Rate the Unit, Day 25: Stefan

[Lord Raven]

i think snowy is mad at the fact that people value a unit that he doesn't like

[Dark Sage]

1/10. Worst swordsmaster in the game and overrated as heck.

*sigh* Okay. For real... Stefan is overrated. There. I said it. That being said, it's understandable why. First off, despite coming in 15, he joins far away from the group in a corner that basically assures he won't see combat action until 16 barring excessive luck/intentionally holding back. Anyways, he's powerful, doubles well, but... kind of peters out later on. His initial skill is worthless and his supports are junk, unlike Zihark and Mia who can actually offer something of value. To top it off, they both get skills that can actually be turned into something good, unlike Stefan. The only real reason to take Stefan over them is if you value the sudden mid-game spike of power or don't plan on developing either Mia or Zihark. Otherwise, he's worse than them.

Plus I'm freaking sick of hearing how 'bad-ass' he is and such. He's not. He's just some random branded who couldn't handle normal life and hid in the desert. He can't dress himself, has no real personality, and if he came three to five chapters later he wouldn't even be of real note.

5 (6-1 for how sick I am of hearing how awesome and such he is)/10

Comes prepromoted and has excellent bases right off the bat unlike faggots like Mia and Zihark 7.5/10

[Mekkah]

8/10

Starts killing everything from the get-go and never really stops being good which is awesome no matter how much Snowy complains.

[I.M. Gei]

8/10 comes with killer offense, doesn't really slow down for a long time

[PKL]

Costs turns to recruit 0/10. Ok, seriously, he has great bases and didnt cost anything besides turns to get there unlike mia and zishark. I havent recruited him in ages since im always LTC'ing or drafting when i play FE9...I give him a 7/10. Also, thanks for picking this up. I got super tired of RTUs and just CBF'd to keep updating.

[Snowy_One]

Comes prepromoted and has excellent bases right off the bat unlike faggots like Mia and Zihark 7.5/10

You realize you're probably the closest thing to a primary singular reason why I don't like Stefan, right?

[Dark Sage]

You realize you're probably the closest thing to a primary singular reason why I don't like Stefan, right?

And not a single fuck was given that day. I honestly couldn't care less that you hate Stefan because you're butthurt that people like him more than Zihark and Mia.

[BBM]

Stefan is pretty awesome. He comes with an S-rank weapon, Astra, and great bases, and gives you an Occult Scroll in the next Base. No horse sucks, but he's still, as someone said, the best filler unit in the game. 8.5/10, and he'd get a bias point, but a pacifist clear of his chapter that recruits him inside the BEXP limit is like the hardest thing in the game. >_<

[aku chi]

His initial skill is worthless

*sigh

How is increasing the likelihood of ORKOing "worthless"?

[Hawk King]

He does ORKO just about everything without Astra, and it destroys your weapon uses.

Sure Snowy is complaining about somthing silly but he is right. Everyone is massively over-rating Stefan.

BTW - Stefan only costs 2 (maybe 1) extra turns and you dont need to kill any Laguz to get him either....

[Sunwoo]

Sure Snowy is complaining about somthing silly but he is right. Everyone is massively over-rating Stefan.

The thing about rating, though, is that everyone has their own ways of "rating". For example, I like to consider "5" as being "not a detriment, not really beneficial", meaning that anyone below a 5 is what I consider a hindrance and I'd be better off without them and anyone above that as being helpful. Anyone about 8.5 would probably be someone I'd consider integral for whatever standards I'm rating by. Plus, a lot of people are throwing in bias points for Stefan, which is going to artificially inflate his score.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Jihyun

[whase]

since this is FE9, he'd probably be Bexped to 20/20 pretty soon, like every other character.

his 20/20 stats look very pretty, it makes being swordlock not look bad. didn't know he turns out better than Mia...

innate own mastery skill too, nice.

8/10

[Loki Laufeyson]

Fun thing about Stefan is that he can continuously kill junk with shitass Iron Swords and money isnt an issue in this game. Who cares about burning uses of an Iron sword? Honestlyy.

[ZemZem]

Stefan is pretty awesome. He comes with an S-rank weapon, Astra, and great bases, and gives you an Occult Scroll in the next Base. No horse sucks, but he's still, as someone said, the best filler unit in the game. 8.5/10, and he'd get a bias point, but a pacifist clear of his chapter that recruits him inside the BEXP limit is like the hardest thing in the game. >_<

This. And no problem, PKL.

Tallying.

[Snowy_One]

*sigh

How is increasing the likelihood of ORKOing "worthless"?

First off, if Stefan is having trouble ORKOing in the earlier chapters he's present, something's wrong, especially for the people giving him such high scores. Sides, it's not like he will ever have trouble doubling.

Secondly, it has a HORRIBLE activation rate. 1/2 SKL, meaning it has a 14/14.5% chance of activating per attack when Stefan has maxed his SKL.

Thirdly, it's MURDER on the weapons! I wouldn't let any unit with any weapon that couldn't be easily replaced (no uniques for sure, forges possibly as well depending on quality/quantity). Otherwise I could end up dumping 5 uses on a enemy that would otherwise have taken 2.

Fourthly, it's not even really a damage increase. He uses five attacks to deal 2.5 attacks-worth of damage. The 'best' outcome is that the enemy has HP that's equal to or less than 1.5 of Stefan's normal attacks and he criticals on the first strike. If the enemy was ANY stronger though then he has to deal a second attack. If Astra hadn't activated the same critical would have killed the enemy as well as any enemy that had up to three attacks-worth of HP. If the enemy had HP above .5 attacks, but below 1 attack and he doesn't critical, he would have to preform a second attack when one attack would have killed normally. Basically, Astra is only of value if Stefan faces down someone with a huge pool of HP and can't afford to launch a second attack.

Fifthly, it's capacity is downright horrible. Adept only deals .5 attacks less of damage, lets Stefan attack a second time for full damage, has an activation rate equal to SKL, and can be paired with another skill. Astra cannot. Frick, I'd consider Stefan with Adept and freaking tranquility to be of more value than Stefan with Astra.

At best for me, Astra gets removed the moment he joins as it's just wasted sword uses waiting to happen. That is what I assumed when rating him, and that is the way it is going to stay.

Besides, I thought we weren't supposed to, you know...

- Similar to the "Recruits X" rule, do not use "she brings a Knight Ward to the team " or any other justification as an argument.

So you can't use the fact that he brings the VK or gives you the occult as basis for his rating. How many votes need to be thrown out as a result?

[aku chi]

I never claimed that Astra was a great skill. It's worse than Adept and I wouldn't remove Mia's Vantage for it. But you claimed it was "worthless". You have not explained how this is so. There exist situations where Stefan would not ORKO except for Astra. These situations are few, but they exist.

[ZemZem]

What's this about throwing out votes?

[Colonel M]

We're throwing out Snowy's vote because "Mia / Zihark".

[Snowy_One]

Against those few enemies Astra would allow Stefan to kill it only has, at best, a 14% chance (28% with a double) of activating. That's only slightly more than a quarter of a time when Stefan has capped SKL. The only way to increase it is to use a brave weapon, at which point I would question both why you are wasting such a valuable resource intentionally on a unit who could easily end up throwing out a ton of uses on such a weak weapon (MT-wise) that could break instead of using a killer/forged sword which would be far more likely to win the day.

As for throwing out votes, well, Bigbangmeteor's vote for one. Second sentence:

Stefan is pretty awesome. He comes with an S-rank weapon, Astra, and great bases, and gives you an Occult Scroll in the next Base.

Pretty obvious he's giving points to Stefan for the weapon he brings to the group as well as the item he brings to the group. Took two seconds of work, and I'm 100% positive I could find more votes like it with minimal effort.

[Samias]

Even if Stefan didn't bring items with him, he's still a pre-promote with acceptable stats who comes in at a good time for his level, with insta S-rank in swords. He just happens to also come with the S-rank sword that he will probably be the only one using for some time. He doesn't have a great skill like Vantage or Adept, but he's the one of the best mid-game filler you'll get in the whole game. Tormod comes in at the same time as a level 7 mage who needs a huge bexp injection. Stefan is practically a breath of fresh air after all the early game babying for anyone not named Oscar, Titania, or Kieran. He is probably a 5 or 6 at worst, especially considering his skill and speed are infallible and his strength is also extremely likely to cap. I don't know why you have to throw a fit over Stefan. If you really hate Astra, you can take it off and still have a unit who functions well enough to fill potential holes.

Edited April 30, 2012 by Samias

[Snowy_One]

Well sure, but those weren't the reasons listed in his post.

[Dark Sage]

Pssht don't you know gaiz

Stefan sux because Sonic Sword Mia is just soooo much better.

[BBM]

Throw out my vote then. I'm not going to lie, I find the idea of not giving units points for what items they get you dumb.

[ZemZem]

I don't see any votes that flat out say 'Occult Scroll/10' or something like that. Besides, BigBangMeteor didn't even have 'brings the Vague Katti and an Occult Scroll' as his only argument.