ITT I rank the characters

[Progenitus]

Moulder the Boulder

I think IS wanted to make Moulder a knight, but accidentally programmed him to be a priest instead.

All jokes aside, you can expect from him what you'd expect from earlygame healers in other games; high utility value. I don't think I need to explain how useful healing is, especially earlygame where everyone except your jeigan (or ppl like Oswin) can die. Of course, since pure healing doesn't really rely on stats, this means Natasha gives him some competition once she shows up, but there's no problem with having two healers anyway.

However, what separates Moulder from many other healers is his post-promotion performance. Once my team starts getting stronger and don't need as much healing, I want my healer to also improve, particularly when they promote and can fight. And Moulder exceeds that expectation. He has decent spd, and his high con means he can use the heavy tomes with minimal or no AS loss while also giving a lot of att to help his relatively low mag, and also gets full att from Vanessa and Colm support. In addition, all of his supports also give full def, and three give full avo on top of that (okay, one of them is lolSyrene, but still...).

As an example, 20/2 Sage Moulder vs 20/1 GK Forde... Similar spd, Forde has 1-2 more raw pow and ~3 def (and 7-8 lck for avo), but Moulder gets more def/avo from supports and hits res (granted, Forde will eventually upgrade to silver weapons once they are buyable while Elfire is basically Moulder's best weapon). I'd certainly wager Moulder being better at combat (or at least similar), and Forde's a pretty good fighter. So you know Moulder will be a great fighter, while still being able to heal.

His supports are fairly slow (they're all +2), but he doesn't really need supports before promotion anyway, and by the time he does promote he should have double Bs or something, which is more than enough to make him a good fighter.

Promotion choice? Basically, slayer vs anima. I'd probably go with Sage. Anima is pretty sexy as he gets auto-C, which means auto Elfire (for no AS loss to boot). Slayer is really nice for monsters, but they tend to be weaker than the human enemies so you don't really need it to kill them anyway, and light just sucks compared to anima. They're so heavy they even give Moulder and his 11 con AS loss, and while his spd is decent, he probably doesn't want to lose more than 1-2 AS.

Moulder overall is good. His only big problem is, like other healers, he doesn't fare as well on smaller teams as the other fighters, where CEXP is concentrated onto fewer fighters, but Moulder can't access that pool until promotion, and his staff exp pool is limited to the number of turns in a chapter which doesn't change between team sizes.

9/10

Edited October 30, 2009 by 8========================D

[CATS]

IMO just give Seth an 11 and hand out 10s to the units who deserve them. Seth is an outlier.

[Progenitus]

IMO just give Seth an 11 and hand out 10s to the units who deserve them. Seth is an outlier.

>_>

That would mean I'd have to revise the rankings, since I already gave a general score to everyone.

[Mekkah]

Am I the only one who doesn't have a Boulder with a level lead on others when playing? He can only gain 11 or 12 EXP on player phase, double that if danced to. A fighter only needs to average two non-kill battles per turn to surpass that, and while not every fighter is facing multiple enemies per turn, at least two or three are, and then there's also kills etc. Fielding Natasha makes this even worse as now they have to compete for the heal EXP.

Don't get me wrong, Moulder and healing are awesome, but I don't think he has a level lead. In fact, I don't think he gets anywhere without being promoted much before 20/0.

[Dat Nick]

Am I the only one who doesn't have a Boulder with a level lead on others when playing? He can only gain 11 or 12 EXP on player phase, double that if danced to. A fighter only needs to average two non-kill battles per turn to surpass that, and while not every fighter is facing multiple enemies per turn, at least two or three are, and then there's also kills etc. Fielding Natasha makes this even worse as now they have to compete for the heal EXP.

Hm. I concur. Plus FE8 chapters are generally kind of short. Mister Moustache could probably do to drop a bit on the list unless early promo makes him that awesome.

Edited October 1, 2009 by Germany

[Jaybee]

Well, early promo DOES make Boulder have effective damage on Monsters an all, so it's quite good, but most monsters in this game are lolfail, so ehh...

And you aren't the only one, Mekkah.

Edited October 1, 2009 by Joshybear25

[Dat Nick]

Well, early promo DOES make Boulder have effective damage on Monsters an all, so it's quite good, but most monsters in this game are lolfail, so ehh...

Which is exactly why Boulder goes Sage.

[-Cynthia-]

Am I the only one who doesn't have a Boulder with a level lead on others when playing? He can only gain 11 or 12 EXP on player phase, double that if danced to. A fighter only needs to average two non-kill battles per turn to surpass that, and while not every fighter is facing multiple enemies per turn, at least two or three are, and then there's also kills etc. Fielding Natasha makes this even worse as now they have to compete for the heal EXP.

Don't get me wrong, Moulder and healing are awesome, but I don't think he has a level lead. In fact, I don't think he gets anywhere without being promoted much before 20/0.

I agree, I usually end up promoting Moulder at 10/1, which he isn't even at in Ch6 is most of my playthroughs. The only way Moulder can get a level lead is if we're going really slowly or not using Seth, both of which are not efficient.

This is actually a pretty common problem across all the FE games . People generally overestimate healer levels IMO, when we're going for the generally lowest turn count possible, their opportunities to heal are limited and so is their EXP.

[CATS]

Just depends on team size. The more units you use, the higher healer levels are relative to those of the fighters. I generally use 12 unit teams and I generally have Moulder a couple levels above everyone else (cept Franz, who is always ahead of everyone on account of general awesomeness); this is with fielding Natasha, but giving Moulder priority for the heals (i.e. if there's only 1 unit to heal, Moulder gets it, always).

Early-promote Moulder so you'll have a Bishop for Ch 11 and 12, then Natasha is left with a monopoly on the healing, and everyone is happy.

[Mekkah]

Yeah, I prefer Bishop over Sage too.

Light is 4 mt, Fire 5

Shine is 6 mt, Thunder 8

Divine is 8 mt, Elfire 10

But Bishop has +2 mag promo while Sage has +1, so the gap is really zero for basic spells, and 1 for the more advanced ones. I'd say Slayer's boosted might matters more than that, looking at the ridiculous HP amounts some monsters have. And Moulder's never going to get to the weapon level of a legendary unless you leave staves alone, but that destroys half his utility.

I agree his level (and pretty much his usefulness in general) depends on team size. If you're on a super small team, for example just lords, Franz, Vanessa, Lute, then Franz/Vanessa will promote and effectively become nearly invincible as soon as Ch9, and Lute will follow soon enough if she's given some slight favouritism (like feed her that low hp Fighter instead of someone else). It's simply much more efficient for those to charge ahead and occasionally use a vuln or elixir than to shield Moulder all the time.

On the other hand, if I'm adding Artur, Joshua, Forde and Gerik to this, then more people will be taking damage, but in exchange they'll be able to shield Moulder more easily, so his value increases.

I personally prefer small teams, but there's something to say for both sides (went in depth on it once with Zorak in an Eirika vs Joshua debate)...in the end, I wouldn't say it averages out to a 9.5 score for Moulder.

[Progenitus]

I didn't realize bishop got +1 mag promo bonus over sage. Although, Divine is 12 wt, so Moulder loses 1 AS, and he also only starts with D Light, and Divine is C, so it takes a little bit before he can use it. And if he ever reaches A Anima, Fimbulvetr is 13 mt for only 1 AS loss (so basically, 5 more mt than Divine). For A Light, Aura is 12 mt for 4 AS loss, and he gets Aura even later than he would get Fimbulvetr.

That said, Moulder becomes a decent fighter after promotion. From what I see he's comparable to Forde at pure fighting already, some dude in high tier or so. Is staves really worth that little?

[Mekkah]

My problem isn't Moulder's combat parameters at 20/1, it's that he's being compared to someone who should have a level lead over him instead of vice versa.

[Candlejack]

I use Artur for the Sage.

Lute is Mage Knight. Just throwing that out there...

Bishop Moulder doubles anyway with Shine and, surprisingly, Divine, at Level 20/6.

Maybe I'm just blessed.

[Dat Nick]

This is actually a pretty common problem across all the FE games . People generally overestimate healer levels IMO, when we're going for the generally lowest turn count possible, their opportunities to heal are limited and so is their EXP.

Not in FEDS since healer EXP is ludicrous and lots of healing is required.

But that's another show.

[Blackbird]

Healer EXP is easy to artificially inflate. For example, healing a character for 1 HP every time they gain HP from leveling. You can also intentionally get your units damaged by enemies so that you can heal more. Staves like Barrier can be spammed to create EXP whenever you want it. It's more a matter of "do I want to incur the expense of buying additional Heal staves so my healers can level rapidly, or do I want to play conservatively?"

[Mekkah]

It's already being assumed that the player creates additional healing opportunities when that's efficient. The problem is that it's still limited by the amount of turns on every chapter, and that turn 1 generally has no healing.

[Don Draper]

Moulder needs 1700/11.5 (I'll assume he's using Heal/Mend about equally or approximately 148 turns to reach Level 20. If we assume about 12 turns a chapter, thats only taking him 12 chapters, or around Chapter 13. Not to mention the extra exp from Barrier, etc. I don't know if 12 turns a chapter is reasonable or not, I haven't played this game in awhile.

[Mekkah]

It's reasonable for the midgame chapters since they're pretty long, but not so much for earlygame. Ch2, for example, has no healing on turn 1, and likely takes only 2-3 more turns after that.

[Paperblade]

Am I the only one who doesn't have a Boulder with a level lead on others when playing? He can only gain 11 or 12 EXP on player phase, double that if danced to. A fighter only needs to average two non-kill battles per turn to surpass that, and while not every fighter is facing multiple enemies per turn, at least two or three are, and then there's also kills etc. Fielding Natasha makes this even worse as now they have to compete for the heal EXP.

Don't get me wrong, Moulder and healing are awesome, but I don't think he has a level lead. In fact, I don't think he gets anywhere without being promoted much before 20/0.

My healers are usually overleveled (except in 4 due to lolmove save Ethlin and 10 because EXP gain for everyone else is higher compared to the piddling crap combat units get in other games like FE7 plus the lack of awesomeness like Warp and Rescue). Although I'm pretty sure I also take like 50% longer than I should on most chapters because 90% displayed hit is actually 50% in my games.

Edited October 4, 2009 by Paperblade

[Mekkah]

What team size do you usually have?

[BBM]

I can't ever get a healer in SS to 20 before 14/15. I've never understodd how people are sitting there with a 20/1 Moulder at 11 and 12.

[Paperblade]

What team size do you usually have?

Generally I use just enough to fill the smallest chapter. So if there's a chapter where I can only field like 7 units, I'll only use 7 units (unless there's a unit that joins after that chapter that I want to use). There's obviously exceptions, such as FE4 where you can use everyone, FE5 where lolfatigue, and H5 where Sedgar.

[Don Draper]

What about FE7? (Chapter 28E/30H). You'd be kind of screwed there.

Also, what is the lowest character max in FE8?

[Paperblade]

What about FE7? (Chapter 28E/30H). You'd be kind of screwed there.

Also, what is the lowest character max in FE8?

Outlier/I forgot about it

[Don Draper]

So the minimum deployment slots in FE8 is 9, which seems like a pretty reasonable team. The lords, Franz, Moulder, Vanessa, Lute, Gerik, Kyle and Colm for example. Problem with small teams is that I can never get supports to work out the way I want.

Edited October 8, 2009 by IOS