Hi Raisins, many obvious possibilities come to mind to this question, and it is probably tacitly known to active racers of fe7/8, but I couldn't find a direct answer. What is the primary reason that the race is done in normal over hard mode? Is it to keep a race to a reasonable length; to make it reasonable for people to strategise and learn; to allow more people to potentially participate; because it's just more fun; etc?
There are two primary reasons: The first is that yes, we all want the race to be a pretty reasonable length. The harder modes of fe7 and fe8 aren't that much harder than the easier modes, but most strategies would just find a place to dedicate 20 or so additional minutes to grinding levels in order to bring units up to strength. Outside of those 20 additional minutes of grinding, the runs would probably look pretty identical. Lastly, it's not as though racing on normal mode is super easy, you're still competing against opponents and against your own prior times.
Two things you missed in all this Mentorship talk that make things EVEN WORSE for Mentorship. 1) Mentorship ACTUALLY boosts exp by x1.15. The reason for this is the game rounds down instead of storing fractional exp so anytime exp gains are not a multiple of 5 you lose a bit of exp from mentorship. 2) The same rubberbanding mechanic that caps you at only gaining about 1 level will also take away bonus mentorship xp and sp if you don't constantly use mentorship. So that bonus level you got, which in reality is only going to be a bit of XP until you gain several levels under Mentorship, can just disappear.
Nice argument, but you seem to not be accounting for Mentorship also provides bonus exp for allies, so in effect your *entire army* gets to be ahead a level if you're clever. Which does has its own implications, however, namely: inheritance is still a bad idea, just use Byleth's ring and *maybe* inherit it onto Seadall and your whole team should be set.
Yeah I don't mind drawing that conclusion. Assuming that every time you get combat exp you'll be next to someone holding mentorship just imo introduces too much inflexibility. For one, how many people are getting mentorship anyway? And even then, are you sure there are never going to be combats where one of your units has to break off to fight? Again I question whether this benefit is even worth the skill slot in the first place.
Btw, @original_raisins, where did you find that exp table? the linked google drive doc to the datamine doesn't have it, and googling it just brings up a bunch of meh sites clickbaiting you into stuff any average IQ person can discover on their own.
i think it’s also funny that people inherit mentorship on multiple units. like, the skill straight up tells you that it works for adjacent units; when are you ever going to need more than, like, 2 units with the skill? (seadall, and your byleth engage) if there were more meaningful level benchmarks in this game and the skill stacked with itself, i think it would probably be a decent skill.
It's still true in the case of underleveled units. After some kills, Mentorship exp will have given you an extra level, and then it CANNOT create a level lead larger than +1. I've tested with loads of early and underleveled units just to address this exact case, and the highest exp differential I've ever seen is 160 exp to the mentorship unit. It always equilibrates to a +1 level lead
@@OriginalRaisins thats enough tho. people always complain anna cant level fast enough to catch up. but with the three houses skill she caught up quick. to the point i wanted to rush to the next chapter cuz i needed more master and second seals.
@@mithos789 You would need to be deploying base Anna in like chapter 13 or 14 to see the kind of EXP gain I was talking about when I said that it can power up underleveled units.
Mentorship/Lineage are def worth it to catch units up though. Slap one on a low level unit with micaiah and they gain several levels over the course of the map, and the 20% actually matters. The well offsets the minor SP sink this would cost
I kinda get that it's overrated, but this is still not as bad as you make it sound. You get 1 level, which translates to 3-4 stat points, at the cost of a -100 net SP over the course of a playthrough and adjacent allies benefit from it at no cost. This doesn't sound like that bad of an ability to me.
It occupies the skill slot forever is the other thing I don't really like about it. Also the number of combats it takes to give you that extra level, as it were, is pretty huge. 30 kills is more than what many units will achieve over the entire playthrough, even if you are deploying them at every opportunity.
@@OriginalRaisins you don't need every unit to use both skill slots and even if you don't see the effect immediately, if makes you reach levels faster and therefore see the return sooner than leveling normally.
But consider the math of how combat plays out in practice. Those single points in 3-4 random stats aren't likely to sway combat meaningfully. What are the odds it will be that single point in Speed that hits a doubling threshold, or that single Res that lets you survive? The same SP investment gets multiple points in key stats, making it far more likely to hit these thresholds (especially on units who might not have great Growths in said stats, like Res on your armors)
@@researchinbreeder I'm gonna have to ask about those multiple points in key stats, because afaik only really speed+ is available and cheap early, and you get like, +2 for that price. Also the thresholds can be meaningful. All mages except Citrinne are 2-6 points of magic short of one rounding some enemies in chapter 17, for example, even with tonics. Mage knight gets +3 speed from chaos style and if you get it faster, it becomes usable earlier and is a massive boost. Just as examples. And again, not to mention you only need it on one for every like 4 units to benefit your whole team. It's not one per unit for next to no gains, it's small gains for everyone if only a few units use it. I get that it's not that amazing of a skill and other skills exist and can definitely be better, but it's also not a wasted investment like the video makes it out to be imo.
Mentorship is a skill for players who try to use all of the characters instead of having a main team or even two teams. It helps keep your average level between your units equal since it does more for units catching up than those that are ahead. This is especially evident because mentorship triggers not only for the unit that has it, but also adjacent units. Your expected to put mentorship on a party member that you always deploy with and keep them near units you're only deploying every so often.
So mentorship is bad because it only makes units permanently 1 level higher than they would be if they only got XP from battling chapter enemies and actively avoid getting XP from another source? Staves and support actions (that give XP) scale to the target ally unit's level so if the whole party levels at the same rate that bonus never drops off. The arena scales similar to staves but gives generous XP even if over-leveled. Skirmishes scale to the average level of your best units, so their XP never drops off as you level and training encounters give fixed XP at the end regardless of level. All that said, there really isn't much point in inheriting it unless grinding training battles and the arena. For skirmishes just equip byleth to a qi adept to support the trainees.
How does internal level work in the exp formula? You add both the level they promote and the level after they promote? Example: lvl 10 would be internal lvl 10 and promoted 10/1 would be internal lvl 11? Do they gain +1 internal lvl from Master seal only, or do second seals also have negative effects on internal level that they constantly add +1? By the way, thanks for discrediting Mentorship, I always feel bad leaving exp behind, but if it's just 1 level that you only keep as long as mentorship is equipped, i guess it's not really worth stressing about minmaxing it.
Internal level is the number of levels a unit earned before promotion. If you promoted at 10 and are now level 1, you would be internal level 9, current level 1, for total level 10.
So basically instead of Mentorship you can literally just do 1 skirmish/training and you'll be equal, if not ahead in exp. Great video btw, I always think it's good when someone comes around and actually works out a common myth.
Thank you very much! My gut instinct was that the skill was pretty meh. Maybe a decent option as a filler skill. And I understood that due to the way exp works, it would ultimately result in some fixed level advantage. Although for some reason I hadn't made the connection that this resulted in SP stagnation in exactly the same manner, but it's obvious once you stop to think about it. I did not however realize the advantage would essentially a single level. Although reevaluating it again, this is effectively 150SP for +1 in about 4 semi-random stats in most cases, but it takes several level ups to materialize and re-earn the 100SP. That's... not great, but actually not terrible. The speed + line runs 100, 300, 500, 1000 and 2000 SP for +1,2,3,4,5. I run 1-3 as some of my most common skills, and occasionally 4 depending on the cost of the other skill. Level +1 I'd value similarly to speed+2, since speed is one of the more important stats, but level+1 gives more stats. But the speed+ skill is both more reliable, and provides more room for expansion if you need higher than +2, so I'd favor that for units that care about speed. So while level +1 struck me as extremely underwhelming when you pointed it out, upon reevaluation, I think I'm back to "meh. Maybe a decent filler skill." Lineage would bea little better, as it costs 150SP, 50 net, and mentorship's boosts given to allies would dwindle quickly. That is of course, DLC though.
My guess before watching: it doesn't pay for itself in SP and isn't around long enough to make the extra levels significant. I wonder what our intrepid host thinks of the Edelgard version that I don't remember the name of. It's way earlier so it cuts into Canter SP, so I've assumed it's kinda crap.
I don't find the XP formula argument to be that compelling in that it might be OK on underleveled units I *guess* (underleveled units tend to be bad already anyway), but the skill slot one I've always agreed with. Speed+ whatever and speedtaker and divine pulse and obligatory canter are just too good to pass up.
Again, it will only give you *one* extra level some time from now, and no more. You're better off just getting them whatever stats best help them level up now.
@@OriginalRaisins True. It's actually probably better to just put Byleth on the unit you're trying to catch up anyways and using Dance of the Goddess, etc. Then they are still useful even underleveled and they gain the absolutely insane amount of XP from that.
True, 1 additional level (~5 base stat points?) really isn't worth it. Especially if you are already hitting max stat caps with starsphere. I think there is still a use case for lineage on a unit who is power levelling in the arena with 12xp per duel instead of 10. That unit might get 2 extra levels and the reduced cost of 150SP is more justifiable. The unit is probably also a carry and will have leftover SP after getting your end game skills loadout
This seems like a skill that could be useful for playthroughs that are completly routed like TAS runs, but because of FEs system of giving you exp depending on your level in relation to your enemy, this is nothing more then a skill, that could make it easier for units that are behind to catch back up faster. But is that worse it? Probably not.
Also as informative as this video is, I feel like its missing the point of Mentorship. Its not meant to be efficient for leveling your high internal level units. If you put it on a high level units, it should only be to feed kills to low level units so they benefit more from the enemy level difference. You know, kind of like a mentor would. I figure the best use case would be giving Alear or some other OP unit the Mercy ring, surround them with Seadall and 2/3 baby units with Lineage and start feeding the baby units kills.
If mentorship worked in the Arena like Lineage this would be a different story as Arena gives flat EXP at any level. That could easily be +2 levels in a playthrough by training alone
Considering seadall is the best person to give it to, and you tend to always do byleth dance on him, that 1.4 that’s a massive sp boost as sp is based off exp, and you can boost units to get skills faster.
