General Horace

lol @ chad dodgetanking in chapter 7 Douglas - He's pretty impervious to physical damage but is hampered hard by huge con and low movement. Good weapon ranks but has accuracy issues. Can still be filler though, 2/10 Zeiss - has really funny base stats. Needing to get three levels before he promotes hurts him a bit, and D Lances is pretty abysmal, but unlike Tate he actually doesn't mind all that much thanks to his huge strength. Actually pretty great in Ilia, but he misses a lot of maps where flight is important. 5/10 Niime - more or less exclusive use of Apocalypse, one of the best S rank weapons because it increases warp range and hits like a truck. She's okay at fighting but 16 speed usually doesn't cut it. Her warping prowess is unrivaled, however. 7/10 Dayan - Solid filler that can take out a wyvern or move units around if needed, actually pretty useful. Actually didn't know he had a triangle attack, the more you know. 3/10. Yuno - totally useless as a combat unit, joins too late to be useful as a flier. 0/10

As someone who's done FE8, I would strongly recommend against it as your first game for it. It's lowkey one of the most difficult to figure out games imo, and due to how short the game is you need to meet some ridiculous stat/weapon rank benchmarks really fast, and rout maps can be tough to figure out. Like mentioned above, playing a few drafts really gives you ideas on what units you need in what situations. Like when drafting FE7, it's important to consider all the units that can rescue promoted Hector, for instance.

Nah, he'd be better than Oujay, Oujay's bases are like, really bad. However, being better than Oujay isn't exactly an accomplishment in itself. He'd similar to Echidna trading some speed, skill and axes for a bit of extra bulk.

Fa - I honestly never have any use for her. Low movement limited use manakete nuke. 2.5/10 Percival - Great stats and weapon ranks. Useful for his whole existance. 8/10. Igrene - Filler bow user. I prefer Klein's better bow rank (and availability) to her slightly higher stats. I forget what I rated Klein so hopefully 4.5/10 is slightly lower than what I gave him. Garret - Can fight wyverns or pegasusknights pretty well. Usefulness takes a huge nosedive in Sacae. 2.5/10 Hugh - Generally not worth the money. I'll assume you get his best bases though. He joins too late to be very useful though, he gets slaughtered in Sacae with his shaky speed and Ilia isn't too kind to him either. Still barely useable if you really want to use him though. 1.5/10

yes we're supposed to play if you read the bracket jedi posted

can you just tell me when you can play at a time that isn't like 1am on a weekday

Ray - Eventually becomes reasonably useable but has a very rough start. 2.5/10 Cath - Annoying to recruit and overshadowed. 0.5/10 Miledy - Great stats, flight, what more do you want. 9.5/10 for slightly late join time. Cecilia - Useful staffbot on a horse, limited other use. 6/10. Sophia - 0/10

Can you explain to me what makes you think Tate is as valuable as Zealot/Alan/Lance? Looking at the units below her there aren't many great units either but i'm of he opinion that Tate isn't enough of a contributor to anything that warrents being a high tier unit. I've only used her once on HM and was very underwhelmed. She can't fight lategame and she can't fight well until she promotes. I see her around Dieck/Noah territory. I don't really agree in the no effort required = good unit (assuming they do in fact have good stats) philosophy, but i'm willing to handwaive it. Knight Crest competition isn't a huge deal either since you won't use more than 2 of the cavaliers anyway (even 2 is pushing it). More or less the only issue I have with Percival being a top tier unit is his join time. He's not around for the hardest part of the game (earlygame) either.

Marcus is level 6 now starting chapter 10. Dunno how high/low that is. Also worth noting Marcus still has base str/spd so he probably got a bit less exp than normal because he's barely missing KO's when he can double, and +1 speed goes a really long way on him. I gave Dieck a couple bosses but Marcus still got 1/2/7 bosses. And Alan still has D lances, he's not C/C (before promoting him here in chapter 10). He's just below half of D and a little ways into C at level 15. He hit C near the end of 8x too, he didn't have it at the start. Other units expwise Shanna is like 11/1, Rutger is 12?/1 Dieck is level 13, and Roy is level 10, Marcus 6, Zealot 3, everyone else is pretty much filler (Lugh is level 9 or something not sure if i'll use him) or a staffbot. Again I don't want to move Alan/Lance up at all, I just want to understand what makes Percival as good as the other units in top tier. Tate's placement also confuses me. She's barely (or not even) a top 10 combat unit on your team which only leaves flying utility, and this is lessened imo by the existance of Miledy.

Yeah, I get what you're saying with your second point there, and I'll concede it, it makes sense. However what also makes no sense is rating a unit that is a top 5 unit on your team for almost the entire game outside the top 10 units and a dude that is your second best unit for a third of the game fourth is very confusing, especially when the gap between 2-5ish isn't very big. I'm not terrible opposed to Allen/Lance staying where they're listed, but Percival needs to drop. Zealot/Tate below Alance though for sure. Zealot's combat is similar to an unpromoted Alance and doesn't hold up for as long and doesn't exist for earlygame and I really have no idea what Tate does at all outside of flying dudes around and having bad combat. WRT to the first point, you just have to be not stupid about it. Of course you're not gonna go EP a bunch of soldiers with swords or something, there are several scenerios where enemies are left with ~5-7 HP in the earlygame where you can just secure the kill with Alan or Shanna or whoever. Again i'm not playing at a "slow" pace. The only maps i've taken more than 10 turns on so far are Chapter 8 (which is a long horrible chapter anyway) and Chapter 3 because Dieck missed the boss like 5 times in a row.

There isn't much point in using lances early game except in cases where they score a KO (very rarely) or for extra damage against the swordcavs in chapter 4. Swords have higher hit even with WTD against soldiers so he's basically been exclusively using them, he still has D.5ish lances. Very sure the ROM is unmodified lol, i've done this several times. Noah can be at Durandal around the time Percival joins if you really feel like it. (not that he does much with it...) Not sure you even need to promote Alan/Lance right away for the isles. They'll have adequete offence unpromoted and you already have (potentially) promoted Thany, Zealot and Marcus, and the one point of movement isn't hurting you very much. It's not like promoting them right away is gonna cause a huge jump in performance, like promoting Shanna is. It's fine to promote her since her long term potential isn't great anyway (offensively anyway) and her flexibility goes up loads with the promo boosts + swords, but Alance don't really need the boost to perform well in the isles. I don't know what the stance for this list is (it's not stated anywhere afaik) but i'm sure it's not a LTC list so they're not gonna end up prmoting immediately (and alance are undoubtabley better turnsavers than Percy in LTC anyway) so i'm not sure what metric we're supposed to be using.

+2 strength makes a pretty big deal in chapter 4/5 for just raw damage against the huge hp pool of enemies, but the +speed doesn't do a whole lot. In a current run my Alan is level 13 (probably 14 by chapter end) in chapter 8x with C Swords/C Lances and I'm not playing slowly at all (went the short way through chapter 5, skipped some chests in chapter 6, etc). I'm really doubting his inability to have A swords by the time Percival shows up. He's also -1 str/spd and average everywhere else so he's not getting extra exp because he's blessed. Your level estimate is terribly low.

I dunno, I find the dancer/bard are a lot more valuable to the team than Percival. Think about the maps where you warp Rutger/Miledy/Barth whoever is killing a boss. They might be amazing, but if you're warpskipping some maps their survival is a coinflip without dancing warper to make Roy seize on the same turn, and they also provide a safety net in case your dudes miss a very common ~75/80 hit on the player phase. What does Percival actually contribute that's unique to the team compared to the other top tier units? Knight Crest competition is extremely low too. Competition between Alan and Lance themselves is irrelevant, since only one should theoretically be (fully) invested in, leaving only Noah, who is a worse unit both short and long term. I'd personally take a (very very slightly) worse Percival that has an availability lead of EIGHTEEN CHAPTERS (this is important) than Percival himself. Alan/Lance are also among your better earlygame units (only behind Dieck/Marcus and eventually Rutger) so experience isn't a hotly contested resourse there either. I just made the FE7 comparison since it really is a big deal. Percival exists (if you don't count his join map since he does nothing there) for twelve maps out of 30 in the game, and some of said maps have the option to be warpskipped so he could even do nothing for some of them. He doesn't bring anything special to the team other than high stats on a horse which can be replicated by two units you get in chapter 1. He's very useful and definately deserves a spot on every team, but a top tier unit? Come on.

we're playing in the first round/wave/whatever you wanna call it, and as noted above I couldn't play tonight (or yesterday). If you're around tomorrow more or less anytime it'd be preferable but I could make Saturday work.

Percival also doesn't exist for like, half the game. I'd definately lower him to below the dancers (and out of top tier imo...) The game wouldn't be substantially harder without Percival compared to any other unit in his tier. Alance might be "RNG Screwable" but by the same point they're also capabale of being blessed, it's a moot point. A few extra points of speed early on and they're suddenly overwhelmingly better than they are on average (don't lists assume averages anyway?) I'm pretty sure your cav of choice isn't going to just be 20/1 or 15/5 or something by the time Percival joins either, I could be wrong though, i'm only in chapter 8 of my current run and Alan is almost level 12 (without much effort), Raising swords early is preferred and beneficial for early armourslayer, Durandal really isn't the chore you're making it out to be. Mid-Lategame prepremotes have been heavily overrated for a long time (not so much Percival, he's still very very good, but not top tier good) too. This is more of an FE7 problem though with Harken and Pent (especially Pent) EDIT: I don't think using hammers is particularly noteworthy for percival, killer axes are nice tho

i've never understood the huge gap between alan/lance and percival. Percival is awesome and stuff but Alan and Lance are basically the same unit by the time he shows up and can easily use durandal if you really want them too.

Lilina - Not totally unusable, hits very hard. Will basically never double. Her bad start is pretty annoying. 2.5/10 Shin - Actually a pretty great unit, good against the tougher common enemies like wyverns. Only real drawback is lame initial bow Rank. 7.5/10 Fir - Very useable to be trained up throughout the Western Isles, but the latter third of the game isn't too kind to Swordmasters. 4/10 Gonzo - Crazy offensive potential but his massive con and lame skill hold him back. If you want you could promote him lategame without using him all game and he could tank wyverns on a mountain or something but Garret already does that. 3/10 Geese - Lame bases, lame growths, lame unit. 1/10 Elphin/Lalum - Dancers are great. 9/10. Klein - can hit something hard once or pick off an annoying wyvern. Eventually could make a case for Migure to help his speed out but there are actually quite a few good bow users in this game so competition is kinda stiff. 5.5/10. Tate - I actually think she's pretty bad. She has flight for the desert but her combat is so bad it's only really useful for transporting other units. Is pretty low on the food chain for whips. Doesn't really do a whole lot other than fly other people around imo. Shanna has earlygame and all the isles to contribute average/above average combat, Tate has the rest of the game to contribute below average combat and flight. 6/10 Echidna - Filler combat unit without a whole lot of longterm potential. 5/10 Bartre - Same as Echidna, but a bit less useful. Hilarious strength base. 4.5/10

I'm busy Wednesday (today), Thursday and Sunday, but can play Friday and most of Saturday, MST time zone.

All her stats are pretty bad except speed and res. I wouldn't recommend it, her attack is just too low and her enemy phase is pretty nonexistant. She has fortify fliers if you're into that though. (not sure if she gets that at 4*)

I've pulled Royx2, Sanakix2, Jeorge, Sheena, Caeda, and Chrom, f2p. Literally all of them are -speed except for Sheena, Caeda (who's -str) and a Sanaki. it's the worst. I've upgraded Cherche to a 5*.

Noah - He's pretty great for a while if you give him the first knight crest, he basically becomes another Zealot/Marcus. Good sword rank is useful in the Isles. Not much longterm potential though due to lame growths. 6/10 Astohl - Joins after chest keys are buyable which sucks for him. Not totally deadweight since his combat is okay until the end of the isles and still makes some steals like Narshen's stuff that is pretty handy. 5/10. Oujay - He's bad. Starts off weak, and doesn't quite have the speed to double very much for a while. Lame con sucks too. His growths are okay so when he promotes he'll eventually dig himself out of his rut, but his offence isn't good enough to take on the tough lategame enemies like wyvern lords anyway. 1/10 Barth - If you get him one level and then have him steal the knight crest from all the cavaliers he's okay in the isles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111 His bases are actually pretty bad for his level and his growths suck, and he has huge con. 0.5/10 Wendy - Totally garbage 0/10

Ive been running brave axe + death blow on Cherche, she has +8 strength on Camilla. She just flat out kills more or less every lance user and magic user, along with some reds and most greens. Have Glimmer on her too just for a filler proc but haven't decided on other skills, have Wings of Mercy because I rolled like 15 Fredericks for now.

Dorothy - Wolt with better stats that joins a few maps later, i'll give her a little better of a score since her growths are a lot better if you use her for some reason, 1/10 Saul - His base magic is by no means good, and his growth is average, but competition in both areas is nonexistant, so he wins the staffbot award by default. Starting staff rank is very good. 8/10 Zealot - Very useful with his extra point of movement, weapon ranks and bulk. Once the isles hit it basically turns into and extra movement point, and post Isles all he does is goon something with a Silver Lance or ferry Roy around. 6.5/10 Sue - oops broke order but w/e. Actually think she's reletively decent, her really high speed lets her double pretty quickly, and can use the killer bow too to augment her bad strength. Good in Ilia, but using her puts you towards Sacae. Her low strenght hurts her against promoted enemies, but she shoud at least be about to take out annoying wyvern lords lategame. 6/10. Treck - bad weapon ranks and kinda iffy growths (mainly in speed) hurt him, along with being worse than every other cavalier statistically, but he could be worse. Not much different than Alan statistically, but Alan will have a pretty significant level and weapon rank lead, and will beat him in speed by a few points, which makes a difference when both boarderline double some enemies. Even when not used as a combat unit can still contribute by ferrying Roy to get exp in the Isles. 4.5/10

what ephraim is very good in sacred stones I didn't imply otherwise, I was using an analogy that you obviously missed that doesn't mean anything in feheroes, where caps/max stats/whatever you want to call them mean everything. they modelled his stats in heroes around his most notable attribute stat in fe8 which is his huge strength (especially with Siegmund), this isn't hard to understand. If Marcus was transferred over to heroes I imagine he'd also be slow and Guy would be fast. Yeah I agree it's kind of weird they gave him so much defence though.

it sucks compared to other caps in the game feheroes is similar to the fe11 multiplayer mode where caps were the only thing that really matter, and if you stick Ephraim in a link arena fight or something in FE8 he's gonna get decimated by berserkers or something since his cap is lower than other classes. obviously its good enough for ingame stuff, but you can use basically any unit for the heroes "story" mode until the higher levels of lunatic anyway.