Serra or Priscilla?

[General Horace]

every use of warp is 1500g too, there's a wolf beil and I think a couple of stealable statboosters that really help funds (which is probably the toughest rank)

EDIT: and if you're going for turns it's almost better to have someone like Boots!Heath or someone just take Hector to the boss and kill him for/with Hector.

Edited February 19, 2015 by General Horace

[dondon151]

2. That's just silly. First, warping through Berserker is the optimal approach, as it's a map with limited experience, a zero-turn requirement, and only two unit slots. Second, warp spam is a great way to build up a lot of extra experience, giving 42 experience even to promoted healers.

you're not saving very many turns by using warp in chapter 30 unless you're rigging hector to critkill the boss.

[feplus]

1. Funds is fairly lenient on hard modes due to the silver card.

2. A hammerne use or two on your warp staff is a fine investment. 42 / 85 experience a pop is nice.

3. You can get two wolf beils (one from a fighter, one from a thief) and still reliably warp-clear Berserker.

4. Warping saves you quite a bit of time considering a) Hector's five mov, and b) Hector's high constitution (making it difficult to rescue / drop him at the boss). A much better option than having Hector slug his way to the throne.

As for the Berserker stealable items: how are you getting them? Bringing a thief along means wasting (edit: looking at the map it appears closer to 5) turns. Better to prepare for those extra turns and spend them at the Ch.24 arena (for experience + gold) or on 32x (for experience).

Edited February 19, 2015 by feplus

[Florete]

If you're not doing a ranked run, yes. But then you don't need two healers.

2. IIRC funds is a stricter rank than tactics. If you warpskip, you'll probably miss out on stuff, and Warp isn't exactly cheap.

every use of warp is 1500g too, there's a wolf beil and I think a couple of stealable statboosters that really help funds (which is probably the toughest rank)

EDIT: and if you're going for turns it's almost better to have someone like Boots!Heath or someone just take Hector to the boss and kill him for/with Hector.

What are you guys talking about? Funds is no Combat (in that you can pretty much ignore Combat), but it's definitely much easier than Tactics and Experience since those two balance each other out and the Experience rank is very strict, thus straining Tactics. Consider the fact that you can use the Silver Card and dump all your remaining cash on Elixirs before VoD to bolster it right at the end.

And if you're really worried about Funds so much that even using Warp is threatening, it's already the best thing to use the Hammerne on in a ranked run, so when Hammerne breaks just don't use Warp anymore.

you're not saving very many turns by using warp in chapter 30 unless you're rigging hector to critkill the boss.

I can't say exactly how many turns it saves in 30 (I would estimate at least 3-4), but it's pretty easily the best place to make use of Warp in a ranked run for the reasons feplus stated. Really, where else will you use it for anything but bonus experience? Just Final, but even without Hammerne there should still be enough uses by then to do whatever you need.

[dondon151]

4. Warping saves you quite a bit of time considering a) Hector's five mov, and b) Hector's high constitution (making it difficult to rescue / drop him at the boss). A much better option than having Hector slug his way to the throne.

no it doesn't. chapter 30 is at minimum a 4-turn clear with 1 rescue and 1 warp use off a unit with 24 mag. here's when staff-capable units can be expected to hit 24 mag on average:

serra: never

erk: never

priscilla: never

lucius: 20/9

canas: 20/20

pent: never

nino: yeah right lol

okay, so we're not 4-turning chapter 30. 5-turning with 1 warp and 1 rescue is pretty easy. if we cut out the rescue, then the minimum is 6 turns. this is keeping in mind that hector has to 2RKO the boss somehow and he's not expected to double on average at 20/1 even with both speedwings.

hector just walking to kaim's tile takes 8 turns. if hector's doing this, then someone else can move ahead of hector and take care of kaim for him.

general horace also suggested carrying hector with boots heath. heath can reach the tile directly adjacent to kaim in 4 turns. he can drop hector nearby on turn 4 and 2RKO the boss, allowing for a 5-turn clear.

so basically, warp reasonably saves 2 turns in chapter 30 relative to a non-heath, non-florina clear as long as hector finds a way to 2RKO the boss. if hector can't 2RKO the boss, then warp saves only 1 turn and you're gambling with a pretty unreliable strategy. 1 or 2 turns is not "quite a bit of time." if you have boots heath or florina, then you're not even saving turns with warp and rescue.

Edited February 19, 2015 by dondon151

[feplus]

Not sure how rescue is helping with two unit slots.

With a 16-mag Priscilla (should get there by 20/3), Hector can reach and attack Kaim by turn three. Short of a miracle where Hector double-crits for a four turn completion, expecting Hector to finish up Kaim in four attacks (two player phase, two enemy phase) is reasonable. So that's a five-turn base strategy.

Bringing a combat user in place of Prissy means Hector takes eight turns to reach the magic tile. A six-mov unit like Raven takes seven turns to reach Kaim, and he should be able to comfortably deal with Kaim in three attacks (two player phase, one enemy phase). So that's an eight-turn strategy.

Bringing a thief in place of Prissy means Hector needs to waddle over to Kaim in eight turns then take two turns or so to beat Kaim. So that's a ten-turn strategy.

Note that the Raven strat means foregoing an extra wolf beil. So on top of being three turns slower, it's also costing you 6K in free assets. Three turns in ranked play is nothing to sneeze at; converted to arena use turns, that's sacrificing like 20K in assets and twelve visits of arena experience.

All because you have some principled objection to using warp? I don't get it.

Edited February 19, 2015 by feplus

[dondon151]

you basically ignored my breakdown of the various chapter 30 strategies and then promulgated a worse analysis. okay.

i suggest you look up horace's HHM LTC strategy for chapter 30. that's the canonical 1 rescue + 1 warp 4-turn strategy for the chapter (except horace forgot to rig a unit with 24 mag, but the principle is still the same). you also ignored the boots florina or boots heath rescue strategy, which much more reliably 5-turns the chapter.

EDIT: so before we continue on this trainwreck of a digression further, let me review what's been said. i said that "you're not saving many turns by using warp in chapter 30." this is demonstrably true. warp saves 0 turns relative to a boots flier strategy, 1 turn relative to a boots hector strategy, and 3 turns relative to a hector on foot strategy. about 330 turns is required to 5-star tactics and 3 turns doesn't make a whole lot of difference (obviously, 1 turn makes even less of a difference).

you retaliated by saying "warping through chapter 30 is the most optimal approach." yeah, look, warping through chapter 30 saves you 0-3 turns. even if it were the most optimal approach, it doesn't refute my original statement of "you're not saving many turns by using warp in chapter 30."

lastly, you claimed that i have some "principled objection to using warp." this is ridiculous. i don't have such an objection, and i resent this accusation. i'd like an apology.

Edited February 19, 2015 by dondon151

[feplus]

On the contrary, my analysis is more thorough and more accurate. You don't need a rescue staff to 5-turn (or even 4-turn) the map, for example, as you claimed.

I checked out Horace's LTC strategy. That's a neat use of rescue, but if we're rigging stats and crits as Horace was, it's unnecessary. A 4-turn completion is doable with a 16-mag Prissy and warp.

Again, using warp instead of a second combat unit saves the player three turns and nets them another wolf beil, which translates into roughly 26K of assets and twelve visits of arena experience.

If you want to give boots to Florina or Heath instead, that's a viable five-turn strat and you can, but on ranked those boots are better applied elsewhere. Super high movement units common to LTC are of limited value in ranked runs. Instead, why not save the boots, warp twice, and pocket a cool 84 bonus experience on top of a five-turn completion?

edit: responding to an edit

EDIT: so before we continue on this trainwreck of a digression further

No need to be so hard on yourself.

I said using warp saves "quite a bit of time." It does. It saves you three turns compared to Hector + offensive unit, significant on a ranked run because of the value each turn has- to repeat, those turns liquidate into ~20K value and twelve arena visits' worth of experience. It saves you five turns compared to Hector + thief, an idea Horace floated.

Compared to a boots strategy, the warp strategy nets you an extra 6K in value and 84 experience (more probably, considering your promoted fliers will be getting combat over Hector). So even granting that this strategy is viable, which I have, it's still suboptimal. And that's assuming you want to sink 8K into flier movement, when that movement is better added elsewhere on ranked runs.

Edited February 19, 2015 by feplus

[dondon151]

On the contrary, my analysis is more thorough and more accurate. You don't need a rescue staff to 5-turn (or even 4-turn) the map, for example, as you claimed.

but you do need 2 warps instead of 1 warp + 1 rescue. the point here is that my post delineated the possible strategies and listed the turncounts: 5 for staff usage, 5 for boots flier, and 8 for non-boots hector. your analysis was completely unwarranted (on top of ignoring boots flier).

Instead, why not save the boots, warp twice, and pocket a cool 84 bonus experience on top of a five-turn completion?

so when it serves a selfish purpose, funds is an easy rank, but when it contradicts what you want to say, then funds is important enough to warrant not using the boots? please.

330 turns is not difficult and you can literally use the boots on anyone (or not use it at all) and complete ranked HHM in 330 turns. the 84 "bonus experience" is not exclusive to chapter 30. you can blow warp staff uses in any other chapter and net the warp staff experience.

No need to be so hard on yourself.

dude, don't pin the blame on me, you're the one who took issue with my statement that using warp in chapter 30 isn't saving many turns. disregarding your inflated numbers, no one is going to fail S ranking HHM because he didn't use priscilla @ warp in chapter 30.

Edited February 19, 2015 by dondon151

[feplus]

I dunno, I find it curious you'd attack my analysis as "worse" when you falsely stated warp reasonably saves 2 turns in chapter 30 relative to a non-heath, non-florina clear as long as hector finds a way to 2RKO the boss.

We're approaching agreement on the numbers. Without boots fliers, Hector + combat unit takes three extra turns and Hector + thief takes five extra turns. In addition, warping nets the player 84 extra experience minimum and 6K extra assets over Hector + combat unit and Hector + boots flier.

Where we disagree is on the significance of those three turns. Again, three turns liquidates into 20K assets and twelve visits' worth of arena experience. How isn't that significant?

oh and some other things i forgot to address

1. I never said the Funds rank was easy. I said it was fairly lenient with the silver card. Dropping 8K at a whim is still something to be wary of.

2. You can use the boots on anyone, but, as I said before, boot use is better served on other units within the context of ranked.

3. If we're going to abuse warp staff experience elsewhere (I wasn't sure we were judging by your there's also approximately zero reason to use warp in HHM ranked playthroughs comment), then those turns still have an experience opportunity cost. At the very least you're losing out on barrier staff exp.

Edited February 19, 2015 by feplus

[General Horace]

If you're doing the Hector + thief strategy odds are Hector has the boots, and reaches the boss by turn 5 on his own, allowing for a 7 turn clear, and nets you an extra 16k.

I dunno, I find it curious you'd attack my analysis as "worse" when you falsely stated warp reasonably saves 2 turns in chapter 30 relative to a non-heath, non-florina clear as long as hector finds a way to 2RKO the boss.

We're approaching agreement on the numbers. Without boots fliers, Hector + combat unit takes three extra turns and Hector + thief takes five extra turns. In addition, warping nets the player 84 extra experience minimum and 6K extra assets over Hector + combat unit and Hector + boots flier.

Where we disagree is on the significance of those three turns. Again, three turns liquidates into 20K assets and twelve visits' worth of arena experience. How isn't that significant?

I'm a bit confused where you're getting the 20k assets from (the wolf beil is 6k, and you're not getting any other item except maybe the pure water), are you getting the other 14k from the 12 arena visits somehow? I could just be missing something too.

One could also point out that having boots on Heath/Florina/whoever saves more than however many turns you're suggesting (i'm a bit lost in this arguement now) so why wouldn't you give them the boots when they save, lets say, 5 turns over giving them to god knows who else equates to 5 turns of arena use if you're so inclined. Which is probably overkill since you don't even need the arena to comfortably S Rank (although it is the easiest way).

[feplus]

Hector + boots + thief is a neat idea. I believe it takes Hector + boots six turns, not five, to reach Kaim, so we'd be looking at 8 turns. That 16K is nice (8K if you weren't planning to use the boots otherwise) but you get more bang for your buck spending those turns at the FFO arena.

Speaking of, here is how I reached my calculations. FFO gives the player plenty of unit slots even on HHM, so with smart rescue / drop strategies a player gets four arena visits per turn. Roughly 850 gold per visit = 3350 per turn; at three turns, that's 10050 gold, or 20100 in value once liquidated to elixers with the silver card.

Where would boots fliers save turns on ranked? We've established that warping Berserker is just as fast and carries some additional experience / funds benefits. Wouldn't save time on 31/31x. Warping VoD is almost as quick and, besides, you need to squeeze as much experience out of VoD as you can to help satisfy its outrageous exp requirement. Any chapters in particular you have in mind?

Edited February 19, 2015 by feplus

[Baldrick]

Is it possible to get the Wolf Beil and a 5-turn clear with Warp? Because of the terrain, it's more efficient you go west like Horace did; if you go north, you need Priscilla with 22 mag (avg 20/18) to warp Hector far enough, which may not be feasible. Would your warper have time to double back?

Edited February 19, 2015 by Baldrick

[Jedi]

Sorry for the misunderstanding earlier, I wasn't aware that the topic was on ranked when I asked about using both in the same run (I kinda hastily glanced and said stuff. Whoops)

[feplus]

Is it possible to get the Wolf Beil and a 5-turn clear with Warp? Because of the terrain, it's more efficient you go west like Horace did; if you go north, you need Priscilla with 22 mag (avg 20/18) to warp Hector far enough, which may not be feasible. Would your warper have time to double back?

For reference, here is a map. Keep in mind that as this is HHM, Priscilla will start on the deployment tile to the right of Hector.

General strategy: on turn one, warp Hector to the spot four tiles up and two tiles left of Chest 2. On turn two, warp Hector as far left as you can, and then have him start walking up. Prissy then goes north, where she has time to kill the fighter and then kill the wolf beil thief, who heads west after plundering Chest 1.

[General Horace]

Hector + boots + thief is a neat idea. I believe it takes Hector + boots six turns, not five, to reach Kaim, so we'd be looking at 8 turns. That 16K is nice (8K if you weren't planning to use the boots otherwise) but you get more bang for your buck spending those turns at the FFO arena.

Speaking of, here is how I reached my calculations. FFO gives the player plenty of unit slots even on HHM, so with smart rescue / drop strategies a player gets four arena visits per turn. Roughly 850 gold per visit = 3350 per turn; at three turns, that's 10050 gold, or 20100 in value once liquidated to elixers with the silver card.

Where would boots fliers save turns on ranked? We've established that warping Berserker is just as fast and carries some additional experience / funds benefits. Wouldn't save time on 31/31x. Warping VoD is almost as quick and, besides, you need to squeeze as much experience out of VoD as you can to help satisfy its outrageous exp requirement. Any chapters in particular you have in mind?

It's probably not 5 turns, I never really counted, I just kind of threw out a general number. It's honestly more like 3, one getting treasure/transporting Hector in 28x, it likely saves a turn in 29 (along with triggering reinforcements earlier) and it saves a turn in endgame since you can open an extra door on turn 1 (Lloyd/Linus's or Kenneth's)

The money thing makes more sense now, although depending on the unit, 850 per arena encounter might be generous though, even units that are pretty good in the arena like Raven can get screwed over by a wyvern rider or something at that range. Your point still stands though.

It also makes getting experience easier on units (especially if Heath/Florina have the whip, since they can carry everyone except Dorcas, Oswin, and Hawkeye in chapters like VoD. It's not a huge difference though. By VoD I personally usually have enough experience that I could just beat the chapter with whoever and still have enough by the time endgame is over though, so it's kinda a moot point (in my opinion anyway).

Edited February 19, 2015 by General Horace

[dondon151]

boots flier will save turns on literally every map; the problem is that we're not LTCing in ranked so saved turns become unimportant. which is why the whole 0/1/3 turn difference thing in chapter 30 is being incredibly overblown by feplus. i'm convinced he's trolling by this point.

honestly, if you're going to cite the arena's opportunity cost as a reason to use warp in chapter 30, then you might as well cite it as an opportunity cost for every other chapter. in this case, ranked might as well be LTC + lord grinding + spending 120 turns in chapters 17x, 21, and 24 to grind the arena.

also, he's just pulling the 850G per arena fight number out of his ass; arena wagers are between 600G and 1000G so the median expected wager should be 800G. you're far more likely to be picking fights less than 800G because you can get fucked over on fights above that wager amount.

[feplus]

Don't know why you're so opposed to accepting turns in ranked runs are valuable. They are. I've demonstrated that they are. You don't need to advocate some silly 120-turn arena grind strategy.

850 was a conservative estimate considering the player has complete control over who is fought in the arena. Arena-savvy units like Raven should be pulling in 900+ every fight, for instance.

Again, warping Berserker is optimal. It nets you more turns, assets, and / or experience than the other strategies put forward. I have demonstrated this several times.

I'm disappointed to see you turn to name-calling. I've enjoyed our exchange and hope we can do it again soon.

[dondon151]

what part of my post is name-calling

i'm challenging you to be consistent. if turns are valuable in one place, then they are valuable in all other places. if saving 3 turns in the berserker is oh so important, then there's more than enough reason to boots your 15 aid flier and LTC every map in which he or she can be employed. and if you boots your 15 aid flier, then you can 5-turn the berserker without using warp, so there you go - LTCing the berserker is not a reason to use warp in ranked.

you're also totally bullshitting on the arena wager estimates.

850 was a conservative estimate considering the player has complete control over who is fought in the arena. Arena-savvy units like Raven should be pulling in 900+ every fight, for instance.

you don't have "complete control" over who is fought in the arena. you can't even see what your opponent is until after you accept the wager. all you have to go on in terms of gauging your likelihood of winning the arena match is the initial wager. arena enemy stats are adjusted to your combatant's stats and the wager is calculated from how strong the game thinks the enemy is relative to your combatant. wagers above 800G indicate that the opponent is stronger than the combatant. because of this, performance in the arena does not substantially vary between units. units in 0% growths runs are generally just as arena-competent as units in growths runs.

once you get up to the 900G range, you're taking battles that you have on average a 50% chance or greater of losing. enjoy your resets. if you are arena grinding at all, you should be taking wagers no greater than 750G because you're nearly guaranteed to win those battles.

Edited February 19, 2015 by dondon151

[Baldrick]

I see it this way. You have a set amount of turns in which you need to complete the game, amass X amount of assets, gain Y levels, (also maintain a 40% kill to battle ratio and 100% survival rate but that's considered trivial. To be efficient, you need to get the most experience/swag you can out of each turn; for chapter 30, that won't be very much with only two units. So it's prudent to rush through the chapter, and spend your turns where they will be more profitable.

[Florete]

i'm challenging you to be consistent. if turns are valuable in one place, then they are valuable in all other places. if saving 3 turns in the berserker is oh so important, then there's more than enough reason to boots your 15 aid flier and LTC every map in which he or she can be employed. and if you boots your 15 aid flier, then you can 5-turn the berserker without using warp, so there you go - LTCing the berserker is not a reason to use warp in ranked.

I don't see what the confusion is here. You want to quick clear The Berserker more so than others in ranked because of the experience rank. Having only two deployment slots severely limits how much experience you can get out of those turns.

I mean, obviously turns are valuable everywhere, but it's the ratio of turns to experience that is important here. Using Warp not only helps make chapter completion faster, it adds extra experience (at least probably more than other methods).

This whole thing is really dumb, tbh. It all happened because you said there's no reason to use Warp in HHM ranked, a statement that is completely false because experience is a rank. It just so happens that you can simultaneously use it to gain experience and save turns at the same time in a few places. What's so difficult about that?

[feplus]

Don't have much to add, Red and Baldrick's posts do a good job explaining things. Quick points about the arena:

1. You do indeed have total control over who you fight. If you don't like the enemy you'd be facing, simply soft reset and try again.

2. Certain units are indeed more arena-savvy than others. HHM arena use is tough; units with very high speed, dodge, and power fare better.

As for the name-calling, you implied I was a "troll." Please don't do that again.

Edited February 19, 2015 by feplus

[dondon151]

So it's prudent to rush through the chapter, and spend your turns where they will be more profitable.

so it's prudent to rush through every chapter and spend your turns where they will be more profitable: the arena.

1. You do indeed have total control over who you fight. If you don't like the enemy you'd be facing, simply soft reset and try again.

since when was this an acceptable tactic

you have total control over your level ups too, just RNG plan the chapter. obviously we don't make this assumption here.

[feplus]

Since when is it not an acceptable tactic? I figured that out my very first playthrough of the game; it's not exactly hidden knowledge, and it makes arena fights more manageable.

Comparing it to thorough RNG abuse (which more or less requires an emulator and RN script) is a super stretch.

But okay. If we decide that greater control over arena outcomes is problematic, then three turns would liquidate into roughly 15K in assets instead of 20K in assets. This doesn't change much of anything.

[Irysa]

You don't actually need the script to rig the important stats in level ups beacuse it's possible to know whether an RN is above or below 50 by the way the cursor ends up assuming you use the odd numbered unit range method of burning the RNs. If you can derive that, and then get the numbers below 50 then for most chars this guarantees HP for nearly everyone and is likely to give you a stat up in STR SKL SPD for most chars, and DEF for or RES for some others.

You can also simply reset the game after arrow burning and it will take you back before you started arrow burning, since suspends don't count it.

EDIT: Anyway this is really besides the point. If we're going to draw a line about whether or not you can rig shit like that then I'd say rigging arena enemies is about as acceptable as rigging a crit or rigging a level up, in which case, we may as well just go full hog and say the sky is the limit. In which case, we can just do whatever the hell we want, and your patience is the only factor to care about.

I could also extend this by saying I believe you can't actually figure out exactly what all the requirements are for each thing in HHM Ranked without external information, so you could also just externally grab the FE7 RN string via me say, putting it up on SF, in which case you don't even need to do that and can just count RNs.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Irysa