Integ's gon' rank the characters!

[Anouleth]

Wait, so we're warpskipping, but having more move matters?

We can't warp everyone. We have 3 A staff rank units at best, and Moulder and Natasha will not have more than 5 or 6 warp range anyway, so higher movement is still relevant. This is especially true in Chapter 18, where we need to spread out as quickly as possible.

But she's deployed with no negative, so doing a little bit still adds up. Joshua still has negatives, and those might make him worse. Especially with the number of turns she can save in chapters P-4. Quite frankly, he probably joins right around the time her best period ends.

Well, what exactly is our level 10/00 Eirika (or whatever) going to do in Chapter 15? Play Convoy, that's about it. So I guess she's still a positive, just not a very good one. I mean, even Ephraim is probably going to do more than her in that chapter since he can blick cavs with good accuracy.

Joshua's only negative is that he knocks out some worthless idiot like Gilliam or a trainee or Neimi or Colm. Forgive me if I don't burst into tears at having to ditch my 10th-string fighter.

[dondon151]

Eirika doesn't even save that many turns from P-4. She saves 1 turn on P (given that she crits the fighter, which might or might not be rigged), does nothing on 1, saves 1 turn on 2 (given that she can KO a reinforcement brigand on a peak), does nothing on 3, and does almost nothing on 4 (I think it doesn't matter if she does anything or not).

[Rewjeo]

I'd say she saves .16 turns in the prologue since, IIRC, she has a 16% chance to crit. Maybe I'm not aware of your strategies, but I remember her doing things in 1&2 besides the brigand reinforcement. Although, thinking more on it, she was mostly killing things for EXP... Still, in 2, I remember her dodge-tanking some brigands from the south while sitting on terrain. Anyways, the thing is, whatever turns she saves, she saves. Joshua, on the other hand, gets the turns he saves-the turns someone else he boots saves. Which one outweighs the other, I dunno. And I see Joshua kicking off Gill or Tana or something like that, not Colm. If his combat is so bad, he's not being deployed. And if he's thieving, no one's kicking him off.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot warp isn't infinite range in this game.

Edited May 6, 2010 by Slize

[dondon151]

There's no way Tana is being kicked off. Her flying utility is too valuable.

Chapter 6: there are 4 other units that can take Joshua's place. 2 of them are Neimi and Ross. You'll probably want to deploy Colm to see through the fog. The other alternatives are basically Gilliam and 1 of Lute or Artur.

Chapter 7: same as above, except you don't want to deploy Colm now. Most of the chapter is self-improvement while Vanessa and Seth work their way to the gate, but someone has to deal with those 2 enemies that start on the left side.

Chapter 8: the deployment slot limit is down 1, but you still have the same characters available. Joshua can try to take on Tirado, and he survives a Silver Lance to the face even at base as long as he stands on the pillar. Ephraim and Seth are better for killing Tirado, but if you want the treasure, Seth is better off getting it, and Ephraim is difficult to get to the throne in time.

Chapter 9: you've got 2 more characters and effectively 1 more deployment slot, since Tana is forced. Forde and Kyle are competition, but Joshua is still kicking out one of Neimi, Colm, Ross, Lute, Gilliam, and someone else. But he's a good deployment choice this chapter, because against the 11-12 spd mercs, if he's 9/0 he should double all of them on average, something no one else can do, not even Seth. I had him at 8.73 going into this chapter.

Chapter 10: now Joshua is kicking out one of Colm, Neimi, Gilliam, Ross, Amelia, or Lute. Sweet. Gerik joins this chapter, though, and he cuts into Joshua's utility a lot. Mostly because he takes the Hero Crest.

[Rewjeo]

Chapter 6: Meh. I usually just bumrush that one with Seth since I hate it so much, so I dunno enough to really comment on it.

Chapter 7: What do you mean someone "has to" deal with those enemies on the left side? They've certainly never bothered me before. Ever. By the time Seth/Vanessa'd get over there, the ballista would be empty.

Chapter 8: Well, depending on how much treasure you're grabbing, you may be there a while anyways. My guess is you're just grabbing the Whip and Robe for efficiency, though.

Anyways, against Tirado, I'm seeing Joshua at level 10 at best. This gives him 31 ATK to Tirado's effectively 16 DEF/40 HP. So, 3HKO, 2RKO, at 66.79 true hit. Even in one round, he's got a ~55% chance of missing. It's not great. Especially when 7-8 seems more likely.

Chapter 9: Meh. butwhatifeirika'slevel13?

Chapter 10: Gilliam might be pretty good for this chapter if he just heads straight towards the throne while other people head south. Besides that, though, none of them are all that good, and I'm not really sure about Gilliam. But after this Gerik's there. And soon, Saleh and Dozla show up. Meanwhile, Eirika's coasting along doing... whatever little she's doing. It seems pretty close to me.

Edited May 6, 2010 by Slize

[dondon151]

Chapter 6: Meh. I usually just bumrush that one with Seth since I hate it so much, so I dunno enough to really comment on it.

This chapter is self-improvement. I think the player would like to give Joshua as much EXP as he can over the course of 3 turns.

Chapter 7: What do you mean someone "has to" deal with those enemies on the left side? They've certainly never bothered me before. Ever. By the time Seth/Vanessa'd get over there, the ballista would be empty.

The easiest way to 4-turn this chapter is to have Vanessa rescue Seth on turn 1, drop him on turn 2 and have Eirika given to her, drop Eirika on turn 3, and Eirika seizes on turn 4. In order for the handoff to occur, someone rescuing Eirika needs to move up the left side. Between AS penalties and shafted avo, I hope you can see how this is dangerous.

Chapter 8: Well, depending on how much treasure you're grabbing, you may be there a while anyways. My guess is you're just grabbing the Whip and Robe for efficiency, though.

Anyways, against Tirado, I'm seeing Joshua at level 10 at best. This gives him 31 ATK to Tirado's effectively 16 DEF/40 HP. So, 3HKO, 2RKO, at 66.79 true hit. Even in one round, he's got a ~55% chance of missing. It's not great. Especially when 7-8 seems more likely.

The point is that having Seth go after the treasure is faster than not having him go after the treasure. He 2HKOs the wall while no one else can. Joshua, meanwhile, gets 3 phases to kill Tirado as long as you keep him healed, or 6 shots, with only 3 needing to connect.

Chapter 10: Gilliam might be pretty good for this chapter if he just heads straight towards the throne while other people head south. Besides that, though, none of them are all that good, and I'm not really sure about Gilliam. But after this Gerik's there. And soon, Saleh and Dozla show up. Meanwhile, Eirika's coasting along doing... whatever little she's doing. It seems pretty close to me.

The caveat is that in order for Gilliam to be good for this chapter, he needs to be trained, i.e. used previously, and he is not good in previous chapters. The fastest plan here is to drop Seth behind the door, kill Pablo and the ballistae, and then drop Eirika in for a seize. This chapter is also self-improvement for Joshua.

[Rewjeo]

It's self improvement for whoever you're using. Therefor no one is really "optimal deployment" except Seth.

Ah, I see. I was thinking it had to do with Vanessa's weakness to ballistae.

There's still a pretty good chance of one of them missing. Also, Tirado heals 8 HP per turn, so Joshua's actually got to do 56 damage on player phase attacks, 64 on enemy phase attacks. That's a 4-5HKO. 4-5/6 with a 66.79% chance of hitting isn't great.

If you want to use Gilliam, then he'd be trained earlier. After all, plenty of it is just self-improvement.

Edited May 6, 2010 by Slize

[dondon151]

You'd end up losing turns by training Gilliam. Self-improvement turns are numerically limited and are basically limited to 3 criteria:

1. Kill boss maps. Seth just needs to rush ahead and assassinate someone to end the chapter.

2. Seize maps. Seth and Eirika need to be rushed ahead as quickly as possible.

3. There needs to be nothing else to do on said map.

And then Gilliam has trouble with self-improvement anyway because he has 4 move. You want to improve the best eggs in your basket, and for awhile, Joshua is one of them.

[Jaybee]

For one, I think Josh is way too low. With a Steel Sword, he can ORKO/hit enemies down to pitiful HP. With a Killing Edge, 30% chance of a crit on either strike. Furthermore, by now the only other units that might be able to use the Killing Edge are Seth and Eirika. Seth doesn't care, he can whore enemies with Iron/Steel Lances. Eirika can Rapier the ass off enemies. This pretty much means that Josh can run around, OHKO an enemy 30% of the time while avoiding about half the attacks that come at him. Stick him on a forest, he's avoiding much more. And then upon promotion (which can happen at like C13), he gets even MORE crit. Take Marisa's Shamshir/get more Killing Edges. Have fun.

IMO, he should be an 8, because I can't really see him < Forde. Then again, I kinda hate Forde (fuck your Strength) so it might be a bit biased, but eh.

[Anouleth]

Forde has better movement, so he's useful outside of combat. He can help rescue-drop people in many chapters, as I believe dondon has already shown is useful with Franz and Kyle in his playthrough, and he can do it with decent combat as well. Joshua, on the other hand, is rarely very good. Forde has massive leads over him in every chapter after Scorched Sands and a couple before, just due to the movement gap.

He also has an extremely fast support with Kyle. Wind/Ice is kind of meh, but it's very quick, they can spend time next to each other really easily, and Kyle is himself an impressive unit.

[Integrity]

On Joshua v. Forde:

First off, my natural biases balance here, as I am prejudiced both against Myrmen and against Forde.

Second off, we can naturally assume that Josh is, what, 9 going into C9? I think that's more-or-less fair. Forde can easily make up three levels in his two chapters, given that the XP is split 3 ways in 5x and his side of the map 3 ways in 8. Hell, Forde's probably 10 in C9 if we're actually going to field him instead of Kyle, but I'll assume 9.00 for easiness and Joshua is therefore a better unit in some ways - while being slower in MV and locked to Swords only forever. Forde has the tiny, tiny benefit of easy 2-range and higher durability - giving him a better Enemy Phase, giving him more levels.

Third off, Joshua's supports blow. His only two that end up viable are WindXIce with a healer, and WindXThunder (actually a good support) with a unit that essentially phases him out - except on Ephraim's route it doesn't start until C12, and even Eirika's it won't start until C11. Forde and Kyle, while it isn't a great support, have had 4 chapters with a faster support - or Forde and Ephraim have had the same for more benefit. Or Forde and Franz have had ~3 chapters to build their, also faster and also better synergistic support. While Forde's supports aren't great, they aren't as bad as Joshua's.

So yeah. I think Joshua is half a point worse than Forde.

--

Since she's a simple one to do, I'll double up this post with

NATASHA

Really, there's not much to say about Natasha and therefore she can go in here now.

I mean, REALLY, there's not much to say about Natasha. She's your second healer. That's about it. Oh, sure, her shooty growth is better than Moulder's - actually, several of her growths are better - but she also joins four chapters later at a lower level (1).

She, um, can promote to a Valkyrie. Valkyrie is a cool word, so that's sort of interesting, right?

...

Seriously, I got nothing to say here. Moulder shows up earlier, Natasha grows better, Moulder has a moustache, Natasha is cuter, Moulder can promote to a Sage, Natasha can promote to a Valkyrie. I suppose that first thing is the key here - Natasha grows better than Moulder and starts later. Shit. I dunno. Natasha and Moulder are probably going to end up getting the same score in the end. They both heal, but Moulder heals better at first and Natasha heals better later. Moulder slings Light Magic (or Anima) with less AS loss, and Natasha slings it for higher damage. Their support lists are both rather bad except lolanimaxanima moulderxvanessa - but that's slow and healerxflier :(

You know what? I'm going to do something different. I have so little to say for Natasha's spot on the rankings list that I want YOU, the community, to help me come up with a score.

7.0

Edited May 10, 2010 by Integrity

[Anouleth]

((Whatever you gave Moulder)-0.5)/10 seems about right for Natasha.

Edited May 6, 2010 by Anouleth

[Integrity]

((Whatever you gave Moulder)-0.5)/10 seems about right for Natasha.

Whatever I'm to rate Moulder, as it were. I haven't done him yet and tbh I don't know what to give him either :P

[Rewjeo]

The TINY TINY benefit if higher durability and 2-range? What world do you live in? Durability's important (although Josh's pretty durable, so it's small) and 1-2 range is pretty huge, even in such a player phase dominated game.

7-8 for Natasha.

[Junkhead]

I mean, REALLY, there's not much to say about Natasha. She's your second healer. That's about it. Oh, sure, her shooty growth is better than Moulder's - actually, several of her growths are better - but she also joins four chapters later at a lower level (1).

Eh...two healers are better than one? Despite not being necesary, she could take a side of the map while Moulder takes the other...?

She, um, can promote to a Valkyrie. Valkyrie is a cool word, so that's sort of interesting, right?

You know what? I'm going to do something different. I have so little to say for Natasha's spot on the rankings list that I want YOU, the community, to help me come up with a score.

She can promote to a Bishop top, you know, not such a bad option, she's only missing on +1 Mag/Mov, this makes it easier to keep up with Joshua as giving her priority in sand terrain.

Personally, I would give her a 7, she's very similiar to Serra in LHM.

[Integrity]

I know she can promote to a Bishop, Soul, but Valkyrie is a cooler word.

Anyways, hello and welcome to restored Serenes. It's - time - for -

LUTE

Ah, Lute, my darlin'...

Lute is a glass cannon. And by glass, I mean paper. And by cannon, I mean howitzer. She puts out TRUCKFONS of damage, while retaining the durability of...well, she's not a Phantom. Lute's status as such a unit is established early, as she joins you at level 1 in the middle of Chapter 4. Conveniently, there's a host of Zombies over to her right that she can pick at without too much difficulty while hiding behind Gilliam or Franz or naked!Seth if you really must, since Seth gets pathetic XP from Zombies even for Seth and I'm not warpskipping so w/e.

What contributes to her title? 65% MAG growth. SIXTY-FIVE. There are exactly two characters in this game who match that: Garcia at 65%, and Myrrh. Discounting the Manaketes, only Lute, Garcia, and Dart have this much S/M growth in the entire GBA run, and Lilina is one step above them with 70%. Essentially, Lute's damage grows the most out of her entire game, and bar one unit she's tied for best on the GBA. Her base is even 6 at level 1, meaning she isn't compensating for a low base with a high growth. No, Lute just has superb magic for the entire game. Her SPD growth is nothing exceptional, but she's got enough to keep doubling - most of the time. Her SKL is fairly poor but her LCK is good, so her HIT is usually high.

Downsides? Glass. I don't mean the peerless swordsman, whose name the gods fear - I mean 45% HP, 15% DEF, and 40% RES. Sure, her DEF is copy-pasted GBA Mage Def (even in just this game, possessed by Artur, Natasha, Lute, L'Atachel, and Ewan), but her HP growth is tied for worst in the game with L'Arachel, and her RES is rather poor for a Mage. Yeah. Combined with her just-barely-enough SPD growth, Lute's defensive growths are all poor.

Of course, when you consider her pure damage is going to demolish any other mage, level-for-level? On top of her spectacular growths, she slings Anima magic, famous for being worth a damn - since Light is only wielded well in this form by Lucius until Thani rears up and Dark is wielded incredibly by Canas to counteract a total lack of decent dark magicians ever again for the rest of the series so far. To make things even more awesomer for Lute, her only likely competition for Excalibur is Saleh, so she's *going* to get her licks in with the S tome. Her durability disadvantage, even, is countered slightly by...

Her supports! Lute is ANIMA affinity (I see what you did there, IS.)! Anima gives her extra damage (wut), but more importantly DEF AND Evade. She can get a moderately fast Artur (xIce), which doubles up her DEF and Evade - making her more durable (15 evade!). If you're willing to slog it out at 10+2, she can get a Vanessa (xAnima) to double up ALL her support's awesome powers. Her other supports are too slow and/or start too low to really come into play (you could get a C xKyle by the end of the game, maaaaaybe a B), though, so if she gets an A she's getting Artur, but her supports = durability and that's Lute's downside.

The speed of the supports leaves much to be desired, though, and that's why she's not Gerik-tier. If she had a quick support or two Ephraim-style (or, God help us, an instant xArtur ColmXNeimi style), she'd have enough to put her there.

8.5

[Anouleth]

Lilina has a 75% magic growth, not 70%.

[Integrity]

Lilina has a 75% magic growth, not 70%.

My bad. I like that the post hasn't been edited yet, so I'm leaving two minor typos and that small factual difference.

'course, it doesn't really change anything; Lilina is sitting one step above the three prior mentioned.

[Integrity]

Since Artur is a derivative of Lute, I may as well kick him out now - especially since I'm getting wtfclose to finishing...

ARTUR

Artur is another Lute at first, and a less-good Lute at later. Artur is a blastier, less durable Moulder at first, and the same thing at later.

So yeah, that's really about it. Artur slings the Light magic to counteract Lute's Anima, and he does it fairly well given the tools he gets - except he doesn't have the CON to sling the gooder magic since it weighs so damn much. In the beginning, he slaps Evil Eyes (wtf are they called? mogall?) around with WTA and high RES, making him useful there. From the start of C5, Lute does more damage, probably doubles anyway (Art only starts with a 1 SPD advantage and a slightly smaller growth), and neither one is tanky enough to have a significant Enemy Phase anyway. Artur does hold a significant SKL and RES lead for the entire game, which combined with Light's inherent CRIT certainly gives him some use, but...

By supports, Artur is the same as - or worse off than - Lute. He has one support (Lute) that is likely to come into play, and four supports that are all too slow, start too late, or start too late and increment too slow to matter. As Lute, he can conceivably get one of his others (xNeimi) in a reasonable fashion (5+3, 25 turns to C), but his are mostly IceXFire which only doubles up on HIT (which Light is high on anyway) and Evade (his other one is xWind, which is double Hit and double CritEvade. yaaaaay. ...)

And there you have it. Artur is a less-good Lute. He even loses by one point in DEF average over their entire careers, and you remember my thoughts on Lute's DEF. Note for all that read: Artur being a less-good Lute doesn't make him a bad unit, just as Forde being a less-good Kyle and a worthless-when-compared-to Franz doesn't make him a bad unit either and actually I'm starting to overcome my hatred for Forde.

8.0

EDIT: Artur = 8.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Integrity

[Tables]

Point of information: Lute starts with 7 SPD and has -1 due to her 3 CON. 6AS only doubles enemies with 2AS, which on Normal is only Soldiers. 7AS does only a little better, doubling one or two more enemies, but on Hard, I think it would only be Soldiers her 6AS doubles, with Artur doing marginally better.

[Integrity]

Point of information: Lute starts with 7 SPD and has -1 due to her 3 CON. 6AS only doubles enemies with 2AS, which on Normal is only Soldiers. 7AS does only a little better, doubling one or two more enemies, but on Hard, I think it would only be Soldiers her 6AS doubles, with Artur doing marginally better.

Didn't check CON, thanks. Still, Artur isn't doubling overmuch and the two are probably split on Fighters/Brigands if Artur's doubling some and Lute's not.

[Tables]

Fighters have 5AS on Normal, so you'd need 9AS to double them, which neither will have. On hard, that's probably 6-7AS.

[Integrity]

Artur would need three +SPD levels before C5 to double them on normal, then. That's...well, not inconceivable, but certainly not probable by any means.

I assume we're in agreement here that Artur is slightly < Lute?

[Tables]

Yeah. He can double some early stuff that Lute can't, but overall he's not quite so great.

[Integrity]

LIVE, FE8 FORUMS. You've been so dead recently. You were so revived so recently. :(

COLM

HAW. COLM. Shit yes.

Where to start, where to start, where to start. Colm has a SWEET cloak. It's almost as sweet as Joshua's hat. Seriously. Colm also has a fucking smirk that makes you want to punch him but you won't because he'd blick your shit in a heartbeat.

Arright, PART THE FIRST: Colm is a thief. Colm comes really early. Colm is single-handedly responsible for acquiring several stat boosters and promotion items, including all of the Body Rings in the game if you attribute desert treasure to him. Considering that the next unit you can use to Steal is Rennac, and by the time you get Rennac nothing is ever stealable again there's still some l33t shit you haven't stolen yet, yeah. Colm even promotes into either of two classes that retain his lockpicking ability and Fog of War vision, meaning he always has utility as a thief.

That's established. Good. Colm also has slightly-better-than-passing combat skills, to boot. Colm's only real gaping hole in his growths is SKL. He's got good to really good growths in everything else, but his SKL sits at a low base (4) with a relatively slow growth (40%). This means that Colm's crits are...somewhat limited - bad for his Assassin potential, but doesn't really matter if we're using him as a thief/Rogue. Rogue!Colm comes with the advantages of a sweet battle sprite with sweet battle animations (compared to bellyshirt assassin, at least) and only losing Silencer. The benefits of Pick aren't really all that relevant, considering even if you promote him fairly early he's only going to freepick the chests in MAYBE (very maybe) 14 (and you get Rennac to do that free anyway), 16, half of 19, and F-1. So Colm's combat is always *good*, but never great.

In the next phase, Colm has a distinct advantage: Neimi. Neimi is a FREE C SUPPORT (WOW) that's also did I mention fucking FAST. It's 80+4. So not only is he getting a free support (for double crit, even, on a speed-based unit), he's getting it in Chapter THREE, and it's a useful support to boot. If she's fielded, ColmXNeimi can hit A before the hard chapters (PIRATE FUCKING SHIP) set in. To boot, it's LightXFire, which is full ATK, full CRIT, and full HIT, making it a pure offensive support for two pure offensive units. I also always field Neimi due to other reasons (she's hawt.)

So what's this add up to? Colm is available forever, does what he's supposed to do very well, fights well enough to level, has a GOOD FREE SUPPORT, isn't ever invalidated by another unit, uses his own promotion item unless Ross is Berzerkered (which he should be but I digress), has a sweet cloak and snarky grin...

8.5

EDIT: Colm has been updated to reflect his final.

Edited July 19, 2010 by Integrity