More emphasis on Warp-skipping obviously benefits Warp users...

...so why in heaven's name is Lena STILL mid tier? I remember when we "stopped sandbagging warp" and Lena never budged an inch, can we actually follow through this time?

It's been argued that her utility is lessened since others can do it. Outside of Boa/Wendell, you don't really have a lot of C staffers. Yes, Riff isn't 100% impossible but his rank isn't much better than the average curate, and he'll need a midgame seal to be able to do it. A seal Barst/Shiida want to kill bosses.

Maria does take a bit of favoring, 18 uses to C, but if you have her as your warp/physic user, I can't see it being THAT much of a task.

Merric would need to seal early just to do what any class A unit could do seeing as how he wont be getting much time as Curate, as far as staffing goes. I don't think he's a good option to consider, especially since he's still 23 uses to warp. After a seal.

Do note that whenever I argued Warp I never said other users of it shouldn't go up as well. All four up a tier is a good benchmark for now [well, probabably Lena in the same tier as Wendell or close, Hammerene has proven invaluable]

I mean, when you have us now heavily taking warpskip into consideration, and the "best" warpstaff user is a mere upper mid [I quotate best because we never really tiered Wendell based on staff utility, not that i'm saying 6 move+close to C isn't bad] and several people dropping because they were only lategamers, then it's not really consistent with the new mentality of warpskipping.

If people go down of warpskip, I don't see why people shouldn't go up.

I agree entirely. More importantly than C Staves, Lena is the only user of Hammerne, which plays an irreplaceable role in maximizing the number of chapters that you can Warp-skip. She should be upper mid at the very worst, and really I'd argue her as high tier at least. If Hammerne lets you Warp-skip 3 additional chapters which you couldn't have without it, then she's reducing your total turncount by like 20 or something ridiculous like that, with a completely unique ability that cannot be replicated at all. I don't see any upper mid units doing anything like that. Maybe Ogma on the Ch 3 boss, but that's it.

Hammerene let Int skip about 5~ chapters more like, so think a good deal more than 20 [though maybe he didnt need Hammerene for all five] That's why I plan to argue her to skittles later, but the first step is to get her staff utility acknowledged.

Whenever I put Lena so high people are going to notice and beg me to drop her.

If that happens, I'm not going to want to drop her because nobody argued against it in this thread.

Lena in High Tier.

Stage one of operation Lena hype is bypassed.

Stage two, initiate.

It's true that Wendell can transport people via the magic of the invisible flying popemobile [I.e warp staff] but in C6 he just won't have the rank for C, most likely. So that Angelic Robe Shiida wants so badly? Lena's getting half the credit for getting it, along with all the other goodies in 6.

This is just meant to illustrate one of Lena's bonuses, try not to take that one too literally, but it is a big plus for her.

And obviously the main thing Lena has going for her is Hammerene. Let's go over all the times Int used warp.

One in six, eight, and thirteen. He said over IRC the C12 warp was unnecessary.

Ch. 15 - Warped Caeda to ORKO boss, Warped Marth to Seize. 1 turn.
Ch. 16 - Warped Caeda to ORKO boss, Warped Marth to Seize. 1 turn.
Ch. 17 - Let thief steal Warp staff, shot him dead with Jake/Beck for the steal. Opened door with Barst, killed stuff. Swordmaster Caeda kills boss, Marth Seizes. 3 turns.
Ch. 18 - Caeda flies to boss, ORKOs, Marth warps to Seize. 3 turns.
Ch. 19 - Bantu Warps to recruit Tiki, Marth warps to Seize. 1 turn.
Ch. 20 - Complicated strategy where I gave Sedgar a Speedwing to fight the 4 Brave Lance cavs, shot the ballista with a forged Thunderbolt, Warped Caeda/Marth/Lena near the village, got Hammerne, flew Caeda to ORKO boss and Warped Marth to Seize. 4 turns.
Ch. 21 - Hammerned a staff, Warped Caeda to ORKO boss, Warped Marth to Seize. 1 turn.
Ch. 22 - Shot boss with double thunderbolt from ballistas, did a Barst/Caeda/Sedgar combo attack, Hammerned staves, Warped Marth to Seize. 2 turns.
Ch. 23 - Warped Caeda to ORKO boss, Warped Marth to Seize. 1 turn.
Ch. 24 - Warp Tiki to suicide on boss, warped Julian to get Aum, warped Caeda to finish off boss, Warped Marth to Seize. 1 turn.
Ch. 24x - Aum'ed tiki, Warped Caeda to ORKO boss, Warped Marth to Seize. 1 turn.
Endgame - Warped Caeda to ORKO bodyguard, Tiki to suicide on Medeus, Nagi to suicide on Medeus. Barst on hand to close the deal if necessary (and he wasn't). 1 turn.

He used 25 warps. There's no way he'd have enough without Hammerene around. If 17x was considered, maybe he'd just make it, but...

There's more to the issue than having 28 warp uses. In order to 1 turn some chapters you'll need more than one warp staff in warping order, and that doesn't mean having one two use warp staff. That actually digs into your pool of warps really fast. I'd imagine you're essentially screwed by C22 since you need three staves in working order just to seize the throne.

I really can't be bothered to figure out just how many chapters she helps you skip, but it should be fairly obvious to most that Hammerene is vital to game completion. Much more than Cord is, by warpskip standards Cord isn't even useful except in earlymid chapters then the game gets bypassed. The turncount Lena saves you on warpskip is much more notable than the turns guys like Draug/Cord/Cavs save you, and is in fact more comparable to the skittles squad, and thus I believe Lena should be in Skittles.