Stat-up Priorities

[Zkirsche]

Ok, ONE of your tier one units -_- ; ;

In 1-6-1, Jill joins a mere level lower than Nolan does, meaning she's likely to catch up after 5 chapters and ready for a seal. Even Aran can at least get close considering he's only 4 levels behind when they meet up in 1-3.

So yeah, it's 2-3, actually.

Edited August 24, 2009 by kirsche

[Narga_Rocks]

Well, it seems Narga went ahead and epic'd the fuck out of me. I can't possibly argue that. Like it's so bad, I fell like I've been shamed, tarred and feathered.

Dammit, I didn't even think of the 41 Mt tigers...Is he seriously 3RKOd by them after a robe? ;;>>

...You even went ahead and worked the numbers to the decimal chances of BEXP?

That's why it took so incredibly long. Do you have any idea how many posts appeared between when I started typing and when I posted? As for the bexp stuff, I'm a math major. I can't help it.

Aran is an awesome candidate for the robe. Trouble is, so are others. This is actually one situation where I'd say there is no doritos best choice. Or if there is it is by so small a margin I wouldn't care. Fortunately there is two, so any reasonable suggestion for where the robe goes and in a tier list I wouldn't actually complain. My only issue with giving a robe to Aran is part 4, but since I'll give a wing to Titania and not even deploy her in 4-4 or 4-E it doesn't really matter since I do the same thing with her. (Improvement early and dumping the unit later.)

[Interceptor]

I think that Narga should change his member title to "Scorched Earth Debater", so that people have fair warning first.

[grandjackal]

I suppose such a BEXP system would not help a tier list enough to matter...

Hmmm...Either way, it would appear you're right. Good news is with that robe, tier 2 he caps HP at level 10 after BEXP levels form 8, giving even less reason not to crown him.

As for these "others" deal...Let's say Nolan gets the shield. Fair game. He comes early, makes amazing use out of it. Eddie could get it too. Let's say though that Nolan got the shield.

This leaves the robe in 1-4 up for grabs. Sothe and Volug are out, because that's just stupidly overkill. They're tough enough to rock the house as is. Giving them the robe is like dropping a drop of water into a lake.

Leo and Illyana wouldn't make good use of it. Illyana's too papery in defense, and Leo shouldn't be getting attacked anyways. This leaves Meg, Eddie and Aran. Jill could get it, but it would be 1 chapter it's not getting used. Not exactly sure how much it would help Meg with giving her 28 HP. She's got plenty of other problems to think of. So now we're down to Eddie and Aran. Aran gets solid boosts out of it, but so would Eddie. However, Aran doesn't have a low ass HP count, but in exchange this could allow Eddie to have a subtle advantage. See, with HP, getting it on the BEXP sucks, because generally 1 Def is more effective than 1 HP. Since it's maxed pretty early, he can go through chapters normally, gaining majorly more speed and skill to get him closer to maxing. However, if he leaves a battle with near another level exp, you can sprinkle a tidbit of BEXP, and you're garunteed to get something you'd like in a BEXP level up. Speed, Skill, Luck, Str, Def. Resistance is his lowest, next to defense of which is a full 25% higher. Once he caps skill and luck, it's basically Str, Defense and Luck. This makes Eddie a bit of a potluck character. He would only care for miniscule BEXP to cap off a couple levels, so no just full levels of BEXP, thus not dumping a great majority of our supply. Subtle, and since this is tier 1? He's using a vastly less amount overall than let's say a tier 2 Aran trying to get to level 10. I can't say on a mathematics scale just how much Eddie could benefit from this sort of playstyle, but it allows him such an advantage. Especially by now, since A. He's still got stats to grow that he'd liked to grow anyways (STR, Skill and Speed are his best growths, faster he gets to capping Skill and Speed the better), and B. After maxing HP, his level average is below 3 points anyways, as HP capped brings it down to 2.95. With a robe, he caps HP at level 9. This is potentially 11 levels, but again he would like to also level up normally along with a bit of BEXP sprinkling, as it helps cap speed and skill faster, as to get more out of bexp faster, along with boosting his level.

Jill could get it, but Eddie/Aran could make noticeable use out of it prior, and so forth. She however can get the next one, especially considering durably how close she is to Aran without a robe. By then, Eddie would be too close to his HP cap. Jill would make great use of it from there.

So Aran can wait as well though. Eddie basically NEEDS the first robe. Really depends on if you're using Eddie or not.

Key note about Meg though and the robe: It allows her to cap HP tier 2 at level 8, granting her 2 levels of BEXP to a crown of which she is most likely to gain Skill, Luck, and a tie in Str and Def. So basically 2 Skill, 2 Luck, 1 Def and 1 Str.

Also, I agree with Interceptor

Hmmm...Lessee...

Basically with this style though, it allows Eddie to get an Str, Skill and Speed boost just at base. Basically means he can boost his offense to more than what it would have been in a chapter. If that makes any sense. Eddie also has an advantage tier 2 in this sense, as he can afford to stay in tier 2 for part 4, as his tier 2 speed cap is 30, which would double most things up until all the way into 4-E-2, of which could return again in 4-E-3. He only needs to reach I think 28 Str and 39 AS to be a beast with the brave sword in endgame.

Lessee....With a Robe, Aran and Meg could do this too, except they'd be garunteed in stats they'd like. Basically with paragon, you could treat them like FE9 characters with BEXP. I wouldn't do it with Meg though, she wants a crown to escape that shitty tier two speed cap. Either way though in tier 3 she can do the same thing, since Luck is maxed, leaving her level average at a dead 3. You could do this with basically any DB unit, Fiona included for tier 1 (maxes resistance, but she only has a 3.1, you're basically gonna miss out on like 1 point of magic at worst). Not really recommended though, all she'd gain out of the deal is 1 speed.

This is especially true for Leonardo once he hits 15, as he caps skill and resistance. His average is 2.5, but the caps he wants to cap for later still need to be grown.

Nolan cannot do this BEXP sprinkling any time soon in tier 1, Jill can do it once she hits

Edited August 24, 2009 by Robo Ky

[Progenitus]

Aran's gains in part 1 with a dracoshield are probably better than anyone else on the team. This is because the +def cuts off a greater % of the damage he takes, since more def exponentially increases your durability (for example, if he was originalyl taking 8, the dracoshield would drop it to 6, which is a 25% decrease in damage. If someone like Nolan was taking 11, it would drop it to 9, ~18% decrease). For example...

14/0 Nolan

32 HP, 10.75 def

11/0 Aran

26 HP, 13.8 def

I'll ignore supports since it's not really relevant right now.

some enemies in 1-5

4x Soldier lvl 11 (Steel Lance, one has stealable vulnerary)

HP 27, Atk 23, AS 13, Hit 111, Avo 33, DEF 10, RES 6, Crit 6, Ddg 7

12.25 damage to Nolan (38.3% damage), 9.2 damage to Aran (35.4%).

With a dracoshield, it's now 10.25 damage to Nolan (32.0%) and 7.2 to Aran (27.7%).

In other words, Nolan is losing 6.3% less of his max HP than before, while Aran loses 7.7% less than before. Aran's improvement is greater.

1x Myrmidon lvl 11 (Steel Sword)

HP 24, Atk 19, AS 15, Hit 120, Avo 37, DEF 8, RES 3, Crit 12, Ddg 7

8.25 damage to Nolan (25.8%), 5.2 damage to Aran, but Aran is probably getting doubled, so 10.4 total (40%).

With the dracoshield, it's now 6.25 damage to Nolan (19.5%), 3.2 damage to Aran. He still gets doubled, so 6.4 total (24.6%).

Nolan's taking 6.3% less damage to his HP (the same as the decrease in damage from the soldier), while Aran's taking 15.4% (which is 7.7 x 2).

However, since Aran normally caps def so fast anyway, the dracoshield is a waste in the long term.

[dondon151]

I'm going to say again that I only got Nolan and Jill to 18/0 without Jarod abuse, so it's very likely that first tier DB won't reach 20/0 by the end of 1-E.

This really isn't something that can be adequately determined by logic, either. Keep in mind that relative to the enemies, first tier DB aren't really that good, which hampers their ability to gain EXP, in addition to the EXP cut.

[grandjackal]

18 with a draco is exactly when Aran would cap defense as a note ;;>>

With said shield, Aran can grow to be decently tanky in his part 1 actually ;;>>

[Florete]

14/0 Nolan

32 HP, 10.75 def

11/0 Aran

26 HP, 13.8 def

I'll ignore supports since it's not really relevant right now.

some enemies in 1-5

4x Soldier lvl 11 (Steel Lance, one has stealable vulnerary)

HP 27, Atk 23, AS 13, Hit 111, Avo 33, DEF 10, RES 6, Crit 6, Ddg 7

12.25 damage to Nolan (38.3% damage), 9.2 damage to Aran (35.4%).

With a dracoshield, it's now 10.25 damage to Nolan (32.0%) and 7.2 to Aran (27.7%).

In other words, Nolan is losing 6.3% less of his max HP than before, while Aran loses 7.7% less than before. Aran's improvement is greater.

There's another side to this. Both went from being 3HKOd to 4HKOd. There's really no difference in improvement.

1x Myrmidon lvl 11 (Steel Sword)

HP 24, Atk 19, AS 15, Hit 120, Avo 37, DEF 8, RES 3, Crit 12, Ddg 7

8.25 damage to Nolan (25.8%), 5.2 damage to Aran, but Aran is probably getting doubled, so 10.4 total (40%).

With the dracoshield, it's now 6.25 damage to Nolan (19.5%), 3.2 damage to Aran. He still gets doubled, so 6.4 total (24.6%).

Nolan's taking 6.3% less damage to his HP (the same as the decrease in damage from the soldier), while Aran's taking 15.4% (which is 7.7 x 2).

Nolan went from 4RKOd to 6RKOd. Aran went from 3RKOd to 4RKOd. That's a 50% improvement as opposed to a 33% improvement, though it could be arguable that going from 3RKOd -> 4RKOd > 4RKOd -> 6RKOd I guess.

Not saying Aran doesn't benefit from an early Dracoshield, but I don't agree with him getting the most of it early on either.

[grandjackal]

That, and Narga has shown that Aran can make better use of the Seraph Robe.

But as you can see, Aran does have a couple high priorities, and he's not exactly high tier...

[Progenitus]

There's another side to this. Both went from being 3HKOd to 4HKOd. There's really no difference in improvement.

If you want to get technical, Aran with any support now takes 6.2 damage and only loses 23.8% of his HP (survives 4 hits by the skin of his teeth). Nolan with a +def support still takes 28.75% damage, still a 4HKO.

Then again, I don't generally believe about being XHKO'd by an enemy being the difference, since enemies don't typically hit you over and over again. Usually you'll take one, or at most two hits from a specific enemy, before you kill it off and don't have to worry about it anymore. Also, if we're worrying about chances to die in X number of hits, we're assuming all those hits come in the same turn, in which case the enemy can't possibly hit you more than once anyway, and you'll be facing multiple enemies at once which will have different att values and such. We generally just focus on a few enemies, figure out the XHKO'd and chances of death, w/e, etc., to make debaets simpler.

Also, there's the whole reliability thing to it as well. If Nolan was losing 32% of his HP per hit and Aran 27.7%, they're both not getting 3HKO'd. Only technically, and only at their exact averages, which, believe it or not, happens far less often than not (Aran, for example, only has a 38% chance of having exactly 26 HP at 11/0. This means that 62% of the time he's blessed or screwed). If Nolan got HP or def screwed, he's much more likely to get 3HKO'd than Aran (with or without +def supports). Oh, but if they got HP or def blessed, now Aran has a possibility of avoiding the 4HKO.

Nolan went from 4RKOd to 6RKOd. Aran went from 3RKOd to 4RKOd. That's a 50% improvement as opposed to a 33% improvement, though it could be arguable that going from 3RKOd -> 4RKOd > 4RKOd -> 6RKOd I guess.

I find it hilarious that you say nolan is getting 6HKO'd yet Aran is getting 4RKO'd (note: 4 x 24.6 = 98.4).

[Florete]

If you want to get technical, Aran with any support now takes 6.2 damage and only loses 23.8% of his HP (survives 4 hits by the skin of his teeth). Nolan with a +def support still takes 28.75% damage, still a 4HKO.

That's fine. If anything, it probably reduces his need for a Dracoshield.

Then again, I don't generally believe about being XHKO'd by an enemy being the difference, since enemies don't typically hit you over and over again. Usually you'll take one, or at most two hits from a specific enemy, before you kill it off and don't have to worry about it anymore. Also, if we're worrying about chances to die in X number of hits, we're assuming all those hits come in the same turn, in which case the enemy can't possibly hit you more than once anyway, and you'll be facing multiple enemies at once which will have different att values and such. We generally just focus on a few enemies, figure out the XHKO'd and chances of death, w/e, etc., to make debaets simpler.

Enemies in any given map generally have a similar range of atk power, so if Nolan is 4HKOd by one guy, chances are if he takes one from that guy, he'd probably be able to take ~3 more hits. We only use one enemy, but as you said, it's to make things simple. That doesn't mean it isn't still accurate. Generally, if someone is being 4HKOd by a guy and another is 3HKOd by the same guy, the latter probably has slightly worse durability for the time being unless the enemy in question was like a boss or something with a really powerful weapon that changed things up. In some situations, it just needs to be shown if someone's HP/Def beats out another units higher opposite stat (e.g. if Aran's higher Def beats Nolan's higher HP).

Also, there's the whole reliability thing to it as well. If Nolan was losing 32% of his HP per hit and Aran 27.7%, they're both not getting 3HKO'd. Only technically, and only at their exact averages, which, believe it or not, happens far less often than not (Aran, for example, only has a 38% chance of having exactly 26 HP at 11/0. This means that 62% of the time he's blessed or screwed). If Nolan got HP or def screwed, he's much more likely to get 3HKO'd than Aran (with or without +def supports). Oh, but if they got HP or def blessed, now Aran has a possibility of avoiding the 4HKO.

Obviously averages don't happen all the time, but we assume them most often because that outcome is more likely than any other individual outcome in most cases. If you look at Aran's HP specifically, that 38% for HP is higher than the chance for any other amount. It's only 25% for 25 and 27, and 6% for 24 and 28. 26 is more likely than any other outcome on an individual level. If a slight screwage or blessing has a significant impact, then yeah, you should mention it, just don't forget to do the same for the other character to see if it changes for them. You didn't mention that in the first place.

I find it hilarious that you say nolan is getting 6HKO'd yet Aran is getting 4RKO'd (note: 4 x 24.6 = 98.4).

Math miscalculation. Don't get your panties in a bunch.

[Progenitus]

Enemies in any given map generally have a similar range of atk power, so if Nolan is 4HKOd by one guy, chances are if he takes one from that guy, he'd probably be able to take ~3 more hits. We only use one enemy, but as you said, it's to make things simple. That doesn't mean it isn't still accurate. Generally, if someone is being 4HKOd by a guy and another is 3HKOd by the same guy, the latter probably has slightly worse durability for the time being unless the enemy in question was like a boss or something with a really powerful weapon that changed things up. In some situations, it just needs to be shown if someone's HP/Def beats out another units higher opposite stat (e.g. if Aran's higher Def beats Nolan's higher HP).

Maybe in earlygame maps, or maps like 1-4 and 3-6 where most of the enemies are the same. by 1-5 you'll get a wide variety of att values.

# of enemies with X att (ignoring mages)

18: 1

19: 4

20: 5

21: 0

22: 0

23: 9

24: 5

25: 0

26: 5

27: 1

Can you honestly say that if a unit got attacked by a certain enemy, the following enemies will have att values about the same as the previous enemy? Even if this enemy was in the 23-24 att bracket, for, say, 3 straight enemies with those att values to attack a unit, that's only a 8.97% chance of happening in this map (unless you REALLY want to get into minor details and talk about where each enemy is positioned, but I generally find that to be superfluous and a waste of time, save for some exceptions). You're more likely to get attacked by enemies with varying att values.

Obviously averages don't happen all the time, but we assume them most often because that outcome is more likely than any other individual outcome in most cases. If you look at Aran's HP specifically, that 38% for HP is higher than the chance for any other amount. It's only 25% for 25 and 27, and 6% for 24 and 28. 26 is more likely than any other outcome on an individual level. If a slight screwage or blessing has a significant impact, then yeah, you should mention it, just don't forget to do the same for the other character to see if it changes for them. You didn't mention that in the first place.

My initial point was actually that the more def you have, the greater the damage reduction you'll see (percent-wise) from getting +def. I never actually wanted to do an Aran vs NOlan comparison (as evidenced by the fact that I didn't bother to factor in supports when I did the numbers, because that was largely irrelevant to the point I wanted to make), but I used it because it was simple and the topic of discussion was currently revolving around the DB.

I never really wanted to point out exactly how many fewer hits Aran or Nolan would be taking with the shield, since that wasn't my point. I wanted to make a broad statement that would apply to *all* situations, and not just Aran vs Nolan. If, for example, we were to do the GMs, and see who sees the greatest reduction in damage from teh dracoshield, the high def units would see a larger reduction (e.g. if Gatrie was taking 5 damage and Titania was taking 9, with the shield Gatrie would take 3 and Titania would take 7. 5 -> 3 damage is a 40% decrease, while 9 -> 7 is 22.2% decrease. Of course, no one bothers to give a shield to Gatrie since he's invincible anyway).

When you wanted to get technical and implied that Nolan losing 32% of his HP and Aran 28% were the same thing, that's when I became technical too. This is why I "didn't mention that in the first place". Since it wasn't my original point.

Math miscalculation. Don't get your panties in a bunch.

There are too many people who do fishy rounding (e.g. rounding 1.4 down and 0.5 up, and then claiming that the gap between the two is 0), and I thought you did that.

Well, that, and I thought you were just sandbagging Aran, which half of the "debaters" here love to do. Sorry for jumping to conclusions.

[Florete]

Maybe in earlygame maps, or maps like 1-4 and 3-6 where most of the enemies are the same. by 1-5 you'll get a wide variety of att values.

# of enemies with X att (ignoring mages)

18: 1

19: 4

20: 5

21: 0

22: 0

23: 9

24: 5

25: 0

26: 5

27: 1

Can you honestly say that if a unit got attacked by a certain enemy, the following enemies will have att values about the same as the previous enemy? Even if this enemy was in the 23-24 att bracket, for, say, 3 straight enemies with those att values to attack a unit, that's only a 8.97% chance of happening in this map (unless you REALLY want to get into minor details and talk about where each enemy is positioned, but I generally find that to be superfluous and a waste of time, save for some exceptions). You're more likely to get attacked by enemies with varying att values.

This is what I meant with the "HP/Def beats out another units higher opposite stat" bit. In the first comparison, you only used one enemy, so I juts used that enemy as well. If Aran really uses the Dracoshield to greater effect, he needs to increase the amount of hits he can take more than Nolan does, not just keep a greater % of his HP, since that alone isn't entirely accurate as I previously showed.

My initial point was actually that the more def you have, the greater the damage reduction you'll see (percent-wise) from getting +def.

Yes, I know. My problem is that you need to consider more than that.

(e.g. if Gatrie was taking 5 damage and Titania was taking 9, with the shield Gatrie would take 3 and Titania would take 7. 5 -> 3 damage is a 40% decrease, while 9 -> 7 is 22.2% decrease. Of course, no one bothers to give a shield to Gatrie since he's invincible anyway).

And this is why. Getting a greater percentage decrease looks nice on paper, but it doesn't determine the value itself of the use of the Dracoshield.

When you wanted to get technical and implied that Nolan losing 32% of his HP and Aran 28% were the same thing, that's when I became technical too. This is why I "didn't mention that in the first place". Since it wasn't my original point.

Your "original point" was that Aran gets the most benefit early on from the immediate use of a Dracoshield. I wanted to say, aside from maybe one or two maps, that really isn't the case, unless you only implied a couple maps, in which case I apologize for dragging this one for so long.

There are too many people who do fishy rounding (e.g. rounding 1.4 down and 0.5 up, and then claiming that the gap between the two is 0), and I thought you did that.

Well, that, and I thought you were just sandbagging Aran, which half of the "debaters" here love to do. Sorry for jumping to conclusions.

No problem.

On another note, it's past 4 am, my sleeping schedule is totally off, and I'm not sure if I even needed to make this response, so I'm sorry if I'm wasting your time by expounding on something that you didn't intend.

[Progenitus]

My whole point was just a general rule of thumb. I simply used Aran as an example. Even if you disprove this specific example, so what? There are exceptions to everything in FE. The exceptions don't make the general rule of thumb wrong.

[Zkirsche]

I'm going to say again that I only got Nolan and Jill to 18/0 without Jarod abuse, so it's very likely that first tier DB won't reach 20/0 by the end of 1-E.

This really isn't something that can be adequately determined by logic, either. Keep in mind that relative to the enemies, first tier DB aren't really that good, which hampers their ability to gain EXP, in addition to the EXP cut.

So what? Nolan's facing ~90% of the enemies in 1-1 thanks to being the only decent tank. This doesn't drop entirely in the next few chapters, and I even included lowered perfromance (Notice how Nolan's killing less towards the latter part of part 3) and not even doing anything on various turns. Hell, I even gave him less bexp than your average DB unit should (~1000 from ~10000. Considering that noone should play with 10 units in the DB, this number should be more like 2000) and made it so he didn't fight any early part 1 bosses, so if anything, he's underlevelled.

I'm gonna call PEMN here, you must've used Nailah/BK/too many units at one time or something.

[Progenitus]

Currently I have Nolan at level 19, and Aran at level 16 with some odd exp (like 60) at 1-E. So I'm very confident by the end of the chapter that Nolan will be 2nd tier (master seal at lvl 20) and Aran will be like level 18.

I actually have a little... playlog of my part 1, and my experiences with playing through part 1 chapters with and without Aran (since so many people seem to think Aran's not helping us out). Come to think of it, maybe I should make a new topic about it.