ITT I rank the characters

[Progenitus]

Saleh

Saleh is unfortunately no Pent, but he's still a decent character on Eir route.

Being 20/1 at ch 12 when the rest of the team is going to be liek level 15 means Saleh's stats will stand out pretty well. 8 def is not that good, but 30 HP/1-2 range means he can manage. But 16 pow/14 spd is nice. He'll be outspeeding most anyone not a swordsman/peg, with enough att to 2HKO liek anything. Basically, he's Innes that joins slightly later, but has staves and 1-2 range, which is a winning trade, as it lets him stay relevant longer. Of course his durability kinda sucks so he can't 1-range often, but he has the option.

Again, like Innes, he’s hurt by the route split. However he’s not hurt *as* much, as he only loses 3 chapters of availability when Innes loses 5, and his offensive stats + C staves is still usable, although nothing impressive.

As for supports, he has +3 Gerik, and that’s about it (unless you want to count +3 Myrrh or Ewan), and thunder x wind gives half bonuses to att/def/avo, so that’s not particularly useful anyway.

Again, he’s like Innes, being a decent prepromo on Eir route, loses steam around the time your 1st tiers promote but still manages to be usable. On Eph route he’s okay but you shouldn’t use him unless you really want to.

Eir route: 7.5/10

Eph route: 5/10

[Colonel M]

Random note - Assassin does help Marisa with CEXP; especially when Silencer procs.

[Progenitus]

Ewan

And like with Amelia, IS didn't learn anything from Sophia.

He actually joins with WORSE stats than Amelia despite joining several chapters later (he loses every base except speed and res). So the whole deal with Amelia getting one rounded by everything and doing terribad damage, Ewan is getting one rounded by even more things and…

Well, here being a mage actually helps. He can attack at 1-2 range with better att/pow than Amelia, so it’s still slightly easier to feed him kills, as Amelia risks whiffing and getting pwned on the counterattack. However, even after he gets out of trainee stage, his base durability is only marginally better than what Lute and Artur had when they joined about 10 chapters ago, so he still dies when looked at funny, and his offense is way behind the rest of the team.

And like Amelia, he doesn’t even pay off in the end. Even if he’s at equal levels with Lute, he has a few points in HP/skl/lck/res (lol) while Lute wins mag. Even against Artur, he has a 10+ lck lead, but that’s about it. Again, this does not even come close to justifying how you have to bust ass to get Ewan up to the same level as them. His supports are even inferior to theirs (everyone on his list is +3, but the only viable ones are Tethys and Saleh, as the others are Dozla/Amelia/Ross).

Promotion: mage -> mage knight. Anima is the best magic type. I suppose shaman -> summoner could work, but his phantoms are actually weaker than Knoll’s, so…

The trainees were an interesting idea. However they were very poorly implemented. They join vastly underleveled (except Ross) and when trained, are arguably worse than the rest of the team anyway.

1.5/10

[Progenitus]

Random note - Assassin does help Marisa with CEXP; especially when Silencer procs.

Forgot about that. I think this does make Assassin better for her.

[Progenitus]

oh snap forgot about this topic

i'll try to update it soon as I'm almost done anyway

[Irony]

Trainees are not THAT bad- and Gerik deserves a higher score. Gerik= God, Seth= A fake God who is nowhere near as good. Gerik capped 5/7 stats as a HERO, it was incredible. NO one could TAKE any HP off him (Excluding poision claw), whereas Seth can easily take damage and die. And Trainees- Yes, they need grinding, but once you train them, they are quite good- better then other units I can compare them to.

Stat Comparing: Seth, Gerik, Ross, Ewan and Amelia.

Gerik: Hero

HP: 60, Strength: 25, Skill: 30, Speed: 26, Luck: 19, Defence: 25, Resistance: 15

Amelia: General

HP: 54, Strength: 27, Skill: 22, Speed: 25, Luck: 25, Defence: 25, Resistance: 11

Ewan: Druid

HP: 44, Magic: 20, Skill: 23, Speed: 24, Luck: 29, Defence:11, Resistance: 19

Ross: Beserker

HP: 52, Strength: 28, Skill: 24, Speed: 21, Luck: 28, Defence: 17, Resistance: 13

Seth: Paladin

HP: 47, Strength: 22, Skill: 22, Speed: 19, Luck: 18, Defence: 19, Resistance: 11

Compare Amelia's and Seth's stats, and tell me which one is better. I only used 1 speedwing on Amelia, and nothing on Seth. Gerik had nothing used on him, Ewan had only one energy wing, and Ross had nothing added onto him.

EDIT:

They are all Lvl 20 promoted, so DON'T SAY THAT ONE IS A HIGHER LVL THEN ANOTHER

Edited October 14, 2012 by GoldenEmblem7

[Vicious Sal]

Oh god here we go again.

[Terrador]

A load of hooey

Oh, man. I lol'd.

[Lord Raven]

Not true, by simply ignoring the comment or calmly explaining the current conventions of our part of the fandom, it's not a "here we go again" it's more of an "education time" or something. idk. Basically I hope no one attempts to tear this guy apart... and I wish one day someone can write a calmly worded essay about why people like him aren't entirely in the right given the conventions of our fandom, various definitions of "good" and etc.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Lord Raven

[ZemZem]

Gerik= God, Seth= A fake God who is nowhere near as good.

I don't recall Gerik ever being able to solo the entirety of FE8.

Your entire post comprised of personal experience. That's not how it works. ;/

Edited October 14, 2012 by ZM456

[Just call me AL]

Not true, by simply ignoring the comment or calmly explaining the current conventions of our part of the fandom, it's not a "here we go again" it's more of an "education time" or something. idk. Basically I hope no one attempts to tear this guy apart... and I wish one day someone can write a calmly worded essay about why people like him aren't entirely in the right given the conventions of our fandom, various definitions of "good" and etc.

The problem with that, however, is that even with calm wording, there's always a chance that an essay like the one you describe will be taken the wrong way. Whether some among those you mention have a mindset along the lines of "whoever is good in an FE game is a person's own opinion. No one can say otherwise, and those that try to do so are self-righteous jerks," or just simply won't get what the person who is trying to set them straight is trying to say and repeatedly use personal experience to justify their views, is another story entirely.

Now that I think about it, I think Naglfar did write something similar. But, it was during a discussion between some of our members (namely Dark Sage, arvilino, Anouleth, and dondon), and some tropers who often edit a page based around Gamebreakers in an FE game. And as such, I don't think a large number of people would read what Naglfar wrote, given TV Tropes's reputation.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Little Al

[Shin]

Trainees are not THAT bad- and Gerik deserves a higher score. Gerik= God, Seth= A fake God who is nowhere near as good. Gerik capped 5/7 stats as a HERO, it was incredible. NO one could TAKE any HP off him (Excluding poision claw), whereas Seth can easily take damage and die. And Trainees- Yes, they need grinding, but once you train them, they are quite good- better then other units I can compare them to.

Stat Comparing: Seth, Gerik, Ross, Ewan and Amelia.

Gerik: Hero

HP: 60, Strength: 25, Skill: 30, Speed: 26, Luck: 19, Defence: 25, Resistance: 15

Amelia: General

HP: 54, Strength: 27, Skill: 22, Speed: 25, Luck: 25, Defence: 25, Resistance: 11

Ewan: Druid

HP: 44, Magic: 20, Skill: 23, Speed: 24, Luck: 29, Defence:11, Resistance: 19

Ross: Beserker

HP: 52, Strength: 28, Skill: 24, Speed: 21, Luck: 28, Defence: 17, Resistance: 13

Seth: Paladin

HP: 47, Strength: 22, Skill: 22, Speed: 19, Luck: 18, Defence: 19, Resistance: 11

Compare Amelia's and Seth's stats, and tell me which one is better. I only used 1 speedwing on Amelia, and nothing on Seth. Gerik had nothing used on him, Ewan had only one energy wing, and Ross had nothing added onto him.

EDIT:

They are all Lvl 20 promoted, so DON'T SAY THAT ONE IS A HIGHER LVL THEN ANOTHER

Seth's under his averages and Amelia's above hers - it was down to chance. Plus, you've put a lot of effort into Amelia getting her to 10/20/20. She required far more XP than Seth to get to max level and is only marginally better. Amelia is generally comparable to base Seth when she's ready around level 20. When both are level 20, on average Amelia has 3 skill/speed and 10 luck over Seth whilst he has a little more HP and 3 extra strength.

Amelia probably needed a lot of help to get kills for much of her life, Seth's pretty self sufficient. Stats might be higher, but Seth is infinitely better early game and takes far fewer resources. FE8 isn't terribly hard, if both were at max level, the differences between them wouldn't really matter.

[Anouleth]

This is my Seth:

30HP 14STR 13SKL 12SPD 13LUK 11DEF 8RES

So good! best character in the game!

oh snap forgot about this topic

i'll try to update it soon as I'm almost done anyway

oh thank god because we were all totally on tenterhooks waiting for your next trenchant opinion about this 15 year old game

Edited October 14, 2012 by Anouleth

[Espinosa]

Most RPG fans disregard every contribution a unit/class has until the final battle and evaluate or rank them accordingly to that alone. The aim of the play is in most cases "collect everything, max levels by grinding". How this Fire Emblem community has developed a different view on things is an interesting idea to entertain.

[dondon151]

it is indeed a mystery why fire emblem attracts rational thinkers such as myself

[-Cynthia-]

Most RPG fans disregard every contribution a unit/class has until the final battle and evaluate or rank them accordingly to that alone. The aim of the play is in most cases "collect everything, max levels by grinding". How this Fire Emblem community has developed a different view on things is an interesting idea to entertain.

Fire Emblem has a turncount (a better measure of time than simply time spent). Also many RPGs (like Final Fantasy) significantly backload difficulty- the more difficult enemies are later in the game, particularly optional ones. Fire Emblem doesn't really do this, although the postgame content for Awakening might change this as it seems to be challenging.

[Lord Raven]

The problem with that, however, is that even with calm wording, there's always a chance that an essay like the one you describe will be taken the wrong way. Whether some among those you mention have a mindset along the lines of "whoever is good in an FE game is a person's own opinion. No one can say otherwise, and those that try to do so are self-righteous jerks," or just simply won't get what the person who is trying to set them straight is trying to say and repeatedly use personal experience to justify their views, is another story entirely.

Now that I think about it, I think Naglfar did write something similar. But, it was during a discussion between some of our members (namely Dark Sage, arvilino, Anouleth, and dondon), and some tropers who often edit a page based around Gamebreakers in an FE game. And as such, I don't think a large number of people would read what Naglfar wrote, given TV Tropes's reputation.

Then I guess it's then a waste time/energy to try and react to it lol

[Anouleth]

Most RPG fans disregard every contribution a unit/class has until the final battle and evaluate or rank them accordingly to that alone. The aim of the play is in most cases "collect everything, max levels by grinding". How this Fire Emblem community has developed a different view on things is an interesting idea to entertain.

That's for many reasons, partially because many RPGs don't give you a lot of appreciable choice until the very late game. Take Final Fantasy 9, for instance. You don't get to pick between a lot of characters until 2/3rds of the way through the game. Even then, characters really do not become significantly better or worse over the remainder of the game (for example, Quina, probably considered to be the strongest character, doesn't really become "stronger" over the rest of the game). Moreover, there aren't really enough characters in most RPGs to have a meaningful discussion (whereas Fire Emblem has something like 50 characters per game).

Other SRPGs, though, do attract tier listing discussion. There's a tier list for Pokemon Conquest (which does indeed take into account factors like fast evolution and earlygame performance, which redeems pokemon like Carnivine.)

[Florete]

Not true, by simply ignoring the comment or calmly explaining the current conventions of our part of the fandom, it's not a "here we go again" it's more of an "education time" or something. idk. Basically I hope no one attempts to tear this guy apart... and I wish one day someone can write a calmly worded essay about why people like him aren't entirely in the right given the conventions of our fandom, various definitions of "good" and etc.

Mekkah (or was it Reikken?) wrote one such essay back in the day. It even specifically used FE8 and Seth. I pull it out on occasion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[MacLovin]

Trainees are not THAT bad- and Gerik deserves a higher score. Gerik= God, Seth= A fake God who is nowhere near as good. Gerik capped 5/7 stats as a HERO, it was incredible. NO one could TAKE any HP off him (Excluding poision claw), whereas Seth can easily take damage and die. And Trainees- Yes, they need grinding, but once you train them, they are quite good- better then other units I can compare them to.

Stat Comparing: Seth, Gerik, Ross, Ewan and Amelia.

Gerik: Hero

HP: 60, Strength: 25, Skill: 30, Speed: 26, Luck: 19, Defence: 25, Resistance: 15

Amelia: General

HP: 54, Strength: 27, Skill: 22, Speed: 25, Luck: 25, Defence: 25, Resistance: 11

Ewan: Druid

HP: 44, Magic: 20, Skill: 23, Speed: 24, Luck: 29, Defence:11, Resistance: 19

Ross: Beserker

HP: 52, Strength: 28, Skill: 24, Speed: 21, Luck: 28, Defence: 17, Resistance: 13

Seth: Paladin

HP: 47, Strength: 22, Skill: 22, Speed: 19, Luck: 18, Defence: 19, Resistance: 11

Compare Amelia's and Seth's stats, and tell me which one is better. I only used 1 speedwing on Amelia, and nothing on Seth. Gerik had nothing used on him, Ewan had only one energy wing, and Ross had nothing added onto him.

EDIT:

They are all Lvl 20 promoted, so DON'T SAY THAT ONE IS A HIGHER LVL THEN ANOTHER

Gerik has great bases and average growths.

Seth has great bases and wtf growths

I recall seeing the explanation about Seth somewhere, but where is it?

[Terrador]

Gerik has great bases and average growths.

Seth has great bases and wtf growths

I recall seeing the explanation about Seth somewhere, but where is it?

Eh, the tl;dr is that neither dies and both ORKO everything ever at 1-2 range, except that Seth has more move and availability and requires fewer resources, this contributing more to the run. Or something like that.

[Anouleth]

Eh, the tl;dr is that neither dies and both ORKO everything ever at 1-2 range, except that Seth has more move and availability and requires fewer resources, this contributing more to the run. Or something like that.

Well, Seth also has better stats, because he'll end up with a huge level lead (because of all that other stuff). In efficient runs he usually ends up capping his level. Gerik can't really catch up in terms of stats, even if you ignore that efficient playthroughs usually promote him straight away (which makes it downright impossible for him to catch up with Seth).

[Just call me AL]

Mekkah (or was it Reikken?) wrote one such essay back in the day. It even specifically used FE8 and Seth. I pull it out on occasion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Is that still up?

[Florete]

Is that still up?

I don't know where it comes from originally, but Mekkah posted it in a now really old debate topic. Now that I take another look at it, it's actually a "hogging exp"...thing, but still somewhat applicable to this situation:

6.3 Hogging EXP

This point is often used against Seth, Titania and several FE10 units, especially Sothe. They "hog EXP", according to some, and count this as a negative. This couldn't be more wrong - if anything, they are doing the opposite.

Let's say we are comparing Seth and Franz. Seth is a L1 Paladin, while Franz a L1 Cavalier. Some people say that Seth should not get many kills - after all, other units gain more EXP and need this EXP more than Seth. What those making this argument do not realize is that this is not a negative, but more of a positive for Seth. Think about it. Seth "not needing EXP" cannot be a negative for him. It's like saying that Guy not needing a Speedwing while Oswin would like one is a negative for Guy.

Gaining less EXP is not a negative either, it's an effect caused by having a higher level to begin with. Seth pretty much comes with 1900 more EXP than Franz. Seth's lower EXP gains only affect his own growth. The fact that he doesn't gain as much EXP as Franz does is represented by Seth not having improved as much as Franz by giving them the same amount of kills. When both haven't killed anything, Seth's stats are superior. When Franz has killed 10 enemies, he is probably around L4 or L5, but he's still worse than a base level Seth (with 30 EXP or so). Same after 20, 30, 40, etc enemies. Only when Franz is around L18 while Seth is L2 or L3, Franz is starting to become comparable, while he was definitely worse by a lot.

L1 Seth is as good as a L18 Franz off the bat.

Franz isn't as good as Seth until he hits L18.

After reading this, some would still insist that it's better that Seth does not get any kills. However, that is basically handing Seth another advantage: it's showing that he has a secondary method of being used, and apparently this second method is better (I would argue it is not, but that is another story). If "2nd method Seth" > "1st method Seth", and "1st method Seth" > Franz, then it logically follows that "2nd method Seth" >Franz as well. Of course, it won't show that Seth is better than Franz in the stats now when they are compared when Franz has caught up, but the EXP that Seth would have gotten now went to other units on the team, which is another advantage.

Or, in other words, let's compare three teams, and distribute 100 kills among them. Let's say 5 kills is a level on average, except for Seth, who would need 25.

Team A has Seth, Arthur, Lute and Vanessa, and each is given equal amount of kills, so 25.

Team B has Seth, Arthur, Lute and Vanessa, and Seth is only getting 4 kills, while the other 21 are given away to others, giving each of those 25+7=32 kills.

Team C has Franz, Arthur, Lute and Vanessa, and each is given equal amount of kills, so 25.

Team A: L2 Seth, L7 Arthur, L6 Lute, L6 Vanessa.

Team B: L1 Seth, L8 Arthur, L7 Lute, L7 Vanessa

Team C: L6 Franz, L7 Arthur, L6 Lute, L6 Vanessa

Clearly Team A and B are both much stronger than team C, and both A and B have Seth. The non-Seth units on team A are equal to the non-Franz units on team C, and the non-Seth units on team B are clearly beating those of team C.

This argument goes for any prepromote, or any unit that gains less EXP...or actually, for any unit, really. This even goes for FE6/FE7 Marcus, though it should be added that those have a negative effect on the EXP rank. It also goes for units that hit L20 before promotion, such as Eirika and Ephraim.

It just needs a "20/20 stats mean nothing" at the end.

EDIT: Also, isn't it kind of funny how, instead of directly responding to GoldenEmblem7's post, we're all just kind of talking around it?

Edited October 15, 2012 by Red Fox of Fire

[bottlegnomes]

EDIT: Also, isn't it kind of funny how, instead of directly responding to GoldenEmblem7's post, we're all just kind of talking around it?

Indeed it is.

I_eat_tables posted something similar on GFAQs FE8 board. It compares Garcia, Ross, and Seth. But otherwise, it's pretty much the same thing.

Just because with the influx of Ambassador gamers, has come an influx of people new people unaware of how certain characters are considered.

Firstly, if we're comparing a character or making any kind of judgement on if a character is 'good' or 'bad', we need something to compare them against. The most natural comparison is how much easier or harder they make the game. This comes pretty close with seeing how easy/hard it is to complete the game quickly, or 'efficiently', which is what you'll see in tier lists.

Now, a common thought and a good idea at that, is that Seth must be bad - he's a trap! After all, why would you be given a character who can solo every early early chapter without even breaking a sweat? Well, as it turns out, it's because Intelligent Systems are gibbering chipmunks who can't balance characters to save their lives, and Seth is not just powerful early in the game, but if he takes a reasonable number of kills early (which is certainly a way of making the game easier), and in particular boss kills (definitely makes things easier) he not only stays competitive through the entire game, but actually stays your strongest character by a good margin. In fact, he doesn't even start to slow down at all until chapters 15 (because desert reduces him to 1 or 2 move) and chapter 18 (because Gorgons are brutal and Seth can't be in 10 places at once).

So Seth is great. What about Ross? Well... applying the same logic as last time, we'd expect that as Ross starts so bad, he must quickly catch up and become one of the best characters! Right? Um, nope. Firstly, let's look at this: There's two parts to what I just said - he must quickly catch up... and become one of the best characters. I'll examine the two seperately.

Catching up. Well, we can feed him a bunch of kills, making him level quickly, and get him promoted for the start of chapter ~5, right? Right, you CAN do that, but there's two problems: Firstly, he eats a majority of the exp in chapters 3-4, leaving the rest of your team underlevelled - making them weaker, which makes things harder. That's bad. And secondly, even though he has his Hatchet, he's not easy to train unless you stand by a wall chucking it at 1 range enemies, or similar. So he's making things harder just by us trying to train him, and making things harder because our team is now underlevelled. Not looking great. Let's hope he has amazing stats to make up for it.

So we start chapter 5 and Ross has just promoted. Who can we compare him to? Garcia I guess?

10/1 Pirate Ross (the route he takes makes little difference... Fighter is best in the long run but I'm choosing Pirate just to bias things towards Ross):

23.3 HP

11.5 STR

5.15 SKL

6.7 SPD

11.6 LUK

6.25 DEF

1.8 RES

10 CON

7 Garcia (3 levels in 3 chapters, seems reasonable)

30.4 HP

9.95 STR

8.2 SKL

7.6 SPD

4.2 LUK

5.75 DEF

1.45 RES

14 CON

Not looking too good for Ross. Firstly, SPD is the most important stat, by far, and Ross is losing that by a point. And if he wants to use anything other than his hatchet and Iron axe (which he does) he's losing another 2-4 speed compared to Garcia. He's doubling very little as a result, while Garcia is doubling plenty. Ross has a decent STR lead, which is nice, and also a good DEF lead, while Garcia has a SKL and HP lead. Overall it tilts somewhat in Garcia's favour (also Garcia has better weapon ranks at this point, for what it's worth).

And this is all assuming we feed Ross most of 2 chapters EXP, to get a character still inferior to one we could have used from the start.

From here, Ross eventually begins to take a lead - thanks to being 6 levels lower, he'll gain perhaps another 2 levels relative to Garcia by the end of chapter 8, at which point he'll have caught up SPD (though he still struggles to double - and Garcia has the CON to use better axes). Garcia's STR stays fairly close to Ross's, and everything else is pretty close growthwise between the two - so while Ross does get a lead, it's a pretty small one.

So Ross, after all that effort, with the work to get him up in level as much as possible, ends up barely better than his dad? But hang on I hear you saying, you've trained him like this, and he ended up MUCH better? And I just admitted Ross is better than Garcia?

I'm afraid not. Firstly, you probably gave Ross more kills for a lot longer. Did he end up a higher level than everyone else by chapter 8? Yeah... how did that happen again? You let him get an excessive number of kills, because you were under the spell of Ross being good. And back to me saying Ross >Garcia: All of this was hinging on Ross getting an unfair amount of EXP compared to everyone else. What if, when we'd trained Ross before, we instead fed extra kills to Garcia? What would happen? The result is we'd end up with an incredibly strong Garcia, easily reaching level 10 by chapter 5, and we'd have a much easier time than if we'd trained Ross. And the whole training process would have been easier, too. And didn't I say making things easier or harder was what defined if a character was good or bad?

So it looks like Ross doesn't really make things easier. In fact, he often makes things harder! All I can conclude is that he's a bad character.

I've had to skip a lot of detail in these arguments (e.g. the entire mid-late game) but hopefully this is enough to get you thinking, next time you're about to complain I've said Ross is bad.

Source

Edited October 19, 2012 by bottlegnomes