Ranking each game by classes: Mercenary/Hero

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, ping said:

I'm probably beating a dead horse here, but Axes in BinBla are quite excellent as a secondary weapon type. Enemy lance users become more and more common past the Western Isles, and here's some weapon stats with weapon triangle vs. them factored in:

• Iron Sword: 4 Mt, 75 hit
• Iron Axe: 9 Mt, 75 hit
• Steel Sword: 7 Mt, 60 hit
• Killing Edge: 6 Mt, 70 hit
• Hand Axe: 8 Mt, 60 hit
• Steel Axe: 12 Mt, 60 hit
• Silver Sword: 12 Mt, 65 hit

Just to reiterate: The Steel Axe, as famously bad as it is in BinBla, is quite competitive with a Silver Sword when facing enemy cavaliers or wyverns. Deke only loses a single point of Spd using it, so as long as that doesn't make the difference between doubling or not, he trades -5 hit for +2 Def and +8 Avo. Of course, the basic Iron Axe is going to be a better option most of the time, but the bloody Steel Axe being a situationally decent option should demostrate that the old "AXES BAAAAAD" narrative for this game is very inaccurate (har har).

I still don't think that promoted Dieck is amazing, but that's due to his growths being a bit worse than average for unpromoted units, not because the Hero promotion is disappointing. And even then, his raw stats at 20/1 are very similar to Allen's, but with a significant Skl lead (+5.4) - it's just that Allen can make up for that with full weapon triangle control and more mobility+Canter, and Dieck doesn't really bring anything exceptional to the table at this stage of the game. But I do think that getting axes is more than just a small perk of his promotion.

For the rankings, I think I would put all the GBA games in high B, maybe low A tier. The only bad mercenary in those games is Oujay - and honestly, he's quite redeemable as far as bad units go, it's just that he's stuck between good-at-base units before him and a more rewarding training project in HM!Fir joining shortly after him - but while the other representatives are all quite good, none of them really challenge the top spots on their respective games' tier lists.

I'd only consider killer axes worth it, and given how sloooooow leveling weapon ranks up is in Binding Blade.... yeah. color me unimpressed when I have to take 100 swings of an axe to get there. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[ping]

I mean, I'm not surprised by that response at all, but...

11 hours ago, ping said:

Just to reiterate: The Steel Axe, as famously bad as it is in BinBla, is quite competitive with a Silver Sword when facing enemy cavaliers or wyverns.

There's numbers and stuff in that post.

[Shadow Mir]

41 minutes ago, ping said:

I mean, I'm not surprised by that response at all, but...

There's numbers and stuff in that post.

Those are only two enemy types. And to be frank, even if the Steel Axe is competitive against those enemy types, it's shit against everything else because lol50hit. That said, the issue is that the only decent axe in the game that isn't Armads is C rank, and unless you're one of the axe units (who suck) or Percival, getting to C rank for those is gonna be arduous.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Shadow Mir

[ping]

12 hours ago, ping said:

but Axes in BinBla are quite excellent as a secondary weapon type

12 hours ago, ping said:

Enemy lance users become more and more common past the Western Isles

12 hours ago, ping said:

[Deke using a Steel Axe over a Silver Sword] trades -5 hit for +2 Def and +8 Avo

Actually, I made a mistake in that last one;  it's -5 hit (and -1 Spd) for +2 Def and +18 Avo, since Deke would go from weapon triange disadvantage to advantage.

If Deke's accuracy is your main concern, I would like to point out that the only weapon options that are more accurate than the basic Iron Axe are (a) Durandal (+5 hit) and (b) a Slim Sword (+10 hit, also lol), both coming with their own limitations of durability and very low damage, respectively, in addition to the aforementioned defensive advantage of using an axe over a sword.

Axes in BinBla are quite excellent as a secondary weapon type.

--

For reference, Deke at lv. 20/10 averages

• 20.6 Str, 22.6 Skl, 19.2 Spd, 13.4 Lck, 14.8 Def
• --> 50 Hit, 44 Avo innately.

In Ch.21, without supports, but with an Iron Axe in a forest (so 74 effective avoid vs. lances), this will result in hitrates from...

• Lv. 20 Wyvern Riders w/ Steel Lances or Javelins: 10-17 disp. hit / 2.10-5.95% true hit.
• Lv. 20 Wyvern Riders w/ Killer Lances: 30-37 disp. hit / 18.30-27.75% true hit.
  • These have 23-25 Crit on him, which results in a total probability of 4.21-6.94% for Deke getting crit by them.
• Lv. 10 Wyvern Lords w/ Silver Lances: 26-33 disp. hit / 13.78-22.11% true hit.

If he uses a sword instead, those numbers go up to...

• 30-37 disp. hit / 18.30-27.75% true hit.
• 50-57 disp. hit / 50.50-63.45% true hit.
  • 11.6-15.86 total crit chance
• 46-53 disp. hit / 42.78-56.29% true hit.

Average 20/10 Deke has 51.6 HP / 14.8 Def, while these enemy types deal...

• Steel: 14 Dmg
• Javelin: 10 Dmg
• Killer: 14 Dmg
• Silver: 24 Dmg

...against him, assuming 14 Def, +1 from terrain and +1 from weapon triangle. There's a bunch of scenarios here that one could consider, like "Deke survives one W.Lord and one Steel Lance hit, but he might die to a third hit", or "Deke survives a Killer Lance crit, but likely won't survive a second hit if that happens" and stuff like that. I'm not going to do binomials here, but I daresay that Deke will be quite safe even if he's attacked by three or four wyverns during a single enemy phase, as long as it's not a W.Lord and a Killer Lance at the same time (and even then, the cance to get crit and then get killed by the W.Lord is only about 1.5% at worst).

Chapter 21 enemies tend to be rather swarmy, and it's not always possible to have a "perfect" enemy phase where nobody has any risk of death at all. Because of that, I do think that Deke's ability to engage multiple of the most mobile enemies at once and be almost safe is valuable. Deke also deals respectable damage with an Iron Axe - about 2 x 12-14 against unpromoted wyverns (with disp. hit above 90, too), which puts them about half health, although it's possible that he won't double the lords (and the damage is a few points lower, too, of course). Still, it makes it significantly less difficult to clean up on the following player phase.

Oh, and before you bring up enemies with swords and axes - there are none in this chapter. Well, there's one and he sits on the throne, but other than Murdock, every enemy with a melee weapon is either a lance user or a manakete.

--

Apologies for the axe-y distraction, but I suppose it doubles as a demonstration that Deke's combat really is still entirely serviceable in the endgame.

[Whisky]

21 hours ago, ping said:

Apologies for the axe-y distraction, but I suppose it doubles as a demonstration that Deke's combat really is still entirely serviceable in the endgame.

I don’t know if I’ve just always gotten RNG blessed Diecks, but in my experience Dieck has always been good for the whole game. Rutger is better I don’t deny that, but I do think the gap between an early promoted Dieck and an early promote Rutger is smaller than people think. You don’t need to promote Rutger to have a smooth time in the mid game. Dieck handles Henning and Scott just fine. I’m not saying it’s worth it, but promoting Dieck with the first Hero Crest lets him start raising his Axe rank sooner which can allow him to use higher rank Axes later on. When you promote Rutger with the 2nd Hero Crest, he’ll still be just as good as if he promotes earlier, while Dieck benefits more from the early promotion. Early promoted Dieck isn’t as good as early promoted Rutger, but he is the next best thing and still gets the job done just fine.