Ranking each game by class: Clerics / Bishops / Infantry healers

Zapp Branniglenn · November 9, 2023

Clerics are known for doing one thing, but that doesn't mean that one thing doesn't have nuances game to game. Today we're looking at infantry healers, whatever their class' name is. Take them with you, and you'll be very glad you did. How you want to factor in healer classes also capable of fighting before promotion, or combat classes that promote into Bishop is entirely up to you. Here are our previous discussions

Here are my rankings based on the games I've played / replayed since 2017

Spoiler

Echoes: Valentian clerics have a serious edge over most fire emblem games not so much from their ability to fight, but their exclusive access to spells like Warp and Physic that your promoted mages would otherwise have been able to learn, someday. Cleric Faye is a huge addition in the remake. No one really entertains her as being any other class, and she brings some spells that Silque never learns. Silque and Faye can heal each other for free, perpetual exp. Genny can walk over to Celica and eat something from the Convoy. So fueling spells is not the issue it used to be. It’s true Warp isn’t global range anymore, but being able to warp someone in, Hunters volley, then rescue them out on the same turn gives those spells greater utility and safety on some maps than it did in the original. The biggest buff is white magic actually gives you exp. Not only does that keep us from having to throw them in dangerous situations, it speeds you up toward new spells way earlier in a playthrough. You get to play with Warp/Physic before Act 4 and without having to grind. And if you ever do want them to attack, they made Nosferatu more accurate, though still not very reliable in a vacuum. Faye gets an outrageous hit and crit boost from the Alm support, but having her fight feels like she's stealing exp that could go to someone else.
FE11: Praise Naga, the 80 warp uses are back. Plus this is the only version where the Aum staff can be used after chapter 24, and still holding their same weapons, making the finale more Turn 1-able than it’s ever been, even on H5. The Healing amount was lessened in FE11, adopting the modern Magic/2 scaling of newer FE games. However the exp gained from Heal was raised by 50% compared to GBA/Tellius. One new concern to this version is weapon rank. It’s extremely generous that you only need C rank to Warp and Physic, but getting Merric/Linde to that point is an expensive, time consuming process. And unlike Shadow Dragon’s Past, the Manual (called an Arms Scroll now) doesn’t raise staff rank. Reclassing them to Bishop does get you part of the way there. As for promoting clerics, there’s not a lot of Master Seals to go around in FE11, but them not being class specific means you can do it without screwing over Merric/Linde, specifically. Global staff range sort of subverts the value of +1 Mov, but the extra HP could keep Lena alive if she’s accosted by an unexpected ambush spawn
FE4: Suppose I should exclude Lachesis, as her Master Knight promotion is very disqualifying here. Not sure about the Deirdre/Julia situation. They do promote into Sage, but only Julia is allowed to do so. Edain’s great though. FE4 does not have vulnerary-like items, and you are just constantly in need of health bars being topped off. Churches are cheap, but their placement is so infrequent that your healers are usually closer. Edain’s ability to reach allies and stay safe is firmly worse than Ethlyn, but Ethlyn can’t Warp or Physic even after promotion. Plus she eventually leaves and Claud joins right after. I bet the average FE4 playthrough is very save scummy, but the Valkyrie staff is excellent for bringing units back to life. A huge safety net for any iron man run, and the biggest argument for Claud marrying Erinys or Sylvia so you can have access to it in Gen 2. Coipre is often made fun of for his join time and being debatably worse than his substitute, but hey it’s another staff user and he’s not taking up a deployment slot. Julia’s about to leave, so someone’s got to take over her workload.
FE2: Global Warp, Expel, and Physic, all with HP costs instead of weapon durability. There's no vulnerary-like items, but by the time you're using spells other than Recover, you've gotten a few rings that restore HP. The big problem here is that they don’t gain experience from healing. If they want to level up and reach those awesome spells, they have to do so by fighting. And their hit rate is 50 accuracy (Maximum. FE2 Magic accuracy is never raised by any stat, so a spell's base Hit is what you get, minus the opponent's attack speed). If you want Warp/Physic, you have to cherry pick kills and baby these units religiously, while also setting aside two or three units nearby to clean up that kill when they miss, or otherwise body block your cleric so they don’t die on the resulting enemy phase. When you’ve turned in all the homework, clerics are fantastic though. The Highs are so much higher than the average FE game. This is the hardest game to rank for sure, because the vast majority of my resets were the Clerics. After promotion, they have a much easier time leveling up with Angel, and enjoy a higher exp gain formula before and after promotion. They also get terrain damage negation and restoring 5 HP to adjacent allies like in the remake – haven’t seen any resource mention that so I will. One more point of favor for FE2 clerics over Echoes is their promotion grants 8 Def instead of 5. Also, as far as I can tell, Expel's success rate is 100%. I only saw it fail on generic monsters designated as the chapter boss, and it will never kill Bigles (Mogalls). That might sound more busted than it really is in practice. I will offer that Genny's Expel is a huge lifeline in Act 4, because although your falcoknights can cut through 9 necrodragons a turn with little issue, they have trouble getting within range of the cantor repeatedly spawning them.
FE1: Yeah this is the funny game where clerics level up by surviving combat. Look, you don’t need to level up your clerics in FE1. The only stat they care about is weapon lv. Most Clerics/Bishops join with enough to use everything. And if they don’t, use the Manual on them. Clerics do promote in FE1, but Merric/Linde will get way more out of those two bishop rings since their weapon level is already high enough for every staff. You can get pretty liberal with the three warp staves, especially if you kept Lena alive to use the Hammerne staff for more charges. I also find clerics are easy to keep alive in this version so long as Marth is there to distract enemies. One annoying difference from every other Archanea game is that hammerne doesn’t work on personal weapons, Gradivus, or Parthia. Leaving only staves and the devil axe/sword as worthwhile options to refill. So warp away.
FE8: Moulder tends to score very high on tier lists. Not so much because he's an incredible unit, but just an acknowledgment of what we don’t have in this game. FE8 doesn’t throw you several prepromotes with A rank staves like in FE6/7. If you want to use the good stuff, you have to work somebody up to that point. Moulder’s starting C rank is tied for the highest in the game alongside Saleh, and he’s working on it from chapter 2. That's plenty of time, even in an efficiency setting. Even in more casual playthroughs, the Torch staff on that first fog of war map, the Restore staff when you’re hit by Berserk, Moulder stands as the best answer to the game's most deadly scenarios. I tend to bench him in the easier maps, once my mages are promoting. Any context where Moulder has no more benchmarks to work on, and there are no status conditions to cure. His promotion can wait for the game’s final third. Light magic users have WTA against monsters, and of course Slayer grants them big damage. As for Bishop as a promotion choice, it’s certainly better than Sage. Only Nastasha is seriously considering her other choice, Valkyrie, for Rescue utility, but I rarely use her in the first place. Artur in particular is a monster of a unit if you raised him up to Bishop.
Three Houses: Since Magic Access classes do not discriminate between Reason and Faith disciplines, the Priest class can attack with any magic, and the generic mage classes can use any faith spell. And even physical weapons. Making them generally more versatile than you’d expect out of early game clerics. As far as what the classes themselves provide, Priest is valuable because it doubles your heal charges and enhances the heal amount by 5 points. Bishop is excellent, particularly on units that possess Physic instead of Recover. The +10 amount will suffice for most of the game, while having 10 uses is generally sufficient for when Linhardt or Mercedes are left far behind by more mobile units. The class masteries kind of suck – especially for these support-oriented units that would prefer to avoid combat altogether. But I don’t hold it against them. I place a whole lot more value on Bishops with Physic and/or Warp then I do on the more combat-oriented mages. I can only speak for the No DLC environment of Three Houses but I’m willing to bet the new classes don’t impact Priest/Bishop's standing much at all.
FE6: I’m not a fan of Ellen or Saul. They’re only better than Clarine specifically on the Desert map, since they have mage movement on the sands. GBA era staff experience was cut down to 11 and 5 after promotion. And FE6 weapon experience builds as slowly as ever. I think the best argument for Saul is FE6’s Warp staff being relatively early, reaches 5 spaces further than FE7/8, and he can reach staff rank A faster than Clarine. Promoted Clerics have exclusive access to Light magic until Yoder shows up, but there’s nothing special about it as a weapon type. Very lightweight, but nearly as inaccurate as dark magic. Yoder’s a good get in the game’s final maps. He’s carrying the Saint Staff and ready to use it. And if you care, you can raise his light rank to use Aureloa similar to Niime training to use Apocalypse. I usually favor Niime between the two, since Yoder’s providing so much utility already. I don’t need him to fight, and I don’t need the Saint Staff in the dragon hallway map where the game is preventing me from splitting up my units.
FE3: Well, clerics gain experience from healing now. The catch is that staves are no longer classified as weapons, so they can’t be Hammerned. This limits your warp usage down to 14 charges in Book 1 and 7 in Book 2. Tragic. You can Hammerne any weapon in the game now, but the staff’s uses were cut from 12 to 5. These new limitations are rough, but when you do spend these resources, they’re still as good as usual. Book 2 adds a lot of exotic new toys like Rescue and the game breaking Again staff which gives everyone a second turn. To use it, you need someone with capped weapon level, almost assuredly going to be a promoted Linde or Merric.
The Last Promise: Tamiko would likely have a level lead on the troubadour Emma. Even joining at level 1, she can easily surpass Emma’s level 10 by the end of Siegfried mode if you’re playing at a casual pace. Staff exp is doubled in this hack. Her higher Mag stat grants better Physic range, although a troubadour's higher movement tends to offset the discrepancy. Pumping Seraph Robes in her could allow her to match Emma's superior bulk. There’s no Warp/Rescue in the game. TLP has only one other potential Bishop and it's the light mage Monk Arthur who is notoriously bad due to availability. There may be potential in promoting Tamiko and and using her as your dedicated light tome user. Anakin’s weapon rank tends to be low since he primarily uses the Dance command, so there’s really little competition for this weapon type.
FE9: Most players pass up Rhys for Mist. Her Mag stat is notably weaker but her promotion is excellent, mostly for letting her heal and retreat to safety. The only compliment I can pay the Bishop class is that it provides better combat than Mist, but only by virtue of its 1-2 range chip damage potential. Light tomes are too heavy for Rhys to pull doubles with, and it’s the least accurate magic type in the game. If I were focused on raising Rhys, I wouldn’t be in nearly as much hurry to promote him, which I guess removes him from the pool of units competing for your Bexp supply. It’s also worth mentioning that FE9 lacks a Warp staff entirely, and that undercuts Rhys’ Mag stat talking point.
FE7: Serra’s very overshadowed by Priscilla’s better class and better starting staff rank. She can overcome Priscilla in levels with the help of Lyn Mode, but that’s the only mark in her favor. Her support pool is wide, but almost all of them progress at the slowest possible rate which is obnoxious. Renault is an odd duck, joining at nearly the same point as Athos with much lower relevant stats. If you wanted to count Lucius, who technically promotes to Bishop, this game looks a bit more favorable. Lucius is my preferred of the three unpromoted mages, with or without Lyn Mode. Those base stats are great, and Light magic is way improved in FE7. The minor crit chance adds up especially when you remember FE7 enemies have 0 luck across the board. Plus he starts with C rank staves on promotion instead of D. But if you removed any of these three units from the game, very little would change, because Pent is still coming.

If I put these rankings into a tier list, #1 is S tier, 2-6 are A tier, the rest are B.

Next week we will be talking about Mages / Sages

samthedigital · November 10, 2023

Thracia>FE11>Awakening>FE8>Engage>FE6>FE7>FE9>FE10

S Tier:

Thracia: Easily the best showing in the series. Safy alone trivializes a lot with her personal Hammerne and earliest access to an infinite Warp range, and that's only scratching the surface because there are so many things that staff users can do in this game. There's also Sleep, Silence, Rescue, and Tina's personal thief staff off the top of my head, and they all do their part in breaking the game.

FE11: I don't remember this game that well, but a lot of the "meta" is to warp a unit into kill the boss and then Marth to seize, and that's pretty busted. This is also true of FE12 outside of higher difficulties I think, but I don't play these enough to be sure of anything.

A Tier:

Awakening: This one is a little awkward because of the branching promotion for Clerics and Priests. For the sake of ranking the classes I'm going to consider Cleric/Priest and anything they branch into on promotion to keep it simple, so that means that a Cleric's contribution as a Sage is something I'm considering, but not a Mage if they promote into that class. Anyway, Serra and Libra are the two main representations for this class, and they're an integral part of Awakening's combat flow on Lunatic+ while also being useful on lower difficulties. It's really common to use Rescue on any given turn to reposition a unit, heal them, dance them for something else, or get them out of range of attacks when player phasing enemies. This is something I relied on a lot in Lunatic+. It's not quite as useful on lower difficulties, but it depends on playstyle to some degree. Rescue is also really nice for some one turn strategies, but I find that this happens more towards the end of the game where I'm more likely to have the unit doing that in Falcon Knight. Flunky kids are also good candidates for this, and I guess that they could grind levels pretty fast too if that's your thing.

B Tier:

FE8: This is here almost exclusively for Moulder's Warp access. Healing utility is always useful too, but we don't get Warp that late in this game, and Moulder is one of the best candidates for that strategy.

Engage: I'm including Martial Monk, Master, and High Priest here. High Priest isn't particularly good since a unit can reclass into anything and fists aren't a strong selling point over better class bases in Sage or an offensive class like Mage Knight. Framme is the only Martial Monk of note, and she is the only available healer for a while. She can work as a low investment Bonded Shield spammer if she gets to promotion too. There are better options, and she might have troubles getting enemies not to target her, but it can work to some extent. Other units with good defenses can make great use of the class for the Bonded Shield strategy though; Alear and Goldmary are the two that come to mind first for me, and if we're not using a wyvern/Ivy as our primary Bonded Shield target it's a great class for that strategy, and it can be preferred anyway depending on the situation since they can target anyone with 100% success rate instead of just wyverns. Staff utility is nice from time to time too, and Engage has access to some great staves, but I find myself using other classes for this more often than not.

FE6: See FE8 but replace Moulder with Saul. I haven't really messed around with early Warp in this game though.

FE7: Serra really doesn't have the movement to keep pace with mounted units or to have useful heals outside of the early game when playing at a relatively fast pace. On the other hand I've always liked Lucius a little more as a staff spammer and occasional combat unit a little more than Canas and Erk (both of which I'm not including) since he starts with the higher staff rank to use things like Physic earlier. I've never used Warp much in this game, so I can't speak to how effective Lucius could be with it, but staves just aren't as broken in this game as the games I've ranked above it.

C Tier:

FE9-10: Rhys feels very similar to Serra to me; he's useful for a few heals early on before becoming irrelevant. Technically speaking he could use Physic I guess, but I don't find myself healing very often, and I'd much rather use Mist or a Sage if I needed healing as the game goes on. FE10 has a similar dynamic, and it's more common for juggernauts to use healing items rather than get healed from what I remember anyway.

Edited November 10, 2023 by samthedigital

SnowFire · November 10, 2023

Since pure Light mages are pretty rare, gonna assume Lucius / Artur qualify for this topic. (Arguably Micaiah does too, albeit with the Lord asterisk.)

Fates is a bit wacky - there are no less than *four* infantry healer classes in Butler, Maid, Shrine Maiden / Priestess, Monk / Great Master. And yes, Butler/Maid technically descend from Troubadour, but people seemed to be rating Troubadour / Strategist in the ranking thread for that and excluding Butlers & Maids, meaning they end up here. (Assuming Onmyoji is more a Sage, of course.)

--

Broken: Echoes!!!!!

(gap)

(more gap)

(gap III)

Good: Three Houses, Fates Butler/Maid, Fates Birthright Monk / Great Master

Average: FE6, FE8, Fates Revelation Shrine Maiden/Priestess & Monk / Great Master

Filler: FE7, Engage, Fates Birthright Shrine Maiden/Priestess

Bad: FE10, Awakening

Very bad: FE9

Don't remember well enough to rank: FE11, FE12

--

I know there are dopey tricks that can be done with early Warp access in FE6, but eh, not much of a warp-skipper player. That said, most Mage->Sages having E-rank staves on promotion IIRC does help ensure that staffers keep their niche if you built one. Yodel is solid enough late-game filler. Probably still prefer Valks but the cleric crew is fine.

FE7 gives you early game filler and late game filler both. Serra is fine for keeping people topped off, and if you're doing a casual scrubby FE7 playthrough and need an emergency leveled staffer for Light Renault is fine (this is the game with pretty bad XP gain for staves, after all). Although despite ragging on the XP gain, if you care about XP rank, every bit helps, so there's something to be said for deploying both Serra & Priscilla for awhile to just farm more XP. Anyway, Pent existing is kind of a big hiccup for Serra, as he can cover staffing duties just fine while being pre-leveled. Lucius, if he counts, exists. He's fine but also very similar to Erk so nothing special here. Also Serra / Lucius being frail is not great given that FE7 is a game where enemy offense tends to be on the low side, so he's vulnerable in a way tankier units aren't.

They exist in FE8. Valkyrie / Sage are better promotions on paper for Moulder / Natasha, but Bishop's Slayer is a cool niche given that the lategame of FE8 is extremely monster-heavy, as is Lagdou. Artur is a bit worse than Lute IMO but he's usable, sure.

Rhys is pretty terrible in FE9, saved only by high availability, but that doesn't really "count" for much in a class-ranking thread. He is absolutely one of the most killable units in FE9, being frail & slow (fitting given his backstory!). I guess the one thing in his favor is that a lot of the late-joining Sages have foolishly grabbed Knives as their secondary (Calill, Bastian), so if Mist / Soren / Ilyana all died or something, maybe it gets more interesting. But I don't feel that is also a damning with faint praise thing, the class is more important solely because staves are at least somewhat rare? I guess. Offense is wretched.

FE10 at least has some status staff shenanigans that can be done, like Laura's Sleep staff. But enemies are scarier than FE9 and as a result Laura & Rhys are also eagerly lining up for the grave if not played very carefully. Ranking might go up some if Micaiah is included, as Thani at least gives her some offense when she isn't using Physic safely from the back lines.

I don't feel like I know FE11 & FE12 well enough to comment, for all that infinite-range Warp in FE11 is obviously silly for LTCs, and FE12's dance staff is kinda OP. Although FE12 is also weird in that it screws over staffers on Lunatic mode by denying them some cool stuff.

Awakening... well, Lissa is acceptable filler early, and Libra does join reasonably leveled. I said my piece in the Troubadours thread that I personally prefer Valkyries for your long-term staffing needs. That said, War Monk is actually quite bad, so you really should pick anything else for your staffing needs like Sage / Valkyrie / Trickster. If you make Brady a War Monk for flavor reasons he is hilariously terrible, although he's kinda terrible in general.

Fates: This one is complicated. Butler / Maid is good - you get access to a Flame Shuriken on all routes, they get good supporty aura-bonuses like Gentilhomme, and Jakob/Felicia at least get the early access to Tomebreaker which can set up some funny plays (although enemy mages aren't super-common in Fates). Along with access to both range-1 and range-2 staffs compared to other games (although maybe not in Conquest after the Internet turns off!!1!). That said, I know others hype getting Jakob out of Butler, for all that I've never done it myself. Going over to Hoshido... Monk/Shrine Maiden is filler early, but useful filler. Priestess is sadly not very good in Birthright long term because getting a Shining Bow is very dumb; just go Onmyoji. That said, it's fine in Revelation for Sakura / Mitama. Meanwhile, Great Master is actually quite good in Birthright, because it's the route of squishies who explode, and GM's 10% Defense boost is actually one of the best out there, making Azama one of your best tanks. (And unlike Rinkah, he actually can have an HP score & a Resistance score, too.) And you do have access to Bolt Naginata. Azama joins too late against too crazy competition to seriously hype that in Revelation, though.

Echoes is insanely busted enough to require underlining as well. Genny's Invoke is game-breakingly powerful and dominates the game from Act 1 all the way into the Postgame if you want to. The AI just loves killing her weak phantoms, allowing you to survive enemy phases you really shouldn't, and generally provide cover / blockers for your team. She summons a ton of phantoms, too (unlike say Tatiana). Meanwhile over in Alm's route, Silque learns Warp very quickly in a game where Warp is quite handy - lets units get past walls and up on ledges, or just assassinate the boss. I'm less hypey on Cleric Faye, but it is probably her best promotion, and eventually becomes a Dance-Cleric in the postgame. Meanwhile, Tatiana is perfectly acceptable filler, joining reasonably leveled and actually has a speed stat if you want her to fight on the front lines for some reason. Are we back to Genny yet? Okay, she's really good even if you're not cheesing with Invoke. Physics your team safely from that backlines, and later on helps heal your whole team up as they trudge through all the swamps in Celica Act 4. Can we talk more about Echoes Saints? Sure, let's. This isn't really worth your while, but if you want to do funny meme nonsense, you can save a bunch of fountain drinks for a Saint and do Nos-tanking out of the Dark Magic thread last week. Sure, it's inaccurate, but if you pump their stats enough it stops mattering. This is like option #48 for what to do with a Saint, but it's still better than what scrubs have to offer.

Three Houses: I think the heal boost on Priest is fine. Strictly speaking, if you think your healer might go aggro some day (your Mariannes / Mercedes), then you should go through Mage at some point for Fiendish Blow, but it might be worth switching back to Priest if there's still time before L20. But the Linhardts / Flayns of the world might well not even care and just happily stay Priest the whole time. Meanwhile, Bishop is good for the same reason. Double-uses on spells like Warp / Rescue / Fortify is very handy. I think most 3H teams should probably deploy at least one pure-support which probably ends up being a Bishop or Gremory. But Linhardt can't become a Gremory, and it may not even be worth it for Manuela / Flayn / Mercedes. The heal boost is still helpful here to ensure that even Physic'ing the Dedues / Balthuses of the world gets 'em healthy.

Engage: Early game, Martial Monk is authentically handy. People respected Framme in the ranking thread for this just because staff access is quite rare then. As the game proceeds... the good news is that Engage Staves are quite good, but they aren't generally harshly limited by Staff rank. So Griffin Knights / Sages / Micaiah-users can still use a bunch of power Staves like Obstruct & Physic, which kinda messes with High Priest's S-rank staff niche (the only S-rank staff in the game is a bad joke). That said, having a single Martial Master for Chain Guarding the approach of extremely dangerous bosses is still handy, especially if you're not set up for Lucina Bonded Shield strats (and hell, if you are, Qi Adept makes the rate 100%). And while it's not THAT amazing, High Priest's self-healing ability can be cool - inventory space is harshly limited for staff-users, with only 5 slots for (damaging tome / healing staff / 3 free), meaning that carrying around healing items has a real cost to it. It doesn't really hold up compared to Sage once A-rank Tomes become available and Elfire looks meh, but there are some chapters before that's true. End result is a filler class - maybe you run exactly one Martial Monk lategame, but mostly because of the Chain Guard ability on more useful units, which is not a stirring endorsement.

Edited November 10, 2023 by SnowFire

Jotari · November 10, 2023

I'm seeing a lot of praise for Echoes in the few posts so far, and that's not undeserved. Infinitely spammable Warp, Renew and summoned decoys is certainly fantastic utility. But my oh my does Thracia blast Valentia out of the water. They aren't just good in Thracia, they're the cornerstone of the entire games. Like, I have played Engage without using any Emblems, and I have contemplated playing Thracia without any staves. Tharica is probably the harder of those two challenges. They're not just broken, I mean, they are broken, but it goes beyond just being broken, their utility is valuable in a lot of other ways. Most noteably status effects. In Thracia they last forever. That means if a unit gets hit with sleep, they are gone for the entire map. If a unit gets hit with berserk, your units are dying. And poison, the useless stat that gives free staff exp in other games, when it doesn't go a way, it becomes a constant juggling act of keeping everyone healthy and a values judgement as to who and when to heal. All this means the Restore staff is hilariously valuable (and Leif's inability to get hit by status effects very useful). Also, the game has a bunch of powerful prf weapons and you get Hammerne at the very start of the game. Staves are just dope in Thracia. Or more like Crack. Once you get them you have to use them. Like, you might think Shadows of Valentia has infinite warp use and that makes warp better, but no, because Tharica is more built around warp. You need to warp to take out key enemies, and those key enemies usually have warp staves of their own that you can rick capturing to increase the supply.

Heal staves can also miss with his a downright evil feature, but the only unit that's likely to effect is Nana, who isn't actually in the purview of this thread.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Jotari

samthedigital · November 10, 2023

50 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Heal staves can also miss with his a downright evil feature, but the only unit that's likely to effect is Nana, who isn't actually in the purview of this thread.

Tina is the first unit that comes to mind for me, but you can use it to your advantage to get more exp and wexp since staves don't lose durability with a miss.

Jotari · November 10, 2023

35 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

Tina is the first unit that comes to mind for me, but you can use it to your advantage to get more exp and wexp since staves don't lose durability with a miss.

I never had any issues with her missing, but looking at her stat line and the formula, yikes, she is likely to miss quite a bit. It's staff hit rate (which is 60 for heal, mend and phsyic) + skill*4. In other words, you need 10 skill to guarantee a hit (well actually not guarantee because the hit is 99%, which yes, is also evil). She has 25% skill rate so 1 point of skill every four levels and only one on promotion, so it'll be 20/14 before you can have reliable healing with her. Still she has her own personal staffs to make use of and she can use barrier which doesn't rely on accuracy.

samthedigital · November 10, 2023

20 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I never had any issues with her missing, but looking at her stat line and the formula, yikes, she is likely to miss quite a bit. It's staff hit rate (which is 60 for heal, mend and phsyic) + skill*4. In other words, you need 10 skill to guarantee a hit (well actually not guarantee because the hit is 99%, which yes, is also evil). She has 25% skill rate so 1 point of skill every four levels and only one on promotion, so it'll be 20/14 before you can have reliable healing with her. Still she has her own personal staffs to make use of and she can use barrier which doesn't rely on accuracy.

I like to give her a skill book and scrolls to fix her skill more quickly, but I usually delay the former so that missing is purely advantageous as long as I don't need to rely on her.

edit: The Thief staff gives like 50-100exp? I'm forgetting right now since it's been a while, but she usually has the luxury of being able to steal during any turn from what I remember.

Edited November 10, 2023 by samthedigital

Zapp Branniglenn · November 11, 2023

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

I'm seeing a lot of praise for Echoes in the few posts so far, and that's not undeserved. Infinitely spammable Warp, Renew and summoned decoys is certainly fantastic utility. But my oh my does Thracia blast Valentia out of the water. They aren't just good in Thracia, they're the cornerstone of the entire games. Like, I have played Engage without using any Emblems, and I have contemplated playing Thracia without any staves. Tharica is probably the harder of those two challenges. They're not just broken, I mean, they are broken, but it goes beyond just being broken, their utility is valuable in a lot of other ways. Most noteably status effects. In Thracia they last forever. That means if a unit gets hit with sleep, they are gone for the entire map. If a unit gets hit with berserk, your units are dying. And poison, the useless stat that gives free staff exp in other games, when it doesn't go a way, it becomes a constant juggling act of keeping everyone healthy and a values judgement as to who and when to heal. All this means the Restore staff is hilariously valuable (and Leif's inability to get hit by status effects very useful). Also, the game has a bunch of powerful prf weapons and you get Hammerne at the very start of the game. Staves are just dope in Thracia. Or more like Crack. Once you get them you have to use them. Like, you might think Shadows of Valentia has infinite warp use and that makes warp better, but no, because Tharica is more built around warp. You need to warp to take out key enemies, and those key enemies usually have warp staves of their own that you can rick capturing to increase the supply.

Heal staves can also miss with his a downright evil feature, but the only unit that's likely to effect is Nana, who isn't actually in the purview of this thread.

I don't have a first hand experience of Thracia's mechanics, but isn't the need for more staff users heavily influenced by the fatigue costs of using a staff? It certainly feels like Fatigue was intended to deliberately limit how much you get to play with these toys.

It's certainly worth comparing how powerful staves are game to game, and their availability. But I do think the understated reason for Echoes at the top spot is the exclusive access to those spells on this one class. If you dropped Mae and Boey into a different FE game, they would eventually be able to Physic and Warp if you made them Heal a bunch after promotion. The only competition for support are the funky hidden spells Echoes added to some characters. Most notably Sage Tobin learning Physic. But I don't see any other case conveniently on such an optimal class change

samthedigital · November 11, 2023

8 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I don't have a first hand experience of Thracia's mechanics, but isn't the need for more staff users heavily influenced by the fatigue costs of using a staff? It certainly feels like Fatigue was intended to deliberately limit how much you get to play with these toys.

Not necessarily, no. There are some maps where we want to use a ton of staves. The map before rescuing Eyvel for example is one where we want to disable nearly a dozen enemy staff users as soon as possible, and that requires nearly as many staff uses. Sometimes it's a thief staff use and a few warps for various objectives to clear the map in one turn.

The fatigue mechanic can be trivialized with proper money management; iirc it's chapter 14 that has buyable stamina drinks that we can use to cheese the mechanic for the rest of the game.

Jotari · November 11, 2023

26 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I don't have a first hand experience of Thracia's mechanics, but isn't the need for more staff users heavily influenced by the fatigue costs of using a staff? It certainly feels like Fatigue was intended to deliberately limit how much you get to play with these toys.

It's certainly worth comparing how powerful staves are game to game, and their availability. But I do think the understated reason for Echoes at the top spot is the exclusive access to those spells on this one class. If you dropped Mae and Boey into a different FE game, they would eventually be able to Physic and Warp if you made them Heal a bunch after promotion. The only competition for support are the funky hidden spells Echoes added to some characters. Most notably Sage Tobin learning Physic. But I don't see any other case conveniently on such an optimal class change

There is some truth that it's staves in general in Thracia that are great and not necessarily Clerics. We were talking in the Valkyrie thread how Amalda is great for just having a staff even though her counterpart has a leg up in every other area. Nevertheless, Safy, Linoan, Serra and Sleuf are all going to have instant and highly practical utility because of their high staff ranks. Tina is a little weaker in that regard and we've talked about her hit issues but another staff user, especially that early is very welcome. Serra and Linoan can also use magic from base, because Cleric and Priest are actually two separate classes. You'll still almost certainly be using a staff for their majority of their turns though.

Shanty Pete's 1st Mate · November 11, 2023

Time to rank some Healers - the Priests, the Bishops, the Clerics, and the Curates. They're the sort of class I always tend to use - not only do they perform a unique function, but they're also not competing for experience with other combat units. This calculus may change a bit as you turn Mages to Sages, or if you have mounted healers at your disposal. But overall, it's almost always a good choice to bring along a staffbot or two.

So, how would I rank them - from worst to best? See below:

Spoiler

11. Radiant Dawn. In a normal FE title, a Vulnerary can heal 10 HP, 3 times, for 30 HP total. In RD, it can heal 20 HP, 8 times, for 160 HP total. Oh, and every unit has 7 inventory slots. In this light, healing support isn't the most necessary thing. Laura has trouble even reaching a double-digit level within tier one, while Oliver is inferior tower filler. Rhys is kind of a magical glass cannon, but with his speed issues, he's mainly staff support filler. Heck, they even forgot to give you any healers in Part II, just having yellow Physic Bishops imitate the role. Not a class you get excited about using.

10. Path of Radiance. 11 EXP per Heal use. 9+ turns for a single level-up. Gee, thanks. Rhys is your only option here, but as such, he actually has a monopoly on healing in the earlygame. He also benefits from staves being readily stealable, especially Physics. After promotion, he's also your only Light magic user. All that said, staff support isn't the biggest of deals here, and his combat isn't anything special, either. Usable, but it's fine to drop him, too.

9. Genealogy. Curiously, an infantry healer is not your first healer this time. Rather, it's the mounted Ethlyn. Edain has her own advantages, like being able to use Warp and Physic staves. But 5 move means she'll be stuck, either on the backlines, or in the home castle. And a complete inability to use the Arena leaves her with no way to gain extra money and experience. Lana is relatively better, since he joins at the start of Seliph's arc, but she faces some similar issue. Claude feels very filler-y, while Coirpre can be a chore to get to promotion. A class with its uses, but definitely not at its high point.

8. Three Houses. This one was a bit tough to evaluate. The fact that Priest and Bishop stay stuck at 4 move is unfortunate, as is the poor combat - with no Tomefaire, and in a game where offensive Light magic is of little use. That said, the healing boost is great, particularly on Physic users. While Bishop's doubled spell charges means two Warps, which can make the difference in multi-bosskill maps. It's the ideal class for Linhardt, and a solid waypoint for Mercedes, Flayn, and Lysithea.

7. Fates. Right out the gate, I'm not counting Maids and Butlers - if I were, this would jump to 3rd place. Anyway, traditional infantry healers essentially don't exist in CQ, so we'll talk BR and Rev. Sakura is prerry good in both, Azama is fine in BR, and Izana is fine filler. Oh, Festals that you can use from 2-range were pretty cool to see.

6. FE7. Serra is "just okay", although she gets credit for being your first healer. Lucius is "pretty good, actually" - high Magic and Speed, plus instant C-staves when he promotes. Renault, I've never been a fan of - you get him for 2.5 chapters, one of which has Kishuna, and the other of which has Athos. Still, Priest and Bishop are perfectly usable classes in this game.

5. Awakening. Healtouch is a welcome skill, as is the instant Rescue access for staff users. Lissa can do work for you, although personally, I'm a bigger fan of Libra, as the only pre-promote (aside from Frederick) in the big "free love" pool. Oh yeah, and EXP for staff use is really high in this game.

4. FE6. Saul is likely the better of the two infantry healers, but Ellen at least gets credit for being your first healer. Having a unit who can train their way up to Physic and Warp is very valuable, and something they have over the mounted healers. But hey, even if you don't, there's still Yoder - who can potentially also use Aureola.

3. Sacred Stones. Moulder and Natasha may start out "just okay", although it's worth noting that they don't face meaningful competition until, like, halfway through the game. By that point, they'll have the opportunity to promote into the Bishop class - and likewise for Artur. With the fierce Slayer skill, Bishop becomes a premiere combat class, shredding through the monsters that predominate the lategame.

2. Echoes. In a game with no Vulneraries, no spare inventory slots for healing items beyond the earlygame, and magic and combat arts that exhaust HP - healing spells are a big deal. Silque, Genny, Tatiana, and (potentially) Faye all offer great support spells. And not only do they start with a combat option in Nosferatu, but once promoted, they gain an even stronger one in Seraphim. Plus, Saint outmoves Sage, Priestess, and Baron, while her passive adjacent healing is highly welcome in Celica's Act IV.

1. Shadow Dragon. 7-use Warp staves. A 13-use Hammerne. Infinite range on Physic, Fortify, and Warp. Suffice it to say, this is a strong game for staves. And their greatest user... Wrys? No, Lena! Lena is, simply put, a revolutionary unit here. By introducing Warp, she changes the way the game is played. And Hammerne drastically extends the life of powerful forges and regalia weapons. As for the Bishop class, it can be great for instant Mend on a promoted Merric or Linde.

Those are my thoughts, I am eager to read everyone else's!

Jotari · November 11, 2023

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Time to rank some Healers - the Priests, the Bishops, the Clerics, and the Curates. They're the sort of class I always tend to use - not only do they perform a unique function, but they're also not competing for experience with other combat units. This calculus may change a bit as you turn Mages to Sages, or if you have mounted healers at your disposal. But overall, it's almost always a good choice to bring along a staffbot or two.

So, how would I rank them - from worst to best? See below:

Hide contents

11. Radiant Dawn. In a normal FE title, a Vulnerary can heal 10 HP, 3 times, for 30 HP total. In RD, it can heal 20 HP, 8 times, for 160 HP total. Oh, and every unit has 7 inventory slots. In this light, healing support isn't the most necessary thing. Laura has trouble even reaching a double-digit level within tier one, while Oliver is inferior tower filler. Rhys is kind of a magical glass cannon, but with his speed issues, he's mainly staff support filler. Heck, they even forgot to give you any healers in Part II, just having yellow Physic Bishops imitate the role. Not a class you get excited about using.

10. Path of Radiance. 11 EXP per Heal use. 9+ turns for a single level-up. Gee, thanks. Rhys is your only option here, but as such, he actually has a monopoly on healing in the earlygame. He also benefits from staves being readily stealable, especially Physics. After promotion, he's also your only Light magic user. All that said, staff support isn't the biggest of deals here, and his combat isn't anything special, either. Usable, but it's fine to drop him, too.

9. Genealogy. Curiously, an infantry healer is not your first healer this time. Rather, it's the mounted Ethlyn. Edain has her own advantages, like being able to use Warp and Physic staves. But 5 move means she'll be stuck, either on the backlines, or in the home castle. And a complete inability to use the Arena leaves her with no way to gain extra money and experience. Lana is relatively better, since he joins at the start of Seliph's arc, but she faces some similar issue. Claude feels very filler-y, while Coirpre can be a chore to get to promotion. A class with its uses, but definitely not at its high point.

8. Three Houses. This one was a bit tough to evaluate. The fact that Priest and Bishop stay stuck at 4 move is unfortunate, as is the poor combat - with no Tomefaire, and in a game where offensive Light magic is of little use. That said, the healing boost is great, particularly on Physic users. While Bishop's doubled spell charges means two Warps, which can make the difference in multi-bosskill maps. It's the ideal class for Linhardt, and a solid waypoint for Mercedes, Flayn, and Lysithea.

7. Fates. Right out the gate, I'm not counting Maids and Butlers - if I were, this would jump to 3rd place. Anyway, traditional infantry healers essentially don't exist in CQ, so we'll talk BR and Rev. Sakura is prerry good in both, Azama is fine in BR, and Izana is fine filler. Oh, Festals that you can use from 2-range were pretty cool to see.

6. FE7. Serra is "just okay", although she gets credit for being your first healer. Lucius is "pretty good, actually" - high Magic and Speed, plus instant C-staves when he promotes. Renault, I've never been a fan of - you get him for 2.5 chapters, one of which has Kishuna, and the other of which has Athos. Still, Priest and Bishop are perfectly usable classes in this game.

5. Awakening. Healtouch is a welcome skill, as is the instant Rescue access for staff users. Lissa can do work for you, although personally, I'm a bigger fan of Libra, as the only pre-promote (aside from Frederick) in the big "free love" pool. Oh yeah, and EXP for staff use is really high in this game.

4. FE6. Saul is likely the better of the two infantry healers, but Ellen at least gets credit for being your first healer. Having a unit who can train their way up to Physic and Warp is very valuable, and something they have over the mounted healers. But hey, even if you don't, there's still Yoder - who can potentially also use Aureola.

3. Sacred Stones. Moulder and Natasha may start out "just okay", although it's worth noting that they don't face meaningful competition until, like, halfway through the game. By that point, they'll have the opportunity to promote into the Bishop class - and likewise for Artur. With the fierce Slayer skill, Bishop becomes a premiere combat class, shredding through the monsters that predominate the lategame.

2. Echoes. In a game with no Vulneraries, no spare inventory slots for healing items beyond the earlygame, and magic and combat arts that exhaust HP - healing spells are a big deal. Silque, Genny, Tatiana, and (potentially) Faye all offer great support spells. And not only do they start with a combat option in Nosferatu, but once promoted, they gain an even stronger one in Seraphim. Plus, Saint outmoves Sage, Priestess, and Baron, while her passive adjacent healing is highly welcome in Celica's Act IV.

1. Shadow Dragon. 7-use Warp staves. A 13-use Hammerne. Infinite range on Physic, Fortify, and Warp. Suffice it to say, this is a strong game for staves. And their greatest user... Wrys? No, Lena! Lena is, simply put, a revolutionary unit here. By introducing Warp, she changes the way the game is played. And Hammerne drastically extends the life of powerful forges and regalia weapons. As for the Bishop class, it can be great for instant Mend on a promoted Merric or Linde.

Those are my thoughts, I am eager to read everyone else's!

Hammerne is certainly nice in a game with very expensive forge, but you also get it really, really late. Ther is only five(ish) chapters left, and if you play Shadow Dragon like I do, that's when the game really starts to drag and you begin warp skipping chapters. Gharnef and Xemcel's chapters in particular just beg not to be played conventionally.

SnowFire · November 11, 2023

Re @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate, on Fates: Well, this obviously isn't a scientific endeavor, but in favor of counting Maids / Butlers here, they're the sole class in Fates that gets S-Rank staves, while their max Dagger rank is notably beneath that of Master Ninjas and the like. Enemy Maids often tend to just carry a status staff or Physic and don't even bother with a Dagger. And they're from the Troubadour class set, which is a pure-healing class at base (even if the horsie got lost somewhere along the way). They do seem intended to be staff healer first, debuffs second. Flip side, Onmyoji is probably the Fates equivalent of Sage and so Izana definitely counts over in the Mages & Sages topic. (Hence me running with Butler / Maid / Priestess / Great Master as the Fates entrants here.)

For FE9, I do agree that for Rhys personally, him having a soft monopoly on early healing is nice, but I'm personally still not inclined to credit his class much for that. If some Kaizo ROMhack of FE9 made all the Paladins Bishops and made Rhys a Cavalier / Paladin, the value of poor Titania / Oscar would seriously be in the gutter and the game more difficult. (But an angels-dancing-on-a-pin issue, of course!)

Shanty Pete's 1st Mate · November 11, 2023

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Hammerne is certainly nice in a game with very expensive forge, but you also get it really, really late. Ther is only five(ish) chapters left, and if you play Shadow Dragon like I do, that's when the game really starts to drag and you begin warp skipping chapters. Gharnef and Xemcel's chapters in particular just beg not to be played conventionally.

Certainly, it depends on how you play. I've gotten a lot of use out of Hammerne, but truth be told, I've never really played Shadow Dragon with a heavy warp-skip strategy. If you play the next six-to-eight maps (counting chapter 20) conventionally, then it will be very handy. Of course, the less useful Hammerne is to you, the more useful Warp, and vice versa. Lena stays winning.

8 hours ago, SnowFire said:

For FE9, I do agree that for Rhys personally, him having a soft monopoly on early healing is nice, but I'm personally still not inclined to credit his class much for that. If some Kaizo ROMhack of FE9 made all the Paladins Bishops and made Rhys a Cavalier / Paladin, the value of poor Titania / Oscar would seriously be in the gutter and the game more difficult. (But an angels-dancing-on-a-pin issue, of course!)

Well, I think the presence of a class needs to be counted in how good a class is in a given game. If Natasha were a Troubadour, and L'Arachel a Cleric, then I would probably boost FE8's "Troubadour" ranking (since one exists at a reasonable time), and lower my "Infantry Healer" ranking (you only have one, until Cl'erachel or Artur promotion). How much value are members of this class giving me, on any given playthrough? That changes with how available the class is.

Of course, I considered PoR my "second-to-last-place" game for Healers, so there's not much room for him to drop. Even then, I could see a case for RD jumping it, purely because it's a harder game, thus making healers (arguably) more necessary.

8 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Flip side, Onmyoji is probably the Fates equivalent of Sage and so Izana definitely counts over in the Mages & Sages topic. (Hence me running with Butler / Maid / Priestess / Great Master as the Fates entrants here.)

Izana joins with the Monk skills, because that's his canon "base class". That's why I counted him here. Of course, by a similar measure, Jacob and Felicia would be Troubadours... hm...

8 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Well, this obviously isn't a scientific endeavor, but in favor of counting Maids / Butlers here, they're the sole class in Fates that gets S-Rank staves, while their max Dagger rank is notably beneath that of Master Ninjas and the like. Enemy Maids often tend to just carry a status staff or Physic and don't even bother with a Dagger. And they're from the Troubadour class set, which is a pure-healing class at base (even if the horsie got lost somewhere along the way). They do seem intended to be staff healer first, debuffs second.

Sigh, it's all very confused, isn't it? Before Awakening, every staves-only class promoted to a magic-using class. Then the War Clerics showed up, and I was prepared to accept them, since they promoted directly from Cleric. Sure, they also came from Troubadpur, but that was a weird artefact of the split promotions system.

Come Fates, and the obvious analogue is the Hoshidan Priestess, now using Bows (or Great Master, with Lances). But on the Nohrian side, we have... the Maids (and Butlers). Infantry healers with weapon access. They promote only from Troubadour, which is the last game's weirdness times two.

Do I say "they promote from Troubadours, and the other side has the Bishop analogue, so they count in Troubadour rankings"? Or, do I say "they join as infantry with staves, and aren't offense-focused, so they count in Healer rankings"? Or, do I throw my hands up and declare "Maids and Butlers are weird, they don't belong anywhere"? That's basically what I've been going for.

Jotari · November 11, 2023

23 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Certainly, it depends on how you play. I've gotten a lot of use out of Hammerne, but truth be told, I've never really played Shadow Dragon with a heavy warp-skip strategy. If you play the next six-to-eight maps (counting chapter 20) conventionally, then it will be very handy. Of course, the less useful Hammerne is to you, the more useful Warp, and vice versa. Lena stays winning.

Yeah, very true. Whether you're warping or powering through with forged weapons and Hammerne, the staff bot is still the secret MVP.

23 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Of course, I considered PoR my "second-to-last-place" game for Healers, so there's not much room for him to drop. Even then, I could see a case for RD jumping it, purely because it's a harder game, thus making healers (arguably) more necessary.

I think Radiant Dawn's healing items might be a tad overhyped for this reason. Yes, 20HP times 8 is certainly better than 10HP times 3, but the weakness with Vulneraries was never actually in how much they heal. It's in that they consume a unit's action and inventory slot. The latter is mitigated by Radiant Dawn's high inventory slots, though you still might want to carry that many weapons if you want effective weaponry handy. The former however, is not. Healing Nolan with a vulnerary means Nolan isn't killing anything that turn, so having Luara (or Micaiah) heal him is giving you more action opportunities. Especially when you factor in how, by Part 3, unit competition is so bizarre that Laura is practically a forced deploy (having Micaiah heal with sacrifice and then Laura heal Micaiah instead of healing directly is also actually a great way to increase exp for both of them).

lenticular · November 11, 2023

39 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think Radiant Dawn's healing items might be a tad overhyped for this reason. Yes, 20HP times 8 is certainly better than 10HP times 3, but the weakness with Vulneraries was never actually in how much they heal. It's in that they consume a unit's action and inventory slot. The latter is mitigated by Radiant Dawn's high inventory slots, though you still might want to carry that many weapons if you want effective weaponry handy. The former however, is not. Healing Nolan with a vulnerary means Nolan isn't killing anything that turn, so having Luara (or Micaiah) heal him is giving you more action opportunities. Especially when you factor in how, by Part 3, unit competition is so bizarre that Laura is practically a forced deploy (having Micaiah heal with sacrifice and then Laura heal Micaiah instead of healing directly is also actually a great way to increase exp for both of them).

It's even more than just the cost of an action. If you're using a healer, it's possible to attack on player phase, take damage on the counter attack, potentially secure the kill with a follow-up attack, and then still be able to heal back up to full health before the start of enemy phase. If you're in any sort of situation where you need Nolan to be at full health to survive enemy phase, then without a healer you're often going to lose his action even if he's already at full health.

ping · November 11, 2023

Shadow Dragon, FE1, Gaiden - Not sure how to rank the three. Infinite Range Warp good. I guess Sheeda in FE11 makes the Warp staff better by being a highly mobile boss killer? But Gaiden has infinite uses of infinite range Warp, as well as maps that drain your soul if you play them warp-less (shout-out to the Desert Fort, which you will play warpless if you don't death-warp Silk), so... I'll abstain on how to rank these three among themselves.

New Mystery - Infinite Range Warp, but not on the highest difficulty. Which I haven't played, so I can't entirely comment on how that works out, but I guess it makes this game's staffers worse on average.

BinBla - Obligatory comment that people overhate on Ellen, who for most players should function almost the same as Saul. If you're going at a dondon pace, then sure, her lower base level and staff rank are a problem. But for your average player (which I include myself in), Ellen can make up for a large part of that gap before Saul joins. In any case, I think both Clerics are good (and yes, Saul is still a little better) for their staff utility, while their post-promotion combat is a bit underwhelming. Saul does have an edge there, because he has a Spd growth, but he's still very frail (and very susceptible to crits), so he's still mostly limited to chipping. Yoder comes very late and is a bit overshadowed by Niime, but just having that extra option for the S-rank staff is nice for the endgame; Brunya's map in particular. I haven't made an attempt at getting him to Aureola, but I have to say that it sounds a bit grind-y. Getting there might give him a good argument to be fielded in the laster chapter?

SacSto - Moulder is good, Natasha is too underleveled for a game as short as SacSto. She's probably better if you consider Creature Campain. I'm hesitant to include Artur here, since he functions much closer to a Mage than a Cleric. I guess he does have a higher staff rank upon promoting, as long as he clicks Bishop? If you do count that, I find that he's easily the best of the three, even as a staff user, as grinding that rank is relatively quick, especially compared to BinBla.

PoR - yeah, Rhys isn't the most amazing unit in the game. If I use one of the two healers, I tend to go with Mist, for horse utility, Sonic Sword memes, and Burger King Delivery Service. I did use Rhys in my Maniac playthrough, and he did have a window of doing stuff that nobody else could do, including a hypothetical trained Mist. Specifically, he could use status staves to disable threats - in particular enemy Sages, which even he with his excellent Mag had hit rates against that were so low that I only really used them on the first two turns, when resetting wasn't as big a deal. But Mist would not have had the Mag to reach even 50% hit, while Soren didn't reach the necessary staff rank in time. However, once he did, he took over as primary offensive staffer, thanks to his high Mag and Skl.

Radiant Dawn - Laura is useful to restore HP without spending the combat unit's turn, but she becomes pretty much obsolete when Miccy promotes at the end of part 1. Awesome growths only get you this far in a game with RD's stat caps on magic units. Similarly, Rhys can save turns on more important units. But really, neither of them are particularly crucial, if we're being honest.

BlaBla - I mentioned it in the Troubadour thread, but I'm not a big fan of Serra. Technically your first healer, sure, but Priscilla still comes very early, too, and pretty much just outclasses Serra in every way. Again, hesitant to include Lucius, but I find that he's less of a stand-out than Artur in SacSto, anyway. Still, if we count him, this should go above PoR, I think.

Dark Holy Elf · November 12, 2023

11. Radiant Dawn: Healers do have a clear niche over healing items, but better healing items do devalue them, and RD healing items are really good, while infantry healers mostly all have terrible combat (like, they're all notably worse at it than Micaiah, whose combat is better described as "unique" rather than outright good) and bad move.

10. Path of Radiance: Rhys is largely worse than Mist as far as I'm concerned. There's a slight niche for him as incredibly low-effort Physic bot, but I'm more enamoured with 8 move Restore than anything he offers as far as a staffer goes. That said he's workable.

9. Binding Blade: Saul/Ellen are mostly outclassed by Clarine but they're fine. Yoder is mostly outclassed by Niime but he's fine.

8. Engage: Martial Monk/Master/High Priest are mostly outclassed by Ivy/Hortensia/Griffin Knights/Sages (especially with staff proficiency, for the latter two). But Framme's availability lead on those options is higher than Ellen's availability lead on Clarine.

7. Blazing Blade: Serra is mostly outclassed by Priscilla but she's fine, and Lucius has pretty solid offence and also gets C staves on promotion, which is nice.

6. Awakening: Healtouch helps avoid the "outclassed infantry healer" phenomenon, as do Libra's high bases for the time. Ultimately I find they fall off in favour of more mobile healers (Anna, Falconknights) but there's a case for them.

5. Three Houses: For once, infantry healers aren't outclassed by mounted healers, but by mages! (Especially with the DLC classes added.) Priest does have Heal+5 which is cool, but not nearly as cool as Fiendish Blow and even innate Fire puts up a case for Mage for some units, and Bishop is saddled with 4 move and no -faire, so you really have to be Linhardt/Flayn level "I'm only here for faith stuff". Still, magic classes are good in this game, and both Priest/Bishop do have clear niches, so this feels about right.

4. Genealogy: Infantry healers get staff rank on the mounted ones in this game, which is a big help. The mounted ones are still better overall, though... such is the way of Horse Emblem. I think they belong around here but I'm not really certain; the GBA order is fairly set in stone but I could see ranking FE4 almost anywhere compared to them.

3. Sacred Stones: Hey, a GBA game where infantry staffers are better than the mounted one, that's nice. I don't think Artur is quite as good as Lucius, but he's close enough, and Slayer is a neat niche which both he and Moulder/Natasha can all lean into, so I have to rank this the highest of the GBA games.

2. Fates: I'm inclined to agree that Butler/Maid belongs here (they are infantry, and an S rank staff user), and they are definitely the workhorse class in this conversation: shuriken, Gentilhomme/Demoiselle, Live to Serve. The rest still have good staff exp and on Birthright the easily available 2 range staves and Rescue are neat, too. All the units who start here are varying degrees of solid, though it's fair to point out that few others are excited to reclass into these classes. And Strategist is still mostly better, when available.

1. Shadows of Valentia: Yeah Invoke is very good, Fortify is very good, Warp good, Physic good, I could go on. Genny is boring but probably the best unit on Celica's route, this is probably Faye's best promotion, Silque and Tatiana are good too, etc.

I feel like 2-7 could swap around a lot depending on my mood.

Shanty Pete's 1st Mate · November 12, 2023

On 11/10/2023 at 7:55 PM, Jotari said:

Nevertheless, Safy, Linoan, Serra and Sleuf

On 11/9/2023 at 8:43 PM, samthedigital said:

Anyway, Serra and Libra are the two main representations for this class

Jeez, the "frail Ostian Cleric" is really making her way in the world! Bringing her beloved music to Jugdral and Ylisse alike.

On 11/11/2023 at 11:03 AM, Jotari said:

Yeah, very true. Whether you're warping or powering through with forged weapons and Hammerne, the staff bot is still the secret MVP.

I think Radiant Dawn's healing items might be a tad overhyped for this reason. Yes, 20HP times 8 is certainly better than 10HP times 3, but the weakness with Vulneraries was never actually in how much they heal. It's in that they consume a unit's action and inventory slot. The latter is mitigated by Radiant Dawn's high inventory slots, though you still might want to carry that many weapons if you want effective weaponry handy. The former however, is not. Healing Nolan with a vulnerary means Nolan isn't killing anything that turn, so having Luara (or Micaiah) heal him is giving you more action opportunities. Especially when you factor in how, by Part 3, unit competition is so bizarre that Laura is practically a forced deploy (having Micaiah heal with sacrifice and then Laura heal Micaiah instead of healing directly is also actually a great way to increase exp for both of them).

Oh, I agree that there's still value to healers. I agree with you and @lenticular about it. The "Sacrifice + Heal" combo is such a big "stonks" energy. I also would've accepted "Renewal on Micaiah, do she can Sacrifice luke 2 HP every turn".

However, let's compare Game A and Game B. In Game A, the Vulnerary restores 10 HP, while the Heal Staff restores 20 HP. In Game B, the Vulnerary restores 20 HP, while the Heal Staff restores 20 HP. I believe it would be fair to say that the Heal Staff is weaker, relatively speaking, in Game B, than it is in Game A. So, if you have a unit with exclusive Heal Staff access, then all else equal, they would be less valuable in Game B than in Game A.

Oh, and I didn't even get into RD's "staves are now equippable" system. Now, in theory, this helps pure healers, by letting them counter-attack and self-heal between turns. In practice, Laura generally isn't doing damage to, nor surviving combat with - well, anyone - so it's largely irrelevant. And for promoted healers, it's sometimes a bit of a negative. If I want Rhys to Mend an ally - but also to lure in an enemy Mage, and counter-attack with Ellight - then I need to do some tradestrats to make it happen. In any other game, Ellight would stay equipped, regardless of the staff he uses.

Jotari · November 13, 2023

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

However, let's compare Game A and Game B. In Game A, the Vulnerary restores 10 HP, while the Heal Staff restores 20 HP. In Game B, the Vulnerary restores 20 HP, while the Heal Staff restores 20 HP. I believe it would be fair to say that the Heal Staff is weaker, relatively speaking, in Game B, than it is in Game A. So, if you have a unit with exclusive Heal Staff access, then all else equal, they would be less valuable in Game B than in Game A.

If all else was equal, then yes. But all else isn't equal. Path of Radiance is considered an easier game and if you were to do a no clerics run of both games, I can imagine it would make Radiant Dawn more difficult than Path of Radiance (though we do have the removed Maniac mode that might give me false bias in this regard). On the other other hand, Radiant Dawn does have other means of healing. Imbue and Renewal are both gained in Part 1, whereas in Path of Radiance Imbue doesn't exist and Renewal is only gained very late and requires you to forgoe using bird laguz (including Reyson entirely), a consequence so hilariously unbalanced as to make renewal effectively not exist (outside of Elincia and Ena's personal skills which you can't reassign, and both of them come super late too).

So...uh...yeah, I guess I'm coming down on both sides of the argument.

Eltosian Kadath · November 13, 2023

On 11/10/2023 at 1:55 AM, Jotari said:

(and Leif's inability to get hit by status effects very useful).

Sorry to get a bit nit-picky here, but Leif isn't immune to status staves, its just that like many later games deployment order is a part of enemy staff targeting priority, and with how deployment order works, Leif is always the lowest priority target for enemy staff. If for some reason he is the only valid target, status staves can effect him, it is just rare to be in that position.

Phew, I feel like I am a bit late getting to this one, but it was an interesting one, as this ranking tends to be very tied to the value of staves...

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Now I am not including the light magic using base classes in this (so FE4 Shaman, FE5's Bard and Sister class, FE7 and FE8's Monk class), as I do see them as very distinctly different classes, filling VERY different niches, but I suspect we wont get a ranking for so rare a class, so I will talk about them quickly here at the top.

FE4 Shaman I am tempted to give A tier, mostly because Julius is rather hard to deal without Julia. To be fair, their exclusive access to Nosferatu, both being scripted to never be killed, only captured, and returned at the seizing of next castle, and even Deirdre has a scripted moment to shine with her Silence Staff in Chapter 1. Admittedly that might still be too high for a mere infantry unit, but Julius is very difficult to deal with, without Julia, and utterly trivial with her.

FE5 Sister gets full S rank for having good starting staff rank, and gaining a rank on promotion. They also get access to Nosferatu, which leads to fun Wrath Nosferatu strats, although that does either require you to grind a light magic rank and promote Sara, which is only possible after by Hammerneing the only Lightning tome you get early game twice, or buy two more in chapter 22, or far more likely, use the Wrath Manuel for Linoan. As for Homeros, the bard, he behaves like a mage, until he promotes and gets both Nosferatu access, and D rank staff, which is made easier by him having Paragon.

FE 7 gets B tier for its monk. The monk ends up very similar to the one Shaman the game gets for a clear B tier, with the higher staff rank on promotion, as its niche distinguishing it from the other magic classes.

FE 8 has a more solid version of A tier for the very simple reason that the Bishop's slayer skill is really useful in the extremely monster infested late game of Sacred Stones, trading the better early staff utility of the Cleric for better early combat from the Monk.

S Tier: One of the Best Classes in the Game

Thracia 776: Staff are king in Thracia, and this class is the best at accessing staff. Easiest S tier decision yet...I could probably leave it at that, but seeing me miss all this Thracia discussion led me to elaborate a little. Getting Safy to A rank staff for chapter 12 is vital for most playthrough, and usually means she is the first unit you promote for the +1 staff rank to get there. As many people know as a fun fact, but rarely interact with enough to really understand is that staff can miss in Thracia, but there are a few important things to note here; first it reaches 100% as soon as your staff unit reaches 10 skill, and by chapter 6 you can get the Od Scroll that increases the holder's Skill growth by 30, and is one of the least in demand scrolls for other classes, so it doesn't take long to get; second is that weapon experience for staff only is dependent on staff rank, with personal staff giving a whopping 10, and you get full experience and weapon experience without spending a use when a staff misses, so getting a staff miss can be optimal at times, with LTCs sometimes rigging one intentionally, and even on a more casual playthrough accidentally getting one with a high rank staff I consider a lucky boon. This class also has the two units that get personal staff, which tend to be very good.

I may just keep repeating that staff are king, but I do think its important to talk about how powerful they are. Warp, rescue, and rewarp are all infinite range, and with stealing/capturing, rather available (you even get a warp in chapter 7). Status staves are infinite range, last until healed (either by restore staff, sitting on a throne/gate, ending the map, or another status overriding it), and only require the staff wielder have a higher magic than the target to effect them, which also increases the value of the Restore staff even more. The Barrier staff increases the magic stat by 7 (as this is like gen 1 pokemon with Magic playing double duty as Resistance as well), which can let you status staff things you shouldn't, or get some extreme kills with your mages. There are also the excellent personal staves, like Tina's thief staff, which allows you to steal any weapon/staff/item from a foe that has lower magic than Tina (who can be Barriered up for that +7 Magic before using it...), Tina's unlock staff, which opens any door or chest on the map (in a game famous for nearly soft locking you if you run out of means to unlock doors), and of course Safy's hammerne staff to fully fix any weapon/staff you want, which is especially good with how many great personal weapons, or just amazing staff you get. Beyond those simple descriptions, the maps Thracia throws at you makes these effects especially useful, from things like Berserking Reinhardt to watch one of the most terrifying bosses in the game eviscerate one of the most difficult maps for you, to warping close to trigger potent event, not mention letting you blitz enemy staff units, that will gladly inflict your army with these terrifying effects themselves (some of whom you even recruit, with those staff still functioning if you are fast enough), or simply doing a traditional warp skip of a difficult seize map.

Shadow Dragon: Getting unreasonably many infinite range warp staff in a game where every objective is seize is a recipe for making the most basic staff units to be top tier. Plus the classic warp Nagi, Aum her corpse back up to then warp her again for the one turn kill is a classic way to one turn Medius even on the highest difficulties.

New Mystery of the Emblem: I considered putting this in merely A tier, in large part due to the Warp being far more limited in this game, and even inaccessible in Lunatic and above difficulties, but the many utility staffs added swayed me to move it back up to S tier. The most prominent staff added has to be the Again staff, an infinite range staff that gives one unit an extra turn, which is amazing, but you only get three uses per staff. The Rescue staff also arrives very early game, and with only E rank requirement, and tends to play the part of a faux warp staff, which is still very useful, if not as useful as its Shadow Dragon Warp counterpart, but with such a low rank, tends to get pawned off on the Sages later into the game. The dramatic maps wide Silence staff that effects both armies is a delicate, but very powerful staff as well, able to cripple some maps (chapter 23 comes immediately to mind), but is a double edged sword if you use it wrong. The infinite range staff that can open chests is a nice one to mention as well, but more of a convenience than anything all that amazing. That being said, the extra staff rank this class gets is a clear reason to reclass into it even after promotion, over Sage and Sorcerer in both DS games, despite all three getting tomes and staff, made even more valuable by these being games where arms scrolls don't work on staff rank

Echoes, Shadows of Valentia: I must admit, I have been swayed a little by popular opinion to put this class into S tier instead of A tier. While Warp is not as useful in a rout focused game like this, getting the Warp and Rescue combo with Silque and Fae on Alm's route is nice. Invoke is really good, and while it is frustratingly random, Expel is a godsend on some maps with Canters. Add to that some endgame Fortify spam with Tatiana, and it makes for a nice class to have around. Healing in general is very useful, and the way magic work in this game, you really want to double up on healers. I will note, that I have never managed to get Anew on any run before the post game, and thus don't consider it for these rankings.

A Tier: A Good Class

Three Houses: These tend to be the most useful classes to be in for a white magic user, with Priest giving extra heal uses on top of healing more with those uses, and Bishop doubling your white magic uses with even more extra healing. For their tiers, they are the best classes to be in for your white magic users, and Bishop is even viable for the final class of a male white magic user. With things like Warp, and Rescue usable every map (and whose uses can be doubled in Bishop), being good with white magic is rather useful, but there is the awkward competition with any more combat oriented magic classes also getting access to white magic, which keeps them out of S tier.

Sacred Stones: This just barely gets bumped up here due to Bishop getting the slayer skill to help with the monster infested late game. I do also find the torch staff, and restore staff as nice added utility for the class earlier in the game, both helping with the only chapters that even resemble being difficult in this game, and Warp can help getting the early win with chapter 19 as well. It does also have an especially long early game monopoly on staff utility, with the Troubadour coming particularly late (and being particularly bad) in this game.

B Tier: An OK Class

Engage: My first instinct was to put this in A tier, but that was mainly due to lucking in to an S tier Deirdre ring on my first round of ring making on Maddening, and with the passive healing that ring gives, this class can use Chain Guard with impunity, which makes it much better. In more normal playthoughs, Chain Guard is far more obnoxious to use (especially with HP levelups breaking you ability to use it), and it is the big unique utility of the class line. Staff are fairly good in this game, but there are enough good promoted classes with staff access, that they only really monopolize that utility in the early game. Also punching is good, its just hard to get the stats to make it work right with this class, so you might even promote someone into this class for the punches. Admittedly in the linked ironman running I am doing right now, I lucked into a Framme with rather good combat stats, that can actually make those punches work, but I suspect that isn't exactly a common occurrence. I am still tempted to put it into A tier, but you just need some luck to get this class to really shine (which I have randomly stumbled into in different ways, on different runs...).

Binding Blade: This is mainly due to this class tending to get the best ability to use the warp staff, due to stats (over the Troubadour), and ease of getting the staff rank (over Sages/Druid). Also the early game healing monopoly, although stats aren't as important for that, so Troubadours, get a bit of an edge there when they start arriving, and Sages can take over some healing duty after promotion territory as well. Speaking of promotion, they kind of have the combat issue of only using light magic, starting at E rank, and is unavailable before chapter 11, so you don't get much out of promoting one earlier than that. I will also add that Yoder is a solid late game prepromote, which helps buoying up the value of this class in the later game.

Fates: Now I am mainly talking about the Birthright class here, as I already discussed Butler/Maid as part of the Troubador line (although they didn't have a major impact on my ranking there, seeing them more as an interesting side-grade to the already excellent Strategist class). This class is a bit too much of a mixed bag to really cement the A tier, or drop down to C tier. Staff utility is useful, but the Birthright class give a lot of promoted classes staff access, so that is more of an early game value, and I don't find utility staff as useful in Birthright, as they are in Conquest, so they tend to drop off after your team starts promoting. On the weapon side of things, Bows are great in this game, but do force the female side to use their strength to attack (as the Shining Bow is a Conquest weapon, which doesn't drop in Birthright), while the male side getting Lances means they get access to Guard Naginata tankiness, or the far more available Bolt Naginata to use magic to attack, although I am burying the lead a little, as you can also promote into the sage equivalent of Onmyoji for better magic utility. It does also get Luck rally, which is only really useful on an ironman, and if they go the Onmyoji route, they get a double rally with Magic, which is far more useful.

C Tier: A Subpar Class

Awakening: Healing falls off a fair bit later in this game, but this class gets the skills to make them the best at it for that early game where it is useful. Buyable rescues are also nice, but this is another E tier staff that is easy for promoted classes that get staff utility to use. Really this class is only really useful early game, as better classes can take over staff duty after promotion. I am a bit torn as to whether this should eek its way into B tier for its early game value...

Blazing Sword: They get worse move, and stats than the Troubadour, and the utility staff that give them a niche after promoting your Druids and Sages, are both far later game, gutted by Pent being a staff wielding beast, and not as useful due to the maps remaining. Additionally, very enemy phase games like this are where using items to heal is more viable, as losing your player phase isn't as big a deal when you get most of your work done on enemy phase.

Genealogy of the Holy War: While healing is useful in this game, this class line gets the move of armored knights, and can't even keep up with the infantry...

Path of Radiance: Staff utility is less useful on more enemy phase games like this, but even if less useful, it is still useful enough to keep all of them out of D tier. Rhys does fine, easier to use than Mist, and your prepromoted sages don't get staff, so they don't have as much competition.

Radiant Dawn: If only you got some of the amazing staff your opponents get access to, this class might be higher up. Healing is still useful, but there are some funky competition for this class, for instance over 2/3 of part 4 have another staff unit force deployed, Rhys always competes with Mist for a slot in part 3, and Micaiah's Sacrifice ability complicates the question of healing/restoring monopoly the class has in part 1. Add to that how much staff acting like weapons screws over any combat you can pretend these units have, and healing items being particularly good in this game, and it is itching to get into D tier. The main thing keeping them out of it, is that this is the kind of game where healing with a staff is particularly useful, as it is too player phase oriented for items to really replace a healer's utility, so deploying a few spare healers in empty slots isn't a terrible idea.

D Tier: A Bad Class

Dark Holy Elf · November 13, 2023

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

If all else was equal, then yes. But all else isn't equal. Path of Radiance is considered an easier game and if you were to do a no clerics run of both games, I can imagine it would make Radiant Dawn more difficult than Path of Radiance (though we do have the removed Maniac mode that might give me false bias in this regard).

Radiant Dawn is harder than Path of Radiance so of course a "no clerics" run of RD is harder than one of PoR, but... honestly, I'd argue that a "no clerics" run of RD is only barely harder than a normal run of RD, which to me at least renders this line of argument largely moot. I've certainly had Laura die in Chapter 4 and decided to go on and... yeah I didn't really miss her honestly, beyond the usual ways of being down a unit in maps where she'd otherwise be a free deploy. (I also often bench her in Chapter 7 and/or 8 with their low deploy limits, for instance.)

Shadow Mir · November 16, 2023

On 11/9/2023 at 10:59 PM, SnowFire said:

Priestess is sadly not very good in Birthright long term because getting a Shining Bow is very dumb; just go Onmyoji. That said, it's fine in Revelation for Sakura / Mitama.

I would disagree here. Especially in Mitama's case. Largely because Renewal is great, and Rally Magic... isn't. It doesn't help that magic as a weapon type is kinda underwhelming imho. As is the mage selection; outside of like TWO units, the natural mages are godawful. But more on that when the time is right.

D tier in Radiant Dawn. They're not useless, but they have a good bit going against them. For example, none of the big name staves are in this game. Also, more damningly, healing items are more effective and have more uses. Worst of all, staves are equipped when used, unlike in most other games (on paper, this would allow healers to defend themselves if attacked. In practice, however, it only serves to make it harder to steal staves from enemies considering that staff attacks are most likely doing nothing to, well, ANYTHING). This leaves them sitting ducks on enemy phase, unlike in other games, where they kept their tomes equipped regardless. It isn't the end of the world for them, though.

C tier in Path of Radiance. Unlike the sequel, Rhys doesn't start with competition for the healing role. However, his class ends up as a poor man's Sage. On top of this, none of the notable staves show up here either.

Jotari · November 17, 2023

6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would disagree here. Especially in Mitama's case. Largely because Renewal is great, and Rally Magic... isn't. It doesn't help that magic as a weapon type is kinda underwhelming imho. As is the mage selection; outside of like TWO units, the natural mages are godawful. But more on that when the time is right.

Renewal is indeed a great skill, but I really don't think you'll want to be keeping it on a 2 range attack staff bot. That is precisely the kind of unit you don't want getting attacked by enemies. You get renewal and then bail to another class. Which makes it a bit hard to judge as a positive for that class.

Cysx · November 18, 2023

Yeah, this one's tough, it shows in the ratings. Mostly because they're perhaps the most meta-dependent class line in general, so you don't need to just have played the game, you need to be familiar with optimal strategies for it, and for so many games at once, that's a tall ask. Straight up I'll abstain from some entries I usually rate tentatively because of this.

Also I'm late.

FE1, FE2, FE3, FE4, PoR, FE11, FE12 : Abstain

FE5 : S tier
Game defining to an absurd extent. Thracia without staves is a completely different game, this is no exaggeration. Technically I'm rating Clerics/Priests and not staves though, so Salem could do some of the heavy lifting even on his own. Regardless, considering even Hammerne and Thief, which are personal staves, are meta defining, how can one justify anything lower really ?
You'd think Fatigue and staff misses would take it down; they're barely a distraction(staff missing especially). If anything, Fatigue encourages you to use more of these characters, making them all individually better. I'm a big advocate that Sleuf isn't an S-rank unit because his utility is already covered by others by the time he joins and loses in relevance very fast as you're flooded with competent staff users with perks he doesn't have; something tells me that without Fatigue, this would be a bit more common of a stance.

In general, the very ability to use staves C and up is incredible. So yeah.

FE6 : Tentative A tier
Okay so I wouldn't want to oversell my own knowledge of this, but from my understanding and experience, the additional range on Physic(which you only have one of for very long), Warp and Status staves Saul and Ellen enjoy over other options, plus reasonably reaching the needed ranks in the first place, are very much a huge deal. They open up strategies that would simply be impossible otherwise. As for Yodel, by virtue of his 30 base Res (because you know, why not), he's the best status bait in the lategame, which you can directly control through deployment order. He can also use Purge at base (freely buyable in his recruitment chapter), so he's pretty useful all around. Aureola he's likely never reaching, so meh.
They're characters that make a difference when used correctly. You do get other staff users so the healing utility itself I cannot rate amazingly high. I think A's fine.

FE7 : Tentative C tier
I just don't believe they bring all that much to the party, overall ? Priscilla is better Serra, I think that's fair to generally say, Lucius I'm not entirely certain on what he can do if promoted early to be honest, hence the "tentative" up there. Renault is... not that useful, again, to my knowledge.

FE8 : A tier
I'm counting Artur here, without him this would likely be a B, since Moulder covers his utility, but less well, and Natasha is just pretty underwhelming all around. Basically, Artur is your only real choice for good Warp range in a lategame filled with bosskills. Since the final boss is a pushover, nothing really stops you from just finishing the game off early, as you certainly don't need experience (even in a non-optimized sense... that's a loaded sentence these days init).
Also, Slayer is really good. A bit less so if you're going to warpskip maps where it matters the most, but it still gets room to shine.

RD : B tier
This one's definitely debatable. It's insane how few useful staves there are in part 1, and just like in Engage, being able to use a staff at a high rank very quickly becomes mundane. And, as people have brought up, healing items are jacked here.
... But then again, you also take a lot of damage in this, in the Dawn brigade chapters especially. Laura is as basic a cleric as it gets, she heals at 1 range and that's it, but when you're trying to go for Bexp turn incentives on HM, it's very difficult to do without, since using items slows your combat. Now unfortunately these give paltry amounts of Bexp, so, that's also to consider, but still, allowing faster play is always a plus, and again, enemies hit really, really hard in part 1. Also, since Micaiah is stuck far away, Laura gets exclusive Ike sleeping merits in 3-13 with very reliable rates, which is by far the simplest way to deal with him, to my knowledge. And starting from part 3 she shares Physic duty with Micaiah, which is also really useful.
She will likely never make it to tier 3, but that's okay really, she doesn't need it.

Rhys is much like her, a solid healer, with the caveat that he doesn't have free deployment for most chapters like her, and that Mist exists. He also has no longterm potential whatsoever, but that's true of so many characters here, and he does the job while he's around, plus safe chip here and there. You can even pass him a Light forge from part 1 (since you lose the ability to forge light tomes in part 3 for some reason) to help a bit with that.
Oliver is irrelevant. Don't feel like bringing the whole thing down for an unit that exists for one or two turns in the vast majority of playthroughs.
By part 4 the former two can still do a bit of work since there are 3 routes to cover. None of them are seeing the tower for the most part. I think Laura could qualify for an A rank unit, but overall, gonna be a B.

Awakening : A tier
Another difficult one, and there's the question of whether or not Sage belongs in the equation. Not sure how to answer it, not sure it needs answering really. After all, Libra is living proof that War Cleric is just a slightly lesser alternative, rally magic notwithstanding. Mostly this class is good because beyond Healtouch being really useful, the characters starting in it are good. Lissa and Libra are two of the big three staff winners in Awakening, that get the honor of using Rescue all day long for half the game just by virtue of having way more range than other people. And the odd Physic is nice too.
This could be an S, but Lissa does like going Falcon Knight, and I'd rather not ignore that.

Fates : Tentative B tier
Would be an A if reclassed Azama was considered. As it stands, you can have your servant on healing duty, and Sakura isn't exactly explosive like Elise is. Still, her personal skill is incredibly slept on for seemingly no reason, arguably among the best in the game even if merely to ease early juggernauting in BR, and synergizes very well with 2 range staves, obviously. Hopefully, with the advent of Alear's personal, this will progressively stop being the case.
Azama can work fairly well as a combat unit if promoted fast. I don't think Izana fits here, he's a Sage archetype imo.
Mostly I've never made creative use of status staves in BR or Rev, so, tentative it is.

SoV : S tier
Add me to the list of people who would have put this in A tier before reading the thread. Mostly, I don't think it's anywhere near Thracia, in part because SoV maps are so short it tends not to make a massive difference how you tackle them, and I've tried getting Silque to Warp before Zofia castle, but without monster battles (which you can flee from and despawn after 3 turns, so choosing to engage with them gets dangerously close to grinding in my book), it just doesn't happen.
Still, it's not like Warp is useless after that, Rescue is useful, Invoke is random but great, same for Expel (Genny in general is amazing), and Fortify is really good too. All members of that class are great units, so yeah.

3H : A tier
Even with the amount of classes with White magic access, I think Physic is centric enough, and Bishop has enough of an edge with it, that you more or less always want a Bishop (or two !)around. It's a very low maintenance class too (the lowest there is relative to efficacy, I'd say), and you kinda need some of that because you can only focus on so many students at once, just in terms of the resources the game provides you. And of course, 2x Warp is good in a variety of situations.

Engage : C tier
... this is meant as a bit of a hot take, B isn't out of the question. Mostly... I do not value early Chain Guard that much(it's still good, though), then Micaiah's around to make taking damage a bit of a non-issue, and then, Lucina, of course. Speaking of, Qi Adept Bonded Shield is both more permissive and restrictive than Cavalry/Flying due to the -1 move attached, and the lack of other utility. Framme is a good character but kinda needs to go into a magic class to retain relevance, as Martial arts are, to my chagrin, bad without Eirika, who comes too late. Jean is Jean. Only Anna would arguably want High Priest, the kicker being that she cannot access it until Byleth because of the Martial Arts aptitude required, and by then she'll be off doing something else.

To me, that's a lot of things going against the class line. Past the earlygame I feel there's just no more place for it on most teams. Yes, I think it's among the worst non-mounted staffers this series has seen, an opinion none of you share it seems, but hey, it happens.

~~... now to go rate mages in a month or so~~

Edited November 18, 2023 by Cysx

Ranking each game by class: Clerics / Bishops / Infantry healers

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