tierlist FE6 Tier List - Redux

[Irysa]

20 minutes ago, General Horace said:

WRT to the first point, you just have to be not stupid about it.  Of course you're not gonna go EP a bunch of soldiers with swords or something, there are several scenerios where enemies are left with ~5-7 HP in the earlygame where you can just secure the kill with Alan or Shanna or whoever.  

Again i'm not playing at a "slow" pace.  The only maps i've taken more than 10 turns on so far are Chapter 8 (which is a long horrible chapter anyway) and Chapter 3 because Dieck missed the boss like 5 times in a row.  

Yeah I acknowledge this and I'm not saying you're playing slow, I'm saying compared to my own slow playthroughs, I find C/C a bit baffling. Thats 100 Sword Wexp and 50 Lance Wexp, which in the absoloute best case scenario (that doesn't actually exist) means 50 doubled and killed situations. Realistically, they only get 2 from finishing stuff off a lot of the time, or 1 for chipping, so really its more like 70 enemies? That's like, 4 maps entirely solo. I do the things you outline too and they just don't have that many kills. Perhaps I'm just making a lot more use of Marcus and Dieck than you are though, IDK? Do you have reservations against letting Marcus take kills? I'm happy to give him EXP early on and even have him take bosses in case he procs speed or something since it makes a lot of the earlygame way easier. I also let him raise axe rank a lot since I really like Hammer/Halberd Marcus in Chapter 7.

How was your Shanna doing on EXP?

Maybe if I frame this mathematically it'll make more sense - Alance need about 50 kills to be at like level 13 by 8x. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Where are the extra 20 to 30 enemies coming from?

Edited March 24, 2017 by Irysa

[General Horace]

Marcus is level 6 now starting chapter 10.  Dunno how high/low that is.  Also worth noting Marcus still has base str/spd so he probably got a bit less exp than normal because he's barely missing KO's when he can double, and +1 speed goes a really long way on him.  I gave Dieck a couple bosses but Marcus still got 1/2/7 bosses.  

And Alan still has D lances, he's not C/C (before promoting him here in chapter 10).  He's just below half of D and a little ways into C at level 15.  He hit C near the end of 8x too, he didn't have it at the start.   Other units expwise Shanna is like 11/1, Rutger is 12?/1 Dieck is level 13, and Roy is level 10, Marcus 6, Zealot 3, everyone else is pretty much filler (Lugh is level 9 or something not sure if i'll use him) or a staffbot.

Again I don't want to move Alan/Lance up at all, I just want to understand what makes Percival as good as the other units in top tier.  Tate's placement also confuses me.  She's barely (or not even) a top 10 combat unit on your team which only leaves flying utility, and this is lessened imo by the existance of Miledy. 

Edited March 24, 2017 by General Horace

[Irysa]

Okay with the clearing up of the C/C thing that sounds fine. C/D before promotion either way sounds normal to me, just usually I find it's a little bit more biased to Lances (which I admit can be worked around if you put the effort in). It's just that typically I find they only get about another wlevel's worth of WEXP from Chapters 9 to 13, which leaves them about B when Percival joins. In fact overall your stats sound very similar to where mine usually are at that point too, just usually I find Shanna gets a bit more and Dieck gets a bit less.

The more I think about it, I think it's more to do with the fact that I give a lot of random "free" Sword WEXP to Shanna if possible since I tend to prioritise improving her Sword Rank over the Cavs (D is already really nice and C is kinda amazing if she gets there). If I did that less then I can see B nearly A by C15 as pretty realistic. But IMO, having a Shanna with better Sword rank is a lot more useful than Alance getting better Sword Rank unless you just aren't using Percival.

I think some of this gets into assuming optimal team comps and planning though so it is shaky, I admit. Though the point I address next doesn't fall into that.

41 minutes ago, General Horace said:

Again I don't want to move Alan/Lance up at all, I just want to understand what makes Percival as good as the other units in top tier.  Tate's placement also confuses me.  She's barely (or not even) a top 10 combat unit on your team which only leaves flying utility, and this is lessened imo by the existance of Miledy. 

I agree Tate is too high on the current list, IMO she basically ties with Zealot or Alance overall. I think I'm sort of seeing an argument for Percival out of Top Tier and at the absoloute Top of High, or below the Dancers, but I still feel compelled to point out that he slots amazingly into literally every team, costs nothing, isn't hard to recruit, and competes for zero resources. He is single nearly single handledly capable of carrying anyone through the game. But if you look at it really closely and examine impact on efficiency he has, he isn't super centralising like Rutger and Marcus are, not does he have as strong a niche as Miledy (bulky strong combat flier) or the dancers.

I feel that the sheer flexability and prominence he can have in any run means he still deserves top, and I think he can cinch out the Dancers because they're only as good as the units around them. Basically, adding dancers to a suboptimal comp results in a mild improvement, adding Percival to a suboptimal team always results in a massive improvement.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Irysa

[General Horace]

Can you explain to me what makes you think Tate is as valuable as Zealot/Alan/Lance?  Looking at the units below her there aren't many great units either but i'm of he opinion that Tate isn't enough of a contributor to anything that warrents being a high tier unit.   I've only used her once on HM and was very underwhelmed.  She can't fight lategame and she can't fight well until she promotes.  I see her around Dieck/Noah territory.

 

I don't really agree in the no effort required = good unit (assuming they do in fact have good stats) philosophy, but i'm willing to handwaive it.  Knight Crest competition isn't a huge deal either since you won't use more than 2 of the cavaliers anyway (even 2 is pushing it).  More or less the only issue I have with Percival being a top tier unit is his join time.  He's not around for the hardest part of the game (earlygame) either.  

Edited March 24, 2017 by General Horace

[-Cynthia-]

Quote

As for Zeiss vs Tate, though Zeiss has better durability Tate also has a lot more availability and will shave more turns in the long run by flight utility alone. Zeiss's combat is pretty average outside of Pegasus Knights to be honest and maybe against some units like Generals where Zeiss's higher base Strength is likely doing more favors for than Tate. It's also really hard to see Zeiss a whole tier above Deke and Tate below Alan and Lance honestly. Tate still is great because, even for strict flight purposes, it enables more free use of Miledy too. The solution may be to move both Deke and Zeiss up, but honestly that might even be going too far because Zeiss is available rather late in the game and needs some work to really be decent (or at worst he's still a good flier unit but his durability lead is all he has and in some cases it doesn't always matter - though there are instances where he could probably be more reckless with Rescue drops).

I can see Tate> Zeiss because Tate has 6 more chapters of Rescue dropping or whatnot, but I think Alance>Tate makes sense. An 11 chapter availability difference is huge and their combat is much better. I guess I don't value Tate's ferrying that highly when Shanna and Miledy are already around.

[Irysa]

3 hours ago, General Horace said:

Can you explain to me what makes you think Tate is as valuable as Zealot/Alan/Lance?  Looking at the units below her there aren't many great units either but i'm of he opinion that Tate isn't enough of a contributor to anything that warrents being a high tier unit.   I've only used her once on HM and was very underwhelmed.  She can't fight lategame and she can't fight well until she promotes.  I see her around Dieck/Noah territory.

Well, having another flier is great for Chapter 13 and 14, and 11B (although she is more trying to self improve there). It's good in pretty much all of Ilia and 18 for Sacae. It's good for 21. I feel that Tate's flying is only really getting hurt by diminishing returns a lot in 14x and 15, otherwise there's generally reason to deploy all your fliers on the maps that demand it, and her combat isn't really terrible, just not that great either. I think in general I'm pretty ambivilant about a unit having meh combat in FE6 because after Chapter 7 there's basically a really big grey area of "okay", where as long as you generally double, don't die that easily and can use a Killer Weapon you don't really have worse or better combat than the next guy. You have to have exceptional stats or a class that privileges you in some manner to be a consistent ORKO machine in this game, and until you get there, the guy who is a bit slower/bit less strong isn't meaningfully different.

So like, whilst I acknowledge her combat is pretty mediocre in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty servicable without a lot of attention being given to her and she doesn't really have much difficulty reaching promotion either, along with flying being good in about 4 to 7 of the following maps. Mathematically speaking I'd "weight" the flight options Tate gives on those maps as basically doubling what she contributes relative to a non flier, so in my mind her availability points aren't don't hurt her that bad vs Alance. That being said, I do have to acknowledge that they can basically carry a team, wheras Tate can't ever really do that.

This is @-Cynthia- too

One can say though that there are plenty of feasible scenarios in which a player has seriously neglected to train Shanna, or just isn't really using her, in which case Tate can end up being relatively more important. There are also going to be the odd considerations for draft scenarios where Tate is your only flier, and her contributions are going to be a big deal then. If we consider these kinds of possibilities, then Tate's flying starts to become a lot more valuable. Basically, Tate can slot into suboptimal team compositions and be a huge help since flying is just a really powerful niche, so even if her impact in an optimal playthrough is reduced a lot (I can totally see Alance being better than her in a best units only run), she's overall got enough strengths to stay even overall.

3 hours ago, General Horace said:

I don't really agree in the no effort required = good unit (assuming they do in fact have good stats) philosophy, but i'm willing to handwaive it.  Knight Crest competition isn't a huge deal either since you won't use more than 2 of the cavaliers anyway (even 2 is pushing it).  More or less the only issue I have with Percival being a top tier unit is his join time.  He's not around for the hardest part of the game (earlygame) either.  

I'm not so much talking about Knight crest competition in the resource area so much as he doesn't even compete for EXP or demand some kind of useful weapon or whatever. He can be thrown onto the team and do whatever you want him to combat wise well with anything. I think to go back to a point I made earlier, because most good units in this game don't even ORKO reliably, Percival's ability to ORKO promoted enemies actually makes him stand out. It's basically just him and Miledy who tend to consistently be able to ORKO whatever they fight. Obv Marcus and Zealot can do it earlygame for a while with Silvers, and Rutger or Fir have very high chances to ORKO if they use a killer weapon, Alan and Shin (vs non fliers I mean) stand a good chance of being able to reliably do it at various points in the game too, but Shin typically doesn't have an Enemy Phase.

Regardless, these are selective...sure, having to compensate for a no crit with another unit is not a big deal, but Percival's ability to ORKO effectively means he can free up another unit to be doing things or be a lot safer in handling particular parts of a map by himself.

Edited March 25, 2017 by Irysa

[Colonel M]

Have a couple changes to suggest and discuss. SOme of them were provided early on, so if there wasn't a lot of opposition I might just make the change. I will note what changes are made.

 

Percival vs Rutger and the Dancers

I think it seems to me that I might've jumped the gun on the bump up on Percival; however, I do adamantly believe that Percival is superior to both of the dancers. Elphin and Lalum definitely help contribute towards LTC strategies and their contributions definitely are invaluable in some ways; however, the biggest gripes I have involve that Lalum and Elphin are often replicating units... that include Percival often. Percival is one of those units you're always going to use since there's no real opportunity cost of using him (well okay, the opportunity cost is heavily outweighed by the benefits). Durandal Percival helps free up Alan and Lance from having to grind up to S Rank Swords and allows them to use Swords more liberally (they definitely want C Rank) and, thus, contribute more towards their Lance rank to get A Lances. A Lances is really big for Alan and Lance because Silver Lances provide a lot of Mt and decent Hit rates. While Silver Swords definitely do as well, they often come at the cost of being at a triangle disadvantage against the Mrymidons, Mercenaries, Snipers, and the Wyverns in Bern. There's definitely truth that Alan and Lance can go for Durandal, but realistically Percival just makes the situation a lot easier. Dancers definitely help here and there mid-game, but their biggest contributions definitely happen later in the game where Percival is already good at anyway

Thus, I think I want to naturally conclude that:

...

Rutger

Percival

Lalum

Elphin

 

Is the best way to rank the units still.

 

High Tier (aka Tate)

I'll agree that Tate might have been given favoritism a little too much in the tier list, but I want to stand by that Tate is a unit that often gets shit thrown at her for almost no reason. It's true that there are units like Zealot and Alan and Lance that potentially are big players; however, Tate is also a huge help with Flying utility alone while also having passable combat. Honestly, I don't get why her mediocre combat is such a bad thing considering it actually helps her argument more when she has the option to be a combat unit or ferry utility unit. Considering that there are times where Shanna is not trained Tate has the advantages of having more bulk and easier ways to slip as a combat unit. Flying is huge in Chapters 13, 14, 14x, and 15 alone. It's also great for almost all of Ilia. Sacae is a bit more flat, but I want to point out that Paladins also perform subpar in Sacae due to the Nomads being naturally nimble and harder to hit with Javelins (also Zealot and potentially Alan risk being doubled).

 

On the other hand, I think I want to conclude that Alan is better than Lance in most cases. The leads are super small, but the biggest advantages are that Alan has a lot easier time ORKOing with the early promotion and just being able to blitz through the Western Isles with Marcus and Zealot. Irysa and I did find that there are ways to have Lance ORKO with some help, but it requires doing some shaky things like holding a Steel Blade while having a pocket support nearby (probably Alan himself). Alan also has super small leads early on in the game such as durability and Luck - Luck may seem really small, but Lance does have moments where his lower Luck can make him a little more fragile, too, from critical hits.

 

Thus, my suggested changes are as follows:

 

-High Tier-
Saul
Shanna
Shin
Niime
Astor
Tate
Zealot
Alan
Lance

 

Upper Mid

Zeiss was one I felt was too high after thinking more about it. The biggest issue is while he definitely fits into a lot of compositions perfectly, he also has some negatives against him at that point of the game and there is the smaller redundancy of fliers coming in. I don't want to weigh that as a total negative against him because in routes like Ilia he's very good with just a little assistance - early promotion and a Speedwing basically fix him up into tip top shape. The issues, though, is that he's a little later in the availability scale. This causes Cecilia and Clarine being below Zeiss super questionable since Cecilia and Clarine provide early and mid-game healing while Cecilia also provides Aircalibur / Bolting support. It's not like these two are foot units either. Furthermore, Deke is one of those combat units that is overall solid and, if he is trained, does more than fine throughout the game. He's probably one of the best Axe users considering his higher Skill. Noah being raised above Cecilia and Clarine was mostly due to how Noah can really put a huge stomp on the Western Isles and continue through Ilia, but I think it's more beneficial that he is below those two since Clarine and Cecilia still provide a lot for the team early on and later on in the game. It's just in a different scale of things. Noah also has a lategame that's almost non-existent, either, once we arrive in Bern.

Originally Irysa suggested Klein > Sue, but after more discussion we felt that Sue was good enough to go over Klein. Klein has some very strong advantages that make him a solid unit, but realistically a trained Sue can replicate some of Klein's strengths later on in the game and has the mount to boot. This one is kind of hard because the counterarguments fall towards Klein being a unit that's good right out of the box and, theoretically, always has utility when a flying unit exists that's fairly strong (FalcoKnights and Wyvern Riders / Lords).Klein has a lot of cool niches, but in the event of training Sue they just pale a bit in comparison eventually once Sue gets to B Bows. There is the extreme cost of her needing training and some babying, but being on a mount and being a Bow unit does kind of help her out in that it's easy to snag free kills while not being a detriment Movement-wise.

Sue vs Noah was also brought up, and to be fair Zeiss could probably join in the mix with that too. I think in the end it may naturally pan towards Sue > Noah > Zeiss; however, these three are pretty close to each other and really need a direct comparison like Zealot / Tate / Alan / Lance do.

 

Suggested Changes:

-Upper Mid-
Deke
Yodel
Cecilia
Clarine
Noah
Zeiss
Sue
Klein
Echidna
Igrene
Ellen

 

Mid Tier wasn't really scratched, but to bring up the discussion points from earlier on Irysa:

Quote

-Mid-

Bartre
Fir
Lugh
Lot
Roy
Chad
Treck
Fae

Quote

Bartre doesn't cost a promotion item so he cinches it over Fir (both are a bit superfluous though), Roy doesn't really have enough going for him to be over Lugh and Lot. Lugh has pretty much the same clutch as Roy early on and can actually reach strong status if trained, Lot has less clutch but is overall more solid across the board and is arguably the most average character in the game. Treck should be over Fae because we're basically weighting utility and he has more availability.

While I definitely agree that Bartre not costing the Hero Crest probably puts him at an edge over Fir, Fir is also a unit that can be rather helpful the short time she's on the Isles provided that she keeps her Wo Dao. Once it breaks, and assuming in the isles still, she's still "okay" but she's very dicey to be left alone without careful attention. The thing is she is really nice for having a Swordmaster within Sacae to help clear through some of the Nomads while being alright at handling the bosses. She also is okay in Ilia, though FalcoKnights can really tear her a new one if she isn't careful or doesn't have something like Lancereaver. I'm trying to at least give Fir a chance here since I am naturally biased against her (to the point where I could have argued Lot over Fir...), but I am trying to be as fair as possible with her first.

Lugh and Lot's movement makes a lot of sense. Roy's earlygame is basically within Chapter 1 and then using Rapier for 4 and 7. Though Lot's contributions aren't exactly huge he does help with having Axes and being rather reliable to double things like Soldiers and can double Armor Knights with Hammer (Ward almost has no chance for this, for the record). Lot and Lugh's earlygames aren't too bad as far as they help a lot with some enemies that you'd rather not your main units eat a counterattack from if possible or just softening things up. Treck can definitely go above Fae for all I'm concerned - Fae's utility is really small in the grand scheme of things considering she's a 5 Move 1 range unit.

 

tldr: Basically Irysa's list is probably what I would change it to, with maybe debatable arguments towards Fir > Bartre still.

 

Lower Mid

I'll probably quote Irysa on this once more:

Quote

-Lower Mid-

Garret
Lilina
Gonzalez
Cath
Raigh
Oujay

Quote

Garret has heaps better accuracy than Gonzalez and doesn't cost a promotion item (gee this is a running trend). Gonzalez does not have a significant speed lead over Garret to the point where he doubles things Garret doesn't without being invested in significantly or promoted, but this in itself is awkward due to how I've noted in the other thread that he can't be rescued by nearly any mount if he promotes. Both are basically banking on a crit to kill things and will likely never use anything but a Killer Axe so Garret's axe rank is irrelevant.

So I think the issue I have now isn't so much on putting Lilina over Gonzalez, but actually keeping Lilina under Garret.
 

I get it, even years ago I wouldn't have agreed to this probably, but after some discussing with Irysa and attempting to apply the scenarios realistically I can buy this. Let's go over a couple things:

Base Lilina: 16 HP | 5 Mag | 5 Skl | 4 Spd | 4 Luck | 2 Def | 7 Res | 4 Con
Elfire - 13 Atk, 87 Hit
Fire - 10 Atk, 102 Hit

Honestly, the biggest thing is Lugh has to be about Level 11 or C Tomes to match or beat Lilina's combat. The thing that helps Lugh slightly is that he's faster to double some slower Pirates and Fighters in Western Isles and he's obviously available earlier. I am, however, not arguing for Lilina > Lugh. The thing I'm arguing about is that Lilina has decent enough 2 range chip to be worthwhile as a filler unit in the Western Isles. Consider that you probably will whiff ORKOes against Pirates and Fighters, especially Fighters, every now and then. You also have units that some units might struggle to double such as some of the Archers. Fighters and Pirates, with Steel Axes, have insanely low Avoid. Those that have Iron Axes or Poison Axes that still have meh Avoid and they're still rather low in the Res department. You also have Roy Lilina support which is incredibly quick and gives a free Attack point and 5 more Hit. That's small, but that suddenly makes Elfire go from hitting at 64% Displayed to 69% Displayed. The difference? 74.44% True Hit vs 81.09% True Hit - so about a 6% Accuracy difference, actually. That means instead of hitting 3/4 times you're hitting about 4/5 times. I don't want to oversell it since Lilina has a ton of flaws and training her to even 10/1 to be a Bolting Bot is a pain in the ass (and then has questionable reasons as to why not just use Cecilia), but she's not necessarily a unit that I would always turn down in the Western Isles merely for her being able to chip from 2 range pretty hard and, if you do grow her out, she at least has a hefty hit with her while being able to double stuff like Armor Knights and can OHKO units like Wyverns with Aircalibur once trained. I think the only arguments for Garret is that he has a small use in Chapter 16 if you have him be used against the Armor Knights and Chapter 21 as a pit stop Wyvern Crasher - but that could also be done with Gonzalez amongst other units too (Gonzalez, to compare, has the same Skill at 10/1 to Geese's Luck lead, but Garret's 10 Speed vs Gonzalez's 15 Speed - which avoids Doubling from Wyvern Lords and means easier doubling against Wyvern Knights). Again with Gonzalez - I don't want to oversell it either, but I just want to point how terribly Geese and Gonzalez are and, honestly, no one should really separate the two of them IMO. Whether Gonzalez is superior in that you throw some training and 5000 Gold to make a deployable Wyvern Killer in Chapter 15 or just use Geese at base is debatable I guess, though I think both of the niches are incredibly small and both can nearly replicate each other. I think this makes Gonzalez slightly better, but I can't deny the cost of 5000 Gold (or more boots, practically). Nothing else to note.

 

Suggested changes:

-Lower Mid-

Lilina

Geese

Gonzalez

 

I don't think anyone is really going to argue Hugh > Geese. I'm just going to do it.

 

Changes being made:

* Rutger > Percival

* Hugh > Geese

 

Discussion Points:

* Tate / Zealot / Alan / Lance

* Noah / Zeiss / Sue

* Lilina / Gonzalez / Garret

* Fir / Bartre / Rest of Lower Mid

 

Though these are listed as discussion points, do not feel that you can't stray away from these either. If you think there are potential other shifts that can be made, you are more than free to discuss them as well.

Edited March 30, 2017 by Colonel M

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Quote

* Tate / Zealot / Alan / Lance

I  would rank Alance higher than Tate simply because of there much higher availibilty, their weapon flexibility and probably higher movement (you'll have promoted one of them with ch. 8 knight crest). I'd rank Zealot over Tate because he makes ch. 7 a lot easier (if you can recruit him in time), and another paladin is very helpful to save all the villages.

Alance > Zealot > Tate

Quote

* Rutger > Percival

Definitely yes, because Percival - so awesome he might be - is never really needed because he joins when the difficulty dropped. Rutger is the best (and probably only) bosskiller till ch. 8x.

Quote

* Hugh > Geese

If you exclude the payment thingy,  then yes. Hugh's bases are good despite his growths are terrible and magic is still much more accurate than axes.
PS: I ranked Geese > Hugh simply because of Hugh's recruitment requirements. There's no need to pay A LOT of money for an unit with almost no potential (unless you have the money due to arena abusing).

Quote

* Noah / Zeiss / Sue

Zeiss joins the latest of these three but I think he has the most potential of them. He joins with sick bases for his base level and has many levels to grow. Sue isn't really needed when you have Shin and Noah is inferior to Alance. I guess I'm the only one who finds Noah overrated. He's even worse than Treck in the longrun due to his poor strength and speed growth. I don't deny that Noah is better because of his base level but I find a gap of 1.5 points between them way too much.

For me: Zeiss > Sue > Noah     but all in the same tier

[Irysa]

2 hours ago, Colonel M said:

Percival vs Rutger and the Dancers

Agreed on the points made here (besides the nitpick on Silver Swords but I corrected you on Discord already anyway)

2 hours ago, Colonel M said:

High Tier (aka Tate)

Broadly agreed besides the fact that tbh the Steel Blade vs the slower enemies in the Isles isn't "shaky" and Lance has a skill lead over Alan anyway so it kinda cancels out. He misses them here and there either way is the point wheras Alan is generaly more consistent.

As for Tate...well addressing the counterpoint above

I  would rank Alance higher than Tate simply because of there much higher availibilty, their weapon flexibility and probably higher movement (you'll have promoted one of them with ch. 8 knight crest). I'd rank Zealot over Tate because he makes ch. 7 a lot easier (if you can recruit him in time), and another paladin is very helpful to save all the villages.

This is all true but we have to acknowledge that there is really nothing particularly special about what Alance do for a lot of the earlygame besides exist and not be terrible. Their only niche earlygame is being mounted. Like, we don't really care that Wolt or Bors have perfect availability because they just aren't doing a whole lot ever, and even though Roy is privileged in FORCED perfect availability, he still just doesnt do much most of his existance so he struggles to even stay in mid. Alance's meaningful availability lead is really only like 5 or 6 chapters over Tate, and when flying is clutch as it is in numerous maps afterwards, that easily cancels out I think.

2 hours ago, Colonel M said:

Upper Mid

I'm in broad agreement although tbh I think we've ranted a lot about Zeiss vs Noah vs Sue in discord so it's kinda tiring for me to regurgitate the arguments...I hope somebody else can offer some talking points.

Zeiss joins the latest of these three but I think he has the most potential of them. He joins with sick bases for his base level and has many levels to grow. Sue isn't really needed when you have Shin and Noah is inferior to Alance. I guess I'm the only one who finds Noah overrated. He's even worse than Treck in the longrun due to his poor strength and speed growth. I don't deny that Noah is better because of his base level but I find a gap of 1.5 points between them way too much.

Many levels to grow doesn't really do much for Zeiss when he desperately needs to promote to get better weapon rank and more speed ASAP, plus his str starts nearly capped. Zeiss also actually has to compete for his promotion item because promoting Shanna Tate and Miledy is more useful than promoting Zeiss.

Sue might not be needed but she can broadly replicate Shin and doesn't compete for a promotion item. She's perfectly capable of pulling off lategame Murgleis shit which is actually nuts and where Nomads shine the most in this game, and her availability is great.

Noah's lack of long term is offset by the fact that a 11/1 Noah is basically tied best/second best unit on your team for the entirity of the Western Isles and remains decent throughout Ilia at least. Treck can't reasonably promote for Ch9 in time without slowing down a lot or farming reinforcements.

2 hours ago, Colonel M said:

Mid Tier wasn't really scratched, but to bring up the discussion points from earlier on Irysa:

I agree that trained/promoted Fir is significantly more powerful than Bartre but it basically costs you 4/5 of a pair of boots to get a unit that is more than likely going to be relegated to second string infantry duty anyway because Rutger or whoever are going to do the real heavy lifting. Like, Fir is mostly just self improving for at least 2 more chapters after she joins (and she joins at the end of Chapter 9 as it is), and can't promote till the end of either 11A or 10B anyway. Chapter 12 isn't that great for her due to lack of 1-2 and the most reliable bosskilling Weapon in Durandal is definitely out of her weaponrank reach, plus the Wyrmslayer means most units that have a decent sword rank can do fine at killing the boss anyway. 12x boss is an asshole though and she'd be good against him if Rutger's not being used, but after that her general usefulness starts to wane a lot...like, there are so many units that could be bosskilling instead by that point in the game that it diminishes that value a lot. She's better vs mooks and promoted enemies, so you get to be able to save someone else's turn on finishing an enemy off or w/e since Fir probably killed it solo, but that's it really. I think the amount of contexts in which Bartre slots into a team easily and helps out a bunch (he can last a pretty damn long time tbh) are way more numerous and worth more consideration than the scenarios in which Fir actually gets to even really pay off her investment.

2 hours ago, Colonel M said:

Lower Mid

I think WRT Lilina's advantages it really just comes down to this; both Garret and Lilina are pretty superfluous to efficient runs, so Garret's lack of cost wins it for him, slightly. I'd say Lilina's the better unit once trained but whilst it's not hard to train her, there are opportunity costs here because she really needs to promote asap, which means Saul has to wait till 14/14x to promote, which means Physic/Sleep access later, no combat, less movement, less staff range, etc....sure, finishing units off isn't an uncommon thing, but you could easily be letting Roy take those kills with the Light Brand or something instead, and he's a unit that DOES have to keep up.

The gap is def small though.

Edited March 30, 2017 by Irysa

[-Cynthia-]

I don't really get Zealot>Alance. Zealot is better for C7 and C8, but once Alance promotes they're equal and better in the long run due to growths. Alance also has significant contributions in the 6 chapters before Zealot joins- no they're not worldbeaters but they're consistently being fielded and earlygame would be tougher without them. The only way I see Zealot as better is if you give him a ton of credit for not needing the Knight's Crest.

I think Zeiss> Sue in Ilia by a good margin and Sue>Zeiss in Sacae by a good margin- one of those cases where having the lists split by route would be handy. I think Noah is less useful than both of them. I think one can make the argument for promoting Zeiss over Tate because he has significant combat advantages over her in strength and durability- what does Noah do over Alance? I guess if you use Noah you can funnel Exp into other units, but I dunno who you want to train that much earlygame anyway. 

[Refa]

Aren't Alance higher than Zealot on this tier list, though?

[Colonel M]

7 hours ago, Refa said:

Aren't Alance higher than Zealot on this tier list, though?

Though I could pull haha April Fools and the like...

...No currently Alance are under Zealot but I wanted to leave it open to discussion.

As far as Zealot vs Alance it seems to me the issues lie into Alance's cost of needing the Knight Crest and needing attention and spoonfeeding throughout the earlier portions of the game. They don't contribute heavily per se until Chapter 6 at the earliest where the chapter requires units moving in a lot of different directions and Thany / Marcus can't really do everything at once. The case between the 4 (Tate / Zealot / Alan / Lance) is pretty close IMO - so that's why I wanted to openly see discussion for it.

[Refa]

Having played the first seven chapters very recently, while I do agree that they do a lot of self improvement in those, they're still pretty useful considering they're both mounts and some of your better combat units.  Regardless, I wouldn't hold this against them considering Zealot isn't even available during those chapters.  I know I mentioned the opportunity cost of a Knight Crest before, but it was more in the context of all promotion items having an opportunity cost because they cost money to use.  A trained Alan/Lance will generally be the most preferred target, and I think by the time you get Zealot, they'll be a better combat unit (...after Chapter 8).  He'll still have ranks over them, but I don't think they'll matter too much in the Western Isles.

Edited April 1, 2017 by Refa

[Yojinbo]

I agree with Horace that Percival is too high. I'd place Rutger and the dancers above him. Not sure if I'd place him at the bottom of top tier or the top of high tier though but right now I'd argue for the latter - I don't think he deserves to be in the same tier as Miledy and Marcus.

I wouldn't say that Alance are too low but rather that some units above them are too high. Tate has been mentioned a couple of times but I also have to question Astor and Shin being above them. Both are good but Astor's contributions don't outweigh the Cav's consistency imo and the gap between Shin and Sue looks a bit too big for my liking considering they largely fulfill the same tasks. Shin is overall better and more reliable but Sue is quite useful in Ch.7 and Ch.8, two pretty terrible maps. I'd probably move Shin, Tate and Astor below Alance and perhaps Sue up a bit. I don't really see how Sue can be below Noah when Shin is supposedly better than Alance and I don't see how the gap between Shanna and Tate can be this small when the gap between Sue and Shin is so big - these are things that seem fairly inconsisent to me.

Tate especially seems way too high. Either move Shanna up a fair bit or move Tate down [or possibly both] - there's no way that there's only two units between them. Flying utility? How much does she really do with it? She can be useful in rescue chains in 13 and 14 but past that she's strictly limited to auxiliary tasks and she's flat-out never really good in combat. Once Zeiss joins your party she's honestly not even a very good filler unit anymore.

Clarine went from being incredibly overrated [she used to be considered Top Tier back in the day] to somewhat underrated. She may not be amazing but she's still a good all-around utility unit with great availability and no need for any investments. You don't even need to promote her for her to be useful, you can just deploy her whenever a slot's free and she'll find a way to be useful via staff use or rescueing. Even as late as from Ch.21 onwards an unpromoted Clarine is a perfectly viable filler unit. I think that deserves more credit than her current position on the tier list reflects. She could likely move up as high as where Noah is right now.

[XeKr]

iirc, the chance of death calculator on Reikken’s site was just the chance of a number of x hits in y attacks, given some hit rate. This is simple to compute using a binomial, much like growths procs in certain number of levels at a particular rate. For more complex calculations involving hits/crits and multiple enemies with different hit rates/damage, a simulation is preferred. 

Exp can be calculated using the formulas on this site, though I think it’s less useful nowadays since evenly allocating kills per chapter isn’t really done. 

I think I lean Rutger > Marcus > Perceval > Lalum/Elphin.

Rutger’s earlygame has moments nearly as crucial as Marcus and he’s sometimes competing against Marcus/Zealot while some of Marcus’ acclaimed earlyearly game is vs. base Allance or even more scrubs (even with relative gaps in mind). And I don’t think Rutger is as bad later as he’s sometimes claimed, plus Marcus’ Spd is really borderline fairly fast. I don’t think it’s that clear Percival is significantly worse than these two, but Miledy or later promoted Alance or the warpers/dancers do give him some more competition. Lalum vs. Elphin might depend on if the route split has any cost to it.

Jerrot/Lance/Allen > Tate.

Zealot is a lot better in C7/C8 where he’s the best unit. C7 is also really hard, and C8 is really long, so Zealot contributes a lot there. Basically he’s always highly significant there and midgame while Alance aren’t, and they additionally compete with each other/Noah for promotion to be relevant in the Isles.

Early promoted Allance is similar to Zealot, except they have some probability to miss Spd benchmarks and Silvers may be useful/necessary for some enemies. I think they do have a nice chance for some Steel Sword onerounds though. But I don’t think early promoted variants are actually that good long-term despite the growth lead, while later promoted variants are still usually worse than Perceval.

Still, if around level 13 with C ranks is reasonable after C8, then I can see them higher. I glanced at the numbers briefly and they seemed solid (much better than 10/1, for instance).   

As for who is getting exp if they aren’t, probably Shanna/Rutger maybe Sue/Roy. The last can actually make a lot of phases safer. 

Tate was a lot better if Shanna wasn’t trained at all (just used for ferrying) and she was the 1st flier for a few chapters (or at least was Shanna with higher stats), then the 2nd flier. Now if she’s more likely the 3rd flier and competing with Zeiss for an item, it’s a lot less impressive. I also think her combat is pretty bad, and her flying utility isn’t that amazing given the possibility of Falcon Shanna with promo gains/Sword rank and Miledy joining so soon. 

Zeiss? > Sue > Noah > Zeiss? 

It feels like Sue is the most useful, as long as there’s no penalty for Sacae. Her early chip is kinda like Midir in that it supports the horse charge (her accuracy over Javelins effectively gives 1 more range over other mounts) and she can grab some kills. The Spd and slightly earlier Killer/Brave access are some small but notable advantages. Her promotion item also doesn’t have competition, unlike the others vs. Alance/Tate. Noah is definitely quite strong in the Isles though 12 Spd will whiff some doubles, and his Str doesn’t quite allow clean onerounds with Steel. 

Zeiss can be really good, especially if he gets some unpromoted levels and Speedwings and I suppose he can carry some teams as the primary flier. Maybe others can elaborate on his potential in Ilia, like what levels he actually needs to contribute stuff. In general, there’s arguably less lenience to train up later in the game as there’s less excuses (recruitables) and he’s also in a post-warp world. He also needs a lot of setup/rng for his self-improvement kills, as a single hits with Iron/Steel are sad. Assisting flying rescue chains is nice but there aren’t too many chapters left and it’s all mostly shared credit for various shaves.

Tate is probably better regardless in a direct comparison, due to the extra availability, but Zeiss’s relative position might still depend on if promoted Tate or promoted Zeiss is more efficient as the 3rd flier in more optimal teams. I think the former? Apparently there’s a 4th Whip in Ilia but it’s in C20 and seems to require a Warp use. At that point I’d rather just burn the gold for the C16 secret shop I think (or more realistically, go back to only promoting one of Tate/Zeiss).

Garrett > Gonzo > Lilina. 

Garrett is basically a freely promoted version that can be Rescued for mobility. Lilina faces too many ohkos and imperfect hit rates (in others weakening enemies to a range she can kill, and her own 80-90% disp hit with Fire) and I don’t find the payoff of sages that great. Are you going to Warp/rescuechain them to the front lines to hit a Wyvern with Aircalibur on player phase and maybe 1-2 more on enemy phase? Hugh/Cecilia can do it without the earlygame fuss and there’s also the Nomads/Snipers. Bolting is decent but the accuracy isn’t even that good and there’s only so few weapon uses until C21 when they’re 3/8th of a Boots.

Edited April 9, 2017 by XeKr

[General Horace]

I think you're heavily overplaying flying utility in Tate's case.  it's very useful for the desert (in transporting units that can actually do things, mind you), but you also have two other fliers (that are also better units) in said chapter.  If you're gonna handwave Alance's contributions in the early maps (which are far more than what you're giving them, 7 movement is very flexible that early on in the game, especially when most of your team is struggling offensively) it's pretty easy to just say "oh, Thany/Miledy can fly dudes over the mountain in Percival's join map, it doesn't really matter for Tate".   Tate is above average in Ilia, and downright terrible in Sacae, and then really isn't much more useful than Yuno come lategame unless she promoted pretty late (and her promotion might not even happen, Zeiss is debateably a better longterm investment), and even then, lategame enemies will be too tanky for her, but she should still have existant offence if she didn't early promote.   Another big point is in literally half of the potential maps where both units exist, flight has literally no advantage over paladin movement because of indoor maps or no terrain to fly over.  

 

Other minor nitpicks include Tate having a bulk lead on Shanna (if you're using her she's promoted with a sizeable level lead, so it won't exist until lategame, if ever), Tate being particularly useful for flight in chapter 13 (you skip like one corner of the map and she gets murdered by wyverns).  The most ridiculous thing you said though was her bad combat being an advantage because she could ferry people instead.  Seriously, wtf?  if she had good combat she could just fly out and do the job on her own, like a real unit.  

Can someone explain what Tate does that outweighs being a high movement unit with perfect availability (which includes the hardest part of the game) with combat ranging from average to great for most of the game?  I just don't see it.  I could live with her being above Zealot (I don't think she should be above Zealot either, but I could live with it) but there's just no way she's above Alance.  To me it's basically

Amazing mobility and poor to average combat vs, 12-13(!!!!!!!!) chapters of availability, average to great combat, great mobility

 

I don't really care enough about the other points, but I think Shin should drop (Sue really isn't that much worse than him) and as a result Sue > Zeiss > Noah, too lazy to have a real arguement for this, but being a Ghetto Zealot that costs resources seems worse than than the other two alternatives.

[Irysa]

@General Horace

Unlike Rutger, Shanna and Miledy are not nearly as forced in their importance despite how good they are. In complete recruitment, besides 7 and 8x, one can kind of ignore using Shanna altogether and not experience much of a difficulty spike or efficiency loss. Not using Miledy has more of an impact, but still doesn't actually drastically negatively effect you as much as you may think as long as you have other fliers around to ferry combat units, since having flight basically buffs all the other units on your team. For this reason, I think contexts in which the other fliers are being used much more sparsely (if at all) are more realistic than ones where we purposely sandbag Rutger, and the less fliers you have on your team, the better Tate gets.

I agree that in an optimal playthrough, Tate is probably worse than whichever of Alance promoted first, but the tierlist does not just consider an optimal playthrough, it weights various contexts by their relevance. I realise I probably sounded too harsh on Alance's early contributions but if I can frame this mathematically, if Alance are typically getting about 1 to 2 points per chapter up till 8x, then get like 4 to 5 per chapter for the Isles, dropping to 3 per chapter following that in Ilia route, then to me in a scenario where even one of Shanna or Miledy aren't being utilised, Tate is getting 1 to 2 points for 12, 3 to 4 for 13, 10ish for 14, 7 for 15, and then something like 6 to 9 for each Ilia map bar 20 and 20x (maybe a 2 there), and a 4 to 5 for 21...maybe this makes it easier to see why I think she's competitive? If you are using Miledy and Shanna then you have to cut those contributions all down by like 1/2 to 1/3, in which case Alance win, but the reality is that the other half of the Christmas Cavs don't get to actually exploit their maximum points every playthrough either, so they can't get full credit for best performance all the time each. On Sacae route Alance get a bit of a lead but they're honestly not very good in Sacae either so Tate doing worse here isn't as big a deal as you might try to make it.

Furthermore you're sandbagging Chapter 13 flight, it's actually really handy due to how cramped the the bridge is. An extra unit who can fly and use the Horseslayer is very useful in helping to help clear the way.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Irysa

[General Horace]

That's a good point about the bridge, I didn't think about that.

Can we have some criteria for this tierlist?  There's nothing in the OP so I don't really know how to argue my points.  Like you say, Tate is significantly better in a team without Miledy and Thany (why that would exist is beyond me though....), but she's also fairly underwhelming in a team with both of them, and let's face it, a team is gonna contain Miledy like 95% of the time.  

 

EDIT: holy shit i just saw the spoiler in the OP, i hate the new spoiler tags so much.  I'll post something tomorrow or later tonight.

Edited April 10, 2017 by General Horace

[Irysa]

I'm mostly reiterating what I think XeKr tried to bring up in the last tierlist thread when they explained their tiering philosophy, and I agree that its appropriate for this tierlist. Perhaps @XeKr would like to elaborate or correct me.

It is my understanding that we cannot really make a good tierlist unless we consider suboptimal team compositions (otherwise over half the cast never does anything). The main caveat of considering suboptimal team compositions being that we have to consider how inefficient/unrealistic the composition is. In the case of Marcus and Rutger, it has such a large effect on your ability to clear early game chapters reliably that any scenario where they are not in play is really unlikely. It also means scenarios like say, first Hero Crest to Lot or Wade basically don't happen, it really has to be Dieck or Rutger.

In the case of Percival, as you've raised, it's actually not that big a deal to not use him; he still helps but you can make do without him because he doesn't actually do anything entirely unique for the time he exists, he's just super reliable with no downsides and improves any team a lot due to great combat parameters and high movement.

I believe that the case of Miledy is similar, as long as you have at least 1 flier, the overal efficiency of the run is not impacted massively. There's obviously a large benefit in having two, and pretty good benefit in three, but really you only need 1 flier to not fall way behind an optimal composition (you can see this at play in drafts). Now I'll grant that the run I did without MIledy and Tate had an above average Shanna in terms of Strength (she had +2 on average), but I'm still pretty convinced that Tate would be able to do the same stuff if you gave her the opportunity to (which is to say, ferry important units forward across terrain and killer lance problematic enemies that aren't too bulky like Ballista). And you could always go Bartre route to get the Energy Ring.

If Tate and Shanna were lacking so much as to basically be unable to broadly replicate the benefits of a flier on your team, I'd accept Miledy as crucial, but I don't see it so I think it's okay to reasonably weight scenarios where she's not in play.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Irysa

[General Horace]

Exams finally done so I've got some free time to make a post.

Tate / Zealot / Alan / Lance - I personally think it should be Alan > Lance > Tate > Zealot.  There is a small opportunity cost for the first knight crest, but Alan or Lance are far and away the best candidate for it (the only reason to use it on Noah is if you're not using either of them).  Irysa mentioned the possibility of Shanna and Miledy not being in play, not having Marcus/Zealot in play after Alance promote in the isles is a similar (less extreme) scenerio and Marcus isn't basically forced by this point anyway since your team can stand on two feet by this point.  Zealot is very good in chapter 7/8 and pretty good in the isles, but loses out on Alance's earlygame availability and is flat out worse than them in the Isles in every way but weapon ranks but Alance ORKO most enemies with steel swords/iron blades anyway so it's a pretty moot point.  Most people seem to agree on the Alance > Tate point as well.

Noah / Zeiss / Sue - Sue >>> Zeiss > Noah.   Sue really isn't much worse than Shin (who is also too high but it's not up for discussion right now), so this shouldn't really be a contest.  Noah absolutely needs the first knight crest to be a valuable unit, and has poor longterm potential, he's basically Zealot that costs the first knight's crest, without being good in chapter 7/8.  Zeiss has flight and can actually fight after he promotes kind of well.  I could be okay with Noah>Zeiss but Sue crushes them both imo.  

i'm okay with the other changes.  

I'd really like to hear justification for Shin being right under Shanna though, he's a player phase offence only unit that takes a little while to get going.

[Irysa]

@General Horace

Rather than specifically Shanna and Miledy not being in play, it's more at least one. Both being gone is an extreme, but she does benefit from it to an extreme degree too, so whilst it's not heavily weighted, it adds a non insignificant amount.

I also don't really accept a "Marcus gets dropped" scenario because if you're already using him, it becomes too arbitrary to stop using him, so basically Marcus is practically assumed to be used as much as possible in every playthrough since he's effectively forced from the start. Even in draft contexts he tends to be free.

I haven't tried to do Chapter 7 without recruiting Zealot on HM so I can't really reasonably consider how assumed Zealot actually is. I think you're underestimating Zealot's weapon ranks though, Silver Lance access is a great help vs Mercs, Myrms or Archers and being able to use the Hammer instead of the Armorslayer is somewhat useful too. Even if he's not actually fighting, Zealot also helps you get the most out of units like Rutger a lot.

I suppose the thing about Zealot is that he's such a good package of useful traits for your team, and has clutch in C7 and C8. I don't think Alance ever actually have "clutch" moments in a regular playthrough, so whilst sure, they exist during the hardest parts of the game, the relative effect they have in Chapters 1 to 6 is IMO less than Zealot has for just C7 and 8.

I do see where you're coming from though and these points are less about outright disagreeing and more trying to make counterpoints - for me I actually feel it's too close to rate Alance and Zealot differently, and whilst I think Tate might be slightly above it's so marginal that I'd think it even too.

I lean towards Sue > Noah/Zeiss too but I think it's difficult to entirely waive the effort one has to put into training her when she's not strictly needed and is worse in a bunch of scenarios due to lower con/lower strength (can't use the Longbow or Brave Bow as well as Shin can, will very rarely ORKO enemies without effective coefficient even once trained).

As for Shin being that high, I think I can agree bumping him to below Niime, but his focused offence is really strong after only a bit of training, and FE6 is a game where accurate and powerful PP is a good niche, especially when you have high mov. His EP isn't even consistently bad, he has a bunch of Chapters where it's better than others (10E, 11L, 12, 16, basically all of Sacae). He also has a way better lategame than Alance do because 17 range Dragonkiller that doesn't take a counter is nuts, and he's also one of the few units that can help out with killing Zephiel.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Irysa

[General Horace]

11 minutes ago, Irysa said:

@General Horace

I don't think Alance ever actually have "clutch" moments in a regular playthrough

This is enough to get me to concede the point just thinking about it, they're always reliable units but units that do something unique are highly rated (all the top tier units except Percival do this in top tier, and a good chunk of high tier do as well).  Zealot's use is basically done at the start of the route split (maybe lasts a little while into Ilia if you have deployment slots) but Alance are basically just above average combat units at that point who don't bring much else to the table other than mobility, which your team should have tons of by that point.  I'm still not completely sold on Tate > Alance though, I've only made it to chapter 11 Bartre in a current run and it's been a long time since i've played FE6 so maybe she'll change my mind.

 

Zealot should always be assumed for Chapter 7, he's a forced unit, why wouldn't you use him?  Even if he doesn't fight a whole lot he's an 8 move dude that can get the villages or head for the chests (if they even have anything useful in them, I just remember one is a rapier, I always skip them)

Edited April 12, 2017 by General Horace

[Irysa]

Good point on Zealot basically being forced for Chapter 7, I think it's fair to assume he's basically always in play then. Protip though, the Barrier staff is in the other C7 Chest, that's pretty damn useful lol.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/135099807

This is a bit of a tangent, but I have a sort of proof of concept thing here to demonstrate some ideas that are relevant to tier placing. This is basically 40 minutes of repeated attempts (I get a lot of successful clears mind, just I reset anyway on success to keep testing) with the unfixed RNG hack to 1 warp 3 turn 20IX, but with a heavy bias towards improving reliability. The entire run itself wasn't exactly a full LTC or anything but it's still useful for demonstration.

1. Armorslayer Miledy is something I think we've been sleeping on for a while. She's actually better than Percival at some annoying bosskills if she can reach it, especially since she nearly always is taking the Boots and has higher skill. No Horseslayer weakness is also good for C21. However, I'm not sure how easy it is to get to D Swords for her since she joins rather a lot later than say, Shanna. Someone would need to actually do an efficiency playthrough and attempt to grind her Sword Rank to see how feasible it is. Getting her D Swords might also mean she can't get to S Lances which would also royally suck.
2. This is a good example where training Roy helps save Warp uses and improves reliability. Getting a bunch of HP, having C Swords for the Light Brand, improving resistance/def/speed a bit all mean he can be dropped safely in the spot I placed him as the Shamans aren't very interested in attacking him with a Pure Water/Barrier Boost. He can also take the EP afterwards as long as he heals himself up. Also mind, this was a speed screwed Roy so he got doubled once by a high rolling Sniper, but that was really rare.
3. Bolting helping to improve reliability. Lilina's extra chip on the boss helps to make Miledy's bosskill more reliable, and she can also finish the Swordmaster if Miledy misses one of the Brave Lances. I didn't rig her this playthrough but she does have definitely way above average speed, but it doesnt really matter since the Fighter is pretty damn slow and so is the Archer, so she's not really at risk. The mag requirements to meaningfully help out are a bit high I suppose though, but to me that's more of a strike against Hugh and Lugh for being unable to really have a chance in scenarios like this.
4. Fae's ability to lure and have good chances of dodging status helping to free up actions for other units.

If you cba to watch the video, the basic strat is as follows

Roy Pure Waters, gets rescued by Miledy. Cecilia Barriers Miledy, Elphin refreshes. Niime warps Miledy to the central room, Miledy moves up and drops Roy in a safe enclave. Fae and Saul break a wall for Lilina to start moving into position so she can Bolting and Saul can Physic if neccessary. Bartre (Echidna's fine here too) and Percival net EXP at the bottom, Shin and Alance (Zealot is fine for one of them) grab some EXP at the left.

Miledy Brave Lances the Killing Edge SM on EP whilst shrugging off his attacks. If she missed a Brave Lance then Lilina can attempt to Bolting to kill the SM to ensure Roy can try to move into seize position. Miledy tries to get in some 50~60Ish Armorslayers on Tick, with Lilina contributing to try to get in extra damage if possible, as it's a 3HKO. If Tick doesn't roll high on HP then Roy can also attempt to finish off at around about 40ish hit with the Light Brand. but he's most likely popping a Vulnerary. Saul Physics whoever, depending on who needed healing the most. The other units are mostly again just working together for EXP but if one really wanted to then someone like a mount carrying Rutger could be warped up to try to assist on Turn 3 too.

However if you were willing to commit to 2 Warp then probably Warping a mount carrying a SM up on T1 and Sleeping the Swordmaster T2 would be a better choice, although the survival rates against the SM and Shamans on EP would kind of suck for anyone not Percival or Miledy on T1. Sleep is also a pretty valuable resource. If the Shamans and Druids play nice you could Warp Miledy and protect the SM like I did with Roy instead, then Warp mount + Roy on T2. You'd still want a Roy capable of surviving EP there though, so more reasons to train him.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Irysa

[XeKr]

Some other reasons to think about various team contexts include:

-    We don’t actually know for sure what the optimal team is. We know the fastest documented run, but obviously that includes stuff like perfect level’d Lilina that dodged everything for her training. Sue’s Bow rank makes her the nomad of choice, but no one seems to think she’s better than Shin yet. And so on. We tend to intuit/extrapolate some insights from this and other runs, but it’s still a degree removed. 
-    In games where rng is not fixed (or if we pretend so), the optimal team has many variations of itself depending on how growths and exp allocation (due to misses/crits) and such play out. So we’re already assuming a spectrum of various contexts, and perhaps thinking of them statistically.
-    In response to complaints that the playstyle is too limiting, we like to mention how it’s possible to ltc or play efficiently with low tiers or other restrictions (just more slowly/unreliably than with high tiers, that's part of the rationale that distinguishes them). It’s more a mentality/framework than a hard rule. I think it’s generally accepted that certain girls only or draft or 0% growths runs are efficient in a broad sense, plus improve our general understanding of the game and of effective strats. A way to think about them (to the extent they are applicable and relevant) is to allow for some lenience in consideration of other contexts.
-    Most of the possible discussion on mid/low tiers revolves around comparisons to higher tiers and perhaps what potential they could have (keeping in mind opportunity costs). There is none of this if they’re always on the bench, which is kinda trivial and boring. Also these hypotheticals are useful to reinforce or challenge whether what we think is optimal is actually optimal and if there are tactics we may have not scrutinized fully or perhaps somewhat overlooked. 
-    The precedent for discussing suboptimal units goes back to the earliest (well to my knowledge at least FE7 NA release) times. The gist is basically "When Arguing With Units, You Are to Assume The Unit Is Being Used" in the op, though I think some of the minutiae and consequent concerns could be elaborated on. 
-    Being more inclusive is probably generally good to get more perspectives/opinions/discussion rolling around. Whether the list ends up reflecting them or not, they can be good (to some extent) for the community to ponder.
-    Inevitably, there’s some resistance to hard, objective metrics, and I think this is ultimately fine. Analytics (on-off/rpm has some relevant analogies here) are increasingly popular in sports/etc but player rankings always involve some contextual and subjective factors. What data analysis can provide is evidence/information to support certain arguments, though generally they are better thought of as a toolkit than gospel truth.
-    I could write a much bigger post about this.

May comment more on Tate stuff later, but essentially, while it’s good to think about weighing the relative contribution in varying contexts, in cases where the comparison seems really close based on how we tweak the numbers, I (now) prefer to lean toward the known more optimal teams (where Tate has a lesser role). I also think we can afford to be a little pickier in the higher tiers, as it has units like Niime and Saul who have substantial contributions even in more optimal teams.

I like the discussion of the 20IX bosskill. Do we have any inkling of the overall chance of success? I may try to calc it myself. Seems good enough, given it appears (from skimming) to have a worked a few times, though w/ or w/o Lilina may be interesting or perhaps comparisons to SM strats.

Re: the other topic I will reply soon™ but it largely revolves around “I mostly agree and I think it would be interesting to run the sims.” (not putting it on you Irysa, or anyone else, as I’m being the lazy one here)

Edited April 13, 2017 by XeKr

[Irysa]

I think the problem with computing the total reliability of that clear is that it can technically go to 4 turns and beyond if enough things go your way too, or if you decide to extend it. Like, if Lilina dodged a hit from the Archer attacking her on T2 EP, and/or Miledy isn't too low then Saul can heal/restore a target and you can continue trying. But Lilina is pretty likely to get hit, and Miledy is likely to need healing, so you'd probably have to Elixir with Miledy on T3 if you were trying to commit to beyond 3 turns so Saul can Heal Lilina. Fae might also be Berserked but I think the strat can compensate for that by having her move into a position on T2/3 where she doesnt threaten Saul or Lilina. And the "Roy gets the final hit" depends on boss HP fluctiation and is basically run over if you go for it though (so prob not worth it).

There's also the fact the Druids will Physic the boss if he drops too low (I think sub 20 hp does it), which typically means if Lilina (or Roy) failed to finish the boss after 2 Armorslayer hits on PP, then he gets healed for like 41 HP (counting throne healing) and Miledy has to connect 2 Armorslayers again (at least) across 4 attempts/Lilina has to connect at least 1 Bolting. I think adding the Bolting adds a non insignificant amount of extra reliability to the clear because of this. If Miledy just had to connect 3 hits then it wouldnt be as a big a deal.

SM strats are likely more reliable but like I've said, you have to blow an extra warp, so you're losing at least 1 turn/reliability elsewhere. Give and take.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Irysa