FE6 HM Tier List

[Narga_Rocks]

tl;dr, but I did notice this:

Inaccurate, sure, but I don't know where you got the idea that Gonzales is slow. On equal levels he's faster than Lance.

At first he has 10 spd and a 50% growth. For a little even Marcus is faster than he is. It takes 6 levels for him to catch Zealot and Fir's base. I have no qualms about calling him quick at high levels. Eg: 20/5 is ~22 speed. Not bad. Heck, if you can get him there for chapter 17 he's doubling nomads. Then needs 23 soon after since more of them start having 19, but at first they have like 17 and 18. I think one even had 16. And he'll get to 23 at 20/~6.

But what level is Lance supposed to be for chapter 11? Even at level 13 he still has 13 speed. Gonzo has 10 or 11. It could easily be 10. 10.6 isn't reliably 11. Even give Lance a steel sword for the axe enemies and that's 12 speed.

Okay, so I think a lot of units are slow in this game. Like Allen. Though that's partly because of recent cursing of his speed by like 4 points.

Also I'm practically assuming that the chapter 11 wing is gift-wrapped to Dieck and so he's got 2 extra speed. Besides, level 15 Dieck has 13 speed already and that's even with iron blade. Better swords for better hit, though. Of course, iron blade has the same hit as Gonzo's best weapon and comes with WTA and Dieck's much better skill.

Gonzales is doing the same thing Fir does in Ch 11, and I'd argue that he does it better. A lot of the fighters have steel axes (I count 8 out of 12), he can double those at his base speed, and after just 1 Str proc (1-2 levels, which takes 2-4 kills), he can 2HKO many of them with the iron axe. That's better than Fir who has no shot at 2HKOing whatsoever. Even with 11 Str and the steel sword she's falling way short. Fir's chances to hit are higher than Gonzo's, but Gonzo's chance to kill is higher than Fir's. After 1 Spd proc he can double most of the archers, as well, and his absurd Str lets him 2HKO with the hand axe. Even Alan and Lance struggle to match that Atk/AS combo when countering at range. Alan won't have 12 AS with a javelin until L19 (Gonzales + hand axe has 12 AS at L7-8), and Lance (even assuming +5 Atk support) won't have 24 Atk with a javelin until promotion (once again, Gonzales + hand axe has this at L7).

Keep in mind that one-rounding fighters is hard even for your top tier units, but Gonzales makes it look like child's play. For example, a dude with 39 Hp/5 Def. Lance w/ +4 Atk support and a steel sword won't 2HKO that until he's L18-19. Gonzales + steel axe 2HKOs it at base level, and he can 2HKO it with the iron axe after gaining just 2 levels, not to mention that killer axes are buyable in Ch 11 anyways.

I wouldn't call what he is doing child's play with his hit rates. It's more "please hit please hit". He starts with like 17 base hit, 82 with killer axe. And I'm not sure if we are letting Lot use one but there are only two until chapter 11 (Echidna). Or at least, I think there are two. Can only find one listed under item locations. Also, probably not getting to the shop in time for him to use extras much in that chapter. Anyway, steel axe is a pain because that drops him to 67 hit. I suppose he might kill some of them, but it's not as if I don't have to have units nearby just in case he misses anyway. But I would guess he might be doubling the steel ones. If he's doubling everything then maybe I'm just not remembering their speed well enough. It just seemed like he wasn't doubling too much. And even when he does I'd tend to have Fir or someone near by just so that if he missed once I could kill the thing anyway. Whenever he actually pulls off a kill I'm left with a unit not doing anything. Besides, if they are that slow then Fir with a killing edge doubles them anyway. What's her chance of criting if she has, say, 30% crit? 51%. And for Gonzo if they have 15 avo and he's using the steel? 50% * 2 is like 25%. As he can use killers it gets better. There are 60 uses of wo dao/killing edge before chapter 13. I'd think even using it on things with Rutger like the annoying mercs in chapter 5 and the bosses and some other things she'll still get some uses out of those things. It's not as if she doesn't pay us back with swordmaster crit after promotion and those things help us get her there.

Also, if she's basically guaranteed to bring the enemies down to striking distance for your other units, wouldn't that be better than two 50% hits? Apparently Lot is actually worth using early-on, at least according to more than just Colonel M. If there really is only one killer axe until chapter 11 then chances are Gonzo really is stuck with the steel axe. 50% twice means he still has over a 20% chance of missing both hits and then what do we do? I doubt Fir is even missing once. I just value some reliability, I guess. My balance between hoping for kills through crits or hits (depending on the unit) and reliable damage caused in the event of failure to hit/crit is different than yours, and judging from Gonzo's position my balance is different than many people.

Then you said Gonzales isn't helping us in Ch 13? How about doubling and OHKOing cavaliers with the halberd?

I was assuming massive training in the west on a peak. If you want him to actually help us, sure, but he's not leveling as fast. But sure, there are a few cavs that charge along the bridge. Helping on 5 of them is nice. But do you want to have Thany fly him back to the peaks in time for the turn 8 reinforcements?

Echidna's probably your only other axe user, and she can't match Gonzales here. Her Str isn't high enough to OHKO, and due to losing 6 AS from the halberd she's worse than Gonzales defensively, not to mention that since she needs to hit twice, her chance to kill is actually lower than his and she's burning through the weapon's uses twice as fast. L3 Echidna + halberd has 92.2% hit on a 27 Avo cavalier, and ~85% chance to hit twice. L12 Gonzales has only 66.79% hit, but he only needs to hit at least once out of two attacks, and his chance for that is ~89%. Defensively, they have similar Def and Avo (due to halberd's weight eating up Echidna's Avo), but Gonzales has considerably more Hp. Oh, and with the halberd, Gonzales is actually faster than Echidna at the given levels by 1-2 points, can't forget that (so Echidna might not even be doubling in the first place).

Yeah, he's better than Echidna there if you do that. Are we training him on the peaks or not? But that halberd strategy seems useful. He got like 3 or 4 levels on the peaks, though. I guess if he's being fielded nearly every chapter then he doesn't actually need short bursts of massive leveling to reach promotion at a reasonable time, though.

What can Fir do to match that in Ch 13? Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks to me like you're seriously underestimating Gonzales. Yes, his hit is bad, but he's also pro at 2HKOing in a game where that's very difficult to do, and he's got the speed to back it up. A unit that one-rounds with shitty hit still has better offense than a unit who hits but won't kill.

I'm still not sure I agree with that last statement. But then I forget how fast things are in chapter 13 and can't check. If he's really doubling enough from the beginning then he can be better than Fir (though later on she ORKOs with crits rather reliably and doesn't have his hit rates) but I still don't see that being better than Marcus. Early on your other units are frequently 3 or 4 RKOing combined. He's usually doing just enough with the iron sword or some other weapon for your other units to OHKO. Then he stops doubling in chapter 4 or 5 and isn't so hot, but still. Gonzo is still only sometimes doing that killing. On the axe users in the first chapter, for example, Marcus with an iron sword has really good hit rates. Maybe I just like safe and reliable. I know Fir is going to two round whatever. And at times you can give her the wo dao. Not always, but at times.

About your comparison of hit rates, though. If you are right about the 89%, that's an 11% chance of leaving us high and dry. Echidna at least comes with a 0.6% chance of doing that. When she fails to kill that 14% of the time, the enemy is likely OHKOd by most things. When Gonzo fails, we have to take out all its hit points again. The weapon use thing is a good point, though, considering more halberds aren't available until chapter 21 in the shops. 18 uses until then. Of course, the javelin ones might be countered by hand axes or javelins on enemy phase and may only need one hit. Though at that point if he doubles and she doesn't (12 attack speed with halberd, not sure what they have with javelin) then at least he gets two shots at it to her one, but that's still his 89% to her 92% and she's not taking a counter ~30% of the time. There are ways in which she can be perceived as better for this activity, though most of those ways revolve around reliability of (some) damage. You could even be using Roy to take potshots (though he'd need healing I guess, or to alternate turns between vulnerary and attacking) and then have Echidna finish. And how many of those cavs on the bridge use javelins, anyway? If he's doing a ton of enemy phase destroying then I could perceive him as much better than Echidna for this since she'll burn more uses of the halberd. If a lot of this might happen on player phase, maybe not so much. And if he is KOing 2 to 4 of them on enemy phase, I wonder what everyone else gets to do aside from run forward to the next group of enemies.

And do you disagree with Marcus > Gonzo > Echidna, at least on sacae?

[CATS]

At first he has 10 spd and a 50% growth. For a little even Marcus is faster than he is. It takes 6 levels for him to catch Zealot and Fir's base. I have no qualms about calling him quick at high levels. Eg: 20/5 is ~22 speed. Not bad. Heck, if you can get him there for chapter 17 he's doubling nomads. Then needs 23 soon after since more of them start having 19, but at first they have like 17 and 18. I think one even had 16. And he'll get to 23 at 20/~6.

But what level is Lance supposed to be for chapter 11? Even at level 13 he still has 13 speed. Gonzo has 10 or 11. It could easily be 10. 10.6 isn't reliably 11. Even give Lance a steel sword for the axe enemies and that's 12 speed.

Okay, so I think a lot of units are slow in this game. Like Allen. Though that's partly because of recent cursing of his speed by like 4 points.

Also I'm practically assuming that the chapter 11 wing is gift-wrapped to Dieck and so he's got 2 extra speed. Besides, level 15 Dieck has 13 speed already and that's even with iron blade. Better swords for better hit, though. Of course, iron blade has the same hit as Gonzo's best weapon and comes with WTA and Dieck's much better skill.

At first his speed is only average, probably a little below average, I agree. But that's just an indicator of how fast he is. He's like 8 levels lower than everyone else and still keeping pace with Alan (L13 Alan + steel sword is about the same Spd as Gonzo's base), and his base stats literally last for around 4 turns, since 2 kills is a level when he first joins. After he starts catching up, he's one of your faster units. L15 Dieck + iron blade has 22 Atk and 13 AS; L10 Gonzales + iron axe has 26 Atk and the same Spd, and that's Gonzo's weakest weapon, while Dieck can't get any more Atk without losing AS. In actuality, it'll be more like 29 Atk for Gonzo, since killer axe is buyable just 1-2 chapters after he joins; Dieck has to wait longer before he can upgrade to killer, and his Atk won't go up any even after he does. And that's with a 5 level gap; the gap will just keep closing, and Gonzales wins in both Str and Spd growth as well.

I wouldn't call what he is doing child's play with his hit rates. It's more "please hit please hit". He starts with like 17 base hit, 82 with killer axe. And I'm not sure if we are letting Lot use one but there are only two until chapter 11 (Echidna). Or at least, I think there are two. Can only find one listed under item locations. Also, probably not getting to the shop in time for him to use extras much in that chapter. Anyway, steel axe is a pain because that drops him to 67 hit. I suppose he might kill some of them, but it's not as if I don't have to have units nearby just in case he misses anyway. But I would guess he might be doubling the steel ones. If he's doubling everything then maybe I'm just not remembering their speed well enough. It just seemed like he wasn't doubling too much. And even when he does I'd tend to have Fir or someone near by just so that if he missed once I could kill the thing anyway. Whenever he actually pulls off a kill I'm left with a unit not doing anything. Besides, if they are that slow then Fir with a killing edge doubles them anyway. What's her chance of criting if she has, say, 30% crit? 51%. And for Gonzo if they have 15 avo and he's using the steel? 50% * 2 is like 25%. As he can use killers it gets better. There are 60 uses of wo dao/killing edge before chapter 13. I'd think even using it on things with Rutger like the annoying mercs in chapter 5 and the bosses and some other things she'll still get some uses out of those things. It's not as if she doesn't pay us back with swordmaster crit after promotion and those things help us get her there.

A ~50% chance to hit twice and kill is still a much, much higher chance to kill than 3-4HKOing with 100% hit. You talked about keeping units nearby in case Gonzales misses, but why is that some special provision you have to make for him? Like you're going to try and send Gonzales and Fir off alone, and Gonzales needs chaperones while Fir doesn't? I don't know about you, but I'm keeping all my units in one or two big groups, I'm gonna have other units near them either way. Besides, it's not like you don't need other units to finish off all those enemies Fir can't 2HKO. Atleast Gonzales won't need anyone to help him with his target 50% of the time (i.e. when he lands both of his hits); that's still better than Fir needing another unit's help to kill a fighter pretty much every time.

Killing edge is a very highly contested weapon. Roy, Dieck, Rutger, Echidna and Zealot all want to use it (also Marcus if he's still hanging around and thieves anytime that they're deployed, Ch 14 being the main example), and since there's so much competition for that, Rutger wants as much of the wo dao as he can get, too. The fact that Fir needs to use killer to imitate what Gonzales is doing with iron indicates which of them actually has the better offense.

Also, if she's basically guaranteed to bring the enemies down to striking distance for your other units, wouldn't that be better than two 50% hits? Apparently Lot is actually worth using early-on, at least according to more than just Colonel M. If there really is only one killer axe until chapter 11 then chances are Gonzo really is stuck with the steel axe. 50% twice means he still has over a 20% chance of missing both hits and then what do we do? I doubt Fir is even missing once. I just value some reliability, I guess. My balance between hoping for kills through crits or hits (depending on the unit) and reliable damage caused in the event of failure to hit/crit is different than yours, and judging from Gonzo's position my balance is different than many people.

Believe it or not, Gonzales also brings you reliable damage. Against a 17 Avo fighter, iron axe Gonzo has around ~95% odds to hit at least once, and his Atk is so massive that just one hit from him is almost always enough for another unit to finish the job. He's barely worse off than Fir in this respect, and then when it comes to actually killing things, he's much better. Gonzales isn't "stuck" with the steel axe, either. In most cases he only needs iron to 2HKO. He can use steel to 2HKO really tough things that are outside of anyone else's reach; with abysmal accuracy, sure, but an existent chance to kill, one that generally can't be matched by other units unless they start using rare weapons (such as the killer you brought up). If he's using steel, it's only because he can't 2HKO with iron, which means that no one else can 2HKO at all (it's pretty much a given that Gonzales will have the highest Atk on the team), so while his odds to kill are low in that situation, they're probably still higher than anyone else's (with a similar level of weaponry, of course).

Speaking of rare weapons, this is really just an advantage for Gonzales. You only get one killer axe prior to Ch 11, but there's also the Ch 8 silver axe and Ch 10 brave axe (and again, killer axe is buyable earlier than killing edge). There's much less competition for these weapons than there is for high-level swords. Gonzales is competing with a couple units who will probably get dropped by the lategame, if not sooner, and Echidna hates the brave axe anyways because it demolishes her speed. Meanwhile Fir is also competing with two units who probably gets dropped, plus a forced unit and 2 top tiers. Then there's the legendary weapons that come into play after everyone promotes and gets S Rank in their main weapon types. There's still 2 other units on the team with S Swords, but during the lategame, Gonzales may very well be the only unit who has an S in axes and is able to wield Armads.

I was assuming massive training in the west on a peak. If you want him to actually help us, sure, but he's not leveling as fast. But sure, there are a few cavs that charge along the bridge. Helping on 5 of them is nice. But do you want to have Thany fly him back to the peaks in time for the turn 8 reinforcements?

I can't imagine reinforcement-farming being done on an efficient run, but if it is, then alright. You can't hurt Gonzales's case with it--if it's better to "train" him like this so that he can kick ass later in the game, then we can conclude that the overall contributions of Ch 13 Training Gonzales are greater than those of Ch 13 Trying To Actually Help Gonzales (otherwise, you'd be doing the latter instead of the former). Thus, we can look at the contributions of C13TTAHG, and after seeing that this version of him is doing more than Fir, we can attach the statement "but this other way is an even better use of Gonzales, so he actually wins by even more than that."

About your comparison of hit rates, though. If you are right about the 89%, that's an 11% chance of leaving us high and dry. Echidna at least comes with a 0.6% chance of doing that. When she fails to kill that 14% of the time, the enemy is likely OHKOd by most things. When Gonzo fails, we have to take out all its hit points again. The weapon use thing is a good point, though, considering more halberds aren't available until chapter 21 in the shops. 18 uses until then. Of course, the javelin ones might be countered by hand axes or javelins on enemy phase and may only need one hit. Though at that point if he doubles and she doesn't (12 attack speed with halberd, not sure what they have with javelin) then at least he gets two shots at it to her one, but that's still his 89% to her 92% and she's not taking a counter ~30% of the time. There are ways in which she can be perceived as better for this activity, though most of those ways revolve around reliability of (some) damage. You could even be using Roy to take potshots (though he'd need healing I guess, or to alternate turns between vulnerary and attacking) and then have Echidna finish. And how many of those cavs on the bridge use javelins, anyway? If he's doing a ton of enemy phase destroying then I could perceive him as much better than Echidna for this since she'll burn more uses of the halberd. If a lot of this might happen on player phase, maybe not so much. And if he is KOing 2 to 4 of them on enemy phase, I wonder what everyone else gets to do aside from run forward to the next group of enemies.

Yeah, she's more likely to put damage down, but remember that it's still less likely for her to actually kill, and killing > doing damage. I think a 4% higher chance to kill isn't much if any worse than an 11% higher chance to do damage, and then Gonzales has all the other advantages I named: faster and therefore more likely to double, more durable, saves uses of the weapon, etc. As for situations where the enemy is already damaged, if that's the case, then just send Gonzales in with a more accurate weapon (killer axe), since he'll no longer need the halberd to finish the enemy off.

And do you disagree with Marcus > Gonzo > Echidna, at least on sacae?

Not at all. GreatEclipse said it best about Marcus: The team without Gonzales in Ch 21 still has a ton of other top-tier units on the field, while the team without Marcus in Ch 1 is screwed. Gonzales starts with more Hp/Def than Echidna and more Atk as well, and her advantage in Spd is quickly trivialized as the axes she needs to do decent damage will eat up a lot of that lead. I think you could viably argue Echidna > Gonzales, but I wouldn't disagree with the reverse.

[Narga_Rocks]

At first his speed is only average, probably a little below average, I agree. But that's just an indicator of how fast he is. He's like 8 levels lower than everyone else and still keeping pace with Alan (L13 Alan + steel sword is about the same Spd as Gonzo's base), and his base stats literally last for around 4 turns, since 2 kills is a level when he first joins. After he starts catching up, he's one of your faster units. L15 Dieck + iron blade has 22 Atk and 13 AS; L10 Gonzales + iron axe has 26 Atk and the same Spd, and that's Gonzo's weakest weapon, while Dieck can't get any more Atk without losing AS. In actuality, it'll be more like 29 Atk for Gonzo, since killer axe is buyable just 1-2 chapters after he joins; Dieck has to wait longer before he can upgrade to killer, and his Atk won't go up any even after he does. And that's with a 5 level gap; the gap will just keep closing, and Gonzales wins in both Str and Spd growth as well.

I like killer axes and yes, you can buy them in chapter 11 and he'll at least be able to wield them in chapter 12. Dieck is 20/1 for chapter 12x, though. Maybe I just use him more? 17 str, 16.5 spd, maybe 18.5 if you wing him. 43 hp and 13 def. Him and Rutger are the only two potential users of the silver sword you get in chapter 9. Nobody else but Rutger can use the silver sword until chapter 15, and at this point the extra unit (Percival) also comes with another. And you can buy some in chapter 17 s or 20 i (wow, so late in Ilia). 30 mt with 118 unsupported hit. Beat that Gonzo, though I admit that silver sword uses are limited. But it's not like steel sword Dieck isn't ORKOing a lot with 25 mt (26 with wta) anyway.

Now, for Gonzo v. Fir it obviously means nothing if Dieck is beating Gonzo (kicking his butt, really). For Marcus v. Gonzo it means the world, but you agree with Marcus > Gonzo anyway, it seems (I kinda figured you would, though).

(Oh, I see little reason for Rutger to use the silver sword after chapter 13 when killers give him such a massive crit after promotion. Especially with Clarine support. Him like that + Dieck with silver. Before then? Well, Dieck hits A first, or should anyway since they start with the same weapon level and Dieck has 2 or 3 extra chapters. Before chapter 13 and after Rutger hits A might be tougher to say, though. But both of them are above Gonzo anyway so either way...)

A ~50% chance to hit twice and kill is still a much, much higher chance to kill than 3-4HKOing with 100% hit.

And it has a much higher chance to do 0 damage than 3-4HKOing with 100% hit.

You talked about keeping units nearby in case Gonzales misses, but why is that some special provision you have to make for him?

It's for everyone, but it means he's no better.

Like you're going to try and send Gonzales and Fir off alone, and Gonzales needs chaperones while Fir doesn't? I don't know about you, but I'm keeping all my units in one or two big groups, I'm gonna have other units near them either way. Besides, it's not like you don't need other units to finish off all those enemies Fir can't 2HKO. Atleast Gonzales won't need anyone to help him with his target 50% of the time (i.e. when he lands both of his hits); that's still better than Fir needing another unit's help to kill a fighter pretty much every time.

But what are you doing with the unit that does nothing 25% of the time (Gonzo kills) and somehow needs to ORKO 25% of the time and only 50% of the time actually does what he'd do if I used Fir?

22/40 damage 100% of the time is better than 22/40 damage 50% of the time, dead 25% of the time, and 0/40 25% of the time. Also, as a note, unless they are both doing precisely 50% of the enemy's hp, you have a higher expected value of damage with Fir. 22. Gonzo has 22 x .5 + 40 x .25 = 21 damage. Okay, not a lot different, but still an interesting note. Oh, and Fir probably has some small amount of crit, like 1% or something. A little higher than 22 damage. From a gambler's perspective (going for the highest average over time) you should go with Fir.

Basically, some of the time I'm screwed. And when I'm blessed (he kills), nothing much is different than if I'd just used Fir because now I have an extra unit with nothing to do. Unless of course he'd rather have done something else had I used Fir, but then 75% of the time with Gonzo he's still split between two different things to do, and a third of that 75% he's worse off than with Fir.

Killing edge is a very highly contested weapon. Roy, Dieck, Rutger, Echidna and Zealot all want to use it (also Marcus if he's still hanging around and thieves anytime that they're deployed, Ch 14 being the main example), and since there's so much competition for that, Rutger wants as much of the wo dao as he can get, too. The fact that Fir needs to use killer to imitate what Gonzales is doing with iron indicates which of them actually has the better offense.

Echidna is there for 2 chapters or so before killing edge's are purchasable. Fir still has part of chapter 9, all of 10 and most of 11 before she shows up, and Gonzo has killer axes afterwards and Fir loses anyway.

Astohl is the only thief that is really eligible. Good luck getting Chad to C swords. Cath is recruited in chapter 12 anyway. No way is she getting to C before chapter 13 is over. Zealot I suppose, though I don't see why his use includes those. Echidna maybe, though she gets killer axes too. Chapter 12's axe users I suppose if you use her she'd want a killer sword, too. Of course, there isn't much difference between Fir and Echidna when both aren't 2HKOing and need crits. I suppose hand axes on the ranged users in the walls, but seriously, hand axes? Roy may not have C this quick. He's mostly using Rapier to lead off cavs or something. He's not doing any doubling except soldiers and armors, probably. Except he's not that great on them. I suppose you could get him to C, but I don't think he's any better with them than Fir. Her competition might as well be Rutger and Dieck, with Echidna in chapter 12. Killer axe has more hit and 4 more mt against lance users in, say, chapter 13. I'm not attempting to send Fir to chapter 12x anyway, so it's basically chapter 12 where Echidna is meaningful competition.

Believe it or not, Gonzales also brings you reliable damage. Against a 17 Avo fighter, iron axe Gonzo has around ~95% odds to hit at least once, and his Atk is so massive that just one hit from him is almost always enough for another unit to finish the job. He's barely worse off than Fir in this respect, and then when it comes to actually killing things, he's much better.

Well, you could just hand him an iron. But then there is no steel killing. You said earlier he needs one or two points of str before he can 2HKO with iron. I was looking at chapter 11. However, since a lot of units can easily do ~60% damage, if he's doing more than 40% and under 50% in one hit then that plus the 80 to 99% damage he does in two hits sometimes pays off, I guess. Only like 4% of having Gonzo do nothing. Not as bad considering the other 96% of the time they aren't worse off than with Fir, and 64% of the time (if you are going with 80% true per hit) the other unit is much much better off. Doesn't have to take a counter but still gets the exp of a kill and wexp. Win win, really, since there isn't a time in which the unit may have no job.

Gonzales isn't "stuck" with the steel axe, either. In most cases he only needs iron to 2HKO. He can use steel to 2HKO really tough things that are outside of anyone else's reach; with abysmal accuracy, sure, but an existent chance to kill, one that generally can't be matched by other units unless they start using rare weapons (such as the killer you brought up). If he's using steel, it's only because he can't 2HKO with iron, which means that no one else can 2HKO at all (it's pretty much a given that Gonzales will have the highest Atk on the team), so while his odds to kill are low in that situation, they're probably still higher than anyone else's (with a similar level of weaponry, of course).

I wouldn't think that it's ever better to use steel, though. Just iron. If he's 3HKOing with iron, probably better. I can accept that 96% to do at least 45% damage with a 64% chance to do 90% is probably better than a 100% chance to do between 50% and 60%. Plenty of units can do 60%+ in two hits, and some of the time they'll be spared the counter due to Gonzo hitting twice. Were you going with 53 and 68 listed hit for steel and iron? That seems to be what you need for ~4% chance of double-miss with iron.

Of course, she wins on iron axe fighters.

And then after chapter 11 he has killers and she's toast until the end of chapter 13, I think. At least, as long as he is generally causing as much damage in one hit as she is in two and he's doubling with killer's crit boost and non-sucky accuracy. Though with crit another unit may twiddle it's thumbs, that's not nearly as bad as having to KO a full hp unit if it can't. And there are times to use multiple dice rolling units in the hopes that some of them will kill their targets and so if Gonzo crits another unit may not and thus if there is 1 extra unit it probably won't be twiddling thumbs. And if Gonzo doesn't crit then hopefully some other unit does and the extra unit doesn't have 2 jobs. Not sure how early that starts being a reliable strategy since early on you'd have failures more often than not and killer weapons are a tad limited. Also it's important that units will live in the event of a crit-failure and a unit or two with two jobs each. Durability rises as the game goes on. But still, if the strategy isn't safe and a unit twiddles thumbs in the event of a Gonzo crit that's again better than the steel axe situation where a unit must ORKO something it can't sometimes.

Speaking of rare weapons, this is really just an advantage for Gonzales. You only get one killer axe prior to Ch 11, but there's also the Ch 8 silver axe and Ch 10 brave axe (and again, killer axe is buyable earlier than killing edge). There's much less competition for these weapons than there is for high-level swords. Gonzales is competing with a couple units who will probably get dropped by the lategame, if not sooner, and Echidna hates the brave axe anyways because it demolishes her speed. Meanwhile Fir is also competing with two units who probably gets dropped, plus a forced unit and 2 top tiers. Then there's the legendary weapons that come into play after everyone promotes and gets S Rank in their main weapon types. There's still 2 other units on the team with S Swords, but during the lategame, Gonzales may very well be the only unit who has an S in axes and is able to wield Armads.

silver axe still only has 55 hit and he still needs to hit A rank, first. As for s rank, Fir still pulls a 3HKO with wyrmslayers. Decent crit. It's not a total loss. Though really I don't quite see the need for Gonzo or Fir in chapter 24. Gonzo because of his hit and move and Fir because of her move and Dieck or Rutger. Well, mostly Dieck. He may actually hit 16 luck, or can more easily with an icon. Clarine can't always be next to Rutger to save his crit evade. Actually, Fir may be better than them both due to massive luck. Even if Dieck had 60 hp and 20 def he'd still be 3HKOd. And you know they aren't approaching 150 avo to make the things miss all the time. But then, Fir takes a long time to reach 3HKOd without a robe. They can do it much sooner. If keeping supports nearby (and thus using Thany and sending her first for Dieck and sending Clarine first for Rutger, maybe Dieck if they supported) isn't a problem then I suppose Fir has no advantage. But then Gonzo still lacks the ability to OHKO and needs someone to start off an enemy to prevent a counter and still has bad hit. 20/14 he at least has 16 luck.

I can't imagine reinforcement-farming being done on an efficient run, but if it is, then alright. You can't hurt Gonzales's case with it--if it's better to "train" him like this so that he can kick ass later in the game, then we can conclude that the overall contributions of Ch 13 Training Gonzales are greater than those of Ch 13 Trying To Actually Help Gonzales (otherwise, you'd be doing the latter instead of the former). Thus, we can look at the contributions of C13TTAHG, and after seeing that this version of him is doing more than Fir, we can attach the statement "but this other way is an even better use of Gonzales, so he actually wins by even more than that."

I wouldn't call it farming. They appear on turn 6, though. Dondon 11 turned chapter 13. so did Colonel M. It's not a lot of farming, so maybe not all that many levels. Also, you can include the ones at the beginning if you want. The peak still exists and if you want Thany could air-drop him or you could pull something with Lalum. If you mostly go along the bottom, it doesn't really matter how long it takes to get to the village. But then he's not helping on the bridge anyway.

But it sounds like helping on the bridge is superior for efficiency so you should probably just do it.

I take issue with the "winning even more", though. Better for Gonzales is not necessarily better for us. If he needs it to get more exp than he would along the bridge, doing it may be better for him but it doesn't mean he's helping us more. I suppose to make him do better in the comparison with Fir that you should send him along the bridge, but then that would need to be taken into account for his levels. I have no idea how much Colonel M got for him, but he must have decided he'd be better off training Gonzo for the future than having him help out. Now, your "this other way is an even better use of Gonzales" is only because of higher levels for later and not needing him now. But if that is true, then the superiority of the method comes from his higher levels and should thus be reflected in his comparisons to Fir and any other lower units later on in the game. It does not mean you can double count it and say he wins in chapter 13, too. If he can't win with those higher levels, then yes he'd probably want to take his shot at the bridge and accept the potentially lower levels.

For the record, it seems Colonel M took Gonzo from 11.75 to 16.32 in 11 turns of chapter 13 alone, so it seems that even with a decent number of turns (better than mine, anyway) you can still get him a load of levels. 4+ to be imprecise. That's not bad. Not sure what he'd get on the bridge, but he also competes for exp there. If nothing else, though, my point is that Gonzo would have to choose which way to go based on how he can win. But if he chooses the training method then the idea is that he gets no credit for chapter 13 (or limited credit, anyway) and must then win based on later differences in stats and abilities. Or if he can't, then see what lower levels but being helpful in chapter 13 does for the equation.

I suppose in a manner of speaking your statement might work, I just take issue with the seeming implication that he actually wins chapter 13 by even more due to the method.

Yeah, she's more likely to put damage down, but remember that it's still less likely for her to actually kill, and killing > doing damage.

Only depending on the percents. I think you'd agree that a 4% chance to kill with a 96% chance of no damage is vastly inferior to a 100% chance to 2RKO (unless perhaps every single other unit is OHKOing. That's OHKOing, not ORKOing. Another unit 2RKOing everything else 100% of the time still lets other units avoid counters. I suppose everyone else ORKOing while being 100RKOd in return makes them not care about counters, though. I suppose then if somehow your only two choices for an extra unit are Mr. 4% and Mrs. 2RKO then you'd maybe choose Mr. 4%).

Against Fir in the other situation, Gonzo with an iron axe can win this comparison (easily, it seems, when he doubles). In my opinion, Gonzo with a steel axe cannot.

Just stating a principle, though, because Echidna v Gonzo is obviously closer than Fir v. steel axe Gonzo and E v G is what this part is about..

I think a 4% higher chance to kill isn't much if any worse than an 11% higher chance to do damage, and then Gonzales has all the other advantages I named: faster and therefore more likely to double, more durable, saves uses of the weapon, etc. As for situations where the enemy is already damaged, if that's the case, then just send Gonzales in with a more accurate weapon (killer axe), since he'll no longer need the halberd to finish the enemy off.

What level is he in chapter 13? Well, I guess he has time to hit level 11 or something and have 13+ spd to her 12 with Halberd. But sending him in with a more accurate weapon that 2HKOs means that Gonzales has only like a 25% chance to avoid a counter via killer axe crit. Well, more or less depending on enemy luck. I went with a 10 skill Gonzo vs. 10 luck enemy, though that may be wrong. Anyway, point is she is much much more likely to not take a counter. But then she burns a halberd use. Could be a win for Gonzo, especially since you can just heal him after I suppose. If it's damaged enough, though, she can use a killer axe with 16 speed and 2HKO as well, and still have better hit and a slightly higher chance to OHKO and not take a counter. Oh, and better avo in the event of no crit on swing one. There's definitely a range in which he doesn't OHKO and she doesn't 3HKO. Until promotion he can't beat her by more than 8 mt, so for an enemy with 40 hp and 10 def, he'd OHKO with 32 mt if it has 22 or less hp. At base she'd have 24 mt (25 with wta like I gave him) and 2HKO for up to and including 30 hp. From 23 to 30 she wins. Just an example since I don't recall the cavs' hp/def. Enemies with 30/8 means that she 2HKOs with killer anyway and he still doesn't OHKO. Oh, and he still needs to either crit or hit twice depending on just how damaged the enemy is.

Basically, there are six ranges of damage to consider

1. They both OHKO with killer

2. He OHKOs with killer and she 2HKOs

3. He 2HKOs with killer and she 2HKOs

4. He 2HKOs with killer and she 3HKOs and OHKOs with halberd (and thus uses halberd. This stage may not exist if two hits with killers does more than one halberd hit)

5. He 2HKOs with killer/OHKOs with halberd and she 2HKOs with halberd

6. He 3HKOs with killer/OHKOs with halberd and she 2HKOs with halberd

It seems to me she wins stage 1, 3, and arguably 4. He wins stage 2, 5, 6, and arguably 4.

How many of these are likely to exist? Oh, if you don't care much about halberd use I think she actually wins stage 4 even if she doesn't double. In fact, I'm pretty sure she does. The arguable part is because you probably care a bit.

As for stage 5, do we care enough about his durability to use the halberd instead of the killer? He's already beating her since she will take a counter. But he can avoid one all together or he can take a smaller chance to KO but not burn a use of halberd.

And does stage 6 even exist in chapter 13?

Back to Gonzo v Fir:

What about after they both promote and Fir is pulling out killers on just about everything and even 2HKOing many unpromoted units with silvers? At that point, she's got a better damage rate and a better kill rate than Gonzo. Well, depends on what they attack, I suppose. There are some things he 2HKOs with killers and is only relying on hitting twice. Even then, an 80 listed means 92.2 true and 85% to kill. Fir with 70% crit has a 91% chance to kill. Well, Gonzo has killers and berserker crit too, so he's pulling close to hers I would think since if he's 2HKOing then obviously a crit will do it, too. That probably puts him ever so slightly over her, though she's still doing better in her own ways (better chance to OHKO, better avo in the event of not OHKOing, doubles more things, stuff like that). And he's under 65 listed on Nomads anyway, and while she may not be at 100%, she's really close. 22 skill and 15 luck means 51 or 52 base hit and 80 hit killers mean without supports she's already at like 85% or something. And she's 2HKOing Nomads with killers anyway. 26 mt at or soon after promotion. ~36 hp and ~8 def. Need 44 to OHKO anyway and Gonzo won't get that with killers for a while. Brave only has 30 uses and 55 hit. Gonzo has less than 60 listed with killers already. Echidna won't double, Gonzo might. 20/1 Fir has 22 speed and gets 18 spd Nomads. 20/3 Gonzo has 21 spd. Fir has a slightly better growth and leveling speed. Of course, to wield killers she drops to his spd, but if he isn't doubling then she could even wield iron and out-damage him. Her swordmaster crit + shin support won't get her up to his crit with killer, but considering she has two shots at it she'll still have a better kill rate and she'll obviously have a better damage rate given her two hits cause more damage than his one and she'd have a better chance of hitting twice than he does hitting once.

Now, whenever there are wyverns he's got a different job than she does, but there are far more myrms/nomads/nomad troopers than there are wyverns. 20/5 Fir should be able to double most Nomad Troopers with iron and 4HKO or better. There are a surprising lack of ones that proc 21 or 22. Oh, and 20/8 Fir has a pretty good shot at 26 speed. 20/10 Gonzo has 24.6. Less good but still decent shot at 25 compared to her 26.

Not at all. GreatEclipse said it best about Marcus: The team without Gonzales in Ch 21 still has a ton of other top-tier units on the field, while the team without Marcus in Ch 1 is screwed. Gonzales starts with more Hp/Def than Echidna and more Atk as well, and her advantage in Spd is quickly trivialized as the axes she needs to do decent damage will eat up a lot of that lead. I think you could viably argue Echidna > Gonzales, but I wouldn't disagree with the reverse.

Gonzo is already above Echidna.

I don't think much of Echidna, either, obviously. Almost as soon as Fir promotes she's winning. Even accounting for the existence of hand axes. Doesn't help that silver axes have 20 less hit than swords and it takes longer for Echidna to A swords. Good luck Echidna doubling anything of meaning in sacae. And so for half of Echidna's existence Fir is beating her, some of which is a god-stomp. And 12x and 14 are out for both, really. 12, 13, 14x, 15, 16, and then Fir is promoted. Last bit of 11 when there isn't much left to actually do. And some of that is even debatable. I'll admit there is something to be said for being good out of the box, but how good is Echidna and how worth it is using her? If she is not a full game unit then it is utility, but apparently it took forever to get Marcus into high tier and he is more crutch for his 5 chapters anyway. Kinda why I ask about if she's utility or not. If she is utility, then Marcus > Echidna should be obvious. If she's not utility, then the fact a promoted Fir beats her for a lot of the time should also be a problem for her in high tier and Fir in upper mid. Not that Fir should be high at all. I don't think that. Fir is likely not a tier up on Lot simply because of his early game and being okay along the way, especially with Dieck and Thany being reasonable (and reasonably good) supports. Anima x Thunder at B level is +1 mt, +2 def, +5 crit, +10 avo, +10 cev. Anima x Wind at B is +2 mt, +1 def, +5 crit, +5 accuracy, +5 avo, +10 cev. That's pretty cool for Lot, and Thany too. Even Dieck probably likes his avo and def from Lot. In many ways after promotion I vote Fir, but before? Chapter 2 to 16 is a long time. Personally, even though I seem to like Fir I can certainly buy Lot > Fir due largely to supports and early game availability. Fir has decent supports too, though. Especially if she goes to sacae.

If Echidna is stricly utility, then it becomes like dancers and thieves and healers and Marcus. How much is it worth? Probably not same tier as Marcus, though. No way is she as important or good relative to other units during her utility stage as he is in his.

[Colonel M]

I think you're overestimating Gonzales's Hit issues. Like I told you before: this game will rarely show you units that have 100% Accuracy period. He also has a good chance of starting with 11 Spd (which mine did), hell he even came with +1 Str just to taunt me to use him. Let's say 6 Fir, to be nice, against base Gonzales:

Gonzales - 24 Atk, 10.6 AS

Fir (Steel Sword) - 19 Atk, 11 AS

As you can see, Fir with Steel Sword has about the same amount of AS as Gonzales does with base Iron. Not to mention that Killer Axe brings his Atk to 27, with no competition (aside from Lot but seriously who uses Lot at this point?) for the weapon either. Even factoring the Iron Sword, just for AS, Fir has a whopping 16 Atk. We'll roll with these guys having 5 Def. Gonzales's one hit does 19 damage with Iron, which can draw a Fighter down to half health. Killer can do 22 damage, which is guaranteed to put the Fighter at half health. This is considering that he is missing one of the two swings. Gonzales has a better time attempting to kill a Fighter at ~half health due to the possibility of not taking a counterattack whatsoever. Granted that Fir can dodge it better than Gonzales, but Gonzales can see 3HKOes on the occasion. There's also the Hand Axe, which usually sees ~50 Hit Rates, IIRC. So he has a chance to counterattack the Hand Axe Fighters as well.

Now I'm not saying Gonzales is excellent in Chapter 11, but look at Chapter 12. He's likely hitting around the 50% Hit ratios (maybe a little lower), but he's perfectly capable of counterattacking the units behind the walls. He can also pull out the Hammer and freaking OHKO with it (his brute Str allows him to do shit like that). Gonzales has 44 Atk with the Hammer (17 Str + 27 Mt) while the Armor Knights can have 31 HP | 14 Def, but keep in mind that it's also possible that the HP or Def could go down or up, so the possibility of being able to OHKO the Armor Knight is still within reach. Fir does really crappy against the Fighter too, just saying. This guy has 12 Def | 12 Base Spd. He likely pulls out the Hand Axe, so you're sitting at him with 12 AS. Fir can only double it with the Iron Sword, which is doing piss poor damage (maybe 10 damage per round). Gonzales's one strike with the Killer Axe, assuming he proc'd Str, can do 16 damage. What's really sad is that the Warrior could be OHKOed if the Warrior takes 4 damage prior to Gonzales's arrival. He can have 55 Displayed, 59.95% True. Now I'm not saying Gonzales is the best candidate to take on the Warrior, but merely stating that he can help damage it even if he makes a whiff.

Chapter 13 he's likely whiffing the Mages, but he's doubling everything else for the most part. Assuming that he has about Level 8, this safely doubles the Steel Lance Cavaliers. With the Killer Axe alone he can ORKO the Cavaliers with about 71% Displayed, 83.47% True. Compare that to Steel Sword Fir who does about 16 damage per round, which can result in a 3RKO, and gets 2HKOed at Hit rates showing 56% Displayed, 61.72%. Chance of Death is about 38% in two Hits. 38% in two hits... Gonzales doesn't face that issue with a rare exception: the Mages who attack him on the Peaks. I was seeing about 22% Displayed from the Elfire Mage, which is about the same as 9.90% True. Granted that while Peak'ing Gonzales should carry an Elixer, but for the most part Gonzales is equipping the Hand Axe just fine. He can swap to the Killer Axe if he wants a desperate KO.

I guess I'm one of the few that see few problems with shaky Hit ratios. I guess it's because I sort of accept it in this game. Within other games, like FEDS, I wouldn't so much, but here it just seems natural to miss anyway. Gonzales 2HKOing while having the occasion to miss is duly noted, but when you're 2HKOing anyway backed by a good chance to kill the Enemy, you have to admit that's nothing to really ignore.

As for Echinda, I don't know. Echinda wins in 12-16, which is 7 chapters. Though this is also denying that:

- She could get a Body Ring for her Axe problem, which leaves her the same AS level with Killer Axe.

- A Speedwing, possibly, after gaining Levels.

It's likely possible to get Echinda to ~Level 7 or 8 if we used her seriously. She can even take a bosskill from time to time (for example, if we were stingy with the Durandal, so long as the enemy is chipped a little. She shouldn't die to Ain hit either, just in case). She will still fail to double at 2 Range, but she can at least rush up and one range the enemies and double as well. With the Killing Edge 7 Echinda (we'll assume the Spd proc'd) has 80% Displayed, 92.20% True. It's not like she will miss all the time. Now granted this means that we're using Echinda a lot more, but this is far from a problem since she can reliably ORKO the Brigands in Chapter 12X with a Steel Blade, counterattack in Chapter 12 with a Hand Axe, Chapter 13 whip out the Killer Axe, and even arguably optimal deployment in Chapter 14 (Killer Axe Crit puts Wyvern Lords down near the Wyrmslayer KO range). She does far from terrible in 14X, then in Chapter 15, assuming she proc'd one Spd point and has the Body Ring intact, she can possibly double the Mercenaries with 16 Spd (they have Steel Swords), so there's pulling out the Killing Edge for the ORKO (she doesn't need the ring, but just assuming it). In Chapter 16, without the Body Ring, she can double with the Hand Axe on the Mages. With it, it's guaranteed (I'm pretty sure the Mages can have 13 Spd). She can also pull out the Hammer against the Armor Knight and, while she can't OHKO and her Avoid goes down a bit, she can show 81% Displayed, 92.97% True. If you're asking if she reliably ORKOes, she has 27 Mt + 14 Str = 41 Atk. Armor Knights have 37 HP | 16 Def. It reliably KOes. I'll be generous and assume Fir is Level 20 here. She has 34 Atk with the Armorslayer. She can fail to ORKO the Armor Knights. Echinda needs more favoritism for Sacae than she does for Ilia, but she can function there. She also still retains the Wyrmslayer (granted so does Fir), so she can still combat Wyverns by critting them with the Killer Axe on the Enemy Phase. Echinda's durability also falters at that point:

8 Echinda - 40.25 HP | 9.05 Def

20/1 Fir - 42.85 HP | 10.05 Def

Fir also edges out with the Avoid lead thanks to her Luck stat.

It's possible that "Echinda down", for Sacae, is arguable, but remember this is 4 chapters. Look back at Bern too, in Chapter 21:

http://fe.dead-end.biz/fe6hmch21.html

Echinda's 20 Spd (or 22 if we gave her the Speedwing) doubles just about everything on the map here. With the Killer Axe, she can pull a marginal Avoid (57 to something like 10 Fir's 63). I don't really want to speak about lategame until I get there though, so I'll pass on that at the moment.

---

Now if you were getting at Marcus > whoever, why didn't you just say this? <_<

Edited April 13, 2010 by Colonel M

[-Cynthia-]

I don't think that other units having less than perfect hit really justifies Gonzales' hit issues in the least. Sure, Alan only having 80 display isn't super fantastic, but it's still 92.20 % true, pretty reliable. If Gonzales has 60 display, that's only 68.40% true, which is not so great (and Gonzales gets these hit rates against lances, WTN enemies are closer to 50 unless they're super slow and lolol swords).

Echidna can't have S swords by C12.

Edited April 13, 2010 by -Cynthia-

[Colonel M]

I don't think that other units having less than perfect hit really justifies Gonzales' hit issues in the least. Sure, Alan only having 80 display isn't super fantastic, but it's still 92.20 % true, pretty reliable. If Gonzales has 60 display, that's only 68.40% true, which is not so great (and Gonzales gets these hit rates against lances, WTN enemies are closer to 50 unless they're super slow and lolol swords).

Alan can also have trouble 2HKOing units such as the Cavaliers without the aid of the Horseslayer. Then you have someone like Gonzales with the Halberd who has ~86% Chance of killing the Cavalier right then and there. You're also not using Gonzales against Sword enemies.

Echidna can't have S swords by C12.

Wyrmslayer is C Rank. She starts with C Swords.

[CATS]

I like killer axes and yes, you can buy them in chapter 11 and he'll at least be able to wield them in chapter 12. Dieck is 20/1 for chapter 12x, though. Maybe I just use him more? 17 str, 16.5 spd, maybe 18.5 if you wing him. 43 hp and 13 def. Him and Rutger are the only two potential users of the silver sword you get in chapter 9. Nobody else but Rutger can use the silver sword until chapter 15, and at this point the extra unit (Percival) also comes with another. And you can buy some in chapter 17 s or 20 i (wow, so late in Ilia). 30 mt with 118 unsupported hit. Beat that Gonzo, though I admit that silver sword uses are limited. But it's not like steel sword Dieck isn't ORKOing a lot with 25 mt (26 with wta) anyway.

If you slap a promo item on Dieck, you can do the same for Gonzales. 20/1 Dieck has 17 Str/16.5 Spd and 43.5 Hp/13 Def--for comparison, Gonzales at just 11/1 has 21.6 Str/15.6 Spd and 52 Hp/11.3 Def. Dieck wins in base hit by less than you'd expect due to Gonzo's +5 Skl promo gain (about 12 points to be exact), whereas Gonzales wins in base crit by 27 points, over twice as large Dieck's win in base hit. Even factoring in the extra hit from swords, Dieck's hit lead is only equal to Gonzales's crit lead. Killing edge is 15 more hit than killer axe, for 27 more hit overall (vs 27 more crit on Gonzales), and Dieck's Atk loss is exaggerated in exchange for that accuracy (with both using killer, Gonzales wins in Atk by 6-7 points, translating to 12-14 more damage on a double).

And that's all with a 9 level lead for Dieck.

And it has a much higher chance to do 0 damage than 3-4HKOing with 100% hit.

No, it doesn't. Again, Gonzales needs to hit twice to kill; he doesn't need to hit twice in order to do damage. Again, iron or killer axe vs 17 Avo enemy = roughly 95% chance to hit at least once. That's not a "much higher" chance to do 0 damage. A ~60% chance to hit twice, however, is indeed a much higher chance to kill than whatever Fir's pulling.

22/40 damage 100% of the time is better than 22/40 damage 50% of the time, dead 25% of the time, and 0/40 25% of the time. Also, as a note, unless they are both doing precisely 50% of the enemy's hp, you have a higher expected value of damage with Fir. 22. Gonzo has 22 x .5 + 40 x .25 = 21 damage. Okay, not a lot different, but still an interesting note. Oh, and Fir probably has some small amount of crit, like 1% or something. A little higher than 22 damage. From a gambler's perspective (going for the highest average over time) you should go with Fir.

Basically, some of the time I'm screwed. And when I'm blessed (he kills), nothing much is different than if I'd just used Fir because now I have an extra unit with nothing to do. Unless of course he'd rather have done something else had I used Fir, but then 75% of the time with Gonzo he's still split between two different things to do, and a third of that 75% he's worse off than with Fir.

You could make that argument based on those values, but those values are an exaggeration of Gonzales's hit issues. Even at his base level with the steel axe, against a 17 Avo enemy, he's got 51% displayed (52.47% real), which already tips the scales more towards hitting twice than missing twice (as opposed to your example where both are equally likely). This looks like it's pretty close to what you posed, and it is, but keep in mind that this is Gonzo's accuracy at its rock-bottom worst that it'll ever be. From here it only goes up, and it goes up really fast, since Gonzales very quickly gains access to killer (same Mt as steel with 15 more hit) and very quickly gains the Str necessary to 2HKO with iron. Again, a 17 Str Gonzales can already 2HKO a significant portion of Ch 11's fighters with the iron axe, and when that happens, it's more like 60% to hit twice vs 5% to miss twice. By Ch 12, a Gonzales with 18 Str can 2HKO pretty much every fighter on the map with iron, and by now he should be using killer anyways.

Astohl is the only thief that is really eligible. Good luck getting Chad to C swords. Cath is recruited in chapter 12 anyway. No way is she getting to C before chapter 13 is over. Zealot I suppose, though I don't see why his use includes those. Echidna maybe, though she gets killer axes too. Chapter 12's axe users I suppose if you use her she'd want a killer sword, too. Of course, there isn't much difference between Fir and Echidna when both aren't 2HKOing and need crits. I suppose hand axes on the ranged users in the walls, but seriously, hand axes? Roy may not have C this quick. He's mostly using Rapier to lead off cavs or something. He's not doing any doubling except soldiers and armors, probably. Except he's not that great on them. I suppose you could get him to C, but I don't think he's any better with them than Fir. Her competition might as well be Rutger and Dieck, with Echidna in chapter 12. Killer axe has more hit and 4 more mt against lance users in, say, chapter 13. I'm not attempting to send Fir to chapter 12x anyway, so it's basically chapter 12 where Echidna is meaningful competition.

Roy may not have C swords--he can't get 50 hits in during the first 9-10 chapters? That's only about 5 hits per chapter, and when you factor in that fatal hits give double WExp, it's less than that. Zealot's use includes killing edges from the same reason that Dieck/Rutger's use includes them; there's a lot of things he can't 2HKO and the killing edge gives him the highest odds of a critkill (higher than those of the killer lance or killer axe, since it's more accurate, especially during the Isles with all those axe enemies). I also don't agree that Echidna has no use for a killing edge during Ch 13. There's mages, archers, troubadours, mercs and a hero on the map, against all of which the KE is more accurate than the killer axe, and there's also a few axereaver cavaliers on the map. I don't think "Her competition might as well be Rutger and Dieck" is an accurate statement.

I wouldn't think that it's ever better to use steel, though. Just iron. If he's 3HKOing with iron, probably better. I can accept that 96% to do at least 45% damage with a 64% chance to do 90% is probably better than a 100% chance to do between 50% and 60%. Plenty of units can do 60%+ in two hits, and some of the time they'll be spared the counter due to Gonzo hitting twice. Were you going with 53 and 68 listed hit for steel and iron? That seems to be what you need for ~4% chance of double-miss with iron.

Steel's just an option for the stuff he can't 2HKO with iron when he first joins; it gives a lower chance to do damage, and a higher chance to kill, which is situationally useful. And yeah, 53/68 is pretty close to what he'll have on steel axe fighters.

Of course, she wins on iron axe fighters.

This is true, but those are the minority by a large margin. Ch 11 has 9 fighters with steel axes (actually one has a halberd, but it's the same weight) and only 1 with iron. Ch 12 has 7 fighters with steel axes and one dude with a killer axe.

silver axe still only has 55 hit and he still needs to hit A rank, first. As for s rank, Fir still pulls a 3HKO with wyrmslayers. Decent crit. It's not a total loss. Though really I don't quite see the need for Gonzo or Fir in chapter 24. Gonzo because of his hit and move and Fir because of her move and Dieck or Rutger. Well, mostly Dieck. He may actually hit 16 luck, or can more easily with an icon. Clarine can't always be next to Rutger to save his crit evade. Actually, Fir may be better than them both due to massive luck. Even if Dieck had 60 hp and 20 def he'd still be 3HKOd. And you know they aren't approaching 150 avo to make the things miss all the time. But then, Fir takes a long time to reach 3HKOd without a robe. They can do it much sooner. If keeping supports nearby (and thus using Thany and sending her first for Dieck and sending Clarine first for Rutger, maybe Dieck if they supported) isn't a problem then I suppose Fir has no advantage. But then Gonzo still lacks the ability to OHKO and needs someone to start off an enemy to prevent a counter and still has bad hit. 20/14 he at least has 16 luck.

If Gonzales isn't worth using in Ch 24, that just means he can use Armads to nuke things elsewhere in the game, since once again, it's not like you have any other candidates for it.

I take issue with the "winning even more", though. Better for Gonzales is not necessarily better for us. If he needs it to get more exp than he would along the bridge, doing it may be better for him but it doesn't mean he's helping us more.

Meh, it just depends on whether it's better to train Gonzales in Ch 13 or try to actually save turns with him, which is tough to figure out. It's hard to measure how many turns he can save you in Ch 13 vs how many would be saved later by using Ch 13 to train him up.

What level is he in chapter 13? Well, I guess he has time to hit level 11 or something and have 13+ spd to her 12 with Halberd. But sending him in with a more accurate weapon that 2HKOs means that Gonzales has only like a 25% chance to avoid a counter via killer axe crit. Well, more or less depending on enemy luck. I went with a 10 skill Gonzo vs. 10 luck enemy, though that may be wrong. Anyway, point is she is much much more likely to not take a counter. But then she burns a halberd use. Could be a win for Gonzo, especially since you can just heal him after I suppose. If it's damaged enough, though, she can use a killer axe with 16 speed and 2HKO as well, and still have better hit and a slightly higher chance to OHKO and not take a counter. Oh, and better avo in the event of no crit on swing one. There's definitely a range in which he doesn't OHKO and she doesn't 3HKO. Until promotion he can't beat her by more than 8 mt, so for an enemy with 40 hp and 10 def, he'd OHKO with 32 mt if it has 22 or less hp. At base she'd have 24 mt (25 with wta like I gave him) and 2HKO for up to and including 30 hp. From 23 to 30 she wins. Just an example since I don't recall the cavs' hp/def. Enemies with 30/8 means that she 2HKOs with killer anyway and he still doesn't OHKO. Oh, and he still needs to either crit or hit twice depending on just how damaged the enemy is.

Yeah, Echidna's less likely to take a counter against a damaged enemy, but Gonzales is much less likely to take one against a full-Hp cavalier, which is really where you'd be applying the halberd anyways. A lot of units can 2RKO these enemies, why are you injuring them first and then using the halberd to finish them, when it can ORKO without any prior damage?. It seems like a waste of such a limited and powerful weapon, not to mention that it's just inefficient to use two units to do what could be done with one.

What about after they both promote and Fir is pulling out killers on just about everything and even 2HKOing many unpromoted units with silvers?

Don't have exact samples to look at for Sacae, but Gonzales can start OHKOing nomads with the silver axe, which is actually buyable early in Sacae. Around 25 Str is enough to start pulling out OHKOs on nomads, and Gonzales can get this at around the levels you mentioned (20/5--20/8). Doubling and OHKOing against a 40 Avo enemy should be around ~80% odds for a kill. Worse than Fir, but by a much lesser margin than he was beating Fir back during the midgame, and it's against an enemy type that's very favorable to Fir (high Avo enemies make the accuracy gap more relevant). After you get out of Sacae, the first thing you face is Ch 21, where Gonzales is one of your best attackers on the wyvern hordes (especially considering he can camp on peaks for infinite durability).

It's also worth noting that Gonzales can counter nomads while Fir can't, and his counter isn't as shitty as you'd expect. Yeah, garbage accuracy, but he can double, which alot of people can't do. Dieck needs to be 20/20 to hit 22 AS, Alan needs to be 20/14 for 22 AS, Lance and Miledy both need to be 20/7; Gonzales gets this value at 20/5. Gonzales also has +30 crit on his ranged counter, which none of these units can imitate. Again, too lazy to break out more exact calculations, but I'd estimate that (among high/top tiers) Gonzales is only inferior to Shin when it comes to countering nomads.

[Narga_Rocks]

I think you're overestimating Gonzales's Hit issues. Like I told you before: this game will rarely show you units that have 100% Accuracy period.

But that's why I'm so happy to get units like Rutger and Fir that can frequently pull out 100% on stuff like axe users. And shin with supports can even pull 100%s on Nomads if he uses killer. Of course, then he will likely 3HKO the Nomad Troopers and he can 2HKO with silver (must arrange edge of range, though) but even then he's over 90.

I'm okay with his iron axe accuracy, though. 4% to do nothing is still annoying, but with other units doing less damage and having problems making their two hits to out-damage Gonzo's one I'm reasonably okay with it. But I still don't like under 70 listed, and while the wo dao is limited if the need is great enough then Fir/Rutger will have a better chance to KO than Gonzo and do more damage when they don't than when he doesn't.

Now I'm not saying Gonzales is excellent in Chapter 11, but look at Chapter 12. He's likely hitting around the 50% Hit ratios (maybe a little lower), but he's perfectly capable of counterattacking the units behind the walls.

I'd rather use the more accurate units in chapter 12, thanks. It's not as if there aren't multiple units with better accuracy. Now, on anything Gonzo doubles he'll 2HKO and they won't, but with things like hand axes he's also way more likely to miss completely.

Fir can only double it with the Iron Sword, which is doing piss poor damage (maybe 10 damage per round).

Or, like, wo dao. This is what it's perfect for, killing promoted axe wielders like the warrior. Her and Rutger are the only units that can use it. If you have shin (or even Gonzo, I suppose) counter on enemy phase and then walk in with Rutger/Fir and the wo dao all you need is 4HKO and it will probably die. Over 60%. Rutger could maybe be better for it, but that's one unit out of everyone. BBlade seems annoyed at constant Rutger v Fir comparisons though, so...

Chapter 13 he's likely whiffing the Mages, but he's doubling everything else for the most part. Assuming that he has about Level 8, this safely doubles the Steel Lance Cavaliers. With the Killer Axe alone he can ORKO the Cavaliers with about 71% Displayed, 83.47% True. Compare that to Steel Sword Fir who does about 16 damage per round, which can result in a 3RKO, and gets 2HKOed at Hit rates showing 56% Displayed, 61.72%. Chance of Death is about 38% in two Hits. 38% in two hits... Gonzales doesn't face that issue with a rare exception: the Mages who attack him on the Peaks. I was seeing about 22% Displayed from the Elfire Mage, which is about the same as 9.90% True. Granted that while Peak'ing Gonzales should carry an Elixer, but for the most part Gonzales is equipping the Hand Axe just fine. He can swap to the Killer Axe if he wants a desperate KO.

Maybe I'm not understanding something, but, why does Fir have to face the cavaliers but Gonzo doesn't need to face the mercenaries? Besides, you are about to get an influx of killing edges. If you absolutely must use her on one of the 5 cavs that come in rather than the archers that are around the same area at the same time, then she can at least try to get a swing in with one of those.

I guess I'm one of the few that see few problems with shaky Hit ratios. I guess it's because I sort of accept it in this game. Within other games, like FEDS, I wouldn't so much, but here it just seems natural to miss anyway. Gonzales 2HKOing while having the occasion to miss is duly noted, but when you're 2HKOing anyway backed by a good chance to kill the Enemy, you have to admit that's nothing to really ignore.

I relish any opportunity to have 90+ hit rates that this game offers, however rarely. Too many double whiffs with Dieck and 60+ hit rates with hand axes. And it's why I think bad units like sue are actually worth raising. Her and shin are particularly useful on annoying units like swordmasters that everyone else (except mages) face crit against if they want to use their best weapons.

As for Echinda, I don't know. Echinda wins in 12-16, which is 7 chapters. Though this is also denying that:

- She could get a Body Ring for her Axe problem, which leaves her the same AS level with Killer Axe.

- A Speedwing, possibly, after gaining Levels.

The body ring could go anywhere, like Fir to avoid attack speed loss with killers (though I like that Rutger can pick her up). Or Thany to lose only 2 attack speed with killers (though I like that she can pick up Dieck always and Gonzo before he promotes). Heck, even Roy to prevent him from losing attack speed with killers before promotion. Not that I'd really consider the last one. There are two wings before chapter 21, right? 3 on Ilia route, though one isn't until chapter 20. Echidna is no FE10 Titania/Haar. There is plenty of use others can get from these things. If she is getting those then how come it seems Fir is assumed to get precisely zero swings with wo dao/killer sword before chapter 13? The biggest problem that I have with that assumption is that there are things that both Rutger and Fir will 4HKO with wo dao, and they'll have nearly the same crit unless Clarine is nearby always, and even then for the first bit that's only a C anyway. How early did you hit B? I think I got it in 12x. There's a chance my memory sucks and that was an A they hit then, but I don't think I could have pulled that off from end of chapter 4 to 12x. Even if she's 4HKOing and he's 3HKOing, the probability of him saving a use is only equal to the chance of him critting on the first swing. Also there are things she 3HKOs as well. Not nearly as many, but there are some. Then he promotes and he's got a much higher chance, sure, but after promotion there should also be stuff he 2HKOs anyway. Honestly, if she gets zero swings then no way does Echidna get anything special like a body ring or a speedwing, at least not before chapter 21.

It's likely possible to get Echinda to ~Level 7 or 8 if we used her seriously. She can even take a bosskill from time to time (for example, if we were stingy with the Durandal, so long as the enemy is chipped a little. She shouldn't die to Ain hit either, just in case). She will still fail to double at 2 Range, but she can at least rush up and one range the enemies and double as well. With the Killing Edge 7 Echinda (we'll assume the Spd proc'd) has 80% Displayed, 92.20% True. It's not like she will miss all the time. Now granted this means that we're using Echinda a lot more, but this is far from a problem since she can reliably ORKO the Brigands in Chapter 12X with a Steel Blade, counterattack in Chapter 12 with a Hand Axe, Chapter 13 whip out the Killer Axe, and even arguably optimal deployment in Chapter 14 (Killer Axe Crit puts Wyvern Lords down near the Wyrmslayer KO range). She does far from terrible in 14X, then in Chapter 15, assuming she proc'd one Spd point and has the Body Ring intact, she can possibly double the Mercenaries with 16 Spd (they have Steel Swords), so there's pulling out the Killing Edge for the ORKO (she doesn't need the ring, but just assuming it). In Chapter 16, without the Body Ring, she can double with the Hand Axe on the Mages. With it, it's guaranteed (I'm pretty sure the Mages can have 13 Spd). She can also pull out the Hammer against the Armor Knight and, while she can't OHKO and her Avoid goes down a bit, she can show 81% Displayed, 92.97% True. If you're asking if she reliably ORKOes, she has 27 Mt + 14 Str = 41 Atk. Armor Knights have 37 HP | 16 Def. It reliably KOes. I'll be generous and assume Fir is Level 20 here. She has 34 Atk with the Armorslayer. She can fail to ORKO the Armor Knights. Echinda needs more favoritism for Sacae than she does for Ilia, but she can function there. She also still retains the Wyrmslayer (granted so does Fir), so she can still combat Wyverns by critting them with the Killer Axe on the Enemy Phase. Echinda's durability also falters at that point:

Are we giving her a goddess icon in addition to all the other stuff to prevent random crits against her from simple mercs?

http://fe.dead-end.biz/fe6hmch21.html

Echinda's 20 Spd (or 22 if we gave her the Speedwing) doubles just about everything on the map here. With the Killer Axe, she can pull a marginal Avoid (57 to something like 10 Fir's 63). I don't really want to speak about lategame until I get there though, so I'll pass on that at the moment.

All depends on if Fir is supportless, really. A 20/10 Fir with B shin C Rutger has 27 x 2 + 17 = 73 avo (so 63 like you said against lances) which becomes 86 with shin and rutger. That's a lot more than 57. Fir drops to 76 and Echidna would rise to that 57, but that's still 19 more. Also using a killer axe means Echidna isn't using a wyrmslayer and must rely on crit. Fir has crit with wyrmslayer.

---

Now if you were getting at Marcus > whoever, why didn't you just say this? <_<

It's not the only change I want, like I want Chad to fall down a tier and possibly under Fir and I want Lot > Fir > the two healers > Roy. And in my first post on the matter I did say at the top

"sorry, this is long and doesn't really say much at all. I guess my main problem for now is Gonzo > Marcus in the sacae list. I haven't played Ilia. Really Gonzo is not high in sacae. A few other problems like Chad so high and the healers too close to Clarine."

It's not like I didn't say the Marcus thing first (though that was an edit. I'd meant to say it in the original post but forgot)

If you slap a promo item on Dieck, you can do the same for Gonzales. 20/1 Dieck has 17 Str/16.5 Spd and 43.5 Hp/13 Def--for comparison, Gonzales at just 11/1 has 21.6 Str/15.6 Spd and 52 Hp/11.3 Def. Dieck wins in base hit by less than you'd expect due to Gonzo's +5 Skl promo gain (about 12 points to be exact), whereas Gonzales wins in base crit by 27 points, over twice as large Dieck's win in base hit. Even factoring in the extra hit from swords, Dieck's hit lead is only equal to Gonzales's crit lead. Killing edge is 15 more hit than killer axe, for 27 more hit overall (vs 27 more crit on Gonzales), and Dieck's Atk loss is exaggerated in exchange for that accuracy (with both using killer, Gonzales wins in Atk by 6-7 points, translating to 12-14 more damage on a double).

And that's all with a 9 level lead for Dieck.

Are you saying he shouldn't have that level lead? I'd like to know if my experiences with Rutger and Dieck's levels are just way off yours. Here's the thing: Durandal on Ain is too cool to pass up. However, you do have two hero crests so assuming Rutger got 2 weapon levels between chapter 4 and chapter 12 (I think I may have gotten that for him) then you could crest him and Gonzo if you really want. Now, if you do that, though, 11/1 Gonzo has 15.6 spd, like you said. To get to 23 spd and comfortably double Nomads in sacae he needs to reach 23.1, or at least 22.6. 11/15 is needed for 22.6. Is he really going to be able to manage that for chapter 18? Now, you could crest him early, but that just kinda hurts later on, at least in sacae when he needs 22 spd for steel sword myrms and maybe half the nomads and 23 spd for the rest of the nomads and some troopers and 24 spd for any myrms that aren't weighed down and more troopers.

I'm not seeing how early crest is good for him, and on top of that either Dieck or Rutger is now stuck at level 20 until midway through chapter 16. It just seems inferior to promote Gonzo instead of Dieck + Rutger.

No, it doesn't. Again, Gonzales needs to hit twice to kill; he doesn't need to hit twice in order to do damage. Again, iron or killer axe vs 17 Avo enemy = roughly 95% chance to hit at least once. That's not a "much higher" chance to do 0 damage. A ~60% chance to hit twice, however, is indeed a much higher chance to kill than whatever Fir's pulling.

Did you look at what I was quoting or did you forget when you were quoting my words? Or was it an attempt to make me look bad?

You said

"A ~50% chance to hit twice and kill is still a much, much higher chance to kill than 3-4HKOing with 100% hit."

Obviously about the steel axe. And so I responded:

"And it has a much higher chance to do 0 damage than 3-4HKOing with 100% hit."

I talked about iron/killer later on and admitted their probable superiority. Your point about iron/killer does not relate to what you were quoting, and hence "No, it doesn't" is very very wrong.

You could make that argument based on those values, but those values are an exaggeration of Gonzales's hit issues. Even at his base level with the steel axe, against a 17 Avo enemy, he's got 51% displayed (52.47% real), which already tips the scales more towards hitting twice than missing twice (as opposed to your example where both are equally likely). This looks like it's pretty close to what you posed, and it is, but keep in mind that this is Gonzo's accuracy at its rock-bottom worst that it'll ever be. From here it only goes up, and it goes up really fast, since Gonzales very quickly gains access to killer (same Mt as steel with 15 more hit) and very quickly gains the Str necessary to 2HKO with iron. Again, a 17 Str Gonzales can already 2HKO a significant portion of Ch 11's fighters with the iron axe, and when that happens, it's more like 60% to hit twice vs 5% to miss twice. By Ch 12, a Gonzales with 18 Str can 2HKO pretty much every fighter on the map with iron, and by now he should be using killer anyways.

Did you look at the flow of my post at all before responding to selected phrases? This isn't about iron/killer. I talked about that later.

Also, even if you up it to 52.47% real:

"Basically, some of the time I'm screwed. And when I'm blessed (he kills), nothing much is different than if I'd just used Fir because now I have an extra unit with nothing to do. Unless of course he'd rather have done something else had I used Fir, but then 75% of the time with Gonzo he's still split between two different things to do, and a third of that 75% he's worse off than with Fir."

The only thing that changes is that 75% to some other number and the "third". 27.5% to kill, now, so if the extra unit had something else to do then 72.5% of the time he's split between two jobs anyway, and ~22.6% of the time he's worse off, which is a little less than a third of that 72.5%. He might eek out a higher expected value, but probably only if she uses iron instead of steel. If she is actually capable of doubling with steel and you choose to use it, then her expected value is undoubtedly higher until he uses iron/killer. But winning expected value isn't that important if other units can reliably do 60%, so the expected value thing was just a side-note to indicate over time she does more damage.

Roy may not have C swords--he can't get 50 hits in during the first 9-10 chapters? That's only about 5 hits per chapter, and when you factor in that fatal hits give double WExp, it's less than that.

I didn't really bother to use him all that much, though. I guess you used him more. Granted I hit B during chapter 21 so maybe I had him hit C before chapter 13. I certainly started using him even less as time went on so it's possible. Nevertheless, she's more likely to double with it than he is. He loses 1, she loses 2, but her base is 13 and to reach 12 spd he needs level 13 or 14. I'm thinking she doubles more than he does, and since doubling with crit = higher chance to KO, her competition (going by opportunity cost) does not really include him at all.

Zealot's use includes killing edges from the same reason that Dieck/Rutger's use includes them; there's a lot of things he can't 2HKO and the killing edge gives him the highest odds of a critkill (higher than those of the killer lance or killer axe, since it's more accurate, especially during the Isles with all those axe enemies).

But he only needs it if you are kinda counting on it. We aren't training him and you have lots of slots with minimal density. Why have him kill instead of just bring stuff down to OHKO range? That's why I'm thinking Dieck/Rutger/Fir are better users.

I also don't agree that Echidna has no use for a killing edge during Ch 13. There's mages, archers, troubadours, mercs and a hero on the map, against all of which the KE is more accurate than the killer axe, and there's also a few axereaver cavaliers on the map. I don't think "Her competition might as well be Rutger and Dieck" is an accurate statement.

If I make it a matter of "best competition" then it is accurate. Even if I don't, Echidna 3+HKOing vs. Fir 3+HKOing while Echidna has better options for multiple other units makes me question why we'd give one to Echidna. Okay, trading I'll give you, since that's pretty easy to do with mounts. But that still means Fir gets to use it on some things.

Steel's just an option for the stuff he can't 2HKO with iron when he first joins; it gives a lower chance to do damage, and a higher chance to kill, which is situationally useful. And yeah, 53/68 is pretty close to what he'll have on steel axe fighters.

situationally useful is an okay statement. I just don't find any situations in which a 20% chance to do 0 damage is superior to a 100% chance to do 50%+ damage. I don't much care if it comes with a 30% chance to KO. It's not useful to me. I'd rather know that I need a certain two units to pull off a kill rather than count on Gonzo to not double whiff. Apparently we are very different in our values, though, so I don't think we'll come to an understanding with this.

This is true, but those are the minority by a large margin. Ch 11 has 9 fighters with steel axes (actually one has a halberd, but it's the same weight) and only 1 with iron. Ch 12 has 7 fighters with steel axes and one dude with a killer axe.

I thought you said 8 of 12 earlier? Or something like that. Is there truly only 1 with an iron in chapter 11? I don't get why the designers make the mercs so tough but the fighters so easy.

If Gonzales isn't worth using in Ch 24, that just means he can use Armads to nuke things elsewhere in the game, since once again, it's not like you have any other candidates for it.

There is that. He can OHKO some wyverns which is cool. There are a lot of wyrmslayers in this game, though. 3 of them. And Durandal. And hammerne, even, though that can work on Armads, too.

Meh, it just depends on whether it's better to train Gonzales in Ch 13 or try to actually save turns with him, which is tough to figure out. It's hard to measure how many turns he can save you in Ch 13 vs how many would be saved later by using Ch 13 to train him up.

Tough to say. He got almost 5 levels due to that training, though, somehow. I doubt he's pulling that on the bridge.

Yeah, Echidna's less likely to take a counter against a damaged enemy, but Gonzales is much less likely to take one against a full-Hp cavalier, which is really where you'd be applying the halberd anyways. A lot of units can 2RKO these enemies, why are you injuring them first and then using the halberd to finish them, when it can ORKO without any prior damage?. It seems like a waste of such a limited and powerful weapon, not to mention that it's just inefficient to use two units to do what could be done with one.

How many have javelins? Hand axe/javelin countering on enemy phase tends to result in weakened enemies. However, there is perhaps at least one that has full hp so maybe Gonzo can pull off a win there over Echidna.

Oh yeah, here's my favourite Nomad (not trooper).

chapter 20x.

level 19.

37 hp.

14 str (19 mt)

15 skl (17 crit)

20 spd

10 luck (hello 50 avo)

7 def

4 res

Okay, I admit it, with 10 save state slots there is only one still in sacae and there is only one Nomad still alive. He's not my favourite, he's just the only one I can show you.

Let's ignore this guy because Gonzo must be 20/9 just to double, and at that level he'd have 39 base hit. Which means 39 listed with hand axe and 44 listed with silver axe and 54 listed with killer axe.

Don't have exact samples to look at for Sacae, but Gonzales can start OHKOing nomads with the silver axe, which is actually buyable early in Sacae. Around 25 Str is enough to start pulling out OHKOs on nomads, and Gonzales can get this at around the levels you mentioned (20/5--20/8). Doubling and OHKOing against a 40 Avo enemy should be around ~80% odds for a kill. Worse than Fir, but by a much lesser margin than he was beating Fir back during the midgame, and it's against an enemy type that's very favorable to Fir (high Avo enemies make the accuracy gap more relevant). After you get out of Sacae, the first thing you face is Ch 21, where Gonzales is one of your best attackers on the wyvern hordes (especially considering he can camp on peaks for infinite durability).

I still have doubts about 20/7 being practical for chapter 18. Maybe 20, but 18? Also, 20/8 only actually sees 41 mt with the silver axe. Aside from weak 34hp/7def Nomads, he's not OHKOing any. Many have 35+hp or 8 def. And anything lower than 20/7 and he's not doubling anyway, leaving him with 36 to 39 base hit and a 55 hit weapon vs. 40+ avo enemies. Take a 19 spd 8 luck Nomad. (To tell the truth I don't remember their luck.) 46 avo. He can go as low as 45 hit or as high as 48 hit and gets one shot and doesn't even OHKO most of them anyway. Basically, there are many enemies he doesn't double unless he's at a high level. Even at a high level, there are many enemies he doesn't even OHKO so doubling doesn't help much (aside from a decent chance at leaving an enemy with 5 hp or less). Fir needs 20/3 for reliable doubling with an iron sword, though that won't let her KO 19 spd nomads more than around 50% of the time (of course, the 18 spd or less nomads are screwed since killer doubles and 2HKOs). 20/4 or 20/5 though lets her kill just about every single Nomad up to and including chapter 20, and she (and gonzo) should be a bit higher than that by then.

The lowest avo I remember seeing was 43 avo in chapter 18, I think. Many have 45 or 47 or stuff like that.

Also, if Gonzo gets to choose which enemies he's fighting (namely, the ones he can double) then why can't Fir choose not to attack annoying lance enemies like generals and some armors and cavs?

It's also worth noting that Gonzales can counter nomads while Fir can't, and his counter isn't as shitty as you'd expect. Yeah, garbage accuracy, but he can double, which alot of people can't do. Dieck needs to be 20/20 to hit 22 AS, Alan needs to be 20/14 for 22 AS, Lance and Miledy both need to be 20/7; Gonzales gets this value at 20/5. Gonzales also has +30 crit on his ranged counter, which none of these units can imitate. Again, too lazy to break out more exact calculations, but I'd estimate that (among high/top tiers) Gonzales is only inferior to Shin when it comes to countering nomads.

Okay, so the ones that he doubles are kinda screwed (see below for why I have doubts about that statement actually being true), though I saw way too many 19 spd ones. Now, hand axe will be showing about 3 to 7 hit against nomads, and Gonzo's 20/5 base hit is like 36. 39 to 43 hit. I'll be generous and assume 43 avo Nomads, even though I think they might have more than 7 luck and I'm letting you have 18 spd ones when 19 spd ones exist, too. 43 listed. 37.41% true. Around 60% of hitting at least once. Wicked. ~14% to hit twice. ~40% of a double-whiff. 46% of precisely one hit. Granted he has crit so it ups his ORKO potential from 14%.

20/4 Clarine:

with fire 'cause I'm assuming she hasn't hit thunder yet.

43 base hit. Well, that scratches out their avo.

11.6 magic. Let's round down. 11 + 5 = 16 mt. Give them 4 res.

Dear god fire has 95 hit.

99.55% true. Over 99% to hit twice. Not kill, of course. As I gave them 4 res that means they have 24 out of 34 taken away. Well, 34/7 are the ones Gonzo can actually OHKO on player phase, so let's use those. And she does 24 damage, a 3HKO. Worthy of note is that since I'm giving them 7 luck for Gonzo to have better hit on that means she actually pulls 1% crit. With Rutger only that's 16%, or a 29.44% chance to KO. Granted you might need fun positioning to achieve a Clarine counter rather than a Rutger counter but whatever. On the plus side, if you still have the light brand they'd probably all attack Clarine. Enemies love attacking Clarine.

Let's calc Gonzo's kill rate now.

46% chance of one hit. It has 38 crit against 7 luck. 31% crit. 14.26% chance of KO.

14% chance of hitting twice. Enemy dies.

14 + 14.26

28.26% kill rate. (I'm not calculating expected value of damage. I suspect Clarine will annihilate him on that, though.)

Clarine has either like 2% or 29.44%. If you have Rutger around (like, other side of river or something will accomplish the support and not letting Rutger get attacked) then she has a better chance to kill and a much much better chance to leave the enemy with 10hp or less.

Thunder reduces her hit rate and increases her crit rate. Elfire lets her actually kill something that has 34/3, and since that's a dude in 20x that has 4 res it might be possible that some of the earlier ones have 34/7/3 instead of 34/7/4. Keep in mind that above Nomad has 37/7/4. By then, though, 20/8 Clarine is required and she has 18 mt anyway with fire, so 14 damage still pulls off a 3HKO. Heck, 13 damage does as well. Also a 46 base hit to result in 91 listed with fire on that crazy Nomad. 98.47% or ~97% to hit twice. (Gonzo's silver axe strategy requires 20/13 just to OHKO the crazy Nomad with 37/7 hp/def. Maybe 20/12. If Lilina is legal then I suppose he can go down to 20/11 for that.)

Now, she's no shin/sue capable of taking on 3 or 4 Nomads on an enemy phase and killing every single one of them (and getting attacked at one range by a nomad trooper if you didn't stay on the outside of its range by using either 10 squares or a river), but she is pretty cool against them. Third best on the team, arguably, for enemy phase. Fourth best depending on your interpretation of Lance.

And there are ways to use Fir/Rutger efficiently. For example, chapter 20x has groups of 3 in the south and there are bosses to KO. If you have sue/shin handling the north then you can use lalum to let the swordmasters kill all 3 nomads in a turn. Also, since you are traveling towards the tents you may only draw one or two anyway. Fir/Rutger are better than a sue-less shin on player phase, too, considering that a sue-less shin has hit rates under 90, under 80 if you are using silver to take on the nomad troopers as well as nomads. A simple killer, though, lets him 2HKO the nomads and has 10 more accuracy. At a high enough level even an iron bow will ORKO nomads (shin, not sue. sue always needs silver and 3HKOs Nomad Troopers with it).

I suppose Gonzo may be able to beat Alan/Lance, though.

Let's check Lance out, though, with full supports.

20/6 Lance (don't see why he can't have a level lead on 20/5 Gonzo).

22 spd.

16.6 str. round down. 21 str with supports. Javelins 2HKO. 27 vs. 34/7? yeah. Even mr. 37/7 dies. Even if he'd proc'd 8 def instead of 7 (there were many with 8) he'd still die. Drop Roy and that becomes 25 mt and 34/7 dies. Even 36/7 dies. Only 37/7 or 36/8 and stuff like that lives. By the time that 20x arrives, though, Lance should easily have 17 str.

Gave Nomad 43 avo to make Gonzo look better, right?

55 hit on the javelin. +12.

19 skl and 10 luck. 43 base hit. Becomes 55 hit. Alan makes 62 hit. Pretend no Roy.

71.5% true.

~51% chance of KO.

~92% chance of hitting at least once (which does things like let Alan OHKO with iron sword).

8% chance of no damage.

That's ignoring the crit from Alan and his natural 9 crit making 16 crit on 7 luck for 9%.

He's already obliterating Gonzo's ~28% chance of KO.

Without Alan? Well, trouble comes because 22 mt is insufficient. But why doesn't he get Alan? Enemies are still dumb enough to attack Lance due to lower luck/hp/def. Hey, when wyverns are perfectly willing to attack Clarine for 0% hit and 100% chance of death, they happily suicide. Why wouldn't they attack Lance? Besides, there are times you could have Alan out of range of some of them. Gonzo has 6 move to their 8 so holding one back a bit probably isn't actually worse.

Gonzo's biggest advantage, though, is that he can cross rivers or help ferry others over rivers in chapters like 20x. I have to admit that this helps. He still even has 4 move afterwards, better than Nomad Troopers' 3 move left over. But Lance/shin/Clarine are already beating him on enemy phase. Rutger nukes him on player phase (though he may be busy with troopers). Fir nukes him on player phase. Even poor little sue humiliates him on enemy phase (especially due to making shin and herself even better due to her very existence). Granted she humiliates everyone not shin on enemy phase here, but whatever. (Funny story: 20/3 sue ORKOs steel sword myrmidions on player phase, and most of the poor things use those things. And with 13+1 str due to B shin, she even manages to do so on many of them with a killer bow once she hits 20/4 and 23 speed. 23 mt I think actually gets some. But 27 certainly gets them all, and all the Nomads, with silver and no attack speed loss.)

Alan needs the +17 crit he gets from AB Lance/Roy to get under 17% kill rate, so he may or may not beat Gonzo depending on his accuracy. Without Roy, though, I sincerely doubt that the +7 hit he gets from himself with the Lance support and the +7 crit would let him win anything. Gonzo v. Alan is probably arguably close, though, with Roy involved.

(Oh, Miledy, though, needs 20/9 due to having 10 con promoted and thus losing 1 attack speed to the javelin. Unless the body ring goes to her, which isn't really a bad idea given how with promotion of her and the cavs she can't actually rescue them at all anymore and even while promoted the body ring does not prevent her from rescuing units like Astohl or promoted shin/rutger/roy. In fact, the only promoted units (or those that can't promote ever) that the body ring prevents her from rescuing are:

Oujay, Echidna (body ring on her prevents the same anyway), Dayan, Karel.

There are a few unpromoted units, but by this point who cares about them? Once they promote her 10 aid can't rescue them anyway. Of course, with silvers and killers in existence the javelins are quite literally the only meaningful weapon for which it matters. I don't think the -1 attack speed on the s rank matters when wyvern lords and mamkutes aren't ever hitting 19 spd anyway. Unless they are, in which case body ring helps with javelin and Maltet.)

Edited April 14, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[-Cynthia-]

Miledy also reaches enemies quicker than anyone else on most Sacae maps due lol rivers.

With the Fili Shield, she also should be taking 0-1 damage from every enemy, so durability's not an issue. The other characters mentioned (Gonzales/Alan/Lance) are still going to be taking damage from each nomad.

Not to mention that the second most common enemy type (myrmidons/SMs) heavily favor units that can wield lances over those with mono axes for obvious reasons.

[CATS]

Are you saying he shouldn't have that level lead? I'd like to know if my experiences with Rutger and Dieck's levels are just way off yours. Here's the thing: Durandal on Ain is too cool to pass up. However, you do have two hero crests so assuming Rutger got 2 weapon levels between chapter 4 and chapter 12 (I think I may have gotten that for him) then you could crest him and Gonzo if you really want. Now, if you do that, though, 11/1 Gonzo has 15.6 spd, like you said. To get to 23 spd and comfortably double Nomads in sacae he needs to reach 23.1, or at least 22.6. 11/15 is needed for 22.6. Is he really going to be able to manage that for chapter 18? Now, you could crest him early, but that just kinda hurts later on, at least in sacae when he needs 22 spd for steel sword myrms and maybe half the nomads and 23 spd for the rest of the nomads and some troopers and 24 spd for any myrms that aren't weighed down and more troopers.

I'm not really sure what the levels should be at, so I was just noting the large level gap, not asserting that it should be something else. When I played through with a core team of all top/high tiers, my units were approaching L20 during Ch 12, but I also didn't play efficiently and stuck around to kill all the reinforcements on most chapters, which you wouldn't be doing on an efficient run. So I'm not really sure if I agree with L20 by Ch 12x, but that's just based on my experiences, so it's not significant.

And yeah, of course an early promotion will slow Gonzo down later; I just wanted to demonstrate what he can do with one. I could easily buy that L11 is too early to promote, I simply wanted to demonstrate that he could keep up with a fully leveled Dieck even at such a low level, and the fact that he has the option to keep growing instead of promoting (as opposed to Dieck, who is already L20) would be an advantage for him, I imagine. If you keep him unpromoted for another chapter or two and raise him up to L14 or 15 before promoting (promoted Dieck would've gained only 1-2 levels in the same time period), he gets pretty beastly. 15/1 Gonzales vs 20/3 Dieck: 22 Str/17.6 Spd/55.6 Hp/12.3 Def vs 17.8 Str/17.1 Spd/45.3 Hp/13.4 Def. Dieck may be more accurate than Gonzales, but he's losing pretty much everywhere else (concrete stats and also in crit).

I'm not seeing how early crest is good for him, and on top of that either Dieck or Rutger is now stuck at level 20 until midway through chapter 16. It just seems inferior to promote Gonzo instead of Dieck + Rutger.

Promotion dramatically improves his performance. He gets +10 hit and +32-32 crit, +axe rank for silver/armads, and his Str (which caps at 12/0) is allowed to keep growing in exchange for the growth of his other stats slowing down (which doesn't really matter except for Spd, since he doesn't rely on his growths in other stats anyways). It'll hurt his Sacae performance, I agree, but his midgame performance should be significantly improved, so it would still be an option. The player would probably look at how his Spd is growing and decide based on that. If he's going below average, and thus probably won't be able to double nomads even with a later promotion, you would go ahead and early-promote, and vice versa. Meanwhile, you don't need to be godly-fast to double in Ilia; early-promo is likely in his best interest on that route.

Did you look at what I was quoting or did you forget when you were quoting my words? Or was it an attempt to make me look bad?

You said

"A ~50% chance to hit twice and kill is still a much, much higher chance to kill than 3-4HKOing with 100% hit."

Obviously about the steel axe.

Nah, I was talking about the iron axe there. ~50% was an estimation before I looked at the numbers, and saw that it's actually more like 60%. Steel axe's displayed hit is in the 50's, so chance to hit twice is well below 50%; ~30% would be a more appropriate approximation for it, if even that. Sorry for the confusion.

Did you look at the flow of my post at all before responding to selected phrases? This isn't about iron/killer.

Oh, if you just wanted to talk about that one specific instance (Gonzales + steel axe vs stuff around his joining time), then it's true that my comments wouldn't apply. I don't disagree with your comments on the model that you had (does damage 50% of the time, kills 25%, does nothing 25%), I simply wanted to point out that the model wasn't indicative of the hitrates that Gonzales is actually pulling throughout the game; if you were already aware of that, or not interested in discussing it, then my bad.

I didn't really bother to use him all that much, though. I guess you used him more. Granted I hit B during chapter 21 so maybe I had him hit C before chapter 13. I certainly started using him even less as time went on so it's possible. Nevertheless, she's more likely to double with it than he is. He loses 1, she loses 2, but her base is 13 and to reach 12 spd he needs level 13 or 14. I'm thinking she doubles more than he does, and since doubling with crit = higher chance to KO, her competition (going by opportunity cost) does not really include him at all.

I guess so. I start using Roy less as time goes on, but that's generally due to him capping his level. Up until then I never found any reason not to attack things with him (and even afterwards, he can still be used if you need him, he just sits out when he isn't needed), and I especially find myself using him alot in the early chapters before your other top/high tiers show up. Rutger won't join until Ch 5, Shin until Ch 9, Gonzales until Ch 10, Miledy until Ch 13, Percival until Ch 15; while I'm waiting on them, I'm gonna try to give kills and CEXP to Roy (who is forced for the whole game) over some temporary filler like Lot.

Fir being more likely to double doesn't eliminate the opportunity cost; it means she gets more out of the resource, but the opportunity cost is still present and very significant. If both have exactly 0% crit (they won't, ofcourse, but just for the sake of example), and Roy doesn't double while Fir does: Roy getting the KE ups his kill chance to 30%, while Fir's kill chance goes up to 51%. Fir's offense improves by a larger margin, no doubt, but you still have to account for the gains that Roy could've had if he had been given the weapon instead of Fir. 51% - 30% = only a 21% net gain in kill chance by giving Fir the KE instead of Roy. And Roy's her slowest competitor. The others are either pretty good at doubling with the KE (Dieck, Zealot) or on par with Fir's level of doubling, possibly even faster than that (Rutger, Echidna).

But he only needs it if you are kinda counting on it. We aren't training him and you have lots of slots with minimal density. Why have him kill instead of just bring stuff down to OHKO range? That's why I'm thinking Dieck/Rutger/Fir are better users.

Having Zealot kill something produces the obvious benefit of the enemy dying in just one round of combat, which for an efficient run, should get higher priority than trying to focus kills on the long-term units or milk more Exp out of them. Similar to Roy above, I agree that Fir one-rounding with the KE is more beneficial than Zealot doing the same, but the fact that Zealot gets significant improvement out of the weapon remains.

I thought you said 8 of 12 earlier? Or something like that. Is there truly only 1 with an iron in chapter 11? I don't get why the designers make the mercs so tough but the fighters so easy.

I probably wasn't counting the halberd guy in the earlier count. And yeah, from what I'm seeing only one iron axe guy. As for fighters being easy, they're only easy if your name is Gonzales. Most units have alot of trouble one-rounding them.

How many have javelins? Hand axe/javelin countering on enemy phase tends to result in weakened enemies. However, there is perhaps at least one that has full hp so maybe Gonzo can pull off a win there over Echidna.

About half of the cavs have javelins. But even if it produces a weakened enemy, I'd rather use killer axe to finish it and save the limited halberd for targets where it's fully necessary to kill the enemy (as opposed to a weakened cav where killer can 2HKO).

Oh yeah, here's my favourite Nomad (not trooper).

That's during Ch 20x, though, the very tail end of Sacae. Again, I can't actually check the numbers here, but I'd imagine that they're lower-leveled and weaker than that earlier. I remember 18-20 Spd all being possible values, for starters, and low-40's Atk being able to OHKO; but I could be mistaken.

Okay, so the ones that he doubles are kinda screwed (see below for why I have doubts about that statement actually being true), though I saw way too many 19 spd ones. Now, hand axe will be showing about 3 to 7 hit against nomads, and Gonzo's 20/5 base hit is like 36. 39 to 43 hit. I'll be generous and assume 43 avo Nomads, even though I think they might have more than 7 luck and I'm letting you have 18 spd ones when 19 spd ones exist, too.

I didn't think about Clarine, it's true that she beats him out (or you can at least make a good case for it), since she has the Spd to double and doesn't lose any Atk/Hit in the transition from 1-range to 1-2 range (unlike your melee units). That still leaves Gonzales as the 3rd or 4th best option for a counter-attacker (or 4th/5th if Sue's in play, which you seem to be assuming), considerably higher on the list than Fir. Of course, if he's not doubling (which was called into question), then he loses his title, but at the very least he's more likely to double than all of the units I listed even if it's not the most likely scenario, so at the very least he'll have that spot on a significant number of playthroughs. Odds for 23 Spd at 20/5 should be only slightly below 50% (since it's only 0.9 above the average).

Let's check Lance out, though, with full supports.

20/6 Lance (don't see why he can't have a level lead on 20/5 Gonzo).

I agree that Lance is better than Gonzales if both are doubling; that's why I simply said that Gonzales is more likely to double, as Lance needs to be 1-2 levels higher than Gonzo in order to produce the same Spd averages (though I guess if you give Lance a level lead, that will be the case).

[Colonel M]

I have part of Narga's response on another computer, which is being used at the moment:

Not to mention that the second most common enemy type (myrmidons/SMs) heavily favor units that can wield lances over those with mono axes for obvious reasons.

Keep in mind I never said Gonzales is "good" in Sacae. Quite the opposite, in my opinion.

[-Cynthia-]

That was more in response to CATS than anything else.

I'm not sure why Lance wouldn't have a 1-2 level lead on Gonzales, considering Lance probably has about a 10 level lead at Gonzo's jointime. Obviously this closes somewhat due to higher Exp gain, but I don't see why people like Lance/Dieck etc. would not retain at least small level over the course of the game, especially considering Gonzales has some leveling issues at jointime due to Hit (you can't finish off enemies if you can't hit them).

[Anouleth]

Well, Gonzo catches up almost entirely by sitting on the Throne Peak in C13. That alone puts him at about 16, according to Colonel M. Dunno if anyone else wants to go north and kill the Cavs. Can anyone else even guarantee their own survival against them, given that they're on their own and probably not going to be healed either? Because Gonzales is invincible against the things.

The times that Gonzales can crit with the Killer or crit naturally after promotion, or even just kill an enemy with no crit needed, will outweigh times when he hits only once or misses entirely.

[Colonel M]

I can't respond to all that. @_@; So I'll summarize.

With regards to Gonzales's Hit issues: They're much more prominent in Sacae than Ilia. Trust me on this. Let me go back to one of the last tidbits from my boring Lot vs. Fir debate:

You can hit those enemies with Lot, unfortunately for you. The Steel Lance Pegasi has 31 Avoid, 21 with WTD on her. Lot has 34 Hit. Then 65 with Iron Axe / Killer. Then 5 from Thany. Let's do simple math. 34-21=13. 13+65=78. 78+5=83. 83 Displayed becomes 94.39% True. Are we going to whine about missing once in a long ass while?

Gonzales is near Lot's Hit rates when it comes to around Ilia's jointime (just slightly worse maybe but nothing huge). Gonzales does more than fine in Ilia.

I'd rather use the more accurate units in chapter 12, thanks. It's not as if there aren't multiple units with better accuracy. Now, on anything Gonzo doubles he'll 2HKO and they won't, but with things like hand axes he's also way more likely to miss completely.

The thing is Gonzales can reliably 2HKO and consistently double with his ranged option. Something like a 16 Allan has 11 AS if he's lucky, which can whiff on doubling some of the enemies behind the walls (there are some with 9 AS). This is factoring his Spd rounded up. If it doesn't, he's in bigger trouble. Granted they do slightly better with Hit rates, if Roy is near there. Klein and Shin obviously outclass Gonzales, but Shin can whiff Koes easily unless he has the ranks for Killer Bow at that point.

Or, like, wo dao. This is what it's perfect for, killing promoted axe wielders like the warrior. Her and Rutger are the only units that can use it. If you have shin (or even Gonzo, I suppose) counter on enemy phase and then walk in with Rutger/Fir and the wo dao all you need is 4HKO and it will probably die. Over 60%. Rutger could maybe be better for it, but that's one unit out of everyone. BBlade seems annoyed at constant Rutger v Fir comparisons though, so...

It more or less has to assume that the Wo Dao is being saved. If we're using Fir seriously, she needs to use it. Otherwise, she'll be 3-4HKOing with the Iron Sword or whiffing doubles with Steel Sword (yay 8 AS).

Maybe I'm not understanding something, but, why does Fir have to face the cavaliers but Gonzo doesn't need to face the mercenaries? Besides, you are about to get an influx of killing edges. If you absolutely must use her on one of the 5 cavs that come in rather than the archers that are around the same area at the same time, then she can at least try to get a swing in with one of those.

I'm talking about going towards the North bridge.

In chronological order she faces the 3 Cavaliers first, then there's the two straddlers (the Axereaver and Horseslayer), then two Wyvern Knights, then the Sword Cavaliers + Paladin. The problem is that most of the enemies on the map wield Lances anyway, and she definitely isn't counterattacking on the Enemy Phase with the Sword Cavaliers since the Paladin + Javelin Cavalier can KO her easily. Also, before you ask: Gonzales sitting on the peak is alright. He really isn't hurting efficiency by doing so. The lowest you can probably low count this chapter is about 11 turns anyway, and I had to wait a turn because Percival's ass was in my way.

The body ring could go anywhere, like Fir to avoid attack speed loss with killers (though I like that Rutger can pick her up). Or Thany to lose only 2 attack speed with killers (though I like that she can pick up Dieck always and Gonzo before he promotes). Heck, even Roy to prevent him from losing attack speed with killers before promotion. Not that I'd really consider the last one. There are two wings before chapter 21, right? 3 on Ilia route, though one isn't until chapter 20. Echidna is no FE10 Titania/Haar. There is plenty of use others can get from these things. If she is getting those then how come it seems Fir is assumed to get precisely zero swings with wo dao/killer sword before chapter 13? The biggest problem that I have with that assumption is that there are things that both Rutger and Fir will 4HKO with wo dao, and they'll have nearly the same crit unless Clarine is nearby always, and even then for the first bit that's only a C anyway. How early did you hit B? I think I got it in 12x. There's a chance my memory sucks and that was an A they hit then, but I don't think I could have pulled that off from end of chapter 4 to 12x. Even if she's 4HKOing and he's 3HKOing, the probability of him saving a use is only equal to the chance of him critting on the first swing. Also there are things she 3HKOs as well. Not nearly as many, but there are some. Then he promotes and he's got a much higher chance, sure, but after promotion there should also be stuff he 2HKOs anyway. Honestly, if she gets zero swings then no way does Echidna get anything special like a body ring or a speedwing, at least not before chapter 21.

Well, I'm not saying that the Wo Dao is "hands off" for Fir. You're misinterpreting my point here. It's that it can be used for other situations, in which case there is a POSSIBILITY of a limit towards the item. Also keep in mind that Echinda doesn't have a secondary cost of a Seal and is more comparable to the team upon jointime. I shit you not when I say that base Echinda with the Body Ring can perform well in Ilia. It's one or the other. For Ilia? Body Ring. For Sacae? Speedwing. Why am I giving Fir both the Body Ring and the Wo Dao, not to mention that she pummels another 5K (which in reality is 10K) down the shitter just to promote her? Echinda has - cost for promotion. What she comes with is already useful. ORKOing the Fighters and Brigands in Chapter 12 and 12X while being able to use Killer Axes for offense. By Chapter 14 she can use both the Killer Axes and Edges, which makes her offense unique in comparison to Fir's. It's the main point that, for optimal use and being comparable to the team, and that she has offensive utility on top of this. Echinda is basically a double dipper that she can function as both a utility and a long term unit. Would I really invest with her in Sacae? Probably not, but I wouldn't deny the chances of it either. I wouldn't even bother training Roy seriously on a good day anyway, since he's pretty crappy for the most part and falls behind for a long time. His Sword of Seals doesn't really require levels (watch dondon's 0% Growth videos of Chapter 24 for an example). I'd much sooner give the Body Ring to Echinda than Fir and definitely before Roy. It just means much less prep that she needs for Ilia.

How early did I hit B Rutgar / Clarine? It was... Chapter 14X I think. I remember barely getting it.

Are we giving her a goddess icon in addition to all the other stuff to prevent random crits against her from simple mercs?

You mean in comparison to the Speedwing or the Body Ring? Eh, probably not. I think I'd rather attempt to tether her to the Lalum support before I go for the Goddess Icon.

All depends on if Fir is supportless, really. A 20/10 Fir with B shin C Rutger has 27 x 2 + 17 = 73 avo (so 63 like you said against lances) which becomes 86 with shin and rutger. That's a lot more than 57. Fir drops to 76 and Echidna would rise to that 57, but that's still 19 more. Also using a killer axe means Echidna isn't using a wyrmslayer and must rely on crit. Fir has crit with wyrmslayer.

Well technically you could get something like C Gonzales B Lalum with Echinda if you tried hard enough (I mean if you're being serious with a 1+1 support with Rutgar then what really stops me from Echinda and Gonzales to be honest). Though like I said, I don't want to draw lategame comparisons yet until I reach there again. Mainly because I am unsure on levels.

Furthermore, the Killer Axe is being used for defensive purposes; not exactly offensive purposes. This gives Echinda a slight edge in durability because of it (Echinda faces 39 Atk to Fir's 41). Granted they're both 2HKOed, so I guess it's sort of pointless anyway, and I concede that Echinda likely loses to Fir upon this point of the game.

Stuff with Marcus and others

Tiering thieves really just leaves me conking my head all over the place, and Ellen | Saul aren't much better. I guess I wouldn't have a major problem with dropping Gonzales down a tier in Sacae, but before I do that I at least want to witness how terrible he is with my own eyes, though chances are I'm probably not going to object to it much.

Well, Gonzo catches up almost entirely by sitting on the Throne Peak in C13. That alone puts him at about 16, according to Colonel M. Dunno if anyone else wants to go north and kill the Cavs. Can anyone else even guarantee their own survival against them, given that they're on their own and probably not going to be healed either? Because Gonzales is invincible against the things.

I took the north bridge, so he was facing the south bridge enemies (which consisted of the Mages and Lance Cavaliers yay).

EDIT: FFFF- double posted. Did not mean to do that.

[Narga: sigh, merging]

Edited April 14, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Narga_Rocks]

Miledy also reaches enemies quicker than anyone else on most Sacae maps due lol rivers.

With the Fili Shield, she also should be taking 0-1 damage from every enemy, so durability's not an issue. The other characters mentioned (Gonzales/Alan/Lance) are still going to be taking damage from each nomad.

Not to mention that the second most common enemy type (myrmidons/SMs) heavily favor units that can wield lances over those with mono axes for obvious reasons.

Well, Miledy's already above him anyway, but I agree that given the existence of other enemy units she's likely overall better than Gonzo in these maps even if she's not doubling Nomads. I still find it ridiculously amusing, though, that sue has the second best player phase on myrms. Only reason shin is even better (close to same skl and luck) is that he can use killers to 2HKO and she usually needs silvers (10 less hit). Well, that and Fir exists. Another 10 hit win. Well, Fir and Rutger may have more hit than sue, but they take counters. I guess she has "arguably" the second best. And against any that tink Miledy and she doubles Miledy is probably better.

Miledy is pretty good, for example, with killers against the wyverns (or if she has 22 spd then even against steel sword myrms since she doubles and ORKOs with way way better hit than gonzo could ever hope to have, even with swordreaver). Not sure if she 4HKOs lords with killers, though. eg: 58 hp and 19 def in chapter 21. Of course, 25 str means 35 mt with killers, so that's a 4 hit. Even 24 str makes a 4 hit. Gonzo eventually has the mt to 3HKO though. eg: on that enemy it takes 39 mt to 3 hit, so 27 str with killers and wta makes 39. And he has better crit despite much lower skl. Of course, that ~10 point difference in skill and the 15 better accuracy of killers completely override the wta. But when he only needs one crit to ko and can miss the other attack it ain't so bad.

Oh, shin with sue + fir support (and sue herself) actually don't take damage all that frequently and are like 5+HKOd anyway at sub 40 hit rates. sub 50 at mos. Well, I'm kind of assuming robe on sue, though. But still she faces 0% crit, so that's good (+15 cev with shin).

I guess I need to not assume sue, though I still argue it's easier to even go to sacae if she exists than if she doesn't (levels for Thany can easily be more than levels for shin) and she makes your best unit for 4 maps (shin) even better. Difference between, say, 75 listed and 90 listed is pretty massive. 87.75% true v 98.1%. ~77% of two hits v ~96% of two hits. Kill 4 out of 4 most of the time vs. 3 out of 4 most of the time. Not to mention what happens when the annoying Nomads stand on forests, though you can try to avoid that happening.

I'm not really sure what the levels should be at, so I was just noting the large level gap, not asserting that it should be something else. When I played through with a core team of all top/high tiers, my units were approaching L20 during Ch 12, but I also didn't play efficiently and stuck around to kill all the reinforcements on most chapters, which you wouldn't be doing on an efficient run. So I'm not really sure if I agree with L20 by Ch 12x, but that's just based on my experiences, so it's not significant.

I kinda gave Rutger and Dieck more levels than most other units for two reasons:

1: everyone else kinda sucked against things like mercs and even some other enemies

2: I wanted to make absolutely certain I got Dieck to A rank swords and a high enough level for me to be willing to promote him to KO the chapter 12 boss.

They had at least a 5 level lead on almost everything else. It's really not my fault. I award not sucking. Kinda like how Fir shot ahead in levels over Rutger when he refused to proc that 23rd point of spd and she refused to not proc spd for a while.

Okay, maybe if Lance and Alan weren't spd-screwed so massively then Dieck and Rutger's levels may have been lower. Maybe.

And yeah, of course an early promotion will slow Gonzo down later; I just wanted to demonstrate what he can do with one. I could easily buy that L11 is too early to promote, I simply wanted to demonstrate that he could keep up with a fully leveled Dieck even at such a low level, and the fact that he has the option to keep growing instead of promoting (as opposed to Dieck, who is already L20) would be an advantage for him, I imagine. If you keep him unpromoted for another chapter or two and raise him up to L14 or 15 before promoting (promoted Dieck would've gained only 1-2 levels in the same time period), he gets pretty beastly. 15/1 Gonzales vs 20/3 Dieck: 22 Str/17.6 Spd/55.6 Hp/12.3 Def vs 17.8 Str/17.1 Spd/45.3 Hp/13.4 Def. Dieck may be more accurate than Gonzales, but he's losing pretty much everywhere else (concrete stats and also in crit).

Dieck's accuracy makes a real difference on stuff he's 2 hitting. But I suppose you could focus on Gonzo's early game (and he'd still be okay in chapter 21 and 23). Of course, in sacae route he'll blow for 4 chapters. Axe users and armors in chapter 20 prevent him from failing for 5 chapters.

Promotion dramatically improves his performance. He gets +10 hit and +32-32 crit, +axe rank for silver/armads, and his Str (which caps at 12/0) is allowed to keep growing in exchange for the growth of his other stats slowing down (which doesn't really matter except for Spd, since he doesn't rely on his growths in other stats anyways). It'll hurt his Sacae performance, I agree, but his midgame performance should be significantly improved, so it would still be an option. The player would probably look at how his Spd is growing and decide based on that. If he's going below average, and thus probably won't be able to double nomads even with a later promotion, you would go ahead and early-promote, and vice versa. Meanwhile, you don't need to be godly-fast to double in Ilia; early-promo is likely in his best interest on that route.

It's probably a more reasonable proposition in Ilia than sacae. Especially with a bunch of pegs weighed down by steel lances. His hit rates are probably like 25 listed (or more) better than against Nomads and 35 better than against myrms.

Nah, I was talking about the iron axe there. ~50% was an estimation before I looked at the numbers, and saw that it's actually more like 60%. Steel axe's displayed hit is in the 50's, so chance to hit twice is well below 50%; ~30% would be a more appropriate approximation for it, if even that. Sorry for the confusion.

Okay.

Oh, if you just wanted to talk about that one specific instance (Gonzales + steel axe vs stuff around his joining time), then it's true that my comments wouldn't apply. I don't disagree with your comments on the model that you had (does damage 50% of the time, kills 25%, does nothing 25%), I simply wanted to point out that the model wasn't indicative of the hitrates that Gonzales is actually pulling throughout the game; if you were already aware of that, or not interested in discussing it, then my bad.

I was addressing things systematically. Iron axe stuff was mentioned directly elsewhere so I responded elsewhere.

I guess so. I start using Roy less as time goes on, but that's generally due to him capping his level. Up until then I never found any reason not to attack things with him (and even afterwards, he can still be used if you need him, he just sits out when he isn't needed), and I especially find myself using him alot in the early chapters before your other top/high tiers show up. Rutger won't join until Ch 5, Shin until Ch 9, Gonzales until Ch 10, Miledy until Ch 13, Percival until Ch 15; while I'm waiting on them, I'm gonna try to give kills and CEXP to Roy (who is forced for the whole game) over some temporary filler like Lot.

I tend to just do what it takes to get through the stupid chapters and don't worry about Roy. On NM when he got blessed and was statistically better than an average Lance (and Lance was str and def screwed so Roy was way better) I took him to level 20. But really I don't see the point with one on his averages. He attacks from time to time I suppose, and I of course use that first Rapier almost completely before getting the second, but once everyone gets going it's too hard to make him do stuff. I have enough 5 move units that I'm making kills for. I think he attacked like once or twice per chapter after like 11 or something.

Fir being more likely to double doesn't eliminate the opportunity cost; it means she gets more out of the resource, but the opportunity cost is still present and very significant. If both have exactly 0% crit (they won't, ofcourse, but just for the sake of example), and Roy doesn't double while Fir does: Roy getting the KE ups his kill chance to 30%, while Fir's kill chance goes up to 51%. Fir's offense improves by a larger margin, no doubt, but you still have to account for the gains that Roy could've had if he had been given the weapon instead of Fir. 51% - 30% = only a 21% net gain in kill chance by giving Fir the KE instead of Roy. And Roy's her slowest competitor. The others are either pretty good at doubling with the KE (Dieck, Zealot) or on par with Fir's level of doubling, possibly even faster than that (Rutger, Echidna).

Her costs are based on best alternative forgone, hence Dieck, Rutger, Echidna, mainly. Roy doesn't really play a part in that.

Having Zealot kill something produces the obvious benefit of the enemy dying in just one round of combat, which for an efficient run, should get higher priority than trying to focus kills on the long-term units or milk more Exp out of them. Similar to Roy above, I agree that Fir one-rounding with the KE is more beneficial than Zealot doing the same, but the fact that Zealot gets significant improvement out of the weapon remains.

That all depends on what your team situation is. Don't forget, units like Rutger and Dieck and Gonzo don't have as much move as the quick units. Unless they are being picked up, chances are it's no worse for efficiency for them to ko something that Zealot. Frequently it is better since I'd take any opportunity to arrange more kills for 5 move units because of the times where 8 move units are doing everything. Dieck tends to slow down in levels a lot for me by around 20/5 because the 7/8 move units are finally able to destroy things, but with a wing Dieck doesn't really need too many more levels.

I probably wasn't counting the halberd guy in the earlier count. And yeah, from what I'm seeing only one iron axe guy. As for fighters being easy, they're only easy if your name is Gonzales. Most units have alot of trouble one-rounding them.

Mercs are like 3 or 4 HKOd by units not Rutger early on. Even Dieck, while he can grab iron blade or steel or something and maybe 2HKO is 3HKOing if you want him to have any semblance of accuracy. Rutger can 3HKO while doubling. Everyone else is 3 or 4 rounding unless Dieck wants to risk turning a somewhat reliable 3HKO into a 4 round if he gets unlucky on either of his two hits with iron blade. Well, if he hits two of three I guess he turns 3 into 3. But there is still a higher risk of 4 rounding than otherwise. Anyway, most other units are reliably 3 rounding. Almost anything 2 rounds fighters. To me, after going through things like chapter 5 and all the mercs (and all the iron axe fighters nobody but Rutger and few others double) it's a relief to get to the isles. Those fighters are easy (if strong enough to 2 or 3 round a lot of your units when they hit).

About half of the cavs have javelins. But even if it produces a weakened enemy, I'd rather use killer axe to finish it and save the limited halberd for targets where it's fully necessary to kill the enemy (as opposed to a weakened cav where killer can 2HKO).

Eh, how much hp/def do they have, anyway? Wouldn't Echidna tend to 2HKO weakened things with a killer axe anyway? If they have enough hp for her to not 2HKO, I'm wondering if she is even OHKOing with halberd anyway. With 13 str and WTA she does have 25 mt with killer axe.

That's during Ch 20x, though, the very tail end of Sacae. Again, I can't actually check the numbers here, but I'd imagine that they're lower-leveled and weaker than that earlier. I remember 18-20 Spd all being possible values, for starters, and low-40's Atk being able to OHKO; but I could be mistaken.

Yeah, 34/7 is OHKOd by 41 mt, which means 26 str with silver and thus 20/8 (or a lucky 20/7) Gonzo can OHKO. But that's low-end. 34/8 or 35/7 is already needing a 20/9 or 20/10 Gonzo. Now, myrms tend to have lower hp/def than nomads, by a little. Basically, for some enemies sue needed silver + shin support, for some she didn't. she was a bit under average in str, though, so 12 str means 25 mt without shin and 26 with. 25 mt does not KO 35/8 Nomads. They did exist early-on. That guy may have gotten lucky in luck, not sure, but he got unlucky in def.

But certainly he can OHKO some of them.

I didn't think about Clarine, it's true that she beats him out (or you can at least make a good case for it), since she has the Spd to double and doesn't lose any Atk/Hit in the transition from 1-range to 1-2 range (unlike your melee units). That still leaves Gonzales as the 3rd or 4th best option for a counter-attacker (or 4th/5th if Sue's in play, which you seem to be assuming), considerably higher on the list than Fir. Of course, if he's not doubling (which was called into question), then he loses his title, but at the very least he's more likely to double than all of the units I listed even if it's not the most likely scenario, so at the very least he'll have that spot on a significant number of playthroughs. Odds for 23 Spd at 20/5 should be only slightly below 50% (since it's only 0.9 above the average).

It's too bad that fe averages doesn't include HM bonuses or I could tell you what the probability of him having that is. And I should probably not assume sue, but she can exist, anyway, and literally be #2 in ability for this task. As for Clarine, an early promo (not level 10, though, like Colonel M did) should result in her having better weapon ranks. However, even if she could then achieve a 2HKO her hit would drop considerably. Even Aircalibur (and I doubt she even could hit B that early) has 10 less hit than fire. Elfire has 20 less. Probably best to just try for a Rutger support to boost her KO rate above Gonzo's. Without Rutger, though, her durability is a tad suspect. I'd think a robe would be in order, but without one she may need to hang out on forests sometimes.

I agree that Lance is better than Gonzales if both are doubling; that's why I simply said that Gonzales is more likely to double, as Lance needs to be 1-2 levels higher than Gonzo in order to produce the same Spd averages (though I guess if you give Lance a level lead, that will be the case).

I don't really see why he wouldn't, though. Have a level lead, that is. The fact that my Lance is constantly being an idiot and getting screwed in str or spd or def or some combination of them and is thus 20/3 in chapter 22 because I hated using him doesn't mean it will happen very often. Gonzo may have a level lead of like 4 for me at that point (arguably 3 due to Gonzo's level 19 promo) but that doesn't mean much.

(oh, about the support thing, colonel M. Of course C Echidna Gonzo could happen for, like, chapter 22 or something. Fir appears in chapter 9 and I got it in 17. Maybe a person that clears maps faster would have 18 or early 19. Echidna Gonzo is same speed but Echidna appears two chapters later and Gonzo has a "throne" to capture in chapter 13. I should think based on my experience with Fir x Rutger that chapter 20x is absolute earliest given Gonzo's "throne" in chapter 13 and the late arrival of Echidna. The +5 cev should certainly help with reaver weapons' crit in chapter 21 and beyond. 5 avo helps close the gap a little. 1 def I suppose might help, though all it does is cancel the 1 def from shin x fir. I refuse to accept Lalum x Echidna, though. Yes, Lalum will likely be deployed every single map. Yes, it's a 20/+2. Yes, a B would mean +10 avo and +2 def and +10 cev and a few other things. No I don't think building a dancer support is reasonable, nor do I think that it would be all that easy to use one without Echidna missing out on a lot of enemies. And there are no guarantees they'd even be deployed in the same parts of chapters 12 or 16 or 20x (sacae). Both characters have completely different jobs to do and may not be near each other. This is also a problem for Fir in chapter 20x as I found that shin was much better used in a completely different area. But they were no longer attempting to build a support at that point and it's not as if either of them actually had better options.

And no, I don't think training Gonzo hurts efficiency. Not at all. However, I doubt he does much of worth in that chapter, and thus he's not getting any "credit" for it, in my eyes anyway.

And no way am I trying to give Fir the body ring. I said she could use it. I also said that I'd rather Rutger still be able to pick her up, a feat he obviously can't accomplish anymore if she gets ringed. Miledy for the javelins is a maybe, though those matter more in sacae than in ilia, I'd assume.)

Edited April 14, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[CATS]

Eh, how much hp/def do they have, anyway? Wouldn't Echidna tend to 2HKO weakened things with a killer axe anyway? If they have enough hp for her to not 2HKO, I'm wondering if she is even OHKOing with halberd anyway. With 13 str and WTA she does have 25 mt with killer axe.

I'm seeing 9-10 Def and high 30's Hp. And yeah, that was the point; Echidna probably 2HKOs a weakened cav with the killer axe, so you'd just use that and save the halberd, in which case her ability to avoid counters against those enemies is sharply reduced (whereas Gonzo's favorable situation for avoiding counters with the halberd, a full-Hp cavalier, is also the situation where you actually want to use the halberd since it's the only weapon that can kill). I guess I should also note that Gonzales has a fair shot at ORKOing with the killer axe, without any need of the halberd at all, but that would just be another advantage for him (saving even more uses of the weapon and still one-rounding).

It's too bad that fe averages doesn't include HM bonuses or I could tell you what the probability of him having that is.

Should be able to tell by looking at his odds to have 21-22 Spd (which translates to 23 with the +1.6 HM bonus). At 20/5, 50% for 21 Spd, 32% for 22, average of 41%, which is still a pretty significant figure even though it doesn't represent the most likely outcome.

[Colonel M]

Just so you know: I didn't find out the throne thing. dondon had it in his 0% Growths run, so I decided to try it out. It worked better with him gaining stats though (since Gonzales, at the very end, was able to double the Paladin lol).

[Narga_Rocks]

Just so you know: I didn't find out the throne thing. dondon had it in his 0% Growths run, so I decided to try it out. It worked better with him gaining stats though (since Gonzales, at the very end, was able to double the Paladin lol).

I did it myself and didn't even watch his chapter 13 video. He has so many and I tried not to watch things before I did the chapter. I think I've only seen 5 or 6 of his videos, though each time I watch it's usually followed by the word "wow".

Anyway, for me he took out the cavs near the first house, took at the first wave of reinforcements, and then visited the house before I seized. I was slow enough, though, that I met the second wave of reinforcements, but I left Thany and Dieck on the bridge and had them help since I didn't want Gonzo to get all the kills. Thany was so close to level 20 I just really really wanted her to get to level 20. If you want her to do decent damage with silver later on she needs it badly. It's helpful if she can actually ORKO some of the mage enemies later on. And she was 5HKOing a hero in chapter 21x with killer and gave me a crit (one hit left). Thought that was cool until the stupid physic druid healed him back to near-full. Jerk. Miledy to the rescue or something. Maybe it was Alan.

Back to chapter 13, though, yeah I said "self, that looks like a peak". self said: "Why yes it does." And so I said: "Why don't we drop Gonzo there and have him use killer axe on some things?" And so to shorten a much longer conversation I didn't even give him any help on them. Well, I was sending a flier back since it seemed like he wasn't going to make it to the village ever, but then he pulled some crits and Thany/Dieck distracted the others.

My problem isn't getting Roy to the seize in a decent number of turns, it's getting to the shops. And since I was at the shops, I figured why not try to save Lance and Allen's levels? As for Gonzo, he still faces real hit-rates from the axereaver enemy and crit. There may be a killer lance there, but I think he had like 5 hit or something. I was less worried about that one than the axereaver one.

[Colonel M]

Just to show how dumb I was at first: I used the Mountain. Sometimes it slips my mind of some random things like Gonzales crossing a peak. Then I sort of watched dondon's video with him on the Peak. Hilarity ensued in my playthrough.

Look it was one in the morning I wasn't thinking straight.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Colonel M

[Anouleth]

I've done similiar things before with Berserker Ross in FE8. With A Garcia sitting on a Peak in C17, he can just sit there and be indestructible and tank all the reinforcements from the left hand side, so the Wyverns won't go for the civilians, and the dumb enemies don't even try to go for Garcia so Ross has about 100+ avoid. I don't think there were really any opportunities to do the same with Hawkeye or Dart in FE7, though. Maybe in CoD or VoD!, he could tank. Or FFO (Linus).

[Colonel M]

I can actually think of one. Pent's joining chapter they could sit on a peak.

[Life]

I can actually think of one. Pent's joining chapter they could sit on a peak.

There's no reason to, last I checked.

[Colonel M]

There's no reason to, last I checked.

For the most part. They can just draw in some of the Wyverns. It's nothing special.

I'd have to sit and play FE7 again to really see, but I'm thinking VoD is the closest.

[Anouleth]

I imagine Dart/Hawkeye could get 0 hit rates from the Luna druids in Cog of Destiny as well, which is useful because it nixes the possibility of a Luna crit. I can't remember exactly how CoD was laid out, but he can go on one of the Peaks in the middle-east and sit there with Hand Axe.

Shame that this isn't actually relevant to FE6 or Gonzales at all. But I guess there are chapters he can Peak-tank Wyverns, like C17 Sacae. It's a shame he's also pretty tough in terms of HP or DEF, because he might be able to distract Monsieur Bolting and the Ballistae. Oh, and Garret can do it as well, I guess, probably a little bit easier than Gonzales because you can rescue-drop him with Tate or Zeiss, only Thany can pick up promoted Gonzales.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Anouleth

[Narga_Rocks]

Shame that this isn't actually relevant to FE6 or Gonzales at all. But I guess there are chapters he can Peak-tank Wyverns, like C17 Sacae. It's a shame he's also pretty tough in terms of HP or DEF, because he might be able to distract Monsieur Bolting and the Ballistae. Oh, and Garret can do it as well, I guess, probably a little bit easier than Gonzales because you can rescue-drop him with Tate or Zeiss, only Thany can pick up promoted Gonzales.

Chapter 17 ballistae is one of the finest examples of sucky AI I've ever seen. Right up there with the chapter 20 guy.

Try something for me: stand one outside of his range. Trust me on this. Pull out a torch next turn and see what happened to Mr. Ballista. That's right, the idiot stepped off his ballista and took his full move. Best part? Ballista costs 2 move so he can't even get back in one turn and thus acts like the ballista doesn't exist even if you move in range of the thing. And Miledy can probably ORKO the bolting dude anyway, and even if not can at least 2HKO with killers giving her crit. Thany may even be able to ORKO with silver, but she'd have less hit than Miledy w/ killer and there are wyverns around for enemy phase. Also Thany might be busy carting an unpromoted Gonzo around. Can't cart around the promoted version, though, and I found some use for being able to pick him up in that chapter.

Now, why do I call the chapter 20 (sacae) ballista "user" the finest example of dumb AI in the history of Fire Emblem? Warp a thief (preferably Cath) to the space just south of the sage with the gem. steal the gem. Base cath (thank you HM bonuses) can survive the enemy phase attack if she was barrier'd. Granted Astohl doesn't need barrier, but he could be busy with the doors to the chests or something. He actually has some semblance of durability. Now watch as the sniper leaves his post and runs towards Cath (and obviously can't reach). Now steal his Orion's Bolt and Rescue Cath out of there. The guy is so nice that he happily runs towards the thief that is only there to steal his orion's bolt, and that can only be safely accomplished because he runs towards her. Even Astohl wouldn't be able to KO the sage and then take a shot from the ballista before getting to the sniper. And the absolute best part of all? Because he is now unable to get back onto his ballista in one turn (again with the going full move and being unable to get back due to 2 cost of entering a ballista) he doesn't go back at all. The AI is so dumb that it can't recognize that a ballista is two turns away. If they can't hop on the ballista and attack that turn they won't even run towards a ballista. He spends the rest of the map happily standing in the exact same spot on which he was when Cath relieved him of the bolt.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Narga_Rocks