Fire Emblem Three Houses Unit Tier Lists

[PPPPPPP270]

Some things i wonder is how important is the early game.

Dedue early on is amazing with his personal skill allowing you to tank multiple enemies early and do some decent damage back. Later on his high defense means nothing when all enemies get over 50 attack and 2 to 3 shot your units. You have to rely on dodging to even tank anything. His terrible speed won't do anything and can't be solved with base stat promotions as those aren't enough. 

Shamir also a good example. When you receive her, at base she can kill the death knight in chapter 6 at base with lance of ruin knightkneeler with a battalion that gives +3 attack. Also great at soloing the right part of the map if you give her +1 speed from the kitchen and some healing items or a healer. Later on she has to rely on hunter's volley to do good damage. Her crit chance is high enough to be consistent.

D rank lance users with tempest lance dominate because of how much damage it does compared to other combat arts. 

Mages in the very early game suck because their spells barely have any uses and are very fragile and unable to tank anything. Though some have their uses like Annette with her rallies being extremely useful early on and even later. Mages later on get shafted in movement and just can't go anywhere. Have to rely on their support ability if they have any to begin with. 

But what I think is more important is the classes than the characters. A lot of the characters especially non house leaders have pretty similar bases and their usefulness is decided by personals and possible crests but crests don't mean much. Early game a lot of units feel interchangeable outside of a 1-2 stat difference in bases. 

Though I can name a few characters that aren't very good. Two characters I can't figure out how to use is Lorenz and Cyril. Lorenz I can't figure out how to make him useful as a unit. People claim he's a good mage but his base magic is lower than all the other mages in the game. Cyril he joins with such bad bases you can't really use him. And his growths are just marginally better than most characters. Some claim he can be useful with point blank volley but there's just too many characters already better than him when you get him. 

[AxelVDP]

6 hours ago, PPPPPPP270 said:

Some things i wonder is how important is the early game.

Dedue early on is amazing with his personal skill allowing you to tank multiple enemies early and do some decent damage back. Later on his high defense means nothing when all enemies get over 50 attack and 2 to 3 shot your units. You have to rely on dodging to even tank anything. His terrible speed won't do anything and can't be solved with base stat promotions as those aren't enough. 

Shamir also a good example. When you receive her, at base she can kill the death knight in chapter 6 at base with lance of ruin knightkneeler with a battalion that gives +3 attack. Also great at soloing the right part of the map if you give her +1 speed from the kitchen and some healing items or a healer. Later on she has to rely on hunter's volley to do good damage. Her crit chance is high enough to be consistent.

D rank lance users with tempest lance dominate because of how much damage it does compared to other combat arts. 

Mages in the very early game suck because their spells barely have any uses and are very fragile and unable to tank anything. Though some have their uses like Annette with her rallies being extremely useful early on and even later. Mages later on get shafted in movement and just can't go anywhere. Have to rely on their support ability if they have any to begin with. 

But what I think is more important is the classes than the characters. A lot of the characters especially non house leaders have pretty similar bases and their usefulness is decided by personals and possible crests but crests don't mean much. Early game a lot of units feel interchangeable outside of a 1-2 stat difference in bases. 

Though I can name a few characters that aren't very good. Two characters I can't figure out how to use is Lorenz and Cyril. Lorenz I can't figure out how to make him useful as a unit. People claim he's a good mage but his base magic is lower than all the other mages in the game. Cyril he joins with such bad bases you can't really use him. And his growths are just marginally better than most characters. Some claim he can be useful with point blank volley but there's just too many characters already better than him when you get him. 

Dedue's tanking abilities are still rock solid in the endgame, he still takes like 0 dmg from assassins and most other enemy types, he even manages to survive 1-2 berserk rounds (his worst non mage matchup) (this is assuming you're using him in an armored class) (and yes, I'm talking NG maddening)

If only BL endgame was not so chock full of mages Dedue would still be amazing there

Lorenz might have lower magic bases than other mages, but he easily makes up for it by having:

- a personal skill which gives free +2 extra dmg
- super high power spells (learns ragnarok early at B reason and sagittae at C)

(and between this 2 points here he already outdamages most mages barring maybe Lysithea, while still being accurate to boot)

- the easiest path to dark knight of all mages

- he also has his crest which occasionally boosts his firepower too (not really a huge help since it's hard to plan on randomness but it's still there)

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 11/10/2019 at 5:07 AM, AxelVDP said:

Lorenz might have lower magic bases than other mages, but he easily makes up for it by having:

- a personal skill which gives free +2 extra dmg
- super high power spells (learns ragnarok early at B reason and sagittae at C)

(and between this 2 points here he already outdamages most mages barring maybe Lysithea, while still being accurate to boot)

- the easiest path to dark knight of all mages

- he also has his crest which occasionally boosts his firepower too (not really a huge help since it's hard to plan on randomness but it's still there)

Saggitae is perfectly unremarkable for power for tomes of its level (in fact both Thoron and Bolganone have slightly more, Cutting Gale is equal). Getting Ragnarok early is indeed an advantage, but it's his only one.

Even baking in +2 atk (and ignoring that some of the other mages have useful personals too), Lorenz has lower magic than other mages forever. Only when he has Ragnarok and they lack a power spell of his own does he have an advantage, and that advantage doesn't apply to when they're trying to double using Wind/Fire/Thunder or even Saggitae/Bolganone/Cutting Gale/etc.

Most other mages get useful utility in the form of Physic, Warp, Fortify, Rescue, Meteor, or multiple of the above. Many of them get innate 3 range from Thoron or Mire. Lorenz does not. He's a purely offensive mage (outside Ward I guess), and not a good one.

[AxelVDP]

 

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

[...]

As I did not want to spread bullshit, I did some calculations

first of all, here are the stats of the various students who will likely want to be mages at various different levels (assuming 1-5 commoner/noble, 5-10 monk, 10-20 mage):

(I ignored the 5% charm growth as a noble that commoners don't get in order to make the calcs easier on me, should not make any difference anyway)

Spoiler

and here are some practical numbers: (I  already added the 2 extra dmg from Lorenz's personal skill in the image) (dmg is just mag+spell mt+bonuses from personal skills)

Spoiler

as you can see, I was not wrong in my earlier post.

Under level 20 only Lysithea can do more dmg than him, and past level 20 he still is in the top3 of most damaging mages. All of this while being more accurate than both Lysithea and Hubert, his only 2 real competitors.

If you included Frozen Lance (which you should be using) in the calcs, he would look even better, even moreso at earlier levels.

As far as speed goes, they all basically have the same AS.
Damage on weaker spells is not really important, if they double (aka: against armored units) they kill even if weak, if they don't kill, they deal similar chip dmg.

Yes, he lacks utility, but as a pure damage dealer mage there hardly are better options, also, compared to the other mages, Lorenz has some semblance of bulk, meaning he can actually be used even on enemy phase if the situation calls for it, adding some bit of flexibility in your strategies.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Your list excludes damage before B reason, where he's bottom of the pack.

Focusing on B to A around Level 15-20 is his best time for peak damage, and yes he's #2 there by a small amount. Once others hit A he falls to middle of the pack at best, and you ignored Dorothea's A+ Agnea's Arrow or levels past 20 where superior magic growth will push Mercedes ahead and allow Annette to catch him.

Comparing him individually to the other student mages:

-Hubert deals significantly more damage early, then comparable damage the rest of the game (significantly more against horse opponents of course). He gets 3 range from Mire.
-Dorothea deals more damage except at B to A+ Reason, has 3 range from Thoron, has Physic, has Meteor.
-Linhardt is perhaps the only student mage who's clearly worse at offence than Lorenz, but you don't use him for that; you use him for Physic and Warp.
-Mercedes has better offence as Lorenz outside the B to A range, and has Physic, Fortify, and Live to Serve.
-Annette's one of the game's more questionable pure offensive mages, but does have Rallies, and ultimately has far more peak damage on her own route with Dust, or against fliers.
-Marianne has comparable overall offence, but has Thoron, Silence, and Physic.
-Lysithea is better at the pure offensive mage thing.

Every one of these characters has more of a niche than him and I'd rather use any of them. You mention he has slightly better bulk and that's true, but he also has worse charm (except than Linhardt, who as acknowledged only sees play because of his faith list), which pretty much locks him into using utility gambits and also interferes with his supposed advantage in hit-taking.

[AxelVDP]

8 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Your list excludes damage before B reason, where he's bottom of the pack.

Focusing on B to A around Level 15-20 is his best time for peak damage, and yes he's #2 there by a small amount. Once others hit A he falls to middle of the pack at best, and you ignored Dorothea's A+ Agnea's Arrow or levels past 20 where superior magic growth will push Mercedes ahead and allow Annette to catch him.

Comparing him individually to the other student mages:

-Hubert deals significantly more damage early, then comparable damage the rest of the game (significantly more against horse opponents of course). He gets 3 range from Mire.
-Dorothea deals more damage except at B to A+ Reason, has 3 range from Thoron, has Physic, has Meteor.
-Linhardt is perhaps the only student mage who's clearly worse at offence than Lorenz, but you don't use him for that; you use him for Physic and Warp.
-Mercedes has better offence as Lorenz outside the B to A range, and has Physic, Fortify, and Live to Serve.
-Annette's one of the game's more questionable pure offensive mages, but does have Rallies, and ultimately has far more peak damage on her own route with Dust, or against fliers.
-Marianne has comparable overall offence, but has Thoron, Silence, and Physic.
-Lysithea is better at the pure offensive mage thing.

Every one of these characters has more of a niche than him and I'd rather use any of them. You mention he has slightly better bulk and that's true, but he also has worse charm (except than Linhardt, who as acknowledged only sees play because of his faith list), which pretty much locks him into using utility gambits and also interferes with his supposed advantage in hit-taking.

I was arguing about Lorenz in the midgame in the first place (tho admittedly I have not made it very clear). but anyway, once hit lv30 he gain access to Dark Knight and Black Tomefaire, while the others will probably transition to Gremory, meaning he will still have comparatively good/better offense. it's hard to compare him to Hubert because he's a CF exclusive, and you probably won't be levelling Lorenz outside of the Golden Deer, though yes as a pure offensive mage he will be probably better (when he hits)

the jump from A to A+ is quite significant, considering Dorothea will most likely be splitting some attention to Faith magic in order to become a Gremory I don't see how she should have Agnea's Arrow at around lv20-25, and even then, she would not outdmg Lorenz

also, early game Lorenz is using Tempest Lance and Frozen Lance to do dmg (tho yes, he has to be babbied a little)

 

anyway, I think I made my points plenty clear already, I'm not here to argue that Lorenz is a secret top tier, I was just answering PPPPPPP270 on why Lorenz is not actually bad.

[Silly]

Mages are mediocre combat units anyways. I think most of their value (compared to generic flier #6) comes from being able to use support magic, which Lorenz is not particularly good at.

He's not a horrible unit, since everyone in 3H is at least a fairly good unit with investment. But I don't think he's very good relative to most of the cast either.

[Dark Holy Elf]

3 hours ago, AxelVDP said:

I was arguing about Lorenz in the midgame in the first place (tho admittedly I have not made it very clear). but anyway, once hit lv30 he gain access to Dark Knight and Black Tomefaire, while the others will probably transition to Gremory, meaning he will still have comparatively good/better offense. it's hard to compare him to Hubert because he's a CF exclusive, and you probably won't be levelling Lorenz outside of the Golden Deer, though yes as a pure offensive mage he will be probably better (when he hits)

the jump from A to A+ is quite significant, considering Dorothea will most likely be splitting some attention to Faith magic in order to become a Gremory I don't see how she should have Agnea's Arrow at around lv20-25, and even then, she would not outdmg Lorenz

Ah, yeah, I didn't catch that first part. In that case that's more fair, but I don't really understand the point of focusing only on one part of the game, especially since it's (IMO) a relatively easy part of the game, unless the goal is just to pump up Lorenz.

If you consider Dark Knight better than Gremory, the others can transition to Dark Knight as well. (And in general, Dark Knight/Warlock are the best classes for OHKOs with magic, if that's what you want to primarily discuss. If you consider the utility of Gremory/Bishop to be more valuable, then that reflects well on the characters making that choice, but it shouldn't be turned into an advantage that Lorenz has over them.)

And slightly off-topic, but I personally don't see much point in going for Gremory with Dorothea, she doesn't need move that much (due to all her long-range options) and Gremory over Warlock represents a loss of power (important for a unit who is shakier on OHKOs than someone like Lysithea). Not getting it also lets her laser-focus on Reason (after C Faith of course) to get to the all-important Black Range +1 faster, and yes, Agnea's Arrow as well.

[De Geso]

On 11/11/2019 at 3:38 PM, AxelVDP said:

I was arguing about Lorenz in the midgame in the first place (tho admittedly I have not made it very clear). but anyway, once hit lv30 he gain access to Dark Knight and Black Tomefaire, while the others will probably transition to Gremory, meaning he will still have comparatively good/better offense. it's hard to compare him to Hubert because he's a CF exclusive, and you probably won't be levelling Lorenz outside of the Golden Deer, though yes as a pure offensive mage he will be probably better (when he hits)

the jump from A to A+ is quite significant, considering Dorothea will most likely be splitting some attention to Faith magic in order to become a Gremory I don't see how she should have Agnea's Arrow at around lv20-25, and even then, she would not outdmg Lorenz

also, early game Lorenz is using Tempest Lance and Frozen Lance to do dmg (tho yes, he has to be babbied a little)

 

anyway, I think I made my points plenty clear already, I'm not here to argue that Lorenz is a secret top tier, I was just answering PPPPPPP270 on why Lorenz is not actually bad.

The biggest difference between Dorothea and Lorenz is early Thoron, which is a pretty big factor. She also gets Meteor and he does not, which is important later on, especially when she's a gremory who snipes two nerds per map with it. But, yes, Lorenz is far from bad in GD.

Edited November 12, 2019 by De Geso

[Basileus777]

On 11/11/2019 at 7:35 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Ah, yeah, I didn't catch that first part. In that case that's more fair, but I don't really understand the point of focusing only on one part of the game, especially since it's (IMO) a relatively easy part of the game, unless the goal is just to pump up Lorenz.

If you consider Dark Knight better than Gremory, the others can transition to Dark Knight as well. (And in general, Dark Knight/Warlock are the best classes for OHKOs with magic, if that's what you want to primarily discuss. If you consider the utility of Gremory/Bishop to be more valuable, then that reflects well on the characters making that choice, but it shouldn't be turned into an advantage that Lorenz has over them.)

And slightly off-topic, but I personally don't see much point in going for Gremory with Dorothea, she doesn't need move that much (due to all her long-range options) and Gremory over Warlock represents a loss of power (important for a unit who is shakier on OHKOs than someone like Lysithea). Not getting it also lets her laser-focus on Reason (after C Faith of course) to get to the all-important Black Range +1 faster, and yes, Agnea's Arrow as well.

The difference in power between Gremory and Warlock is only 3 points thanks to Gremory having 2 more bonus mag than Warlock.  I'll take 1 move over that even for Dorothea. 

Edited November 13, 2019 by Basileus777

[Azure the Scale Tipper]

12 hours ago, Basileus777 said:

The difference in power between Gremory and Warlock is only 3 points thanks to Gremory having 2 more bonus mag than Warlock.  I'll take 1 move over that even for Dorothea. 

Or make her a Dancer. I would make her a Warlock in SS would it not have been for Ch.13 being a butthole on Maddening apparently.

[Dark Holy Elf]

17 hours ago, Basileus777 said:

The difference in power between Gremory and Warlock is only 3 points thanks to Gremory having 2 more bonus mag than Warlock.  I'll take 1 move over that even for Dorothea. 

Mm, it's close, and depends a lot on if you're hitting certain benchmarks. Also full disclosure that I probably use stat boosters less than I should, so perhaps Gremory Dorothea can be set up to get all the key OHKOs she gets as Warlock too.

Having said that, the other advantage still holds: less focus on Faith means more time to focus on Authority (for better batallions which will pump the Atk difference even further) andor Reason (to get Black Magic Range +1 sooner, which is an outstanding skill since unlike archers, mages don't even eat an accuracy penalty for getting silly range).

[ignis_z]

Hello, sword máster atak( + 5 sword S)stucks with sword máster atack +5 for swormaster class?

 

Thanks and sry for muy english.

[SpiceMan]

Yeah, the "Weapon Faire"(+5 Damage) skills learnt at S+ Do stack with the Class "Weapon Faires". So S+ Swordfaire and Swordmaster class will give +10 Damage.

[Mjolnir]

I think Lornez tends to be underrated because a lot of people don't consider that he's pretty much the only good candidate for the Dark Mage to Dark Bishop classline besides Hubert. Linhardt is just too support focused to make use of that classline very well, imo. Linny should be healing, warping, or dancing not attacking in most cases. It sucks that the classline is genderlocked, but the fact that it is does work in Lorenz's favor.

Hubert is clearly the superior dark mage by far, however he's only available on one route and ime that route is the one that a new player can most easily end up missing a dark seal on and lose access to Dark Bishop (it happened to me my first CF run 😕 ).

The Dark Bishop / Dark Mage classline gives a free Fiendish Blow, Heartseeker, Lifetaker, and Poison Strike. I find the latter to be the most useful, doing an additional damage of up to 20% of max HP after combat is nothing to be sneezed at in maddening where enemies have high hp and very few units can 1RKO past the early/mid game. Lorenz softens them up so someone else can safely kill them. Lorenz with his decent def and hp growth can also be put on the front lines with a bit more confidence than other mages, where Heartseeker can be useful. I also think that Restore can come in handy a lot up front. Ward is useful as a sort of bargain basement Impregnable Wall re: mages and good for getting a bit of exp when he'd otherwise have nothing to do. Admittedly, Ward is only ever really all that useful in Maddening NG. Even in Maddening NG+ it's not really that interesting.

I usually make him into a Dark Knight for canto and the better growths, but there might actually be an argument for keeping him in Dark Bishop for Heartseeker. He'd be an even better unit if you could forge an Arrow of Indra and/or got it earlier in the routes you can get it in.

 

He's certainly not top tier, but I do think he gets unfairly passed over by many.

Edited January 1, 2020 by Mjolnir

[leesangstar10]

36 minutes ago, Mjolnir said:

I think Lornez tends to be underrated because a lot of people don't consider that he's pretty much the only good candidate for the Dark Mage to Dark Bishop classline besides Hubert. Linhardt is just too support focused to make use of that classline very well, imo. Linny should be healing, warping, or dancing not attacking in most cases. It sucks that the classline is genderlocked, but the fact that it is does work in Lorenz's favor.

Hubert is clearly the superior dark mage by far, however he's only available on one route and ime that route is the one that a new player can most easily end up missing a dark seal on and lose access to Dark Bishop (it happened to me my first CF run 😕 ).

The Dark Bishop / Dark Mage classline gives a free Fiendish Blow, Heartseeker, Lifetaker, and Poison Strike. I find the latter to be the most useful, doing an additional damage of up to 20% of max HP after combat is nothing to be sneezed at in maddening where enemies have high hp and very few units can 1RKO past the early/mid game. Lorenz softens them up so someone else can safely kill them. Lorenz with his decent def and hp growth can also be put on the front lines with a bit more confidence than other mages, where Heartseeker can be useful. I also think that Restore can come in handy a lot up front. Ward is useful as a sort of bargain basement Impregnable Wall re: mages and good for getting a bit of exp when he'd otherwise have nothing to do. Admittedly, Ward is only ever really all that useful in Maddening NG. Even in Maddening NG+ it's not really that interesting.

I usually make him into a Dark Knight for canto and the better growths, but there might actually be an argument for keeping him in Dark Bishop for Heartseeker. He'd be an even better unit if you could forge an Arrow of Indra and/or got it earlier in the routes you can get it in.

 

He's certainly not top tier, but I do think he gets unfairly passed over by many.

First, we assume optimal play. So no beginner mistake unfortunately. And just because hubert is available for one route he shouldn't be punished for that.

First, Lorenz benefits more as the mage warlock route because warlock gets black tome flair. Increasing his damage output by 5 with the addition to fiendish blow. You only get the free fiendish blow when you are a dark bishop(also blows don't stack i heard), so once you promote to a dark knight that benefit disappears. Sure poison strike does 20% dmg, but fiendish blow is better. Most people prefer having higher prob to kill then softening units.

Third, Lorenz should not be in the front line since his spd isn't that good(7spd and 40%). He def will not doubling and will get doubled by any most units in the beginning(since he will get weigh down by spells). Other mages should never be in the front line. While on the subject of stats, he has the worst base magic out of all the mages(7 mag at base, others are 10 or above). His early damage output is going to be much less than the other mages early game.

Forth, Arrow of Indra can only be obtain in Crimson flower and Verdant Wind I believe. You obtain Arrow of Indra at the last chapter of Verdant Wind so you can't forge it and Crimson Flower in part 2, so you can only use it late game and you are competing it with Hubert though.

Lorenz is just mediocre at everything, which is why he isn't as highly rated. There's just better options most of the time. Ex. Lysithea for dmg, Dorthea similar to Lorenz but has physics and meteor, Annette can rally very useful early game. Also just because he can use thyrsus without any penalty should not raise him any higher much. In maddening, mages hp hardly matters because most die in one shot anyways, even Lorenz.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Mjolnir said:

I think Lornez tends to be underrated because a lot of people don't consider that he's pretty much the only good candidate for the Dark Mage to Dark Bishop classline besides Hubert. Linhardt is just too support focused to make use of that classline very well, imo. Linny should be healing, warping, or dancing not attacking in most cases. It sucks that the classline is genderlocked, but the fact that it is does work in Lorenz's favor.

Hubert is clearly the superior dark mage by far, however he's only available on one route and ime that route is the one that a new player can most easily end up missing a dark seal on and lose access to Dark Bishop (it happened to me my first CF run 😕 ).

The Dark Bishop / Dark Mage classline gives a free Fiendish Blow, Heartseeker, Lifetaker, and Poison Strike. I find the latter to be the most useful, doing an additional damage of up to 20% of max HP after combat is nothing to be sneezed at in maddening where enemies have high hp and very few units can 1RKO past the early/mid game. Lorenz softens them up so someone else can safely kill them. Lorenz with his decent def and hp growth can also be put on the front lines with a bit more confidence than other mages, where Heartseeker can be useful. I also think that Restore can come in handy a lot up front. Ward is useful as a sort of bargain basement Impregnable Wall re: mages and good for getting a bit of exp when he'd otherwise have nothing to do. Admittedly, Ward is only ever really all that useful in Maddening NG. Even in Maddening NG+ it's not really that interesting.

I usually make him into a Dark Knight for canto and the better growths, but there might actually be an argument for keeping him in Dark Bishop for Heartseeker. He'd be an even better unit if you could forge an Arrow of Indra and/or got it earlier in the routes you can get it in.

 

He's certainly not top tier, but I do think he gets unfairly passed over by many.

The problem, as I see it, is that Lorenz suffers from being a Master of None (ergo, he's outclassed by everyone because he doesn't excel at anything). Also, Linhardt's chance of being the dancer is shit on account of him having a low charm base and growth, to put things nicely (3 base and 20% growth). What's more, accessing the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes requires you to steal from or defeat the Death Knight twice UNLESS you're going to Crimson Flower. For how much hassle that tends to be, I'm not sure that what they bring to the table is that great, especially Lifetaker, which got nerfed. 

Edited January 1, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Mjolnir]

1 hour ago, leesangstar10 said:

First, we assume optimal play. So no beginner mistake unfortunately. And just because hubert is available for one route he shouldn't be punished for that.

First, Lorenz benefits more as the mage warlock route because warlock gets black tome flair. Increasing his damage output by 5 with the addition to fiendish blow. You only get the free fiendish blow when you are a dark bishop(also blows don't stack i heard), so once you promote to a dark knight that benefit disappears. Sure poison strike does 20% dmg, but fiendish blow is better. Most people prefer having higher prob to kill then softening units.

Third, Lorenz should not be in the front line since his spd isn't that good(7spd and 40%). He def will not doubling and will get doubled by any most units in the beginning(since he will get weigh down by spells). Other mages should never be in the front line. While on the subject of stats, he has the worst base magic out of all the mages(7 mag at base, others are 10 or above). His early damage output is going to be much less than the other mages early game.

Forth, Arrow of Indra can only be obtain in Crimson flower and Verdant Wind I believe. You obtain Arrow of Indra at the last chapter of Verdant Wind so you can't forge it and Crimson Flower in part 2, so you can only use it late game and you are competing it with Hubert though.

Lorenz is just mediocre at everything, which is why he isn't as highly rated. There's just better options most of the time. Ex. Lysithea for dmg, Dorthea similar to Lorenz but has physics and meteor, Annette can rally very useful early game. Also just because he can use thyrsus without any penalty should not raise him any higher much. In maddening, mages hp hardly matters because most die in one shot anyways, even Lorenz.

Tier lists almost always consider availability as a factor. It's actually rather key. For instance in one FE game (not saying which just to prevent spoiling I guesS) you get an incredibly broken character for the last battle only, but you can hardly say he's one of your best units since you only get to use him once. Hubert is amazing, but his being locked to one route hurts him overall, unfortunately.

I figured it went without saying that you should also put Lorenz through mage for the ability fiendish blow. It's not hard, in Maddening NG, to max both of those classes. You can also put him into Warlock -after- he's gone through Dark Mage/Bishop and take most of the benefits of those classlines with him. You really don't have to stay in DB (although there may be an argument for doing so).

His magic growth doesn't hurt him that badly in Maddening. I'm doing a GD NG (minimal use of outside recruits besides paralogues) run and he has 26 at lv. 24, as compared to Lys with 31 at lv. 26. He can also one shot some enemies. not as many as Lys, of course,  I don't even give him Thyrsus, he gets Caduceus instead but it still helps a lot. I wouldn't say he's better than Lys, he's not, but he's just not as bad as many think he is.

 

HP does matter on Maddening NG imo. He has 46 at lv. 24 as compared to Lys' 32 at 26. She can never risk venturing near the front lines. Lorenz can sometimes take a hit or maybe two from weaker enemies. Which does help him out. His healing capacity with Restore is also nice since Maddening enemies hit hard and even with her superior mag, Lys' heal is not as good as his restore.

 

I don't think Lorenz is a god. I don't think he's better than most units. I think he's good enough though, and many don't even give him that much credit which is a shame. He also has a boon in riding AND lance which makes it easier for him to class into Dark Knight, which imo is better for attack mages than an infantry class in maddening since they can zip in, nuke and then run away.

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

The problem, as I see it, is that Lorenz suffers from being a Master of None (ergo, he's outclassed by everyone because he doesn't excel at anything). Also, Linhardt's chance of being the dancer is shit on account of him having a low charm base and growth, to put things nicely (3 base and 20% growth). What's more, accessing the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes requires you to steal from or defeat the Death Knight twice UNLESS you're going to Crimson Flower. For how much hassle that tends to be, I'm not sure that what they bring to the table is that great, especially Lifetaker, which got nerfed. 

I agree that he's presented as a jack-of-all-trades and will suffer if you raise him as one. If he goes straight through magic classlines, though, he usually ends up with decent mag growth. And he is the best candidate for Dark Mage / Bishop besides Hubert who will only be useable in approximately 1/4 of the game.

Stealing from / killing the Death Knight is difficult for new players, but not to brag or anything but I find it trivial these days, even on NG Maddening. Once you've played the game a few times, it's not an issue. Lifetaker isn't that great, true, but Poison Strike is really useful. My Lorenz usually leaves the enemy either dead or with very few hp due to it.

Linny has been my go-to serious dancer in most playthroughs . I've never had him fail once. He comes in with crap charisma, that's true, but it's easily raised via 2-3 tea times and that +5 bonus you get for the dance lessons. I also plan in advance and farm 1-2 Golden Apples for him just to be sure. This playthrough I think I got him up to 17 Charm before the dance competition with 2 tea times, the dance lessons, and 2 rounds of GA farming.

 

Again, I don't think he's god or even upper tier. He just does get the job done.

[leesangstar10]

3 hours ago, Mjolnir said:

Tier lists almost always consider availability as a factor. It's actually rather key. For instance in one FE game (not saying which just to prevent spoiling I guesS) you get an incredibly broken character for the last battle only, but you can hardly say he's one of your best units since you only get to use him once. Hubert is amazing, but his being locked to one route hurts him overall, unfortunately.

I figured it went without saying that you should also put Lorenz through mage for the ability fiendish blow. It's not hard, in Maddening NG, to max both of those classes. You can also put him into Warlock -after- he's gone through Dark Mage/Bishop and take most of the benefits of those classlines with him. You really don't have to stay in DB (although there may be an argument for doing so).

His magic growth doesn't hurt him that badly in Maddening. I'm doing a GD NG (minimal use of outside recruits besides paralogues) run and he has 26 at lv. 24, as compared to Lys with 31 at lv. 26. He can also one shot some enemies. not as many as Lys, of course,  I don't even give him Thyrsus, he gets Caduceus instead but it still helps a lot. I wouldn't say he's better than Lys, he's not, but he's just not as bad as many think he is.

 

HP does matter on Maddening NG imo. He has 46 at lv. 24 as compared to Lys' 32 at 26. She can never risk venturing near the front lines. Lorenz can sometimes take a hit or maybe two from weaker enemies. Which does help him out. His healing capacity with Restore is also nice since Maddening enemies hit hard and even with her superior mag, Lys' heal is not as good as his restore.

 

I don't think Lorenz is a god. I don't think he's better than most units. I think he's good enough though, and many don't even give him that much credit which is a shame. He also has a boon in riding AND lance which makes it easier for him to class into Dark Knight, which imo is better for attack mages than an infantry class in maddening since they can zip in, nuke and then run away.

First not sure what you are trying to say with availability. Its just Hubert is available for one route thats it. You should just judge his performance on the one he's in. I personally think that there should be separate tier list for each route since doing an overall tier list a unit's performance varies due to availability and stuff. And yes ik what game ur talking about fe7 dw i played it, lyn is literally my propic lol.

Second ig you can do that I just assumed no mage since you didn't mention it.

Third I just said his magic stat is the worst out of all the magic users because of low base and mediocre growth rate. On average he will do the least amount of damage out of all the mages(except linhardt due to his low dmg spells). As mentioned above, he does get early ragnorok so thats the one time he does more damage but before and after A reason he doesn't perform as well.

Forth sure hp could matter based on play style(i usually never want to have any of my mages in the front line). Also he doesn't get restore I believe, unless serenes forest is wrong. Unless you are talking about recover but every mage gets recover or physics at C(except lysithea).

Yeah I get it, but what we are saying is that he is the worst mage. Does the least amount of dmg(except B reason) and offers the least support(only has recover and ward vs others that have physics, rally or warp). We are just comparing him to other units and saying why he is worse than unit abc. Just because a unit is "bottom tier" doesnt mean they are unviable.

[Mjolnir]

5 hours ago, leesangstar10 said:

First not sure what you are trying to say with availability. Its just Hubert is available for one route thats it. You should just judge his performance on the one he's in. I personally think that there should be separate tier list for each route since doing an overall tier list a unit's performance varies due to availability and stuff. And yes ik what game ur talking about fe7 dw i played it, lyn is literally my propic lol.

Second ig you can do that I just assumed no mage since you didn't mention it.

Third I just said his magic stat is the worst out of all the magic users because of low base and mediocre growth rate. On average he will do the least amount of damage out of all the mages(except linhardt due to his low dmg spells). As mentioned above, he does get early ragnorok so thats the one time he does more damage but before and after A reason he doesn't perform as well.

Forth sure hp could matter based on play style(i usually never want to have any of my mages in the front line). Also he doesn't get restore I believe, unless serenes forest is wrong. Unless you are talking about recover but every mage gets recover or physics at C(except lysithea).

Yeah I get it, but what we are saying is that he is the worst mage. Does the least amount of dmg(except B reason) and offers the least support(only has recover and ward vs others that have physics, rally or warp). We are just comparing him to other units and saying why he is worse than unit abc. Just because a unit is "bottom tier" doesnt mean they are unviable.

Availability has always been a factor in FE tier lists. What I'm trying to say is that Lorenz's overall availability is far better than Hubert's since Hubie is locked to 1.5 routes. Hubert is not recruitable on any playthrough that isn't Black Eagles and he leaves if you are in SS, which makes him dodgy to use in that route since he'll siphon exp from units you will keep the whole game if you use him. Again, I adore Hubert and think he's great but when you can only really use him for a bit less than .25 of the game, that needs to be taken that into account when ranking him. Again: if a god-tier character is only available for the last chapter, that doesn't make them the best character in the game due to their poor availability. Ofc Hubert's availability is better than that, but it's pretty poor for 3H.

Again, you cannot look just at Lorenz's base magic stat. It's not great, sure, but in many of my runs he's not been THAT far behind Lysithea and Marianne. Also, when you take him through the Dark Mage / Bishop pathway he gets up to  an extra 20% of damage on top due to Poison Strike. So when he's not one shoting (which he can do in Maddening if you get lucky with RNG and/or feed him some boosters), he's leaving enemies nearly dead (usually with 1hp with my current Lorenz). And a nearly dead enemy is basically a dead enemy. He is the only mage besides Hubert who makes any sense for the Dark Mage / Bishop classline and the only one that has access to poison strike.

 

Ah yes, I was talking about Recover. My bad. I get them confused sometimes. But I do find that spell handy. And no, maybe "front lines" is not the best place even for Lorenz. Maybe it's more like "middle lines", right behind the big attackers where he can zip in and out or be pulled / swapped / danced out.

 

I simply don't agree that he's the worst Mage. If anything, Annette is worse at actually being an attack mage. She's a better rallybot of course, and very fun to make into a WL but in an optimal play comparison of Lorenz having gone through Dark Mage / Bishop and her going down the attack mage pathway he'll reliably do more damage than her for a longer part of the game. And in NG where flying battalions are at a premium she would take a very long time to justify getting airborne (not to mention how rare arcane crystals for Bolt Axe+ are before the Dark Merchant shows up). He's also a better attack mage than Linhardt since imo even though you certainly CAN send Linny down the Dark Mage / Bishop path, it's a waste to have him attacking rather than supporting. Dorothea has been ime more prone to getting Mag screwed than Lorenz even though they have exactly the same base mag growth rate (40%) (ofc this is just luck, but it's been the case for me, and can happen for other players). Her spell list is far better, granted, but giving Lorenz Caduceus helps alleviate this a lot since +1 Range on powerful spells like Agena's Arrow and Ragnarock is very helpful. Mercedes is a support mage, really, without access to the Dark pathway she's in a similar position to Annette. Both Mercy and Marianne have a 50% mag growth with on average means only a few extra points on average than a 40% growth. Mercy also competes for Caduceus due to the lack of 3+ range spells, but since she's so much more useful as support and doesn't get poison strike, it makes more sense to give it to a true attack mage.

Lorenz has his place. No he's not the "delete button" Lysithea is. But I really don't think he he's bottom tier like some think he is. He has his advantages that no other unit reliably has, like the best access to Dark Mage / Bishop and perhaps the easiest time qualifying for Dark Knight as well. We should also consider that his paralogue gives you the means to make Lysithea OP. Without Lorenz, Lysithea is a bit more balanced, with his relic she's absolutely broken. No other mage has as useful as a paralogue imo.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Mjolnir

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Mjolnir said:

Availability has always been a factor in FE tier lists. What I'm trying to say is that Lorenz's overall availability is far better than Hubert's since Hubie is locked to 1.5 routes. Hubert is not recruitable on any playthrough that isn't Black Eagles and he leaves if you are in SS, which makes him dodgy to use in that route since he'll siphon exp from units you will keep the whole game if you use him. Again, I adore Hubert and think he's great but when you can only really use him for a bit less than .25 of the game, that needs to be taken that into account when ranking him. Again: if a god-tier character is only available for the last chapter, that doesn't make them the best character in the game due to their poor availability. Ofc Hubert's availability is better than that, but it's pretty poor for 3H.

You're conflating two different scenarios, though: being route-locked, and being a late recruit. You can use Hubert for all of CF, so when we're judging him, it should be on that basis (ideally, each route would have its own tierlist). Lorenz, meanwhile, can be judged both as a GD in-house unit, and a recruitable in other routes. Meanwhile, there's no way to use, say, Athos for more than one chapter of FE7.

I can agree with Lorenz beating out Hubert on an SS-specific tierlist, at least.

[Shadow Mir]

14 hours ago, Mjolnir said:

Tier lists almost always consider availability as a factor. It's actually rather key. For instance in one FE game (not saying which just to prevent spoiling I guesS) you get an incredibly broken character for the last battle only, but you can hardly say he's one of your best units since you only get to use him once. Hubert is amazing, but his being locked to one route hurts him overall, unfortunately.

On the contrary, I think availability gets too much credit. Look at Arthur in FE Fates, for example. Putting aside the fact that he comes in several turns in his joining chapter in Conquest, he is available for the whole game. Too bad he's a lousy unit.

14 hours ago, Mjolnir said:

I agree that he's presented as a jack-of-all-trades and will suffer if you raise him as one. If he goes straight through magic classlines, though, he usually ends up with decent mag growth. And he is the best candidate for Dark Mage / Bishop besides Hubert who will only be useable in approximately 1/4 of the game.

Stealing from / killing the Death Knight is difficult for new players, but not to brag or anything but I find it trivial these days, even on NG Maddening. Once you've played the game a few times, it's not an issue. Lifetaker isn't that great, true, but Poison Strike is really useful. My Lorenz usually leaves the enemy either dead or with very few hp due to it.

Linny has been my go-to serious dancer in most playthroughs . I've never had him fail once. He comes in with crap charisma, that's true, but it's easily raised via 2-3 tea times and that +5 bonus you get for the dance lessons. I also plan in advance and farm 1-2 Golden Apples for him just to be sure. This playthrough I think I got him up to 17 Charm before the dance competition with 2 tea times, the dance lessons, and 2 rounds of GA farming.

 

Again, I don't think he's god or even upper tier. He just does get the job done.

The problem is, being a jack of all trades isn't much help when you're outclassed by pretty much everyone. If I was to compare Lorenz to a Pokemon, he'd be a Glalie or a Spinda. Or a Pidgeot. Except unlike Pidgeot, which eventually got a Mega Evolution, he doesn't get anything that allows him to break free of the balance curse.

The issue is that there are only two easy ways to defeat him, and if you don't have either, which is pretty much going to be the case in chapter 4, you're gonna have to either spam Gambits that do piddle damage or hope you have someone who doesn't get doubled. Maybe even both. For all the hoops I have to jump through, I don't think the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes are so fantastic as to justify the trouble.

And that's the problem - his charm is bad to the point I'm forced to divert resources I might have planned to give to other units to him instead just for him to have a ghost of a chance.  Sonic says, that's NO GOOD.

[Mjolnir]

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

You're conflating two different scenarios, though: being route-locked, and being a late recruit. You can use Hubert for all of CF, so when we're judging him, it should be on that basis (ideally, each route would have its own tierlist). Lorenz, meanwhile, can be judged both as a GD in-house unit, and a recruitable in other routes. Meanwhile, there's no way to use, say, Athos for more than one chapter of FE7.

I can agree with Lorenz beating out Hubert on an SS-specific tierlist, at least.

The OP of this post was very unclear as to the terms of the tier list. IMO tier lists are interesting both as overall and as route tier lists, I was talking of an overall one since it wasn't specified as a route specific one. Overall, Lorenz simply has more availability than Hubie since it only makes sense to use Hubie on one route. But yes, we can certainly agree that Lorenz is a better pick in SS than Hubie and Hubie would be by far the better pick in CF.

 

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

On the contrary, I think availability gets too much credit. Look at Arthur in FE Fates, for example. Putting aside the fact that he comes in several turns in his joining chapter in Conquest, he is available for the whole game. Too bad he's a lousy unit.

The problem is, being a jack of all trades isn't much help when you're outclassed by pretty much everyone. If I was to compare Lorenz to a Pokemon, he'd be a Glalie or a Spinda. Or a Pidgeot. Except unlike Pidgeot, which eventually got a Mega Evolution, he doesn't get anything that allows him to break free of the balance curse.

The issue is that there are only two easy ways to defeat him, and if you don't have either, which is pretty much going to be the case in chapter 4, you're gonna have to either spam Gambits that do piddle damage or hope you have someone who doesn't get doubled. Maybe even both. For all the hoops I have to jump through, I don't think the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes are so fantastic as to justify the trouble.

And that's the problem - his charm is bad to the point I'm forced to divert resources I might have planned to give to other units to him instead just for him to have a ghost of a chance.  Sonic says, that's NO GOOD.

Ah, but the thing is you don't have to run him as a jack of all trades. Make him a specialist and he'll do well; his stats ime fall into line (less str and more mag) if you do this. The newb mistake is to try to use him both as a physical and magical attacker.

 

I actually just ran some numbers from my playthrough. If I'm not mistaken, the formula to calculate magical damage is:

(Magic + Might) - Resistance = Damage

However for any unit with poison strike that calucaltion is as such:

 

((Magic + Might) + (up to 20% of max HP))  - Resistance = Damage

 

The might of miasma is 5. Let’s use a lvl 28 brigand with 47hp and 6 res as the test subject.

 

Lorenz in my playthrough does ((26 + 5) + (9)) - 6 = 34

Lysithea does (31 + 5) - 6 =  30

 

Please correct me if I'm mistaken somewhere, the formulas aren't listed on Serenes and I got this from Gamefaqs. So Lorenz in my playthrough is actually doing more damage with poison strike on one hit. I think poison strike only applies to one round of combat howerver, so if there are two rounds then she'll do more damage in total (but it won't matter since they will both kill the unit in question (he will do a total of 50 base damage in that situation whereas she will do 60).

 

The issue becomes one shots where she can delete and he can only reduce to 1hp (or thereabouts). Which of course means he's not better than her. But when you look at the math, he does start looking better.

 

However, of course poison strike isn't as useful on Hard or Normal since enemy HP is lower and therefore 20% of max HP is obviously also a lower value. Lorenz has actually gone up in usefulness in Maddening imo. Again, Hubert is better but he's (basically) locked to one route.

 

I think we'll have to disagree on how difficult it is to kill the Death Knight. Yes, it's hard as hell the first few times but it does become easier over time. And if we are assuming "optimal play" (as another poster suggested) then we should assume the player is capable enough to kill the death knight with relative ease. Planning ahead to get Dark Spikes is a perfectly viable strategy!

 

The amount of resources (tea times, stat boosters, dance lessons (not even really a  resource per se) you have to put into Linhardt to get him to win the contest is minimal imo as compared to the  benefits. Also, it's good to use the free +5 from dance lessons to fix a unit like Linny with low charisma in case you want to put a damaging gambit on him (which is sometimes a good option in Maddening NG).

Edited January 2, 2020 by Mjolnir

[Flere210]

Being a jack of all trades is not a problem tho. The problem of those kind of units is when there is a 4 or 5 people party an everyone has to do a speciphic role. There are not 10 roles that had to be filled in fire emblem. There are many situations in general when 1 excellent mage is not enought but 2 excellent mages are overkill, and in those situation you aprecciate having an excelent mage and a mediocre mage. There could be similar situations for phisical damage dealers, healers and so on. A jack of all trades fill in for all of those situations where you need an extra hand. 

The thing is you already have a Jack of all trades that can fill in for any extra role. Byleth, wich is obviously much better than lorenz at doing that.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Flere210

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, Mjolnir said:

The might of miasma is 5. Let’s use a lvl 28 brigand with 47hp and 6 res as the test subject.

 

Lorenz in my playthrough does ((26 + 5) + (9)) - 6 = 34

Lysithea does (31 + 5) - 6 =  30

 

Please correct me if I'm mistaken somewhere, the formulas aren't listed on Serenes and I got this from Gamefaqs. So Lorenz in my playthrough is actually doing more damage with poison strike on one hit. I think poison strike only applies to one round of combat howerver, so if there are two rounds then she'll do more damage in total (but it won't matter since they will both kill the unit in question (he will do a total of 50 base damage in that situation whereas she will do 60).

The issue with Poison Strike is that it only makes you better at chipping. As you note, it's not relevant if you're killing in one hit without it, and it's also not relevant if you're finishing off an enemy who has already taken some damage (and notably the game provides a major mechanic, gambits, which tend to lower the HP of some enemies a bit and create this scenario).

In the example given, is Lorenz better than Lysithea at chipping? Sure, but only a little. Leaving an enemy with only 13 HP is better than leaving them with 17, though not that much because most other units can finish off a unit with 17 HP (maybe not a low-str Curved Shot or something like that). So his advantage here is marginal, and I don't think Poison Strike was a good investment just to improve his chipping ability a bit.

Additionally, I'd say that the most important aspect of a chipping character is not their raw damage, but their range. Generally, any decent chip is going to lower enemy HP enough that someone else will be able to finish them. Thus, the most valuable chipping is that which can be done at longer range, and at this niche, Lorenz is outclassed by units with Thoron such as Marianne, Dorothea, and Hanneman.

In general I think the Dark Mage / Dark Bishop line is very poor for units like Lorenz. Poison Strike is outclassed by Fiendish Blow because the latter helps secure kills while the former does not, and Dark Bishop does not provide Black Tomefaire which black mages like Lorenz would very much like, unlike Warlock.