CATS vs Joker

[CATS]

debaet assumes these conditions:

Ewan joins at the start of Ch 4 as a L1 Shaman (with the appropriate average stats, ofcourse). Join inventory: Flux, Dragonshield, Vulnerary. Also assume that Flux is buyable after/during Ch 5, as opposed to only being buyable after Ch 9.

Amelia joins instead of Gilliam in Ch 1 as a L1 Knight (again, with the appropriate average stats). Join inventory: Iron Lance, Speedwing, Vulnerary.

Oh yeah, and weapon levels. I'll just say they both start with D.

I'll be opening.

Edited September 6, 2009 by CATS

[CATS]

This should be pretty straightforward. Amelia shows up in Ch 1 and is immediately kicking ass. She has the best non-Seth stats of any other unit you have right now, even beating out Franz. Compare:

L1 Franz: 7 Str, 7 Spd----20 Hp, 6 Def, 1 Res, 16 Avo, 9 Con

L1 Knight Amelia: 8.2 Str, 8.6 Spd----23.4 Hp, 6.7 Def, 4.3 Res, 27.7 Avo, 10 Con

lol, franz loses in every single significant stat, even con. And Franz is the second best unit in the game; he's top of top. But the debaet isn't Amelia vs Franz, so I'll stop talking about it. Just pointing out that Amelia's stats are amazing.

Now let's get to the actual debaet, Amelia vs Ewan. Ewan shows up at the start of Ch 4; Amelia's had three chapters already, so I'll just say she gained 2 levels. Less than 1 level per chap, since they're all pretty short. Then they both ORKO everything in Ch 4 because those monsters are gay and have no stats, so I'll just say they each got a level there, and proceed to Ch 5 where the enemies aren't complete jokes.

L2 Shaman Ewan: 9.1 Mag, 8.1 Spd (his actual average is 9.1, however, he loses 1 AS from his only weapon)----20.5 Hp, 2.3 Def, 25.7 Avo

L4 Knight Amelia: 9.2 Str, 9.8 Spd----25.2 Hp, 7.6 Def, 31.6 Avo

Ewan's like Franz. He loses to Amelia in every stat.

Enemies in Ch 5? Well, both one-round Soldiers (Amelia one-rounds even with the Javelin), so their offense is the same, but Amelia gets 4HKO'd while Ewan is 2HKO'd, so Amelia wins there.

Amelia has WTD against the axe enemies, but she's actually able to double them. They can get 5, 6 or 7 Spd. Amelia's odds of having enough Spd to double:

5 Spd: ~77%

6 Spd: ~56%

7 Spd: ~33%

Whereas Ewan's odds of having enough Spd to double these values are:

5 Spd: ~39%

6 Spd: ~17%

7 Spd: ~5%

Amelia's odds to double are, in order, about twice as high, over three times higher, and then over six times higher.

And Amelia's durability is still better despite WTD. These guys have 16-17 Atk, so Amelia is 3HKO'd while Ewan obviously is facing a 2HKO. Indeed Ewan loses nearly 3/4 of his health from one of these axe enemies; after getting hit by one of them, anything else can finish him off, an archer, a soldier, whatever. Whereas Amelia can take all kinds of beatings, she can survive two hits from axes, or one hit from an axe and two from soldiers, or even possibly two hits from axes and then a hit from an archer.

So there's earlygame for you. Amelia, despite being a 12 year old girl, is not only able to wear a Knight's big hunk of armor, but able to wear that big hunk of armor and somehow still be faster than Ewan (and faster and stronger than Franz, even). Amelia's pretty awesome.

What's the outlook for Ewan?

Being two levels lower, he gets all of 6 more Exp for a kill. They need to make 16-17 kills before he catches up by even one level. However, Amelia actually has an enemy phase, on account of actually having Hp/Def. She'll be getting more counterattacks in and thus more Exp from enemy phase in general. So will Ewan ever close the gap naturally? Doesn't look like it.

Ewan's SOL on supports. His best option is Amelia herself, and indeed she's the only option he has before Tethys joins in Ch 10. Well, if you took Eir Route, that is. If you take Eph Route then Ewan's not getting a second partner until Dozla at the end of Ch 11. Fail.

Amelia, meanwhile, is not only Ewan's best partner, but also Franz's best partner. Franz's other options are much slower (Seth, Natasha), join considerably later (Forde), or don't exist anymore because Amelia replaced him (Gilliam, and he sucks anyways). w1n.

"but move gap"

If Franz is shooting off ahead of everyone, then sure. But how often is he doing this? Not very often if any at all, as he can't fight all the enemies by himself, and for a long time you don't have anyone to send with him other than Seth, who doesn't need his help to begin with, and Vanessa, who doesn't have the durability to survive away from the main group (i.e. the healers) for very long at all. In the early chapters, if there's anything that needs to be bumrush'd or solo'd (the left sides of Ch 5 and 8 are the only examples I can think of), Seth is able to handle it all by himself. Franz doesn't need to go with him anyways; Seth is already invincible and one-rounding everything, so Franz's presence will make no difference with him, whereas the rest of the army that's fighting somewhere else on the map would appreciate Franz's help.

Then when you're spending time actually engaging the enemies rather than having Franz rushing off ahead (i.e. the majority of the time), his higher move actually helps his support with Amelia. The fact that he has more spaces to move to and attack from gives him more flexibility with his positioning, and helps him to end his turn next to Amelia as often as possible.

So now that we've established those two points, let's get a snapshot of midgame performance for Ewan and Amelia. Ch 13. Amelia x Franz B is 4-5 turns per chapter, so I'll toss that on. Ewan and Amelia won't have reached a B yet growing at that rate, but w/e since they're giving the bonuses to each other anyways. The support might as well not be there since it affects them equally.

L14 Ewan: 14.4 Mag, 12.3 Spd----26.5 Hp, 4.1 Def (ouch), 13.4 Res, 40.1 Avo

L15 Amelia, B Franz: 14 Str, 14.2 Spd----31.8 Hp, 12.9 Def, 8.4 Res, 50.9 Avo

Offense? I'd be lying through my teeth if I didn't admit that Ewan is doing better against enemy Knights. Too bad Amelia wins against the rest of everything. Breaking out some enemy AS values, and once again those odds to double:

Amelia's odds/Ewan's odds

6 AS (Archer, Priest): 99%/91%

7 AS (Archer, Priest): 96%/80%

8 AS (Archer): 89%/65%

9 AS (Fighter, Cavalier): 76%/47%

10 AS (Boss): 61%/30%

11 AS (Merc): 44%/17%

12 AS (Merc): 28%/8%

15 AS (Steel Sword Ranger): 3%/0%

16 AS (Iron Bow Ranger): 1%/0%

Defense? lulz, Amelia is wtfraping Ewan in this. Ewan can get one-rounded by the Rangers in this chapter, and they have massive movement + 2 range. Amelia more than triples Ewan's Def. I don't need to say any more.

There you have it. Facts/numbers/Ewan loses.

I won't bother talking about lategame, because even if Ewan managed to win lategame, Amelia has already been winning for most of the game before then. That, and I'm sure you have a novel to write about Ewan's summons, so I'll leave you to cover that section of the game.

Edited September 13, 2009 by CATS