Nino

[irtikliwT]

Long time no see, twinky. Excuse me for being a nub (in my own forum =_=) but what is LC and HC?

Yar, Low Class and High Class as Musashi said. I'd like to consider it a better format than XX/XX/XX because everyone says all 20/XX or ??/XX or whatever for prepromotes which gives the impression they were ever a low class to begin with, but no-one uses it so it ends up more confusing anyway ._.

She doesn't really catch up until she promotes, though. And at best she's getting a level up every two or three turns because she can't take a hit on enemy phase until she learns how to evade...

I wasn't saying anything about her level, though.

I know you weren't saying anything about her level. That was the point >_> it's a key piece of information you left out on purpose that completely changes the situation. All other things being equal, if she started off as a level 5 Sage she would be trash of the highest calibre... worse than Karla.

The first level you really get to use her (assuming that you recruited Jaffar anyway) is that godawful narrow paths level where her taking a hit should never be an issue. You're forced to have her out there anyway, so if you're not using her to finish off enemies you're wasting resources (it may be that there never are any enemies that need finishing off, in which case it sucks to be her and you might as well forget about her unless you explicitly wanted to use her... in which case you should have taken in weaker characters >_>). So she should get some levels there.

She can probably take a hit on the enemy phase before she learns to evade; theoretically after she learns to evade she shouldn't be taking any hits on the enemy phase >_> the trick is that she only takes one hit that she can take on the enemy phase. This isn't hard to set up once she's gotten some hp, really.

[Lord Raven]

oh yeah, I forgot; Twilkitri I REALLY missed you over the past year, haha

Anyways, all I can see from that is that she's useful for experience rank because she's gaining levels relatively quickly.

[Iceland]

I love using Nino. She levels up quickly, and once you get her going she's pretty self-sufficient. I'm regularly able to get her to about level 7/20 by the time I get around to killing the second Reed Brother. She's a great unit to abuse for your ranking stat as said above, and IMO she's the best anima user in the end. Plus you can support her with Jaffar. >

[Kiba]

forget this girl, I used her once and it got too easy after that, therefor she will not be used until my other people get all rng screwed

[Iceland]

Thats a horrible reason for not using someone, Lambo. XD Though if you're going for a more difficult playthrough, avoiding Nino would help.

[Smashy B]

love her

[Tino]

Thats a horrible reason for not using someone, Lambo. XD Though if you're going for a more difficult playthrough, avoiding Nino would help.

It's the opposite, actually. Using Nino makes the game harder -_-

Talking about HHM, by the way.

[Iceland]

Anything will make HHM harder. XD Its a good challenge, though.

[Judge Judy]

It's the opposite, actually. Using Nino makes the game harder -_-

Talking about HHM, by the way.

Agreed. Using Nino is what makes the game harder. Its fairly difficult to level her up too from the short time you have her.

[Florete]

It's the opposite, actually. Using Nino makes the game harder -_-

Talking about HHM, by the way.

Also if you're trying to S rank it. The way I've done it, using Nino makes one chapter more difficult but all chapters after that easier.

[Junkhead]

From the 2 chapters I got her, I use her and sheh as good growths in mine.

[Iceland]

Agreed. Using Nino is what makes the game harder. Its fairly difficult to level her up too from the short time you have her.

As I've said already by the time I fight the second Reed brother I usually have Nino about 7/20. That still leaves several chapters where she's more than capable of holding her own. It may make those first three or so chapters you have her more difficult, but it truthfully does not take that much time to level her up. You do have to baby her at first, but in the end the results are worth it. If you don't feel like babying her for a bit, though, then you should probably just not bother with Nino at a.

[Tino]

Having to baby her is a strike against her anyway. Needing any kind of special treatment is a strike against the unit, unless such a treatment doesn't sacrifice any efficiency at all. Babying Nino for three chapters does reduce efficiency, since she isn't as omgwtfbbqpwnsome as some of you think.

[Florete]

Having to baby her is a strike against her anyway. Needing any kind of special treatment is a strike against the unit, unless such a treatment doesn't sacrifice any efficiency at all. Babying Nino for three chapters does reduce efficiency, since she isn't as omgwtfbbqpwnsome as some of you think.

I realize that babying is against her. And although I know she isn't seen an as anything good in the elitist view of things, she can save your experience rank from falling under, and she's statistically the best sage at equivalent levels. Yes, I know, "She'll never be at equivalent levels with the other sages." Well, that's why I get her to level 20 and promote her on Night of Farewells when I'm not ranked and keep her behind enemy lines taking mooch kills when I am ranked. Either way I can find a good use for her.

[Mekkah]

she can save your experience rank from falling under

Word. I just finished a 5-star HHM run, and I would say she is _needed_ to five star EXP in the end. Just look at the ridiculous requirements.

http://www.serenesforest.net/fe7/rank2.html

You may think you're fine when you start VoD with five stars, but then you have a requirement of 6150 EXP for five stars slapped in your face. I did it with a pretty normal team (units ranging between 4 promoted and 12 promoted) and was presented by 2 stars in the next battle preparations, and felt forced to redo it by using base level Rath and Nino, raised them both to ~15, and I still only had four stars in Value of Life.

And my team wasn't small either. Hector, Eliwood, Guy, Canas, Pent, Kent, Sain, Florina, Erk, Fiora, Heath, Geitz all promoted and raised, and then some. Lowen was 17/0, Oswin 14/0, Lucius 19/0, Nils 20/0 (prolly 18 back then), Matthew and Legault levelcapped, Raven 20/0, and Serra was like 15/0.

This is why EXP rank is ghey. Way to force me to play inefficiently.

EDIT: And then you have 3000 more EXP to fulfill in the final (total). And there's only ~22-23 enemies in Part 1, so even if you got 100 EXP for all of them, you'd still need 800 more. What with the Dragon not giving EXP at all and his minions being impossible to kill/reach in one turn without something like Bolting + Nils... Granted, the previous chapter helps a lot since it has zero requirements, but it also cuts in your tactics.

Edited December 3, 2008 by Mekkah

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

So in other words, Nino would just be trading tactics for exp ranks which won't do any good. Way the killed this argument Mekkah can you never be right for once :(. But even still, at least you can use Matt to do your EXP ranks instead no?

[Rodykitty]

For gaining extra EXP, maybe instead of trying to baby Nino, maybe bring a unit that's usable but still getting more EXP than other units?

[Florete]

So in other words, Nino would just be trading tactics for exp ranks which won't do any good. Way the killed this argument Mekkah can you never be right for once :(. But even still, at least you can use Matt to do your EXP ranks instead no?

Who said you had to sacrifice Tactics? Keeping Nino behind your front lines and feeding her kills doesn't have to slow you down. And Mekkah said he already had Matt at max level.

[Mekkah]

By levelcapped I mean 20/0, not 20/20. I would have to use my Fell Contract on him. That wouldn't be an amazingly bad idea (I was doing really well in funds anyway), but it wouldn't get me that much more EXP unless he got a lot of OHKO activations. I'd rather have done that earlier, like before VoD, so I could raise his Spd and have someone who could double Kishuna (I promoted Guy too late to do this and regretted it).

Yeah, it did take me 2 more turns to complete VoD that way, though that was more because of Rath than Nino, since Nino was in the group who went to the right with the Paladin/Warrior/Sage families, rather than north with Hector, Rath and co. in the direction of Nomad Troopers, Generals, Valkyries and Falcoknights. I gotta admit I forgot to give Hector Boots the second time around though.

But I didn't mind, because I was waaaay ahead of time in tactics. It took me like 11 turns instead if 9, and the requirement was 15, and I knew I could complete the final in time, so the only toll that was in the way as the zero requirement of VoL (which I would have skipped if it weren't for EXP rank).

[irtikliwT]

Having to baby her is a strike against her anyway. Needing any kind of special treatment is a strike against the unit, unless such a treatment doesn't sacrifice any efficiency at all. Babying Nino for three chapters does reduce efficiency, since she isn't as omgwtfbbqpwnsome as some of you think.

It's not exactly much of a stretch to see characters failing to kill enemies at this point. Using Nino or using any other character to finish them off are both equivalent in efficiency, in the time sense.

Of course this does presume the initial supposition. If your characters are slaughtering everything, then she's dropping it.

This is why EXP rank is ghey. Way to force me to play inefficiently.

I'm not entirely sure you understand.

Let's have a hypothetical chapter with 5 high-class level 10 enemies. Let's beat it first with a group of high-class level 19 units, and then with a group of high-class level 1 units. I can't be bothered going through all the rigmarole for EXP which relies on information I haven't filled in anyway, so let's say that the first group gets 10 exp per enemy and the second group gets 50 exp per enemy for simplicity's sake.

So group A gets 50 EXP for the chapter, and group B gets 250 exp for the chapter. Group A has consequently wasted 200 EXP compared to Group B; this was a horrifically inefficient use of the available experience.

I don't care if you complain about whether or not EXP rank should have been included until the cows come home, and personally I don't care much for it myself. But to say it promotes inefficiency is a flagrant falsehood. If it didn't exist, you'd just get a couple of characters you start off with up to high-class level 20 ASAP and ignore everyone else and trash the game, and get full strategy marks when you didn't actually use any. Horrifically inefficient.

[Mekkah]

Huh? EXP has no value on itself at all. If it weren't for the EXP rank existing, I would indeed only use a small force and just go through chapters quickly. That is easier and more efficient. If the 20/20 dudes get my rankings to 5 stars everywhere else, how am I being inefficient?

[Admiral "Bull" Halsey]

Who said you had to sacrifice Tactics? Keeping Nino behind your front lines and feeding her kills doesn't have to slow you down.

You obviously have no idea what I'm talking about and I was mostly directing my post towards Mekkah. <_< But I already gotten my answer anyways...

Edited December 4, 2008 by Namie Amuro

[irtikliwT]

Huh? EXP has no value on itself at all. If it weren't for the EXP rank existing, I would indeed only use a small force and just go through chapters quickly. That is easier and more efficient. If the 20/20 dudes get my rankings to 5 stars everywhere else, how am I being inefficient?

No value in and of itself aside from giving you levelups, and the opportunity to use promotion items, I assume you mean. Gold has less value in itself than EXP does.

You're being inefficient by wasting resources. This is the same for every rank. Except Combat which is failure.

Funds is wasting monetary resources by using more expensive weapons when you could have succeeded with less expensive, promoting more people when you could have succeeded with less, etc... also picking up less valuables when you could have picked up more, and so on on that line.

Tactics is wasting time resources by using more turns when you could have succeeded with less.

Survival is wasting manpower resources by spending lives when you could have spent less.

And EXP is wasting EXP resources by gaining less when you could have gained more.

Remember that a high rank is intended to mean that you beat the game in a way that's harder to do than for a lower rank. Explain to me how your ideal strategy is hard in this sense at all. You already said yourself that it's easier so I wonder how easy you'll find that to do...

[Mekkah]

We can leave off using promotion items, since Nino obviously isn't promoting at 10/0 in this context.

Gaining EXP is directly related to gaining levels, which is directly related to gaining stats. But what you're conveniently leaving off is that others have much higher stats to begin with. Putting it in abstract DBZ values, we have Nino with a powerlevel of 10, who gains 10 powerlevels for every level-up. However, I already have people running around with powerlevels of like 3000, and despite the fact that they may not even be gaining a whole powerlevel per level-up, they are being more efficient than Nino. They kill faster (tactics, lolcombat), survive better (survival), even have more mobility (except Oswin).

The EXP itself has no value, just like having a higher level in itself means little (as you've said yourself, if units joined at higher levels, the only advantage they have is being able to promote earlier, often offset by their lower EXP gains and their earlier capping).

A unit that gets me more money allows me to use more expensive weapons more often, allowing me to kill faster, regardless of the funds rank.

A unit that has higher Str and Spd allows me to kill enemies faster, which means I spend less time doing the same amount of killing, regardless of a tactics or combat rank (time taken matters imo - I can think of strategies that make trash units like Louise and Bartre complete the game with an S-rank, but it obviously takes less time to do it with Raven and Kent).

Remember that a high rank is intended to mean that you beat the game in a way that's harder to do than for a lower rank. Explain to me how your ideal strategy is hard in this sense at all. You already said yourself that it's easier so I wonder how easy you'll find that to do...

Just because it is making the game harder does not make it a good ideal to strive for. Imagine if there was a rank that counted the amount of times you killed enemies using a unit with purple hair. It makes the game harder, but it also makes you play less efficiently. You have to change your strategies to feed kills to Canas/Legault when it would have made much more sense for other ranks to do it with Eliwood or Oswin or whoever.

Not taking ranks into account, it is generally agreed upon that units who kill faster, have more movement and cost less are more efficient (better) than those who are worse at this. Gaining more EXP in itself helps you with none of these goals. It just has you improve faster, but if you're worse to begin with, it's not helping you in any way other than lowering the amount of catch-up you have to play.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Mekkah

[Father Wood]

I've never used her throughout a playthrough. She's not worth it, she's far too defenseless. It's better to bring another character. He/she will be the next attacker instead of someone who already moved.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Yourgranny