Swordmasters.

[Florete]

Instead of insulting me, perhaps you could either debate or explain it? Or does this place not have rules against trolling and flaming?

I'll try, but you haven't really followed anything else I said, so I didn't find the point.

I saw arguments about giving her BEXP. Okay, fine. That makes up for her level and makes her stronger. What happens if you give that same BEXP to someone else, Zihark in this case? He makes better use of it by having better growths and bases and he always slaughters her in supports. Zihark is way better given the same treatment. Units that never need BEXP, like Titania and Stefan, also get bonus points for letting everyone else use it instead. Another point for Stefan against Mia. He doesn't take resources from the rest of the team.

Did you read those posts? Like, seriously, did you? Because I have class in the morning and I really should get to bed, so I'd rather not have to explain something you should have already read, and also because people like Narga and Interceptor generally explain these concepts better than I do.

The most important post. Interceptor runs through on Fixed mode so as to prevent RNG changes (aka don't even try PEMN on this one).

Come next chapter, I get access to Base and I decide to put the BEXP theory to the test. Let's level-up Mia and make her good. So, I took my copious amounts of BEXP (I got max for every chapter, naturally, since my cat could beat this game), and spread it out amongst Mia, Boyd, and Oscar so that all three of them were level 10 at the end. This left me with 918 BEXP, which admittedly is quite a bit left of the ~1500+, and I could have spent it right there, but I want to save some for Ilyana (since I am going to use her) and other up-and-coming units.

Well, it didn't matter anyway, I raped that chapter so hard that on Turn 8 (the last turn) I had nothing left to kill. At all. Everything was dead. Two random idiots that spawned on the last possible turn, a soldier and a myrm in the east, used their actions to suicide into Boyd on Enemy Phase. Here's some of what those poor bastards were up against:

- Boyd, level 10. 13mt forged Iron Axe, 12 STR, 10 SPD. Boyd was ORKO'ing Armors in this chapter. ARMORS. Would more levels would have made a difference here? Not likely!

- Oscar, level 10. Steel/Iron lances, Short Spear/Jav, 9 STR, 11 SPD. Not a ORKO'ing maniac, but doubles tons of shit and does good damage via Canto-bombing and 2-ranging.

- Titania, level 5. Steel/Iron axes, Hand Axe. 14 STR, 16 SPD. Those who know how to play the game know that you give Titania the boss kills (not that it takes any effort, since she stares at a boss and it dies), so this amped-up Titania is ORKO'ing tons of shit with just plain Hand Axes.

- Mia, level 10. Iron/Steel swords, Armorslayer. 9 STR, 15 SPD. Well holy shit, look what happens when you're not sandbagging Mia by not fixing her level. Now she's doing double 10's on Armors in this level with the slayer, aka 3HKO aka 2RKO aka better than Ike with a Regal.

Forget the BEXP given and look at what happened. He literally made these units as good as they could be in this map and still had plenty of BEXP. You see what this means? BEXP is plentiful. Everyone gets some. That includes Mia, and she does put it to good use.

Chapter 8 pwned. Chapter 9 found me sending Mia, Ilyana (who got some BEXP'ed levels to double a few things), Mist, Rolf, and Titania (to catch the bandit) down on the sand. Destruction happened, nothing with and axe could hurt Mia, and Ilyana's 2-range plus occasional potshot chips from Rolf made this a leisurely stroll on the beach. Got both houses saved, and even pwned the pirate reinforcements. The rest of the army had no problems plowing through to the Sieze square.

Cake.

Chapter 10. I didn't Metal Gear Solid this one, I blazed through it like a herd of bulls left loose in a china shop (I wanted the treasure and master seal). Mia's contributions here included fighting the reinforcements that back-door you when the alarm sounds, as well as smashing apart the Armors at the exit. As with Chapter 7, I found myself 4 turns from the BEXP limit with really nothing left to kill and nobody left to rescue.

Way ahead of the BEXP turn limit. No shortage there.

tl;dr, BEXP is a plentiful resource that everyone can make use of. Denying Mia some because you have this notion that she's shit is called sandbagging. The only way it would be a negative is if she took so much it has a significant impact on the team's performance, but that just doesn't happen in Mia's case. Plus, no one is saying she's better than Zihark, Zihark > Mia is still relatively well-agreed upon, just not by a large amount. Stefan isn't as lucky.

People who say that Mia is a piece of shit, help me out, here. I'm not really good at playing inefficiently and/or making stupid resource allocation decisions.

[Inui]

I read that.

Does it change the fact that Mia makes poorer use of said BEXP compared to a large number of units? No. The Paladins, Fliers, and Sages still outclass her quite easily, no? I'd say so. 1~2 ranged weaponry, solid concrete stats, mobility...

Does it change the fact that her BEXP could be used on someone else? It's plentiful, yes. But wouldn't I be better off feeding it to a team that didn't include her? I'd say so, given that most other units have better stats.

Mia makes good use of it early on by getting strong quickly and not having a plethora of mounted and magical units to compete with, but that changes quite soon, and the BEXP used on her could have been used to power up Kieran/Nephenee/Brom instead.

It's a strong case for Mia not being horrible, but I'm far from convinced that she's good.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Inui

[Mekkah]

No. The Paladins, Fliers, and Sages still outclass her quite easily, no? I'd say so. 1~2 ranged weaponry, solid concrete stats, mobility...

That's why they're higher on a tier list. But it's no reason for her to be worse than others. This is an even more stupid type of argument than class-by-class.

Does it change the fact that her BEXP could be used on someone else? It's plentiful, yes. But wouldn't I be better off feeding it to a team that didn't include her? I'd say so, given that most other units have better stats.

That's like saying giving a Speedwing to Raven rather than to Bartre is a good idea because Raven has much better stats.

Mia makes good use of it early on by getting strong quickly and not having a plethora of mounted and magical units to compete with, but that changes quite soon, and the BEXP used on her could have been used to power up Kieran/Nephenee/Brom instead.

By the time you get those, you have a lot more BEXP to plow on them. If you set the Mia-BEXP aside for them, it's just sitting in the convoy being unused. That's not playing efficiently.

[Colonel M]

I would vote Volke because, to be honest, I'm not a Swordmaster freak (they're all mediocre in my eyes). In this game... I'd probably go with Zihark since he has the Earth avoid going on, though Mia has earlygame and despite the criticism of "critkilled", Stefan at least comes without major handholding (though he'll still need levels obviously).

Edited February 2, 2010 by Colonel M

[Hatari]

Zihark or Stefan hands down.

Stefan since he's "lion blooded" and Zihark because he's just awesome (and their outfits are very cool).

[Narga_Rocks]

10/0 Mia

HP: 23.0 (50%)

Str: 8.6 (40%)

Mag: 1.2 (30%)

Skl: 11.8 (45%)

Spd: 15.4 (60%)

Lck: 7.8 (45%)

Def: 7.8 (20%)

Res: 3.0 (25%)

10/0 Zihark

HP: 25.0 (55%)

Str: 10.0 (45%)

Mag: 1.0 (15%)

Skl: 13.0 (50%)

Spd: 15.0 (60%)

Lck: 6.0 (40%)

Def: 7.0 (30%)

Res: 0.0 (20%)

BROKEN AFFINITY

Mia starts off about the same as Zihark, but that quickly changes as he begins to beat her soundly in HP, Str, and Skl without losing Spd. He then gets a Def lead and a huge Evd lead after supporting someone. Mia gets to have more Res. Big deal. Zihark gets to not be hit.

Also, speaking of her supports... She has Rhys, Ilyana, and Largo. Zihark has Ilyana, Brom, and Muarim. Every single one of his partners wants him badly and they are all good units. Rhys is mediocre, Largo sucks, and Ilyana has better options.

I am perfectly content with investing a single Goddess Statue or whatever the +2 Luck item is in this game in Stefan since nobody else needs such an item.

You really oughta change that style of only responding to 1/8 of someone's argument, it doesn't work. :(

Is that to me and my response to his post, or his post directly below mine which was his reply to the one above me?

(Don't bother reading if it wasn't to me.)

Okay, so what is the seven eighths I'm missing? I've acknowledged that eventually Zihark gets a large avo lead and it's an advantage later on. I've pointed out how he doesn't beat her soundly in str. I've pointed out it takes a while before he gets that def lead, and she'll even have her own def lead early on when he's not dodging things. Once he gets to "not be hit", his hp/def leads are superfluous, yes? I've tried to deal with the "Ilyana has better options", I've attacked the part about Zihark's supports being good units by suggesting that Rhys has an easier time getting on the team, thus if Zihark has no problem getting his buddies deployed then Mia shouldn't have an issue either. However much Brom or Ilyana may want Zihark, Rhys has nothing stopping him from supporting Mia so that's not a problem. I ignored the Goddess Statue thing, though could have mentioned more crit on forges or more powerful forges or simply making other units that are borderline on things like Elthunder immune to those crits, which is arguably better than giving it to Stefan because he'll still be vulnerable to multiple sources even with it. That's really the main thing I didn't talk about.

While there are things I glossed over or outright ignored, where is this 7/8s?

Or was that not to me? If it was to me, I would definitely appreciate advice on how to make it appear that I'm responding to more of a person's argument, considering I do make serious effort already to not ignore important points.

She isn't gaining more than 4 levels before Zihark joins imo. She's kinda fail and has to fight too many lances.

She should be level 9 or 10 for chapter 8 from bexp. Easily level 12 or so by chapter 11. Zihark gets access to bexp at the start of chapter 12, but I'll get into that later.

Except he's already beating her by 2 HP and that only grows and he eventually gets h4x Evd while she does not. At base level, if they both eat a physical hit, Zihark still has 1 more HP than her. If they both eat a magic hit, then she wins by 1, but those are not common.

And if they are hit twice when she has a def lead, they are tied. And three times she'll have more hp. If you are only getting hit once, you are getting healed in between and a hp lead doesn't matter. Unless you think things have the mt to OHKO her at this point.

Does Ilyana want or need her B when Mordecai and Zihark are giving her much better bonuses? All of Zihark's partners want his broken affinity, especially glass units like Ilyana. Muarim is good and wants Zihark.

First, Ilyana is only +1mt/+1def/10acc anyway. It's nice, and I see no reason to say no. Also, are you seriously deploying Zihark and Mia at the same time? I see no real reason to do so. This is the biggest argument against it, though move difference between her and Mordecai is another one. Of course, Mordecai mostly gets Mist for a while, so there isn't a big harm in it. It's just that Ilyana can activate Mia's support much more often than Mordecai's.

If you're using Rhys. His offense and durability are both horrible. Once you have other healers, this dude needs to stop existing. Worst magic type by far and getting doubled = lol. Rhys does not exist. Zihark's Atk is always better.

If Rhys does not exist you are sandbagging Mia. I think you failed to acknowledge the whole efficient team argument. If you have 8 full-time attackers and 2 healers, why bother raising Soren or Ilyana and then once they promote just turn them into healers? Your team is much better if they stay attackers, and then there is absolutely no reason (short of stupidity) to drop Rhys if Mia is on the team. Arguably even if Mia isn't on the team.

And Zihark as Adept, allowing him to often kill things before he can take a counter. .8 Def =/= durability win when Zihark has 2 more HP and beats her growths in both Def and HP. Zihark has massive durability wins later on in the bigger chapters with much stronger enemies.

How much does Adept activate at first and how much does he 2HKO? Sorry, Vantage works more often. I haven't even gone into wrath possibilities for later. Vantage + Wrath is better than Vantage + Adept. If Zihark's team doesn't have Mia then while he could take wrath and vantage, you could also give Vantage to Neph (if she's on the team) or another unit that wants vantage + guard or something. And if you want him to have adept + wrath because of his supports then his comparison to Mia still isn't going to put him >>> Mia because she's also looking at Vantage + Wrath on her side, so he's only really winning when things attack him at 2 range, but why are you letting him get attacked at 2 range? That's hardly efficient.

I will be generous and hand Mia B with Ilyana that Ilyana doesn't want. Rhys does not give her any durability

20/10 Mia

36.5 HP, 70.8 Evd, 13.6 Def, 9.7 Res

B Ilyana: +1 Def/Res

20/10 Zihark

39.5 HP, 68.0 Evd, 14.7 Def, 5.8 Res

B Ilyana or Brom/B Muarim: +20 Evd, +2 Def/Res

This is a massacre.

Way to show the enemies and what her prospects of living are. You haven't showed much at all. Show me that she'll die before I could heal her and I'll start caring. If she can survive for 3 or 4 rounds at a time without much fear of death and he can take on the whole map without fear of death, that's not a massacre. It's a win, but far from a massacre. A massacre is if he'll never die and she fears encountering enemies every single round unless she's at max hp and thus I need to heal her every turn.

Yeah, Rhys is a healer. One that never gets good at fighting and is always bottom tier in durability. Mist destroys him after promotion. Soren, Ilyana, and Tormod all outclass him easily. His use as a healer instantly vanishes once you promote Soren or Ilyana and get Mist. Rhys gets doubled and one-rounded often. He is like FE 6 Lilina except worse since she can actually do damage when she hits things.

I think you fail to understand the whole efficient team argument. Soren and Ilyana and Tormod will be attackers. Why waste their time healing? Let Rhys heal something. Mist and Rhys are probably best used as dual healers throughout the game. With enough bexp you can make Mist promote and be an attacker, but the other way is to just let them heal. Go through the links on Interceptor's posts. Check out the team.

Ilyana, Muarim, and Brom are all good units. Why won't they be fielded? Just use them. They're all good. If you're fielding Zihark, why would you not use his partners if they are good? Mia has partner issues because two of hers are horrible units.

Did you see how many people are on the list at Ilyana or higher? You can't field that many. Something's gotta go. If you think Rhys is going to be dropped when he's not even needing to compete for a spot on an efficient team, I see no reason for them to automatically assumed to be deployed.

She wants Evd and Def, neither of with Mia provides for her. She doesn't care about minor boosts to Atk and Hit. She needs durability.

She appreciates even 1 mt. There's been posts on this before showing times where Ilyana appreciates that +1 mt.

I am not saying Mia should go supportless. I am saying her options are two horrible units and one good one that prefers other bonuses. That is a bad situation. All of Zihark's partners want him and are good units.

Still not seeing how this matters. He gets supports, she gets supports. Compare them with the supports.

Don't care. I'd rather feed BEXP to a unit like Zihark and get a better unit. Feeding her BEXP is not a good argument. If she needs it, she's taking it away from the rest of the team, and the rest of the team is better than her.

You don't pay attention, do you?

Let's analyze feeding bexp to zihark.

The team gets x bexp before he shows up. From chapter 8 to 11, Mia gets none and has free deployment in chapters 8 and 9. Your team is weaker for those chapters since you stupidly denied bexp to Mia. Good job, genius. Then chapter 12 comes along and you finally get to use that bexp you set aside for him. Meanwhile, Mia's team has been stomping their chapters with her help. Advantage Mia.

Alternatively, you could use Mia's bexp on the other characters in chapter 8. Unfortunately, it can be shown that they don't need that extra bexp. They don't drastically improve their performance with Mia's extra bexp. Hence, it's somewhat wasted.

Then comes chapter 12 where you have the choice of where to spend bexp. Mia's at a higher level than Zihark would be, and you either have some extra bexp floating around but your team wasn't as good, or you have the exact same bexp whether Mia was deployed earlier or not.

Since the first situation is already a disadvantage for Zihark, let's focus on the second. Zihark does not automatically have some right equal bexp to what Mia had earlier. If she got 300 in chapter 8, that doesn't matter. At this moment, you are looking at bexp in their current situation, and thus bexp rights are based on what helps out best. Sadly for Zihark, since Mia is at a higher level it is easier to get her to the point she can double the ravens. Advantage Mia.

Mia is shit.

Stubborn fool.

Those things often have Crit scores on anyone and he can't usually counter them, so he really has no business dealing with them. Well, he kills them without taking counters on his turn, so whatever. Such cases are too rare to matter.

Ever occur to you that those other units could use those Ashera Icons you claim they don't need to get immunity to the crits? No? Quelle Suprise. Also, how does he kill elthunder mages without a counter? Or the swordmasters without a counter? More and more I'm thinking that Mekkah was talking to you with the whole "1/8"th thing.

Does it change the fact that Mia makes poorer use of said BEXP compared to a large number of units? No. The Paladins, Fliers, and Sages still outclass her quite easily, no? I'd say so. 1~2 ranged weaponry, solid concrete stats, mobility...

You have a strange strange idea of facts. I like how you think untrue things are facts. Analyze the arguments for her bexp in chapter 8 one more time, would you? This time, do it with a more open mind rather than with your inexplicable anti-Mia bias. They get enough bexp for their optimal performance already. Not to mention, she makes better use of the bexp in chapter 12 than they do, considering even at level 20 none of them actually double ravens with their anti-laguz weapons.

Does it change the fact that her BEXP could be used on someone else? It's plentiful, yes. But wouldn't I be better off feeding it to a team that didn't include her? I'd say so, given that most other units have better stats.

Wrong on all counts. Well, aside from bexp being plentiful. Although you seem to underestimate that. Let's go over this again. Chapter 8, they get what they need and Mia gets what she needs. Deny Mia what she needs, you aren't improving the team. Chapter 12. She can double ravens, they can't. Where are your "better stats" now? Oh, the other stats. Gee, those things sure help you to ORKO Ravens.

Mia makes good use of it early on by getting strong quickly and not having a plethora of mounted and magical units to compete with, but that changes quite soon, and the BEXP used on her could have been used to power up Kieran/Nephenee/Brom instead.

You fail at efficiency, then. You get more bexp along the way, and your team was more efficient for having used the bexp on her earlier on.

It's a strong case for Mia not being horrible, but I'm far from convinced that she's good.

Meh. Near-bottom of upper mid, could arguably drop (along with Zihark and Stefan) to near the top of mid. I'd hardly call that "good". Just, "above average". You repeatedly suggested she was extremely sub-par. That was what I'm upset about.

(and yes, RF, it seems like 1 person is attempting to bring back Soviet Fire Emblem. Sigh. I guess I should never have posted a defence of Mia when he called her horrendous. Oh well. That's what I get for not suffering fools.)

[Interceptor]

I didn't put it up before because I didn't want to make a big deal of this. I just don't like seeing Mia getting called trash when Zihark is loved. (Ok, you said "horrendous", but essentially you are calling Mia trash.) He's barely better overall, if at all. All I wanted was to point out that Mia is far from "horrendous", but no, you had to make more of a comparison about it.

Emphasis mine. Personally I'd be more on the side of Mia being > him, largely because he has no answer to anything she does from Ch7 to Ch11, and it's terribly hard to argue that he can match her in Ch12. After that, it's a battle of skills and supports, since they aren't vastly different.

I was actually going to post more about this, but I think that your air strike obliterated the battlefield such that even the lowliest beetle hidden in a forgotten corner behind a rock is covered in napalm. I think that Mekkah was not referring to you with the 1/8 comment, largely because you tend to respond to 15/8ths of someone's post. That is not a typo, nor is it an insult, it's just a frank observation of your thoroughness.

[Fayt Zelpher]

Well, I'm not going to go into the discussion of everything that could possibly be used to argue this point. Narga_Rocks and RFoF have already done more than enough of that, and have covered every point I could possibly have come up with, and several more which I wouldn't have ever thought. However, I find Mia better for the simple reason that she's around for chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 before Zihark ever comes along. Chapter 8 (the defend chapter) especially. Seeing that she'll gain at least 2 levels of CEXP by the 3rd or 4th turn of chapter 11 (when Zihark can be recruited) and the team can afford 100 BEXP or so, she's not at a level disadvantage. In fact, 12/0 is perfectly reasonable, meaning that she's got a slight lead.

And please, I don't see Zihark getting A Mordecai anyway, since Mordy wants Mist and Ulki's water bonus more (he's not going to dodge much anyway, so boost his defense more instead), Mist needs all the defense and attack she can get since Physics are limited and she's not always going to be able to canto out of range, and Ulki likes the Atk/Def as well over the fire affinities (he needs no hit bonus). He'll get A Muarim B Ilyana at best. Further, Ilyana has survivability issues due to the fact that she can't ORKO and therefore eats enemy phase attacks (too slow to double too much) and Muarim has +2 move, which means that they won't always be able to keep in range for the support. Mia will get A Rhys, B Ilyana (Titania wants another frontliner, Rolf and Kieran have wind, etc.) In other words, I see Mia keeping within range of strength the whole game, and given the fact that she's got more time to build her supports, she actually comes way closer on supports than you might think.

Again, I think that Zihark is a (very) slightly better unit, but it's much, much closer than you claim it is. And in PoR, Vantage = Adept in terms of usefulness (perhaps adept is a bit better...) but there's no significant advantage here.

(Plus, if you can't tell, I'm a Mia fanboy, so the point about who's better is moot for me. ;) )

Edited February 2, 2010 by Randomly Predictable

[Shadow Mir]

Mordy wants Mist and Ulki's water bonus more (he's not going to dodge much anyway, so boost his defense more instead)

If he wants defense, why would he want Ulki over Ilyana, who comes earlier?

[Interceptor]

[...]In fact, 12/0 is perfectly reasonable, meaning that she's got a slight lead.

You say that 12/0 is reasonable for Mia in Ch11, but my immediate rebuttal would be that she's more like level 14-15, just like everyone else and their mother. If Mia and the army are around ~12 at the start of Ch11, you must be using your BEXP for making sandcastles or something, because it's obviously not going into your units.

Regarding supports, this is a pet peeve of mine, but I hate despise loathe it when people say "X can't get Y". It's a nonsense way to discuss the subject, because there's no way to resolve it. A better way, by virtue of being more accurate, is to just give whatever supports you want to the units being compared, and then consider the opportunity cost of doing so. There's usually a sweet spot for efficiency when it comes to these things.

Give Ilyana and Rhys to Mia, figure in the cost of doing so (need to deploy them, maybe use them, reduce the support options for their other partners), stick a fork in it. You can't get to the bottom of support distributions until you get past the kiddie-pool arguments.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Interceptor

[Narga_Rocks]

You say that 12/0 is reasonable for Mia in Ch11, but my immediate rebuttal would be that she's more like level 14-15, just like everyone else and their mother. If Mia and the army are around ~12 at the start of Ch11, you must be using your BEXP for making sandcastles or something, because it's obviously not going into your units.

Yeah, I could have pointed out she's level 13 or 14 at the start of that chapter if I'd wanted. Level 10 for chapter 8 (hurray enough bexp for her and all your other units such that level 10 is not just reasonable but optimal) means you can easily get level 13 by chapter 11, and certainly 14 is possible.

(edit: note, that's level 10 for her. Boyd and Oscar can be bexpd to around that as well. Some of the others, Soren in particular, will obviously not be that high. Just in case that was unclear.)

However, as I said:

Okay, first problem is your levels (level lead necessary assuming efficient play). But let's ignore that for now. Some people are stubborn about the level thing and it appears you may be one of them.

So I didn't want to get into it too much.

Anyway, suggesting they were both level 10 at that point (edit for clarity: chapter 11) is so absurd that it makes me wonder if Boyd is being pumped up to level 20 or something, or if he's sitting on a mountain of unused bexp at that point.

Oh, and since I know inui won't actually bother to read through many of those posts that I linked, I'd like to point out that even if you think the levels are inflated, keep in mind Interceptor had all his main combatants promoted and like 20/3 or 20/4 at the start of chapter 18, or something cool like that, and had enough bexp left over to take Nephenee from base level to promotion. Now, later playthroughs using units like Jill caused the leftover bexp to be a fair amount smaller, but still had everyone up at much better levels than would be possible if Mia and the team is at level 10 in chapter 11. (And if the team is like 4 levels above Mia in chapter 11, then I'd have to suggest that the player is using a really bad method of distributing bexp. At least, if Mia is actually being used seriously.)

hate despise loathe

Isn't "loathe" more extreme than "hate"? Not sure about loathe vs. despise?

Edited February 2, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Inui]

That's like saying giving a Speedwing to Raven rather than to Bartre is a good idea because Raven has much better stats.

Absolutely not. Raven easily caps Spd and doubles everything, so it's 100% pointless.

I merely stated that BEXP is a plentiful, yet still limited resource that a lot of the cast makes better use of than Mia, including Zihark. This is true.

By the time you get those, you have a lot more BEXP to plow on them. If you set the Mia-BEXP aside for them, it's just sitting in the convoy being unused. That's not playing efficiently.

Aaaand that's all she has. As I stated. She gets bonus points for being able to be pumped up into an earlygame powerhouse, but can't you just do the same with someone else to make them stronger? Sure. You could just massacre things with Titania and then give that BEXP used on Mia to Zihark when you get him shortly afterward and have a better unit. Or...to anything that uses magic (besides Rhys) or is on a horse, and have a better team.

She should be level 9 or 10 for chapter 8 from bexp. Easily level 12 or so by chapter 11. Zihark gets access to bexp at the start of chapter 12, but I'll get into that later.

Okay, she can have a 2 level lead in Zihark's joining chapter. Then Zihark can have the same amount of BEXP she got, and then have a level of his own given the same treatment. Then Zihark clearly beats her due to his Str and then later on it's a clear win due to supports.

And if they are hit twice when she has a def lead, they are tied. And three times she'll have more hp. If you are only getting hit once, you are getting healed in between and a hp lead doesn't matter. Unless you think things have the mt to OHKO her at this point.

The HP lead merely cancels the Def lead overall. That was all I was arguing for.

First, Ilyana is only +1mt/+1def/10acc anyway. It's nice, and I see no reason to say no. Also, are you seriously deploying Zihark and Mia at the same time? I see no real reason to do so. This is the biggest argument against it, though move difference between her and Mordecai is another one. Of course, Mordecai mostly gets Mist for a while, so there isn't a big harm in it. It's just that Ilyana can activate Mia's support much more often than Mordecai's.

Ilyana wants Evd the most. Are you going to deny this? It's quite obvious. I don't think she's having any problems with Atk or Hit, and I don't think 1 Def/Res is going to suddenly make her durable. She needs to dodge. Zihark gives her Evd.

Ilyana is a fine option for Mia...if you're not fielding Zihark at all. I don't see how fielding Mia negates Zihark. That's like saying Raven negates Harken even though Harken is better than half of your team when he joins.

If Rhys does not exist you are sandbagging Mia. I think you failed to acknowledge the whole efficient team argument. If you have 8 full-time attackers and 2 healers, why bother raising Soren or Ilyana and then once they promote just turn them into healers? Your team is much better if they stay attackers, and then there is absolutely no reason (short of stupidity) to drop Rhys if Mia is on the team. Arguably even if Mia isn't on the team.

Rhys does not exist because he is terrible.

Rhys: 20/10 Bishop

34.2 HP, 9 Def, 27.8 Res, 50.2 Evd/46.2 Evd

29.1 Atk/31.1 Atk, 15.2 Atk Spd/13.3 Atk Spd

Rhys is unable to one-round an unpromoted level 14-15 horse unit unless it is weighed down. By now, the unpromoted units are 18 or 20, in which case he can't double them. That is against the weaker units on the field.

A level 7 or 9 Paladin doubles him if he has Shine. Ewww. If that happens, he dies. Level 9+ Paladins double him.

Rhys can't double any Wyvern Lords at all. The lowest level Wyvern Lord possible does ~22 damage to him in one hit with a Silver Lance and has 56 Hit. Slightly less than that with Steel, but he dies in two hits either way.

These are mobile and plentiful units that are hard to avoid.

Rhys is intolerably frail and has terrible offense. He is the worst unit on the field in terms of durability and offense. Rhys is terrible once you can field another healer instead, no matter who it is.

How much does Adept activate at first and how much does he 2HKO? Sorry, Vantage works more often. I haven't even gone into wrath possibilities for later. Vantage + Wrath is better than Vantage + Adept. If Zihark's team doesn't have Mia then while he could take wrath and vantage, you could also give Vantage to Neph (if she's on the team) or another unit that wants vantage + guard or something. And if you want him to have adept + wrath because of his supports then his comparison to Mia still isn't going to put him >>> Mia because she's also looking at Vantage + Wrath on her side, so he's only really winning when things attack him at 2 range, but why are you letting him get attacked at 2 range? That's hardly efficient.

Wrath requires her to be at lower HP. Vantage is good, I'll give her that. Adept activates like crazy post-promotion, which is when Zihark's leads come on. Wrath/Vantage isn't as broken as Wrath/Ambush of FE 4 tbqh. It's good but not broken. Zihark is still beating her in offense and durability even if she's given Wrath. The same treatment could be given to Zihark, but with some other skill that makes more sense, and you're getting a much better unit out of it.

Way to show the enemies and what her prospects of living are. You haven't showed much at all. Show me that she'll die before I could heal her and I'll start caring. If she can survive for 3 or 4 rounds at a time without much fear of death and he can take on the whole map without fear of death, that's not a massacre. It's a win, but far from a massacre. A massacre is if he'll never die and she fears encountering enemies every single round unless she's at max hp and thus I need to heal her every turn.

First of all, eating a healer's turn to be healed = fail. If Zihark almost never does this and Mia does, she is hurting efficiency by not letting that healer attack to clear more enemies. Healing doesn't win chapters. Killing things does.

Mia: 36.5 HP, 70.8 Evd, 14.6 Def, 10.7 Res

Zihark: 39.5 HP, 88.0 Evd, 16.7 Def, 7.8 Res

vs 20/6 Sage w/ Elfire:

Mia: 42.2 Hit, 8.3 Dmg

Zihark: 25.0 Hit, 11.2 Dmg

vs 20/10 Paladin w/ Silver Lance

Mia: 43.2 Hit, 18.4 Dmg

Zihark: 24 Hit, 16.3 Dmg

vs 11 Tiger

Mia: 56.2 Hit, 17.4 Dmg

Zihark: 39 Hit, 15.3 Dmg

It is clearly obvious that Mia eats up more turns to be healed while Zihark very rarely does so. Even if he does eat a hit, he's not near death. Mia can take one more magic hit, but she stands a much greater chance of being hit in the first place. Two hits from a Paladin or Wyvern Lord will kill her, and they have over 40 Hit. It takes three for Zihark to die, and they have less Hit on him and will probably miss. Mia barely gets to take a third hit from Tigers before dying, but again, Zihark has a nice Evd score compared to hers and isn't at some huge risk of dying.

Zihark: Takes more hits to die. Does not eat up a healer's turn to be healed anywhere near as often, which boosts efficiency by a lot. Has superior offense due to Str and Adept.

Mia: Dies in two hits sometimes and takes less hits to die. Eats up healer turns to be healed if she gets hit even once, which slows you down.

I think you fail to understand the whole efficient team argument. Soren and Ilyana and Tormod will be attackers. Why waste their time healing? Let Rhys heal something. Mist and Rhys are probably best used as dual healers throughout the game. With enough bexp you can make Mist promote and be an attacker, but the other way is to just let them heal. Go through the links on Interceptor's posts. Check out the team.

Why waste anyone's turn healing? Zihark almost never does. Rhys, Soren, Ilyana, Tormod can all spend their turns attacking, and thus finish chapters more quickly, if Zihark's on the team. He doesn't get hit much, and if he does, he's not 1-2 hits from dying like Mia is. Mia eats up healer turns that are better spent killing things to finish more quickly.

Did you see how many people are on the list at Ilyana or higher? You can't field that many. Something's gotta go. If you think Rhys is going to be dropped when he's not even needing to compete for a spot on an efficient team, I see no reason for them to automatically assumed to be deployed.

If you're fielding Zihark, chances are you want to field Ilyana. But, hey, he doesn't need Ilyana to be a BAMF. He has Muarim and Brom. Ilyana's just another decent unit he can support.

Rhys? Rhys is horrible, as demonstrated. Failure offense. Failure durability.

She appreciates even 1 mt. There's been posts on this before showing times where Ilyana appreciates that +1 mt.

How often will 1 Atk let her one-round when she wouldn't otherwise? I'm actually interested in seeing this if you can show me.

Still not seeing how this matters. He gets supports, she gets supports. Compare them with the supports.

Obviously it matters. In order for Mia to have supports, she must take Ilyana from someone that gives her more preferable bonuses and she must support a horrendous unit and thus force you to field him the entire game. Zihark does not do this at all. His partners are good.

Let's analyze feeding bexp to zihark.

The team gets x bexp before he shows up. From chapter 8 to 11, Mia gets none and has free deployment in chapters 8 and 9. Your team is weaker for those chapters since you stupidly denied bexp to Mia. Good job, genius. Then chapter 12 comes along and you finally get to use that bexp you set aside for him. Meanwhile, Mia's team has been stomping their chapters with her help. Advantage Mia.

Nah. My team is just spamming Titania more. I don't see how that's weaker since she can decimate half the map herself. I'm aware that a team with a BEXP'd Mia is overall stronger, but she makes the team overall stronger during chapters where Titania is an unstoppable goddess of destruction and the chapters are quite short. This isn't some huge advantage for her. Chapter 8 =/= Chapter 20 in terms of length at all. In fact, those three chapters combined equal about one lategame chapter, and Zihark is better in those lategame chapters.

Alternatively, you could use Mia's bexp on the other characters in chapter 8. Unfortunately, it can be shown that they don't need that extra bexp. They don't drastically improve their performance with Mia's extra bexp. Hence, it's somewhat wasted.

It gets them closer to promotion. If you can promote before the ship level (I do this with Oscar and sometimes Soren), then you have a nice powerhouse or two to help kill those Ravens.

Then comes chapter 12 where you have the choice of where to spend bexp. Mia's at a higher level than Zihark would be, and you either have some extra bexp floating around but your team wasn't as good, or you have the exact same bexp whether Mia was deployed earlier or not.

Since the first situation is already a disadvantage for Zihark, let's focus on the second. Zihark does not automatically have some right equal bexp to what Mia had earlier. If she got 300 in chapter 8, that doesn't matter. At this moment, you are looking at bexp in their current situation, and thus bexp rights are based on what helps out best. Sadly for Zihark, since Mia is at a higher level it is easier to get her to the point she can double the ravens. Advantage Mia.

Mia has the advantage in the Raven chapter. Outside of that? None at all. Her two level lead isn't that special, and it clearly evens out if you give Zihark BEXP as well, and doing so produces a much more durable unit that creates more overall efficiency, as proven.

Ever occur to you that those other units could use those Ashera Icons you claim they don't need to get immunity to the crits? No? Quelle Suprise. Also, how does he kill elthunder mages without a counter? Or the swordmasters without a counter? More and more I'm thinking that Mekkah was talking to you with the whole "1/8"th thing.

But...they really don't need an Ashera Icon at all. They typically have decent Lck scores on top of supports by then, which Stefan doesn't. It doesn't mean much to give them to someone else.

A level 15 Mage with Elthunder has ~36.3 Hit and 8.5 Crit on a 20/10 Stefan. His chance of being hit by a critical is extremely slim. The critical would do 28.2 Dmg, not killing him. He'll still have over 10 HP, which even an additional normal hit from some enemy can't take away.

As for hitting it without taking a counter:

14% Astra

29% base Crit

But guess what? That doesn't matter. With a Steel Blade, he kills it one hit and has 100 Hit while doing so.

You have a strange strange idea of facts. I like how you think untrue things are facts. Analyze the arguments for her bexp in chapter 8 one more time, would you? This time, do it with a more open mind rather than with your inexplicable anti-Mia bias. They get enough bexp for their optimal performance already. Not to mention, she makes better use of the bexp in chapter 12 than they do, considering even at level 20 none of them actually double ravens with their anti-laguz weapons.

I'm aware. I just have very high standards for "good" due to my experiences as a competitive gamer. If you're not top tier, you suck and can't win. That's been embedded in me. Mia is just too inferior to too many units to be anything but bad in my eyes.

Wrong on all counts. Well, aside from bexp being plentiful. Although you seem to underestimate that. Let's go over this again. Chapter 8, they get what they need and Mia gets what she needs. Deny Mia what she needs, you aren't improving the team. Chapter 12. She can double ravens, they can't. Where are your "better stats" now? Oh, the other stats. Gee, those things sure help you to ORKO Ravens.

Already addressed.

You fail at efficiency, then. You get more bexp along the way, and your team was more efficient for having used the bexp on her earlier on.

Already addressed using Titania-is-God and those chapters being ultra short compared to anything after them.

Meh. Near-bottom of upper mid, could arguably drop (along with Zihark and Stefan) to near the top of mid. I'd hardly call that "good". Just, "above average". You repeatedly suggested she was extremely sub-par. That was what I'm upset about.

I'd put her in mid tier as well. And that is quite bad to me since the chances of a mid tier taking home cash in a Brawl national is 0% currently. Zihark is clearly overall better, as is Stefan, so I'm not sure about them dropping as well. I don't like any of them but Stefan tbqh. I hate Zihark and have never used him and never will.

[Interceptor]

So I didn't want to get into it too much.

I am not as forgiving as you are on this point, this is no secret. I will occasionally agree to stipulate some nonsense thing in order to move on to a more important point in a larger argument, but having Mia underleveled in an efficient playthrough of her army is so ludicrous that I'm pulling a Goldoa on this until someone comes up with a halfway decent excuse for it. I mean, christ on a cracker, I pick up the game after my knowledge of its inner workings had been decaying for over a year, and my first stab at it with a non-optimal army configuration has me shitstomping the entire game, with Mia WELL OVER this argument's benchmark level, and enough leftover BEXP headroom to instant-godmode Nephenee at any point in her entire career.

So, I'll leave the concession-making to you, because I really don't feel like scraping my brains off the wall when my head explodes from the incongruity of it all.

Isn't "loathe" more extreme than "hate"? Not sure about loathe vs. despise?

Indeed it is. Where I was going with that is that I start too mild, think better of it, go too strong, think better of THAT, and then settle on something in the middle. Of course I've killed it now by explaining it, but c'est la vie.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Interceptor

[Fayt Zelpher]

If he wants defense, why would he want Ulki over Ilyana, who comes earlier?

2 attack is way better than 7.5 hit. Plus, he doesn't need the bonuses right away, seeing as though he's basically a prepromote and has way higher stats than your beorc. In addition, Ilyana will not be able to keep up with him anyway, and, if that weren't an issue, Ilyana wants Zihark more anyway, since her defense is so low that she'd prefer to try to up her avoid, since it pays much better dividends to her durability.

[Rodykitty]

I'm aware. I just have very high standards for "good" due to my experiences as a competitive gamer. If you're not top tier, you suck and can't win. That's been embedded in me. Mia is just too inferior to too many units to be anything but bad in my eyes.

Stop playing Brawl.

[Shadow Mir]

2 attack is way better than 7.5 hit. Plus, he doesn't need the bonuses right away, seeing as though he's basically a prepromote and has way higher stats than your beorc. In addition, Ilyana will not be able to keep up with him anyway, and, if that weren't an issue, Ilyana wants Zihark more anyway, since her defense is so low that she'd prefer to try to up her avoid, since it pays much better dividends to her durability.

Never mind the fact that at B level, Ulki's bonuses are marginally better and usable for less chapters. That says nothing of the fact that Ulki's low tier. I'd rather field a decent unit for decent bonuses than field a bad unit for marginally better bonuses. Also, another problem with that is having more than one laguz on the team when there's only one Demi Band to go around. Oh, and there's Mist, who gives Mordecai the same bonuses, in addition to, ya know, coming much earlier.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Richter Renard

[Fayt Zelpher]

Never mind the fact that at B level, Ulki's bonuses are marginally better and usable for less chapters. That says nothing of the fact that Ulki's low tier. I'd rather field a decent unit for decent bonuses than field a bad unit for marginally better bonuses. Also, another problem with that is having more than one laguz on the team when there's only one Demi Band to go around. Oh, and there's Mist, who gives Mordecai the same bonuses, in addition to, ya know, coming much earlier.

So? A Mist and B Ulki is the same thing, just earlier. It may even be better.

[Shadow Mir]

So? A Mist and B Ulki is the same thing, just earlier. It may even be better.

Are you kidding me? A Mist and B Ilyana > A Mist and B Ulki since I get all supports earlier and don't have to field a crappy unit.

[Narga_Rocks]

Okay, fine. Level 14 Mia in chapter 11, thank you. Have fun at level 10, Zihark. You want to protest this, you tell me how your playstyle actually is better than what you can do with Mia and all those other units at level 14 or 15, rather than just having one or two units above level 16 and the others under level 12.

I merely stated that BEXP is a plentiful, yet still limited resource that a lot of the cast makes better use of than Mia, including Zihark. This is true.

Except, they don't. Certainly not early, and you can't get many units to double in chapter 12, so advantage Mia there as well. At this point, her level is so high that she never really needs bexp anymore anyway. She's basically the cheapest to get to double in chapter 12, and you still haven't come up with anything to counter the bexp for chapter 8.

Aaaand that's all she has.

It's enough such that she no longer needs bexp.

As I stated. She gets bonus points for being able to be pumped up into an earlygame powerhouse, but can't you just do the same with someone else to make them stronger?

Um, you do realize it takes a lot more bexp to get someone else to double ravens, don't you? Also, for the rest of the chapters, you are giving the others bexp. Mia gets some, and the others do as well. There really isn't a significant advantage to raising Boyd or Oscar's level any higher in chapter 8 so you can't really argue for not giving Mia bexp there. And she's not taking large amounts in other chapters.

Sure. You could just massacre things with Titania and then give that BEXP used on Mia to Zihark when you get him shortly afterward and have a better unit. Or...to anything that uses magic (besides Rhys) or is on a horse, and have a better team.

What? Titania can only be in one place at a time in chapter 8, and if she massacres stuff in chapter 9 then aren't you slowing down your other units, too? No wonder you don't have enough bexp for Mia.

Okay, she can have a 2 level lead in Zihark's joining chapter.

No dice. I'm going for 4 levels. You refuse to be reasonable, so I'm sticking with pure efficiency rather than compromising any longer. I'm done.

Then Zihark can have the same amount of BEXP she got,

You seem to have ignored how that bexp is gone. It either went to her or some other unit earlier on. Zihark now takes bexp from the same pool Mia has available in chapter 12. And guess what? Mia's level 15 or so, Zihark's level 11.

and then have a level of his own given the same treatment.

But it's not the same treatment. He wasn't there in chapter 8. You seem to be ignoring that.

Then Zihark clearly beats her due to his Str and then later on it's a clear win due to supports.

Whatever you spend on Zihark, you can spend on Mia. Sorry. He goes from level 11 to level 14? Oh, nice. She goes from level 15 to 17 or 18. Bye bye Zihark!

The HP lead merely cancels the Def lead overall. That was all I was arguing for.

Whatever.

Ilyana wants Evd the most. Are you going to deny this? It's quite obvious. I don't think she's having any problems with Atk or Hit, and I don't think 1 Def/Res is going to suddenly make her durable. She needs to dodge. Zihark gives her Evd.

Well, I could argue Elthunder isn't the most accurate of things out there, but it's not important right now. Are you willing to dump Ilyana in front of a group of enemies just because she has a Zihark support? If not, I'd have to suggest that while she is made less durable if she takes Mordy + Mia instead of Zihark + Mordy, she doesn't have so many more options that the cost of giving her to Mia is crippling for Mia. Also, remember how Mordecai has 9 move when transformed? Maybe you've forgotten. Seems to me that Mia + Zihark would work more often than Mordy + Zihark, what with Mordy frequently being outside 3 squares. There are advantages and disadvantages to each set-up.

Ilyana is a fine option for Mia...if you're not fielding Zihark at all. I don't see how fielding Mia negates Zihark. That's like saying Raven negates Harken even though Harken is better than half of your team when he joins.

Well, two swordmasters that are fighting over things like killing edges and vague katti. There are perfectly valid reasons to not field them together. Depending on how you build your team, there could easily be better options than Zihark to build the best team.

Rhys does not exist because he is terrible.

Rhys: 20/10 Bishop

34.2 HP, 9 Def, 27.8 Res, 50.2 Evd/46.2 Evd

29.1 Atk/31.1 Atk, 15.2 Atk Spd/13.3 Atk Spd

Rhys is unable to one-round an unpromoted level 14-15 horse unit unless it is weighed down. By now, the unpromoted units are 18 or 20, in which case he can't double them. That is against the weaker units on the field.

A level 7 or 9 Paladin doubles him if he has Shine. Ewww. If that happens, he dies. Level 9+ Paladins double him.

Rhys can't double any Wyvern Lords at all. The lowest level Wyvern Lord possible does ~22 damage to him in one hit with a Silver Lance and has 56 Hit. Slightly less than that with Steel, but he dies in two hits either way.

And yet none of that matters.

He's healing. You still haven't shown that fielding a max deployment team is more efficient than a smaller team. And with a smaller team, the extra spaces are utility units. Those that shove, steal, open chests, and heal. Until you explain how fielding 10+ units that all fight (resulting in lower levels for all of them) and eat bexp, etc, I'm going to continue to suggest that you have no logical reasons not to field Rhys while playing efficiently.

These are mobile and plentiful units that are hard to avoid.

Rhys is intolerably frail and has terrible offense. He is the worst unit on the field in terms of durability and offense. Rhys is terrible once you can field another healer instead, no matter who it is.

And? The only other healers you have are Mist and Elincia. Ilyana, Soren, Tormod will all have taken exp along the way if they want to be healers, meaning they've been raised while fighting. So they are part of our 8 or 9 fighters. So they may as well keep fighting. And Mist will still be fielded with Rhys.

Wrath requires her to be at lower HP. Vantage is good, I'll give her that. Adept activates like crazy post-promotion, which is when Zihark's leads come on. Wrath/Vantage isn't as broken as Wrath/Ambush of FE 4 tbqh. It's good but not broken. Zihark is still beating her in offense and durability even if she's given Wrath. The same treatment could be given to Zihark, but with some other skill that makes more sense, and you're getting a much better unit out of it.

Of course you are giving him a skill if you have one lying around. I've already said he could have Vantage (or his own wrath since he need not be on the same team as Mia). I'm suggesting he takes it from others like she takes Wrath from others, but he can still be considered with something provided the opportunity cost is considered.

How is he winning offence when she has wrath? She kills more frequently unless he has his own wrath. All he has is Adept, but when she's critting so much Adept is inferior. And his durability is only superior on stuff she doesn't 3HKO. She 3HKOs a lot.

First of all, eating a healer's turn to be healed = fail. If Zihark almost never does this and Mia does, she is hurting efficiency by not letting that healer attack to clear more enemies. Healing doesn't win chapters. Killing things does.

You don't need every single unit attacking. Letting your healer (Rhys or Mist) heal Mia is fine. Especially since you claim everyone else is so durable they don't need healing. Since you still haven't discussed how having 11 units that are all ~2 levels lower than 8 units is actually a good thing, having Rhys heal her is not inefficient.

Mia: 36.5 HP, 70.8 Evd, 14.6 Def, 10.7 Res

Zihark: 39.5 HP, 88.0 Evd, 16.7 Def, 7.8 Res

vs 20/6 Sage w/ Elfire:

Mia: 42.2 Hit, 8.3 Dmg

Zihark: 25.0 Hit, 11.2 Dmg

vs 20/10 Paladin w/ Silver Lance

Mia: 43.2 Hit, 18.4 Dmg

Zihark: 24 Hit, 16.3 Dmg

vs 11 Tiger

Mia: 56.2 Hit, 17.4 Dmg

Zihark: 39 Hit, 15.3 Dmg

What are their levels, anyway? When is this? What supports do they have?

It is clearly obvious that Mia eats up more turns to be healed while Zihark very rarely does so. Even if he does eat a hit, he's not near death. Mia can take one more magic hit, but she stands a much greater chance of being hit in the first place. Two hits from a Paladin or Wyvern Lord will kill her, and they have over 40 Hit. It takes three for Zihark to die, and they have less Hit on him and will probably miss. Mia barely gets to take a third hit from Tigers before dying, but again, Zihark has a nice Evd score compared to hers and isn't at some huge risk of dying.

Zihark: Takes more hits to die. Does not eat up a healer's turn to be healed anywhere near as often, which boosts efficiency by a lot. Has superior offense due to Str and Adept.

Mia: Dies in two hits sometimes and takes less hits to die. Eats up healer turns to be healed if she gets hit even once, which slows you down.

Levels? Chapter? Supports? Weapons? Skills? Positions of the enemies in each chapter and whether Mia has an alternative on what she faces?

Why waste anyone's turn healing? Zihark almost never does. Rhys, Soren, Ilyana, Tormod can all spend their turns attacking, and thus finish chapters more quickly, if Zihark's on the team. He doesn't get hit much, and if he does, he's not 1-2 hits from dying like Mia is. Mia eats up healer turns that are better spent killing things to finish more quickly.

Oh, great. Spread out experience.

If you're fielding Zihark, chances are you want to field Ilyana. But, hey, he doesn't need Ilyana to be a BAMF. He has Muarim and Brom. Ilyana's just another decent unit he can support.

Okay... So if he doesn't need Ilyana, then why can't Mia have her? We've already discussed that Mia can have her when Zihark's not in play. Now you've said he doesn't actually need her.

Rhys? Rhys is horrible, as demonstrated. Failure offense. Failure durability.

Which has utterly no bearing on the matter at hand. I'm not following your red herring, so you can give it up.

How often will 1 Atk let her one-round when she wouldn't otherwise? I'm actually interested in seeing this if you can show me.

It's not just letting herself one-round or 2 round instead of 3. It's also using weaker, more accurate tomes, or saving uses of forges. Anyway,

Beyond that, it all depends on levels and chapters. There will always be things that a little bit more helps out on.

So, she needs a B for the +mt. Presumably she needs chapter 9 to 16 rather than 8 to 15. So I'll look in chapter 17. I'll go with 20/1, and also look at 20/2 and 20/3. Let's say 16 magic at 20/1, 17 magic at 20/2. Partly from band help. 20/3 is probably still 17 magic.

She also has 15 AS, though bands give a decent chance at 16 AS at 20/2, and 20/3 should be assumed as 16 AS.

So, at 20/1 she has 17 with Mia. 16 without.

Thunder gives 21.

Elthunder gives 24.

Thunder forge gives anywhere from 21 to 26.

20, 23, 20 to 25.

20/2 sees 22, 25, 22 to 27.

Assuming we can agree upon 20/2, that 25 mt with elthunder allows her to ORKO

1x Fighter lv 18 (steel axe)

39 hp, 25 atk, 10 AS, 87 hit, 25 avo, 9 def, 5 res, 4 crit, 5 cev

saving a forge use there.

Or if you like 20/1 then she has 21 mt with thunder and ORKOs

1x Knight lv 15 (javelin)

30 hp, 17 atk, 4 AS, 81 hit, 11 avo, 17 def, 6 res, 4 crit, 3 cev

Back to 20/2, she has 25 mt with elthunder.

1x Mage lv 16 (elfire, vulnerary)

25 hp, 17 atk, 10 AS, 108 hit, 23 avo, 6 def, 12 res, 5 crit, 3 cev

Not to mention just the saving of the cost of adding +1 mt to her forge. Magic forges are expensive, and it's cool to make forges with as much +mt as possible in each chapter since it allows more ORKOing.

There is bound to be more. The enemies are simply too varied for there to never be an instance in which 1 more mt won't do something to the #RKO values of some enemies in almost each chapter. And if you drop her to level 20 or something then start looking at some of the cavaliers. More times where thunder works instead of elthunder, which becomes important unpromoted since she may not yet have 6 str and will have less spd to begin with. Plus sometimes enemies just roll lucky and have a bit more hp or res and suddenly what you see in the enemy stats online no longer applies and she fails to ORKO without Mia.

And if you really like the Mordecai support, it's B by now so that's an extra +1 mt. Now thunder kills even more, elthunder might as well, though again I'm not convinced Mordecai spends enough time within 3 squares to care. Of course, since you like sending out Zihark on the same party as Mia (theoretically, anyway), Ilyana could support Zihark and Mia in order to get avo rather than more def and +mt, so back to the numbers above.

Obviously it matters. In order for Mia to have supports, she must take Ilyana from someone that gives her more preferable bonuses and she must support a horrendous unit and thus force you to field him the entire game. Zihark does not do this at all. His partners are good.

Again with the Rhys thing. And doesn't Muarim mean you can't give the demi-band to Mordecai if you like? Brom wants more KW usage and may force paladins to hang back if they want turns. There are costs to everything. And you haven't justified Ilyana x Mordecai, either.

Nah. My team is just spamming Titania more. I don't see how that's weaker since she can decimate half the map herself. I'm aware that a team with a BEXP'd Mia is overall stronger, but she makes the team overall stronger during chapters where Titania is an unstoppable goddess of destruction and the chapters are quite short. This isn't some huge advantage for her. Chapter 8 =/= Chapter 20 in terms of length at all. In fact, those three chapters combined equal about one lategame chapter, and Zihark is better in those lategame chapters.

Well, even if you don't think it's a huge advantage for her, the fact is it pumps up her level before the Zihark comparisons. If you are saving the bexp to give to Zihark, the spamming of Titania means that to raise Oscar and Boyd and co. you need to spend what you saved by not using Mia anyway, otherwise they are weaker. Hence, Zihark's team doesn't have an extra 400 bexp (or whatever) to play with than Mia's team. Hence, Mia has a significant level advantage and Zihark has no automatic claim to any bexp in the convoy.

It gets them closer to promotion. If you can promote before the ship level (I do this with Oscar and sometimes Soren), then you have a nice powerhouse or two to help kill those Ravens.

And the exp they got from clearing out more of chapter 8 along with other chapters covers that. I still don't see how you have them promoted without spending more on them than I suggest you spend on Mia.

Mia has the advantage in the Raven chapter. Outside of that? None at all. Her two level lead isn't that special, and it clearly evens out if you give Zihark BEXP as well, and doing so produces a much more durable unit that creates more overall efficiency, as proven.

Again, I'll say this one last time, Zihark doesn't have any inherent claim to extra bexp since she got some in chapter 8. Bexp decisions should be handled on an as needed basis. If she is 3 or 4 levels higher than him at the start of chapter 12, it is more efficient to bexp her to the point she can double ravens than it is him. You get bexp along the way, though, so even if he is more durable later on by enough to care, that doesn't stop Mia from getting the best claim to bexp in chapter 12. Zihark can get his fill later when his supports start working better.

But...they really don't need an Ashera Icon at all. They typically have decent Lck scores on top of supports by then, which Stefan doesn't. It doesn't mean much to give them to someone else.

So, you've chosen not to be consistent. Gotcha.

A level 15 Mage with Elthunder has ~36.3 Hit and 8.5 Crit on a 20/10 Stefan. His chance of being hit by a critical is extremely slim. The critical would do 28.2 Dmg, not killing him. He'll still have over 10 HP, which even an additional normal hit from some enemy can't take away.

Stefan has like 8 hp on a 20/2 Mia (or something like that) and the same def (considering Ilyana). Mia won't face that crit chance. Also, if you value durability so much then the whole point of durability is to stick them in front of enemies. If something can take 4 hits before dying and has a reasonable chance of dodging, you can put them in front of 5 enemies and expect them to live. You can't really do that with Stefan because he's far more likely to die. This reduces his durability to the point he's only facing what Mia faces anyway.

As for hitting it without taking a counter:

14% Astra

29% base Crit

Doesn't happen all the time anyway.

But guess what? That doesn't matter. With a Steel Blade, he kills it one hit and has 100 Hit while doing so.

You don't get steel blades until chapter 21. What chapter are you looking at? There's like two level 15 mage from chapter 21 on. One in chapter 22, one in chapter 23.

I'm aware. I just have very high standards for "good" due to my experiences as a competitive gamer. If you're not top tier, you suck and can't win. That's been embedded in me. Mia is just too inferior to too many units to be anything but bad in my eyes.

That's because you don't know how to use her right, apparently. For a large portion of early game she's not really worse than they are. She does her thing, they do theirs. Everyone contributes, and you could argue hers are more important at times. Later on you could just give her wrath and as long as you are selective she'll kill stuff just fine without fear of death. Or you could just give her a forge and keep her healed. You have options.

Already addressed.

Already addressed using Titania-is-God and those chapters being ultra short compared to anything after them.

whatever you say.

I'd put her in mid tier as well. And that is quite bad to me since the chances of a mid tier taking home cash in a Brawl national is 0% currently. Zihark is clearly overall better, as is Stefan, so I'm not sure about them dropping as well. I don't like any of them but Stefan tbqh. I hate Zihark and have never used him and never will.

Ilyana is in mid-tier here. Well, I guess not anymore. She got moved up. Still, she was in mid-tier, and if Mia were to drop I'd argue so should Ilyana. And Stefan, of course, considering the whole crit thing and how his avo is no better than Mia's once she promotes.

Anyway, I think I'm done with this. If RF or Interceptor want to step back into the ring, I'm tagging out.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Fayt Zelpher]

Are you kidding me? A Mist and B Ilyana > A Mist and B Ulki since I get all supports earlier and don't have to field a crappy unit.

No, because Mordecai isn't getting Ilyana, since she's going with Zihark, Lucia, Mia, or Gatrie before she goes with him. Since Lucia won't be played, that leaves the other three. Gatrie's going to get the KW since he improves so much with it, and Zihark is really good for the avoid. Zihark's definitely wanting A Ilyana, B Muarim and since Brom << Gatrie, his lack of choices means that he's getting higher priority on Ilyana than Mordecai. So, Ilyana will go A Zihark B Gatrie and Mordy loses this support. He's definitely getting A Mist, but since he's not going to get Ilyana, he's got Ulki, Stefan, and Ranulf left. Stefan and Ranulf lose on supports. So, A Mist B Ilyana is better than A Mist B Ulki for Mordecai, but Ilyana doesn't accept that support pairing. She needs attack and avoid, and she's got better options than Mordecai. Other, tankier units want the defense more.

I'm not arguing this anymore; I've got a FE10 debate to get ready for.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Randomly Predictable

[Shadow Mir]

No, because Mordecai isn't getting Ilyana, since she's going with Zihark, Lucia, Mia, or Gatrie before she goes with him. Since Lucia won't be played, that leaves the other three. Gatrie's going to get the KW since he improves so much with it, and Zihark is really good for the avoid. Zihark's definitely wanting A Ilyana, B Muarim and since Brom << Gatrie, his lack of choices means that he's getting higher priority on Ilyana than Mordecai. So, Ilyana will go A Zihark B Gatrie and Mordy loses this support. He's definitely getting A Mist, but since he's not going to get Ilyana, he's got Ulki, Stefan, and Ranulf left. Stefan and Ranulf lose on supports. So, A Mist B Ilyana is better than A Mist B Ulki for Mordecai, but Ilyana doesn't accept that support pairing. She needs attack and avoid, and she's got better options than Mordecai. Other, tankier units want the defense more.

I'm not arguing this anymore; I've got a FE10 debate to get ready for.

And Ilyana's better than all those other options for Mordecai; Stefan comes later and gives inferior bonuses, lolUlki, and Ranulf comes late AND gives pathetic bonuses. Also, considering that you mentioned that you mantioned that Ilyana would prefer Zihark, then you turn around and say that she'll want Gatrie over Mordecai? Do I smell sandbagging? Also, I fail to see why Mia deserves an Ilyana support when she has better options.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Richter Renard

[Narga_Rocks]

And Ilyana's better than all those other options for Mordecai; Stefan comes later and gives inferior bonuses, lolUlki, and Ranulf comes late AND gives pathetic bonuses. Also, considering that you mentioned that you mantioned that Ilyana would prefer Zihark, then you turn around and say that she'll want Gatrie over Mordecai? Do I smell sandbagging?

I'm sorry, what exactly is the point of all this discussion about supports? It doesn't even seem like it's about Mia and Zihark and Stefan anymore.

[Shadow Mir]

I'm sorry, what exactly is the point of all this discussion about supports? It doesn't even seem like it's about Mia and Zihark and Stefan anymore.

RP here thinks that Ilyana shouldn't get Mordecai, saying that he wants Ulki more. Never mind the fact that Mist aside, all Mordecai's other options besides Ilyana either give inferior bonuses (Stefan), come late (Ulki), or both (Ranulf).

[Narga_Rocks]

RP here thinks that Ilyana shouldn't get Mordecai, saying that he wants Ulki more. Never mind the fact that Mist aside, all Mordecai's other options besides Ilyana either give inferior bonuses (Stefan), come late (Ulki), or both (Ranulf).

Isn't the difference between A Mist, B Ilyana and A Mist, B Stefan like 1 def in return for 5 hit? B Ilyana gives 1 mt, 2 def, 5 hit. B Stefan gives 1 mt, 1 def, 10 hit. Not that Mordy wants the hit or anything, but isn't 4 def enough for him? What does he care? I thought this was about what Ilyana wants. Besides, Stefan has 7 move. I'd say that the bigger problem is:

Ilyana: starts building in chapter 10 and has 2/5/8

Stefan: starts building in chapter 16 and has 2/4/11

There isn't a major advantage to waiting for Stefan (aside from the bonuses to Stefan should you plan on using him) so as near as I can tell a C for chapter 12 and a B for chapter 15 is superior to a C for chapter 18 and a B for chapter 20.

The main reason for making Ilyana go with Mia and Zihark (assuming both are fielded) instead of Zihark and Mordecai is about whether it's best for the team to help out Mia or help out Ilyana's def and Mordy's mt (assuming both Mia and Zihark are fielded, since otherwise it's a non-issue). I'm not sure precisely how much Mordy really cares, though I'm sure that 1 mt will allow him to OHKO more things starting in chapter 15 or 16. It's just, helping out Mia could mean more. It's a matter of how many things it helps on for each character, along with the fact that Mordecai will eventually get a support with someone that keeps up better (Stefan's 7 move v. Ilyana's 6 move. Possibly 5 in chapter 17, though the support obviously won't have started between Stefan and Mordy yet). 5 chapter advantage for Mordy vs. all the chapters Mia gets assisted by B Ilyana (like, chapter 17 until endgame) and all the chapters Stefan gets assisted by B Mordecai. Of course, all that is reliant on the assumption you plan on using Mordecai all the way throughout the game (and I suppose Stefan).

There are just too many factors that you need to restrict that there isn't much point attempting to deny any character the support they want. At least, when you aren't talking about characters that appear after chapter 20 and aren't very good.

edit: oh yeah, I'd meant to point out earlier but somehow forgot. Vantage + Wrath is better in fe9 than in fe4, at least when you consider that Arthur and Tinny generally don't OHKO with a crit. Pretty sure that towards the end there it takes Tron and a Magic Ring just to do so. And earlier on when Arthur just has wind it's certainly not happening (no magic inheritance through Lex). Also Tron can miss, and then you have problems. Basically, Mia is far more reliable with the thing as long as you analyze her surroundings to prevent multiple 2 rangers attacking her when she's at wrath hp. She won't miss, she 3HKOs a lot of things (especially with Vague Katti + Rhys), and whomever you happen to give wrath to should be wielding Vague Katti. If you give a unit with S Swords Wrath, it is silly to waste Vague Katti on units that won't have 100% crit with the thing (it has limited uses, after all). Also, killing edges should give 100% crit as well, or at least nearly so. Mia 3HKOs a lot more enemies than Arthur and Tinny are likely to be OHKOing with crits.

Edited February 3, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Interceptor]

There is some blatant lack of understanding going on, here, with regard to support options.

If you are comparing two units in an efficiency tier list, the general assumption is that you play the army as efficiently as possible with one unit deployed seriously, and then another army with the other unit deployed seriously. These two units are not necessarily deployed at the same time (though if they are excellent units they may be), and composition of the army other than the unit in question can be anything at all.

Suppose you were comparing Ilyana and Soren. Ilyana "wants" Mordecai as a support partner. How do we handle this in a comparison? It's easy: you assume that Mordecai is deployed/used in Ilyana's army. Her army is now constrained by having to either use Mordecai seriously or to give him a deployment slot, in addition to reducing the potential support options from anyone else in the Mordecai support net (including Mordecai himself), and having to deal with whatever logistical concerns regarding keeping them in support range when in combat. Soren does not have to do such a thing, since he doesn't support with Mordecai. His army can deploy or not deploy Mordecai as it so chooses, and support him with Ilyana or nobody.

This is the important difference. Everything else is noise. Talking about Ilyana's likelihood of a certain support partner is pointless -- POINTLESS -- unless done in the context of comparing her to someone else's army.