Rate the Units, FE9 Edition: Endgame

[Loki Laufeyson]

i thought this community had learned by now that arguing with snowy is about as productive as trying to cut wood with a shaving razor. you can try it all you want but you wont get anything done

i guess at this point telling the community to ignore people who are being idiots is almost as productive

You forget this community loves to argue for the pure sake of it. :3

[Shadow Mir]

What's with all the Rhys and Mist hate? I know this game is easy, but healing is still useful. Additionally, the prepromoted sages don't have staves and the mages will have to eat a valuable Master Seal to get staves in a decent amount of time.

To be honest, I agree. After all, even with earth supports, depending on who's supporting who, at least two levels of support have to be built up before I can call the extra evade significant.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Golden Cucco

[aku chi]

Additionally, the prepromoted sages don't have staves and the mages will have to eat a valuable Master Seal to get staves in a decent amount of time.

Valuable to whom? Mist, Rhys, and the Mages: sure. Everybody else: not so much.

[Titamon]

I can't believe Ike beat Boyd

[Samias]

I can believe Ike beat Boyd. Boyd's not as speedy, can't dual Earth shpport, and has nothing on par with Ragnell.

[Colonel M]

I can believe Ike beat Boyd. Boyd's not as speedy, can't dual Earth shpport, and has nothing on par with Ragnell.

Ike has 1-2 range before promotion and by the time Black Knight comes?

Oh wait, I'm thinking Boyd. Silly me.

[Titamon]

I can believe Ike beat Boyd. Boyd's not as speedy, can't dual Earth shpport, and has nothing on par with Ragnell.

Ragnell doesn't exist until the last 2 chapters, so throughout the entire game Boyd is dragging Ike when it comes to 2-range.

Ike has bad bases and misses ORKO's often (especially early on) and has shaky durability until his supports build or he promotes. When Boyd starts doubling (which is faster than one thinks), he's killing. He may need forges for tanky foes though... Oh, and a speedwing later on, but he's definitely better than Ike

[Samias]

Ike can easily be manipulated into growing his strength stat, though. I love Boyd and all but once Ike gets going, he really gets going. Boyd is just good throughout and has 1-2 range and easy forged hand axes, but Ike is one of the better lords and has unlike some of the other foot swordies, doesn't have a pressing need for forges.

[ZemZem]

Ike can easily be manipulated into growing his strength stat, though. I love Boyd and all but once Ike gets going, he really gets going. Boyd is just good throughout and has 1-2 range and easy forged hand axes, but Ike is one of the better lords and has unlike some of the other foot swordies, doesn't have a pressing need for forges.

We're talking about HM + Fixed Mode here, though. No manipulation is in the equation. Ike reaches level 20 pretty fast, and by then, he's basically just deadweight until the end of chapter 17. Boyd fights very well through the course of the entire game, and nothing holds him back except for maybe his lack of availability in chapters 3 and 4.

[bottlegnomes]

Too bad stat manipulation isn't taken into account.

Also, Ike needs forges early on. i'd say he probably needs a forge until he hits around 15/0, and even then, he'll still be wanting steel swords or effective weapons. It's not until post promotion that he can start ORKOing with iron swords consistently.

[Samias]

I am talking about fixed mode, though. I am saying it is exceptionally easy to have Ike grow in strength.

[bottlegnomes]

Not really, unless you're manipulating stats, which is never assumed. All fixed mode does is makes it more likely he'll be near his average.

[Lord Raven]

I can believe Ike beat Boyd, if only because people are more likely to use/like Ike instead of Boyd even though I know Boyd is the better character

personally I'd vote Boyd higher than Ike w/o bias, myself, but its believable enough Ike beat him

[dondon151]

I am talking about fixed mode, though. I am saying it is exceptionally easy to have Ike grow in strength.

you can just as easily rig spd on every single one of boyd's levels. what's your point?

[Anouleth]

If we're rigging stats, Boyd still wins. He promotes earlier and has 1-2 range weaponry.

[MacLovin]

Calill>Soren is funny, and so is Rhy/Geoffrey>Soren.

[Snowy_One]

Yea. I agree that Soren should be the top mage/sage/magic unit in general. People really despise raising him up apparently. I would care more, but he robbed me of a proper Ike/Elincia or a Ike/any female ending not to mention pulled a Bridget on me.

[ZemZem]

Yea. I agree that Soren should be the top mage/sage/magic unit in general. People really despise raising him up apparently. I would care more, but he robbed me of a proper Ike/Elincia or a Ike/any female ending not to mention pulled a Bridget on me.

I can't help but to agree with this. I really wanted Ike/Marcia, since FE9 could've worked on some development for that pairing, but eh. Thems the breaks.

EDIT: I don't agree with the part about Soren being a top magic unit, but I agree with the pairing thing.

Edited May 23, 2012 by Folgore Orange

[Shadow Mir]

Yea. I agree that Soren should be the top mage/sage/magic unit in general. People really despise raising him up apparently.

I'm not really seeing Soren as worthy of the top magic unit in FE9, to be quite honest.

[Samias]

To be fair, all the magic users in POR save Bastian are pretty equal and interchangeable, stat-wise. Calill easily wins out on weapon ranks but doesn't have staff utility, Soren has great magic growth and a possible adept proc but blows in the weapon ranks catagory and his strength majorly fails to the point where he takes a huge hit to AS with most books, Ilyana has the best magic type but her growth rate in key stats is worse than Soren and has the same weapon rank problem, and Tormod had celerity but a low base joining level and a lesser magic growth than the other prepromote mages. You could pick any of the four and all of them are flawed in a way, but then again, once they promote they gain staff exp faster than weapon exp and become great secondary healers with physic. All of them will be able to use at least one type of siege tome, and siege tomes are great, so it's best to take at least one of the four, but it is totally unnecessary to use more than one because of gimpy mov.

Personally my favourite is Soren because of Adept and great staff utility, followed by Calill for being so right-out-the-box good. I can easily see Calill having the highest rating because mages in this game take too much effort for too little in return, given their tendency to fall way behind. I'm pretty sure I favour Soren so much because IkexSoren OTP. Soren, Ilyana, and Tormod are virtually interchangeable depending on playstyle but Soren's the first one to join and has pretty good growths where he needs them + some free deployment, so he's got time to train before the paladin rape squad becomes an obstacle to his usefulness. That probably gives him the edge against Ilyana, who only exists for two chapters until Kieran and Marcia join, and then Tormod joins underleveled so either you pick him for celerity or else he's kind of easy to ignore.

[Snowy_One]

The way I see it for the four mages is that thunder is the best magic type, so Calill's weapon ranks don't matter (I don't care about siege tomes) and staff-use is much more valuable. Tormod joins late and is a backliner no matter how you want to play him, so celerity doesn't matter. Soren and Ilyana can train up in the earlier chapters, but Soren has a earlier join time, better skill, and can handle his STR issues with a tome forged for min-weight (and since forged thunder is the best non-unique tome, they will probably take up most early-game forges), and while Ilyana's supports are 'better' they aren't astoundingly good and she has some speed troubles so.... Soren > Ilyana > Tormod > Calill >>>>>>>>> A moldy sock >>>>> Bastion.

[bottlegnomes]

The way I see it for the four mages is that thunder is the best magic type, so Calill's weapon ranks don't matter (I don't care about siege tomes) and staff-use is much more valuable. Tormod joins late and is a backliner no matter how you want to play him, so celerity doesn't matter. Soren and Ilyana can train up in the earlier chapters, but Soren has a earlier join time, better skill, and can handle his STR issues with a tome forged for min-weight (and since forged thunder is the best non-unique tome, they will probably take up most early-game forges), and while Ilyana's supports are 'better' they aren't astoundingly good and she has some speed troubles so.... Soren > Ilyana > Tormod > Calill >>>>>>>>> A moldy sock >>>>> Bastion.

Other people care about siege tomes, and last I checked, this was everyone's opinion, not just yours. Besides, you can't ignore siege tomes altogether and that's something Calill has over Soren, Ilyana, and Tormod, in addition to very well rounded stats (unlike Soren and Ilyana) and not needing training.

[Sunwoo]

I disagree with Ilyana > Tormod. She may be around longer, but she comes at a time when 1) there is less BEXP available 2) has a 30% speed growth which won't help her doubling and 3) has pretty bad durability. Efficiently, I just don't see a need to deploy both her AND Soren. And if Soren was being used, he may have a level lead and/or better stats that her so I'd rather deploy him instead of her.

Tormod shows up late and underleveled, yes, but at least he shows up at a time when your team doesn't need the BEXP as desperately as when Ilyana came in. He has better durability than Soren and Ilyana (even if a little). And here's the biggest part: he has Celerity. I'm not an LTC player or even an efficient player, but +2 move is undeniably helpful. It lets him keep up and fight more stuff than the other mages/sages, who will eventually lag behind if your team ... you know, keeps moving forward. So while Tormod has his problems, biggest one being underleveled and late, he takes BEXP at a time when people want/need it less. And he delivers just as well as Soren and Ilyana, with better move and slightly more durability.

Also, Soren received a lot of negative bias points. That pulled his score down a bit, because he lost a full point from a lot of the negative biases. As it was mentioned, a lot of these scores aren't really all that accurate because of all the bias points that were thrown in the scores. (Which is why I wish that bias points were banned.) But they were allowed, and they affected scoring. So what can you do about it? Go back to the thread, throw out every bias point, and retally? You're welcome to do that, if you have no life.

Edited May 23, 2012 by Folgore Yellow

[Shadow Mir]

Also, Soren received a lot of negative bias points. That pulled his score down a bit, because he lost a full point from a lot of the negative biases. As it was mentioned, a lot of these scores aren't really all that accurate because of all the bias points that were thrown in the scores. (Which is why I wish that bias points were banned.) But they were allowed, and they affected scoring. So what can you do about it? Go back to the thread, throw out every bias point, and retally? You're welcome to do that, if you have no life.

On that note, Calill > Soren doesn't really surprise me, but Rhys and Geoff > Soren do. At any rate, it's as you said; Soren got hammered by a lot of negative bias.

[Snowy_One]

Other people care about siege tomes, and last I checked, this was everyone's opinion, not just yours. Besides, you can't ignore siege tomes altogether and that's something Calill has over Soren, Ilyana, and Tormod, in addition to very well rounded stats (unlike Soren and Ilyana) and not needing training.

First off it's not impossible for Ilyana to wield a siege tome. She can use the bolting just fine and getting another element is far from impossible. Just expending an arms scroll or attacking 20/40 times (depending on the tome) with the proper tome can easily make Ilyana or Soren cover two of the three elements and if we aren't deploying Mist with the SS the scrolls aren't really all that valuable to anyone else (not to mention that just forging something like a base-level fire/wind tome, while not as strong as thunder, should still be more than enough to get the job done and using it all up will get their rank likely leveled by the time the tomes appear). I doubt anyone uses more than two sages regardless, so Ilyana and Soren >>>>> Calill in my book.

As for Tormod, as I said, I see mages as backliner units who offer support and ranged strikes. Celerity is worth far less for that than the earlier joining time offered by Soren/Ilyana.

Anyways, my entire reviews:[spoiler=how I rated the units]

Sothe: 0/10 (-1 bias)

Ena 0.5 (+.5 bias)

Nasir: 1/10

Basiton: 1/10

Ulki: 1/10

Tauroneo: 1/10

Brom: 1.5/10

Laguz Kings: 2/10

Rolf: 2/10

Janaff: Unrated, but where I would have put him

Shinon: 2/10

Gatrie: Unrated, but where I would have put him

Lucia: 3/10 (+1 bias)

Largo: 3/10

Haar: 3/10

Mordi: 3/10 (-1 bias)

Devdan: 3.5 (-.5 bias)

Ranulf: 3.5/10

Volke: 4/10

Geoffry: 4/10

Mist: 4/10 (-1 bias, though I suspect it was more of a -3.5)

Elincia: 4.5 (+1 bias)

Stefan: 5/10 (-1 bias)

Muarim: 5.5

Tormod: 6/10

Makalov: 6/10 (-1 bias)

Soren: 6/10 (-1 Bias should have been there)

Zihark: 6.5/10

Calill: 7/10 (+1 bias)

Reyson: 7/10

Ilyana: 7/10

Mia: Unrated, but where I would have put her

Lethe: 7/10

Nephenee: 8/10 (+1 bias)

Boyd: Unrated, but where I would have put him

Titania: Unrated, but where I would have put her

Marcia: 8/10

Astrid: 9/10 (+1 bias)

Rhys: 9/10 (+1 bias in hindsight. I really overrated him)

Ike: Unrated, but where I would have put him

Oscar: 9/10

Jill: 9/10

Kieran: 9/10 (-1 bias)

Tanith: 9.5 (+1 Bias)

Not looking for snide remarks, just generalized observations as to why you think these units ended up rated like this. FYI, I rate units independantly. Ergo, I don't look at Soren's stats and say 'oh, hey, he only got a 7/10, so I shouldn't rate Ilyana any more than that' when I rate Ilyana for example. Bias tilts were included for rated units.