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Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists


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2 hours ago, Technoweirdo said:

Only past Deer Ch. 1 where you can't even use everyone, but...

Quick impressions:
Claude, even with +1 Spd from the prologue and mooching a Training Bow from Lysithea, would get doubled by Ashe. >.>
Solid otherwise. Useful for chipping w/ Curved Shot usage, and he's fast enough to not get doubled by most other things.
Should definitely boost that axe rank for Death Blow to maximize chip. Diamond Axe may prove useful as a Hail Mary option later.

Lysithea's starting spell being Miasma led to her having 2 AS to Dedue's 6 AS. >____>
I'm used to Spd-screwed Lysithea anyways, but enemies in general have a lot more HP to blast through while they have more Str to blast through hers.
Still the hardest hitter in the business, but she's more a glass rifle than a cannon now. Least she'll get Swarm for when she needs to debuff an enemy's Spd for someone else.

Raphael was better off using Fading Blow than punching people twice due to boosts in enemy Def. <____<
Had uses in "I'm gonna get doubled anyways" situations like Ashe where bulk would be better. Figure I'll see more if my experience with Hard skirmishes and assassins is anything to go by.
Still, maaaybe focus on axes over gauntlets early on (E+ in Axes...*Grumbles*). Tanking is very helpful, but utility beyond that would be nice.

Aaand Marianne's a healer when everyone's taking more damage. You go, girl!
Hubert and Dorothea were kinda scary, so Silence will likely be helpful when she gets it unless every mage becomes immutable.
Get Reason to C though. Seriously.

 

Sounds like chip damage is gonna be more of a prominent thing in madden mode, in which case I think that's another point for Hilda since she gets like 3 different forms of seal debuffs in her combat art lineup as well as her hidden talent in armor. That is assuming she's not able to ORKO everything once she does get access to that stuff.

I wonder how much of a necessity going Brigand at 10 will be, considering some characters like Hilda and Leonie would preferably want mounts at that point. That 6-12 damage from Death Blow suddenly means a lot more when its not hard mode anymore with its tinfoil paper enemies.

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Here's my general impressions of the Blue Lions right now. I just passed Chapter 8 on Maddening, so I think I have a decent grasp on the general difficulty of the early game. 

  • Dimitri: He has an ok start, but like the other lance users, he has a very low AS of 3 in the early game. Thankfully, his growths patch up his AS fairly quickly, and with a Training Lance, he should have around 6-7 AS at Level 5 on average. Even more importantly, his XP boost is essential to getting him those levels because of the severe XP penalty on Maddening. He also deals by far the most damage with Tempest Lance out of the three. It may be worth giving him a sword just so he stops being doubled earlier, but he's bulky enough where he really only has difficulties with enemy mages. His combination of Battalion Wrath+Vantage seems like it's going to be necessary for the late game, so if any character on this list deserves stat boosters, it's him. 
  • Dedue: He should jump up in the tier list for his early game performance alone on this difficulty. Pretty much every unit is getting doubled and one-rounded at the beginning of the game, excluding Dimitri, Felix, and Byleth. Dedue's ridiculous Defense, Wait skill, and an Iron Shield make him one of the few units who can actually take Enemy Phase damage without instantly dying. I'm not sure how I would have dealt with many of the fast early game enemies without him. I'm not sure if I'm even going to use him in the future, but I made him an Armored Knight so he can tank harder right now. Haven't been disappointed so far, but I imagine when he comes back, he'll become Dimitri's permanent adjutant. 
  • Felix: What a beast, honestly. He has the highest AS of the Lions at base with 6 AS right out of the box. This makes him significantly tankier despite his poor defenses which in turn allows him to get early XP easier than many of the others. His Speed only gets better and with a Training Sword, he has 10-11 AS as a Level 5 Myrmidon. Add on his 40% chance per attack to add 5 damage and his personal, and he is by far your strongest early game combat unit. It's probably best to transition him into an archer as early as possible though, as his paper defense will eventually hurt him, and Bow Knight is one of the best classes in the game. Heavy Draw is pretty nice as well when he can't double. 
  • Mercedes: As the game becomes more difficult, more healing is necessary for sure. I would say she's actually somewhat weaker early on because so much damage is coming at your units that her healing will usually run out on each map even with Vulneraries. Still, I think rushing her Faith skill up so you can get Physic and Fortify as soon as possible is a good idea. Restore also has its uses with all of the Seal Strength Dark Mages running around. You can give her a little Reason, but I wouldn't focus on it as she's not going to be doubling anything but Armor Knights. 
  • Ashe: Yikes. He has 4 AS with an Iron Bow at base, and at Level 5, he has 8 AS with a Training Bow. Worse than that, he's incredibly frail with both low HP and Def. I really don't recommend focusing on his Axes because those weigh him down even worse. His chip damage is helpful early game, but he's just been kind of there for me otherwise. Definitely not a unit I would focus on, and I'm not even sure if he'll realistically make it to Level 30 to become a Bow Knight. 
  • Annette: Absolutely one of the saviors of Maddening solely for her Rallies. Rushing a C+ in Authority is doable by the beginning of Chapter 4 which makes the Death Knight much more manageable. Rally Strength and Rally Speed is by far the best combination, and she gets it earlier than anyone else. Also, her magic damage is respectable, so she can chip or finish someone off when Rallies aren't necessary. I don't think Bolt Axe/Lightning Axe builds are nearly as good because most enemy units have inflated HP pools that cause her to miss out on one shotting them. On the other hand, having a flying Rallybot sounds pretty good, so it may be worth making her a Wyvern for that alone. All around, great unit on this difficulty. 
  • Sylvain: He starts out with 3 AS like Dimitri, but he also has less Strength and Defense, so things don't start out great for him. By level 5, he should have 7 AS with a Training Lance, but his damage and defense are still worse than Dimitri. The one thing I can see in his favor is easy access to Deathblow and Swift Strikes, but I've just gotten Swift Strikes on the 12th month, and I'm not sure when he'll master Brigand. I do think he'll eventually be good against certain fast enemies, but it may take a while to get there. He also benefits from getting his final class at Level 20 unlike many other units. I am curious to see how Mage Sylvain is though because it seems lower Weight and the ability to chip would help significantly in the early game. Sylvain's very alright, but I can't say much else about him right now. 
  • Ingrid: She's terrible. She has very similar bases to Sylvain, except she has 6 more Res for tanking mages. Only problem is, her low AS means she's going to be doubled by them anyway, so you're better off sending Felix to deal with them. At Level 5, she has around 9-10 Str roughly and 10-11 Speed, although both of these trend towards the lower point. She has 6-8 AS with a Training Lance, so she is more susceptible to stat screwage than Sylvain is. She still gets doubled by Mages and Thieves at the high end, and unlike Sylvain, she doesn't have anything like Swift Strikes to justify training her. She struggles to even get near enemies, and your reward for training her is a flying wet noodle at Level 10. If you could get her to become a Wyvern, maybe she'll turn out alright, but that's 19 levels of feeding her XP that could go to Felix, Dimitri, Byleth, or even Sylvain, and all of them will use it better than her. 

With this in mind, I would rank the combat of the units in this order. This is only their early game, so I'm sure my opinion will change later on. 

  1. Dimitri/Felix: They're both so good, I can't really put one over the other. Dimitri's XP bonus and Felix's high AS makes scaling them into the endgame relatively easy. 
  2. Dedue: Tanking is so essential in the early game, and Dedue is the only who can dedo it. I'm sure he'll struggle to scale later on, but his early game contribution is fantastic. 
  3. Annette: Magic chip damage is pretty helpful early on. There were many situations where I needed her + Dimitri's Tempest Lance to KO someone without taking damage. In the event her contribution isn't significant, she has her Rallies to lean on. 
  4. Sylvain: He does less damage than Dimitri, but that's not the worst thing in the world. If the other melee units are busy, Sylvain usually can do the job with some chip added on. 
  5. Ashe: Chip damage is helpful, but Ashe emphasizes the chipping part. His main use is avoiding retaliation from Mages, but his actual damage leaves quite a bit to be desired. He does get Shatter Slash and Waning Shot, so he could be turned into a debuffer of sorts. 
  6. Mercedes: Although her damage isn't that far off from Annette's, she'll be healing a lot, so her opportunities to deal damage are lower as a whole. She gets Waning Shot earlier than Ashe, so that's cool I guess. Her combat isn't why you use her though, so she's really just here to show my disdain for Ingrid. 
  7. Ingrid: Terrible. Maddening's XP penalties mean at least one unit is likely to be left in the dust, and for this group, that's probably Ingrid. If you want a good early game flier, use F!Byleth or recruit someone else because Ingrid is not going to help very much. 
Edited by LegendOfLoog
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1 hour ago, Life said:

I like how I theorycrafted how both Dedue and Annette would be more important on Maddening and you just proved it for me.

Yeah, I think most of my opinions are pretty accurate so far. Something I neglected to say on Dedue is that he gets Vengeance at C+ in Lances, and with that huge HP pool, he has to hit like an absolute truck with it. Since enemies actually do damage in Maddening, Vengeance is pretty much top tier on any tank. Also, something regarding Dimitri: in BL, you get your first Retribution Battalion after Remire as a D rank battalion. This means you can have Battalion Wrath+Vantage at any range as early as Chapter 9. I can't even explain how broken this is. Just keep him away from enemy Gambits, and you're good to go. 

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4 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Annette: Absolutely one of the saviors of Maddening solely for her Rallies. Rushing a C+ in Authority is doable by the beginning of Chapter 4 which makes the Death Knight much more manageable. Rally Strength and Rally Speed is by far the best combination, and she gets it earlier than anyone else. Also, her magic damage is respectable, so she can chip or finish someone off when Rallies aren't necessary. I don't think Bolt Axe/Lightning Axe builds are nearly as good because most enemy units have inflated HP pools that cause her to miss out on one shotting them. On the other hand, having a flying Rallybot sounds pretty good, so it may be worth making her a Wyvern for that alone. All around, great unit on this difficulty. 

I am currently on BL as well, not too far, but for me she still struggles the same problem from hard, terrible spell list(no 3 range spell or faith skills), squishy, and bad spd(only 35% additionally going the dark knight/gremory path gives her no additional spd growth. She is most of the time going to get doubled and never double). Even the wyvern lord path doesn't seem that great to me too, haven't tried it, but I'm not risking it rn in maddening. 

She might be useful early game because of her rallies, but she is going to fall off fast.(already falling kind of back)

4 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

Dedue: He should jump up in the tier list for his early game performance alone on this difficulty. Pretty much every unit is getting doubled and one-rounded at the beginning of the game, excluding Dimitri, Felix, and Byleth. Dedue's ridiculous Defense, Wait skill, and an Iron Shield make him one of the few units who can actually take Enemy Phase damage without instantly dying. I'm not sure how I would have dealt with many of the fast early game enemies without him. I'm not sure if I'm even going to use him in the future, but I made him an Armored Knight so he can tank harder right now. Haven't been disappointed so far, but I imagine when he comes back, he'll become Dimitri's permanent adjutant. 

Agreed. He is pretty much a must early game. I think easily at least A.

Ingrid: Terrible. Maddening's XP penalties mean at least one unit is likely to be left in the dust, and for this group, that's probably Ingrid. If you want a good early game flier, use F!Byleth or recruit someone else because Ingrid is not going to help very much. 

Disagree with this since she can get her relic early to patch up lack of strength. But I do agree a unit is likely going to be left in the dust. Personally, I think in Maddening you should just later recruit a student or pre promote and bench ur worse student. 

Edited by leesangstar10
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Just a base where we can talk about. I haven't even finished a route in maddening so this is basically all theory crafting so take this with a grain of salt and just tell me. This is a general tier list not a LTC or route specific. I tried to be as non bias as possible. 

Rating criteria:

  1. This is Classic Maddening 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.(unsure about this now lol)
  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 

Screen Shot 2019-09-12 at 8.03.34 PM.png

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My opinion on Gilbert has changed dramatically recently.

Turns out that it's not super hard to get him to Wyvern Rider (which also fixes his horrendous 2 base speed). He starts with the necessary axe rank, so you can just focus straight flying. He can pretty reasonably reclass within two months of study. (So probably before the story battle at the end of Ch 15.)

Say you just took Gilbert and reclassed him to Wyvern Rider without giving him any exp. Then compared to Seteth's bases, Gilbert would have +9 HP, +1 Str, -2 Spd, +1 Def (as well as some differences in the less important stats of course). In addition, his personal skill essentially gives him +2 extra Def, and he comes with Weight -3 unlocked, so he will usually not lose much AS to his weapon (he is -2 AS at base when using Silver Axe).  

He's obviously not as good as Seteth (who is another late joining unit with good bases that can be an extra Wyvern for your team) because Seteth has a whole host of other upsides, but I really don't think that a Ch 15 Wyvern with those bases can be considered bottom tier. You're going to be able to find something useful for him to do. Especially on the new difficulty, where exp gain is significantly reduced, so later joins with good bases become more useful comparatively.

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5 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

 

  • Ingrid: She's terrible. She has very similar bases to Sylvain, except she has 6 more Res for tanking mages. Only problem is, her low AS means she's going to be doubled by them anyway, so you're better off sending Felix to deal with them. At Level 5, she has around 9-10 Str roughly and 10-11 Speed, although both of these trend towards the lower point. She has 6-8 AS with a Training Lance, so she is more susceptible to stat screwage than Sylvain is. She still gets doubled by Mages and Thieves at the high end, and unlike Sylvain, she doesn't have anything like Swift Strikes to justify training her. She struggles to even get near enemies, and your reward for training her is a flying wet noodle at Level 10. If you could get her to become a Wyvern, maybe she'll turn out alright, but that's 19 levels of feeding her XP that could go to Felix, Dimitri, Byleth, or even Sylvain, and all of them will use it better than her. 

I'm thinking Ingrid might be a case where she's not very good in-house on Maddening, but really good out-of-house.  Recruiting her into, say, Black Eagles, she'll start as a Pegasus Knight (so you don't have to bother grinding her up yourself) and you can then do her Paralogue to get Luin, which will patch up her lower Strength.

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6 minutes ago, Silly said:

My opinion on Gilbert has changed dramatically recently.

Turns out that it's not super hard to get him to Wyvern Rider (which also fixes his horrendous 2 base speed). He starts with the necessary axe rank, so you can just focus straight flying. He can pretty reasonably reclass within two months of study. (So probably before Ch 15.)

Say you just took Gilbert and reclassed him to Wyvern Rider without giving him any exp. Then compared to Seteth's bases, Gilbert would have +9 HP, +1 Str, -2 Spd, +1 Def (as well as some differences in the less important stats of course). In addition, his personal skill essentially gives him +2 extra Def, and he comes with Weight -3 unlocked, so he will usually not lose much AS to his weapon (he is -2 AS at base when using Silver Axe).  

He's obviously not as good as Seteth (who is another late joining unit with good bases that can be an extra Wyvern for your team) because Seteth has a whole host of other upsides, but I really don't think that a Ch 15 Wyvern with those bases can be considered bottom tier. Especially on the new difficulty, where exp gain is significantly reduced, so later joins with good bases become more useful comparatively.

Yeah I also thought his bases are really good, but I haven't gotten to that point of the game lol so I wasn't sure. I just kept him from his hard mode position, but thanks at least I something to back him up.

Do you think like B+ is good enough?

Also what do you think about the healers position? I bumped all of them at least a tier higher since healing is so valuable now.

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1 hour ago, leesangstar10 said:

I am currently on BL as well, not too far, but for me she still struggles the same problem from hard, terrible spell list(no 3 range spell or faith skills), squishy, and bad spd(only 35% additionally going the dark knight/gremory path gives her no additional spd growth. She is most of the time going to get doubled and never double). Even the wyvern lord path doesn't seem that great to me too, haven't tried it, but I'm not risking it rn in maddening. 

She might be useful early game because of her rallies, but she is going to fall off fast.(already falling kind of back)

I agree that her spell list isn't particularly good, but 3 range isn't as important as you'd imagine in the early game, and that's where her damage will be most significant. Also, I don't think any mages are doubling in the early game. At base, she has the same Speed as every other relevant magic student, and growths make no significant difference in early chapters because of the harsh XP penalty. Compared to the most prominent mages Hubert, Dorothea, and Lysithea, she has the lowest Weight spell with Wind. She probably won't double, but she is less likely to be doubled than the other mages, especially Lysithea and Hubert since they have Miasma, which reduces their AS by 3 more points in comparison. Eventually, they'll have significantly higher Speed, but in Maddening, a unit's early contributions are much more important than in Hard. That's why I rate Dedue so highly. 

Compared to the other mages, she is the only unit in the game who will reasonably have Rally Speed and Strength throughout nearly the entire game. This gives 4-5 AS to any unit on the field in addition to the Str buff. Considering how fast most early game enemies are, this is so important, and from what I've seen of Hard, I'm sure there will be many, many fast enemies in the late game as well. Before she gets there, her contribution as a mage isn't very different from most other ones, but after, she can either chip a 1 range enemy as most mages do or buff a fast ally to push them into doubling territory. And as far as falling off goes, she'll always be able to chip, and when the chip isn't significant any more, a Wyvern with her Rallies will always be significant anyway. Obviously, it's too early to tell since the game mode came out literally yesterday, but I also have a feeling most of the mages will fall down in ratings since they won't really be able to double anything significant. 

1 hour ago, leesangstar10 said:

Disagree with this since she can get her relic early to patch up lack of strength. But I do agree a unit is likely going to be left in the dust. Personally, I think in Maddening you should just later recruit a student or pre promote and bench ur worse student. 

You don't get her Relic early though. All paralogues are pushed back because Maddening drastically reduces XP, and you need levels on Byleth to reach most Paralogues iirc. For context, I'm on Chapter 9, and I've finally reached the point where paralogues feel doable. It could probably be done a little earlier reasonably, but not by much imo. So you're left with a unit who's pretty terrible until quite a few chapters into the pre-skip and has no early way to chip. Maybe if you were very lucky with her growths, she would turn out well. I'd rather not gamble with that though. 

@Tombstone88 I agree, but I also think that's true of quite a few units because they get around the XP penalty that your other units suffer from. I don't think we should rate students on how they are as recruits, especially in this game mode. In Hard, recruits can sometimes have downsides since you don't get to instruct them, but since they join at such a high level in Maddening compared to most of your students, they're really good in comparison. For example, someone like Caspar seems terrible on his own route because of how often he gets doubled, but if you recruit him later, he joins with pretty decent stats compared to most of your units without any investment. Almost every unit outside of their own house is good, so I think their in-house performance is more important imo. 

Edited by LegendOfLoog
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1 hour ago, leesangstar10 said:

 Yeah I also thought his bases are really good, but I haven't gotten to that point of the game lol so I wasn't sure. I just kept him from his hard mode position, but thanks at least I something to back him up.

Do you think like B+ is good enough?

Also what do you think about the healers position? I bumped all of them at least a tier higher since healing is so valuable now.

I think the bottom of A tier or B+ are both reasonable spots.

Healers are in a fine spot, but it's important to understand that they aren't really directly competing with the physical units. It's sort of hard to compare Mercedes and Sylvain, for example, because they both occupy completely different roles in a team and do their job relatively well.

------------------------------------

Also cross recruits feel very important.

Late cross recruited students actually have inflated bases compared to what they would have if you had recruited them early and leveled them normally, which makes them especially good for the new difficulty. Not only do you not need to invest your already limited exp into a student if you late recruit them, they come with superior stats compared to if you recruited them early!

This stat bonus is especially apparent in students who end up as Cavaliers, Brigands, Pegasus Knights, Thieves, Mercenaries and Brawlers, as those classes have cross recruit stat bonuses in the right spots. (So basically the only underwhelming late recruits are magic users and archers.)

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1 hour ago, Silly said:

-----------------------------------

Also cross recruits feel very important.

Late cross recruited students actually have inflated bases compared to what they would have if you had recruited them early and leveled them normally, which makes them especially good for the new difficulty. Not only do you not need to invest your already limited exp into a student if you late recruit them, they come with superior stats compared to if you recruited them early!

This stat bonus is especially apparent in students who end up as Cavaliers, Brigands, Pegasus Knights, Thieves, Mercenaries and Brawlers, as those classes have cross recruit stat bonuses in the right spots. (So basically the only underwhelming late recruits are magic users and archers.)

No kidding... My Lysithea and Hilda got screwed hard in their respective strengths so badly I am considering redoing even though I am on chapter 7. I am banking hard on Felix or Ingrid as replacements but I can't replace Lysithea because of her item.

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Ignatz is a very servicable late recruit... as long as he joins with B+ Bow immediately (he started with B Bow on my Hard Mode run).

Snipers are really really good in this game and Close Counter solved their biggest issue (no enemy phase).

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For reference, this is roughly the bases you should expect if you recruit a student in chapter 12 (which is the last available chapter to recruit, barring some exceptions).

As you can tell, certain students look significantly better than others in terms of base stats. Compare Ignatz to Leonie, for example. Both join with high bow rank, but it's pretty clear that Leonie is outclassing Ignatz by a pretty sizable amount in the important stats.

image.png.c7dac92bfd06148cb9a0b11a4e1ff0c3.png

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6 minutes ago, Silly said:

For reference, this is roughly the bases you should expect if you recruit a student in chapter 12. As you can tell, certain students look significantly better than others in terms of base stats.

image.png.c7dac92bfd06148cb9a0b11a4e1ff0c3.png

*Wolf whistle*

Look at Felix and Petra. Those are killer bases.

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23 minutes ago, Silly said:

For reference, this is roughly the bases you should expect if you recruit a student in chapter 12 (which is the last available chapter to recruit, barring some exceptions).

As you can tell, certain students look significantly better than others in terms of base stats. Compare Ignatz to Leonie, for example. Both join with high bow rank, but it's pretty clear that Leonie is outclassing Ignatz by a pretty sizable amount in the important stats.

image.png.c7dac92bfd06148cb9a0b11a4e1ff0c3.png

Damn.

Felix and Petra have really good Speed and Strength.

Lowest Magic on a spellcaster is Linhardt with 21.  Not sure if their high Magic stats will offset not having Fiendish Blow, though.

Ingrid has high Speed, coupled with the 3rd-highest Res and 4th-highest Defense of the students.

Leonie is a juggernaut.

Cross recruitment is probably going to be very valuable for mid-to-late game in Maddening runs.

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1 hour ago, Silly said:

For reference, this is roughly the bases you should expect if you recruit a student in chapter 12 (which is the last available chapter to recruit, barring some exceptions).

As you can tell, certain students look significantly better than others in terms of base stats. Compare Ignatz to Leonie, for example. Both join with high bow rank, but it's pretty clear that Leonie is outclassing Ignatz by a pretty sizable amount in the important stats.

image.png.c7dac92bfd06148cb9a0b11a4e1ff0c3.png

Thank you for putting this together.

Do we know if students default to two skills or if they split their skill experience more than that? For example, does Lysithea only have additional ranks in reason and authority or does she have ranks in other skills also?

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Students only train their default goals before you recruit them.

For example, late recruit Lysithea will have high Reason and Authority ranks, but E+ Faith. So if you really want warp you should probably recruit her early.

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18 hours ago, LegendOfLoog said:

You don't get her Relic early though. All paralogues are pushed back because Maddening drastically reduces XP, and you need levels on Byleth to reach most Paralogues iirc. For context, I'm on Chapter 9, and I've finally reached the point where paralogues feel doable. It could probably be done a little earlier reasonably, but not by much imo. So you're left with a unit who's pretty terrible until quite a few chapters into the pre-skip and has no early way to chip. Maybe if you were very lucky with her growths, she would turn out well. I'd rather not gamble with that though. 

oh shoot didn't know that. lol just shows how far I even got.

2 hours ago, Silly said:

As you can tell, certain students look significantly better than others in terms of base stats. Compare Ignatz to Leonie, for example. Both join with high bow rank, but it's pretty clear that Leonie is outclassing Ignatz by a pretty sizable amount in the important stats.

Hmmm do you think we should also consider their mid-late recruitment in tiering? Since units like Felix, Petra, and Leonie are still amazing when recruited late vs Lorenz pretty much sucks/easily outclassed if recruited late. It limits a unit's flexibility.

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Some units are considerably better than others when late recruited, and that should definitely be taken into account on tier lists.

One thing you need to consider is base stats. A good combination of Str/Spd/Def at base is very nice.

The other important thing to take into account though is weapon ranks and how they match up with good classes, since students only train their default goals while not recruited.

A unit like Felix has pretty great bases, but he's going to join with ~B rank in Swords/Brawling and E ranks everywhere else, which means that you have to put considerable effort into getting him into one of the better classes.

On the other hand, a late recruit like Petra is going to join with ~B axes, D flying, which means that she is going to be very easy to reclass into a top tier class.

Of the late recruits, Ferdinand, Petra, Sylvain, and Hilda all look like excellent filler Wyvern Riders to round out extra spots on your team. They come with good bases in Str/Spd/Def and a naturally high axe rank, meaning you only need to train Flying (C flying is doable in ~2 months). Ferdinand, Sylvain, and Hilda also come with a natural Lance rank, so you don't need to train it to eventually get to Wyvern Lord. Petra doesn't have a Lance rank, but she comes with D Flying and a strength, meaning she ends up needing less total wexp to get to Wyvern Rider/Lord.

Ingrid has good bases as well and good weapon ranks to eventually reclass into Falcon Knight. Going Wyvern is considerably harder compared to the units that join with an axe rank, but it's not like Falcon Knight is that much worse.

Leonie is the last unit I want to highlight, joining with excellent bases along with ~B Lances and Bows (plus D riding), meaning it's fairly easy to pick up the ranks to eventually go Bow Knight.

I think these units are probably the best combat units to cross recruit. Felix can also make the list if you're willing to put in extra effort to get him into a good class, but making him truly shine takes considerably more work than the above students.

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12 minutes ago, Silly said:

Some units are considerably better than others when late recruited, and that should definitely be taken into account on tier lists.

One thing you need to consider is base stats. A good combination of Str/Spd/Def at base is very nice.

The other important thing to take into account though is weapon ranks and how they match up with good classes, since students only train their default goals while not recruited.

A unit like Felix has pretty great bases, but he's going to join with ~B rank in Swords/Brawling and E ranks everywhere else, which means that you have to put considerable effort into getting him into one of the better classes.

On the other hand, a late recruit like Petra is going to join with ~B axes, D flying, which means that she is going to be very easy to reclass into a top tier class.

Of the late recruits, Ferdinand, Petra, Sylvain, and Hilda all look like excellent filler Wyvern Riders to round out extra spots on your team. They come with good bases in Str/Spd/Def and a naturally high axe rank, meaning you only need to train Flying (C flying is doable in ~2 months). Ferdinand, Sylvain, and Hilda also come with a natural Lance rank, so you don't need to train it to eventually get to Wyvern Lord. Petra doesn't have a Lance rank, but she comes with D Flying and a strength, meaning she ends up needing less total wexp to get to Wyvern Rider/Lord.

Ingrid has good bases as well and good weapon ranks to eventually reclass into Falcon Knight. Going Wyvern is considerably harder compared to the units that join with an axe rank, but it's not like Falcon Knight is that much worse.

Leonie is the last unit I want to highlight, joining with excellent bases along with ~B Lances and Bows (plus D riding), meaning it's fairly easy to pick up the ranks to eventually go Bow Knight.

I think these units are probably the best combat units to cross recruit. Felix can also make the list if you're willing to put in extra effort to get him into a good class, but making him truly shine takes considerably more work than the above students.

 

One more factor is the Paralogue battles, at least for normal games (NG). A lot of important battalions are effectively locked to certain characters. For example, Felix's paralogue gives you Fraldarius Soldiers, which have +8 Physical and +22.5% crit at B-authority (if I'm reading the charts correctly), a top-ranked battalion for any grounded unit for sure.

Edited by dragontamer
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I don't think it's normal to count paralogue rewards as a measure of a unit's viability. From what I recall, most lists tend to measure units by their contributions as a unit, and not what things they unlock merely by existing. If you wanted the thing that they give you, you could just recruit the unit to gain access to them, and then leave them to rot on a bench forever.

For example, do we bump up RD Stefan's usefulness because he joins with the Vague Katti? Technically this is an endgame sword that you don't have access to unless you recruit him. Do you bump up FE6 Douglas because if you don't recruit him then you can't obtain Aureola and therefore can't access the true ending of the game?

I would probably say no.

Likewise, despite certain paralogue rewards being nice, I don't count them towards a unit's viability.

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Tier lists generally want to sum up "Who will contribute the most across the entire game?", not "Who is the most important?".
Someone like Roy would be bottom tier as his one contribution is seizing the throne. Important sure, but 99% of the game is trying to get there (which he's not very helpful with).

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1 hour ago, Skarthe said:

I do think it might be worth considering items in a unit's rating if the unit has to be actively used to obtain it, like counting the Scythe of Sariel as a point in Caspar's favor. Pretty rare edge case though.

I can agree with this point.

A benefit you get for actively using/investing in a unit can be counted toward's their usefulness, but a benefit you get just by having access to your unit (but not necessarily using them) doesn't feel right to include.

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