Viewing Single Post From: Solid vs CATS

Viewing Single Post From: Solid vs CATS
C475_1337	Nov 24 2007, 06:29 PM
One serious d00d Posts: 1,863 Group: FEFFer Member #902 Joined: August 26, 2006	Quote: This is my first official debaet with you, the debater who inspired me to become a debater, so this is pretty epic for me. I guess, judging from Inui¡¦s comment, it¡¦s pretty epic anyway. Let¡¦s give the audience a dazzling performance, then. Let¡¦s duel...nob. lol, I wonder which one of us is Zeus and which is God. Anyway, yeah, bring it nub Quote: I¡'ll start off with a comparison at 18/0. Your whole post talked about performance only at two specific levels. Watch me counter: When they join: 12 Erk C Priscilla (might not have the very turn Kent joins, but soon enough afterward): 9.4 Att, 12.5 AS--24.1 Hp, 4.2 Def, 8.4 Res, 33.3 Avo, 7.2 crit 10 Kent (Erk joins 2 chapters earlier, hence the 2 levels): 9.6 Att, 11.1 AS--27.6 Hp, 7.2 Def, 3.2 Res, 26 Avo, 5.25 crit Therefore I conclude Erk >>> Kent, debaet over ......Or not. Your comparisons contained flaws anyway; for example, I see that you have Kent w/ A Sain during the 18 comparison, but Erk doesn't have C Serra, despite the fact that C Serra is only 8 turns slower and starts 2 chapters earlier. Anyway, on to more relevant forms of discussion. Concerning your wall o' text about Lyn, I shall respond: Solide In the case of deciding which of Lyn or Eliwood will be promoting using the first Heaven Seal at the outset of the game, whichever you promote later is almost surely a candidate for not being used. Firstly because there's all those chpaters at capped level, and secondly because the unit remains underlevelled towards the end of the game. Thus, it's basically "do I use Eliwood or Lyn?" In which case the answer is obvious. That quote you provided from me was talking about what happens in the event that Eliwood and Lyn are used on the team together, but since that's a scenario which shouldn't happen in the first place, it has no relevance. If Lyn is used, then either: Eliwood isn't used because of promotion issues, in which case you trade a good unit (Eliwood) for a worse one (Lyn). or The player (for some reason) uses Eliwood anyway, and one unit (either Lyn or Eli) gets alot worse than they would be otherwise, due to late promotion. Not to mention that you now have to use two Heaven Seals, which is about the same as recruiting Farina. Ouch. Kent's use of the Killer Lance and other such shiny toys could very well be directly hampered by that. Clearly, these are both highly undesirable scenarios. As for Lyn's personal abilities, you did a good job talking about the only thing she has going for her, earlygame offense. After the earlygame, her offense is no longer impressive (MK is worn down and her Spd becomes largely overkill). Lyn's Str at 21, for example, is the lowest out of all originally unpromoted physical attackers, excepting only the Thieves and Lowen (and she's only beating Lowen by a mighty one-fifth of a point). That low Atk means the only things her offense isn't bad against are those that most people can't double, such as Heroes, but those are rare, and even against those things, she's still outdone by pretty much every other unit that can double them. Against the majority of enemies, everyone barring nubs like Bartre can double, and they're all doing more damage than Lyn. She also has terrible Con, and she needs all the Avo she can get, so using heavier weapons to improve her Att is a double-edged sword. And then her defense is never good, and at some points could be considered downright bad. Low Hp and Def (Lucius has more combined Hp/Def than her at base level) + good base Avo, which is lowered to only middling overall Avo due to an almost complete lack of Avo support. Overall, I might agree with you that Lyn isn't a total failure in terms of combat performance, but I'm inclined to say she's below average. From there, the issues her promotion raise certainly turn her into a unit I don't want to use. Even if I use her, the damage done to Eliwood (and in some cases the Funds rank) overrides any stat bonuses Kent or anyone else might receive from supporting her. You said her "roster is also full of speedy Supports with people who want to Support her." Well, first off, half the units you named as wanting to support her are garbage, so w/e. Secondly, the same is true of, say, Eliwood. Hector, Lowen, Ninian, Harken, Marcus, etc will miss him in the event that Lyn is used. Indeed, since Eli has the best affinity and Lyn the worst, one might argue that Eli's supports help moar. You also said Lyn can help the lategame Exp rank, and then named the major drawbacks to using someone else for it. I notice, however, that you cleverly forgot to mention Lyn's drawback: You have to use a bad unit as a main member of the team. For yes, when Lyn promotes late, she certainly qualifies as a bad unit. Stuck at 20 and generally wasting her combat slot for a long time, then underlevelled even after = not good, not at all. I'd much rather use a good unit instead of Lyn for the entire game (cough Eliwood) and then send Nino or someone for one or two chapters to fix Exp, if necessary (no one has yet given any proof that Exp boosting is actually needed most of the time). You also mentioned Fiora. You'll notice that she's like Lyn, except with worse combat and a normal promotion. In other words, she¡¦s on about the same level as a unit that I don't want to use. First off, her offense is similar to Lyn's (w/ Lances, slightly more Atk, slightly less Spd; w/ Swords, almost the same stats), but minus the period of time early on where Lyn's offense is actually good, and minus the Mani Katti in general. So overall, not good. And her defense is a tragedy. If she's supporting Florina and Kent and holding Iron Lance, then her Avo at 21 doesn't even break 50. That's barely better than trash like Bartre is doing; it's actually worse than Oswin is doing; and Fiora has neither the former's Hp nor the latter's Def to back up that pitiful Avo. Then, as if to rub salt in the wound, the designers gave her a class that takes extra damage from Bows and can't take advantage of defensive terrain. Ouch. Then, on top of all that, she joins underlevelled and supportless when others will atleast have some supports. No, sir, I'm sorry, but I don't want to be using Fiora. Sain, atleast, is a fairly solid unit who wants to support Kent. But Kent's probably going without a B support, whereas Erk isn't (he's got not one, not two, but three very solid units on his list, and they'll all take him). Now, you said "if Eliwood isn't in play," Lyn's promotion is fine? This is mostly true. However, note that as both are ranked as high tier by most standards, the odds of Eliwood not being played are about the same as Sain not being played; and Eliwood getting the boot doesn't automatically mean Lyn gets a spot, it just means her chances are better. So Kent is still left with a single, Wind-affinity support partner, and sometimes it goes only to a B support (you yourself pointed out that Lyn x Florina is the fastest support in the game, so that's probably getting preference over Lyn x Kent). Quote: Now, Erk doesn't have Pent for a while, so he'll have either Priscilla or Serra, depending on which one you're using. The only way he'd have both is if both were in play, obviously, but depending on playstyle you might not even want to use two healers. Well, that's a fairly lame argument. Depending on playstyle, I might not even want to use Sain, for example. Depending on playstyle, I might want to give Erk all my Dragonshields. Depending on playstyle, I might not even want Kent to use a promotion item. And so forth and so on. Quote: Now that we've gotten Lyn out of the way, let's get to the actual, direct Kent vs. Erk stuff. Indeed. Before proceeding, I'd like to discuss Erk's constant 1-2 range. You claimed that he can only exploit it on the player phase; this is quite false. Ranged enemies are less inclined to attack Erk than a melee PC on the enemy phase; at the same time, Erk is better at countering said ranged enemies than melee PCs. If the player doesn't want Erk to be attacked, someone like Oswin can be sent in, and ranged enemies will hit Oswin instead of Erk due to Erk's ability to counter. At the same time, if the player thinks it's safe for Erk to be attacked and wishes for him to deal out counter damage, they can choose to position him so that ranged enemies must attack him. As you can see, 1-2 range can be exploited for the enemy phase. I'm not really sure what you're talking about in your section about Erk's 1-2 range on the player phase, so I'll just list the main benefit: Erk almost never has to take counterattacks on the player phase. Yes, you can only attack one enemy on the player phase, so this only prevents him from being attacked once per turn. It's about the same as letting him take another hit (i.e. if Erk is dying to something in 2 hits, and Kent in 3, Erk¡¦s 1-2 range cancels Kent¡¦s advantage; if both are dying in 3, then suddenly Erk has the advantage). Another important benefit: Erk has more flexibility in what spaces he can attack an enemy from. This helps him to end his turn on forests, near supports, out of range of certain enemies if desired, behind Oswin if desired, etc. There shouldn't be any need to elaborate further on that point. Kent can indeed emulate these effects, but doing so requires him to equip a weapon with terrible stats, so it's a two-edged sword. Certainly better than someone like Lyn's ranged capability, but not Erk's. --- Now, with all of the above in mind, I'll cover their initial performance, and then examine the effects of factors which might change the comparison as they come up (Kent's acquisition of the Killer Lance option, for example): Dropping the pretense that a single comparison at the specific level of 18 can accurately represent performance during the entire time that Erk/Kent are unpromoted, we find that Kent's case falls apart neatly. For example, Kent does not have the option of a Killer Lance for atleast his first seven chapters in the party, nor does he build up his Atk support for a good bit. Thus, upon joining, Erk clearly has the better offense, as demonstrated already: 12 Erk C Priscilla (might not have the very turn Kent joins, but soon enough afterward): 9.4 Att, 12.5 AS--24.1 Hp, 4.2 Def, 8.4 Res, 33.3 Avo, 7.2 crit (12.2 w/ Thunder), Res hitting, 1-2 range 10 Kent (Erk joins 2 chapters earlier, hence the 2 levels): 9.6 Att, 11.1 AS--27.6 Hp, 7.2 Def, 3.2 Res, 26 Avo, 5.25 crit The actual stats are similar, but Erk hits Res while Kent does not. This is effectively a Pow boost that's different for each enemy; +5-6 for Cavaliers, +8-9 for Knights, +2-3 for Brigands, etc. Erk winds up doing more damage than Kent to almost every single physical enemy, and considerably more to certain types (nearly 20 more damage per double against Knights = whoa). Erk can reliably kill almost every physical enemy bar the Sword types which he can't double; Kent can reliably kill only trash like Soldiers, and perhaps an occasional Peg or Archer or somesuch. Magic enemies reverse the Res effect, but those are still almost nonexistent during these early chapters. Then add on the bonus of Erk's 1-2 range (countering ranged enemies naturally ftw). At this point, Erk's beating Kent down pretty clearly in terms of offense. The defense is quite arguable. Kent has the advantage in concrete Def, but Erk fights back with 1-2 range. 15 Atk 3HKOs Erk and 4HKOs Kent; as you probably guessed, Erk¡¦s 1-2 range evens that out, and then since Erk has a small lead in Avo, he's technically winning (granted, it's by a very small margin, but it's a win nonetheless). Kent can pull ahead against sword enemies (WTA + low Atk to make his Def lead more notable), and slightly against Axe enemies (WTA switches the Avo lead over to him), which is countered by Erk's greater general flexibility due to 1-2 range, as outlined above. Kent equipping the Javelin will have a noticeable impact on his offense in almost any situation at this point, as he's still having trouble one-rounding very much at all, so that has little net effect. Better defense in exchange for worse offense, w/e. Overall, similar defense + superior offense make Erk the winner so far. --- The next major development is that Erk's going to use the Guiding Ring from Pirate Ship and go Super Saiyan, so that he can use Staves ASAP. Kent might want to do the same thing, but it doesn't really improve him as it doesn't add an entire second function to his repertoire, and then even if it was a good idea, there's 3 other high tier Knight Crest units who'd be wanting to do it too. So we have, at that point: 15/1 Erk, B Priscilla: 12.6 Att, 14.0 AS--30.1 Hp, 8.8 Def, 13.6 Res, 40.2 Avo, 16 crit (21 w/ Thunder), Res hitting, 1-2 range, Staves 13 Kent, C Sain or Lyn: 11.8 Att, 12.4 AS--30.2 Hp, 8.0 Def, 4.0 Res, 31.2 Avo, 8 crit Whoa, suddenly the concrete defense situation is violently reversed. 1 Def lead for Erk? wtf? With the same Hp, way more Res, and 9 more Avo? Yesplz. Note that, since you've made a point of Kent's Killer Lance, I've taken the liberty of posting their critrates as well. You'll see that Erk has a 13 crit lead for great justice. Erk actually leads in raw Atk and AS, so add on Res hitting, 1-2 range and higher crit, and he takes the offense trophy no problem. He's also winning defense easily, once again because of 1-2 range + higher actual defensive stats. Kent's WTA doesn't even save him here; same Hp/Def with a 6 Avo lead against Axe/Sword enemies, and then 1-2 range (reliable) beats out that small Avo lead (not reliable) very clearly. Not to mention Erk's now better at doubling Sword enemies than Kent, so w/e. You might complain that Erk's now suffering from lowered combat Exp gains, but that's countered by staff Exp. Speaking of that, yes, Erk has staves available now. You tried to argue that Erk is bad with staves, while Kent is the best mounted unit? I thought you were above such arguments, Solide. My response is simply: This debaet is Erk vs Kent. Not Erk vs Other Staff Users. Not Kent vs Other Paladins. Forget about the outdated "competition" arguments. lol @ 2 more move classifying as a separate and useful function anyway (and yes, to match healing, that's what it would need to qualify as). Besides, your view of Erk's staff use is rather flawed to begin with, as you assumed that he would be wielding Staves only during the lategame. At this point, there are only two other possible staff users, and Erk can hardly be called the worst of them (Serra doesn't reach 12 Mag until promotion). Indeed, I'd argue Erk as the best at the moment, as he's considerably more durable than Serra or Priscilla and thus better equipped for healing even when it means being exposed to enemy attack. Erk's added a second useful function on top of attacking, and he's already the best at it. He's arguably your best attacker too: L4 Marcus: 16 Att, 12 AS--33 Hp, 10 Def, 9 Res, 32.5 Avo 4 Att, 3 Hp, 1 Def, weapon triangle vs 2 AS, 5 Res, 8 Avo, Res hitting, 1-2 range Then Erk's presence increases the durability of all other units on the field, and also allows for straight attackers (like Kent) to gain more Exp than they would otherwise. Erk is more durable than Kent himself, and can also increase the durability of any unit the player wants. Erk's offense is better than Kent's, and Erk also gives everyone else a slight offense boost (slightly higher level). And so forth and so on. Thus, the stats at this point: 1 Att, 2 AS, 1 Def, 10 Res, 9 Avo, 13 crit, Res hitting, 1-2 range, increased team durability, higher levels for attackers vs......weapon triangle, I guess? And 1 move. Sit down, Kent. --- Now, to reach the next point where something happens that might upset the balance. Secret Shop in Dragon's Gate. First off, reaching that shop at all is questionable, as it's in the very bottom right corner and Legault runs toward the top left corner. In other words, you have to recruit Legault, visit the first shop (Physic is worth buying), and then take that Member Card all the way back across the entire map. Your tactics rank might not like that. But assuming that it's done...... 15/6 Erk, A Priscilla, C Serra: 14.6 Att (22.6 w/ Thunder), 16.5 AS--33.4 Hp, 10.8 Def, 16.6 Res, 53.7 Avo, 27 crit (32 w/ Thunder), Res hitting, 1-2 range, Staves 18 Kent, A Sain or B Lyn: 15.3 Att (25.3 w/ Killer Lance), 14.6 AS--34.4 Hp, 10.2 Def, 6.2 Res, 40.6 Avo, 13 crit (43 w/ Killer Lance), weapon triangle This doesn't actually help Kent very much. 11 crit lead? I know I don't care, especially when Kent only has that with a specific weapon that has limited uses; with anything else, Erk has a 19 crit lead. Plus, Erk will have more opportunities to crit in the first place due to doubling more often and being able to counter ranged (Killer Lance is 1-range, neener neener neener). Based on that, I'd be inclined to hand the crit win to Erk anyway. Besides, Erk was leading in crit for the entire game up to this point, so even if Kent was now winning crit, which he isn't, he'd have to do it for like 10 more chapters to make up for the time when Erk was winning crit. The only other thing Killer Lance does is add Att, but I'm not particularly impressed by that, either. See, Kent is losing in almost every single way other than Att, and he's not even winning Att by very much at all (a 3 point lead with his beloved limited-use Killer Lance, and no lead at all with the Iron Lance). A situational 3 Atk lead is beaten pretty easily by Res hitting and a 2 AS lead (Erk can reliably kill any physical enemy now, crits be damned? What?), and then Erk has all that other crap in his favor. I'll also point out that Erk's durability lead has increased. Kent's WTA only manages him a 2 Avo lead, combined with his lol1Hp, against Sword/Axe enemies, which is beaten by 1-2 range no problem, and then he gets whooped against anything else (13 Avo lead + 1-2 range ftw), and wtfraped when magic enemies show up (10 point Res lead fgj [for great justice]). In summary, Kent's shiny new toy doesn't really change anything. Quite different from Erk's shiny staff, which made him much, much better. Erk is still raping. --- Now, let's promote Kent. Odds are Erk's S Ranked his Anima magic by now, while Kent's been juggling two weapons types and recently added a third to play with, so odds are he's not there yet. 25 Kent, A Sain or B Lyn: 18.7 Att (28.7 w/ Killer Lance), 18.3 AS--41.5 Hp, 13.7 Def, 8.8 Res, 49.2 Avo, 15 crit (45 w/ Killer Lance), weapon triangle 15/12 Erk, A Priscilla, B Serra: 17.0 Att (25.0 w/ Thunder), 19.5 AS--37.3 Hp, 13.0 Def, 20.0 Res, 66.5 Avo, 38 crit (43 w/ Thunder), Res hitting, 1-2 range, Staves Not much is new on the block. Kent still has his little 2 Att lead, 4 situational. Erk's seen that already. He just uses the good ol' Res hitting + 1 AS lead and beats that down. On defense, raep Avo lead >>> 4 Hp/1 Def. Kent's triangle lets him get +15 Avo against alot of physical stuff, but he can't optimize that, since he can't change weapons on enemy phase, so in practice, it's more like +10, and against a group of enemies that are, what, half of the total? Prolly a bit more. We'll say 3/5 of the total. So +6 Avo overall. That makes it Erk's 11 Avo, 11 Res and 1-2 range against Kent's 4 Hp/1 Def. Erk still wins that hands-down; 4 Hp/1 Def often won't even matter, 11 Avo always will. Kent's Killer Lance crit is even less impressive now. Only a 2 point lead? Erk laughs that off, and then without the Killer Lance, Erk wins crit by a landslide, with a 28 point lead and more opportunities to crit (whee 1-2 range and AS lead). Kent has 1 more move than before, but Erk should have C Staves by now, so add Barrier and Restore to his bag o' tricks. All things considered, the net amount of w1n for Erk is about the same as before. Eventually Kent picks up Silver Lance, but then Erk picks up Physic too, so w/e. And that's about how it goes, folks. Erk wins clearly for the first few chapters after Kent joins, as an attacker with similar durability and better offense. Then Erk promotes and takes off, dominating Kent for the rest of the game with consistently superior offense and defense plus the considerable advantages of healing (significantly increased team durability, higher levels for attackers, gogogo; pwning at 2 functions >>> only doing one, and doing the one that's way more common, for that matter). --- Some minor nitpicks: Quote: And then Kent has more Move for visiting villages and rescuing and other miscellaneous tasks. Reaching more enemies makes his offense effectively better, as well. Yes, Erk does have better Move through Forests (the only form of terrain worth noting in this comparison, as Erk can¡¦t cross Mountains/Peaks). Plains are far more common than Forests, however. Erk can indeed move through mountains, my friend, it simply takes all his move. But he can do it for that sexy +30 Avo, Kent can't do it at all. Kent's 2 move lead is for 2 or 3 chapters, then it's reduced to an insignificant 1 move lead. By the time it goes back up to 2, there's hardly any villages left to save, so w/e. Concerning mobility in general, Erk's 2 range closes the gap by one space in terms of attack range (or atleast, attack range with a decent weapon), so that Kent has 1 more range for 2-3 chapters, then they have the same for awhile, then it's just 1 more for Kent for awhile more. Also, when there's even one forest, their range is either the same or Erk wins (if it's during the time he's promoted and Kent isn't), and when there's more than one, Erk always wins. Plus, Erk rapes Kent in mobility during the desert chapter, ftw. Quote: Then there's your own LHM-abuse argument. Kent can be Lundgren-abused in LHM and promoted, providing you with a Jeiganesque figure in the main game to use, and one with substantially better growths than Marcus¡X HP/Str/Skl/Spd/Def/Res/Luck Kent¡¦s growths: 85/40/50/45/25/25/20 Marcus¡¦ growths: 65/30/50/25/15/35/30 lol h4x¡¦d. Kent has higher growths in everything except Res and Luck, and 20% more for Speed growth. Is it a huge point in Kent¡¦s favor? No, but it does exist, and it can¡¦t be written away. It¡¦s something that Kent can do and Erk can¡¦t, and Erk has no answer to it. Actually I can indeed write it away pretty easily. With the exception of the +2 Def, Kent's promo gains are about the same as him leveling up twice, but him promoting at L10 increases his level for Exp calculations by 11. Slightly higher stats + now hurting the Exp rank = about the same overall. Erk doesn't face the same problem, as his staff Exp evens out with the higher level for combat Exp. The fact that it's something Kent can do and Erk can't doesn't mean it's significant. For example, Erk can attack from 10 spaces away while Kent can't (heya Bolting), but you won't see me hyping that.
	For a glimpse into the Wonderful World of FEW, click here! Link leads to the best topic ever! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9819cZZ6Nw...related&search= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVH2i6nvjsM&NR=1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAooq7e0gg0 http://youtube.com/watch?v=t6ETt94q2os http://youtube.com/watch?v=hSVNbxjdvv8 BEST SITE EVER: http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index...ARGIN_MAH_LAZER

Solid vs CATS · Debates