Sol Hiryu

To be fair, that test really doesn't quite prove anything; a person could have all the qualities of a Sue/Stu, yet turn out reasonably good if the story's execution is good enough. Many favorite characters we know would fail the Mary Sue litmus test, honestly. Which is to say, Micaiah is perceived as a Sue mostly because of FE10's shoddy execution in her parts. She wouldn't be quite so bad had the story not emphasized her abilities every single chance it got. (For the record, I think Micaiah is okay and not as much as a Sue as I used to think she was. Still pretty Sue-ish, though.)

Hey, abusing Wolzard when he's not even here isn't very nice. :(

Wouldn't it be better just to move Soren/Ilyana/Rhys (or maybe just the former two, Rhys still has some problems that promotion doesn't fix) up to the bottom of Upper Mid rather than just drop Mist? I'm pretty uncomfortable with dropping her to the bottom of Upper Mid solely because it's felt that she's not a complete tier ahead of the sages/other healers (rather, I feel that's a case to move them up rather than her down). I'm not in the mood to go digging around all the Mist vs. Volke stuff, both old and new, but even if she was decided to move beneath him, I certainly wouldn't agree moving her down any more than that without some very solid arguments. And it should be something other than the standard BEXP/Sonic Sword/Supports stuff, because really, the first two are exaggerated and the last is just annoying.

Ranulf: Hey, Snape killed Dumbledore on page 606. Soren: NOOOOOOOOOO, YOU BITCH! YOU BITCH!

I wouldn't necessarily say that, since Mist + pony + Physic is still a lot better than Soren/Ilyana/Rhys + Physic. The gap should probably be closed a bit, yes, but I don't think Soren or Ilyana's existence as healers themselves undermines Mist's own advantages.

Her stats are not sub-par, as they are rather good upon her join time. Not only that, she has flight utility (which comes in very handy during several chapters after her join time) and 1-2 range, as well as weapon triangle control. To top it all off, she has an Earth affinity she can use in a support with Marcia or someone else, giving you a beast of a unit in the lategame. Reinforce is just icing on the cake.

Uh, did you miss the part where dondon said realistic supports? Dorcas might not be able to grab anybody else but Bartre, considering they're both forced earlygame. Why the hell are you bringing Dorcas into a comparison between Rath and Bartre anyway? Again, Dart's probably going to fall to near bottom because they're no way you're using the Ocean Seal on him, so there goes most of his use. As for Rath, it becomes a question of whether or not he'll be able to kill anything once he joins up, compared to Bartre.

I forget about when the last time I saw the HHM Ranked list, but wasn't Hector lower due to EXP rank issues after he hits 20? I mean, I haven't checked up on if that's changed or not, but I'm thinking he's just really too high if he can potentially hurt you even by battling.

I'm trying to process the whole argument in my head, but...exactly how much BEXP are you giving Edward? This is not FE9, where you have shittons of BEXP laying around; Part I BEXP is incredibly limited, and if Eddie taking more BEXP actually does make everyone worse, that's hurting the efficiency of the team. Heaven help you if he gets the Dracoshield, because then you have to argue why him getting it is > other people getting it, as several people can see a substantial durability increase from it. Let's not even get started on supports.

Oh god. Please don't tell me we're going to go through the stereotypical Eddie-hype. Please.

Summed up, Mia is a complete beast when given access to resources that she uses the best (Adept, Cancel, Ike support), and not many will surpass her offensive power on the field. This continues throughout the game, and she helps your army's efficiency the best with those items. She also hides the Cheeto Puffs under her dress.

I don't think it's that quite clear cut. I can agree with Micaiah over Elincia on the principle that Micaiah is helping out more in harder chapters than Elincia is, but it's not quite enough for a tier gap, especially given Micaiah's horrendously late promotion and pretty average part 4. Plus the fact that Elincia is a mounted healer, which does give her a better edge in their part 4 comparison.

...since when was that decided? A PoR transfer from any mode works for any mode of RD, provided you got the easy mode glitched fixed.

Yeah, I really don't get Sothe hate, considering he's still one of your good units heading into part 3. I honestly think some of the hate Micaiah gets in fandom is thrown his way just by accessory. Such is the tragedy of being a popular character. =( Well, at least we now know how Ike's the father of Sothe's children. It's kind of odd how there isn't much for Sothe to steal/loot past 1-E, other than stuff found on the ground and probably Physic staves. Splitting his growths like you suggested would have made him a lot more usable. :x

I'd say max transfer Sothe is entirely unreasonable, as you'll certainly won't have him be using combat in PoR, where Volke is superior and even HE sucks at combat. Not only that, you're forced to level him up entirely by BEXP, and if you wanted max transfers, there'd be a large amount of reset abuse for it. If max transfer Sothe existed, I'd say the cost of getting him there wouldn't make him top tier at all.

Correct. Ilyana or Brom can recruit Zihark into the GMs if they had an A support with him in PoR, but not the other way around. It's like how Mist can recruit Jill if they had an A, etc... Bonds are nice, but you shouldn't center a PoR playthrough on getting several units to an A support. You have to think of the situations where you can't use them as well as you think you can. As for the weapon ranks, I heard they transfer over even if you didn't cap out at 20/20, but...for all units that had a weapon type in PoR and don't have it when they start in RD, then they lose that rank and can't get it back. Things such as Jill's lance rank, Geoffrey's Bow rank, whatever Kieran had...oh, and Mage staff ranks too. EDIT: From what I've read, the bonuses don't stack for them. So if they both capped Skill, for instance, you only get +2 as opposed to +4. Calill doesn't get any Bonds from Largo's supports either.

It will probably end up with another list with "combined" transfers and vanilla characters, because there will be several issues within a transfer list because of new things that will pop up. Such as "if this unit gets a transfer, it can free up a resource they usually take..." and so on. Of course, people will have to argue about how difficult or not it will be for them to cap their stats in PoR, because transfers will tend to favor those who come early game and are low-leveled, allowing band/ward usage. (That is to say, pretty much nearly all the GMs) Again, all transfers aren't going to be made equal, far from it, so expect people like Jill and Zihark with transfers to rise, as well as nearly all the GMs.

That was brought up before, and it was quickly decided that he's not really good enough for Top Tier. Or at least, he's not better than Volug when both exist. Part 1, sure. He's nearly godly there up until the point Volug comes in, where he becomes "very good" instead of "lolrape". However, all the stuff he manages to get without having to be placed in mortal danger easily makes him one of your best units in this part. Part 3, not so much. He's decent-ish, since he has the Beast Killer all to himself, but he does have existing durability issues and starts having it a bit harder than other units. Considering there isn't really that much treasure to get in the DB part 3 (other than the Brave Bow), his thieving utility is almost nil. Part 4? Well, it all relies on what he can steal/find, because he sure as hell isn't going to see any combat with how subpar his stats are by this time. Granted, his combat isn't as bad as a lot of other units, but it's detrimental enough that it's easier to have him avoid combat rather than initiate it. He's great for finding items in the sand, but since it's not exclusive to him, I'm not sure how much it counts in his favor, despite the fact he has a guaranteed chance of getting them.

I just wanted to ask something for clarification. Assuming you guys are going to tier transferred people, shouldn't it factor in the actual difficulty of those units reaching those caps in PoR? Assuming its normal mode (you guys did say that, right? Or was I imagining it?), a core team of around ten units should be able to reach 20/20 and cap. This also brings up the point of a unit's chance to cap their stats. Are you assuming averages for them, or using favorable chances for them to cap those stats? If so, pretty much all of the GMs would probably rise, and more of the late-game PoR units wouldn't really change. This is the one thing that I feel that you can't really compare fairly; obviously, it's a no-brainer to get a Transfer!Ike and rape the game with him, but it's quite another when it's someone like Haar, whose chances of getting a good transfer are pretty low. I propose that the transfer debate topic be revived and the whole thing looked at more in depth, because it's obvious that other units are going to get transfers more easily than others will.

I don't know...20/5 for everyone else is fine and reasonable, but Armors like Gatrie are a different story, considering they only have 5 move (not to mention all the terrain they're slowed down in...), and Gatrie's speed is less than optimal. I think 20/6 by Chapter 18 is very much overleveled for him, considering most units have move advantages on him and will see action more than he will. Unless we gave him a BEXP dump, which is sorta reasonable. Something like 20/3 would probably be more accurate for both him and Brom, IMO.

Mist is in a tricky spot, from what I've seen. Everything before her promotion is average, since she's only a healer with 5 move, and the first Physic doesn't come until Chapter 15. Figuring out her promotion is weird. There are several things that have Mist as high as she is; awesome support setups (Seriously, +5 Atk and Def?), being a mounted healer after promotion, and...her offense with the Sonic Sword. Early promotion will ruin said offense in favor of getting the pony earlier, which can help since several chapters around that time are fairly large. If someone does go for the Sonic Sword by pumping BEXP into her and giving her two Arms Scrolls (which are negligible for all but a few units), she can have instant SS access. But then you have the issue of giving BEXP to a healer and not getting immediate returns out of it other than improved healing. She can't leverage some/most of her supports until she's promoted, because 5 move only goes so far. That said, it is possible to promote her by 18 if you leverage her some BEXP per each chapter and have her use staves each turn when possible. She more than likely won't be able to use one for every single turn, but she'll still gain enough EXP per chapter to at least get close to a level. Maybe sealing her around level 17/18 would help? As for the tier gap, I'm not too eager to broach that topic, considering the huge Mist vs. Volke debate that went on earlier. If it does get brought up again, expect to see extreme sandbagging. However, being a mounted healer after promotion > not being one after promotion, so she's considerably better than Rhys. How much so is the remaining question.

Just for reference, I found Narga's post about the whole BEXP thing under the assumption someone is mostly using top/high tiers. Granted, this was made before the whole explosion about Mia and the ensuing discussion about communism and Fire Emblem (in Soviet Tellius, BEXP takes you!), but the general point still remains the same: it's how to make the best use of a unit if you're going to be using them. Take it as you will. And, ugh. I was beginning another response, but it's taking me several times to read over everything just to get the point, so I think it's time for bed.

Haven't we already gone over this? Okay, yes, let's say we're using a team of 10 in the earlygame, and they're each entitled to 10% BEXP, if we're dividing it equally. However, just like you said, not everyone is going to need it at that time, and using it as soon as you get it is better than saving it. Hence, around Chapter 11 (we seem to love this chapter, don't we?): Titania is generally assumed to be in play, and if she's one of the ten you're using, you can completely leave out of BEXP intake and she won't suffer for it, so that means there's nine people to use it on. If any of those nine are Mordecai and/or Lethe, that's another 1/2 unit(s) down. Furthermore, it's possible to slowplay Ike's BEXP since he doesn't promote until 18, although this is fairly unreasonable since he needs the levels too. So saying, it's possible that you only have to split BEXP between 7 or 8 units at that time. Maybe even 6. Narga made a nice post pages ago which showed that, even if someone like Rolf is taking away more BEXP from the rest of the team, that BEXP amount taken more than likely won't give the other units a full level anyway, considering the levels they should be around that time. AFAIK, we haven't been going over with Mia, but we have with Rolf to catch him up to everyone else. This is why I don't see Rolf ever going out of Lower Mid, due to this.

We do get a lot of BEXP, and it is his right to get some of it if he's in play. Yes, the fact that he takes more to get him even with everyone else/the enemies is a mark against him, but really...you're just coming out of Chapter 10 anyway before you really use him, the biggest source of BEXP aside from Chapter 15. BEXP is still a cost, but it's possibly not as large as everyone used to make it out to be. (I mean, most playthroughs don't use more than 10 or 11 units. There's definitely more than enough for everyone) Are steel forges available after Ch. 12? I know it's only Iron for 11, so I'm wondering if he would like to hold off on it until he can grab a Steel. Although forged Iron does have some benefits in Chapter 12 with the flying enemies, potentially making everyone else's lives easier. Personally, I think Rolf is > Elincia, but kinda shaky on the other two. Shinon is a bit of a challenge, considering his early game utility and the potential for good stats once given BEXP himself, so you'd have to weigh that versus what Rolf's been doing in the ~11 chapters he's been gone. Janaff vs Rolf was done to death before Mia came and stole the spotlight, and I think the two are relatively even as far as combat is concerned. It then just gets into the utility and resource use between those two.

Ike into Top has been brought up many times before, but the general consensus was that parts of his earlygame were too rough for him to actually be there comfortably. From what I remember, the main argument was that several enemies past...I dunno, Chapter 8, I can't remember the exact argument correctly, had WTA over him and his supports weren't quite built enough yet to make him an avo-tank. Well, that and the fact that he has absolutely no 1-2 range. I dunno how much weight we give that during the early chapters. EDIT: I recall someone arguing that Oscar having to take away kills from Ike/Boyd in the earlier chapters is a slight disadvantage, hence Kieran rising. I think I just skimmed the thing, because I wasn't really interested in more paladin arguing.