS, 59.9 crit - - 60.2 avo, 31.5 hp, 9.0 def, 7.5 res

Shamshir: 18.8 atk, 16.6 AS, 64.9 crit

10/1 L'Arachel - C Innes, C Joshua (6 con)

Thunder: 20.5 atk, 13.2 AS, 16.9 crit - - 45.0 avo, 24.2 hp, 9.0 def, 14.5 res

Elfire: 22.5 atk, 9.2 AS, 11.8 crit - - 37.0 avo

L'Arachel has an atk lead of about 2-3 points. Marisa wins about 3 AS against Thunder L'Arachel, and a very huge batch of crit, somewhere between three or four times as much. I'll go into detail on that later.

Defensively, Marisa's hp lead is as big as L'Arachel's res lead, but hp works against both melee and magic, and melee is more common to begin with. And then there's a 15 avo lead to consider, too.

Steel Lance Knights have 21-23 atk and ~84 hit, so he has ~31% real on both with their full AS (thanks to Marisa having WTD). Even if he only has 21 atk, L'Arachel is killed in two hits, whereas even one with 23 atk and WTA cannot kill her in two. Oh, and there's one with a Horseslayer who OHKOs L'Arachel.

Admittedly, L'Arachel has the advantage offensively, as she can ORKO with Thunder whereas Marisa needs two crits, or an Armorslayer. But defense has always been and will always be more important than offense, since the former can be converted into the latter (more durability = expose yourself to more enemies to do more damage), but the reverse only leads to quicker death (killing more enemies means you leave room for more to attack you).

That's about as big as L'Arachel can win. Now let's look at enemies slightly more advantageous for Marisa.

Steel Sword Cavalier has 19-21 atk/93 hit.

22% real on Marisa, doing 10-12 damage, gets killed in usually three, sometimes four.

46% real on L'Arachel, doing 10-12 damage, gets killed in usually three, sometimes two.

They have 9-10 AS, 33-35 hp, 8-9 def and 2-4 res.

Thunder L'Arachel doubles some of them, for 16-18 damage, so even the ones she doubles, she might not ORKO.

Killing Edge Marisa doubles all of them, for 11-12 damage. More importantly, she has ~54% crit on them, which means ~78% chance of critting once in a double.

So for L'Arachel to win offense, they need to have 9 AS, and some low-end combination of hp/res. For Marisa to win offense, she just has to crit. And Marisa always wins defense.

Or how about an enemy L'Arachel has WTD against, but also her res lead?

Flux Shamans have 18-19 atk/86 hit.

14% real on Marisa, doing 10-12 damage, gets killed in usually three, sometimes four.

62% real on L'Arachel, doing 3-5 damage, gets killed in enough hits not to care.

So they're both pretty impervious to Flux Shamans. There's also with Luna. They have 0% on Marisa, and ~14% on L'Arachel killing her in 2-3.

They have 7-8 Spd, so L'Arachel can only double with Thunder, unless they have Luna, in which case she can use Elfire as well. But even with Elfire doubling on the weakest kind of Shaman (25 hp/9 res), she can't quite ORKO. Marisa has clean ORKOs on all of them.

Now how about an enemy Marisa has WTA against?

Silver Axe Warriors have 34 atk/92 hit.

6% real on Marisa, doing 24 damage, gets killed in two.

44% real on L'Arachel, doing 25 damage, gets killed in one.

Over seven times as likely to get hit, and not even surviving if she does? Huge win going on for Marisa here, words can't even describe.

They have 10-12 AS, ~50 hp, ~8 def, ~4 res. (their stats are very variable, these are about their mean)

Marisa doubles all, L'Arachel doubles none.

KE!Marisa does 13x2, killing in two rounds, ORKO with a crit (~80% chance of critting at least once).

Elfire L'Arachel does 18-19, killing in three rounds. 16-17 if she uses Thunder to keep her AS/avo intact, which can mean she needs an extra round (3x16 = 48 < 50).

That's about as demonstrative of a win as it can be. I'd like to leave it at this for my opener. Marisa has an easier time getting to L10 to promote thanks to faster EXP gain, and she has wins varying from small to enormous in durability, and she usually wins offense as well. In addition, she has more likely supporters that also want to support her.

[Mekkah]

Double posting because I'm badass. Note how Cynthia's counter got eaten by the forum backflip, but it's somewhat in quotes here.

Somewhat true, Marisa does have more issues on Eph route than Eir route. Eir route makes it more likely for L'Arachel to have an Innes support, since Innes is much better then.

It's pretty much the only way for her to get an Innes support, ever, since otherwise the guy doesn't reunite with her until the start of Ch16.

L'Arachel can use Torch staves immediately, as they only require D rank to use. Conveniently, both routes offer L'Arachel a Fog of War map instantly after she appears, and there isn't any competition for revealing squares.

Too bad that she joins very late into both Fog of War maps, especially Ephraim's. She might have one turn to light one there, if that. Maybe some more on Eirika's, but on Eirika route Marisa was already leading in level.

Status effects are also rather common athis point in the game. Lots of monsters use Venin weapons at this point, spiders poison as well. Both routes offer enemies with Sleep and Berserk staves as well, so L'Arachel helps out the team and gains EXp at the same time.

Venin monsters have crap hit, even crappier than normal. And the vast majority of monsters use the normal versions of their claws. And humans using poison weapons is pretty much unheard of. Sleep and Berserk? Ch13 Eirika has a Sleep, I'll admit, and Ch14 has a Berserk, but that one hardly ever tries to for some reason. And both are priests with pretty crap range. Ch14 Ephraim has some Restorage necessary.

Anyway, I don't see this changing anything about my comparison.

Saleh isn't even around during Ephraim route until very late, by then L'Arachel should be promoted.

He joins in Ch15, and L'Arachel isn't reaching L10 in just the tail of Ch11, then 12, 13 and 14. That entails 7 levels in 3 maps and a bit - about 230 EXP per map. Slightly over 19 Mend uses each.

But even if she's promoted, Saleh beats her stat-wise. Saleh is --/4 here because he gets autoleveled on Ephraim's route, apparently.

--/4 Saleh

16.6 atk, 14.8 AS, 9.0 crit - - 41.4 avo, 31.0 hp, 8.6 def, 13.7 res

Thunder: 24.6 atk, 14.8 AS

Elfire: 26.6 atk, 12.8 AS

10/1 L'Arachel (C Joshua...Innes just joined)

12.5 atk, 13.2 AS, 9.8 crit - - 43.0 avo, 24.2 hp, 8.0 def, 13.5 res

Thunder: 20.5 atk, 13.2 AS

Elfire: 22.5 atk, 9.2 AS

So I'd be better off with the inferior version of Saleh than L'Arachel.

L'Arachel crushes Natasha in stats pretty handily. L'Arachel has 4 Mag, 2 Skl, 2 Spd, 6 Lck, 3 Def, and 2 Res and 1 Con over base level Natasha, not to mention more Mov. It's not like Natasha's growths make up for this either, they're only 5-10 pts away from one another in every stat, save Skl where L'Arachel has a 20 pt lead.

You somehow forgot that Natasha, if used, is definitely not at base level after being around for 7 more maps. With 128 EXP (10 Mends) per map, she could be L10 by the time L'Arachel joins. But let's say her level lead is only 5 rather than 7.

15/1 or 10/6 Natasha (A Joshua)

12.4 atk, 14.6 AS, 11.5 crit - - 50.6 avo, 28.0 hp, 7.1 def, 16.7 res

Lightning: 16.4 atk, 14.6 AS

Shine: 18.4 atk, 11.6 AS

Whatever L'Arachel is doing, it's not crushing Natasha, even after both promoted (Natasha has had the option of being promoted for a while now). Natasha is slightly faster, which is important when you're so borderline on doubling or getting doubled as it is. L'Arachel has a ~4 atk lead, but Natasha has Slayer. L'Arachel wins .9 def, Natasha wins 7.6 avo, 3.8 hp and 3.2 res.

Moulder admittedly should be beating L'Arachel in most stats by this point, though L'Arachel's mount does help her keep up with your mounted units much more easily.

Too bad L'Arachel also has much worse durability than Moustache Monster, so this keeps her from getting as close to the frontlines as Moulder. In addition, his offense is better, so if he gets attacked he's more likely to kill an enemy, making him less of a detriment than L'Arachel, whose offense isn't as good.

18/1 Moulder (B Vanessa)

14.0 atk, 15.0 AS, 7.0 crit - - 44.0 avo, 33.5 hp, 10.8 def, 12.8 res

Thunder: 22.0 atk, 15.0 AS

Elfire: 24.0 atk, 15.0 AS

And I'd like to think I'm being generous with his level here.

More likely than not, 2 or more units will be injured each turn anyway. L'Arachel has no problem getting EXP.

Enemies have a knack for ganging up on only one PC, and they also miss often, or they're killed on player phase with PCs not taking counters. There's definitely more turns with 1 than with 2 or more injuries. Add that to the fact that other healers are better at sticking near the frontlines than L'Arachel is, and you see that I was quite generous with my level estimate already (which pretty much did assume L'Arachel healed every turn).

By doing so however, Marisa is cutting into the team's EXP pool, that was CEXP someone else could have obtained. L'Arachel doesn't have this problem as she uses her own EXP pool.

L'Arachel's pool is different from Marisa's, but it's still a technically limited pool. Someone else could have healed the wound she healed, after all. Granted, there's more combat units that want the EXP Marisa took than that there's healers that want the EXP L'Arachel took...but there's also much less wounds than there's enemies.

Marisa also is far too weak to kill units on her own, except for lol Bishops or something. This means we're either weakening units for her to kill, or Marisa is eating counters and only 2RKOing at best.

You would be surprised. Even at base level, Marisa already sports 13 Spd, which is enough to double every single monster type except for Mauthe Dogs, and every human except fast swordies. You mentioned later Shamshir is likely broken - if it is, it's because Marisa used it to level up. 15 base atk and 41 base crit means she ORKOs things she attacks 65% of the time. In addition, Marisa's 35 avo allows her to safely take on enemy axe users thanks to their shit hit and her WTA, which she can 2RKO without assistance from anyone. Marisa can also survive at least one, sometimes two rounds for enemies to do chip damage at the very least, or gamble Shamshir for an ORKO. L'Arachel might survive a round from one enemy as well, but her getting attacked only hurts efficiency seeing as she cannot counter at all.

And even if Marisa has to take a counter just to kill something for like ~45 EXP, she can afford to spend up to three turns healing herself with a vulnerary, seeing as it takes L'Arachel four Mends to even get past that.

Both are hurting efficiency at this point, but Marisa less so. L'Arachel is a slightly bigger help on player phase, since she can heal whereas Marisa requires an easy picking enemy such as an axe user or a weakened enemy, though those are in fairly high supply. On enemy phase, Marisa can take on one enemy, or more if they're axe users, whereas L'Arachel can take on absolutely zero. I don't see how L'Arachel is winning that.

You didn't bring up promotional items, so I'm going to.

Because I thought my opener would be too long if I did, but I do think Marisa has the advantage.

There are only 3 Hero's Crests before Ch16.

First, you're wrong there's a limited amount of these. You've had the opportunity to buy them in Ch14's Secret Shop by now. That brings up the issue of gold...but L'Arachel is losing that anyway.

A full Mend costs 1k and gives her 240 EXP, meaning a full level for L'Arachel purely on Mends costs me ~416G. That means she costs me almost 3k just to get to L10. More expensive staves means more cost per level. Restore costs four times as much per use as Mend (2k for 10 rather than 1k for 20), but gives only 8 more EXP (not even double). Torch costs twice as much as Mend, but gives only 3 more EXP per use.

Meanwhile, Marisa pretty much nets 50 EXP simply when critting with Shamshir, which costs only 1.2k, not even taking into account we got hers for free. Or just hitting something with Iron/Steel gives her as much as L'Arachel using Mend, but a full Iron Sword of 46 uses is twice as cheap as a 20 use Mend staff.

Her competition for these items are Joshua, Gerik, Garcia, and Ross. Marisa is flat out outclassed by Joshua and Gerik, and is about on par with Garcia and Ross.

First, people being better than her != people promoting earlier than her. They all have merit by promoting, all very significant boosts (Garcia and Ross gain some Spd, Gerik gains axes, Joshua and Marisa gain crit), and just because one unit is better than the other does not mean another unit gets it first. The consequences for promoting Marisa or promoting Joshua are about the same.

Then, you said there's three Hero Crests. So we'd have to be using three of these already for Marisa's promotion to be a detriment. It'd be largely inefficient to use three of these to begin with - out of them, only Gerik is a very solid unit that's anywhere near guaranteed to be in play. And let's admit it, the player would have to be a fool to play more than two along with Marisa, when he could have used, say, Cormag instead. Even if Cormag were worse than the Hero Crester by strict tiering principles, the fact that Cormag could promote freely whereas another Hero Crester would have to wait makes much more of a difference.

As for Guiding Rings, there are 4 before Chapter 16. Lute, Artur, Natasha and Moulder are the four other candidates(Ewan is too fail for usage). In general, giving a staff user the ability to fight is better than giving a mage the ability to use staves, since it indirectly increases their durability, as they get attacked less often. L'Arachel therefore makes a better candidate than Lute or Artur and I've already demonstrated how she beats Natasha.

The same principles apply to Guiding Ring users. Except Lute, Arthur, Natasha and Moulder are all considered High/Top tier units, so more of them being in play is more likely.

Also, giving Lute/Arthur the option to use staves isn't clear cut worse than giving L'Arachel the option to fight. Lute and Arthur, at the point where L'Arachel is actually able to promote, are already considerably more durable than her due to their defensive supports, meaning I get one or two more healers that can actually survive being close to the frontlines, which is more valuable than a healer that can now fight back but rolls over and dies after being attacked twice anyway.

Tana doesn't want Marisa. It doesn't have any support points built in, unlike most of her other supports, and her other supports are almost all mounted which helps her use her full Mov more often. Plus, many of her partners have better affinities than Marisa.

This doesn't address the problems I assigned to those mounted supports. She's not going to get or want Innes on Ephraim route and not going to get Cormag on Eirika route due to them joining significantly later than Marisa (and Innes and Marisa also are both Ice). Syrene never joins early enough for a support except in the Moustache Monster© Debate. And even if Eirika/Tana or Ephraim/Tana is faster than Marisa/Tana, the two are extremely desired as supporters by like their entire list (especially Ephraim - Forde, Kyle and Duessel woohoo).

Colm is also a slow support, and he doesn't like Marisa's Ice affinity anyway.

It's slow, but if Moulder/Kyle don't want him, then she's all he has.

I'm fine with B Gerik/ B Tethys. The only problem I see is that Gerik might want a Ross support over a Marisa support, since Fire> Ice and the fact that Joshua and Eir Saleh are faster than Marisa.

Only if he wants to neglect a support triangle, wants atk/crit over def (durability is more important than offense, remember?) and Ross is being used AND not full (meaning I had him without a B support for nearly the entire game when I could have used someone else who was building up one). Then Gerik might want Ross.

Ephraim and Eirika do have a lot of partners, but L'Arachel can also keep up with either of them and their Renais knight posse post promotion, so she's not a bad option, especially since Light is a pretty good affinity.

It's no use if she can "keep up" if she isn't getting in there in the first place. With the odd exception of a select few, L'Arachel joins later than any of their supporters. She's like the last person they would want.

Light is garbage, but we'll get to that.

Dozla isn't so bad as to be unplayable, it's an extremely quick support, and Dozla appreciates the bonuses.

Nobody is unplayable. Dozla is just one of the least playable units in the entire game, with issues in every area except Atk. His durability is troublesome because his avo is so low he has to get healed every other turn, and his offense is troublesome because his hit is shaky and his AS is downright bad (he has trouble doubling things like Mages and Wights...even semi-slow people like Kyle double those).

Rennac is pretty fail as a combat unit, but we're using him on some maps for theiving utility and his support list is pretty skimpy otherwise.

Rennac isn't getting anything out of L'Arachel since all he does is open chests, and he doesn't want to be anywhere near the frontlines due to him being, as you said, "pretty fail".

I do want to point out that L'Arachel generally gives out better bonuses. Light and Ice both give Def and Accuracy. Light gives Attack, which everyone except like Tethys wants, and + Avoid from Ice is good too.

It's funny how you seem to imply giving atk and avo is of equal worth. Giving avo is much, much better, especially if you're already giving def, since that means the enemy already needs extra hits to take down the support partner, giving the avo more chances to kick in. Which, of course, can be converted into more offense, since you can now take on more enemies without dying.

Of course, affinities are difficult to judge in a void, since their partners are also different. So here, look, 20/10 Joshua:

Joshua with A Natasha/no Bsupport: 71 avo, 48 hp, 13 def, 9 res

Joshua with A Natasha/B L'Arachel: 71 avo, 48 hp, 14 def, 10 res

L'Arachel doesn't give him avo, so the only way she increases his survivability is by letting him take more hits. Taking some Ch19 samples, this doesn't work against most of them.

1. Silver Lance Generals/Great Knights with 30-33 atk kill him in three hits, with and without (mind WTA).

2. Silver Sword Swordmasters with 26 atk kill him in four hits, with and without. 25 atk, he could take an extra hit.

3. Silver Sword Heroes with 27-28 atk kill him in four hits, with and without.

4. Silver Axe Warriors with 33-35 atk kill him in three hits, with and without.

Now, 20/8 Gerik:

Gerik with A Tethys/B voided: 68 avo, 51 hp, 19 def, 11 res

Gerik with A Tethys/B Marisa: 78 avo, 51 hp, 21 def, 13 res

I'll just use one example to not make this too long. It should demonstrate my point well enough.

Silver Sword Hero with 28 atk does 9 damage (6HKO) without, and 7 damage (8HKO) with the Marisa support.

In addition, those enemies have about 117 hit. ~49% true without, and ~31% true with the Marisa support.

Chance of death after 6 attacks without B Marisa: 1.3%

Chance of death after 8 attacks with B Marisa: 0.0085%. Not joking.

Light gives out +Crit though, while Ice gives...Crit evade, which is useless. Enemies in FE8 rarely, if ever crit, but your characters should have decent crit rates, especially people like Joshua.

Giving Joshua slightly more endgame crit is not going to help him much. For example, if he has about 60% crit with no B support, he would have 70% with a B L'Arachel. That's going from 84% to 91% chance to crit at least once in two attacks. A meager 8% increase.

CEV isn't great either, but pretending it's useless is wrong. Taking the example of Gerik again, he has 20 CEV at 20/8 with 13 luk and A Tethys. Swordmasters in Ch19 still have 4-5% displayed crit on him, and thus a chance to unexpectedly doing triple damage. Just C Marisa would negate that entirely.

A B Gerik is pretty generous in 3 maps.

So is C Innes in not even an entire map (they start seperated in Ch15), if he's even fielded in the first place on Ephraim route.

Also, you're giving Marisa rather special weapons, while L'Arachel gets generics.

I can't help killer tomes do not exist for L'Arachel. There may be some Shamshir uses left for Marisa, it's only been around for Ch14 and Ch15 so far. If it's been broken, it'd been used, likely by her, at some earlier point. She's gotta get credit for it at some point. Sure, you get only two Killing Edges for the game so far, but then in Ch17 you get to buy them. I believe I already showed L'Arachel is far behind when it comes to cost, so that isn't an issue for Marisa.

True, but you didn't mention the fact that L'Arachel has 1-2 Range, while Marisa does not. 1-2 range means that L'Arachel can attack without eating a counter, unless that enemy also has 1-2 range, but L'Arachel does better against most of these defensively anyway due to higher Res. Whenever Marisa attacks she has to take a hit back, except against Archers/Snipers, which are unfortunately very uncommon. 1-2 range is also a defensive advantage, enemies will attack foes that cannot counter over foes that can. This means L'Arachel is taking less attacks than Marisa, which is a pretty big defensive win.

L'Arachel can skip a player phase counter, which allows her to do one extra battle over Marisa if they could take on an equal amount of enemies on enemy phase. However, on enemy phase, Marisa is clear-cut better off. Also, you can heal allies on player phase after they attacked, while you can't heal L'Arachel after several enemy phase beatings until enemy phase is over. As for her defensive enemy phase advantage, that just means someone else is getting attacked, which isn't really a lot better, especially since it means that enemy is not getting countered (same result as if Marisa were attacked). And the majority of enemies are 1-range, regardless.

Also, there's another thing they give priority to: killing PCs. They will beat up on L'Arachel over Marisa if she dies in fewer hits, especially if it's only 1 or 2 hits. This has higher priority for them than not getting countered.

Of course to hit these foes Marisa has to take a counter, which means she risks dying more often than L'Arachel. Let's say they both get 3HKOD, Marisa takes a hit on the Player Phase, L'Arachel doesn't. Who has a better chance of surviving?

Time to grab a binomial calculator then. Assuming the hit rates I posted:

Chance of Marisa getting hit three out of four is ~3.6%

Chance of L'Arachel dying in three hits is ~10%

So she's still better off. And this is not taking her ~54% chance of critting during player phase into account, which means we can apply Marisa's 1% chance of death to three attacks in a row afterwards. Actually, her death chance is even lower, because that enemy is now dead, whereas L'Arachel probably left it alive.

The difference is that L'Arachel can counter these opponents on the Enemy Phase, Marisa can't. This means that Marisa kills one on the player phase, then just hopes to avoid after that. L'Arachel weakens one on the player phase, then kills that one on the Enemy Phase while proceeding to take negligble damage and weakening every other Shaman in range. Killing one and weakening 2-3> killing one.

Those Shamans are near a 2-space wide chokepoint. If Marisa stands there next to someone with 1-2 range, only two of them can attack her without getting countered, and everything else suicides just the same. Or she can just be part of a group that kills them on player phase. And any other PC can kill them in one round, so L'Arachel weakening them doesn't do anything for you.

These statistics are somewhat misleading, since Silver Axe Warriors are much stronger than any of the opponents you compared them against previously, they're promoted with Silver Weapons as opposed to unpromoted with Steel or equivalents. I will admit Marisa wins here.

Just because they're stronger doesn't mean a win naturally gets bigger. But I'm sure you know that she'll win if I just take another promoted enemy example, such as a 16 AS Silver Sword Hero which doubles and ORKOS Elfire L'Arachel, or doing 18/24 (75% of her health) while only doing about 18/31 (58% of her health) damage to Marisa.

So Marisa wins against Axes, L'Arachel wins against everything else and she can use staves.

More like Marisa wins against most enemies and wtfrapes L'Arachel against axes, while L'Arachel can use staves.

I also want to bring up the point that recruiting Marisa can be a rather painful experience.

This is a rather disputable argument at base, since how difficult it is to recruit an enemy has nothing to do with their performance. It's like saying a certain chapter is hard to seize for one of your lords. But regardless, it doesn't really work out as an advantage for L'Arachel.

In Eirika route, we have to talk to her with Gerik, who of course we have to speak to with Innes, who we have to recruit with Tana/Eirika. That's an awful lot of turns.

The way you write this is misleading. The entire NPC squad can be recruited in one turn, and thanks to Tethys (recruit Innes, recruit Gerik, recruit Tethys, dance for Gerik) you can even move Gerik out of the fort while you're at it. And then Marisa comes to you, and at that point it makes no sense to go anywhere since soon enough you have to put your healer, Tethys and Eirika in the cover of the fort regardless due to getting attacked by reinforcements from three sides.

These problems are compunded by the priest with the sleep staff, who loves to target Gerik with his unspectacular Res. By this time we probably have units moving up north, which can easily trigger the group Marisa's with, leading to her impaling yourself on one of your units. What a drag.

None of your units have spectacular res to begin with, so he'll likely just sleep someone else instead, which is just as bad. Or just as "who cares", seeing as you know he's coming beforehand and have Restore staff available. And Innes can take him out with the ballista. Marisa is also a pretty threatening enemy I'd rather not face due to her ~40 crit, and by killing her you miss out on the Shamshir.

Marisa isn't easy to recruit on Ephraim route either. It requires you to use Ewan, who is nothign short of horrible. Ewan's chances of survival are pretty low, especially since Marisa can actually kill Ewan herself.

You don't have to do anything with Ewan except move him around and let him talk to Marisa. Anyway, disarmed or Iron Lance Seth/Franz/Gilliam lures Marisa into Ewan's range with no risk involved.\

L'Arachel doesn't have many recruitment issues since she's not an enemy unit and only reruires the Lord you're using to talk to her, who's going to be fielded and plenty durable. Very few monsters show up in L'Arachel's part of the map and she has Dozla to protect her anyway.

This is arguably worse, actually, because a NPC is not allied with the enemies while still not under your control. A series of bad RN rolls can make Dozla miss an enemy he had to kill to keep him away from L'Arachel, or get L'Arachel hit and die. In both routes, they can be approached from multiple sides, especially Ephraim's, and Dozla can only occupy one spot at once. The fact that the AI controls them makes Dozla's "protection" even more worthless, since he likes to run off to kill a random enemy several spaces away, or to use an Elixir on himself.

L'Arachel has more Mov

Funny, even this isn't necessarily always true: Troubadours have equal move to Swordmasters in this game, so they actually tie movement. In addition, horses get several movement penalties, like not being able to move over mountains or rivers, having their movement raped in the desert, and taking more poins to get through forests. Of course, Marisa also has better durability, so she can move out further than L'Arachel can without requiring to be boxed in.

[-Cynthia-]

Double posting because I'm badass. Note how Cynthia's counter got eaten by the forum backflip, but it's somewhat in quotes here.

I think you got most of it.

Too bad that she joins very late into both Fog of War maps, especially Ephraim's. She might have one turn to light one there, if that. Maybe some more on Eirika's, but on Eirika route Marisa was already leading in level.

The Eirika route map that L'Arachel joins on is a rout map, so it will undoubtedly take several turns after her recruitment to defeat. She has less time on Ephraim route, but likely a few turns to spam Torch if necessary.

Venin monsters have crap hit, even crappier than normal. And the vast majority of monsters use the normal versions of their claws. And humans using poison weapons is pretty much unheard of. Sleep and Berserk? Ch13 Eirika has a Sleep, I'll admit, and Ch14 has a Berserk, but that one hardly ever tries to for some reason. And both are priests with pretty crap range. Ch14 Ephraim has some Restorage necessary.

Anyway, I don't see this changing anything about my comparison.

It demonstrates that L'Arachel's staff utility is indeed useful. FE8 is one of the easier games, the most threatening thing in the game may very well be fighting your own units or having your units be helpless.Staves fix that.

He joins in Ch15, and L'Arachel isn't reaching L10 in just the tail of Ch11, then 12, 13 and 14. That entails 7 levels in 3 maps and a bit - about 230 EXP per map. Slightly over 19 Mend uses each.

But even if she's promoted, Saleh beats her stat-wise. Saleh is --/4 here because he gets autoleveled on Ephraim's route, apparently.

--/4 Saleh

16.6 atk, 14.8 AS, 9.0 crit - - 41.4 avo, 31.0 hp, 8.6 def, 13.7 res

Thunder: 24.6 atk, 14.8 AS

Elfire: 26.6 atk, 12.8 AS

10/1 L'Arachel (C Joshua...Innes just joined)

12.5 atk, 13.2 AS, 9.8 crit - - 43.0 avo, 24.2 hp, 8.0 def, 13.5 res

Thunder: 20.5 atk, 13.2 AS

Elfire: 22.5 atk, 9.2 AS

So I'd be better off with the inferior version of Saleh than L'Arachel.

Initally yes, but L'Arachel beats Saleh in Mov, supports, and will grow faster due to being a lower level.

You somehow forgot that Natasha, if used, is definitely not at base level after being around for 7 more maps. With 128 EXP (10 Mends) per map, she could be L10 by the time L'Arachel joins. But let's say her level lead is only 5 rather than 7.

15/1 or 10/6 Natasha (A Joshua)

12.4 atk, 14.6 AS, 11.5 crit - - 50.6 avo, 28.0 hp, 7.1 def, 16.7 res

Lightning: 16.4 atk, 14.6 AS

Shine: 18.4 atk, 11.6 AS

Whatever L'Arachel is doing, it's not crushing Natasha, even after both promoted (Natasha has had the option of being promoted for a while now). Natasha is slightly faster, which is important when you're so borderline on doubling or getting doubled as it is. L'Arachel has a ~4 atk lead, but Natasha has Slayer. L'Arachel wins .9 def, Natasha wins 7.6 avo, 3.8 hp and 3.2 res.

The slight AS lead between the two usually doesn't make the difference between doubling and not doubling, and in cases where both double, L'Arachel is doing 8 dmg more than Natasha, which more than makes up for Natasha's minor durability lead. Natasha also had to use up resources to get to this point, she's had to share staves/healing with the Moustache Monster this entire time, not to mention promoted Artur/Lute.

Too bad L'Arachel also has much worse durability than Moustache Monster, so this keeps her from getting as close to the frontlines as Moulder. In addition, his offense is better, so if he gets attacked he's more likely to kill an enemy, making him less of a detriment than L'Arachel, whose offense isn't as good.

18/1 Moulder (B Vanessa)

14.0 atk, 15.0 AS, 7.0 crit - - 44.0 avo, 33.5 hp, 10.8 def, 12.8 res

Thunder: 22.0 atk, 15.0 AS

Elfire: 24.0 atk, 15.0 AS

And I'd like to think I'm being generous with his level here.

I will admit that L'Arachel is not as good as Moulder, but more likely than not with the number of enemies and number of units being fielded, we're taking 2+ wounds a turn, there's plenty of staff usage for both at this point.

Enemies have a knack for ganging up on only one PC, and they also miss often, or they're killed on player phase with PCs not taking counters. There's definitely more turns with 1 than with 2 or more injuries. Add that to the fact that other healers are better at sticking near the frontlines than L'Arachel is, and you see that I was quite generous with my level estimate already (which pretty much did assume L'Arachel healed every turn).

L'Arachel's pool is different from Marisa's, but it's still a technically limited pool. Someone else could have healed the wound she healed, after all. Granted, there's more combat units that want the EXP Marisa took than that there's healers that want the EXP L'Arachel took...but there's also much less wounds than there's enemies.

True to an extent, although people like Natasha can often fail to fully heal with a Heal staff anyway, meaning two people can get EXP from the same target.. The pool for Torches is nearly unlimited, and while status effects are more limited than wounds, they're also more EXP lucrative.

You would be surprised. Even at base level, Marisa already sports 13 Spd, which is enough to double every single monster type except for Mauthe Dogs, and every human except fast swordies. You mentioned later Shamshir is likely broken - if it is, it's because Marisa used it to level up. 15 base atk and 41 base crit means she ORKOs things she attacks 65% of the time. In addition, Marisa's 35 avo allows her to safely take on enemy axe users thanks to their shit hit and her WTA, which she can 2RKO without assistance from anyone. Marisa can also survive at least one, sometimes two rounds for enemies to do chip damage at the very least, or gamble Shamshir for an ORKO. L'Arachel might survive a round from one enemy as well, but her getting attacked only hurts efficiency seeing as she cannot counter at all.

ORKO is a crit would KO, she can not KO with a crit on Generals and such. L'Arachel getting attacked beofre she promotes admittedly doesn't help team efficiency, but Marisa contributes very little on the Enemy Phase as well, considering she's usually 3HKOd, sometimes 2HKOd.

And even if Marisa has to take a counter just to kill something for like ~45 EXP, she can afford to spend up to three turns healing herself with a vulnerary, seeing as it takes L'Arachel four Mends to even get past that.

It also means that Marisa puts herself in significant danger after taking said counter, if one enemy other enemy is left in range she's in trouble, if two are in range she has a very high chance of dying. L'Arachel can use mend from a much safer position since you can place the injured unit on the back lines. L'Arachel is also doing something with her turns, healing allies helps team efficiency, using Vulenaries does not.

Both are hurting efficiency at this point, but Marisa less so. L'Arachel is a slightly bigger help on player phase, since she can heal whereas Marisa requires an easy picking enemy such as an axe user or a weakened enemy, though those are in fairly high supply. On enemy phase, Marisa can take on one enemy, or more if they're axe users, whereas L'Arachel can take on absolutely zero. I don't see how L'Arachel is winning that.

I would argue that L'Arachel's healing/restoring is much better than Marisa being able to scratch one enemy on the enemy phase, especially since Marisa is unlikely to scratch more than that due to durability issues.

A full Mend costs 1k and gives her 240 EXP, meaning a full level for L'Arachel purely on Mends costs me ~416G. That means

she costs me almost 3k just to get to L10. More expensive staves means more cost per level. Restore costs four times as much per use as Mend (2k for 10 rather than 1k for 20), but gives only 8 more EXP (not even double). Torch costs twice as much as Mend, but gives only 3 more EXP per use.

Meanwhile, Marisa pretty much nets 50 EXP simply when critting with Shamshir, which costs only 1.2k, not even taking into account we got hers for free. Or just hitting something with Iron/Steel gives her as much as L'Arachel using Mend, but a full Iron Sword of 46 uses is twice as cheap as a 20 use Mend staff.

The issue is that L'Arachel is much more efficient with the Mend staff than Marisa is with an Iron Sword. You're only taking the Exp/gold comparison into account, there's also how much their weapon usage affects team efficiency. Marisa gaining Exp via attacking doesn't really help the team, since no one else can get that Exp. L'Arachel's healing allows that ally to face more enemies and clear the chapter faster, which helps the team.

First, people being better than her != people promoting earlier than her. They all have merit by promoting, all very significant boosts (Garcia and Ross gain some Spd, Gerik gains axes, Joshua and Marisa gain crit), and just because one unit is better than the other does not mean another unit gets it first. The consequences for promoting Marisa or promoting Joshua are about the same.

Then, you said there's three Hero Crests. So we'd have to be using three of these already for Marisa's promotion to be a detriment. It'd be largely inefficient to use three of these to begin with - out of them, only Gerik is a very solid unit that's anywhere near guaranteed to be in play. And let's admit it, the player would have to be a fool to play more than two along with Marisa, when he could have used, say, Cormag instead. Even if Cormag were worse than the Hero Crester by strict tiering principles, the fact that Cormag could promote freely whereas another Hero Crester would have to wait makes much more of a difference.

The same principles apply to Guiding Ring users. Except Lute, Arthur, Natasha and Moulder are all considered High/Top tier units, so more of them being in play is more likely.

The thing is that there are more Guiding Rings (without using lots of money at the Ch14 Secret Shop), so less competition overall than for the Hero's Crests. The units using the Crests are rather good themselves, Gerik is excellent, Joshua is good as well, Ross and Garcia are about on par with Marisa.

Also, giving Lute/Arthur the option to use staves isn't clear cut worse than giving L'Arachel the option to fight. Lute and Arthur, at the point where L'Arachel is actually able to promote, are already considerably more durable than her due to their defensive supports, meaning I get one or two more healers that can actually survive being close to the frontlines, which is more valuable than a healer that can now fight back but rolls over and dies after being attacked twice anyway.

L'Arachel being able to equip weapins means she's less likely to be attacked on the Enemy Phase since enemies generally target those who cannot counter. This increases her durability significantly.

This doesn't address the problems I assigned to those mounted supports. She's not going to get or want Innes on Ephraim route and not going to get Cormag on Eirika route due to them joining significantly later than Marisa (and Innes and Marisa also are both Ice). Syrene never joins early enough for a support except in the Moustache Monster© Debate. And even if Eirika/Tana or Ephraim/Tana is faster than Marisa/Tana, the two are extremely desired as supporters by like their entire list (especially Ephraim - Forde, Kyle and Duessel woohoo).

It's unlikely than Ephraim and Eirika will be full on both routes, since the twin whose route you didn't take has a good chance to have a support slot open. Tana's best support options are Eirika/Ephraim and Innes/Cormag respectively, she doesn't want Marisa.

Only if he wants to neglect a support triangle, wants atk/crit over def (durability is more important than offense, remember?) and Ross is being used AND not full (meaning I had him without a B support for nearly the entire game when I could have used someone else who was building up one). Then Gerik might want Ross.

It's no use if she can "keep up" if she isn't getting in there in the first place. With the odd exception of a select few, L'Arachel joins later than any of their supporters. She's like the last person they would want.

If L'Arachel joins too late for her supports, the same problem applies for Marisa as well, considering they're only 1 chapter apart from each other in both routes. Of course, they both have valid support options with other mid to lategame characters so it's kind of moot.

Nobody is unplayable. Dozla is just one of the least playable units in the entire game, with issues in every area except Atk. His durability is troublesome because his avo is so low he has to get healed every other turn, and his offense is troublesome because his hit is shaky and his AS is downright bad (he has trouble doubling things like Mages and Wights...even semi-slow people like Kyle double those).

Rennac isn't getting anything out of L'Arachel since all he does is open chests, and he doesn't want to be anywhere near the frontlines due to him being, as you said, "pretty fail".

While neither of them are incedibly likely to be fielded, in the cases they are fielded they'll want L'Arachel.

It's funny how you seem to imply giving atk and avo is of equal worth. Giving avo is much, much better, especially if you're already giving def, since that means the enemy already needs extra hits to take down the support partner, giving the avo more chances to kick in. Which, of course, can be converted into more offense, since you can now take on more enemies without dying.

Of course, affinities are difficult to judge in a void, since their partners are also different. So here, look, 20/10 Joshua:

Joshua with A Natasha/no Bsupport: 71 avo, 48 hp, 13 def, 9 res

Joshua with A Natasha/B L'Arachel: 71 avo, 48 hp, 14 def, 10 res

L'Arachel doesn't give him avo, so the only way she increases his survivability is by letting him take more hits. Taking some Ch19 samples, this doesn't work against most of them.

1. Silver Lance Generals/Great Knights with 30-33 atk kill him in three hits, with and without (mind WTA).

2. Silver Sword Swordmasters with 26 atk kill him in four hits, with and without. 25 atk, he could take an extra hit.

3. Silver Sword Heroes with 27-28 atk kill him in four hits, with and without.

4. Silver Axe Warriors with 33-35 atk kill him in three hits, with and without.

Now, 20/8 Gerik:

Gerik with A Tethys/B voided: 68 avo, 51 hp, 19 def, 11 res

Gerik with A Tethys/B Marisa: 78 avo, 51 hp, 21 def, 13 res

I'll just use one example to not make this too long. It should demonstrate my point well enough.

Silver Sword Hero with 28 atk does 9 damage (6HKO) without, and 7 damage (8HKO) with the Marisa support.

In addition, those enemies have about 117 hit. ~49% true without, and ~31% true with the Marisa support.

Chance of death after 6 attacks without B Marisa: 1.3%

Chance of death after 8 attacks with B Marisa: 0.0085%. Not joking.

Of course Avo does add to durability, but isn't turning any 2RKOS into ORKOS like an attack boost. In general, the units you are using have such low deaths to begin with than any extra durability is superflous.

Giving Joshua slightly more endgame crit is not going to help him much. For example, if he has about 60% crit with no B support, he would have 70% with a B L'Arachel. That's going from 84% to 91% chance to crit at least once in two attacks. A meager 8% increase.

CEV isn't great either, but pretending it's useless is wrong. Taking the example of Gerik again, he has 20 CEV at 20/8 with 13 luk and A Tethys. Swordmasters in Ch19 still have 4-5% displayed crit on him, and thus a chance to unexpectedly doing triple damage. Just C Marisa would negate that entirely.

So is C Innes in not even an entire map (they start seperated in Ch15), if he's even fielded in the first place on Ephraim route.

I can't help killer tomes do not exist for L'Arachel. There may be some Shamshir uses left for Marisa, it's only been around for Ch14 and Ch15 so far. If it's been broken, it'd been used, likely by her, at some earlier point. She's gotta get credit for it at some point. Sure, you get only two Killing Edges for the game so far, but then in Ch17 you get to buy them. I believe I already showed L'Arachel is far behind when it comes to cost, so that isn't an issue for Marisa.

L'Arachel can skip a player phase counter, which allows her to do one extra battle over Marisa if they could take on an equal amount of enemies on enemy phase. However, on enemy phase, Marisa is clear-cut better off. Also, you can heal allies on player phase after they attacked, while you can't heal L'Arachel after several enemy phase beatings until enemy phase is over. As for her defensive enemy phase advantage, that just means someone else is getting attacked, which isn't really a lot better, especially since it means that enemy is not getting countered (same result as if Marisa were attacked). And the majority of enemies are 1-range, regardless.

Marisa isn't the only possible Shamshir user, we could have easily given it to Joshua or something. How is Marisa better on the Enemy Phase? She's getting attacked by enemes that she cannot counter, which increases her chances of dying. L'Arachel counters all the enemies she attacks, which means she deals more damage if they were to attack her instead of Marisa. L'Arachel isn't terribly likely to be attacked over Marisa due to "ganging up", since Marisa very rarely has concrete durabiltiy leads over L'Arachel. And while techically 1 range enmies are the most common, 2-range and 1-2 range enemies make up a very signficant portion of the game.

Also, there's another thing they give priority to: killing PCs. They will beat up on L'Arachel over Marisa if she dies in fewer hits, especially if it's only 1 or 2 hits. This has higher priority for them than not getting countered.

Time to grab a binomial calculator then. Assuming the hit rates I posted:

Chance of Marisa getting hit three out of four is ~3.6%

Chance of L'Arachel dying in three hits is ~10%

In almost all cases though, L'Arachel and Marisa are dying in the same number of hits(except for L'Arachel's massive lead against magic), so they are being targeted at the same rates, unless it's a 1-2 range enemy which will hit Marisa.

So she's still better off. And this is not taking her ~54% chance of critting during player phase into account, which means we can apply Marisa's 1% chance of death to three attacks in a row afterwards. Actually, her death chance is even lower, because that enemy is now dead, whereas L'Arachel probably left it alive.

Those Shamans are near a 2-space wide chokepoint. If Marisa stands there next to someone with 1-2 range, only two of them can attack her without getting countered, and everything else suicides just the same. Or she can just be part of a group that kills them on player phase. And any other PC can kill them in one round, so L'Arachel weakening them doesn't do anything for you.

Any other PC can one round them isn't true, not Natasha or Knoll, probably not people like Rennac etc. It boils down to in one Player and Enemy Phase Marisa kills one Shaman, L'Arachel kills one and weakens 4 others, which is superior.

Just because they're stronger doesn't mean a win naturally gets bigger. But I'm sure you know that she'll win if I just take another promoted enemy example, such as a 16 AS Silver Sword Hero which doubles and ORKOS Elfire L'Arachel, or doing 18/24 (75% of her health) while only doing about 18/31 (58% of her health) damage to Marisa.

L'Arachel is extremely unlikely to only be 10/1(and thus will have better AS and defenses) by the time 16 AS Silver Sword Heroes show up.

This is a rather disputable argument at base, since how difficult it is to recruit an enemy has nothing to do with their performance. It's like saying a certain chapter is hard to seize for one of your lords. But regardless, it doesn't really work out as an advantage for L'Arachel.

Eh, recruiting Marisa hurts the efficiency of the team on that particular map.. I usually count recruitment as part of the character.

None of your units have spectacular res to begin with, so he'll likely just sleep someone else instead, which is just as bad. Or just as "who cares", seeing as you know he's coming beforehand and have Restore staff available. And Innes can take him out with the ballista. Marisa is also a pretty threatening enemy I'd rather not face due to her ~40 crit, and by killing her you miss out on the Shamshir.

Marisa also isn't very durable, especally compared to the PC's offense, so her chances of taking on one of your units and killing herself are rather high.

You don't have to do anything with Ewan except move him around and let him talk to Marisa. Anyway, disarmed or Iron Lance Seth/Franz/Gilliam lures Marisa into Ewan's range with no risk involved.

It still hurts team efficiency to have to unequip allies, especially since Marisa isn't the only enemy on the map.

This is arguably worse, actually, because a NPC is not allied with the enemies while still not under your control. A series of bad RN rolls can make Dozla miss an enemy he had to kill to keep him away from L'Arachel, or get L'Arachel hit and die. In both routes, they can be approached from multiple sides, especially Ephraim's, and Dozla can only occupy one spot at once. The fact that the AI controls them makes Dozla's "protection" even more worthless, since he likes to run off to kill a random enemy several spaces away, or to use an Elixir on himself.

Dozla is unlikely to use an Elixir considering L'Arachel can heal him. She also isn't terribly frail, she can take 2-3 hits at lowish hit rates and is smart about healing herself.

Funny, even this isn't necessarily always true: Troubadours have equal move to Swordmasters in this game, so they actually tie movement. In addition, horses get several movement penalties, like not being able to move over mountains or rivers, having their movement raped in the desert, and taking more poins to get through forests. Of course, Marisa also has better durability, so she can move out further than L'Arachel can without requiring to be boxed in.

She's only tying in Mov for the short period of time, if any, where she is promoted and L'Arachel is not. Marisa still takes heavy penalties in rivers/mountains/desert, so that's not a big advantage, especially since these terrain features are relatively uncommon(1 map with desert, 1-2 with rivers). L'Arachel wins Mov in most situations, which is nice since there are lots of good mounted units post promotion (Eirika, Ephraim, Franz, Forde, Kyle, Seth, Vanessa, Tana, MK Lute)

Edited June 10, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Mekkah]

Something seems wrong with your quote tagging. Sometimes things I've said aren't in quotes, and sometimes things you added are.

The Eirika route map that L'Arachel joins on is a rout map, so it will undoubtedly take several turns after her recruitment to defeat. She has less time on Ephraim route, but likely a few turns to spam Torch if necessary.

Both route maps are rout maps, so that alone says very little about her timing.

Approaching L'Arachel from either way causes the most threatening group of enemies, the group with the Deathgoyle in the south east, to move towards her. This is something you don't want to happen when your troops are split up already: one group entering in the north entrance, one group going south to the boss, and perhaps one staying behind for wrapping up the northwest reinforcements. The actual most safe way to play this out is to reunite and save this Deathgoyle for the last, which means L'Arachel is only recruited for about as much as it takes to clear up that group of enemies: one or two turns.

It demonstrates that L'Arachel's staff utility is indeed useful. FE8 is one of the easier games, the most threatening thing in the game may very well be fighting your own units or having your units be helpless.Staves fix that.

This is somewhat true, but has no real bearing on what this part of the debate was about: L'Arachel's leveling speed. In addition, the fact is that on the rare occasion Restoring a unit is needed, only one staff user has to do it. Later in your post, you mention that Natasha has to share her rare staves with MoustacheManiac/Lute/Artur, which hurts your argument here in this case. Whenever I have other people available to Restore, all L'Arachel is contributing is that extra heal during that turn, rather than the actual value of Restoring people.

Initally yes [saleh is superior to L'Arachel], but L'Arachel beats Saleh in Mov, supports, and will grow faster due to being a lower level.

She has 1 more movement, but Saleh is much more flexible with regards to where he can go thanks to having 7 more hp, and also wins movement by five in the desert to counter L'Arachel winning movement by one in five others (not counting 20 since that's so forest/mountain heavy she actually loses). For her growing faster...barely noticable. She's only three levels lower, so the impact on combat EXP is very minimal, and it doesn't matter for staff EXP at all, which is what L'Arachel, at least, is doing a lot of the time since her fighting is garbage. And then Saleh is quite a bit better at combat, having 4 atk/1-2 AS wins with just Thunder, 3-4 more with Elfire. Which means he gets more kill EXP. And he can also fight/heal/whatever more often due to being more sturdy.

Oh, and for supports, Saleh is pretty much guaranteed to get Myrrh which just helps his offense more (Myrrh admittedly not so much). L'Arachel is just supporting Joshua when he could have taken Natasha, Gerik and/or Artur, so he probably doesn't care for her. No notable win for L'Arachel here.

The slight AS lead between the two [L'Arachel and Natasha] usually doesn't make the difference between doubling and not doubling, and in cases where both double, L'Arachel is doing 8 dmg more than Natasha, which more than makes up for Natasha's minor durability lead. Natasha also had to use up resources to get to this point, she's had to share staves/healing with the Moustache Monster this entire time, not to mention promoted Artur/Lute.

13 vs 14-15 AS is quite significant. Looking at Ch16, there's a total of 18/50 enemies (36%) that Natasha doubles while L'Arachel does not.

For resource consumption, all I gave her here was 10 Mends per map, then subtracted 2 levels (about 20 Mends worth of EXP). If anything, I was being extremely nice here. And with bringing up resource consumption comes Natasha's healing utility between Ch5 and Ch11, or her giving off support bonuses for all that time. Or her totally beating L'Arachel in the ground for the period of time she has 1-2 range attacking, Slayer and her promo bonuses when she does not (which, again, she can have the moment L'Arachel joins).

Again, whatever L'Arachel is doing, it's not curbstomping Natasha.

I will admit that L'Arachel is not as good as Moulder, but more likely than not with the number of enemies and number of units being fielded, we're taking 2+ wounds a turn, there's plenty of staff usage for both at this point.

I don't see how "the number of units being fielded" (as if it was some kind of set standard) has any bearing on whether there's 0, 1, 2 or more wounds every player phase. You're going to have to elaborate on this one. Regardless, to bring up something new, it's entirely possible there's nothing to heal on one phase when there are two wounds on the previous. Even in such a case, L'Arachel is healing something Moulder could have done, especially if it's some kind of negligible wound like Duessel taking 3 damage.

True to an extent, although people like Natasha can often fail to fully heal with a Heal staff anyway, meaning two people can get EXP from the same target.. The pool for Torches is nearly unlimited, and while status effects are more limited than wounds, they're also more EXP lucrative.

If L'Arachel is healing someone who was already being healed by Natasha, I'm making two units do work one unit could have done (like Mend or Recover Natasha), so that's doing nothing but helping to develop L'Arachel. Torches is technically unlimited, or would be if it weren't for the fact that the next Fog of War map after L'Arachel's joining is one of the last maps in the game. Restore only gives 8 more EXP than Mend, like 40% more, but it certainly occurs much less than 40% as often.

ORKO is a crit would KO, she can not KO with a crit on Generals and such.

There's no Generals at this point of time (base level Marisa).

L'Arachel getting attacked before she promotes admittedly doesn't help team efficiency, but Marisa contributes very little on the Enemy Phase as well, considering she's usually 3HKOd, sometimes 2HKOd.

Very little obviously > nothing. Even if she can just keep enemies from reaching your dancer/healers, she's pulling her weight moreso than L'Arachel. Also, every hit she takes is one another PC doesn't have to take, which means they can attack more as well - a similar advantage as L'Arachel's healing.

It also means that Marisa puts herself in significant danger after taking said counter, if one enemy other enemy is left in range she's in trouble, if two are in range she has a very high chance of dying. L'Arachel can use mend from a much safer position since you can place the injured unit on the back lines. L'Arachel is also doing something with her turns, healing allies helps team efficiency, using Vulenaries does not.

This has nothing to do with her EXP gain, which was my point: Marisa gains EXP much faster than L'Arachel does even taking her healing herself into account. And when it comes to healing with a vulnerary, she can pick pretty much any backline spot she want, even walk away from the action (even if it costs her an extra turn, she likely only needs 2 vuln pops max, so she'd still be ahead of L'Arachel in EXP). L'Arachel healing a frontliner leaves her vulnerable to ranged attacks, or sometimes fliers.

I would argue that L'Arachel's healing/restoring is much better than Marisa being able to scratch one enemy on the enemy phase, especially since Marisa is unlikely to scratch more than that due to durability issues.

"Scratching" (putting an enemy into KO range for any other PC, possibly helping them avoid a counter) one on enemy phase, then one on player phase still sounds better to me than only healing on player phase. L'Arachel's healing would have to be like, twice as good, and considering the problems outlined (and conceded) with her healing often being superfluous, you need some serious proof to that claim.

The issue is that L'Arachel is much more efficient with the Mend staff than Marisa is with an Iron Sword. You're only taking the Exp/gold comparison into account, there's also how much their weapon usage affects team efficiency. Marisa gaining Exp via attacking doesn't really help the team, since no one else can get that Exp. L'Arachel's healing allows that ally to face more enemies and clear the chapter faster, which helps the team.

You might not remember due to the board flipflop, but this paragraph was about their promotion issues. I brought up this gold issue in the (rare) case that Marisa would cause a Secret Shop visit wheras L'Arachel doesn't. The efficiency of several healing staves vs Marisa's combat is already being discussed elsewhere.

The thing is that there are more Guiding Rings (without using lots of money at the Ch14 Secret Shop), so less competition overall than for the Hero's Crests. The units using the Crests are rather good themselves, Gerik is excellent, Joshua is good as well, Ross and Garcia are about on par with Marisa.

There's two Hero Crests on each route, and three Guiding Rings. But in the case of Guiding Rings and, half the time (Eir route), a Hero Crest only comes by Ch14, which means we might as well be Secret Shopping (it costs more gold, but as I said, Marisa has no problems spending more gold since she's far far ahead of L'Arachel cost-wise).

And as I said, the Guiding Ring people are simply better than the Hero Cresters. You only commented on the Hero Cresters, though vaguely...note how Garcia and Ross being on par with Marisa is only hurting your case. We're clearly debating lower tier units here. Both Ross and Garcia have severe AS issues that keep them trailing for most of the game, and then Ross has a terrible start on top of it. Meanwhile, all of Lute/Artur/Natasha/Moulder are, as I said, usually considered High/Top units, and if we're going to compare them to our own units, they all beat L'Arachel pretty handily stat-wise.

Barely having one more promo item by Ch14 < units using them being significantly worse and thus less likely to be in play

And then there's this, which went uncountered:

And let's admit it, the player would have to be a fool to play more than two along with Marisa, when he could have used, say, Cormag instead. Even if Cormag were worse than the Hero Crester by strict tiering principles, the fact that Cormag could promote freely whereas another Hero Crester would have to wait makes much more of a difference.

L'Arachel being able to equip weapins means she's less likely to be attacked on the Enemy Phase since enemies generally target those who cannot counter. This increases her durability significantly.

It does, but it doesn't say anything about what I said: that Lute and Artur are now considerably more durable healers than L'Arachel regardless, meaning they can frontline more. And if enemies are given the choice between multiple PCs who can counter, they'll still go for L'Arachel, because her durability is downright worse than anyone. Or, if they attack someone else who cannot counter, then I'm leaving an enemy alive that could have been dead.

It's unlikely than Ephraim and Eirika will be full on both routes, since the twin whose route you didn't take has a good chance to have a support slot open.

Sure, but then she doesn't get to build any support until Ch15, so it's not much better than supporting Ephraim route Innes in that regard.

Tana's best support options are Eirika/Ephraim and Innes/Cormag respectively, she doesn't want Marisa.

Too bad Eirika/Ephraim don't see Tana as one of their best options. They both have their wtfrape prepromote horses (Seth/Duessel) to turn to first, both of which offer Anima, and then both have lots and lots of choices, Eirika being able to pick Innes or Forde, and Ephraim being able to get Forde and Kyle.

If L'Arachel joins too late for her supports, the same problem applies for Marisa as well, considering they're only 1 chapter apart from each other in both routes. Of course, they both have valid support options with other mid to lategame characters so it's kind of moot.

I haven't seen a single decent unit named that joins around the time L'Arachel does. Gerik and Tethys, however, are both excellent, and both join right before or right after Marisa, and she's definitely wanted by both for speed, affinity or both reasons.

While neither of them are incedibly likely to be fielded, in the cases they are fielded they'll want L'Arachel.

Fielding a bad unit just so that L'Arachel gets better = fail. I'd get the same results for fielding a mediocre unit that doesn't support her, or fielding a mediocre unit that supports someone else, or fielding a good unit instead.

Of course Avo does add to durability, but isn't turning any 2RKOS into ORKOS like an attack boost. In general, the units you are using have such low deaths to begin with than any extra durability is superflous.

What is L'Arachel making Joshua ORKOing instead of 2RKOing, then, with that glorious +1 atk it gives him over a B Marisa, or +2 atk over nothing? You haven't shown anything. What you've said would be true if every unit's durability would be infinite, but this definitely isn't true. Watch Gerik's chances of death skyrocket if he's not put at full hp, for instance.

Marisa isn't the only possible Shamshir user, we could have easily given it to Joshua or something.

If he's being fielded after earlygame to begin with. Of course, the same goes for any good staves on L'Arachel.

How is Marisa better on the Enemy Phase? She's getting attacked by enemes that she cannot counter, which increases her chances of dying.

She's more durable even if she has to take slightly more attacks (slightly because, while she has less range, she also takes more hits to die). Look at the example vs the Cavaliers, where even if she has to take an extra attack, her chances of dying are still lower.

L'Arachel isn't terribly likely to be attacked over Marisa due to "ganging up", since Marisa very rarely has concrete durabiltiy leads over L'Arachel.

7 more hp results in taking an extra hit just fine, but even if it doesn't, note that enemies don't decide their actions at the start of turns. If an enemy attacks both, misses Marisa and hits L'Arachel (hi 15 avo lead), L'Arachel will suddendly become the #1 target for enemies over Marisa.

And while techically 1 range enmies are the most common, 2-range and 1-2 range enemies make up a very signficant portion of the game.

Point is, 1-range enemies take up the most significant portion, so they hold more weight.

In almost all cases though, L'Arachel and Marisa are dying in the same number of hits(except for L'Arachel's massive lead against magic), so they are being targeted at the same rates, unless it's a 1-2 range enemy which will hit Marisa.

Has nothing to do with the point that Marisa having a smaller chance of dying even if she has to take an extra hit against an enemy that 3HKOs both of them. Not that L'Arachel has a massive win against magic: see the Shaman comparison.

Any other PC can one round them isn't true, not Natasha or Knoll, probably not people like Rennac etc. It boils down to in one Player and Enemy Phase Marisa kills one Shaman, L'Arachel kills one and weakens 4 others, which is superior.

You used pretty picky examples here: a unit that is weighing heavily on her healing for being good, a unit that's often competing for worst in the game and a unit that even you admitted "fails at combat" and always picks chests. Regardless, Shamans have only 25-26 hp and 5 def. Takes 31 atk to OHKO, which even 20/1 Steel Axe Gilliam reaches, and he's the only unit who could possibly fail to double them. To prove a point, it only takes 18 atk to ORKO if you double, a feat 11/0 supportless Franz accomplishes. They're that much of a laugh. In fact, Rennac ORKOs them at base level with Steel Sword.

So what I said holds true: L'Arachel does better if our unit is the only one available for taking them on which is just lulzy at this point of the game, otherwise Marisa wins.

L'Arachel is extremely unlikely to only be 10/1(and thus will have better AS and defenses) by the time 16 AS Silver Sword Heroes show up.

They show up as early as the throne room of her first chapter to be promoted (Ch16). Sure, she might have gained a level or two, but even if she gains hp, def and spd on each of those 2 levels, my statement holds true. She gets ORKOed if she holds Elfire, and she barely misses death if she has Thunder (to the point where anything else finishes her off). And how likely is that with 45%/45%/15% spd/hp/def growths?

Eh, recruiting Marisa hurts the efficiency of the team on that particular map.. I usually count recruitment as part of the character.

We'll see what the judges think of that then. Marisa technically isn't part of the team until she is recruited, so you can't really fault her for what she does there. It's not entirely unlike hating on Galzus or Cyas for making your life harder in FE5 in chapters where they can't even join yet, or bringing up raising a unit like FE10 Aran or Zihark hurts you in 3-E because they are attacking your Greil Mercs.

Marisa also isn't very durable, especally compared to the PC's offense, so her chances of taking on one of your units and killing herself are rather high.

No unit has reached the required 27 atk to OHKO Marisa, or the 17 AS to double her (except Joshua), so she definitely isn't going down in one round. Which means you likely have to face the chance of getting Shamshir crit'd, which _definitely_ hurts team efficiency. I take it you concede my point about the sleep staff dude?

It still hurts team efficiency to have to unequip allies, especially since Marisa isn't the only enemy on the map.

It's unequipping one ally on one turn, one of the last two on the map, and the alternative if fighting a Hand Axe/Swordslayer Cyclops boss while also risking a Marisa crit to your face. I didn't see you holding this kind of thing against Joshua ("good unit, I'll take him as a support partner").

Dozla is unlikely to use an Elixir considering L'Arachel can heal him. She also isn't terribly frail, she can take 2-3 hits at lowish hit rates and is smart about healing herself.

The key word is "unlikely". You don't know if he does, because he's AI controled. There's little known facts on the AI's data. I've experienced L'Arachel healing him before, sure. I've also experienced Dozla walking out of her healing range just to OHKO something when he was at half health. I've seen both being on low hp and L'Arachel choosing to heal Dozla so she'd die to the next guy. And also

A series of bad RN rolls can make Dozla miss an enemy he had to kill to keep him away from L'Arachel, or get L'Arachel hit and die. In both routes, they can be approached from multiple sides, especially Ephraim's, and Dozla can only occupy one spot at once.

She's only tying in Mov for the short period of time, if any, where she is promoted and L'Arachel is not. Marisa still takes heavy penalties in rivers/mountains/desert, so that's not a big advantage, especially since these terrain features are relatively uncommon(1 map with desert, 1-2 with rivers).

My point is exactly that this isn't a big deal, since their move is so close. Having 0-1 more movement and taking horse penalties is as big of an "advantage" as having more cev while the other has more hit, or something. And then there's Of course, Marisa also has better durability, so she can move out further than L'Arachel can without requiring to be boxed in.

L'Arachel wins Mov in most situations, which is nice since there are lots of good mounted units post promotion (Eirika, Ephraim, Franz, Forde, Kyle, Seth, Vanessa, Tana, MK Lute)

How does other, actually good units having high movement make L'Arachel's (nonexistent) mobility lead better? It'd work if you were defending one of them, seeing as you could argue my unit would get little to no action since they're sweeping the chapter together. But L'Arachel is every bit as restricted as Marisa pretty often due to her durability, often times even more than Marisa is.

[-Cynthia-]

Ugh I just forfeit. This debate is kind of a mess, I can't seem to quote right, the flipflop made me lose my train of thought, and FE8 just isn't good for debating IMO.