Who is the worst unit in FE:A ?

[-Cynthia-]

The extra +Str from Vaike can be pretty useful in the earlygame chapters (allows Fred to OHKO Archers with the Silver Lance for instance). I guess if you're not playing efficiently than you'd rather Frederick not kill things, but if you are playing efficiently then Frederick pairing up with Sumia (or Chrom) is better since he can ORKO stuff and get ferried around. Sumia isn't a very good frontline unit in Lunatic anyway.

[Irysa]

eh, efficiency is kinda wonky in this game because you can save a lot of turns on later maps by just spending a little longer on earlier ones to get good units going and then roflstomping afterwards. veteran amplifies that massively, but chrom likes getting exp too.

I'm not aware of anyone who has like tried to do a full efficiency playthrough without grinding of lunatic FE13 aside from XeKr's abandoned hiatus run and he felt the same way about it.

also sumia isn't really that bad frontline considering how many myrmidons and mages that she can deal with easily are in earlygame and then can just spam tomes to negate her lower str as a dark flier whilst hitting res. her survivability is kind of bad unless you're using a lot of units though.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Irysa

[Ownagepuffs]

A few things. Fred is not supposed to be taking kills and Sumia is a good front line due to her combination of high base speed + availability. Seraph robe makes all the hurt go away.

[Czar_Yoshi]

I think Ricken should get a slight shout out for like, helping out with letting other units have a capability to move around decently via pair up on Chapter 8 and 9 because of the desert. I mean yeah I didn't use his combat at all there, but even just having a single turn of being able to move actually good units up farther faster is helpful!

Since there's a giant road of normal terrain that goes right from the starting area to the Boss, his desert utility is mostly being an errand boy to clear out villages for me.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[-Cynthia-]

It's pretty easy to have Frederick take kills while still training Avatar+ one other early combatant. Most midgame + lategame chapters are Kill Boss and don't need a large team of effective combat units and you get Morgan/Lucina and maybe Tiki as combatants later anyway.

Earlygame is also full of axes and Sumia is 2HKOd by like everything forever with no self-healing or +avoid skills.

[eclipse]

OwnagePuffs, you're the BEST~!

Lon'qu has better sword rank and a sweet weapon, to boot. Gaius has extra movement, and even though Cynthia won't be particularly impressive, Sumia's other options consist of Frederick, Henry, or male Avatar. I like pairing female Avatar to Chrom, for super-godly Lucina and a Morgan who starts as a Tactician (so I don't have to pass/reclass for Veteran).

Either way, none of the units mentioned above are close to the worst unit in the game (unless we're talking about candy puns).

[Czar_Yoshi]

I'm not aware of anyone who has like tried to do a full efficiency playthrough without grinding of lunatic FE13 aside from XeKr's abandoned hiatus run and he felt the same way about it.

Lunatic is not for efficiency.

There's some leeway to be squeezed out of careful unit positioning, but it all goes toward lowering the amount of RNG present. Trying to put it toward saving turns instead just increases the amount of RNG, so whoever can do the most "efficient" run by conventional standards is actually just the one with the highest tolerance for resets, which doesn't seem very efficient at all.

[XeKr]

Sumia is by far the best Pair Up for Frederick since she gives Spd, Res, and Flight, all of which he really likes in Lunatic. (well really he could use more Def too, but who doesn’t)

If Fred needs Str/Def for something you give him Kellam. Frederick’s not much of a long term unit anyways and Virion’s DS are not impressive.

Virion can surprisingly pull off Wyvern ala Panne/Lon’qu if one babies him to it, however >_>. Tho I would say he battles with Vaike for the worst non-Paralogue unit in Lunatic.

eh, efficiency is kinda wonky in this game because you can save a lot of turns on later maps by just spending a little longer on earlier ones to get good units going and then roflstomping afterwards. veteran amplifies that massively, but chrom likes getting exp too.

I'm not aware of anyone who has like tried to do a full efficiency playthrough without grinding of lunatic FE13 aside from XeKr's abandoned hiatus run and he felt the same way about it.

also sumia isn't really that bad frontline considering how many myrmidons and mages that she can deal with easily are in earlygame and then can just spam tomes to negate her lower str as a dark flier whilst hitting res. her survivability is kind of bad unless you're using a lot of units though.

Civ V is addicting, okay.

Depending on news of FE14, there could soon be progress on that front. >_>

Miikaya beat Lunatic in 116 turns, though his standard for reliability was notably lower (to around 50% iirc. But point being, still far from true LTC/rigging status). He also didn’t count the 5 paralogues always available as optional (adjust tc accordingly) so he had more exp but was effectively pigeonholed into a Female Robin Galeforce team due to Tiki’s paralogue.

edit: Red Fox of Fire also did a Lunatic efficiency attempt (at least that "style" of play, but for her first Lunatic run). Though, iirc, she valued reliability far more, and I can't speak toward precisely how optimized it was (without more investigation). Kngt_of_Titania had an incomplete run similar to mine/Miikaya's (small differences, less reliable), and sorry if I forgot any others.

Regardless, from that and my own experience, the extremely obvious conclusion is still that no other frontline unit is really on the same planet as Robin. Sumia in particular is okayyy, but I’d still place her below Morgan/Lucina/other Veteran children, Chrom, Lon’qu/Panne, Tharja/Henry, Nowi, probably Sully/Stahl, probably Cordelia, and maybe Gregor/Cherche (at least they have existent Hp/Def + Sol/Avoid skills), as a main combat unit (yeah that’s almost everyone outside pure utility people…).

Since there's a giant road of normal terrain that goes right from the starting area to the Boss, his desert utility is mostly being an errand boy to clear out villages for me.

Both are still Routs, so it’s still impactful to have that movement for that purpose.

Lunatic is not for efficiency.

There's some leeway to be squeezed out of careful unit positioning, but it all goes toward lowering the amount of RNG present. Trying to put it toward saving turns instead just increases the amount of RNG, so whoever can do the most "efficient" run by conventional standards is actually just the one with the highest tolerance for resets, which doesn't seem very efficient at all.

This is an appropriate criticism to level against ltc, but (in my mind) the whole point of efficiency is also optimizing reliability to a greater extent (even if slightly slower). Yes it’s undeniably true in FE (and really all strategy games. Not just Awakening) the inverse nature of speed and reliability (for the most part, bar exceptions with certain enemy patterns/reinforcements, or until reaching much higher turncounts), because of the nature of scarcity in resources, actions, etc. However, there are various optimized combinations of turncount/reliability to strive toward. There are various proposals how to precisely account for this, from a hard success rate cutoff, to a statistical average, to others.

For a simple example, consider Prologue in FE13 Lunatic. There exists a 3 turn strategy that requires several Dual Guards/Strikes and is therefore quite unreliable, probably <1% success or death. The 4 turn is rather reliable, probably around 80% and the pure 5 turn, no chance of less, is something around >99% (the exact numbers aren't too important if the gist is there). Importantly, the 4 turn strategy has a rather low chance of death, so in the worst case, it’s probably around 5 turns around 99% success rate. Of course, various things can happen in terms of who gets what kills, particularly the boss, so we’re considering the ensemble of possibilities here.

Some people might consider the 3 turn strategy to be the most efficient because it’s ultimately the fastest. I, for example, would consider the 4 turn strategy (with the backup 5 turn) the most efficient one here, because I value the turns wasted resetting to get unreliable stuff to work. In that case you might statistically expect around 300 turns for the 3 turn strat vs. ~4.15ish for the 4 turn strat to work. Yes one could also do a 5 turn strat, with no 4 turn chance, at marginally highly success rate, maybe 99.1%. I would then say that that small improvement in reliability is not worth the extra turn because statistically, you’re expected to take more turns overall, around ~5.05 or something.

One could take 50 turns to water trick Robin. It’s probably marginally less reliable in Prologue (longer chapter is more time for rng from the Mage crit, this is somewhat an "exception" case), but increases success rates substantially in some later chapters. I don’t think it’s worth it though, at least in Lunatic, as some of us have shown Robin can be trained to steamroll status even at a quick pace in the early chapters (and such that later chapters can still be completed with relatively high efficiency).

Given flaws in inherent to turncount as a metric (summarized as “are all turns equal?”), one could imagine a similar analysis using real-time or another preferred metric like easiness. Or, maybe reliability is the only thing that matters to you (water trick probably dominates for that). For various reasons I prefer turncount and reliability though (summarized as “it feels the most elegant to me”).

later edit: overguesstimated some probabilities. Doesn't really matter, but eh..

Edited February 25, 2015 by XeKr

[Irysa]

WRT Sumia - I think there's a disrepancy in how useful particular units are when we assume Robin is being snowballed into a god of death, even in somewhat efficient clears. It doesn't matter that X Y or Z units can do particular things because Robin will do them all at the same time anyway, and probably more reliably too. I'd imagine that she gets a lot worse if she's not with Chrom though since the quickness of the support helps out massively in netting her easy kills due to extremely high DS chance and consistent doubling. A fairly lightly trained Sumia x Chrom has something like a 80% chance or something in that area to ORKO Myrms on C8 at 2 range with a Javelin (probably needs a forge, or buy a Spotpass Shortspear) because of how good the DS chance is, and is one of the few units aside from a really fat Robin or Lon'qu that has a chance of doubling Myrms anyway. Obviously she shrugs off most of the Dark Mages with ease too so her EP on that map is actually quite good. On the flipside, if Chrom fronts she gets a fairly reliable stream of small but not insignificant chip exp from their likely frequent DS procs.

That all being said, this is kinda getting into like, tierlist esque discussion now, since it's becoming evident that everybody can make SOME contributions/you can bail just about anybody out of the dumpster with enough work, so a metric of efficiency/reliability to weigh up what is costing you the most seems the most reasonable way to move forward from that. In that case, I'd concede Sumia being kinda blegh as a non utlity/pairup unit since you're considerably hurting TCs just by not doing F-RobinxChrom, and you'd want Fred to actually kill stuff to save time so his speed is a lot more important. Although I still think VirionxFred is great for slower playthroughs.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Irysa

[XeKr]

While I agree with your general point here, I want to note my point earlier is specifically considering that. Even discounting Robin’s steamroll, I would pick all those characters I listed over Sumia as a main combat unit (and accordingly her best case scenario, probably with Chrom Pair Up). It’s fairly obvious, as some characters listed like Nowi won’t do anything in the standard Veteran-centric clears.

Sumia's bases are too low to snowball quickly, her Str too low to bosskill efficiently, her Hp/Def too low to rout efficiently. She requires much more investment than others. And you give her up as a Pair Up for Frederick, which has (cascading) implications for much of the Plegia arc.

Though I'm certainly willing to hear other perspectives or debate on this.

Edited February 25, 2015 by XeKr

[Irysa]

Well I took part of that in my response, although I guess it didn't come across properly. Actually on rereading I guess I pretty much failed to state this at all so I have no excuse. I'll just elaborate instead.

Although most of those units you listed don't do that much in veteranworld, none of them really take that much time to get going in even slightly slower play, because of obvious factors (good reclass options, good base stats, dark magic, etc), and I was trying to say that the cost of not giving Chrom to Robin is probably more impactful than the training those units would require. That and not giving Fred to Sumia also hurts TCs a lot, so it's more like the loss incurred by trying to make her okay is significant enough to make her be pretty bad.

Although I imagine at this point that the largest reason you were against Sumia is because she regresses kinda horribly compared to those other units who actually just keep getting beefier and more capable, wheras she only gets faster and comparatively frailer.

EDIT: you edited your post to pretty much negate mine right as I posted. GG

Edited February 25, 2015 by Irysa

[Ownagepuffs]

Pairing Fred and Sumia is fucking stupid. Like, seriously.

Fred has 10 base Speed. The first 15 speed unpromoted enemies that you see that aren't Myrmidons and Thieves are the soldiers in C10, after that are the C11 Mercs who have 18. Fred should not be taking kills. This isn't the FE8/9 where caps are low enough that giving kills to Fred is a good idea. The statistical ceiling is high in this game.

So what exactly is Fred doing with Sumia's +4 Speed pair up? The answer is jack shit. 14 speed from base allows him to avoid getting doubled by a grand total of 2 enemy types in 10 chapters. He also avoids getting doubled by 16 Speed Marf boss in C4 or you could just give him Ephraim's Lance which has a +2 Speed boost. If he doesn't want speed, then he wants defense, no matter how small. We've already established that Fred is not long term (even though he is a good long term support bot by virtue of his weapon ranks alone, Beastkiller Fred is still impressive in Valm). Considering that the benefits of a fast Virion support includes a Str bonus and improved dual strike chances for better chip damage and a Def bonus for improved durability, you should realize I'm not talking out of my ass when I say pair Fred and Virion for the early game. We say shit like "wants speed" but it's fucking meaningless in a vacuum.

Let's move on to durability. Complaints against Sumia's durability are valid yet still ignorant on how much durability the rest of the team has, or rather their lack thereof. Let's look at everyone you get until C3 and give them 4 levels for shits and giggles (Robin not included because water trick and Fred not included because he can take hits). Here's just a brief example. Everyone gets Kellam pair up.

5/0 Chrom - 23 HP, 8 Defense (13 Def)

6/0 Sully - 23 HP, 8 Defense (13 Def)

6/0 Virion - 22 HP, 7 Def (12 Def)

6/0 Stahl - 25 HP, 10 Def (15 Def)

7/0 Vaike - 33 HP, 7 Def (12 Def)

lol Miriel, I dont even need to talk about her durability.

C4 Enemies

29 Atk Steel Axe Fighters 2HKO everyone

27 Atk Steel Lance Knights 2HKO everyone except Vaike and Stahl

25 Atk Short Axe Fighters only 2HKO Virion, 3HKOs Chrom and Sully, sparing them with 1 HP after the second hit via WTD, and 3HKOs Vaike and Stahl.

18 Atk Elthunder Mages rapes everyone.

This is a pretty ideal scenario. Seraph Robe Sumia along with Kellam pair up has 23 HP/10 Def, placing her in the 2HKO range like everyone else while also being 3HKO'd by the Elthunder Mage. Czar Yoshi once said something really accurate: You only need to be able to take at least one hit to contribute.

Speaking of which, let's discuss offense. There are many ways to rectify offense in the early game, but few ways to rectify speed. Sumia's base 13 is, simply put, massive relative to her join time and level. Most of the early game joiners aren't pulling that until double digit levels on average. Speed dominates offense in Lunatic. High HP counts and low defensive stats place an emphasis on attacking as much as possible. The enemies were basically designed around doubling and dual strikes. Being able to double while hitting res post promotion along with a high DS% chance if you've paired her with Chrom lets her not lack for offense. Then there's passing Galeforce to Lucina to boot.

I really don't know how much investment you think she takes (woah, a Seraph robe, stop the presses) and I fail to see how it's fair to criticize her for not snowballing quickly when Robin and possibly Chrom are the only part 1 snowballs. Criticizing her durability is knocking on her for something everybody has issues with. I'm honestly starting to wonder if you've ever actually given Sumia a shot or you just looked at her bases and went "nope", and I do not mean to offend with this statement.

[Czar_Yoshi]

There's a Seraph Robe in Renown, and it's quite cheap. On Vanilla Lunatic Nowi has dibs on it, but Sumia barely even cares because there's no Luna+ to OHKO her. On Lunatic+ though, it's all hers (Miriel could want it as well but she's never expected to take a hit, unlike Sumia ultimately will have to).

Another often overlooked point about Sumia is that it's very possible to get her to S with Chrom before Cht.6. ~80% DS that early is a complete gamebreaker along with their inherent +Avo/Crit boosts, and as soon as Sumia Beastkillers through Cht.6 and Chrom tanks through Cht.7 it's deserts and squishy mages as far as the eye can see.

[XeKr]

@Ownagepuff: Before we get really started, I'll state I'm not exactly sure if we're arguing under the same (or even similar) premise.

In brief, Frederick wants Spd and Flight because he needs both to complete earlygame Lunatic efficiently and he's the only one who can (while we try to baby other units with more lategame potential). If we allow it, Robin utterly dominates the game and really, non-Veteran characters have negligible combat roles in the (known) more efficient clears. However, conceding that we can discuss less efficient clears where we actually train other units, my point is that Sumia is still low on that list of team "carry" potential mid and lategame. If you don't like, understand, want to argue, etc, points like these, then you should clarify, so I know where you stand. I do want to reply to your points, and I don't want to just only say "you're playing too slow"

Certainly, a lot of characters can seem impressive if playing at an arbitrary (slow) pace.

fwiw: Sumia is still ranked really quite high for me, just not as a combat unit.

Edited February 25, 2015 by XeKr

[Kye]

Edit: You make some fair points Czar.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Kye

[Shadow Mir]

^On the other hand, Donnel does have 4 negative mods, which kinda means his potential as a father is surprisingly limited. Case in point: Donnel!Kjelle (who is most often recommended) essentially winds up being the same as her mother mod wise. Also, Counter's crap.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Levant Caprice

[Carmine Sword]

Armsthrift is crap too, but that won't stop anyone from claiming otherwise. Rational counterarguments to their claims that such skills are useful are meaningless since rationality means nothing to irrational people.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Carmine Sword

[Czar_Yoshi]

-snip-

*You triggered the Single-Issue Wonk!*

Ricken is kind of one of the two most mentioned units in the thread, so I'm not sure where you're looking if you're not seeing him...

I'm not following the rest of your argument, though. Ricken is bad ingame as a long-term unit because he has bad bases and his personal growths don't match his class growths. He's not bad due to lacking self-healing as a DF in Apo, and even if that was a factor Donnel still wouldn't get any jump on him there from Aptitude because everything should be capped by the time you challenge Apo (eg growths don't matter) and I'm really not sure where you're going with this.

Why are you making the DFs? Donnel's skillset and mods don't fit a DF, Ricken fits marginally better but still is better as a Sage for postgame. For that matter, DF isn't even that good of a class in Apo- its Spd, Skl, Str and Mag are all fairly lackluster and it doesn't even have 8 Mov or some incredible support bonus to make up for it. And the difference of 2 in their Def caps isn't going to make a difference in Apo performance, considering as the Def threshold to not be OHKOed by anything is around 30 and the Def threshold for not being 2HKOed by anything is well over 110 (not attainable by any means). There's no way any defensive modifiers will have even the slightest significance against such a huge gap.

But neither of them should even be deployed in Apo in the first place since there's a very low deployment cap of 20 and no room for anyone without a really good reason to be there, so it doesn't matter. But even if you did send both of them in, here's a quick comparison on how they'd fare...

[spoiler=huge Apo tangent]Assuming your given skillset for Donnel of AT/Sol/Counter/Agg/LB and my LB/Agg/TF/All+2/Mag+2 on Ricken@Sage, both of them unpaired (in a vacuum since we're obviously not considering teambuilding/deployment right now) and against Invincisorc, holding a 5/15 Celica's Gale and with all Tonics and Rallies applied.

Invincisorc's stats (Sorc@Nos++, Dragonskin/Vantage/Miracle/Luna+/Pavise+):

HP: 80

Atk: 91

Skl: 68

Spd: 60

Lck: 99

Res: 64

Hit: 151(base) +90(Nos++) =241

Avo: 139

Ricken's stats:

HP: 85

Atk: 46(base) +2(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +5(TF) +2(All+2) +2(Mag+2) +2(tonic) +11(Celica's) =100

Skl: 43(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =67

Spd: 42(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =66. Doubles.

Lck: 45(base) +1(mods) +10(LB) +14(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =74

Res: 40(base) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(All+2) +2(tonic) =64

Hit: 137(base) +100(Celica's) =237 -139 =98 listed =99.94% true

Avo: 136 =100 listed

Donnel's stats:

HP: 85

Atk: 38(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +10(Agg) +2(tonic) +11(Celica's) =80

Skl: 40(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(tonic) =61

Spd: 41(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(tonic) =62. Fails to double, and adding All+2 won't fix that.

Lck: 45(base) +3(mods) +10(LB) +14(Rally) +2(tonic) =74

Res: 43(base) -1(mods) +10(LB) +10(Rally) +2(tonic) =64

Hit: 128(base) +100(Celica's) =228 -139 =89 listed =97.69% true

Avo: 130 =100 listed

So, against Invincisorc Donnel is taking 59 damage per round, and dealing 8+8. But since Invincisorc is healing 29 HP per round, Donnel isn't actually scratching him even if he fights on EP only and heals up each turn with an Elixir. Since he has AT, he could theoretically just wait until both of Invincisorc's Nos Tomes break, but... That's a lot of Elixirs, and it would still take forever to kill him even once they're gone. Basically he has a 0% chance of winning, or even contributing damage.

Now it's Ricken's turn. Ricken is going to engage turn 1 on enemy phase, so Invincisorc attacks first and Agg isn't active. Ricken will take 59 damage, putting him at 26 HP, but Invincisorc's HP is full so it won't change. Ricken counterattacks, and his shots will do 13 each, for a total of 52 damage. Invincisorc has 28 HP remaining, and is in Vantage range.

Turn 2, Ricken heals to full with an Elixir. Invincisorc attacks again on EP and hits for 59 damage again, restoring 29 HP and putting him at 57. Ricken then counterattacks four times for 52 more damage, putting Invincisorc at 5 HP.

Turn 3, Ricken heals to full one more time. When Invincisorc attacks next, his HP goes up to 34. Hit 3 of Celica's triggers Miracle, and Hit 4 KOes him.

As you can see, Ricken is capable of beating Invincisorc in single combat with only two heals and constant Rallies with >99% accuracy, whereas Donnel fails to even scratch him. There's even plenty more room on Ricken's set; I was originally planning for him to get Invincisorc down to 40-43 HP and then KOing him on PP with an Agg while near full health, but that turned out to be unnecessary so Ricken actually even has a free skillslot here. If he took Res+10 there he might even be able to do it with just one Elixir use (though I doubt it).

Basically Ricken is actually capable of not only pulling his weight in Apo, but can beat one of the hardest bosses reliably in single combat, while Donnel fails to even do chip damage to said boss using that set.

Finally, Donnel is a terrible father. I'd rate him just above Kellam as second worst- his class selection stinks for postgame purposes and his mods stink too, and GF alone is not enough to make up for that.

Armsthrift is crap too, but that won't stop anyone from claiming otherwise. Rational counterarguments to their claims that such skills are useful are meaningless since rationality means nothing to irrational people.

Gonna pull a 180 and start arguing in the other direction real quick. Mostly because I'm not fond of demeaning the other side in arguments. Never call someone irrational if you want to help them (and if you're not here to help people, consider finding a better use of your time).

AT brings nothing to the table when the sole task at hand is taking down whatever enemy you happen to be fighting right then and there. It doesn't boost stats or give a higher chance of winning (some people will say it prevents missed KOes due to weapons breaking, I personally think they're barking up the wrong tree), and for the duration of the battle itself AT is pretty much an empty skillslot, just like other skills such as Veteran and- wait for it- Galeforce. Both of those have absolutely no effect within the confines of a single battle you happen to be fighting, yet are generally considered unstoppable and anyone who you try to convince otherwise will usually look at you weird. And for good reason: it turns out that out-of battle effects can be really potent. Hopefully we've now established that having skills with no effect in battle isn't actually an absurd premise.

So winning fights is fine and dandy, but it turns out that there's generally a lot of overkill present in most strategies. In Apo, you see people optimizing for 6HKOes- assuming nobody will ever double, or at least that you want to KO whatever you're fighting before it can hit you back, but you also see emphasis on being able to double everything. Do you really need that extra little bit of Atk to get your careful 6HKO on a Boss that can't KO you back, let alone a mook that probably gets 3HKOed anyway? Making space for field skills is not only done commonly, but pretty easy to boot.

So how does AT stack up against the other field skills? In Apo, pretty much all of them fall into the category of saving time: Lifetaker/Renewal save Staffbot time (if you use them- few do, though they're pretty good), Galeforce/Deliverer/Mov+1 increase your Mov and allow your team as a whole to get at a larger and more varied amount of targets per turn, thus clearing waves in fewer turns, and AT cuts prep time. That prep time cut is very significant, too: time spent grinding GG for forges is tedious and boring (a lot more so than taking extra turns to beat Apo, I might add), and time spent grinding IR even more so. Depending on how driven the player is, if it makes the difference between finishing a run of Apo with enough weapons to do it again and having to go grind some more, and if this in turn makes the difference between playing Apo again with this team and going to do something else, congratulations, using AT just doubled the gameplay value of your team.

You can give as many rational counterarguments to that as you like, but they'll all be on paper and all with a scope limited to the battle (or sometimes map) you're playing at the moment. The game as a whole is much bigger than that map/battle, and by either ignoring the rest of it or placing that map (and a fairly easy one with no restrictions and a bit of knowledge going in, I might add) above the rest will wind up leaving you with a pile of boring grinding, which will in turn lower your opinion of the rest of the game all because you're too stubborn to play it. And that's just a shame.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[Kye]

...

Gonna pull a 180 and start arguing in the other direction real quick. Mostly because I'm not fond of demeaning the other side in arguments. Never call someone irrational if you want to help them (and if you're not here to help people, consider finding a better use of your time)...

...

You can give as many rational counterarguments to that as you like, but they'll all be on paper and all with a scope limited to the battle (or sometimes map) you're playing at the moment. The game as a whole is much bigger than that map/battle, and by either ignoring the rest of it or placing that map (and a fairly easy one with no restrictions and a bit of knowledge going in, I might add) above the rest will wind up leaving you with a pile of boring grinding, which will in turn lower your opinion of the rest of the game all because you're too stubborn to play it. And that's just a shame.

Thanks for the info Czar. I suppose I never saw Ricken in that light before... Interesting.

As for your AT-usage argument, I also agree. Hell, I think that's the only legitimate reason I use AT. It's not needed throughout the campaign, certainly not required while money/loot-grinding. But it's nice to have when doing Apo. runs. While I don't use AT on every character that has access to Armsthrift, it does help save on precious weapon durability for [insert AT-characters here]. In a game full of monotonous grinding (whether it's GG for dat gold, or IR for dat loot), It certainly helps my gaming-mindset when I can play another round (or even two/three) of Apotheosis before having to run-off to the loot, and monies-grinder. My first file through Hard-mode is old. And it's easily got a hundred+ hours of just item-grinding in it. I'm sure there are peeps on here who have put even MORE time into incessant grinding in a single file.

Don't worry about Carmine. It's the internet after all. I'm sure he makes the best rational counterarguments to irrational counterarguments that are typically levied towards irrational arguments that may or may not have been spurned on by some troll's facetious quip regarding opinions.

[Czar_Yoshi]

I probably should note that I did rig that example to be biased toward Ricken (I specifically chose a fight where his +1 Spd over Donnel would result in an otherwise unreachable threshold- if both of them are DFs with All+2 then Ricken hits it and Donnel doesn't; if Donnel had hit it then he could still have (very slowly) killed Invincisorc). At the end of the day the difference between him and Donnel in a perfect reliability setting is +1 Spd/Skl/Res and +10 Mag (+8 more on top of that if going Sage over DF), but over the course of so many hits that really adds up and I wanted to show that. If you were actually using him not in a vacuum (no children/Logbook/S supports/Robin, a great challenge run for demonstration purposes), he'd wind up being a hard support sage (given, he's also the best at it).

I also should clarify that when I say that grinding is monotonus... It's partly due to the Apo centric mindset that it seems that way in the first place. True, if you're playing for Apo alone using a standard full team, you'll be able to get there much faster, but if you're playing the normal DLC maps for the sake of playing them (trying to see as many convos as you can and whatnot), you;ll still wind up with enough stuff in the end (with maybe just a little extra effort) to tackle Apo and stand a good chance at winning, just 1-200 hours later. Grinding is pretty insignificant all told unless you try to do things out of their intended order.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Czar_Yoshi

[Vascela]

I'll never understand how ownagepuff gives Sumia Vaike and Kellam supports while at the same time getting S with Chrom.

She has combat growths and survivability that rival Olivia's. She has some of the worst bases too.

When you cherry pick specific enemies along with specific pair ups to be in your favor, anyone can look good.

My vote goes to Donnel simply because he needs the most work on top of being in a paralogue vs an actual chapter.

[Ownagepuffs]

@Ownagepuff: Before we get really started, I'll state I'm not exactly sure if we're arguing under the same (or even similar) premise.

In brief, Frederick wants Spd and Flight because he needs both to complete earlygame Lunatic efficiently and he's the only one who can (while we try to baby other units with more lategame potential). If we allow it, Robin utterly dominates the game and really, non-Veteran characters have negligible combat roles in the (known) more efficient clears. However, conceding that we can discuss less efficient clears where we actually train other units, my point is that Sumia is still low on that list of team "carry" potential mid and lategame. If you don't like, understand, want to argue, etc, points like these, then you should clarify, so I know where you stand. I do want to reply to your points, and I don't want to just only say "you're playing too slow"

Certainly, a lot of characters can seem impressive if playing at an arbitrary (slow) pace.

fwiw: Sumia is still ranked really quite high for me, just not as a combat unit.

Now I see why Chiki hates that efficiency metric. It's so arbitrarily defined. Early game lunatic is efficiently cleared most by water trick avatar, not Fred. But since this metric of efficiency is not clearly defined between us then it's meaningless to discuss. I can see why you value flight, but I've already showed that the speed is meaningless for Fred because he can do his job without it. He is already not doubled by anything for like 10 chapters with his base speed alone, so I'm curious what he's using it for.

Ignoring you're not so subtle attempt to tell me I'm too slow, you have accused Sumia of 3 things: not being able to snowball, requiring too many resources, and being bad at combat.

I say that the only snowballs in this game are Robin thanks to veteran and possibly Chrom due to a swarm of favorable enemies in the early game. She only needs a seraph robe to contribute immediately unless you give it to Nowi, and her combat is made fine because she is doubling a significant portion of enemies in the early game that a lot of other characters can't even dream of reaching. You have severely underestimated what 13 base speed can do. The definition of good early combat in FE13 isn't just sitting in the middle of enemies in the early game, ORKOing all of them with a Javelin/Hand Axe. That just doesn't happen for units that aren't Robin and Fred.

You've accused her of things that either every character save Robin/Fred suffer from (durability/inability to snowball) or is just flat out wrong (bad combat). There's my problem. Yeah, her combat isn't as good as Morgan, Lucina, and Robin. We knock on characters for not being the best characters in the game? What is your definition of a mid to late game carry? The only people that qualify for that are Lucina, Robin, and Morgan. Maybe Tiki as well. The Khans and Aversa could count but they come way late.

I'll never understand how ownagepuff gives Sumia Vaike and Kellam supports while at the same time getting S with Chrom.

She has combat growths and survivability that rival Olivia's. She has some of the worst bases too.

When you cherry pick specific enemies along with specific pair ups to be in your favor, anyone can look good.

My vote goes to Donnel simply because he needs the most work on top of being in a paralogue vs an actual chapter.

Quote my post and bold where I mentioned her pairing up with Vaike. I'll wait.

If you, y'know, actually read my fucking post, you would see that it was simply an example to prove that even in an ideal scenario, "durability" in the early game is a myth. It is something no one bar Fred and Water Trick Robin possesses. It had nothing to do with "hurr gaiz we shud pear sumia n kellam". It showed that even with a few levels and the highest available +Def support, the team is still getting 2HKO'd by your average Lunatic enemy. It also requires fielding Kellam's worthless behind.

Comparing Sumia to Olivia is completely disregarding the 8 chapter difference of availability and weapon type. Franz and Kyle have the same Str base and growth. Franz is considered god, Kyle is considered lame. Relative availability means a lot, especially one of that magnitude.

No one is cherry picking jack shit. Lunatic enemies are squishy in general, they just have absurdly high HP counts. This is why Sumia's offense isn't as bad as people think it is. I'm arguing Chrom should go to Sumia because it provides both short and long term benefits. 80% by C6/C7 along with doubling is something the enemies were not designed to handle at that point.

[Vascela]

In execution to get those chapter 6/7 S rank supports, you need to get the support points. Ideal situation or not, if you want the rank, you have to get points one way or another. Post pair up, she's still at 18 Hp and 5 Def with Dancer offensive growths relating to combat. It's not a matter of "hurr durr sumia kellam durp" it's a matter of realism.

You know who has more base HP and the same base Def as Sumia? Gaius. Remember your own post? Or do you instantly attack someone?

"He has a few issues. Namely, durability and competition. With a base of 5 def and a growth of 30% he's not going to take many hits. His main competition is also LQ who still has access to Wyvern and is very similar in terms of classes."

What kind of double standard is Gaius having durability issues, but Sumia's durability isn't nearly as large? Or does going through 3 chapters (and one paralogue) suddenly separate the durable from an actual issue. Sumia has some of the worst bases and growths in the game, but she's immune to durability issue? Even you agree that 5 base def and 30% growth means durability is an issue. Even if she were to get 6 levels by chapter 6 start, she would only beat Gaius out by 2 Def. A whole 250g (or Gaius getting +2 on pair up since Sumia would be getting Chrom support who doesn't give Def unless second sealed)

Even on top of that, her raw damage is worse than others. The extra 10% DS is equally applicable for FeMU and Sully (as well as Maribelle and Olivia to an extent, but not as relevant). A 10% extra attack chance from Chrom is nice. Nobody is arguing against that. In Chrom scenarios, she has durability issues. In non chrom scenarios, she has even more offensive issues and the exact same durability issues.

[Irysa]

Now I see why Chiki hates that efficiency metric. It's so arbitrarily defined. Early game lunatic is efficiently cleared most by water trick avatar, not Fred. But since this metric of efficiency is not clearly defined between us then it's meaningless to discuss. I can see why you value flight, but I've already showed that the speed is meaningless for Fred because he can do his job without it. He is already not doubled by anything for like 10 chapters with his base speed alone, so I'm curious what he's using it for.

It's not really arbitrarily defined... the degree of how far it goes is somewhat, but the basic rules of balancing reliability with turns spent is a pretty simple to understand metric. Fred actually doubles a bunch of enemies if he procs speed once or twice and has a speed pair up, and get ORKOs with the appropriate weapons for rather a long time. That in turn means you're clearing maps faster since there are a lot of routs in this game, and basically nobody else has the ability to take on heavy combat roles in earlygame at the start...hence Fred has to take most of the burden for efficient clears. That's why he wants speed. If Fred doesn't get speed then he can't get double so his routing potential becomes trash so you have to slow down etc etc etc.

The definition of good early combat in FE13 isn't just sitting in the middle of enemies in the early game, ORKOing all of them with a Javelin/Hand Axe. That just doesn't happen for units that aren't Robin and Fred.

Thats kind of the problem, because that IS what constitutes a good early combat unit when we're talking in the realm of efficient clears. Which is why when we talk about making concessions for other characters we then have to measure all the concessions made to make them good...which is the point I believe we want to actually discuss.

You've accused her of things that either every character save Robin/Fred suffer from (durability/inability to snowball) or is just flat out wrong (bad combat). There's my problem. Yeah, her combat isn't as good as Morgan, Lucina, and Robin. We knock on characters for not being the best characters in the game? What is your definition of a mid to late game carry? The only people that qualify for that are Lucina, Robin, and Morgan. Maybe Tiki as well. The Khans and Aversa could count but they come way late.

Well...most of the other characters he listed have ways to migitate their durability either via reclass options (in particular, Wyvern), self recovery, good avoid, skills, weapon choices, etc, and once you become durable enough to survive larger enemy phases then you CAN snowball since your EXP gain skyrockets. The claim is that you need to slow down more for Sumia than those other characters. Sumia's best option to become more durable is...Knight. Which is kinda blegh, and nerfs her natural benefits in high AS a lot (among other things). She's better off relying on straight up dodging enemies than really tanking them, which gets unrealistic later on in the game. Whilst I think he undersells her I do agree that she is lacking in ability to convert a significant EXP investment into becoming a mostly self sufficient unit who can reliably be dumped mostly anywhere. Or rather she needs to be further ahead of the curve to achieve that compared to some of the other characters he listed. And notwithstanding that, not giving her to Fred means you'll have to give Avatar or Chrom to him in earlygame to get him enough speed which hurts both of their EXP gain and both of them do want to be reasonably strong for the rest of the game in an efficient playthrough. Well Chrom less so but passing down decent bases for Lucina is good.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Irysa

[Interceptor]

This thread is still going? Seems to me like the title of "worst unit" has already been crowned: it's either Ricken or Donnel, depending upon how honest people care to be about your typical Awakening player.

Pairing Fred and Sumia is fucking stupid. Like, seriously.

Goodness. Please, either spare us your hyperbole, or at least use a more creative phrase than "fucking stupid". Tease us with a colorful metaphor -- such as saying that the pairing is "the final boss of Don Quixote's fondest dreams" -- because then at least we could marvel at your linguistic prowess as we chortled at the tunnel vision.

Fred and Sumia is a perfectly defensible pairing; they are each on each other's Mount Rushmore, in terms of giving what the other wants. It's fun to assert that Fred has no long-term future, and then use that as a justification to take away the partner that best ensures he is usable long-term, but that sort of sleight of hand doesn't work well as a legitimate argument. Fact of matter is, Fred has class and weaponry going for him, and remains pretty useful as a combatant, supposing that one invests in him properly like any other ordinary unit (it's always kind of blown my mind that people are willing to take the time to gum things to death with weak growth units, but won't throw Fred a Speedwing or a forge).

Armsthrift is crap too, but that won't stop anyone from claiming otherwise. Rational counterarguments to their claims that such skills are useful are meaningless since rationality means nothing to irrational people.

I don't know, this seems like one of those things that says more about the accuser than it does the accused. What is "crap" to you? What sort of people do you argue with, and under what kind of parameters?

My prediction: it will turn out that the Armsthrift value structure used is pretty myopic.