Rate the Unit 24: Timerra

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Guidelines:

2.1.) mention the diffculty on which you rate the unit 

2.2.) what classes your unit went through, what skills they had and so on; don´t consider obviously suboptimal builds.

2.3.) no DLC rings, no non-unit DLC bonuses

2.4.) no grinding in skirmishes

2.5.) no rng abuse (no resetting for bond rings)

2.6.) cooking is allowed

2.7.) ratings to be given in the format X/10

2.8.) if it isn´t mentioned above, it´s fair game

2.9.) no "Kagetsu exists and obsoletes Lapis, 0/10", explain your rating

 

Unit: Timerra

Class: Sentinel (promotes to Pickett, with Class Skill: Sandstorm: While making a physical attack, may calculate damage with 150% of Def instead of Str. Trigger %=Dex.)

                     Lvl   HP  STR MAG DEX SPD DEF RES LCK BLD

Bases:          18    35    14    6      17    18    16    8    10      5

T. Bases:      18    11      6     5      12    11      8    7     7       1

Growths:      /      55    25    25    45   45    30   30  30    10

 

 

Personal Skill: Inflicts Crit-5 on foes within 3 spaces.

Innate Proficiency: Lance

SP: 1500

 

Support Bonuses:

C    Hit+10, Critical+3
B    Hit+10, Critical+3, Dodge+5
A    Hit+10, Critical+6, Dodge+5
S    Hit+10, Critical+12, Dodge+5

 

Tools and mo stats:

Engage Numbers - Google Tabellen

Average Stats - Fire Emblem: Engage (FE17) (triangleattack.com)

 

Rating: 5

Next unit on Thursday

Edited August 31, 2023 by Imuabicus der Fertige

[samthedigital]

3.5/10

The Picket class doesn't offer anything besides a headache trying to get Sandstorm to work so that Timerra can deal actual damage, and I doubt it's reliable enough for my tastes even in a best case scenario. It's probably worse on enemy phase too where she wouldn't have a Brave Lance to help her proc the skill. Her personal bases aren't good either relative to the other units that join around her time. The strength stat is of particular note because there are a lot more resources available to fix speed than strength. Her magic stat is interesting, but the proficiencies she would need to make that work aren't available to her immediately without DLC.

She does a little better on Hard mode because enemy stats are lower, but then so does everyone else. I could also go over more build options, but I'd be repeating myself at this point because most units want the same things and don't deviate much if they don't have a good personal class. If she wants to make Picket work as an EP build she'd probably need to stack skill with whatever does that best and stack crit on a Killer Lance. She'd want a dex rally too, but it sounds like a lot of effort for something that's still not consistent on a unit type that is supposed to have good combat since they don't have anything else.

edit: I bumped her rating by half a point. The magic build is roughly on par with Lindon (-2 to 3 magic; roughly the same speed after considering weight, negligible defensive differences at the same internal level), and a 3.5 rating seems more indicative of filler magic damage utility for the late game to me.

Edited August 28, 2023 by samthedigital

[Barren]

And a one and a two and a three! It’s time to talk about Timerra.

 

She is going to be pretty tough to rate at least for me because I completely understand the argument as to why she isn’t worth the time to invest exp. But I have seen videos of people showing off how good she can be even on maddening. So this is going to be controversial for some but here goes.

 

She starts off with Ike as an Emblem like how Diamant gets Roy and while her base speed is bad, it’s only because of her low build. She in actuality has 18 speed and is weighed down to around 13 thanks to her having a silver lance. She doesn’t get doubled by most enemies on her joining chapter except for wolf knights and the two warrior bosses. Timerra actually does fine for the mid game as you can just promote her and give her speed + 3 for example and she will be okay. 1500 sp is plenty to work with.

 

The rest of her bases I’ll admit are pretty average. Her biggest claim to fame is that Picket is a backup unit so dual assist shenanigans are a thing and she can at least have reliable 1-2 javelins. Lance locked units don’t have as much issues as bow locked or sword locked units so there is that. Of course that does also mean that there is no armor slaying or dragon slaying weapons for her to use unless she engages with an emblem. 
 

Sandstorm like Luna and Sol has a dex % chance of it activating. Some have gotten good use out of it. Others say it’s not worth the time. I personally think that it is a chore to pull off. At least Alcryst has very high dex growth so over time Luna can be relevant. Still, she can get that improved if she has Sigurd which she can get by chapter 18 once you get him back. Plus she likes having Lance Power for increased damage. She also appreciates the build bonus from Sigurd as she can also use the Flame Lance without being weighed down as much. Especially if you give it an engraving that reduces the weight.

 

Overall I’d say she’s a 5.5/10. Not quite horrible but not quite exceptional either imo. Just perfectly usable because she can already promote and using other weapons like Fensilar can also help matters. But feel free to bench her if you don’t want to use her.

[lenticular]

Rating primarily based on hard difficulty since I used her in my hard run but not my maddening run.

I actually found Timerra to be a very solid unit when kept in her unique Picket class. One of things with Timerra is that a lot of her stats come from the class so she's really going to suffer if you change her into another class. Picket comes with a base def of 10 (better than anything that isn't armor, general, or great knight), but unlike traditional hight def classes also has excellent base speed of 9 (bettered only by the speedy classes swordmaster, wolf knight, thief and griffin knight). Add in a very competitive 9 for base strength and you have probably the class with the best raw stats in the game. This is not as good for her as it seems, though, since those stats are baked into her stats -- which are not remarkable for her join time -- which effectively leaves you choosing between staying in Picket or ending up with pretty bad stats.

So if we're asking whether Timerra is any good, we're effectively asking if Picket is any good. Which is effectively asking if Sandstorm is any good, since that's really the only unique thing the class is offering other than its stats. And I'd say that it can be. When it triggers, it hits like a truck. For Timerra in Picket, 150% of her def is equivalent to a strength of 24+75%. Which is great. And is made even better by the ready availability of and low competition for ways to boost defense. The problem, of course, is that it isn't triggering all the time, nor anywhere close to it.

When I ran her, I ended up combining Sandstorm with a crit build, and got her to be pretty reliable at being able to trigger one or the other. I forget the actual numbers that I had, but if it was 50% chance to crit and 30% chance to proc Sandstorm, and if she's doubling then that's only about 1/8 chance that she makes both hits without getting a crit or a sandstorm proc on either one of them. Which is pretty good already, and it's obviously possible to get better numbers than this if you invest in her. And on hard, she was hitting hard enough that she only needed either a single crit or a single Sandstorm to get the kill. Using a brave lance is another way to increase reliability if you only need to hit 1 proc out of 4.

I'm waffling between a rating of 6 and 7 for hard, and I'll round down since my intuition is that she's almost certainly worse on maddening. She's just as likely to get procs on maddening, of course, but more likely to run into enemies where getting one proc just isn't enough. So that's an overall rating from me of 6/10.

[SumG]

This is one unit where I'm reasonably certain that I'm going to have a noticeably different opinion than the general consensus.  I have math to back up my position, but I'll give a top line opinion to frame the discussion now.  And that opinion is that Timerra is the growth unit in Engage that you can actually justify using, even on Maddening.  Not Jean or Anna, but Timerra.

Let's start by looking at Timerra's kit.  First off, her base states are not particularly good.  She has reasonable speed and defense, but her strength is very low and her base build is very poor.  Moreover, she makes a bad first impression on introductory map, as the weapons she starts out with are very heavy and will ultimately undercut her otherwise respectable speed.  Unless you find a way to get her some lighter weapons, she could very easily do next to nothing on her introductory map.  Her personal ability is decent, but it's tough to know exactly how valuable it actually is as you don't know when a enemy might have crit one of your units, but it's prevented by Racket of Solm.  Over the course of a playthrough, it may block a crit or two and give some additional piece of mind, but I would not consider it better than most of the personal abilities that directly affect combat in some way.

So far, Timerra sounds like a pretty poor unit, and I would agree with the general consensus if Timerra were put in any of the standard combat classes.  Due to her low bases and low build, she would likely be signifcantly worse than most of the other combat units that are considered strong.  But she has one more unique piece to her kit that is incredibly strong, and that's the mastery ability to her unique class, Sand Storm.  And I will say up front that I think Sand Storm is likely the most powerful class mastery ability in the game, and by a large margin.  It dramatically changes the way you can reevaluate Timerra's performance and damage output.

To show my point, let's do a comparison of stat lines for different units at the same internal level (IL).  For the sake of argument, I'm going to choose level 30 as a nice round number, but it really doesn't matter that much so long as you're considering a level when Timerra has access to Sand Storm.  And for the sake of clarity of calculations, I'm assuming that all units promote into their final promoted class as soon as possible, without gaining any levels in any other classes.  These numbers are taken straight from Triangle Attack's average stats page with one exception (which I'll go into later), if you want to double check my numbers.

Name	Class Type	Lv.	HP	Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
Unit A	Infantry	14(30)	45	30	10.5	25.6	27.6	24.8	14.85	15.85	8.05
Name	Class Type	Lv.	HP	Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
Unit B	Flying	16(30)	51.6	27.8	7.4	30.5	28.75	25.4	16.75	23.15	11.35
Name	Class Type	Lv.	HP	Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
Unit C	Infantry	16(30)	52.55	28	12	26.9	28.25	18.3	16.55	16	13.35
Name	Class Type	Lv.	HP	Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
Unit D	Infantry	14(30)	49.45	22.25	2.6	22.1	24.65	26.6	16.1	17.65	9.6

Now I'm certain different people will have different opinions on which stat block is the best.  But my perspective is that Unit B is probably the best by a hair.  There'd be a really solid debate between which unit is better between Unit A and Unit C, and then Unit D is well behind everybody else.  Unit B is a Wyvern Knight Kagetsu, largely considered by the community as one of the best all around stat blocks in the game, and here it is no different.  Unit C is Warrior Merrin, another very strong all-purpose build that is commonly recommended for use on all difficulties.  Unit D is Hero Goldmary, a build that is considered much more middle of the road, that can be viable with some help but is not commonly recommended.  Unit A is Picket Timerra once the bonus damage she gets from Sand Storm is taken into account and averaged into her normal stat block.  And yes, Timerra still doesn't look like the strongest unit of this group, but that's because she's being compared to some of the literally strongest builds in the game.  And she comes out of that comparison looking just fine.

To clarify my calculations, here is Timerra's base stat block at IL 30:

Name	Class Type	Lv.	HP	Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
Timerra (base)	Infantry	14(30)	45	20.45	10.5	25.6	27.6	24.8	14.85	15.85	8.05

At this point we can add to Timerra's strength the average additional damage Sand Storm will do on any given individual attack, which is 1.5*Def*(Dex%).  For IL 30 Timerra, this works out to be 9.52(!) on every attack, which when added to her base strength brings her effective strength to just a hair under 30.

Now I can hear a fair criticism that the more thoughtful might be having right now.  Is it a fair comparison to include Timerra's class ability in her stat block but not consider the class abilities of any other units in the discussion?  Well, yes and no.  It's not entirely fair to not consider those abilities, but the short version is that most promoted physical melee classes do not have class abilities that directly affect a unit's stat block.  Discounting unique classes for the royals, the only classes that have abilities that would affect a units damage output in any reliable way would be Halberdier (Pincer Attack) and Warrior (Merciless).  Pincer Attack is very strong, but the main reason you use it is because you want to use a unit with otherwise terrible speed, which often means that the Halberdier is going to be a very poor defensive unit considering it only has moderate defenses.  I would still happily use the reasonably quick Picket over a Halberdier in most cases.  Merciless is a fair thing to include, but it's very challenging to know exactly how often it is utilized by a Warrior.  Not every enemy needs to be broken, and there are plenty of occasions where the bonus damage you get from Merciless ends up being irrelevant because the Warrior would have gotten the kill anyway with its base attack.  Suffice it to say, I think it would be fair to say Merciless adds a few points of effective strength to a unit's stat block, and in our previous comparison it would likely be enough to give the nod to Warrior Merrin over Picket Timerra.  This is likely dependent on playstyle, how much you value weapon triangle advantage, and how liberally you're using Fracture staves.

So now we know that Picket Timerra has a stat block that, when considering the average damage done on an attack, is at least comparable to some of the best stat blocks in the game.  But that is not all that Sand Storm does for Timerra.  It also gives her a significant boost to her strength growth rate.  That;s because every extra point of defense she gets increases her Sand Storm damage, and every extra point of dexterity she gets increase the proc rate of Sand Storm.  Each point she gets in each of these stats adds a bit of effective strength to her attacks.  Here's Picket Timerra's growth rates:

HP	Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
65	40	25	55	55	50	35	35	15

Which looks fine, if unspectacular.  But now we can add in the bonus strength growth rate she gets from her defense growth due to Sand Storm (1.5*Def*(Dex%)).  Timerra's expected dexterity at IL 30 is abit over 25, so let's use that as a conservative number to determine the Dex%, and we find that Timerra is getting an additional strength growth rate bonus from her defense growth rate of around 20% due to Sand Storm.  That means that Picket Timerra has effective growth rates in Str/Spd of 60%/55%, which are the types of growth rates better than nearly any other unit in the game in any other class and numbers that will only get larger as Timerra's dexterity continues to rise.  And not only does she get those amazing growth rates in her key offensive stats, but she's also getting really solid growth rates in pretty much every other stat as well.  In short, an IL 30 Picket Timerra already compares favorably to other strong builds like Wyvern Kagetsu or Warrior Merrin, but as the game goes on even longer Timerra will continue closing the game on the damage outputs of those two units.

Now I've been waxing effusive about Picket Timerra for a while now, but I don't want to pretend there are no issues here before coming to a final grade for her.  Yes, the damage that Timerra does can be wildly inconsistent dependent on whether you get Sand Storm triggers or not.  If you do not have the stomach for that, then Timerra is not the unit for you.  The best way to mitigate that is to get off as many attacks as possible so that your damage approaches the average expected output.  The best way to do that is with a Brave Lance.  Timerra does have build issues as well, particularly if you want to use a Brave Lance.  She requires an emblem that provides her with extra build, with the best option being Sigurd, but it is possible to patch her build in such a way that she gets off quad attacks with the Brave Lance against most enemies. 

Additionally, she does not gain access to Sand Storm until she reaches level 5 Picket.  Until she gets Sand Storm her stats are bad, which is why I characterize Timerra as a growth unit.  However, what separates Timerra from most other growth units is that she does not gradually build stats over the duration of the game due to marginally higher growth rates, she gets a massive effective stat increase all at once when she reaches level 5.  That said, getting Timerra to level 5 Picket is not trivial.  When Timerra joins the party has no emblems which patch build, and will not gain any until after Chapter 17.  That means that you have to find other ways to solve your build issues in the meantime, and Timerra does greatly benefit from buying Speed+3 immediately after joining from Lyn.  Until you reach level 5 Picket, Timerra is relegated to taking hits on the front line and doing moderate chip damage.  She can still contribute in the ensuing chapters after joining, but you may need to give her some preferential treatment by allowing her to get kills until her build comes online.  Further you do not get a Brave Lance naturally until after Chapter 19, so you may need to forge one yourself from a Silver Lance if you'd rather not wait.

Long story short, Sand Storm is arguably the best class ability in the game, and if you leverage it to its maximum it can on its own make Timerra a good unit.  That said, I do have to knock some points off of her due to the fact that she is much less flexible in build than pretty much any other unit in the game.  Timerra has to be a Picket to be good, has use an emblem that patches build, and has to work to get to the point the build comes online.  However, in that build she has top tier damage output, amazing stat growths, and does so using resources that few other units in the game prioritize.  On balance, I'd give her a 7/10, well behind the top tier units that can come in and contribute immediately, but well ahead of the units that don't seem to have a clear role on Maddening.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Timerra's... okay. Her stat build isn't too great and she misses part 1. If you're using her, chances are it's to use Sandstorm, which is a neat ability because, combined with crit rate and Timerra's natural speed, it can give you at least moderately reliable RNG kills. It's better than Luna because (a) its damage is way higher and (b) Timerra is faster than Alcryst so she doubles/quads more easily.

SumG's analysis is a good illustration of what Timerra can do. Perhaps the major thing I want to bring up is that the comparison between Timerra and other builds doesn't acknowledge the unique perks those other builds are bringing. Wyvern Knight has 6 move and can fly. Warrior is a backup unit with bows, which means both boosted damage against fliers and 3-range chain attacks. Hero has Brave Assist, so even if your Hero is a bit behind Timerra on direct offence, s/he will make up for it with better support of others. And all these classes have two weapon types which makes them less likely to be broken on enemy phase. Basically, despite its potential for good offence, Picket has similar woes to Swordmaster or Halberdier or Berserker, which are generally not recommended as class choices for most units in this game. (Halberdier is probably the best comparison, since like Picket it has a situational boost to offence.)

Racket of Solm is a cool personal. Lowering enemy crit over such a large area is sneaky good IMO. Would be even better if the game lacked the draconic time crystal.

It's interesting that some people find Timerra underwhelming on her starting map; maybe it's because I handed her a lighter lance immediately (c'mon, we've all seen characters join with too-heavy steel weapons in GBA and immediately grabbed them something lighter, right?) but I felt she was very good on her starting map, mostly because Ike is great. She can straight-up tank a brave axe from the bandit boss with it, something which nobody else on my team was close to. This isn't really a general comment on Timerra though because as soon as that map ends you can move Ike elsewhere if you choose, and even getting her extra exp on that map isn't terribly useful because you want to get her to Picket 5 ASAP and you have to wait for the map to end to promote her and get started on that anyway.

5/10. Definitely in that zone of "she'll be fine if you want to use her, but you won't really miss her if you don't". Kinda weird how badly her retainers outclass her but, to be fair, that says more about her retainers. That's a story for another day though.

[Shadow Mir]

7 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Hero has Brave Assist, so even if your Hero is a bit behind Timerra on direct offence, s/he will make up for it with better support of others.

If their HP is full, which can be troubling to maintain. 

 

10 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It's interesting that some people find Timerra underwhelming on her starting map; maybe it's because I handed her a lighter lance immediately (c'mon, we've all seen characters join with too-heavy steel weapons in GBA and immediately grabbed them something lighter, right?)

That sure takes me back.

[SumG]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

other builds doesn't acknowledge the unique perks those other builds are bringing. Wyvern Knight has 6 move and can fly. Warrior is a backup unit with bows, which means both boosted damage against fliers and 3-range chain attacks.

Noting Wyvern Knight's flying mobility is definitely fair to do, and it may be something that I did not really notice in my playthroughs since I typically have Sigurd on Timerra.  That would definitely mask the disparity in mobility, and that's not due to Timerra, but instead Sigurd.  And while I agree the utility of getting bow bonus damage against fliers is nice, I'm not sure it dramatically alters how I would consider the stat blocks of Warrior units.  Maybe this is just my team compositions, but most of the time I have a dedicated archer who can handle any fliers that are kicking around.  It's pretty uncommon in my playthroughs that I had a Warrior use a bow against a flier, though it did happen a handful of times. 

However, I disagree on the utility of 3-range chain attacks.  I think once you get a strong enough party together, chain attacks on mooks are really not necessary.  Most enemies can be killed in at most two attacks, with many enemies killable in a single attack by strong and advantageously typed units.  An extra odd chain attack will not often change the combat math.  This criticism would also apply to Hero's Brave Assist.  Perhaps they help out a bit against some of the boss encounters, but I'm hesitant to provide too much credit to what amounts a fringe benefit on maybe 10% of any given map.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Sand Storm's average damage increase is significantly less valuable than just having that much more attack because it lacks consistency.

Your procs don't occur spread out over all your attacks, they happen in specific moments where they may or may not be useful. You might activate Sand Storm against a weak or weakened enemy or not activate it against an actually critical target. You may or may not kill before eating a counter attack, etc.

A unit with 1,000,000 attack and 5% accuracy would be a bad unit even if they had the highest average damage output in the game, and that's just a more extreme example of what we're looking at here.

[samthedigital]

3 hours ago, SumG said:

Now I can hear a fair criticism that the more thoughtful might be having right now.  Is it a fair comparison to include Timerra's class ability in her stat block but not consider the class abilities of any other units in the discussion?

There are a few criticisms that I have of your argument, and I'll get to them, but the most important one is that to compare the units you're using her average attack to the true attack of other units. I suspect that it would be less favorable to her if we compared the average number of enemies killed to Merrin or Kagetsu if they have a proper build. I will admit that I am not as confident with this assessment as I'd like since I don't  have numbers or enough experience to back it up, but I would use that kind of data to determine how good Timerra is instead; your data isn't as relevant to how I would evaluate Timerra's combat performance. Panette is the unit that I have a lot of experience with, but I don't think that it's fair to compare the two, and I'd like to save the unabridged Panette discussion for when that topic comes out.

3 hours ago, SumG said:

The best way to do that is with a Brave Lance.

I pointed it out in my original post, but how much does her reliability go down on enemy phase where the Brave Lance doesn't work? This also goes back to the previous point I made, but if I have a unit with a sufficient amount of strength they can kill reliably from 1-2 range with a Silver Dagger, and if they need to rely on a crit they don't then also have to rely on a skill proc on top of the crit. It might not matter in a vacuum against a single enemy, but the more we try to kill on a given EP the less impressive her combat is going to look.

Quote

That said, I do have to knock some points off of her due to the fact that she is much less flexible in build than pretty much any other unit in the game.  Timerra has to be a Picket to be good, has use an emblem that patches build, and has to work to get to the point the build comes online.

The last thing I want to mention is this: Let's suppose that I'm wrong about everything else and that her combat is roughly on par with the best physical units given proper investment. I would then want to compare her to magic units, and physical units don't look that impressive when we do that.

edit: I also want to quickly mention that Sandstorm does nothing for emblem attacks which is another thing that makes her a little less valuable than units with concrete stats.

Edited August 28, 2023 by samthedigital

[SnowFire]

20/20 Picket Timerra:
50 HP, 23 Str, 12 Mag, 30 Dex, 31 Spd, 28 Def, 18 Res, 18 Lck, 9 Bld, 5 Move
The suspect Build means that a Silver Lance is weighing her down by ~3 points of Speed or so, even at endgame.  Best forge some good Steel earlier.

--

Mm.  Timerra's...  fine...  if you use her, but she could really have used some more Str.  The Chloes of the world can make 23 Str work, but she has way higher Speed & mobility.  Timerra's invested some in Magic, but unless you're giving up Picket for Griffin Knight or something, it's not really enough to make Flame Lance worth using.  She is a good example of how Ike makes units with a decent Speed stat great tanks, at least!

As others have noted, Sandstorm is interesting but unreliable.  30% proc rate at endgame is okay, and wielding a Killer Lance lets Gambler Timerra hope for some sort of good proc.  And as Elf noted, Racket of Solm is quietly potent, especially on Ironman challenges.  This is extra-true if you're running some low-Lck characters like Ivy, Boucheron, or Jade. Not so important if you just care about completing the map, but if you like the "honor" of saving Time Crystal charges, it's there as support.

5/10.

[SumG]

42 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

There are a few criticisms that I have of your argument, and I'll get to them, but the most important one is that to compare the units you're using her average attack to the true attack of other units.

The entire point of the exercise I did was specifically to eliminate all the extraneous things that go into a unit's build that are not exclusive to that unit.  Yes, I understand that you can put together a crit build that is consistently getting 70-100% crit chance, but any unit can pick up a Killer weapon, slap on a Lyn or Corrin engrave, inherit Wrath from Ike, and find some way to fix their speed.  In this case, the only thing the unit is actually bringing to the table is the raw stat block and whatever personal abilities or other unique things they have access to.  Yes, some units perform better in those builds than others, but I think it's debatable how much success certain consensus strong builds is related to individual units compared to a use of highly valuable resources.

To illustrate my point, let's do another blind comparison, this time including Panette.  Again, both units are IL 30, and both are in the Warrior class for this example:

Name	Lv.	HP	Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
Unit A	16(30)	59.75	34.2	5.6	27.9	20.25	18.3	11.15	14.2	13.15
Name
Unit B	2(30)	53.65	34.45	2	19.25	20.3	18.35	6.05	16.35	14.15

Which unit is better for a Wrath crit build?  Probably Unit A, which is Panette, but it wouldn't be by a huge margin.  The only real benefits she has is an extra handful of HP, her personal ability, and a bit more dexterity, which isn't liable to matter given the way many crit engraves fix Hit%, and those are all pretty marginal in a build that's already sitting at 90+% crit where the most important thing is raw strength and maybe a bit of speed.  Unit B is Amber, a unit that is considered pretty mid-tier overall.  And while I don't want to disparage a Panette crit build (I do agree it's one of the more powerful builds in the game), a big part of it's efficacy is all of the other resources that go into making it hum, resources that are not exclusive to Panette.

 

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

how much does her reliability go down on enemy phase where the Brave Lance doesn't work?

Her efficacy does go down, but I would argue that the efficacy of almost any unit goes down significantly on enemy phase.  Should she overextend, she faces most of the same weaknesses that most units face on enemy phase when using their best enemy killing weapons.  They can get broken by enemies with weapon triangle advantage, or be unable to counterattack against 2+ range attacks.  Moreover, in a situation where you're explicitly preparing to take an attack, if Timerra has enough bulk to handle a Brave Lance it's trivial to switch her over to another weapon instead, whether that be a Silver Lance or even a Greatlance of some kind, which means the fall off is much less than you are implying.

The only builds that I've seen that can effectively enemy phase are either the niche Leif build that caps out bond at Level 9 and can use Adaptable to switch between a Killer Axe and Killer Bow (and again I would argue this more dependent on Leif than on the base unit) and big strength Generals than can leverage their high strength and immunity to breaks to get some chunks in on enemy phase (which I would consider role players more than an overpowered build).  Yes, you can set up occasional scenarios where your Vantage/Wrath Panette at 50% health can enemy phase 3 units that all happen to only have 1-range weapons, but I view as an unusual case.  Much more often, I found myself either having to avoid situations where my Vantage/Wrath unit would take ranged damage or needing to dedicate other resources to keep them safe (i.e. Bonded Shield).  And again, that isn't to say the strategy is ineffective, but I would try not to mistake the power of build coming solely from Panette when so many other things are going into making the build work.

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

This also goes back to the previous point I made, but if I have a unit with a sufficient amount of strength they can kill reliably from 1-2 range with a Silver Dagger

This is a fine idea in theory, but I think you're underestimating how poor the dagger wielding classes tend to be for damage output.  Let's compare IL 30 Wolf Knight Merrin to Picket Timerra (w/ Sand Storm).

	Lv.	HP	Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
Merrin	16(30)	46.3	19.75	14	29.65	32	17.55	19.8	21	10.6
	Lv.	HP	Avg. Str	Mag	Dex	Spd	Def	Res	Lck	Bld
Timerra	14(30)	45	30	10.5	25.6	27.6	24.8	14.85	15.85	8.05

In Wolf Knight, even a pretty darn strong unit like Merrin is sitting behind Timerra's effective strength by 10 points.  That means that you would have to forge up a Silver Dagger+3 just to get comparable damage per hit from Merrin compared to Timerra wielding a base level Brave Lance, and bear in mind Timerra would be attacking twice as often on player phase.  Once Timerra can upgrade the Brave Lance a couple of times, a dagger wielding class really can't keep up.

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

The last thing I want to mention is this: Let's suppose that I'm wrong about everything else and that her combat is roughly on par with the best physical units given proper investment. I would then want to compare her to magic units, and physical units don't look that impressive when we do that.

That's a fair question, and one I have not looked into.  I'm not exactly sure what you mean by physical units don't look impressive compared to magic units, though.  My experience on Maddening is that both physical and magic units can be similarly strong when built properly, and on a good amount of turns I'll find 3-4 enemies that can be ORKOed, or near enough, by the right unit.  While individual magic hits might be larger than base physical hits, if anything physical units have more damage upside should they high roll a couple of crits or skill procs compared to the fairly flat damage magic users tend to have.

And again, I want to reiterate my position here for clarity.  I'm not trying to argue that Timerra is one of the best units in the game, or comparable in utility to the top tier physical units.  I absolutely agree that units like Kagetsu, Panette, and Merrin are a big step above Timerra in overall utility.  But if you put her in the right build and take the time to get her the experience she needs, she pretty quickly turns the corner and can have similar utility to these powerhouse units.  Few units have the type of ceiling that Timerra has, particularly using such low demand resources, and that's worth something.

[samthedigital]

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The only builds that I've seen that can effectively enemy phase are either the niche Leif build that caps out bond at Level 9 and can use Adaptable to switch between a Killer Axe and Killer Bow (and again I would argue this more dependent on Leif than on the base unit) and big strength Generals than can leverage their high strength and immunity to breaks to get some chunks in on enemy phase (which I would consider role players more than an overpowered build).  Yes, you can set up occasional scenarios where your Vantage/Wrath Panette at 50% health can enemy phase 3 units that all happen to only have 1-range weapons, but I view as an unusual case.  Much more often, I found myself either having to avoid situations where my Vantage/Wrath unit would take ranged damage or needing to dedicate other resources to keep them safe (i.e. Bonded Shield).  And again, that isn't to say the strategy is ineffective, but I would try not to mistake the power of build coming solely from Panette when so many other things are going into making the build work.

 

If you abuse AI targeting you can funnel attacks into your Bonded Shield target and wipe out everything on EP. This is why I value mages far more than I do physical units; they have better unconditional 1-2 range. You do have to invest heavily into a magic unit to do it, but the rewards are also fantastic.

 

3 hours ago, SumG said:

Which unit is better for a Wrath crit build?  Probably Unit A, which is Panette, but it wouldn't be by a huge margin.  The only real benefits she has is an extra handful of HP, her personal ability, and a bit more dexterity, which isn't liable to matter given the way many crit engraves fix Hit%, and those are all pretty marginal in a build that's already sitting at 90+% crit where the most important thing is raw strength and maybe a bit of speed.  Unit B is Amber, a unit that is considered pretty mid-tier overall.  And while I don't want to disparage a Panette crit build (I do agree it's one of the more powerful builds in the game), a big part of it's efficacy is all of the other resources that go into making it hum, resources that are not exclusive to Panette.

Her personal and the dex account for 14% crit. If you consider that even Panette doesn't reach 100% crit against things like Wolf Knights it's rather important, and it adds to her build flexibility especially if we're concerned about reliability. I don't really want to talk about Panette that much more though. I also don't want to get into the opportunity cost argument; I am far more willing than most to ignore it personally especially when it comes to Engage where no unit is going to look good without an emblem or skills.

edit: To be sure I also consider Amber to be better than average for what it's worth because speed as a weakness is easier to work with than other stats.

3 hours ago, SumG said:

This is a fine idea in theory, but I think you're underestimating how poor the dagger wielding classes tend to be for damage output.  Let's compare IL 30 Wolf Knight Merrin to Picket Timerra (w/ Sand Storm).

The idea is is to feed her to the point where she can one round with daggers and have all the advantages of 1-2 range. If you look purely at the stats then sure, it might not look good on paper, but they only matter to the point where we can one round enemies. It's pretty redundant besides that. To be sure it takes a lot of feeding to get Merrin to that point, but it's also a more useful niche than what Timerra can provide.

3 hours ago, SumG said:

The entire point of the exercise I did was specifically to eliminate all the extraneous things that go into a unit's build that are not exclusive to that unit.

I think that AnonymousSpeed did a better job at explaining my point than I did. The problem with the stats is that they don't give me sufficient information to evaluate how good Timerra is.

edit: I want to fix a few small mistakes and add something for clarity:

 

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 But if you put her in the right build and take the time to get her the experience she needs, she pretty quickly turns the corner and can have similar utility to these powerhouse units.

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 Moreover, in a situation where you're explicitly preparing to take an attack, if Timerra has enough bulk to handle a Brave Lance it's trivial to switch her over to another weapon instead, whether that be a Silver Lance or even a Greatlance of some kind, which means the fall off is much less than you are implying.

To clarify my position it's that I don't think that Timerra can reliably kill as many enemies on EP because she has to rely on Sandstorm while other units don't. If she has to face 5 enemies through Bonded Shield it's likely that she doesn't proc on one or two enemies, and over the course of the game if she's just facing one at a time it will add up too. There are a few more small points that I have neglected (no mount, movement, etc) to mention, but broadly speaking my opinion of her hinges on how true that assumption is. I'm also not sure exactly on the efficacy of the Brave Lance strategy on player phase, but I don't factor it in much in my evaluation of her, so I'm willing to believe that it's consistent for the sake of argument.

Edited August 28, 2023 by samthedigital

[SumG]

2 hours ago, samthedigital said:

To clarify my position it's that I don't think that Timerra can reliably kill as many enemies on EP because she has to rely on Sandstorm while other units don't.

I never claimed that she could, and I think it should be clear that if we're talking about a Brave Lance build it's primarily a Player Phase oriented strategy.

But the thing is Engage is not incredibly well-situated to implement enemy phase strategies (at least on Maddening).  And I don't think Enemy Phase builds are the standard most Engage builds are considered on.  The enemy stats are just too high, and AI prevents enemy units from suiciding themselves on units they have no chance of damaging.  Most units don't have the defensive stats (either defense or evasion) and bulk necessary to take multiple attacks in a single round of combat, and those that do generally have sacrificed some amount of offensive potential necessary to reliably secure kills in a single round of combat.  The only offensive enemy phase builds that I've seen that I believe reliably work are either the corner case Leif build I mentioned previously (and obviously only one unit can do that on a given playthrough, and even that has its risks) and Bonded Shield shennanigans, which cannot be maintained over the duration of an entire map.  Most of the units in your party are going to be seeing the large majority of their combat on Player Phase.  It's nice when the opportunity arises and you can get 4-5 kills on a single enemy phase, but those situations do not arise often given the way most maps ask you to divide your forces and move at a reasonable pace.

Look, I'm not trying to make the argument you should be choosing Timerra to be in your party over Panette or Kagetsu or Ivy or Pandreo.  What I rankle at is when I see people say Timerra is a trash unit and instead suggest you use a Halberdier Amber build (that immediately dies if attacked due to low speed) or a Martial Master Chloe build (which is cute, but suffers from the same problems Timerra does except even more so) or some kind of nonsense Yunaka/Zelkov Corrin dodgetank build (which is an outright misuse of one of the stronger emblems in the game and not even effective at dealing damage).  These are units that are regularly suggested to be picks you should make to fill out your party after the obvious choices.  And I think Picket Timerra runs circles around pretty much any of these builds.

[samthedigital]

3 hours ago, SumG said:

and Bonded Shield shennanigans, which cannot be maintained over the duration of an entire map.

They absolutely can. If I pull my last Maddening playthrough I averaged about 6-7 turns per map which is enough to use the strategy every turn assuming that my Bonded Shield user uses a single energy circle. Even if you employ the strategy on a rudimentary level though it helps a lot with the player phase action economy; unless you're warp skipping it's the most valuable way to be in a better position for the next player phase.

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But the thing is Engage is not incredibly well-situated to implement enemy phase strategies (at least on Maddening).

There are builds that do though, and I would value those disproportionally because it's difficult to achieve. If I bring back the Panette build she can one round every wyvern in Roy's paralogue as a wyvern; they don't have 1-2 range. If that's too late for you she can do the same thing in chapter 18 which is the first one where we can make full use of the Wrath/Vantage strategy. She can't fight a mix of enemies very effectively, but there's a group of wyverns that she's well equipped to fight along with a few warriors (berserkers maybe) off the top of my head. You can't blindly make this sort of thing work the way you would with Bonded Shield, but it is good. It's also not the only strategy that works; if you put enough stat boosters or whatever into a good unit they can achieve the same sort of success to a somewhat more limited degree; you have to do calculations to make sure they survive. The Bonded Shield strategy is the predominant one though, and while it requires investment and the like it ignores every single problem that you have with those strategies. Enemies don't consider bonded shield (they do consider dodge which makes it easier to get them to attack the target instead of the person using Bonded Shield) and will just suicide en masse into them.

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The enemy stats are just too high

That's not true. With a forged Bolganone both Citrinne and Ivy can slaughter a lot of enemies while protected by bonded shield, and I've both seen it and experienced it myself on Maddening. You probably need to use Alear (I've not used anyone else) and have that unit above the curve. I don't think that it requires stat boosters or any heavy investment like that, but even if it does the fact that it's possible to kill the difficulty this way is a testament to the fact that it is worth using resources to facilitate this kind of strategy. If Timerra can't do anything close to that then I don't think that she's a good unit.

edit: To make sure I referenced a playthrough again to see how they accomplished it. They used Citrinne!Eirika and Lucina!Goldmary for chapter 21, so apparently Alear isn't a necessary component for the strategy to work. I set this up a little differently, but I hadn't thought of using Eirika; that's a good idea lol. 

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Look, I'm not trying to make the argument you should be choosing Timerra to be in your party over Panette or Kagetsu or Ivy or Pandreo.  What I rankle at is when I see people say Timerra is a trash unit and instead suggest you use a Halberdier Amber build (that immediately dies if attacked due to low speed) or a Martial Master Chloe build (which is cute, but suffers from the same problems Timerra does except even more so) or some kind of nonsense Yunaka/Zelkov Corrin dodgetank build (which is an outright misuse of one of the stronger emblems in the game and not even effective at dealing damage).  These are units that are regularly suggested to be picks you should make to fill out your party after the obvious choices.  And I think Picket Timerra runs circles around pretty much any of these builds.

I would consider the Timerra build to be better than any of these too to be fair. I also think that it's fair to value player phase units to some degree.

Edited August 29, 2023 by samthedigital

[AnonymousSpeed]

4 hours ago, samthedigital said:

I think that AnonymousSpeed did a better job at explaining my point than I did. The problem with the stats is that they don't give me sufficient information to evaluate how good Timerra is.

None of that is to say whether I think Timerra is better or worse that Amber or anything, I'm just saying that particular reason isn't very compelling to me.

[Bartozio]

The following is considering maddening difficulty:

I've used Timerra on my first playthrough, and I honestly thought she was a very fun unit to use. In her personal class she has good bulk and decent speed (you need to be a bit careful around her build), which makes her a pretty decent tank. Her strength isn't great, but with Sandstorm she can compensate for that.

The main issue, as well as the main fun with using her, comes from the fact that sandstorm is chance based. Using her is sort of like watching a roulette. You can put her in range of several units on enemy phase she can tank, and she'll probably kill some of them with a sandstorm proc. Similar to hitting several enemies with an Override from Sigurd or a Great Aether from Ike.

Of course, being fun to use isn't the same as being optimal, and this is a very clear example of that. Most units you give a lot resources can do basically the same things Timerra does, but without requiring a gamble to see whether or not they kill enemies. The good units anyway.

Not being able to function as a reliable carry imo already puts Timerra a good step below units like Kagetsu and Pandreo. As a filler unit she's a bit better though. Most filler units can't one round enemies anyway, apart from specific enemy types. In maps with a lot of flyers she'll do worse than a bow unit, but against regular infantry she'll at least have a chance to one round them, which your bow unit will not. Some people will still prefer to field a bow unit anyway, or maybe an extra mage to handle armor units, but trading a unit who can specifically kill some enemies for a unit who can take hits and has a shot at killing more enemies isn't neccesarily a bad trade off.

Still, joining at the time she does and capping out at being a decent filler means I'm giving her a 3/10. She's not bad, but most of other units can just do better.