FE: Awakening Lunatic Mode Tier List

[dondon151]

According to your standard, this isn't good enough. Yes I am being intentionally obstinate here, but "non-zero" is an *incredibly* difficult standard to hold up, especially on Lunatic (where units like Vaike, who are not very good and have low hit, are considered as used for tiering purposes) with its killer enemies.

i think you are taking this a little too literally here

just a little

[Legault!]

Really, you're fighting my argument with "If the player is lucky"? Anything can work "if I'm lucky enough". The thing with Fred means there is no luck required.

You are arguing that Frederick is absolutely necessary to complete the earlygame. Frederick is not, in fact, absolutely necessary to complete the earlygame.

He makes the earlygame much easier, yes, which is why he gets credit for that performance.

I'd like to see someone beat the prologue under these restrictions (hint: you can't)

You can. It's just a hilariously suboptimal strategy. The point is that even if we're operating under the silly standard that necessary = top of the list, Frederic is not strictly necessary.

i think you are taking this a little too literally here

just a little

Please tell me how else to interpret "non-zero chance of failure"

[Paperblade]

Micaiah's combat proficiency is actually necessary for LTCing that chapter. In this video, she's at L13 in a continuous efficient run with slightly above average stats and Resolve. Needs some luck to survive but still.

Any game plan that involves "restart to win" isn't representative of a unit's real worth no matter how much some people seem to want it to, you're manipulating the game mechanics such that the actual numbers are totally irrelevant. I could make any unit good if I played the "restart until I win" game, such that any displayed hit <100 misses me, every hit rate >0 hits for me, and every crit rate >0 crits for me it totally throws things off.

99 displayed chance of hitting.

99 displayed chance of second hit.

99 displayed chance of third hit.

99 displayed chance of fourth hit.

...

99 displayed chance of ninety-ninth hit.

According to your standard, this isn't good enough. Yes I am being intentionally obstinate here, but "non-zero" is an *incredibly* difficult standard to hold up, especially on Lunatic (where units like Vaike, who are not very good and have low hit, are considered as used for tiering purposes) with its killer enemies.

If you miss every attack you don't necessarily die, but if a 100% success rate isn't possible (which it probably isn't in some chapters in this game), then you have to suck it up. But, if say, Vaike missing one attack when he has like 70-75 display is game over, that's not good no matter how you look at it. Either your strategy sucks or Vaike sucks, and bending things to make Vaike good is stupid and dishonest.

If you can't get a 0% death rate, then go for the minimal chance of death. Note that this does not mean turtle, there are a lot of chapters where if you fuck around there's gonna be 10 billion reinforcements on your ass and I guarantee that sticking around to fight these guys has a higher chance of death than just rushing through that shit and finishing the map/blocking their spawn tiles.

Edited March 27, 2013 by Paperblade

[PKL]

Yeah, Frederick isnt neccesary at all. You just need to dodge a bunch of attacks and hopefully crit in return with Avatar . Legault please

[Randa]

I came out to a turn count of 169 turns defining a brisk pace.

For reasoning please check out http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=39013&pid=2334002&st=0entry2334002

If you think this is wrong please post this on the other thread.

[Quick]

Any game plan that involves "restart to win" isn't representative of a unit's real worth no matter how much some people seem to want it to, you're manipulating the game mechanics such that the actual numbers are totally irrelevant. I could make any unit good if I played the "restart until I win" game, such that any displayed hit <100 misses me, every hit rate >0 hits for me, and every crit rate >0 crits for me it totally throws things off.

If you miss every attack you don't necessarily die, but if a 100% success rate isn't possible (which it probably isn't in some chapters in this game), then you have to suck it up. But, if say, Vaike missing one attack when he has like 70-75 display is game over, that's not good no matter how you look at it. Either your strategy sucks or Vaike sucks, and bending things to make Vaike good is stupid and dishonest.

If you can't get a 0% death rate, then go for the minimal chance of death. Note that this does not mean turtle, there are a lot of chapters where if you fuck around there's gonna be 10 billion reinforcements on your ass and I guarantee that sticking around to fight these guys has a higher chance of death than just rushing through that shit and finishing the map/blocking their spawn tiles.

Didn't you do a Vaike solo on Lunatic mode? Or maybe I'm wrong but I thought you did. I was actually contemplating on doing that myself and having him marry MU so it's interesting.

Also I never got why RNG abusing suddenly makes a character good/another character unnecessary. It's like saying FE10 Astrid is good since if you're lucky you can dodge a lot of attacks in the meh availability she has and thus she can be great.

Yeah, Frederick isnt neccesary at all. You just need to dodge a bunch of attacks and hopefully crit in return with Avatar . Legault please

You're stupid, it's totally possible to beat chapter 2 without Fred without Dual Guarding all except one attack. (Blatant sarcasm)

Edited March 28, 2013 by Quick

[Paperblade]

I didn't do a Vaike solo for the whole game, I had Vaike solo Ch. 23-25 once he had gone through Fighter, Barbarian, Berserker, and Hero because he had Sol and like 60 Defense so he was taking single digit damage and couldn't actually die. I also had him do most of the heavy lifting in Ch. 19-20, and rescueskipped Ch. 21.

Also I'm not bashing Vaike specifically, that was the example Legault used. I'm saying that if a unit has problems actually killing things because their hit is shitty, and this offensive problem leads to extra enemies killing you, this would make them bad.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Paperblade

[Randa]

I just realized I accidentally added a random eight turns to the pace but here's my opinions for the first four tiers. More in the next hour.

Seth Tier:Avatar ( will become a God and save you more than once)

You Need Him In Your Life Tier:Frederick ( extremely helpful for the first couple of chapters)

S Tier:

Panne( maybe a bit high, but still extremely helpful)

Lucina (Avatar) ( I refuse to do this pairing so I have no opinion)

Chrom ( I still have trouble with Chrom's level ups and It kind of ruins my opinion of him should probably be just beneath sumia)

Sully ( very good unit who has enough speed to double most units and one round some of them)

A Tier:

Stahl ( about the same as sully only difference is that he gets slightly better defense for slightly worse speed)

Lon'qu ( pretty good unit with enough speed to consistently double people)

Anna ( very high utility unit; I don't have a reasonable turn count for her level so any suggestions would be very much appreciated)

Sumia ( fast good class set, good growths little hard to train but I think she's in the right place)

Cordelia (very good joins right at a time where she can make use of her air borne nature to avoid desert terrain just not as good stats as sumia imo)

Lucina (Sully / Sumia) ( good stats but I don't think any child character should be rated this high on a normal unit list especially when entering a low turn section)

B Tier:

Tharja ( nosferatanking alone should put her in A Tier but poor skill hampers her a bit)

Miriel (pretty good unit but has a very slow start and even in late game still has to be protected)

Vaike ( he's always come through for me but I can understand some people's problems with poor base speed should probably be a tier up though)

Cherche (can't understand why she so low I personally think she's a very good unit at least upper A Tier)

Nowi ( pretty good unit but not the best of growths should end up below tiki though)

Gregor ( Gregor is very good with a change seal to barbarian but I think he's justified where he is)

Libra (way to high… staff bot with an axe not as good as staff bot with magic should be as low as Lissa)

Lucina (Anyone Else) (Olivia/generic pretty useless because of VERY poor bases)

Edited March 28, 2013 by Randa

[Blademaster!]

Cherche (can't understand why she so low I personally think she's a very good unit at least upper A Tier)

Nowi ( pretty good unit but not the best of growths should end up below tiki though)

Libra (way to high… staff bot with an axe not as good as staff bot with magic should be as low as Lissa)

Cherche is really slow. Nowi has great Growths. Libra using Axes doesn't really hurt him since he can still use hammers, and he's probably just using almost every player phase rescuing, healing, or rallying.

I don't see any problems with the turn counts you posted.

[shadykid]

why are we talking about whether Frederick is "required" or not, it should be obvious that he gets credit for helping but that doesn't automatically put him at the top

[Recondite]

In FE11, you don't see anyone arguing Marth for best unit in the game just because he is necessary to kill Medeus.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Because Medeus is a Rena + Sheeda + Tiki + Nagi + Elice Show

Edited March 28, 2013 by JSND

[SB.]

In FE11, you don't see anyone arguing Marth for best unit in the game just because he is necessary to kill Medeus.

That's because he isn't.

[Recondite]

Whatever, not the point >.>

[JamesBCrazy]

It is actually very much the point. The metagame focuses more on availability than use right now, not that it matters for Fred.

[Shikinoyume]

Morgan in S tier

like seriously! @-@

[Hiiyapow]

10 years late to the party here- what even happened to this thread? Did everyone just end up giving up? I was having fun reading through this and the hard mode one.

 

Given that this thread is the first google result for "Fire Emblem Awakening Lunatic Mode Tier List", I suppose we should at least have some more up-to-date information for the uninitiated coming here looking for answers.

-The Frederick arguments don't make sense as they seem to be based off a unit that's really strong early and falls off after the first 4 maps. The reality is that Fred is extremely strong for the first 4 maps of the game, but is arguably even stronger for parts of the midgame if he gets a little bit of exp. As long as you give him one of Awakening's many speed pairups, he is an incredibly asset all through the Gangrel arc and can be made to work for a good bit of Valm as well.

He does eventually fall off, but I would argue a unit that is extremely dominant for about 8 maps, 4 of which he is basically necessary for is much better than a unit that trivializes the entire game once they get investment, as many units can "take the place" of Robin and only look significantly worse in 5/6/7.

 

- Panne is way the fuck too high. Wyvern Panne's strength is mostly an urban myth that arose because people forgot to account for beaststone bonuses when taking into account her combat performance. It looks like Panne gains a massive amount of stats on second seal to wyvern, but that's only because the promotion screen doesn't show her in her transformed state. So while it looks like she gains 1HP, 7Str, 2Skl, 5 Def, and -2 Res, she actually has a stat change of 1HP, 4Str, -3Skl, -5Spd, +4 Def and -2 Res.

Taking into consideration bronze axe mt vs beaststone mt, the biggest changes you're looking at are +2Atk/4Def for a loss of 5Spd, 2 Res and 3Skl. Along with all the inherent weaknesses of wyvern (bows, wind magic).

What's sad is that Panne is actually a great pairup bot if she stays Taguel but she was never given the credit she deserved in this role, despite providing +3/+4 Str/Spd at base and only needing to level Str 2 times to provide 4/4, 5/5 and 6/6 which is an incredible offensive pairup given how early you get it.

 

-Basically everyone is more viable than this tier list would otherwise suggest and a lot of them feel like they're placed without much looking at the raw numbers. 

Stahl, for example, is placed 8 places above Vaike, despite having the same speed base and growth, worse Atk and a worse class set. 

Sumia and Cordelia are below Lon'Qu despite the fact that they are basically just Lonq with flier advantages. Yeah sure Sumia's combat is poop on toast, but 99% of the time these guys are used for their pairup bonuses, where Lon'Qu is ahead by a single point of speed.

-Ricken is rated below Donnel while Miriel is almost 3 tiers above him despite the units being functionally the same for a lot of the game. They both have good early chip damage, can help take out threatening wyverns in 5 and 7 with wind, and can be strong staffbots once they promote. The entire argument for Miriel being literally 3 TIERS above Ricken is that she gets Dark Mage access. Which means that after you level her all the way to at least level 10 and second seal her, you get a unit that might start being halfway decent once you get past chapter 13 and can consistently access nosferatu. 

The obvious solution is just to promote at hitting level 10 instead and use the incredibly broken staves the game gives you to break the game. Lissa/Libra also needs to go up for similar reasons.

-Libra and Anna are 10 places apart despite being almost the same unit outside of very niche situations. They are both strong staffers that join around Ch9. Libra is very bulky and slower, while Anna is faster. Unless you really care about 1 rounding ch12 cavs with levin sword or grind Anna all the way to Sage for 0% strats, there is very little difference between the two when you add up all their individual wins over each other (Libra's Res, Libras staff rank, Anna's Speed Anna's Lucky 7, Locktouch, etc).

-Nowi is above Gregor despite the fact that Gregor is an objectively better combat unit than her. A lot of people use the word objectively to mean "subjectively, but I really really mean it", but Gregor is quite literally an objectively better combat unit than Nowi. Nowi has worse bases (6 fucking speed in chapter 8. SIX? That's what base Vaike has in chapter 2 and he has people in this thread ragging on his speed stat), her midgame is worse because she can't leverage promotion bonuses to gain loads of extra stats, and her lategame is worse because she doesn't have access to anything like Sol/Axebreaker like Gregor gets.

-Olivia is in C tier despite the fact that galeforce is apparently supposed to be really good. I guess galeforce that you don't have to grind for, can be applied to any unit and doesn't require you to kill a unit on PP for is somehow bad?

 

...

I could go on but this thread is 10 years out of date so I can't exactly complain if things are wrong. Still, might as well improve the first place people are likely to wind up looking for explanations. Peace.