So Genealogy of Holy War to me are weird.

[Silvercrow]

I think asking for the Magic and Pursuit Ring is quite an ask, personally. Magic, sure, he can get his hands on one and yeah, that'd definitely help. Pursuit is probably not going to happen.

Why? Who wants the Pursuit ring more? Lex can certainly afford it to pass down and honestly I'm not sure who would want it. Everyone in C6 should have Pursuit. Leaf won't want to inherit it because it makes it off-limits for a long time (he can get it after Arthur promotes if he needs it). Patty? Don't think so. Leen doesn't care. Nanna should have pursuit. Fin has pursuit. Sety has pursuit. Faval has pursuit. Corpul doesn't care. ...Hannibal?

As another point though, Lex!Arthur at 30 reaches 15 magic on average. With Tron that's still only giving 70 attack... I guess 80 with a Magic ring, but that implies being level 30 in chapter 8. Which isn't happening. But that's only a side point.

Level 20 Arthur averages 14 Mag. You are missing 2 attack.

He won't be seeing any more combat until Melgen. If you want him to fight there, he needs to first get the enemy out of range of the ballistas (he's still getting him by them after all) and he's sporting about, what, 30 mt with a MAG ring and Elth...wait, no El tomes yet, so... 22 MT with a Wind tome? Yeah... good luck with him doing much there. He's probably getting a kill or two, but not much more than others. He could be fed more if you wanted I guess, so let's suppose he reaches level 15 between these and some of Tinny's army (which assumes a fair bit of feeding kills to him). If you don't favour him, that's more like level 12.

He needs either some blessing or the Pursuit ring to pull kills here, but since the pursuit ring is pretty solid on him, I don't see the problem. He can also kill a dark mage or two. Just tanking with Elite gives some nice EXP totals, although I don't necessarily disagree with your assessments.

Arena in 8 takes him up to about 18. Then he still needs to go out and do some fighting if he wants his promotion. So, I guess he can promote in chapter 8 with abuse.

If he isn't favoured, arena will probably get him to about 16. That's a decent amount of fighting to do, and you're probably going to move quickly through this chapter. He can probably just about make it to 20, mostly off of Zombie Shagall's squad near the castle, but without favouritism, again... he's not likely to quite reach 20 and if he does, it's too late to promote him.

TL;DR: Yeah, he can reach 20 in chapter 8, with a fair bit of favouritism.

Giving favoritism to units is justified if the returns for doing so outweigh what you give up. Favoring Arthur costs you 0 turns due to the fact that Celice must reach castles, so you are only taking EXP from other units. In C7, the people who are competing are... Swordkids, Lester, Delmud, Oifaye, Julia, and MAYBE Fee. Lets slim that list a little. Julia can be a staffbot and still mostly be optimal, so we don't need to feed her kills. Oifaye is certainly not missing the EXP. Other than that, there are plenty of units to feed kills to 4-5 other characters between Aless's free knights, the remaining enemies to mop up, etc.

In return for slightly weaker swordkids, Delmud, and Lester, we get a 9-move Juggernaut that can destroy the next 3 chapters with almost 0 effort.

Moving back to Azel's kids, firstly, both are pretty usable is an advantage (Tinny with Elthunder is doing good damage twice against slow enemies, with a Wind tome she's doing pretty good chip even against faster enemies, and she'll level up moderately quickly if/when she sees fighting), and Azel!Arthur is doing better when he joins is an advantage... they don't promote nearly as early, which is a big drawback, but between Pursuit, Wrath and great magic they do clear arenas which is a big plus for their training.

I'm not really convinced that Azel!Tinny is really any better than Lex!Tinny. Like I said, Tinny's move is what makes her always useless, not her combat specifically. In terms of combat, she's like Arthur but with a bit more mag growth. Again, the biggest advantage Lex!Tinny has here is that she has Elite, so she has an easier time digging herself out of her horrific level deficiency.

It's not like Azel's magekids are bad or anything, but I've never observed them being spectacular like Lex!Arthur is.

Edited April 14, 2011 by Silvercrow

[Tables]

It's coming up to 4am here, so I don't really want to give a full reply right now, but the standard Pursuit ring inheritance is giving it to Ethlin to take to Leaf. You lose it for 3 chapters, of which 4 is the only one it's really missed at all (by 5 you have Holsety Levin, most units promoted and generally not really anyone in need of the Pursuit Ring, and chapter 6 is quick and easy and the only person without Pursuit is probably... well, Arthur, who by your own admission is doing nothing but training himself). Leaf benefits massively from the ring, turning his offence from good but random to great with a chance of awesome, and promoted Leaf is pretty great.

Also, regarding the Melgen units: It'll take Celice about 8 turns to get from Yied to Melgen with the reasonable assumption that he has the leg ring: So in 8 turns you want everybody there dead. Arthur isn't going to get more than about 3 turns worth of killing before stuff needs to be out of the way (since there's Ishtore/Ballistae to deal with as well as Liza's troop, and he takes about 2-3 turns from Yied's sieze to get there. So I don't think he's getting quite as much done as you make out.

[Silvercrow]

It's coming up to 4am here, so I don't really want to give a full reply right now, but the standard Pursuit ring inheritance is giving it to Ethlin to take to Leaf. You lose it for 3 chapters, of which 4 is the only one it's really missed at all (by 5 you have Holsety Levin, most units promoted and generally not really anyone in need of the Pursuit Ring, and chapter 6 is quick and easy and the only person without Pursuit is probably... well, Arthur, who by your own admission is doing nothing but training himself). Leaf benefits massively from the ring, turning his offence from good but random to great with a chance of awesome, and promoted Leaf is pretty great.

Also, regarding the Melgen units: It'll take Celice about 8 turns to get from Yied to Melgen with the reasonable assumption that he has the leg ring: So in 8 turns you want everybody there dead. Arthur isn't going to get more than about 3 turns worth of killing before stuff needs to be out of the way (since there's Ishtore/Ballistae to deal with as well as Liza's troop, and he takes about 2-3 turns from Yied's sieze to get there. So I don't think he's getting quite as much done as you make out.

I do agree that Leaf is deserving of the Pursuit Ring, but he doesn't need it in C7. Fin can weaken enemies for Leaf to get easy kills without a lot of trouble in that case. Arthur makes better use of it, and with it it's actually at least somewhat useful for another 3 chapters (1/4 of the game), even if a chunk of that use is just for training Arthur (as Leaf with the ring is just for training Leaf).

I generally see Ishtor KO'd the same turn or the turn before Celice seizes, so yea. It just barely fits into that time constraint.

Lex!Arthur is also one of the few units who can reliably kill Blume. He can survive a Thor Hammer shot, as Blume has 51 attack while a level 18 Arthur has 52 HP and 7 RES, while sporting 30 damage with Wrath, and 19 skill + WTA to mitigate his evasion. He can't oneround him or anything, but he can take the time it takes for Celice to return from Darna to kill him. Faster than waiting on Shanan for sure, and more reliable than Julia.

Edited April 14, 2011 by Silvercrow

[Darros]

Fin can weaken enemies for Leaf to get easy kills without a lot of trouble in that case.

That highly depends on how much you use Fin. Sometimes he'll show up around level 5 in Gen2 because not everyone knows he's there the whole time/they don't like Fin (but everyone loves Fin, so the second one isn't likely). When I played FE4 the first time he came in at level 28, and Fin was ORKOing the enemies before Leaf even had a chance to reach them. (But it didn't matter because then I realized Leaf had the pursuit ring anyway)

[Celice]

I fucking hate Fin.

[Pitbuller26]

I fucking hate Fin.

Ahh!!! Heathen!!!

On topic to save my ass, pair Ayra. Not having Lakche and Skasaha is a sin.

[Paperblade]

I fucking hate Fin.

reported for having a bad opinion

Edited April 14, 2011 by Paperblade

[Mekkah]

Use everyone. Or at least, send everyone out and in the vague direction of the enemy. This is one I messed up at first, trying to pick a small team like you normally want in later games: Turns out that's generally a really bad idea in FE4, since there's plenty of EXP to go around.

Nah, the "small" team strategy actually works really well. Sigurd, Lex, Cuan, Ethlin, Fin, and later Lachesis for your mounted needs, Aideen as a mostly in-castle staffbot, and Holyn, Ayra, Jamka, Levin, and later Brigid as your foot soldiers. All of them are very easy to use and train.

[Kiriane]

There's also plenty of EXP to go around. Especially if you're playing slow the first time, it isn't hard to get everyone (except Ardan) promoted in the first generation, and everyone in gen 2 to level 30. Except the dancer, unless you're moving really slowly or have Elite on her.

It's a good way to decide which units are worth continuing to use. (And how useful their gen2 counterparts will be.)

[Tables]

I've thought about it, and I think the arguments for Lex!Arthur have overcome my status quo bias. He sounds pretty better than Azel!Arthur to me.

One other thing you did neglect, though, is that if you have him in wrath range then he's succeptible to ballistae and long range tomes, which there's a few of in chapter 8, some but not many in chapter 9, then a number in chapter 10 IIRC and plenty in Endgame.

[Silvercrow]

I've thought about it, and I think the arguments for Lex!Arthur have overcome my status quo bias. He sounds pretty better than Azel!Arthur to me.

One other thing you did neglect, though, is that if you have him in wrath range then he's succeptible to ballistae and long range tomes, which there's a few of in chapter 8, some but not many in chapter 9, then a number in chapter 10 IIRC and plenty in Endgame.

He has minor Neir and Lex's growths, so he's sitting at 68 HP (34 to Wrath) and 20 defense. They're not much of a threat. I don't think they even prioritize targeting him 99% of the time.

[Esaka]

I fucking hate Fin.

Quite possibly one of the best written FE characters ever and you're 2nd Oifey is someone you hate?

In the ashes of the dead of Gen 1 guess who was alive?

Fin

If you want someone to PWN THE CRAP OUT OF EVERYTHING WITH HIS FREAKING BRAVE LANCE! Who do you call?

Fin

You need more good units in that sub playthrough, who do you use?

Fin

You playing FE5, who's the first unit you know you must use?

Othin... and Fin.

Fin > You

Deal with it.

[Integrity]

He said he hated Fin, not that Fin was bad. Cool the fuck off.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Integrity

[Esaka]

NEVAH!!!!!!!!111

I'll make a cult worshiping Fin to reach my goals!

But I just found it annoying how someone made a post just to hate, I know haters gonna hate, but that's just rude <_<

[Integrity]

If you'll notice, the post immediately before his had the line "but everybody loves Fin."

It's not like Cel came out of nowhere.

[Esaka]

Then he probably should of quoted it then. A bit less out of the blue that way if I say so myself

[Integrity]

We're having this conversation entirely without quotes. Generally you don't have to quote the post immediately before yours.

[Esaka]

We're having this conversation entirely without quotes. Generally you don't have to quote the post immediately before yours.

XD, Fair enough, fair enough

[Celice]

Imagine it--talking with your professor by quoting everything he says right before you say your part. You're all fucking robots @_@

Beowulf is so much sexier than Finn anyways. Lachesis just took Finn 'cause Beo dumped her in the dunes

(Heroes Spear -> someone better than Finn)

[Esaka]

Oh... interesting. Tell me where is Beowolf now?

(He's certainly not giving his daughter 5+ speed that's for sure.)

[Celice]

He's off banging the rest of the continent. He gets around so much, he even makes some chick give birth to Felgus, a whole other character. And then he's like, Kids, fuck around with my sword, and kill stuff for me, and inseminate the women of the world.

Look what Finn gave you. Nanna. Feather-wearing pansy.

Edited April 16, 2011 by Celice

[Esaka]

He's off banging the rest of the continent. He gets around so much, he even makes some chick give birth to Felgus, a whole other character. And then he's like, Kids, fuck around with my sword, and kill stuff for me, and inseminate the women of the world.

Look what Finn gave you. Nanna. Feather-wearing pansy.

Fergus is older then Nanna and Delmud however, he might of been banging in the past, but he ain't banging now.

Being a pimp in the past is not nearly as good as being alive.

Fin is still alive

Still alive

Plus he's the only FE Jugdral character to be playable in all three storys, respect.