FE12 H2 Tier List

[Dark Sage]

I don't deny that Bord is better than Cord in a few maps where he can pull out the Hammer, but in the majority of cases, Cord is better. If you're going to apply the rule on deploying characters in every chapter, and presumably, consistently using Cord and Bord throughout the game, then Cord is definitely better. It's up to you whether you want the tier list to take that into account, I guess.

I do actually want to take into account their performance throughout the whole game and I'm happy to raise Cord above Bord, but I want to see is opposed to it first and if they are, if they can provide a good argument against it.

Edited October 15, 2011 by Clockwork Sage

[-Cynthia-]

I don't deny that Bord is better than Cord in a few maps where he can pull out the Hammer, but in the majority of cases, Cord is better. If you're going to apply the rule on deploying characters in every chapter, and presumably, consistently using Cord and Bord throughout the game, then Cord is definitely better. It's up to you whether you want the tier list to take that into account, I guess.

I suppose the question is whether Cord can grow into something useful. Not doubling and having E rank everything is pretty terrible. If he can eventually reach decent performance he can probably outweigh Cord's weapon rank lead.

[Bluedoom]

I'm arguing for Frey above Cain.

All Cain has going for him is Prologue utility, and that too, only prologue 8. Yeah, he's really useful there, but if you've trained other characters, his contribution rating will be on a scale of 1-10, 7.

Meanwhile, Frey comes 2 levels before Cain in the mainstory, with a level lower than Cain and very similar base stats. Cain's notable stat lead over Frey WRT bases, is +1 def, which Frey can obtain in 1 level up. Then they'd most likely be identical.

The thing is, as we keep training Frey and Cain, Cain's notable advantage is speed, but problem is its only a + 5% growth in spd and skl. Frey too will eventually cap them, just not as fast as cain, but still will. He has a better strength growth than Cain as well, as well as defence.

But my big arguement here is that Frey has a better lance rank than Cain, which is much better than Cain's Sword Rank lead. I know I'm talking from my hard 1 experience, but I think that even if Frey has D rank in swords on reclassing to myrmidon, he's still doing well. Much better than Cain, anyways.

My other issue is that Navarre is in between Frey and Cain. All three characters have identical growths and bases when reclassed. Whcih leads to the arguement of which of the three is marginally better? I'd say Frey>=Navarre>Cain, but meh.

EDIT: I also think Cord should go above Bord as he's a sort of growth character. Not as awesome as Barst, but still good when trained.

EDIT2: Ogma and Barst should move above Cain. They come earlier than Cain and have more solid stats than Cain when trained.

Edited October 15, 2011 by blues

[Dark Sage]

All Cain has going for him is Prologue utility, and that too, only prologue 8. Yeah, he's really useful there, but if you've trained other characters, his contribution rating will be on a scale of 1-10, 7.

Yeah? Well I say that on a scale of 1-10, his contribution is ranking of 10.

See? I can make baseless assertations too.

Meanwhile, Frey comes 2 levels before Cain in the mainstory, with a level lower than Cain and very similar base stats. Cain's notable stat lead over Frey WRT bases, is +1 def, which Frey can obtain in 1 level up. Then they'd most likely be identical.

Frey only has a 40% chance of getting proccing defense in one level. And I'd say that Cain's Prologue contributions outweigh Frey's two chapters of availability. P-8 can be rough and Cain's durability and offense there (3HKO'd by steel axe brigands and 2HKO's everything in return) is greatly wanted. What can Frey accomplish in 6x and 7 that can outweigh that?

The thing is, as we keep training Frey and Cain, Cain's notable advantage is speed, but problem is its only a + 5% growth in spd and skl. Frey too will eventually cap them, just not as fast as cain, but still will. He has a better strength growth than Cain as well, as well as defence.

Newsflash: caps don't mean that much. And just like how Cain only has 5% higher growths in speed and skill, Frey only has 5% higher growths in strength and defense.

But my big arguement here is that Frey has a better lance rank than Cain, which is much better than Cain's Sword Rank lead. I know I'm talking from my hard 1 experience, but I think that even if Frey has D rank in swords on reclassing to myrmidon, he's still doing well. Much better than Cain, anyways.

A promoted Cain can have C lances, which is just enough to use Dragonpikes. In other words, it's not actually a big problem for Cain and his higher sword rank makes it easier for him to perform well in classes like Mercenary and Swordmaster.

EDIT2: Ogma and Barst should move above Cain. They come earlier than Cain and have more solid stats than Cain when trained.

Ogma, sure I can see due to availability and Prologue utility but Barst doesn't share that utility, so he stays.

[Bluedoom]

Yeah? Well I say that on a scale of 1-10, his contribution is ranking of 10.

See? I can make baseless assertations too.

Frey only has a 40% chance of getting proccing defense in one level. And I'd say that Cain's Prologue contributions outweigh Frey's two chapters of availability. P-8 can be rough and Cain's durability and offense there (3HKO'd by steel axe brigands and 2HKO's everything in return) is greatly wanted. What can Frey accomplish in 6x and 7 that can outweigh that?

Newsflash: caps don't mean that much. And just like how Cain only has 5% higher growths in speed and skill, Frey only has 5% higher growths in strength and defense.

A promoted Cain can have C lances, which is just enough to use Dragonpikes. In other words, it's not actually a big problem for Cain and his higher sword rank makes it easier for him to perform well in classes like Mercenary and Swordmaster.

Ogma, sure I can see due to availability and Prologue utility but Barst doesn't share that utility, so he stays.

Before I continue with the arguement I will confess: I favoured Cain over Abel in FESD( and definetly would in 12 s well.) So I'm not going anti- Cain here.

With Frey's 5% higher defence growth, He's actually having a better chance procing def than Cain, and 40% is decent at the least. Also so what if Frey doesn't gain the defence in that one level up? He'll end up closing the gap between their def later on. He also has a superior strength growth than Cain, so he's actually dishing out more damage than Cain( even if its +5%)

The thing by my earlier statement of superior growths is, both will cap their speed no matter what, so Cain may(or may not) cap speed slightly earlier than Frey. But having superior growth rates in Defence and strength and means that even if its a 5% growth lead, there's a better chance of Frey dishing out more damage and being more durable. Its like saying Caeda is superior to Catria due to high speed and luck growths. But both eventually cap their speed, and then what's the defence between them? If we also take wing spear out of the picture, then Catria is superior to Caeda due to higher strength( she does have better strength growth anyways). Same thing with Frey and Cain here. Cain does not have very balanced growth rates while Frey's growth rates are slightly more balanced than Cain's, therefore he has more potential overall. In other words, as we go to the 70-90% growths range, slightly higher growths don't matter, while in the 20-40% growths range, they kinda do matter.

Really, I'm not sure what tiering would depend on. I know in the RD tier list, its based on the potential of chars if used. The H3 tier list for this game is solely based on utility. If this was H3, I would concede that Cain IS necessary and slightly superior to Frey. I haven't played H2 prologue, so I don't know how much hard it would be. However I do know that over time, without RNG screwage, Frey will tend to be slightly better than Cain, therefore better utility in chapters to come.

Promoted Cain? How early do you recommend promoting him then? Because lvl10-12 promotion would be of hinderance to him in turns of combat early on. Yeah, he will cap certain stats as always, no matter what. It's less likely he'll be doing damage early on, however, especially if we're reclassing him to swordmaster for A rank swords. Then again, we have base arena. :| Again, Frey gets B lances on promotion, which is kinda nice since he can wield silver lance now. Reclass him to sword master, and he's not far away from using silver swords. Oh, one more thing: Cain reclassing to Swordmaster just makes him more imbalanced- Frey's Str and Def growth lead starts to kick in. Frey doesn't need to be reclassed into swordmaser/myrmidon because his lance rank is nice. Oh, and on promoton Dracoknight is now the better choice.

Really, now the real thing keeping Cain above Frey is prologue 8. I'm not sure how much he contributes, I'll need to give H2 P-8 a shot I guess. (Man, H3 screws with you, damn.)

I guess I don't give much importance to prologue utility. 'So maybe Barst should stay where he is then. But if prologue utility is what seperates chars, why is Gordin over Ryan again? First of, Ryan's growths are highly superior to Gordin, period. Next off, Gordin is the worse choice for prologue between him and Athena. Finally, both have almost the same utility anyways- they're both archers, both do chip damage, just that Gordin has higher starting level, base stats and weapon rank. Ryan can achieve that by the end of prologue too, if you're using him. And before you say Gordin's higher base stats make him a better choice than Ryan, I'm gonna say this: Ryan and Gordin have bad base speed and even if Gordin has a slightly higher base defence, so what? They both can get doubled, durability is not a big arguement. Gordin's notable arguement would be strength, but Ryan can get over that if used, over time. Ryan can at least get one level up by the time Gordin joins, and 50% is kinda good to get a strength proc. Why are we choosing Gordin over Athena again?

Edited October 16, 2011 by blues

[Dark Sage]

stuff

I refuse to take your posts seriously until you stop hyping 5% growth rate differences and go into irrelevant tangents like Catria and Caeda (who if IIRC are not named Frey or Cain).

[-Cynthia-]

I'm not sure what to do with Prologue availability wrt choices. If we go by other lists, Gordin being worse than Athena in Prologue doesn't affect his usefulness really, the choice to go Jeorge or Athena route is somewhat random (like Bartre/Echinda, Karel/Harken etc.)

[Bluedoom]

I refuse to take your posts seriously until you stop hyping 5% growth rate differences and go into irrelevant tangents like Catria and Caeda (who if IIRC are not named Frey or Cain).

*scratches head*

if you say so.

[dondon151]

I'm not sure what to do with Prologue availability wrt choices. If we go by other lists, Gordin being worse than Athena in Prologue doesn't affect his usefulness really, the choice to go Jeorge or Athena route is somewhat random (like Bartre/Echinda, Karel/Harken etc.)

I hope you meant "up to player choice, with this tier list having no preference for one or the other" instead of "random."

[-Cynthia-]

I hope you meant "up to player choice, with this tier list having no preference for one or the other" instead of "random."

Yes, something like that.

[Anouleth]

Um, any response to Jeorge going below Ryan and Gordin? Even promoting them at 10/1, they'll have better stats than he does, and they have like 10 chapters where they exist and he doesn't.

[Dark Sage]

Well he does have the advantages of not needing a Master Seal and having enough weapon rank to use Paritha.

If nobody opposes Anouleth's suggestion, I'll be glad to make the change.

[Paperblade]

You get like 20 master seals and they only sell for like 1500, it's barely an advantage.

Trained Ryan should have A Bows as a Sniper by the time it matters

[eclipse]

Lemme clarify why 5% isn't a huge deal:

Frey starts at level 8, unpromoted. Assuming you go 20/20 on them, average stats says that Frey will have a 1.6 DEF lead over Cain thanks to that 5% extra DEF growth. However, on these kinds of lists, 20/20 isn't assumed, and it'll take until 20/8 before that DEF is even seen. In short, 5% is fairly trivial.

[Rewjeo]

It won't necessarily take until 20/8 for it to be seen, it will just, on average, show up by then.

[Anouleth]

Well he does have the advantages of not needing a Master Seal and having enough weapon rank to use Paritha.

If nobody opposes Anouleth's suggestion, I'll be glad to make the change.

In order to use Parthia at level 10/1, Gordin/Ryan only need to enter combat 45 times over their ~10 maps. I wouldn't say that's an excessive assumption to make.

You get like 20 master seals and they only sell for like 1500, it's barely an advantage.

Trained Ryan should have A Bows as a Sniper by the time it matters

Well, by the time you get Jeorge you only have five Master Seals. So there's definitely an opportunity cost. That being said, Ryan/Gordin can always wait a little bit. They don't really "need" Parthia until the desert, right?

[-Cynthia-]

They don't even need Parthia for the desert really, it's not too hard to OHKO the Wyverns with Silver Bows on H2.

[Colonel M]

Not to mention Dragonpikes work now due to the lack of 2-range.

[Dark Sage]

Right. Moved George below Gordon, Ryan, and Cecil.

So how do people feel about WINdell moving up to just below Etzel? I'm seriously considering doing it.

Edited October 19, 2011 by Clockwork Sage

[Anouleth]

Still not sure why Malliesia isn't top. It's one thing to say "we're going to assume that most playthroughs won't warpskip", it's quite another to say "warpskipping is not the most powerful ability in the game". Even if we don't assume efficient use of Malliesia, that doesn't change the fact that when she is used she snaps the game in half over her dainty little knees.

[Dark Sage]

I'll move Malliesia to the top of the list right now actually.

Also how do you feel about Wendell moving up to around Etzel's level?

On another note, I believe Katarina>Jeorge. Base Katarina as a Bishop has just enough staff rank to use Again and can provide meaty chip through Aura as a Sage, with enough rank there to use useful staves like Physic. Anybody disagree?

Edited October 19, 2011 by Clockwork Sage

[Dark Sage]

While we're here, why not discuss whether Katarina>George or whether Pope Windell should go to around Etzel's level.

[General Horace]

Bishop!Katarina doesn't have enough Weapon Exp to use again, she only gains 30 on her base of 76, putting her 20 Staff uses away from again. Plus, we already have Malliesia, and Yumina that will be able to use again without much effort, and Etzel and Wendall should have a staff rank lead on her as well if we are using them. Jeorge has a unique niche (albeit not all that important) of having exclusive Parthia for quite a while(unless you early promote Ryan/Gordin then Jeorge is still better statwise), providing OHKO's on Flying stuff and having good chip damage. And an avaliability lead.

Edited November 4, 2011 by General Horace

[dondon151]

You don't really need Parthia to OHKO flying enemies in H2, though.

[General Horace]

Right >.<

You should still need Silvers though, and he's potentially the only one who can use Silver Bows (the only one who can on a horse), and if Ryan/Gordin are promoted, they are statistically inferior. If you're somehow in a bind, Parthia still exists.