Regarding Amelia

[healthylunch]

What exactly is she so unpopular? I understand that many est archetype characters like her, such as Nino and Est herself, are flawed as they require spoon feeding and that they sap valuable exp that would be more wisely spent on other characters who deserve it more. Though in sacred stones you have access to the tower of valni and can thus (granted with a great deal of aid) grind her up to 10/20/20 without draining exp from the rest of your group. So once more, why is she considered such a bad unit?

[Refa]

Because it saps valuable time. You can easily get any Est to a high level through arena abuse, boss abuse, and probably several other types abuse I don't even know of, but general consensus is it's kind of a pain in the ass to do so.

[Jedi]

She is considered bad mostly by the Low Turn count crowd, she is fun to use in a normal run but those who play for turns see her as a hindrance. [which I see their point because I play both casually and occasionally LTC] because she is a trainee, who cannot kill anything at her base level, sure you can attempt to spoon feed her in a ltc play through but it may cost valuable turns. And the tower itself would cost turns training units in of course.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Jediwaki Kuno

[healthylunch]

Thanks, but is she only a problem for those attempting to keep a low turn count?

Edited November 15, 2012 by healthylunch

[Vicious Sal]

Thanks, but is she only a problem for those attempting to keep a low turn count?

Well that and she isn't an actual EST character even since her growths are kinda stellar. She has extra levels to make up for it, but the growths are kinda mediocre... Take a look at seth in comparison. =p

[arvilino]

So is she only a problem for those attempting to keep a low turn count?

She's at her worst when the player is attempting low turn count. But she's also considered bad because even at 10/20/20 she can barely even be considered better than say Seth who only needs 19 levels compared to her 57 and joins from the prologue.

Another factor is if you imagine even with grinding she's still a poor unit. Someone with base stats and higher defense specifically ,which is almost every none-trainee will be able to do stuff like clear the 1st floor of the Tower significantly faster than she can.

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

I once answered the tower argument like this:

Why would I spend my time training up unit like Amelia only to have unit like Seth when I could have just used Seth in the first place?

Should still work.

[healthylunch]

Ahhh alrighty, I think I see. So the amount of time you pour into grinding her is not worth the end result?

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

basically yes

[healthylunch]

Alrighty awesome :)

[Hawk King]

Low Turn Count (LTC) players dont like her because she is absolutely useless to them. LTC players play for a challange and using the Tower of Valni, or Skirmishes are seen as "cheating". Therefore Amelia (and Ewan) are completely useless to them. It doesn't help that the trainees have below average growths on top of their abysmal base stats.

For draft play, Amelia is actually pretty decent since they allow Amelia to get to 10/1 in the tower.

For casual play Amelia is fine.

[healthylunch]

Ahh ok, but umm (and forgive my noobiness) but what exactly is drafting? I've heard it mentioned a lot though I have absolutley no idea what it is...

Edited November 15, 2012 by healthylunch

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

Competition of sorts where players pick playable units from the game and play the game using those units. Lowest turn count wins. Amelia has her uses in drafts because Seth is banned and there is only so many Cavaliers

[Hawk King]

There is a sub-forum for drafts under the "General Fire Emblem" forum. The first topic by Mr. Sparkles (aka Integrity) will tell you everything there is to know about drafts.

[healthylunch]

:D ohhh sounds exciting, thanks I shall check it out now.

[Tables]

The main thing with drafts is you take turns 'drafting' characters, and once someone takes a character, nobody else can use them. So you can't just rely on the good characters (well, you can, but it's often not optimal), and need to use some of the weaker ones as well.

The main thing I'd say about the tower to train Amelia is, say you aren't using at least two Cavaliers. Lets say you train Amelia up a certain amount. How much could I train BOTH of my cavaliers in that time (or in that amount of Valni floors, perhaps)? Well, there's probably a point Amelia will catch up to the Cavs level wise, but it won't be until well after promotion, I expect (mainly because my Cavs will be getting most/all of the EXP on each floor, while Amelia has to pick up scraps), and at that point, having two strong units is going to be more useful than having one amazing unit.

So even the tower argument, basically, doesn't really work. The only way Amelia can win is if you just care about 20/20 stats, and she still barely wins on that.

[Might Gaine]

One thing, though - and a lot of LTC or even efficiency players don't take this into account (at least, not that I know of), and I understand why - is that Amelia as a Paladin will tend to be comparable with Seth, and getting Franze, Kyle, or even Forde to max Paladin will be more efficient than grinding Amelia is.

Given the effort to results ratio, I'll concede that compared to the others, Amelia isn't really worth it as a Paladin.

But if you instead make her a General, then she really shines as one awesome killing machine. For starters, her only competition in the General arena is Gilliam (for the main story, anyway) and while Gilliam will tend to have higher HP and DEF and sometimes STR, Amelia tends to have a lot more of everything else. Gilliam might be able to tank a few more hits, but Amelia will almost never get hit in the first place, and even if it isn't maxed out like Gilliam's as a General her DEF still tends to get pretty high. Thus, her vastly superior dodging ability - combined with her only slightly inferior HP and DEF - actually make her a much better tank than Gilliam. All that extra SPD also comes into play with offense - Gilliam might do a bit more damage per hit, but Amelia will reliably hit twice each battle, effectively doing more damage per turn overall.

In summation: Paladin Amelia = good unit but not time-efficient compared to everyone else.

General Amelia = nigh-immortal Goddess of Destruction.

[Ema Skye]

Going General is the equivalent of suicide when you're playing LTC.

4->5 move is absolutely terrible when it comes down to it. General Amelia is actually worse than General Gilliam in a low turn count setting because she'll never promote to General when she's a knight, because she'll never get any EXP when Seth, Franz and Vanessa are going crazy killing things on their horses.

Edited November 26, 2012 by Lucina

[Might Gaine]

Going General is the equivalent of suicide when you're playing LTC.

4->5 move is absolutely terrible when it comes down to it. General Amelia is actually worse than General Gilliam in a low turn count setting because she'll never promote to General when she's a knight, because she'll never get any EXP when Seth, Franz and Vanessa are going crazy killing things on their horses.

I know that. What I meant was that since Paladins are the top class in LTC and Amelia isn't time efficient for being made a Paladin, she's effectively a lost cause altogether in LTC.

The part about going General assumes casual play, or some other playstyle that isn't primarily dominated by high MOV.

Although come to think of it, the same still more or less holds true as a Great Knight in comparison to Gilliam and she can be made one from a Cavalier, although she THEN has competition from the mounties....

[Just call me AL]

Since when was 11 points of Health, and 9 points of Defense considered "slightly inferior"?

[Might Gaine]

Silly me, I keep forgetting that personal experience isn't worth crap here and that my game breaker Amelias are the exception instead of the rule.

I still believe that the dodging more than balances it out, though.

"thus her vastly superior dodging ability - even accounting for her lower HP and DEF - make her a better tank overall."

Better?

Edited November 26, 2012 by Might Gaine

[Just call me AL]

Silly me, I keep forgetting that personal experience isn't worth crap here and that my game breaker Amelias are the exception instead of the rule.

It's moments like this make me want to make a distinction between "being good" (as in being able to make PTs easier) and "turning out strong" (as in getting high stats at high levels).

I still believe that the dodging more than balances it out, though.

It's mainly 45-47 AVO vs. 79 AVO at the highest level possible, if you want to talk about that. Considering everything else, it's not much different. And then there's Creature Campaign, which literally gives infinite resources. Edited November 26, 2012 by Little Al

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

Since when did promoted Gilliam have issues doubling the sad excuses of enemies this game offers or just smack the bloody monster with Sacret Twin or just Brave Weapon it up?

Since when did promoted Gilliam have issues tanking as many hits as you could possibly ask for per enemy phase?

Since when was training Amelia ever worth it?

[Refa]

Since FE8RR.

[Integrity]

In summation: Paladin Amelia = good unit but not time-efficient compared to everyone else.

General Amelia = nigh-immortal Goddess of Destruction.

In summation: two points of STR and four points of DEF are the only difference between being "good" and being "incredible."

Seriously, what?