Rate the Unit, Day 12: Erk

[Bluedoom]

Alright, firstly, Luna is NOT less accurate than Flux. In fact, Luna has FIFTEEN more hit than Flux, which has 80% to begin with. Dark magic may be less accurate than anima/lite, but Flux and especially Luna are NOT inaccurate. Oh, and enemy avoid is jack awful in FE7(enemy avoid rarely rises above 20 except on fast things. And remember that Luna has NINETY-FIVE hit, so I'm able to hit most bosses anyway), so Canas is hitting consistently, but I'll save that for RtU: day 20.

Secondly, about Erk being better than Pent. That shit only happens at 20/20, a level that Erk isn't realistically reaching ever. If anything, Erk is going to be more like 15/12 by endgame, where he's basically inferior to Pent. And again, Pent didn't need to gain 19 levels(a lot of commitment for an average rated unpromoted non-lord unit), a guiding ring(better used on Trap or Canas), 90 heal uses(a complete waste of fucking time), or 75 turns of support grinding(another complete waste of fucking time)to get to where he is. He does this for free without any of the babying or grinding crap you have to do with Erk. Oh, and Pent's stats can't be fucked by the RNG, as they are good to start with. You can argue with me, but you can't argue with facts.

1. My bad, I didn't check that out.

2. I didn't say Erk IS better than Pent. I said if Erk had a better Staff Rank, there'd not be much difference between him and Pent. Level 20/1 Erk and Base Pent have very similar stats, except for that Mag and Def leads I mentioned. As for those 19 lvls, some of them aren't coming at a cost( Its not easy for a unit to get ALL the exp in Lyn Mode, and Erk's still doing better than units like Bartre and Rebecca.). Lucius and Canas... Lucius most likely, and I'm still feeling like giving Canas a few more lvls, buts that's my personal taste. Either ways, the guiding ring stuff is partly why Erk is mediocre, and I never said he's the best mage. I'm trying to prove he's a good, kinda mediocre unit, since most of the ratings below five have their justificatio as 'He's the shit, Pent's there, mediocre growths and bases.' I mean, what the hell were people thinking when they rated Rebecca much higher than that? I might need to check the ratigs again, cause I had a feeling he was rated too low on some occasions.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Marth

[Mekkah]

@KoT, just because I agree with your final rating/conclusion (when it comes to efficiency) does not mean I agree with your reasoning. Erk wasn't exactly getting "crushed" by Pent because in all of PFoD there was only one enemy that Pent had an advantage over. In addition, you also said Lucius was "crushing Erk offensively", which is false for much of the same reason. Yes, both Pent and Lucius are better, but not because they have significantly better combat.

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

@KoT, just because I agree with your final rating/conclusion (when it comes to efficiency) does not mean I agree with your reasoning. Erk wasn't exactly getting "crushed" by Pent because in all of PFoD there was only one enemy that Pent had an advantage over. In addition, you also said Lucius was "crushing Erk offensively", which is false for much of the same reason. Yes, both Pent and Lucius are better, but not because they have significantly better combat.

It's not ONLY because they have superior combat (staves is just as big of an issue here too if not more-so, especially in Pent's case, since you get physic/warp use prepackaged, whereas you kind of have to work for it for Lucius), but superior combat should be taken into account.

Lucius, even after taking account light tome suckage, leads 2-4 damage/round in early-game (unless Erk switches to Thunder and Lucius switches to Shine, at which point both tie), and then leads like 6-8 damage/round later on (and 10-12 against common dark magic enemies because of WTA/WTD if I'm mathing it right); the gap continues to grow wider as the game progresses. Pent offers like 4 MAG more than 20/1 Erk base, which comes out to like 8 damage/round. And he's slightly more durable to boot.

So if Erk had better combat than Pent and Lucius (or maybe even just one of the two), then you might say "Well, it might be to my advantage to swap out Serra/Priscilla (depending on who you use), Lucius, or Pent for this one since I don't need 3 physic users this run, but want better combat since I want the offense." But since Lucius and Pent do both combat AND staves better, Erk really gets screwed, even though he's really a solid character.

What I mean by Rebecca (other than the fact that I obviously like using the class more than most people on SE and find uses for even the crappy GBA FE renditions of it) is that at least her combat (on a pure numbers level) late-game is really good and I can at least justify fielding her in maps where her bad EP is not-so-relevent or even mitigated by the fact you can manipulate it so she has a decent EP, either with enemy archers or magi. Any time I'd want to use Erk, I can field Lucius and get better results (unless Lucius' poor durability is, for some reason, relevent; but FE7 enemies suck at combat anyways).

Edited January 1, 2012 by Kngt_Of_Titania

[Bluedoom]

What I mean by Rebecca (other than the fact that I obviously like using the class more than most people on SE and find uses for even the crappy GBA FE renditions of it) is that at least her combat (on a pure numbers level) late-game is really good and I can at least justify fielding her in maps where her bad EP is not-so-relevent or even mitigated by the fact you can manipulate it so she has a decent EP, either with enemy archers or magi. Any time I'd want to use Erk, I can field Lucius and get better results (unless Lucius' poor durability is, for some reason, relevent; but FE7 enemies suck at combat anyways).

Well I can field Louise easily alongside Pent to get about those same results AND that helps out pent too and is better than support grinding( thanks a lot darkandroid ;) )

And since I'm a rath fanboy, I'll also state this here: You can use Rath over Rebecca too, he has a horse, better bases and is closer to promotion too + LM availability.

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

Well I can field Louise easily alongside Pent to get about those same results AND that helps out pent too and is better than support grinding( thanks a lot darkandroid ;) )

And since I'm a rath fanboy, I'll also state this here: You can use Rath over Rebecca too, he has a horse, better bases and is closer to promotion too + LM availability.

Louise is a fair enough point. Her combat is relatively close to Rebecca's at similar levels and she does help Pent out a bit (however, it's not like Pent, where he clearly exceeds Erk in every way imaginable for less work -- I *think* Beccy still barely beats out Louise if she's at an average level for that point of the game). I very rarely make use of GBA supports, simply because the ones that matter usually can't be built in time (and the whole very limited range thing is really annoying), so it's usually why I don't include them in my arguments. But if I were to use a support in FE7 at all, it'd obviously be that one.

Rath comes at a crappy level somewhat late in the game. He has swords over Beccy (but a mediocre promotion sword rank), but at best (assuming he somehow catches up to the rest of your team almost instantaneously, but I can get archers/nomads to farm the enemies in the center room of Genesis and gain craploads of levels, so it's not that hard) loses like 11 or 12 chapters of availability to Beccy.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Kngt_Of_Titania

[Mekkah]

It's not ONLY because they have superior combat (staves is just as big of an issue here too if not more-so, especially in Pent's case, since you get physic/warp use prepackaged, whereas you kind of have to work for it for Lucius), but superior combat should be taken into account.

Except Pent and Erk's combat has been shown to be exactly the same in the chapter after Pent joins, and you've given no evidence to the contrary. And Erk can also do quite a lot of things that Pent can't, among which are killing enemies in Ch15, killing enemies in Ch16, killing enemies in Ch17, killing enemies in Ch18...

But that's not even the main point here. I am not disputing Pent > Erk. I am disputing that Pent's combat "crushes" Erk's. All you are doing is bringing up other things not related to their direct combat parameters.

Lucius, even after taking account light tome suckage, leads 2-4 damage/round in early-game (unless Erk switches to Thunder and Lucius switches to Shine, at which point both tie), and then leads like 6-8 damage/round later on (and 10-12 against common dark magic enemies because of WTA/WTD if I'm mathing it right)

Again with the pretty numbers that mean nothing in a vacuum. I can't even be bothered pulling the exact numbers here at several levels (I doubt you're giving Erk his proper level lead), but you are failing to take into account that both Erk and Lucius will generally ORKO any enemy they manage to double. If they don't double, then they're bringing something into a range where anyone except maybe some scrub like Rebecca can KO it.

Beyond that, you are acting like they should always be compared Fire vs Lighting, Thunder vs Shine. This is not how it works in the game. Erk has a Thunder tome with him from the moment he joins, and can buy more from vendors in 17x or 18. Lucius doesn't have Shine available until some Monk drops it in 21, and it doesn't become available in shops until 26...which is when Erk can buy Elfire. Divine isn't even buyable until 31x.

Okay, a little tidbit on how much Lucius's damage lead matters. Enemy samples from Dragon's Gate:

28 HP/2 Res/7 AS Cavaliers. 11 AS needed to double, 16 Atk needed to 2HKO. Erk hits 12 Spd at L11, where he has 9 Mag, which gives him 17 Atk with Thunder. Lucius has 11.2 Spd at L6, but he needs 12 Mag for the 2HKO with Lighting, so he actually needs to be 11/0 or 12/0 to do the trick. Almost everything else you can think of has similar numbers that don't help Lucius more than Erk. 23 HP/2 Res/9-10 Spd Nomads, they will probably not double. 27 HP/3 Res/2 AS Knights, neither of them have problems. 27 HP/2 Res/8 Spd Archers that often weigh themselves down, not an issue. 30 HP/2 Res/8 Spd Fighters, same. 22 HP/6 Res/7 AS Mages. 17 Atk needed to 2HKO. Erk needs one more Mag level-up on top of what he has above to do this, but Lucius needs two since he has WTD.

The only enemies Erk has more trouble with than Lucius are Shamans, who have roughly the same parameters as Mages. But Lucius still needs to hit 16 Atk to 2HKO them.

You could argue they can promote with the Guiding Ring from the Pirate Ship, but then they both ORKO everything on this map.

What I mean by Rebecca (other than the fact that I obviously like using the class more than most people on SE and find uses for even the crappy GBA FE renditions of it) is that at least her combat (on a pure numbers level) late-game is really good and I can at least justify fielding her in maps where her bad EP is not-so-relevent or even mitigated by the fact you can manipulate it so she has a decent EP, either with enemy archers or magi. Any time I'd want to use Erk, I can field Lucius and get better results (unless Lucius' poor durability is, for some reason, relevent; but FE7 enemies suck at combat anyways).

You're acting like there's some situation where Rebecca can be more useful to field than Erk. There isn't really one, again unless you are facing hordes of flying enemies that always attack you at range, and even then Erk could prolly 2HKO. That and Rebecca is completely irrelevant in a case of Erk vs Pent, or Erk vs Lucius. If Rebecca is more useful in a situatin than Erk, she is probably more useful than Lucius and Pent too, at combat. Not that this would ever be the case.

[Kngt_Of_Titania]

Except Pent and Erk's combat has been shown to be exactly the same in the chapter after Pent joins, and you've given no evidence to the contrary. And Erk can also do quite a lot of things that Pent can't, among which are killing enemies in Ch15, killing enemies in Ch16, killing enemies in Ch17, killing enemies in Ch18...

But that's not even the main point here. I am not disputing Pent > Erk. I am disputing that Pent's combat "crushes" Erk's. All you are doing is bringing up other things not related to their direct combat parameters.

I referred to Lucius "crushing" Erk in offense, not Pent. I later said that "crushing" was too strong of a word (it was the post where I calc'd ATK/AS at 10/-- and 20/1), simply because I went purely by statistics and not taking Light Tome suckage into account. Erk's slightly inferior in 10/--, but the gap keeps on widening as Lucius' 20% higher MAG growth starts to really kick in, to where it's definitely noticable.

Pent basically is better than Erk in everything but maybe AS, which doesn't matter since both Pent/Erk double almost everything in the game. Pent is Erk+ by every relevent statistic (at best you can say Pent is Erk with a support and better durability, assuming that Pent's extra MAG is extraneous all the time in every chapter between when Vaida arrives and The Value of Life), and Lucius has better combat than Erk, a gap that WIDENS over time. You can say "Well, Erk can ORKO many of the things Lucius can" at certain levels, but the point remains that Lucius ORKO's everything at an earlier level than Erk and is more likely (esp. in a S rank run, where XP can get spread thin) to do more combat-wise. Both Lucius and Pent have the ability to physic (to supplement your healer) by game's end on efficiency runs, whereas Erk can't, *AND* they both have better offense then him.

Doesn't look good for Erk.

Edited January 1, 2012 by Kngt_Of_Titania

[Raven]

Erk-6.05