supports

[FragMaster]

so, i'm setting up an 8-10 unit roster and wondering what would be nice supports for them :

so who should i choose between these characters?

Eirika

Ephraim

Tana

Cormag

Gerick

Joshua

Marisa

Franz

Amelia(general)

Ross(zerker)

Ewan(summoner)

Lute

natasha

[Integrity]

You know, I'll actually be a nice guy and tackle this one.

Eirika/Ephraim

Tana/Cormag

Gerik/Joshua

Franz/Natasha

Ross/Lute

You're welcome.

[Anouleth]

What Integ said, only take out Ross and Lute because they suck. Replace with Duessel and Saleh, or Garcia and Saleh.

[Integrity]

Lute's better than either Duracell or Saleh depending on the route you take. Ross is a chore to train but if he's actually going to build a RossXLute then he's obviously taking enough turns to secure Ross's future.

[Anouleth]

Lute is never better than Duessel or Saleh, who both destroy her in lategame. Duessel has Garm access, so he can bosskill. Saleh can use warp. Lute can do just about nothing since she does poor damage to bosses and generally gets OHKOed in return. Given that she's also useless in earlygame and not very good in midgame, I feel confident in asserting that she is worse than both Duessel and Saleh on both routes.

If you don't like Duessel, deploy Garcia instead. Remember to promote him to Hero over the crappy Warrior class.

[Joerachi]

I always do I triangle support between Ross, Amelia, and Ewan for some wtfcrit and the fact I'm AmeliaxEwan

[Integrity]

Lute is never better than Duessel or Saleh, who both destroy her in lategame. Duessel has Garm access, so he can bosskill. Saleh can use warp. Lute can do just about nothing since she does poor damage to bosses and generally gets OHKOed in return. Given that she's also useless in earlygame and not very good in midgame, I feel confident in asserting that she is worse than both Duessel and Saleh on both routes.

If you don't like Duessel, deploy Garcia instead. Remember to promote him to Hero over the crappy Warrior class.

Saleh on Ephraim's route has what on Lute? Diligence (okay, staffspamming) can see Lute raised to A Staves before Saleh even arrives, and by that point she's got a very hefty MAG lead on him as well as 15 chapters of availability. Granted, she requires resources but this is FE8 ffs.

Duracell on Eirika's route, that's touchier, so I'm leaving it alone.

[Rewjeo]

If he's willing to use General Amelia, I think that Lute and Ross are fine.

[FragMaster]

i'm planning on zerkering ross and giving him garm. and cormag will get the vidofnir and franz will get the audhulma.

and yeah i plan on training ross ewan and amelia

[Anouleth]

Saleh on Ephraim's route has what on Lute? Diligence (okay, staffspamming) can see Lute raised to A Staves before Saleh even arrives, and by that point she's got a very hefty MAG lead on him as well as 15 chapters of availability. Granted, she requires resources but this is FE8 ffs.

If you promote Lute early to staff spam, her stats will not be better than his. Say we promote her in Chapter 10 at level 10, and she does nothing but staffspam until Saleh appears and we take 10 turns (which is generous) for each chapter. She has 5 chapters, or 50 turns, at 6EXP and 3WEXP... except that she can't heal every turn since there aren't always damaged units nearby. So say she heals 7 out of every ten turns. That's 35 Mends, so 210EXP and 105WEXP. That puts her at 10/3, with 25HP, 15MAG, 10SKL, 12SPD, 13LUK, 7DEF and 11RES. She also has B in staves. But Saleh is crushing her offensively. He wins in every stat except Luck, and his magic lead is compounded by his higher Anima rank and better CON, allowing him to use high level tomes like Excalibur and Elfire. He still has a C rank in staves so he can Barrierspam and get Warp, and when he gets there his magic will be better so he'll be a better canditate for it.

So what if Lute has 15 chapters of availability (she doesn't, she has 10)? In most of those chapters, she does nothing towards the goal.

[Silvercrow]

Gotta consider stuff like spamming Torch Staves (which give more WEXP than standard Mends) every turn on the L'arachel map. Also Barrier although I don't recall when you get it.

[Integrity]

Lute at Level 10 in C10 is a ridiculous assumption given that she's far from a bad unit for chapters 3-9, but okay I'll run with that number.

Lute, promoted at 10 to MK (higher promotion bonus to MAG, if you're earlypromoting her then Sage's extra caps mean jack.) will, on average, have 13 MAG. Saleh, at base, has 16. HOWEVER, Saleh joins as a level 4 Sage on Ephraim's route. Presumably that results in him getting +1 MAG, so he has 17. So Lute now has 5 chapters to make up a 4 MAG difference. Lute's MAG growth is 65%; Saleh's 30%. This means that if Lute ever catches Saleh, he's never pulling away.

So at 65% MAG, Lute is going to make 4 MAG levels on average in 7 levels. Now, to be sure, Lute's probably not going to make 7 levels (10/8 that would be) just staffspamming before Saleh arrives - it's not inconceivable, but it's unlikely. So we come to C15 with a Saleh who has an advantage over Lute in MAG - but he's still only C Staves. At this point, Lute is already A. She can already use the Warp staff for Chapters 16 and 17, which are two of the best chapters to have Warp in my experience. Saleh certainly won't.

You're also completely ignoring the fact that Lute isn't a negative for those first six point five chapters (really, she joins in the middle/towards the tail end of C3) and she's rather likely to either be promoted earlier than C10 or leveled higher than 10 by C10.

Even beyond that, let's put her on absolute equal footing with Eph!Saleh. To do that, we can avoid promoting her until C14, whose length easily gives a freshly promoted Lute time to get C Staves. To get that far, if you're bothering to level her at all (and if you aren't, just promote and staffspam away) she's most definitely higher than 10 and she's still gaining a MAG per two levels. Get her to 17 and she's got more MAG than Saleh BEFORE promoting and she's STILL been contributing for 11.5 chapters.

[Anouleth]

Lute at Level 10 in C10 is a ridiculous assumption given that she's far from a bad unit for chapters 3-9, but okay I'll run with that number.

She is a bad unit. Bad durability, bad offense, bad movement. She has to be fed kills and she has almost no enemy phase.

Lute, promoted at 10 to MK (higher promotion bonus to MAG, if you're earlypromoting her then Sage's extra caps mean jack.) will, on average, have 13 MAG. Saleh, at base, has 16. HOWEVER, Saleh joins as a level 4 Sage on Ephraim's route. Presumably that results in him getting +1 MAG, so he has 17. So Lute now has 5 chapters to make up a 4 MAG difference. Lute's MAG growth is 65%; Saleh's 30%. This means that if Lute ever catches Saleh, he's never pulling away.

Except that Saleh has better speed forever.

So at 65% MAG, Lute is going to make 4 MAG levels on average in 7 levels. Now, to be sure, Lute's probably not going to make 7 levels (10/8 that would be) just staffspamming before Saleh arrives - it's not inconceivable, but it's unlikely. So we come to C15 with a Saleh who has an advantage over Lute in MAG - but he's still only C Staves. At this point, Lute is already A. She can already use the Warp staff for Chapters 16 and 17, which are two of the best chapters to have Warp in my experience. Saleh certainly won't.

Warp is not really useful in Chapter 16. This is because the objective of the map is to have Eirika seize. She is not durable enough to be warped ahead of everyone else.

Warp is useful in Chapter 17, but you only need to use it once.

And to be honest, I have no idea how fast Lute can up her staff rank. I was being generous when I threw out ten turns per chapter. It's probably less, so Lute might not even have A by that point.

You're also completely ignoring the fact that Lute isn't a negative for those first six point five chapters (really, she joins in the middle/towards the tail end of C3) and she's rather likely to either be promoted earlier than C10 or leveled higher than 10 by C10.

At best, she's neutral. And what part of this don't you get? If you don't 1-round, and you don't have good durability, and you have 5 move, you WILL level slowly because you need to be fed kills on player phase.

Even beyond that, let's put her on absolute equal footing with Eph!Saleh. To do that, we can avoid promoting her until C14, whose length easily gives a freshly promoted Lute time to get C Staves. To get that far, if you're bothering to level her at all (and if you aren't, just promote and staffspam away) she's most definitely higher than 10 and she's still gaining a MAG per two levels. Get her to 17 and she's got more MAG than Saleh BEFORE promoting and she's STILL been contributing for 11.5 chapters.

She has been contributing for ZERO chapters. What part of 'bad durability, bad movement' do you not understand? Even her offense isn't very good until she starts doubling.

[FragMaster]

You know, I'll actually be a nice guy and tackle this one.

Eirika/Ephraim

Tana/Cormag

Gerik/Joshua

Franz/Natasha

Ross/Lute

You're welcome.

how about the B supports?

[Thor Odinson]

Lack of Seth saddens me. But alas, he does trivialize the game beyond redemption.

The only B supports I can see from that list are Tana B either Eirika or Ephraim, Natasha B Joshie or Cormag (go for Joshie on this one. It's MUCH faster), and Gerik B Ross.

I might've missed some, since that's just off the top of my head.

Edited September 14, 2010 by Luminescent Blade

[FragMaster]

who should i take out for seth? if ever i do use him lol

[Thor Odinson]

Your entire team besides Eirika Ohwait, that's just my personal playstyle

If Seth gets in play, then SethxEirika is more likely to happen if you do Eir route, since he has about 15 chapters oh Ephraim. In Eph route, they're about equal, since Ephie is a faster support numbers-wise but Seth still has 7 chapters on him and is fairly fast with Eirika as well.

Dunno who to take out, though. Ross isn't too necessary since we get Duracell later, but he has Fire which is awesome. Gerik can axe, but he won't reach S axes most likely unless you get lucky with Devil Axe.

However, Seth is a good B support option for Franz. Or A if you're not like me and don't care about the SethxEirika paired ending. However, since Gerik-Joshie is more useful than Joshie-Natasha, affinity-wise, at least giving Natasha some form of A support would be helpful. Eph can go B Eir B Tana or take Cormag's place in Tana's A support since they give the same exact bonuses, only EphxTana happens a lot faster at a movement cost.

Seth can support Cormag as well, but it's really slow.

Ultimately, it's up to you who you want to take out or use Seth at all. I'm just his number one fangirl on this site.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Luminescent Blade