Tarul

Sorry, I'm a little unsure if I agree with your last statement if I understand your last statement correctly. If we don't count paralogues towards total turncount or an "average" turncount, then our goals shift towards recruiting as many characters as possible to gain more relic weapons and character experience... especially since paralogues generally are shorter than most chapters, thus not affecting turncount as much (I could be wrong on this). I understand not including the weekly activity sessions, but are weekly battle sessions as well? I can foresee easily over-leveling characters by spamming routine battles to trivially defeat main chapter maps- especially if there's no overall detriment towards turncount. If we are counting weekly activity sessions but not weekly battle session, why? I don't have a position for this subject; I just want to understand the rule structure in place for the tier list. I like the idea of regular game + LTC, but I believe that we should include paralogues towards LTC. Otherwise, what incentives do we have to not to spam extra missions + paralogues to over-level critical characters? Are you suggesting that we should have extra stipulations to prevent such situations? Personally, it seems messy and a little arbitrary. Or are you suggesting minimizing the amount of time it takes on a per-map basis? In which case, how does context matter? If I spend all my resources to perfectly prepare for some arbitrary chapter (randomly picking chapter 9) to the detriment of chapter 10, does this count towards tiering? I apologize for sounding facetious; that is not my intent. I merely want to understand/establish the groundrules for ranking the tiers!

I apologize if I missed it, but is our objective lowest turncount or fastest clear time? Because if we're assuming fastest clear time, then almost all weeks in a month are going to be relegated to resting/skipping, since it progresses time the quickest and has the bonus perk of allowing Sword of the Creator spam (four weeks of resting = full restore on the sword). Assuming max renown and church statues, renown points can first be blown towards auto-recruiting characters by insta-leveling supports in NG+, insta-leveling weapon proficiences for advanced/master requirements (since you won't be manually instructing), and maybe chucking a few towards professor level for adjutants. However, the con means no time for Byleth to level up his skills, meaning he's going to be stuck in the Enlightened One class (most likely), since he can't tutor himself passively like other students (or you'll have to give him weapon proficiency via renown). Also, if we're assuming lowest clear time, paralogues are NO-GO's. They're added optional time that you don't need to speed through the game on Hard mode, even if their weapons are particularly kick-ass (~looks at Lorenz's staff~). Continuing this logical trend, units would be valued for both their combat stats and their most natural class progression. For example, although Catherine can make an excellent wyvern rider, players should think twice about such a decision since she requires a lot of renown investment that goes further for other characters (e.g. instantly boosting mounted/lance stats or whatever). Additionally, since most units in this game are viable (except Hanneman), ranking Catherine highly as a wyvern rider should be reconsidered, since another "sub-par" character can do a decent-enough job in Hard mode difficulty with less effort/renown/resources (read: this is an example; you can rate Catherine highly for other reasons).

Oh, I definitely agree. When your objective is to open the lands and let cultures communicate, you have to be willing to listen, discuss and hear the otherside. Between his virtues and Claude's general dislike of war (his reactions to the deaths and sacrifices of his friends), it's very likely that Claude would prefer to whip out his silver tongue over the bottle of poison. But the bottle of poison is there! I think we, as a community, don't give Rhea enough flack for creating the entire situation. I mean, she invented an organized religion devoted to herself and her mom, and then regularly ordained the establishment/operation of all nation-states within Fodlan. All racism and general hatred of counter-thought can be associated with her policies. Furthermore, it's shown that she's more concerned with how the nations follow the Church's doctrines than their treatment of civilians. She has no problem with the Empire taxing its subjects to death, but has a problem when minor lords start displaying hostility towards the Church (which she reacts to with HELLA FORCE)

These are some excellent points! Claude/Edelgard have tons of similarity in their dreams, as they're both revolutionaries. I do have two food-for-thought items that are worth considering. 1. While Claude and Edelgard's goals have the similar result of unification, their ultimate objectives are different, and thus the world they create is very different. Edelgard's primary objective is to overthrow the church and the current corrupt nobility system, which requires conquering the Fodlan due to the other countries' blind devotion to Seiros (which honestly isn't true; I'm willing to bet that if Edelgard just talked with Dimitri + Claude, they could have had a bloodless revolution/serious reform, tbh. Only problem would be that said peaceful revolution would take a while, whereas Edelgard wants change NOW). Claude's objective is to open the borders to end racism (what a legend), which involves conquering Fodlan and slightly reform in the church. Claude doesn't really care too much about changing how nobility are elected, or whether the church should be allowed to have as much soft power as it currently does (e.g. the church's ability to act as judge and executioner...although it is implied that he's opposed to such devices). Thus, Claude's goals would cause change on the macro-scale (Fodlan and its neighbors), while Edel's are focused on the micro-scale (the people and the nobility/church) 2. It's difficult to assess whether Claude would have taken the high-road had Edelgard not existed. Claude has the convenience of Edelgard starting the war and none of the associated baggage- simply by doing the right thing and properly winning the war, he achieves his dreams of unification (and the church's tight grip on Fodlan's borders was already solved by the removal by Edelgard; her re-instantiation and powers would depend on Claude's support). We don't know how Claude would have achieved his dreams otherwise. He's shown to be a schemer - and a dangerous one too - learning to use odorless poisons, raising cities with fire, and subterfuge. Had the war not started, we can't be sure that Claude wouldn't have stealthily murdered all other nobles in Alliance territory for control, and then maybe poisoned the Empire/Kingdom had they not come to understand his perspective (which he probably wouldn't have had to do, since he was on pretty good terms with the other rulers pre-timeskip). Ultimately, I think the similarity in Claude/Edel's goals is why Claude's route sounds like an optimal solution to most of Fodlan's negative qualities, on the macro- and micro-scales. When he takes over, Edel has already revolutionized society by de-emphasizing the necessity of the Church and removing corruption in the nobilities; qualities that can remain under Claude's rule. Now that Edel has done the hard and dangerous work, Claude just has to add his objectives (opening the borders), which are a lot less risky when he controls the entire country/continent/whatever the entity is by the end. BTW, this is NO DEFENCE FOR EDELGARD. She's basically Mussolini. But, it's worth mentioning that Claude seems to be a saint because he never had to get his hands morally dirty to conquer the land (i.e. start the entire 5 year war).

I'm taking the approach of an editor - Nintendo had a general idea of the major characters, their interactions, and the world in general, and I just want to tweak it to be more appealing (to me, obviously) . Given that Nintendo clearly wanted Edel to be a grayer villain, I'd have liked if they did a better job at making her.... Gray. And TWSITD really don't belong in this story, anyways. They're typically introduced and killed in the same chapter lmao

Edelgard's family was getting wrecked by Those Who Slither during her childhood, so she decides to... fight against the Church while allied with Those Who Slither. Edel's a great antagonist - you can almost sympathize with her on her route (assuming it's not your first playthrough) - but the "are we the baddies?" keeps popping up nonstop. Besides the fact that TWSITD look like zombies and the Death Knight makes the grim reaper look like Barnie, Edel demonstrates a bunch of worrying fascist traits evident in her own supports. She hates being admonished or having her flaws pointed (she's very easy to get negative support points with the prof, her Bernie support, etc), and desires a tough-guy image (trying to refute her reliance on the professor immediately post-timeskip) . That's a lot of insecurity for a warlord hellbent on unifying the world. I wish TWS weren't so cartoonishly evil, or heck, even in the story. By being so stupidly evil, they make Edel evil almost just by affiliation (she's, at the very least, complicit in their crimes). If Edel started the war simply because of Rhea's tyrannical reign (like the Western Church purge) or to revolutionize society's reliance on crests, she would have been a more gray character (still tending on the side of evil since her war is long, bloody, and slightly selfish).

^^ Seconded. Just because a distasteful stance is widespread doesn't mean that the stance has any more legitimacy. We're talking about discrimination here, not food palettes or manners. That said, we can still be sympathetic to the reasons for why a Korean person might have those viewpoints (given the anti-LGBT cultural normalization); BUT, we should NEVER condone such attitudes. Also, gay Koreans exist lmao

tbh, outside of Fates (which reaaaaally pushed it), Fire Emblem has never been that waifu-heavy... especially when compared to other JRPG's. Sure, there's a character here and there in each entry, but overall the games don't feel as such. My main quip with 3H is the sometimes questionable attire- why does Leonie start wearing short shorts? What the heck is female Byleth wearing? The biggest letdown seems to be some of the weirder costume choices, which maybe were chosen to increase sex appeal, but instead came off as a little out-of-touch with the setting (IMO, obviously).

However, if Lunatic makes the game impossibly difficult without a face-tank like Dedue (or Raphael) early game, then he'd be an S+ tier character even if he rolled over and died after Chapter 5 lol. Can't enjoy late-game if you can't make it past the early game! That said, I pray to God we don't get the Awakening Lunatic treatment, or worse, Shadow Dragon H5. Power to the people who enjoy those modes, but I don't enjoy calculating every single move. I'd prefer if Lunatic were like Radiant Dawn's Hard mode, with a Mania/Lunatic-Plus for the die-hards. I'm curious as to why you listed Lorenz so high? I tried pushing him to a Dark Knight role (through paladin), and had a bad time with him. His strength/magic are both meh (doesn't feel like there's much benefit switching between the two or using a magic-based weapon), his speed is garbage, and his defenses are mediocre to the point where he's not going to die in 1 hit, but he's not exactly going to tank either. Overall, I found Lorenz to be in this weird middle ground where he was sub-par at everything and generally out-classed. Lysanthea benefits more from his hero relic, and other bow knights don't suffer as much during the enemy phase. Finally, his black magic pool is shallow and he doesn't learn physic, instead learning the resistance-boosting spell. IMO, he's a low-tier character. Also, as an aside, has anyone had any luck with great knights? I tried making both Hilda and Raphael Great Knights and found the results... lacking. They can tank physical attacks for days, but they can't ORKO during enemy phase due to poor speed and get obliterated by magic. Finally, leveling heavy armor and riding are HUGE investments. Unlike other skills, these two perks don't give the same advantages that leveling the other weapon perks provide (except Weight -3 for heavy armor). A tank with canto was nice every now and then, but I found that their inability to kill during enemy phase slowed the game down compared to the other popular face-tank + dodge-tank mounted units. In fact, I had much more luck switching Hilda back to a Wyvern Lord and Raphael to a war master (silver gauntlets + his crit rates means unreasonable amounts of damage during player phase.... yeah he's still not good lmao, but at least he has some utility vs bosses)

Are we counting NG+ or regular mode when we're making these tier lists? Because weaknesses in leveling skills/supports becomes a nonfactor in NG+, and could severely change unit's rankings. IMO, Gilbert is much better than Raphael. Gilbert requires no investment to become decent (he joins as a respectable tank in chapter 15), while Raphael requires training and investment in gauntlets/flying/axe to reach said level. This is a slight problem in NG+, when other more valuable units will benefit more from the skill level boosts, but a HUGE problem in first playthrough, where activity points are limited and teaching Raphael would be taking away valuable time from more useful units. Also, Raphael has a chance to get screwed (or blessed) because he has that many more chapters to grow. Gilbert is a great wall post-chapter 15, easily tanking archers and swordmasters (IMO the "bane" of hard mode if there is one) thanks to his high defense and native abilities. Furthermore, he comes with a C in axes/riding and a D in armor, making his transition into great knight easier since Byleth's professor level should be approaching A+. Finally, he has rally strength to further encourage moving walls. He's not good, but he functions immediately out of the box; using Raphael requires investment that another character could have used better (unless we're counting him as a pure rally bot). Yes, Raphael does have a better player-turn phase, but IMO Gilbert's enemy phase is better (since he won't be using gauntlets), and both characters' main purpose should be to frontline tank. And, IMO (again), tanking becomes more important late game when enemies start wielding silver weapons with crazy high MT and low accuracy. Why are you listing Annette in C tier below Raphael? Rally speed+resistance is great, and it helps the resistance-lacking lords take down the dangerous mages of late game. IMO, Raphael should be brought down to C tier as well.

Can anyone convince me that Raphael is not one of the worst units in the game? If we treat hard mode as the baseline, since Lunatic doesn't exist yet, then there isn't a real need for a dedicated tank, as most physical classes will be physically tank enough through to serve the same function through the paladin class, or dodge-tanky via speed classes (swordmaster, etc). While he can point destroy in player phase thanks to gauntlets, his enemy phase is rather lacking, as he usually can only get 1 hit on the enemy, leaving them alive with around 1/3 HP. In contrast, the top off-tanks usually ORKO most units except for sword masters, assassins, Pegasus knights, and knights, giving them more utility in clearing maps. Furthermore, Raphael's horrible speed and resistance gets him murked by mages, which limits his usage in the late game chapters when you'd want to use him against the low-accuracy but high-might silver weapons, as said units are usually accompanied by mages. Admittedly, he's nice to use as a reliable physical wall every now and then, but his weakness in riding makes him struggle to get to the frontline via mobility classes (he synergizes well with the great knight class), meaning he can be difficult to get to places to actually do his job (damage sponge). As an off-tank, he's outclassed by the lords, Byleth/Hilda/Leonie/Lorenz/etc in damage/tanking ratio. Finally, as a player-phase delete button, he's destroyed by mages (notably Lysanthea) who usually have +3-4 range to attack safely (or honestly the lords again with crest weapons when you're going to take a hit from the Counterattack ability). Raphael is almost always limited to gauntlets for the double (which also means his effective might isn't as stellar since weapons give so much attack strength) He's usable, as is almost every character in this game, but I can't think of a reason to use him besides his convenience of no recruitment requirements in the Golden Deer run. If we count NG+ in the tier list (where every character is recruitable day 1 thanks to support boosting with renown), then every character should be treated as having day 1 availability.