FE9 Tier List

[Zkirsche]

How about Neph > Mordy? She has speed enougth to double and her vantage + wrath combo is very effective. All she requires is a little babying, but she got over Lethe with it, so why not Mordy?

Edited June 29, 2009 by kirsche

[Tino]

Which vantage + wrath combo? Since when did she have it?

Don't forget Mordecai's incredible durability, earlygame utility, and good supports.

[Zkirsche]

Which vantage + wrath combo? Since when did she have it?

She's likely to get it, and it is very possible.

Don't forget Mordecai's incredible durability, earlygame utility, and good supports.

I'm not, it's just that Lethe was put under Neph with all those things too. Seems kinda weird to me.

[Dat Nick]

Which vantage + wrath combo? Since when did she have it?

since it's pretty much common sense Vantage works a billion times better on her than on anybody else?

name me one other character who can seriously put it to much use, let alone as much use as wrath+1-2 range.

Edited June 29, 2009 by GreenHairedDraco

[Tino]

Common sense? How? Because she has wrath with which she has a low chance of critting even when she doubles?

[Zkirsche]

Common sense? How? Because she has wrath with which she has a low chance of critting even when she doubles?

How is +50 crit a low chance of critting? She has >50% chance ot kill every unit that faces her before they even attack her with wrath + vantage.

It's an extremely good combination.

[Dat Nick]

Because she has wrath with which she has a low chance of critting even when she doubles?

50% before any other factors, such as her skill which is quite high, whether or not the lance she's chucking at somebody has crit [short spears/spears or forged javs], etc=/=low

[Dr. Tarrasque]

Search "Vantage" to see previous arguments.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Sirius

[Tino]

How is +50 crit a low chance of critting? She has >50% chance ot kill every unit that faces her before they even attack her with wrath + vantage.

What? Where does this math come from anyway? Perhaps I kind of exaggerated it, but Nephenee has 14 crit at most when she's lvl 20 promoted. That's 28 with Wrath, so a chance of ~40% ([0.72 * 0.28] * 2) to crit before enemy luck. Enemies have like 5-6 luc, so that reduces her crit to 22 with Wrath (28 - 6 = 22), giving her a ~34% ([0.78 * 0.22] * 2) chance to crit once. Then consider that's only lategame where she's probably not going to be lvl 20 promoted but more like lvl 14 or 15. This gives her 20 crt with wrath after enemy luc, giving her a 32% ([0.8 * 0.2] * 2) chance to crit once.

Sorry, but that doesn't even come remotely close to the >50% chance you suggested. Plus, that's only lategame. When she's like lvl 1, she has 8 crt, 16 after wrath, giving her like 13 crt against enemies for a massive ~23% chance to crit.

Sorry, but I wouldn't call that anything good.

[Zkirsche]

What? Where does this math come from anyway? Perhaps I kind of exaggerated it, but Nephenee has 14 crit at most when she's lvl 20 promoted. That's 28 with Wrath, so a chance of ~40% ([0.72 * 0.28] * 2) to crit before enemy luck. Enemies have like 5-6 luc, so that reduces her crit to 22 with Wrath (28 - 6 = 22), giving her a ~34% ([0.78 * 0.22] * 2) chance to crit once. Then consider that's only lategame where she's probably not going to be lvl 20 promoted but more like lvl 14 or 15. This gives her 20 crt with wrath after enemy luc, giving her a 32% ([0.8 * 0.2] * 2) chance to crit once.

Sorry, but that doesn't even come remotely close to the >50% chance you suggested. Plus, that's only lategame. When she's like lvl 1, she has 8 crt, 16 after wrath, giving her like 13 crt against enemies for a massive ~23% chance to crit.

Sorry, but I wouldn't call that anything good.

Wrath adds 50 crit, not doubles the crit.

[Tino]

If that's so you may have a case, but I don't recall ever having a wrath'd Nephenee with >50 crt. Have you ever seen an earlygame Nephenee with over 50 crt? I sure as hell don't.

[Zkirsche]

Base level neph with wrath activated has 55 crit against enemies with ~2 luck. Considering she qucikly grows out of that underlevelledness quickly and has a crit growth of 27.5%, she easily critkills things with the wrath + vantage combo later on.

[Florete]

The wording of Wrath on the site can be confusing, but it is a +50% increase, not x1.5 as would be understandable to get. It's an invisible bonus, though, you won't see her with 60% displayed crit.

[Dat Nick]

And let's not forget that she can do it at 1-2 range.

It's an invisible bonus, though, you won't see her with 60% displayed crit.

...That explains a lot.

Edited June 29, 2009 by GreenHairedDraco

[Tino]

In that case I was mistaken and you can disregard everything I said.

EDIT:

The wording of Wrath on the site can be confusing, but it is a +50% increase, not x1.5 as would be understandable to get. It's an invisible bonus, though, you won't see her with 60% displayed crit.

It was more or less my own experiences with her that taught me it wasn't +50 crt, since she never was much of a critkilling machine when I had her below half health.

Of course, PEMN, but whatever. It's something I base assumptions on. But apparantly I was wrong.

So yeah, Nephenee might > Mordecai then.

Edited June 29, 2009 by Tino

[-Cynthia-]

Am I alone in thinking Shinon may be slightly overrated here?

Shinon has 3.5 chapters of earlygame, where's fairly good, but really not that great for a prepromote. His durability is fine, but his offense is relatively mediocre. He often fails to ORKO anything but the weakest enemies, and he has major Enemy Phase issues. He can't counter, yet Provoke will draw enemies to him like a magnet, it's the whole having people attacked who can't counter is inefficient thing. These still count as a + for Shinon, but not a wtf mega plus.

Then Shinon rejoins in Ch19, after a painful recruitment (it requires fielding Rolf on a map where unit slots are fairly limited), let's give him a level of CEXP from earlygame and a forge.

--/2 Shinon (forged Steel Bow)

33 HP 24 Atk 14 AS 9.5 Def 6 Res 35 Avo

Let's look at offense first:

Lvl 18 Soldiers have about 33 HP, 10 Def and 11-12 AS. Shinon is 3RKOing.

Lvl 18 Fighters have like 40 HP, 9 Def, and 10-11 AS. Shinon 3RKOes, can 2RKO if they have 10 AS.

He only 2RKOes mages, due to lack of doubling.

Lvl 18 Knights have 33 HP and 19 Def. Shinon is like 4RKOing here.

Shinon does have effective damage vs Wvys, bumps him up to 38 Atk. He actually can ORKO if he doubles, which he might not on lvl 20's or promoted enemies.

So Shinon is 3RKOing for the most part, 4RKOing Knights, possibly 2RKOing weighed down enemies and such. It isn't very good, especially when you consider he will almost never counter on the Enemy Phase.

Defensively, Shinon is facing 3RKOes from almost every enemy, with a few enemies like promos/Warriors/Mages reaching 2HKOes. Again, not very good.

So Shinon definitely isn't acquiring anything resembling positive utility when people like Lucia aren't around. Let's compare them when Lucia joins, I've given them both forges and Shinon 1 level per map, which is pretty fair given his suckage.

--/7 Shinon(forged Silver Bow)

36.5 HP 31 Atk 17 AS 12 Def 8 Res 45 Avo

--/12 Lucia (forged Silver Sword)

36 HP 33 Atk 23 AS 10 Def 8 Res 62 Avo

Defensively it's about a tie, 17 Avo compared to 2 Def. Lucia is winning offense pretty handily, 2 more Atk and 6 more AS. Shinon fails to double Cats, Myrms, and most promoted enemies, Lucia pretty much doubles everything. If you want to throw Crit into the mix, Lucia usually has a little more Skl and can get more from Bonds.

Supportwise, they both support Janaff, who probably isn't going to be in play, and Rolf/Bastian, who also aren't going to be in play. Shinon has an off chance of getting a Gatrie support, which doesn't help Gatrie too much, he doesn't really need more durability. Lucia can get Illyana, who actually gets a lot from a Lucia support.

There's also the fact that Shinon is locked to 2 range, which means no Enemy Phase exposure. Lucia is locked to 1 range(without the Runesword she uses pretty well), but she still counters more than Shinon.

Basically, Shinon wins the first 3.5 chapters for being around and generally helpful. After he returns, he takes the spot of a better unit (pretty much anyone), so his availability advantage over Lucia doesn't count for much. Then Lucia shows up and beats him for the rest of the game, 6 chapters> 3.5 chapters.

Edited June 30, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Vykan12]

Consider throwing a good amount of BEXP onto Shinon before using him when he re-joins. His growths are wtfridiculous (75 hp/65 str/70 skl/65 spd/35 lck/50 def/40 res), so he has a lot more to gain from BEXP than the average unit. With just 5 levels his doubling will become much more reliable, so he'll be doing more than twice the amount of damage he was doing at base level.

[Dat Nick]

Plus, his low level is working for him here, as he'll need less BEXP to level.

[-Cynthia-]

You can consider BEXP on Shinon, but considering I didn't give Lucia any BEXP at all, it doesn't help Shinon all that much. You could make a Shinon w/resources> Lucia without resources argument, but that has obvious issues.

[Dat Nick]

You could make a Shinon w/resources> Lucia without resources argument, but that has obvious issues.

When the resource is BEXP, it doesn't exactly work that way. If you're being used, you're getting BEXP most likely, as you can't really say that giving character X 1/10th of the BEXP available counts as favoritism.

[Vykan12]

There's a couple issues with that:

-Lucia joins over-leveled at --/12 in chapter 24. Shinon joins arguably underleveled at --/1 just 5 chapters ago. Shinon is using the BEXP more efficiently.

-Lucia's growths are slightly inferior, particularly in the str department (15% difference)

-Shinon might actually be useful in his 5 chapters before he joins. Amassing suck -> amassing utility is a significant change, and it has Shinon ahead when she joins instead of behind.

A minor point, but Shinon has virtually no competition for his bows. Astrid's the only viable user, and she basically abandons them for axes the second she promotes. If we're not willing to put forges on both characters (IMO you guys overrate the money prevalence in this game, and you can also only make ~20 forges in the entire game), brave bow Shinon >>> silver sword Lucia, at least on player phase.

Edited June 30, 2009 by Vykan12

[-Cynthia-]

There's a couple issues with that:

-Lucia joins over-leveled at --/12 in chapter 24. Shinon joins arguably underleveled at --/1 just 5 chapters ago. Shinon is using the BEXP more efficiently.

-Lucia's growths are slightly inferior, particularly in the str department (15% difference)

-Shinon might actually be useful in his 5 chapters before he joins. Amassing suck -> amassing utility is a significant change, and it has Shinon ahead when she joins instead of behind.

A minor point, but Shinon has virtually no competition for his bows. Astrid's the only viable user, and she basically abandons them for axes the second she promotes. If we're not willing to put forges on both characters (IMO you guys overrate the money prevalence in this game, and you can also only make ~20 forges in the entire game), brave bow Shinon >>> silver sword Lucia, at least on player phase.

I'm not sure this method is consistent with the rest of the tier list though. We can give Rolf enough BEXP to make him useful(his growths are good enough), and thus he's beating people like Bastian/Lucia/Ulki/Janaff for a while before they even arrive, and likely is beating them at jointime as well. The problem is we had to sink all the BEXP into Rolf to make him useful, while the other characters have received nothing. If we start applying this logic to the rest of the tier list, we should move almost every high availability character over prepromotes, because anyone can contribute positively with enough BEXP.

Let's say we give Shinon 5 levels of BEXP.

--/12 Shinon (forged Silver Bow)

40 HP 34 Atk 20 AS 14.5 Def 10 Res 53 Avo

--/12 Lucia (forged Silver Sword)

36 HP 33 Atk 23 AS 10 Def 8 Res 62 Avo

Shinon does win durability now(not by a huge amount though), and their offense is basically tied. Shinon still has problems countering on the Enemy Phase, so it's probably about even. However, if Shinon needs 5 levels of BEXP to tie Lucia, Lucia's better.

I suppose Shinon does win player phase offense with a Brave Bow over a Silver Sword, but we could also have Lucia use the Brave Sword, or they could both use Killers etc. I don't think there's enough competition for swords to make this a major point.

Edited June 30, 2009 by -Cynthia-

[Vykan12]

I'm not sure this method is consistent with the rest of the tier list though. We can give Rolf enough BEXP to make him useful(his growths are good enough), and thus he's beating people like Bastian/Lucia/Ulki/Janaff for a while before they even arrive, and likely is beating them at jointime as well. The problem is we had to sink all the BEXP into Rolf to make him useful, while the other characters have received nothing.

We’re talking much different magnitudes of favoritism though.

BEXP Rolf 10 levels and he cannot even double fighters in his joining chapter, let alone faster enemies (soldiers, mages, cavs, myrmidons, laguz, etc). Moreover, he starts with E rank in bows, so the best weapon he can get is a forged iron bow unless we give him an arms scroll or use him for a chapter or two.

Conversely, BEXPing Shinon 5 levels (perhaps even less) allows him to 2RKO enemies, maybe even ORKO with killer/brave/etc.

[Dat Nick]

Then we have that Lucia is just less garbage than Shinon when he returns. She's still garbage overall.

Shinon was actually useful at one point int he game. When the hell was Lucia NEARLY as useful as Shinon was?

[-Cynthia-]

We’re talking much different magnitudes of favoritism though.

BEXP Rolf 10 levels and he cannot even double fighters in his joining chapter, let alone faster enemies (soldiers, mages, cavs, myrmidons, laguz, etc). Moreover, he starts with E rank in bows, so the best weapon he can get is a forged iron bow unless we give him an arms scroll or use him for a chapter or two.

Conversely, BEXPing Shinon 5 levels (perhaps even less) allows him to 2RKO enemies, maybe even ORKO with killer/brave/etc.

Not to nitpick here, but this isn't really accurate. Rolf has 11 AS at 11/0. Neither of the lvl 8 Fighters have 7 or more AS and the lvl 11 Fighter with the Poleaxe is weighed down. The level 10 and 11 Soldiers are weighed down by Steel Lances enough for 11/0 Rolf to double. The Archers with their Steel Bows are also weighed down and doubled by Rolf. Level 10 and below Bandits are weighed down 1 by Venin Axes, so they're all doubled as well. Level 6 mages only have 6 Speed, so they're being doubled. And to be honest, most of the best weapons by this point are forged irons.

When I add it up, Rolf doubles 18/34 of the Ch9 enemies at 11/0.

@ above, she's less garbage than Shinon, which is the only thing that matters in a comparison.

Edited June 30, 2009 by -Cynthia-