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During my latest Maddening run(AM), I recruited Caspar at chapter 11, made him a Wyvern, got him Death Blow and he still horribly underperformed compared to every single other physical fighters I had on my team. All he could do was chucking a hand/short axe with 60% hit rate from 2 space away for chip damage because every time I tried to have him fight stuff with Axe at close range he either ended up dead or barely made it out alive, the lack of a forced double attack CA outside of gauntlet and mediocre speed stat made it hard for him to secure a slot as an additional flier on my team.

I seriously failed to understand how so many people praised late recruit Caspar because imo he still requires a lot of investment to become usable. A Grappler Caspar with Deathblow + Bombard + High Str C rank Battalion could ORKO some of the squishier enemies mid game but Alois could do the same with One-Two Punch except that he needs a lot less investment and outputs more damage than Caspar. 

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I thought I may as well do my own list while things are fresh in my mind. The Rules are Silver Snow Maddening, classic no NG+. Definitely not LTC or Iron Man. Divine Pulse is allowed. No DLC, no online/amiibo bonuses, no save scumming for stat boosters (save scumming for other things is allowed, such as class exams or resetting the game for a better Turn 1, we're only humans), no gratuitous grinding (such as spamming rusted weapons on priests with renewal for 90 turns, but auxilliary battles are not banned in general). While some characters make great adjutants, for this list I only consider a unit for their performance when deployed. Units are ranked within tiers, but I didn't fuss too hard about horizontal placements.

Tier List

Explanations

Spoiler

Top Tier

-Byleth: Obviously top tier. Great starting stats, exclusive access to faculty/advanced training. The Crest of Flames is one of the best crests to have. Enlightened One is a decent mid game class. Sword of the Creator seems a lot more great than its stats suggest when the game showers umbral steel on you. And he gains +20% more experience while providing the same buff to adjacent allies. When it comes to gender, I think they’re equally matched. F!Byleth’s access to Pegasus knight gives her a solid edge in the early-mid game where fliers can really subvert some difficult objectives, while M!Byleth’s performance as a Grappler/War Master is about as good as you can get for the mid-late game. 

 

High tier

- Felix: Just another war master with the best crest for the job and makes full use of Aegis Shield for better bulk. Nothing to complain about here other than his lack of personal skill and authority bane. With some moderate instruction he can make B Authority by the end of the game assuming his recruitment wasn’t too late.

-Ingrid: She only takes five faculty sessions (or four if you’re willing to save scum for Greats) in order to recruit, and joins with far better stats than she’d obtain in Blue Lions. Her Crest is good, her combat arts are worth pushing for, and her relic is received early on and is the golden, easy to repair variety.

-Alois: Similar to Seteth, great skills ranks and stats. Basically he’s Dedue/Raphael/Caspar with none of the early game investment or frustrations. He will have immediate access to Healing Focus, Batallion Wrath, and Rally Strength. He also picks up One-Two Punch fairly fast which destroys sword wielding enemies. Between that combat art and quick riposte, he won’t ever be doubled again. Alternatively, if you care to stack wraths with retribution and pick up Vantage he can tear through maps on his own with constant 100 crit.

-Seteth: Good bulk and even better skill ranks. But as a Chapter 12 recruit lagging behind your roster by 3 or 4 levels, you have almost no time to grab class masteries or experience. At base he’ll provide Rally Defense and gambits for Chapter 13, but is unlikely to contribute much else. Stick with him until you can get swift strikes and he scales very well into late game between that and his crest providing a windsweep effect on combat arts 50% of the time.

-Petra: Great early game compared to other students due to simply avoiding doubles, and RNG is really the only thing that can ruin her scaling into late game. Petra has no crest nor worthwhile combat arts, setting her apart from other would-be fliers, but she’s obviously very good and will be with you from the start.

-Leonie: Recruit!Leonie trades a lot of speed for strength compared to the GD version, but it’s a great trade in my opinion. Point-Blank Volley on a flying class allows her to be a mobile assassin, but unlike Snipers she could be in trouble if that combat art doesn’t kill which could be often in the late game. At least Seteth’s version of the move has a 50% chance of nulling counterattacks.

 

Mid Tier

-Linhardt: The only unit with access to both Warp and Physic. And restore is game changing when somebody gets clocked by a sudden 30 hit gambit. Once he’s a Bishop with a healing staff, he will have his full build as a dedicated support unit. He has issues, like middling power attacking spells, low speed and charm, and bad proficiencies for picking up armor knight bases, but none of them impact his role. His crest is also excellent, especially for early game.

-Sylvain: Swift Strikes and a crest that can increase its power by another 10. Lightning Axe is a good pick up too. Probably the best Paladin/Great Knight, but those classes have little going for them beyond lancefaire, especially with the prevalence of stairs in final maps.

-Ferdinand: Sort of a baby seteth I guess. Same crest, same swift strikes. Seal Speed/Shatter slash is clutch in the Sothis paralogue. I also enjoyed using the Spear of Assal to keep his health up and personal skill activated.

-Shamir: Snipers are excellent units, and her personal makes her even better with the dancer she is presumably walking around with. Stat growths will make her pretty frail as the game goes on, and her combat art list is bad, but she has the fastest access to Hunter’s Volley where the only stats that will matter long term are Str and Dex.

-Ignatz: Good stats, and recruitment is pretty free since he only asks for authority. Break shot is nice, and his personal ability is fantastic. Ignatz can stack both Hit +20s, but a unit with that much Dex has no need of both unless he goes bow knight or if you're really afraid of gambits missing. Personally I stick with Sniper, since Hunter's Volley already has +15 hit to help cover the cost of firing at longbow range. Not having to equip Hit +20 frees up a slot for a luxury skill like Rally Speed or Bow Crit +10. 

-Bernadetta: Very good combat arts in Vengeance, Encloser, and Deadeye to bait enemies safely in early game. Her level 1 stats are pretty atrocious, easily the worst of any physical fighter besides Caspar. And her access to a crest hurts as much as it helps, when relic recoil would help activate her personal and improve her Vengeance nuking. Snipers truly don’t need much to be effective, but as a level 1 unit, Bernie has the highest likelihood of turning out wrong.

-Flayn: Rescue is easily as helpful as warp when you factor in the higher amount of charges. Seriously, it saves so many repositions or divine pulses when you get a bad roll dodging a gambit. And Fortify can patch up her lack of physic and recover by being both at once. Her crest is excellent. Combat potential is low, but combat mages in general underperform in maddening. Frozen Lance might be worth grinding too since she lacks a nuke spell.

-Lysithea: As a recruit, she actually gets access to warp the slowest of the three warpers. One shotting enemies is possible in the early to mid game, but it won’t last. She has neither recover, nor physic. With unlimited grinding allowed I might rank her higher, since her personal encourages that, and Hit +20 really addresses accuracy issues. Other physical class bases in strength, HP, and def would certainly help Thyrsus’ pavise/aegis procs to be relevant in keeping her alive.

-Manuela: No access to recover, physic, or fortify hurts her potential as a dedicated support unit. Reason weakness also hurts her other class options. And she has no access to Dancer which would have been optimal. But Manuela does have warp, and a mean hexblade. Ward is also free experience any turn she can’t be doing something more useful, which will hopefully lead to attaining more Warp range and better gambits to support in that way. Not a great unit, but there's no use getting upset about another source of Warp who is free to recruit.

-Caspar: awful level 1 stats leading to a very poor early game. But as a puncher he really just needs strength +2, death blow, and bombard to start one rounding enemies and keep doing that into late game provided he doesn’t get strength screwed. His personal also helps not only him but your teammates with accuracy which is a breath of fresh air with the other punchers’ lack of useable personal skill.

-Raphael benefits a lot from recruitment stats and it’s nice not having to deal with his early game woes. Altogether a decent replacement for an underperforming Caspar, but Alois makes for very stiff competition for his role, having better combat arts, likely better stats across the board, and better skill ranks.

 

Low Tier

-Catherine: In other routes, Catherine can tear up the early-mid game and have enough time to grab skill ranks and class masteries. Not so in Silver Snow. As a Chapter 12 recruit, her stats are great (25 str, 30 speed, that is actually better than my level 40 Ferdinand), but it’ll be 3-4 chapters before she can get into assassin. And that’s assuming you neglect Death Blow, too. Her personal is also real bad.

-Ashe: Marginally less stats than Ignatz, and his only noteworthy combat art is deadeye which has little application outside of early maps. And unlike every other archer, no cool personal skill. He can work but he’s the worst of the litter. He also won’t return until Chapter 16, and I have no idea how many levels he gets while absent.

-Mercedes: Fortify, Physic, and Restore is an above average support loadout but in this route Linhardt and Flayn are free while providing those spells alongside warp and rescue. A decent choice if you just have to have another physic user alongside Linhardt, but nothing else worth noting.

-Lorenz: Recruit!Lorenz is pretty much stuck spamming frozen lances as a cavalier. And that in turn neglects his early access to Ragnarok. If you get him early, he can play a full mage where he stands out from other mages by having frontline ready bulk and being in position with recover for heavy duty healing and thyrsus for linked attack supports. He loses some points due to availability – not rejoining your party until chapter 17. I don’t know how many levels he gains, but my Lorenz rejoined just three levels behind my crew at 30 so it’s not a huge hindrance outside of the instruction sessions he misses. Useable, but this is not his best route.

-Marianne: Not the best faith loadout, and her reason list is really inaccurate – favoring crits against enemies that all have crit avoid. She’ll also start with E rank in reason with no strength in the skill unlike other magic users. Great magic combat arts though. They tend to address her lack of accuracy and damage.

-Dorothea: loses points hard for her atrocious early game performance. It is nearly impossible to get a basic healing spell before chapter 3 mission, and her only source of damage is four thunder charges. Assuming you use all four to pick up kills for her (at 70-80 accuracy against those early enemies, with linked attack bonuses), that only barely picks up one level up per battle. She falls behind quickly without access to the free experience that faith magic provides. She’s a heck of a dancer though. I know that’s treated like a non argument, but providing meteor linked attack supports, hexblade nukes, sword avoid dodge tanking, and the occasional physic makes her quite the swiss army knife in the latter half of the game. If you’re playing NG+, make her an adjutant so you don’t have to deal with her early performance.

-Annette: A combat mage focusing on wind magic, yippee. I think she’s much more useful in BL’s early game than she’d ever be here. And if you prefer Wyvern Annette, her recruited version is stuck with E+ axes so good luck getting there. Seems to require too much investment compared to other units.

Bottom Tier

-Hanneman: Great reason loadout but his lacking speed can be a real problem. The only enemy type I count on mages to deal with is armor knights, but Hanneman tends to need speed boosters just to secure the double on them since they actually have AS. Plus if you want meteor linked attack support, Dorothea is already on your roster in this route. Being able to use Thyrsus without recoil is not a good trade off for hexblade when comparing against her.

-Hilda: Chapter 12 recruitment and an authority bane. Between her lack of authority, flying ranks, and class masteries she just needs way too much tutoring before she can get the essentials – let alone compete with anybody in your roster. And even if you do get her, you’re past the easiest maps in the game so the transition cannot be smooth.

-Cyril: For all the bad things to say about Cyril, this is his worst route due to his chapter 12 recruitment. Compared to Hilda, he has 11 less strength, no personal skill to help his combat, and doesn’t match other recruitable physical units in any stat. SS!Cyril is the least viable unit in Three Houses. And that’s a shame since this is the route where he has the most to fight for.

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

I thought I may as well do my own list while things are fresh in my mind. The Rules are Silver Snow Maddening, classic no NG+. Definitely not LTC or Iron Man. Divine Pulse is allowed. No DLC, no online/amiibo bonuses, no save scumming for stat boosters (save scumming for other things is allowed, such as class exams or resetting the game for a better Turn 1, we're only humans), no gratuitous grinding (such as spamming rusted weapons on priests with renewal for 90 turns, but auxilliary battles are not banned in general). While some characters make great adjutants, for this list I only consider a unit for their performance when deployed. Units are ranked within tiers, but I didn't fuss too hard about horizontal placements.

Tier List

Explanations

  Reveal hidden contents

Top Tier

-Byleth: Obviously top tier. Great starting stats, exclusive access to faculty/advanced training. The Crest of Flames is one of the best crests to have. Enlightened One is a decent mid game class. Sword of the Creator seems a lot more great than its stats suggest when the game showers umbral steel on you. And he gains +20% more experience while providing the same buff to adjacent allies. When it comes to gender, I think they’re equally matched. F!Byleth’s access to Pegasus knight gives her a solid edge in the early-mid game where fliers can really subvert some difficult objectives, while M!Byleth’s performance as a Grappler/War Master is about as good as you can get for the mid-late game. 

 

High tier

- Felix: Just another war master with the best crest for the job and makes full use of Aegis Shield for better bulk. Nothing to complain about here other than his lack of personal skill and authority bane. With some moderate instruction he can make B Authority by the end of the game assuming his recruitment wasn’t too late.

-Ingrid: She only takes five faculty sessions (or four if you’re willing to save scum for Greats) in order to recruit, and joins with far better stats than she’d obtain in Blue Lions. Her Crest is good, her combat arts are worth pushing for, and her relic is received early on and is the golden, easy to repair variety.

-Alois: Similar to Seteth, great skills ranks and stats. Basically he’s Dedue/Raphael/Caspar with none of the early game investment or frustrations. He will have immediate access to Healing Focus, Batallion Wrath, and Rally Strength. He also picks up One-Two Punch fairly fast which destroys sword wielding enemies. Between that combat art and quick riposte, he won’t ever be doubled again. Alternatively, if you care to stack wraths with retribution and pick up Vantage he can tear through maps on his own with constant 100 crit.

-Seteth: Good bulk and even better skill ranks. But as a Chapter 12 recruit lagging behind your roster by 3 or 4 levels, you have almost no time to grab class masteries or experience. At base he’ll provide Rally Defense and gambits for Chapter 13, but is unlikely to contribute much else. Stick with him until you can get swift strikes and he scales very well into late game between that and his crest providing a windsweep effect on combat arts 50% of the time.

-Petra: Great early game compared to other students due to simply avoiding doubles, and RNG is really the only thing that can ruin her scaling into late game. Petra has no crest nor worthwhile combat arts, setting her apart from other would-be fliers, but she’s obviously very good and will be with you from the start.

-Leonie: Recruit!Leonie trades a lot of speed for strength compared to the GD version, but it’s a great trade in my opinion. Point-Blank Volley on a flying class allows her to be a mobile assassin, but unlike Snipers she could be in trouble if that combat art doesn’t kill which could be often in the late game. At least Seteth’s version of the move has a 50% chance of nulling counterattacks.

 

Mid Tier

-Linhardt: The only unit with access to both Warp and Physic. And restore is game changing when somebody gets clocked by a sudden 30 hit gambit. Once he’s a Bishop with a healing staff, he will have his full build as a dedicated support unit. He has issues, like middling power attacking spells, low speed and charm, and bad proficiencies for picking up armor knight bases, but none of them impact his role. His crest is also excellent, especially for early game.

-Sylvain: Swift Strikes and a crest that can increase its power by another 10. Lightning Axe is a good pick up too. Probably the best Paladin/Great Knight, but those classes have little going for them beyond lancefaire, especially with the prevalence of stairs in final maps.

-Ferdinand: Sort of a baby seteth I guess. Same crest, same swift strikes. Seal Speed/Shatter slash is clutch in the Sothis paralogue. I also enjoyed using the Spear of Assal to keep his health up and personal skill activated.

-Shamir: Snipers are excellent units, and her personal makes her even better with the dancer she is presumably walking around with. Stat growths will make her pretty frail as the game goes on, and her combat art list is bad, but she has the fastest access to Hunter’s Volley where the only stats that will matter long term are Str and Dex.

-Ignatz: Good stats, and recruitment is pretty free since he only asks for authority. Break shot is nice, and his personal ability is fantastic. Ignatz can stack both Hit +20s, but a unit with that much Dex has no need of both unless he goes bow knight or if you're really afraid of gambits missing. Personally I stick with Sniper, since Hunter's Volley already has +15 hit to help cover the cost of firing at longbow range. Not having to equip Hit +20 frees up a slot for a luxury skill like Rally Speed or Bow Crit +10. 

-Bernadetta: Very good combat arts in Vengeance, Encloser, and Deadeye to bait enemies safely in early game. Her level 1 stats are pretty atrocious, easily the worst of any physical fighter besides Caspar. And her access to a crest hurts as much as it helps, when relic recoil would help activate her personal and improve her Vengeance nuking. Snipers truly don’t need much to be effective, but as a level 1 unit, Bernie has the highest likelihood of turning out wrong.

-Flayn: Rescue is easily as helpful as warp when you factor in the higher amount of charges. Seriously, it saves so many repositions or divine pulses when you get a bad roll dodging a gambit. And Fortify can patch up her lack of physic and recover by being both at once. Her crest is excellent. Combat potential is low, but combat mages in general underperform in maddening. Frozen Lance might be worth grinding too since she lacks a nuke spell.

-Lysithea: As a recruit, she actually gets access to warp the slowest of the three warpers. One shotting enemies is possible in the early to mid game, but it won’t last. She has neither recover, nor physic. With unlimited grinding allowed I might rank her higher, since her personal encourages that, and Hit +20 really addresses accuracy issues. Other physical class bases in strength, HP, and def would certainly help Thyrsus’ pavise/aegis procs to be relevant in keeping her alive.

-Manuela: No access to recover, physic, or fortify hurts her potential as a dedicated support unit. Reason weakness also hurts her other class options. And she has no access to Dancer which would have been optimal. But Manuela does have warp, and a mean hexblade. Ward is also free experience any turn she can’t be doing something more useful, which will hopefully lead to attaining more Warp range and better gambits to support in that way. Not a great unit, but there's no use getting upset about another source of Warp who is free to recruit.

-Caspar: awful level 1 stats leading to a very poor early game. But as a puncher he really just needs strength +2, death blow, and bombard to start one rounding enemies and keep doing that into late game provided he doesn’t get strength screwed. His personal also helps not only him but your teammates with accuracy which is a breath of fresh air with the other punchers’ lack of useable personal skill.

-Raphael benefits a lot from recruitment stats and it’s nice not having to deal with his early game woes. Altogether a decent replacement for an underperforming Caspar, but Alois makes for very stiff competition for his role, having better combat arts, likely better stats across the board, and better skill ranks.

 

Low Tier

-Catherine: In other routes, Catherine can tear up the early-mid game and have enough time to grab skill ranks and class masteries. Not so in Silver Snow. As a Chapter 12 recruit, her stats are great (25 str, 30 speed, that is actually better than my level 40 Ferdinand), but it’ll be 3-4 chapters before she can get into assassin. And that’s assuming you neglect Death Blow, too. Her personal is also real bad.

-Ashe: Marginally less stats than Ignatz, and his only noteworthy combat art is deadeye which has little application outside of early maps. And unlike every other archer, no cool personal skill. He can work but he’s the worst of the litter. He also won’t return until Chapter 16, and I have no idea how many levels he gets while absent.

-Mercedes: Fortify, Physic, and Restore is an above average support loadout but in this route Linhardt and Flayn are free while providing those spells alongside warp and rescue. A decent choice if you just have to have another physic user alongside Linhardt, but nothing else worth noting.

-Lorenz: Recruit!Lorenz is pretty much stuck spamming frozen lances as a cavalier. And that in turn neglects his early access to Ragnarok. If you get him early, he can play a full mage where he stands out from other mages by having frontline ready bulk and being in position with recover for heavy duty healing and thyrsus for linked attack supports. He loses some points due to availability – not rejoining your party until chapter 17. I don’t know how many levels he gains, but my Lorenz rejoined just three levels behind my crew at 30 so it’s not a huge hindrance outside of the instruction sessions he misses. Useable, but this is not his best route.

-Marianne: Not the best faith loadout, and her reason list is really inaccurate – favoring crits against enemies that all have crit avoid. She’ll also start with E rank in reason with no strength in the skill unlike other magic users. Great magic combat arts though. They tend to address her lack of accuracy and damage.

-Dorothea: loses points hard for her atrocious early game performance. It is nearly impossible to get a basic healing spell before chapter 3 mission, and her only source of damage is four thunder charges. Assuming you use all four to pick up kills for her (at 70-80 accuracy against those early enemies, with linked attack bonuses), that only barely picks up one level up per battle. She falls behind quickly without access to the free experience that faith magic provides. She’s a heck of a dancer though. I know that’s treated like a non argument, but providing meteor linked attack supports, hexblade nukes, sword avoid dodge tanking, and the occasional physic makes her quite the swiss army knife in the latter half of the game. If you’re playing NG+, make her an adjutant so you don’t have to deal with her early performance.

-Annette: A combat mage focusing on wind magic, yippee. I think she’s much more useful in BL’s early game than she’d ever be here. And if you prefer Wyvern Annette, her recruited version is stuck with E+ axes so good luck getting there. Seems to require too much investment compared to other units.

Bottom Tier

-Hanneman: Great reason loadout but his lacking speed can be a real problem. The only enemy type I count on mages to deal with is armor knights, but Hanneman tends to need speed boosters just to secure the double on them since they actually have AS. Plus if you want meteor linked attack support, Dorothea is already on your roster in this route. Being able to use Thyrsus without recoil is not a good trade off for hexblade when comparing against her.

-Hilda: Chapter 12 recruitment and an authority bane. Between her lack of authority, flying ranks, and class masteries she just needs way too much tutoring before she can get the essentials – let alone compete with anybody in your roster. And even if you do get her, you’re past the easiest maps in the game so the transition cannot be smooth.

-Cyril: For all the bad things to say about Cyril, this is his worst route due to his chapter 12 recruitment. Compared to Hilda, he has 11 less strength, no personal skill to help his combat, and doesn’t match other recruitable physical units in any stat. SS!Cyril is the least viable unit in Three Houses. And that’s a shame since this is the route where he has the most to fight for.

 

 

It seems that there is a huge empathize on war master and a unit's placement is determined on whether if they can be a good war master or not. I think your tier list is accurate if war master was the best class; however, it is commonly agreed that wyvern lord/falcon knight is the best. 

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1 hour ago, leesangstar10 said:

It seems that there is a huge empathize on war master and a unit's placement is determined on whether if they can be a good war master or not. I think your tier list is accurate if war master was the best class; however, it is commonly agreed that wyvern lord/falcon knight is the best. 

Falcon Knight/Wyvern Lords take up the #1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 slots and nothing lower than that. How am I not emphasizing fliers? There isn't a single unit I consider for flier within the bottom two thirds of the roster. Except I guess Hilda and Cyril, but their placements ought to be understandable due to the route.

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2 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

I thought I may as well do my own list while things are fresh in my mind. The Rules are Silver Snow Maddening, classic no NG+. Definitely not LTC or Iron Man. Divine Pulse is allowed. No DLC, no online/amiibo bonuses, no save scumming for stat boosters (save scumming for other things is allowed, such as class exams or resetting the game for a better Turn 1, we're only humans), no gratuitous grinding (such as spamming rusted weapons on priests with renewal for 90 turns, but auxilliary battles are not banned in general). While some characters make great adjutants, for this list I only consider a unit for their performance when deployed. Units are ranked within tiers, but I didn't fuss too hard about horizontal placements.

Tier List

Explanations

  Hide contents

Top Tier

-Byleth: Obviously top tier. Great starting stats, exclusive access to faculty/advanced training. The Crest of Flames is one of the best crests to have. Enlightened One is a decent mid game class. Sword of the Creator seems a lot more great than its stats suggest when the game showers umbral steel on you. And he gains +20% more experience while providing the same buff to adjacent allies. When it comes to gender, I think they’re equally matched. F!Byleth’s access to Pegasus knight gives her a solid edge in the early-mid game where fliers can really subvert some difficult objectives, while M!Byleth’s performance as a Grappler/War Master is about as good as you can get for the mid-late game. 

 

High tier

- Felix: Just another war master with the best crest for the job and makes full use of Aegis Shield for better bulk. Nothing to complain about here other than his lack of personal skill and authority bane. With some moderate instruction he can make B Authority by the end of the game assuming his recruitment wasn’t too late.

-Ingrid: She only takes five faculty sessions (or four if you’re willing to save scum for Greats) in order to recruit, and joins with far better stats than she’d obtain in Blue Lions. Her Crest is good, her combat arts are worth pushing for, and her relic is received early on and is the golden, easy to repair variety.

-Alois: Similar to Seteth, great skills ranks and stats. Basically he’s Dedue/Raphael/Caspar with none of the early game investment or frustrations. He will have immediate access to Healing Focus, Batallion Wrath, and Rally Strength. He also picks up One-Two Punch fairly fast which destroys sword wielding enemies. Between that combat art and quick riposte, he won’t ever be doubled again. Alternatively, if you care to stack wraths with retribution and pick up Vantage he can tear through maps on his own with constant 100 crit.

-Seteth: Good bulk and even better skill ranks. But as a Chapter 12 recruit lagging behind your roster by 3 or 4 levels, you have almost no time to grab class masteries or experience. At base he’ll provide Rally Defense and gambits for Chapter 13, but is unlikely to contribute much else. Stick with him until you can get swift strikes and he scales very well into late game between that and his crest providing a windsweep effect on combat arts 50% of the time.

-Petra: Great early game compared to other students due to simply avoiding doubles, and RNG is really the only thing that can ruin her scaling into late game. Petra has no crest nor worthwhile combat arts, setting her apart from other would-be fliers, but she’s obviously very good and will be with you from the start.

-Leonie: Recruit!Leonie trades a lot of speed for strength compared to the GD version, but it’s a great trade in my opinion. Point-Blank Volley on a flying class allows her to be a mobile assassin, but unlike Snipers she could be in trouble if that combat art doesn’t kill which could be often in the late game. At least Seteth’s version of the move has a 50% chance of nulling counterattacks.

 

Mid Tier

-Linhardt: The only unit with access to both Warp and Physic. And restore is game changing when somebody gets clocked by a sudden 30 hit gambit. Once he’s a Bishop with a healing staff, he will have his full build as a dedicated support unit. He has issues, like middling power attacking spells, low speed and charm, and bad proficiencies for picking up armor knight bases, but none of them impact his role. His crest is also excellent, especially for early game.

-Sylvain: Swift Strikes and a crest that can increase its power by another 10. Lightning Axe is a good pick up too. Probably the best Paladin/Great Knight, but those classes have little going for them beyond lancefaire, especially with the prevalence of stairs in final maps.

-Ferdinand: Sort of a baby seteth I guess. Same crest, same swift strikes. Seal Speed/Shatter slash is clutch in the Sothis paralogue. I also enjoyed using the Spear of Assal to keep his health up and personal skill activated.

-Shamir: Snipers are excellent units, and her personal makes her even better with the dancer she is presumably walking around with. Stat growths will make her pretty frail as the game goes on, and her combat art list is bad, but she has the fastest access to Hunter’s Volley where the only stats that will matter long term are Str and Dex.

-Ignatz: Good stats, and recruitment is pretty free since he only asks for authority. Break shot is nice, and his personal ability is fantastic. Ignatz can stack both Hit +20s, but a unit with that much Dex has no need of both unless he goes bow knight or if you're really afraid of gambits missing. Personally I stick with Sniper, since Hunter's Volley already has +15 hit to help cover the cost of firing at longbow range. Not having to equip Hit +20 frees up a slot for a luxury skill like Rally Speed or Bow Crit +10. 

-Bernadetta: Very good combat arts in Vengeance, Encloser, and Deadeye to bait enemies safely in early game. Her level 1 stats are pretty atrocious, easily the worst of any physical fighter besides Caspar. And her access to a crest hurts as much as it helps, when relic recoil would help activate her personal and improve her Vengeance nuking. Snipers truly don’t need much to be effective, but as a level 1 unit, Bernie has the highest likelihood of turning out wrong.

-Flayn: Rescue is easily as helpful as warp when you factor in the higher amount of charges. Seriously, it saves so many repositions or divine pulses when you get a bad roll dodging a gambit. And Fortify can patch up her lack of physic and recover by being both at once. Her crest is excellent. Combat potential is low, but combat mages in general underperform in maddening. Frozen Lance might be worth grinding too since she lacks a nuke spell.

-Lysithea: As a recruit, she actually gets access to warp the slowest of the three warpers. One shotting enemies is possible in the early to mid game, but it won’t last. She has neither recover, nor physic. With unlimited grinding allowed I might rank her higher, since her personal encourages that, and Hit +20 really addresses accuracy issues. Other physical class bases in strength, HP, and def would certainly help Thyrsus’ pavise/aegis procs to be relevant in keeping her alive.

-Manuela: No access to recover, physic, or fortify hurts her potential as a dedicated support unit. Reason weakness also hurts her other class options. And she has no access to Dancer which would have been optimal. But Manuela does have warp, and a mean hexblade. Ward is also free experience any turn she can’t be doing something more useful, which will hopefully lead to attaining more Warp range and better gambits to support in that way. Not a great unit, but there's no use getting upset about another source of Warp who is free to recruit.

-Caspar: awful level 1 stats leading to a very poor early game. But as a puncher he really just needs strength +2, death blow, and bombard to start one rounding enemies and keep doing that into late game provided he doesn’t get strength screwed. His personal also helps not only him but your teammates with accuracy which is a breath of fresh air with the other punchers’ lack of useable personal skill.

-Raphael benefits a lot from recruitment stats and it’s nice not having to deal with his early game woes. Altogether a decent replacement for an underperforming Caspar, but Alois makes for very stiff competition for his role, having better combat arts, likely better stats across the board, and better skill ranks.

 

Low Tier

-Catherine: In other routes, Catherine can tear up the early-mid game and have enough time to grab skill ranks and class masteries. Not so in Silver Snow. As a Chapter 12 recruit, her stats are great (25 str, 30 speed, that is actually better than my level 40 Ferdinand), but it’ll be 3-4 chapters before she can get into assassin. And that’s assuming you neglect Death Blow, too. Her personal is also real bad.

-Ashe: Marginally less stats than Ignatz, and his only noteworthy combat art is deadeye which has little application outside of early maps. And unlike every other archer, no cool personal skill. He can work but he’s the worst of the litter. He also won’t return until Chapter 16, and I have no idea how many levels he gets while absent.

-Mercedes: Fortify, Physic, and Restore is an above average support loadout but in this route Linhardt and Flayn are free while providing those spells alongside warp and rescue. A decent choice if you just have to have another physic user alongside Linhardt, but nothing else worth noting.

-Lorenz: Recruit!Lorenz is pretty much stuck spamming frozen lances as a cavalier. And that in turn neglects his early access to Ragnarok. If you get him early, he can play a full mage where he stands out from other mages by having frontline ready bulk and being in position with recover for heavy duty healing and thyrsus for linked attack supports. He loses some points due to availability – not rejoining your party until chapter 17. I don’t know how many levels he gains, but my Lorenz rejoined just three levels behind my crew at 30 so it’s not a huge hindrance outside of the instruction sessions he misses. Useable, but this is not his best route.

-Marianne: Not the best faith loadout, and her reason list is really inaccurate – favoring crits against enemies that all have crit avoid. She’ll also start with E rank in reason with no strength in the skill unlike other magic users. Great magic combat arts though. They tend to address her lack of accuracy and damage.

-Dorothea: loses points hard for her atrocious early game performance. It is nearly impossible to get a basic healing spell before chapter 3 mission, and her only source of damage is four thunder charges. Assuming you use all four to pick up kills for her (at 70-80 accuracy against those early enemies, with linked attack bonuses), that only barely picks up one level up per battle. She falls behind quickly without access to the free experience that faith magic provides. She’s a heck of a dancer though. I know that’s treated like a non argument, but providing meteor linked attack supports, hexblade nukes, sword avoid dodge tanking, and the occasional physic makes her quite the swiss army knife in the latter half of the game. If you’re playing NG+, make her an adjutant so you don’t have to deal with her early performance.

-Annette: A combat mage focusing on wind magic, yippee. I think she’s much more useful in BL’s early game than she’d ever be here. And if you prefer Wyvern Annette, her recruited version is stuck with E+ axes so good luck getting there. Seems to require too much investment compared to other units.

Bottom Tier

-Hanneman: Great reason loadout but his lacking speed can be a real problem. The only enemy type I count on mages to deal with is armor knights, but Hanneman tends to need speed boosters just to secure the double on them since they actually have AS. Plus if you want meteor linked attack support, Dorothea is already on your roster in this route. Being able to use Thyrsus without recoil is not a good trade off for hexblade when comparing against her.

-Hilda: Chapter 12 recruitment and an authority bane. Between her lack of authority, flying ranks, and class masteries she just needs way too much tutoring before she can get the essentials – let alone compete with anybody in your roster. And even if you do get her, you’re past the easiest maps in the game so the transition cannot be smooth.

-Cyril: For all the bad things to say about Cyril, this is his worst route due to his chapter 12 recruitment. Compared to Hilda, he has 11 less strength, no personal skill to help his combat, and doesn’t match other recruitable physical units in any stat. SS!Cyril is the least viable unit in Three Houses. And that’s a shame since this is the route where he has the most to fight for.

 

 

I haven't done SS on maddening, but the placements of the BE students should be very similar to their CF counterparts, and judging by that i pretty much almost completely agree with this, just would move Linhardt (and maybe Lysithea if you support grind to recruit her super early) since warp is so good, especially for the fort merceus map, routing that is so bad, Ferdinand should be A, as you said he's Seteth lite but it's basically a Jill/Haar or Wolf/Sedgar situation where one is worse, but worse is still amazing. If you have female Byleth, Sylvain is basically the same unit as Ferdinand and should be a tier higher with him. SS wyverns or Paladins are great. Obv M-Byleth sylvain is Mid. Hanneman should probably be with the other mages since his doubling issues only exist for 5 levels since the Warlock speed base of 14 lets his speed growth allow him to double, and then he's just a mage with a riding bane so he's above average for mages. Dedue S tier for having 50 prt as a green unit

 

17 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Falcon Knight/Wyvern Lords take up the #1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 slots and nothing lower than that. How am I not emphasizing fliers? There isn't a single unit I consider for flier within the bottom two thirds of the roster. Except I guess Hilda and Cyril, but their placements ought to be understandable due to the route.

Fliers very epic and the best class, but a lot of people seem to sleep on some of the infantry classes for some reason, and ofc Assasin is inferior to WL in every way apart from speed, which FK is equal in, but WM has some actual advantages over those classes that make it stand out as the best (or second best depending on how much you value bishop) Infantry class in the game. Gaunlets are probably the second best weapon type in the game behind bows, and it has the highest str modifier of any class. Crit +20 is unique to it and it has hands down the best mastery skill in the game. Fortress Knight also has some cool niches to it that fliers don't have.

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8 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

My thoughts:

-Ingrid's stats when recruited aren't that great. When recruited in Chapter 6, this is what Ingrid's stats look like. 13 Base Strength is rather lackluster, especially when compared to other recruitable units such as Felix or Leonie who have Speed on par with her. Her combat arts aren't anything special as Hit and Run doesn't give enough avoid to consistently dodge attack and Frozen Lance hardly does any damage due to her low magic, never mind how it's locked to A Lances. About the only thing that's notable about her is the flight boon for an easier time for obtaining Alert Stance, but it takes too long to get considering that she doesn't autolevel flight.

-Alois is likewise too high up one the list. While he requires no investment to be a good Grappler / Warmaster, he'll be lacking skills such as Deathblow or Strength +2, which makes a huge difference when wielding Gauntlets. One Two Punch is also not that great by the time he shows up since Grapplers are picking up Fierce Iron Fist, which is usually the better option between the two. Quick Riposte also takes quite a while to master and won't be in play for most of his deployments, so speed is a big issue for him. Stacking Crit on him is also not exclusive to him, as any unit with Battalion Wrath is capable of doing the same. 

-I'm not sure why Ferdinand and Sylvain are in Mid tier when they have easy access to both Swift Strikes, especially when the latter has an easy time promoting into Wyvern Rider due to his autoleveled Weapon Ranks. Ferdinand is also has the capability of acting as dedicated dodgetank with just the regular version of Alert Stance thanks to his personal, though is admittedly is a bit unreliable with it.

- Shamir also belongs in High Tier as she arrives with a higher base Strength than pretty much any other unit by that point and Speed stops mattering for her the moment she hits Hunter's Volley. 

-On the other hand, Ignatz belongs more in Low tier. Break shot is useful early game when units are incapable of one rounding, but by the time he's easily recruitable that is no longer the case with many unit picking up Deathblow and being able to one round enemies. Against Monsters it is also unnecessary as they're easily taken out by units with Killer Knuckles, as the majority of monster have 0 Luck and are critted quite frequently as a result . Rally Speed is a good boon, but if Rallying is what's needed, Annette is substantially more better at that role. 

- Lysithea doesn't take that long to learn Warp, especially when considering Mastermind. Like with that skill, she gets +7 White Magic Exp for a simple heal spell. Do that 20 times, and that's 140 White Magic Exp right there. And she only needs 640 Skill exp to reach Warp. Combine that with her high Magic Growth and her autoleveled Magic as a recruit, she should be in High tier.

- Caspar should most certainly go to bottom tier, especially on any of the Black Eagles route. With 6 Base Speed and 9 Base Strength means that he is going to be doubled by pretty much every earlygame enemy if carrying anything heavier than Training Gauntlets, which is rather bad since that's the only way he's dealing any decent damage. His problems are fixed with class bases and masteries, but to give some perspective of how middling his stats are, here's comparison between a Level 20 Average Grappler Caspar and Ch 6 Recruited Rapheal. Keep in mind that Grappler has a base Speed of 14 and a Class Mod of 3 Speed. Add to that his Authority Bane and he has a running for the worst student in the game.

- Annette should be bumped up to Mid tier. While she isn't spectacular as a mage, her rallies can be be very useful all game long by making things such as one rounding with brave Weapons / Arts, or allowing a Warmaster to out speed a monster and attack them with 4 times with Killer Knuckles possible.

- Hanneman should also be moved to Low tier. Warlock's Base 14 Speed alone ensures that the doubles most Armor Knights. Add to that Bullheads and a Speed ring for Great Knights, he'd have a use to there.

-Cyril should move to Mid Tier. While his stats are admittedly not impressive at first glance, his combat arts and Wyvern Rider Class mods still allow him capable of doing of things not many other units can claim. He can, for example, one round the Chapter 14 Falco Knights at base, which is pretty useful considering how dangerous they are. Vengeance also allows him to oneshot several enemies with the Blessing Gambit, which can pretty useful.   

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35 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

Caspar should most certainly go to bottom tier, especially on any of the Black Eagles route. With 6 Base Speed and 9 Base Strength means that he is going to be doubled by pretty much every earlygame enemy if carrying anything heavier than Training Gauntlets, which is rather bad since that's the only way he's dealing any decent damage. His problems are fixed with class bases and masteries, but to give some perspective of how middling his stats are, here's comparison between a Level 20 Average Grappler Caspar and Ch 6 Recruited Rapheal. Keep in mind that Grappler has a base Speed of 14 and a Class Mod of 3 Speed. Add to that his Authority Bane and he has a running for the worst student in the game.

Ouch. Who else is in the running for worst student in the game?

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I think this list's rating for mages is basically all wrong.

Let's start with Dorothea, which is probably my biggest disagreement. You spend a lot of time antihyping her start. I don't think it's that bad (and given how basically everyone else I know doing CF/SS Maddening runs uses her, including you apparently, I'm apparently not alone), but even if it is, so what? You still use her in the forced aux fight + Chapter 2 because you have no other choice, then in Chapter 3 she has Thoron and Heal and is doing fine. You can't actually recruit enough people to kick her out before she comes into her own, doubly so on SS where you'll obviously bench Hubert before her at minimum.

Then she has Thoron, Physic by Chapter 4, and Meteor around Chapter 9-10 or so, which is an amazing toolkit and makes her one of the most valuable spellcasting assets, whether she's a dancer or not.


Mercedes is better than Linhardt unless you really love Warp. She has better charm (+5 base, +20% growth), better speed (+3 base), better damage (+5% mag growth, learns Ragnarok instead of Excalibur), and a better personal skill. You're gonna be recruiting her whether or not you use her because you want the Rafail Gem.

Marianne is a bit worse but still definitely belongs higher than she is. Thoron + Physic, again, is great. However, she really needs to be recruited in Chapter 3-5 so she'll start with D reason and can get started on training that, since unlike Mercedes she doesn't auto-train Reason.

Flayn is definitely too high. Unlike Mercedes and Marianne she misses Physic, so she lacks useful things to do consistently (Rescue is only two uses as Priest and inherently situational anyway). She starts with E reason in Chapter 7 which is terrible for her offensive abilities compared to other spellcasters, and also means she will realistically never get Black Magic Range +1. Rescue is not game-changing enough, especially on a low-move character, to justify a high score; especially since fliers with Reposition all have a mini-Rescue of their own.


I would rank the mages as Mercedes ~= Dorothea > Lysithea ~= Linhardt ~= Marianne > Annette ~= Lorenz ~= Manuela > Flayn. Not sure about Hanneman but definitely towards the bottom, especially since the biggest name who benefits from his Meteor support isn't available on SS.


Alois (as LoneRecon400 mentioned) and to a lesser extent Seteth are too high. Both need catching up on the skills they've missed, and aren't as good as the high-end physical characters who are available earlier as a result (the rest of your High Tier, as well as Ferdinand and Sylvain, and probably Shamir as well). They also can't get Darting Blow and don't have great speed so even once they catch up on skills they won't look as good as a well-trained Petra, Felix, or Leonie, for instance.


Caspar (and to a lesser extent Raphael) being in the same tier as Ferdinand or Sylvain is silly, the latter two are just all-around better in most ways. I did a Ferdinand vs Caspar comparison somewhere else and it isn't pretty for Caspar. I'd definitely move both down a tier.


Not that it really matters (since they're the top tier unit on SS either way), but F!Byleth is definitely better than M!Byleth. Even with your extremely high opinion of War Masters, they aren't actually better than fliers by your own admission, just a lateral move. I don't think it's contraversial to say that Sniper/Bow Knight are at worst lateral options as well. Meanwhile, Pegasus Knight and Darting Blow access are appreciably better than the competition in Intermediate tier, regardless of your final plans for Byleth.

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1 hour ago, LoneRecon400 said:

My thoughts:

Quote

- Lysithea doesn't take that long to learn Warp, especially when considering Mastermind. Like with that skill, she gets +7 White Magic Exp for a simple heal spell. Do that 20 times, and that's 140 White Magic Exp right there. And she only needs 640 Skill exp to reach Warp. Combine that with her high Magic Growth and her autoleveled Magic as a recruit, she should be in High tier.

Lysithea would get warp faster if she had more than just the heal spell like other mages do. 100 heals isn't just a couple chapters, it's pretty much the whole game for a recruited unit who has access to physic. And if you're suggesting a scenario in which you grind, this tier list is no excessive grinding. Lysithea is stuck at 4 move, she won't keep up on exp from heal alone, nor from dealing chip damage with attacking spells. I did put her in the same tier as the other two warpers, which is really my main point with their placements. Lysithea's combat potential on its own wouldn't breach mid tier for me, but warp is a real X factor and she doesn't start with E authority like most other students.

Quote

- Caspar should most certainly go to bottom tier, especially on any of the Black Eagles route. With 6 Base Speed and 9 Base Strength means that he is going to be doubled by pretty much every earlygame enemy if carrying anything heavier than Training Gauntlets, which is rather bad since that's the only way he's dealing any decent damage. His problems are fixed with class bases and masteries, but to give some perspective of how middling his stats are, here's comparison between a Level 20 Average Grappler Caspar and Ch 6 Recruited Rapheal. Keep in mind that Grappler has a base Speed of 14 and a Class Mod of 3 Speed. Add to that his Authority Bane and he has a running for the worst student in the game.

I think if we were both asked to list Caspar's weaknesses, they would be identical lists. But we're clearly in disagreement over whether they're deal breakers. I also believe Caspar is in the running for worst student in the game (though my ultimate answer to that question is dorothea). Yes authority banes suck - I argue that more than anybody, but you have him from level 1, giving yourself time to deal with that naturally rather than having to instruct him. Yes his strength is lower than Raphael, but it's really 3 more than what you see since he has Bombard and Raphael does not. Yes his early game is atrocious, but we're talking about the Black Eagles crew where only Edelgard, Byleth and Petra avoid doubles - if you equip them with swords. A unit that one rounds enemies faster and more consistently than any other student does not deserve low tier, but you'll notice he's at the bottom of mid since there's just not a lot nice or unique to say about him compared to other units.

Quote

-Alois is likewise too high up one the list. While he requires no investment to be a good Grappler / Warmaster, he'll be lacking skills such as Deathblow or Strength +2, which makes a huge difference when wielding Gauntlets. One Two Punch is also not that great by the time he shows up since Grapplers are picking up Fierce Iron Fist, which is usually the better option between the two. Quick Riposte also takes quite a while to master and won't be in play for most of his deployments, so speed is a big issue for him. Stacking Crit on him is also not exclusive to him, as any unit with Battalion Wrath is capable of doing the same. 

Alois' base strength is high enough he could one round enemies in the chapter he joins, no class masteries necessary. Of course you should naturally be going for them as soon as possible. And One Two Punch is game changing, because of the swordmasters and assassins that become popular by that point of the game. He can punch them to death, but with ~70 Accuracy on each swing. One Two Punch bumps that up by 20 in addition to the +8 damage on each swing, and also removes their double. These are the hardest non-flier enemies to take out, and Alois knocks them out consistently with that combat art while only taking a paltry 10 damage out of his 50 HP. I'm also aware stacking crit on Alois is not exclusive to Alois, but that like Seteth he can pull that build off without having to actually Raise Caspar/Raphael who are much lower on the list. Alois also has the Fortress Knight mastery at base, unlike Seteth, and I generally consider wrath stacking builds as fortress knights, not fliers since Defense is more important than avoid. My Seteth did not get Alert Stance + until the very last chapter. If I pushed for it, I could have gotten it sooner, but I was fixated on Swift Strikes, and my war masters needed the knowledge gems more. So altogether, I think Alois and Seteth are top of High Tier, but Alois is different in that he is immediately useful when he joins while Seteth is only good at soaking up damage and being a flier when he joins

Quote

-Ingrid's stats when recruited aren't that great. When recruited in Chapter 6, this is what Ingrid's stats look like. 13 Base Strength is rather lackluster, especially when compared to other recruitable units such as Felix or Leonie who have Speed on par with her. Her combat arts aren't anything special as Hit and Run doesn't give enough avoid to consistently dodge attack and Frozen Lance hardly does any damage due to her low magic, never mind how it's locked to A Lances. About the only thing that's notable about her is the flight boon for an easier time for obtaining Alert Stance, but it takes too long to get considering that she doesn't autolevel flight.

You'll notice Ingrid is lower than the two units you have mentioned. And yeah Frozen lance is extremely helpful, since it has the magic hit formula in addition to good damage. Against an assassin in a forest tile, that's +50 hit compared to a base attack. The difference between sure damage and a hail mary. I also really like Luin and its combat art which is unique to her. I could spam it with reckless abandon since the game gave me ~60 Umbral steel by the end and it only takes 3 to repair. Her lacking stats were made up for completely by her other qualities.

11 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Not that it really matters (since they're the top tier unit on SS either way), but F!Byleth is definitely better than M!Byleth. Even with your extremely high opinion of War Masters, they aren't actually better than fliers by your own admission, just a lateral move. 

Not that it really matters, but F!Byleth IS higher than M!Byleth on the list. And when did I ever say war masters were better than fliers? They have very different strengths and map considerations, it's not so easy to point at one or the other. Is this coming from me saying they're my favorite in another thread? Not the same as me saying they're the best.

13 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Flayn is definitely too high. Unlike Mercedes and Marianne she misses Physic, so she lacks useful things to do consistently (Rescue is only two uses as Priest and inherently situational anyway). She starts with E reason in Chapter 7 which is terrible for her offensive abilities compared to other spellcasters, and also means she will realistically never get Black Magic Range +1. Rescue is not game-changing enough, especially on a low-move character, to justify a high score; especially since fliers with Reposition all have a mini-Rescue of their own.

a "high score", huh. She's placed 16th out of 30 characters. Rescue also has six uses as a bishop, which is what she'll spend 75% of her play time as. With how many facts you get wrong and how little you seem to be able to read where I placed everybody, I'm not spending my time here.

10 hours ago, Geenoble said:

I haven't done SS on maddening, but the placements of the BE students should be very similar to their CF counterparts, and judging by that i pretty much almost completely agree with this, just would move Linhardt (and maybe Lysithea if you support grind to recruit her super early) since warp is so good, especially for the fort merceus map, routing that is so bad, Ferdinand should be A, as you said he's Seteth lite but it's basically a Jill/Haar or Wolf/Sedgar situation where one is worse, but worse is still amazing. If you have female Byleth, Sylvain is basically the same unit as Ferdinand and should be a tier higher with him. SS wyverns or Paladins are great. Obv M-Byleth sylvain is Mid. Hanneman should probably be with the other mages since his doubling issues only exist for 5 levels since the Warlock speed base of 14 lets his speed growth allow him to double, and then he's just a mage with a riding bane so he's above average for mages. Dedue S tier for having 50 prt as a green unit

Fort Merceus? Not what I think of when I think of warp skippable maps. Death Knight doesn't start leaving until turn 7, which is more than enough time to fight your way over to him without warp and while splitting up your army at the start. And I went for the rout anyway to get some levels. My units were 10-12 levels behind enemies in the final chapter, and that's with me doing the rout on every story chapter and paralogue in post-time skip. Auxiliiary battles don't help with this issue either, since those enemies don't catch up in levels and killing somebody two levels below you gives you (no joke) four points of experience when you need a thousand. Fort Merceus isn't hard to rout. The reinforcements were no threat, enemy density was always very low on every turn. Nobody is aggroed toward you before you bait them. The ballistae are also so far out of position that a single flier can calmly neutralize them without having to deal with bodyguards like in other maps. It's one of the easier post time skip maps for sure. Instead I'd point out Felix's paralogue. It's impossible without two charges of warp to send fliers at the boss for a turn 1 kill. Rodrigue dies on turn 1 unless you're very lucky, and any living green units count as alive for the objective, unlike the Remire Village chapter, so the map has every reason to warp skip.

I'll grant you that Sylvain/Ferdinand may be a touch low, but there needed to be a divide between high and mid tier somewhere, and I guess it's hard to divorce the statistics of Ferdinand from the reality I was presented with in my playthrough, lol. 25 strength and 20 speed at level 40, how? Either way, I certainly wouldn't change Sylvain's placement an entire tier just based on his ease of recruitment unless a late recruited Sylvain is just way worse than an early one. The greatest benefit to being able to recruit Slvain in my opinion isn't the unit itself, but his paralogue which has a ludicrous amount of good rewards and is not especially difficult to tackle compared to other pre-time skip paralogues. 

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40 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Death Knight doesn't start leaving until turn 7, which is more than enough time to fight your way over to him without warp and while splitting up your army at the start.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but he always seemed to decide to gtfo earlier than that.

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35 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but he always seemed to decide to gtfo earlier than that.

He will leave earlier if a unit enters the middle fort he's hanging out in, according to the wiki, and my notes also say Turn 7 Enemy Phase. If you've ever skipped or watch somebody skip through the map, that may be why you think he starts moving early - it certainly tripped me up when I got close enough to easily assassinate him with warp or stride and he hadn't even begun moving yet.

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5 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Lysithea would get warp faster if she had more than just the heal spell like other mages do. 100 heals isn't just a couple chapters, it's pretty much the whole game for a recruited unit who has access to physic. And if you're suggesting a scenario in which you grind, this tier list is no excessive grinding. Lysithea is stuck at 4 move, she won't keep up on exp from heal alone, nor from dealing chip damage with attacking spells.

I disagree that Caspar weaknesses are deal breakers. Yes authority banes suck, but you have him from level 1, giving yourself time to deal with that naturally rather than having to instruct him. Yes his strength is lower than Raphael, but it's really 3 more than what you see since he has Bombard and Raphael does not. Yes his early game is atrocious, but we're talking about the Black Eagles crew where only Edelgard, Byleth and Petra avoid doubles - if you equip them with swords. A unit that one rounds enemies faster and more consistently than any other student does not deserve low tier, but you'll notice he's at the bottom of mid since there's just not a lot nice or unique to say about him compared to other units.

You'll notice Ingrid is lower than the two units you have mentioned. And yeah Frozen lance is extremely helpful, since it has the magic hit formula in addition to good damage. Against an assassin in a forest tile, that's +50 hit compared to a base attack. The difference between sure damage and a hail mary. I also really like Luin and its combat art which is unique to her. I could spam it with reckless abandon since the game gave me ~60 Umbral steel by the end and it only takes 3 to repair. Her lacking stats were made up for completely by her other qualities.

Alois' base strength is high enough he could one round enemies in the chapter he joins, no class masteries necessary. Of course you should naturally be going for them as soon as possible. And One Two Punch is game changing, because of the swordmasters and assassins that become popular by that point of the game. He can punch them to death, but with ~70 Accuracy on each swing. One Two Punch bumps that up by 20 in addition to the +8 damage on each swing, and also removes their double. These are the hardest non-flier enemies to take out, and Alois knocks them out consistently with that combat art while only taking a paltry 10 damage out of his 50 HP. 

I mean if you really wanted to get Warp on Lysithea quickly, all you'd have to is put her on as a adjutant with heal equipped, since that'd add +7 Faith exp for every round of combat. Add Tutoring to that equation and there's no reason that Lysithea should be unable to get the 640 exp for B Faith in a timely fashion.

Authority Banes are not going to sort themselves out. A unit with Authority Bane is only going to get +16 Authority from weekly training on Maddening and +1 Authority from every round of combat, so Caspar will need a substantial amount of tutoring in order to get B Authority.  You also need consider that Bombard is. Most of the Black Eagles also don't get doubled by most enemies as long they're being fed Bullheads on a consistent basis. Like a Chapter 5 Thief will fail to double a base Bernadetta with a Mini Bow (7 Spd + 4 - 2), and she isn't exactly fast. Any capable of unit one rounding with class bases and masteries. The fact that Caspar has a tool to deal more damage should not raise his standing when other units who aren't even that great can deal just as much damage without it with no investment.

Ingird is still in High tier, where I believe she does not belong. To begin with, Frozen Lance is locked to A Lances, making it something Ingrid's not going to have for a long while. Even if she does have it, she won't do that much damage seeing as how she never even breaks over 20 Magic at level 40. Not to mention, accuracy is also never that much of a particular problem with the myriad of ways you can account for it, even with bad terrain. Sword breaker alone would probably be enough to have a 100 Hit with Luin. Speaking of, while Luin is a decent weapon, it's not exclusive to Ingird. Burning Quake is Ok, but it's not going to overtake a unit that has a decent Strength Stat or a good Combat Art, such as Seteth or Bernadetta.  Ingrid belongs more in mid tier than high due to low Strength and lacking notable Combat art.

I was going to disagree about the importance of One Two Punch to Alois. But after looking at the numbers, it's pretty clear what you're saying is accurate, so i'll concede the point. Though the enemies do a lot more damage to him than you describe in your post. 

Edited by LoneRecon400
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1 hour ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I mean if you really wanted to get Warp on Lysithea quickly, all you'd have to is put her on as a adjutant with heal equipped, since that'd add +7 Faith exp for every round of combat. Add Tutoring to that equation and there's no reason that Lysithea should be unable to get the 640 exp for B Faith in a timely fashion.

This is a much better idea than "she can just spam heal". But my statement is that she "gets warp the latest of the warpers", which this does not refute. I don't know what bar is being set by "timely fashion" but it's not the bar I raised. My list pertains to a route in which the other two warpers are free and get it sooner so I thought it was worth pointing out when a lot of people get hung up on "wait, she learns Warp at B!?". It's easy to forget she'll start at E+ as a recruited unit.

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Ingird is still in High tier, where I believe she does not belong.

Make your own list. I wouldn't care to argue with it. 

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Even if she does have it, she won't do that much damage seeing as how she never even breaks over 20 Magic at level 40.

See, this is one of the problems with people who cite stat averages like they're irrefutable. They start to forget that stat gains are still random when you play the game. And they'll say things like "Never breaks over 20 magic". Well, my level 38 Ingrid has 22 magic with no temporary or permanent stat boosters. Never is now, I guess. I'm curious how much my Caspar stacks up against stat averages Caspar. He's got the highest strength on my crew at 43 base. I bet that's an abnormality.

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I was going to disagree about the importance of One Two Punch to Alois. But after looking at the numbers, it's pretty clear what you're saying is accurate, so i'll concede the point. Though the enemies do a lot more damage to him than you describe in your post. 

You're welcome. Playing the game is a great way of learning what works and what doesn't work. Maybe you'll be fighting assassins in the Petra/Bernadetta paralogue one day and realize "wow, Frozen Lance is kind of incredible for this situation". 

Edited by Glennstavos
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48 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

But my statement is that Lysithea "gets warp the latest of the warpers", which this does not refute. I don't know what bar is being set by "timely fashion" but it's not the bar I raised. My list pertains to a route in which the other two warpers are free and get it sooner so I thought it was worth pointing out when a lot of people get hung up on "wait, she learns Warp at B!?". It's easy to forget she'll start at E+ as a recruited unit.

Getting A Rank in a skill is a lot more difficult then just to B Rank, as it's a 640 Skill Exp to go from B -> A. That's the same amount required to go from E+ -> B. Like, let's just see how much of faith advantage Linhardt over Lysithea by the time we recruit.

Let's say we recurited Lysithea by Chapter 6. That'll give Linhardt 9 Weeks to study Faith, which is result in him gaining 226 Faith from weekly training on top of his 180 Base Faith.  Assuming he healed 50 times as a mage, that'd total 606 Faith Exp, or C+ Rank.

That's still 706 Faith Exp he has to get for A Rank. And keep in my mind he only gains +4 Faith Exp per heal as a Mage since he doesn't have Mastermind. Manuela is even worse shape as she only starts with C+ Faith in Chapter 8 and doesn't learn Physic. 

Lysithea can recurited even sooner than chapter 6 pretty easily since the flowers you can get from planting Yellow Seeds are her favorite. So it's rather easy to get B Rank with her and have her ask to join your class if you get lucky enough in Gardening.

So Lysithea most certainly has the easiest time of learning Warp even when she needs to be recurited since the jump from E+ -> B is a lot less than D+ -> A and having Mastermind helps a lot.

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32 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

So Lysithea most certainly has the easiest time of learning Warp even when she needs to be recurited since the jump from E+ -> B is a lot less than D+ -> A and having Mastermind helps a lot.

Alright, thank you for trying to prove the claim. I don't have these numbers memorized, though I definitely have some concerns with the methodology:

  • It seems like you didn't account for instruction sessions, only weekly training? I don't have these numbers memorized, but I'm pretty confident that it's possible to get a unit from D+ to B as early as chapter 5 or 6 without having to make that skill a sole focus (which one could argue would be justified in Linhardt's case, but I doubt I would until after I nab a Wind spell, at least). I've seen more than one maddening NG clip of Lysithea dark spiking the Death Knight in chapter 4 (which is a move from D to B). And you can't grind magic ranks like you can rusted weapons, nor do you have access to adjutants so early in the game, so I know that's not how those players managed such a feat. 
  • Also, while I would want to pick up Fiendish Blow as a filler skill for Linhardt at some point, he wouldn't hang out as a Mage. It does nothing for him, and Priest provides another point of skill exp for healing. I know that matters little, since it takes so long to reach level 10 in the first place, but it felt necessary to point out.
  • A chapter 6 recruitment is pretty early in my opinion. My first recruitment via B support was in chapter 8. Though, I was spreading my attention among several students, I think any regular player would acknowledge the benefits of recruiting all the students and would be doing the same. It's far more resource efficient to go for several students. Getting yellow seeds is also totally RNG before the east and west merchants show up (in week 3 of chapter 5), so I wouldn't say it's easy to do it earlier unless you're very okay with focusing on just one recruitment at a time - and save scumming for better gardening results because your professor rank is so low. Gardening save scumming is banned for my tier list.
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22 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

It seems like you didn't account for instruction sessions, only weekly training?  I'm pretty confident that it's possible to get a unit from D+ to B as early as chapter 5 or 6 without having to make that skill a sole focus.

You can instruct in him Faith, but there may be other skills vying for attention, such as Reason or Authority, never mind how you're only limited by 5 Students at best at that stage of the game. 

If we assumed that he was tutored in Faith at every opportunity and that he got a prefect every other time, that'd add additional +30 for every week, +35 with the statue bonus. 

That'd result in a total of 786 Faith Exp, or about 1/3rd through B Rank and 540 Faith Exp off of A Rank.

So even if you tutored Linhardt, Lysithea will still hit Warp at the same time as him,  if not sooner.

Edited by LoneRecon400
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10 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Fort Merceus? Not what I think of when I think of warp skippable maps. Death Knight doesn't start leaving until turn 7, which is more than enough time to fight your way over to him without warp and while splitting up your army at the start. And I went for the rout anyway to get some levels. My units were 10-12 levels behind enemies in the final chapter, and that's with me doing the rout on every story chapter and paralogue in post-time skip. Auxiliiary battles don't help with this issue either, since those enemies don't catch up in levels and killing somebody two levels below you gives you (no joke) four points of experience when you need a thousand. Fort Merceus isn't hard to rout. The reinforcements were no threat, enemy density was always very low on every turn. Nobody is aggroed toward you before you bait them. The ballistae are also so far out of position that a single flier can calmly neutralize them without having to deal with bodyguards like in other maps. It's one of the easier post time skip maps for sure. Instead I'd point out Felix's paralogue. It's impossible without two charges of warp to send fliers at the boss for a turn 1 kill. Rodrigue dies on turn 1 unless you're very lucky, and any living green units count as alive for the objective, unlike the Remire Village chapter, so the map has every reason to warp skip.

I only meant routing it was bad in that it's tedious and not fun, much like RD 4-3. Both of these maps aren't difficult when you have things like Haar or broken TH mechanics but they're very annoying. I just warp skip it because why waste my time with my least favourite map in the game. I guess that doesn't really add to warps selling points but you brought up its usefulness in other maps here anyway.

10 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

25 strength and 20 speed at level 40

Pretty sure you just got stat screwed sadly. It happens to even the best of units. He should have about 32 Str including modifiers if he goes into paladin. Toppled with Lance Faire, Battalion boosts ranging from +5 to +8 depending on what you have equipped, High Mt Lances and Death Blow he can easily one round all generic enemies apart from Warriors, Paladins and Armors. Hit rates might be bad on Assasins but he can equip something like Gonereil Valkyries or another battalion that boosts hit to fix that. I agree that they should be the divider between tiers, usually what i do in Tier lists, is if i have two units so insanely similar and want them to be a divider i would have one be at the bottom of the higher tier and another at the top of a lower tier. eg; Allen and Lance are so similar that to show them as the divider between tiers i would put one at the bottom of High tier and the other at the top of Mid tier.

Edited by Geenoble
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2 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

You can instruct in him Faith, but there may be other skills vying for attention, such as Reason or Authority, never mind how you're only limited by 5 Students at best at that stage of the game. 

Eh, his remaining reason spells past wind aren't noteworthy. Cutting Gale's has the same bonus crit and could potentially blast a confused monster much harder than wind, but it's never critical. For knocking out armor knights, wind was always good enough. And he's fine being the Stride user once he has physic. True enough about instruction points. But the SS route has you at just six students to consider so early in the game, since there's no compelling reason to spend instructions on Edelgard and Hubert when they're not long term assets and have nothing quick and valuable to push for besides I guess Hubert picking up mire for 3 range chipping/debuffing. If you don't intend to bench any of the remaining crew, that's still some opportunity cost. Dorothea, if you plan to use her, needs faith tutoring bad to get her heal spell and start leveling up. I like to pick up seal speed for Ferdinand too. But compared to goals like these, pushing for Warp is well worth it I think.

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If we assumed that he was tutored in Faith at every opportunity and that he got a prefect every other time, that'd add additional +30 for every week, +35 with the statue bonus. 

That'd result in a total of 786 Faith Exp, or about 1/3rd through B Rank and 540 Faith Exp off of A Rank.

So even if you tutored Linhardt, Lysithea will still hit Warp at the same time as him,  if not sooner.

I believe the total is 876 if all previous math was accurate, +10 with the statue bonus on those two weeks of chapter 5 - no reason not to grab it since it's on the way to class exp +1. So 440 Faith points away from Warp.That sounds much closer to my experience. I'll admit, compared to a Lysithea recruited on the first week of Chapter 6, it is real close. With our Lysithea as Adjutant idea, she still needs to a couple weeks to learn the Heal spell so that she has something to equip, but from there the race is on. As for Manuela, my error there was thinking her skills don't auto level up. I don't know how I got in the habit of that, I just associated her base faith as being B. So while I've certainly challenged the notion that Lysithea has the fastest access to warp, it's still a grey area.

Edited by Glennstavos
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20 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

a "high score", huh. She's placed 16th out of 30 characters. Rescue also has six uses as a bishop, which is what she'll spend 75% of her play time as. With how many facts you get wrong and how little you seem to be able to read where I placed everybody, I'm not spending my time here.

My bad, it's three. I appreciate the correction but I don't appreciate the weird passive-aggressiveness I keep getting from you.

You put Flayn on the highest tier you put any mage. I was talking about the mages. I explained why I thought she was too high.

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On 2/16/2020 at 2:25 PM, Dark Holy Elf said:

Marianne is a bit worse but still definitely belongs higher than she is. Thoron + Physic, again, is great. However, she really needs to be recruited in Chapter 3-5 so she'll start with D reason and can get started on training that, since unlike Mercedes she doesn't auto-train Reason.

I have a legit question about Marianne that I for whatever reason haven't thought to test out yet. Does Silence work the same way Meteor does for linked attacks? It's technically listed under "Attack" and not "Assist" so it isn't unthinkable that it would. If so, she's basically the same thing as a Dorothea with a better magic growth.

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12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

My bad, it's three. I appreciate the correction but I don't appreciate the weird passive-aggressiveness I keep getting from you.

You put Flayn on the highest tier you put any mage. I was talking about the mages. I explained why I thought she was too high.

I think it has something to do with his love for Grapplers/Warmasters, since their biggest flaws are the lack of Canto, Range and High Mov, having Rescue allows him to be more aggressive with those units since someone like Flayn can reposition them out of danger if necessary.

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13 hours ago, Burklight said:

I have a legit question about Marianne that I for whatever reason haven't thought to test out yet. Does Silence work the same way Meteor does for linked attacks? It's technically listed under "Attack" and not "Assist" so it isn't unthinkable that it would. If so, she's basically the same thing as a Dorothea with a better magic growth.

Nope, Silence cannot provide Linked Attack bonus. That'd certainly make the spell more attractive, I have to say.

17 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

My bad, it's three. I appreciate the correction but I don't appreciate the weird passive-aggressiveness I keep getting from you.

This coming from the guy who says my list is "basically all wrong" and expects me to keep reading as my notifications fire up with walls of text from other people. The other guys definitely expressed confusion at my list, but gave me the benefit of the doubt in their tone, and there was a two way exchange of useful information resulted from it. For all I know, they thought my list was utter rubbish, but thought the expression of such an attitude wasn't worth the effort. It is clear you like to take such liberties. If you're willing to do that, you may be willing to make deliberate mistakes to further get a rise out of me.

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You put Flayn on the highest tier you put any mage. I was talking about the mages. I explained why I thought she was too high.

If I could get a retry on the List, Linhardt and Sylvain/Ferdinand would step up to high tier, if that makes a difference in perspective? Because I don't think she can contribute as much as Linhardt, and don't think she's as bad as the mages in low tier, for reasons expressed previously. Lack of physic is a bummer, but you start the game with two potential physic users so that's why I don't value it on the other recruitable support units for this route. If physic is all you can do, I don't need you. Fortify is a good emergency spell. Her crest is excellent - a more frequent version of Linhardt's. And you get Rescue in just a few short weeks of recruiting her - slightly faster than any of the warpers should be arriving at Warp. And anybody who'd call Reposition a "mini rescue" probably has a similar criticism of Warp, and I wasn't sure how to approach such a statement. Rescue accomplishes in one turn on a support unit what I need half a dozen mounted repos to do otherwise, because even the first units that go in for that repo themselves will need repos because mounted range isn't infinite. Like Imagine if I said Reposition is actually bad because a good player is never in a bad position. Ridiculous, right? It's not just for emergencies, it's for expanding your options on what your units can get away with. These are the options that turn bad ideas into great ideas, and Flayn has exclusive access to Rescue (since nobody cares about Mage!Bernadetta)

Edited by Glennstavos
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8 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

since nobody cares about Mage!Bernadetta)

Hey! Mage Bernadette is amazing in Ng+ normal mode.

On a serious note relating Bernie, I'm curious as to why she's ranked above Flayn, Lysithea etc. You obviously mentioned her unreliable/difficult to activate prf and her atrocious base stats, and didn't even mention her bad proficiency spread. Encloser is really good but it only comes out at A rank bows, which will most likely be chapter 10-11 at minimum. I honestly think Vengence is better in this regard since it comes out earlier. The best Bernadetta build I've ever used was a Vengeance based Falcon K build, And even then despite his Flying Bane, Dedue would make a better Flier Vengeance build due to his higher hp and str meaning more overall damage. She is pretty good as a Sniper, but that's only because Sniper is really good. Caspar is really good in War Master, but obviously there are much better options for the class. Besides her combat arts she really has nothing going for her, especially in comparison to some of the units she is higher than. Hell i would say that Lorenz and some of the other mages may be better since their very large chip damage is around as soon as they hit B reason for most, whereas hers only comes out once she gets Sniper.

Not saying she deserves to be in a lower tier specifically or anything since she does have good availability. But she should definitely be below Flayn and Lysithea imo.

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1 hour ago, Geenoble said:

The best Bernadetta build I've ever used was a Vengeance based Falcon K build, And even then despite his Flying Bane, Dedue would make a better Flier Vengeance build due to his higher hp and str meaning more overall damage.

Dedue is locked behind AM and the only other unit that learns Vengeance (Cyril) isn't recruitable in CF and sucks a lot in SS so Bernie does have monopoly with that build in the 2 BE routes, though I would argue that Flier/Horse Vengance Bernie is not reliable, falls off late game and requires some setting up to work.

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