Armond

I admit that my hard mode playthrough isn't anywhere near as far as I'd like it to be, but I'm wondering why Virion is so low. Getting him to 10 is a huge pain because he starts in one of the worst classes in the game, but when I went with it on my normal mode playthrough, he ended up being one of my best units as a Wyvern Lord. Of course, in trying to duplicate this in hard mode (in the name of SCIENCE), I'm finding that getting him to 10 is already really annoying, and I'm not exactly expecting second seals to rain from the sky (obviously Panne is the highest priority for a second seal, but I'm guessing people will tell me to spend my second one on Fredrick or Kellam, which pushes Virion back quite a ways). Beyond the crappy leveling and base speed, is there more that holds back Virion, or am I underestimating how good some of the other units are? I would at least rate him around the level of Mirabelle, who in both my playthroughs so far has been quite unimpressive - her absolute failure to get levels worth a damn is probably an anomaly, but without healtouch I find her healing to be mediocre at best (though I've not tried her as a dark knight or dark flier - that's on the to do) - compared to Virion's ability to impress with a second seal.

What sane player would remove it, outside of a challenge run (which a tier list can't hope to accommodate)? The Avatar has his/her own tier for a reason. Now, if your question was more "should Veteran have been removed before release?", then my answer is yes, wholeheartedly.

For what it's worth, I vote no. I feel like the rules in this tier list are already fairly restrictive; it feels like we're trying to make a tier list about a certain way to play the game, as opposed to a tier list about playing the game in general. Now, I understand that some of the restrictions exist because it'd be hell to rate units otherwise (just as it's already hell to tier the children due to their nonstandard classes and joining). I understand that when the restrictions say "we're assuming you never use an item from an event tile", they mean more "we shouldn't argue that unit x is A-tier if you get item y from an event tile in the first few chapters and D-tier otherwise", and that in practice, most playthroughs will use those items as a "win harder" button. Likewise, you can't predict what items Anna is going to have for sale, or how much any one person feels like grinding Donnel to 10/20/20, and again, these are mostly "win harder" issues, not "my Basilio is amazing because of this". I also agree that there should be a line in the first post that rescue and pair-up/switch abuse is not ok. It doesn't feel intended at all, and I think (at least for now) the list would benefit from stating that it's disregarding those tactics. However, I do think the list should recognize that things like Despoil can make the game easier in ways that aren't strictly combat related, and, where appropriate, note such accordingly (even if it's just to say "this brings you up to some vague location higher than this one"). On a similar note, I would like to propose - despite the potential headache - giving some units a rating as to where they might be if, when you get them, you grind them up to the approximate level of the rest of your team. Some units like Lucina don't really need the extra rating, but take, I don't know, Donnel: when I got him, one of the first things I did was play a challenge map so he matched the levels of the rest of my units. Since he was no longer lagging behind so horribly, he ended up getting a second seal pretty quickly and being, if not the best unit on my team, certainly more than pulling his own weight. Was it worth the grind? Honestly, I don't think that's for us to decide. Each player will value their time differently. Some people want to finish the game quickly - that's fine. Some people will want to breeze through the game with exceptionally powerful units - that's harder for the list to accommodate, but I don't think it should be telling those players that Donnel is always terrible and a waste of time, period, end of. Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm not exactly an established member here, so it's not up to me to decide what to do with the tier list; I'm just throwing these ideas out there for discussion.

I believe you can actually do that as early as level 15, though I'm not positive. I know a "standard" promoted class can change to any available class after reaching level 10 - e.g. Kellam as a level 10 Assassin can change to a level 1 Thief, Knight, Trickster, Great Knight, etc.

Thanks in advance.