Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

[Niu]

The system sounds so cool in theory, but I've already been burned by IF fail with GoC... and you say this is -worse- when it comes to buggy programming?

You should know that there is no bottom threshold for IF failure.
Anyway, Blaze Union is getting ported, soon you shall see the true terror.

[Shale]

Bayonetta: Chapter 15, almost to the end. The last Jeanne fight was pretty damn awesome...didn't really care for the Space Harrier level, though. 15 itself was a nice gauntlet, marred a bit by huge enemies in tiny spaces. Got a lot of mileage out of the accessory that uses magical counters instead of turning on Witch Time, in the Alfheim (no Witch Time against burning enemies...yeah, that's getting beat legitly), and against the gold Grace & Glory.

[Meeplelard]

Chapter 14 totally needed to be 2 chapters, so I didn't have to go through the Space Harrier stage EVERY TIME I wanted to fight Jeane 4.  I mean, yeah, the Space Harrier is cool, but it seriously overstays its welcome, and its keeping me from fighting probably the best fight in the game, stylistically.

Regarding Burning enemies with no Witch Time...

I actually DID beat that one "legit"!  You just need to learn a few gimmicks regarding Burning Enemies.  One of them is "The Whip does not count as melee" <_< >_>

[Shale]

I'm not going to replay that chapter until I've gotten Eternal Testimony. Infinite missiles should make it way less annoying.

Edit: Yeah, I should probably try using the whip. Haven't even touched it in actual combat.

[Magic Fanatic]

I've also heard a rumor that the Durgas can hurt burning enemies, as well.

Of course, I've only heard that as a rumor.  I've yet to be able to test it.

[Meeplelard]

I remember trying the fire one and finding it didn't work out, being disappointed.  I think it only works in the lava stage, and not on Alfheims.

[Xeroma]

What about the ice skates?

[Rozalia]

Felt like you had actual control over Ammo, which from what I remember of RE2, is different than those games cause they were like "If you don't headshot, YOU MAY BE IN TROUBLE LATER!"

...Headshotting is all but useless in all the main games before 4 baring 0 where its actually a good option. 1 & 2 didn't allow you to target and in the third one you had to go so close to the zombie it just wasn't worth it as they'd get you. 0 for all that people say is the worst RE got it completely right as headshots made zombies stumble back and shotgun headshots just made their heads go boom. Anyway, RE2 is not a conserve your ammo game like RE1 was because you more then enough ammo to kill whatever you need to kill.

WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS GAME

Why do people like alone in the dark/silent hill/clock tower/etc? It being Survival horror is why. Going through streets/houses/labs full to the brim of monsters you can kill but will want to avoid, solving puzzles while creatures are trying to chew on your brains, running from near unstopable badass monsters such as Nemesis are all cool reasons why. The combat being shit matters not as it isn't the main attraction.

shoving the other half of the series stuff back in, which sounds like a bad thing, so I dunno.

RE5 is the worst in the series which won't mean much to you but you should heed it regardless. RE5 is RE4 but with a horrible main character (Chris Roidfield), worst setting, retarded Inventory system, twice the amount of generic enemies, loads of reused bosses, a far worse villain cast and some pretty serious character derailment all round.

Meg got used instead of him because her starting concrete durability had a notable edge on his L9 durability you see there, and her speed on Tier 1 is just as good as his, and she was six levels lower and hence leveled faster. I regret nothing, again.

Ike kicks ass. Nothing new. The most you can say is that BEXPing and transferring stats for him is unfair. And that's kinda a duh. Oh and seriously game, you had no fucking reason for him to use Ragnell all game and you give it to him with two stages left in FE9.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZd-Bi8wBpI

 

[SageAcrin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZd-Bi8wBpI

That's fairly random.

It is, however, awesome because it shows that they coded a 0 mobility for ground units on that stage.

I can't even imagine why you'd do that besides dedication to logical coding.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Random comments to Sage, since yes I am crazy and read overly long posts:

Meg: Yeah, that statement is indeed full of shit. Yeah, you have crazy Meg, but even average Meg is very good at what she does at endgame and you can see why. Meg is just hated on in some communities as a bit of a meme, I could rant about why but it's not really relevant so I'll be nice. ^_^

Elincia: I definitely came away with a different impression of Elincia: fighter first and healer second, at least later on. In part 3 I basically agree that she's a healer first just for exp reasons, but she is of course a death cannon if you need her. Obvious enough. Anyway, very little in the game breaks 40 Def, and against anything with less her damage is as good as a Swordmaster's and only gets better from there... the difference being that (a) two shots at Stun is so much better than any other mastery/crit rate can hope to be, and (b) give her Dragonfoe and she kills everything in E-3 without taking a counter, something nobody else can claim (although Cain comes damn close, IIRC. Regardless, Cain is awesome and doesn't need Dragonfoe).

Shinon: Pretty much what you said, with the caveat that his strength is actually a little shaky (21 base at that level, combined with the weakness of bows, unreliable growth). He has all the weaknesses of the sniper class until you get the Double Bow which are why he's usually considered inferior to the hax tier of GMs, but he's still excellent and probably the best pure archer of the modern series. His other stats rule (even the ones that barely matter) and of course we all know about the Double Bow, and only one other good unit can use it.

Volug: Just for the record, you can leave Halfshift (the skill) equipped, it becomes an optional command in part 3. So this is a good idea just for the bailout (same reason it's a good idea on Ranulf, maybe). The S strike is easy to get by part 3, and he basically tears said part up. Good endgame too!

Zihark: I have that problem with him too, he's good but I don't use him enough. He has enough faults in part 3 (maps which are brutal on avoid strategies, low luck) that I tend to not use him a ton there, and his lategame is good, but only good; Mia is better due to starting level alone. He's still a great unit, but yeah.

Vika: I've gotten her rolling, and yeah, she does have some payout. Not objectively worth it, though! She gets what credit she gets because it's impossible to perfect 1-8 without her.

Nealuchi: Is Vika. Less valuable considering Vika's one shining moment, but more generally useful otherwise. Then leaves forever and is too weak to seriously consider once he rejoins, although better than Vika.

Haar: Well, I don't agree he's your best character on 2-E because Elincia exists; not only does she kill everything instead of just everything with 16 speed or less, but she can heal (Haar can better take a hit from his weakness if need be, since he's only 2HKOed with ~10 crit instead of OHKOed with ~60 hit, but Elincia can avoid taking said hit far more easily and there are quite a few fewer crossbows than thunder mages).

Past that he's the best character in the game from 3-2 until whenever Titania promotes, uncontested, and one of the best all the way until endgame (where, admittedly, he falls off fairly hard). Oh yeah and flight + canto completely breaks like half of his maps (2-E walls, 3-2 swamp, 3-3 fences, 3-4 cliffs, 3-7 river, 3-11 HOLES, 4-3 desert). Haar rules. There's a reason he's the most valuable character on the speedrun by far.

Lucia: Hey, she has game-best crit due to her Elincia bond! And Wyrmslayers let her instantly ground a few annoying enemies in each of her chapters! Past that yeah. At least she finally got one chapter to be awesome in, and at least even her late effort is still better than in FE9!

Lethe: Her long-term's better than you're giving her credit for (better than I gave her credit for until I used her, too). She pretty much never stops pulling her weight and has a damn solid endgame like all non-tiger (and possibly non-Lyre) beast laguz due to crazy mastery rate and 30 CP, now with no gauge issues! Other than the late push (which is somewhat moot due to royal competition anyway), she reminds me of those competent but uninspiring prepromos like Geitz except she's around forever.

Kieran: His fillerfillerfiller role allows him to continue being used into part 4, especially if you drop a Master Crown on him because you want to chipprshred 3-9 for some reason. His endgame sucks (although... better than SOME people, having used him there...).

Makalov: Maybe with carryover he'd be worth using! Anyway, if you get him rolling, he's actually good filler for Part 4, but putting in that effort just for part 4 filler barely seems worth it, and like Kieran his endgame sucks, though this time it's due to "mediocre strength and sub-34 speed" instead of "can't even double generals".

Calill: 13 levels of exp... well, she can easily get a fair bit of that in 2-E, and then a -lot- in 3-9 (free Paragon for your two favourite CRKs here, and if Marcia typically snags one, that still leaves a second). Not to mention she can go to 4-5, which is not only great for mages, but an exp feast. So she has a far, far easier time of reaching speeds where she doubles and kills things, without Rexflame even in the case of slower enemies. She hits Res in endgame and that's fairly desirable (half the auras have low res, red dragons, even whites and their generals) so it's something. But before endgame she's not really great. Just better than Sanaki. <.<

Rolf: Well, the strength growth makes him worth considering over Shinon, that gets monstrous pretty fast. And the speed, which is his weaker offensive stat, well... 1 point below Geoffrey, 13 levels lower. 1 point above Makalov and Boyd despite a huge level disadvantage. etc. Given that part 3 is the easiest part in the game I don't really mind sinking some levels into someone a bit projecty, although even then you have to be ready to take the better of him or Shinon depending on RNG whims for both. Or hell, using both isn't a horrible idea for endgame, hilariously, if both turn out well - Brave Bow off Rolf's strength matches Amiti against everything but Dragonfoe situations).

Lyre: Actually, you underrated her: she matches base Mist for attack! Says so much. Anyway, feed her an Energy Drop and you have someone who has some merits as a project, maybe. Except that Ranulf, Lethe, and (later) Volug are all better. Soo yeah. Worst character in the game? She has a case.

Janaff and Ulki: I think you're underrating 3-10 as a map a bit. Otherwise, yeah, not defending that 3-7 (you can control them here, by the way; but who cares, 3-7 is the biggest joke in FE history) or 3-8 needing help (though it is a time for them to build strike level). That's still two maps in part 3! Anyway, the hax hawks pretty much rule forever at anything you need them to. Janaff in particular.. do you send him to the desert where a flier with his stats is welcome? Ike's path where his +5 to night vision gives him invaluable utility on top of his combat? Tibarn's path where 4 authority stars make him a tank and there are tons of thickets and swamps for his flight to pay off in? You just can't go wrong. Aside from lacking Formshift the two end up pretty similar statwise to Naesala (double everything, great durability (better in Ulki's case), great mastery rate), and Naesala vs. Janaff vs. Ulki is a pretty common debate.

Skrimir: I don't really think Skrim is badass at all on the desert unless you give him a Speedwing (the most contested stat booster in the game), most things can't be doubled by him here. Endgame's even worse. And he can't fly. And takes longer to reach L30. Yeah I'm not seeing the comparison to Janaff/Ulki, really.

Bastian: His SS wind is indeed innate (also: you transferred Bastian? what?) and his starting map is a great one for mages AND he's often the best choice if you need a third staff user in endgame! ... still not much to say here.

Volke: I think you're underrating his 4-F offence a fair bit. Yeah, he screws over Sothe further, but still. He compares quite well to Stefan, no Wyrmslayer but on the other hand he has crazy crit which actually lets him do really well against low-luck dragons! ... okay, I'm biased towards Volke, because he (see also Stefan, Lethe) was one of the only competent endgame PCs I used on my HM playthrough. But still! He really is kinda Stefan-like. And impressive in 4-5 due to Tibarn-blessed avoid.

Giffca: For what it's worth, dragons really can use stones instead of gems juuuust fine (that gauge is haxy). You can free up another gem by not using Reyson. Regardless, you have 15 gem uses for endgame, which is enough for three Gem-users. Hard to hold the gem against Giffca. He's just some stat points and "no turn 1" down from Cain and obviously very very good, although seldom used because of the similarity + inferiority to Cain who already inspires boredom. <_<

Renning: I actually think axe/sword is the best weapon combo he could have had, short of SS bow (filler Double Bow user? Thanks!). Hammertime E-1, wyrmslayer E-3. Otherwise, what you said.


---

I basically agree with most of your comments otherwise (including on PCs that I commented on), I just enjoy talking about FE10. ^_^

[Shale]

I've also heard a rumor that the Durgas can hurt burning enemies, as well.

Of course, I've only heard that as a rumor.  I've yet to be able to test it.

I'm betting it's their traps that can hurt them - the delayed shock and firebomb. Waaaay too much of a pain to set up, though.

[SageAcrin]

Elincia: I definitely came away with a different impression of Elincia: fighter first and healer second, at least later on. In part 3 I basically agree that she's a healer first just for exp reasons, but she is of course a death cannon if you need her. Obvious enough. Anyway, very little in the game breaks 40 Def, and against anything with less her damage is as good as a Swordmaster's and only gets better from there... the difference being that (a) two shots at Stun is so much better than any other mastery/crit rate can hope to be, and (b) give her Dragonfoe and she kills everything in E-3 without taking a counter, something nobody else can claim (although Cain comes damn close, IIRC. Regardless, Cain is awesome and doesn't need Dragonfoe).

Hmmm, IIRC her strength is a bit backended and mostly due to growth? That's probably part of the impression there. That and the 20ish defense bugged me...and someone pretty much always needed healing on every Final stage.

You're right about the the Stun/Dragonfoe stuff. I kicked myself repeatedly for forgetting Dragonfoe during F-3 and making a hard stage harder, afterwards. Her Skill, however, screws with Stun a bit-Marcia's odds of Stun are actually comparable, for instance(Two shots of low 20 range vs one shot of high 30 is basically comparable.). Then again, there's very few other valid Secret Book targets(I just dumped them on Kurth for laughs.), so that's a reasonable thing to do.

Edit: Wait, right, her Skill is 34, not 24. How did I misremember *that*? Never mind the comment there then.

Volug: Just for the record, you can leave Halfshift (the skill) equipped, it becomes an optional command in part 3.

...well darn.

*eyes pile of Wildheart scrolls.* I so would have given Ranulf one if I'd known it was command based. I often thought that he could sorta kinda float it(especially after the Satori Sign) and it would have helped make him much more useful in intense parts of the game, but the niche use of higher stats was just too much of a loss.

I assume it just freezes the gauge? Or possibly runs it down if there is any but doesn't shift you at 0?

Vika: I've gotten her rolling, and yeah, she does have some payout. Not objectively worth it, though! She gets what credit she gets because it's impossible to perfect 1-8 without her.

oooh, that makes sense. I failed to perfect that, or even come very close. (I think one person survived. Only time I really gave up on BEXP seriously. Partially because it's not very *much*, ultimately, but I still lost like a level's worth.)

Haar: Well, I don't agree he's your best character on 2-E because Elincia exists; not only does she kill everything instead of just everything with 16 speed or less, but she can heal (Haar can better take a hit from his weakness if need be, since he's only 2HKOed with ~10 crit instead of OHKOed with ~60 hit, but Elincia can avoid taking said hit far more easily and there are quite a few fewer crossbows than thunder mages).

Oh, Elincia...probably is better just based on the fact that you get Physic right before that, if nothing else and just for starters. Right, I forgot that.

For raw combat...ehhhh I dunno. She does more damage and there are less enemies hitting her weakness, true. If one connects though, she is *dead*. There is no such issue with Haar and Thunder. They just hurt. Quite a decent chunk, but not one of them on the entire stage comes very close to killing him IIRC. I think their evade rates to their respective weaknesses are about the same too.

Then again I'm hyping Marcia on the same stage, so clearly it's viable. I think my issue there is that she gains nothing from it more than anything, so I tend to think of her less...doesn't mean she's not better, though, so fundamentally I agree.

Kieran: His fillerfillerfiller role allows him to continue being used into part 4, especially if you drop a Master Crown on him because you want to chipprshred 3-9 for some reason. His endgame sucks (although... better than SOME people, having used him there...).

ehhh I don't think I needed filler quite that badly.

Having said that if I didn't have carryover Geoffrey he would probably have ended up getting a lot more EXP, so fair enough.

Makalov: Maybe with carryover he'd be worth using!

Maybe if he wasn't the worst Paladin in 9 he'd get carryover~

Lethe: Her long-term's better than you're giving her credit for (better than I gave her credit for until I used her, too). She pretty much never stops pulling her weight and has a damn solid endgame like all non-tiger (and possibly non-Lyre) beast laguz due to crazy mastery rate and 30 CP, now with no gauge issues! Other than the late push (which is somewhat moot due to royal competition anyway), she reminds me of those competent but uninspiring prepromos like Geitz except she's around forever.

I actually agree totally on the last part. My issue is that FE10 tends to have higher standards and I rarely find myself needing that kind of character.

Still, you're probably right. I think, in general, my Laguz ratings are slightly low-I didn't make myself really use Olivi Grass/Laguz Stones until Part 4 in general, and while that doesn't totally skew your view(I mean, I know how good Laguz are with them, obviously, I used damn near every Laguz during 4.), it does warp it a little on an emotional level.

Wish Olivi Grass was just a normal storebought. It's not really that much different from buying weapons then, and Part 4 had the right idea. Make it cost more if you want, that'd be fine.

Calill: 13 levels of exp... well, she can easily get a fair bit of that in 2-E, and then a -lot- in 3-9 (free Paragon for your two favourite CRKs here, and if Marcia typically snags one, that still leaves a second). Not to mention she can go to 4-5, which is not only great for mages, but an exp feast. So she has a far, far easier time of reaching speeds where she doubles and kills things, without Rexflame even in the case of slower enemies. She hits Res in endgame and that's fairly desirable (half the auras have low res, red dragons, even whites and their generals) so it's something. But before endgame she's not really great. Just better than Sanaki. <.<

2-E is a little dangerous for her-tons upon tons of Range 2 weapons pop up. 3-9 I actively found her a liability on and was unable to protect her-she didn't *die*, but I never could get into attack range. Dunno how to explain that gap besides that I didn't use her enough in 2-E, and IIRC I sniped people with Meteor for kills constantly.

Might be that I just needed to know where 3-9 enemies were coming in at so I could actually keep her safe. If I'd taken the upper path with her, she'd have been fine. So...mmm. 4-5 yeah that's a fair point if you want to get her up to speed, and she is notably good there(beasts vs fire).

Sanaki, in fairness to her, actually has no real problem getting EXP, though(although it won't match 4-5's output), thanks to 4-3 utterly hosing the mobility of people-it is dirt easy to keep her safe while she trucks around at twice the speed of most people and snipes them. The one time being a mage is worth something.

(Hey, wait, wasn't she the one that made the comment in 9 about having no clue why the hell mages truck around at high speed in deserts?)

Janaff and Ulki: I think you're underrating 3-10 as a map a bit. Otherwise, yeah, not defending that 3-7 (you can control them here, by the way; but who cares, 3-7 is the biggest joke in FE history) or 3-8 needing help (though it is a time for them to build strike level). That's still two maps in part 3! Anyway, the hax hawks pretty much rule forever at anything you need them to. Janaff in particular.. do you send him to the desert where a flier with his stats is welcome? Ike's path where his +5 to night vision gives him invaluable utility on top of his combat? Tibarn's path where 4 authority stars make him a tank and there are tons of thickets and swamps for his flight to pay off in? You just can't go wrong. Aside from lacking Formshift the two end up pretty similar statwise to Naesala (double everything, great durability (better in Ulki's case), great mastery rate), and Naesala vs. Janaff vs. Ulki is a pretty common debate.

Went with the "YOU GET A BAD ITEM!" route for them. I have no regrets given how long I, having no info on how exactly that swamp fight worked, chased that little bastard around 4-5, even *with* them to help. So they're pretty good.

People seriously argue them vs Naesala, though? Naesala's raw evade is much better(than Janaff, Ulki I don't know thanks to his skill), his raw strength is higher, and(most important to me) they start with As on Strike unless I'm misremembering. I guess that's based on them having use during the 3 stages.

I might be underrating 3-10, but not a lot. There's something on the order of a dozen units supporting Elincia, which actually have fairly okay stats-the only real challenge is making sure none of them die for BEXP. If you're willing to lose a few(namely the healers, who, unsupported, will definitely die as they're idiots) the challenge to the stage is mostly just making sure Elincia doesn't die and that her troops don't get totally massacred for *major* BEXP drain(which starts happening a bit after the healers drop).

Bastian: His SS wind is indeed innate (also: you transferred Bastian? what?) and his starting map is a great one for mages AND he's often the best choice if you need a third staff user in endgame! ... still not much to say here.

WEXP carries over regardless of if you had L20 promoted, I thought? I may have misunderstood Serenes there, but I thought I saw it happen for people I didn't cap.

Volke: I think you're underrating his 4-F offence a fair bit. Yeah, he screws over Sothe further, but still. He compares quite well to Stefan, no Wyrmslayer but on the other hand he has crazy crit which actually lets him do really well against low-luck dragons! ... okay, I'm biased towards Volke, because he (see also Stefan, Lethe) was one of the only competent endgame PCs I used on my HM playthrough. But still! He really is kinda Stefan-like. And impressive in 4-5 due to Tibarn-blessed avoid.

And Lethality is actually not that bad on his low might/high skill/staring down dragons and spirits of weirdly tanky build, either(if I can get milage out of the worst Occult in the game on Sothe, the version that actually KILLS THINGS should be pretty useful!).

(Skill/2 Occults aren't too bad in practice, unless they're Bane or, to a much lesser degree, Aether, and the things that get them tend to have high skill. So commonly that things like Marcia Stun are out of place levels of frightening!)

Skrimir: I don't really think Skrim is badass at all on the desert unless you give him a Speedwing (the most contested stat booster in the game), most things can't be doubled by him here. Endgame's even worse. And he can't fly. And takes longer to reach L30. Yeah I'm not seeing the comparison to Janaff/Ulki, really.

Don't...beast Laguz tend to truck around the desert faster than standard ground units?

Not that I'm really arguing, but he was able to get to the fight from my recollection. He was just slow, kinda like how armor knights are in general(as opposed to in the desert, where they are useless).

He has doubling issues but...does he if he gains a natural speed point? 25% growth and L5 Tier 3 equivalent means he can gain a couple levels during 4-P and it's a coinflip. I'm not hyping him too strongly, nor was it really a *direct* comparison-Ulki and Janaff are better, unless you decide to abuse the Royalty skill cap boost on Skrimir and give him sixteen million useful skills, which is a monumental waste, and even then I'm not sure. It was more "They're useful until 4-F, at which point I'm not going to bother.".

Giffca: For what it's worth, dragons really can use stones instead of gems juuuust fine (that gauge is haxy). You can free up another gem by not using Reyson. Regardless, you have 15 gem uses for endgame, which is enough for three Gem-users. Hard to hold the gem against Giffca. He's just some stat points and "no turn 1" down from Cain and obviously very very good, although seldom used because of the similarity + inferiority to Cain who already inspires boredom. <_<

Well, yeah, it's not a real problem to use him, that was what my comment about Ena was about. (Knew Dragon gauge was haxy, but that applies just as easily to Olivi Grass use anyways. I tend to respect the Grass more in practice just because it's so much easier to use well than Stones.)

Renning: I actually think axe/sword is the best weapon combo he could have had, short of SS bow (filler Double Bow user? Thanks!). Hammertime E-1, wyrmslayer E-3. Otherwise, what you said.

mmm, the alternative is Spears/Bows. In many ways, I respect the Sword/Axe legendary weapons the least-Vague's 1 range(though excellent otherwise), Alondite has hit issues that the others don't, Urvan is 1 range like Vague.

Both the Spear and Bow are the two weapons I respect most in the game, on the other hand. So, while the former's a better combo, lacking one on either, for whatever reason, would be *awful*. It's not entirely impossible to end up with no archer, either(Screw up with Shinon by leaving Provoke on him and getting into trouble. Wham.), although ending up with no lance user seems pretty difficult.

So in some ways I agree with the usefulness of that combo but on the other hand losing either of those two legendaries for 3/4/5 use is really painful.

The important thing is that he basically couldn't have done worse than the combo he had. SS Axes/A Swords would have ended up much superior, as it's very hard to not end up with two good sword users, thanks to how braindead easy Good!Mia is and how Stefan is fine out of the box, and it would have allowed for the same useful combo.

[Dark Holy Elf]

For raw combat...ehhhh I dunno. She does more damage and there are less enemies hitting her weakness, true. If one connects though, she is *dead*. There is no such issue with Haar and Thunder. They just hurt. Quite a decent chunk, but not one of them on the entire stage comes very close to killing him IIRC.

They have a fairly alarming crit rate against him (high single digits), so I personally will not expose him to thunder mages short of making an error. YMMV, this is a bit of a playstyle thing and matters less if you battle save a lot.

2-E is a little dangerous for her-tons upon tons of Range 2 weapons pop up.

She can abuse the ledge on the left side of the battle very badly, however. -50 hit on top of the authority stars is crippling. She has much better range 2 offence than anyone except maybe Haar, to boot, so she's actively helpful at this.

3-9, I dunno, I never had trouble keeping the hits she took fairly low. Again, she can abuse the ledge, and the map is very chokepointy.

Naesala's raw evade is much better(than Janaff, Ulki I don't know thanks to his skill), his raw strength is higher, and(most important to me) they start with As on Strike unless I'm misremembering.

They start with A's, but have five maps (easy though some may be) in order to get this to S by the time Naesala joins. 7-8 attacks per map? Not unreasonable for PCs who double everything, and that's before any potential Flourish hype.

Avoid... not really, check out the luck stats. Before authority, base Janaff has 98, base Ulki has 117 (game-best), and base Naesala has 104. This is ignoring that Janaff/Ulki have time to gain levels (if not many) before Naesala joins, as well as the fact they'll probably have a B support (+5, assuming with each other) by now. It also ignores that Naesala is on the worst path for dodge-tanking. Naesala does have better avoid growth (235% to their 195% and 150%), granted. So basically Naesala has a small win over Janaff but a significant loss to Ulki.

Strength, yeah. It's not much of a lead over Janaff (1 point), but it is over Ulki. You're right, of course, that the main part of this argument comes from the extra part 3 stuff. Maybe emblematic of how the FE community overrates availability, but I dunno. It is a better fight than you'd think, Formshift aside. And how much shifting concerns matter to you is pretty much the biggest "your milage may vary" thing ever. It's definitely a comparison I can see going either way.

Don't...beast Laguz tend to truck around the desert faster than standard ground units?

Yes, although only when shifted, and flight is still useful for canto and getting over those random cliffs scattered around the desert map.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Doublepost oh no they are the worst thing ever I can't believe we allow people to make them.

1-12 (leypoints and paigoels)

A bit intimidating because paigoels on leypoints are stat gods and hit hard, and they all start near a leypoint which they will focus on accessing. This is also their weakness; you never have to worry about them swarming you.

Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elementalist OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Geomancer; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Geomancer OC

Rush so I can access my attack spells (the paigoels all have a 100% weakness) and Replace more easily. Vin is a bit vulnerable here and does die, but the other two enjoy their protections from elemental spells (Geomancer EQ and Clarissa's innate defences) and are only 3HKOed. Revive Fruit to the rescue, anyway. Even using that was avoidable, aside from the beginning, you can take everything at your own pace. Replace gets them off the leypoints where they can easily be smashed. For even more fun, if you replace a paigoel onto the leypoint of its opposite element, it takes 9999 damage and dies instantly.

1-13 (argh petrify) (1 reset)

This map introduces reinforcements, and consists of 6 rhinoceroses, two gremalkins, and a tarrasque. The rhinos are the problem, because they can turn your PCs to stone. Only someone with Mystic or Item Range Up can heal stone, and it's potentially very fatal. I lose once as my PCs get successively petrified then shattered.

Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Geomancer OC

Strategy is simple enough, I make sure to keep my Gadgeteer behind my other PCs, armed with Pygmalions to use if need be. Inevitably Elayne does get petrified, so the other two PCs guard her from attacks. Beyond that, the usual strategy suffices. An axe allows Vin to beat things up, while Clarissa tosses in Sacrifices, Encourages. Elayne lobs spells and heals from the back. It's a little nervous while my only person who can recover stone is petrified, but otherwise, not bad. The "boss" tarrasque is a joke and gets raped by combination arts.

1-14 (town defense) (1 reset)

Oh god. I have no idea how I have only one reset here; this is by far the hardest battle in the challenge before the third set of classes.

Clarissa: Elementalist; Dandelion Shot OC, Dandelion Shot EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Sacred Slayer; Elementalist OC, Geomancer OC
Vin: Sentinel; Fantastica OC, Geomancer OC

The game provides two ways to wall multiple enemies at once: Widespread Shut Out and ZOC. I make use of both. Elayne spends most of her turns dropping large Shut Outs wherever she can; Clarissa is assigned the main task of actually making things die. The initial wave isn't too bad because the terrain messes up the Berserkers, and once the Excavators fall, the main threat from them is past. Unfortunately a much bigger threat occurs once three are dead: two more Berserkers and an 8-move Geomancer appear at the left side of the battlefield, and they have a much straighter shot to the exit. Vin's main job is to block them off, Heavy Striking them into the pits when possible. Unfortunately the Geomancer sneaks by anyway; very fortunately he's still in Replace range, so I swap places with him, forcing him to run by me again, this time pushing him into the pit. Aw yeah Heavy Strike.

The other two need to hold off the last two or so berserkers and another rush of geomancer + 2 berserkers similar to the one on the left, only this one without pits to help out. I very, very nearly get overwhelmed here despite my repeated Shut Outs and attack spells, but Vin makes it over just in time. I end up finishing things with two PCs out of MP using up my last Revive Fruits, but yeah, clever use of ZOC is able to keep things just under control.

Side note about ZOC, since I wasn't 100% sure about how it worked until now myself: it stops an enemy from moving from one space adjacent to you into another, UNLESS that movement is the first panel of movement the enemy does that turn. So it works best when you're not already adjacent to them, just close by.

1-15 (zombie invasion)

Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Elementalist; Sacred Slayer OC, Gadgeteer OC
Ragnar: Sacred Slayer; Stormrider OC, Anti-Critical, Stormrider EQ

Sanctify is pretty much the only sane way to take out 14 enemies who aren't incompetent and have a chance of auto-reviving, so I make very, very generous use of it. Not too much else to say, Sacred Slayer OC takes care of healing too, so yeah. The second batch of undead can be tempted to bunch up together for Widespread Sanctify, which is a good thing because otherwise this battle would test my MP reserves.

I mystic both a Lucky Card and a Potential Egg in this battle because there are so many dudes.

1-16 (Stronach is an (undead) idiot) (1 reset)

Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Elementalist; Gadgeteer OC, Sacred Slayer OC
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC

This battle is fairly random, and even more difficult to control on this playthrough. The enemies are competent enough and if they gang up/use smart moves it can be hard to save everyone at once. Anyway. Encourage/Turn Shift can help in the early going; resources aren't a problem for me here, since there are so few enemies compared to the last two maps (and the next two). There's no especially ingenious strategies otherwise. Smash with high damage moves, heal, Slow Down the occasional enemy who can't be controlled otherwise. Pretty tough but it's hard to see it walling any sort of playthrough.

I mystic a Lucky Card here, this proves fairly pointless as Clarissa/Elayne would have hit L20 without its help, and Vin misses by a few exp.

2-1 (Kappa swamp) (2 resets)

Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Elayne: Elementalist; Gadgeteer OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Gadgeteer EQ (apron)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC

Multi-reset battle at last! It's not the hardest battle yet despite this, but it certainly is competent. 12 enemies, and they've got fairly good stats. My first two resets I made stupid mistakes and didn't have enough Revive Fruits to compensate for this. As a result, I play very conservatively the third time, making no real attempt to abuse the kappa. The first two berserkers charge forward into the swamp and die. I then move forward to the second island, drawing forward Diego and the nearest Enigmancer. Enigmancer uses Prevent which is super-annoying (shoulda brought Felius for water resist + status transfer to draw it off? Possibly!). Once both of them die, reinforcements show up. Two of the striders, a berserker, and a grappler come forward immediately, and this is the tricky part of the battle, controlling them and keeping healing down and GRR ACCELERATE it is annoying, even though it doesn't happen often, two turns in quick succession from someone as accurate/non-total-fail at damage like a grappler is a pain. Once they're dead the rest are easy enough.

I'm annoyed at myself because (a) I waste two Revive Fruits making sure Vin survives the battle only to learn at the end that dying erases all your Exp boosts anyway so this is a total waste, and (b) I realised as I completed the battle that I could probably abuse Geomancer to jump across the battlefield then draw everyone into the swamp for more kappa abuse. Oh well. In fact I did that last playthrough pretty much. Oh well.

Vin hits Level 20 too, obviously.

2-2 (sentinels and elevators)

Clarissa: Sentinel; Dandelion Shot OC, Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Elayne: Sentinel; Elementalist OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC

Bit of a tricky one. The enemies aren't as good as 2-1's, aside from the boss, Sharp, who is a bit of a bitch. Still, there are a LOT of them, and well, the elevator gimmick makes things a little tricky here.

First things first, one sentinel activates the first elevator, Vin hops on. Then both sentinels go activate the second. I have Elayne on the central switch, from which she can lob elementalist spells at most enemies. Clarissa can hit fewer of them, but that's okay. Most are quite frail and can be one-shotted by Vin. The real problem is that Vin doesn't have enough healing. A lot of this is my mistake, I give her two Potion Berries and two Revive Fruits, thinking that my sentinels will die and I can summon them up to the top level! I grossly overrate Strider damage, even with a height boost, against sentinel defence, and this is never a danger. Anyway, she dies once after I clear out 7 of the upper enemies through a combination of elementalist spam and Vin, and also Feeble Mind away Sharp's MP so she can't last indefinitely. After I do this she starts moving and attacking. I try to Heavy Strike Sharp off the cliff but miss both times. That doesn't help.

Anyway, during all this five reinforcements come from the south. They're easily dispatched by my elementalists sentinels, though. They come to you, have big weaknesses, etc.

That done, revive Vin, have Elayne heal her, and send her upstairs again. I try to get my MP back and MP Burst backfires, sigh. No big, kill Sharp with physicals although she slugs me back well enough with her 2x speed. This leaves a Secutor who can be baited and killed. Of course, by now, Vin is near death again, and needs two hits to drop an Elementalist, who refuses to be baited. She kills me, revive and get her up there again, use my very last MP to heal Vin one more time, kill puny elementalist. Victory with everyone out of MP, everyone except Vin out of VP and at 1 HP, aw yeah.

Almost have the third batch of classes! Definitely looking forward to the options provided by Enigmancer (can't beat Devastate for efficient damage, really), Berserker (yay move), Grappler (I hate Accelerate, but I'll still take it), and Strider (Drop Kick yesssss, also aim boosts).

[Cmdr_King]

XG:PSR

Shevat (Cont)- More or less just as planned.  With Seibzehn carting around 3x Power Magic, Maria's first ether (the one costing 2 EP) does like 600 damage.  This is good, because... well, actually, I should break down the shevat tunnels.
Anyway.  There's three enemies down here.  GImmicks, who have unbreakable defense and don't take ether damage (or at least not the elemental kind)... but have 6 HP.  If you'll remember your XG damage calculations, you know that you can't do less than 1 damage barring blocking.  So yeah, trivial.  Second, we have Forbidden.  These guys lose their first turn, then on the second and every turn thereafter deal damage equal to their lost HP.   So, basically, if we kill them we hit them hard and fast between their turns.  They've got good defense, though... in fact, at my levels (and with Elly still rockin' the Lunar Rod, even though nothing here is susceptible) I don't break their defense.  Anyway, they've got 500 HP.  Last are Tears.  These always come in groups of two.  They're fairly puny, but if you kill one, the remaining one essentially gives itself every buff in the game, or something to that effect, meaning it generates turns from the aether and gains a new MT attack that causes death.  I flatly run from these fuckers.
Anyway, Seibzehn is equipped with 3x power magic, causing Maria's first ether attack to deal 600 damage, or what might be called "trivializing the bloody dungeon".  I also manage to get lost by misreading the FAQ I'm using and lose a few minutes there.
After this is teh Gate Defense series.  I use the setups from before (Elly vs 1, Fei vs 2, Billy vs 3, Rico vs 4) and it's all just as planned.  Fei has a scare as I realize he can't break white knight defense (because he's skipped three upgrades), but it turns out that even with no Ether amplification, Guided Shot OHKOs them.  BIlly works out beautifully, OHKOing the power gear and easily weathering the white knights.  Rico slogs through with no problems, since he's using the most recent upgrades.  Optimally, if you'd bought a second Ether Doubler, Bart is probably better here; with an ether setup he should pull off the same OHKO trick using YggDepthChrg, and you'd really only need to give him HP rather than the full upgrade set Rico had.  He'd also get the jump on the power gear and shorten the battle a bit.  But, I don't have that so it's not worth it.
The rest of the shevat sequence isn't really losable.

Nisan Defense Force- I end up eating reset here (I am shame); I haven't upgraded character gear in AGES, and it turns out that the randoms here are pretty well top of the line offensively.  Anyway, Bart is forced, and I round out the crew with Elly, reasoning she's less likely to die than Maria.  Properly upgraded, battles are slow but in my favor.  'boss' fight falls over dead.  Aerods~

Gate 1- Bart is still forced here, so I opt to bring Seibzehn over Vierge; 'cuz, uh, Shakhan's gonna get a COUPLE turns and Vierge would be OHKOed due to going half the game without upgrades.  I've had easier fights here, but still not a good showing for Shakhan.

Gate 2-  Swap Chu-Chu for Seibzehn.  OHKO with Aerods.  2HKO with Graviton Cannon (because I only have one ether doubler).  Yeah, elements blow.

Gate 3- Fei/Elly/Maria.  Since I'm still stubbornly conserving money, all the randoms down here OHKO the fuck out of Vierge and Weltall.  Crescens isn't quite so lucky, and actually gets three turns off because I fell juuuuuust short on some damage, but still not a hard fight even if Vierge did buy it... I think.  Maybe it was Weltall.

And we're caught up.  At this stage, looking over the upcoming game, I'm debating the merits of sacrificing speed on the mage gears (Viege/Renmazou/Crescens) in favor of full ether amp, ie 3x Power Magic.  If so, I'm going to want to buy those in Shevat, now, because I'm not sure if they stay on store lists in the anima dungeons.  'sides, I totally want to see what I can make Thor Wave do to poor Vendetta.
(Solaris?  Man I dunno.  We'll see how the Lunar Rod fares here, and how many things I can flee.)

[SageAcrin]

She can abuse the ledge on the left side of the battle very badly, however.

ooh. I think I kinda flinch at that because of the DB chapters(where a mage gets one-shotted trying to do it if something gets through, as I learned the hard way.). Game taught me bad habits sometimes.

They start with A's, but have five maps (easy though some may be) in order to get this to S by the time Naesala joins. 7-8 attacks per map? Not unreasonable for PCs who double everything, and that's before any potential Flourish hype.

Completely unecessary EXP sinkhole that could be used to make much better filler of the rest of Ike's troops for 4 than...well, any other group can make. Ever. Even people like Rolf could easily be trained up during 3-7 and 3-8(both stages are extremely controlable.). Rolf is a ridiculously good 4 filler with very little work.

Big waste of EXP for no really major gain over Naesala? Eh. At least with Volug there's a survivability question(That is, you may not survive if you don't use Volug, or someone equally as much of an EXP sinkhole. This is a question...basically all the time. DB chapters are nasty. Also, long term, EXP lost in DB can be made up later easily enough in Part 3, so long as they don't end up toooo behind.).

Now, granted, you can have them abuse Flourish. But only one of them. (Only one copy in the game and all.)

The thing about shifting is that the FE community underrates the absolute effect a little, I think. I'm not really sure I feel competent to state things too strongly-I mostly didn't Olivi Grass abuse, as I said-but that never has stopped me from talking before.

Yes, by and large it's a convenience thing, and yes, if you're very good at strategy you can make the impact minimal. I'll accept that. I'll also accept that I am not optimal at FE style strategy or even very close.

However...the issue is that, if a unit is considered a good target by the AI, by and large it swarms them, particularly if it's a good unit(as it's quite aware they'll take more hits to bring down). And the AI prioritizes Laguz just to run down their meter, if they're the only target they can attack without getting countered-and often they are due to a lack of 1-2 weapons(I love this. FE10's AI is shockingly competent. The only time I can rely on them to be stupid is when a skill is involved. Quirky, maybe, stupid no.).

Hawks -3 per battle. It's not really hard to get into a situation where you're forced to rely on them picking off people, despite their good on paper front line swordmaster+-type stats. Three attacks and one turn loss is -13.

So in short, to minimalize the impact you have to either itemspam and limit the times they can attack, or attack and limit the amount of attacks they can take when enemy turn rolls around. They can't just step up and brawl. This is way more true with cats(and indeed it's badly limiting-picking things off is much harder for a cat AND they have worse meter...), while Dragons cheat and can almost totally ignore their meter, popping an Olivi Grass once every couple of turns even at the front lines with full assaults wailing on them.

Now, obviously that does not make them bad. Good Laguz are great. But unless I'm crazy, no amount of strategy can actually keep transformation from limiting your options, and that really hurts them more than you'd think. Unless they're Herons or Dragons. Then they basically don't care.

Of course with Ulki and Janaff there's still enough Gem to go around for one of them anyways by 4-F, much like there is for Giffca. And only a crazy person wouldn't use all three during the split. So it doesn't really matter there. >_>

Just as a general statement... I kinda feel like there's an unspoken viewpoint within a fair deal of FE10 players that use Laguz a lot, that a Laguz is, as long as you're playing well, just as good as Beorc with the same stats would be, and that because their Strike levels go up and because they gain levels fine later, that they're unmitigatedly good, when I read FAQs or look at Serenes or GFAQs or whatnot.

That's...a little inane. They're prepromos at huge level gaps that can't solo a situation without freezing in place and spamming items, and Strike level gains come at a huge, huge EXP cost. This is the equivalent of paying someone three or four BEXP levels of EXP, often, for +5 Strength and an according +5 Strength cap boost-a choice that would mostly get scoffed at when put like that, as raw might, while good, tends to be a lot worse than balanced stat growth that you can place anywhere. They're still good, but the downsides are clean to them between their build and their level, and it feels strikingly like using them constantly like a Beorc is totally missing the design point of "Short term problem removal". And they're just as good at that without grass spam, which is why I didn't even bother for much of the game.

(boy that tangent got long.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Completely unecessary EXP sinkhole that could be used to make much better filler of the rest of Ike's troops for 4 than...well, any other group can make. Ever. Even people like Rolf could easily be trained up during 3-7 and 3-8(both stages are extremely controlable.). Rolf is a ridiculously good 4 filler with very little work.

Why does it matter if they're an exp sinkhole or not? They gain something out of it (strike level), same as someone like Rolf would. That's pretty much their equivalent of exp, since their other stats... basically don't need much help anyway (they're already faster than most units' speed caps, extremely durable to non-crossbows, etc.).

EDIT: If you're going to argue that Janaff/Ulki don't even need strike level to be good filler, then that's fair, but doesn't make them sound any worse as units to me.

So in short, to minimalize the impact you have to either itemspam and limit the times they can attack, or attack and limit the amount of attacks they can take when enemy turn rolls around.

This is very true, and pretty much what keeps laguz from godmoding with generally broken stats (well, the good ones. This is why units like Kyza and Lyre are so fraught with problems, they -don't- have good stats). Basically, you have to choose between a good player phase and a good enemy phase, unless you're facing nothing but 1 range enemies (it happens! This is why Volug dominates part 3). However, the good news is you have that choice, unlike, say, Snipers who will never have a competent enemy phase before endgame. Still, it's why they're not as good as their raw stats suggest, as you note.

I disagree with your comments on exp, however. There's no exp ranking in this game. If you're choosing between using, say, Janaff and Rolf, then sure, Rolf gains more exp while Janaff only gains strike, but... if Janaff is better while both are "levelling" in part 3 and then still better as a filler in part 4 (I'd say both of these are true, but even if you disagree, bear with me for sake of argument), what does it matter? You're clearly better off using Janaff than Rolf (or both). It's kinda reminiscent of the arguments against earlygame Titania in FE9 which are now generally agreed to be rubbish; yes, she gains very little exp, but it doesn't matter because she's the best unit at the time and using her makes the game easier compared to not using her. Obviously part 3 is so filled with powerful units that the contribution of the hawks isn't going to be as good, but the parallel applies.

[SageAcrin]

I disagree with your comments on exp, however. There's no exp ranking in this game. If you're choosing between using, say, Janaff and Rolf, then sure, Rolf gains more exp while Janaff only gains strike, but... if Janaff is better while both are "levelling" in part 3 and then still better as a filler in part 4 (I'd say both of these are true, but even if you disagree, bear with me for sake of argument), what does it matter? You're clearly better off using Janaff than Rolf (or both). It's kinda reminiscent of the arguments against earlygame Titania in FE9 which are now generally agreed to be rubbish; yes, she gains very little exp, but it doesn't matter because she's the best unit at the time and using her makes the game easier compared to not using her. Obviously part 3 is so filled with powerful units that the contribution of the hawks isn't going to be as good, but the parallel applies.

For the former part...the difference is that Rolf will likely gain as much Might and gain other stats, whereas Janaff just gains the might. In other words, there's no real *conflict* of "If I use Rolf, Janaff becomes unusable.". There is just "Rolf gains three times as much from the same amount of kills.".

(Rolf is a bad example here because he actually probably will, thanks to his low starting levels and high strength growth, gain the same +5 to Strength short term that the Might boost is equivalent to, along with other stats. There is more questionability when you're talking about +2/3 on all stats on one person and +5 might on another.)

To put it simply, they don't *conflict*-Janaff starts off excellent and won't gain nearly as much as Rolf. So why short him? Two good people are better than one slightly better person, is the logic.

In practice, of course, there is a question of if you're bringing Ulki or Janaff into Endgame, due to defenses being quite high... but they simply have to compete with Giffca, non-Naesala Royals, Stefan(whose stats are remarkably close, whose caps are remarkably close, and who comes with a 22 power weapon that is stronger than anything they can produce), and anyone that has been normally built up who can swing an SS.

It does depend somewhat on the positioning of the Laguz and how much EXP we're talking about here, obviously. For FE10 late Part 3, we're talking a lot of high teens enemies IIRC for...most of the latter half, it oddly leveled off. This is...actually a pretty bad gap between Janaff and anyone under Tier 2 15, they gain something along the lines of a quarter of a level for the equivalent of his 2 WEXP. It's not efficient. Of course, now you have me wishing I knew the exact calculations for this, there is a definite line to be drawn here for where it does become efficient. Probably when there's no competition that you care about gaining over 12-15 or so EXP a kill(Ulki and Janaff get two WEXP pretty much every time in Part 3, but they usually kill the target.).

(Interestingly, the conclusion I find myself drawing after this gaming philosophy viewpoint expounding is that if you can't find a way to get any of Naesala, Ulki and Janaff to SS without blowing a lot of EXP, you should say screw it and just use Giffca. I can find...absolutely nothing wrong with this logic, it's the same reason I don't respect Skrimir after the two forced stages. Stop being so good Giffca.)

Of course, this, again, does kinda fly out the window considering that, if you don't mind losing a slot(and indeed you can get away with this in Ike's chapters-there are people that won't make good filler, or that will with quite little EXP and don't care.).

For the latter...nah, Titania's not the right parallel at all, for multiple reasons.

Firstly, Titania is an excellent character because she is available during very hard chapters, and chapters that, moreover, are nigh-impossible to kill everyone on since they're timed. The EXP she is "draining" doesn't exist for other people, as, if she wasn't killing those people, they would never die.

Secondly, the parallel only applies if someone else can't kill enemies as fast as Ulki/Janaff. Again, see my statement on how many people a Laguz can handle and how often they can run until transformation gauge replenishing, potentially. If this was another group-any other group, actually-I'd agree. As it is I'm not sure they don't, in practice, make things slower, although it varies on who we're replacing them with(Replacing Ulki with an L1 Rolf is going to get you tons of EXP and make the EXP comparison look bad, but it's also going to take for frigging ever to end anything with.).

There's certainly a question and one that would take rather ridiculous amounts of microanalysis and subjective arguments to actually hash out, ultimately, I think.

Thirdly, BEXP is much more of a question in Titania's favor. It is pretty strenuous at all times to reach the BEXP requirements in FE9; One of the few things FE9 simply did better was setting it's turn limits to logical things, FE10's are all over the place. So, Titania use could easily get you more EXP than not using her, even ignoring other things.

In Ulki/Janaff's case? Well, 3-7 has no time EXP(Then again, their kills are moooostly free there if they take the west side...well as long as they don't get one-shotted.), 3-8 has 20 turns as a limit(.........), and 3-10/3-11 are ten turns.

Now...3-10 in general has to be completed around that to avoid risk to Elincia, so most of the same statements I've said before about how I feel about it still apply. 3-11 would be an excellent point for time, and indeed there's just one problem with it. For whatever ridiculous reason, it's a Seize mission, meaning that Ike has to be shuttled across the map and has a one turn delay when he's dropped. So...your hawks would have to either break out ahead or your entire force would have to be flying. If the latter's true, they...will be unable to attack part of the time in a mission you have to pretty much intelligently full-tilt across with every flier you have to complete in 10 turns, making them inferior to every non-Laguz flying option you have. In that sense, they're vastly inferior as not using them probably won't change your ability to get BEXP, compared to Titania.

Of course they're still good on 3-11, but I've said that.

Post preview edit:

EDIT: If you're going to argue that Janaff/Ulki don't even need strike level to be good filler, then that's fair, but doesn't make them sound any worse as units to me.

Oh, surely, but that only applies up to 4-F. I thought the Naesala comparison assumed S Strike-without their worth as filler, relative comparisons to each other, are kinda...not there. I never really called them bad at all. It was more that they're extremely good but their positioning is extremely bad, and their availability isn't really helping it as much as you'd think on paper.

mmm. Thinking on it, I think the thing that really bugs me about Naesala vs them is that you can, if you wish, pull out Naesala for 4-F out of the bag and he will have that S Strike and still be useful. *Very* useful? No, not until he beats on mages, White Dragons, spirits, whatever, for a decent chunk of time, but he holds his own decently. 47 Might, ignoring levels gained later, is Sothe-at-cap-with-Baselard damage-not impressive, but off the mobility it can hold okay for the first two chapters while he gets going on Strength growth, and he'll end at double swinging Meg offense.

Janaff, the stronger of the two, will have 40. Huge gap. Single lowish-for-the-time Elincia swing levels of damage. It's much harder to surmount that gap, particularly as, for them, it's more about that Strike than it is base stats(and Naesala's caps and growth are both better for Strength to boot(Albiet, not *much* better than Janaff, Ulki is pretty substantial though. Ulki has other advantages, but *those* won't surmount the 36 Might he'll have at that point, either...), as well as the fact that he starts at a lower level and hence gained EXP faster.)

If you partially build them up, like normal characters, having them attack with everyone else, they...will become as useful as Naesala is when you get him, after draining a lot of EXP from other people, for Endgame, assuming they don't fall short and drain still more EXP during 4(Less extreme, as they're breaking 1 then at least.). 35 is a lot of enemies to eat. Whereas, if you don't...they'll still have 40 which is fine for 4-non-F.

Basically it feels like favoritism as much as what I did with Meg's Tier 2 14 or so+ levels, by BEXPing them. Sinking a lot into one character to make them better. I just expect more of that than "Well he'll be as good as this other person. If you ignore the useful skill he has.". A lot of FE10 is about optimising where your resources go, lategame, so that 4-F is as managable as possible, to me. Ulki and Janaff don't use their resources well when given them. It doesn't make them bad, since you use them instead to deal with situations instead of considering them as a long term option.

I mean, to put this into perspective: Nailah in Part 1 is about fixing situations. She fixes every situation, ever, flawlessly, at the cost of it's rewards(besides items). You get what you pay for.

Volug is an out for many situations until very late in Part 1, and still gets Strike levels. You get what you pay for...and a bonus of him being better later for it. You get more than you pay for(Rating Volug highly is something I approve much of.).

Meg gains gradually and will be a good character later and is useful now. She is meant to be used as part of an overall strategy but will gain much more from it short term. You get what you pay for.

Ulki and Janaff fix...a few narrow spectrum situations. (Before 4. During 4, pre-4-F they are badasses. No arguments here.) If they were removed I have no doubt all of those situations could be fixed without a lot of real effort outside of possibly 3-11, before 4. (They are clearly good outs for all sorts of situations during 4.) That doesn't mean they should be ignored, any more than it means you shouldn't use Ike because you can get by without him. Those situations are things they're excellent at. But, much like a 20/20 Ike, it might be better to think "Is this worth it?" before just doing it. The answer is...yes, just as long as you don't overuse them, based on extreme short term.

If you put them into way more than those situations they're needed for, if you put a lot of items on a team that could at the time use the cash to keep them transformed, if you use them for situations they're not necessary in, to build them up, if you take away EXP from other people, you get...something that's not as good as Giffca and less versatile-if possibly more statted-than Naesala. That's not getting what you pay for to use them like that. You get what you pay for using them to destroy bad situations, and they just won't hit S like that. There just aren't quite enough of them until 4, and Naesala's gaining WEXP along with them then.

Again, unless you use Flourish. Which makes this conversation pretty academic. It's not like it was hard to get(2k at a Bargains shop). Slows down your fights, but as demonstrated 3-8 is not exactly something that rewards speed objectively. So who cares, short of time efficiency?

Of course you can use it on Naesala too during Part 4. It's probably not hard to get all three to SS if you're ignoring time, just boring and not worth it, honestly(Naesala as I mentioned isn't really hard with consistent use and just tossing Flourish on one and the other to 4-5 should do it.). But then again...ultimately based on potential Naesala tips them out a bit thanks to Formshift and +4 Speed cap that can reasonably be reached. So if you're doing it for long term and just squeezing every drop out of all three...it's still not worth it.

But hey by then you probably could field all three and replace some Beorc with them(Whoever you'd have use Alondite and...uh....okay that's probably not practical but hey.). >_>

[Bardiche]

snip

8345 words. And these are general thoughts? ... Wow, Sage. Wow.

[Lady Ashe]

A bit late but on DMC3 - IIRC Special Edition made the original's easy mode the normal mode, so I can definitely understand complaints about the lack of difficulty. You really should give the harder modes a shot.

Personally I even enjoyed getting decimated by DMD but then it's my second favourite game so I'm probably a bit weird. I still plan to go back and SS rank everything someday but I imagine I'll struggle to even beat Hard Mode with how out of practice I am.

[Shale]

Nah, it made the original's normal mode the normal mode. The US version of the base game had all the difficulties shifted up a notch, so easy was Japanese normal and normal was Japanese Hard.

[Meeplelard]

Is DMC3 Easy equal to DMC3SE Normal, or DMC3SE Easy?  I was never sure if US DMC3 removed Japanese Normal from the game, or Japanese Easy, relabeling Normal as Easy.

I do know that Normal = SE Hard, Hard = SE Very Hard, with DMDs being equal though.  Though, DMC3SE Hard to DMD seems like a ridiculous jump in difficulty, relative to other Hard -> DMDs, to the point where that logic may have been why they considered futzing with difficulties?  Either way, DMC3 is a game that strikes me that a "Very Hard" to smooth transition into DMD was very much needed.

Can't speak for DMC4 of course.  DMC1, watching videos, DMD doesn't look like a tremendous step up from Hard, at least before the DT Nonsense; enemies are definitely hitting harder and more durable, but its still all the same enemies you fight ("Wait, what's a shadow doing in Mission 2, LET ALONE A TIGHT CORRIDOR!?" still applies to Hard), with the same general AI and the same new tricks (Griffon's little new trick is a big one.)  Jump is large but reasonable, where as DMC3's DMD seems like a huge jump relative to hard, contrast to Very Hard where it seems to be akin to Hard -> DMD in DMC1.

EDIT: You know, thinking on it...DMC3SE's Hard Mode didn't alter enemy availability, did it?  Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't remember fighting enemies particularly earlier than in Normal Mode.  I know Very Hard does this (the LP made that clear), but not certain about Hard Mode.

I know DMC4 definitely did what DMC1 did with hard Mode, as you definitely do NOT fight Blitzes as early as Mission 3/4, let alone as Nero before the Boss Rush *shakes fist*

[Bardiche]

DQ9 - Putting ToI on hold for a little.

Just got my sixth plot item! One more to go before the arching plot advances.

Man, the recent boss was a tough cookie. Acts twice, does both damage and MP Drain (~ 8 MP, which is fairly significant given Midheal costs 4, and the Priest had an MP pool of 80), can buff magic defence, and knock people prone, and cast Boom, and cast Dazzle. Tough nut to crack, but I got her down! Bounce for the win.

My team:
Yuusha - Level 23 Gladiator. He has perks in Warrior (+resilience), Thief (+agility), Ranger (+agility), Paladin (+resilience) and Gladiator (+HP). Trained in Swords. He's pretty much my physical power house, but due to having so many talents in speed he's not necessarily the strongest physically speaking... heh. Greatest weapon, though! Tanks magic due to Magic-resisting armours.

Pino - Level 25 Thief. He has perks in Martial Artist (+agility), Thief (+agility) and Warrior (+resilience). Has Daggers almost mastered: the only he thing he lacks is Omnivocational, which lets him wield daggers on any class. This can be ridiculous given there's pretty good status effects on daggers. Currently the fastest, who can Heal and Squelch. Damage is on-par with Yuusha due to his high training in Daggers, but he's fairly weak on resilience. I mostly use him to batter enemies quickly with Warcry, or hit them right before the Mage hits.

Niode - Level 26 Mage. MVP. Only has perks in Mage, having almost mastered Wands and Spellcraft by now. Crackle consistently hits for 80~100 damage (which rivals Pino and Yuusha), but she's due for a new attack spell as far as I'm concerned. Current spell line-up is Frizz, Acceleratle (MT Agi Up is ridiculously good for combos), Crack, Crackle, Bang, Sap, Kasap, Fuddle, Bounce. Her Wands give her Caduceus (high stun on demons), Magic Ward (increases MDef), some spell to reduce enemy Mdef, MP regeneration in Focus Pocus and Magic Seal for silence. Ridiculously speedy, and rivals Pino in durability. This probably says more about Pino than it does of Niode.

Simba - Level 18 Paladin. Highest def character despite the lowest level. Takes damage and doesn't afraid of anything. Has perks in Priest (+magical mending, Benediction), and is trained in Spears and Shields. Has a few useful tricks to help out Niode's suspect durability with Buff, Whipping Boy, Whistle and Protective Spikes. The Coup is also good, fully negating all offensive effects for two turns, excluding the casting turn. Doesn't have Midheal like he did as a Priest, though, but the Priest's durability was ass. Now he's a good back-up for damage, and doesn't die even if you beat on him with a full round of attacks.

Currently going to attempt the Paladin equipment quest. Need to kill a specific monster with Protective Spikes, which sucks since it's a counter and not TOO awesome on offence. Item quests give you an armour that's a lot better than the armour I can get right now (okay, not entirely true - finally replaced the Mage's armour), and at level forty it seems it'll grant me another piece of equipment... or something!

I've absolutely no clue where to go now and there's no walkthrough. Lounging at xenophobe isle but heh.

[Xeroma]

East of Batsureg, go there. Wormwood isn't until later. That is, go southeast of Batsureg, straight east, and then north to find TotallyNotHogwarts.

[Bardiche]

Oh, thanks Xeroma. I was wondering what I needed to do and DragonQuest games are so typical in not telling. :V