Redwall

Noted, thanks. I did some Googling just now and saw a whole discussion in the FE9 thread. Looks like I'm late to the party ._. Nonetheless, I think it's worthwhile to bring up this idea again when people have ostensibly efficient Awakening playlogs that differ in their turncounts by nearly a factor of 2 (I've seen a playlog of Awakening w/ 186 turns by C19's end and another with 106 turns by that time). That is true, but it's not so much a problem with the criteria as it is with the fact that at this point, Awakening stat and skill distribution is sort of a black box. If we knew their stat distribution, it wouldn't be a problem. Messy, but doable. Remember the calculation I did in the HM tier list the other day? x, t, and k as they are defined can, as you point out, depend on your stats, but we can compute the likelihood of getting those stats using the binomial distribution. Yes, the Sumia example in an Ironman context would force you to consider the long run.

I've been arguing with Red Fox about this; I do not think you disagree with her as much as you think. The tier lists here do not assume any specific strategies, and Red Fox has clearly stated that low turns are not the end goal. I don't see why we should eschew Rescue-dropping, or treat everyone as having the same movement. The tier lists assume we move quickly in order to expose the differences between characters, including mobility and combat prowess.

Lovely . Should I just make a new topic with the same poll?

For a long time, I favored expected turncount as a useful way of simultaneously valuing high reliability and low turncounts. However, I never thought very hard about accounting for resets. I propose a simple solution: we add in the turns spent in those unsuccessful attempts. Let 0 <= x <= 1 be the chance of a clear without a reset. Let 0 <= 1-x <= 1 be the chance of a reset occurring. Let t be the conditional mean turncount of a clear, given no reset occurs (probability x). Let 1 <= k be the conditional mean turn on which a reset occurs (probability 1-x). Note that x, t, and k will not in general be integers. Assume the player will play until achieving a successful clear that doesn't end in a reset. How many turns will he or she be expected to play if we add in the turns spent in any attempts ending in resets? The probability that the first attempt doesn't end in a reset is x. The probability that the first attempt ends in a reset is 1-x. As a result of this, the player will then try again. The joint probability that the first attempt ends in a reset AND the second attempt does not is (1-x)*x. The joint probability that both the first AND second attempt end in resets is (1-x)^2. The joint probability that the first two attempts end in resets AND the third does not is (1-x)^2 * x. I hope you see where this is going. <TC> = xt + (1-x)k +(1-x)*[xt + (1-x)k] + (1-x)^2 * [xt + (1-x)k] + ... = [xt + (1-x)k] +(1-x)*[xt + (1-x)k] + (1-x)^2 * [xt + (1-x)k] + ... = [xt + (1-x)k] * {1 + (1-x) + (1-x)^2 + ...} = [xt + (1-x)k]/x = t + k(1-x)/x Let us look at some intuitive cases. If x = 0, then the series diverges; a player who plays such a stage until he or she clears it will spend an infinite number of turns trying to win. If x = 1, then there is no chance of a reset, and the player's expected turncount is simply t. If x = 0.5, the expected turncount is t + k. Because the odds of an attempt ending in a reset are equal to the odds of clearing without a reset, asking the player to play until a no-reset attempt occurs necessarily yields the same results as asking him or her to play until a reset occurs. We can spot several trends: for fixed t and k, decreasing x from 1 down to 0 will increase <TC>, appropriately penalizing the player for adopting risky strategies. Additionally, for fixed x and t, increasing k will increase <TC>; we favor strategies that fail sooner rather than later because we will have spent more turns (not to mention human time) on those strategies that fail later. What did I mean by "almost" in the topic title? Note that I have been vague about the conditions underlying a reset; for example, if I get Sumia, who is responsible for saving many turns, killed in C3 of Awakening, I can technically choose to go on with or without her. The present framework allows the player to reset and incur the resulting C3 turncount penalty; however, the player can also continue without Sumia, in which case he or she must recompute the expected turncount without the reset while accounting for the turns lost in Sumia's absence. In an Ironman playthrough, the latter way of doing things is obviously preferable, but in other contexts, it is up to the player; I suspect that most players will restart upon character deaths and nothing else, so for those players, those will be the conditions underlying a reset. For other players, they may reset if they do not get the lowest turncount possible; that is something also treated by the current metric. Unless a Lord dies, it is up to the player when to reset, and it is for this reason that the metric cannot be completely self-consistent. While I cannot define for you what is warm and what is cold, I can objectively define terms like temperature that can inform your understanding of warmth and cold; for example, temperature is the partial derivative of energy with respect to entropy at constant particle number and volume. The idea behind this thread is the same: I'm not telling you what you should consider efficient or inefficient, but I am telling you that using expected turncount as a measure can rigorously answer questions like why we believe spending five extra turns to boost reliability by 5% is generally not worthwhile, and why we believe resetting earlier is preferable to resetting later. None of this stuff is all that fancy, and has probably been figured out before by some other members of the forum; however, my hope is that this becomes a more popular way of thinking about decision-making in FE games.

OK, I fixed the poll. Somehow I couldn't vote in yesterday's version.

My mistake, I didn't specify my example was drawn from HM. I would be surprised if anyone got Sully or Nowi going with a mere turn or two of investment in each Lunatic level. Here's how I see it: the B-tier units do their jobs (ferrying, thieving, etc.) whether you're training the Avatar or whether you've eschewed the Avatar and have instead chosen to train Stahl; getting money helps cut expected turns, as does ferrying staffbots to good squares. You can't say the same about most of the C-tier units, who won't contribute much without receiving EXP. Again, I do make an effort to give due credit to the C-tier guys for being useful when fewer good units are available; notice the high positions of Nowi and Sully, for example. Cynthia already answered it. Chrom isn't strictly necessary to defeat Grima, which is why I haven't put him in some sort of special tier, but he is extremely helpful in doing so. Sorry, that was a bit presumptuous of me. I'd personally like to see one, either stewarded by you or someone else, even if it abides by criteria I don't personally like, since arguing about characters is still kind of fun at the end of the day; but obviously it's totally up to you if you want to manage one or not, and I guess also up to the community if they want to take part in it. Should I change the topic title to something like "What should we do about a long-term Lunatic tier list?" It doesn't seem like many people have voted. I was thinking of your claim that Lon'qu wasn't entitled to the KE when I wrote that. Classes are partly what define the usefulness of a character. Also note that combat by itself has nothing to do with tier lists. I don't see a problem with that. If you abide by the current criteria, Sumia needs to be ranked highly because she shaves a lot of turns.

So I assume you'd restrict Galeforce? That would make sense, since the presence of Galeforcer would force every non-Galeforcer to deal with table scraps for EXP. As for Rescue, it depends on what you mean by large. C16: With Rescue-spamming, you don't need Galeforce for a one-turn clear; then again, you're likely to clear the level quickly regardless because of the reinforcements. C17: With Rescue-spamming, you still don't need Galeforce for a one-turn clear. Related question: in your conception of a briskly played Lunatic run, would we stick around for the Boots? In his tier list, SDS has been rather vague about whether or not we should skip the C11 Speedwings. C21: Even without Galeforce, Rescue allows you to end the level reasonably quickly (3-5 turns). I'd expect that, in these three levels, a non-Rescue clear with a "pretty balanced but not necessarily super-optimized" team would probably take around three or four-ish extra turns on average compared to the fastest clear with Rescue. As I will argue later, those three or four turns can make a difference; enemy-phase combat during these turns will be plentiful, and can alter the rankings of specific characters. While your approach avoids many empirical problems (for example, no one disputes that Marcus is top tier in FE7), there are cases at the margins where rankings can change sharply in response to ostensibly small changes in turncounts. For example, Nowi is entirely dependent on an EXP dump during Paralogue 4; if we're LTCing or even just playing "pretty quickly" with Sumia, Cordelia, and the Avatar, we can complete the level before Nowi finishes her lunch, which has the consequence of making her too slow to double the C12 enemies. On the other hand, if we slow down and take six turns (instead of two or three), Nowi becomes a badass capable of lasting into the endgame. For this reason, I think it is preferable to establish clear definitions when possible. I suspect that making a stringent reliability limit can have the effect of making more characters competitive long-term units since the player will be forced to slow down. I have pointed out that, for example, the player can simply eschew the Avatar and, from there, optimize efficiency under this constraint. No tier list I have seen restricts the player to only the most optimal team, and this one is no exception. Under the definition of efficiency I've adopted, I simply cannot do that. If you want Chrom to go down, it will have to wait for this brisk-play tier list you are planning. A Defense Tonic allows him to just barely survive the P1 and C5 Steel Axe guys. In C5, you can also hide him in a forest tile and have him go nuts during the enemy phase. In C6, he can tank Thieves (lol) with a Kellam Pair Up (lol). Chrom should be his support partner IMO to allow him to double, and like I said, Def Tonic saves Lon'qu from a OHKO. This allows him to become an offensive focal point with no investment Remember that with a Str Tonic and Killing Edge, Sully and Lon'qu only need either a single crit or Dual Attack to ORKO Barbarians. What are the odds of this happening? Assume Sully has gained five levels (I am being way generous here), giving her a 68.3% chance of doubling when given a Lon'qu Pair Up (no C support just yet); that both Sully and Lon'qu have a 30% chance to crit on any given KE attack; and that the Dual Attack likelihood on any given hit is 35% with a Chrom support and 25% with a Lon'qu support. Lv 7 Sully (Lon'qu Pair Up, no supports): 0.683*(1 - [0.7*0.75]^2) + 0.317*0.3 = 63.67% base Lon'qu (Chrom Pair Up): 1 - (0.7*0.65)^2 = 79.29% Even with five levels under her belt, Sully will ORKO Barbarians at a lower rate than will Lon'qu. Thanks. I think there were three votes before you for this specific question (and not the one from the other day): two people voted yes, and one person voted for other. Is there any way to recover those votes?

There's no problem. I simply choose the one strategy that minimizes <true TC> across the game. I'll probably make a new topic in the next few days or so to clear up any misconceptions.

Hawkeye/Luna is pretty doable if you chip with Virion and finish with a Silver Lance on the player phase. I've never tried Hawkeye/Vantage, but I imagine that a +Def Avatar with a Fred Pair Up makes it doable.

Already included, if you think about it. Suppose Sumia saves 100 turns post-Chapter 3. Suppose I execute a plan for C3 that has two outcomes, each occurring at 50% probability: I complete the level in three turns with no Sumia death (50%), or I complete the level in three turns with a Sumia death (also 50%; this of course results in the loss of 100 turns post-Chapter 3). The expected mean TC in Chapter 3 alone is three turns. The expected mean TC for the entire game is cleanly accounted for, and penalizes the player accordingly via expected turns.

The metric I describe is exactly what I think efficiency should be. It simultaneously accounts for chance of death, turncounts, and possibilities of slightly higher clears if the fastest clears fail due to RNG screwage.

I think I have figured out a way of rigorously accounting for the chance of death. What do you think?

slightly unrelated to the discussion at hand but: HEY GAIZ I GOT IT I think I've figured out a self-consistent method of accounting for the chance of a Game Over: we simply add the turns spent in that unsuccessful clear to the turncount of a successful clear. Let 0 <= x <= 1 be the chance of a clear without a Game Over. Let 0 <= 1-x <= 1 be the chance of a clear with a Game Over. Let t be the conditional mean turncount, given no Game Over occurs (probability x). Let 0 < k <= t be the turn on which a Game Over occurs (probability 1-x). <true TC> = xt + (1-x)k +(1-x)*[xt + (1-x)k] + (1-x)^2 * [xt + (1-x)k] + ... = [xt + (1-x)k] +(1-x)*[xt + (1-x)k] + (1-x)^2 * [xt + (1-x)k] + ... = [xt + (1-x)k] * {1 + (1-x) + (1-x)^2 + ...} = [xt + (1-x)k]/x = t + k(1-x)/x Man, I feel silly for not thinking of this sooner. The reader is encouraged to think about the physical meaning of this so-called <true TC> when x = 0, 0.5, and 1. Again, I'll post a proper response to Red Fox later.

I'll type up a proper response later, but how the hell do I make new polls? If you notice the current poll, I can't figure out how to clear the votes from the other poll.

why do people consider sumia yandere

Does a 12/1 Sully actually find any use past C9? If you train Sully qualitatively like I trained Chrom (who, like I said, couldn't double anything until C9 even with a lot of favoritism from me), Sully will fall off big time, just as Chrom and most other combat units do, once the promoted enemies start to become noticeable. You note that pretty much every non-Veteran character has similar problems, something with which I do not disagree. That's exactly why I have so many of them in C tier at this time. Neither of us likes seeing C tier so big, of course, but I cannot tier them any higher whether I use the current criteria or whether I adopt the more popular "measuring combat under brisk play" approach simply because a good deal of the C-tier units are, in my opinion, milder versions of HM Donnel. Back to Sully: suppose she just went poof and disappeared. Would she be missed? Outside the first few chapters, no; her combat contributions can be replicated by many, including Cordelia and Panne. Final gives Chrom a chance to shine, as without training him, the player needs to take noticeably longer on previous levels to train characters. Additionally, training Chrom has the benefit of giving better stats to his two kids, though I grant that the gains will be small. Sully needs 3 Spd from base along with (natch) a Lon'qu Pair Up to double the C5 Barbarians (I don't think C-supported Lon'qu is realistic at this point). With a Str Tonic, Lon'qu when Paired Up does a better job than does this speedy Sully because Dual Attack+ increases the odds of a clean ORKO, whereas the Sully/Lon'qu Pair is a) unreliable due to needing Spd procs and b) even less likely to kill than are the Lon'qu/Chrom duo since they're not benefiting from Dual Attack+. Specifically, after five level-ups, Sully has a 68.26% chance of gaining at least 3 Spd points if we assume a 60% growth rate and do the binomial distribution calculations, while base Lon'qu is 100% guaranteed to double those guys with a Chrom Pair Up. If we give Sully a C- or B-ranked Chrom support to attempt to benefit from DA+, she needs an extra speed point unless Chrom got lucky enough to get to 10 Spd, which isn't happening unless both Sully and Chrom swallow a disproportionate number of kills that get more use when fed to the Avatar. The odds of getting her at least +4 Spd in five levels are 33.7%. Even if the odds of gaining the Spd points were higher, how is Sully getting five levels without unnecessary slowdown (which I define as slowdown she does not repay in the form of turns)? I barely got Chrom three levels by that point. And of course, if Sully doesn't double at all, there's no way we're giving her the Killing Edge. Lon'qu not only has Avo+10, he can also survive a Barbarian hit at base if given a Def tonic. Enemy accuracy is pretty bad early on, especially with WTA. Not as durable as Sully, sure, but enough to get the job done. Declaring him to be reliant on crits is technically true but ultimately irrelevant since he is fast enough to not only get two chances at critting, but also Dual Attacking. You cannot say this about Sully or Chrom unless they receive counterproductive favoritism. I confirmed in my playlog that it is possible to nab the C18 Bullion (M) while reliably killing Yen'fay in a single turn. You are correct about C14, though. Now that Chiki mentions it, I also found Gaius useful in Final to improve the mobility of Dark Knight Henry, who can weaken Grima with Hex/Anathema. I didn't use him much outside the situations I've already mentioned, but that may have been a consequence of my reclassing choices. A two-turn clear of C10 is reliable with Gaius; I've never before attempted it without him, so I can't say whether or not he's strictly required for it. You're putting words in my mouth; I find Sully's Mov useful whether or not she is trained. For example, it is only with both her and Stahl that a reliable five-turn clear of C3 is possible (she can also assist in a four-turn clear, though that is not reliable). It is her bad combat stats (and by extension, Chrom's) that I have a problem with. Fred shouldn't be used as a Pair bot in the earlygame, I think, and Anna's going to be off staffbotting; for this reason, the only people besides Tiki who directly benefit from Anna's +Mov bonus are herself and her ferry. You continue to put words in my mouth. I actually do consider those contexts in which fewer super-good characters are available; the problem is that in a good deal of them, the best thing to do with Sully and Nowi doesn't actually involve using Sully and Nowi much at all, and it is for this reason that they are low. I award them due credit for being useful when, for example, the Avatar, Cordelia, and Panne are all missing from the team, which is why Nowi and Sully are so high (if I were tiering based solely on an ostensibly optimal playthrough, I would rank Nowi much lower). The Avatar, Chrom, and Lon'qu do a sufficiently quick job of killing the earlygame enemies for which Fred doesn't have time, in my opinion. Giving these kills to Sully does not improve the expected turncount in subsequent levels. It is only when I remove both the Avatar and Panne from the team that Sully really shines, but how often will people actually do that? Finally, I do realize that some contexts involve not Rescue-skipping the crap out of every level. This is partly why Cordelia and Panne are so high. Tharja and Henry are also serendipitously in B tier (really, I just put them there for their Pair Up bonuses, which are great on not just the Avatar but also on staffbots for improving Rescue range, and their ability to use Hex/Anathema on Grima). What I was trying to convey was that, contrary to what you were saying (or at least what I thought you were saying) about surviving two rounds of Grima being indicative of a problem with the team, it was necessary (at least for me) to do so. My Avatar attacked two rounds during the player phase with Waste and triggered just enough Exalted Falchion and Vengeance strikes to get the PP kill. None taken. I have made an effort to ease a transition into your tier list by, for example, including Renown awards, making the Spotpass poll, and favoring reliability to a larger extent than does Chiki's tier list. But yes, as you can tell, I'm not the biggest fan of the way most of the other tier lists work; I wouldn't be able to guide this tier list in that direction to the extent that you are expecting simply because my heart wouldn't be in it. You never needed my permission to start your own tier list, of course; before you go off and do that, however, I'd like to receive some answers to the following questions: 1. Rescue is needed to train some of the shit characters; at the same time, Rescue gives the option of skipping levels entirely, making non-Veteran and non-Panne combatants almost useless. What sort of clearly-defined restrictions on Rescue will your tier list enforce to prevent the Veterans from overcentralizing the game? If we ban Rescue entirely, Nowi, Nosferatanks, and the Veterans rule the day; if we don't restrict Rescue at all, then the Veterans still dominate. 2. How brisk is brisk? Why is brisk as brisk as it is, and not any slower or faster? If it is to discourage a Veteran-centric playstyle while simultaneously exposing the differences between characters, why can we not produce the same results with the more concrete criteria that I have imposed here, namely the chance-of-death threshold and the conditional expection value of turncounts given no Game Overs? Good luck with your tier list. If you make it in the next few days, I suppose won't be any need to lock this thread since it will just die out naturally.

In my playthrough, Morgan was Lv 15 at the beginning of C15, a stage in which he grew at least six levels; Lucina started that stage at about Lv 13, but ended just shy of Lv 16. I tried my best to feed kills to Lucina, but she didn't get to 16/1 at the start of C17, with no opportunity to gain lance rank. After C17, I was only able to secure one round of combat with her as the lead support unit. Even in C17, I needed to forge +15 crit to a Killing Edge just to have a 68% conditional probability (given her stats as they were) of ORKOing a War Monk; the Parallel Falchion wasn't enough for me that time. Lucina's inability to do much EP countering during C15 forces her to deal with a lower level than Morgan going forward, as well as having to deal with either E-ranked tomes or 2 Mt Javelins going forward. Also note that while Avatar-mothered Morgan starts with C tomes and Veteran, and can inherit either Rally Spectrum or Galeforce, Lucina cannot get Veteran while inheriting Rally Spectrum or Galeforce unless she reclasses to a class in which she has E tomes and lower base stats (lower by 1 Str and a glaring 3 Spd). Although she will continue to be able to use the Parallel Falchion upon reclassing to Tactician, the Str and Spd decrease really hurts. With all this in mind, I think a large separation is appropriate. I agree that not many are better, which is why most units are ranked so low. Assume unrestricted deployment. You first need to explain to me how we're getting Sully to Lv 10 or so by C8 while averaging about six or so turns across C1-7 and the Paralogues, should you choose to do them. After doing this, you'll need to provide some outline of how to have her keep up when the promoted enemies appear en masse. Here's roughly what I did for Chrom: Pro: Chrom gets 72 EXP from striking and killing the boss. C1: I don't think he gained more than like 10-20 EXP from Dual Attacks here. C2: I fed him between 1-3 kills. I don't remember the exact details, but I'm not even sure I got to three with him in that level. C3: Chrom ORKOed the LHS Knight. C4: I don't remember much; I don't recall giving Chrom more than one kill, and it may have been zero. Got a small amount of Dual attack EXP. P1: He got 1-3 kills here. C5: Chipped and killed at least one Wyvern, got a small amount of Dual Attack EXP. By this point in someone else's playlog I was looking at, Chrom was just shy of Lv 5, and my own Chrom was probably in that neighborhood. C6: Dual Attack EXP. C7: Chipped and killed at least one Wyvern. C8: He definitely killed at least one guy. C9: Killed at least two Wyverns. C10-Final: Dual Attack EXP only. I remember him being just shy of Lv 11 or 12 during P17. He ended at 12/1. I've shown you mine; now you show me yours. Lon'qu starts with a Killing Edge for which no one else has the requisite weapon rank at the start of C5 (not Chrom, not Sully) and can double the enemies (remember there are many axe users) in P1-3, C5-7 with a Spd support. While I agree that Gaius isn't a good combat unit, he is useful for Locktouch: C6 Secret Book, P4 doors/Bullion (L), C18 Bullion (M), C14 Bullion (M). The latter two will likely not go to Anna since she will be stuck on Rescue duty. Finally, he is useful as a +Mov in C10. Now that you've made me type all that out, I think I will move him down to below Tiki. Why are Nowi and Sully better units? They can fight, yes, but not without a large turncount investment, one that they do not repay from a turncount perspective except in those contexts in which we restrict ourselves to not using all of the optimal characters, contexts for which this tier list accounts in a similar fashion to those of other tier lists: we assume the player is very likely to use higher-tiered units in the long term, and less likely to use lower-tiered units in the long term. Under the current criteria, Chrom needs to be ranked highly for killing Grima, as without him (say we sandbagged him the whole game), a reliable clear will not occur without two really, really strong max-forged Brave users, which the player will only have if he or she spends many turns training those two (for reference, my +Mag Avatar was doing 3 damage per hit to Grima with Rally Magic, Rally Spectrum, a Magic Tonic, and a Waste forge; granted, my run isn't completely representative of the playstyle I assume due to me making some gambles, but Dragonskin means that even an Avatar with higher stats would not do much damage). Chrom saves relatively few turns in the rest of the game, but in Final, he can be expected to save very many. In my playthrough, a Seraph Robed, Dracoshielded Avatar with Rally Spectrum and every Tonic would just barely have survived two Ignis-boosted attacks occurring during the player phase (Dance) assuming a Physic was used in between. I needed exactly two rounds of PP combat (Olivia) on turn 2 to kill Grima, and while my playthrough isn't completely representative of this tier list, I don't expect that someone playing more reliably at qualitatively the same pace would have noticeably stronger units. I'll type out my thinking on Sumia to keep my head straight. Remember that the way I am handling this, I am placing more of an emphasis on turn-cutting and less of an emphasis on combat than do most of the existing tier lists. C4: Fred needs Sumia or Chrom to double, but Chrom may give less Spd depending on how many levels he's gotten. Sumia has the advantage over Chrom, and she saves probably a turn or two here. C5: Fred needs Sumia to double. Lon'qu and Chrom are Paired Up to be able to double and ORKO Barbarians with decent reliability; if either a single Dual Attack or crit occurs, it's a done deal. For this reason, Sumia's the best option for Fred's Pair Up. She probably saves two turns or so when Frederick is fielded. C6-7: Either Sumia, Chrom, or Lon'qu will be Paired with Fred to allow him to double. Cavaliers have 11 Spd. Sumia saves one or two turns here. C8: Sumia is the ideal Fred partner, not just for doubling but also to traverse the sands. If someone (Fred) doesn't take out the left group ASAP, everyone who heads down the road gets surrounded. Although she can also ferry, Cordelia benefits the team most from gaining EXP here. Sumia saves many turns here: at least four, probably more. C9: Not that important to have Sumia ferry Fred instead of sticking him with another Spd-bot, but still useful to get out to a good start on turn 1. I think she saves a turn here. C10-11: Sumia's not important. C12: Cavaliers have 16 Spd; the A or S bonus provided by Sumia is helpful to double. post-C13: Sumia's not doing anything special, but she remains one of many options for staffbot-ferrying. She gets a small bit of credit for this, though not much. Sumia saves many turns by allowing Frederick to double enemies. Although Frederick can take a different partner for the Spd boost, doing so will have a large opportunity cost since Lon'qu wants Chrom or Panne to ORKO enemies far away from Fred/Avatar with the Killing Edge, and since Cordelia and Chrom want kills of their own in anticipation of Rally Speed and Grima, respectively. Hmm, I wasn't specifically thinking of the free legendary weapons when I made the poll. I guess I'll just make a separate poll for that once this one finishes.

OK, I'll move up Say'ri. As for Vaike, I think I will move him above Virion since Virion's post-C1 contributions can be replicated by Miriel and Ricken. I don't know if Vaike should be that high since his Pairbotting is only really useful in C2 (Panne gives better bonuses), and since he wants a contested Second Seal (Renown is now in play). If anything, buyable Rescue improves her use. It effectively gives her as much mobility as anyone else on your team, allowing her to get in position to assist with clean player-phase KOs on beefcakes like Walhart and Grima. In assassination levels where it is not necessary to have your boss-killer get two rounds of PP combat, she in turn can improve the characters capable of using buyable Rescue by increasing their own effective mobility. As for hiding her in rout maps, it is generally not so hard. The mandatory rout maps after and including her join time are: C11, C12, C15, C23, and C24. C11 gives the player tons of breathing room; C12 tends to favor keeping most units, including your one or two Rescue users who can bail out Olivia, huddled up near the bottom while your main badass goes head-hunting; C15 gives you the space immediately above the stairs which the player can seize turn 1 player phase; and C24 allows enough space as long as the player is aggressive and uses enemy-phase counters to prevent Wyverns from threatening the squishies on the LHS of the map. I agree that C23 can be a problem, though. The main advantage I see Olivia having over some of the less-competitive combat units is she saves turns in every context I can imagine, even if the player is restricting himself or herself to using suboptimal units; meanwhile, Sully saves only a few turns unless we restrict ourselves to those contexts which feature her as a long-term combatant. Lucina's ability to reclass to whatever she wants is not a huge boon, in my opinion. If she reclasses to a tome-using class in an attempt to match Morgan's enemy-phase countering, she's stuck with E tomes. If she reclasses to a Cavalier, she loses out on Spd: the Paladin class has three less base Spd than does the Great Lord (F) class. I think this can often make a difference since, in my own run, a Chrom Pair Up, Spd Tonic, and a mom who passed down a fair bit of Spd due to being in the Pegasus tree, just barely allowed 16/1 Lucina to double the C17 War Monks (if she had two fewer points, she wouldn't have doubled). As for her pseudo sword-lock, I found it problematic in C15, which features Spears, tomes, and Tomahawks scattered near the starting point. After C15, she has a hard time gaining EXP since the mandatory levels tend to be assassinations. In order to reclass to Wyvern Rider, both Sully and Nowi require a fair amount of EXP which will not come without opportunity cost; they won't be doubling anything save for Knights for a long, long time. Cherche requires only a Master Seal and zero EXP investment to get 8 Mov, something that is useful not just for ferrying staffbots in C16-19, but for getting difficult-to-reach treasure chests like in C14 and C18. Cordelia can replicate this (which is why she is above Cherche), but often she will be busy either using Rescue or using Rally Speed. I will move Cherche down, though only slightly. I actually do not disagree (much): Chrom isn't much of a lead combatant when he's not killing Wyverns. Now that I think about it, Chrom probably wasn't doubling Wyverns before C9, though they were still clean 2HKOs. Chrom was Lv 12/1 at the end of my run, and I doubt he would have gained much more EXP were I playing more reliably (like, Lv 20/1 at best). However... Chrom's main advantages, in my opinion, are not only his good supporting skills, +Spd bonuses (which are huge, IMO), and Wyvern-slaying, but also his Grima-killing abilities. Although Lucina generally has higher Skl than Chrom, she's not getting an S support (for Dual Attacks) with anyone capable of lasting more than a round against Grima; for this reason, her effective accuracy against Grima is not going to be so good. The Parallel Falchion winds up having 9 less Mt (translating to a 4-5 reduction in damage for each hit) than does the Exalted Falchion after accounting for Grima's weakness. If Chrom's Exalted Falchion hit Wyverns for effective damage but not Grima, I'd probably rank him near Sully. Okay, I'll move Panne down to the higher part of B tier. Now that the Renown Second Seal is in play, I think getting Panne up to speed should not be so bad if the player is so inclined. Right, Cherche will be moved down. I'm not considering Sumia's worth as a lead combatant; we agree that she does that terribly. Without her flight and Spd boosts, however, Frederick becomes a lot worse. I agree that Cordelia is squishy, but I find her combat stats just enough to get her to a level where she can promote and start spamming Rescue and Rally Speed. While Sully may or may not be too low (I don't think she is), I don't think a Frederick Pair Up is the way to argue her upwards. Eschewing the Sumia/Fred combo means that both C5 (Fred needs +Spd to double Wyverns) and P2 (you want to cross the river with Fred ASAP) get cleared more slowly. Gregor's strong, and can do some useful things in the early levels (C8, P3) regardless of whether the player chooses to make him a long-term unit. However, given the pace assumed in the tier list, insta-promotion is generally bad on combat units who don't have Veteran, except for perhaps Cordelia, who isn't really a combat unit. He can take one of two pre-C12 Second Seals, but it is one that units like Avatar and Panne also want. Gaius' Locktouch and +1 Mov make him a decent character no matter which units the player chooses to train. I cannot say the same about Vaike, whose +4 Str is useful in C2, outclassed by Panne's after C6, and unnecessary between those chapters. I think I will drop Gaius slightly since the +1 Mov only helps for treasure chests, and not so much for boss-killing since the bosses are strong enough to warrant +Str/Mag partners. poll added: What does everyone think about buying from Spotpass characters? Keep in mind that Europe doesn't yet have everything, that not every Internet user has access to wireless, and that allowing these items can make more characters competitive as long-term combatants.

When Alex Trebek laughed at a contestant for getting an answer wrong, it resulted in a viral video. I can't imagine how anyone would just shrug off getting laughed at on national TV. The principle here is the same. When you needlessly interject with "Lol" and say things like "this person's RTU is bad and shouldn't be counted," feelings will be hurt. I don't think you're intending to hurt anyone's feelings, but either way, people will form opinions accordingly.

[spoiler=time for maths:]For the purposes of C2, +Def/-Lck Avatar has 19 HP and 11 Def at base (remember that the mountain gives +3 Def/Res). We assume the site's growths of 80% HP and 50% Def. Interceptor's ongoing Lunatic+ playlog has a Lv 10 Avatar at the beginning of C2, so I will assume that. Recall that in the lower half of C2, there are two Barbarians (26 Atk), three Soldiers (22 Atk), and two Mercenaries (23 Atk). I assume the Avatar has a tome equipped. Using the binomial distribution, we will get an HP stat of: 24, 6.61% of the time (we get at least 24 HP 98.05% of the time) 25, 17.62% of the time (we get at least 25 HP 91.4% of the time) 26, 30.20% of the time (we get at least 26 HP 73.8% of the time) 27, 30.20% of the time (we get at least 27 HP 43.6% of the time) 28, 13.4% of the time As for Def, after including the mountain: 14, 16.4% of the time (we get at least 14 Def 90.0% of the time) 15, 24.6% of the time (we get at least 15 Def 74.6% of the time) 16, 24.6 of the time (we get at least 16 Def 50% of the time) Assume for this example the Avatar has. at least 15 Def (74.6% odds). The Soldiers (Mercenaries, Barbarians) deal no more than 7 (8, 11) damage to the Avatar when on the mountain. Given 15 Def at 74.6% odds, the Soldiers need four hits to kill the Avatar if he or she at least 19 HP, which occurs 100% of the time. The Mercenaries need at least three hits to kill the Avatar in all cases; if the Avatar has at least 25 HP, which occurs 91.4% of the time, the Mercenaries 4HKO the Avatar. The Barbarians are more problematic; they will generally 3HKO, but the conditional probability of getting 2HKOed, given 15 Def, is less than 1% since the Avatar will have at least 23 HP more than 99% of the time. Note that sacrifices can be made to improve odds further. With all this in mind, I think under the current chance of death constraints, a Frederick-free strategy is permissible for C2, though certainly not recommended. Any pedants can perform more careful analyses if they wish I'll soon address the character-specific arguments that were brought up. For now I will say that I'm changing the chance of death threshold to 30%, in order to strike what I perceive as a better balance between fast play and reliability, and limit it to Chrom and the Avatar to permit sacrifices. In other words, strategies that have a 70% or greater chance of not getting a Game Over are permissible.

OK, I'll sit down and do some arithmetic. Do you remember what sort of hit rates you faced when on the mountain?

After 9 level-ups, a +Def/-Lck Avatar with 50% Def growth has a 74.6% chance of gaining at least 4 Def from base (for a total of 4+8+3 = 15 Def including the mountain bonus), and a 50% chance of gaining at least 5 Def from base (for a total of 16 Def). How many enemies are able to traverse the mountain to attack the Avatar, and how many attack at a time?

^I'd love to, but I cannot do so under the current criteria unless you can demonstrate for me that a Lv 10 +Def Avatar can survive C2 reliably when paired with Chrom. In my previous post, I linked you to an article describing the binomial distribution.

Careful, that's your wife you're talking about. Completion of the game is assumed, certainly, but merely requiring completion of the game is not enough to provide any clean framework in which to rank characters. The player is expected to play quickly in order to expose the differences between characters and to encourage him or her to, well, think. I had no trouble keeping Olivia out of harm's way in my Lunatic run. Most of the stages in the second half of the game are assassination missions in which the enemy won't even get a turn. The presence of buyable Rescue staves makes it relatively simple to keep her safe in rout maps like C24. This tier list allows for players to use Donnel if they are so inclined. In any case, Donnel isn't required to be recruited under the current set of criteria (perhaps you should re-read the OP). And, OK, I'll count your vote for sacrifices, but I don't see why making the game easier should have anything to do with it. This is a tier list for the second-hardest difficulty in Awakening; there's nothing wrong with making the player think. If you can convince me that the likelihood of completing each chapter in his absence satisfies the current chance of death criterion, then I'll change the name of his tier. Having never tried a no-Fred run myself, I can't say for certain. You'll have to demonstrate for me that the Avatar can be expected to grow enough Def to make C1 and C2 reliable. Regardless, the only character who compares to Frederick in terms of turn-shaving is the Avatar. At worst, Fred's moving down to the top of S tier. I wouldn't really consider this a true LTC tier list to begin with. The only other playlogs I've seen (those by Red Fox of Fire and XeKr) featured full recruitment, IIRC, so I thought full recruitment would appeal more to people. You're right that it's ad hoc, though; if enough people join you in objecting, I'll remove the full-recruitment assumption.

I think Interceptor and Red Fox are right: there is no need to account for actions that are literally necessary to complete the game (or, if you want to get pedantic on me, "semi-necessary" in the case of Premonition). The goal of any Fire Emblem tier list, whether it is an efficiency tier list, a LTC tier list, or a 0% growths tier list, naturally includes completion of the game as one of the end goals. We should assume that at least one character is fielded and has a weapon equipped, that the Lord is alive, and that either Chrom or Avatar is going to take out Validar, because players do not visit tier lists to determine what is necessary for completion of the game and what is not. Now onto your first question: I am assuming the player is recruiting all first-generation characters. This is, as I am sure you're eager to point out, an arbitrary restriction, one that many people and I are fond of. Because a playthrough abiding by the current set of criteria will, by necessity, have recruited all those characters you mention, I do not consider it necessary to award or penalize Chrom for his role in recruiting these characters. -I'm going to update the OP with the new Renown rules: 330 base, with 10 awarded for each completed level thereafter. -I'll address the character-specific arguments brought up once we settle this question: how low of a chance of death should we shoot for, and should sacrificing characters be allowed? I think going for a 5% COD threshold (compared to the 40% one currently assumed) would make a few more characters in C tier, particularly Nowi, a bit more competitive as long-term units.