FE6 HM Tier List

[GreatEclipse]

If you allow the player to manipulate the RNG to pick up desert items in the name of "efficiency" (because such tedium is clearly an excellent use of his time), no good reason exists to ban similar manipulation of level-ups and hit rates.

[TheToad]

Actually the desert trick is a way of getting desert items with almost 100% reliability.

Dondon demonstrates it here:

[grandjackal]

That..Is quite interesting. I'll be sure to take that to heart in my next playthrough.

So. Thieves. Deserts. Not happening if this is highly reliable.

[MacLovin]

Noah looks like he could rise to the top of Mid Tier in Illia.

Seriously he;s below Fir and Lott, both are decent-but outside of Lotts earlygame and warrior promo gains and Firs LATEgame performance, both have all the flaws of a foot unit, and Fir is swordlocked.

Noahs got good bases, and Lowen-isque growths. And high move+weapon control+10 base con for no AS loss from steel swords as a cavvy and no AS loss from Hand axes as a Pally.

I'm really wondering why he's below Lott and Fir. Lott, I could understand, but below FIR?

A lvl 1 swordlocked unit, with bad str/def growths.

Hell, 10/1 Noah ASAP for Zealot 2.0 can work better than HM!Fir in HM, I believe.

[Colonel M]

I'm not sure, if only because Noah is kind of bland statistic-wise after a while.

Let's also not forget that Ilia is filled with terrain. While foot units don't get a major pass in life - Noah isn't doing a shitload better in Ilia than he would in Sacae (aka being a Rescuebot).

[Silvercrow]

So what exactly is the trick with the desert? You just reset the cart then move a unit over the appropriate area, and it's a guaranteed pickup?

[frat_tastic]

Do we take into account any other exploitations like that in the list? If we don't, I'm not sold we should consider it.

[Integrity]

So what exactly is the trick with the desert? You just reset the cart then move a unit over the appropriate area, and it's a guaranteed pickup?

As I recall, you reset the cart, view somebody's portrait (usually via R-menu) then move over an item tile. Guaranteed pickup.

[Psych]

You could argue that the Mine Glitch in 7 is another example of an exploit, or the tile thing in 8, and the 8 tier list doesn't suddenly give everyone dark magic in assumptions.

[grandjackal]

Noah looks like he could rise to the top of Mid Tier in Illia.

Seriously he;s below Fir and Lott, both are decent-but outside of Lotts earlygame and warrior promo gains and Firs LATEgame performance, both have all the flaws of a foot unit, and Fir is swordlocked.

Noahs got good bases, and Lowen-isque growths. And high move+weapon control+10 base con for no AS loss from steel swords as a cavvy and no AS loss from Hand axes as a Pally.

I'm really wondering why he's below Lott and Fir. Lott, I could understand, but below FIR?

A lvl 1 swordlocked unit, with bad str/def growths.

Hell, 10/1 Noah ASAP for Zealot 2.0 can work better than HM!Fir in HM, I believe.

Being swordlocked isn't that bad for the isles. You never really fight anything that has a lance there. I mean yeah, point granted afterwards, but it's not bad for her starting position.

I am inclined to agree that Noah is better than both though.

I'm not sure, if only because Noah is kind of bland statistic-wise after a while.

Let's also not forget that Ilia is filled with terrain. While foot units don't get a major pass in life - Noah isn't doing a shitload better in Ilia than he would in Sacae (aka being a Rescuebot).

Well his burst of midgame is hilariously good if that helps, though for Sacae one could argue that Fir having the ability to ORKO nomads (a hard thing to manage unless you have Brave Bow access) and being a secondary boss killer is also it's own charm.

You could argue that the Mine Glitch in 7 is another example of an exploit, or the tile thing in 8, and the 8 tier list doesn't suddenly give everyone dark magic in assumptions.

This is nowhere near being as extreme.

[I don't play for turns]

Klein is listed twice in the sacae route.

[Anouleth]

I'm pretty sure you can do the trick on a cart?

Yes. All forms of RNG abuse that are possible on an emulator are also possible on a cart, since they both use a pseudo-random RNG.

[Toothache]

I'm curious, why is Sophia in her own tier at the bottom? I propose that she's more useful than most people seem to think. She's hardly likely to double much that isn't an armour of course, but that's not her real strength. Nosfertanking needs a bit more resources than Niime or even Ray too. But again, that's not her real strength.

Her real importance comes in her excessive Res. While this may not exactly contribute directly to lowering turn counts, the way AI priority works means that she's a likely target for long range magic and staves. Keeping Sleep, Silence and Berserk staves from more important units is a role that seems to be overlooked, but it can certainly make things a lot easier in the long run. Besides, Sophia doesn't need a Speed stat when she can OHKO dragons in ch24 with Apocalypse (and it's not so hard to get her to use it either). After promotion she can heal huge amounts with even a simple Heal stick too, so she doesn't need much Staff rank either to keep people contributing. Directly she's not a great unit, but in terms of team support she's certainly a lot more useful than current perception suggests. And in a draft, there's a large enough team for a standard 5 person draft that she can self improve without being a hinderance.

As of where she should be placed in the tier list, I propose probably somewhere above the knights - either just above Barth or Douglas.

[dondon151]

She's hardly likely to double much that isn't an armour of course, but that's not her real strength.

she's going to have trouble doubling armors. she needs like, what, 6 AS at minimum? that's 14/0 with flux.

Nosfertanking needs a bit more resources than Niime or even Ray too. But again, that's not her real strength.

sophia can't nosferatank until after promotion and she pretty much dies instantly if she misses (and is also very likely to get doubled, which would nullify the HP gain from nosferatu counters).

Her real importance comes in her excessive Res. While this may not exactly contribute directly to lowering turn counts, the way AI priority works means that she's a likely target for long range magic and staves. Keeping Sleep, Silence and Berserk staves from more important units is a role that seems to be overlooked, but it can certainly make things a lot easier in the long run.

i don't really think that there is any proof so far about sophia being a better staff target than other units, aside from chapter 14, but that's with her at base stats. i especially don't think that she's a more preferable target for sleep and berserk staves (berserk maybe if she can equip a staff, since i seem to recall staff users being a priority target).

Besides, Sophia doesn't need a Speed stat when she can OHKO dragons in ch24 with Apocalypse (and it's not so hard to get her to use it either).

she needs to grow 2 dark ranks in however many chapters she exists. she needs to gain dark WEXP at approximately the same rate as niime does, and the only way that i could even get niime to S dark in time on sacae route was to nosferatank the pegasus knights in chapter 19I, which i could have completed faster with growths.

Edited November 8, 2012 by dondon151

[Toothache]

I can give you a practical example of Sophia being a staff lure. Niime also does the same thing in the TAS in this chapter, and in one version of TAS Ch14 Cecilia pulled the Staff Bishop to her even though she had the highest Res and was further away from Thany/Miledy. I suspect there's an odd relationship between the unit's Def stat as well (mostly given that staffbots have low Def) or Level, and how the AI priority works. Further testing will be needed, but given my experience it seems staffers are among the highest priority for targeting. Even Roy doesn't have very high priority, higher than average sure, but it's easy to out-prioritise him for other units as targets.

[dondon151]

but that doesn't show that sophia is more useful than other units at being staff bait, only that she can be used as staff bait, which is not very useful in itself when there are numerous other candidates. now if we can prove that sophia is more likely to be a higher staff target due to an equation that determines staff priority, then we can chalk something up to that, though it's not of much value in the first place.

i seem to recall enemies preferentially targeting allies who either have an equippable staff in their inventory or have a staff rank.

are you going to contest the other points?

[Toothache]

From my observations, it seems her priority IS much higher than other characters. Of course, you do have to put her closer to the staff enemies to encourage them, but in favour of a lower Res target, she does lure them towards her more often than not. There's a certain logic to how the AI targeting behaves in this manner, so you do have to work within this, but Sophia definitely works as a lure. Of course, other characters can work for this, like you say anything with a staff rank works, but Sophia has among the highest Res on average which allows her to shrug off more staves aimed at her. And don't forget there's a lot of Bolting/Purge users that she can shrug off as well.

As for the other points, I did say there were other characters more suited for different roles, so I don't have much to contest. I'm saying she COULD be used as a nosfertank, but she's better as a long range magic/staff lure. So there's some potential variety in her use. BTW Dark accuracy sucks regardless of who's using it, so Sophia missing is as much of a threat to her as it is to Niime, for example.

Edited November 9, 2012 by Toothache

[General Horace]

there's a huge difference in Niime's hitrates against enemies compared to sophia

assuming sophia somehow gets to 20/1 by the time chapter 21 rolls around, the wyvern riders there have around 30-35 evade

Sophia has 95 base hit with nosferatu, Niime has 117.

Niime has ~93 true hit while Sophia has ~68

while sure if they both miss, the threat is the same, but the odds of Niime missing compared to sophia's odds of missing aren't really even comparable.

not commenting on staff ai targeting because quite frankly i have no idea.

[Silvercrow]

I have a hard mode file with a trained Sophia at chapter 20x Sacae (which has several status staff users), and upon experimenting a bit the enemy status staff users do not seem to prioritize Sophia, even if I remove everything from her inventory other than Staves. They definitely preferred to target Niime and other various combat units (Lance, Rutger, Lugh).

It's hardly conclusive, but it definitely doesn't seem like she's getting any special attention.

Edited November 9, 2012 by Silvercrow

[Toothache]

On further inspection, the priority seems to be something like this for Sleep:

Staff user (highest res gets first priority, strangely) > lowest res melee unit > lord

Explains why I was seeing Sophia get targeted more often than not. With a bit of training she can certainly out-res any other unit you may want to use and her relative uselessness elsewhere makes her a perfect sort of staff lure.

Silence only targets magic units as you know. Not sure how the priority works there, but I did some testing in Ch14 and unpromoted Ellen was getting targeted first all the time. Requires further testing for sure for anything conclusive, but I wonder if shutting down pure healers is the highest priority or again it is somewhat stat-based.

[dondon151]

is there a reason why sophia seems to be preferentially targeted by sleep in chapter 14 over cecilia, or am i just wrong on this observation?

[Toothache]

Something to do with the Def stat, I believe. Sophia has 1 base Def, where as Cecilia has 7 base, so despite having 5 more Res if both are in range Sophia gets it first. The Def stat comes into play when Sleep starts targeting the melee units as well. It may even be a combination of Def and Res which determines priority.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Toothache

[Colonel M]

It's time.

The resurrection is at hand.

Of Church of Cecilia of course

-Top Tier-
Lance
Alan
Rutger
Miredy
Percival
Marcus
Lalum
Elphin

Thoughts:

I believe it is time for Miledy to take her rightful place as the Top of the cream of the crop. Alan and Lance aren't bad units; however, they are very dependent on their growths at the end of the day and can be resorted as Rescue bots still if not trained. I also believe Thany rightfully belongs in this tier as well. Rutger is fine and so is Marcus. Debating on if Zealot should be in here as well but his absence of 7 chapters is rather large. Alance could stand to go back to High.

Suggested new list

Miledy
Rutger
Percival
Marcus
Thany
Alan
Lance
Lalum
Elphin

-High Tier-
Dieck
Clarine
Zealot
Chad
Astohl
Thany
Saul

Thoughts:

Zealot deserves top in here of this spot at the least. Dieck should likely be under Clarine - Clarine is mounted and is a valuable healer despite her low Mag. Furthermore, Dieck's Con can actually get in the way big time with Rescue chains.

Suggested new list

Zealot
Clarine
Dieck
Asthol
Chad
Saul
Ellen
-Upper Mid-
Shin
Ellen
Tate
Cecilia
Niime
Gonzales
Echidna
Klein

Thoughts

Hmmm... well I think Tate definitely deserves higher. Even though this is Sacae she can carry around units effectively (even unpromoted). I actually think Ellen with Saul is fine - they're both good as far as Staff users go. I also think Klein > Echinda in both routes - Klein's 2 range is actually great despite not being able to counterattack. I also think both Echinda and Klein are better than Gonzales - Gonzales is just too fat and too inaccurate.

I will just leave this beautiful picture Lumi drew years ago for Cecilia. Nothing more needs to be said about her beauty - though she might be worthy of moving up too.


Suggested Changes

Shin
Tate
Cecilia
Niime
Klein
Echinda
Gonzales
-Mid-
Lot
Fir
Roy
Lugh
Bartre
Garret
Noah
Ray
Igrene
Yodel
Fa
Cath

Thoughts
God I hate this tier. Okay so... I think Yodel should be higher. Roy probably could stand to drop even lower honestly. I feel out of these Yodel / Bartre are likely the best in their tier. Fir I guess to a lesser extent, but even Lot isn't that much worse in some scenarios.

Fa is a nuke - brittle but a nuke. Also her high RES can be fairly useful against shit like Berserk staves. Noah really isn't too shabby - he just suffers from being a little more mediocre as a Paladin and could use a little more Str / Speed. It can sort of be remedied, too. Lugh is nice but really let's be honest - he is rather frail and he is largely dependent on growths to get going.

Suggested Changes

Yodel
Bartre
Garret
Igrene
Noah
Fa
Fir
Lot
Lugh
Ray
Roy

-Lower Mid-
Ward
Oujay
Geese
Sue
Treck
Zeiss
Lilina

Thoughts

Uh... yeah Sue higher. Zeiss too. Might as well put Treck over Ward too - Ward kind of blows more than Lot even by some earlygame standards. Also I think we need to stop hating on Juno so much - she still flies.

Suggested changes

Zeiss
Juno
Sue
Dayan
Treck
Ward
Oujay
Geese
Lillina
-Low Tier-
Juno
Hugh
Douglas
Barth
Walt
Merlinus
Bors
Dorothy
Karel

Thoughts

Hugh's bases are par even by Ilia's standards and paying at his premium. Honestly, though, I don't think I would change much in here. Maybe Wolt higher because his 2 range is fairly accurate at least while he sticks around for near-free.

-Takes Strategy To Use and Is The Player's Fault That They Suck Tier-
Sophia
Wendy

Thoughts

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft.

Feel free to chime in everyone!

Edited April 11, 2014 by Colonel M

[dondon151]

you should have included a tl;dr version of the revised tier list. give me a moment to peruse.

[XeKr]

Might as well change the names to the new translations, for consistency? Also, this is NM (hard to tell from the first page alone...)?

At a glance, the only thing that really bothered me about the older list was Alance, so I support the change. Not sure if they should go further down.

What do the Thieves do again, compared to Shin/Tate/etc?

Edited April 11, 2014 by XeKr