FE9 LA Tier List

[Espinosa]

A tier list I thought it would be useful to put up for the FE9 custom averages (average stats + stat boosters allowed + custom skills allowed) Link Arena metagame. Besides actually tiering the characters, I find it important to provide detailed justifications for said choices so there will be write-ups.

Rules and mechanics stated in the LA Resource thread (see also the spoiler under 'FE9 Resources') all apply here, as do the following assumptions (which, if subjected to further change, may well affect the tiering below):

[spoiler=Custom skills available]

SP Name

5  Miracle
10 Counter
10 Vantage
10 Guard
10 Gamble
10 Adept
15 Renewal
10 Wrath
5  Shade
5  Provoke
5 Parity
15 Nihil
10 Resolve

[spoiler=Stat boosters available]

3 seraph robes
2 energy drops
2 spirit dusts
3 secret books
4 speedwings
2 dracoshields
2 talismans
2 ashera icons
2 statue frags

Other rules

- one Laguz royal per team

- no boosters or custom skills on royals

- no Wrath/Resolve on Ena/Nasir

- Ena/Nasir can take a maximum of 4 (of any) boosters (sharing them with the rest of the team of course)

- Ike's support with Oscar is ineffective

- Shade/Provoke function for 2 turns defending, ignored by Nihil/Parity.

The tier list is very likely to suffer changes with more experience playing Link Arena, or even immediately when convincing arguments are presented for a particular change.

What the tiers mean:

G-d - you have absolutely no reason not to include this character on your team (aside from them being banned from the metagame doho).

Top - very likely candidates for a placement on your team. Competent combat units, serious threats to be considered during team building, requiring little to no investment or playing an otherwise central role, reliable and/or versatile. Good synergy with other viable units.

High - very viable characters with some weaknesses or shortcomings, usually requiring more resources than their brethren in Top tier. Characterised by lower reliability than the units in the above tiers.

Mid - viable units, often only when given a contested investment, somewhat lacking in reliability and sometimes difficult to use successfully. Outclassed by units in the upper tiers for various reasons and having poorer team synergy.

Low - characters requiring a very generous resource investment in order to function and not paying you off for your generosity. Highly unreliable and/or difficult to use well.

Bottom - characters you have absolutely no reason to use.

Characters are sorted according to recruitment within the same tier list.

The Tier List

G-d

Ike (Ragnell)

Nasir

Top

Ike (No Ragnell)
Oscar
Boyd
Rolf
Kieran
Makalov
Tauroneo
Giffca
Tibarn

High

Shinon
Gatrie
Mia
Mist
Brom
Nepenthe
Zihark
Largo
Ena
Calill
Naesala

Mid

Titania
Marcia

Lethe
Jill
Astrid
Stefan
Tanith
Ranulf
Geoffrey
Elincia

Low

Rhys

Soren
Ilyana
Mordecai
Muarim
Tormod
Devdan
Janaff
Ulki
Haar

Lucia
Bastian

Bottom

Volke
Sothe
Reyson

I'll also start work on write-ups for viable units.

G-d tier

- Ike (Ragnell)

Class: Lord

The Lord is a foot unit deprived of any weapon weaknesses. Solid caps. Swordlocked, which isn't a huge disadvantage considering swords only fail to counter bows (and siege tomes), while returning the favour by being uncountered by bows. Ragnell being in play means bow users may also hesitate to attack Ike since the approximate chance of Ragnell being equipped (when it's not banned) is 99%. Always suffers WTD to lances, unless equipped with the WT-neutral magic swords (not recommended).

Stats:

Unit     HP  Str  Mag  Skl  Spd  Lck  Def  Res  acc  avo  crt  sk%
Ike      52   26   11   27   28   20   24   18   74   76   13   27
capped   60   26   20   27   28   40   24   22 

Ike caps most of his stats. As such, he needs absolutely no investment to play a dominant role on any given team, and can fill a spare deployment slot while preserving all the crucial resources for other characters. Ike can nevertheless take a Seraph Robe for extra bulk, both the Talismans to take little damage attacking tome and Runesword users and Goddess Icons for Miracle builds.

Skills:

(Occult) Aether

Ike's mastery skill is the best proc skill in the metagame, combining the powers of Adept, Sol and Luna into one glorious skill. A stray Aether activation can finish off a healthy opponent. Attacking with the Brave Sword gives Ike a ~47% chance of proccing Aether on at least one of the hits. Aether will not activate at 2-range, so attacking Ike at 2-range is a bit less risky. Aether is compatible with Miracle (20 + 5 SP), as well as Shade and Provoke.

As a foot unit, Ike has 25 SP and can run Resolve/Wrath/Miracle, Resolve/Nihil and similarly effective skill combos. His bulk with Ragnell makes him both a great Resolver and a great Nihilist.

Supports:

Oscar (+30 avo), currently banned. Renders Ike untouchable by most attacks with brave weapons and sometimes makes forged silvers miss as well. When previously not banned, this support usually starts the team building process ("I'm running Ike obviously, so I will add Oscar as well"), seriously bolstering Oscar as well. Very uber.

Elincia (+15 hit, +15 avo). There's somewhat of a gap between the banned IkexOscar support and his other ones in terms of viability. The hit bonuses allow Ike to connect brave and Ragnell attacks with ease while making him somewhat hard to hit still. Elincia also appreciates the +15 hit for not whiffing with the Runesword.

Ranulf (+7 hit, +22 avo). Something of a mix between the above two supports. Ranulf is arguably the best "normal" Laguz in the metagame (even if he wants boosters and good skills like Resolve to function well) and he likes the avo bonus he gets from Ike.

Titania (+1 def, +7 hit, +15 avo). Oscar is not the only Paladin Ike can support; however, Titania needs a lot of stat boosters to match the better Paladins in performance. Titania probably wants the +1 def more than Ike does.

Soren (+1 atk, +22 avo). Ike's only +atk support. It doesn't solve Soren's hit rate problems with siege tomes and obviously the +22 avo doesn't fix Soren's attack speed with heavier tomes (Rexbolt and long-range magic) either.

Bonds:

Mist (+10 crit, two-way). Ragnell already adds +5 to Ike's crit, so a Mist support makes stray crits from Ike even more possible, particularly against low-luck targets. Both Ike and Mist support Titania so that makes these three a decent enough support pseudo-triangle.

Soren (blocks crits, one-way given to Soren). This leaves Soren less vulnerable to SMs/Berserkers/Snipers I guess.

Elincia (blocks crits, one-way given by Elincia). Ragnell prevents Ike from eating non-Wrath crits so this is honestly pretty useless.

Comments: When Ragnell is allowed, you really are making a big mistake if you're not running this monster, eos.

Edited May 3, 2014 by Espinosa

[Elieson]

Brom in high, over Gatrie. Probably just over or just under Big T.

+3 spd, +2 hp, and supports Boyd for offense instead of Gatrie's def support coming from niche units.

Only loses to lolRes and Resolve wrt Big T, but b Tauro doesn't handle his own Resolve that well due to less durability overall.

[Espinosa]

The motivation for putting Tauroneo in Top above the other two Generals is mostly innate Resolve. Even if Brom is the better user of Resolve with higher str/spd/def averages, Tauroneo ensures two are run in the same team, which is quite a problem for the opposition. Tauroneo's supports and the further support combo extensions (Largo and Rolf and their supports) are also all highly viable units, which cannot quite be said about most of Gatrie's and Brom's supports.

I'll justify his being in Top more adequately when I'm done with the write-up.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Espinosa

[Elieson]

Zihark? You mean Brom right?

Largo doesn't get anything of note from Tauro support. In fact, T gets +25 support, which is still pretty awful due to his AS issues, unless he takes all 4 wings. Largo and Rolf do /ok/ with T support, gaining +10-15 on a good speed base, but T himself isn't that stunning.

He goes down too fast to.handle his own innate Resolve properly. In all seriousness, he is slaughtered by pretty much and Royal if he's sub50%, and suffers equalized+ weapon dmg from units that he will never double without brave usage. Anyone with a brave lance or axe pretty much crushes him regardless of his resolve range hp.

He takes too much from the boosters pot to be useful, regardless of his def (26+3+2+2).

I suppose that against slower laguz, he'd do well, But that makes him niche, whereas Brom pr Gatrie fit well on team without dependance on Resolve.

You're overvaluing Resolve on Tauroneo.

[Espinosa]

Gatrie's best supporter is a Sniper, whom he loses after the first two or so turns. Brom is proud of supporting Boyd (with whom he competes for many crucial skills and some common stat boosters), with Zihark/Neph being two other decent ones.

Tauroneo's defence/avoid affinity doesn't help just him but also both of Largo and Rolf - giving Rolf a chance to survive an extra turn to rain down Brave Bow.

The way Tauroneo's support combos work, neither Largo nor Rolf require Speedwings (so Tauroneo can ensure other Generals don't double him and he's not doubled in Resolve range - that much is enough), though a robe is contested by Rolf, as is one of the drops, and all three kinda want shields (Tauroneo wants them the most because bulk is his way of survival when he gets doubled).

Resolve really is that important though, being the most contested and critical skill, and having two Resolvers on the same team is a really big deal.

Gatrie and Brom are hardly "not Resolve-dependent"; rather, they really want Resolve which nearly everybody else wants as well, especially foot units and Mist with their 25 SP. While the boosters can go into Tauroneo without being needed assuming we field characters who do not want them (within our plan for an effective team), the same cannot be said about Resolve, as each character would become superior if there was a spare Resolve scroll for them.

A Laguzguard can always stop Giffca/Tibarn considering that's Generals' Achilles heel (followed by Sages, but those are some of the least viable and most expensive characters to include in a team).

By the way, Generals really do laugh at brave weapons (which have mostly situational value for damaging low-def folks with a support advantage, bypassing Resolve in clever ways, having an extra chance to break Miracle, gambling for a more likely Aether proc with Ike and, when your Resolve goes off, dealing huge damage before taking a counter) because of their low Mt and Generals' high defence.

[Elieson]

I'm still waiting to see this stellar performance of Resolve!T though. +25 avo and +2 deff doesn't help him when his partners are dead, and he is still a horrid resource drain with situational worth.

T himself is always doubled by anything with an axe (until in Resolve himself), and by then, he has, at best, 37 def and 29 hp. He's now 2HKO'D then with anything Silver (well not really swords) or Magical. on PP, enemy T will be treated like Boyd and Largo and Keiran. If he has sucked Both shields down, then lol the rest of the team suffers.

He hits hard one time, but can be set up almost predictably to be at like, 34 hp or so. Meanwhile, units that don't have innate Resolve have to be approached differently. It's almost easy to strategize against T. He can only adopt one skill, maybe two. Nihil? Checks in first encounter. Vantage? Easy to spot. WRATH? If nothing else is displayed, Wrath makes an easy spotlight.

T setups must include Resolve, and are predictable. He doesnt give great support to partners (+15 avoid to Rolf/Largo, at best), and gets hurt hard in early game combat that he initiates.

[Espinosa]

Out of Tauroneo and Largo (Rolf is almost certainly eliminated early to prevent sleep), it is difficult to say who will die first. Both are very likely running Resolve though, and Tauroneo's advantage over self-made Resolvers is that he still has enough HP to take a hit and thus get the chance to launch two attacks in Resolve mode against somebody.

"Being 2HKO'd by Silvers" while in Resolve range is actually really good for Tauroneo because it basically means he gets to utterly destroy THREE enemies - he is put into Resolve range (most likely hurting somebody before then), then he brave-attacks somebody, then somebody weakens Tauroneo and he counters for disastrous damage, then Tauroneo brave-weapons somebody another time. You're overlooking what a disaster this is for the enemy team. With 3 Speedwings (21 spd), Tauroneo has 31 AS in Resolve, so if he's attacked by a Paladin or Boyd/Largo, he can double those guys (not like it's necessary in the axers' case).

[Refa]

Well, if you have a Silver Weapon user with Nihil, Tauroneo's all kinds of fucked. Or even Parity really, it's not like his avoid is particularly outstanding. Not sure how accurate the 2HKO thing by Silvers is though, especially since he has a defensive support for +2 DEF minimum (well, with his better supporters anyways), can has the Knight Ward for an additional +2DEF/+2RES, and can even further up the ante with the Vague Katti which is super bro with +3DEF.

EDIT In addition to statboosters, although when most people have a General, the last thing they're looking for is to give him defensive stuff...Opportunity cost for the Vague Katti might be pushing it, but considering the units he supports with, its not unreasonable that he'd end up getting the Knight Ward at the very least. Plus weapon triangle is a finnicky beast and al that.

EDIT 2 Also to gripe about the tiers, Ike without Ragnell or Oscar support is not really that good. He's pretty much Zihark with a slightly better support pool (and not a particularly good one either) and wow...7DEF/6HP. Eh, I guess I can see him there after all. God bless Ike.

I don't see why Boyd is above Rolf, his crap DEF ensures that he's not going to live for long while a Deadeye!Sniper is a boon to the team and can either last a while while also chipping w/Shade or at the very worst, fish out the opponent's Nihil user right off the bat. Makalov I can get being under Oscar significantly, but is there anything Oscar does that Kieran can't? I think Kieran has a better support pool too, although I haven't used him so I can't say for sure. Not sure why Giffca and Tibarn are so low if they're considered overpowered enough that only one should be on each team. Surely that would constitute them being right below God tier under Ike? I dunno about Naesala, I've barely seen him used ever even though I think I had him on my second team, lol. As for the rest, I don't know about them as much, but I think Zihark could stand to go up some for being basically Ike without Ragnell and Nasir for being another Nihil user in a metagame where Nihil is very useful. Zihark could probably go somewhere near Mia, and I think Nasir should go up a lot of spots honestly. I'd put him in my team *hint hint wink wink nudge nudge*. Actually just remembered about his startup time. Could be a pain, possibly could also be worked around. Meh, I dunno.

Also this is just to get my general thoughts out of the way, I'd like to hear your reasoning whenever you get to the typing out the posts. Looking forwards to it, FE9 is my favorite meta game, with FE5 being a close second despite people extolling how horrible it is. :p

Edited February 6, 2014 by Refa

[Espinosa]

One problem is that Nihil/Parity users won't necessarily be around to take Resolve!Tauroneo out in a timely manner. Any team that doesn't want to be destroyed should run at least one of these, and if you have any dangerous units with Shade, you can immediately see them and focus on attacking them with bulky Paladins and Laguz, or even healthy Resolvers. Potentially having 32-35+ defence makes it tough to take Tauroneo out and what doubles your worry is that Tauroneo is one of the two Resolvers you have to be really careful with.

Elieson did rightly remind us we should be subtle about gently and carefully reducing Resolvers' HP so that they don't wallop half the other team, but said Resolvers don't just sit there and wait for you to take them apart, they can modify their current HP to their own liking by attacking people too. Since a Resolver doesn't intentionally let the opponent pick them off once they get into the range (I know Anon did that twice with both of his Resolvers in the recent match somehow, but ideally this shouldn't happen at all), they're almost guaranteed to take somebody out (really threatening non-Nihil Mist and Elincia) before going down and they probably countered at least two other attackers before this. Since your goal is to suffer less damage while dishing out the most, that makes an investment into Tauroneo worthwhile.

I can see him dropping in use to be quite honest; we'll see in the future. A lot of misplays everyone including myself have made in the recent games aren't an accurate demonstration of just how dreadful Resolve is, but if you're the one playing then you know how dangerous it is to approach attacking such a team, and if you see Tauroneo you can be sure your work will be twice as tough.

Also, as I've said in the first post, the order within the same tier is by recruitment. It really simplifies my life because a lot of characters function so differently that it's difficult to tier them, such as Boyd and Rolf. In other cases, it's significantly easier; for example, Stefan being above Lucia, but they're still both Mid tier material.

About Nasir, do you think he needs an additional nerf still? Nihil and 40 SP coupled with that impressive bulk make him a very peculiar unit, but poor hit rates, lack of supports, booster limitations and the Laguz gauge really soften the amount of destruction he could possibly deliver. Seems like more of a support unit to me IMHO.

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to recently, but I should hopefully get back to doing those write-ups pretty soon.

[Espinosa]

Top Tier

- Ike (No Ragnell)

Class: Lord

The Lord is a foot unit deprived of any weapon weaknesses. Solid caps. Swordlocked, which isn't a huge disadvantage considering swords only fail to counter bows (and siege tomes), while returning the favour by being uncountered by bows. Always suffers WTD to lances, unless equipped with the WT-neutral magic swords (not recommended). With a +hit support, such as the one from Elincia, Ike could take the Spirit Dusts and try countering Rolf/Shinon with a Runesword if you feel like trying.

Stats:

Unit     HP  Str  Mag  Skl  Spd  Lck  Def  Res  acc  avo  crt  sk%
Ike      52   26   11   27   28   20   24   18   74   76   13   27
capped   60   26   20   27   28   40   24   22 

Ike caps most of his stats. As such, he needs absolutely no investment to play a dominant role on any given team, and can fill a spare deployment slot while preserving all the crucial resources for other characters. Ike can nevertheless take a Seraph Robe for extra bulk, both the Talismans to take little damage attacking tome and Runesword users and Goddess Icons for Miracle builds.

Skills:

(Occult) Aether

Ike's mastery skill is the best proc skill in the metagame, combining the powers of Adept, Sol and Luna into one glorious skill. A stray Aether activation can finish off a healthy opponent. Attacking with the Brave Sword gives Ike a ~47% chance of proccing Aether on at least one of the hits. Aether will not activate at 2-range, so attacking Ike at 2-range is a bit less risky. Aether is compatible with Miracle (20 + 5 SP), as well as Shade and Provoke.

As a foot unit, Ike has 25 SP and can run Resolve/Wrath/Miracle, Resolve/Nihil and similarly effective skill combos. His bulk with Ragnell makes him both a great Resolver and a great Nihilist.

Supports:

Oscar (+30 avo), currently banned. Renders Ike untouchable by most attacks with brave weapons and sometimes makes forged silvers miss as well. When previously not banned, this support usually starts the team building process ("I'm running Ike obviously, so I will add Oscar as well"), seriously bolstering Oscar as well. Very uber, perhaps a little less so without Ragnell.

Elincia (+15 hit, +15 avo). There's somewhat of a gap between the banned IkexOscar support and his other ones in terms of viability. The hit bonuses allow Ike to connect brave and Ragnell attacks with ease while making him somewhat hard to hit still. Elincia also appreciates the +15 hit for not whiffing with the Runesword. A Ragnelless Ike may die quicker than the Ragnell variant and therefore Elincia could find herself deprived of her support bonuses a little bit too soon.

Ranulf (+7 hit, +22 avo). Something of a mix between the above two supports. Ranulf is arguably the best "normal" Laguz in the metagame (even if he wants boosters and good skills like Resolve to function well) and he likes the avo bonus he gets from Ike.

Titania (+1 def, +7 hit, +15 avo). Oscar is not the only Paladin Ike can support; however, Titania needs a lot of stat boosters to match the better Paladins in performance. Titania probably wants the +1 def more than Ike does.

Soren (+1 atk, +22 avo). Ike's only +atk support. It doesn't solve Soren's hit rate problems with siege tomes and obviously the +22 avo doesn't fix Soren's attack speed with heavier tomes (Rexbolt and long-range magic) either.

Bonds:

Mist (+10 crit, two-way). Vague Katti is Ike's replacement for Ragnell, and this toy has a whopping 35 crit. Add +10 to it and you have a big offensive threat. Both Ike and Mist support Titania so that makes these three a decent enough support pseudo-triangle.

Soren (blocks crits, one-way given to Soren). This leaves Soren less vulnerable to SMs/Berserkers/Snipers I guess.

Elincia (blocks crits, one-way given by Elincia). Ike w/o Ragnell loses his crit protection so this isn't all that bad to survive stray Rolf crits and the like.

Comments: No longer a speedy General with 1-2 range, Ragnelless Ike is still a threatening unit that makes great use of Aether, Resolve and other effective skill combos. Ike doesn't take any boosters to function masterfully and is one still one of the bulkiest units that can run both Resolve and Nihil at the same time (Largo and Boyd have poorer defence averages). A threat to watch out for even with Ragnell out of the picture.

- Oscar

Class: Paladin

Can wield lances and any one of swords, axes, bows, which lets Oscar freely choose between accuracy, power, defence (Vague Katti), avoiding counters and sniping Tibarn/Naesala lategame. Weak to cavalry-slaying weaponry which is so underwhelming that it shouldn't appear on anybody's equipment set. Access to the Knight Ward for +2 def/res. Good caps and weapon triangle control make Oscar a versatile, well-rounded unit. The only real downside to being mounted is having a SP limit of 20.

Stats:

Unit     HP  Str  Mag  Skl  Spd  Lck  Def  Res  acc  avo  crt  sk%
Oscar    49   25   10   26   26   16   23   14   68   68   13   26
capped   60   26   20   26   27   40   27   25   

Oscar caps just his skill stat; however, his failure to capram the other stats does not expose any glaring weaknesses. Energy Drop and Speedwings are somewhat wasted on Oscar as he's only one point short of capping them. If Oscar runs Nihil, he could use Goddess Icons as Miracle remains the only good skill for him (Shade/Provoke somewhat questionable) for those 5 SP, and as a Nihilists he probably appreciates a Robe and a Dracoshield or two to stay alive for long enough to take those pesky Resolvers down. Oscar is capable of being bulky, so any build only benefits from these boosters. 26 AS is doubled only by SMs (and lolVolke) out of Beorc units, and those aren't in a hurry to start attacking Oscar.

Skills:

(Occult) Sol

Oscar has a 26% chance to drain back dealt damage when attacking. A luck-reliant proc, yet it often does the job done when all the best skills have been appropriated extending Oscar's lifetime on the battlefield.

20 SP as a mounted unit render Oscar unable to run both Nihil and Resolve, or Resolve/Wrath/Miracle, and other related skill combos.

Supports:

Ike (+30 avo), currently banned. This was pretty much the reason why Oscar was on nearly every team for a while, though Ike is not the only good support available to him. Good avoid is useful for units equipped with inaccurate weapons, like Runeswords and brave equipment, as well as when the support/Weapon triangle advantage is on Oscar's side.

Kieran (+7 hit, +22 avo). And this is how Oscar had +45 avo from supports with A Ike B Kieran some time ago. Very beneficial support for both Oscar and Kieran who are very similar units, especially with an introduction of boosters making Kieran viable (giving him a chance to avoid getting doubled by Giffca). The extra hit could also prove useful, especially if Vague Katti/Wishblade are used by any of the two.

Tanith (+30 avo). The same exact bonus as the banned Ike x Oscar, though obviously Tanith is so much meeker in comparison to Ike (even the nerfed Ragnelless variant), with poorer combat stats and a Laguz weakness. Still, +45 avoid from supports is a possibility for Oscar, and Tanith also supports Marcia, who in turn supports Kieran, Oscar's support buddy, so fans of building thick support layers have something to appreciate here.

Bonds:

Boyd (+10 crit, two-way). Part of the three brother bond support, this gives Oscar and Boyd non-negligible chances of critting something, most especially when all three brothers are standing. The Wishblade does give Oscar 18 natural crit, too.

Rolf (+10 crit, two-way). See above, except Rolf's Deadeye shenanigans mean he's not surviving for very long, but, when he's still alive, the brother bond increases his crit to very threatening levels taking the Sniper crit bonus into account. Nothing's stopping you from feeding Rolf a robe or two to stay alive for a turn longer, too.

Comments: Even with the uber Ike support banned, Oscar's versatility with his buddy Kieran and good synergy with the two bros mean you will be seeing him a lot, putting those competitive stats to effective use.

- Boyd

Class: Warrior

The Warrior is capable of wielding axes, the most powerful weapon type (which don't experience the same hit rate problems as they do in the other metagames due to silver forges having a very respectable 95 hit), and bows which, while slender, allow Boyd to avoid some counters, hurt sword-users more accurately, and pick off flying royals as they are forced to switch from Full Guards to the Laguz Band lategame.

Warrior is a foot unit, which grants him 25 SP, giving room for a variety of effective skill combos.

Stats:

Unit     HP  Str  Mag  Skl  Spd  Lck  Def  Res  acc  avo  crt  sk%
Boyd     60   30    3   25   24   17   16   11   67   65   12   25
capped   60   30   20   28   27   40   25   20 

As expected of a Warrior traditionally, Boyd is healthy and hit attacks are very powerful, with speed and defence lagging behind a little bit. Though not as slow as some of the other known FE Warriors turn out on average, Boyd is still not without statistical vulnerabilities. 24 AS is doubled by Ike, a common unit to appear on the battlefield, not to mention Tibarn and Giffca, so Boyd wants at least one Speedwings to at least match Oscar's speed. Another Speedwings lets Boyd escape being doubled by SMs (who are still whacked very hard with forged Silver Axe counters). The player can either ignore Boyd's defence stat problems or give Boyd those Dracoshields depending on what the player intends to do with Boyd. Unboosted Boyd can be 2HKO'd by Silver Axe!Kieran (or another Paladin), so that's something to think about, especially if you want to run Resolve and/or Wrath.

Skills:

(Occult) Colossus

Gives Boyd a skl% chance to add +7 str to his attack. This is by no means a bad thing but it's not worth 20 SP at all. If you want a better (and less expensive) proc skill, go with Adept which isn't as hotly contested or invest into Boyd as your Resolver, Wrather or Nihilist or any combination of these three or any other mixture of skills, thanks to that nice 25 SP limit.

Supports:

Brom (+3 atk, +1 def, +7 hit). Brom supports another attacker, the bulky Brom, whose Water support makes the hits coming from these two even stronger than they already are. Brom wants Speedwings a bit more than Boyd (such as to reach 24 AS which is no longer doubled by Paladins, Boyd, uninvested Largo and Neph) and the two compete for some of the good skills as well, both being foot units. It's a very good support duo.

Mist (+3 atk, +1 def, +7 hit). This is the same support as above, except with an entirely different character. Mist wants many of the boosters Boyd has no use for, such as Energy Drop to fix her AS with the Runesword or Seraph Robes to avoid OHKOs and 2HKOs with brave weaponry. The +7 hit to help Runesword connect is handy too, and 43 atk targeting res is about as powerful on the magical side as Boyd is on the physical. Both Boyd and Mist support Titania, forming one of the game's rare support triangles.

Titania (+1 atk, +1 def, +15 hit). A much-needed +hit support that helps Boyd connect vicious brave attacks that otherwise tend to miss a lot, and brave attacks coming off Warrior's 30 str are a scary thing indeed. Also bolsters Titania's combat who needs it, requiring quite a lot of different stat boosters to match the Top Tier Paladins in performance. Support triangle with Mist; Titania also supports Ike.

Bonds:

Oscar (+10 crit, two-way). Yeah we've talked about this already, but basically Boyd's brother bond makes him more of a Berserker than Largo is on his own.

Rolf (+10 crit, two-way). Same as covered in Oscar's analysis.

Comments: Boyd may want an investment in some areas, most notably speed, but he synergises excellently with some of the other great units out there and his attack is ferocious, so he's one of the best foot units you could include on your team.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Espinosa

[Elieson]

I still think that resolve!T is such a niche unit, because with all the misplays that we've seen, fmpov, it's harder to properly implement T. I see the theory behind it, but without repeatable successful execution, the case isn't as convincing

General matches are going to include units that cut through Generals, especially T, and T teams are less defensive because Rolf can't counter, Largo is made of paper mache, and Boyd isn't much better, having speed issues to boot. Tauroneo's deployment requires a less then optional team to support him, which means his worth is less.

[bottlegnomes]

I have to agree with Eli on resolve!T. Also, is deadeye's sleep really all that useful? IIRC, isn't the proc rate something ridiculously low, like 3%? Add on that the skill itself has a low proc rate and I can't see it being particularly useful.

[Elieson]

Soren and Ilyana, a tier under Lucia? Not agreeing with that, since Seiges exist, and Rexbolt!Adept/Flare procs aid massively against Laguz

Edited February 6, 2014 by Elieson

[PKL]

^ They fall way too easy though. So does Lucia and I dont understand why shes so high. She's terrible.

Edited February 6, 2014 by PKL

[Elieson]

I'd still rather run a Bolting/Meteor siege (or Rexbolt counter) on someone then have Lucia get whalloped and do almost nothing in return.

That 20 something damage on a Laguz (assuming Full Guarded), dealt behind Shade, is FAR MORE VALUABLE than Lucia, despite her innate Parity and Earth Support

[Espinosa]

"Cutting through Generals" isn't as easy as you make it sound, with sieging being the only option that always works, yet running a Sage opens more glaring weaknesses for your units. Attacking head-on leaves you vulnerable to Tauroneo's counters which can be powerful even outside of Resolve range (25-29 str is serious), possibly also Vague Katti crits. Thinking Tibarn and Giffca will do the job may cause you to find a Laguzguard on Tauro and end up with the target of the attack emerging with the 'wrong' amount of HP remaining, threatening the rest of the team.

I definitely wouldn't say Tauroneo necessitates both Largo and Rolf to be around, though Rolf is generally a great unit to feature on a team as what he is capable to achieve in the first 1-3 turns can provide an immense advantage for his team and, as Refa pointed out, he can always reveal Nihilists and Parity-wielders.

Also remember that having to be careful about killing Tauroneo as safely as possible means you're losing turns dealing minimal damage just so that you never see Resolve going off. There are many more mindgames that we may be presently unaware of.

I'm definitely taking this discussion in consideration though; and Tauroneo is the first suspect for dropping down a tier and an important one considering the lower tiers' distribution is less important to what we end up putting on our teams.

Also, is deadeye's sleep really all that useful? IIRC, isn't the proc rate something ridiculously low, like 3%? Add on that the skill itself has a low proc rate and I can't see it being particularly useful.

In the hands of Rolf, Deadeye is 13% accurate to proc, or nearly 25% when attacking with a Brave Bow. Rolf can get up to 3 chances of Brave Bowing the opposition. Snipers proc skill at 30, so Shinon with one Secret Book (you get three of these; no reason to hoard them) will have a 15% accurate Deadeye, 28% when not doubling with the Brave Bow (sleeping a General whom Shinon can double certainly sounds appealing). Shinon has a Gatrie support for +3 defence, so he's even more likely to survive than Rolf, and during three rounds of Brave Bow sniping, the chance of not sleeping is 37% (though you also shouldn't be sniping Nihil and Parity wielders).

There's also that fat crit chance, especially when it's Rolf attacking with the full brother bond. 50 base crit without a Killer Bow is serious business.

So yeah, Deadeye really is that good.

Soren and Ilyana, a tier under Lucia? Not agreeing with that, since Seiges exist, and Rexbolt!Adept/Flare procs aid massively against Laguz

Lucia has a cap of 30 AS (1 Speedwings) so she can double some units and a crit bonus, but poor supports. I felt like she and Stefan aren't different enough to end up in different tiers (Stefan also doesn't support good units, whereas Zihark and Mia do).

Sages are generally too weak, requiring precious Dracoshields and robes to avoid OHKOs with forged silvers and 2HKOs from Naesala when not laguzguarded / 2HKOs from brave attacks, and even then remaining very weak. Soren's AS with Rexbolt is terrible even though his speed is easily fixed, while Ilyana has to eat so many Speedwings to pretend she's able to function it's not even funny.

Shade no longer saves any of them with Nihility existing, and Soren with Shade using Meteor/Bolting to siege can expect to be doubled and ORKO'd by an appointed Nihil/Parity user.

Casters are also unable to make good use of Resolve, the best skill in the game, not receiving any bonus to magic.

[Refa]

(I think the rest of your points are good, so I'm only going to touch on this)

About Nasir, do you think he needs an additional nerf still? Nihil and 40 SP coupled with that impressive bulk make him a very peculiar unit, but poor hit rates, lack of supports, booster limitations and the Laguz gauge really soften the amount of destruction he could possibly deliver. Seems like more of a support unit to me IMHO.

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to recently, but I should hopefully get back to doing those write-ups pretty soon.

Well, it's impossible to say without an actual match. Theorycraft is all well and good, but it'd be a lot better to test it out. I don't think he'd need another nerf, due to his slow start up time and he does require some investment, I just think Nihil is a really good skill.

[Elieson]

Lucia with 30AS doesn't contribute as much too a team's goal, compared to a Sage.

Someone attacking a Sage with a Nihil user on turn one is a huge crush for them, as they instantly announce a single game changing skill holder. Unless the nihil user is willing to brave you (and faces next round Cindy potentially with an inaccurate weapon.

Give Soren a Thunder+, he's got a hugely accurate 39+supports counter hit on your unit. Sub29AS won't one double him

If you get first turn? RexB or Seige! It's far more effective /than Lucia/.

[Espinosa]

Top Tier (continued)

- Rolf

Class: Sniper

Bowlocked, which means Rolf can target Laguz and units with brave weapons and silver forges of other types without any fear of taking a counter; this works the other way around too. For this reason, Rolf is one of the rare units who don't care what the player chooses to equip them with, so you could just leave him with his Brave Bow which is what he'll mostly be using on player's active turns anyway.

Snipers receive a +15 crit boost and thus stray crits dealing extra damage (often not too significant because 35 atk with the Brave Bow barely pierces some of the potential targets, but helpful nevertheless unless you trigger Resolve that way or something) become a lot more likely. This boost to crit is further augmented by Rolf's brother bond giving him additional +20 crit when all three are alive.

Cap for strength could be a bit higher but the critical boost somewhat compensates for the lacking firepower.

25 SP for skills.

Stats:

Unit     HP  Str  Mag  Skl  Spd  Lck  Def  Res  acc  avo  crt  sk%
Rolf     45   23   10   27   28   20   19   14   74   76   28   13
capped   60   25   20   30   28   40   25   23  

The only stat Rolf doesn't care about boosting is his speed, as he caps it and leaves the Speedwings to be distributed among other units who blend well with Rolf on the same team. An Energy Drop to bolster strength is top priority because of the cumulative effect it has on attacking with brave effects and potentially critting, but any booster has something to offer Rolf (outside of Spirit Dusts anyway). Robes and shields extend Rolf's longevity, as do Goddess Icons if you choose to complement Deadeye with Miracle, and even Talismans could be of some use even if Rolf's def-res gap isn't as high as some Paladins' for example. 2 Secret Books give Rolf +2 crit and +2% Deadeye. The latter actually produced a noticeable difference in the chance to proc Deadeye when Rolf attacks non-Nihil/Parity users for several turns.

Skills:

(Occult) Deadeye

Always doubles the final displayed hit (38% hit becomes 76% hit, 52% - 100%), and has a skl/2% chance, rounded down, to sleep the target. 13-15% of proccing sleep is low and even less reliable than critting something, especially on brother bond teams, but attacking multiple times with the Brave Bow leads to very high chances of sleeping something before Rolf kicks the bucket.

Together with Deadeye, Rolf could try running Shade to limit the number of characters who can target him and reveal the Nihility units who could threaten the Resolver(-s) on Rolf's team, or run Miracle to give him an extra chance to last for an extra turn; however, Rolf not running Shade is a very clear indication he's got Miracle and should be attacked with a Nihilist for the finishing blow (so one will be exposed whether you run Shade or not).

If the player chooses to not run Deadeye, Adept and Wrath are some of the other skills that work well on Rolf. Resolve may not be a very good idea on an earlygame unit and one with a rather low strength cap.

Supports:

Tauroneo (+1 def, +7 hit, +15 avo). A defensive support that helps Rolf last longer during the earlygame turns in order to deliver maximum punishment with the Brave Bow. Since Rolf tends to die early after doing his job, Tauroneo gets little out of the support - the avoid boost is almost lost on him considering his horrid speed outside of Resolve range anyway. Tauroneo can try to get work done in the early turns while the support is still active, but running a Sniper to tank attacks is probably not the right way to play this.

Mist (+1 atk, +1 def, +7 hit, +7 avo). Rolf's attack could always use an extra boost and the Mist support does grant him one alongside other useful bonuses, as small as they may be. Mist would like to have all these bonuses for her as well, especially the +hit to connect Runesword attacks, but Rolf is not staying on the field for very long.

Marcia (+1 atk, +15 hit, +7 avo). Another +atk option for Rolf, this time with unnecessary hit (as you've got Deadeye, though you do lose the passive accuracy boost when attacking a Nihilist) instead of the handy +1 def. Marcia supports Kieran and Tanith who both support Oscar who in turn has a brother bond with Rolf, so some of these could be used together for that synergy.

Shinon (+1 def, +7 hit, +15 avo). The bonuses are the same as Rolf x Tauroneo, but the interesting implication is that you are running two Snipers even though you have a Brave Bow for just one of them. This may not be a good idea considering two units unable to counter can be a liability and Snipers really aren't meant for tanking hits.

Bonds:

Oscar (+10 crit, two-way) / Boyd (+10 crit, two-way). Already addressed previously, these two give Rolf +20 crit before he's shuffled off his mortal coil. Not too bad for the other two brothers if there happens to be a Rolf on the other side of the battlefield, giving Oscar/Boyd an increased chance to take the clone Rolf out with a stray crit, but you also get to choose between making use of your own Rolf until he falls or choose to let both Rolfs eliminated.

Shinon (+5 crit, two-way). Not a good idea considering the concerns outlined above in the supports section.

Comments: Rolf really wants an Energy Drop, which isn't the most contested resource around, and could take many of the other non-Speedwings resources as well, but a sleep proc or crit could well grant Rolf's player an early advantage in the match. Rolf's great synergy with many of the other similarly viable units is hard to ignore too, making him a Top Tier unit.

- Kieran

Class: Paladin

Subject more or less exhausted in Oscar's write-up. Kieran has the most powerful weapon type by default, which is highly useful, but misses on the best 1-2 range available outside of Ragnell in the Wishblade, unless he wants to run lances, which is a valid choice for having a better matchup against sword users. Swords for the Vague Katti's defence boost and bows for avoiding counters and sniping royals are good alternative and make Kieran as flexible and versatile as his sleeping beauty friend.

20 SP.

Stats:

Unit     HP  Str  Mag  Skl  Spd  Lck  Def  Res  acc  avo  crt  sk%
Kieran   50   26    7   26   25   15   23   12   67   65   13   26
capped   60   26   20   26   27   40   27   25   

Kieran's averages are all too similar to Oscar's - well-balanced and ready for action. 25 AS leaves him vulnerable to being doubled by Giffca, so a Speedwings is very desirable, saving him from Swordmaster doubling as well. Benefits from defensive buffs, much like Oscar. Caps strength unlike Oscar though.

Skills:

(Occult) Sol

If you're putting trust into a proc skill or invested all the other good skills elsewhere. Otherwise, 20 SP limits what Kieran could be built somewhat.

Supports:

Oscar (+7 hit, +22 avo). Two versatile Paladins giving each other a lot of avo and some hit. The benefits should be pretty obvious.

Marcia (+1 atk, +15 hit, +7 avo). The nice bonus to hit allows Kieran to be more brave when attacking with braves, and the offensive bonus makes Kieran almost match the offence of Largo and Boyd (whom he belts in potential bulk). Marcia is also happy to take the attack bonus with her humble strength cap of 23.

Bonds:

Geoffrey (+5 crit, two-way). Oh, where did Geoff come from? This dark horse, pun unintended, wants some contested resources to perform well and the +crit bonus may not be really worth it. If the Ike x Oscar support were still allowed, Elincia x Ike x Oscar x Kieran () Geoffrey x Elincia would be an interesting team of five with each unit supporting two others in some way.

Elincia (blocks crits, one-way given by Elincia). Kieran doesn't exactly have the highest luck (though he's not in the danger zone most of the time either), so this isn't entirely useless.

Geoffrey (blocks crits, one-way given by Geoffrey). See above, though Geoff is actually the one with the lower luck stat out of the two.

Comments: Very similar to his friend Oscar, Kieran functions very similarly and is best used together with Oscar. Poorer synergy than Oscar's who has brother bond options, but nevertheless a very solid unit.

- Makalov

Class: Paladin

An exhausted topic by now. Swords are one of Makalov's weapon types, making a defensive build featuring the Vague Katti very likely, and Makalov really does appreciate lances should the player find physical 1-2 range important, but axes and bows are both viable alternatives. 20 SP.

Stats:

Unit     HP  Str  Mag  Skl  Spd  Lck  Def  Res  acc  avo  crt  sk%
Makalov  51   26    8   22   27   15   25   11   59   69   11   22
capped   60   26   20   26   27   40   27   25   

Makalov is the best Paladin purely statwise, capping both strength and speed, in contrast to Oscar and Kieran who cap one of these each, and having +2 in defence to boast as an advantage over these two. He is however lacking in skill, which can diminish the proc rate of Makalov's Sols, but Secret Books are less contested than Speedwings and Dracoshields are, and nobody says Mak should be running Sol or any other proc skill either.

Skills:

(Occult) Sol

Drains HP. The chance could be aleviated from 22% to more reliable 26% if you want to bother with it at all. Limited in skill setups due to having 20 SP as a mounted unit.

Since Makalov has the poorest supports amongs non-royals present in Top Tier, Parity is perfect for him ignoring skills and enemies' supports alike. Parity leaves 15 SP extra space, but renders many potential builds useless knowing the nature of Parity. Renewal could help Makalov as that one skill that isn't nullified by his own Parity, recovering smaller amounts of HP compared to Sol but doing so reliably everytime the player's turn comes. It may well give Makalov that extra vitality to take an extra hit, complimented by his excellent defence, or even restore a lot of it should the enemy be too preoccupied with other tasks to continue chipping away at Mak's great bulk.

Supports:

Astrid (+1 def, +7 hit, +15 avo). The closest thing Makalov has to a "viable support". Being very fragile for a Paladin, Astrid probably wants this more than Makalov does. Or you could just run Parity and not bother dumping robes and shields into Astrid (who is about as good as the Top Tier Paladins if you do).

Bonds:

Marcia (+5 crit, two-way). Marcia may not exactly be among the best units statwise, but she synergises well with some other Top Tier folk and Makalov is fine on his own and could join just about any team (contesting weapons is a reasonable concern however). But still, what can +5 crit change...

Comments: Much like Ike, Makalov functions surprisingly well with minimal to no investment, has flexibility more or less comparable to Oscar and Kieran and the skill Parity was almost invented for him and his horrible support options.

[bottlegnomes]

In the hands of Rolf, Deadeye is 13% accurate to proc, or nearly 25% when attacking with a Brave Bow. Rolf can get up to 3 chances of Brave Bowing the opposition. Snipers proc skill at 30, so Shinon with one Secret Book (you get three of these; no reason to hoard them) will have a 15% accurate Deadeye, 28% when not doubling with the Brave Bow (sleeping a General whom Shinon can double certainly sounds appealing). Shinon has a Gatrie support for +3 defence, so he's even more likely to survive than Rolf, and during three rounds of Brave Bow sniping, the chance of not sleeping is 37% (though you also shouldn't be sniping Nihil and Parity wielders).

There's also that fat crit chance, especially when it's Rolf attacking with the full brother bond. 50 base crit without a Killer Bow is serious business.

So yeah, Deadeye really is that good.

I should read before posting

Anyway, this may have been answered in the actual LA topic, but is deadeye's acc boost a passive bonus or active? IIRC, its proc rate is skill/2 in PoR, and then the sleep is an additional effect. Given that, the chances of sleeping on a hit would be 2.25%, which is hardly reliable. If the sleep is the only thing the chance affects and the hit boost is passive, ignore me.

Edited February 6, 2014 by bottlegnomes

[Espinosa]

I typed it up in response to your comment, so it seems chronologically justified to me. Yeah, I really have no clue where you extract those minuscule proc percentages from lol.

The Deadeye accuracy is always active, and to be sure I'm going to check if it's really nullified by the C25 boss with his Nihil, though I'm almost sure it is.

[bottlegnomes]

It's from 15% chance of proccing deadeye for the acc boost, then 15% for proccing the sleeping. 0.15 x 0.15 = 0.0225. That's the impression I always had of how it works, though I never really paid attention to it, as I never found a use for it in-game. That said, my complaint is now irrelevant.

[Espinosa]

Lucia with 30AS doesn't contribute as much too a team's goal, compared to a Sage.

Someone attacking a Sage with a Nihil user on turn one is a huge crush for them, as they instantly announce a single game changing skill holder. Unless the nihil user is willing to brave you (and faces next round Cindy potentially with an inaccurate weapon.

Give Soren a Thunder+, he's got a hugely accurate 39+supports counter hit on your unit. Sub29AS won't one double him

If you get first turn? RexB or Seige! It's far more effective /than Lucia/.

So Soren stands there with a forge (which doesn't weigh him down, unlike Rexbolt) waiting for somebody to attack him; how is he contributing to any team goal? He can't have Nihil in any universe so the moment somebody enters Resolve range he'll get braved, or one could just postpone his killing until the last turns (up to which Soren has likely done nothing) or attack him with a moribund unit, which also complicated Soren's player's next turn as he can't just eliminate a weakened foe after Soren counterkilled him.

If Soren takes out a siege tome (very inaccurate chipping if Stefan also isn't fielded), he can't counter the next turn defending, and if your sieging fails to connect - congrats, you've wasted a unit slot, and if you've added Stefan to the same team you haven't put two deployment slots to very good use.

Lastly, Full Guarded Ena and Nasir can attack Soren without taking any significant damage at all. Sages just aren't very viable, even less so than Lucia.

[Shadow Mir]

Lucia has a cap of 30 AS (1 Speedwings) so she can double some units and a crit bonus, but poor supports. I felt like she and Stefan aren't different enough to end up in different tiers (Stefan also doesn't support good units, whereas Zihark and Mia do).

Pray tell, what's this about Mia supporting good units? The only good unit I see her supporting is Largo...

[PKL]

Mia seems pretty bad. With her amazing 1x2 damage displays...