smash fanatic (Nephenee) vs Soul (Shinon)

[Progenitus]

I open.

[Progenitus]

So Neph vs Shinon. Let's just get straight to the point. Opening posts tend to have very little weight anyway, so I'll keep it short.

At first glance you see "hey man, Shinon wins str and def and HP and skl while having similar spd, and neph only wins mag and lck and res which no one caers about". And yes, that is true. Shinon wins stats. Well, bases mostly. Neph catches up in raw stats quite nicely by promotion. And it's mostly just str, as skl is not a particularly useful stat (then again, neither are mag/lck/res, although at least lck and res are arguably more useful than skl), and his HP and def leads don't mean a whole lot because Shinon has this problem called 1-range. Or rather, lack of it.

Obviously, Shinon has this unfortunate problem that his 1-range is ass. His only options before the double bow consist of things like crossbow, which have awful att and are really only useful for one-shotting pegs/ravens/hawks, and these things they rarely, if ever, fight anyway. What implication does this have? He is worthless, or even detrimental, on enemy phase. If Shinon is stuck with a regular bow on enemy phase, having him get attacked by any 1-range enemies (and since most of the enmies in the game have 1-range, or 1-2 range and will almost always attack at 1-range if targeting Shinon, this is what will happen) is no damage dealt to that enemy. Obviously, if the enemy is left alive (and had no damage done to it, as is often the case when Shinon is attacked), I now have to spend more units in order to finish it off, which means those units can't move forward or attack other enemies or whatever, and makes me go slower through the chapter, which is a bad thing. Even if you traded with Shinon so that he counters with a crossbow, it still does less damage than basically any other option, so exposing him to attacks still hurts you.

Even then, just protecting him from attacks is a problem. You then have to spend units to wall him in so that the enemies can't reach him, which means these units could be moving somewhere else, but instead they have to waste their time sitting in front of this guy just so you don't waste enemy attacks on wailing on a guy who can't counter them. And obviously, units wasting time does not save you time or efficiency; it does the opposite.

Nephenee is the opposite. Despite her lower str, her speed allows her to 2-round most everything with a simple steel greatlance (ignoring the occasional crits), and Shinon doesn't always 1-round, so his higher str doesn't really mean a whole lot if they are killing in the same number of rounds. As for Shinon's def lead, again the fact that his 1-range is awful and thus exposing him to attacks is bad means he can't even put that def to use. Neph is not the sturdiest unit ever, but she doesn't die when looked at funny, so she can at least be exposed to a few attacks and counter all those enemies for 50+% of their HP.

And as said before, Shinon's stat lead is mostly in his bases. By the time Neph promotes, her str and def are only ~2 points behind Shinon's (assuming she's 20/20/1 and Shinon is like... 20/20/4 or 5 or something), and this is before any BEXP abuse or any stat boosters or any favoritism whatsoever, which also benefits Neph far more than Shinon, as no matter how good you make his stats, it doesn't make his attack with a crossbow/bowgun/etc. any better. You could give Neph a little bit of resources, and she can start one-rounding quite reliably with decent durability.

d00d who may or may not 1-round on player phase and is actually bad on enemy phase vs chick who 2-rounds and can do useful stuff on enemy phase and can be powered up to solo maps

I see a winner, and the name starts with "N" and ends in "ephenee".

[Junkhead]

It took me a looooooong time to get here, but I did. I don't like to leave things behind, and when I do, it's only to the minimum. I also can't put to waste the OP smash has done. 8P

Anyway, here's my arguement:

At first glance you see "hey man, Shinon wins str and def and HP and skl while having similar spd, and neph only wins mag and lck and res which no one caers about". And yes, that is true. Shinon wins stats. Well, bases mostly. Neph catches up in raw stats quite nicely by promotion. And it's mostly just str, as skl is not a particularly useful stat (then again, neither are mag/lck/res, although at least lck and res are arguably more useful than skl), and his HP and def leads don't mean a whole lot because Shinon has this problem called 1-range. Or rather, lack of it.

While it is true Nephenee ends up above-average after being trained, I think you're not considering the effort you have to put into her before she reaches that level. Yes, once she's caught up, her bases catch up to Shinon's. But to have Nephenee, a lvl 1 unit from 2-1 catch up with a Sniper with amazing raw stats...that'll take a while. Not to mention as to when it comes to costs and how it could affect the team and it's resources.

You'd have to give Nephenee most of Part 2's BEXP so she could just lift a Steel Greatlance to double (with meh Str, meaning meh damage anyway) and by the time she reaches the GMs, she'll be just about average. That's BEXP I could invest on Haar for an early promotion (not now, but earlier in Part 3, possibly saving a Crown for somebody else).

Obviously, Shinon has this unfortunate problem that his 1-range is ass. His only options before the double bow consist of things like crossbow, which have awful att and are really only useful for one-shotting pegs/ravens/hawks, and these things they rarely, if ever, fight anyway. What implication does this have? He is worthless, or even detrimental, on enemy phase. If Shinon is stuck with a regular bow on enemy phase, having him get attacked by any 1-range enemies (and since most of the enmies in the game have 1-range, or 1-2 range and will almost always attack at 1-range if targeting Shinon, this is what will happen) is no damage dealt to that enemy. Obviously, if the enemy is left alive (and had no damage done to it, as is often the case when Shinon is attacked), I now have to spend more units in order to finish it off, which means those units can't move forward or attack other enemies or whatever, and makes me go slower through the chapter, which is a bad thing. Even if you traded with Shinon so that he counters with a crossbow, it still does less damage than basically any other option, so exposing him to attacks still hurts you.

Even then, just protecting him from attacks is a problem. You then have to spend units to wall him in so that the enemies can't reach him, which means these units could be moving somewhere else, but instead they have to waste their time sitting in front of this guy just so you don't waste enemy attacks on wailing on a guy who can't counter them. And obviously, units wasting time does not save you time or efficiency; it does the opposite.

Nephenee is the opposite. Despite her lower str, her speed allows her to 2-round most everything with a simple steel greatlance (ignoring the occasional crits), and Shinon doesn't always 1-round, so his higher str doesn't really mean a whole lot if they are killing in the same number of rounds. As for Shinon's def lead, again the fact that his 1-range is awful and thus exposing him to attacks is bad means he can't even put that def to use. Neph is not the sturdiest unit ever, but she doesn't die when looked at funny, so she can at least be exposed to a few attacks and counter all those enemies for 50+% of their HP.

While Shinon has no 1-range, you can't say much about Nephenee either. Nephenee's Part 3 is mostly getting kills for self-improvement, and her offense is pretty meh even if she does have 1-range. And so is her defence, and it doesn't help that she isn't a dodge tank until she grows on that Spd/Str (for heavier lances) and/or works on those supports.

Shinon's great 2-range compensates for his lack of Enemy Phase. He is able to 1RKO most enemies (only missing on Generals and Swordmasters later on) with a Killer Bow (you should be transfering the one from 2-3 to the GMs), a forge or Silencer (which gets him to 1RKO and 2HKO most enemies consistently).

Part 3's chapters aren't Rout-heavy routes like in Part 4, and enemies are rather scarce. And don't worry about "needing to wall shinon for what he doesn't kill", he doesn't need it. He's, ironically, one of the tankiest GMs units forever and outtanks Nephenee forever even if he won't needed (assuming that aforementioned hypothetical case happens)

And as said before, Shinon's stat lead is mostly in his bases. By the time Neph promotes, her str and def are only ~2 points behind Shinon's (assuming she's 20/20/1 and Shinon is like... 20/20/4 or 5 or something), and this is before any BEXP abuse or any stat boosters or any favoritism whatsoever, which also benefits Neph far more than Shinon, as no matter how good you make his stats, it doesn't make his attack with a crossbow/bowgun/etc. any better. You could give Neph a little bit of resources, and she can start one-rounding quite reliably with decent durability.

As said before, while Nephenee may be above-average for the rest of Part 4, she isn't really contributing very much throughout Part 3. She's out-performed by Ike, Titania, Oscar, Mia, HAAR, the Hawks and Shinon.

Rather have someone that kills consistently throughout Part 3 than having an average unit (like Boyd) go through a process of self-improvement throughout Part 3 only to really shine in Part 4- And even then, she still has some trouble 1RKO'ing without Impale activations, and Shinon isn't doing too bad himself either at the Greil route.

Sorry I took a while. I must be a little rusty after taking a break.

Edited August 24, 2012 by Soul

[Progenitus]

While it is true Nephenee ends up above-average after being trained, I think you're not considering the effort you have to put into her before she reaches that level. Yes, once she's caught up, her bases catch up to Shinon's. But to have Nephenee, a lvl 1 unit from 2-1 catch up with a Sniper with amazing raw stats...that'll take a while. Not to mention as to when it comes to costs and how it could affect the team and it's resources.

Certainly, some stats Neph never catches up to (namely HP and skl), but others she catches up quickly and eventually passes. She matches Shinon’s base spd by ~20/7, already has the same base res, matches shinon’s base lck by ~20/8. She also has higher lck/res growths and ties spd growth. Then by the end of part 3, the str/def gap between the two shouldn’t exceed 2 points or so, especially if you BEXP Neph, since she caps skl/spd/lck by 20/12 and that leaves str/def tied as her 3rd highest growhts.

You'd have to give Nephenee most of Part 2's BEXP so she could just lift a Steel Greatlance to double (with meh Str, meaning meh damage anyway) and by the time she reaches the GMs, she'll be just about average. That's BEXP I could invest on Haar for an early promotion (not now, but earlier in Part 3, possibly saving a Crown for somebody else). While Shinon has no 1-range, you can't say much about Nephenee either. Nephenee's Part 3 is mostly getting kills for self-improvement, and her offense is pretty meh even if she does have 1-range. And so is her defence, and it doesn't help that she isn't a dodge tank until she grows on that Spd/Str (for heavier lances) and/or works on those supports.

Why does she need to use a steel greatlance? Maybe in 2-1 where it’s her only weapon (unless you visit the house with a javelin); however, in 2-P you can trade Marcia’s steel lance to Nealuchi or Leanne so they ferry it over to 2-2, which you can move over to Neph (and then Marcia buys new weapons in 2-3).

Neph being able to competently 1-range means that you can expose her to enemies and she will deal damage (at least more than crossbow shinon) in return. Yes, she has less durability, but as long as she doesn’t die, you can heal up that damage. Durability only matters if you can’t survive the attacks, but Neph can take 2-3 hits and be alive, and that’s assuming she doesn’t dodge anything. In return, you get Neph who can deal damage back to those enemies, which is better than Shinon not doing any in return (or does less with his crossbow).

Why is her offense “meh”? Why is she “average?” Why does this “self-improvement” supposed to matter? Why does the fact that some GMs are superior to Neph matter? This is Neph vs Shinon, not Neph vs the entire GM cast. Saying she’s “average” doesn’t prove Shinon is better than her.

Shinon's great 2-range compensates for his lack of Enemy Phase. He is able to 1RKO most enemies (only missing on Generals and Swordmasters later on) with a Killer Bow (you should be transfering the one from 2-3 to the GMs), a forge or Silencer (which gets him to 1RKO and 2HKO most enemies consistently).

It’s worth noting that Shinon’s 2HKOs are actually borderline on halbs. For example, a halb in 3-4 has ~38 HP/19 def, which means Shinon with silencer needs to be ~20/15-16 to borderline 2HKO. In 3-8 halbs sport about 40 HP/21 def, which means you need 41 att to 2HKO. Shinon needs to be 20/18 with a +2 att support to scrape the 2HKO. Sure, Neph isn’t close to 2HKOing without a crit/adept/etc., but if Shinon doesn’t one round these halbs (he’s str screwed, his att supporter isn’t in range or you couldn’t give him an att support, etc) then it doesn’t really matter if Shinon leaves them at 2 HP while Neph leaves them at 10; they both require another unit to finish it off. This chance does exist, and when it happens, this is a fairly common enemy type that Shinon loses his offense lead on and must rely on crits for, which Neph can do the same.

In addition, Silencer is not a cheap weapon. It’s 160 gold per use. Neph could get a max mt AND crit forge and that would still be 144 gold per use. If Shinon gets silencer, Neph can get this forge with no problems (and if you say gold isn’t a problem, then you can afford this forge anyway). Low 30s crit vs enemies with mid-teens ceva, giving Neph about 25-30% chance to instantly kill the enemy on a double, which isn’t too shabby.

In any case, his 2HKOs are cleaner on warriors and snipers. However his offense lead doesn’t really matter against SMs, as neither double and Neph is probably capable of 2HKOing anyway. Neither against sages, as they both one round them on player phase, and Neph’s ability to one round them back with forged javelin on enemy phase actually gives her the edge there. Neph’s crit with the steel lance forge listed above also gives her some chance to instantly kill the enemy anyway too, cutting further into Shinon’s offense lead. Paladins are also a common enemy type in certain maps (3-2, 3-10, and 3-11 come to mind), and Neph has a horseslayer as an option.

Even if you assume that Shinon will typically require 1 less round to kill most enemy types, because his enemy phase is bad, he only really gets 1 attack per turn anyway. Neph, due to her superior enemy phase action, can spread her attacks over both phases to get the job done anyway.

For example, if there is a random enemy, and assuming Shinon one rounds it while Neph 2 rounds, Shinon kills it on player phase. Neph attacks it on player phase, enemy reattacks Neph on enemy phase and it dies. Or alternately, enemy attacks on enemy phase first. Shinon does no damage while Neph does, then on player phase they both finish it off. In both scenarios they take the same amount of time to kill the same enemy, despite Shinon having more offense.

This difference becomes more pronounced as there are more enemies. If there are 2 enemies, then Shinon kills 1 and leaves the other at full HP over both enemy and player phase, while Neph utilizing both phases can kill 1 and deal 50+% damage to the other. In this case Neph has actually done more damage than Shinon.

Again, this also becomes a better situation for Neph if we introduce resources. Neph can take adept to get better offense. Shinon can do the same, but again, killing only 1 enemy per turn, since crossbow Shinon doesn’t 3HKO anything except sages and SMs, and you can’t forge crossbows anyway. Neph can take dracoshields or support Ike for better durability and counter extra enemies on enemy phase without dying. Again, SHinon can do the same, but since his 1-range is forever bad (until double bow anyway), exposing him to attacks is not a good idea anyway. If we use a smaller team, that’s kills and BEXP and such concentrated into fewer units, increasing Neph’s stats and her ability to kill stuff and not die. Again, Shinon has almost no benefit from this.

Part 3's chapters aren't Rout-heavy routes like in Part 4, and enemies are rather scarce.

If anything, this actually hurts your case. Part 4 is when Neph catches up to Shinon’s stats, which means Neph’s ability to do stuff on enemy phase far exceeds Shinon’s minor stat leads when he’s attacking 1 enemy per turn. If enemies are rather scarce in part 3 compared to part 4, then I would give more weight to part 4 than part 3. After all, more enemies to kill = more important to have competent fighters to kill them. On player phase, you are only attacking one enemy, but on enemy phase, you could face multiple enemies. This means more work has to be done on enemy phase, where Neph has the clear lead over SHinon.

And don't worry about "needing to wall shinon for what he doesn't kill", he doesn't need it. He's, ironically, one of the tankiest GMs units forever and outtanks Nephenee forever even if he won't needed (assuming that aforementioned hypothetical case happens)

Sure, Shinon doesn’t really die. But because he doesn’t counter at 1-range (unless he crossbows, which has terrible mt), he doesn’t do damage to enemies on enemy phase. This means letting Shinon get attacked here makes you waste time, so you have to “wall” Shinon anyway.

As said before, while Nephenee may be above-average for the rest of Part 4, she isn't really contributing very much throughout Part 3. She's out-performed by Ike, Titania, Oscar, Mia, HAAR, the Hawks and Shinon.

This is quite the padded list as most of these units also outperform Shinon anyway. Also as I said earlier in this post, it doesn’t matter if someone like Ike is better than Neph; this is Neph vs Shinon, not Neph vs the other GMs.

Rather have someone that kills consistently throughout Part 3 than having an average unit (like Boyd) go through a process of self-improvement throughout Part 3 only to really shine in Part 4- And even then, she still has some trouble 1RKO'ing without Impale activations, and Shinon isn't doing too bad himself either at the Greil route.

If Neph has problems 1rounding in part 4 without a crit, Shinon, who by that point has maybe 2ish more att, will likely run into the same problems. Only again, no enemy phase.

The difference is that we have more skills to distribute, more stat boosters, and more gold to make better forges, etc, moreso than what existed in part 3. This makes it even easier to bring up Neph’s stats in whatever area she lacks. Shinon’s bad 1-range, however, can’t be fixed properly until the double bow shows up.

To reiterate all the points above, there are some enemy types where there is almost no offense lead (SMs and sages). There is a common enemy type where Shinon may not 2HKO anyway (halbs). We then have Neph with her super forge (again, slightly cheaper than silencer) having some crit to mitigate the offense against the rest of the enemy types. We then add in the fact that Neph can simply deal the extra attacks on enemy phase to kill them in the same time frame as Shinon, which he has more trouble doing because his 1-range is poor and is basically impossible to fix. That already looks even to me, and then when coupled with the fact that resources do exist and Neph has the option to take them (while these same resources don’t do a whole lot for Shinon) and turn her 2RKOs into 1RKOs, it makes Neph look better.

And this is only part 3. By part 4 Neph catches up to Shinon’s stats anyway, then possible resources push her over (which there are even more of in part 4 than part 3), while Shinon still has poor 1-range until the double bow in 4-E. Then by your own admission, part 4 maps have more enemies than part 3 in addition to the fact that part 4 maps are typically routs, meaning Neph’s ability to do stuff on enemy phase becomes huge, as each unit has to do more work on enemy phase ot clear out these enemies, which Shinon can’t do in a timely matter.

As for the durability lead Shinon has, again, his bad 1-range means exposing him to attacks wastes time as he does poor (or no) damage in return. Neph is less durable, but as long as she doesn’t die, you can heal up the damage, and she can take 2-3 hits before avoid is considered anyway (and more hits in part 4, since her HP/def increases faster than the enemies’ att).

I will admit that Shinon with the double bow in 4-E wins. However, 4-E is fairly short in the first place, and Neph with the wishblade that shows up in 4-E-3 is very competent in her own right. Considering Neph has a pretty clear win in the other part 4 maps, and is still probably better in part 3 (and at worst looks quite equal), Neph is still the better unit overall.

Edited August 27, 2012 by Progenitus

[Rawkstar]

I go with Nephenee simple because I like her character more, she can get really strong, and she's not a pre-promote unlike Shinon.

[BossOfGuns]

I go with Nephenee simple because I like her character more, she can get really strong, and she's not a pre-promote unlike Shinon.

you cant judge a character just because you like him/her, or someone like hector would win every debate

[Comet]

I go with Nephenee simple because I like her character more, she can get really strong, and she's not a pre-promote unlike Shinon.

Well, Shinon can get really strong too. And being a pre-premote doesn't exactly hurt him, as he has good bases and good growths.

Edited November 6, 2012 by astra knight

[Junkhead]

Sorry about the long wait, smash. I pretty much just raegquit.

I forfeit. Good game.

[ToastyToast]

I personally would go with Nephenee because she's the only good soldier game in...like any Fire Emblem game ever. There are plenty of Shinon types AND alternative archers, but there is only one Nephenee.

[Rapier]

I must say I like both Nephenee and Shinon, they're all pretty solid units who can one hit KO pretty easily. While Shinon starts great and OHKOing everything infront of him from the start (except Gens and some Wyverns), his lack of 1 ranged weapons turn him into a sitting duck in EP. Nephenee needs some babying in order to become great, but she is definitely worth it: With one of the best speed stat in Part 3, she's reliable to use the heaviest weapons and double while dealing more damage and dodging other units with ease (even in Normal mode). By the time she reaches her third tier, she's invincible (her strength issue is fixed from there on, allowing her to OHKO anything that moves) and, guess what, she's able to kill units on EP, while Shinon can't.

So, I pick Nephenee.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Rapier

[bob123llama]

Nephenee, she can get 100% crit, if you plan her skills right.

[SSbardock84]

Nephenee kinda just sucks. Shinon is hands down one of the best characters in the game, I doubt she could even hit him. I'd have to say Shinon wins pretty easily with a critical or two or a Deadeye.

[Elieson]

Old post is old but this is a debate board about contributions to the united respective game completion, not a X vs Y in a battle to the death kind of thing