FE9 Tier list v3

[Ether]

Few things here:

I don't see how Mia>Zihark, mainly because Zihark can gain near-invunerability with supports, Mia can't, which is the big between the two.

Also not seeing Tormod>Calill. You entitled Tormod to a lot if BEXP and a Seal(that Seal has to rot in the convoy for like 7 chapters). You gave Calill nothing, I don't doubt that Tormod with a level lead is better than Calill, the issue is him getting the level lead. We cannot just justify massive amounts of resources on units that start crappy and end up better(Rolf,Mia,Tormod), because there are costs associated with these resources, everyone can use them. The fact that Tormod can only match Calill's bases after so much favoritism is more a testament to Calill than anything else IMO.

WRT Mia's level, 20/1 by Ch18 seems reasonable, and 1 level after that(or slightly more) is standard. So 20/3 by Ch20 seems a reasonable estimate to me, 20/6 would be an overestimate IMO. And yes we know she's available from 7-17, the question is whether she's useful. She really isn't very good, really low durability (2-3HKO at high hit rates), low Str and locked to swords so her damage output is too low to ORKO most things, and she doe not have substantial crit yet. Her contribution is neutral at best, negative at worst.

Whatever,for now,let's leave it,but she should still move over Geoffrey.

[Paperblade]

RIP FE9 tier List

Born October 17, 2005 to Mr. and Mrs. tier List

Died September 26, 2009 due to its bodily functions abruptly failing

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Very poetic. Let me try, with a haiku:

Communist Emblem

Fully repudiated

Farewell, Paperblade

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

[-Cynthia-]

20/1 by Ch18 means 8 levels in 9 chapters if you split up Day Breaks, which is slower exp gain than normal.

The 4 parts of Day Breaks are pretty short, it only averages out to about 3 full chapters worth of enemies, so that's one level a chapter, so perhaps 20/2 in Ch18, but 20/6 by Ch20 is a bit much.

I'm not sure about Mia>Geoffrey, mainly because I'm very unsure about Mia>Calill, Calill can outright ORKO most things(except SMs which she can't double), Mia relies on crits and such. And while Mia has slightly better defenses(better Avo before Calill's supports, a little def for a lot of res), Calill doesn't take counters when she attacks and can counter at 1-2 range.

I'm not very confident about Mia vs. Gatrie either, because he beats her by a lot defensively and offensively when he doubles, plus he has earlygame utility. I'll move Mia into the bottom of Mid for now.

[grandjackal]

20/1 by Ch18 means 8 levels in 9 chapters if you split up Day Breaks, which is slower exp gain than normal.

The 4 parts of Day Breaks are pretty short, it only averages out to about 3 full chapters worth of enemies, so that's one level a chapter, so perhaps 20/2 in Ch18, but 20/6 by Ch20 is a bit much.

I'm not sure about Mia>Geoffrey, mainly because I'm very unsure about Mia>Calill, Calill can outright ORKO most things(except SMs which she can't double), Mia relies on crits and such. And while Mia has slightly better defenses(better Avo before Calill's supports, a little def for a lot of res), Calill doesn't take counters when she attacks and can counter at 1-2 range.

I'm not very confident about Mia vs. Gatrie either, because he beats her by a lot defensively and offensively when he doubles, plus he has earlygame utility. I'll move Mia into the bottom of Mid for now.

She's definitely better than Gatrie, because suffice it to say, he is NEVER doubling. He needs 8 levels of BEXP+KW to double armor knights in Tormod's joining chapter. Tormod has that sort of speed just at base and is doing magic damage with magic range. When you need that sort of gorging just to be offensively inferior to a dude who is severely underleveled and at base no less is embaressing.

[-Cynthia-]

She's definitely better than Gatrie, because suffice it to say, he is NEVER doubling. He needs 8 levels of BEXP+KW to double armor knights in Tormod's joining chapter. Tormod has that sort of speed just at base and is doing magic damage with magic range. When you need that sort of gorging just to be offensively inferior to a dude who is severely underleveled and at base no less is embaressing.

Because Gatrie can't get any CEXP in Ch 3,4,5,7,3,14,or 15? Don't say misleading things like Gatrie needing 8 levels of BEXP when you've given him no levels.

Speaking of Armor Knights, Gatrie does more damage in one hit than Mia does in two.

16/0 Mia with a Steel Sword has 19 Atk

16/0 Gatrie with a Steel Lance has 26 Atk

The lowest level Knight has 15 Def, so Mia does 4*2 damage, Gatrie does 11, the difference is even bigger on the higher level Knights.

With enough KW use, Gatrie can double.

Edited September 26, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Progenitus]

And he does what with it? OHKO people? That's fine, but it doesn't improve his durability in the slightest, just his offense. Mia, on the other hand, can just combine it with Vantage, which improves her durability quite a bit if it allows her to OHKO stuff on enemy phase. Sure, she doesn't suddenly become immortal with it, but she sure as heck draws a lot more use out of it than pretty much everyone else.

Also, yes, we also get a Vantage, but giving that to Nephenee to utilize another Vantage + Wrath combo probably is the best choice.

Oh so we're now assuming Neph is always in play. Great. Now if you could respond to this since I had a statement for the people retarded enough to assume this...

And if Neph is assumed to always be used and take away the vantage scroll so we can't throw this wrath/vantage combo on someone, I want to know why other units like Zihark and Muarim are never assumed to get wrath.

Apparently, Mia will be fielded in conjunction with Zihark/Muarim/whoever every single time and thus they will never be able to get wrath.

However, why give another unit both Vantage and Wrath via the scrolls so only one unit has it (and maybe even has to discard its own skills beforehand) when Mia draws the most use out of Wrath? Many other people probably don't need Wrath to ORKO consistently, and don't have very high crit chances to utilize Vantage + Wrath with either, so it wouldn't improve them as much as Mia. This doesn't automatically mean Mia > those units, but it certainly gives us a reason for why we should give Wrath to Mia (only if she is in play, of course), not to anyone else.

I already explained why Vantage is only minimal favoritism unless Neph is in play.

Also, your comparisons are inaccurate. Not only does Lv20/8 for Mia look pretty low at that point if we assume her to have Lv13 in chapter 11,

I'm not assuming we're retarded and dumping 400 or whatever BEXP she needs, ON TOP OF WRATH AND SS AND VK AND BUNCH OF OTHER CRAP.

Tell me exactly how many units in this game were tiered based on receiving several hundred BEXP, a ridiculously good skill, and every good sword in the game.

but I also don't think that Mia is always running around at half HP just so she gets 2RKO'd by everything. Wrath is more of a safety net than anything else - she fights normally, and once she hits half HP or lower, she suddenly goes berserk. If you plan to have her take on several enemies on Enemy Phase at once, and know she'll face significant death chances if you send her there with just half HP, well then you obviously heal her before you send her there. If she takes damage, she'll still activiate wrath.

So instead of walking around at half HP nearly all the time like what Zihark can do because he's just that durable (the only time he's seriously worried is if there's like 3 cats or something), Mia instead only does it liek hafl the time because there are too many situations where it's too dangerous for her to be at half HP.

yes, Mia is clearly putting that wrath to use more often than Zihark.

Also, you vastly exaggerate the issue of the limited weapon uses. Hammerne exists for a reason, and what other weapons would you honestly want to repair other than stuff like the Vague Katti, the Sonic Sword and maybe Braves?

Good forges, maybe killer weapons. And braves are an obvious contender.

Also, speaking of the Vague Katti: she once again draws the most use out of it. With the Vantage + Wrath Combo, VG grants her 100 Crt. Combined with its high Atk, this pretty much means that any enemy that is not a general that attacks her in melee is going to die before he even gets to attack her. This essentially means that all said melee enemies have 0 True Hit against her if she equips it. Still whining about durability issues?

Also, there is the Rune Sword as well. IIRC, it restores her HP if she hits with it, so she basically becomes immortal with it and still counters 2-range-enemies.

Except for the fact that VK has limited uses, Rune sword has limited uses AND comes late.

And you didn't mention anything at all about Mia's 4 inventory slots, so you can't give her every single sword in the game anyway as she doesn't have anywhere to put it.

oh, I forgot. Mia stores all of those swords in her breasts.

Also, please don't generalize everything. Awesome, you showed us one chapter's enemies. What about the other chapters' enemies?

Sorry, it's not my job to do all the work around here. I do one set of numbers, I expect the other side to bring up at LEAST one set of numbers of their own, not sit around and complain that I didn't do enough of their crap. Generally, when someone only brings up numbers for one chapter, I respond by bringing up at least numbers for one other chapter, not sit around and complain that they didn't do more chapters while I sit around drinking tea and eating crumpets. This is a debate, not "I shitstomp the mia fanboys because they didn't want to bring up numbers".

Aside from that, I did TWO DIFFERENT CHAPTERS.

Aside from that, her level again looks much too low for chapter 20. Come on, you're not gonna say that she can't get more than one level per chapter?

She needs 2-3 levels to gain 1 str, 2 to gain 1 HP, 5 to gain 1 def, 3 to gain 5 avo.

DO you think increasing her level is going to help? her growths suck.

more levels benefit Zihark more than mia anyway. More avoid exponentially increases your durability when you have more of it. As you could see in my numbers, Zihark did better against the lower hit enemies (halb, ballista, sage) than he did against the high hit enemies (cat), relative to how Mia performs against them.

Muarim's crit chance is one single failure. Even with Wrath he wouldn't exactly crit everything, which means that he doesn't draw as much use out of it as Mia. Also, his durability and offense are fine anyway, why would he need it?

Muarim's crit goes from 0 to ~75% on things he doubles and ~50% on stuff he doesn't double (it's generally the former).

And what do you mean his offense is fine? He loses steam by lategame, buddy. 29 base att wtih demi band only gets you so far.

Wouldn't you prefer to give Oscar Sol instead?

Yes, let's give the unit with the best durability in the game even more durability.

While we're at it, let's throw energy drops on Boyd and speedwings on Mia.

And is he seriously not ORKOing with a hand axe without Wrath? Numbers plz.

Oscar at 20/4 has 24 att with a hand axe.

Sages in ch 20 have 28 HP, 9 def.

Oscar barely 2HKOs.

Are you telling me he's actually ORKOing anything not a joke with a hand axe? Give him 10 more levels, it doesn't matter, his att with a hand axe sucks.

Nowhere near reliable crit chances and/or they don't improve with it as much as Mia does

So apparently Mia is going to be fielded in every single playthrough and will be taking wrath away from the team so some random low tier won't be able to take the combo.

Yes, makes perfect sense.

That doesn't mean that they cannot get it, but Mia puts it to much, much better use, meaning that her chances to get Wrath are so high if she's in play that she's almost guaranteed to get it. Everyone else can get Wrath if Mia isn't in play, but if she is, sandbagging her by not giving her that damn thing is pretty pointless.

The problem is that this is circular logic.

"Mia is good with wrath, so we'll tier her based on her getting wrath in every playthrough!"

Also, just a note... You claim quite a lot of things as facts, but hardly pull out any numbers at all to prove them. As such, who tells me that you're saying the truth? Prove your points with (realistic) numbers please.

So the private dick accuses me of not bringing up numbers (even though I have).

So I'm going to go over his post and bold out the times he brought up numbers. Not even stats, just fucking numbers.

Also, your comparisons are inaccurate. Not only does Lv20/8 for Mia look pretty low at that point if we assume her to have Lv13 in chapter 11, but I also don't think that Mia is always running around at half HP just so she gets 2RKO'd by everything.

Also, speaking of the Vague Katti: she once again draws the most use out of it. With the Vantage + Wrath Combo, VG grants her 100 Crt. Combined with its high Atk, this pretty much means that any enemy that is not a general that attacks her in melee is going to die before he even gets to attack her. This essentially means that all said melee enemies have 0 True Hit against her if she equips it. Still whining about durability issues?

Also, there is the Rune Sword as well. IIRC, it restores her HP if she hits with it, so she basically becomes immortal with it and still counters 2-range-enemies.

Also, please don't generalize everything. Awesome, you showed us one chapter's enemies. What about the other chapters' enemies? Aside from that, her level again looks much too low for chapter 20. Come on, you're not gonna say that she can't get more than one level per chapter?

So he accuses me of no numbers, yet half of his numbers aren't even stats (listing the chapter, or Mia's level).

Now here are my numbers.

Okay, just for kicks. Let's say this is chapter 23, and there's a halberdier with a steel lance, a sage with Bolganone, a killer ballistae, and a cat laguz that all attack Mia on enemy phase, and she has wrath at the moment. The beorc are about level 3, and the cat is about level 10.

The halberdier has 22 att (23 after Mia's WTD), 99 hit (109), and 3 lck (reduces Mia's crit chance).

The sage has 22 att, 110 hit, and if Mia wants to try and SS this guy, 3 lck and 29 HP/15 res.

The ballistae has 20 att and 95 hit.

The cat has 26-27 att, 122-125 hit, and 40-42 HP, 16-17 def, 2-3 lck.

Mia, btw, has 75.7 crit. I'll round that to 76.

To make this simpler for me, I'll also round Mia's defensive stats to 18 HP, 14 def, 10 res, and 68 avo.

VS the halberdier...

Halberdier does 9 damage, and has 33.62 real hit.

Mia has 73 crit vs this guy.

27% chance that MIa doesn't crit x 33.62% chance that the enemy hits her = 9.08% chance that she gets hit.

vs the sage

Sage does 12 damage, and has 35.28 real hit. Mia can't OHKO it with SS (she only has 8.3 mag at 20/8), so it gets a hit in anyway. 35.28% chance that the enemy hits her.

vs the ballistae

6 damage, 15 real hit, as my other example showed.

vs the cat...

The cat does 12-13 damage, and has 57.68-63.02 real hit (I'll make it 60).

Mia has 73 crit vs this guy.

27% chance that Mia doesn't crit x 60% chance that the enemy hits her = 16.2% chance that she gets hit.

Now the problem here is that two hits from nearly every combination can kill her. Since I suck horribly at probability, I'll need to do this the long way by showing every combination possible where she lives, and then subtract that from 100% to find out her chances of dying, since if she's not living, she's obviously dying.

I'll depict the result by putting a H (hit, where enemy hits Mia) or M (miss, where Mia kills with crit or dodges) and then putting the probability of that situation happening next to it. The order the letters are arranged will correspond to a certain enemy; the first letter will be the halberdier, the second will be the sage, etc.

Situations where Mia lives

MMMM = 41.9%

MMMH = 8.10%

MMHM = 7.40%

MHMM = 22.8%

HMMM = 4.19%

HMHM = 0.739%

This comes out to ~85% chance of surviving. That means she has a 15% chance of dying from just 4 enemies. I don't know about you, but those are HORRIBLE odds for me. If I'm toying with death, I want my chances to be very low; at most 2 or 3%, since death is "I restart the chapter", which is a really bad thing.

Now there are a bunch of factors that I left out that makes it even worse for Mia.

- Mia is not always exactly at half HP. She may have 10 or 11 HP, not 18, for example, which means the sage and cat both OHKO her, and the halberdier/ballistae combination, which didn't kill her at 18 HP, now kills her.

- Rhys is not always in range due to horrible durability, and if that's the case, Mia no longer can OHKO the cat with a crit. Her chances of getting hit by the cat go from 16.2% to 60%.

- Mia getting attacked by just 4 enemies is pretty low, as half HP is almost an instant-provoke, and chances are more than 4 will attack her.

Mia's chances of dying are 15%, and are likely to be higher.

For anyone curious, I had Mia at 20/8.

BTW, for anyone curious, Zihark at the same level as ~90 avo with A Brom/B Ilyana. And ~38 HP, 16 def, 7-8 res.

The halb has an amazing 19 displayed hit on him (7.41 real). The sage has 20 (8.20). The ballista has 5 (0.55). The cat has 32-35 (20.80-24.85. Let's say ~23 average).

For quick reference, Mia's was 9.08, 35.28, 15, and 16.2.

So Mia gets hit by the halb 22.5% more often, by the sage 330%, the ballista 2630% more often. Zihark gets hit by the cat 42% more often.

If Zihark instead had A Brom/B Muarim, he'd have 95 avo instead. I don't even need to redo the calculations to show how much Zihark wins by.

Also, another example of Mia's prowess with wrath, or rather lack of.

Wrath does not help MIa on "everything". Maybe offensively, but defensively, she's even worse off against the things vantage is useless against unless she burns through special swords. In fact, chapter 20, the first real chapter you can use wrath for, since chapter 19 doesn't have much fighting...

Here's a 20/3 Mia for reference

33 HP, 14.4 str, 6.8 mag, 19.2 skl, 23.2 spd, 13.2 lck, 12.2 def, 8 res

SO with a steel sword, A Rhys and B Ilyana, and half HP, we get...

26.4 atk, 23.2 AS, 151.6 hit, 74.6 crit - - 59.6 avo, 17.5 hp, 13.2 def, 9.0 res, 13.2 critavo

Enemies in chapter 20.

2 soldiers, 3 halberdiers. One has a short spear so she won't counter it.

4/5 vantage+wrath is effective against

2 archers, 1 sniper. The sniper even has a longbow, so even with the SS she won't counter it.

0/3

priest, whatever

2 fighters. One has a hand axe. Although it probably won't hit her, she's still not countering it.

1/2

1 myrmidon. Mia can OHKO it.

1/1

9 wyverns. The weakest one has 32 HP, 16 def. Mia can't OHKO it. And these enemies have WTA on her anyway. One of them even carries a short spear.

0/9

2 cavaliers, 1 paladin. The paladin has a bow.

2/3

2 knights. 32 HP, 20 def. lol. Because of her WTD, Mia would need about 32 att to 3HKO. She can't even pull that off with a forged steel.

0/2

1 mage, 1 bishop, 3 sages. 1 actually has a blizzard, so she can't counter that with the SS.

0/5

Shiharam who doesn't move, so it doesn't matter.

For reinforcements...

1 mage, 1 sage.

0/2

4 wyverns. Again, 32 HP/16 def. Mia is probably not even OHKOing. PLus, two of them have javelins.

0/4

1 knight. Not OHKOing.

0/1

So of the 37 enemies that matter, Mia will OHKO a grand total of 8 enemies with a regular steel sword. That means, for the other 29 enemies, she's going to need a special weapon to deal with them (and sometimes even that won't work on some enemies. The SS isn't going to OHKO magic enemies; they have too much res), or wrath effectively does fucking nothing for her durability.

And, only the Vague katti and killing edge gives a 100 crit. The other weapons will still have about 70 crit on enemies (they have luck), so it's not guaranteed she won't eat their counter.

And this is for one freaking chapter. Can you imagine this for the rest of the game?

Sorry, I'm too lazy to bold my post for all the times I brought up numbers.

[grandjackal]

She's definitely better than Gatrie, because suffice it to say, he is NEVER doubling. He needs 8 levels of BEXP+KW to double armor knights in Tormod's joining chapter. Tormod has that sort of speed just at base and is doing magic damage with magic range. When you need that sort of gorging just to be offensively inferior to a dude who is severely underleveled and at base no less is embaressing.

Because Gatrie can't get any CEXP in Ch 3,4,5,7,3,14,or 15? Don't say misleading things like Gatrie needing 8 levels of BEXP when you've given him no levels.

Speaking of Armor Knights, Gatrie does more damage in one hit than Mia does in two.

16/0 Mia with a Steel Sword has 19 Atk

16/0 Gatrie with a Steel Lance has 26 Atk

The lowest level Knight has 15 Def, so Mia does 4*2 damage, Gatrie does 11, the difference is even bigger on the higher level Knights.

With enough KW use, Gatrie can double.

He doubles armor knights. Woopie.

Fine, 5 levels, of which Tormod could take and have far superior offense as he could double more than just knights. On top of that, I could seal him for more offense boosts. I would seal Gatrie, but This doesn't stop the fact I could slap on any ol' speed band on Tormod to get him 50% speed growth, meaning he gets speed every other level. There are plenty other plain ol' speed bands, but there is only 1 KW. I should also mention that every level he gains before hte KW is essentially screwing him out of speed he needs. These 5 levels are just to reach Tormod's base, Tormod himself could just start doubling things not fail armors, because he already does that. Let's not forget how much he leaves him in the dust thanks to additional move AND celerity on top of it. He can keep up with the pallies, kind of a big deal.

Also, what happened to the armorslayer weapons? Nice going in forgetting A Rhys, of which would boost her offense to 7x2, meaning she does 3 mroe damage than he.

Basically you have to give Gatrie a lot to get very little in return.

Also, hi smash. If you're that vehement in not giving someone the ability to grow because "they suck" (nice numbers by the way), Taur should bottom the heap because letting him do anything gives him opportunity to grow, which would mean he gets tougher, which ironically makes it harder for him to get into Resolve, the only thing that seperates him from being the most god-awful unit in the game aside from failBastian.

Even then, Bastian has a case for BEXP bumping, because though his base sucks, his speed growth is actually rather stunning.

Edited September 26, 2009 by France

[Ether]

Okay,so let's see if Geoffrey really has all that much of a lead.I'll do a comparison in chapter 26,with Mia at 20/12(13 at chapter 11,and one level each chapter since,she could probably be higher) vs. Base Geoffrey,since he can't do anything in 25.For supports,Mia has A Rhys B Ilyana.

Defensively first,Mia has 37/16/74 Hp/Def/Avo,while Geoffrey has 43/21/50

So it's 6 Hp and 5 Def vs. 24 Avo and VantageBlicking,(she also has a 2 res lead)

As for that,Mia has 20% chance with Silver,30% with a forge,and 50% with a killing edge.(All get +50 when under half HP)

For now I'll call it even,24 Avo is a big lead,and she blicks a good amount of the enemies that swing at her,but geoff has a good concrete lead,so a tie is good.

Offensively,Geoff misses doubling 15/44 of the initial enemies,so 1/3 that she stomps him against,heck,the Brave sword SM doubles him.

Now for attack values,

Mia

KE:32 Att/56 Crit

Silver:36 Att/26 Crit

Geoff:

KL:28 Att/38 Crit

Silver:33 Att/ 8 Crit

KB:27 Att/38 crit

So Geoffrey needs to use a Silvah lance to beat Mia's damage with a killing Edge,and even with killers he is nowhere near her proc rate.

So Mia wins offense by a landslide.

If Mia > Geoff when both exist,then i see no hope for him.

Also,let's not forget Wrath.

This was never addressed BTW,and Mia is being a positive before Geoffrey joins.

[Florete]

With enough KW use, Gatrie can double.

Not really. 20/1 Gatrie with KW equipped for every level would have 13.05 Spd. He joins in chapter 13 at level 9 since he doesn't want to level up early else he'll miss out on KW usage, but I'll assume at ch. 13 he's really close to a level so I'll give him 2 levels for that one and a bit more than one for the rest (not doubling and bad mobility hurts experience gain) to say he's 20/1 by 21. 13 AS doubles only Knights and Bishops. Remember that this is with full KW use, which he might not get since he might have leveled early on and someone else might have it equipped when he levels during a map.

[-Cynthia-]

.

Fine, 5 levels, of which Tormod could take and have far superior offense as he could double more than just knights. On top of that, I could seal him for more offense boosts. I would seal Gatrie, but This doesn't stop the fact I could slap on any ol' speed band on Tormod to get him 50% speed growth, meaning he gets speed every other level. There are plenty other plain ol' speed bands, but there is only 1 KW. I should also mention that every level he gains before hte KW is essentially screwing him out of speed he needs. These 5 levels are just to reach Tormod's base, Tormod himself could just start doubling things not fail armors, because he already does that. Let's not forget how much he leaves him in the dust thanks to additional move AND celerity on top of it. He can keep up with the pallies, kind of a big deal.

I was talking about the CEXP Gatrie receives in his chapters from being in combat and all, Tormod obviously can't take this since he isn't there.

You seem to be mistaken about Mov, do you ever check your facts before posting? There isn;t additional Mov and Celerity, there's just Celerity. Tormod's still one Mov behind the Pallies and only 1 ahead of other foot units, and that's post promotion. Pre promotion(which is probably what he will be until Ch21 or so), he only beats a promoted Gatrie by 1 Mov.

One thing you're overlooking in Gatrie vs. Tormod is Gatrie's durability. Tormod can only take one attack before dying, Gatrie can take a lot(like 10+), which means Gatrie can do things on the enemy phase. There's also Gatrie's earlygame utiltiy to consider.

Also, what happened to the armorslayer weapons?

She could use an Armorslayer, but it weighs her down by 6 so she hurts her Avo and might not double some things anymore.

Nice going in forgetting A Rhys, of which would boost her offense to 7x2, meaning she does 3 mroe damage than he.

Nice going in not realizing that Mia can't have A Rhys yet. Plus, we can't guarantee Rhys in play, past earlygame he's little more than an inferior healer.

Basically you have to give Gatrie a lot to get very little in return.

KW access is a resource, but really the only one Gatrie needs. If we're willing to give Mia Wrath/BEXP/forges etc., Gatrie is entitled to resources as well, since once he starts doubling he's obviously beating her.

Even then, Bastian has a case for BEXP bumping, because though his base sucks, his speed growth is actually rather stunning.

He's too far behind and there aren't enough levels yet. Even 4 levels only gets him to 18 AS, and Bastian's fairly overleveled so that's a fair amount. Even at level 20 he only huts 20 AS, which falls short of doubling a lot, it's pretty hopeless.

Ether, that comparison assumes a lot of resources for Mia and nothing to compensate for Geoffrey, such as a few levels of BEXP(not costly due to Paragon) and KW access. Even if we don't give Geoffrey the KW, he's going to level up with cEXP like crazty and thus won't have doubling issues anymore. I'm getting very tired of comparisons where we give Mia X,Y, and Z, the character being compared against her nothing, and then declaring her superior.

Red Fox, your assesment is inaccurate. If we use Gatrie in earlygame(why wouldn't we, he's one of our best units), then he's obviously going to gain levels, 20/1 by Chapter 21 is absurd, I can't seriously believe you people think Mia's going to have like a 7 level lead on Gatrie.

Edited September 26, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Progenitus]

Okay,so let's see if Geoffrey really has all that much of a lead.I'll do a comparison in chapter 26,with Mia at 20/12(13 at chapter 11,and one level each chapter since,she could probably be higher) vs. Base Geoffrey,since he can't do anything in 25.For supports,Mia has A Rhys B Ilyana.

Defensively first,Mia has 37/16/74 Hp/Def/Avo,while Geoffrey has 43/21/50

So it's 6 Hp and 5 Def vs. 24 Avo and VantageBlicking,(she also has a 2 res lead)

As for that,Mia has 20% chance with Silver,30% with a forge,and 50% with a killing edge.(All get +50 when under half HP)

For now I'll call it even,24 Avo is a big lead,and she blicks a good amount of the enemies that swing at her,but geoff has a good concrete lead,so a tie is good.

Offensively,Geoff misses doubling 15/44 of the initial enemies,so 1/3 that she stomps him against,heck,the Brave sword SM doubles him.

Now for attack values,

Mia

KE:32 Att/56 Crit

Silver:36 Att/26 Crit

Geoff:

KL:28 Att/38 Crit

Silver:33 Att/ 8 Crit

KB:27 Att/38 crit

So Geoffrey needs to use a Silvah lance to beat Mia's damage with a killing Edge,and even with killers he is nowhere near her proc rate.

So Mia wins offense by a landslide.

If Mia > Geoff when both exist,then i see no hope for him.

Also,let's not forget Wrath.

This was never addressed BTW,and Mia is being a positive before Geoffrey joins.

I like how Mia is level 13 at chapter 11 because she got several hundred BEXP while Geof is still at base level and given nothing at all. Bro, if Geof got the same BEXP, that's about 2 levels because lolparagon, so give him teh KW for those levels and that's liek +1 str, 1-2 spd, 1 def already.

Mia wins offense. Good for her. Except you neglected Geof x Calill (1 chapter to C, and if he can't get this support I want to know how Mia is supporting both Rhys and Ilyana who are in the same tier as Calill), and these two extra levels on Geof, so he doubles even more enemies now (at 21 spd, the only things he's not doubling are SMs, and a couple of snipers and cats) with almost the same att as Mia with silver.

He also can use bows on wyverns.

And your post mentions nothing at all about geoffrey's horse or Geof's ability to use 1-range.

You also neglect to mention the fact that most enemies use lances or swords (Mia faces WTD or Geof gets WTA).

If you're going to make a comparison, don't load it with a bunch of flaws.

And Mia is a positive before Geof joins? News to me. I guess throwing half the stuff in the game on Mia so she doesn't suck while Geof doesn't get anything is fine, rite

[Ether]

Okay,so let's see if Geoffrey really has all that much of a lead.I'll do a comparison in chapter 26,with Mia at 20/12(13 at chapter 11,and one level each chapter since,she could probably be higher) vs. Base Geoffrey,since he can't do anything in 25.For supports,Mia has A Rhys B Ilyana.

Defensively first,Mia has 37/16/74 Hp/Def/Avo,while Geoffrey has 43/21/50

So it's 6 Hp and 5 Def vs. 24 Avo and VantageBlicking,(she also has a 2 res lead)

As for that,Mia has 20% chance with Silver,30% with a forge,and 50% with a killing edge.(All get +50 when under half HP)

For now I'll call it even,24 Avo is a big lead,and she blicks a good amount of the enemies that swing at her,but geoff has a good concrete lead,so a tie is good.

Offensively,Geoff misses doubling 15/44 of the initial enemies,so 1/3 that she stomps him against,heck,the Brave sword SM doubles him.

Now for attack values,

Mia

KE:32 Att/56 Crit

Silver:36 Att/26 Crit

Geoff:

KL:28 Att/38 Crit

Silver:33 Att/ 8 Crit

KB:27 Att/38 crit

So Geoffrey needs to use a Silvah lance to beat Mia's damage with a killing Edge,and even with killers he is nowhere near her proc rate.

So Mia wins offense by a landslide.

If Mia > Geoff when both exist,then i see no hope for him.

Also,let's not forget Wrath.

This was never addressed BTW,and Mia is being a positive before Geoffrey joins.

I like how Mia is level 13 at chapter 11 because she got several hundred BEXP while Geof is still at base level and given nothing at all. Bro, if Geof got the same BEXP, that's about 2 levels because lolparagon, so give him teh KW for those levels and that's liek +1 str, 1-2 spd, 1 def already.

Mia wins offense. Good for her. Except you neglected Geof x Calill (1 chapter to C, and if he can't get this support I want to know how Mia is supporting both Rhys and Ilyana who are in the same tier as Calill), and these two extra levels on Geof, so he doubles even more enemies now (at 21 spd, the only things he's not doubling are SMs, and a couple of snipers and cats) with almost the same att as Mia with silver.

He also can use bows on wyverns.

And your post mentions nothing at all about geoffrey's horse or Geof's ability to use 1-range.

You also neglect to mention the fact that most enemies use lances or swords (Mia faces WTD or Geof gets WTA).

If you're going to make a comparison, don't load it with a bunch of flaws.

And Mia is a positive before Geof joins? News to me. I guess throwing half the stuff in the game on Mia so she doesn't suck while Geof doesn't get anything is fine, rite

Even with the BEXP,he still loses Att,and she still has a massive Crit lead,so she still pulls an offense win.The Avo gap closes a bit,and Geoff gained a bit more concrete durability,so he probably pulls a slight durability win.They are still quite similar.

I hope you are joking when you say that from chapters 7-25 Mia isn't positive at all,I really hope you are,or you have just lost all credibility,seriously.

Either way it's 1-2 range(which Mia can do,just not as well),and 2 move versus 18 chapters of contribution(with 17 counted as 1 chapter,BTW)

I just don't see how he's above her.

[Progenitus]

Even with the BEXP,he still loses Att,and she still has a massive Crit lead,so she still pulls an offense win.The Avo gap closes a bit,and Geoff gained a bit more concrete durability,so he probably pulls a slight durability win.They are still quite similar.

I hope you are joking when you say that from chapters 7-25 Mia isn't positive at all,I really hope you are,or you have just lost all credibility,seriously.

Either way it's 1-2 range(which Mia can do,just not as well),and 2 move versus 18 chapters of contribution(with 17 counted as 1 chapter,BTW)

I just don't see how he's above her.

I'm sorry, I use actual logic, which means I don't give MIa wrathBEXPmultiplespecialswordsetc on a silver platter so she's not sucking dick and not give Geoffrey anything at all.

Again, why is it that whenever people talk about "contribution", they blatantly ignore the fact that the unit's taking resources in the process? You can't apply the positive and ignore the negative that comes with it. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

You can't see how Geoffrey's above her? How about the fact that if I don't use Mia, I can instead distribute all the resources she's hogging to other units on the team? This is Geoffrey vs Mia, not Geoffrey + Mia, which means we don't mindlessly throw everything we have on Mia and not give Geoffrey anything because it went to Mia instead.

[grandjackal]

I was talking about the CEXP Gatrie receives in his chapters from being in combat and all, Tormod obviously can't take this since he isn't there.

If Gatrie gets 2 levels prior to Knight Ward, he basically needs 7 levels to reach Tormod's base, but he basically increased his need for levels by 1, as he put 2 levels to waste where otherwise he would have gotten with the KW. Every level he gets makes the BEXP bump more expensive. You seem to be missing the fact he needs 8 even with KW just to reach Tormod's BASE of 9.

You seem to be mistaken about Mov, do you ever check your facts before posting? There isn;t additional Mov and Celerity, there's just Celerity. Tormod's still one Mov behind the Pallies and only 1 ahead of other foot units, and that's post promotion. Pre promotion(which is probably what he will be until Ch21 or so), he only beats a promoted Gatrie by 1 Mov.

What makes you think Gatrie is promoted? Again, if Gatrie needs 8 BEXP levels to get Tormod's offense as opposed to giving those 8 to Tormod to get him far superior offense, I'd rather do the latter. If I don't seal him immediately, I can wait till he promotes naturally, which still wouldn't take that long. Even then, as Red said, he wouldn't be doubling much anyways. On the other hand, I just bypassed Tormod's entire era of suck. Once he promotes, game over Gat.

You also seem to assume that Gatrie is promoted long before Tormod is. If he is (with his shit storm move and offense, I can't even imagine how you got this idea), Tormod won't be long behind him. Then consider that he's STILL beating Gatrie's offense and move.

One thing you're overlooking in Gatrievs. Tormod is Gatrie's durability. Tormod can only take one attack before dying, Gatrie can take a lot(like 10+), which means Gatrie can do things on the enemy phase. There's also Gatrie's earlygame utiltiy to consider.

Let's not underestimate magic here. Gat is more durable at direct combat, which is a problem with his mobility. Tormod can ignore counters on the player phase, meaning he is free to take one on enemy phase. Then consider he is more often able to counter magical bastards and archers without needing to be traded out, slayer weapons for basically anything, far more consistent and superior offense parameters (can actually double, magic damage compared to physical, doing all this with range capabilities, even sniper magic).

Gatrie may be more durable at direct combat, but Tormod tears his ass apart offensively.

She could use an Armorslayer, but it weighs her down by 6 so she hurts her Avo and might not double some things anymore.

And Gatrie keeping his javelin makes his offense a lot worse on anything not ranged, your point? Both need to be traded out.

Not that Gat's offense is anything spectacular anyways.

Nice going in not realizing that Mia can't have A Rhys yet. Plus, we can't guarantee Rhys in play, past earlygame he's little more than an inferior healer.

Fine, B then, still doing 1 more damage.

Also, his high magic lets him hit the enemy hard, so Mia doesn't have to rely on a crit to avoid a player phase counter, or allow Gatrie to actually kill something. I wouldn't look down on Rhys.

KW access is a resource, but really the only one Gatrie needs. If we're willing to give Mia Wrath/BEXP/forges etc., Gatrie is entitled to resources as well, since once he starts doubling he's obviously beating her.

He'll need BEXP with KW access at every level up just to reach Tormod's base, and even then, Tormod's offense is superior. KW doesn't magically make Gatrie double everything.

He's too far behind and there aren't enough levels yet. Even 4 levels only gets him to 18 AS, and Bastian's fairly overleveled so that's a fair amount. Even at level 20 he only huts 20 AS, which falls short of doubling a lot, it's pretty hopeless.

All giving Taur anything does is make it harder for him to get to resolve range, which is the entire reason he exists. Giving him anything is a negative on his performance, he can only become worse.

[Scarlet]

Also not seeing Tormod>Calill. You entitled Tormod to a lot if BEXP and a Seal(that Seal has to rot in the convoy for like 7 chapters). You gave Calill nothing, I don't doubt that Tormod with a level lead is better than Calill, the issue is him getting the level lead. We cannot just justify massive amounts of resources on units that start crappy and end up better(Rolf,Mia,Tormod), because there are costs associated with these resources, everyone can use them. The fact that Tormod can only match Calill's bases after so much favoritism is more a testament to Calill than anything else IMO.

Fine, but even if he isn't better, I still don't see a tier gap between them. Calill has minor statistical leads, but does that really justify as a whole tier better than Tormod's staves and Celerity?

@smash...

First off, I have thought about this some more and changed my mind about Mia being better than Zihark. But let me respond anyway.

Oh so we're now assuming Neph is always in play. Great. Now if you could respond to this since I had a statement for the people retarded enough to assume this...

I may have worded my statement poorly, but I didn't mean to say that I assume Neph to always be in play.

Apparently, Mia will be fielded in conjunction with Zihark/Muarim/whoever every single time and thus they will never be able to get wrath.

Wait, what? I thought we were talking about giving Wrath to Mia being an issue, not giving it to other people. Of course Mia will not always be fielded, so them getting Wrath is perfectly fine then.

I already explained why Vantage is only minimal favoritism unless Neph is in play.

I never even said otherwise, I was talking about Wrath.

I'm not assuming we're retarded and dumping 400 or whatever BEXP she needs, ON TOP OF WRATH AND SS AND VK AND BUNCH OF OTHER CRAP.

So in other words, you're sandbagging her? We have those resources, and some of them aren't even very contested. Not using them is the thing that is retarded. Of course a unit that can do the same with a regular weapon as she can with a special weapon is better in that regard, but having issues that can be fixed with something as "simple" as a good weapon is still a lot better than having issues that cannot be fixed.

So instead of walking around at half HP nearly all the time like what Zihark can do because he's just that durable (the only time he's seriously worried is if there's like 3 cats or something), Mia instead only does it liek hafl the time because there are too many situations where it's too dangerous for her to be at half HP.

yes, Mia is clearly putting that wrath to use more often than Zihark.

Depends on how often you plan on sending her against more than three enemies at once in the Enemy Phase.

Good forges, maybe killer weapons. And braves are an obvious contender.

Forges can eventually be replaced by new forges, however, while unique weapons can not.

Okay, killer weapons; but I say repairing the VK >>> repairing a killing edge, for example. And braves, yeah, ok.

Anyway, even if we're not saving all of Hammerne's uses for stuff like the VK, repairing it at least once or twice shouldn't be too much of a problem, and that should already be enough anyway; it's not like Mia would spam such weapons on every single occassion after all.

Except for the fact that VK has limited uses, Rune sword has limited uses AND comes late.

Yeah, the VK has limited uses, but it's there when she needs it.

And I know the Rune Sword comes late, I just wanted to mention it, as once we get, she at least can put it to good use.

And you didn't mention anything at all about Mia's 4 inventory slots, so you can't give her every single sword in the game anyway as she doesn't have anywhere to put it.

That's because I don't see her being limited to 4 weapon slots being a problem. The VK, the SS (or Rune Sword once you get it), some regular weapon like a Steel Blade and a random other weapon, like an Armorslayer or a Killing Edge or something. How is that not enough?

Sorry, it's not my job to do all the work around here. I do one set of numbers, I expect the other side to bring up at LEAST one set of numbers of their own, not sit around and complain that I didn't do enough of their crap. Generally, when someone only brings up numbers for one chapter, I respond by bringing up at least numbers for one other chapter, not sit around and complain that they didn't do more chapters while I sit around drinking tea and eating crumpets. This is a debate, not "I shitstomp the mia fanboys because they didn't want to bring up numbers".

Aside from that, I did TWO DIFFERENT CHAPTERS.

Geez, calm down, dude. I just didn't like it when you only showed one-- uh, two chapters', if you say so, enemies and then acted as if it was the same in all other chapters as well without any sort of proof (no, showing Chapter X's enemies doesn't count as proof for Chapter Y and Z's enemies).

She needs 2-3 levels to gain 1 str, 2 to gain 1 HP, 5 to gain 1 def, 3 to gain 5 avo.

Well, that's how growths work, duh.

DO you think increasing her level is going to help? her growths suck.

Of course it does help. If a unit never gains levels, it will never improve its stats, no matter how good or bad its growths are, so it obviously doesn't work that way.

Muarim's crit goes from 0 to ~75% on things he doubles and ~50% on stuff he doesn't double (it's generally the former).

Yes. Except if you're going to utilize the Vantage + Wrath combo with him, the doubling bit is rather worthless, as if he gets to do a second attack, the enemy obviously had a chance to attack in the meanwhile, which destroys the whole purpose of that combo. 50% Crt in itself isn't bad by any means, but it's far from being reliable enough to count on it when he's on low HP. That's why I said Mia uses it better; I didn't mean to say the combo in itself was bad on him.

And what do you mean his offense is fine? He loses steam by lategame, buddy. 29 base att wtih demi band only gets you so far.

Brainfart of mine then, I was too lazy to check his stats.

Yes, let's give the unit with the best durability in the game even more durability.

Fine, then not.

Oscar at 20/4 has 24 att with a hand axe.

Sages in ch 20 have 28 HP, 9 def.

Oscar barely 2HKOs.

Are you telling me he's actually ORKOing anything not a joke with a hand axe? Give him 10 more levels, it doesn't matter, his att with a hand axe sucks.

Ok.

No, I wasn't telling anything, I simply asked you to show me that he doesn't ORKO with a hand axe because I was too lazy to check it myself, and you did. Thanks.

So apparently Mia is going to be fielded in every single playthrough and will be taking wrath away from the team so some random low tier won't be able to take the combo.

Yes, makes perfect sense.

As I said further above, I never said that Mia was going to be fielded in every single playthrough. Far from it. All I was arguing for was that she has the right to claim Wrath for herself when she is played.

The problem is that this is circular logic.

"Mia is good with wrath, so we'll tier her based on her getting wrath in every playthrough!"

No. It's just that she's so likely to get Wrath when she's in play simply because it suits her so nicely that the chances for her not to get it are so little that they don't weigh very much. They are there, but it's not "half the time she is played she gets it and half the time she doesn't", but moar like "nine out of ten times when she is played, she gets it, and the tenth time she doesn't".

So the private dick accuses me of not bringing up numbers (even though I have).

So I'm going to go over his post and bold out the times he brought up numbers. Not even stats, just fucking numbers.

[tl;dr]

Are you in a bad mood or something?

First of all, I said "hardly", not "none". And second, I wasn't making much direct claims about performance, unlike you. Granted, I could have fetched some numbers myself when I brought up the claim that she OHKOs stuff with a VK crit, but what the heck.

Anyway, as I mentioned, most of this now was a pretty pointless argument simply because we were arguing about different things. I was only defending Mia's right to claim Wrath when she is in play, and not that she's being played in every single playthrough or such crap. Also, again, I no longer think that Mia is better than Zihark, but I wanted to get my points across correctly regardless.

[Ether]

Even with the BEXP,he still loses Att,and she still has a massive Crit lead,so she still pulls an offense win.The Avo gap closes a bit,and Geoff gained a bit more concrete durability,so he probably pulls a slight durability win.They are still quite similar.

I hope you are joking when you say that from chapters 7-25 Mia isn't positive at all,I really hope you are,or you have just lost all credibility,seriously.

Either way it's 1-2 range(which Mia can do,just not as well),and 2 move versus 18 chapters of contribution(with 17 counted as 1 chapter,BTW)

I just don't see how he's above her.

I'm sorry, I use actual logic, which means I don't give MIa wrathBEXPmultiplespecialswordsetc on a silver platter so she's not sucking dick and not give Geoffrey anything at all.

Again, why is it that whenever people talk about "contribution", they blatantly ignore the fact that the unit's taking resources in the process? You can't apply the positive and ignore the negative that comes with it. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

You can't see how Geoffrey's above her? How about the fact that if I don't use Mia, I can instead distribute all the resources she's hogging to other units on the team? This is Geoffrey vs Mia, not Geoffrey + Mia, which means we don't mindlessly throw everything we have on Mia and not give Geoffrey anything because it went to Mia instead.

I didn't give her all that much.I gave her BEXP(And I gave some to Geoffrey as well in the new comparison) and Wrath.Nothing else,yes I used a killing edge as a weapon in the comparison,but i also gave Geoffrey access to two of them.

As for Mia having Wrath,when she's in play,she will get it,because she's the best person tp use it due to innate vantage (someone else could take the vantage and wrath scrolls i guess,but then you have real favoritism on your hands,not the BS that you keep claiming that people give Mia.

Geoffrey could use Wrath as well,if that consoles you,so now he has offense similar to mia when he's at half HP,but with durability similar to Tauro,it doesn't happen that often,and he's still getting hit before he blicks things.Argue another skill on him if you want,I chose Wrath since it's available on Geoff's team,and I don't see ant skills he could really put much use to.Please enlighten me to them,but stop claiming that I'm shoving Resources into Mia.I'm just using her,and she's contributing.

[Florete]

Red Fox, your assesment is inaccurate. If we use Gatrie in earlygame(why wouldn't we, he's one of our best units), then he's obviously going to gain levels, 20/1 by Chapter 21 is absurd, I can't seriously believe you people think Mia's going to have like a 7 level lead on Gatrie.

Wait, you want Gatrie doubling, right? As for his early game contribution, I gave him the best case scenario when I said he gets close but doesn't actually gain a level, because then he can use the Knight Ward for 55% Spd growth instead of that shitty 25%. I never said he wasn't being used in early game, but even if he's used extensively, he's not likely to gain more than a single level anyway, maybe 2, but then his Spd just ends up worse.

You can make him 20/1 by 20 or even 19 and he still won't double much at all. In fact, every single enemy listed in chapter 19 has 10+ AS, so good game Gatrie. It doubles a few things in 18, but none of the reinforcements. And don't forget that this is a favorable position for Gatrie (He won't always have the KW/he can level in early game).

You also seemed to skip over the problem with Gatrie getting experience. His mobility is the worst on the team and since he never doubles he doesn't kill as often because while his Str is pretty good it's not high enough to offset not doubling.

[Narga_Rocks]

So, I'm wondering how Zihark is so much above Geoffrey if Mia's early game is hurting her so much. Considering with giving Mia and Zihark both a reasonable amount of bexp puts them both to level 14 to start chapter 12 (assuming each gets a level in chapter 11) and they have pretty even stats, I'm not seeing how his is better. Oh, and they are pretty even as well if they are both stuck at level 10 for chapter 11, but that's a little silly since we have all this bexp and in most cases spreading it a bit should make for a stronger team overall. He has a few chapters before he hits C Brom, but even then that's only going to cancel her lck lead and give a 3 avo advantage for him. Considering either unit should frequently be using killing edges at this point to prevent their offence from being too bad, she has a pretty good chance with her innate vantage to not take a hit, surely giving her an effective avo that is higher than his, probably even by enough to cancel an Ilyana support as well, where she needs to cancel out 8 avo. Without Zihark having CC, she'll win, with Zihark having CC, she's probably not winning at 1-range by enough to account for the 8 avo difference at 2 range. But don't forget enemies are sometimes running around weakened and she's KOing them automatically on enemy phase (some of them) while he's still getting attacked.

So basically, until Zihark gets BC Brom/Ilyana, he's not winning aside from his adept giving a win on offence, though it's not huge. Once he hits BC Brom/Ilyana, he's likely winning avo by more than enough when facing two range to account for any potential wins Mia may have at 1 range, and soon enough Mia won't be winning at one range anymore anyway. But if he's waiting for Muarim, chances are she beats a Zihark with C Brom only, and ties (defensively) a Zihark with B Brom. Then in chapter 19 Zihark gets Muarim but Mia gets wrath. So BC, soon to be AC then AB, and Zihark clearly is more durable at 2 range or when Mia can't 3HKO the enemy, or 4HKO with a brave, anyway. I have a feeling if she doesn't 3HKO with a steel forge, though, she won't 4HKO with a brave, either. Still, with wrath, it would give her a 40 to 50 % chance of double critting, anyway, I think. 70% is 49%, afterall.

And before someone complains about the weapons, no, I'm not denying Zihark these. Z gets the same killing edge access Mia does, and the same brave sword access mia does.

As for the whole wrath thing, I suppose you could give Zihark adept + wrath for the comparison. Giving him Vantage + Wrath however is stupid for two reasons:

1. The guy will have an extra 15 avo by the time wrath appears, hitting 20 and 25 soon after, possibly 30 if you go with AB Brom/Muarim. It's a waste of vantage when the army gets more out of putting it elsewhere.

2. Your army has one less user of adept, congratulations.

Anyway, adept + wrath it is. So, he gets no durability improvement out of it, so basically it's just offence. He's got more offence than Mia, sure, but it's like comparing an 85% proc rate to 93%, or whatever the actual numbers are.

Basically, Zihark > Mia is probably true (more durability, more offence), but they shouldn't be so far apart. (As for 2 range, why are we letting sword only users get attacked all the time? Sure, sometimes it's best to go in there with a guy like Zihark and let him get attacked by one or two enemies while weakening/killing 3 or 4 others, but that's not always true, so while it's an advantage, it isn't a gigantic advantage. Again, Zihark > Mia, but not by this much.)

[Sol Hiryu]

Narga, I'm not going to go into the whole topic of Zihark and Mia, but just one thing:

Considering either unit should frequently be using killing edges at this point to prevent their offence from being too bad, she has a pretty good chance with her innate vantage to not take a hit

I dunno what you mean there, but given there are a grand total of two Killing Edges in the game, including the one Zihark comes with, I'd certainly count it as a scarce enough resource if someone has to rely on it. The second one comes in Chapter 21, after they promote and don't really need it as much. So that leaves one Killing Edge with a total of 25 uses to be shared/fought over by three units in your army.

Too tired to delve into other arguments at the moment. Legs are killing me.

[Sasori]

Maybe a noob question but why would Mia get the rune or sonic sword (her magic isn't really high) when mist and tanith puts them to better use.

Edited September 27, 2009 by Sasori

[Progenitus]

I have thought about this some more and changed my mind about Mia being better than Zihark

Alright, that's all I need to hear.

I didn't give her all that much.I gave her BEXP(And I gave some to Geoffrey as well in the new comparison) and Wrath.Nothing else,yes I used a killing edge as a weapon in the comparison,but i also gave Geoffrey access to two of them.

...okay? Do you realize that if Mia has only just wrath, there aren't many situations where Mia can actually walk around at half HP safely because there are a lot of enemies her vantage doesn't work against? She's going to need crap like the SS and the VK to accompany it?

"BUT U CAN HEAL MIA OR NOT STICK HER IN RANGE OF ENEMIEZ"

Oh great, so instead of having wrath on a unit who can actually survive at half HP with no problems, instead wrath is stuck being a safety net on Mia. Such a great use of this awesome skill, rite

As for Mia having Wrath,when she's in play,she will get it,because she's the best person tp use it due to innate vantage (someone else could take the vantage and wrath scrolls i guess,but then you have real favoritism on your hands,not the BS that you keep claiming that people give Mia.

Geoffrey's team is not at all forced to field Mia, which means there's a free wrath scroll floating around for his team.

And I already explained why Vantage isn't really significant favoritism unless Neph is on the team.

Geoffrey could use Wrath as well,if that consoles you,so now he has offense similar to mia when he's at half HP,but with durability similar to Tauro,it doesn't happen that often,and he's still getting hit before he blicks things.Argue another skill on him if you want,I chose Wrath since it's available on Geoff's team,and I don't see ant skills he could really put much use to.Please enlighten me to them,but stop claiming that I'm shoving Resources into Mia.I'm just using her,and she's contributing.

The whole point about wrath is that Mia using wrath better than Geoffrey should simply be an advantage for her. It should not be locked to her, especially when several other units want it, and everyone becomes ridiculous with Vantage + Wrath, and the disadvantage of taking wrath (no one else can use it) has to be considered.

As an example, let's say we had Mia2. She is exactly the same as the regular Mia who I'll dub Mia1; same joining time, bases, growths, etc. Except after you beat chapter 18, Mia2 automatically learns wrath (Mia1 doesn't). Obviously, Mia2 >>> Mia1, since Mia2 isn't taking away the wrath skill from anyone else, since she got it for free, and now Mia2's team has a free wrath scroll for someone else to use. The vibe I was getting from everyone was that Mia1 would be equal to Mia2 because no one was caring about the disadvantage of Mia1 taking the wrath scroll.

[Scarlet]

Maybe a noob question but why would Mia get the rune or sonic sword (her magic isn't really high) when mist and tanith puts them to better use.

Neither Mist nor Tanith will always be fielded together with Mia, and whether they put it to better use or not is arguable. They probably do more damage with it due to their higher MAG stats, but it may actually help Wrath!Mia survive if she gets it and crits 2-range-enemies with it before they get to attack. Since better offense AND better durability when getting it is better than just having better offense with it, Mia may also have a chance to get those weapons when Mist and/or Tanith are in play as well (the latter actually has Javelins to fall back on anyway, so she doesn't even really need it), though of course she's not guaranteed to. The possibility is there, though, and it's pretty high.

[Ether]

I have thought about this some more and changed my mind about Mia being better than Zihark

Alright, that's all I need to hear.

I didn't give her all that much.I gave her BEXP(And I gave some to Geoffrey as well in the new comparison) and Wrath.Nothing else,yes I used a killing edge as a weapon in the comparison,but i also gave Geoffrey access to two of them.

...okay? Do you realize that if Mia has only just wrath, there aren't many situations where Mia can actually walk around at half HP safely because there are a lot of enemies her vantage doesn't work against? She's going to need crap like the SS and the VK to accompany it?

"BUT U CAN HEAL MIA OR NOT STICK HER IN RANGE OF ENEMIEZ"

Oh great, so instead of having wrath on a unit who can actually survive at half HP with no problems, instead wrath is stuck being a safety net on Mia. Such a great use of this awesome skill, rite

As for Mia having Wrath,when she's in play,she will get it,because she's the best person tp use it due to innate vantage (someone else could take the vantage and wrath scrolls i guess,but then you have real favoritism on your hands,not the BS that you keep claiming that people give Mia.

Geoffrey's team is not at all forced to field Mia, which means there's a free wrath scroll floating around for his team.

And I already explained why Vantage isn't really significant favoritism unless Neph is on the team.

Geoffrey could use Wrath as well,if that consoles you,so now he has offense similar to mia when he's at half HP,but with durability similar to Tauro,it doesn't happen that often,and he's still getting hit before he blicks things.Argue another skill on him if you want,I chose Wrath since it's available on Geoff's team,and I don't see ant skills he could really put much use to.Please enlighten me to them,but stop claiming that I'm shoving Resources into Mia.I'm just using her,and she's contributing.

The whole point about wrath is that Mia using wrath better than Geoffrey should simply be an advantage for her. It should not be locked to her, especially when several other units want it, and everyone becomes ridiculous with Vantage + Wrath, and the disadvantage of taking wrath (no one else can use it) has to be considered.

As an example, let's say we had Mia2. She is exactly the same as the regular Mia who I'll dub Mia1; same joining time, bases, growths, etc. Except after you beat chapter 18, Mia2 automatically learns wrath (Mia1 doesn't). Obviously, Mia2 >>> Mia1, since Mia2 isn't taking away the wrath skill from anyone else, since she got it for free, and now Mia2's team has a free wrath scroll for someone else to use. The vibe I was getting from everyone was that Mia1 would be equal to Mia2 because no one was caring about the disadvantage of Mia1 taking the wrath scroll.

I never said it was locked to her,just that the likelyhood that she gets it is quite high,due to not only her ease of use,but the fact that it greatly improves her worst aspect,durability.

On Mia's team,Mia takes Wrath,and nobody really cares except perhaps the one person who grabbed the vantage scroll,assuming that it wasn't Neph,or someone else with a workable skill,like adept or Guard.

On Geoffrey's team,Wrath is available,but if you don't have vantage,it's like a double edged sword,improving offense at the cost of more exposure,so it makes a non-vantage unit easier to die.

There is an opportunity cost to Mia taking Wrath when she's played,but she still pulls positive with it,as the opportunity cost isn't that high.

As for Mia being unable to effectively use Wrath,you must remember that enemies using 2-range are a minority,and some things,(snipers,Sm's,some Halbs,and cats once she get's a level),actually 3HKO her at half health in chapter 26.

As well,Mia has a player phase.If there are too many enemies around,she can heal up,and those sages that are kind of painful,player phase blick.If she get's hit by the sage,which menas she didn't critical,and he hit her,and is at like,8 health or something because of it,you obviously heal her.I don't know about you,but if my units aren't in mortal danger,I tend to heal after i've made my attacks,in case someone takes an unlucky hit.

As for Mia1 and Mia2,yes,if she learned it automatically,she would be better,but the skill is not so desired that Mia2 is like a tier ahead of Mia1 or anything.There's opportunity cost,but it's not major.Again,Mia is only now hitting Mid tier,so she only uses up Wrath,like 40-50% of PT's,because on the others,she isn't fielded.

[-Cynthia-]

Fine, Mia>Geoffrey.

As for Tormod, try to argue him above Largo or something if you want him moved up. Although the claim that he'll be near in levels to Gatrie is pretty ridiculous, Gatrie has 2 levels at base and 7 chapters, that would cause a large level lead.

[Interceptor]

All this talk about PoR made me want to play it again, so I blew the dust off of my disc this weekend. I figured it would be a good idea to look at Mia's performance in a real playthrough, as opposed to a transfer run, to see if the reality matched my memories. Is she really as bad as people keep asserting? Is my run slowed down by using her? Does the BEXP needlessly pauper the army? Etc. I started a run with the idea of playing Mia efficiently, in Fixed mode, so that she didn't get RNG-blessed or anything.

Preliminary results? All of you who say that Mia is a drag on the party are out of your fucking trees. Do you have any idea how to play this game at all? Jesus Christ, I thought this game was easy when I was doing transfer runs that delibrately used crappy characters and hoarded BEXP/stat-ups until Endgame... when I am playing efficiently, with an eye towards winning, it's not just easy, it's a non-stop steamroll curb-stomp.

I'll give an example. In Chapter 7, Mia is basically dead weight. I had her kill the archer that spawned chasing her, and then I just used her for opening chests and maybe killing some scrub-bag that Titania missed by 2 HP if I had nothing better to do at the time. This is an 11-turn chapter for BEXP purposes, and I was running out of shit to kill on turn 7-8.

Come next chapter, I get access to Base and I decide to put the BEXP theory to the test. Let's level-up Mia and make her good. So, I took my copious amounts of BEXP (I got max for every chapter, naturally, since my cat could beat this game), and spread it out amongst Mia, Boyd, and Oscar so that all three of them were level 10 at the end. This left me with 918 BEXP, which admittedly is quite a bit left of the ~1500+, and I could have spent it right there, but I want to save some for Ilyana (since I am going to use her) and other up-and-coming units.

Well, it didn't matter anyway, I raped that chapter so hard that on Turn 8 (the last turn) I had nothing left to kill. At all. Everything was dead. Two random idiots that spawned on the last possible turn, a soldier and a myrm in the east, used their actions to suicide into Boyd on Enemy Phase. Here's some of what those poor bastards were up against:

- Boyd, level 10. 13mt forged Iron Axe, 12 STR, 10 SPD. Boyd was ORKO'ing Armors in this chapter. ARMORS. Would more levels would have made a difference here? Not likely!

- Oscar, level 10. Steel/Iron lances, Short Spear/Jav, 9 STR, 11 SPD. Not a ORKO'ing maniac, but doubles tons of shit and does good damage via Canto-bombing and 2-ranging.

- Titania, level 5. Steel/Iron axes, Hand Axe. 14 STR, 16 SPD. Those who know how to play the game know that you give Titania the boss kills (not that it takes any effort, since she stares at a boss and it dies), so this amped-up Titania is ORKO'ing tons of shit with just plain Hand Axes.

- Mia, level 10. Iron/Steel swords, Armorslayer. 9 STR, 15 SPD. Well holy shit, look what happens when you're not sandbagging Mia by not fixing her level. Now she's doing double 10's on Armors in this level with the slayer, aka 3HKO aka 2RKO aka better than Ike with a Regal.

Chapter 8 pwned. Chapter 9 found me sending Mia, Ilyana (who got some BEXP'ed levels to double a few things), Mist, Rolf, and Titania (to catch the bandit) down on the sand. Destruction happened, nothing with and axe could hurt Mia, and Ilyana's 2-range plus occasional potshot chips from Rolf made this a leisurely stroll on the beach. Got both houses saved, and even pwned the pirate reinforcements. The rest of the army had no problems plowing through to the Sieze square.

Chapter 10. I didn't Metal Gear Solid this one, I blazed through it like a herd of bulls left loose in a china shop (I wanted the treasure and master seal). Mia's contributions here included fighting the reinforcements that back-door you when the alarm sounds, as well as smashing apart the Armors at the exit. As with Chapter 7, I found myself 4 turns from the BEXP limit with really nothing left to kill and nobody left to rescue.

Chapter 11. All of my primary combatants, Mia included, are at least level 14-15 at this point. I deploy both Lethe/Mordy (slots to spare), and carefully position them so that Zihark doesn't waste KE uses (success!). Mia is doing a little bit less than normal in this chapter since she can't keep up with Tits and crew (who are charging toward the Arrive with Ike in tow), so I put her with Boyd/Ilyana and they clean up slow-movers and reinforcements. Z/Mordy/Lethe take care of the items/enemies on the north side.

Chapter 12. I top off the rest of Mia's level, bringing her to 17 (she is a touch ahead of others at this point, who are 16ish). I pass out more BEXP to even it up. I still have over 1100 fucking BEXP left over at this point, but I'd feel like a tool for spending it since I'm already raping the shit out of everything. I could give some to Zihark, who is getting badly beaten by Mia at this point (2 STR behind, 4 SPD behind, 5 LCK behind, 2 DEF behind, 2 HP behind, 4 RES behind, and Mia has C Rhys by this point for +1 mt/ +5 HIT), but there's no point in using two Myrms for this playthrough (another time, big Z). Anyway, you already know how this story turns out: Mia rapes the shit out of this chapter because she's doubling for like 20 damage a pop with the Laguzslayer, aka instant ORKO on every Raven in the chapter.

Chapter 13. Mia is level 18 now, she's probably going to promote to Swordmaster by the time that Chapter 15 is over, just in time for the VAGUE KATTI. I wonder if I will even bother with Wrath at this point. I mean, it's not even fair to the enemies.

Do I even need to keep fucking going? When does Mia magically start slowing down my team, exactly? Can someone help me out, here? Should I maybe start the game over and start doing retarded shit like having Soren tank and Volke be my primary damage dealer? Maybe I should BEXP dump Rolf or Mist so that I can't raise anyone else? Maybe I should kill off half my team? Maybe everyone needs iron weapons? Speaking of which, I didn't even give Mia a forge yet.

People who say that Mia is a piece of shit, help me out, here. I'm not really good at playing inefficiently and/or making stupid resource allocation decisions.