FE9 Tier list v3

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, kirsche said:

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.

Still, it feels like a foolish waste of long range magic, considering Oliver's a complete joke stat wise - pretty much any physical unit can one-round him.

[Interdimensional Observer]

...Or if we're that desperate, we can leave Tibarn to do it. Rhys suffers too much AS loss from Nosferatu to even think of tanking with it, and it sells for dirt.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Oh... just have seen this.

FE9 is a bit unspectular regarding to tierlist because it's pretty much FE4 likish where mounted units are the best.

It's a been a while since I have played 9 and I'm not as acknowledged as in 10 so I can't argue that much.

The only thing really mentionable for me is seeing Boyd > Ike.
Ike has literally no weakness. He will become a physical and also a magical tank.
Boyd beats Ike only having access to 1-2 weapons early on, but I find Boyd as axe user unspectacular later on when you have your paladins and Jill.
Ike is the best foot unit in the game without question.

Also seeing Janaff and Ulkie in different tiers confuses me a bit. I don't remember that they were so different.
 

[Zkirsche]

13 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

Still, it feels like a foolish waste of long range magic, considering Oliver's a complete joke stat wise - pretty much any physical unit can one-round him.

Being fast is not foolish IMO it's one of the main aims.

1 hour ago, Alisa Reinford said:

The only thing really mentionable for me is seeing Boyd > Ike.
Ike has literally no weakness. He will become a physical and also a magical tank.
Boyd beats Ike only having access to 1-2 weapons early on, but I find Boyd as axe user unspectacular later on when you have your paladins and Jill.
Ike is the best foot unit in the game without question.

Also seeing Janaff and Ulkie in different tiers confuses me a bit. I don't remember that they were so different.
 

Don't worry about being "acknowledged" or whatever, we ain't that elitist anymore (we used to be though rip).

The problem with Ike is that he's locked onto a bad weapon class (swords) which have no 2 range, not just early on but for effectively the whole game (Ragnell comes so late it almost doesn't matter), this is gonna leave a trail of enemies on the EP that can't be killed. Admittedly he's very hard to kill, but I believe he has problems ORKOing early-mid game  whereas once Boyd starts doubling it's all over. He may be more durable than Boyd but generally Boyd's tanky enough to get by thanks to his high hp stat. I can get numbers later regarding ORKOing and what not but right now I'm busy so I'll give you the sketch of the argument. 

[Shadow Mir]

50 minutes ago, kirsche said:

Being fast is not foolish IMO it's one of the main aims.

Whilst being fast might be one of the list's main aims, there's no way in the seven hells I'd give something as foolish as squandering the only Bolting you can feasibly get a free pass just because it's fast.

[Zkirsche]

What better use is there for bolting other than killing bosses on killboss/seize chapters?

[Refa]

22 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

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.

Fair enough.

I don't get your EXP argument.  It's not a precious resource in FE9, there are no tight benchmarks that you need to meet, Rolf taking some experience does not actually make the game harder for me.  I agree that Rolf would be better if he joined later, because Rolf doesn't really contribute to the team before then.

BTW, you mentioned using filler units.  You could very easily just use Illyana as a filler unit (Elthunder chip is pretty decent early on, and can help your other combat units score ORKOes), and bench her later on.  Soren's bases are relatively mediocre, so I probably wouldn't deploy him outside of his forced chapters if I wasn't using him.  That is something she has over Calill as well.

Yeah, I get you.  My bad.  Regarding what they do...There's no cost to using either until Chapter 9, so they already have a decent period of time to get EXP.  They both have above average combat VS cavaliers, knights, felines, and crows, but nothing particularly unique until the desert chapter.  Here they have unimpeded move, which is better than literally any of your other units than fliers (thieves have unimpeded move as well, but they're busy).  Also, it's around this time that they become self sufficient, in that you don't need to go out of your way to feed them kills (especially if you early promote them).  People have mentioned their later contributions as well, so there's not really much more for me to say on that front.  The big thing here is that Calill doesn't really do anything that they can't do, and I don't think you yourself have mentioned otherwise.

[-Cynthia-]

8 hours ago, Alisa Reinford said:

The only thing really mentionable for me is seeing Boyd > Ike.
Ike has literally no weakness. He will become a physical and also a magical tank.
Boyd beats Ike only having access to 1-2 weapons early on, but I find Boyd as axe user unspectacular later on when you have your paladins and Jill.
Ike is the best foot unit in the game without question.

'Early on' is more like every chapter except the last 2- there is the Sonic Sword but Ike's Mag generally isn't good enough to ORKO with it and it's contested(Tanith can use it to ORKO Wyverns for instance)

Also seeing Janaff and Ulkie in different tiers confuses me a bit. I don't remember that they were so different.

Janaff transforming turn 1 makes him usable in combat, he doubles stuff and flies at least but lacks the Str to ORKO. Ulki needs the Demi Band which he has to compete with Muarim (and later Ranulf) with and with the Demi Band his stats are bad, can't even double most things. Ulki's combat even if you wait for him to transform/use a Laguz Stone is still only ok.

Edited April 21, 2017 by -Cynthia-

[Snowy_One]

Hey Cynthia. This is something that's bothered me for a while now and I was hoping that it could be discussed. I'm not sure how, exactly, it should be worded but I think two things should be added to the tier list rules, if not part of the 'main' rules than at least as 'guidelines'.

1) A character, barring extremely rare/specific situations, will never hurt the team by being deployed/used/using weapons/gaining EXP/etc. While the value of their actions may be low and potentially non-existant, they are never in the negative.

2) While considering the entire team is important, it should never be assumed that the remainder of the team is 'optimal'. Instead assume that any deployment/team slot not mentioned is filled by a non-descript unit of average value.

My reasoning.

1) The 'they take EXP away from the best units' argument is a real and constant problem along with the notion that exceptionally weak units actively hurt the team by being deployed. While it's nice to assume on a tier list that all units are expected to survive, the fact is that the *worst* a unit can do is simply stand around and be impaled by the enemy and any action greater than that will, presumably, hold a higher value. While a unit like Nephenee or Ulki may not contribute as much as Oscar, when it comes to ranking Ulki we shouldn't be punishing Ulki because Oscar is overpowered. If all Ulki can do is kill some enemies that don't matter in the grand scheme his contribution is negligible, but if it's NEGATIVE should never even really be discussed (and hit with an automatic 'no') unless it's doing something like spawning extra enemies by deploying him or whatever.

 

2)  Related to the issue of ranking 'sub-optimal' units. Namely that people seem to assume that, on a team for debating tiers, pretty much every unit not mentioned will be of the 'best' quality. This seems to be a bit unfairly weighted in favor of the high-tier units as anyone average or lower has to show that they're 'worth' deploying and what-not.

 

Maybe I'm just being a little bit aggressive/sleep deprived/paranoid and the more regular debaters know how not to fall into traps like that, but then maybe having it set in stone as an actual rule/guideline might help nip any debate involving that sort of thing in the bud.

[-Cynthia-]

1.  On the flip side, I think some people overrate availability in cases where 'well at least the character exists and does something' even if that something can be duplicated by a number of other units who could also be put in that deployment slot. Availability isn't much of an advantage if the unit doesn't add much value over that timeframe.

2. Regarding team composition, generally I go with: 'Higher tier units are more likely to be deployed than lower tier units, but no unit will always be assumed to be used outside of forced deployment situations'. I don't think 'non-descript units of average value' is very meaningful, one isn't even talking about actual units the game at that point. 

[Snowy_One]

1) Of course. If it were the tier list would be little more than join orders. However, the notion that deploying a unit would hurt the team, barring extremely rare/specific situations, is very wrong. Their contributions may be small, possibly to the point of being negligible, but never negative.

2) Sure, but I pick that team because it seems people are always willing to assume that, like when discussing the laguz/archers/whatever, the remaining team is nothing more than fliers/paladins and compare them to that. Of course they're gonna suck in comparison to the top tier, because they're not the top tier. It's like debating the various strengths of mid-tier pokemon and having someone talk about how useless they are compared to a team of legendaries. 

[Zkirsche]

When it comes to 1, I think it might just be poor wording on your part and the message is fine, but when it comes to exp, especially BEXP then one's prescence CAN be a negative. E.g. pouring BEXP into someone to make them usable. Also imagine deploying rofl in a rout chapter, any enemies that attack rofl in the enemy phase will have to be dealt with and thus if he was any other unit we might complete the chapter faster. Thus his deployment is costing us turns and these characters should be punished accordingly.

On the topic of availability, Elincia may be worth moving into lower mid with Haar and co thanks to reasonably unique rescue utility. Her combat is pretty unsalvageable though.

Edited April 23, 2017 by kirsche

[Shadow Mir]

On 4/21/2017 at 1:06 PM, kirsche said:

What better use is there for bolting other than killing bosses on killboss/seize chapters?

Personally, I kinda like using it to shut down other long-rangers. Anyway, I called you out on it because you were advocating using it on Oliver, who's practically no threat whatsoever.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Levant Mir Celestia

[Zkirsche]

Noone is any "threat" whatsoever but killing people fast is cool and Soren/Ilyana give us another option with Bolting. In a team without fliers but with pallys it may be better to use Bolting on Oliver rather than on Homusa in chapter 19. Other long rangers are not a problem due to low hit rates+low damage.

Edited April 23, 2017 by kirsche

[Snowy_One]

Firstly, if you're going to pour BEXP into a unit, it's a positive (otherwise said BEXP would just sit there). If a resource isn't utilized it may as well not exist. Now, a unit may be so low-leveled/weak that the BEXP can't close the gap, but I don't see how that's worse than not using the BEXP at all, which would be a neutral outcome. Also, a situation in which deploying a unit like Rolf would result in a route chapter taking a turn or two longer over having no unit would be extremely situational at best.

[Shadow Mir]

11 hours ago, kirsche said:

Noone is any "threat" whatsoever but killing people fast is cool and Soren/Ilyana give us anotehr option with Bolting. In a team without fliers but with pallys it may be better to use Bolting on Oliver rather than on Homusa in chapter 19. Other long rangers are not a problem due to low hit rates+low damage.

Killing people fast is cool, but assuming I'd want to use it for such, I'd want to save Bolting for bosses that are actually - le gaspe - a threat, which Oliver fails at being anywhere near, with an attack score comparable to a boss well before then. Also, other long rangers can be quite an annoyance if they decide to pick on the right (or wrong, depending on your interpretation) people (e.g. Boyd).

[Zkirsche]

Please name and explain bosses which are threats worthy of bolting, to the point where the safety of the team is more important than saving turns.

Firstly, if you're going to pour BEXP into a unit, it's a positive (otherwise said BEXP would just sit there). If a resource isn't utilized it may as well not exist. Now, a unit may be so low-leveled/weak that the BEXP can't close the gap, but I don't see how that's worse than not using the BEXP at all, which would be a neutral outcome. Also, a situation in which deploying a unit like Rolf would result in a route chapter taking a turn or two longer over having no unit would be extremely situational at best.

If the amount of BEXP we need to pour into a unit so that they are not actually hindering us by forcing us to protect them/slowing us down exceeds the amount of bexp we have spare, then we would need to take BEXP from other units. I'm not arguing that we do not utilise BEXP I am arguing that other units like the BEXP and use it better, thus moving the BEXP to people like Rofl hurts the team, just like giving stat boosters to low tiers hurts the team overall.

Leaving enemies behind on the enemy phase can also clog up choke points and slow other units down regardless of if it's a rout or not, it's just that routs really highlight the importance of EP killing the most. If we complete a map slower with a unit than we would otherwise then clearly that unit is a negative if we assume deployment, and can only have total use of 0 by not deploying them

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, kirsche said:

Please name and explain bosses which are threats worthy of bolting, to the point where the safety of the team is more important than saving turns.

How about Bertram, who can take a while to break thanks to his Runesword? Or Heddwyn, who uses Bolting himself?

[Jedi]

32 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

How about Bertram, who can take a while to break thanks to his Runesword? Or Heddwyn, who uses Bolting himself?

Both of which are jokes by the time you get to them.

[Zkirsche]

43 minutes ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

How about Bertram, who can take a while to break thanks to his Runesword? Or Heddwyn, who uses Bolting himself?

1) We have access to both Blizzard and Meteor by these guys so saving Bolting seems a bit unnecessary.

2) For Bertram 9 Mov units will get to him and kill him in at most 2 rounds (so 1 turn) before Soren/Ilyana will even get in range.

3) We're not going to be able to ORKO or even 2RKO 40HP, 17AS, 24 Res Heddwyn with siege tomes. He's equally as rubbish physically as Oliver is so I'm not sure why using Bolting on Oliver is bad but on Heddwyn is good. Also good luck positioning your mages in a spot where they won't die to the 1000 laguz this chapter and where they can shoot Heddwyn BEFORE other units get to him.

Edited April 23, 2017 by kirsche

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, kirsche said:

1) We have access to both Blizzard and Meteor by these guys so saving Bolting seems a bit unnecessary.

2) For Bertram 9 Mov units will get to him and kill him in at most 2 rounds (so 1 turn) before Soren/Ilyana will even get in range.

3) We're not going to be able to ORKO or even 2RKO 40HP, 17AS, 24 Res Heddwyn with siege tomes. He's equally as rubbish physically as Oliver is so I'm not sure why using Bolting on Oliver is bad but on Heddwyn is good. Also good luck positioning your mages in a spot where they won't die to the 1000 laguz this chapter and where they can shoot Heddwyn BEFORE other units get to him.

1) Fair enough.

2) How so? Because he has 49/25 Hp/Defence, and among 9 move units, only Marcia can expect to double him and his 22 AS. He also has 34 atk with the Runesword, and most of the mounted units have poor resistance. You do the math.

3) He's also guarded by an immobile (or so I assume - it wasn't until SD where immobile enemies were actually acknowledged) Red Dragon. (That said, zapping the Dragon guarding him might be the better idea)

[Interdimensional Observer]

This will be a little messy.

I don't see an easy clear on Bertram. Our best options are: Marcia/Tanith with Brave Lance, Astrid with the Knight Ward speed growth boost for doubling (but can she get the B bows for the Brave?), any other Pally plus the Knight Ward and some Speedwings, or Nephenee or an SM with a Brave (Stefan is probably the easiest). The Savior scroll could be used to ferry one of those unmounted boss slayers, but the user of the scroll might want to carry Ike instead.

Bertram has 125 hit with the Runesword, Tanith or Oscar with the other's Earth support could possibly get him to drop to sub 50, and a miss would be a tremendous help.

Even if my ruminations are a little off, a siege shot (or two with Reyson) would clearly help. Ideally after the first mounted hit for a potential kill with the second on their first blow. 24 Mag 20/10 Soren + Meteor = 35 atk vs. 19 Res. So 16 damage. At two shots and we get him down to 17 HP- which is still too much for one Silver Lance 20 Str 20/10 (35 atk) Oscar to kill. Max Strength (26) plus WTA (if you get it vs. the Runesword) will just do it though. Bolting's extra 2 mt (and Dusts, Drops, and forges) would come in handy here. And what are we using Hammerne on anyway?

Edited April 24, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer

[Refa]

5 hours ago, Levant Mir Celestia said:

2) How so? Because he has 49/25 Hp/Defence, and among 9 move units, only Marcia can expect to double him and his 22 AS. He also has 34 atk with the Runesword, and most of the mounted units have poor resistance. You do the math.

Jill has a 27Spd cap.  Just give her a Speedwings or two/rig some levels (turns out there's no better candidate than the best combat unit in the game).

EDIT Looked into things more and she probably isn't doing that much damage to him even with forged silvers (if he hits her anyways, I don't know what his hit rates are or if Rune Sword follows the weapon triangle).  I can see siege tomes being useful, although like other people said, there are other siege tomes by that point anyways.

EDIT 2 Actually, if you position her in front of him and counter on enemy phase, it should be all right.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Refa
I was more right than I thought

[Zkirsche]

If Soren is 20/10, Oscar is going to be like 20/20. Let's look at the stats of the big 4, assuming 20/15 as these guys are our real front liners so we're focusing resources into them (remember we only need one of them to be this buff - not all 4). I'm going to skip over hit because lolhit.

lv 20/15 Oscar w/Forged Silver lance: A Kieran, B Tanith

46 HP, 42Atk, 102 Avo (!), 12 Res

Thanks to WTA, that's 18 damage per round with the silver lance, so 36 in a turn. We can then kill Bertram in the player phase of the next turn with Oscar and seize with rescue dropped Ike. He faces like 12% true and would only face 2 attacks ideally. Let's say the 22~% chance of him hitting once happens (reasonable). He'll heal 10 damage and we only have 7 to spare. Thus we need 3 damage via siege tomes. Blizzard will do fine.

Of course if you give Oscar an energy drop he won't have to worry at all. (He's a very good recipient for it), and if Oscar has A Ike instead his avo will go up by 8 more points, leaving Bertram with a 5% true chance of hitting. OH and if Oscar has 10 levels with a Knight ward (note he's had 22 levels total by this point) he doubles Bertram and then Bertram dies in one turn. Heck 20/12 Oscar with 15 KW level ups doubles Bertram and kill kill him in one turn.

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

44 Atk, 28AS, 83 Avo, 17 Res

If Bertram hits Marcia twice, he'll heal 16 damage. She deals 20 damage per hit, so 80 damage total. Bertram dies in one turn yet again. 20/12 Marcia has the same atk as 20/15 Oscar and so will still kill Bertram in 2 rounds.

lv 20/15 Jill w/ Forged Silver Axe: A Mist, B Haar

44 Atk, 23 AS, 75 Avo, 13 Res

Uh-Oh. Quite mediocre for this without any resources (namely a speedwing and generous speed band usage). Assuming these resources aren't given to our main unit for some reason, she deals 18 damage a round and faces two hits at 22 damage each. Over three attacks she'll deal 56 damage and he'll heal 22 damage so we need some way of dealing with the remaining 15 damage. Bertram has 19 Res so we need 35 Atk. 20/7 Soren with a spirit dust accomplishes this fine with Meteor. 20/7 Ilyana with B Mia and a spirit dust can only do it with Bolting, I'll give you that. But wait! I only assumed at most 4 uses of Bolting on Oliver. Happy days. Of course Ilyana/Soren can do it fine with Blizzard if we use Reyson.

I still think we should have given Jill those resources though as it makes her unstoppable all game. If she doubles Bertram she'll be able to 2RKO.

lv 20/15 Kieran w/Forged Silver Axe, A Oscar, B Marcia

46 Atk, 26 AS, 86 Avo, 12 Res

Giving Kieran the Knight ward for the +2 res and the +3 speed. If he's our main unit and none of the above are then this is fine (the KW  should always go to whoever is fighting Bertram anyway). Anyway, 20 damage per hit, four hits a turn, low chance of not finishing Bertram in 2 rounds. Even if Kieran can't double, Bertram can only heal 22 damage and Kieran does 60 damage over 3 atatcks. This is more than enough damage for Soren/Ilyana to use Meteor (or Blizzard in Soren's case).

tl;dr: Oscar and Marcia have no problems with Bertram without Bolting, and neither do Jill/Kieran so long as you don't starve them of resources.

Edit: Also w.r.t the dragons in Chapter 28, any combination of two of the above will take them out. The amount of damage only one of them will deal is not going to be enough for the mages to KO them afterwards (although again getting them to attack them safely is going to be a pain).

Edited April 24, 2017 by kirsche

[Shadow Mir]

38 minutes ago, kirsche said:

If Soren is 20/10, Oscar is going to be like 20/20. Let's look at the stats of the big 4, assuming 20/15 as these guys are our real front liners so we're focusing resources into them (remember we only need one of them to be this buff - not all 4). I'm going to skip over hit because lolhit.

lv 20/15 Oscar w/Forged Silver lance: A Kieran, B Tanith

46 HP, 42Atk, 102 Avo (!), 12 Res

Thanks to WTA, that's 18 damage per round with the silver lance, so 36 in a turn. We can then kill Bertram in the player phase of the next turn with Oscar and seize with rescue dropped Ike. He faces like 12% true and would only face 2 attacks ideally. Let's say the 22~% chance of him hitting once happens (reasonable). He'll heal 10 damage and we only have 7 to spare. Thus we need 3 damage via siege tomes. Blizzard will do fine.

Of course if you give Oscar an energy drop he won't have to worry at all. (He's a very good recipient for it), and if Oscar has A Ike instead his avo will go up by 8 more points, leaving Bertram with a 5% true chance of hitting. OH and if Oscar has 10 levels with a Knight ward (note he's had 22 levels total by this point) he doubles Bertram and then Bertram dies in one turn. Heck 20/12 Oscar with 15 KW level ups doubles Bertram and kill kill him in one turn.

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

44 Atk, 28AS, 83 Avo, 17 Res

If Bertram hits Marcia twice, he'll heal 16 damage. She deals 20 damage per hit, so 80 damage total. Bertram dies in one turn yet again. 20/12 Marcia has the same atk as 20/15 Oscar and so will still kill Bertram in 2 rounds.

lv 20/15 Jill w/ Forged Silver Axe: A Mist, B Haar

44 Atk, 23 AS, 75 Avo, 13 Res

Uh-Oh. Quite mediocre for this without any resources (namely a speedwing and generous speed band usage). Assuming these resources aren't given to our main unit for some reason, she deals 18 damage a round and faces two hits at 22 damage each. Over three attacks she'll deal 56 damage and he'll heal 22 damage so we need some way of dealing with the remaining 15 damage. Bertram has 19 Res so we need 35 Atk. 20/7 Soren with a spirit dust accomplishes this fine with Meteor. 20/7 Ilyana with B Mia and a spirit dust can only do it with Bolting, I'll give you that. But wait! I only assumed at most 4 uses of Bolting on Oliver. Happy days. Of course Ilyana/Soren can do it fine with Blizzard if we use Reyson.

I still think we should have given Jill those resources though as it makes her unstoppable all game. If she doubles Bertram she'll be able to 2RKO.

lv 20/15 Kieran w/Forged Silver Axe, A Oscar, B Marcia

46 Atk, 26 AS, 86 Avo, 12 Res

Giving Kieran the Knight ward for the +2 res and the +3 speed. If he's our main unit and none of the above are then this is fine (the KW  should always go to whoever is fighting Bertram anyway). Anyway, 20 damage per hit, four hits a turn, low chance of not finishing Bertram in 2 rounds. Even if Kieran can't double, Bertram can only heal 22 damage and Kieran does 60 damage over 3 atatcks. This is more than enough damage for Soren/Ilyana to use Meteor (or Blizzard in Soren's case).

tl;dr: Oscar and Marcia have no problems with Bertram without Bolting, and neither do Jill/Kieran so long as you don't starve them of resources.

Edit: Also w.r.t the dragons in Chapter 28, any combination of two of the above will take them out. The amount of damage only one of them will deal is not going to be enough for the mages to KO them afterwards (although again getting them to attack them safely is going to be a pain).

Erm, yeah... The Runesword isn't affected by the weapon triangle, as are the magic weapons in general. And personally, I think A axes would be unreasonable to assume for Jill at this point.