Efficiency play - where to look?

[Espinosa]

Things I've recently heard about how only one of Alan or Lance can raised in an efficient playthrough in Hard Mode has intrigued me. I find this game to be particularly difficult to low-turn since the characters at your disposal aren't terribly good, the opposition is strong and the hit rates make any strategy that doesn't involve save states or RNG abuse unreliable.

On my latest run, my playing was very, very far from low turning. I got Alan and Lance a B support on the very first chapter, because I expected it to be very helpful on HM - and it did help immensely. I made use of characters like Marcus without any hesitation, because doing it without them would be too much of a headache. For example, having Marcus weaken/double (rarely) the Chapter 4 Cavaliers with his Silver Lance really helps, and is way more effective than, say, having Lot gamble away with a Halberd, risking to be doubled. I only rushed those chapters where rushing was necessary to recruit people / save villages, otherwise I took my time.

So what I wanted to ask, on a run that explicitly goes for the lowest turns, what unpromoted characters are even worth the long-term use? I've been watching dondon's 0% growths playthrough, is that a good indicator of which characters are worth using (with growths) in a strictly low turn run? I'm asking this because the general consensus, from what I've seen, is that the unpromoted units in the game aren't worth using, and prepromotes do most of the job, while you just update them with higher-levelled ones (e.g. drop Marcus for Percival).

On that note, has anybody left any low turn notes or YouTube playlists? I've searched for a while and found only dondon's run (which is quite the sight, though I'd never try to imitate his strategies due to how unreliable they are with attacks hitting and critting at times).

[a.f.k.a. Howard Hughes]

Obviously Unit that is good on 0% growths is at least slightly better on with growths run.

Only one of Alan and Lance can be trained because the other one is needed as Roy's personal Taxi driver and lets just say your offence suffers from carrying roy 24/7

If I have understood right, only worth using (outside free deployment) unpromoted units are Alan, Lance, Dieck, Rutger, Miledy and I have no idea who is the uber staff of choise these days but I assume Clarine. Maybe Shin and Some say Gonzales (I doubt his usefullness).

So in other words, Good bases or gtfo.

I haven't actually played this on HM but this is what I know.

Tl, Dr; read the tier list

[Thor Odinson]

To be fair the tier list OP is pretty outdated and reading through all those pages of debate requires, well... lots of free time.

[a.f.k.a. Howard Hughes]

A) i of course meant the op only, B) outdated or not, youcan tell top or high unit isnt dropping a whole lot.

[Espinosa]

Ah, thanks guys. I noticed that dondon promoted Minerva, gives her some stat boosters and she is then used for the rest of the game even without any growths (and her growths are some of the best around). He did some very unreliable things to keep her alive though, like critting Excalibur mages before they torch her on enemy phase.

Alan/Lance is something I'm still confused about. When we did the FE7 ratings, everybody rated by turn count efficiency, saying how bad Oswin supposedly is because he doesn't see enough combat, now I see Alance get really high scores even though it takes a while for them to get strong in HM (somebody even said that in the event you use only one of them, it's for short-term use anyway).

I also wonder how good of a measurement turn counts are in FE6 seeing how terribly unlikely it is that you are quickly able to take out a boss in the minimal number of turns (Swordmaster Rutger does help but he requires some luck too).

[dondon151]

lol minerva

My uploaded 0% growths run is terribly outdated, I have a newer one that's 106 turns faster. That's probably never going to uploaded until I finish FE7 and FE5 first =X

The only unpromoted characters that I can really think of warranting actual longterm use are Miledy, Rutger, and Saul. Rutger kills bosses until the end of time (although some of the later ones require Percival for a faster clear, but Percival is extremely unreliable), Miledy is good at everything, and you need Saul for some early warps (he's outclassed once Niime shows up). One of Alance is questionable - it really helps to have a third good combat unit for chapter 22 so you can skip the chapter 16 Rescue staff, but they're just going to be EXP siphons for most of the game - and Tate and Zeiss are usable if you don't really use them for combat. They can occasionally gum something to death but are usually just more useful carrying someone behind Miledy so that she doesn't have to carry that unit instead. If you're clearing the maps really quickly, Clarine isn't going to reach level 10 until ridiculously late, and she competes with Saul at staff spamming.

Edited March 18, 2012 by dondon151