Character viability impressions (gameplay spoilers)

[Ownagepuffs]

Nah Takumi sucks. ;P (Im interested in your thoughts on him after you beat Hoshido and IK lunatic)Heres my thoughts, if I have to do all that (hold 2 deployment slots, level Azura to 10 and stick to him) so Takumi can kill 1-2 units a turn in range of his 6 move (thats 3 units used, and one is the dancer), Im not sure Im very impressed. I know it somewhat works, as thats pretty much what I did my first Hoshido/IK runs. A lot of stuff works; Hoshido especially is easy enough if playing casually.I rated him use in the op because I think hell make it easier for new players to beat lunatic. This is really subjective as easiness is even more impossible to characterize and something like that always depends on player knowledge, skill, and playstyle.Hes high tier because 11/1 Takumi is actually good, especially for his joining chapter as possibly the best unit there, and he still does solid enough damage later between Prescient Victory and his Personal. As in, if absent, the speed and reliability of clears are significantly impacted (this can be empirically shown from playthroughs or at least rationally intuited from experience).I dont see how Hana is any good in efficient play. Is Amelia good because shes Seth-lite? I think everyone is good in this game with some investment, but not everyone is good at facilitating efficient clears (which a tier list should reflect). Im probably currently underrating good primary combat units in non-Corrin centric team compositions, but to that end Id raise people like Saizou and others over Hana.While Corrin isnt Robin, his advantages (availability, Yato buff, Jakob/Felicia) still let him do a lot of work on enemy phase, with certain builds. Most mages are very limited, but Corrin actually has the Spd/bulk and can use Horse/Reverse God much better. Its possible to slingshot single units but not whole teams (with VD, Azura) to reach far enemies/bosses, so this is still efficient (despite less steamrolling than past FEs).

The example was extreme, as in what's necessary for him to double the fastest enemy on the map 2 maps after he joins. It didn't even take into account speedwings. In reality, he only needs like... 16 to cover most enemies in that same chapter which is just a speed proc and Kagerou pair up away. Or Kagerou/Saizou + tonic otherwise. Enemies aren't really that fast (at least not yet, I'm mid game). Booting up the chapter Takumi's unavailable in, the dark Mages have 8 speed, the Fighters have 12, the thieves have 16, the Knights have 7, the heroes have 18, the Sorcs have 15, the Valkyries have 17, the maids have 20 and Iago has 16. I'm not seeing how middling speed is applicable here. Unless you're going borderline LTC that is.

I know you're being facetious, but you know Amelia's not really Seth lite. Franz is good because he's Seth lite, therefore my argument technically stands. She's got a decent personal skill and tons of availability. She reminds me of RD Mia. Even though Mia isn't exactly necessary for the most efficient RD clears, she is still generally considered a good unit. I do think you're underrating units like Kaze and Saizou as well so I wouldn't be aversed to them rising either tbh. This is of course getting into tiering philosophy so it's probably not worth pursuing.

[lysander]

How exactly did you grow/level/use Hana though? From what I can tell the arguments against her are that, while you can certainly do it, it requires a lot of dual guard use to use her effectively which is the opposite of what you want when considering a particular character for either efficient or easy clears. New players wouldn't find it easy--and even if they did others are certainly worth the clever dual guard use or perhaps not needing it at all--and efficient players wouldn't find it worth it.

That's kind of different from Franz in FE8 by a long shot. And Mia.

edit: I mean, I'm going to use her no matter what too but I can certainly understand the rating of "don't use" and her placement on the efficiency list.

Edited August 16, 2015 by lysander

[XeKr]

The example was extreme, as in what's necessary for him to double the fastest enemy on the map 2 maps after he joins. It didn't even take into account speedwings. In reality, he only needs like... 16 to cover most enemies in that same chapter which is just a speed proc and Kagerou pair up away. Or Kagerou/Saizou + tonic otherwise. Enemies aren't really that fast (at least not yet, I'm mid game). Booting up the chapter Takumi's unavailable in, the dark Mages have 8 speed, the Fighters have 12, the thieves have 16, the Knights have 7, the heroes have 18, the Sorcs have 15, the Valkyries have 17, the maids have 20 and Iago has 16. I'm not seeing how middling speed is applicable here. Unless you're going borderline LTC that is.

I know you're being facetious, but you know Amelia's not really Seth lite. Franz is good because he's Seth lite, therefore my argument technically stands. She's got a decent personal skill and tons of availability. She reminds me of RD Mia. Even though Mia isn't exactly necessary for the most efficient RD clears, she is still generally considered a good unit. I do think you're underrating units like Kaze and Saizou as well so I wouldn't be aversed to them rising either tbh. This is of course getting into tiering philosophy so it's probably not worth pursuing.

Basically I found Takumi has consistently borderline spd, and I continuously had to give him special treatment to double (and he still whiffed occasionally). That feels middling. I joke about Mozume but at least you train her for a chapter or so and then let her go on pp.

I dislike lowest turn count for a variety of reasons, but the whole argument for why we should be going briskly as opposed to an arbitrarily slow pace is a compelling one. I consider unnecessary (i.e. not reliability-based) slowdown as inelegant and unoptimal, so I prefer a statistical metric for efficiency over an arbitrarily fast pace. lolphilosophytiem

And honestly if Ryoma didn’t have his prf, he would be kinda eh. Hana never gets his prf. ;(

RD Mia is okay at base with Adept and a critforge, can be trained by bexp, her enemies are weak, and she can Storm/Tempest Sword some stuff. I think she’s overrated though. Regardless, Hana still requires a lot more.

edit: Maybe PoR Mia, but enemies are jokes there compared to lunatic here. edit2: So maybe PoR Mia in Maniac. >_> (not very good imo)

Edited August 16, 2015 by XeKr

[arvilino]

I'm not sure Effie's offense is too great overall, her base speed just seems like it'd be too low for her to double even if she goes Great Knight. Tanking seems pretty useful though.

It's harder to double in general due to the 5 AS requirement, Jav/hand axe and Steel Weapon penalties and nerfs to pairup. You'll find on Lunatic she has some of the best offense in the game, even with a Javelin she's wrecking things especially if her personal skill activates.

The fact certain enemies defense stat can get quite high makes a character with a massive strength stat and her personal skill pretty valuable.

Edited August 16, 2015 by arvilino

[Ownagepuffs]

It's not hard. Just give her a random pair up partner. I chose Tsubaki because easy. There are times when her durability is an issue, but she only needs to survive one round of combat to contribute. It's nice when she actually has the speed to ORKO pesky fast enemies like Ninjas. Plus Swordmaster is a not shit class this time. Maybe it's easier for me since I know how to Lunatic.

Everyone needs proper guard stance use to be raised effectively. Send a unit alone and they will get ass raped by attack stance I guarantee. There are some units with wtf durability like Crimson but she is a dime a dozen. Enemies are pretty much always placed in attack stance range of each other.

That's kind of different from Franz in FE8 by a long shot. And Mia.

She's not Franz, but she is similar to RD Mia. Optimal use of Mia is not intuitive. Certainly not something you can expect of a new player. How would they know to ship over items from the DB, give her a Crit Forge and an Ike support while knowing the ins and outs of the Bexp system?

Edit here: no more tier philosophy talk from me. I will say that if you insta promoted Takumi then yeah his speed will be borderline because his experience gain will be slow as piss lol. Also what is "required" is kind of different in the context of RD Mia and Hana. Like, you say Hana required "a lot more" but Mia takes a 10k Forge, Ike support, and Adept. Hana just wants... Exp? A spouse? Direct comparisons are hard.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Ownagepuffs

[Water Mage]

Crimson, Izana, Asyura, Yukimura added. That should be all of Hoshido first gen. Probably some revisions and short additions for Invisible Kingdom, and then Nohr first gen next. The children are really pretty filler and all “use if you like” status, even if it’s certainly interesting to think about all the possibilities there.

Anyways, besides that fact I haven’t had as much time as I would like lately (life), slow updates have been because I’m been distracted by some resetless/noDLC efficiency attempts and Lunatic Nohr is alskfjsldkjsldkfj hard there.

As for why the rest of this post in this topic, some people are interested in more seriously (<_<) assessing character viability beyond leisurely/casual use, and in brief, “efficiency” is a basis or metric to do so. I may make a new topic soon, however.

- For the purpose of this post, efficient clears of the game will be fast and reliable. To go a step further, for the most part, the clears are reliable enough to be used in resetless or ironman runs. Low turns over low real time, since while both emphasize optimized strategy and tactics, the latter is heavily impacted by outside technical and physical factors such as animation skip and cursor movement. This is preference.

- No DLC. This includes Dread Fighter, Dark Falcon and such from owning other paths. It can be interesting to allow these, especially since you can have a 10 move flier and Galeforce!Felicia early, but it’s not under the purview of this particular type of run.

- A lot of the My Castle stuff is time-based and/or unreliable, so I only use Armory, Vendor and character recruitment things. Actually the prison could perhaps be helpful, something to look into.

- Full recruitment (excepting paralogues), no one dies, etcetc. This does mean Corrin needs to stick with Kaze for a bit in Hoshido, which can be inconvenient.

- Paralogues and skirmishes count for turns. Mozume’s chapter could be forced, since it’s always available, but it’s kinda boring this way is a little cleaner imo.https://kantopia.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/fire-emblem-fates-importers-source-chapter-data-ongoing/some map details but beware spoilers.

Pro: 2/2

C1: 4/6. +Hp or +Def can 4 turn this, I’m not sure the other assets can.

C2: 3/9. Depends how the enemy moves, but easy transition to 4 turns if necessary. I think going up the right side first is more consistent but not too sure. Attack stance is hard to optimize.

C3: 5/14. Quite risky because of the boss avoid, but still early in the run so I allow breaking the typical reliability requirement (to be clear, still favored to succeed but not 99+ish). Obviously could take significantly more turns for safety, but eh.

C4: 8/22. +Hp can survive the Dragon’s Vein that aggros the boss group. Fairly safe, tc is mostly limited by Ryoma since everyone else is rekt’d by debuffs. Getting Kaze some exp can help if he procs Res.

C5: 7/29. This is pretty safe strat I feel. If Kaze has a Res level it’s possible to be a bit more aggressive. It’s otherwise very narrow 3hko with Sakura/Debuffs and various mage combinations (Sakura/Azura both can, and may need to, take a hit) but positioning can be hard to work out. Usually aggro the bottom turn 3 to be conservative.

C6: 2/31. I feel like I’ve 1 turned this before (no crits), but lately Xander likes to run away into Elise’s arms.

Past these chapters the clears are increasingly less optimized since I try different routes, assets, reclasses, etc (translation: basically really slow for reliability purposes). I’m leaning toward +Hp/-Luck/Dark Mage atm, at least in Hoshido. Hard time against the early Ninja chapter (have to haphazardly lean on GKW!Takumi, Hinoka, and Silas) but seems better elsewhere (especially in H8 where 1-2 range is good, can move with desert with Kaze Pair Up). It does occasionally miss out on some kills in lacking damage, but +mag might just be dead in other instances. Definitely still need testing.

H7: 10/41. Bottom left Cavs don’t seem to move until turn 10, even if Silas is killed and such, so it’s hard to improve for now. It’s helpful to have Kaze to fight, so the Seraph robe is skipped in favor of the Armorslayer. 10 Turns is lenient enough that maybe can get both chests, so that’s something to look into later. Or maybe just push bottom corner with more units (Corrin is there by turn 7 or so but only kills 1 unit at a time)

Moar later as I get better at them. Also for fun though…

[spoiler=definitely not a Hoshido Lunatic Efficiency tier list]God

Gunter

-by the Sigurd clause, in which disappearing from the game is ignored, this is trivially true

Top

Corrin (M/F)

Ryoma

Azura

[spoiler=top]

-Best availability and arguably router. Reclass for 1-2 range, def boost from Felicia/Jakob. +Hp asset, Horse God gives more durability, attacking Res kills stuff (though some is whiffed).

-Misses too much, 0/10

-Facilitates a lot, especially since it’s (relatively) hard to steamroll stuff early. Obviously invaluable to bosskills. Tbh could be toppest depending how uniqueness and irreplicability are valued (ala FE12!Malicia, FE5!Safy, etc).

High

Yuugiri

Crimson

Hinoka

Takumi

Felicia/Jakob (early)

Izana

[spoiler=high]

-Yuugiri is really good in the chapters she has over Crimson but the combat difference is also fairly big when the latter joins. Still she can reclass for Vanished Disaster (VD, it’s the rescue staff) later

-Pretty amazing.

-Filler fighting, then VD, ferry, Rally Speed.

-Promote to Golden Kite immediately to fly over forests. prf bonus is no substitute for actual flight and 2 move. Maybe lower.

-I’ve mainly done FCorrin so far because Jakob can fight at base and the extra Def+avoid really helps later, but Felicia could reclass to Strategist for 8 move 1-2 range very early, despite questionable durability. Mostly useful for Corrin after support with Kaze is built, however. And not to say Felicia’s bonus doesn’t matter, it’s 3 Magx2= 6 damage.

-mage stuff + VD. Midgame some HorseGod+tonics shenanigans. Later best Mag for Misfortune and Sin which does (sometimes) hit some bosses.

Mid

Kaze

Subaki

Sakura

Felicia/Jakob (late)

Asyura

Asama

Silas

[spoiler=mid]

-Not sure if overinflated because forced to get A support. Still gives Spd and move which is nice. Also atm I purposely undervalue/credit him for chapters 4 and 5, ala FE10!Edward.

-ferrybot. Probably can find a way to efficiently train him to 10 for other stuff.

-VD and aura. Early heals are very important too.

-staffbot, reclass for 8 move.

-filler bows + VD. 7 move is cool

-staffbot. Maybe superfluous.

-I haven’t found too much use. You have desert, ninja forest, boat, opera chapters very soon, so he’s just a nonflying dude later. Rescue-take-drop is cool but without canto is eh. Perhaps I’m missing some obvious use; he does do some filler fighting early, but arguably worse than Saizou who sometimes doubles at 1-2 range and gives move to his ferry.

Low

Saizou

Kagerou

Yukimura

Setsuna

Nishiki

Oboro

Rinkah

[spoiler=low]

-Chip and gives +Spd/move. Tho I’m looking into 10/1 Saizou for H10 which could speed things up a lot since no one else fights Ninjas too well. Again Kaze sticks with Corrin early, but admittedly this could be relaxed with better support point optimization.

-Chip and gives +Spd/move

-filler fighter for H23.

-kills fliers in H11, chips stuff, gives offensive stats in Pair Up

-filler hits mounts pretty hard

- gives offensive stats in Pair Up, maybe help in H13 rout

- gives early Str/Def which is nice?

Bottom

Hana

Hinata

Tsukuyomi

[spoiler=bottom]

-gives Spd but so do many others who give flight and stuff

-gives Spd, instapromote for other stats plus help in H13 rout (probably not worth), but so do others who give flight and stuff

-chipper. A long way from 10/1 and Rescue range doesn’t scale anyway.

Say, this just a guess, but shouldn't Oboro be little a higher on the list due to her Nohr-Hater skill? I would imagine it would be useful on the Hoshido path, as you mostly face Nohr units, and it would make maps with "Rout the Enemy" take less turns.

Or is her personal skill not that useful?

I don't the have the game, so I may be completely wrong and I'm not so sure how much additional damage Oboro does.

But I've heard before that her skill was very useful.

[Ownagepuffs]

Oboro's personal has yet to make a difference in her offense for me. Maybe later in. Although sticking a Javelin on her gives you a 1-2 range -6 Def debuff.

[Water Mage]

So the bonus damage from her personal skill is low?

[CocoaGalaxy]

Personal skills aren't that gamebreaking, even things like Pieri's plus constant Azura singing to maximise usage of it, Charlotte's +4 Damage and +20 Crit when facing female enemies, etc

Edited August 16, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[NinjaMonkey]

Maybe Orochi too because of Shadowgift.

Given how much they nerfed Dark Magic in this game, Shadowgift is essentially worthless.

[Water Mage]

To be fair, I wasn't expecting Oboro's skill to like the Armorslayer or Beast Killer. That would be gamebreaking.

But is there a character whose personal skill makes a difference in Lunatic?

I'm not really worried about having a low turn count, just want to see if there's a personal skill that can make Lunatic a little easier.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Water Mage

[XeKr]

Edit here: no more tier philosophy talk from me. I will say that if you insta promoted Takumi then yeah his speed will be borderline because his experience gain will be slow as piss lol. Also what is "required" is kind of different in the context of RD Mia and Hana. Like, you say Hana required "a lot more" but Mia takes a 10k Forge, Ike support, and Adept. Hana just wants... Exp? A spouse? Direct comparisons are hard.

To clarify, I don’t earlypromote Takumi unless I’m doing resetless efficiency attempts. I felt there was a Spd issue before that, just playing through the game, promoting at 20, etc.

The problem is Hana needs kills which is directly inefficient as it takes turns to set those up (relatively more turns to make her competent than others). Mia just takes prep-screen resources like items, bexp, gold, the inefficiency there is if they could be used elsewhere for better use (arguable).

Say, this just a guess, but shouldn't Oboro be little a higher on the list due to her Nohr-Hater skill? I would imagine it would be useful on the Hoshido path, as you mostly face Nohr units, and it would make maps with "Rout the Enemy" take less turns.

Or is her personal skill not that useful?

I don't the have the game, so I may be completely wrong and I'm not so sure how much additional damage Oboro does.

But I've heard before that her skill was very useful.

Oboro doesn’t have the Spd (without some investment), so unless she ohkos, the damage isn’t very helpful. She also doesn’t have good 1-2 range, which limited her usefulness in routs, and doesn’t have utility value (staves, flight, etc). Maybe the debuffs, but it's hard to say.

My mid/lategame rout optimization is kinda bad though, so eh. It’d be very easy to change my opinion on some positions if someone had contextual insights.

And Jakob's personal makes Lunatic significantly easier. >_>

and personals for Sakura, Ryoma, etc all help out a bit. It's just another part of the character, like their bases or growths.

edit: And I wouldn't worry too much. Oboro is a solid enough character if you don't care about turncount. Balanced stats, but on the high side, and her bases are on par with the enemies so not very hard to train.

Edited August 16, 2015 by XeKr

[FrostyFireMage]

Are there any characters that are clearly inferior to other units and should be avoided?

[gayserbeam]

Are there any characters that are clearly inferior to other units and should be avoided?

Tsukuyomi needs to be fed kills to do anything at all, and you can potentially make an immediately useful mage unit in Hoshido out of Saizou or Felicia with reclass items, so he is usually more trouble than he's worth.

Orochi has massive magic but her speed is just too low to be practical without boosting items, and there are better units for that.

Rinkah just generally has mediocre growths that don't mesh well. Good SKL, DEF and SPD don't save her from her abysmal HP and poor strength.

I'd actually argue that everyone in Nohr is in some way workable. Hoshido, however, has a handful of units who are redundant or need to be coddled.

Edited August 16, 2015 by gayserbeam

[CocoaGalaxy]

I would say it's undisputable but it's probably going to be "disputed"

My personal opinions

Subaki: Low strength, low speed.

Orochi: Low speed, low defense.

Setsuna: Low strength, low defense.

Hinata is a "bordeline" case, because he's really not fast enough

Yuugiri has poor defenses, no sidestepping that. Technically she's about as good as Hana...I guess...

(You could say I'm being biased for not mentioning Hana)

Combat wise, Azura probably wins the "most likely to get 1hko" award

Tsukuyomi as a Shura/Blacksmith, more or less beats or is (almost) equal to Rinkah in every category

The Nohrians are mostly balanced, though you could make an argument for Nyx's poor defenses, Benoit being outclassed by Effie, etc

Edited August 16, 2015 by CocoaGalaxy

[-Cynthia-]

Mozume's bases are pretty bad and she doesn't seem to grow into anything exceptional anyway, so probably worth avoiding on all routes. A number of characters seem somewhat outclassed, but do give good pair up bonuses/have other utility so they might still be worth deploying.

[charlesbarkley]

Mozume is really good as a Holy Bowman, especially in Nohr where you don't have many archers. She gets natural access to bunch of damage boosting skills (PV, Bowfaire, LoD, Extravagance) as well.

[Ownagepuffs]

To clarify, I don’t earlypromote Takumi unless I’m doing resetless efficiency attempts. I felt there was a Spd issue before that, just playing through the game, promoting at 20, etc.The problem is Hana needs kills which is directly inefficient as it takes turns to set those up (relatively more turns to make her competent than others). Mia just takes prep-screen resources like items, bexp, gold, the inefficiency there is if they could be used elsewhere for better use (arguable).

Still looking through the stats. If your Takumi had Spd problems, he must have just been below his average. These enemies are not fast.

Are we operating under the assumption that Mia trains herself? Mia needs kills to level which also goes against maximum efficiency because maximum efficiency is just a Haar rush + Titania. It's a pretty boring way to discuss units. I'll just accept your list as strictly LTC based.

Are there any characters that are clearly inferior to other units and should be avoided?

Your intuition is most likely correct, except if you intend to ditch Effie on the basis of her being a Knight.

I'd actually argue that everyone in Nohr is in some way workable. Hoshido, however, has a handful of units who are redundant or need to be coddled.

I dunno, I hear Owain is pretty bad everywhere. IK unit balance is RIP. Some units have FE12 syndrome there (bases not adjusted for join time)

I would say it's undisputable but it's probably going to be "disputed"

Yuugiri has poor defenses, no sidestepping that. Technically she's about as good as Hana...I guess...

(You could say I'm being biased for not mentioning Hana)

Yuugiri is pretty amazing man. That's more a compliment to Hana than an insult to Yuugiri. Being Kamui-sexual is like her only flaw. But even then, the game doesn't put as much of an emphasis on support Ranks as Awakening so it's not a big deal.

[-Cynthia-]

Mozume is really good as a Holy Bowman, especially in Nohr where you don't have many archers. She gets natural access to bunch of damage boosting skills (PV, Bowfaire, LoD, Extravagance) as well.

I was speaking more from an efficiency standpoint, where grinding up the bow rank and those skills doesn't seem very practical.

Are we operating under the assumption that Mia trains herself? Mia needs kills to level which also goes against maximum efficiency because maximum efficiency is just a Haar rush + Titania. It's a pretty boring way to discuss units. I'll just accept your list as strictly LTC based.

Mia can pretty much train herself after that little resource dump I'd say- kinda different from Hana whose base Str and even Spd don't really cut it(she's not doubling everything while 3HKOing with a good chance of a 2HKO I'm pretty sure). An easy Earth support also fixes Mia's durability and I'm not sure how Hana's durability really gets better.

[XeKr]

Are there any characters that are clearly inferior to other units and should be avoided?

Nothing wrong with using multiple of the same class/weapon type but I would say Setsuna is the most “strictly” outclassed, since Yuugiri exists (but it’s not like Setsuna won’t consistently hit hard when she’s >level10, and she always blicks fliers). Everyone else I can see some special niche, even if the sibling variant is generally better (especially at base, but often even with training).

Hana/Hinata eventually does have better Spd/Def than Ryoma, Nyx eventually have better Spd than Leo (Odin will have some bulk, or is the rare Nohr Samurai), Belka will have better bulk than Camilla, and so on.

Though if you want an easier time, just don’t bother with anyone that feels hard to use at base. Just use all the high base units since they don’t really fall off too much. If marrying them off along the way, you get even more rng-proof competent units for free later. On the other hand, no one is really that hard to use in this game, because of Attack Stance and de/buffs to train them.

Tsukuyomi needs to be fed kills to do anything at all, and you can potentially make an immediately useful mage unit in Hoshido out of Saizou or Felicia with reclass items, so he is usually more trouble than he's worth.

Orochi has massive magic but her speed is just too low to be practical without boosting items, and there are better units for that.

Rinkah just generally has mediocre growths that don't mesh well. Good SKL, DEF and SPD don't save her from her abysmal HP and poor strength.

I'd actually argue that everyone in Nohr is in some way workable. Hoshido, however, has a handful of units who are redundant or need to be coddled.

Good points though to add a few thoughts.

Tsukuyomi is the rare tanky mage once trained. Saizou can’t reclass to a mage class immediately if Dark Falcon isn’t available, and Felicia’s Hp/Def are not very high.

Orochi hits pretty hard, especially as the attacking or support unit in Attack Stance. Plus honestly generals sometimes have like 25 more Def than Res so it’s not like effective weapons always do more. And she avoids counterattacks which is a huge chunk of damage. Again the other natural Hoshido mage option is Tsukuyomi who needs more to get started.

Rinkah well, don’t really have other grounded Axe users. Reclassed Hinata is even slower.

Are we operating under the assumption that Mia trains herself? Mia needs kills to level which also goes against maximum efficiency because maximum efficiency is just a Haar rush + Titania. It's a pretty boring way to discuss units. I'll just accept your list as strictly LTC based.

I said I think Mia is overrated, but her defenders like to claim all she needs is a forge and adept to be a competent fighter (iirc) at base. afaict, Hana requires a lot of turns and kills to get somewhere similar offensively. Even then, Mia doesn’t run the risk of being ohko’d.

In the maximum efficiency case, sure Haar and Titania do most of the work, but other units still contribute. Besides, I’m actually one of the the only biggest advocates of assessing with nonspecific, potentially suboptimal, team compositions (because of lame conclusions optimal deployment leads to, like FE9!Jill in bottom). In cases where Haar or Titania are not in play, Mia might be significantly better, since she can (supposedly) oneround stuff kinda consistently, with decent durability, so an okay router option.

And I even mentioned earlier that I’m probably “underrating good combat units in non-Corrin centric teams”. Still, if Hana was actually good, it should be easy to show how she facilitates efficient clears in a broad sense. Even theorycraft is fine, because I just don’t see how atm. Like argue her against a combat unit above her could argue against utility people but then I’d have to rant about tiering criteria. I want to raise other growth units but I'm not going to unless there's some evidence they're good in efficient play.

I also don’t understand how the comparison that came to mind is RD Mia (supposedly competent at base), when it’s more like RD Edward or PoR Maniac Mia (bad bases, tank axes with face, etc). >_>

Re: Mozume: Her Hp is too low so I think it’s definitely not worth to train as a frontliner. However, she has the best Str/Spd combination and arguably player phase, if trained. Probably slow for efficiency however (and her paralogue would have to be considered free by consensus). Though Nohr Lunatic has a defend map and is actually hard enough to maybe need it so…..

edit: not that it matters, but since I noticed I missed her, I'd probably put Orochi in bottom for now. tbd if capture has uses (H11 does have some promoted fliers).

Edited August 16, 2015 by XeKr

[charlesbarkley]

I was speaking more from an efficiency standpoint, where grinding up the bow rank and those skills doesn't seem very practical.

You can reclass her straight to Bowman as soon as you get her, it's not much different from any other unpromoted unit. Dealing with the fliers in Nohr Ch.10 becomes a lot easier. And she doesn't need LoD and Extravagance to perform (I didn't bother getting them), but they're an endgame option for boss-killing. Access to Herb Merchant is enough to differentiate a character, since it has the worst availability in the game seals considered (only one 1st gen character has Herb Merchant as primary class, and he's a Kamuisexual).

[Luninareph]

A potentially amusing, albeit probably not terribly practical, use of Hana is to reclass her into a bow-using class (she gets War Priestess by default, she can A+ Setsuna, and she's a good mother for Kisaragi so she might marry Takumi) so you can place her next to one enemy, kill a different enemy within range of her bow, and thereby trigger her passive on the enemy she's adjacent to, letting somebody else come in and finish them off. Priestess would also give her Miracle, which, though not a reliable safety net by any means, is at least something that might protect her if her EVA fails. (The better choice of course would be A+ Effie on IK route for Pavise, but that would be a long time in coming. Still, Hana has crazy SKL, so Pavise would probably be really nice on her once she got it.)

[Ownagepuffs]

Mia can pretty much train herself after that little resource dump I'd say- kinda different from Hana whose base Str and even Spd don't really cut it(she's not doubling everything while 3HKOing with a good chance of a 2HKO I'm pretty sure). An easy Earth support also fixes Mia's durability and I'm not sure how Hana's durability really gets better.

Hana's base Str/Spd and growths relative to her availability are among the highest in Hoshido. Not sure where you're getting "not cutting it" from. It's common for units to 2RKO early on. Enemies packs respectable levels of durability (Fighters in C7 have 27 HP/6 defense and lancers have 25HP/8 Def. If you're looking for units that ORKO everything from base in the first few chapters of the game I'm afraid you're gonna be SOL. If you feel like checking stats, they're exactly the same as HM so you can look at Omegaevolution's playthrough to get an idea. Hana's durability doesn't really get better. I'd be lying if I said she doesn't rely on avoid, but in an environment like Fates' where prolonged EP exposure is discouraged (example: according to Gwimpage, Nohr late game has Ninjas who can take Marx from 36 Def to 12 after a single EP thanks to negative chain and can take 40% of your HP on their turn thanks to combining Deadly Breath and Venom), having a good player phase is a good thing. Things like paying attention to enemy placement, HP/Def tonics (300g, you get enough Gold) and simply a Def boosting spouse (I picked Subaki) makes using Hana easy.

I said I think Mia is overrated, but her defenders like to claim all she needs is a forge and adept to be a competent fighter (iirc) at base. afaict, Hana requires a lot of turns and kills to get somewhere similar offensively. Even then, Mia doesn’t run the risk of being ohko’d.

In the maximum efficiency case, sure Haar and Titania do most of the work, but other units still contribute. Besides, I’m actually one of the the only biggest advocates of assessing with nonspecific, potentially suboptimal, team compositions (because of lame conclusions optimal deployment leads to, like FE9!Jill in bottom). In cases where Haar or Titania are not in play, Mia might be significantly better, since she can (supposedly) oneround stuff kinda consistently, with decent durability, so an okay router option.

And I even mentioned earlier that I’m probably “underrating good combat units in non-Corrin centric teams”. Still, if Hana was actually good, it should be easy to show how she facilitates efficient clears in a broad sense. Even theorycraft is fine, because I just don’t see how atm. Like argue her against a combat unit above her could argue against utility people but then I’d have to rant about tiering criteria. I want to raise other growth units but I'm not going to unless there's some evidence they're good in efficient play.

I also don’t understand how the comparison that came to mind is RD Mia (supposedly competent at base), when it’s more like RD Edward or PoR Maniac Mia (bad bases, tank axes with face, etc). >_>

The comparison is being made to RD Mia because she's considered a good unit even though she doesn't contribute to efficient clears (tbh LTCing RD is actually very reliable relative to other FEs). Hana was pretty useful in my run for H10 as one of the few units who had the AS to double Ninjas and ORKO them. She also put in work with the armor slayer for C9. Setsuna above her? Really? The only time Setsuna can finally shine (H11) Yuugiri joins and Takumi is a thing. Fliers after that can be ORKO'd by units that aren't Setsuna or OHKO'd by Takumi. Even Mozume can go above her. Not sure why you and Cynthia are calling her bases bad. 9 Str with a 60% growth and 11 Spd with a 75% growth are fine. The point is she is competent at at base.

[XeKr]

Hana's base Str/Spd and growths relative to her availability are among the highest in Hoshido. Not sure where you're getting "not cutting it" from. It's common for units to 2RKO early on. Enemies packs respectable levels of durability (Fighters in C7 have 27 HP/6 defense and lancers have 25HP/8 Def. If you're looking for units that ORKO everything from base in the first few chapters of the game I'm afraid you're gonna be SOL. If you feel like checking stats, they're exactly the same as HM so you can look at Omegaevolution's playthrough to get an idea. Hana's durability doesn't really get better. I'd be lying if I said she doesn't rely on avoid, but in an environment like Fates' where prolonged EP exposure is discouraged (example: according to Gwimpage, Nohr late game has Ninjas who can take Marx from 36 Def to 12 after a single EP thanks to negative chain and can take 40% of your HP on their turn thanks to combining Deadly Breath and Venom), having a good player phase is a good thing. Things like paying attention to enemy placement, HP/Def tonics (300g, you get enough Gold) and simply a Def boosting spouse (I picked Subaki) makes using Hana easy.

Hoshido is not Nohr. And Hana’s pp isn’t even that good until she gets a bunch of levels. I’ll reiterate, everyone is “good” with a bunch of levels if we ignore the inefficiency in getting those levels. And her overwhelming reliance on avoid, even if we do train her, kinda trashes the consistency of clears.

The comparison is being made to RD Mia because she's considered a good unit even though she doesn't contribute to efficient clears (tbh LTCing RD is actually very reliable relative to other FEs). Hana was pretty useful in my run for H10 as one of the few units who had the AS to double Ninjas and ORKO them. She also put in work with the armor slayer for C9. Setsuna above her? Really? The only time Setsuna can finally shine (H11) Yuugiri joins and Takumi is a thing. Fliers after that can be ORKO'd by units that aren't Setsuna or OHKO'd by Takumi. Even Mozume can go above her. Not sure why you and Cynthia are calling her bases bad. 9 Str with a 60% growth and 11 Spd with a 75% growth are fine. The point is she is competent at at base.

I get a weird feeling we are seriously retreading Snowyesque arguments re: Mia right now. It’s something about female myrms.

Units like Yuugiri/Crimson/Ryoma are competent at base. Hana is not.

What I see is she’s the worst unit in H7 (Rinkah’s Str/Def pairup is unique and useful), H8 is a desert so she’s probably the worst unit there, then okay she can armorslayer some knights (if mage/cav Corrin isn’t rolling them). And it’s still slow because those knights hit really hard with wta and there’s outlaws in guard stance and it’s a mess for her.

Setsuna is there because she felt useful in H11 and H13 (we can deploy more than 1-2 bow users, and she doesn’t need levels to blast fliers) and her Pair Up barely gave enough Str/Spd in a few instances (she’s conveniently near Hinoka to start H8). Even in H10 having perfect accuracy is nice. It’s not like Setsuna is very highly ranked anyway, it’s more just Hana never felt very useful. I have no problem putting Setsuna in bottom, as she’s certainly not very good, but I gave her some extra credit for cases where Yuugiri and Takumi may not be in play.

This isn’t too hard to resolve though. Instead throwing out random points in a vacuum, let’s be more relevant and in context, what was your team and your (very approximate/estimated) expected turncounts in H7-10 to get Hana those levels and be “pretty useful” in H10. This way, we can assess the optimization of strategy and tactics (and Hana’s role) instead of random character anecdotes. I mean here it’s not even a turn shave/nitpicking case; my own optimization definitely isn’t the best yet (when I’m more satisfied and have time to writeup I’ll post mine), but I just don’t see how it’s even close to a brisk pace if feeding Hana as well.

I’m going to need some more specific help here: show how Hana contributes, and what investment is needed, in the context of efficient play. Again, the deployed team can be suboptimal, I (personally) don’t care. But the tactics should not be, to be best of our ability.

I should mention for more general impressions of her performance, I’m also interested and I’ll probably include that in the op, but I don’t consider that to have much bearing on her tier position. Well, at least for the particular one that I posted. Hana can still be good and useful by any arbitrary or subjective standard, but that doesn’t mean she’s any good at facilitating quick and reliable clears (and that’s fine).

I guess I’m also okay for a few short discussions of why turncount/reliability are important, if that’s where you wanna go. (if you’ve changed from your no philosophy position earlier). To that end, I suppose I already alluded to some arguments earlier. The crux of the matter is “easiness” lends itself to “my opinion/playstyle is better because I felt this way and said so more eloquently”, which is more subjective. Whereas “efficiency” is more “my opinion/playstyle is better because it leads to lower turncounts and higher success rates on average”, which is (relatively) more objective.

Kinda busy so replies might be slow tho.

tl;dr: #efficiency

Edited August 19, 2015 by XeKr

[Nintales]

Can't Hana be good due to +5 Spd in a Pair-Up?

That's more than Hinoka and Subaki, despite not having a mount. She could be a good candidate for those lacking in speed.

And Tomboy is not that bad. Can't she weaken enemies with that?

I don't really know though, I don't have the game.