Dunal

Berserker has a penalty of -5 dodge, not -30 dodge. If it's really that bad, you can give him two goddess icons to negate this. Might be worthwhile if you're using him as he'll likely benefit it more than any other unit. LCK is pretty worthless for most other units. I suppose Camilla may be the other contender. And that's without Percy, who will make Arthur completely immune to crits by himself, for the most part. Without him, you'd need a forged bronze of course. Either way, Arthur has a whole lot going for him aside from this minor inconvenience of needing to play around his innate dodge. Even then, it's not difficult to minimise the issue. And considering that Bronze is his best candidate for a weapon, a class change to Cavalier is pretty effective as a substitute sword or lance user, as weapon rank means nothing outside of having a ranged weapon. He has a lot of options and little weaknesses outside of his one notable flaw. And in return, the other side of his passive (that affects enemies) is extremely powerful. Not that I'm advocating that he's top tier or anything. Although he would be if he had higher SPD to consistently double and/or some more RES. His performance with ranged weapons can be shaky as well. But he's a solid B+ or A- unit. Availability over a lot of the roster puts him pretty high up IMO.

...why? Bronze weapon gives him +10 dodge (negating low % crits) and a huge amount of accuracy. His growths are good. His availability is great. He's decently tanky and has the best weapon type (that happens to get a Reaver weapon fairly early on). Berserker is one of the best classes in the game as well. His own kid fixes his dodge later in the game as well if he wants to use another weapon. And then all enemies around him lose a whopping 15 dodge, negating up to 30 luck. Combine that with the Berserker class (or any other unit on your team with high crit) and Arthur is immensely powerful. And one of the best attack stance units hands down. Nyx is the other example of a unit who gets significantly better with a cheap forge. She does need a few early speed tonics and/or food buffs early on though, so that does drag her down a bit.

That's the same as going "Pfft, Fates weapon buying'". Bronze weapons only cost 500g. For a +2 you just need 2000g. That's the same amount... as buying a steel weapon. And it depends what you mean by "bad". Sure there's quite a few mediocre units (although Arthur isn't one of them -- his availability is great and LCK is his only major flaw aside from middling accuracy early... both completely fixed by a forge) but no unit has truly bad payoff and while some come a bit underleveled, that's not enough to make them outright bad. Although Odin arguably comes fairly close.

@Levant Mir Celestia: You're constantly commenting how bad Arthur is... When a forged bronze axe solves almost every issue he has. +2 is fine for most of the game. Nyx is a similar case with a +2 fire (then a Lightning later on). No unit in Conquest is bad. Odin's the hardest to make work and he's not terrible with a Nosferatu or class change.

TBF, the whole bases vs. growths things may be the least creative way to balance them as a whole, IMO. You just end up with a bunch of pseudo-Ests. And based on how difficult the lategame is, may make them either flat out better/mandatory or redundant/overkill in comparison. Interesting skills and/or different/favourable stat lines would be better off. Someone like Ogier could well start of decent at base (LV7-9) but just with a very different stat line and skills compared to Dieck. This not only makes Dieck feel less bad to use long term, but also makes Ogier immediately useful (without eventually overshadowing Dieck). The choice to use either isn't as one-dimensional as early vs. lategame, but a concious choice on what you want in a unit based on the rest of your team comp. It also massively supports a fatigue system as well. It starts to become a bit mundane or annoying when you're forced to use these "growth" units that need moderate investment to start being good (who you may or may not want to train in the first place) and then late game arrives and the complete opposite occurs for the 'base' units that will just be straight up inferior. Granted, some Est-type units is fine, but not more than a couple IMO (and by 'Est' I mean anyone that begins in a position where they are hindering your strategy/play-style by forcing you to funnel them kills to get them somewhere.. then at some stage they're just better than your other units, leaving them very little room for them to just be on the same power-curve as everyone else). And of course, if we're talking 5-10% higher growths across the board, then the base units will still be flat out better. Because an extra 1 or 2 stats every 20 level ups isn't going much to make up for a notable early lead. Early lead = more EXP gained due to contributing more. More EXP gained = more levels to gain more stats (regardless of growths). More stats = Maintaining and even accelerating their lead. Growth units rarely ever work (or are just plain inferior) in FE for this reason. Unless it's really extreme. Like FE5's Mareeta or Sara. It does depend on class though. Growth-based healers/thieves work far better than Armor Knights, for example. The former you can make work immediately without causing disruption in your playstyle/strategy. The latter is completely non-sensual since the concept behind armors is that you're already sacrificing something by lumbering them around. Having them actually be weak by successfully getting them from point A to B.. is a hard sell. That's why Gwendy may actually need some kind of extra consideration, and probably needs to have decent bases to a degree (even if it's something like huge base RES to give her a starting niche).

To begin with, IS balanced unit base stats in accordance to FE9. But towards the end of development, they scaled everything up to support the Tier 3 power fantasy. But they forgot to do this with Fiona and/or her base class. This is my head-canon In all seriousness though, the map data files show Fiona as a level 1-3 unit around her join time (as to what the developers at one point were testing with). Seems like IS effed up and bumped up her base level for some reason, without any changes to her bases. It's highly probable that her awfulness is a compete mistake. My guess was that she was intentionally made to be a true Est, but someone dun goofed.

The direction I'd go is around LV5 base with LV10-12 equivalent stats and interesting stat spread + a powerful skill. But still has a defining weakness (terrible SKL?). I don't think high growths are needed. And are usually just a band-aid fix for late-joining units (same as Paragon). High bases for her initial level will make her not terrible to begin with, while giving her more levels/higher EXP gain to grow further. Even with middling growths, this works but the total levels to grow compliments the base stats to make an eventual powerful unit, whilst neither having an OP late game unit or a terrible unit to start with. From there, promotion gains would be a good way to tweak late game power. If you've played FE7x, Eiry is pretty much the archetype here. An "Est" with mediocre growths. However balanced because of the sheer amount of levels to grow combined with her decent base stats. And based on her personal skill; may not even need to have huge potential in terms of stats.

Based on the changes to magic (Fire 1-2 range, Thunder 1 range), perhaps it would be best if Lilina and Hugh were to swap. Lilina uses fire magic in Heroes with exclusive usage of Bolganone. So clearly that's her canonical choice of magic. Roy only gave her Thunder in the original game because it's better than giving her Fire (the lesser tome) and that you get an Elfire in a chest on the same map (in which Lilina has the base rank to use). Nino use wind magic which certainly makes Lugh suited to use that as well. Then Hugh is left with thunder as the more durable mage.

Edit: My bad. I was thinking in RD terms for some reason.

That's not untrue. But it's not a grey area. To simplify things, the player has a finite amount of resources/EXP at their disposal. It all comes down to "how much of that do I need to make X unit usable?" or "how much of that do I need to make X unit good?" or "how much of that do I need to make X unit great?". Each separate instance is compared to other units, and often times, to do the latter, is at the cost of multiple units performing adequately (to meet the 'par' in terms efficiency which might not even be that strict). This is factored because it does very per unit. And therefore should affect tiering to a degree. The whole Arm Scroll > Sanaki thing is a part of this. If Arm Scroll were extremely contested, then giving it to her may effect the efficiency that you can beat the game considering the other units you are using. Sanaki isn't soloing the game, so there does need to be consideration to what we give her compared to other units (not specifically, just overall). Meg can be given a lot of stat boosters and such, but the argument against her is that not giving them to other units will guarentee that you are not clearing the game as efficiently as giving them to others. However, that does not mean we are ruling out giving lots of things to her. It's just that in the circumstance that we are doing this, it's not to the player's benefit and you are using units other than Meg that are helping you efficiently clear the game. Therefore, to no one's surprise, she is rated lowly. On the flip side, I addressed the the extreme viewpoint of this earlier. In the end, it's all about context and there's a fine line between judging a unit based on helping said unit out for them to perform well, or omitting it almost completely because of other units (or because they are "bad" and don't deserve anything). Keep in mind, that someone like Jill is rated higher because if we funnel most of our stuff on her, she performs the best out of it. So in terms of the "anti-communism" approach, she wins there as well. It's all about rating units under different circumstances instead of just one. Meg is F with little resources, E with some resources and maybe C with a lot of them. Jill would be C, A and S respectively (not concrete or anything, just examples). So Jill > Meg. However, the question then comes down to "Is having two C units as good as an F and an S?". Well, based on how Radiant Dawn is balanced (and this goes for most FEs) low manning is the most efficient way to play objectively. That isn't just people not being open minded about alternatives to that, but generally speaking, that's just how the game is. Evasion is generally high or reliable. With extension, unit survivability can be made really high. 1RKOing is not too difficult, chokepoint-ing is a thing. EXP is scarce etc... It's a problem most FEs have TBH (and is fixable by addressing a lot of these things; FE Fates did to some extent with its EXP formula or overall difficulty in conquest, or nerfing dodge tanking etc...). If anything the "anti-communism" approach is objectively the best way to do things. But that doesn't change the fact that some units make use of it far more than others. And doing it for some units have huge costs just on the basis that doing so is impacting how the game is going to pan out when done (then we rate the unit on this accordingly). The important part is that units are just rated consistently, aside from some slight nuance involved. Unit A is average without speedwings. But Great/amazing with them. Unit B is average with them and average without. Unit C is good with them and bad without. With your understanding of "anti-communism", unit C is better than unit B. Because their potential with resources here is better. If you're focusing on that unit, they will be superior. But that isn't the whole picture. Again, it's not black/white. A is super good with the resource, but B is still okay here while C is worse. Which means that rating C as a unit is to do with rating based on a more "communism" approach (to a degree). otherwise it's unfair on unit B if we're strictly rating on resources to unlock potential (because the latter has sacrifices to it). Therefore, rating units on shared units does matter to an extent just as any alternative would. Someone like Edward would be C in a lot of different contexts. Some people are adamant that they should be rated based on potential. Some argue that they should be rated based on taking resources away (whether that be from other units or efficiency as a whole) to unlock that potential. Others argue he's simply worse than a Unit B equivalent because they're most consistence no matter what you do with resources. What's right and what's wrong is debated and personally, all three viewpoints should be factored into the overall raking of a unit. Multiple perspectives and scenarios need to be taken into account. No, Edward doesn't get dibs on EXP/resources and therefore should be rated as such. But that doesn't mean we do not take into consideration how good he is when it happens. And we do need to consider various amounts of said resources, whether that be little/some/a lot of resources etc... And does he need to take a cherished resource other units will want? We're not omitting it from him at all, but again, it's taken into account. So while there are multiple viewpoints, the best compromise is to include all of them to evaluate a unit.

IS doesn't usually take into consideration availability or inferior stat distributions. Or at least they didn't used to. It's not that they're intentionally made bad, just that they do not take certain things into account. They tend to be pretty good at 'total growth percentages', skills (conceptually) or stat potential and things like that. But that means very little when SKL point-for-point is far less valuable than other stats, for instance.

The whole "units are unfairly judged because people are close-minded" thing is highly debatable really... Generally speaking, at least. "Costs" or opportunity costs is something that does matter. A lot, actually. It really all just comes to "how much do I need to take away from the rest of the army to give this unit what they need" or "how much time and effort does this take? Is it efficient?". These are generally agreed upon to be the best metric on a tier list. It's not that people are closed-minded or not open to 'different strats or playstyles' it's just that the entire point of a tier list is rating/judging said playstyles/strats, not disregarding them. If I'm 'creative' I can use Fiona in Hard and make her really useful at Endgame. But while it's an extreme example it's technically true -- it just comes down to massive opportunity cost and effort. And thus why she is rated badly. All other units are just rated under the same logic. So it's not like people are unfairly judging Edward because "they're just not creative enough"... because you could say the same about any unit and the whole point of a tier list or these debates is taking these ideas and concepts into account. But if a specific idea is unreliable (risking ~50% on a wrath proc that can give you a game over), costs time or takes away from (non-specifically) other units (based on total opportunity cost) then that is also taken into account. I doubt anyone even thinks Edward is bad or anything; just not stellar/amazing. It's not exactly close-minded to come to that conclusion.

Well the one's affected by this are: Geoffrey: Will easily be promoted by 4-5 if you set out to use him (including in 3-10) and is comparable to a LV6-8 tier 3 Oscar. Then has better growths overall from there. Free Paragon means that you can combine with Blossom on 4-5 as well. Easy tweaks to buff him further would be to lower his base level and raise Tier 2 caps. Lucia: Similar to Geoffrey. But an instant promote (with a few levels of BEXP) is enough to make her solid. Worth mentioning that promo gains can be tweaked as well to give these a better power spike -- it just means that Oscar/Mia would need to changed as well to accommodate. Tormod: Entirely balanced through promotion gains. He essentially has a second set of base stats as a result. So just promote him at 10-12. Vika/Muarim/Nailah: BEXPing to level 20 is actually really cheap now based on Laguz EXP tweaks. At that point they have okay bases when they return with crazy growths. They also have excellent Laguz gauges as well and Vika/Nailah gain WEXP super fast (both easily reach S in part 1, then SS before endgame). Tigers have high WEXP gains due to not being able to double on average, but Muarim can in part 1 so S is easy for him too. Keep in mind, that someone like Vika still has 335% growths (they're just spread better than most Laguz; with her having lower HP/LCK) so BEXP doesn't even hamper her and she'll cap certain stats really fast. Basically, if you want to use one of these units, you can. And they all have good payoff with not too much effort. Unlike the original game where it's too much effort for very little. And there are ways to buff further if need be. Speaking of Laguz, I'm currently making a change to them so that they lose less stats when untransformed. Their SPD and SKL will now work like HP and LCK. Meaning that their EVO/AS won't be crippled and they can still proc defensive skills more reliably.

We don't really know that. For all we know, each character is predetermined based on account rather than just being pre-set for everyone. Sophia's got 5 perfect level-ups out of 7 for me. I really doubt that is normal unless someone else can confirm that. (weirdly enough she has some of the highest defense in the game...). Meanwhile my Fa has got 1 or 2 stat ups most of the time. Again, I don't think that's pre-set by the devs.

Possibly predetermined like how Conquest Lunatic is -- but it still RNG at its core. (Sophia just got 4 perfect levels for me in 5 levels -- I doubt that's intended even if her growths are great... On that note, Sophia is now an actual Est in the eventual FE6 remake? Thank god)

Well if I'm "capable of thinking": A) A lot of enemies put Edward into the 30-50% health range and not in wrath range. This problem actually gets worse if he procs DEF/HP. B) Wrath is 50% crit, not 100% crit. You can't outright risk a proc on an melee enemy; not crit and then die. C) Needs to chug a vulnerary every turn to not be killed on next attack, or have Laura babysit. D) Cannot be attacked by 2 enemies on enemy phase due to said lack of avoid. Wrath doesn't exactly change that. It's less that people don't respect him, but more that he isn't an 8-9/10 unit. I "respect" Meg but still give her a 3/10 (and that's generous).

There's a lot of potential in how you implement Karel TBH. He's the closest thing a Gotoh unit and should have auto-recruitment as a result, as well as a far more eventful way of joining you and/or inclusion. Plus, it's always nice to have a backup/strong unit-- since I imagine the lategame is going to be far more difficult/longer now. I suppose he's far more classified as a Renault though. Otherwise, I've always liked the idea of Pent showing up as Athos 2.0. That could really work as well. (and makes for a good backup Forblaze/Apocalypse/Aureola user if you do not have all three). His kids are fighting the main threat of the world. Where's he at? (being that he's one of the most powerful casters in Elibe). Garret is w/e. However, pre-promotes have their place. If you do not recruit Bartre then Garret's existence is fairly valid.

Soren has a lot of maps to be useful and since he's already promoting earlier and will have a level lead, it takes a very long time for Calill's speed advantage to take effect. They both have the same base SPD and Calill gains an additional point of speed over him every 5 levels, based on that fact, it takes a long time for her to gain an advantage. Assume both units are being used moderately when they actually exist, I don't think Calill is having any real lead until endgame comes around (or possibly 4-5 when she can one round tigers with relative ease). So, yes, she is a better endgame unit, that is true. However, Soren is ranked higher because he has been useful for much longer. Durability means nothing when both of them are being 2HKOed for the most part. Small number leads are fairly arbitrary.

They're implying there isn't one. As in, just chip with her prf tome. Basically, Sanaki isn't a top tier unit so we shouldn't be discussing her, let alone give her anything. Doing so is 'gimmicky'. /s

These comments kinda contradict eachother. And I don't even understand what your point is with the first statement-- we've already established what it's going to be used for. And gold isn't needed when you get some of the later scrolls so "decent use" isn't fully explained here. Admittedly, resolve is highly contested. But this is really going back the post I made earlier; you don't just automatically assume someone else is getting a resource. Sanaki can be given this recourse as an opportunity cost (as much as anyone else). She does benefit from the opportunity being there than not (and readily available). We cannot just say "She sucks, so she isn't getting this resource". That is logic many people are going to disagree with; and there's no room for debate in that. Again, this is all going back to what I delved into before.

TBH, I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here either. You say that Arm Scrolls are not useful at all. But the whole point of the discussion is... using one to make a unit more useful. It's like saying "This money is useless to me because I'm already rich. I could give it to charity... but eh, they don't affect me (in this case, your playstyle) so I'll just toss it." You get literally 5 of them throughout the game as hidden treasure. One of which is late part 3 which is around the time you start not needing money. There is no sacrifice to this investment in Sanaki. I don't think she's that great, mind you. But it's a point in her favour nonetheless -- and she's forced so might as well try to do something with her. From what I can see, your mentality is "either this unit is good/great or they're bad and not worth bothering with" with no in-between whatsoever (the units that are actually the more interesting part of tier list discussion-- who are not obviously good but not obviously bad/awful either). Sanaki is best described as mediocre/average sure, but to what degree of that can be debated. Scoffing at any real possibility to provide a case for them isn't promoting worthwhile discussion. I mean, the real debate here is what other units would like an Arm Scroll instead of Sanaki, but you have to provide a case for her in the scenario she is given something as minor as an Arm Scroll, which seems pretty interesting.

On a similar note, the whole "I can't give X to someone because I need/want to use it on someone else" is a bad argument for the same reason. And in these discussions I've seen a huge amount of contradiction as to how a few certain people view this (units that they like get dibs on anything they want -- others units, when used, don't get that some luxury). Basically anything that exists in favor of a unit that they can potentially use, should be considered. To an extent. Same could be said for the opposite scenario. I generally think needing to pump a ton of resources into Jill to reach her potential is a point against her, even if she's still really really good without most of those. I don't think anyone should assume she's given all of them and then rate them (and other units) based on that. A point should be made that she makes better use of them than most other units (which is definitely a point in her favor) but let's say in the circumstance you do not deploy her or use her overly much (gasp) units like Aran/Meg would definitely get extra opportunity to acquire additional resources that Jill would be given instead. So it's mostly fair to just rate units on either getting most resources, or not many at all. So Poor!Jill should be compared to Poor!Aran which Rich!Jill should be compared to Rich!Aran. Skewing this then becomes a matter of win more / lose more. (I mean, Jill is still a ~9 or so, but the point is that she shouldn't be given higher just because we assume she's getting more than her fair share of resources). I think that in a lot of these debates, people's logic on this differs greatly to the point where it's difficult to make a general evaluation on a unit. One person may be arguing on the basis that X is given to a unit where the other person disagrees that they even should get X to begin with. Which is completely outside of discussing units, but becomes a debate about how to debate units instead. And even then, it's not even all black/white or even something we can completely figure out because opportunity costs and overall value are hard to measure unless you do a ton of number crunching. Going back to the while 'setting arms scroll' debate, this is one of them. (Granted, some cases are obvious (Jill w/ speedwing can potentially be a good boon to her; Fiona w/ speedwing does nothing because it's not like she's doubling with it or anything). But that goes without saying)

It would be 'Survive' moreso than 'Defend' (and an escape mechanic could work for this) I mean you're not exactly 'defending' Thria; that's not the context. You're surrounded by a lot of units (possibly in darkness, which would make complete sense to cripple Roy's army). So "urgency" isn't really a factor when you're trapped. It's an odd map because it makes sense to Roy to just leave rather than stay and fight -- in the original map he isn't even surrounded and starts at what looked to be the entrance. So the urgency thing makes even less sense when you're not trying to outright survive (especially when you;re spending 10+ turns gathering chests...). Cath could be strongly incorporated into this. She could actually be the one to lay out your escape route after X turns, but then goes to nab chests herself. But then you only have X turns to escape (before ostian/bernese reinforcements arrive and it's game over -- with Wagner trapping you entirely for this purpuse; stalling until they arrive) so you need to balance between competing for treasure and escaping before the turn count.

CH5 is mostly fine IMO. Just make sure you make the player aware of the door. Maybe also take the boss away from the seize point and make the map 'Kill Boss' as well. The boss charges you after a certain number of turns (and maybe opens the dor himself past a certain point). Rain could be removed as well. CH7 might just need to be made a bit smaller overall -- and less houses to visit. Otherwise I feel it's fine. I'm surprised that CH8 was not changed before CH6 (although I'd agree that both need changing). No amount of door/chest keys will make CH8 faster or less tedious. And there are some simple fixes for CH6, like Cath spawning differently or Sue automatically joining the army when you open her cell (then Roy simply talks to her after map end). Or giving the player an unlock staff before the map starts which can also open chests. That said, I've always thought CH6 had huge potential to be a defend map where you start at the centre of the map. It's only 6 or 7 turns to survive and getting all the treasure is actually difficult as opposed to just tedious. It makes sense from a scenario standpoint as well since Wagner has essentially ambushed you. Would be a fitting map for fog of war as well (instead of CH5) by Thria turning off light sources to execute said ambush (it's kinda stupid IMO that Wagner just outright goes up to Roy and explains/reveals his plan like a generic evil villain-- he could be a bit more subtle?). Just a good ol' defend map with incentives for extra objectives to meet (treasure). But for all I know you could have done something like that. Interested to see what you've made of it.

Still joins in 1-7, not in 1-6-2. But she is now deployable in 1-8. Regardless, Fiona's a really good utility unit at 10/1. Staff usage, insane move, self sustain and water affinity (+3 DEF/RES to her supporting partner at A). However, if you do want to make her a solid combat unit, then deploying her in 1-7 & 1-8 to gain EXP is more than enough. She also joins with the Runic Hasta, a magic based lance that allows her to deal a decent amount of damage at base (as well as having [Aura] reducing some damage she will take). So isn't that difficult to kill with her. And for all intents and purposes it may as well be her prf weapon since Aran/Tauroneo can't do that much damage with it. So it's not like you can just pass it away. Meg can make good use of it though after promotion, but she needs two arm scrolls to immediately use it. Yes. May be limited to SS rank though. 'Creiddylad' is now 'Dawnlight' (or 'Radiance'; which I like as well since it metaphorically gives further meaning/context to the title of FE9) and it's essentially Micaiah's Ragnell for part 4 (Naesala presents it to her in 4-3, since he has a suspicion of her origins/heritage). Sephiran can use it and fights with one still. It's a decent nod to their relation and ability to wield tomes created through seid magic (by the Herons). At least, that's now the in-game explanation as why only them two can use it. Thani is also a tome created in the same matter-- because it's written in their language. EDIT: On the subject of availability, I don't think I've mentioned that Lethe, Lyre, Kyza and Mordecai now all join in 3-1 (the latter two appearing as reinforcements a few turns in). This gives them a whole three maps of extra availability (and before Ranulf joins), which seems much more fair on them-- and lets you use them for longer (and lets you build supports for them efficiently). Units deployment slots are going up as well for most maps. Extra ~3 units per map after 3-2 (main exception is 3-F where you have up to 35 playable units; basically all of them). Part 4 now no longer reduces units slots for Normal/Hard. And Endgame is now 20 units on 4-F-1 but only 15 units after that. This makes it so your pool of units can be switched up between each map, and gives credibility to units who may be good on 1 or 2 maps but not the rest. It also means you can have up to 5 units dying (7 if you include Gareth/Nasir) and still have a full team for the final map.