why are jeigans in high tiers?

[Chiki]

Aless can be recruited in all runs.

[Rehab]

Old Testament wrath (so long as he exists) it is, then

[Renall]

Subs run is like... Seliph/Ares/Oifey are stomping stuff, Leif and Finn can help out when they're here, everybody else hit the showers.

And I guess Linda's kinda cool. Shame about the whole no horse thing. But hey, there's Tristan and Dimna! ...Okay those guys are just kinda there. But they have horses, so at least they are "there."

Edited April 9, 2013 by Renall

[Life]

1) You were more than welcome to bring up the value of flight and staff utility and debate it out. I don't recall you doing that though.

2) Part of the whole reason it was divided up into three separate rankings was so that people who didn't care about one category could easily ignore it.

3) Even if people griped about how much supports were worth, they could never have scored more than 10 points. Efficiency could never score more than 10 points. Combat could never score more than 10 points. So, tell me, which number is larger? 10? 10? or 10?

1) I did and you refused to acknowlege my post. Which is pretty usual for you since you tend to ignore any and all empirical evidence brought against any claim you make.

2) Which is fine... except for the fact that your first two catagories are directly related to one another. In most cases, the better a unit's combat is, the more that unit contributes to efficiency. And vice versa. Obviously exceptions like Tauroneo and Reyson exist but this trend is pretty consistant across the board. Even a blind man would see this on a graph.

3) If supports are given that much weight, something is going wrong. Especially because they are in play for maybe 50% of the game and are pretty negligible for the most part with the exception of Earth affinity.

[Narga_Rocks]

Besides why does it matter if Titania gets nothing out of the kills? Whether a unit gets EXP or not, if you need them and only them to do something to reach a certain goal, you're going to have them do that something whether they're 20/20 and gaining 0 EXP per kill or 1/0 and gaining significantly more EXP. It's not wasting EXP if the unit is required to do something none of the other ones can in the same situation

Because given the choice between a 20/20 Titania and a 3/0 Oscar clear in 4 turns and a 20/20 Titania and a 5/0 Oscar in 6, I'd GLADLY take the latter. Higher levels = stronger team all around and having Titania leech kills for no gain is counter to that goal and the only thing I had to sacrifice for it was some turns which are meaningless and I'm still gonna get the full BEXP amount anyways.

I think you need to learn that not every single argument we make is about turns. Yes, a few arguments might not matter as much when you add 2 turns to every chapter. But not all of them. Even if you don't care about turns beyond meeting turn-related bexp goals, there are still things Titania can do because she's the only one. Think about chapters 5 and 8. You have a limited amount of turns to complete the maps and items to get. Titania kills the boss while your other units are busy and tada you have a useful item drop you wouldn't get without her.

Yes, if you can rout the map before it auto-ends and thus get every item without her then 20/20 Titania isn't necessary, but can you? arvilino said nothing about turns in the part you quoted. Seriously, stop adding words to our posts, it's annoying.

I even showed you a run where you just rout everything and try to meet bexp targets and he even trained our beloved Mia and Ilyana. He used Titania and the team wasn't hurt. All the units were just as able to defeat the enemies as if Titania wasn't used. You talk about having "higher levels = stronger team all around" and I'm asking you to think about the purpose of having a stronger team.

Let's say I have 10 units + titania. I want two healers whose levels don't matter so I want 8 combat units. I either use 7 + Titania or I use the 8. I can have 8 units with say 40 hp, 15 str, 15 skl, 18 spd, 15 def or I can have 7 units with 38 hp, 14 str, 14 skl, 17 spd, 14 def + a hypothetical Titania who was significantly stronger throughout the game and now only has 37 hp, 13 str, 13 skl, 16 spd, 13 def. So, you say "well I'll take the first option since it's stronger". But what is the purpose of strength? To beat the enemies. What if 38/14/14/17/14 is enough to break the game in half? What's the point of having a stronger team if it doesn't actually do anything? There's no head to head. You aren't trying to beat a player who grinded 30 units to 20/20. You are trying to beat weak enemies. If my team does 110% damage to enemies and never dies and yours does 130% damage to enemies and never dies, does it matter? 100% is dead, anything over is superfluous.

And that's not even considering the first 15 chapters of your team strength. If you aren't using Titania, she effectively doesn't exist in the earlier chapters. Your early-game team is WEAKER than my early game team. Do you only care about lategame team strength? Why don't you care about early game "stronger team all around". My early game team STOMPS yours because yours lacks Titania.

In summary, better enemy stomping early, equivalent enemy stomping later, stronger team all around. Only achievable by using Titania early game.

And just as a reminder, in Chapter 18 there was a 20/11 Titania and a 20/4 Oscar.

Titania	41 	16.5 	6.5 	19 	19 	15.5 	15 	11.5
Oscar 	40 	17 	7 	18 	18 	11 	17 	9

Oscar barely wins strength but barely loses skl and spd and wins physical durability. It's pretty close, so I could have given Titania better stats in my hypothetical. Whatever, I was being generous to your "titania sucks later" mentality.

What level do you think Oscar could be, without sacrificing the growth of your other 7+ units and without using more bexp than Int used, at the same point if you hadn't used Titania? 20/5? 20/6? If you say anything higher you are off your rocker.

Titania  41 	16.5 	6.5 	19 	19 	15.5 	15 	11.5
Oscar    41.1 	17.9 	7.4 	19 	18.9 	11.6 	17.7 	9.6

That's still pretty good, and that's a 20/6 Oscar. So, the Oscar without Titania compared to the Titania you get when you actually train her is actually only in Oscar's favour for strength. Okay, so does that mean Oscar wins? Well, perhaps against a few enemies, but aside from maybe a boss or a tiger I doubt there's very many. And oh yeah, Oscar's Ike and Kieran support don't give +mt. Titania could perhaps have Boyd and Mist if Oscar getting chained to Ike isn't an issue for you. With two Bs, that's a mt win for Titania, btw. And hey, now her def ties Oscars with the +3 from B water/light and B fire/light, so even if her avo is like 30 to 35 lower than Oscar's at least she's got 41 hp 18 def and 14.5 res.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Narga_Rocks

[shadykid]

Subs run is like... Seliph/Ares/Oifey are stomping stuff, Leif and Finn can help out when they're here, everybody else hit the showers.

And I guess Linda's kinda cool. Shame about the whole no horse thing. But hey, there's Tristan and Dimna! ...Okay those guys are just kinda there. But they have horses, so at least they are "there."

also Shanan, even if he has no mount

Let's say I have 10 units + titania. I want two healers whose levels don't matter so I want 8 combat units. I either use 7 + Titania or I use the 8. I can have 8 units with say 40 hp, 15 str, 15 skl, 18 spd, 15 def or I can have 7 units with 38 hp, 14 str, 14 skl, 17 spd, 14 def + a hypothetical Titania who was significantly stronger throughout the game and now only has 37 hp, 13 str, 13 skl, 16 spd, 13 def. So, you say "well I'll take the first option since it's stronger". But what is the purpose of strength? To beat the enemies. What if 38/14/14/17/14 is enough to break the game in half? What's the point of having a stronger team if it doesn't actually do anything? There's no head to head. You aren't trying to beat a player who grinded 30 units to 20/20. You are trying to beat weak enemies. If my team does 110% damage to enemies and never dies and yours does 130% damage to enemies and never dies, does it matter? 100% is dead, anything over is superfluous.

yeah but you see, people like Snowy only care about CAPPED STATS and OVERKILL

[BossOfGuns]

Is fredrick more amazing?

[Narga_Rocks]

More amazing than whom?

[Hawkeye]

In terms of his own combat and whatnot, I find Frederick is one of the worse Jeigans. Still super useful for the first few chapters but drops rather quickly. However, he provides a very nice pair up bonus so that extends his usefulness by quite a bit. Definitely no Seth or Titania, but still pretty good.

[Samias]

Frederick has really noticeable poor bases a bad speed base in a game where growths are high but enemy bases are pretty good. He can't even double the myrmidons from chapter 4 onwards if he hasn't gained any speed from base on hard mode, and 3 res and slow res growth means he has trouble with mages forever. He's still essential in Lunatic for having the highest bases of all your starting units, but his slow exp growth means that if you don't train any other units you're going to find your team lacking. That said, it's easy to NOT overuse Frederick because you can simply use him as a pair up buddy to facilitate training a unit who will take his place, at least on Hard mode where most units are easy to train. Notably, Sumia comes along with better speed and base defense that's decent for her level and join time, and pairing Frederick onto her will give her uber mobility, high durability, and more reliable KOs because Sumia can double everything.

Honestly, Frederick may be the best balanced Jeigan unit there ever has been, even in a game where him being overpowered like Seth wouldn't have really mattered. If you overuse him you can see him drop off, but he isn't complete garbage because he contributes a high amount of utility even when he stops being great at combat.

Edited April 11, 2013 by Samias

[Dark Sage]

Honestly, Frederick may be the best balanced Jeigan unit there ever has been, even in a game where him being overpowered like Seth wouldn't have really mattered. If you overuse him you can see him drop off, but he isn't complete garbage because he contributes a high amount of utility even when he stops being great at combat.

What about Arran? He can reclass to Sniper to shoot down wyverns or even serve as a throwaway staffbot if you so desire.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Frederick kinda depend on the difficulty

In normal, he is basically better than Seth, but this is FE13 Normal, the same mode where Chrom can solo the game with one use of vulnerary and a couple of Javelins

In hard, he is pretty much Marcus, including the ussual speed problem i guess? But again, this is the same mode where Chrom can solo the game, except this time Chrom need to use pair up

In Frederick Emblem, he is also Marcus, because he is completely neccesary in the early chapters, and might not be able to stand in the late game stages, but is still useful. The same can be said for Frederick Emblem+

He is pretty much the most ballanced Jeigan since Arran and Marcus, and in some ways FE1 Jeigan(because no other Jeigan is as good as FE1 Jeigan in late game)

[Hawkeye]

In normal, he is basically better than Seth

(because no other Jeigan is as good as FE1 Jeigan in late game)

Someone has not played enough FE8

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

I don't think Seth is as ridiculous as NM Frederick

This is the same mode that can be easilly soloed by Chrom with one usage of Vulnerary, and by one usage I mean 1/3 of it. Seriously, some of the boss is like 20HKOs or 25HKOs Chrom or something.

As for FE1 Jagen, its a joke because FE1 Jagen is the easiest of the Jagen character to have all of his stats capped

You're not supposed to take this one seriously

Edited April 12, 2013 by JSND

[Naglfar]

why the fuck is this thread still alive, do people like arguing with snowy that much?

[Snowy_One]

Um, duh? The tierlist playstyle needs to be well-defined, yes; the tiering contributors do realize that the tierlist playstyle is not mainstream, and that anyone who doesn't want to adopt the guidelines can play the game another way. Certainly, structuring tiers according to other criteria is possible, but also irrelevant for people who are interested in seriously challenging themselves in their playthroughs. To use the "most EXP gained" example: such a run sounds mind-numbingly boring, and I'm sure you'd agree that we play SRPGs with the intent of actually thinking, as opposed to walking our units around the map haphazardly looking for kills.

To me playing by LTC sounds mindnumbingly boring and stupid. You're caring about a number that holds possibly the least possible relevance to the game as the standard for which all units are to be judged by then using a limited number of strategies to achieve that number. Sounds horrifically dull.

Also, 'seriously challenge' yourself? The whole point of the tier list is to rank characters. So the only way you're 'seriously challenging yourself' is if you pick low-ranked characters. But at that point you might as well go all the way and make it a 0% growth run.

But no, it's a strength. Two characters were about to be switched on the list to precisely reflect their contributions to an efficient playthrough, with a definition of efficiency clearly stated. Whether Mia allows for more kills / less brainpower used / lifestyle improvements / whatever is not a question the SF tierlist seeks to answer.

And in my eyes, two characters were about to be switched because of a one turn contribution that held no impact on their power, complexity, or anything of the sort. It's a weakness, not a strength.

No one is claiming the tierlist playstyle to be representative of Fire Emblem players in general. It is intended to promote a playstyle that rewards careful planning and well-executed tactics. When people refer to the playstyle as "the only way", they mean that it's the only way for experienced players to challenge themselves. Due to the rather incompetent Fire Emblem AI, playing without severe restrictions is rather easy even on the highest difficulty settings (and generally not worthwhile to experienced players) in the absence of the LTC directive.

If you really want to challenge yourself, abandon the stupid LTC thing and go with 0% growths or something. You know, make it actually difficult. If a novice player could get his hands on a playbook for LTC and not get RNG screwed, he too could achieve a similar turncount despite knowing nothing about FE. That's all LTC is. Finding the fastest possible strategy, the characters that enable that strategy to work, and throwing everything else to the curb.

1) I did and you refused to acknowlege my post. Which is pretty usual for you since you tend to ignore any and all empirical evidence brought against any claim you make.

I don't. I just ignore claims irrelevant to the topic at hand. In this case, that Jeigans get horribly overrated due to a biased tiering system that holds no basis in reality except to a very select few players. In the prior case, because you were claiming that supports should hold no value in the category that they were meant to be in. Well, gee. In a category dedicated to supports, utility, and flexibility, I should ignore something that should be worth at LEAST one third of the total score? Wonder why I didn't even bother to respond?

2) Which is fine... except for the fact that your first two catagories are directly related to one another. In most cases, the better a unit's combat is, the more that unit contributes to efficiency. And vice versa. Obviously exceptions like Tauroneo and Reyson exist but this trend is pretty consistant across the board. Even a blind man would see this on a graph.

As I said in the topic. If someone could prove to me that movement affected combat in even the most minor of ways, as in 'actually had an effect on how well a unit fights', I would have factored it in to combat. Even if movement gave one point of crit evade, I would have at least considered it. It doesn't. People looking for the best combat units would do well to ignore efficiency.

Also, it may be a very poor idea to decide the entire list based on just the top few characters considered to be among the best in the game by most as they'll likely have high all-around scores.

3) If supports are given that much weight, something is going wrong. Especially because they are in play for maybe 50% of the game and are pretty negligible for the most part with the exception of Earth affinity.

Firstly, they are not around for 50% of the game. You can start building them ASAP and they have an effect right off the bat. Having two matching boosts can give as much as +1 attack, +1 defense, or +5/7.5/10 hit/avoid right off the bat at C-level. May not be gamebreaking, but not negligible either. Yes, if you make a horrible C pairing, like Ike and Titania, you won't see much in terms of bonuses for a long while and they'll be largely negligible for a, a while. The fact that you suck at such pairings shouldn't impact that though.

Secondly, 50% of the game, even if that was true, is still a LOT. This is basically a 30~ chapter game (assuming 17 is two chapters). And, hey, you know what? Plenty of units ranked well on the tier list have about or less than 15 chapters available to them. Reyson, Tanith, Muarim, Calill, Tormod, and Stefan. All ranked mid or higher. All joining during or after 15. So if a support should be discounted for affecting only half the game, these units should also be discounted for affecting half the game.

Lastly, yes, I know the goal in your tiering is LTC. That was not the goal in my tier list. So, no, 'but those are units who reduce turn count' doesn't work because the criteria were different.

I think you need to learn that not every single argument we make is about turns. Yes, a few arguments might not matter as much when you add 2 turns to every chapter. But not all of them. Even if you don't care about turns beyond meeting turn-related bexp goals, there are still things Titania can do because she's the only one. Think about chapters 5 and 8. You have a limited amount of turns to complete the maps and items to get. Titania kills the boss while your other units are busy and tada you have a useful item drop you wouldn't get without her.

Yes, if you can rout the map before it auto-ends and thus get every item without her then 20/20 Titania isn't necessary, but can you? arvilino said nothing about turns in the part you quoted. Seriously, stop adding words to our posts, it's annoying.

I will concede that this is something Titania can do that is, at the least far too complex/risky for other units.

Let's say I have 10 units + titania. I want two healers whose levels don't matter so I want 8 combat units. I either use 7 + Titania or I use the 8. I can have 8 units with say 40 hp, 15 str, 15 skl, 18 spd, 15 def or I can have 7 units with 38 hp, 14 str, 14 skl, 17 spd, 14 def + a hypothetical Titania who was significantly stronger throughout the game and now only has 37 hp, 13 str, 13 skl, 16 spd, 13 def. So, you say "well I'll take the first option since it's stronger". But what is the purpose of strength? To beat the enemies. What if 38/14/14/17/14 is enough to break the game in half? What's the point of having a stronger team if it doesn't actually do anything? There's no head to head. You aren't trying to beat a player who grinded 30 units to 20/20. You are trying to beat weak enemies. If my team does 110% damage to enemies and never dies and yours does 130% damage to enemies and never dies, does it matter? 100% is dead, anything over is superfluous.

I could use the same argument to counter LTC you know. Drafting aside, there is no benefit to clearing the chapter early. If you can clear the chapter in 4 turns and I can clear it in 6 turns, but the BEXP limit is 9 turns, what does it matter that you cleared it 2 turns faster than me? Except in those two turns I could have netted some extra kills and items (even vulneraries can be sold) to make the rest of the game that much less complex/difficult. What's the purpose of clearing chapters? To beat the game.

Oscar barely wins strength but barely loses skl and spd and wins physical durability. It's pretty close, so I could have given Titania better stats in my hypothetical. Whatever, I was being generous to your "titania sucks later" mentality.

What I see there is a Titania who got fed 10 levels and an Oscar that, despite netting more than double EXP per kill and getting much more out of BEXP, only got 21.

That's still pretty good, and that's a 20/6 Oscar. So, the Oscar without Titania compared to the Titania you get when you actually train her is actually only in Oscar's favour for strength. Okay, so does that mean Oscar wins? Well, perhaps against a few enemies, but aside from maybe a boss or a tiger I doubt there's very many. And oh yeah, Oscar's Ike and Kieran support don't give +mt. Titania could perhaps have Boyd and Mist if Oscar getting chained to Ike isn't an issue for you. With two Bs, that's a mt win for Titania, btw. And hey, now her def ties Oscars with the +3 from B water/light and B fire/light, so even if her avo is like 30 to 35 lower than Oscar's at least she's got 41 hp 18 def and 14.5 res.

I'd say Titania would be at least three levels lower if she wasn't favored. Also, 20/6-20/7, especially depending on seal usage.

[Integrity]

If you really want to challenge yourself, abandon the stupid LTC thing and go with 0% growths or something. You know, make it actually difficult. If a novice player could get his hands on a playbook for LTC and not get RNG screwed, he too could achieve a similar turncount despite knowing nothing about FE. That's all LTC is. Finding the fastest possible strategy, the characters that enable that strategy to work, and throwing everything else to the curb.

um

getting a strategy handbook for 0% growths - wouldn't that make the game, like, easier than getting a strategy handbook for LTC, given that you don't even run the risk of having units get screwed? I try to follow your points, but I'm entirely unsure where this comparison is even going.

[Chiki]

To me playing by LTC sounds mindnumbingly boring and stupid.

Personal opinion means about as much as crap. I think it's fun and worthwhile.

[arvilino]

As I said in the topic. If someone could prove to me that movement affected combat in even the most minor of ways, as in 'actually had an effect on how well a unit fights', I would have factored it in to combat. Even if movement gave one point of crit evade, I would have at least considered it. It doesn't. People looking for the best combat units would do well to ignore efficiency.

There's more advantages to Canto and higher movement than just LTC. It allows a unit to be used where a foot unit with the same statistics would die(e.g. attacking and retreating out of enemies attack range, rescuing and retreating), it allows them to clear up space for another unit to attack after attacking an enemy, allows them to get around an enemy so if an enemy(I don't know say a general or a Sniper) has 3 of your characters adjacent the mounted unit is more likely to reach the open spot than a foot unit. It also allows them to attack enemies starting from outside their attack range.

Also movement and canto contribute to utility don't they? They're such a big advantage that I actually think the removal of canto/re-move in FE13(and their absence in FE11 and FE12) was for the best

The very fact that movement allows combat or attacks where there couldn't have been one is always an advantage as is attacking from outside of an enemies attack range(especially if it prevents that enemy from getting an attack off) shows that it does affect combat performance. This is true for so many TBS SRPGs, it's even true for movement speed in RTS's as well.

Edited April 12, 2013 by arvilino

[Snowy_One]

um

getting a strategy handbook for 0% growths - wouldn't that make the game, like, easier than getting a strategy handbook for LTC, given that you don't even run the risk of having units get screwed? I try to follow your points, but I'm entirely unsure where this comparison is even going.

That claiming something is a 'challenge', then limiting it to a number of preset strategies, negates the entire point of the challenge.

[Integrity]

That claiming something is a 'challenge', then limiting it to a number of preset strategies, negates the entire point of the challenge.

If the "challenge" is LTC in general, I know I greatly enjoyed myself and had to think pretty well to cut turns off my FE4 clears. I was motivated by the fact that controlling FE4 sucks, but I really did enjoy watching my strategy morph until it steamrolled into a smashfest with every piece in its perfect place.

[Redwall]

To me playing by LTC sounds mindnumbingly boring and stupid. You're caring about a number that holds possibly the least possible relevance to the game as the standard for which all units are to be judged by then using a limited number of strategies to achieve that number. Sounds horrifically dull.

To me playing by LTC sounds amazingly fun and challenging. You're caring about a number that, due to the exploitable Fire Emblem AI, holds by far the most relevance to the game when determining relative character utility, then seeking any number of strategies to optimize that number. Sounds surprisingly fun.

Also, 'seriously challenge' yourself? The whole point of the tier list is to rank characters. So the only way you're 'seriously challenging yourself' is if you pick low-ranked characters. But at that point you might as well go all the way and make it a 0% growth run.

The whole point of the tier list playstyle is to play briskly (not necessarily absolute LTC); the whole point of the tier list is to rank characters according to how well they contribute towards this goal. If you're looking to optimize your turn counts subject to use of low-tier characters, it is a challenge; if you're looking to optimize your turn counts with high-tier characters, it's still a challenge since you'll be expected to yield lower turn counts.

Yet, in the absence of the brisk-play directive, the challenge drops a lot; due to a lack of turncount restrictions, people have beaten FE13 Lunatic with low-ranking characters like Swordmaster Gaius and without using higher-ranking ones. A challenge run without turncount restrictions that is limited to low-ranking characters is one that lends itself to exploitation; the brisk-play directive is what prevents you from turtling and turning scrubs into usable characters.

Funny you should mention 0% growth runs, seeing as people like dondon and Espinosa still find them easy enough in the absence of turncount restrictions to force themselves to (surprise) low-turn them.

And in my eyes, two characters were about to be switched because of a one turn contribution that held no impact on their power, complexity, or anything of the sort. It's a weakness, not a strength.

You might enjoy playing Fire Emblem as though it were Final Fantasy, but for those who don't, it's a strength, not a weakness.

If you really want to challenge yourself, abandon the stupid LTC thing and go with 0% growths or something. You know, make it actually difficult. If a novice player could get his hands on a playbook for LTC and not get RNG screwed, he too could achieve a similar turncount despite knowing nothing about FE. That's all LTC is. Finding the fastest possible strategy, the characters that enable that strategy to work, and throwing everything else to the curb.

In the absence of the brisk-play directive, stat-boosters, promotional items, and Jagens are dominant enough to make 0%-growth runs straightforward in any difficulty setting below Maniac or Lunatic, which is why people like dondon and Espinosa enforce LTC play on top of them.

That claiming something is a 'challenge', then limiting it to a number of preset strategies, negates the entire point of the challenge.

Only if you're looking at the answers. My daily Sudoku puzzle has exactly one solution, but that doesn't remove the challenge.

[Hawkeye]

To bring things back to the original topic a bit, Snowy, where would you place Titania in the current tier list, assuming no other units are being moved? I say Titania because FE9 is what we've been discussing the most, but feel free to use a different game. Also, just for fun, I decided to figure out what a tier list would look like if instead of using efficiency, we used a metric that is popular among people who passionately hate the "turn" part of a turn-based strategy game (growths).

S Tier:

Tibarn Naesala Giffca Muarim

A Tier : Lethe Ulki Nasir Janaff Shinon Mordecai Lucia Ena

B Tier : Bastian Titania Sothe Ranulf Elincia Ike Geoffrey Devdan

C Tier : Gatrie Reyson Tanith Rhys Stefan Boyd Largo

D Tier : Mia Marcia Mist Zihark Calill Tauroneo Oscar Rolf Kieran Nephenee Jill

E Tier : Soren Ilyana Volke Brom Astrid Makalov Tormod Haar

[bottlegnomes]

All right, Snowy, give me one reason why allowing you to beat the game faster (not literally one turn, but a fairly decent margin) shouldn't be taken into account on how good a unit is.

Also, I like how you completely ignored my comparison of Oscar and Titania.

Anyway, can you at least admit Titania is a very good unit? I don't even give a shit about Oscar vs Titania. I'm asking, can you admit Titania is, by a noticeable margin, better than someone like Zihark or Mia?

Seth. The most broken jeigan, possibly UNIT, in FE history. Even if you throw LTC out the window, the only way he's not the *best* is if you're doing extreme ruin training and even THEN he's only 'another paladin' at worst.

Since I'm curious, I'm going to compare Seth to Franz now.

Seth:

HP 30, Str 14, Skl 13, Spd 12, Luck 13, Def 11, Res 8

Growths:

HP 90, Str 50, Skl 45, Spd 45, Luck 25, Def 40, Res 30

Franz (20/1):

HP 37.2, Str 15.6, Skl 13.6, Spd 17.5, Luck 9.6, Def 12.75, Res 5.6

Growths:

HP 80, Str 40, Skl 40, Spd 50, Luck 40, Def 25, Res 20

Here's Oscar and Titania again:

Titania:

HP 33, Str 12, Mag 4, Skl 13, Spd 14, Luck 11, Def 11, Res 7

Growths:

HP 80, Str 45, Mag 25, Skl 60, Spd 50, Luck 45, Def 40, Res 45

Oscar:

HP 38.35, Str 15.65, Mag 6.4, Skl 16.5, Spd 16.65, Luck 10.1 Def 15.95, Res 8.1

Growths:

HP 55, Str 45, Mag 20, Skl 50, Spd 45, Luck 30, Def 35, Res 30

So Franz beats Seth by 7.2 HP while Oscar beats Titania by 5.35. Franz beats Seth by 1.6 str to Oscar's 3.65. Franz beats Seth's skill by 0.6 to Oscar's 3.5. Speed 5.5 to 2.65. Luck loses by 4 to Oscar's loss of 0.9. Def by 1.75 to Oscar's 4.95. Res loss of 2.4 to Oscar's win of 1.1.

As for growths, Titania beast Oscar by 25 health to Seth's win of 10. Tits and Oscar tie strength while Seth wins by 10. Titania wins skill by 10 to Seth's win of 5. Tits wins speed by 5 to Seth's loss by 5. Titania beats Oscar in luck by 15 to Seth's loss of 15. Titania wins def by 5 in comparison to Seth's win of 15. Res, Titania has 15 to Seth's 10.

So while Oscar beats Titania in terms of 20/1 stats more than Franz beats Seth, Franz still beats Seth fairly handily (noticeably beating Oscar in HP and SPD versus their respective Jagens). So why is it Seth is potentially the most broken unit in FE but Titania isn't worth using?

Edited April 12, 2013 by bottlegnomes

[Narga_Rocks]

I could use the same argument to counter LTC you know. Drafting aside, there is no benefit to clearing the chapter early. If you can clear the chapter in 4 turns and I can clear it in 6 turns, but the BEXP limit is 9 turns, what does it matter that you cleared it 2 turns faster than me? Except in those two turns I could have netted some extra kills and items (even vulneraries can be sold) to make the rest of the game that much less complex/difficult. What's the purpose of clearing chapters? To beat the game.

And what do I care about turns at the moment? Yes, I believe that going faster is a better measurement of who is good because if you dick around 50% longer than me you can make nearly everyone a superstar. Even Mist. Just units like Rolf and Shinon and the laguz have problems there, except the laguz with the demiband. Does that mean Titania is any less the best if you spend 9 turns in a 9 turn bexp chapter? No. The only time there is even an argument of if she is the best is actually when you go super super fast and Marcia starts taking over by chapter 11. Then you've got an argument. If you go slower? Ha. Titania still gets used because that means "stronger team early" and "equivalence later" means she's still the best overall. If you want a strong team, you want a strong team from start to finish, not just a slightly stronger team at the finish. And to do this, you need to raise Titania's stats. How do you do that? She just so happens to be the most efficient use of boss kills. Not turn efficiency, exp efficiency. If you are trying to raise everyone, including Titania, it's much better to give her boss kills than bexp and mook kills.

What I see there is a Titania who got fed 10 levels and an Oscar that, despite netting more than double EXP per kill and getting much more out of BEXP, only got 21.

What I see there is a guy who knows how to raise Titania to make the strongest team possible in each chapter. Did you even read any of his posts that I linked? Look at chapter 8. Titania is already level 5 and Oscar is level 10. Is it true that Titania got 4 levels to Oscar's 7 and that's a bit weird? Yes. Did it make Oscar any less useful in that chapter? No. Did Titania stomp it a little extra hard? Yes.

Face it, your anti-Titania sentiments only work if you don't care about team strength for the first 15 or so chapters. The sooner you admit this to yourself and us, the sooner we can end this argument. Just admit that you only care about later-game team strength and screw the first 15 chapters.

I'd say Titania would be at least three levels lower if she wasn't favored. Also, 20/6-20/7, especially depending on seal usage.

So I gave him 20/6. But why do you not want to give Titania boss kills? It makes her stronger from chapter to chapter before others have a chance of catching up even if you don't use her. It's efficient team building to move around exp to get the most out of each character. As long as both teams are capable of routing the chapter and getting all the items, what does it matter? Let's say that Titania was level 2 and Oscar was level 12, 13, or heck even 14. How do you perform in that chapter? Can you rout it like Interceptor can? More importantly, as reliably? If not, the Titania method is superior. If yes, then how do you determine which team is superior if both can perform the exact same?

This question is why turns should matter to you. The rest of my argument turns are irrelevant, but seriously? How do you know you are getting the most out of your team? How do you know that team A is a better team than team B? Because they clear the chapter faster. That's the easiest way to determine team strength. Can mine break the game better than yours. I am NOT saying LTC is the only way to judge this, because you can do what we could call "rout efficiency." The definition of "clear the chapter" is up to you, really, so "clear" can be to rout it. If team A can reliably rout in 7 turns but team B is incapable of routing in 7 turns at all and must do it in 8, how can you possibly deny that team A is a better structured and more powerful team? Yes, this might mean that a mount gets credit you seem to dislike, but if ignoring move they are for all intents and purposes equivalent (ie: both can kill all the enemies they need to clear their part of the chapter easily and safely) then why wouldn't the unit with more move be better?

Back to ignoring turns, let's find another way to judge team power. How do you judge team strength if both teams are capable of routing the chapter? How about strongest unit? Now, you might like average strength, but back to my 38/14/14/17/14 vs 40/15/15/18/15 example. Let's talk earlier in the game, not midgame to lategame. So go with 30/10/10/14/10 vs 28/9/9/13/9 and remember that the second option can do pretty much what the first option can do, too. So take a Titania with 35/12/12/16/12 and throw her on the second group. Remember that for most of early game the gap is bigger than this, but I'm being nice. So the average strength winner is the first team, because an average of 10 beats an average of 9.4 or 9.3 or whatever it would be depending on how many units have 28/9/9/13/9. Probably like 7 units with that strength and one Titania, making an average of 9.375 and similar things for the other numbers. But if the Titania team has a unit that can go into the most dangerous places and walk out the victor, and the rest of the team is just as capable of destroying the other areas of a map, shouldn't the Titania team be called the stronger team? They are more versatile. Instead of everyone being the same and turtling the more dangerous areas, they have Titania. This team is better.