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FE9 Tier list v3


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If Oscar isn't holding the Knight Ward ever and can't double (if he doubles he 2RKOs), he must be holding the strength band. If he's holding a strength band for that long he gets an extra point of str and so his numbers don't change.

Marcia 2RKOs regardless of whether or not WTA is applied.

I forgot wyverns start with lances and not axes in this game. Assuming Chapter 16 promotion, that's 10 chapters (technically more as 17 has 4 parts) to get 180 wexp or 18 wexp per chapter. That's 9 rounds of combat if we're only using an iron axe the whole time, which we're not. For our main combat unit this is more than reasonable.

Jill and Kieran obviously benefit from lack of WTA.

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10 hours ago, kirsche said:

lv 20/15 Marcia w/ Forged Silver lance: A Kieran, B Tanith (wow these two have incredible supports).

The Oscar-Tanith-Marcia-Kieran-Oscar Support Square is a lovely thing. Avoid for everyone! 

8 hours ago, kirsche said:

That's 9 rounds of combat if we're only using an iron axe the whole time, which we're not.

The Steel Axe has the bizarre property in FE6-9 of being E rank. At 2 wexp per swing, you can double the rate outside of Hand Axe use.

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10 hours ago, kirsche said:

lv 20/15 Marcia w/ Forged Silver lance: A Kieran, B Tanith (wow these two have incredible supports).

The Oscar-Tanith-Marcia-Kieran-Oscar Support Square is a lovely thing. Avoid for everyone! 

8 hours ago, kirsche said:

That's 9 rounds of combat if we're only using an iron axe the whole time, which we're not.

The Steel Axe has the bizarre property in FE6-9 of being E rank. At 2 wexp per swing, you can double the rate outside of Hand Axe use.

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16 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The Oscar-Tanith-Marcia-Kieran-Oscar Support Square is a lovely thing. Avoid for everyone! 

The Steel Axe has the bizarre property in FE6-9 of being E rank. At 2 wexp per swing, you can double the rate outside of Hand Axe use.

No matter how many times I come back to debating FE9 I can't help but be amazed at how perfect the top tiers are, it's almost as if the game devs designed them to outclass everyone else on purpose.

Ah yeah I forgot about that, I was wondering why in my previous Wexp arguments earlier on this list I assumed use of Steel axes from the beginning. But yeah I was referring to swapping to Steel ASAP (why wouldn't you?) which makes it so Jill, our main frontliner, only needs about 4-5 rounds of combat each chapter.

Edited by kirsche
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  • 4 weeks later...

Just noticed this and kind of wanna say something on it.

If Soren is 20/10, Oscar is going to be like 20/20.

A ten-level gap seems like kind of a big stretch unless you're a jeigan/joined over-leveled, a dancer, or have staves. After all, if you get too far ahead of the curve EXP penalties kick in and Soren, having staves, won't have to worry as much about running out of enemies to kill/diminishing returns. Plus I would find it kind of hard to believe that any player who was already capping out units wouldn't just go 'screw it' and dump the remainder on those units that aren't capped out. After all, unspent BEXP does nothing.

Dunno if that affects your calculations in any way or so-forth. Just me saying I kinda feel that a 20/10 Soren competing with a 20/20 Oscar seems a liiiittle bit shaky in Oscar's favor. 

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I didn't compare 20/10 Soren with 20/20 Oscar I compared him to level 20/12-20/15 Oscar and co. I merely brought attention to the fact that Oscar should be a much higher level than Soren (which is true front line fighting vs occasional staves and siege combat) so comparing them both at 20/10 is misleading.

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@kirsche@Snowy_One  Y'all were talking about a Bolting. Is that the one you get from the chest in Chapter 16?

If so, that thing costs at least 2 turns to get, so what type of playthrough is this where we go out of our way to get a Bolting that doesn't help us do anything before we get the Free Meteor?

 

In an absolute LTC playthrough, Soren will be the first character to promote, and he will be at a higher level than Oscar for the entirety of the game.

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Without fliers it can possibly save more than two turns. Honestly I don't think it's that big a point anyway, Soren/Ilyana have small contributions before Calill arrives and the same contributions after so it's hard to argue Calill > Soren.

The last point is not going to be true for all teams.

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4 hours ago, kirsche said:

I didn't compare 20/10 Soren with 20/20 Oscar I compared him to level 20/12-20/15 Oscar and co. I merely brought attention to the fact that Oscar should be a much higher level than Soren (which is true front line fighting vs occasional staves and siege combat) so comparing them both at 20/10 is misleading.

 

I might agree with that statement if there weren't multiple front-line fighters. There is a finite amount of foes Oscar can kill and multiple people competing for them (in comparison to the much less competed-over staff EXP which Soren will only have to compete with Rhys, Mist, Ilyana, and Tormod for). Regardless, if it was a 20/12 to 20/15 Oscar that seems reasonable. Not a 20/20 Oscar though. That's reaching PEMN.

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Mounted frontliners tend to outlevel staff users from personal experience- staff exp only happens 1x a turn (2 with Reyson sometimes I guess) and isn't a viable option some turns due to lack of wounds/allies not being in staff range.

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27 minutes ago, -Cynthia- said:

Mounted frontliners tend to outlevel staff users from personal experience- staff exp only happens 1x a turn (2 with Reyson sometimes I guess) and isn't a viable option some turns due to lack of wounds/allies not being in staff range.

True, but the same can also be said for killing since, some turns, there are no killable foes in range. While I'd agree that the EXP from staves probably isn't going to match what full-on frontline combat can offer (unless you're deliberately getting wounded just to heal it) I would say that it's probably also not enough to create a ten-level gap unless you're doing some serious munchkining/favoritism/something wrong.

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27 minutes ago, -Cynthia- said:

Mounted frontliners tend to outlevel staff users from personal experience- staff exp only happens 1x a turn (2 with Reyson sometimes I guess) and isn't a viable option some turns due to lack of wounds/allies not being in staff range.

True, but the same can also be said for killing since, some turns, there are no killable foes in range. While I'd agree that the EXP from staves probably isn't going to match what full-on frontline combat can offer (unless you're deliberately getting wounded just to heal it) I would say that it's probably also not enough to create a ten-level gap unless you're doing some serious munchkining/favoritism/something wrong.

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Most of my maniac mode runs my MVPs were...

Ike (surprised?), Nephene, Haar, Ilyana/Soren (Unlike 10, they are pretty much interchangeable in this game), Stefan, Astrid, Oscar, and Titania (Early-mid obviously Calill and Jill get honorable mentions, as do Volke and Reyson for utility reasons. And forged steel axes even though they are not a character.

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12 hours ago, kirsche said:

Without fliers

Without fliers, believe it or not, Rolf is actually the 3rd best option for some LTC strategies.

 

12 hours ago, kirsche said:

it can possibly save more than two turns.

No, it wont actually save any turns pre-Meteor. Fliers or no fliers. Well, Unless you are doing a Mounts and Mages only run...

 

12 hours ago, kirsche said:

Soren/Ilyana have small contributions before Calill arrives and the same contributions after so it's hard to argue Calill > Soren.

Depending on the type of playthrough, Soren can have significant contributions throughout the entire playthrough. And Calill can never use staffs so Soren/Ilyana make more contributions after. 

Soren > Ilyana > Calill has already been set in stone at this point.

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3 hours ago, Hawk King said:

Depending on the type of playthrough, Soren can have significant contributions throughout the entire playthrough. And Calill can never use staffs so Soren/Ilyana make more contributions after. 

Soren > Ilyana > Calill has already been set in stone at this point.

The only thing really 'up for debate' is Tormod's location. He's currently below Calill and I can certainly see the argument for that. I can also see the argument for above. Personally I feel he's better but I'm a sucker for staves and haven't been a Calill fan since the beginning (she came on too strong) so I'm entirely willing to abide by Soren > Ilyana > Calill > Tormod > Bastion or Soren > Ilyana > Tormod > Calill > Bastion.

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3 hours ago, Hawk King said:

Without fliers, believe it or not, Rolf is actually the 3rd best option for some LTC strategies.

 

No, it wont actually save any turns pre-Meteor. Fliers or no fliers. Well, Unless you are doing a Mounts and Mages only run...

 

Depending on the type of playthrough, Soren can have significant contributions throughout the entire playthrough. And Calill can never use staffs so Soren/Ilyana make more contributions after. 

Soren > Ilyana > Calill has already been set in stone at this point.

Well this isn't a strictly LTC list. I think the best way of thinking about it is what order would the units get picked in a draft run.

How would land units do it in a way, mounts can't?

Fantastic, so we're in agreement.

Quote

True, but the same can also be said for killing since, some turns, there are no killable foes in range.

This is almost never true thanks to rescue, 9MoV and Canto. Oscar and any other front line unit are killing a good amount of enemies each chapter on the enemy phase, then you give him bexp on top of that because bexping everyone to the same level is silly and suddenly a significant level gap can start to form.

Edited by kirsche
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6 hours ago, kirsche said:

Well this isn't a strictly LTC list. I think the best way of thinking about it is what order would the units get picked in a draft run.

I know it isn't strictly LTC which is why I asked about the context of a playthrough where Bolting is acquired. Draft teams are great for Tier list discussions because you get to see how good characters are with sub-optimal team choices. I can tell you that no drafter ever gets the Bolting.

6 hours ago, kirsche said:

How would land units do it in a way, mounts can't?

shove and smite. 17-4 for example, the 3rd fastest clear in drafts will go to the person who drafted Rolf. I believe he also allows for the 3rd fastest clear of 17-2. Because he is so light, he is able to be shoved by every single character in the game.

 

Drafts also limit the amount of Bexp that is allowed to be dumped onto a character so there are no unreasonable resource expenditures for the sake of these arguments. And they are played on fixed growths, so these strategies come without inflated stats from abusing random growths and resets.

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Fair enough, I was mostly just spitballing the idea and using numbers to back up the possibility. If people were to argue that bolting takes too long to get that's fine, but I wouldn't say that Soren and Ilyana can't use it to good effect IF they have it.

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3 hours ago, kirsche said:

Fair enough, I was mostly just spitballing the idea and using numbers to back up the possibility. If people were to argue that bolting takes too long to get that's fine, but I wouldn't say that Soren and Ilyana can't use it to good effect IF they have it.

IF it is obtained, possibly in the context of a playthrough where all chests are obtain or some other criteria which would allow for it, Ilyana will have no problem getting the Wexp to be able to use it. Soren wont be able to before getting Meteor. He already has to get his rank up in Fire tomes for Meteor, and he will be staff spamming as much as possible on the player phase. After he gets the weapon rank for Meteor though, Soren will be basically using Thunder Tomes exclusively so he would be able to use it for some of the late-game bosses.

Having Bolting would definitely have some uses, but there are strategies that exist which can always make it unnecessary. 

 

@-Cynthia- could you bold and underline the tiers? It would make reading the list much easier.

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Some thoughts:

Top Tier looks perfect to me.

High Tier - I have to admit that 20+ playthroughs of FE9 later I have never once used Tanith. What makes her rate above the likes of Ike and Boyd? Is Reinforcements just that good?
As a what if, where would everyone rate Ike if he could promote freely?

Mid Tier - I fail to see Mia above Zihark, he statstically dominates her in HP, STR, SKL and DEF, and let's not forget built-in Adept. They'll both ram the cap on SPD, leaving Mia's only advantages as LCK and RES (and while her RES is certainly better, it's still not exactly good...) I'd also argue that Zihark has a slightly better support list and that sweet, sweet Earth affinity.  Initially I thought it might be a question of Mia's earlier availability and performance for her forced deployments but if Stefan is rated higher than both of them that can't be the case at all.

Edited by λrc Impulse
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8 hours ago, λrc Impulse said:

Some thoughts:

Top Tier looks perfect to me.

High Tier - I have to admit that 20+ playthroughs of FE9 later I have never once used Tanith. What makes her rate above the likes of Ike and Boyd? Is Reinforcements just that good?
As a what if, where would everyone rate Ike if he could promote freely?

Mid Tier - I fail to see Mia above Zihark, he statstically dominates her in HP, STR, SKL and DEF, and let's not forget built-in Adept. They'll both ram the cap on SPD, leaving Mia's only advantages as LCK and RES (and while her RES is certainly better, it's still not exactly good...) I'd also argue that Zihark has a slightly better support list and that sweet, sweet Earth affinity.  Initially I thought it might be a question of Mia's earlier availability and performance for her forced deployments but if Stefan is rated higher than both of them that can't be the case at all.

Hey there.

Tanith is very strong and is a flier. Flying utility trumps pretty much everything. She'd be top if she didn't arrive so late. I would likely rank Ike where he is right now tbh, he can't get higher because he will always lose out to paladins and fliers, and Boyd is just a better unit (1RKOs more reliably and has 1-2 range).

Mia can do more things in chapter 9 and IIRC using her availability can become a vital part of a low turn clear of chapter 12, whereas Zihark would need resources (read:BEXP) to be able to match her level that she would acquire from CEXP in chapter 8, for example. After chapter 12 both units are considered sub-par and just made irrelevant by fliers/mounts/laguz/other foot units (e.g. Stefan, Ike, Boyd, Nephenee). I think there *might* have been an argument to ferry Vantage+Wrath Mia in chapter 25 to help a low clear of that too but I don't think that was necessary.

I could see Stefan below both of them though as they at least have unique utility in chapter 12.

Edit: Mia, along with Mist, is one of the two most talked about units in this game and her position right now is very well discussed in terms of her vs other low MoV units. Here's a compilation of some of the big posts advocating Mia's rise (she used to be lower mid while Zihark+neph were upper mid):

 

Edited by kirsche
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Mia and Zihark are pretty similar if you dump resources into them, Mia's just a bit higher because she comes earlier really. Stefan's base strength is very high compared to both of them which lets him ORKO without forges. Forges are pretty contested since you get only one of those per chapter and most units want one of some kind. Mia doesn't match Stefan's base strength until 20/14 and Zihark doesn't match until 20/8.

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Did someone mention Mia vs. Zihark?

Actually, nah. Not gonna bite for now. But yea, Mia vs. Zihark has been a massive debate thing since day 1. Lots of arguments have been made for both sides.

Also, geez. Reading those posts reminds me of how bad smash's lists were. I recall him putting Mia on the flat-out bottom 'worst of the worst' for at least two debate topics on ye olde gamefaque. So glad I swore off debating in future games as now I'm free to enjoy Felicia and Faye without worrying about tier rankings. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Dumb question, but why is Elincia so high? She joins late and, IIRC, has only two chapters of which one is the final. She joins a 20/1 and her stats are even that good if you BEXP her to 20/20. By the time you get her you have literally every other flier in the game and it's not like her supports are anything special. So what does she do that puts her above, say, Largo who at least exists?

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