If played, Heath should always receive Afa's Drops.

[Reaver]

A little thesis of mine that I've been trying to polish. I'm going to go ahead and make the following gameplay assumptions for now, assuming a twelve-character + Ninian runthrough at Chapter 22...

Eliwood

Hector

Lyn

Marcus

Lowen

Kent

Sain

Erk

Serra

Priscilla

Raven

Guy

Obviously you could argue semantics with this team, but it's just a core. I would expect units like Oswin, Dorcas, Matthew, Florina (perhaps), and Lucius to serve as fillers if necessary, and you could probably get away with swapping either of them for Matthew. Not that using any of those units radically changes my assumptions.

At this point the following promotion items are available:

Elysian Whip: 2

Guiding Ring: 2

Orion's Bolt: 1

Hero Crest: 2

Knight Crest: 1 (you get a second this chapter)

At any rate, the least casual observer should recognize a couple of key problems presented by the amount of promotion items compared to the units available: some units are getting the shaft. If you assume each unit gets a little over one level per chapter (with healers getting more), many units are rapidly approaching 20/0 status but will not be able to promote. Some units (i.e., Eliwood, Lyn, and Hector) are going to hit 20/0 without the avenue to promote. At this stage of the game, fillers are going to become more than necessary in order to compensate for losing mainliners. In the case of some units (Marcus and Lyn, e.g.) the tactician may bench some of these units perfectly.

So when picking a unit for Afa's Drops, you want to pick a unit you will feasibly continue to use, that starts out well enough that you don't rape your tactics, and that will gain a lot of levels. You're also, unless you decide to skip 23x (retarded), going to use Afa's Drops immediately because it costs no money. You need 20 levels to make a concrete difference, although sometimes you can get differences in 10 levels on average.

With that in mind, the following units seem to be the best candidates: Heath, Canas, and Fiora. Obviously you could remove a unit like Raven from combat until 22 if you really wanted to use Afa's Drops on a stellar unit, but since most other units provide some sort of tangible combat benefit when they first join or won't be able to hold their own after 23x. Therefore it's not really optimal to pull Raven because you lose one of your best combatants when he's the most helpful. On the same token, it'd be a waste to use Afa's Drops on a unit like Rebecca who - if unused - stands no chance on Four Fanged Offense.

Canas and Fiora both come much earlier than Heath and have not as good bases, most notably Fiora's all-around bases and Canas' durability. Obviously Canas's durability isn't so much of a problem because he can always attack from 2 range, but its not necessarily preferable. They'll gain levels if you start to use them as fillers and the drops won't be as worthwhile. Canas also suffers from fighting in a highly competitive pool for Guiding Rings and Knight's Crests, as users of both also opt for the Earth Seal frequently. It's odd having such a high concentration of high/top tier units in two classes, but I digress. Heath has little competition for the other Elysian Whip, barring the use of Fiora. Even if he doesn't get that whip, Karla gives you another one in Chapter 25 so it's all good.

So if you're going to be using fillers anyway and Heath actually turns out good, you should probably just use the Afa's Drops on him and get rolling if you play him. Does anyone else have any other viable candidates for the drops? Does this significantly change Heath's tier position?

[Bryan]

What about Nino? She benifits, and she helps exp rank more than almost any other character.

[messy mike]

Nino is the best character for the drops because she has the most levels in which to reap their benefits, and gains more exp per action than pretty much anybody. Farina's another great choice, if she's recruited. Heath is actually a pretty good idea for the drops, but certainly cannot lay claim to them for a large percentage of playthroughs, and I don't think it would affect his tier placement anyways. Add one point to all of his stats after he gains 20 levels, or even 10, and he still has the same issues (very iffy AS, horrendous Res, etc).

[Reaver]

Nino is certainly out because she needs to reach something like 20/6 for her to benefit at all from the Afa's Drops. Heath needs to reach 20/8, but since Heath has oodles and oodles of time before Nino even joins and will be lower leveled closer to the advent of Afa's Drops you have no reason to wait on using them. Reaping the +1 to all stats for longer >>>

[messy mike]

That's reasonable, although Heath getting to to 20/8 won't happen before endgame, if ever. That's 20 levels in 11 chapters, including 7 levels post-promotion. With Heath's rocky start, I don't think he's going to gain 2 levels per chapter on average.

That being said, the Afa's drops are not significant enough to really affect anyone's tier placement, IMO. A character needs 20 levels on average to reap their benefit, and since most of your units will be near promotion by the time you get them, that's not happening for anyone but exp units, really. And even if you were to add a point to every single stat of any experience unit, I can't think of an example where it would drastically enhance their performance. Maybe it will let them double one type of enemy one level earlier, or go from being 2RKO'd to 3RKO'd one level earlier, but nothing that's gonna shake up the tiers.

[Reaver]

That's reasonable, although Heath getting to to 20/8 won't happen before endgame, if ever. That's 20 levels in 11 chapters, including 7 levels post-promotion. With Heath's rocky start, I don't think he's going to gain 2 levels per chapter on average.

That being said, the Afa's drops are not significant enough to really affect anyone's tier placement, IMO. A character needs 20 levels on average to reap their benefit, and since most of your units will be near promotion by the time you get them, that's not happening for anyone but exp units, really. And even if you were to add a point to every single stat of any experience unit, I can't think of an example where it would drastically enhance their performance. Maybe it will let them double one type of enemy one level earlier, or go from being 2RKO'd to 3RKO'd one level earlier, but nothing that's gonna shake up the tiers.

Heath might be able to get two levels per chapter for two reasons: he can fly and his supports are rocky. His best bet is a B with Kent, but otherwise he won't be reaping much. After you get him through his rocky start, you can have him rush ahead faster than any unit barring Florina/Fiora/Vaida and gain solid EXP gains. It's ultimately possible, but I would agree otherwise unlikely.

[Life]

Heath might be able to get two levels per chapter for two reasons: he can fly and his supports are rocky. His best bet is a B with Kent, but otherwise he won't be reaping much. After you get him through his rocky start, you can have him rush ahead faster than any unit barring Florina/Fiora/Vaida and gain solid EXP gains. It's ultimately possible, but I would agree otherwise unlikely.

No. His best support is a C with Legault. Kent wants Lyn, Fiora and Sain before having anything to do with Heath.

[Mekkah]

Heath doesn't "want" any supports because they all take 41+ turns just to get a negligible bonus. He'd much rather fly like a bird than get a tiny avo bonus.

[Bryan]

Heath doesn't "want" any supports because they all take 41+ turns just to get a negligible bonus. He'd much rather fly like a bird than get a tiny avo bonus.

He can't use his flyer utility, unless he pairs with Vadia... (Lol)

Either way, I can get Nino close to 20/15.

Edited February 15, 2010 by Bryan

[messy mike]

Heath might be able to get two levels per chapter for two reasons: he can fly and his supports are rocky. His best bet is a B with Kent, but otherwise he won't be reaping much. After you get him through his rocky start, you can have him rush ahead faster than any unit barring Florina/Fiora/Vaida and gain solid EXP gains. It's ultimately possible, but I would agree otherwise unlikely.

I'm having trouble seeing why Heath's terrible supports help him to gain 2 levels per chapter without being babied. Care to explain? And flier utility is great, but it's done better by the pegs, and doesn't net him any experience.

[Junkhead]

Heath really makes good use out of the Afa's Draops. It fixes his Spd & Def a little...Nino won't do, she comes late and is risked of dying and then wasting those drops...Bishop Serra and/or Vailkyrie Prisicilla have an EXP boost when it comes to combat, so they will be benefiting that rank.

[Rodykitty]

He can't use his flyer utility, unless he pairs with Vadia... (Lol)

Do people put so much weight on supports that flying utility doesn't exist unless that character supports someone?

Anyway, Dragon Rider class is one of the few that gets speed on promotion, so an early promotion saves Heath about six or seven levels of gaining speed.

[chrysalid]

In a HHM ranked run Heath is really easy to get a lot of XP on; he'll double some of the steel lance wyverns by halfway through 24 at the latest and he can easily get to 17-18 in 25 and to a level 20 promotion in the next few super easy chapters with useless XP sponge enemies (everything before Cog). You can't shave turns in 26 and 27 forces you to wait for Harken/Karel so you might as well use the turns for something. It doesn't amount to unproductive babying because no other combat unit is able to inflate the XP rank to the same degree with as little support (as in healing and dancing) over that time frame, excepting maybe Dart.

In a speed run, an early promotion is probably a good idea but I don't know firsthand.

[PuffPuff]

Well, if your using someone like Erk (as he has a good chance at getting screwed), he can have them. Otherwise either Heath or Nino can have it.

[Junkhead]

That is much unlikely seeing as how early he arrives...Heath is a really good candidate bearing good stats almost all-around aside Res.

I gave them to Eliwood once, his Res sure grew...same with Hawkeye, it was worth it so I could adjust his Spd.

[Bryan]

Do people put so much weight on supports that flying utility doesn't exist unless that character supports someone?

Anyway, Dragon Rider class is one of the few that gets speed on promotion, so an early promotion saves Heath about six or seven levels of gaining speed.

I wrote that wrong. I meant that if you pair heath, he has to stay within the support radius, or else the support is pointless. :/