ITT I rank the characters

[Narga_Rocks]

There wouldn't be much point in having her heal someone if you know it's going to get herself injured. That's trading one wound for another.

But as long as she only gets attacked every other round she'll heal it back on her own. Mend heals back 15 hp each turn so in 2 turns she'll be at full hit points again and ready to be attacked. Get attacked turn 1 enemy phase, full hp turn 3 player phase, get attacked turn 3 enemy phase, etc.

We aren't really trading one wound for another, just making sure she doesn't get attacked every single turn. And that ignores the possibility of her only taking enough damage that 15 more hp lets her take another one the following enemy phase, so it might be 2 out of 3 turns she can be attacked rather than 1 out of 2.

Since she was healing, she might as well be left with mend equipped. It isn't like the 5 or so damage she can do on a counter really helps much, and we'd have to have someone else trade her weapon to even get that 5 damage to the enemy that attacks her.

[Interceptor]

You still can’t overlook that Laura might die despite the precautions we take to protect her.

If she dies despite taking precautions, your precautions were inadequate and you most likely failed to take some important detail into account.

Again, I don't feel that "what if the player did something stupid" is in any way, shape or form a valid way to tier characters. You feel that player error is a part of realistic play, and thus should be considered. Normally, we'd be at an impasse here. But since I am giving you a reason why my theory is better for tiering, and you are providing diddly squat in support of yours, I don't think that you have a leg to stand on.

It’s not something you calculate, it’s just something you account for.

The problem now comes when you try to "account for" it. The amount of times that Laura is exposed to death is directly related to how well someone protects her. The more of a tactical Neanderthal that you are, the greater the amount of times that she will be risking death. The issue is revolving around exactly how dumb the tier player is assumed to be, now, and down this path lies nothing but slippery slopes and arguments. How do you even adjudicate the frequency of mistakes? You can't.

Much simpler is to just assume that the tier player has perfect tactics. We already assume that a tier player has perfect knowledge of things like Beastfoe (anyone ever argued that no units in 3-6 have Beastfoe because the player didn't know how to get it?), and how to ferry with Ilyana, and how much gold is available, the deployment restrictions of Endgame, the environmental aspects of Part 4 that impacts the unit splits between armies, etc. It is not a stretch to also assume that a player uses their deployed units to the best possible effect.

Let's say we compare a levelled Rhys to a levelled Mist. Both would be getting the same level of protection, but Mist would still be far more forgiving towards mistakes due to being 2RKOed instead of 1RKOed.

Let's take your example, and see how it fits perfectly into the scenario that I already laid out.

When I am making walls, I have more flexibility with the one that I make for Mist, because I could possibly leave her in range of a single enemy and not have her die. This means that I could leave her standing behind a frontliner (perhaps in range of a 1-2 or 2-range enemy), or push the line forward and leave a hole (where a 1-range attacker would potentially get to her). Rhys would just die if I did this, so Mist's durability is providing me a superior range of options.

I could, for example, have Mia attack a unit on Player Phase that she's 70% ORKO on, that would be in range of the healer. If Rhys is in range, I can't do this, there is a 30% chance that the enemy survives and will kill Rhys on EP. I have to perhaps use Mia to plug a hole, or divert another unit to block. If Mist is the unit in range, however, I can safely take the chance that Mia can ORKO, because Mist would be in no danger of death.

Your argument is nonsense. It's not feasible to gauge how many mistakes a player would make, and therefore we can't be precise about the effect of those mistakes. This is something that contributes absolutely nothing to ranking of units in a tier list, and in fact serves as a distraction because people can argue about excactly how stupid a player might be. Those are not constructive arguments.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Interceptor

[Florete]

I don't really get the argument going on here about mistakes. If Laura gets OHKOd, isn't that the reason she isn't higher on the tier list already? I mean, if she were durable, she'd be, like, High tier or something. The fact that she's always OHKOd is what's putting her not as high as she could have been, not someone saying "What if we make a mistake?"

It's also part of the reason Mist is higher than Rhys, because she's more durable, which accounts for mistakes as it is as far as I know. Reyson is epic because he's a freakin Heron who can take a hit or two. Ike, Haar, and Volug are Top tier because they never die. Fiona is Bottom tier because everything kills her, etc., etc.

[-Cynthia-]

I don't really get the argument going on here about mistakes. If Laura gets OHKOd, isn't that the reason she isn't higher on the tier list already? I mean, if she were durable, she'd be, like, High tier or something. The fact that she's always OHKOd is what's putting her not as high as she could have been, not someone saying "What if we make a mistake?"

It's also part of the reason Mist is higher than Rhys, because she's more durable, which accounts for mistakes as it is as far as I know. Reyson is epic because he's a freakin Heron who can take a hit or two. Ike, Haar, and Volug are Top tier because they never die. Fiona is Bottom tier because everything kills her, etc., etc.

Laura's durability is accounted for either way IMO, whether we consider the fact that we have to prevent our other units from doing stuff sometimes so we can protect her or the possibility of her being exposed and dying.

[Vykan12]

But since I am giving you a reason why my theory is better for tiering, and you are providing diddly squat in support of yours, I don't think that you have a leg to stand on.

Im not ignoring the effect of having to give more protection to units with less durability. All Im saying is in addition to that, there are other risks to consider.

You mentioned secret items later in your post, and while I find that a valid point, it never hurts to point out something like character x is heavily dependent on an item that can be easily missed. Whether you guys want to assign any value to that is up to you. Personally, I dont find the assumption of collecting all desert items to be realistic since a) you obviously need an online map to find it all b ) youre depending on chance to acquire items, which is especially bad without thieves and c) it can be quite inefficient to collect all items.

Your argument is nonsense. It's not feasible to gauge how many mistakes a player would make, and therefore we can't be precise about the effect of those mistakes.

You dont need to gauge the amount of mistakes a player makes. Its an unmeasured possibility.

While that might sound silly on paper, consider how many other factors in the game are subjective enough that they cannot be gauged in any meaningful way. How do you compare a shove + canto combo to something like sacrifice? How do you compare healing to 1-2 range? How the hell can you account for transfers with numerical probability? Oh the player will use transfers 12% of the time, and has a 38% chance of giving someone bands + moderate boss abuse to help them cap their level or something equally silly as that. What about shade? All we know is that it causes a character to be attacked less, though we have no idea by how much. I dont see anyone ignoring shades effects because its difficult to gauge.

Also, you mind turning down the aggression in your posts? First you pull caps on me, then you treat me with "scorn", then you are basically bolding insulting statements and what have you. If you don't like me that's fine, but please be civil.

Edited July 31, 2009 by Vykan12

[Narga_Rocks]

I’m not ignoring the effect of having to give more protection to units with less durability. All I’m saying is in addition to that, there are other risks to consider.

You mentioned secret items later in your post, and while I find that a valid point, it never hurts to point out something like “character x is heavily dependent on an item that can be easily missed”. Whether you guys want to assign any value to that is up to you. Personally, I don’t find the assumption of collecting all desert items to be realistic since a) you obviously need an online map to find it all b ) you’re depending on chance to acquire items, which is especially bad without thieves and c) it can be quite inefficient to collect all items.

You don’t need to gauge the amount of mistakes a player makes. It’s an unmeasured possibility.

While that might sound silly on paper, consider how many other factors in the game are subjective enough that they cannot be gauged in any meaningful way. How do you compare a shove + canto combo to something like sacrifice? How do you compare healing to 1-2 range? How the hell can you account for transfers with numerical probability? “Oh the player will use transfers 12% of the time, and has a 38% chance of giving someone bands + moderate boss abuse to help them cap their level” or something equally silly as that. What about shade? All we know is that it causes a character to be attacked less, though we have no idea by how much. I don’t see anyone ignoring shade’s effects because it’s difficult to gauge.

But the percentage of mistakes the player makes is important at times.

In 1-4, for example, if the player plays "perfectly", then if used the only unit that could possibly cause us to reset is Aran. Hence, Aran is most detrimental to us in 1-4. I put perfectly in quotes because if perfectly were to imply no chance of reset then perfectly would not include letting Aran get attacked, but I talked about it as if he is getting attacked because we are trying to use him as a wall.

So, with your way of looking at things: Who is more likely to cause us to reset? Remember, in 4 tiger attacks, Aran has almost a 4% chance of dying. Do we have a 5% chance of making a mistake and getting Laura attacked? Or a 2% chance? If it's a 2% chance of screwing up, then Aran is the unit with the least durability in that chapter (next to Meg), and since his javelin attacking is less accurate than just about every other form of 2 range we have, he's basically the worst unit in the chapter, next to Meg. If it's a 10% chance of screwing up, then a: we suck, and b: Ilyana/Laura/Micaiah/Leonardo all have a higher chance of causing a reset than Aran, and hence he's no longer the worst unit, next to Meg.

I'm sure there are other situations in which stuff like this would cause such a drastic change in unit rankings for individual chapters.

[Vykan12]

In 1-4, for example, if the player plays "perfectly", then if used the only unit that could possibly cause us to reset is Aran.

Why? Because he faces 1-2% crit rates against some enemies? Edward's chance of critting is higher than that unless we give him a bronze weapon, but by that point we're wasting our time. I'll just assume you're right for the sake of argument for the moment.

So, with your way of looking at things: Who is more likely to cause us to reset?

You don't know because player mistake chances cannot really be put into concrete numbers. I thought I made that clear in my last post. At the very least, one can safely say the possibility of Laura being exposed to enemies here is pretty remote due to the chapter being so chokepoint heavy. If you moved one of your frontliners in a bad spot by accident, you'll probably have another one to take his place.

Remember, in 4 tiger attacks, Aran has almost a 4% chance of dying.

Why is Aran facing 4 tiger attacks in one turns? Even Sothe doesn't face that when sweeping the level. And if Aran is somehow less durable than Edward, his odds of dying in 4 hits have to be higher than that.

I'm sure there are other situations in which stuff like this would cause such a drastic change in unit rankings for individual chapters.

Tbh it probably wouldn't change much actually. While the player does make mistakes, they will be minimized to the point where human error is but a minor consideration. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of it being purposely ignored for convenience even if it doesn't affect a single tier position.

[Narga_Rocks]

Why is Aran facing 4 tiger attacks in one turns? Even Sothe doesn't face that when sweeping the level. And if Aran is somehow less durable than Edward, his odds of dying in 4 hits have to be higher than that.

I'm pretty sure if I let him face 4 attacks in one turn I'd be asking for him to die. He's only got a 35% chance of reaching 3HKO from tigers in 1 level, let alone 5HKO. I meant over the course of the level, based on 10 tigers + 2 tiger bosses existing, it seems reasonable that if we use 3 tanks each one might face ~4 tigers over the course of the map. Fully healed, he is the only one that can be OHKOd, since he is the only one that has less than 7 lck.

Hence, more likely to cause resets. (I covered Ed's chance of killing himself in the tier list topic.)

Tbh it probably wouldn't change much actually. While the player does make mistakes, they will be minimized to the point where human error is but a minor consideration. I'm just not comfortable with the idea of it being purposely ignored for convenience even if it doesn't affect a single tier position.

If it's an argument based on principle then I can respect that. I won't agree, but I can leave it. Int's on his own for the rest of this, if he feels there is a point in pursuing it further.

[Interceptor]

I’m not ignoring the effect of having to give more protection to units with less durability. All I’m saying is in addition to that, there are other risks to consider.

As far as I am concerned, the fact that you've repeatedly failed to address my point about tactical considerations is tantamount to ignoring the point entirely. I have argued that the effect of "oops Laura got attacked" is already manifested in the tactical movements you need to make to protect her in the first place. Your response:

There's nothing for me to put there because you haven't said anything substantial. We are, once again, at a point where you state something and I state the opposite, but my statement comes with a reason and yours comes with fairy dust.

You mentioned secret items later in your post, and while I find that a valid point, it never hurts to point out something like “character x is heavily dependent on an item that can be easily missed”. Whether you guys want to assign any value to that is up to you. Personally, I don’t find the assumption of collecting all desert items to be realistic since a) you obviously need an online map to find it all b ) you’re depending on chance to acquire items, which is especially bad without thieves and c) it can be quite inefficient to collect all items.

You appear to have completely missed the point of my bringing it up in the first place. Hidden items were only one point that I brought up, not the entirety of my argument. The argument is that we are already attributing super-human characteristics to tier players: they know where hidden items are, they know how to ferry gear to the GMs, they know how to maxmize gold usage, etc. We are already well beyond the facilities of an average player at this point. It is not, therefore, a stretch to also presume that a tier player is playing their team optimally, which means not leaving Laura exposed unless it was intentional.

Your sideshow about desert items has nothing to do with anything that I said. Beastfoe is not even in the desert. Also, anyone who tries to argue that delaying 1-4's completion in order to get it is not reasonable, will get lynched.

You don’t need to gauge the amount of mistakes a player makes. It’s an unmeasured possibility.

This is, again, nonsense. If mistakes are not assumed to not happen, that implies that they happen, which opens the field for anyone to argue any particular level of mistake that they so desire for any given situation. This is going to result in arguments. While I like arguments in general, this kind of argument is not constructive at all and doesn't lend itself to any sort of fact-based conclusion. It is much easier -- MUCH easier -- to simply remove the need to gauge player mistakes entirely by assuming that they don't happen.

There is NO NEED to be taking mistakes into account. It contributes nothing to the discussion.

While that might sound silly on paper, consider how many other factors in the game are subjective enough that they cannot be gauged in any meaningful way.

What is this, the Jump Off A Bridge argument? Because there are other things subjective in this game, it's OK for us to include any number of other subjective things? Your theory sounds silly on paper because it is silly. We have within our power the ability to completely remove one of these subjective elements merely by making the entirely rational assumption that a player does not act against his/her own interest -- aka causing a 50% chance of Game Over by needlessly exposing Laura to an attack -- and you want to keep this subjective element in the game because... why?

Your answers are all incoherent on this point. You provide no reason other than "Tier lists are supposed to reflect real play reasonably accurately", which is an epic dodge, since you don't support your assertion of what a tier list is "supposed" to be. There are already numerous examples, as I pointed out, of tier lists not representing real play at all, because the player is already assumed to have god-like powers of pre-cognition.

How do you compare a shove + canto combo to something like sacrifice? How do you compare healing to 1-2 range? How the hell can you account for transfers with numerical probability? “Oh the player will use transfers 12% of the time, and has a 38% chance of giving someone bands + moderate boss abuse to help them cap their level” or something equally silly as that. What about shade? All we know is that it causes a character to be attacked less, though we have no idea by how much. I don’t see anyone ignoring shade’s effects because it’s difficult to gauge.

These are all situations where you can't nail down a specific probability, but they are also situations where you can't simplify the outcomes, either. If there were a way to flatten these variables out, I'd insist upon it. That's why I like tier lists with set guidelines from the start, and not the Reikken-style "faster > slower" bullshit.

We can largely eliminate the possibility of mistakes, and so we should.

Also, you mind turning down the aggression in your posts? First you pull caps on me, then you treat me with "scorn", then you are basically bolding insulting statements and what have you. If you don't like me that's fine, but please be civil.

I'll dial back my Aggression-o-Meter when you stop 1) ignoring my points, 2) taking things out of context, and 3) going off on tangents. That is to say, if you continue to irritate me, I will continue to be irritable towards you.

[Vykan12]

As far as I am concerned, the fact that you've repeatedly failed to address my point about tactical considerations is tantamount to ignoring the point entirely.

How can I ignore something I just acknowledged 2 posts in a row? I agree with you, looking at the tactical precautions we take for less durable units alone is a sufficiently accurate way to tier units. All I’m saying is to give some extremely minor extra consideration to the possibility of player mistakes. Before you accuse me of not justifying the point, read the next one.

The argument is that we are already attributing super-human characteristics to tier players

And I was saying that shouldn’t be the case. The only “superhuman” aspect of a tier player would be their knowledge of the game, and a real human has access to that through the interwebs, or even a second playthrough (we need to beat RD once to unlock HM after all).

How does a tier list benefit at all from superhuman assumptions anyway? The more you make, the farther you drift into inaccurate theorycrafting. Not making mistakes whatsoever is one thing, but assuming the tier player uses the optimal strategy for beating every level would be far stupider since there’s no denying players take different approaches to beating the game efficiently, even with the same team in use. Far too often I see very specific strategies being discussed here even though there are a multitude of ways to beat a chapter in x amount of turns with y amount of safety and z team choice.

I made a suggestion earlier that we assume a unit is used their entire existence, which obviously differs from what a real player would do. However, that simply changes what a tier list is measuring. I don’t see how “Micaiah > Ilyana if the player has pre-cognition, disregards as many subjective factors as possible, uses specific strategies, etc” would say anything of worth.

Because there are other things subjective in this game, it's OK for us to include any number of other subjective things?

I see your point, but minimizing subjective factors also runs into its own set of problems. If that is our intent, then transfers automatically get thrown out the window since we have an easy solution to the problem: expecting players to play 30 chapters of a different game is so silly we might as well ignore it altogether.

I'll dial back my Aggression-o-Meter when you stop 1) ignoring my points, 2) taking things out of context, and 3) going off on tangents. That is to say, if you continue to irritate me, I will continue to be irritable towards you.

I’m just as irritated with you, but I’m sure nobody would be able to tell based on the the content of this post excluding this paragraph. If you continue to be this rude to me, I’ll just put you on ignore.

[Progenitus]

a couple of changes to the rankings...

- Elincia dropped to a 7.5.

- Stefan/Volke upped to a 5.5.

- Muarim/Tormod/Vika all get +0.5 to their scores.

- Ilyana dropped to 3.5.

- Rolf upped to 4.5.

[Interceptor]

How can I ignore something I just acknowledged 2 posts in a row?

Read what I wrote. Your failure to address my point was tantamount to ignoring it entirely. I'm happy that you've seen the light, and have now started actually acknowledging what I said, but that'a a new phenomenon (and you're still ignoring my points).

And I was saying that shouldn’t be the case. The only “superhuman” aspect of a tier player would be their knowledge of the game, and a real human has access to that through the interwebs, or even a second playthrough (we need to beat RD once to unlock HM after all).

You say it shouldn't be the case, but you provide no reason for it other than this stubborn line how how tier lists should model "real play". Naturally, you also don't define "real play", perhaps unconsciously realizing that as soon as you try to, you'll validate every argument I've ever made about tier players.

Your argument here doesn't even make any internal sense, because tactics in Fire Emblem are just applying what you know about how the game works. You don't even attempt to deal with the incongruity between something like "player looks up where to find Beastfoe on the interbutts, looks up how to use Ilyana to send items" and "but player can't count to seven and gets Laura killed randomly".

How does a tier list benefit at all from superhuman assumptions anyway?

Sure, I'll answer this question against even though I already answered it six fucking times already.

The tier list benefits because making the rational assumpution that a tier player only acts in his/her best interest will completely eliminate all arguments about exactly what kind of mistakes that could be made by a real person. Why is it good to eliminate these arguments? Because arguments about the specific retardness are not constructive, there is no way to come to a fact-based conclusion about the kind of or the frequency of mistakes, everyone plays differently and has different blind spots or weak points. Talking about things like this don't generate anything but noise.

The more you make, the farther you drift into inaccurate theorycrafting.

This line makes my blood boil. The surest way to introduce "inaccuracy" to tiering is to consider the biases of the mortals who play this game. The more of this BS that you introduce into tiering considerations, the less that a tier list is "accurately" measuring a specific unit's contribution to that list, and the more it is resembling a psychology experiment.

What you want is a character guide, not a tier list. This thread is an example of the former, not of the latter. All of the rankings here are dripping with smash's biases and playstyle. Tier lists, on the other hand, completely lack the necessary context to do the same. They are just ordered lists of names, grouped by relative usefulness, based on their contribution to some over-arching goal.

Not making mistakes whatsoever is one thing, but assuming the tier player uses the optimal strategy for beating every level would be far stupider since there’s no denying players take different approaches to beating the game efficiently, even with the same team in use. [...] Far too often I see very specific strategies being discussed here even though there are a multitude of ways to beat a chapter in x amount of turns with y amount of safety and z team choice.

Ooh, now I'm "stupid" because of an assumption, says the guy who's whining about my attitude.

Obviously, there is always room for people to debate about the relative efficiency of one strategy over another. An argument can be made that something that's equally efficient has equal or comparable worth. Strategies have the benefit of giving us something numerical to chew on. As such, we can do things like look at Aran's performance in 1-4 and make arguments about how his assets/liabilities help or hurt chapter completion. There is a huge gap between what I said, and what you just accused me of.

I made a suggestion earlier that we assume a unit is used their entire existence, which obviously differs from what a real player would do. However, that simply changes what a tier list is measuring. I don’t see how “Micaiah > Ilyana if the player has pre-cognition, disregards as many subjective factors as possible, uses specific strategies, etc” would say anything of worth.

This entire paragraph is ridiculous.

You make a suggestion that flies in the face of what you think tier lists are supposed to measure in the first place, undermining your entire argument. Then you take my argument, and twisted it into something that it is not, and then come to the conclusion that it is therefore "worthless". Never mind that it's a straw man, never mind that even your straw-man still tells us something of "worth".

This is why I hate replying to you. You take things out of context, you go off on tangents constantly, and you accuse me of things I never said because of point #1, and sometimes you just plain don't make any goddamn sense at all, like right there.

I see your point, but minimizing subjective factors also runs into its own set of problems. If that is our intent, then transfers automatically get thrown out the window since we have an easy solution to the problem: expecting players to play 30 chapters of a different game is so silly we might as well ignore it altogether.

Basically what you said here was that you don't understand my point, all you understand is just your misinterpretation. I'm going to articulate my point one more time, and if you don't get it this time, you can howl alone in ignorance as far as I'm concerned.

Allow me to quote my actual point, something that you couldn't be arsed to do (presumably because you know unconsciously that answering my question will invalidate your argument):

"We have within our power the ability to completely remove one of these subjective elements merely by making the entirely rational assumption that a player does not act against his/her own interest -- aka causing a 50% chance of Game Over by needlessly exposing Laura to an attack -- and you want to keep this subjective element in the game because... why?"

This means, very simply, that we can eliminate one of these subjective factors by making a reasonable assumption. This does NOT MEAN that we can eliminate a subjective factor just because "I feel like it" or because "my brain hurts and accounting for this is hard". We can assume that a player is capable of correctly understanding the environment that they are acting in. In sompler terms, that the person controllign the characters is not retarded. That is all.

Your example of transfers just betrays your total, utter, and complete lack of understanding of this point, because throwing out transfers was not accompanied by any sort of rational assumption. How can you assert that playing 30 chapters of another game is "silly", and leave it at that? That doesn't address the possibility of using a pre-made RD save file (of which many exist), or that a PoR save might be around completely independent of RD (from before the game even came out), or even that a PoR playthrough doesn't inhibit the goals of an RD tier list that measures game completion (it won't slow down your turn counts in RD, PoR is a different game entirely).

Basically, there are several good arguments for transfers, that undermine your assertion that it's reasonable to assume that they don't happen. In contrast, my assumption is just that a fictional player will act in rational self-interest with respect to a tier list's goals. I am not suggesting that a player predict the outcome of the RNG, I am suggesting that a player does not make movements that run counter to what they are trying to do in the first place.

I’m just as irritated with you, but I’m sure nobody would be able to tell based on the the content of this post excluding this paragraph. If you continue to be this rude to me, I’ll just put you on ignore.

I'm not sure that I'd even be able to tell the difference. You are, after all, basically ignoring me even as you reply.

I'd tell you go ahead, except that you certainly don't need my approval to childishly isolate yourself from people who don't treat you with undeserved respect.

[Twilight]

In all honesty, I'd like to posit a different way of looking at positive and negative utility which I feel better represents a characters usefulness in an FE game. I'd like to use the example of Sephiran/Lehran. This system would give him a god tier score, 9.0 or above. The reason is because his use can in no way negatively impact the course of my game. He deprives no one of experience since it's negligible in his only playable chapter, he's very unlikely to be a liability considering his base stats, he can only be a positive contribution. There was a lot of talk earlier about Tormod. I feel like Tormod is actually an incredibly damaging unit and should recieve a very poor score. Does he help you in the first chapters you have him? I'd argue his contribution is a pretty small/unecessary one. Look at the harm his use will cause though. He does it in two ways, first if you continue using him and second if you disregard him after Part One. Let's look:

If we try to field him for the entire game we're confronted with the negative utility of missed opportunity cost, namely that he's a bad long-term investment. No one really disagrees with this since hard numbers support that he won't turn out well and (qualitatively) is almost impossible to level.

Scenario two strikes me as being equally unappealing. DB characters are notoriously underlevelled and their chapters are already filled with areas which DEMAND the use of prepromoted characters. This sucks experience away from characters who desperately need it. In this case, the use of Tormod in Part One has netted the negative utility of every point of experience he has taken away from other DB who will remake appearances in Chapters 3 and 4.

I feel like the system which many people support gives no where near enough weight to stolen experience. Sephiran will steal nothing, I think there is a huge distinction to be made between Cain/Tibarn and Sephiran if you're going to employ the former two before the final level of Endgame.

Look at it from this perspective, beating the game is actually very simple. Even my most recent HM playthrough could be done with almost any random grouping of units if I was meticulous enough. The Laguz Royals can all beat the Endgame easily without any of my raised units on the field. I know that this smacks of personal experience, but I'd always choose to use Edward over Volug in the DB chapters because I don't actually find it any harder but I feel the return on my Endgame is greater. The bottom line is that Radiant Dawn is a game which can be made very easy very...well, easily. Abuse the BK and Nailah/Tauroneo and Volug for much of the DB chapters +Nolan for the chapters where the others aren't available since he's easy enough to accomodate. Haar solos Elincia's chapters already. You have so many rigged units in Part Three and Four that it's almost impossible not to sweep these levels. If we assume that all these lists should be based on is what makes the game easiest then Radiant Dawn (unlike other FE games) would have a tier list with many of the worst endgame characters + the Royals in all the top slots. Similar to:

Cain

Tibarn

Nailah

Lehran

Ike

Haar

Naesala

Nailah

BK

Sothe

Tauroneo

Volug

...or something ridiculous like that. Radiant Dawn gives no motivation to carefully raise an endgame team since regardless of your choices you will be handed units who can win the game for you. I like the idea that consideration on the lists be inclined towards helping people choose what units to use throughout the game for the best overall play result. It might seem a bit silly, but try to observe the game from the perspective that Cain and Tibarn don't exist. If you WERE carefully raising a team for Endgame and DIDN'T therefore want to use the BK or Nailah or anyone else who isn't an efficent long-term choice any more than the game absolutely demanded, how would the list look. This is just a thought, I'm not trying to rock the boat or anything. It has just always struck me that Radiant Dawn doesn't reward intelligent character choices or levelling the Nino's of the world, effectively punishing what passes for good strategy in other FE games.

[Zkirsche]

Any reason why Elincia's < Aran and Mordy?

[Progenitus]

Any reason why Elincia's < Aran and Mordy?

She has 2-E, but for the rest of her chapters, she's a mounted healer with mag that's low enough to actually make me worried (she's horrible with stuff like fortify), and her offense isn't good without a load of favoritism, and her durability is almost never salvageable.

Aran doesn't have a chapter where he's as good as Elincia in 2-E, but he has more chapters where he's actually *good*, and the amount of resources I'd need to dump on Aran to make him ready for part 4 is probably about the same as what I'd need to dump on Elincia to get her offense up anyway. Ditto for Mordy, except he has even more chapters of being good than Aran, and needs just Resolve to pwn.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at, Twilight. Yes, this game is fairly easy, but several other FE games were easy too (FE8 and 9, mainly). And it doesn't ignore the fact that there are units that make this game easier than other units. And you talk about how the royals can handle 4-E with no problem, yet you'd use Edward over Volug because he's better in 4-E? Huh?

[Lilmik11]

I'm sorry,but your list is really bad,smash fanatic.Puting Aran over Nephenee,is a great error.During part 4,Aran have issues to double and evade attacks that could hurt him,while Nephenee evade thoses attack with no difficulty and easily kill the enemy.

And is Elincia is great,way more than in POR.At least,she can now kill enemy while healing our units.So I think that she's better than Aran and Mordy

[Ether]

Lilmik...you've just doomed us all...quick,edit Aran Vs. Neph out of your post before it's too late.

[Narga_Rocks]

Any reason why Elincia's < Aran and Mordy?

She has 2-E, but for the rest of her chapters, she's a mounted healer with mag that's low enough to actually make me worried (she's horrible with stuff like fortify), and her offense isn't good without a load of favoritism, and her durability is almost never salvageable.

Aran doesn't have a chapter where he's as good as Elincia in 2-E, but he has more chapters where he's actually *good*, and the amount of resources I'd need to dump on Aran to make him ready for part 4 is probably about the same as what I'd need to dump on Elincia to get her offense up anyway. Ditto for Mordy, except he has even more chapters of being good than Aran, and needs just Resolve to pwn.

So, Mordecai with resolve for all of part 3 is less favouritism than giving Elincia paragon in one chapter? Seriously, you'd be training like 4 units in each route in part 4. Unless you are using too many units, Elincia with paragon in 4-2 sets her up for the rest of the game with better offence than anyone else is likely to get for one chapter of paragon. I don't really see how one chapter of paragon is equal to what you'd need to dump into Aran to make him ready for part 4 either. Nor do I see how 1 chapter of paragon is a "load of favoritism". Is anyone allowed to have paragon?

[Colonel M]

It's pointless Narga. We might as well say Aran with massive BEXP and 5 Speedwings isn't favoritism either but somehow Paragon is. And that we have to submit that Aran is loads better than Nephenee. Still not understanding this logic...

[Narga_Rocks]

It's pointless Narga. We might as well say Aran with massive BEXP and 5 Speedwings isn't favoritism either but somehow Paragon is. And that we have to submit that Aran is loads better than Nephenee. Still not understanding this logic...

Just wanted it out there for anyone reading.

[Interceptor]

@Twilight: "stolen experience" is a shaky argument to be making. If we were measuring experience gain, that'd be one thing, but Radiant Dawn does not reward this at all in any meaningful way. The ranking system in something like FE7 gave an incentive to not over-use your Marcuses and Pents, but no such thing exists in this game. In fact, the "prepromotes" are almost universally better than the growth units, which frankly turns the entire paradigm on its head.

Your PE about Eddie and Volug is basically nonsense, I'm sorry. There's no possible way for you raise Eddie at the same level of difficulty as a Volug clear in Hard Mode unless you are taking a boatload of superflous turns in Part 1, aka dragging your feet. I can make any dumbshit unit good in this game just by padding my turn counts (Fiona being a possible exception) and maybe boss-abusing.

You say that you want tier lists to help people choose units for overall play that give a good result, but the problem is that tier lists simply do not have the context that make it possible to do this. Tier lists are just lists of names, corralled into loosely related groups. What you want is a character guide, aka something that has a write-up associated with ranking. That's the only format that people will find useful for what you suggest, aka one that tells them exactly what makes a unit as good as it is. Volug is a High/Top tier character in Hard Mode, but anyone who doesn't know what the game has coming for them (hello Part 3), or arrives with a bias against prepromotes, or has some fanciful idea about "EXP theft", will not understand why he's there, and the tier list cannot tell him, either.

Tier lists don't reward levelling the Ninos of the world because levelling Nino in a stupid idea that flies in the face of the goals of every tier list that I've ever seen, but that's neither here nor there.

@Narga: I agree with your analysis of the situation. Elincia will, despite your efforts with staves in Part 2, arrive in Part 4 with not enough SPD to double. However, she's basically the poster child of getting bang for your buck out of Paragon. I mean, Jesus Christ, Amiti is hax, her growths are hax, and she's going to level like a fiend in the most EXP-rich path of Part 4. A better argument for giving someone Paragon does not exist. Compare that with the opportunity cost for doing something retarded like BEXP'ing up Aran's SPD.

@Colonel M: The reason why you don't understand the logic is that these rankings are not logical. smash's reason for putting Aran/Mordy so high and Elincia so low does not square with the guidelines that he laid out in the OP. In reality, there are some hidden modifiers (aka biases) for all characters. You seem to be doing well in smash's mind if you are a durable unit. Offense doesn't seem to mean much of anything if you aren't built like a house.

EDIT: and favoritism is something else that makes Aran vs. Nephenee ridiculous. The DB has almost nothing to give to Aran aside from the standard forge and perhaps a Robe. He also can't hope to BEXP abuse his SPD to something respectable until 1/3 of the way into tier 2, which is well into Part 3. Aran cannot get out of his box.

Nephenee, on the other hand, has options falling out of the sky to fix her two biggest issues: concrete durability and base mt. She does not require either an early crown or a Speedwing to rock and roll, she needs less-contested items. Both a Drop and a Draco get crapped out in the course of 2-E, and another pair come out in 3-3 and 3-5 in Bargains or stealables. Forges are plentiful, and she uses them well due to Halb crit, high SKL, and doubling a lot of stuff.

You can see this in the write-up, or rather you don't see it, because smash really has no clue how to make Nephenee any good in Hard Mode, evidenced by his failure to mention anything of note.

Edited August 11, 2009 by Interceptor

[Lilmik11]

Why are you saying that Ether,I won't change it,because that's what I think!And I think it's true,Nephenee was seriously one of my greatest unit in my last playthrough!She was seriously owning all of the dragon!

[Progenitus]

It's pointless Narga. We might as well say Aran with massive BEXP and 5 Speedwings isn't favoritism either but somehow Paragon is. And that we have to submit that Aran is loads better than Nephenee. Still not understanding this logic...

Do you even realize how far behind Elincia is in stats? Since you need 28-29 spd to double the warriors/halbs/etc. in 4-2, Elincia would need to be level 10 or 11 to double. Considering she's like, level 2 entering part 2 (physic spamming in 2-E doesn't count, since her h4x in 2-E is assuming she's attacking and one rounding an enemy, so spamming physics to get her level up means she loses a lot of her 2-E h4x), she has a LOT of ground to cover. (Yes, I'm aware that she has amiti, but that still doesn't count as doubling, since her att is crap, so she needs to quad).

Paragon for a part 4 chapter is also a lot of favoritism because EVERYONE gains exp like mad, and thus taking paragon instead of someone else means taht person loses out on, like, 4 extra levels. In contrast, Aran would need maybe 6 levels of BEXP, except trying to give that BEXP to a 3rd tier instead would only give them like 4-5 levels (if you gave that BEXP to another second tier, I could have easily given paragon to another second tier, so that unit would have gained like extra 6 levels instead), so he's not much worse than Elincia, if at all (since if you BEXP him, it takes effect immediately, whereas Elincia still has to wait until paragon's extra exp kicks in, AKA she's still useless for anything except healing in 4-2).

And that's just for offense. she STILL needs help in her durability, because gaining extra levels is not going to help. So chances are I'm going to need to throw paragon on her, on top of robe/dracoshield/etc. I suppose she does have flying + healing, but Aran has more durability so only one would cancel out, and she's still not better enough to overcome Aran's DB performance + him winning the first part 4 chapter.

[Interceptor]

Elincia's stats are not a problem. Having her level-up in 2-E by spamming Physic/Recover is a perfectly good way to be using her. Consider that having her on healing means that everyone else's flexibility goes up, since they will less often need to be choosing between making a PP attack and self-healing. This is particularly useful for someone like Haar. The other thing about Elincia's attack power is the threat of it: she's not good in 2-E because she's soloing the map, she's good in 2-E because I can point at something and have Elincia kill it. The fact that it exists means that she can bail out someone else, or kill a particularly difficult enemy, and then get right back to healing. This is the same logic that allows us to rate Volug highly even though he's not killing everything in sight in Part 1.

Also, while you don't consider Amiti to be doubling, the game certainly does, because that's two chances for Stun to proc. Consider that her "not doubling" chance to activate Stun is better than Aran's "not doubling" chance to activate Impale, even with his huge SKL.

Taking Paragon in Part 4 is a lot of favoritism and nobody said otherwise. The point is, the opportunity cost of hitting her with Paragon is at its minimum, since she's the poster child of why we give units Paragon in the first place. Insert unit with crazy growths into Paragon machine, recieve hax unit at the other end. This is Elincia in a nutshell.

Her durability "issues" are overblown, since Elincia is like friggin' Wolverine. She can use Imbue in addition to her cap-free Renewal, so at base level she's already capable of restoring an insane 20 HP a turn, aka auto-vulnerary. The other thing is that she's a combat unit with staves, which gives us the odd ability to have a unit that gets hit a lot (aka a frontliner) able to self-heal at the cost of their ENEMY PHASE instead of their Player Phase. (EDIT: forgot about the Amiti locked shenanigans since it's been a while, but she can still heal herself during spurts of healing someone else.)

Your point about BEXP is asinine, by the way, since gathering 6 levels worth of BEXP for Aran means that you're SITTING ON six levels worth of BEXP, and it's not getting used while you're earmarking it for Aran. It's not as though a single chapter is going to give you that much juice all at once, not even 3-E. Now you have the oportunity cost of not giving it to another unit AND the cost of it rotting in your convoy. Six levels is pretty sneaky, by the way: the only way that's going to be enough is if you get him to exactly 20/13, he has his rounded-up average SPD of 19.75 aka 20, he gets SPD on every level-up, and you crown him for the last one (anything less than max tier 2 SPD will cause him problems in tier 3, since he'd be 28 SPD at 20/20/1 with max SPD and that's already what you're demanding for Elincia). This is already requiring something insane like 22,500 BEXP all at once, which is 2.25x what the DB gets in the entirety of Part 3, aka it's not even possible to do without stealing from the other convoys in Part 4.

One wonders if you actually tried to do any of this crazy stuff that you keep asserting.

Edited August 11, 2009 by Interceptor

[Narga_Rocks]

One wonders if you actually tried to do any of this crazy stuff that you keep asserting.

I've never said it but I've always wondered if smash played easy mode first, had tons of bexp to dump on Aran to get his speed up to high amounts, fell in love, and can't get over it now that he's playing HM. At least Elincia actually works on HM. And her atk power after a few levels is plenty in 2 hits on swordmasters and sages. Needs more levels for swordmasters, but still. Then there is cancel, which she uses better than anyone else in the entire game until 4-E-3 because she has an unlimited brave weapon and gets two shots to either stun or cancel and make the enemy just completely useless against her (needs enough speed to get above 40%, but that's probably around 22 or 23). Even if she is somehow 5HKOing instead of 4, stun and cancel both put it out of commission. Then throw in adept for 4-5, and a 3HKOing Elincia with adept and cancel is insane.

Now, that is obviously giving her resources you aren't giving someone else. But nobody else in the entire game will ever be able to compare with what she can do with those skills. She'll almost never take damage on player phase, has the durability to take a couple hits on enemy phase, recovers a massive amount of hp if you give her imbue instead of adept (and still doesn't miss out on much offence or offensive defence). Then there is how she does occasionally heal, so the physic staff recovers 20hp more for her. Also, with a heron in all of her chapters she can attack first, get vigored, then heal someone and hide on enemy phase thanks to canto. Aran can't come close in comparison.

Then consider that as long as she gets enough levels to have the strength to 2HKO the cats/hawks/ravens and the speed to double(quad) tigers (will have the str to kill with a quad at that point) then she basically rocks 4-5 better than anyone else can. Most won't have the spd to 100% ORKO the cats/hawks/ravens, and anyone with the spd will lack the def to not take damage on the counter (Elincia faces no counter). Tigers have the def to prevent most units from 2HKOing them, but that doesn't bother Elincia and her amiti. Plus with stun and cancel and two shots at each she has a fair chance of not taking damage on player phase from them either. And she's got flight. Basically, she's better in that chapter than anyone but Tibarn can ever hope to be. Without paragon, she might not be able to pull it off. Mages have no flight and less durability than she has, so they can't even get to most of the hawks/ravens and have trouble moving around, so even if they come close offensively, they aren't as good. Then because Elincia just cleaned up 4-5, she's got the spd to quad the generals and either ORKOs them or comes really close. Oh yeah, and 4 chances to stun the guys. How do you think her ORKO chances compare to some doof that doesn't double, or even someone who does?

And to add to what int said about Elincia in 2-E. She is your only point and kill unit in that chapter. And you have a heron. Sometimes elincia needs to kill two things in a player phase. Sometimes she can double heal. Other times she can attack, then heal something and heal herself automatically next player phase. Other times she can heal something, then attack and have an enemy phase. The heron isn't necessarily vigoring her all the time but 2-E is long enough she can still reach level 3 easily. Don't forget 4 or 5 mends of Marcia in 2-P (Marcia dodges too much to reliably get 7 or 8 heals for Elincia to do). Marcia is Elincia's best friend there.

Oh, one (two in one) issue int: The game won't let you move around amiti and if there are any weapons in a unit's inventory then moving a staff to the top results in the weapon closest to the top being equipped. The best we can do is have her heal something and if we want her to attack on enemy phase then use another character to switch the staff with another staff or a vulnerary to the top and then Amiti will auto-equip. So we can do the reverse, just not the self healing thing unless we get her to heal someone else.