FERD part 1 tier list

[DaFireEmblemGOAT]

This tier list is for how good each character is for part 1 not for the whole entire game. I hope this helps new players to Fire emblem Radiant Dawn.

High

—————————

sothe 

jill

 

tauroneo

naihlah 

 

mid

————————

nolan 

volug

edward

zihark

laura

micaiah

rafiel 

maurim 

tormod

 

low

————————

aran 

vika

leonardo

llyana 

 

garbage

——————

fiona

meg

 

[Benice]

Personally, I'd say:

God tier: Meg

High: 

Tauroneo-Great bases, brings actual defense to pt. 1

Nailah- See above, but X10.

Sothe-Just about the only OG dawn brigade member who can survive a hit

Aran-Amazing growths in everything helpful and probably won't be getting doubled- giving him Bexp for speed makes him OP

Mid-high

Laura, since she's your only staffbot and will be OP later on

Zihark-Good bases, should kill really well, but a bit squishy still.

Volug-He becomes meh by endgame.

All of the other Laguz units-Great while transformed-dead if not.

Tormod-Great bases, but not quite Tauroneo level. And still a bit squishy.

Mid: 

Nolan-Has HP. but growths drop off well before endgame, at least in my four runs.

Edward-becomes good later on. Not so much in part one, but he;s still decent and can double everything.

Ilyana-She's got the best avaliability in the game, so you might as well use her.

Micaiah-If she can kill it in one hit, she's great. If not, she gets doubled and dies in one or two hits. But still, amazing Mag growth.

Low:

Leonardo-An archer without speed. Enough said.

Fiona-Better bases than Meg, but her str still is bad.

Jill-Unpopular one: But she does have terrible HP, only Meh str, and just isn't really that great.

Early retirement to prevent death: Meg. 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Benice

[eclipse]

The utter lack of explanation makes this a bad tier list.

[Brave Lance]

Broken: 
Tauroneo, Black Knight, Nailah, Muarim, Rafiel

Spoiler

It goes without saying that these units trivialize the chapters that they're in. For a tier list only looking at part 1 they're absolutely at the top.

Really Should Be Used:

Sothe, Volug, Zihark

Spoiler

Sothe is essential to the first half of Part 1, but as soon as 6-1 and 6-2 hit his damage isn't enough to 1RKO anymore and he can't dodgetank nearly as reliably. Yes, he's still force deployed and has stealing utility so you should definitely still use him for the rest of part 1, especially since even after chapter 6 he's still better than your worst units, but he's not deserving of the broken tier.

Volug is in pretty much the same situation as sothe, except he has 9 movement and can still take several hits even after not being able to dodgetank reliably. He's also a huge sleeper candidate for the energy drop. He gets an effective +4 damage due to transformation bonuses, and since he doubles virtually everything in part 1 that really looks more like +8 (This won't be the exact damage because halfshifting reduces bonuses but his damage output will still be increased more than any beorc). You're doing yourself a disservice if you're not using him in part 1. 

Zihark often gets overlooked because players spend every chapter up to this point training Edward, but upon Zihark joining his bases still far outclass Edward's. Assuming Edward is level 9 by this point, gaining one level per chapter, Zihark has +7 hp, +7 strength, +6 mag, +8 skill, +8 spd, +1 luck, +7 def and +10 res. It really doesn't need to be argued that he's much more useful than Edward, especially if you're taking part 1 in a vacuum, since Edward will only surpass Zihark upon the endgame when all of that experience could have been pooled into units with more potential such as Nolan or Jill.

Will Serve You Well:

Nolan, Jill, Tormod, Vika

Spoiler

Nolan is super useful in the first couple chapters for tanking hits that the rest of the dawn brigade simply can't afford to, and assuming he gets a couple points of strength and speed he quickly outgrows his weapon weight penalties and can 2RKO most enemies. Joining at level 9, he also requires very little investment to be a candidate for early promotion. He gains +1 in every important stat for him (and 2 in Mag and Res). It's also important to mention earth affinity, since I haven't yet actually discussed these. Nolan, Zihark and Volug all can support and can all turn each other into amazing dodgetanks. +45 dodge to Nolan granted with an A support with either of these units can allow him to easily frontline, a role that is much needed in the Dawn Brigade.

Jill is good for the chapters she's around for, but she definitely isn't gamebreaking in part 1. She only really gets going late in part 3 after heavy investment and some lucky level ups, although the return on investment is greater than most other units. However, taking part 1 in a vacuum as your tier list does, she's only around for a prison chapter where she suffers -2 movement and faces mages and armors that can kill her in a couple hits, 6-1 and 6-2 where she is admittedly useful for taking out reinforcements and clearing a path to the boss, and the endgame, where she will once again suffer -2 movement and face significantly stronger enemies than she has before. She's good, just not amazing, and not in the categories above where you can actually rely on them. 

Tormod and Vika are all great- it's just too bad they're only around for the last couple chapters. The main reason why they're not in the same tier as Muarim is just because of poorer survivability and offensive capabilities. Muarim takes 0 damage for basically all of part 1 and 1HKOs most enemies, and Vika provides flying utility along with being able to double most enemies. Tormod can double most enemies, just not as many as Vika, and can struggle to 1RKO some beefier enemies like the brigands in the swamp chapter that come to ambush him. I highly suggest that you use them, but it won't kill you if you don't. Neither of them really fill roles that other units cannot, but they're great candidates for those roles nonetheless.

Probably Shouldn't Bother:

Edward, Aran, Laura

Spoiler

I already discussed Edward above in the Zihark section. He's fine to use for the pre-Zihark chapters but as soon as Zihark joins he's quickly outclassed. You'd be better off not deploying him so the XP can go to other unpromoted units that need it. 

Aran can be a good tank with a fair amount of investment, a role that the Dawn Brigade sorely lacks units for. However, this investment comes at the cost of Discipline, multiple levels of Bonus XP, a forged Iron Lance and many, many kills fed. His bases aren't amazing. He can't 2HKO enemies, certainly can't double and can only really reliably tank sword units. WIth investment he's fine, but again, you're better off putting your resources elsewhere.

Laura is a little difficult to tier because of her status as the only staffbot in part 1. There is an argument to be made that she should be tiered higher, but in a game where vulrenaries heal 20 hp and have 8 uses and most of your roster has around 30 hp she really isn't actually all that essential in my eyes. Newer players won't be jumping to heal and attack on the same turn, either. They'll usually be fine with taking their time. Getting one shot by every single unit in the game and providing a utility that vulrenaries can and even Micaiah can in a pinch just isn't worth it. 

Liabilities:

Micaiah, Illyana, Leonardo

Spoiler

Micaiah is useful to have around for thanibombing and sacrificing when she's safe but there are very, very few situations like this. She needs to be guarded and coddled as a game-over liability and she really shouldn't be fed a whole lot, especially with a forced promotion at the end of part 1 that grants her C rank in staves, enough to spam physics throughout all of part 3 and 4. 

Illyana is the only thunder mage in the game, but that doesn't change the fact that she sucks. She doesn't have much more bulk than Edward or Leonardo and can't usually be reliably placed in range of 2 range enemies, unless they are other mages (very few situations like this but they do exist such as in the top-right corner of 6-2). Her bases aren't horrible but her growths don't make up for it at all, and she doesn't gain anything of substance from an early promotion either. After one or two chapters she'll stop doubling the slower enemies and start getting one shot, and it's not worth the trouble.

Leonardo has bad bases, bad growths and a bad class. Availability can't save this poor Klein knockoff.

Completely Unsalvagable:

Fiona, Meg

Spoiler

Fiona- horrible bases, decent growths and a class that will only ever penalize her in the Dawn Brigade chapters. She can't go up against virtually any enemy without getting one rounded and she can't deal meaningful damage to save her life. By the time she joins you already have a good amount of capable units and you really don't have the time to be training her while you're squeezing the last bits of xp out of your unpromoted units. 

Don't use Meg. A swordlocked, 5 movement armor knight with very low con, horrible baes and growths that don't fit her class at all is a really, really unfortunate combination. Growths that don't fit your class isn't always a death sentence, but for Armor Knights it is. You trade movement for tankiness, and she has no tankiness to speak of. Remove Fortune from her and sell it for a nice 3k gold and give her weapons to the convoy for Zihark to use when he joins.

[Benice]

59 minutes ago, Brave Lance said:

Probably Shouldn't Bother:

Edward, Aran, Laura

Personally, I disagree with the latter two. I can completely agree that Edward isn't really worth putting a ton of resources into.

(Spoilered to be less wall-of-texty, comments on Aran and Laura.)

Spoiler

 

Aran, despite the fact that he won't be doubling, joins at about the time that Nolan's only useful due to his HP. His Hp, str, def and skill growths are all quite good at the very worst, his speed shouldn't get him doubled, but he could end up RNG screwed. Besides, his base speed isn't really all that bad. Anyways, if he falls behind, give him a level via bonus exp and he'll catch right back up. After a few levels, his def is great, he can deal chunky damage. Plus, the next chapter has tons of easy kills on untransformed laguz/cat laguz, which is probably best directted towards Aran, Micaiah and Edward if you're using him. In my run, I promoted him at chapter 6 because of the hecking ballista in the second map of it. After which he was easily my best non-Nailah/BK/Tauroneo unit, one rounding Jarod without a crit or forged weapon. And then he one-rounded Ike in 13-3 later on. I kind of love Aran because he was my best unit in RD; I won't deny that I'm biased, so I may be wrong.

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

Laura: Yeah, she dies and yeah, vulneraries are super good in this game. However, healing with Laura allows the healed unit to do extra stuff, such as a powerful unit getting to take out a threat instead of having to tank another hit. Plus, I think she is the best candidate for early promotion; I always give her paragon and get her as high a level as possible. I promoted her for endgame, and although she wasn't my best combat unit, she was the best option to hold the upper ground because she could double the enemies and had amazing avoid. Anyways, since by part three, only RNG blessed units and units that the player really likes are worth using; I personally usually thusly dumpp exp into Laura since my exp-dumped units don't need the help. I then usually promote her to saint at ch. 13-3 if I can to get her mag as high as possible to set up Aran to kill Ike. I just find that despite her terrible def and merely meh res, I find Laura to be Micaiah, but insanely fast. Plus I bexp'd her, but she had capped everything but def, so she got to def 24 as a 14-20 saint. I love the weird bexp system in RD.

 

I also personally find Jill to be very bad. Her Hp is pretty weak sauce, and her def doesn't help her at all. If she'd started with the greil mercs, she'd have been great because more people have solid def, but seeing as most of the pt. 1 people don't, she's not quite as helpful.

That said, I'm not an FE vet and have had biased/strange experiences regarding RD. Such as Nolan gaining six total stats in eight levels, so you may be correct. 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Benice

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I would like to discuss, but OP doesn't give me any fodder to do this.

 

Not even the difficulty is mentioned because some characters like Sothe and Volug become a lot more relevant on hard mode.

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Falcom Knight

[Brave Lance]

10 hours ago, Benice said:

Personally, I disagree with the latter two. I can completely agree that Edward isn't really worth putting a ton of resources into.

(Spoilered to be less wall-of-texty, comments on Aran and Laura.)

  Hide contents

 

Aran, despite the fact that he won't be doubling, joins at about the time that Nolan's only useful due to his HP. His Hp, str, def and skill growths are all quite good at the very worst, his speed shouldn't get him doubled, but he could end up RNG screwed. Besides, his base speed isn't really all that bad. Anyways, if he falls behind, give him a level via bonus exp and he'll catch right back up. After a few levels, his def is great, he can deal chunky damage. Plus, the next chapter has tons of easy kills on untransformed laguz/cat laguz, which is probably best directted towards Aran, Micaiah and Edward if you're using him. In my run, I promoted him at chapter 6 because of the hecking ballista in the second map of it. After which he was easily my best non-Nailah/BK/Tauroneo unit, one rounding Jarod without a crit or forged weapon. And then he one-rounded Ike in 13-3 later on. I kind of love Aran because he was my best unit in RD; I won't deny that I'm biased, so I may be wrong.

 

 

 

  Hide contents

 

Laura: Yeah, she dies and yeah, vulneraries are super good in this game. However, healing with Laura allows the healed unit to do extra stuff, such as a powerful unit getting to take out a threat instead of having to tank another hit. Plus, I think she is the best candidate for early promotion; I always give her paragon and get her as high a level as possible. I promoted her for endgame, and although she wasn't my best combat unit, she was the best option to hold the upper ground because she could double the enemies and had amazing avoid. Anyways, since by part three, only RNG blessed units and units that the player really likes are worth using; I personally usually thusly dumpp exp into Laura since my exp-dumped units don't need the help. I then usually promote her to saint at ch. 13-3 if I can to get her mag as high as possible to set up Aran to kill Ike. I just find that despite her terrible def and merely meh res, I find Laura to be Micaiah, but insanely fast. Plus I bexp'd her, but she had capped everything but def, so she got to def 24 as a 14-20 saint. I love the weird bexp system in RD.

Aran:

Spoiler

I've played Radiant Dawn for upwards of 500 hours on console alone, and I can say that I've trained Aran a fair amount of times on varying difficulties. He's probably at the top of the "probably shouldn't bother" tier, but I just can't bear to rank him along with the units that I put in the tier above. He needs to get pretty lucky with his speed growth of 35 to avoid getting doubled even in th

e laguz chapter. Most BXP levels will give him str, def, skill or hp. On average, he'll cap skill at level 18 and def at 20. Even if you do give him bonus experience, that's not going to necessarily give you a speed level. Even after he caps one stat, he still has 3 other stats with growth rates higher than his speed. It's completely possible for him to become a competent unit, but the odds aren't in his favor. You're better off saving bonus xp for the end of part 1 where you need to give units a couple extra levels before they promote.

Laura:

Spoiler

Really all I have to say here is that you need to keep in mind that OP said this tier list was for part 1 in a vacuum. Early promotion doesn't really give her anything in this scenario and, well, lategame performance doesn't have an impact on it either, considering it's just earlygame taken into account. Not to mention that micaiah can do everything that Laura can as soon as she gets promoted.

I'm not denying that healers are really good, especially when you only have one, but for the criteria that OP laid out where you're not necessarily making optimal movements since it's a newer player means that you don't need to be healed and attack every single turn. Sure, it could help, but she's not worth investing into as a unit. Worth bringing along until the prison, I'd say. That's when deployment slots get cut a bunch and you need to make some tough decisions. 

 

[Benice]

14 minutes ago, Brave Lance said:

Aran:

  Reveal hidden contents

I've played Radiant Dawn for upwards of 500 hours on console alone, and I can say that I've trained Aran a fair amount of times on varying difficulties. He's probably at the top of the "probably shouldn't bother" tier, but I just can't bear to rank him along with the units that I put in the tier above. He needs to get pretty lucky with his speed growth of 35 to avoid getting doubled even in th

e laguz chapter. Most BXP levels will give him str, def, skill or hp. On average, he'll cap skill at level 18 and def at 20. Even if you do give him bonus experience, that's not going to necessarily give you a speed level. Even after he caps one stat, he still has 3 other stats with growth rates higher than his speed. It's completely possible for him to become a competent unit, but the odds aren't in his favor. You're better off saving bonus xp for the end of part 1 where you need to give units a couple extra levels before they promote.

Laura:

  Reveal hidden contents

Really all I have to say here is that you need to keep in mind that OP said this tier list was for part 1 in a vacuum. Early promotion doesn't really give her anything in this scenario and, well, lategame performance doesn't have an impact on it either, considering it's just earlygame taken into account. Not to mention that micaiah can do everything that Laura can as soon as she gets promoted.

I'm not denying that healers are really good, especially when you only have one, but for the criteria that OP laid out where you're not necessarily making optimal movements since it's a newer player means that you don't need to be healed and attack every single turn. Sure, it could help, but she's not worth investing into as a unit. Worth bringing along until the prison, I'd say. That's when deployment slots get cut a bunch and you need to make some tough decisions. 

 

That's fair. I guess for me it's that Aran always has speed as one of his bexp stats, so he doesn't need to worry bout getting doubled by generic enemies. 

And Laura doesn't do that much during part one either. 

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Quote

I also personally find Jill to be very bad. Her Hp is pretty weak sauce, and her def doesn't help her at all. 

That's why to give the angelic robe of 1-4 to her.

She has 13 defense without transfer boosts which is more than Nolan and Aran usually have when she joins.

Her base strength is the issue, but a forged axe and the energy drop can fix it.

She has mobility, great speed and decent strength and defense to become great especially in part 3.

Transfer boost Jill is the most valuable unit in FE10 in all difficulties.

 

 

My tier list (hard mode)

Spoiler

god tier

• Sothe
• Rafiel
• Nailah

top tier

• Jill (with transfer boosts)
• Volug
• Muarim
• Zihark

high tier

• Tauroneo
• Tormod
• Nolan
• Jill (without transfer boosts)
• Vika
• Ilyana (with transfer boosts in magic and speed)

mid tier

• Micaiah
• Edward (high tier in normal mode)

low-mid tier

• Laura (way more essential in part 3 than in part 1)
• Ilyana (without transfer boosts)
• Leonardo
• Aran

bottom tier

• Fiona
• Meg

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Falcom Knight

[NinjaMonkey]

How the hell are people putting Tauroneo in High Tier, when he's only available for one chapter (namely 1-6)?

Quote

I hope this helps new players to Fire emblem Radiant Dawn.

Most tier lists state what difficulty it's for and if we're playing efficiently or not. Seeing as this mess of a thread does neither of those, and that the people in here have wildly different opinions, means that this thread would be of no help at all to anyone, let alone new players.

Edited March 6, 2020 by NinjaMonkey

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Since this has potential but it was wasted in the OP, I will make a similar thread but with reasons and referring to a difficulty later.

Edited March 7, 2020 by Falcom Knight

[eclipse]

13 hours ago, Falcom Knight said:

Since this has potential but it was wasted in the OP, I will make a similar thread but with reasons and referring to a difficulty later.

I will lock this one, then.