Who is the worst unit in FE:A ?

[XeKr]

All these ninjas. D;

A lot of people are saying what I was going too, so I'm scrapping most of what I had. Probably need some more time to parse things and decide how to best word a non-redundant reply.

However, at this point I still think it's important to point out something, if babying Sumia to say...Galeforce before Chapter 14 (I'm certainly cherrypicking this example for a reason, before someone makes more accusations of "subtle" jabs at playstyle. >_>). Suppose we fed all those kills to Donnel instead. We'd have an near-max stat, immortal one-rounding god that can autobattle most of the rest of Lunatic. Arguments along this line is why we prefer some constraint, traditionally efficiency, to judge characters. There's a lot to say about the arbitrariness (or not) of such constraints, but there's definitely a reason I advocate for the statistical interpretation. <_<

Edited February 26, 2015 by XeKr

[Knusperkeks]

In your example Donny will be an excellent unit.

On the other hand, Sumia will provide a total of three units with Galeforce, as well as good bases for all three of them.

Donny falls off lategame thanks to bad stat caps. Sumia does not.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Knusperkeks

[XeKr]

Why do we need other units (training Children, etc) when Donnel can steamroll everything himself? (still speaking in the context of main-game combat viability, where the argument began. And under the premise that we're for some reason babying units like 30+ levels)

Sumia still has to watch out for Bows/Wind, too. Donnel has actual Hp/Def and Sol.

Edited February 26, 2015 by XeKr

[Vascela]

In order to get Sumia to promoted/15 by the end of chapter 13, you need to give Sumia more experience than Robin and Chrom by a decent margin (even considering a 3 person run). There's just not enough realistic time from chapter 8's master seal and Lucina. This is considering Lunatic, though (which it's worth noting).

RTA and in game time are also 2 completely different approaches to how much time it takes to set up a unit. Donnel takes much more real time to prepare than Sumia (since it's only ~2 chapter worth of differences).

[Knusperkeks]

Why do we need other units when Donnel can steamroll everything himself? (still speaking in the context of main-game combat viability, where the argument began)

Why do we need Donnel when Avatar can do it a hundred times better than him?

Edited February 26, 2015 by Knusperkeks

[Ownagepuffs]

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.

My point isn't that she doesn't lack durability, the point is that low durability is something everyone suffers from and that calling out Sumia for having low durability makes like no sense. If you backtrack, the entire point of the post stated with how complaints against her durability are very valid yet still ignorant of how ubiquitous low durability.

Base Sumia with a Javelin 12 attack. Quick example, give her a Chrom support and she hits 17 Speed which is enough to double the Barbarians in C5. The Barbs have 4 Def. After WTD that's 14 indirect damage. I don't expect many of the Shepherds to be doubling the Barbs, so matching that requires 17 Atk before WTA. Iron Swords have 5 Mt, which means the user needs 12 Str. 12 Str is 10/0 Sully on average. 10/0 Sully has 12 Speed as well which is still less than base Sumia but also allows her to double the barbs if she has C support with Chrom. This is still level 10 by C5 which I don't really expect Sully to be. Feel free to tell me if that's sandbagging. I don't expect Sumia to fight these barbs because she'll spend her time ferrying either Chrom or Fred to a fort but that's just one example of how saying she has bad combat makes no sense.

@Irysa

You said too many things to quote, sorry. I'm perfectly aware of what Fred is capable of, but why are we placing the burden on Fred when actual efficiency goes to water trick avatar? Taking a long time in the prologue is a small price to pay for stomping the game in its entirety. This is what I'm wondering.

Actually, even something like concrete durability is hard to come by. A lot of the character who have ways to mitigate their durability issues via reclassing still have to get to level 10 to seal. There are also other implications like loss of weapon rank. Even Stahl and Vaike, who possess pretty significant bulk relative to the rest of the Shepherds are still at some pretty significant risk of death as early as C4.

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.

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).

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.

Okay, dear. I'll adjust my language for you. But only because you asked so nicely.

In retrospect, I completely forgot about the speedwings. That does change quite a lot for Fred. However, do not assume that I do not know Fred's value.

[XeKr]

Why do we need Donnel when Avatar can do it a hundred times better than him?

We don't, I called Donnel in the worst in the game. We're speaking of unoptimal cases, because otherwise most of the cast only has negligible combat roles in Veteranworld (I specifically even indicated this earlier)

I brought it up to explain why we need some contraint, whether it be efficiency or not, to judge characters.

Also see my earlier edit.

I'm perfectly aware of what Fred is capable of, but why are we placing the burden on Fred when actual efficiency goes to water trick avatar? Taking a long time in the prologue is a small price to pay for stomping the game in its entirety. This is what I'm wondering.

Because we can stomp the game with Robin (or someone) while still using Frederick a lot early, so the overall efficiency is still better. My original claim is that Sumia is not a good "someone".

Edited February 26, 2015 by XeKr

[Knusperkeks]

If Donnel has Sol, then Sumia has 8 movement as a flier. I think they're pretty even all things considered.

[XeKr]

1. I don't see how movement and flight is that relevant if we already wasted a million turns unnecessarily babying units. Clearly we're valuing reliability more and immortality is better for that.

2. The routs are the hardest chapters, and durability matters more there.

3. You realize that under this premise (which okay, I'm officially stating is silly), that you just claimed Sumia = Donnel?

Edited February 26, 2015 by XeKr

[Knusperkeks]

Sumia doesn't need a second seal to do this. Those are a big deal in earlygame.

Edit: I'm going to spam edits too now, so we're on even ground.

With 8 movement and flight, you can evade that which is strong (wind/bows) and attack that which is weak. You can also occupy territory of importance much more easily (like forts)

Edited February 26, 2015 by Knusperkeks

[Carmine Sword]

I apologize if I upset anyone with my previous comment. I admit most of my knowledge pertaining to this game is from the perspective of in-game no-grind, and not postgame. I'm just kind of irritated from a combination of people on Gamefaqs who still claim that Armsthrift is the best skill ever in-game, where no-one will have a luck stat high enough to make it activate consistently(why do I still go to that site?), as well as some stressful tests I've been taking in real life. I'm sorry if I ended up making anyone feel bad.

[~Silver]

...Hrmm...

I use Armsthrift for reasons such as forging powerful weapons, in the fear I might not put that much effort into a normal forged weapon.

I'm not a big forger, I'll be honest, so I go all out when it comes to weapons for Armsthrift users...

Of course, if I'm going to take on Apo, I'm going to need to get used to forging...

[Irysa]

I'm perfectly aware of what Fred is capable of, but why are we placing the burden on Fred when actual efficiency goes to water trick avatar? Taking a long time in the prologue is a small price to pay for stomping the game in its entirety. This is what I'm wondering.

XeKr mostly answered but to add onto it, efficiency is reliability divided by turns, essentially. I made the point before that you can go faster in later maps if you spend some time in earlier ones to train more units, but that precise balance is somewhat of an unknown factor currently. Water Trick Robin is on the extreme end of reliabiity for vanilla Lunatic but on the opposite extreme of turns. Even if you got the minimum possible turncount for every other map after doing the Water Trick, you would be significantly behind in total turns spent due to how long it takes. The efficiency argument is that it is overkill to do this because it is still possible (and reliable!) to clear Lunatic at a brisk pace without comitting to the Water Trick, and much of this involves letting Frederick massacre things until Robin is capable of handling everything else. Efficiency is finding the balance between the two, and Water Trick Robin is definitely not efficient when it's demonstrable that one can achieve those turncounts and reliability without it.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Irysa

[Vascela]

No, not everyone suffers from being 1 shot by random munchkins. She's the most jeopardized due to the lowest durability in the game. Avo isn't really that strong early on for her (especially vs axes). It would be nice if nobody got hit, but the majority of combat is on the enemy phase for typical strategies (looking at you Interceptor...). She's just not the unit that will be getting a lot of enemy phase EXP in the case that we do want her to get combat EXP. So she can use a Javelin, that's fantastic. Javelins and Hand Axes are amongst the top weapon of choice in a lot (if not all) FE games due to 1-2 range.

Also, Sully will have a C rank support by the time you recruit Sumia, and it's definitely worth considering that they'd have a B rank by chapter 5. Also, consider her getting 6 levels from chapter 1 until now (over 4 chapters and paralogue 1 is 1.2 levels per chapter; extremely reasonable). She hits all +1 to Str, Spd, and Def pair up for Chrom. That's an extra 4 Str, 3 Spd, and 4 Def (which is very generous).

For Chrom now needs 10 level ups to be able to lead (1.5 levels per chapter, mainly for the Spd, the Str value is hit after 2 levels) and he fairs just a nicely (unless I'm mistaken). He's also a much more durable lead (along with no weapon use required) to reach those specific listed values.

Also, where are you getting base Sumia has 12 AT? She has 6 Str + 2 Javelin for 8 AT? Are you just assuming we give Sumia +5 forge to pretend there isn't a Str gap?

edit: I also find it interesting Sumia gets forged Javelins, and you compare it to a non forged Iron sword. I just can't put 2 and 2 together here.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Vascela

[Ownagepuffs]

Y'know, fuck it. I decided to do more math. I remember my Sumia started pulling her weight at around C10. I'll compare to averages. Sumia was around 13/2 at this point. My turn counts were pretty around 5 per chapter at this point so it's not like she took a long time to get there.

C10 enemies:

Silver Axe Barbarians have 92 Hit

Silver Lance Soldiers have 109 Hit

Silver Axe Wyverns have 100 Hit

13/2 Sumia has 25.5 speed

+ Speed tonic is 27.5

Chrom had a bit less than 20 speed and was promoted so that's +1 Speed, +4 Speed from Great Lord bonus, and another + 2 for S support. That's 34.5.

13/2 Sumia has 17 Luk.

+ tonic is 19 Luk.

Chrom had enough Luk to give +1, +4 from Great Lord, +2 from S support. 25 Luk.

Sumia's avo comes out to 65. 27% displayed against Barbs, 44% Displayed against the Soldiers, 35% displayed against the Wyverns. The average Sumia is pretty much the same as the one I had. This is where the snowball to galeforce began.

Edit 2: I don't even think I factored in the avo bonus from S support. You get the jist.

Also I messed up on the Javelin's Mt. I recently played PoR and had it's 6 Mt value in my mind.

Edit: Even I have to raise a brow at level 11 Chrom by C5. Also, the thing about EP is that very few can take more than one hit. EP is handled predominantly by Fred and Water Trick Robin so I don't hold it against anyone for having low durability. I'll bring it up as a flaw but I'll not knock anyone because of it. Finn's lance is a +2 Def option for Lance classes. Def tonics exist. Sumia can survive more than 1 hit, which is all she needs to do.

Also

XeKr mostly answered but to add onto it, efficiency is reliability divided by turns, essentially. I made the point before that you can go faster in later maps if you spend some time in earlier ones to train more units, but that precise balance is somewhat of an unknown factor currently. Water Trick Robin is on the extreme end of reliabiity for vanilla Lunatic but on the opposite extreme of turns. Even if you got the minimum possible turncount for every other map after doing the Water Trick, you would be significantly behind in total turns spent due to how long it takes. The efficiency argument is that it is overkill to do this because it is still possible (and reliable!) to clear Lunatic at a brisk pace without comitting to the Water Trick, and much of this involves letting Frederick massacre things until Robin is capable of handling everything else. Efficiency is finding the balance between the two, and Water Trick Robin is definitely not efficient when it's demonstrable that one can achieve those turncounts and reliability without it.

You raise a good point. But why not go for the surefire way to rape face in a no grind? I could just have a ball stomping monster right out of the prologue. Robin can reclass to Dark Mage as early as C4 and roll over the game. It's completely idiot proof, so I claim it the most efficient. It's so... subjective.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[Interceptor]

Okay, dear. I'll adjust my language for you. But only because you asked so nicely.

Just trying to help. I figure if you're going to make outrageous, indefensible claims, you ought to at least make them entertaining, otherwise it's hardly worth the effort to read it in the first place.

In retrospect, I completely forgot about the speedwings. That does change quite a lot for Fred. However, do not assume that I do not know Fred's value.

You can also stuff SPD Tonics down his throat until he gets diabetes, at the low price of 150g per dose (a mere 5 uses of a Hand Axe). Just like the Ch11 Speedwing, they show up just when you start to think that he needs a little bit of help to stay relevant. It's fairly straightforward to make a decent unit good in Awakening, as long as you don't set out with the intention of sandbagging them into the ninth circle of Hell.

I don't assume anything about your valuation of Frederick, because I care about it as much as I do what you had for breakfast (spoilers: means that I don't care). The way I see it, a quality Awakening pairing was getting shat on, the record needed to be corrected, and I had five minutes to spare during a coffee break.

[Ownagepuffs]

I had soup for breakfast, thanks for asking.

I wouldn't claim that it's indefensible, because Fred has 7 Mov. He can get places on his own if need be. Okay maybe not all the time but you get the point. Speed tonics aren't available until C8, hence why I didn't bring them up. 14 speed lets Fred double fighters and Dark Mages, 16 after the speedwings lets him double the barbarians and Wyvern riders in C5. That's a pretty big jump that I overlooked because I forgot renown had a speedwing. Sue me. Granted, a very large portion of these things change in the context of Lunatic+, so there's that.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[Irysa]

You raise a good point. But why not go for the surefire way to rape face in a no grind? I could just have a ball stomping monster right out of the prologue. Robin can reclass to Dark Mage as early as C4 and roll over the game. It's completely idiot proof, so I claim it the most efficient. It's so... subjective.

You can't say it's the most efficient. It's the most reliable. There is a marked difference. Efficiency is maximum productivity at minimum wasted expense. Turns(effectively, time) and resources(money, statboosters, etc) are our expenses, and because there is a huge amount of expense being utilised that is demonstrably wasteful WRT the Water Trick, it cannot be the most efficient. If we consider turns to be an infinite resource then any thoughts of efficiency and ranking units goes out the window because we can spend a billion turns making every single unit good. Well I suppose the ranking would have to be based upon their maximum endgame parameters, but that's completely detached from the position of arguing who is good/bad for an ingame Lunatic run.

Donnel is bad because he takes forever to get going, and because the investment put into him could have been put into someone else to make them just as good, if not better. I think we both can accept this position. In which case, why is the metric of efficiency bad for measuring a unit's worth elsewhere? XeKr makes a compelling argument that the less reliable a strategy is, the more you would need to reset to get it to work, in which case those extra turns on resets should be factored into the final turncount. Which makes unreliable strategies less efficient than reliable ones.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Irysa

[Chiki]

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

It is completely arbitrary. Just because it's simple to understand doesn't mean it isn't arbitrary.

For example, I couldn't have a proper debate with Interceptor on how good Nowi simply because we had different playstyles. I'm a much better player, so I go a lot faster, but he plays slowly so Nowi is better for him.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Chiki

[Irysa]

Which is why we utilise demonstrable examples of previous evidence (other efficient playthroughs) to showcase how fast someone can go whilst maintaining reliability. We can use those as a benchmark for helping to decide, but allow for some leeway here or there.

[Knusperkeks]

For me, efficiency is the ability to compound a little advantage into a big one, the concept of snowballing if you will.

That means giving Nowi a Seraph's robe is efficient, since she has low HP and high defense and res, increasing her effective hp remarkably.

It also means giving Chrom Talismans to not only increase his own, but his children's resistance as well.

It means giving Goddess Icons to characters with Armsthrfit, especially if the character passes down armsthrift to it's children.

The list goes on. You should call it RT-efficiency when looking to minimize time spent playing the game, or turn-efficiency when trying to reduce turn counts.

[Chiki]

Which is why we utilise demonstrable examples of previous evidence (other efficient playthroughs) to showcase how fast someone can go whilst maintaining reliability. We can use those as a benchmark for helping to decide, but allow for some leeway here or there.

But people like Interceptor don't want to use my LTC playthroughs because they play a lot slower. People have different ideas of what playthroughs count, so...

[Irysa]

How reliable are your playthroughs though? Most of yours appear to be quite unreliable, requiring a large amount of rigged stats or resetting for optimal outcomes, and I think that is a key factor for what is actually efficient.

[Interceptor]

I wouldn't claim that it's indefensible [...]

I would, because your baseline argument was that the pairing was "fucking stupid". You could easily muster a defense if your argument was "FredxSumia isn't really optimal", and maybe there's a planet in the multiverse where that happened, but we don't live there. This is what happens when you say outrageous things: you leave no wiggle room to walk them back.

This is a thread of extremes, because we're talking about "the worst" unit, but that doesn't mean everything has to be over the top.

For example, I couldn't have a proper debate with Interceptor on how good Nowi simply because we had different playstyles.

Definitely we couldn't have a proper debate on how good N.O.W.I. is, but it's because we'd never agree to terms in the first place. My public style is only a subset of my actual portfolio, after all. Although even if we did come to an accord by some miracle, I'd still decline, largely because of insane leaps of logic like this:

I'm a much better player, so I go a lot faster, but he plays slowly so Nowi is better for him.

Oil and water. Sorry about wrecking your example, but at least you got to thump your chest like a teenager for a minute.

[Czar_Yoshi]

I apologize if I upset anyone with my previous comment. I admit most of my knowledge pertaining to this game is from the perspective of in-game no-grind, and not postgame. I'm just kind of irritated from a combination of people on Gamefaqs who still claim that Armsthrift is the best skill ever in-game, where no-one will have a luck stat high enough to make it activate consistently(why do I still go to that site?), as well as some stressful tests I've been taking in real life. I'm sorry if I ended up making anyone feel bad.

All is forgiven. No hard feelings.

It is completely arbitrary. Just because it's simple to understand doesn't mean it isn't arbitrary.

Agreed.

I came here to talk about who the worst unit in a general context is, but it seems the topic has shifted to whether or not Sumia is useful on "efficiency" Lunatic, a category I have little care for and often doubt even exists.