ITT, I argue Tanya up, one step at a time

First stop, Delmud.

Here's a look at chapter 21 Tanya, in range of her Othin support. I assume she got the Neir and Hezul scrolls for ~60% of her levelups between levels 7 and 20, and Dain and Hezul 60% for the remainder. Effectively, I just turned +10% growths into +6% growths, and so on. I don't think the community has agreed on just how much people can be assumed to have scrolls, so I'm eyeballing things here.

Tanya 20/5, in range of Othin support:
38 hp
9 def
5 mag
Steel bow: 25 mt, 118(+leadership) acc, 15 AS, 58(+leadership) eva, 30 crit
Silver bow: 30 mt, 128(+leadership) acc, 18 AS, 64(+leadership) eva, 30 crit
Killer bow: 26 mt, 128(+leadership) acc, 18 AS, 64(+leadership) eva, 60 crit
Brave bow: 29 mt, 153(+leadership) acc, 17 AS, 62(+leadership) eva, 50 crit

Tanya has 2 PCC, so even with a 0 crit weapon, she has a 90% chance of critting at least once over two attacks, which kills basically anything. And then of course her only real competition for the brave bow is Xavier, who has plenty of other options (enough bld to make the master bow plausible, if nothing else).

Here's base level Delmud, in range of Nanna support (Nanna's charisma factored in):

36 hp
9 def (8 unmounted)
5 mag

Steel sword: 20 mt, 116(+leadership) acc, 12 AS, 51(+leadership) eva, 22 crit
Master sword: 25 mt, 111(+leadership) acc, 8 AS, 43(+leadership) eva, 32 crit
Beo sword: 27 mt, 121(+leadership) acc, 10 AS, 47(+leadership) eva, 52 crit

5 PCC, so he's always critting anything he doubles. And if that's ever in doubt, the Beo sword grants wrath and ambush. He also has charisma as a personal skill.

Defensively, Tanya wins. Higher hp, tied defense and magic, higher evasion, even with Delmud always in range of Nanna's charisma, which Tanya can take advantage of too. The difference isn't huge, but the difference is there, and is a point in Tanya's favor.

Player phase offense is identical. They both kill whatever they target. Tanya doesn't have to take a counter from a significant number of enemies, though, while Delmud does. This drives Delmud's defense down more; he has to rely on a 25% crit or a heal staff to avoid going into the enemy phase with less than full hp.

So, now some points in Delmud's favor. He has 2 more move by this point (Tanya's move rounds up to 8 at this level), and of course has canto. However, out of the remaining chapters, only 21, 22, and 23 are outdoor chapters. 21x is usually just raided for treasure and then left without combat, but that leaves 24, 24x, and 2final as indoor chapters--a full half of Delmud's availibility. In indoor chapters, he loses canto, and actually has _less_ movement than Tanya.

Delmud also has enemy-phase offense. Provided he can counter the enemy, he insta-blicks them with an ambush critical 25% of the time, and is pretty much guaranteed to kill them with his pursuit attack. Taking a look at chapter 22 enemies, though, he's 3HKOed even if you give him a few levels, and the Gelpritter occasionally 2HKOs him. Factoring in his ambush crits, he can afford to face 2-3 enemies before you're putting him in a tactically unsound position. This is no challenge in chapters 21, 24, and final, but severely limits his enemy phase offense in chapters 22, 23 and 24x--half his availibility.

Tanya has the same durability concerns, but we all already know archers have bad enemy phases--I merely wanted to show Delmud's enemy phase isn't so hot either.

Delmud's final advantage is charisma. No real explanation is needed.

So, during the time Delmud is present, he has over Tanya charisma, a mediocre (as opposed to terrible) enemy phase, and (half the time) movement. Tanya has over him a slight durability lead, and movement the other half the time.

A Delmud win? Maybe. But if so, a slight one. And here's the kicker-- Tanya has 20 more chapters of availibility. The only way this is not a blowout in Tanya's favor is if she actually has negative utility while training her. I'd be _very_ happy to argue against anyone who thinks that, but for now I'll let this argument rest.

Am I to understand from lack of replies that nobody disagrees, and that I an move on to Tanya vs Amalda?

Yeah, I'll move 'er up. Next step please!

Is Tanya really going to be 20/5 when Delmud joins? If she's supposed to be useful during her availability before Delmud joins, then you'd expect her combat gains to be reasonably limited, especially due to her class limitations.

Otherwise I agree.

These numbers were based on my experience with a 10-member party (think it was 10; at any rate it was the number of knight crests that exist through chapter 16 plus any number of utility units). I promoted around chapters 14-16. Given that, it's not unreasonable at all for Tanya to be level 20/5 by chapter 21.

I also heard (from you iirc) that archers get some sort of exp boost, but can't find the original topic on serenes. But I definitely had my entire party, Tanya and all, level 20/5 or above by chapter 21.

She doesn't lose that much by bumping down to 20/1--she loses a few points of durability but still has offense overkill. She'd have to be pretty bad in the first 20 chapters to not be able to overcome that slight (and I do mean slight) durability loss as well.

I just tested it to make sure it was no bull.

L1 Othin killing a L1 Soldier gets 29 EXP.
L1 Tanya killing a L1 Soldier gets 35 EXP.

L1 Othin killing a L5 Soldier gets 37 EXP.
L1 Tanya killing a L5 Soldier gets 43 EXP.

I think this may apply to Bow Knight as well, confirm?

Mekkah wrote:I just tested it to make sure it was no bull.

L1 Othin killing a L1 Soldier gets 29 EXP.
L1 Tanya killing a L1 Soldier gets 35 EXP.

L1 Othin killing a L5 Soldier gets 37 EXP.
L1 Tanya killing a L5 Soldier gets 43 EXP.

To add on to that:
http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9443&view=findpost&p=534583

sPortsman wrote:I think this may apply to Bow Knight as well, confirm?

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9443&view=findpost&p=534604

Step two, Tanya vs Amalda:

I don't really want to recalulate Tanya for a comparison that begins a mere 2 chapters earlier, so I'll Just repost 20/5 Tanya and have Amalda at 20/7. Amalda's scrolls basically don't matter since it's only one levelup.

Tanya 20/5, in range of Othin support:
38 hp
9 def
5 mag
Steel bow: 25 mt, 118(+leadership) acc, 15 AS, 58(+leadership) eva, 30 crit
Silver bow: 30 mt, 128(+leadership) acc, 18 AS, 64(+leadership) eva, 30 crit
Killer bow: 26 mt, 128(+leadership) acc, 18 AS, 64(+leadership) eva, 60 crit
Brave bow: 29 mt, 153(+leadership) acc, 17 AS, 62(+leadership) eva, 50 crit

Amalda --/7 (unmounted values in parentheses)
35 hp
9 def (8)
13 mag
Steel sword: 17 mt (16), 101(+leadership) acc, 12 AS (11), 36(+leadership) eva (34), 11 crit
Silver sword: 22 mt (21), 111(+leadership) acc, 15 AS (14), 42(+leadership) eva (40), 11 crit
Master sword: 22 mt (21), 96(+leadership) acc, 8 AS (7), 28(+leadership) eva (26), 21 crit

Both Amalda and Tanya have 2 PCC, though obviously Tanya makes better use of it; doubling more often and having higher base crit.

I started writing this section up for chapter 20 specifically, but it basically sums up the argument, so here it is:

20--Amalda basically can't kill the armors in this chapter (and they are by far the most common enemy type). She needs all four hits with the master sword to connect to just barely borderline ORKO them, and the enemies have ~40 eva, giving her ~56 acc plus leadership (2 stars in all likelihood since Leaf is back down to one star from chapter 19 onwards). She can activate continue at a laughable AS%, but even if it does she's still not getting a ORKO. So, her offense is basically laughable.

So, she has healing utility. At this point, the competitors for healing utility are Asvel, Linoan, Nanna, Salem, Saphy, Sara, Sleuf, and Tina. It's not unrealistic at all to assume that there are three healers already on the team when Amalda joins. Let's say that one of them is fatigued. That means Amalda is still a third healer. When Sety joins (and he's around for a full half of her availibility), he's another healer to compete with. How much is a third healer worth in a game which gives such an abundance of full-heal items? How about a fourth healer? A fifth healer? And with the exception of Asvel, every single person I listed will have at least as much staff rank as her.

Tanya meanwhile is killing one enemy per turn (needs a crit with a steel bow, but is guaranteed with silver or brave barring an extremely unlikely miss). This is, too, a redundant function. Plenty of other people destroy enemies on the player phase. So the question is, do you need one extra enemy killed more or less often than you need a third/fourth/fifth healer? I'm leaning toward healer, but the answer is by no means obvious. But by bringing Tanya instead of Amalda, you reduce the number of situations in which you need that extra healer--Tanya has 30 more avoid than Amalda, meaning that every three attacks, Tanya dodges something that Amalda wouldn't have.

So, maybe slight Amalda win, maybe slight Tanya win, but it's definitely close. And Tanya has 18 more chapters. QED Tanya>Amalda.

Amalda can use the Sleep and Restore staffs, and a Fire Sword bumps her base Mag up to 18, so she does have a bit of utility in that area. She can be used in 24 / 24x without being detrimental to the team, but I'm not sure if that counts for much.

Aquilae wrote:Amalda can use the Sleep and Restore staffs, and a Fire Sword bumps her base Mag up to 18, so she does have a bit of utility in that area. She can be used in 24 / 24x without being detrimental to the team, but I'm not sure if that counts for much.

Magic swords are in such high competition I didn't want to give her one. With the fire sword she still only has 23 mt, so the def-res gap would have to be 7 for her to outdamage Tanya with a silver bow. It'll work on some enemies (most notably armors), but she absolutely needs it to be the fire sword-- with the thunder sword, she's down to 20 mt, and with the wind sword she's down to a piddling 19.

Sleep only matters in that you have enough sleepers to take out dangerous enemies ahead of time. Chapter 24 is the only situation where having an extra sleeper really matters, so props to her in that chapter I guess.

Restore would matter if you had more restore staves than you had people with C rank staves. But you don't, and the chapters where it matters (24, 24x, and final) are all indoors so he can't claim precedence via a move lead.

Amalda gains a bit of credit from the objections you raise, but not very much, and certainly not enough.

Under the assumption that Tanya>Amalda was accepted, I started working on the next step, but I've basically hit a snag. Eyrios stomps all over Tanya. As far as I can tell, basically every enemy in this idiotic game is either an armor or a soldier, both of which Eyrios can ORKO at 1-2 range while being basically invincible AND having canto to boot. Outside of stupid chapters like 22, they're both functionally invincible (Eyrios takes an extra hit; Tanya has like a 30 point evasion lead so she dodges an extra attack every 3) and they both one-round, except Eyrios has 1-2 range and a pony.

So, I wanted to get other people's opinions on this. Does extra availibility (15 and a half chapters or so) beat out Eyrios' curbstomp? I guess Tanya also has the advantage of providing an outgoing support to Othin so he can rape slightly more face than he already does, but that's a minor point.

You could look for someone above Eyrios that Tanya beats to show that Eyrios is underrated

Well, upper mid is really too seperate halves: people with low availibility who curbstomp Tanya, and people with good avilibility who curbstomp Tanya.

honestly I'd be happy just with her moving from the top of lower mid to the bottom of upper mid, since I think that's about as far as she's getting.

Maybe I'll take a look at Olwen, all she really has going for her is that he rapes with ambush until she misses, and she only has 91 hit at base level.

It seems that there are no real arguments against Tanya>Amalda, so I'll move her Tanya to the top of Upper Mid. I'll wait on future arguments before moving her any higher.

To be fair, Olwen/Eyrios also have the niche role of being the only reasonable user of bolting which will be the only long range tome that will be usable for a long time. Stategically, this is somewhat important utility as it completely beats waiting out a bastilla, when you can ohko it before it gets a chance to attack a PC. There are a couple uses of this in defend chapters and 17A (though its easier to just warp skip). Its not much though.

Olwen's hit issues might not be that bad. Considering that 2 sources of charisma, Leaf, charisma sword, and 45% skill and 70% luck growth exists. In 3 levels, her hit reaches ~100 if given the odo scroll at least(which still is pretty bad, but still..). But besides Olwen, who else can reliably tank huge groups of enemies in this game and take out Bastilla?

Asvel is able to reach Bolting use before Eyrios joins. But yes I do agree that Bolting use a good point for both Eyrios and Olwen.

About Olwen, I thought a major argument against her was dime thunder weighing her down to the point of getting doubled if she misses. However, recent ideas stipulate that the enemies in this game just plain aren't fast, hence why Dagda shot way up in the list. So is it that big of a problem?

D Thunder will always drop her SPD by 12. Her base while mounted is 10 and loses 1 when dismounted. It's true that enemies are slow in this game but it's not exactly rare to find 4 AS enemies.

She is however the best candidate for Ambush (followed by Asvel) which greatly improves her durability.

My concern is how much damage she takes when getting doubled, which obviously does happen since hit rates aren't ever perfect (the hit rates fall between 1-99).

You'd have a better chance finding a year without Smash vs Int than you do finding an enemy that doesn't kill her if it doubles and hits twice.

That makes for pretty terrible durability then. Minimum 1% chance of dying every round of combat? Ew.