Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists

[Silly]

1 hour ago, Shiki said:

[TIER LIST HERE]

Mercedes, Marianne, and Dorothea should move up, or Manuela/Annette should move down. Physic is incredibly valuable in this game, and if you don't have it you're a really bad healer. Trying to keep a 4 move mage next to your frontline units who have 5-8 move is really annoying and slows down your rate of play significantly.

Cyril is also misplaced in my opinion. His base stats are honestly not that bad considering his join time. He can be recruited as early as chapter 5, where generic enemies are only level 10, so he's really not that behind in terms of levels. His growth rates are quite good, with 40 Str and 60 Spd, and he has a strength in literally every skill you need to become either a Bow Knight or a Wyvern Rider. He's definitely far from bottom tier. He's not nearly as "bad" as most Ests are considering his join time, as he is only slightly worse than your other units when you can recruit him.

I also disagree with some placements between Top/High tier and some of the lower tiers, but the units are roughly in the right places so I can let that pass for now.

 

[timon]

Since I finished my playthrough yesterday I thought I could share my experience. Empire route, took just over 60 hours, average end level was 40 for the main people I've used.
 

Spoiler

 

S
- Leonie (Bow Knight): lol she broke the game. Recruited her as a Cavalier, in an attempt to salvage her speed I made her a Pegasus Knight. Turns out flying archers that early are broken, also turns out that Darting Blow on a Sniper/Bow Knight is absurd. She ended with the most wins, she carried through the hell that is the last map, quadding just about everything with BraveBow/Saint's bow from her paralogue. Amazing unit, great strength, speed and dexterity, you don't need anything else really. And she can take hits surprisingly well, too. It helps that Bow Knights are stupidly good.

A
- Petra (Wyvern Lord): she was definitely S tier for a good part of the game, but later on she started missing a bit of strength, though crits definitely helped getting kills. Took her the Pegasus > Wyvern route and had her use a bow, so she ran around with Leonie destroying the game. I probably crippled her a bit by wanting her to use just about every weapon (trained her in Axe, Bow, Sword and Lance to get into Pegasus), I just really wanted a Sword/Bow Wyvern Lord, if I had focused just Axe with some Bow from the beginning she would've definitely been higher up (probably more than Leonie).

- Edelgard (Emperor): obviously she's high tier, she's meant to be one of the best units in the game after all. She just did what Edelgard does, tank everything and kill everything, as simple as that. She even surprised me as she was quite heavily Str screwed in the first 10 levels or so, and yet catched up with everyone else. I took her to Mercenary because I wanted Vantage, in hindsight that was stupid, I don't think I've ever procced Vantage and I could've recovered her Str faster by going Brigand immediately (also could've used Death Blow).

- Shamir (Bow Knight): I got her the first chapter possible to recruit her, needless to say a Sniper with an A in bow that early is just amazing. Then she got to Bow Knight and was even better, she finished with something like 45 Dex at about lv.40, never missed a shot. My only complaint is her speed, as from about ch.14 onward she had to rely on Brave Bow.

- Marianne (Holy Knight): don't call her a healer. She's a very good one, mind you, but she's so much more. Her damage is where it's at. When I recruited her she already had Soulblade which with her absurd Res means kill anything. Got her Blizzard and Thoron (+Blutgang), which mean crit everything you want (from 3 range). Not S as she's not fast enough for it, but that's the only thing she's missing.

B
- Byleth (Dark Knight): Very good all around unit, went Soldier > Cav > Pal > DK, but the fact that I had to dip into Reason/Faith for recruiting screwed him up a bit on skill levels, I also went Mage for some time to get my Mag up, which came around to be useful in the end as DK. I was worried about his speed going that route, but I really wanted a Lance Byleth, so I just embraced it. He did indeed turn out quite slow, but very very tanky in both sides (actually ended with more Res than Def, and Aegis), and with balanced Str/Mag. Forged Arrow of Indra was his weapon of choice, fuck the whip sword.

- Hubert (Warlock): Dominated the early game (Mire B that early is just amazing) and overall a very powerful nuke with very useful spells. He could've been a lot better as he ended Warlock instead of Dark Bishop, which meant basically having a useless class. I just didn't know I couldn't get more Dark Seals, and by that point it was too late to get Riding and go DK.
Oh and don't forget to give him that Frozen Lance, it just deletes enemies at will.

- Ferdinand (Paladin): He had 4 phases, he was shit early on as I went Myrm > Merc for vantage and speed, he got the speed but he also didn't do any damage. Switched to Knight and he was fucking amazing, he kept his Merc speed so I had a doubling Knight. Sadly Fortresses are garbage, so he was a bit meh towards midgame. Post timeskip he went Paladin, he was also the only unit to reach A Lance in the end, which meant Swift Strikes, Gradivus and Lance of Assal. A weird Paladin, not too strong or tanky, but fast and dodgy. But he was the confirmation that Paladins are very viable, he would've lost stats by going GK.

- Sylvain (Dark Knight): This guy finished with 36 Defense as a Dark Knight what the fuck. Nothing much to say, he was my main tank, just didn't take damage from most people and retaliated well with the Scythe as a Paladin and later on with Magic as well. Speed wasn't his best thing, but getting doubled for 0x2 is not a problem tbh. Also Aegis.

- Dorothea (Dancer): I knew from the start she was going to be my Dancer so I didn't worry too much about her. Very good dancer though, had enough Mag to do some damage as well, and Physic/Meteor were valuable options whenever I didn't need dance.

C
- Linhardt (Holy Knight): He was honestly garbage, but I liked the character so when I unlocked adjudants I tried to pick him up. He turned out as a decent healer and that's it. Ended as a Holy Knight with amazing Res and Terrain Resistance, which were both very relevant for that last map, keeping everyone alive without dying.

- Annette (Gremory): She's slow, she's made of paper and she doesn't deal damage. I really tried to babysit her into being decent, but she was just weighing down for the most part. She's not "Trash" because she's not as bad as those other two, but she's close. Probably got screwed, because I'm not sure her Mag is supposed to be that low (shit spell list doesn't help), but HP and Speed (especially) are unsalvageable.

- Ashe (Wyvern Rider): no strength, no damage, no party. I thought he could at least be useful with his personal, turns out you can buy keys. As a Wyvern Rider I still wouldn't call him trash, he had a good bow rank, and flying bow can't be bad, even just for chip damage.

- Hanneman (Warlock): very good Mag and joins very close to Meteor and Ragnarok, but that's about it. He's the slowest unit in the game, but he still managed to overthrow Annette for the last spot in the final battle. He had some good uses, a Meteor here and there and some Rally Magic.

Trash
- Bernadetta (Pegasus Knight): no, just no. Tried making her a Pegasus because I already had my archers set and wanted a Falcon in the endgame, but she's just incapable of doing damage. Had to drop her off because she was more of a nuisance to keep alive than an addition to the team.

- Caspar (Warrior): and there he is, the worst unit of them all. This guy, as a level 20 Brigand, had the amazing amount of FOURTEEN Strength. 14. His level ups consisted of maximum 2 stats, usually HP and some garbage Luck or whatever. Farewell Caspar, I must admit I actually enjoyed a bit dropping him, he's such a bland annoying character.

Didn't use enough
- Alois (Warrior): I don't know how he could be useful tbh, he doesn't seem that tanky and he just doesn't hit anything, the two times I've used him he didn't reach more than 50-60% hitrate.

- Manuela (Priest): strength and magic are both garbage, I'm not sure what she's supposed to be? I'd guess Falcon Knight makes more sense than anything magic though.

- Lysithea (Mage): she's obviously an amazing unit, but I got her in the timeskip just for reading her supports, and she joins as a Mage with B+ in Reason and zero Faith. Stil had more Mag than f-ing Annette though.

- Flayin: I knew I had to drop her, so I never bothered.

 

Overall, the game was easy (Hard/Classic) apart from the last map. I had a lot of mages which made some supposedly though enemies a joke, but I probably overdid it on Magic, should've kept at least one between Sylvain and Byleth as completely physical, since the end chapter was a big challenge with a team of magic users (Falcon reinforcements and immune Golems were a nightmare). Also Bow Knight is the best class in the game, even better than Wyvern if you've got the Dex for it.

 

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by timon

[virtu333]

Tier list based on 3 playthroughs (BL, Edelgard, GD, all Hard/Classic, latter two were NG+). The NG+ can screw up the ratings a bit but I'll try to keep that in mind.

One big driver is proficiencies - better proficiencies let you be more efficient in getting to your class reqs, which gives you more time to put into two key proficiencies: Authority and Bows. Close Counter and the crappiness of javelins/handaxes make bows insanely good in this game, and authority unlocks very good stats. The ability to get to upgrading authority quicker is basically like getting additional promotions, as you add on stats each time you get to better battalions.

The other driver is the best classes are bow knight and wyvern lord, and it revolves around those two classes and supporting them.

S+

Lords are the best, period. Great bases, great growths, 1.2 exp gained, good proficiencies. Free promotes (of varying quality)

Edelgard: Arguably the strongest start, and she is busted late game thanks to her relic combat art when a wyvern lord. Dump stat boosts and crit into her and she can single handedly 1 turn multi-commander maps (or even her final one....)

Claude: Just isn't quite as busted as Edelgard but is close thanks to a few unique attributes - has perfect affinities to take a bow knight path, then gets flying for free. Bows are good, he's good. Flying is good, he's good. Being able to swap between flying and bow knight? Pretty dope. His relic and combat art isn't as quite as good as Edelgard and she has a more busted endgame with Aymr, but I think he's overall stronger

Dimitri: Solid proficiencies, but can struggle with speed - still makes for a very strong bow knight that can tank hard and deliver big hits. The fact you can't train him for a bit is a bit frustrating though, and is the main drawback to him - basically can't hit A flying with him in an acceptable amount of time. He just doesn't quite have the same wow-factor as Claude/Edelgard, but he is stupid strong.

S

Byleth: Very strong, of course, but he's a cut under the lords because without NG+, building proficiency in the best classes (bow knight, wyvern lord) is slow. Female Byleth is better for free Sylvain

Lysithea: I'm just going to put her here because she makes warp so crazy strong. Warp at B, super high magic - and on top of this, incredible nuke. But it's more her warp that puts her here

A+

Leonie: The perfect bow knight, with proficiencies and stats in the right spots. Incredible early game with min-maxed bases/growths (basically no mag/res) and a very strong, easy-to-use personal for that early game. Can rush authority early because of how perfect the proficiencies are and get a big stat boost to snowball even more. I have her above Petra because her early game is lord-level good - bulky, fast, hits hard.

Could go peg/falcon knight, but I prefer a mix of bow knights/fliers.

Notably, her proficiencies mean you can sort of take your time with recruiting her (and she's fairly easy to do so) and she'll arrive with the right stats, right proficiencies boosted, and leveled up without any investment. Like a mini-Shamir who doesn't fall off as hard. 

Petra: The perfect Wyvern Lord, with proficiencies and stats where it counts. A bit squishy so I found she can't dive with the lords/Byleth as well as Leonie and snowball as hard.

Support:

Lindhardt: Physic and warp, nuff said. Doesn't get warp as early, doesn't have the same ridiculous mag as Lysithea. What's nice is that for non-warp maps, you can stick him in as adjunct and help him get levels to keep the mag up though. Puts him a cut above in terms of usefulness.

A

Felix: Bonkers early game with gauntlets with his passive/crest. Solid bow knight later on, and Aegis+relic makes him surprisingly tanky. Which he needs because he's a bit papery otherwise. Low authority is what puts him down a tier - his personal gets outclassed very quickly but it's too much to raise authority significantly for a while. Still, you can at least put Jeralt's mercs on him for crit/avoid.

Sylvain: Like Leonie, great passive and he can go the wyvern lord path well. Bow weakness is annoying given how good bows are and his stats aren't quite min-maxxed since he has a mage alter ego. Free with F!Byleth though. 

Ingrid: Struggles with strength, but speedy and wyvern path helps her strength out and lets her perform well. Here because flying proficiency and early pegasus is great.

Support:

Mercedes: Best healer thanks to Fortify and Physic, add on stride. Surprisingly decent combat.

Dorothea: Mixed maged, with 2x meteor, early thoron, and physic - add on stride. Great flex character.

B+/B 

Shamir: Insane when she joins (but a lil late) and she will fall off - will still contribute late though with crits and while she's peaking, she does a lot.

Seteth: Quite late when he joins but he's a beast when you do. Can basically immediately contribute and will have huge strength and the lance rank to use brave lances, as his speed can be a bit behind. Basically an edelgard replacement during Church route, but not nearly as good.

Ferdinand: Generic cavalier character, well set up to be a bow knight, but feels outclassed early on by other characters. Not bad but just doesn't have the right stuff going for him - great passive for late game, but getting there he's not particularly outstanding.

Hilda: Strong in general, but her passive lends itself more to support, can struggle with hit early on - she actually ended up being my dancer in my GD run since she fell behind. Well set up to be a wyvern though

Marianne: Physic automatically makes her a decent healer, but doesn't have the same package as Dorothea/Lin/Mercie

C

Dedue: Useful early game for tanking with his passive, but that's about it.

Catherine: Yes she's really strong when she joins but she's a footlocked sword and that sucks - rather give her sword to someone else. Trying to get her on a mount takes a while given her join time, and then she still doesn't have a good 1-2 range option till you get bows up and running.

Manuela: Later join, low mag, but still has warp and additional utility in silence, ward, and bolting. Only here because you might run her for some tactics rather than anyone C or below.

Flayn: Here because rescue and to a lesser extent, Fortify. Bootleg warp with stride. Here for the special tactics.

Hubert: Lysithea without the utility - good range on nuke spells, great dark knight. But with poor support options and footlocked for a while, fairly limited in usefulness once he starts falling behind

Annette: A rallybot in a game where you don't really need a rally bot. Footlocked for a while, not a great spell list.

Cyril: Not a terrible wyvern given how recruits/adjuncts work in this game 

Ashe: He's like Ignatz/Bernadetta but.....at least he steals?

D

Ignatz: He's just never going to really get rolling because he's made of paper and doesn't have much strength

Lorenz: He faces the issue of jack of all trades, master of none. Yeah he has a pretty high growth total, but they're all mediocre. So he's mediocre

Bernadetta: See Ignatz

Raphael: A worse Dedue basically?

Caspar: Mediocre, outclassed physical unit

Hanneman: I guess he has a siege tome and decent spell list?...

Alois: Slow, footlocked. Pass

Gilbert: Fortress Knight? pass

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by virtu333

[Shiki]

16 hours ago, Silly said:

Mercedes, Marianne, and Dorothea should move up, or Manuela/Annette should move down. Physic is incredibly valuable in this game, and if you don't have it you're a really bad healer. Trying to keep a 4 move mage next to your frontline units who have 5-8 move is really annoying and slows down your rate of play significantly.

The healers are only mid because their EXP rate is atrocious and none of them contribute beyond healing your units. It's true that Physic compensates their lack of Mov but without them doing anything besides that it's hard to justify to move them anywhere higher. Especially Mercedes and Marianne have some earlygame slumbs to overcome.
Dorothea has this problem on a lesser scale but past Physic and Thoron she doesn't get anything substantial which makes her not that much better.

Annette has some respectable combat in the earlygame but what makes her valuable are her rallies. +4 Str & Spd is nothing to scoff at considering it basically translates to +4-16 extra damage and potentially +5 AS (assuming you reach the next threshold with the buff). That's pretty a substantial increasee and it's easy to get early on thanks to her excelling in Authority (C+ is really easy). Especially in BL where everything is "Kill Boss" a buff bot is a better deployment slot then Combat Unit #10. 
Alas this obviously kills her usefulness in combat but considering mages have bad Mov anyway it's not a big deal. Plus it doesn't force her to be stuck in 4 Mov unlike pure combat mages like Hubert and can focus on mobility.

I could see Manuela moving down though because she only brings Warp to the table and nothing else. Her affinities are all over the place (Sword, Flying wut) and being bad in Reason gimps her heavily in meeting Gremory requirements for double Warp. Her stats are also pretty disappointing, all things considered.

16 hours ago, Silly said:

Cyril is also misplaced in my opinion. His base stats are honestly not that bad considering his join time. He can be recruited as early as chapter 5, where generic enemies are only level 10, so he's really not that behind in terms of levels. His growth rates are quite good, with 40 Str and 60 Spd, and he has a strength in literally every skill you need to become either a Bow Knight or a Wyvern Rider. He's definitely far from bottom tier. He's not nearly as "bad" as most Ests are considering his join time, as he is only slightly worse than your other units when you can recruit him.

This is exactly why he is so bad.

By the time you are reaching Chapter 5 not only should your main roster be far ahead than him (Level, weapon ranks, authority etc.), some of them should be in Intermediate classes. Cyril starts as a filthy commoner which is pretty bad all things considered.
Even his growths are not that much better than any of the other students. It's around +5% more on each stat which is about as relevant as a drop of water on a lake. Crunch the numbers if you want, a leveld Cyril isn't going to be much ahead than any other unit, even compared to Ashe or Ignatz.

So not only do you get him much later than any other Student, he starts as bad as them at a point far past the first chapters. That's really awful and the only reason why he doesn't place lower than Raphael or Ignatz because he has an easier time to get good. Gilbert is even worse because lol 2 Spd Armor.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Shiki

[Silly]

20 minutes ago, virtu333 said:

[TIER LIST HERE]

One thing to note about Edelgard's prf is that the materials to repair it are fairly rare, so I'm not sure how much you can actually spam it to fast clear maps. It's possible for a few maps but probably not for every map. She is a good wyvern though.

Hilda/Sylvain/Ferdinand should all be in approximately the same spot. No big point in splitting them over two tiers. They're too similar to consider any of them considerably different than the other in my opinion. They all have good offensive growths (45 Str, 50 Spd) and a proficiency in axes + lances plus neutral flying, which makes Wyvern Lord their "optimal" endgame class. Other than that, their bases and growths are not significantly different enough for me to want to place them separately. Of the three, Hilda is probably the worst on paper, but how they turn out in game mostly depends on how RNG determines your growths.

Seteth is actually also pretty similar to them as well, except his proficiencies are even better (as he has a flying strength) and his base authority rank upon joining is actually really high (if I'm remembering correctly). His one downside is the fact that he joins so late, meaning he will be missing out on Death Blow/Darting Blow, which your other Wyverns should have at this point. This is probably debatable but I would rank him the same as the previous three as well. 

Flayn is too high. She is not very good when she joins. Her rescue range at base is like 3 or 4 tiles, on a footlocked unit with 4 move. A weakness in mounts also means that she will find it hard/impossible to get to Dark Knight in a reasonable amount of time, meaning she will be stuck with 4 move for most of the game and maybe 5 move very late. Lacking Physic is also a big downside to her utility (fortify access doesn't fully make up for this imo). Probably belongs to something like B-/C+ tier.

Manuela is also too high. Warp takes forever to learn, and her other "utility" is mostly fake. Bolting is impossible to learn since she has a reason weakness. Silence is pretty mediocre because mages in this game are mostly easy to kill on player phase and the actual mage bosses are unsilenceable anyways. Likewise, warp also has less utility than it would seem given that it is one range (how often is your 4 move mage going to be next to your frontline units that might have 7+ move at this point?) and as stated before mages are easy to just kill.

I would also rate Catherine higher. Yes, her proficiencies aren't the greatest, but her base stats are absurd for her level/join time. And you can (and should) just reclass her off of swords. If you recruit her asap, it doesn't take too, too much effort to put her into Pegasus Knight. It only requires D flying and C lances, and you don't have to meet the requirements perfectly as you can soft reset certifications to save your seal (or just gamble away your intermediate seal, you get a lot of them because every mid-game recruitable comes with one for free). Since D rank comes so fast, you can pretty reasonably hit D flying and D+ lances very early on, at which point you have a ~20 Str, 20 Spd Pegasus Knight quite early on with excellent strength and speed growths and a low enough level that she will still be expected to gain exp quickly.

[Silly]

12 minutes ago, Shiki said:

 The healers are only mid because their EXP rate is atrocious and none of them contribute beyond healing your units. It's true that Physic compensates their lack of Mov but without them doing anything besides that it's hard to justify to move them anywhere higher. Especially Mercedes and Marianne have some earlygame slumbs to overcome.
Dorothea has this problem on a lesser scale but past Physic and Thoron she doesn't get anything substantial which makes her not that much better.

 Annette has some respectable combat in the earlygame but what makes her valuable are her rallies. +4 Str & Spd is nothing to scoff at considering it basically translates to +4-16 extra damage and potentially +5 AS (assuming you reach the next threshold with the buff). That's pretty a substantial increasee and it's easy to get early on thanks to her excelling in Authority (C+ is really easy). Especially in BL where everything is "Kill Boss" a buff bot is a better deployment slot then Combat Unit #10. 
 Alas this obviously kills her usefulness in combat but considering mages have bad Mov anyway it's not a big deal. Plus it doesn't force her to be stuck in 4 Mov unlike pure combat mages like Hubert and can focus on mobility.

 I could see Manuela moving down though because she only brings Warp to the table and nothing else. Her affinities are all over the place (Sword, Flying wut) and being bad in Reason gimps her heavily in meeting Gremory requirements for double Warp. Her stats are also pretty disappointing, all things considered.

Mercedes and Marianne don't really have early game slumps. The thing about "healers" is that primarily focusing on faith because you're supposed to be healing people is actually a big trap. It's much better to focus a lot of your efforts on reason. Then they're just regular mages that happen to have Physic, which gives them a lot of utility because your mages aren't going to be able to attack somebody every turn unless you're playing slow to accommodate them. If you focus primarily on faith then the unit is going to be bad at combat and gain exp slowly, but you can make your healers actually good at combat pretty easily, at which point they can both gain combat exp and healing exp.

For all of your healers (Lindhart, Dorothea, Mercedes, Marianne) you should spec into Reason + Faith in the early game. Your first priority is to get to D Reason. This gives them a good offensive spell to work with (since Nosferatu is garbage), and turns them into a solid combat unit. For example, Lysithea using Miasma at base is not considerably different than Marianne using Blizzard at base in terms of damage output. Second priority is to get to C faith in order to unlock Physic. This is one of the biggest bumps in utility that your mage can have. Afterwards, you can change up your priorities depending on how you want the unit to end up (Dark Knight or Gremory). For example, if you want to turn Marianne into a Dark Knight, there is no real point in leveling Faith beyond C, since her last two faith spells aren't actually that important.

Ideal class paths are roughly:

Monk -> Mage -> Warlock/Bishop -> Dark Knight/Gremory

Mage should be everyone's intermediate class because the Fiendish Blow is incredible (and also solves any damage issues that probably shouldn't exist but might if your unit is slightly screwed), and it is not a hard class for your healer to get into. Warlock/Bishop is the natural upgrade path, with pros and cons to both. Warlock does more damage, Bishop has more utility, and you may not have the weapon ranks for both classes so just pick the one you have the ranks for if you only have one available. Dark Knight and Gremory are obvious terminal classes. Lindhart can go Holy Knight since he's the one unit that has a strong incentive to actively train Faith past C (Fortify isn't something you need early, and Mercedes will get there eventually), so he might reach the requirements for that class much faster than Dark Knight requirements.

Annette is less good as a mage because she doesn't get Physic, which imo is the single most important spell for a mage to learn (other than Lysithea, who is an exception due to her early warp and massive magic stat). She can do mage things, but typically your mages are going to have free turns due to not being in range of enemies, and then she is stuck with 4 move and how are you going to be consistently next to somebody important so that you can rally them when they have 6+ move and you have 4? If you want her to be a dedicated rally bot you might as well reclass her into a unit that has more move.

[virtu333]

Yeah Edelgard's perf is really used in her two final ones - I didn't personally do it, but you apparently you can save up the mat to one turn her penultimate map, then one turn the final map. It's pretty bonkers.

As far as Hilda/Sylvain/Ferdinand go, I think for me the main differentiator is their passives. +2 atk/-2 damage on Sylvain, and +3 attack support on Hilda, are decently big early game, especially when you combine them with gauntlets and training weapons. Early game, your characters are close enough together that it makes a material difference.

As for Flayn/Manuela, the only reason I have them where they are is because you can just have them be adjuncts and train them in faith only over time, and slot them in one big deploy maps or for special tactics as needed. Stride is what saves Flayn (and Manuela) - she's like a bootleg warp because you can stride her, move 9 spaces, and rescue. But yeah, she should probably go down since she isn't really getting deployed consistently. I could see them both dropping since they're just special tactics units.

In both cases, it's really just their supplementary roles that make them stick out. Because you're basically only going to run 6-8 combat units top and the rest are going to be support/Lysithea.

Hmm might need to try Catherine out more and just rush peg knight/lance, although then you still need to get her bows up for a 2 range option.

Edited August 13, 2019 by virtu333

[Silly]

3 minutes ago, virtu333 said:

Yeah Edelgard's perf is really used in her two final ones - I didn't personally do it, but you can save up your Umbra steel (which isn't super rare - I think Demonic beasts have them when you break their shields) to one turn her penultimate map, then one turn the final map. It's pretty bonkers.

Edelgard's prf repairs with Agarthium, which is considerably more rare than Umbral Steel.

[virtu333]

Just now, Silly said:

Edelgard's prf repairs with Agarthium, which is considerably more rare than Umbral Steel.

Ooh right. Yeah I personally didn't do it - I did use it to cut down on the maps but not to that extent.

[Burklight]

17 minutes ago, virtu333 said:

As far as Hilda/Sylvain/Ferdinand go, I think for me the main differentiator is their passives. +2 atk/-2 damage on Sylvain, and +3 attack support on Hilda, are decently big early game, especially when you combine them with gauntlets and training weapons. Early game, your characters are close enough together that it makes a material difference.

I think that if we're attempting to make one list for all characters and not sort them by route, Sylvain should be significantly higher than Hilda/Ferdinand simply because of how easy to recruit he is. Especially for BE where you don't have anyone on that entire team that can take a hit early game outside of Edelgard.

[Silly]

1 minute ago, Burklight said:

I think that if we're attempting to make one list for all characters and not sort them by route, Sylvain should be significantly higher than Hilda/Ferdinand simply because of how easy to recruit he is. Especially for BE where you don't have anyone on that entire team that can take a hit early game outside of Edelgard.

I think sorting by route might be a bit too complicated. Does Claude take a hit because he's only available on one route while Sylvain is a free recruit on all routes? How about Dedue compared to Raphael? etc. etc.

For most of the students I just judge them based on their performance as if you had them from the start of the game.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Silly

[virtu333]

Just now, Burklight said:

I think that if we're attempting to make one list for all characters and not sort them by route, Sylvain should be significantly higher than Hilda/Ferdinand simply because of how easy to recruit he is. Especially for BE where you don't have anyone on that entire team that can take a hit early game outside of Edelgard.

I think an interesting thing about recruiting in this game is that you don't necessarily even want to recruit some characters super early.

E.g., recruiting Leonie later is fine because she'll still have upgrades in the proficiencies you want (bow/lance), will get pretty decent stats, and she does all this without any investment on your part.

But a free Sylvain probably should put him up.

[Troykv]

20 minutes ago, Silly said:

Edelgard's prf repairs with Agarthium, which is considerably more rare than Umbral Steel.

Agarthium?

Spoiler

Oh perfect; the snakes developed a material stronger than titanium (?)

 

[Burklight]

1 minute ago, Silly said:

I think sorting by route might be a bit too complicated. Does Claude take a hit because he's only available on one route while Sylvain is a free recruit on all routes? How about Dedue compared to Raphael? etc. etc.

For most of the students I just judge them based on their performance as if you had them from the start of the game.

The lords are all S+ regardless of what route you take. The units I can see this having a big impact on are units like Felix who are easily S+ brake the game tier for the first 3 chapters, but if you aren't playing BL then you probably don't get to use him for those three, obviously he should drop off. Or anyone who needs their default goals changed early to make them learn the correct skill levels should be tiered a lot lower if you have to recruit them later. I get that it'll probably end up looking like a FE4 gen 2 list, but I things like the route you take matter if you're a new player looking for what units to use.

[Silly]

Here is my list currently. Units are roughly ordered within each tier. This is assuming you take the path where the unit is able to be recruited the earliest. Some units move up or down a bit depending on your path.

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Best: These units have the best combination of qualities, and will likely be some of your top contributors on every run.

• Claude, Dimitri, Edelgard, F!Byleth
• M!Byleth, Lysithea, Petra, Leonie

Good: Other than the units above, these units will likely comprise the majority of your primary deployment slots.

• Felix, Seteth, Catherine, Sylvain, Ferdinand, Hilda, Lindhart
• Ingrid, Dorothea, Mercedes, Marianne, Shamir

Utility: These unit round out a team, filling in your deployment slots that aren't for combat units. Note that the top of this tier is really, really good and can be deployed on any map, while the bottom of this tier contains subpar units that are mostly deployed when you have free slots.

• Dancer (any unit), Stride-Bot (anyone with a riding proficiency)
• Flayn, Manuela

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Acceptable: This is the point where I would stop actively recommending these units. They're fine if you want to use them, but they don't do anything particularly noteworthy for me.

• Cyril, Bernadetta, Hubert, Annette
• Ignatz, Caspar, Ashe, Lorenz

Bad: I would not recommend using any of these units. Note that every unit is actually usable in this game, so it's not like these are completely lost causes. They're just worse than your other options.

• Raphael, Dedue
• Alois, Hanneman, Gilbert

Edited August 13, 2019 by Silly

[Shiki]

45 minutes ago, Silly said:

Your first priority is to get to D Reason. This gives them a good offensive spell to work with (since Nosferatu is garbage), and turns them into a solid combat unit. For example, Lysithea using Miasma at base is not considerably different than Marianne using Blizzard at base in terms of damage output.

Marianne gets Blizzard and that still puts her at an awful spot. I wouldn't call -2 MT and -10 Hit a small difference considering this is the earlygame and Magic Hit rates aren't exactly reliable (even Lysithea with Miasma hovers around 80). iirc Marianne misses some 2HKOs while Lysithea doesn't.
I concede on Mercedes, I forgot she has basically the same performance with Fire as Annette with Wind.

45 minutes ago, Silly said:

Monk -> Mage -> Warlock/Bishop -> Dark Knight/Gremory

45 minutes ago, Silly said:

For example, if you want to turn Marianne into a Dark Knight, there is no real point in leveling Faith beyond C, since her last two faith spells aren't actually that important. 

This is absolutely bogus on Marianne. The only important spell she gets from Reason is Thoron for 3 range. Fimbulvetr isn't much better than Aura considering both slow her down to a snail pace and Cutting Gale is pretty much w/e besides the low weight. Plus Marianne doesn't even excel in Reason, it's neutral for her. That's a lot of skill points you waste if you solely focus on Reason.
One of the biggest niches, Marianne has over Mercedes, is her access to Silence on 8 Mov as a Holy Knight. Siege tome mages in this game are absolutely brutal and being able to shut them down reliably is a pretty useful thing to have (especially against those endgame gremories).

45 minutes ago, Silly said:

Mage should be everyone's intermediate class because the Fiendish Blow is incredible (and also solves any damage issues that probably shouldn't exist but might if your unit is slightly screwed), and it is not a hard class for your healer to get into.

I highly doubt that you are actually getting the class mastery on an efficient run. Compared to any of the mounted classes mages already have a hard time to get into the bulk of battle, much less said about them being exposed to multiple attacks and by the time you get Knowledge gems you are probably on your way to Advanced classes.

45 minutes ago, Silly said:

Annette is less good as a mage because she doesn't get Physic, which imo is the single most important spell for a mage to learn (other than Lysithea, who is an exception due to her early warp and massive magic stat). She can do mage things, but typically your mages are going to have free turns due to not being in range of enemies, and then she is stuck with 4 move and how are you going to be consistently next to somebody important so that you can rally them when they have 6+ move and you have 4? If you want her to be a dedicated rally bot you might as well reclass her into a unit that has more move.

... and how does this contradict my point and make her a candidate to move down?
One thing you can attempt to consolidate both aspects is to train her as a Cavalier to prepare for the Dark Knight promotion. Getting to Rally Mov is pretty unrealistic to begin with (S which is not really feasible) so focusing on Riding is something you can do and the requirement in Lances is C only. Of course she won't fight until post-timeskip but considering her main use is being a buff bot that doesn't really matter all that much.

Though I rather keep her as a Pegasus Knight for the best mobility. I don't think I even promoted her past Pegasus Knight. *shrug*

Edited August 13, 2019 by Shiki

[virtu333]

21 minutes ago, Shiki said:

 

I highly doubt that you are actually getting the class mastery on an efficient run. Compared to any of the mounted classes mages already have a hard time to get into the bulk of battle, much less said about them being exposed to multiple attacks and by the time you get Knowledge gems you are probably on your way to Advanced classes.

.

Is there a significant benefit to going to Warlock instead of sticking as mage for fiendish blow? You don't get more move - just the promote for the defense boost on promotion, then swap back to mage to finish it off. Looks like Warlock is +2 mag/+1 speed compared to mage, which is nice, but you might as well stick it out a bit longer.

[Silly]

 

26 minutes ago, Shiki said:

Marianne gets Blizzard and that still puts her at an awful spot. I wouldn't call -2 MT and -10 Hit a small difference considering this is the earlygame and Magic Hit rates aren't exactly reliable (even Lysithea with Miasma hovers around 80). iirc Marianne misses some 2HKOs while Lysithea doesn't.
 I concede on Mercedes, I forgot she has basically the same performance with Fire as Annette with Wind.

Marianne also has +2 AS over Lysithea at base. Overall these differences aren't super big anyways, as neither of them ORKOs in the early game (because basically none of your units do) and they get to a ORKO threshold reasonably quickly (the main thing driver here is being able to double).

26 minutes ago, Shiki said:

This is absolutely bogus on Marianne. The only important spell she gets from Reason is Thoron for 3 range. Fimbulvetr isn't much better than Aura considering both slow her down to a snail pace and Cutting Gale is pretty much w/e besides the low weight. Plus Marianne doesn't even excel in Reason, it's neutral for her. That's a lot of skill points you waste if you solely focus on Reason.

You level reason because Mage is significantly better than Priest and Dark Knight is a better class than Holy Knight. Your primary damage spell is going to be whatever your lightest magic is, which is always going to be your reason spell. Thus, it's better to train up reason because the ranks will contribute extra hit to your primary damage spell, and the difference between Dark and Holy Knight is a whole +5 damage (+10 if you double) on your primary spell due to Tomefaire. There's not much incentive to actively train faith beyond C. At some point you will get Silence anyways just by healing (since all of the magic classes get a boost to faith weapon ranks), so if you actually need it near the endgame you will have it. 

26 minutes ago, Shiki said:

 One of the biggest niches, Marianne has over Mercedes, is her access to Silence on 8 Mov as a Holy Knight. Siege tome mages in this game are absolutely brutal and being able to shut them down reliably is a pretty useful thing to have (especially against those endgame gremories).

Silence isn't very good (also Holy Knight has 7 move), as the large majority of mages do not need to be silenced to be dealt with. Nobody is dying to a single bolting (and you might even be able to just dodge it considering it has 65 hit and enemies are not very accurate in this game), so you can usually just kill the mage before it becomes a problem. Plus, it's still not a big reason to actively train faith, as getting to B faith from healing throughout the entire game isn't an issue. The major advantage that Marianne has over Mercedes, imo, is actually her Riding proficiency and hidden talent in lances, which makes Dark Knight easier to access compared to Mercedes (who has a strength in Reason, but is neutral in riding and weak in lances). That, and Thoron, which is helpful.

26 minutes ago, Shiki said:

I highly doubt that you are actually getting the class mastery on an efficient run. Compared to any of the mounted classes mages already have a hard time to get into the bulk of battle, much less said about them being exposed to multiple attacks and by the time you get Knowledge gems you are probably on your way to Advanced classes.

You get class mastery from healing people, and given that mage is an intermediate class the class mastery for it takes less exp than later ones. You only need 50 actions iirc (since the mastery boosting renown reward is the best one and you should be buying that asap), which is cut to 25 actions with the Knowledge Gem.

Also, there is no real downside to sticking with mage past level 20 if for some reason you can't get there.

26 minutes ago, Shiki said:

... and how does this contradict my point and make her a candidate to move down?
One thing you can attempt to consolidate both aspects is to train her as a Cavalier to prepare for the Dark Knight promotion. Getting to Rally Mov is pretty unrealistic to begin with (S which is not really feasible) so focusing on Riding is something you can do and the requirement in Lances is C only. Of course she won't fight until post-timeskip but considering her main use is being a buff bot that doesn't really matter all that much.

Though I rather keep her as a Pegasus Knight for the best mobility. I don't think I even promoted her past Pegasus Knight. *shrug*

Because if you reclass her out of a magic class you get a rally bot that can't do any combat at all, which is like Manuela/Flayn tier usefulness or maybe a bit less. You get some good utility in rally, but that is primarily only useful at killing a few particularly tough enemies (as the good units can probably ORKO generics without issue), and not being able to have good combat is not worth that tradeoff. It's not like a dancer, where at the bare minimum you can dance a good combat unit to kill a second enemy. With a rally bot, most of the time your unit gets better at killing one enemy, but since generics aren't that strong in this game the extra stats aren't important on many turns and it's better to just have someone that kills a second unit as well.

If you class her into a magic class so that she has good combat, then you're stuck with a rally bot that has 4 move, which greatly diminishes her utility.

Basically, you have to pick between one or the other if you're playing reasonably efficiently. It's not like the Physic mages, who can provide good combat early on when enemies are still in range (especially since your first turn is likely going to be stride), and then transition to healing people with Physic later on (as your units start to take hits and become damaged), meaning they can potentially be useful every single turn.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Silly

[Shiki]

3 minutes ago, Silly said:

You level reason because Mage is significantly better than Priest and Dark Knight is a better class than Holy Knight. Your primary damage spell is going to be whatever your lightest magic is, which is always going to be your reason spell. Thus, it's better to train up reason because the ranks will contribute extra hit to your primary damage spell, and the difference between Dark and Holy Knight is a whole +5 damage (+10 if you double) on your primary spell due to Tomefaire. There's not much incentive to actively train faith beyond C. At some point you will get Silence anyways just by healing (since all of the magic classes get a boost to faith weapon ranks), so if you actually need it near the endgame you will have it. 

Why does this matter if these units' utility lie in their Faith spells, not in their combat ability which is pretty mediocre all things considered.
The difference between Mage and Priest (and their promotions) is insignificant. Neither of them are going to be smiting stuff outside of Armors and for those you don't need high Mag or AS to begin with.
Unless your name is Lysithea but that's the exception to the rule.

3 minutes ago, Silly said:

Silence isn't very good (also Holy Knight has 7 move), as the large majority of mages do not need to be silenced to be dealt with. Nobody is dying to a single bolting (and you might even be able to just dodge it considering it has 65 hit and enemies are not very accurate in this game), so you can usually just kill the mage before it becomes a problem. Plus, it's still not a big reason to actively train faith, as getting to B faith from healing throughout the entire game isn't an issue. The major advantage that Marianne has over Mercedes, imo, is actually her Riding proficiency and hidden talent in lances, which makes Dark Knight easier to access compared to Mercedes (who has a strength in Reason, but is neutral in riding and weak in lances). That, and Thoron, which is helpful.

Bolting? Last time I checked they mostly have Meteor and you seem to have a bad memory because I wouldn't consider 80+ as inaccurate.
The thing is you don't face a single siege spell. You need to deal with multiples of them which makes them so problematic. You may not die in 1 hit from them but 2 will finish off any unit you have and let's not ignore the fact that you have a giant hole in your HP now. It makes facerolling the later chapters so much harder and it is not possible to deal with them otherwise because they outrange you. Silence has a set range, yes, but that's exactly why Marianne can make good use of it due to her easy access to a horse (and it's 8 Mov because quite frankly who doesn't pick up +1 Mov from A+ Riding).

6 minutes ago, Silly said:

Basically, you have to pick between one or the other if you're playing reasonably efficiently.

And I'm saying the only thing that matters is her ability to rally. That puts her above her anyone from Low tier (who have no future to begin with) and compared to rather underwhelming units like Ashe or Lorenz extra stats on your best unit is much more appealing. The Dark Knight stuff is a bonus at best and doesn't even factor in that much in my assessment.

Not to mention you seem to underestimate just how impactful Annette's Rally really is, especially for the time you can get it. +4 Str & 4 Spd as early as Ch.4 (assuming you focus solely on Authority) turns anyone into Felix. That means they start ORKOing on their own which equals more EXP early on. That's a pretty big deal considering no one sans Byleth, the Lords and Felix can actually reliably ORKO stuff (unless they are stupidly blessed which I'm obviously ignoring) in the earlygame.

[Silly]

4 minutes ago, Shiki said:

 Why does this matter if these units' utility lie in their Faith spells, not in their combat ability which is pretty mediocre all things considered.
 The difference between Mage and Priest (and their promotions) is insignificant. Neither of them are going to be smiting stuff outside of Armors and for those you don't need high Mag or AS to begin with.

The point is that their combat ability IS NOT MEDIOCRE. It's only mediocre if you do suboptimal things.

Your inability to properly utilize your mages does not mean that they're bad...

[Silly]

One important thing to note is that mages have diminishing returns in this game. Their general role is to be able to flex between player phase nukes and healers. The first ~2 are incredibly valuable, since certain enemies are hard to kill without them and healing utility is very important if you have no healers, whereas each additional one rapidly experiences diminishing returns.

Ideally, you want both mages to have Physic, since without Physic their healing utility sucks, though only one with Physic is acceptable (the other one can Lysithea for example). Having no units with Physic deployed is not something that I ideally want to play maps with.

Given this is the case, whichever early game mage you have with Physic will likely be deployed basically on every single map. They all do both halves of their job equally well, as they boast relatively similar offensive growths (Mag + Spd), and all learn Physic at the same rank. This means that Lindhart on the BE route, Mercedes on BL route, and Marianne on GD route should all be roughly equal, as they all fill the same niche, with only slight differences. Whichever mage you started with will probably be the best given that they have a head start on weapon ranks compared to ones you recruit later.

This also means that all of the Physic mages are very good units, given that they are worthy of a deployment slot in basically every map. They are certainly worth much more than units in the Manuela/Flayn category (which is roughly where a strict rally bot would be), which have good utility for a few specific turns but aren't necessarily always contributing, and can be cut when deployment slots are tighter.

Lindhart might get a bit of a bump here compared to the other mages. Despite the BE route having two Physic users and Lindhart being the slowest Physic mage, he does get Warp, which if you didn't recruit Lysithea ends up being of vital importance. Though all of the physic users are core units to their specific routes, and all deserve to have a relatively high placement on any list.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Silly

[Tarul]

Can anyone convince me that Raphael is not one of the worst units in the game? If we treat hard mode as the baseline, since Lunatic doesn't exist yet, then there isn't a real need for a dedicated tank, as most physical classes will be physically tank enough through to serve the same function through the paladin class, or dodge-tanky via speed classes (swordmaster, etc). While he can point destroy in player phase thanks to gauntlets, his enemy phase is rather lacking, as he usually can only get 1 hit on the enemy, leaving them alive with around 1/3 HP. In contrast, the top off-tanks usually ORKO most units except for sword masters, assassins, Pegasus knights, and knights, giving them more utility in clearing maps. Furthermore, Raphael's horrible speed and resistance gets him murked by mages, which limits his usage in the late game chapters when you'd want to use him against the low-accuracy but high-might silver weapons, as said units are usually accompanied by mages.

Admittedly, he's nice to use as a reliable physical wall every now and then, but his weakness in riding makes him struggle to get to the frontline via mobility classes (he synergizes well with the great knight class), meaning he can be difficult to get to places to actually do his job (damage sponge). As an off-tank, he's outclassed by the lords, Byleth/Hilda/Leonie/Lorenz/etc in damage/tanking ratio. Finally, as a player-phase delete button, he's destroyed by mages (notably Lysanthea) who usually have +3-4 range to attack safely (or honestly the lords again with crest weapons when you're going to take a hit from the Counterattack ability). Raphael is almost always limited to gauntlets for the double (which also means his effective might isn't as stellar since weapons give so much attack strength)

He's usable, as is almost every character in this game, but I can't think of a reason to use him besides his convenience of no recruitment requirements in the Golden Deer run. If we count NG+ in the tier list (where every character is recruitable day 1 thanks to support boosting with renown), then every character should be treated as having day 1 availability.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Tarul

[0 Def Cleric]

4 minutes ago, Tarul said:

Can anyone convince me that Raphael is not one of the worst units in the game?

No, because he is. The bar for usable units is pretty low in this game, so even he's usable, but he sucks. Quick Riposte makes him salvageable, but he's still bad. 

[Thane]

Did I luck out with Raphael? He became one of my most important units in my Golden Deer run, hitting hard and often quadding. Plus he had a massive HP pool.

[0 Def Cleric]

4 minutes ago, Thane said:

Did I luck out with Raphael? He became one of my most important units in my Golden Deer run, hitting hard and often quadding. Plus he had a massive HP pool.

You probably got speed blessed. What was his final speed? Really, he's not that bad besides his riding bane and absolute garbage speed, so if you managed to luck out and get speed blessed, he would probably become god.