Vykan (Renning) vs Joshybear (Elincia)

[Vykan12]

Renning is one of the four riders of Daien, and happens to be only one of two bosses in FE9 who rejoins in FE10. The other is Oliver, who as you all know is stunningly beautiful, so Renning is in pretty good company with that distinction. Moreover, Renning was made to be batshit crazy when he served under Ashnard. Recovering from insanity for no reason provided by the plot is pretty badass. Also:

You don’t wanna mess with this guy. Elincia on the other hand:

Why would you want someone like that defending your country? Elincia is completely unsuited for war, and also as the Queen of Crimea, seeing as though her country had a civil war during her rule, a lot of which had to do with her political incompetence.

It’s not just character traits that make Elincia lame. She’s also a pretty unremarkable unit in the game. Let’s look at her in 2-P:

Elincia lv --/--/1 (slim sword): 36 hp, 21 atk, 22 AS, 18 def, 83 avo

Marcia lv --/5/0 (steel lance): 34 hp, 26 atk, 20 AS, 16 def, 62 avo

Nealuchi lv 22 (A strike): 53 hp, 27 atk, 36 AS, 20 def, 106 avo

Haar lv --/11/0 (steel axe): 46 hp, 34 atk, 20 AS, 23 def, 63 avo

Dracoknight lvl 19 (Iron Axe): HP 34, Atk 27, AS 15, Hit 127, Avo 47, DEF 17

Elincia is hands down the worst unit in this level. Her damage output is abysmal, as even Marcia manages to trump her in that department by a whole 5 points. To put that into perspective, Elincia does 23% damage to dracoknights while Marcia does 52%, Nealuchi does 58% and Haar does 100%. Even if Elincia activated stun (21% chance) on one of her attacks, she’s still doing less than Marcia (46 < 52), and a double stun (4.4% chance) wouldn’t even kill the enemy. On the durability end of things, Elincia still manages to be second worst, so there really isn’t anything redeeming about her in this level.

Jumping to 2-E, I’ll admit her offence vastly improves due to acquiring the amiti, but now Elincia’s durability problems are crippling. You see, 2-E has 4 bow users and 3 crossbow users, significantly more if we include bowgun reinforcements that show up every second turn more or less. Steel bow!snipers 2HKO her at 56 hit, which makes for a whopping 32% chance of death in 2 attacks. Bowguns and crossbows are even worse, having a 92% chance of OHKOing her. If that weren’t enough, Elincia can’t even tank non-bow enemies that well.

Enemies that 3HKO her: warriors, general.

Enemies that 4HKO her: halberdiers, some swordsmasters.

That only leaves mages and priests who take more than 4 rounds to kill her. Of course, this could be acceptable if Elincia had some really amazing avo, but that isn’t the case. For instance, a steel greatlance!general has 45 hit on her, resulting in a 9% death chance in 3 attacks.

Sure, having godmode offence is nice, but Elincia can’t really make any use of it because of how incapable she is of taking hits. I could have her hit & run the whole chapter, but then she’s only killing 1 enemy per turn, whereas putting someone like hand axe!Brom in a chokepoint is giving the same production (2 enemies injured 50% ~= 1 dead enemy) while also performing a useful function, which is keeping enemies at bay. This is a defence chapter after all, and clearly Elincia does little to contribute to satisfying that objective.

For whatever reason (reading Bastian’s poetry is my guess), Elincia disappears until part 4, and her poor statistical trend continues.

This time Elincia’s amiti isn’t even going to save her offensively. Even assuming we gave her 2 levels in part 2 (2-E enemies are a full tier below her in level, so they give her very little exp per kill), her AS is now only 23. Even on NM, you need 26 AS to double halberdiers, warriors and snipers, and even more for faster enemies like falcoknights and swordsmasters. That would be fine if she can 2HKO anyone since that would result in a 1RKO through amiti’s brave effect. However, she is well short. For instance, vs a sniper, she only does 80% damage, or 8 damage short of a one round. Then warriors and halberdiers are even more durable, so I think you get the point.

She’s also gotten worse on the defensive end.

Enemies who OHKO: Crossbow users.

Enemies who 2HKO: Snipers, warriors.

Enemies who 3HKO: Generals, wyverns, some falcoknights, paladins.

To save from going tl;dr I won’t analyze her 4-5 performance but suffice to say, tigers 2HKO her while cats 3HKO, and both have pretty high hit rates on her.

Now Renning joins. Elincia has 4 chapters where she’s either the worst unit, or is so bad at combat she might as well be, so Renning is already at a huge advantage. Elincia doesn’t just have to win 4-E to emerge victorious in this match-up, she has to do so by a lot. Let’s look at how they compare:

Elincia lv --/--/12 (C Tibarn, amiti): 41 hp, 41 atk, 30 AS, 20 def, 28 res, 110 avo

Renning lv --/--/14 (brave axe): 56 hp, 42 atk, 29 AS, 27 def, 23 res, 97 avo

They’re pretty evenly matched. Offensively they’re basically tied, and durability-wise, it’s a competition between 15 hp/7 def and 5 res/13 avo. Renning is probably at a slight advantage though since he’s obviously absorbing more attacks, and Elincia’s avo lead isn’t nearly big enough to offset that.

Now going by chapters:

4-E-1: Even when quadruple attacking, Elincia falls slightly short of ORKOing generals (they have 48-51 hp/29-30 def, so she’s doing ~88% damage), and again I’m going by NM stats here. Renning, on the other hand, has the option of using the hammer, and with it he has 70 effective MT, meaning he’s doing 160% damage for a very comfortable ORKO. This is basically the story of this chapter since according to HM enemy data, generals make up 59% of the enemies here, and the rest are sage/bishop enemies aka jokes to kill.

4-E-2: Not much to say here. Even if we don’t 2 turn this chapter with hammer!Ike, both Elincia and Renning double about the same amount of enemies, so they’re more or less tied here.

4-E-3: Both units can use wyrmslayers against dragons. But then both double (lol 12AS dragons) and Renning has an atk lead, so he wins offence overall albeit not by much. Defensively, both get 2HKOed by either dragon type, which means Elincia has the advantage due to superior avo. Then again, neither are reliable in that department (75% hit vs Elincia as opposed to 91% vs Renning) and Renning at least has sol which can auto-heal him whenever it activates.

4-E-4 to 5: Assuming both units have hit max level by now, Elincia has a 7 res advantage, but Renning also has 13 more hp. This means that they will only tie in hp once both have taken 2 magic attacks, at which point Elincia jumps ahead, but by then they would have been healed had they needed it. I’ll concede Elincia wins offence, though this is only really the case if Renning cannot get himself a brave axe or sword.

Last thing to note: Renning can support Caneighis for some tubular earth x earth bonuses. This would allow Renning to roughly tie Elincia’s avo in 4-E-3, and then eventually surpass her, all the while giving better outgoing support benefits.

As you can see, 4-E can be called either way. That means Elincia’s most definitely not winning there by a huge margin, which as said before, she needed to win the overall match-up.

In conclusion, I’ll let some dialogue from FE9 summarize my main arguments:

Bertram: ......Gu...guuoo...

Elincia: ...Eeep...

Bertram: ...Gu...oo...OOO...

:D

Edited June 15, 2009 by Vykan12

[Jaybee]

Renning is one of the four riders of Daien, and happens to be only one of two bosses in FE9 who rejoins in FE10. The other is Oliver, who as you all know is stunningly beautiful, so Renning is in pretty good company with that distinction. Moreover, Renning was made to be batshit crazy when he served under Ashnard. Recovering from insanity for no reason provided by the plot is pretty badass.

So what if Renning is a boss who rejoins in FE10? Doesn't that mean Ike and company kicked his ass?

He went insane. There's obviously something wrong with him.

Why would you want someone like that defending your country? Elincia is completely unsuited for war, and also as the Queen of Crimea, seeing as though her country had a civil war during her rule, a lot of which had to do with her political incompetence.

She's only had 3 years of experience, and her main aim was to save her people during the war. She's also pretty.

Elincia has 4 chapters of availability over Renning (2-P counts as 1/2, but 2-E and 4-5 give truckloads of exp, especially 4-5, so its around 4) She has these chapters to get to 20/12 before endgame. She also has her Prf sword and healing utility. This means that Renning needs to fight with Mia and Stefan for 2 SS Swords. That or he takes the Brave Axe, something which Haar wants. Sure, Haar can take the Brave Lance, but Gatrie might want that because of a 32 speed cap. Elincia is also the best healer in endgame, heck care about Matrona. She does have a low mag cap, but she flies and can easily heal people. She can also defend herself well with Amiti. She's also a good candidate for Imbue.

Now, what about supports?

Let’s look at her in 2-P:

Elincia lv --/--/1 (slim sword): 36 hp, 21 atk, 22 AS, 18 def, 83 avo

Marcia lv --/5/0 (steel lance): 34 hp, 26 atk, 20 AS, 16 def, 62 avo

Nealuchi lv 22 (A strike): 53 hp, 27 atk, 36 AS, 20 def, 106 avo

Haar lv --/11/0 (steel axe): 46 hp, 34 atk, 20 AS, 23 def, 63 avo

Dracoknight lvl 19 (Iron Axe): HP 34, Atk 27, AS 15, Hit 127, Avo 47, DEF 17

Elincia is hands down the worst unit in this level. Her damage output is abysmal, as even Marcia manages to trump her in that department by a whole 5 points. To put that into perspective, Elincia does 23% damage to dracoknights while Marcia does 52%, Nealuchi does 58% and Haar does 100%. Even if Elincia activated stun (21% chance) on one of her attacks, she’s still doing less than Marcia (46 < 52), and a double stun (4.4% chance) wouldn’t even kill the enemy. On the durability end of things, Elincia still manages to be second worst, so there really isn’t anything redeeming about her in this level.

Elincia does do crap damage, but she has healer utility. Unlike other staff users like Laura and L'Arachel who come seriously underleveled, Elincia easily gets 12 exp from healing someone like Marcia or Haar. Also, she can weaken enemies so that Marcia/Haar can get the KO. As for durability, clouds say hi.

Jumping to 2-E, I’ll admit her offence vastly improves due to acquiring the amiti, but now Elincia’s durability problems are crippling. You see, 2-E has 4 bow users and 3 crossbow users, significantly more if we include bowgun reinforcements that show up every second turn more or less. Steel bow!snipers 2HKO her at 56 hit, which makes for a whopping 32% chance of death in 2 attacks. Bowguns and crossbows are even worse, having a 92% chance of OHKOing her. If that weren’t enough, Elincia can’t even tank non-bow enemies that well.

Elincia as a tank? Please. Her main function is to either heal or hit-and-run. Healing nets more exp, and can be crucial if Haar takes a lightning bolt to the face, for example. Also, enemy AS ranges from 14-22. She probably KOs those fast ones in 2 hits and at least severely damages the fellow with 14 AS or murders him. Woot.

Enemies that 3HKO her: warriors, general.

Enemies that 4HKO her: halberdiers, some swordsmasters.

That only leaves mages and priests who take more than 4 rounds to kill her. Of course, this could be acceptable if Elincia had some really amazing avo, but that isn’t the case. For instance, a steel greatlance!general has 45 hit on her, resulting in a 9% death chance in 3 attacks.

A 3HKO on a healer who'll only face 1 attack a turn? Oh noez. Lethe can just trade Mend to the top of her inventory so that she heals herself.

For whatever reason (reading Bastian’s poetry is my guess), Elincia disappears until part 4, and her poor statistical trend continues.

She was also trying to stop the war between Begnion and the Laguz Alliance, you know.

This time Elincia’s amiti isn’t even going to save her offensively. Even assuming we gave her 2 levels in part 2 (2-E enemies are a full tier below her in level, so they give her very little exp per kill), her AS is now only 23. Even on NM, you need 26 AS to double halberdiers, warriors and snipers, and even more for faster enemies like falcoknights and swordsmasters. That would be fine if she can 2HKO anyone since that would result in a 1RKO through amiti’s brave effect. However, she is well short. For instance, vs a sniper, she only does 80% damage, or 8 damage short of a one round. Then warriors and halberdiers are even more durable, so I think you get the point.

Fillers like Lucia or Pelleas can weaken the enemy so that Elincia can kill him. Also, there's Reyson.

She’s also gotten worse on the defensive end.

Enemies who OHKO: Crossbow users.

Enemies who 2HKO: Snipers, warriors.

Enemies who 3HKO: Generals, wyverns, some falcoknights, paladins.

Conceded.

Elincia lv --/--/12 (C Tibarn, amiti): 41 hp, 41 atk, 30 AS, 20 def, 28 res, 110 avo

Renning lv --/--/14 (brave axe): 56 hp, 42 atk, 29 AS, 27 def, 23 res, 97 avo

They’re pretty evenly matched. Offensively they’re basically tied, and durability-wise, it’s a competition between 15 hp/7 def and 5 res/13 avo. Renning is probably at a slight advantage though since he’s obviously absorbing more attacks, and Elincia’s avo lead isn’t nearly big enough to offset that.

Renning comes at level 16, not level 14. Also, as for hit, Elincia has 211.6 hit. Renning has 183 hit. This is with Ike's stars factored in, btw.

4-E-1: Even when quadruple attacking, Elincia falls slightly short of ORKOing generals (they have 48-51 hp/29-30 def, so she’s doing ~88% damage), and again I’m going by NM stats here. Renning, on the other hand, has the option of using the hammer, and with it he has 70 effective MT, meaning he’s doing 160% damage for a very comfortable ORKO. This is basically the story of this chapter since according to HM enemy data, generals make up 59% of the enemies here, and the rest are sage/bishop enemies aka jokes to kill.

If Renning has 70 Mt, then against a general with 48 hp and 29 def, he'll do 41 damage. That isn't a clean KO. Also, the hammer is breakable, Amiti isn't.

4-E-3: Both units can use wyrmslayers against dragons. But then both double (lol 12AS dragons) and Renning has an atk lead, so he wins offence overall albeit not by much. Defensively, both get 2HKOed by either dragon type, which means Elincia has the advantage due to superior avo. Then again, neither are reliable in that department (75% hit vs Elincia as opposed to 91% vs Renning) and Renning at least has sol which can auto-heal him whenever it activates.

What? Why is Elincia using a Wyrmslayer? Amiti does fine against these guys because she quads them. This negates Renning's attack lead pretty well.

4-E-4 to 5: Assuming both units have hit max level by now, Elincia has a 7 res advantage, but Renning also has 13 more hp. This means that they will only tie in hp once both have taken 2 magic attacks, at which point Elincia jumps ahead, but by then they would have been healed had they needed it. I’ll concede Elincia wins offence, though this is only really the case if Renning cannot get himself a brave axe or sword.

Spirits tend to target units who cannot counter them. Since Renning has less Res, the spirits will probably go for him unless someone else is in death range.

Last thing to note: Renning can support Caneighis for some tubular earth x earth bonuses. This would allow Renning to roughly tie Elincia’s avo in 4-E-3, and then eventually surpass her, all the while giving better outgoing support benefits.

Elincia's support with Tibs allows her to reliably hit the auras, unlike Renning. Cain also doesn't need the avo; he's better off supporting Giffca because of bond and all. Renning may eventually end up supporting Ena. Fail.

Well, lets see what Elincia has over Renning:

4 chapters of availability.

The best sword in the game.

Healer and flyer utility.

Way btter res and hit.

Kinda close, but Elincihax wins.

[Vykan12]

This means that Renning needs to fight with Mia and Zihark for 2 SS Swords.

I believe this is what you meant. Anyway, why does Renning need a SS weapon in 4-E to begin with?

4-E-1: Hammer and possibly even forged silver work here.

4-E-2: An easy 2 turn thanks to hammer!Ike, so this barely matters.

4-E-3: Wyrmslayers.

4-E-4: brave weapons are better against spirits since then Renning avoids a player phase counter.

It’s only really 4-E-5 where Renning will have a strong desire for the alondite or vague katti, but both Renning and Elincia do pitiful damage to auras, so they probably won’t be attacking them in the first place.

The most atk Elincia can have without an atk support is 45, and she can only double auras with Nasir if she’s hit lv --/--/19 or higher, which is very unlikely. This means Elincia’s doing a mere 30 damage to res tile auras, and 10 to cover tile ones (33% and 11% damage, respectively). In contrast, Renning with a forged silver axe has 52 Mt, which allows him to do 22/12 damage, so they’re pretty evenly matched in that respect.

That or he takes the Brave Axe, something which Haar wants. Sure, Haar can take the Brave Lance, but Gatrie might want that because of a 32 speed cap.

Brave weapons can be traded, and both those units have canto so that’s not really an issue. Moreover, Renning can use the brave sword while having 43 Mt, just 2 lower than max potential Elincia.

heck care about Matrona.

???

She's also a good candidate for Imbue.

That much is true, but so is Renning. Our lv --/--/12 Elincia has 21 mag, which is only 3 higher than Renning’s base, meaning their hp regeneration per turn is very similar.

Unlike other staff users like Laura and L'Arachel who come seriously underleveled

Laura and L’Arachel are from different games 0_o

Elincia easily gets 12 exp from healing someone like Marcia or Haar.

True enough, though just out of curiosity, why wouldn’t that hold for Laura and L’Arachel?

Also, she can weaken enemies so that Marcia/Haar can get the KO.

You should recheck the damage values I listed then. Marcia and Nealuchi can only team up with each other to land a kill. As for Haar, he 1RKOes everyone but the boss with a steel axe, so Elincia’s not helping him either.

As for durability, clouds say hi.

Clouds help everyone’s avo, not just Elincia’s, so my statement about her having second worst durability in that chapter still stands.

Elincia as a tank? Please.

I guess you’re conceding her durability is in fact pretty bad.

Her main function is to either heal or hit-and-run.

As I said in my opener, hit and runs only kill 1 enemy per turn, and that contributes very little to achieving the defend goal of the map. Refer to my Brom example.

Healing nets more exp

The exp she gains from healing only benefits her. Be my guest if you think lv 12 is too low for Elincia in 4-E or something.

and can be crucial if Haar takes a lightning bolt to the face, for example.

Crucial is a strong word to use seeing as though Haar can just pop a concoction for the same effect.

She probably KOs those fast ones in 2 hits and at least severely damages the fellow with 14 AS or murders him.

Probably? It’s your job to fact check the arguments you make in a debate.

A 3HKO on a healer who'll only face 1 attack a turn? Oh noez. Lethe can just trade Mend to the top of her inventory so that she heals herself.

Elincia has to limit her offensive opportunities because of her poor durability. It doesn’t matter what you think Elincia’s “role” is since that doesn’t excuse unit faults. I’m not suddenly going to ignore that Reyson has an awful enemy phase I have to work around just because his “role” is to refresh units.

Fillers like Lucia or Pelleas can weaken the enemy so that Elincia can kill him. Also, there's Reyson.

So now I’m deploying a crappy filler unit just so Elincia can kill easier?

Also, as for hit, Elincia has 211.6 hit. Renning has 183 hit. This is with Ike's stars factored in, btw.

Hitting enemies isn’t an issue for either of them, so it’s a negligible lead at best. For instance, a 4-E-2 sniper has 77 avo, so Renning has 100 display hit on them.

What? Why is Elincia using a Wyrmslayer? Amiti does fine against these guys because she quads them. This negates Renning's attack lead pretty well.

Renning w/ wyrmslayer: 66 atk

Elincia w/ amiti: 43 atk (achieved at --/--/15)

Red dragon lv 23

Hp 72, Mt 56, Hit 161, As 12, Def 34, Res 18, Luck 10, Avo 59

Renning does 88% damage while Elincia does 50%.

White dragon lv 23

Hp 67, Mt 54, Hit 175, As 12, Def 22, Res 36, Luck 10, Avo 59

Renning does 113% damage while Elincia does 125%.

So basically, both ORKO white dragons and 2RKO red dragons, but Renning also does so much more damage to red dragons that he allows another character to pull off a OHKO, whereas Elincia doesn’t.

Spirits tend to target units who cannot counter them. Since Renning has less Res, the spirits will probably go for him unless someone else is in death range.

In my experience, spirits tend to go for targets who have less than 20 res (Ike and Haar are pretty likely choices), and Renning has 23 res at base, so he’s fine.

Elincia's support with Tibs allows her to reliably hit the auras, unlike Renning.

As stated earlier, both characters are bad enough against auras that they’ll likely be doing something else such as killing spirits.

Cain also doesn't need the avo; he's better off supporting Giffca because of bond and all.

Yeah, because Caineghis is in desperate need of crit. The only place where crit would actually help him is vs bosses, but then they all have nihil/mantle to prevent that.

You’ve brought up healing on several occasions, so I’ll address it now. The benefits of Elincia’s healing are superfluous.

2-P: Elincia’s saving Marcia from having to pop a vulnerary, but that hardly matters since the chapter’s turn count is preset, meaning Marcia being freed up to attack a few more times doesn’t increase efficiency in any way. You could argue Elincia is helping the team be more flexible in defending Leanne, but keeping her from being captured is such a mindlessly simple task that it barely deserves mention.

2-E: Same story, pretty much. All Elincia’s doing is freeing up a tanky character’s player phase once in a while, but again it has no impact on the turn count of the chapter since it is preset.

4-2 and 4-5: Healing certainly has its uses here, that I won’t argue against.

4-E: Micaiah is a forced character and happens to be horrendous at combat so we basically have her devoted to 24/7 healing here. What’s worse for Elincia is that Micaiah can eliminate the need for a second healer by using the fortify staff, and even the ashera staff in 4-E-5 if you ran out.

Now for the other points in your conclusion.

4 chapters of availability.

My statement still stands that she’s a detriment in combat, so at best this is a very minor advantage thanks to staves.

The best sword in the game.

It doesn’t matter if Elincia had a bazooka. Renning beats her in overall combat statistics.

Healer and flyer utility.

What flier utility? This is the first time you’ve brought it up.

Way btter res and hit.

Renning has way better attack to counteract that.

Edited June 16, 2009 by Vykan12

[Jaybee]

I believe this is what you meant. Anyway, why does Renning need a SS weapon in 4-E to begin with?

Actually, all 3 of them are suitable for endgame.

He needs some form of a high damage output. Renning starts with 31 strength and ends with 33, so his max is 51 might with the VK. Elincia’s max might is 45 with Amiti, but she possibly quads or at least doubles, so there’s the better offense needed.

4-E-1: Hammer and possibly even forged silver work here.

4-E-2: An easy 2 turn thanks to hammer!Ike, so this barely matters.

4-E-3: Wyrmslayers.

4-E-4: brave weapons are better against spirits since then Renning avoids a player phase counter.

If I remember right, we only get 2 hammers from 1-6-1 and 2-3. Ike wants 3 uses for the BK, and there’s the situation that some uses of it were taken up before. Hammerne goes to better use on Fortify or any uber forges with a goddess card.

Renning needs a forge or a Brave (which will probably be near-broken) to do anything here. Sure, he can forge, but that’ll probably be his best weapon throughout the game unless he gets VK.

No enemy phase counters. Cool.

What’s he blessing, then? The Wyrmslayer or the Brave Sword (Since Haar wants the axe)?

It’s only really 4-E-5 where Renning will have a strong desire for the alondite or vague katti, but both Renning and Elincia do pitiful damage to auras, so they probably won’t be attacking them in the first place.

Then they can go off murdering spirits instead. Though, Elincia quads them while Renning can’t even double. Elincia also takes less damage from Ashera’s Magic-based AOE attack. I do concede the aura part, though.

Brave weapons can be traded, and both those units have canto so that’s not really an issue. Moreover, Renning can use the brave sword while having 43 Mt, just 2 lower than max potential Elincia.

So basically, you’re suggesting we leave Haar weaponless while Renning kill something else with Haar’s weapon? Awesome.

???

My point was that Elincia can’t wield Matrona, but there’s no point since there’s Fortify.

Laura and L’Arachel are from different games 0_o

[...]

True enough, though just out of curiosity, why wouldn’t that hold for Laura and L’Arachel?

But their situation is still the same; they come underleveled while not having the benefits of high exp gain. Elincia is overleveled but has the benefit of 12 exp per heal, which is pretty good since 1 exp per kill is not nice (Barring Ludveck/Zeffren, of course).

You should recheck the damage values I listed then. Marcia and Nealuchi can only team up with each other to land a kill. As for Haar, he 1RKOes everyone but the boss with a steel axe, so Elincia’s not helping him either.

Stun. It helps conserve Nealuchi’s gauge.

I guess you’re conceding her durability is in fact pretty bad.

Yep.

As I said in my opener, hit and runs only kill 1 enemy per turn, and that contributes very little to achieving the defend goal of the map. Refer to my Brom example.

Still, it’s one kill. If Brom weakens 2 enemies to 50% health, and kills one of them on the next turn, that’s 1 ½ kills. If Elincia flies down for 2 kills, thats... 2 kills. 2 > 1 ½.

Crucial is a strong word to use seeing as though Haar can just pop a concoction for the same effect.

While missing out on 1 more enemy. If Elincia heals Haar, she gets exp and Haar doesn’t waste a Concoction. If Haar heals himself, he misses out on exp while losing 1 use of a Concoction. The only downside to Elincia healing him is losing out on 1 use of a Mend.

Probably? It’s your job to fact check the arguments you make in a debate.

I’ll take the tankiest of each class and see how Elincia does.

1x Warrior lvl 5 (Steel Axe)

HP 38, Atk 31, AS 19, Hit 135, Avo 60, DEF 14, RES 8, Crit 9, Ddg 12

Elincia does 20 damage per hit. Clean KO.

2x Halberdier lvl 6 (Steel Greatlance)

HP 35, Atk 32, AS 19, Hit 130, Avo 60, DEF 17, RES 13, Crit 14, Ddg 12

Elincia leaves him with 1 HP.

1x Swordmaster lvl 5 (Steel Sword)

HP 32, Atk 25, AS 22, Hit 150, Avo 67, DEF 14, RES 10, Crit 20, Ddg 13

1x Swordmaster lvl 6 (Steel Blade)

HP 32, Atk 29, AS 21, Hit 130, Avo 65, DEF 15, RES 10, Crit 20, Ddg 13

Elincia kills them without facing a counter.

1x Sniper lvl 6 (Crossbow)

HP 35, Atk 28, AS 19, Hit 165, Avo 61, DEF 16, RES 11, Crit 20, Ddg 13

Elincia kills him in 2 hits without being insta-blicked.

2x Axe General lvl 6 (Steel Poleax, one has stealable Dracosheld)

HP 37, Atk 36, AS 16, Hit 123, Avo 57, DEF 22, RES 12, Crit 9, Ddg 15

Elincia needs 4 hits to kill him, be she quads, so it’s still a KO.

So now I’m deploying a crappy filler unit just so Elincia can kill easier?

Pelleas is forced in 4-2 anyway.

Yeah, because Caineghis is in desperate need of crit. The only place where crit would actually help him is vs bosses, but then they all have nihil/mantle to prevent that.

Both of them like that little bit of Atk against bosses.

Elincia’s saving Marcia from having to pop a vulnerary, but that hardly matters since the chapter’s turn count is preset, meaning Marcia being freed up to attack a few more times doesn’t increase efficiency in any way.

What if Marcia attacked but got hit in return? She’s got no way of healing herself now. Elincia can fix her up with her Mend staff.

Same story, pretty much. All Elincia’s doing is freeing up a tanky character’s player phase once in a while, but again it has no impact on the turn count of the chapter since it is preset.

I’ve already addressed this.

Micaiah is a forced character and happens to be horrendous at combat so we basically have her devoted to 24/7 healing here.

So now Elincia can whack some enemies. Perfect.

It doesn’t matter if Elincia had a bazooka. Renning beats her in overall combat statistics.

[...]

Renning has way better attack to counteract that.

This would be true if Elincia didn’t quad and Renning actually doubled.

What flier utility? This is the first time you’ve brought it up.

Oh shit.

2-P and 2-E are obvious. In 4-2, Elincia can fly over the forests to attack any enemies there. In 4-5, she is never hampered in mobility. As for 4-E-1, she can freely interchange between platforms and in 4-E-3, she can move over the gaps to hit more dragons.

Elincia has...

More availability

An uber sword

Healing

An uber sword

Flying

An uber sword

[Vykan12]

Actually, all 3 of them are suitable for endgame.

I’ll assume those 3 weapons you are referring to are the hammer, wyrmslayer and brave sword/axe.

For 4-E-1, the need for a hammer is actually surprisingly low. Here are some examples as to why:

-A 20/8 Boyd has 38-39 str depending on support bonuses. With a forged silver axe, he has 57-58 Mt, which is enough to 2HKO generals.

-A 20/10 Titania has str capped at 34. With the Urvan, she has 56-58 Mt, so she’s being just as reliable as Boyd.

-Seeing as Ike is your best character in his part 4 chapters, it’s very likely he has a pretty high level and thus has capped str (37). With the Ragnell alone, he has 55 Mt before possible supports, and he can always turn to axes for more damage.

The list goes on. The only person I can think of who might actually need the hammer to ORKO generals is Jill, but she’s probably not going to 4-E due to having Dawn Brigade syndrome (ie she’ll be massively under-levelled).

Next up are wyrmslayers. Renning shouldn’t have any trouble getting one of these since there are up to 5 available, which possibly outnumbers the amount of sword users you even brought to 4-E.

The same thing applies to brave weapons, though to a lesser extent. Renning can use either the brave sword or brave axe, and the weapons are trade-able regardless, which works well with Renning’s canto ability.

He needs some form of a high damage output. Renning starts with 31 strength and ends with 33, so his max is 51 might with the VK. Elincia’s max might is 45 with Amiti, but she possibly quads or at least doubles, so there’s the better offense needed.

Before I address your point, there is something I need to mention. We seemed to agree that Elincia is lv --/--/12 going into 4-E, but now I realize that is a preposterously high level to put her at.

I’ll assume Elincia is --/--/2 going into part 4 since staff experience in 2-E alone could get her there. The enemies in 4-2 vary in level from ~6-8, and according to my calculations, that would only net her 7-8 exp per hit and 21-24 exp per kill, and those values only diminish as Elincia gains levels. Without paragon and/or massive kill favoritism, she’d be lucky to gain 2 levels here.

For 4-5, a --/--/4 Elincia is 2HKOed by tigers and 3HKOed by cats at ~48-61 true hit. Thus, Elincia is realistically limited to 1 attack per turn (otherwise she’ll face death chances), which obviously hinders her exp gaining potential. Even assuming 40 exp per kill, that’s only 4 levels she’s gaining in 10 turns. But then her pitiful 36 Mt can’t even kill a tiger after a quadruple attack (only does ~84% damage) and she also needs to heal herself rather frequently. 3 levels seems generous enough.

So that puts Elincia at --/--/7 going into 4-E. Now she only has 38 Mt to Renning’s 40 with a brave sword or 50 with a forged silver axe. Against a 50 hp/30 def general, Elincia is only doing 64% damage. Renning with a silver poleax does 76%, and that’s not even close to his best weapon choice. Evidently, decreasing Elincia’s level hurts her in many other places in comparison to Renning, though I don’t think that needs any elaboration.

Getting back to what I was quoting, Renning is going to be beating Elincia on offence whether he uses a brave (both double/quadruple the same but he has slightly more atk) or a higher Mt weapon (he’ll do more damage in 2 hits than she’ll do in 4). Sure, Elincia’s going to be levelling faster, but she has to close that atk gap significantly before she can ever claim to win offence, and by then it could already be 4-E-4.

If I remember right, we only get 2 hammers from 1-6-1 and 2-3. Ike wants 3 uses for the BK, and there’s the situation that some uses of it were taken up before. Hammerne goes to better use on Fortify or any uber forges with a goddess card.

As mentioned above, Renning doesn’t even need the hammer to perform better against generals. The fact that he has the option to use the hammer for 70 effective Mt can only be seen as an advantage for him.

Renning needs a forge or a Brave (which will probably be near-broken) to do anything here. Sure, he can forge, but that’ll probably be his best weapon throughout the game unless he gets VK.

Even if the brave weapons are all worn out, you can still bless them for infinite use in 3/5 endgame chapters. A forged silver axe is obviously better than a silver poleax (more Mt, more hit, possibly crit), so that’s all he needs to beat Elincia offensively.

What’s he blessing, then? The Wyrmslayer or the Brave Sword (Since Haar wants the axe)?

He can bless any number of things. Vague Katti, Alondite, brave sword, brave axe, wyrmslayer (Ike likes this since it does 40 damage per round vs Deghinsea), and even an uber forge would be fine.

Then they can go off murdering spirits instead. Though, Elincia quads them while Renning can’t even double.

Elincia quading spirits? She’s only doubling them up to lv --/--/17, a level she’s very unlikely to reach by now. She’d need 10 levels in 3 chapters, all of where she doesn’t ORKO most enemies naturally, and this is including exp thin chapters like 4-E-2.

At any rate, only 43-45 Mt is needed to 2HKO spirits. Max level Renning can nab all of them except fire spirits with a brave axe, and he can even get those with an A atk support. Elincia can do the same, but only from lv 15 onwards. At least Renning only requires 4 levels in 3 chapters to pull off spirit ORKOes, making him lower maintenance for the same task.

You could press the issue about Renning taking a brave away from others, but it’s really not that big of a deal. He can kill a spirit, then canto to 1 space away from another. Someone like Gatrie moves to that space, trades, then attacks on the same turn. This is even easier to perform if Renning is trading with another unit that has canto, such as Haar.

Elincia also takes less damage from Ashera’s Magic-based AOE attack.

Whenever Ashera executes an AOE, the best thing to do is to have all the people who can survive aura backfire (dmg/2) to attack, then to have your main healer use fortify. This basically causes res to be pretty insignificant in 4-E-5, as all that matters is whether Ashera and spirits will single out a unit or not.

Anyway, this is overlooking the fact that even if both units are at max level (this plays into Elincia’s favor more than Renning’s) we’re comparing 45 hp/31 res to 58 hp/24 res. Renning actually has more hp after the first mag-based AOE attack, and it would be suicidal to let any character face multiple AOEs without healing, so Renning actually wins durability against those attacks. Furthermore, he obviously wins against physical-based AOE attacks, which are just as common.

So basically, you’re suggesting we leave Haar weaponless while Renning kill something else with Haar’s weapon? Awesome.

For one thing, both characters could bring secondary weapons to counter spirit attacks, such as a forged hand axe. If they don’t bring a secondary weapon, then they’re not going to be doing anything on enemy phase due to the brave axe being 1 range vs enemies who either attack at 1-2 range or only counter-attack. Leaving one of Haar/Renning weaponless on E. phase isn’t any different from leaving them with close range machine guns, as the result will be the same. For player phase, I already addressed how the trading process would work, and it isn’t really inconveniencing either character in any meaningful way.

But their situation is still the same; they come underleveled while not having the benefits of high exp gain. Elincia is overleveled but has the benefit of 12 exp per heal, which is pretty good since 1 exp per kill is not nice (Barring Ludveck/Zeffren, of course).

Okay, but Elincia having a cap of 12 exp per turn in part 2 isn’t realistically netting her more than 1-1.5 level-ups in part 2. Though if it is, it’s just an extra level I didn’t account for in my 4-E Elincia vs Renning comparisons, so it doesn’t change much.

Stun. It helps conserve Nealuchi’s gauge.

Granted, but that’s only true if Elincia lands stun (40% chance in 2 hits) and the target has a hand axe (otherwise Nealuchi would’ve counter-attacked for >50% damage). Such cases are so rare that they carry little weight.

Still, it’s one kill. If Brom weakens 2 enemies to 50% health, and kills one of them on the next turn, that’s 1 ½ kills. If Elincia flies down for 2 kills, thats... 2 kills. 2 > 1 ½.

You’re forgetting about enemy phase. Let me construct a new example for more clarity.

Player phase: Brom injures an enemy.

Enemy phase: Said enemy suicides into Brom and another one takes a counter.

Player phase: Brom kills said enemy.

Enemy phase: 2 enemies are weakened by Brom.

That’s ~3 kills for Brom (2 kills and 2 enemies weakened), whereas Elincia could only have at most 2 player phase kills. Even if he only weakened 1 enemy on the second enemy phase, he’s still in the lead (2.5 > 2). It’s worth re-iterating that Brom is holding a chokepoint whereas Elincia’s just hit & running, which serves little defensive purpose.

While missing out on 1 more enemy. If Elincia heals Haar, she gets exp and Haar doesn’t waste a Concoction. If Haar heals himself, he misses out on exp while losing 1 use of a Concoction. The only downside to Elincia healing him is losing out on 1 use of a Mend.

That basically garners the same effect as Elincia killing an enemy herself. Either Elincia kills once per player phase, or she frees up a player phase for another unit, though that is pretty rare since the units on a chokepoint are going to be among your most durable. For instance, Mordecai’s more worried about his gauge than his hp.

Elincia does 20 damage per hit. Clean KO. [vs a 40 hp warrior]

Elincia leaves him with 1 HP.

Elincia kills them without facing a counter.

Elincia kills him in 2 hits without being insta-blicked.

Elincia needs 4 hits to kill him, be she quads, so it’s still a KO.

I already claimed Elincia had good offence in 2-E since my opener, though thanks for showing how borderline she is vs some of the enemies there.

Pelleas is forced in 4-2 anyway.

That’s completely besides the point. Elincia needs help from another character to pull off her KOs, which isn’t true of basically any unit you’ll have going to 4-E. What’s more is that Pelleas has some laughable concrete durability (33 hp/14 def is just a little better than base lvl Soren), meaning we need to wall him in to perform adequately. The fact that Elincia needs help from a unit with those types of problems speaks volumes about her own offensive issues.

Both of them like that little bit of Atk against bosses.

In other words, Caineghis is supporting Giffca for the extra 2 atk? Renning giving 15 extra avo is applicable (and usually significant) against any enemy, not just bosses.

What if Marcia attacked but got hit in return? She’s got no way of healing herself now. Elincia can fix her up with her Mend staff.

Marcia would just need to take a vulnerary the next turn, or would need Leanne to vigor her for the extra command on the given turn.

So now Elincia can whack some enemies. Perfect.

But then Elincia’s giving up healing just so she can be inferior to Renning in combat :D

In 4-2, Elincia can fly over the forests to attack any enemies there.

That gets a bit tricky since one of the enemies south of the forests is a sniper which probably 1HKOes her. If not, she’ll be damaged enough that any enemy could finish her off. Oh, and there’s a blizzard enemy in this stage, so she has to be wary of that too.

In 4-5, she is never hampered in mobility.

That’s only helping her to stay clear of laguz after she’s attacked one, since as mentioned before, she gets 2-3HKOed at >50% hit in this level.

As for 4-E-1, she can freely interchange between platforms

Both platforms have snipers, the left one having the double bow user which 1HKOes even Naesala. Moreover, both platforms contain a plethora of mage enemies, which Renning does better against anyway due to superior 1-2 range options. Elincia can’t even ORKO them without a tempest blade, whereas a forged hand axe/tomahawk works for Renning.

Elincia has...

More availability

An uber sword

Healing

An uber sword

Flying

An uber sword

Mentioning the same thing 3 times doesn’t make it a stronger point. I’ve already contested Elincia isn’t putting her availability to good use (she’s arguably a negative before 4-E) and her healing advantage is superficial since fortify!Micaiah has all your 4-E healing needs covered.

Edited June 22, 2009 by Vykan12

[Jaybee]

I’ll assume those 3 weapons you are referring to are the hammer, wyrmslayer and brave sword/axe

I was talking about the trueblades.

Without paragon and/or massive kill favoritism, she’d be lucky to gain 2 levels here.

No one else really wants Paragon, since the CRKs are either too low-leveled or come with suck caps *coughKierancough* Elincia can use this here quite easily. She probably gets around 4 levels, 5 if she kills Valtome.

--/--/4 Elincia is 2HKOed by tigers and 3HKOed by cats at ~48-61 true hit. Thus, Elincia is realistically limited to 1 attack per turn (otherwise she’ll face death chances), which obviously hinders her exp gaining potential. Even assuming 40 exp per kill, that’s only 4 levels she’s gaining in 10 turns. But then her pitiful 36 Mt can’t even kill a tiger after a quadruple attack (only does ~84% damage) and she also needs to heal herself rather frequently. 3 levels seems generous enough.

Since there isn’t really HM stats for 4-5 yet (time warp), I won’t counter that, though Bastard Bastian can run around with a Mend or Physic staff to patch people up. It at least gets him something more than 1 exp. After the initial onslaught, though, Elincia could easily be around --/--/10. She can fly around killing anything that isn’t a dragon and canto away. This can get her to --/--/12.

he can even get those with an A atk support.

Like who, Giffca, who gets the same bonuses from Cain and has a bond with?

Elincia can do the same, but only from lv 15 onwards. At least Renning only requires 4 levels in 3 chapters to pull off spirit ORKOes, making him lower maintenance for the same task.

So gaining 4 levels while 4 levels higher is easier than gaining 5 levels while 4 levels lower? Cool.

Granted, but that’s only true if Elincia lands stun (40% chance in 2 hits) and the target has a hand axe (otherwise Nealuchi would’ve counter-attacked for >50% damage). Such cases are so rare that they carry little weight.

What I meant was that Elincia would Stun an enemy, allowing Marcia to KO him.

I already claimed Elincia had good offence in 2-E since my opener, though thanks for showing how borderline she is vs some of the enemies there.

Those were against the strongest of enemies, so there are definitely weaker ones that she insta-kills. Also, Interceptor used the highest values, so they could be lower than that. Also, Stun.

That’s completely besides the point. Elincia needs help from another character to pull off her KOs, which isn’t true of basically any unit you’ll have going to 4-E. What’s more is that Pelleas has some laughable concrete durability (33 hp/14 def is just a little better than base lvl Soren), meaning we need to wall him in to perform adequately. The fact that Elincia needs help from a unit with those types of problems speaks volumes about her own offensive issues.

It’s completely possible to wall in without too much hassle. It may not even be considered a wall at all.

Pelleas attacks.

Elincia KOs, runs off towards the other enemies.

Tibs and crew attack other enemies.

Pelleas is far from the enemies and he’s in no danger. Elincia also got a kill. Awesome.

The only things that can hurt Pelleas here are the Blizzard mage (who should be long dead) and the reinforcements at the back, though he can just trudge along to catch up with the crew.

In other words, Caineghis is supporting Giffca for the extra 2 atk? Renning giving 15 extra avo is applicable (and usually significant) against any enemy, not just bosses.

As in, avo that isn’t really needed since Cain is a living barrier?

Marcia would just need to take a vulnerary the next turn, or would need Leanne to vigor her for the extra command on the given turn.

I might as well save up on a Vulnerary and give Elincia exp rather than give exp to an ultra fail unit.

But then Elincia’s giving up healing just so she can be inferior to Renning in combat

To put it in your own words...

The fact that she has the option to heal and fight can only be seen as an advantage for her.

That gets a bit tricky since one of the enemies south of the forests is a sniper which probably 1HKOes her. If not, she’ll be damaged enough that any enemy could finish her off. Oh, and there’s a blizzard enemy in this stage, so she has to be wary of that too.

Tibarn can just go by the north route and finish him off before he can hit anyone.

That’s only helping her to stay clear of laguz after she’s attacked one, since as mentioned before, she gets 2-3HKOed at >50% hit in this level.

More like letting her fly over the swamp without any movement penalties.

Both platforms have snipers, the left one having the double bow user which 1HKOes even Naesala. Moreover, both platforms contain a plethora of mage enemies, which Renning does better against anyway due to superior 1-2 range options. Elincia can’t even ORKO them without a tempest blade, whereas a forged hand axe/tomahawk works for Renning.

Double Bow guy should be finished off quickly by Shinon, and Elincia can fly down to one platform, kill someone and return to the main middle area.

Mentioning the same thing 3 times doesn’t make it a stronger point. I’ve already contested Elincia isn’t putting her availability to good use (she’s arguably a negative before 4-E) and her healing advantage is superficial since fortify!Micaiah has all your 4-E healing needs covered.

Amiti is freakishly insane. That’s why I mentioned it 3 times. It’s that good.

Edited July 3, 2009 by Joshybear25

[-Cynthia-]

Vykan got away with a lot of Elincia sandbagging here. For one, she got a terribly useless Tibarn support, really anything but Heaven/Heaven is more desirable. Elincia would get more benefits out of a Renning support than a slightly earlier Tibarn support. However, Joshybear didn't try to argue this, so Vykan won this point.

Fun fact about Amiti Joshybear seemed to miss, it adds +3 to Def and Res, which were not factored into the numbers of the first comparison. However, since he didn't catch it, the points about Elincia's durability still stand, a point that Vykan won quite handily, seeing as Joshybear conceded it. The durability issues always seemed to be more important than Elincia's fighting, or even her healing.

Vykan managed to show that Renning won combat for most of the time they were around, mainly due to sandbagging Elincia's level, but again Joshybear didn't contest this well so the point goes to Vykan. The only leads Elincia seemed to have were Hit and Res, both of which Vykan dismissed effectively. The only point Joshybear really made successfully was her staff utility, but this doesn't make up for all the other points Vykan won. Voting for Vykan.

[Mekkah]

Joshybear showed he has a lot to learn, and vykan managed to raise my respect for Renning tenfold.

Voting vykan.

[Colonel M]

That picture is so badass. >=D

Voting Vykan as well. I think Cynthia and Mekkah summed up my statements why.

[Jaybee]

Ah, well. I had fun. Hope you did too, Vykan.

[BossOfGuns]

side note: amiti is not guaranteed for elincia and renning can also use it.

Edited December 31, 2012 by BossOfGuns

[Lord Raven]

side note: thats impossible because amiti is locked to elincia

[Jaybee]

oh my god why did you bump this old topic i feel so ashamed of myself ;~;