H5 Tier list topic

[Don Draper]

I'd like to hear a few more opinions on durability vs. offence. Its pretty hard to say to be honest, although this really only applies when you compare somebody like Darros to Cord.

Chapter 9

Barts 12/0: 31 HP, 24 Atk (Steel Axe), 12 AS, 7 Def

Cord 12/0: 28 HP, 22 Atk (Steel Axe), 13 AS, 6 Def

Draug 12/0: 25 HP, 18 Atk (Steel Bow), 15 AS, 4 Def

Daros 12/0: 28 HP, 19 Atk (+1) (Steel Lance), 1 AS, 17 Def

Abel 12/0: 27 HP, 18 (+1)/19 Atk (+1) (Steel Sword/Lance), 13 AS, 9 Def

Barts:

Thieves: 2RKO's. Is 4RKO'd

Pirate 3s: 2RKOs. Is 2-3RKO'd

Pirate 5 (Steel Axe): 2RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Pirate 5 (Devil Axe): 2RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Hunters: 2RKOs. Is 3-4RKO'd

Mage: ORKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Cord:

Thieves: 2RKOs. Is 3RKO'd

Pirate 3s: ORKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Pirate 5s (Steel Axe): 2RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Pirate 5 (Devil Axe): 2RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Hunters: 2RKOs. Is 3RKO'd

Mages: ORKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Draug:

Thieves: 2RKOs. Is 2-3RKO'd

Pirate 3s: 2RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Pirate 5s (Steel Axe): 2RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Pirate 5 (Devil Axe): 2RKOs. Is ORKO'd

Hunters: 1-2RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Mages: ORKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Daros:

Thieves: 2RKOs. *tink*

Pirate 3s: 3RKOs. Is 2-3RKO'd

Pirate 5s (Steel Axe): 3RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Pirate 5 (Devil Axe): 2RKOs. Is ORKO'd

Hunters: 2RKOs. Is tinked or 14RKO'd

Mages: 2RKOs. Is ORKO'd

Abel:

Thieves: 2RKOs. Is 6-7RKO'd

Pirate 3s: 2RKOs. Is 2-3RKO'd (Handaxe guy is the only one to 3RKO)

Pirate 5s: 2RKOs. Is 2RKO'd

Hunters: 2RKOs. Is 3-4RKO'd

Mages: ORKO. Is 2RKO'd

So Barts and Abel are pretty much even offensively/defensively, and so are Cord and Draug. Daros is dead last due to bad offence, and pretty bad defense as well. So Draug is probably the best unit as this point. He's on par with Barts/Cord offensively, but does this all at 2 range and isn't too far behind durability wise. Then comes Cord, who slightly edges out Barst due to being able to ORKO the Pirate 3s. Barst and Abel seem essentially equal (Abel's slightly better thief offence means little). Then Daros comes last

Draug>Cord>Barst=Abel>>Daros

Percents coming next comparison (hopefully)

[CATS]

Defense is certainly helpful for being exposed to and countering more enemies on enemy phase. For the first half of the game atleast, your units aren't reliably ORKOing, so someone who can counter like 3 enemies out of a group helps to make those enemies go down that much faster on the following player phase. So I wouldn't go and say offense > defense.

Ofcourse, I'm not saying the opposite, either. I think they're pretty similar and should both be considered.

[Progenitus]

smash: I know that it is informative to actually have percents, its just that I'm finding this whole thing pretty time consuming. I might go over the whole thing again later, because this really should be as accurate as possible. I think its more important to figure out offensive statistics though. Characters are often healed up to full health on player phase anyways, so I don't really find the amount of HP lost as important. What I think matters more is how many units the character can be exposed to on enemy phase. I will try to update my posts with percents in regards to damage after I go through the whole game though. Like I said, I want this to be as accurate as possible.

It's not just healing (although it's quite relevant in this game as staves don't heal much HP and unless you use recover it could take 2 or more heals to restore someone). It's about combinations of enemies too. For example, if there were two units A and B, and two enemies X and Y. Unit A took 60% damage from X and 45% damage from Y. Unit B took 55% damage from X and 40% damage from Y. You'd say that both units are 2RKO'd by enemy X and 3RKO'd by enemy Y, yet if they are attacked by both enemy X and Y, unit A dies while unit B doesn't. Using percents lets us draw that conclusion more easily than simply churning out XRKO numbers.

The percents also apply to offense as well, not just defense.

Also, I'm not sure how percents are that much more time consuming. You'd have to figure out the amuont of damage taken to figure out XRKO numbers anyway, and then all you have to do is multiply by 100 (dur hur) and divide by max HP and you get the percent >_>

Also, dondon brought up a point about defense not mattering as much due to the ease of being able to alter your strategy around units that are 3-4RKO'd. I think that having good offence as well as defense is essential (like...2RKOing your enemy and being 4RKO'd back for example), because it allows for three enemies to be weakened on enemy phase, and be easily finished off on player phase. I don't know, is having great durability as important without good offence?

Offense or defense are both important. Which one is more important usually depends on the situation and the team, so you can't just simply say that one is better than the other.

[Don Draper]

Eh. I'll copy down both percents then. Reason its more time consuming is because I was churning out #RKO's like a madman with a calculator. Percents just mean more writing, so its not a huge deal :P

It'll still be somewhat hard to tell which units are superior with such a detailed comparison. I'm considering doing every third or fourth chapter from now on.

Also: here's another hypothetical tier list I was considering:

Top

Sedgar

Wolf

High

Barts

Merric

Cord

Draug

Daros

Abel

Cain

Upper Mid

Hardin

Bord

Ogma

Caeda

Chainey

Wendell

Castor

Horace

Mid

Athena

etc

Probably not completely accurate. We just need to look at what characters have longer weakpoints/need more favoritism then others. Right now, Barts is definitely looking like he'll be the third best character regardless. But I guess I'll do some more comparisons.

[Dat Nick]

Would there really be a tier gap between Abel/Cain and Hardain?

[grandjackal]

Would there really be a tier gap between Abel/Cain and Hardain?

I'd go as far as to say Cain should drop down below Hardin, for a couple of reasons.

1. Shouldn't be the same tier as Abel. Abel basically starts off better, and his lance rank allows him to do something by chapter 5 that Cain can't do-use a forged Ridersbane to OHKO cavs. Since forges are allowed, I'd say that alone sets him below Abel and Hardin.

2. Even when you consider that, Hardin doesn't really lose in anything, while on the other hand he wins in weapon rank (+1 damage and 6 acc with spears for better javy usage, only a rank away from armorslayers, access to silver where Cain is still working just to hit C), and basically shows up to be uber-Cain.

Cain's only real advantage is that he could land C swords by chapter 4, and that he could possibly pull off being a pretty awesome myrmidon with the killer edge.

[Don Draper]

I just want to acknowledge that there should be a tier gap somewhere where this isn't already. You can't compare somebody like Barst (Who starts off as your second best unit, and becomes an offensive machine/is 3-4RKO'd with like 50 displayed by all non-braves/mages after promotion) with somebody like Ogma (with a pretty good first few chapters, but then can't double or keep up attack/durability wise to the rest of the team). I'm not sure where exactly the tier gap should be, but I feel like there should be one somewhere.

I guess thats what my chapter comparison is for though.

Cain vs. Hardain: Seems reasonable I suppose. Probably shouldn't be a tier gap between the cavs though on second thought

[Rodykitty]

Since forges are allowed

No they're not.

[Dat Nick]

Of course Forges are allowed. They just can't be assumed to benefit any one character, because they don't. It's not like Abel is getting sole credit for OHKOing Cavs since old man J can do it too.

[grandjackal]

Since forges are allowed

No they're not.

It's rather unreasonable to not assume that Abel can't have a forged ridersbane because A. Not forging one is stupid, and B. He is literally hte only one who can use it outside of Jeigen who can use it until Hardin shows up, and Abel can use it just as well as Jeigen could at that point.

Example: Would you rather forge the ridersbane, warp Abel/Hardin/Jeigen up in chapter 6 to the Silver cav and OHKO him before he can become a threat, alongside killing his partner on the counter, then being right there to block off the thief exit with a vulnery in hand, or not forge it and have the possibility of being ruined by said posse?

[Rodykitty]

I am considering letting forges go free, but I never officially removed the rule despite people talking about forging.

[Colonel M]

Just so long as we don't talk about ludicrous forges such as a +10 Mt Iron Axe forge and such, which I assume you wouldn't allow in the first place.

EDIT: Or forging something stupid like Bolganone.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Colonel M

[Rodykitty]

Striking out the forging rule.

My only problem was that Grandjackal jumping the gun on this one. I'll wait until discussion happens before making any actual changes to the tier list since huge things are happening.

That, and I am waiting for discussion to happen because everybody disagreed with my first proposal for a High tier split, yet nobody seems to care that IOS is proposing one.

I'm probably not going to take forging of normal weapons seriously though.

Edited November 23, 2009 by FE3 Player

[dondon151]

I think that if a forge would benefit multiple units to a significant extent (forged effective weapons), or if it would just be helpful to increasing team durability (forged Rapier/Wing Spear), it can be assumed.

[Colonel M]

Marth can probably go back to where he was then since forged Rapier helps his offense. If you want to baby step it I'd start at > Athena.

[Rodykitty]

Like I said in my above post, feel free to assume forges, though forges on effective weapons will be more valuable, obviously.

[CATS]

I question Merric being a tier above Shiida.

EDIT: oh wait, was looking at IOS's suggestions for a high tier split, they're actually in the same tier atm

still questioning Merric > Shiida in general

Hitting up Curate/Cleric -> Sage for both of them, Merric has about 2 more Mag at 20/1 while Shiida has ~5 more Spd. On defense, Merric has 37 Hp/7 Def vs Shiida's 28 Hp/5 Def. Some defense that only matters after promotion doesn't seem to warrant a tier gap. Merric does get Excalibur, but it should be noted that Shiida has about a 16 Avo lead (rofl @ her Lck) and is a support machine, handing out bonuses to Marth (this support is notable for being godly fast; it's giving out bonuses in Ch 2), Ogma, Darros, Navarre, Castor, Roger and Jake. With Marth/Ogma/Darros, she can be giving a total of +30 Avo and +10 Crit to your team overall by promotion time, though admittedly the Avo likely isn't relevant for Darros at that point.

Adding the +20 Avo for Marth/Ogma to her own 16 Avo lead gets 46 more Avo and 15 more Crit (her blazing fast Marth support easily reaches A by now, adding Crit for her aswell, though admittedly Merric will get this bonus himself after a few more chapters) created by Shiida's presence.

If you send her off as a Mage -> Sage, then she gets Aura, and that changes things because 18 Mt Tome + eye-popping Spd (lolololol 80% growth + 21 Spd at 20/1) is completely unfair. I might argue that Shiida's better off going Mage -> Sage partially because of this and proves herself more useful than Curate Merric before promotion if she does so. Merric's healing job can be very easily replicated, while Mage Shiida should develop some pretty epic offense with her rofl75%spdgrowth+hittingonres. At worst I wouldn't think her any less useful before promotion. Ofcourse this means she's on a lower level come promotion time, but her 15/1 Spd is still higher than Merric's and now her Mag is the same as his while she's also getting +Atk from tome rank which he lacks. His staff rank is higher, but Shiida can switch over to Bishop and still be faster than him and still have similar Atk and get D staves.

Edited November 23, 2009 by CATS

[Colonel M]

You can actually extend further with Shiida's utility with the Wing Spear if being a Mage seems to be a problem. With forging it is one of the best weapons to have for quite a while and, on top of that, is only available to Shiida. It's not like she's wtfterrible in the Pegasi class thanks to such a great weapon. Take a random example of +3 Mt on that Wing Spear. That's basically 33 Mt before factoring in Str and the enemy's Def values. Granted this is only on Cavaliers and Armor Knights, but they make up for a good amount of enemies on many maps or come as reinforcements anway.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Colonel M

[grandjackal]

*Cough* Don't you mean 36 avoid? That's not exactly reducing things to a coin toss there, buddy.

[Don Draper]

Shiida has a very rough start before promotion. I showed just how bad she was performing at class change in the Daros vs. Caeda argument, and her magic just doesn't hold up until promotion. Even after promotion, she's relying on Aura (which will last about 12 rounds) until she's stuck doing shit damage again. Then she's ORKO'd by all Braves lategame. She's bad, then good while Aura lasts, and goes back to being mediocre again. Not to say that Merric doesn't have his share of problems as well.

[Don Draper]

Sorry, double post

Edited November 23, 2009 by IOS

[CATS]

*Cough* Don't you mean 36 avoid? That's not exactly reducing things to a coin toss there, buddy.

Yeah, my bad. I don't see why you're writing this off though, iirc you were the one talking about +40 Avo from supports among Ogma's group. This is a similar amount of total Avo provided by the presence of a single unit (as compared to Merric).

Shiida has a very rough start before promotion. I showed just how bad she was performing at class change in the Daros vs. Caeda argument, and her magic just doesn't hold up until promotion. Even after promotion, she's relying on Aura (which will last about 12 rounds) until she's stuck doing shit damage again. Then she's ORKO'd by all Braves lategame. She's bad, then good while Aura lasts, and goes back to being mediocre again. Not to say that Merric doesn't have his share of problems as well.

Her lategame offense is mediocre? She doubles everything ever except those lol Mamkutes with 25 AS or w/e with up to 21 magic attack (Bolganone) or 22 with Thoron starting off, and with Mage -> Sage her Atk is similar to Mr-4th-Best-Unit-Merric's just after promotion and only slightly lower after they've grown some, and she's significantly faster. Oh, and she has a 25 use tactical nuke.

Compare to Barst.

15/1 Barst Hero: 15.8 Str (+2 w/ axes), 17.6 Spd

15/1 Sage Shiida: 8.9 Mag (+2), 19.5 Spd (-1 w/ Bolganone or Thoron)

On Ch 14 enemies:

Archer: both ORKO

Cav: ORKO w/ Elfire/Silver

Armor: lol

Sniper: Shiida can potentially double him with Elfire for ~32 damage. If she misses the double, Bolganone does 19 damage. Since her Spd can go either way, average damage is 25.5. Barst does 23-24 damage with one hit from Silver.

down the road, ch 18

15/5 Barst Hero: 16.6 Str (+2 w/ axes), 19.2 Spd

15/7 Sage Shiida: 10.4 Mag (+2), 24.3 Spd (rofflecakes)

Horsemen have 18 AS so that's a fail. Shiida ORKOes with Bolganone, don't even need Aura, it's total overkill (does nearly 30 damage). Barst does whatever with his one hit. Poleax is an OHKO on the lower level ones but it's iffy on the higher level guys, and you only have one with 15 uses and it's 1 range.

Paladins have 16 AS and Poleax can't OHKO. fail

Boss is a Pally iirc, but even with Poleax Barst can't OHKO. Shiida on the other hand doubles for hilarious damage with Aura and down he goes.

Not seeing anything wrong with Shiida's post-promo offense.

As for her pre-promotion offense let's compare to the highly ranked Hunter Draug. Hunter Draug has 1 point higher base Spd and 10% less Spd growth. He and Shiida reach 14 AS at almost exactly the same time (Draug gets it about 1 level earlier to be exact). Granted Shiida does lose some more Spd when trying to equip anything not Fire, but she can hit bow enemies without getting countered, so that about evens out.

Edited November 23, 2009 by CATS

[Don Draper]

15/1 is what they would be in Chapter 11, not Chapter 14. Your levels are pretty far off in general. 15/6 was the estimated level for Chapter 16, not 15/5 in Chapter 18. Unpromoted characters get approximately the same amount of experience as promoted units in this game. I highly doubt Shiida is getting much of a level lead either. She starts with E Staves, and she's not really helping much by only using a Heal staff (which heals like...14-15 HP).

EDIT: Comparing to Draug at first is not something to write home about...especially when looking at how he does in my comparisons in the early chapters.

Edited November 23, 2009 by IOS

[Progenitus]

Which lasts for how long? 15 heals?

If WJC's levels are too low, taht's arguably in Caeda's favor. See, she's already an offensive powerhouse. So that means she doesn't need to be as aggressively leveled as, say, barst, who's borderline on his doubling and needs levels. This means that instead of giving, say, 4 levels to Caeda and Barst, Caeda's levels can go to someone else and make them better. That is, of course, if those 4 levels wouldn't be helping Caeda much anyway.

Also, when he said comparable to Draug prepromotion, he was only talking about their spd. I'm pretty sure Caeda also wins att due to hitting res. So she's probably *better* than Draug.

Also, WJC, axes don't get more att from higher weapon levels. Only hit.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Andrew W.K.

[Don Draper]

His lower levels make all the difference. It makes the difference between Barts doubling and not doubling, and thats the only way that Shiida can ever win offence: When Barts can't double. Not to mention Barts' huge defensive lead.