Reikken

They should be taken very seriously, but care should be taken to ensure that the opportunity cost is thoroughly considered.

From what you said ("their first help is EXP"), it sounds you actually didn't get my point, even though I said it explicitly: They help tactics more than they help exp.

Marcus doesn't need stats to be good. All he needs is a hand axe and a silver lance.

Tactics* rank They help that even more than they help exp. And not only are they amazing for tactics, but also if you have a tactics surplus, who better to help convert that to exp? and levels for others. Double your arena use.

It can, but it's very very far from a guarantee, for reasons already mentioned. Volke is only one unit. It's very possible that he died or wasn't recruited. Aaaand, even if Volke were a forced game-over-on-death unit, I would still say that not having access to Sothe hurts more than not having Mia. Getting chests faster, getting desert items faster and/or having a better chance of even finding them in the first place beats having Mia to...do what, now? considering that Sothe doesn't even necessarily need levels to do this. You can just throw him in at X chapter and have him do stuff. Of course if you've been using Mia up until Tormod joins, she'll be better than he is at that point. But that's only because she's already been reducing your efficiency for several chapters by you having to field and level such a bad unit. Instead, look at how Mia does on joining as compared to how Tormod joes on joining. Mia's only advantage is that she doubles. She's frail, takes counters, and has low damage per hit. Tormod, however, can use anything from Meteor to Elwind at base (no Elthunder though..and do you even have any Meteors?), and his damage isn't even terrible because 10 base mag is pretty good. He does generally >1/3 enemy's hp without taking a counter. Generally plenty enough to let others OHK what's left if it's a myrmidon or 2HK if it's something else. Mia does little more damage but takes counterattacks, with the one exception of the fighters on the beach in ch 9. Well, archers too. She doesn't get countered by those. But she also has the disadvantage of not countering things that are ranged. @soundecho: 11 isn't some magic number. But you do have a point in that some chapters do have quite a few unit slots, and each additional "filler" unit is worth a little less than the last. How many deployment slots does each chapter have?

Titania, Mordecai, Lethe, Kieran, Brom, Zihark, Jill, and Muarim all serve as good filler units at least for a short time. Even Marcia and Tormod can at least help out semicompetently. Oh and Rhys or Mist if you're not already using both of them would make excellent fillers. For units that join before or at the same time as Stefan. Then you also missed Devdan since the next you mention is Tanith. A filler unit need not be god incarnate.

Ok. Well I'm not seeing how Mia could be better than Tormod or Sothe. Mia doesn't really have anything. Those two at least have something. Tormod has the highest bases on a magic user until Calill, and with all the advantages of being a magic user (1~2 range, res) without the disadvantage of reduced move. Indeed, he has increased move. In the absence of Volke (Maybe you just aren't using him. Maybe you didn't recruit him. Maybe he died! Hm, I didn't think of this. Sothe should probably go up.), not having Sothe either is quite a loss. Even if you do have Volke, having Sothe as well can be helpful in certain chapters.

Now the real issues. Who are you suggesting is better than Stefan? His crit issues weren't ignored in his intial placement. and on Zihark/Mia: Well, comparing them to each other isn't going to do much good, as it's pretty clear that Zihark is quite a bit better than Mia. Assuming that they should indeed move, how would you have them move? Then we can actually get somewhere. EDIT: @above post. I don't really follow you.

True. Though Stefan has good res. They'll have more crit than a soldier but do less damage. This is actually extremely infrequent. Indeed, I would say the opposite is more frequent early midgame. Average 13 Ike, Steel Sword: 19 atk, 12.6 AS Regal on effective: 25 atk, 13.6 AS Average 13 Oscar, Iron Lance: 17.5 atk, 11.5 AS Steel Lance: 20.5 atk, 9.0 AS I'm not seeing this at all. Every few chapters, you have a few new sufficiently powerful units join. Edit: They need no training.

Indeed, if the first 7 chapters were the whole game, Ike would be far from top tier. However it's not. His poor performance starts getting much better after that. Stefan does have crit issues. However, he doesn't get crit-blicked. He can eat a crit and remain standing. He has 38 base hp and 12 base def. and 5 luck. Steel bow archers in the chapters not too long after he joins have around 17 atk (and 7 crit). 15 damage if he takes a crit. Myrmidons are similar. Things with more atk can't crit him due to having 5 or less crit. The one exception is soldiers, which have 0~1 crit on him and about 20 atk, 21 after WTA, for 27 damage on crit. After enemies promote, now everyone not named Mist faces crit from snipers and swordmasters, so Stefan being critted by them is no longer unique. As for halberdiers, his luck generally increases faster than their crit, so that 0~1 crit tends to drop to mostly 0. Of course there's also the chance that his luck deviates below average, in which case he'd be taking more crits, but that pretty much only serves as lessening his RNG proofness advantage he otherwise would have over non-prepromotes. In short, yes, he has some issues, but it's few enemies, and he's not getting OHK'd anyway, so it won't necessarily kill him instantly even if it does happen, so it's not too huge of a negative. As for Mia vs Zihark, Mia sucks when she joins. Zihark saves you the trouble by giving you basically Mia + a free ~6 levels. Yes, he's only 4 levels higher, but his bases are better than her average lv 10 stats.

As said many times, we assume that the player is not perfect, not that he is stupid.

@Cynthia: Aye, but the list is based on how much you miss out on in their absence as opposed to when they are not absent, so how likely they are to be recruited doesn't matter, as far as their own position is concerned.

I assume you haven't read the posts made in response to these kinds of comments. Perhaps more clarification should be edited into the first post so that people won't miss it. To answer each question, though... physics- He can, but not always. Stolen physics are only given partial weight, as it generally requires use of Volke to get them (ie one specific unit), as well as not killing certain enemies until he gets to them. stefan- When not talking about Stefan's own placement on the list, yes. He generally will not be recruited, given how incredibly obscure he is. knight ward- Astrid usually dies on the first turn of hard mode unless you shove Ike two spaces or something like that, so it often does not exist anyway. As for selling it in a fit of stupidity, if by that you mean "Hm, I don't want +2 def/res on Kieran as much as I want +5 atk on this silver lance that I don't have the money for at the moment, so I'll sell this", then yes. Or "Brom doesn't need more def/res", not knowing that it increases speed growth as it's never mentioned anywhere in the game, then also yes. However, if by that you mean "LOLOL SELL GOOD ITAM", then no, clearly not. mordecai- Moving him forward to be attacked by several enemies? No, not happening. Occasionally not noticing that an enemy or two can still reach him even though he's behind other allied units? Sure. Oh can they? That's a valid point and worth looking into.

and/or Priscilla to below Ninian/Nils....who should be higher, not that I care enough to argue for it.

To deny that she can indeed be accidentally killed by a bow is to deny a basic premise of this tier list. Rhys can also accidentally be killed. Neither flaw drags them excessively far down because Rhys isn't one-rounded by enemies and Marcia isn't one-rounded by bows, but it does indeed make them a fair bit worse than they otherwise would be. It may appear that Rhys is lowered less than Marcia is, but that is largely because the gaps between units are greater lnear the top of this list. Raising/lowering them by the same amount would have Rhys rising/dropping a smaller number of spaces. Additionally, bows aren't the only things that Marcia can die to. The full guard doesn't exist until the end of ch 16. Also, Marcia may not get it, or it may even be missed; it's quite missable afterall, especially when going for a low turn-count.

The game itself rewards durability more than offense. Only when the player doesn't make mistakes or allows resets on death are they balanced. Lacking in offense means what? You lose a few turns. Lacking in defense means what? You can't be as aggressive, meaning you lose a few turns. But then when the possibility of making mistakes is introduced, now lacking in defense can also mean death. No such rule exists. I do not know how you formed such a misconception. EDIT: Marcia is placed well above Brom, is she not? You're way overreacting. Defense is not the be-all end-all of this list. It is simply increased in value as compared to most other tier lists.

Bows are not an instant fail for Marcia. She's still relatively high for a unit that has nothing that she is best at.

Does your "8 units + healers" involve leaving unit slots completely empty? Of course not. Even if you're not really leveling them and are instead focusing exp on just a few, it's easy to see that having competent units like Calill or Mordecai to help out whenever is better than having a slot completely unused.

@Weapons: iirc Ashnard is an idiot and always attacks at melee range, or at least on those who can damage him. @Narga: Indeed, Ike is not immune to the exp distribution opportunity cost that applies to everyone who fights, just the more significant unit slot cost. I overlooked that. Is that enough to put him below Titania? maybe. But it's certainly not enough to put him below anyone else. And no, it's pretty obvious that fielding more units is more helpful than fielding fewer. You don't need to be good at the game to see that much.

Sounds like you're the one trolling, cursing up a storm. If you have disagreements and reasoning for them, please voice them. preferably without flames. And no, it's not quantified. Indeed, it can't be quantified. There's only so much that can really be quantified, afterall. Instead, it's qualified. Again, if you have disagreements, voice them. It's much easier to keep a healer out of danger and still have him do his job. Soren has to be at least 2 cells from an enemy (or 1 cell depending on how you measure it). Rhys can be much farther away. In the worst case scenario, Rhy is also 2 (or 1) cells away from the enemy, with the person he's healing right next to the enemy and Rhys right behind. More often, he's farther away. For instance, you can heal before the unit moves in to attack the next enemy. If worst comes to worst, you can even have the injured unit retreat to be healed. If they're mounted, this isn't even much of a problem.

Yes, Titania pwns everyone by miles early on. If you're only looking at those, then of course you won't see Ike > Titania. But consider Ike after those first chapters. He no longer sucks, and he comes with no opportunity cost, as explained above. Then by the time he promotes, he's almost as good as she is, but he still comes for free, while Titania comes at the cost of not using someone else. He is now much better than she is. And then that only continues to increase for the rest of this entire second half of the game. The last two chapters are not to be ignored either. There, not only is he roflstomping everyone, including Titania, but also, he still comes at no cost. That alone counters quite a bit of Titania's early wins. Resolve+Aether is an impossible combination. In the absence of Marcia for ch 15, you still have Jill. Also, more difficult tactics (such as going rambo with a frail peg knight) have less weight for reasons mentioned. oh, I missed one Mostly because they are forced in the last two chapters, and they're hard to kill and do decent damage and can help with Ashnard.

And it's a solid, unreplaceable, undeniable reduction in turn count. If you don't use them, it will take you longer than if you do. Units below high tier don't offer anything like that. I could see Reyson, or even Volke or Stefan being arguable, but not for like Makalov.

An action made by a player who... knows the basic game mechanics and has some common sense, but may not know anything else like about growth rates, reinforcements, etc. or have planned ahead very well, and may make errors that can be overlooked.

Mia is bad, yes, but not that bad. She has her own forced chapter too. Rolf still has to get close, and chapter 9 is mostly pretty open, so it's hard or inconvenient to have him protected. He won't take a counterattack, but if there are any enemies left nearby come enemy phase, he'll likely be getting hit anyway, and not counterattacking, and drawing that enemy further back to his position. And the damage he does is pathetic. At least Mia doubles, and if there aren't any enemies left nearby at enemy phase, then she's no worse off than Rolf, only she's done more damage. Even if she gets killed, Vantage means she at least gets off yet another hit before dying. Then against mages, she does quite a lot of damage, and Rolf can't avoid taking a counterattack. So Mia almost never deprives you of an enemy phase counter, and she does more damage when she does attack. And thus is better than Rolf.