Rate the Unit, Day 20: Zihark

[Snowy_One]

Regardless, I'm not really seeing either Mia or Ily benefitting from the support because the extra hit's practically superfluous and 1 atk isn't exactly going to make much of a difference for Mia.

It's not just 1 attack. When Mia criticals it's an extra 3 points of damage dealt. As Mia is very critical-reliant and has the easiest time of the SM getting the skills for them, it's very useful. Plus, the extra hit isn't as superfluous as you think. Besides using it for siege tomes, Mia, as a swordsmaster, can use it to make good use of the Gamble skill. For comparison with an unforged silver sword (at 20/20) (80 hit).

Mia base hit: 155 (77.5)

Mia with one of her supporters B/A: 165 (82.5) / 170 (85)

Mia with both of her supporters: 180 (90)

Forged Silver Sword with both supporters: 205 (102.5)

Zihark base hit: 156 (78)

Zihark with Ilyana (his only +hit support): 161 (80.5) / 163 (81.5)

Forged silver Sword with Ilyana: 186 (93) / 188 (94)

This is before WTA and enemy evade obviously. As you can see, it's not unimportant if you decide to have a SM use gamble. Regardless, my complaint was that people would assume Ilyana would support Zihark but then recoil from the idea of her supporting Mia. The most you can say in favor of Zihark is that Ilyana doesn't really care all that much which one she supports as 1 attack vs. 10 AVO is a non-issue as she won't likely fail to 1RKO because of that missing attack and the odds of that extra 10 AVO making a different are miniscule at best.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Snowy_One

[Shadow Mir]

It's not just 1 attack. When Mia criticals it's an extra 3 points of damage dealt. As Mia is very critical-reliant and has the easiest time of the SM getting the skills for them, it's very useful. Plus, the extra hit isn't as superfluous as you think. Besides using it for siege tomes, Mia, as a swordsmaster, can use it to make good use of the Gamble skill. For comparison with an unforged silver sword (at 20/20) (80 hit).

Mia base hit: 155 (77.5)

Mia with one of her supporters B/A: 165 (82.5) / 170 (85)

Mia with both of her supporters: 180 (90)

Forged Silver Sword with both supporters: 205 (102.5)

Zihark base hit: 156 (78)

Zihark with Ilyana (his only +hit support): 161 (80.5) / 163 (81.5)

Forged silver Sword with Ilyana: 186 (93) / 188 (94)

This is before WTA and enemy evade obviously. As you can see, it's not unimportant if you decide to have a SM use gamble. Regardless, my complaint was that people would assume Ilyana would support Zihark but then recoil from the idea of her supporting Mia. The most you can say in favor of Zihark is that Ilyana doesn't really care all that much which one she supports as 1 attack vs. 10 AVO is a non-issue as she won't likely fail to 1RKO because of that missing attack and the odds of that extra 10 AVO making a different are miniscule at best.

I personally see Gamble as a pisspoor argument, since you're only shooting yourself in the foot by using it. And I'm not exactly impressed by the siege argument either. And 20/20 stats AGAIN? What're you trying to prove with those?

Edited April 18, 2012 by Metal King Slime

[PuffPuff]

I personally see Gamble as a pisspoor argument, since you're only shooting yourself in the foot by using it. And I'm not exactly impressed by the siege argument either. And 20/20 stats AGAIN? What're you trying to prove with those?

There's nothing to prove of that since u likely won't hit 20/10 upon average in a ranked run. Even though that doesn't matter in this game since it doesn't rank your performance anyway. And Gamble is shit without good support from Fire or any other that raises more accuracy. Well have to wait and see what this argument will stand.

Edited April 18, 2012 by リンダ

[BBM]

But a level 20/20 Mia with Vantage + Gamble still only pulls off like 57 crit, because with a Silver Sword her crit is only 28.5%. If you give her Vantage + Wrath instead, she has a 78.5% crit rate when under half health. Sure, this is only when she's under half-health and not all the time, but I'll take that over having to field two OTHER poor units for a lower crit rate.

[Shadow Mir]

There's nothing to prove of that since u likely won't hit 20/10 upon average in a ranked run. Even though that doesn't matter in this game since it doesn't rank your performance anyway. And Gamble is shit without good support from Fire or any other that raises more accuracy.

There aren't ranks in FE9, but other than that, my point exactly. Also, even WITH hit boosting supports, Gamble's nothing more than garbage.

[PuffPuff]

But a level 20/20 Mia with Vantage + Gamble still only pulls off like 57 crit, because with a Silver Sword her crit is only 28.5%. If you give her Vantage + Wrath instead, she has a 78.5% crit rate when under half health. Sure, this is only when she's under half-health and not all the time, but I'll take that over having to field two OTHER poor units for a lower crit rate.

Yes. So that makes Gamble useless. xD

[Eail]

I like Zihark, not as much as Mia though. He is a very good substitute for Mia if you don't like her for some reason. +.5 bias

6.5/10

[Melonhead]

Odd thing, The RtU RD and PoR threads are on the same unit, Zihark. How funny is that?

[Colonel M]

By the way, I would like to note that every vote that even hints at Gamble should be tossed due to utter stupidity of even suggesting it should be used.

[Snowy_One]

But a level 20/20 Mia with Vantage + Gamble still only pulls off like 57 crit, because with a Silver Sword her crit is only 28.5%. If you give her Vantage + Wrath instead, she has a 78.5% crit rate when under half health. Sure, this is only when she's under half-health and not all the time, but I'll take that over having to field two OTHER poor units for a lower crit rate.

I'm not saying that Gamble > Wrath/vantage combo for Mia or any other SM. I'm saying Mia is one of two people who can potentially use it as she can get her hit up enough to at least have a decent chance of hitting. Oh. And you can boost your critical via killer weapons as well so she CAN get very good odds.

Also, to the people saying it's worthless, it's not. 0.1 is still valuable while a 0 is without. Since one chooses when to activate Gamble the 'worst case' is that they don't think the potential risk is worth the hit loss and opt out as a result.

[Shadow Mir]

Also, to the people saying it's worthless, it's not. 0.1 is still valuable while a 0 is without. Since one chooses when to activate Gamble the 'worst case' is that they don't think the potential risk is worth the hit loss and opt out as a result.

Don't you get it? Trading off hit for crit is just plain dumb. Geez, Louise.

I'm saying Mia is one of two people who can potentially use it as she can get her hit up enough to at least have a decent chance of hitting. Oh. And you can boost your critical via killer weapons as well so she CAN get very good odds.

See above. Also, even WITH her supports, she's still got dicey hit rates before enemy avoid. Oh, and with a killer as opposed to a forge, she's got worse hit.

Edited April 19, 2012 by Metal King Slime

[Snowy_One]

Don't you get it? Trading off hit for crit is just plain dumb. Geez, Louise.

Why?

See above. Also, even WITH her supports, she's still got dicey hit rates before enemy avoid. Oh, and with a killer as opposed to a forge, she's got worse hit.

Before enemy AVO she's got 100+ hit. Even with a WTD she will still be in the 90%+ hit range. Double the critical rate for only something like a 7% chance of missing doesn't sound too bad to me, especially since SM get large amounts of critical so a double for them is a huge offensive upgrade. Granted, this is before enemy AVO, but to treat it as an absolute pariah? Seems stupid to me.

Oh. And Mia's 20/10 hit is only 15 points lower or 7.5 with Gamble.

[Colonel M]

Here's some food for thought on why Gamble is a terrible skill, as I posted in the Gonzales rating thread when they were comparing Gonzales to Gamble!Kieran (which once again is a terrible comparison): Click for reference.

I think Gamble!Kieran is a piss poor comparison to Gonzales. Let's review the key differences.

In FE9:

- Kieran doesn't have access to a Killer weapon in the beginning, so his crit isn't jumping that high.

- Gonzales has +30% Crit on Kieran once Gonzales promotes.

- With Gamble, at the beginning, chances are his Hit rates are dropping lower than Gonzales. Iron Axe Kieran (unforged) has 52 Hit. FE6's Steel Axe has 2 less Hit than that shit. Come on, really?

- When he gets to doubling, he's usually ORKOing anyway, so why the fuck should we use Gamble again?

- Killer weapons are rare enough as is and the most you can get from forges is a whopping 9. Woohoo! A 20/1 Kieran unsupported? 53 Hit with Killer Axe. Someone get me a fucking curtain!

In FE10:

- He can't double anything, so everything with Gamble is pretty moot as is.

Gonzales still differs from something as gimmicky as Gamble Kieran. For one, Gonzales is doubling. That already sets him a bar apart from FE10 Kieran. For another, his Hit rates are not as abysmal as Kieran activating Gamble. Kieran activating Gamble isn't even getting a whole lot of crit anyway aside from using a Killer weapon. Killer weapons obviously cannot be forged, and with Gamble active it still has lower Hit than FE6's Hand Axe! Gonzales does require training to double. This much is true. It helps that a lot of enemies after the Western Isles are at least Lance users. Using a Halberd he has two swings to down a Cavalier in one hit, and as others point out constantly - many units still fail to ORKO throughout the game anyway. Western Isles is difficult enough as is unless your bad ass Swordsmen (see? I mentioned "men", not "women". Fir is not included in this category), and they're rocky on it. Dieck might miss some doubling, Marcus and Zealot can get iffy after a while, which pretty much leaves fucking Rutger. If an enemy is weakened and Gonzales has two shots to kill someone, chances are he's going to kill them. 18 Avoid is roughly the max I see on Fighters, which means 67% Displayed, 78.55% True. To miss both shots? It's roughly 4.6%.

I get that Gonzales isn't accurate (I even mentioned it in my rating, and I'm taking into account how much he can get trashed in Sacae), but I merely want to point out that Gamble!Kieran =/= Gonzales. They're on a different planet.

20/1 unsupported Mia has 123 Accuracy with the Killing Edge. Now halve that. You have 61 ACCURACY before adding supports. That's fucking despicable, and all for what? 78 Crit? Most (good) enemies have roughly 20 Avoid, and even 12 or more Avoid puts Mia towards the 2 RN going against her. Yes, granted, there's supports which helps the Hit slightly, but come on. Gambling on roughly 50/50 hits just to critical someone when I could have damn-near perfect accuracy and roll on a 39% chance to crit? I'll gladly take the latter.

Gamble is a terrible skill. It's worth about as much as the user that's even attempting to use the skill. You can probably take a stab on what that worth is, and chances are it would still be lower than what you guessed.

Edited April 19, 2012 by Colonel M

[aku chi]

By the way, I would like to note that every vote that even hints at Gamble should be tossed due to utter stupidity of even suggesting it should be used.

Eh? Gamble is nothing special, but it's situationally useful in the hands of a Swordmaster or Sniper (if any of them are used). Enemies in PoR have terrible luck, so Swordmasters and Snipers can easily have ~25 crit with basic weapons. With a +crit weapon, that's up to ~35 crit. So if you need a crit to kill an enemy and have overkill Hit (very likely in the case of forged swords or bows), Gamble can become an attractive option. And if your Swordmaster happens to have overkill Hit with a Killer Edge or Vague Katti, Gamble will boost their crit chance from ~55-60% per hit up to 100% - which, again, makes it situationally useful. Gamble isn't often worth using, but it's no Corrosion.

[Colonel M]

Eh? Gamble is nothing special, but it's situationally useful in the hands of a Swordmaster or Sniper (if any of them are used). Enemies in PoR have terrible luck, so Swordmasters and Snipers can easily have ~25 crit with basic weapons. With a +crit weapon, that's up to ~35 crit. So if you need a crit to kill an enemy and have overkill Hit (very likely in the case of forged swords or bows), Gamble can become an attractive option. And if your Swordmaster happens to have overkill Hit with a Killer Edge or Vague Katti, Gamble will boost their crit chance from ~55-60% per hit up to 100% - which, again, makes it situationally useful. Gamble isn't often worth using, but it's no Corrosion.

And when does overkill Hit ever come into play?

Base Stefan has 159 Accuracy with the Steel Sword, which converts to 79 Accuracy after Gamble activates. With forged Iron, it's 174 (87) Accuracy. I get that there are some conditions where enemy Avoid can be low, and I also understand there's times of WTA (not to mention +20% chance on bio), but that's really pushing it. Your best option is likely Stefan, and even he is barely pulling anything significant out of it. Nevermind that 19 Str and a forged Steel Sword gives him 31 Atk, which does enough damage to your average enemy on the block. I get that there's chances of whiffing, but there's other circumstances (Vague Katti, Silver Blade, etc).

[Snowy_One]

20/1 unsupported Mia has 123 Accuracy with the Killing Edge. Now halve that. You have 61 ACCURACY before adding supports. That's fucking despicable, and all for what? 78 Crit? Most (good) enemies have roughly 20 Avoid, and even 12 or more Avoid puts Mia towards the 2 RN going against her. Yes, granted, there's supports which helps the Hit slightly, but come on. Gambling on roughly 50/50 hits just to critical someone when I could have damn-near perfect accuracy and roll on a 39% chance to crit? I'll gladly take the latter.

You would be right if that was always the case. It's not. Mia's supports and possible biorhythm/WTA will put her on the positive side of the hit-scale overall. Besides, there ARE advantages to that critical. A 50/50 chance to kill a enemy before he can attack? a ~75% chance to always kill a enemy? A 25% chance to land two criticals in a row on a very tough enemy she couldn't have otherwise killed? It's no Wrath/Vantage, but useless? No. The worst you can say is that it's use is situational/personal. However, all that means is you, personally, do not like the tradeoff. Not that it is bad.

[Shadow Mir]

You would be right if that was always the case. It's not. Mia's supports and possible biorhythm/WTA will put her on the positive side of the hit-scale overall. Besides, there ARE advantages to that critical. A 50/50 chance to kill a enemy before he can attack? a ~75% chance to always kill a enemy? A 25% chance to land two criticals in a row on a very tough enemy she couldn't have otherwise killed? It's no Wrath/Vantage, but useless? No. The worst you can say is that it's use is situational/personal. However, all that means is you, personally, do not like the tradeoff. Not that it is bad.

For Ashera's sake, would it kill you to be realistic?! Mia won't always be dragging Rhys AND Ilyana everywhere she goes.

[aku chi]

And when does overkill Hit ever come into play?

Some Gamble math:

Consider a 20/7 Mia: 16 Str, 67 Hit, 25 Crit

With a +Mt, +Hit, +Crit Iron Sword forge: 26 Atk, 182 Hit, 34 Crit

With the Killer Edge: 25 Atk, 142 Hit, 55 Crit

Suppose we're in C21 and we care about Mia's combat.

Random Fighter: 40 hp, 29 avo, 11 def, 5 cev

Mia cannot 2HKO this guy even with a Steel Sword forge, so she needs a crit.

Chance to ORKO with Iron Sword forge (just need one crit):

Normal: (100% true hit, 29% crit) 1 - (0.71)^2 = 49.6%

Gamble: (93% true hit, 58% crit) 1 - (0.07 + 0.93*0.42)^2 = 88.8%

Chance to ORKO with the Killer Edge (just need one crit):

Normal: (100% true hit, 50% crit) 1 - (0.50)^2 = 75%

Gamble: (70% true hit, 100% crit) 1 - (0.30)^2 = 91%

Go-go Gamble!

Edit: I forgot about True Hit! Gamble looks even more favorable now.

Edited April 19, 2012 by aku chi

[Shadow Mir]

Some Gamble math:

Consider a 20/7 Mia: 16 Str, 67 Hit, 25 Crit

With a +Mt, +Hit, +Crit Iron Sword forge: 26 Atk, 182 Hit, 34 Crit

With the Killer Edge: 25 Atk, 142 Hit, 55 Crit

Suppose we're in C21 and we care about Mia's combat.

Random Fighter: 40 hp, 29 avo, 11 def, 5 cev

Mia cannot 2HKO this guy even with a Steel Sword forge, so she needs a crit.

Chance to ORKO with Iron Sword forge (just need one crit):

Normal: (100% hit, 29% crit) 1 - (0.71)^2 = 49.6%

Gamble: (81% hit, 58% crit) 1 - (0.19 + 0.81*0.42)^2 = 71.9%

Chance to ORKO with the Killer Edge (just need one crit):

Normal: (100% hit, 50% crit) 1 - (0.50)^2 = 75%

Gamble: (61% hit, 100% crit) 1 - (0.39)^2 = 84.8%

Go-go Gamble!

Aside from the issue about there only being one Killing Edge at that point (the one Zihark comes with), I'm still unconvinced that Gamble is anything other than a waste of game code.

Edited April 19, 2012 by Metal King Slime

[Snowy_One]

Aside from the issue about there only being one Killing Edge at that point (the one Zihark comes with), I'm still unconvinced that Gamble is anything other than a waste of game code.

Actually there are two (one drops off an enemy in that chapter) plus the VK by that point.

Oh! Let's also not forget the Brave sword. While the critical rate is much lower you get double the attack opportunities.

[Shadow Mir]

Actually there are two (one drops off an enemy in that chapter) plus the VK by that point.

Oh! Let's also not forget the Brave sword. While the critical rate is much lower you get double the attack opportunities.

I know that, but the enemy that drops the second KE is in the room where Ena is, and unless I'm remembering wrong, the fighters in that chapter are either faced early on or as reinforcements (that pop up behind you).

Edited April 19, 2012 by Metal King Slime

[aku chi]

Let's also not forget the Brave sword. While the critical rate is much lower you get double the attack opportunities.

If a Swordmaster can't 4HKO with the Brave Sword, Gamble is not the solution.

I know that, but the enemy that drops the second KE is in the room where Ena is, and unless I'm remembering wrong, the fighters in that chapter are either faced early on or as reinforcements (that pop up behind you).

It was just a random example. That particular Fighter in C21 isn't the only enemy against whom Gamble can lead to a greater ORKO likelihood. But on the topic of this particular irrelevancy: the Vague Katti operates like a glorified Killer Edge.

[Shadow Mir]

It was just a random example. That particular Fighter in C21 isn't the only enemy against whom Gamble can lead to a greater ORKO likelihood. But on the topic of this particular irrelevancy: the Vague Katti operates like a glorified Killer Edge.

Well, I don't hold ORKOing in such high regard that gimping my hit to unacceptable levels just for a greater critical hit chance would be worth it.

Edited April 19, 2012 by Metal King Slime

[aku chi]

Well, I don't hold ORKOing in such high regard that gimping my hit to unacceptable levels just for a greater critical hit chance would be worth it.

Well, there are also cases where Gamble can increase the expected damage of an attack (when everything is taken into consideration), although such cases are even rarer. For example, the Killer Edge example in my above post (now updated to account for True Hit) results in an expected damage of 60 without Gamble and 63 with Gamble. So if you are risk-neutral, you would logically prefer to use Gamble in some situations.

Another example from the same chapter, for fun:

Consider a 20/7 Mia: 16 Str, 67 Hit, 25 Crit

With a +Mt, +Hit, +Crit Steel Sword forge: 29 Atk, 167 Hit, 34 Crit

With the Vague Katti: 28 Atk, 147 Hit, 60 Crit

Random Knight: 32 hp, 14 avo, 20 def, 4 cev

Mia 4HKOs with the Steel Sword forge and 5HKOs with the Vague Katti (after WTD).

Chance to ORKO with Steel Sword forge (needs one crit and one hit):

Normal: (100% true hit, 30% crit) 1 - (0.70)^2 = 51%

Gamble: (83% true hit, 60% crit) (.83)^2 * (1 - (0.40)^2) = 57.9%

Chance to ORKO with the Vague Katti (needs two crits):

Normal: (100% true hit, 56% crit) (0.56)^2 = 31.4%

Gamble: (70% true hit, 100% crit) (0.70)^2 = 49%

Edited April 19, 2012 by aku chi