Red Fox of Fire's character review topic (Complete)

[Shadow Mir]

But is it really worth talking up one of Ilyana's slots for transfer?? I think not.

[Colonel M]

But is it really worth talking up one of Ilyana's slots for transfer?? I think not.

If it's keeping your healers alive for one more round just incase of the rare situation that they get attacked, I think it's worth having it.

Hey good news is Unlock is useful in 4-4!

[grandjackal]

Hey good news is Unlock is useful in 4-4!

Would have said it's useful in that one chapter where you have to burn supplies, but really that chapter might as well be called "Haar does everything".

[OverratedSage]

But if Rhys has the Unlock staff equipped, doesn't that mean he didn't heal that turn? I mean, it would boost his durability when healing isn't needed, but if Ryhs doesn't need to spend a turn healing then he can spend that turn positioning himself so he doesn't get attacked in the first place. Meanwhile, he's not able to switch to Unlock on the same phase he uses a Heal/Mend/whatever to heal someone else, meaning he's stuck with that staff unless we chant him (unavailable in early chapters and could be used to just move him to safety anyway) or waste another character's turn to swap out his staves. And that's assuming he'll even autoequip Unlock if someone else trades his stuff around anyway.

I dunno. I don't think it's practical enough to warrant altering Rhys' score, tier placement, what have you. Or Mist's or Laura's, for that matter.

[Shadow Mir]

But if Rhys has the Unlock staff equipped, doesn't that mean he didn't heal that turn? I mean, it would boost his durability when healing isn't needed, but if Ryhs doesn't need to spend a turn healing then he can spend that turn positioning himself so he doesn't get attacked in the first place. Meanwhile, he's not able to switch to Unlock on the same phase he uses a Heal/Mend/whatever to heal someone else, meaning he's stuck with that staff unless we chant him (unavailable in early chapters and could be used to just move him to safety anyway) or waste another character's turn to swap out his staves. And that's assuming he'll even autoequip Unlock if someone else trades his stuff around anyway.

I dunno. I don't think it's practical enough to warrant altering Rhys' score, tier placement, what have you. Or Mist's or Laura's, for that matter.

That's what I'm thinking. Also, I outright consider it too impractical to consider taking up one of Ilyana's item slots for.

[grandjackal]

What are we filling her inventory with anyways? Off the top of my head, we got the Speedwings, Resolve, Savior, Pass, Blue Gem, leftover forges (I doubt the mercs care for forged Iron). That's about 5-7 inventory slots, I recall the maximum being 8. There's enough room, and it's not like the DB are gonna do anything with the damn staff. Unless there's more we're shipping over, there could easily be enough room.

[Interceptor]

Red Gem, maybe some other sellables like Ashera Icon, Arms Scrolls, etc. Ilyana can bank one skill on her person if she is promoted first. Brave Sword, perhaps.

[Florete]

What are we filling her inventory with anyways? Off the top of my head, we got the Speedwings, Resolve, Savior, Pass, Blue Gem, leftover forges (I doubt the mercs care for forged Iron). That's about 5-7 inventory slots, I recall the maximum being 8. There's enough room, and it's not like the DB are gonna do anything with the damn staff. Unless there's more we're shipping over, there could easily be enough room.

There are 7 inventory slots. On my last run I filled all her slots as well as promoted her and gave her skills and still wished I had more room. I transferred the following (going off memory here):

Fortune

2 Arms Scrolls

Speedwing

Ashera Icon

Blue Gem

Paragon

Adept

And maybe Discipline

As you can see, that's already without leftover forges. I didn't transfer all the skills because I'd rather have money. The point is that Unlock is not very high on the priority list imo.

[Narga_Rocks]

But if Rhys has the Unlock staff equipped, doesn't that mean he didn't heal that turn? I mean, it would boost his durability when healing isn't needed, but if Ryhs doesn't need to spend a turn healing then he can spend that turn positioning himself so he doesn't get attacked in the first place. Meanwhile, he's not able to switch to Unlock on the same phase he uses a Heal/Mend/whatever to heal someone else, meaning he's stuck with that staff unless we chant him (unavailable in early chapters and could be used to just move him to safety anyway) or waste another character's turn to swap out his staves. And that's assuming he'll even autoequip Unlock if someone else trades his stuff around anyway.

I dunno. I don't think it's practical enough to warrant altering Rhys' score, tier placement, what have you. Or Mist's or Laura's, for that matter.

Unlock will auto-equip provided you don't have any weapons. Or at least, I think staves "equip" rather than just sit there. Basically, just move Unlock to the top of his inventory. If he has a weapon in his inventory, he equips the weapon. If he doesn't have a weapon, I have no idea whether he equips Unlock or equips nothing.

I think I've moved Laura's stuff around before she promotes and staves auto-equip, but I could be remembering wrong.

Anyway, if Rhys is healing someone near enough to the enemies that you must worry he'll get attacked, then it's possible that there is an enemy 2 or 3 squares away from his new position. You can use a unit to trade his staff and attack an enemy, so most of the time you do these trades I don't think a character will need to lose a turn.

[Kinata]

I thought staves are equipped upon being used, which is a disadvantage compared to other games.

[grandjackal]

I thought staves are equipped upon being used, which is a disadvantage compared to other games.

Staffers getting attacked was already a disadvantage. Rhys would die normally, and Mist's response is a slight tickling. At least with the staff equipped, he stops dying and ends up virtually in the same situation as Mist. Difference being that while Rhys would have to be traded out if it's ever such a situation he's going to get attacked (that is, rarely unless you're purposefully sticking him out there...For some reason), he would still hit far harder on player phase.

However, as stated, hte bigger problem is getting the staff to him when you'd prefer to send the GM cash items.

[Narga_Rocks]

Staffers getting attacked was already a disadvantage. Rhys would die normally, and Mist's response is a slight tickling. At least with the staff equipped, he stops dying and ends up virtually in the same situation as Mist. Difference being that while Rhys would have to be traded out if it's ever such a situation he's going to get attacked (that is, rarely unless you're purposefully sticking him out there...For some reason), he would still hit far harder on player phase.

However, as stated, hte bigger problem is getting the staff to him when you'd prefer to send the GM cash items.

And the fact that if you trade "unlock" to be above "heal" or anything while he has a weapon in his inventory the weapon auto-equips. You say he'll have a better player phase, but that's only if you use "unit X" to trade Light out of his inventory and put unlock at the top and then next phase have Rhys find unit X and get his Light back and attack, and then again have some unit (either X or some Y) repeat the process. It's quite impractical. You would basically have to give up on his player phase completely, to be honest.

[Progenitus]

Why wouldn't she promote in part 3? I held her back (in 3-11) so she promoted in 3-E. If I'd let her she would have promoted in 3-11. It's amazing how much exp she can gain when she is supporting Ike and they just walk through enemies. With Adept she'll kill ~half of them and still get hit exp on the others. In addition, since she has less concrete durability and does less damage in two plain hits, enemies are quite happy to prioritize her rather than Ike on enemy phase. Which is funny because they rarely actually manage to hit her and she frequently blicks them away.

It's amazing how ridiculous the other characters would be if they were gaining exp at the same rate as Mia. Shit like Oscar and Titania would be promoting in liek 3-8. Of course, when Mia gets every resource, it's only natural that she also gets all the kills too.

Also, maybe it's just my game, but enemies like to go for Ike instead of Mia, even if it's something like a bow enemy and neither Ike or Mia are using wind edges. Once in awhile they'll go for Mia.

[Narga_Rocks]

It's amazing how ridiculous the other characters would be if they were gaining exp at the same rate as Mia. Shit like Oscar and Titania would be promoting in liek 3-8. Of course, when Mia gets every resource, it's only natural that she also gets all the kills too.

I can consider granting you Titania. Oscar? He's chipping forever. His exp gain won't be as fast as Mia's. He'll probably promote about the same time Mia would. Know why? She can randomly kill stuff rather frequently. He'll be considerably worse offensively (even should you give him adept for some reason), especially since you are on this "give everything Mia gets to some other unit and watch them suck be amazing with it" and thus you must give Oscar Ike support so he's lacking the +mt from fire that he can get elsewhere. I'm just glad you didn't bring up idiots like Soren and Boyd again, considering it's not really possible to arrange the same exp gain for them as Mia gets since they'll die if you try for it (and even if they get lucky and live they again don't KO nearly as much as she does and thus they gain exp slower).

Also, maybe it's just my game, but enemies like to go for Ike instead of Mia, even if it's something like a bow enemy and neither Ike or Mia are using wind edges. Once in awhile they'll go for Mia.

I have no idea what's up with your game. She has basically everything that we have inferred the game wants in order to send the AI after her. Low concrete durability. Low (relative to Ike) damage per hit. Lower level than Ike (at least until 3-11 or 3-E). As far as anyone has theorized, these are basically the things that get units attacked. I've seen it happen to Mia. Int says he's seen it. RF hasn't commented on it, so I don't know if she's seen it. I can't really say what might be making them attack Ike more than Mia when for me it's certainly over 70% against her rather than against him.

edit: besides, silver blades are purchasable in 3-E and even unpromoted she has 23 + 2 + 16 = 41 mt with the thing anyway when in range of whatever supporter she was given. That 23 str, by the way, is because after capping stuff like skl/spd there are a lot of chapters where she gets chances to bexp (cheaply) for str. It's not guaranteed, sure, but she's almost certainly much more likely to have 23 than any other number by the time you reach 3-E.

She'd still like to be promoted for 3-11, though, considering a steel blade after promotion = silver blade before promotion for her final mt value. Still, I'd have a hard time believing she could be 20/1 to start 3-11 without hurting the progression of your other units' levels. Maybe with a team of like 7 or 8, I suppose, but 9 or 10 and I'd find it tougher (but not impossible) to swallow.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Progenitus]

I can consider granting you Titania. Oscar? He's chipping forever. His exp gain won't be as fast as Mia's. He'll probably promote about the same time Mia would. Know why? She can randomly kill stuff rather frequently. He'll be considerably worse offensively (even should you give him adept for some reason), especially since you are on this "give everything Mia gets to some other unit and watch them suck be amazing with it" and thus you must give Oscar Ike support so he's lacking the +mt from fire that he can get elsewhere.

So, the mentality that the "better" a unit is, the more kills they're entitled to get?

Then how come no one assumes Volug gets half the kills in DB chapters because he's better than everyone else? How come no one assumes taht someone like Rutger in FE6 is getting more kills than everyone else? Sure, they're better. That doesn't mean we go "hey fuck the rest of the team, let's give this guy more kills than everyone else." Regardless of performance, when you compare units, or look at a unit objectively, you give it the same kills as the other units on the team, so that the comparison isn't useless and biased. A child can tell me that Edward fed half the kills in every DB chapter is going to be awesome. That means jack shit when you could've given the same treatment to someone like Nolan.

The only time feeding a unit more kills than other units on the team makes any logical sense is if you're playing FE6 or 7 for ranks and you need exp.

And regardless of how "awesome" Mia is, if she's taking more kills than her share then everyone else on the team becomes shitty and underleveled (either that or you have to cut someone out of the team entirely, which is just as bad). I don't need a select few god unit to manhandle 4-E, I have royals/double bow shinon to fill that. The LAST thing I need, though, is trying to beat 4-4 and its 126412346126 reinforcements with an Ike/Mia duo with Nailah backup because the rest of my team sucks too much to do anything because Mia stole their levels, especially since I need units to help with Micaiah AND Tibarn's teams too. Mia could have capped stats in 4-4, it doesn't matter, I guarantee that you're going to go slower than if Mia was at a normal level but you had other units that didn't give up half their kills to her to help clear the map. This also applies to 4-P/1/2/3, though to a lesser extent because the maps are only annoying because of FoW/desert/etc. and not because it has more enemies than a prostitute has STDs.

I'm just glad you didn't bring up idiots like Soren and Boyd again, considering it's not really possible to arrange the same exp gain for them as Mia gets since they'll die if you try for it (and even if they get lucky and live they again don't KO nearly as much as she does and thus they gain exp slower).

I can consistently get Soren promoted by 3-7 thanks to BEXP + 3-3 crown, and with A Ike it's pretty funny how he ORKOs liek everything and has decent durability (something like 35-40 HP and 16ish def is pretty good when you're not taking player phase counters and have liek 110 avoid). He runs into problems doubling halbs/warriors/snipers in part 4, but he manhandles generals pretty easily, which is funny because even Ike and nailah have problems 2HKOing generals without help.

Of course, unlike you, I don't assume that Soren at this point will be stealing everyone else's kills because he's omguber, nor do I assume he's high tier because he's good with a bunch of shit that half my team wants.

I have no idea what's up with your game. She has basically everything that we have inferred the game wants in order to send the AI after her. Low concrete durability. Low (relative to Ike) damage per hit. Lower level than Ike (at least until 3-11 or 3-E). As far as anyone has theorized, these are basically the things that get units attacked. I've seen it happen to Mia. Int says he's seen it. RF hasn't commented on it, so I don't know if she's seen it. I can't really say what might be making them attack Ike more than Mia when for me it's certainly over 70% against her rather than against him.

idk, I'd take a video of it with my camera phone, but I'm on 3-6 right now and I actually should be doing homework that I'm currently putting off. It might just be paladins that like to go after Ike, since this happened a lot in 3-2 and 3-5 with the paladin swarms, and I didn't take note in 3-P/3-1/3-3/3-4 because Gatrie and/or Haar manlied their way through the chapter (and Mia x Ike didn't even reach B until 3-4, so I didn't really want to expose Mia to too many enemies anyway, especially since my game is an asshole and likes giving me shitty biorhythm matchups).

Then again, maybe it's just my game, because I don't have adept or ike support hardcoded to Mia like everyone else on this board.

edit: besides, silver blades are purchasable in 3-E and even unpromoted she has 23 + 2 + 16 = 41 mt with the thing anyway when in range of whatever supporter she was given. That 23 str, by the way, is because after capping stuff like skl/spd there are a lot of chapters where she gets chances to bexp (cheaply) for str. It's not guaranteed, sure, but she's almost certainly much more likely to have 23 than any other number by the time you reach 3-E.

She'd still like to be promoted for 3-11, though, considering a steel blade after promotion = silver blade before promotion for her final mt value.

I don't really give a shit about what weapon Mia is using in 3-11 or what she's killing.

What I DO give a shit about is why the rest of the GMs are eating shit because Mia is taking up so many kills compared to everyone else.

Still, I'd have a hard time believing she could be 20/1 to start 3-11 without hurting the progression of your other units' levels. Maybe with a team of like 7 or 8, I suppose, but 9 or 10 and I'd find it tougher (but not impossible) to swallow.

In my last playthrough, I used a team of Ike/Tits/Gatrie/Shinon/Oscar/Mia/Haar/Soren, with help from Ranulf/Mordy/Janaff/Ulki (note that the laguz didn't get as many kills as everyone else; they were mostly used to weaken shit to low HP, so they weren't really using up too much exp, since hit exp is balls).

You know who was promoted by 3-11? Haar/Titania/Soren, the former 2 were only 20/1, and the latter was because I early crown'd him. ffs, Gatrie/Oscar/Shinon didn't even promote until the tail end of 3-E, and Mia was liek 19 or 20 after 3-E. She was liek 20/17 in 3-11, and she only got to 19-20 because I threw a paragon on her.

If you have a significant number of people promoted by 3-11, and/or a unit with one of the lowest base level now becomes one of the highest, then this leaves me with one of three conclusions...

1) Your team is seriously small, at which I question how you're going to handle 4-P to 4-5 due to manpower problems, especially if you take int's joke suggestions like 3-6sothehide seriously which fucks over the DB's levels and makes them useless for padding part 4 deployment.

2) You dick around in chapters and milk exp, yhelotharefficiency.

3) Mia consumes more kills than everyone else and the rest of the team becomes shitty and underleveled.

Based on my last playthrough, Mia is going to take liek 4 levels from the rest of the team. you may think "oh, well, 1 level from Gatrie, 1 from Shinon, 1 from Titania, whatever, it's not so bad", but that cna make a significant difference when half your team is borderline doubling. ffs even Shinon might have issues doubling the faster enemies if he's not given enough levels, and this is a guy with a 65 spd growth. Or she's killing enemies when your laguz could've attacked for strike rank, which is just as bad because it delays their +5 att.

Edited March 5, 2010 by Andrew W.K.

[Narga_Rocks]

So, the mentality that the "better" a unit is, the more kills they're entitled to get?

Then how come no one assumes Volug gets half the kills in DB chapters because he's better than everyone else? How come no one assumes taht someone like Rutger in FE6 is getting more kills than everyone else? Sure, they're better. That doesn't mean we go "hey fuck the rest of the team, let's give this guy more kills than everyone else." Regardless of performance, when you compare units, or look at a unit objectively, you give it the same kills as the other units on the team, so that the comparison isn't useless and biased. A child can tell me that Edward fed half the kills in every DB chapter is going to be awesome. That means jack shit when you could've given the same treatment to someone like Nolan.

Efficiency tier list. Assuming guys like Shinon (player phase only) are getting the same number of kills as units like Ike/Gatrie/Titania/Mia would be silly. You have your tier list views, I have mine. This isn't give the best unit half the kills, though. On average my Mia only had 13 battles a map (if I count 4-E as 3 maps since I near-routed most of them since it's more fun). And since her kill rate over the game was ~65%, that translates to 8 or 9 kills per map. Now, considering I had her with a steel blade most of that time (and Adept, of course), that means she probably had less than that for most of part 3. 7 or 8. It wasn't until late in part 3 where she starts ORKOing everything.

Besides, I was responding to your comments about Oscar promoting so quickly. I'm suggesting that it takes a lot more effort and harms the team a lot mroe to promote Oscar at level 20 by chapter 3-8 than what results from doing what I do with Mia.

The only time feeding a unit more kills than other units on the team makes any logical sense is if you're playing FE6 or 7 for ranks and you need exp.

It's not feeding if you are just standing her in the path of enemies on enemy phase. Feeding is basically whenever you have a weakened enemy and 2 or more units can kill it, you always choose the unit you are feeding. Or at least nearly always. Having her stand in the path of enemies and come what may is not the same thing as feeding. What is the point of having units like Gatrie, Ike, Mia being able to tank enemy phase if you don't, you know, have them tank? You might as well not give Gatrie credit for his concrete durability if he's no longer allowed to utilize it to the point his greater durability means anything. Why give a unit credit for something it isn't allowed to do?

And regardless of how "awesome" Mia is, if she's taking more kills than her share then everyone else on the team becomes shitty and underleveled (either that or you have to cut someone out of the team entirely, which is just as bad). I don't need a select few god unit to manhandle 4-E, I have royals/double bow shinon to fill that. The LAST thing I need, though, is trying to beat 4-4 and its 126412346126 reinforcements with an Ike/Mia duo with Nailah backup because the rest of my team sucks too much to do anything because Mia stole their levels, especially since I need units to help with Micaiah AND Tibarn's teams too. Mia could have capped stats in 4-4, it doesn't matter, I guarantee that you're going to go slower than if Mia was at a normal level but you had other units that didn't give up half their kills to her to help clear the map. This also applies to 4-P/1/2/3, though to a lesser extent because the maps are only annoying because of FoW/desert/etc. and not because it has more enemies than a prostitute has STDs.

Nice Strawman. Would you like to start talking about what I actually did, or will you continue to live in your fantasy world? I 10 turned 4-4. I had multiple units that were promoted and quite good there. I had a promoted Haar that was put to sleep 3 times and restored 3 times (effectively losing him for 30% of the turns since I needed to stick him on specific squares to prevent him getting attacked while asleep) and it still didn't matter.

I can consistently get Soren promoted by 3-7 thanks to BEXP + 3-3 crown, and with A Ike it's pretty funny how he ORKOs liek everything and has decent durability (something like 35-40 HP and 16ish def is pretty good when you're not taking player phase counters and have liek 110 avoid). He runs into problems doubling halbs/warriors/snipers in part 4, but he manhandles generals pretty easily, which is funny because even Ike and nailah have problems 2HKOing generals without help.

Of course, unlike you, I don't assume that Soren at this point will be stealing everyone else's kills because he's omguber, nor do I assume he's high tier because he's good with a bunch of shit that half my team wants.

Strawman again. In many ways, too. First off, it sounds like you give him a lot more than Mia needs to accomplish what she does. Also, his durability still doesn't match hers, so he's at more risk than she is. 1-2 range doesn't make that much difference. Also, every unit "wants" everything you have. Gatrie could take a seraph robe to get +1 hp. It's a benefit. Is it useful? No way. But every unit benefits from every single thing unless they already have a stat capped. +15 crit on a unit that will have like 9% crit on enemies doesn't really benefit much by that crit. But you know what? They still "want" it because when they attack on player phase it will sometimes mean that they don't face a counter. It's rather pointless to discuss what the units "want", because they'll take anything they can get. I could give Boyd a speedwing to get him to 20 AS and he can double some generals. Woohoo. I already have a bunch of units that can double generals, only now I also can't make Titania able to double halbs and warriors and snipers sooner. I'd rather take something I don't have a lot of (what Titania will be able to do) over getting an extra something I already have enough of (what Boyd will be able to do). But does that mean that Boyd doesn't want the speedwing? No way. Of course he wants it. Is it a good idea to give him one? No way. (Well, the 3-9 wing is arguable for a lot of your GMs, but I'm talking the 2-3 or 1-E wings.)

The point is that while anyone on the team would be willing to take an Ike support (though Ike doesn't really want them anywhere near him on enemy phase, or more accurately we don't want them in the path of the swarm), it doesn't make sense to give him to anyone but Mia. Similarly, Adept: would other units be willing to take Adept and get a 20% chance to actually ORKO something for once? Sure. Is it a smart idea when you can give it to a unit that gets 50% ORKO out of Adept? Not likely. Compare the 60% ORKO she has with Adept and her natural crit to the 20% ORKO guys like Soren and Boyd have and tell me which one is more efficient. Now, if we didn't generally participate in efficiency tier lists this wouldn't matter so much, but unfortunately we do.

I mean, even Haar would be willing to take an Ike support so that he dodges more. Do we care? No, because we can heal Haar and probably only have to do so 2 or 3 times in a map. Reducing that to 0 or 1 is hardly relevant. The options you lose if you support Ike with Haar are far more important and beneficial than what Haar gets out of it. The fact that Haar "wants" Ike support for his own sake wouldn't even be worth mentioning if I wasn't trying to explain a concept to you.

idk, I'd take a video of it with my camera phone, but I'm on 3-6 right now and I actually should be doing homework that I'm currently putting off. It might just be paladins that like to go after Ike, since this happened a lot in 3-2 and 3-5 with the paladin swarms, and I didn't take note in 3-P/3-1/3-3/3-4 because Gatrie and/or Haar manlied their way through the chapter (and Mia x Ike didn't even reach B until 3-4, so I didn't really want to expose Mia to too many enemies anyway, especially since my game is an asshole and likes giving me shitty biorhythm matchups).

So you had her in the path of paladins and they attacked Ike? What weapon did Ike have and what did Mia have? I'm curious. If I had a save in 3-5 I'd love to attempt to replicate your results, but I don't have any HM saves outside of 4-E-5, and I am also in a different city from my wii (oh well). Maybe if you give all the details then Interceptor can try to replicate your results when he gets to 3-5.

Then again, maybe it's just my game, because I don't have adept or ike support hardcoded to Mia like everyone else on this board.

What does that have to do with anything? First off, it isn't "hardcoded". We just are able to recognize that it is the most efficient use of those two resources. Second, if you gave her Adept + Ike, and we gave her Adept + Ike, what's the difference?

I don't really give a shit about what weapon Mia is using in 3-11 or what she's killing.

What I DO give a shit about is why the rest of the GMs are eating shit because Mia is taking up so many kills compared to everyone else.

Oh no, she gets like 7 kills and other units have to split the small number of leftovers between themselves. Oh noes.

In my last playthrough, I used a team of Ike/Tits/Gatrie/Shinon/Oscar/Mia/Haar/Soren, with help from Ranulf/Mordy/Janaff/Ulki (note that the laguz didn't get as many kills as everyone else; they were mostly used to weaken shit to low HP, so they weren't really using up too much exp, since hit exp is balls).

You know who was promoted by 3-11? Haar/Titania/Soren, the former 2 were only 20/1, and the latter was because I early crown'd him. ffs, Gatrie/Oscar/Shinon didn't even promote until the tail end of 3-E, and Mia was liek 19 or 20 after 3-E. She was liek 20/17 in 3-11, and she only got to 19-20 because I threw a paragon on her.

If you have a significant number of people promoted by 3-11, and/or a unit with one of the lowest base level now becomes one of the highest, then this leaves me with one of three conclusions...

1) Your team is seriously small, at which I question how you're going to handle 4-P to 4-5 due to manpower problems, especially if you take int's joke suggestions like 3-6sothehide seriously which fucks over the DB's levels and makes them useless for padding part 4 deployment.

2) You dick around in chapters and milk exp, yhelotharefficiency.

3) Mia consumes more kills than everyone else and the rest of the team becomes shitty and underleveled.

Based on my last playthrough, Mia is going to take liek 4 levels from the rest of the team. you may think "oh, well, 1 level from Gatrie, 1 from Shinon, 1 from Titania, whatever, it's not so bad", but that cna make a significant difference when half your team is borderline doubling. ffs even Shinon might have issues doubling the faster enemies if he's not given enough levels, and this is a guy with a 65 spd growth. Or she's killing enemies when your laguz could've attacked for strike rank, which is just as bad because it delays their +5 att.

Your point? Oh, and I find it amusing that you talk about Shinon. Let's see, Mr. Player Phase only. Let's check out Mia. Doesn't counter at 2 range until 4-1, though I guess the 3-2 storm sword if you steal it as well as Tanith's, but those aren't nearly as strong as the Tempest. So there are these 2 range enemies (usually only 1) that Shinon can ORKO. If I send out Titania with a hand axe forge she kills it, Mia lets Shinon kill it. Seems to me that Titania does more to hurt Shinon than Mia. Tell me something, oh trumpeter of Titania's Hand Axe power. If it's so bad to let Mia tank enemy phase while killing ~half the 1 range enemies and leaving the 2 range enemies alive for Shinon while leaving those other 1 range enemies alive for the weaker units you are raising, why would Titania's ability to murderface everything she doubles at 1-2 range starting in 3-8 be so good? I said it before in relation to Gatrie's durability. If units aren't allowed doing stuff they are amazing at because you are afraid it takes kills away from the other units, then why isn't Mia's ability to kill some but not all enemies (allowing you to move faster while still giving kills to the weaker units) not vastly superior to Gatrie and Titania's abilities? Why does it matter at all that Titania can ORKO everything when she jumps into the fray? I mean, sure, you could only have her do so 1 turn out of every three, but that hardly seems more efficient than the Mia strategy. You'd need to have multiple units able to survive (because if you have two fronts and the units operate on rotation, then you need 6 different tanks able to rotate in and out), rather than just have units like Mia/Gatrie/Ike do this type of stuff where it is necessary. I guess that's why you value highly durable units with bad offence so highly (like Mordy w/out resolve, Oscar, Gatrie w/out crown, Titania w/out wing, Haar w/out wing). First, because you need so very many of them. Second, because them not killing makes you feel like you are more easily able to make a communist spread of experience for your team, whereas Mia isn't something that meshes with your playstyle. She is in fact so different from your playstyle that you apparently think she's taking so many kills that my only good units for 4-4 are Mia and Ike and Nailah.

So I have no idea what the difference in playstyles is doing to your levels vs. mine. I had Ilyana, Calill, Marcia, Nolan, Jill, Laura all in my 4-E team (along with more reasonable choices: Mia, Nailah, Shinon, Elincia) and had them all over 20/20/13 by the end of 4-E-4. Possibly 20/20/14 or something, I'm not sure. I don't know if you 2 turn 4-5 or something, I generally go with like 6 or 7 I think. Also I don't 3 turn 3-2, and I don't know what % of that map you kill to compare to what I do. I also promote units like Mist, Heather, Nephenee, Haar, Titania, Gatrie w/crown even though I have no intention of taking any of them to endgame. Whatever you are doing is clearly so different from whatever I'm doing that you should probably not make silly assumptions about what consequences my choices have, since you'll obviously be way off on those. I try not to make assumptions about what consequences your choices have, so try not to throw out so many strawmans, please?

[Interceptor]

I like how this thread has become half strategy seminar by efficiency wonks, and half mosh pit full of wolverines. Red Fox occasionally comes by and flings in a steak. It is fascinating to watch what unfolds here.

[Narga_Rocks]

I like how this thread has become half strategy seminar by efficiency wonks, and half mosh pit full of wolverines. Red Fox occasionally comes by and flings in a steak. It is fascinating to watch what unfolds here.

If RF wants I can remove some of the more off topic posts (like, say, mine, among others), since this is supposed to just be her rating topic. Or at least have all the crazy long posts stuffed in spoiler tags. Or create a spinoff topic and move things there.

[Colonel M]

It's a pity sometimes. My ranking thread doesn't even get half the hype that this one gets.

*Me twiddles thumbs*.

Very interesting of what has unfolded already with the Mia rating.

Edited March 6, 2010 by Tyranel M

[Florete]

If RF wants I can remove some of the more off topic posts (like, say, mine, among others), since this is supposed to just be her rating topic. Or at least have all the crazy long posts stuffed in spoiler tags. Or create a spinoff topic and move things there.

Nah, I like the discussion.

And I'm boosting Oscar to 7.

Ranulf

Son of a bitch spoiled Black Knight's true identity. -4 just for that.

But he joins in 3-4. He is generally pretty good for a while. Base 30 Speed doubles everything for quite a while, though base 36 atk is just short of killing a lot of enemies. Like, he leaves Warriors with 1-2 HP, Halberdiers with about 6 HP, kills Swordmasters, and just barely 2 rounds Generals. This isn't really too much of a bad thing; anyone can finish off his leftovers for the most part, Adept will cleanly get a lot of that with 51% activation, and most units aren't really killing things on their own anyway. He's also very durable with 55 HP, 26 Defense, 20 Resistance, and 98 base avoid. He'll pretty much be in the not-quite-killing range for all of part 3 against a lot of enemies, and he might get some if he supports someone like Mordecai, Reyson, or Ulki with a +atk affinity.

Part 4 sees him on Tibarn's route, where he's gotten pretty mediocre. Base level 26 is really high for a Laguz, so he isn't likely to have grown many, if any, levels, and even if he gets one from BEXP, he likely won't get what he wants, which is Strength. He'll still be really borderline on killing since he should have reached S rank Strike by now, but his durability isn't as awesome anymore and his gauge is starting to hurt more since enemies are more numerous.

That's right, cat gauge. Poor Ranulf. Good stats, terrible gauge. If he wants to stay transformed he'll be losing about 2/3 of his player phases on Olivi Grass, hurt more by the fact that no 2 range means player phase attacking is that much more important since enemies prioritize him on their phase. Then there's his crappy Wind affinity. There are a few people he wants, but no one really wants him at all, since Hit generally isn't too special and 8 avoid doesn't help anyone very much, especially the people that join around the same time as him (Mordecai, Ranulf, Ulki, Janaff). He can get someone, but he can't say he helps them very much.

Overall, Ranulf is decent. He never consumes a unit slot until part 4, so his contributions are free in that sense, and his combat is pretty good. He'll wear out and become redundant, and his gauge is annoying, but he's still pretty useful.

7/10

Transfer changes:

None.

Kyza

I'm going to be completely honest here; I have never used Kyza. Like, I don't think I've ever even fielded him. This review is entirely based off what I can look up.

Okay, so Kyza joins in 3-4 with the others. And he kinda sucks. 30 atk and only doubling slower Generals and Sages is pretty bad. And due to a relatively high base level (same as Titania) he won't be gaining levels very fast. He can help chip enemies, but most enemies he's in the 3 hit kill or higher range on and it's only up close, so he isn't very useful for that. At least his durability isn't that bad, if not exactly spectacular. He isn't exactly in danger of dying.

If I assume he can gain 3 levels (probably a bit high) and goes to Micaiah's route, he still isn't very good. I'm not going to believe that never doubling will allow him to get S rank Strike, so he's stuck with only 32 atk and still not doubling enemies with only 24 Speed. I sense that his performance will forever remain this bad.

Being a Laguz, he has a gauge too. For dudes like Mordecai who are actually good, this isn't too much of a problem. But for a guy that you don't want to expose too much and may even want to feed kills to, this just becomes an annoyance. I don't doubt he can stay transformed, but gauge is not helping his case. Light affinity isn't even helping him. Hit isn't really good for anyone, and Defense is virtually useless for everyone that joins around his time. No help there.

Again, I've never used this guy, but from what I'm seeing and have heard from others, this guy sucks. I don't think he has anything going for him other than not being extremely terribad.

1.5/10

Lyre

Oh dear. Oh dear, sweet Jesus. Intelligent Systems, what have you done?

Lyre is what every unit doesn't want to be. Lyre has absolutely nothing going for her. I daresay Lyre cannot even be fixed as a unit.

So what is it that makes Lyre so awful? Well, do you remember how bad Mist was as a combat unit with her base 22 atk? Lyre's base atk is also 22. Only Lyre doesn't have 1-2 range and hasn't gotten a chance to level or build support like Mist, so she loses to Mist in raw damage output by 3-4 points per hit. To put into perspective, in her joining map she:

7 hit kills Warriors.

13-19 hit kills Halberdiers.

6 hit kills the weaker Swordmasters.

Is 3-4 atk short of even hurting Generals.

8 hit kills Snipers.

3-4 hit kills Sages. (Luckily for her, she doubles the slow ones)

Deals 1 damage to the Dragonmasters' 40-42 HP.

And Lyre is a combat unit!

See, even an Energy Drop and a level of BEXP for Speed won't do much for her. She'll now be 5 hit killing the Warriors with a double (luckily enough), 6 hit killing the Halberdiers with a double, 4 hit killing the Swordmasters with no double, 1-2 damage to Generals....I think you get the picture. Lyre with resources is still a pile of failure.

And then there's durability. 47 HP, 14 Defense, and 16 Resistance always taking counters. Warriors, Halberdiers, and Snipers get her in 3, Swordmasters in 4, Generals in 3 again but the stronger ones leave her with 1 HP (or 2 if you gave her BEXP and she got HP) after 2 hits, Elfire Sages in 2. Yeah, she sucks on this end as well.

It does not end there. That level of BEXP I just fed her stops doubling as soon as 3-8, so she may need another for there, only now we're seeing that these BEXP levels are preventing her from getting the Strength she needs since Strength is her 5th highest growth 15% behind the 4th and only 5% above the 6th. Lyre also has her terrible Cat gauge limiting the kills she can be fed every map, she never has free deployment, none of the units joining around her want Defense or Avoid...What the hell happened here?

I can't do an accurate part 4 review because I can't imagine what level and stats would be reasonable. Are all her levels BEXP'd and getting only her higher growths? Is she being fed 15 kills per map so she can get to Rend asap? Is borderline doubling enough to get to S Strike in 6 maps? I don't know. However, given her bad growths, gauge, and lack of 2 range attacking, I cannot imagine she will be anything resembling a good unit ever without tons of attention. Worst unit in the game for me.

0/10

[Colonel M]

Not that it is really going to save Kyza's ass, but he could consume a Speedwing and double for the most part (IIRC 26 AS doubles just about everything barring Swordmasters). Not that I'd go and hype Kyza to hell and back.

[-Cynthia-]

Kyza can improve a lot with stat boosters, like any laguz, but we only get a mediocre unit out of it anyway. His jointime situation doesn't really help him, putting the boosters on Kyza means we can't use it during 3-2, 3-3, or 3-5.

Edited March 8, 2010 by -Cynthia-

[Anouleth]

It's a Speedwing that doesn't go to Titania or Haar. Unless Titania gets speed-screwed, Kyza can't pay the opportunity cost.

[Original Alear]

Somehow I want to argue that Kyza < Lyre, simply because I dislike Kyza that much (for no real reason, either).

[Shadow Mir]

Lyre

Oh dear. Oh dear, sweet Jesus. Intelligent Systems, what have you done?

Lyre is what every unit doesn't want to be. Lyre has absolutely nothing going for her. I daresay Lyre cannot even be fixed as a unit.

So what is it that makes Lyre so awful? Well, do you remember how bad Mist was as a combat unit with her base 22 atk? Lyre's base atk is also 22. Only Lyre doesn't have 1-2 range and hasn't gotten a chance to level or build support like Mist, so she loses to Mist in raw damage output by 3-4 points per hit. To put into perspective, in her joining map she:

7 hit kills Warriors.

13-19 hit kills Halberdiers.

6 hit kills the weaker Swordmasters.

Is 3-4 atk short of even hurting Generals.

8 hit kills Snipers.

3-4 hit kills Sages. (Luckily for her, she doubles the slow ones)

Deals 1 damage to the Dragonmasters' 40-42 HP.

And Lyre is a combat unit!

See, even an Energy Drop and a level of BEXP for Speed won't do much for her. She'll now be 5 hit killing the Warriors with a double (luckily enough), 6 hit killing the Halberdiers with a double, 4 hit killing the Swordmasters with no double, 1-2 damage to Generals....I think you get the picture. Lyre with resources is still a pile of failure.

And then there's durability. 47 HP, 14 Defense, and 16 Resistance always taking counters. Warriors, Halberdiers, and Snipers get her in 3, Swordmasters in 4, Generals in 3 again but the stronger ones leave her with 1 HP (or 2 if you gave her BEXP and she got HP) after 2 hits, Elfire Sages in 2. Yeah, she sucks on this end as well.

It does not end there. That level of BEXP I just fed her stops doubling as soon as 3-8, so she may need another for there, only now we're seeing that these BEXP levels are preventing her from getting the Strength she needs since Strength is her 5th highest growth 15% behind the 4th and only 5% above the 6th. Lyre also has her terrible Cat gauge limiting the kills she can be fed every map, she never has free deployment, none of the units joining around her want Defense or Avoid...What the hell happened here?

I can't do an accurate part 4 review because I can't imagine what level and stats would be reasonable. Are all her levels BEXP'd and getting only her higher growths? Is she being fed 15 kills per map so she can get to Rend asap? Is borderline doubling enough to get to S Strike in 6 maps? I don't know. However, given her bad growths, gauge, and lack of 2 range attacking, I cannot imagine she will be anything resembling a good unit ever without tons of attention. Worst unit in the game for me.

0/10

Edited March 8, 2010 by Richter Lanford