Why Lyn is a bad unit?

[ping]

1 hour ago, Florete said:

Yeah, 5 years give or take. This is an argument in some scenarios, but none I care for. I don't subscribe to the logic that everyone other than the best is bad.

What's the answer to that argument, then? How would you rate PoR!Rolf, for example? He fares, I'd say, better in combat than (no-lyn-mode-)Lyn thanks to BEXP, forges, and PoR's general power level, but he's still the overall worst combatant that doesn't have any other utility. Is he a 'good unit'?

I see this as a three-part question - 1) How good are characters compared to other playable characters? - 2) How large is the difference between (relatively speaking) good and bad characters in the game? - 3) How forgiving is the game when you field "sub-optimal" characters?

Blazing Sword is, I think, relatively lenient on the 2nd and 3rd part. If it wasn't for Marcus, I would say it has the best unit balance of the games I've played (which is 6-12), and most enemies aren't super scary even on HHM. So while I still think that Lyn is decidedly low-tier without Lyn mode (with it, I think she's alright, but still not stellar), she's far less trouble to use than for example the FE6 scrub tier.

 

[msterforks]

7 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

You can buy as many Lancereavers as you want. Functionally, they aren't limited except for the dent using them has on your Funds ranking (which any given player may or may not care about). There are only three maps with wyverns before you can buy them. In one of them, they all use Axereavers anyway, and in another, there are only a small number who likely die to Pent. (Lyn's bad on that map anyway, mind, but so is everyone else who isn't a mage or flier.)

Lancereavers not strong enough... what? They're 11 might against lances! That's only -1 compared to a steel axe, +1 on a steel lance, +3 on a hand axe. I can't speak to what levels/supports you're assuming but my experience is this should one-round cavaliers without much issue, wyverns may be more borderline though. Any wyverns who do survive (those who don't eat it to a random crit) will be one poke from death, so yeah, lancereaver Lyn (or whoever) can go in and clean up against a crop of wyverns just fine while being literally unkillable.

A number of the units you hype as superior to Lyn either have similar attack (Kent, Florina, Fiora) or lower (Lowen), so if Lyn's offence isn't sufficing against a wyvern, neither is theirs. Lancereaver Sain and Raven are indeed better wyvern killers. Raven is also arguably the best unit in the game, certainly the best unit without a special property (flight or dance or being super-overlevelled), and Sain is pretty beastly too outside his shaky base speed, so Lyn losing to them isn't a cause for shame.

Let's break it down.

Lancereavers are not available until ch24H. Her MK does one round cavs well enough in the early game, but she faces 40-50 displayed hit every fight and gets 2HKO'd. Even with forest advantage, she doesn't comfortably take three cavs charging her.

Level 16 Lyn has 10 strength on average (I like picking nice numbers)

A random wyvern on that chapter has 30HP/12def, a 4HKO. It's not feasible to buy enough lancereavers to sustain this. Also, 12 HP on a 12 def wyvern is still scary.

EDIT: I should mention that this conversation started with HHM ranked, so we don't really want to throw away our funds unnecessarily.

A random cav on ch25H has 33HP/8def, a 3HKO. Not even close to an ORKO.

The difference between the units I mentioned and Lyn is that Lyn absolutely cannot engage two wyverns without a lancereaver. If she does end up fight a wyvern, she does next to nothing. On the contrary, said units have enough dodge and/or bulk to safely engage two or three wyverns. They also have iron lances, which dent wyverns enough to finish next turn as well.

 

 

4 hours ago, Florete said:

Slow down? Ha! It's 41 turns to A. It is literally the fastest A rank in the game.

I'm actually curious if you actually get 5 star tactics rank with this support.

EDIT: And how many of the zero requirement chapters you visit.

Edited November 18, 2017 by msterforks

[Tenzen12]

Lyn is certainly not best unit in game, but with her mode she is much better than Eliwood for one, who get often doubled and doesn't crit that much. With promotion she became pretty goddly dodge tank who I have pretty much solo Harken chapter every time to grind her bow rank. 

With bit training both Fiora and Farina end much better than Florina so Lyn is also better candidate for ring and robe as far as I am concerned.

[Just call me AL]

8 hours ago, msterforks said:

I'm actually curious if you actually get 5 star tactics rank with this support.

EDIT: And how many of the zero requirement chapters you visit.

This is the same game where you can build both Eliwood/Ninian and Hector/Lyn in one go, and still get an S Rank. (I even attempted that myself, and succeeded.) I'm sure that Lyn/Florina is feasible with the 5 star tactics ranking in consideration.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Just call me AL

[Dark Holy Elf]

Seconding that I get 5-star Tactics with Lyn/Florina and Eliwood/Hector supports all the time. It's not that hard.

 

8 hours ago, ping said:

What's the answer to that argument, then? How would you rate PoR!Rolf, for example? He fares, I'd say, better in combat than (no-lyn-mode-)Lyn thanks to BEXP, forges, and PoR's general power level, but he's still the overall worst combatant that doesn't have any other utility. Is he a 'good unit'?

Rolf is worse than Lyn, even no-Lyn-Mode Lyn (and I don't care to argue about No-Lyn-Mode Lyn generally).

-While Level 3 Lyn in the 6th/7th map of Eliwood/Hector Mode is bad, Level 1 Rolf in the 9th map of PoR is worse.
-Mani Katti is far more useful than Rolf's Bow.
-Sword lock isn't as bad as bow lock, and Lyn promotes to bow + sword anyway.
-Related to the above, Lyn has options like the Light Brand and Lancereaver to improve her coverage of enemy types.
-Lyn's short-term stat distribution is better, because she starts with enough speed to double when many of your units do not (Rolf likely has the lowest speed of any non-healer upon join).
-Lyn's long-term stat distribution is better, because she gets much better speed/luck and thus can become extremely durable/evasive. Rolf's defences and evasion are all middling. Their attack stats are similar relative to their games (i.e. middle of the road).

Just not seeing what Rolf brings to the table that Lyn doesn't. Earlygame flier killing should be his niche, but (a) there aren't many fliers early, just C12-13, and (b) since bows are only 2x might and he can't double-attack ravens, he's not even particularly good at this anyway.

6 hours ago, msterforks said:

Let's break it down.

Lancereavers are not available until ch24H. Her MK does one round cavs well enough in the early game, but she faces 40-50 displayed hit every fight and gets 2HKO'd. Even with forest advantage, she doesn't comfortably take three cavs charging her.

Level 16 Lyn has 10 strength on average (I like picking nice numbers)

A random wyvern on that chapter has 30HP/12def, a 4HKO. It's not feasible to buy enough lancereavers to sustain this. Also, 12 HP on a 12 def wyvern is still scary.

I already acknowledged the chapters before storebought Lancereaver, though as noted, there's really only one map with relevant wyverns to this conversation.

Looking at the numbers, those wyverns are indeed difficult to one-round on HHM, but this is not a problem exclusive to Lyn. In fact, among units who can tank them at melee (i.e. not archers or squishy mages)...

-Sain has enough Str for the job, but his speed is shaky: he's 11.6, which misses doubles on the faster wyverns (they range from 5 to 9). Any wyvern he fails to double, he will leave with a lot more HP than Lyn does.
-Kent has +2 Str, which is offset by Lyn's Florina support. He's not doing any better than she is.
-Lowen has less Str than Kent and less speed than Sain. Strictly worse than Lyn.
-Fiora and Florina can't gain WTA and have similar Atk. They're not doing any better.
-Hector has 10 speed, which doubles only the slower wyverns. This drops to 8 with a steel axe, which doubles none of them. This is important because Iron and Hand Axes do not allow Hector to 2HKO the wyvern you listed, even with Eliwood B.
-Bartre and Dorcas are slower versions of Hector.

The only unpromoted melee unit who can reliably tank and one-round those wyverns is Raven, and he needs a Lancereaver to do it. So all you've shown is that Lyn is worse than Raven, which literally nobody was arguing against. She's also worse than units who are already promoted, which is also obvious.

You can afford as many Lancereavers are you want. Using them drains your Funds rank, but this conversation is not exclusively talking about ranked runs. On non-ranked runs, it's not remotely an issue (hint: sell the Ocean Seal). On ranked runs, you have to judge if the situation merits the loss of cash.

[General Horace]

Lyn is good at killing things in a vacuum.    

Lyn has a very bad enemy phase in a game where having a powerful enemy phase is a big deal.  She can't kill enemies if she dies on the enemy phase.    She also can't kill enemies if she can't counter them, having no 1-2 range is a big deal.  Late promotion hurts her a lot too.  Her promotion helps a little bit since she doesn't have to eat a potential counter, but she kinda needs killer bows to actually kill anything with them other than wyverns.  

She's basically Guy that promotes ~5 maps later with worse stats.  The only real advantage she has on him is the Mani Katti, and Guy isn't too great in his own right.

[eclipse]

This topic title is so loaded.

Shades of gray, TC.  The world isn't divided into "the best" and "the worst".  There's a lot of in-between, and Lyn falls within that in-between.

Having her own personal beatstick is really nice, along with a set of maps to whip her into shape.  Her frailty does her no favors, since she needs to be up close and personal to get kills.  Her low CON is bad - she's stuck with said beatstick, Iron, or a nasty AS drop.  It makes it easier to ferry her around, but that's usually reserved for EP units.

In other words, she's a PP unit in a EP game.

[De Geso]

Lyn is bad because she has crummy bases and growths won't save them unless you baby the hell out of her or are very lucky (usually you need both).

Her enemy phase isn't that great because her durability is low, she's locked to swords in a lance-heavy game, and her strength isn't good enough to get a lot done unless she's facing a bunch of cavs with her Mani Katti.

She doesn't double much of anything unless they're carrying steel weapons and the enemies she does double she deals single-digit damage to.

Is she the worst ever? No, Wallace exists. But outside of liking the unit/character, there is seldom reason to field her when you have ungodly powerful units like Raven, Marcus, the fliers, the cavaliers, etc. Unless she's force-deployed she usually doesn't win out for the deployment slot because her map-to-map contribution isn't that good, especially if you play even remotely efficiently.

GBA supports are barely an argument for a unit's viability. Sure, Florina has a fast support with Lyn but Florina should be far away from the rest of your army (ie where Lyn will be) for most of the maps that you want to deploy her (and besides, Florina without Lyn Mode is sub-par outside of being a flier).

Even with Lyn mode behind her, Lyn is usually just worse than Raven on HHM because his bases are so disgustingly good. She's good for the white gem though!

[Florete]

18 hours ago, ping said:

What's the answer to that argument, then? How would you rate PoR!Rolf, for example? He fares, I'd say, better in combat than (no-lyn-mode-)Lyn thanks to BEXP, forges, and PoR's general power level, but he's still the overall worst combatant that doesn't have any other utility. Is he a 'good unit'?

I see this as a three-part question - 1) How good are characters compared to other playable characters? - 2) How large is the difference between (relatively speaking) good and bad characters in the game? - 3) How forgiving is the game when you field "sub-optimal" characters?

Blazing Sword is, I think, relatively lenient on the 2nd and 3rd part. If it wasn't for Marcus, I would say it has the best unit balance of the games I've played (which is 6-12), and most enemies aren't super scary even on HHM. So while I still think that Lyn is decidedly low-tier without Lyn mode (with it, I think she's alright, but still not stellar), she's far less trouble to use than for example the FE6 scrub tier.

 

In answer to the general concept: if everyone is good, everyone is good, even if someone is the worst. The Smash 4 community largely agrees that there are no (or very few) truly 'bad' characters in the game, for example. If the worst unit in a Fire Emblem game is still worth C tier, then they're not a bad unit.

It's been a long time since I've used Rolf in PoR. I would say he's mediocre and no better. He starts pretty awful and he's bow-locked, but due to PoR mechanics it's not tough to get him to a place where he fits well onto a team.

16 hours ago, msterforks said:

I'm actually curious if you actually get 5 star tactics rank with this support.

EDIT: And how many of the zero requirement chapters you visit.

I logged my EHM run. S rank with 11 turns to spare (and it should be noted that I took ~20 extra turns in FFO for arena abuse). Unfortunately I didn't note when Lyn and Florina reached A support, but they reached B at Ch 19 so A was probably around 23-24. I also got Eliwood/Hector A in this run. Incidentally, I got Raven/Priscilla C on the last map.

EDIT: Whoops, got Lyn/Florina and Eliwood/Hector to A at Ch 24. Looking back, that's actually kind of strange. Why didn't I get it during FFO (the previous map) when I was arena grinding? I must have forgotten. EDITS GALORE: I didn't deploy Lyn on FFO! (presumably because she was level-capped) There's my answer!

I didn't log my HHM S rank run but I did make a topic about it. I didn't go to 19xx or 32x and I had a two turn surplus, and I note where I could have done better. Going off memory, Lyn/Florina likely advanced at about the same rate it did in my EHM run.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Florete

[samthedigital]

Quote

I didn't go to 19xx or 32x and I had a two turn surplus, and I note where I could have done better.

Yeah, there are a lot of places where you could have saved turns. The ranks in 7 are really rather lenient. It's not as easy to S rank as 6, but with some LTC strategies in mind and a healthy amount of safe arena abuse in chapter 24 none of the ranks are too difficult to reach.

[msterforks]

10 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I already acknowledged the chapters before storebought Lancereaver, though as noted, there's really only one map with relevant wyverns to this conversation.

Looking at the numbers, those wyverns are indeed difficult to one-round on HHM, but this is not a problem exclusive to Lyn. In fact, among units who can tank them at melee (i.e. not archers or squishy mages)...

-Sain has enough Str for the job, but his speed is shaky: he's 11.6, which misses doubles on the faster wyverns (they range from 5 to 9). Any wyvern he fails to double, he will leave with a lot more HP than Lyn does.
-Kent has +2 Str, which is offset by Lyn's Florina support. He's not doing any better than she is.
-Lowen has less Str than Kent and less speed than Sain. Strictly worse than Lyn.
-Fiora and Florina can't gain WTA and have similar Atk. They're not doing any better.
-Hector has 10 speed, which doubles only the slower wyverns. This drops to 8 with a steel axe, which doubles none of them. This is important because Iron and Hand Axes do not allow Hector to 2HKO the wyvern you listed, even with Eliwood B.
-Bartre and Dorcas are slower versions of Hector.

The only unpromoted melee unit who can reliably tank and one-round those wyverns is Raven, and he needs a Lancereaver to do it. So all you've shown is that Lyn is worse than Raven, which literally nobody was arguing against. She's also worse than units who are already promoted, which is also obvious.

You can afford as many Lancereavers are you want. Using them drains your Funds rank, but this conversation is not exclusively talking about ranked runs. On non-ranked runs, it's not remotely an issue (hint: sell the Ocean Seal). On ranked runs, you have to judge if the situation merits the loss of cash.

Florete and I started our discussion with HHM ranked, so it's only fitting if we finish it that way. Besides, if we put the funds rank away, the argument turns into unpromoted Lyn vs promoted mounted units, which is hardly fair. Even if she promotes in 26, she'll lag behind a few levels.

A level 9 Wyvern Rider on HHM (ch24H) spawns with anywhere from 8-10 speed. They usually come over encumbered with steel lances, lowering these values from 5-7. Sain, with an average speed of 12 (I used level 16 Lyn for her even 10 str average, so I'm going to stick with level 16) will double every steel lance wyvern. (Even with 11 speed Sain still achieves this.) The only other argument to be made is that Sain cannot double any javelin wyverns with his own javelin, but this is still better than Lyn, who cannot retaliate at all. Not sure what the max level is on that chapter, but 11 speed is enough to double almost all steel lance wyverns up to level 11 (technically possible to spawn a level 11 wyvern with 11 speed, but this is like a 1% chance).

Lowen's 11 speed applies as mentioned above with Sain's 11. What's more interesting to look at is that Lowen can tank three steel lances without dying, while the other cavs can only survive two. Lyn can only survive one.

I don't really count Hector in any calculations, since the question is whether Lyn is worth deploying consistently over other units. Since Hector is force deployed, anything that he contributes is bonus. Also, 10 speed is enough to double the majority of level 9 steel lance wyverns (only about 10% of the wyverns at level 9 will have 10 speed).

At the end of the day, Lyn deals similar damage to wyverns with the LR as the cavs do without.

EDIT: Fliers don't do very well against wyverns, but it's also not their job. Fliers save turns with rescue dropping, unimpeded movement, and priority targeting. It's much easier for fliers to circumnavigate wyverns than for Lyn. Also, fliers' iron lances are still miles ahead of Lyn's iron/steel swords.

1 hour ago, Florete said:

In answer to the general concept: if everyone is good, everyone is good, even if someone is the worst. The Smash 4 community largely agrees that there are no (or very few) truly 'bad' characters in the game, for example. If the worst unit in a Fire Emblem game is still worth C tier, then they're not a bad unit.

I logged my EHM run. S rank with 11 turns to spare. Unfortunately I didn't note when Lyn and Florina reached A support, but they reached B at Ch 19 so A was probably around 23-24. I also got Eliwood/Hector A in this run. Incidentally, I got Raven/Priscilla C on the last map.

I didn't log my HHM S rank run but I did make a topic about it. I didn't go to 19xx or 32x and I had a two turn surplus, and I note where I could have done better. Going off memory, Lyn/Florina likely advanced at about the same rate it did in my EHM run.

I don't play/watch smash, so no comment.

There's the caveat. EHM tactics rank is a joke since it doesn't feature any zero requirement chapters. There's four mandatory ones on HHM, which costs more than the 11 turn surplus that you had (ch30H replaces ch28E entirely as well).

I also label 19xx and 32x as "mandatory" for myself, since I like finishing the game seeing every chapter. (To be fair, legitimately accessing 19xx in HHM ranked is extremely frustrating. I give people a pass on this one since not everyone wants to RNG manip crits.)

So I'll partially concede. It's probably possible to get a perfect HHM ranked run (including all gaidens) using Lyn and getting the Lyn-Florina support. I won't label her trash, but maybe viable.

That being said, whose promotions do you skip for the heaven seal?

Off topic: Is there a consistent strat to unlocking 19xx on HHM without arena/boss abuse?

Edited November 19, 2017 by msterforks

[Florete]

10 minutes ago, msterforks said:

There's the caveat. EHM tactics rank is a joke since it doesn't feature any zero requirement chapters. There's four mandatory ones on HHM, which costs more than the 11 turn surplus that you had (ch30H replaces ch28E entirely as well).

I also label 19xx and 32x as "mandatory" for myself, since I like finishing the game seeing every chapter. (To be fair, legitimately accessing 19xx in HHM ranked is extremely frustrating. I give people a pass on this one since not everyone wants to RNG manip crits.)

So I'll partially concede. It's probably possible to get a perfect HHM ranked run (including all gaidens) using Lyn and getting the Lyn-Florina support. I won't label her trash, but maybe viable.

That being said, whose promotions do you skip for the heaven seal?

Off topic: Is there a consistent strat to unlocking 19xx on HHM without arena/boss abuse?

HHM is stricter on turns, but less strict on experience. My EHM run had 20 turns of arena grinding on FFO that could have been cut down by at least half on an HHM run, for example.

I mean, if you're going to 19xx, getting Lyn/Florina is arguably easier. That's another relatively early map to build support, after all. I haven't played that map in forever, though (and not sure I've ever played it on HHM), so I don't really remember what it's like in terms of support building.

I don't "skip" anyone's promotion for Lyn. I promoted everyone I wanted to. This might be a bit off, but when last I calculated my total funds in my EHM rank compared to the total required, I was about 50k over, so I could have randomly promoted Dart and still gotten 5 stars in funds.

[Dark Holy Elf]

4 minutes ago, msterforks said:

A level 9 Wyvern Rider on HHM (ch24H) spawns with anywhere from 8-10 speed. They usually come over encumbered with steel lances, lowering these values from 5-7.

According to the enemy stats on this very site, there are also eight with Iron Lances. Most are steel, though, so yeah, Sain looks pretty good against those. I hadn't realised how many more were steel than iron at first glance; now that I see it I will concede he's probably ahead of Lyn here too.

 

5 minutes ago, msterforks said:

Lowen's 11 speed applies as mentioned above with Sain's 11. What's more interesting to look at is that Lowen can tank three steel lances without dying, while the other cavs can only survive two. Lyn can only survive one.

And Lowen's Str is no better than Lyn's (one point better, even the free Florina C closes that gap), so not only is he failing to double the 8-9 speed wyverns, so he fails to one-round the ones he doubles, and fails to even 2HKO the ones he doesn't.

Lyn with a Lancereaver can tank infinitely many wyverns (they have around 3% real hit at best), so I don't think too much of Lowen's supposed advantage here. If you refuse to give out reavers period for funds reasons (which means you find the funds rank much stricter than I ever did, especially on HHM with its Silver Card and 0-requirement freebie maps), then Lyn isn't going to be fighting wyverns and this discussion becomes pointless. Remember that we're discussing Lyn as a dodge-tank; nobody is going to try to have her dodge-tank lance-users without a Lancereaver.

10 minutes ago, msterforks said:

Also, 10 speed is enough to double the majority of level 9 steel lance wyverns (only about 10% of the wyverns at level 9 will have 10 speed).

Yes, with an Iron Axe, which he doesn't one-round with (as I already said). He can't double even the slowest ones with Steel, which is what he would need to 2HKO. And he still misses doubling the ones who use iron themselves. Aside from saving you money Hector does strictly worse against wyverns than Lyn does.

[msterforks]

2 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

According to the enemy stats on this very site, there are also eight with Iron Lances. Most are steel, though, so yeah, Sain looks pretty good against those. I hadn't realised how many more were steel than iron at first glance; now that I see it I will concede he's probably ahead of Lyn here too.

 

And Lowen's Str is no better than Lyn's (one point better, even the free Florina C closes that gap), so not only is he failing to double the 8-9 speed wyverns, so he fails to one-round the ones he doubles, and fails to even 2HKO the ones he doesn't.

Lyn with a Lancereaver can tank infinitely many wyverns (they have around 3% real hit at best), so I don't think too much of Lowen's supposed advantage here. If you refuse to give out reavers period for funds reasons (which means you find the funds rank much stricter than I ever did, especially on HHM with its Silver Card and 0-requirement freebie maps), then Lyn isn't going to be fighting wyverns and this discussion becomes pointless. Remember that we're discussing Lyn as a dodge-tank; nobody is going to try to have her dodge-tank lance-users without a Lancereaver.

Yes, with an Iron Axe, which he doesn't one-round with (as I already said). He can't double even the slowest ones with Steel, which is what he would need to 2HKO. And he still misses doubling the ones who use iron themselves. Aside from saving you money Hector does strictly worse against wyverns than Lyn does.

Lowen's doubling is on the same boat as Sain's. 11 speed will double all of the steel lance wyverns, while not doubling the iron lance ones. Yes, he does 5HKO wyverns, but it's enough of a dent for others to finish off in another round. More importantly, Lowen takes 3 steel lances, so he's good at baiting in two or three wyverns to finish off next turn.

Lyn's infinitely many lancereavers goes against paladin Lowen. Do you want me to run the numbers? If funds ranking isn't a concern, we can even throw in Dart. If none of the rankings are a concern, we can even arena abuse until 20/x promoted units. I'm not sure how many reavers you actually buy, but remember that 6 reavers is a promotion.

At the end of the day, Lyn has a crippling wyvern weakness that's patched only with a somewhat expensive LR.That LR makes her on par with or slightly better than her competition. What  hasen't been mentioned is that if LRs are available, why not give it to the cavs? They do the same job.

Iron axe Hector 3HKOs and dodges/face tanks steel lances for breakfast. That's more than what Lyn does with the LR.

[samthedigital]

Quote

What  hasen't been mentioned is that if LRs are available, why not give it to the cavs? They do the same job.

In a ranked setting we're going to be cycling through units for the experience rank regardless, so it's not really as important a question as it is for an unranked playthrough.

Quote

If none of the rankings are a concern, we can even arena abuse until 20/x promoted units. 

Even if the rankings are of concern it's possible to do this with a few units, and it can beneficial to plan for it given that any arena kill is basically free experience and money. Not every unit can enter the arena for an extended period of time safely in HHM though.

[msterforks]

25 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

In a ranked setting we're going to be cycling through units for the experience rank regardless, so it's not really as important a question as it is for an unranked playthrough.

Using Lyn as xp fodder isn't really a part of this. Xp fodder units are leveled, then forgotten. This discussion is based on whether Lyn is a useful unit all the way through the end of the game. Also, there's no footnote that forces Lyn to gain xp off wyverns/lance cavs.

25 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

Even if the rankings are of concern it's possible to do this with a few units, and it can beneficial to plan for it given that any arena kill is basically free experience and money.

Eh, it's pretty tough to do in HHM. The turn count is really tight, so a unit might see a few rounds, but not nearly enough to hit 20.

[samthedigital]

Quote

Eh, it's pretty tough to do in HHM. The turn count is really tight, so a unit might see a few rounds, but not nearly enough to hit 20.

 

It really isn't that tight if you play through most chapters quickly. It's definitely possible to hit promotion for 3-4 characters in FFO and still S rank tactics somewhat comfortably even while playing chapters like 19xx.

Quote

Using Lyn as xp fodder isn't really a part of this. Xp fodder units are leveled, then forgotten. This discussion is based on whether Lyn is a useful unit all the way through the end of the game. Also, there's no footnote that forces Lyn to gain xp off wyverns/lance cavs.

The amount of enemies that Lyn can fight effectively is pertinent to her contribution as a unit in a ranked run. How easily a unit can gain experience is one of the most important factors in determining how good a unit is in a ranked run. There are a handful of units that need to be babied or can't really contribute to the ranks in any meaningful way, and Lyn is at least a step above those units.

[Charmeleonbrah]

She's not Hector or Marcus tier, but she's pretty good.

• Has arguably the best of the Lord weapons; increased criticals,  strong against cavalry
• Can double most enemies
• If you level her, you can get the better version of Four-Fanged Offense
• Can promote early for a FE7 lord if you give her your seal from Hawkeye
• Can use bows post-promotion, which gives her more offensive options than Kektor/Loliwood
• Dodge-tank in late-game
• Those legs

For me, she's better than Eliwood and worse than Hector.  I don't do ranked runs because I don't like to torture myself, so I don't know if she is a net negative on that.  Overall, i'd say: these are videogame forums: spend enough time on them nd you'll hear every possible argument and counterargument for some minor issue.

[ping]

13 hours ago, Florete said:

In answer to the general concept: if everyone is good, everyone is good, even if someone is the worst. The Smash 4 community largely agrees that there are no (or very few) truly 'bad' characters in the game, for example. If the worst unit in a Fire Emblem game is still worth C tier, then they're not a bad unit.

It's been a long time since I've used Rolf in PoR. I would say he's mediocre and no better. He starts pretty awful and he's bow-locked, but due to PoR mechanics it's not tough to get him to a place where he fits well onto a team.

Fair enough. Tbh, I prefer to use similar tiers for different games - I'd put the worst unit of any game in the respective F tier with the caveat (I'm struggling to find a good word here, so please bear with me if this isn't one) that F tier units in games like PoR and FE8 are much easier to use than in FE6 or the hardes modes of the DS games. But frankly, that's a question of nomenclature and not really worth argueing about.

About Rolf (and I guess this is also @Dark Holy Elf): I just took him as an example because he's a unit that I have used occasionally and found really easy to bring up to speed thanks to BEXP, forges, and the general enemy power level in PoR, but who I still consider to be 'bad' by the standards of his game. I've since looked at the number and I probably overestimated him because I shamelessly rig BEXP levels, but it's not really important to my question whether or not he's 'better' than Lyn is. I wasn't being rhetorical, I thought he would be a good example to explain how we define a bad unit, even though he and Lyn don't really have much in common in where their downsides are. (if anything, Lyn is more like Mia but with more competition for character slots at jointime, but this is more a random thought than a discussion I'm interested in having :D )

Edited November 19, 2017 by ping

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 hours ago, msterforks said:

Lowen's doubling is on the same boat as Sain's. 11 speed will double all of the steel lance wyverns, while not doubling the iron lance ones. Yes, he does 5HKO wyverns, but it's enough of a dent for others to finish off in another round.

In an earlier post, you said that leaving wyverns with 12 HP (which gets 2 points lower per level of Florina support) was too dangerous. Now Lowen 5HKOing is good enough? Make up your mind.

 

11 hours ago, msterforks said:

Lyn's infinitely many lancereavers goes against paladin Lowen. If funds ranking isn't a concern, we can even throw in Dart.

I'm sure 15/1 Paladin Lowen (or whenever you promoted him) is better than Lyn before she can promote, no need to provide those numbers. At this point though we're taking a snapshot of an artificial point of the game where Lyn (and Eliwood, and Hector) are worse due to their promotion time. It's a fair concern that the lords can't early-promote, though I'm not sure how highly I value this myself, as someone who doesn't really feel a pressing need for early-promotions (they're overkill in a relaxed run and detrimental in a ranked one).

Even on ranked runs, though, you can pull out Lancereavers when the situation really calls for it. They're not that expensive; they cost 150 funds per swing. it would take 42 rounds of combat with them to equal the value of one promotion item (more, actually, since some of the rounds will be a crit). Your attempt to discredit them utterly even on ranked runs is an exaggeration. I've used reavers quite a bit on runs where I've S-ranked the game myself, particularly HHM where better combat parameters are more valuable and the funds ranking is, ironically, at its most lenient.

Dart equals literally over 200 rounds of reaver use. There's no comparison; he's on a different order of magnitude for funds cost. Even on a run where Lyn is used to combat wyverns heavily I'd be surprised if she had more than 30 such combat rounds over the course of the game.

11 hours ago, msterforks said:

What  hasen't been mentioned is that if LRs are available, why not give it to the cavs? They do the same job.

I have absolutely mentioned that reavers are good for anyone and have assumed literally every sword-user to be using one in the numbers I was running against the wyverns. Please give me some credit; I know how to compare units without giving one a special advantage over the other. To restate my conclusions from the numbers I've run: when discussing lancereaver vs wyverns, Sain performs better than Lyn against steel but worse against iron, Kent performs around the same as Lyn, and Lowen performs worse.

Iron axe Hector 3HKOs and dodges/face tanks steel lances for breakfast. That's more than what Lyn does with the LR.

... no, that's at best equal to what Lyn does, and in fact Lyn is better in a few ways. Both 3HKO the wyverns, and neither will die. However, Lyn doesn't miss doubles on the ones with iron or javelins. And Lyn has considerably higher crit (more skill, supports give more, Lancereaver give +5) so she'll one-round more of them than Hector does.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

are we seriously talking about turn requirements of all things in HHM ranked lmao

 

You can deliberately postpone your progress to farm exp for no god damn reason and you would still 5 star because of the sheer joke that is 300+ turns for 5 stars. LTC of this game is more than half that, so thats like 7 turns leeway per chapter

 

Fund Ranks is generally trivialized by Silver Card so its just a matter of not using the expensive seals, and making sure you have all S Rank weapon.

Edited November 19, 2017 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[FoxyGrandpa]

Honestly, Its less that Lyn is a bad unit and more that there are just so many better, more reliable options in the game that are capable of doing much more while at the same time requiring less investment, like Marcus, Raven, etc. It doesn't help that she's locked to a one range weapon while at the same time having the lowest durability in the game, making her trickier to use compared to bulkier melee units / frail ranged units.

Overall though, she's not that bad and will more than suffice in non-ranked runs. 

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

2 hours ago, FoxyGrandpa said:

Honestly, Its less that Lyn is a bad unit and more that there are just so many better, more reliable options in the game that are capable of doing much more while at the same time requiring less investment, like Marcus, Raven, etc. It doesn't help that she's locked to a one range weapon while at the same time having the lowest durability in the game, making her trickier to use compared to bulkier melee units / frail ranged units.

Overall though, she's not that bad and will more than suffice in non-ranked runs. 

You NEED to use Lyn for the cheese ranked run though

[SMEDIA]

IMO, both Lyn and Eliwood are liabilities at the end game. I prefer Lyn over Eliwood because the Mani Kati is great for taking down Kishuna the first time you can fight him.

I always play the tutorial to power up certain units (mainly Florina, Sane, Kent, Serra, Lucius, and Rath).

Also, I really like Rath as a unit, and his support with Lyn makes the end game easier.

[Just call me AL]

On 5/3/2018 at 9:38 PM, SMEDIA said:

IMO, both Lyn and Eliwood are liabilities at the end game. I prefer Lyn over Eliwood because the Mani Kati is great for taking down Kishuna the first time you can fight him.

I always play the tutorial to power up certain units (mainly Florina, Sane, Kent, Serra, Lucius, and Rath).

Also, I really like Rath as a unit, and his support with Lyn makes the end game easier.

You literally don't need to support Lyn with Rath to make the endgame easier, though. To say nothing about his jointime making it hard for him to build supports with her, anyways.