why are jeigans in high tiers?

[Rewjeo]

Titania doesn't help you as much as Oscar when you ignore her existence and use Oscar? Shocking.

This is old news - a team which uses Titania will be stronger as a whole than a team that doesn't until very late in the game, at which point the difference between them is "I didn't use Titania, and now my units ORKO everything and never die" and "I used Titania, and now my units ORKO everything and never die."

[Baldrick]

If we have two units, A and B, and A is a unit with all-around above-average stats and is highly flexible, but cannot rescue, while unit B has below-average stats, isn't flexible, but can rescue and fly, B will likely be ranked MUCH higher on the tier list, possibly higher than A, simply because on one specific strategy he can shave off 2 turns from the turncount. If, for any reason at ALL, that strategy is not employed, A would be the 'better' unit by far.

Not only is that not inherently a bad thing (Fire Emblem is more complex than a numbers game, having units with utility that makes them better with a certain playstyle makes them more unique) it's not even true in a general sense. Mounted units don't tend to dominate unless they also have good stats or the enemies are pathetic.

If Titania's performance is matchable simply because one unpromoted unit took an early seal, that should tell you Titania probably isn't all that good. A Jiegan's performance shouldn't be threatened so easily if they're really top-tier material.

In that particular case, Kieran isn't there for the earlygame, which is the critical part to her contribution, and so doesn't threaten her at all.

Because the only real reason to have her kill bosses is because of the base EXP gain that they give. However, she gets minor (at best) EXP from killing normal guys and my other units can kill bosses and want that EXP just as much. Why should Titania have a claim to it? Especially since, if the tier list is valid, it shouldn't have to rely on Titania killing bosses constantly as there is no guarantee the average player will have her do that.

For one thing, if you're pressed for time, it's convenient to have the strongest unit ORKO the strongest enemy rather than try to contrive a boss kill for a weaker unit that gets less benefit relative to a mook kill from it.

Well, Oscar is now 1/3rd of a level closer to leveling up. If that 1/3rd was enough to push him over (far from unlikely), he is now much stronger. Titania only levels up every chapter or two, doesn't offer anything really 'new' in terms of chapter or boss clearing, and just shot 34 EXP down the drain so she could do that amazing amount of 'nothing'. Seems to me like using her is HORRIBLE for EXP gain. No new kills, team is not really stronger, and a lot was wasted to do so.

You're holding Titania to a double standard. You say she doesn't gain anything from levelling up, but she gains stats just like everyone else. If those bosskills are the difference between her being useless and her being decent at the endgame, and Oscar doesn't need those bosskills to have a good endgame, then it's only fair to give her those kills. Unless you're definitely benching her, in which case you shouldn't judge her on that basis. It'd be like judging an untrained Oscar at endgame, and concluding he's worse than he actually is.

[Florete]

Snowy, no offense, but I don't know how you can possibly have been around as long as you have and still say some of these things. I mean, despite being at odds with the so-called FEF group, even people from there like Smash don't take you seriously. Have you ever taken a step back and re-considered your position?

Plus it largely only saves turns when a certain strategy is employed to allow it to actually save turns (assuming turn-counts are viable methods).

Duh. We wouldn't consider it otherwise. Like, we don't consider the hair and eyes of the Avatar in tiering FE13 because it doesn't do anything. We consider Rescue because, yes, it can save turns. Really, any mechanic available in the game only 'can' save turns and only 'does' save turns when applied to that purpose.

If we have two units, A and B, and A is a unit with all-around above-average stats and is highly flexible, but cannot rescue, while unit B has below-average stats, isn't flexible, but can rescue and fly, B will likely be ranked MUCH higher on the tier list, possibly higher than A, simply because on one specific strategy he can shave off 2 turns from the turncount. If, for any reason at ALL, that strategy is not employed, A would be the 'better' unit by far.

This is dependent on other factors, but units that simply have great stats and not much else often rank very well. See Raven, Ike, Chrom, etc. Fliers get ranked high for both utility and combat ability; it helps that early fliers are often also good combatants, Marcia and Jill in FE9 being the poster girls for such a thing. It's uncommon for a unit that only has flight/rescue utility to be ranked well. Thany is just about the only one in that category, and she's not exactly ranked amazingly.

The problem isn't using 'turns' as a metric. It's using turns as the ONLY metric then striving to achieve a LTC using strategies that simply may NOT be used, even by people trying to complete the chapters as fast as possible. For example, several chapters can be cut a LOT shorter by having a flying-type unit rescue and then fly over a barrier, stopping in specific places to ensure no/reduced risk, and taking items to boost survivability. A player looking for an absolute LTC would adore this, but this won't work unless the player actually did the research to find out what the strategy actually is and is playing for it.

No one has ever acted like tier lists are strategy guides. Tier lists are basically our own word game of logic and critical thinking. They are not for the novice. It's how things work.

Even tiers for games like SSB assume a level of competency.

This is why I suggested removing rescuing from tier-debates. Because, by doing so, players now have to account for more than what their fliers and mounted units are doing as now Ike and the foot units have to progress and keeping the route clear for Ike is a much bigger concern.

This is an interesting idea that could get somewhere, but I think it just wouldn't get much attention.

If Titania's performance is matchable simply because one unpromoted unit took an early seal, that should tell you Titania probably isn't all that good. A Jiegan's performance shouldn't be threatened so easily if they're really top-tier material.

Grasping at straws.

No. I despise a tier list where this is the only option because any strategy where she isn't thrown at the enemy is immediately discarded, even though playing without Titania is both viable and something that *should* be accounted for. Who is best when Titania isn't suddenly blasting everything away? Is it Oscar because of his high movement? Boyd because of good STR? Ike for all-around stats? Soren for 2-range? Wait. We're not even allowed to talk about this because doing so means we're not playing by tier standards and using non-optimal strategies?

I don't see the problem. Yes, tier lists assume that the best character in the game is used often, nearly all the time. This makes sense in a setting where the goal is to beat the game fast. Don't you want the units that will clear it faster? A no-Titania setting just isn't very useful to tier lists, but see, that's all; you have a beef with tier lists for being tier lists. You're mad at something for the sake of being mad. No one is forcing you to always use Titania.

Because the only real reason to have her kill bosses is because of the base EXP gain that they give. However, she gets minor (at best) EXP from killing normal guys and my other units can kill bosses and want that EXP just as much. Why should Titania have a claim to it? Especially since, if the tier list is valid, it shouldn't have to rely on Titania killing bosses constantly as there is no guarantee the average player will have her do that.

Titania killing bosses has a greater long-term result than any other long- or short-term results you'd get from giving boss kills to others in early maps. Thus, this is most commonly assumed; not because we LOVE Titania, but because it's the best choice to make.

Tier lists do not typically rely on Jeigans taking all the early boss kills. Titania would keep her position even if we only gave her half.

I'd say you're playing into a tier standard that favors the one thing Titania is good at (early game turn reduction), unconditional acceptance that she will get boss kills, and refusal to consider that anyone will play without gushing all over her is an unfair sandbagging of Oscar.

"The one thing Titania is good at"? I don't understand you at all, Snowy. Did you see the part where Narga pointed out that giving them equal resources still results in Titania winning? That the only way Oscar can win is if he is overly favored? The only things Titania is not good at are gaining experience and things like healing that her class doesn't allow. Gaining experience has no inherent value in a rankless game. Titania is the best unit for the things that are the most valuable in a tier list. Oscar is not.

Seems to me that, by using Titania, I lost 34 experience at the least from one boss and one guy. That's a third of a level that could have been given to another unit that was sacrificed so Titania could be 'more efficient'. Not to mention that, in terms of 'efficient' Rhys, or anyone who can use a staff, gets basically infinite EXP (there is technically a limit, but if you hit that before 20/20, you're doing something REALLY wrong by any standard) at the cost of 0 guys, so Rhys, Mist, Soren, Ilyana, and Tormod are leagues more 'efficient' than Titania.

If Oscar had gotten that experience, Boyd, Ike, and Soren would not have.

If Boyd had gotten that experience, Oscar, Ike, and Soren would not have.

If Ike had gotten that experience, Oscar, Boyd, and Soren would not have.

If Soren had gotten that experience, Oscar, Ike, and Boyd would not have.

This has been said so many times in so many different ways I cannot fathom how you can still find yourself using such broken logic.

I'm not even going to talk about that healing thing. I mean wow, Snowy. Wow.

Well, Oscar is now 1/3rd of a level closer to leveling up. If that 1/3rd was enough to push him over (far from unlikely), he is now much stronger. Titania only levels up every chapter or two, doesn't offer anything really 'new' in terms of chapter or boss clearing, and just shot 34 EXP down the drain so she could do that amazing amount of 'nothing'. Seems to me like using her is HORRIBLE for EXP gain. No new kills, team is not really stronger, and a lot was wasted to do so.

1. Single level ups usually don't have a big impact on performance.

2. If Titania doesn't offer anything new in chapter or boss clearing, this suggests she doesn't even need it to stay good, which suggests she's always good, which...see where this is going or do I give you too much credit?

3. Exp gain is a means to an end, not the end. The exp Titania takes most often has no visible impact on the performance of the rest of the team, and using her makes the team stronger. What are you missing?

Why? Those bosses give huge chunks of EXP for unpromoted units as well. If I'm intending to use her seriously, unless she's the *only* unit from the early game I'm using barring Rhys or Mist, I'm going to shaft her on kills until later on when she's not sucking the EXP away so badly compared to the other unit who will be doing better and, now, getting less per kill than he was before.

You focus too much on exp gain. Consider this: if Titania started at 20/20 and had stats such that she would blow through the game without ever dying and killing everything in her path, would you still consider her "bad" because she "drains exp"?

Edited April 3, 2013 by Red Fox of Fire

[Narga_Rocks]

If I'm intending to use her seriously, unless she's the *only* unit from the early game I'm using barring Rhys or Mist, I'm going to shaft her on kills until later on when she's not sucking the EXP away so badly compared to the other unit who will be doing better and, now, getting less per kill than he was before.

I'm going to ignore the rest because I'm bored of arguing with a guy that can't get basic things even FEFers get. But I will argue with this. You are going to leave her untrainted for half the game and then finally let her get exp when it's too late and then you are going to say that she sucks? What.

Let's talk exp gains. If I let Oscar kill something, Ike loses 25 exp. If I let Titania kill something, Ike loses 25 exp. Drain what now? Jeigan's don't suck exp unless you have an exp rank. Sure, if the goal is to earn 10000 exp during the course of the game, or 20000 or 50000 or whatever, then any kill they take sucks away the exp from the exp rank. They then need to justify the loss by some greater gain to another rank. But exp rank doesn't exist in fe9 or in fe8. And with no exp rank, it's all about team building. Basically, is my team strong enough to meet the challenges imposed by this game. What can I do to improve my team as a whole? And yet no matter how many people tell you things like

"I didn't use Titania, and now my units ORKO everything and never die" and "I used Titania, and now my units ORKO everything and never die."

you still don't seem to accept this axiom. What do we need to do to prove something so obvious to you? Your team faces little detriment from letting Titania have at least half the early boss kills (though I argue she should have them all). Titania, a unit you have chosen to use on the team, gets a massive gain out of it. How is 8 units + untrained Titania a superior team to 8 units + trained Titania a logical conclusion? You think 34 exp each on 8 different units is going to compare to a trained 9th unit how?

[Rehab]

If Titania kills something, unless it's a boss, until the latter days of the playthrough she's only going to get a couple exp, where somebody else would get much more. They'd also use it to get themselves closer to a level where they'd need as much experience as she does to gain levels, which in the case of the more endowed PoR units would make them roughly her equivalents in power as well. Titania would use that exp much more slowly, and would require much more kills (resources) to equal that other unit in growth, at least for a long time.

Giving Titania bosskills is one thing, but I think it bears noting that the idea of "equal distribution of resources" being taken literally with regards to early prepromotes, then being conflated with "efficient distribution of resources," is missing the true status and point of those prepromotes: they don't need resources early on, and in fact they eat up regular kills while using them to advance far less efficiently than do unpromoteds. Once the other units have caught up to her such that kills earn all of them the same amount of experience, then it makes sense to me to give her more, and/or something closer to "equal" resources such that she can keep up with the rest (at least in Titania's case, given her growths are good enough to allow her to just about do just that), again from the standpoint of an "efficient" and/or "fair" distribution of resources. But until then she doesn't really need kills or BEXP to be as or more (overwhelmingly the latter early on, of course) effective as the next unit, least not if you're going for, again, a "fair" distribution of resources.

Unless your "efficient distribution of resources" is one that considers "efficiency in terms of "turn count," and aims to get the lowest turn count possible by trying to keep Titania as strong as can be from beginning to end. Which is also fine, of course. It just seems impolite to me to call that "fair," like it's pretending it isn't considering the units' only uses to be tools to that end and doesn't care how strong the army is as a whole, so long as one has the tools to achieve the lowest overall turn count possible.

Or unless you want Titania to be just as strong as the growth units once they catch up and roughly stay that way as long as they're both in use, but that still seems less than a "fair distribution" to me. I'd be leaning towards getting into semantics at that point, though.

Rehab what are you doing this has probably been discussed to death and/or known already

Edited April 3, 2013 by Rehab

[Samias]

I think part of what is missing from the Titania debate is that low turns (to a point) net more bexp, so there is no way any unit is going to fall behind if you decide you want to use them. So you can use Titania to make those early chapters, especially the early defend chapter where other units other than Gatrie have far inferior durability, and no one has the same level of offense. I don't do an extreme rescue style of gameplay in PoR but clearly mounts dominate, mages fall behind and need siege tomes to even contribute after turn one or two, and foot units usually end up killing nothing but stragglers. In my runs Titania is usually benched after chapter 17, but the service she does early game is huge and yet she is still netting exp for the team as a whole by keeping my turn counts under the amount needed to get maximum bexp. No other unit comes close to replicating her performance in at least the first 10 chapters due to her ideal mix of strength, speed and durability.

Like others have said, you can use Titania and have an invincible endgame team, or you can not use her and have an invincible endgame team. I have never had problems with giving Titania a hundred or so early game kills while benching her for the latter half of the game. Everyone else catches up anyway.

[Snowy_One]

Not only is that not inherently a bad thing (Fire Emblem is more complex than a numbers game, having units with utility that makes them better with a certain playstyle makes them more unique) it's not even true in a general sense. Mounted units don't tend to dominate unless they also have good stats or the enemies are pathetic.

Name one mounted unit in the American releases who isn't handicapped by an incredibly late joining time or outright horrific stats, that isn't ranked at LEAST 'above average'(mounted units with average or worse stats basically). The only ones I can even sort of think of from the games I've played are the FE8 great generals and that's because of their movement.

For one thing, if you're pressed for time, it's convenient to have the strongest unit ORKO the strongest enemy rather than try to contrive a boss kill for a weaker unit that gets less benefit relative to a mook kill from it.

I'm not pressed for time though. The only physical indication of a 'time limit' is the turn count built in to the game before I start losing BEXP which does not require Titania. The only other limitation are self-imposed ones enacted so your tier list could hold an arbitrary standard to define itself by. At least the earlier FE games had multiple standards to tier by. You've gone and blown up one (tactics I believe) to encompass the entirety of the game.

You're holding Titania to a double standard. You say she doesn't gain anything from levelling up, but she gains stats just like everyone else. If those bosskills are the difference between her being useless and her being decent at the endgame, and Oscar doesn't need those bosskills to have a good endgame, then it's only fair to give her those kills. Unless you're definitely benching her, in which case you shouldn't judge her on that basis. It'd be like judging an untrained Oscar at endgame, and concluding he's worse than he actually is.

If those boss-kills are the difference between her being useless and her being good, something is wrong because we had to throw her early-game boss-kills to help a prepromote be able to kill later on while Oscar, Boyd, and all the others were able to become competent fighters without such coddling and are, somehow, ranked worse than her. I'm not giving Titania a double standard. I'm giving all units the same standard. 'What can you do if we give you EXP'. Titania does nothing different for the early game regarding minion kills unless we give her buttloads of minion kills. Other units do. So it makes sense to not give Titania minion kills because they do nothing for her. If we give Titania boss kills and she gets ~40 EXP per kill, she ends up four levels higher. 1-2 more stats per catagory, maybe 3 if lucky. If we give them to other units, who get roughly 60 according to the numbers provided, we get 6 level ups. That means either six units got one level-up each or one to two units are now heavily dominating the early game due to being 3+ levels over the average unit... AND ARE STILL NOT WASTING EXP AS BADLY AS TITANIA WOULD IF SHE GOT THE KILLS!

In my eyes, even if we are going for 'turnshaving' it makes more sense to shaft Titania in favor of getting other units up and going sooner. However, doing that is something not confined to LTC counts as shafting Titania allows for more EXP (for people looking for high-level teams), more reliable early-game units (for those looking for reliability), is a bit more intuitive (even casual players should notice something is up when seeing her low EXP gains. Heaven forbid that they're actually aware of what a newbie crutch character is as the Jiegans will set off every alarm in the book), and, in general, just more likely to actually happen than having a player raise up Titania JUST for the sake of LTC.

Snowy, no offense, but I don't know how you can possibly have been around as long as you have and still say some of these things. I mean, despite being at odds with the so-called FEF group, even people from there like Smash don't take you seriously. Have you ever taken a step back and re-considered your position?

Because, ever since I came here, tier lists have been warped from ranking how good units actually are into ranking them according to LTC counts. I believe in tier lists being able to tell how good a unit is. Titania will always be 'better' than Rolf by almost any standard set forth short of personal preference (which holds little place in a tier list). However, I believe that, any tier list that confines itself to a standard which most players won't care about, has no actual impact on the game itself beyond a single number at the end (which isn't even a rating, just a total of game-turns), and requires strategies that could very easily not be used, is an inherently AWFUL tier list to use! Yet, every time it gets mentioned, tier players stick their ****ing heads in the ground, throw up fake arguments like 'if we don't use turns, what should we rate by, appearance?', and don't even TRY to find another method. When someone suggests a different method, it gets met with ridicule and mockery unless it gets counted entirely as 'personal'. FE tiering in its current state is simply so elitist, so exclusive, and so limited that it needs to die.

Duh. We wouldn't consider it otherwise. Like, we don't consider the hair and eyes of the Avatar in tiering FE13 because it doesn't do anything. We consider Rescue because, yes, it can save turns. Really, any mechanic available in the game only 'can' save turns and only 'does' save turns when applied to that purpose.

And this is the problem summarized nicely by you.

What happens when the player isn't playing for LTC? Your tierings go out the window. What happens when the player doesn't employ rescue for whatever reason? Your tierings go out the window. What happens when the player doesn't use Rescue like your strategies suggest? Your tierings go out the window. It's not that a tier list cannot be made for FE characters. It's that your tier list relies on so many minor factors to all come into alignment that it's basically irrelevant to anyone not playing for LTC by those strategies.

No one has ever acted like tier lists are strategy guides. Tier lists are basically our own word game of logic and critical thinking. They are not for the novice. It's how things work.

Even tiers for games like SSB assume a level of competency.

So now, because I disagree with LTC being used as the only standard for tiering as well as tier lists requiring specific strategies and being inflexible as a result, I am illogical, incapable of critical thought, and incompetent? And you wonder why I hate FE tier lists and everything and one associated with them.

This is an interesting idea that could get somewhere, but I think it just wouldn't get much attention.

Well it SHOULD. The whole point of a tier list is to try and develop an accurate metric of how good characters are and being able to incorporate multiple facets of play into them is key. You don't rank chess pieces based on how well they do when the Dutch Gambit is employed. You rank them on how well they do across multiple gambits as best you can.

Course, doing this would mean tier list players having to admit that they were wrong (mounted rescuing isn't the ONLY way to play/tier), can't worship the ground mounted units walk on as much, and would have to develop new strategies, so it's bound to fail.

Unrelated but sort of worth mentioning now: What would happen if, say, due to a site bug all the tier lists got wiped out tomorrow? How would units get re-tiered without the years of debate reference and possibly different debaters?

This has been said so many times in so many different ways I cannot fathom how you can still find yourself using such broken logic.

I'm not even going to talk about that healing thing. I mean wow, Snowy. Wow.

If Ike gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Soren gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Boyd gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Rolf gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. So long as I'm not planning on benching them, that's 20 EXP gained. If Titania gets the kill, I get 4 EXP. Now, do the match here. Which is a bigger number? 20 or 4? This isn't about unit denial. This is about Titania getting almost nothing for her kills. Any of those units kills 5 guys at 20 EXP? Level-up. Titania kills 5 guys? She has 20 EXP total now. For the price it takes to level Titania up once, I could have leveled up five different units, and the team is MUCH stronger on the whole with those five level-ups than Titania's 1.

1. Single level ups usually don't have a big impact on performance.

So why are we gushing over giving Titania boss kills so she can get just a few more levels? Oh wait. Because it's LTC and a few level-ups on Titania are OMGSOIMPORTANT.

2. If Titania doesn't offer anything new in chapter or boss clearing, this suggests she doesn't even need it to stay good, which suggests she's always good, which...see where this is going or do I give you too much credit?

It suggests she doesn't need it. Either Titania is draining resources for the return of a lower turn-count (which may or may not be worth it based on playstyle), or she simply doesn't need it and shouldn't be ignored.

3. Exp gain is a means to an end, not the end. The exp Titania takes most often has no visible impact on the performance of the rest of the team, and using her makes the team stronger. What are you missing?

Using the numbers listed earlier, Titania gets 20 EXP less than other units from boss kills. Even if we bench Titania entirely from anything but boss-kills, we're basically depriving the team of up to two levels simply so she can get some EXP. It's actually more, but I'm only comparing the difference in EXP gain, not the fact that Titania taking these kills not only means that the other units miss out on the 20 extra, but the 40 base.

Let's talk exp gains. If I let Oscar kill something, Ike loses 25 exp. If I let Titania kill something, Ike loses 25 exp. Drain what now? Jeigan's don't suck exp unless you have an exp rank. Sure, if the goal is to earn 10000 exp during the course of the game, or 20000 or 50000 or whatever, then any kill they take sucks away the exp from the exp rank. They then need to justify the loss by some greater gain to another rank. But exp rank doesn't exist in fe9 or in fe8. And with no exp rank, it's all about team building. Basically, is my team strong enough to meet the challenges imposed by this game. What can I do to improve my team as a whole? And yet no matter how many people tell you things like

Neither does a tactics rank, so why does LTC matter again and EXP gain not? Because you decided the standard for tiering should be a lower turn-count as opposed to most EXP gained? Did you even TRY other methods? No? Because you're convinced that LTC is the only way to tier FE characters?

If you want a LTC list, fine. Have an LTC list. But have the decency and respect to acknowledge that. Don't tell me your LTC list is the one and only way to play or rank the game. Because it's not and you haven't even TRIED to find other means or methods (and have derided what few attempts have been made to top it off). I've seen tier lists exist and survive without LTC as a standard. Were they flawed? Yes. Were they accurate? I doubt it. BUT THEY EXISTED AND SURVIVED! Heck, had they not died out due to poster apathy they might still be going to this day. That's not to mention that I'm sure other websites have made their own tier lists that don't use LTC as a standard. So don't give me your LTC list and claim that it's the only viable tier list and then stick your fingers in your ears and run around shouting 'lalala can't hear you' or ridiculing other peoples attempts to make such lists without putting any effort in yourself. That doesn't make you scientists or debaters. It makes you fanatics.

[Espinosa]

LTC isn't just an arbitrary criterion that accidentally became the standard for measuring units' worth. When you complete the game, you get a listing of your turns, which is expected to encourage competition, effort and discussion of the possible strategies involved in such a run. You know what you're saying right now? That when you spend your night partying outside, while others are playing arcade fighting games and seeing who gets the best time score, one stubborn person with an "unconventional" idea of open-mindedness wants to see how many hits he can dodge and block, spending time sandbagging instead of just moving on to the next fight.

Now, the FE games with ranks (most of them) do seem to have rather poorly designed ranks for them, but in FE9 in particular you've got no such thing to speak of.

[PKL]

Oh, Snowy...you're missing the part where Titania is the most efficient way of taking down bosses early on. Where Ike and your other scrubs are probably not doubling and doing meager damage to bosses, Titania ORKOs them.

[Redwall]

The low-turn-count directive is enforced because Fire Emblem is a trivially easy game without it; taking as many turns as you wish allows all characters to become viable. The chess analogy is laughable since chess is a balanced game featuring two capable competitors, allowing for different playstyles to be competitive, whereas in the absence of the LTC directive, the Fire Emblem AI can be exploited to make even characters like FE13 Donnel into champions.

Playing "briskly" as per the tier list is not the only way to play, but it is certainly one of the few well-defined ones that actually rewards thinking. A tier list based solely on, for example, maximizing cumulative EXP gain across the team doesn't reward thinking; all that needs to be done is to turtle, let the Jagen chip, and let your other units move in for the kill. Likewise, a tier list based solely on maximizing funds similarly doesn't reward thinking since you can have units like Marcus or Frederick go long stretches with Iron weapons. A tier list based on multiple criteria (e.g. FE7 ranked play) is certainly one that does reward thinking, but there simply isn't much interest in tiering, for example, FE13 when there aren't developer-defined benchmarks for the separate criteria. Thus, one justification for primarily favoring reliable-LTC play (beyond the fact that it rewards thinking) is simplicity; certainly, making up our own benchmarks for funds and EXP and making our own little challenge runs accordingly would be fun, but most people cba to make objective benchmarks for such a multifactorial [sic?] problem.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Redwall

[Refa]

If those boss-kills are the difference between her being useless and her being good, something is wrong because we had to throw her early-game boss-kills to help a prepromote be able to kill later on while Oscar, Boyd, and all the others were able to become competent fighters without such coddling and are, somehow, ranked worse than her.

If they're able to become competent fighters without early-game boss kills, then surely there is no problem in giving them to Titania, should you be using her?

I'm not giving Titania a double standard. I'm giving all units the same standard. 'What can you do if we give you EXP'. Titania does nothing different for the early game regarding minion kills unless we give her buttloads of minion kills. Other units do. So it makes sense to not give Titania minion kills because they do nothing for her.

Besides the first 2 chapters (and Chapter 4) where she ORKOes basically everything at base, she can quite easily be used to weaken enemies for your other units, not only giving her a small amount of EXP (1-6 usually), but helping your scrubs get to level. Also there are some spots in the later chapters where you're SOL if you don't use her, like Chapters 7 (taking the left to some extent, none of your other units can do that, especially the Knights unless you have a really blessed Bloyd) and Chapter 8 (choking a point).

Course, doing this would mean tier list players having to admit that they were wrong (mounted rescuing isn't the ONLY way to play/tier), can't worship the ground mounted units walk on as much, and would have to develop new strategies, so it's bound to fail.

Even if you don't abuse rescue, mounted units have way too many benefits over their unmounted counterparts. Their high move lets them reach enemies quicker. It is by the player's discretion to go slower of course, but you cannot deny the usefulness high move can have when trying to save a village, trying to save an ally from being killed, or just getting as much BEXP as possible. Mounts don't get two weapons in FE9 until promotion (another reason why Titania is so bro), but in other games this plays a pretty big role in their usefulness over their non mounted counterparts. Also canto might not seem like much, and honestly the non-FE9 versions weren't, at least for normal players, but FE9 Canto was just...so useful. Especially if said mount was choking a point but you'd like him/her to get a kill on player phase. To make up for all of these advantages, unmounted units either have to

1) Be just really badass (like Guy, Raven, Innes, Boyd, etc.)

2) Be in a game where there is dismounting. Not only does this usually limit the mount in an unexpected way (in FE3, they had to use lances which killed AS, since weapon weight is subtracted directly from the SPD and lances were, well, fucking heavy; in FE5, mounts all had to use swords on foot, regardless of their weapon while mounted), but it also gives foot units a chance to shine with the same advantages mounts had, minus the canto of course.

3) Have some sort of unique utility (be it staves, Longbow!Innes, dancing, thieving, etc.)

4) The mount in question just really sucks.

5) Be able to reclass to a mount.

6) Desert map.

7) I probably missed something.

So mounted units might not always be better than their unmounted counterparts (generally, I find a lot of them have worse stats), but their class advantages give significant reason to use them over unmounted units.

If Ike gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Soren gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Boyd gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Rolf gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. So long as I'm not planning on benching them, that's 20 EXP gained. If Titania gets the kill, I get 4 EXP. Now, do the match here. Which is a bigger number? 20 or 4? This isn't about unit denial. This is about Titania getting almost nothing for her kills. Any of those units kills 5 guys at 20 EXP? Level-up. Titania kills 5 guys? She has 20 EXP total now. For the price it takes to level Titania up once, I could have leveled up five different units, and the team is MUCH stronger on the whole with those five level-ups than Titania's 1.

But this isn't a disadvantage for Titania. Let's say I neglect to use Oscar. After a while, he starts to tink enemies, gets doubled, and is generally a total pain in the ass to use. That's because for each chapter, there's generally a certain amount of stats (I'd say levels, but blessing/screwage, you know how it is) each individual unit needs to be good. For example, Chapter 5. Let's say for the purposes of discussion that Oscar needs to be at level 8 to be useful in this map. My Level 4 Oscar is pretty useless, and unless I go into Nino leveling methods or give him a fuckton of BEXP to level up, there's no way he's catching up and I'm better off dropping him off for Kieran. On the other hand, as FE9 0% growths has proven, Titania's base stats hold true for the first uh...12 or so chapters. With a few STR and SPD (DEF and RES never hurt, of course) procs, she can stay viable for much longer.

So you get an awesome unit who can survive on her base stats for eh, 40% of the game and helps feed kills to your weaker units when they can't really fend for themselves. But there's one problem. The only way she can keep up after that great initial stretch is EXP. Her initial EXP game is horrendous (although it gets half-decent around say, Chapter 9), and feeding her BEXP later on is very costly. What is a Titania user to do?

So why are we gushing over giving Titania boss kills so she can get just a few more levels? Oh wait. Because it's LTC and a few level-ups on Titania are OMGSOIMPORTANT.

Because it's the cheapest way to give Titania EXP! Think about it, boss kills give Titania 40EXP for the others' 60. You might say that 20EXP is worth feeding it to the other units, and it is...if you're not using Titania. However, should you be deploying her long after the game stops forcing you to deploy everyone, then later on she'll need some help if you didn't get her the boss kills early on. She'll be quite a bit worse than your other promoted units, and really the only solutions would be to a) keep on deploying her even though she's a chump, b) drop her (the most reasonable one), or c) dole out an abhorent amount of bonus EXP (really the only way to keep her viable at that point). So say you're dropping like 200 bonus EXP to get Titania a level at that point. Since unpromoted units usually need around half as much BEXP to level, they're missing out on 100EXP. If you had given Titania the boss kills, for every 120EXP she gained, your unpromoted units would only be missing out on 60EXP, plus Titania's getting 20 more EXP to boot. Even if I don't agree with equal distribution of resources, it seems the best way to get Titania EXP and remain viable while making sure she doesn't gimp your unpromoted units is giving her the boss kills, and letting her weaken enemies on the side.

Using the numbers listed earlier, Titania gets 20 EXP less than other units from boss kills. Even if we bench Titania entirely from anything but boss-kills, we're basically depriving the team of up to two levels simply so she can get some EXP. It's actually more, but I'm only comparing the difference in EXP gain, not the fact that Titania taking these kills not only means that the other units miss out on the 20 extra, but the 40 base.

The reason the 20 extra EXP is relevant is because you "lose out" on it if you give the boss kill to Titania, but surely the 40 EXP is fair game for any unit you want to use?

[Hawkeye]

Snowy, I think one of the major problems here is that you're consistently dodging the question of what other metric would be better to use than turncounts. Obviously some of the games have rankings, but I find generally nobody really likes how the ranking system works and PoR doesn't have that anyway. Other metrics have been brought up (exp, funds, etc) but you have yet to make a claim that any of these are "better" than turncounts. I think this is because you realize that there is no superior metric, but if it's just an oversight on your part then we could actually get some interesting discussion going if there was another viable method. Of course as far as all of SF goes, this isn't strictly on you. Generally what I've seen is that the crowd who dislikes playing for turns (the majority of the population here I think) can either be neutral or hostile about the concept of playing for turns, but they have no better metric. It's "playing for turns is bad", not "playing for turns is worse than X". Also, I think you're trying to paint the people who play for turns in a negative light. I don't think I've ever seen anybody make the claim that playing for turns is the only way to play FE. Obviously, that is what people are going to be discussing in tier lists, because that is what tier lists are based on (again, I'm talking about playing for turns, not LTC, which I'm sure everyone can admit is a rather restricting way to play that ignores the majority of the cast of every FE game). Obviously, this thread is discussing that because the topic is about Jeigans in tier lists, and tier lists are based on efficiency/playing for turns. The thing about tier lists is that they are a way for people to compare characters as a group. In order for this to be possible, the group has to all have the same basic idea of what makes a unit good. If people want to make different tier lists based on different metrics, you will see different discussion. Tier lists aren't about playing the "right" way, they're about playing in a way where everyone can understand the basis of how unit performance is measured. I'm sure you can't deny that turncounts is a concrete way to measure performance in FE games. It is not the "right" way, because it's a video game and everyone can play it however they want, but it is a concrete method of measuring performance so everyone can understand and discuss it. At the end of the day, if you dislike tier lists, stay out of those discussions.

tl;dr: If you have a better metric to measure performance by than turncounts, please state it clearly.

[Florete]

'if we don't use turns, what should we rate by, appearance?'

We have tried to find other methods. Guess what? Nothing else works. Anything else will almost certainly have holes that trivialize everything or will just be a modified version of what we're already doing.

Why do you think drafts are turn-count based? It's the only way it works.

What happens when the player isn't playing for LTC? Your tierings go out the window. What happens when the player doesn't employ rescue for whatever reason? Your tierings go out the window. What happens when the player doesn't use Rescue like your strategies suggest? Your tierings go out the window. It's not that a tier list cannot be made for FE characters. It's that your tier list relies on so many minor factors to all come into alignment that it's basically irrelevant to anyone not playing for LTC by those strategies.

Who fucking cares? I don't give a damn how people play. Tier lists aren't supposed to reflect what people do when they're just doing what they want. They're supposed to reflect how a person would play when trying to beat the game in a reasonable amount of time with their available resources. Any tier list for any game isn't going to be relevant 100% of the time to any given player.

So now, because I disagree with LTC being used as the only standard for tiering as well as tier lists requiring specific strategies and being inflexible as a result, I am illogical, incapable of critical thought, and incompetent? And you wonder why I hate FE tier lists and everything and one associated with them.

I wasn't insulting you, but now I will: Are you literate?

Course, doing this would mean tier list players having to admit that they were wrong (mounted rescuing isn't the ONLY way to play/tier), can't worship the ground mounted units walk on as much, and would have to develop new strategies, so it's bound to fail.

We wouldn't need to "admit" anything, we'd simply be altering our tiering methods. No big deal, it's happened before.

And like, what's with this idea of yours that all we do is have mounted units rescue and drop things all day? Because we don't. It's more of just an advantage for units that can pull it off, but its use is often limited due to what is required to not have a rescuing unit absorb enemy hits. Non-Seize maps in particular usually won't see Rescuing outside of possibly the first turn.

Unrelated but sort of worth mentioning now: What would happen if, say, due to a site bug all the tier lists got wiped out tomorrow? How would units get re-tiered without the years of debate reference and possibly different debaters?

We'd re-post them to the best of our memory. What's the big deal? If anyone questions a position, we just answer it.

If Ike gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Soren gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Boyd gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. If Rolf gets the kill, I get 20 EXP. So long as I'm not planning on benching them, that's 20 EXP gained. If Titania gets the kill, I get 4 EXP. Now, do the match here. Which is a bigger number? 20 or 4? This isn't about unit denial. This is about Titania getting almost nothing for her kills. Any of those units kills 5 guys at 20 EXP? Level-up. Titania kills 5 guys? She has 20 EXP total now. For the price it takes to level Titania up once, I could have leveled up five different units, and the team is MUCH stronger on the whole with those five level-ups than Titania's 1.

You focus on raw exp too much. Tier lists don't care about that. Titania has the greatest ability to clear the maps fast, so she inevitably gets most of the kills. The only time where we'd see the lost exp for other units as a problem is if it made later maps significantly more difficult. If this happens (as is the case with some Jeigans, or with too much overuse), they Jeigan may actually be ranked lower, but this isn't the case for Titania, since there's BEXP and units can still get enough kills on their own to keep their levels up.

What is it about this you don't understand? I really cannot see what is missing.

So why are we gushing over giving Titania boss kills so she can get just a few more levels? Oh wait. Because it's LTC and a few level-ups on Titania are OMGSOIMPORTANT.

Because they are more important to her longterm use than anyone else's. If you want to use Titania for the whole game, you want to give her the boss kills since it is the best decision for the team as a whole.

It suggests she doesn't need it. Either Titania is draining resources for the return of a lower turn-count (which may or may not be worth it based on playstyle), or she simply doesn't need it and shouldn't be ignored.

How does this even get you to your conclusion that Titania is bad? If Titania can wreck the game early on but choose not to and still be viable later, that's better than units who need to be trained to be as good.

Or you're saying she should be ignored because she's too good but then when everyone catches up she's now bad and she's bad as a result and that is just retarded logic.

Using the numbers listed earlier, Titania gets 20 EXP less than other units from boss kills. Even if we bench Titania entirely from anything but boss-kills, we're basically depriving the team of up to two levels simply so she can get some EXP. It's actually more, but I'm only comparing the difference in EXP gain, not the fact that Titania taking these kills not only means that the other units miss out on the 20 extra, but the 40 base.

If other units get these kills, we're depriving Titania of levels. Why are we sandbagging Titania so much?

Neither does a tactics rank, so why does LTC matter again and EXP gain not? Because you decided the standard for tiering should be a lower turn-count as opposed to most EXP gained? Did you even TRY other methods? No? Because you're convinced that LTC is the only way to tier FE characters?

Tell me how a tier list based on exp gain would work. Really, I want to hear this. I think the idea would fall apart and not work at all, but you seem to have something going. Let's hear it.

And yes, as stated, we have tried other things. Or, people kept criticizing our standard as "not the only way," but no one could ever come up with a way to do it just as effectively, much less better.

I noticed you conveniently ignored my point about a 20/20 Titania. Snowy, get your head out of your ass and realize that raw exp gain means nothing. If you keep telling us our LTC tier lists are problematic because they don't take exp gain into account, we will never be able to take you seriously.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Red Fox of Fire

[Tamanoir]

Well, obviously, you can base only in turns. You have to open all the chests, recruit everyone, and not sacrifice anyone. (And for the desert map find every secret items). And obviously doing every gaiden chapter.

I think thatkilling everyone (ave reinforcement), could be counted as well.

LTC is only for veterans players who already finished the game a couple of time, I think.

Now, I don't know how good Titiana is, because I didn't played FE9, but you rarely use yor Jeigan, or even your Oyfaye to kill things.

The Jeigan's role is an utilitary role, and it's good/awesome as this, for a more or less important part of the game. he will weakens ennemy and boss to let the kill for someone who needs it best.

many, especially in recent game can be good all around.

Basically, Jeigans are high in tier lists because they are incredibly usefull, even more in higher difficulties. In the Archanea game, they can even gain utility by being turned into Wyvern Lord. They chips damage, act as meat shield(and by doing so, are Archers, and even Ests, bests friends), rescue-drop...

(Marcus in HHM is really obligatory, at least for his starting chapter)

Thre goal isn't to become beast of the battlefield, so let's not pretend that. They are good early/midgame, and at best ends good/decent endgame.

They can also be less of a gamble than others units who have far more chance to have bad levels (Sain was evoked sooner, who can easily be speed screwed).

So, in cases of Oyfayes, they are the safer choice. You can find this boring, and decide to choose a more interresting choice, but it's just a matter of opinion (which I share, incidentlly). In terms of pure gameplay perspective, they deserves a good ranks.

[Constable Reggie]

tl;dr: If you have a better metric to measure performance by than turncounts, please state it clearly.

He's tried to a few months ago, iirc, but it wasn't that great and he still hasn't thought of a better alternative.

[Snowy_One]

He's tried to a few months ago, iirc, but it wasn't that great and he still hasn't thought of a better alternative.

I'm going to get this out of the way now (may reply more later tonight depending on friends). Yes, I did propose a different tier list. Namely, a hybrid tier list in which units were ranked on three categories (stats/combat, utility/flexibility, and efficiency/speed) on a 1-10 scale for each with an 'average' score determining overall placement on the list. The idea was that, by doing this, four separate lists could exist simultaneously and independent of each other while still holding an overall unity. Units could be compared on multiple different aspects without it directly impacting the rankings on another list and multiple playstyles could be represented at once. Power and stats for people who didn't care about speed and only wanted a strong team, speed for those who simply wanted to clear maps fast, and utility/flexibility for those who wanted an adaptable/flexible team.

The list never got off the ground.

I started off by taking the current list and reviewing character going from Titania down to Tanith and stopping at Tanith as I did not want to write the entire list and didn't want to shove people out via a mass wall of text right off the bat. Spoilers for those who think I despise Titania, she still came in at 'the top' but was nowhere near as OMGWTF as she is in the LTC tiers. Instead she simply managed to score very highly in all three categories, but not dominate them (Kieran beat her in stats for example, but ).

Almost immediately people started complaining about my giving supports value and movement not being 'da best stat eva' and giving all three categories equal importance. No one tried to suggest any actual improvements or attempt to work with the list. After three pages of fruitless arguing with no one even bothering to try and instead decrying that the list, a list that had just been made, wasn't complete, and had not undergone debate yet as it had only just started, wasn't perfect. I gave up, convinced that the FE tier list debaters are close-minded morons who couldn't grasp the concept of a tier in any other terms than 'OMG LTC!' and haven't even bothered since since no tier standard I could possibly suggest that isn't LTC would be considered or get anything other than insulting and jeering remarks.

Have a look if you want: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=35963&st=0

[Constable Reggie]

Why'd you give up? We never said it was an awful idea, it was just extremely inconsistent and imbalanced, considering that supports aren't nearly as important as the other two categories (even you have to admit this).

No one was criticizing it because it wasn't ltc, but because it was simply not well thought out.

Also this:

Instead she simply managed to score very highly in all three categories, but not dominate them (Kieran beat her in stats for example, but ).

Why does this matter if she was still the top of your tier list? You're still admitting that she's the best unit in the game lol.

[Narga_Rocks]

Neither does a tactics rank, so why does LTC matter again and EXP gain not? Because you decided the standard for tiering should be a lower turn-count as opposed to most EXP gained? Did you even TRY other methods? No? Because you're convinced that LTC is the only way to tier FE characters?

If you want a LTC list, fine. Have an LTC list. But have the decency and respect to acknowledge that. Don't tell me your LTC list is the one and only way to play or rank the game. Because it's not and you haven't even TRIED to find other means or methods (and have derided what few attempts have been made to top it off). I've seen tier lists exist and survive without LTC as a standard. Were they flawed? Yes. Were they accurate? I doubt it. BUT THEY EXISTED AND SURVIVED! Heck, had they not died out due to poster apathy they might still be going to this day. That's not to mention that I'm sure other websites have made their own tier lists that don't use LTC as a standard. So don't give me your LTC list and claim that it's the only viable tier list and then stick your fingers in your ears and run around shouting 'lalala can't hear you' or ridiculing other peoples attempts to make such lists without putting any effort in yourself. That doesn't make you scientists or debaters. It makes you fanatics.

I'm going to give you a zero on reading comprehension, Snowy. Where did I mention tactics rank? I said, and I quote:

"with no exp rank, it's all about team building. Basically, is my team strong enough to meet the challenges imposed by this game. What can I do to improve my team as a whole?"

You even quoted this line, so you suck. But that aside, if you are using Titania why aren't you letting her grow? You say "oh, I'll not use her until she doesn't steal as much exp and then she sucks because she's behind". Well too bloody right she's behind. You didn't let her get any exp before, genius. If you use her during the early game and let her get reasonable amounts of exp, she'll be at least as good as Oscar later. If you don't let her get exp, she sucks. Guess what? If you don't let Oscar get exp, he sucks. Capiche?

[Hawkeye]

Yea I knew about that list but I wasn't really counting it because it was poorly thought out. Like Reggie said, the fact that everyone disagreed does not necessarily mean that everyone but you is close-minded In fact it's technically more likely that it's the other way around.

I should expand on that. The "utility/flexibility" section was strictly supports (and like, Reyson I think) and you were trying to claim that that was somehow worth being weighted equally with combat and efficiency (because you tiered the units overall based on their average of the 3 sections). That was strictly a bad idea and if a third of your tiering is practically useless then it's really not a very good list overall. This would not be an example of a metric that is better than turncounts for measuring unit performance.

Also

Why does this matter if she was still the top of your tier list? You're still admitting that she's the best unit in the game lol.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Hawkeye

[Florete]

Almost immediately people started complaining about my giving supports value and movement not being 'da best stat eva' and giving all three categories equal importance. No one tried to suggest any actual improvements or attempt to work with the list. After three pages of fruitless arguing with no one even bothering to try and instead decrying that the list, a list that had just been made, wasn't complete, and had not undergone debate yet as it had only just started, wasn't perfect. I gave up, convinced that the FE tier list debaters are close-minded morons who couldn't grasp the concept of a tier in any other terms than 'OMG LTC!' and haven't even bothered since since no tier standard I could possibly suggest that isn't LTC would be considered or get anything other than insulting and jeering remarks.

Have a look if you want: http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=35963&st=0

I never actually looked at that topic before, but I've just read the first page and this paragraph is completely untrue. You're the one who sounds like a "close-minded moron" here. You're pulling a Smash here: "People disagree with me so they must be trolls/morons/etc."

[Baldrick]

Name one mounted unit in the American releases who isn't handicapped by an incredibly late joining time or outright horrific stats, that isn't ranked at LEAST 'above average'(mounted units with average or worse stats basically). The only ones I can even sort of think of from the games I've played are the FE8 great generals and that's because of their movement.

FE10 Geoffrey (joins in first half of the game, amazing stats, below average in most rankings). Others will qualify depending on where you draw the line on the three categories. In any case, you've yet to say why considering a mount a big advantage in efficiency is bad.

I'm not pressed for time though. The only physical indication of a 'time limit' is the turn count built in to the game before I start losing BEXP which does not require Titania. The only other limitation are self-imposed ones enacted so your tier list could hold an arbitrary standard to define itself by. At least the earlier FE games had multiple standards to tier by. You've gone and blown up one (tactics I believe) to encompass the entirety of the game.

I'm sorry, based on the title, and the context in which we're discussing Titania's claim to early bosskills, I assumed that we are talking about efficiency in this topic. If you want to talk about other playstyles, make another thread.

Incidentally, like others have said, Titania kills those bosses easier. You usually have to carefully chip the boss's HP down to feed the kill to Oscar or whoever. This will usually cost turns.

If those boss-kills are the difference between her being useless and her being good, something is wrong because we had to throw her early-game boss-kills to help a prepromote be able to kill later on while Oscar, Boyd, and all the others were able to become competent fighters without such coddling and are, somehow, ranked worse than her.

We can make Titania competent without giving her boss kills, but it's the most efficient way. I find it hilarious that you consider giving Titania boss kills "coddling" when she gets them so much easier than the others.

I'm not giving Titania a double standard. I'm giving all units the same standard. 'What can you do if we give you EXP'.

But you're judging Titania based on her getting no EXP, because "other units get more EXP from the boss kill.

Titania does nothing different for the early game regarding minion kills unless we give her buttloads of minion kills. Other units do. So it makes sense to not give Titania minion kills because they do nothing for her. If we give Titania boss kills and she gets ~40 EXP per kill, she ends up four levels higher. 1-2 more stats per catagory, maybe 3 if lucky. If we give them to other units, who get roughly 60 according to the numbers provided, we get 6 level ups.

Wrong. If you'd actually do some research, you'd see Titania's growths are actually higher overall than Ike/Oscar/Boyd/Kieran etc. with 3.9 stats per level up compared to 3.65, 3.1, 3.2 and 3.1 respectively. Considering Titania has a significant stat lead, it's better to give those boss kills to her and she'll be a competent endgame combatant with less effort than if you trained up another unit. If the others aren't satisfied with mook kills, BEXP, and the later boss kills, then you're probably training too many people.

On another topic, Titania has the highest growths? Seriously? What the hell were they thinking?

That means either six units got one level-up each or one to two units are now heavily dominating the early game due to being 3+ levels over the average unit... AND ARE STILL NOT WASTING EXP AS BADLY AS TITANIA WOULD IF SHE GOT THE KILLS!

I find it hard to believe that they'll be able to "heavily dominate" with 3 extra levels, considering their growths. If Titania is better for those boss kills, which I think we can all agree she is, then it is not a waste of EXP. The end.

In my eyes, even if we are going for 'turnshaving' it makes more sense to shaft Titania in favor of getting other units up and going sooner. However, doing that is something not confined to LTC counts as shafting Titania allows for more EXP (for people looking for high-level teams), more reliable early-game units (for those looking for reliability), is a bit more intuitive (even casual players should notice something is up when seeing her low EXP gains. Heaven forbid that they're actually aware of what a newbie crutch character is as the Jiegans will set off every alarm in the book), and, in general, just more likely to actually happen than having a player raise up Titania JUST for the sake of LTC.

And that is why you don't give her any more mook kills than are necessary. However, boss kills are a different kettle of fish.

[Renall]

On another topic, Titania has the highest growths? Seriously? What the hell were they thinking?

Prepromotes having higher growths (in games not called Awakening anyway) makes a certain twisted sense. The idea is that Oscar has >20 levels to grow and Titania has <20, and Titania's bases will perhaps not be as high as one would expect a 20/1 Oscar's to be, so in order for that to even out a bit she needs higher growths. You can kinda see the same thing with Seth/Franz, where Seth beats him in growths just about everywhere but their 20/1 stats are roughly comparable except Franz kicks his ass in SPD (but Seth has more CON unless Franz goes GK).

There are, of course, a hilarious number of flaws with this from a design standpoint. It's much easier to stay on top than to climb to the top. Seth and Titania and Marcus don't sweat the small details, don't worry about building weapon ranks, don't need certain kills, and for the first half of the game or so often don't worry about stuff like "how much SPD I need to double" or "how much DEF I need to not get 2HKO'd." As these are the hard parts of the game, worrying about those things later is seriously no big deal (especially since you'll obviously have more stat boosters later in the game than early in it, FE5 notwithstanding). I mean look at Frederick in a FEA Lunatic+ situation. Even if he doesn't do anything after the first 5 or so chapters, he's basically going to rate highly because you basically can't beat those chapters without him carrying you. That early game utility is not easily replicated by anything that any unit can do later, so it's a unique positive that will always, always benefit the early prepromote (and in some cases, any prepromote).

There's also the obvious problem that IS seems to be balancing around the expectation that, on average, Franz will be somewhat better than Seth once he catches up with Seth (ignoring that Seth will presumably have gone further ahead in levels for now). But that means that Franz has the potential to be RNG screwed. Yes, he might also get blessed, but so might Seth. But Seth can't get screwed as badly as Franz potentially can. High bases are a thing that cannot be taken away from you no matter how dog-turd your growths. If your growths also happen to be great, that just means that the worst Seth is slightly worse than an average Franz.

If the goal is genuinely to make prepromotes fall off over time, their growths should probably be a lot worse than they are. Yet having said that, even Jagen and Arran are pretty damn useful thanks to awesome reclass options (in FE11/12) and ranks/bases, so maybe you can't really fix the problem. Prepromotes rock the 0% growth runs too, after all. As long as you aren't using them in dumb ways (like soloing whole maps), it's hard to argue they're ever going to be more detrimental as a pick than a unit that doesn't have all of their enormous advantages.

[Narga_Rocks]

If those boss-kills are the difference between her being useless and her being good, something is wrong because we had to throw her early-game boss-kills to help a prepromote be able to kill later on while Oscar, Boyd, and all the others were able to become competent fighters without such coddling and are, somehow, ranked worse than her. I'm not giving Titania a double standard. I'm giving all units the same standard. 'What can you do if we give you EXP'. Titania does nothing different for the early game regarding minion kills unless we give her buttloads of minion kills. Other units do. So it makes sense to not give Titania minion kills because they do nothing for her. If we give Titania boss kills and she gets ~40 EXP per kill, she ends up four levels higher. 1-2 more stats per catagory, maybe 3 if lucky. If we give them to other units, who get roughly 60 according to the numbers provided, we get 6 level ups. That means either six units got one level-up each or one to two units are now heavily dominating the early game due to being 3+ levels over the average unit... AND ARE STILL NOT WASTING EXP AS BADLY AS TITANIA WOULD IF SHE GOT THE KILLS!

So, I'll admit, I didn't bother to read any of your stuff that wasn't directed directly at me until now, and even some of your stuff at me that I never quoted I just skimmed. So, I finally read that you are suggesting she gets only 4 levels for the first, oh, 10 or 11 chapters?

Now, Interceptor doesn't seem to want to leave the FE Awakening board so he won't be here to talk about it, and this was like three and a half years ago and mostly about Mia, but there are a few tidbits about Titania in here that you might want to read. Check her levels and check the team levels and try to tell me that raising Titania hurt his team. Try it.

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=16443&view=findpost&p=627193

To give you some specific Titania related posts

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=16443&view=findpost&p=592058

Jump down to the part about a level 5 Titania in chapter 8 and what she does and then look at enemy stats and look at Titania's stats and try to tell me that it isn't a significant improvement over level 1 Titania. Also, that's 4 levels by the end of chapter 8 already. Not the 10 chapters it would take for 10 boss kills. Maybe 40 was less than she gets or maybe she just gets more from mook kills than you seem to think.

Now, there are some other posts floating around in cyberspace that I didn't catch in my link-post, I think maybe they were made afterwards somewhere else, but he talked about his levels everyone was at come chapter 16. He had a team of 8 to 10, they were all promoted, some like Mia were already at 20/3 or 20/4 I think, and Titania was probably the 20/10 that I gave her credit for way long ago in this topic when you didn't like a 20/10 titania versus a 20/1 Oscar.

edit: found one

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=16443&view=findpost&p=598901

Relevant data in chapter 18 start:

"Ike: 20/1 (duh)

Ilyana: 20/3, EX 19

Mia: 20/5, EX 38

Boyd: 20/4, EX 0

Kieran: 20/4, EX 42

Rhys: 10, EX 11

Titania: 20/11, EX 19

Oscar: 20/4, EX 68

Mist: 6, EX 2

Astrid: 20/5, EX 44

Everyone else is base level, or was lightly used and only levelled a little (like Soren). I have 1521 points of BEXP availible to me currently."

So, um, yeah. Okay, first thing I notice is that Titania v Oscar isn't quite as favourable as I made it appear earlier. 20/11 vs 20/4 instead of 20/10 vs 20/1. You can extrapolate 20/10 vs 20/3 based on the 19 and 68 additional experience. Knock off 100 exp for Titania and 150 for Oscar seems reasonable, and Oscar has 2 more levels than I gave him credit for. Even so, Titania was ahead of him for, oh, 17 chapters (more like 19 or 20 depending on how you count chapter 17) and it's only now, finally, where Oscar can start to say "I'm about even with Titania if you ignore how I can't use silver axe forges for a long time." Oh, and the main point here, training Titania did not hurt the training of everyone else.

Edited April 4, 2013 by Narga_Rocks

[Jimmy_Smith]

If the goal is genuinely to make prepromotes fall off over time, their growths should probably be a lot worse than they are. Yet having said that, even Jagen and Arran are pretty damn useful thanks to awesome reclass options (in FE11/12) and ranks/bases, so maybe you can't really fix the problem. Prepromotes rock the 0% growth runs too, after all. As long as you aren't using them in dumb ways (like soloing whole maps), it's hard to argue they're ever going to be more detrimental as a pick than a unit that doesn't have all of their enormous advantages.

Agree with this.

IS seem to try many variant Jeigan archetype to reach their original goal "last resolve to past early game", not "best answer to play THE game" they are now.

And it's seem they can't find the solution,yet.

My though?

Maybe make them has negative growth. or just make them leave you army after early game.

[Thor Odinson]

Honestly FE6 Marcus did a good job of just dropping off in combat use after a certain point, but you can still field him if he gets really blessed or just as someone to rescuedrop things. He just had bases that were high enough but not insanely high like his FE7 counterpart, and the assiest growths. He was still useful as fuck, but he's not completely gamebreaking.

I'm completely against the idea of Jeigans having negative growth or leaving your army unless there's a very good story reason for either. I think sometimes people are too engrossed in the archetype and forget that the Jeigan are characters with backstories and personality like every other character, and some of us actually like them as characters and would at least have a shot at using them all the way through whether or not sustained on boosters, natural growth(in cases like Titania and Seth) or RNG blessed enough to give those boosters to other people (my Marcus last run), or even just fielded as a rescuebot/reclassed staffbot/doublebot . Negative growth/leaving army just takes out that option. They definitely shouldn't be as gamebreaking as Seth and Titania unless the point was to have a solo game button, but they shouldn't be completely unviable either.

Edited April 5, 2013 by Thor Odinson