Viewing Single Post From: SolidSense vs. smash

Viewing Single Post From: SolidSense vs. smash_fanatic
Super Saiyan SolidSense	Jun 13 2008, 03:50 PM
Posts: 896 Group: FEFFer Member #1,311 Joined: June 15, 2007	Fiora’s biggest advantage over Sain is that she flies, and he doesn’t. The ability to fly is an inherently useful characteristic to possess. If presented with the choice of a team with a flier or a team without a flier, the logical player is almost always going to choose the team with the flier. Fliers are the only units who can cross mountains, rivers, and long runs of forested area with any degree of proficiency. Even with small stretches of crossable terrain, fliers have the best mobility on your team by far, and that’s obviously useful. The situations in which the team with the flier is superior are numerous and varied. Plus, flying is something that only a handful of units in the whole game can do, and most of them are not likely to be used at all—Farina and Vaida are almost never in play, and Heath is in play sometimes but not usually. The only other flier who has a good shot at being on the team is Florina, but even this doesn’t really detract from Fiora’s worth as a flier. You see, one of the biggest shortcomings of flying is that, while going on “flying missions,” the flier is usually forced away from her supports. This is not true in Fiora’s case; when both Florina and Fiora are used, you can easily have a set of supported fliers for anything at all that you might need to do in the game. So, instead of downplaying Fiora’s ability to fly, Florina actually strengthens it, w1n. So Fiora already has a substantial victory over Sain before anything associated with combat is even considered. In addition to combat, Fiora has a useful function that only she and a few other units in the game can perform. Sain would have to win combat by a lot to be the winner overall , , , Well, let’s see. Sain is likely to emerge from LHM at level 9 or 10. From there, he has all of 3 chapters to gain levels before Fiora arrives, and he’s not guaranteed to be in one of them (Port of Badon), so let’s put him at level 11. With a 4-level lead and an advantage in supports, Sain is winning at this point. However, since Fiora grows faster and soon starts to build supports of her own, the gap rapidly diminishes. But Sain has one more little problem that he has to work around in this debate: promotion. You see, there are four good units vying for Knight Crests in this game—Oswin, Sain, Lowen, and Kent—but there are only three Knight Crests, and one of them comes fairly late. If you use any three of them together (and there’s a high chance of this since all four of them are good units), one of the three must promote significantly later than the rest of the cast. Even if Sain himself is not promoting late, his presence on the team forcing someone else (a unit just as good or arguably better) to promote late is just as bad as if he were the one promoting late, so that doesn’t actually matter. Alternately, you can use the Earth Seal, but in that case you can also chalk up an advantage in Funds for Fiora, which means that she gets to use Killers and Silvers more often. And this only applies when three are in play—with four in play, you not only have Funds to worry about, but someone will be promoting late regardless. So how do we handle this? Well, we could average out the times when anyone is promoting is late and no one is and then apply that to Sain, which would delay his promotion and give Fiora a considerable level lead. But we won’t do that right now. Let’s just consider what happens when Sain promotes normally, and you’re using only Kent and Sain. Obviously, if Sain can’t win under that circumstance, he can’t win under any other. 20/10 Fiora, A Florina/B Kent Iron Lance: 29.7 Atk, 21.5 AS, 31.8 Crit—41.4 HP, 14.4 Def, 22.0 Res, 60.6 Avo Killer Lance: 32.7 Atk, 20.5 AS, 61.8 Crit—41.4 HP, 14.4 Def, 22.0 Res, 58.6 Avo Javelin: 27.7 Atk, 18.5 AS, 31.8 Crit—41.4 HP, 14.4 Def, 22.0 Res, 54.6 Avo Silver Lance: 36.7 Atk, 19.5 AS, 31.8 Crit—41.4 HP, 14.4 Def, 22.0 Res, 56.6 Avo 20/10 Sain, A Kent/B Serra Iron Axe: 36.7 Atk, 18.2 AS, 24.4 Crit—43.4 HP, 15.6 Def, 8.6 Res, 62.2 Avo Killer Axe: 39.7 Atk, 18.2 AS, 54.4 Crit—43.4 HP, 15.6 Def, 8.6 Res, 62.2 Avo Hand Axe: 35.7 Atk, 17.2 AS, 24.4 Crit—43.4 HP, 15.6 Def, 8.6 Res, 60.2 Avo Silver Lance: 43.7 Atk, 17.2 AS, 24.4 Crit—43.4 HP, 15.6 Def, 8.6 Res, 62.2 Avo On offense, it’s not really decisive at all; Fiora has more AS and Crit, while Sain has more Atk. On defense, Sain has some HP/Def/Avo, but it’s nothing at all substantial. Fiora also takes more damage from bows, but bow enemies can’t counter her from close range and she outranges most of them by a lot, so w/e @ those actually being a threat to her. Also, whenever Fiora has Delphi Shield (about 50% of the time if you include Florina’s using it), she doesn’t suffer a weakness to bows at all, so that goes away completely. Sain’s major remaining win is against lances. Far more significant than that, though, is Fiora’s lead of 13-14 Res. Magic users appear quite frequently in the late-midgame and lategame chapters, and, unlike with bows/lances, Sain can’t ever attack magic users before they attack him, since he’ll just be counterattacked no matter what weapon he uses. Add even a single magic user to a group of enemies and Fiora has the higher durability for that particular group easily. Let alone those 40+ valks in Victory or Death. Indeed, I hardly see any huge win in combat at all, which is what Sain would need in order to beat Fiora in this debate. Offense is even and defense goes to Fiora. Plus, remember, this is the best possible situation for Sain, since we discounted his promotion troubles. Subtract a few levels from him, and the comparison only worsens. The only time he ever clearly wins combat at all is when Fiora first joins and for a bit of prepromotion. After that, he has nothing at all to match her ability to fly, and there are times when she even turns around and beats him combatwise, so she trumps him easily overall.
	this is the best Brawl match ever....EVER

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