Maximum Efficiency Tier List

[Life]

Really? Fiora, Farina, and Heath all already exist, and there's nothing Farina can do that they can't. And Farina is also underlevelled and unlikely to be useful without more investment.

That's not my point. Ever heard of the phrase "2 heads are better than 1"? Well 4 fliers are better than 3. I'm not saying that she replaces them. I'm saying that she's better than being obsolete.

As for dondon's video, none of us are him. That's kind of ridiculous (the video as I've watched it) and I'm not sure if another 3 turn run can be recreated without heavy RNG abuse.

[Dat Nick]

Ever heard of the phrase "2 heads are better than 1"? Well 4 fliers are better than 3. I'm not saying that she replaces them.

I'm all for that philosophy in the other Efficiency list, but it doesn't apply here, sorry. If you're not first, you're dead last. There is never a reason to field Farina over any other flier in the game, because they don't cost 20k and are better. Farina is never part of optimal deployment, so sucks for her, she never gets deployed. Just like Bartre never gets deployed when he is no longer part of the optimal team.

[dondon151]

As for dondon's video, none of us are him. That's kind of ridiculous (the video as I've watched it) and I'm not sure if another 3 turn run can be recreated without heavy RNG abuse.

The only RNG abuse that was required was the Killer Lance on the Purge bishop. Raven had enough attacks on the warrior to KO him anyway (4 attacks with ~40 crit? yeah) and Pascal didn't even need to be killed. Even so, consider that I would have killed the Purge bishop on the following turn and gotten a 4-turn, which is still before when Farina shows up. As for other chance-related events:

- Ninian needed to dodge 1 of 2 ballistae. They have 22 disp hit on her. They also have 17 atk against Ninian's 18 HP/7 def, which just 2HKOs her on a forest. If Ninian had 1 more HP, she would survive even if both attacks hit.

- Lowen needed to survive Pascal + 3 cavaliers + ballista. He has 81 avo with Lancereaver WTA and fort, so the cavaliers have 5-7 disp hit and Pascal has 22 disp hit. The ballista has 37 disp hit.

- Florina/Fiora needed to not get hit on their attacks. Consider that if Florina were a couple of levels higher, she would have had 1 more str needed to ORKO the PK from 2 range, and I could have attacked the pirate from 2 range with Fiora as well.

The strategy is pretty much foolproof, even moreso if you had higher level units.

I'd say there are situations where fielding 4 fliers is visibly more useful than 3, but Farina not only requires you to stall Crazed Beast for a couple of turns, but she also requires some significant EXP investment in order to be good combat-wise, since enemies in this game suck to the point where fliers not only drop units, but they also kill things on their own.

Edited March 11, 2010 by dondon151

[Narga_Rocks]

I'm all for that philosophy in the other Efficiency list, but it doesn't apply here, sorry. If you're not first, you're dead last. There is never a reason to field Farina over any other flier in the game, because they don't cost 20k and are better. Farina is never part of optimal deployment, so sucks for her, she never gets deployed. Just like Bartre never gets deployed when he is no longer part of the optimal team.

His point (I gather) is that you have X units to deploy. Without Farina, X - 3 of them are non-fliers. He is suggesting that having 4 fliers and X - 4 non-fliers is superior to having 3 fliers and X - 3 non-fliers. Is he right? I neither know nor care. I just want to make clear what (I think) his point is. It is not (as near as I can tell) that you maybe want Farina to be one of the 3 fliers even though she'd be worse than the existing 3.

[chrysalid]

I think quasi- forced usage tier lists don't really get at much that you can't see just from looking at join times and average stats. I like for a tier list to be an encapsulation of good strategies for the tier criteria. For example, in a ranked tier discussion, if someone set out a foolproof method for getting Nino to 20 in two chapters at minimized cost to tactics and the XP of other units, she'd climb positions because it would then be an obvious way to use her to help you make ranks. A tier list is really just a construction of people exchanging big and little strategies exactly like that.

Reading about dondon's 3 turn 25 strategy, it is now an obvious way to help a speed run and incidentally impacts Farina in a tier list. In that way the strategy is permanently embedded into the tiers. See what I mean?

I'd enjoy seeing that kind of speed run tier list, people throwing out speed run strategies and considering tradeoffs and so on because that's really the only interesting thing that's ever going to go on in a tier list.

[Dat Nick]

I think quasi- forced usage tier lists don't really get at much that you can't see just from looking at join times and average stats.

I think it's a terrible basis, myself. I didn't make this to represent my standards.

As for fliers, I can't see any reason why you'd ever need to deploy four at once; or why you'd deploy another flier over a combat unit like Harken.

[Rodykitty]

OP is obviously just trying to make a point, I don't think those tiers would survive any thought, much less the placement within them. But a speedrun tier list itself isn't any more boring than any other FE topic.

I'm pretty sure those categories are based on a secondary list where the very 2nd thing I say in the topic is that a list of optimal and non-optimal units are not a tier list.

But the idea is being incorporated into a tier list, defeating the point of such a list where it's a list of ALL units that fall under certain categories, and meant to accompany a tier list, not be a part of one.