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Another Sacred Stones Tier List


Mukmuk
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Hi all, 

I just wanted to share my opinion on Sacred Stones's character tiering. This will be an Ephraim Hard Mode tier list for efficiency as Eirika's route is a joke. In fact, Sacred Stones is pretty much a joke difficulty wise, but at least in Ephraim's route there are some notable challenges (such as Phantom Ship). Lord Units are going to be tiered accordingly, because I believe it's important to do so and not dump them in "Lord Tier." So, 

Tiers: Since I'm utterly lazy, I'll be using Mariode's tiering explanation from an old forum, except for I'll be tweaking the colors a bit lol 

Seth Tier: Units that completely break the game. They're OP and can do everything. Using them renders the whole cast redundant. If they're not banned from use, they'll function as the main Lord.
S-Tier: Units that contribute immediately and effectively upon joining. They have amazing availability, combat performance and/or utility. There are no reasons not to deploy these units.
A-Tier: Units that contribute a lot in the course of the game. Some investment may be required, but it's easy to do and the reward will be worth it.They have outstanding availability, combat performance and/or utility. There are hardly any reasons not to deploy these units.
B-Tier: Units that can contribute well, but they either require some investment in order to do so or join later in game. They have some weaknesses, but their strenghts outmatch them. Deploying these is generally speaking a good decision.
C-Tier: Units than can contribute decently, but are hindered by either their jointime, combat performance and/or utility. Deploying these units can be useful depending on the situation.
D-Tier: Units that can provide decent utility and/or fill a niche. They have huge negatives that hinder them from being effective, but they can pull off their job just fine. If you need a niche-filler you can consider deploying these.
E-Tier: Units that can't contribute to anything meaningfull at all, except if major investment is put into them. They will usually be a hindrance, and raising them is extremely difficult or not rewarding. They have absolutely no utility and they are outclassed by other units. There are PLENTY of reasons not to deploy these.

Rules: No arena grinding, no tower, no ruins, every unit has to survive, full recruitment. 

So yeah, here it is: 

Seth Tier: 

Seth 

Amelia

S-Tier: 

Franz 

Vanessa 

Artur 

 

A-Tier:

Gerik

Tana

Cormag

Moulder

Tethys

Lute

 

B-Tier: 

Garcia 

Saleh

Ephraim

Kyle

Forde

Duessel (Only on Phantom Ship) 

 

C-Tier:

Gilliam

Innes

Joshua

Natasha

Myrrh

Ross 

Dolza

D-Tier:

Rennac

Colm

Eirika 

Knoll

L'Arachel

Syrene

Neimi

 

E-Tier:

Marisa

Ewan

Amelia 

 

 

Extremely Brief Explanations (I can do more in-depth if you guys really want) 

S-Tier: 

Franz: Yeah. 

Vanessa: First flying unit. She may fall behind both Cormag and Tana statistically (assuming all of them are promoted to Wyvern Knights for comparison), but her availability and level lead when both of them join put her in S tier. 

Artur: Artur gets S tier because he is a more consistent magic unit than Lute, his rival magic user in the beginning. Although you get a Saleh later on, Artur will 9/10 times be statistically better than him, and he has the entire game to be useful, compared with Saleh who only gets a few levels to be useful. Either Bishop or Sage are great promo options for him, but I'd recommend Bishop>Sage simply because of Slayer. Also best candidate for Ivaldi (but thats not really importantlol). 

A-Tier:

Gerik: You really can't go wrong with Gerik. Great bases, good starting weapon ranks, and solid growths make him one of the best units in the game. Pretty simple. 

Tana: Your second flying unit, who does join later than Vanessa and noticeably weaker, but makes up for it with fantastic growth rates, and will almost certainly surpass Vanessa (but not by much, let's be fair to Vanessa) in the endgame if you put the work into her. 

Cormag: An extremely bulky wyvern rider whose combat perfomance is arguably the best out of the three (Syrene doesn't count). He gets nuked by magic, though. 

Moulder: Your best healer. 

Tethys: Tethys is a dancer, but I wouldn't immediately put her in S tier for a few reasons: one because she's locked at five movement and two because of a late join. She is the worst dancer the series has to offer. She is useful, sure, but not as useful as dancers in other games.

Lute: Lute is an interesting beast. I would say she's probably the most underrated unit in Sacred Stones, for a couple of reasons. Yes, she is extremely frail in a game where enemy phase is everything. Yes, she gets screwed if she doesn't get a couple of speed growths in her first few levels. However, more often than not, she gets those speed growths (45% is not bad at all), turns into an absolute offensive monster, consistently one-rounding everything, and she can also dodge attacks at an acceptable rate. Mage Knight gives her +Con and Mov, further enhancing her effectiveness when she promotes. People who don't take good care of her say she's bad, but that's their own problem. 

B-Tier: 

Garcia: Extremely powerful (65% strength), incredible bulk (he'll probably max HP without even trying), fantastic starting Axe rank (C for a level 4 is no joke), and 14 con are his main selling points. but... he is crippled by his absolutely awful 20% speed growth. You could try giving him Amelia's speedwing, but that's the main reason why he's in B tier. Fun fact: as a Hero, at 20/20, he'll only have (according to average stats) 16 speed. And we all know average stats don't work in real life. That's sad. 

Saleh: He has good bases and great weapon ranks, but he's simply not as useful in Ephraim's route as in Eirika's route. 

Ephraim: Ephraim has great growths and easy availability, and to top it off he gets a mount when he promotes. However...forced promotion. Sorry Ephraim. 

Kyle: I firmly believe neither Kyle nor Forde deserve to be in A tier. Kyle has utterly mediocre growths and average bases (same goes for Forde), but he does have the advantage of being a horse unit in a game dominated by your mounted units. He will become your best Great Knight if you're not using Gilliam, but that's about it. 

Forde: Basically explained above. Makes a decent Paladin, but Franz and Seth both overshadow him. 

Duessel (Only on Phantom Ship): He has strength and HP basically unparalled by his join time, and he is invaluable in the Phantom Ship level. However, he isn't really that useful after that. 

C-Tier:

Gilliam: A solid unit that would be higher up if not for his class. 4 movlol

Innes: Innes is a good unit on paper, with decent growths and bases for a pre-promote. His powerful player phase offense is noteworthy, and he quickly reaches S rank bows to be your fastest unit to wield Nidhogg. Unfortunately, he simply doesn't have many opportunites to contribute much in his time in Ephraim's route. He's ok in Chapter 17 and ok for destroying the eggs in 18, but only ok.He simply doesn't have that much time to contribute, unlike in Eirika's route. 

Joshua: A unit that's basically your average resident myrmidon. He's not the greatest, however, due to swordlock and low strength in a game where lances dominate. Again, your average resident myrmidon. 

Natasha: She has much better offensive growths than Moulder or Artur (although 20% skill is a notable detriment), but she requires precious levels to catch up to Moulder, and you're trying to promote your clerics to Bishops as quickly as possible, so she's not the best for an efficient run. 

Myrrh: She is an absolute beast (no pun intended)...for 50 charges. You could try exploiting a glitch and giving her Shadowshots, but no. 

Ross: Your first trainee unit, and he has a massive advantage over other trainee units because of his early join time. However, he does take quite a bit of investment to start becoming good (and he will once the ball starts rolling), and many times putting that much investment into him just isn't worth it because you have other good units who join strong and require little investment, such as Garcia and Gerik.

Dolza: Dolza is a solid pre-promoted unit with decent bases, along with the additional boons of 16 con and a passive +15 crit. Unfortunately, his late join time and "party issues" are all notable detriments to his overall usefulness. 

D-Tier:

Rennac: Your main thief that you only bring around for stealing stuff. 

Colm: Your early game thief. You could try leveling him up, but he's basically a worse Joshua. 

Eirika: She re-joins far too weak (with a horrible absence between chapters 9-14). 

Knoll: Only useful for staffbot and skeleton abuse.

L'Arachel: She's just a terrible unit.

Syrene: Only good for taking out the eggs in chapter 18. I guess you could try giving her Metis's tome, but no. 

Neimi: Even if you don't bench her, she'll still cry. 

E-Tier:

Marisa: She is a worse Joshua that joins wayyyy later. She doesn't even have good growths to make it up. If she had a 50% strength growth or something maybe, but...

Ewan: E for Ewan. 

Amelia: Sorry, Amelia. I like you as a person, but no. Just no. 

 

 

 

Edited by Mukmuk
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What's with the sudden interest in FE8 tier lists...?

A decent list, I suppose. I'd put Colm/Rennac together wherever you rate thieves in this particular game. Rennac obviously has better stats than Colm, but similar to Legault he just replaces the first thief halfway into the game in order to fulfill the same role from his join time onward. Neither are intended to fight. I also think Eirika is at least a whole tier too high. Remember she has almost identical bases and growths to Lyn with only defense being a tad higher. She's still extremely frail and must rely on dodging and terrain. You don't need the amount of speed she earns for anything other than doubling wolves who are typically one hit KOd anyway. And her rapier gets pretty poor mileage with the almost total lack of cav and armor enemies before route split. She can become decent at fighting with some stat boosters and lucky level ups but I'd sooner dump seraph robes on Artur/Lute and energy rings on anybody else.

I also feel Dozla is getting a bad rap lately. Yeah he'll be a few points behind a level 20/1 Hero Garcia in strength and speed, but I'd take the Berserker's +15 crit over a weapon type I'll never see a need to equip. 16 Con is also excellent for somebody axe locked.

Edited by Glennstavos
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14 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

What's with the sudden interest in FE8 tier lists...?

Yeah.  And for this one, I can't tell if it's trolling.

I mean, the explanations are okayish, but under what criteria?  "No-grind" is still pretty broad.

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20 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

What's with the sudden interest in FE8 tier lists...?

Idk? I just felt like doing this for a while now. I do realize that there was another tier list posted a while ago but that one wasn't very good lol. 

20 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I also think Eirika is at least a whole tier too high. 

 I also feel Dozla is getting a bad rap lately. Yeah he'll be a few points behind a level 20/1 Hero Garcia in strength and speed, but I'd take the Berserker's +15 crit over a weapon type I'll never see a need to equip. 16 Con is also excellent for somebody axe locked.

Eirika, yes, you are completely right. I have no idea why I put her in C tier. Hell, she technically deserves F tier in Ephraim's routelol b/c she steals xp (I like to leave her at level 1 if I'm doing Ephraim's route). 

Dolza, not really. 16 con is pretty nice for sure, and with a beserker's typically high strength and the passive +15 crit, he does punch holes into the enemy. I just never found him to be a particularily useful unit. My main problem with him is that your party's probably gonna be full or close to full by his jointime, and next level Saleh and Innes join, two units (especially Saleh) that are much more useful than Dolza in the end. I always just didn't have the room for him, but I can see how he can be in C tier. 

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6 hours ago, eclipse said:

Yeah.  And for this one, I can't tell if it's trolling.

I mean, the explanations are okayish, but under what criteria?  "No-grind" is still pretty broad.

The rules are above. I really don't want to quote myself. 

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On 9/11/2019 at 3:52 PM, Mukmuk said:

The rules are above. I really don't want to quote myself. 

The warning's nothing personal, just a forum rules thing.

Those "rules" are still stupidly broad.  Strict LTC will have a very different idea of what's good over a run that solely aims for full recruitment without wandering off.

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3 hours ago, eclipse said:

The warning's nothing personal, just a forum rules thing.

Those "rules" are still stupidly broad.  Strict LTC will have a very different idea of what's good over a run that solely aims for full recruitment without wandering off.

Its all good. 

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On 9/14/2019 at 11:58 AM, Mukmuk said:

Its all good. 

'kay~!

For clarification: Strict LTC will place more weight on staffbots due to Rescue/Warp.  Depending on the strategy, Knoll may move up because of stupid Phantom shenanigans.

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3 hours ago, eclipse said:

'kay~!

For clarification: Strict LTC will place more weight on staffbots due to Rescue/Warp.  Depending on the strategy, Knoll may move up because of stupid Phantom shenanigans.

Oh the tier list. Right. I didn't even look at the bottom half of that comment. You didn't need to clarify anything, my bad. 

Yeah, Knoll probably doesn't deserve D. It's just that I have a deep animosity toward staffbots. The guaranteed EZ way to beat Vigarde is to have Knoll (or Ewan, if you must...) spam phantoms until the spear breaks. I have never done that. Ever. In my many many runs of SS. 

I'll clear it up later. You're still right about the rules. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Mukmuk said:

Oh the tier list. Right. I didn't even look at the bottom half of that comment. You didn't need to clarify anything, my bad. 

Yeah, Knoll probably doesn't deserve D. It's just that I have a deep animosity toward staffbots. The guaranteed EZ way to beat Vigarde is to have Knoll (or Ewan, if you must...) spam phantoms until the spear breaks. I have never done that. Ever. In my many many runs of SS.

Actually. . .it's worse.

Take Chapter 20.  Rescue your boss-killer with someone.  Transfer him/her to a Phantom on the next turn.  Have Phantom suicide on the mountains.  Depending on your positioning, the "rescued" character will end up on that island.  That's what I meant.

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22 hours ago, eclipse said:

Actually. . .it's worse.

Take Chapter 20.  Rescue your boss-killer with someone.  Transfer him/her to a Phantom on the next turn.  Have Phantom suicide on the mountains.  Depending on your positioning, the "rescued" character will end up on that island.  That's what I meant.

Oh yeah... that. I completely forgot about that. Yeah, I know what you mean. 

Oh well, stuff like this is why I hate staffbots in general... 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I appreciate the effort but your tier list has some issues that i find troubling lol. 

How did you rate Tana lower than vanessa? she has higher stat growths and better supports.. easily an S . And with cormag and ephraim supports she becomes a beast.

And how is Joshua not A or above XD. I mean these are vanilla stat growths (20 before promoting as is my style) you can see for yourself 

And Seth. .should be toilet tier. Paladins are already weak in stats to begin with and seth has some horrible growths

And how is moulder..your best healer when natasha exists? Is this a troll list fam? kidding kidding XD  each to their own I suppose we all enjoy the game differently.

I do agree greatly with your thoughts on Lute and Gerik. 100 percent on that! 🙂

Screenshot 2019-10-05 11.39.17.png

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Screenshot 2019-10-05 11.39.02.png

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1 hour ago, Rainvernova said:

How did you rate Tana lower than vanessa? she has higher stat growths and better supports.. easily an S . And with cormag and ephraim supports she becomes a beast.

Vanessa is available for longer, thus she can contribute more. It doesn't help Tana's case that she either comes with no weapons (Ephraim route) or crappy ones (Eirika route), nor does it that she comes underleveled (level 4 right at the halfway point of the game).

1 hour ago, Rainvernova said:

And how is Joshua not A or above XD. I mean these are vanilla stat growths (20 before promoting as is my style) you can see for yourself 

He's locked to swords, which limits his enemy phase contributions.

1 hour ago, Rainvernova said:

And Seth. .should be toilet tier. Paladins are already weak in stats to begin with and seth has some horrible growths

Not sure if serious. Paladin is still a great class, and Seth has a rather high growth total.

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12 hours ago, Rainvernova said:

I appreciate the effort but your tier list has some issues that i find troubling lol. 

How did you rate Tana lower than vanessa? she has higher stat growths and better supports.. easily an S . And with cormag and ephraim supports she becomes a beast.

And how is Joshua not A or above XD. I mean these are vanilla stat growths (20 before promoting as is my style) you can see for yourself 

And Seth. .should be toilet tier. Paladins are already weak in stats to begin with and seth has some horrible growths

And how is moulder..your best healer when natasha exists? Is this a troll list fam? kidding kidding XD  each to their own I suppose we all enjoy the game differently.

I do agree greatly with your thoughts on Lute and Gerik. 100 percent on that! 🙂

Just to clarify, Seth actually has better all-around growths than all of the cavaliers you get in the game. If this isn't a troll I don't know what this is. 

Joshua is sword-locked in an enemy-phase game. He's certainly no Rutger because the passive CRIT is lowered. Fun fact: he'll only have on average around 13 strength at a Lvl 20 myrmidon. Obviously you got very lucky with your Joshua. 

Tana is technically a better unit statistically than Vanessa, it's just her weak join time and Vanessa's easy availability and level lead that puts her over Tana. It's not like even in the endgame Vanessa's much worse than Tana statistically, you'll most likely be using both anyways. 

It's not about enjoyment of the game, Moulder is just strictly better than Natasha. He gets a level lead and that's the deciding factor between the two. I would agree with you that Natasha is underrated, but tier lists can't be made off personal experience. 

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15
On 10/6/2019 at 12:27 AM, Mukmuk said:

Just to clarify, Seth actually has better all-around growths than all of the cavaliers you get in the game. If this isn't a troll I don't know what this is. 

Yes i was trolling slightly hahaha. For a pre-promote he does ok and is relevant all the way till end of story mode. But for me, the way i play the game is to the very end game, so i do rate characters based on their utmost, final potential. This is probably why most of our views are mis-aligned, although I cannot say I disagree with where you're coming from :).

Joshua is sword-locked in an enemy-phase game. He's certainly no Rutger because the passive CRIT is lowered. Fun fact: he'll only have on average around 13 strength at a Lvl 20 myrmidon. Obviously you got very lucky with your Joshua. 

True, very true. But unit archetypes that are locked to a single weapon with high crit rate ( Berserker, Swordmaster, Wyvern Knights) are given the innate tools to *efficiently* mitigate weapon disadvantages. Our experiences would definitely differ for sure, but a swordmaster Joshua often has no problems fending off hordes of promoted gargoyles and wyvern knights with his crits.. he may get nicked abit, but he can slaughter them. Similar parallels can be drawn with a berserker Ross tossed in against a horde of sword-users..the disadvantages are still there, but can easily be overcome. My *biased* opinion is that the weapon lock is an obstacle, but a small issue in the bigger scope of things to Joshua's capability of not getting hit and hitting like a truck full of trucks lol. haha, my joshua isnt as lucky as your Rutger XD

Tana is technically a better unit statistically than Vanessa, it's just her weak join time and Vanessa's easy availability and level lead that puts her over Tana. It's not like even in the endgame Vanessa's much worse than Tana statistically, you'll most likely be using both anyways. 

100% agree man. Totally see where you're coming from.

It's not about enjoyment of the game, Moulder is just strictly better than Natasha. He gets a level lead and that's the deciding factor between the two. I would agree with you that Natasha is underrated, but tier lists can't be made off personal experience. 

Agree, but also to a limited extent. Our play styles as mentioned above are definitely different and hence the way we invest in units will also reflect this. As much as moulder gets a stat lead, he really falls behind Natasha, who tops it up with high MAG and evasion= better healing and survivability with just abit of love and time. Although lacking in some skill, natasha's growths still make moulder's look quite lackluster. Throw in end game potential and the difference of the two differs even further (if you factor in post-game draco zombie fun) natasha's supports and overall harder-hitting stats just make her the more prominent choice... although like you said in story mode, she would have some catching up to do first! 🙂

 

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59 minutes ago, Rainvernova said:

True, very true. But unit archetypes that are locked to a single weapon with high crit rate ( Berserker, Swordmaster, Wyvern Knights) are given the innate tools to *efficiently* mitigate weapon disadvantages. Our experiences would definitely differ for sure, but a swordmaster Joshua often has no problems fending off hordes of promoted gargoyles and wyvern knights with his crits.. he may get nicked abit, but he can slaughter them. Similar parallels can be drawn with a berserker Ross tossed in against a horde of sword-users..the disadvantages are still there, but can easily be overcome. My *biased* opinion is that the weapon lock is an obstacle, but a small issue in the bigger scope of things to Joshua's capability of not getting hit and hitting like a truck full of trucks lol. haha, my joshua isnt as lucky as your Rutger XD

The thing is, being weapon locked is still far from ideal. And in Joshua's case, there's still nothing he can do the moment an archer or such comes a knocking.

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