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Kirsche (Soren) vs Tino (Ilyana)


Vykan12
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First off, Ilyana’s some wimpy girl who constantly begs for food. Nagging wimpy girl = fail. Soren? He doesn’t care what others think of him, he has the guts to stand up to Skrimir in FE10 by refusing to sit next to him. I’d like to see Ilyana do that, she’d probably faint at the sight of Skrimir. Fun stuff aside, let’s get down to business...

Soren joins in capter 4, Ilyana joins in chapter 8. What does Soren do in the 4 and a half chapters where Ilyana is busy working for those dastards Daein? Quite a bit. It is said that Soren’s durability becomes a problem in chapter 4, and yes, yes it does. However, not to the point where Soren becomes a burden as it is easy to protect him. This is a map of chapter 4. As you can see, if we position Soren and Rhys in the top-right corner of the map (Or at least near it), the only enemies threatening them are the two closest to them, both of which can be killed by Shinon + Titania or Titania/Shinon + a combination of Gatrie and Ike. Once these enemies have been finished off, it is easy to protect them as the enemies would be killed before they got close. Whilst Soren has not contributed positively, he also hasn’t contributed negatively. Thus, he has neutral utility in chapter 4.

In chapter 5 things are very different for Soren and he starts to contribute positively because this is a defence chapter and he can hide behind other units who can chokehole. With this he can finish off weakened enemies and save the unit in front of him doing so. That unit can then attacks a different unit or heal himself. Thus, there’s obvious worth in Soren attacking. Say Soren makes 3 potshots and finishes off 3 enemies as well. Enemies are level ~6 by this point, so that gives Soren 138 exp.

Level 2 Soren with wind: 18 HP, 9 Atk, 7 AS, 19 Avo, 2 Def, 7 Res

1x Soldier lv 8 iron lance: 26 hp, 14 atk, 6 AS, 97 hit, 13 avo, 7 def, 2 res

1x Soldier lv 8 javelin: 26 hp, 13 atk, 3 AS, 76 hit, 8 avo, 6 def, 2 res

1x Archer lv 9 iron bow: 23 hp, 12 atk, 7 AS, 109 hit, 16 avo, 7 def, 3 res

1x Axe Knight lv 7 iron axe: 24 hp, 15 atk, 5 AS, 85 hit, 12 avo, 8 def, 3 res

Defensively, he’s getting 2RKO’ed. But he has 1-2 range, meaning he can only take damage on the enemy phase unless you pit him against a ranged enemy. Protect him on the enemy phase and you’re good to go, and this isn’t hard to do. Titania and Oscar can canto around to protect him after doing what they wanted to do, plus there are bridges which can serve as chokepoints. So yeah, protecting him is not a problem and certainly not a negative.

On the offensive side, he’s 4HKOing the soldiers, but 2RKO’ing the ones he can double. He’s 4RKOing the archers and the weapon knights. This sounds bad, but few ar ORKOing this point. A level 6 Oscar with an iron lance has 14 Atk/7 AS. That’s 2RKOing the soldiers he doubles (just like Soren) and 4RKOing those he doesn’t (just like Soren). A level 6/0 Boyd with an iron axe has 17 Atk/7 AS. Even he’s not ORKOing the soldiers he doubles. So 4RKOing is not below average performance at this point. Because of this, Soren getting 3 kills and 5 attacks in this chapter isn’t absurd. And since enemies are level ~8 by this point, he nets himself around 167 exp.

Level 4/0 Soren with wind + 2 uses of a def band: 19 HP, 10 Atk, 8 AS, 22 Avo, 3 Def, 8 Res

3x Soldier lv 7 steel lance: 25 hp, 16 atk, 0 AS, 85 hit, 1 avo, 6 def, 2 res

1x Soldier lv 9 steel lance: 26 hp, 17 atk, 1 AS, 88 hit, 4 avo, 7 def, 3 res

2x Archer lv 6 steel bow: 21 hp, 14 atk, 2 AS, 89 hit, 5 avo, 6 def, 1 res

2x Knight lv 10 iron lance: 27 hp, 16 atk, 2 AS, 94 hit, 6 avo, 15 def, 4 res

As you can see here, there are various corridors which are only 2-3 spaces large which can be chokeholed, especially with Titania’s and Oscar’s canto. This still makes it easy to protect Soren.

As you can see, Soren’s doubling a lot more, and is 3RKOing, at worst, on the enemies I presented. How many enemies doesn’t he double? 10 enemies. One of those is the boss which noone is doubling save Shinon and Titania. So let’s say, that in this 11 turn map, Soren gets 4 kills and 5 attacks. Leaving him a turn of doing absolutely nothing. Enemies are still level 8 ish, so this gets Soren 184 exp, which can easily be rounded off through the use of bexp at the start of the next chapter. I won’t bother with a chapter 8 comparison, as Ilyana joins halfway through it, so let’s compare them in chapter 9:

8/0 Soren with forged thunder + 4 str band, ‘C’ Ike: 21 Hp, 14 Atk, 11 AS, 36 Avo, 3 Def, 10 Res, 11 Crit

8/0 Ilyana with forged thunder + 1 str band: 21 Hp, 13 Atk, 10 AS, 27 Avo, 3 Def, 11 Res, 10 Crit

Wow, Soren wins every single offensive parameter. And yes, it does matter. Soren can double 5 enemies that Ilyana can’t and an extra 5 more which Soren’s Atk lead let’s him RKO faster than Ilyana. That’s 10 enemies which Soren is better against. An existant win for Soren.

Defensively, Soren’s avo lead matters much more than Ilyana’s res lead as not only are mages in a minority, Soren doesn’t die from them anyway. Add this to Soren’s existant outgoing bonuses from supports.

Let’s skip ahead to chapter 13, say they’re level 13 at this point. We get something that looks like this, with band usage:

13/0 Soren with forged thunder, ‘C’ Ike: 24 HP, 22 Atk, 13 AS, 42 Avo, 4 Def, 13 Res

13/0 Ilyana with forged thunder, ‘C’ Mordy: 23 HP, 21 Atk, 11 AS, 31 Avo, 5 Def, 15 Res

Ilyana wins defence, but by a very small margin (1HP + 11 Avo vs 1 Def). Offensively, Soren doubles 8 more enemies than Ilyana does. This is more major than Ilyana’s defensive win. So it’s a small, but existant, win for Soren.

Skip ahead to chapter 17.4 and Ilyana and Soren have just promoted. With band usage where appropriate:

20/1 Soren with forged thunder, ‘B’ Ike: 31 HP, 29 Atk, 18 AS, 62 Avo, 7 Def, 18 Res, 29 Physic

20/1 Ilyana with forged thunder, ‘B’ Mordy, ‘C’ Zihark: 30 Hp, 26 Atk, 15 AS, 47 Avo, 9 Def, 20 Res, 26 physic

Ilyana’s def lead is still small (1 HP + 15 avo vs 2 Def), but bigger than before. Still, that durability isn’t enougth to make her avilable to be thrown in a group of enemies, so it’s unimportant. Soren’s offensive lead, however, is important as he’s doubling 14 enemies that Ilyana isn’t and he RKO’s 7 enemies earlier than Ilyana does. So that’s 21/ 34 enemies Soren is beating Ilyana agains offensively. That’s definitely more important than Ilyana’s Durability lead.

Fast-forward to endgame, let’s say these two are level 16:

20/16 Soren with forged thunder, ‘A’ Ike, ‘B’ Stefan: 38 Hp, 39 Atk, 24 AS, 90 Avo, 9 Def, 24 Res

20/16 Ilyana with forged thunder, ‘B’ Mordy, ‘B’ Zihark: 37 HP, 34 Atk, 20 AS, 69 Avo, 13 Def, 30 Res

Ouch, 4 Def is big. But you know what else is big? 90 Avo. Since most beorc units have <120 Hit, they have <40 displayed hit on Soren. Ilyana’s laguz wins only include 1 dragon and the 4 cats. Soren doubles 17 more enemies than Ilyana and his Atk lead allows him to have a HKO lead over Ilyana against an extra 10 enemies. So yeah, once again, Soren’s offensive lead outweighs Ilyana’s defensive lead.

Now, you might question the support bonuses I shwoed you. Well, Soren is one of Sefan’s only 2 supports, so it’s obvious Soren will get Stefan. Ilyana fails to get an ‘A’ support with people because Mordy doesn’t like the movement difference and Zihark prefers Water and thunder affinities over Ilyana’s light affinity.

Something i know you’ll call me out on is Soren’s ‘A’ support with Ike. Ike’s affinity generally means that defensive boosts like Titania’s is useless to him. Lethe’s heaven affinity is also useless to him and Reyson/Ranulf/Elincia come too late to be very useful to him. Thus, it is obvious that Soren and Oscar are Ike’s two best supports. The difference between Ike ‘A’ Oscar, ‘B’ Soren and ‘A’ Soren, ‘B’ Oscar is +3 Avo. Something very superfluous. What’s not superfluous is Oscar’s + 2 mov difference compared to Soren’s +1 mov difference and that Oscar has other supports which appreciate the ‘A’ more. Kieran, for example, who loses 18 avo from having ‘A’ Marcia instead of ‘A’ Oscar and this might be more considering Marcia prefers the Tanith support over her Kieran support, meaning Kieran’s avo loss from Ike having ‘A’ Oscar can be as great as 20 avo. That’s not a minor loss.

As you can see, Soren clearly wins offence for the entirety of the game, whilst Ilyana’s defensive leads are minor positive’s at best. Add in Soren’s existant healing superiority and it’s clear that Soren > Ilyana.

Your turn.

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I cannot really be bothered to go over the fun stuff, except Ilyana kind of resembles this loli in a box. Soren can in no way compare to that.

For now, let’s first assume Soren has completely neutral utility from chapter four through chapter eight.

Wow, Soren wins every single offensive parameter. And yes, it does matter. Soren can double 5 enemies that Ilyana can’t and an extra 5 more which Soren’s Atk lead let’s him RKO faster than Ilyana. That’s 10 enemies which Soren is better against. An existant win for Soren.

Defensively, Soren’s avo lead matters much more than Ilyana’s res lead as not only are mages in a minority, Soren doesn’t die from them anyway. Add this to Soren’s existant outgoing bonuses from supports.

Yes, and that’s assuming Soren got four levels with a str band, which I think is highly unlikely, and Soren’s spd lead stems completely from these four levels. However, there are plenty other units who would definitely like some str band usage, such as Oscar, Ike, Rhys, even, et cetera. Soren taking all those levels with a str band from them is obviously a negative. He’s taking up a resource that others could’ve taken in order to even be ‘so much better’ than Ilyana, making things even worse. Soren relies on something others want to be better. Looks like Ilyana can take advantage of that.

What also kind of surprises me is that Ilyana gained only one level with a str band, not two. Care to explain that? Let’s just assume both got two str band level ups.

Now, if Soren doesn’t have four levels with a str band, he loses one spd, meaning they double the same things. This reduces the amount of enemies Soren is better against to five, one of which is a mage and both fail against anyway, so it’s more like four. Oh, and for all those instances where Ilyana doesn’t match Soren’s offense, Ilyana only needs +1 atk on her forge and she’s equal to Soren. And Ilyana can afford that, for she hasn’t taken up resources that Soren already has. So they have equal offense.

On the defense, you seem to be neglecting Shade throughout your entire post, and that’s actually quite a large part of Ilyana’s durability. 9 avo is nice, but what does it actually do for Soren? Enemies have an average of 91 hit. Soren is facing hit rates of 60% true, Ilyana is facing hit rates of 74% true. While ~3/4 is quite a bit more than a little less than 2/3, there are also other things that need to be factored in. For example, Ike needs to head to the castle. Soren must follow him if he wants to retain this large avoidability lead. This hurts his flexibility a lot, more importantly because you may want him and Ilyana both in the sand because they’re not affected by the movement penalties. So either it’s large inflexibility, or a drop in durability. Both are bad for him. Inflexibility for obvious reasons, and a drop indurability because it means he’s facing 72% hit rates, and a 2 percentage points large avoid lead is vastly inferior to shade, which allows Ilyana to take no damage at all, especially because having a 28% chance to avoid is nothing spectacular.

We get something that looks like this, with band usage:

13/0 Soren with forged thunder, ‘C’ Ike: 24 HP, 22 Atk, 13 AS, 42 Avo, 4 Def, 13 Res

13/0 Ilyana with forged thunder, ‘C’ Mordy: 23 HP, 21 Atk, 11 AS, 31 Avo, 5 Def, 15 Res

Ilyana wins defence, but by a very small margin (1HP + 11 Avo vs 1 Def). Offensively, Soren doubles 8 more enemies than Ilyana does. This is more major than Ilyana’s defensive win. So it’s a small, but existant, win for Soren.

“With band usage” is quite a broad term. I’ve no idea which bands you gave them, nor do I therefore have any idea whether they’re all justified.

Anyway, Soren may double more enemies than Ilyana, but that can be mended. With a Speedwings.

Ah, I hear you say that that’s not going to happen because of a, b and c, but this Speedwings is actually very justified on Ilyana. Speedwings is an item that boosts a certain statistic, in this case a unit’s spd. Since it’s an improvement, we look at what improvement is most useful to us. There are few units who really improve from a Speedwings. At this point, we have quite a lot of units already. The majority of them either suffices by using a spd band, has access to the Knight Ward, or doesn’t need to boost their spd in any way. The only ones that may really want a Speedwings are Ilyana, and perhaps Mordecai. Mordecai, however, never really puts it to good use, even later in the game. He’ll still be too slow, especially if he uses the Demi Band to stay transformed. This basically just leaves Ilyana. There’s also no unit that joins in the near future that’ll need a Speedwings. Ulki may be the first one to need one, and he joins in chapter 18. Then the next one is probably Haar (Tauroneo, too, but he doesn’t make good use of it at all, plus he has Knight Ward access anyway). So yes, Ilyana getting those Speedwings is perfectly just, and it gives her the same spd as Soren, meaning all Soren has is 1 atk. This is useful against one beorc enemy, and the lv 2 Ravens, of which you probably won’t kill all that many overall.

Then there’s Ilyana’s durability. Enemies average 16-17 atk (it’s hovering around 16.5, whether you count mages and/or Norris or not), meaning Ilyana is actually able to take an extra hit in quite a few instances. Then Ilyana has Shade on top of that. Sorry, but that easily gangrapes an 11 avo lead, unless it would mean Soren faced 0-10 hit, which he doesn’t. Oh, and Ilyana can’t be scratched by mages, Soren can, meaning he could be in danger of dying more easily after a magic attack and a physical attack.

Ilyana’s def lead is still small (1 HP + 15 avo vs 2 Def), but bigger than before. Still, that durability isn’t enougth to make her avilable to be thrown in a group of enemies, so it’s unimportant. Soren’s offensive lead, however, is important as he’s doubling 14 enemies that Ilyana isn’t and he RKO’s 7 enemies earlier than Ilyana does. So that’s 21/ 34 enemies Soren is beating Ilyana agains offensively. That’s definitely more important than Ilyana’s Durability lead.

If Ilyana got that Speedwings, which she did, she has only one less spd than Soren. Then, all she needs is 6 levels with a spd band and she’s already up to par with Soren. And if she didn’t get that, she has a 40% chance to have 16 spd natural upon promotion. So considering all that, the chance of her having less spd than Soren is very tiny, thus it’s fair to assume they still have equal spd. That leaves six enemies (one priest, two halberdiers, two generals, and a mage) that Soren fares better against than Ilyana. That’s not even a fifth of the enemies.

Then Ilyana has better concrete durability plus Shade against some avoid when we’re looking at defense. 23 atk 2HKOes Soren. This 3HKOes Ilyana. How many enemies have 23+ atk? Only five. Not much, huh? Well, consider that Soren needs only one less hp or one less def to get 2HKOed by 22 atk enemies, and there are quite a few 22 atk enemies. Six, in fact. This means that he gets 2HKOed by 11/28 physical enemies, which is nearly two fifth. In other words, if one of those events (one less hp or one less def) happens, Ilyana’s concrete durability lead is over twice as large as Soren’s offense lead. And what are the odds of at least one of those events happening? A massive 95.35%. So that concrete durability lead is as good as a truth.

Then Shade and avoid cancel eachother out fairly well, considering they’re both based on random chance very much.

Ouch, 4 Def is big. But you know what else is big? 90 Avo. Since most beorc units have <120 Hit, they have <40 displayed hit on Soren. Ilyana’s laguz wins only include 1 dragon and the 4 cats. Soren doubles 17 more enemies than Ilyana and his Atk lead allows him to have a HKO lead over Ilyana against an extra 10 enemies. So yeah, once again, Soren’s offensive lead outweighs Ilyana’s defensive lead.

Yes, 90 avo is quite a lot. I think it’s quite fair to say Soren wins durability by now. Though by a much smaller margin than Ilyana did all the time. Offensively Soren also has a win, but not because he doubles more, because Ilyana with her spd band + Speedwings has the same spd as Soren does.

So, you may have noticed I only countered what you said, but didn’t say who was better than who. I decided that, since it’s true throughout the entire game, but probably to a lesser extent in the endgame, that Ilyana’s durability lead is larger than Soren’s offense lead. Soren is usually better against a few enemies, while Ilyana’s durability is better against the average enemy or quite a large percentage of all enemies. So it’s established that Ilyana is better than Soren throughout the game, when both exist. That was all assuming Soren has neutral utility in those first chapters he’s available in.

So for this earlygame part, you basically just gave some data.

“Oh, Soren xRKOes this and gets yRKOed by that and that’s all you need to know, it’s not necessary to tell whether he’s actually a positive, a negative, or neutral.”

That basically sums up your earlygame rant. So here’s my counter: “Soren can find himself killing things every now and then, there are defend maps where his ranged damage comes in useful, but there are also maps where his durability hurts him and makes him a primary target by enemies. It’s not always possible to wall him in. Overall, it’s perfectly fine to say Soren is neutral in the earlygame, meaning he’s built up no positive/negative utility yet, which means the wins Ilyana accumulated over Soren over the course of the rest of the game are of a higher value than the wins Soren accumulated over the same course. Thus, Soren is inferior to Ilyana.

Then you had a few things on supports. Ike actually does prefer A Oscar. Ike needs to head towards the seizing tile on quite an amount of maps, which means the support partner’s flexibility gets quite a large cut. Soren’s pitiful movement already doesn’t allow him too much flexibility, but an A Ike support (and staying with him) would make things very inefficient. Oscar, with more movement than Ike and Canto, has a much easier time staying near Ike. Also, Kieran doesn’t care about losing an x amount of avo, since his concrete durability is great already anyway. The additional avo is merely a nice… addition.

Then, if you could give Soren supports like that, Ilyana also could’ve gotten an A support easily. For example, if Mordecai is already being played, it’s unlikely you’re going to play Muarim, too, for it would give us two inconsistent fighters, which is inefficient. This means Zihark wouldn’t mind an A Ilyana support, for example. Though I agree A Mordecai isn’t that great an option. But if Mordecai/Zihark wouldn’t be available, there’s still Gatrie, who could be played and given an A support with Ilyana.

Et cetera.

The reason I didn’t call you out on supports earlier, though, is because it means Ilyana is better than Soren even with supports skewed horribly in Soren’s advantage. In other words, if the supports would be more valid, Ilyana’s total win would be even larger than it is with ‘wrong’ supports assigned to both units.

And then you had something on healing, but that’s just redundant. Oh no, Soren heals five more hp than Ilyana does! Oh no, Ilyana heals 34 hp instead of 39! The world’s gonna end!

So, yeah, I suppose it’s fair to say that Ilyana is better than Soren. Thanks for your time.

On a sidenote, I had expected this debate to be much more boring, since they’re two units with equal movement, the same weapon types, the same level, generally, et cetera. It’s much more fun than I had expected.

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Yes, and that’s assuming Soren got four levels with a str band, which I think is highly unlikely, and Soren’s spd lead stems completely from these four levels. However, there are plenty other units who would definitely like some str band usage, such as Oscar, Ike, Rhys, even, et cetera. Soren taking all those levels with a str band from them is obviously a negative. He’s taking up a resource that others could’ve taken in order to even be ‘so much better’ than Ilyana, making things even worse. Soren relies on something others want to be better. Looks like Ilyana can take advantage of that.

What also kind of surprises me is that Ilyana gained only one level with a str band, not two. Care to explain that? Let’s just assume both got two str band level ups.

Bands are easy to use and easy to train with. If Soren’s nearing a level up, you can have him trade with someone with the strength band, equip it, then have him attack/heal himself/whatever. The times he can’t do that? That’s why he didn’t use one every turn. Using bands like this is not a negative. Plus, any bexp he could have used can contribute to said band usage.

She doesn’t need it. A level 8 Ilyana goes from 1.5 str to 2 str with the 1 str band usage. Oh and it’s not fair to have Ilyana get 2/2 band usage when Soren only gets 2/7. Try again.

This counters you’re next paragraph about what you think Soren’s offensive lead is. Oh and Soren can have +mt to his forge too.

On the defense, you seem to be neglecting Shade throughout your entire post, and that’s actually quite a large part of Ilyana’s durability. 9 avo is nice, but what does it actually do for Soren? Enemies have an average of 91 hit. Soren is facing hit rates of 60% true, Ilyana is facing hit rates of 74% true. While ~3/4 is quite a bit more than a little less than 2/3, there are also other things that need to be factored in. For example, Ike needs to head to the castle. Soren must follow him if he wants to retain this large avoidability lead. This hurts his flexibility a lot, more importantly because you may want him and Ilyana both in the sand because they’re not affected by the movement penalties. So either it’s large inflexibility, or a drop in durability. Both are bad for him. Inflexibility for obvious reasons, and a drop indurability because it means he’s facing 72% hit rates, and a 2 percentage points large avoid lead is vastly inferior to shade, which allows Ilyana to take no damage at all, especially because having a 28% chance to avoid is nothing spectacular.

I also ignored adept. Which only futher increases Soren’s offensive lead to help balance this out. Remember, Shade is unreliable – sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. However, when it doesn’t, Ilyana can very well die. This is why an enemy phase for Ilyana/Soren shouldn’t happen.

This is only true in the few seize chapters. Aka, chapter 9, chapter 16, chapter 21, chapter 23, and chapters 26 to 28. And in chapters 21-28, Soren can have Shade. Plus, there are more enemies around the seize point anyway, so units generally go to more use there than otehr places.

“With band usage” is quite a broad term. I’ve no idea which bands you gave them, nor do I therefore have any idea whether they’re all justified.

I gave Soren an extra 3 HP band usages and I gave Ilyana a use of a magic band and a res band. Not that it matters.

Anyway, Soren may double more enemies than Ilyana, but that can be mended. With a Speedwings.

Ah, I hear you say that that’s not going to happen because of a, b and c, but this Speedwings is actually very justified on Ilyana. Speedwings is an item that boosts a certain statistic, in this case a unit’s spd. Since it’s an improvement, we look at what improvement is most useful to us. There are few units who really improve from a Speedwings. At this point, we have quite a lot of units already. The majority of them either suffices by using a spd band, has access to the Knight Ward, or doesn’t need to boost their spd in any way. The only ones that may really want a Speedwings are Ilyana, and perhaps Mordecai. Mordecai, however, never really puts it to good use, even later in the game. He’ll still be too slow, especially if he uses the Demi Band to stay transformed. This basically just leaves Ilyana. There’s also no unit that joins in the near future that’ll need a Speedwings. Ulki may be the first one to need one, and he joins in chapter 18. Then the next one is probably Haar (Tauroneo, too, but he doesn’t make good use of it at all, plus he has Knight Ward access anyway). So yes, Ilyana getting those Speedwings is perfectly just, and it gives her the same spd as Soren, meaning all Soren has is 1 atk. This is useful against one beorc enemy, and the lv 2 Ravens, of which you probably won’t kill all that many overall.

You know what else? We can also give Soren a speedwing to keep his AS lead. Or we could give him a dracoshield so Ilyana no longer wins defence. Or we could give him a seraph robe. I love how you included such a valuable resource for Ilyana, but not one for Soren. That’s called favouritism. How about we don’t give them any valuable resources like this because they are not the best with them?

See, a level 6 Mordy doubles 13 more enemies in chapter 16 with said speedwing. That’s an extra 13 units that he can ORKO. Brom/Gatrie would rely on the KW less to double. Heck, if a character is speed screwed they’d want it too.

Then there’s Ilyana’s durability. Enemies average 16-17 atk (it’s hovering around 16.5, whether you count mages and/or Norris or not), meaning Ilyana is actually able to take an extra hit in quite a few instances. Then Ilyana has Shade on top of that. Sorry, but that easily gangrapes an 11 avo lead, unless it would mean Soren faced 0-10 hit, which he doesn’t. Oh, and Ilyana can’t be scratched by mages, Soren can, meaning he could be in danger of dying more easily after a magic attack and a physical attack.

In order for Ilyana to be 3RKO’ed and Soren not 3RKO’ed, an enemy has to have 16 Atk. Since the ravens stop attacking you in turn 6, that’s 5 enemies. And if after that, Ilyana gets attacked by a 17 Atk enemy or higher (15 enemies), Ilyana will die. So yeah, that small durability lead just doesn’t put Ilyana ahead of Soren.

Lol@Soren dying from mages. If the strongest mage attacks Soren twice, he can still face an attack from the strongest unit on the map and live.

Shade isn’t reliable, and can lead to deaths if misused (aka, put Ilyana into the Atk ranges of too many enemies). Whereas I’m using avo to decide whether or not Soren needs healing. Think of it this way: Soren has an 11% more chance of taking 0 damage than Ilyana does. That’s quite good. Especially as this builds up over time. Take the myrmidon with 100 hit, he has a ~42.5% chance of killing Soren after attacking him twice. That same myrmidon has a ~65.75% chance of dying in two rounds. So Soren has a ~23.25% chance of living against said myrmidon. Don’t underestimate what 11 avo can do.

If Ilyana got that Speedwings, which she didn’t, she has only one less spd than Soren. Then, all she needs is 6 levels with a spd band and she’s already up to par with Soren. And if she didn’t get that, she has a 40% chance to have 16 spd natural upon promotion. So considering all that, the chance of her having less spd than Soren is very tiny, thus it’s fair to assume they still have equal spd. That leaves six enemies (one priest, two halberdiers, two generals, and a mage) that Soren fares better against than Ilyana. That’s not even a fifth of the enemies.

Fix’ed, which means they don’t have equal speed.

60% chance of Ilyana having 15 spd looks more likely to me anyway.

Then Ilyana has better concrete durability plus Shade against some avoid when we’re looking at defense. 23 atk 2HKOes Soren. This 3HKOes Ilyana. How many enemies have 23+ atk? Only five. Not much, huh? Well, consider that Soren needs only one less hp or one less def to get 2HKOed by 22 atk enemies, and there are quite a few 22 atk enemies. Six, in fact. This means that he gets 2HKOed by 11/28 physical enemies, which is nearly two fifth. In other words, if one of those events (one less hp or one less def) happens, Ilyana’s concrete durability lead is over twice as large as Soren’s offense lead. And what are the odds of at least one of those events happening? A massive 95.35%. So that concrete durability lead is as good as a truth.

Actually, 0 melee enemies have 23 Atk, and enemies with 24 atk 2RKO Ilyana too. So Ilyana doesn’t actually have a concrete durability lead. I’ve already talked about shade and avoid too.

What happens if Soren is def/HP blessed? What happens if Ilyana is HP/Def screwed? There are a variety of scenarios which indicate contrary to the averages, but the averages are just that: averages. Sure, Soren may have 30 HP and/or 6 def but averages tell us that he is likely to have 31 HP and 7 Def.

So, you may have noticed I only countered what you said, but didn’t say who was better than who. I decided that, since it’s true throughout the entire game, but probably to a lesser extent in the endgame, that Ilyana’s durability lead is larger than Soren’s offense lead. Soren is usually better against a few enemies, while Ilyana’s durability is better against the average enemy or quite a large percentage of all enemies. So it’s established that Ilyana is better than Soren throughout the game, when both exist. That was all assuming Soren has neutral utility in those first chapters he’s available in.

I believe the opposite is true. Especially as you never actually countered this:

that durability isn’t enougth to make her avilable to be thrown in a group of enemies, so it’s unimportant.

Which is basically saying: “Ilyana may be more durable, but she cannot actually use this durability to her advantage as trying to do so will most likely result in her death.”

“Soren can find himself killing things every now and then, there are defend maps where his ranged damage comes in useful, but there are also maps where his durability hurts him and makes him a primary target by enemies. It’s not always possible to wall him in. Overall, it’s perfectly fine to say Soren is neutral in the earlygame, meaning he’s built up no positive/negative utility yet

It’s pretty damn easy, as I've shown with the maps I've provided, and whilst he may have bad durability, you can afford an enemy breaking through the front lines and attacking Soren. That is, if Rhys and Shinon aren’t nearby, in which case that enemy would attack them because they can’t counter (And Shinon has provoke).

Because of his ease of being protected (As shown through the various maps I gave) and his overall decent offensive capabilities, saying Soren is not a positive contribution in the earlygame is silly. In every playthrough, Soren kills/hurts enemies in chapters 5-7. Ilyana never does so. Soren wins.

Then you had a few things on supports. Ike actually does prefer A Oscar. Ike needs to head towards the seizing tile on quite an amount of maps, which means the support partner’s flexibility gets quite a large cut. Soren’s pitiful movement already doesn’t allow him too much flexibility, but an A Ike support (and staying with him) would make things very inefficient. Oscar, with more movement than Ike and Canto, has a much easier time staying near Ike. Also, Kieran doesn’t care about losing an x amount of avo, since his concrete durability is great already anyway. The additional avo is merely a nice… addition.

This only helps counter why Soren shouldn’t be supporting Ike instead of Oscar, not why either of them deserve to get ‘A’ Ike. Why? Because since both are supporting Ike, both are following him around. Oscar may have canto, but he also has a larger mov difference between the two, cancelling it out. In fact, Oscar’s higher mov means that in order for him to get Ike’s bonuses, we have to slow him down. With ‘A’ Kieran, he doesn’t care about being slowed down and can rush ahead as Kieran gives him plenty of avo.

Ike also has good concrete durability. Oscar also has good concrete durability. Why on earth(see what i did there?) would Oscar choose Ike over Kieran when Kieran needs the bonuses more than Ike (instead of Kieran losing 20 avo, Ike loses 3 avo. More important? The former). Plus, with Soren around, Ike can’t get critkilled. Just anotehr reason why ‘A’ Soren, ‘B’ Oscar > ‘A’ Oscar, ‘B’ Soren.

Then, if you could give Soren supports like that, Ilyana also could’ve gotten an A support easily. For example, if Mordecai is already being played, it’s unlikely you’re going to play Muarim, too, for it would give us two inconsistent fighters, which is inefficient. This means Zihark wouldn’t mind an A Ilyana support, for example. Though I agree A Mordecai isn’t that great an option. But if Mordecai/Zihark wouldn’t be available, there’s still Gatrie, who could be played and given an A support with Ilyana.

Zihark can also support Brom. Water > Light.

Gatrie is kinda “meh” and isn’t as likely to be fielded as the others.

And then you had something on healing, but that’s just redundant. Oh no, Soren heals five more hp than Ilyana does! Oh no, Ilyana heals 34 hp instead of 39! The world’s gonna end!

5 HP is half a vulnerary saved. After 4 heals, that’s 20 HP more Soren has healed. It builds up quick.

Soren > Ilyana.

On a sidenote, I had expected this debate to be much more boring, since they’re two units with equal movement, the same weapon types, the same level, generally, et cetera. It’s much more fun than I had expected.

I find similar units are more fun to debate with as a crushing victory gets boring quickly. With similar units, it’s closer and more exciting.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Bands are easy to use and easy to train with. If Soren’s nearing a level up, you can have him trade with someone with the strength band, equip it, then have him attack/heal himself/whatever. The times he can’t do that? That’s why he didn’t use one every turn. Using bands like this is not a negative. Plus, any bexp he could have used can contribute to said band usage.

Trading is generally inefficient in the early chapters. You have quite the limited time in a few of those chapters.

Chapter 4: 4 turns

Chapter 5: 6 turns

Chapter 6: 9 turns

I didn’t include Chapter 7 because we’re likely doing stealth there anyway.

So that’s a total of 19 turns. Chapter 4 requires you to attack all the time and/or to leave Soren in the back, out of enemy range. Unless you want to risk Soren getting killed in a measly two hits, of which there is a 75% chance, roughly. In other words, he won’t really get any band usage there, which leaves him with just fifteen turns. And you want him to attack, heal himself, trade the band to someone, get the band from someone, and that all within fifteen turns? That seems ridiculous to me. If you have to constantly have the other str band user stay near Soren and trade the band to him when Soren nearly levels up, that reduces either Soren’s, the other unit’s, or both their flexibility, dependent on what your strategy is. Either way, there’s a loss of efficiency.

As for BEXP, yes, he probably could’ve gained a level with a str band there, no problem.

She doesn’t need it. A level 8 Ilyana goes from 1.5 str to 2 str with the 1 str band usage. Oh and it’s not fair to have Ilyana get 2/2 band usage when Soren only gets 2/7. Try again.

Please, you know better than this. And then you tell me to ‘try again’?

Political debate

A: Sir, I am of the opinion we should give all tramps over a million dollars so they can pay taxes

B: But that only costs us more money!

A: Yes, but it’s also fair to give the tramps some money, because otherwise the rich people would have way too much in comparison to them.

I mean, what the fuck? Would you also say Soren > Titania because 20/1 Soren > base Titania (I haven’t done the comparison, but just assume that comparison holds true)? I hope not, for it just doesn’t work like that. Though this is a different scenario, the same concept applies – it just doesn’t work like that. “It’s not fair” doesn’t exist in discussions – only “this is valid/invalid” and “this is sound/unsound”.

For instance, I could say “I’m a man. All men are French.”. The conclusion that follows these premises is that I’m French. Valid, but unsound. Fairness is nowhere to be found.

Now assume the following scenario.

“1: Hey! Here’s a criminal! Let’s kill him!”

“2: Yeah! Kill him!”

“3: How do you know he’s a criminal!”

“1: He looks like one!”

“2: Yeah! Kill him!”

Apparently, someone only needs to look like a criminal in order to be a criminal. Considering this man looks like a criminal, the conclusion is that he’s a criminal? Fair? Fairness has nothing to do with it. But this is valid reasoning, for the conclusion follows the premises.

tl;dr fairness doesn’t exist

Oh and Soren can have +mt to his forge too.

That doesn’t counter my point at all.

And Ilyana can afford that, for she hasn’t taken up resources that Soren already has.

I also ignored adept. Which only futher increases Soren’s offensive lead to help balance this out. Remember, Shade is unreliable – sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. However, when it doesn’t, Ilyana can very well die. This is why an enemy phase for Ilyana/Soren shouldn’t happen.

What? Shade is unreliable, but you neglect to mention Adept’s even more fail reliability? A 12% chance to active it in a non-double is quite pathetic, and a ~22.5% chance to active it on a double still isn’t very large. I don’t know the mechanics of the Shade skill, but I am fairly certain Shade is more reliable than 12-22%, meaning Soren has a slight offence lead, while Ilyana has a defence lead…

Oh yeah, but an enemy phase shouldn’t happen. Al right. Too bad that doesn’t matter jack shit. Better durability is a trait that can’t be ignored. Ilyana could advance a little further when Soren can’t. Ilyana can kill that one enemy while Soren can’t because he’s at a large risk of dying afterwards. Et cetera. It can go on like that. Ilyana’s durability lead (and mainly Shade) allows her to do things Soren can’t, giving her quite a considerable lead that might even cancel out Soren’s offence lead – since she’s able to do a bit more than Soren.

Or let me put it this way: a more reliable skill doesn’t matter for durability at all, but a less reliable skill does increase offense quite a bit?

Short answer: no.

This is only true in the few seize chapters. Aka, chapter 9, chapter 16, chapter 21, chapter 23, and chapters 26 to 28.

You do realize that that’s nearly 30% of the chapters Soren’s available in, right? Even if we would count chapter 17 as four separate chapters, it would still be 25% of the time he’s around, thus limiting their flexibility in 25% of their time. While that may seem like a pretty low amount, it’s actually fairly considerable. To take a much more extreme example, it would also be very significant if a unit would be absolutely useless in 25% of his chapters while he’s forced to be played.

It’s definitely significant.

And in chapters 21-28, Soren can have Shade.

Yes, but so can plenty of others. There are other magic users, units with bad durability – like Reyson – etc. So Soren can have Shade, but there’s competition for it. Ilyana has Shade no matter what.

Plus, there are more enemies around the seize point anyway, so units generally go to more use there than otehr places.

Not necessarily true.

Chapter 9: Plenty of enemies on the beach, where Soren’s full movement could be of use. But if he has to follow Ike, it means Ilyana is going there, being important up there, while Soren has to follow Ike’s inflexible ass.

Chapter 16: Admittedly, it’s true here. Though, he may want to go around the seize point area because he may be the one that has to recruit Devdan, while your other units start killing enemies there already. So it’s actually not entirely true.

Chapter 21: There are multiple ways to go. Soren might’ve wanted to go after some soldiers and shit, while Ike goes after those fighter/warrior reinforcements at the top of the map. I’m not saying this exact scenario happens all the time, but the point is that Soren may have preferred going one way while Ike would rather go the other.

Chapter 23: It’s true, here.

Chapter 26: Definitely not true. Enemies are coming from all directions, and there are plenty of enemies Soren would love to go after that are not near the seize point.

Chapter 28: True again.

I gave Soren an extra 3 HP band usages and I gave Ilyana a use of a magic band and a res band. Not that it matters.

Excuse me? Why does Soren get a band he can actually make good use of while Ilyana gets two different bands, both of which she doesn’t even need? If you want to do it that way, give Ilyana 3 hp band uses as well, or give her 3 str band uses, or give her 3 spd band uses, or even 3 def band uses, but mag/res band uses? What does she need those for? For nothing!

Oh yeah, and for soren it does matter.

Remember this?

A level 8 Ilyana goes from 1.5 str to 2 str with the 1 str band usage

We round values over .5 up. Soren with three more hp band uses thus has 23.55 = 24 hp instead of 23.4 = 23. Or if we count the two hp uses from the str band, that means he has 23.65 = 24 hp instead of 23.5 which is just 23.5, apparently.

You know what else? We can also give Soren a speedwing to keep his AS lead. Or we could give him a dracoshield so Ilyana no longer wins defence. Or we could give him a seraph robe.

That’s not quite how it works.

Let’s say we have unit A. What does this unit need to become good? Or perhaps a better question would be: what does this unit need that others don’t, or what does this unit not need that others do?

Assuming unit A is supposed to kill enemies, he’ll need to be able to fight properly. Let’s say there were two other units on our team, unit B and unit C. B and C are capable of doubling incredibly realiably. They can double at least 99% of the enemies, though it’s not unlikely it’s even more (in other words, everything). Unit A, however, sometimes struggles to double. Now, if only he could get +2 spd from somewhere… Hey! There’s a Speedwing. Now, there are three choices of whom to give it to. There’s unit A, who really wants (and possibly even needs) it, and units B and C, who don’t need it at all. Now, we could give the Speedwing to either unit B or C, but that would be useless. All we get is overkill, which we don’t need. Unit A, however, doesn’t do as well without the Speedwing, and is the only unit left to choose from. Wham! Unit A got a resource without hurting any others. Perfect.

The same concept applies here. Ilyana needs it, Soren doesn’t. Ilyana can get one, Soren can’t. Other items? Other stat boosters are much more wanted. There are plenty units who would like to have +7 hp. Many units want an atk boost. Many units would like their skill activation rates/hit rates to rise, etc. Soren is, overall, incredibly unlikely to get a stat booster.

I love how you included such a valuable resource for Ilyana, but not one for Soren. That’s called favouritism.

Nay, favouritism is the act of prefential treatment, and I don’t recall giving Ilyana any.

See, a level 6 Mordy doubles 13 more enemies in chapter 16 with said speedwing.

So how does that counter him not doubling a lot later on, quite a bit after chapter 16? Prove that he still doubles reliably and you may have a point, but the way it is now, my point still stands (for you didn’t couner my point on how a speedwing doesn’t help Mordecai for later).

Heck, if a character is speed screwed they’d want it too.

True, but, and this applies to everything you said about Ilyana possibly not getting a Speedwings… There are two Speedwings. Three, technically, but I’m not counting the one Bryce gives you. So really, Ilyana can get a Speedwings, while someone else who got spd screwed/relies on the Knight Ward a lot can also still get one. In other words, nobody suffers from Ilyana taking a Speedwings, especially because it’s very unlikely that you’re playing so many units that rely a lot on the Knight Ward or that can get spd screwed fairly easily.

In order for Ilyana to be 3RKO’ed and Soren not 3RKO’ed, an enemy has to have 16 Atk. Since the ravens stop attacking you in turn 6, that’s 5 enemies. And if after that, Ilyana gets attacked by a 17 Atk enemy or higher (15 enemies), Ilyana will die. So yeah, that small durability lead just doesn’t put Ilyana ahead of Soren.

That’s five enemies she has a concrete lead against. And then there’s Shade, which you mentioned something about. Or rather, you mentioned Shade possibly leading to death if misused, and then rambled on about Soren’s chance to avoid attacks building up over time, while Shade is probably more reliable than a 11 percentage point advantage in avoid.

I mean, let’s say Shade only had as much as a 20% chance of working. That already would cancel out that avo lead, and even surpasses it quite a bit. And then there’s still the concrete lead she has (no matter how minor it is).

And then consider that it’s highly unlikely for Shade to have only a 20% chance of working. From my own experiences, I’d say that it has at least a 50% chance to work, and probably way more, giving Ilyana quite the defensive lead.

60% chance of Ilyana having 15 spd looks more likely to me anyway.

…So? The possibility still exists. As I said, the chance of her having less spd than Soren is very tiny, thus it’s fair to assume they still have equal spd, which was considering all factors (including 6 spd band uses). So either she has 16 natural spd, or 16 spd through six spd band uses. You only focused on natural gains, while that’s not the only factor that needs to be taken into account. This led me to the conclusion that it’s incredibly likely that they have equal spd. Considering you didn’t counter my entire point, I dare say my point still stands.

What happens if Soren is def/HP blessed? What happens if Ilyana is HP/Def screwed? There are a variety of scenarios which indicate contrary to the averages, but the averages are just that: averages. Sure, Soren may have 30 HP and/or 6 def but averages tell us that he is likely to have 31 HP and 7 Def.

No, averages tell us that 50% of the time the stat will be below that value, and 50% of the time it will be above that value. Not that he’s (most) likely to have that value. For example, if we round 0.6 up to 1, Soren has an average of 1 str at lvl 14. However, he is more likely to have 0 str than >0 str (51% chance of 0, 49% chance of over 0). Thus we say that Soren has 0 str? Or 1 str? The average says 1, probability says 0.

If things are really tight, we can look at the probability of things happening and draw conclusions from that, like I concluded that, if Soren would have at least 1 less hp or 1 less def – of which there is a ~71% chance, mind you – Ilyana would obtain quite the considerable durability lead. Now, for those other scenarios you provided.

  1. Soren gets def blessed – Soren has a 44% of having <7 def, a 24% chance of having 7 def, and a 32% chance of having >7 def. In other words, he’s most likely to get screwed.
  2. Soren gets hp blessed – Soren has an 48% chance of having <31 hp, an 18% chance of having 31 hp, and a 34% chance of having >31 hp. In other words, he’s most likely to get screwed.
  3. Ilyana gets def screwed – Ilyana has a 35% chance of having <7 def, a 29% chance of having 7 def, and a 36% chance of having >7 def. In other words, Ilyana is most likely to get blessed.
  4. Ilyana gets hp screwed – Ilyana has a 33% chance of having <30 hp, a 21% chance of having 30 hp, and a 46% chance of having >30 hp. In other words, Ilyana is most likely to get blessed.

What can we conclude from this? Soren is most likely to get screwed when it comes to concrete durability (hp/def), while Ilyana is most likely to get blessed the same department. So those scenarios you provided… the chance of them happening all at once is a little over Now say Ilyana only got screwed in def and is average in hp, while Soren got blessed on both parts. The chance of those scenarios occurring is still a minimal 3.8%.

In other words, too unlikely to actually make a case of. Heck, even Soren getting blessed in both stats only has a chance of 10.9% of occurring. What I’m saying is, the “what if” statement of yours doesn’t quite apply, for the possibility of your scenarios occurring is incredibly minimal.

Which is basically saying: “Ilyana may be more durable, but she cannot actually use this durability to her advantage as trying to do so will most likely result in her death.”

One word: Shade.

But since that’s already been covered earlier, I won’t go over it again.

It’s pretty damn easy, as I've shown with the maps I've provided, and whilst he may have bad durability, you can afford an enemy breaking through the front lines and attacking Soren. That is, if Rhys and Shinon aren’t nearby, in which case that enemy would attack them because they can’t counter (And Shinon has provoke).

Because of his ease of being protected (As shown through the various maps I gave) and his overall decent offensive capabilities, saying Soren is not a positive contribution in the earlygame is silly. In every playthrough, Soren kills/hurts enemies in chapters 5-7. Ilyana never does so. Soren wins.

What “various maps”? You provided one earlygame map, and that’s it.

Anyway.

What, now Soren’s durability also relies on either Rhys or Shinon being in play and nearby? Please. First Rhys is even more fragile than Soren is, plus his only use is healing, which Soren and Ilyana can do, too, and healing isn’t exactly a priority later on anymore, anyway. Shinon just… sucks too hard to have at leats a decent chance of being played.

Soren can indeed take a hit. But what if a second enemy gets to him? That’ll put him in critical health, at least, or may even kill him. What if there’s a third enemy that can get to him? It’s basically his death. Ever thought about that, rather than just that one enemy you think could break through or get to Soren in some way (not to mention ballistae and the like exist)?

Oh yeah…

Rolf hurts/kills enemies, too! Thus he’s a positive contributor! Thus he should be >>>> someone like Tauroneo, because he doesn’t do anything positive for a looooong time!

Get the sarcasm?

supports

Another possibility, which would limit no-one’s flexibility, would be to leave them all completely supportless – or rather, not have them limit their flexibility even though they have supported. It’s not like Ike, Oscar and Kieran need supports anyway. So they could just support eachother and then enjoy the bonuses when they’re in range of eachother. Soren depends a lot on the bonuses Ike gives him, so they need to stick together basically all the time, thus limiting Soren’s flexibility a lot (as I already mentioned earlier).

Zihark can also support Brom. Water > Light.

Gatrie is kinda “meh” and isn’t as likely to be fielded as the others.

Fire > Wind, too. However, a 50 atk unit with 58 avo would rather have some more avo from the wind affinity than even more atk from the fire affinity. My point is that you generalize things too much.

As for Brom, all he gives Zihark that Ilyana doesn’t is 1 atk at B level. At C, there’s no difference at all. Not to mention Zihark has Adept and a fairly high crit rate to get rid of his opponents – he doesn’t need +1 atk for that. Though, it first requires Brom to be in played, and with his 5-6 mov and bad movement type (even the fewest terrain slows him down a lot), that’s not very likely (and that’s without mentioning crappy offense – he gets way too much credit for his apparently ‘good’ offense). Not much more likely than Ilyana being played, at least. So I’d say my supports are still perfectly valid. Besides, if Brom is played, he also might want to support Boyd for more atk (which he really enjoys in case he doesn’t double), and then it’s between Nephenee and Zihark.

And blablabla

Point being, Ilyana can perfectly get an A support with Zihark, and otherwise it’s a B support for a little less avo. Not that big a deal.

5 HP is half a vulnerary saved. After 4 heals, that’s 20 HP more Soren has healed. It builds up quick.

I smile at how you overestimate the value of healing later in the game, but I doubt I need to actually explain that. The vast majority of units is durable enough to not need healing very often. Healing is more of a nice asset for both than an actual trait of them that can make a difference between their performance.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Trading is generally inefficient in the early chapters. You have quite the limited time in a few of those chapters.

Chapter 4: 4 turns

Chapter 5: 6 turns

Chapter 6: 9 turns

I didn’t include Chapter 7 because we’re likely doing stealth there anyway.

So that’s a total of 19 turns. Chapter 4 requires you to attack all the time and/or to leave Soren in the back, out of enemy range. Unless you want to risk Soren getting killed in a measly two hits, of which there is a 75% chance, roughly. In other words, he won’t really get any band usage there, which leaves him with just fifteen turns. And you want him to attack, heal himself, trade the band to someone, get the band from someone, and that all within fifteen turns? That seems ridiculous to me. If you have to constantly have the other str band user stay near Soren and trade the band to him when Soren nearly levels up, that reduces either Soren’s, the other unit’s, or both their flexibility, dependent on what your strategy is. Either way, there’s a loss of efficiency.

As for BEXP, yes, he probably could’ve gained a level with a str band there, no problem.

For one thing, chapter 4 doesn’t matter, as I gave Soren a grand total of 0 exp in chapter 4, so trading doesn’t matter. In chapter 5, the chapter cannot exceed 6 turns so having someone trade with Soren doesn’t necessarily reduce efficiency as the chance that it stops you completing the chapter in over 6 turns is 0%. Not to mention that as it’s a defence chapter, we’re likely to have people just blocking chokepoints, so having Soren just run up behind someone, trade the band, equip it, then attack, is not even slowing the team down. Chapter 6 has similar chokepoints and having him only trading now and again when he’s nearing a level-up isn’t even hard in an open map such as this or chapter 7. You’re exaggerating the issue, especially with units with canto such as Oscar and Titania. In fact, I’d question their need to constantly have the str band themselves, making your comparison of them having to hang around Soren false. I mean, they’re in high/top/Titania tier for a reason: they’re great units that need very little resources, meaning them losing 1-2 uses of an str band is largely unimportant in the long run. Gatrie’s problem is spd, not str. Shinon is lol and unlikely to be used in the long-term anyway. Which just leaves Rhys, who matches Soren’s mobility and durability so having them trade with each other now and again isn’t particularly difficult. Oh yeah, and since he attacks at 1-2 range, he often doesn’t need to heal himself. So again, your scenario is moot, as is the point it was trying to make.

Chapter 7 is a rout, aka, we have to kill everything. So I fail to see you’re point.

tl;dr fairness doesn’t exist

Ignoring the point I made ftw!!11!

Seriously, all that was irrelevant. The fact is that you gave Ilyana a higher pecentage of str band usages than Soren, which is favouritism, ie, an invalid/unsound/unfair thing to do.

To show how stupid making such an irrelevant point is, I’ll show up first hand:

“3: How do you know he’s a criminal!”

The exclaimation mark should be replaced with a question mark or at the very least a question mark should be added to the end of the sentance. Making such a gramatical error means that the point that you were trying to make is moot, even though it had very little to do with grammer, amirite?

And Ilyana can afford that, for she hasn’t taken up resources that Soren already has.

These resources – money and bands – are not the same. The latter is easily used and traded around, erasing the negative utility for using it. Money however can only be spent once, meaning that the gold Ilyana takes away is gone forever and cannot be used again (unless you sell the forge, but you still lose money from doing that). Money is a much larger resource than using bands. Not only that, but the % amount of band usages they used is similar: Ilyana used an str band for 50% of the time she levelled up. Soren got an str band for just over 50% of all his level-up’s also. However, Soren has also had more time to use the str band so such a lead in str band % is perfectly justifiable. Therefore, the extra gold Ilyana uses up is a negative towards Ilyana compared to Soren, and Soren keeps his doubling lead in any case.

Oh yeah, but an enemy phase shouldn’t happen. Al right. Too bad that doesn’t matter jack shit. Better durability is a trait that can’t be ignored. Ilyana could advance a little further when Soren can’t. Ilyana can kill that one enemy while Soren can’t because he’s at a large risk of dying afterwards. Et cetera. It can go on like that. Ilyana’s durability lead (and mainly Shade) allows her to do things Soren can’t, giving her quite a considerable lead that might even cancel out Soren’s offence lead – since she’s able to do a bit more than Soren.

No Ilyana’s durability “lead” is shade, not mainly shade. This is the problem: shade should not count as a durability lead with units as frail as this as it can often result in death. Because of this, you should always avoid giving them more than 1 enemy per enemy phase (unless said enemy is a mage). Death chances are never good, and shoudl always be avoided whenever possible.

Or let me put it this way: a more reliable skill doesn’t matter for durability at all, but a less reliable skill does increase offense quite a bit?

No. Neither affects gameplay very much as we are always keeping these two out of enemy ranges because of their durability. Shade has a larger requisite to not occuring than Adept does : Death.

You do realize that that’s nearly 30% of the chapters Soren’s available in, right? Even if we would count chapter 17 as four separate chapters, it would still be 25% of the time he’s around, thus limiting their flexibility in 25% of their time. While that may seem like a pretty low amount, it’s actually fairly considerable. To take a much more extreme example, it would also be very significant if a unit would be absolutely useless in 25% of his chapters while he’s forced to be played.

It’s definitely significant.

Untrue, a majority of the enemies are found near the seige point so Soren is usually helping more there than elsewhere and sometimes said “elsewhere” doesn’t exist. Take chapter 28, for example, where the main path leads you directly to the seige point, meaning that Soren isn’t losing flexibility here either. A similar thing can be said for chapters 16 and 23 as well.

Not to mention that Ike can even move across the beach and around to the seige point. In chapter 9, which I deem the only chapter where Soren actually loses useful from heading straight to the throne room, so again, not much is lost from his support with Ike, only 1-2 turns of only having a 7 avo lead, at best.

Yes, but so can plenty of others. There are other magic users, units with bad durability – like Reyson – etc. So Soren can have Shade, but there’s competition for it. Ilyana has Shade no matter what.

Reyson alsmot protects himsefl, because after vigoring the untis he refreshes can move around to protect him, kill enemies that threaten him etcetera. That’s why he’s top tier – his durabiltiy matters less. And the other magic users are kinda meh/show up later so have less of a claim on it. Soren has the highest claim to shade, so getting it is neutral utility as it’s only a negative if he’s preventing units who use it better than him from using it.

Chapter 9: Plenty of enemies on the beach, where Soren’s full movement could be of use. But if he has to follow Ike, it means Ilyana is going there, being important up there, while Soren has to follow Ike’s inflexible ass.

Chapter 16: Admittedly, it’s true here. Though, he may want to go around the seize point area because he may be the one that has to recruit Devdan, while your other units start killing enemies there already. So it’s actually not entirely true.

Chapter 21: There are multiple ways to go. Soren might’ve wanted to go after some soldiers and shit, while Ike goes after those fighter/warrior reinforcements at the top of the map. I’m not saying this exact scenario happens all the time, but the point is that Soren may have preferred going one way while Ike would rather go the other.

Chapter 23: It’s true, here.

Chapter 26: Definitely not true. Enemies are coming from all directions, and there are plenty of enemies Soren would love to go after that are not near the seize point.

Chapter 28: True again.

Chapter 9: More enemies near the seige point, however. These enemies pop up:

2x Myrmidon lv 11 (steel sword)

24 hp, 17 atk, 8 AS, 100 hit, 19 avo, 6 def, 2 res, 5 crit, 3 cev

1x Myrmidon lv 13 (iron sword)

25 hp, 15 atk, 13 AS, 117 hit, 29 avo, 6 def, 3 res, 6 crit, 3 cev

1x Myrmidon lv 13 (steel sword)

25 hp, 18 atk, 11 AS, 104 hit, 25 avo, 6 def, 3 res, 6 crit, 3 cev

1x Soldier lv 11 (javelin)

28 hp, 14 atk, 5 AS, 80 hit, 12 avo, 8 def, 3 res, 4 crit, 2 cev

1x Soldier lv 12 (iron lance)

29 hp, 15 atk, 9 AS, 101 hit, 21 avo, 9 def, 3 res, 4 crit, 3 cev

1x Knight lv 13 (steel lance)

30 hp, 21 atk, 2 AS, 87 hit, 7 avo, 16 def, 6 res, 3 crit, 3 cev

As well as kotaff and the ~9 enemies you can vaguely see here: http://www.fireemblemwod.net/fe9/guia/cap9.htm. So that’s ~50% of the enemies Soren can face by following Ike’s “Inflexible ass” if we ignore my strategy of having Soren move with Ike along the beach and then down towards the seize point. More if we use my strategy.

Chapter 16: You can recruit Devdan from near the seige point and we can have Mist/Rofl/Sothe/Tormod do it instead. No biggie.

Chapter 21: If we have them take the most inside route possible, they get to the seize point the fastest and face the most enemies along the way.

Chapter 26: This one is actually true, there’s a patrol of wyverns nearby, a group of paladins, a general, a group of sages, and of course, Bertram to deal with. Oh, and some feral ones. The other ways (North and west), have fewer enemies than going straight north-west. This:

should help show you.
Excuse me? Why does Soren get a band he can actually make good use of while Ilyana gets two different bands, both of which she doesn’t even need? If you want to do it that way, give Ilyana 3 hp band uses as well, or give her 3 str band uses, or give her 3 spd band uses, or even 3 def band uses, but mag/res band uses? What does she need those for? For nothing!

Well, I gave those too her to round up the stats. It could be more if you want or we can give her some suerfluous HP band usages if you really want that. I don’t see the point in this discussion really. Which is what I meant by “Not that it matters.”

That’s not quite how it works.

Let’s say we have unit A. What does this unit need to become good? Or perhaps a better question would be: what does this unit need that others don’t, or what does this unit not need that others do?

Assuming unit A is supposed to kill enemies, he’ll need to be able to fight properly. Let’s say there were two other units on our team, unit B and unit C. B and C are capable of doubling incredibly realiably. They can double at least 99% of the enemies, though it’s not unlikely it’s even more (in other words, everything). Unit A, however, sometimes struggles to double. Now, if only he could get +2 spd from somewhere… Hey! There’s a Speedwing. Now, there are three choices of whom to give it to. There’s unit A, who really wants (and possibly even needs) it, and units B and C, who don’t need it at all. Now, we could give the Speedwing to either unit B or C, but that would be useless. All we get is overkill, which we don’t need. Unit A, however, doesn’t do as well without the Speedwing, and is the only unit left to choose from. Wham! Unit A got a resource without hurting any others. Perfect.

The same concept applies here. Ilyana needs it, Soren doesn’t. Ilyana can get one, Soren can’t. Other items? Other stat boosters are much more wanted. There are plenty units who would like to have +7 hp. Many units want an Atk boost. Many units would like their skill activation rates/hit rates to rise, etc. Soren is, overall, incredibly unlikely to get a stat booster.

Units in general are very durable, especially later on. Take a 20/12 Ike with ‘A’ Soren and ‘B’ Oscar in chapter 26 and some band usages. 46 HP, 112 avo and 20 Def is an awesome combination. Take the 30 Atk tigers with 126 hit; they have the best Atk/hit combo in the chapter excluding the boss. They 5RKO Ike at 4.06, meaning he faces a measly 1.1% chance of death after 5 attacks. And this is the same with most earth affinities (Tanith and Oscar), so that’s 3 units right there who have incredible durability.

Now let’s take a few non-earth affinities, Mak and Astrid, for example. Let’s say they support each other, Mak supports Haar and Astrid supports Sothe. A 20/10 Makalov with some band usage has 45 HP, 82 avo and 21 Def. He definitely fears those Tigers more than Ike, but having 1-2 range helps on the player phase and his avo could be bigger with KW usage. A 20/16 Astrid with KW usage has 40 HP, 96 avo and 12 Def. She fears the tigers even more than Mak, but fortunately, she can ORKO them with the help of a laguz bow, which she practically has a monopoly over unless we’re fielding lolRofl or lolShinon, meaning she doesn’t fret on the player phase and on the enemy phase she can canto away. Basically, these tigers won’t survive long enough to kill her.

A 20/14 Brom with 2 supports gets tinked by these tigers. A 20/12 Gatrie with2 support active also gets tinked. So that’s another 2 incredibly durable units that can be found within our team.

Oh yeah, and this is just looking at Tigers, looking at low hit warriors and low Atk SM’s and Snipers will really highlight just how durable units are in this game.

Because of this durability, giving Soren a dracoshield/seraph robe (or both) is actually a smaller negative than Ilyana getting a speedwing. Why? Because there are quite a few units that can’t double.

Take Mordy, for instance. In chapter 26, let’s say he’s level 13. Demi!Mordy with ‘A’ Mist, ‘B’ Stefan has 16 AS. He doubles 12 more enemies in this chapter alone. Over the course of the game, that figure is higher. Other units that improve are units such as Gatrie and Brom, who need the KW much less if they get a speedwing. Haar becomes better with a speedwing also. A level 17 Haar in chapter 28, for example, doubles a whopping 7 enemies without the speedwing. With it, he doubles 28, a massive improvement.

So yeah, more people want the speedwing than they do the dracoshield/seraph robe. Now you might say that they want the defensive boosters earlier, but this is also true with the speedwing, more so in fact, as doubling is much less consistent earlygame than lategame. Take chapter 6, neither Boyd nor Oscar, two top tier units, are doubling consistently. A level 6 Oscar with his 7 AS with an iron lance misses out on doubling 16 enemies in this chapter, with the speedwing it’s reduced to 7 enemies. Considering there’s only 24 enemies on the map, that’s quite a drop percentage wise (66.666%  29.166% or ~37% of the enemies). As for Boyd, a level 5 Boyd with an iron axe doubles 7 more enemies, or ~29% of the map, with the speedwing. So again, the speedwing is indeed a popular resource.

And what does the dracoshield do to Soren’s performance? Well, it gives him a lead of +1 def in the level 13/0 comparison, and erases Ilyana’s def lead in the 20/1 comparison. So overall, this means Soren’s HP and avo leads are just in direct comparison to Ilyana’s shade.

Btw, the Mordy example counters this:

So how does that counter him not doubling a lot later on, quite a bit after chapter 16? Prove that he still doubles reliably and you may have a point, but the way it is now, my point still stands (for you didn’t couner my point on how a speedwing doesn’t help Mordecai for later).
Nay, favouritism is the act of prefential treatment, and I don’t recall giving Ilyana any.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/favouritism

“An inclination to favour some person or group” <-- that’s what you’re doing with Ilyana as the person/group. If you’re going to give Ilyana valuable resources, at least give Soren some.

That’s five enemies she has a concrete lead against. And then there’s Shade, which you mentioned something about. Or rather, you mentioned Shade possibly leading to death if misused, and then rambled on about Soren’s chance to avoid attacks building up over time, while Shade is probably more reliable than an 11 percentage point advantage in avoid.

I mean, let’s say Shade only had as much as a 20% chance of working. That already would cancel out that avo lead, and even surpasses it quite a bit. And then there’s still the concrete lead she has (no matter how minor it is).

And then consider that it’s highly unlikely for Shade to have only a 20% chance of working. From my own experiences, I’d say that it has at least a 50% chance to work, and probably way more, giving Ilyana quite the defensive lead.

Or 0 if we gave Soren a dracoshield.

No, shade doesn’t prevent you unit from dying if they get attacked, avoid does. Overall, I’m giving neither an enemy phase, so it’s a moot point anyway. Considering it’s about as hard to protect Soren as it is someone like Astrid (who’s easy to protect thanks to canto).

Basically, shade is doing nothing for either of them, whilst Soren’s avo is helping him when they get counter attacked by a 1-2 range weapon user.

…So? The possibility still exists. As I said, the chance of her having less spd than Soren is very tiny, thus it’s fair to assume they still have equal spd, which was considering all factors (including 6 spd band uses). So either she has 16 natural spd, or 16 spd through six spd band uses. You only focused on natural gains, while that’s not the only factor that needs to be taken into account. This led me to the conclusion that it’s incredibly likely that they have equal spd. Considering you didn’t counter my entire point, I dare say my point still stands.

The problem word here is “tiny” when it most certainly isn’t “tiny” compared to what the chance is that they don’t have equal speed (Which is the %chance of Ilyana getting a speedwing * the %chance Ilyana has 16 AS without the speedwing). The former is incredibly small as we’re not giving Soren any valuable resources and other units want said speedwing. The latter, even with said 6 band usages, only has a ~48.6% chance of occurring. So basically, no, the chance of Ilyana having 16 AS is < the chance Ilyana has 15 AS, and whilst Ilyana has a chance of having 16 AS, Soren also has an existent chance of having 19 AS, so that point is moot.

No, averages tell us that 50% of the time the stat will be below that value, and 50% of the time it will be above that value. Not that he’s (most) likely to have that value. For example, if we round 0.6 up to 1, Soren has an average of 1 str at lvl 14. However, he is more likely to have 0 str than >0 str (51% chance of 0, 49% chance of over 0). Thus we say that Soren has 0 str? Or 1 str? The average says 1, probability says 0.

Well, then the average is wrong in this instance, but not in the instances which we are talking about.

Soren gets def blessed – Soren has a 44% of having <7 def, a 24% chance of having 7 def, and a 32% chance of having >7 def. In other words, he’s most likely to get screwed

Well, actually, according to this: http://reikken.awardspace.com/CoD.php, Soren has a ~55.9% chance of gaining 3 def over 19 levels with a 15% def growth. This is very similar to the chance you displayed of Soren having >6 Def, meaning that he has the bigger chance of having >6 def than having 6 Def. Thus, Soren is most likely to have 7 Def. Huzzah!

Soren gets hp blessed – Soren has an 48% chance of having <31 hp, an 18% chance of having 31 hp, and a 34% chance of having >31 hp. In other words, he’s most likely to get screwed.

From here it certainly looks like Soren has a greater chance of not being screwed than being screwed. Unless you think 48% > 52%? If so then I’d question your math skills.

Ilyana gets def screwed – Ilyana has a 35% chance of having <7 def, a 29% chance of having 7 def, and a 36% chance of having >7 def. In other words, Ilyana is most likely to get blessed

Actually, the chance of her getting 7 Def > the chance of her getting >7Def. (64% vs 36%).

Ilyana gets hp screwed – Ilyana has a 33% chance of having <30 hp, a 21% chance of having 30 hp, and a 46% chance of having >30 hp. In other words, Ilyana is most likely to get blessed.

Again, the chance of her having her displayed average > the chance of her not having her displayed average. For this reason, I displayed these two as having their average stats and treated them as such, as they are likely to have said stats.

This counters the rest of your point about RNG screwage/blessing. Including:

What can we conclude from this? Soren is most likely to get screwed when it comes to concrete durability (hp/def), while Ilyana is most likely to get blessed the same department. So those scenarios you provided… the chance of them happening all at once is a little over Now say Ilyana only got screwed in def and is average in hp, while Soren got blessed on both parts. The chance of those scenarios occurring is still a minimal 3.8%.

In other words, too unlikely to actually make a case of. Heck, even Soren getting blessed in both stats only has a chance of 10.9% of occurring. What I’m saying is, the “what if” statement of yours doesn’t quite apply, for the possibility of your scenarios occurring is incredibly minimal.

What “various maps”? You provided one earlygame map, and that’s it.

Two, actually. Chapters 4 and 7.

What, now Soren’s durability also relies on either Rhys or Shinon being in play and nearby? Please. First Rhys is even more fragile than Soren is, plus his only use is healing, which Soren and Ilyana can do, too, and healing isn’t exactly a priority later on anymore, anyway. Shinon just… sucks too hard to have at least a decent chance of being played.

Not reliant on, helped by. If Soren is not chokeholed off (Something that is easy to do in the first place), then he can still survive when Shinon/Rhys are around. And Rhys and Shinon are both forced in the earlygame, which is when I’m talking about so stuff about how they are later on matters not, because they’re in play and at a time when they’re very useful (healing is useful earlygame + Shinon he the second best PP offence on the team).

Soren can indeed take a hit. But what if a second enemy gets to him? That’ll put him in critical health, at least, or may even kill him. What if there’s a third enemy that can get to him? It’s basically his death. Ever thought about that, rather than just that one enemy you think could break through or get to Soren in some way (not to mention ballistae and the like exist)?

The only thing that will get Soren killed by having him get attacked by 2-3 enemies is player stupidity and placing him in said 2-3 enemy ranged or at least not protecting him thanks to chokeholes. And Player stupidity should not be accounted for as this is a debate to see who’s most efficient, and stupidly placing units is not efficient.

Ballistae will prioritize one of our fliers, and siege tomes are no problem. Other than that, I fail to see the problem with long range weapons and Soren existing.

Rolf hurts/kills enemies, too! Thus he’s a positive contributor! Thus he should be >>>> someone like Tauroneo, because he doesn’t do anything positive for a looooong time!

Yes, because Rofl and Tauroneo are as close as Soren/Ilyana are when they both exist.

Get the sarcasm?
Another possibility, which would limit no-one’s flexibility, would be to leave them all completely supportless – or rather, not have them limit their flexibility even though they have supported. It’s not like Ike, Oscar and Kieran need supports anyway. So they could just support eachother and then enjoy the bonuses when they’re in range of eachother. Soren depends a lot on the bonuses Ike gives him, so they need to stick together basically all the time, thus limiting Soren’s flexibility a lot (as I already mentioned earlier).

Not really, not be a whole lot more than Ilyana supporting Mordy, whom have a massive mov difference, slowing Mordy down or even just the Zihark support.

Fire > Wind, too. However, a 50 atk unit with 58 avo would rather have some more avo from the wind affinity than even more atk from the fire affinity. My point is that you generalize things too much.

So you think Zihark, with his high skill base, growth, cap and a very accurate weapon type (Swords) is having hitting problems? No. Zihark will always prefer +Atk over +Hit. Oh, and Brom’s Zihark’s faster support, meaning that he’d take Brom over Ilyana even if both bonuses were shown to be superfluous/not very useful. This counters this bit:

As for Brom, all he gives Zihark that Ilyana doesn’t is 1 atk at B level. At C, there’s no difference at all. Not to mention Zihark has Adept and a fairly high crit rate to get rid of his opponents – he doesn’t need +1 atk for that.
Though, it first requires Brom to be in played, and with his 5-6 mov and bad movement type (even the fewest terrain slows him down a lot), that’s not very likely (and that’s without mentioning crappy offense – he gets way too much credit for his apparently ‘good’ offense). Not much more likely than Ilyana being played, at least.

Crappy offence? Oh no, you have it WAY wrong. I’ll just use the statistics I used in the Brom vs Calill debate in the tier list for ease:

Level 20/5 Brom with a forged steel lance + 9 KW uses, 'A' Boyd, 'B' Zihark: 43 HP, 39 Atk, 16 AS, 49 Avo, 25 Def, 9 Res

Well, that def is insane for a unit at chapter 20. For referance, only 6 non-magical enemies can touch him, and none of them deal more than 10 damage, heck, only 1 deals more than 5 damage, and that’s the boss. And guess what, he can’t ORKO a whopping 5 enemies. Which is reduced to 1 if you give him a speedwing. (Not doing your speedwing argument any favours).

Skip ahead to endgame:

20/15 Brom with 17 uses of the KW, forged silver lance, 'A' Boyd, 'B' Zihark: 51 HP, 49 Atk, 21 AS, 61 Avo, 30 Def, 12 Res

Again, that def is hilarious. Only 14 non-dragon or magical enemies can scratch him, and a majority of those deal <10 damage against him. Bryce is the only one with >40 Atk that should be attacking him sans dragons, so yeah, 1 non-dragon or magical enemy deals >10 damage. Awesome. Brom can survive a hit from each of the level 15 dragons and a hit from the level 18 dragon and survive, which is just plain awesome. As for offence, he 2RKO’s everything, but few can match that Atk. Take Oscar for example, who can’t get to said Atk with str capped, something that happens rarely in the first place. So yeah, it’s not as crappy as you might think.

In fact, Brom ranks above Zihark in the current tier list, so if Brom isn’t being played, then assuming Zihark in play is rather silly.

Besides, if Brom is played, he also might want to support Boyd for more atk (which he really enjoys in case he doesn’t double), and then it’s between Nephenee and Zihark.

And why would Brom choose Neph over Zihark? 15 avo at ‘A’ >>> 7 Avo + 7 lolhit. Unless you really think Brom has hitting problems, in which case I would probably die laughing.

Point being, Ilyana can perfectly get an A support with Zihark, and otherwise it’s a B support for a little less avo. Not that big a deal.

So a ‘B’ is fine then? Then wth is the point in this argument as I gave her a B?

I smile at how you overestimate the value of healing later in the game, but I doubt I need to actually explain that. The vast majority of units is durable enough to not need healing very often. Healing is more of a nice asset for both than an actual trait of them that can make a difference between their performance.

Oh? Units generally fear seige tomes, fliers fear ballistae/bows in general. Units in general fear dragons and Tigers too, thanks to their combination of high hit and high Atk. In fact, most units fear sages in general thanks to low res. And even being ~7RKO’ed over a 10 turn chapter could create the need to be healed from time to time as being hit 7 times isn’t hard. Basically, don’t underestimate healing lategame.

Better healing + better offence the whole game round + more availability >>> a small, mostly pointless, durability lead.

Soren >>> Ilyana.

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