FEDL Week 3: In which Thani owns faces

[Cmdr_King]

Godlike

Dheginsea (10)- ii vs Cainaghis (10)- iiiii
Nailah (10) vs Naesala (10)- iiiiiiii
Ashera (10)- iiiiiii vs Tibarn (10)
Dragon (7)- i vs Athos (7)- iiiiiiii

Heavy

Roy (6)- iiiii vs Ashnard (9)- ii
Rutger (6) vs Ephraim (8)- iiiiii
Nephenee (9)- ii vs Eirika (8)- iiiiiiii
Elincia (10)- iiiiii vs Hector (7)- ii

Middle

Marth (11)- iiii vs Colm (8)- iiii (CK Vote Marth can stall for a while but he's no accuracy god; he's not killing Colm first on counters alone)
Marcia (9)- i vs Oswin (7)- iiiiiiiii
Canas (7) vs Micaiah (10)- iiiiiiii
Oscar (9)- iiiiiii vs Lute (8)- i

Light

Innes (8)- ii vs Gilliam (8)- iiiiiiii
Sanaki (10)- iiiiiii vs Lethe (9)- i
Oliver (10) vs Soren (9)- iiiiiiii
Pain (10)- i vs Volug (10)- iiiiii

Godlike

Caineghis (10) vs Naesala (10)
Ashera (10) vs Athos (7)

Heavy

Roy (6) vs Ephraim (8)
Eirika (8) vs Elincia (10)

Middle

Colm (8) vs Oswin (7)
Micaiah (10) vs Oscar (9)

Light

Gilliam (8) vs Sanaki (10)
Soren (9) vs Volug (10)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Heavy

Roy (6) vs Ephraim (8) - um. Will have to think about this.

Middle

Colm (8) vs Oswin (7) - Colm will need about -two- criticals to land the ID. WTD screws up the evade game some too, and I don't think Oswin fails to four-round. Pretty sad.

[Random Consonant]

Godlike

Caineghis (10) vs Naesala (10)
Ashera (10) vs Athos (7) - yay boringness

Heavy

Roy (6) vs Ephraim (8) - Hm, Eph 3HKOs, Roy 4HKOs but avoids Siegmund counters.  However, Eph has WTA, rendering Roy's evasion largely moot and Roy is struggling to hit here.  HOWEVER, Roy can use the SoS to heal, and he has awesome luck so a Siegmund crit isn't coming up.  This is assuming equal levels, granted, which is the most favorable view to Roy.
Eirika (8) vs Elincia (10)

Middle

Colm (8) vs Oswin (7)
Micaiah (10) vs Oscar (9) - This is basically Micaiah vs. Neimi again, but Oscar doesn't even double.

Light

Gilliam (8) vs Sanaki (10) - Gilliam's speed is an atrocity, Sanaki doubles here to me, for all that she likely doesn't need to.
Soren (9) vs Volug (10) - Volug's RES is trash and Soren's hitting a weakness here.

[Meeplelard]

Godlike

Caineghis (10) vs Naesala (10): Naesala doubles, but Caineghis is just shrugging off the hits so much.  I'd buy Naesala having a chance with Tear getting through defenses, except I don't think it does it enough, and on the otherhand, a clean Roar will kill Naesala.
Ashera (10) vs Athos (7): Athos lacks any real longevity in a fight like this, outside of Nosferatu, but that leads to different issues.

Heavy

Roy (6) vs Ephraim (8): hmm...depends what level I see Roy here.
Eirika (8) vs Elincia (10): Depends what level I see Elincia here!

Middle

Colm (8) vs Oswin (7): Want to say Oswin will kill before Colm crits twice, since Colm isn't winning on damage at all, and he needs that Instant Death.
Micaiah (10) vs Oscar (9): Was gonna vote Oscar until I remembered Thani...

Light

Gilliam (8) vs Sanaki (10): Kneejerk.
Soren (9) vs Volug (10): Kneejerk again!  I seem to recall FE9 Mages were notably worse than they were in FE10, and Volug having Halfshift makes him enough I want to say?

[SnowFire]

Godlike

Caineghis (10) vs Naesala (10)
Ashera (10) vs Athos (7)

Heavy

Eirika (8) vs Elincia (10) - I have pretty high Elincia respect, but kneejerk.  Eirika is dodgy and accurate and painful, Elincia is just even more painful.  Stun can obviously flip this, but think Eirika has an accurate 2HKO, so Elincia only gets 2 shots...  although if Elincia has higher move, she can cede the initiative, and get 4 shots in to hope for Stun?  Actually...  sure, I'll vote Elincia.  Close match though.

Middle

Colm (8) vs Oswin (7) - Assassin Colm dodging a whole lot and doubling.
Micaiah (10) vs Oscar (9) - Thani.

Light

Gilliam (8) vs Sanaki (10) - You kill FE7/FE8 armor knights by setting them on fire.
Soren (9) vs Volug (10) - Kneejerk is that Soren may well OHKO here; Soren barely has a 2HKO vs. average IIRC, Volug's got mildly good HP but terrible resistance, and that damage is getting doubled.  But let's say they both 2HKO each other.  Volug goes first...  but Volug might miss, while Soren has accuracy-twink'd Fire if he wants it.  The chance of Adept firing seems greater than the odds of Savage firing as well.  (This is with a full-shifted Volug to the halfshifted average, mind, it's probably even worse for halfshifted Volug to a no-shift average.)  EDIT: Never mind, see below.

[Dark Holy Elf]

FE9 weakness is double might, not double damage, which tops out at +8 damage for a maxed forged fire tome (FE10 is triple, so +16 damage if you'd rather use that... don't think it matters). So yeah, OHKO isn't happening. Soren also has below average evade against Volug's above average hit (assuming your views on shifting) so I really doubt any dodging is happening there, and Savage is 35% against Adept's 27%, so yeah I actually am not sure how Volug loses if you let him start shifted.

Halfshift Volug on the other hand should lose due to not doubling, and still being 2HKOed (even more solidly, in fact), meaning that the counter plus the normal attack kills. And yeah, fire is quite accurate so evade hype is out.


Godlike

Caineghis (10) vs Naesala (10): Like against Nailah, Naesala doubles, and wins if Tear goes off. Granted, he's also 2HKOed this time, so he has less time to get the mastery he needs if I take a dim view of those. Not sure how I feel about that today. Um, screw this, let's Hatbot it. Hatbot says Cain goes first and activates Roar right away. Well, fair enough! I'll change this if anyone wants to actually argue me on it.
Ashera (10) vs Athos (7)

Heavy

Roy (6) vs Ephraim (8): uhhh
Eirika (8) vs Elincia (10): Both 2HKO each other, but Eirika's evasion is more decisive than Stun, which needs to make a hit check first to even be considered. Elincia's only above average hit with her authority stars considered, which to be fair I do give her, but even then she misses over a third of the time and that's not cutting it when she needs 4 hits (or a stun). Assuming Eirika has 40% evasion and Elincia has 26% Stun, Eirika wins ~73% of the time if Elincia is forced to attack first, and ~47% of the time if Eirika is forced to attack first. You can quibble with those numbers of course... but since I give less respect to flaky skill activations, I think it ends up pretty clear for me.

Middle

Colm (8) vs Oswin (7): Oswin is 7 below average hit, so 8 above after weapon triangle. Colm has coinflippy evade roughly, we'll assume just below here, and gets twice as many attacks in to start with. Colm does pretty much need to get ID and Oswin probably kills on the third attack (maybe fourth?), so.. yeah sure, disrespecting crits enough for that.
Micaiah (10) vs Oscar (9): Well uh unless someone wants to argue me on Colm vs. Oswin I think Micaiah just won Middle. tra la la Thani.

Light

Gilliam (8) vs Sanaki (10): So Gilliam is doubled by a magic user, that is some pretty fireworks.
Soren (9) vs Volug (10): 2HKOs first due to counters, see above.

[SnowFire]

I was assuming that Soren wasn't doubled, and thought his adept rate was a bit higher than that.  That said, checking the FE9 stat topic, it has an underwhelming view of Soren's speed, and even with my slightly lower speed average (counting the royals for less), fullshifted Volug's 124% average speed comes out to 27.6 FE9 speed, which does double Soren's 23 Speed (even with WEIGHT-TWINKED FIRE).  Okay, vote changed.

[Random Consonant]

Eeeeeewww to letting FE10 PC laguz without Formshift start fullshifted, it's a phenomenon that can happen exactly all of once ingame and that's due to special circumstances.  Even with letting them start with 15 transform gauge, they still need to use an Olivi Grass and they can't transform on the same turn they do that, let alone *attack*, so Volug can just merrily get himself as 2HKO'd as he was before.  He needs to *start* fullshifted to win and like I said I see that as utterly unreasonable.

[dude789]

Godlike

Caineghis (10) vs Naesala (10)
Ashera (10) vs Athos (7)

Heavy

Roy (6) vs Ephraim (8)
Eirika (8) vs Elincia (10) FE8 FalconKnights have more move than Eirika. As a result, Elincia can run away from Eirika use staff regen to heal back up before going in for another round.

Middle

Colm (8) vs Oswin (7)
Micaiah (10) vs Oscar (9)

Light

Gilliam (8) vs Sanaki (10)
Soren (9) vs Volug (10)

[SnowFire]

Well as noted in the FE10 interps thread, I'm not trying to simulate the *start* of a battle (which means all laguz, including the royals, jump two divisons downward - not really down for allowing Laguz Stones and even Olivi Grass is questionable, and royals are clearly in the same boat as non-royals for the endgame deployments of "start untransformed"), but rather a situation in the middle or end of a battle where you want your FE10 laguz to get into a fight.  Let's shift to just considering boss fights for a moment.  There is exactly one and a half bosses in the entire game that starts within normal fighting range of your party, and that's E-2 which is the Ike duel not involving laguz anyway, and E-5 sort of.  There is pretty much no way that an untransformed laguz is going to get ninja'd by a boss, even a moving boss, since you'll retreat them rather than close.  It'd really be weird for laguz to get ninja'd by them in the DL.  If you accept that, it'd be even stranger for laguz to be okay against bosses by coming in transformed, but suck against PCs.  There usually just aren't that many enemies within range on turn 1 on maps with friendly laguz, and even when there are enemies, there (almost?) always is room to retreat and cower if somehow that laguz was the sole deploy.

...that said, on second thought, the laguz should probably go up against fullshifted averages with my interp (while beorc are still compared to halfshifted averages), since they do most of their combat with that set of stats, which might damp things a little, but eh.

[Random Consonant]

Except that's all irrelevent.  What matters is that they are complete and total dead weight for the first two turns of battle.  You're still letting them do something which they cannot, under normal circumstances, be reasonably assumed to be able to do.  It's like letting VP1 characters store energy across turns despite the fact that such a thing is impossible ingame.  No.  It's not like royals/halfshifted folks who are completely unable to be attacked while not transformed unless you let them ingame, they are punching bags for a non-trivial amount of time and that is something that should honestly be reflected.

[SnowFire]

You're still letting them do something which they cannot, under normal circumstances, be reasonably assumed to be able to do

No, I'm using for the DL turns 6-8 or thereabouts rather than turn 1.  I certainly agree that laguz starting untransformed is correct for a DL interpretation of turn 1, but I think that using turn 1 results in a crazy translation to the DL that isn't like in-game, and in this case there's a perfectly reasonable alternate translation that has FE10 laguz feel as useful as they are in-game.  I don't consider the fact that FE10 laguz aren't useful turn 1 very important because, well, see previous post, turn 1 isn't very important in-game, and it introduces all sorts of crazy "can a fast character win initiative on a royal laguz / laguz with a laguz stone and gank them despite this being totally impossible in-game" issues.  Headache, a worse one than my solution, IMHO.

[Random Consonant]

Bzzt.  Turn 1 is turn 1 *regardless* of how relevent it is.  No matter how you dress it up you're still creating a fake scenario that is more unreasonable than simply letting royals/people with halfshift have a fake initiative turn which is used solely to transform, which practically everyone does because that's what actually happens on turn 1 ingame.

[SnowFire]

It's not a "fake scenario," it's a *different* scenario that unquestionably happens during the game, unlike the "untransformed laguz with an inescapable enemy starting right on top of them" one which never does.  The "fake initiative turn" as you put it feels more fake to me.  (Also, regardless of how relevant it is?  In a hypothetical game where turn 1 is entirely 100% irrelevant and is where characters chat for love advice and fighting only happens on turn 2, we should still use turn 1 in the DL?  Er.)

Why only royals & Volug, though?  If you do hand out a fake initiative turn in which attacking is illegal, you should allow normal laguz to use a Laguz Stone (if legal) / Olivi Grass, too, on their own fake initiative turn.  Won't save Volug in this case - halfshifted Volug loses and a hypothetically legal Laguz Stone use for initiative fullshift costs him his "real" turn 1 attack - but would be more "fair" in reflecting that Laguz Stone holders, even if they started on top of an enemy in-game (Which they don't), would still have a chance to transform.  (Laguz with just Olivi Grass are still screwed forever, of course, although should still be able to uselessly use it at fake-initiative.)

[Random Consonant]

The "fake initiative turn" as you put it feels more fake to me.

You must be being deliberately obtuse if you think that letting something that can happen before all other considerations ingame do so in a duel is somehow more fake than letting something that cannot happen before all other considerations do so in a duel.  What you are proposing is a fake scenario because you are literally pretending turn 1 is somehow not turn 1 in this case.

Also, given that I don't allow Laguz Stones (or gems, for that matter) period, giving non-royals/Volug that same fake initiative turn would be pretty much pointless.

[ThePiggyman]

The "fake initiative turn" as you put it feels more fake to me.

You must be being deliberately obtuse if you think that letting something that can happen before all other considerations ingame do so in a duel is somehow more fake than letting something that cannot happen before all other considerations do so in a duel.  What you are proposing is a fake scenario because you are literally pretending turn 1 is somehow not turn 1 in this case.

Also, given that I don't allow Laguz Stones (or gems, for that matter) period, giving non-royals/Volug that same fake initiative turn would be pretty much pointless.

If I may interject, I think the reason that Snowfire discounts the first turn is because no actual battle happens. Assuming that two Fire Emblem characters were fight, they would be on opposing sides of the map, and the first turn is usually spent actually getting from one side of the map to the other. Honestly, if this was between a Fire Emblem character and someone from another game where Movement and Range aren't involved, it would be a lot more finicky and awkward to deal with, but as an in-game representation, two Fire Emblem characters that are fighting against each other would not normally be able to attack each other on their first turn, unless you have long-range magic, because of how distant they are from each other on their first turns.

I could be wrong, but I think Snowfire would be hesitant to do this if it was a Laguz against a non-FE character, but since it is between two Fire Emblem characters, you can take this kind of approach, since it's exactly how it would happen in-game.

[Random Consonant]

If I may interject, I think the reason that Snowfire discounts the first turn is because no actual battle happens. Assuming that two Fire Emblem characters were fight, they would be on opposing sides of the map, and the first turn is usually spent actually getting from one side of the map to the other.

I can think of quite a number of situations in any FE game where this is false, and therefore rendering that argument irrelevent to a duel as far as I'm concerned, sorry.

I could be wrong, but I think Snowfire would be hesitant to do this if it was a Laguz against a non-FE character, but since it is between two Fire Emblem characters, you can take this kind of approach, since it's exactly how it would happen in-game.

Which smacks of a ridiculous double standard to me, but I'll let Snowfire speak for himself there.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Honestly I think the idea of seeing the DL duel turn 1 not be the Fire Emblem round 1 is reasonable enough, although I don't do it myself (and I certainly like it better than interps such as "laguz can use the stones/gems they start with" and "royal laguz get roasted by anyone who goes before them"!). I mean, honestly, this sums it up:

It's like letting VP1 characters store energy across turns despite the fact that such a thing is impossible ingame

... which is a fairly widely-followed view of how to take VP1, so I don't really get the venom here.

[SnowFire]

Piggyman basically has the gist of it.  If you are facing a boss, they are way the hell across the map and not a concern on turn 1.  98% of the enemy forces are not a concern on turn 1 - 100% of them if your Olivi Grass laguz just retreats / stands around.  In FE10 at least, the game never starts with friendly laguz surrounded with no place to run, which is the important game here.

You must be being deliberately obtuse if you think that letting something that can happen before all other considerations ingame do so in a duel is somehow more fake than letting something that cannot happen before all other considerations do so in a duel.  What you are proposing is a fake scenario because you are literally pretending turn 1 is somehow not turn 1 in this case.

If you disagree with my interp, that's fine, but sheesh, it's not THAT hard to understand.  As I've stated about 3 times already, I'm not claiming that on turn 1 in Fire Emblem RD laguz are already shifted but have 15 gauge.  That is plainly false and impossible.  I am saying that I prefer DL turn 1 = (middle of the battle) rather than DL turn 1 = (start of the battle), because laguz end up completely weird and require hacks with the start of the battle interp.  If you accept that I am talking about the middle of the battle, then nothing about my interp is impossible or illegal or anything.  It's a fight you pick with the boss on turn 7 of the *map*, but it's "turn 1" for this particular duel.

To ramble about this topic more than it's worth, take a game like Ogre Battle.  There is the campaign deployment of troops, and then there are the individual battles that your squads get into when they fight.  "Turn 1" is when you first deploy from the base, but "Turn 1" is also when you first start up an individual battle, which happens over and over again.  Fun fact: OB characters get stronger based on the time of day.  I forget if you deploy in the "morning" or at noon, but let's say you deployed at noon (hypothetically, if that isn't true).  Would you insist that all good characters get damage bonuses and evil characters get damage penalties in the DL, which is what would happen if they got into a fight immediately after deployment?  Or just use a neutral average, since when actually playing you'll go through all the phases of a day?  (Actually, worse, you probably do most of your fighting on the first night in OB IIRC.).  Well...  it's not clear.  One is loyal to "Turn 1" on the campaign level, the other reflects the ebb & flow over time in gameplay.

I'm sure there's plenty of other comparisons.  Pretend FF7 limit bars were wiped at the start of every dungeon.  Suppose that the starting level of Biorhythm per map was actually fixed for every character but also changed a lot more often.  It should still be reasonable to make FF7 level 3 limits vaguely possible int he DL by amping the gague some, and it should still be reasonable just to pretend Biorhythym is neutral all the time since that's the average over time.

Throwing out turns even happens in non over-mappy games.  Many people throw out Zophar's first three turns and assume a DL battle with him starts with the two front arms dead on turn 4, rather than having an invincible Zophar + arms on turns 1-3.  There are few ARPG bosses ranked, but when they show up in the Dungeon, when is "Turn 1"?  Most people do not give infinity turns worth of pre-emptive buffing to characters fighting SD3 bosses (start the Lilka hype train?), and instead say turn 1 starts with when the boss is ready to attack, despite the fact that you almost always can buff up before fighting them.

[Random Consonant]

... which is a fairly widely-followed view of how to take VP1, so I don't really get the venom here

Arguing is fun, clearly.  Until we get to the insult phase, anyways.

There are few ARPG bosses ranked, but when they show up in the Dungeon, when is "Turn 1"?  Most people do not give infinity turns worth of pre-emptive buffing to characters fighting SD3 bosses (start the Lilka hype train?), and instead say turn 1 starts with when the boss is ready to attack, despite the fact that you almost always can buff up before fighting them.

Then why should FE10 laguz be allowed that benefit?  It is pretty much the same scenario, you're proposing whomever a FE10 laguz faces is somehow a "boss" and therefore should get sufficient time to fully "buff" and yet no one extends that courtesy to say, SD3 Lise, as far as I've seen, despite the fact that she can very much do the same sort of thing ingame, nor have I really seen anyone clamoring to.  Heck, we've had FE9 Mordecai in a couple weeks ago and he suffers from the same problem (not that it likely would have made a difference if he did start transformed, FE9 Mordecai, sucking, pick two), but in general I would hope that since you're going to go through with this you'd at least be consistant here.

Allowing a single fake initiative turn used for nothing but transformation/item use is fine enough since that is something that can be done before any other possible ingame consideration and allows for something closer to ingame.  Allowing for multiple such turns does not because then you start running into those other possible ingame considerations.  If the problem I have here hasn't been made sufficiently clear then I have no idea how I can make it clearer, because you seem to totally fail to comprehend this. 

Ignoring the other stuff, it is basically the same old same old with a helping of plot bullshit that I so hate to touch with a ten-foot pole and all I have to say about it is the same old same old and rehashing is lame so whatever.  (Also just to be sure we're on the same page, I never accused you of letting laguz start transformed with only a half filled gauge, 'kay?)

edit #1000000 or something: and this got hashed out and now we're in the agree to disagree phase

[SnowFire]

Arguing is fun, clearly.  Until we get to the insult phase, anyways.

Pretty much.  I think this conversation got derailed somewhere, so better to drop it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Just to clear something up, you can't prebuff against SD3 bosses; they invariably trigger as soon as you step into their room. (One SD3 boss even moves between different rooms, and each time it does so you lose all your buffs.) I'm struggling to think of a boss in the DL you can prebuff against (Baldur's Gate 2 comes to mind when it was ranked, and many people did hold that against the bosses)... plenty of NR like Velius and Adramelk, or Megasmilax, though.

[SnowFire]

I was thinking more like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOgyHHB2Vco

Dolan climbs up the wall, invincibly and untargetably, but you can buff.  Even if you wait for the party to take out their weapons, like in this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjEOTG6wAp4 )...  there's still a noticeable lull before you can actually do damage to him, and before he'll hit you, that you could use to buff against him.  So theoretically, a strict interp might say he cedes ? turns to opponents to buff up, which I think everyone will ignore (except perhaps in terms of a respect penalty to HP).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ah yeah, that's fair, some bosses do dick around at the start of the battle. In theory I wouldn't be opposed to this being documented and held against them fairly directly. I don't recall MISPOLM having any such lag though and he's about the only one who is used regularly.

(Of course SD3 buffs only consume fractions of a "turn", measured in enemy actions, to use anyway, so in-game it's not really a huge deal.)

[Yoshiken]

My only comment on this whole thing is, Snowfire, you should definitely take a full-shifted average if using that interp. I can definitely see how it makes a lot of sense, but using any other average inflates the Laguz to a point where they're far above their in-game use, when the interp is designed to make it more like in-game use.