FE7 tier list, HHM Ranked

[CATS]

Bartre weakening things and Marcus killing the odd enemy to prevent getting overwhelmed/keep the pace >>>> Bartre getting rescued and Marcus weakening things.

You can have the former, too. It's not like Marcus has to choose between rescuing Bartre or not at the start of the chapter and then has to hold him the entire time. Take/drop, you will indeed have Marcus able to go from weakening to one-rounding without any time lost inbetween. Well, time lost for Dorcas or someone who does the take/drop, but not for Marcus and the ability for him to one-round something on a moment's notice is retained. The fact that you've got plenty of room to mix and match the two options means that you should be able to optimize your usage of them to some extent, so I find it difficult to believe that the resucing option doesn't help Marcus's case at all here.

As for Marcus needing Bartre, if Bartre is not there, there are many other units Marcus can rescue. Bartre's presence allows Marcus to not have to rescue a better unit, so I guess that's sort of a twisted advantage for Bartre, but regardless Marcus certainly does not "need" him. If you remove Marcus on the other hand, no substitutions of any kind can replace his utility.

Canas can't even touch Lucius. Lucius has better speed, mag, res,skill,wep type, supports and when promoted starts with C in staves> Hp, def and luck.

Better Spd, yes. He has better offense, pre-promotion at least. In exchange Canas wins durability, and the two are pretty similar overall as caster units.

Better Mag? Canas's tomes have significantly more Mt and he 2HKOs anyways against almost any unpromoted physical enemy. Against magic enemies Canas wins because of Luna. Lucius might be able to do slightly more damage to promoted physical enemies, not sure, but if so it won't be enough to care about.

Better Skl? Canas has no problems hitting. Weighed down enemies with 0 Lck. 15 Canas + Flux has 108 hit. An enemy needs 8 AS to reduce him below a 99% chance to hit. 11 AS to reduce him below a 96% chance to hit. 16 AS to reduce him below a 90% chance to hit. By the time enemies with significantly more than 11 AS exist, Canas's hit also went up alot because he's grown in levels, promoted and S Ranked in Dark for +5 hit. Canas having enough Lck to avoid enemy critrates is more significant than this.

Weapon type? No, Canas wins that. His tomes have more Mt in a game where hit is a joke, and Luna and Nosferatu are both useful as I've posted already. I'll re-quote the posts if someone wants me to.

Supports and staff rank, sure. In exchange Canas gets the aforementioned Luna and Nosferatu making him better in certain situations (similar to how Lucius's higher staff rank makes him more useful in particular situations).

I don't see Lucius being significantly better. Canas can match each one of his advantages that matter.

Plus, Lucius has a fairly likely (and useful) Raven support, while Canas has... no feasible supports, really. Canas's concrete durability is barely better than Lucy's, but they're both terrible, so Lucius's pretty big avoid lead puts him ahead. Canas just gets stomped on when it comes to offense, with the exception on Luna'ing some lategame bosses, assuming you used him in the first place. I'm sure I (or someone else) could go into more detail if necessary.

Lucius's pretty big Avo lead is canceled by the fact that he has to worry about critrates all the way up to Ch 22. lol, 2 base Lck.

[Tangerine]

You can have the former, too. It's not like Marcus has to choose between rescuing Bartre or not at the start of the chapter and then has to hold him the entire time. Take/drop, you will indeed have Marcus able to go from weakening to one-rounding without any time lost inbetween. Well, time lost for Dorcas or someone who does the take/drop, but not for Marcus and the ability for him to one-round something on a moment's notice is retained. The fact that you've got plenty of room to mix and match the two options means that you should be able to optimize your usage of them to some extent, so I find it difficult to believe that the resucing option doesn't help Marcus's case at all here.

You can't have them without losing a turn with someone else. It is much more efficient to just have Bartre weaken. Bartre even gets more EXP for it than Marcus and grabbing the odd kill = 30 EXP right there. If Bartre is rescued he gets no EXP. Besides, it's not that I'm giving him no credit for it, whoever gets rescued gets a lot more credit for what Marcus is doing than Marcus considering you're giving up an entire unit just so he can weaken enemies (something tons of your other units can do anyway, including whoever you rescue). I would even say Bartre is his best case rescue considering Rebecca's useful unanswered attacks at this point in the game.

As for Marcus needing Bartre, if Bartre is not there, there are many other units Marcus can rescue. Bartre's presence allows Marcus to not have to rescue a better unit, so I guess that's sort of a twisted advantage for Bartre, but regardless Marcus certainly does not "need" him. If you remove Marcus on the other hand, no substitutions of any kind can replace his utility.

That was a general statement. Nobody is more useful by rescuing with Marcus except for Marcus. Whoever he rescues needs it less than he does. Rebecca + Marcus > Rebecca rescued by Marcus, Bartre + Marcus > Bartre rescued by Marcus. Wasting their EXP potential is dumb just so Marcus can weaken things like 5 other units on your team already do. Bartre can one hit kill the Pegs in chapter 12 and 13 as well, I'm not even sure why he's as low as he is.

[Dat Nick]

Bartre can one hit kill the Pegs in chapter 12 and 13 as well, I'm not even sure why he's as low as he is.

I can't prove it, but I am fairly confident in saying that I find that the idea that pegs have 18 total HP/Def rather doubtful.

It works against him anyway, because one-rounding=EXP wasting, which=bad.

[HJ.]

One-rounding generally makes things go faster, and Tactics is harder than Exp. Exp is rather easily padded, even moreso with a healthy Tactics rank. I don't see how one-rounding is bad unless it's some very specific case like earlygame Marcus or a non-Hector dude in chapter 30.

You're right that he doesn't one-round the pegs, though. They have 18-19 HP and 3-4 Def, and that's the weakest of them.

Edited February 11, 2010 by TheloveableHJKun

[dondon151]

Lucius's pretty big Avo lead is canceled by the fact that he has to worry about critrates all the way up to Ch 22. lol, 2 base Lck.

Lucius can grab a C support with Raven fairly quickly, though, which is 2 more cev that erases crit from enemies with 9 skl or less. For reference, WKs in chapter 24 don't even exceed 8 skl. Everything else in your post I agree with, especially the durability. Lucius is easily 2RKO'd.

[Inui]

I don't recall his exact stats on my playthrough, but loading a savestate from Mekkah I see 29HP and 7 Def (Ch15 wasn't important enough to waste one of my only 3 slots on so I don't have multiple numbers to compare), and if Sealen hasn't switched to Steel for +1AS, Marcus can double him (otherwise not). In my playthrough, using an Iron Axe he deals enough damage to 1RKO, provided he doesn't miss (I hit an unlucky string of RN).

So don't equip an iron axe. Iron sword will put him at kill damage for anyone.

Also, I don't recall exactly, but I believe Marcus either doubles or borderline doubles the Javelin Cavs.

It doesn't matter if he doubles since he can't kill them if he uses an iron sword.

Killing Edge Guy can handle Puzon too. Puzon attacks on enemy phase, Guy might crit, failing that, Guy attacks on player phase and has a second shot at crit. You'll need to be a little careful due to all the reinforcements around, obviously, but it certainly can be done. Oswin is probably viable as well.

So who's going to the village? Who's protecting Merlinus? Oswin takes damage from axe d00ds and there are mages and Puzon doubles him. Guy doesn't have the type of durability to go deal with mercs and nomads. Puzon's big boss EXP drop might as well be Marcus's.

Regarding reaching Kishuna: Pegasus drop Oswin says hello. You'll need to do it to have an Armor cleaned out anyway (even if the mages cooperate and make the Sniper spawn crooked) so you have two spots to attack from, and if you plan it well he and Peg can finish the non-crooked Sniper to get three slots to attack from, which you will need in order to get the kill. Also Marcus's Silver Lance rape of Kishuna, while quite nice, doesn't pack the same punch as Killing Edge crit from Raven (and maybe Guy). I guess you could have Marcus use the Killing Edge, but that then requires trading to get it back to one of the other uses, which is tactically poor. I will agree Marcus's performance on 19xx is quite the godsend though.

Kishuna has 70 Evd and a 20/10 Oswin has Marcus's base Hit. Oswin gets little to no Hit from supports and only has ~34 Hit with a silver lance if you somehow powerleveled him all the way to 20/10. Yeah, Oswin's not a good idea here. Marcus, however, can whack him with a silver sword for big damage, and B Lowen/C Eliwood gives a 20/5 Marcus 61 Hit, which isn't fail like everyone else.

Even shaving all these turns off for you, you're not going to have 10 extra turns to spare in the arena. You'll get some use in while moving to Linus, sure, but staying after it's viable to kill him seems foolhardy to me. I will revisit this opinion after playing through the map. That said, his shaving off turns is valuable, as 0 req chapters are a bitch. It will essentially allow you to go to 19xx or 32x. Maybe, if you're lucky, both. I'm of the opinion that it's either that, or 24 Linus arena, but not both.

If Marcus manages to shave off just one turn per chapter a little less than half the time, you have about 10 turns to toss Geitz/Raven/Guy into the arena in Chapter 24. Going to 19xx and especially 32x = massive EXP gains. Marcus shaving turns lets you kill a bunch of high level Berserkers and a group of enemies with a 20/17 Druid or some shit leading them. If you rape your Experience rank blasting with Marcus early on, it's cool since you can do 19xx and kill a 20/17 Druid for 100 EXP and kill high level Berserkers for 32498723972390 EXP.

One-rounding generally makes things go faster, and Tactics is harder than Exp. Exp is rather easily padded, even moreso with a healthy Tactics rank. I don't see how one-rounding is bad unless it's some very specific case like earlygame Marcus or a non-Hector dude in chapter 30.

You're right that he doesn't one-round the pegs, though. They have 18-19 HP and 3-4 Def, and that's the weakest of them.

This is why I think Marcus is potentially the best unit. He is the best for Tactics, the hardest rank, and his turn-shaving lets you pad the Experience rank later on or whenever.

[CATS]

Lucius can grab a C support with Raven fairly quickly, though, which is 2 more cev that erases crit from enemies with 9 skl or less. For reference, WKs in chapter 24 don't even exceed 8 skl. Everything else in your post I agree with, especially the durability. Lucius is easily 2RKO'd.

Yeah, he's out of reach of alot of crap pretty quick. He still has some issues for a good while though. Nomads and swordies in general can hit 10 Skl, then there's enemies with random +crit weapons. Six axereaver pegs in 19x. Slim lance peg reinforcements in Pirate Ship. Reavers galore in Ch 22. etc. And he can get crit'd by totally generic mooks like knights or w/e when he first joins, which means he essentially has no enemy phase at all.

[Dat Nick]

I don't see how one-rounding is bad unless it's some very specific case like earlygame Marcus or a non-Hector dude in chapter 30.

I was using that to be consistent with Whorio's whole "Erk one rounding armors=BAD" thing. Then again, that whole post wasn't being consistent with itself, so maybe I shouldn't have bothered.

[Inui]

Erk one-rounding armors is bad? Wtf? Why would anyone say that?

My name is Inui, not Horio or Whorio.

[Tangerine]

One-rounding generally makes things go faster, and Tactics is harder than Exp. Exp is rather easily padded, even moreso with a healthy Tactics rank. I don't see how one-rounding is bad unless it's some very specific case like earlygame Marcus or a non-Hector dude in chapter 30.

You're right that he doesn't one-round the pegs, though. They have 18-19 HP and 3-4 Def, and that's the weakest of them.

Tactics is not harder than EXP at all. EXP is what makes Tactics hard; you need to constantly have a weaker team than normal to keep your EXP rates high. You can't just get all of your EXP in the arena, you aren't going to have that many free arena turns.

18 HP and 3 def vs 21 atk (Bartre w/Steel Axe) = one hit kill. What I didn't realize is that Dorcas only starts with a Steel Axe on Eliwood's mode. My bad.

[Dat Nick]

Erk one-rounding armors is bad? Wtf? Why would anyone say that?

Chapter 15 Knight: 24 HP, 11 Def, 2 Res

12/0 Dorcas w/ Hand Axe: 9x2 --> reduced to 6 HP.

20/1 Marcus w/ Hand Axe: 12x2 --> kills.

7/0 Bartre w/ Hand Axe: 9x2 --> reduced to 6 HP.

7/0 Hector w/ Hand Axe: 10x2 --> reduced to 2 HP. (OHKO's with Wolf Beil)

12/0 Oswin w/ Javelin: 9x2 --> reduced to 6 HP.

8/0 Erk w/ Fire: 10x2 --> reduced to 2 HP.

8/0 Erk w/ Thunder: 12x2 --> kills.

Erk will die in two hits if attacked by anything in this chapter. The other units can kill the Knight on the enemy phase. The Combat rank is a joke, but Experience isn't, meaning they gain more EXP than Erk by not killing it in one turn (which Marcus and Hector can do anyways).

Beats me, why don't you explain it to us?

Edited February 11, 2010 by Fred Fuchs

[Inui]

Kalamadorel in that debate kept saying ERK USING MAG AND HITTING RES MAKES HIS OFFENSE AWESOME AND BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE'S so I compared him in the absolute best case scenario in the entire game for him and he only barely won, meaning he doesn't win in other cases and loses a lot despite hitting the lower defensive stat. I didn't say it was bad for him to ORKO armors. I said he only barely does so and outdamages others by small amounts. This is with a 10 point gap in Def and Res. Against Cavs, the gap drops to like 6, and Erk then ties or loses.

Also, two people attacking an armor and killing it, if it doesn't slow you down, is indeed better than one-rounding it due to the Experience rank.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Inui

[Inui]

If Oswin is the top of high tier and I pretty much proved Marcus is better by a lot, how come he's not in top tier yet?

Also, Serra is the best unit. Reikken and Solid tested it, and Serra can be 11-12 at the end of LHM. Lol.

[dondon151]

Serra can be 11-12 in LHM if Nils is 7. But he's not, and she's not.

[HJ.]

Why wouldn't he be? He gets to level 5 naturally, 19xx gives lots of Exp which you guys seem to care about a whole lot, and nobody cares in the slightest about S-ranking LHM's tactics. Maybe if I had to grind Nils to level 10 or something, but come on.

[Balcerzak]

So who's going to the village? Who's protecting Merlinus? Oswin takes damage from axe d00ds and there are mages and Puzon doubles him. Guy doesn't have the type of durability to go deal with mercs and nomads. Puzon's big boss EXP drop might as well be Marcus's.

Marcus goes to the village obviously. Notice how I never said one word contradicting that. And how does that have any impact on how Guy reaches Puzon? Guy just walks up the left side and Puzon crosses the Snag they conveniently knocked down and comes to him. Neither mercs nor nomads will double Guy, and there's natural chokepoint. You'll need to worry a bit about durability, but it's certainly not unfeasible in the slightest, especially with the free vulnerary Matt steals and gives to him this chapter if it's needed.

Re: Oswin: By the time you're killing Puzon you should have cleaned up all the axe mooks. There's a mage, a merc, a myrmidon and some nomads, none of which Oswin is really afraid of, save maybe the mage. I didn't bother looking at the damage Puzon will do him, because frankly I didn't want to give the XP to Oswin.

Re: Merlinus: You continue to advance and kill units. If units are not in range of Merlinus, he's not threatened and doesn't need an explicit guard. The only time this tends to fall apart is with the Hand Axe Bandits and Nomads constantly streaming in from the south, but that's what Lowen is for.

Kishuna has 70 Evd and a 20/10 Oswin has Marcus's base Hit. Oswin gets little to no Hit from supports and only has ~34 Hit with a silver lance if you somehow powerleveled him all the way to 20/10. Yeah, Oswin's not a good idea here. Marcus, however, can whack him with a silver sword for big damage, and B Lowen/C Eliwood gives a 20/5 Marcus 61 Hit, which isn't fail like everyone else.

Kishuna caps speed at 25, and has 0 luck. Last I checked that was 0 evade and 50 avoid. Level 13/-- Oswin has 10 skill and 97 Hit, that puts displayed hit at 47 which admittedly is not good, but last I recall I was mentioning him more for the need to clear out the elite guard that Kishuna arrives with. As long as he's there he should take a potshot as well if there's room. Anyways, you said it was impossible for him to even get there, which is clearly false, and Oswin's presences and contributions are most welcome, especially when he's one of the few that can possibly even hope to contribute as only he, Marcus, and Florina can get to A Lances by this point, and Florina's strength... not so good. Maybe add Lowen to that list, but he's worse in offense in every regard to Oswin against enemies neither doubles. Killing Kishuna basically boils down to luck, period.

lol, Silver Sword. That may as well be unobtainable on a ranked run, unless you're going to forgo the crest for it, because there's no way you're getting Matthew up there to unlock the other chest in time if you kill that enemy thief. lol, B and C supports. Marcus's job is to mop up problem elements that threaten your survival rank, he can't afford to be neatly positioned to earn support ranks. At this point in the game you've played for ~95 turns. B Lowen requires 48, which means over half the time he ends up directly next to Marcus. That's simply not happening. Eliwood and move difference, and huge durability difference also think C is unreasonable by this point. At least your level estimate of 20/5 is on the money, and Marcus's hit rate is by far the best of your team, coming in at a solid 63 displayed, 68 if he's S ranked in Lances (which he should be, but isn't guaranteed if you've been using him sparingly and with a lot of either swords or axes), but it's no sure thing either.

If Marcus manages to shave off just one turn per chapter a little less than half the time, you have about 10 turns to toss Geitz/Raven/Guy into the arena in Chapter 24. Going to 19xx and especially 32x = massive EXP gains. Marcus shaving turns lets you kill a bunch of high level Berserkers and a group of enemies with a 20/17 Druid or some shit leading them. If you rape your Experience rank blasting with Marcus early on, it's cool since you can do 19xx and kill a 20/17 Druid for 100 EXP and kill high level Berserkers for 32498723972390 EXP.

...Did you not listen to a word I said? It's going to be either 19xx and 32x, or 10 turns in the arena, not both. I was agreeing with you that Marcus allowing that option was a good thing. At least I thought I made it clear I was, let me double-check. Oh right, I was pretty explicit about that wasn't I. I distinctly see the words "godsend" and "valuable" in that post, both referring to Marcus. I don't take issue with your overall general push, but I do think that you are certainly overstating his advantages at times, and neglecting to completely and fairly consider the competition.

[dondon151]

Why wouldn't he be? He gets to level 5 naturally, 19xx gives lots of Exp which you guys seem to care about a whole lot, and nobody cares in the slightest about S-ranking LHM's tactics. Maybe if I had to grind Nils to level 10 or something, but come on.

Why wouldn't I Lundgren abuse Erk (or any other LM character) to level 20? LHM, as far as I know, is assumed to be completed under the criteria that we would normally employ on a non-ranked tier list, which means there's no excuse for dilly-dallying or withholding the 2 stat boosters that you obtain.

19xx also has 0 turn reqs for tactics, which creates inflexibility when you want to trade turns for cash and EXP.

[HJ.]

I actually addressed that point of yours.

"Maybe if I had to grind Nils to level 10 or something, but come on."

Giving Nils 2 extra levels is no tedium at all (just don't zerg rush in the last two chapters and you should be more than halfway there), but the same can hardly be said for Lundgren abusing. Besides, if you're so against dilly-dallying, it's sort of ironic you're arena abusing instead of using Exp-padding units.

As for the argument about 19xx, there are items there. Expensive items. So it's actually good for funds too. Also, the Exp from 19xx would reduce the amount of turns you need to spend arena abusing anyway, so that should be fine.

[Tangerine]

Actually, this list assumes LHM is S-ranked as well to prevent boss abuse and use of more than one of the special items (Knight Crest, Angelic Robe, Energy Ring) as well as get you a White Gem when Lyn joins. This means Serra will get more levels than just running through it efficiently, but certainly not to level 12 or something crazy like that. We also assume 19xx is skipped because it hurts far more than it helps, so getting Nils too high is a bad idea.

As for the argument about 19xx, there are items there. Expensive items. So it's actually good for funds too. Also, the Exp from 19xx would reduce the amount of turns you need to spend arena abusing anyway, so that should be fine.

19xx is a 0 turn chapter. You're hurting your Tactics rank far too much by taking it, especially when you can just use those turns to arena abuse for actual money and EXP instead of "liquid" funds.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Tangerine

[Florete]

19xx is a 0 turn chapter. You're hurting your Tactics rank far too much by taking it, especially when you can just use those turns to arena abuse for actual money and EXP instead of "liquid" funds.

Not only that, but lv 7 Ninian can't provide as much experience as, say, lv 3 Ninian. And Kishuna is a bitch to kill in HHM in one turn.

[CATS]

When you assume LHM is S Ranked then yes Serra is level 11-12, at least. There's no reason to go under the LHM Tactics rank requirements after Serra joins. Those requirements are 51 total turns from Serra's joining chap up through the end of LHM, plus whatever turns you saved in earlier chapters (I highly doubt that Ch 1-3 are taking 7 turns each), which I'll just say is 4 to make it a round 55 turns in LHM for Serra.

Likewise keep in mind that there is no reason not to give Serra Nils's full attention in LHM. Refreshing Serra so that she can get more heals in adds more to your total Exp, while refreshing attackers does not, and it's not at all necessary to have Nils refresh attackers in order to get 5 stars in LHM Tactics. I'll just multiply the # of turns by 1.5 to represent this; thus it comes out to 82-83 heals for Serra in LHM. Roughly 900 Exp, putting her on L10 at the end of LHM.

Then let's add 2-3 levels for the 3-4 chaps she has over Priscilla in HHM.

So Serra's level when Priscilla shows up can easily be around 12-13 under the conditions of this tier list.

You can't have them without losing a turn with someone else.

Yes, like I said, Dorcas or Osw1n or w/e loses their turn. However, the situation is that you need something to be one-rounded and Marcus is the only one who can do it. Dorcas or Osw1n losing their turn is less important than that enemy dying. Ofcourse, depending on the situation, you may be able to weaken with Marcus and kill with Dorcas instead of take/drop + one-round, but in other situations perhaps not (i.e. it's an enemy Marcus can reach and Dorcas can't). If it's the former then it doesn't matter that Marcus can't one-round, and if it's the latter you can indeed have him eliminate that enemy. Ofcourse it comes at a cost, but the fact that you have the option at all is still a significant benefit, since no other character can do that for you period.

It is much more efficient to just have Bartre weaken. Bartre even gets more EXP for it than Marcus and grabbing the odd kill = 30 EXP right there. If Bartre is rescued he gets no EXP. Besides, it's not that I'm giving him no credit for it, whoever gets rescued gets a lot more credit for what Marcus is doing than Marcus considering you're giving up an entire unit just so he can weaken enemies (something tons of your other units can do anyway, including whoever you rescue).

How is it more efficient to have Bartre weaken things and have Marcus do nothing? Bartre gets like 3 or 4 more Exp for weakening than Marcus does, whereas Marcus has 8 move and a massive durability advantage. If you think Exp gains override combat advantages to that extent I'm gonna go type up an argument for Oswin and Dorcas to go down atleast a tier.

Yes, you are giving up a unit so Marcus can do this. What you are doing is effectively giving up a shitty unit in order to gain a much better version of him (assuming that you would just use Bartre for weakening anyways and that Marcus is frequently unable to attack at all with his usual AS due to Exp rank). Under these conditions the tactic produces a clear net benefit.

I would even say Bartre is his best case rescue considering Rebecca's useful unanswered attacks at this point in the game.

Bartre can just hand axe things and play a similar role to Rebecca with more Atk and less Hit.

[Inui]

Serra can be 11-12 in LHM if Nils is 7. But he's not, and she's not.

Unless this list says we're S ranking LHM, I don't see the big deal in getting Nils to level 7.

Why wouldn't he be? He gets to level 5 naturally, 19xx gives lots of Exp which you guys seem to care about a whole lot, and nobody cares in the slightest about S-ranking LHM's tactics. Maybe if I had to grind Nils to level 10 or something, but come on.

Yeah, this.

Marcus goes to the village obviously. Notice how I never said one word contradicting that. And how does that have any impact on how Guy reaches Puzon? Guy just walks up the left side and Puzon crosses the Snag they conveniently knocked down and comes to him. Neither mercs nor nomads will double Guy, and there's natural chokepoint. You'll need to worry a bit about durability, but it's certainly not unfeasible in the slightest, especially with the free vulnerary Matt steals and gives to him this chapter if it's needed.

Or someone else can go to the village, since that's actually significantly safer to do since Puzon and mercs/myrms/nomads aren't there and sword users can just get there easily. Eliwood + Hector with their C support can do this without much problem.

Getting to and killing Puzon is much harder and more dangerous. Even if the enemies don't double Guy, they have tons of Hit and Guy's 26 HP/6 Def isn't tanky enough to deal with that. If a nomad has 8 Str, he eats 6 dmg and has a low chance of dodging. 5 Mag mage hits him for like 9 dmg. Mercs/myrms do about as much as the nomad. Then Puzon actually is kinda dangerous for your team at this point besides Marcus. I don't think Guy can get through that since they are in high numbers. Marcus, however, can. And Guy can easily get to the village without worrying. Switch their roles.

Re: Oswin: By the time you're killing Puzon you should have cleaned up all the axe mooks. There's a mage, a merc, a myrmidon and some nomads, none of which Oswin is really afraid of, save maybe the mage. I didn't bother looking at the damage Puzon will do him, because frankly I didn't want to give the XP to Oswin.

Oswin has 4 Mov and there are forests and enemies in his way. Him getting to and killing Puzon before 7 turns is up = lol.

Kishuna caps speed at 25, and has 0 luck. Last I checked that was 0 evade and 50 avoid. Level 13/-- Oswin has 10 skill and 97 Hit, that puts displayed hit at 47 which admittedly is not good, but last I recall I was mentioning him more for the need to clear out the elite guard that Kishuna arrives with. As long as he's there he should take a potshot as well if there's room. Anyways, you said it was impossible for him to even get there, which is clearly false, and Oswin's presences and contributions are most welcome, especially when he's one of the few that can possibly even hope to contribute as only he, Marcus, and Florina can get to A Lances by this point, and Florina's strength... not so good. Maybe add Lowen to that list, but he's worse in offense in every regard to Oswin against enemies neither doubles. Killing Kishuna basically boils down to luck, period.

Kishuna is on a fort.

GGs.

lol, Silver Sword. That may as well be unobtainable on a ranked run, unless you're going to forgo the crest for it, because there's no way you're getting Matthew up there to unlock the other chest in time if you kill that enemy thief. lol, B and C supports. Marcus's job is to mop up problem elements that threaten your survival rank, he can't afford to be neatly positioned to earn support ranks. At this point in the game you've played for ~95 turns. B Lowen requires 48, which means over half the time he ends up directly next to Marcus. That's simply not happening. Eliwood and move difference, and huge durability difference also think C is unreasonable by this point. At least your level estimate of 20/5 is on the money, and Marcus's hit rate is by far the best of your team, coming in at a solid 63 displayed, 68 if he's S ranked in Lances (which he should be, but isn't guaranteed if you've been using him sparingly and with a lot of either swords or axes), but it's no sure thing either.

It's really quite simple. You allow the thief to steal one item and kill him for it and then get the other item with Matthew by carrying him there with some mounted unit. You get to bring a lot of units to this chapter and you have lots of horsies. He can have a C with Lowen instead, and a C with Eliwood is quite easy. Marcus isn't always blasting ahead of everyone and Lowen keeps up with him. Both of his supports start early and build quickly, and are thus viable.

...Did you not listen to a word I said? It's going to be either 19xx and 32x, or 10 turns in the arena, not both. I was agreeing with you that Marcus allowing that option was a good thing. At least I thought I made it clear I was, let me double-check. Oh right, I was pretty explicit about that wasn't I. I distinctly see the words "godsend" and "valuable" in that post, both referring to Marcus. I don't take issue with your overall general push, but I do think that you are certainly overstating his advantages at times, and neglecting to completely and fairly consider the competition.

32x is the best option since those Berserkers give you a crazy amount of EXP.

Anyways, Marcus is pretty much the only d00d to allow such a thing to happen, and he could even theoretically allow it all to happen if he blasted super fast early on, and nobody else can say that, so he counteracts his EXP failure by letting people gain a lot at once later on.

[Florete]

When you assume LHM is S Ranked then yes Serra is level 11-12, at least. There's no reason to go under the LHM Tactics rank requirements after Serra joins. Those requirements are 51 total turns from Serra's joining chap up through the end of LHM, plus whatever turns you saved in earlier chapters (I highly doubt that Ch 1-3 are taking 7 turns each), which I'll just say is 4 to make it a round 55 turns in LHM for Serra.

Likewise keep in mind that there is no reason not to give Serra Nils's full attention in LHM. Refreshing Serra so that she can get more heals in adds more to your total Exp, while refreshing attackers does not, and it's not at all necessary to have Nils refresh attackers in order to get 5 stars in LHM Tactics. I'll just multiply the # of turns by 1.5 to represent this; thus it comes out to 82-83 heals for Serra in LHM. Roughly 900 Exp, putting her on L10 at the end of LHM.

Then let's add 2-3 levels for the 3-4 chaps she has over Priscilla in HHM.

So Serra's level when Priscilla shows up can easily be around 12-13 under the conditions of this tier list.

Did you seriously copy and paste the argument you used before? I know I've read it before, but unfortunately I can't find it to see how I responded. Anyway...

Your shit with Nils is just that: Shit. There is no way Serra is getting 82-83 heals in, LHM just isn't that hard. Even if you intentionally hurt your units for her to heal, I doubt there are even enough enemies, and Nils doesn't even show until Ch 7. Then there are first turns, times where no one is in range for her to heal, etc.

And has no one thought about the effect this has on HHM? Getting her to level 10 cuts 900 free experience from the part of the game we actually care about. I'm not saying she should come in at level 1, but putting her in at such a high level just to promote her fast seems counter-intuitive. This goes for Nils/Ninian as well; The higher you get Nils, the less free experience for HHM.

[Inui]

I wouldn't say getting Serra to a high level hurts your Experience rank in HHM. Instead of being ~20/15 at the end, she's ~20/20 instead. Not much of a big deal and she gains about the same amount of EXP in HHM. She can start getting CEXP earlier and get to a higher level than she could have by promoting later. In turn for being a bit worse for the Experience rank, you have a durable healer right away that is ripe for promotion when you get that first Guiding Ring and she becomes pretty much the best unit in the game because she's still better than almost everyone else for the Experience rank and actually is a good fighter.

Playing through LHM trying to S rank it, I typically get Serra to level 8-9 because you really can heal with her almost every single turn if you want to. I guess if you use Nils on her a lot and slow down to the minimum you can squeeze in another level or two.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Inui

[Tangerine]

How is it more efficient to have Bartre weaken things and have Marcus do nothing? Bartre gets like 3 or 4 more Exp for weakening than Marcus does, whereas Marcus has 8 move and a massive durability advantage. If you think Exp gains override combat advantages to that extent I'm gonna go type up an argument for Oswin and Dorcas to go down atleast a tier.

And Bartre gets tons for kills. It's not like you never give Bartre kills, that makes no sense at all. By keeping Bartre rescued he never gets that 30 EXP. I already said Oswin needed to move down anyway.

How is it more efficient to have Bartre weaken things and have Marcus do nothing? Bartre gets like 3 or 4 more Exp for weakening than Marcus does, whereas Marcus has 8 move and a massive durability advantage. If you think Exp gains override combat advantages to that extent I'm gonna go type up an argument for Oswin and Dorcas to go down atleast a tier.

Because then Dorcas or Oswin can still do something with their turn when you need Marcus to go somewhere. Dorcas + Bartre + Oswin weakening things while Marcus goes and kills something every now and then > Marcus taking the kill and one of Dorcas/Oswin weakening things. Marcus is not that much better at weakening that he gets to take up two slots.

Yes, you are giving up a unit so Marcus can do this. What you are doing is effectively giving up a shitty unit in order to gain a much better version of him (assuming that you would just use Bartre for weakening anyways and that Marcus is frequently unable to attack at all with his usual AS due to Exp rank). Under these conditions the tactic produces a clear net benefit.

Nobody is assuming Bartre is only used for weakening things, that's just one of the things he's nice for. ALL of the unpromoted units you start with should be getting kills, except Oswin for a little while.

Edited February 11, 2010 by Tangerine