Balanced Masteries

[Fayt Zelpher]

I brought up this in the HM WT discussion, but I thought that it needed its own discussion. Basically, the problem was that the current masteries are basically just a glorified way of saying instant death when activated. Excepting the new lethality skill, none of these skills should = death for a reasonably leveled character at full or nearly full health. Here are my ideas. Let me know what you think:

Aether, Sol, Luna: same as PoR

Impale: really not that overpowered Maybe 3x damage instead. It'll be like getting extra criticals. (skill%) (skill/2)% to (skill/3)%

Rend: 2x strength attack (speed/2%)

Savage: Skill = 0 for one turn (str%)

Roar: 1 turn paralysis - (no attacking or movement, cannot counterattack, avoid = 0, like sleep) (skill%)

Ire: Same as current

Astra: 5x attacks, 1/2 damage, first 3 can critical (speed%) (speed/2)%

Eclipse: enemy Def = 1 for attack (skill%)

Flare: Enemy Res = 1 for attack (mag%) We'll let saints get this skill as well.

Bane: halves enemy HP (skill%)

Lethality: KO's enemy (Crit/4%) Before you say this is too low, remember, Volke gets +25 crit, 15 from baselard, and up to 20 from skill. I'll take a 15% chance of instant KO

Stun: 2 turns of 0 movement - can attack, counterattack, and avoid (skill%)

Deadeye: Battle Accuracy = 100, puts enemy to sleep for 1 turn (skill%)

Colossus: Increase strength by 10% for each point by which attacker Con > defender Con (min +20%)

Tear: Enemy Spd = 1 for one turn (speed/2%)

All skills, except deadeye, can be avoided as well, with the same odds as a normal hit (i.e. does not override hit rate) The parentheses denote the chance of activation. For Lethality, the activation rate is a function of Volke's critical chance only, before factoring in enemy critical evade.

Obviously, some (but not all) of the enemy units will have these masteries as well, so I tried to make sure that none of them are going to be 1HKO's (except lethality, but there are no enemy assassins).

What do you people think?

EDIT: as per discussion, Astra is now (speed/2)%, Impale is (skill/2) or (skill/3)%

Edited January 5, 2010 by Randomly Predictable

[Kinata]

Impale, Ire, and Astra are much more powerful than the others. And Lethality is still rigged because of battle saves. This is kind of off topic, but battle saves should have an RNG lock. For starters, it allows all skills to be guaranteed. But yeah, good idea.

[Fayt Zelpher]

Impale, Ire, and Astra are much more powerful than the others. And Lethality is still rigged because of battle saves. This is kind of off topic, but battle saves should have an RNG lock. For starters, it allows all skills to be guaranteed. But yeah, good idea.

Astra can go to (Speed/2)% if it seems overpowered. Also, each hit can be avoided. And remember, Ire and Impale are 3x damage, which is basically just a critical hit. I'll grant that it might be a bit overpowered though. Maybe if we go to (Skill/2)% it'll be more balanced.

As for the battle save thing, remember 3 things.

First, we've still got enemy phase to deal with, and we're not resetting just because of a missed lethality on EP.

Second, if you're playing HM, there are no battle saves anyway.

Third, rather than battle saves at any time, you can always just only use them at the beginning of the turn, so you can't RNG abuse a specific attack. Or, if you don't like them, no one is making you use them.

Edited January 5, 2010 by Randomly Predictable

[Candlejack]

I think the point of Mastery skills is that they're SUPPOSED to be broken.

[Fayt Zelpher]

I think the point of Mastery skills is that they're SUPPOSED to be broken.

They weren't this broken in PoR. Wrath + Resolve (or heck, just resolve) was broken Even Aether still wasn't killing all of the bosses (though I may be remembering just BK/Ashnard), and it couldn't activate at 2 range. Besides, we're giving some of the enemies (particularly part 4 enemies) masteries as well, so we don't want to make them too overpowered for when they're used against us. They should be powerful, not a glorified version of an insta-kill.

[Kinata]

For battle saves, I just don't like have the option to do something cheap. I would feel better if I couldn't use cheap tactics at all. And compare luna and impale with a character with a might of 50 against an enemy with a defense of 25. Luna has 38 attack while impale would be 75 might. Like I said, Ire and Impale would be very overpowered. And yeah, mastery skills were way worse in FE9. You could only teach 4 characters and the skills were 10 times worse. IS has really failed at finding a good balance. I liked the idea of only getting 4 occults, but in that case, mastery skills should be almost as good as they are in FE10.

Edited January 5, 2010 by Kinata

[Candlejack]

I think the point of Mastery skills is that they're SUPPOSED to be broken.

They weren't this broken in PoR. Wrath + Resolve (or heck, just resolve) was broken Even Aether still wasn't killing all of the bosses (though I may be remembering just BK/Ashnard), and it couldn't activate at 2 range. Besides, we're giving some of the enemies (particularly part 4 enemies) masteries as well, so we don't want to make them too overpowered for when they're used against us. They should be powerful, not a glorified version of an insta-kill.

I think the point of Mastery skills is that they're SUPPOSED to be broken.

The key words are SUPPOSED and BROKEN.

[Fayt Zelpher]

For battle saves, I just don't like have the option to do something cheap. I would feel better if I couldn't use cheap tactics at all. And compare luna and impale with a character with a might of 50 against an enemy with a defense of 25. Luna has 38 attack while impale would be 75 might. Like I said, Ire and Impale would be very overpowered. And yeah, mastery skills were way worse in FE9. You could only teach 4 characters and the skills were 10 times worse. IS has really failed at finding a good balance. I liked the idea of only getting 4 occults, but in that case, mastery skills should be almost as good as they are in FE10.

Fair enough with regard to battle saves. As for Ire and Impale, I'm not so sure that they're as broken as you say. Remember, 3x damage is a critical hit, and the classes with crt+ bonuses (primarily SM's and Assassins, though Marksmen have +15 as well) are hitting a lot of those anyway. So, I'm thinking that I'll leave Impale at 3x damage. I've already made it (skill/2)%, though maybe I could go to (skill/3)% if it's still overpowered. Luna's activating twice (or 3x, if we take impale to [skill/3]%) as often though on average, so I expect it to be a bit weaker when it does. As for Ire, your dragons aren't getting to level 30 most likely, we don't have to give the 4-5 dragons the skill, and 4-E-3 is not a hard level as is. I see no problem with giving 1/3-1/4 of the dragons a (skill/2)% chance (which for dragons ex. the king, is about 6%) of actually doing some damage. Plus, it's not like they can hit anything with their breath anyway, and I'm not making mastery activation override hit% (except deadeye). And we have a few nihil scrolls as well (3 prior to Nasir); let's actually make them worth more prior to the tower.

I'm actually surprised that no one has argued about rend being overpowered as it is in this topic, though I nerfed it a lot from 5x strength + 0 move and cats... well, they're not good characters anyway.

[Candlejack]

That actually makes sense.

Give a very powerful skill to a very bad class...

[Fayt Zelpher]

That actually makes sense.

Give a very powerful skill to a very bad class...

Agreed. It's probably the most powerful skill here at this point except possibly eclipse (+36 Mt for a max-str cat), though I did make it a (speed/2)% activation which for cats tops at 20%. Flare is the same basic idea as Eclipse, but Res is generally far lower for enemies than Def is, so it's not in the same level.

[Candlejack]

Not to mention magic has lolpathetic MT anyway.

[Kinata]

It came to my mind that rend is also more powerful, but not as powerful as impale was. And how do you like my idea of combining FE10's overpowered mastery skills with FE9's occults?

[Anouleth]

They aren't broken since everyone gets them for free. They're powerful, yes, but they definitely improve the game. The make the 3rd tier classes cooler, they make bad characters better (very good characters such as Titania and Ike don't need their mastery to ORKO, weaker ones like Tanith and Oscar do need it.)

Unless you can show that the existence of powerful masteries makes the game any worse, I don't accept this.

(And your 'nerfing' is horribly haphazard. Impale and Ire get no change, but Stun and Deadeye and Bane become next to useless, as does Tear and Roar.)

Edited January 5, 2010 by Anouleth

[Fayt Zelpher]

It came to my mind that rend is also more powerful, but not as powerful as impale was. And how do you like my idea of combining FE10's overpowered mastery skills with FE9's occults?

Actually, in the original Japanese version, units could not hit third tier via leveling up. They could only do so with a master crown. There were, if memory serves, 2 to 4 hidden MC's that were taken out of the NA version, and they had the item finding glitch (basically, by selecting the lord after his/her turn is done [bringing up the order/direct screen], the game would have the lord continually searching for hidden treasure, making it much easier to find.) This also made Sothe, Micaiah, and other units that got auto-tier 3 promotions (or started as tier 3) and laguz more powerful, since only about 12 or so beorc could ever hope to hit third tier. I guess in this way, the Japanese version incorporated your idea to some extent.

[Fayt Zelpher]

They aren't broken since everyone gets them for free. They're powerful, yes, but they definitely improve the game. The make the 3rd tier classes cooler, they make bad characters better (very good characters such as Titania and Ike don't need their mastery to ORKO, weaker ones like Tanith and Oscar do need it.)

Unless you can show that the existence of powerful masteries makes the game any worse, I don't accept this.

(And your 'nerfing' is horribly haphazard. Impale and Ire get no change, but Stun and Deadeye and Bane become next to useless, as does Tear and Roar.)

I've halved the proc% for Ire and Impale (Impale also went from 4x to 3x damage). Bane got double proc%, as did Deadeye. Tear and Roar were far too powerful, and they're on powerful classes too. Tear also now reduces spd to 1 instead of simply halving it, and roar is good for feeding kills. Stun could probably use a bit of boosting though, although I went from one turn of stun to two turns of it. Plus, I'm assuming that a good percentage (>30%) of enemy units in part 4 will also get their masteries as well, as well as some bosses in part 3 (and maybe Ludveck). Not only that, but I've also made it so that masteries can be avoided (with the exception of deadeye, which explains that nerf), so high avoid units will actually be a bit better. Unless you want to be insta-killed by a ton of units in part 4...

EDIT: sorry for the double post, the post I responded to was written while I was writing the previous one.

Edited January 5, 2010 by Randomly Predictable

[Nephinel]

I think the point of Mastery skills is that they're SUPPOSED to be broken.

I pretty much agree with this statement.

And what, the SP classes in Part 4 weren't good enough for you?

[Fayt Zelpher]

I think the point of Mastery skills is that they're SUPPOSED to be broken.

I pretty much agree with this statement.

And what, the SP classes in Part 4 weren't good enough for you?

I'm sorry, but this game gets easier as it goes on. Logic and common sense would dictate that it should get harder. By the time you've gotten 2 hours into the game, it gets super easy. Really, the first 4 chapters are the hardest part. I'd like to see some difficulty sneak its way back into the game toward the later part of the game. Broken masteries aren't helping with that. Like I said, I want to see actual tier 3 enemy units with their masteries, and weaken those masteries so FE doesn't turn into a game of chance.

[Bryan]

I think the point of Mastery skills is that they're SUPPOSED to be broken.

I pretty much agree with this statement.

And what, the SP classes in Part 4 weren't good enough for you?

I'm sorry, but this game gets easier as it goes on. Logic and common sense would dictate that it should get harder. By the time you've gotten 2 hours into the game, it gets super easy. Really, the first 4 chapters are the hardest part. I'd like to see some difficulty sneak its way back into the game toward the later part of the game. Broken masteries aren't helping with that. Like I said, I want to see actual tier 3 enemy units with their masteries, and weaken those masteries so FE doesn't turn into a game of chance.

I would LOVE to see third tier enemies. WTH is the point of Nihil?

I would really like to see a fe game where it takes the average stats of your team and aujsts the enemies acordingly.

[Anouleth]

They aren't broken since everyone gets them for free. They're powerful, yes, but they definitely improve the game. The make the 3rd tier classes cooler, they make bad characters better (very good characters such as Titania and Ike don't need their mastery to ORKO, weaker ones like Tanith and Oscar do need it.)

Unless you can show that the existence of powerful masteries makes the game any worse, I don't accept this.

(And your 'nerfing' is horribly haphazard. Impale and Ire get no change, but Stun and Deadeye and Bane become next to useless, as does Tear and Roar.)

I've halved the proc% for Ire and Impale (Impale also went from 4x to 3x damage). Bane got double proc%, as did Deadeye. Tear and Roar were far too powerful, and they're on powerful classes too. Tear also now reduces spd to 1 instead of simply halving it, and roar is good for feeding kills. Stun could probably use a bit of boosting though, although I went from one turn of stun to two turns of it. Plus, I'm assuming that a good percentage (>30%) of enemy units in part 4 will also get their masteries as well, as well as some bosses in part 3 (and maybe Ludveck). Not only that, but I've also made it so that masteries can be avoided (with the exception of deadeye, which explains that nerf), so high avoid units will actually be a bit better. Unless you want to be insta-killed by a ton of units in part 4...

EDIT: sorry for the double post, the post I responded to was written while I was writing the previous one.

Well, you still haven't addressed exactly why we should be nerfing these (awesome) skills anyway. In addition, I was under the impression that the game checks to see if you hit first, then checks to see if your mastery activates, like criticals. And I'm certain that Astra can miss already.

Even so, all this does is make the game even more horribly imbalanced. Bad characters get worse and good characters get better. Enemy units getting masteries too is just the icing on the cake, since it heavily discourages using characters with bad durability or avoid.

[Fayt Zelpher]

They aren't broken since everyone gets them for free. They're powerful, yes, but they definitely improve the game. The make the 3rd tier classes cooler, they make bad characters better (very good characters such as Titania and Ike don't need their mastery to ORKO, weaker ones like Tanith and Oscar do need it.)

Unless you can show that the existence of powerful masteries makes the game any worse, I don't accept this.

(And your 'nerfing' is horribly haphazard. Impale and Ire get no change, but Stun and Deadeye and Bane become next to useless, as does Tear and Roar.)

I've halved the proc% for Ire and Impale (Impale also went from 4x to 3x damage). Bane got double proc%, as did Deadeye. Tear and Roar were far too powerful, and they're on powerful classes too. Tear also now reduces spd to 1 instead of simply halving it, and roar is good for feeding kills. Stun could probably use a bit of boosting though, although I went from one turn of stun to two turns of it. Plus, I'm assuming that a good percentage (>30%) of enemy units in part 4 will also get their masteries as well, as well as some bosses in part 3 (and maybe Ludveck). Not only that, but I've also made it so that masteries can be avoided (with the exception of deadeye, which explains that nerf), so high avoid units will actually be a bit better. Unless you want to be insta-killed by a ton of units in part 4...

EDIT: sorry for the double post, the post I responded to was written while I was writing the previous one.

Well, you still haven't addressed exactly why we should be nerfing these (awesome) skills anyway. In addition, I was under the impression that the game checks to see if you hit first, then checks to see if your mastery activates, like criticals. And I'm certain that Astra can miss already.

Even so, all this does is make the game even more horribly imbalanced. Bad characters get worse and good characters get better. Enemy units getting masteries too is just the icing on the cake, since it heavily discourages using characters with bad durability or avoid.

Alright, before you argue about bad characters getting worse, tell me exactly which bad (I'll define that as low tier or below) characters you actually plan on getting to tier 3 (or level 30+ for laguz): The bottom tier characters aren't getting anywhere near tier 3, except Astrid on EM. On to the lower tier characters, we find a few characters that start in tier 3. We have: Bastian, Renning, Sanaki, Oliver, and Pelleas (plus laguz who on HM are getting nowhere near level 30, Gareth aside). What do all these characters have in common? They all have very limited playability, and none of them show up until part 4. Let's examine more closely, alright? Renning isn't appearing until the tower, and Oliver is recruited so late in 4-4 that he might as well not be, so these characters aren't being used at all (we have royals after all). Pelleas won't make tier 3 from his starting level. Bastian is inferior to Soren if you actually use him, and mages are not great in this game anyway. That leaves Sanaki, and she's forced in 4-P and 4-3, plus you have to take her to the tower. And, she's getting killed in one hit even without masteries on enemies. So I really fail to see how any bad character is being made worse by nerfing the masteries.

As for any character getting better, you've got a case for Ike (who's broken to begin with), but other than that, the whole point was to make some of these units a bit less broken when they hit tier 3. It was fine in the Japanese version where you were literally getting 8 beorc to tier 3 due to needing master crowns, but in the NA version, the masteries = overkill.

[Narga_Rocks]

And, she's getting killed in one hit even without masteries on enemies.

No, she's not.

Why does everyone seem to think that she is getting ORKOd by everything when that is far from the truth?

As for any character getting better, you've got a case for Ike (who's broken to begin with), but other than that, the whole point was to make some of these units a bit less broken when they hit tier 3. It was fine in the Japanese version where you were literally getting 8 beorc to tier 3 due to needing master crowns, but in the NA version, the masteries = overkill.

I'm pretty sure there were more than 8. The faq on Gamefaqs for the Japan version has the guy claiming there are more than 10, and since he actually played the japanese one and I'm betting you didn't I'll go with his statement. There were like 13 or something, and considering I only need 10 to take 10 tier 3 beorc to the tower anyway (plus Sothe, Ike, Micaiah, and that's assuming no Mist or Elincia or any other unit that started in tier 3) that still leaves many to play with for early promotions and things like that. Since I usually take Nailah and Elincia to the tower that means I would only need 8 crowns, leaving 4 or 5 for early promotions of units I'm not sending to the tower like Gatrie and Titania (well, her's may not be early, but I'd likely still promote her). Maybe Geoffrey for 3-9. Tauroneo for 3-12 and 3-13. Heather for Baselard use in 4-4 when she's not opening chests. Mist has her own crown.

[Anouleth]

They aren't broken since everyone gets them for free. They're powerful, yes, but they definitely improve the game. The make the 3rd tier classes cooler, they make bad characters better (very good characters such as Titania and Ike don't need their mastery to ORKO, weaker ones like Tanith and Oscar do need it.)

Unless you can show that the existence of powerful masteries makes the game any worse, I don't accept this.

(And your 'nerfing' is horribly haphazard. Impale and Ire get no change, but Stun and Deadeye and Bane become next to useless, as does Tear and Roar.)

I've halved the proc% for Ire and Impale (Impale also went from 4x to 3x damage). Bane got double proc%, as did Deadeye. Tear and Roar were far too powerful, and they're on powerful classes too. Tear also now reduces spd to 1 instead of simply halving it, and roar is good for feeding kills. Stun could probably use a bit of boosting though, although I went from one turn of stun to two turns of it. Plus, I'm assuming that a good percentage (>30%) of enemy units in part 4 will also get their masteries as well, as well as some bosses in part 3 (and maybe Ludveck). Not only that, but I've also made it so that masteries can be avoided (with the exception of deadeye, which explains that nerf), so high avoid units will actually be a bit better. Unless you want to be insta-killed by a ton of units in part 4...

EDIT: sorry for the double post, the post I responded to was written while I was writing the previous one.

Well, you still haven't addressed exactly why we should be nerfing these (awesome) skills anyway. In addition, I was under the impression that the game checks to see if you hit first, then checks to see if your mastery activates, like criticals. And I'm certain that Astra can miss already.

Even so, all this does is make the game even more horribly imbalanced. Bad characters get worse and good characters get better. Enemy units getting masteries too is just the icing on the cake, since it heavily discourages using characters with bad durability or avoid.

Alright, before you argue about bad characters getting worse, tell me exactly which bad (I'll define that as low tier or below) characters you actually plan on getting to tier 3 (or level 30+ for laguz): The bottom tier characters aren't getting anywhere near tier 3, except Astrid on EM. On to the lower tier characters, we find a few characters that start in tier 3. We have: Bastian, Renning, Sanaki, Oliver, and Pelleas (plus laguz who on HM are getting nowhere near level 30, Gareth aside). What do all these characters have in common? They all have very limited playability, and none of them show up until part 4. Let's examine more closely, alright? Renning isn't appearing until the tower, and Oliver is recruited so late in 4-4 that he might as well not be, so these characters aren't being used at all (we have royals after all). Pelleas won't make tier 3 from his starting level. Bastian is inferior to Soren if you actually use him, and mages are not great in this game anyway. That leaves Sanaki, and she's forced in 4-P and 4-3, plus you have to take her to the tower. And, she's getting killed in one hit even without masteries on enemies. So I really fail to see how any bad character is being made worse by nerfing the masteries.

As for any character getting better, you've got a case for Ike (who's broken to begin with), but other than that, the whole point was to make some of these units a bit less broken when they hit tier 3. It was fine in the Japanese version where you were literally getting 8 beorc to tier 3 due to needing master crowns, but in the NA version, the masteries = overkill.

Oh, so you just 'assume' that bottom tier character won't be used because, well, they're bottom tier. Nevermind that Danved if trained to tier 3 is actually okay in part 4 using Impale due to decent Speed and Skill giving him a 50% chance to blick any unit he fights. Or that you can throw a crown on Tanith and Sigrun and have them do the same thing with Stun. Or that Lethe and Lyre and Nealuchi are highly dependent on masteries to kill anything in part 4 since their strength is so bad (yet their speed is so good). I guess we should just completely forget about everyone in Lower Mid or below, we can nerf them as much as we feel like since it's not like anyone is using them anyway.

And bringing up Bastian/Oliver/Renning/Sanaki/Pelleas? These characters all already have awful masteries, which is only exacerbated by a lack of speed (meaning they have even less chance to activate them), so they don't care if you make them worse. What does make them worse is stuff like Cats being able to blick them, or Snipers suddenly putting them to sleep, or Dragons suddenly having 30% crit when they already 3HKO everything that isn't a Royal.

[Fayt Zelpher]

And, she's getting killed in one hit even without masteries on enemies.

No, she's not.

Why does everyone seem to think that she is getting ORKOd by everything when that is far from the truth?

As for any character getting better, you've got a case for Ike (who's broken to begin with), but other than that, the whole point was to make some of these units a bit less broken when they hit tier 3. It was fine in the Japanese version where you were literally getting 8 beorc to tier 3 due to needing master crowns, but in the NA version, the masteries = overkill.

I'm pretty sure there were more than 8. The faq on Gamefaqs for the Japan version has the guy claiming there are more than 10, and since he actually played the japanese one and I'm betting you didn't I'll go with his statement. There were like 13 or something, and considering I only need 10 to take 10 tier 3 beorc to the tower anyway (plus Sothe, Ike, Micaiah, and that's assuming no Mist or Elincia or any other unit that started in tier 3) that still leaves many to play with for early promotions and things like that. Since I usually take Nailah and Elincia to the tower that means I would only need 8 crowns, leaving 4 or 5 for early promotions of units I'm not sending to the tower like Gatrie and Titania (well, her's may not be early, but I'd likely still promote her). Maybe Geoffrey for 3-9. Tauroneo for 3-12 and 3-13. Heather for Baselard use in 4-4 when she's not opening chests. Mist has her own crown.

Fair enough on the crowns. I'll grant 12 for the purposes of argument, and I'll assume that you can actually get them all too, since quite a few are hidden items. That's 15 characters that you can promote (including Sothe, Mickey, and Ike). But in part 4, you're basically getting one royal + 5 tier 3 beorc. Every one else is going to be stuck in tier 2, without their masteries. On NM, it's quite easy to get 8 units up there via levels and 8 more with crowns (that aren't going to the tower).

And Sanaki is really frail in 4-3. I'll grant 4 levels for you, and assume she's wielding Cymbeline. At --/--/5, Sanaki has 3.6 str and 24.4 spd. In other words, lets say she has 23 AS. All of the SM's, plus some snipers, warriors, and a Halb have >27 spd. She's got 80 avoid and these enemies average 150 hit, meaning 82 true hit and an ~67.6% chance of dying (they're averaging 37 atk to Sanaki's 31 HP/11 Def - killing her). Not only that, but she's only got 49 Mt with Cymbeline and can't OHKO anything, so she's taking a counter on whatever comes her way with 1-2 range. If she attacks, she can't use a healing item without Leanne, and Micaiah is probably your only decent healer, and she's only got so many physic staves herself, and she has other units to heal too (and is probably stuck waking people up for 2 turns as well). And if she gets only 22 AS, she's getting doubled and killed by 2/3 of the map, as 26 AS is extremely common. I'll grant she's fine in the tower, but she's got to survive the journey first.

P.S. How is Heather getting the Baselard anyway for 4-4? If Sothe finds it, he's keeping it for the rest of the chapter when he SS's knives, and it's not like you're going out of your way to give it to another character who has a full inventory, then having that person find another item so he/she can send the baselard to the convoy. That's a bit of favoritism, I think, especially for one chapter.

[Narga_Rocks]

Fair enough on the crowns. I'll grant 12 for the purposes of argument, and I'll assume that you can actually get them all too, since quite a few are hidden items. That's 15 characters that you can promote (including Sothe, Mickey, and Ike). But in part 4, you're basically getting one royal + 5 tier 3 beorc. Every one else is going to be stuck in tier 2, without their masteries. On NM, it's quite easy to get 8 units up there via levels and 8 more with crowns (that aren't going to the tower).

Check the FAQ. Apparently there's like 8 or something before part 4 and you get 5 in part 4.

directly from the FAQ:

You have access to 8 crowns by Part 4 and get 2 in 4-P, 1 in 4-1, and 2 in 4-2.

So yeah, you are looking at potentially 8 tier 3s + Ike + 3 Royals + Elincia + Janaff + Ulki can all easily have masteries.

That's 15 masteries, so 5 per squad if you like.

And Sanaki is really frail in 4-3. I'll grant 4 levels for you, and assume she's wielding Cymbeline. At --/--/5, Sanaki has 3.6 str and 24.4 spd. In other words, lets say she has 23 AS. All of the SM's, plus some snipers, warriors, and a Halb have >27 spd. She's got 80 avoid and these enemies average 150 hit, meaning 82 true hit and an ~67.6% chance of dying (they're averaging 37 atk to Sanaki's 31 HP/11 Def - killing her).

Now if only you can explain to me why I'm stupid enough to even let her get attacked when the only things with more than 2 move are mages and a small number of dragonmasters...

And also, why is she using Cymbeline rather than some forge? Heck, Elwind has just 4 wt, so if she's proc'd str twice you can use that. Otherwise, forge a fire for her, or use whatever forge you made for your other mages in the past. Point is, if you somehow can't find a way to prevent her from getting attacked, then plan ahead to prevent her from being doubled and ORKOd, duh.

Not only that, but she's only got 49 Mt with Cymbeline and can't OHKO anything, so she's taking a counter on whatever comes her way with 1-2 range.

Attack something different maybe? Besides, the bowgun enemies 3HKO her if she's proc'd even one point of either def or hp. The crossbow users 2RKO her, so sure she'd need healing. But really, if you are so concerned about healing her then the one turn on the map that you can't find something else to attack she can just stand there. The only things that ORKOs her with 1-2 range is a wind edge swordmaster (2HKOs and doubles) and the Short Axe Dragonmaster (OHKOs) and the 2 Generals (OHKOs). As for the rest, she can attack them once (if she's injured, so what?), and if you somehow run into the situation where she can't attack either a 1 range lock or a 2 range lock on two separate turns and you never found an opportunity to heal her between these two events, then don't attack.

If she attacks, she can't use a healing item without Leanne, and Micaiah is probably your only decent healer, and she's only got so many physic staves herself, and she has other units to heal too (and is probably stuck waking people up for 2 turns as well).

Meet Laura. She's been your healer forever and can easily have C staves by now. In fact, if she doesn't have C staves I must ask what you've been doing all game.

And if she gets only 22 AS, she's getting doubled and killed by 2/3 of the map, as 26 AS is extremely common.

Explain to me again why I'm stupid enough to

a: let her get attacked

b: let her be weighed down by something when I know she's about to be attacked

At base she has 23 AS, and can easily have 24 AS by now. You know what should be doubling her in this map? Swordmasters. Do you know what else?

NOTHING

I'll grant she's fine in the tower, but she's got to survive the journey first.

Something that can be either very easy or very hard depending on how competent the player actually is. Assuming that the skill of the player is something above a toddler's, she's fine.

All that said, if you really want her to be stronger you could give her Resolve. Attack something, get injured, now she has 36 AS if she proc'd spd once in whatever levels she has so far. Or if she has 3 str and 24 spd and you simply must use Cymbeline (despite the fact that she can 2HKO plenty with weaker weapons) she'll have 22 AS makes 33 AS. 33 AS doubles everything but swordmasters, 36 AS doubles them too (in this chapter). Now, I'd rather give Resolve to something that can have an enemy phase, so like Mordy or something, but it's also an option to simply produce a glass cannon.

P.S. How is Heather getting the Baselard anyway for 4-4? If Sothe finds it, he's keeping it for the rest of the chapter when he SS's knives,

He's kinda busy picking stuff up. The chapter is simple enough that it's more useful in 4-4.

and it's not like you're going out of your way to give it to another character who has a full inventory

Sothe should have a full inventory anyway. How else would you get Dragonfoe to the convoy? It's only natural to send Baselard and the Vague Katti along with it. Well, you have to choose between Vague Katti and Laguz Gem, but getting Reyson able to vigor one extra turn in 4-5 seems inferior to having the Vague Katti for all of 4-4 with either Mia or Ike or Zihark.

, then having that person find another item so he/she can send the baselard to the convoy.

Sothe doesn't have much else to do. He's kinda weak by now, but there are plenty of items and you can have nubs like Sigrun and Tanith fly him around getting stuff.

That's a bit of favoritism, I think, especially for one chapter.

Favouritism? This isn't a tier list. I was saying what I do personally or have considered doing. I've never crowned Geoffrey or Tauroneo, but I've considered both. If I had plenty of crowns I probably would crown them. It's only for one chapter in Geoffrey's case, so why did you only complain about my Heather plan? And with the number of extra crowns lying around in the Japanese version I'd see no reason not to crown Heather, and since silver daggers give so much wexp (5) and she doubles everything, it takes 8 attacks for her to get from S to SS. 8 * 2 * 5 = 80. Now, in a North American game my Heather either has to get to level "21" or take one of the few existing crowns, and in a tier list you could maybe call that favouritism. Though some of us are trying to get rid of that stupid term and use phrases like "The opportunity cost of doing that is higher than the returns" or basically just saying "the opportunity cost is too high" or whatever. Of course, crowning Heather by 3-E has the added bonus of probably being able to steal Bolting, so that's good if you are bringing sages to endgame.

Anyway, here's something to consider about 4-4:

You need all the attackers you can get.

Routing in more than 10 turns generally turns into ~15 turns because of the reinforcement swarms that arrive starting if you don't finish in 10 turns. Heather runs towards the chests, but there are turns in which she either attacks stuff or sits still. Seems to me if she attacks something then 18 mt is better than 12 mt. (Baselard vs. Silver Dagger).

This isn't really the case in 4-3, and even if it was it's more difficult to get Sothe up to SS Knives than Heather. You could, of course, toss him an Arms Scroll, but otherwise his spd is kinda low so it's more difficult to get him 80 wexp and he's also got the issue of starting 4-3 with no more than 251 total wexp, so he's gotta get all 80 during the chapter before he can even use the thing. Heather could have SS by midway through 4-1 if you crowned her at the start of 3-E. In my game she typically promotes during 4-1 on HM, but that is with abuse in part 2 to get her to 20 str in 3-2 so it is much easier to raise her.

Aside from what they did to Resolve, I'd kinda like to play the Japanese version in order to get more crowns to play with. I'd still need to get Heather 7 to 9 levels before she hits 17 str and a crown would get her to the 20 needed to steal bolting, but it would still be fun to have so many crowns. They should have just left them all in there for us. Oh well.

[Anouleth]

Aside from what they did to Resolve, I'd kinda like to play the Japanese version in order to get more crowns to play with. I'd still need to get Heather 7 to 9 levels before she hits 17 str and a crown would get her to the 20 needed to steal bolting, but it would still be fun to have so many crowns. They should have just left them all in there for us. Oh well.

Crowns for everyone! Maybe even one for Soren!