Anouleth

I think that's a bit different. Water types were and still are very common, iirc they're the most common type. Steel is a lot less common.

We should never ever change our leaders, because the new ones might turn out to be bloodthirsty dictators?

Wolf Beil is 10 weight. Hector has 13 CON. I'm not trying to suggest that even if Hector had 5 CON, it wouldn't matter. But if he had 11 CON (which is quite low for an axe user), he probably wouldn't be any worse. And if he had 12 CON he'd probably be outright better. And if he lived in a world where CON didn't even exist, he wouldn't care at all. Also, Hector isn't "unique" for having good CON. There are multiple axe users with the same or better CON. He's unique for having good defense and a bitching PRF weapon. That might be useful for all of one chapter!

It looks like you've buffed characters that really really don't have problems (alance, rutger, shin, marcus, zealot, percival, and miledy), while neglecting characters that have major, major issues by giving them only minor buffs (hugh, wendy, sophia, wolt).

Right, because not taking a speed penalty from um, Swordreavers is so crucial to Hector's utility. Hector doesn't double. Even with weapons that don't weigh him down. Hector really really doesn't need to have 13CON. It's not "why he's good". Dorcas has 14 CON (which is more). Yet Dorcas is shit. Why? Because he lacks STR/DEF. Because he doesn't have an amazing PRF weapon.

If you promote Luke/Rody/Draug earlier, their growth potential goes down the toilet. A 10/20 Luke is barely better than a level 20 Sirius, and it's mainly supports he has over Sirius. I guess I don't know if Luke can get significantly higher than level 10 in time for Sirius' appearance, but I'd think it's not possible without diverting a lot of attention away from others.

I, for one, quite like the idea of expensive, rare weapons actually being better than cheap, common weapons. Even if upgrading your weapons isn't "strategic", it's fun. But it really wasn't because of his huge CON. It was because of his great STR/DEF and having the best PRF weapon, which gave him a ridiculous 29ATK against Cavaliers and Knights (as much as Marcus with a Silver Lance!). It's not like his CON even let him double a lot of units. If anything, it was actually a weakness because it makes him difficult to rescue after promotion. But Knights, Great Knights, and Warriors all sucked in FE6/7/8. Except that Wyvern Riders are still one of the best classes in FE13. Light magic wasn't the lightest: anima was. Light magic was only lighter in FE10. In FE9, it was the heaviest, and in FE6/7/8, it was heavier than Anima, but lighter than Dark.

Flat magic pen is NOT a replacement for % magic pen. Flat magic pen is stronger the less magic resist the target has. % magic pen is stronger the more magic resist the target has. (Calcs: say the target has 150 magic resist. Therefore, they have 60% magic damage reduction. So the damage dealt is 40% of what it was before damage mitigation. With Void Staff passive, the target's magic resist is reduced to 97.5%, so they have about 50% magic damage reduction, so you deal 50% of your pre-mitigation damage, a 25% increase. In comparison, Haunting Guise passive reduces their magic resist by 15, which is only giving you a ~6% increase in damage. If the target has only 25 magic resist (or 20% damage reduction), Void Staff passive would reduce their magic resist to 16.25, which is 14% damage reduction. This is only a 7.5% damage increase. Haunting Guise Passive reduces their magic resist to 10, which would be about a 14% damage increase. Note that flat magic pen scales with magic pen. The lower the target's resistance is, the more effect you get out of flat magic pen. flat magic pen cannot reduce the target's resistance below zero, however. Also, Abyssal Scepter is not magic pen. It's applied before Void Staff passive, for instance, rather than after, so you probably shouldn't build both. However, this also works the other way. The best counter to building flat magic pen items is to build magic resist.) This is kind of a long post but I find it really annoying how many people misunderstand how magic pen works. Also everything I said also applies to armour.

Really? I didn't know that.

I don't know the specifics of the map to know if you can do this turn 1, but if Morgan can attack something on turn 1 and lose HP from that, he can use Vengeance to deal more damage. Since he has more than 50 skill, his activation rate is 100%, and he doesn't use any other activation skills that conflict with it. You'd replace All Stats +2, and then replace Magic +2 with something that boosts his accuracy, like Lucky 7. That would increase his accuracy to 100%. You can also do this with the Brave Axe, I guess. If Morgan can't reach an enemy on the first turn... I guess he can use a Naga's Tear, but that only gives +2 damage with 100% Vengeance activation. You'd need a Seraph's Robe and a Naga's Tear to be used on the first turn to get +5, then you could remove Strength +2 to make room for Vengeance. And Morgan can't use both items on the first turn. I don't think using them in preparations leaves you with reduced HP. One last possibility for Morgan to artificially increase his HP total is for him to reclass. However, the biggest max HP bonus Morgan can acquire from class changing into Sorcerer is +5, which is no better than a Robe. He can get +7 from reclassing if he starts off as a Villager, but obviously that forces him to have Donnel or Donnel's son as his father. Berserker offers much more fruitful HP gains. By reclassing Morgan from Trickster to Berserker on turn 1 gives him +11HP, so Vengeance does an additional 5 damage. That would let him 4HKO.

But then they're taking credit for each other's contributions. No doubt, Ricken's usefulness would be readily apparent, if every other unit in the game was banned, and he would save a stupendous number of turns, but it's not really what we would call being a good character if they're only useful under such a highly specific scenario. Why is it acceptable to consider the situation where 99% of the cast are arbitrarily prohibited from being used with regard to having a million Marcias? Well, I see you've changed the original post, but you need to be more specific about what contexts are considered. For example, to take your Frederick example, you say that Frederick saves 5 turns in Chapter 2. But that's only considering an environment in which every character is being used. If we're only using Virion and Lissa, it is readily apparent that the number of turns that Frederick saves is far greater. Does this situation have equal weight to a situation where we use all available units? No doubt, the contributions of every single character other than Marcia put together is a lot greater than the contributions of Marcia, but we do not attach characters together into arbitrary bundles. No doubt, Marcia and Ena together contribute more than Titania, but that doesn't mean Ena should be above Titania. So even if together, those million Marcias contribute a lot, they have to be tiered individually, on their own merits. To analogise to a draft, you could not draft all one million Marcias at once.

It's implicit that you're using a certain team because the list assumes you are getting the lowest possible turncount, which is only possible with certain teams. So it's implicit, for example, that we are using Titania in Chapter 9, or we could not get the lowest possible turncount. There is only one lowest possible turncount. By definition, you could not have another lowest possible turncount that took a different value, because then one of them would not be the lowest possible. Then you don't understand your own definition. Yeah, it would, wouldn't it? You'd also need to tier Rescueless Anna and Libra. There's also no value in tiering Galeforceless Avatar because even without Galeforce, Avatar is the best character in the game.

Will there also have to be a Rescueless version of Olivia to account for situations in which Rescue is restricted?

Yes, it is clearly worse, because if another character can do the exact same job as him, he doesn't save any turns. It doesn't matter if two, or three, or thirty characters can do his job, either way, he doesn't save turns. Boyd does not get any credit because he does not save any turns. The lowest possible turncount with Boyd present is 6. The lowest possible turncount without Boyd is 6. A character saves turns only if the lowest possible turncount for a chapter is higher without them. 6 is not higher than 6. Boyd does not share credit with Mia. This is because Boyd does not save any turns. So he has no credit to share.

It doesn't matter which characters are used for it. Boyd doesn't care who fills his position. What matters is that his position can be filled. Therefore, the lowest possible turn count, all options considered, is the same whether you use Boyd or not. "A unit saves turns if and only if the lowest possible turncount for a chapter is higher without their presence." There is only one answer to what the lowest possible turncount for a chapter is without the presence of a unit. It is an integer. Determining whether or not a character saves turns is simply a matter of comparing numbers. It isn't vague, despite your claims. Just saying it don't make it so.

There's only one lowest possible turncount, obviously.

Well, I don't think that just giving it a different name is really the same as "separate but equal". Whether we call gay marriage "gay marriage" or "civil unions" doesn't matter, I think.

No, it has to have a promoted Boyd or it's not the next lowest possible clear. We are including every possible option here. This means that all characters are available for use. Otherwise, we are not including every possible option. Mia is only of value if we exclude the option to use Boyd in her place. In the same way, Boyd is only of value if we exclude the option to use Mia.

You misunderstand. Olwen says that his tier listing criteria can be used to gauge whether a character is good in a draft. As a counterexample, I mention Aran. As far as I know, Aran does not save any turns under Olwen's tier list criteria, because the minimum turn count for every chapter is the same regardless if he exists or not. Whereas, Aran is quite a good character in a draft and can save quite a lot of turns.

"A unit saves turns if and only if the lowest possible turncount for a chapter is higher without their presence." There is no such thing as getting credit for "having potential" to shave a turn. There is no ambiguity, either Mia saves a turn or she doesn't; and because the lowest possible turncount in Chapter 9 is unchanged whether she exists or not, she does not save any turns. This is your definition of what it means to "save a turn", not mine. Only if you ignore your own rules, as you seem to do with the FE9 list.

Gheb returns from the dead and becomes emperor OBVIOUSLY

Your FE9 tier list is different from this one because the concept of "turns saved" isn't as rigidly defined. If that list used the same criteria as this one, Mia would have to go down because she doesn't actually save turns, any more than Soren or Ilyana do (because you don't need them to get the lowest possible turncount). But Aran doesn't save any turns (or if he does, it's a very low number). Can you name a single chapter where you can't get the lowest possible turncount without Aran? If you can't, then Aran doesn't save any turns, by either the definition on this list, or the definition on the FE10 list.

No, it doesn't. The marginal value of adding Jill when you're free to use every character in the game is very different from the marginal value of adding Jill when you can only use a small handful of units. A good example is Nolan. While Nolan does not save many turns normally because of the existence of characters who can do his job better, in drafts, he is very good because those characters are often unavailable, and is often a first pick. Aran doesn't save any turns at all normally; in drafts, he is a 1st or 2nd pick.

This tier list would actually be pretty poor for drafts since this list assumes optimal play... which is rarely possible in a draft because you have a limited set of characters.

That's not what Deliverer does. It doesn't "give" +2 movement to your partner, you get +2 move from your partner. And it requires you to be the lead, so you do have to invest into Gerome if you want to make use of Deliverer. This utility is in any case weaker than Brady's, since the mobility advantages that Rescue provides are far greater than Griffon Rider's +1 move. And this is nothing that you don't get much earlier from Kjelle, who has more time to build supports, and has a mother that would actually quite like those boosts. For that matter, we can get it from Frederick, Kellam, Stahl, Sully, and Cherche. As bad as it might be to be a fifth string staffbot, it is even worse to be a seventh string pairupbot.