FE9 Tier list v3

[-Cynthia-]

She has pretty good combat (though needs some BEXP), but it's not really any better than what the mounted units do and she can't use siege tomes or anything like the mages.

[Snowy_One]

Yea. Nephenee's good, but she doesn't really bring anything unique to the table that other units don't. Even if we were to pretend the mounted units didn't exist other units provide siege tomes, high attack, or jeigan-type stuff. About the only move I can see her making is from the top of mid to the bottom of upper-mid.

[Hasnbaakoajsbakaiaja]

Wait, may I ask why Soren is higher than Illyana?

[Refa]

Because he joins earlier (more time to level to reach C tomes and promote for staff use), and has better combat parameters overall.  He also has better supports as well, but that was most likely a relatively minor point in his favour.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm personally much more surprised that Soren and particularly Ilyana (who has decidely worse stats) are above Calill. I guess it's because of staves but I've never gotten much use out of those myself, and both have bad earlygame combat so greater availability is no help here. I usually use Mist or Rhys and healing pressure is light in this game, so I don't really see value in babying along a mage to get a second staff user, and then Calill can throw all the siege tomes.

[Augestein]

It's primarily because Soren's early game isn't bad enough to really warrant caring too much. He's "bad" for a time in the game where you really don't have much choice, and by the time there is a choice, he's okay. Plus, if you promote Soren at 15, he can be a decent staff user for longer and doesn't suck completely at combat like Rhys and Mist. That means that you can remove Mist/Rhys and instead use Soren. I'd honestly say that it's pretty fair for him to be higher than Calill because of that. In terms of combat though? Calill is slightly worse than Soren if you leveled him to 20, and if you didn't, he has staves and slightly inferior combat to compete against her. It's enough for me to say that he should always be slightly better than her honestly. 

As for Ilyana, they are almost identical outside of Ilyana being slower and having slightly less magic power. However, it should be noted that Ilyana with a heavier tome is slowed down less. Which is a plus, not a huge one, but it's there. 

3 hours ago, Refa said:

Because he joins earlier (more time to level to reach C tomes and promote for staff use), and has better combat parameters overall.  He also has better supports as well, but that was most likely a relatively minor point in his favour.

I disagree on Soren having better supports though. He has 2, and Stefan is heaven, which doesn't help Soren at all. The only reason Soren would take it is because it's literally his only other choice. Ilyana's supports are definitely better. She always gets defense for her support, and she can support people that can give her more defense or attack or even evade. Her concrete durability will be better than Soren's because of it. 

[Refa]

Durability isn't very helpful when you get 2-3HKOed regardless.  Soren's supports always give attack regardless of who he's supporting, so he's better in that regard.

[Refa]

EDIT Duplicate post, please delete thanks SF.

Edited April 17, 2017 by Refa
I wonder...

[Augestein]

It is helpful. Let's use say... Mordecai and Gatrie for instance. 

A Mordecai + Gatrie : Would be + 5 defense for instance. That's not a little deal. She's also incidentally, get + 1 attack from being supported with Mordecai.

Soren with Ike would give him... + 1 attack at best because PoR rounds down rather than up. Aside from the evasion boost-- which means playing dodge or die, + 5 defense / res is not something that can just be shrugged off as "you get 2-3HKOed." Especially if you're willing to depart with a Seraph Robe on her. 

[-Cynthia-]

Soren also has the best Mag which makes him the best siege tomer. He does require Bexp and weapon rank training, but the game throws a ton of BEXP at you in Hard Mode anyway.

Ilyana's stats aren't really better than Calill's but being able to use stuff like the Rescue staff can be helpful.

[Dark Holy Elf]

36 minutes ago, Augestein said:

It's primarily because Soren's early game isn't bad enough to really warrant caring too much. He's "bad" for a time in the game where you really don't have much choice, and by the time there is a choice, he's okay. Plus, if you promote Soren at 15, he can be a decent staff user for longer and doesn't suck completely at combat like Rhys and Mist. That means that you can remove Mist/Rhys and instead use Soren. I'd honestly say that it's pretty fair for him to be higher than Calill because of that. In terms of combat though? Calill is slightly worse than Soren if you leveled him to 20, and if you didn't, he has staves and slightly inferior combat to compete against her. It's enough for me to say that he should always be slightly better than her honestly. 

As for Ilyana, they are almost identical outside of Ilyana being slower and having slightly less magic power. However, it should be noted that Ilyana with a heavier tome is slowed down less. Which is a plus, not a huge one, but it's there. 

The big difference is that Rhys/Mist level up for free while doing their job, while Soren takes away combat exp. Mist also gets a horse on promotion, which is extremely useful with how Reyson works in this game; if for some reason you actually want to heal twice in one turn then she's much easier to refresh, and she can also reach people to use Restore much more easily / generally keep up with the team. Both Rhys/Mist also provide more useful supports than Soren does, and probably Ilyana as well though you could debate that. In particular, Mist is Jill's only good support, for +3 def/res (and Rhys is Mia's for +3 atk, if you actually use her).

It's true that Soren can promote early to start on staff use (and thus replace Rhys/Mist quickly), but then his long-term combat isn't much better than theirs if at all, and he still loses mobility to Mist. I guess his short-term combat is better, so it depends how much you value that. He also tops out in B in staves IIRC (though Serenes doesn't confirm this so I might be confusing this with Radiant Dawn) and thus misses out on Fortify, which isn't that big a deal, but it's there.

At combat, Calill is probably better than Soren and certainly better than Ilyana. Getting either mage to use more than one siege tome is difficult, and nearly impossible if you want to raise their staff rank (since C is the bare minimum for a worthwhile staff user). Calill can use all three at base, and use them well thanks to being decent at all of Str/Mag/Spd. Base Calill has better magic and speed than a 20/6 Ilyana (while losing only skill and res), and Ilyana isn't going to be 20/6 by the time Calill joins barring massive exp intake (BExp or combat exp) and neglect of her staff rank. Calill versus, say, 15/7 Ilyana, has +1.25 Str, +2.5 Mag, +3.5 Spd, and marginal wins in durability.

I can see Soren > Calill for all that I don't agree (based on Mag, ninja'd by Cynthia), but Ilyana > Calill strikes me as rather out there.

[Augestein]

1 minute ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The big difference is that Rhys/Mist level up for free while doing their job, while Soren takes away combat exp. Mist also gets a horse on promotion, which is extremely useful with how Reyson works in this game; if for some reason you actually want to heal twice in one turn then she's much easier to refresh, and she can also reach people to use Restore much more easily / generally keep up with the team. Both Rhys/Mist also provide more useful supports than Soren does, and probably Ilyana as well though you could debate that. In particular, Mist is Jill's only good support, for +3 def/res (and Rhys is Mia's for +3 atk, if you actually use her).

It's true that Soren can promote early to start on staff use (and thus replace Rhys/Mist quickly), but then his long-term combat isn't much better than theirs if at all, and he still loses mobility to Mist. I guess his short-term combat is better, so it depends how much you value that. He also tops out in B in staves IIRC (though Serenes doesn't confirm this so I might be confusing this with Radiant Dawn) and thus misses out on Fortify, which isn't that big a deal, but it's there.

At combat, Calill is probably better than Soren and certainly better than Ilyana. Getting either mage to use more than one siege tome is difficult, and nearly impossible if you want to raise their staff rank (since C is the bare minimum for a worthwhile staff user). Calill can use all three at base, and use them well thanks to being decent at all of Str/Mag/Spd. Base Calill has better magic and speed than a 20/6 Ilyana (while losing only skill and res), and Ilyana isn't going to be 20/6 by the time Calill joins barring massive exp intake (BExp or combat exp) and neglect of her staff rank. Calill versus, say, 15/7 Ilyana, has +1.25 Str, +2.5 Mag, +3.5 Spd, and marginal wins in durability.

I can see Soren > Calill for all that I don't agree (based on Mag, ninja'd by Cynthia), but Ilyana > Calill strikes me as rather out there.

True, Soren does take away EXP pretty soon too. And it's also true that promotion horse is better than walking on foot. The reyson argument is true as well. However, Mist being there doesn't take away from what Soren can do. Even if she could be debated as a better healer than Soren. It's something that Calill specifically cannot do. Ever. I do agree that both have better supports than Soren. As Soren's only really useful support is Ike. 

His long term combat will pretty much always be better than Mist's. And Rhys' is held back by the fact that light magic is stupidly heavy in PoR. He's pretty much never able to lift any of his tomes properly, and they have worse might than anima tomes. A Soren that promoted at 15 would still have better combat than Rhys on the account that Rhys has horrible base speed. They'd hit for around the same damage assuming both couldn't double, the difference is that Soren would have been a more competent fighter for the moments before later game. 

I'd say they are about even. Calill can use heavier tomes than Soren, and her strength advantage over Ilyana is nothing note worthy. The siege tomes are nice, but I don't think that I've ever really wanted to use them more than occasionally. Calill > Ilyana I still don't see because a 20/-- Ilyana would have a staff for healing, and slightly inferior combat--- IE, I don't think it's that Calill is bad, it's just that she's less versatile and adds less to the team. But then again, I'm of the opinion that Soren isn't much better than Ilyana. It'd be like Soren > Ilyana >= Calill (depending on if you rate the better fighting versus having staff utility and being decent in combat). 

[Refa]

46 minutes ago, Augestein said:

It is helpful. Let's use say... Mordecai and Gatrie for instance. 

A Mordecai + Gatrie : Would be + 5 defense for instance. That's not a little deal. She's also incidentally, get + 1 attack from being supported with Mordecai.

Soren with Ike would give him... + 1 attack at best because PoR rounds down rather than up. Aside from the evasion boost-- which means playing dodge or die, + 5 defense / res is not something that can just be shrugged off as "you get 2-3HKOed." Especially if you're willing to depart with a Seraph Robe on her. 

Fair enough on it letting her a few more hits.  However, her durability at 20/1 is 30HP/7Def and it does not scale at the same rate as enemy attack does, so by Chapter 19, it's really only going to let her survive an extra hit max (enemies at this point in the game have around 21-24 attack)...which means you're fielding Gatrie and Mordecai (two subpar units) just so that Ilyana can take an extra hit.  I don't see that as being a better support option than Ike, who is force deployed, or Stefan, who is one of the better foot units in the game.  It's only better in a vacuum.

26 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

The big difference is that Rhys/Mist level up for free while doing their job, while Soren takes away combat exp. Mist also gets a horse on promotion, which is extremely useful with how Reyson works in this game; if for some reason you actually want to heal twice in one turn then she's much easier to refresh, and she can also reach people to use Restore much more easily / generally keep up with the team. Both Rhys/Mist also provide more useful supports than Soren does, and probably Ilyana as well though you could debate that. In particular, Mist is Jill's only good support, for +3 def/res (and Rhys is Mia's for +3 atk, if you actually use her).

It's true that Soren can promote early to start on staff use (and thus replace Rhys/Mist quickly), but then his long-term combat isn't much better than theirs if at all, and he still loses mobility to Mist. I guess his short-term combat is better, so it depends how much you value that. He also tops out in B in staves IIRC (though Serenes doesn't confirm this so I might be confusing this with Radiant Dawn) and thus misses out on Fortify, which isn't that big a deal, but it's there.

At combat, Calill is probably better than Soren and certainly better than Ilyana. Getting either mage to use more than one siege tome is difficult, and nearly impossible if you want to raise their staff rank (since C is the bare minimum for a worthwhile staff user). Calill can use all three at base, and use them well thanks to being decent at all of Str/Mag/Spd. Base Calill has better magic and speed than a 20/6 Ilyana (while losing only skill and res), and Ilyana isn't going to be 20/6 by the time Calill joins barring massive exp intake (BExp or combat exp) and neglect of her staff rank. Calill versus, say, 15/7 Ilyana, has +1.25 Str, +2.5 Mag, +3.5 Spd, and marginal wins in durability.

I can see Soren > Calill for all that I don't agree (based on Mag, ninja'd by Cynthia), but Ilyana > Calill strikes me as rather out there.

Combat experience is not a precious resource in FE9, especially considering the abundance of Bonus Experience.  This is a weak point used to handwave away their availability, when really it gives them a significant advantage over Calill.  It doesn't matter how good she is if she joins in the last 40% of the game AKA literally being worse than Rolf for that time period.  Yes, she has better combat parameters than them at base.  Yes, her ranks are definitely an advantage that's hard to surmount.  However, her combat parameters are not significantly better than Soren (Illyana I'll concede because she probably misses out on doubling quite a few enemies).

I don't get why you're comparing Soren to Rhys/Mist in this context.  The fact that he can use staves is a definite advantage over Calill.  End statement.  You're not deploying him because he can use a wide variety of staves (that's what Mist is for), it just gives him more options than her (and another way to gain EXP to boot).  All of this applies for Ilyana as well.  Also, Adept is pretty great on a Siege tome user, which means that he fulfills that niche better than she does.

Basically I don't see how she could possibly be better than Soren considering her better combat is not significant enough to compensate for her not being there for 60% of the game.  She might be better enough than Illyana to justify being higher than her.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Refa

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Refa said:

This is a weak point used to handwave away their availability, when really it gives them a significant advantage over Calill.  It doesn't matter how good she is if she joins in the last 40% of the game AKA literally being worse than Rolf for that time period

Availability is only an advantage if the character is doing significant things that others could not during that time. I don't really see Soren or Ilyana doing that. If I decide to use Calill instead of Ilyana, then that means I get to use Lethe/Mordecai/Muarim as filler until she joins, and they will perform better than the mages do. "Availability" is a way to give credit for a character simply for existing, and they don't deserve that.

I'm not seeing how Rolf is better than Calill during their shared availability (no 1-2 range, no siege tomes), and even if he were Calill is way better anyway due to the exact same reasons I just outlined. Rolf is a perfect example of how availability does not automatically make a character better (he'd be strictly better than he currently is if he joined in Chapter 18 with his 20/1 stats).

I don't really see "backup staff user" as a great niche at all. As I've already said, you don't need much healing in this game, and the rare times you need more you can use Reyson on your healer. Calill is better than Ilyana at pretty much everything except staff use: better stats and weapon ranks. Furthermore, making Ilyana get access to the actual useful staves (Restore and Physic) will hurt her siege tome access further. So you need to value backup staff use quite a bit more than me to tilt that competition.

[Interdimensional Observer]

While we're on the topic of mages, Tormod has Celerity. More move is always good, even if he lacks the full set of mobility tools, namely Canto and flight. Soren and Calill, I could see being above him, but Ilyana is probably the worst mage barring Bastian and should be beneath Tormod. Tormod ties Soren in Speed, but loses Magic by 4-5 points at an equal level. Ilyana has barely more Magic if any at all than Tormod, and like 3-4 less Speed.

His supports are Reyson, Calill, Sothe, and Devdan. The latter two are bad, but the former is likely to be fielded, and possibly near Tormod provided he isn't singing to fliers over flier terrain and gives +3 Atk. Calill is redundant, but could add another 1 point of Atk.

[-Cynthia-]

Might have to do with Tormod not having time to build staff rank? I think Soren>Calill>Tormod>Ilyana would be OK- I think there was a discussion on mage order earlier in the thread that's the reason for the current order.

[Augestein]

1 hour ago, Refa said:

Fair enough on it letting her a few more hits.  However, her durability at 20/1 is 30HP/7Def and it does not scale at the same rate as enemy attack does, so by Chapter 19, it's really only going to let her survive an extra hit max (enemies at this point in the game have around 21-24 attack)...which means you're fielding Gatrie and Mordecai (two subpar units) just so that Ilyana can take an extra hit.  I don't see that as being a better support option than Ike, who is force deployed, or Stefan, who is one of the better foot units in the game.  It's only better in a vacuum.

That's why I honestly mentioned the Seraph Robe, because the above support that I mentioned with 37 HP / 7 Def (12 with supports) will carry her for most of the game. Now I'm not a person that says that you HAVE to give it to her, but it's certainly more durability all around for Ilyana at crucial points, and if you're willing to give up a robe, you can have her be reasonably durable-- at least more durable than the other mages. Otherwise, you can do something like say... 

Zihark A x Mia / Mordecai which results in her having the same effect as Soren but with extra defense to boot. Like... Ilyana's supports crush Soren's. It's just that Soren's main support, Ike, is a guaranteed field, even if they aren't guaranteed a support necessarily. But honestly, if you're using Soren, he's probably going to at least get a B with Ike (that last support to A takes way too long to be reasonable unless you're planning on using Elincia to support with Ike or something.)

Stefan is a good foot unit, but the thing is that Stefan would rather have Mordecai than Soren tbh. Closer movement is nice, and Smite to move Stefan faster if Mordecai isn't transformed. 

28 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Availability is only an advantage if the character is doing significant things that others could not during that time. I don't really see Soren or Ilyana doing that. If I decide to use Calill instead of Ilyana, then that means I get to use Lethe/Mordecai/Muarim as filler until she joins, and they will perform better than the mages do. "Availability" is a way to give credit for a character simply for existing, and they don't deserve that.

I'm not seeing how Rolf is better than Calill during their shared availability (no 1-2 range, no siege tomes), and even if he were Calill is way better anyway due to the exact same reasons I just outlined. Rolf is a perfect example of how availability does not automatically make a character better (he'd be strictly better than he currently is if he joined in Chapter 18 with his 20/1 stats).

I don't really see "backup staff user" as a great niche at all. As I've already said, you don't need much healing in this game, and the rare times you need more you can use Reyson on your healer. Calill is better than Ilyana at pretty much everything except staff use: better stats and weapon ranks. Furthermore, making Ilyana get access to the actual useful staves (Restore and Physic) will hurt her siege tome access further. So you need to value backup staff use quite a bit more than me to tilt that competition.

Agreed. Soren is probably the worst non-Mia unit in the game before deployment screens. That's not to say that he's bad, but he's not exactly good either. Availability only works when the character does something awesome like say... Titania being able to 2 turn Chapter 4. No one else can do it. Ilyana and Soren are worse than Lethe and Mordecai especially if you're using them as filler until someone better joins. 

Also agreed with this. Rolf used would never be stronger than Calill by the time she joins. Even crazier is that Calill comes for free with those good stats. If she HAD a staff and the ranks of it like her other weapons, she'd honestly be pretty close to Pent levels of usefulness. 

And I'd argue that siege tomes aren't necessary either. Having Ilyana and Soren instead of Rhys and Mist can be easier overall because it means that you can drop both from the team. Most of the time, I don't even get Mist to be able to be promoted anyways. Starting at level 1 at Chapter 9 really sucks. And it's hard to get her EXP without pointlessly wasting turns or drowning her in BEXP-- of which, I don't care to do that. IMO heal staves are enough to get through the game for the most part, and the only other ones I really care about are physic. Restore barely comes into play. 

Also, I'm really not seeing how people are saying Ilyana is THAT slow. Like seriously, look at their averages. 

20/1 Soren speed = 17

20/1 Ilyana speed = 15

20/1 Tormod speed = 16 (and with luck, it's possible to be 17). 

Most of the time you end up around 20/5 by endgame, and Tormod would only have a speed advantage of 2 over her. He's not that much faster than her. Is he better than her? Perhaps, but then again, Ilyana probably isn't level 10 by the time you hit Chapter 15, because the idea of Ilyana only gaining 3 levels over the course of 7 chapters is ridiculous. 

[Refa]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Availability is only an advantage if the character is doing significant things that others could not during that time. I don't really see Soren or Ilyana doing that. If I decide to use Calill instead of Ilyana, then that means I get to use Lethe/Mordecai/Muarim as filler until she joins, and they will perform better than the mages do. "Availability" is a way to give credit for a character simply for existing, and they don't deserve that.

I'm not seeing how Rolf is better than Calill during their shared availability (no 1-2 range, no siege tomes), and even if he were Calill is way better anyway due to the exact same reasons I just outlined. Rolf is a perfect example of how availability does not automatically make a character better (he'd be strictly better than he currently is if he joined in Chapter 18 with his 20/1 stats).

I don't really see "backup staff user" as a great niche at all. As I've already said, you don't need much healing in this game, and the rare times you need more you can use Reyson on your healer. Calill is better than Ilyana at pretty much everything except staff use: better stats and weapon ranks. Furthermore, making Ilyana get access to the actual useful staves (Restore and Physic) will hurt her siege tome access further. So you need to value backup staff use quite a bit more than me to tilt that competition.

Availability is always an advantage unless the character is actively detrimental, especially in Path of Radiance.  Soren in particular is forced for a good deal of the early maps, so him being better makes clearing those maps easier.  For later maps, Soren/Ilyana can chip/kill enemies with high DEF/low RES at 1-2 range, which is fairly decent.  The fact that they can use the strongest tome at base (forged weapons) and the DEF/RES discrepancy means that they do a better job than other similarly leveled units.  Additionally, even if they have nothing to do in a turn, they can always shove.  It's kinda dumb how you're like "well, they're not your best units, ergo their contributions are useless".

That was hyperbole.  My point is that Calill contributes less than Rolf in the earlier chapters.  She's better regardless because she contributes significantly more in the chapters that she is available.  She DOES NOT contribute significantly more than Soren and debatably Ilyana after she joins, and doesn't contribute before.  Rolf would be better if he joined at Chapter 18 with his 20/1 stats because he's not going to be at 20/1 normally due to his poor combat parameters (unless you give him BEXP, of course).  If he reached those parameters through normal play, then he'd be better if he joined earlier.

Not sure what teams you use that wouldn't benefit from two healers.  If one of them isn't healing, then the other one can just attack.  It also helps considering your healer isn't going to be able to reach ALL of your allies at all times (even with Physic staves).  Calill is better than Ilyana when she joins, but it's not significant, which is the main point.  In what situation would Calill contribute significantly more than Ilyana?  I can think of several for Ilyana, and it's called before Calill joined.

58 minutes ago, Augestein said:

That's why I honestly mentioned the Seraph Robe, because the above support that I mentioned with 37 HP / 7 Def (12 with supports) will carry her for most of the game. Now I'm not a person that says that you HAVE to give it to her, but it's certainly more durability all around for Ilyana at crucial points, and if you're willing to give up a robe, you can have her be reasonably durable-- at least more durable than the other mages. Otherwise, you can do something like say... 

Zihark A x Mia / Mordecai which results in her having the same effect as Soren but with extra defense to boot. Like... Ilyana's supports crush Soren's. It's just that Soren's main support, Ike, is a guaranteed field, even if they aren't guaranteed a support necessarily. But honestly, if you're using Soren, he's probably going to at least get a B with Ike (that last support to A takes way too long to be reasonable unless you're planning on using Elincia to support with Ike or something.)

Stefan is a good foot unit, but the thing is that Stefan would rather have Mordecai than Soren tbh. Closer movement is nice, and Smite to move Stefan faster if Mordecai isn't transformed. 

Agreed. Soren is probably the worst non-Mia unit in the game before deployment screens. That's not to say that he's bad, but he's not exactly good either. Availability only works when the character does something awesome like say... Titania being able to 2 turn Chapter 4. No one else can do it. Ilyana and Soren are worse than Lethe and Mordecai especially if you're using them as filler until someone better joins. 

Also agreed with this. Rolf used would never be stronger than Calill by the time she joins. Even crazier is that Calill comes for free with those good stats. If she HAD a staff and the ranks of it like her other weapons, she'd honestly be pretty close to Pent levels of usefulness. 

Also, I'm really not seeing how people are saying Ilyana is THAT slow. Like seriously, look at their averages. 

20/1 Soren speed = 17

20/1 Ilyana speed = 15

20/1 Tormod speed = 16 (and with luck, it's possible to be 17). 

Most of the time you end up around 20/5 by endgame, and Tormod would only have a speed advantage of 2 over her. He's not that much faster than her. Is he better than her? Perhaps, but then again, Ilyana probably isn't level 10 by the time you hit Chapter 15, because the idea of Ilyana only gaining 3 levels over the course of 7 chapters is ridiculous. 

She'd probably be a lot better with Seraph Robe, yeah.  Also after looking at it some more, you're right about Ilyana having better supports; didn't really put much thought into who else she could support besides Gatrie/Mordecai.  One nitpick is that Stefan could just support both Soren and Mordecai, and a B support is good enough for Soren anyways.

Ilyana/Soren contribute (not significantly, but they kill things/shove) in the earlier chapters and aren't significantly worse (and are potentially better in some stats) when she is around.  Don't see how that isn't an advantage.  There's a reason that Erk/Lucius/Canas are all considered to be better than Pent nowadays, although admittedly all of them are better than Ilyana/Soren and building staff rank is easy in FE7.

At 20/2, Soren has +3Spd on her, and that advantage is only going to increase over time.  Considering Tormod is rated worse than her on this tier list, I don't really get what your point is.  Of course her speed is better than his, he's underleveled as fuck without a lot of training/BEXP.  My point was that she'd have a harder time ORKOing enemies that she didn't double, which Calill would be able to do.

Edited April 18, 2017 by Refa

[Zkirsche]

There really is no such thing as "stealing exp" as exp is only earnt through killing things and if Soren is killing things then it's hard to argue that he's not helping. If Soren/Ilyana are not ORKOing things and are only dealing chip damage then they aren't taking that much away from others either. So either they are useful and it doesn't matter and their availability helps, or they are not that great and then their availability doesn't really hurt them.

Remember to consider the possibility of speed bands when calculating averages. When BEXPing them Ilyana/Soren can get a bit more speed, best case Ilyana can have 18 speed at 20/7, one level after Calill (and will also have 8 strength then regardless of bands) though I don't think she'll be level 20/7 going into chapter 20 tbh. Most of this feels irrelevant though as noone will be doubling reliably with seige tomes anyway as they are too heavy. In general you'd use Reyson to get two shots out of them and at which point it is whoever has the most mag which is Soren or Calill. Soren is clearly the best thanks to Adept and good supports.

However siege tomes aren't really that useful being perfectly honest as most of the heavy hitters do more than enough damage to kill things quickly, the main point is that they provide good utility which noone below them brings (other than Rhys whose job is meaningless once Soren and co get promoted) and have good 1-2 range so they aren't too shabby in fights. Ilyana can be more aggressive thanks to shade but that doesn't really add to much when the paladins/laguz/fliers should be cleaning house pretty quickly.

I'd argue that there are quite a few opportunities for mages to shine pre-Calill. They can bolting Oliver and 2RKO Oliver provided they can double (Ilyana needs to be level 20/2 with some speed/strength band use), collect items in chapter 15, kill Ravens with effective magic on the boats, bolting the chapter 19 boss (2RKOing him with spirit dust) and provide supports for their team (although Ilyana support is nothing to write home about, but Zihark likes it so that he can get his own earth bonus and he doesn't have a lot of choice). Post-Calill there's what? Schaeffer who'll get 2RKO'd by all of them in chapter 22, Gromell in chapter 25 is the same and who's left? Ashnard? It's all the same. She just doesn't do that much and as a regular combat unit she'll only be just about as good as the other mages.

The argument for Calill> Ilyana/Soren seems to boil mostly down to Soren/Ilyana being a detriment pre-chapter 20 but I'd argue that Oliver/Chapter 19 more than make up for it. If being able to one/two turn a couple chapters is not a good use for the bountiful combat exp/BEXP then what is? Sure the fliers can do it in reasonable time too but tbh the fliers can still get the exp. Worst case you have to burn a speed band and an arms scroll. This is all ignoring physic/rescue/ward utility too.

The person of most interest to me is Tormod. He only needs about as much bexp as the other mages to do as well, if not better thanks to Mov in combat but interestingly his weapon rank will likely not be good enough to use Bolting before Calill shows up so that takes away from his usefulness. His stave use will be better too so it's worth thinking about. He might actually be better than Soren/Ilyana if one can justify throwing a few arms scrolls onto him.

Edit: I feel like Tormod would be incredible in a world without the top/high tiers but I don't know why we would give weight to such a scenario really. Even just a few pallys can clear most of the rabble and make it so that we won't need a mage to do front line fighting (not that Tormod can really sustain himself on the front line), which is what Tormod really has over Ilyana/Soren.

Edited April 18, 2017 by kirsche

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, kirsche said:

I'd argue that there are quite a few opportunities for mages to shine pre-Calill. They can bolting Oliver and 2RKO Oliver provided they can double (Ilyana needs to be level 20/2 with some speed/strength band use), collect items in chapter 15, kill Ravens with effective magic on the boats, bolting the chapter 19 boss (2RKOing him with spirit dust) and provide supports for their team (although Ilyana support is nothing to write home about, but Zihark likes it so that he can get his own earth bonus and he doesn't have a lot of choice). Post-Calill there's what? Schaeffer who'll get 2RKO'd by all of them in chapter 22, Gromell in chapter 25 is the same and who's left? Ashnard? It's all the same. She just doesn't do that much and as a regular combat unit she'll only be just about as good as the other mages.

Bold: I'm not really feeling it - you need 28 mag atk to 2RKO Oliver with Bolting, and doubling him with it is a rather dicey proposition. . . And even if you could, his sky high luck means there's a good chance that you miss at least once (he has 37 avoid before biorhythm).

Edited April 18, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Augestein]

8 hours ago, Refa said:

She'd probably be a lot better with Seraph Robe, yeah.  Also after looking at it some more, you're right about Ilyana having better supports; didn't really put much thought into who else she could support besides Gatrie/Mordecai.  One nitpick is that Stefan could just support both Soren and Mordecai, and a B support is good enough for Soren anyways.

Ilyana/Soren contribute (not significantly, but they kill things/shove) in the earlier chapters and aren't significantly worse (and are potentially better in some stats) when she is around.  Don't see how that isn't an advantage.  There's a reason that Erk/Lucius/Canas are all considered to be better than Pent nowadays, although admittedly all of them are better than Ilyana/Soren and building staff rank is easy in FE7.

At 20/2, Soren has +3Spd on her, and that advantage is only going to increase over time.  Considering Tormod is rated worse than her on this tier list, I don't really get what your point is.  Of course her speed is better than his, he's underleveled as fuck without a lot of training/BEXP.  My point was that she'd have a harder time ORKOing enemies that she didn't double, which Calill would be able to do.

True enough. B isn't bad, it's just that he might not get an A with anyone, and he doesn't have many choices. 

I disagree about them not being significantly worse. Titania has hand axes, so does Boyd, Oscar has Javelin's and so does Gatrie. The only person that he's really debatable to have the same level of usefulness is Ike and Mia. And in Ike's case, you trade durability for 1-2 range. Mia is about the only one I'd say he's better than. For Erk/Lucious/Canas being better than Pent, that's because all of them start out as pretty good units. The difference is that Soren and Ilyana start out as okay units and then become decent if you put the effort into them. And staff rank, while nice isn't that important overall because even with physic staves, it's not likely you'd get so many that you wouldn't have to move your healer. 

I was responding to other people that were talking about Tormod > Ilyana. As for Soren, I acknowledge that he's better than her. As for Ilyana versus Calill, my point there was that both are about even because of staves versus slightly better combat. 

[Zkirsche]

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Bold: I'm not really feeling it - you need 28 mag atk to 2RKO Oliver with Bolting, and doubling him with it is a rather dicey proposition. . . And even if you could, his sky high luck means there's a good chance that you miss at least once (he has 37 avoid before biorhythm).

Well let's look at the numbers:

Oliver lv 2 (nosferatu [d])

32 hp, 16 atk, 6 AS, 123 hit, 37 avo, 10 def, 20 res, 7 crit, 25 cev

So we need 10AS to double him.

Soren lvl 20/2 w/Bolting B Ike, Mage Band + Spirit Dust

36atk, 8AS, 118 Hit

Who else are we giving the spirit dust/mage band to really and would they put it to as good a use? We won't use more than one mage a playthrough as that's just silly. 81% displayed means 93% true, so a 0.5% chance of missing, but then you have to factor in Soren's adept and there's an even smaller chance of failure.

Ilyana lvl 20/2 w/Bolting B Mia 10*Archer+5*Knight Band

30Atk, 10AS (7 Str and 16 Spd), 125 Hit

Even greater chance of hitting! More competitive band usage but most of her levels will be BEXP anyway and there's actually two different spd/skl bands we could use and if Ilyana is 20/3 then she just needs 4 levels with a speed band and no levels with a strength band to get the same results (well technically she'll have 1 more hit!).

Although Reyson doesn't exist in chapter 17 so it'd have to be a 2 turn rip. The main problem might be reaching 20/2 by chapter 17 but people generally start promoting chapter 13 so assuming these slower growers are 20/2 by Chptaer 17-4 isn't a big deal imo, maybe they'd have to use a bit more BEXP than they should.

Edited April 18, 2017 by kirsche

[Dark Holy Elf]

 

On 2017-04-17 at 8:00 PM, Refa said:

Availability is always an advantage unless the character is actively detrimental, especially in Path of Radiance.  Soren in particular is forced for a good deal of the early maps, so him being better makes clearing those maps easier.  For later maps, Soren/Ilyana can chip/kill enemies with high DEF/low RES at 1-2 range, which is fairly decent.  The fact that they can use the strongest tome at base (forged weapons) and the DEF/RES discrepancy means that they do a better job than other similarly leveled units.  Additionally, even if they have nothing to do in a turn, they can always shove.  It's kinda dumb how you're like "well, they're not your best units, ergo their contributions are useless".

Their contributions may not be useless, but you have to compare what other units could do at the same time. You seem to want to automatically score units higher just for existing ("they can just shove") but that's not reasonable for gauging actual usefulness. The mages aren't even good at shoving since it's based off Build and theirs is some of the lowest!

I feel like you misunderstood my point with Rolf. First of all, I'd say him being 20/1 if used by Chapter 18 isn't that unreasonable, but if you'd like to quibble the number, that's fine. Let's say you think he hits 20/1 around Chapter 19 instead. (You can substitute "Chapter 20" if you wish, the number does not matter.) If Rolf joined at 20/1 in Chapter 19, he would be strictly more useful than he is now. (Please ignore anything to do with Shinon recruitment for sake of argument.)

This is because, in order to hit 20/1 in FE9 as it currently exists, he needs to take Exp. This will take the form of either bonus exp or combat exp, which could have gone to someone else. In the case of combat exp, anyone else you might have used in Chapter 9-19 would have better combat than Rolf. If the choice is between Real Rolf and Prepromo Rolf, you should go with Prepromo Rolf every time. Consider:

-Player A uses Real Rolf. He gives Rolf exp throughout the game, and continues to use Rolf until endgame.
-Player B uses Prepromo Rolf. In the chapters before Prepromo Rolf joins, she uses someone else instead as a filler unit. Upon Prepromo Rolf's join, she benches this filler unit for Rolf, and uses Rolf until endgame.

Player B has an easier time with the game, indisputably. From Chapter 9-19 or so, Player A is using Real Rolf and Player B is using Lethe/Mordecai/an extra healer/literally anyone who isn't Rolf. Furthermore, this filler unit does not need to gain as much combat exp as Real Rolf, allowing Player B to level other units slightly more (letting the filler unit get slightly underlevelled has little drawback). From Chapter 19-onwards, Player A at best pulls even with Player B. At no point is Player A ever better off.

Now, these arguments obviously do not apply as strongly to Mages vs. Calill, and I readily concede that. For one thing, unpromoted Soren and Ilyana, while mediocre, are better than Rolf. For another, Soren does have a time where he literally is just competing with an empty slot, so you can choose to value his contributions there as actually unique (I generally do not choose to do this, but I acknowledge that it's a valid thing to do). Ilyana also has a similar but much shorter time interval of the same. And finally, unlike Real Rolf vs Prepromo Rolf, there are actually arguments for why a promoted Mage may be more useful than Calill (staves, Soren's Adept and mag).

My point is merely that it isn't enough to say "but availability!" If you want to show that Soren/Ilyana have value before Calill's join, you have to establish that they do, in fact, contribute in a meaningful way that could not be replicated by literally anyone else (e.g. shove, chip damage, and mediocre combat). Bringing up, say, their utility at defeating Oliver and Homasa is a good point, for instance, and one I hadn't really considered before (although I will say those numbers against Oliver don't really impress me; that's a heck of a lot of RNG-subject investment for a somewhat questionable reward when the fliers work very well for quick clearly already). Things like that are valid. Availability as a buzzword, not so much.

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/18/2017 at 11:02 AM, kirsche said:

Well let's look at the numbers:

Oliver lv 2 (nosferatu [d])

32 hp, 16 atk, 6 AS, 123 hit, 37 avo, 10 def, 20 res, 7 crit, 25 cev

So we need 10AS to double him.

Soren lvl 20/2 w/Bolting B Ike, Mage Band + Spirit Dust

36atk, 8AS, 118 Hit

Who else are we giving the spirit dust/mage band to really and would they put it to as good a use? We won't use more than one mage a playthrough as that's just silly. 81% displayed means 93% true, so a 0.5% chance of missing, but then you have to factor in Soren's adept and there's an even smaller chance of failure.

Ilyana lvl 20/2 w/Bolting B Mia 10*Archer+5*Knight Band

30Atk, 10AS (7 Str and 16 Spd), 125 Hit

Even greater chance of hitting! More competitive band usage but most of her levels will be BEXP anyway and there's actually two different spd/skl bands we could use and if Ilyana is 20/3 then she just needs 4 levels with a speed band and no levels with a strength band to get the same results (well technically she'll have 1 more hit!).

Although Reyson doesn't exist in chapter 17 so it'd have to be a 2 turn rip. The main problem might be reaching 20/2 by chapter 17 but people generally start promoting chapter 13 so assuming these slower growers are 20/2 by Chptaer 17-4 isn't a big deal imo, maybe they'd have to use a bit more BEXP than they should.

I find the Mia support... not very useful, to say the least. Well, aside from that, I honestly consider it wasteful to blow anywhere from 2 to 4 Bolting shots on someone who honestly is a joke.

[Zkirsche]

41 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

I find the Mia support... not very useful, to say the least. Well, aside from that, I honestly consider it wasteful to blow anywhere from 2 to 4 Bolting shots on someone who honestly is a joke.

The Mia supprot gives Ilyana 10 extra hit making it very reliable. Mia doesn't have many options either nor is it difficult to have then placed near each other at the start of the chapter.

If we don't have any fliers killing Oliver is not a joke, but if we have fliers everyone is a joke anyway. Soren and Ilyana can do things only two other units can do, thus they are valuable in that sense.

@Dark Holy Elf: I think you are greatly overestimating the value of exp in this game. People will become killing machines regardless of if one extra unit comes along tbh. There aren't enough routs early on to necessitate worry over killing everyone quickly. If Marcia/Kieran/Oscar kill everyone in 3 turns regardless of if Soren/Ilyana get exp or not then what's the problem? Comparing them with Rofl is a bit of a fale equivalency considering Soren/Ilyana are actually useful.

Quote

although I will say those numbers against Oliver don't really impress me; that's a heck of a lot of RNG-subject investment for a somewhat questionable reward when the fliers work very well for quick clearly already

<0.5% is not a very RNG dependent number. It could be even better really if we spare a secret book which are all virtually useless as well. Soren/Ilyana also help with chapter 15 if we have no fliers, being able to quickly reach Muarim with effective weapons.

Edited April 20, 2017 by kirsche