Favorite Est?

[Narga_Rocks]

... How is Ashera not dying on turn 1 anyway in Easy Mode?

You still need a pretty good team on Easy Mode to 1 turn. Is it possible without involving triangle attacks and such? Sure, nearly everyone can double with help from Nasir and all your 34+ spd cap characters are now doubling without him, but I still have doubts that it is easy to do with just about any team you have. Particularly if you don't have Rafiel. Even if you do have him, that's 10 targets you have to take out with 16 characters + heron. 20 total moves, but that's including at least two dragons. In fact it is at least 4 of Sanaki, Sothe, Kurth, Ena, Gareth, Nasir. And those guys are pretty bad at it.

You probably at least need to bring out Nolan and Boyd with brave axes to ORKO. Possibly Elincia with a blood tide as well. But I think it takes at least a small amount of planning ahead for the team you are bringing.

Turn 2 however should be doable with a lot of teams. As long as you make good blessing choices and get everyone to max level (pretty easy on EM, particularly with inefficient play) 2 turns should be cake even with Leanne or Reyson for most teams. I know my first playthrough I didn't really think through my choices all that much and probably 4 turned or something. Then after beating HM I loaded my 4-E-5 EM save and 2 turned it no problem. I switched out a character I deployed the first time I won for Gareth to get another Blood Tide, but since you can't change all that much on a 4-E-5 save it was almost the same set up as my first playthrough and I still 2 turned.

[dondon151]

Well, Gant lance can mitigate his problems a little if you still have some uses. 10 more hit than steel and only 1 less mt. 5 less hit than iron but 2 more mt. And there is the horseslayer. Of course, his already bad speed gets cut down by 3 if he uses that thing. But that thing still has more hit than iron, more mt than steel.

That's true, but I still have to say that Zeiss's accuracy is pretty mediocre even with Iron Lance.

[NinjaMonkey]

And if you keep calling her failcaiah I'll start calling you Failmonkey for not being able to get out of Easy Mode. Her name is Micaiah. Learn it. Use it.

First of all, I don't care what you call me, seeing as we rarely post in the same thread. Finally, I don't care for a challenge (and I like being able to use everybody).

So er... Failcaiah it is! :P

[Narga_Rocks]

First of all, I don't care what you call me, seeing as we rarely post in the same thread. Finally, I don't care for a challenge (and I like being able to use everybody).

So er... Failcaiah it is! :P

So you'll continue to judge characters by your own incompetence? Okay, as long as we are clear on that. I'll just read it as you admitting you suck every time you call her that, k?

[Thor Odinson]

Zeiss and Pelleas.

Even though I haven't even used Pelleas.

Reason? They're cute guys.

No more explanation needed.

This isn't the best Est thread, after all. Just favorite.

Also, Farina for non-ranked-runs and personality, and I guess Tiltyu counts as well. Yay wrath.

... Est herself can go die in a ditch.

[NinjaMonkey]

So you'll continue to judge characters by your own incompetence?

Considering that Micaiah has a lot of trouble doubling enemies on Easy Mode, I wouldn't say that I'm the one who is incompetent...

Edited September 15, 2010 by NinjaMonkey

[Narga_Rocks]

Considering that Micaiah has a lot of trouble doubling enemies on Easy Mode, I wouldn't say that I'm the one who is incompetent...

The point is that on the cooler modes, Micaiah's other abilities become a lot more important. When a lot of the rest of your team sucks against armors in part 1, being able to OHKO with thani is nice. When nearly all the laguz in part 3 DB have S strike instead of A strike, healing is even more important. Which mean Micaiah builds up enough good periods that calling her "Failcaiah" is insanely stupid.

So, 1/3 of the time (HM) Micaiah is quite helpful. Another 1/3 of the time (NM) she isn't as crucial but is still a nice benefit to the team. On EM, sure, maybe you have a ton of powerhouses that take so little damage you don't even need healing, but 66.666% of the possible play modes involve a Micaiah that is anything but fail. Thus, on average, you are WRONG. Live with it.

[Rewjeo]

And she's by no means BAD on EM, either. Healing still has its uses, her OHKOing armors is still helpful because it frees up one or two of your other units to do other things, as well. And she also has a shot at doubling stuff there.

[NinjaMonkey]

And she also has a shot at doubling stuff there.

As far as I can tell, the only maps she manages to double stuff are 4-P, 4-3 and 4E3...

[Narga_Rocks]

One thing I don't get: you love Vika. Do you boss abuse to make her good? Seriously, even on EM I can't imagine what you'd have to go through if you tried to raise her without having her poke away at bosses for exp or fight glare'd priests or something. If you are willing to do that for them, why not Micaiah? You could get her to level 20 in 1-4 rather easily and then I'm sure she'd be bound to double a few things along the way. Not everything, sure, since even her level 20 spd is only 13 or 14, but that's gotta work on a few things. Part 3 doesn't have opportunity to abuse, though, but you say she can double in 4-P and 4-3 anyway. Then you can waste some time in 4-E-1 or just give her bexp and get something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SdyqvWWVCo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq5o7ubLmns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEUdm1b01w0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-BCY2rCMjA

Now, as you can see the guy took her to level 20 so clearly he used a lot of bexp, but it's funny anyway. Even if you don't do that, smart use of bexp along the way as she caps things and just a little resetting can still make her a powerhouse. On HM I managed (mostly staying within bexp limits with only a little resetting) to cap her tier 2 spd before starting 4-E-1. And then in 4-E-2 she was actually pretty destructive (Valaura). She would have definitely been ORKOing on EM. And of course invincible in 4-E-3 thanks to Nosferatu. I'm assuming you don't try to rush Deg in 4-E-3, so being an immortal dragon fighter isn't so bad.

[Rewjeo]

As far as I can tell, the only maps she manages to double stuff are 4-P, 4-3 and 4E3...

She has a SHOT at doubling stuff. Yeah, it requires luck, RNG abuse, or speedwings, but she can double a fair amount sometimes.

[NinjaMonkey]

If you are willing to do that for them, why not Micaiah? You could get her to level 20 in 1-4 rather easily and then I'm sure she'd be bound to double a few things along the way. Not everything, sure, since even her level 20 spd is only 13 or 14, but that's gotta work on a few things.

She hits level 20 in 1-7 as it is. Besides, leveling her to level 20 by 1-4 and then having her pwn the crap out of stuff is wasteful (since she can't get any more exp until after her forced promotion). Oh, and having Edward and Nolan promoted by the end of Part one (say 20/6 or so) makes 3-6 go a lot easier (I remember my first PT where I only used Sothe and Micaiah in Part one, it was a real nightmare).

Edited September 16, 2010 by NinjaMonkey

[Life]

Ninja, I hope you realize that you've been admitting that you play on Easy Mode. Which means you're not using anyone who's being pushed to the best of their abilities.

Hell, I'm on my first playthrough of the game and I'm on Normal only because I can't choose Hard. And I'm not great at FE games (I failed S Ranking EHM thanks to Exp). So if anything, my opinion after a single playthrough on Normal mode should mean more than your opinion on Kindergarten Mode.

As for favourite Est, I'll take Nino hands down. I took her from a level 5 Mage to a level 3 Sage between the start of BBD and the end of CoD on EHM. She was dodging and doubling Steel Sword Heros and almost ORKOing them as a level 18 Mage. She's got really good bases and pretty awesome growths for an Est (TAKE NOTE TILTYU).

Edited September 16, 2010 by 4chan

[Junkhead]

How is Tailto an Est? She's basically the same as Sophie and Zeiss and mistaked by an Est, when her growths are only slightly above average, and doesn't end up magnificent. They have nothing going for them aside from being glass-canons. At least characters like Nino, Amelia & Ewan are not only glass-canons, but instead, actual speedsters that make 1RKO'ing common after raising. So they pay off.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Totally not Hika's alt

[Narga_Rocks]

How is Tailto an Est? She's basically the same as Sophie and Zeiss and mistaked by an Est, when her growths are only slightly above average, and doesn't end up magnificent. They have nothing going for them aside from being glass-canons. At least characters like Nino, Amelia & Ewan are not only glass-canons, but instead, actual speedsters that make 1RKO'ing common after raising. So they pay off.

Well, it helps that with wrath she can OHKO. But Tron isn't exactly accurate and it makes her a one-off each turn and you have to be careful. And she has a portion of chapter 3 where she needs to fight and has chapter 4 and 5 to be build. To be more of an Est she needs better mag and spd growths + pursuit and to show up midway through chapter 4. That would probably be enough. (spd only needs to be slightly better. 25.9 is decent even with thunder, particularly 1st gen, but Nino (for example) caps at 20/11. Maybe level 25 or so would be right for an Est. Magic should hit at least 23 or 24 for level 30, as well.

Of course, then Tinny would be pretty funny with many fathers. Like, with Lex she'd have pursuit + better magic + ambush instead of failing to OHKO a lot of enemies with crits pretty quickly. Levin as a father would make Arthur even more broken and suddenly Tinny wouldn't get screwed by the pairing. It's probably better that Tiltyu isn't more Est like (though mid chapter 4 would make the pairings too slow unless they sped up her point growths).

[eclipse]

and I really want to know who eclipse thought was a better speedwing candidate than "only flier, 9 range, able to ORKO nearly everything with a wing and a few levels"

Speed-screwed Ike (ever see a 20/5 Ike with 26 Speed going into 4-F-2? Stuff like that's happened before, and I really hate it). If Ike's Speed doesn't flip me off, then I'm free to use it on others. . .but by then, it's kind of late.

[Narga_Rocks]

Speed-screwed Ike (ever see a 20/5 Ike with 26 Speed going into 4-F-2? Stuff like that's happened before, and I really hate it). If Ike's Speed doesn't flip me off, then I'm free to use it on others. . .but by then, it's kind of late.

You get one in 1-E, one in 2-3, and one in 3-9. By 3-11 you should know if Ike's gonna get screwed and you can give him one then (the 3-9 one you just picked up). Problem solved, and you can make Titania and Haar into pwn machines for part 3 by giving them wings in 2-E and 3-2.

Besides, if you use bexp well you shouldn't actually have spd problems with Ike. Check out Interceptor and Colonel M's playthroughs. They both had 29 spd at level 20 (I think), so 31 at 20/1. No problem. Oh, and blossom is an alternative solution since Ike has a long time to reach level 20. 9 levels, 11 chapters. You could bexp to 99 and blossom to get the level, he'll probably get to at least 50 exp towards the next level and you can repeat the process. 35% growth becomes 57.75% growth with blossom, which is obviously much more reliable.

That's three ways of dealing with Ike's spd and none of them prevent you from giving the 2-3 wing to Haar and the 1-E wing to Titania.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Narga_Rocks

[Shadow Mir]

How is Tailto an Est? She's basically the same as Sophie and Zeiss and mistaked by an Est, when her growths are only slightly above average, and doesn't end up magnificent. They have nothing going for them aside from being glass-canons. At least characters like Nino, Amelia & Ewan are not only glass-canons, but instead, actual speedsters that make 1RKO'ing common after raising. So they pay off.

I could ask the same of Ewan, you know.

[eclipse]

You get one in 1-E, one in 2-3, and one in 3-9. By 3-11 you should know if Ike's gonna get screwed and you can give him one then (the 3-9 one you just picked up). Problem solved, and you can make Titania and Haar into pwn machines for part 3 by giving them wings in 2-E and 3-2.

Besides, if you use bexp well you shouldn't actually have spd problems with Ike. Check out Interceptor and Colonel M's playthroughs. They both had 29 spd at level 20 (I think), so 31 at 20/1. No problem. Oh, and blossom is an alternative solution since Ike has a long time to reach level 20. 9 levels, 11 chapters. You could bexp to 99 and blossom to get the level, he'll probably get to at least 50 exp towards the next level and you can repeat the process. 35% growth becomes 57.75% growth with blossom, which is obviously much more reliable.

That's three ways of dealing with Ike's spd and none of them prevent you from giving the 2-3 wing to Haar and the 1-E wing to Titania.

Of everything you outlined, I like Blossom the best. I'll give that a shot, and see if that will help with my weird luck with the RNG. Thanks!

That means the extra goes to Soren (Titania's cooperated with me so far), or someone in the DB (probably Nolan, since I've got a talent for Speed-screwing him, too).

[Florete]

Wow, I haven't kept up with this topic so I didn't even know my own character rating topic had been brought up in it until I clicked the link in Soul's sig.

If Red Fox can ignore Sothe's/Failcaiah's crappy Part 4 in her character rating guide, than I can ignore Vika's Part 1.

I'm pretty sure this has been explained to you more than once in the past. As Narga pointed out, Micaiah and Sothe never have to go through their crappy periods to use their good ones. It's reversed for Vika. For her to be good she must first suck. That's a major difference in character usefulness.

I don't care if you play EM all the time and refuse even a slight challenge. I don't even care if that's all you discuss (as long as it isn't in a place specifically meant for a different difficulty). But you should at least realize that your characters aren't nearly being pushed to any kind of limit, which gives you a limit on seeing how useful they truly are. In the end, your views on how good or bad a character is will be vastly different from the majority of others and arguably inaccurate.

Oh, I don't think I posted my favorite Est yes, so...probably Nino. Her and maybe Tiltyu.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Red Fox of Fire

[NinjaMonkey]

That's why I don't bother with the Tier List topic (or most of the character discussion topics, actually).

Edited September 16, 2010 by NinjaMonkey

[Life]

That's why I don't bother with the Tier List topic (or most of the character discussion topics, actually).

It's also why nobody here takes you seriously. Clearly you suck at these games and blame the characters for it.

[NinjaMonkey]

It's also why nobody here takes you seriously. Clearly you suck at these games and blame the characters for it.

It's not my fault if Micaiah gets speed screwed...

Edited September 16, 2010 by NinjaMonkey

[Ether]

It's not my fault if Micaiah gets speed screwed...

It is your fault for not understanding she doesn't need it to be useful.

[Loki Laufeyson]

It is your fault for not understanding she doesn't need it to be useful.

I was just wondering why Micaiah would need speed when she functions as one of the best healbots in the game? So what if shes not doubling stuff. She can finish off enemies if one wants to use her for that reason and gain exp that way. But really? Who cares...Staff use and Sacrifice do matter.