FE6 HM Tier List

[-Cynthia-]

Why is Roy so high anyway? He's pretty subpar even before promotion (better than crap like Wolt, but not even as good as Lot IMO). Then after promotion, he's a walking liabiity (gets doubled and killed or sometimes OHKOd by mages and stuff) who we have to carry to the throne. He's not even that good once we get the SoS, since he won't have enough speed to doubled (and may still get doubled on ocassion, depends how agressively we leveled him).

I'll admit Roy has the best support list in the game. However, the bonuses are going to go largely unused after earlygame, since he can't frontline or keep up with Lance/Alan/Marcus anyway.

Overall I'd drop Roy at least a few spots. I'm not sure he's even better than Lugh, might do a comparison later.

@Inui Your Lot/Fir comparison really skimmed over the very earlygame, which is the reason Lot is so high. He can double and kill soldiers, which is nice because other than Marcus and Ward (who can only double like Steel Lance guys), Lot can gain WTA against them. Plus, Lot can do stuff like use the Halberd against Iron Lance! Cavs and such, landing OHKOs at hit rates that aren't terrible. I'm not sure if is earlygame automatically makes him > Fir, but it's worth keeping in mind.

Edited March 3, 2010 by -Cynthia-

[Inui]

Fir rapes Roy harder than she owns Lot, lol.

Cynthia, Lot can have his earlygame uses. Loldiers are raped by everyone and he's borderline on killing them without a Steel Axe. He's not SPECIAL there. He's just all right. Fir is winning offense from the moment she joins and the gap gets bigger as the game progresses and she eventually wins durability.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Inui

[-Cynthia-]

Actually loliders aren't that easy to take out. Let's look at some of our team members:

Rutger/Dieck/Roy/Chad have permanent WTD, so durability and offensive issues exist.

Alan/Lance can only force WTN, so they aren't that great either. Alan might not double and Lance likely won't have enough Str.

Lol Wolt/Dorothy. Bors can barely hit them and sucks at doubling, Thany can double but can't ORKO and gets 2HKO'd herself.

Ward is all right, but has more hitting and doubling isues than Lot. Really the only person better at killing soldiers than Lot is Marcus.

So yeah, in some ways Lot is fairly special earlygame, his team is significantly weaker overall than the team at Fir's jointime, which should be considered. She beats him after a little while yeah, but we have to balance that against Lot's earlygame uses.

Edited March 3, 2010 by -Cynthia-

[Inui]

Rutger/Dieck/Roy/Chad have permanent WTD, so durability and offensive issues exist.

Alan/Lance can only force WTN, so they aren't that great either.

Chapter 8 Iron Lance Loldier: 35 HP, 2 Def, 10 Evd --- 18 Atk, 82 Hit, 3 AS

vs 9/0 Lot with C Thany/C Dieck: 43 Hit, 10 Dmg to 34 HP, dead in 4 hits. Lot fails to one-round with Iron or Steel.

vs 12/0 Dieck with C Lot/C Rutger/C Thany: 49 Hit, 10 Dmg to 32 HP, dead in 4 hits. Iron Blade does 19x2 and kills it.

Rutger = Dieck on steroids. No need to compare there, I guess. He's doing better than Lot even with WTDA if he's doing better than Dieck.

vs 10/0 Alan with B Lance/C Roy: 41 Hit, 9 Dmg to 29 HP, dead in 4 hits. Alan does 19x2 and kills it.

Lance has more Hit, but does 2 less Dmg and barely misses the kill...if he doesn't use a better weapon than an Iron Lance. Lot fails with both Iron and Steel. One doesn't give him the Atk (Iron is 17x2) and the other weighs him down to 6 AS, so he won't double.

So yeah, in some ways Lot is fairly special earlygame, his team is significantly weaker overall than the team at Fir's jointime, which should be considered.

Nope. Average. He's just Average Joe.

[dondon151]

Being at the bottom of "optimal deployment" and forced in a few chapters where he's average (Dieck, Marcus, and Rutger are significantly better and the Cavs are generally better as well) doesn't make him automatically better than Fir if Fir is on par with him when she joins and then way fucking better after promotion with not much effort or babying at all.

Actually, it does. To put it simply, if you're not first (or free), you're last. The opportunity cost of deploying Fir can exceed the benefits, whereas at least for the first 6 chapters, the opportunity cost of deploying Lot does not exceed the benefits. Fir's performance against Lot's at her join time has nothing to do with this.

Level 1 enemies have 6-7 Spd. At level 4-5 you can expect Lance to get 6 Spd things, and at level 6-7 he gets 7 Spd things. Some faster axe d00ds have like 8 Spd, right? He gets those at level 8-9. Lance is doubling shit that Lot can't double really frequently and he has way better WT control. Comparing Lot to the Cavalier duo, even early, is a joke.

9/0 is an estimate usually reserved for around chapter 7 or 8. But when you're in like chapter 5, the only enemies that Lance can double are probably a couple of Steel Axe fighters, and that's about it. He still loses atk to Lot.

By that logic, units that are not optimal for deployment need to immediately be placed into bottom tier. You are assuming those better units are constantly and always in play and never rotated out or just not used at all. If you only want to use top tiers, then put everyone else in graveyard tier please. Too bad nobody plays the game like that.

Too bad that's how economics works. If you don't take the best approach, you encounter a net loss.

Also, Lot is competing for deployment as well. And guess what? He's clearly worse than Fir. Sure, Lot starts off better in terms of durability and can give support bonuses, but that shit ends FAST. Fir always rapes him offensively overall and then gets more durable by not getting hit. This happens after like two chapters.

Yeah, Lot is competing with Fir for deployment when both are around. But he doesn't compete for deployment from chapters 2-7. Additionally, Lot gives some pretty nice support bonuses to Dieck and Thany, both units that are more likely to be deployed than him, so there's a reason to deploy Lot other than for just his own combat.

Did you know that relative to the enemies around them, Fir's joining situation is better? She starts out with great offense and the same durability Lot had in the earlygame relative to the enemies, except both her offense and durability go up really fast initially, while Lot can't do that early on.

No, it's not. Lot has no competition. Fir has at least 12 other units that deserve a deployment slot more than she does by virtue of superior offense, 1-2 range access, and/or superior move.

No details needed here. Fir clearly wins defensively and offensively. Lot with a Silver Axe is borderline on one-shotting, while Fir rapes it without breaking a sweat. Hand Axe? Lot can counter, but this bitch has good Evd and Hand Axes suck. 68.40 True Hit is not impressive at all, and that's if it's not in one of the many forests.

I'd like to point out that in all cases, 68.4 is greater than 0. Just saying. Lot will also have Longbow access, circumventing a counter altogether (for another unit), or he can grab a Brave Axe and do the same.

Unfortunately for Lot, a plethora of units can mimic what he does. Klein, Clarine, Percival, Lance, Alan, Dieck, Lugh, Ray, and many others all have solid durability and offense with 1~2 range right now. Dieck's supports grant him Hit and Crit to make up for Hand Axe failure. Klein's supports give huge defensive boosts. The mounted d00ds are rape. Shin does what Lot does except way better since he doubles. Lot is doing nothing that many other units can do just as well or better.

Klein doesn't have 1-2 range, and Lugh's durability is pretty far from being solid. Clarine's damage isn't very good and Ray tends to be screwed if he misses a counter.

20/4 Lot loses 3 str / 2 AS to 20/6 Dieck, but Lot has a higher axe rank. If you give Lot a Speedwings, he's Dieck with more durability. That's not the only thing they have in common; they're also around starting from chapter 2, and they're skittles for deployment for a substantial period of time.

What does Fir have? For starters, possibly the second best player phase offense in the entire game. Gonzales wins Atk, but Fir slaughters him in Hit and swords generally trump axes in non-lance situations. Who can mimic Fir's ability to pick any enemy on the map and kill it without breaking a sweat? Rutger, and most of the time Gonzales. That's it. Pesky Nomad Trooper? Druid? Wyvern Lord? Every boss ever? These are all tough and dangerous enemies that Lot can't kill, and most of your team can't kill. You know who can kill these bastards? Fir.

You have many tools at your disposal to kill tough enemies. You have Longbow + brave weapons + Rutger + Shin/Klein to deal with NTs. You have Longbow + silver weapons + brave weapons + Pure Water/Barrier to deal with druids. You have Brave Bow + divine weapons + Aircalibur + magic to deal with WLs. And Percival is pretty solid against bosses, so it follows that Rutger, Lance, and Alan do well against them too. Fir fails at half the game in general because she can't counter from 2-range, and every enemy uncountered is a net negative for her because someone else could have taken her place and made those counters.

Chapter 8 comparison

We're not talking about chapter 8; we're talking about earlier than that.

Nope. Average. He's just Average Joe.

Too bad, he's free and positive. Fir is below average. She's just Below Average Jill.

Chapter 8 comparison

We're not talking about chapter 8; we're talking about earlier than that.

Nope. Average. He's just Average Joe.

Too bad, he's free and positive. Fir is below average. She's just Below Average Jill.

EDIT: If FE3_Player or Narga are reading, please merge this post with the previous one.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Narga_Rocks]

We're not talking about chapter 8; we're talking about earlier than that.

Too bad, he's free and positive. Fir is below average. She's just Below Average Jill.

EDIT: If FE3_Player or Narga are reading, please merge this post with the previous one.

I assume you mean Speedwagon?

I had to change my number of posts displayed per page to do it.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[dondon151]

Isn't Speedwagon FE3_Player? Or am I horribly mistaken?

EDIT: Dammit, I always get Sirius and FE3_Player confused.

Edited March 3, 2010 by dondon151

[Inui]

Actually, it does. To put it simply, if you're not first (or free), you're last. The opportunity cost of deploying Fir can exceed the benefits, whereas at least for the first 6 chapters, the opportunity cost of deploying Lot does not exceed the benefits. Fir's performance against Lot's at her join time has nothing to do with this.

The only time I can understand this argument is when that unit is providing something really good. Lot provides subpar offense and average durability when he's around. He has Halberd/Hammer uses that some other units can also do, and that's all. He loses very badly to Alan, Lance, Marcus, Dieck, and Rutger overall and him having more Spd than Ward doesn't even matter until his existent growth starts to matter over Ward's terrible one.

Him just being thrown on the map doesn't mean shit. Bors and Wolt are there, they are top tier for not costing a unit slot, right? Nah, they sucks. Lot is also not good. Lot does a few things that someone else can just do. Using him longterm is kinda dumb since he sucks. Fir beats him against virtually every single enemy in the entire game in terms of offense, even Falco Knights, Wyvern Lords, and Generals. Investing in Fir = investing in a good unit.

9/0 is an estimate usually reserved for around chapter 7 or 8. But when you're in like chapter 5, the only enemies that Lance can double are probably a couple of Steel Axe fighters, and that's about it. He still loses atk to Lot.

In Chapter 5, Lance is easily level 6 right at the start. 10.5 Spd. Hand Axe dudes with 7 Spd? Doubles. Everything with Steel Axes? Doubles. A level or two more? Doubles everything. And guess what? He has swords. He's not missing ~70% of the time like Lot is. He's not missing at all.

Lance has pretty much the same Atk. Level 6 Lance with C Roy/C Alan = 15 Atk vs axes. Level 6 Lot with C Thany has 17 Atk vs axes. Uh, 2 more Atk? Who cares? Lance doubles a lot, he doesn't. Lance doesn't miss, he does.

Lance/Alan vs Lot isn't close at all. It's a massacre. His only win is when he uses the Halberd against Cavaliers and Hammers against Knights. He loses offense to the godly sword using duo and the Cavaliers against loldiers and only ties them in durability. If Lance and Alan are much better than Lot, then Dieck, Rutger, and Marcus have an evenb bigger gap. Lot is average at best.

Yeah, Lot is competing with Fir for deployment when both are around. But he doesn't compete for deployment from chapters 2-7. Additionally, Lot gives some pretty nice support bonuses to Dieck and Thany, both units that are more likely to be deployed than him, so there's a reason to deploy Lot other than for just his own combat.

So, once Fir joins, deploying Fir > deploying Lot. Fir has more offense immediately, always has more, and is durable pretty soon. Fir is also Shin's only viable support option, so using one without the other is loltastic. Fir will be Shin's best and only partner and have similar support benefits to the team as Lot.

Lot's partners? They don't give a shit about him. Dieck also has Klein, Clarine, Rutger, and Thany. Thany has Dieck and Tate. All of those units > Lot.

No, it's not. Lot has no competition. Fir has at least 12 other units that deserve a deployment slot more than she does by virtue of superior offense, 1-2 range access, and/or superior move.

lol @ Javelins in the Western Isles

lol @ Fir having inferior offense to 12 units

Rutger, Dieck, Lance? That's about all she loses to in terms of offense. She always loses to Rutger, but she actually beats the other two after promotion, and quite soundly.

Out of the actually good units, five are mounted. Two of those are getting benched soon. She's not the only one that doesn't have a horse.

The fact of the matter is, she's beating Lot, and she's beating plenty of this "competition" you speak of.

I'd like to point out that in all cases, 68.4 is greater than 0. Just saying. Lot will also have Longbow access, circumventing a counter altogether (for another unit), or he can grab a Brave Axe and do the same.

Lot is attacked, has way less Evd/Res than Fir and eats damage, and then counters. Enemy lives.

Fir doesn't counter, but she nimbly dodges the attack and giggles at her foe. Enemy lives.

Big difference right there.

When they make the first move?

Lot attacks, misses 1/3 of the time, eats a counter without using a weapon with horrible Hit/Atk. Enemy lives.

Fir attacks, never misses, and has huge Crit. Enemy is reduced to dust in an instant.

Klein doesn't have 1-2 range, and Lugh's durability is pretty far from being solid. Clarine's damage isn't very good and Ray tends to be screwed if he misses a counter.

You don't need 1~2 range in Sacae since more than half the enemies use bows.

20/4 Lugh with B Ray has 31 HP, 9 Def, and 59 Evd.

HP: 35

Attack: 18

Hit: 116

Crit: 18

Attack Speed: 19

Avoid: 46

Crit Evade: 9

Defense: 7

Resistance: 5

Lugh faces 63.45 Hit and takes 9 Dmg per hit. He needs to be hit 4 times to die. Sure, if you expose him to more than 4 Nomads at a time he's in trouble, but why the fuck would you do that?

Offensively, he's not missing and killing them in two hits, unlike Lot, who likes missing them sometimes (85.69 Hit with his most accurate weapon possible and B Thany). He doesn't double, but he's in no danger of being doubled (unlike Lot and his borderline Spd that 1 less than average gets him doubled).

Lugh's performance in Sacae > Lot's. Lugh has way better offense and his durability is just enough that you can expose him to 3 Nomads without worrying at all. Needing to do more than that when you have a whole army is just crazy.

20/4 Ray with B Lugh has 84.60 Hit and does 27 Dmg in one hit to them. What must happen for him to die? He must be hit by a 82.30, then miss with his 84.60, then get hit with another 82.30, then get hit with another 82.30, then miss his 84.60, then get hit with another 82.30. I'm not finding that to be a chance worth mentioning. It's very slim.

20/4 Clarine with A Rutger/B Klein and Thunder doesn't miss them and does 12 Dmg with 24 Crit. Unlike other "invincible" units like Lot and Percival, she won't lolmiss ever. She has 97.69 Hit with Thunder. She has a 24% chance to kill them in one hit. Lot has a 10% chance to do the same and has less Hit. She faces 12.75 Hit and needs 3 hits to die. Not too worried there. Her chance of death after 3 rounds is 0.2%. 4 rounds is 0.75%. Very, very minor.

So, all of them > Lot.

20/4 Lot loses 3 str / 2 AS to 20/6 Dieck, but Lot has a higher axe rank. If you give Lot a Speedwings, he's Dieck with more durability. That's not the only thing they have in common; they're also around starting from chapter 2, and they're skittles for deployment for a substantial period of time.

He also loses by a massive amount in Hit. I don't think you're quite getting the Hit issue here. Dieck almost never misses, Lot seems to miss 10-20% of the time he attacks, fails to double frequently, and doesn't have impressive Str. That's horrible for Combat. VERY horrible. He's Lowen without a horse in a game with more durable enemies.

20/4 Lot with Speedwings and A Dieck/B Thany: 53 HP, 19 Def, 8 Res, 64 Evd, WTA vs lances.

20/6 Dieck with A Lot/B Rutger: 48 HP, 18 Def, 9 Res, 73 Evd, WTA vs lances and axes.

I'm not seeing a notable durability win at all, and this is when Lot consumed a stat booster. Give Dieck a Dragonshield or Angelic Robe, and he clearly wins.

You have many tools at your disposal to kill tough enemies. You have Longbow + brave weapons + Rutger + Shin/Klein to deal with NTs. You have Longbow + silver weapons + brave weapons + Pure Water/Barrier to deal with druids. You have Brave Bow + divine weapons + Aircalibur + magic to deal with WLs. And Percival is pretty solid against bosses, so it follows that Rutger, Lance, and Alan do well against them too. Fir fails at half the game in general because she can't counter from 2-range, and every enemy uncountered is a net negative for her because someone else could have taken her place and made those counters.

Or we can just use Fir's stats. Her awesome stats rape enemies. Longbow has terrible Hit and Atk. Brave Weapons have 30 uses. Fir slaughters Klein and Shin in player phase offense. You're totally overhyping the killing of scrubs. Having enemy phase offense means you can counter n00bs. Okay, good job. Lot sucks at that compared to like 15+ units, btw. This is because Lot isn't that good. What Fir does on the player phase requires expensive/rare weapons, item usage, DIVINE WEAPONS? Really? Fir with a Steel Sword is equal to some other unit with tons of special treatment consuming more cash and/or rare resources. ROFL!

We're not talking about chapter 8; we're talking about earlier than that.

What difference does it make? He's not beating them against loldiers.

Too bad, he's free and positive. Fir is below average. She's just Below Average Jill.

Fir isn't below average at all.

Who has 9/12/13 for their offensive stats in Chapter 9? That's a total of 34.

Lot doesn't get Fir's base Skl and Spd until he promotes. Lot has her base Str at level 10. If Lot is level 12 with supports, Fir is already beating him in offense. Lance and Alan have that much raw offense at around level 13. Rutger and Dieck beat her. So, right from the start, she's on par with good units offensively, making her above average.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Lot's partners? They don't give a shit about him. Dieck also has Klein, Clarine, Rutger, and Thany. Thany has Dieck and Tate. All of those units > Lot.

Thany and Dieck do actually.

Lot's support with Dieck starts at 10 points and goes up by 2 starting in chapter 2. Bonuses being, +1 DEF, + 0.5 ATK, +5 AVO and so on per level. Now compared to...

Rutger and Dieck only gives .5 DEF per level and grows half as fast as Lot as well as being several points behind.

Clarine? Same thing only you need 9 more turns than what you need for Rutger.

Klein... okay so you want to wait until Klein's around to trade ATK (Lot) for a little accuracy when the rest of the bonuses could've come earlier?

Thany gets +1 ATK from Lot per level... you know, that one stat she really cares about because of its base being 4 and the growth being 30%?

Denying Lot such supports is just sandbagging.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Speedwagon

[Inui]

I wish stuff besides shitty minor points I make would get addressed. I talked to Solid about this shit and he thinks Fir is a tier higher than Lot, yet you guys are saying Lot's better based solely on deployment arguments when Fir is clearly actually on par with top tiers. ~_~

Edit: I will do a formal debate of Fir against anything in the tier above hers besides Gonzales and win against anyone here. BRING IT. :)

Edited March 3, 2010 by Inui

[-Cynthia-]

I wish stuff besides shitty minor points I make would get addressed. I talked to Solid about this shit and he thinks Fir is a tier higher than Lot, yet you guys are saying Lot's better based solely on deployment arguments when Fir is clearly actually on par with top tiers. ~_~

Haven't you been asked multiple times to stop using "so and so said this" as justification for everything? It's very irritating.

Edit: I will do a formal debate of Fir against anything in the tier above hers besides Gonzales and win against anyone here. BRING IT. :)

Formal debates don't actually prove which unit is better, since they are inherently biased. Even if you won a Fir vs. Lance debate, that doesn't actually make Fir better.

You don't really have the right to complain about people not addressing your major points when you intentionally dodge Lot's 2-7 performance by doing Ch8 comparisons, as dondon pointed out. And it actuay does make a difference, since Alan won't have B Lance by Ch2 etc. etc. Lots of things change in the span of a few chapters.

Lot missing isn't as big a deal as you make it out to be. Remember this isn't ranked, so missing is more acceptable (see Gonzales' position).

Edited March 3, 2010 by -Cynthia-

[Dr. Tarrasque]

I wish stuff besides shitty minor points I make would get addressed. I talked to Solid about this shit and he thinks Fir is a tier higher than Lot, yet you guys are saying Lot's better based solely on deployment arguments when Fir is clearly actually on par with top tiers. ~_~

@Bold: Easily remedied by putting more thought into your arguments before you try (Ray > Niime for example) and leaving these "shitty minor points" out.

@Italic: Because your opinions are automatically more correct than those who disagree with you right?

[Inui]

Haven't you been asked multiple times to stop using "so and so said this" as justification for everything? It's very irritating.

Too bad. Guess what? I made extremely good arguments with lots of facts and numbers and enemy samples on top of saying "Solid agrees with me." It's not the basis of my argument and wasn't even presented until several posts later.

Formal debates don't actually prove which unit is better, since they are inherently biased. Even if you won a Fir vs. Lance debate, that doesn't actually make Fir better.

They prove tons of shit. If I can win, doesn't it mean Fir is comparable? Yes, it does. I'll show that Fir compares to top tiers...since she does.

You don't really have the right to complain about people not addressing your major points when you intentionally dodge Lot's 2-7 performance by doing Ch8 comparisons, as dondon pointed out. And it actuay does make a difference, since Alan won't have B Lance by Ch2 etc. etc. Lots of things change in the span of a few chapters.

I didn't dodge it. It sucks. His earlygame performance is way worse than that of the actual good characters. His only benefit is just existing. I did show it. I showed that he can lolmiss pretty frequently. That's bad. Marcus, Lance, Alan, Roy, Dieck, Chad, Rutger, Clarine, Ellen? All are more useful than him in the earlygame. Lot is average at best. Fir is instantly above average upon joining.

Lot missing isn't as big a deal as you make it out to be. Remember this isn't ranked, so missing is more acceptable (see Gonzales' position).

Missing sucks, even in unranked. It means you didn't do anything. It's a totally wasted turn.

You know what? I'm willing to wager that the amount of times Lot misses is significantly greater than the amount of enemies he counters that she doesn't throughout the game.

@Bold: Easily remedied by putting more thought into your arguments before you try (Ray > Niime for example) and leaving these "shitty minor points" out.

Fuck shitty minor points. I have demonstrated that Fir is good and Lot is flawed and it's being ignored.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Inui

[Florete]

To bad. Guess what? I made extremely good arguments with lots of facts and numbers and enemy samples on top of saying "Solid agrees with me." It's not the basis of my argument and wasn't even presented until several posts later.

The problem is that you're using the opinion of someone who isn't even posting here like it actually means something to any of us. It doesn't. What's worse is that you do this very often.

So, guess what, Inui? No one gives a shit what Solid thinks. To quote Interceptor:

You may as well have said "my cat's breath smells like cat food".

Don't waste your time and ours saying things no one cares about. Now, if Solid wants to come in and actually make an argument for Fir, that's perfectly fine, but until then, no one cares.

And with the way you're acting here it's funny that you're the one that calls us elitist. Honestly, I'd be on the Fir side of this argument myself if I wanted to join, and even I can see that these two are much closer than you're making them out to be based on everyone's arguments.

[Inui]

Then perhaps these arguments that show it's close should actually be presented instead of some other irrelevant stuff being picked at like you're doing? That'd be cool.

[Narga_Rocks]

I wish stuff besides shitty minor points I make would get addressed. I talked to Solid about this shit and he thinks Fir is a tier higher than Lot, yet you guys are saying Lot's better based solely on deployment arguments when Fir is clearly actually on par with top tiers. ~_~

Deployment arguments are important. At least, they are depending on the tiering mentality. If there are X deployment slots and a unit is basically the (X + 1)th best unit, they are a negative every single time they are deployed. Economic profit = Profit - Opportunity Cost. The Opportunity Cost is the profit of the Xth best unit. Unless Fir is better than your Xth best unit, she is negative forever. Since Lot has no opportunity cost at first, anything he does is positive overall. He can then be dropped. Lot > Fir.

Now, this tier list doesn't really seem to follow that, considering units like Walt are so low. But it is a valid form of tiering.

As for this list, I'd assume that while it doesn't apply the concept of net utility to its fullest, not taking a slot still has an effect on their position. Lot isn't as good as some other units when you have no option with which to replace him? Who cares? He still gets a fair amount of credit for that even if he's not the best. You are handwaving that away rather than acknowledging it. As for Fir when she's present, it seems people remain unconvinced that Fir is among the X best units.

----

To those of you who are unconvinced, what separates Fir from the rest? No 1-2 range has been mentioned. I think bad durability causing bad enemy phase has been mentioned, though Inui has given some numbers in an attempt to say she is durable enough to do something. What else is he missing?

Too bad. Guess what? I made extremely good arguments with lots of facts and numbers and enemy samples on top of saying "Solid agrees with me." It's not the basis of my argument and wasn't even presented until several posts later.

Okay, that's all well and good, but it's like adding "Because my mom said so" at the end of your arguments. Sure, it doesn't cancel out the earlier arguments, but it really sticks out and is bound to get commented on. All it does is detract from the argument.

They prove tons of shit. If I can win, doesn't it mean Fir is comparable? Yes, it does. I'll show that Fir compares to top tiers...since she does.

Debates prove debater A > debater B. Vykan won a debate on Elincia v. Renning in RD (he was arguing for Renning). Renning isn't even in her league. If the debaters miss stuff or one person is more eloquent, anything can happen in a debate. It really doesn't prove anything.

I didn't dodge it. It sucks. His earlygame performance is way worse than that of the actual good characters.

Which means nothing. He's there, you don't have anything to replace him with, and no matter how good the rest are it is easier with Lot than without him. Lot can go hide and be equal to what you'd have without him. If he does anything above and beyond hiding he's clearly a positive. This is the advantage of being free. You've claimed that Fir does better relative to the enemies when she joins than Lot does relative to the enemies when he joins. That's irrelevant. They are in different circumstances for their jointimes.

His only benefit is just existing. I did show it. I showed that he can lolmiss pretty frequently. That's bad. Marcus, Lance, Alan, Roy, Dieck, Chad, Rutger, Clarine, Ellen? All are more useful than him in the earlygame. Lot is average at best. Fir is instantly above average upon joining.

If he's average at best, heck I'll give you "slightly underaverage", that means he's able to contribute when free. If he was absolute rubbish with 30% hit rates and never doubles anything and causes 3 or 4 damage to everything and dies in 2 hits we can talk about not getting anything out of his free chapters. However, that's not the case.

Missing sucks, even in unranked. It means you didn't do anything. It's a totally wasted turn.

And he's got many turns. Even if he gets 1 real turn out of all of his free chapters, that's a positive because he is free.

You know what? I'm willing to wager that the amount of times Lot misses is significantly greater than the amount of enemies he counters that she doesn't throughout the game.

What, you mean the sum of his #misses is greater than the number of 1-2 range (or 2 range) enemies that he counters and she can't? Maybe, maybe not, but any misses early on are just missed opportunities to accumulate positive, considering if you didn't have him there to attack the result is the same. An empty slot can't do any better than Lot's misses. It becomes worse for him once he can be replaced with others, of course.

Fuck shitty minor points. I have demonstrated that Fir is good and Lot is flawed and it's being ignored.

Here's the thing. You were already convinced of Fir > Lot. Clearly you wouldn't say things if you didn't think they helped your point. So after you say a bunch of stuff you'll think you've proved it. You aren't exactly objective in this. Go to almost any debate and ask one of the debators (preferably the one that was clearly inferior, if there is one) if he thinks he proved his points. I'm willing to bet most of the time you'll get a "yes", possibly followed by "those judges were just biased against my position" or something like that.

I'd actually like something from Colonel M on his view of the worth of deployment slots and the cost of taking one, considering that seems to be important for this comparison.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Inui]

Debates prove debater A > debater B. Vykan won a debate on Elincia v. Renning in RD (he was arguing for Renning). Renning isn't even in her league. If the debaters miss stuff or one person is more eloquent, anything can happen in a debate. It really doesn't prove anything.

Bring on dondon, Mekkah, or someone else known to be a very good debater. I know Mekkah's amazing at formal debates.

Which means nothing. He's there, you don't have anything to replace him with, and no matter how good the rest are it is easier with Lot than without him. Lot can go hide and be equal to what you'd have without him. If he does anything above and beyond hiding he's clearly a positive. This is the advantage of being free. You've claimed that Fir does better relative to the enemies when she joins than Lot does relative to the enemies when he joins. That's irrelevant. They are in different circumstances for their jointimes.

Sure you can replace him. Just never have him fight anything. That's what I do. I want good units to gain EXP and units that actually hit things and dodge to fight.

If he's average at best, heck I'll give you "slightly underaverage", that means he's able to contribute when free. If he was absolute rubbish with 30% hit rates and never doubles anything and causes 3 or 4 damage to everything and dies in 2 hits we can talk about not getting anything out of his free chapters. However, that's not the case.

And he's got many turns. Even if he gets 1 real turn out of all of his free chapters, that's a positive because he is free.

I really don't like this argument at all. The free deployment slot stuff is just silly. If you have a free deployment slot, that's nice and all, but Lott has it in some of the smallest chapters in the game and he's average at best in those chapters. That's not special. It does NOT overcome how much better Fir is than him from the moment she exists.

What, you mean the sum of his #misses is greater than the number of 1-2 range (or 2 range) enemies that he counters and she can't? Maybe, maybe not, but any misses early on are just missed opportunities to accumulate positive, considering if you didn't have him there to attack the result is the same. An empty slot can't do any better than Lot's misses. It becomes worse for him once he can be replaced with others, of course.

The number of his misses > the number of ranged enemies Fir won't counter in practice.

All of his misses add negative. It slows you down. If he didn't miss, you'd be better off. You have a dead or damaged enemy. A threat would be removed. Lot dies in three hits and has bad Evd, so him missing could easily mean death.

Here's the thing. You were already convinced of Fir > Lot. Clearly you wouldn't say things if you didn't think they helped your point. So after you say a bunch of stuff you'll think you've proved it. You aren't exactly objective in this. Go to almost any debate and ask one of the debators (preferably the one that was clearly inferior, if there is one) if he thinks he proved his points. I'm willing to bet most of the time you'll get a "yes", possibly followed by "those judges were just biased against my position" or something like that.

Lol, who cares? Look at the numbers. Fir thrashes Lot. Fir vigorously rapes him with a chainsaw.

Fir = a Rutger that joins later but actually gets better raw stats once used but has worse supports. How is that worse than the units she's below?

I'd actually like something from Colonel M on his view of the worth of deployment slots and the cost of taking one, considering that seems to be important for this comparison.

Important? It's literally the entire thing. This logic means Roy is the best character and every early game unit ever in every game is amazing. Rubbish.

Lot's not taking a deployment slot. Cool. Guess what? There are no deployment slots to take since everyone is just dumped on the map right away. Lot just gets to exist. Him existing for "free" doesn't make him suddenly perform well or always be a positive, since his bad offense and mediocre durability add plenty of negative to the team even if he's just there for "free." Every kill he takes is still minus x amount of EXP for some other unit that's better.

[dondon151]

The only time I can understand this argument is when that unit is providing something really good. Lot provides subpar offense and average durability when he's around. He has Halberd/Hammer uses that some other units can also do, and that's all. He loses very badly to Alan, Lance, Marcus, Dieck, and Rutger overall and him having more Spd than Ward doesn't even matter until his existent growth starts to matter over Ward's terrible one.

You not understanding is your problem, not my problem. This claim, to me, sounds akin to something like "you can get by fine without Lowen in earlygame FE7 HHM," which from personal experience is simply not true, even though Lowen is a somewhat lackluster unit. Removing Lot completely from the game would result in slower completions per chapter by at least a turn or more. Removing Fir from the game has virtually no effect whatsoever because there are better or equally good units to replace her with.

Him just being thrown on the map doesn't mean shit. Bors and Wolt are there, they are top tier for not costing a unit slot, right? Nah, they sucks. Lot is also not good. Lot does a few things that someone else can just do. Using him longterm is kinda dumb since he sucks. Fir beats him against virtually every single enemy in the entire game in terms of offense, even Falco Knights, Wyvern Lords, and Generals. Investing in Fir = investing in a good unit.

Bors has move issues, worse durability, and worse offense. Wolt has significantly worse offense and incurs negative utility when attacked. Being free means something, but it's not everything.

In Chapter 5, Lance is easily level 6 right at the start. 10.5 Spd. Hand Axe dudes with 7 Spd? Doubles. Everything with Steel Axes? Doubles. A level or two more? Doubles everything. And guess what? He has swords. He's not missing ~70% of the time like Lot is. He's not missing at all.

I don't know where the hell you're pulling these stats from. There is not a single enemy on the map that has less than 8 speed. Iron Axe fighters have 9 AS; Hand Axe fighters and brigands 8 AS. 9/0 Lance doubles, but 9/0 is unrealistic for chapter 5, as you said so yourself. Not even Marcus will double most of these guys. 6/0 Lance @ Iron Sword with C Alan and C Roy has 12 +3 atk, which does 10/32 HP damage to a 5 def fighter. 9/0 Dieck @ Steel Blade with C Lot and C Thany has 22 +2 atk, 19/32 HP damage to a 5 def fighter. 7/0 Lot @ Iron Axe with C Dieck and C Thany has 16 + 1 atk, 12/32 HP damage. 5/0 Rutger @ Iron Sword has 14 +1 atk, 20/32 HP damage. So a combination of the right units can score a 2RKO, and these enemies are pretty tough.

Lance/Alan vs Lot isn't close at all. It's a massacre. His only win is when he uses the Halberd against Cavaliers and Hammers against Knights. He loses offense to the godly sword using duo and the Cavaliers against loldiers and only ties them in durability. If Lance and Alan are much better than Lot, then Dieck, Rutger, and Marcus have an evenb bigger gap. Lot is average at best.

Completely, utterly false. I just showed above how Lance isn't doubling soon enough to establish an offensive win over Lot. 7/0 Alan has 26.1 HP, 9.7 str, 8.7 spd, 7.5 def to 8/0 Lot's 33 HP, 8.5 str, 8.75 spd, 6 def. Alan wins like 1 atk and some hit after factoring supports and weapon differences.

So, once Fir joins, deploying Fir > deploying Lot. Fir has more offense immediately, always has more, and is durable pretty soon. Fir is also Shin's only viable support option, so using one without the other is loltastic. Fir will be Shin's best and only partner and have similar support benefits to the team as Lot.

There are problems with Fir supporting Shin. It's somewhat slow (30 turns for C/B, 40 turns for A). It gives half def, half atk, and half crit, as FirexIce kind of sucks in general (full avo is good). It doesn't really help Shin very much pre-promotion. It has to overcome move differences. Consider that for awhile, Shin isn't even getting any meaningful bonuses, so he doesn't give a rat's ass whether Fir is deployed or not. And the problem with comparing FirxShin to LotxDieckxThany is that by the time the former partners join, the latter are already at C/B.

Lot's partners? They don't give a shit about him. Dieck also has Klein, Clarine, Rutger, and Thany. Thany has Dieck and Tate. All of those units > Lot.

Slow, inefficient, not optimal.

lol @ Javelins in the Western Isles

I don't understand. In chapter 11E, 14/21 starting enemies on the map can attack from 2 range (though 2 can attack from 3 range, so it's more like 12/21). If you charge forward with 1 range lock, you can't counter 57% of the enemies on the map. Having 60 disp with a Hand Axe (about what Zealot has) is better than not attacking at all. Although he'd double more with a Javelin, since he doesn't lose any AS, but his hit drops to 55 disp. As long as he hits once and puts enemies into ORKO or 2RKO range, it already displays the merits of 1-2 range.

lol @ Fir having inferior offense to 12 units

Well, Roy, Marcus, and Zealot are pretty much automatically deployed. Rutger beats Fir's offense without question. 1 to 2 healers are guaranteed to be deployed. Dieck also has superior offense as long as he doubles, but he can pull out a Steel Blade anyway. Astohl has superior offense and 1 more move. Alan, Lance, and Noah are all mounted, so even if their offense is worse, they still contribute more towards efficient completion (Lance doubles all enemies and Alan/Noah double Steel Axe fighters). There you go, that's at least 10 units with higher deployment priority than Fir. Lilina is required for 10E and Gonzo is available for 11E, plus Thany is a pretty good choice there too.

Lot is attacked, has way less Evd/Res than Fir and eats damage, and then counters. Enemy lives.

Fir doesn't counter, but she nimbly dodges the attack and giggles at her foe. Enemy lives.

The first scenario is infinitely more desirable than the second, I agree.

Lot attacks, misses 1/3 of the time, eats a counter without using a weapon with horrible Hit/Atk. Enemy lives.

Fir attacks, never misses, and has huge Crit. Enemy is reduced to dust in an instant.

What a great example. I applaud you for accurate representations.

How about this example? 16/0 Lot in chapter 13 @ Halberd with B Dieck and B Thany has 71 disp against a Steel Lance cavalier (37 HP, 10 def). He misses 16.5% of the time, and the other 83.5% of the time he does exactly 37/37 HP damage. 13/0 Fir (generous estimate) @ Wo Dao has 85 disp and 20 -1 atk. 37 crit is nice, but even with crit + hit she falls 1 HP short of the ORKO. She could switch to Killing Edge for the extra MT and 32 crit, but she still has a 46.24% chance of not ORKOing, disregarding the fact that her hit rate isn't perfect.

You don't need 1~2 range in Sacae since more than half the enemies use bows.

Yeah, you need 2 range. Which Fir doesn't have.

Lugh faces 63.45 Hit and takes 9 Dmg per hit. He needs to be hit 4 times to die. Sure, if you expose him to more than 4 Nomads at a time he's in trouble, but why the fuck would you do that?

Have you looked at a map of chapter 18S?

Offensively, he's not missing and killing them in two hits, unlike Lot, who likes missing them sometimes (85.69 Hit with his most accurate weapon possible and B Thany). He doesn't double, but he's in no danger of being doubled (unlike Lot and his borderline Spd that 1 less than average gets him doubled).

Newsflash: 2 times 0 is still 0.

Lugh's performance in Sacae > Lot's. Lugh has way better offense and his durability is just enough that you can expose him to 3 Nomads without worrying at all. Needing to do more than that when you have a whole army is just crazy.

The nomads will target your weakest units. If you have to position Lugh carefully so that he only faces 3 attacks on enemy phase, you might as well position Lot so that he faces 7 attacks on enemy phase, because he'll never die.

20/4 Ray with B Lugh has 84.60 Hit and does 27 Dmg in one hit to them. What must happen for him to die? He must be hit by a 82.30, then miss with his 84.60, then get hit with another 82.30, then get hit with another 82.30, then miss his 84.60, then get hit with another 82.30. I'm not finding that to be a chance worth mentioning. It's very slim.

20/4 Ray @ Nosferatu with B Lugh has 32 HP, 14.4 AS, 9.65 def. NTs are particularly dangerous for Ray because they double him and 3HKO him - if Ray misses Nosferatu once (he has about 69 disp), he's a goner.

So, all of them > Lot.

Only Clarine has a case against Lot. Lugh's durability is a problem and Ray's chances of death are too unreliable.

20/4 Lot with Speedwings and A Dieck/B Thany: 53 HP, 19 Def, 8 Res, 64 Evd, WTA vs lances.

20/6 Dieck with A Lot/B Rutger: 48 HP, 18 Def, 9 Res, 73 Evd, WTA vs lances and axes.

I'm not seeing a notable durability win at all, and this is when Lot consumed a stat booster. Give Dieck a Dragonshield or Angelic Robe, and he clearly wins.

The durability win here is irrelevant; Dieck's durability is top tier by this point anyway. The point is that Lot and Dieck double the same things and have top tier durability. They're also doubling the same things that Allen is doubling.

Or we can just use Fir's stats. Her awesome stats rape enemies. Longbow has terrible Hit and Atk. Brave Weapons have 30 uses. Fir slaughters Klein and Shin in player phase offense. You're totally overhyping the killing of scrubs. Having enemy phase offense means you can counter n00bs. Okay, good job. Lot sucks at that compared to like 15+ units, btw. This is because Lot isn't that good. What Fir does on the player phase requires expensive/rare weapons, item usage, DIVINE WEAPONS? Really? Fir with a Steel Sword is equal to some other unit with tons of special treatment consuming more cash and/or rare resources. ROFL!

I'm not going to take you seriously from now on if you dismiss perfectly viable strategies. I've proved empirically that these strategies work with great success. If you have the resources, there is nothing stopping you from using them. The game doesn't congratulate you for completing the game with 30/30 uses left on you brave weapons and Longbows and 3/3 uses left on your Hammerne.

Lot doesn't get Fir's base Skl and Spd until he promotes. Lot has her base Str at level 10. If Lot is level 12 with supports, Fir is already beating him in offense. Lance and Alan have that much raw offense at around level 13. Rutger and Dieck beat her. So, right from the start, she's on par with good units offensively, making her above average.

Try clearing the wax out of your ears. It looks gross.

Edited March 3, 2010 by dondon151

[Colonel M]

I'd actually like something from Colonel M on his view of the worth of deployment slots and the cost of taking one, considering that seems to be important for this comparison.

To be honest, I don't think it really matters for this comparison. This is just more of "being stubborn".

Either way, my logic about it? I wouldn't say it's 100% accurate, so keep that in mind. How I view it is that if you're forced, there is no such thing as being a negative. It doesn't matter if you can or can't compare to the units at that point: every single contribution counts as a positive towards efficiency. Even in instances that I rag on Cain oh so much for being able to do nothing but swing a sword, I admit that it slightly better than not existing.

As for deploying the unit, I wouldn't consider it a major negative that he / she is being deployed so long a they are contributing to efficiency somehow. I don't think I need to state that Lott does, but saying it anyway. He's still able to use Hammer, it's still an advantage here. Marcus requires maining the Iron Axe and getting fatal kills constantly. Marcus would need to kill 25 enemies with the Iron Axe (which means using one Iron Axe + another) in order to hit D. Now, I could be partially wrong and it could be 3 instead of 2, in which case Marcus would have to kill ~17 units, which sounds a bit more sound I guess.

Simply comparing Lott to the best units usually proves... well, what we already know. This is why I just like to stick to unit A vs. unit B and not entirely worry about the deployment slot ordeal. Of course, this is just me and I feel it's slightly easier to help address the points I'm looking for (anything like offensive, defensive, etc.) Utility units can gain the small momentum of not necessarily needing a unit slot dedicated to them throughout the game and can be dropped when they're inefficient. I guess I don't have a clear and defined definition that involves deployment slots, so you might need to hit me on that later after I thought more about it. I apologize if I didn't answer your question otherwise.

P.S. My mom approves of this post at least. Can I has cookie?

Edited March 3, 2010 by Tyranel M

[Inui]

You not understanding is your problem, not my problem. This claim, to me, sounds akin to something like "you can get by fine without Lowen in earlygame FE7 HHM," which from personal experience is simply not true, even though Lowen is a somewhat lackluster unit. Removing Lot completely from the game would result in slower completions per chapter by at least a turn or more.

Prove it. Not using Lot somehow adds turns to chapter completion? No, it doesn't. It just means you use sword-users to bait in enemies and kill them and fight them instead. Enemy density isn't high enough to make Lot's presence necessary at all. He misses a lot. He is a HORRIBLE option for enemy phase due to not having swords. Lot gets bonus points for some loldier, Cavalier, and Knight fighting, and that's about it. Against everything else, he's crap.

I don't see how not using Lot would literally add a turn to your completion time. Maybe in Chapter 4 because he can nuke Cavaliers...but outside of that? I'm not seeing it at all.

Bors has move issues, worse durability, and worse offense. Wolt has significantly worse offense and incurs negative utility when attacked. Being free means something, but it's not everything.

Roy for top of top tier.

I don't know where the hell you're pulling these stats from. There is not a single enemy on the map that has less than 8 speed. Iron Axe fighters have 9 AS; Hand Axe fighters and brigands 8 AS. 9/0 Lance doubles, but 9/0 is unrealistic for chapter 5, as you said so yourself. Not even Marcus will double most of these guys. 6/0 Lance @ Iron Sword with C Alan and C Roy has 12 +3 atk, which does 10/32 HP damage to a 5 def fighter. 9/0 Dieck @ Steel Blade with C Lot and C Thany has 22 +2 atk, 19/32 HP damage to a 5 def fighter. 7/0 Lot @ Iron Axe with C Dieck and C Thany has 16 + 1 atk, 12/32 HP damage. 5/0 Rutger @ Iron Sword has 14 +1 atk, 20/32 HP damage. So a combination of the right units can score a 2RKO, and these enemies are pretty tough.

Pure memory, unfortunately. I figured the displayed Spd was 8 and the AS was 7 after losing 1 from a Hand Axe. I also recall many Steel Axe enemies that actually miss being doubled by Lot sometimes.

The biggest problem with your numbers is that you're only talking about Atk. Hit matters. Enemies in this game don't have terrible Evd. Weapons have shitty Hit, especially Lot's. Enemies in Chapter 5 are in forests a lot. Lot is missing half the time in this chapter and can actually be hit easily. The guys with swords are almost never missing and are almost never being hit.

Completely, utterly false. I just showed above how Lance isn't doubling soon enough to establish an offensive win over Lot. 7/0 Alan has 26.1 HP, 9.7 str, 8.7 spd, 7.5 def to 8/0 Lot's 33 HP, 8.5 str, 8.75 spd, 6 def. Alan wins like 1 atk and some hit after factoring supports and weapon differences.

No, you established that Lot has more Atk and left out how much he MISSES compared to Lance NOT missing.

It's not "some" hit. It's big. Very, very big. Lot struggles with Hit issues the entire game. The Cavaliers do not. They hit everything they attack in the earlygame and have good Evd. Lot can miss 10% of the time and that's still significant, but he actually misses more than that, which is really sad. A miss is worse than doing crappy damage. It's a totally wasted turn. It means he eats a counter. Then he forces a healer to heal him or something. Or he forces some other unit to go in for the kill. That's BAD. Fir doesn't do this.

There are problems with Fir supporting Shin. It's somewhat slow (30 turns for C/B, 40 turns for A). It gives half def, half atk, and half crit, as FirexIce kind of sucks in general (full avo is good). It doesn't really help Shin very much pre-promotion. It has to overcome move differences. Consider that for awhile, Shin isn't even getting any meaningful bonuses, so he doesn't give a rat's ass whether Fir is deployed or not. And the problem with comparing FirxShin to LotxDieckxThany is that by the time the former partners join, the latter are already at C/B.

The support builds slowly, but it's definitely viable, and everyone in this game appreciates Hit (if Lot had it, he'd be actually decent, but he doesn't) and Evd. Shin even does before promotion so he can not worry about Hand Axes and magic users. It also helps him on enemy phase against ranged things. In Sacae, it's amazing for both him and Fir.

I don't understand. In chapter 11E, 14/21 starting enemies on the map can attack from 2 range (though 2 can attack from 3 range, so it's more like 12/21). If you charge forward with 1 range lock, you can't counter 57% of the enemies on the map. Having 60 disp with a Hand Axe (about what Zealot has) is better than not attacking at all. Although he'd double more with a Javelin, since he doesn't lose any AS, but his hit drops to 55 disp. As long as he hits once and puts enemies into ORKO or 2RKO range, it already displays the merits of 1-2 range.

For Zealot and Marcus, sure. Too bad the WTDA is a pain in the ass in terms of both durability and offense and they're the only units that don't suck ass with Javelins. Lance and Alan lose 2 Spd and have pretty failure Hit (less so in the case of Lance) and their durability becomes a slight problem. Yes, Fir's lack of 1~2 range is a bit of a problem, but Lot's 1~2 range is always garbage because he just misses and won't kill what attacks him, even massively weighed down shitty Pegs and low HP/Def Mages.

Did you miss my example with the Mage in Ilia where Lot having 1~2 range meant next to nothing?

Well, Roy, Marcus, and Zealot are pretty much automatically deployed. Rutger beats Fir's offense without question. 1 to 2 healers are guaranteed to be deployed. Dieck also has superior offense as long as he doubles, but he can pull out a Steel Blade anyway. Astohl has superior offense and 1 more move. Alan, Lance, and Noah are all mounted, so even if their offense is worse, they still contribute more towards efficient completion (Lance doubles all enemies and Alan/Noah double Steel Axe fighters). There you go, that's at least 10 units with higher deployment priority than Fir. Lilina is required for 10E and Gonzo is available for 11E, plus Thany is a pretty good choice there too.

That's 10 units with higher deployment priority, not better offense, which is what I was addressing.

This deployment priority argument makes everything below the top <insert allowed amount in a chapter> characters absolute bottom tier. You realize that, don't you? If you don't have deployment priority, you may as well be bottom tier, since you're not deployed. That's really gay. This assumes you always play the game the same exact way, every single time, with no differences at all, and only top tiers. I understand we're going for efficiency, but that's really extreme.

Fir's statistical power is amazing once she gets going...which only takes a few kills...which she easily gets due to having really good offense right away.

The first scenario is infinitely more desirable than the second, I agree.

So accomplishing nothing is more desirable than accomplishing nothing? Lot will hit that Mage only half the time, and reduce it to an amount of HP below it's maximum. What good unit isn't just assraping it's maximum anyways? Fir reduces it to dust when she attacks it regardless of it's HP. So does any good unit. The only thing Lot does is prevent your unit from taking a counter half the time...but he's also being hit half the time and eating a healer's turn to get himself healed and he's going to have less Evd/Res than whatever other option you have attack the Mage, so it's actually more optimal to let them make the first move.

How about this example? 16/0 Lot in chapter 13 @ Halberd with B Dieck and B Thany has 71 disp against a Steel Lance cavalier (37 HP, 10 def). He misses 16.5% of the time, and the other 83.5% of the time he does exactly 37/37 HP damage. 13/0 Fir (generous estimate) @ Wo Dao has 85 disp and 20 -1 atk. 37 crit is nice, but even with crit + hit she falls 1 HP short of the ORKO. She could switch to Killing Edge for the extra MT and 32 crit, but she still has a 46.24% chance of not ORKOing, disregarding the fact that her hit rate isn't perfect.

That example is rare, and once Fir promotes, she slaughters those things and anything else. I don't consider 13/0 generous for Fir at all given her massive EXP gains, good offense, and good durability against the axe users. I think having her at 20/0 and ready to promote by the time Chapter 16 starts is viable, and at the very worst, she promotes after it, and enters 16x as literally a top tier unit just like Rutger. Is this efficient play or blitzkrieg? If you're playing efficiently, you want strong units, so trying to rush through without gaining EXP to make units stronger kinda hinders things in general.

Yeah, you need 2 range. Which Fir doesn't have.

Fir nukes anything on the player phase. That's something only two units can do all the time. Lot has mediocre 1~2 or 2 range for countering that about 15 other units can mimic or do better than. Who's giving you something more valuable now?

Have you looked at a map of chapter 18S?

Yup. I'm there right now. Did you know that you can deploy 15 units and check enemy attack ranges? There's no reason anyone should be forced to fight 4 enemies in a single enemy phase.

The nomads will target your weakest units. If you have to position Lugh carefully so that he only faces 3 attacks on enemy phase, you might as well position Lot so that he faces 7 attacks on enemy phase, because he'll never die.

Or I can position a unit with better offense to do that...like almost anyone else with 1~2 range. What Lot does is very easily mimicked and surpassed. What Fir does, which is nuke stronger enemies on the player phase (Troopers, bosses with 20+ AS and ~80 fucking Evd), is only mimicked by one unit.

20/4 Ray @ Nosferatu with B Lugh has 32 HP, 14.4 AS, 9.65 def. NTs are particularly dangerous for Ray because they double him and 3HKO him - if Ray misses Nosferatu once (he has about 69 disp), he's a goner.

Troopers are a bit of a problem, but regular Nomads outnumber them like 5 to 1, and the regular ones aren't a problem.

The durability win here is irrelevant; Dieck's durability is top tier by this point anyway. The point is that Lot and Dieck double the same things and have top tier durability. They're also doubling the same things that Allen is doubling.

Lot consumed a resourced to do this. A resource that any number of units could have used to become good/better. That's automatically a negative unless you can show that giving it to him is more positive than negative. Dieck with Speedwings is suddenly borderline on doubling Nomads and doubles Wyvern Lords.

I'm not going to take you seriously from now on if you dismiss perfectly viable strategies. I've proved empirically that these strategies work with great success. If you have the resources, there is nothing stopping you from using them. The game doesn't congratulate you for completing the game with 30/30 uses left on you brave weapons and Longbows and 3/3 uses left on your Hammerne.

Those resources are not infinite. Using Fir's stats and power over expensive/rare weapons means you can allocate those resources elsewhere. Fir doesn't need special treatment, stat boosters, or anything like that. Using Fir instead of Brave/Divine weapons to nuke strong enemies means you can use those amazing resources elsewhere.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Inui

[Junkhead]

Very late reply

Is there any chance of Hugh getting above Lilina in the list? Or at least in Ilia- No wait, he does better than her in both routes, he does suffer from getting doubled ar 20/1 in Sacae...but his stats aren't overall bad and he comes pretty good leveled and with decent durability for a mage.

Colonel mentioned this isn't ranked...so maybe he rise a bit?

[CATS]

I notice Zealot > Lugh got no response, not any disagreement atleast.

Here's Zealot:

10 Str, 13 Spd----35 Hp, 11 Def, 7 Res, 31 Avo (+ move, axes, weapon ranks, con)

You get a second Silver Lance in Ch 6 and Zealot is one of only two units who will have A Lances right now (and right now you also happen to have two Silver Lances).

Let's compare him against Lugh.

6 Lugh (assuming 5 levels in 3 chapters, since he's not gonna do anything on Ch 3): 6 Mag, 8.5 Spd----18.5 Hp, 3.7 Def, 6.5 Res, 23.8 Avo

Should I rly even bother? It's not that I'm unwilling to give lots of stats and numbers on how much better Zealot is here, it's just that it's unnecessary as long as you're not blind. The Dragon Knights OHKO Lugh, while Zealot is 3HKO'd @ ~31% hit, and takes 10 rounds to die on average. Mercs on this chapter can get 12 Spd, so if Lugh winds up with 8, he is ORKO'd. Meanwhile the same Merc would do 2 damage to Zealot. Lugh's offense vs Knights, with a 12 Def/Res gap, is nearly the same as Zealot's Silver Lance offense against them (actually Zealot is still doing more damage, though).

Ch 8 and 9 comparison coming later if you want to see Lugh get horribly slaughtered some more.

[Inui]

I agree that Zealot needs to go way up in an efficiency tier list. He contributes greatly when he's useful and then can be benched when he sucks, but he still ends up shaving plenty of turns while he's good.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Inui

[Narga_Rocks]

I agree that Zealot needs to go way up in an efficiency tier list.

This is only slightly better than saying "qft" and nothing else, and you can see what SF thinks of that type of post.

2. Please avoid making one-line posts, unless it adds something new or interesting to a discussion. Likewise, do not just quote another member and simply write "I agree", "quoted for truth", "no", etc. In these cases, make sure to at least explain why you agree or disagree. Anna says, "Care to expound on that thought?"

[Mekkah]

I was going to reply something among the lines of "but what about the other 20 chapters after this" but I read up first:

If Geitz > Bartre on the FE7 list because he's good or atleast usable for a while without needing to be trained first, then Zealot > Lugh.

That's a very, very loose connection to make. Geitz's performance is very much unlike Zealot. Geitz joins midgame and remains a useful fighter for the rest of the game, Zealot joins earlygame and somewhere around Ch13 his combat is going to be arguably worse than, say, Lugh...by the time the team promotes, he might as well be an 8 mov packing mule. There's some similarities here, but not enough to say "well it's that way on FE7 so it should be that way on FE6 too".

20/1 Lugh

Thunder: 21.6 atk, 16.5 AS, 118.6 hit, 13.0 crit - - 44.7 avo, 29.5 hp, 7.8 def, 12.7 res, 11.7 critavo

--/10 Zealot

Killer Axe: 23.2 atk, 14.8 AS, 95.5 hit, 36.6 crit - - 35.9 avo, 41.8 hp, 13.7 def, 8.3 res, 6.3 critavo

Javelin: 18.2 atk, 14.8 AS, 85.5 hit, 6.7 crit

There's a significant gap in offense in Lugh's favor, and a significant gap in defense in Zealot's favor...and then staves vs mount blahblah. And a large win @ 1-2 range...lol @ Zealot's hit. Maybe the tier gap should go, but I do not see Zealot > Lugh, at least not based on just a comparison at Zealot's prime.

Also, TYTE, maybe I'd bother with formal debates if they were good for anything other than for showing who can do the most realistic hyping and sandbagging, or maybe I'd debate about this matter with you if I thought it was going to be interesting, but a lot of your paragraphs are like this:

Also, Lot is competing for deployment as well. And guess what? He's clearly worse than Fir. Sure, Lot starts off better in terms of durability and can give support bonuses, but that shit ends FAST. Fir always rapes him offensively overall and then gets more durable by not getting hit. This happens after like two chapters.

Did you know that relative to the enemies around them, Fir's joining situation is better? She starts out with great offense and the same durability Lot had in the earlygame relative to the enemies, except both her offense and durability go up really fast initially, while Lot can't do that early on.

I'm not interested in debating against blanket statements.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Mekkah