13th Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 (edited) Shadow Dragon, H5 mode. A truly delightful challenge, and I'd be damned if I didn't use a good prepromote in the beginning. So, importantly, There are 2 other prepromotes, besides Wolf and Sedgar, within the earlygame. You have the old Paladin Jeigan, and the Old Sage Wendell. Now, as a starter, Let's look at Jeigan's base stats, as a Paladin. Jeigan Level 1 Paladin HP:22 Strength: 7 Magic: 1 Skill10 Speed: 8 Luck: 1 Defense: 9 Resistance: 6 Move: 10 Lance B, Sword D Decent Bases, despite a level 5 Abel tending to have better stats than this, but that's not the point. Wendell, a level 1 Sage, has these bases. On the second column, I'll put his bases as a Paladin., to make it comparable. Wendell Level 1 Sage/Paladin HP: 22/22 Strength: 3/7 Magic: 4/1 Skill: 2/5 Speed: 12/15 Luck: 1/1 Defense: 5/10 Resist: 5/5 Move: 6/10 Tome B, Staff D/Lance D, Sword E As you can see, Wendell, as a Paladin, has the same HP, Magic, and Strength; has higher Speed and 1 more Defense, and has less skill and Resist. Now, While that higher speed and Defense may have something helpful, Wendell starts as a sage in a chapter with many physical units, specifically powerful cavalry and Pegasus knights. And that 5 Defense makes him a squishy target. Speaking of starting, Jeigan starts with a Silver Lance and can use it. Against the chapters 1-3, where the bosses have absurdly high hit rates and speed with their axes, this lance, despite WTD, is an important weapon. Availabilitywise, Jeigan has the lead. He comes in Chapter 1, Wendell comes in Chapter 5. Chapter 1, while having a lot of axe wielding pirates, is a good start for Jeigan. Having swords is important, and will help him through the minor enemies of the first chapters, allowing him to save his Silver Lance for the bosses. Wendell's only real uses in his chapter are blowing the archer he starts with to smithereens and shooting through the boss's resistance. The second of which, a reclassed Jeigan or Merric can do also. Now, the growths. Jeigan Paladin/Base HP: 40%/0% Str: 20%/5% Magic: 0%/10% Skill: 35%/10% Speed: 15%/5% Luck: 30%/30% Defense: 20%/5% Resist: 0%/5% Wendell Sage/Base HP: 40%/20% Str: 0%/0% Magic: 20%/0% Skill: 20%/0% Speed: 20%/0% Luck: 40%/40% Defense: 0%/5% Resist: 35%/15% The Base Growths are the important bit here. Jeigan has a base strength growth, base Skill Growth, and Base Speed Growth, while Wendell has a base HP growth, and higher base Luck and Resist growths. Jeigan is more likely to recieve Strength, Skill, and Speed than Wendell, because Wendell's base growths there are nonexistant. The combat for Jeigan is more useful. Only growths helping Wendell here are his Resist, his luck, and his HP growths. With no real combat growths, Wendell needs a reclass with high Str or Mag, skill, and Speed growths. With that, the best classes for Jeigan to reclass to are Dracoknight, to gain axes while keeping his high lance rank as well as getting flight capabilities, or Bishop, to staffspam. Wendell can reclass to Bishop, gaining Warp, Sniper, his best choice, growthwise, or Dracoknight, to get control of the useful weapons in the latter half of the game. Of those, Bishop is just as squishy a target as Sage, Sniper has no enemy phase, meaning if he is attacked, he will likely die without contributing to the fight, and Dracoknight has low weapon levels. And last of all, we will contribute to this argument the average Level 20 stats, rounded down in the base class. Jeigan Level 20 Paladin HP: 29 Strength: 10 Magic: 1 Skill: 16 Speed: 10 Luck: 6 Defense: 12 Resist: 6 And probably Lance A, Sword C for weapon Levels Wendell Level 20 Sage HP: 29 Str: 3 Magic: 7 Skill:5 Speed: 15 Luck: 8 Defense: 5 Resist: 11 And probably A Tome, B Staff Neither unit is one that a player would choose to use, endgame wise, but of them, if you had to use one, Jeigan has better offensive capabilities, due to enemies having high speed, but Wendell has defensive capabilities, because He has higher speed. But what is important is that Jeigan has better Defense, meaning when he is doubled by the heroes, he doesn't take as much damage. Wendell will take less damage from Magic, but enemies have absurdly high bases in the H5 endgame. He will be hit, and likely die in 2 shots, while not even hitting Mages for damage. Edited January 20, 2011 by 13thshadow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel M Posted January 21, 2011 Share Posted January 21, 2011 (edited) Okay let's try to make this opening of mine short, since I want the middle to have the most content. So we have some old guy on a horse and the motha fukin' pope. Yeah, you don't screw around with the pope. That's Wendell bro. So obviously, taking them very far past earlygame seems suicidal. At first, that is. As you noted coherently, their bases are mediocre, their growths are bad, and they just can't make the extra push. The base stats are an interesting point though. In particular, Wendell starts with a whopping Spd base. His 8 Base Spd is incredible for him since it gives the difference between doubling and not doubling in some classes that Jeigan has access to. As a Sniper, Jeigan has 10 Spd. That's not enough to double... anything barring Armor Knights. Then there's Wendell, who has a whopping 17 Spd. It requires a -1 Wt forge, but it's not a huge deal either. This doubles quite a few enemies within the game. In fact, it only misses on some Wyverns and Mercs. It doubles quite a few enemies just to give you an idea. Chapter 6 has a lot of slow enemies. Thieves are the fastest, and they only have 13 AS. 16 Atk ORKOes them. As for the other units, Armor Knights take 8 at worst, which I admit is bad, Cavaliers take 20 damage, Mages are obviously ORKOed. So even at a mediocre route, Sniper!Wendell does good in this chapter. As a Sage, he ORKOes the Armor Knights easily and does 18 damage to Cavaliers. At the best, Jeigan can pull out the Silver Lance or the Ridersbane. Of course, pulling out the latter becomes an issue, but I'll explain it later. Chapter 6X is Pirate territory, and the only advantage Jeigan really has is that he has a Sword base to be a Paladin. With the -1 Wt forge, Wendell can double all but possibly the 14 AS Mercenaries, and they only have a chance for that (and there's only 2 of them). Everything else is doubled by him. He does 22 damage to Pirates with 33 / 34 HP | 5 Def, and Mercenaries take the same. Archers take a little less, about 20. The boss takes 16 damage as well, which is a 2RKO. Not bad for a makeup class. Best of all, the Steel Bow is one of those weapons that will likely get a forge due to the next chapter. Chapter 7 has a lot of flying enemies, and the highest priority is being able to severely weaken or downright kill them. This means that a Steel Bow forge is possible by Chapter 6X, so Wendell may miss doubling the Thieves in Chapter 6. That's about the worst case scenario though. It can be forged with +3 Mt -1 Wt. Which means that he now has about 19 Atk. Just to give an idea, now Pirates take 28 damage and Mercenaries are on their deathbeds as well as Archers. Not bad. The Level 5 Mercs survive of course. Chapter 10 is probably the last chapter I'd ever look at Sniper twice. Chapter 11 has some flying units, but it requires heavy hitters and Mercenaries there have 14 AS. So let's skip that. Next, we have DracoKnight to look at. Definitely not bad. Wendell has 18 Atk with 14 AS on this setup. So, he has +2 Atk from Sniper and doubles almost the same things. There are some minor exceptions, such as the Mercenaries and Thieves. Wendell can mix it up with the Iron Axe and play durable too. 20 HP | 12 Def doesn't seem like a lot, but Chapter 6 Cavaliers have 22 Atk (which is 20 with WTD and not including the Silver Lance Cavalier). That's a hearty 3HKO. So we have a unit that's pretty decent offensively and can take more than a hit if it's not an Archer. Considering the earlygame is meshed with Lances and Swords, with the occasion of Axes, that's pretty good. Finally there's Sage, his prime calling. For starters he has B Tomes. That means that he can use Excalibur at base. Now you're thinking "okay, but so can Merric, and he gets more EXP!" This is why they work together. See, Wendell AND Merric being able to use it is better than 1 unit being able to use it, as that means you can get a trade thing going on and killing things adjacent. Weakening is easy as pie, and Excalibur has a whopping 33 uses anyway. It's not going to bust for a while. Then there's D Staves. Not a whole lot to mean, but there's Barrier and Mend to work with. Considering our healer likely has... 5 Mov, Wendell has some extra reach going on. Best of all, he doesn't have to go Bishop for -Str (like Jeigan does) and still holds some extra Mag, for what it's worth. Best of all, his Spd isn't atrocious. Jagen has 5 Spd as a Sage, while Wendell has 11. Jagen not only fails to double Armor Knights (they have 3-4 AS), Jagen gets doubled by everything else on the map. Oh okay, barring Mages. Piss ass slow things. After Wendell hits C Staves (Hint: Bishop makes it closer!!!), Wendell can use the almighty broken Warp to trivialize the rest of the game. So counting Bishop, Wendell has Sniper, DracoKnight, guess we can count Paladin (though it's only good for Res...), Sniper, and Sage going for him. The only class that sucks for him is Swordmaster, and that's because he has to take a counterattack and it's only feasible for two chapters (6X and 9). Now Jeigan? His decent classes are few. Paladin is one, DracoKnight is another. After that? Nothing. So far, Wendell has versatility on his side. Now for competed resources. Steel Bow forge, for Sniper, has little to no competition. The only other competition is other forges themselves, and we can cover 3's Wing Spear and 4's Ridersbane. 5 can have a Hammer forge if warranted, but it is by no means necessary. The forge can be held off until 6X, but the Steel Bow forge is pretty high on the priority list. Anyway, that's about the worst forge he even needs. Excalibur is great because it requires no forge whatsoever. Just ready, aim and fire while OHKOing. Ridersbane is high on the forge list, but Jeigan has issues. Whereas the number of Excalibur users are few, the number of Ridersbane users is a bit higher. Abel and Hardin are likely candidates, and they can be separated from Jeigan. In Chapter 6, Hardin can be warped to OHKO the Silver Lance Cavalier, while Merric doesn't have many suicide missions. By Chapter 9, Sedgar (or Wolf) can have enough WEXP to wield the Ridersbane, which means they could possibly use it in Chapter 10. Silver Lance's competition is a bit slimmer, thankfully. So he pretty much only has to share between Hardin and Jeigan himself. They both have to take certain resources, but Wendell makes better use of his. Remember, base Merric has 5 AS (Excalibur has 1 Wt). This means he can fail to double Armor Knights for quite a while as they have 3-4 AS. This means that the only advantage Merric has with Excalibur is Experience... but once he promotes he still falters to Wendell's base staff. Finally, I disagree about not using Wendell past lategame. His uses are limited, but they're still there. For starters, if we weren't Warpskipping, Wendell can still whip out Excalibur and whomp on Chapter 21 and Chapter 22 DracoKnights. The most important thing, of course, is that Wendell will always have the upper hand on Staves. C is all a unit needs in order to Warp, and Bishop gives Wendell D+30; only 15 more WEXP needed. That's easy to obtain throughout the game. Once Wendell has C Staves, he can Warp with Lena and BOAH to end the game much more efficiently. For your other lategame comparisons, both of them are ORKOed. Jeigan even gets doubled by Paladins and everything else. They die fast. Not to mention reaching Level 20 is a huge waste of time / severely inefficient. So in conclusion (so far), Wendell has: - Versatility - Faster access to Warp, which means completing the game efficiently - Workable base Spd Jeigan's only advantages? Just B Lances and +4 chapters. Who cares? Edited January 21, 2011 by Tyranel M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
13th Posted January 21, 2011 Author Share Posted January 21, 2011 (edited) Okay let's try to make this opening of mine short, since I want the middle to have the most content.So we have some old guy on a horse and the motha fukin' pope. Yeah, you don't screw around with the pope. That's Wendell bro. Yeah. I give. That is one smexy old guy. NOT. But seriously, nice pic. So obviously, taking them very far past earlygame seems suicidal. At first, that is. As you noted coherently, their bases are mediocre, their growths are bad, and they just can't make the extra push. The base stats are an interesting point though. In particular, Wendell starts with a whopping Spd base. His 8 Base Spd is incredible for him since it gives the difference between doubling and not doubling in some classes that Jeigan has access to. As a Sniper, Jeigan has 10 Spd. That's not enough to double... anything barring Armor Knights. Then there's Wendell, who has a whopping 17 Spd. It requires a -1 Wt forge, but it's not a huge deal either. This doubles quite a few enemies within the game. In fact, it only misses on some Wyverns and Mercs. It doubles quite a few enemies just to give you an idea. What can be done to help Jeigan get around this speed is the fact that he has access to Forged weapons also. So forge up a Jav to lower weight, and, by the time you're here, Jeigan should be around level 4, depending on how much he has been used. Jeigan's Level 4 stats, bar Mag, which doesn't grow, are... HP: 23.2 Str: 7.6 Skill: 11.05 Speed: 8.45 Luck: 1.9 Defense: 9.6 Resist: 6 On average, the damage Jeigan does is better because, IF he gets attacked as a Paladin, he actually strikes back, even if for some damage. Wendell, as a Sniper, will only get attacked. HP: 24 Str: 7 Skill: 8 Speed: 17 Luck: 1 Defense: 9 Resist: 3 So, Paladin!Jeigan is better than Sniper!Wendell, because of Wendell's lack of Enemy phase. Chapter 6 has a lot of slow enemies. Thieves are the fastest, and they only have 13 AS. 16 Atk ORKOes them. As for the other units, Armor Knights take 8 at worst, which I admit is bad, Cavaliers take 20 damage, Mages are obviously ORKOed. So even at a mediocre route, Sniper!Wendell does good in this chapter. As a Sage, he ORKOes the Armor Knights easily and does 18 damage to Cavaliers. At the best, Jeigan can pull out the Silver Lance or the Ridersbane. Of course, pulling out the latter becomes an issue, but I'll explain it later. Sure, but Sniper doesn't always work here. He needs protection. Jeigan can pull out a silver lance, because, if the player is careful, they could have 25 uses left between Jeigan's starting one and the one dropped by Merach. The Silver Lance, combined with Jeigan's 7-8 strength, will deal 10-15 damage to most enemies bar Knights and Emereus. This is where the Lance is the most important earlygame weapon. Chapter 6X is Pirate territory, and the only advantage Jeigan really has is that he has a Sword base to be a Paladin. With the -1 Wt forge, Wendell can double all but possibly the 14 AS Mercenaries, and they only have a chance for that (and there's only 2 of them). Everything else is doubled by him. He does 22 damage to Pirates with 33 / 34 HP | 5 Def, and Mercenaries take the same. Archers take a little less, about 20. The boss takes 16 damage as well, which is a 2RKO. Not bad for a makeup class. For this, let us assume that Both Jeigan and Wendell were in Chapter 6, and both gained one level. So, Level 5 Jeigan and Level 2 Wendell. Becuase of the axes, Jeigan would be best reclassed to Swordmaster. Level 5 Swordmaster!Jeigan HP:23.6 Str:5.8 Skill:18.4 Speed:14.6 Luck:2.2 Defense:7.8 Resist:3 Because of the Pirates and Fighters from Chapters 1-3, Jeigan would use swords, possibly 30 swings. that's 60 Bonus experience, due to Jeigan's slowness against the pirates. That gives him B swords, meaning he can use the Silver Sword. With the Silver Sword, he has 14 Attack speed, meaning he doesn't get doubled, and doubles all but the mercs and possibly the boss. He has 17 might with the Silver Sword, meaning he deals 24 damage to the pirates, 20-22 damage to the archers, 2HKOs the Mages, and will also only take 14 damage in return. So, don't attack the mages with a non mage anyways. The boss would take 9 damage, either once or twice, and will hit for 18 79% percent of the time. The Boss is the only unit Wendell really needs to face as a Sniper. Best of all, the Steel Bow is one of those weapons that will likely get a forge due to the next chapter. Chapter 7 has a lot of flying enemies, and the highest priority is being able to severely weaken or downright kill them. This means that a Steel Bow forge is possible by Chapter 6X, so Wendell may miss doubling the Thieves in Chapter 6. That's about the worst case scenario though. It can be forged with +3 Mt -1 Wt. Which means that he now has about 19 Atk. Just to give an idea, now Pirates take 28 damage and Mercenaries are on their deathbeds as well as Archers. Not bad. The Level 5 Mercs survive of course. Chapter 10 is probably the last chapter I'd ever look at Sniper twice. Chapter 11 has some flying units, but it requires heavy hitters and Mercenaries there have 14 AS. So let's skip that. The Steel Bow might get a forge, yes, but Would it go to Wendell, or someone like Wolf, Sedgar, or even Hunter!Cord? Hunter!Cord would be his biggest opponent. Let's compare those 2 to find out. Just the Atk and AS of your 19 atk Sniper!Wendell and Level 10 Hunter!Cord. Jeigan wouldn't get this, he'd be using a ridersbane against the reinforcement cavs. So to prove Wendell would not get the steel bow, helping my case, Cord is to be compared. Forged Steel Bow: 11 Mt, 7 Wt Sniper!Wendell Atk: 19 AS: 17 Hunter!Cord Atk: 21 AS: 12 While Sniper Wendell is strong, he doubles the Peg Knights, but deals 42 damage amyways. Cord deals 48. Both OHKO the Pegs. Now, the Draco cannot be doubled by either, so with its 10 defense, it takes 27 damage from Wendell, and 33 from Cord. Thus, the Bow is better in the hands of another archer. Wendell would not get this bow. Next, we have DracoKnight to look at. Definitely not bad. Wendell has 18 Atk with 14 AS on this setup. So, he has +2 Atk from Sniper and doubles almost the same things. There are some minor exceptions, such as the Mercenaries and Thieves. Wendell can mix it up with the Iron Axe and play durable too. 20 HP | 12 Def doesn't seem like a lot, but Chapter 6 Cavaliers have 22 Atk (which is 20 with WTD and not including the Silver Lance Cavalier). That's a hearty 3HKO. So we have a unit that's pretty decent offensively and can take more than a hit if it's not an Archer. Considering the earlygame is meshed with Lances and Swords, with the occasion of Axes, that's pretty good. Assuming Level 6 Jeigan at this point. 22 HP 9.2 Str 12.1 Skill 8.75 Speed 2.5 Luck 12 Defense 3 Resist As you can see, Jeigan with an iron Axe has 16 atk, and 8 AS. Not great, but not terrible. With his Ridersbane, he has 17 atk and 7 AS, but he also deals higher damage to the cavs, which I don't have stats for. He deals around 10 damage for 30 altogether. Draco!Jeigan is better than Draco!Wendell in this case. Finally there's Sage, his prime calling. For starters he has B Tomes. That means that he can use Excalibur at base. Now you're thinking "okay, but so can Merric, and he gets more EXP!" This is why they work together. See, Wendell AND Merric being able to use it is better than 1 unit being able to use it, as that means you can get a trade thing going on and killing things adjacent. Weakening is easy as pie, and Excalibur has a whopping 33 uses anyway. It's not going to bust for a while. Then there's D Staves. Not a whole lot to mean, but there's Barrier and Mend to work with. Considering our healer likely has... 5 Mov, Wendell has some extra reach going on. Best of all, he doesn't have to go Bishop for -Str (like Jeigan does) and still holds some extra Mag, for what it's worth. Best of all, his Spd isn't atrocious. Jagen has 5 Spd as a Sage, while Wendell has 11. Jagen not only fails to double Armor Knights (they have 3-4 AS), Jagen gets doubled by everything else on the map. Oh okay, barring Mages. Piss ass slow things. After Wendell hits C Staves (Hint: Bishop makes it closer!!!), Wendell can use the almighty broken Warp to trivialize the rest of the game. I can't compete with this argument, so Sage and Bishop are better for Wendell. Except for one catch. If Wendell is attacked, he will almost definitely go down. So counting Bishop, Wendell has Sniper, DracoKnight, guess we can count Paladin (though it's only good for Res...), Sniper, and Sage going for him. The only class that sucks for him is Swordmaster, and that's because he has to take a counterattack and it's only feasible for two chapters (6X and 9).Now Jeigan? His decent classes are few. Paladin is one, DracoKnight is another. After that? Nothing. Again, Jeigan is decent as Sniper, because of higher base Strength, and also good as a SM in 6x and 9, like Wendell. Now for competed resources. Steel Bow forge, for Sniper, has little to no competition. The only other competition is other forges themselves, and we can cover 3's Wing Spear and 4's Ridersbane. 5 can have a Hammer forge if warranted, but it is by no means necessary. The forge can be held off until 6X, but the Steel Bow forge is pretty high on the priority list. Anyway, that's about the worst forge he even needs. Excalibur is great because it requires no forge whatsoever. Just ready, aim and fire while OHKOing. Ridersbane is high on the forge list, but Jeigan has issues. Whereas the number of Excalibur users are few, the number of Ridersbane users is a bit higher. Abel and Hardin are likely candidates, and they can be separated from Jeigan. In Chapter 6, Hardin can be warped to OHKO the Silver Lance Cavalier, while Merric doesn't have many suicide missions. By Chapter 9, Sedgar (or Wolf) can have enough WEXP to wield the Ridersbane, which means they could possibly use it in Chapter 10. Silver Lance's competition is a bit slimmer, thankfully. So he pretty much only has to share between Hardin and Jeigan himself. They both have to take certain resources, but Wendell makes better use of his. Remember, base Merric has 5 AS (Excalibur has 1 Wt). This means he can fail to double Armor Knights for quite a while as they have 3-4 AS. This means that the only advantage Merric has with Excalibur is Experience... but once he promotes he still falters to Wendell's base staff. I have to disagree. Once Merric promotes, Wendell won't be needed as much, and will likely only be healing or benchwarming. Merric, as a Bishop, would need only 23 heals to get C, and can also use Excalibur and other magics better. And while Abel and Hardin are good candidates, Hardin is a little more squishy than Jeigan, and Jeigan would do more damage to that very Cav you are talking about. Abel would need to use more attacks with his lance, which isn't until chap. 4 that he can really start due to axes in 1-3. Finally, I disagree about not using Wendell past lategame. His uses are limited, but they're still there. For starters, if we weren't Warpskipping, Wendell can still whip out Excalibur and whomp on Chapter 21 and Chapter 22 DracoKnights. The most important thing, of course, is that Wendell will always have the upper hand on Staves. C is all a unit needs in order to Warp, and Bishop gives Wendell D+30; only 15 more WEXP needed. That's easy to obtain throughout the game. Once Wendell has C Staves, he can Warp with Lena and BOAH to end the game much more efficiently. For your other lategame comparisons, both of them are ORKOed. Jeigan even gets doubled by Paladins and everything else. They die fast. Not to mention reaching Level 20 is a huge waste of time / severely inefficient. With one thing, at Chapter 21-22, the Excalibur is likely broken, unless you had some left at 20 and Hammerne'd it. Others can make better use of warp then Boah. Hell, Etzel, if you nabbed him, makes better use of it. By the point we're at, you could take Merric, likely promoted and with C staves, and make more use of it. Bishop!Merric will take out most enemies with a Blizzard due to higher speed and mag, as well as enemies crap resist. And for my last point, what the difference in Jeigan and Wendell is that Jeigan has B Lances, potential for better stats in all but Speed, and he also makes as good of a staffbot as Wendell. Jeigan -B Lances -Versatility due to forged lances and Ridersbanes -Better base stats, sans speed and Resist Wendell -D Lances Versatility, but not enough Better Speed and Resist Edited January 21, 2011 by 13thshadow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel M Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 (edited) What can be done to help Jeigan get around this speed is the fact that he has access to Forged weapons also. So forge up a Jav to lower weight, and, by the time you're here, Jeigan should be around level 4, depending on how much he has been used. Jeigan's Level 4 stats, bar Mag, which doesn't grow, are... Let's forget about this for a moment and ask a question. Why are we forging -Wt on a Javelin? They're 7 Wt and Jeigan has 7 Str at base. There's absolutely 0 reason to forge Wt. Hit or Mt, okay. Wt? Wut. It makes a valid point to forge -Wt on a Steel Bow because it takes Wendell from not doubling something to doubling something. On average, the damage Jeigan does is better because, IF he gets attacked as a Paladin, he actually strikes back, even if for some damage. Wendell, as a Sniper, will only get attacked. So, Paladin!Jeigan is better than Sniper!Wendell, because of Wendell's lack of Enemy phase. ...Huh? Let's review something. When it comes to a Sniper, a rule of thumb is simple: you don't get it attacked. Even if the Sniper takes damage, it is barely relevant. Why? Because Wendell attacks at 2 range, not at 1. This means that Wendell can take an emergency hit and, so long as the enemy doesn't have 2 range, can safely continue firing off his attacks. Even so, I don't see much of a point for your counterargument. Whenever Jeigan attacks, unless he tosses a Javelin (for mediocre damage may I add unless it's a Thief or Mage), he has to take a counterattack. Jeigan is 2HKOed barring the situation that he's a DracoKnight and has an Iron Axe equipped on Steel Lance enemies (woohoo...), Thieves (which are uncommon and it's better just to toss a Javelin), or Mages (which requires Barrier, and who other than Lena can use Barrier? Wendell...). Therefore, Jeigan must be healed immediately or he goes without an Enemy Phase or a mediocre Player Phase. Sniper's biggest boon is that it's there to strike first without taking a counterattack. With Wendell, he weakens the Cavaliers just enough so that a unit, say Barst, walks up to the Cavalier and takes the kill. So, not only does Wendell make killing stuff easier, he can be credited for helping other units obtain EXP easier despite missing on KOes as a Sniper. Since Wendell also doesn't require healing... I guess that's an advantage for Wendell. Not being able to counterattack is so 2006... Sure, but Sniper doesn't always work here. He needs protection. Jeigan can pull out a silver lance, because, if the player is careful, they could have 25 uses left between Jeigan's starting one and the one dropped by Merach. The Silver Lance, combined with Jeigan's 7-8 strength, will deal 10-15 damage to most enemies bar Knights and Emereus. This is where the Lance is the most important earlygame weapon. But that only works for one phase: the Enemy Phase. Now I can't really sandbag the Silver Lance... here, mainly because Hardin will likely be clearing the Cavaliers in the north with the Ridersbane and using the Javelin for Thieves. When push comes to shove, the Player Phase holds a lot of importance. Even after you lure in the guy, then what? You have to kill it with something. Jeigan killing it means the EXP is basically gone to waste, and Wendell killing it is too. Your counterargument to this is pretty much the same scenario as mine: you're using Jeigan for weakening things. The only difference is the Phase (Wendell for Player, Jeigan for the Enemy). Also, Jeigan would do 13-14 damage on Cavaliers which is still inferior to Wendell without a forge (who does 16 damage on average). Hell, that's even inferior to Excalibur Wendell who can STILL take a hit and then slide off at 2 range and never fear a counterattack. There's also a lot of walls in Chapter 6. Sniping shouldn't ever be a major issue aside from if he could ORKO the Archers, which can be solved with using the plain jane Steel Bow. Not taking a counterattack is normally better, since that alleviates the need of being healed and a lot of the work is within the Player Phase. Counterattacking on the enemy phase is overrated. Sure the Sniper needs protection, but you need cooperation to take down enemies anyway. It helps when your unit doesn't take a counterattack to reserve healing for when it's needed. Even so, I could (conveniently) note that Wendell can do the exact same thing as Jeigan, only better with Excalibur doing more damage and working from 1-2 range. That means no piss weak attacks from Javelin. Because of the Pirates and Fighters from Chapters 1-3, Jeigan would use swords, possibly 30 swings. that's 60 Bonus experience, due to Jeigan's slowness against the pirates. That gives him B swords, meaning he can use the Silver Sword. Stop. Let's ponder on this for a moment. Jeigan with the Iron Sword has... 12 Atk. That's the same as Cain. What you're telling me is that now you want to drop Jeigan's big advantage (being that he has the highest Atk on the team) to drop down to Cain's level. Are you nuts man? Not to mention 30 swings. I mean I get it that earlygame is a bit longer than normal, but now you're just taking up more time to beat down enemies just to raise Jeigan's Sword rank for... 1 or 2 chapters. No, I'm highly questioning that if it is even possible to get B Swords without being severely inefficient. I'm not seeing it. Now, if we want to get really picky here, Wendell can also perform as a Swordmaster, though likely better. With the Killing Edge he should match Jeigan's Atk and only loses 1 AS. So he goes from 21 AS to 20. Sheesh, well at least Jeigan can double the Pirates. Wendell can go further up and double the Mercenaries. Not that Swordmaster is a great idea when Sniper can be used and, oh you know, avoid a nasty counterattack from the Pirates and Mercenaries in the process. Swordmaster never has that option until Chapter 10... when the Pirates are gone. The boss would take 9 damage, either once or twice, and will hit for 18 79% percent of the time. I did the calculation, and it's 66% Displayed, 77.22% True. Which comes out to... 59.6% Chance of Death. Yeah, not gambling on those chances. The Steel Bow might get a forge, yes, but Would it go to Wendell, or someone like Wolf, Sedgar, or even Hunter!Cord? Hunter!Cord would be his biggest opponent. Let's compare those 2 to find out. Just the Atk and AS of your 19 atk Sniper!Wendell and Level 10 Hunter!Cord. Jeigan wouldn't get this, he'd be using a ridersbane against the reinforcement cavs. So to prove Wendell would not get the steel bow, helping my case, Cord is to be compared. Forged Steel Bow: 11 Mt, 7 Wt Sniper!Wendell Atk: 19 AS: 17 Hunter!Cord Atk: 21 AS: 12 While Sniper Wendell is strong, he doubles the Peg Knights, but deals 42 damage amyways. Cord deals 48. Both OHKO the Pegs. Now, the Draco cannot be doubled by either, so with its 10 defense, it takes 27 damage from Wendell, and 33 from Cord. Thus, the Bow is better in the hands of another archer. Wendell would not get this bow. There's one Wyvern and both fail to OHKO it. Not to mention that Cord has to climb from E Bows, which is a difficult thing to do when you lack an Enemy Phase. You only get 4, 5, 6, and 6X to do it pretty much. And maybe some of 7. I guess to be fair it's possible, but it's also slow as hell. Why not someone like Bord, who despite misses doubling and has better use with Hammer can actually damage the enemy higher and what not? Potential with Cord is nearly wasted when Warpskip is assumed, and even without Warpskip Cord is pretty ehh compared to someone like Barst who has bases and Hand Axes. 12 AS fails to double anything while 17 nails the Thieves, Archers, and the Level 3 Mercenary. Cavalier reinforcements are likely plugged or being taken care of by Caeda. The only time Cord has the advantage on Wendell is EXP which is largely irrelevant or the single Wyvern on the map. Not like it matters since they can share the bow or Wendell can just hit up Sage for Excalibur once again. Then there's Jeigan who can only do one thing really: plug a fort to prevent reinforcements. Unless you want him to get doubled by the Thieves, sniped by the Archers, or something close to that. Still, that's only one chapter. Cord fails to beat Wendell in Chapter 6 or 6X, or at any other point of the game. The only time Cord has a chance of re-nabbing the weapon is 9 (and some Pirates can have 10 AS) and 10 (and once again, you're likely sharing or Wendell can hit up Sage). So it's pretty irrelevant that Cord can use it when he can't even use the bow for a while and they both can share until Chapter 8 when Wendell robs it back. As you can see, Jeigan with an iron Axe has 16 atk, and 8 AS. Not great, but not terrible. With his Ridersbane, he has 17 atk and 7 AS, but he also deals higher damage to the cavs, which I don't have stats for. He deals around 10 damage for 30 altogether. Draco!Jeigan is better than Draco!Wendell in this case. Draco!Jeigan only beats Draco!Wendell in one case really. Ridersbane. Silver Lance is almost irrelevant but it does give Jeigan a hard single hit. Aside from Cavaliers, Horseman, and maybe some of the faster units, DracoKnight Wendell will likely be doing more damage than Jeigan is in one round. Except for one catch. If Wendell is attacked, he will almost definitely go down. Wendell has 22 HP | 5 Def for starters, and he actually can survive Chapter 10‘s enemies 50% of the time so long as its either Armor Knights or Cavaliers (he always survives Archers). That isn’t saying a whole lot, but it’s slightly irrelevant to the point. Just like Snipers, Sages aren’t frontline units. They shouldn’t be taking hits, as that is obviously inefficient for the player. You’re correct that it requires protection, but then again that’s only natural. They have the benefit of never (or rarely) needing to be healed whatsoever, so it frees your healer to heal someone else, unlike Jeigan who will likely need a Heal if he attacks or defends. It works both ways bro. The only time that Wendell should be at risk of death might be where Ballistae are common, so Chapter 13 and Chapter 20. Nevermind that those chapters are very easy to warpskip in the first place, with Wendell being one of those Warpers. Again, Jeigan is decent as Sniper, because of higher base Strength, and also good as a SM in 6x and 9, like Wendell. Jeigan is never “decent” as a Sniper as, by your logic, he will never counterattack on the Enemy Phase in comparison to Sage Wendell (so Sage Wendell is better because Jeigan doesn’t do damage back!). Of course, that logic is only true in certain instances where the player makes mistakes (which is difficult to assume regardless) or pinch situations, and it’s not like the lack of a counterattack is suddenly the end of the world. Jeigan still fails as a Sniper since the only perk he has over base Wendell is... the extra Str point. I can’t even remember when I used Sniper Jeigan, and nevermind that it takes away his main strong point: Silver Lance and Ridersbane. Jeigan also fails as a Swordmaster since he can’t whip out Javelins for 2 range nor can he take on anything barring Pirates and Archers, and the latter has to be for Player Phase. Mages have to be combated by one range too, so you can’t be useful with pullling them in on the Enemy Phase. Jeigan is pretty much inferior to Wendell in both the Sniper and Swordmaster argument barring the laughable concept of him having B Swords or overleveling him (Jeigan is gaining levels yes, but the player is also not attempting to direct kills at him either). I have to disagree. Once Merric promotes, Wendell won't be needed as much, and will likely only be healing or benchwarming. Merric, as a Bishop, would need only 23 heals to get C, and can also use Excalibur and other magics better Let’s see, that’s when Merric promotes. So once he promotes, he has to go to Bishop for D in Staves, whereas Wendell only needs to go for Bishop once he’s within Warp range. Wendell needs less time and resources to hit C Staves, and once we hit Warp range (like... Chapter 13?), the game is pretty much over. Merric promoting is almost a waste of time since he pretty much acts like Wendell-lite unless we play the game the entire way, and then Merric can’t use other tomes as well due to the AS loss. Merric probably doesn’t hit 14 AS until 18/1 at the earliest, and that’s a shitload of levels to climb. Hell at that point, Cavaliers probably have a Spd proc on them, so unless we forge -Wt on tomes Merric is stuck not doubling shit. When is even Level 18 realistic for Merric to begin with? And while Abel and Hardin are good candidates, Hardin is a little more squishy than Jeigan Base Hardin - 24 HP | 9 Str | 7 Skl | 8 Spd | 3 Luck | 8 Def | 1 Res Jeigan - 22 HP | 7 Str | 1 Mag | 10 Skl | 8 Spd | 1 Luck | 9 Def | 6 Res Nevermind I could really harp on Jeigan’s 1 Luck and how he could draw in nasty critical hits. Most enemies have about 3-4 Crit at this point, so Hardin only has a small chance of drawing a critical hit in. Hardin also levels at a faster pace, so he can actually remove the crit in 2-3 levels. Jeigan is only more durable than Hardin if Jeigan is a DracoKnight and using Iron Axe (to the point where a 2RKO becomes a 3RKO), but that also costs protection from Archers. and Jeigan would do more damage to that very Cav you are talking about. Uh... I think it’s the opposite. Hardin has +2 Str on Jeigan, +1 if he’s a DracoKnight. I don’t see how Jeigan is doing more damage... nevermind that the weapon is being forged in the first place to net OHKOes. Abel would need to use more attacks with his lance which isn't until chap. 4 that he can really start due to axes in 1-3. Abel doesn’t feel much of a difference between using an Iron Lance and an Iron Sword. Hit is minor and there’s also the Javelin to free up opportunities. While you’re attempting to kill Chapter 1‘s boss, Abel can just toss Javelins at him to build up the WEXP. Chapter 3 he’s going straight for Lances again since Swords are pretty ineffective at this point and we have access to Steel Lances. By Chapter 6? Possible to hit C Lances if he strikes often with them. He might need a little past that I guess, but that’s about the worst of things. With one thing, at Chapter 21-22, the Excalibur is likely broken, unless you had some left at 20 and Hammerne'd it. Guess we have Excalibur then. Others can make better use of warp then Boah. Warp has infinite range for everyone. Nevermind that it requires at least two Warpers to (normally) skip through chapters. More of a chain is necessary for Chapter 20 with Hammerne, but it allows the player to continue Warpskipping. Hell, Etzel, if you nabbed him, makes better use of it. By the point we're at, you could take Merric, likely promoted and with C staves, and make more use of it. Bishop!Merric will take out most enemies with a Blizzard due to higher speed and mag, as well as enemies crap resist. Etzel has to use a Staff 30 times in maps that we’re likely one turning on Warpskip. Yeah, not happening. Merric has a better chance than Etzel, and Merric has to be promoted at Level 10 to do... what Wendell is doing. potential for better stats in all but Speed Potential, with those growths? Yeah right... and he also makes as good of a staffbot as Wendell. At the cost of removing Jeigan’s main redeeming mark and the point that he can only use Staves. Wonderful. I think that’s about it to cover. I’m already at 5 pages on this debate, and I think if I expand more on Sniper I’m going to draw the main point of using Wendell away from the judges. Remember, Sniper is only one class that Wendell can use. The main card draw is Sage and Bishop. He requires no Master Seal to do what Merric requires (as far as Warp), and requires the least amount of work (barring Lena and Boah) to use Warp. Excalibur can be shared with Merric, though Wendell makes better use of it barring the EXP gain. With warpskip, Wendell is just too good. He’s part of the reason why the earlygame is easy and the reason warpskip is possible. Those are huge advantages versus Jeigan. Furthermore, your counterattack was often about one thing: Sniper Wendell’s lack of an Enemy Phase. Let me expand further on this just for a moment so the judges don’t confuse with what I’m talking about. When it comes to H5 enemies, unless you have your effective weapons out, it takes a lot to beat them down. In Chapter 6, Hammer and Wing Spear are the only two things that really pierce Armor Knights. Wendell at least helps with being a 3rd unit that can whomp down on them at 2 range with Excalibur while not costing a forge for the player. Pirates are difficult to ORKO. It takes 22 Atk and 13 AS to ORKO them. 23 if you’re stuck with Lances. Hardin barely reaches 22 Atk with the Silver Lance, and he fails to double the Pirates. Just to compare how difficult it really is to ORKO them. There’s also the lack of taking a counterattack. This is alleviated with not needing a heal, if at all rare. The player is going to do his / her best to guard the Sniper anyway and if the Sniper isn’t the only cost is the lack of damage on the Enemy Phase (and that’s only if the Sniper gets attacked from 1 range). The cost of not taking a heal is minor; protection, which the player has a grand reserve of units to choose from. If anything, the Sniper not being able to counterattack probably leads that the player is inefficient anyway or questionable if the player knows how to use Snipers at all. You’re right that Jeigan can throw a Javelin, but Javelins also means that, in order for Jeigan to attack at full power on the Enemy Phase, he still requires a trade or he's stuck with 15 Atk, which is pretty mediocre. Obviously you can avoid the need of trading with Jeigan, but at the same time you can (likely) avoid the need of taking an attack with a Sniper. All in all, a lack of Enemy Phase is minor at best when it comes with benefits. Edited January 25, 2011 by Tyranel M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel M Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 *Whistles*. So uh 13th... You still around and what not? I even planned on finishing this one too despite 70% of it not having meaning according to dondon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junkhead Posted February 11, 2011 Share Posted February 11, 2011 He won't be back until Monday, apparently. Hence why I am taking over the FE11 draft number 9 he started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
13th Posted February 23, 2011 Author Share Posted February 23, 2011 I give. *wave white flag* Mostly I lost interest and logic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel M Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 While the debate is over (and I still think I hold position as a judge), I'm going to comment on the debate. Obviously I can't comment on my side; however, I can comment on 13thshadow's side. First let me point out what I would do in your position, then see how you can take it. If I was the person defending Jeigan here, the first thing I would outline is Jeigan's earlygame being the best out of any unit. Let's review: he's 3HKOed in Chapter 1 and can be 3HKOed in Chapter 3 with the Iron Sword and the fort (IIRC they should have 1 with 19 Atk and 1 with 20. Regardless even if they both have 20 the fort saves him). Not to mention that he is the only unit that can damage Chapter 1's boss and one of the few that can actually touch the boss in Chapter 2. These two points would be pretty hard for Wendell to defend. Combining his high Movement and sole user of Silver Lance he would be the best unit you'd have for quite a while. Then, starting with Chapter 4 you can note how Jeigan has access to DracoKnight. This still retains Jeigan's Silver Lance while having him use the Iron Axe to be "near-invincible" against the Cavaliers (ffs he's 4HKOed by them. Only the Armorslayer interrupts it). Then there's also his Chapter 5 utility where he's the best unit to go onto Hardin's side to give him the forged Ridersbane and hand out supplies to the rest of the Aurelian Knights. Now Wendell has a huge 5 Chapter deficit against Jeigan since Jeigan has done a shitload for the team just to even make it so far efficiently. Where you went wrong is rather... obvious so to speak. The main thing is going for the --/20 stats. First, in an efficient play through, it will be pretty damn hard for Jeigan to even reach it. Secondly, the one unit that would even be close to --/20 would be Wendell. Why? That's because of Warp. There are two different ways to go with the efficient playthrough. The first has been commonly practiced by tier list players (Warp Skip), which would heavily be in Wendell's favor. The latter (casually efficient) would be a bit closer. Regardless, there's a lot that I felt you missed with defending Jeigan. You at least noted about Jeigan having use past the first 5 chapters... but you didn't note anything before that! That's pretty critical for Jeigan's side of the debate. Also lack of forged Ridersbane argument made me sad. :( Finally, here are the Enemy Stats. Please use them more next time. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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