Life vs. Lightning

[Life]

Second part of the debate is very optional but I will post a nice debate for Sazh if asked. First half is the obvious one.

[Life]

I'll open. Since the obvious debate is Rebecca vs. Louise, I'm putting my FFXIII comments in a spoiler rather than have you sift through them. Don't respond to the FF part yet, I'm still working on it. Current done Chapter 3 (in my opener). Rebecca v. Louise is good to go, though.

Ah Rebecca. A young girl who gets spat on thanks to her being the best of the worst (archers and snipers). It's quite sad, really. Especially when she's a better archer than the Countess of Reglay.

Anyway, Rebecca starts out in Birds of a Feather with the rest of the Pherae army. I guess it helps when the game tosses Peg Knights your way in her first chapter, eh? She's got great availability and she's great for taking out Peg Knight nuisances so that your axemen (Bartre, Dorcas, Hector) can concentrate on the real threats, the Brigands.

Point is that Rebecca has fantastic availability when comparing her to Louise. Becky arrives on the first turn of the second chapter of HHM. Louise joins the party about twenty chapters later. Points given to Becky for existing and helping the team.

What's that, you say? Rebecca is an archer and is automatically terrible? No enemy phase? Well, y'all can go stick your dicks in a rotary blade. While Rebecca might be stuck in a bad class with mediocre starting stats, she has quite a few perks. Let's take a look, shall we?

1. Longbow usage. 2-3 range weapon? Yes please. This weapon immediately makes archers better since the first one drops pretty early in the game (I'd love to say around Chapter 17 but don't quote me on that one). Hitting targets 3 spaces away gives her an advantage over everyone for a chapter like Genesis. And if I need to spell it out for you why it's so good, you haven't played the game in a long time.

2. Her growths. While Rebecca's bases might be pretty frail, she makes up for it in growths. Her Str sits at 40, rivaling units like Kent and Florina who are known for their reliability in combat. Her 60 Spd growth is only topped by Matthew, Guy and Ninils while tying Lyn, Nino, Legault and Dart, making her one of the fastest characters in the game. 50 Skl and 50 Luck just add to her potential to become a dodge tank.

3. Competition or lack of for a promotion item. Yeah, that's right. Assuming that you use Rebecca (why wouldn't you?), she's an absolute shoo-in for the Orion's Bolt. Wil is statistically inferior to her and Rath comes too late to use it effectively, even with an early promotion. If you're trying to S Rank HHM, Rebecca's the way to go for an archer.

4. Effectiveness on flying units. While Peg Knights pretty much suck and can be taken down by almost any unit, Wyvern Riders are actually tough enemies to fight. In New Resolve, WK's fly out of the darkness with their 28-31 HP and 10-11 Def. But since Rebecca can deal effective damage on them, she hits them for about 22 damage with an Iron Bow at level 13, setting up a kill for a much weaker unit. Now tell me that being an archer sucks.

So Rebecca fights and grows and is given a lovely Orion's Bolt as a birthday present. She then uses it in the Unfulfilled Heart base, promoting into a Sniper. And on the very first turn, Mr. and Mrs. Reglay show up...

Rebecca - Level 1 Sniper - A Bow - C Lowen, B Dart
Iron Bow: 24 Atk, 18 AS, 136 Hit, 22 Crit, 64 Avo, 13 CEva
Steel Bow: 27 Atk, 15 AS, 121 Hit, 22 Crit, 58 Avo, 13 CEva
Longbow: 23 Atk, 14 AS, 116 Hit, 22 Crit, 56 Avo, 13 CEva
Killer Bow: 27 Atk, 17 AS, 126 Hit, 59 Crit, 62 Avo, 13 CEva
32 HP, 8 Def, 9 Res

Louise - Level 4 Sniper - A Bow - A Pent
Silver Bow: 26 Atk, 17 AS, 126 Hit, 14 Crit, 57 Avo, 20 CEva
28 HP, 12 Def, 15 Res

Man, I wish I was making these numbers up. Becky is destroying Louise offensively and only loses badly on the defensive side when Louise is near her husband. Playing Lowen and Dart (both great units especially if you're not trying to S Rank) knocks Rebecca's Atk, Crit and Avo right up thanks to both supports being FirexFire (best support in the game IMO) along with being decently quick (Lowen is 5 +2 but starts in Chapter 12 while Dart is 35 +3 and hits C after only 15 turns). And Rebecca's destroying Louise when Countess Reglay has the better bow.

At this point onwards, Rebecca begins destroying Louise. Her growths are much better, she's got better supports (IcexLight isn't bad but it's not great) and is better at dodging attacks if someone tries to go after her. If Rebecca beats Louise in Louise's joining chapter and has more room than Louise to grow aside from having more potential, it stands to reason that Rebecca > Louise for when Louise exists and Rebecca > Nothing when Louise = Nothing before Unfulfilled Heart.

I rest that case.

And now for FFXIII. I'll stop at... Geez, you're barely into the game. I'll stop at the end of Chapter 8, in that case.

Sazh is possibly the most under appreciated character in the entire game while Lightning is... I'll say slightly overrated. He's got lots of health, sits and snipes enemies, has an afro and a chicken, becomes the best SYN in the game along with being a fantastic RAV and COM... Need I go on?

In any case, I will. Sazh is the best SYN in the game and a fantastic RAV and COM thanks to his balanced but high stats. He almost makes quite the decent SEN thanks to his nuts HP figure while being a meh MED and SAB. Lightning, on the other hand, is the jack-of-all-trades of FFXIII while being the master of none. She makes for a pretty good COM, RAV and MED while not being too bad at the other jobs. However, she never quite becomes the best at anything (Fang for COM, Vanille/Hope for both RAV and MED) which really hurts.

The Hanging Edge & The Pulse Vestige: Mr. Katzroy and Mrs. Farron have the exact same availability, them being in the same party and all. Lightning may seem like the better character but the fact of the matter is that her doing more damage right now is very trivial. Enemies are weak and once you pick the Power Wristband, Sazh actually gets stronger than Lightning.

But Lightning should also get a shot at the Power Wristband, cry the Lightning lovers. However, it might be worthwhile noting that Lightning's base HP is 200 while Sazh starts at 250. She desperately wants the Iron Bangle in order to survive the C'ieth attacks for a while, especially since she has to get in close to attack while Sazh can snipe away. Potions can cure that completely but not having to heal > spending Potions on anyone. So yeah... Sazh => Lightning in these chapters.

Lake Bresha: Here's where shit gets interesting. Lightning starts out in your party along with Snow and Vanille while Sazh takes a breather until Snow leaves. But Lightning's not actually doing anything better than Snow or Vanille. Snow's clearing out most of the enemies as a COM while Vanille snipes and heals as a RAV/MED. Sure, Lightning can hit the wildlife with Thunder for weakness damage... but Vanille's doing more while using freaking Aero. Same idea goes for COM vs. Snow. And tossing the Power Wristband on her is a bad idea, again thanks to her HP issues. She should probably stick to the Silver Bangle until Hope starts fighting since she can barely survive the Manasvin Warmech's Crystal Rain with it on. I call that shitty durability.

Once Snow leaves, we have a whole different ballgame. Lightning now gets a legitimate shot at the Power Wristband since Sazh is going to want the Magician's Mark. He's stuck with RAV only while Lightning gets both COM and RAV. But she actually benefits from the Silver Bangle more than Vanille does making her the prime candidate for either item. That being said, Sazh picks up the Deneb Duellers which give him a +10 magic bonus, not to mention that he's hitting a Fire weakness on the Terraquatics that hop around. If you combine all of those, Sazh instantly becomes the best RAV of the entire group. Lightning's now the best COM but since COMs are about to lose their offensive edges aside from stagger chains, who really cases? She's worse than Sazh when it comes to Magic and that's really all that matters right now. Even against the Garuda Interceptor, she's restricted to COM just to keep stagger chains alive while Sazh and Vanille do the real heavy lifting since RAV/RAV/RAV is a bad idea when trying to stagger an enemy. Once again I say "jack of all trades, master of none".

The Vile Peaks: Now the real fun begins. Remember when I said that Sazh was the best SYN in the game? This is the chapter that you find out why. Sure Hope is also a SYN but he starts off with defensive moves. Sazh gets the all important Bravery, Faith and Vigilance buffs to begin with. Bravery ups PAtt, Faith ups MAtt and Vigilance increases awareness (interrupt more enemy attacks and get interrupted less frequently during your own). Starting off a battle in SYN/MED or SYN/SAB is a great way to position yourself to 5 star a battle. As for accessories, Vanille is probably going to want the Magician's Mark to knock her Magic as high as possible. Which is fine for Sazh since he actually has a usable Magic stat, unlike Lightning. He can make do with the Power Wristband (for Firestrike) or Doctor's Code.

Lightning, on the other hand, doesn't improve much. Her crystarium expands a bit but she still doesn't have any access to the MED job until after the Dreadnought. And she loses out on trying to snag the Magician's Mark since Hope needs it right now. So she's stuck wearing the same accessories as Sazh even though the effect that the PW has on her is much less noticeable than on Sazh. It's probably best to keep the Silver Bangle on her for the time being.

After the parties split for good, Lightning's troubles refuse to leave. Even though she gets the Medic job, she STILL loses out on the MM since Hope has no physical roles, affecting her healing abilities. Toss in the fact that she still suffers from HP problems while Odin loves attacking quickly and furiously and you get a character that you can't be completely confident in using. She's also stuck with either the Power Wristband or the Black Belt since Hope's priority is attacking and killing stuff quickly, not healing up.

Sazh gets the easy route. Since Vanille has to be living since she's the only healer, she gets first shot at the Black Belt. As a result, Sazh can snag the beautiful Magician's Mark and up his Magic into double digits. If you've been upgrading your equipment, the Magician's Mark can easily be sitting at around Level 4 right now, giving a +44 boost to Magic. And since Ruin works on Magic stat alone, Sazh can abuse that high Magic while Vanille stays alive thanks to an upgraded Black Belt (+2% PDamage reduction per level upgrade).

The Gapra Whitewood & Sunleth Waterscape: I really gotta apologize. Sazh does get the harder route but he also benefits off of the CP that Lightning gets in the GW, which is Chapter 5's dungeon. You also realize why Sazh is a much cooler person than Lightning in these chapters (he's a Daddy).

Anyway, let's start with Lightning. Both her and Hope should now have 2 Accessory slots which gives Lightning more options. However, Hope still has dibs on that Magician's Mark and he also takes an upgraded Silver Bangle (level 4 rivals a Tungsten Bangle at base) since his HP count is much lower than Lightning. Even with all of these restrictions, Lightning's now doing better since she'll start gaining Magic more often in her Crystarium trees. Her two saving graces during this entire chapter is a starred Doctor's Code which she can equip halfway through once you switch to her from Hope and Launch, found in the Commando tree. That being said, she still needs constant healing thanks to her having to run up to enemies to smack them since she's only half decent at using Ruin, unlike Sazh. And the Aster Protoflorian is a nightmare for her with his Efflorescence that essentially works as if Vigilance has been cast on it. Luckily, she does get to summon Odin during that battle which helps once the AP has a Thunder weakness.

Sazh is much luckier with the accessory distribution. Vanille is stuck to only one accessory slot while the father gets two. So if Vanille takes the MM, Sazh can then deck himself out with the Black Belt and Power Wristband, which should both be sitting at about level 4 by now. If Vanille wants the Doctor's Code or Black Belt, Sazh puts on both the Power Wristband and Magician's Mark to destroy his enemies. And Vanille's going to want either of the two since she's the only healer.

During this chapter, Sazh also gets some of the best skills possible in the earlygame: Blitz, Enwater and Enthunder. The two En spells cast that element on the person's weapon, allowing them to hit for weakness damage if the enemy has it. Lightning already has Blitz but when compared to Sazh's, it's vastly inferior. Lightning goes for AoE damage with her attack while Sazh starts firing bullets from left to right. And the bigger the enemy, the more bullets they take. Tell me that's not amazing.

Sazh's only real problem is that he doesn't control Blizzard and Water yet. However, it seems like the Sunleth Waterscape was created just for him since pretty much all the enemies there are weak to Fire, Aero or Thunder, usually all three. And guess what Sazh is best at casting?

Edited May 24, 2010 by Life