Rate the Units, FE9 Edition: Endgame

[ZemZem]

I do have one complaint. I still think you should count my Nasir rating. :P

As entertaining as it was, Nasir being worth a 10/10 is bullshit. Heck, I'll retally Nasir to see what it comes to for fun, but still man. Props for pulling something like that, though.

[Snowy_One]

a) Him having innate Astra is a perfectly legitimate point for him, if you believe that Astra is a good skill. Unless you mean the Occult Scroll he gives you in the next base?

Except it's definitively NOT a good skill. I would rather have the 'useless' occults like Deadeye over Astra personally and it's the only occult that's actually worse than having no skill at all (ignoring capacity issues). That's why he got rated so high IMO. People saw a loner from the desert who joined with high base stats and could pull off a flashy move, not a unit who is only around for half the game and is only average for a half of that (if even that).

b) Like I said in Stefan's thread, I DID count the items he brings as a point for him, and said I wasn't going to change my vote either. If my vote wasn't thrown out, meh.

Part of the rules state that you're not supposed to count 'brings X to the team' or stuff like that... so... Yea. Foul on anyone who gave him points for bringing the VK (bringing and being able to use it are two different things).

c) Stefan's 1-range combat is never bad. If Boyd is one of your best units for a shaky beginning, and then good 1-2 range combat starting around midgame, Stefan is always at least average for good 1-range combat starting mid game.

I never said it was bad, but among the SM alone Mia can pull off vantage and vantage/wrath kills easier and Zihark can get huge AVO with Muarim. They're average units on the whole at best though, so why is Stefan suddenly nearing 8 points?

d) Who exactly do you think should be going above Stefan that is currently below him?

Anyone who got at least 6 points + Mia at the least.

[Sunwoo]

Except it's definitively NOT a good skill. I would rather have the 'useless' occults like Deadeye over Astra personally and it's the only occult that's actually worse than having no skill at all (ignoring capacity issues). That's why he got rated so high IMO. People saw a loner from the desert who joined with high base stats and could pull off a flashy move, not a unit who is only around for half the game and is only average for a half of that (if even that).

Snowy, it's your opinion that Astra is not a good skill. There are other people who are going to disagree with you. Is FE9!Astra a good skill or not? I'd say it's debatable.

[aku chi]

Except it's definitively NOT a good skill. I would rather have the 'useless' occults like Deadeye over Astra personally and it's the only occult that's actually worse than having no skill at all (ignoring capacity issues).

I've already demonstrated how Astra improves Stefan's chance to ORKO on more than one occasion. But if occasionally expending an extra weapon use or two bothers you so much, you can always remove Astra and give Stefan the C14 Vantage, which you seem to adore.

[Sunwoo]

I never said it was bad, but among the SM alone Mia can pull off vantage and vantage/wrath kills easier and Zihark can get huge AVO with Muarim. They're average units on the whole at best though, so why is Stefan suddenly nearing 8 points?

The thing about Mia and Zihark is that they're rather shaky when you first obtain them. Mia requires a significant amount of BEXP to be reliable enough to not DIE after you get her. Even on easy/normal mode. And aren't we saving up that BEXP for our two fliers anyway, and isn't there less BEXP in hard mode? Zihark's support with Muarim requires getting Muarim and deploying them continuously so they can build up their support. What about the chapters where Muarim doesn't exist and Zihark does? Zihark also needs BEXP to survive reliably. Stefan consumes no resources to do any of this, and is the only person who can wield defense-increasing Vague Katti for a while. His recruitment is wonky and costs turns, yes, but characters aren't supposed to be rated with their recruitment in consideration.

[Snowy_One]

I didn't factor in his costing turns one bit. Just that he joins in chapter 15 of a game roughly 30 chapters long depending on how people want to count. Also, Astra is a ****er of a skill. I showed how it is far worse than anything else in the game unless you're willing to dump things like killer edges on it, and even then it's activation rate is laughable at best (14% at max level? WTF?). If anyone enters into a situation where they NEED to 1RKO and can't do it without a skill activation or critical, they are MUCH better off ditching Astra in favor of a KE or even a forge to try and make that extra bit and, even then, it's garbage due to a activation rate that's so low you should never rely on it to win any battle and shouldn't expect to have it activate; not to mention that, since this is Stefan we are talking about who is supposed to have one of the best mid-game offences, either he's not at as good as people think he is, or you're only caring about killing bosses (which the fliers and mounted units should reach before him).

Oh. And anyone who thinks Mia is bad seriously needs to read Int's post on her and possibly play the game again without being biased against her.

[Sunwoo]

Also, Astra is a ****er of a skill. I showed how it is far worse than anything else in the game unless you're willing to dump things like killer edges on it

And aku chi stated in the post above mine how "Astra improves Stefan's chance to ORKO on more than one occasion." Point being, again, you find it worthless but others may not agree. Just because you feel that it is worthless, doesn't mean others will feel the same. For example, FE10!Elincia and Mercy. Most people hate it, but I like it because it lets me train stupidly underleveled characters I want to use easily without BEXP.

Oh. And anyone who thinks Mia is bad seriously needs to read Int's post on her and possibly play the game again without being biased against her.

I'm not biased against Mia. She's just a unit. But I play the game on EASY and NORMAL mode, and even then I'm constantly irritated that I have to either shield her or have her deliver finishing blows in her joining chapter -- and I can't use her without giving her an immediate BEXP dump. And quite a bit of it.

And just for the record, I think Stefan's fair rating should be between 7-7.5. Overkill offense matters little if he doesn't fly and shows up about halfway in the game (and a stupid recruitment). But at least he consumes no resources and is a failsafe should people have been horribly RNG-screwed.

[BBM]

Snowy, I think YOU need to read Int's post again. Yes, Mia can be good if you expend resources on her. He dumped quite a bit of BEXP into her before she got to where she got, like 4 levels in the very next base, plus more later on. Int's post was to prove that she was not providing negative utility by existing, not to prove that she was better than Stefan.

And even if Astra activates rarely, it's INNATE. Who the fuck gives a shit about weapon uses in a game that gives you as much money as FE9 does? Even if it helps him ORKO like 2 units during his entire existence that he would not otherwise have done, that is still positive utility. How is it actively detrimental?

And also, even in Int's playthrough, she was still a lower level than Stefan when he joined. And Stefan has better combat stats than Mia at an equal level. All Mia has is availability over him.

As for everyone else that you say, you have an argument with Mist, Tormod, Calill, and Makalov. Zihark is basically like Mia, but with less of an availability lead than her, and slightly better stats (but still not as good as Stefan). Muarim comes at like the same time as Stefan, and is not very good later on, and is a Laguz. Mord and Lethe join earlier, but their combat becomes bad even earlier.

[Colonel M]

Oh. And anyone who thinks Mia is bad seriously needs to read Int's post on her and possibly play the game again without being biased against her.

I didn't know Interceptor's post included Spirit Dusts...

(This isn't a jab at Interceptor, by the way).

Edited May 22, 2012 by Colonel M

[bottlegnomes]

As entertaining as it was, Nasir being worth a 10/10 is bullshit. Heck, I'll retally Nasir to see what it comes to for fun, but still man. Props for pulling something like that, though.

Yeah, as pointless as it was, it was totally worth it. It's sad how long I've been waiting for a chance to do that.

Oh. And anyone who thinks Mia is bad seriously needs to read Int's post on her and possibly play the game again without being biased against her.

I have. I did a sage, SM, Ike PT. Guess who was worse than Mia? Lucia, Bastian, and maybe Ilyana.

[Snowy_One]

Snowy, I think YOU need to read Int's post again. Yes, Mia can be good if you expend resources on her. He dumped quite a bit of BEXP into her before she got to where she got, like 4 levels in the very next base, plus more later on. Int's post was to prove that she was not providing negative utility by existing, not to prove that she was better than Stefan.

Reread the post. Mia didn't just have a lack of negative utility, she was a very good unit. He 'favored' her by making her on par with the rest of the team level-wise, not giving her an excessive amount of BEXP. She was about to promote as well by the end of his post and he hadn't even gotten to Stefan yet.

And even if Astra activates rarely, it's INNATE. Who the fuck gives a shit about weapon uses in a game that gives you as much money as FE9 does? Even if it helps him ORKO like 2 units during his entire existence that he would not otherwise have done, that is still positive utility. How is it actively detrimental?

I find it funny that you're willing to throw money down the drain to have Stefan's precious Astra justifiable, but was just complaining about Mia getting Bexp. Regardless, not every weapon is replicable by throwing money at it. Armorslayers, killing edges, the VK, and the like can only be repaired via hammerine. Even forges you have a limited number of throughout the game. Yet it's suddenly not a downside to waste uses of these irreplaceable weapons on enemies Stefan could have killed normally because there is something like a 14% chance it might be useful against two enemies? That's not a positive. That's a blatant negative! Expending extra uses of even replaceable weapons to do the same job a unit would have done anyways is stupid!

Tell me, if they had a skill that allowed you to have a 14% chance to double your weapons costs in a round of combat, especially on a unit who people love to use for combat, wouldn't that be a outright negative? Heck, I've heard people shun counter harder on Titania in the past and that's just fairly useless overall, not actually having a major downside.

Face it. People who listed Astra as a positive had no clue what they were talking about and were just fangushing over Stefan.

And also, even in Int's playthrough, she was still a lower level than Stefan when he joined. And Stefan has better combat stats than Mia at an equal level. All Mia has is availability over him.

Point out where I said he was bad at combat. Go on. Do it. What's that? Can't find it? Is that, maybe, because I never said he was bad at combat? Heck, the reason I say Mia is superior to Stefan has more to do with her skills and availability than stats.

The funny thing is, I don't even thing Stefan is a bad unit. I think he's above average. I just hate how much people seem to be willing to bend over backwards and worship the ground he walks on in order to make him seem like some sort of swordmaster god and anyone who thinks otherwise is obviously insane, and heaven forbid they dislike the Astra! That stuff's the second coming of Jesus! Even though no one in their right mind would give that skill to any of the other swordsmasters. Stefan. The ultimate hypocrisy of FE9.

[Hawk King]

@ Snowy

Astra is a waste of an Occult scroll. Having it for free is a positive.

7.4 is not "nearly" 8 or however you worded it. And biases played a role in the ratings so you can pretty much +/- every score by .5

Mia's STR cap is 2 points lower than Stefan's.

Mia struggles to earn a deployment spot, and therefore has a hard time getting the Cexp to reach promotion by the time Stefan comes. Stefan comes already leveled up, and he is extremely powerful at base LV and has S rank in swords. He also has a free Occult scroll. AKA- he comes with Astra.

Mia requires alot more time and resources in order to equal Stefan's 0 time and 0 resourses.

I prefer using Mia and I like her more, but that doesnt change the fact that Stefan > Mia.

Get over it and pull your head out of your ass. How can you be so unwilling to change your view on something even after 20 people bombard you with cold, hard FACTS that prove you wrong?? Instead you comeback with stuff like, "Well thats not how I play..."

Edited May 22, 2012 by Hawk King

[bottlegnomes]

Tell me, if they had a skill that allowed you to have a 14% chance to double your weapons costs in a round of combat, especially on a unit who people love to use for combat, wouldn't that be a outright negative? Heck, I've heard people shun counter harder on Titania in the past and that's just fairly useless overall, not actually having a major downside.

Does that skill give said unit a better chance of ORKOing? Also, if it's happening so rarely, why is it such a big deal? Make up your mind.

Face it. People who listed Astra as a positive had no clue what they were talking about and were just fangushing over Stefan.

Please do yourself a favor and stop. You have no way of knowing this. You're just assuming, and you know what they say about assuming. You make an ass out of yourself. Beyond that, aku chi has, apparently, provided a rundown that shows why astra benefits Stefan.

[BBM]

I never said Astra was a good skill, I said that it did not provide negative utility (because dude, we have more money than BEXP), and that counting it as a point in favour of Stefan was not against the rules. It might be incorrect logic, but that doesn't mean the vote should be thrown out.

He says that she's probably going to promote by the end of Chapter 15, in time for the Vague Katti, aka Stefan. And umm, level 1 SM Mia is still inferior to Stefan. I never said that you said that Stefan has bad combat, I was just reminding you that at all times that they both exist, Stefan is better than Mia. As for her availability, let's look at what, according to Int, she was doing in those chapters:

Chapter 8: 2RKOed Armours. Pretty good. Required 4 levels of BEXP.

Chapter 9: Went onto the beach, which means she got kills for herself without really helping the team at all, because who gives a shit about the Talisman, and Restore is buyable in a couple chapters anyways, and is unnecessary before that. Anything she does on the beach is basically self-improvement.

Chapter 10: Fought off reinforcements... okay, that's useful if you're fighting stuff this chapter.

Chapter 11: According to him, fell behind a bit. So not that useful.

Chapter 12: ORKOed Ravens with the Laguzslayer. Considering the Ravens come at you 3 at a time max, it's nice, but completely unnecessary. ORKOing the Ravens matters only if you're flying out over the water and don't have anyone to help you. Also consider Ike or Zihark could be using the Laguzslayer.

Chapter 13: She'd be useful here, I suppose, due to high enemy density.

Chapter 14: Int doesn't go this far, but Mia is probably falling behind here too.

So she's only really useful in 3 chapters before Stefan, one of which only requires her if you play it in a certain way. Again, all this post proves, as Int was trying to do, is that Mia is not detrimental to the team, which no one said. She just provides nothing special ever. Once Stefan comes, he outclasses her for 15 chapters. Being useful in 3 chapters is not enough. Being useful in 7 chapters, if you count all of them, is not enough either. And Snowy, keep in mind that post by Int is like nearly three years old. Attitudes on how to play the game have changed. He says something like "Who are you going to dump BEXP on, Mist?", which people actually do sometimes these days. And he probably didn't dump as much BEXP into Marcia as people do these days either.

[Snowy_One]

Mia's STR cap is 2 points lower than Stefan's.

And she gets more STR and MT boosting supports than Tanith.

Mia struggles to earn a deployment spot, and therefore has a hard time getting the Cexp to reach promotion by the time Stefan comes.

Wasn't this sort of crap disproved ages ago?

Stefan comes already leveled up, and he is extremely powerful at base LV and has S rank in swords.

Sure. I have no problem with that. He also ends up being in a average class with average stats, and I'm not even starting on his ability to be critted yet.

He also has a free Occult scroll. AKA- he comes with Astra.

He comes with a completely horrible skill that will be removed by any sane person and anyone who counts it as a positive is nuts and a fanboy. Even if Occult scrolls were unlimited I don't think anyone would give Astra to a SM unless there was no other skills to give them that weren't outright harmful to the character, and even then it would be a tough choice.

Mia requires alot more time and resources in order to equal Stefan's 0 time and 0 resourses.

You say that like she contributed nothing and did nothing other than soak up resources.

I prefer using Mia and I like her more, but that doesnt change the fact that Stefan > Mia.

Look. I'm willing to admit that Stefan vs. Mia may come down to a personal choice, but I cannot see anyone who lists Astra as a positive for Stefan as being worth listening to in any serious light.

Get over it and pull your head out of your ass. How can you be so unwilling to change your view on something even after 20 people bombard you with cold, hard FACTS that prove you wrong?? Instead you comeback with stuff like, "Well thats not how I play..."

Because your 'cold, hard, facts' include listing one of the worst skills in the game as a positive despite it having a use that is not only contradictory to how great Stefan is supposed to be, but could only have a use against, like, two enemies and that's even if it activates at all against them and even then being suspect due to how horrible the damage it deals is.

I never said Astra was a good skill, I said that it did not provide negative utility (because dude, we have more money than BEXP), and that counting it as a point in favour of Stefan was not against the rules. It might be incorrect logic, but that doesn't mean the vote should be thrown out.

Fair enough.

So she's only really useful in 3 chapters before Stefan, one of which only requires her if you play it in a certain way. Again, all this post proves, as Int was trying to do, is that Mia is not detrimental to the team, which no one said.

I believe Hawk King just did.

Once Stefan comes, he outclasses her for 15 chapters.

Try four as Wrath/Vantage is amazing and a natural combo for her.

He says something like "Who are you going to dump BEXP on, Mist?", which people actually do sometimes these days. And he probably didn't dump as much BEXP into Marcia as people do these days either.

So being fair and not sandbagging units is out now apparently all in favor of rushing to the end as fast as possible. And you wonder why I consider tier debaters stupid.

[Hawk King]

Yep, your head is apparently still stuck...

Why did you bring up Tanith???

Stefan is in an average (at best) class. Yep. Mia is in that same class and is statistically inferior.

If Mia gets bad units to support with then Stefan gets Soren to support with.

Giving Mia wrath isnt a great idea because then Ike cant have it. Ike will be getting resolve/wrath like 90% of the time. Besides Mia wont be able to take advantage of vantage/wrath since you keep Rhys glued to her side...

I never said Mia was a detriment. I simply said there are better units than her who are more deserving of deployment. I think Mia is good. I just KNOW that Stefan is better.

Astra doesnt make Stefan worse, unlike parity and Lucia... Oh and guess what? You can take it off him!

I like how you dont respond to everything someone says. You just pick and choose certain points that you can come up with half-baked arguments for.

[aku chi]

If I happened to be using Lucia, and I happened to have an Occult Scroll handy, I would totally give her Astra. Wanna know why? Because it improves her chances of ORKOing. And she really needs it.

Before I go into this for at least the third time, understand that I am not arguing that Astra is a good skill. Either Vantage and Adept alone, at the least, are better for Mia and Zihark, respectively.

Also, Astra is a ****er of a skill. I showed how it is far worse than anything else in the game unless you're willing to dump things like killer edges on it,

Astra improves ones likelihood to ORKO regardless of weapon. One could even argue that Astra can act as a way to save more expensive weapon uses (if that's a goal of yours).

and even then [Astra]'s activation rate is laughable at best (14% at max level? WTF?).

"at max level"! OMG! Stefan must start with a much lower activation rate! What? He starts with a 13% activation rate and has a 64% chance to get to a 14% activation rate after 2 level-ups. And because Stefan doubles everything in the game, Stefan actually has a 24-26% chance to activate Astra at least once each round. Hardly reliable, but it's a better activation rate than Gatrie might expect from Luna (with which Astra is quite comparable). (It also beats Brom and Devdan's Luna activation rate when they fail to double - often.) Sad as it may be, Astra is one of the better mastery skills - on par with Luna and Cancel, just below Sol.

If anyone enters into a situation where they NEED to 1RKO and can't do it without a skill activation or critical, they are MUCH better off ditching Astra in favor of a KE or even a forge to try and make that extra bit

Remind me why we're choosing one or the other?

not to mention that, since this is Stefan we are talking about who is supposed to have one of the best mid-game offences, either he's not at as good as people think he is, or you're only caring about killing bosses (which the fliers and mounted units should reach before him).

Well, if one can kill tough bosses faster than other units, one is an excellent candidate to be ferried to the boss. Sadly for Stefan, there aren't many bosses in PoR beyond the mounted units' capability to ORKO and of those that are, there are practical issues with ferrying Stefan for the kill (and other ways to kill the boss in one round - generally with siege tomes). I don't see a great role for Stefan in an efficiency playthrough, and I would certainly consider Nephenee, Lethe, Makalov, Mordecai, Mist, and Muarim - and perhaps Soren, Calill, and Tormod - more valuable than Stefan.

But I don't see much point getting pissy about "Rate the Units" results. I also don't see the point in accepting bias points on the one hand and throwing out votes on the other hand. But I digress...

[Anouleth]

The funny thing is, I don't even thing Stefan is a bad unit. I think he's above average. I just hate how much people seem to be willing to bend over backwards and worship the ground he walks on in order to make him seem like some sort of swordmaster god and anyone who thinks otherwise is obviously insane, and heaven forbid they dislike the Astra! That stuff's the second coming of Jesus! Even though no one in their right mind would give that skill to any of the other swordsmasters. Stefan. The ultimate hypocrisy of FE9.

I'd give Astra to Lucia.

Also while Stefan is pretty hot and has amazing combat, he has a time-consuming recruitment and no mount. He's basically as good as a mid-game joining Myrmidon can be; it's just that it's not that great.

[NinjaMonkey]

And she gets more STR and MT boosting supports than Tanith.

One of which is lolRhys...

[Snowy_One]

Why did you bring up Tanith???

If you're going to say Mia's MT is bad and she's struggling to KO, I might as well point out a unit that got rated much higher than Mia and Stefa who is, likewise, struggling to KO. Or at least should be doing so logically because of a lower strength and a lack of an attack-boosting support element (meaning the most she could possibly get is +2 attack compared to Mia's +4 attack)

Stefan is in an average (at best) class. Yep. Mia is in that same class and is statistically inferior.

She also has better join time and better skills and, unless all you care about is the midgame, she will get close enough to Stefan for it to not matter before long.

If Mia gets bad units to support with then Stefan gets Soren to support with.

Sure. Fair enough. Stefan now gets +1 attack via a Soren support. So he either ties with her in the endgame or wins by 1 MT. SOOOO AWESOME!/sarcasm

Giving Mia wrath isnt a great idea because then Ike cant have it. Ike will be getting resolve/wrath like 90% of the time. Besides Mia wont be able to take advantage of vantage/wrath since you keep Rhys glued to her side...

Supports have a range of 3. In order for that to cause a problem between Mia and Rhys you would have to be rushing forwards with no regard at all to the surrounding world. It's VERY easy to have a healer remain in support range and never get attacked. I've done it myself on almost every playthrough. To date Rhys has only been attacked once on the EP for me.

I never said Mia was a detriment. I simply said there are better units than her who are more deserving of deployment. I think Mia is good. I just KNOW that Stefan is better.

You are allowed to have your own opinion. I am allowed to think you a Stefan fanboy for trying to defend his Astra as a positive.

Astra doesnt make Stefan worse, unlike parity and Lucia... Oh and guess what? You can take it off him!

I never said it made him worse. I said it should never be counted as a positive, especially if Stefan really is so OMG awesome as people claim.

I like how you dont respond to everything someone says. You just pick and choose certain points that you can come up with half-baked arguments for.

I like how you put words in my mouth that I never said to attempt to make what I said stupid. It's like you're not fighting me at all but a paper representation of me held up by a straw dummy that you placed yourself. Also, where have I failed to respond to something that wasn't either irreverent to this argument or answered elsewhere already? If I did, it was oversight, not willful ignorance and I will be more than glad to point out the flaws in it.

If I happened to be using Lucia, and I happened to have an Occult Scroll handy, I would totally give her Astra. Wanna know why? Because it improves her chances of ORKOing. And she really needs it.

I would still rather have almost any other skill for Lucia, but... okay. Fair enough point. Lucia maybe could use Astra, though if I gave it to her I would also refuse to give her any unique weapons and maybe forges as well.

Astra improves ones likelihood to ORKO regardless of weapon. One could even argue that Astra can act as a way to save more expensive weapon uses (if that's a goal of yours).

Let's save uses of more expensive weapons by giving a unit a skill that outright rips through weapon uses! That's like saying you are making a place more fire-safe by loading it up with gasoline.

"at max level"! OMG! Stefan must start with a much lower activation rate! What? He starts with a 13% activation rate and has a 64% chance to get to a 14% activation rate after 2 level-ups. And because Stefan doubles everything in the game, Stefan actually has a 24-26% chance to activate Astra at least once each round. Hardly reliable, but it's a better activation rate than Gatrie might expect from Luna (with which Astra is quite comparable). (It also beats Brom and Devdan's Luna activation rate when they fail to double - often.) Sad as it may be, Astra is one of the better mastery skills - on par with Luna and Cancel, just below Sol.

The 'max level' thing is a old habit that arose a long time ago. You are right though in that it starts at 13%. Also, if Stefan is really so good shouldn't he be 2HKOing anyways? At least for a long while? Wouldn't that make Astra activating on the second hit pointless (since the foe would have died anyways) and having Astra activate then be little more than a weapon-waster? At least when it activates on the first hit you can kill the enemy before it attacks.

Also, Gatrie can get Luna's activation up to 24% (Brom 26, Devdan 21, and Nephenee if you gave it to her for some reason, 28) per hit and it doesn't waste weapon-uses, so I would say Luna is superior to Astra even when the unit doesn't double.

Remind me why we're choosing one or the other?

Because the killer weapons in the game cannot be replaced and throwing uses away on Astra is flat-out stupid. Even if Stefan manages to critical on that first strike, he will deal only 1.5 attacks worth of damage. If the enemy has even 1 HP more than that he has to waste a second use. A similar critical without Astra deals 3 attacks worth of damage. Stefan has to critical twice in a row with a KE and Astra to deal the same amount of damage he would have dealt normally with one critical.

But I don't see much point getting pissy about "Rate the Units" results. I also don't see the point in accepting bias points on the one hand and throwing out votes on the other hand. But I digress...

I'm not 'mad' at the result. I'm annoyed by it because I feel people were being Stefan fanboys when rating him and I'm now defending my claim as to why I feel he's not as good as the rating topic suggests.

Also while Stefan is pretty hot and has amazing combat, he has a time-consuming recruitment and no mount. He's basically as good as a mid-game joining Myrmidon can be; it's just that it's not that great.

Then you agree that a lot of the people who rated Stefan likely rated him highly out of fanboyism?

[ZemZem]

She also has better join time and better skills and, unless all you care about is the midgame, she will get close enough to Stefan for it to not matter before long.

Good luck training Mia in lance land. She could use some BEXP and some forges, but others like Marcia and Mist need it a lot more than she does.

[bottlegnomes]

I never said it made him worse. I said it should never be counted as a positive, especially if Stefan really is so OMG awesome as people claim.

Now that's just not true, Snowy. You straight up said Astra was a bad skill and it'd be better to have no skill or a "useless" mastery skill over it.

Except it's definitively NOT a good skill. I would rather have the 'useless' occults like Deadeye over Astra personally and it's the only occult that's actually worse than having no skill at all (ignoring capacity issues). That's why he got rated so high IMO. People saw a loner from the desert who joined with high base stats and could pull off a flashy move, not a unit who is only around for half the game and is only average for a half of that (if even that).

Now if it's worse than a useless skill, which has 0 benefit, doesn't that mean it has negative benefit? And if it has negative benefit, doesn't that make said unit worse?

Let's save uses of more expensive weapons by giving a unit a skill that outright rips through weapon uses! That's like saying you are making a place more fire-safe by loading it up with gasoline.

Because Astra increases overall offense, you can use weaker weapons for the same results as stronger weapons, thus saving weapon uses.

Because the killer weapons in the game cannot be replaced and throwing uses away on Astra is flat-out stupid. Even if Stefan manages to critical on that first strike, he will deal only 1.5 attacks worth of damage. If the enemy has even 1 HP more than that he has to waste a second use. A similar critical without Astra deals 3 attacks worth of damage. Stefan has to critical twice in a row with a KE and Astra to deal the same amount of damage he would have dealt normally with one critical.

Astra can also net you 7.5x damage. That's better than any skill in the game. Using killing weapons makes this more likely. Heck, SMs have over 50 crit with a KE, and assuming enemies have 0 luck, which IIRC they do, a SM is pretty likely to crit 3 of 5 attacks. That's 5.5x damage. Adept is losing to that in damage output, since chances are only one of the hits with crit, making it 4x damage. Even if only two of the hits crit, that's still 4.5x damage. So considering killing weapons aren't that[/b] useful in this game I'd say it's not a bad move with as much as it will increase your offense.

Edited May 22, 2012 by bottlegnomes

[aku chi]

I would still rather have almost any other skill for Lucia, but... okay. Fair enough point. Lucia maybe could use Astra, though if I gave it to her I would also refuse to give her any unique weapons and maybe forges as well.

That's your problem, I guess. I prefer to use valuable weapons as opposed to hoard them, but to each his/her own.

Let's save uses of more expensive weapons by giving a unit a skill that outright rips through weapon uses! That's like saying you are making a place more fire-safe by loading it up with gasoline.

Because Astra increases overall offense, you can use weaker weapons for the same results as stronger weapons, thus saving weapon uses.

Bingo. If Stefan has a high likelihood to ORKO with a Steel Sword (either with a crit or Astra), I could use that cheap weapon instead of a more valuable weapon. I'm not saying I'd do such a thing, but it might make sense for someone like you who likes to hoard valuable weapons.

Also, if Stefan is really so good shouldn't he be 2HKOing anyways? At least for a long while? Wouldn't that make Astra activating on the second hit pointless (since the foe would have died anyways) and having Astra activate then be little more than a weapon-waster? At least when it activates on the first hit you can kill the enemy before it attacks.

Like most units, there exist enemies Stefan can't 2HKO. Astra improves his chance to ORKO such foes. I wasn't even considering Astra's defensive applications, but that is an additional (albeit small) benefit.

Also, Gatrie can get Luna's activation up to 24% (Brom 26, Devdan 21, and Nephenee if you gave it to her for some reason, 28) per hit and it doesn't waste weapon-uses, so I would say Luna is superior to Astra even when the unit doesn't double.

You wouldn't give Nephenee or Tauroneo Luna, because, like Mia and Zihark, they already have skills more valuable than their masteries. That's why I didn't mention them. If Gatrie has, at best, a 24% chance to deal a little more damage per round, and Stefan has a 24-26% chance to deal more additional damage each round, Stefan is getting more benefit from Astra than Gatrie from Luna. However, Gatrie can double Generals (which he might need Luna to ORKO), so he does occasionally get more benefit than Stefan. And, as you like to remind everybody, Astra might expend an extra weapon use or two when it activates, so that is a minor downside. On the whole, Luna is probably more valuable on a trained Brom or Devdan (but not Gatrie, I'd argue) than Astra is on Stefan, but they're in the same ballpark.

Because the killer weapons in the game cannot be replaced and throwing uses away on Astra is flat-out stupid.

Why? Before taking into account the Hammerne (Vague Katti is a decent Hammerne candidate), there are 40 Killer Edge uses and 25 Vague Katti uses. Let's assume we aren't training a Myrmidon if we're using Stefan. In that case, Stefan is the best user of these weapons by far. So he's got ~60 uses all to himself. That's a lot of rounds of combat, even if Astra occasionally activates and costs us 1-2 additional weapon uses. If we use these weapons only when Stefan fails to 2HKO with other weapons, they can easily last us the whole game. So why is it stupid to use these weapons in conjunction with a skill that increases Stefan's likelihood to ORKO?

Then you agree that a lot of the people who rated Stefan likely rated him highly out of fanboyism?

Let me put it this way: I'm not at all surprised that Stefan, a cool Swordmaster with stylish green hair, would be rated more valuable than he is, and Makalov, an ugly pink-haired rascal, would be rated less valuable than is is. Are you?

[Lord Raven]

i thought this community had learned by now that arguing with snowy is about as productive as trying to cut wood with a shaving razor. you can try it all you want but you wont get anything done

i guess at this point telling the community to ignore people who are being idiots is almost as productive

Edited May 22, 2012 by Lord Raven

[OrangeCrush980]

What's with all the Rhys and Mist hate? I know this game is easy, but healing is still useful. Additionally, the prepromoted sages don't have staves and the mages will have to eat a valuable Master Seal to get staves in a decent amount of time.