How should we handle a long-term Lunatic tier list?

[Redwall]

How much Renown should we assume? When Red Fox brought it up, I suggested 330 (about one playthrough) as a base, with 10 Renown being awarded for each completed level thereafter.

Should we change the COD threshold to 5%, and should we assume that only Chrom and the Avatar are not allowed to die (thus permitting blood sacrifices)? This has the benefit of making more characters competitive (or so I would think): Nowi might go up, and I'd have a better reason for keeping Panne in a higher tier than "good Pair Up bonuses."

Edited June 5, 2013 by Redwall

[PKL]

Yeah, let's have Frederick, the best unit of Chapter 2 die. That's certainly a good way to clear it.

[Chiki]

One playthrough is good.

You don't need Frederick in Chapter 2. You can simply put the Avatar with Chrom on a mountain.

You guys don't even understand. All I am saying is that Frederick isn't required.

[PKL]

How fast was your water clear? How many turns would Fred save? Was it completely reliable? The rules in this tier list I think, say that no characters death assumed, anyway.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Peekayell

[Chiki]

I believe it was around 40 turns. But it doesn't really make a difference because Edward in FE10 does the same thing as Frederick does. This is where complexity comes in.

Is that in the rules? It seems a little ad hoc to me to say that character death is important, when it can have no effect at all on your playthrough. Why restart if Lissa dies when she does nothing at all for you?

[Da Bear]

Under the criteria I've adopted, I don't see any need to penalize Sumia for being Frederick's ferry/Spd-bot. Combat in its own right does not necessarily have anything to do with tier lists.

So Sumia should be S tier because she's a good speed bot. While 2 of our best mid-late game fighters should be B tier?

Please explain this logic.

[Titamon]

I believe it was around 40 turns. But it doesn't really make a difference because Edward in FE10 does the same thing as Frederick does. This is where complexity comes in.

Is that in the rules? It seems a little ad hoc to me to say that character death is important, when it can have no effect at all on your playthrough. Why restart if Lissa dies when she does nothing at all for you?

But Lissa heals, that's helpful.

[charlie_]

Is that in the rules?

You just made me use a smiley for the first time in a year.

I really don't see what you're trying to argue here. Fred would need to enter combat to die anyway, so he's still required in a sense.

[PKL]

Chiki- Conditional expectation value of turns saved, given no player deaths:

I personally think Sumia might be worse than Cordelia in this mode. Having used Cordelia succesfully in my Lunatic runs. While Sumia was a pain to raise because she's ohko'd by all the enemies in her join chapter even with pair up.

EDIT: Unless we consider sumia's pairup bot usefulness only, I guess.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Peekayell

[Chiki]

You just made me use a smiley for the first time in a year.

I really don't see what you're trying to argue here. Fred would need to enter combat to die anyway, so he's still required in a sense.

I don't think you understand what "required" is. You can have an unequipped Fred stay where he is. How is that required at all? Should Lissa go into the required tier too, just because she's in the chapter?

What I meant by "is that in the rules" is that it isn't clear to me if it matters when an unimportant character like Lissa dies.

You don't need Lissa for LTC. Period.

[Da Bear]

Chiki- Conditional expectation value of turns saved, given no player deaths:

I personally think Sumia might be worse than Cordelia in this mode. Having used Cordelia succesfully in my Lunatic runs. While Sumia was a pain to raise because she's ohko'd by all the enemies in her join chapter even with pair up.

EDIT: Unless we consider sumia's pairup bot usefulness only, I guess.

Which is why I want her down, actually I want Cordy down as well. Flying isn't anywhere near as good as it is in HM.

[PKL]

Bearclaw- Wrong. Flying is insanely useful in Lunatic too. It's just that usually theyre better off switching their partner in Lunatic. But flight ferrying is a huge boon still and this is a somewhat LTC-oriented-tier list.

[Da Bear]

Bearclaw- Wrong. Flying is insanely useful in Lunatic too. It's just that usually theyre better off switching their partner in Lunatic. But flight ferrying is a huge boon still and this is a somewhat LTC-oriented-tier list.

I don't see it. Ferrying is great but the ability to carry someone isn't as useful as the ability to take hits.

[PKL]

Not if the ferrying carries someone that can take hits and saves turns reliably.

[Da Bear]

Not if the ferrying carries someone that can take hits and saves turns reliably.

So we assume that our ferriers have people to ferry? Even then the person who they ferry is just as important as them at the least.

[-Cynthia-]

Since Prologue can apparently be cleared without Frederick, that might just mean the name of his tier needs to change from "Required" to something else. That is, if people believe that Frederick is truly a tier above Avatar.

Is Lon'qu so high because of Pair Up bonuses or because of his performance as a lead unit?

[Redwall]

I reiterate: how much Renown should we assume? When Red Fox brought it up, I suggested 330 (about one playthrough) as a base, with 10 Renown being awarded for each completed level thereafter.

Should we change the COD threshold to 5%, and should we assume that only Chrom and the Avatar are not allowed to die (thus permitting blood sacrifices)? This has the benefit of making more characters competitive (or so I would think): Nowi might go up, and I'd have a better reason for keeping Panne in a higher tier than "good Pair Up bonuses."

So Sumia should be S tier because she's a good speed bot. While 2 of our best mid-late game fighters should be B tier?

Please explain this logic.

You are free to provide evidence from your playthroughs to back this up. From my experience, I don't think Nosferatanks have much usefulness in cutting expected turns unless it's someone like the Avatar or Morgan, neither of whom need any babying.

Sumia is S tier because without her Spd-botting and more importantly, her flying (Spd-bots are replaceable), our turncounts will go up by a lot. I stuck with the Sumia and Fred combo until C13 in my playthrough, and they also made an appearance in P17.

Chiki- Conditional expectation value of turns saved, given no player deaths:

I personally think Sumia might be worse than Cordelia in this mode. Having used Cordelia succesfully in my Lunatic runs. While Sumia was a pain to raise because she's ohko'd by all the enemies in her join chapter even with pair up.

EDIT: Unless we consider sumia's pairup bot usefulness only, I guess.

Yes, I'm looking exclusively at Pair-botting for Sumia. Cordelia is useful for Rally Speed if you don't have Spectrum, and can use Rescue, but I don't think these alone put her above Sumia. Cordelia's offense can be a bit lacking depending on how quickly we go.

Even then the person who they ferry is just as important as them at the least.

Not necessarily the case if the person whom they ferry doesn't provide any unique contributions--if I have a million staff users (redundant) but only a single ferry for these staff users, the current set of criteria favors the ferry over each individual staff user.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Redwall

[XeKr]

I believe it was around 40 turns. But it doesn't really make a difference because Edward in FE10 does the same thing as Frederick does. This is where complexity comes in.

Is that in the rules? It seems a little ad hoc to me to say that character death is important, when it can have no effect at all on your playthrough. Why restart if Lissa dies when she does nothing at all for you?

We can reduce most chapters in FE history to trivial in complexity if we're taking 40 turns. Oh look, I can take 40 turns on 4-4 in FE10, luring 1 enemy at a time with Nailah. Or I can turtle in a corner in 4-3 and let the BK rout everything. That requires no thought at all. Obviously we should do it that way, no?

This is the whole point of trying to have fast, reliable clears. -_-

I see the main difference is, 1-P is pretty trivial with or without Edward. The 4-6 turn clear in Prologue with Frederick is not trivial. It requires precise positioning, along with contingencies depending on how the enemy randomly moves, plus random misses due to Avoid+10 and weapon triangle. Not to mention Frederick still saves numerous expected turns in other earlygame chapters as well (Chapter 1, 2, 3 clears are all significantly more efficient with Frederick, and other chapters as well. Probably everything up to 12 or so).

A side note, I don't actually like the term complexity, as defined, at all (see: dondon arguments in Tiering Philosophy). I just mentioned it to address the intuitive notion that not all turns are equal (who cares about Premonition?). Still, I don't see why the hundreds of turns Frederick saves early on is worth that much less than the few turns other characters save later on. If you feel that strongly about it, any further meta-complexity arguments can go in Tiering philosophy so I can ignore them. >_>

I agree with you about Lissa. In that if they don't actually do anything later wrt to expected turns, we can sac them. However, Lissa probably increases reliability and therefore improves expected turns, by healing. And has Rescue, Magic Cry, Speed Cry.

Re: Renown. Why is 330 the baseline? 0 makes more sense. Doesn't matter too much to me, however.

Re: Lon'qu. I don't know if I agree with that specific position but he has an invaluable speed Pair Up. He's one of the better earlygame fighters with high avoid against the early axefest. Can go Wyvern for Panne-lite later on.

Edited June 5, 2013 by XeKr

[PKL]

330 seems fine because most people dont do Lunatic as their first run. They will inevitably have more than 0 renown and theres no reason why we should assume the player wont use renown to his/her advantage.

[Chiki]

The 4-6 turn clear in Prologue with Frederick is not trivial.

To see if a unit is "required," we consider if a chapter can be cleared at all without that unit.

I made a mistake when I tried to measure the complexity of Prologue by saying that I can clear it in 5 turns with Frederick easily. That is not the way to measure the complexity of this chapter when Frederick is not around.

Let's consider Prologue without Frederick. You can have Avatar and Chrom go into the water and take your time killing the enemy until you kill the boss--by that time, your Avatar will be ridiculously overpowered and be able to take Chapter 1, 2, 3 and so on by herself. I think that, by definition, has "low" complexity. Anyone can go into the water, lure the enemy if necessary, then retreat and kill some more.

Onto the chance of death thing, because it seems like Frederick has to die for this clear to occur. Does it matter if unimportant units die? Is that included in the chance of death? In this context, Frederick's death is inconsequential because we are aiming for an LTC run without Frederick. Why is that included in the chance of death?

It seems a little logically unnecessary, or ad hoc, to claim that "well, unimportant units dying is important just because."

That is why I said "is that in the rules?"

Edited June 5, 2013 by Chiki

[XeKr]

330 seems fine because most people dont do Lunatic as their first run. They will inevitably have more than 0 renown and theres no reason why we should assume the player wont use renown to his/her advantage.

Eh, it makes sense. I was wondering why 330 in particular since people probably play a random number of child paralogues and skirmishes.

@Chiki: Is this seriously a semantics thing? >_>

[Da Bear]

330 seems fine because most people dont do Lunatic as their first run. They will inevitably have more than 0 renown and theres no reason why we should assume the player wont use renown to his/her advantage.

My first PT was Lunatic >_>

[Redwall]

Is Lon'qu so high because of Pair Up bonuses or because of his performance as a lead unit?

Re: Lon'qu. I don't know if I agree with that specific position but he has an invaluable speed Pair Up. He's one of the better earlygame fighters with high avoid against the early axefest. Can go Wyvern for Panne-lite later on.

I found Lon'qu pretty good early on as a lead unit: great in P1, solid in C6-7 and P2-3 thanks to his Killing Edge. I didn't use him much as a Pair Up since Panne gives comparable Spd while also providing Str, though I think he does that well too. At the end of the day, this list is obviously very WIP, so suggestions are welcomed.

Chiki: have you completed C2 w/o Fred? If so I'll probably change the name of his tier.

[Chiki]

Chiki: have you completed C2 w/o Fred? If so I'll probably change the name of his tier.

I did in my Lunatic solo playthrough, with an Avatar / Chrom pair up.

[-Cynthia-]

Actually looking at it, I wouldn't put anyone currently below Lon'qu above him I think.

Say'ri gives pretty good Pair Up bonuses, especially for someone like Tiki. I think her availability might give her an edge over Basilio/Flavia who only exist for like 3 chapters.

Vaike seems significantly more salvageable than Virion at the very least. Better bases, better growths, better class set etc.