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airlock384I need to keep my hands busy to focus in class, and the way I usually accomplish this is by punishing them with some inane statistic exercise. in my most recent one, I calculated the odds of the meal outcomes from every FE17 character, and then took a stab at ranking them accordingly
so, what's cooking, good-looking?
I'm citing information from Serenes Forest, which in turn has pulled mostly from the official Fire Emblem Engage guidebook.
- 55% chance of one of the character's personal Meal Titles
- 35% chance of a D-rank meal
- 10% chance of a E, F or G-rank meal
X-TIER: The Master Chef shocking news for us to start with here: lit oventops are hot, and Bunet, the guy whose literal job is to cook excellently... can, in fact, cook excellently, the specifics are somewhat worth enumerating, at least. Bunet is, for starters, the only character in the entire game with more than one S-rank or higher personal meal title, which makes him likelier than anyone else to hit the absolute highest marks. speaking of which -- the absolute ABSOLUTE highest mark, double-S-rank, is only available at all to two characters in the game, of which one is, naturally, Bunet here. and of course, all the chance spreads I'm providing here assume a meal with no ingredients given and with which the character has no expertise; cook more normally, and you'll be inching ever closer to the point where he bangs out a meal to die for as often as 50% of the time. S-TIER: Great Cooks we start this one with a slightly more unexpected outcome! yes, Clanne is indeed the second best cook in the entire game, ahead of Goldmary, and actually not so far behind Bunet that the comparison would actually be as crazy as it sounds. let's take stock of it. all of Clanne's meal titles are either S-rank or A-rank. therefore, even if you're making him cook unfamiliar recipes without a single ingredient, there's a 55% chance he'll come out of the kitchen with a culinary miracle in his hands -- better than Bunet's 40% chances in such a scenario (as he has one B-rank personal title), and indeed, better than absolutely anyone else's chances. although he can never hit the elusive double-S-rank, Clanne's chances of cooking wonderfully only increase the more you don't subject him to utterly ridiculous conditions. long story short, this kid makes a good fucking pickle. narrowly yet still decisively behind comes along Goldmary -- and, numerically tied with her in another interesting twist, Zelkov. they're both capable of landing an S-rank meal, and also bat at A or higher a very solid 40% of the time. comparing the two to each other, naturally the text is far more supportive of Goldmary's cooking ability, and besides, the A-rank title that she can hit, Decadent, just sounds better than Zelkov's, which is Trendy. inching just behind those two we have Gregory, with a very similar chance spread, just weighted 5% less in favour of hitting S-ranks. A-TIER: Solid Cooks one tier down, we start looking at characters who (with one exception) aren't capable of coming through with an S-rank meal, but nonetheless have outstanding odds, etching high results frequently. Framme and Timerra share an excellent 40% chance to make A-rank meals, as well as an overall 55% chance of batting at B-rank or higher (technically the same as Bunet, you may recall). comparing the two of them, I go off their A-rank personal meal titles -- Framme's "Divine" sounds best of all, although "Your Favorite" doesn't speak to much being that I don't know what kind of food Alear likes actually; whereas Timerra's "Courageous" and "Audacious" have me thinking that A-rank might be a pretty generous way to describe what sounds less like cooking skill and more like... inventiveness. Céline figures here, another one boasting a 55% chance of making B-rank or higher meals. she doesn't often exceed B-rank, but when she does, it's for the S-rank. and lastly, we have a close tie between Merrin, Louis, Amber and Rosado. not only are their chance spreads identical, but they have quite similar personal meal titles as well, with all of them potentially hitting their local "[country]-style" meal -- which is non-indicative -- and with all but Rosado also sharing the "Extremely Rich" B-rank title. comparing A-rank titles, Merrin's best is "Tasteful", Louis and Rosado share "Dainty", and Amber comes out with "Robust". and to the best of my knowledge, the only one whose cooking abilities are further remarked on textually is Rosado, who falls noticeably short of Goldmary (but still valiantly tries to make up the difference). B-TIER: Cooks with Potential our next several cooks are -- again with just one exception -- the last few in the game who are capable of landing S-rank meals. they just aren't quite as consistent as other characters who can do so, though -- so while they're not bad, the stars have to align for them to really show off their best. Lady Anna firmly leads this tier as she is, in fact, the one character who shares Bunet's ability to make a double-S-rank meal -- "First-Rate", as it were. Boucheron has a very similar chance spread to her, but his absolute best is only S-rank instead of double-S. Saphir and Alcryst tie for the spot beneath those two, being just that last 5% less likely to make miracles happen in the kitchen. between the two, Saphir is textually put up as an experienced-if-not-fancy cook, capable of going head-to-head with Goldmary on a good day -- whereas Alcryst's cooking skills do not, to my knowledge, ever directly come up in his supports, but we all know that at heart he's our failgirl even if he's doing surprisingly well here. (in fact -- better than diamant! pew pew peeeeeeew) C-TIER: Decent Cooks by this tier, we're looking at characters who can't possibly cook an S-rank meal, but still have fairly good chances of pulling out A- or B-rank meals; they are, thusly, some of the last characters on the roster that we could fairly describe as "good at cooking". indeed, this is also where we'll cross the 20th and 21st places, and therefore, the line past which we're looking at the bottom half of the list. Seadall heads up this tier with a sterling 55% chance of producing a B-rank meal (although he is the first character we're looking at who can't possibly make something A-rank or higher). he'll get solid results more often than not, even when if you make him cook Florida Man-style. not bad for someone who's probably shaking and crying over the smell rising out of the cookpot the entire time and speaking of filling up on smell alone, Jean and Lapis tie for the next spot with surprisingly robust rates. their personal meal titles both generally sound humble, even at A-rank, but at their most unremarkable, Jean's C-rank meals are described as "Fresh" (or "Carefully Crafted"), while Lapis's are "Kind of Odd" (or "Delightful"). my gut tells me that in Jean's case, the more unpleasant meals you're getting just taste too much like spearmint and cough syrup, but in Lapis's case, you might have to explain that no, actually, people don't normally add that crunchy finish by pouring on ground pebbles. Nel is just narrowly below those two, being 5% less likely than them to land on an A-rank meal. she is pretty much the most bog-standard cook in the entire list, with her chances spread pretty evenly across the most normal outcomes. Jade is similar to Seadall in her solid chances of managing at least a B-rank meal. that's what writers are well known for, after all: consistency. anyway, wow, look at that over there! it's a guy falling off a llama to distract you from me kicking my WIPs under a rug! Lindon, Kagetsu and Fogado, being that precious last 5% less likely than Jade to make a B-rank meal, are where our chances having a nice meal are starting to get shakier, which they'll only get moreso as we continue going down the list. Lindon is ahead of the pack here textually; his culinary experiments might not be safe or entirely ethical, but surely he's learned a thing or two from performing them. the other two are very closely tied, and so once again, my best bet is to vote against the one who's sometimes coming out with "Kind of Odd" meals (and in this case, it would be Fogado). D-TIER: Mediocre Cooks for the first several places on this tier, we're looking at our first cooks who have at least one negative personal meal title -- that is, one in the E to G ranks. our first order of business, then, is to understand what this does exactly to their chances. the first thing to it is that, under our usual perfectly neutral and perfectly stupid conditions, these characters will be noticeably likelier to completely screw things up. moreover, though, you might remember that, if we give them proper ingredients and have them work with recipes they're skilled with, that increases their chances of making a meal with one of their personal titles -- including the negative one. when you crunch the numbers on it, the result is that having these characters cook properly will affect their chances of catastrophic failure minimally if at all (although their chances of putting out good results still increase -- as the chance of pulling out an underwhelming D-rank meal are also still decreasing in this case). incidentally, a quirk of these conditions is that giving these character a shot at a recipe they're Eager to try is an especially risky affair. having them cook in the first place is already a form of playing with fire; giving them too much creative leeway as well is where we approach the point of playing with Bolganone. and speaking of magic tomes, Ivy is the first one up here. a 40% chance to make an A-rank meal is excellent, meaning she's not overall a bad cook, but the chance of catastrophic failure is always just right around the corner with her. trailing a few ways behind her we have the similarly screwup-prone Vander and Diamant. there's little going on to distinguish between them textually, but I'm just going to throw out a wild out-there guess that, on average, being terrified of fire can be a disincentive towards learning to cook. on the surface, Alfred looks to have slightly better chances than those two, but there's a particular issue that weighs against him. so far, the characters we've covered have personal E-rank meal titles, which is true of the majority of characters who have negative personal titles. however, when Alfred screws things up, the result he's most liable to turning up with is a "Stomach-Churning" F-rank meal! Hortensia doesn't fail quite that catastrophically, but unlike the other ones we've seen so far, her risk of failing isn't quite offset by a risk of actually making something amazing; she's the first one we've seen so far who can't make A-rank meals, although she still has a pretty decent chance of making it as far as B-rank, at least. after this battery of adventure and danger, we come to the latter half of the D-tier: characters who generally won't surprise you with their cooking -- for better or for worse, as it were. Madeline and Etie are overwhelmingly likeliest to turn up underwhelming dishes, at the C or D ranks; Citrinne is another 5% likelier than them both to make no impression whatsoever. between the former two, Madeline's personal B-rank title of "Well-Balanced" seems just a touch more inviting than Etie's "Mild". Chloé and Pannette bottom out the tier; they are two of the only three characters in the game who cap out at C-rank, and never cook any better than that. comparing those two, Pannette is indicated in text to struggle with cooking (even under Goldmary's guidance), whereas Chloé might possibly serve something nicer if she simply doesn't insist that it should be washed down with civet coffee and snake wine. F-TIER: Bad Cooks from here on downward, every character we cover has a negative meal title, as well as unimpressive chances of making something particularly good. Rafal and Mauvier both have only a 15% chance of batting above C-tier; rather little to compensate for their naturally higher chances of screwing things up. at least, when Rafal gets it right, he makes an "Audacious" A-rank meal, while Mauvier's absolute best is a B-rank... "Firene-style"?? huh. I don't think I uncovered that tidbit about him anywhere else so far. Veyle ranks lower than the both of them, in any case. that is because she shares with Alfred that special aptitude for turning up "Stomach-Churning" F-rank meals. possibly something to do with her affinity for inhumanely spicy food, which perhaps helps to paint an unpleasantly precise picture of how you'll feel when you try some of the worst she has to offer. L-TIER: Horrible Cooks and here we are, at long last, in the absolute bottom of the barrel. boy, is there some and then some to be said for the absolute accomplishments in failure we're looking at here Zelestia and Pandreo share a spectacularly unique dishonor: they have two negative personal meal titles. this not only makes them more likely by far than anyone else to screw things up, it also means that they actually become LIKELIER to fail if you give them proper ingredients and a recipe they supposedly specialize in. (although again, the chances of their unlikely positive results also go up in these cases, if much too little) even compared to those two clowns, though, Yunaka lies down a cut below the rest. firstly, because unlike the two of them, she won't cook an impressively good meal even by accident, being that she caps at C-rank. what's furthermore notable, though, is that she is the only character in the entire game with a personal G-rank title -- "Completely Burnt". in other words, Yunaka will never surprise you with an unusually good dish, but she will, on roughly every fourth attempt at cooking, burn water. go girl! give us nothing!
