Alan vs Lance

[Inui]

You are completely misunderstanding me. Seth is obviously significantly better.

FE 6 Marcus shaves off probably around 50 turns by existing in those earlygame maps and he also turns 3RKOs into 2RKOs very often for the Combat rank. Marcus's presence in Chapter 1 alone probably shaves off 10-15 turns.

Seth doesn't have anything like that. He's great from start to finish, but his presence isn't so significant that it makes the difference between clearing a chapter with 30% Combat vs 50% Combat and 10 turns vs 20 turns.

Also, you are wrong about Marcus in the Western Isles. He can double almost all of the axe users with a Steel Sword and is very durable. He's still better than the Cavaliers in raw stats.

Edited April 16, 2010 by Inui

[Scarlet]

lol @ someone saying they can live without Marcus in hard mode

Marcus's presence in Chapter 1 might be the most significant of any unit ever in a single chapter. He probably shaves off like 15 turns just by doing some stuff.

When I once played chapter 1 on HM without using Marcus (except for softening the boss), I beat it in 9 (IIRC) turns. I feel that the most significant difference to using Marcus actually was not the turn count, but rather the fact that I burned through almost all of my vulneraries to avoid getting Alan/Lance killed, whereas when using Marcus, your dudes will hardly take any damage at all.

Him shaving 15 turns off in chapter 1 is exaggerated.

[Inui]

How the hell did you finish that chapter in 9 turns without Marcus? You were extremely lucky? I can't see any other way, since your units are killing the enemies in 3-4 rounds of combat and you have to kill a boss and use vulneraries to not die.

Edit: I am looking at the map right now, and there's indeed no other way. Lance and Roy kill the enemies in 4 rounds. Allen kills them in 3. Bors is worthless. Wolt's chip damage is very low and he'll shave off only a few rounds of combat at best.

In fact, it takes Roy 7 turns just to reach the gate if he maxes out his movement every single turn.

You were playing normal mode or you're lying.

Edited April 16, 2010 by Inui

[Scarlet]

It's been a while since I did that; it might as well have been 10 turns, but I'm certain that I didn't take much more than that.

Roy got a few crits in with his rapier, and Alan got a level up with both HP and Def, which allowed him to survive two hits instead of just one, so I guess you can call that lucky. But even if you add three or four turns to that for those with worse luck, that makes like 13 or 14 turns; so for Marcus to shave off even only 10 turns, he would have to allow us finish the chapter in like three or four turns in total, which simply isn't happening.

By the way, just to clarify; I'm not saying that using Marcus doesn't speed up the completion of the chapter, I'm just saying that he doesn't speed it up by nearly as much as you claimed.

[Inui]

I typically finish in about 12 or 13 turns using Marcus. Even if your finish was 10 turns without him, that is quite ridiculous. It requires massive luck.

I can't imagine what a nightmare that chapter would be without Marcus. It takes so many turns to kill enemies and all of your units die in two hits.

[Mekkah]

I typically finish in about 12 or 13 turns using Marcus. Even if your finish was 10 turns without him, that is quite ridiculous. It requires massive luck.

I figured a possible cause of the discrepancy in turn counts/character estimation. You're playing too slowly. I just finished doing it without any planning whatsoever in 10 turns. Would have been 9 if Alan landed the final blow on the boss with his 75% disp. Marcus has only killed two enemies. He got to 1.52, Alan to 3.03, Lance to 2.66 and even Roy got to 2.01. One of them was a critical on turn 1 enemy phase, and the other was a weakened enemy suiciding into him when he could have attacked Alan or Lance. There is some "good luck" involved as well, such as Alan and Lance only getting hit three times total spread over the two of them (their entire vulnerary is gone now, but all the other vulns are intact). The village was visited by Bors.

Edited April 16, 2010 by Mekkah

[Colonel M]

I can confirm Mekkah's turncounts, except I got 9. Dunno if I could get 8. Maybe if I wasn't dicking around with the boss and used the Iron Sword instead of the Silver Lance, but *shrugs* the 2HKO is appealing.

[Inui]

I don't typically rush too much with FE 6, so I suppose so.

Still... 9-10 turns with no use of Marcus? What?

[Ansem]

lol @ someone saying they can live without Marcus in hard mode

Not for the whole hard mode

Just the begining

[CATS]

When I once played chapter 1 on HM without using Marcus (except for softening the boss), I beat it in 9 (IIRC) turns. I feel that the most significant difference to using Marcus actually was not the turn count, but rather the fact that I burned through almost all of my vulneraries to avoid getting Alan/Lance killed, whereas when using Marcus, your dudes will hardly take any damage at all.

You didn't play through without using Marcus. You also admitted alot of RNG luck; "a few crits" with the Rapier is pretty damn significant. Your Roy had Marcus-level offense, or possibly even more, through pure luck (and either way, you still burned uses of his Prf weapon to do it). Ch 1 performance without Marcus is largely RNG-dependent even aside from crits, since the fighters have around ~50% hit, and every time they hit you're pretty much forced to waste a turn using a vulnerary. Not to mention killing the boss quickly becomes highly RNG-dependent without Marcus. I'm curious to hear how long it would take you if the RNG was in a bad mood and Marcus actually wasn't used.

Edited April 16, 2010 by CATS

[Narga_Rocks]

You didn't play through without using Marcus. You also admitted alot of RNG luck; "a few crits" with the Rapier is pretty damn significant. Your Roy had Marcus-level offense, or possibly even more, through pure luck (and either way, you still burned uses of his Prf weapon to do it). Ch 1 performance without Marcus is largely RNG-dependent even aside from crits, since the fighters have around ~50% hit, and every time they hit you're pretty much forced to waste a turn using a vulnerary. Not to mention killing the boss quickly becomes highly RNG-dependent without Marcus. I'm curious to hear how long it would take you if the RNG was in a bad mood and Marcus actually wasn't used.

I'd be more interested to hear how it goes when the RNG is feeeling "meh" rather than in a "bad mood".

Well, actually I suppose low end, average, and high end are all useful to know. If high end is really bad (say, 9 when lucky, 12 when meh, 20 when really bad, average = 13 or 14 depending on how frequently each can occur) then it drives up the average from "meh" feeling rngs to "slightly urked" rngs. But still, the average is what is important for comparisons against Marcus. Just because it can go worse doesn't make us ignore that it can go better, and thus to get a good comparison it's best to go with average.

But yeah, Marcus shouldn't be used against the boss to get an accurate description.

As a note, I've played both that prologue and the prologue in RD. I'm reasonably confident that Edward's turn saving contributions in 1-P are > Marcus', though I've never gone it without either of them. Micaiah 3HKOs nearly everything (and 4 hits some) while getting 2HKOd in return and Leo doesn't show up for a while and doesn't have enemy phase anyway. It's...bad...without Edward, to say the least. Ed's another unit that saves more turns. But then Inui did later add the stipulation for GBA FEs only.

Anyway, not much more of this off-topic stuff. Alan v Lance.

Actually, this has been off-topic for a long time. Any further discussions about Marcus' turn-saving abilities should probably happen elsewhere. Make a new topic if you really want to talk about how many turns Marcus saves. It's not absolutely necessary when discussing which cav is better or if a player uses neither.

Edited April 17, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[GR8MasterGab96]

Alan. I never used lance cause he always gets RNG screwed in everything but hp.

And now some of you will say PEMN well I dont care cause my Alan is blessed in speed anyway so screw Lance.(Im not saying I dont like Lance)

[Ansem]

What the crap?

Another one of my X vs Y topics revived?

Alan is win since he cant lose

[Narga_Rocks]

What the crap?

Another one of my X vs Y topics revived?

Alan is win since he cant lose

Yeah. I wonder if they are posting because they noticed the change in the necro rules (allowing you to post provided the topic is on the first page of threads in a forum regardless of age) or if they just posted without even thinking about whether or not it's a necro. I'd almost be willing to bet that even without the change in the rule they would've done it anyway and gotten warned.

[Greg]

I love Lance. My Alan came out with not so great skill as expected and he never dodges anything so he cant just tank through people. Lance has lower strength but doesn't bother me, hardly ever gets hit and doubles everyone. He can leave units with higher defense alive sometimes, but they almost always have under 10 hp left so easy xp for my weaker units. lance all the way

[Chuy]

Both.

[Silvercrow]

I prefer Alan in my experience, but they both have their merits in typical Christmas knight style.

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Yeah. I wonder if they are posting because they noticed the change in the necro rules (allowing you to post provided the topic is on the first page of threads in a forum regardless of age) or if they just posted without even thinking about whether or not it's a necro. I'd almost be willing to bet that even without the change in the rule they would've done it anyway and gotten warned.

Probably not since it would be closed with the first necro so it'd only happen now. Either way, this one's no problem, it's the Lugh vs Lilina one that could potentially become an issue since this forum has a bad history when it comes to Lugh vs Lilina discussion.

To this day, my answer is still Lance because Alan loves getting RNG screwed for me.

Edited August 30, 2010 by Sirius

[RNG Princess]

I used Alan a bit more but I either end up using both or not using either.

[PipForever]

Alan. Even though it may be true that PEMN, he always seems to turn out better for me than Lance.

Plus a Fire affinity is better than an Anima affinity, in my opinion.

[Frosty]

Alan.... fire affinity + his appearance is similar to something... FUNNY *cough*FE9*cough*

And... I used Axes on him, so he gets to use Armads at the end of the game... for an obvious reason....

[Hazuki]

I end up using both, but I prefer Alan!