A Look at Ross

Ross is the most interesting trainnee in Fire Emblem 8. I discuss what makes him unique, what he contributes to a run and why I think Sacred Stones Players love him so much.
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[@actuallizard]

Oh no the growths were supposed to be on screen during the growths part 😭 You can find them here: serenesforest.net/the-sacred-stones/characters/growth-rates/

[@sequitur7222]

We can’t even talk about Ross without dragging Amelia

[@actuallizard]

Poor Amelia

[@princephantom1294]

It’s tradition!

[@stormfallvalkyri8389]

Pushing an agenda

[@actuallizard]

I'm always pushing an agenda @@stormfallvalkyri8389

[@Nox_Nimbus]

​@@actuallizardhatchet>Amelia lol I took it to late game....I had it with gillam...Ross while he was a pirate... Garcia as a warrior....Franz as a g-knight for 1 fight and Ross again as a berserker...full circle and 14 uses left by the end

[@TheKreve]

Look here. Garcia utility is to be a big burly man who spin like a beyblade. That utility gives my brain more serotonin than using optimal strats.

[@mopfez9852]

You get it also warrior is a class i really like and no one gets it this game cause 9 out of 10 times ross goes berserker so the local dilf is the only person who can fill in the funny role

[@deyvisonwillamy6931]

Ross warrior is nuts, big bow and spin crit are Soo satisfying

[@TheKreve]

@@deyvisonwillamy6931 yeah but he is not a big burly man...

[@deyvisonwillamy6931]

@@TheKreve yeah, I am playing right now a Ironman run , gonna use berserk Ross . Warrior is bad cuz this game don't have strong enemies fliers . And hero Ross just don't fell right cuz low speed , and swords are just bad, low might and no 1-2 range 🥱

[@TheKreve]

@@deyvisonwillamy6931 you know hero can use axes right? Also warriors are the style class. Sacred stones easy enough that killing with style is better than optimal gameplay anyway.

[@TheSmithPlays]

I’ve listened to so many Ross analysis videos and I swear there is something where theory just somehow does not equate with gameplay. I swear it feels like every time I use Ross, he feels like a god. I just did an Ironman and setting him up with a hand axe let’s him go to work and absolutely snowball. Not sure why my experience doesn’t line up with so many others, but I love the lad purely for his combat. Not sure what it is I’m missing but really enjoyed your analysis! :)

[@CrashGordon94]

Maybe you're just getting lucky with his Speed? It's not impossible.

[@rosinanx]

judging from ur runs TSP i think it’s mostly bc of how much u invest in him, which isn’t a bad thing

[@Shalakor]

I think the practice of comparing average stats from level ups is actually a bit skewed. The math works on paper, but in practice I do believe that the more instances you give for a chance of stats increasing, the greater the probability of an outlier in your favor occurring. Basically, say a unit has has only an 1% Res growth. Give that unit 19 levels before promotion, and you might never see it, but give them 28 levels and the chances go up for seeing it proc not only once, but also go up for seeing it more than once. Each level up is a new opportunity for the unlikely to happen that does not really take previous instances into account with its random chance. Anyone who's ever played D&D knows 1s and 20s on the d20 are not truly 5% of the time each. In 5E in particular, the number of times I've seen the supposedly 1 in 400 chance of rolling two 1s with advantage and rolling two 20s with disadvantage is staggering. Just like Schrodinger's Cat isn't really a 50/50 chance of being dead or alive at the time of opening the box. The longer the box was closed, the more likely the cat is dead.

[@actuallizard]

@@Shalakor You can look at binomials instead of averages that essentially show you the chances of hitting certain benchmarks so you can see the chances of being blessed or screwed and the conclusion is the same. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mp2nRColDeHsnO0bDYnHi7c7jQ2dr1O8l1v6veYjMME/edit?usp=sharing Ross has a 30% chance of hitting 18 speed at 10/10/20. He only gets 10 extra levels, it doesn't skew things as much as you would think. More instances of the experiment (leveling) increases the chance of seeing any possible event, both good and bad. It doesn't skew Ross towards being better

[@actuallizard]

@theSmithPlays Ross is totally fine if you give him a bunch of experience! I just took a look at your ironman, and Ross does perform well in it. But so would have most units that you invest all that exp into no? Sacred Stones is def a game where almost any unit can excel, Ross included. Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@WolfGirl42069]

One other thing to note that wasn't in this video: Ross and Garcia have a fast enough support growth that if you're playing at a medium/casual pace they can reasonably hit B, if not A, by the midgame. They also have double fire affinity, which means they each get +1 damage, +5 hit, +5 avoid, and +5 crit per level.

[@marioluigijam3612]

Prehaps that is the reason so many people (myself included) find ross to be sooo good. I could see these bonuses really helping ross go brrrrr

[@DaniDoyle]

promoted Neimi can river walk too, so she's a good investment target for ch7

[@DarkAuraLord]

Yeah but then you would have to train an archer

[@stormfallvalkyri8389]

Dani pls

[@actuallizard]

I think for Akira's sanity, its for the best that Neimi isn't a good investment target

[@seasaltsky]

wait what? is that actually a thing????

[@kain1799]

Does neimi get enough bulk to rescue drop tho?

[@90kalos1]

Ross is also super easy to get to first promo on the chapter after you recruit him with only a small investment, he can do well enough after that to not need to be super babied.

[@ivanbluecool]

Ross comes early. Armed with a good weapon and class. Honestly probably one of the best trainnee of all-time next to donnel and the echoes villagers for being main story or early game

[@birdbig6852]

I think Kliff is the best one by far or maybe Mozu from fates.

[@heartnet40]

Donnel has actually gone downward in favor in recent years because the time you spend babying him is better served raising anyone else, and raising him in his join chapter is extremely hard even with Pair-Up. I definitely adovcate for Mozu these days though. She gets really strong really quickly if you help her in her joining chapter and having access to extra Bows in Conquest can be a major Godsend. Her insane speed is also a major asset too once the Fliers come to town. Besides the Echoes Villagers, I put Ross and Mozu on the pedastal of being Trainees worth training.

[@aidanderson53X]

​​​@@heartnet40mozu is your only non MU archer which is just amazing in conquest.

[@wouterW24]

I often wish the trainees had better growths. They often don't feel great or special to use once they are in base classes except high luck. Yay. And Amelia and Ewan are bizarrely implemented with being so weak later, and especially Amalia doesn't stand out much when trained Tana was more interesting to use for me as far as a premier catchup project goes since she starts more functional and good growths that border est-ish, yet she arrives at the same time as Amalia. Considering there was a flier trainee in beta interesting revising was going on with these two. The trainees also seem to be designed with the sandbox/tower design in mind, but going slower and being able to train more units only highlights them as average. And then the super trainees exist as a bonus, with con problems so bad they just don't get mentioned anymore. Enough said.

[@deadlypandaghost]

Slight disagree. Amelia also has high speed which is pretty dam funny when going General. General or Great Knight with no bad stats is an actual combat monster even if its suboptimal still.

[@armorbearer9702]

(10:29) Basically, use everything that is riding on a horse or related to a horse.

[@priestessii]

I love how when you were talking about growths Seth gets a nearly perfect level 😂

[@lightbrand_]

I’ve only played sacred stones once (hard/ephraim) and Ross quickly became one of my stronger units after becoming a pirate and continued to grow well into becoming my actual mvp for the lategame, chapter 20 especially was notable because it was an unbearable slog in which I slowly dragged my entire army through the upper path going through waves and waves of seemingly undending reinforcements. Meanwhile Ross literally solo’d the lower half of the map like it was just tuesday. He’s easily become one of my favorite axe users in the entire series which is quite the accomplishment considering the fact that I don’t even like sacred stones all that much. I played the game about as linearly as I could so no grinding in skirmishes or the tower of valni, ross was just based on his own merits.

[@skywalker5903]

Just wanna say, i love your Videos. They are the perfect blend of informative yet short and entertaining

[@sigmaklim2532]

I enjoyed this analysis, it’s nice hearing people speak about stuff that often goes unnoticed.

[@blindcocostudios]

I am looking at Ross respectfully.

[@drmajalis1583]

Tbh im glad the recruits are hard to train and use, I like the challenge of making "bad" units workable, Im one of those weirdos who uses Leonardo and Meg in RD hard mode, but i do wish the payoff was a bit more pronounced with the fe8 trainee Sometimes playing suboptimally is more fun :)

[@actuallizard]

I enjoy hard to train units at times (I'm a big fiona enjoyer in RD), but I do like there to be a payoff, which is why I like Ross! He does bring something unique to the table. Obv you should play however you think is fun, the point of these videos is never to critique anyone's way of having fun :)

[@drmajalis1583]

@@actuallizard oh of course, i didn't think you were doing that, just wanted to give my perspective I truly believe there's no wrong way to play fe as long as you're having fun :)

[@lightbrand_]

Ross really isn’t hard to train though, he’s "bad" because he’s underleveled and not that standout when trained but it’s hardly a challenge to get him going even without stuff like trapping archers or what have you, hatchet is a big help for him

[@actuallizard]

​@@lightbrand_ I agree, Ross training arc isn't so bad. The cost of training ross is exp on other units more than it is time.

[@ElecManEXE]

One of the fun aspects of the trainees is that with so many levels they have a lot of room to just go nuts with a few really good levels and get cracked if RNG decides to be kind. I've never had a particularly good Ross that I can remember, RNG just ain't having it with Ross I guess. He always seems to end up average outside of maybe getting a crazy Strength. But I've had both Ewan and Amelia pop off with some crazy stats. My current FE8 run that's on Darkling Woods, I have an Amelia at 10/18/10 Paladin that has 45 HP, 23 Strength, 21 Skill, 25 Speed, 27 Luck, 14 Def, 15 Res. An absolutely insane unit. This girl puts Seth to shame, beats him at every single stat full stop. It doesn't always happen of course. But it can sometimes, and in theory more levels gives more chance for it to happen.

[@seththeace6217]

Ross is fun cause he makes up part of a great support group with Garcia, Lute, Artur, and Neimi.

[@GreatAether58]

You hit the nail on the head again, as you mostly always do. Really enjoy your videos. I agree that Ross isn't great all things considered. But I'll probably still use him anyway next time I play Sacred Stones just because he is fun! 🤣

[@EggLemonSoup]

I've got a bit of a strange perspective on Ross, and it's entirely about a context that you (understandably) didn't touch on. So, I agree with everything in this video - He's a mediocre unit in vanilla, but one who feels good to pull up by his bootstraps and can be made to LOOK good with favoritism in a fairly easy game. He just does not reliably pay off compared to the units that compete with him for the resources he needs. Strictly speaking, he's definitely not a good unit. But you mentioned at 4:09 a moment where he provided a lot of value in a draft, and THAT is what I love about him. Since FE8 is generally so easy, most of my time spent with it is in some kind of challenge run, and they've given me a lot of great experiences with Ross. I recently did a run where my deployment for every chapter was fully randomized, and by the end Ross was one of my most capable combat units. I basically wasn't able to train anyone as much as you'd normally like to, so his overkill strength (and luck, strangely enough) wound up always finding meaningful value whenever I did roll him for a map. Its funny how not having ANY truly reliable solutions to Sacred Stones' obstacles suddenly gives Ross quite a lot to do! I'm also currently in the middle of playing the route split +60% enemy growths patch that Mekkah is playing through right now, and Ross has been one of my most dependable combat units there too. That's mostly because a lot of other units are falling short on the things that are supposed to be their competitive advantages over him, most notably the MUCH higher doubling thresholds. While other units often face low % crit chances due to increased enemy skill, I never have to worry about that with him, and when you make enemies bulkier, his *overkill* strength becomes *sufficient* strength that few other units can hit. He was also instrumental for solving phantom ship, which was a particularly brutal map. His high strength let him break through the very inflated monster HP stats, and his water-walking let him get free hand axe angles on very dangerous, crowded choke points. In fact, the ability to use water walking for odd attack angles actually came into play significantly for the following two chapters as well. It's strange, because he's let down by vanilla Sacred Stones just not having a demand for the things that he can do, while putting a lot of emphasis on the things that he can't do. Yet as you make the game harder, Ross's specializations stand out more and more. I think that might also help to explain why casual players often have such a high opinion of him, especially if they've never played the game *without* using him. Aside from the obvious casual appeal of lots of numbers going up, he looks so unique on the surface! It's just hard for some people to zoom out and recognize whether or not he's providing real value, or even worse, how much he's probably actually holding you back. Tl;dr: Ross is definitely not a good unit, but there's something odd about his combination of traits that ends up giving him a special kind of auxiliary value when you play fe8... wrong

[@254zero]

Ross is always a beast for me. Never regret training him as he solos the demon king for me

[@luisgusta]

People say Ross is just a second Dozla on average. And this is right. But something that slip through this analysis or people miss is that you can judge if he is worth keeping or not. You don't really need to feed him kills to get him to level 10, since he gets kill exp by just hiting enemies, so it is not that big of a deal. A lot of criticism he gets is that he can get screwed by bad level ups more easily than other units, but the same is true for him becoming a god with some lucky levels. I just use him on the first few maps until he promotes, and if he ended up on average or below, I just bench him for a better unit. It's not like this early on you will have a lot of competition for a slot. I see Ross more like a very cheap gamble that can pay off on a really strong combat unit. And honestly, I had a way better experience doing that with him than I did with Vanessa, for example, that can get screwed by bad levels too and usually eats up a lot more investment, sometimes even eith stat boosting items on top of the exp.

[@birdbig6852]

In an ironman perspective, it's really hard to baby Ross because you already baby the lord. Vanessa and Franz have already a hard time to get xp.

[@harrybenson6731]

I used to hate Ross because people on the internet were often saying how great their (insanely blessed and probably stat boosted) Ross was. Then when I played he would always be mediocre at best :/ I didn't know the developers set him up to have very average stats

[@crowhaveninc.2103]

I've also heard people say that Amelia was one of the best units in the game :P I suspect people just grinded them in the tower on normal mode or something. That's what I did when I started playing and these characters FEEL really strong that way.

[@BenFM]

The boss

[@ThatGuyThai]

Ross is worth using if you plan to favor him. He really needs both Skillbooks to really keep up in the late game. This patches up his shakey accuracy and benefits his Berserker's innate crit later on while offsetting his lackluster speed. This helps preserve Garm uses while he abuses it. Ch. 10 Ephraim route loves a pirate to ferry over to the pirate spawns to protect the village and cull the eastern quadrant of the map beforehand, durinf his initial rescue drop to get over the wall. Ch. 11 Phantom ship, same strat, drop the Ross Nuke right onto the incoming pirate ship provided you're around level 15 or place him in the water beside the ship for added avoidability. Ch. 12 he can sit in the water and fight off all the gargoyles just like on Ch 11. I have him solo the left quadrant because his support doesn't come til Gerik arrives. Ch. 13 he can walk through the moats and clear significant waves of enemies while baiting boltings on a forest tile. I opt not to promote into a Berserker on the maps where we airdrop water and peak walking, but will promote after being dropped so he can fight or soak experience. 4 chapters straight on Ephraim route, and one useful map with Eirika prior. Ch. 16 it comes in handy again for crossing the map as needed. The main utility Ross really offers is a unit that can use axes that scales better than his father into the mid game and relaxes a bit towards the end game. 1-2 range on a body that has enough time to invest levels into his +15% crit Berserker class. He also clears out the room full of knights on ch 8 which can be a little troublesome otherwise. You have to invest into him to make him strong but once you do, his stats make him the perfect airstrike since he isn't too big to lift until promoted. Ross has the luxury of staying as a pirate until all the major utility maps are completed and then can promote at a pretty high level compared to the rest of your typically early promod army. Giving him the skillbooks allows him to hit more reliably, therefore gaining more experience and weapon rank so that he's ready once Garm is available.

[@Xertaron.]

That's the case for a lot trainee type units. If Gray, Tobin, Kliff and Faye joined halfway through the game they would be significantly worse, which isn't even hard to imagine because Atlas does join soon after act 3 starts and he kinda sucks. Same for Kliff and Faye if you get them on Celica's route. Luke, Rody, Ryan and Cecil, while technically joining at the start, are significantly worse in FE3 book 2 compared to FE12 where they have many prologue chapters to get a head start. Sophia, even though she is the best dark mage if trained, the amount of effort it takes is disproportional to the payoff - Raigh takes much less investment and he's good enough to get the job done. And of course Niime joins just few chapter later - if you don't care about Nosferatu tanking or have some stat boosters to spare there's no reason not to use her instead. Nino would be another one, but same problem as Sophia - Pent is so good that even 20/1 Erk isn't surpassing him anytime soon, so Nino is superfluous. Rolf's only payoff is being able to recruit Shinon without having to watch for siege tomes. In RD there's no reason to train him over Shinon if you want Double Bow user. Donnel and Mozu (and Hayato to lesser extent) succeed in that role. Getting them up to speed isn't the easiest, but they join early on and the payoff is one of the best unit in their respective games. So trainee units went a long way. Technically Wolf and Sedgar in FE11 could be considered trainees, but their base stats are similar to other units joining around that time, so they're about as good as their peers, just with much better long term potential.

[@Dogman415]

I'd think the true benefit of a trainee unit in Sacred Stones is the customizability of the units being a step higher than anyone with a base class, and when that concept is expanded to all units in say... Awakening, Donnel is still more customizable even ignoring his growths. This style of trainee unit isn't applicable in the super customizability of games like 3 Houses and Engage though, nor is it applicable to games with entirely linear progression. Basically, trainees (if they don't suck) can fit into more team compositions if a unit dies or is otherwise replacing one you might not want to use.

[@thekoifishcoyote8762]

Doing my first SS playthrough and I didn't realize how much I trained Ross until Garcia got ruined by enemy attacks that Ross could have taken to the nuts without pain

[@midnight-fox7456]

Something else that I believe works to Ross's favor, is that he is RIDICULOUSLY easy to babysit and train through his first class, chapter 3, with it's many stationary, 1 range bandits stuck in closed off areas, is literally designed in such a way, you can get him to lvl 10 with no risk, or very close to promotion if you prefer him to only get chip exp and kill the bandits with other units. That way you can get yourself Promoted Ross as early as chapter 4, at the low cost of maybe 10 minutes and what would equate to only a lvl or 2, if all those kills went to the same unit.

[@Nox_Nimbus]

NO LOSS ROSS!!.....NO LOSS ROSS!!

[@merlinthetuna]

IMO Ross's real utility is that you get 9 very quick, low-investment levels to see if he's going to be RNG Blessed. An average Ross is unremarkable, but it's much easier to find out if your Ross will be average than another character. And if he does: oh well, off to the bench, no big deal.

[@xavierbiglin1804]

What fe8 mod are you using? Never heard of the Adventurer class but I'm curious

[@BowandSvent]

People don't give Garcia enough credit. He is capable of using a steel axe at base with NO speed loss and he's more than beefy enough to withstand two or three enemies on hard mode per turn while dealing substantial damage back. His monstrous strength growth means that no matter what, he will almost always be dealing 20+ damage or more with a steel axe and if you promote him into warrior he gets a huge strength boost on promotion. Investing even a little in his bow rank reveals just how incredible he is at one-shotting wyvern lords and deathgoyles in the late gate.

[@General12th]

Hi Lizard! How would the game be different if damage was carried over between missions? (There could be a few points of natural healing, plus more if the unit isn't fielded for that mission.) Then you couldn't always rely on your main combat units, so you might have to train up folks like Ross just because they can fill the role of backup combat.

[@Shalakor]

Or, you'd go out of your way to field the same units from last battle to give your healers more exp.

[@zanesproductions3937]

Thracia 776 had something similar, where the more you used a unit, the more fatigue they would build up over consecutive chapters and if they passed the HP threshold of that unit, you couldn’t use them until you completed the next chapter. So I can say right now: It would make no difference. People would keep using whoever they wanted to.

[@scottygagnon4287]

This video is really finny to be becuase of just how crappy my ross was on my first playthrough of sacred stones. I love trainees, so I slot them onto my team whenever possible, and Ross was no exception. The problem was that his speed, defence, and skill ended up completely horrible. So he got doubled, missed, and enemies could one round him, even with his huge HP. In that same run, my Amelia was just good at everything and worked with my similarly overpowered Wyvern lord Tana to beat the late game into a pulp.

[@deyvisonwillamy6931]

Fe8 enemies are weak, so the difference between classes are the movement and utility, if a paladin can OHKO a enemy just like a swordmaster with crit bonus, so the plus movement, Kanto and rescue is better for the gameplay, since movement is both offensive and defensive. So generally mounted units are the strongest, and of course mages cuz staff utility

[@DuelingShade]

Yeah, that's why classes like myrms are only really good in games like FE6 or Conquest, where the strong enemies actually require a higher speed stat to be doubled. What's the point of being the fastest or strongest when good enough is good enough, and comes with better utility too.

[@fusionoftheaces9097]

You can promote ross by the end of chapter 4 if you feed him every kill. Which is easy to do because every enemy is conveniently placed in positions they cant attack and wont move from if he hits them with his hatchet

[@DuelingShade]

With how high his exp gain is early on, he's getting 30 exp just from chip, so I usually have him weaken enemies and give the kills to Vanessa or Franz.

[@runningoncylinders3829]

With Garcia and Dozla being similar enough to Ross’s potential futures and little to go on besides early access, Ross is really just the best baby unit.

[@Arcanist_The]

ROSS SWEEP.

[@jordanhamel6191]

His insane luck makes him a ridiculously accurate axe user. If you use the hatchet to speed him into pirate by chapter 4, he will spend the rest of the game nearly ohko most enemies he should be fighting. He maxes strength very easily, so his speed isnt incredible.

[@pyrotictiger9930]

If you snip out the parts mentioning waterwalking utility, you almost have a short. /s

[@RisingSunReviews]

I used Ross most of the time when I played Sacred Stones, but the big reason this was viable was that I could just grind him in the Tower of Valni, and has pretty good stats for his level once he catches up. But then if you take away the tower, then it seems like he's not worth the experience. Which is a shame, because I like the idea of a weak unit that becomes great once you put the effort into them.

[@tehphones]

Shame we never really got a good pirate for gba. I guess Ross can be good enough

[@AbsoluteSilencePiano]

Dart in blazing sword never turned out good for you? I always think of him for a good berserker

[@ThatGuyThai]

Gonzalez asks if he's a joke to you

[@tehphones]

@@ThatGuyThai Not a pirate

[@GreatAether58]

Hawkeye is already a Berserker when he joins, but he is amazing and was probably a Pirate at one point. Does that count?

[@tehphones]

@@GreatAether58 Nah, Berserkers are something else entirely.

[@zanesproductions3937]

I mostly agree with your analysis, but the “Overall he’s a D tier” comment really made no sense to me. Bringing a utility that other units can’t replicate in that part of the game, even if it is situational, would already put him leagues above other D tier units. Not to mention he is decent in combat and you get him early on. That sounds more like high C tier to me Edit: Also, your fliers in Ch. 9 of Eirika route are not equipped to deal with the units that are surrounding the southern villages. Ross makes things much easier for them to collect the items by distracting the pirates and potentially the archers as well

[@actuallizard]

The problem is the utility isn't that good. In Eirika route, for example, the utility is essentially just a turn save on chapter 7. It is unique utility, but is it better than staff utility, a combat flier, or high move? In most contexts, I think there are just other competitors for that early investment that give you a better return. re Eirika ch 9: Your fliers don't need to deal with the enemies in the southern village. They can just rescue drop someone else down there. Usually I send seth down, but a promoted cav works too. Or Tana can just safely grab the village without engaging with any enemies

[@JulzLeyva]

I can’t see the growths

[@thomasquesada7248]

Lizard forgot to add them, they are in the pinned comment

[@GamebooAdvance]

Can't forget about Ross having the ability to become a super trainee! Pretty sure he still gets the fast leveling, then he can go into other classes from there (or go super trainee 3 but idk if you can promote into normal classes)

[@cmck362]

Average stats aren't the best way to measure this. Let's take seth's speed growth which is 45%. On average he should have 20.55 speed at lvl 20. However the odds of seth getting 22 or more speed is 33%. About a third of the time you'll get a speed blessed seth. Now compare that with a 10/20/20 ross. His speed growth is only 30%. At max level he's on average going to have 19.1 speed. The odds of ross having 20 or more speed is 44%. If we look at 21 or more it's 32%. Getting one or two points above the average is not all that unlikely given the 47 level ups you roll compared to seth's 19. Ross getting to see more level up screens gives him more chances to get lucky. Growth units have the potential to be the farthest from their average stats. Ross just happens to be the growthiest of growth units. He also gets a ton of levels quickly while in trainee so his ability to snowball can appear faster than other units. And if he doesn't snowball you can just bench him. It's pretty low resources to check if you have an insane ross on the run up to pirate. Another thing about ross is that chapter 2 and 3 have a ton of axe users. Vanessa is hard to train on those maps and franz is probably already ahead so ross kind of is the only unit to train if you aren't using garcia, gilliam, or eirika. Chapter 4 has slow zombies that anyone can double too. Ross kind of feels easier to train than vanessa even though everyone always stresses how good she is because she stapled wings to a horse. On paper ross looks bad, but as everyone will tell you he always seems to be better than theorycrafters say he should be.

[@actuallizard]

You can look at Binomials if you prefer them to averages. Say we promote Ross at level 10. He hits 18 speed (the benchmark to double caellach) 30% of the time at level 10/10/20. Seth hits it 50% of the time at level 14. I think 14 levels on Seth is a lot more realistic than 37 levels on Ross by chapter 15, and Seth hits the benchmark more often even if they both got their levels. If we do 10/20/x for Ross, he hits that speed benchmark 50% of the time at level 15 promoted. Sure Ross could get blessed, but he's in a pretty big hole here. Even if he's a couple points of speed up on his average, he's still slow. Remember Ross isn't really fringe doubling enemies on average, he gets doubled on a lot of maps, a couple extra points of speed doesn't turn him into a combat god. He needs more like 4 or 5. If we want fast ross he needs to be quite blessed and get a bunch of levels. Ross hypothetically has more opportunities to be blessed, but it's just 10 fast levels. After that he levels at the same pace as other unpromoted units. I don't really think it's fair to call this period snowballing. It's more catching up, because he isn't really ahead of other units at the end of his fast levels, and then the snowballing stops. We can train him, see how his levels go and then drop him if he's not blessed, but I think we're pretty sad to do that. 10 levels on Ross could have been 4 levels on Vanessa, Artur, or Franz! I don't really want to train a unit in the hopes that they get blessed instead of using a unit that is going to work out more often. Ross has more opportunities to be blessed, but isn't it nicer to just use a unit that doesn't need to be blessed to be good? I don't agree on the training front either. Franz is a fine exp target on chapter 2 and 3. Vanessa is about as easy to feed kills as ross for the first couple maps (then easier after), and then after chapter 4 we have Lute, Artur, Vanessa, and Franz, all of whom are competing for the exp. Ross' training arc isn't too hard, but it's not uncontested exp, and the units contesting it are mostly better.

[@cmck362]

@@actuallizard Alright first why are you assuming ross is your boss killer? Seth called dibs on those from the prologue. Ross is going to be a foot locked mook slayer just like joshua. No more than that, but still damn good at it. Second I used seth because he's a prepromote. He has 19 levels. That's it. Ross gets up to 47 level ups plus two promotions. The point was to show that seth with a 45% growth had less of a chance of being blessed than a 30% growth ross due to the difference in potential levels. I wasn't _comparing_ seth and ross. I was pointing out that trainee units are the most likely to get blessed in any and every stat by showing the opposite extreme in prepromotes. Even if ross isn't blessed in speed he'll be blessed in _something._ Maybe he'll roll a few more strength level ups. Or get some extra hp and defense. You aren't going to get 'perfectly average ross' like theorycrafters like to look at when using average growths. As far as training goes franz already solo'd chapter 1 so he doesn't _need_ the exp. He's ahead of the curve if you don't dump exp into eirika and gilliam or let seth take kills. Dumping excessive amounts of exp into franz is overkill and we already have overkill in seth. Chapter 2 and 3 are pretty brutal for vanessa so she's going to be trained in chapter 4 instead vs those slow zombies that don't have axes. That just leaves ross and garcia. If you're using ross you aren't using garcia long term so he's not getting exp. By process of elimination ross is the only one worth putting exp on in chapter 2 and 3. Artur and vanessa get trained in chapter 4, but ross should be a pirate by that point so he's done getting babied. The way the early game works out in practice there's very little opportunity cost for training ross.

[@actuallizard]

@@cmck362 I'm not assuming Ross is your boss killer. I just picked a speed threshhold. We can look at generics if you want. Ross rarely doubles gargoyles or rangers either. He can kill weak generics. But if that's all we're getting out of Ross we can do a lot better. Franz is a mook killer on a horse. Joshua is a mook killer without the training arc and can boss kill in a pinch, lute is a mook killer with staves and a horse. If I'm feeding a unit kills in the early game, I need them to do more than kill weak generics. Ross gets 47 levels if we grind him to 10/20/20. In practice he gets just gets 10 more levels than everyone else because after those 10 he stops leveling significantly faster than other units. Sure, we could grind him to 10/20/20 and he'll be fine, but so will everyone else, and many of them will have other utility or higher move. Being blessed in anything other speed frankly doesn't do enough for Ross. A def blessed Ross still can't double much I also don't see why we would assume he gets blessed? Sure he could get blessed in a stat, he could also get screwed in a stat. Looking at averages or binomials seems like a fair way to assess his typical performance. re: training, Idk why franz would solo chapter 1, but even if he does he gets like 2 or 3 levels. It's not so much that he doesn't also want the chapter 2 experience. Also Ross isn't easier to train than vanessa in chapter 2. They have similar hit rates and damage against the chapter 2 brigands at base, ross does slightly more damage, Vanessa doubles. If you can get Ross kills, you can get Vanessa kills. The opportunity cost for training Ross is a bit higher than every other early game unit if you want to use him long term. he takes 3-4 levels worth of kills for his trainee arc, and then he still needs the normal amount of experience that everyone else needs. If Ross' job is just being a slow mook killer, that's really not good enough, relative to what his peers can do.

[@cmck362]

@@actuallizard I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this.