FE6 Character Ratings

[Mekkah]

Some developments throughout the game in FE6 that might be interesting to know beforehand.

Interesting buyables

Ch5: Door Keys (also available in many later shops)

Ch7: Steel weapons, Chest Keys (also available in many later shops).

Ch9: Mend, Hammer.

Ch11A: Killer Axe (10B Armory has everything 11A Armory has, except this)

Ch13: Killers, except Killer Axe. And Elfire,

Ch14: Aircalibur, Nosferatu, Restore, Torch (not the staff iirc), Pure Water, Lightning

Ch17A (Ilia): Killers again.

Ch20A (Ilia): Silvers.

Ch17B (Sacae): Silvers.

Ch18B (Sacae): Buyable Killers, except Killer Bow

Ch19B (Sacae): Silvers

Ch21: Silvers, Armorslayer, Horseslayer, Halberd

Promotion

Promotion items before Ch16's Secret Shop:

Knight Crests (2): Ch8 chest, Ch15 Percival event*

Hero Crests (2): Ch7 village, Ch10B/Ch11A all villages survive

Guiding Rings (2): Ch8 chest, Ch14 hidden item

Elysian Whips (3): Ch8 chest, Ch10B/11A all Tate's soldiers survive, Ch12 chest

Orion's Bolt (2): Ch10B/Ch11A village, Ch10B/11A all Klein's soldiers survive

Then there's a Secret Shop in Ch16 which can be assumed to be gotten to near the end which sells every promotion item.

Other things of note:

Obviously assuming Hard Mode. Unranked though. I'm taking into account (minor) favouritism, but not abuse. So just playing through efficiently.

Weapon accuracy is insanely low, like in FE5, so having good/bad hit is once again going to matter. This also means enemies have shitty hit, what with the 2-RN system, so having high avo actually means you can survive reliably. Weapon Triangle is only 10%, but that's still more than FE5's.

Enemies also more often have reasonable AS in this game. Not VERY high, due to Steel still being pretty common, but nonetheless, being able to double reliably is a much huger boon than in FE5, where the only enemy PCslugs usually can't double is the boss.

Enemy density is fairly low in many maps, so having high movement helps a lot. Mobility is quite important, period, because you can convert it to facing more or less enemies, which means you can fine-tune your offense/defense with it.

Like with tier lists, I'm assuming better units are in play more often than worse units. However, since these ratings also have a partial recommendation function (unlike tier lists), I'm going to get away with things like "if you're going this route, this unit can use ____" or "if you're using _____, this unit can support him/her".

[Mekkah]

Reserving this post for some notes and easy editing.

[Mekkah]

Woah, these are turning out quite long, but then again they are characters that have to be done justice.

Roy

Roy is a lot like FE5 Leaf: bad stats, and some things to make up for it. It’s a shame bad stats is a lot harder to justify in this game though, since scrolls can’t fix them up.

His bases are rather lousy, he’s pretty much the same as Wolt except with swords rather than bows, which is little to no good. Due to being 2RKOed by everything, he is essentially restricted to finishing off things Marcus weakens for him for a while.

Then his extremely fast supports with Alan and Lance are going to pick up. 20 turns for a C with each, which means it can happen as soon as early in Ch3 due to how slowly you’re forced to go through maps. Not only does this benefit the other two greatly, but it gives Roy himself more realistic chances of avoiding axe users, as well as +2 atk. For example, a Fighter with 76 hit would have 45% true on base level Roy with no supports, but only 25% true when he has those supports in range.

He’s also going to be able to use Rapier on things it’s effective on in Ch3 and Ch4. FE6 is so nice to give it tripled might, though only on Cavaliers and Knights (and their promoted versions). L6 Roy with Rapier and +2 atk from supports suddenly sports 24 atk (base Marcus with Silver Lance has 23), though sadly that goes down to 21 against anything with a lance, which is every single Knight and at least two thirds of all the Cavaliers. Still quite cool.

Still, Roy has trouble getting to doubling speed in a quick timeframe, which doesn’t help when he’s reliant on Rapier to do damage and WTA to survive due to his sloppy bases. He’s going to have a bit of a prime on the Western Isles due to axe users being so common, but soon after that he’s going to fall behind. His only means of 2-range is Light Brand, which weighs him down by 3 and always does 10 damage at range, and there’s only one. He can’t promote for a long time, whereas you’ll have at least some others who promote around Ch13, and then nearly everyone does at Ch16. Roy is stuck giving support bonuses to the Cavaliers, and sometimes not even that. Their mobility advantage can be capitalized onto now, and even without B Roy, Lance still sports around 60-65 avo at 20/1, plus weapon triangle control, which is enough to survive consistently.

Speaking of supports, Roy has one last slot to fill out, so you can use him to give one other unit a small bonus from his Fire affinity. Most of them are bad, slow or both, I would personally recommend Cecilia since it’s neither, it just starts late. If you’re feeling daring, you can change up your support formation so that Roy can actually get an A support, though the support triangle really works best for everyone earlygame.

After a long, long wait, Roy’s promotion finally comes. Enjoy +2 in every stat except HP (+4) and Res (+5, I guess he’s trying to be Hector). With his 16-17 Spd, he is now borderline on doubling things such as Snipers (12-14 AS, up to 16 later), Berserkers (10-13 AS), Bishops (12-13 AS), and he still won’t do against Mercs and Heroes. The Wyverns of next chapter have about 15-16 Spd, and only some of the unpromoted ones are weighed down significantly enough to get doubled by Roy at this point. He’ll obviously do fine against Druids and Mamkutes, though.

Sword of Seals is pretty damn good for 1-2 range and massive might (especially against Mamkutes), though it will need highly-contested Hammerning to keep going.

We can’t fault Roy for taking up a unit slot though, because he’s forced into every map. This means the game is much easier if you actually do use Roy because despite his shortcomings, since otherwise you’re forced to protect him with his low bases, and it will also make it harder to seize with him.

Oh, and he kills Idoun. I guess that’s cool, though I know some people would give him a 10/10 just for that.

Bad to average earlygame, picking up slowly, then not being able to promote ruins his midgame, and then his lategame is good. That alone makes him below average, so add that to things like Rapier, free unit slot and giving out supports, and we have…a slightly above average score.

6/10

Marcus

Captain Obvious mode here: Marcus starts off really good. A huge pile of Fighters and Brigands, where others are 3RKOing (Alan), or even 4HKOing (Lance, Roy, Wolt, Bors), and he is beating them within an inch of death. He’s fine-tuned to barely double, too, with his 11 base Spd versus most enemies having 6-7.

On defense, it’s even better. Those axe dudes 2RKO anyone on your team, except Alan and Lance, who can sometimes get 3RKOed. And even Alan and Lance face ~50% true hit. Meanwhile, Marcus can survive up to four hits, and he’s only facing around 25% true hit. So feel free to throw him into piles of enemies, weakening as much as he can for the other mortals to kill.

While Marcus is perfectly entitled to get kills for himself, it’s no doubt more efficient to let others “steal” everything they can, since they gain 4-5 times as much EXP, and Marcus also has much, much worse growths. 25% str and spd, 15% def…he’s not going to last very long here.

A bit later, chapters will be more lance-based, which means a perfect opportunity to work on Marcus’ axe level. He starts with an E, but you’ll want to increase it to D at least before Ch7 starts (though before Ch4 is a bonus, it’s not very feasible) so he can OHKO those dangerous Cavaliers with the Halberd Chad finds in Ch4. He doesn’t ORKO Soldiers with an Iron Axe, and he can always weigh himself down with the otherwise useless Steel Axe, and of course there’s the Hand Axe’s 1~2 range to consider.

Marcus gets a bit of competition for “best fighter” in people like Rutger and Dieck, but nothing too serious since he maintains more move, weapon triangle control and 1-2 range. In addition, his resistance doesn’t suck and he can use Hammer, Halberd and Silver Lance to increase his offensive output. You’ll find he stops doubling reliably quite soon, around Ch4/Ch5, but he is still good to have around. Then enemy AS takes a deep dive down in Ch8 and ahead, due to Archers starting to use Steel Bows and Soldiers popping up everywhere, and on the Western Isles there’s quite a lot of Steel Axe around. Regardless, his lack of supports, growths and EXP gain starts to bite him in the ass, and it’s pretty safe to assume that your unit slot is better spent on about anyone else, even if it’s Zealot.

If you want to continue to use this man, you’re going to have to pour lots of sought-after resources into him to keep him going. I’m talking about things about anyone wants, like Speedwings, Angelic Robe, Dracoshield, obviously Killer/Silver weaponry, etc. His concrete durability isn’t his _hugest_ problem – his base hp/def alone is on par with 20/9 Lugh, though that doesn’t say a lot since the same goes for base level Geese. It’s that laughable offense. 12-13 AS during midgame simply isn’t cutting it.

Marcus’ rating can only be described in a curve that goes downwards, from a perfect 10 into a slope that goes deeper and deeper. Somewhat like FE5 Eyvel, his rating would be somewhere around a 4-5 if you took the whole game into account, but I’m going to go with separate.

Ch1-Ch9: 9/10

Ch10-F: 3/10

Alan and Lance

The Cavalier duo in this game is probably the best in the entire series, with the only possible exception being FE9. I would rate them separately, but the majority of what there’s to say about them goes for them both. I’ll outline some of their key differences.

Their affinities and supports. Both give avo and atk, which are pretty much #1 and #2 for bonuses. Alan’s Fire gives hit/crit, Lance’s Anima gives def/cev, so Alan is probably slightly better off, especially since it pairs better with Roy’s Fire, but the difference is minimal. Alan and Lance are best off supporting each other for an A. 15/45/85 for C/B/A is insanely fast, and they match each other’s mobility perfectly, not to mention both have 1-2 range. And their best B support is Roy, who is always on the field to give them his Fire bonuses, though he can get left behind later (though they won’t care much). In the face of that, the rest of their list is hardly worth discussing. Lance is slightly better off with Lot and Clarine over Tate and Ward, but all of those are the slowest possible (61/121/201 turns).

Their biggest difference is probably their damage output during early and midgame. Alan has two more atk, Lance has two more AS, and they also have 5% more growth in those specialized areas. Which one is better off is hard to determine. Lance starts doubling earlier, and when he doubles and Alan doesn’t, the difference in output is pretty huge, especially when you consider that it means Lance is using that +5 atk from supports an extra time per battle. However, when both or neither double, Alan does more, which is especially important earlygame, where a little bit more damage can make a difference. Not really much at the very start, when all they can do is pick off Marcus kills, but in chapters like Ch4 or Ch7 where Marcus is no longer able to soften everything for a kill with an Iron Sword.

Tier lists usually consider Lance superior, but as far as I’m concerned there’s no loser in a battle between the two. About 80% of their effectiveness comes from the other. Sadly, they also hinder each other in a way: there’s only one Knight Crest in a reasonable time. The second one comes with Percival before Ch15 (or before Ch14 if you don’t want his HM bonuses and you want a harder recruitment…yeah, I don’t think so either), so only one of them is going to be able to promote for quite a while.

But even just one with just the support bonuses of the other and a simple Iron Lance is a force to be reckoned with.

Alan (A Lance): 27.5 atk, 16.5 AS -- 58.6 avo, 40.1 hp, 13.7 def, 5.9 res

Lance (A Alan): 24.6 atk, 19.4 AS - - 62.4 avo, 38.2 hp, 12.8 def, 6.8 res

You can add 10 avo to that if Roy is in range, and another 10 avo and 1 def if they are getting WTA. Using Ch16 and Ch16x for example: something like a Killer Axe Fighter from Ch16 has 17% true on the lower of the two if they have just one of these avo bonuses. A Steel Lance Knight as little as 10%. Mercs have :gasp: 37% true, but it also takes them about 5 hits to kill both of them. At this point, they both double everything on the map except for Mercs/Heroes and sometimes bosses.

These two aren’t perfect, but they sure as hell are close.

9.5/10

Edited June 15, 2009 by Mekkah

[NoNameAtAll]

Well done. I've no qualms about the scores given thus far. Even if I did, there's no way I could argue it otherwise.

[Colonel M]

The C Support could be Marcus too. It at least offers extra Avoid. Though Cecilia would be the better option IMO.

[DragonBladeSniper]

Cool, you actually started! XD The ratings are good but one thing, Percival comes at chapter 13 first not 14 (14 is the desert map). Sorry for annoying you for small details but I'm just like that. XD I wonder who will get a perfect score in this game. O.o

[Swordsalmon]

I have to disagree with Marcus' rating. You didn't go enough in-depth with his support options, which do make him viable as a decent character throughout the game.

Marcus can get B Lance, B Alan, C Roy fairly quickly, which gives him 25% Avoid, 3 Defense, and 2 Attack. Lance and Alan really don't mind, considering they're only losing one Attack. And with those supports, Marcus at least can survive and provide Silver Lance and rescuing. ^_^

[Junkhead]

Yeah, the FE6 cabaliers are the best, I like Treck to since he has good bases at least and is defensive, Noah is good just that he's balanced but he won't be great thing though.

[dondon151]

I have to disagree with Marcus' rating. You didn't go enough in-depth with his support options, which do make him viable as a decent character throughout the game.

Oh right, I forgot that Marcus has the quintessential affinity that gives AS.

[Mekkah]

Marcus can get B Lance, B Alan, C Roy fairly quickly, which gives him 25% Avoid, 3 Defense, and 2 Attack. Lance and Alan really don't mind, considering they're only losing one Attack. And with those supports, Marcus at least can survive and provide Silver Lance and rescuing.

They lose 1 atk both at C and at B stages, aka at points where they're important (earlygame). And you made Roy suck. He can now only do a double B, and all his other supports are bad units, except Thany (slow, bleh, Wind), Cecilia (only comes when he's already nearly in useless mode), and Lalum (slow, doesn't benefit, has other partners).

I'm not going to make Roy retarded just to make Marcus less retarded, especially since as dondon said, it won't make him double. Or get him out of his 10-11 str hole.

[Vykan12]

And their best B support is Roy, who is always on the field to give them his Fire bonuses, though he can get left behind later (though they won’t care much).

You could have Alan carry Roy while Lance drops him. This can be done each turn where there are no immediate enemies.

[Vykan12]

You seem to have forgotten about this.

[-Cynthia-]

I'm actually considering doing a ratings topic for FE9 since no one else seems to be interested in it, though I'm not sure if I'm "qualified" enough persay. Altohugh if smash can do it...

[dondon151]

I could try doing one for FE7 as well, but I don't see the point other than for us to stroke our own egos...

[-Cynthia-]

Lolz and inspiring general character discussion I suppose. I would attempt to be more...flexible than some topic creators.

[Quasar]

Just create one if you feel like spending the time to do it. If someone has a problem with a ranking you can be sure they'll let you know. And if they have too much problems they'll creater their own rankings.

[Mekkah]

I didn't really forget, just been lazy.

[PuffPuff]

Enemies also more often have reasonable AS in this game. Not VERY high, due to Steel still being pretty common, but nonetheless, being able to double reliably is a much huger boon than in FE5, where the only enemy PCslugs usually can't double is the boss.

What about the boss Kel. He doubles.

[Rolanmen1]

I'm actually considering doing a ratings topic for FE9 since no one else seems to be interested in it, though I'm not sure if I'm "qualified" enough persay. Altohugh if smash can do it...

I would like to do one, but i feel just like you. And i think smash is qualified to do another "joke ranking topic" like the FE10 one <_< .

Edited August 8, 2009 by Rolanmen1

[grandjackal]

I think Marcus deserves a bit more credit then that. He has a fairly nice amount of longevity, and his overall time and weapon ranks help a lot. His only real weak time is Bern really.

[Mekkah]

He's already mediocre on Western Isles, where everyone except those locked to lances are having the time of their life, and after that there's Sacae/Ilia/Bern left. He's not anywhere near average in any of those. Durability against most weapon types, sure. Offense? None of it.

[Colonel M]

He's fairly average to the team though when it's the Western Isles. Almost crucial (and I don't say totally crucial because Zealot can do this) to C12A's strategy for defending the houses and recruiting Echinda, etc. I'd say after that he's good to drop.

I didn't do the H5 Character Ranking to stroke my ego, moreso to show the class that each character should go to. Though it seems to be ignored slightly because I still hear "what is Person X's best class?"

[Mekkah]

yo I'm Leon the Necromancer

Wolt

Archers are controversial by nature, have always been, and will always be. Their usefulness (and people's opinion of them) depend on how much you weigh player and enemy phase offense.

Some say a character who cannot contribute on enemy phase has to make up for it with a very superior player phase. Anyone with that mindset will instantly give Wolt one of the lowest rankings possible. Others say that you could use Wolt to 100% efficiency more easily than a unit who is locked to 1-range, or essentially so by having bad 1-2 range. Just let your champs do the work on enemy phase, and use Wolt for chip damage.

And aside from the above plus occasional bad statistics, bow users in general get a lot to compensate. They are often the only one able to use high level bows like Killer/Silver/Brave/Miulgre simply because there's so few other capable good bow users, and for the same reason they can often promote the moment they hit level 10 due to lack of competition for the rather large amount of Orion's Bolts. You get more than Knight Crests and Hero Crests, go figure. And let's not forget the effective bonus on fliers, most notably on those high def Wyverns. This is especially notable because the bonus is tripled in this game. And of course, there's the fact they rarely take counters.

Over to Wolt himself, his bases are even worse than Roy's (Wolt has 4 str/skl/spd/def, 18 hp, Roy has at least 1 more in each of those in hp), and his str and spd growth aren't good enough to climb out of the hole whereas his def will stay bad forever. Roy doesn't want any more than a pity C with him due to the cavs, and the cavs don't want anything to do with them. You could technically turn the support triangle into a rectangle, but then it becomes more annoying to build and takes longer, and it cuts into their offense since Wolt doesn't give atk. And Wolt loses the bonuses whenever the cavs run off.

So he's left on his own, with his mediocre offense and non existent enemy phase which forces you to shield him. He does have the perks of the bow users mentioned above, but also all their flaws and no good stats or supports.

2.5/10

Bors

40% spd growth, 35% def growth, 30% str growth? What kind of Knight is this?

Anyway, his concrete durability looks quite good at first glance. 20 hp/11 def is second only to Marcus at that point by itself. Too bad he is locked to the worst weapon type at the time (lances), and in addition he is so slow he risks getting doubled. Sometimes he doesn't care, like if an Archer does 2x4 to him instead of 1x8 to someone else. Sometimes he does care, like if a Fighter takes him to single digit hp.

And of course, the other downside to his speed is that his offense will always be garbage. Effective weapons or brave weapons to fix this are in much lower supply than in, say, FE7 or FE10, so he'll often have to make do with he has. It doesn't help that his hit is going to be absolutely terrible if he goes above Iron Lances, though partial weapon triangle control as a General helps a bit I guess. Too bad that by promoting early, he hinders Alan/Lance/other Cav too significantly.

What other problem does he have? Right, mobility. 4 move sucks. 5 sucks slightly less, though around that time the average has increased to 6. He can be ferried sometimes without problems, though maybe not after promotion since he becomes too fat. He also faces fairly harsh terrain penalties, which among others means he has 1 movement in the desert chapter.

So early on, he has okay durability overall (quite bad against axes, but good against most other things), bad offense and bad mobility. Then it all becomes a bit better, his durability becoming actually good, but your overall offense also becomes better, so you may not even want Bors to be attacked instead of someone who will kill the enemy.

3/10

Ellen

Remember Saphy and Laura? Ellen is much of the same. Awesome staff utility, but horrid durability. 16 hp/0 def with a 50% growth total in those gets you one-shotted for a long time, or ORKOed by something like a Merc, though her base Spd of 8 is surprisingly decent. 20% growth, not so much.

Ellen is great early on for healing or even mending units since otherwise they have to spend turns healing just 10 hp with a vulnerary. After that, she faces some competition with Clarine and Saul jumping in, so she no longer has unique utility. Still valuable, of course.

Her mag base is really bad, so bad that she only hits double digits upon promotion even with her good 50% growth. Her offense after that will be acceptable on whatever she doubles with that 13-14 AS, but she should probably mostly be healing. She's also going to gain enormous utility with other staves. Hammerne repairs the insane divine weapons in this game, Restore saves you from those 500-range status Druids, and Physic heals allies from far away. Other goodies of her include her 30+1 Wind/Fire support with Lugh, and being Saul's almost only viable option (and 1+1 at that), though both of these also provide her with competition for one of the two free Guiding Rings.

Overall, Ellen is a great utility character, and sometimes she can pack quite a punch. Her durability is absolutely horrid, however. Her support list is okay, but can easily be passed up for more flexbility on where to put your PCs if you want.

7.5/10

[Ardan]

bors for top tier along with 10/1 general barth

[Mekkah]

Dieck

Dieck has pretty damn great bases. 10 spd is what Alan has if he procs Spd four times in a row, and in addition he can use an Iron Blade off the bat while retaining that. His 26 hp/6 def brings no complaints either.

This combined with his 9 str allows him to double and ORKO with Iron Blade quite a few Fighters and Soldiers at base, which is amazing. All that he's missing is a mount, which is why he's not your #1 Juggernaut, but he's pretty close. Sometimes in earlygame he'll face slight issues with WTD, particularly on Cavaliers, which are hard to take down in general. However, he still remains relatively solid. There's little to no investment needed to raise Dieck, because he pretty much raises himself earlygame. Besides his general combat hax, he and Rutger are often enough your only hope against those damn bosses on hax thrones. Thank God for the Armorslayer and Killing Edge.

There's some tools along the way to make him even more ridiculous. The Ch9 Silver Sword gives him a large increase in power. There's also the option of promoting him early, though Hero Crest is possibly the promo item most competed for (Rutger is great, Gonzales and Fir are good, Lot, Geese and Oujay acceptable, Ward below average to say the least), and you only get two (second one at Ch11A/Ch12B) until Ch16. So it might come with an opportunity cost. Early promotion grants him axes, which are a great addition to sword units (WTA instead of WTD over lances, solves might problems, gains 1-2 range). I've personally never pre-promoted my Dieck, but I can see it coming in handy.

Support-wise, he is quite in the money. He has two great units in Rutger and Clarine to turn to with a triangle, though this almost requires support abuse to get anywhere in a quick time frame simply because they're so slow (10+1 and 1+1), and these two support each other at 10+2, so he'll probably end up with double B. If you're playing Lot, Ward and/or Thany, he'll take any of those. Lot gives him durability, Thany offense, and Ward essentially both, but Ward is also by far the worst unit out of them. They're not exactly light speed, and Thany doesn't match move, but otherwise, they're fine combinations. His final and fastest support (in terms of how long it takes to reach C...) is Klein, but Klein of course joins a lot later and he peaks sooner rather than later in performance, and offers Dieck no offense boost whatsoever. Still an option, of course.

It's sometimes speculated Dieck slows down over the course of the game -literally- because of his 30% growth. To those, I say pay more attention to bases rather than growths. Take Alan as an example again, it takes him until L10 to match Dieck's base Spd, and his growth is only 15% higher. Lance needs two Spd procs to catch up, and his growth is 20% higher, meaning that if they grow at equal rates it takes Lance five about levels to catch up to Dieck's Spd by one.

What else is there to say about Dieck? He's got a scar near one of his eye, and that makes him look damn badass. He's arguably the most durable character in the game taking all of it into account (the whole game, and then hp/def/avo...mostly due to great bases and +4 def upon promo), and will rarely ever disappoint anyone. All that holds him back from Alan/Lance's 9.5 is their mount.

9/10

Edited October 9, 2009 by Mekkah