Mekkah vs Gordaran

[Mekkah]

The only change to this conditional debate is that supports are built automatically, as if characters are standing next to each other every turn (as long as both are fielded).

For how long a chapter takes, this can be used as a guideline (courtesy of one of dondon's A-in-tactics playthroughs):

11:   8-10 turns  17x:  5	turns  23x: 10-16 turns  28x: 18-21 turns
12:   6-9  turns  18:  11	turns  24G: 16-19 turns  29:  14-19 turns
13:  10-12 turns  19:   9-11 turns  24W: no clue...   30:  10-12 turns
13x:  7	turns  19x:  9-11 turns  25:   7- 9 turns  31:  11	turns
14:   9-10 turns  20:  11-15 turns  26:  11	turns  31x:  5	turns
15:   7	turns  21:   6- 8 turns  27J: 18-20 turns  32:  no clue...
16:   9-12 turns  22:  11	turns  27K: 13-15 turns  32x:  9-11 turns
17:  12-14 turns  23:   9-10 turns  28:  15	turns  F:	7-10 turns

I'll open.

[Mekkah]

Lyn has an entire mode named after her, and she has the most availability out of anyone there. I'll assume she comes out of it at 9/0.

From there, she rejoins in Ch16, and can be expected to look like this in Ch17:

10/0 Lyn - C Florina

Iron Sword: 13.6 atk, 14.4 AS, 124.5 hit, 10.9 crit - - 38.8 avo, 22.3 hp, 3.8 def, 2.7 res, 12.0 critavo

Mani Katti: 16.6 atk, 14.4 AS, 114.5 hit, 30.9 crit

on infantr: 24.6 atk

Lyn's offense is pretty insane, especially with the Mani Katti. The people who match her in atk usually will fail to hit as reliably or double as reliably as she does. For example, Kent has about 16-17 atk with Iron Lance, but only 10-11 AS, so he has trouble doubling Archers (6-7 Spd, most Ch17 ones have Iron), Mages (7 Spd), etc. Lyn even has a good shot at doubling those really fast things like Nomads, Myrmidons and Mercs. These have between 10-12 Spd, 10/0 Lyn has 48% chance of having 15 Spd or more, 11/0 Lyn has 63%, etc...and Lyn's AS growth is like twice as high as enemy growth, not to mention PC levels grow faster than enemy levels.

Her defense is less pretty, though her avo is one of the highest on the team right now - a Steel Bow Archer only has 37.41% real on her, for example. And Ch17 is full of Archers who she doesn't take a counter from, and then 17x is pirate heaven, 19 has lots of axes, etc. And your team is likely extremely lacking in offensive powerhouses. We have Guy, who is essentially Lyn with better parameters (except Mani Katti), and Raven. But for more defensively oriented units, we have Lowen, Hector, Dorcas and Oswin alone to match that, and then Sain/Kent/Eliwood are reasonably durable too.

Oh, and about 17x. It has the most threatening group of enemies in the game - six powerful Pirates, two magic users and an Archer clogged together. The Archer especially is annoying with his 34 hp/6 def/9 AS, but Lyn does like 62% damage to him with Mani Katti. The Killer Axe Pirate even has 10 AS, but only 83 hit, so he actually only has 16% real on Lyn, plus 20% crit. Whereas on someone like Hector, he would have 48% real and about as much crit, so about three times the chance to get critted.

Then in Ch19, Dart joins.

8/0 Dart

Iron Axe: 20.0 atk, 8.0 AS, 92.3 hit, 3.8 crit - - 19.0 avo, 34.0 hp, 6.0 def, 1.0 res, 3.0 critavo

Steel Axe: 23.0 atk, 3.0 AS, 82.3 hit, 3.8 crit - - 9.0 avo

Hand Axe: 19.0 atk, 6.0 AS, 77.3 hit, 3.8 crit - - 15.0 avo

12/0 Lyn - B Florina, C Kent

Iron Sword: 16.4 atk, 15.6 AS, 134.5 hit, 18.6 crit - - 44.3 avo, 23.7 hp, 5.2 def, 4.3 res, 21.1 critavo

Mani Katti: 19.4 atk, 15.6 AS, 124.5 hit, 38.5 crit

on infantr: 27.4 atk

Steel Swrd: 19.4 atk, 10.6 AS, 119.5 hit, 18.6 crit - - 34.3 avo

First thing we see is that Dart is really slow. That 8 AS with Iron Axe isn't going to double anything except jokes like Pegasi which anyone can take care of. Never mind if he goes with a heavier weapon to increase his atk. Lyn, however, doubles everything, pretty much guaranteed to double even Nomads by now.

And Dart's hit sucks. Not even 100 before considering enemy avo. A 12 avo Mage, for example, he has an 8% chance of missing with Iron Axe. That doesn't look so bad, except what happens when he misses? He takes a counter you didn't expect him to take. The Mage survives when you didn't expect him to, and now someone else has to take care of it, and you might not have another PC who can take him out (for example, Dart was the last one to move that turn). This also cuts into his EXP gain, obviously. Ch19 and Ch19x also have a lot of forests. If that Mage now stands on a forest, he suddendly has 32 avo, this becomes 68% true hit, 32% chance to miss. Or if he uses Steel on that Mage when he's not on a forest: 82% real hit, 18% to miss. 25% to miss with Hand Axe, if he tries to boast 1-2 range here.

For defense, Lyn has like twice as much his avo when both are at full speed. If Dart uses Steel Axe, we might as well not list his avo at all. A 100 hit enemy has only 60% chance to hit Lyn, while he would have 92% real on Dart. Hey, that's about as much hit as Dart had with an Iron Axe. Dart is 1.5 times as likely to get hit here. Also, Dart's cev sucks. A Thunder Mage from Ch19x has a 5% chance of OHKOing him. Like with missing, it happens at an unexpected moment, so you can't really prepare for it.

I won't be ridiculous by ignoring Dart's concrete durability lead, or his atk lead. They matter, too. It's just that Lyn's wins matter more. Doing 2-4 more damage per hit is nice, except I can avert that pretty easily by just using a slightly stronger unit to team up on a kill with Lyn, for example. I can't really do anything about Dart's missing, or not doubling, or getting critted.

Oh, and Lyn has better supports. You'll notice she's already automatically gained 3 support levels here. Lyn's list is amazing. Her support with Florina is the fastest in the game barring Pent/Louise, and it can be expected to hit A in ~4 more chapters. Florina's combat, particulary her atk, really could use the help of +6 per double, and she's also getting 15% extra crit from Lyn. Kent is generally going without a B unless Fiora is there for him, but Lyn joins and supports him earlier with the same bonuses. Hector has Eliwood for his A, but his other supports pretty much only give him defense. Lyn gives him more hit/crit to work with, and unlike Matthew, she isn't off to play thief half the time. And Eliwood himself requires Lowen or Marcus used on long term for a B support, or has to wait for Harken, so he likely has place for Lyn too. Hell, you might even want to form a support triangle between the three lords, which allows them to go somewhere together without breaking up other people's supports.

Dart's list, however, is nothing short of crap. Rebecca and Wil are likely not in play due to their obvious class problems, not to mention bad starts (Rebecca has bad atk and durability, and while Wil's atk is better, he has a lot of doubling issues). That leaves him to wait for his three later supports, two of which are probably not even be recruited (Farina and Karel, in lieu of having more money and having Harken respectively), so that leaves just Geitz. And that isn't hitting C until Ch28 or so, and might hit B around Ch31.

Moving on in the game, Dart probably promotes first through the Ocean Seal, and then in Ch26 Lyn promotes with Heaven Seal. Note that up to this point, Lyn has costed us a lot less: her Mani Katti is free, and Dart's promotion costs us a massive 30k more (could have sold it for 25k versus Lyn's 10k, then bought 30k worth of supplies with it using Silver Cards). That translates into Lyn being allowed to weild things like Lancereavers, Killing Edges, etc whenever she wants.

After Lyn promotes, she gains bows, while Dart gains crit. Fun for Dart and all, except Lyn was winning crit throughout the game already with more KE/supports/Mani Katti access, so at best he's now coming back to make up the deficit. Bows also stop Lyn from taking counters, and afterward it's pretty easy for you to trade Lancereaver/other sword to the top of her inventory again. Or just put other people in front of her if that's easier. It can't always be done without losing efficiency, but often times you can, and then it's a great advantage.

Last note (I'm ninja-ing everything else): Lyn is forced into several chapters, whereas Dart takes a unit slot for every chapter except his joining one. This means she is much easier to keep alive this way than if you didn't train her at all, in which case you have to cripple someone else by rescuing her, or have to keep every enemy away from her at all costs otherwise you're gonna have to reset. And of course, it means Dart is bumping off a unit you could have deployed otherwise. For example, if you have 8 unit slots in a chapter where Lyn is forced, you can get to use Lyn without bumping off your #8 unit, whereas the same cannot be said for Dart.

Lyn > Dart

Edited August 3, 2009 by Mekkah