Jill vs. Haar

[Chiki]

Since we were discussing this on another thread, and since this is a topic that I consider myself to be passionate in, I decided to go ahead and make a detailed argument on this issue. I hope that this thread will convince you at least a little that Jill is a better unit than Haar overall.

You're free to vote however you wish on the poll, under whatever criteria you prefer. Jill was widely considered to be a bad unit, or maybe a decent unit, by most people, and I think that opinion is wrong under these criteria. I am simply curious on how much people's opinions have changed.

For the purposes of this thread, I'm assuming an efficiency run without transfers. That is, I'm assuming as quick as possible play with reliability. I'm also assuming that a perfect player is playing the game. I'm also going to be using averages here for the sake of simplicity. I know that some people do not think averages are a good way to represent Jill's stats at the start of 3-6, but I do not think that it is unlikely or difficult for Jill to reach her necessary stats for 3-6.

Jill starts off in Chapter 1-6-1 with, let's be honest, pretty bad base stats. Fortunately, by the time this chapter comes up, you have 1 Seraph Robe, 1 Energy Drop and 1 Dracoshield to boost up her crappy stats--here I'm assuming that you take 5 turns in Chapter 1-4 to get that Seraph Robe as the 4 turn is extremely unreliable. It requires rigging a crit with Ilyana, so it's easy for Sothe to get the Seraph Robe on the fifth turn. Let's see what she has now, after using a Speedwing, Seraph Robe and an Energy Drop:

Level 14: 31 HP, 13 Str, 1 Mag, 12 Skl, 15 Spd, 14 Luk, 15 Def, 3 Res.

Those crappy base stats don't look so crappy anymore. With a forged Iron Axe, Jill has 26 might and 15 AS on 1-6-1, which means she can kill pegs at base, OHKO mages with one strength increase, ORKO fighters with one speed increase, and 2RKO armor knights. With some babying, she will be able to kill all of these enemies: since 1-6-1 is going to take around 4 turns without transfers--otherwise Sothe will get killed from not having enough def--she has plenty of time to get babied. She has plenty of durability thanks to these stat boosters so that's not an issue. In fact, she has comparable durability to base Sothe, who has one less def but 4 more HP than her. She can't go into the middle of enemies and slaughter them like transfers Sothe can, but it's definitely more than good enough to get some babying done.

A big mistake people make when using Jill is to promote her. Promoting Jill completely destroys the amount of levels she can gain, and she's far better equipped to train when she's unpromoted. You don't need to promote Jill to carry Tauroneo or reach a spot where she can drop Tauroneo so he can kill the boss on the enemy phase. It's just not needed. She can probably get around 3-4 levels on 1-6 as a whole. Finally, at the end of 1-6-2, you get Paragon. Don't give her any bexp yet! Save it all for 3-6.

Paragon makes it a lot easier for Jill to grow in 1-7 and 1-E. I presume that she can gain the levels needed to reach level 20 here--it's not needed to get to level 21 to promote because she can simply use a Master Seal instead--and I further presume that the perfect player has saved the 1-8 Seraph Robe and the 1-E Speedwing for Jill. Now that Jill has promoted and she has taken her stat boosters, she has the following stats at the start of 3-6:

Level 1 promoted (prior to bexping): 43 HP, 17.7 Str, 3.9 Mag, 15.7 Skl, 21.9 Spd, 17.6 Luk, 19.1 Def, 7.7 Res

Jill needs 22 speed in order to double tigers, and some extra HP and def wouldn't hurt either. Giving all your Part 1 bexp to Jill should guarantee that she reaches her speed benchmark at the very least. With some extra levels, she can even take 3 hits from tigers.

When discussing 3-6, I notice that people routinely ignore the following:

1. Discussing Jill's starting stats for this chapter is not very meaningful because they will be growing after the first turn.

2. Micaiah starts off with a C rank in staves so she can heal Jill if you keep Jill and Micaiah somewhat near each other. It's always smart to level up Micaiah in part 1 for this reason. Her 80% magic growth is fantastic for this purpose.

3. Jill generally does not need to kill anything on the player phase due to the nature of the map.

4. Jill can use a Brave Axe to ignore tiger offense on the player phase if she needs to.

5. Jill does not ever get gangbanged by more than 3-4 enemies per turn because of the nature of the map.

6. You can adjust Jill's position so that she does not get attacked by too many tigers.

Her durability is not really that important when there are so many factors which make it easier for Jill to survive. Physic exists. Positioning strategies exist. Fog exists. The Brave Axe exists. And so on. Why do we always ignore these factors and needlessly make Jill's performance in 3-6 look bad when it's not? All you need to ignore Jill's durability is to use the map and your units to your advantage.

And even if Jill's durability is an issue, once she starts to level up her durability will no longer be as great of an issue.

3-12 isn't really a big deal, so I won't bother mentioning it here. It's a very easy 3 turn which allows Jill to get a lot of experience with Paragon. What about 3-13? Funnily enough, if you keep Ike weak enough and have him equip a Bronze Sword, you can very reliably kill him. I was able to one round him on my LTC playthrough, and it's a lot easier to reliably two round him than it is to one round him. The issue with this, however, is that Jill requires the Boots for this two turn strategy.

I used the word "issue," but is it really? If you think about it, Jill is the best candidate for the Boots. Sure, Haar has better stats than Jill, but Jill saves a turn by 2 turning 3-12. Jill's inferior stats compared to Haar don't cost a turn, and giving Jill the Boots instead of Haar saves a turn, so giving Jill the Boots instead is automatically a smarter choice compared to giving it to Haar. Tauroneo can very unreliably kill Ike with Luna upon promotion, but not only is this unreliable, it's also idiotic to give Boots to a useless armored unit like Tauroneo. Nolan is another option, but why have a 9 move foot unit when you can have an 11 move flying unit? It's just much smarter to give Boots to Jill no matter which way you look at it. This argument will be covered in further detail in a bit.

Now, some people will argue the following: Giving Jill all of these Part 1 resources has a gigantic opportunity cost, because these stat boosters could have gone to someone else who could have shaved some turns with reliability as well. This argument has a major flaw, however, in that it's not really clear whether or not there is any other candidate for all of these Part 1 resources. Volug? He has to waste turns using Olivi Grass, so he's a pretty horrible unit that's not even worth using. Leonardo? Edward? Ilyana? All of these part 1 units are pretty crappy, with one exception: Nolan.

Nolan can actually do a lot of things that Jill can do in terms of combat--though he will be never as tank as Jill--but Nolan simply can't fly. This is a big deal in 3-6, because the lowest possible with him, as far as I hear from others, is 8 turns, whereas Jill can 7 turn this. This is also a big deal in 3-12, because giving Jill Boots as opposed to Nolan to 2 turn this chapter is a huge waste, since Nolan doesn't have flight. If you're using Nolan as your Jill substitute, you will never have a 11 move flier. You'll be stuck with a 9 move foot unit. Definitely not worth it.

So we can conclude that there is no other suitable candidate for all of these items. Jill is the best candidate for every single item. The optimal thing to do is to give Jill all of your resources.

Now let's consider Haar. A common misconception on Haar's usefulness is his performance in Part 2. Haar's Part 2 performance is pretty pathetic. In fact it's extremely overrated, because he's not necessary nor useful here. You can not use him and not have any reliability nor turns sacrificed as a result. 2-P is obvious, but is he really needed for 2-E? Doesn't seem likely. Elincia is the answer to this problem.

Elincia's might is pretty fantastic with Amiti. She has 34 might which means she can do 8 damage per hit on Ludveck, or 32 damage in total for one round. By using Leanne on turn 2, you can have Elincia two round kill Ludveck if you so choose. It's 100% reliable. A bigger issue is luring Ludveck, but this is easily accomplished with pieces of crap like Nealuchi who can fly and lure Ludveck or even Elincia herself. Haar just isn't needed here. I'm not even sure if luring Ludveck is necessary, because I believe you can have Elincia attack Ludveck and just canto back for Leanne to vigor her. So Haar's Part 2 performance is completely superfluous. What about Part 3?

Another common misconception on Haar's usefulness is how well he does in Part 3. He does do very well in Part 3, but he isn't really necessary in chapters not named 3-3 and 3-4. He's needed in 3-3 to fly around lighting supplies on fire, and he's needed in 3-4 to carry Ranulf and Ike up so they can arrive on those tiles. But he doesn't save any turns in Part 3 other than that. His performance can be replicated in other chapters by Titania, and he can be replaced in Reyson diamonds with units like Oscar, Ulki and Janaff. Why is a unit who can be replaced in so many chapters so overrated?

I've already argued against his Part 4 performance by saying that Jill has an advantage here thanks to her automatically getting the Boots. So let's see who wins in each part:

Part 1: Jill

Part 2: Neither

Part 3: Jill

Part 4: JIll

What do you think? Do you think Jill is better than Haar?

[Nobody]

IMO (I'm not an expert) Jill is better with transfers, Haar is better without them.

That said, Jill probably helps the DB more than Haar helps the GM, even without the transfers.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Nobody

[Jedi]

Jill's strengths can be replicated [she isn't even available where she'd be most useful the swamp] Haars can not

Haar is also banned in drafts whereas Jill is not. Herein lies my stance.

Also you mention 2-E, Elincia nearly gets shot down by every bow and crossbow in existence without extreme abuse, Haar doesn't have that weakness

Edited September 9, 2013 by Folgore Red II

[Quintessence]

Jill's strengths can be replicated [she isn't even available where she'd be most useful the swamp] Haars can not

Haar is also banned in drafts whereas Jill is not. Herein lies my stance

This pretty much.

Can somebody different than Haar replicate his contributions in chapters such as 3-2, 3-3, and 3-4? Perhaps Titania and Oscar ONLY in 3-2. But what about the rest?

Edward and others can do what Jill does in Part 1, Jill misses 1-8.

I'm speaking through draft experience though.

edit: and concerning Part 4, there are other options that can do what Jill does, but imo, Haar>Jill.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Quintessence

[Mr. Haar]

Part 1: Jill, obviously. She makes the endgame survivable.

Part 2: Haar is great for making 2-P easier and taking out Ludveck in 3-F if you want that shiny tomahawk.

Part 3: Jill is a godsend in 3-6, but Haar is there more of the time, although the GM's don't really need much help. He is quite necessary for lighting fires in the senator camp, though. Overall, I say Haar is the more useful one.

Part 4: They work so well together so it's hard to say. Jill is nearly untouchable but Haar's damage potential is startlingly high. In 4-F Haar can deal super damage to the final boss and can double easily so he is uber handy there.

So, overall, Haar wins

[Ciarre]

Now let's consider Haar. A common misconception on Haar's usefulness is his performance in Part 2. Haar's Part 2 performance is pretty pathetic. In fact it's extremely overrated, because he's not necessary nor useful here. You can not use him and not have any reliability nor turns sacrificed as a result. 2-P is obvious, but is he really needed for 2-E? Doesn't seem likely. Elincia is the answer to this problem.

Elincia's might is pretty fantastic with Amiti. She has 34 might which means she can do 8 damage per hit on Ludveck, or 32 damage in total for one round. By using Leanne on turn 2, you can have Elincia two round kill Ludveck if you so choose. It's 100% reliable. A bigger issue is luring Ludveck, but this is easily accomplished with pieces of crap like Nealuchi who can fly and lure Ludveck or even Elincia herself. Haar just isn't needed here. I'm not even sure if luring Ludveck is necessary, because I believe you can have Elincia attack Ludveck and just canto back for Leanne to vigor her. So Haar's Part 2 performance is completely superfluous.

Haar can do 2-E in one turn. Elincia can't unless you reset for stuns, which is NOT reliable in the least. There is literally not enough BEXP in HM for her to proc enough str to do that without stun. Not to mention, her bio is awful in 2-E so you'd have to reset a lot for that too. She can't even finish him off on turn 2 either with that if she fails to proc stun, because she's going to be killed by the guys that move after Ludveck.

Have you actually tried to do 2-E with Elincia only or are you just speaking theoretically? Because I know from experience that it's a hell a lot easier to just have Haar whack away at Ludveck with a hammer. There's no resetting for him either like there is with Elincia so she doesn't die. If you try to lure Ludveck with Neal, most likely he's going to die unless you use a laguz stone on him. There's also a turn lost there.

[Blademaster!]

Haar. Though my personal experience with Jill makes me think Aran is an even better unit than she is since he can at least hit stuff...

[BBM]

My personal experience with Jill involves her capping all her stats except LUK as a level 6 Dragonlord, with no statboosters or transfers. Not a great argument.

[Shadow Mir]

Haar. While Jill is overall a bigger asset to the Daeins than Haar is to the Mercs, she misses a map where she would've been very good, and 2 of her other part 1 maps saddle her with a movement penalty. And Haar is banhammered from drafts.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Levant Fortner

[Elieson]

Why aren't you comparing Jill!Resources to Haar!Resources?

Haar has an entire game style that he's banned from. Jill, not so.

In a perfectly played game, does Jill!Every booster ever provide such a significantly superior character over Haar!speedwings?

Edited September 9, 2013 by Elieson

[Quintessence]

Why aren't you comparing Jill!Resources to Haar!Resources?

Because Haar needs pretty much no resources besides BEXP

[Tables]

I have a question: How do you 2 turn 3-2 without Haar?

[Elieson]

I imagine that Haar!Speedwing replicates Jill!Everything, reliably. Quint is that so?

[PKL]

I have a question: How do you 2 turn 3-2 without Haar?

Titania with Shinon with a Steel Bow forge + Adept. It's less reliable.

[Chiki]

Titania with Shinon with a Steel Bow forge + Adept. It's less reliable.

No, it's the only way. Haar needs 47 might and 24 speed to ORKO the boss. Not happening.

[PKL]

Haar can drop Shinon more reliably

[Chiki]

How do you drop someone reliably? You either drop someone or you don't. There's no probability involved.

If you're worried about enemies in the way, then you need to find more important things to be worried about. They're easy to kill.

And Titania can get Celerity to maneuver around enemies anyway, or Pass if Celerity isn't needed to drop Shinon near the boss.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Haar. He's a great unit, in my opinion. One of the best flyers in the game.

[Redwall]

I've never played RD and don't plan to so I have to ask: what are the bare minimum defensive parameters for doing 3-6 with Jill? XeKr's calculations assume that 42-Atk Tigers are negligible, and the probability calculations he made are also not quite exact (though they're probably close) since he didn't use a multinomial distribution.

[Chiki]

I've never played RD and don't plan to so I have to ask: what are the bare minimum defensive parameters for doing 3-6 with Jill? XeKr's calculations assume that 42-Atk Tigers are negligible, and the probability calculations he made are also not quite exact (though they're probably close) since he didn't use a multinomial distribution.

There isn't any. The map is flexible with how you can position Jill.

I think it's good for Jill to be able to take at least a couple hits from tigers.

[General Banzai]

For the purposes of this thread, I'm assuming an efficiency run without transfers. That is, I'm assuming as quick as possible play with reliability. I'm also assuming that a perfect player is playing the game.

I think 99% of the people in this thread don't gauge the best unit by these criterion. I certainly don't.

Since your poll question merely asks "who is the better unit," not "who is the better unit by such and such criterion," the answer is obviously Haar.

[Redwall]

There isn't any. The map is flexible with how you can position Jill.

I think it's good for Jill to be able to take at least a couple hits from tigers.

That just tells me there is a durability threshold you haven't bothered to determine, albeit possibly (since you haven't done the math on all the possibilities) a somewhat lenient one. OK then.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Redwall

[XeKr]

Unit A with all the resources vs. Unit B with nothing is pretty much the classic tiering argument.

From all the recent discussion, I really want to replay FE10. However until then, intuition currently says to me Jill w/ every relevant transfer > Haar > Jill as well.

I feel the draft point is a good one (disclaimer: I have little firsthand knowledge about the details). If Jill could reliably cut more turns than Haar, I don’t think she would remain draftable while Haar is banned. Moreover, Jill is never considered free, unlike a bunch of other characters in various chapters.

I've never played RD and don't plan to so I have to ask: what are the bare minimum defensive parameters for doing 3-6 with Jill? XeKr's calculations assume that 42-Atk Tigers are negligible, and the probability calculations he made are also not quite exact (though they're probably close) since he didn't use a multinomial distribution.

The bexp system (always 3 stat levels if using bexp) and minimum stat up system (no 0 stat levels) means it’s exceedingly complex to obtain truly precise numbers anyway. The fact that the stat levels are mostly independent is enough for me.

Tbh I don’t see a clean application of multinomials here. Care to clarify?

Moreover, I remember nothing from freshman statistics besides a little Bayesian silliness.

It’s certainly good for Jill that she can barely avoid the 3hko threshold from 39 atk, and someone like Nolan with equal resources (better durability with Tarvos) can’t reach the 4hko mark. However, if including 32 and 41 atk tigers and 29 atk Cats, I imagine the durability advantage is not something to be glossed over. Among other points, I'm also still skeptical about her allegedly huge advantage in 3-12 and part 4 as well.

Edited September 9, 2013 by XeKr

[Chiki]

My Jill needed to take 4 cat hits and 1 tiger hit on turn 1, but this durability threshold can be adjusted by positioning Jill. I said "there isn't any" because it's pretty damn low thanks to all the tricks you can do.

Jill can fly over the mountain or hill or whatever in 3-12, and as you point out, she has a durability advantage.

Have you seen my clears of 4-P and 4-3? Can Nolan pull those off? He can't fly over the river in 4-P and he can't fly over the sand in 4-3.

[XeKr]

Hmm...at a glance, I think Nolan is borderline on doubling or OHKOs (with Tarvos) on Tigers anyway. Brave Axe means less Def. Pretty massive 3-6 win then. For 3-12, flight is super important and durability is probably in Jill's favor without Tarvos (the Hp difference is massive though). I might go and see how much 1-2 range is needed.

Part 4, I was referring to vs. Haar.

Edited September 9, 2013 by XeKr