Your thoughts on biorhythm?

[Shadow Mir]

56 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Heaven affinity units lacking quality/availability is independent from statements on the quality of the affinity itself. As an affinity it's at worst middle-of-the-road... there's no way you can argue that heaven (+9 hit) is worse than wind (+2.5 hit and +2.5 avo), for instance.

(And yeah, Ashera and the auras are the main place it pays off in a big way. Meg can also buff someone's hit significantly, and she's a free deploy in several Part 1 maps and then all of Part 3 at worst.)

The thing is, honestly, outside of Ashera and her auras, I never found myself thinking "boy, I sure wish I went out of my way to field and support *insert Heaven unit here*". And you're basically reinforcing my argument - that a heaven support is extremely niche and has next to no practical application - in the first place... there's literally only one instance where a heaven support is legitimately helpful. Everywhere else...?? It's minimal help compared to supports with other affinities. Can you say "cripplingly overspecialised"?

Edited April 12, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Dark Holy Elf]

I have to say I'm getting tired of you quoting my posts and, rather than replying to anything I say, just going on a rant. Read your post again and note how easily you could have posted it before my last post, rather than after... in fact it's pretty much a repeat of your previous post.

4 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

boy, I sure wish I went out of my way to field and support *insert Heaven unit here*

How many affinities do you feel that way about, besides earth?

[Shadow Mir]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

How many affinities do you feel that way about, besides earth?

Most of the other affinities can at least be good for something - Fire, Water, and Dark boost offense, Light, Water and Thunder boost defense, Wind, Thunder, and Dark boost evade.

[NinjaMonkey]

It doesn't seem to make much difference to the game to me, so I'm ambivalent about it.

Edited April 15, 2018 by NinjaMonkey

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 4/12/2018 at 1:02 PM, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Most of the other affinities can at least be good for something - Fire, Water, and Dark boost offense, Light, Water and Thunder boost defense, Wind, Thunder, and Dark boost evade.

Heaven vs fire is 6.5 hit vs 0.5 atk.

Heaven vs light is 6.5 hit vs 0.5 def

Heaven vs wind is 6.5 hit vs 2.5 avo.

I'm not sure why you think boosting hit is devoid of value, to the point where you think 6.5 hit is worse than 0.5 atk, 0.5 def, or 2.5 evade. Last I checked most people considered FE6 swords better than FE6 axes (certainly including you!), at least if we ignore the ranged weapons options, and they trade atk for hit at a 1:10 ratio at best, while the comparison between heaven and light affinity is 1:13 (though in fairness, it drops to as low as 1:9 in some corner cases due to rounding).

Skill is a garbage stat because its effect on hit is weak (1 point of skill is typically 1.5 or 2 hit, so several points are needed to be equal in value to 1 str), but hit itself is still important, certainly including in FE10 with its biorhythm and enemy authority stars (not to mention non-fail enemy luck stats) and Heaven affinity respects this by making the hit boost very potent.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Dark Holy Elf

[Shadow Mir]

15 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Heaven vs fire is 6.5 hit vs 0.5 atk.

Heaven vs light is 6.5 hit vs 0.5 def

Heaven vs wind is 6.5 hit vs 2.5 avo.

I'm not sure why you think boosting hit is devoid of value, to the point where you think 6.5 hit is worse than 0.5 atk, 0.5 def, or 2.5 evade. Last I checked most people considered FE6 swords better than FE6 axes (certainly including you!), at least if we ignore the ranged weapons options, and they trade atk for hit at a 1:10 ratio at best, while the comparison between heaven and light affinity is 1:13 (though in fairness, it drops to as low as 1:9 in some corner cases due to rounding).

Skill is a garbage stat because its effect on hit is weak (1 point of skill is typically 1.5 or 2 hit, so several points are needed to be equal in value to 1 str), but hit itself is still important, certainly including in FE10 with its biorhythm and enemy authority stars (not to mention non-fail enemy luck stats) and Heaven affinity respects this by making the hit boost very potent.

Ugh, I can't believe you're making me repeat myself... The boosts from other affinities can help me kill stuff that would've survived otherwise (I can see this being particularly helpful in 4-1, where come Enemy Phase, attackers that don't get killed out just get topped off by healers I can't do anything about for a good while because they're outside the camp and it's fog of war) or survive longer. Also, wrt authority, the biggest authority disadvantage you're at is in 1-E (there's 3-13 as well, but I can mostly sum that one up as "It's over, laguz! We have the height advantage!"). Knowing that Meg is nothing but a massive deadweight, I doubt having her support someone else will not cause more problems than it solves... and the only other bosses with notable authority are not until the very end of the game. Heaven's case isn't helped by the fact that for some reason, most beorc units have decent to good skill growths.

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

3 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Ugh, I can't believe you're making me repeat myself... The boosts from other affinities can help me kill stuff that would've survived otherwise or survive longer.

Hit... also helps you kill stuff! I'm not sure why you suddenly seem to think it's devoid of value. Especially not you of all people. That sounds like the sentiment a closet Berserker fan would hold!

[Shadow Mir]

8 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

 

Hit... also helps you kill stuff! I'm not sure why you suddenly seem to think it's devoid of value. Especially not you of all people. That sounds like the sentiment a closet Berserker fan would hold!

You really shoulda quoted the whole thing. Or are you ignoring the parts you did because you know I'm right...?

Edited April 15, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Or are you ignoring the parts you did because you know I'm right...?

Is this an explanation for why you didn't respond to anything of my post?

But sure, if you insist, I'll respond to the rest of yours.

5 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Also, wrt authority, the biggest authority disadvantage you're at is in 1-E (there's 3-13 as well)

Of course. But just because we aren't always at a 15-point authority disadvantage doesn't mean that hit is irrelevant the rest of your time. At equal stats (and RD enemies actually match up to you pretty well stat-wise), skill/speed/luck cancel leaving you with just the hit from your weapon, which is generally well below 100, so having more hit is useful except for units who are extremely accurate (I brought up authority and biorhythm mostly to emphasise that even for those units who are accurate, even they can suffer).

 

5 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Knowing that Meg is nothing but a massive deadweight, I doubt having her support someone else will not cause more problems than it solves

a) Dawn Brigade maps are chokepoint central, and the later ones (i.e. the ones where base Meg is at risk of a ORKO) are defensive to boot. It's easy to keep someone out of trouble on them, and this does not cause problems

b) The issue isn't "how good Meg is", but rather how good heaven affinity itself is. Would Meg be better to you if she had another affinity? I'm guessing probably not. Flipside, I know I'd be happier with Jill or Edward or Laura if you replaced their current affinity with heaven, at the very least.

[Shadow Mir]

19 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Of course. But just because we aren't always at a 15-point authority disadvantage doesn't mean that hit is irrelevant the rest of your time. At equal stats (and RD enemies actually match up to you pretty well stat-wise), skill/speed/luck cancel leaving you with just the hit from your weapon, which is generally well below 100, so having more hit is useful except for units who are extremely accurate (I brought up authority and biorhythm mostly to emphasise that even for those units who are accurate, even they can suffer).

I dunno - aside from Micaiah's chapters, I never really noticed it outside of extreme situations, largely because you have authority boosts on your side in most maps where you aren't playing as the Daein army, whereas enemies either don't, or they have less than you. RD using true hit might also have something to do with this.

19 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

a) Dawn Brigade maps are chokepoint central, and the later ones (i.e. the ones where base Meg is at risk of a ORKO) are defensive to boot. It's easy to keep someone out of trouble on them, and this does not cause problems

Only 1-4 and maybe 1-E stick out as such, at least in the context of part 1. 1-5 is best won by seizing the high ground, 1-6 is a large wide open map, with thickets galore in the first part and speed being essential in part 2. 1-8 leaves me with only 4 units of my choice. And 1-E has reinforcements from behind that Meg can't outrun. Anyway, whilst the part 3 maps are defensive in nature, fielding Meg won't amount to anything if she didn't build enough points to get to support anyone, or if the only ones she can support are already benched.

19 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

b) The issue isn't "how good Meg is", but rather how good heaven affinity itself is. Would Meg be better to you if she had another affinity? I'm guessing probably not. Flipside, I know I'd be happier with Jill or Edward or Laura if you replaced their current affinity with heaven, at the very least.

And between various factors mentioned earlier, I'm just not sold on Heaven affinity being good.

[NinjaMonkey]

2 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

And 1-E has reinforcements from behind that Meg can't outrun.

Which are mages, and who shouldn't be much of a problem given Meg's 50% Res growth, right?

[Shadow Mir]

6 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Which are mages, and who shouldn't be much of a problem given Meg's 50% Res growth, right?

And a fighter as well. Also, Meg only has a 10 resistance cap.

[NinjaMonkey]

On ‎17‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 12:24 AM, Levant Mir Celestia said:

And a fighter as well. Also, Meg only has a 10 resistance cap.

That's her first tier cap. If someone was using Meg seriously, she'd almost certainy be second tier by 1-E.

Edited April 19, 2018 by NinjaMonkey

[Shadow Mir]

8 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

That's her first tier cap. If someone was using Meg seriously, she'd almost certainy be second tier by 1-E.

Even though she requires more work than any other unit to get to second tier? She starts at level 3, and outside of easy mode, I don't see her getting to second tier by 1-E without massive favoritism (it ain't like she's catching up that quickly), at least not without promoting her early... not to mention most part 1 maps aren't too kind to her.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[NinjaMonkey]

12 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Even though she requires more work than any other unit to get to second tier?

Laura takes far more work than Meg does. Meg can get a decent amount of EXP from fighting, while Laura gets 11 EXP per heal and has no enemy phase. Oh, and then there's Leonardo who, while he can fight, has no enemy phase either, due to being an archer.

[Shadow Mir]

48 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Laura takes far more work than Meg does. Meg can get a decent amount of EXP from fighting, while Laura gets 11 EXP per heal and has no enemy phase. Oh, and then there's Leonardo who, while he can fight, has no enemy phase either, due to being an archer.

Meg can't even fight well, and outside of using weak and inaccurate wind edges, she has to eat counterattacks - not a good thing when you can only take one, maybe two, hits without dying. Leo doesn't have that issue, and he and Laura don't have to put themselves on the chopping block to contribute.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Levant Mir Celestia

[NinjaMonkey]

41 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Leo doesn't have that issue, and he and Laura don't have to put themselves on the chopping block to contribute.

Thing is, this conversation wasn't about "contributing", it was about "getting to second tier". Leonardo isn't going to get to second tier on chip damage alone, and Laura isn't getting to second tier on 11 EXP per turn.

Edited April 19, 2018 by NinjaMonkey

[Shadow Mir]

3 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

This conversation wasn't about "contributing", it was about "getting to second tier". Leonardo isn't going to get to second tier on chip damage alone, and Laura isn't getting to second tier on 11 EXP per turn.

True enough, but I don't see Meg getting anywhere fast when she's stuck with the weakest weapon type and doesn't have good growths in the areas that are important for her class.

[NinjaMonkey]

19 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Meg can't even fight well, and outside of using weak and inaccurate wind edges

Which is where her Heaven affinity comes in useful, right?

Edited April 20, 2018 by NinjaMonkey

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/20/2018 at 4:45 AM, NinjaMonkey said:

Which is where her Heaven affinity comes in useful, right?

IF she can get a support. And that's a really big if between her poor move, poor stats, and no one else really benefitting from her support.

[NinjaMonkey]

Meg starts out with 5 move - the same as any other first tier infantry unit.

Edited April 21, 2018 by NinjaMonkey

[Shadow Mir]

26 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Meg starts out with 5 move - the same as any other first tier infantry unit.

Except only Micaiah, Ilyana, Laura and Rafiel have 5 move. Everyone else you get in the DB chapters has 6 or more. Also of note, she takes more movement penalties than other units for ledges and stuff.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Each affinity is useful, but it mainly depends on the unit.
Edward's affinity boosts his accuracy and defense which are the least needed stats for a myrm who should be dodgy.
Heaven affinity becomes more useful towards the end, mainly E-5. However it's still useful for DB chapters where the enemies benefit from authority stats.

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, Hecatia Lapislazuli said:

Each affinity is useful, but it mainly depends on the unit.
Edward's affinity boosts his accuracy and defense which are the least needed stats for a myrm who should be dodgy.
Heaven affinity becomes more useful towards the end, mainly E-5. However it's still useful for DB chapters where the enemies benefit from authority stats.

Um, yeah, as to that... there's only two instances where Micaiah is against an authority boost worth mentioning. And one of those is against laguz, which are sitting ducks against anything with range. So there's only one where it might help... except Meg is gutter leavings, and Rafiel might not even be able to support anyone.

[Dark Holy Elf]

You still need to engage those laguz at melee. Also, most range is inaccurate, so heaven affinity helps you land those hits with javelins etc.

I can't believe I'm still seeing "this person has less move than others so they won't even be able to get in support range" in 2018.

Fiona also has more trouble than Meg getting to second tier.