Whisky

I wouldn't use a team full of Wyverns and nothing else, or at least I haven't tried that yet. I usually use a few fliers per playthrough. I recognize that other classes do have advantages, but I think that fliers (specifically Wyvern Lords most of all) are the best class overall. Being the best class overall, doesn't mean that you should make your entire team one, nor does it mean that it's the best option for every unit. Just in general. I'm actually surprised to see you say that Felix and Ingrid were doubling "all enemies". Aren't there some enemies that are so fast that they're basically impossible double? Anyway, I do think that fliers can double a good number of enemies, and they can use Brave weapons when they can't. You can also make Ferdinand and Sylvain into Wyverns and have them use Swift Strikes, so there are ways for Wyverns to 1RKO a lot of enemies. They also don't necessarily need to 1RKO to be as good or better than other classes. Like I said earlier, other classes need to perform better in combat (or have some other utility) in order to have a purpose over fliers at all, but even if that's the case, fliers still always have their great mobility advantage. But more on that in the following paragraphs... First of all, I disagree that there aren't many side objectives where flying is useful. Wait, you said that "don't involve combat". Well there are a great many situations I found myself in where high mobility and flight saved my behind. There are many scenarios where flying is useful. It doesn't matter how strong grounded units are if fliers are still strong enough to get the job done, and there's plenty of evidence of that being the case. You can look up video playthroughs of people clearing chapters very quickly using fliers. It also doesn't matter how strong grounded classes are if they can't reach the enemy. Again, there are many chapters where flight is extremely useful for bypassing terrain, getting better positioning, getting somewhere quickly, killing an enemy quickly, saving an ally, etc. Grounded units wouldn't be able to do these things no matter how strong they are. There are certain paralogues that I don't know how I would have won without flying. But also, on a turn by turn basis, fliers have more options. On any given turn, fliers can reach more enemies, have more options, and be more versatile. They may be able to reach enemies that grounded units can't, they might be able to position themselves better for the following turn, between their higher Movement, and their ability to go where grounded units can't, and with Canto they can go on spaces that wouldn't be safe for a grounded unit and then move off afterwards, or just use Canto to position themselves better for the next turn, being able to reach enemies next turn that a grounded unit wouldn't be able to. Even if the flier doesn't perform as well in combat, two fliers with the weakest flying Battalions may be able to reach an enemy that two WarMasters with the strongest ground Battalions can't reach. The two Wyvern's could work together to kill the enemy even if they can't kill it alone, while a WarMaster that can't reach an enemy is useless for that turn. Even with the supposed diminishing returns of having multiple fliers, a WarMaster can't help the first flier to finish off an enemy if they can't reach it, but a second weaker flier could. Higher mobility units are better team players.

Yes, please feel free to share your thoughts! 🙂 The two people I tagged were discussing this topic on a different thread was meant to be about something else, so they were getting ‘off the topic of that thread’. Instead of replying to them there, I figured it would be better to create a new thread specifically for it. Anyone can join in if they want. I only tagged those two because they were already talking about it. Flyers don’t have beast weakness. They are only weak to arrows. Different classes have different strengths and weaknesses, but that doesn’t make them all equal. Some strengths outweigh others.

@Benice @Shadow Mir Your discussion intrigued me but you were off topic, so I’m creating a new one here. This might be a first for me, I usually argue Flyers over grounded units. I do consider Wyvern Lord (WL) the best class overall in 3H, with Falcon Knight and Wyvern Rider not far behind. But this time, I’m actually going to be arguing in favor of grounded units, at least a little bit, Flyers still will always have advantages that make them competitive with other classes no matter how much they fall behind in combat or other areas. But to argue that WL will only have 1 less Atk than other classes if using a weaker Battalion, that isn’t quite accurate, or at least, there’s more to consider than that. I would agree that the Battalions on their own wouldn’t be enough to make grounded classes better than flying classes, but stronger Battalions are one advantage, among others, that grounded classes have over Flyers. And those advantages do add up sometimes. I won’t be arguing in favor of Swordmaster, Assassin, or Warrior, but other grounded classes do have advantages over WL that went unmentioned in that other topic. Snipers have Hunter’s Volley (HV), which is a very strong Combat Art (CA). In Maddening mode, it can be hard to double most enemies, so HV can be much more effective than normal attacks. Snipers also have long range. Grapplers have Fierce Iron Fist (FIF), one if, if not the best CA in the game, which gives them possibly the best killing power of any class. Bow Knights have very long range and have longer link attack effect range than other classes. That, combined with their high Move and Canto can make them very useful, not to mention Bow Faire. Bows are good in this game so that’s nice to have, especially for units that learn Point Blank Volley (PBV). WarMaster doesn’t only have 1 more Str than WL. They also have +20 Crit. This can make them very likely to get a Crit with two attacks with Killer Gauntlets or by using Smash with a Killer Axe. Smash adds +20 Hit and +20 Crit. That alone brings the Crit rate up to 75. +10 with a Crit Ring, +10 from S rank Axes, and +10-20 from a Battalion, can bring your Crit to 115 before adding your stats which should mostly counter the enemies’ Crit Evade. In other words, WarMaster can reach 100% Crit rates against a lot of enemies with Smash, which is a level of reliable killing power that WL simply can’t match (until they master Defiant Crit, but that takes a while). Paladin has Lance Faire which means more damage for Swift Strikes and Vengeance. All of these advantages are combined with the stronger Battalion advantage, and also a few other advantages, like grounded Battalions being able to use Guard adjutants, which is particularly good for a Vengeance build. Now to be clear, I’m not saying that grounded classes are better than flying classes. Like I said, I still consider WL to be the best class in the game overall, but grounded classes can have more killing power than flying classes, for more reasons than the stronger Battalions. And to be clear, they need those advantages in order to compete with Flyers. Flyers need to be weaker in order to not be entirely superior, and even then, the much greater mobility of a WL is a very strong advantage on its own that makes them very versatile and gives them a lot of options. Even with less killing power, I still think WL is arguably better overall, but they do have less killing power than many other grounded classes, for reasons beyond the weaker Battalions.

3H on Normal and even Hard modes are indeed very easy and one of the easiest games in the series. I don’t know if it’s easier than POR though. POR is also very easy. I’ve never actually played 3H on Normal, I started on Hard and found that very easy. Maddening mode is a whole different story though. If we include Maddening then 3H is far from the easiest in the series. I haven’t played enough of the games in the series to say, but I’d think 3H Maddening would be at least in the middle in terms of difficulty, if not harder than most. Maddening is a huge step up from Hard. - Whether or not this is a good thing is a much more complicated question and depends on a number of factors. Difficulty, balance, and fairness are all separate things but can all sometimes get a bit conflated. Sometimes they do go hand in hand. A game can be hard for unfair reasons, and to an extent that is the case in 3H Maddening. There are so many examples of unfair ambush spawns in Maddening mode. I think they’re among the worst in the series. But that wasn’t really the question. Can it be a bad thing for a game to be too easy? Well, as long as it isn’t so easy that it’s practically impossible to lose, then in general, no. Newer or less skilled players could prefer easier games. It would be nice to have higher difficulties as an option though for people that prefer the challenge, especially in repeat playthroughs. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Low difficulty isn’t inherently a bad thing for the most part, just something that a lot if people wouldn’t prefer. But low difficulty can mess with a game’s balance and reduce variety. The weaker the enemies are, the less your stats matter, the less variety there is between units if they can all kill dozens of enemies. This makes mobility more important than combat power (and it already is most of the time even on higher difficulties). The easier the game is, the less exciting it is to grow stronger and get upgrades and new weapons etc. The game is already easy, you’re already killing enemies without problem. There’s no incentive to growing stronger and it doesn’t make much difference when you do. The difference between various upgrades of sorts becomes smaller. All of your decisions can matter less, what class path to progress your units through, what abilities you use etc. All of this variety can be reduced if a game is too easy.

I don’t really know what that term means though. Some people call FE7 Marcus, Seth, and Titania ‘jeigans’ too.

Gunter just can’t catch a break huh? Maybe we should send him against Jeigan then.

Oof, that’s not a good match up apparently. What if we try to give them closer opponents? Gunter vs Frederick Largo vs Hawkeye

Yes, it happens in B route too. I think it’s worse because of the narrow corridors that make it hard to reach Tate without killing her squad.

I don’t know what you mean by “do everything mechanically”, but there are ways to get everything in this chapter. Playing quickly makes it a lot easier. Like OriginalRaisins said, but I’d also add to watch out for the Fighters that appear around Echidna. Is 10B* easier to get everything? I’ve always found it harder to get Tate’s Elysian Whip on that version. You say you’re the type of person that “HAS to get everything”, but why? That’s in you. I used to try to get everything too but realized that game becomes a lot less stressful and, for me, more fun when I realized that you don’t have to get everything. If you miss something, it’s probably not even a big deal most of the time. Next time you play that map, now that you have more knowledge of it and the game in general, you should be able to do better and get everything that time, which becomes satisfying by making you feel like you’ve improved. Of course I understand wanting to get everything, but not if it makes it more stressful for you. Although again, there are ways to get everything. You just need to know the chapter well and play quickly.

The game isn’t flawless, and as as much as I love it, I do agree with a lot of those complaints to an extent. But on the other hand, there are often ways to deal with many of the problems you listed, and it can be satisfying to figure out better strategies in order to do so. It really makes you feel like you’ve improved at the game. Chapter 15 for example really isn’t a slog at all. It can be cleared very quickly by flying over the mountains. Figuring out different strategies can mitigate a lot of the problems people have with this game.

I’ve never played any drafts. I might look up the rules for that and try it out next time. I am on an emulator, I’m on Dolphin emulator. I don’t know how to speed the game up with it but I’ll look into it if that’s possible.

I really liked this game the first time I played it. I think it has one of the best stories in the series and some interesting characters. A near art style. I like the flow from chapter to chapter with base conversations. The skills are an interesting mechanic (although a lot of them are pointless). I really enjoyed my first playthrough of this game. I did find it to be very easy, but I still enjoyed it regardless. I actually was already a fan of Ike from Smash Bros so it was cool seeing him here. I thought it was really satisfying to see Ike destroy things with Aether. But I’m not on my second playthrough and finding it less enjoyable. I’m playing a Hard Ironman playthrough. Even on this difficulty and play style, the game is still very easy. The ease of difficulty and the slow map animations that can’t be turned off or skipped are both making this game very boring. I lost a couple units due entirely to complacency which I blame that boredom for. I still really like certain things about this game but it seems so boring to replay with how easy and slow it is. What are your thoughts?

That’s definitely an unusual opinion. To clear things up a bit, there are two separate route splits. Chapters 10-11 are split between A and B routes. Then Chapters 17-20x are split between Ilia and Sacae. These are separate. You can do A-Ilia or A-Sacae or B-Ilia of B-Sacae. Anyway, I don’t dislike B route but I prefer A route. I like 11A. It’s a map that encourages you to play fast and challenges you to get all of the villages and recruit the other units. This is one of the maps that I have noticed the biggest difference with as I have gotten better at the game which is neat. Compared to 10B, I find the small corridors make it very difficult to recruit Tate without killing her squad, making you miss out on her Elysian Whip. The timing also makes it very difficult to get Klein up to Tate to recruit her quickly. I don’t particularly mind or care for 10A or 11B. Ilia vs Sacae is very much in Ilia’s favor. They both have a fog map, I don’t see how that works against Ilia more than Sacae. Ilia’s has Long Ballistas and flying enemies, but those Can both be dealt with safely. Meanwhile 18S has ambush spawn Nomadic Troopers that constantly appear around the boss and can insta kill your frail units. How are you supposed to handle this map? And then 20S is really annoying too. And 20Sx. Ilia isn’t nearly as bad. For units, Elphin and Lalum are basically identical mechanically. Elphin is more relevant to the plot so I can why you might prefer him for that reason. I like Echidna but haven’t used Bartre enough to actually compare them. Dayan is useful for his ability to double Wyvern Lords with a Silver Bow, but Yuno is useful just for being able to fly. I do wish that both of these two started with S ranks so that they could actually use the Divine Weapon from their country.

This has been my experience as well. This was one of my least favorite FE games when I first played it, primarily due to ambush spawns, but the more I play it the more I like it, and it has become my favorite FE game.

Hawkeye is strong in the actual game where he joins at a good level with good bases, but in the context of versus matches fought at max level he's not as good.

Holy crap, Rinkah’s Def is insane. Is she a Warrior or an Armor Knight?

A tier list on its own doesn’t do much to help players with those decisions, without explanations for why each unit is rated how they are. There are too many variables that determine a unit’s overall rating for that rating to give the player the information they need to make an informed decision. In my opinion, some sort of explaining or brief walkthrough is required for players to have the information they need to make those decisions. I find tier lists or unit ratings on their own to be rather pointless honestly, beyond the fun of discussing them. One unit can be rated highly because they’re the strongest unit in the early game, but may not be worth using past the half way point, a second unit because they’re strong when they join but they don’t join until later on, a third unit could be rated highly because they’re generally strong throughout the game, but not as strong as the previous two at their best points. There are too many possible reasons for why a unit is rated how they are for the rating on its own to actually mean anything without an explanation.

To take it a step further (or to the side perhaps), how about recruiting other units. For example, should Lilina get credit for being able to recruit Gonzalez and Garret? You have to actively choose to deploy her and then move her in position to be able to talk to them, so you’re using her past her recruitment. Should Elphin/Lalum get credit for recruiting Percival? Or Nino for recruiting Jaffar? If any of these units die then you can never recruit their respective recruitables. It’s a bit weird in terms of rating, but it’s something to consider.

If Thieves are rated for their ability to obtain items from stealing and lock picking, then don’t other units also need to be rated by their ability to obtain any items, if there are any? Such as Sophia getting the Guiding Ring, and apparently Arden getting the Pursuit Ring.

FE7. It was my first FE game and the nostalgia is really strong for me, but overall I consider it the worst in both gameplay and story.

Since neither one wants to attack first, the fair way to do it is to calculate the odds twice, for both of them attacking first, and that puts Leonardo’s average odds higher than Virion’s due to the higher Crit rate. Even when Leonardo attacks first he still has a 45.54% chance to win. When Virion attacks first he only has a 13% chance to win. That gives Leonardo an average chance to win of 66.27%. The rounded odds are 66:34 in Leonardo’s favor, making him almost twice as likely to win as Virion.

@AnonymousSpeed Wow, look how far this has moved on! I’ve been busy with homework and stuff, but finals just ended so I finally have free time! Anyway, that does sound like something I’ve said, now that you mention it, but it wasn’t in that thread you mentioned, it was from a while back actually. I’m surprised you remembered it. Basically I said that it seems like people rate units based on how useful they are to get in a draft. They seem to look at “if I can only have one of these units, which one would I rather have?”, or “removing which of these units would make the game harder”? Something along those lines. Which I do think makes sense... from a certain point of view. It doesn’t reflect the reality of a non-draft playthrough though. In non-draft playthroughs, units are not removed from the game. You aren’t forced to choose which of two units to use throughout the whole game. If you are attempting to make a list and put every unit in it in order of how ‘good’ they are or how useful they are, then you need an established metric. You can’t have everyone rating units by different standards. There is no ultimate tier list that everyone will agree on. But how do you put units into an ordered list from ‘best’ to ‘worst’? How do you rate a unit’s ‘usefulness’? I think the draft point of view actually works about as well if not better than anything else in that regard. The important thing is for the tier list to clearly state the metrics being used. But the next question is: how is this tier list useful? What purpose does it serve? Someone I talked to before said that the tier list itself isn’t useful, but that the value comes from the discussion around if. Either a tier list is made from multiple people participating in discussion about where they think units should be and why, or someone shares their own tier list as a discussion starter and then people discuss what they think of it and what changes they should be made. Either way, the tier list itself isn’t useful but there is value in the discussion that it creates. And again, either way, the metric being used needs to be clearly stated. These types of tier lists are not helpful for what units new players should use to make the game easier for them. Perhaps a tier list could be made for that purpose if that metric is explained before hand, but most are not. Obviously for the purpose of what units you would recommend using to make the game easier, availability really isn’t a factor at all. Of course late joining units like Athos and Harken should always be used once they join and using them when they’re around will definitely make the game easier. But trying to make a tier list based on this would be very difficult. What units do you recommend someone use in a playthrough? Perhaps almost all of them at different points in time and for different purposes? So how do you reflect that in a meaningful useful way in an ordered list? I don’t know. I’ve always thought that tier lists were pretty useless and that it’s far more useful to just talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each unit and what they are capable of doing and in what ways they can be useful. Just give the player all the information they need to make their own informed decisions for how good the unit is within their own metric and which units they want to use.

That's a good point. People could always have things to complain about with a tier list. There are many metrics (both objective and subjective) that could be used for a tier list, but there is no 'best' way to make a tier list. I might have more time to say more about this later, the topic is interesting and there are a lot of things to explore with it, but right now I'm pressed for time, so I'm just going to say what someone told me on the GameFAQs board; the value of a tier list comes from the discussion around it.

I think Anonymous and Dark Holy Elf both gave very good answers. I agree with them. I think that tier lists are pretty worthless actually, unless they thoroughly explain what the metric is and why each unit is placed where they are. I think the information of what each units' strengths and weaknesses are, and what they are capable of at different points in the game is far more important than "unit is x good". The important part is to convey factual information bout units and let people decide for themselves how much they want to weigh certain things. "Saying FE6 Marcus is a great unit" would be a pretty worthless statement on its own. You would need to explain that he is great for the early game but not so much for the later game. I don't think Alance are nearly as good as Percival when he joins.

Bern is already stretched thin, fighting a war with Ilia, Sacae and Lycia at the same time. Adding on the second strongest nation on the continent wouldn’t be ideal for them. Even if they believed they could win, they would want to use a strategy that would result in fewer losses than a direct war. It’s stated after Chapter 8, that if Narcian’s troops fought Percival’s troops, they (Bern) would be slaughtered, and Narcian is one of the top generals of Bern, so clearly this wouldn’t be an easy fight for them. Eturia being in a state of decline is exactly why Bern waits instead of going to war now.