FE9 Tier list v3

[aku chi]

Now, if we are really going gaga over lowest turns regardless of low (imo) reliability, then you could also do a comparison of number of turns saved by giving Marcia the boots in comparison to all the others. Is Reyson ever, in any chapter, saving turns compared to Marcia getting the boots? How about the reverse? Ditto Jill.

Done.

Relevant quote:

As far as I can tell, Boots Marcia can potentially save 1 turn in C16, 1-2 turns in C17, 1 turn in C24, and possibly 1 turn in C26. 3-5 turns total. Boots Reyson can save 1-2 turns in C18, 1 turn in C27, and can at least make 2 other chapters a more reliable clear, if not a turn faster (chapters 21 and 23 are most notable). Both Marcia and Reyson should obviously be considered as Boots candidates (as should Jill, who might sacrifice a turn in C17, but is more reliable in her fast-clears).

At some point in the future, I plan to do a run that will demonstrate this.

Marcia's opportunity cost of taking the Boots is (in turns) the several turns that could be saved by giving the Boots to Jill or Reyson. BTW, I believe Boots Oscar can save 2-3 turns in chapters 16, 24, and 26 just like Marcia. He's obviously inferior, but no slouch, with the Boots.

[Aethereal]

I think it's still a positive that Marcia can use the boots so effectively. Wether she is the best candidate or not is meh, it's a 1 or 2 turn difference at most between her/jill/reyson. I think it's fair to say that she is not leagues ahead of every other boots candidate, (Including Oscar? There's been less discussion of him though) and while it's definitely good that she can use them, it's a minor point, especially when comparing her to Jill or Oscar.

[samthedigital]

Which seems to go exactly against your argument.

The statement I made about the RNG has nothing to do with what I told you of efficiency versus reliability pertaining to the current method of evaluating characters.

So what? RNG abuse has nothing to do with the tier lists on SF, any more than boss abuse or arena abuse or Tower abuse does. It is sooooo easy to put people into the Tower of Valni, or to have them level up infinitely from boss exp. Doesn't mean we have to give a shit.

Boss abuse, tower abuse, and arena abuse are all examples of inefficiency because of the input required. They are entirely different from RNG abuse which doesn't require turn deficits, so your examples still show nothing.

That wasn't my point. I'm merely illustrating that Fixed Mode manipulation can be just as powerful as RNG abuse.

Your point was this:

Depending on the character, it does have a significant effect. For example, it's possible to get Makalov to proc HP/STR/SKL/SPD/DEF on every level up.

Which has little to do with feeding characters one bonus experience at a time and doesn't invalidate what I said.

[Lord Raven]

Mercenary Raven, do you intentionally branch out and talk about things unrelated to my point when you can't refute it? I was explaining opportunity costs to you (which you evidently didn't understand) and your response to that section was essentially "Is Jill > Marcia?". It's very frustrating to have a discussion with you when you avoid pusuits towards common understanding and closure.

I didn't avoid anything.

What are you losing when you give Marcia resources? Giving Oscar, Kieran, and Jill those resources. We've already shown that Jill/Marcia are almost interchangeable, and while Jill is better this doesn't hamper her. Same to Jill; you lose out on Marcia, but that's not as big a deal because Jill>Marcia (nice, circular argument).

What are you losing when you give Oscar/Kieran resources? Giving your fliers resources. There's a 6-turn clear that can only be done by crossing the water in a certain chapter, there's a stage where you have to cross pitfalls, there's even a bunch of stages where terrain reams the Paladins. So what do we have here? Chapter 26? Jill does it more effectively than Oscar, and Marcia with Shade is a great Rescue-Drop candidate for Ike while Oscar and Kieran take the heat away from them. There are so many chapters that fliers are crucial to some of the lower turn strategies that it's absolutely ridiculous that his first 7 chapters are that big in priority over the last 15-20 chapters where Marcia/Jill dominate Oscar (for a solid like 80% of those chapters). By giving Oscar/Kieran resources, you are missing out on many more efficient strategies involving fliers.

- In PoR, Jill starts with Lances and gets Axes on promotion.

- Jill's real advantage over Marcia is superior durability.

- You've stated that Jill > Marcia many times. Have you changed your mind?

I haven't necessarily changed my mind, considering I don't mind either way, but Jill/Marcia at times tends to be a change-up because there are playthroughs where one is recruited while the other isn't, and then there are playthroughs where both are recruited but Marcia ends up getting more resources (in which case they actually just about tie).

Patience. That analysis is yet to come. But I don't disagree that Marcia/Jill are more valuable than Oscar in their shared chapters if they both get a bunch of resources. Oscar has his early-game performance to consider, so Jill's later wins need to exceed Oscar's early-game wins.

And they do...

I said "in some chapters". With similar resources, Oscar has considerably more durability and slightly higher Atk than Marcia, making him more valuable in chapters 26 and 27, for instance.

That's about it. Chapter 26 and 27 has Oscar contributing to a chapter anyway, and I do explain this but this has yet to outweigh some of the OTHER contributions Marcia/Jill can make with those resources.

LOL. Marcia and Jill need a bunch of resources to be able to contribute as anything more than a fragile flying ferry. What were you thinking a Level 5 Marcia was going to do?

Why would you use a Level 5 Marcia as a flying ferry? That makes no sense. They are the case where a high yield gives an extremely high return; giving Oscar a lot of resources gives a low return in comparison. Bearing in mind, stuffing him with all that shit makes him really powerful, but not as powerful as Jill/Marcia can get so it is consistent with opportunity costs.

"We" can't conclude that because I disagree with the preceding statement. I also disagree with: "Jill is Marcia's only real (ie: non-negligible) opportunity cost".

Now you're just picking apart every single point I'm making.

If you wanted a reliable 2-turn clear of C14, it seems like you would. Except that I left out the enemies that will attack Marcia on turn 1 enemy phase. If she gets hit by any of these enemies, she'll drop into Gashilama crit-kill range. Maybe a promoted Mist can reach her to heal, but I'm quite sure that unpromoted Rhys or Mist cannot.

31 Atk kills Gashilama? That should mean 21 4HKOs him (20 if you're using a Sword)... which would actually mean she needs 20 Str with an Iron forge (not at all impractical) to ORKO him...

It's not impossible to consider the opportunity cost of Marcia taking the Boots. We consider the value of Jill or Reyson getting the Boots instead. There was some discussion a page or two back outlining the benefits of the Boots when given to Marcia or Reyson.

Yes, and the strategies involving Boots with Jill are the exact same as those involving Boots with Marcia except she doesn't have the benefit of strong throwing axes until Hand Axes are forgable (whereas Marcia has strong throwing Spears before Javelins are forgeable). Therefore there's actually no opportunity cost with respect to Jill. With respect to Reyson, you have *yet* to demonstrate so I have no reason to take your word for it. There are multiple efficiency runs demonstrating Marcia and it's obvious that Jill can do the same thing, so you are free to demonstrate Reyson. Until then I have absolutely no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Of course he'd post that quote though, considering the fact that Chapters 21 and 23 would actually not at all change in reliability given Reyson the boots. In fact, Marcia, Ike, and Tauro are all more than durable enough to survive against Ena (especially with the laguzguard) and Jill or Ike with a Pure Water (or Tormod weakening one of the Sages, Tormod can reach that Sage pretty easily without having to use a Siege) prevents them from going to sleep. Marcia or Jill's 11 move- trust me- gets her to the ocean part of the chapter pretty easily (since Tauro's troop advance if you go on the land) and Reyson has no bearing on this. In fact, it's filled to the brim with a bunch of shove chains from your laguz units (I gave Muarim Smite) and it's actually something Marcia has over Jill (but overall the extra 2 spaces from Lethe are irrelevant).

23 still runs into the problem that the Paladins have to work around the gaps if they wish to rescue her and you still need to off some the later Sniper (bearing in mind, the third Ballista can be taken care of by Tormod by turn 3 or 4 since he can kill off the Archer and Sniper by Turns 1 and 2 respectively given Reyson support). Reyson's durability problems really shine in that sense because you don't have very many spaces a non-flier (ie Jill/Marcia) can move without falling in and you don't have many spaces Reyson can move without dying. And the flier without the Full Guard is dead weight at points too (Marcia is great for this, btw, since if you want Haar then Jill would have to talk to him) simply because of the ballistas. I don't even know if Tormod can get to the last Sniper by Turn 3, but I know for a fact his movement is enough to kill the archer and sniper by Turn 2.

[aku chi]

Mercenary Raven, kindly review your latest post. Pay particular attention to the correlation between the parts of my post that you quote and the text that follows. Notice that there often isn't a correlation. That is frustrating me.

Therefore there's actually no opportunity cost with respect to Jill.

It's statements like these that convince me that you still don't understand the concept of opportunity cost. Please educate yourself.

Yes, and the strategies involving Boots with Jill are the exact same as those involving Boots with Marcia except she doesn't have the benefit of strong throwing axes until Hand Axes are forgable (whereas Marcia has strong throwing Spears before Javelins are forgeable).

It's statements like these that convince me that you don't read my posts fully. Jill starts with Lances, just like Marcia.

31 Atk kills Gashilama? which would actually mean she needs 20 Str with an Iron forge (not at all impractical) to ORKO him...

That all depends on whether you think a 20/6 Marcia (with an Energy Drop) by C14 is impractical. I'd say it is...

[Narga_Rocks]

It's statements like these that convince me that you don't read my posts fully. Jill starts with Lances, just like Marcia.

While it is entirely possible, even probable, that he's still thinking JIll starts with axes, the point is actually kinda relevant. Only kinda, since Jill has forgeable hand axes and javelins while Marcia only has forgeable javelins. Of course, hand axes aren't the advantage they are in RD (better hit to go with better mt), but they are still stronger against axes and lances.

[Lord Raven]

Mercenary Raven, kindly review your latest post. Pay particular attention to the correlation between the parts of my post that you quote and the text that follows. Notice that there often isn't a correlation. That is frustrating me.

>Explaining opportunity costs when you use resources on all three

It's statements like these that convince me that you still don't understand the concept of opportunity cost. Please educate yourself.

The opportunity cost of using Marcia is using Jill and vice-versa. I understand that, I'm not a fucking moron. I'm just saying that when you have units giving virtually identical output for a long time, then there's not much of an opportunity cost to consider; I may have worded it awkwardly to saying there's no opportunity cost, but it's almost negligible. Oscar/Kieran being pumped with resources is also another potential opportunity cost; there's a greater opportunity cost to pouring the resources into Oscar/Kieran over Marcia/Jill than pouring them into Marcia/Jill over Oscar/Kieran. That is the other point I am getting at with respect to opportunity costs. Which part of this are you not understanding?

It's statements like these that convince me that you don't read my posts fully. Jill starts with Lances, just like Marcia.

I forgot. Whoops... but this does mean that Axes are an advantage only for her player phase since you can't forge hand axes until later. This also means that they are on about equal footing in comparison to one another until you can forge hand axes!

That all depends on whether you think a 20/6 Marcia (with an Energy Drop) by C14 is impractical. I'd say it is...

I'm fairly sure giving her those 18 level ups she needs with a fighter band gets her an extra +1.

[Vykan12]

I see all this talk that raising 1 flier makes raising the other one redundant... I disagree with this almost entirely.

See, if I choose to make Jill my MVP and plow her with resources, who's going to be my next recipient for resource funneling? It will be Marcia. 2 fliers >>> 1 flier + 1 paladin, even if one of the fliers carries most of the efficiency load. It's not like there's a great shortage of resources in the game. There's enough BEXP in the game to easily raise all your paladins and fliers on a highly efficient PT. I'm not sure for a max efficient PT, but I'd probably focus on trimming down on my paladins (eg/ no Makalov or Astrid) if BEXP distribution is an issue.

The only difference between Jill and Marcia in this case is that Jill has +2 move, and becomes 1337 slightly sooner. The fact that their roles are basically interchangeable is irrelevant because they work best in tandem.

[Lord Raven]

Astrid's actually pretty low maintenance with BEXP (especially if you're playing random and increase BEXP in increments, she requires less than 100 for her entire unpromoted time). I apologize if I said redundant anywhere, but I was more or less referring to the fact that the "lead flier" is the one with the boots (not always Jill, half the time it's Marcia v_v) and the secondary flier doesn't.

[Vykan12]

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm sure this has been considered, but if we don't guarantee that Jill is being used, would we automatically assume we skip her recruitment to save turns in C12?

See, I know recruitment costs aren't supposed to be held against a unit (otherwise Stefan's rank would plummet), but is it right to assume a unit like Stefan is never used unless we make a comparison of him vs someone else? The only way around this is to assume 100% recruitment regardless of what units you choose to raise.

I only mention this because if "Marcia's team" skips Jill, I would claim Marcia > Jill. However, if Marcia's team does lose turns to recruit Jill (w/o it counting against her), I'd just as easily say Jill > Marcia.

Edited September 23, 2011 by Vykan12

[Lord Raven]

I'm not holding it against Jill or Marcia- but their use in playthroughs where the other is not recruited (not recruiting Marcia = -2 turns or something, not recruiting Jill is -3 turns iirc?) should be considered. One of those types of things. In which case, the performance of Jill is only slightly better than Marcia's when both are fielded, and their individual performances are compared (but I still think it's a very close call in some ways; it's not just Axes/Def vs Availability since some of the things I used Marcia for couldn't be as easily replicated by Jill, but some of the things I used Marcia for were also more confidently done by Jill so it cancels out).

That interesting tidbit about Stefan doesn't have bearing when you compare Stefan to other units, but when you are comparing someone like Soren who benefits from support- you can just as easily use that factoid (on top of iffy deployment situation). So, yes, that's how I feel it should be.

[Vykan12]

For Oscar vs Jill/Marcia, I’d put him below either flier even when both are in play, because I really think flying is just that broken. 1RKO level combat + reliable durability + bypassing terrain is about as efficient as it gets.

I read Aku Chi’s posts and his main points are that:

1) Oscar requires less resources than the fliers

2) He saves turns in earlygame

For 1, this would be a valid point if Marcia + Jill weren’t the most worthy recipients of BEXP/other resources. You mention opportunity cost, but BEXPing fliers > BEXPing basically anything else, so it’s a net positive until the fliers have what they need to 1RKO and survive reliably. And honestly the amount of resources both fliers require for this purpose is pretty minimal.

In Marcia’s case, if you BEXP her enough in C12’s base, you can get her to ORKO crows. OK, that requires a large amount of BEXP initially, but now she’s gaining an absurd amount of CEXP from crow kills, while simultaneously shaving off quite a few turns (nobody else can target crows until they reach the boat). Combine this with the crowkills in C13 and Marcia’s already promoted for C14. She no longer needs BEXP other than pulling off tight bosskill strategies that fall into the questionable % reliability category.

So, to raise Marcia you need a large initial investment that reaps an immediate and long term reward. What’s the alternative? Put that C12 BEXP into any other unit, or combination of units, and not only do you lose a significant number of turns on C12, you also reduce Marcia’s CEXP gains because she’s 2-3RKOing crows. So basically, not BEXPing Marcia not only costs turns, it also hampers Marcia’s development.

I’m not breathing hot air here, either. Gergeshwan’s efficient PT is basically a low turn count run, and he has Marcia promoted at chapter 11, even earlier than I indicated. In fact, he has Marcia overtake Oscar in levels.

Look at his turncounts:

Prologue- 4

Chapter 1- 2

Chapter 2- 4

Chapter 3- 3

Chapter 4- 2

Chapter 5- 6

Chapter 6- 5

Chapter 7- 6

Chapter 8- 8

Chapter 9- 7

Chapter 10- 3

Chapter 11- 3

Chapter 12- 2

Chapter 13- 7

Chapter 14- 2

Chapter 15- 2

Chapter 16- 4

Chapter 17- 2, 2, 10, 1

Do you see any of these turn counts being lowered by reducing Marcia’s resource allotment and distributing it to other units? After chapter 17 it’s pretty indisputable that fliers > Oscar as well. My own experience with efficient FE9 play largely coincides with Gergeshwan’s results, for what it’s worth.

2’s a more compelling reason, but there’s a few issues with that. First, since there are so few units in earlygame, a lot of Oscar’s utility is based on that alone. It’s very similar to FE10 Edward’s utility in early part 1 chapters. 1-P would take an eternity if we only used Micaiah, much the same way FE9 earlygame chapters would take much longer if we neglect to use any of Ike/Boyd/Oscar/Titania. Well, that’s not even really true because Titania carries so much of the earlygame load herself.

Which brings me to my next argument: I’m not so convinced Oscar saves that many turns in earlygame (even though that’s an iffy metric because of the low unit forced deployment scenario).

Chapters 1-2: I’d say 2-4 turns

Chapters 3-4: Unused

Chapter 5: Defend chapter, who cares

Chapter 6: 1 or 2

Chapter 7: 1?

Chapter 8: See chapter 5

Chapter 9: Marcia’s now on the team

Jill takes a bit longer, but by then we have more deployment slots, more developed units, etc so Oscar’s turn count shavings are dropping radically.

[Lord Raven]

Gergeshwan’s efficient PT is basically a low turn count run, and he has Marcia promoted at chapter 11, even earlier than I indicated. In fact, he has Marcia overtake Oscar in levels.

I had that too, although my run gets low-turn-y at points too (namely with a Wrath crit in Chapter 21- there was a more efficient way to do it with the resources i had- and some Killer Lance crits because I didn't use a Steel Lance forge or get the Laguz Lance. I forget the exact luck manipulations in Chapter 26 but I know I got a lucky dodge somewhere [it was called for considering all the fucking things that almost killed Astrid because she was taking 20% shots she should've been dodging]) against Bertram. Anyways, it's on hiatus until the end of the semester. Edited September 23, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[dondon151]

It's statements like these that convince me that you still don't understand the concept of opportunity cost. Please educate yourself.

I think you're the one who needs educating on opportunity costs. You're treating them like they result in a net negative for everyone when summed with the gross benefit out of using a resource, when in fact the net benefit is positive for the best recipient of the resource. And in this case where Marcia and Jill do about just as well with each other with the Boots, then we shouldn't have to assign the Boots to just one of them.

Same thing with your crap about "optimal resource bundles." You treat BEXP on Marcia as if the opportunity cost outweighed the gross benefit. Aside from Jill, who else are you going to use it on to the same effect? So fine - assume that Marcia and Jill could perform the exact same tasks after requiring the exact same resources, so there is no net benefit to using one over the other. It doesn't make sense to put Oscar over both of them when either of them are better than Oscar. Heck, you even said that you'd pick Marcia over Oscar for an efficiency playthrough, so what sort of logic will conclude the opposite?

Edited September 23, 2011 by dondon151

[aku chi]

I see all this talk that raising 1 flier makes raising the other one redundant... I disagree with this almost entirely.

See, if I choose to make Jill my MVP and plow her with resources, who's going to be my next recipient for resource funneling? It will be Marcia. 2 fliers >>> 1 flier + 1 paladin, even if one of the fliers carries most of the efficiency load. It's not like there's a great shortage of resources in the game. There's enough BEXP in the game to easily raise all your paladins and fliers on a highly efficient PT. I'm not sure for a max efficient PT, but I'd probably focus on trimming down on my paladins (eg/ no Makalov or Astrid) if BEXP distribution is an issue.

I disagree. There just aren't many instances before C18 where having a second trained flier is more valuable than a similarly leveled Paladin. At which point we get Tanith: a flier that doesn't need a large Bexp dump to dominate. Then there are even fewer instances between chapters 18 and 23 where having three trained fliers is notably superior to two trained fliers. When compared with Marcia and Jill; Kieran, Oscar, and especially Titania require many fewer resources to get to ass-kicking mode. So if you're already training Marcia so she can dominate chapters where flying is needed, it makes more sense to distribute the rest of your Bexp to Paladins and others. Not that training both Marcia and Jill is a particularly bad idea, but I don't think it's quite optimal.

I read Aku Chi's posts and his main points are that:

1) Oscar requires less resources than the fliers

2) He saves turns in earlygame

For 1, this would be a valid point if Marcia + Jill weren't the most worthy recipients of BEXP/other resources. You mention opportunity cost, but BEXPing fliers > BEXPing basically anything else, so it's a net positive until the fliers have what they need to 1RKO and survive reliably. And honestly the amount of resources both fliers require for this purpose is pretty minimal.

Evaluating opportunity costs are always a valid point. To say otherwise demonstrates your lack of understanding. Allow me to demonstrate the absurdity of your claim by asking you to consider a hypothetical extreme case. Consider two units. One is Marcia as is. The other is a theoretical unit called Marcia2 that can be recruited in place of Marcia at the same time. Marcia2 begins at 20/2 with Marcia's 20/2 average stats and has the same growths as Marcia. If Marcia is recruited, she is still "the most worthy recipients of BEXP/other resources". She can become just as good as Marcia2 would have been. But it should be obvious that recruiting Marcia2 is a better choice because Marcia2 doesn't need as many resources as Marcia needs to make the same contributions. Recruiting Marcia2 allows us to distribute ~1800 Bexp to the next best recipients. In fact, the difference between Marcia and Marcia2 can be quantified as the opportunity cost of immediately giving Marcia 1800 Bexp.

On the topic of the resources needed to get both Marcia and Jill to dominate: 2500+ Bexp before chapter 15 is not a "minimal" amount of resources. And there's the Seraph Robe and Dracoshield that Marcia needs to be tolerably durable (Jill also appreciates a Seraph Robe), the Energy Drop that Marcia might want to 2HKO the tougher bosses, the Speedwings that Jill needs to double the faster enemies, the Full Guard that either needs to tank Ballistae and Marcia wants to protect from Bows as well. Oh, and let's not forget the extremely valuable Boots. There is no debate that we get huge benefits from training Marcia and Jill. But there can also be no debate that they require a great host of resources (Marcia even more than Jill) to dominate as we desire.

So, to raise Marcia you need a large initial investment that reaps an immediate and long term reward. What's the alternative? Put that C12 BEXP into any other unit, or combination of units, and not only do you lose a significant number of turns on C12, you also reduce Marcia's CEXP gains because she's 2-3RKOing crows. So basically, not BEXPing Marcia not only costs turns, it also hampers Marcia's development.

There seems to be some confusion. I am not asserting that Marcia should not receive her optimal resource bundle (which probably includes enough Bexp to 2-turn C12 and to double Muarim, the C11 Dracoshield, and some Full Guard use; and might include the C12 Seraph Robe, the C13 Energy Drop, the Boots, the C16 Dracoshield, a Full Guard monopoly, and enough Bexp to double Homasa and Petrine - depending on the circumstances). Marcia should receive it; that's why I'm calling it her optimal resource bundle. My point is that despite Marcia making great use of these resources - her using them disallows other units to use these resources. The opportunity cost of Marcia using these resources is the next best use that we could have put these resources towards.

I think you're the one who needs educating on opportunity costs.

I've received a university minor in Economics; I assure you that I have a firm understanding of opportunity costs.

You're treating them like they result in a net negative for everyone when summed with the gross benefit out of using a resource, when in fact the net benefit is positive for the best recipient of the resource.

Show me where I ever did that.

And in this case where Marcia and Jill do about just as well with each other with the Boots, then we shouldn't have to assign the Boots to just one of them.

If both Marcia and Jill "do about just as well with each other with the Boots", then the opportunity cost of one taking the Boots is exactly equal to the benefit the Boots provide. Which would mean that what Marcia or Jill could do with the Boots shouldn't be considered in a comparison. This isn't quite accurate for two reasons, though:

1) Boots Marcia can pull off at least one LTC strategy that Jill cannot on account of being easier to shove (2-turning C17-2). But Jill can be more reliable in certain LTC strategies on account of being more durable (chapters 26 and 28 come to mind). Which unit truely makes better use of the Boots is unclear (and probably differs depending on the circumstances).

2) When we consider playthroughs with Marcia, Jill might not be trained or even recruited, in which case she would not be the (next) best option for the Boots. It would instead be Reyson. If Reyson isn't used for whatever reason, it might be Astrid or Tanith or Oscar.

It doesn't make sense to put Oscar over both of them when either of them are better than Oscar.

They are only better than Oscar when they use a bunch of resources. Resources that have great value elsewhere (most notably given to the other early-join flier). The opportunity costs of those resources must be taken into account when evaluating the fliers' net value.

Heck, you even said that you'd pick Marcia over Oscar for an efficiency playthrough, so what sort of logic will conclude the opposite?

What I actually said:

If I had to choose just one of the three to use in a single efficient playthrough, Oscar would be my last choice (assuming Titania was used). If, on the other hand, I got to choose to use 2 of the 3 in a playthrough, I would choose Oscar plus one of the early-join fliers without a second thought. And if I were to use all three, only one of {Marcia, Jill} would see much use, in all likelihood.

[Anouleth]

2’s a more compelling reason, but there’s a few issues with that. First, since there are so few units in earlygame, a lot of Oscar’s utility is based on that alone. It’s very similar to FE10 Edward’s utility in early part 1 chapters. 1-P would take an eternity if we only used Micaiah, much the same way FE9 earlygame chapters would take much longer if we neglect to use any of Ike/Boyd/Oscar/Titania. Well, that’s not even really true because Titania carries so much of the earlygame load herself.

I think there's an enormous difference between Edward in 1-P and Oscar in earlygame. I mean, we don't discount Titania's earlygame contributions, so I don't see why we should do so for Oscar.

[Vykan12]

Evaluating opportunity costs are always a valid point. To say otherwise demonstrates your lack of understanding.

Read my post more carefully.

“You mention opportunity cost, but BEXPing fliers > BEXPing basically anything else, so it's a net positive until the fliers have what they need to 1RKO and survive reliably.”

I’ll argue that the opportunity cost of plowing resources into Marcia is much lower than you give it credit for.

If you don’t BEXP Marcia sufficiently, you’re throwing away turns that can’t be recovered no matter how you distribute the remaining BEXP. In those cases the opportunity cost is effectively 0. For instance, what use is it having all your paladins promoted in the desert chapter if you don’t have anyone who can slay Muarim quickly? This is also why your Marcia2 example doesn’t hold water here.

It would be one thing if the team’s overall offence suffered tremendously from raising Marcia, but it’s quite the opposite. Most of the BEXP you’d neglect giving Marcia would ultimately contribute to overkill for units like Oscar and Titania. The only unit in high/top tier besides your fliers that needs significant BEXP for combat proficiency is Makalov, and to a lesser extent, Astrid. But, aside from rout maps, I can’t see a 4th and 5th string paladin shaving turns when you’ve already established an awesome team by now.

Put another way, let’s say Marcia receiving n resources saves x turns compared to regular Marcia. However, factoring in opportunity costs we have to look at how many turns are saved by distributing n resources optimally amongst other units. IMO, the savings are negligible, say epsilon (e). So, factoring in opp. cost Marcia’s actually saving us x-e turns, which is very close to the original value x.

Probably a slightly cumbersome way to put it, but I think it gets the point across.

On the topic of the resources needed to get both Marcia and Jill to dominate: 2500+ Bexp before chapter 15 is not a "minimal" amount of resources. And there's the Seraph Robe and Dracoshield that Marcia needs to be tolerably durable (Jill also appreciates a Seraph Robe), the Energy Drop that Marcia might want to 2HKO the tougher bosses, the Speedwings that Jill needs to double the faster enemies, the Full Guard that either needs to tank Ballistae and Marcia wants to protect from Bows as well. Oh, and let's not forget the extremely valuable Boots. There is no debate that we get huge benefits from training Marcia and Jill. But there can also be no debate that they require a great host of resources (Marcia even more than Jill) to dominate as we desire.

You have to look at each resource individually. Who’s the next best recipient for a seraph robe or a dracoshield? Certainly not your paladins; Only Titania and Astrid have noticeable concrete durability problems, which is easily compensated for with things like sol, knight’s ward, and supports. As for the speedwing, what unit has speed problems that can simultaneously keep up with the frontlines? Haar? 4 avo and minimal doubling advantages (eg/ vs SMs, bosses) don’t even remotely compare to the h4x of getting Jill to double ASAP. The full guard is a resource exclusive to fliers, so I don’t know why you mentioned it. If Marcia doesn’t use the FG, then Jill will since their roles are interchangeable. Pretty much ditto for the boots unless you can prove Reyson makes the best use of it.

Now it seems you’ve argued that Marcia’s boots benefit is effectively 0 since Jill can clone its effect. Again, this is predicated on Marcia and Jill being interchangeable. The problem is, Oscar is even more interchangeable, he has 4-5 other units who can mirror his contributions.

From a pragmatic standpoint, you know that Marcia will have 8-10 movement, depending on what role she’s relegated to. Whereas, Oscar is pretty much guaranteed to have 8 movement. That amounts to an advantage in some form.

There seems to be some confusion. I am not asserting that Marcia should not receive her optimal resource bundle (…). Marcia should receive it; that's why I'm calling it her optimal resource bundle. My point is that despite Marcia making great use of these resources - her using them disallows other units to use these resources. The opportunity cost of Marcia using these resources is the next best use that we could have put these resources towards.

Again, I don’t disagree with you, I simply don’t think the opportunity cost is very high at all. If you don’t favor your fliers, re-distributing those resources elsewhere aren’t going to make up that many turns compared to the super flier scenario. I’ll probably have to defend that point in great detail, but I’ll save that for future posts.

I think there's an enormous difference between Edward in 1-P and Oscar in earlygame. I mean, we don't discount Titania's earlygame contributions, so I don't see why we should do so for Oscar.

It was only a minor consideration. All I meant was that the turns Oscar save in earlygame have slightly less value because of the whole circumstance of being forced in low-deployment scenarios. To imply that I'd discount Titania's earlygame contributions is extreme to say the least.

[Lord Raven]

I've received a university minor in Economics; I assure you that I have a firm understanding of opportunity costs.

Wouldn't doubt that, but your implementation is poor.

If Reyson isn't used for whatever reason, it might be Astrid or Tanith or Oscar.

Marcia's better built up than Tanith at this point so that's a no. Oscar and Astrid don't have flying so them using Boots is a net negative relative to Marcia (or Jill, depending on which you recruit), on top of Tanith making use of it's opportunity cost is Marcia not being able to use it sooner.

1) Boots Marcia can pull off at least one LTC strategy that Jill cannot on account of being easier to shove (2-turning C17-2). But Jill can be more reliable in certain LTC strategies on account of being more durable (chapters 26 and 28 come to mind). Which unit truely makes better use of the Boots is unclear (and probably differs depending on the circumstances).

Ease of shoving and Marcia's Resistance stat also makes 6-turning 21 far more reliable (or doable) than Jill. That way you don't have to have both Ike and Jill waste a pure water at once, on top of it sometimes being difficult to get Tormod (Soren and Ilyana are far from capable of doing it and your non-magic units easily kill the guy) to attack the Sage that the one Bishop takes priority healing as opposed to using a Sleep staff on one of your characters. It also allows the mages to go for Tauroneo as opposed to Ike or Jill (in this case, Marcia) because of Resistance stats, which gets Tauroneo to Resolve range much faster to take care of Ena. Edited September 25, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[GreatEclipse]

It was only a minor consideration. All I meant was that the turns Oscar save in earlygame have slightly less value because of the whole circumstance of being forced in low-deployment scenarios. To imply that I'd discount Titania's earlygame contributions is extreme to say the least.

Titania is forced on the same low-deployment maps, so his point is completely valid. Not that discounting turns saved from low deployment makes any sense on a list like this one.

Edited September 25, 2011 by GreatEclipse

[Lord Raven]

Oscar's not as crucial as Titania on those maps. Compare no Titania vs no Oscar and see what I mean; you lose turns no matter who you don't use but the best Oscar does is lower some turncounts by 1 or 2 in early chapters.

Chapter 1: Rescuing Ike and giving him to Titania

Chapter 2: nothing Ike and Boyd can't otherwise do in four turns

Chapter 5: defend map

Chapter 6: ferrying Ike through most of the chapter, but you can add +2 turns and not ferry Ike

Chapter 7: nothing Soren/Ike/Boyd can't do in 6-8 turns, especially with Titania's help

Chapter 8: defend map

Chapter 9: Titania can solo the important parts all by herself, especially since there's a 7 turn window to do it in if you want to recruit Marcia

Oscar's not even *that* good or necessary early on. He runs into a bunch of doubling problems until Chapter 8 or 9, too (he can double in 1 and 2 mind you). Not saying it doesn't bolster him, but it's overrated compared to Marcia's last 2/3 of the game where only her and Jill (or Tanith, but using Tanith with the proper resources requires a rather large opportunity cost) are capable of performing some of the lower turn clears. A mount can't help as much as a flier at that point, not saying they're bad at doing what they do they're just not as good.

Honestly, -Cynthia-, I vouch for Marcia and Jill to have a slash between their names; I think the stuff they do in comparison to one another (Marcia's availability and Chapter 21 performances vs Jill's Chapter 26 and superior offense once you can forge axes) is too close to put a proper judgment on. Jill takes more damage from Mage hits than Marcia does from physical hits too (without the benefit of Speed for a while).

Edited September 25, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[aku chi]

If you don't BEXP Marcia sufficiently, you're throwing away turns that can't be recovered no matter how you distribute the remaining BEXP. In those cases the opportunity cost is effectively 0. This is also why your Marcia2 example doesn't hold water here.

This isn't true for two reasons:

1) Jill (and Tanith) can do almost everything that Marcia can.

2) Even if Marcia's contributions were more impressively unique (for instance, if Jill isn't recruited), there is still an opportunity cost to her taking resources. It doesn't matter that we are definitely going to give her those resources if we are playing efficiently. Those resources would have positive value if used by other units. Marcia can't solo the entire game herself. We need to train other units to rout in chapters 13, 17-1, 18, and 25. We need at least two mounted units to efficiently clear arrive and seize chapters (16, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, and 28). We need other trained mounted units to grab some treasures in a timely fashion (including the C16 Full Guard and Dracoshield!). Resources that Marcia takes compromises our ability to have sufficiently trained units for our other needs. The hypothetical Marcia2, by contrast, frees up Bexp to be spent on other units. I think it's quite obvious that Marcia2 is strictly superior to Marcia. Only if you believe this hypothetical Marcia2 is identically valuable to Marcia can you claim that the opportunity cost of Marcia taking Bexp is 0.

It would be one thing if the team's overall offence suffered tremendously from raising Marcia, but it's quite the opposite. Most of the BEXP you'd neglect giving Marcia would ultimately contribute to overkill for units like Oscar and Titania. The only unit in high/top tier besides your fliers that needs significant BEXP for combat proficiency is Makalov, and to a lesser extent, Astrid. But, aside from rout maps, I can't see a 4th and 5th string paladin shaving turns when you've already established an awesome team by now.

Kieran needs a sizable chunk of Bexp to dominate and Oscar needs more than a handful.

But why ignore the other fliers? Jill needs a bunch of Bexp just like Marcia and puts it to at least as good a use after C12. Tanith wants all of Marcia's non-Bexp resources (the Energy Drop, Seraph Robe, Dracoshield(s), Boots, Full Guard) and puts them to at least as good use starting in C18. So any benefit that Marcia gets from those resources (including the Boots) in chapters 18-Endgame are exactly equivalent to the opportunity cost of giving them to Tanith. Marcia is a better candidate for those resources on the whole because she has extra chapters of availability (and favoritism inertia), but no better than the benefits we derive before C18, because Tanith can almost perfectly emulate Marcia's C18-Endgame performance with the same resources (and doesn't even need the Bexp, plus has Reinforce and proficiency with magic weapons).

Put another way, let's say Marcia receiving n resources saves x turns compared to regular Marcia. However, factoring in opportunity costs we have to look at how many turns are saved by distributing n resources optimally amongst other units. IMO, the savings are negligible, say epsilon (e). So, factoring in opp. cost Marcia's actually saving us x-e turns, which is very close to the original value x.

This logic is solid, so I'm convinced that you understand the concept of opportunity costs. Unfortunately, your assertion that: "the savings are negligible" is completely innacurate. Aside from Marcia's impressive C12, Jill can do almost everything that Marcia can do if given the same resources. Even if we consider playthroughs where Jill is not recruited or trained, the unique turns that Marcia can save by taking these resources is limited to her performances before chapter 18 (because Tanith can do everything Marcia can from C18 onwards). That's just the simple case of giving all of Marcia's resources to Tanith instead. A more clever distribution would include giving Marcia's Bexp to Astrid or Makalov, and the Boots to Reyson, further minimizing x - e (which is no longer a infinitesimal epsilon).

You have to look at each resource individually. Who's the next best recipient for a seraph robe or a dracoshield?

Probably Tanith. Maybe Astrid or Titania. Also Jill for a Seraph Robe, at least.

As for the speedwing, what unit has speed problems that can simultaneously keep up with the frontlines? Haar?

Haar is definitely a Speedwings candidate, but so is Boyd and any Paladin that gets speed screwed (all but Astrid are borderline on doubling the fastest enemies even with base Knight Ward level-ups).

The full guard is a resource exclusive to fliers, so I don't know why you mentioned it. If Marcia doesn't use the FG, then Jill will since their roles are interchangeable.

Because this isn't "fliers vs." If we're evaluating Marcia and supposing that she gets a Full Guard monopoly, she is depriving Jill and Tanith of a valuable resource. If we're evaluating Jill and supposing that she gets the Full Guard in chapters with Ballistae, she is depriving the other fliers of that valuable resource in those chapters. (And technically, the Full Guard is not exclusive to the fliers. We could theoretically give it to Lethe or Ranulf to avoid bonus damage from fire magic and laguz weapons. The fliers just make better use of the resource in almost all circumstances.)

Pretty much ditto for the boots unless you can prove Reyson makes the best use of it.

On the other hand, maybe you still don't understand opportunity costs... Suppose Reyson can save 3 turns if given the Boots (which is at least in the ballpark). Further suppose that Marcia can save 5 turns if given the Boots. If turns saved are all that matters, Marcia is clearly the better recipient of the Boots. But the opportunity cost of Marcia receiving the Boots is at least 3 turns, because by giving the Boots to Marcia we forfeit the 3 turns that Reyson could have saved if we gave him the Boots. So despite a well-trained Marcia saving 5 turns when given the Boots, the net value we receive from Marcia by giving her the Boots is at most 2 turns. (Disclaimer: These "turns saved" values are not precise but are close enough to illustrate the point. Also, "turns saved" is not the only relevant metric in an efficiency analysis: reliability is a relevant factor ignored for simplicity.)

Now it seems you've argued that Marcia's boots benefit is effectively 0 since Jill can clone its effect. Again, this is predicated on Marcia and Jill being interchangeable. The problem is, Oscar is even more interchangeable, he has 4-5 other units who can mirror his contributions.

Nobody can emulate Oscar's earlygame contributions. (To be fair, nobody can emulate Marcia's C12.)

From a pragmatic standpoint, you know that Marcia will have 8-10 movement, depending on what role she's relegated to. Whereas, Oscar is pretty much guaranteed to have 8 movement. That amounts to an advantage in some form.

It amounts to some advantage that Marcia can make better use of the Boots than Oscar. But it doesn't amount to the advantage of assuming Marcia gets the Boots and suffers no opportunity cost penalty - which is the advantage that some posters (Mercenary Raven) have a tendency to assume. (BTW: Promoted mounted units have 9 mov in PoR.)

Ease of shoving and Marcia's Resistance stat also makes 6-turning 21 far more reliable (or doable) than Jill. That way you don't have to have both Ike and Jill waste a pure water at once, on top of it sometimes being difficult to get Tormod (Soren and Ilyana are far from capable of doing it and your non-magic units easily kill the guy) to attack the Sage that the one Bishop takes priority healing as opposed to using a Sleep staff on one of your characters. It also allows the mages to go for Tauroneo as opposed to Ike or Jill (in this case, Marcia) because of Resistance stats, which gets Tauroneo to Resolve range much faster to take care of Ena.

There's that problem of assuming that your LTC strategy is the only relevant one. There are a variety of strategies to 5-turn C21. Some involve Marcia, some involve Jill, some involve Tanith, and some involve transformed Boots Reyson. I even hear tell that it's possible to clear C21 in 4 turns, but I can't vouch for the reliability of such a strategy.

Details notwithstanding, there may be other instances where Marcia's lower Wt, higher AS, or higher Res give Marcia an advantage over Jill, just as there are instances where Jill's higher Atk and much greater physical durability give her advantages over Marcia. At this point, though, there is only one LTC clear I'm aware of that is flat-out impossible with Jill, and that is a 2-turn clear C17-2. (Actually, maybe it is possible with a Statue Frag...)

[Lord Raven]

1) Jill (and Tanith) can do almost everything that Marcia can.

It's been proven time and time again that Tanith can't emulate Marcia except the chapters they exist in tandem for- in which case, there is a greater opportunity cost to using Tanith in that you strip the earlier resources from Jill AND Marcia.

2) Even if Marcia's contributions were more impressively unique (for instance, if Jill isn't recruited), there is still an opportunity cost to her taking resources. It doesn't matter that we are definitely going to give her those resources if we are playing efficiently. Those resources would have positive value if used by other units. Marcia can't solo the entire game herself. We need to train other units to rout in chapters 13, 17-1, 18, and 25. We need at least two mounted units to efficiently clear arrive and seize chapters (16, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, and 28). We need other trained mounted units to grab some treasures in a timely fashion (including the C16 Full Guard and Dracoshield!). Resources that Marcia takes compromises our ability to have sufficiently trained units for our other needs. The hypothetical Marcia2, by contrast, frees up Bexp to be spent on other units. I think it's quite obvious that Marcia2 is strictly superior to Marcia. Only if you believe this hypothetical Marcia2 is identically valuable to Marcia can you claim that the opportunity cost of Marcia taking Bexp is 0.

I'm not sure why you don't realize that the opportunity cost for giving those resources to Marcia is actually much lower than if we gave them to everyone above and below her (assuming Jill doesn't exist which roughly 1/3 of all playthroughs have happening). Of course you need to train other units, the fact of the matter is that there are enough resources to have Ubermarcia and everyone else being very powerful too. And I know, because I among other people have successfully pulled it off.

Kieran needs a sizable chunk of Bexp to dominate and Oscar needs more than a handful.

This just isn't true. Kieran and Oscar are just about tied (probably a couple levels are in Oscar's favor) once you have them both. Kieran also has axes on top of that. Generally, it goes back to Marcia/Jill where in this case they're neck-in-neck but Oscar has his early-game to back him up.

But why ignore the other fliers? Jill needs a bunch of Bexp just like Marcia and puts it to at least as good a use after C12. Tanith wants all of Marcia's non-Bexp resources (the Energy Drop, Seraph Robe, Dracoshield(s), Boots, Full Guard) and puts them to at least as good use starting in C18. So any benefit that Marcia gets from those resources (including the Boots) in chapters 18-Endgame are exactly equivalent to the opportunity cost of giving them to Tanith. Marcia is a better candidate for those resources on the whole because she has extra chapters of availability (and favoritism inertia), but no better than the benefits we derive before C18, because Tanith can almost perfectly emulate Marcia's C18-Endgame performance with the same resources (and doesn't even need the Bexp, plus has Reinforce and proficiency with magic weapons).

And therefore giving Tanith these resources has an opportunity cost of Jill or Marcia not having them. At any rate, Vykan never suggested ignoring the other fliers; he in fact suggested that both fliers still dominate regardless of which one has Boots, it just happens that Boots makes them far more useful.

Unfortunately, your assertion that: "the savings are negligible" is completely innacurate. Aside from Marcia's impressive C12, Jill can do almost everything that Marcia can do if given the same resources. Even if we consider playthroughs where Jill is not recruited or trained, the unique turns that Marcia can save by taking these resources is limited to her performances before chapter 18 (because Tanith can do everything Marcia can from C18 onwards). That's just the simple case of giving all of Marcia's resources to Tanith instead. A more clever distribution would include giving Marcia's Bexp to Astrid or Makalov, and the Boots to Reyson, further minimizing x - e (which is no longer a infinitesimal epsilon).

Nope, it's perfectly sound. Marcia has only one unit to compete with that can make use of resources as well as her and that is Jill Fizzart. The fact of the matter is that, once again, the opportunity cost to giving Tanith these resources is giving them to Marcia/Jill ON TOP OF every single person in the tier above her and every single unit below her. That is a much larger opportunity cost than Oscar, admittedly, but being able to use Boots for Chapter 16 onwards is better than Chapter 18 onwards, especially because we have resources sitting around that could've also been used from the moment Marcia/Jill joined as opposed to just when Tanith joined.

Giving Marcia's BEXP to Astrid/Makalov strips BEXP away from Marcia/Jill/Oscar/everyone who's better and whatnot. That is a fact. You've yet to show me how Reyson helps aside from Theoryemblem, though, because I don't think Boots Reyson helps for much more aside from Chapter 18 (and Chapter 18 is a bitch because the Crows don't transform in time).

Probably Tanith. Maybe Astrid or Titania. Also Jill for a Seraph Robe, at least.

And only Jill can compete with Marcia in raw contributions with those resources. And even then they do exactly the same thing, so there is almost no cost... as far as I understand, if you have a unit, say X1 and a unit, say X2... and X1 ~= X2, the opportunity cost to using one over the other is negligible.

Haar is definitely a Speedwings candidate, but so is Boyd and any Paladin that gets speed screwed (all but Astrid are borderline on doubling the fastest enemies even with base Knight Ward level-ups).

You speak as if they all need to be able to double the fastest enemies. Swordmasters don't do enough for it to matter anyway, nor are there enough of them that you need to worry about doubling them.

Because this isn't "fliers vs." If we're evaluating Marcia and supposing that she gets a Full Guard monopoly, she is depriving Jill and Tanith of a valuable resource. If we're evaluating Jill and supposing that she gets the Full Guard in chapters with Ballistae, she is depriving the other fliers of that valuable resource in those chapters.

Yep and they all use it equally (well Tanith doesn't have it for as long once again but at least Full Guard can be equipped and re-equipped) once they're given the same resources so it doesn't matter who you give it to; as long as it's the Boots user.

On the other hand, maybe you still don't understand opportunity costs... Suppose Reyson can save 3 turns if given the Boots (which is at least in the ballpark). Further suppose that Marcia can save 5 turns if given the Boots. If turns saved are all that matters, Marcia is clearly the better recipient of the Boots. But the opportunity cost of Marcia receiving the Boots is at least 3 turns, because by giving the Boots to Marcia we forfeit the 3 turns that Reyson could have saved if we gave him the Boots. So despite a well-trained Marcia saving 5 turns when given the Boots, the net value we receive from Marcia by giving her the Boots is at most 2 turns. (Disclaimer: These "turns saved" values are not precise but are close enough to illustrate the point. Also, "turns saved" is not the only relevant metric in an efficiency analysis: reliability is a relevant factor ignored for simplicity.)

Show me the net value of Oscar, Kieran, and ANYONE ELSE aside from Jill, Reyson (because I still don't believe you, I seriously only see a borderline case for C21 and the rest have too much going against a frail and non-Full Guard flier) and MAYBE Tanith with Boots. Then tell me with a straight face that Marcia/Jill aren't the best recipients for Boots and every single opportunity cost argument against Marcia also applies to Jill. And then finally tell me that Marcia/Jill going from "okay -> PRIMARY TURN SHAVER" with BEXP is NOT a better investment than making a bunch of units go from "good -> pretty powerful but BEXP can't fix the fact that they can't fly :(" The opportunity cost of giving non-fliers BEXP outweighs the opportunity cost in relation to giving Fliers BEXP. (I know what opportunity cost generally refers to but I have no clue how to use it in a sentence sometimes, but that could be my own awkward sense of grammar).

Marcia's low turns are generally reliable though. Not any less reliable than Jill's (slightly more reliable in fact due to better Skl but that's nitpicking at something I shouldn't be).

Nobody can emulate Oscar's earlygame contributions. (To be fair, nobody can emulate Marcia's C12.)

Nobody can emulate a pumped up Marcia except Jill, and they can't emulate each other on the same playthrough.

But it doesn't amount to the advantage of assuming Marcia gets the Boots and suffers no opportunity cost penalty - which is the advantage that some posters (Mercenary Raven) have a tendency to assume. (BTW: Promoted mounted units have 9 mov in PoR.)

If she suffers an opportunity cost penalty from Boots, so does every single other unit. Except theirs is far worse because they're taking it from a flier who otherwise makes way more use of it (namely in like 50% of the chapters the Boots exist in, with many of the other 50% of chapters having interchangeability between who uses Boots; ie, no single unit is better with Boots than the other in many of the other 50%).

There's that problem of assuming that your LTC strategy is the only relevant one. There are a variety of strategies to 5-turn C21. Some involve Marcia, some involve Jill, some involve Tanith, and some involve transformed Boots Reyson. I even hear tell that it's possible to clear C21 in 4 turns, but I can't vouch for the reliability of such a strategy.

Details notwithstanding, there may be other instances where Marcia's lower Wt, higher AS, or higher Res give Marcia an advantage over Jill, just as there are instances where Jill's higher Atk and much greater physical durability give her advantages over Marcia. At this point, though, there is only one LTC clear I'm aware of that is flat-out impossible with Jill, and that is a 2-turn clear C17-2. (Actually, maybe it is possible with a Statue Frag...)

The 4 turn I heard of was an LTC playthrough as is and required stupid shit like 15+ Magic Sonic Sword Ike in a bunch of the strategies. It beat FE9 in like 110-120 or something turns, mind you, with the average efficiency hitting around 150-160 (mine got a little LTC at some points, but I am aiming for 142 at this point at the maximum). But I've yet to hear of any reliable 5-turns. At any rate, I didn't imply that but that was an instance in which her superior stats in certain areas were useful and could be taken into account in every Efficiency playthrough when contemplating Marcia or Jill. Edited September 26, 2011 by Mercenary Raven

[aku chi]

Mercenary Raven, your entire response is a misunderstanding best exemplified by this quote:

I'm not sure why you don't realize that the opportunity cost for giving those resources to Marcia is actually much lower than if we gave them to everyone above and below her (assuming Jill doesn't exist which roughly 1/3 of all playthroughs have happening).

I'm not sure why you're under the impression that I don't realize this (though I'd disagree with the "much" qualifier in the above quote). Since the resources we're discussing are Marcia's optimal resource bundle, it's tautological to state that giving those resources to other units results in a higher opportunity cost... But this fact is only relevant if someone was recommending that those resources be given to another unit. Let me make this very clear: that is not what I have been doing. What I have been doing is hypothetically considering the alternatives to giving Marcia's optimal resource bundle to Marcia. Tautologically, these alternatives are inferior. But they are 100% relevant when evaluating the opportunity cost of Marcia taking those resources.

Put another way: when evaluating Marcia's net value, it is not sufficient to consider how valuable she is when given her optimal resource bundle. We must also consider how valuable her optimal resource bundle is when its elements are given to their next best recipients. The difference between the first evaluation and the second is the true measure of Marcia's net value.

At this point, I really don't know how I can be more clear.

[Anouleth]

It's been proven time and time again that Tanith can't emulate Marcia except the chapters they exist in tandem for- in which case, there is a greater opportunity cost to using Tanith in that you strip the earlier resources from Jill AND Marcia.

Uh, what? This is just nonsense. Apparently, using Tanith, who joins at level 10 promoted and is highly capable from the second she joins has higher opportunity cost than plowing 3k of BEXP into Marcia and Jill. Apparently, needing no resources has a higher opportunity cost than needing resources. Apparently, using Tanith in Chapter 18 somehow means we can't give BEXP to Marcia in Chapter 11. Such is the almighty power of Tanith that she takes resources away from the team before she even joins.

[-Cynthia-]

How many turns is Oscar actually saving us earlygame? This seems to be an important factor in the comparisons with Marcia, but if it's only a turn or two it doesn't seem like a big enough point in his favor to put him over the fliers.

I have to agree that Tanith doesn't really use the same resources we need for an early Marcia/Jill for the most part. Tanith doesn't really need BEXP or statboosters, and giving her the Full Guard once she joins doesn't prevent us from using it in previous chapters. The Boots are the only thing Tanith may not be able to emulate, and the opportunity costs for the Boots seem rather high for everyone.