Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists

[Hyper L]

5 minutes ago, Silly said:

Nobody knows what Lunatic mode actually is going to be like, considering the developers have not said any details and its not released yet.

Evaluating something based on what it may or may not do in Lunatic is a bit pointless.

Though to be fair, master tier class mastery is already unfeasibly difficult to hit on hard mode most of the time.

You're right about we not having direct knowledge of how the characters will fare against Lunatic, but the mode is completely coded in the game already.

We already know stuff like normal EXP being halved, bosses moving and most archers having poison strike.

[magnetic_cactus]

5 minutes ago, Hyper L said:

You're right about we not having direct knowledge of how the characters will fare against Lunatic, but the mode is completely coded in the game already.

We already know stuff like normal EXP being halved, bosses moving and most archers having poison strike.

They can always change it via patch, however. If, for example, they ever release the harder "infernal" mode it will REQUIRE patching since it's currently broken/unfinished.

[Dark Holy Elf]

11 minutes ago, magnetic_cactus said:

 

1. On dodgetanking: You agree it's a valid build, great. Your primary argument against its consideration in tiering is the fact it can't be employed on every character simultaneously, however. I strongly disagree that mass application matters for purposes of what we're doing (if it were, you could not reasonably say any class or build is a good build, because it literally can't and probably shouldn't be applied simultaneously in a cookie-cutter fashion to 12 characters).
2. On assassins: You primarily argue that assassins aren't good because Wyvern Lords are better. That may be so, but this argument seems to contradict your later argument that part of why Warmasters are inferior to Wyvern Lords is the fact they simply don't get up to speed until too late. Assassins can be run from very early on in the game - far earlier than Wyvern Lords - and that's why I think this class, and a unit's compatibility with the class, should be considered for tiering purposes. I had thought my original post was clear enough on this but I apologize if not; in fact, part of why I elected to touch on this particular class was precisely to expose what seemed to me to mismatch between the heavy focus on "investment minimization" and the fact that many pre-Master classes were being mostly glossed over.

 

I don't think Assassin compares that well to Wyvern Rider, which is its contemporary. I'm not even certain how I rate it against Sniper (generally weaker buuut gets Bowrange and Bowfaire > Swordfaire) or Paladin (8 move, canto, Lancefaire) or Pegasus Knight (no faire but flight rules and they're dodgy). It's solid enough, and if someone has talents more suited to Assassin they should consider Assassin instead of those other options, but Assassin isn't such a good class that I think talent for it really raises my opinion of a unit that much.

I agree that having just 1-2 units good at dodgetanking is still valuable, because you can use them to bait out a particularly trick group of enemies then swarm them with your other units who are relatively squishier. There's really no need to optimize the entire army for durability in a strategy RPG where you control which of your units the enemies can actually attack.

[Garlyle]

9 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

Sorry but gotta disagree with this one. She is easily worse than Hubert and Lorenz. Lorenz has his relic that helps fixes his bad movement early game and Hubert has better growths and can easily class change better.

Punishing someone for being available for one route I feel like is unfair. I personally think you should rate a unit's availability based on the house they are from. Since Byleth's weapon rank and everything can vary so much and makes a lot of things complicated.

To be fair, I still have lots to do in Black Eales route, so my opinion might change on him later. I didn't mentioned availability for Hubert only, it's the same case for Dedue and Gilbert, and the availability is more of an issue for Gilbert.

As for Lorenz...

4 hours ago, TrueNoble said:

I did also give Lysithea the wand at first, but I would actually argue that Lorenz makes for a much better user of it in the long run.

I know it's long, but I hope some will take the time to read, and perhaps consider this precious mushroom-head guy in a whole new light. ❤️

To start off with, a quick review of Lorenz's most clear advantages over Lysithea, as I see them. They are his smoother progression into Dark Knight, higher defensive stats across the board, and I would submit, perhaps most important of all, his access to Lifetaker from the Dark Bishop class. With a build like my current one: Thyrsus, Black Magic Range +1, Reason Prowess, Defensive Tactics, and Fiendish Blow, altogether he becomes a versatile, decently durable, mobile, comfortably self-sustaining front line unit.

Now, then! Here is my  hot take on why he should get the staff in the long run:

• A Lysithea with Thrysus sits in the back line and plucks off a distant enemy with it every player phase, as even if she had the range of a Dark Knight, she's likely still far too squishy especially in later maps to act as a front line. So, barring some crazy ability on her like idk Vantage, one can consider all spaces on the map where she would be attacked by multiple enemies in later maps off-limits when you're picking where to Canto to, which...makes that added mobility a bit questionable as to its worth.
• On the other hand, Lorenz gets a lot of HP. It surprised me as I was playing through, really. His DEF too, while not the best, is noticeably higher than Lysithea's, and he has a fantastic RES, which is also significantly higher than Lysithea's own and becomes more and more valuable for front line units as the game progresses. His speed, while a tad low (same growth as Edelgard, 1 less base value), isn't so low that he gets doubled by common enemies as the game progresses. and moreoften gets the doubles himself. Lorenz can and does take multiple hits during enemy phase, with some hits being reduced by the staff's effect from time to time, counters even max range Bow Knights, then likely plucks something off at a distance during player phase for a Lifetaker heal. Then, from there, has the option to canto onward, maintaining your party's forward momentum. In this example, one can see that Lorenz makes full use of all the benefits of the staff, while also giving the player better forward momentum than Lysithea would even if they went through the extra trouble of making her a Dark Knight over a Gremory.

Lysithea's a great unit, but Lorenz was designed to be much easier to make into a Dark Knight than her for a reason, I think. The extra investment of two Dark Seals to achieve Lifetaker might be off-putting to some, but it's far better to progress him as a caster anyway, and it's not like Lysithea would mind allowing him to get some hits in for Reason exp in her stead, thanks to her trait. His abilities, particularly Lifetaker, are what really gives him an edge, which obviously will involve some extra grinding + repeat playthroughs, but the game is designed with all that taken into account what with the presence of Knowledge Orbs, grind maps and New Game +, so it's not something I would hold against him or any unit within the context of Three Houses, unless we're talking, like, actual speed runs. I would even be so brazen as to say Lorenz's impact as an individual unit scales throughout multiple playthroughs far better than Lysithea's, with this particular build. My main concern is that harder hitting foes with higher crit compounded with his lowish Luck might screw him over in harder difficulties, but we'll have to see...

Anyway, there are dodge tanks and then there are tank tanks. With Lifetaker, Lorenz is something of a drain tank.

(Just be sure to level him as a caster--NOT as a cavalry--until he becomes a Dark Knight.)

Lysithea has a clear advantage over Lorenz for Thrysus, as she can much easily one-shot the enemy units. Sure she's more balanced toward the easy Gremory path than the easy Dark Knight path, but that's just another reason to give her more magic range. She has better bases and growths in Mag and Spd, and sadly Dex, so her being the better killer is highly likely. Thrysus once again fixes her up for her low movement, and she can also stay out of range of even 3-range mages and archers. I only saw skills mentioned for Lorenz that can be universally learned by almost any units, and while his skill progression is tailored toward Dark Knight, it's also dangerous and grabs him into Cavalier route, where he suffers another -10% Spd growth. 

I still recruit him to get the Thrysus though.

[leesangstar10]

32 minutes ago, magnetic_cactus said:

On dodgetanking:

Personally I think this should be experimented more. There is too much theory crafting and is possible for a not NG+ play through? 

32 minutes ago, magnetic_cactus said:

On assassins:

Instead of wyvern lord you can be a wyvern rider. Pretty sure this is what Silly meant to say. Just because you're a wyvern rider doesn't mean you can't use bows. It's not like assassins give something extra when you use a bow(except skill proficiency)

32 minutes ago, magnetic_cactus said:

overcentralization of discussion on "does this character get Wyvern Lord" is a disservice to the game's balance

Well it is kinda the game's fault for making them so broken and breaking the balance. Fliers were always really good across all games and they intentionally buffed them by giving them the dismount option. At least they knew Cavs were good so they get a -10% spd, but fliers only get buffs. 

[eclipse]

8 hours ago, UNLEASH IT said:

Is Manuela good? I never used her, but I see that she has C rank faith and gets Warp at A rank.

Silence is a niche spell, but it's a lifesaver when you need it (generics can be pretty irritating).  Ward also has its uses, and allows Manuela some free levels in Faith should the map feature nothing but physical enemies.  Warp's nifty, but it takes a while for her to get it.  She's decent utility, and I used her all the way to endgame on the one route I completed so far.  Whether she's top-tier I can't say.

Spoiler

because Flayn bagged out on me.

 

[Silly]

I was mostly comparing assassin to wyvern lord because the talk was focused on endgame classes, but they don't really compare that favorably to wyvern rider either, to be honest. You're trading swordfaire and +2 speed, +2 dex for axefaire, +3 strength, slightly higher bulk (+1 hp, +2 def, +10 avoid), and importantly +1 flying movement and canto.

To be honest, if there were no master tier flying classes (the line stopped at Wyvern Rider), then Wyvern Rider would still arguably be in the running for top tier endgame class. The fact that there is a promotion that is strictly better in multiple ways is insane.

[magnetic_cactus]

2 minutes ago, leesangstar10 said:

Personally I think this should be experimented more. There is too much theory crafting and is possible for a not NG+ play through? 

Yes, I've done it on Hard.

2 minutes ago, leesangstar10 said:

Instead of wyvern lord you can be a wyvern rider. Pretty sure this is what Silly meant to say. Just because you're a wyvern rider doesn't mean you can't use bows. It's not like assassins give something extra when you use a bow(except skill proficiency)

Growths are pretty significantly different. You also learn lethality instead of seal defense; not saying one is better than the other, but it's different and factors into the calculus. Generally sticking someone in Assassin vs Wyvern Rider may lean them toward a dodgy crit build (Cursed Akishaya Sword+ seemingly exists for this purpose, although admittedly comes probably 1 or 2 chapters too late to be truly game breaking as you'll hit Master classes soon after). You are correct in that they otherwise use Bows equally. 

6 minutes ago, leesangstar10 said:

Well it is kinda the game's fault for making them so broken and breaking the balance. Fliers were always really good across all games and they intentionally buffed them by giving them the dismount option. At least they knew Cavs were good so they get a -10% spd, but fliers only get buffs. 

No argument from me here - not sure why fliers don't have a  penalty in speed given that cavalry does. I suspect the devs overestimated the power of enemy archers. Maybe Lunatic/Lunatic+ will spam close counter and higher defense stat archers?

[Silly]

Dodgetanking is fine once you get to the later 1/3 of the game when you can stack enough avoid, though you are limited in the number of dodge tanks you can field. 

It's perfectly doable if you build with it in mind. You have to not play like an idiot (your dodgetanks aren't literally invincible), but it does make them very hard to actually kill for most enemies.

Some units do get a boost to their ability to dodge tank, but for the most part its doable on every good unit.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Silly

[Silly]

3 minutes ago, magnetic_cactus said:

Growths are pretty significantly different. You also learn lethality instead of seal defense; not saying one is better than the other, but it's different and factors into the calculus. Generally sticking someone in Assassin vs Wyvern Rider may lean them toward a dodgy crit build (Cursed Akishaya Sword+ seemingly exists for this purpose, although admittedly comes probably 1 or 2 chapters too late to be truly game breaking as you'll hit Master classes soon after). You are correct in that they otherwise use Bows equally. 

Growth difference is a somewhat relevant factor. You should probably be spending 10 levels in Wyvern Rider and 10 in Wyvern Lord, vs 20 in Assassin, so there will be a statistical difference at 40 of a couple of points here and there (+3 speed growths on assassin, -2.5 strength, and a few other stat differences).

Lethality and Seal Defense are both pretty garbage skills. Most of the time if you attack someone they should just be dead. The enemies that might not die to a single attack are generally boss type enemies, who are immune to both. For the most part, with the exception of certain intermediate tier classes, mastery skills aren't impactful enough to influence the viability of a class in any meaningful way for me. (Also for some reason, two of the best intermediate tier class masteries come from classes that lead into Wyvern Lord...)

Also, ironically Wyverns are probably better suited for dodgy builds compared to assassins, which also doesn't really make much intuitive sense but hey, that's just the way the game is. The slightly higher speed that assassins have doesn't nearly make up for the fact that Wyverns get +10 avoid innately and basically get Alert Stance for free along the way to Wyvern Lord.

[leesangstar10]

Tierlist v3.0

Tier is ordered

This is a general tier list not a LTC or route specific. I tried to be as non bias as possible and consist of theory crafting/discussions from this forum. If there is something you disagree with tell me and we can have an insightful discussion :). Also take this with a grain of salt since this is still a new game.

Rating criteria:

1. This is Classic Hard Mode. Not new game plus. So no using renown to get class mastery skills
2. I WILL consider the skills/art units can get as they class change or level their weapon skills. Ex. Getting death blow from brigand along the way to wyvern lord
3. Availability for student is based on the house they are from. I did this because students outside your house availability can vary based on your Byleth’s skill level. This balances things out and will make it less complicated. Ex. Will not consider Hilda’s late available recruitment option in church route. However, I will consider Alois’s very late recruitment since he is recruited late in all routes.
4. Will consider the investment into the unit. Like how hard it is to reach the minimum certification requirement for a certain class. Ex. Difficulty of getting Dorothea to a dark knight since she is bad at riding and neutral in lance.
5. Canto/mount is broken. This will affect a unit’s rating a lot.
6. Optimal plays. No luck based strats using divine pulse or killing one enemy each turn.
7. Crest, Hero relic, and sacred weapons.

Factors not considered:

1. Team synergy
2. Dancer class change. Anybody can be a dancer and can be really good.
3. Grinding and new game plus features. Can make any unit good/broken

Currently pretty happy with where everybody is tier wise, but I think the ordering within the tier can improve. D tier is just there for lunatic mode. Lots of units are probably gonna move down.

S tier:

Byleth: has one of the best and early access to a hero relic with great growth rates. Great reclass option with his unique class and flier class. Female is better than male due to pegasus reclass option.

Claude: a broken flyer with a broken hero relic 

Edelgard: Best class is actually wyvern lord. Her combat art is kinda like gale force hence making it possible to cheese maps. Personally haven't used it, but everybody seems to agree that she is S.

Lysithea is amazing with the hero relic and later on will be the best reliable way to kill the death knight in Lunatic.

A tier:

Petra and Ingrid: Serve as early game flier with decent growths. Pretty much the same with minor differences such as Petra is easier to become a wyvern rider, but Ingrid gets a hero relic pretty early. 

Catherine: Broken the moment you get her. Makes the mid game a joke. Reclass her to a pegasus knight and later falcon knight and she will be relevant all the way through.

Ditmitri: Easily the best bow knight in the game. Great growths, bases, and weapon.

Leonie, Felix, Shamir(bow knight squad A): Pretty similar but all really good. Leonie has good personal, growths, low investment, can become early game cav and provide stride. Felix has the best growths, but require the most investment out of all of the. Personal is really good early game, but will become useless after mid game. Bad in authority also hurts. Shamir good prepromote with decent personal. Also low investment and really helps mid game.

Seteth: Great flyer with good combat art, growths, and starting class. Late availability hurts

Linhardt: Best staff/faith magic utility. Can use warp and use physics. He can use gambits to make up the lack of not having an AOE healing spell. Offensively really decent too.

Hilda: Good axe user with great hero relic. Can be early game pegasus. Bad in authority doesn’t hurt as much since flier batallions are limited. But still great unit.

Sylvain and Ferdinand:  Lol similar design and growth rates. These two are very similar since they both will end up as great knights or wyvern lords(personally think you should do this instead). Provide early game high mobility and could great stride users.

B tier:

Bernie, Ashe, Ignatz(bow knight squad B): Tier below bow knight squad A due to worse growth rates. All are basically the same.

Cyril: Basically he screams needing lots of investment. Has potential to be good, but there are basically better units with less investments.  Leonie is basically the same as Cyril as a bow knight (they both have 40% str and 60% spd but Leonie comes earlier) and Seteth when he joins you will have similar stats but with no investment and good personal skill. Still can become a solid bow knight or wyvern lord.

Flayn: Great staff/faith magic utility. It is about the same as Linhardt, except she requires much more investment. Still rescue is nice to save the green units and could help move units that are behind forward. Still the investment cost makes her a tier below Linhardt.

Lorenz: Basically a bow knight that targets res with his hero relic. He is lower than the bow knights because the difficulty to one shot enemies due to mediocre Spd. His magic growth isn’t high enough to one shot to and doesn't have like a brave weapons bow knights have. He at least doesn’t have a mobility issue unlike the mages below him.

Hubert: A worse Lorenz imo. His offensive capabilities is better but Lorenz has the staff that gives him +2 range. Also Lorenz is easier to promote as a dark knight. Still solid unit. 

Dorothea: An average mage, but has access to meteor making her pretty good. But the difficulties promoting her to a dark knight and not that great faith spells make her worse than Hubert slightly. Also I KNOW SHE CAN BE A DANCER BUT SO CAN THE OTHER STUDENTS THIS IS WHY I AM IGNORING THAT RECLASS. So many people told me about and it is annoying to keep on telling them to read the rules.

Mercedes: Best healer, but doesn't do much for her. Still a solid unit and can be your primary/only healer. 

Marianna: Okay combat and decent staff utility. Silence is bad since bosses are unaffected by it and the only useful spell is physics. Below Mercedes and Dorothea due to unable to provide something unique out of the three. Still great

Manuala: Good staff/faith magic utility with warp. Unfortunately she is a big investment for her master class Gremory or Holy Knight. A tier below Linhardt since less of an investment and doesn’t have access to physics unlike Manuala.

Caspar: Just decent all across the board. He can be a good wyvern lord but will require lots of investment. War master is decent and their class mastery skill is amazing, but at that point, you will be mostly finished with the game.

C tier:

Raphael: Love this man, but 15% spd just really hurts and he requires equal or more investment than the wyvern units above. He can be a good tank with possibility to self heal(personal +goddess ring) but tanks in general aren't that good. Great character, but bad unit.

Dedue: Bad at both riding and flying. He is about the same as Raphael, but personally found Raphael better because he can self heal and neutral at flying. Might be necessary early game in lunatic, but now C.

Hanneman: A worse Dorothea. Has similar spell list but with no physics and meteor is A+ reason, comes much later, and his spd growth is trash 20%. Still his thoron use and meteor is useful.

Annette: Her spell options aren't that good. Terrible faith spells and decent/alright reason. Hero relic is blue lion locked, making her even worse in other routes in other routes. (I am still judging this from all routes, only availability is route based). Has the worst spd out of the mage students.

Gilbert: Terrible starting class, meh growths, and bad availability. He is better than Alois just because it is easier for him to become a Great Knight or Wyvern lord and better personal skill.

Alois: Terrible availability, terrible base class, and terrible personal skill. Also has bad proficiency in flying so he is basically has to be a War Master(which is the second worse master class imo). He could be a Great Knight, but that will require lots of investment and at that point of the game, you would basically be almost done.

Edited August 21, 2019 by leesangstar10
included reasoning for tier

[Silly]

So one thing that was brought to my attention recently that I wasn't aware of before, is that Shamir actually makes a very good Pegasus Knight. She starts with the appropriate lance rank for the class so all you need is D flying (which is incredibly trivial to get). If you want to you can continue to use bows while on a Pegasus, and you can always reclass back into Sniper in battle preps if you really need to trade movement for extra range.

She's already pretty good going for Bow Knight, but Falcon Knight might be equally as valid. At the very least it gives her even more mid game options and flexibility, and I could see this being a big positive for her (it's definitely not enough to bump her up a tier, but it should maybe be mentioned somewhere).

[Garlyle]

@leesangstar10 I start to feel like my perspective is a bit different when it comes to classes. Mounted units and canto are great, I agree with that, but it seems like you'd give them that class even when it's not intended. And then there's me, who have mounted units, fast swordsmen, long range mages, also baits in form of wall units and dodgetanks. I guess that's the result of us taking our strategy differently. If I have to guess, I'm trying to play it more safely while you're trying to do it more quickly.

Would like to see more opinion of yours on skills and crest weapons in your tier analysis.

You also mentioned something about Annette, that might hurt her overall score for me as well. Not that I used Crusher a lot, but the lack of it in lategame could be problematic.

[Ivy Wife Supremacy]

Personal 1, 2, 3, 4 tier: 1=best 2=great 3=average 4=worst(in no order) imo

1: Byleth, the 3 House Leaders, Hilda, Lysithea, Petra, Shamir, Catherine, Felix

2: Bernadetta, Dorothea, Ingrid, Leonie, Mercedes, Marianne, Seteth, Sylvain, Flayn

3: Manuela, Ignatz, Lorenz, Ferdinand, Linhardt, Caspar, Hubert

4: Alois, Cyril, Raphael, Hanneman, Annette, Ashe, Dedue, Gilbert

Edited August 21, 2019 by Mage Goddess Lysithea

[Cysx]

4 hours ago, Garlyle said:

Lysithea has a clear advantage over Lorenz for Thrysus, as she can much easily one-shot the enemy units. Sure she's more balanced toward the easy Gremory path than the easy Dark Knight path, but that's just another reason to give her more magic range. She has better bases and growths in Mag and Spd, and sadly Dex, so her being the better killer is highly likely. Thrysus once again fixes her up for her low movement, and she can also stay out of range of even 3-range mages and archers. I only saw skills mentioned for Lorenz that can be universally learned by almost any units, and while his skill progression is tailored toward Dark Knight, it's also dangerous and grabs him into Cavalier route, where he suffers another -10% Spd growth. 

It's actually fairly easy to get OHKOs with Lorenz as well despite his lower Mag, as he gets the two strongest black spells(helps a bit with the low uses), a bonus from black tomefaire in tier 3(unlike Lysithea), and +2 from his personal. His lowish speed is also offset ever so slightly by his higher strength. Thyrsus is also absolutely better on a Dark knight, one cannot talk about what's optimal and then argue against that; Lysithea herself doesn't really want Gremory if she's used as a combat mage. In general people automatically putting it on Lysithea has resulted in a lot of tunnel vision I feel, as even mages that get damaged by using it can take massive advantage of it as long as constant healing is happening, which is possible and potentially optimal. One shoting the Death knight is proving less and less useful by the day, too. And Dex doesn't really matter for mages.

6 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

Defensive stats: Not an advantage you would want to have as a mage. They should never be in the front line and pretty much kill only on player phase. Additionally, his shaky spd growth could hinder his defense(spd is both an offensive and defensive stat helps you not get doubled)

I'm seeing this a lot, and I just don't understand it. Characters that can be exposed should be when it's useful(basically 99% of the time), and ones that cannot shouldn't be, that's all there is to it, it has virtually nothing to do with class. Lorenz can be exposed, other mages can; if Lysithea usually cannot, that's a disadvantage. If a turn 1 stride is assumed, mages can be fighting on the front lines for a majority of chapters despite their low move, this isn't Echoes. If they're lagging behind, a second stride is also possible.

[Garlyle]

56 minutes ago, Cysx said:

It's actually fairly easy to get OHKOs with Lorenz as well despite his lower Mag, as he gets the two strongest black spells(helps a bit with the low uses), a bonus from black tomefaire in tier 3(unlike Lysithea), and +2 from his personal. His lowish speed is also offset ever so slightly by his higher strength. Thyrsus is also absolutely better on a Dark knight, one cannot talk about what's optimal and then argue against that; Lysithea herself doesn't really want Gremory if she's used as a combat mage. In general people automatically putting it on Lysithea has resulted in a lot of tunnel vision I feel, as even mages that get damaged by using it can take massive advantage of it as long as constant healing is happening, which is possible and potentially optimal. One shoting the Death knight is proving less and less useful by the day, too. And Dex doesn't really matter for mages.

I still think Lysithea's magic spells can be more effective, despite Lorenz having some strong Reason magic, and all it really asks you to have is Thrysus for safety. Dark Spikes is yes, very good against DK. But we also have Seraphim, very good against monsters when their barrier is down. Or how about Luna, it can also make some boss battles much easier. Seems to me that Lysithea will have the spell you want to deploy in a lot of situations. Gremory doesn't really hurt Lysithea much, the skill level bonuses and growth rate bonuses are actually beneficial for her - sure it doesn't give her the wonderful tomefaire, but if we look at averages, at Lv40 Lysithea is still likely 10 points ahead in Mag. If you can switch in endgame for her to Dark Knight, that's nice - extra move, canto and tomefaire, but honestly I wouldn't rush it. We probably find out when the game actually brings out the higher difficulty setting, as it's currently still easy.

[Cysx]

23 minutes ago, Garlyle said:

I still think Lysithea's magic spells can be more effective, despite Lorenz having some strong Reason magic, and all it really asks you to have is Thrysus for safety. Dark Spikes is yes, very good against DK. But we also have Seraphim, very good against monsters when their barrier is down. Or how about Luna, it can also make some boss battles much easier. Seems to me that Lysithea will have the spell you want to deploy in a lot of situations. Gremory doesn't really hurt Lysithea much, the skill level bonuses and growth rate bonuses are actually beneficial for her - sure it doesn't give her the wonderful tomefaire, but if we look at averages, at Lv40 Lysithea is still likely 10 points ahead in Mag. If you can switch in endgame for her to Dark Knight, that's nice - extra move, canto and tomefaire, but honestly I wouldn't rush it. We probably find out when the game actually brings out the higher difficulty setting, as it's currently still easy.

I agree that Seraphim is really good actually, although not for damage per se, as 24 mt vs monsters isn't actually "that" impressive, and as a Dark knight, Hades has 23, for example. Ragnarok has 20 in tier 3. It also doesn't get +1 range from the S rank reason skill by virtue of being Faith magic; no, imo it's really good because it can instabreak barriers first and foremost. Luna is debatable, it has some very strong cheese potential, but that is hardly required, ever, and enemies have on average very low res(which is part of why mages are so strong in the first place). It can only get better with higher difficulties, but at the moment in terms of damage, it rarely beats Dark spikes, which itself is quite a bit behind Ragnarok or Agnae's arrow with Black tomefaire.

Gremory growth rate bonuses are extremely minor(10% dex, 5% speed, woohoo). It's imo a strictly worse choice unless you need extra magic uses, there's no two ways around it(and since DK implies you got your riding to B+ or more, move +1 is right around the corner, making the mobility difference potentially even worse in practice). I didn't really mean to compare Dark knight Lorenz to Gremory Lysithea that much actually, (although Lorenz will have an easier time getting in for sure) more like, even for her DK is much better imo. I do think Lysithea can easily be spread too thin in terms of tutoring investment though. There are just so many things she wants. The result of that is typically Gremory being her endgame class, even though it's (still imo)suboptimal... or having to make choices.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Cysx

[Shadow Mir]

19 hours ago, Garlyle said:

Raphael - Raphael is another unit that is great as a Fortress Knight/Great Knight. His Spd growth is non-existant, but when he starts in brawling and doubles the enemies before they hit him, he doesn't need speed. He's very bulky, and hardly dies in the GD route, walling off brawlers and monsters easily. His personal skill is not very good though, and Great Knight can only use gauntlets when dismounted, so he might need to switch to axes later on.

I disagree - him being slow as molasses is a Very Bad Thing when you consider speed is also a defensive stat (and he's not nearly defensive enough to make up for it, either). I've said it before, but I'd much rather rely on Hilda, Leonie or Byleth to hold the front lines because they aren't so slow they're taking double damage from damn near everything, which Raphael is, especially when using axes. 

Edited August 21, 2019 by Shadow Mir

[Garlyle]

18 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I agree that Seraphim is really good actually, although not for damage per se, as 24 mt vs monsters isn't actually "that" impressive, and as a Dark knight, Hades has 23, for example. Ragnarok has 20 in tier 3. It also doesn't get +1 range from the S rank reason skill by virtue of being Faith magic; no, imo it's really good because it can instabreak barriers first and foremost. Luna is debatable, it has some very strong cheese potential, but that is hardly required, ever, and enemies have on average very low res(which is part of why mages are so strong in the first place). It can only get better with higher difficulties, but at the moment in terms of damage, it rarely beats Dark spikes, which itself is quite a bit behind Ragnarok or Agnae's arrow with Black tomefaire.

Gremory growth rate bonuses are extremely minor(10% dex, 5% speed, woohoo). It's imo a strictly worse choice unless you need extra magic uses, there's no two ways around it(and since DK implies you got your riding to B+ or more, move +1 is right around the corner, making the mobility difference potentially even worse in practice). I didn't really mean to compare Dark knight Lorenz to Gremory Lysithea that much actually, (although Lorenz will have an easier time getting in for sure) more like, even for her DK is much better imo. I do think Lysithea can easily be spread too thin in terms of tutoring investment though. There are just so many things she wants. The result of that is typically Gremory being her endgame class, even though it's (still imo)suboptimal... or having to make choices.

I see you already calculated the tomefaire inside those 2 spells, but Hades is still not that as impressive against monsters as Seraphim - unlocks much later, has 6 more Wt, and also has 20 less accuracy on it. Even with these examples I think Seraphim is a better choice, it can take out most of the health of a monster once the barrier is down - making monster kills a much faster process. I can still think up a couple of situations where Luna is actually useful, but I agree that it's value will be better on higher difficulties.

I wouldn't stop raising Lysithea's training in Reason and Faith until she gets Dark Spikes and Warp, which is a jump away from Gremory requirements - easy promotion plan I'd say. Riding A and Lance C is out of her way, and she's weak in lance training, but she can get there - yet there's so many units you want to train in mounted training and authority. (seriously, why do all horse units need lances and why Gremory is the only one without weapon requirements). Honestly after she unlocks Gremory, there's not much tutoring she asks for, just switch to Authority and she'll be fine. I wouldn't bother going for her budding talent and stuff.

[Cysx]

18 minutes ago, Garlyle said:

I see you already calculated the tomefaire inside those 2 spells, but Hades is still not that as impressive against monsters as Seraphim - unlocks much later, has 6 more Wt, and also has 20 less accuracy on it. Even with these examples I think Seraphim is a better choice, it can take out most of the health of a monster once the barrier is down - making monster kills a much faster process. I can still think up a couple of situations where Luna is actually useful, but I agree that it's value will be better on higher difficulties.

I wouldn't stop raising Lysithea's training in Reason and Faith until she gets Dark Spikes and Warp, which is a jump away from Gremory requirements - easy promotion plan I'd say. Riding A and Lance C is out of her way, and she's weak in lance training, but she can get there - yet there's so many units you want to train in mounted training and authority. (seriously, why do all horse units need lances and why Gremory is the only one without weapon requirements). Honestly after she unlocks Gremory, there's not much tutoring she asks for, just switch to Authority and she'll be fine. I wouldn't bother going for her budding talent and stuff.

Oh, Hades isn't that great for sure, I just wanted to show how in terms of pure mt Seraphim is comparatively less impressive than in Echoes. Plus to be honest in my experience, spell users don't have a hard time killing beasts without their shields, provided they double... which Lysithea can struggle to do with Seraphim, actually. It might seem weird, but with easier access to weight -3, better strength, and lighter spells, Lorenz tends to have better AS than Lysithea.

It is true that not needing extra investment later on is a good thing, although... that's the case for a lot of units, to be fair, though admittedly not quite that early. Indeed, Gremory is super straightforward for her. I think it's worth making her a DK instead, aka a better combat unit, is all. Unlike someone like Mercedes for example, who loves Gremory because fortify spamming is that much more valuable than her combat(though it's good as well).

Edited August 21, 2019 by Cysx

[timon]

55 minutes ago, Cysx said:

imo it's really good because it can instabreak barriers first and foremost

What do you mean? Haven't used Seraphim ever I think, so I'm not sure. Do you mean the targeted tile goes from full yellow square to nothing in one hit (without broken square phase)?

Or that it literally breaks the whole barrier in one shot? Because if it's just that it breaks one square you can achieve the same with any gambit (plus half breaking the other with AoE), so I'm not sure how relevant it can be.

[Cysx]

4 minutes ago, timon said:

What do you mean? Haven't used Seraphim ever I think, so I'm not sure. Do you mean the targeted tile goes from full yellow square to nothing in one hit (without broken square phase)?

Or that it literally breaks the whole barrier in one shot? Because if it's just that it breaks one square you can achieve the same with any gambit (plus half breaking the other with AoE), so I'm not sure how relevant it can be.

The former. Effective attacks break defensive tiles in one hit rather than two. It's useful because it's more flexible and allows you to quick kill beasts without ranged gambits or potentially blocking melee range. It's just a really good opener, although it's not the only existing one for sure.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Cysx

[Chaotix]

@leesangstar10

Tier list looks mostly good but I wanted to bring up a couple of points:

Sylvain and Ferdinand - they seem to be in a good place. However, worth mentioning that Paladin is typically better as an endgame class than Great Knight (Wyvern Lord is better than both of course). Additionally, Sylvain gets a very early Relic weapon and can be a Dark Knight, might be worth considering moving him up slightly.

Marianne. It looks like you're considering her only as a mage, but she has a strength for Flying, a hidden talent in Lances, and Frozen Lance. She can be an early-game Pegasus Knight for Golden Deer, and she can probably get there faster than Hilda (although Hilda ultimately has better potential). Her decent Faith/Reason spell selection is then icing on the cake and she can flex easily into Holy Knight if you want to make use of it. While I don't think she's anywhere near as good as Ingrid or Petra, I do think she could stand to move up to somewhere around bottom of A tier/top of B tier.

[redlight]

1 minute ago, Chaotix said:

Sylvain and Ferdinand - they seem to be in a good place. However, worth mentioning that Paladin is typically better as an endgame class than Great Knight (Wyvern Lord is better than both of course). Additionally, Sylvain gets a very early Relic weapon and can be a Dark Knight, might be worth considering moving him up slightly.

Marianne. It looks like you're considering her only as a mage, but she has a strength for Flying, a hidden talent in Lances, and Frozen Lance. She can be an early-game Pegasus Knight for Golden Deer, and she can probably get there faster than Hilda (although Hilda ultimately has better potential). Her decent Faith/Reason spell selection is then icing on the cake and she can flex easily into Holy Knight if you want to make use of it. While I don't think she's anywhere near as good as Ingrid or Petra, I do think she could stand to move up to somewhere around bottom of A tier/top of B tier.

Doesn't Dark Knight go down to 7 move from Paladin's 8 move?

Edited August 21, 2019 by redlight

[Burklight]

I'm not going to dig out specific quotes from the past page, but I do think it's interesting that a very common theme is "WL is better than X because it has more move and the fact that it does inferior damage isn't an issue because everything dies anyway" and yet no one brings up the fact that movement isn't really a limiting factor in this game because of stride and warp. The exact same point can be made in reverse...."WL struggles to kill 5-10% of likely enemies, WM doesn't struggle to kill anything, and the extra movement doesn't matter because stride and warp." 

See how that logic works? You can easily go down and point out a several cases where the movement matters, but it's every bit as easy to point out just as many cases where the damage matters and the movement doesn't.