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[CATS]

Saloma will be opening.

[Momo]

Eliwood begins his fighting career in chapter 12. He's not doing very well for himself, as almost everyone else is dealing more damage and taking more in return.

Level 1 Eliwood (Iron Sword): 18 HP, 10 atk, 7 AS, 5 def
Level 2 Lowen (Iron Sword/Lance): 23 HP, 12/14 atk, 7 AS, 7 def
Level 3 Dorcas (Iron/Steel Axe): 30 HP, 15/18 atk, 6 AS, 3 def
Level 2 Bartre (Iron/Steel Axe): 29 HP, 17/20 atk, 3 AS, 4 def

Discounting Rebecca, Eliwood is doing the worst on his team. He has to be helped the most to get kills, which is bad when everyone is just starting out. Comparing them to some enemies...

Archer lv 2 (Iron Bow)
12-13 atk, 93-97 hit, 4-5 AS, 2-3 crit; 21-23 HP, 3-4 def, 0-2 res, 8-10 avo

Eliwood takes three rounds to kill these, Lowen 2/3 rounds, Dorcas and Bartre both two round cleanly.

Brigand lv 1 (Iron Axe)
16 atk, 79 hit, 5-6 AS, 1 crit; 23-25 HP, 3-4 def, 0-1 res, 10-12 avo

Another three rounding. Though I admit Lowen does similarly here, he's better defensively when using a sword. Dorcas and Bartre both two round.

1x Brigand lv 2 (Hand Axe)
14-16 atk, 64-68 hit, 6 AS, 1-2 crit; 24-26 HP, 3-5 def, 0-2 res, 12 avo
1x Brigand lv 3 (Iron Axe)
16-17 atk, 79-83 hit, 6-7 AS, 1-2 crit; 25-27 HP, 3-5 def, 0-2 res, 12-14 avo

Eliwood might even take four rounds for these, Bartre two rounds with Iron, Dorcas with steel.

6x Pegasus Knight lv 3 (Iron Lance)
13-14 atk, 94-96 hit, 4-5 AS, 3-4 crit; 18-19 HP, 3-4 def, 3-5 res, 8-10 avo
1x Pegasus Knight lv 5 (Iron Lance)
13-15 atk, 96-98 hit, 5-6 AS, 4 crit; 20-21 HP, 3-4 def, 4-6 res, 10-12 avo

Eliwood three rounds, everyone else two rounds.

So, as I've shown, Eliwood is not doing well. I don't want to bore you with too many numbers, so I'll skip ahead to Lucius.

Throughout the game, Lucius will consistently have better better offense against Eliwood. Despite using the weakest magic, Lucius' high magic growth and the def/res gap of enemies ensures that he is always doing higher damage. Assuming Lyn mode, let's compare them at Lucius' join time.

Level 8 Lucius (Lightning): 14 atk, 12 AS
Level 7 Eliwood (Iron/Steel Sword): 12.7/15.7 atk, 9.4/6.4 AS

Lucius doubles and thus one-rounds all but the very highest Steel Bow archers (leaves them with about 1 HP). Eliwood only doubles the level 3 ones weighed down with Steel Bows, and that's only if he's using Iron. He just barely wins against the stronger cavaliers, but he has to use his Rapier. Lucius ties him on all but the strongest knights (once again leaving them with very low health), but once again Eliwood has to use his very limited Rapier.

Skipping forward, we get to our first Guiding Ring in chapter 18. While he could use it, Lucius is just fine waiting a while to level. Around chapter 21/22 they'll look something like this:

Level 15/1 Lucius (Lightning): 20.2 atk, 14.8 AS
Level 15 Eliwood (Iron/Steel Sword): 15.85/18.85 atk, 12.2/9.2 AS

For Eliwood to near matching attack output, he has to slow himself down by 3. Even with the same amount of attack, enemies generally have a big gap in defense and res, meaning Eliwood is still losing. He's also not doubling nearly as much as Lucius is, giving him effectively more than 2x more damage.

When he wants to trade damage for speed, not only is he losing attack, he's still losing in attack speed. It's a no-win situation for him.

Then of course, we can't forget staves. Lucius gains a hearty C ranking by promoting, meaning he has instant use of Mend, which he only needs to use 17 times until he can use Physic. He goes from being a great attacker to being a great attacker and probably your best healer. By the time Eliwood's able to promote, Lucius' two EXP pools will give him a pretty big level gap.

15/8 Lucius (Lightning/Shine): 24.4/26.4 atk, 17.6/16.6 AS
20/1 Eliwood (Iron Sword/Iron Lance): 20.55/22.55 atk, 15.6 AS

Looks pretty much the same as it used to. Lucius will continue to beat Eliwood in offense, and staves will maintain his level lead. It's these things that prove Lucius is better than Eliwood.

[CATS]

I dunno why you saw fit to list Steel as an option for Bartre/Dorcas but not Eliwood/Low1n, when you get a free Steel Sword in Ch 12 but no Steel Axes until Ch 16 (and even then they must be bought). You even get a Killing Edge in Ch 13, and yes, Eliwood can use that with his base C in swords.

Tossing Eliw00t the Steel Sword, he does 3 less damage than Bartre against those Ch 12 Brigands with superior hitrates (Bartre has ~85%); their average damage is about the same. And yes, people, comparing to Bartre (except that ofcourse Eliwood doesn't get doubled by anything) during Ch 12 is not bad. Bartre has high Hp/Str and no one is doubling yet so his Spd is not yet a serious issue, actually making him one of the better units outside of your 3 gods (Marcus, Osw1n, H4xtor) during earlygame.

Anyways, it doesn't really matter because your whole group is forced up through 13x and then you have enough slots to use everyone in Ch 14, so there is no opportunity cost of deployment during those chaps. Even if Eliwood were sucking during that time, which he isn't, his performance would still be an absolute positive for him. Meanwhile what is Lucius doing? Twiddling his thumbs in Ch 17 and waiting for you to get there. Now there's still some more time to go before we finally reach Lucius, so let's look at it. Let's consider Eliwood vs Kent in Ch 16, assuming both are L7.

Eliw00t, C Hector: 7.7 Str, 9.4 Spd----22.8 Hp, 7.8 Def, 33.5 Avo
Kent: 8.4 Str, 9.7 Spd----25.1 Hp, 6.5 Def, 22.6 Avo

Kent gets a nice Atk lead when using his lance, but what enemies would you have him using a lance against? Cavaliers, for one. The Rapier has 13-14 Mt against those, while the Iron Lance has 7-8. Well, there goes Kent's Atk lead. He still gets to keep it against sword enemies and Pegs, but Eliwood's Atk win against Cavs is bigger than Kent's win against other stuff. On defense, Kent still loses in Def even if he has WTA or Eliwood has WTD, and only wins Avo by 4 in that situation, whereas Eliwood wins Avo by 11 against axes, bows and magic. Overall they look pretty close, I'd say.

Kent is high tier, btw. So is Eliwood. And they're there for a reason; they're good. So yeah, Eliwood's still contributing positively during Ch 15-17 (I include 17 as a chap where Lucius isn't there yet because he's joining way too late to do anything in that chap).

Thus, when Lucius shows up, he's already 7 chaps in the hole. Let's keep this in mind as we continue to examine their performance.

---

Let's start with Pirate Ship (you compared in Ch 17, but lol @ Lucius getting to see any action there).

L10 Eliwood, B Hector: 10.1 Str, 10.6 Spd----25.2 Hp, 9.7 Def, 42.3 Avo
L10 Lucius: 11.2 Mag, 12.8 Spd----21.8 Hp, 1.7 Def, 29 Avo, 3.4 CEV

Did someone say 8 Def lead?

Steel Sword Mercs in this chapter have mostly 10-11 AS, so no doubling for either one. About a 4 point Def-Res gap, so Lucius does 1 more damage than Eliwood + Steel Sword, awesome. Meanwhile Eliwood can counter them on enemy phase with little or no fear of death (4HKO'd @ 65% hit, takes 5 rounds to die on average), as opposed to Lucius facing crit rates from them. This chapter has alot of Shamans too, though. Surely Lucius wins against those? Actually not. Eliwood + Pure Water (4 Shamans holding Pure Water on the map) about matches Lucius in Res and Avo even despite Lucius's WTA, and Eliwood ofcourse retains more Hp. Lucius can counter them, but he's also bad at 2HKOing them. He can only 2HKO the very weakest Shamans, while ofcourse Eliwood easily takes them all down.

Lastly the chapter has a good number of Peg Knights, but these are generally slow enough that both Eliwood and Lucius can double, they actually have more Res than Def, and ofcourse Eliwood wins defense against them.

"but hey, you're comparing in a chapter that's bad for Lucius! how about a chapter where Lucius's speed lead matters?"

Yes, ofcourse we have to cover that Spd lead, because it's the only thing Lucius really has over Eliwood. Cavaliers in Ch 19 have 7-8 Spd, and L11 Eliwood has 11 Spd, so he's actually doubling some of them. When he doesn't, Rapier is a 2HKO while Lucius one-rounds. That sounds pretty cool, but look at the defense. Iron Sword is most common on these Cavs and that does under 5 damage to Eliwood; Iron Lance or Steel Sword still only does about 6 damage, a 5HKO. Lucius on the other hand gets 2HKO'd by Iron Sword Cavs. So Eliwood cutting off over half their health and having an enemy phase is no worse than Lucius killing one on player phase, and sometimes Eliwood doubles for a ORKO; thus overall, Eliwood wins.

And that's against an enemy type where Lucius's Spd lead counts. There's plenty of enemies where it doesn't count. Even Iron Lance Pegs have 7 AS at best; Pirates in this chapter are weighing themselves down with Hand/Steel, for once again 7 AS at best, and Eliwood is basically invincible against them; Iron/Short Bow Nomads have 9 Spd at worst, and they also have 8 Skl at worst so Lucius can get crit'd; and then sword enemies are obvious. This chapter features a Slim Sword Myrmidon which threatens to OHKO Lucius with a crit, and that's just sad (the same guy doubles Eliwood.....for 1-2 damage).

Did I mention that Uhai's Def is approximately equal to his Res, and the Rapier has 14 Mt compared to Lightning's 4 Mt?

So this is basically how it goes before promotion. Rapier takes care of the Def-Res gap against the only enemies where it's really significant, so Lucius's only real offensive advantage is his higher Spd. He might be able to keep up if he doubled everything while Eliwood doubled nothing, but ofcourse that's not the case. There's many enemies where the Spd gap is irrelevant, but very few against which the defensive gap is irrelevant. And since ofcourse PCs keep getting faster while enemy AS stays about the same or even drops for some enemy types (lol, steel lance cavs), Lucius's Spd lead will be even less relevant in the chapters to come, since Eliwood will be doubling more and more of the enemy types against which it previously mattered. Also, Killing Edges are buyable in Dragon's Gate, and I haven't even touched on that yet.

---

Now let's talk promotion. You want to hand Lucius an early promo, but he doesn't get that for free. Promo items (or this specific promo item) are just like stat boosters or any other resource, multiple units want them, and you don't get to just stick them on whoever with no strings attached. If that's allowed then I'm handing Eliwood the Ch 17 Silver Sword to claim as his own for the rest of the game.

Serra and Priscilla are top tier, and Erk is high tier (ranked above Eliwood/Lucius in fact), thus these 3 (or at the very minimum the two healers) are likely to be in play. And all 3 are (just like Lucius) looking for an early promotion. Then there's Canas, who isn't ranked highly, but would be if he were early-promoted in every playthrough.

Lucius 11/1: 17.8 Atk, 13.2 Spd----25.4 Hp, 4.8 Def, 30 Avo, 3.6 CEV
Canas 11/1: 18.4 Atk, 12 Spd----27.1 Hp, 7.8 Def, 31.8 Avo

Thus we can see that Lucius is clearly not the greatest beneficiary of this resource. Assuming that gaining staves is about equal to gaining the ability to attack: Serra should be reaching L20 around the time of the second Guiding Ring due to her high base level, and once that happens promoting her is clearly more beneficial than promoting Lucius, as it would now cause her Exp gains to increase substantially. Likewise, the earlier Priscilla promotes the sooner she can earn a D in Anima and access to Thunder for +3 Atk/+5 Crit, so it's also perfectly arguable that she benefits more from an early promotion. Lucius is already looking at promotion with the 3rd or 4th Guiding Ring.

Last but not least, Erk's promo gains are slightly better than Lucius's. He gains +1 Hp over Lucius, which is more significant than Lucius gaining +1 Mag on units that usually 2HKO already. I'll grant that Lucius is still probably a better choice than Erk, because he gains a C in staves vs Erk's E, but then you have to keep in mind that a high staff rank is not very useful until late in the game (status staves are not common until lategame, and most of the high rank staves are also not obtained until lategame). Overall the net benefit of early-promoting Lucius over Erk is small, and the benefit of promoting him over the other magic users is none or possibly even negative.

You don't get the 4th Guiding Ring until Ch 27, and you don't get the 5th one until Ch 29. Ouch. Still, it is perhaps unlikely for all 5 magic users to be in play, so we can knock Lucius back to the 4th ring before the opportunity cost is entirely gone. And there's still a small net benefit to promoting him over Erk, so let's kick that back one more chapter to Ch 26 in order to represent that. Oh, look, that's when Eliwood promotes (with his Heaven Seal which is pretty much Prf to him). How convenient.

---

20/1 Lucius, B Raven: 20.1 Mag, 16.8 Spd (damn, his Spd lead is down to just 1 point?)----30.4 Hp, 7.7 Def, 44 Avo
20/1 Eliwood, A Hector, C Low1n: 17.5 Str, 15.6 Spd----37.2 Hp, 14.7 Def, 66.8 Avo

Before complaining about the supports, allow me to explain. The sum of A Hector + C Low1n is 88 turns spread across ~20 chaps, for approximately 4.4 turns per chapter. However, one must keep in mind that sometimes Eliwood will be able to stand next to both of them on the same turn, reducing that count. I'll just cut it down by 20 to show this, assuming that he got a double support turn in only once per chapter. Now it's only 3.4 turns per chapter. Lucius getting A Raven by Ch 26, on the other hand, is 5 turns per chapter. Applying that same rate of support to Eliwood, he can have A Hector/B Ninian or Marcus by now, so assuming that supports build that fast lends no net benefit to Lucius's case. Thus I'm going to stick with my current setup.

Anyways, man, look at that hilarious durability gap. 7 Hp, 7 Def (Eliwood nearly doubles Lucius's Def), 23 Avo, WT control. Enemies in Ch 26, let's see.

Steel Axe Brigands have 23-24 Atk, which is (sadly) a 2HKO on Lucius. Eliwood gets 5-6HKO'd, but who cares, because he's facing 0% hit. Steel Bow Archers (18 Atk, 88 hit) 3HKO Lucius @ 39% hit, while Eliwood takes only 3 damage so who cares about his Avo (w/ Javelin he's facing 13% hit, btw). etc. Durability gap is massive to the point of being humorous. As for offense, instead of listing the things Eliwood can ORKO, let's list the things that he can't. Oops, there's nothing. He ORKOs all enemies (Lancereaver on those pesky Wyverns). Ok, I'll be honest, there's 1 Knight that he can't ORKO without his Rapier or the Armorslayer.

Lucius on the other hand, actually struggles against the one promoted enemy in this chapter, an Elfire Sage, though admittedly he ORKOs everything else. He just does it with exponentially inferior durability.

So now it's basically Eliwood having a wtfmassive defense lead (oh yeah, and move! he has more move, let's not forget) against Lucius having staves. Personally I'm going with the former. You don't need healing if your units are tanks. And note that at this point alot of non-magic users are. Regardless, they'd be about even at worst, except that let's remember the whole time before this with Eliwood winning and stuff, and then those 7 chapters before Lucius even joins, which sort of breaks the tie. Eliwood wins.

[Momo]

I apologize for the delay

[quote name='CATS' date='15 December 2009 - 12:20 AM' timestamp='1260854404' post='737418']
I dunno why you saw fit to list Steel as an option for Bartre/Dorcas but not Eliwood/Low1n, when you get a free Steel Sword in Ch 12 but no Steel Axes until Ch 16 (and even then they must be bought). You even get a Killing Edge in Ch 13, and yes, Eliwood can use that with his base C in swords.[/quote]
Where is there a Steel Sword in chapter 12? Marcus starts with one in Eliwood mode, but not Hector. If you wanna ignore the Steel Axe, fine, Dorcas does slightly worse. Doesn't really matter a whole lot.

As for the Killing Edge, Guy is likely to use that up lightning quick, what with its 20 uses and everything. If Eliwood gets to use some of it, it won't be very much.

The other reason I didn't compare Eliwood with a Steel Sword is because he's slowed down by so much, with no real gain in attack. Sure, it's an extra 3 might, but he's still doing the least out of everyone not named Rebecca.

[quote]Tossing Eliw00t the Steel Sword, he does 3 less damage than Bartre against those Ch 12 Brigands with superior hitrates (Bartre has ~85%); their average damage is about the same. And yes, people, comparing to Bartre (except that ofcourse Eliwood doesn't get doubled by anything) during Ch 12 is not bad. Bartre has high Hp/Str and no one is doubling yet so his Spd is not yet a serious issue, actually making him one of the better units outside of your 3 gods (Marcus, Osw1n, H4xtor) during earlygame.[/quote]
If you actually do get a Steel Sword in chapter 12 (the site says nothing about it, and I've checked walkthroughs that don't mention it)...

Level 1 Eliwood (Steel Sword): 13 atk, 4 AS
Level 2 Bartre (Iron Axe): 17 atk, 3 AS
Level 3 Dorcas (Iron Axe): 15 atk, 6 AS
Level 2 Lowen (Iron Lance/Steel Sword): 14/15 atk, 7 AS

He is still doing the worst on his team.

[quote]Anyways, it doesn't really matter because your whole group is forced up through 13x and then you have enough slots to use everyone in Ch 14, so there is no opportunity cost of deployment during those chaps.[/quote]
Eliwood does not get a free ride, just because he's forced. If that was true, then people like Bartre and Dorcas would be liked way more than they are now. You can still be forced and hold the team down, what do you think people like Wolt are doing?

[quote]Now there's still some more time to go before we finally reach Lucius, so let's look at it. Let's consider Eliwood vs Kent in Ch 16, assuming both are L7.

Eliw00t, C Hector: 7.7 Str, 9.4 Spd----22.8 Hp, 7.8 Def, 33.5 Avo
Kent: 8.4 Str, 9.7 Spd----25.1 Hp, 6.5 Def, 22.6 Avo

Kent gets a nice Atk lead when using his lance, but what enemies would you have him using a lance against? Cavaliers, for one. The Rapier has 13-14 Mt against those, while the Iron Lance has 7-8. Well, there goes Kent's Atk lead.[/quote]
Yeah, the Rapier. The sword Eliwood is going to be dependant on for a long while, to do good damage. The sword that only has 30 uses. The sword that's likely to be near broken by the time Lucius even joins. When do you get the next one? Lol, the site says never.
[quote]He still gets to keep it against sword enemies and Pegs, but Eliwood's Atk win against Cavs is bigger than Kent's win against other stuff. On defense, Kent still loses in Def even if he has WTA or Eliwood has WTD, and only wins Avo by 4 in that situation, whereas Eliwood wins Avo by 11 against axes, bows and magic. Overall they look pretty close, I'd say.[/quote]
Kent also has two range, while Eliwood has to take a counter from every single thing that isn't an archer. Coupling that with a couple more HP, he's definitely doing better than Eliwood defensively.

They're only close on offense until Eliwood's Rapier breaks (which is pretty soon if you're using it like that). This is also discounting Kent's move lead and Sain support, both of which give him a big edge.

[quote]Kent is high tier, btw. So is Eliwood. And they're there for a reason; they're good. So yeah, Eliwood's still contributing positively during Ch 15-17 (I include 17 as a chap where Lucius isn't there yet because he's joining way too late to do anything in that chap).[/quote]
There are a couple archers that try and kill the soldiers, Lucius can easily deal with those, while Eliwood can't (as I've already shown). He can also be ferried over to the real fighting, if you want. If not, he's with Raven, I'll go into this a bit later.
---

[quote]Let's start with Pirate Ship (you compared in Ch 17, but lol @ Lucius getting to see any action there).

L10 Eliwood, B Hector: 10.1 Str, 10.6 Spd----25.2 Hp, 9.7 Def, 42.3 Avo
L10 Lucius: 11.2 Mag, 12.8 Spd----21.8 Hp, 1.7 Def, 29 Avo, 3.4 CEV

Did someone say 8 Def lead?[/quote]
Did someone say never taking counters, plus hitting res? I also question Hector B, but I can live with that. I also love how you add crit evade into the equasion, as if it matters at all.

[quote]Steel Sword Mercs in this chapter have mostly 10-11 AS, so no doubling for either one. About a 4 point Def-Res gap, so Lucius does 1 more damage than Eliwood + Steel Sword, awesome.[/quote]
So Eliwood doing “three” (actually four) damage less than Bartre is doing well, but doing 1 damage more than Eliwood isn't? Eliwood also has to take a counter from this guy, not swell.

[quote]Meanwhile Eliwood can counter them on enemy phase with little or no fear of death (4HKO'd @ 65% hit, takes 5 rounds to die on average)...[/quote]
He gets doubled by the 11 speed ones, did you notice that? That means he attacks on the player phase, gets half his life taken away, and is then killed on the enemy phase, all to do less damage than Lucius. Not swell at all.

[quote]...as opposed to Lucius facing crit rates from them.[/quote]
He's shaking in his boots at that 1% or so displayed crit. This is the most negligible thing you could harp on.

[quote]This chapter has alot of Shamans too, though. Surely Lucius wins against those? Actually not. Eliwood + Pure Water (4 Shamans holding Pure Water on the map) about matches Lucius in Res and Avo even despite Lucius's WTA, and Eliwood ofcourse retains more Hp. Lucius can counter them, but he's also bad at 2HKOing them. He can only 2HKO the very weakest Shamans, while ofcourse Eliwood easily takes them all down.[/quote]
Great job Eliwood, you kill mages. Now stand aside while Lucius kills stuff that actually matters.
[quote]"but hey, you're comparing in a chapter that's bad for Lucius! how about a chapter where Lucius's speed lead matters?"

Yes, ofcourse we have to cover that Spd lead, because it's the only thing Lucius really has over Eliwood.[/quote]
And more attack.
And 2 range.
And never taking counters.
And not being reliant on rare weapons.

[quote]Cavaliers in Ch 19 have 7-8 Spd, and L11 Eliwood has 11 Spd, so he's actually doubling some of them.[/quote]
While Lucius doubles all of them.

[quote]When he doesn't, Rapier is a 2HKO while Lucius one-rounds.[/quote]
Again with the Rapier. If he's actually doubling, that means he gets a whole 20 rounds of being Lucius. Twenty. That's also pretending that Eliwood didn't use most of the thing before Lucius even shows up, which is ridiculous and clearly wrong.

You keep falling back on the Rapier, but Lucius only needs lightning to do better than Eliwood. Definite win for Lucius.

[quote]That sounds pretty cool, but look at the defense. Iron Sword is most common on these Cavs and that does under 5 damage to Eliwood; Iron Lance or Steel Sword still only does about 6 damage, a 5HKO. Lucius on the other hand gets 2HKO'd by Iron Sword Cavs. So Eliwood cutting off over half their health and having an enemy phase is no worse than Lucius killing one on player phase, and sometimes Eliwood doubles for a ORKO; thus overall, Eliwood wins.[/quote]
Say Eliwood attacks a cav (and his Rapier somehow still has uses) on the player phase.. He hits, gets countered and then (maybe) hits again, killing it. Then, on the enemy phase another cav shows up and hits him again. If he doubles that cav too, it brings up another one who then hits him a third time. You see what I'm getting at? When he's doubling, his durability is only slightly better than Lucius. He's getting killed near the same amount of time, while Lucius can stay back and kill things without fear.

[quote]Iron/Short Bow Nomads have 9 Spd at worst, and they also have 8 Skl at worst so Lucius can get crit'd; and then sword enemies are obvious.[/quote]
8 skill means 4 crit. Level 13 Lucius has 4 luck. For anything higher, he has a Raven support, which gives him enough crit evade (half) for him to never worry.

[quote]This chapter features a Slim Sword Myrmidon which threatens to OHKO Lucius with a crit, and that's just sad (the same guy doubles Eliwood.....for 1-2 damage).[/quote]
I fail to see the threat of a 1 range enemy.

[quote]Did I mention that Uhai's Def is approximately equal to his Res, and the Rapier has 14 Mt compared to Lightning's 4 Mt?[/quote]
Did I mention that Eliwood's Rapier is probably (more like definitely) broken by now? I did? Well, it needs repeating. Even if he magically has one use left, doing better on a single boss isn't that big of a victory.

Also, I won't be acknowledging the extremely high Rapier use for the rest of this post, unless something new comes out of it. I feel as though I've made more than enough of my point.

[quote]There's many enemies where the Spd gap is irrelevant, but very few against which the defensive gap is irrelevant.[/quote]
Did you just own yourself? Enemies almost always have much higher defense than res.

[quote]And since of course PCs keep getting faster while enemy AS stays about the same or even drops for some enemy types (lol, steel lance cavs), Lucius's Spd lead will be even less relevant in the chapters to come, since Eliwood will be doubling more and more of the enemy types against which it previously mattered. Also, Killing Edges are buyable in Dragon's Gate, and I haven't even touched on that yet.[/quote]
Without the Rapier, Eliwood might be doubling, but he probably isn't killing. Meanwhile it's buisness as usual for Lucius, as he murders everything with the second weakest weapon in the game.

---

[quote]Now let's talk promotion. You want to hand Lucius an early promo, but he doesn't get that for free. Promo items (or this specific promo item) are just like stat boosters or any other resource, multiple units want them, and you don't get to just stick them on whoever with no strings attached. If that's allowed then I'm handing Eliwood the Ch 17 Silver Sword to claim as his own for the rest of the game.[/quote]
Lots more people want to use that Silver Sword than the Guiding Ring. Lucius is also the best user of the second ring, which is what I'll prove soon enough.

Serra and Priscilla are top tier, and Erk is high tier (ranked above Eliwood/Lucius in fact), thus these 3 (or at the very minimum the two healers) are likely to be in play. And all 3 are (just like Lucius) looking for an early promotion.[/quote]
Erk is ranked directly above Eliwood, a whole two spaces above Lucius. Erk is basically Eliwood in mage form, with a much worse promotion. Serra can take the first ring (Pris won't be ready for it), that's why I didn't have Lucius take the first. If you're using one of Serra/Priscilla and plan on promoting Lucius, there's no reason at all to sandbag him by denying him the next ring.

[quote]Then there's Canas, who isn't ranked highly, but would be if he were early-promoted in every playthrough.

Lucius 11/1: 17.8 Atk, 13.2 Spd----25.4 Hp, 4.8 Def, 30 Avo, 3.6 CEV
Canas 11/1: 18.4 Atk, 12 Spd----27.1 Hp, 7.8 Def, 31.8 Avo[/quote]
Again with the crit evade, huh.

[quote]Thus we can see that Lucius is clearly not the greatest beneficiary of this resource. Assuming that gaining staves is about equal to gaining the ability to attack: Serra should be reaching L20 around the time of the second Guiding Ring due to her high base level, and once that happens promoting her is clearly more beneficial than promoting Lucius, as it would now cause her Exp gains to increase substantially.[/quote]
How is gaining staves equal to gaining attack? Literally everyone that isn't Serra, Priscilla or Ninils can attack, but only the first two can heal. Are you really gaining very much by gaining an extra attacker?

This might be equal if you were comparing Serra to Erk, because she gains a D in light to his E in staves, but Lucius gains a very hearty C in staves, making him a stone stroll away from being better than her at healing.

In any case, Serra would ideally get an early promotion, using the first ring. She has Lyn mode to gain levels, plus almost every Hector chapter.

[quote]Likewise, the earlier Priscilla promotes the sooner she can earn a D in Anima and access to Thunder for +3 Atk/+5 Crit, so it's also perfectly arguable that she benefits more from an early promotion. Lucius is already looking at promotion with the 3rd or 4th Guiding Ring.[/quote]
So when we promote Priscilla, we get good healing and bad attacking.
When we promote Lucius, we get great attacking and good healing.

Why would you want to do the first one over the second?

[quote]Last but not least, Erk's promo gains are slightly better than Lucius's. He gains +1 Hp over Lucius, which is more significant than Lucius gaining +1 Mag on units that usually 2HKO already.[/quote]
Wow, forget crit evade, this is the nit pickiest thing. He also gains a paltry E in staves, while Lucius gains a C.

[quote]I'll grant that Lucius is still probably a better choice than Erk, because he gains a C in staves vs Erk's E, but then you have to keep in mind that a high staff rank is not very useful until late in the game (status staves are not common until lategame, and most of the high rank staves are also not obtained until lategame). Overall the net benefit of early-promoting Lucius over Erk is small, and the benefit of promoting him over the other magic users is none or possibly even negative.[/quote]
If the two are promoting around chapter 21/22, Erk definitely doesn't have the time to gain C staves for restore, by 23x. Having another restore user there is a huge help. He's also 17 mends away from using Physic, which is another huge help.

[quote]You don't get the 4th Guiding Ring until Ch 27, and you don't get the 5th one until Ch 29. Ouch. Still, it is perhaps unlikely for all 5 magic users to be in play, so we can knock Lucius back to the 4th ring before the opportunity cost is entirely gone.[/quote]
A couple things. First, where's the third guiding ring? Looks like it's in the desert chapter, 23. GAAAAAASP, that's only one chapter after I said Lucius was ready! I was gonna argue that it'd be more useful for him to get the second, but it doesn't even matter.

Level 16/1 Lucius (Lightning) B Raven, C Serra: 27.15 HP 21.8 atk, 15.2 AS, 8.3 def
Level 16 Eliwood (Iron/Steel Sword/Killing Edge) A Hector, C Lowen: 30 HP, 18.75/21.75/22.75 atk 12.5 def 13/10/13 AS
(Sorry if that's kind of hard to read)

Great going Eliwood, you beat Lucius in attack by one when you're using a Killing Edge. That'll come in ha- oh wait, def-res gap. Nevermind. Promotion gains + swell supports give Lucius a very much enjoyed defense boost. Eliwood's a bit better on that end, but it's not a big deal. Lucius is one-rounding everything without taking counters, while Eliwood has to rely on crits and has no two range.

I'd also like to point out, it's been eight chapters since Lucius joined. Eight chapters in which he has been better than Eliwood.

[quote]And there's still a small net benefit to promoting him over Erk, so let's kick that back one more chapter to Ch 26 in order to represent that.[/quote]
Erk is not getting the ring before Lucius, plain and simple.


[quote]Oh, look, that's when Eliwood promotes (with his Heaven Seal which is pretty much Prf to him). How convenient.[/quote]
I like how you went on for a while about Lucius not getting a ring, but then slide by on this. It doesn't matter if Lyn is bad, she still deserves a promotion item. Eliwood taking it also comes with an opportunity cost.

20/1 Eliwood: 15.55 str, 15.6 spd 11.7 def
20/1 Lyn: 13.6 str, 20 spd 8.8 def

Oh look, she's doing pretty much the same as Eliwood. She benefits much more from the first seal, so let's give it to her. You don't get the next one until the end of 28. Wow.

20/1 Eliwood (Steel Sword/Iron Lance): 20.55/19.55 atk, 14.6/15.6 AS
16/11 Lucius (Lightning/Shine): 26.8/28.8 atk, 19.2/18.2 AS

Raep.

[quote]Before complaining about the supports, allow me to explain. The sum of A Hector + C Low1n is 88 turns spread across ~20 chaps, for approximately 4.4 turns per chapter. However, one must keep in mind that sometimes Eliwood will be able to stand next to both of them on the same turn, reducing that count. I'll just cut it down by 20 to show this, assuming that he got a double support turn in only once per chapter.[/quote]
Sure, unless...

[quote]Now it's only 3.4 turns per chapter. Lucius getting A Raven by Ch 26, on the other hand, is 5 turns per chapter. Applying that same rate of support to Eliwood, he can have A Hector/B Ninian or Marcus by now, so assuming that supports build that fast lends no net benefit to Lucius's case. Thus I'm going to stick with my current setup.[/quote]
This is where I have a problem. It's alright for Eliwood to stay near his partners (two of which have a move gap), but Lucius can't stand next to someone who enjoys the company 5 turns a chapter? They're both fighting units before promotion, Lucius standing directly behind Raven isn't at at all a problem.

And then there's Serra. Serra is also a backliner, and Lucius only needs a B with her. The time spent gaining points with Raven can also be spent gaining them with her. Since her supports take a little longer, I'd give it a C with a B soon to come.

16/7 Lucius A Raven, C Serra: 30.45 HP, 21.4 atk, 17.6 spd, 9.9 def, 23.4 res
20/1 Eliwood: A Hector, C Lowen: 37.2 HP, 17.55 atk, 15.6 spd, 14.7 def, 13.65 res

The def gap is not impressive. For shame, Eliwood.

[quote]Anyways, man, look at that hilarious durability gap. 7 Hp, 7 Def (Eliwood nearly doubles Lucius's Def), 23 Avo, WT control. Enemies in Ch 26, let's see.

Steel Axe Brigands have 23-24 Atk, which is (sadly) a 2HKO on Lucius. Eliwood gets 5-6HKO'd, but who cares, because he's facing 0% hit. Steel Bow Archers (18 Atk, 88 hit) 3HKO Lucius @ 39% hit, while Eliwood takes only 3 damage so who cares about his Avo (w/ Javelin he's facing 13% hit, btw). etc. Durability gap is massive to the point of being humorous.[/quote]
For the most part, these leads are pretty negligible. Lucius is facing hitrates low enough for him to not care a whole lot about them (did you factor in both supports?)

As for offense, instead of listing the things Eliwood can ORKO, let's list the things that he can't. Oops, there's nothing. He ORKOs all enemies (Lancereaver on those pesky Wyverns). Ok, I'll be honest, there's 1 Knight that he can't ORKO without his Rapier or the Armorslayer.[/quote]
Lancereaver? The thing with 15 uses, is pretty expensive (this wouldn't matter if it had more than 15 uses) and is only good for WTA? He'd probably only have one of those things, which would get used up in like, two enemy phases.

Rapier's gone, so the Armorslayer it is. It weighs him down by two. Lucius needs not of these special weapons, lightning is fine for everything.

[quote]Lucius on the other hand, actually struggles against the one promoted enemy in this chapter, an Elfire Sage, though admittedly he ORKOs everything else. He just does it with exponentially inferior durability.[/quote]
Eliwood is taking a counter from absolutely everything, while Lucius is taking them from almost nothing. Who has the better durability, exactly?

[quote]So now it's basically Eliwood having a wtfmassive defense lead (oh yeah, and move! he has more move, let's not forget)...[/quote]
lol, Lucius has had more more than him ever since he promoted. One extra move lead isn't that much of a win.

[quote]against Lucius having staves. Personally I'm going with the former. You don't need healing if your units are tanks.[/quote]
What? Your units might be good at defending, but they are by no means invincible. Healing is a very valuable resource, and Lucius is probably the best healer of all.

[quote]And note that at this point alot of non-magic users are. Regardless, they'd be about even at worst, except that let's remember the whole time before this with Eliwood winning and stuff, and then those 7 chapters before Lucius even joins, which sort of breaks the tie. Eliwood wins.[/quote]
Eliwood is existent for 7 more chapters, but Lucius is better than him for every other chapter. Lucius for the win.

[CATS]

Damn, this is the biggest debaet post I’ve done in a very long time. I’m going to be making frequent references to #RKO stats against enemy samples and such, since the debaet’s at a point where I really need solid evidence to back up my statements. The hard stats and numbers of Eliwood/Lucius vs enemy samples will be given in code boxes, so that you can easily skip that boring stuff if you want, and so that it’ll be more organized and easier to read if you want to look at it.

Eliwood before Lucius joins:

Where is there a Steel Sword in chapter 12? Marcus starts with one in Eliwood mode, but not Hector. If you wanna ignore the Steel Axe, fine, Dorcas does slightly worse. Doesn't really matter a whole lot.

Yeah, misread that >_>

But then you misread the Steel Axe thing, so we're even.

As for the Killing Edge, Guy is likely to use that up lightning quick, what with its 20 uses and everything. If Eliwood gets to use some of it, it won't be very much.

Guy? He's not entitled to it. Nor is Eliwood, but that's the point; it isn't Prf to anyone, and there's only a few units who can use it (Eliwood, Guy, Matthew; Marcus can use it but is already awesome and gets very little or no net benefit from it, so he's out), so it's a significant point for that small group of earlygame sword units. If Eliwood winds up with like 7-8 uses of it, that's enough for him to play through nearly a whole chapter with it, or use it 1-2 times per chapter for a longer period of time. It's got more Mt than Steel without weighing Eliwood down, plus the whole 30 crit deal, so while he may only get a few uses of it, it's a considerable offense boost when available. Added in on top of the Rapier's 30 uses, that gives Eliwood a significant pool of high-level weapon uses to draw on for the earlygame.

Eliwood does not get a free ride, just because he's forced. If that was true, then people like Bartre and Dorcas would be liked way more than they are now. You can still be forced and hold the team down, what do you think people like Wolt are doing?

Dorcas is upper mid and partially that high because of his strong earlygame, in fact. Likewise, being forced for a while is the only thing that puts a unit like Bartre clearly above Rath or Heath in contributions towards efficiency. And no, you can't be forced and hold the team down just by being on the field, that's impossible. It could only happen with a unit whose death caused some sort of negative effect on the rest of the team, and whose death was very difficult or impossible to prevent, but that situation never occurs. In reality, every unit during the earlygame is useful towards killing enemies faster and getting through the map faster, for blatantly obvious reasons (everyone contributes damage, or in two cases healing, simple enough).

Consider this. With no alternative to Eliwood's deployment during early chapters, he is literally being compared against an empty slot. If he weren't there, no unit would be available to take his place; there is no cost to his deployment in early maps. Let's assign values to Eliwood and Lucius, accepting (simply for the sake of the example) your hypothesis that Lucius is better after joining; I'll give Eliwood a worth of 1.6 and Lucius a worth of 2.0.

After Lucius shows up, he's winning by 0.4; the benefit of using Lucius over Eliwood on any given map is equal to 2.0 (worth of Lucius) - 1.6 (worth of Eliwood). However, during early maps, since there's no alternative to using Eliwood, Eliwood's contributions over Lucius are equal to his worth. 1.6 minus nothing, the absence of a competitor. 4 times Lucius's per-chapter contributions over Eliwood after joining.

Thus in order for Lucius to match Eliwood's early contributions during chaps where both are available, Lucius needs to be twice as good as Eliwood, literally. To demonstrate this, let's give Lucius a worth of 10 and Eliwood a worth of 5 (once again purely for the sake of example). When both are present, Lucius's marginal contributions over Eliwood are 5 (10 - 5), whereas Eliwood's contributions during early maps are also 5 (5 - 0). Now, is Lucius actually twice as good as Eliwood after both are present? Ofcourse not. If he's better, then it's only slightly. To give you an idea, in order to double Eliwood's overall performance, Lucius would need to have twice his durability and twice his offense; he would need to be 4RKO'd while Eliwood is 2RKO'd, and ORKO while Eliwood 2RKOs, or some such. Of course such a situation is ridiculous, and far from ever being the case.

So we can see that these early map contributions are quite significant, and not to be easily brushed off. Eliwood's contributions during early maps are equal to how well Lucius would be doing if Lucius were twice as good as Eliwood while both were present. In other words, Eliwood makes a bigger impact (relative to Lucius) during early maps than Lucius ever does in any individual chapter while both are present. It's only 4 maps, but a pretty significant 4 maps. If Lucius is, say, 50% better than Eliwood after joining (let's say superior offense and similar defense, definitely the best that the Lucius side of the debaet can hope to reasonably argue), then Eliwood's 4 early maps of free deployment are enough to cancel out 8 chapters of Lucius's marginal contributions after joining.

Once again observe: If Eliwood is worth 2 and Lucius is worth 3 (Lucius being 50% better), then Eliwood contributes 8 overall utility for his 4 early maps (2 x 4) before Lucius joins, and Lucius requires 8 chapters after his jointime to make up for that initial deficit ([3 - 2] x 8). Notice Lucius only even exists for about 20 chapters, so those 8 are already taking away nearly half of the time that he exists, in a best-case scenario for his side of the argument. In reality Lucius's performance is not 50% better than Eliwood's, rather, it struggles to be clearly better at all; so with those 4 early maps thrown in for Eliwood, on top of whatever utility he earns in Ch 15-17, Lucius is fighting a very uphill battle indeed.

Kent also has two range, while Eliwood has to take a counter from every single thing that isn't an archer. Coupling that with a couple more HP, he's definitely doing better than Eliwood defensively.

Yes, 2 range. That helps him dodge counters against the two enemy types where he's already winning, Swords/Lances, but it's no good against two of the types where he's losing (Magic/Bows), and it gives him crappy offense against axe enemies, while also requiring someone to trade a sword back to the top of his inventory if axe enemies survive the turn (else he faces WTD against them on enemy phase, cancelling out whatever defensive benefit he might've gotten from avoiding a player phase counter).

Speaking of trading, Javelin cuts Kent's Avo by 4, so unless someone can trade when he uses it, his Avo is tied against Eliwood vs Swords/Lances and then he loses by 15 against Bows/Magic (and 30 against Axes ofcourse). In other words, yeah 2 range is cool, but he's also losing overall Avo by a significant amount. Should also be kept in mind that counter-dodging doesn’t always apply; in situations where Eliwood is finishing an enemy off, he’s not getting countered either, and the same goes for whenever he scores a stray crit.

So is the Javelin useful? Ofcourse. Is it enough to give Kent a decisive defensive victory? No, it's still up in the air, and that's why I didn't bother mentioning it in the first place.

They're only close on offense until Eliwood's Rapier breaks (which is pretty soon if you're using it like that). This is also discounting Kent's move lead and Sain support, both of which give him a big edge.

Rapier is covered below. It's obviously not going to break before Lucius even joins.

Discounting Kent's Sain support? Yeah, since that exists in his join chapter. Another thing that won't happen before Lucius joins, and even when it does, Eliwood x Hector A should happen around the same time for superior bonuses (Kent x Sain nothing -> C is +1 Atk/+2 Avo, Eliwood x Hector B -> A is +1 Def/+5 Avo).

Move lead is cool beans for moving around. I'm talking about fighting, and showing that Eliwood can go toe-to-toe with a good fighter in that respect. Yes, more move gives Kent an edge as a unit in general (hence part of why Kent is a tier up on Eliwood—I actually just noticed that the Cavs are top tier O_o), but it says nothing about his combat abilities relative to Eliwood's.

There are a couple archers that try and kill the soldiers, Lucius can easily deal with those, while Eliwood can't (as I've already shown). He can also be ferried over to the real fighting, if you want. If not, he's with Raven, I'll go into this a bit later.

You have to move past those Archers in order to reach Raven in the first place, much less Lucius who is about 2 more turns past Raven, so they're not going to still be alive when Lucius finally makes his way over there (if he gets that far at all before the chap is over).

Lucius can be ferried to the real fighting if you like the idea of one of your mounts being out of the game for 4-5 turns (it's like a 3 turn detour to pick Lucius up and come back to the left side corridor, and the main group spent those 3 turns moving forward to the throne room rather than waiting on a pointless detour to Lucius's cell) just so that Lucius can barely make it into the throne room in time for Hector to seize.

And yeah, he could definitely be with Raven, it's just that neither one will be seeing any action. Do note that Raven does have a shot at seeing some action if you're not using Lucius and don't have to bother with recruiting him, since then Raven can head directly towards the fighting after recruitment, instead of going in the opposite direction to pick up his boyfriend.

---

Rapier:

The thing about the Rapier is, it's limited, but Eliwood also finds it less and less helpful as the game progresses. After Ch 20 he has the Killing Edge at his disposal (and possibly the Silver Blade, which matches the Rapier in single-hit damage against effective targets), after Ch 24 he gets the Lancereaver (only 2 less Mt than Rapier against Cavs/Armors) and possibly Longsword/Armourslayer from the chap's secret shop, and then after Ch 29 he gets the Silver Sword which has only 1 less Mt than Rapier (though by that point, he ORKOs unpromoted goons anyways, and likely prefers Killer against promoted ones). And the enemies that Rapier's effective against become less common as well, with Cavs/Knights starting to give way to Wyverns during midgame. So he can afford to burn through it during the earlygame when he needs it most, as he won't miss it so much later on.

If you're concerned about cost for those higher-end weapons, don't be. You get an Elysian Whip (second one coming in Ch 21, so even if you're using Florina, selling this one doesn't interfere with her promotion) and an Orion's Bolt between Ch 18 and 20, and also an Eclipse from 19xx if you go there, for 10-12K that can be blown in Ch 20's secret shops. Killers are around 600G; 10K is enough to buy 16-17 of them, atleast 2 for each fighter. That's without going to 19xx and without counting any other random junk you pick up; if you're short on money, trading in 19x's Goddess Icon for 6-7 more Killers is a pretty sweet deal, there's also a Talisman from 19xx, and copies of Luna/Nosferatu in Ch 20 (the two combined sell for ~4200G, so either you're using Canas and he's competing with Lucius for a Guiding Ring, or you're not and this money goes straight to Ch 20's secret shops). Also without counting money left over from before Ch 18.

Then you get the Ocean Seal's 25000G before Ch 24's shops, so cost is clearly no issue after that.

Back to the Rapier, when will this thing break? Let's see, 30 uses, so to make it through Ch 20, Eliwood gets 2-3 uses of it per chapter. However, there are zero effective targets for the Rapier in Ch 12 and 18, so we can scratch those off and it's more like 3-4 uses per chapter. Now let's take a look at your typical earlygame chapter, Ch 16 perhaps. This chapter has 6 Cavs starting on the map, and you've got what, 9 units on the field? Let's say 9, plus the 4 Caelin losers in the bottom right, for 13 units on the field. Going by those numbers, only about half of your units will even have to face a Cavalier in the first place, and the ones that do shouldn't have to face more than one (PC:Cav ratio is about 1:0.46). Eliwood burns through perhaps 1 charge of the Rapier to counter a Cav, and then another to finish it/attack another one. There's no reason he should be burning more uses than that, with how many PCs you have relative to the number of Cavs you're up against.

And that's assuming the Rapier is always necessary when he runs into these enemies, which it may not be (for example, Ch 17 Knights are already left with single-digit Hp after eating a double Javelin from Marcus, Sain or Oswin). Some chapters will be heavier on effective enemies than this one (Ch 17 for example), but at the same time, there's also chapters with fewer effective enemies to face (Ch 17x for example), so that about evens out. And Eliwood should only actually be using 3-4 Rapier charges during one of those chaps that's heavy on the Cavs/Knights, which not all of them are. He can easily make it through Ch 20 with the thing and still have some left over.

You seem to have this attitude that rare or unique weapons are used up very quickly, as if the unit is using the rare weapon on every turn for every attack (statements such as “if you’re using the Rapier like that,” without clarifying what “like that” is), when in reality this is very far from being the case. Eliwood only uses the Rapier against 2 specific enemy types, and only when it will make a difference (sometimes killing those enemies may not be essential to chapter completion, like Ch 16/17's reinforcements, or the enemy may be weakened beforehand such that Eliwood can kill with a lesser weapon). Against enemies in general, it is conserved, so that it will be there when it is actually needed.

---

Actual Eliwood vs Lucius crap, I'll start with pre-promo, specifically the responses to my Pirate Ship comparison:

Some stats first.

Defense

L10 Eliwood, B Hector: 25.2 Hp, 9.7 Def, 3.1 Res, 42.3 Avo
L10 Lucius: 21.8 Hp, 1.7 Def, 10.2 Res, 29 Avo, 3.4 CEV

Iron Lance Peg: 15 Atk, 100 Hit, 5 Crit
vs Eliwood: 5.3 damage (5HKO) @ 85.7% hit; dead in 6 rounds on average
vs Lucius: 13.3 damage (2HKO) @ 83.5% hit, 1-2 crit; dead in 2 rounds on average, 0.8-1.7% chance of getting crit'd

Steel Sword Merc: 17 Atk, 101 Hit, 6 Crit, 10-11 AS
vs Eliwood: 7.3 damage (4HKO) @ 66.8% hit; dead in 6 rounds on average
vs Lucius: 15.3 damage (2HKO) @ 84.6% hit, 2-3 crit; dead in 2 rounds on average, 1.7-2.5% chance of getting crit'd

Flux Shaman (assuming Pure Water): 6 Atk, 88 Hit
vs Eliwood: 2.9 damage (9HKO) @ 42.8% hit; dead in 20 rounds on average
vs Lucius: 0 damage

Offense

L10 Eliwood, B Hector: 10.1 Str, 10.6 Spd, 7 Con
L10 Lucius: 11.2 Mag, 12.8 Spd

Iron Lance Peg: 22 Hp, 4 Def, 6 Res, 6 AS
vs Iron Sword/Steel Sword Eliwood: 10 x 2/13 damage (2RKO)
vs Lucius: 9 x 2 damage (2RKO)

Steel Sword Merc: 28 Hp, 6 Def, 2 Res, 10-11 AS
vs Iron Sword/Steel Sword Eliwood: 9/12 damage (4RKO/3RKO)
vs Lucius: 13 damage (3RKO)

Flux Shaman: 20 Hp, 3 Def, 7 Res, 4 AS
vs Iron Sword Eliwood: 12 x 2 damage (ORKO)
vs Lucius: 9 x 2 damage (2RKO)

Did someone say never taking counters, plus hitting res? I also question Hector B, but I can live with that. I also love how you add crit evade into the equasion, as if it matters at all.

Res hitting was covered for this chap. Eliwood does only slightly less damage against Mercs anyways, and Res hitting is a disadvantage against the Shamans and Pegs. The worth of this attribute isn't going to improve much in the future, either; Ch 19 Cavs have a ~6 Def-Res gap, but there's a 9-10 Mt gap between Rapier and Lightning (and after Ch 20, a 4 Mt gap + a 25 Crit gap between KE and Lightning). Nomads are only a 3-4 Res gap so that's even worse, though Eliwood generally 2RKOs these with or without the Rapier, so w/e. Pirates have about a 2-3 point gap but Iron Sword has 2 more Mt than Lightning against them. Then you have enemies like Monks and Peg Knights which actually have more Res than Def (massively so in the former's case). Res hitting only allows Lucius's overall per-hit damage to keep up with Eliwood's, at best. Like I said, Lucius's only serious offensive advantage is his higher Spd.

Lucius is OHKO'd if a physical enemy activates a crit on him, even if it's something as weak as a Slim Lance Peg Knight. Getting OHKO'd forces reset (Lucius just wasted like 3-5 turns for the chapter, fairly huge setback for one individual unit to cause, it's like the opposite of Marcus) or going on without Lucius (in which case Eliwood obviously contributes more, considering Lucius only even existed for 1-2 chapters), so I'm pretty sure it's an issue even if the odds for it to actually happen are low.

He's shaking in his boots at that 1% or so displayed crit. This is the most negligible thing you could harp on.

The consequences if Lucius gets crit'd are quite severe. The Mercs have around 6 crit vs Lucius's 3 CEV. If resetting due to Lucius's death costs you 4.5 turns on average, there's a 3% chance for it to happen per round, and you expose Lucius to a Merc 3 times during the chap, then you're looking at nearly half a turn that Lucius wastes on average with his chance of death. That doesn't sound like much, but consider how much Lucius countering a Merc 3 times is actually going to reduce your turncount in the first place.

Ofcourse, Lucius doesn't have to cost you turns, it's only a possibility if you're silly and you expose him to enemies with a chance to OHKO him.

So Eliwood doing “three” (actually four) damage less than Bartre is doing well, but doing 1 damage more than Eliwood isn't? Eliwood also has to take a counter from this guy, not swell.

No, doing 1 more damage than Eliwood is not impressive or significant. With Bartre vs Eliwood I was arguing that Eliwood doesn't suck, whereas here I'm arguing that Lucius's offense is only barely better than Eliwood's, quite different.

Eliwood taking counters doesn't even begin to make up for the defensive gap. Eliwood can face a Merc 4-5 times before he needs to be healed, which means he can attack one on player phase and counter one on enemy phase for 2-3 turns before he's in trouble, or just counter one on enemy phase for 4-5 turns, in which case he lasts about half the chapter without needing to be healed. Lucius on the other hand faces critrates and isn't safe to expose to any Mercs at all, effectively having zero enemy phase against them.

Assuming Steel Sword, then even if Eliwood gets in just two or three enemy phase counters, his overall damage output comes out to be more than Lucius's, and he can easily get more than that in. With 2 healers and 10 turns, you have 20 heals to hand out during the chapter, which is 1-2 heals per fighter before they have to retreat or slow down because the healers are getting overtaxed. Eliwood falls perfectly within that range.

Since the enemies do less damage than a vulnerary heals, Eliwood can actually camp and alternate between attacking and self-healing with a vulnerary, while countering one Merc per turn, and still come out dealing alot more total damage than Lucius (both get about 10 rounds of combat in with Lucius's player phase vs Eliwood's enemy phase, but then Eliwood gets like 5 rounds of player phase attacks on top of that). And that's a worst-case scenario in which Eliwood never gets healed by Serra/Priscilla; the actual reality of the situation is much better than that, since Serra/Priscilla do in fact exist.

He gets doubled by the 11 speed ones, did you notice that? That means he attacks on the player phase, gets half his life taken away, and is then killed on the enemy phase, all to do less damage than Lucius. Not swell at all.

Yes, I did notice that. Even getting doubled by some of the Mercs his durability is still considerably better than Lucius's. If getting doubled is going to put him into a situation where he can die, then you just downgrade to the Iron Sword for that turn. Eliwood's total damage still comes out to be alot more than Lucius's. Lucius does 13 damage with Lightning, Eliwood does 12 w/ Steel and 9 w/ Iron. Assuming the above attack/vulnerary situation, Lucius gets 10 rounds of combat vs Eliwood's 15; Lucius deals 130 total damage over the course of the chapter, whereas Eliwood deals out 135 even if he uses the Iron Sword every single time, and he can obviously fit the Steel Sword in more often than not considering he's 6RKO'd on average and not consistently doubled when using Steel.

And this is all assuming that Eliwood takes a counter every time that he acts on player phase, which is also not the case. He has ~10% crit, so he’s likely to score atleast one random crit at some point during the chapter, nullifying a counter on that turn and increasing his average durability. Likewise, the very fact that Eliwood is locked to 1 range makes it preferable to weaken the enemies with ranged units before finishing with melee, such that no one has to take a counter. No, this won’t always work out, but it’s still there and certainly significant.

If we take the alternating attack/vulnerary deal (such that Eliwood spends 5 player phases attacking and 5 self-healing, while countering on enemy phase), say that Eliwood is now finishing an enemy on two player phases, and scores a random crit on another turn, so that he’s not getting countered on those turns. That adds 3 player phases where he can attack rather than heal. Now he’s got 8 player phases to attack on, out of 10 turns; throw in the existence of PC healers (2 heals is equal to like 3 uses of a vulnerary), and that takes away the rest of the turns that he would otherwise have to spend self-healing.

So factoring all of that stuff in, Eliwood’s ability to take multiple extra hits, times where he isn’t countered anyways, and opportunities where a healer finds him, Lucius’s 2 range is almost completely negated. Eliwood’s player phase isn’t slowed down at all by his 1 range. Lucius however, still has no enemy phase.

Great job Eliwood, you kill mages. Now stand aside while Lucius kills stuff that actually matters.

Stuff that actually matters? As if mages don't? All enemies stand between you and the chapter objective (seize/rout), or in this case Zoldam's Guiding Ring, and they must be killed in order to progress towards said objective. You don't get to magically walk through mages without killing them; they block your progress just like any other enemy. Killing enemies matters, regardless of what sort they might be.

Most of the Pegs also come in on the Shaman side of the map, which really sucks for Lucius since they have crit on him and fly. They can’t be easily blocked at chokepoints like the Mercs; rather, they have alot of move and can easily go around or behind the guys in front. You have to go to significant lengths to shield Lucius from them, which is lame and annoying, not to mention slowing you down, since the dudes covering Lucius’s ass aren’t up front attacking or moving forward.

And more attack.
And 2 range.
And never taking counters.
And not being reliant on rare weapons.

By "more attack" I assume that you're referring to Res hitting, since Lucius's raw Atk is actually lower. If so, then all of this has been covered. And lol, "reliant" on rare weapons, as if it's a disadvantage that Eliwood has access to special weapons and Lucius doesn't?

---

And on to my Dread Isle comparison:

Stats first.

Defense

L11-12 Eliwood, B Hector:  26.4 Hp, 10.15 Def, 44.15 Avo
L11-12 Lucius:  22.65 Hp, 1.85 Def, 30.5 Avo, 3.7 CEV

Iron Sword Cavalier:  14 Atk, 102 Hit
vs Eliwood:  3.85 damage (7HKO) @ 65.1% hit; dead in 11 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  12.15 damage (2HKO) @ 83.5-84.6% hit; dead in 3 rounds on average

Iron Lance Cavalier:  16 Atk, 92 Hit
vs Eliwood:  6.85 damage (4HKO) @ 73% hit; dead in 6 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  14.15 damage (2HKO) @ 70-71.5% hit; dead in 3 rounds on average

Iron Bow Nomad:  13 Atk, 101 Hit, 4 Crit
vs Eliwood:  2.85 damage (10HKO) @ 63.5% hit; dead in 15 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  11.15 damage (3HKO) @ 82.3-83.5% hit, 0-1 crit; dead in 3 rounds on average, 0-0.83% chance of getting crit’d

Short Bow Nomad:  12 Atk, 101 Hit, 14 Crit
vs Eliwood:  1.85 damage (15HKO) @ 63.5% hit; dead in 23 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  10.15 damage (3HKO) @ 82.3-83.5% hit, 10-11 crit; dead in 3 rounds on average, 8.29-9.12% chance of getting crit’d

Steel Lance Peg Knight:  18 Atk, 88 Hit, 4 Crit
vs Eliwood:  8.85 damage (3HKO) @ 66.8% hit; dead in 5 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  16.15 damage (2HKO) @ 63.5-65.1% hit, 0-1 crit; dead in 3 rounds on average, 0-0.64% chance of getting crit’d

Steel Axe Pirate:  19 Atk, 77 Hit
vs Eliwood:  7.85 damage (4HKO) @ 6.7% hit; dead in 51 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  17.15 damage (2HKO) @ 42.8-44.7% hit; dead in 4 rounds on average

Slim Sword Myrmidon:  13 Atk, 130 Hit, 12 Crit
vs Eliwood:  2.85 damage (10HKO) @ 96.2% hit; dead in 10 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  11.15 damage (3HKO) @ 100% hit, 8-9 crit; dead in 3 rounds on average, 8-9% chance of getting crit’d

Uhai w/ Short Bow:  21 Atk, 113 Hit, 17 Crit
vs Eliwood:  10.85 damage (3HKO) @ 81.1% hit; dead in 3-4 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  19.15 damage (2HKO) @ 93.7-94.4% hit, 13-14 crit; dead in 2 rounds on average, 12.2-13.2% chance of getting crit’d

Offense

L11-12 Eliwood, B Hector:  10.75 Str, 11.2 Spd, 7 Con
L11-12 Lucius:  12.1 Mag, 13.4 Spd

Iron Lance Cavalier:  27 Hp, 7 Def, 2 Res, 7-8 AS
vs Rapier Eliwood:  17 [x 2] damage (2RKO/ORKO)
vs Lucius:  14 x 2 damage (ORKO)

Iron/Short Bow Nomad:  22 Hp, 5 Def, 1 Res, 10 AS
vs Iron Sword Eliwood:  11 damage (2RKO)
vs Lucius:  15 damage (2RKO)

Steel Lance Peg Knight:  21 Hp, 4 Def, 6 Res, 1 AS
vs Iron Sword Eliwood:  11 x 2 damage (ORKO)
vs Lucius:  10 x 2 damage (2RKO)

Steel Axe Pirate:  26 Hp, 4 Def, 2 Res, 3 AS
vs Iron Sword Eliwood:  13 x 2 damage (ORKO)
vs Lucius:  14 x 2 damage (ORKO)

Slim Sword Myrmidon:  28 Hp, 4 Def, 3 Res, 14 AS
vs Steel Sword Eliwood:  15 damage (2RKO)
vs Lucius:  13 damage (3RKO)

Uhai:  37 Hp, 13 Def, 14 Res, 14 AS
vs Rapier Eliwood:  12 damage (4RKO)
vs Lucius:  2 damage (19RKO)

Say Eliwood attacks a cav (and his Rapier somehow still has uses) on the player phase.. He hits, gets countered and then (maybe) hits again, killing it. Then, on the enemy phase another cav shows up and hits him again. If he doubles that cav too, it brings up another one who then hits him a third time. You see what I'm getting at? When he's doubling, his durability is only slightly better than Lucius. He's getting killed near the same amount of time, while Lucius can stay back and kill things without fear.

You missed the part where I pointed out that Eliwood is 4-5HKO'd by the stronger Cavs, I see. He's "getting killed near the same amount of time" as Lucius if he faces about 6-7 of them in one turn while Lucius faces only 2-3, sure. If you pit them both against the same number of enemies though, Eliwood wins durability every time, even with Lucius's 2 range accounted for.

Lucius gets 2HKO’d by all the Cavs, even Iron Sword variants. He can only counter once before needing to be healed, and only if nothing else can reach him, which can be a problem here since the Cavs are mixed in with Nomads (one of whom even has a Longbow, making it nearly impossible to defend Lucius from him, and he'll go after Lucius every time thanks to team-worst concrete durability).

Eliwood meanwhile, is 4-7HKO'd facing hitrates in the mid-60’s to low-70’s, surviving for something like 8-9 rounds of combat on average. That's over 400% increase in durability. You can see that Lucius's avoiding counters never makes up for this; Eliwood has to attack and eat a player phase counter 6-7 times before he is reduced to Lucius's durability, which would be more than enough time to snag a healer's attention at some point. The chapter itself shouldn’t last more than maybe 12 or 13 turns. Meanwhile, Lucius is in need of a healer after getting attacked only once.

How does this stack up against Lucius’s better offense? Let’s find out.

Asume that an ORKO is worth 1 point and a 2RKO is worth 0.5. Lucius gets 1 point for a round of combat for ORKOing, and let’s say Eliwood gets 0.7 each round for sometimes ORKOing. Eliwood is able to take 7 attacks before he needs to be healed, while Lucius can only take 1. Over the course of 3 turns without healing, Eliwood is able to attack on player phase each turn and counter on enemy phase 4 times, while Lucius gets 3 player phase attacks (due to avoiding counters) and 1 enemy phase counter. 7 rounds of combat for Eliwood, and 4 for Lucius.

Lucius’s overall points are 4; 4 rounds of combat. Eliwood’s total points for the 3 turns are 4.9 (7 * 0.7), beating Lucius out, and they shouldn’t have to go much if any longer than 3 turns without any healing (Eliwood can once again bust out vulneraries if it comes down to it, but it shouldn’t). Ofcourse this illustration isn’t perfect, but it should be fairly close to the reality of the situation. The number of attacks that Lucius could pull was 4 times what he could’ve done without his 2 range (if he were 1 range, Lucius would only be able to safely attack once before needing to be healed), and yet he still came out under. And that’s without considering times where Eliwood is making the killing blow on a target, and thus also avoiding counter.

8 skill means 4 crit. Level 13 Lucius has 4 luck. For anything higher, he has a Raven support, which gives him enough crit evade (half) for him to never worry.

8 Skl is lower end, and Lucius still has about 50% chance of having less than 4 Lck. 10 Skl is also possible, and then some of the Nomads have Short Bows for +10 crit which completely screws Lucius over (arguing that it's cool to put Lucius in range of a 1% chance of death is one thing, but 10-11% is very, very bad; Eliwood still faces 0 crit, btw), and they have massive movement range under FoW, so you can't always see which ones are where and which ones have Shorts Bows or high Skl before you run into them. Plus being 2 range, so you have to either hold Lucius back or stack the durable units two rows deep in front of him when those Short Bows are running around. Not good.

Raven support? He's only had like 2 and a half chaps with Raven before this. C Raven during Ch 19 is about 7 turns per chapter, at that rate, Eliwood would have A Hector by now for better marginal bonuses (Lucius x Raven nothing -> C = +1 Def, +2 Avo; Eliwood x Hector B -> A = +1 Def, +5 Avo). And +2 CEV still doesn't save Lucius from Short Bow Nomads with 14-15 crit.

Eliwood can't counter the Nomads, but he can at least get attacked by them and safely run around in their attack range if you need him to (the things pose absolutely no threat to him), which is alot better than Lucius is doing.

I fail to see the threat of a 1 range enemy.

The point isn't that it's a threat to Lucius's life, the point is that Eliwood can take an attack from that Myrmidon, laugh it off, and hit back. Lucius can't. When you're near that guy, units like Eliwood are the ones standing in front of Lucius precisely so that the Myrmidon won't be a threat to Lucius.

Let's see, what else is there in this chapter which I haven’t covered? Let’s take note of the other enemy types out there. On offense, Eliwood matches or beats Lucius against every non-Cavalier enemy type in the chapter (in addition to those listed in the stats, there’s also a few Monks, another enemy type that Eliwood wins against). Well, some Nomads have Steel Bows, so Lucius wins pure offense against those, but Lucius has a hard time getting close enough to 1-range a Nomad when you’re in their territory (you know, the whole deal with getting blicked by a crit from an enemy with 7 move and 2 range). On defense, it remains a roflstomp throughout, as the numbers clearly show if you just bother to casually glance at the defense stats box.

Again, Lucius is only roughly keeping pace with Eliwood when his Spd lead really comes into play (Cavs) or even still losing by a little bit, but it doesn't come into play against every enemy or even against most of them. Meanwhile Eliwood has a very large defensive advantage which applies against pretty much every enemy out there. Eliwood wins because his advantage (defense) has at least as much weight as Lucius’s advantage (Spd), if not more, while Eliwood’s advantage is actually relevant against way more enemy types.

Did you just own yourself? Enemies almost always have much higher defense than res.

Nope. I was referring to the gap in defensive abilities between Eliwood and Lucius, not the Def-Res gap on enemies.

Did I mention that Eliwood's Rapier is probably (more like definitely) broken by now? I did? Well, it needs repeating. Even if he magically has one use left, doing better on a single boss isn't that big of a victory.

Uhai is a boss that no one can reliably ORKO on their own, so anyone who can contribute here is making himself useful. Lucius might as well not bother going in range of Uhai since he'll just face a big crit rate and do jack squat damage, whereas Eliwood actually has pretty good offense against him (relative to what most units are pulling) and is durable enough to venture into his attack range without much fear. Clear advantage for Eliwood.

Also, not just Uhai. Check out the boss list for the first 10 or so chapters:

Ch 13: Knight boss
Ch 14: Cav boss
15: Nomad boss
16: Knight boss
17: General boss
17x: Paladin boss
19: NT boss
20: General boss

Seeing a pattern here?

Anyways, those two chapters conveniently cover pretty much every enemy type out there. Pegs, Swordies, Magicians, Cavs, Nomads, Axes......all I'm missing are Archers, which compared to Nomads are worse at critting Lucius but better at getting doubled by Eliwood, and Armors, which have a huge Def-Res gap in exchange for rendering Lucius's Spd advantage 100% worthless and still being Rapier-weak, so it's all good. Overall Lucius about ties Eliwood against some of this stuff (Cavs, probably Knights and Archers, maybe magicians), but Eliwood's winning clearly against alot of it, and not really clearly losing anywhere, as shown above. So overall Eliwood is the boss.

---

And on to post-Ch 20:

Without the Rapier, Eliwood might be doubling, but he probably isn't killing. Meanwhile it's buisness as usual for Lucius, as he murders everything with the second weakest weapon in the game.

Thing about post-Ch 20 is that Eliwood now has access to buyable Killing Edges in conjunction with more reliable doubling; he’s improved significantly, while Lucius is mostly the same, good at ORKOing but horrible, horrible defense. Let's try looking at Ch 22.

Defense

L15 Eliwood, Killing Edge, A Hector: 29.2 Hp, 12.2 Def, 53.5 Avo
L15 Lucius, Lightning, C Raven: 24.6 Hp, 3.2 Def, 36 Avo, 6.4 CEV (yes, CEV is still biting him in the ass, with this chap's physical enemies carrying alot of Reavers for +5 crit)

Axereaver Wyvern: 22 Atk, 86 Hit, 9 Crit
vs Eliwood: 0.1-0.2% real hit, whocaers/10 damage, might as well be invincible
vs Lucius: 2HKO @ 50% hit, 2-3 crit; dead in 3-4 rounds on average, 1-1.5% chance of getting crit'd

Swordreaver Fighter: 22 Atk, 78 Hit, 8 Crit
vs Eliwood: 3HKO @ 58-60% hit; dead in 5 rounds on average
vs Lucius: 2HKO @ 35.7% hit, 1-2 crit; dead in 4 rounds on average, 0.35-0.7% chance of getting crit'd

Steel Bow Nomad: 17 Atk, 86 Hit
vs Eliwood: 7HKO @ 21-22% hit; dead in 29 rounds on average
vs Lucius: 2HKO @ 50% hit; dead in 3-4 rounds on average

Axereaver Knight: 19 Atk, 78 Hit, 7 Crit
vs Eliwood: lulz 0 hit, invincibility
vs Lucius: 2HKO @ 35.7% hit, 0-1 crit; dead in 4 rounds on average, 0-0.35% chance of getting crit'd

Lancereaver Cav: 18 Atk, 89 Hit, 8 Crit
vs Eliwood: 5HKO @ 25-26% hit; dead in 20 rounds on average
vs Lucius: 2HKO @ 56% hit, 1-2 crit; dead in 3 rounds on average, 0.55-1.1% chance of getting crit'd

Iron Bow Archer: 14 Atk, 101 Hit
vs Eliwood: 17HKO, whocaers/10 hit it’s a 17HKO
vs Lucius: 3HKO @ 76% hit; dead in 3-4 rounds on average

Eubans: 27 Atk, 99 Hit, 15 Crit
vs Eliwood: 2HKO @ 68-70% hit; dead in 3 rounds on average
vs Lucius: 2HKO @ 73% hit, 8-9; dead in 3 rounds on average, 6-7% chance of getting crit'd

Should be noted that Eubans OHKOs Lucius if he's below average by one point on either Hp or Def. The odds for one of those two to happen are ~62.5%.

Offense

L15 Eliwood, Killing Edge, A Hector: 21.3 Atk, 43 Crit, 12.6 Spd
L15 Lucius, Lightning, C Raven: 18.2 Atk, 13 Crit, 14.8 Spd

For the offense, observe.

AS values for Ch 22:

Wyverns: 6-8
Fighters: 5-6
Mages: 6-8
Nomads: 8-9
Shamans: 0 (lol they have Nosferatu ftl)
Knights: 1-2
Monks: 3-4
Cavs: 7-9
Archers: 6-7

You'll notice that all of those fall within Eliwood's doubling range. The only things in the chapter that he can't double are the thief (meh) and Eubans (who has 15 Res, so Lucius does 3 damage to him). Now witness the power of doubling combined with 43 crit: A 67.5% chance to one-round anything that isn't 2HKO'd. Even Knights are killed by a crit (almost all of 'em have Axereavers, so with double WTD taken into account, their max is 27 Hp/11 Def; you do the math if you want). Even if Lucius ORKOs something while Eliwood doesn't, the worth of that lead is more than halved because Eliwood will still kill over half the time.

Speaking of which, how often does Eliwood 2HKO? Let's find out, while keeping in mind that he has another shiny new toy at his disposal. Silver Blades can be bought in Ch 20, and those babies are packing 14 Mt. Yeah, it's -6 AS, but that won't really matter against a Knight.

Wyverns have anywhere from 26-30 Hp and 10-12 Def. Eliwood has 23.3 Atk against them, which gets the weaker ones but not the higher ones. Let's say he's 2HKO'ing about a third of them on average. With 100% kill rate against a third of the enemies, and 67.5% against the other two-thirds, his overall kill rate is roughly 80%.

Fighters here are annoying and have Swordreavers. Even so, Eliwood's 19-20 Atk nails them (29-31 Hp and 3-4 Def). He's only missing 2HKO against the very highest Hp/Def combination (31/4) with the lower of his two most likely attack values (19).

Knights fall to the Silver Blade; 28-29 Atk vs 27 Hp/13 Def at most, you do the math.

Magicians and Nomads are obvious (Nomads only get 25 Hp/5 Def max). Archers are only barely better off than Nomads (26 Hp/5 Def max) and still easily 2HKO'd.

Cavs have 27-29 Hp and 6-8 Def (and all swords), so Eliwood misses 2HKO against the stronger ones, but gets it against most of them (a middle-of-the-road Cav, 28 Hp/7 Def, falls to Eliwood's 21 Atk). I'll say 100% kill rate against 2/3 of them, and 67.5% against the other third. Comes out to be a ~90% overall kill rate.

Overall, Eliwood gets an 80-90% kill rate against two enemy types which make up less than half of the total enemies (Wyverns + Cavs are a little over a fourth of them; ~25 out of ~80 total), and 100% or close to it against the rest (told you he wouldn't really miss the Rapier after Ch 20). Lucius himself can't ORKO everything, failing to do so against Monks, (24-25 Hp and 9-10 Res), which are roughly 7.5% of the enemies (6 out of ~80), but at the same time Lucius's kill rate against them is only 30% (odds of critting atleast once with Shine; and yes, Lucius ORKOs all other generics on the map, I'll grant that). So while Eliwood's problem enemies outnumber Lucius's by 4 times, Lucius is also doing nearly 3 times worse than Eliwood is against his particular "problem" enemies. Add in that Eliwood does better against Eubans: Lucius does double 3's with Lightning, while KE Eliwood does 7 damage with better crit, and Eliwood also has access to Silver/Rapier, not to mention that Lucius has a significant chance to get OHKO’d by Eubans in which case he can’t go near him at all. With all this considered, I'm gonna call offense just about dead even here.

Meanwhile, defense, well. Eliwood achieves invincibility or near-invincibility against enemies that 2HKO Lucius and have crit rates on him. Even against the Swordreaver enemies with massive penalties working against him, Eliwood still survives longer on average (and still doesn't get critted ftl), and wins by incredible amounts against the other enemies. I really don't need to elaborate, just look at the numbers, they speak for themselves.

And again, their offense is equal or nearly so (as shown above), so it's a no-brainer victory for Eliwood. Not going to change much, either; Lucius's defense will still suck alot until maybe really, really late (like, VoD late), while Eliwood's case gets better if anything. His defensive growths are higher, so more levels will increase his lead in that, and he'll get better and better at ORKOing things and thus nullifying Lucius's offensive leads (which, as we can see, he is already very good at).

---

And now to promotion talk:

Erk is ranked directly above Eliwood, a whole two spaces above Lucius. Erk is basically Eliwood in mage form, with a much worse promotion. Serra can take the first ring (Pris won't be ready for it), that's why I didn't have Lucius take the first. If you're using one of Serra/Priscilla and plan on promoting Lucius, there's no reason at all to sandbag him by denying him the next ring.

Erk's promotion, worse than Eliwood's? Nah. He needs the extra durability from promo gains more than Eliwood does, and both gain useful secondaries. And stating that “Erk is basically Eliwood in mage form” does nothing to show why he shouldn’t be used. Did you forget that Eliwood is high tier? Anyways, a more accurate synopsis of Erk would be “a better version of Lucius.” Erk has excellent earlygame offense going for him, and remains solid throughout the rest.

If you're using one of Serra/Priscilla? That would be nice if you used only one of them. You'll notice that they're both top tier, however, which they wouldn't both be if it were preferable to only use one of them. Part of the reason that they're both worth using is that early promo can turn them into very competent attackers before healing starts to lose worth later on as your PCs get more and more durable. 15/2 Priscilla ORKOs all generics in Ch 22 except for Monks, same as Lucius actually, but with more mobility and not getting crit’d. I don’t know where you suddenly got this impression that one of Priscilla/Serra is lower mid or something.

How is gaining staves equal to gaining attack? Literally everyone that isn't Serra, Priscilla or Ninils can attack, but only the first two can heal. Are you really gaining very much by gaining an extra attacker?

First off, you're gaining an extra good attacker, not just an extra attacker. Again, 15/2 Priscilla ORKOs all generics in Ch 22 except for monks. This is equal to or better than the offense of many high tiers and even some top tiers (lol, Lowen).

Second, while you have more attackers than healers, attacking is also in much higher demand. This becomes obvious if you simply consider two theoretical teams; Team A has 6 healers and 2 attackers, while Team B has 6 attackers and 2 healers. Which one do you think is more efficient and completes chapters in fewer turns?

Third, adding the ability to attack doesn’t just allow Serra/Priscilla to kill things, it also makes them much more flexible in their movement. They can now safely enter enemy range and get attacked without worry of slowing you down or hurting efficiency; they are now able to move farther ahead, stay closer to their support partners, etc. Lucius gaining staves doesn’t create this sort of benefit for him.

This might be equal if you were comparing Serra to Erk, because she gains a D in light to his E in staves, but Lucius gains a very hearty C in staves, making him a stone stroll away from being better than her at healing.

Being better than Serra at anything is irrelevant to who you should promote when. What matters is who benefits the most, not which one is the better unit overall (if we go by that logic, Serra, Priss and Erk are all promoting before Lucius).

So when we promote Priscilla, we get good healing and bad attacking.
When we promote Lucius, we get great attacking and good healing.

Why would you want to do the first one over the second?

You don’t get “great attacking” from promoting Lucius. Lucius already has offense, and promoting him doesn’t affect his offense very much. Nor do you get “bad attacking” from promoting Priscilla; her offense is in fact similar to Lucius’s. It’s gaining attacking vs gaining healing.

Why would I want to do the first one over the second? I don’t, really. I’m not arguing that it’s alot better to promote Priscilla, just that the overall benefits are similar for both units, and that it’s very difficult or impossible to conclusively determine that one or the other is a significantly better choice.

The more relevant question would be, why would you want to do the second one over the first?

If the two are promoting around chapter 21/22, Erk definitely doesn't have the time to gain C staves for restore, by 23x. Having another restore user there is a huge help. He's also 17 mends away from using Physic, which is another huge help.

Yes, C staves is better than E. This was already acknowledged; Lucius is a better choice for promotion than Erk, and I set Lucius’s promo time forward by one chapter to account for this (since the C staves is only really significant for one chapter [23x], as you pointed out).

Erk is not getting the ring before Lucius, plain and simple.

As long as there’s another unit who can use that Guiding Ring for some kind of benefit, Lucius doesn’t get a free claim to it. Even if Lucius is a better choice than Erk, Erk would still benefit significantly, and that must be accounted for. It’s the same reason why I don’t get to have Eliwood claiming the early copies of Killing Edge, Silver Sword and Lancereaver as his own personal resources; Guy, Raven, and potentially others can also benefit from those weapons, and that has to be taken into account. Just tossing the third Guiding Ring to Lucius as soon as it appears, with no strings attached, doesn’t reflect this opportunity cost and is inaccurate.

If you want to ignore opportunity costs for resources, that’s cool, but first do two things. One, give a logical argument explaining why opportunity cost should be ignored. Two, list all the high-level swords that you get through the course of the game, and acknowledge that since opportunity cost for resources does not exist, these weapons are all essentially Prf to Eliwood, along with Hammerne attention for them (lolol, Brave Sword + Hammerne anyone?).

Lots more people want to use that Silver Sword than the Guiding Ring. Lucius is also the best user of the second ring, which is what I'll prove soon enough.

No, not really. There may be more people who want to use a Silver Sword, but less who actually can. The Cavs, for example, will not hit A Swords until very late if ever. Eliwood’s mainly looking at 3 competitors for the weapon, Guy, Raven and Matthew (and to a very small extent Marcus), just like Lucius is mainly looking at only 3 competitors for the Guiding Rings, Serra, Priscilla and Erk (and to a lesser extent Canas).

I like how you went on for a while about Lucius not getting a ring, but then slide by on this. It doesn't matter if Lyn is bad, she still deserves a promotion item.

Actually it does. The game doesn’t give you an infinite number of deployment slots, thus, bad units have this inconvenient tendency to not get used. Eliwood taking a promotion item from a unit who won’t be used regardless is not significant.

A character comparison consists of Unit A + team vs Unit B + team. Eliwood + team vs Lucius + team. Eliwood’s team has him promote with the Heaven Seal, and since the rest of Eliwood’s team is composed of top/high tiers and maybe a few upper mids, no one misses it (Lyn does not fall into one of those 3 tiers). On Lucius’s team, Eliwood is not there to use the Ch 26 Heaven Seal, but there is no one else among the top/high/upper mid units who can use it, no one else on Lucius’s team who can use it instead of Eliwood, and it just sits in the convoy collecting dust or getting sold.

The situation for Lucius’s team is the same as if there were no other unit in the game who could use the Ch 26 Heaven Seal. If Lyn did not exist at all, and Eliwood wasn’t used, obviously the Seal would go unused; this is the exact same result as you get in the real situation, where Lyn exists but isn’t deployed. So you might as well just assume that the Heaven Seal is Prf to Eliwood.

---

Now for post-promo:

This is where I have a problem. It's alright for Eliwood to stay near his partners (two of which have a move gap), but Lucius can't stand next to someone who enjoys the company 5 turns a chapter? They're both fighting units before promotion, Lucius standing directly behind Raven isn't at at all a problem.

Okay. Eliwood also gets 5 turns a chapter, and has A Hector/B Marcus. The net benefit to Lucius for gaining A Raven is +1 Def/+2 Avo; for Eliwood gaining B Marcus over C Low1n, it’s +1 Def/+5 Avo. Now Eliwood’s winning by even more.

And then there's Serra. Serra is also a backliner, and Lucius only needs a B with her. The time spent gaining points with Raven can also be spent gaining them with her. Since her supports take a little longer, I'd give it a C with a B soon to come.

C Serra adds 41 turns of support. A Raven + C Serra is 112 total support turns.

Yes, Lucius can stand next to both her and Raven sometimes, but obviously not on every turn or likely even half of them. Indeed since Lucius is attacking at 2 range and has so little enemy phase, he very rarely needs healing, whereas this obviously doesn’t apply to your melee units, giving strong incentive for Serra to end her turn next to one of those rather than Lucius.

Assuming a double-support turn once per chap (the same as I did for Eliwood), A Raven + C Serra by Ch 26 is about 7 turns per chapter. Now if it’s viable to apply this rate of supporting, let’s just apply it to Eliwood’s own supports aswell. He’s already got maxed supports by Ch 26 with only 5 turns a chap, but 7 turns a chap lets him max his supports faster and do better in earlier comparisons. For example, with 7 turns a chap and 1 double-support turn per chap, he already has A Hector/B Marcus for Kinship’s Bond and improves accordingly for that comparison (+1 Atk/+2 Def/+10 Avo).

Regardless of the fact that 7 turns per chapter is too much, there’s no net benefit to Lucius’s overall case, so who caers. You might as well just assume more reasonable support setups instead of trying to squeeze in as many supports as possible.

Now, we were talking about Ch 26, I believe?

Defense

20/1 Lucius, B Raven: 30.4 Hp, 7.7 Def, 44 Avo
20/1 Eliwood, A Hector, C Low1n: 37.2 Hp, 14.7 Def, 9.6 Res, 66.8 Avo

Iron Lance Wyvern:  21 Atk, 98 Hit
vs Lancereaver Eliwood:  0.03% hit chance, I don’t think his damage really matters
vs Lucius:  13.3 damage (3HKO) @ 58.1% hit; dead in 4 rounds on average

Steel Axe Brigand:  25 Atk, 75 Hit
vs Steel Sword Eliwood:  0 hit
vs Lucius:  17.3 damage (2HKO) @ 19.5% hit; dead in 9-10 rounds on average

Steel Blade Myrmidon:  21 Atk, 93 Hit
vs Iron Lance Eliwood:  5.3 damage (8HKO) @ 2.5% hit; dead in 281 rounds on average (lololol)
vs Lucius:  13.3 damage (3HKO) @ 48.5% hit; dead in 5 rounds on average

Steel Bow Archer/Nomad:  19 Atk, 90 Hit
vs Javelin Eliwood:  4.3 damage (9HKO) @ 14.85% hit; dead in 59 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  11.3 damage (3HKO) @ 42.8% hit; dead in 7 rounds on average

Armorslayer Cavalier:  19 Atk, 96 Hit
vs Iron Lance Eliwood:  3.3 damage (12HKO) @ 4.1% hit; dead in 275 rounds on average
vs Lucius:  11.3 damage (3HKO) @ 54.4% hit; dead in 5 rounds on average

Flux Shaman (assuming Pure Water):  10 Atk, 90 Hit
vs Eliwood:  0.4 damage (93HKO), hit = irrelevant
vs Lucius:  lol

Offense

20/1 Lucius, B Raven: 20.1 Mag, 16.8 Spd 
20/1 Eliwood, A Hector, C Low1n: 17.5 Str, 15.6 Spd, 9 Con

I’m not going to give specific examples here, since the bottom line is that both of them ORKO all non-boss enemies in the chapter except for Lucius not ORKOing the random Elfire Sage (this is also the only guy in the chapter who can do any kind of damage but to Eliwood, but he still only does ~10 damage and nothing else threatens Eliwood at all; Lucius not ORKOing him is more significant). The toughest physical enemies are Wyverns which sport 33 Hp/12 Def at max, while Eliwood has 28.5 Atk w/ Lancereaver, a perfect 2HKO. If you want me to give more extensive numbers/stats, I will, but it’s a waste of space to just essentially say “they both kill everything.”

As I said, obviously the offense gap is all but gone. Meanwhile the defensive gap is still very relevant. Lucius is still getting 2-3HKO’d by most enemies, and still dying in 4-5 rounds on average against a lot of them. There’s a pretty big gap between that and Eliwood’s invincibility. Things should continue on about this level until the end of the game.

Rapier's gone, so the Armorslayer it is. It weighs him down by two. Lucius needs not of these special weapons, lightning is fine for everything.

Actually, re-checking the numbers, that Knight is done in by the Lancereaver. He has 30 Hp/13 Def vs Lancereaver Eliwood’s 28-29 Atk. It starts at the very bottom of the map vs Eliwood near the top anyways, he won’t run into it unless you ferry him straight down the map with a flier for whatever weird reason.

Lancereaver? The thing with 15 uses, is pretty expensive (this wouldn't matter if it had more than 15 uses) and is only good for WTA? He'd probably only have one of those things, which would get used up in like, two enemy phases.

So have him carry two. The Ocean Seal comes in Ch 23 for 25000G, and Ch 24 is your first chance to spend that money. Do you know how many Lancereavers you can buy with 25000G? Nearly twenty-eight. FE7 has this cool deal where it gives you a shitload of money and also hands you the Silver Card before the first secret shop, but at the same time, it has very limited options for investing all that money relative to other FEs (no forging, no buyable stat boosters, etc); cost is almost never an issue.

Eliwood is taking a counter from absolutely everything, while Lucius is taking them from almost nothing. Who has the better durability, exactly?

The one who is invincible.

What? Your units might be good at defending, but they are by no means invincible.

Eliwood begs to differ, as do Hector, Oswin, Lowen, etc. If you want, I can give durability boxes for other top/high tier melee units on this chapter. You underestimate the fail capacity of FE7 enemies.

Eliwood is existent for 7 more chapters, but Lucius is better than him for every other chapter. Lucius for the win.

no u