FE9 Tier list v3

[Colonel M]

I'd say the usual dump would suffice. More pending on the leniency.

Anyway, I was using the "-tos" as sarcasm. I won't do it again.

[Sol Hiryu]

We do get a lot of BEXP, and it is his right to get some of it if he's in play. Yes, the fact that he takes more to get him even with everyone else/the enemies is a mark against him, but really...you're just coming out of Chapter 10 anyway before you really use him, the biggest source of BEXP aside from Chapter 15. BEXP is still a cost, but it's possibly not as large as everyone used to make it out to be. (I mean, most playthroughs don't use more than 10 or 11 units. There's definitely more than enough for everyone)

Are steel forges available after Ch. 12? I know it's only Iron for 11, so I'm wondering if he would like to hold off on it until he can grab a Steel. Although forged Iron does have some benefits in Chapter 12 with the flying enemies, potentially making everyone else's lives easier.

Personally, I think Rolf is > Elincia, but kinda shaky on the other two. Shinon is a bit of a challenge, considering his early game utility and the potential for good stats once given BEXP himself, so you'd have to weigh that versus what Rolf's been doing in the ~11 chapters he's been gone.

Janaff vs Rolf was done to death before Mia came and stole the spotlight, and I think the two are relatively even as far as combat is concerned. It then just gets into the utility and resource use between those two.

[Progenitus]

I don't know about you guys, but I generally assume that I'm splitting up my BEXP at the end of every chapter and spreading it to the team. e.g., if I got 300 BEXP for the chapter, and I have 10 units, everyone is allotted 30 BEXP (though they don't have to use this immediately, and what they do with it is up to them. For example, an overleveled late joiner like Stefan probably won't need any BEXP for awhile, which means that 10% of the BEXP from ch 1-15 that was supposed to go to him will just be distributed to the rest of the team to give them higher levels, so for ppl like Zihark who are actively taking their 10% BEXP will have to work against that disadvantage. On the other hand, low lvl ppl like Astrid will obviously want their 10% BEXP).

I'm assuming that levels for characters are WITH this BEXP included. For example, I doubt taht Neph will actually be promoted by ch 18 unless you're using a small team (like, less than 8) or you're distributing that BEXP to the team after every chapter (giving Neph like 300 BEXP up to ch 18, or whatever 10% of the total BEXP is). Particularly because you can ORKO a lot of enemies (and Titania ORKOs like everything in earlygame chapters), which means few enemies actually produce hit exp, which results in less CEXP.

This means that giving someone like Rolf 400 BEXP or something is not out of a pool of 3000, or whatever you have. It's out of 0 because all the BEXP is already given away, so people are going to ahve to sacrifice some of their 10% BEXP just to give Rolf more. For example, if you accumulated 2000 BEXP at the end of ch 10, and you're using a 10 man team, this means Rolf would be getting 200 BEXP, and then 400 more on top of that. (Unless you actually mean giving him 400 total, which, if you did accumulate 2000 BEXP at the end of ch 10, would be 200 BEXP extra favoritism.)

I don't really mind if a unit is taking away 10% of the BEXP (though not taking any BEXP is still better than taking 10%). It's when you go OVER this is when I start raising alarms.

Edited October 1, 2009 by pen15

[Dat Nick]

But have we been going over with Mia? This I do not recall.

[Sol Hiryu]

I don't know about you guys, but I generally assume that I'm splitting up my BEXP at the end of every chapter and spreading it to the team. e.g., if I got 300 BEXP for the chapter, and I have 10 units, everyone is allotted 30 BEXP (though they don't have to use this immediately, and what they do with it is up to them. For example, an overleveled late joiner like Stefan probably won't need any BEXP for awhile, which means that 10% of the BEXP from ch 1-15 that was supposed to go to him will just be distributed to the rest of the team to give them higher levels, so for ppl like Zihark who are actively taking their 10% BEXP will have to work against that disadvantage. On the other hand, low lvl ppl like Astrid will obviously want their 10% BEXP).

I'm assuming that levels for characters are WITH this BEXP included. For example, I doubt taht Neph will actually be promoted by ch 18 unless you're using a small team (like, less than 8) or you're distributing that BEXP to the team after every chapter (giving Neph like 300 BEXP up to ch 18, or whatever 10% of the total BEXP is). Particularly because you can ORKO a lot of enemies (and Titania ORKOs like everything in earlygame chapters), which means few enemies actually produce hit exp, which results in less CEXP.

This means that giving someone like Rolf 400 BEXP or something is not out of a pool of 3000, or whatever you have. It's out of 0 because all the BEXP is already given away, so people are going to ahve to sacrifice some of their 10% BEXP just to give Rolf more. For example, if you accumulated 2000 BEXP at the end of ch 10, and you're using a 10 man team, this means Rolf would be getting 200 BEXP, and then 400 more on top of that. (Unless you actually mean giving him 400 total, which, if you did accumulate 2000 BEXP at the end of ch 10, would be 200 BEXP extra favoritism.)

I don't really mind if a unit is taking away 10% of the BEXP (though not taking any BEXP is still better than taking 10%). It's when you go OVER this is when I start raising alarms.

Haven't we already gone over this?

Okay, yes, let's say we're using a team of 10 in the earlygame, and they're each entitled to 10% BEXP, if we're dividing it equally. However, just like you said, not everyone is going to need it at that time, and using it as soon as you get it is better than saving it. Hence, around Chapter 11 (we seem to love this chapter, don't we?):

Titania is generally assumed to be in play, and if she's one of the ten you're using, you can completely leave out of BEXP intake and she won't suffer for it, so that means there's nine people to use it on.

If any of those nine are Mordecai and/or Lethe, that's another 1/2 unit(s) down. Furthermore, it's possible to slowplay Ike's BEXP since he doesn't promote until 18, although this is fairly unreasonable since he needs the levels too.

So saying, it's possible that you only have to split BEXP between 7 or 8 units at that time. Maybe even 6. Narga made a nice post pages ago which showed that, even if someone like Rolf is taking away more BEXP from the rest of the team, that BEXP amount taken more than likely won't give the other units a full level anyway, considering the levels they should be around that time.

AFAIK, we haven't been going over with Mia, but we have with Rolf to catch him up to everyone else. This is why I don't see Rolf ever going out of Lower Mid, due to this.

[Progenitus]

I was assuming she got 400 on top of whatever 10% of our total BEXP was, or whatever people gave her. I think it was ~400.

Now if she was only getting 400 total... you accumulate ~1500 BEXP from ch 1-7, which means 10% is 150. So that means Mia would be getting 250 BEXP "major" favoritism. Assuming, of course, that she continues to take an average of 10% of the BEXP from every chapter.

I'm aware that we won't actually have 10 units by ch 8, but you can still theoretically put that BEXP aside. For example, if you accumulate 2500 BEXP by the edn of ch 10 (stealth is 700. the turn limit is 300, but doing stealth will likely make us go signfiicantly over the turn limit, so you'd probably get only ~700 from ch 10...), then you'd want to throw 250 on Neph. Since you'd have ~1500 by ch 7, you could set aside 150 of it for Neph.

I know that you could just set aside 250 you get from ch 10 for Neph, and blow your 1500 by ch 8 ASAP, but regardless, it's still extra BEXP that Mia is taking.

I have a feeling someone will say something liek "but smash, you have 1500 BEXP by ch 8, you may as well burn as much of it as you can on ppl like Oscar and Boyd". But there's a difference. Those ppl like Oscar and Boyd can get extra BEXP, but they can make up for it by not taking any BEXP for several chapters.

Liek, you field 5 units by ch 8. Boyd, Ike, Oscar, Soren, Mia (Titania too but she doesn't need BEXP to solo the map so fuck her, and Rhys doesn't really need BEXP as healing is basically independent of stats. Even if you do want to BEXP healers, BEXPing them now seems rather pointless when our fighters could definitely enjoy more levels since this is earlygame and units aren't capable of soloing the map). You could give all of them 300 BEXP total (it would technically result in ~150 BEXP favoritism). However, ppl like Oscar and Boyd can skip several chapters of their 10% to make up for it. Liek, they don't get any BEXP you'd earn in ch 9 or 10 or 11 or something, and the BEXP for those chapters will be going to other ppl like Marcia or Neph to make up their 10% of the total BEXP you could have accumulated. So their net BEXP consumption is about the same as if they just got 10% of the BEXP every chapter.

Are you assuming Mia is doing the same thing? Or Rolf for that matter?

This is how I find ppl like Astrid to get out of their hole without it being major favoritism. Astrid takes extra BEXP when she joins, and after a bit of a BEXP dump after ch 13 she can skip several chapters of receiving BEXP.

Haven't we already gone over this?

Okay, yes, let's say we're using a team of 10 in the earlygame, and they're each entitled to 10% BEXP, if we're dividing it equally. However, just like you said, not everyone is going to need it at that time, and using it as soon as you get it is better than saving it. Hence, around Chapter 11 (we seem to love this chapter, don't we?):

Titania is generally assumed to be in play, and if she's one of the ten you're using, you can completely leave out of BEXP intake and she won't suffer for it, so that means there's nine people to use it on.

If any of those nine are Mordecai and/or Lethe, that's another 1/2 unit(s) down. Furthermore, it's possible to slowplay Ike's BEXP since he doesn't promote until 18, although this is fairly unreasonable since he needs the levels too.

So saying, it's possible that you only have to split BEXP between 7 or 8 units at that time. Maybe even 6. Narga made a nice post pages ago which showed that, even if someone like Rolf is taking away more BEXP from the rest of the team, that BEXP amount taken more than likely won't give the other units a full level anyway, considering the levels they should be around that time.

AFAIK, we haven't been going over with Mia, but we have with Rolf to catch him up to everyone else. This is why I don't see Rolf ever going out of Lower Mid, due to this.

Titania, sure.

Mordy? Maybe not BEXP, but he'd appreciate speedwings. Our BEXP pool won't be hurt by fielding Mordy, but there's a good chance that our speedwing(s) will be gone, so that net impact on our pool of resources doesn't really change.

Lethe? Lethe isn't going to be a permanent member of the team. I highly doubt she'd count as one of our 10 team members (if our team is 10 units), due to the fact that she sucks so bad by the time promotion rolls around it's easier to just drop her. I'd assume she's a filler unit until people promote and we'd drop her. Kinda like what you'd do with Marcus or FE10 Sothe.

What do you mean, "that BEXP amount taken more than likely won't give the other units a full level anyway"? Even if it was, say, half a level taken away from every other unit on the team, do you realize how much that amounts to?

Let's assume that every unit has a 40% growth in all their stats. This means that losing half a level would theoretically take away 0.2 points for every stat. Multiply that by nine units, and that's 1.8 points of every stat gone. That's like tossing Rolf an energy drop, speedwing, AND dracoshield (and crappy boosters like secret books).

Edited October 1, 2009 by pen15

[Dat Nick]

Since Titania IS top of top, though, she has a case for being played often and we should see how much 1/9th BEXP a chapter is.

[Sol Hiryu]

Just for reference, I found Narga's post about the whole BEXP thing under the assumption someone is mostly using top/high tiers. Granted, this was made before the whole explosion about Mia and the ensuing discussion about communism and Fire Emblem (in Soviet Tellius, BEXP takes you!), but the general point still remains the same: it's how to make the best use of a unit if you're going to be using them. Take it as you will.

And, ugh. I was beginning another response, but it's taking me several times to read over everything just to get the point, so I think it's time for bed.

[WeaponsofMassConstruction]

Is the cost of setting aside BEXP being considered?

Generally, BEXP is used most efficiently as early as possible. Using it earlier means you get more levels and more chapters where it takes action instead of being saved for late comers.

This makes me think about how BEXP is most efficiently used. Is it better to spread exp around or dump them on a few units? For example, assuming level 9 Oscar at Ch8 base, is it worth it to spend ~900 BEXP to get a second Titania that ends up quite a bit better?

EDIT:

What's with the gap between Brom and Gatrie?

Edited October 1, 2009 by WeaponsofMassConstruction

[-Cynthia-]

Brom has much more salvagable Spd and better supports.

[Florete]

Wait...Brom > Gatrie is easy, but should the gap be so big? It's not like Brom doubles a whole lot himself, and Gatrie has more natural Str (+2 at base, 10% higher growth) as well as early game where he's helping quite a bit. He doesn't have much in the way of supports, but I can't quite see a full tier gap being justified when they're really rather similar.

[Dat Nick]

I concur. Gatrie's earlygame is enough of a reason to shrink the gap.

[Progenitus]

Is the cost of setting aside BEXP being considered?

Generally, BEXP is used most efficiently as early as possible. Using it earlier means you get more levels and more chapters where it takes action instead of being saved for late comers.

Indeed, although units should be receiving similar amounts of favoritism, or else the comparison becomes biased and unfair, and that's how we end up with stuff liek "unit A with resource X >>> unit B without resource X, thus unit A >>>". e.g. If someone like Zihark ends up taking 500 BEXP total, then Stefan should also get 500 BEXP total, despite joining later. (Again, Stefan doesn't actually have to spend the 500 BEXP on himself. he could instead give it to the rest of the team, making Zihark have to work against that).

This makes me think about how BEXP is most efficiently used. Is it better to spread exp around or dump them on a few units? For example, assuming level 9 Oscar at Ch8 base, is it worth it to spend ~900 BEXP to get a second Titania that ends up quite a bit better?

What's with the gap between Brom and Gatrie?

Cynthia said it. Doubles easier.

Wait...Brom > Gatrie is easy, but should the gap be so big? It's not like Brom doubles a whole lot himself, and Gatrie has more natural Str (+2 at base, 10% higher growth) as well as early game where he's helping quite a bit. He doesn't have much in the way of supports, but I can't quite see a full tier gap being justified when they're really rather similar.

The str doesn't really matter. It's the spd. Brom doubles more easily.

I haven't looked at spd values indepth yet, but my first impression is taht Gatrie will probably not doubling anything except generals (or really weighed down enemies) after promotion, while Brom will double at least stuff like soldiers. After some levels under their belt and they gain more spd than the enemies (enemies don't have 55% spd growths), Gatrie will start doubling, but he's most likely borderline. Brom has more wiggle room in addition to doubling more enemies. Or if that's not good enough for you, then Brom can simply skip some levels with the KW, or skip levels entirely (these levels that would've gone to Brom will now go to other ppl on the team), and still get the same spd as Gatrie.

It's also worth noting that on fixed mode, Brom starts with 90 base spd exp (so he basically has 7.9 base spd) while Gatrie starts with 0.

I concur. Gatrie's earlygame is enough of a reason to shrink the gap.

They're short chapters though. ch 3 is 6 turns, but we want to keep Marcia alive so we're probably rushing. ch 4 is only 4 turns for max BEXP. ch 5 has a 6 turn limit. ch 7 he joins halfway through. It can only amount to so much.

Brom also isn't that bad for ch 11 and 12. He's 4HKO'd by the strongest cavs and knights in ch 11, which isn't too shabby as even Kieran is very close to getting 3HKO'd (admittedly, Brom's offense and move are terribad, though I don't find move to be that significant in ch 11 or 12, and everyone has terrible offense in ch 12, fukkin ravens).

[Florete]

Brom > Gatrie is not the issue. The tier gap between the two is. Doubling a few more guys (And it is, as you just noted, only a few) is not worth that, especially when Gatrie has his early game use to boast (It's not huge, but it's a point in his favor).

[-Cynthia-]

The thing is that Brom "fits in well" with the characters around him, some issues pre-promotion, but pretty great post promotion.

I'll try and dig up the post that argued Brom up at some point.

[Dat Nick]

This doesn't mean that Gatrie can't move up instead of Brom down, I wouldn't agree with Brom down anyway.

[-Cynthia-]

This doesn't mean that Gatrie can't move up instead of Brom down, I wouldn't agree with Brom down anyway.

That's a possibility, but the issue at hand seems to be that people think both have severe AS issues post-promotion, which would more mean Brom down than anything. This tier list doesn't seem to favor high durability low Mov units(see Taur), Brom's offense is really the point in question here.

[Interceptor]

Can we please have a moratorium on the word "favoritism"? It's a loaded term, suggesting unfair discrimination, which doesn't at all further the cause of the tier list. A better term is "opportunity cost", and it's not just a question of semantics, because opportunity cost has a very specific definition that better lends itself to accurately measuring a unit's contributions to efficient game completion.

I don't know about you guys, but I generally assume that I'm splitting up my BEXP at the end of every chapter and spreading it to the team. e.g., if I got 300 BEXP for the chapter, and I have 10 units, everyone is allotted 30 BEXP (though they don't have to use this immediately, and what they do with it is up to them. For example, an overleveled late joiner like Stefan probably won't need any BEXP for awhile, which means that 10% of the BEXP from ch 1-15 that was supposed to go to him will just be distributed to the rest of the team to give them higher levels, so for ppl like Zihark who are actively taking their 10% BEXP will have to work against that disadvantage. On the other hand, low lvl ppl like Astrid will obviously want their 10% BEXP).

Smash, this has already been resolved in this thread. Spreading BEXP evenly is not efficient, and my experience with a Mia playthrough this past weekend is proof of it. Not only can I support this personally, but I gave so many excruciatingly specific details that I'd say that several people in this thread could argue the same point just by using my data as a starting point.

You appear to understand that giving everyone the same amount of BEXP is a silly idea, since you're not giving it to Titania or to a healer. That's good. However, you persist on beginning from the very awkward position that equilibrium is everyone starting with X% of the availible BEXP, where X% is the BEXP divided by the total number of reasonable candidates. This, unfortunately, is verifiably not the equilibruim position, because it relies on an assumption that BEXP is equally beneficial for everyone, something that's trivial to disprove. I don't understand why you can simultaneously recognize that BEXP'ing certain units is largely pointless, but you draw no distinction between two units that benefit significantly from BEXP while still differing between each other in terms of who is more efficient with it.

I don't really mind if a unit is taking away 10% of the BEXP (though not taking any BEXP is still better than taking 10%). It's when you go OVER this is when I start raising alarms.

Alarms should be going off as soon as a unit takes 10% of the BEXP. Equal distribution of BEXP should raise red flags for anyone who understands the concept of opportunity cost.

I'm aware that we won't actually have 10 units by ch 8, but you can still theoretically put that BEXP aside.

There is no point in looking at the problem this way. Giving BEXP to X has an opportunity cost, and so does sitting on the BEXP, and we can adjudicate such a thing. You are only having to go down this route because your "equal BEXP division" is a logical kludge-job.

I have a feeling someone will say something liek "but smash, you have 1500 BEXP by ch 8, you may as well burn as much of it as you can on ppl like Oscar and Boyd". But there's a difference. Those ppl like Oscar and Boyd can get extra BEXP, but they can make up for it by not taking any BEXP for several chapters.

I guess you have no idea how BEXP either of them need. Boyd and Oscar will both benefit from continued injections of BEXP, to maintain doubling and ORKO numbers. Even small things like capping off their partial levels in base contribute towards this. It's not simply a matter of BEXP-dumping them in Ch. 8, and bam they are set for life. If you did do that, you'd still have good units in Oscar and Boyd, but you wouldn't have optimal units, which is basically the point of continuing to plow them full of BEXP.

What do you mean, "that BEXP amount taken more than likely won't give the other units a full level anyway"? Even if it was, say, half a level taken away from every other unit on the team, do you realize how much that amounts to?

It amounts to almost nothing, in practice. Any units that were far enough away from a platform such that half a level would make a difference, are half a level away from a real level-up that gives them a stat-up that they gain some significant benefit from. The rest of the units are either more than half a level away, or would get a level-up that doesn't actually improve their position significantly.

The first group has an excellent argument for BEXP, and the latter has a very poor one.

Let's assume that every unit has a 40% growth in all their stats. This means that losing half a level would theoretically take away 0.2 points for every stat. Multiply that by nine units, and that's 1.8 points of every stat gone. That's like tossing Rolf an energy drop, speedwing, AND dracoshield (and crappy boosters like secret books).

This is like the "assume we have a can-opener" mathmetician's reality. The leap that you made here depends on some pretty tortured logic. Not only do we not have mythical units with 40% in every stat, plus ignoring that partial levels give zero stat-ups, plus divorcing the mythical unit hypothetical even further from reality by extending it to the entire army, but you make a completely absurd comparison to stat boosters at the end.

BEXP'ed levels are not at all like stat boosters. I see what you are trying to do, here, which is to somehow tie theoretical level-up gains to the gains from a booster, with the idea that since some stat boosters are rare that now BEXP is a big deal, but the two things are wildly different. It is a non sequitur, literally it does not follow. Stat boosters serve the purpose of an immediate, targeted, and guaranteed boost to a specific stat. The relative usefulness of specific stats and the rarity of specific boosters makes a Speedwing hotly desired, but a Skill Book more useful at times for its 4,000 gold (another departure, BEXP cannot be converted into money). It's completely absurd to look at half-levels for nine units, add up their "theoretical" chance for SPD, convert it into a decimal figure, and then come to the conclusion that it's comparable to a Speedwing.

I'm sort of appalled that I'm the first person to even call you out on this.

This makes me think about how BEXP is most efficiently used. Is it better to spread exp around or dump them on a few units? For example, assuming level 9 Oscar at Ch8 base, is it worth it to spend ~900 BEXP to get a second Titania that ends up quite a bit better?

There is no One Ring<tm> rule for BEXP expenditure, it's all situational. In this specific case that you mentioned, I would say that it's not worth it long-term to make a second Titania, because you still get more benefit short-term by making several units rather good, with no long-term penalties for doing so (Oscar can still be made Titania-level later on). But there are situations where a massive BEXP dump actually does benefit you both short and long term, such as when Jill flies on the scene, or maybe even Astrid.

WRT Brom vs. Gatrie, without looking at any specifics, my gut feeling is that Brom is probably too high. Durability has dubious worth in this game past a certain point (which most combat units can reach), and Brom's mobility is a serious problem for leveraging his offense, no matter how good that offense turns out to be. I think that the only reason that 7-MV footsoldiers in this game do as well as they do overall is that they are still useful in efficient play because of the number and join times of the Paladin-bomb units (aka, you have to get to Astrid and Makalov and Kieran before you can use them). If those aforementioned units showed up earlier, the 7MVs would be less useful, too.

By the time that Brom shows up, nothing he does is special, he's stuck moving at a 5 until promotion, and his wt makes him REALLY hard to move around (you basically have to use Beast Tribe laguz to shove him). In that light, and without comparing him to any of his peers (aka, I can't prove whether Gatrie needs to move or if Brom does without doing more research), I think that the tier gap does qualify as basically silly. I would not put Gatrie ahead of Brom without a better look at their stats vs. enemies, though.

EDIT #2: I missed this earlier.

[...] and everyone has terrible offense in ch 12, fukkin ravens).

Everyone except... wait for it... Mia. Another example of the benefits of a BEXP-dump. With 12 STR (prevent weighing down from Laguzslayer) and 20 SPD, she can even ORKO the boss. The ravens are not dense enough to threaten her durability-wise.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Interceptor

[Interceptor]

Apologies for double-posting, but didn't want an edit to get missed. On the subject of the Laguzslayer, what do people think about the benefit of stealing the one in Chapter 11, from the boss? There are a few places where it might come in handy to have a second one.

Setting up the steal from the boss is easy, since he moves. You just need to leave someone in range of his bow, but out of range of his sword. Then, it's a matter of stealing it with Volke. The catch is, Volke needs 14 SPD and 13 STR in order to steal it, which means he needs +1 in each over his bases. Assuming that he got no CEXP in Chapter 10 (reasonable, I think), the cost of two BEXP'ed levels is 212 BEXP, which is guaranteed +1 STR/SPD in Fixed and a very high chance in Random (about 58%, I believe). That, plus the "difficulty" of setting up the steal becomes the cost of the Laguzslayer. I don't think that Volke's other benefits for two levels are any more than marginal.

Worth it in an efficient run? It'd allow more liberal use of the Slayer in 12, 13, 15, etc.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Interceptor

[Progenitus]

Brom > Gatrie is not the issue. The tier gap between the two is. Doubling a few more guys (And it is, as you just noted, only a few) is not worth that, especially when Gatrie has his early game use to boast (It's not huge, but it's a point in his favor).

20/1 Brom, 9 lvls with KW... 14.7 spd

20/1 Gatrie, 9 lvls with KW... 12.45 spd

spd values of enemies in ch 18

3x wyverns, 9

4x soldiers, 9

1x soldier, 10

1x halberdier, 10

1x archer, 14

1x fighter, 12

1x warrior, 10

1x sage, 6 (blizzard)

2x sage, 4 (bolting)

2x bishop, 9

1x knight, 0

1x general, 6

1x general, 2

2x cav, 14

boss, 15

3x raven, 17

4x raven, 18

2x cav, 12

1x cav, 10

1x cav, 15

1x paladin, 13

Gatrie doesn't double anything except knights/generals and sages if they're weighed down with siege tomes (they have regular weapons they can switch to, or will equip once their siege tomes break). He's ridiculously borderline on doubling 3 wyverns, 4 soldiers, 2 bishops. Chances are he won't double anything else.

Brom is not nearly as borderline on doubling those 9 enemies, plus doubles a cav, another soldier, halb, and fighter. He'll also more liekly to double the sages if they switch to a regular weapon.

Subtract a level or two with the KW (so now they only got 7-8 lvls with the KW) and it gets worse for Gatrie. his borderlines turn into "prolly not", while Brom isn't as badly hampered. Gatrie would now double only knights and generals, and sages depending on what they have equipped. Liek, a sixth of the map (6/35 enemies, ignoring shinon). Brom doubles about half the map (19/35).

This is, of course, only one chapter.

This doesn't mean that Gatrie can't move up instead of Brom down, I wouldn't agree with Brom down anyway.

post promotion Brom will have liek 1 less AS than Boyd, but a 10% higher growth, and since Boyd is probably at a slightly higher level, he gains levels a bit faster too.

I know Boyd's not a speed demon, but I don't think there's a big problem with Brom's offense, at least post promotion (prepromotion sure, but then we have units who actually can die, so Brom's durability becomes somewhat important). I say it's more how much weight you'd give the KW, as well as his below average mobility.

Edited October 2, 2009 by 8========================D

[Narga_Rocks]

Let's assume that every unit has a 40% growth in all their stats. This means that losing half a level would theoretically take away 0.2 points for every stat. Multiply that by nine units, and that's 1.8 points of every stat gone. That's like tossing Rolf an energy drop, speedwing, AND dracoshield (and crappy boosters like secret books).

This is like the "assume we have a can-opener" mathmetician's reality. The leap that you made here depends on some pretty tortured logic. Not only do we not have mythical units with 40% in every stat, plus ignoring that partial levels give zero stat-ups, plus divorcing the mythical unit hypothetical even further from reality by extending it to the entire army, but you make a completely absurd comparison to stat boosters at the end.

BEXP'ed levels are not at all like stat boosters. I see what you are trying to do, here, which is to somehow tie theoretical level-up gains to the gains from a booster, with the idea that since some stat boosters are rare that now BEXP is a big deal, but the two things are wildly different. It is a non sequitur, literally it does not follow. Stat boosters serve the purpose of an immediate, targeted, and guaranteed boost to a specific stat. The relative usefulness of specific stats and the rarity of specific boosters makes a Speedwing hotly desired, but a Skill Book more useful at times for its 4,000 gold (another departure, BEXP cannot be converted into money). It's completely absurd to look at half-levels for nine units, add up their "theoretical" chance for SPD, convert it into a decimal figure, and then come to the conclusion that it's comparable to a Speedwing.

I'm sort of appalled that I'm the first person to even call you out on this.

In my defense, I didn't much care, and I thought the fail was beyond words so I didn't know quite what to say. So, those two things combined resulted in my not knowing quite what to say and not caring enough to figure it out.

[...] and everyone has terrible offense in ch 12, fukkin ravens).

Everyone except... wait for it... Mia. Another example of the benefits of a BEXP-dump. With 12 STR (prevent weighing down from Laguzslayer) and 20 SPD, she can even ORKO the boss. The ravens are not dense enough to threaten her durability-wise.

Yeah, Ike's not getting a good enough speed early enough, and Z needs even more bexp to accomplish this than what Mia would get.

Apologies for double-posting, but didn't want an edit to get missed. On the subject of the Laguzslayer, what do people think about the benefit of stealing the one in Chapter 11, from the boss? There are a few places where it might come in handy to have a second one.

Setting up the steal from the boss is easy, since he moves. You just need to leave someone in range of his bow, but out of range of his sword. Then, it's a matter of stealing it with Volke. The catch is, Volke needs 14 SPD and 13 STR in order to steal it, which means he needs +1 in each over his bases. Assuming that he got no CEXP in Chapter 10 (reasonable, I think), the cost of two BEXP'ed levels is 212 BEXP, which is guaranteed +1 STR/SPD in Fixed and a very high chance in Random (about 58%, I believe). That, plus the "difficulty" of setting up the steal becomes the cost of the Laguzslayer. I don't think that Volke's other benefits for two levels are any more than marginal.

Worth it in an efficient run? It'd allow more liberal use of the Slayer in 12, 13, 15, etc.

I'm obsessed with stealing. I even abuse Volke's levels to get to 18 str to steal the steel blade in 17-4 (I think, it's not listed in the enemy stats but I know it's somewhere in chapter 17). Of course, your suggestion is actually practical in a tier playthrough, whereas my obsession isn't.

Anyway, yes, I've stolen it and think it's worth it to have two. I usually give them to Ike and Mia since I don't use Zihark. I suppose I sometimes let Marcia use one after promotion or Mist or someone, but I think for a while I'm stuck with Ike and Mia. Of course, I look at it as my mission to steal just about everything stealable, so I'm probably not the right person to ask.

On a more practical note:

He's got a knife now, right? 13 str vs. 12 str is 15 mt vs. 14 mt.

(ORKOs the fighter vigilantes, but I guess we leave them alive?)

Also, ORKO on

2x Priest lv 12 (heal)

24 hp, 7 AS, 20 avo, 3 def, 15 res, 6 cev

But if he's adjacent to one of them he should probably be stealing, I guess.

1x Thief lv 3 (knife) (not doubling to doubling)

17 hp, 6 atk, 10 AS, 107 hit, 21 avo, 2 def, 0 res, 6 crit, 1 cev

He goes from 3RKO to 2RKO on

2x Soldier lv 10 (steel lance)

28 hp, 18 atk, 3 AS, 90 hit, 8 avo, 8 def, 3 res, 4 crit, 2 cev

1x Mage lv 12 (wind) (not doubling 3HKO to doubling 3HKO)

22 hp, 12 atk, 10 AS, 118 hit, 22 avo, 5 def, 10 res, 4 crit, 2 cev

No damage to 1x2 damage on:

Mackoya lv 5 (laguzslayer, iron bow, master seal [d])

35 hp, 22 atk, 13 AS, 108 hit, 31 avo, 14 def, 12 res, 7 crit, 5 cev

Doesn't get much out of it, I suppose.

Still, I have to figure that there will be some unit that is now KOd rather than left alive from some combination of Volke + other unit.

Mordy has 11 AS and 31 mt

1x Bow Knight lv 11 (iron bow)

27 hp, 16 atk, 10 AS, 100 hit, 23 avo, 11 def, 4 res, 3 crit, 3 cev

Mordy does 20 damage leaving it with 7 hp, and bexp Volke ORKOs. Without str and spd, Volke does 3 damage.

Brom has 18 mt with iron axe and 7 AS.

1x Mage lv 12 (fire)

23 hp, 13 atk, 9 AS, 111 hit, 20 avo, 5 def, 10 res, 3 crit, 2 cev

This guy is OHKOd by Volke with the +str so he doesn't get countered.

2x Myrmidon lv 9 (steel sword)

23 hp, 16 atk, 6 AS, 97 hit, 14 avo, 5 def, 2 res, 5 crit, 2 cev

These guys get KOd by a Brom + OH Volke combo, again avoiding the counter.

I realize I didn't give Brom a steel axe or any bexp, but he may not be used seriously, thus wouldn't be getting any bexp and is just running around helping out this chapter. Also, a steel axe slows him down enough to get doubled by more stuff than 11+ AS enemies.

Anyway, I'm sure there are other units that can combo with Volke to either have Volke avoid getting countered or just to KO something that wouldn't be KOd.

It isn't just to get the laguzslayer, considering there isn't enough stuff for Volke to steal that he'll never have an opportunity to attack.

[Interceptor]

20/1 Brom, 9 lvls with KW... 14.7 spd

20/1 Gatrie, 9 lvls with KW... 12.45 spd

spd values of enemies in ch 18

Baloney, those levels are not realistic in an efficient playthrough. I trained Boyd, Oscar, Ike, Mia, Titania, Ilyana, Kieran, and Astrid as combatants, whilst using Mist and Rhys as healers. At Chapter 18, all of them were basically 20/4-20/5, except Ike who was 20/1 (obviously) and Titania who was 20/11 or something (EDIT: Rhys and Mist are not promoted, naturally, they are just sucking up a spot and healing people). I had a bunch of BEXP left, too, enabling me to add a ninth fighter or boost the levels of my chosen eight further if I wanted to.

Gatrie and/or Brom should easily be able to at least get close to those levels.

In my defense, I didn't much care, and I thought the fail was beyond words so I didn't know quite what to say. So, those two things combined resulted in my not knowing quite what to say and not caring enough to figure it out.

No foul on this one, considering that he's ignoring all of your posts anyway.

It isn't just to get the laguzslayer, considering there isn't enough stuff for Volke to steal that he'll never have an opportunity to attack.

Sounds reasonable to me. Volke is doing better with +2 levels than I assumed he would. I suppose that this reduces the overall cost of the Slayer, on balance.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Interceptor

[Dat Nick]

edt: nevermind

Edited October 2, 2009 by Athena's Chest

[Fruitloop Multipuck]

If even Rhys wasn't promoted in Chapter 18, maybe the gap between Mist and Rhys is too large?

[Interceptor]

Neither Mist nor Rhys are getting anywhere near promotion without a BEXP dump or a Master Seal.

There is not enough staff CEXP if you are playing for speed. I tried. Normal heals are not enough, since people don't get hurt very often and it's hard to set up a heal with the both of them being so fragile, and so slow movement-wise relative to the rest of the army. I swear, I even spammed the Torch staff with Mist in Ch. 14, the Fog of War battle, to try to close the gap. Even the Ward staff is not enough. If Rhys burned the whole thing, uselessly with no mages around, even on off turns when heals didn't matter, it's only two and a half levels of EXP for him.

I think that they are hard to tier for efficiency purposes, because healing is basically all that they are good for, to the extent that they are even good at it at all. I'm tempted to say that it's worth getting Mist to 10 and then Master Sealing her for the pony, because THAT is actually useful. Promoting them normally, using no BEXP? They might be there by the time you get to Ashnard, if you're lucky.

Edited October 2, 2009 by Interceptor